Abdul Nasir Jangda – Faith And Community
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of faith and community in achieving success, including a young man who had a responsibility to protect his community and his father. They also talk about a church he found a large Christian monk trying to use his religion to attract people and a woman who struggled with faith and found the truth in her study. The challenges of planting trees and the importance of acceptance and respect for others are also discussed. The speakers emphasize the need for individuals to live their lives in a healthy environment and make healthy choices for their personal and professional health.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah while Allah He was a huge marine Salaam Alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
So, apologize for the little bit of a late start that's kind of standard here at MTC, not for me, but, uh, also, hopefully in Shall I don't fall asleep here. You know, one of the topics that we'll talk about in the course of our conversation today is that, you know, all of us before we are, you know, whatever work we do whatever professions we have, after basically being slaves of a law, and being believers, the next thing is often, you know, we play a role in terms of our families. So myself, you know, Hamdulillah, aside from being a son, also a husband and a father as well. So I actually flew in this morning, but both my daughters weren't feeling too well, you know, just kind
of the bug kind of going around. And so I was up pretty much all up last night, and then came here to this morning, and then Hooda. So, and then after a clip, it took me to RJs. So after that, there was a food induced coma.
So I literally, I think, or even had to, like, resuscitate me.
So he had to basically bring me back to life. And so I'm sitting here right now without any coffee in me. So make sure everything goes well in Sharla. Because it could go very well, or it could go very bad. So it just really depends. But the topic for today was faith and community. And I'm gonna, you know, I'd like to just explain this topic to you through a story through something that occurred within Islamic history.
But I'd like to also set the conversation up before we go forward. Struggling with one's faith with one's emotion is something that is a natural consequence, and a result of one's environment. surroundings, influences atmosphere, where human beings, Allah created us as social beings. And one of the very interesting opinions, the word Insan. The word inside it comes from the root word, which means what?
A lot of times people think forgetfulness, Miss Yana heard, that's that's actually the minority position amongst the linguists, as brother beloved pointed out, it actually comes from the root word, which means to companionship, to be emotionally affected, and more aniseh. unser
to be emotionally affected to be affected by one surrounding. And so a human being is extremely malleable. Is is very deeply affected by everything that that human being experiences. And so there are so many different things, what what we are surrounded by what we hear what we watch what we listen to what we're told what we read, it affects us at an emotional level, psychological level, social level. But what sometimes I think what we fail to understand it also has an impact on us at a spiritual level, it also has an impact on us. And that's something we have to be very conscious and aware of. But at the same time, then there's got to be some type of a solution, to deal with this
crisis of faith, to borrow a term from the Christian community, the crisis of faith, which we realize is not that alien to us, as well as Muslims. We're seeing it happen all over our communities. Younger people are a little more prone to it, or maybe are a little bit more willing to express it and show it or talk about it. But it's something that everyone across the board deals with. But then what is the solution? So in order to explain that solution, I'd like to share a story with you.
The story is about a young boy from Persia.
His name was Sal man.
And this young boy from Persia, you know, he, this man named some man talks, tells his own story personally, firsthand, he tells the story. He says that he was the son of the leader of his people, kind of the mayor of the town, the leader of the tribe. He was his son, and he was his only child. And he said his father was very overly protective, very overprotective to the accent, and he actually gives us example, which again, because of the cultural background of many of the folks here, they might be able to relate to this example. He says, My father was so protective of me as people would be of their young daughters.
And that kind of gives you an idea from a cultural perspective. What he's exactly trying to communicate
there as a boy, as a young man, I didn't work, I wasn't told to go out and make a living. I wasn't taught any type of a trade, I was told to just stay at home.
And he said, there was only one responsibility that I had. Because I used to be home all the time, I used to do a lot of reading. And naturally, the thing that our people were very dedicated to was our religion. We were Medusa Yun, we were Zoroastrian, we were fire worshippers. And so I was very committed to the religion because that pretty much was my only activity, my only outlets, my only social outlet. And he said, I had a responsibility. My responsibility was because my father was the leader of the people attached to our home, was the place of worship was the fire that had to constantly be maintained, had to be rekindled all the time, and be maintained. So that people would
come there and you know, basically worship there at that fire. And so he says that my father had given that to me as a responsibility since it was attached to the house. He said, You look after the fire, and morning and evening, I would go, I would check on the fire and make sure everything was good. And that pretty much was my life. He said, until one day, my father was a businessman as well. And you know, he was kind of overwhelmed with a lot of his business obligations. So he asked me, he said, I need you to run an errand for me. At the end of the day, I was like, you know, a teenager, I was I was a young man.
So he said, I really need you to do I really need you to take care of some things for me today. I can handle it by myself. I got a lot of deadlines, and I need your help. So he sent me on an errand but he sent me on a very specific errand. He said, I want you to take these goods, I want you to deliver them here. I want you to pick up the cash from there. And I want you to bring it on. But that's it. I want you to go there, make the change and come right back. That's it.
So he said I was really excited, obviously was my first time out. Kind of doing something like this first time my dad had trust me with something like this. I was very excited. So I was going about my way.
And I passed by a very interesting looking place. It wasn't a home. It didn't look like one of our temples. It looked interesting.
And what it was, was that it was a church, there was a monk there was like one singular Christian monk, who lived in that area. And he was trying to use a missionary who was trying to propagate his religion amongst these folks. And that was his, that was his little monastery. That was a little small church and monastery that he had. And I saw this place and it looked kind of interesting. So naturally, my curiosity, you know, was piqued. So I looked inside and I saw that there was a group of people who didn't look like they were from around here. And they were all worshipping inside.
And even when we read the book of Allah when we read the Quran, we find out that Christians, even in their origins, had a prayer that was very reserved that resembled our prayer. Allah subhanaw taala commanded Miriam the mother of Isa aleikum wa sallam was Judy water carry mandarake aim. Yeah, Maria de niro beaky was Judy, Morocco. So it was obviously some type of worship that must have been very much in line with the proper way of worship for them at that time, pre Islamic Lee from the Christian tradition. And he said, I was intrigued. It seemed interesting, but it also seemed a lot more meaningful than what I was used to.
So I walked in, I asked him, who are y'all? What are y'all doing? And they basically invited me and they were very hospitable. They were very nice. I find it I ended up finding out that these were folks who are from Roman territories, which later on he would find out that they were from this Syrian region, that was a Roman territory, and it was Christian land. So they were businessmen who are kind of passing through there. And this Christian monk, being you know, Christian Brethren, he had kind of opened up his monastery to host them there. And they were worshipping they were Christians. So he said, they invited me in they gave me food. I sat down with them. I kept asking
questions. I was like, non stop just asking questions, asking questions.
And they kept answering all my questions. And I was so intrigued. I prayed with them.
until it was finally evening, I didn't realize hours have gone by. And then all of a sudden, I ran out and I took care of whatever my father had told me to do, and I came home. But by the time I came home, I was basically a few hours late. And you can imagine a very overly paranoid father.
As the way he described earlier, his dad was waiting outside. He said, Where have you been? What happened? Who did the why When did you get kidnapped? Did something happen?
Where have you been? He said, No, no, nothing was wrong. I was actually you know, I
I was going and I saw this place and I stopped to worship and pray. And I was just, I was amazed. I was blown away. It was fascinating dad, which I took, and immediately shut me down. He said, No, no, you stop,
stop right there.
You need to stop all this nonsense, you're never going back there again. In fact, you're never leaving the house ever again. You're going to be quiet, you're going to show up, and you're going to go back to your routine.
So he said that I had discovered something that I could not contain.
So I sent a message. After all, young person, young people are pretty resourceful. parents know that. All right. And so he got a message to those folks, they're through some friend or someone who was able to send them a message saying that, I want you to notify me, whenever you are leaving and going back to wherever you came from. Let me know, give me a heads up whenever you're about to leave. And so after a few days, he received a message a notification from them, saying, we're going to be heading out tomorrow morning.
And so he said, This is my opportunity. So he packed up his stuff. Middle of the night, he slipped out, went and joined these people, and set out with them in the morning.
And he asked them, he said, Take me back to your lands, wherever you're from, and take me to someone who is a teacher of this religion. So I can learn.
And they took me back to wherever they were from, and there was a major, there was a priest, there was a monk in that area. And they said, he's a major teacher of our religion in this area in this region.
So he says, I went there, and I basically presented myself to this priest and I said, I just want to be your student and learn from you. I'll do whatever work you need to learn my way. But I need to learn. So he said, Sure. Come on, you'll just you'll, you know, you'll be my assistant, you'll work here, and I'll teach you along the way. But it goes, something bad happened along I started to learn a little bit about the religion but something went awry, something went wrong.
He said, I found out that this priest was very corrupt.
He was stealing money from people. Basically, he would raise money for donations, charity, and things like that. But he was embezzling these funds. He was stashing all this money away that he would collect from people who wouldn't be distributed.
So he said I watched for as long as I could I stomached it for as long as I could. And eventually, I was like, I can't take this any longer. He said one day, just when I was at my wit's end,
some of the people came and got kind of upset with him. So what's going on here, we think something's off something shady. We don't have a track any type of record of you giving any money out. And I saw that other people realizing this. I said, Yeah, that's exactly what's going on. Let me show you. And he said, I took him around back. And I said, dig over here. And they dug and they basically dug up all the money of the people.
And he said, These people were furious. He said, I didn't realize the repercussions of how angry they were. But he says that they basically ended up hanging this priest, and torching the entire church and monastery and just burned it to the ground.
And he said, I was not only traumatized, but also kind of, I didn't know where to go what to do. So I set out again, looking for someone to learn from somewhere to learn.
I was looking for the truth. But now I had an experience and a little bit of a filter. I knew what to look out for. So he says, I found a very pious, knowledgeable, you know, priest, and I went to him and said, I'd like to be your student. I'd like to serve here at the church. And I just, I just want to learn, I want to serve. So he said, Come on. And I served as his assistant I was working, cleaning, helping, serving, but then learning. And this man, he says was truthful, honorable, pious. He was everything that I hoped for, in a teacher and a mentor. He taught me well and I stayed with him. He was an old man. I stayed with him for a number of years, until he was very ill and near
death. And I asked him, I said, What should I do? If you die? Where do I go? And he gave me the name of another priest. He said, Go to him. He's legit. I'll vouch for him.
So after he passed away, he says, I went on to the second priest, and then he was an old man. I stayed with him as long as I could. When he was about to pass away. I said, I make a recommendation, refer me to somebody else. And he referred me and he said,
I went through about two, three preachers like this until I finally came to the last one. And I stayed with him for some time. And when he was an old man as well. And when he was near death, I asked him, where do I go down? And he said, This last one was very knowledgeable about the scripture in the original scripture. And he said, There is nowhere else to go now.
The time has come for the profit of the last times, now be you activism. And as your scriptures would call it, the profits a lot of the profit of the last time
that the time for that Prophet has come. And he said, Well, I can tell you a little bit about him. Let me give you three ways that you can identify him and tell them three things to look for, which we'll talk about. And then number two, he said, Where can you find him, he said, I don't know a lot. My knowledge does not extend a lot to in terms of where he's originally from. But I can't tell you that there are a time will come in the life of this prophet, where he will be ousted by his people.
And you will go and settle in another location. And that will become the base of this religion, and the teachings of this prophet spreading all over the world. And I can describe that place to you those that scripture I have found and I have read, so I can describe that to you.
So he says, you know, he describes the place to him, date palms and trees and he describes the climate and the agriculture of the area and the region and things like that. It will basically this right here
is what keeps it going. All right. So, but so he says I can describe those things to you. And he basically described the city of yesterday by Al Madina, munawwara so Somalian Farsi radi Allahu anhu says that after this preacher, this priest he passed away, then my life mission and objective became to find this place. So I had a little bit saved up, obviously, I was the the student of a preacher.
All right. So imagine, you know, the situation of imams A lot of times, and then imagine the system or the student of the Imam. Right? So he says, I was miskeen. I didn't I didn't have a lot. So I had a little bit and I was trying to, you know, hit your ride
in that direction. And I came across a business caravan.
And they were they were not good people.
So what they ended up doing was they saw a loner, traveling by himself, didn't really belonged to any family, or any tribe or anything anywhere. So they said, Yeah, sure, we'll give you a ride. And the second I wasn't looking, they chained me up, they tied me up shackled me up, and tied me up with the rest of the slaves. We just got a free slave, that's 100% profit.
So he said they enslaved me. wrongfully, they enslaved me. And they took me along with them.
And they sold me they got to a marketplace. And it seemed like i'd reached the region of the Arabs. And then they sold me there. The men when they're buying me, after some time gave me as a gift to his cousin.
Because his cousin owned
date, you know, date orchards, basically, gardens full of date palms. So he gifted me to his cousin, when, when I was transported to the cousin's garden. As I was arriving there, I looked around. And it seemed really familiar.
It seemed just like that place at that preacher had described.
And I got very excited. And I thought to myself, is not an ideal situation, but by the will of God, you've ended up here.
So just lay low.
bide your time.
And let's see what happens.
So he says, some time went by and I was patiently waiting, I would pray I would worship I would ask a lot. And I was just waiting. And it says, One day, I was up in the trees kind of, you know, cutting off the dead leaves and you know, plucking the dates and just kind of maintaining the trees. I was I was up climbed up into the into the day palms into the trees. And this owner, the master, one of his friends ended up coming over, saying, Man, have you heard What's going on?
We really got to figure this situation out. There seems to be like some type of political shift going on here in our city. This man has come from from Makkah. Same is Mohammed Omar Abdullah
says he's a prophet. There are hundreds of followers of him already in our city.
And this and this and this and this. And he describes the whole situation salmaan with your loved one who says I was listening to all of this. And I almost fell out of the tree.
Like I got so excited, I almost fell out. And I immediately climbed down and I said, Well, what was it? What were you saying when we say it says the owner, the master slapped me and he said, mind your own business, do your work.
So I said, Okay, no problem, I'll, I'll figure things out.
So he says, After hours, once the work was done, in the evening time, I came out from the garden, I asked around, there's somebody some profit, somebody arrived here in town, and the profits, a lot of him was still have to pull back. That was the suburb of Medina, where the profits, a lot of them stayed for about a week, on his way to Medina, he was still there. So I found out that he was there. I didn't have a lot, I was a slave, you don't. I mean, when you're a slave your property, you don't own anything. So he said, but I was able to scrounge up just a little bit like some dates together, make a little basket like a little fruit basket.
And I went out to see this prophet, and I walked up to him and I said, you know,
sign number one, that my teacher taught me
that this profit, when you give him when you present to him, charity sadaqa, something meant for the poor, he will not eat it himself, he will not take it himself. He will simply take it from you and distributed but he himself will not take any of it, consume any of it. So I said that I see that many of your followers are poor and needy. Here's a little bit of charity for me.
So he said I saw the profits, a lot of them took the basket, called up some of the more needy amongst the Sahaba and gave it to them and he said I sat at a distance and watched he did not take a single date for himself nor for his family. He just gave it all away distributor all of it. So I said okay, number one, I went back It took me a couple of days. Some of the narrations actually mentioned it took a couple of weeks because he was a slave. So by that time the prophets Allison was in Medina now.
So he said I scrounged up another fruit basket and I go back out. sign number two, my teacher taught me that this profit, he will accept gifts, he will partake of the gift himself and share it with others. But he does accept gifts and take partake from the gift itself. So I took another fruit basket and I said
this is a gift for you.
You're you know you've arrived in our city considered a home, you know home warming gift.
And so here you go, a housewarming gift, here you go. And I gave him the basket and I again sat on a distance and watched me to eat took one or two dates and Bismillah he ate him themselves himself. And then he distributed to everyone and shared it with everyone who was around him sign number two, one sign number two was confirmed, then there was only sign number three remaining.
And sign number three was that the profit this man is profit will have the seal the mark of prophethood between his shoulder blades on his upper back.
And it's described as almost like a cluster of moles that will be in his on his upper back. So that is the third time so it goes down I kind of slowly casually, discreetly, I kind of moved around back behind the profit to where I could maybe see his back but the problem is obviously, you know, I mean he was he was dressed appropriately.
And when the met when the ways that the profits a lot of them addresses he would have a lower garment that was tied around him kind of like what a brother wears in the head on in hedge had a lower garment tied around them and he would wear like a shawl on top kind of cover himself up just kind of throw it on top. And he was wearing that so I'm standing behind him kind of doing this and doing that and trying to see if I can get an angle and it's not going nowhere. He says after a little bit of time just a minute or two the profits a lot a Salaam says
you're looking for something Aren't you without even turning back look I'm usually looking for something aren't you?
So basically he's like, you know, I was trying to be slick but I wasn't slick enough. You know? So he says you're looking for something aren't you? Is this what you're looking for? And then he kind of lowered his shirt if you will just a little bit
until I could see the seal of prophethood
and he says the second I saw it I ran up and I hugged the prophets a lot of them from behind.
And I said I've been looking for you my entire life.
I've been looking for you my entire life.
Your the truth that I've been searching for and accepted Islam and became a Muslim on that day.
Finding faith
Finding faith. There's something that I have to say here.
And my purpose of saying this is not to be insensitive. My purpose of saying this is alumnos best May Allah, forgive me and protect me from such a thing. But at the same time, hopefully, my intention here by saying this is not to be judgmental.
Not to be harsh, not to be mean not to be judgmental, not to be critical.
But it's for us to reflect
Sandman and Farsi radi Allahu taala. And who found this truth?
through a lot of adversity, a lot of difficulty a lifetime. enslavement.
I mean, think about what he went through, think about the sacrifices he made. Think about the the battle scars that he had to show for afterwards.
What do you have been through where he had been what he had seen what he had experienced?
But the key element of it is, is that he didn't just wake up in the morning, and his truth was just magically like sitting in his lap.
He didn't just randomly just look one day, and it was like, oh,
it required some work, some searching, some digging on his part.
And he found it.
And this is exactly what our last panel what Allah tells us in the Quran, Wei de la HeMan, an app,
Allah will guide. It's a guarantee when Allah says something in the Quran, it's a guarantee. Allah says he will guide the one who
turns to Allah with his heart, actually goes looking for the truth, yearns for the truth. desires wants the truth.
We have to ask ourselves a question all of us at our own level, but particularly, my brothers and sisters,
who might struggle with faith might struggle with but how do you know what's true? might struggle with but you know, I read I learned this in science. And I learned this in high school. And I learned that in college, and they were saying this in philosophy class, and they were saying this in science class, like, how do I how does that make sense? How does it all fit together? How does it all come together?
I'll share with you like a personal story. Someone that I know, personally, a young Muslim,
came to me. This is probably I think it's almost been a year now came to me about a year ago. And there's a lot of stories like this, but this one particular story I'll mention, because there's somebody I knew personally, I knew the family.
So this person, 21 years old, young, bright, intelligent person, very much alive, very intelligent, a lot of potential.
Grew up in a good home, good family, you know, went to the masjid, the weekend school, the whole, you know,
the whole shebang.
All right.
This person basically was sitting here about three years into college, saying, I don't know if I believe anymore.
I don't know what I believe anymore.
It's personal was studying, you know, I think they were they were a biology major or something like that. And just, I'm reading all this, I'm, you know, I'm looking into all of this. I'm hearing all of this. I'm finding all of this. And I don't know if Islam makes a lot of sense. I don't know if I can believe in this stuff anymore.
And I asked this person because I knew them. I asked him very honest question. I knew this was a smart, intelligent person who would think about what I was saying. I asked them how long have you Okay, so it is for that person, particularly, science was kind of the issue.
So I asked them, I said, How long have you studied science?
Let's just say, you know, elementary school, middle school, whatever, you're still a kid, you're still running around doing your thing. So from high school, you start to kind of study a little more seriously. So you studied four years of science in high school, three years of science in college, this is your major. You have seven years of an education in science.
How much have you studied?
Now I'm not asking. I asked that person to ask themselves I asked myself I asked y'all to ask yourselves.
How much put on have I studied? Have I read the translation of the Quran even once in my entire life from cover to cover?
Have I actually sat down and tried to understand the Quran?
Have I made any effort in that regard?
Second question, have I read studied the life of the prophets a lot easier.
Sell them
from cover to cover.
Even once have I read an entire biography of the prophets, a lot of them properly and reflected on it?
In the case of this person, which is the case A lot of times, unfortunately, the answer was no.
So I said you have a decent level of knowledge and understanding in one area.
And on the other hand, you have little to no knowledge or understanding.
But yet you're making this comparison and you're basically coming to the conclusion.
That one is correct, and the other is incorrect.
Does that sound intelligent to you? This is Sound academic. Does that sound intellectually? Honest? To you? said, No. So I said, here's what we're gonna do.
You have questions? I'm not I'm not dodging your questions, you have valid questions, you have every right for your questions to be answered. But I'm asking you to do some prep.
You know, even when you when you go and you talk to experts of any field or any area, they say, you know, the best questions are the the intelligent, educated questions, people who actually go and learn and study and do some research before they come in, they ask you a question.
That's an educated question, intelligent question.
So I said, Why don't you just go do some research, so you get asked better questions.
gave that young person, a translation of the Quran
gave them you know, recordings of our some, what I could personally vouch for, were some of you know, our own tafsir recordings,
gave that person a book on the life of the prophets allowed him to see it all. At the same time, I also have a weekly SEO class in Seattle recordings and gave that to that person and said, Here you go, just engaging the study, very objective. You can completely disagree with me if you want to, but just study, do some research.
And I said, six months, the next six months, this is your project.
This person wanted to kind of touch base with me after a couple of weeks, I said, Nope. I'll ask you how you're doing. How's the weather? I'll talk to you about the game last night. Actually, I won't talk about the game last Sunday, but I'll stop it. All right, I'm still kind of sensitive. Okay. So I was actually like, I love the community. I love teaching, but I was dreading coming out here.
Teaching people so much. So Redskins fans, so but I am. So I said, I'll talk to you about anything else. But no updates, don't know, just take time, take time.
You know, kind of sink your teeth into it.
And so, finally, three months later, after holding this person off from any feedback, three months later, this young person says
Problem solved.
I'm good to go.
I feel like I just now discovered my religion.
I feel like I just became Muslim.
I actually believe now
actually believe.
So, my first point is this. I was presenting this for more of an intellectual perspective. Maybe somebody's got some questions or doubts about Islam, when they compare it or pit it against, you know, some other intellectual, you know, discipline or some other field or area of study, whether it be philosophy, or science or another religion, or whatever the case may be. I actually had one time and again, I'm not belittling this, I'm just presenting the reality. I had a young Muslim person, come up to me one time and said, I read the entire Bible.
And now I have questions about Islam. I asked a very honest straightforward question. It's gonna seem like a put down it wasn't it was an honest, sincere question. That's a very good, Mashallah. And everything and I just asked, Have you read the entire Koran translation? Completely entire in its entirety? No.
I said, then you need to do that. You owe that to yourself.
If the if the quest is for the search, if the objective is searching for the truth, then why would you sell yourself short?
Why would you sell yourself short? So read, learn discover. You know, this past weekend I was on a panel at a retreat at a conference with
this one very interesting brother. He's a chaplain is a Muslim chaplain at universities, a PhD candidate has master's degree in religion and philosophy, very educated person, but he converted to Islam and kind of had this whole very interesting journey through a psalm
and
He just kind of put it out there, you just kind of laid it down. Working with young people constantly dealing with this question. He said, Enough of the abstractions,
enough with the abstractions, read, learn, and then question.
That's, that's, that's just honest.
That's just integrity. That's just doing justice to yourself.
Do yourself a favor, read, learn, study.
And there's two things that I will emphasize everyone study. Number one, learn what Allah has revealed, learn and understand what allies communicating and saying to us, in the book in the word of a lead self, what we call the
learned or unsteady the Quran, develop a relationship with the Quran, just explore, learn, study, understand.
And the second thing is the life, the Sierra of the biography of the Prophet, it's a lot easier to learn, read and study. You owe that to yourself. But like I said, as I was saying, I'm presenting this from an insult, like maybe somebody has an intellectual crisis of faith. Sometimes people have a an emotional crisis of faith.
We had a lot of young people at that retreat last weekend, somebody sent up the question again, my purpose is yours, not shocking or not a shock jock. But I'm just presenting, we are actually we in in a panel.
In an actual session, we received not one but multiple questions from people saying that they were sexually abused by family members.
One person saying I was sexually abused by my father.
So maybe somebody is having a severe psychological emotional crisis of faith.
Now, again, I can't even begin to imagine
how difficult that must be. But I will say this much.
That again, unfortunately, very unfortunately, in our heart goes out to you.
We console you and embrace you as our brother or sister.
But for yourself and for your own faith. Again, read, learn, study and discover what Islam really is because what you've experienced up to this point is not Islam.
I feel very confident and comfortable saying that much. What you've experienced up to this point is not Islam.
It sucks that we have to make that distinction between Islam and Muslims. Yeah, that's the answer we always give to non Muslims. Oh, brother. That's, that's Muslims, not Islam. That is like the worst answer of all time. But the problem is, it's the truth. But how terrible is that, that we have, we actually have to save them. But nevertheless, what I say to that person is, learn, rediscover and understand Islam.
So maybe somebody is having their their crisis of faith is based in the bad social experience, a bad communal experience, God knows. That's a reality in our communities today.
May Allah help us all, but the plight and the state of our communities A lot of times, so hon Allah.
So maybe that's the reason why you've ended up in this crisis of faith again.
Again, that's not Islam. I'm very sorry. I'm, I'm very, very sorry that that's what you went through and you have to experience but that was not Islam that is not Islam, read, learn and discover Islam for yourself.
And that will happen through a direct interaction with Allah through His Word he's ganged up on
and the only human being
that we can 100% vouch for insane will never disappoint you. And that is Muhammad Rasul Allah, Allah is and why because Allah vouch for him.
He called him a certain hustler, the ultimate role model.
So, learn and understand and read these two things. But as the story of some mountain fallacy shows, the truth will come and find you.
But you got to go looking for it first.
A level facilitated alone will not make us go through enslavement and a lifelong journey. That's a man with the long line who had to the profits of him actually praised that quality of the profits a lot. He Some said that low gamma Dino bisaya. That the profits A lot of us have actually said that Islam was to be found on another planet, someone would have found a way to get there.
Someone would have been the first astronaut of all time.
That's the desire for truth. That's a man hat.
But that's why he found that type of truth as well.
So that's the first thing. But the story doesn't end here. So the model, the long winded story continues on. This is my very humble
but personal message to each and every single person to myself and to each and every single person on an individual level, read, learn, understand and educate yourself about your religion, your deen your faith, you owe yourself that much.
But at a community level, what is our responsibility to one another and to each other?
Let's learn about that. So Samantha, the Allahu anhu says, Now I'm a Muslim.
Awesome, fantastic, great. But there's a little bit of a problem. I'm also a slave, which means I am someone's property, which means that I can go to the machine five times a day to pray.
Because I'm owned by someone.
I'm someone's property.
I can't just get up and walk out. He'll torture me to death.
So I can go pray five times a day with the prophets along with him in the masjid. The Battle of brother happens, great landmark moment in the history of Islam. And he says I had to miss out.
Because I was a slave and my slave owner was like, Are you crazy? No, you're not going get back to work. Then the Battle of boyhood came and whoever was too young, or was that Muslim before
everyone saw or heard that's their moment to redeem themselves to make up for a lost opportunity.
Instead, again, I tried to go for over the my slave owner was like, You must be crazy, I would rather kill you, they'll let you go out and fight in the battlefield.
I'd rather have the gratification of killing you than somebody else killing my slave.
So again, I didn't get to go forward.
And I was tortured by this.
So he says finally after the Battle of all heard that go to the profits a lot easier and so much sooner of a lot. I can't deal with this no more I'm missing out on everything.
So the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said,
Why don't you go and talk to your owner, your master, there's a process that was there at that time in Arabia, called mukava.
What it basically meant was,
I will as a slave, I will earn and work my way to my freedom.
I will get money and I will buy my own freedom from you. Call macatawa so here's the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said, Why don't you go and try to work out a deal with your owner.
So Samantha the alarm went on who goes to this owner and says, I like my freedom.
Now this guy decided to kind of play with him toy with him. Because you want your freedom. Sure, why not? Absolutely. All it's gonna cost you
is 300 day palm trees.
Like 300 day pumps, 300 trees, even in today's world, that's crazy expensive.
So 300 day palm trees. And
it's like he says he like randomly just picked a number out of his head. 40 grams of gold.
So 308 palm trees and 40 grams of gold. There you go. If you can come up with that, guess what? You deserve your freedom.
So gonna get back to work. So not not the alarm on who says the next time I saw the profits? A lot of them he said Okay, so what happened? You talk to your owner. He said I was very shy because of the price.
But the prophets A lot of times, Presti said tell me what did he say?
He said O Messenger of Allah. He didn't even tell him the full price. He said he said I have to give him plant for him. 300 Day pumps not just give him 300 trees, but plant those trees. And the problem with that is when you would transplant these trees, many of them would die would become damaged. So I want 300 trees planted properly.
And instead of messenger Well, I can't afford that. So I'm just gonna go back to life the way it is.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gather gathered everyone together.
It's time for the downtime for salon. Everyone congregated he said get everyone together. And the profits a lot he sent him said this is your brother's salon.
He needs you are in Osaka. Help your brother.
Help your brother all of you.
So he said Sahaba started standing up and saying I'll give 15 trees somebody stood up and say I got 10 trees. I'll give them all my 10 trees. Somebody said I'll give 56781218 and everybody started. Basically it's like a fundraising.
Everyone started making contributions, making pledges until someone or the loved one who says we reached a number of 300
Then the profits a lot. He said, I said, Okay, everybody go and dig out your trees.
And he sent another group of people. It's not just okay everybody just bring all your cash, bring all your money, and then here you go, it's your problem. No, now we're gonna do all of this together. So one day, all the donations are raised, all the trees are gathered together. The next day, the profits, a lot of them said, Now everybody go out into that slave owner, his field where he wants the trees planted, and everyone turned to soil and dig the holes to put down the trees. Everybody do it. So the whole community now on day two, is working in the fields, plowing the fields, plant, you know, digging holes for trees, the whole community. And it's all done in a day.
And then the profits, a lot of them told them, nobody put any of the trees in the holes. When everything is ready and done, I will do that part.
And then the profits, a lot of sim game and some of the other one who says it took an entire day 300 trees, that we would come we would give the tree to the profits a lot of time with his own blessing. And you would put it into the hole and kind of scoop some dirt into it. And then he would tell us all right now pack it up. And he will do each tree with his own hand. And he said, because of the blessing of the hands of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, not a single tree was wasted, not a single tree was damaged, not a single tree died.
And all 300 trees were planted. And then the profits realized him called me and he goes, he goes, man, congratulations.
But he said, I knew in the back of my head, wait a second 40 grams of gold.
So he said I kind of had a loop. I said, I had no intention of telling the profits a lot. But I didn't know what to do then. So I just kind of sat there but I just look on my face and the prophets. A lot of them said What's up,
there's something else.
And said, I was so embarrassed and shy, you know, when you don't even say it out loud, like
he said to me,
he said O Messenger of Allah.
The dude wants 40 grams of gold.
The Prophet of Allah salatu salam said,
I just received this as a gift. Somebody sent this or brought this as a gift. And it was still wrapped up the profit cells and hadn't even opened it and looked at it yet. It was just like, like a gift back.
you'll still get front. He just took it. And he said, Here you go take it in.
I mean, I didn't have any other better options. He said, I didn't even open the gift bag.
I just picked it up and went over there to the slave owner. And I said, your 300 trees are planted.
Jerk. And.
And then here's the second part of the price.
He says in front of my own eyes.
That man he unwrapped the gift.
And inside was his big old chunk of gold, unlike anything I've ever seen in my entire life. And he said he actually pulled out a scale like a waiting skill. And he put it into scale. And he waited and said man or the loved one who says well, ah he, I swear by a lot. It was exactly 40 grams.
Exactly.
On the dot.
And he says that was the day that I became a free man.
And he said, My next opportunity to do something, you know, make a stand with the prophets a lot, he said was the Battle of the trench. The Battle of conduct.
Were an army of an allied army
of 10,000 strong, had seized the city of Medina, we were looking for some type of a defensive strategy because we could not go and fight 10,000 people out in the open. It just it wasn't a good idea.
So everybody was trying to figure out what to do.
And I step forward. Now Who is this guy?
He's a foreigner.
He's not. He doesn't belong to anybody else's, like family or race or ethnicity is a foreigner doesn't have any family? Does he speak the native tongue or the native language?
He's a more recent convert.
And he's a freed slave. When you talk about being disenfranchised, from society from community, a freed slave.
What is the country what is the history of this country in terms of when slaves were freed? But then how long after that were they still continued to be treated not only as slaves but as second class citizens as well. And some would argue that it's still not even gone.
Till today,
and I would have to agree.
So, think about what his position is in that society he steps forward. All the major Sahaba everybody Abubakar Amato is mine, I need
to love them. They're all there. And a lot more others of their caliber are there. And this foreigner, who speaks the language with an accent, is a recent convert, and a freed slave actually steps forward and says, I have an idea. Number one that tells you that the community of the prophets, a lot of them was such, everybody was welcome, and everybody was an equal participant. Everyone had dignity and everyone had honor and respect. No matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter what color you were, it didn't matter what social class you belong to what your personal history was. Everybody had dignity, honor and respect and equality in that community.
That he actually has the courage and feels it appropriate for him to step forward and say, I have an idea.
I can you imagine somebody like him, imagine somebody that didn't belong to any of our backgrounds or ethnicities like an Eskimo.
Right here in the budget, an Eskimo would stand forward and said, I have the good idea.
I mean, he's actually, you know, I know it's kind of like all fun and games, but we that's what we exactly what we do is be like, Oh my God, is that an Eskimo?
Ask him what his igloo is, right?
And I mean, we would laugh at his accent, we'd be like, What is he talking about? Brother? How long have you been here in the community?
No, okay, shut up and sit down. Right? I mean, just think about our reactions. He steps forward and voices his opinion.
And the prophets Elijah gives him
the floor
says Yes, go ahead, present.
And he says, we need to dig a trench. Now this is where it gets really crazy. Not only is he is he, you know, quote, unquote, an outsider. nothing in common with anyone. But even the idea that he's giving is like bizarre.
It's something that the Arabs have never seen or done or heard of, or read about nothing digging a trench as a strategy of war. It's like unheard of to the Arabs.
So he's like, okay, we're gonna dig a trench, they're like a what?
A trench a word. We're basically gonna dig a big hole around Medina.
Everyone's like,
but at the same time, his opinion is given respect.
It's considered
just as valid as anyone else's opinion. And the profits of Madison takes his opinion decides according to his opinion, and then on top of that, well, nobody knows how to dig a trench.
The only one who does is somehow summer. So guess who's leading the project?
Someone.
Now he's project manager. He's on the board.
Leading the project, like, put that dude on the board.
Like, seriously, her.
He's on the board. He's leading the project.
And then I'll end with this one last little instance, the most beautiful combination of all of this, which really seals the deal, that it goes even beyond embracing someone as a member of your community.
But it goes to the extent of embracing someone as a member of your family.
treating each other like family,
where the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told people kind of distribute yourselves according to your we need to make groups to dig like from here to here, from here to there, kind of segment off the trench. And then did you split yourselves up? You know, you say, Does everybody just kind of pair up into groups? The second, a teacher says pair up into groups naturally, who do you pair up with? Your friends, people, you have something in common with something you somebody you have a connection with. So the process of just split yourself up into groups of 10. So naturally, people started split up according to family, and cousins and uncles and nephews. They just naturally
started to split up that way, because those are people you know.
But now there is a little bit of a problem said Manuel de la news kind of looking around. Everyone's kind of with their family and their cousins and their brothers and their neighbors and this and that. And he realizes he kind of doesn't belong.
So some of them will * rune they step up, the people who had migrated
the people who had come to the city of Medina as Muslims, said salon Mina, aloha June
Samana Mina
Ali, Mahajan, Samana Mina the Mahajan said that Simon is from us he's with us. Because why he came here for he's not originally from Medina. He's from somewhere else. He moved here to Medina. He's an immigrant, just like the rest of us. The unsalted said no, no, no, no, some Antonina salmon is from us why he did not come here as a Muslim. He accepted Islam in Medina, he was living in Medina before the prophets, a lot of them came here. And if we're going to consider the hedgerow the marking point, then he was already here before he injured so he is one of us. What would we do if again, I go back to my example of the oddly speaking Eskimo,
right, if we had to make groups, we had a community project. We were gonna do a community potluck. We were gonna play some type of a game here in the masjid. And we had to split up teams. Brother, Eskimo. Everybody when you turn upon him off, like, Hey, don't make eye contact duty might come over here. Right? Like, Hey, man, you guys take you take him? Why don't I take the Eskimo man?
Right, like everybody would turn to be planning trying to pawn this guy off to somebody else.
But the prophet of Allah, but look at the community of the Sahaba
they're all fighting for him. So you know he's with us. No, he's with us by the Battle of the Sahaba. Enough tarbiyah that enough Islamic training by the prophets allies have enough spiritual mentorship from the prophets, a lot of them that they have been taught one very important thing to not take unnecessary,
frivolous issues to the prophets, a lot of them, don't bother him with silly stuff. He's the Messenger of God. Don't bother him. That doesn't mean that his door was closed, his door was open. But the Sahaba were also taught don't constantly bother him with silly nonsense.
But this became such a serious issue amongst the Sahaba they had to take it to the prophets Allah to my messenger of Allah, we got an issue.
We want someone with us and they say no, someone's gonna be with them.
The prophets, a lot of them made the decision. He said some man Amina, and
some Amina Allen baked. That's a man will be with us, from the people of my family. Someone will not deal with the Mahajan. The immigrants he will not deal with the unsolvable locals, someone will dig with my family. Why? Because he's a family member to me.
He's one of my people. Come on, buddy, you're with me. You're with my family.
This was the communal aspect of Islam.
How this ties into our conversation about faith.
That individually, like I said, before, read, learn and educate yourself, explore, discover, enlighten yourself.
And number two, the responsibility that we owe to one another is to embrace each other.
To have respect, dignity and honor in our communities, for every single person that walks through those doors.
Everyone is dignified, everyone is respected, everyone is treated, not just as a community member, but as a family member.
When we can afford that type of love, that type of respect, that type of affection, that type of an experience of community, a lot of these faith based issues will be resolved. Why? Because by that communal family like experience, the faith and the image of a person is fortified. It is strengthened, it is solidified. And that's what we desperately need today.
That's what we have to learn a lesson from. That's what we have to take into consideration.
We all need to reflect at the current state I talked about earlier in terms of our own understanding and not just knowledge, but an understanding of our religion. How well do we understand?
And then number two, we ought to take a serious look at ourselves and our communities and at the culture.
At the very least in the community space. In the massage Denise samick centers at the very least. Ideally, our homes would be open to one another. Think about the disenfranchised in our community. Think about what they deal with think about what they go through.
I talked about this in my own community this past
you know, he does like
The most awesome time.
It's the most wonderful time of the year. Right? So, you know, you know, our aid is like amazing. We all look forward to aid, nice clothes and nice food and all family and friends and everyone getting together, did you ever talk to a convert brother or sister?
Even he is, is the most miserable time for them.
It's such a difficult time for them.
Because everyone's they come to the salon. And everyone's excited and everyone's happy.
And then everyone retreats back from the sellout to their parties to other fun. And they're just kind of left standing there.
without really anywhere to go.
Without anyone to spend that day with.
That's just one example.
Think about how many levels, the racism in our communities.
Even though I mean I was I was kind of reading some comments from a couple of brothers and sisters, a couple of students online even even the way we talk to each other the comments that we make to each other, about race, about color, about ethnicity, about language.
Do we ever understand how hurtful and harmful that is? When we talk to a family member like that
the way we deal we interact with each other, the honor, the dignity that we can that we extend to one another. Regardless of a person's background look, nobody in this room is an angel, everyone's got a background, sometimes some people's background might be a little more visible than yours is your sins, you might have just been a little bit, you know, a little bit more sneakier with your sins, which actually makes you a worser person
than somebody else. But just because somebody else's sin is known to us, we hold that against them in the way that we treat them when they're trying to make a better person out of themselves.
And I mean, at so many different levels, I can't even do justice to all the different segments in our community that are so terribly wrong in this regard. One thing that's come to light recently, you know, a lot of times when folks, particularly sisters, if they go through a divorce, they're treated like lepers in our community.
single parents, single mothers are left to fend for themselves in our communities.
We really, really have to take a look at ourselves, and understand where we're at as a community, where we're supposed to be where we need to be where we got to work our way towards, but where we sit right now where we're at right now.
And things have to get better, we have to improve our own state for ourselves, and for the sake of the community.
And when we're able to employ these two things, when the understanding of our religion is something that is advocated and made available, which by the way, the communal sense of communal responsibility also extends to the first one, maybe somebody doesn't have some resources, that one story about that one young person I told you was New Me personally, and was able to come and talk to me on a personal level, what if they don't know somebody? What if they don't know where to go to, they don't know who to talk to, they don't know where they can get some help, they don't know where they can get some good material.
We have to facilitate that learning as a community.
And we're able to put these two pieces together as we see from the story of Superman and fantasy, by the Allahu taala. And then inshallah we'll be able to improve
things and be able to work our way back in terms of this crisis of faith that we're dealing with at the same time.
Again, as you know, brother Reid mentioned, there's two things I always like to try to give something tangible that you can take home or some type of homework for everyone.
Talked about learning two things, and enlightening your team yourself in two areas, the Quran, and the serum, the life of the prophets a lot.
In terms of the life of this, the seed of the prophet SAW some of the prophetic biography.
Get a book,
read a book, you know, with all the electronic devices that so many people have these days. You know, the the the Kindle Store, even if you don't have a Kindle device, you have an Android device. May Allah forgive you. By the way, if you have an Android device, and if you if you have an Apple device, like an iPhone or an iPad or whatever, there's a Kindle app. There's an app that you install that you download onto it called the Kindle app. You can buy it inside of that app. The books on the life of the prophets, a lot of some deceit off the prophets, a lot of them one written by the author Martin Ling's, another one written by another scholar, a robotic footie called costume, the sealed
nectar. You know how much these books cost in the Kindle store?
99 cents each. May Allah bless the soul that put them on there for 99 cents. So for this you could buy for Sita books,
stuff a lot, so, but so
May Allah forgive brother Eddie. So, hey, as I didn't buy it So, but uh, I drink it but uh, so that's how easy it is. Secondly, if you want something that's a little bit more engaging or easier or facilitated for you
a personal project that I embarked upon two years ago, I
was
taking the taking about 15 classical sources. Because some of the the classical sources on the life of the prophets, a lot of them, the majority of them have not been translated into the English language yet. So I decided to take about 15 classical sources, and start serving them and reading them and researching them, and presenting the life, the Sierra, the biography of the prophets alongside them in detail.
This started about two years ago, and it's ongoing. And it's a local class that I conducted my community in Dallas. But what we do in that class is we record it.
And then we make the audio recordings available online, for free, open.
No excuses. Why, because every human being deserves to know who Mohamed Salah is,
what he means to us, what we can learn from him.
And so, it's very detailed, we have, I think, I've done about 45 sessions, each session is about an hour long, and we've reached the fifth year of prophethood. So the first 45 years of the life of the Prophet says I'm in 45 hours of lecture.
But this is all available online, open for free.
And I'm going to give you the the place where you can go to download it, and then share it do whatever you want with it. Just Just make some benefit and some use of it. Go to Calum institute.org that's QALA m Institute dot o RG slash podcast.
And you can subscribe you can download it's an iTunes as well. So if you search in iTunes for Calum Institute, QA lm Institute, you'll find it but no excuses.
And then the second thing about building a relationship with the book of Allah with the Quran similarly, we have our tafsir recordings in our Tafseer podcasts as well on the beginner website
BAYYINH comm slash podcast where you'll find plenty
of recordings on the explanation of the Quran, which can get you started pick up a translation and read a translation start somewhere
and inshallah one tangible
you know, means that we have is that tomorrow in sha Allah, here at MCC, I'll be teaching a course a class on the understanding the meaning of surah Ts in
Syria seen the 36 suit of the peran the very famous popular Sunni se inshallah we'll have a class tomorrow, starting at 10am going to 5pm on the meaning and the understanding of sort of guessing,
start somewhere, start chipping away. And this is actually the Quranic philosophy on how to study the Quran. Tenzin al Aziz Rahim Tenzin, little by little bit by piece chunk, after chunk, take piece after piece and slowly start to increase your understanding of the book of Allah and tomorrow, we'll spend an entire day inshallah studying the beautiful powerful meaning of this magnificent sutra. So inshallah, please try to make it out and join us. If you've if you want more information, those flyers that they've passed around the red and white colored flyers, you'll find all the information that you need on the flyers, inshallah.
And number two, maybe some of you have registered online, so you're aware of the details of the class. If you want more details in regards to the class or even sign up and register and secure a seat for the class tomorrow. There is a registration table in the back where you can stop by on your way out inshallah. And I really hope you know, everyone's able to make it out tomorrow we could spend the whole day just learning and exploring the meaning of this powerful sort of this beautiful, magnificent gift and treasure from Allah and sha Allah. Does that come along later on.
Thanks
And challenges that come along later. I want to appreciate everyone for for coming out May Allah subhanaw taala accept from all of us. But salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah.