Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Modern Ideological Challenges to Faith
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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
Salatu was Salam ala say you didn't mursaleen while the he Safi
Abba was seldom at the Sleeman
cathedral, either young 18 A man
called Allahu Tabarka Ouattara for the Quran emoji the word for
climate Hamid hula hula de la isla in LA who are animals or your
shahada T or Rahman Rahim, so the Kolob Nami.
So dear brothers, dear sisters, dear friends, I don't intend to
come here to create any confusion, the topic that we have today, not
sure how it was featured?
What's the title you guys?
Okay, so Islam, God and atheism, and the reason for that talk is
that
in every century, or every generation, there are certain
types of discourse, discussions that go around
in the 80s. For those from the 80s, there was a certain
discussion that was going on around in the 90s, there was a
certain discussion, for example, in the 90s, the big discussion
that was everybody was having was about jihad, for example, of Iran,
Hassan Bosnia, and things like this. Now, that's a taboo subject.
Then you have the 2000s. Now you have, if you remember, just before
the 2000s, there was a whole millennial bug issue for those who
may remember that. And now, the issue that we're having right now
is that there's a not a massive number, but a significant number
of people who are very confused about their faith,
to such a degree that some have even I mean, there's all these
people who probably lost their faith. And who've gone away from
the faith, we get really excited when somebody new comes into the
faith.
But then the problem is that there are there are people who read
stuff on the internet, or they have a certain question, and they
don't get a proper answer.
And they sometimes leave the faith. You see, the problem is
this that we have, what we have right now is that Islam is going
through quite a bit of challenges Muslims, for a number of reasons,
and I don't want to get into politics of this. But there's a
number of reasons we're having challenges. Which means that in
the media, for example, Islam is being associated with violence
with trouble with backwardness, even though it's not, but because
the media is not in our hands. And it's been influenced by people who
don't like Islam, because they see Islam as a threat. Islam is
probably the only viable threat to pure hedonism and capitalism, and
so on.
So a lot of the tradition of the UK and of the Western countries is
being lost, because capitalism has taken over individualism has taken
over.
So the old traditions of Europe that were half decent, and some of
them were based on Christianity,
are all been driven out. In fact, Christianity has been driven out
of Europe.
In some countries more than others, for example, if you go to
the Scandinavian countries, there's no discussion of God
hardly. Within mainland Europe, there's still a bit of discussion,
but it's not allowed in public spaces. So there's no discussion
of Christianity in the workplace, you leave. If you're Christian,
you leave your religion at the door, and you come inside to work,
whether it be a laboratory in your scientist, or whether you're doing
research somewhere else, you leave it outside.
If they talk about Merry Christmas in shops, it's because Merry
Christmas is a time to buy gifts. So because it feeds into
capitalism, that's why that's allowed otherwise, there's no
religious aspect to it, that they keep.
So they've pushed Christianity, because Christianity was the main
religion of Europe.
Judaism was always a minority, and Jews have faced huge amount of
persecution as well, just within the last 100 years. If you go to
Budapest, Hungary, if you go to places like Slovakia, numerous
Jews were killed and driven out, in fact, in in Budapest about
nearly 300,000, over 200,000 or 300,000 Jews were killed
between the First and Second World Wars, second world towards that
time. So
Christianity has been driven out. Islam is the only one that is
disproportionately practiced by its members. What that means is
you have many more Christians or people who may say they're
Christians in Europe, right? You see so many people who say they're
Christians, but they don't practice proper Christianity.
The few that do that go to church, their absolute minority and that
is
Mostly actually, immigrants or people of African background, for
example, they're more faithful Christians as such, then our
normal English Christians, for example,
more than that, Christianity did not do very well in Europe, they
were when when Europe was a Christian continent as such, they
did a lot of oppression in the name of the church, especially in
France, compared to other countries. That's why the French
are the most antagonistic towards religion.
Because they've suffered quite a bit under the name of
Christianity.
So that's why they don't like anything to do with religion, not
just Islam. They don't want anything to do Christianity. But
Christianity isn't a threat. Only Islam is a threat, because in
France is a huge number of Muslims,
which are from all the countries that they've colonized.
So Islam is the follow Muslim follower, a Muslim compared to any
other religious person from any other religion is going to be more
practicing. If you take 100 Muslims and you take 100
Christians, 100 Jews, you're going to see that the from the 100,
Muslims probably going to be more practicing 100 Muslims within that
percentage wise than anybody else.
So now when there's this idea that religion is a backward idea that
some that they've driven that it's all about capitalism and science,
and science was never supposed to be a problem with religion.
Anyway, though, Christianity saw it as a problem. Islam has never
seen science as a problem.
So now they think that Islam is now the threat, so they have to
push down Islam. And the way to do that is by using the media, that's
why you're not going to expect a good story. Sometimes there's a
good story in the BBC or somewhere somewhere, and we get really
excited. But majority of the stories are always have some
negative spin to it. Even the coverage, for example, our shear
hazard monitor uses Motala. It's a time when he just passed away.
Lots of people are grieving. Right? Lots of people are
grieving. So they did a BBC small interview with Marlon Ibrahim. So
they asked him one or two questions about, you know, his
influence and everything that was for about a minute and a half. And
then immediately, they went and said, Oh, but you know, there's a
certain segment of the community, which is probably, I think, not
grieving, which is the cloudiness. So immediately, they bring a
negative aspect. And so you
this is not about the media only. What I'm trying to just say is
that when people are bombarded because they've done studies on
this, that when you're bomba, let's just say that you are from
where you from originally.
You're from Atlanta, which part of the Lannister you're from host,
right? Jalaluddin Haqqani, right? So it's from a post.
Right? Now, if somebody tells you that horse people are very bad,
you're, you're gonna say, No, you're gonna get angry, you're
gonna say no. Now in horse, there must be a few bad people,
everyplace is bad people, somebody who's done something wrong or
whatever. So they're going to start pointing them out. Look,
he's done the bad, he's a bad person. Now, slowly, your defense,
and your defense, of course is going to, or let's just take
advantage, Stan in general, right? Or any country for that matter,
Egyptian, Indian, Pakistani, whatever, there has to be some bad
people. And you know, we do have some bad Muslims who do things in
the name of Islam and give it some a bad name.
So they're going to use that idea. So slowly, slowly, you start
thinking your rights, especially if you're not very strong anyway.
You're gonna be thinking, yeah, maybe you're right. Can you see
how it weakens a person's defense weakens a person's idea of what it
means to be a Muslim. Now, if a person there's a lot of people who
come on the media, and they say that why do Muslims they are
supposed to be from a Muslim background? They say, Why do
Muslims always ask for prayer? Places in the workplace?
I don't have a problem with that they say, because you don't pray.
So you don't have a problem. You're not speaking for all
Muslims. There are a lot of Muslims who want a prayer place at
university at college at because they pray the observance, or a
woman who doesn't generally wear a hijab. She's gonna say, I am a
Muslim, it doesn't bother me. This law against you know, in Europe,
it doesn't bother me. Well, it doesn't bother you because you
don't you're not speaking in the name of Islam. You're speaking as
one individual Muslim, who is an observer who is not observant of a
certain certain aspect of Islam. So what it does is that it creates
a great confusion, especially to the weak, weaker people. Those
people are not so connected to the master
it or
another group that are very vulnerable. And this is where we
can definitely make a big change is who have had a bad experience
in the name of Islam. It's not an Islamic experience they've had.
But they've had a bad experience.
That was called Islam. But it was not Islam give you an example.
There are certain cultures that some of us come from, who believe
in forced marriages. What I mean by forced marriages, that when
they still 5789 years old, from birth, maybe they fixed up with
their cousin, in the other country, in the ancestor lands,
they fixed up. Now, it's so binding, because the whole
braderie and the whole column and the whole tribe know this. Now,
when this kid grows up, he has other ideas, he doesn't want to
marry his cousin, or she doesn't want to marry his cousin, they
have no compatibility maybe. But to keep the name, they forced them
to marriage. So they will take them on a trip there, and they
will become their marriage trip.
I've had a 40 year old woman Call me once for a question. And she
said, As I spoke to her, she had a question about something and she
was married to a non Muslim. And she's from one of our Asian
countries. So I said, How did you end up because now she's a bit
regretful in Korea? How did you end up in this, she said, Well, I
was forced to marry my cousin or somebody from and it didn't work
out, and parents wouldn't allow us to do anything else. So finally, I
ran away, and I married somebody else. Now, they force you to marry
your cousin say you better do this, because this is Islamic.
This is what the religion tells you to do. The reason and does not
tell you that you must marry your cousin.
It doesn't tell you that.
The religion and especially the Hanafi, madhhab. You have for us,
we have to actually take permission from the girl, that
does she agreed to marry somebody?
If she doesn't, then you can't force her.
And a man, obviously, he has to agree he has to agree as well. So
now this is called Islam. They don't know anything else about
Islam. That's what they think, oh, Islam suppress me. Can you see
what I'm talking about? The people have all they've had a teacher at
madrasa or private tuition, who abused them, beat them up, or
whatever the case is, in a bad way. Didn't really teach them
anything.
They will associate their Islam with that, because their families
are not maybe very practicing. They don't give them a better idea
what Islam is. The Islam in the home is only even Ramadan. There's
no other Islam in the house. So the only Islam they've had is with
a bad teacher. Not all teachers are bad, but some could be bad.
Maybe it was not even a proper teacher.
So
can you see how they've associated Islam with this, they've
associated Islam with a trauma.
These people, you can give them all the evidence about Islam, you
will make a difference. What they need is pastoral care. They need
to be told and explained and counsel that you just got it
wrong. There's a trauma associated. So there could be many
factors of why a person turns away from something so strong, could be
many factors. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
Some parents are so strict.
They by nature, they just so strict, they don't let their
children go out. They don't let them do anything. They don't let
them have toys was set, you know, except a few specific type of
toys. Overly strict, and they say because you're a Muslim. That's
why you can't have that.
And it's just overly strict for no reason.
Right?
So the kids grew up thinking this is Islam, I don't want anything to
do with it.
Who's the fault the father, the mother
strictness, you don't also want to it to be that, okay, you can do
whatever you want. There has to be a balance.
I mean, these are hard. And these are hard issues that we need to
deal with and talk about.
Getting a balance is very difficult. It's a challenge,
obviously. And that's why we I have just written a book on
marriage of the 20 over 20 years of being married and dealing with
20 years of marriage issues with people as the imam in my
communities. I find me now feel that I'm confident enough to write
a book so I wrote a book.
I still don't feel confident have to write a book about bringing up
children although a lot of people requested
because I want at least my older to to get married first and be
settled in America before I can say I got at least two rights
because it's so difficult.
It is a very difficult thing that when you bring children to work
that you make
them, citizens of the country that are decent, and God fearing
Muslims as well.
Because it requires a certain balance, commitment, and a lot of
other things.
One kid used to mess around in school, you could tell he was a
decent kid, but he used to have missed you used to just mess
around. You're like why he was called his father. And
I think it was a Thursday or Wednesday.
And his father says, You know what, I'm only meeting my son
after the weekend for the first time. Because the father Bucha is
a taxi driver.
Right? Nothing against taxi drivers. But taxi job is kind of
one of those weird jobs where the more you do, the more money you
make. There's no hours in taxi. It's personal discipline, or Uber
for that matter. And if you work odd, weird hours, you get to make
more money, because there's less people doing those times.
So this guy would never see his children in the weekdays because I
think when he went to work, he went to work in the evenings and
they would be going to sleep. And otherwise in an in the morning, he
would be sleeping while they would wake up to go to school or
something like that. So we facilitated a meeting with his son
for him on Thursday, like meet your son.
That's just a joke.
But that's the sad fact of some, some households. But our topic is
not that. So let me get back to our original topic.
Then you have another group of people who are probably the
majority. They they are Muslim, they call themselves Muslim. But
they don't reject Islam outwardly, but they don't practice it
properly, either. And they don't care whether it gets abused or
not. Because they don't feel a connection. Why? Because they've
they're not making an effort. They are the biggest group. They're not
absolute atheists. They're not agnostics, atheists is somebody
who rejects and denies that Allah even existed, there is no God.
They say La Ilaha la isla, he said, There is no God. They don't
say Illa Allah except Allah. So they're atheists that absolutely
deny. Then you got agnostics who say, we don't know. We have to
keep searching.
We have to keep searching. If there is a God, there may be there
may not be we don't know. Right? We have to keep searching.
Humanity is millions of years old. And there's been many ideas of God
and religion for so many centuries. Now one of them must be
right. God could not have kept it hidden for so many centuries, and
he's going to reveal in the future. So take one of those
ideas. And if you look at all of the ideas about God, in
Christianity, for example, in Judaism, in Hinduism, in Buddhism,
Taoism, and in Islam, you'll probably find if you look
objectively that Islam has the richest concept of God. Let me
explain that a bit later, as the richest concept of God and the
universe if you're willing to objectively look at it.
So this is what you call apathy. Apathy means indifference. I don't
care attitude.
This is probably worse. Because it's like, I don't care. Why do
people not care? Is the question though. Why do you think some
people
not care? Why do they have an indifferent attitude? Why can they
care less? Why do you think
a lot of the time, it's because you have three things, which
creates a false sense of confidence in you, which is
supposed to be a name of Allah, but people have taken it as
something that gives you so much confidence that you become
arrogant about it. Number one, you've got health.
Number two, you've got enough money to buy whatever you want,
generally speaking, give or take. And number three, you've got a
sense of security. Nothing bothers you. See, if you go to a place
where you got money, but you have no security, you're always going
to be on edge is one country which would have been paradise on earth.
In my opinion, if it wasn't for the crime. It's got some of the
best weather, the best fruit, the best landscapes, South Africa,
we've got friends who live there, they cannot allow their children
to go to the corner shop. Hamdulillah we don't have that
problem here. They constantly in fear that they're going to be
hijacked or robbed because there's a big problem. The security is
very well Hamdulillah we have security in this country. Right?
May Allah bless. And may Allah make it better. We have a decent
health system in this country. In those countries, you have to pay
for an arm and leg. Some people will not go to hospital because I
don't have the money to go. Here. We just go to a doctor all the
time. We complain about the NHS, right? has its problems, but it's
a blessing. And number three, you've got security, you've got
wealth, and you've got health. Now when you have those things and you
can buy whatever you want, you can wear the clothing you want. The
cars you want to drive generally speaking you always want to
upgrade but generally speaking you have the phones you want
I feel like I'm fine. Now, the other thing is,
we have become such, we have become such consumers
that we can anything we want.
Even if you don't have the money, you can put it on your credit
card. And hopefully when you get your wage you'll pay, you'll pay
interest or whatever. This is the systems we have. Everything is
available to you. And you can get it the next day even the same day.
Amazon Prime who doesn't have Amazon Prime here? Number, Okay,
anybody? Today, I'm not saying it's wrong to have Amazon Prime,
but I'm saying that mashallah day you can order anything that comes
the next day.
Now, you know, when you open up a box that you get from when you
open up a box,
you open it how good you feel?
Isn't there a special feeling you get when you get a parcel?
Or not? I mean, what's wrong with you guys, you get a feeling or
not? Right? How long does that feeling last, though, you know why
you get that feeling? Amazon has created a special powder, it's
invisible. When they pack the box, they put the powder inside. So
when you open it, you smell it. And you get this real good feeling
of getting a new product, but it doesn't last long. Few hours,
maybe someday, maybe one day, and then you have to do it again, you
have to order something again. If you can just buy that powder, you
won't have to order anything. Because you just take a bit of
that everyday and you'll feel good. I'm just joking. By the way.
There's no powder like that. But I wouldn't. To be honest, the amount
of money Amazon has for spare research. It's huge. So I wouldn't
be surprised if they tried to create something like this, right?
You do get you guys do understand the joke, right? And humor? Yes.
Okay. Hamdulillah. I'm just trying to explain that this is. So if you
have Amazon Prime, and you have Netflix, and you can basically
watch, watch, watch and binge binge binge, as they call it.
Because the algorithm on days you watch one thing, and then as soon
as that finishes, the next one comes up, because before you can
even relax. And then you just keep watching and watching and
watching. What time do you do? Will you then have to think about
life? You're getting everything you want to your door that same
day or the next day, and you can entertain yourself 24/7
What time do you have to think about anything else? Why should
you care for anything else? You see, this is the life that a lot
of people are getting into,
including Muslims, obviously. So this is what you call apathy. It's
a big issue.
Just indifference. So now
when you get to school now, a lot of the questions that are being
asked,
and which help Muslim parents, you see this, this is like the recent
issues that parents are fighting against what the school wants to
teach them. The fact that school in this country is now trying to
become the educational system is trying to become the parent. We
shouldn't they say the education system needs, knows best what
children need to know not parents.
It's true. Some parents don't know what to teach them some minority.
But they're saying that, and they those are the examples they will
use to justify that the schools need to explain the best parent.
So this is the issues that we're having. So you got all of these
children,
teenagers, so one, I was called to one house of a religious family.
The mother wears a niqab, the father's got a beard, and you
know, he prays a lot. And you know,
and the son doesn't believe in Islam anymore. Like why? And every
argument he had is from Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins is
essentially one of the main five atheists of the last 2030 years
that have caused a huge amount of confusion.
We have always had atheists, people who denied God, you know,
for centuries, but because religion was so strong, they would
have to be quiet, or they would have to be disguised. But now they
become very open on YouTube, for example, in other places, not just
him. There's others like Christopher Hitchens, and a few
others. So that's caused a lot of confusion. So now let's take a kid
who's had some bad trauma or problem, he starts reading this.
He agrees with it, he believes in it.
The problem is that this isn't scientific way to even look at
something. The way to look at something is you look at both
sides. And then you make a decision. So I asked, have you
read anything that has been written opposed to this? Because
numerous non Muslims have actually written an answer to Dawkins and
showed his flaws? He says, no heaven. So essentially, what
you're doing is you're just blindly following somebody,
because you have antagonism, you have an animosity towards your own
because of something bad that happened.
This is a lot of the problem.
That's why
even parents nowadays need to be aware of what's going on.
And when they see a problem, they need to go and find out all of us,
the Obama, the people need to update their knowledge to find out
what Islam really is. If I, there was somebody I was talking to the
other day, he's like an uncle to me. And he was he loves conspiracy
theories. through WhatsApp, you get these these videos and others
that are talking about these conspiracy theories, who was
behind the 911? And who was behind this and who was behind this very
juicy stuff, if you get into that?
I don't believe in anything anymore like that, because they
can manipulate so much. Right? So I, he says, What do you think of
this? I said, I don't have a about a political issue. I said, I don't
know. I don't need to have an opinion. You know, I don't have
time to go and investigate these things.
Then I asked him a question. I said, since you went to Islamic
madrasa when you were young, is now 6570 years old. When you were
young 10 1215 up to 1617, the madrasa you went on whatever you
studied there, since that time, have you ever read a book on Islam
on any Islamic aspects? Any Islamic aspects, a hadith book? Or
about Islam itself? Or about marriage? And is that whatever?
Or have you taken a class, you've listened, he listened to Beyonce,
he listens to lectures. But remember, lectures are generally
general ideas. It's not like they don't talk on focused
scientifically, you know, issues. It's a general encouragement this
hour Beyonce, all right.
He's listened to a lot of Beyonce, and he gets Youtube every week,
every day. But he's never read a book. And he's never taken a
class, even to our seminar anywhere.
So I said, your understanding of Islam is what you got from a young
age, when you were not very mature. When you weren't very
experienced. That's the Islam you studied. And the only updates
you've had through Bionz. You've never had a serious update of
reading the Quran for yourself or Hadith for yourself, or any other
good book on Islam or class on Islam? And isn't this the case
with the majority of us?
At least a lot of us. Even if you're confused about something,
we won't go and look for it.
We may ask a few. The brave ones may ask a few things here, but
that's about it.
That's why it's so easy to divide us and confuse us and to get us
going because we don't understand the proper Islamic idea of things.
That's why one of the books that has been recently written up two
books I'm gonna suggest
they both by a prince and he's written a book called The thinking
Person's Guide to Islam.
I read that it's amazing. Mufti Taqi Usmani read it and wrote him
a like review for it as well, he's very special IQ is closely
connected to multitrack use money as well. Then he wrote another
book after that which everybody must read, which is called a
thinking Person's Guide to our times, especially those people who
like their history, who are always wanting to understand about why
things are and what the future holds. So what he's done is he's
talked about the last 3040 years, then he's talked about the present
time. And then he's made some predictions for the next 30 years.
And he gives a number of solutions.
And one of the solutions he gives him there is that you must update
your knowledge with the right kind of literature and books, and a
number of others. But for those who like this kind of stuff, you
should definitely read that book because it will give you something
more substantial. I'm surprised at the amount of coverage and insight
he has, because I would never be able to get her because he's got
that position where he gets a lot of knowledge based on you know,
being at that level. So, now, let me give you an example.
Imam Azadi Rahmatullah Yachty. One of our greatest thinkers and
scholars, right, he died in 505 Hijiri. At the age of 55, on me,
he writes an auto biography of himself.
And he had a really investing. He had a really inquisitive mind. He
would never take anything just because he heard it, he would
inquire about it and try to prove it.
And he talks about how that got him into trouble once
Big Trouble
He said, I started studying everything from a completely clear
mind. Like, I'm going to try not to be subjective. I'm going to try
to be objective, anything that I have known before, I'm going to
try to put it to the side. And I'm going to see if it comes from a
definitive form of evidence than done and accepted.
For that, you have to start being skeptical, skeptical means
doubting everything and critiquing everything for that you have to
become like that. Otherwise, how else are you going to question?
You have to doubt right? And then it has to convince you to remove
the doubts.
He said, Because he said, I saw that
we as Muslims have a very strong
following of our faith, and we're confident in our faith. But I see,
but can that prove that your faith is the right faith just because
you are convinced about your faith is that I saw Christians that some
Christians are also convinced about the especially in his time.
Now, that's probably not the case, but in this time, and you see Jews
and they're very convinced about their faith. So being convinced
about your faith is not an evidence. So I decided to go to
the fundamentals and take only those ideas which everybody would
agree to like
axiomatic ideas, like two is greater than one does anybody
disagree with that idea? So he said, I'm going to try to find
evidences that are like this. Two is greater than one father has to
be older than his son, there's no way a son is ever going to be
older than the Father. Nobody disagrees with this like everybody
agrees in this. I want only proofs like this.
And you know what he said? He said I eventually ran into so much
trouble that I couldn't find anything that could convince me
because he became an arch skeptic.
Arch skeptic is somebody who
even if he asked you prove that you are your father son
how would you prove that your father son? What proof can you
bring that you are your parents child?
DNA, okay, birth certificate with DNA, right? So birth certificate
if you go to Pakistan, you could probably make one up right? Yeah.
Second name
the good idea, here are mashallah I appreciate the fact that you've
given that as an idea.
Second name to be honest, that will probably only work in the
Gujarati and British English community I think for Pakistanis,
and Bangladeshis. You won't work because your surnames are all
different. Your your father's name becomes your surname. Your tribal
affiliation goes you know, goes out of the window. Right you guys
have no surname, right? Your dad's name is Ahmed. So you become
Junaid Ahmed? And your son becomes
called the Junaid what is that? There's no connection.
Look for a son in your butt Raja, that's your surname. Anyway,
that's the different gripe I have. Because Allah says which are under
him sure who don't want Cobra Elita era Allah has created you in
tribes and clans so that you can gain mutual recognition. By look
by, by many surnames that we hear, you can't even tell what tribe
you're from. Or Bradbury, what's the point of it, then write your
first name becomes a surname. So thank you very much for mentioning
the surname. But surname is not a definitive evidence because
somebody could make a surname up in this country your child can
have any surname Auntie doesn't have to have your father's
surname. Tonight, do you see what I'm saying? So that's not proof.
But that he could you could make them up DNA are not 100% they like
99 point something percent and definitive means 100% You know,
just like two is greater than one DNA is not as good as that. It's
good but it's not as good as that. And sometimes some rare cases DNA
confuses even further. I have had a case recently in a fertility
clinic there's a there's a the person who heads the phrase Muslim
woman and there was a weird case I don't want to go into that right
now because I want to finish and give you time for questions. So
so he said I got soaking because there's nothing so absolute.
Everything was too confusing. This is the example he gives don't
follow me in this example right?
You know when you're in you guys, you guys dream in Southampton you
guys dream you have a dream like a proper dream at night? Do you guys
dream? The dream comes through angels so the Dream Angel does
come to Southampton and give your dreams right? Some people dream
more than others. What's your name? Brother?
No, no, that our little brother who name is that her name or her
name? Her name? Mashallah. So do you have dreams?
Sometimes, so you get a dream right now in your dream.
Especially those nightmares. Right? You know when you're scared
about something something's
bad is happening. And you will feel like you're sweating and
everything. How real does it feel? Does it feel fake them? Or does it
feel real? It feels absolutely real, right? But when you wake up
Alhamdulillah that didn't happen. Do you see what I'm saying? But
when you're in your dream, isn't it like reality? No doubt, right?
You have no doubt you don't know you're in a dream.
Right? And somebody told me there's a movie they made where
you drink something, and they send you into
a dream, you go to sleep, and they send you in a dream. And then they
in their dream, they took the same potion, and then they go into
surgery.
I forget what it's called. Somebody mentioned that. There was
a friend of mine who said, You must watch this because this tells
you how crazy things are.
Forget it. What I'm trying to say is that when you're in a dream,
you feel it's a reality. You have no doubt.
Right? Now, let me ask you this. What about if now you're in a
dream as well? And this is all a dream?
How can you prove that right now? This beyond this happening? And
all the 3040 5060 years you've lived here is just a long dream.
And suddenly you're gonna wake up from it. Can you prove you're not
in dream right now?
Because your dreams and maybe pinch myself.
You can do that in a dream.
Just the way a dreaming person doesn't know he's in a dream and
he feels it's reality. How can you prove your inner reality right
now. But you understand where this is getting to? Because if you
challenge somebody to prove that they're not in a dream right now,
and you're like stubborn, no, I want proper proof.
You there's no way you can prove to somebody, you're going to call
him crazy. Probably. That's how real you think you are right now.
But anybody who challenges that you're going to think this guy's
crazy. That's how much strong you are right? In this feeling. So he
basically said that if Allah had not helped me, then I would never
have gotten out of this dilemma.
So at the end of the day, what matters for us is that we do
question a bit. But there's a limit after that. It's just absurd
questioning. Because then, as I said, these people, these arch
skeptics in the world, they will question you about your
fatherhood. Sorry about who your father or mother is. Even DNA
doesn't work for them. And a birth certificate definitely doesn't
work. And a surname takes you nowhere. In that case, how are you
going to prove it to them? But do you understand what I'm talking
about the if you want to question things, there's no end to
questioning. And our Dean's specifically, while we're not
saying that you must not look for answers when you have a question.
But our dean is about the belief in the unseen because we've never
seen Allah but we feel him. And remember the best Dean, the best
experience of the in the person with the strongest Dean is going
to be the one who experiences his religion than the one who just
learns about it rationally. Because rationally in as
logically, there's always another logic that could break that logic.
But if you have felt Allah accepting your do us, if you have
gotten up at night, and then to HUD, Julian felt the presence of
Allah, nobody can shake you.
And this is what a lot of people are missing. Because of which then
shaytaan takes over and creates doubts through arguments. That's
why all Mr mentioned that the strongest argument is when you
Allah has given you the experience of your faith through to us. If
you've made dawn your doors, if you may door properly, with the
right conditions and your door has been accepted. Believe me, you
will never have your faith faith shaken.
Because you know, Allah exists. That is the best team. And let me
tell you,
Sophia Fody Rahmatullah is one of our greatest Mohabbatein and
greatest Alia as well. One day he's seen crying.
Why are you crying? He picks up a grain of wheat grain of wheat,
right is smaller than a chickpea gobbly July's smaller than is very
small. Instead I've not disobeyed Allah knowingly even this much.
Can you imagine how much how much control Yeah, I did never
disobeyed Allah even that much right.
So why are you crying? He said because my Eman is so valuable. I
have not disobeyed Allah that much until now. But I don't know what's
gonna happen until I die.
I'm the more you understand the value of your faith and now that
Allah loves you as you if you read the Quran, you will see the love
that Allah has.
Then you will be fearful of losing your email.
Now, Harun Rashid, he's going with his wife on the seashore
and
What's his wife's name by the way?
Mashallah. Not zulay correct, Zubaydah. That's right. So he's
working. She's a bit behind. He's working and he sees on Sunday he
comes upon this older man was this wild? What? Wise, eccentric
person, but different from everybody else and you will say
these wise words. You know what he was doing? He was making
sandcastles. Have you ever seen an old man making sandcastles? Right?
That's really cool, right? There was no YouTube in those days so
you can check it up online. But this guy was making sandcastles.
Right so how do we proceed when two ministers Why you doing what
are you making? Balloon his name was balloon.
He says what are you making? He said I'm making palaces of Jannah.
He's making palaces of Jannah in the sand. And I'm selling them for
one dinar one gold piece for one for one palace. Harun Rashid is a
businessman is the Khalifa is like okay, you know that? I don't
believe in all of this and he carried on Zubaydah women are
generally more emotional and the more you know, trusting, she comes
along she asks him the same question. I'm making palaces of
Jannah. And I'm selling them when she bought while she gave him a
dinner she bought
out on receipt, goes to sleep at night, and he has a dream.
In his dream is in Jana, he's in paradise. And as he's walking
through gender suddenly sees this big palace, and emblazoned on the
front is Zubaydah.
That this is the Vedas palace. He thinks this is why let me wife's
palace. He says, Let me go and check it out. They said no, you
can't. This is your wife's palace. You can't go in there. So he feels
really bad. He wakes up in the morning and he realizes that I
didn't buy a castle. So he goes back to the shore to look for
balloon he hopes that he's making sandcastles and sure enough as he
gets their balloon is they're making sandcastles says balloon.
What are you doing? He says I'm making palaces of Jannah and I'm
selling them. He says okay, I'd like to buy one. He says okay,
fine. One car, one palace today for your entire kingdom.
Harare says What's wrong with you? Yesterday you were one dinar. And
today you're saying the entire kingdom?
He said Yes. Yesterday was Iman believe. And today it's Eman with
the scene.
Yesterday, if you purchase that you don't know what your risk
you're taking. That's why it was so cheap. But now you know what
it's worth? It's worth your kingdom. This is our faith is part
Iman believe. Allah says in the beginning of the Quran, Allah
Lina, you know, and I believe. Now this is, you know, I have not been
able to say enough, as much as I would say, but we need to have
questions because I don't want to leave anybody in any confusion. Or
I could say a lot of stuff, but he may not be what you are challenged
with, because people have different challenges. So we'll
open it up, but on zamzam academy.com We've got at least
three or four lectures on this topic that are in detail. And for
somebody who really wants to understand the controversial
questions that non Muslims generally asked to Islam, about
eyeshadow, the allowance, age and all of these things, then we've
actually got a course on white thread,
here on white thread institute.org. It's like a two
week course where you just have to listen. And it's got loads of
questions, it's controversial club is dealt with about 6070 questions
that your colleagues may ask or somebody will ask, you can sign up
for that. And you can take that as a proper course. Right? For
anything, but anyway, we will open it up now.
We did talk a lot. That's a typical question. And I expect
that to come. So if there's a God, then why do you have misery in the
world?
Right, this is the kind of think about this carefully, right? If
there is a God, then why do you have misery in the world? So look,
think of this think of this carefully.
If there is a God, why is there suffering in the world? Do you
think about it logically? Do you? What's the problem there?
What is the problem there? If there's a God
and misery is found in the world? That is somehow the the result of
that means there is no God? Why?
What is the connection between there being a god
and misery? What is the problem with there being misery if there's
a God telling me that is the question?
Do you understand what I'm asking? A lot of people feel that if
there's a God, they can't be misery, but why not? Why can't
they misery if there's a why can't there be misery or suffering? If
there is a God?
Right? Because the reason why they think that is this is a Christian
idea, right? This is a very Christian idea. It's not a Muslim
idea in Christianity, over the centuries as Christianity has
evolved, or whatever you want to call it. They have pretty
much define God as merciful and loving. That's it, nothing else.
So if the if your definition of God is the one who is merciful
only and nothing else,
then you have a problem with there being misery in the world, because
if there's a merciful being, how can he allow misery. Now for us,
God is merciful. And he tells us to read this about 17 times a day
minimum are Rockman.
God is loving Allah dude. But he is also God is also the Mighty
One, the majestic one, the Punisher, the Avenger, the one
from whom things can harm, he can harm things. So for us, when
there's a problem, it just Allah.
For us, that's just Allah showing some of His Names. And when
there's mercy, then as Allah showing His merciful names, but he
does say that My Mercy dominates my anger, I have anger, and I will
show it sometimes when I want to punish people if they don't
listen.
Because nobody gets punished for no reason. And the number two,
number two, let's just say the tsunami, right, that took place in
the two tsunamis, right one was about last year, the year before,
and there was one about several years ago,
the Archbishop of Canterbury who's the head of the Anglican Church of
the UK, right, both of them, Ron Williams first and now will be
when when the tsunamis took place one in the previous time and one
in the current Archbishop's time. They both said that their faith
shook. Why did they face shook? Because they have defined God as
only merciful and they, they God can't do anything. So it's like,
how can they be such suffering? When our God is only merciful? For
Muslims, we don't have a problem because our God is very
comprehensive. Right? And if you carry on, there's a long answer to
this. I'm only giving you a bit. But the idea is that let's just
say that two people are married, and they just can't get along.
Well, one, one sustained a marriage and the other one
doesn't. He just can't see or she cannot see future and decides to
leave and separate and get divorced. The other person is
going to be very harmed. Right misery.
What kind of world do you want to live in? If you think they can't
ever be misery, misery is inevitable in this world. Misery
is part and parcel of this was suffering is part and parcel of
this world. It's not just suffering of children in war,
that's a suffering. Suffering is also when you lose your mother,
you're going to suffer. When you lose a loved one you're going to
suffer, what kind of world you want to live in. The fact that we
have free will, the ability to make informed or make a choice of
whatever, sometimes we're going to make bad choices. Sometimes you're
going to go in the wrong lane and you might get crash.
There has to be suffering. Otherwise, the whole system of the
world is going to change with what we have here. There has to be
suffering is part of the deal. But what Allah tells us to do is that
when you have suffering you make Sabha and you put your coworker in
Allah. And when you don't have someone you have prosperity, you
do Shuker of Allah, that's what we're told how to deal with
suffering. Otherwise, suffering for Muslims has never been a
problem. Now a tsunami, right? Some people are killed, lots of
people are killed in a tsunami, right.
Lots of people are killed in a tsunami. Some people are killed
because this is a punishment for them because there are bad people.
The others were innocent, maybe they were miserable. Allah for
them. Remember, that's what Shahadat because for us, we have
so many people who Allah gives them a column of shahada that
martyred them to if they killed in unfavorable circumstances. So
that's the short answer to this question. So don't get don't don't
like, if there's a God, why can't they be suffering? Why are you
even agreeing with the premise in the first place? It's a wrong idea
that coming from