Living Islam #05

Shahada we are live now shall inshallah Samadhi coming to LA. At the beginning I just want to remind brothers and sisters to share this on your Facebook and Instagram and if you're watching with the YouTube, you should also subscribe to the YouTube page Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu Allah Allah say the most serene by Allah He was happy with adequate seller, appraisal due to Allah, Lord of the world's Peace and blessings constantly showered upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad, master the first and the last, and his family and all those who call his way to the Day of Judgment by beloved brothers and sisters, to our viewers. Our friends. salaam aleikum wa

rahmatullah he Roberto Cata.

Alhamdulillah, Allah azza wa jal has given us another opportunity to reflect upon the present conditions that we are living in, and to try to chart a way out, based upon the revelation based upon the way of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, and the thoughts and the promotion, or the thoughts and the deeds and actions and programs of the great orlimar who have come over the centuries. And no doubt, the month of February, that we find ourselves in is a difficult moment, especially in the northern countries, because of the darkness and the cold. And this adds to the struggle with the pandemic, and the economic depression.

And so, the Muslim nation, the oma internationally, is going through tremendous changes. And it is important for all of us as individuals first. And then as families and communities that we need to revive our faith, we need to review where we're coming from, especially when we have a chance to be alone, a chance to be with Allah subhanaw taala a chance not to be in the public and moving around and distracted by a lot of things. And so here's what that spirit in mind that we continue looking at practical guidelines for the preservation of our faith in these very difficult conditions that we find ourselves in.

And we looked at one of the great scholars are Syriac reserach Rahim Allah, who lived about 600 years ago. And I focus on this particular scholar because I find him to be

so much to the point. And he was balanced. And for me, balance is one of the most important aspects aside from our general, our taqwa and our knowledge, but it's the balance, really, which is so vital to make the right decisions and to do the right thing. And see the admins are rock. Right him Rahim Allah was given a title that his followers of the Maliki school of thought in North Africa, they claimed that nobody ever had this title before, and they don't believe that anybody else will get it. And that is more testable. Allah will only that he was the quality control manager.

He was the one who would criticize the orlimar the scholars and the Olia and those people have to saw off the spiritual people. He had the ability and the authority to to criticize in a positive way, everybody. And that's rare to see. Because generally you will find somebody who is a great scholar. But when it comes to spiritual affairs, when it comes to the experiential affairs is lacking, or you find a person who is traveled and they have a lot of experiences, but they don't really have proper knowledge of Islam. See, the Amazon look was the fapy of the Maliki's and the Maliki school of thought he was one of the highest levels that existed during his time. And he was

also considered by the people of to surf, to be like the Aqua to be like on the highest rank in terms of spirituality.

And he used to say that

I see my task is to sit amongst the scholars to listen what they are teaching, and to bring them

into a spiritual light to make sure they don't become dry. And they don't focus only on the information, but they have the spirituality, the SSN, to go along with their Islam and their event, remember the three levels. So he would make sure that the scholars would be spiritual and their hearts were clean.

On the other hand, with the Sophie's, and the ones who claim to be spiritual, he would make sure they would stay within the limits of Sharia. Because many times when people deal with dreams, and they deal with their spirituality, they're under a test. Because we have traditional religion, we have superstition, we have so many different distractions that can take us away from Allah subhanaw taala. So celiac,

was right in the middle. And at one point in his career, after he had traveled and he was back in North Africa, teaching, he had 1000s of students. He felt afraid for his students. He felt there was danger, spiritual danger, mental danger, physical danger, that was facing his people. And so he wanted to make sure that spiritually, that their foundation was strong. So he laid down a path. And this path was based upon five foundations. And the first one was to be mindful of Allah privately and publicly. That's Tukwila for Sergio alanya. The second that we looked at last class was adherence to the Sunda in Word. And indeed. So it's not just saying to workout Sunder poor, my dog

or my turban is Sunda but your actions have to be sunny your life needs to be the third one of the foundations was indifference to the acceptance or rejection of others,

that you don't care whether they accept you, or reject you.

It's based upon Allah subhanaw taala. Because you have satisfaction. that's point number four, satisfaction with Allah, in hardship, and in ECE.

And the fifth point was turning to Allah in prosperity and adversity. So these are the five foundations and we reached number three, and going through the foundations in difference.

rod and and Hulk, Phil Escobar will it back. So that is that you're indifferent as to whether people accept you or reject you, that doesn't mean that, that you don't care about people, now you walk over them. And you're a narcissist, no doesn't mean. But what it means is, you do your actions for Allah. And whether the people accept it and give you have a great award, give you a you know, a big name, or whether they reject you, it doesn't matter, because you're doing it for Allah subhanaw taala. And this is so important for the inner strength of the Muslims, and especially the young people today.

We need to help them to develop inner strength, because we are under a major test. And the test is coming externally. And it's also coming internally.

And so these spiritual foundations can help us under this extreme pressure that we find ourselves in. And two of the challenges remember there was a number of challenges that we looked at, but two of them in particular, that stand out to me with this particular point. And that is that Muslims are suffering with forced migration,

that because of the diseases, the political activities, the violence, the instability in the Muslim countries, people are being forced to migrate.

This is unprecedented. And it's always strange to me to see 1000s of Muslims, whether they come from Turkey,

from the area of Turkey, the Turks themself, generally a satisfied but Syrians and Iraqis and Afghans and other people coming into the Mediterranean, moving towards Europe

and in the south, African people

coming through

Libya, or Morocco and trying to get to Europe. And in many cases, they're literally piled onto boats and drowning in the sea. And when they reach some of these islands, and some of these coastal countries, they're rejected by the people, the people put them in like a concentration camp. But what would the point is, what would make them migrate?

What is the difficulty that they are facing.

And this is something very serious. So it must be a very serious pressure. Here the case of the Syrian people, people from Iraq, you can see it, you can see the pressure that they're under, it's life or death. So they have to move somewhere where they can maintain their life, but other people are moving as well. And so this is a really important issue that we need to consider. The second is Islamophobia.

And this is a big challenge to the Muslim ummah. Because it's number phobia has existed from the time of the Prophet moments on seldom, it is the illogical fear of Islam and Muslims. It becomes like a phobia. You know, they talk about a rack and a phobia, which is the fear of spiders. So people have they see a spider, it's big, strong man, a spider comes through a mouse comes in the room. And a big strong person jumps and runs because of the mouse. That's a phobia. And maybe at some point in their early life, they had a bad incident they had, they had a nightmare, something happened, they saw a movie, in the case of our generations now with a tarantula in it. So whatever

they see a spider, they think of that giant tarantula, crawling over their face. It's a phobia. Just imagine the fear of Muslims, the fear of Muslims. And this is serious because it comes through not just society, in a physical sense, it also comes through the media had in the past 40 years.

And it gets more and more intense. Muslims have become the villains. When I was growing up in North America, the villains were generally

German Germans,

then Japanese, and then Koreans, and then they became Russians, then they became Spanish drug cartels to make and posses. And so the American movies are set up that you have a good guy and a bad guy. So so the people are doing the terrible thing, stop the program. And then the good guy is usually an American, comes to save the day.

In the past few years, Muslims, Arabs, Chechen Afghan, especially have become the worst terrorists that ever existed.

Can I remember there was one movie that was shown.

This movie was dealing with

Palestinians. And it was in it's called the siege. And it was in New York City. And to make a long story short,

they were afraid of these terrorists. And an expert told the star of the show that if you are chasing the terrorists,

watch them closely. And if they start washing up,

then you only have about three minutes or so to take their life. Otherwise, boom, they will explode.

And sure enough, that the hero the program, when this case was Denzel Washington, if you watch these movies, he's chasing the so called terrorists. And they run into a Turkish bath, and he sees the villain washing up.

Okay, he's making room right. And so he says, three minutes, and they're able to subdue this person.

That was terrible. And the music and the emotion in this movie I was afraid of, and I speak Arabic. I'm very close to Arabic speaking people. But the way they portrayed this person and the music itself, it was terror. Just watching it.

Now, imagine if you watched that program, and you had a traumatic experience. And the next day you're walking through the park, and you look and you see 10 Muslims making wudu because sometimes brothers will make with you outside. So you see them making and it flashes in your mind. You see, what do you think about you think that they're terrorists, that they're suicide?

bombas that's Islamophobia.

And so the fear of the Koofi the beard that now that the veil, the terrible fear of that, this is the Islamophobia. And it came down really heavy after September 11.

It has eased up somewhat in North America because of the right wing fanatics, and also with the COVID. But lurking in the background is that fear of Islam and Muslims, and it's not going away.

And what was the response to Islamophobia? Muslims are going to this change now, September 11, this happened. Some people even saying, sisters will say, should I take my veil off, brothers were shaven,

they changed the name from Bilal to Billy.

They put on their baseball cap to go outside, they wouldn't be never found with a coffee, or with a turban or anything like that. So what was the response of Muslims to this onslaught of Islamophobia? In some cases, they tried assimilation.

And assimilation means that you do exactly what your oppressor does. They say what in Rome, do like the Romans do. So when assimilation, you try to you assimilate their culture, and you try to act like them. And so the Muslim then puts out in the man puts chain changes his name to Billy, or Mohammed to Mo, and he puts on his suit and he goes into the business. He thinks that he's safe. And there's the story of the British, Muslim, I'll never forget, I heard the story in London. He was going for an IT job.

And so he put on a blue blazer,

and a red tie and a white shirt and grey pants. And he parted his hair. And he went to the it Corporation. And he said, my name is Mo. Of course, it's applications that Muhammad, but he said, No, you can call me more. So the British man, the British are very crafty people, they dominated the Muslim world for centuries, right? So they know us very well. And so the British man said to Mo, will you make salaat during the week?

So mostly No, not me. I won't make so I don't need to have slot.

Then the British man said, Do you need Friday off for your prayers? And most said, No, I'll continue to work right straight. So the British man said, Come back tomorrow, when Moe came back, the British man told him, You don't have the job. Because if you are disloyal to your religion, you will be disloyal to me.

I know that you have to pray, I know that you need your job.

So you are not a truthful person. So he left more left. And he was like a poor atheist.

He gets nothing in the dunya and nothing in the next life. He has nothing in this world here after he's finished. So assimilation is not going to work.

Other Muslims tried isolation. They isolated themselves in their centers, they isolated themselves in their schools of thought everybody else was non Muslims. That doesn't work. Because now with digital technology, every place has penetrated.

You'll become like an ostrich with his head in the sand.

The next way out, in reaction to Islamophobia was desperate confrontation.

they confront it and you see it in the Muslim world, extreme organizations came out trying to confront the West, desperately in a suicidal way. That doesn't work. And that turns it up turned out to make more problems than they did solutions. So we don't need a stimulation isolation or confrontation. We need rejuvenation,

to Islamic revival.

We need to have an emergence and awakening inside to bring forward our Islam. The sometimes the best, defense is an offense.

We're not going away. We're here in this society. So we need to take a stand. And that's important to teach our young people when they're feeling depressed when they're feeling the world coming down. You know on them, we need touch deed revival. Dr. Yusuf al qaradawi is our one of the contemporary scholars

He said that this tragedy, it's combining Alka demon mafia, well, God the solid, it's like combining the beneficial old with the appropriate new. So you take the principles of the religion, the lifestyle, and that which is good in front of you, and then you revive. So you don't reform, it's not a reform, we you changed what came before? No,

it's a combination.

He said also it means being open to the outside world without melting into it.

And that's a beautiful example because many of us, like in Toronto, we're living in a melting pot,

where if you don't watch out, your culture melts down.

And suddenly you become a Canadian, or an American, whatever that is supposed to mean. We as a we can live inside of this country and still maintain our culture. But somehow people think that if they go to a hockey game or a basketball game, they have to drink beer,

that you have to follow all of the ways No.

You can deal with the outside world without melting down. And he said again, beautifully to rejuvenate the religion by the religion itself. And the example of that one example is women's rights, because many sisters recognize they are oppressed. But the feminist movement that developed in the 20th century, in order to liberate the women of Europe, and the West, from oppression, because they were oppressed, they couldn't vote. They didn't have rights. And it was just in many ways, but it is based on atheism. It's not based on the family. And so when Muslim women went for feminism, they were losing their ties with their family. So that was not the way out. But to

rejuvenate the religion with the religion, with the positive examples of the prophet SAW Selim and his companions with the true Sharia of Islam, we can we can now bring about a revival. If you look at the time of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Salah, he was in a very difficult situation just like us today. And it's important for us to reflect on this take time to reflect on what he went through this the best of creation, the pagan Meccans, at the time,

when the message was coming out the belief in one God, they wanted to stop the message and they knew we can't kill the man because he has his tribe, and his Lord is protecting him. But we can kill the message. And that's what Islamophobia does when it hits the media. So they formed the council and they brought a lead development, Avira as a leader of the Council, and they said, Okay, what can we do to destroy this man's reputation? It's like a modern day Think Tank. And they still have these think tanks on Islamophobia, and what are we going to do about these Muslims? So they said, Tell Walid, why don't we call him a cannon? And while he was an honest person, like many of the elder,

Arabs were at the time. He said, No, he's not a Kenyan. He's not a wizard, because he doesn't wear the clothes that the wizards have around the Kaaba. Okay, so he's not carrying. And they said, Okay, why don't we call him Majnoon? Let's say he's insane. On Walid

responded in words, that

he doesn't have the actions of a crazy person. He's calm. He's relaxed. That's not imaginal. So then they said, Why don't we call him Shire? Why don't we call him a poet? Because this melodic thing that he's reading,

you know, it's like a ballad said it's not a poetry.

It's not our prose, either. It's like, right, you know, we don't know what this is. So you cannot say share, you can't say poetry. Because this book, this thing is reading. It's something different. So he said, Why don't we call him saya or a magician? Because he breaks up families. He causes confusion like magicians do. Actually couldn't agree even with that. But finally, they said, Okay, we'll call them aside.

And so they spread the propaganda against pursue loss or sell them around the streets. And the worst of it was Apple Jawaharlal asked him in a while, and they even called him avatar.

They called him a man who was cut off, who has no ofs male offspring. In other words, a useless man a waste of time. And in this terrible depression, that the provinces Allah was going through this this weight on his back

Allah subhanaw taala revealed from the Quran the shortest chapter Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim in the arts a narco katha for some Lila Rebekah one Ha. In the shanty aka hood avatar. Allah revealed in his mighty book Serato katha. And it tells us surely we have given you an abundance. So pray to your Lord and sacrifice. Surely your enemies

The one who insults you, he will be cut off

this chapter is the is the shortest chapter in the Quran itself is the shortest chapter. There's nothing like this in the book of Allah subhanaw taala.

And, but the meaning is expanding and expanding and it's expanding. And it's something that our young people can understand if you just look at the language here. And what happened in reality, Allah told us in the art I narco kata we gave you Oh, Mohammed, Al cow thought

and abundance. And Kota is a special form of Arabic, which means it's like mukluk something which continues, it has no limit limitations. It also means our river in Paradise, okay, that's what it also meets our casa. And this river is described as having liquid, which is white as milk, sweet as honey cold as ice. If you drink one time, you will never be thirsty again.

But the Sahaba had the scholars looked for more meaning than just the river. There's something else here, because all cows are is an abundance. Kelly Mila ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasulullah Salah

you're connected with Allah subhanaw taala,

an ending, Creator of the heavens in the earth.

Also, the core ad itself,

the meanings continue to pour out even now in these times, we are able to understand things about the core and miracles in the Quran that the early generations were not able to understand because we have digital technology,

we are able to actually look inside of the human body, we're able to look into the life of ants and bees, tiny creatures, the life of the spider, and uncovered and we can see how these chapters in the Quran actually explain detail aspects of the life of these insects.

So it's an unending miracle in the Quran itself. catarratto has hop

that the companions of the province on Selma, they continued. And up until now, there are people embracing Islam

who cannot speak Arabic. We have nothing to do with the desert. But yet when they hear the name, Mohammed they say sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

And so Allah said,

in part, a narco katha for some leader a bigger one,

that Oh, Mohammed, you're in a difficult situation. But we have given you an abundance.

So pray to your Lord, and sacrifice.

Don't get caught up with what they're trying to do with you.

Get into your Pillars of Islam, get into your religion.

Continue with the basis, one heart sacrifice. Go on with your internal actions of Islam. This is a great advice for us right now. When we're feeling this pressure, especially in the month of February, we have to realize Allah has given us had abundance. And this abundance is not going to end with COVID-19

it's not going to end with economic depressions.

It's not going to end with any of these dictators of the world. It's an ever flowing, it's never ending it is occulta.

And one of the beautiful things is that

this small chapter, smaller than the Quran, and I'm sure that everybody has memorized it.

A lot Allah ended it by saying that your hater,

the one who insults you, he will be cut off and most of the hits

historian's point to allow us to bunny while

Sammy,

because he used to follow Rasulullah saw Salam around. And when the Prophet peace be upon him would go to the caravans and teach tawheed and us would then come and say, Don't listen to this man, don't listen to this man, you are trying to destroy everything that is around. And then he would say, This man is epitaph.

Now to say that in a patriarchal society where the male dominance is part of the society itself, the lineage goes to the male. If you don't have sons, then you don't have anybody to sing your appetites, the stories of your life, you don't have defenders to fight for you. This is a problem in many parts of the world,

that people want males, because of the dominance and the power that comes, you know, with a male in Arab society at that time, it was extreme.

And so

Alaska then said, This man is abduction, it's got no voice is cut off. And sure enough, every time a son was born to the province on seldom, the child would die young.

And you would think, why would Allah do this? To the last message, why?

But you see the wisdom in this, in that Islam is not based on milk, it's not a kingdom. And if the Prophet peace be upon him, had a son, then there it is, that's the dynasty. That's the bloodline.

But there were no songs.

And so getting back to the chapter, allows given a wireless Sami

if you ask the average Arabic speaking person, go to the Arab street, and say, do you know I'll ask anybody while

99% of the people would answer, no.

You've never heard of like, it's literally cut off. Now, if you said his son, armor, you're gonna last a really long one. Yes. Say that I will have a loss. He opened up Egypt, he's a very famous Sahaba jaleel. Poor if you say his grandson, Abdullah II, even our

last regular one, Omar, we know him. He's one of the five of the lies.

So

but alas, himself cut off, nobody knows. What about the name of Mohammed, we recognize that this is still the most popular name on Earth, because Muslims will still name their children, not just salia they will say Mohammed Salim. And some people have Muhammad as the different names. I have a friend from the Sudan. And his name was Muhammad Ain't that to Muhammad's

another brother, who I knew from the Arab world, and when you have your passport, it's your name your father, and your grandfather, or his passport and said, Muhammad, Muhammad Muhammad, three moments,

three of them.

And so it's, it's the most popular name on earth. And a British some years ago, about by about a decade ago, announced that Mohammed is the most popular name in the UK, it used to be Harry, but Harry is gone now.

And it spreads around the world. And this man, if you think about the profit moments on seller, who started by himself,

and the movement started to spread, and he told his followers, you know, seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. He know he told them, for every disease, there is a cure seek cures. So he, he pushed them towards sciences. He pushed them toward an expansion of knowledge. And this continued on until the Muslims were encountered. The great societies, the scholars of ancient Egypt, of Iraq, of India, of China of Greece of Rome, when they had caught they had gone to these countries. They took in the information, and they gave it a tawheed base wonders of God. They benefited from the information and they were able to make a new lease on life. They started the European Renaissance,

and a renaissance of much of the world. Back in the 14th and 15th century.

It was still the golden age of Islam.

But the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him.

He started by himself. And so in na na casa for son Lila Rebecca one

in the Shani Akka, who

surely we have given you a Muhammad

and abundance, so pray to your Lord and sacrifice. Surely your Haider, your enemy, he will be cut off.

And that is the teaching that we need today, with the changes that we are going through, feeling like the world is against us, or we're being deleted, we're not being given our place, Allah has given us an abundance, there, dictators will come, and their dictators will go. And our young people now need to hold on to this, and to hear the stories in the Quran itself. to to to get that feeling of the the the consciousness of a lot.

These are the teachings that that will enable the person to base what they do on the creator and not on people.

Many individuals need affirmation with human beings, they need to be given a reward. But a Muslim who has consciousness does it for Allah.

And so they don't care if the people accept it or not.

If they're rejected by people, they will continue on, because they know they're doing it for Allah subhanaw taala. And eventually, with with proper dialogue with balance and allows mercy, they will come to see it.

And so, that is what Ahmed's outlook, CDR it was looking forward as follows. This was part of the spiritual foundations, that we should recognize that Allah azza wa jal has given us an abundance, he has blessed us with our co author, he has given us this opportunity in this world. And so we should never forget this bounty that has come to us. And with that darkness can become light. With that the time we are spending locked down, unable to do many of the actions that we used to do, it's only for a period of time. Because Allah subhanaw taala is the one who controls all things.

And so with this, I want to open up the floor.

If there are any questions that anybody has any comments or questions, you can write it down

about this lesson. These are the practical guides. This is the spiritual foundations. I've seen the Amazon hook, the floor is open for any questions if anybody has anything to mention,

floor is up.

For those of you who are actually in the actual classroom, if you just want to go ahead and type in your questions in the q&a section on don't use the chat with me later Allah we're only going to enter classes from the actual classroom.

Now we want to remind you again that you need to share whenever you come on share this and your Facebook and your Instagram and subscribe to the to the YouTube channel. of it, it's important to keep that connection and and to share whatever benefits that we get in this life. floor is open any questions anybody has given you.

So what you can do is during the week, if something comes to your mind, write it down. And inshallah as we go to the next part, this will be the final part of this section that we'll be going to next weekend Sharla. And we want to conclude the points of CD Amazon book with these foundations out again to give some practical guides for our younger generation and for Muslims who are suffering. And these very difficult times I know it's not easy February is not an easy

and I only pray that Allah azza wa jal would bless you and your families and your children and would lift this pandemic off the world. For me, I love to take the souls of those Muslims who have died on these times and give them Jonathan fair dose. You don't belong to me. I leave you with these thoughts and I asked a lot to have mercy on me and you are Hakata Dhawan and Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salam wa Alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh