Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Caring for Converts
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu lillahi Hamdan kefir on the
human mobile can feed Mubarak anally goma, your headboard buena
way of the gel Nigella and who am Manila was salatu salam ala se
needle Habib Al Mustafa SallAllahu Taala are they who are either
early or Safi or Baraka was seldom at the Sleeman kefir on Ilario me
Dean Amma that
My dear brothers, dear sisters, nice to be in your midst to
support this cause.
Allah subhanho wa Taala says in the Quran, woman axonal coal
amendment there are il Allah who I Milla salejaw Wirkkala in any
mineral Muslimeen
so Allah subhana wa Taala says in the Quran that who better
than the ones who, who better in speech
than the one who invites to Allah subhanho wa taala.
And he does good deeds. And he says that I am from the believers
I am from the submitters.
So who better than the one? Who better in speech than the one who
invites to Allah and who does good deeds. So now what the issue here
is that it's very easy for some people to invite somebody to
Islam, to talk to somebody if you're good at speaking. It's easy
to do that for some people, for other people is difficult. But
what I've seen the most difficult thing to do is to keep somebody in
Islam and not let them drift away afterwards.
I was in Philadelphia several years ago. And when I went from
the masjid to downtown, nearly every 10th person that I met was a
Muslim, meaning they said a Salam aleikum. And I said, Are you a
Muslim? And they said yes, but not a practicing one. It looks like
they will all convert, they will all reverts, you can say converts
reverts this, this word. Some people like to say convert, some
people like to say revert, if they both work. Some people say you
should call them Reaver because they were Muslim before and
they've just come back to Islam. That's not entirely true. Because
people aren't born Muslim. They're born on the fitrah. That's what
the Hadith says. The hadith says that they're born and the nature
the natural faith. When they become valid and mature, that's
when they that's when they adopt the faith and become true
submitters to Allah in an active way. So either way, convert,
Revert, it doesn't make a difference. Also, there's people
who have been Muslim for 20 years or 15 years or five years, and
they still can consider themselves to be new Muslim.
They're not new Muslims anymore. Some masjid they hold new Muslim
classes. So then you get people who've been Muslim for 10 years,
why are you coming here for?
Right? I mean, you can come if you want to. But a new Muslim is
somebody who's just entered into the faith, then after that they
should become normal, we should not treat them as different.
Because all of us are new, in a sense.
So we shouldn't treat them differently. We should treat them
just like us. Now, one of the most difficult things for converts is
to become incorporated into the Muslim community.
And I'm very happy today mashallah to be here on this occasion
because we don't get to many organizations who do the work that
mashallah this organization is doing it's called, neither is
right, neither. Not many people are doing this, especially in
places like Sri Lanka, where 80% Sinhalese and there's people who
are trying to cause issues between Muslims and, and, and the main,
you know, and then the Sinhalese people, the Buddhist people. So
it's a good, good place where you need those people who do become
Muslim that they need support, they need to be shown strength,
help, assistance, love. So then other people are encouraged also,
to do the same thing.
So in sha Allah, we ask Allah subhanaw taala to reward this
organization. I'm really mashallah very honored to be here because of
that. As I said, one of the most difficult things is that it may be
easy for somebody to become Muslim, but then to keep them in
Islam and not let them drift away. That becomes very difficult.
That's why converts, if you speak to convert, they feel alienated a
lot of the time. Because and they should not feel alienated.
We should have such a structure in place, that when they come, we
embrace them and we make them one of us, so that they everything
they've lost, it can be transplanted. Now, in some cases,
some people get turned off, because some people who convert to
Islam, they may have bad character, bad luck. They may have
certain problems.
So because of that,
they people shun them. People don't give them support. They
sometimes try to give them support. But then when they find
out that they have some bad character, maybe some people are
stealing it. I mean, converts don't steal. That's not why they
become converts. But some people are like that. So what happens is
that this is just the normal human reaction, that when somebody has
bad character, humans generally
abandon shun them, stay away from them. But then what shaytan does
is that it makes these converts think that they shunning you
because you're Muslim,
these are just some of shaytans ways of trying to detract somebody
even further.
It's just natural for a person to try to avoid somebody with bad
character. This is just because humans like good character, even
if they're bad character themselves, they like people with
good character, and they will look down upon somebody with bad
character, even though they have bad character. It's just one of
those things.
A lot of the time what happens is converts in especially in Western
countries, and maybe in in, in Sri Lanka, as well, because in Sri
Lanka, the majority of the Muslims speak Tamil, and they have maybe
Arab and other dissents whereas the Sinhala is they have a
different ethnicity. So when people have a different and
ethnicity convert to Islam, whether that be in England or
anywhere else,
the another thing we have to be very careful about is that they
don't feel that
they are being discriminated against because of racism.
Because they tend to be from another community, for example, in
the UK, if
somebody from a native Englishman becomes a Muslim becomes a Muslim.
Most of the Muslims in the UK tend to be Indian, Pakistani, Arab,
African, Somali, etc.
Now, what happens is that they've got one Indian mosque, one maybe
Sri Lankan mosque, one Pakistani Masjid close by one Somali masjid,
one Arab masjid, when they go to any one of these, they see that
everybody is just talking to each other. Maybe sometimes even in
their own language, and they feel
they feel that
people are being racist. That's why they don't want to speak to
them. So I tried to explain to them that that's not the case of
me with an Indian background. If I go to sometimes another background
masjid, they may not even speak to me, not because they're racist.
It's just because they inconsiderate.
They're just not good UCLA. That's why not because they're racist.
You see, racism is a very strong idea. And as soon as somebody
pants idea that people are being racist, and in Islam, we came into
Islam, not to be racist. And these Muslims are all racist, I have to
try to explain to them they're not racist is just,
they just either ignorant, they're not consider it. They just don't
care enough, and they just doing their own cultural thing. So these
are just some things because if we have our convert brothers and
sisters here today, I just want them to understand that that don't
take it personally. Right, everybody, lots of people feel
that way when they go to different places.
So just like with anything else, when you enter something new, when
you purchase something new,
you need service after purchase service. This is a normal thing.
When you buy a product, you get support, especially in the modern
world, you get support. We should understand that when somebody is
becoming a muslim, they need a lot of support. And whose
responsibility is that? It is our responsibility because Allah gave
us that responsibility to give them the support. We're not the
manufacturers, but we are Muslim. And we have been given the
responsibility to support somebody. So new Muslims need a
lot of support. There's one scholar from the Indian
subcontinent who is mashallah worked very hard with converts and
new Muslims in in India. And is that a wonderful job? So I asked
him that one of the biggest challenges that we have, when
people become Muslim is how to incorporate them into our
community, how to assist them and help them because they need a lot
of support some time. He said, the advice he gave me gave me was
wonderful. He said the best way to do it is the way the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did it, when the Muslims migrated from
Makkah mukaiyama to Madina, Munawwara now there everybody was
a convert, it wasn't a convert story, because with the Prophet
sallallahu some everybody was a convert nearly full until you
know, they had children and otherwise everybody converted from
something so
The earliest Muslims, most of the majority of they were converts.
But when the Muslims from Madina, Munawwara Maka Kurama went to
Madina Munawwara
the way the promise was sorted out, because look, if you have 10
people, 100 people maybe convert to Islam, you can't leave it to
two or three people to help every one of them, we all need to share
the responsibility. And the way to share the responsibility the way
the Prophet sallallahu did it is from what we call in Arabic wahat.
wahat means to make brothers, brotherhood and sisterhood so
okay, this person has become converted reverted to Islam.
This family is willing to take that person in and his family in
Oceania, her family. So the focus of one
Muslim family would be that one reverts family, they don't have to
worry about everybody else. So we can split it up among us.
That would be one great way so that if we can have different
people do that. So create that kind of more heart.
So if every family decides that they can take the responsibility
of one convert a family, we can inshallah solve this issue,
because you remember, most likely they'll always be at least in the
beginning, they'll always be more
existing Muslims and converts, so it's easy to do so that we can
inshallah take the responsibility.
Now, support for converts doesn't mean just giving them money.
There's a lot of support they need, they need support, and how
to pray, how to purify themselves,
how to do many different things about Islam, because remember,
they're learning from scratch. How long do we spend with our
children, educating them as they growing up about Islam, we send
them to madrasa to mock them to teachers, we teach them at home.
Essentially, a convert sometimes
is similar, except that they're more mature. So they can learn a
lot of things by themselves, but they still need literature, for
example. So mashallah, I've had an opportunity to learn a bit about
this organization. And they're providing various different
things, whatever is needed
to try to fulfill all the gaps. But basically, what they're doing
is what we individually as family should be doing.
You know, as I said, the more Aha, the Brotherhood family hood, what
they're doing is basically they taking that responsibility. The
individuals who are involved May Allah reward them abundantly, and
may Allah allow us to support them.
So the verse I read in the beginning, whoever invites people
to Islam, one is some of us find it very difficult to do that, to
talk to somebody about Islam, what it means to be Muslim, and so on.
That's not easy. For most of us, I find it difficult. How do you just
suddenly start talking to somebody in the bus, or in the tube or at
work, that this is what Islam is about? Now, Islam, if it if at
this point, if mashallah, we had some great things happening in the
Muslim world, there are but in the media, it's always negative. So a
lot of the time we are on the defensive.
Now, if there were many, many things we could be proud of. And
we could show people that would be easier for us to share our
religion because there's already an opening. But you know, what, if
we can't vocally verbally tell somebody about Islam ourself, then
helping an organization that helps them, inshallah will also be
inviting to the path. The reason why it's still inviting to the
path is because as I said, In the beginning, people come into Islam
easily more easily. But for them to stay there, they need a lot of
support.
And if we're not going to give them the support, then they're
going to go back out.
And they're going to maybe sometimes go back out with a bad
taste in their mouth. So I think sometimes it's even more important
to keep Muslims Muslims than to maybe bring even new ones. I mean,
we can't compare the two because we need to do everything. Some
people compare these things, and you can't really compare them,
because it's all important.
So one of the biggest feelings, one of the biggest challenges for
converts is a feeling of loneliness. Because remember, this
is what's happening. When you become a Muslim, generally
speaking for a lot of people, their friends will have a big,
their friends will have a big objection to that. Because
you can no longer do with them. You can't go out and drink with
them. You can't go and socialize in the same way. So most many
converts will give up their friends. They'll have to find new
friends. You can't make friends just overnight is difficult. The
friends you've had, they could be lifelong friends that you invested
so much time into to make them friends. And now you've just
suddenly lost them. Not
Just friends, your own family, sometimes in many cases with
converts, their families go against them.
They don't want anything to do with them, especially in the
current climate when there's just so much negativity about the
faith. How can you become a Muslim be some say you can be anything
else better Muslim SubhanAllah. But that just shows the great
strength of Islam that despite the negative media, Allah subhanaw
taala has given such merits and credit and benefits in it that
people see it despite all the negativity. So they sometimes lose
their family.
So they become very lonely. That's why
if they're abandoned by their community, then we need to try to
integrate them into our community. And this can't happen overnight.
That's why I said this can't happen overnight. That's why we
either individually do this. But unfortunately, not every
individual has the time or the motivation. So then we need the
organizations. Now you can see the necessity for such an organization
to be able to do this work. So if we can't do it directly, we at
least help organizations like this,
to do this work for us.
Another complaint from a lot of people is that
when converts come reverts come, they come with a lot of baggage.
For example, there's many converts, they will they will be
single parents, single mothers,
when they were not Muslim, they committed many wrongs. There's
some converts who come in with a lot of tattoos on their body.
Now, because of small things like this, I mean small in the sense
that the fact that they become Muslim now is a big deal. And all
of these things if Allah is willing to wipe them out, and
Islamia the marker and a club level.
It Islam eliminates everything that happened before. Because the
reason it does that is because when a person becomes Muslim, it's
a very powerful situation. They become Muslim saying that
everything wrong that I've done, I'm giving it up. I am remorseful
and regretful about it. And I am making a Toba so essentially is
becoming a muslim is like a Toba like a repentance. So that's why
all of that becomes forgiven. If Allah can forgive people, for the
craziest actions they did,
because no longer are they doing cover, no longer are they
committing shake, and then become Muslim, which is such a big deal.
And a big step. If they can be forgiving them, how can we not
forgive that? So we need to look beyond that. And not make them
feel embarrassed about this.
If they have illegitimate children, they have tattoos on
their body, they have some other problems. That's minor in the
context they're in, in terms of what what they have done and the
big step they have taken, and who knows where they will be in
paradise, maybe even above us, in Ghana.
So we need to be more generous, we don't need to be stingy because
Allah subhanaw taala is generous. And if Allah subhanaw taala is to
take us make us accountable for the wrongs that we have done. Then
can you imagine
what how we would fare. So if we help these people, we ask Allah
subhana wa Taala that this will be sadaqa jariya for us. Now think
about this.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that whoever shows the
right way,
the person who does the good thing that you we showed them, every
time they do it, for as many years they do it, we get the reward for
it. Free investment,
if I am going to assist an organization which helps converts,
that Allah is keeping a record of this, as many converts that will
be strengthened by our support. Then in sha Allah, Allah is
opening up an account for us an investment account, a retirement
account, whatever you want to call it. So now this convert, I mean
mashallah, in in countries like Sri Lanka and other places, our
100 pounds will go much further.
Right, it's gonna go really far because the of the benefit that it
can provide all of that reward for as many times that they learn
something, they become stronger, they feel confident, they feel
part of the community, they feel, helped and assisted. Then in sha
Allah, all of the benefit of that strength and all the good that
they do. And remember
Anybody who's practicing Islam is all good. All practice of Islam is
good. So this person now, imagine you've helped two or three,
convert families with your money with your support
for the rest of their life, that they practice, we're getting
reward for it, we won't even know maybe we won't even know who they
are. Because we've just supported and we've moved away,
we will be rewarded for that. Now, if those people stay Muslim in sha
Allah, they have children
and then they have children for hundreds of years, then we will
continue to get rewards
because we help the first person
right? So he, obviously because we helped him and it helped to keep
him Muslim or make him Muslim, the next person that he will help
which will be His children, at least his other family members, it
can just grow.
Right and this is guaranteed growth. This is not like all of
these other pyramid schemes. This is guaranteed growth. So we ask
Allah subhanho wa Taala photofit, we ask Allah to help make us give
us the Tofik to assist in this. And we ask Allah to strengthen
these organizations to help and to strengthen. And we ask Allah that
we can also play our part working with Dawa and Al hamdu Lillahi
Rabbil Alameen