Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Recent Pakistan Visit and University Culture
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hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Sayyidina Muhammad wider early
he your Sahaba here at you Marina and my beret. So Hamdulillah
I was in Pakistan the last to nearly the last two weeks, you can
say. And I was invited by this particular organization called
Nasi, her Institute's that are based out of Lahore. And these are
people who are working very out of the 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of
madrasahs that there are in Pakistan. And they got a beautiful
structure and set up on the we Fox system, right where the syllabus
is all connected, and, and so on. These particular guys, they're
working in a very specific group of people, which is the so called
educated elite or so you can call it, you get a similar kind of
educated and wealthy elite in multiple countries like India.
I've seen that in India. I'm sure there is in Bangladesh. I haven't
been there. But I've had some communication with a few people,
and definitely in Pakistan. Now, what does this mean, for a lot of
people who may even be from these countries, but have not really
been to the big cities into the sky, they will know nothing about
them. Because the villages are very different. In England,
there's no such thing as a difference between if you live in
Leicester or Dudley, right? And the way Dudley came to mind,
right? Or rugby, or London or Manchester, the same amenities of
your house, the way things are when be available, or the roads
and everything. Whereas when you go to these countries, it's a big
difference between what you get in Lahore and what you get in a small
village somewhere else. Right? Even in Punjab itself. And then
even in Lahore, there are different areas. There are the
elite areas where mashallah everything * and span. Like I
stayed in the defense area, which is run by the armies is a huge
part of Lahore that the wealthy people live in, and nice roads,
very clean.
Very good amenities, shopping, traffic, very organized, none of
that hustle bustle. And I mean, there's still a bit, it's not the
same as in completely, but it's amazing in that sense. So you've
got a massive distinction
between the haves and the have nots, and it's only getting
bigger, apparently. Right. So there's people that will just have
huge amounts of resources and money and things like that. So
now, with regards to all this, this particular mashallah
Institute, and the second Institute is based in Karachi kala
hikma Institute. So these are orlimar, or near Ottawa who have
been through the legal system, but they also university educated from
the top universities of Pakistan, and many of them also have studied
in the West, who are they focusing on, they're focusing on literally
that educated crowd who are very far from the Dean.
A lot of them, unfortunately, they're very good people, many of
them, but they're suffering from apathy. They've got everything. So
in some of these cases, they'll actually think that religious
practices for the lower plus, right, and this is a unfortunate
reality show when you have too much you feel satisfied. Now, in
trade, these people are working in this. So they have been working as
maybe lecture as another thing before, some are still like that.
But they've started this institute, and they've attracted
students from these kinds of families. And most of the students
are from these top universities with degrees there, and sometimes
degrees from the West as well. And now they're doing Alim course, or
at least a four year course they've got multiple courses for
them, because not everybody can commit to the full Adam course as
such. So that's what they're working on. Right? Most of their
education, and communication is done in English. Right? You'd be
surprised, right? It's done in English. So it's either English in
the mix, or it's English. And they only listen to English, in a sense
that that's only what they impressed by just what they are
the only impressed by foreign brands, very different from the
villages, as I said that if you're from a village or whatever, you
will not understand this. You don't even know this exist.
This kind of thing exists. So I've been
invited multiple times to Indiana and been exposed to say this for
the last I would say probably eight to 10 years now. So that's
apparently probably a bit more than that. Actually. That's where
I've gone to understand this. And it's a really important place to
work. Because those same people from that particular crowd are
those who become the policymakers. They're the ones who run the
country. They're the ones that the big corporations, right, they're
the ones who make the country into, you know, at least the
legislation and so on. And if we don't work there, and
The a lot of them are literally very far from Ottawa for example,
there was one kid, he's mashallah become guided Right? Very wealthy
family, I had to do a lecture, you know, within a certain area in his
area. And I gave my lecture in English just about the love of
Allah. And his parent wants to now
meet me, right?
I didn't think that was that significant later he tells me you
no big deal that was nice. They don't want me to be religious.
It's been so tough for them that I've kept a beard and I've started
doing these things. So for them to want to meet you is a massive deal
that
inshallah we're getting somewhere with this is Allah, Allah subhana
wa, tada is doing, right? Just to give you an idea of the mindset.
So.
So these people are they're working on the main University. So
in Lahore, for example, the top two or three universities, they
are like the Oxford and Cambridge of Pakistan, anybody who studied
there. They're like, I studied there. I don't want to miss any
mention the names here, right? But there's places like lungs and A,
B, and you and a number of other universities, right, for example.
So if you studied this, like I'm an Oxford graduate, you know, I
studied at Cambridge, I read history at Cambridge, you know, as
they as they say, so it's a big deal. Now, mashallah, a lot of
these people, we
30 of the students from this institute that are from this
background, we took them to a fun car 10 hours away,
it was a 10 hour drive, never done a 10 hour drive in London. I was
actually I was actually quite dreading it. And I would even have
felt like canceling it as a huge shift, Mashallah. But when I found
out a 30 of them are ready to go, I said, Bismillah, let's go. And
Allah made it very, very easy. And they were absolutely taken aback.
You know, both by the Sheikh and his humility and kindness and just
amazing nature, and the whole situation that, you know, in the
spiritual retreat, never been to one before, they've never been to
one before. That is seeing another side of it. Allah bless them all
such beautiful people, Mashallah. So,
uh, with the local, our local friends and students, they've been
working in these universities to try to bring that and change. So I
remember, four years ago, 2020.
I was told that I had to give a lecture in one of these
universities. And I was shocked to hear what I saw. Okay, I've given
a lot of lectures in the universities in England, you know,
everything from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, college, UCL, you know,
the other one in London, all of these King's College, all of these
main ones, I've been to pretty much all of these universities,
right. And when you go to these universities in England, they
can't have a divider, because there was this big issue several
years back before they start dividers, but no, some big issue.
So now, they usually don't have a divider in between, but it's very
well organized. The brothers will sit on one side, the women, the
sisters will say on those I just naturally that's that's the way
they do it right.
Here when I went four years ago, they were sitting mixed. I was
shocked. This Pakistan, right, Muslim country, they're sitting
mixed. And the question there was my whole talk was about apathy.
Right, actually, that time.
And the questions were crazy. Like, I never get questions like
that from university kids here in England. Not to say it's
impossible, but I'm just saying I was shocked by the level of
question, then that unit that university in Pakistan does not
have a masjid.
They don't have a prayer hall.
Imperial College has had one for years.
Oxford, all of these places have prayer halls, pairs, they don't
have a prayer place. Just now. There's something going on to try
to make one after how many years? Just so you think that you know,
just so that you know what I'm talking about? Right? Very
liberal, liberal arts college is very liberal. What I don't I don't
want to I'm not here to mention everything that goes on there, but
it's crazy. Okay. So we went outside into the hole afterwards
to premium us
out of the 70 ATP but only about 17 or 18 joined us. Whereas in
England when I've been to university as the master and
everybody prays, you understand everybody prays.
So this time, I was also had to give a talk about university and I
wasn't sure what to accept expect.
It was a program with myself and Muhammad hijab. So he spoke first
and then he went when I got there.
his talk was actually on LBGT LGBTQ, right Alhamdulillah this
time when I went in the women was sitting separately from the men,
like wow Alhamdulillah I mentioned that and I was told that Masha
Allah or brothers have done a lot of work there. So we're getting
somewhere. Right? Give you another example. Four years ago, when I
when I was in the shower, not be shower is KPK that's saver buff,
don't fall protons. And they are very, they have a lot of modesty
and, and so on. But this university.
Again, the I'm not saying that all universities, some very not like
University of Punjab is different, for example,
this university, they would not allow,
because we were at the house of one of the lecturers, who is a
sacred Mashallah. But he said that the university does not allow any
Islamic lectures to take place.
Right. And there's multiple reasons for this. Some of it could
be animosity towards the deen, some of it could just be animosity
towards
to say this, maybe that they just haven't been approached in the
correct way. And they've got a certain twisted mindset regarding
the Obama, right, that's another one. And sometimes the other might
have maybe not tried in a different way to approach them. It
could be multiple reasons like that. They would not let Islamic
lectures take place that said, no, what you know, you can't.
That's what happens. That's what happens in Islamophobic places
here, you can invite an Islamic speaker
Hola, hola. Hamdulillah. at their house, they invited the Vice
Chancellor of the University and somebody else to come and I was
told to give a lecture in English, make sure you speak English.
Basically, don't by mistake speak to
that English is just amazing now that you speak in English, and
you're done. Like, you know, they listened to you. So I'm speaking
in English and I spoke about a Can you remember what I spoke? Well,
I've got it written down somewhere Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah,
Alhamdulillah. There was another Sheikh with me, he also spoke to
them privately as well. And they agreed that they will start
allowing Islamic talks to take place.
Sometimes it's just that they've got suspicion, they've had a bad
experience, and just need that. Now, the problem with all of this
work really, which some people will not understand is that you're
you have to put yourself out there. And you have to go into the
sometimes mixed environments in the sense that they're mixed,
which is not our way, right? We don't do this in our own places at
all. We're very strict on that. So when it's our program, I've been,
just before I left, there was a big program I was part of here.
And they asked like,
how it has to be completely clear. In fact, the nasiha Institute had
a massive conference, right? In which about over 800 people came
in, all the tickets were sold out. And the way they did it was
wonderful, it was a big auditorium and had the guy sitting. And then
after that, the auditorium is actually done very well, it
actually has curtains and then he has another off seating on top,
it's completely dark. So to have the women at the top, and whenever
the lights would be on during break, the curtains would be
closed. Right. And that was, you know, with matura, that's what
they did. So when is our program, we're very careful. But what you
have to do, and this is,
you know, after matura, with some of our shields that you have to
work in these spaces, otherwise, if you don't, then we complain
about others who work there who don't represent, you know, what we
would consider to be the orthodox way of doing things. And they're
just going to be influenced by those kinds of people. So it's a,
we don't do this with any kind of, it's not fun in that sense. But
it's important, right? It's important because we would never
allow a mixed kind of occasion to happen in our own. But you have to
go and try to assist with that. And Allah help us and Allah
forgive us, right? We go in there ultimately. And as women and as
men, we're not looking at the women, at least we shouldn't be
right. And because that's haram, that's wrong for us to be looking
at the women, right? So we don't do that we just go we have to do
our job, tried to convince them and try to get them to study more
of the dean to listen to more good lectures connect themselves to the
dean because these people they're mashallah just focused on
education and so on. Now, another interesting thing is that
there are some schooling systems that are based on Western
principles and priorities right? From a young age
to university level,
and I've been told that some of them are such that when they take
their children out for like a trip, they will discourage them
from buying anything local, by foreign brands.
There's just this obsession with foreign brands. It's kind of crazy
why
No these brothers with now has a big beard and mashallah he's here
took us to a mall right now in the malls there you have both some
Western brands and you have the local roads so he's like okay
would you like to go to body shop I said What's wrong with you? Why
do you want to take me to body shop for we go Body Shop? Why
would I come to Pakistan for Polish? Are you crazy? Right?
Dunkin Donuts is here sake Why do I want I'm keen donuts that's an
international brand I want Pakistani right take me to Junaid
Jamshed
right. So Junaid Jamshed and then there's Amira and there's all of
these factors that like that's what I don't want to see honestly
the local culture in honor by some shalwar kameez, you know, I don't
want to buddy show is this really weird obsession, you just know,
and hamdulillah because of boycotts, they boycotted a lot of
them. And then we had to go to a, you know, a local brand. But is
this among a certain group there is that, and it's kind of similar.
Maybe explain this later, a slightly, slightly different but
very kind of similar in places like Bangalore, Bombay, parts of
Hyderabad, and Chennai, right, not in my village like this not like
that there, you understand. And it's not like they're in Durban,
for sure. You understand and sign on board is completely not like
that, but in the US is a totally different world. And yet, in some
cases, it's actually worse than the West. So on Allah, because
there's this really weird kind of inferiority complex on most, and
so on. And the amount of people that asked me, right, do you think
it's,
I don't want to get into the politics and Pakistan, they're
going through a really bad time on that. I'll make it better for
them. But a lot of people there, because their money just
depreciates overnight, sometimes, right. So that I,
do you think it's okay for us to live outside? Should we move
outside? But these are religious people now? They become religious
in the last few years? And they're like, but it's a non Muslim
country, and so on and so forth. What do you think? So look, I
don't know enough about Pakistan, but I think you should stay here.
Right? Yes, you might have less, you know, you don't get the bigger
bang for your buck as well. But it's a huge potential down there.
There's a huge potential down there if we can work more on these
crowds. But yeah, that that essentially, was Allah subhanaw
taala help us I must have given. I don't I must have given about
sometimes five talks a day. Right. And that's to parents in a in a
major Islamic school. Right. And then to the students. And then to
say, as I say, the teachers, I had a session with the teachers had a
session with the parents, and he's like, hundreds of people because
he's almost in big, huge, you know, and then at the
universities, and then a retreat for the special students, and so
on. And very important, very, what may Allah subhanaw taala accept
and make it easy for us? But yeah, that's, it's kind of interesting.
It's a whole new area and people should work in that community. We
have that kind of a situation on a slightly different level, probably
in this country as well. Right? At some level as well. hamdulillah So
may Allah subhana wa Tada bless our brothers there in the Nasi,
her Institute and the Hikmah Institute's who are working under
the guidance of the big scholars down there. Ayesha Allah, Allah,
Allah subhanho wa Taala accept and allow the country to do much
better and stabilize it and make it
much more stable and Masha Allah
welcome Darren Alhamdulillah Arbella Jazak Allah here for
listening May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless you. And if you're
finding this useful, you know
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Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh