New Muslim Corner – Realizing Ihsaan – A Practical Guide P2

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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Salle overly you will have heard in Vietnam Mohammedan Allah Allah He was happy with adequate salah. All praise are due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and peace and blessings be constantly showered upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad to master the first and the last, and his family as companions and all those who call to his way, and establish his sunnah to the Day of Judgment, as to what follows a Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah, this is another opportunity for us to come together in the new Muslim corner to share information about the foundations of Islam. And this is critical for new

Muslims today. And for those who are reviving their faith, because to a great extent, people who are practicing Islam tend to base their practice on their culture.

So whatever their culture is, what they learned from their family, or in their village, or in their part of the world, this shapes their understanding of Islam.

And for the most part, with Muslim cultures, it's usually 75%, or more correct. But there is that 25% There is that other impact that former religions and their ethnicity, their environment has to do with the practice of Islam.

So some people might come into Islam and find that, you know, people dress all in black, all the women dress all in black,

you might come in another part of the world, and you find that women are not dressing all in black. So both sides of saying this is Islamic practice, this is the best that they know. And, you know, it really requires a balanced understanding, to go back to the sources to understand, you know, what actually is Islam because the essence of covering your private parts is not based on the color of the material, unless the material is too bright.

So if your clothing is too bright, or if it is see through, or if it is, especially with in many case gold, and things like this too extravagant, then this would be against the way of Islam. But that's what culture now comes in

with many different aspects. So what we're saying is there's a difference between your culture

and your dean. And when we say Dean, we talk about Islamic way of life. So this is something this is the foundation of how we

interact with the Creator, how we interact with each other.

How we live in society, even to the point of politics, although many people try to separate

their religion from their politics, but in the original Islam, that we understood from the Prophet peace be upon him. There was no separation

between politics, social life, economic life, it's it's based upon the revelation. It's based upon the practices we learn, you know, from the last messenger peace and blessings be upon him. And so, for the new Muslim, it is important to understand the deen

and it's natural to ask questions, you come into Islam. And people try to be as sincere as possible. And they tell you, you need to dress a certain way, you don't need to do this, you don't need to do that. And sometimes it gets confusing. And so what we are looking for is a balanced understanding from the scholars to give us a good foundation. And from that foundation, then we can

begin to understand subtleties within Islam. And so, we're looking at the concept of a deen and that is meaning our way of life. And we learned through the teachings of one of the great balance scholars, Celia Hamid Zodac, who lived in FeS, and this would be a good 800 years ago or so. But his teachings are really

enlightening in the sense that he's given you like a middle road. And that's important for know Muslims and those who are reviving their faith. To have that wasa to we call it wasa Tia. It's like the middle road type of approach. So you're not one extreme or another extreme.

And that's closer to the Sunnah.

So

CDF Med, brought one of the foundational Hadith in Islamic thought. And that is where the prophet peace be upon him said a dino Naziha. He said the essence of this way of life is sincerity. And then they asked him, Who is it for?

Like, we want to be sincere. So you accept Islam

and you want to be as sincere as possible, who use and co2 and he said lillahi wali Rasul, Li, will leaky Tabby, he will the amateur Muslim in our Casa team. So the Prophet said you should be sincere to Allah, His Messenger, his book, The Koran,

and to the general body of the Muslims, and the leaders.

Okay, so how can we be sincere to these different groups, this is a general tradition that comes now the scholar is the one who's able to break it down and put meat onto the bones, flesh to help us understand what that actually means based upon his understanding and what he got from, you know, the quote and, and the way of the Prophet.

And so, we are looking at the different aspects of this famous Hadith. And by looking at it, it helps us to get a worldview. It helps us to have a foundation that we can work from. And we learned last week that to be sincere to Allah subhanaw taala that we need to follow His commands, we need to aid his religion, and we need to accept or submit to the will of Allah.

Okay, so we have these three things, as we looked at in detail last week.

And we didn't go into the complete pot, submitting to the will of Allah.

So there's that part of the will of Allah, which is out of our control,

birth, death, earthquakes,

calamities and society.

And there's so many things today, which we feel is sort of like out of our control, because we're living in strange times when there are major things that are happening and sometimes you can't control it, and you have to sort of flow with it.

Okay. The second part is to

submit

to those to the will of Allah. There are some things that we do have some control of

in our own life.

If the actions that we're doing, how do we relate to the situation we're in?

Like, if you're in a good situation, how do you relate to it? You should be grateful for this. Show shocker. If you're in a difficult situation or calamity, you should have some patience.

If Allah has blessed you, to be

following Him and His blessing and see the Ahmed who has a an amazing mind. You know, he said that

you should thank Allah you should realize that if you are obeying Allah, if you are in a state of Islam, you should be grateful for this. Because very possible 90% of the cases that look at humanity then not

so that alone, you need to recognize the blessings. But the other part is, if you are in Masia if you're in sin,

if you're doing wrong,

okay, what do you do? What's your sincerity? It's Toba.

And that is repentance. You have to repent. Get yourself together. And inshallah we'll be looking at that in more details. Hopefully, maybe in the month of Ramadan, Inshallah, and whatever, because it's very important area. How do you get yourself together?

I call it self analysis, and reconstruction.

That's what Tobor is self analysis, to know yourself, and you reconstruct yourself. So you realize what you did is wrong, you accept that it's wrong. You ask a lot of forgive you, you make an intention not to return to it.

You compensate people who you've harmed. Right, and then you analyze yourself, all the aspects of yourself in order to make a complete repentance.

The second major area, remember sincerity to Allah,

and sincerity to His messenger.

Now, for those of you who may be a little more advanced that I mentioned this in the last class, the hadith is saying a dino Naseeha aleykum. So that the essence of Islam is sincerity, I have translated us, but there are some Arabic words that we use in everyday language. Like many people, if you you know, instead of saying thank you, they say Shukran.

So we're using a lot of Arabic words. So people have been using the word NASA to mean advice. So they would say give me, NASA, that's generally how it's used. But NASA is actually deeper than that.

Because it means that when you purify gold with fire, the verb applies to that.

Or you can hide,

right? You're purifying it. So when you purify something that's nnessee, how to.

And so how it's translated, then what it means is sincerity

and support. So these are the other to

understand. And that makes sense because the hadith is saying, you should be sincere to Allah. Can you give Allah advice?

No. So let's see how would not apply to that. Can you give Prophet Muhammad SAW some advice? No.

Can you give the Quran advice? No. Can you give the Muslims advice? Yes. Can you give leaders advice? Yes. Okay, so the general overarching meaning that we've translated in in in our texts, I've translated this into English and I have copies available for people

that

it is sincerity, that that's the overall arching me. So the second point is, how can you be sincere to Prophet Muhammad peace be upon how can you be sincere?

And the three areas that CDM had brought is that you should follow his sunnah. It ba so naughty, right? And a chef, a chef, aka Allah Almighty, you should have compassion for his ummah or his nation, the Muslims and you should have a crumb the karate, you should show honor to his family. Okay, if you want to be sincere.

Okay, and, and that's a question that we want to know. How can I be sincere? And the desert zeal that no Muslims have

And it's coming back again. Now, back in the 60s and 70s. There was a zeal that people had now because of this apocalyptic era, there's many people embracing Islam now.

And when they come in, they have zeal. So they want to know what to do.

And sometimes people will you turn around and that person accepted Islam and suddenly they're dressed in, you know, all Islamic clothing or whatever. And, you know, they maybe they don't even know how to pray. Maybe they don't even know who the Prophet actually is. But they want to be sincere. So here he is saying to be sincere, follow his his way. You follow his methodology? That means you have to learn what the Sunnah is.

And there's some things that he did

as an Arab living in Arabia, there's certain things that he did, he didn't tell us you have to do that.

Although some people think that that's closest to the Sunnah, you know, if you wear you know, long, you know, light clothing and whatnot. But that's insanity and this weather, right?

Okay, people in colder weather will wear like more woolen clothing,

you know, things to protect you. So the real sadhana is not to wear the exact clothes of Arabs

at that time.

Okay, but it is to cover yourself properly and not being showing off and learn what he did in his life. That's the Sunnah. There's very few people who actually dress exact like the Prophet and as follows. Although they'll tell you with the national dress, I'm dressing Sundar.

That's how everybody comes. And I never forget. I was in Medina. And this brother is a new brother who came amongst the students. He was from Atlanta, Georgia.

He was an Afro American, like really high spirited, Afro American.

And he came in and we were sitting there and he said, I'm in the Sunna brothers.

And we looked at him and he had on, you know, the Indian gender coach. It's a black coat and cap. That is what an Indian Hindus were to sometimes.

Right because the people who had embraced Islam with dressed like that, he thought that was the Sunnah.

And we looked at him and calmed him down and explained to him that's not the Sunnah, right? That's more our culture in Indo Pakistani subcontinent.

Okay, the real sunnah of the Prophet peace be upon him, you know, his, his top was like, you know, a whole piece of cloth, holding the neck and then drapes down. And it's sort of open on the side.

You know, people in West Africa, Mauritanians, and other ones, they have their clothing and sort of like that. Now, they still keep this as the address. And then he wore on the bottom, a piece of cloth they call laundry and in Hindi or is footer in Arabic. It's a piece of cloth there, and maybe a shirt like thing under it, or sometimes not.

Right, and then, you know, a cap with a turban that came around here, sometime like that.

That would be the closest to the Sunnah, if you actually want to wear the clothes like they did in Arabia at that time.

Okay, you don't have to do that.

Okay, it's the looseness. And it's the modesty and covering your private parts.

The second part is to have compassion on the OMA.

And that's a tall order today for us. Very tough because Muslims have the huge amount of Muslims in the world. And unfortunately, because of the geopolitical situation in the world, our countries are falling on strategic areas, that the colonial powers of the world need to feed their economies. So they need our minerals. They need our strategic waterways. They need to put their pipelines through our countries. So therefore, the Muslim countries become like theatres of war,

and all types of political trickery.

That goes on. So there's a lot of suffering that's going on.

And it's important for us to have compassion for other Muslims.

There's a tendency amongst people, and I don't blame people.

But there's a tendency to have more compassion on your own family or tribe.

And I remember and you still might

I'd see it today. Well, we used to have this mosque is sort of a Jamia. Now it's becoming many different nationalities. But when there's a disaster

in Bangladesh, for instance, and we would we would do a fundraising dinner.

Half the people there or more would be Bengalis.

If there was a crisis in Somalia,

and we did a fundraiser, two thirds of the peace will be Somalis.

Each nation, you know, the cause they have more compassion, but the real Islam would mean that even if it's Bosnia, for instance, and they're like European Muslims,

okay, that when they suffered, we should be feeling compassion for them.

Even though we're not from Europe.

Right? So this is what it is. That to be sincere to the Prophet, you have to have compassion for the whole of the Muslim world, because he had compassion on us.

All of us.

Okay, so this is a way to show us sincerity. And another is to honor his family.

And

that is something that sometimes is difficult to do, because many people use the name, they say they're in his family and not necessarily, but you know, if you do meet somebody who is within the family of the Prophet peace be upon him. And you know, they are practicing Islam. It is, it is good. It is part of sincerity to honor, you know, his family, because by doing that, you're also honoring him.

Show respect, you know, to them, but that does not mean that you follow them when they're doing wrong.

Okay, just because they claim they're a Sharif. Or say it, it doesn't make them right.

Okay, so this is

some of the, these are three columns insincerity to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon, quite open up the floor, if there's any questions that anybody has about anything about being sincere.

About what?

being judgmental, of course, we're not supposed to be judged. Instead, you're criticizing people and, you know, always trying to judge people like that, you know, that the Islamic way is humility,

that we try not to be judgmental on other people, because you don't know the circumstances, what's happening with that person.

Unless you're a judge,

or unless you're put in a position where you have to make a judgment.

Now, maybe there's a parent who has to make a judgment because they're children.

Or maybe it's a leader in a community who has to make a judgment. Or maybe it's an actual judge in a court. So they're paid to be judgmental.

But otherwise, we're not supposed to do that. And this is a problem because again, this zeal, what has happened to us there are some movements in Islam, where the people, especially the youth, they find the Sunnah, and they realize and they get so much into it, they get very judgmental.

So they start judging other people. So the Prophet SAW Salem in his dress, he used to wear his clothing

above his ankle.

That's where his clothing would stop. He would wear his clothes above his ankle.

And you know, there are some young people got a lot of zeal. And so they come into the mosque, and they're looking at everybody's pants to see if anything's below their ankle, or anything like that. And if they see somebody, they've got a brother. That's not Sunda, you've got to put but you know that there's a hadith. This shows you how deep this is Abu Bakr Siddiq, who was a great companion of the Prophet.

So one time he had a cloak.

Right, and it was a little bit long, a little below his ankle. It's a cloak, though, right that you hold and whatever.

And so, you know, somebody said,

you know, in the company of the Prophet, you know, what about Abu Bakr? You know, he's, I see his cloak is long. And he said, Abu Bakr is not of the arrogant people.

He's not an arrogant person.

Okay, so in other words, this is not 100% there may be a reason why your clothes happened to be a little bit longer.

Right, but basically, for the males and our men I'm talking about especially if you cut your pants and you think you should do it above

The ankle, because that is our style.

Now, for some people above the ankle and high that might be in fashion, right.

But two years from now, it may be down below your ankle, it may be dragging on the ground, because the styles will go up and down. So they can continue to sell you pants.

Right? Right. Otherwise, if it was one that you'd wear your jeans for, like five years, right? But suddenly, if your jeans are out of fashion, because they're too wide, then you got to get the tight ones. Right. So, you know, sometimes it's in fashion to be above your angle. Sometimes it's not.

Okay, judgmentalism is not a good thing. No question. Okay, great.

Your opinion on being judgmental change for all Muslims.

You know, really, actually, the same thing with non muscles, we're supposed to be humble with everybody.

And we're not supposed to be judges over people. We're really the Quran says that we are witnesses on the people.

We witness it, but we're not the judges on top of the people. So that is a mistake. Also, in a sense, now, we can call to the good you can call someone to the good. But we're not necessarily judges over their lives.

Because you just you being judgmental can sometimes leads to conceit, you get conceded. And you think that you're right. And everybody else is wrong. Question. So

feeling the same sort of pain regardless of where the struggle is like which which region or which country

are also suffering from depression?

Yes, I mean, we are supposed to the Prophet, peace be upon him was described as a mercy to all humanity.

So so we are actually supposed to, you know, be a mercy to everybody, and feel that you know, the pain of everybody. But there is a specific duty that we have to Muslims. And especially if you want to be sincere to the Prophet, that's what this is saying though. Okay, you know, we have a specific duty for the for Muslims, but in general, all of humanity,

that that really is the way of Islam. It's not supposed to be, you know, a restricted thing, which is only us and nobody else know

that that's not what it is.

Okay.

So, this is the first or the second area or the major areas.

The second area, or the third area is being sincere to the book of Allah. And that means the Quran, which is the final revelation. And

this is an important question, especially in the month of Ramadan.

Because you will see that people tend to in the month of Ramadan, it is the month of the Quran itself. That's how it's described, that's when it was revealed. And, you know, the scholars have always dropped everything focused on the Quranic side. But But the issue is, you know, as a new Muslim, how can you be sincere to the book? So somebody gives you a Koran. And you see everybody reading it, right. But how can you be sincere? Because it's a book, right? So there's three things. One is tasin. Tila witty, and that is to perfect the recitation of the Quran. So everybody needs to try to learn at different paces, how to read the Quran in Arabic.

That's Tajweed. And you can do that, even though you're not an Arab. Because surprisingly enough, the majority of people who have memorized the whole Quran, from one end to another in the world are not Arabs.

But that's the miracle of the book. And we all should, you should try. You don't have to do it right away. But you should try to get in to learn that because when you're reading it in Arabic, it's actually the revelation, you're reading Revelation. That's what's unique about this. It's revelation that came from the angel directly to the Prophet, you're reading the same thing.

See, so, you know, there's a there's a science called Tajweed. You know, which is the science of recitation. So you should try to read it. And you know, the prophet Psalm is so merciful and Islam is so kind that it said that, you know, if you

are sincere and you try to read the Quran in Arabic,

and you are not an Arab and you make a mistake,

you get double the plus

sick,

sick as some people say, I'm not going to read it because I'm embarrassed or I don't want to because you know, but if you make a mistake doing it, you're going to get more blessings. So don't be shy to try to learn because the more you struggle to learn is, the easier it will be. And the question comes up sometimes, especially when we're first accepting Islam, about the opening chapter, Al Fatiha.

Now, when you first accept Islam, you can you don't have to read it all everything in Arabic, is even said that you could say Allahu Akbar. And you know, Subhan Allah like basic statements, but as soon as possible, we need to learn the Fatiha the opening chapter in Arabic,

to be able to read that in Arabic. And to know that me now the second part of sincerity,

it's not just reading the Quran nicely.

And that's a mistake that some Muslims make.

reading the Quran in beautiful tones.

And no doubt,

the recitation of the Quran when it's read, you know, in a beautiful way of person has a beautiful voice, they understand what their meaning it can really touch your heart. Sometimes even you're not even an Arab or Arabic speaking. And you can feel it, because of the power of it. Okay, so, but that's not enough.

And the mistake is that many people had, they thought, that's enough. So you just play the Quran, and you listen to it, or you just read it. And that's enough. Now,

the second part of the sincerity is contemplate its verses.

So in other words, you're reading it,

and you need to try to understand it. So a good project to do and we'll talk about this when we get into more into Ramadan good project to do is to try to read the Quran. Start from the beginning, even like English translation.

Okay, and make a project out of it. I want to read a certain amount. Right? So if you read it in English, even get a good translation.

And then, you know, try to go through the whole book, if you can.

And that's what many of the masjids do we do it here? It's been read right from the front to the back. But that's not necessary. Okay, understand this, and I'll be going over it more. Some people think that it's necessary to read the whole book. It's not necessary. And the time of the process of they did not

read, you know, like, it wasn't said that you have to do this.

Okay, but it is a good practice. But sometimes people miss the second point.

And they just want to get it done.

So they start reading really fast. And and as a new Muslim, you might go to some Masjid. here and they're reading so fast. You don't even you can hardly hear what they're saying. I remember there was one masjid and they said, Okay, if you go upstairs,

it's regular recitation. That slow right. And we have another one downstairs that's Express.

So you know, you got collectors and you can express lane right to so if you want to get the Express Koran, you go downstairs, right. And this Cody is going here with this $100 mineral battery radicals,

literally,

and they will finish the whole cord and then the month is only 1/3 over

because that's expressed, right?

They miss the meaning of it. You know how the Quran was read in the time of the Prophet SAW Salem, they would read a verse and pause

and then read another one.

Because every time they're reading it, they're thinking about it.

You see,

totally different than what we are, you know our reading because we're looking at quantity and not quality.

So the contemplation part is very important.

And again, if you get a good translation, there's also

what is called tafsir. And that is explanations of the Quran. The Tafseer of Ibn Cassia who is a great scholar is an English

you can get a whole set and you can actually go through different sections and you get to gives you explanations about when this first came and what is it about and you know what not to depth the tech can enrich your your hands.

standing right in Ramadan is a good time to spend some extra time

on the Quran itself going to it less time on tick tock

right now Ramadan is coming, and we're fast and two so you don't have to worry about eating lunch.

Food is not an odd thoughts.

Okay, so we have an opportunity in this month, but the third part

of sincerity, see the completion. It's not enough just to think about it, you have to follow it.

So those who are reading it and they understood it and they don't follow it.

They're hypocrites they're not sincere. So the Completion is

the three ways you see how the mind of the scholar is, is giving you a completion and this is very practical. So this is SN. Remember Islam Eman, Sn. Sn, perfecting our religion. Righteousness. Spirituality. This is SN.

It's practical SM. Okay.

That's the third part. I'm open the floor for any questions that anybody may have concerning this. Yeah. What are the rules around how to care for like the front, like the book itself? Like how do you store it? Or you elaborate when you're reading it? Right. Yeah, so So basically, you know, we recognize the fact that the Quran originally was not a book in a paper. It's still our it's a recitation. Okay. And that's important for us to realize, because when the Quran bernas, the devils will come along like this last one in Sweden, when they burn the Koran, everybody gets really upset.

And some people like fighting each other and burning themselves and fighting other Muslims and going crazy, but you have to realize he can burn the paper that he wants, that's not the Quran.

That's the paper. However, we are supposed to show respect to the book. And that means that if you have a quart n, it is good to if you give a bigger one, you wrap it and it is good in your shelf of books, put it on the highest shelf.

Okay, show respect to it. You can travel with it Alhamdulillah. Today with so much technology, we have corones with a zipper and approach.

Now you can have it on your cell phone too, right? So you don't have to worry about so on your cell phone. So you can travel with it. And you know, but try to show respect to it. Some people go overboard with that.

And some people don't respect it enough. They just throw it around anywhere. No.

Because the more we're showing respect,

you know, it helps us when our reverence, but some people go too far. I remember being in the Jami mosque, and they used to have radiators in the back of the mosque. And atop the radiator was a board. And so the currents were put there, the shelves for the currents. So people were coming in in the masjid, with their shoes and they walk across and they put it down low and they walk across so I'm saying that brother like what are you doing that? He said no, he believes he can't have his shoes higher than the Quran?

Because the Quran is that level. So he cannot have his shoe each so we gotta go like this. That's too far.

That's gone too far. Right? So generally, you know, try to cover it, put it in a special place. Get all your neurons together. It's better you know if you throw them away it's better to burn it actually.

You know that possibly the you know for the paper show, but show as much respect as you possibly can for the follow up Does that count for like the translate English translated? No, the part that's the crucial part is the Arabic

Yeah, so the English translation, just like we were saying, even if you have jewelry and you're wearing it not because you think it has superpower but because it's a piece of jewelry

and it has the name of Allah on this jewelry. Okay, you gotta ring or something. You're not supposed to take this in the toilet.

You have to take it off.

Okay, because you know that this this is generally you know what the scholars have said you got to respect you have to have some respect for this.

But it's English is not the same

thing, this would not be the same.

So kind of going back to the Quran, you need to dispose of it. For some reason. My family like we've always been afraid to throw away papers, that Quranic like texts on it.

Like you're not supposed to throw it away. So are we supposed to also burden

Yeah, you know, I don't know. I mean, you can't go overboard with this.

But it is recommended. If you have the Quran, you know, to really burn it. No, don't just throw it in the trash garbage, you know, like that it is recommended. But that can go too far because, you know, this even newspapers in Arabic to have some verse in a sub, you can't go too far with this right?

It's really the most half itself when it's in the book form itself.

We

and again, you know, we don't

you know, we, for someone who's burning the Koran, you know, you can tell them, you know, you're not hurting us. Because the Quran in our mind, right, you're actually doing what we normally do when we dispose of it.

does not encourage them to do it, because he's trying to he's trying to insult us, right. But technically speaking, you can tell him you know, you're not hurting us.

Floors open any other general questions.

So the next area so we can finish this tonight

is sincerity to the general body of Muslims.

Okay, how can we be sincere to the general body of the Muslims?

And see the Muhammad Rahim Allah said that you need to defend their honor.

defend the honor of other Muslims. And that's something that's really important. Okay. And we tend to,

you know, judge people, sometimes out of fear or whatever, but if you hear something about another Muslim,

that person is innocent until proven guilty.

So yeah, you have to defend their honor.

You know, until it's proven, right. So there's a tendency with fake news and canceled culture and whatnot.

You heard something about the scholar I was telling you about the scholar. You know who they saw him going in this nightclub discotheque and didn't know why. And they start scandalized.

You have to defend the honor of Muslims. And this is something which is really important. That that we have to, you know, respect. And that's why if somebody dies, we, you know, try to show the most honor and respect for that person, even if they're not enough family. So defend honor. You know, and this is a deep topic, taxi goes into a lot of different areas.

But it's very important. Okay, the next one is to establish their rights. So establish, there's, you know, the things that the Muslims need.

And one of the ways to establish the rights of the Muslims, you know, is to have an area

which is a Darul Islam, it is a home of Islam. So within that area, Muslims have rights. Now, we don't have Islamic States. But what some Muslims do in the area that they live in,

they establish

a type of justice, they patrol the area.

So it is the right of Muslims, you know, to not be attacked at night, and to not have drug dealers and whatnot. And so, and that's difficult sometimes in societies like, you know, like Canada, or America or UK, whatever, because there's police forces and whatever. But I remember in in South Africa, and I lived there after the transition from the apartheid government. So it was sort of like, open

and the communities work with the police. But the community is sort of on its own. And our community where I moved in Syria state,

and Cape Town, it was 90% Muslims. This is unique. Nine out of 10 people in our area was Muslims.

And Koran, schools, children running around, just like Muslim or than outside. You know, halal, you think you're in a Muslim state, but it's only one section of Cape Town. Right. And right near us was Massenburg, which is one of the most dangerous areas on earth at the time. It was it was it was claimed they claimed it was the second most dangerous area in the world is around 2002.

Outside of war zones, it was only Bogota, Colombia. That was more dangerous than than Mettenberger. The amount of people killed by the gangsters right in our area. The Imam, they established the rights of the Muslims.

Okay, this is something unique, but to show you, you know, we want to be sincere to other Muslims. Then

You know, you have to establish the right so what we did was we paid as a cat, you know to people who were ex military people, ex police, Muslims, we pay them they had an office and everything and anytime there was any problem in the community you call their number. And within five minutes, they're at your doorstep armed to the teeth.

Okay Vanderburgh is next door to us. One night I was coming back from Maga. You know, and I heard this noise. You know, the firecrackers at the end of the fireworks. When they go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, they the last part of the fireworks, they usually put them all together. It was that sound?

It was like a war.

I said, Is this they said no, this is men and Burke. The gangsters were shooting it out. This is literally two blocks from us.

But we never had a problem. Because no gangster would enter Surya state. None of them. Anybody enter that area, then somebody is gonna say who are you? What do you want here?

Right so we

you know, establish the rights

even if you're in a particular area, and with as Muslims and you establish a place to pray, pray, and somebody gets up in the morning and he makes the Athan. You know, you're establishing the rights of the Muslims. So whatever you can do to facilitate Muslims, this is sincerity to Muslims, right? It's not just a slogan, brother. Certainly Come sister. It's more than that. Right? It's more than that. And the third part here means come to their assistance. So if you see a brother and a sister, and they're really down and out,

and you see them in the mosque, right, and you give them salaams we're supposed to actually check on that person.

And say, like, are you okay?

You know, what's happening with you? We're supposed to do that. And the masjids are supposed to use the Zakat. You're the money people give, you know, out of their poor do to have a fund established to help people who are in need.

If you're on the you're on the TTC

and the TZ TTC is getting wild now. Right? I just heard on the news. Now. They're saying like, you know, music is playing on the TTC, right? Loud.

All types of things are happening on the TTC. It's getting dangerous, right? Has get dangerous, maybe sister or brother.

So if you're in a TTC and you see there and you know, there's a sister that is there, wearing hijab, whatever, you know that that's a Muslim.

And you see some,

somebody's bothering that person, and you have the ability to do it.

You need to come to their assistance, even though you don't know who she is. This is a deeper level now, right? You really want to be sincere to another Muslim, this is what you got to do,

to go to a higher level need to come to the assistance of the other people.

And that's what Sidi Ahmed is saying.

And in the case where Muslims are under attack in different parts of the world. That's why we need to come to the assistance of people in Philistine right now Palestine, you know, other places. However you can, even if it means, you know, you say something, you go to a demonstration you write in, you pressurize the politicians, whatever it is. Come to the resistance. That is sincerity to the Muslims. It's not enough to just say or to feel bad. That's the lowest form of faith.

Okay, so this is the next point. Sincerity to the Muslims floor is open for any questions or anybody may have concerning that.

Do we have any questions online?

Okay, floor is open for anybody. Yeah.

When, when you're talking about coming to assistance, and you mentioned like examples being like actions. What is like there's certain people who believe that the only thing that you can do for people is pray for them. You can't do anything else any action is irrelevant, because

you all you all you should be doing is praying. Right? So so they have a narrow depression is they're up there are people whoever they feel that the only thing you can do for people is to pray for them. If something's happening,

that's a narrow understanding of Islam. Because the Prophet said peace be upon him. He said, Whoever sees evil men, Rahman common Koran, for you, there will be any whoever sees evil, change it with his hands.

His hands right. You're on the TTC. This person is bothering the other one.

You stop him. Now, I'm not saying that you have to do this right? I don't want to get you beat up.

But if you can, sometimes you just say some a,

like you might say something, or stand up and stand next to him.

That's what the hadith is saying. Then the Prophet said, If you can't do that, then change it with your tongue. Say something. You see. He said, If you can't do that, then feel it in your heart. But that's the lowest form of faith. So what they're talking about, is the lowest form of faith. It's faith. I'm not downing anybody who's prays.

But in this case, it's the weakest form of faith.

It's the weakest form. When evil is hitting other people

have to do more than that. And I'm not putting down that dua was a prayer. It is very important.

But if you want to follow the Sunnah, if you really want to be sincere to people who are in trouble,

right, you got to go to a higher level.

Because Islam is an activist religion.

That's what it's supposed to be. We're activists. Taqwa means you fear Allah or you hope and Allah when you fear something, you jump back you're in motion. If you hope in something you go toward it. Like Taqwa is your consciousness supposed to like give you action. It does is not putting you to sleep like opium.

Okay, question.

Floors open sincerity to the Muslims.

established rights in the city in South Africa. Yeah.

Dearborn, right.

Yes, so So Dearborn because, and even in South Africa, now our group, the people in our office, the Imam, and then the people in our office, they were in touch with the police. So they, it wasn't vigilantes. They were in touch with the police. So the police knew who they were. Okay, and in Dearborn, and another thing is go HAM track is another part in Michigan there where the mayor is a Muslim.

I think it's Hampshire. It's not Dearborn. The whole city is like a majority Muslim, the mayor's actually but Dearborn also is,

you know, a place where the Muslims have authority there.

But still, it's America. It is still Detroit.

Right. So the Detroit Police are the ones that are there.

But there's more authority that the Muslims have the South Africa is a special case in the Western countries, I say Western because of you know, how they consider South Africa because it was in transition from apartheid, which is like a fascist state. Now open. So so people had more, you know, abilities to do things on their own.

Right, which is good. And it can be done in certain parts of America. It is done Imam Suraj well Hodge, you may have heard of him. He's a famous imam from Brooklyn, New York.

And in his area, in Brooklyn.

The Masjid was Masha Taqwa. It was considered to be in one of the most dangerous areas in New York City.

And so people would come to the masjid in broad daylight.

Drug addicts with basically the abandoned houses across the street down. The drug addicts would come and assist if somebody's waiting at the bus stop. And they they would attack you like they steal your pocketbook, because they're drug addicts. So it was considered to be a dangerous place. So the Imam got together with other imams in the city. And they formed a special defense force.

Okay to establish the rights of the Muslims. And they went to the abandoned houses with a drug dealers used to fix their drugs. And they went in there and they took it over

to the drug dealers are out selling drugs. So the drug dealers came back

and they saw the Muslims.

You know, they've put their hands you know, they have Uzis, right? They had this. They do, but Muslims were lined up, you know, ready. When the drug dealers saw the Muslims, they said these people want to die.

We don't want to die. We want to spend our money, right.

Let them go. So they left their place. And then his corner became one of the safest places in New York City.

And the mayor of New York, called him in and gave him an award in front of the city

for cleaning up

An area of New York

and then they asked him in the press conference, like what motivates you, how do you do this? And the Imam said only one sentence and they said what is it? And he said La ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasul Allah that was Dawa, right? The whole city heard right. But the point is, he was sincerity to the Muslims.

Okay. Now the last point I want to go on to it. So we will conclude

and that is sincerity to the leadership.

And see the AVID zaru broke the leadership down into three parts. He said in the leadership, it is the Amara, and it is the dilemma and the full Quran

Okay, so the Amara is a plural for Amir's. So in other words, you have political leaders, they have the gun, they have the political authority. So you have Amir's and then you have Allama these are your scholars. Right? So they have authority over you.

Because they are the ones who know the book. And then you have the phone call. Which means the spiritual people just remember the SN right? So these are the people who are claimed to have the spirituality.

Some people call them the Sufi leaders to solve, but others say it's those who are involved in tests yet enough's. Whichever definition you want. He called him for Cora for Cora means poor people, right? Because generally, they live the life of a poor life, they gave up the world.

But CDI met his job was to correct all of these people.

He was not on one side or another.

And that's good for us because he gives us a balanced look at this. Because we need to have a balanced look at this as well. Because you're going to hear a lot of confusing statements about how you deal with your lead us.

Okay, um, as

you hear people say, obey the leaders, whatever they do.

And they can bring some proof because generally, we don't believe in coup d'etat cuz, you know, the coup is you have a leader and somebody takes over and jail is the leader and suddenly said, Now, it's a new government.

We don't kill the, you know, the royal family. We don't do that because a counter coup comes.

It doesn't it usually causes so we don't necessarily believe in a coup.

Okay.

But also, we don't believe in just accepting anything the leader is going to do. And this I don't want to burden people, new Muslims with this, but this is a raging argument and higher circles within Islam. CDI mid is a genius. He hit it on the head. And he said you obey the Amir's as long as they obey Allah.

If the Emir does not obey Allah, that you don't follow the

simple answer. But this is a political statement in the Arab world. Now. You say this in the member you go into jail, right? Some countries,

if they don't obey Allah, not obedience.

And there is a Hadith, saying of the Prophet where he said law toil mclubbe For Marcia to holla you do not obey the creation of Allah when the creation disobey Allah.

You don't you don't obey that.

Question, disobedience,

actions you might have in their own life for disobedience in terms of rules that they put upon the people. Well, this is the Emir now, right? So this is your political leader. So it's saying you don't obey them. Now how your disobedience comes, might be different. It doesn't mean we all marched downtown with guns.

Right? But there's different ways of resisting right? civil resistance. There's all kinds of resistance, but you do not. You know, follow them and obey them. No.

There's a civil way of showing your disagreement and disobedience. But we're not just going to follow them just because they lead us. No. You mean though, if the leader is yeah, he meant like if the leader is being disobedient in their personal life versus their ruling,

existing in their own life, but their rulings are in agreeance, with Allah's orders.

Yeah, I mean, if they're, if their rulings are, you know, in obedience to Allah, then that's what counts relative to us. But their personal life would be exposed to be wrong.

Somebody would go to them and say, correct yourself.

That's what the scholars would suppose

to do, they're supposed to go to the leader and say correct yourself. We wouldn't want to scandalize

the Islamic way was when someone's doing something wrong in their own life is to take them to the site.

So somebody who has authority, even a member of his own family, if it's a royal family, or whatever, take that person aside and say, you know, fear Allah.

Because if you're a leader, people are watching you.

They're watching you.

But, you know, we don't expose all the different

things that people personally do. But he has to be corrected.

But the rulings would be okay. If they're ruling according according to the book of Allah, and then then you are you obey that, because we're not obeying Him, we're obeying Allah.

See the difference?

The next is the Alaba.

These are the scholars who, especially the ones who are dealing with Islam and Iman, who are dealing in this area. The scholars who say, a graduate of a university, he's making a religious judgment or whatever it is that your scholars write, CDR CDM had said, you acknowledge the scholars, as long as they have authentic proofs.

So when the scholar comes, that scholar is trained. To give you the proof, you can ask the scholar, what is your proof?

Now, you don't say that every time you hear anybody say anything.

But there's nothing wrong with going to a scholar and saying, you know, what is your proof for this? Especially if it seems in doubt, right.

And that person should be able to say, the Koran said this, the Hadith said this, the scholars said this, my judgment is based on that. They will give you their reasons for the fact that as a Mufti is the Mufti is trained to give you an actual fatwa. It's like a whole statement describing how they came to their judgment.

If they said, well, brother, I had a dream last night.

Okay, wait,

wait, because che time can come in your dream to write.

So I want more than this. And finally, he said, The Fukumura these are the people who claim spirituality.

Okay, and he said, You accept these people, as long as they stay within Sharia. So as long as they're within Islamic law and lifestyle, then you can accept these people, but they go outside of it. Don't accept straightforward answer.

This is what his ability was. Quality Control Manager, you know of leadership.

Okay, floor is open for any questions or anybody might have concerning sincerity to lead us.

Yeah.

Different types of sincerity. How do we

yeah, we purifying our intentions, of course, it the NEOs inside yourself.

So you know, it is, you know, you're trying to be as you know, sincere and close to Allah as possible, how to do it.

This is what we're studying. You need to study how to be sincere to Allah.

It's spelled out here. The first column was sincerity to Allah. And you can go through this and you will see, you know, how to be sincere to Allah, this is guidance and how to do that. Any other questions? Anybody has? floor is open?

Yeah.

There are people who will say, you know, that scholar studied at university

founded on this understanding of Islam,

or, you know, they may follow a particular sector or what have you.

Or they find the kind of a flaw in the foundations of the educational institution

as new Muslims, how do you discern between between something like that? Well, of course, I mean, you know, it's, we're just dealing with the basic foundations. The basic thing is, you know, I say, don't judge, we say, Don't judge a book by its cover.

Right? What is the person telling you? If that person is saying something from the book of Allah from the Sunnah, then there's nothing wrong with that ruling. Because you know, what I found out to be honest with you, after traveling to countries and going amongst the scholars and, you know, you know, learning the cultures of people, many times they differ with another group. It's tribalistic.

Its power.

It's not actually the rulings right. They don't like these people, right.

And when you

Oh, when you find out, Oh, you don't like them. It's not what the person saying is because you don't like them.

Right? That's what you'll see when you go deep. The bottom line is as the Quran says how to vote on a common quantum side, you can bring your proof.

If they bring their proof,

you have to submit to it.

So we don't judge a book by its cover I am talking about and I'm going to be straightforward. The Atlas sunnah, the people of the Sunnah, right? There are some schismatic groups, these ideas or whatever nation of Islam. There's some groups that are outside of Islam, I'm not talking about them.

I'm talking about the groups within, you know, the Sunnah, where you have varying methodologies,

nothing wrong, as long as they can bring their proof. That's where CDI mids words a clear, bring the proof.

If you have an authentic proof, acknowledge them.

Nothing wrong.

acknowledged the person. If they don't, you don't have to follow it.

Any other general questions or anybody has concerning sincerity to the leadership.

So in sha Allah, next week, we will be

going on to have two sessions. I think we have two weeks left before Ramadan. Two more sessions on Ramadan itself. So we'll start next week dealing with what is Ramadan where it came from, the concept surrounding it. And then questions a daily what you do every day.

Like spell out your whole day from the beginning all the way.

Right so you so you can see in a practical way how to practice Ramadan and stay away from the extremes that that's in that that you might see practice. Okay, so that that'll be next week. And I think there may be floors open for any other general general questions that anybody may have floors open.

Again, for those who are interested in the book, to be able to follow it up, instead of going online. You know, I have some copies of this book. If anybody's interested, you can get it. It's an excellent work that you'll be going back over and over again. As time goes by, is that amazing work that a scholar has done. Okay.

Any other general questions? Anybody has floor is open.

Okay, so inshallah we're going to close the class now and we'll be preparing ourselves for the next prayers and have a safe journey home in sha Allah. We'll see you next week, where we begin about the month of Ramadan, aka dot one Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salam Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh