Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Causes of Disunity in Society
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
Salatu was Salam Weider so you didn't mursaleen wider early he
was talking to you about a killer cell limiter sleeve and Kathy Iran
Elomi Dean Amma Barrett call Allah hooter Baraka Tada Philip Quran
emoji they will for corneal Hamid aloo Ella Vickery in quantum law
to Allah Moon Bacala Tada, Hull yester will be in a year either
moon, well Levine Allah and the moon in the Maya desert Kuru oral
album.
My dear respected brothers and sisters,
the topic for today
is etiquette of disagreement. etiquette of differences.
What's very important for us to understand before we start this is
that the world that we live in is considered to be a world that is a
beauty. And what makes the world beautiful, what makes what we see
around us, the world, a beautiful place is the differences that we
find in the world. If all of the flowers were the same,
if all the trees look the same, and there was no difference, and
it was all uniform,
and just one style, one shape, one color, one form and one look, then
this world would be a very, very boring place, that we no need to
take holidays. In fact, I used to wonder when I used to live in
America, that many of the towns and cities of America look the
same. As soon as you go in from the motorway, the highway, as you
call it, you start seeing the billboards for the same hotels,
motels, restaurants in every city. Some cities are different than
others. But otherwise, a lot of the towns that they seem the same,
there's no character lifts, in many places like that. And this is
what the complaint people have of modern cities that they all look
the same. So differences, as Allah subhanho wa Taala says in the
Quran,
Allah subhanaw taala created this whole universe with differences.
There's a number of verses to that effect that describe the
differences that Allah subhanaw taala has created this world upon.
Inshallah, we'll be looking at some of these verses a bit later.
First and foremost, to understand why differences might come about.
What we have to understand is differences.
If we accept that there will be differences in this world,
then it becomes easier to deal with differences. You can even
start appreciating the differences, you can actually
start learning from the differences once you appreciate
that people are going to be different. Imagine if you could
only buy one type of clothing, one type of headdress, one type of a
car, life would have been simpler, no doubt.
Having too much variety does provide complication of choice.
And your heart does get left behind. Sometimes, when you've
purchased a few things, but you haven't, you also want to buy some
other things. If there were only two types of jeans that you can
buy, then it's very easy to make that choice and
make that purchase. But when you have so many different types, then
it takes a while for you to read reviews and look at styles and
cuts and finishes and colors and Subhanallah there's just so many
different things.
So
the other challenge that we have here is that mashallah, in the
place that we live in, especially in a big city like London, it's a
very cosmopolitan city. You have people here from all over the
world, our massagin, our masjid, our institutions are filled with
various different types of people who have come from all over the
world, which gives us an understanding of
the beautiful tapestry of the Muslim community and Amma
throughout the world.
If a person is sitting in Nigeria, in one particular area of Nigeria,
one particular area of India or Pakistan, or Egypt, or Palestine,
they're generally going to be used to everything that they see around
them, because everything's going to be very uniform and one style
one way, maybe that's how they were brought up. They've gotten
used to the few differences that are found in that one area. Each
area can only have so many differences. And if a person has
lived there for a very long time they get used to those
differences. Sometimes they don't even notice those
differences because they used to him. There are differences,
there's no doubt there's different because Allah has created every
one of us difference even to the twin. The twins, the two twins
that you find, even they are different, though subtly, they are
still different. But we get used to the differences that we
confront day in and day out. They don't they no longer are
differences, we understand how to interact with them and use them.
But when you come to a big city, and you move country, and you
travel, and then you confront people who Subhanallah dressed
differently, looked differently have a different color to us maybe
different skin color, difference, language, different ethnicity.
They don't like the food that we like, we don't really prefer to
eat their food. Some we like their food more than our food. So when
you start seeing that, now what you need for this
is the some very secret, there's a secret ingredient, not a secret
ingredient, but an important ingredient that is required here
to be able to deal with this. Especially when we share so much
in terms of humanity. We share being British maybe. And of course
we share being Muslim. And because of being Muslim, we're working in
the same mosque environment, Masjid environment, taking our
children to the same school.
So now how do you deal with that? Clearly, there's going to be some
differences.
There's going to be differences in the way people pray our own
worship is different. They will be different where people are placing
their hands in prayer, how they are making their sujood or they're
going down knees first, all hands first.
Where are they raising their hands up to? Do they raise their hands
before Roku and after roku? Today say Amina louder silently. How
many records do they perform of taraweeh prayer, for example, how
many Takbeer as they do in Eid, prayer.
All of these are differences. I'll tell you that I've had experience
with this. And when you see it first it gets complicated. For
example, when I moved to America, I had a lot of I'm from the Indian
subcontinent. When I moved to America as an imam. In my local
community. We had a mixture of various different Arabs from
different countries, different Middle Eastern countries, North
African countries, and it was my first aid. And when I got to the
masjid in the morning when I got to our eat place in the morning,
everybody was there reading Takbeer aloud.
Allah Allahu Akbar Allah, Akbar la isla Illa Allah who Allah Allahu
Akbar, Allah Akbar, one in LA Hill, Hamed and so on so forth.
First time I've seen this i in the community I come from that I came
from, they do this technique, but individually, you do it on the way
in eidl Aha, you do it loudly. Adel fitter you do it silently.
But there is no collective when you go into the Masjid. Nobody
does it loudly. This was the first time we thought Subhanallah what's
going on here? Right? I'm the Imam. I'm supposed to be the
people expecting me to guide them on this but they weren't very
comfortably doing this.
So now after Eat Pray, I didn't say anything. You know, people
were doing the career I did the Eid prayer of and did the hotbar.
And the beyond lecture and I came home. Then I started looking in
the books. And in a few books, they said that this was a bitter
in some of the books when the question was asked, they said this
was a bitter this was not done in the time of the prophets of Allah.
And this was a bitter.
So now I have this information. I think what's happening is wrong.
I've only looked at one type of book, there wasn't much delille
there, it was just that it's never been done before. I haven't looked
into why these people are doing it. And what's the reason for
doing it? So I'm much younger. I've just come been graduated
recently. And I've come and I want to sort this out.
So now I go and speak to a few brothers. And one brother. He
said, Look, this happens every happens even in Saudi. I thought
maybe he's just saying that. I don't know. I've never been in
eighth time. I've never been in Arabia. I've never been in
Morocco, Morocco, Rama Madina Munawwara. So then what happened
is, there was one older Palestinian uncle who was sitting
there. So we just, we just as we're discussing this, we
mentioned to him that this shouldn't be happening.
And I believe what he said if I remember correctly, so if you
don't let us do this, then we will do another eat prayer.
We will do another eat prayer. This is very important for us.
So now you can imagine
Julian Mason, this is something new to me. This is something
strange to me
later. I understand that in many places, this is something that has
been coming down for many, many centuries. I don't know. Does it
happen in
Nigeria? Are you guys from Nigeria? Does it happen Nigeria?
Everywhere? is normal. Okay, well see, it was strange to me. So
Hamdulillah I managed to keep my cool and I didn't go in and cause
a big problem and split the community because it's very easy
for somebody to do that. Especially different people with
different temperaments will react differently. Some people will see
a difference. And they're very soft hearted. They don't. They
don't have much courage, maybe, right? They don't like to upset
and rock the boat. They say okay, fine, whatever. Some people know
this, whatever is right must be right. We can only do we must sort
this out. These are different personalities. My personality is
like, yes, we need to sort things out. But today, how I am compared
to what I was 10 years ago is very different. I've learned in sha
Allah a bit of wisdom.
Wisdom is how you deliver your knowledge, how you deliver the
message, many, many ways of delivering a message.
And the wisdom is for Allah to show somebody the best way to
bring about change and goodness and to deal with things. Look at
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam.
It is the Treaty of who they BIA is being written after many, many,
many years of being attacked. Well, first the prophets Allah
Islam, as you know, had to leave with the Sahaba they had to go to
Mecca, Medina, Madina, Munawwara, from Maka, maka, Rama. When they
got there, then they started being attacked, they had to defend
themselves so many times.
Then what happens is
they want to go for they want to go for Amara, they want to go to
Morocco, Kurama. But they can't. Anyway, eventually, even the
people of Makkah are tired of the fighting and the constant war and
the tech. So they decide that okay, we will write
a treaty we will have a peace treaty,
an agreement, which is the sooner who they be. So the Prophet
sallallahu Sallam is there, he doesn't read and write officially,
he doesn't formally write and read because he's unlettered his cousin
alira. The Allahu anhu, who is an
ardent follower and lover of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam. He is the one who's writing from the Mexican side.
It's so Haley Nakamura, who later becomes a Muslim, but at this time
is a curfew is not a believer. So he stopped they stopped writing
that this is a treaty between Muhammad Rasul Allah, Muhammad
Rasool Allah, the Messenger of Allah, and so and so immediately,
so Haledon, Allah says, We disagree with this. If we believed
he was the Messenger of Allah, as you are tightening him, then this
would not be a problem. We wouldn't have to be sitting here
doing this. It should be Mohammed Abdullah, Abdullah, Mohammed son
of Abdullah, that's how we know him. So the Prophet sallallahu
Sallam immediately said, Yes,
erase that and change it to Mohammed Abdullah Abdullah alira,
the owner refused. He says, I can't do that.
I can't do that. So the Prophet sallallahu Sallam took the pen
himself, and he scribbled it out
why SallAllahu it was and why the bigger picture is more important
than the small detail here. This was a small detail. But the bigger
picture, the bigger sacrifice, the bigger issue that was going to be
jeopardized. That was the big issue. This is what you call
wisdom.
This is what you call wisdom to do the right thing in the right
place. And that comes through experience. Because we're going to
have a lot of tensions.
There's going to be a lot of tensions. For example, give you
another example of this.
For the eliminar yard
was a great What do you have Allah Rahim Allah Allah. He was known to
be a great ascetic, great Willie of Allah, great Zaha.
And Amanda hubby says that his son,
for the luminaria this son was even more fearful of Allah than
his father. The fear that he had of Allah was even more than his
father.
And whenever he would hear the Quran, and certain verses would
be, he would cry, and he would break down. There was one sort I
believe it was hola como Takata.
If I remember correctly, if he heard that it would be really
torturous for him. For the look, no as the father was the Imam and
his wife, the mother of his child, had said to him and made him
promise that you
You will never recite the surah in Salaat.
Because your son, he can't deal with this. We don't know what's
going to happen to him. One day he thought his son wasn't there. And
he decided to read it. And his son developed so much fear so much
fear overcame him, that he actually fell down and passed
away.
Now for the Loebner era, this son has just passed away.
But then later he is seen with a smile on his face. This is why he
said this is you know, to be satisfied with the decree of Allah
subhanaw taala. You must be satisfied with the decree of Allah
subhanaw taala. Obviously, he felt sorrow, but he felt that it was a
responsibility for him to show satisfaction with the decree of
Allah. There was a tension here, there was a conflict here, a
demand of your heart, to weep and to cry and a demand of your faith
to be satisfied with Allah's decree.
He, how do you deal with this tension? He gave preference to the
Rodarte Bill Kedah accept aspect and subdued the other aspects.
However, was that the right thing to do? Is the question
was that the best approach? Let us look back at the Rasulullah
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He had a similar tension. He is one
day sitting and he is invited.
There's a messenger who comes from his daughter that his daughter's
child is sick and is about to pass away. last moment it seems quickly
Oh father come along. The prophets Allah some first refused to go he
said he gave some Naseeha he gave some good words and he says I
can't come. But then when she insisted, he went along, and he
went along with a few of the prominent Sahaba companions. When
he got there.
He held the baby who was on its last breath the child and he began
to weep.
Tears came out of his ears, out of his eyes welled up, his eyes
welled up with tears.
And the big Sahaba who were with him, they were surprised. They
said, your Salah, you're crying.
He said, This is Rama,
that Allah puts into the heart of it, this is Rama, then he, the
explanation was that what was prohibited was to shout and scream
and tear your clothes and well and laments. Not this is softness of
the heart that you just expressing your emotion that is allowed. But
you can't go overboard with that. It's only the messenger of allah
sallallahu alayhi salam that can teach us balance, equilibrium,
what to do in the right place.
By reading the serum more and more and understanding the character of
Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam a person is then better able to deal
with situations when they come along. Because there's always
going to be situations, there's always going to be differences.
Husband and wives are fighting, because they don't understand
wisdom and interaction. So we see differences of opinion of all
types. The person who's going to be successful, is the person
closest to the Surah, Allah salAllahu alayhi salam, and the
person closest to Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam is the one who's
going to have the best character. Best o'clock. That is what you
need to deal with differences.
When a person understands that, look, I know that I'm at a
disadvantage. There's not much I can do except shout and argue.
Should I just have a good argument? At least I'll feel
better. I can speak louder than him or her. So should I just
scream loud? Even though I'm wrong?
Is that what it means to win something? Is that what success
looks like to shout and scream just because you can do that? Or
maybe you're a very good speaker. And you know, the other person is
a bit weak, but I'm wrong and not fully on the right. But I just
want to have the last word is that what matters?
If I understand that patience is a virtue, that some of the highest
rewards in Paradise is for patience.
That I'm going to say no, it's not worth it.
Even though my temperament, my nature may be to argue,
but when I know there's virtue, then the first time maybe I will
mess up, but then I'll regret it afterwards. The next time in sha
Allah. I may not I may remember in between only you know what, this
is waste of time.
Allah doesn't like this. This is
Very different from how Rasulullah sallallahu would have done this.
So then they'll stop halfway, Okay, forget it, forget it.
And the third time, Inshallah, they'll just say, no, no, no,
look, forget it, man. It's okay, no problem. It's alright. Okay,
brother, it's okay,
is it we have to train ourselves. If we don't have any virtue, we
don't see any of the Fidella the virtue of having good character,
then how we're going to develop good character. If we see
everybody around us doing the same thing, that we think this is the
way to do it.
Unfortunately, sometimes
the communities we live in the kind of people we interact with on
a day to day basis, they have a certain aspect of bad character.
And we just follow that we do tech lead of that, we just blindly
follow that we'd be we do the same thing, because that's all we know.
We don't have any good role models to tell us differently. So we have
to make that change in difference, especially when we're living in a
city like this where there are so many differences. There are just
so many differences. How are we going to learn to deal with that
difference?
So for example, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
and as our iman be baiting,
fie, robertville JANA
Lehmann Thorkil, mira, we're in Quran and
the Hadith of Buddhahood. And there's another Hadith intermedia,
which is very similar as well, that I am the guarantor, I give
guarantee for a house
on the either the periphery of Jana, or the lower part of Jana,
for the one who avoids argument, debate and disputes, even though
he's on the truth.
Even though he's on because it's waste of time, you're not going to
convince them. Even though you're right, it's just 10 minutes of
time waste, not 10 minutes is, is your if you're lucky, arguments go
on for half an hour, one hour until somebody comes in either
says stop, or there's something you have to go, eventually people
get tired, because all of this comes from the blood boiling
pressures rising. All of this, and sometimes it's medical. If you
have diabetes, and you have had low blood sugar, where you haven't
eaten for a while, and your blood is low, you will fly off the
handle much faster.
That's another challenge. Some people have high blood pressure
that always keeps them on the edge as opposed to low blood pressure.
If people know they have these medical issues, then they should
look after themselves like this. They should not go into a meeting
while they are hungry.
Like honestly, they should not go into a meeting while they're
hungry, eat something and then go become relaxed, because it's very
detrimental.
So the Prophet sallallahu Sallam then said, well, beta and fee wasa
tiljander, lumen theorical Kathy Bucha incarna mercy Han.
And I'm also giving guarantee for a house in the middle of Jana for
the one who abandons lying, even though he thinks he's just joking.
Lying is just an unfortunately, we know when you argue with somebody,
when you get into the argument than to win the argument. A lot of
people resort to lying very few people continue to tell the truth
and keep the truth as it is when they are arguing because what
happens is that the ego takes over. Then after that it's not
about what is the truth. It's about me winning this argument and
me being the truthful one, or appearing to be the truthful one.
This is so different from somebody like Imam Shafi Rahim Allah Allah
who said that whenever I have a discourse with somebody, dispute
with somebody on some Masada and generally his disputes would have
been on a
issue of fic, or something to do with the Sharia. He said that my
dua while I'm arguing with him would be that, oh, Allah allowed
the truth, to prevail on his tongue. We want to reach the
truth. Now, I could be proving the truth. And I win, but my objective
is not to win. It's to prove the truth and establish the truth and
made that come on his tongue. So he wins. But the main thing is
that the truth becomes clear Subhanallah
on one occasion, he had a, there was a difference of opinion he had
with one of his students and his students, his tutor was a bit got
upset with it, about the discourse or something about the about the
interaction, so he was missing. So then the student says that
In the night, I hear a knock on my door. I said Who is it? He says
Mohammed Idris Shafi.
He says, Look, we, it was his teacher who came at nighttime to
say, look, we can have a difference of opinion, but we can
still be brothers.
There are so many things that we are still the same. And we can
agree upon.
That is what you call somebody whose focus is the Hereafter. And
he's not going to get caught up in petty debates, and then let it
become personal.
This is what the problem is that when it gets personal, then the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Well, based on fee,
lol, Jana, lemon Hassan Hola, hola como.
And I give guarantee for a place in the highest level of Jana, for
the one who develops good character. Because he knows that
good character is going to be the thing because the prophets Allah
lorrison knows that was, firstly, with good character, he's going to
know in all of these situations how to deal with it, a person with
good character is always going to think good about people.
He's never going to always think that something is evil or bad, or
take things negatively, he's going to be positive, a good person with
good character is going to try to avoid argument as far as possible,
he's going to have the quality of patience, he's going to have the
quality of generosity, he's going to have the quality of giving
somebody preference over oneself. The Prophet sallallahu sallam
said, You cannot be a true believer, until you love for your
brother, what you love for yourself.
For that, if a person understands that no son in an argument, then
look, it's okay. It doesn't matter. If my if, as long as the
truth is established, my friend can win the argument is not about
I'm not going to argue with them. Let's find another way to do it.
Now, from a therapeutic perspective, from people who
do therapy, based on psycho analysis and other ways.
There is they've done a lot of tests in this, you take two people
and the way they show, I don't have a board here, but I could
have shown you that they show an adult and a child, because this is
a typical, challenging relationship. The child imagine
this child and is screaming,
for whatever reason the child is screaming, a three year old child,
two to three year old child screaming.
Now imagine the various different responses that the parents that a
parent that adult will give to that child,
one thing you can do is just totally blocked that child out,
let him scream, and just turn the other way, and ignore them
completely. This is what they did in some orphanages in Romania, you
know, a few decades ago. And what they discovered is that this is
very, very, very harmful. Because all of those children, this is a
natural thing that children do to scream, when they need something,
this is what they know, they need a response. If you don't give them
a response, that insecurity will increase. And when they grow up,
they will be always looking for attachment, they will always be
looking for attention, because their brain hasn't developed
properly in that regard. So it's very detrimental for somebody just
to ignore someone all the time, sometimes you do have to ignore.
But if you just have a policy of ignoring, that doesn't work,
because this could be a problem. You have to remember that
sometimes there's an issue, there's a problem. It's not like,
it's always a non-problem that somebody is causing just a fuss
for nothing. That's the first response. The other response that
we do generally, is
you start screaming back.
What that does is that aggravates the child even further, and they
start screaming back.
And then there's just nobody goes anywhere. Think of that in an
adult, it's the same thing.
Somebody's very angry, you get angry as well.
And they're just gonna get more angry. And then you're not gonna
get anywhere with that.
The third response
is to what they call the containing response. You absorb
what they're saying. you process it, and you find another way to
defuse it. So for example, if you think about child,
you see that the mother just cannot deal with it because she's
just too frustrated. She's shouting back and the child is
shouting back as well. Or the teenager. They're just having a
shouting match now, now the grandparent comes in, takes that
teenager child, gives them a hug,
calms them down first and said, No, no, don't worry, I'll deal
with what is it? Yes, yes, yes, she's wrong, whatever. It's just
contained it.
They say that in an argument According to research, it shows
that if you're a
in an argument with somebody, somebody's frustrated with you and
you show frustration back, nobody's going to win.
The only way you can win this is to subvert it, subvert the
situation, go around the site to deal with it. That's what you call
wisdom, to figure out how to deal with these things.
How to deal with these things. And basically, it's just another way
of good character.
Just another way of saying, This is what character requires.
Why do people argue? Why do people have differences? What are the
reasons and causes of why people have differences?
First and foremost, there are I think about three or four
different reasons while that provide the foundation of why
somebody may like to
differ with somebody.
One of the first reasons is incomplete or shallow knowledge.
You don't have enough knowledge of the situation.
You think something is right, this is especially pertinent to these
mosyle of mud hubs, different practices, and the example that I
gave you, myself, right, the example that I gave you, myself of
seeing the people doing tech beer, and finding a very strange, I'll
give you another example. Recently, I was in South Africa,
in Cape Town, for taraweeh. For Ramadan,
and SubhanAllah. They love to sing and do things. And
in the message that I've been around, especially in London, and
in England,
between every four records, right, after every four records in the
20, let's just say you have 20 records of taraweeh. After every
photocards, they have in some messages, they have a DSB of
tarawih, where you just read it silently. In some places, they
have nothing, everybody just reads very signing something to read the
speed, they read something.
However, here, not only after every four cards, but after every
two rockets, there was something that somebody would read, the two
rockets would finish, and that it'd be a specially appointed
person who would have another microphone, different from the
Imam. And he I forget what he when you read it, this be a Subhan
Allah who will hamdulillah something. After four o'clock, it
was a different DSP. So there was a different thicker that was
recited aloud. And then in some of them, people will join in, and
everybody would read it. And for me, that was very strange, because
I've never seen it before.
I've never seen it before. Now, as a fakie. Ruling here.
A long time ago, I would have said, this is a bit of brothers.
And you must stop this because clearly the Sahaba did not do this
in their time, because it's not established.
But
it's not, I wouldn't say it's impermissible to do this either.
As long as you don't think it's an obligation to do this, or as long
as you don't think that this is necessary to do or Asuna to do,
then it's just the practice.
So while I may not join in with it, I'm not going to cause too
much of a problem here.
I'm not going to cause too much of a problem.
Another thing I noticed is that being Shafi is they will do two
workouts of prayer, and then they would have with them, and then
they would make Salam and then they would do one record
separately, right, which is allowed in the Shafi school in the
Maliki school, humbly school, we're in the Hanafis. This is
disagreed upon this is
invalid, because we have a hadith, which says that a single record is
an incomplete prayer. And they say that when the Prophet said last
time used to do this, it means that he used to just add an extra
card to his last hurrah cards at nighttime and make it three, but
the others have understood it differently, which is fine. It's a
very difference of opinion.
So I am there. Now I am the guest scholar. And I have to deal with
this. So now the one of the Imams very nice person. He said, Look, I
know that you're going to have an issue with the winter, I can tell
them to change it. I can tell them to do three records all together.
Now, the thing is that if they do three records together, they do it
differently to the way the Hanafis do three records together as well.
I said you know what? Leave it. Don't confuse everybody. The
majority of people here
use two two and one separately. Carry on. I'll deal with it my in
my own way. If I want I can repeat my prayer afterwards. I can repeat
I'll join you and then I'll just do my own afterwards if I want to.
But let's not upset the boat. Let's not make a difference
because of one person you have to change the whole thing. It's not
such a critical issue.
However, there was another issue which was a bit
more critical, which was that
although they had about five or six half years of the Quran
minimum, there was still somebody for some reason there were three
people leading hips leading the tarawih three or four, leading the
tarawih. And there were at least another two or three behind who
more than half is of the Quran. But for some reason, because it's
allowed in the Shafi school, they had one person with a Quran open
in his salad. That would correct
if the Imam made a mistake. Now again,
there's a difference in the Hanafi school and the Shafi school in
disregard in the Chavez is allowed to read from something for
taraweeh read physically from something while in the Hanafi
school is not allowed. It's like you are then taking instruction
from something outside and it breaks your prayer in the Hanafi
school if somebody behind me
is reading from the Quran
and then he corrects me and I take that correction my salah will
break because I've taken it this is a very technical kind of issue.
So I said to them, I said look, we have about five or six half is of
the Quran here minimum. Why does he need to do that? Because for
me, this is a bit of a problem. And mashallah, they were very
accommodating. They said yes, you're right. You know, it's
actually stronger for us to be able to correct him I said, you
know, we will correct him if there's a mistake, he doesn't need
the open the Quran we have five or six profile of the Quran and
mashallah the miracle of the Quran is that we all you know, mashallah
able to correct each other. So alhamdulillah. So, now you can see
that we were we got on in that sense. Otherwise, if you can't
celebrate differences, and I have no problem with the fact that they
are Shafi is I'm not even going to try to make them 100 feet, because
what they're doing is right, according to their interpretation
of the same Quran and Sunnah that I'm following, according to my
interpretation.
I'm not saying my way, I'm just gonna say that my way is more
preferable to me and that's why I follow it, but you're always
correct as well.
Because you are also doing what Allah has told you to do what the
messenger SallAllahu Sallam has told you to do, which is to follow
the right course of action in determining what is the best
approach and what is the fatwa what is the masala what is the
ruling in this particular case? Yes, we've come to different
decisions but Alhamdulillah that's part of the life and that's that's
not a problem. So shallow knowledge is going to cause
problems you will see something you think this is wrong. This is
haram brothers.
One day I mentioned online a dua Allahumma Haley you are 30 is a
mini Istikhara prayer of Allah choose for me and
select for me the best. Like if you're if you need to do a quick
decision about something this is a dua you read instead of the big
istikhara dua that we have.
So this was online, and this hadith is related by Montero movie
and he says Hadith in a hurry Ibn
is Hadith von der ephone hurry von
der if and hurry it's weak and it's hurry it means it's not well
known It's unusual.
Somebody on Twitter tells me
with gives a screen of that with a big cross through it and say
fabricated I said this hadith is not fabricate is not mold or
it's the Eve so he says what kind of a move to you says Gary
rib doesn't mean a hurry unusual obscure does not mean fabricated.
Imam Timothy is going to mention a fabricated narration
and then lie and say it's not fabric says sorry. But this is
shallow knowledge.
As long as something is not Sahai, they just want to discredit
everything.
Again, this is a perspective. And he's willing to argue about it. I
did not confront him with it. It's just there. And lots of people
have liked it, but he wants to reject it.
So this first point was incomplete knowledge creates more room for
differences and creates a greater problem and the possibility of
disputes. For example,
jumping to conclusions, not listening properly, and then
arguing about what somebody said, or just not knowing,
not having the requisite qualifications or knowledge about
something. For example, somebody said, the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam said according to a hadith which is weak. So the
person says, You are a liar. How can the Prophet salallahu Alaihe
Salam say something that is weak?
The person said, a hadith and he said this is a weak narration
Now the person doesn't understand what it means to be weak or strong
or whatever is La hawla wala coda, you're saying that Professor
Lawson said a weak Hadith
Subhanallah you can tell the ignorance there.
There's a foreigner.
I think he was from India. He came to Arabia.
And he heard an Arab who had a very bad voice singing.
It was a very Bedouin song sounded very ugly to him. So he says, Oh,
now I understand why the Prophet sallallahu Sallam forbade music
is because they have this kind of music if they heard Indian music
that he would not have obeyed it.
I don't know what nigerian music is like, but
that's number one, just pure ignorance about things, looking at
things superficially, just how they seem without going deeper and
without having the requisite knowledge to understand these
things. Number two, following desire, an ego issue, wanting to
be right, not wanting to drop in the sight of others. So Allah
subhanho wa Taala says, For Atia, Manitoba, the ILA who Hawa for
Atia, Manitoba, Illa, who Hawa?
What adult Allahu Allahu Allah Illman
Mahatama Allah semi he will be,
which either either Abbasali he is a shower,
have you seen the one who has taken his Lord, as his desires,
he worships his own desire that they must come first in
everything. And Allah has Miss has allowed him to stray
from knowledge.
And Allah has placed a seal over his ears, and his heart. So though
he's listening, he can't listen to the truth, he can't hear it.
You're seeing but you can't see the truth.
And Allah has placed the veil over his sight.
A lot of the time, daughter in law mother in law issue is from this
side, it becomes an ego issue of
it's going to be my rule in the house.
When they feel threatened by the daughter in law, for example, it's
to do with Caprice, they don't want to give a chance. They don't
want to say, Look, I need to calm down.
A lot of marital problems are like this, each side wants to be right.
And they think that if they say sorry, then every time they will
have to say sorry.
It will make them feel that I am low, and now in the sight of the
other person because I said sorry, I'm the weaker one. And that's not
true.
And then it becomes a spiral. And no side is ready to say sorry,
then it's all bad character. One has to understand that the more
you argue with someone, the more as I mentioned, according to the
studies, nobody's going to win, hearts are going to become harder.
And the problem with arguments is that the shaytan then takes
advantage of the situation. I was an imam in one place. And
sometimes and we had 100 people that would come for Joomla,
approximately, we knew everybody. So if somebody didn't come, we
would know. And if there was a new person we would know.
So what happens is,
sometimes there's two individuals who are missing. So then I see
them later somewhere and I say, Brother, how come you didn't come?
He said
he makes an excuse versus and No, tell me what's the problem? He
said, I've got a bit of an argument with so and so.
And I don't want to see him in the masjid because I get very angry
and I might do something so I didn't come. I said La hawla wala
Quwata illa biLlah? Neither did you come and neither did he come.
He had the same reason for not coming. Who wins, the shaytaan
wins.
Each person thinks the other person is going to come to the
masjid. So they don't come and who loses out themselves. And this is
what you call this kind of arrogance. That's why have you
noticed in Sharia, they tell us the Prophet sallallahu sallam said
that if you have a breakup with somebody, what is the maximum
number of days you can break up for three days after that no way.
This is only to do with
non family members with family members is not even allowed for
one day.
This is for nuns, non kin, non blood relatives with family is not
even allowed for three days because your
three days is even too much psych psychology behind it is that if I
break up with somebody
I and who's been a good
The close relationship I've had with them. Think about this, you
break up with somebody. Now you do feel bad. You do feel a bit
guilty, you feel remorseful. But you the our ego doesn't allow us
to go and say sorry or say the first Salam, even the Prophet
sallallahu sallam said the one who says the first Salam is the one
free of prey.
We're waiting for the other person, he's waiting for us.
Husband and wife, same thing. They're waiting for each other.
Now what happens is,
we're waiting for hours and hours and hours, we don't get an email,
we don't get a text, we don't get a phone call, or we sometimes see
one another. And we just go the other way kind of looking
hopefully will say something, nobody said anything.
The second day,
it becomes a bit easier to deal with this.
You get used to it.
The third day you get even more used to it. And if you carry on,
then you will make a new friend, he will make a new friend and then
you will not have any incentive to try to make it up again. You get
used to being separate, three days is maximum.
In that time, you need to get together otherwise, is going to
get more difficult as you get along because the wall gets higher
and higher and bigger and bigger. That's the problem.
There's a hadith another Hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi
salam, which is about the sign of the Day of Judgment. This hadith
is also related by Imam Timothy Inomata, and many others. The
Prophet sallallahu sallam said, When you see Shahan matar, and
it's a long Hadith, we don't have time to go into every single
aspect of this hadith. And I don't think it's fully manifested yet
though we have some signs of it. Probably someone said that when
you see avise, avarice and greed being followed people just after
their own greed, well, how and motivation, which means the
desires fully followed were Jabu Cooley, the Iranian Bureau each
and every person
who thinks he can hold an opinion
is conceited about his opinion, he's stubborn about his opinion.
When you see these things, follow him by file some basic, then stay
in your house, stay in your house, keep your tongue in control.
And
leave anything that is unusual and you're not familiar with and only
do that which you're familiar with. And now it's only focus on
yourself and leave everybody else. But in sha Allah, that situation
is not fully here yet. But we see some signs of it. In fact, today,
though, the problem is that it's not every person who has the right
to hold the view, who is stubborn about his view. But it is actually
people who don't even have qualification, will have no right
to have a view about a particular aspect.
That they are stubborn about their opinion.
majority of Muslims are nominal Muslims with no depth of
knowledge. They just have a working knowledge of the Islam.
The only knowledge they have is what they assimilated from their
parents growing up and their family that this is what it means
to be Muslim, a lot of it which is culture.
And if they went to a madrasa or mocked up a teacher to learn from
whatever they assimilated then as young boys and girls with the
child mind after they grew up, they haven't taken any course on
deceit, or Hadith, or fake or aqidah.
It's just whatever they know from a young age that's carrying them
along and anything they may hear on a Friday, chutzpah.
Friday, Beyonds and hot baths are generalizations they don't get
into depth about things.
We need Muslims today that have depth.
We need more Muslims of depth who've studied a book on Aqeedah
maturely, not as a child but maturely afterwards, who studied
in depth See, so they understand that Sharia opens up for them they
understand wow this is intricate. Not just I went to one person and
we were talking about the MADI I believe the Jalan things he said
this is a shopkeeper was in a shop said there is no Hadith about this
is not established. He must have heard it from somewhere. He has
not done any research because if you did research and find the
Hadith he clearly heard it from somewhere online. I don't know
where and decided yes, this sounds a radical idea. And I'm going to
say this when I see somebody
this is we are missing and lacking depth. We have no depth to our I
mean
Can you imagine if you had a bunch of doctors, no experts, no
specialist, they were just nominal doctors. And there was a
complicated issue who's going to deal with the organ to just give
their own opinion, and then kill the guy?
Right? If you have depth, then they'll understand that no, this
is a specific issue, we need to be careful about this.
So those are two of the reasons of why there's differences of
opinion. And the last, not the last, absolute last but the third
opinion, the third reason for why people differ, and like to dispute
is following custom and tradition, over real knowledge and substance.
And similar example, similar example, that in your custom,
people do certain things. But
the reality is, that should be something else because Islam tells
you do it something else, but we're used to the custom.
For example,
some parents forcing their children to marry their cousins
out of custom.
And the child knows they can't get along with that child, they're
gonna get away with their cousin, and they're gonna have a miserable
life. That doesn't matter.
The custom, what am I going to say? How am I going to show my
face to people?
That's what you call that problem. Allah subhanaw taala says in the
Quran Corlew in Wajid
either uma we're in either 30 methadone. We found they This was
their response. We found our parents ancestors doing a certain
thing and we're just following them. That's what you call blind
following of culture. Allah says lo Cana Abba, hula, no one Oh,
cannot about Leia, Luna che and what I had to do, even though
their fathers their their forefathers, had no intelligence
about it, no understanding of anything, and they were not guided
in one places. I want to come back.
Tomorrow the burqa accom accom Kalu in Bhima, or system mihika
freuen. It was just stubbornness. Because he said, if we were to
bring to you if I was to bring to you something more guided, more
right, than what you found your forefathers doing. Would you then
follow? They said, No, we just disbelieve in what you have been
sent with just obstinance and stubborn on just following their
culture. And this is what the problem is.
Now, let me give you a final
final point, though, there's a number of other reasons why
there's many, many reasons why people differ.
We need to avoid suspicion, we need to avoid being negative. We
need to try to have a positive outlook. And when somebody says
something, try to place it in the best way. There's one story that I
will relate to you. I had a friend who was an imam in a particular
area in South Africa. And in that community, they had both hand fees
and share fees. When Ramadan would come, everybody would be very
happy. They would have that 20 rockets of Tarawih prayer. And
then the Hanafis would do three records of winter together with
one Imam with their Imam. And in another place the Shafi is we do
two and one record with another Imam. And everybody was happy.
This is going on for many, many years. And everybody was satisfied
the hearts were together. Though if anybody came, he would look at
this as disunity out of disunity, but the hearts were very
connected. They received the new Imam and this Imam thought that
this is a fitna
see what is fitna exactly
fitna is an destabilizing a stable situation. He said this is fitna.
He tried to bring them together. Okay, he's the Imam so they listen
to him. But one day they would do it Hanafy the other day Shafi but
the other side was always unhappy
because they're not able to do it their way that they used to.
Now look at this
out wordly they are now uniting but the hearts became disunited
and yet internally the other on the other hand, they were united
what really matters most having open hearts for example we know in
England there are people who are going to do Ramadan and Eid on a
different day just get over it
right
mashallah Eid Mubarak to you Ramadan Mubarak to you as well.
Right? Of course, we're going to try to bring people together where
we can. But when you know that this is just going to cause bigger
fitna. Why spend the first four days five days of Ramadan? Arguing
about this case and spoiling the first four or five days of Ramadan
or spoiling the end. What's the point?
Understand this is there just understand there are certain
things that are
There, look when something is haram, then we need to be much
stronger. You can't be lacks everywhere, but where things are
have to be allowed and difference of opinion and things that are
beyond us, then we need to be much more tolerant in that regard. May
Allah subhana wa Tada
May Allah subhanho wa Taala grant us wisdom and understanding and
depth of knowledge. And may Allah bring us together in the way that
he wants us to be together working with that one and Al hamdu Lillahi
Rabbil aalameen.
The first question is how to deal with the people who call
themselves or handle Hadith or selfies.
The thing, the problem with this approach is not all of them. It's
those who have this opinion that we are right and everybody else is
wrong. And they think it's their mission to correct everybody, even
if that means it's their father or their,
their uncle, or even maybe a teacher that they studied with
when they were young. They just think everybody's wrong. It's my
way or the highway. This is a big problem.
Slowly, slowly, these people are coming around when they see that
their approach is causing a massive problem. And we've got a
big problem from outside of Islam, and we need to be more unified.
Unfortunately, this approach, the extreme end of this approach leads
to things like ISIS, because they all come from that background.
Much of ISIS is actually the opinions and the drive comes from
the books of ignore Abdul Wahab.
And this is actually one of the Saudi scholars who speaks about
this. His name is he's a Saudi originally a Salafi Saudi
scholarship, Hattie Milani. And he's been on Saudi TV as well
trying to tell people this that we have a very extreme approach to
things and it, though, it doesn't directly cause ISIS like
tendencies, but it does provide a foundation for these kinds of
problems. I did a talk a while back, it's called the fifth month
hub,
the fifth month hub, it's on YouTube, it's on zum zum
academy.com. And I would suggest that you for a lot of these
questions, that talk will give you a good understanding, essentially
what it is. My conclusion of this is that the Salafi perspective is
just the fifth opinion. They don't want to follow Abu Hanifa Malik
Shafi Ahmed Mohammed Rahim Allah, but they want to just follow
Abdulaziz bin buzz,
Sheikh Saleh, thymine, immuno Tamia.
Al Bonnie, they've just replaced these people, they don't think for
themselves.
Because my question to them is that if I tomorrow, say that,
okay, I'm not going to take any of the mother hip either.
And I'm going to take Hadith and Quran directly.
Right? I'm going to take Hadith and Quran directly.
But I reach different conclusions and take different Hadith to them.
Though I'm following Hadith, and not a mother, that still disagree
with me. So they want me to follow what they follow. And what they
follow is just the fifth mother, a new mother.
Why should I trade in my classical method that scene 1300 years
from the Centers of Islam, like Kufa, and the medic is from Madina
Munawwara, city of the province of lorrison. Why should we trade that
in for something new.
So that essentially is the technical reason
for this background, so it requires a lot more detail. But if
you watch this lecture called the fifth month, it will give you
inshallah good understanding how to deal with people who hold very
rigid opinions.
That's a very difficult question to answer because it depends on
how it's affecting you. If there's a person with a very rigid
opinion, and personally, my approach to such people is to just
not engage, because it's a waste of time.
It's do something else that's useful. Use your energy behind
somebody else. This is as long as you can avoid the situation. But
if it's somebody that you have to live with, then you're going to
have to come to some agreement, whether that agreement is meet
halfway, but if they're very rigid, then most likely you're
probably going to have to agree to disagree. And hopefully, that
works. But it's such an open ended question that is very difficult to
give you a very particular answer to because there are so many very
variables, and a particular situation, there are so many
different things that could happen in that situation.
What is the line between minor and major issue of what you should
ignore and what you should engage in? The way I look at it is that
the first thing when you see a difference, and you feel something
towards it, is not to jump to conclusions straightaway. As I
said, I've made mistakes of thinking that something should be
like this, or some and then I've gone back and I've seen I've seen
that actually, oh, this is another opinion. It's a valid opinion.
Because a lot of the time, it could just be based on ignorance,
because we're so used to one way. So I would go and consult a
scholar, good scholar about this, this issue is, and then once I
figured out that, no, this is a big issue. This is I mean, some
things are big issues, clear haram, you know, this clear
problem, then in that case, you just have to have the wisest
approach to try to see how you can change that.
You know, just saying, brothers, this is wrong. And you shouldn't
do this and all that, that sometimes doesn't help find, see
which way you can go to try to benefit the situation.
Because we want not to just say it's wrong, but we want to try to
explain to them why it's wrong. And hopefully make them change.
That requires obviously patience, wisdom, thought, maybe even asking
somebody else, how do you think I should tackle this issue?
That hamburger Mala. So that's what I would suggest. In that
case, it's a small minor issue, but the person is your friend. And
of course, we need to keep the door of Mr. Bill Maher over here
and LaMancha open.
To avoid any kind of, you know, we shouldn't become so soft, that we
want to avoid any kind of confrontation that we don't say
anything at all, then the shaytaan wins, because the shaytaan thinks,
and shaytan says that he wants everybody to be the same, so that
nobody tells anybody anything. So he can guide everybody. So I'm
gonna build my roof, and the Hanuman car has to be left open.
But it's just how you do that you don't want to mess up the
situation further. You want to try to get it better. So like Imam
Ghazali, remember God Rahmatullahi it. They they say that
you're not obliged to do I'm going to be modifying the human car, in
a case where it's just not going to work. In fact, sometimes it's
wrong for you to do it when it's going to cause a bigger problem,
maybe lead the person to Cofer or make even more sense. So it just
depends. You have to gauge the situation, how helpful am I going
to make this? What is the best way to tell somebody something, in
fact, what some other must say, because you know, there was a
hadith that was quoted, which is that the Prophet sallallahu sallam
said that when you see a wrong, you should change it with your
hands physically, than with your tongue. And then at least think
about it. That depends on your level in the community and your
level of power and influence in that particular situation.
If you're an Imam, you're an influential person, a leader, or a
knowledgeable person that people will respect. And you know, they
respect you then for you, you have to change it with your hands.
But if that's going to cause a bigger problem,
then you do it with your tongue.
If that's going to cause too much problem, and it's just not worth
it, then you have to keep thinking bad about it.
You must never not think bad.
For example, I'll give you an example. Sometimes, people are
watching a movie.
And there's a haram scene that's going to take place like this man,
most movies will have a romance.
And they're not married. They're actors. So we get so engrossed in
the soap operas and things, that we start cheering them along, like
Yeah,
that's actually wrong. Do you understand? Because we're not even
thinking is bad. We can't change that. It's a movie, we're not
going to change that. But we should at least think bad. But
sometimes we get so used to these things that we don't even think
bad anymore.
They become normal. And that's really sad because that's when the
Imam disappears from the heart. Because if you don't even think
something is bad. Then there's the Imaan is size of a mustard seed.
As a professor Larson said, Some animals say that physically
changing people, this is the job of the the rulers because they
have that ability.
Verbally telling people this is the position of scholars, imams
leaders, because they have that position.
And for
the other people, if they have no position
Since they can't do anything, then at least they must think bad.
So this is depends on the situation, but this is the general
guidelines towards that.
cultural things marry things. Again, I have another talk on
that. Because again, this is a bit of a complicate I will give you a
short answer. But for maybe you can tell your friend this. We have
a series on marriage, love, and fairytales
marriage, love and fairy tales. I did this in some university. And
it's about how you deal with these forced marriages Do we have one on
forcement, I think we have one on forced marriages as well. If you
go to zum zum, I kind of got one on forced marriages, because this
is the big issue. In some Asian cultures. Generally, what I
suggest to people is that
respecting your parents, respecting, honoring them is
unconditional. Regardless, even if they're coffee, you still have to
respect them, but you don't have to follow them. If they Cofer, and
they're telling you to do something wrong, you don't have to
follow them. But you have to respect them.
You can't even say off. So if you don't want to marry somebody that
your parents you should first give, it's an option, you should
first consider it strongly. If if you can make it work. Because then
your parents are happy, you are happy, everybody's happy and
Hamdulillah. But if you know it's a situation, that guy is a drug
dealer, the guy is doesn't pray, the guy's you just don't see a
possibility
you've tried,
then it's firm, firm persistence, you have to start, I would say you
should start treating your parents even better, do more work for
them. When their love over from the love of their culture towards
your love, they have love for you. But the culture, love is too
strong. You have to try to win that over through patience. It's
going to take a long time, sometimes you have to keep acting
well until the parents are thinking, to * with my culture,
I need my children. Some parents are very stubborn, you may not
work, they will disown you, they will blackmail you. They will say
this that I've we've dealt with these issues. It's just really sad
case. But it depends on how much you're willing to push it. But the
one thing is from a 50 perspective, you're not obliged,
you're not obliged to do something harmful to yourself, because your
parents tell you to do so.
Right? Parents can be unreasonable. Parents can be
oppressive if they're not free of that. And if they are like that,
then you don't have to listen to them, though you still have to
respect them, and show them on a
very difficult thing to do. But a lot of the times the youth in this
situation they may get.
They may be selfish, they may not look at it right? They may think
the parents are being oppressive and they're not. So they should go
and ask a few scholars. This is what the situation is and be
honest, that this is what the situation is, am I right? Or Is my
father right? In this case? Are they being oppressive or not? They
should go and ask for guidance shouldn't take matters in their
own hands all the time, because you could be wrong. A lot of the
time teens don't see things in a mature way because they haven't
experienced.
So I mean, I'm speaking to all the people here, there's no point
telling you guys this, right? Because you have the experience
already. But this is just if you want to explain to somebody this
is this is what generally I tell people,
and
how should youth act and behave in a multicultural situation with the
with all of the environment as we have it right now, the first thing
that is most important is our youth need to be proud of their
faith. They need to make a clear distinction between what is right
and wrong is in the faith. What is violence? And what is real Jihad
and what is the fake Jihad and the artificial Jihad that people are
saying, we need to have that discussion. Because we don't want
them to become so assimilated that they don't even understand what is
Islam and what is not Islam, that they want to hide their faith and
just act like change their name. You know from
Salim to Sam and you know, whatever the case, we don't want
them to do that either.
Mohamed TUMO is more Mohammed Farah, if you can stay in Mahama
for I'm sure he will be even more respected like Muhammad Ali, the
boxer. He gained his respect despite being Muhammad, right. So
what we need to teach our youth is that you need to stop feeling that
you're a foreigner in this country.
You need to take ownership, that you are part and parcel of this
country.
And you need to see how you can help and
contribute, and not just be a consumer, how people will respect
you for what you can contribute. And they will look beyond what you
look like, or what your faith is.
This is difficult. People don't think in this mature way
generally, but this is what we need to teach our children that
people will respect, you'll get a few odd people who are racist,
completely racist, but majority of people are not racist. We've gone
beyond that.
So they respect hard work. They respect good qualifications. So
work hard at what you do,
and see how you can help people and don't just another problem
with our Muslim communities that were generally focused on.
Only Muslim causes, will collect money only for Muslim countries,
Muslim causes, we don't take part in general causes. So we don't
show that we're considering other people as well. That we have
compassion for other people. So it's very helpful to get our
children involved in something like this from a young age, when
they say that, teach your children importance of truth. These are
three very important things for our youth and children. Teach them
the importance of truth wherever they are, because humans don't
lie. Forget Muslims, humans should not be lying. Lying is considered
to be wrong in all cultures.
Number two importance of prayer salads, because that's what's
going to give them strength in the true sense of it. And number three
is hikma service. So when people come to your house, get the kids
involved in serving them, so that they can learn to serve others as
well afterwards and we should try as a community to get help get our
children to help in local mainstream service work as well
feeding the homeless
raising money for other things, you know, Muslim and non Muslim
causes because it's about
one other Omar said that if it wasn't for the Hadith, of Martha
the Allahu Anhu would say is that zakat must be taken from the
Muslims and given to the Muslims. We would even allows the cat to be
given to non Muslims, because everything else you can give to
non Muslims, you can give sadaqa you can give qurbani meat, you can
give southern counterfeiter is for non Muslims as well. Right on his
account, you can't because we have a specific Hadith about that. So
we need to think more universally think about everybody, as opposed
to just about ourselves in our own community. Because we're in this
kind of survival kind of mode, defensive mode. We need to think
beyond that. We are part and parcel of this country, especially
the youth who are born here, so they mustn't feel like strangers
and aliens. But ask Allah for assistance and guidance and do the
right thing. May Allah subhanaw taala grant us that's all fake. So
I think I've answered all the questions just like a law firm.