New Muslim Corner – What Is Ehsan
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The segment discusses the history and culture of Islam, including the use of culture as a base and difficulties of embracing Islam. They emphasize the importance of belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief, belief,AI Generated Transcript ©
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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa sallahu wa salam ala Sade. Oberlin, will Alcon in the Vienna Muhammadan. Allah Allah He was happy about Aquasana our prayers are due to Allah, Lord of the worlds and peace and blessings be constantly showered upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad, the master of the first and the last, and his family, his companions and all those who call to his way to the Day of Judgment, my beloved brothers and sisters to our friends, As Salam aleikum, wa Rahmatullah Alhamdulillah. We are beginning again in January of 2024. And this is a continuation of the new Muslim corner. And the idea of this space is to provide general information
in a fairly objective way, for those who are entering into Islam.
This was also increased by people who were born in Muslim families, but yet they are reviving their Islam. So the both are similar in the sense that the person is starting a new and with the intention of giving a balanced approach, a non complicated approach, we want to provide for the new Muslims, something of the freshwater
that the companions of the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him drank from Islam has been around for a long time. It's traveled around the world. There are so many different countries, tribes, individuals who have embraced Islam, and they have beautify it with the different cultural nuances that you find in different parts of the world. But also, what has happened is the practice of Islam has also gotten complicated, in the sense that when people change their lifestyle, into something which they have not been practicing before, there is a tendency to bring with them the residue of their previous lifestyle, and the intention of Islam. That is not really to change that person, in
terms of their lifestyle, because people who live in mountainous regions, or people who live in deserts, or in jungles, have a lifestyle that is based not just on their ideology, it's also based upon their environment.
The environment has an impact on how we live, how we structure ourselves, and even sometimes how we interact with people. And so
For that nuance is something that has beautified Islam, and made it more practical in the sense of being able to
practice be practiced in varying parts of the world. But at the same time, it is a challenge is a challenge for those who are embracing Islam, those who are trying to perfect their Islam to go back to the source. So we're dealing with the base source of Islam, and then versions of Islam that have developed over the years. So the intention of this corner, really is to try to as much as possible go back to the origin, and add to give the basic Islamic understanding, as it was in the first generations, and then to look at the history
and to try to deal with certain concepts and certain names, and maybe some issues that a new Muslim might face.
And the intention is to explain it, but not to try to win one side or another. And I try to be as personally, as neutral as I can be, I'm not part of any particular movement, in a sense to be labeled as a certain type of Muslim. But as somebody, you know, who wants to go back to the original sources, and to apply them in the world that we are living in today.
So in order to begin in 2024, we want to go back to the famous Hadith Jibreel. And this is the same prophet Muhammad so Salam, it is an incident that happened in his life. And through this incident,
the scholars have been able to set a foundation for the whole Islamic way of life. So this is one of the traditions, that is considered to be a foundational Hadith. There are a few like this, from which in a few words, you can literally build a structure of Islamic lifestyle itself. And so in this tradition, and it was reported on the authority of Omar Al Kitab, may Allah be pleased with him, who is the great Khalifa and very important Companion of the Prophet peace be upon him. And he describes a scenario 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 whose hair was exceedingly black.
No signs of journeying with to be seen on him, and none of us knew him.
Okay, so this is right away strange, because we're talking about the masjid of Prophet Muhammad, Salah Salem was not like the mosque that you see today, with beautiful minarets and Persian rugs and
chandeliers and whatnot, it was very simple building.
The ground was not even covered with rugs. There was some attached type of coverings and certain parts of it, some of it was the bare ground itself. And the ceiling was not very high. And it was basically that's very simple structure. There's no domes, no green dome.
And there was no minaret has, as we have come to identify with the houses of Allah today. And so within the lifestyle of how people were living in those days, it is a desert life. So if you walk from your home, down the street to another place, your clothes will probably be soiled.
Because there's dust everywhere, and those who have been in dusty climates know this, but in this case, the person's clothing was exceedingly white, as though he cleaned it right outside the door.
His hair was exceedingly black. So it didn't look like he was traveling at all. So that's strange. Right from the beginning,
when he walked up and sat down by the Prophet peace be upon him resting his knees against his and placing his palm of his hands on the prophets dice. So think about this situation. It's a circle type of thing. And people are there and this man walks into the mosque,
and he walks directly in Now there was a type of security
that the Prophet SAW Selim had around him. It's not a formal security like Secret Service. People with uniform
arms No, but there were certain companions, who are warriors, and they are ready for anything. And so there are some people who are thinking more spiritually, but there are others who are watching every movement around the Messenger of Allah.
And so he must have nodded
or given some
permission for this person to come right in. So the person came right in and sat down in front of put his is hands on the thighs of the process of look straight at him. So this is strange. This is something which you will not find, maybe in any tradition, something similar to this. And he said, Oh Muhammad, tell me about Islam.
hakobyan Islam, and the Messenger of Allah Azza wa sallam said, Islam is to testify that there is no God, but Allah. And Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, to perform the prayers, to pay the cat, to fast and Ramadan, to make pilgrimage to the house, if you are able to do so.
Okay, so he's answering this person. And the person then said, in Arabic product,
which means you have spoken the truth. Now,
this brings a reaction.
And the reaction from the Companions is we were amazed at him asking him and saying he has spoken correctly. Because in order for you to say that the person is correct, you have to be his teacher.
Like you have to have more knowledge, or something above that person. So you're sort of correcting the fact checking what that person has said. So that was strange, for the companions of the Prophet peace and blessings be upon it.
Then the man said, I could barely handle the man, tell me about a man.
Tell me about faith. What is faith supposed to be to you?
And the Prophet SAW salem said, 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 the evil thereof.
Okay, and then the man said, that's a little type of mistake there. The man said, You have spoken correctly.
So this is the second point he first asked him about, What is Islam?
And he gives them the answer. What is a man? And then he gives them the answer, and the man said, you are correct. And then the man said, Tell me about Sn
Sn, which is like righteousness.
And the Prophet said, it is to worship Allah as though you are seeing him.
And while you see him, not, or if you see him not, yet, he truly sees you.
So in other words, you got to worship Allah as though you're literally looking at him.
And that would obviously be you'd have to be serious in your prayer.
And if not, it is as though he's watching you.
Okay, so that's another level now. So it's sort of like stages. Okay, and the man and then said,
Tell me about, tell me about the hour. Tell me about the Day of Judgment.
Okay, when is the Day of Judgment going to come? And the prophets of salaam said the one questioned about it knows no better than the questioner.
In other words, you know, better than I do. I don't know better than you. So this is all really strange for the companions. And
after that, the man dead set then tell me about its science. If you can't tell me when the day of judgment is going to be? What are the signs of the Day of Judgment? And the Prophet said that the slave girl will give birth to her mistress, and you will see barefooted naked, destitute, herdsmen, competing, and constructing lofty buildings.
Okay, so these are just some designs.
After this, the man got up, he left.
And Omar said, I stayed for a time. And then the Prophet said, Omar, do you know who the question was? And I said Allah, His Messenger, you know best, and he said it was Gibreel it was the angel Gabriel. It was Gibreel
Peace be upon him who came to teach you your religion.
So the angel now appeared.
And through his questions, and the responses that Muslims then learn the religion. So this is a foundational Hadith, which is coming directly from an angel. So in terms of how you're different levels of who's set it to who, this is the angel, who is the direct intercessor, from Allah subhanaw taala.
So this is an extremely important Hadith. And it's found in Sahih Muslim, which is one of the most authenticated
books of Hadith after the Quran itself. So this is a solid foundation, that Muslims regardless of where they are, agree on this, there is some disagreement
in the signs of the last day, because some of these signs are very general. Things like when he said that the slave girl will give birth
to her mistress.
And
the Prophet SAW Salem. You know, slavery was a way of life amongst the Arabs, in Africa, in Europe, in China, in India, every part of the world had slavery. So let's not think that it was just Arabs and Africans, or Europeans and Africans know the word slave comes from SLAF.
What we say we call someone a slave. That's what the Romans called Slavic people,
like Yugoslavia ins, Czechoslovakia, Ins, they were capturing blond haired, blue eyed people, and making them slaves. And there were so many of them, they just called all the slaves sloughs.
And we're still using that word today. So slavery was something that was international, there was no employer employee, up until only about a few 100 years ago.
It was basically
those in control and those who were controlled.
So there are different forms of control.
So when that word slave is being used as different forms, okay, and some of the Islamic historians tried to understand what this could possibly be. And there's one incident where long after the after the death of the Prophet SAW Salem, a group of Central Asian people who were captured by the Mongols,
and they were sold into slavery. And the leader in Egypt,
they needed mercenaries, they needed people to train to be soldiers, and to be a high ranking people who would be under the control of the assault on the leader. Okay, so they wouldn't be of one tribe or another tribe or whatever, they will be under his control. And so they purchased these people and put them directly into a type of military school,
where they were trained in a military arts, they became Muslims. They learned Arabic, they became knowledgeable in Islam. And they actually reached the point where they were owning property, they got married, and what not, but they were under the control of the Sultan. So that's not a slave who's in a plantation, you beat him with a whip.
That's the person who's the most highly trained ha soldier who has a wife who has property and they will call mum Luke's
they will call the mum loose and the mum looked dynasty
was one of the most famous dynasties in Islamic history because eventually, when the Egyptians leaders became corrupted, the mum Luke's took them took over power. They came out of their so called slavery took power, and they became the leaders. And one of the first leaders that they had when they took over Shedra to door she was a female
mum look, and she became the master
of Egypt. Okay, so you can see it there, that the mom Luke's there who were once slaves became the masters.
This is one interpretation. How this possibly could be. Allah knows best. The next one, however, is pretty clear. Where the Prophet SAW salem said, you'll see barefoot naked destitute herdsmen mean Bedouins competing in building large buildings. Go
Go to Saudi Arabia to debate and you will see people who are once barefoot Bedouins now building the largest buildings on Earth. Okay, so we can testify to that. It actually happened before, but we can testify
more than anybody else. Okay. So what comes out of this, this had Hadith, you know is number one, Islam. So these are the foundations of the faith itself. This is the practical application, once we accept Islam, and the word Islam is the general terminology, and the practitioner of Islam is Muslim.
So from Islam comes Muslim.
Islam is submission to Allah and Muslim is one who submits to the will of Allah, no racism involved in it, no language, it means one who submits to the will of the Creator. Okay? And
these foundations is, of course, the shahada is the testimony of the Oneness of Allah, and the prophet hood. Okay, that's the foundation, and then performing your prayers.
Right paying your zakat, which is the money which is your poor do and amount taken out of your wealth every year,
and also to fast in the month of Ramadan
and to perform the pilgrimage. Okay, so these are the five main pillars of Islam. The whole house of Islam stands upon these pillars.
And the first one, of course is very deep. We have been going through that first one for a long time now to try to understand the Oneness of Allah and that is one that can never end, you know, understand, but for all intensive, this is the beginning. Okay, that's your foundation. The second level or dimension is E man.
And this is our candle, amen. To believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His Prophets the last day and the divine destiny. Okay, this is our candle, amen. So this is your beliefs.
The first is your practice. And the next is your belief. So the word Amen. And from that the practitioner of Eman A believer is men. Men. So same way you have Islam, Muslim.
Then you have Eman min. Okay, that's the practitioner of email.
The third one, and that's where we have reached we've studied the first two.
Okay, the third dimension is Sn.
Sn. And going back to the Hadith,
the Prophet did not give an actual word
for this. Okay? Because it said, it comes from Hassan, Hassan.
So Hassan is something good, right? Hassan
Hussein means a lot of good.
Right? Because that's, that's how you make something smaller, Hassan Hussein.
Okay, but Hassan is good. And Sn is to do good.
So it's somebody who does good. You see
this, how this how Arabic goes like you add a letter in the front. And it's not just good. It's doing good.
That is how the Arabic language goes. Okay, so, but he didn't say another word. He gave a living example of what it is. And he said is to worship Allah as though you are seeing him.
And while you see him not yet he truly sees you.
So this is something which is like a spiritual thing, right?
It's a spiritual thing. You're worshiping Allah as though you see him.
And if not,
it's like he sees you. You know, when you can feel somebody seeing you. You can feel somebody's looking at you from the back. I remember I was in Los Angeles. They're teaching I was with one of the Imams Sheikh Mohammed, may Allah protect him. Really good brother.
One of the top imams in Los Angeles from Ethiopia.
And
he we were driving on the Los Angeles freeways. Okay, it's maybe worse than Toronto for one right? And you know you go
From the smaller lane into the main lane, so we were just now going in. And then I noticed we hit the highway, Muhammad's back was stiff. And he was driving like really good.
Doing a symbol signs and looking out the mirror. And he's not like that he's a joking type of person. He's always moving around, but he was stiff. And I said to him, you know what's going on him? Um, and he said, la PD, Los Angeles Police Department.
In other words, he looked in his mirror and the police was in back of him, right. So you see how he changed.
Everything was according to the law.
Because LAPD and they're terrible police to it. They won't just stop you, they will hurt you.
Everything was according to the law.
You know, that feeling? So if if you could worship Allah, as though you had that feeling, you know how good our worship would be? And it's not just praying, worship can be everything that you do
you know, how good a person would be if they had this type of feeling, right. So that is a definition that the province of Salam gave for SN.
Okay. Route definition.
Now, we could say,
and I'm just with the scholars have imposed this on these three categories. Calling them you could say dimensions of Islamic faith of the deen. What are the dimensions of the deen?
Okay, you can say levels. But but somehow there's not just up and down. Because these interact with each other. They interact. Because if Sam for instance, part of Islam is to make your press, but if sand as the Hadith said it would be to pray as though you can see Allah or he sees you. You see. So your prayer now if you have your Islam your prayer, and your SN, then you have an excellent prayer
because you have a sad, right? You get it. So that's what Sn is supposed to mean. You know and so the practitioner of estan is Marcin ma Marcel.
Same way Islam Muslim Eman movement, sn Marcin, Marcin, is the plural you hear that in the Quran? Okay, so we could say that the first dimension, right is voluntary submission to Allah. And it's expressed in practice. It's a practical application.
Okay, that's your first Eman
is your belief. Now, that's something in your heart.
That's like your belief. Now it's your, your concepts. It's what you believe, and your SN. And this is one definition of it. attaining perfection or excellence in the deployment of righteousness on Earth would take some scholars take it a little further now.
So excellence in righteousness on Earth. This includes doing good things for the benefit of others, such as supporting the oppressed and the vulnerable.
So in other words, a more sin is somebody who is establishing righteousness,
establishing excellence. That is a morsel.
And that's the highest level now.
That's the highest level. And Allah tells us in Allah, how you humble mercy, Allah loves those who are excellence. So that excellence is what we strive for. He'll be excellence in our practice our Islam, excellence in our Eman? Right, that means all those pillars of Eman, all those areas that we learned about.
Okay, then it's the higher level.
Okay, so this is the root of what a Marcin was in the time of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.
Many of the groups that you have today, many of the names of different
ways of learning Islam came later on.
Because we have to remember that when the Prophet month when Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem passed away, Islam was basically in the Arabian Peninsula
and he said to his companions, take this message to those APSET he said this on the Arafat when he was on Mount Arafat on is fine
No pilgrimage. So it was the job of the companions to take Islam to the world. And the majority of the Sahaba, the companions of the Prophet have died outside of Arabia.
They died on the outside of will say, hey Jas, which means the Mecca, Medina area,
the majority died outside.
So they knew they had to travel with this, they had to go across both boundaries of language, boundaries of culture, and continue until the whole of humanity learned about Islam.
Now, the challenge in this is that the Arabs at the time, and those who were with them who had embraced Islam, they did not have weapons of mass destruction.
They did not have high technology.
There was some advantages they had. And Allah gave them, you could see why Allah would choose these people. One advantage is Arabic language.
Because when you speak Arabic, you are using all of the different parts of your mouth and your throat. Those who are studying Arabic, you learn this and Tajweed pronouncing the letters, you open up everything like English, we have very narrow way of pronouncing things. If you speak a for even French is more than English.
So we're very narrow when we speak English. That's why there's so many forms of English, right? patois is and dialects. Because the language itself is very stiff. Arabic is loose, it's your your mouth and your throat is wide open. So you can go to another country and learn that language fast.
Because if they use a part of their throat, that you don't use, you're already opened. Whereas an American like me, you have to open up you have to spend your time just making sounds in order to begin to pronounce it right at already open.
The other thing is the Arabs had, it was the Arabian steed. It was the Arabian horse. The horse. The Arabian horse is one of the most courageous
you know, Hardy horses on Earth.
Its ability to move fast, it has courage. So it can go into difficult circumstances. And it can maneuver. It's an amazing animal.
Okay, so therefore, you are coming into situations. You come on 1000 Arabian horses into a situation and people have other types of horses.
You know, it is like you're driving Lamborghinis. And they have Model T Fords.
You can go around them.
And you go long distances. The horse can live with little food and water. It's it's an amazing horse. Also the animals that Arabs had camels.
And the German also enabled them to go long distances. And their lifestyle was was a tough lifestyle. So they were prepared to go through hardships. So you can see Allah chose them.
The Quran comes in the language. Okay, so this is one of the most complicated but straightforward languages in the world. You can do all kinds of expressions in it. So you can see why they are chosen. And so because of this and Allah's Will, the Roman Empire was corrupted, Persian Empire was corrupted.
The world was waiting for something. That's how they described sixth century AD.
The major religions had fought had fallen, and the world was waiting for something. So when the Muslims were attacked, they responded. And the Empires fell. So they move straight forward. They didn't move to conquer land.
They were moving in order to spread the message, but also to do SN.
That you see the definition here. Right, you're doing it is cludes doing good things for the benefit of others, such as supporting the oppressed and the vulnerable.
So Muslims saw themselves liberating people from the yoke of tyrants around the world.
Moving through societies
So because of this, it spread rapidly.
they intermarried with people,
they picked up their languages. And so Islam began to spread really fast. Within 100 years, it had reached all the way into China.
And that's amazing, to go that far, and still be alive. And then teach people your religion.
It went way up north into what is now Pakistan and Chechnya, far in the north.
It went deep south on the Swahili coast of Africa.
He went across North Africa, all the way to the Atlantic, up into Spain, in 100 years, no other way of life has ever done this before. Okay, so that's a part of the miracle
of the spread of Islam.
But the challenge was, when people wanted to embrace Islam, and you're far off in India, or you're over in China, you're up in Dagestan.
Or you're far over in Morocco. And people want to embrace Islam. And there's only a few teachers around. You're not in the heartlands of Islam. So there's a few teachers, and you have to teach them. Rumba, Islam, amen. You got to teach these things. And then lifestyle. What is halal? What is haram? What is permissible lifestyle. So people tended to come into Islam.
It's natural, carrying the baggage of their former lifestyle.
Okay, if they had a form of religion, they were Buddhists, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, traditional religion, whatever it is, you're carrying that with you, and you become Muslim and Islam did not come to totally change people. You know, it's like a filter. And you put the filter on a cup, and you pour orange juice, that's some residue, you pour the orange juice, it's still orange juice, but it's pure orange juice.
You take milk with some residue, you pour it to the filter, it's still milk.
But it's been filtered. So Islam is the filter. Okay.
So
this was the challenge that people came with their different understandings and lifestyles. And they came into Islam, like this. So therefore,
Muslims had to develop
systems of learning Arabic language. It's called Navajo and sort of, it's a way of its grammar, right? You had to learn how to speak proper Arabic. In order to understand the Quran.
You had to also have a way to pray. Someone says I want to I want to pray, how do I pray? You can't just take a book with 1000 heartbeats. No, you got to say this is what you do. So they had to develop a system of making Salat.
Right, a system of paying zakat of Ramadan, all these things were developed into understanding of practice was a call filk.
That's how you understand Islam, Islamic jurisprudence starts to develop, okay.
And so all of these systems start to develop, and people identify with the area that they come from and the teachers that they had, this is why you'll hear names right. But if you go to the teachings of Islam at different parts of the world, you will see they did not come to be divided one against another.
They will just teach in the way they understood that it is.
Okay, now, I've given you this background, because the area of Sn is an area
which opens up a big discussion.
And for those who are embracing Islam, there are certain terminologies that you're going to hear and you have to know what it is I want to try to bring you a balanced understanding of
this terminology coming out of SN and that terminology
is tasawwuf. The word is called tasawwuf.
In English, they say Sufism
and so far so Wafaa it comes from Souf
Okay, and Souf
the most authentic day
addition of a person who practices to solve
and the people who practice to solve generally they say, We are practicing SN.
If you ask somebody who's doing to solve, they will say, We're practicing SN.
Okay. And
so the practitioner of the solo off is called Sufi.
So this is where you hear this term Sufi saying this to the new Muslims, because you're going to hear this term.
Right? And you need to understand, because there's dimensions in this right, this discussion can go on for months, right? But I try to break it down for you.
The most authentic definition of the word to solve is it comes from Souf, which means woolen wool.
Because the mystical people tended to wear woolen garments, something you could wear outside, especially if you're in a place where it gets cold.
So the suit of other people, aesthetics, monks, people who would wear wool is Sufi. Okay. Another definition
that comes some people believe it comes from the word sofar. And so far, is purity. So in other words, it's somebody who's trying to purify themself.
So remember the word morph sin, right? More sin is trying to perfect themselves perfect. So lot. So the day now purifying their themselves, their own spirit. It's like they say it's the spiritual part. Right.
Okay, and another word is test Kia. And Teskey is like self purification.
So how do you purify yourself? How do you clean your thoughts, clean your heart, clean your life.
And people believed that this is what to sell worthless.
Another definition of where they say the word Sophie or sort of comes from, is a group called Alice sofa.
And the Atlas sofa people in the must match to the premises on them. It was the masjid. And then there was a vicious house attached to the mosque.
And in back of the house, which eventually became his grave, because the Prophet Saddam was buried there. in back of it was an area where people who dedicated their life to serving Islam would live in the mosque precincts. So they would live there.
And they would take care of the Masjid. They would have study circles. If somebody came to accept Islam, they take care of them. They're called on the sofa.
The most famous one is Abu Huraira. Ready Allahu Abu Huraira, who was great compared he knew more Hadith than anybody else, right? He dedicated his whole life, he was part of the other sofa.
So some people say that the word had to solve comes from that as well.
But the most authentic definition probably comes from the word Sophie itself Souf. itself that means well, now, according to one great scholar of Islam, who CDR Monza rook, he said that in the beginning to soul, Wolf, was a reality, with no name.
It was a reality, with no name. In other words, they were people and the Prophet SAW Salem lived a simple life. And he's constantly purifying himself, constantly purifying himself.
When money comes in, when the wealth came in, he would give all the gold away, and then go to sleep.
He's constantly purifying himself. And you'll see the Companions try to live as simple as they possibly could. They're constantly doing the Corolla, remembrance of Allah trying to so it was a reality. In other words, you didn't have to say, I am a person purifying myself.
I want to join the group of people who are purifying themselves. No, that was the reality. That's what everybody was doing. You see?
And I'm at Zara rook who actually lived
in around the 14th century
in North Africa,
he said and he was considered one of the great scholars have to solve. He also knew fake as well. But he said originally, to solve was a reality with no name.
He said today, it's a name with no reality.
So what he was saying is this people call themselves Sufis, right. But they don't have the reality of what the original people had. Now, he was a critic, he was the critic of all of the scholars of the Sophie's of everybody.
Okay, now,
historically
to so with develops, especially, you have Sahaba, and you have the tabby in the next generation. So after the qualified Russia after the great caliphs of Islam,
in the beginning, and you can say, you know, after about 40 years, and a dynasty developed the Omega dynasty, and things started to get rigid. There was a bureaucracy
and things, it's organized government and things start to get rigid. Islam is spreading. And so some, some scholars say as a reaction to this, there were certain people who emphasized test kiya.
They said, Too much gold is coming into our cities. There's too much power that we have, so we have to purify yourself. And the greatest of these was Sheikh Al Hassan Al bacillary. Al Hassan Al bursary,
Rahim Allah was a great scholar in the third generation.
And he was known for his odd, Zoho, it means asceticism, that you give up the world, you live in the world, you're not a monk at a monastery, because the Prophet said no monk ism in Islam, so we don't have monks and monasteries. But you have people who are living a simple life, very simple life. This is Robert. So he emphasized this and emphasize this with the people around him. Okay, and so that started to develop.
And there were certain people who were known for that. And the scholars of Islam who saw the need for this,
this
juristic or this type of purity within the limits of Islam.
So, so the scholars said, we have to purify ourself, but we have to stay within the Quran and the Sunnah.
Okay, and that is what I would call
sober, Islam, sober Sufism, I'm using the word sober, right?
Meaning cautious.
Its cautious. So in other words, you're going into purification of the self, but you are cautious to stay within the limits of Islamic lifestyle. You don't go outside of Islamic lifestyle.
Now, when Islam spread rapidly,
for instance, they went into India.
And they found Hindus, they had a group called Maharashtra gurus, the gurus and gurus had reached a level where their bodies they were like,
disciplining their bodies to the level and they were doing spiritual exercises, where they could actually
seemingly take away even feeling and parts of their body, they would discipline themselves heavy. So Muslims came into this area, this was a form of spirituality.
Okay, and their intention was that they would reach
the highest level of spirituality, which is to go into the Godhead. You know, Buddhism, Buddha was a Hindu. He didn't want the idols, but he wanted to, to reach the highest spirituality. He wanted to go into the Godhead.
Okay, himself, that's what Buddha was looking for. Okay, so that these type of disciplines were there, Muslims came in.
And some of them used to do these exercises, live in monasteries
deny themselves food,
do different spiritual exercises in order to reach a type of spiritual ecstasy.
So you are reaching a spiritual ecstasy. And so until you reach is a concept called whatta till will Jude in Arabic, what subtle Jude means?
That means the
The the the one reality that one existence where your existence goes into the existence of God
Okay, it's called water till would you had a person who believes in water toe Jude,
they the extreme form of that is the the people in India you have the people called Jain, the Jain religion. So water towards you believes that God is in everything, everything that's living and moving, it has a spirit in it.
Right so God is in that. So the Jain are not allowed to kill or any living thing. So even if it's mosquito bite, they can't hit the mosquito.
It's an extreme form, that every life form has got God inside of it. Okay, that's what the tool would
say. It's a philosophical concept.
In other words, and you'll hear Muslims up until today say this. They say God is Allah is everywhere.
You ever heard that before? You'll hear that? People say, Oh, Laura is everywhere.
Okay, and we learned earlier that in the route definition, according to you know, the early generation, you could not say Allah is everywhere. Because that means Allah is with you and everything that you do.
Allah was there with you.
You know, excuse my expression in the washroom with, you
know, Allah is above seven heavens. The essence of ALLAH is not with people. When Prophet Muhammad SAW Salam, he went on a night journey, and he passed higher than anybody ever went to the highest point. And then he came in the Presence of Allah. And they said, What did you see? And he said, only light is never seen. He could never see the Presence of Allah. So Allah was not down here on earth with us. We believe that Allah sees what we're doing, knows what we're doing. Here's what we're doing. But it's not down here with us. You see, because if you believe that, it led some people in this other form I call intoxicated form.
It's Abuja, Zito, this Tommy, he's one of the scholars of this intoxicated form. It leads some of the scholars to say,
Allah is in my pocket.
Even said that, right.
And he meant it because of Allah is everywhere.
He could be there. I did a study. I was in university actually. And this just professor wanted me to do this comparison between Islamic beliefs and Maharashtra gurus. So I read some of the writings of the Maharashtra gurus and I read the works of a scholar named Ali headwears. Sheikh Ali, he's ready. Rahim Allah in or do they say data Ganj backlash. You know, in Lahore, there's a big, much bigger mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. That's that against bucks. He's a great scholar of the Salaf. He was a scholar. But in this book that I was reading by him, he said, I traveled
into the heavens, I spiritually traveled 1000s of miles. And through the light years, until finally I reached the highest point and I looked, and I saw myself.
Okay, was he high? Then? What did he smoke? You know, or what? Did he lose it? I don't know. But after he traveled 50,000 miles into the atmosphere, he saw himself and
he saw himself so is that's why to do it.
So in other words, he said, God's in me.
So if you can purify yourself enough, then you'll actually be like a god.
That's rotten wood, jute.
And so that form there were groups that developed
with this concept of water till would
they developed in areas where the previous religions to form of Buddhism or Hinduism, where these religions actually existed? And what developed was
what they call Hunka or Azaria. It's like a special monastery.
And the monastery would have a a chef, a scholar
who would lead this monastery and devotees would go to the monastery and they would learn spiritual
practices. There are Muslims by the way, but they would learn spiritual practices.
Okay, and that is in order to go directly to God
in the soba cautious form, Imam Junaid is one of the great scholars of Islam.
In that form, there were none of these spiritual exercises, it was Teskey purifying your heart, purifying your life.
Right, that's what it was about character building.
You know it was not
transporting yourself spiritually because that went into other religions, like the Maharaja gurus who they were transporting themselves to.
And you'll find this in different religions, they're doing trance, transcendental meditation and transportation and whatnot, right.
So this type of thing got confused, and certain groups develop behind this
and the basis of the group. And I'm giving a summary now and I'm gonna go back over a little bit more as we go along. The basis of the group is a chain of information that goes directly back to the prophet is called Silsila.
Silsila. And Arabic means a chain. So it's a chain of knowledge. That usually goes back to one of two people Ali ibn Abi Taalib. And Abu Bakr, Siddiq, rhodiola, anima, these two companions,
there were secrets that they had.
And according to this knowledge, they gave secrets and it went down the line secret secret secret secret secret, and the shack of your group had had the secrets. It's called a seal cellar.
And he formed a group around his chain of knowledge, they called tariqa.
So the word toddy,
toddy, because like your path, the path, it's your Tariqa it was formed around a chain of information that is given to you by a scholar.
Okay, it's called tariqa.
So these developed in different areas, but a clash came, scholars came in specifically to weed out the Islamic parts that had come in and to leave SN
in the original form, and they base themselves on Quran and Santa.
Okay, so to break it down in a simple way.
These are the two streams you could say these are streams have to solve.
And
some people some Muslims would say, I don't want to sew up at all.
Throw it out completely. But that's a mistake.
Because the early phones have to sew off as as as balanced scholars have shown from Al Hassan Al bursary. It was a reality it was the reality of the early times it was asceticism test, kiya to knifes purifying yourself, which was an integral part of Islam.
The problem was, is when they were outside of Sharia, when I went outside of Islamic law, that was the problem.
And this is what was faced over the centuries, up until now, for the new Muslims, just you know, I'm saying this so you have a base when you hear terms coming at you.
Okay, that you have a base of what it is, you know, and we want the sound
balanced approach to asset.
Okay. I want to open up the floor for any
questions that anybody may have. I have opened up a major box. This is Pandora plus.
Right. And but I want to open up to the floor for general questions surrounding we're dealing with SN
we're dealing with the third dimension right. Of giftset. Okay, floor is open for any questions anybody may have. Yeah. You mentioned that
she married narration from
the war.
And so is that that can be verified. There's no There's no way to determine whether or not that's legit. Right. So this is what in the cautious form.
They would say that we don't we're not going to follow anything, which can't be verified.
Okay, if you tell me something
Think about purifying your heart. There's hundreds of Hadith how to do that. This example of the Prophet Salam is companions. But if you're going to bring me something, like some people would say you want to purify yourself standing stand on your head for 24 hours.
Or you must say, you know, Allah, Allah, Allah 10,000 times
looking at this picture,
they will tell you things and without any authentication, they might say, well, it's my Silsila.
Now, that means that you have to trust that person
in the cautious form of the Salaf, they wouldn't go for this. They wouldn't go for anything that cannot be verified. That's the difference in the two.
Like one of the great more balanced scholars, Imam Al Ghazali. You might have heard the name Ghazali before. Imam Al Ghazali was one of the greatest scholars in Islamic history.
He was the head of the Nizami a school in Baghdad. He was the master of the Islamic sciences. But he felt that there was something missing. So he took part of his life. And he went to find the Sufis.
And he went to Jerusalem. And he lived with them for a period of time to fantastic yet enough's. After a period of time, he returned to Baghdad, and he ended his life studying Hadith, and teaching Hadith. He is one of the ones who was balanced.
Okay, so you need balanced scholars like that.
But if you go here, the problem is if you don't know what you're doing, or don't can't refer to a balanced scholar, you're gonna get somebody who might teach you a form of Sufism, that can lead you way out into another dimension. Question
about this chain? Yeah.
Yes, Silsila is is is just a general meaning a chain. So you have Silsila of the Hadith. Now the words are isn't that they would call it snad. The snap of the Hadith means that this person heard it on the authority of this person, that person, that person to the Prophet, so that's a chain, they call it snad. So the Silsila is the same in the sense of, it's the secret knowledge that was passed on from Ali or Abu Bakr through different people to that particular chef.
Okay, the problem the the problem that we have, in the conscious form is, you can't necessarily verify the secret knowledge. Because it was a secret, right? So you don't know. You don't really know you can't, you got to trust that person.
And so and that's where the struggle going. And so I'm saying as I'm saying this, to caution the new Muslims, because to be honest with you, we were in the Jami mosque some years ago.
And this non Muslim, Canadian came into the house this person came into the Jami mosque.
So I said to the person,
you know, Slava Icahn, is that when it comes to that, I said, Are you a Muslim?
Because I couldn't tell from his appearance. And he said, No, I'm a Sufi.
I said, Okay. Are you a Muslim?
And he said, No, I'm a Sufi.
So I said, How can you be a Sufi without being a Muslim?
But he was confused, because that form of Sufism, he was taught was a similar thing like Hindu gurus who teach you things just like breathing exercises. They do zikr chants. It's chanting and doing different things. And, you know, it wasn't making salaat and wasn't doing anything. So he said, I'm a Sufi, but I want to know what Islam is.
That's the intoxicated form.
That's the extreme form.
Right? And that that would be the real extreme where the person most of the people in the intoxicated form, they will say, I'm a Muslim.
But now there are groups right here in Toronto, all around, who they do chants like, they used to do chats like Harry Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Rama, Rama, and they went from Hinduism to Buddhism. And they went into this these these chats, Islamic chats,
but it was only for the spiritual music, right? It wasn't for the lifestyle of Islam. You see, that's the extreme
that we have to avoid.
Okay, question
what
Practicing to sell golf by following five pillars.
Okay, the question is, could you say that you're practicing SN or to Salaf? Yes then by practicing the five pillars of Islam
according to the Hadith, it is Islam.
Amen and SN. Okay? So you can practice the five pillars,
but you might not have a high level of Sn.
Some people do the pillars, but they just do it right.
They make a lot and they're actually you know, looking at the stocks.
They fast in Ramadan because they want a nice biryani dish.
Right so they have the wrong intention, but a more sin. Sn is more than just doing the pillar, right? It's perfecting it.
It's the spirituality part of it. Right. So that the sower is supposed to give you that spirituality to practice your five pillars.
That's what it's supposed to do. And if you talk to the conscious people, they will say that there is no to so with without fic meaning without Islamic jurisprudence.
Okay.
Any questions online?
Christian context, these descriptions, these descriptions of Sufis can be prepared to say, Are there similarities? Or differences? Yes. So there are similarities in his interest to the word Saint how it's used in Christianity, it wouldn't be the same. But there are people who have what is called Kurama. We believe that there are more Jezza there are miracles given to the prophets, like Moses in the water and whatnot. And there's Kurama which is miracles given to anybody can get these miracles. And a person who gets this these miracles
you know, sometimes they use the term wali or Olia
Okay, so but the only anybody can get a miracle, you don't have to be a special person with a long beard and, you know, covering your face.
No, anybody could, you know, get some kind of a miracle Kurama. So, it wouldn't be the same as in Christianity.
But miracles, we do believe that there are people who are highly spiritual, and who miracles have come through and highly respected.
But it's not exactly the same as as in Christianity, because there's a tendency to deify to sort of give a sort of like, divine nature to the saints.
Right? Like St. Jude, like when your last St. Jude is the Saint of people who are last year, the Beatles made a song. They even say, hey, hey, Jude, don't let me down.
Right? It's one of the famous Beatles song, St. Jude, according to some Christian groups, if somebody's lost, you pray to St. Jude.
So that you go to the saint, to go to God.
They wouldn't be the same for us.
Because the person who is highly spiritual gives you the example and advice, but you don't pray to them.
Right, you pray you pray for them, or you pray to Allah.
But you listen to them and take their example. So it's there's some difference there.
Question, I was in Sri Lanka last year,
what is the population? all I saw were
statues, statues.
insight into how an ideology where you're not supposed to worship Bibles.
Yes, like this is a good example. Because when you look at the life of Buddha, he was a Hindu Prince.
And he wanted to give up idol worship and all of these things, his riches, and he went on the road, seeking realization.
And he gave up all of his materials. And he's on the road seeking, you know, realization, which according to them, you know, he found, we're not sure actually what happened in his life.
But then,
the people started to deify Buddha.
Until now, the biggest idol in the world is a Buddha.
But Buddha himself gave up idols, look at the contradiction, right? He gave up idols and the biggest idol in the world is a Buddha.
You see, so that's the deification so we are all
Also, Muslims are in danger as well.
Like everybody's in danger of deifying people. That's the reason why. We said clearly when we in the descriptions of Allah, the Quran says laser committee he che, there is nothing like Allah.
So if any human being takes the quality of Allah, like you pray to them, He will forgive you. Things like that. That's wrong.
Only Allah can forgive and can take repentance from people. You see.
So so so this is an area where
based upon where Islam went,
and what was the background of the people, you have versions come up. And the only way that the scholars could
control this is to use the Quran and the Sunnah. Islamic lifestyle, called Sharia
has a filter and put it through.
If it doesn't go through the filter, we reject it. We do not take it.
So if somebody comes to you, I remember, I went home
some years ago, when when I become Muslim, that I went home to my home. It's Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's a city called Cambridge. And is right now Harvard and MIT like so I lived solely in this area. And you know, I was there my friends, I'm a Muslim now. And then the science said, you know, Muslims had said, you know, Islamic Islamic place. So we said, Okay, let's stop, we got to make Salah.
So we came to the place, I said to the brothers, watch the science
as we came to the gate, because there's a lot of hippies at that time, right? You know, hippies were dope smoking, and they were doing it. And so we came, and a dog came running out at us.
He was a dog and it was a black dog with a white spot.
So this big dog came, I said sign number one.
Two, as we came inside, the person met us very friendly and you know, nice guy.
And they were like, different idol things, you know, the Hindu things with the arms and you know, whatever, on the walls. Sign number two.
It was time to make us a prayer.
So he said to the brother, okay, we got to make a lot. So he said to the person can we pray? They said, Sure. So So we prayed, you know, not to the idols. And then the person came and prayed next to us. And as we were praying, he was going like this.
Like, you know, when someone's watching you pray and learn how to do it. He was learning how to pray watching us. In other words, he didn't know how to pray.
So I said sign number three slow Aleikum, we're gone.
That intoxicated form of of Sufism, they said they were Sufis. Right.
That's the intoxicated form.
That's not Islam. So as long as you have Sharia, as long as you know your deen
you can detect when the person is taking you outside or not.
That is the struggle.
And so it really is that the balance form you know, of Sn, the balance form of Sn.
Okay.
Check and see if there's any other questions on that any other final questions? Because we were coming to a conclusion. Next week we're going to continue this this is a big this is a serious subject, right. And not to go too deep into isms and schisms. But you know think about you know, the questions and we'll come back and we're going to give some more and I'm going to give you some balanced form of the Sabbath to show you how a scholar uses Excel practical SN so if you want to get practical Islam SN I'm going to give you the teachings of a scholar who's a practical person
questions
yeah the sober party the intoxicated by I'm not going to go into that mean unless somebody bring you can bring up certain things. I'll give you an example the intoxicated pot. You know I go to Turkey a lot. Because I studied the Ottomans and whatnot. We go on journeys, I'll historical trips. And they have a group in Kenya and I went to Kenya jobs gelada de check Gilardi Rumi and they have print that were whirling dervishes. You have see pictures of the world and people so they were all around right. They were all around in circles now. Stand in your house and whirl around 100 times
and stop and your head is going to be like you're going to be flying right
so they
Leave, you're reaching a certain point if you world 1000 times, right? Your mind is like
so they're trying to take the soul sort of like out of the body.
to That's it starts to go to a doctor to do it, right. That's the danger.
They want to go straight to God, they don't want to go through making a lot and Panza cat.
They want to go right up in an elevator.
Right, so they will, and they're going, you know, so there's different I'm not dealing with that part.
Online. One more question. So we have a common question. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, artists that I've only recently realized how invested the Catholics can be in their saints and much more before who is reformation thinking 30 to 1600 I saw the Whirling Dervishes a turkey. In May, it was just a show for the tourists.
Exactly. Now it's changed. I've gone back to Kanye recently, too. And it's become totally commercialized. You know, what is there? The original dervishes did not do it publicly. And they were trying to sort of get into this spiritual thing. But you know, if you look at Protestant product as Protestants broke away from Catholicism, Martin Luther, and the and the people they protested against Rome, because Rome had become a place of idols, and you know, what, not in saints and whatnot, and the products they wanted, like straight teachings of Jesus. So they broke away.
So literally, you know, we in a sense, we in a sense, Islam is, you know, the complete break away from all those idol worships and all those things that came into Judaism and Christianity. That's what Islam is. We're literally going back to the original teachings of the prophets. It's originally the same, of course, Protestants did maintain certain parts of the athlete of the belief, the belief in the Trinity and original sin, they kept some of those things, but they rebelled against Rome, and the idols you know, and almost deification of the Pope so they did not want to accept the pope as a sort of intermediary with God. Right that they didn't want to accept you this and they broke away.
So, we will be continuing on in our next class Inshallah, next week 630. Inshallah, we'll we'll be starting and we're going to give a slight review of this and then show you the balanced form of Sn you know, and then we're going to study some of the balanced teachings of Sn as we go further into our teachings in sha Allah. So we will be preparing now for salatu Isha and we give time for people to make this a lot, Inshallah, so I leave you in peace, as salam Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh