Abdul Nasir Jangda – The Young And The Religious
AI: Summary ©
The importance of identifying individuals with similar goals and achieving them is emphasized in the discussion of the Prophet's teachings and success of their teachings. The speakers touch on the use of " liked" in various cultures and the importance of humility in achieving success. They also emphasize the need for individuals to find their own success and find their happiness in life, rather than just seeking outcomes for money or fame. The speakers stress the importance of finding one's own success and happiness in life, rather than just seeking outcomes for others.
AI: Summary ©
So I'm gonna go ahead and get this out of the way for the rest of the weekend, so nobody else has to address it or talk about it. rebeccablack All right. All right.
Now let's go ahead and get serious now. It's done. It's finished, Carlos, and the story. That's it, get out of your system. All right, it's not Friday, it's Saturday now. All right, so get it all out of your system. And no, but inshallah there's, there's actually something serious, I wanted to address in regards to this whole situation, because that's the only word I can come up with it for. But um, I have a talk, I think later today about Facebook, and I'm going to be addressing something in regards to that. But nevertheless.
So talking about the subject at hand, which Mashallah shaped yasur really beautifully explained the concept of youth within Islam, and what's really important about what he explained, because I want you to understand how valuable that was. He's giving you how Islam and the sacred sources of Islam, which are, come on people,
I just, I'm not going to tell you, well, I kind of tweet a lot. So sometimes I have the opportunity to visit a very sleepy community that doesn't really interact or respond when I talk, and I'm not in the mood to deal with it. Okay. So when I asked a question, what are you guys going to do?
Alright, that was pretty pathetic. All right. Later today, we Sam Sharif is coming. And when he asked the question, if you don't respond, you'll probably start doing jumping jacks or something. So you better get it together right now. Okay. So the sacred sources of our religion are number one, the Quran? And number two, the messenger alehissalaam. All right, what he just explained to you is how the sacred sources of our religion view his view youth, what, how are you viewed within Islam. And that's very important to understand, because that works into the context of the actual idea. Now, I know you guys had some sessions yesterday. So I apologize if this is going to be repeating
something from yesterday, but I want you to get a little bit of a flavor, or I want you to get a little bit of context of the actual narration, the text itself, because within that, itself, there's such magnificent beauty and eloquence of the prophets a lot, he said them to be witnessed and to be observed and to be felt within the actual narration that I want you to get a little taste of it. So the Prophet alayhi salam. And by the way, this narration is narrated by a coup d'etat the loved one. And one thing I always like to point out to, especially our young brothers and sisters, is I want you to know about these people, I want you to know about these people, because we're here to talk
about how we can secure our place under the shade. All right, and many times when you want to try to build an ambition or a goal such as this, what helps in formulating a goal or
an ambition, and to find your inner drive is to be able to identify someone who had similar goals and was able to achieve their goals. All right, this is Chicago. So when we talk about the sporting world, you guys pretty much have the greatest athlete that our generation ever witnessed, right, Michael Jordan, right. And so every basketball player that comes along, that dreams about the Hall of Fame, and gold medals, and rings and championships and scoring titles, every basketball player that comes along, who's that one, who's that one guy in his head, that one image that he has in his head that's fixated, Michael Jordan, and it helps that young man, or even young woman, for that
matter, who is venturing into the area of sports to one to achieve that same level of success. All right. And so similarly, we want to find our place in that shape. I want to be there in that shape. So I'm going to have to learn to identify those individuals who are who made their way to that shape. And that were remarkable and amazing and set the bar, set the precedent, set the standard before us, and then try to emulate those people and then look up to those people and live my life according to those people. So Abu Dhabi, Allahu anhu. I mean, we don't have any confirmation only Allah subhanho wa Taala knows best, but in our personal one, and in our admiration for him, you
know, we should have no qualms about saying the fact that he is more than likely one of those remarkable people that will be in that shade on the Day of Judgment. And what's remarkable about him and I want you to know a little bit about him. This is the organizers specifically asked me to kind of address the issue of knowledge here just real quickly. So what I wanted to tell you about knowledge was a boyhood a loving Allahu anhu is such a remarkable person. He accepted Islam in the beginning of the seventh year of his role in the beginning of the seventh year of the prophets residence in Medina, the qat Muslim calendar. All right, the prophet Alayhi Salam passed away after
10 years of residence in Medina, which basically means that Abu huraira had about three years to spend in the company of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam
All right, so so far, these are just statistics and facts. All right. But what makes it so remarkable is, even though he spent only three years as a Muslim, in the company of the prophets, a lot of them he became the most illustrious narrator of traditions of Hadith from the prophets a lot SLM
allama, Darby actually says that they're that hammer and an obese Allahu Sena, married man get the run, that he carried so much abundant knowledge from the Prophet salani, some lamb, you'll help figure through it, he, he, nobody was able to match him in the sheer volume of knowledge that he was able to transmit from the prophets a lot, etc. There are over 5000 narrations that come exclusively just from this one individual. And I want you to think about that, to be able to accomplish that in three small years. And you know, what leads to that type of a success. It's focused, it's focused, he was telling you about focus, it's focused, that leads to that type of success, because he was
even asked one time said,
How are you able to do this? I mean, nobody comes even near you in this area. And you spend such a little time with the messengers a lot, like in terms of years, how are you able to achieve this, and he said, you know, while some people were busy with business, and some people were busy with their farms, and their agriculture and etc, etc, etc, I needed my sole focus and objective, to spend time and to take knowledge from the profits a lot easier. So when a person has focused that's what they're able to achieve. And that's what we're talking about here. So not to get into the text of the Hadith, so he narrates from the Prophet sallallahu Sallam says survive. seven categories of
individuals, you Linda Houma, la houfy Lindy a las panatela will give them a place alone will give them a shade in his shade. Allah will give them a shade in his shade. And what's very interesting here is that the word lit
in the Arabic language going back to its origins in its roots, if you look in the lexicons classical, lexicons, the word Lin itself, which is a word for shade, in the in the Arabic language, it has the connotation of being very comforting. It's just the idea. And the structure of the word was very comforting to the Arabs in and of itself. And that that was very strategically done. Because a shade for any human being is a source of comfort, it is a natural human desire to be under some type of shelter or protection, and then particularly think about being an Arab. Think about being in the middle of Arabia 1400 years ago, there's no I mean, and Subhanallah how remarkable that
in the one place in the world where you required the shade the most. It's hardest to come by shade. Right? I mean, do you find a lot of trees going in the middle of the desert? Of course not. So then the one place in the world where you'd want to shade it's hard to come by a shade. So shade was like a luxury to the Arabs. And that's where this word comes from. So Allah subhanho, when the Prophet Alayhi Salam is saying, Allah will give them a shade in his shape. It's not just like, we take it for granted, because we're indoors right now, living it up. Right? But you got to put yourself in that mindset that imagine the greatest, most precious blessing of all time. Imagine your greatest
need and desire.
And Allah subhanaw taala is providing that for you in an extremely honorable and dignified way.
Yo, Ma, Linda Illa Zulu. And by the way, it's a rare commodity. It's not like it's available all around. It's not like, okay, Allah is giving them a shade under his shade. But guess what, there's a bunch of shades all around. No, no, no, no, it doesn't work like that. It's really hard to find the shade.
And then the very first category that we're told about that we're informed about, that the one that we're talking about here is Shahin Najafi or that it's in LA. And of course, she faster told us about the meaning of chab. young person. And I wanted to clarify this year, again, based on the text of the Hadith, because as the sessions continue, and as you go forward throughout the rest of the sessions that are based on different excerpts from that same narration, that same idea, then there will be certain narrations that will use in a masculine form, even this one, Shadow one, this is masculine, but this is a little more subtle, there will be some that was straight up just a garage
alone, which means man. And so you have to understand that the masculine gender is a universal gender. It's not exclusive to males, but this is rather universal. All right. And any student of literature should be familiar with that. All right, that's something that applies in many, many different languages. All right. And in fact, this is something classical scholars even commented on where even Hazara Kalani Rahim, Allah, he actually says that this masculine form throughout the context of this Hadith, actually is general to both men and to women. And so that needs to be understood just because you'll come across some places and it might end up being translated as
Amen. But I want you to remember this is equally talking about you as much as it is talking about them. All right, now we go forward Nasha Nasha theory about the tiller. The next word is Nasha. Nasha means, typically when you see a rough translation of this Hadith, it'll say, a youth who grew up. All right, that's it. And that's kind of the meaning of the word inertia. inertia means not just to be creative, but it means to rise up, it means to grow up, it actually refers to the process of rising up and growing up, flourishing, blossoming, if you will. So it's talking about the entire process of the maturation process, the maturing process, let's shift as he was talking about from
when you start to attain that sensibility, and become accountable for your actions, from that point on until you become a full fledged mature adult, that ends up being not responsible just for himself anymore, but then responsible for other people in terms of having a family. So that refers to that entire process of growing up. So basically, what we find out from this verb is that this is referring to continuity, there needs to be consistency, we can be one hit wonders, all right, we can't be one hit wonders, this is something that we're going to have to try to find a level of consistency with. fear about the Tila in the word Fie means in see Arabic is a very, a very vivid, a
very graphic language. And especially classical language, classical Arabic, has a lot of imagery built into it. So fi means inside of, it literally means inside of. And so the imagery there is imagine being immersed in something. Imagine being surrounded by something being encased in something that everywhere you look everywhere you turn, that's all you see, that's what you're continuously surrounded by. So what the prophet Selim is saying, is he saying that one of the individuals, one of the category of people that will have the special honor and distinction on the Day of Judgment, is that young person who grew up who matured, while being complete, surrounding him
or herself? With what about Attila? the worship of Allah? Now we're going to get down to the core of the issue. We're going to talk about the word everybody.
So a bar that gets commonly translated as
worship. All right, thank you, for people who buy that commonly gets translated as worship very good, because I can locate him. All right, so everybody commonly gets translated as worship and that's fine. That is actually the meaning of Riba. But there's always lessons there's always beauty and when you take into consideration the other derivatives of a word from Arabic, alright, so another very basic derivative of this word, a Baba is the word of God. What does the word mean everyone? slave, Alright, so now we're realizing that there's a connection here, what's the connection between being a slave and between worshipping, because worshiping is a manifestation is
the physical manifestation of the slavery that we feel towards Allah subhanho wa Taala. It basically means that if we are true in our claim that we are slaves of Allah, then we have no choice but to worship him, but to worship Him. And if we do not engage in the worship of Allah, I can stand here and sing from the top of my lungs as much as I want that I'm a slave of Allah. I'm a slave of Allah, I'm a slave of Allah. I'll be doing the entertainment session later tonight. No, I won't. Alright, so I can stand here and say it over and over again, I'm a slave of Allah. But if I do not engage, if I cannot put my forehead on the ground, if I cannot worship my Creator, then I am lying. I am false
in my claim that I am a slave of a lot. And that's just the cold hard truth of it. That's just the cold, hard truth of it. And that's something we got to come to terms with. Humility is something that is very hard to come by in our culture. And it's something that is not looked upon very fondly within the global culture that we live in today. I mean, right now, you know, with March Madness to I got a text from a friend last night I was watching cricket matches God forgive him. All right. So with with the current culture of just sporting events constantly going on, this is something that's readily like on that's always on display for us, by the way, turn on any random sporting event, and
that's usually the type of behavior a lot of our youth are emulating, alright. And humility is the last thing you'll come by. It's all about self congratulating, self celebrating, all right, and that's sort of become the culture that we live in. So humility, humbling ourselves, and leaving living up to that claim of being a slave of Allah is extremely important, very, very important.
Now, having said that, what I wanted to next talk about is, so being a young person, who lives who grows up who matures, who comes to adulthood into maturity, while being completely surrounded, immersed in and completely engrossed and engulfed in the worship.
All right. Now let's talk a little bit about, first of all, that sounds really difficult. I'm just going to be real with you here. I'm gonna be very honest with you. That sounds very difficult. like wow, like, do I have to wear like, dust around my neck and sleep in the masjid? Like, what does that mean? Like, I don't understand what that sounds difficult. Right. So the first thing I want you to understand is, this is again, eloquence of the prophets of Allah. This is figurative in a sense of growing up living your life in such a manner, especially this young part of your life, where when you do approach to worship of Allah, it is something that you completely devote and dedicate
yourself to, when it's time for Salah, there's nothing that could take you away from your Salah.
The most, I mean, your greatest desire in the world could not rip you and pull you away from that prayer.
And again, that goes back to that earlier point that I talked about. And that requires focus, that requires focus. And in order to achieve that focus, we're gonna have to put in a little bit of work, we're gonna have to learn to appreciate this worship. And we're gonna have to learn to see the amazing side and the blessings of this worship.
The next thing that I wanted to talk about here is, while we're on the subject of ariba, and because it's painting a very bleak picture for a lot of young people, like how do I constantly just stay and find consistency in the worship of Allah. So now what I wanted to do was talk about the boundaries of a bother. And this is something that is a huge problem in the Muslim community, we need to redefine the boundaries of everybody. Because we have a crisis at hand, where we've created this very, very narrow understanding of what is worship of Allah, what is a bother, and therefore we've made it more difficult for ourselves, to be committed to living a God conscious life, to be living a
good pious, righteous lifestyle. Because a bother is just something that is so unattainable for us. It's only fasting or only prayer or only recitation of Quran. And that's it. So, I want to define what is the boundaries of a Baba and I want you to understand
a Baba is anything
a Baba is anything, any act,
any even state of being, that helps you show a last panel which Allah how dedicated and committed you are to him.
It is anything that you do, that helps you to display to show to prove to Allah subhanaw taala that you are committed and dedicated to him. Now, when we look at it that way, we're about to redefine a lot of these things.
So we don't only have to, and we should that necessarily five times a day, we definitely have to, but we don't always have to just be making will do and performing solo to be engaged in arriba. If you say Subhan, Allah Subhana Allah,
everyone's saying hamdulillah everyone say Allahu Akbar. Congratulation, you just committed, you just did anybody. That's a bother, that's worship.
All right, when you
when you go outside, or when it's time for lunch, and you get some food, and you see another student attending the conference sitting next to you, and they don't have any food in front of them. And you open up your tray and you say, Come on, come join me. Take off my sandwich. And you do it because you care about that person. You love that person because that is your Muslim brother, or your Muslim sister. All right, don't do it for each other. All right. None of that business. All right. So
when you do that, and you did it simply because this my Muslim brother or my Muslim sister, you just performed a bother. You cared for your fellow Muslim?
All right, Mashallah, I don't see a lot of people with cell phones in their hands. So I'm not going to mess with you. But all right.
If you text your parents, all right, you text your parents. I love you. Thank you very much. I appreciate everything you do for me. You say something nice to your parents, you smile at your parents, you say a few words of appreciation to your friends, you just performed a bother. That's simply how easy it is.
That's how easy it is. And so we need to redefine these boundaries of ibadah helping humanity picking up a piece of trash when you go outside. You know, what's one of the biggest problems we come across a lot of times when we have these conferences in these sessions is when it gets late night you know the late night hanging out and on Late Night chillin, right. That's Whatever. I'm not gonna comment. All right. But what was the worst part personally, the worst part I find about that is when you ventured back down into the lobby at budget time to pray for sort of budget.
You just kind of walk by the the couches and the lounges and the places where everybody was chilling at night. It's like a tornado came through there. We we trashed the place. All right now Rockstar trashed the place. But nevertheless, still, we trashed the place. There's cops and there's bottles of water and there's tissue and there's napkins, and there's food and there's leftover wrappers. And there's, everything's just kind of left around there. We just kind of just trashed the place a little bit.
Picking up that piece of trash. That's also a bother cleaning up after yourself. What did the prophet SAW Selim, tell us, this is actually one of the branches of Eman imata, de la literie. Remove something harmful from people's path. You think somebody likes to come and sit down on a couch and find your leftover Starbucks like spilled all over the couch? Nobody likes to see that that's gonna harm somebody. That's that's disturbing to people. But when you clean up after yourself and remove that, forget about a brother. That's a branch of emaan, which is the actual objective of everybody, which drives everybody. So you actually proven establish your faith when you just simply
pick up some trash and clean up after yourself. You know, she has talked about the the tsunami and the earthquake in Japan.
All right, when you do a little something, whatever is in your capacity, now, I love talking about giving, donating right to student audiences. And we're like, Brother, why why don't you go talk to the doctor sobs. Right? They got they're the ones with all the cash, right?
All right. So
but I love talking to student audiences about giving in charity, because we misunderstood the giving of charity, kind of, again, the culture we've established in our community, for fundraising and for charity giving. It's kind of it's, it's, it's given this impression to young people, or people that might not have 1000s and 1000s of dollars, that for some reason, they're not. They don't have a role to play in this whole area, this whole arena of everybody, this whole area of a bother. All right, because we always hear 25,000 25,000 who's got 10,000 5004 we hear that and we think oh man, I'm definitely no that's not for me. I'm a college student. Right? But that's not true. We go back and
we look at the Quran and what did the Quran tell us? methylone Latina yunfei poonawalla houfy Sabina laka mahtani hubbardton.
The example of one who gives anything something in the path of a law is like the example of a seed one seed. Why does Allah give the example of one seed because it is so insignificant, so tiny one seed will swallow What does Allah say happens to that one CD, one seed, but that's about as a novel, it sprouts out seven different branches frequently Subala Tamia to haba each branch carries how many seeds 100 seeds of itself once he became how many seeds 700? So when you can give $1 Raise your hands if in this room, you can spare $1? Everybody can. Everybody can spare $1. All right, forget about it. Can everyone spare at least a quarter? Everybody can spare a quarter? All right. Well,
guess what Allah subhanaw taala at a minimum will multiply that for you 700 times 700 times. But you got to give. You got to give you got to send me excuses for yourself. That's a major roadblock and trying to achieve a bother is when we make excuses for ourselves. All right, so give something you hear about people suffering people dying. Let the humanity in you awaken. All right, be a good person and give something help somebody. All right. Now the last couple of things I wanted to say here two last things is there are many many roadblocks in living this life immersed in, engulfed in a bother devotion and dedication to Allah, where I live my complete life in such a way where I'm
doing everything to please Allah in a way that it pleases Allah means I can eat, I can sleep, I can hang out with my friends, I can go and work out. I can have recreation, but I will be conscious of what is right and what is wrong in the course of that action. So when I play ball with my friends, I'm not going to curse, I'm not going to swear. And when I run into somebody or I elbow somebody in the head, I will apologize. And I will say I'm very, very sorry. And that is my a bother. That's my worship. All right. Now, what are some of the roadblocks, there are many many roadblocks, the roadblocks can be summarized into one word, and that is temptation. And that's what she was talking
about temptation. temptation is the thing that often pulls young people away from this life dedicated to living in the obedience in devotion, dedication to Allah, it is temptation, whether it'd be of the opposite gender, whether it be drugs, alcohol, whether it'd be a wasting time, whatever it is, it is temptation. And how do we fight? How do we resist that temptation?
And this is another thing I love explaining to young people because the answer is a lot.
easier than you might think it is. Alright, because young people, that's the number one question like how do I deal with this? dealing with temptation is so simple. And that is good company is the key.
insulate yourself. You know, insulation is
when there's insulation in the walls, you don't feel the cold that's outside.
You don't feel the cold that's outside. All right, it insulates you. insulate yourself with good like minded people. Find two brothers, three brothers, four brothers on campus that have the same commitment, dedication to pleasing allows you to find 234 or five sisters on your campus that have that same level of commitment and dedication. And you will feel insulated, dealing and resisting temptation will become easier. I guarantee it. All right. And the last thing I wanted to hear to say here, and I'll end on this note, is probably I feel the most important realization at the end of this talk.
And that is, notice what the prophets a lot of them said, Shaban Nasha Nasha, a theory that a young person who, who grew up, immersed in commitment, dedication and obedience worship of Allah
didn't say perfection anywhere in there.
It didn't say he was perfect. It didn't say he never made a mistake, it didn't say that he never slipped up and never said that anywhere. And that's the second thing that gets us. You're going to go home from this conference, you're going to hear these amazing speakers in their lectures. And you're going to say, that's it. That was the motivation I needed. That was a spark I needed, I'm going to change the way I live my life.
And you're going to start out good. And a day or two days, or three days or four days are gonna go by, you're gonna be doing fantastic.
And then you're going to hit a little bit of a speed bump,
you're gonna hit a little bit of a bump in the road.
And what it does to a lot of people at that moment, they mess up, they slip up just a little, and just completely throws them, spins them out, throws them off balance. See,
I can't do it.
I messed up again, this is impossible. It's not practical.
The promises have never asked us to be perfect. In fact, I'll even broaden the scope of this. fine for me in the Quran, anywhere, wherever Allah has ever asked us to be perfect. He hasn't.
All he's asked us to do is try hard. Do the best you can.
And other young people. Your potential is limitless. Not like that ridiculous movie where he takes a pill and go skydiving. All right. I mean, truly, honestly, limitless.
You are capable of so much we I mean, we don't have time here to talk about the accomplishments of young people. But y'all are capable of so much our golden silver mines. You can do so much. Don't get bogged down. Don't get hung up over a couple of slip ups here and there. Everybody has them, everybody makes them. All right. All you have to remember to do is
keep your hope attached to the mercy of Allah subhanaw taala. Keep doing the best that you can do. And don't focus on your imperfections but rather focus on the perfection of Allah's mercy and His forgiveness. May Allah subhanaw taala give us all the ability to practice everything else in her
devotion and dedication to Allah. Right. I live my complete life in such a way where I'm doing everything to please Allah in a way that it pleases Allah means I can eat, I can sleep, I can hang out with my friends, I can go and work out, I can have recreation, but I will be conscious of what is right and what is wrong in the course of that action. So when I play ball with my friends, I'm not going to curse, I'm not going to swear. And when I run into somebody or I elbow somebody in the head, I will apologize. And I will say I'm very, very sorry. And that is my a bother. That's my worship. All right. Now, what are some of the roadblocks, there are many many roadblocks, the
roadblocks can be summarized into one word, and that is temptation. And that's what she was talking about temptation. temptation is the thing that often pulls young people away from this life dedicated to living in the obedience in devotion, dedication to Allah, it is temptation, whether it'd be of the opposite gender, whether it be drugs and alcohol, whether it be a wasting time, whatever it is, it is temptation. And how do we fight? How do we resist that temptation? And this is another thing I love explaining to young people because the answer is a lot easier than you might think it is. Alright because young people that's the number one question like how do I deal with
this? dealing with temptation is so simple and that is good company is the key.
insulate yourself
You know, insulation is,
when there's insulation in the walls, you don't feel the cold that's outside.
You don't feel the cold that's outside. All right, it insulates you. insulate yourself with good like minded people. Find two brothers, three brothers, four brothers on campus that have the same commitment, dedication to pleasing allows you to find 234 or five sisters on your campus that have that same level of commitment and dedication. And you will feel insulated, dealing and resisting temptation will become easier. I guarantee it. Alright, and the last thing I wanted to hear to say here, and I'll end on this note, is probably I feel the most important realization at the end of this talk.
And that is, notice what the prophets a lot of them said, Shaban, Nasha Nasha, a theory that a young person who, who grew up, immersed in commitment, dedication and obedience worship of Allah
didn't say perfection anywhere in there.
It didn't say he was perfect. It didn't say he never made a mistake. It didn't say that he never slipped up and never said that anywhere. And that's the second thing that gets us. You're going to go home from this conference, you're going to hear these amazing speakers in their lectures. And you're going to say, that's it. That was the motivation I needed. That was a spark I needed, I'm going to change the way I live my life.
And you're gonna start out good. And a day or two day or three days or four days are gonna go by, you're gonna be doing fantastic.
And then you're gonna hit a little bit of a speed bump.
You can hit a little bit of a bump in the road.
And what it does to a lot of people at that moment, they mess up, they slip up just a little and just completely throws them, spins them out, throws them off balance. See,
I can't do it.
I messed up again. This is impossible. It's not practical.
The promises have never asked us to be perfect. In fact, I'll even broaden the scope of this. fine for me in the Quran, anywhere wherever Allah has ever asked us to be perfect. He hasn't.
All he's asked us to do is try hard. Do the best you can.
And the other young people, your your potential is limitless. Not like that ridiculous movie where it takes a pill and go skydiving. All right. I mean, truly, honestly, limitless.
You are capable of so much we I mean, we don't have time here to talk about the accomplishments of young people. But y'all are capable of so much our gold and silver mines. You can do so much. Don't get bogged down. Don't get hung up over a couple of slip ups here and there. Everybody has them everybody makes them. All right. All you have to remember to do is
keep your hope attached to the mercy of Allah subhanho wa Taala keep doing the best that you can do. And don't focus on your imperfections but rather focus on the perfection of Allah's mercy and His forgiveness. May Allah subhanaw taala give us all the ability to practice everything that was in her