New Muslim Corner – Excessive Praise Of The Righteous
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Channel: Abdullah Hakim Quick
Series: Abdullah Hakim Quick - New Muslim Corner
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AI Generated Summary ©
The "ocean" or Christian side of Islam is a way of life based on a certain belief, and sh arc is dangerous. The importance of understanding one's own qualities and sh codes in sh arc is emphasized, along with the use of animals as symbols of success and the danger of humans killing them. The sh codes and sh codes in Islam include the use of wreaths and the use of blocks in relation to the reality of sh codes. The company is focused on delivering value to customers and stakeholders, investing in innovation, improving customer experience, and creating a better and more efficient workforce. ProLogistix thanks the interest in Westaff.AI Generated Transcript ©
C'est la vie well if you're in Nabina Muhammad and while Allah He was happy Hajj, my all praise are due to Allah, Lord of the worlds and peace and blessings be constantly showered upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad, the master the first and last, and on his family, his companions and all those who call to his way and establish his sunnah to the day of judgment as to what follows to my beloved brothers and sisters to our listeners as salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah.
So this is the new Muslim corner. And the idea of the corner is to have a space where you can ask questions concerning what Islam really is and what it's not.
And you won't have to feel under pressure, that the question you're you're asking is not a right question or not cultural. This is an open forum for our discussion. And because we went online, we streamed this. And the response that we got online was a really big response. So there are a lot of people who actually online with us today. So therefore, there's like two parts to the class. One part is a sort of a talk that I'm giving. And that's online. That's why I'm looking over here, online, right. And the second part will just be an open forum. And that will be turned off. And then we have just general questions, you know, concerning some of your ideas. Now, we have recognized in
the previous classes, that being Muslim is not necessarily just a cultural thing. It's not just the food you eat, or your family name, or something to do with your language, but it's actually a way of life. And that way of life is based upon a statement, which is called Al Kalama. In Arabic, and that means that ilaha illallah, Muhammad Rasul Allah, Salam. And what that means is we say La ilaha illa, Allah when a person enters Islam, the first thing they say is that ilaha illa, Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah,
okay, and when a person dies, it is hoped that the last words they say,
would be the same. And we learned that Lila
is a very important statement. Arabic has a way of being very concise. And sometimes it is few words, but it has a lot of meaning. So when you say in Arabic, La Ilaha,
that means there's no God, or there's nothing worthy of worship ILAHA for the Arabs, in those times were the gods with a small g. So you say La Ilaha. And that clears the air.
And that is what they call nothing, or it means you are negating. So you say there's no gods, it's like, you cleared the air.
Okay, there's nothing,
nothing worthy of worship.
And then within that space, which is a vacuum now, then you say, La ilaha illa. Except,
and then you say, Allah, so therefore, when you put it in, this is like a positive statement, or confirmation after negation.
So you're negating all previous gods, all previous beliefs, except Allah.
And so that's a powerful statement that a person is making. But the challenge really is how to maintain that. Because it's one thing to say it, but the next part is to maintain it.
The second part of the kellisa is Muhammad Rasul Allah. And you're saying that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. And this means he is the last prophet, the last messenger and that is confirmation.
So the first half you started with negation, then you had confirmation, but the second half is confirmation. And by confirming that, you negate
you indirectly negate all other people, as the Messenger of Allah, that there are no other messengers, nobody else that presented the Creator. The final testament, the Quran is the final book that has come to us. And so when you accept this Kadima, then you've entered into Islam.
And the challenge is to really live up to this, because there are so many diversions in life. And one time, the Prophet, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, he drew a line
and he said, This is the straight path.
And then he drew little lines on the sideline
had branches. And he said, these are other paths. And at the head of each one of these smaller paths is a shaytaan. It's like a devil. It's somebody who wants to lead you off the main path. You see. So when you saying when you're on the straight path, that's not the only path.
But you have to be aware of all of the little divergence and isms, and schisms, and other things that can take you off the path, you know, to the Creator.
And we recognized that when we say we believe in one God, that we are accepting Allah, as the Lord, as the sustainer of life. We also say that Allah is unique. As the Quran, says, Lisa, chemically, he che, there is nothing similar to Allah. So when we say Allah, we're not talking about, you know, a tree, we're not talking about a man. We're talking about the being who was there when there was nothing
before the universe was created,
that is Allah. And then he said, confi Akun be added is, and the universe started, things started coming.
And as creations went, and started to evolve and change, he set up systems by which
things would evolve into what we see today.
So Allah is unique. There's nothing similar to Allah. Also. The third part is that we believe that Allah is the only divine being.
He is a divine being, He is the Creator. The only one divinity is like perfection.
You don't forget, you don't make mistakes. You don't die. You have eternal life. Everything else is temporary. Everything lives and dies. There's nothing eternal, except Allah.
And Allah is the only being worthy of worship, that we should worship Allah, meaning that we submit, you know, to the Creator is only one worthy because other things come and they go, people may be strong one day and then weak another day.
So that but the creator that is the one that we are depending upon.
And so this is the struggle for monotheism, and at the greatest, most important quality of a Muslim is the belief in one God, if you could try to, you know, look at all the qualities of Muslims. And people will say, Oh, yes, I know those Muslims, they wear this hijab, the women wear the scarf. And the men, they wear certain clothes, and then they pray in a different way. We know these Muslims they food they call halal food. Okay, these are qualities, but not the main quality. The main quality that people should know that Muslims should know first, and that people should know about Muslims is that we believe seriously and strictly in one God. And we don't want to have any other
form of worship. And the closer you can come to that is the closer you are coming to fulfilling the Kalama la isla.
And so therefore, we found out that the opposite of monotheism that we call Tauheed, the opposite of that is shirk.
And shirk is polytheism.
And that is association of partners with Allah, that the person believes there is a Creator. But then there's other forces, I will go to the get to the Creator. Or there's a big garden a little God.
Or in some religions, they say yin yang, they say there is
a good God, a good force, and there's an evil force. And this was ancient masochism,
Zoroastrianism and it went into Hinduism and affected Buddhism. It even affected our youth, they the youth watch this movie series called the Star Wars. So they are watching it and in the Star Wars, you know, Luke Skywalker, right? Everybody knows what I'm talking about. Right? So they say, you know, he's trying, are you on the good side, the good side of the Force.
Right, so he wants to if he he's trying to be on the good side. That's the good force, but then there's another side too.
So you can go from the good side of the force, or you can go to the evil side.
So that's really like two.
It's like two gods. One is a good guy, one is an evil god. And that we would say,
is a type of shirk.
That is polytheism. You've made more than one.
And the same way that Christians might well, we'll say, there's a trinity. There's a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
There's a trinity. But some Christians, you I asked the Christian about the Trinity. And he said, No, no, no, no, you don't understand.
The Trinity is actually one.
It's like an egg. And the egg has got a shell. And the wider the egg and the yolk. Right? It is but as one egg, see what he was describing. But I told him that math, I don't understand that math, one and one and one equals three,
in any math that you call it.
So going straight to the point of Tawheed clears up a lot of confusion in us.
And so, we found out that Shirke is so serious, that it is considered to be an unforgivable sin. It's the only sin that if a person dies in a state of shirk,
it is unforgivable sin. We also found out that in this life, before a person dies,
any anything you do can be forgiven. And Allah said in Allah, hi, yoke fitted xinova Jimmy and Allah forgives all sins. So there's nothing that you can do in this world, that cannot be forgiven. But after death,
shirk is most dangerous one, that is the one that we need to find out. So we have been studying polytheism forms of shirk, and especially looking at not just shirk, in other religions, but the most dangerous form of shirk, for us is in is in the Muslim world.
Because as a new Muslim, or as some as somebody who is re embracing Islam, because there are many people who were born Muslim, but they never really accepted Islam. They just did it because their father or mother told him to do it, or because the people in the village used to do it. But once you accept it yourself, now you start looking at what is around you. And we recognized that there is Islam and culture.
And sometimes the culture is not really Islam.
For the most part, if you look at Muslims, culture 70 80% of the culture is Islam. But because of the different parts of the world that we live in previous religions before the coming of the last prophet,
we are affected people living in Hindu lands,
can be affected by Hinduism, even though the Muslims, people who live in Buddhist lands can be affected by Buddhist
people coming out of Christianity, Christian lands, can carry that in people following traditional religions, based on nature worship, carry it in.
And so we found this out that this actually happens. This church actually happens, and it has destroyed some of the religions probably the one that's destroyed the most is Christianity is the teachings of Jesus isa lay salah. Because we found Issa was a prophet of Benny, Israel, the children of Israel.
He believed in the 10 commandments. He taught the belief in one God, clear.
But after his demise after he left, they changed his teachings. And it was one of his followers followers. His name was Paul.
His original name was Saul. He was Jewish to like Jesus had all of his followers, but he hated them.
And he tried to get them tortured. After Jesus left and we believe he was raised. Then Saul said that he was on the Damascus Road, and he saw Jesus, like he had a vision.
Okay, and he changed his name to Paul.
And he came back to the disciples of Jesus. And he started with some new teachings.
Like he said, you know, you don't have to just follow the law of Moses. 10 commandments, you can follow other religions.
You can we can mix things.
And so the disciples rejected him.
And he left and he went to Greece and Rome in that area. This is where he
eventually died, but his teachings spread. And that form of the teachings now known as Christianity, because before the time of Paul, the followers of Jesus were called Nazarene.
They were the Jews of Nazareth.
Okay? There was no Christians at that time. We say an Arabic and Masada
they were the Jews of Nazareth. But afterwards when Paul now with this hybrid form of faith, start teaching, they said, they will call the followers of Christ, Christians, followers of Christ, no longer Jewish.
Although for the most part, what they were doing was still based on Judaism, the Old Testament and you know, Jesus's teachings, but they mix things up to the point where now as we discussed, when the Easter season comes along,
people can it is the spring Solstice. Right and the pagans had this nature worship. Right so the pagans nature worship, and their goddess was asked pa stray or Austin or Ishtar. You know, it was this goddess of fertility.
And this goddess of fertility would wave her one after the winter, and everything turns green. That's what the people used to believe. And so the symbols of Australia or Easter would like to eggs, rabbits, fertility symbols. So now the Christian will say it's Easter time, and little children will say I want easter eggs. Right? I want a bunny rabbit.
So what does the rabbit have to do with Jesus?
You see, they mixed it together.
This summer solstice. We're just coming out of the Summer Solstice. And what a lot of people don't realize that the pagan religions were powerful during this time.
And the same Australia Ishtar in some ways they but that name actually went back to one of their so called pagan goddesses name Ishtar that she was a goddess not only a fertility, but of sensuality.
And she had dual personality. She was really strong. Fado, warrior goddess. And at the same time, feminine and the goddess of love. The Greeks called her Aphrodite. The Romans called her
Venus. Everybody knows Venus, right? That was Easter or Easter, right? That same goddess of fertility. And you know, I just checked back in some of these teachings and I was shocked to find that the main month of Easter is the summer solstice, what month is that? June.
So that was the month of high heightened sexuality.
And Ishtar would take two forms her followers we could take two forms. They could be masculine, they could be feminine.
Okay, and they performed all day marched in the streets. They had parades in June.
That was the parade.
And shockingly enough, one of the main symbols of Ishtar was the rainbow.
That's where it came from. And you can look it up don't believe me?
So this is not something new.
This is something that's been going on from ancient times. Okay, it's paganism it is, you know, putting the goddess or the gods in the face of Allah and following these beings. Okay. And that we found out was shark. This is shark. Now, there's different forms of sharks, we're in the major forms of shark and one of them, which is an important issue.
For us to get familiar with, we don't have to go into the deep philosophical parts of this, but at least understand what it is. And that is what is called excessive praise of the righteous. You know, shirk, you think of you know, associating partners who allow you to bow down to an idol right. But you can actually bow down to a person,
not directly it can be indirectly and Prophet Muhammad. So Salah was reported to have said, Do not praise me excessively, as the Christians did to the son of Mary. Verily, I am a slave.
So refer to me instead as Abdullah, with a solo, the slave of Allah and the messenger. This is a deep state
But
he's a slave. So he's putting himself in the lowest category. I'm the slave of Allah. So do not make me a God.
That's what he said to his followers. And this was so serious, that even when he was on his deathbed,
he had a high fever when he died. Some say it was from this, he was poisoned, sometime early, but this fever came. And he threw off the covers. And he said, The Curse of Allah is on the Christians and the Jews. Because they took their
day took their, their temples, they did, they took the graves of their saints, as houses of worship.
And he kept saying, do not
do it to me. Don't make me into a god. He's saying this over and over again. People don't realize, that's how serious he knows human nature, right? Because the easy way for people is to worship another human being, or to worship the sun, like something you can see. Or you feel or you touch. And he said, Don't do this. So this now
has been made into a section. Scholars have now tried to organize it so we can understand our faith. And as the section called as a Hulu, and Hulu means exaggeration,
okay. And
that the case, a very interesting case, is the case of Buddhism.
Because when you study the teachings of Buddha, you find that he was a Hindu prince, the Hindus had many different gods and whatever, and he was a prince. And he didn't like this. He wasn't into all these gods and whatnot. And so he gave up his riches, he gave up all this idol worship, and he went, seeking enlightenment. He wanted to find the Creator.
And he went, he gave up the material things in this world. So he gave up idol worship.
But now, as you can see, the biggest idols in the world are Buddhists.
Like in some countries, the Buddha's are like skyscrapers.
And he was against idol wrestle. So you see that what they did to him,
after his time, they made him into the God.
And if you really went into early Buddhism, you would probably find, that isn't what he was teaching.
But people in weakness, actually did this. And they start to revere him into like a god, as you can see in this picture, that this is the concept of Buddhism. You know, they have made him you know, into like a God, in the Quran itself.
It says, In the chapter, and the science says, oh, people have the book. And that means Christians and Jews, right people are the book, because we believe that Torah came to Moses, Psalms to David, Gospels to Jesus, the Quran to Muhammad, peace be upon them all. So so we call the Christians and the Jews, people love the book. So this is, yeah, Khaled kitab. So it says, oh, people of the book, do not exaggerate in your religion.
That's a commandment
in this chapter,
to the Christians, to the Jews do not exaggerate, do not do hello, in your religion. And that is something that we have to be aware of, of this code. And
Christianity again, when it started to where it went into Europe and start to spread amongst the people, and they start adding things on.
They started to deify, Isa Alayhi Salam. Although isa Islam was described as a very humble person, nothing like what you see even the picture itself. And this is one of the famous pictures of Jesus. And the famous pictures is probably
Michelangelo. They commissioned him to draw a picture of Jesus. So he got his uncle, and he drew a picture of his uncle in the Sistine Chapel. Okay, and so that's the image of Jesus that you get today. But Jesus was not European.
Jesus was they were Semitic people
and the Semites at that time living in the area, and even descriptions of Jesus had him described as a person of color with curly here. It's even in the biblical texts.
And these are the somatic somatic people at the time.
What they will call today ship Hardik juice
Because different types of Jewish hepatic,
right, but this image was pushed
the image on the left side
is a day believed that they found this,
this shawl.
And, you know, the Christians said that this shawl was something that Jesus was was wrapped up in.
And it became like a holy thing for them. And the Crusades, they were fighting crusades over the cross crosses and the yield of the holy artifacts, because they were heavy into artifacts, getting blessings from artifacts. And so when they did, like,
I don't know, like an x ray, as you know, a type of scientific look into the shawl.
Okay, it came sort of with a face sorta like that. This is what they are trying to say. But the whole thing is funny, because how could this shawl like last, like 800 years or something like that? It's a piece of wool, right? How's it going to last 800 years, and people are ripping and fighting over it and killing and everything you know, but the danger was, this was the danger. When Christianity made Jesus look into a particular race,
that is the danger. Because if you say that that person is God, that God changed forms, and came down and became Jesus, right? Or if you say
that He's the Son of God.
So what that means that somebody who looks like this is God, like,
it's God, like, the image of God, you see, and it was used as a form of racism, especially in the past 500 years with the Atlantic slave trade. And with with colonization, when people of color were trying to be demonized, so part of it was through religion. Because if you accept that religion and the way it was, then you're accepting people who look like Jesus, as like superior beings. This is racism. And usually when they depicted the devil, or evil people that usually a dark skinned person,
dark red or dark black or something like this, the same Star Wars movie that you see today, you say, what is no racism? Darth Vader?
Darth Vader is black.
Right? This is how it goes Goldilocks Snow White.
This is in our literature, right? This is a form of racism, in order to create an inferiority complex in some people, and a superiority complex in another. Both people are sick.
We are not supposed to put race and image on the prophets. That's why in a masjid, you know, you've never find images of people, especially a prophets, anything, you're not going to find anything like this. Unless somebody you know, who went off the path tried to draw some picture. But usually people end up drawing the picture like themselves.
And I found this out in Christianity. It really struck me, you know, you go to different parts of the world. And the image of Jesus is similar to what the people look like. And I was living in Cape Town, South Africa, and this group, a group of people called colors, and the colors look like mixed people. They look like Brazilian, like Brazilians. And they had a big evangelistic
program there in Cape Town. And they had a huge image of Jesus. And when you look at the image of Jesus, he looked like a colored.
He didn't look like the Jesus you would see in America, because they wanted to project himself. Same as with Buddha. If you look at Buddha in Southeast Asia, you will see Buddha looks Chinese, or some Buddha looked like somebody from Burma may not come out, or Thailand. But Buddha was actually from like Northern, like Pakistan. Buddha was pattern. He was a proton.
And they have like high features, high nose and thing totally different than the Buddha that you see.
But the people wanted to project Buddha light himself, right. So by doing that, like makes you feel good. But the danger is when you're saying that's God.
It's not only shirk, but it's racism.
See, so this is a very dangerous thing that krypton to Christianity. And so we have forms of this as well.
We have and we're going to go into some of the ways that it even affects Muslims, but we have our own type of glue.
And that is with individuals and with saints, and you will see what they've done to certain people in Islamic history.
And they've made them like gods. And that was not the original intention, other people. See, and we'll see how this
takes its place in the Muslim world. Any questions are up until now? Again, this is a quote, I have to be a little bit, preacher like, because we're on line, right? But the floor is open, if anybody has any questions about any anything so far. So this is one of the areas that as a new Muslim, you gotta watch out. It's called Hulu, right?
We can if we're coming out of Christianity, okay, we know. But in Islam, somebody can come to you with this. anything online?
Okay, in the context of cultural practices being introduced, for example, Chinese medicine, specifically use the crystals for healing purposes. Is this permissible as well? Yeah, so the question is, in terms of culture, Islam, remember Islam versus culture?
So
the question is about Chinese medicine, and using crystals, you know, for healing, you know, whatever. Different you could call
homeopathic, natural medicines. There's nothing wrong with that. Because the present day pharmacy is based upon natural things. I was in Guyana once and we went into the jungle area to the south and we were being guided by an aerobic these are the indigenous people. And this aerobic fellow we will go into the jungle right deep jungle. And he said this is a pharmacy to me.
Like this is sharpest drug not right for you, right? For me, shoppers, Drug Mart, I have all these bottles and everything. But his pharmacy where the trees, the leaves the back.
All those things actually have medicinal
reasons. And he could actually,
you know, cure certain things and survive.
And recently, somebody from the Amazon area, you know, they will last for many days and they say how do you survive? And the person he survived because the jungle was like, Metro, it was like Shoppers Drug Mart supermarket.
Right, we would we would die because we need some food and a package.
Right? So there's nothing wrong with that. As long as they're not looking at the crystals as having power.
You see, if you believe that the crystal got the power, like it's a God like,
then it can go into shirk. But if it's like a medicine, that does certain things, there's nothing wrong with it.
This is where all of our medicines actually or most of our medicines, were actually coming from any other question or loan.
Okay, so now as there's no no questions we'll go on. So the next part to understand this area of shirk, and this is intercession with the dead.
So this is something it's a category. But this exists and you got to be aware of this thing. And this concept is the living person directs his prayer to the dead saint,
hoping that the pious man will be able to win special favors with God. So you intercede with the debt, you're going to the grave, and you're praying to the person who's in the grave.
And unfortunately,
this is something which is rampant in the Muslim world.
I wonder if you remember how dangerous shirk is right.
And I wondered, I traveled in the Muslim countries I want to find out like what's going on. There's so many Muslim countries we have so much power and everything and then I'm going to different countries. And I'm seeing these huge these graves
which are in many cases they are attached to the to the mosque, the grave and the people are at the grave. I went to one country I don't like to mention the name but you know, it's it's almost unconscious, but I was in Pakistan. Okay, this is Lahore and is a place called Data Gunj backslash and data kanji box there's a famous scholar Ali hedgewitch
He was a scholar
and passed away. And they made his grave into a place of worship. And I was there and I wanted to go to the area of audience ready.
And I went in and it was like a Hindu Bazaar, with flowers all around and everything. And then I turned and I looked inside, and the people will buy this grave. And they will pray and go. They pray Hindus to not just Muslims, Hindus with them.
And they were praying and they were given notes to when different things and the Athan was called. And it's a mogul mosque, so you have a big courtyard. And then you cross the courtyard to the prayer area. I mean, on Juma people even pray outside, but normally also would be in the covered area. And I went to make outside only maybe one out of 10 people by the grave, went to make some money.
After the prayer was over, I came back and they're still by the grave.
So they would not pray to Allah Azza was there when you make your prayer? And Dina said to Mr. Payne, you asked Allah to guide you to the straight path, right? You're making dua, they are making their prayers to the dead scholar, they would consider St. That's shirk, that shirt,
and it and it's in different parts of the Muslim world.
It is rampant.
And so now you could see in Cairo, Egypt, they had a grave of
their was supposed to be Hussein.
And they say even part of his body is inside this thing in a golden cage.
And they will come into the cage and rubbing the cage.
Right, and they are, you know, praying, you know, although he's not even in there. And then they had a grave of a Muslim, the great great, great granddaughter of the Prophet peace be upon Zeynep was a name. And they had a wedding dress, and in front of the grave, like a big wedding dress.
This isn't Cairo, Egypt.
Say this is rampid what has happened, right? This is shirk.
Right. And so this is something that we you need to be aware of. And the without going into the details, for those of you who want to find proofs, you will see in the second chapter of the Quran, 255, the sixth chapter 51. So these are some of the verses in the Quran, that shows that intercession with the dead is prohibited. It's out.
We're not supposed to be involved with intercession and dead. Okay, so this is something which is big, and it goes into another area,
which is ancestor worship. And
the ancestor worship is another way of trying to intercede with somebody who has died. So an ancestor worship, they believe that when their parents die, they go over to another zone. And they're, they're closer to God. So if you can stay in touch with your parents,
and you send things to your parents, you keep that then they can take your message on.
They can take it on to God. So that's ancestral. It's big in, in southern Africa. It is their China. It is really big in China, you know, anything big in China is big, because of their numbers. So they believe in their ancestors, and they sacrifice to their ancestors. Okay. And
this is a dangerous form of shark.
Okay, again, the shark is praying to the person who's there and then to the Creator.
Okay, keep this in mind
and
seeking blessings. Okay, there are different forms of seeking of blessings. This is called baraka
and this
Okay, before we go on to the blessing spot, I want to ask if there's any questions about ancestor worship?
It's, yeah,
like, sometimes people
will say for people.
Exactly. So they believe in certain parts of China, and Africa and China, they will go to the graves and they will put the food they will put things like that, and I mentioned earlier in an earlier class,
that once a year they have a big ancestor worship day. So it's like a big holiday. And they all go to their family's graves. And then they they they sweep the grave and they put offerings there, and they even they burn money.
You know, and I asked the question to somebody, like, what are they doing? Right? So they burning like 100 us, you know, 50 pounds, you know, 20 riyals. So I said like, what are they doing? They're saying they believe when you burn this money, that your ancestor gets the money on the inhale on the other side, they get the money.
So you burn 100 us, they're getting 100. Us on the other side. I don't know whether the money fluctuates,
International Monetary Fund, or something like that on the other side. But they would rather burn a US $100, right, or something that's valuable, right? For the other side. And in some places, they offer food, they have a thing in, in West Africa, which has even come over to some people in this part, it was called libations.
So libations is when the ancestor worship worship is have a ceremony, they start the ceremony and they take liquor.
And they pour the liquor on the ground.
And it's usually something like vodka or gin, or some strong liquor, right?
And you pour it on the ground. And, you know, this is for the ancestors. So according to their belief, somehow, when they pull that liquor, the ancestors on the other side, they get drunk on the other side, they get the liquor.
I don't know how this happens. This is libations. And some people are very serious about libations. So keep your eyes open when you're in an event. And they're starting off their prayer than they pour on stuff.
Their ancestor worships.
Okay, and this thing has spread. I was in the island of Trinidad.
And in Trinidad, they had a big Independence Day, you know, ceremony. And the Trinidad and they believed this a couple of years ago. But they said that one of the biggest groups of people who came to Trinidad was the Yoruba, the Yoruba people. And so they instituted in the Independence Day with the president there. They did libations.
Right. And they brought, you know, a priest of the Yoruba, they did libations that are there. Actually, we recognize now that amongst the African slaves and political prisoners, that are good number, we're actually Muslims. 1/3 were Muslims in Trinidad,
but they're pushing it as though it is
a ceremony. And amongst the Indian indentured labor is a good percentage, not the majority, but a good percentage in Trinidad were Muslims.
So why didn't you feech feature? You know, the Muslims in the beginning of this Independence Day, they didn't. They push libations right into the front.
See, so this is, this is a form of ancestor worship. This is how they are appealing to their ancestors. Not
any other general questions are there.
What's the ruling on saying like Surah Al Fatiha at the grave of someone that's possible? Yeah. So so if you're praying, you know, Fatiha, you know, to the grave, that is good. You're reading the Quran, you know, for a person, because the idea is that you're praying to Allah,
you know, you know, for for that person so that that's okay. The problem is when you're praying to the person in the grave, you see, this is the issue.
And I remember, I, again, I was living in Cape Town, South African Muslims are really active Muslim lot of things were happening. And so there was, you know, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in the famous leader of South Africa, the president, the revolutionary. He was in prison at a place called Robben Island.
And so but there were Muslims, who were actually in prison there as well. There are other people in prison as well and Robinson, and one of them was a Muslim imam.
And he was really strong, and they actually built a place for that person. He died on Robins Island.
And they built like a, you know, Islamic looking place. That's not where he's buried, but they built something there, you know, for him. And so this group of people who believe in St. Worship, they went to this dome, this football dome shaped place, and they made tawaf around it.
They went around it like the copper right? And then they cooked a big pot of doll. This is like
you know, is this it's lentils, right? A big part of dal
and then you give it out, you know to people to eat and his blessings and they
They are seeking blessings, you know there. And so one of the Muslim scholars wrote in the newspaper that this is totally misunderstanding Islam.
These people are not true Muslims.
Because the Fatiha itself, it says,
You IACA nabooda Er can Stein you alone Allah do we worship? And from you alone, we seek help. So how can they be praying to the person in the grave.
And there was a big uproar in the city against this Imam, because he stood up,
right, but it was clear this is not the way this is not the way and what happens in it is that people are seeking Baraka.
Baraka means blessings. So, the prayers are made for the dead person, like this is a type of a grave there. Okay, and people traveled to the graves, and then they rub the grapes. And they and they wipe it on their face. They're seeking blessing Are you going to mark my words, you traveled to some places in the Muslim world, I hope you don't see it here. But you're going to travel to some places in the Muslim world. And you're going to see some trains and they even had an ear. They said, there's a hair, the hair of the Prophet, and they brought up to Toronto.
And they said they had to hear of the Prophet it's been, it's in this Amba and then they bring it and everybody goes to the hair and they're kissing it, touching it, you're the seeking blessing rubbing from it, of the dead person. That's shirk.
That is a form of shear.
And even it even happened to the Prophet peace be upon him in Medina.
And if you go to Hajj, you go to to Medina, inshallah you get a chance to go,
you'll see some people and they're still around, they will go to the grave of the Prophet peace be upon him. Now what they had to do, they had to make sort of a barrier. In between, it's like a cage thing. And then you look inside, and you see the graves is a prophet's grave, and two of his companions, and they will go to the cages, and they will rub the cages.
And they will seeking blessing from the cage. And I was a student in Medina for six years. So we used to study there in the mosque. And we would watch people coming in doing strange things. And the Bedouins you know, look really mean, right? Let's I know, I know why he's so angry, right? Because people are doing strange things one day, we waited till afterwards and he was cleaning inside. And we looked inside, and there was all these papers. And there was lots of here
and things there and he opened up the paper and it said, O Messenger of Allah, I owe you know, $40,000 Please pay helped me pay my debts. They was putting notes inside of there.
And they put it here, they think if they here is in the grave,
right, then there'll be saved.
That shirk
and it drives people to do crazy things one day I never forget this. The old mosque of Medina not today. This is the old style Masjid in the 70s. And the old style Masjid used to have a trough Can you from the side, you know, they did the building. So when it rains out, the water pours down, right? So they used to do the buildings today were modernized, but the troughs were there in the prophet's mosque, and the birds, the pigeons, there's a lot of pigeons that fly around and whatever, they perch all on the top. So the pigeons are living on the top and the pigeons living their life, right they go into the bathroom, right?
And it's all up there in the top and it rained out. And some of these people with the water was coming down and they were bathing in the water. They were drinking the water and bathing in the water. See how crazy you can get because they believe that that water is baraka
blessings is in water. This is shirk. And even though our religion is so clear,
we have people who are doing this
and a new Muslim, you have to be aware of this. Because you can go with somebody and you turn around your, your, your bathing to.
And you think that this is Islam, right.
But it's not. And an interesting thing in Christianity, the Catholic Church,
they were seeking days would seek blessings through their saints. And there was St. Anthony of Thebes. They would pray to St. Anthony. If somebody's lost, they would pray to the saint. And there was St. Jude Thaddeus for impossible, incurable disease. broken marriages, you know the Beatles that a song Hey Jude
Good, don't let us down. This is the Beatles, right? Baby before your time, right? Many people, but hey Jude, this is a famous song of the Beatles, right? They're calling to Jude St. Jude was the Saint of if somebody has an incurable disease,
right, and your broken marriage, they would pray to St. Jude. St. Christopher, was for the blessing of a journey. So if you're going on a journey, then you pray to St. Christopher.
That's the same type of shirk, that had entered into Christianity and Christian teachings. Okay. And yeah, so questions know what
to say it means
that somebody was a pious person in life.
And then when they died,
then that they believe that that person is a special person. So a saint is like a special person in Catholicism, they actually give you it's like a, it's like a higher stage. It's like a honorary title when you become a saint. So like, you're close to God. So they'll actually, you know, make special places to visit, you know, the graves and whatnot. And, you know, so it's like a position of spirituality in Islam. We have a thing called Olia, it's called Wi Fi.
And the Wi Fi means the friend of Allah Walia, Allah.
Right. And Olia is the plural and you're going to hear this word Alia, being used. So the Wi Fi is there. And there is a Wi Fi is a true concept while he has got a lot, but it can go to the point where they start to deal with these Olia like saints, and they start praying to their graves. They're praying to their graves. Okay, any questions online?
We have to Hamid, check and see any other questions anybody has? Yeah.
I heard about these blocks to have the footprints of
Kibera. Yeah. So do people. Is there anything like I'm displayed and people kind of try to worship or are we supposed to do anything? Yeah, I mean, in the past, some people would try to do that, but they don't do it now. But it is it's a gold top. It's like a cage. I mean, like, you know, structure there. And when you look inside, you'll see
to so called footprints. I mean, I you know, I have a PhD in history. Right. So I mean, that's a little bit I don't know how Ibrahim's footprint is still there. To be honest, because he lived around 1560 BC.
Right, so now how is the footprint going to be there from BC?
I don't know. But somehow, it was believed they just let it to be there sort of a thing like that. But nobody works in what it says is, that are the places called macabre Ibrahim. And so the Prophet peace be upon him after he made circumambulation he would pray to units and prayers. And the place where Abraham used to build the Kaaba, it was like a structure, he built the cover from this place. So it's called macabre Ibrahim. So they put some, but you can make your tour cuts anywhere in the Kaaba, it doesn't have to be exactly by that place. Because sometimes too crowded. So you could go, but you do two workouts, but you try to get as close as possible did that plate that thing is like a
symbol of where the MACOM used to be. That's what that's all it's supposed to be. But you're not supposed to worship. But people before even now, they would still go to the cabinet. rubbin they want to rub everything,
touch everything and think they're getting the baraka from this. This is a mistake.
This is a mistake. And I'm not saying 100% You know, there may be certain things that is there in the in the time of the Prophet peace be upon him. There were miracles surrounding him, but not in our times. So you got to watch out for extremism.
And going question online.
The best diplomatic way to convey a message to beloved relatives, first cousins that Jesus is not posing for pictures without an awkward moment
that Jesus is not the person in the picture. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's really hard with our families if you've come from a Christian family, and your parents and your grandparents been looking at this picture of Jesus, and they usually have the queen next next, you know, hey, this is the queen now and Jesus and they
But looking at this picture of like all their life, right? So the common tell them, you know, this is not Jesus, you're gonna get a bad reaction.
So it's not good to start with something like this, build your relationship with them.
Right? Show them the positivity and Islam and our respect for Jesus. And then you can even bring some historical things to show that this is not actually what Jesus looked like.
Okay, it's just an artist's conception of what Jesus is. But do it in a very gentle way. Don't come too harsh, because you're gonna get a negative reaction.
Don't come too harsh.
What's the appropriate behavior for Muslim? Visiting agreed of a Muslim or anonymous, right? Okay.
I'll go on a little bit, because I was going to bring you this. But this is what is called Ziad shadow Iya.
And I remember there was a scholar who came from Arabia, and he was in Turkey, Turkey. Yeah.
And he was visiting the grave as opposed to you but on Saudi and Abu iubat On Saudi was one of the great companions, you know, who actually died at the walls of Constantinople, Istanbul. And his grave is there and there was a masjid. It's a famous place in Istanbul. And so this call it was serious scholar. And he said, I'm visiting this building zyada shutter here.
So as era means visit, so I'm doing a legal visit. So what is illegal visit, you visit the graves, you can visit the graves to remember the next life.
Right? Also you make a prayer for the dead. You pray to Allah for the people who are there.
You can give Saddam's to,
and you pray for them. And you shouldn't walk on top of graves. So if you go into a graveyard, don't walk on top of anybody's grave.
Right. And when you pray, you should pray toward Mecca toward the Qibla. Not if the grave is there, you don't pray there. You pray toward the fibula. That is what is called zyada. Sharia.
Right, so it's more of a historical thing. And it's to pray for the person who died. But it's not to pray to the person.
And I remember, we were in Medina studying as students. And the people would come and they have this way. So the prophets grave is here, right? So they would put their hands like this face in the grave. And as they leave, they walk backwards.
Like you're not supposed to turn your back to a degree, right? Do you get to the door. So they walk backwards. And as they stand by the door,
that they will make a prayer. And then they go outside. So my friend may move, he was a Moroccan brother, he was like a really spirited Moroccan guy. So they people will be going like this and standing there. And he would go over to them, and he would take them and he would turn them from the grave and turn them toward Mecca.
Right? And then he goes to the next guy, and he turns them to Mecca.
And then when he gets to the 10th person, the first one turned back to the grave. The next one turned back,
you know, and so you're supposed to pray toward the Qibla. The danger is when people are praying to the one in the grave. That's ancestor worship.
Just the DUA you just make a DUA.
No, no, that's not salah, did you just make an a DUA? You make an supplication?
Yeah, so that is that is what the scholar calls the era. Sharia Okay, and
the Prophet peace be upon him. He said, in terms of death, right? When you die and you go over, he said, when a person dies when a man dies, his good deeds come to an end.
Okay, so now so this person who is a saint or a good person in this life, but their good deeds ended, three types state.
Okay, charity is called Sacaton giardia. And that is charity that continues to give benefit sadaqa jariya. Like for instance, the person builds an orphanage.
And that orphanage is taking care of orphans that will continue to give blessing to that person integrating
Elman into FRB knowledge that people benefit from the person wrote a book. They made a tape whatever they have some knowledge they gave, and people are getting benefit from it. And the last one is Wellington solid yet. The last one is a righteous child.
out offspring who makes prayer for the person who died? That will continue.
Right. So this is the way that we, you know, look at, you know, going over to the next life. And really just to end my refutations, you know, to show you know clearly remember when you read in the fatty how the open chapter it says IACA nabooda Yaquina Stein, this is an important verse, because you're saying you alone a lot do we worship? And from you alone? Do we seek help?
That's what we read every time we pray.
So if you understand what you're reading,
you are telling yourself, I'm not going to seek help from any of these things? I'm not going to pray to any of these things. Question
told me that
you're like, my family is into Muslim.
Like, past week, someone told me I can't pray for them anymore. Is that true? Okay, so this is a good question. Now in terms of somebody who dies, and whatever.
And it is really a difficult thing. You know, for people who have embraced Islam, and their families are not, you know, Muslim. Number one, we believe that if the person has never heard the message of Islam properly,
that that person will be judged by Allah,
they could be punished, or they could be forgiven. Right. But if they have heard about, and they rejected it, right, then that person is in a state of disbelief in the next life.
And even the Prophet himself, he wanted to pray for his uncle who died has a non Muslim, and then Allah told him, you're not supposed to pray for this, like this. So you can remember the person in good ways, right? It's always good to speak, you know, in good ways about the debt. But in terms of making an Islamic prayer for that person, then we would not be making an Islamic prayer, necessarily, but you speak, you know, in good ways you think good of the person and you hope, you know, but we don't make a DUA, you know, for that person. And this is a difficult thing.
This is why it's important for all of us, at some point. And I know, it's hard to try to
give Dawa to your parents, before they die.
Try to go with them. I was born in a Christian family. And
when I accepted Islam, you know, my father, he wasn't into religion at all anyway, but my mother was religious. And, but when I started when I started treating her in a good way better than before, and my character changed, she saw this is a good thing.
But she got hurt, I'll tell you straight. When I changed my name, I changed my name for my family name, my last name. And that hurt her feelings, right. And then later on, we realized that you don't have to change your family name. Somebody will tell you the first thing you have to slap change your name.
You don't have to change the name. And if you do, you can change your given names. Your first two names, and that's what I did. And that made her feel better. And you know, I continue to come back to her and hamdulillah before she died, she became a Muslim. So you have to try
to do this in the best possible way you can before they die. But it's not permissible.
Any questions online?
What is the purpose of Islam? Why is it practice? How is it different from Hinduism, for example?
Yeah, okay, so this question now, right tip is coming out of Malaysia or Indonesia. And so this is a practice where the people
it's something carried over from Hinduism.
Because the Hindu gurus would practice a type of
physical control over their bodies, where they turn off somehow they turn off their nerves.
And so they actually poked themselves and they, you know, rock on fire and whatnot. And so there are Muslims who carry this Hindu practice into Islam. And so they do these things, remembrance of Allah and they work themselves into a trance,
literally, and they walk over hot coals.
Right, they're in a trance. Okay, but this is not an Islamic practice. This is a practice carried over from Hinduism,
and should be avoided. Under all circumstances, we're not going to use the word shirk unless they believe that
you know, it is, you know, something to do with the belief in God. But it is what you could call Bidda, which is a type of innovation and innovation can take you astray.
So you need to avoid all forms of innovation. So this rotted thing, and some people even stabbed themselves and they do it Muslims do that. But it's carried over from other religions you will see during your, this Muharram that there are some people in the Muslim world who call themselves Shia. It's a sect of Islam. It's only like about 10 15% of the Muslim world. And some extreme parts of the Shia. They get really excited because this time is when the grandson of the Prophet Hussain read the Allah one, you know, he was he was wrongly killed his family. And so they're really sad about this. And so they hid themselves because they think that, you know, because we're saying sought help from
the people of a place called Kufa in Iraq.
And when he sought help of these people, they got afraid, and they let him go.
And when he got killed, they felt that they did something wrong. So they went to the place of his death, called caterpillar. And then they beat himself. And they do different things to themselves. Because it's a type they think it's a type of pennants, they repenting to God, by harming their bodies. This isn't other religions to you know, the Christians, they have a thing called Opus Dei. You might have seen some movies with a fanatical Christian guy. And then he does and he takes this whip and he whips this back.
And they have this open sky so that this this priests if he's an open type person, and he looks at a young girl, here with the wrong way, then he goes, how many beats themselves 20 lashes
that's, that's Opus Dei. This is not Islam. So all these forms of you know, harming your body is not Islamic. The process of them said Allah Dora will add era, you should not harm anybody, and you should not be harming your bodies.
Don't cut up your body's questions.
Thank you for the presentation. Some people would visit the grief the graves regularly by doing some cleaning of it, isn't that Sure? Yeah. When people The question is if you go to the graves and you clean the graves, is that sure is not necessarily sure. So some people will pray, you know, go to the graves and they will clean it. And you know, some people even grow plants there and pour water on it or something like that.
It's not going to affect the person in the buzzer who's out there in another zone.
But you know, out of respect for the area of the dead, and especially that when it's cleaned, people would not walk on it right. If there's leaves and grass growing on it, people might think it's the grass. So by keeping it clean, and you're there, but the only problem is when they start praying to it. That's the danger. So just the cleaning of the grave itself
is not necessarily
where does the term book the origin? Mufti. Okay, now we'll go and fire away every day. You know, you're fake, right? Mufti is someone who gives a fatwa. That's a religious decision. So mostly as a scholar, who is trained in giving religious decisions for specific issues. So you need this new thing coming up. You need a ruling on this. So you go to a Mufti. And that person is a scholar who is trained to give you a fatwa, which is a religious decision here that can answer your question. That's the word Mufti. Now, any other general questions or anybody has here one last question here. Yeah. Oh, we cannot pray that degree.
No, that's wrong. You can pray you know there.
But you can't pray to the grave.
Okay. But you can make to our face and Crippler right. You're facing Mecca, you can make dua, you know, for the people who are there, not salata. Anything's not a false alarm or anything like that. But but, you know, but you are making a prayer, you know, for the people that say it is permissible, you know, and this
was kind of related to just the great grades, or women allowed to visit graves. Yes. Okay. So this, this is a good question now. Because we get into culture as well. And I'm going to be straightforward with you. When you go to the sources and there was a great scholarship and also the you know, that Bernie or Hema hula, he was a great scholar, and he clarified this thing. And what he showed was that in Jah Helia times in the time of ignorance when the Muslims were in Mecca, the practices of the Arabs at that time, is that the women would do wailing at the graves, so they would go to the graves and they would wail and cry and carry on and you know, whatever at the graves. And
that exists up until today. Like in some countries, you can even pay some people they're professional weightless.
So they'll come to your grave and they start crying.
then everybody starts crying. So their job is to make you cry, right? So they are weightless, but the process of them said, you know, let us know that wailing and carry on doing these things, it can harm the person in the grave.
So this is not good. So, therefore, the Prophet SAW Salem prohibited women in the Meccan period from coming to the grapes
He prohibited but when they went to Medina,
and now their Islam became solid, you know, the rules of Islam were there. And there's a hadith that Al Abadi brought out authentic hadith that is saying to the effect of Kaduna, hate to come and zyada to Prabowo for Zulu, ha. So the Hadith says I used to prohibit you from visiting the graves, now you can visit them.
So the women were allowed to visit the graves in Medina, but it is providing that they do not do whaling
they will not carry on and do whaling, they, they can visit the graves. Now in some of our cultures, it's just part of the culture that the women are going to will.
So they take it for granted. And they say, Okay, we will
the men you know that you bring the body to the house. And you know, you have to our and everything there whatnot, and the men will carry your the body to the grave and then make the burial there. But the reason why they're doing that is because of the fact of the whaling, you know, and whatnot. But there is authentic hadith that shows,
right, that that it is permissible. And I remember we were in Los Angeles, and this sister, you know, she had accepted Islam. And she wasn't married.
Her husband had died, and she accepted Islam. And her son got into an accident. He was Muslim, too. And the son got into an accident and died.
And now we had to do Janessa. So people said, Okay, what's the ruling now? So you're gonna tell that sister, she can't go to the grave for her son?
No. And we looked at the sources, and it is permissible. As long as she understood, they add up the etiquettes of visiting the grave. And it's okay, you know, to do it, but certain people for cultural reasons, and I'm not, you know, faulting them, but for cultural reasons, they will stop that because that's what happens, you know, in their culture. And it was in the early period, there's some heartbeats but I'll barely brought out that is Hadith that negated the other ones. It negated the Meccan Hadith. You see, so you have permission. Either they can stay home, or they can go.
Just to follow up, so you're, you're allowed to go and you're allowed to, are you allowed to cry, you just aren't allowed to wail? You know, a person can cry in the sense of tears. Even the Prophet himself cried tears. But you know what I mean, by wailing right, like extreme extreme we carried on some of them are jumping in the grave with him tearing their clothes. No.
They can't do any of that. This is not.
So if there's no other questions alive, we're going to end the online discussion.
And so we pray that Allah would help us to maintain our faith and to maintain the Kelly Mala ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, I leave you with these thoughts and I ask Allah to give everybody a safe journey home, aka dot $100 Bill Alameen wa salam Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh