Abdullah Hakim Quick – The Basis of Faith
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Islam is discussed, including its use in personal and cultural experiences and the use of the "hasith" filter. The speakers also touch on the history of slavery and its impact on modern day culture, including the use of slavery as a means of wealth and transportation. The importance of understanding the first stage of Islam, including praying, giving, fasting, and performing, and the importance of fasting during busy holidays is emphasized. The speakers also mention a possible victim of slavery and encourage listeners to ask questions online.
AI: Summary ©
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Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu lillahi rabbil aalameen was sallahu wa salam ala Sara Lee will occur in the Vienna Mohammedan. Allah Allah He was sacked.
To the day of judgment as to what follows Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
This is the continuation of our new Muslim corner.
And
the intention is to have a place where we can ask questions, and we can feel comfortable, those who have newly embraced Islam, and also those who are reviving their Islam.
And the audience here is live. But it's also online, because we are in this new age of the online. And sometimes usually we have more online than we have live. So the first part of the class will include the people online and then around eight o'clock or so we will stop the online and then have some open questions and some socialization here.
So we are looking at the basic issues in Islam as a way of life. Because one of the great issues facing those who are entering into Islam is to separate
Islamic practice, from the people's culture.
Because many times the people's culture is not the same as Islam. The people's culture is influenced to a great extent, you know, by the area that they live in the climate, the language, the type of people, this will influence a person's culture, if you live in a desert, then you have a desert mentality. If you live in a mountain, there's like a mountain type of, you know, mentality. And
if you live by the ocean,
it's okay brothers, you can just just come straight and
you can just put some chairs for yourself, put some chairs, if you live by the ocean,
then the sea governs a lot of your existence, and it will have an impact on
if you live in a tropical area where the temperature is around 30 degrees, most of the year, like for instance, Malaysia,
the temperature is you know very, you know, moderate, temperate, you know most of the times of the year, then the person tends to be relaxed. If you are living in a high mountainous area where it gets very cold, or in a desert, where it gets very hot, then the person has to be a tough individual in order to survive,
then that makes up your own individual culture. Everybody has one like that,
of course today with the urban settings, with the cities and with this new technological life, people from all the different parts of the world are getting into a type of urban culture 21st century urban culture,
which is to a great extent different than in other parts of the world.
But your Islam is the basis of your life that is not based upon people or place or language, it is based on Revelation. So it is based upon the direct revelation from Allah subhanaw taala to the angel Jibreel
peace be upon him to the Prophet Muhammad, sal Salam, and to humanity. Okay, so the Quran itself is the basis and then the way of the Prophet in interpreting the Quran that gives us what we call the Sunnah. So that's the methodology. And these two aspects are really the foundations. And Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was reported to have said, there are two things I'm leaving you with. If you follow them, you will never go astray. And that is the book of Allah and my sunnah or the methodology, my way.
And
that is the basis of how we think.
It's sort of like if you have liquids, you have a filter, and you have a cup, and you put the filter on top of the cup and you pour in milk or you pour in
juice, whatever it is, the filter just takes out the bad pot, it takes out whatever is impure. But on the bottom, it's still juice, or it's still milk, but it's filtered.
So Islam is the filter.
So the fact that you became a Muslim doesn't change your nationality. It doesn't change your family doesn't change your roots. But what it changes is your way of relating to the Creator, and relating to other people.
That's Islam.
And that's the submission. And so in order to understand this, now, we've been moving through the bases. And we found out that a great scholar, CD of German and after he, he said that those who are entering us in Islam, it is required first to correct and authenticate your faith. That's the first thing you need to do.
And again, as I mentioned before, this presupposes that you have a faith and we do, but we need to correct it and authenticate it. And so, to move to the next stage of our discussion, there is a very famous hadith of Gibreel. So this hadith the word Hadith, means a saying, it could be a direct saying of the Prophet, or it could be what somebody said,
around his life and then he tucked inside of it, or he gave some information inside of that saying, and this hadith is what is called Hadith and Jamia, you know, it is one of those foundational sayings from this hadith, much of our Islamic way of life cups.
It although it's a short little story, but from this is an ocean of knowledge. And it is something that you will be going back to, to try to understand more and more as you grow, as in Islam. You'll find this hadith tutorial. And the Hadith basically goes on, it's on the authority of Omar, Al Khattab radiola one. And Omar was one of the great companions of the Prophet peace be upon him. Very intelligent, very strong man.
That my, this screen interpreted. We have the Arabic and interprets it as a question mark.
But it's actually means Radi Allahu Anhu which means may Allah be pleased with him. So Omar now is describing a situation
and that is in the mosque. The Masjid of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him in Medina. So if you can visualize this, his Masjid was not a very fabulous place with a dome and a minaret, they did not have a dome.
They did not have minarets. So people tend to think that the dominant minaret that equals a mosque. But that's something that came along later, when the Muslims went north, especially in Anatolia, Constantinople, and they found the beautiful dome of the of the ayah, Sophia, and then the minarets. So they incorporated the architecture of the Romans, and the Persians, and the Ethiopians and many people who they encountered. So this building was a simple structure.
It did not have beautiful rugs on the ground is sort of like detached, you know, type of covering on the ground, some of the ground was just bare, sand. And the ceiling again, was a type of attached type of ceiling. Very simple building. And the call to prayer was somebody who would just climb up, you know, on a ladder on the side of the building and just call the people to pray.
Okay, but within this structure, although it is simple, there was some very important
discussions and revelation came about inside of this structure.
And so, Omar is describing. And he said one day, while we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, there appeared before us, a man whose clothes were exceedingly white. And who's here was exceedingly black. No signs of journeying were to be seen on him. And none of us knew him.
Okay, so this is how the story begins. So they're sitting more than likely in a in a circle type of thing. The Prophet peace be upon him is at the head of the circle. And so it
This man comes to the door
and he enters.
Now, this statement might not sound strange to us exceedingly white close or seemingly dark here. But in the desert region, if you travel from your house to the masjid, if you go 10 feet, there's going to be dust on you.
Okay, so participant's clothes was as though he washed his clothes outside the masjid, and then stepped in. So that was strange.
His hair was exceedingly black.
That's not necessarily strange. But that just was sort of made a more of a contrast,
you know, as to the appearance of this individual.
So,
and again, Homer said, there was no signs of traveling on this man.
And nobody knew him. So this is strange, right. And the Sahaba had a type of security. Today we have for the presidents and prime ministers, we have like they say Secret Service, or they say bodyguards. So people who are trained, now, they had a type of security, it was more, it was an informal security. They didn't have people standing there with spears and whatnot. But there were certain people like Omar, who was, you know, a very military type person. And he's aware of everything.
So they have a protocol.
And the protocol is when somebody comes in,
they have to they introduce themselves.
People will look at the profit relative to that person. But in this case, what is strange about this hadith, Omar continues.
So the man walks in, and it says, He walked up and sat down by the prophet, resting his knees, against
his, his knees against the knees of the Prophet, and he put his palms of his hands on the Prophet's ties. Now think about this. He broke all security. If that was secret service, they would have slammed him on the ground.
You know, taking the President out. He could be an assassin.
Okay, but somehow the Prophet SAW Selim, who was in control of the security, he allowed this man to do this.
So the man came right up to the Prophet peace be upon him, put his knees against his knees as his hands, you know, on his thighs. And he said, Yeah, Mohammed, Akbar, Jana and an Islam. Muhammad, tell us about Islam.
Okay, you asked the question.
The Messenger of Allah said, Islam is to testify that there is no God, but Allah. And Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, to perform prayers, to pay the cat, meaning the charity of the poor do to fast and Ramadan, and to make the pilgrimage to the house, if you are able to do so.
And then the man said, Sadoc, which means you have spoken rightly.
Now, look at this situation, the man who nobody knows, comes in, is looking the Prophet in his I asked him the question, the prophet answers the question, and then the man said, You're right.
What does that sound like to you?
If the man is saying, you're right to him, What does that sound like?
Think of the scenario. It's like the man is the teacher. Right?
And the prophets, the student, because he said, You're right. So of course, Omar said, We were amazed at him, asking and saying that he spoke rightly. So now they're all saying like, what is going on here?
How is this possible?
The man then said, Tell me about Eman. So Iman is our faith. Right? Our beliefs, okay. And the Prophet peace be upon him said it is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the last day and to believe in divine destiny, both the good and evil thereof.
The man then said, Okay, this is a mistake in the writing. The man said, You have spoken rightly.
Then the man said to the Prophet peace be upon him. Then tell me about SN.
Tell me about SN. So you see what he asked. He asked about Islam.
He asked about E man. And he has asked about SN
N Sn is from Hassan, which means good. And Sn is like to do good righteousness, the doing of righteousness. And
the Prophet peace be upon him
then said, it is to worship Allah, as though you are seeing him.
And while you see him, not, yet he truly sees you. In other words, you worship Allah, like you can see him.
And if you can't visualize that is like you worship him as though he's watching you.
And obviously, if you're doing something, if somebody's watching you, you know you're sitting there and you can feel somebody's eyes on you. Some people did, because we have a lot of abilities like telepathy, and we have a lot of magnetic abilities that we don't use. But but it's happened to me before it might have happened to you that I'm sitting there and I feel something and I look over and somebody's looking right at me.
It's almost like they beamed something at me. And my antenna caught it. Right? And then I looked. So if you are doing something, and people are watching you,
you're not going to do it in the same way like you're by yourself.
So that is said.
And we're going to go into these areas a little bit more deeper. This is a basis of a lot of discussion. Okay. Then,
the person said,
Tell me about the hour.
This is a serious question. Tell me about the Day of Judgment. What is the hour of the day of Judge meaning when they say a PSA? That means the Day of Judgment tells me about it. Okay, then the Prophet said, The one question about it
knows better.
The one question about it knows no better than the question.
In other words, you know better than me.
So this is really strange now for the Sahaba This is really strange. But then the Prophet answered, and he said,
that the slave girl will give birth to her mistress, and that you will see the barefooted, naked, destitute, herdsmen are Bedouins competing in constructing lofty buildings. Like what are the these are signs of the Day of Judgment? He's telling them signs of Judgment Day.
Right? We have to interpret this now that the slave girl will give birth to her master.
This is not clear language right? But as what he said, and you'll see
barefoot naked destitute, Bedouins, herdsmen, competing and constructing lofty buildings.
Does that sound familiar to you? That one with Bedouins barefoot naked, Bedouins. Do, you know competing with each other building lofty buildings.
Today Saudia Arabia, right? If you went 100 years ago, even 60 years ago, to these countries, you will literally see that they were barefoot.
And they live, they were Bedouins, today was a sleepy port. And they made their money by diving for pearls.
So you die for pearls and people would come and they sell the pearls. That's all but it was just a sleepy, quiet place. Saudi Arabia was very simple place. Even when I went to Saudi Arabia, in the 70s, there was a place to be at the top miseria.
This was a building in, in Arabia, Saudi Arabia, and it was controlled by the Egyptians.
Because the Egyptians had the Nile River, Egypt was wealthy. He was the center of Islam for centuries. But the Arabs in the desert, they were really poor. They had a drought and famine. So the Egyptians used to send
care packages.
And the Saudis would line up with cups and whatnot. In this place, despierta they will line up like a bread line, United Nations bread line.
Okay. And then it switched, the oil was discovered. Saudis became fabulously rich. At that time somebody told me if you wanted to do to be the Saudi said, we're going to form a country who would like to have Saudi citizenship.
They asked Egyptians they asked India
Pakistan, they asked Turkey, Ethiopia, everybody said, no way.
We don't want to become a Saudi.
Right? Because that means you got to in those days you have to give up your own citizenship. So nobody said it. They said no, nobody wants to be Saudi.
Now that people are fighting to be Saudis,
because the wealth right? But look at this. This is 1400 years ago, he said the time will come when you see these Bedouins competing against each other building lofty buildings,
building these huge structures.
Okay, now they're building what is the largest tallest building on earth? You see, what is the tallest one now? Probably the Burj Khalifa, this is in Dubai. The Saudis are now trying to construct one bigger than that.
So they are competing with each other. The ones who used to be naked, and barefoot.
So this is a deep side here. That's one that you can actually see how these come to pass. Okay, back to the Hadith.
Then he took himself off. So the man now he asked these questions, and then he got up. And Omar said that he took himself off and I stayed for a time. Then he said Omar seekers promises Salam looked at Omar because he knows Omar is the security man.
It's the top of the Secret Service. So then he said to him, Omar, do you know who the question was?
And his answer was, Allah and His Messenger know best. And he said, he was the Gibreel he was the angel Jibreel.
Who came to teach you your religion? This was an angel.
Okay? And we know the angels are made from light.
But angels can take the form of people.
So it will appear to be a person in front of you.
Okay, so when Omar when they heard that now, things started to make sense. Okay, how would he be he have no sign of dust on him? At at at the door? Okay, how is he allowed to go straight through the security and write to the Prophet Look him in his eyes and ask him questions. And say yes, you know, you're correct, as though he's the teacher, you see. So, that made sense. And you know, he basically said commodity.
Welcome.
So basically within this, saying,
are in this scenario,
the man came into the mosque, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him was sitting there.
And the man's clothes was exceedingly white, his hair was exceedingly black. And he went right up to the Prophet and asked him What is Islam?
And the Prophet answered. And then he said, What is Eman?
What is faith? And the Prophet answer, gave him the articles of faith, what we call the articles of faith. Then he said, What is SN? What is it to be a righteous person, and the Prophet peace be upon him said it is to be righteous is to worship Allah as though you can see him.
And if you can't reach that level, you worship him as though like he's seeing you. So you feel presence. Okay, that's it send that that's righteousness. And then the man, you know, asked him about the Day of Judgment. Tell me about the day of judgment. And the Prophet answered him in these vague terms in those days. And he answered him and he said, you will see the slave girl give birth to her mistress.
Okay, or master.
And you will see barefoot naked, destitute, herdsmen competing with each other in building lofty buildings, you're going to see that taker
Okay, so he gave him that side.
And then afterwards, the man left.
And as we found out in the Hadith, the prophet revealed that that man was the angel, Gabriel, that was Gibreel
and he came to teach you your religion.
So this is the famous saying,
this is Hadith Jibreel very famous tradition.
very important one. And in it, there is a long discussion, which will take us maybe three or four months maybe, to go through this era classes. Slowly we're going to go through this, you know, for you to be able to begin to see
you may have some direct questions about this hadith.
The one point that's vague in this
and that is it assigns a day of judgment. Okay, you will see the slave girl give birth to her master, Mistress or master. What does that mean?
Now scholars have tried to the second one is clear
about the Bedouins competing, you know, Saudis and Emiratis. And whatever, you see it in front of you. But what's the other one?
Okay, one interpreted as, because slavery was a worldwide institution,
the word slave
because people tend to think that slavery is, is pushed like Arab slavery or, you know, you know, European slavery, slavery was worldwide institution.
Okay, the word slave comes from slough, you know, Yugoslavia, Slavic people, right?
The Romans were capturing them, and making them their slaves.
So that's where the word slave comes from. It's not necessarily a person of African descent. Slavery was in China, slavery was in all over the world. Even amongst the native indigenous people here, there was forms of slavery. And it usually took the form of prisoners of war.
That when a war went on an ancient times, and people were captured, they would integrate them into their societies. Okay, and the person would basically accept their fate. There was slavery in Europe too, in a sense, because slavery is not just ball and chain, somebody being whipped.
Some slaves are what they called in Europe, serfdom, the serf, you had a Lord who had a castle, and around it, you had poor peasants, that was the serfs and they were bound to the land.
They could not move. And all their wealth went to the Lord first, he distributed. So that is a form of wage chattels is a form of slavery.
Because slavery takes different forms, there was another form of slavery, where people were enslaved, they might have been bought in a slave market. But they were
trained as warriors. So they were like mercenaries.
And they, and they had, they were not slaves in a field, digging ditches. They were warriors. And in many parts of the ancient world, you had peep, the Romans had many of the Roman soldiers, were actually slaves who were integrated into their armies. Okay, similarly,
after the time of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him in the first generation. In his time, it was basically outlawed. They didn't capture slaves, they didn't trade slaves, they freed based with freeing slaves, but the institution of slavery prisoners of war, that remained, because that was something all over the world. And that could not be phased out immediately. So the prisoners of war, you know, was there.
But after his time, when Islam spread to different parts of the world, and Muslim rulers started to mimic, to be like other rulers,
they started reading for slaves.
And in one case, they needed soldiers to fight in the wars. And so they recruited soldiers, especially from Central Asia.
And that is the Turkish people.
The people that the steps, that is what you now know as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Central Asian high regions because they were warriors.
So they, some of them were captured and they brought to a market and they purchased them. And they brought them basically giving them you know, their freedom. They train them, they they accepted Islam. They gave them they got wealthy, something, had families own property. Right, but they were underneath the leader.
Okay, so they were like mercenaries in that sense. And there was a group in Egypt called mom, Look, Mom looks very famous if you study history.
and they were from Central Asia.
And they were brought to Egypt, you know, as slave soldiers. And the Egyptian the leaders at the time were very weak and corrupted. And so eventually the mom, Luke's who were once slaves
took over the government.
And the first and one of them looks the first one to take over sheduled at the door was a woman from the Mamluks. So literally, the slaves
that the masters who were controlling the mom, Luke's, they gave birth to them, right? They in their families, you know, they had children and these children children are the slaves became the best.
That's one possible explanation. Okay, other than that, I don't know exactly what this one is. What it means Allah knows best, but this is how some people explain it. Okay, any questions anybody has so far on this? Yeah, question.
General sleep. Good question. Yeah.
No, I've been listening to this dynamic motivational speakers
to us as slaves, right. And sometimes I use that word might be a bit derogatory. So I was wondering, like, why do they? Why do we why do we call ourselves right? So the word in Arabic is hubbed. Abd means a slave. And a slave is somebody who's in total submission to the master.
Okay.
And it is derogatory, in the sense, you're controlled by somebody else. But if you say, you are Abdullah, the slave of Allah.
In other words, you're in total submission to the creator, you have surrendered yourself. You see, that's different than being a slave for a human being right? Or Emmet, Allah, Emma would be the female version of apt. Okay, so, of course, we hear because, you know, slavery has been such a negative thing in the past few 100 years.
It's not a good you know, term to you know, do people don't like the term, but it means submission, it also means it also means a servant, or it could mean a worship.
Because Ibadah is worship.
So there's a lot of things involved. But basically when you say that you're Muslim, a Muslim means you have submitted
to the do the will of Allah, you have the word Islam is another word called is this lamp, it comes out of the root of Islam is Islam means I surrender.
You know, the guns there is I surrender as Tesla.
So, when you say that you're Muslim, you have surrendered to Allah.
Okay, so this is what the meaning to it has nothing to do with slavery on Earth, right?
Okay. No. So there's sort of a
true essence. When you translate English.
Slavery
Yes, in Arabic, it means slave in Arabic, I speak Arabic. And so if you say up, that means the slave. So if they, if they use that in terms of people, it would be somebody who's in total submission, under the control of that person. That that's a slave.
Of course, against slavery, there's so many forms of it today. You even have human trafficking. You have like prostitution, you know, into Europe and things like that. And other places. You have wage slaves that come and work in factories, and, you know, they're controlled by the owner of the factory. So there's a lot of forms that slavery can take. Okay, but it means it literally means that in Arabic, which is straightforward now, because when you say, you know, Abdullah, you know, I am the slave that that the Prophet said, there's two named the best names you can have. One is Abdullah and one is Abdul Rahman. These are the best two names and beloved by Allah.
Is Abdullah and Abdurrahman, the slave of the Most Gracious meeting Allah.
Okay.
Any other questions?
So now what this hadith gives us
is three levels.
It is remember what the angel asked. He asked about Islam.
Amen.
He said,
and you will see as you grow as a Muslim, you will see
that these are sort of like your stages that you go through.
Okay. And your Islam, if I can use a mundane, your regular type of example from today, you know, when you people fighting in martial arts, they join the karate club. So they give you a white belt. Everybody knows this when you're fighting karate, right? Everybody gets a white belt, that's the basic one, and a yellow belt. And these are some basic things that you get in karate. Right? So that's sort of like your Islam, right.
But now, when you start to go higher now
into what some say purple or brown belt, that is email.
So now you're at a higher level. And then when you become really proficient in the arts, you get a black belt.
That's SN.
So these are stages, right? These are literally stages of growth. And it is from these stages, that you will find that you grow in Islam, there are Islamic movements, you'll study Islamic history, personalities, you know, much of it comes out of these three stages. And these stages are not
like one alone by itself. No, they can be integrated. You can find somebody who's on the first stage who just entered into Islam, and they have a high level of Sn.
In other words, righteousness, they really feel the presence of God,
even though they've just come into Islam.
Okay, so you can get some of the SN. But the truth said
it's a it's a science, you need to study it and understand what it actually is. Okay, so the first stage is the stage of Islam.
And that is the basis of the faith. And the Prophet peace be upon him when the angel asked him, tell me about Islam. He said on Tasha, he said at the shahada, that you will be a witness that for the Oneness of Allah, there's no God but Allah, and that Muhammad is his messenger.
That's the Shahada. That's we that's the testimony of faith. Okay, that's the foundation.
And we have been studying for the last few periods we have been going into, you know, our monotheism what Tawheed actually means. This is a very serious pillar here, that we have to go back to over and over and over again. And that is to understand what is the Oneness of Allah?
How do we really worship Allah? And how do we stay away from the antithesis, which is shirk. And that is polytheism.
associating partners with Allah.
And that's your Shahada. And then your relationship with Rasulullah sallallahu, with the messenger, your relationship with him, how you implement his life into your life, right, those things coming out of the Sunnah. That's your first face.
The second pillar, and these are also called outer candle, Islam. And the reckon, is sort of like a pillar, holding up a building, if you have corners or building pillars holding up a structure. So these five pillars hold up the building of Islam.
And these five pillars, this is what you will have in common with Muslims all over the world.
You will have this in common.
Even though people you will find later that some people emphasize certain aspects of Islam, more than others, really Scotto higher levels of Islam. But the basis are these pillars.
And this is what this is where we are the same. So the second part was that the promises seldom said he said that you should establish press A comma Salaat. So the second foundation in Islam, once you understand the Oneness of Allah, that's the beginning you got to understand that you got to, you know, understand prophethood and get into it. It is the performance and establishment of praise in your life. This is critical.
And it will come gradually and you build into it. But the more you get into the rhythm of the salaat that will make your Islam grounded
because it's it's reminding you of Allah
and also in the prayers as you know, there is whoo that is purification.
So you are purifying
yourself.
You are pure
On with the words that you say in the prayer, you're purifying your soul. So you're literally purifying yourself five times in a day.
Okay, and if you think about this,
and when they asked about the Prophet peace be upon him about,
you know, the the salad. What is the salad? What's the purity, you know, in the sea said, you know, if if a person went to a stream five times a day and washed, there have been washed out you wouldn't wouldn't they be clean?
Of course.
See, so this is critical for our personality. And in a Muslim country. It's, you know, it's easier to get into this. Because the Athan will be you hear it outside.
In some Muslim countries, they even stop work.
They might stop there businesses, you know, it's a time when the society relaxes you and then you make your prayers. And then early in the morning is one of the one of the most beautiful things that you can hear in the Muslim country is the call to prayer at Fudger. At dawn, just before dawn, that is a beautiful thing. And you hear it in different Muslim countries, one of the most beautiful ones, of course, if you go to Mecca or Medina, but but one of the most beautiful places right now you can hear is Istanbul, Turkey.
If you go to Istanbul, the the Adan outside at Fudger is amazing.
It's amazing. And the Turks, they have developed a system of calling the other. So when they call the morning one,
they call it in a way that it eases you out of your sleep. So it's a relaxing call, and it eases you up. Right. So you could be laying in sleep. And then it's like, you know, a nice, you know, you have an alarm clock, that's a nice one.
I need a strong alarm clock, right or I'm not going to wake up. But you know, it's nice to have a it's an easy one, the one that the
the one at noon time when people are working and everything. That one is loud.
That one is strong, right? Because people are caught in the dunya in the life of this world. Right. So it's got to be a strong call. So the call at in the early afternoon.
That one is a strong one.
Okay, for the people who are caught in the businesses,
and then the call in the later afternoon.
Some people have taken a nap. You know, and that one is also easier to it's like easing you up. Right, that's the afternoon and then the one, you know, at the sunset, you know, and that's a beautiful flowery one, you know, the sun is setting now and it's a beautiful, you know, is it they really have perfected, you know, this call to prayers, and it becomes like a rhythm.
So if you go to the mosque, you go to the mosque, or you make it in your home, you make it at work, wherever you can possibly make it. Okay, and the more you get into it, the more you put into it is the more you get out of it. Literally.
When I embraced Islam, many years ago,
it was like two days before Ramadan when I when I became a Muslim here in Toronto.
And, but I was serious. I had a rough early life you know, and so I was looking you know, for something in Islam I was really serious. You know, so when I you know, I started trying to make the prayer right away as much as I could. The only problem I had was you know, in Ramadan, after Isha they have a long Tada, we press. They do 20 units sometimes. So I went to the mosque and they do all up and down everything and then I said to the brother, you know if this is Islam, I don't know if I can make this further. I don't know if I can do this because I used to play basketball on my knees right? You know, so I said this is really tough. He said no, no, no, this is relaxed. You don't have
to do all this 20 Right.
Like you do whatever you can because Tada we literally means in Arabic Raha it means rest. So this is a relaxing, resting prayer.
Okay.
The third pillar
that he spoke about is to pay zakat. The poor do that means that you have to learn to start giving. When you get wealth, think about giving some of that and at least once a year, two and a half percent of your wealth needs to go to the poor and the needy.
So the concept of giving of yourself, right, that's a foundation and that is a change.
to give to other people.
And you'll find in Muslim personalities, you know, if you go to the Muslim world, one of the good things if you go to Muslim families or Muslim world, you know, there's some things that's not written.
But it's actually part of the culture. And it's some beautiful things like when I became Muslim, they were these Egyptian brothers. And so they set the plate, a big plate, and people were eating together.
You know, and I noticed I'm sitting there, the new Muslim, and Egyptian he takes the nice piece of chicken. And he puts it on my side, in front of me, right.
And the other one had a nice piece, and he put it in front of me. And this was strange to me, because I come from I was born in America, right? It's today called Dog Eat Dog. Right? It's a dog eat dog society, right? So I'm looking for the best piece of chicken, right? Because I want that chicken.
But they were given it to me.
That really, that really touched me. Because I've never seen anything like this before. Right?
That's Zakah it's a mentality.
The fourth is fasting.
And the month of Ramadan, we fast we know from dawn to sunset. And fasting is a mentality. It's self control, you learn how to control yourself.
Very important, not only just your stomach, but your tongue and your eyes and your ears. Right. This is all in the fest. And the last pillar is to perform the pilgrimage to try to go to Mecca during the pilgrimage season once in a lifetime, if you are able to do
this is the foundation of our faith. And we will be going back to this
whenever we possibly can. Especially when Ramadan comes we'll go into that heavily. Any questions you have on any of these, we will be going into them. But in more details. We're going to go on to the next section in the next class, which is Amen.
Okay, but this one is constant. But before we close today, I want to open up the floor for any general questions that you have. floor is open for any questions. Okay.
Anything online? We have one question here.
What employee be considered a form of slavery? employee employer? Yes, some of these employers are slave masters, right? But technically speaking, it's not because if you want to quit the job, right? You can quit the job.
So that's not slavery. If the slave says to the master, okay, I'm tired now I quit. No, no, no, you don't quit.
I own you.
Right. So it's not
the word employers and although, you know, there are forms of wage slavery, where people are starving to death,
and they force but technically speaking, no. Question.
And every slot is a permissive it is permissible to do that. You know, and one of the great companions of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, I believe already Allah, Allah Billa was from Ethiopia. And
they, one time the property would have these dreams and visions. Can you know, when you're in your house, if you have a brother or a sister, or maybe your father, and when they're walking down the stairs, you know, it's them before they come?
Because your father's got big feet, right? So boom, boom, boom, that's him coming down the stairs. So the Prophet said, he had a vision of himself in paradise.
And below, I was very close to him, because he used to call the prayers, he was very close. And the Prophet said, I heard Belaz footsteps in paradise.
Right? Think about that. He heard his footsteps in Paradise, he knew Billa very well, but he heard his footsteps, you see. And
so
that is the closeness. You know, that a person you know, you know, can have? And they asked below, what do you do?
And he said, I pray like you I fast, he said, but what I tried to keep will do all the time.
So he's always in a state of ablution. All the time.
Not just as prayers even when he's in his normal day, he was constantly in a state of ablution. That was one of the descriptions of the law, so it is permissible to do it. However, if you have withyou and you didn't break your window, and as some rules you can read about how you would do breaks. If you didn't break the window, then
you can make your prayer again, without making a new ablution.
Question any other general questions here, floor is open. For those who are new, we have an online audience here. So we allow them to ask, you know, from the online as well. And once this is closed, then we will have a social period where you were going to relax and you can have something to you know, to eat. And then we can have some general questions, you know, here amongst ourselves question.
Is it permissible if somebody says the shahada, but not
when they say, like, maybe in their room or whatever, but they haven't said it in front of witnesses? Yes, I mean, technically speaking, the shahada is between that person and Allah.
Because when the person passes away, Allah is the one that's going to judge not the people, right? So so if that person, you know, had had said shahada to themselves, and they became Muslim, that Allah knows that the person has a Muslim, but we have a witness to it, to make sure that you're saying it properly. Because we would prefer for you to say it, you're supposed to say in the Arabic phrase, because when you're saying an Arabic that that's the power of, of the Quran, and the message, so the person who's given you the shahada is more like a witness. Right? And just to make sure that you say it properly. But it's really between that person and Allah.
And the other general questions, anybody has floor is open. We'll look online, because because we're going to have more time for questions here. Yeah.
Will you ever visit?
Oh, will I ever visit South Africa again? Inshallah Allah knows best. I lived in South Africa petunias in Cape Town, but inshallah you know, South Africa is a beautiful country and you know, Allah knows best.
Inshallah,
the question here, if a Muslim doesn't achieve this, is it possible to make an agenda?
Yes, it is. It is possible because because based on your intentions, if you're not a black belt, you know, even at the highest stage, you can still you know, enter into paradise. There. Yes. It's based on sincerity.
Another question here regarding integer Braille, did he only appear in human form that one time where can you still appear? Yes, so the angel would appear sometimes in human form. And there is one of the companions dear here I'll Kelby Rhodiola. One, Andrea was very handsome young man. And so the Prophet said that he let people know that Jabril sometimes came in his phone.
But if DVI was in the room, they would know whether it's Gibreel or whether it's him. He never told him that it was but later on, he told him that he would appear on the in the form of this person. So an angel can appear in the form of a human being
and yes, he did.
Okay, so, we will be closing down you know, the online you know, session because we have about a half an hour left, you know, before the other for the prayers go off. And, you know, next week inshallah we will continue on understanding Hadith Jibreel. And especially going into
the
Archon. Of Eman or the different aspects, you know, a fait that's the second stage, because we're all working on this first phase. But then we're going to start looking at the second stage, the highest stage as we develop it.
So have a safe journey home for everybody. I could have done one on hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen wa salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh