Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Every Community Needs These Four People
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al Hamdulillah Al Hamdulillah Handan
cathedral forgiven Mubarak can feed Mubarak and it can now you
can borrow buena Jalla jalla wa rahmatullah wa salatu wa sallam
either say you didn't have evil Mustafa SallAllahu Taala are they
who are either early he was Safi, he or Baraka was seldom at the
Sleeman Cathedral on Isla Yomi de Amara
beautiful venue, the only problem is that it feels like it's a
wedding.
Aside from that, mashallah, it's wonderful. And no weddings
planned, right?
No waiting is planned. Okay.
So we are this is a university program
for London School of Economics, the right.
Yeah, I saw LSE versus something. There's another university
mentioned. Not sure if that one's a better one or LLC, or
this one.
is better. Okay? If you say so makes no difference to me.
To be honest, the reason I mentioned that is really what
makes anything better is eventually what your what that
university is going to be able to produce, and what will come out of
it. And that means what you guys are going to be doing in 10 years
to 20 years, that's really going to determine which was a better
place. Right? Today, we can say whatever we want. But at the end
of the day, we want to see where we're going to be in 20 to 30
years. And how are we going to shake this country? Because this
is where we live, this is our home. Allah subhanho wa Taala says
in the Maya acaba Allahu minelute. The team, Allah subhanho, wa Taala
accepts from those who are God conscious, who are God conscious.
Now, what we want to understand here is that I just want to
mashallah the Muslim country at the Muslim community in this
country. They're about 60 to 70 years old. That means that while
we've had Muslims coming to the shores of the UK for a very, very
long time, from the early 1900s, maybe even the 1800s, but in terms
of on mass, people started coming here, right at the end of the
1950s. But more so 1960s and onwards, that's when people came
from the villages of Bangladesh, of India, of Pakistan. And then
that was followed, you know, maybe a decade later, Algerians
Somalians and, and then onwards, and huge amounts of community have
come through and we were around 60 to 70 years old, many, many
Muslims are mashallah very well established. And now, we're no
longer on the defensive, we're no longer in survival mode, or at
least we should not be, we should now be in development mode. That's
very, very important to understand. We have to be in
development, development mode, at least the new generation, you've
got a degree from a UK university, right? That makes you you know, as
British and as you can Hamdulillah, Hamdulillah, I've
traveled to, you know, over 50 countries in the world, the one
thing about UK Muslims, we don't feel like we're guests here, we
literally feel British. And we feel like this is where we are, we
don't even have to justify seeing people in America and Canada to
say, Oh, this country gave us so much. Right? This is our country,
it has to give us so much. I mean, this is what we are we are, we are
Hamdulillah, we don't have the problem that a lot of French
Muslims face, which is that they face a lot of discrimination.
While they may even appear more French than we appear.
English. In many cases, they don't actually feel very French, a lot
of the time because of the way things are down there.
Hamdulillah. You know, it's not all good. I mean, it's twisted in
the world. So the world is full of difficulties, you can never be
perfect in any place in the world. Right? It's the dunya. And the
dunya can only be so good. It's paradise. That's the absolutely
beautiful and 100% place of bliss in sha Allah, we wait for that.
And may Allah subhanho wa Taala transport us to that and give us
worthy actions in this world. So now, what I want to mention is
that everybody plays a part and you guys are going to play a part
in sha Allah, we all play a part. And that's what we want to do. We
want to play a part for the future. We're not here, just to
live a life, as they say you only live once you actually do only
live once in this world. But then eventually there's the Hereafter.
And that is the life of eternity. And that is the reflection of this
life. We produce in this world for the hereafter. We so in this world
for the hereafter. So, in any community, especially we're
talking about minority community, so Muslims are minority in the UK,
for any place where a minority exists anywhere in the world.
There are going to be at least for us, there's going to be four
really, really important categories of people that we need
for forget survival, but for advice
enhancement, for advancement to make our mark, to be productive,
to do something, and to obviously establish our rights, you need
four categories of people. I would say that the first category and
this is not necessarily in any kind of ascending or descending
order. The first category of people are the wealthy, we need
people with money.
For anything to survive nowadays, you need money to make it work.
You need money to make your work. In fact, the Prophet sallallahu
Sallam mentioned that the time will come and the thing that will
be of benefit will be denied and dyrham which basically means
money. So you need money to fund things, to get things off the
ground, to develop things to pay for people, and so on. That's
something we don't need to encourage anybody because
everybody wants money. Were living if we can categorize the various
different challenges that the Muslim community will face and has
faced and what the process that was mentioned, this, I would say
to such, to some degree is what we call the fitna to Sarah, a state
of fitna to Sarah, what that means that this is the challenge of
prosperity, we're living at a time when money is easy to come by, not
necessarily for everybody. But for a lot of people, if you just
compare yourselves to your grandfather, and to your father,
and what they had to do to make a few bucks to make to just survive.
They say this generation is not just surviving, they're using
their money for literally for as disposable income for enjoyment,
whereas your grandfather most for the most part, and your father's
right, did not have that kind of disposable income unless they
were, you know, a very small percentage of extremely wealthy
people. So things have changed hugely, money is much more easier
to come by. So I don't need to encourage that there's going to be
people in the Muslim community who will have money, and they're very
much needed. They're very much needed, because you can't really
do much without having, you know, to build a masjid, you need money
to advance the masjid, institutes anything unit, you need money,
that's the first category of people only have a short amount of
time. So I'm gonna say this very briefly. Second category of people
is probably where you guys come in. Second category of people are
those
who actually, I'll put you in the third category. The second
category are those people who are in.
We live in a democracy as a minority.
In a democracy,
nobody is going to get their way, minorities, etc. Unless they
campaign unless they make noise unless they do something unless
they work hard. Otherwise, nobody cares. Because it's all about a
voting system. It's the struggle of the fittest. That's generally
what happens in most democracies. So remember this, if you're into
politics, understand this very carefully, what we need is when I
in politics, we either need people in the driving seats,
or next, a passenger.
Or at least the backseat driver, if you will, none of those, then
your rights, our rights are never going to be fulfilled.
In politics in a minority Muslim community, you either need to be
in the driving seat, or you need to be next to the driver, somehow
or the other, you're gonna get there somehow make buddies or
whatever, or you're in the backs, you're in the backseat
campaigning, like a backseat driver, hey, you're doing this
right turn right here, turn left here, and so on, you know, the
relationship between a backseat driver, when you're learning how
to drive and your mom sitting in the back and like setting couldn't
go left and go, right. So basically, in politics, you need
to be somewhere, otherwise you cannot survive, because they're
not going to make laws for you. We can't complain anymore, that they
don't think about Muslims, if you're not in the driving seat.
That's what happens in democracies, dictatorships or
something else, right. But at least in a democracy, you have to
be somewhere for your voice to be heard, and for your rights to be
taken into consideration. Right. Number three, the third category
of people are people with different skill sets, in all
different industries, especially the very important ones,
especially policymaking institutes, think tanks,
organizations, major companies, people who produce things, people
who design things, we need to be everywhere. Because Muslim
community needs it. If we need experts in different fields. Yes,
we can use number Sims, but it's very nice to have somebody who has
sympathy who has the same cause. So you need to be the best in your
fields. And you need to do it for a reason for ulterior motive for a
higher motive, not just for selfishly buying the greatest car
or the greatest home or, or because it's my father's dream, or
my mom's dream.
It's really for a bigger motive, all of those things will get
fulfilled.
You will get your nice cars and your nice houses in sha Allah, but
you will have a greater motive. Muslims need professionals in
every community. So be the best in what you do.
And number four, the most important category of people that
you need in any community, right, which who will actually guide the
first three, and will balance them out and will shine the light for
them are the scholars or the scholars in the orlimar we, you
cannot sustain a Muslim community without their own Allah. You
cannot advance a Muslim community spiritually without Furthermore,
it just doesn't work. Because when there's no other Ma, everybody
becomes an island. I've just come from two countries in which were
Muslims have been since the 1800s. They were brought there as
indentured laborers. They had absolutely no scholars among them,
no scholar was brought along with them. These were just simple
people that were brought from different parts of India up and
other places. They were there to work. It's amazing. It's
absolutely amazing that they even survived in terms of their faith.
It was both Hindus and Muslims brought from India. They survived.
They maintain their faith.
But just about there are other countries where people were from
other countries, they lost their faith in the same period of time,
because they had no scholars there.
There was not a single hijab wearing a woman in the whole of
that those two countries until about the 1970, something 80s
nearly 70 years, right, they started marrying between India in
Hindus and Muslims, the husband were Hindu, the wife would be
Muslim with our other way around, but they maintain their face
really interesting.
hamdulillah at least they maintain their faith, the first scholars
came in the 1980s. And then things started changing. And now they
have 80 scholars in that country. I made a little I
did a little maths. And essentially, they have one scholar
per 1800 Muslims.
And not every scholar is active. So then it becomes the whereas in
England and if you look at London, I sit in London, we've got a
million Muslims, but we've got over 1000 scholars, male and
female graduates, if you go just to clapped and you probably got
1000, half is of the Quran
hamdulillah right. So what scholars would do is that they
would be able to guide and I've actually lived in places where
they never had an imam or a local scholar, everybody becomes a
Mufti.
And then there's just a massive debate. Can you imagine a
community or a country without rulers,
proper libertarian societies where there's no ruler, everybody does
what they want, what kind of chaos that would create. I mean, you've
got chaos, even with rulers. I mean, imagine without Gale,
imagine without rulers, that's the same thing spiritually, that will
happen to a community without Muslim leaders and scholars,
there'd be religious chaos. And there is in many countries where
there is no Muslim, where there's not there's not sufficient Muslim
scholarship. Now, what's going on in this fall is that Alhamdulillah
now, after 60 to 70 years, there's a marriage that's taking place
between the first category and the last category. So you've got many
wealthy people with money. They're joining up with scholars and
martial law. Now they're starting organizations, institutions, not
just messages, but beyond Masjid now, for the maintenance of the
Muslim community in the future.
To set things so that our children and our grandchildren Shala
benefit, if we don't think about that, then we get very lost. But
we're not thinking about ourselves anymore. I'm not thinking about
myself anymore. I need to think about my great grandchildren, I
need to think about progeny. Now, until the day of judgment, it's
not too far to think. Right? If I start thinking that far, my
immediate tool will be included anyway. Right? But you need to
really be prudent and have great foresight into what we want. And
everybody here can play a part in sha Allah. If you do say that LSE
is a great university as it is in sha Allah, then we want to see
where you will be in 10 and 15 and 20 years and that's going to be
the test in sha Allah, how productive are usually do you have
that intention right now? You may have come here because your
parents really wanted you here. You may have come here because you
were very ambitious and you got into this university. You really
liked a certain course or you like university or because your friends
came here, whatever the case doesn't matter. What really
matters now is why you study what's your motivation? What's
your goal, and where do you want to get to what you want to
achieve? Remember the world will come for you will you will receive
the world you will get what you want. We're not saying drop your
you know, drop your career, drop your direction, it's just heighten
the motivation. What else do you want to achieve?
Why not achieve multiple things at the same time. So, the only way to
do that is you must remember at the core of it, you are a believer
in Allah, you've been chosen, either by birth, or by conversion
or reversion or whatever you want to call it. Somehow you have that
faith, a lot of people go through a lot of trouble to get to the
faith, we have Et Al Hamdulillah, however we have it, we want to
value that, and we want to be able to maintain that, because then we
have reward because at the end of the day, this wall is going to
finish and, you know, we're going to enjoy this world. But I said,
the world can only be enjoyed only to a certain degree, Allah has
made a very special abode for full pleasure. And for full blessing,
that's paradise. Unfortunately, there's also a Hellfire that we
have to worry about, right that we have to always keep in mind. So
now what's important is that we become productive individuals.
That means if you carry your faith in your vocation, then things can
change. People just don't know how to because Christianity, which was
the dominant religion in Europe, was pushed out of every public
place. Christianity pervaded every aspect of life before. But in the
last 100 years or so, they've pushed out Christianity, and thus
any faith from schools, from the media, from the workplace, from
the public sphere, leave your faith at the door and come inside.
That's the idea of Muslims don't feel happy about that. So we try
to take our faith everywhere Hamdulillah, we need to, nobody's
going to tell us what, nobody is going to cater for us. For
example, I
attended a gathering for bikers. A few weeks ago, the big group of
brothers on bikes, the they they come together as well, about 250
Bikers coming together. So I do a bit of biking myself, and I was
there to give it a talk. So what we have to understand is that you
see everybody in biking clothes, some biking clothes, where they
are, how it is, and where it stops are not very conducive for the way
Muslims dress, Muslim dress code. But the reason for that is that
it's not any discrimination, it's just that nobody had Muslims in
mind when they had when they were designing the biking, biking gear,
if you don't get in there, this is just a simple example. If you
don't get in there and be a contributor, nobody's gonna design
biking gear for a Muslim. Likewise, with women in hijab and
how they are in certain fields, it's much more easier to just
conform and just give up and say, we're just going to follow the
mainstream custom. But then where's your identity? or what
have you done for yourself, you've just taken up somebody else's
identity. And sometimes it's fine. And sometimes it goes against your
faith. What needs to be very careful about that the medical
doctors need to think about this. People in financing to think about
this. Finances already gone through many, many issues.
2007 2008, they were they had dabbled with the whole Muslim
economics and so on. There's an appetite for it. Right? There's a
number of fields that we need to think about. I give you an example
of a friend of mine, who was when the phones came out, when mobile
phones came out, there was a superconductor technology, which
is very important at the time in California. He was one of the
brothers in our local machine used to work there. He he was a very,
very talented individual at his workplace at one of the top
companies there. And he would just avoid going to the annual general
meetings. So they knew why because they serve wine in those meetings.
So he said, I can't attend because of that. And therefore you to do
everything else. But I just can't attend the meetings. So then what
happens is that one year, his, his boss calls him and he says, You're
going to attend the meeting? You know, it's in two weeks. He said,
No, you know what my issue is? He said, No, don't worry, we've
changed our policy, there's no longer going to be any wine that
is going to this will no longer going to be any alcohol served in
our meetings. They did that for one employee because he was
useful. He was productive. He was somebody that you know, they
valued. And if you're not a person
who is going to produce value and provide value while maintaining
their principles, people are hungry today. Right? People are
very hungry today. They're looking for what you have, which is
spirituality, you may not value it too much. But you have a
spirituality, you have an ethic. You have family, right? You have
we're supposed to as Muslims, we're supposed to have kinship,
and importance of family. We're supposed to look after one
another. We're in we still haven't we may have given up and a lot of
this will become weak, but we actually still have that there's a
lot of people out there who don't have that. Then you have that
connection with Allah. Right that you have that connection, so that
you can think about praying at least even Friday, and if you only
even pray Friday prayers, you've still got a connection. Yeah, you
could do it. We can do with a lot more connection. But that's
something people don't have. They're just purely into the
decadence of this world just enjoying themselves because they
don't think there's any
hoping to come, we at least have that thought. There's a scholar
recently a thinker who actually said that money is such a powerful
goal today, such a powerful
objective, that if it wasn't for many Muslims having Allah as the
as the deity to follow and how having faith, we would have been
probably followers of money as well today, like just fully
because unfortunately, even with faith, money seems to be the
biggest thing in people's minds. It is the biggest thing in
people's minds, if it wasn't for our faith that's protecting us
from giving ourselves up fully, to just the wealth, right, and
economics, you know, to a certain degree,
we, you know, hamdulillah Allah, we thank Allah subhanaw taala, for
having given us faith, but we need to maintain that
you will finish up here,
from the environment that you will get used to write among the Muslim
brothers and sisters. And then after that, you have to go into
the cold world to survive on your own, you will be getting married,
if you're not already married, will be settling down, there'll be
a number of responsibilities.
How are you going to deal with all of that? Sometimes a lot of people
come to university because they just want to get away from home
and not have the rigors of the home and the strictness of home
and they just want to enjoy themselves. But eventually, we
have to essentially get serious. And that's when we need to start
planning from now if we haven't already as to where we want to go
with this life. And do we want to be acceptable people. So whatever
you're studying, try to be somebody that's going to be really
productive in that regard. And that has higher motives in that
regard. A friend of mine, we met with one of the heads of
so in America, there's an organization that fights for
Muslim Rights. It's called Care Council of American Islamic
raishin like men here, right? So the head of one of the champions
of Syrian or Lebanese guy, and I knew him but I didn't know his
background. So a local brother in our, in our machine, he said that
I met this guy like 1520 years ago, we were at Disneyland, right?
In Los Angeles, we are at Disneyland. And we came up with
something and we saw this rolling, so like, okay, you know, we need
to praise us or fame or something. So let's find the corner to pray.
He said, No, no, we need to pray down there in that park. Right? He
had such boldness from there. That's why he then eventually
becomes head of that organization, right of the chapter of that
organization. You have to have a zeal, you can't just be a blind
follower. You think we need to really
have some ideas of our own, and our principles are the most
important. So we need to get somewhere with them. There's so
many examples of this. There's so many examples of this that way,
you have principles, people respect principles. The world is
in chaos right now, in terms of emotional and psychological. And
in terms of belief and spiritual, there's a massive chaos, there's a
massive
Subhanallah vacuum out there, people just don't understand where
what they're looking for in this world consumerism, has it failed
capitalism, is it failing? You know, what, what are we living in
modernism, post modernism, post post modernism? Where are we? It
is so confusing. People don't know, the whole thing is so fluid,
what's going on? What's, you know, what's not happening, where we
should go? What we should say they make certain policies, then they
change the policies. Is this good for adults? Is it good for
children? Yes, it is. No, it's not SubhanAllah. There's a massive
chaos.
But when you have principles, and you can abide by them, and people
see the benefit, you'll see the difference. And another friend who
worked in a accounting software firm,
and he had a mortgage on his house, which he'd taken some time
back five $600,000. And he paid some off, and he needed another
300, like half left 200 to 300,000, he needed to pay it off
or something. It was Ramadan time, and he was feeling extremely
guilty that I've gotten myself into this, right. And I want to
get out of this. Achieve. He came up with this idea. It's a crazy
idea, but only radical people can do this kind of thing. He sent an
email to his boss.
Right? He sent an email to his boss, who's a non Muslim.
And
he said that is it possible that you can give me You know, I've
been with you guys for such a long time trustworthy employee, etc. Is
it possible that you can give me the next 12 months salary upfront,
and then I'll work for free for the next 12 months. I'm contracted
to work for you for the next 12 months. But I want you to give me
my year salary in advance so I can pay off my debt.
Anybody can accept that you think?
So he he just did it. He's a very bold guy. He's a very bold guy. He
goes into
The next morning, I don't know what he was excited what face he
was going to show there, right when he walks into the boss is
standing by the door. And he says to him, I got your email, go and
see human resources.
He goes into that. I think that's the department. He said. He goes
in there and they said, Look, this is what we have. This is the
proposal we have for you.
What do you think the problem is? Oh, maybe we can give you two
months extra, maybe six months extra. Now, you know what they
said? They said that we will give you your year salary in advance,
no problem. But then what are you going to have to survive on
because if you're going to pay your, your loan with that, what
are you going to survive on for the next 12 months, we're also
going to give you half of next year salary of every month in each
of these months of this year.
So you're going to give you maybe 5060 100,000 for this year for you
this year salary, we're also going to give you in advance half of
your next year's salary each month, in each of the months of
this year, so that you can at least survive for the next next 24
months.
Like absolutely shocking. I'm not saying that's going to happen for
you as well who trained but
you know, Inshallah, I have, you know, absolute experience and
conviction that something will happen when you make an effort and
you ask Allah things happen beyond I mean, I can, I don't have time
have to go to another talk right now. But I have story after story
of the manifestation of God's blessings for people who have God
conscious and who want to do the best Allah says in the Quran, from
a tequila, Yasukuni Haiku, diathesis. Wherever fears Allah,
whoever has this God consciousness, I think that's the
best translation. Whoever has this God consciousness. Allah will
provide for them where from where they would never have imagined.
Even this was a long shot to say one whole year's salary, they gave
him more than that. When Allah wants to give you he'll give you
you just need to show that effort first. Right? It'd be easy if he
could show us first and then we make the effort when we know. But
no, he likes to see the effort first. So I leave you with that.
Be productive people. We are rooting for you. I can't do what
you do. I have a different, you know, category, that I'm in a
different category. But you can also join that category. Learn
something of your deen as you go along. There's lots of short
courses you can do. That's the only way you will get
consciousness of your religion and your motivation. Without that if
you just study economics, you're not gonna get anything else on the
side you need to do that hamdulillah in the Madras the
Institute I teach in Imams Acadia Academy, in it's based in East
Ham. Now, at the mosquito heat. We have so many students who have
done their PhD or we're doing their PhD are doing their PhD at
Imperial College, UCL or whatever, right? I don't know if I need
students from this university there. But we've got some of the
top students who are also doing the nm course at the same time.
Right? Just recently, there's a guy I know he graduated he's a
half as of the Quran, is he just finished his earning course. He's
also got a master's in physics from UCL.
Right? This is absolutely possible. Now we're not in places
where there's a dearth of information. We've got so much
going on in this country, and in this beautiful city, take benefit
from it, both for our lives. And you know, both for men and women.
There's lots going on. There's about 15, Alima Alima classes,
many of them in the evening for students, this guy that I know he
used to go to university in the morning, he used to go for the
audit course in the evening, and he used to drive the underground
train in the weekend to basically make his money and that's how he
spent several years but hamdulillah he's got it all now.
You need to also get it all in sha Allah may Allah give us it all the
more and may Allah make us productive and accept us for the
service of his deen and that is what our investment will pay off
in this world and in sha Allah in the hereafter in sha Allah may
Allah accept just like Allahu Allah, Allah bless you all, and
keep us in your doors as well as salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa
barakato.
The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on the Islamic essentials
certificate, which you take 20 Short modules, and at the end of
that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of the
most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue to live,
you know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have this more
sustained study as well as local law here and Salam aleikum wa
rahmatullah wa barakato.