Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Simple Ways of Pursuing Knowledge
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Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu
salam ala UL mursaleen while he was off me here with Rocco a
seldom at the Sleeman Kathira en la yo Medina Amma beret call Allah
with the baraka with Arella feel Quran emoji they will for carnal
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we'll call a Tara. First Alou Vickery in quantum laterna moon.
So these are two verses from the Quran that speak about knowledge
being in the hearts one of the first one speaks about knowledge,
the signs of Allah subhana wa Tada, they need to enter into the
heart for it to benefit us. The Quran is the it's a truth, it's a
reality. And it's how do we make that Quran work for us? How does
it benefit us? As Muslims? We generally believe in the Quran,
that it's our book, but how do we get it to benefit us? Allah
subhana wa Tada also says in the Quran, in the second iron that I
recited, that asked the people of knowledge, if you don't know,
first, a * of decree in quantum data, alimony, if you don't know.
And Alhamdulillah whenever there's been a confusing issue that faced
me.
You see what the people of knowledge are saying. And that
helps a great deal. Today, we do live in a time of a lot of
confusion. There's lots of people out there saying that they are
Muslim, and they do certain things in the name of Islam. And it seems
that a lot of it gives a bad name to Islam. So then you wonder, is
this really Islamic or not? So while this was not the topic, but
I thought, let me just, it's just come to mind right now. Maybe
there's some benefit there. But for example, as a Muslim,
and me myself personally, as a Muslim scholar, who who studied
and people record reckon that I should be able to give them some
guidance in certain matters. So for example, ISIS comes around,
and suddenly they're doing all of these things. So the question that
arises is that how, what is our approach to ISIS? So for me as a
Muslim, they're calling themselves Muslim. And there's a brotherhood
in Islam, that we generally try to,
that we generally try to make good of when we can, but then they
start doing some crazy things. And it seems like they're actually
bringing Islam into disrepute. But then they're saying they're
Muslims. And they're saying that everybody else is sold out. And
they're doing the right thing. So what I did was I looked around the
world to see if there were any aroma, if there were any scholars
that agreed with what they were saying that were with them.
Initially, there were a few that had a bit of inclination, may have
said a few things. praiseworthy things about them right in the
beginning, few years ago. But then slowly, slowly, you saw that there
was no well known scholar around the world that supported them
anymore. In fact, they will they all started condemning them.
That's one example. Another example is an old example. And
that example is are Muslims allowed to vote? It sounds sounds
like a crazy question right now. But are Muslims allowed to vote?
There are you do get a few people who say Muslims are not allowed to
vote in the West, because voting means you are taking part in a non
Muslim system. And democracy according to them is haram and
they start on the other. And thus, if you take part in that, what
happens is, you become some some take you all the way to Cofer,
that you will become a disbeliever. If you vote some some
do that.
So there was one brother in England, and he was discussing
this with me it was around the election time several years ago.
He's a very intelligent brother, I said to him, Look, we in the
Quran, are told by Allah subhanho wa Taala that when you've got a
matter that you don't know about, then you need to ask ALLAH SubhanA
wa Tada. You need to ask sorry, you need to ask the people of
knowledge. This is what Allah says Allah, Allah Vickery in
contaminator, the moon. So I said, You give me the name of just three
internationally known scholars, well known scholars that people
know about, who have said that voting is haram in a non Muslim
country.
So he mentioned a few obscure names, somebody from Jordan,
somebody from Palestine, I think it was, he was from a particular
group. He was from a particular group. So I said, nobody knows
these scholars. Anybody can say
something, you know, anybody can say, and have any opinion. But
give me something that is from a recognized scholar.
And there was not a single scholar, not a single recognized
scholar, that quite a few people know
who said voting was haram.
That in itself just shows us that Islam has this system, where
confusion can be dealt with, and confusion can be removed. If you
go to the right sources. Allah subhanaw taala gave us this
religion. And he did not leave us in the cold. He did not leave us
in ignorance. The ignorance comes from us. So I wanted to just start
this off with this idea. And with this concern, and this thought,
that knowledge is there for everybody knowledge is available,
and especially today, whether you're in the north cap, right
many I was mean to the north cap here.
Nobody that said I've been there.
So even if you're in Trump's North cap, wherever you are
Subhanallah I have actually seen that people in Europe like in
Holland, I was there. Then again in Norway, people are Sri Lanka,
right? All the way down south there. They know what's going on
in the world, because of online.
YouTube, they know who's a scholar, which scholar who says
what, who's in which group and they know everything and you're
not you do that as well. Now, this is where we have to be very
careful. There's a dua of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi
salam, which is that Oh Allah, I seek your refuge from Allah
Khomeini I will be coming Illman la Yun Farah Allahumma inni or
obika minerale min la Yan Farah.
Now this goes along with the DUA Rob busy the New Year Illman Fira.
So the first dua means Oh Allah, I seek your refuge, from knowledge
that is not beneficial. knowledge that is not beneficial.
And the other dua is Oh, Allah increased me, Oh, my Lord,
Increase me increase us in ailment interfere in beneficial knowledge,
knowledge, which is beneficial,
True Knowledge. True Knowledge is sacred knowledge. That knowledge
which takes you gives you an understanding of the purpose of
your life, and takes you closer to Allah subhanaw taala. That's what
knowledge is. That's what true knowledge is. And thus, if some
aspect of your engineering studies your biology studies, give you an
understanding of Allah, and give you an appreciation of that, and
leads you in that direction, then that is beneficial knowledge as
well.
Within knowledge, though, if we go beyond the division of beneficial
and non beneficial knowledge, beneficial knowledge is that which
makes you gives you an understanding of your purpose of
your life, takes you closer to Allah subhanaw taala
and makes you a better person in general, non beneficial knowledge
is what we can spend hours doing, and at the end feel like we wasted
our time. So you go on to YouTube. We were actually on the masala
performing salah, and we finished our foreign prayer. And then we
wanted to do some Sunnah prayer, but we saw the blink of the phone
light. And we said let's just check that out. And we check
something there was a link on there for a message from a friend
and WhatsApp is a massive fitna. Right. And
that took us somewhere else. It took us on to YouTube. And it was
a clip of two minutes. We watched that clip. And then we got all of
these other suggestions afterwards. And then we went
there. And then by the end of it, it was been two hours. Everything
Oh man, I was supposed to do this. I was doing my homework. I was
supposed to my salad. No.
This is what you call non beneficial knowledge. And today we
have a massive problem with this and we have to face up to it.
That's why what what I would suggest with WhatsApp you should
do is you should actually
shut down your notifications, WhatsApp, there's no point of
having notifications on WhatsApp. They come every second. So what's
the point of a notification? Every time you open WhatsApp, there's a
message there, especially if you're on a few groups. Right now
I am only on
knowledge groups with other scholars and other community
activists. I'm not on any other just random social group. But
still I can't even keep up I can show you right now. There's one
group I'm about 5000 messages behind. Just can't bother. It's
just too much. It get takes several hours of your day, several
hours of your day to keep up
And we feel about a psychological complex, we feel obliged to keep
up. Because when you're part of a group, you feel obliged to stay in
touch with everything that's going on. Because you may meet these
people often say, Oh, you remember this, you know, you have to know,
everything that goes on in the group. So it makes you feel
obliged. And that's how I used to feel first. But then one day, I
was left behind quite a few hundreds and 1000s of messy with
different groups. And I was so busy, and there was no way I was
going to catch up. So I pressed, I pressed on the group, I clicked,
and I just, it took me to the bottom. And there was no way I was
going to scroll up and check several 100 messages. And that's
the day I became free. I freed myself, I didn't no longer now
feel obliged. People know, among the group and they say, Go, you'd
have to explain to me I, I didn't see that part of the group. I
didn't see that part of you know, those discussions. So I have shut
down my note, I don't get notifications from WhatsApp. I
only get notifications from proper SMS text messages. If somebody
seriously wants to get you, they're going to send you an SMS,
they want to send a WhatsApp, well, I will check it a few times
a day. Right? I'll check it a few times a day. And I'll respond when
I can. So that is the best thing. You want to save your battery,
keep your data off, only put it on every few hours when you need to
do it.
So that's non beneficial knowledge. Now, generally, we take
beneficial knowledge within beneficial knowledge. There are
several categories here, there is what you call further line
knowledge. And there is then the further Keifa knowledge. Further
line means individual obligation for anybody who's a believer,
Islam, Allah subhanaw taala takes knowledge very seriously. I'll
give you an example. What is the first revelation of the Quran?
What were the first verses to be revealed in the Quran?
A Quran Bismillah Bica. The Haluk the Prophet sallallahu Sallam is
in the cave. This is the first experience he's having of an
angel. It was an amazing, an amazing experience. And you could
tell he was amazing. It was incredible. It was for the Prophet
sallallahu Sallam something so unique that he began to tremble
afterwards and that's why when he got home, Khadija the Allah Juana
covered him up.
How did you ever the Allahu Anhu was a very wise woman, the
prophets, Allah, some has this experience, read, the angel comes
in front of him, he's in a cave on top of a mountain. That mountain
today takes about 50 minutes to an hour to climb up. Because I just
did it a few blasts last month, I just did it took about 15 minutes
to an hour and now they actually made steps all the way. gerbil
node on an Hari Hara. And before that, it would have probably taken
longer because there were no steps even few years ago, there were no
steps. It was just you have to climb up.
So the purpose of awesome is there, suddenly this person
appears the angel and says to him read. And the Prophet SAW and said
I don't know I'm not a reader. Because he didn't he had not
learned how to read and write. And again, he was asked again, read he
says I don't know how to read write. And each time when he says
that the angel takes him and squeezes him, embraces him very
strongly, until the Hadith says Hatha Bella mini al Jihad
until it reached to a extreme level with me where I could just
about tolerate it.
And then the third time again, when he said read, again, he said
Ma Anna, because in this time he said, What should I read? keep
insisting, okay, what should I read ma Anna Bukharian. Now it's
the harm now. Now. It's, it was a Nephi before and now it's
different. So until now, it was a negation. And now he's asking a
question. Okay. What should I read? If karate bismi Rob Baker,
Larry hudec, hierarchal in Santa Mina haddock. Ponder these words
carefully. We know that this is the first revelation, but think
about what these words mean. It could read in the Name of your
Lord. Bismillah robic in the Name of your Lord Allah the hudec Who
created you? halacha insane. I mean Allah.
He created, He created the human from a clot of a clot of blood a
piece of flesh. This was the original way that Allah subhanaw
taala created us it Cora, what up Google Chrome read and your Lord
is Most benevolence meaning Why are you worried for read your Lord
is very benevolent. He'll help you read a chrome
a Koran book or a crumb, Olivia unmemorable column, the one who
taught with the pen
I level in Cerna marlim Yalom. He taught the human that which he did
not know. This is the first revelation. Now if you
Think about it, what is our most important belief that makes us
Muslim?
What is the concept? What is the most important of our beliefs is
the heed Oneness of Allah, you agree with me. Without that a
person is not a believer, what is after to him what is the second
most important concepts
rissalah which means to be the prophecy of Rasulullah sallallahu
sallam, right. And number three, I would say, after all everything
else, it's mankind, you know, Billa, he will Young will believe
in the last day, without last day you think.
Without the last day, imagine how our lives would be
imagined today, if you did not believe that you have to stand up
after death, and they would be paradise and * and accounting.
And if we have been wrong, then Allah subhanho wa Taala will
avenge every person who has been wronged. Imagine a poor person.
Imagine an oppressed person. And imagine that they have been
miserable in this life. The belief in the hereafter helps
tremendously. Without belief in the world a bit without belief in
the afterlife. This world would be different every as you do see
people they people become selfish them because they say you only
live once.
Right? They've got a short form of that as well. I don't even want to
say it. Because I think it's just stupid. Really? Right. You don't
live only once. Yes, you only live in this world once. So if you want
to take that positively that hey, this is the time you got to work
for your hereafter understandable. But if this is the time that you
need to just enjoy, so do you do yo lower than you do lol all the
time, right? Then you got a big problem, then you do a loo?
Then you got a bigger problem, right? So
the belief in the hereafter is very significant. So hate oneness
of believing in the Oneness of Allah, messenger ship of Allah of
the Prophet sallallahu sallam, and believe in the last day, these are
very important for all of us. However, this first revelation
from our Creator, to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam, for our
guidance includes none of these three things. Did you notice that?
Read in the Name of your Lord who created who created from a clot of
blood read and your Lord is most honorable, most benevolence? He is
the one who
who taught with the pen? He taught that which you knew not?
I lemon in Santa Monica piano. So what is the first revelation about
what is the theme of the first relevant revelation?
What is the theme? knowledge, knowledge with the pen
SubhanAllah. That is the first revelation. And that is to the
professor Lawson who did not know how to read and write very
significant. That tells us that our epistemological Foundation has
to be solid we need to understand where our knowledge is coming
from.
That's very important. Now.
Honestly, the Allahu Anhu reports there's a hadith in Sahih al
Bukhari and Muslim two of the most authentic collections as we know,
and diplomatic are the Allahu Anhu reports Rasulullah sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam said, mean a Shruti. Sir, it is from the signs
of the Day of Judgment and Europhile Elmo, knowledge will be
lifted.
Well, yes, we're told Janu and when knowledge is lifted, then
ignorance takes its place. They can't be any other way about it.
This is what you call this in logic, the law of
anybody know their logic well enough.
Right? In Arabic, it's called money to Hulu. Right? Where you
have to have one or the other you either have knowledge or you have
ignorance, there's no third possibility. If you have
knowledge, then the ignorance dissipates. If you don't have the
knowledge than the ignorance, that's what it is. You either have
light in this room and when you came in here, it was dark. When
you put the light in darkness is gone. Right? That's the same thing
here it's a Stark is that it's clearly like that. That's why the
prophets Allah Islam said, from the signs of the Day of Judgment
is that knowledge will be lifted, ignorance will be become firmly
settled. Wine, an intoxicants will then be consumed, which will
humble why in an intoxicant will be consumed with her Rosina and
fornication, will become prevalent will become apparent.
That's one narration. Another narration in Bukhari and Muslim
gives a bit of more explanation to the portion that we are interested
in today.
This one is related from Abdullah Abdullah Ahmed and also the Allah
one Rasul Allah
Hello while you're Salam said that in Allahu Allah Jakob Ito lemma in
Designern Yenta zero who? Mina, Larry Bird, Allah subhanho wa
Taala when he takes away knowledge, he does not do it by
just taking it away by snatching it away. Today you've got books,
you've got a huge library, right? Or you've got knowledge in your
heart, and tomorrow, it's all wiped out. The books are gone. The
heart suddenly you don't know, you don't know what you knew
yesterday. That's not generally the way they happens. Right?
Because we have people who know their knowledge Hamdulillah,
right. Those people who know their knowledge, don't just lose it.
However, there is a sign of the Day of Judgment. One of the major
signs right towards the end, one of the final signs, before the Day
of Judgment occurs is that people will pick up the Quran, and then
they will find no words within it'll be clean sheets. And we used
to always wonder what that meant. But today, it becomes so much
easier to understand because many of our Quran 's are now on our
devices. So it's very easy that it all gets wiped out one day
Subhanallah but that's really towards the end. However, the way
Allah takes away knowledge from this ummah, is not by snatching it
away from the people, what are kin Jacobi do who beat up the Rola Ma,
he takes it by removing the scholars, by the scholars dying
out by the scholars no longer being available.
And until had either limb up or lemon until when he leaves no
other limb. Until when there's no our limbs left, no scholars left,
then into the NASA Oosten Joe hurlan Then people will need
answers. People still need answers. So then they're going to
go to ignorant heads, ignorant leaders. And I'll tell you what
that means. You know, when you're put into a position, you're maybe
a good speaker, a good leader, right? For example, there are some
very famous dowries out there who are not trained as scholars. They
were just very good at.
They were just very good at comparative religion, Christianity
and Islam, for example, Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Islam. And
that was their that was their discussion. They did not train to
be scholars, but they just did a good reading on comparative
religion. So now they became very famous, because that's a very,
very hot topic. People love that topic. Right. So it's a very good
hikma. It's a very good Darrow, masha Allah, may Allah bless them
for doing that work, because it's wonderful. That is, so many people
have understood what Islam is, and of coming to Islam because of
them. Now, they become leaders in a sense, they become prominent,
then you have people who will come and ask them some, some questions
about very, very specific 50 jurisprudence, questions on Tala
can say Salah breaking, and they start on the other. And there you
will, they're in this position. Once you're in a position where
you have assumed authority and a sense of responsibility, then you
feel like you need to know you need to give an answer. Very
difficult for most people to say, I don't know. I'll go and check
it.
That's very liberating. When you can learn to say I don't know,
once. Imam Abu Yusuf Rahim, Allah, one of the students of Imam Abu
Hanifa, he's sitting on the member, the pulpit, and he
somebody asks him a question.
Obviously, not a Norwegian. Right? Somebody asks him a question. And
I'm gonna see what you guys how you guys are.
Somebody asks him a question. And he says, I don't know. He says,
And the person said to him, and potentially three haven't MACOM
you sit at this place on this, you know, top step of the member,
you're sitting there? And you say, what, until later? And you say you
don't know. So the response he gave him because people expect
that, you know, right, they want you to help them. And you feel
embarrassed to say, I don't know. So this person was quite shocked
that he said, I don't know. And he said, you're sitting there and
you're saying, You don't know. So we'll use of Rahimullah. He said,
I am only sitting here, according to the amount of knowledge I do
have. If I sat here, according to the amount of ignorance I had,
that I would have been sitting in the heavens.
So when the person becomes like, for example, right now, if you're
going to start asking me questions after this talk, because you've
read my biography, or the shakier, he gave all of these, you know,
these details, and you think he should know and you asked me a
question, and I don't know, I feel embarrassed that, you know, I
don't know. So I pulled out something from
My pocket, you know, make out something here and then give you
an answer. I'm never going to see you again. Right, Inshallah, we
will see you again. But you know what I mean? It just you just feel
obliged sometimes to do that. Inshallah, I don't do that I find
it very easy to say, I don't know. Right. Once you get over that you
are can you liberate yourself? Because there's so many things you
don't know. I tell my students sometimes I don't know, because I
found that that was that the teachers that I had those who
said, I don't know. And I'll check it for you, I've got more respect
for them than the from them from then the other ones, because I
know this person isn't gonna just make something up. And you know,
sometimes that you've asked the question, somebody's given you a
response? You don't feel satisfied with that response? Because you
don't think that they've done their research? Well, I've got a
lot of respect for some of my teachers who used to research and
say, I don't know. And hopefully I will benefit from that. So what
happens is when people become leaders, and there's no other
scholars around that really have a grounding, then people will ask
such people because they're prominent on the stage. Imagine on
YouTube and other places, those speakers who are famous, well
known that whose followers go into hundreds of 1000s and millions, a
lot more people are going to be asking them because they've
benefited from them. So they're going to have a certain question
about them for them. And subhanAllah
they have a big responsibility, we all have a bigger responsibility.
So people will start to take ignorant heads, they will be
questioned, and they will give fatwas behind their ailment
without knowledge for after will be really Aleman. They will give
it to us without knowledge for de Loup, what are dulu they
themselves will become deviated and they will deviate others they
will cause others to deviate as well. That is how the society gets
messed up. That is how people that is how people leave Islam that is
how people get corrupted by the absence of true knowledge. So now
as Muslims Our obligation is that we all need to know our salaat and
any issue related to our salats we need to know those Messiah we need
to know our Ramadan fasting Messiah because we're going to go
into Ramadan it comes once a year can't avoid it. If you're going to
go for Hajj, you have enough money then you need to know your your
hygiene mosyle your hygiene rulings if you start making money
once you graduate and you start making money you're going well I
mean actually no in no way you don't pay too much for your most
students in England are in debt. Right? In England the students are
poor because we have a different system there. You guys have always
petrol money and oil money and mashallah, you know, so you guys
get paid? You know, you guys, your university. So I could say that
maybe even during your student days, you guys need to be worried
about zakat. Right? Whereas in England, it's a different story
generally. So once you have money more than any sob more than the
minimum, which is about today, nisab minimum nisab is about 250
to 300 pounds, right, which is about 2500 3000 Kronus. Right? I
don't know how much it is here. Is that is that around how much is
right of silver. If you've got more than that, that is that is
not covered by debt. And you've got that kind of money sitting in
your bank, you need to pay zakat. So you need to know how to pay
zakat. You need to know the mosyle of the cards, the rulings of
Zakat, and that's why it's important. For example, I'll give
you an example. There was I was in another country, and most of the
people in that area are Shafi ease, I generally follow the
Hanafi school, they were Sharpies. So this particular he was my host.
He said I want to ask you a question about zakat. I said okay,
and he said, he said because I've asked a few scholars locally, and
they're telling me that I don't need to give zakat I'm making good
money. You know, mashallah, he's making good money. He has a good
property good cause everything and I, I feel I shouldn't be paying
zakat. But I've been told I don't need to pay zakat. So I it just
makes me feel guilty. The conscience is speaking. So he
asked me and I said look, I can give you a fatwa according to the
Hanafi school, which is very easy in circuit mosyle. The Shafi
school is much more complicated. In the cotton in the issues of
zakat, I'll give you a fatwa according to the Hanafi school,
which is very simple that on one particular day of the year you
must fix and whatever your assets are on that day minus your debts,
you pay 2.5% of that that's yours or God. And according to that he
does have to be zakat. So he was very thankful. I later asked in
the area
Here, if there were any, they were Shafi scholars, but I asked the
Shafi scholars that are these guys really masters in their Shafi
said No, they've just started Shafi fit, but they're not
masters. They're not moved these in Shafi effect. And that's
probably why this confusion was coming around.
Right? That's basically what it is. When you get married, you need
to know the Messiah of marriage, but you need to know the Messiah
of divorce, even if you're not intending to do divorce, hopefully
so. But you need to know the issues because we get so many
questions on divorce. And the person says, I divorced my wife
three times, or the wife will call up and say my husband just
divorced me three times, but he was in anger this time the other
unfortunately, I have to break them the bad news, and they say,
oh, but we did not know.
We did not know why you driving without, you know, without a
license. That's why in Malaysia mashallah they you have to take a
course to get married, which is really good. Because today,
there's a lot of misery now marriages because people don't
know. They don't know what it is that's required. What are the
rights of each other? What are the responsibilities? What is the law
that is needed? Between the marriage, this is very important.
This is without knowledge, we're going to be stumbling around. And
this is what the problem is now.
There is
Imam No, he says.
You know, the Hadith mentioned how Allah subhanaw taala removes
knowledge. This is very true. The way it works nowadays is this, our
great scholars, those who really know something they are dying out,
they get older, and they die. In December, there were about five or
six major scholars around the world,
in the subcontinent, in some Arab countries, in Saudi,
the old passed away within a few days.
Right. Now, these were people who huge amounts of people who would
benefit from they've gone now,
who takes their place is the question.
Who takes their place is the question.
When big scholars leave the world that lots of other scholars even
rely on, then who takes their place? If we're not producing?
Now, you might say, well, there are there are people going from
Norway, to the UK, to Pakistan, to Libya to you know, other countries
of the world to study.
Everybody who studies doesn't necessarily become productive, you
need a critical mass in anything, you need a critical mass, and a
few of them will be very productive. We need to have at
least one person from every family who is a half of the Quran, at
least one boy or girl from every single family that they have a
half is of the Quran in the house.
Can you imagine that? If you have a half is of Quran in the house,
one of the sons or daughters or half is the benefit of that
memorize the Quran. The benefit is that there'll be Baraka in that
house. Okay, maybe not everybody can become a habit. I believe that
if you have a system, then everybody in the family can be at
least a half of the Quran. And then they can be whatever else
they want to be.
I know numerous people like this. There are so many people today I
teach the madrasa that I teach in the seminary I teach and it's an
evening madrasa in London. Majority of my students, it starts
that starts at 545 in the evening until about 839 o'clock. And the
majority of my students are professionals. They are either
working or they are studying. One is a medical doctor. He's just
finishing up his residency. Another one is a dentist, number
of accountants, electronic engineer and so on and so forth.
These people while they are working or studying, they are also
becoming an item and mashallah very productive. This is what we
need today. And the number of one of them in fact, he is an
electronic engineer electrician, I can't remember he is doing work in
the daytime. He's working in the daytime. He is doing the Alim
course in the evening. And during that one day, he comes to me with
a gift and a shake. This is a gift. So what's the gift for in
the middle of the year? He said because I've just finished
memorizing the Quran.
I've just finished remember, as I was just so happy, I was so happy
that somebody can accomplish this. But it's possible to accomplish
these things if you want to do it. There was a sister in America
doing medical degree. She had already studied Shafi effect,
where she wanted to study certain aspects of the Hanafy field. She
was doing medical medicine, she was studying to become a doctor,
but she would call my wife in the UK we were in a
America before so she had some relationship with her from there.
When he came back to the UK, she would call her and study with her
about an hour every week or two weeks or whatever on the phone.
This is not a class that my wife set up. She wanted to do that. So
she could learn for herself, and she could help other people as
well.
So where there's a will there's a way today the avenues are open.
The world is small, in that sense. You can have access to great
people, but you need to push and you need to have a zeal and you
need to make lots of dua to Allah subhanaw taala give you an
example.
We had a great scholar of the past, whose name was Abdullah
Abdullah Mobarak. His father was a very pious man, a big businessman,
very wealthy. He gave His Son 50,000 Did hums that go and do
some business with this. His son originally was a bit of a *,
right he used to like playing music and everything. But one day
he heard a verse of the Quran ALEMI needed Lavina Armineh and
Dasha Kuru only Vickery Allah, wa nessa laminal Huck, wala yaku Ken
Levine Auteuil Kitab Amin Kabul for Tada Allah human ambered for
CASA Kuru boom, what Kathy Roman, who, first of all, hasn't the time
come for those people who believe in Allah.
Those who believe that their hearts submit themselves in fear
to Allah subhanho wa taala. And they should not be like the people
of the past, who long time passed over and their hearts became hard.
And it carries on. And then he changed his life. Now he went to
study, now he's studying.
He turned to study now his father wanted him to get into businesses
20 Something now he's about 20 something years old. So he is not,
you know, not far from where many of us are.
He gave him 50,000. And he went and he used it to study with and
buy books. After a while his father said, Okay, what have you
done with your money? So he showed him all of these books. He said,
This is what I this is my teacher or this is my trade these books
that I've bought to study.
So his father said, What's wrong with you? Then he gave him another
third is that he said gone use this for business then. And he did
the same thing. However, later, after he became after he had
studied, he did do business. And subhanAllah Baraka, Allah gave him
after that, you should see it amazes me every time I relate the
story, I read this story.
One day they were going from he was from Mauro Mauro is a famous
city where many scholars came from the mother was the scholars came
from there. This is today in Turkmenistan. Unfortunately, in
those areas, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan were the areas where
some of our greatest scholars came from. Buhari Imam, tyranny, the
Imams, some are Condi, Abdullah Hajnal, Mubarak and a number of
others, they came from that area. But today, unfortunately, it's
really sad. May Allah blink bring back their glory? So a number of
spiritual scholars, they said that, can we come with you? This
was they were doing this to go and protect the borders, right? Part
of the Islamic lands and so on. So can we come with you?
So Abdullah Hanuman, Barak said that, you know, you people, you
know, you guys don't like people to, to spend on you.
Because these were a lot of them were Sufis, and they wanted to
spend their own money and do their own little thing, you know, and
they did not want, they didn't like to take gifts from other
people. They didn't like to take assistance from other people. So
he said, Look, what you do is, there's a cloth here, I want you
to come and put your spending for the way you need money to travel,
I want you to come and put your money under this cloth, whatever
whatever it is. Some people pretend their homes, some people
20 their homes, their home is a silver piece. Then you have
dinars, dinars or gold pieces. One dinar is about a value of one
dinar is about 20 Durham's, so you can see the difference right, so
they gave 10 or 20. Durham's, so he put it all together and then he
went on the way and on the way he started spending on them. From
from from they had to go to Mercy, Sir. So from there, they traveled,
he would keep them in the best of places, he would give them the
best of foods, he would treat them to desserts afterwards, and all
the way and then when they got to Mercy, Sir, he said, Okay, now we
have to split up because we reached out now we have to split
up and he says, Okay, now let's see what money we've got left.
Because he gave them the impression that we're going to put
our money together and we're going to spend together
And we'll just spend from there, and then whatever is left, and
then we'll just distribute it. So he starts giving everybody 20
dinars each 20 gold pieces each. And they're all saying we did not
give 20 dinars, we gave 20 Durham's or we gave tender humps.
So you know what he said to them? He said to them, can you deny that
in the path of Allah, your money
multiplies.
That was his way. He is a great scholar who studied by literally
hundreds of scholars. He is one of the Hadith scholars who everybody
loves and nobody is criticized for anything. And he is one of the
most righteous people that we know of that time.
But he's a businessman and look at his generosity.
On another occasion, he wanted to go for Hajj from Morocco, he
wanted to go for Hajj. Now from there, you have to come down to
Baghdad, because that's a double Khilafah at the time, that is the
center of Caliphate. And then from there, you go to Madina, Munawwara
and mcomber karma. So there were a number of people that is the Can
we join you Hajj group, you know, you have had groups, so they made
an informal 100. Can we join you? So he said, yes, if you want to
join me, that's fine. Give me your money.
You know, you're spending money. So he took the money. He put it
together, put it away and locked it up. And then he started going
with them. He would stay in the five star places. I mean, there
were no Hilton's in those days, right? Or Crowne Plaza or whatever
it is, but he would stay in the best of places. He would give them
the best of food and they got to Baghdad, he settled them there
properly. Then from Baghdad, he took them out in with great honor.
You know, in nice caravan and everything and they got to they
got to Madina Munawwara first when he got to Madina, Munawwara and
they gone to the masjid and everything, and then he said to
them, okay, give me your shopping lists.
You know, today when people go home, right, you give them
shopping lists, right? Buy me this hijab, and that, that Juba, and
this that and the other. Well, you see in those times the world
wasn't globalized as it is today. Today, you can pretty much get
everything all around the world. You go to any duty free, whether
it's in Dubai or whether it's an it's all the same Tobler owns. You
know, it's the same thing everywhere. It's it's boring now,
right? But in those days when you go to different areas,
they were very specific things. He took everybody's lists shopping
lists, and he had everybody's here everybody's shopping this purchase
for them and he gave it to them. Then they went to mocha mocha
Rama. He said he set them up there in nice accommodation and
everything. They did their hedge. They finished the hedge. This is
okay, give me your list for Mocha, mocha Romano. What's your shopping
list for Mocha, mocha Rama, they gave it to him, he purchased
everything for them. And then on the way back, he came? Then what
he did was he had somebody go and check their houses. You know, in
those days, the houses were not as well done as we have them today.
They just made a murderer, whatever, you know, and he had
everybody's front door area fixed up if if you had any problem.
After three days, he kept a special return hydroton banquets
and for all of them, and then he took out that box and he gave
everybody's money back. Now that's a hedge group.
That's a hedge group. But can you imagine this is man is one of the
greatest scholars of the world. And he is so generous, and Allah
has given him so much Baraga to be able to do this, you need to have
a lot of Baraka right? To spend five star treatment on people,
you're going to need a lot of money.
But that's what he did. Allah had given him the baraka now imagine,
I always think to myself that, you know, when his father gave him
50,000 dirhams, and said, Go and do some business with this.
Imagine if he had done business with that first and not studied
anything. He would have been a businessman, but would he have
been a scholar?
He became a scholar. And then Allah gave him the dunya as well.
A lot of people Subhanallah a lot of people I don't know if any of
you have experienced this, but they think that becoming a scholar
means that you will then have to beg people do the scholars beg
people have you ever seen a scholar begging you? Have you ever
seen a scholar? Hungry hamdulillah Allah gives them and today there's
a different concept of a scholar. You know, unfortunately, many of
our parents are from India, Pakistan, Egypt, other places.
They have this concept of the Malawi sub.
Right. They have a concept to Malawi Banega, right. That's what
they say. Sorry, I can't speak Punjabi. Right. A lot of you guys
are Punjabi right. Will you speak or do
you speak both? Okay, well, you can translate for me in Punjabi.
Anyway, so they they have this concept
And the world is changing today. They have so many scholars who are
business people, you have so many scholars who are researchers at
major universities, a friend of mine is in University of Chicago,
one of the, you know, good pathologist founder and he's an
alum of the Dean as well. You've got that today. We just want
people that you know, your deen you learn your deen, at least for
yourself, and then inshallah you can maybe help somebody else. What
point is there that you become a good engineer, you become an
architect, you become a biologist, you become an anthropologist,
maybe you become a doctor, a lawyer, whatever you may want to
be. But you don't know what your deen is. You don't know what your
religion is. And thus you can't teach your children. And then
you're you had faith because your parents were strong enough. But
then your children will not have the faith? Because there's just so
much outside that is they're encroaching upon us. It's not easy
today to be a Muslim in the West. There are difficulties, but you
can do it. I say it's not. I say it's difficult, not because it's
physically difficult all the time. There are challenges. But the
reason it's difficult is because there's too much distraction.
Nobody's got the time that you don't want to learn. You in the
city. I'm surprised mashallah, you in this city, Norway, Allah has
blessed, much more than a number of other European countries. I
think it's I think England is the most blessed, because
Alhamdulillah we've got institutions, you know, we've got
full full fledged institutions, but no way. Alhamdulillah you
don't have as much Islamophobia as you do in other places. You guys
feel proud to be Norwegian? Or am I wrong there?
You feel proud to be Norwegian? I have been to other countries.
There's one country, right? My observation of them is that when
you look at them, you will think that they are like France, for
example. The Muslims, they're from North Africa, right? When you
speak to them, you can't even tell the difference between a normal
French person and them they they seem so French, but they don't
feel French at all, which is really weird. They only know
French, they don't even know Arabic anymore. But they don't.
But they don't feel French. It's just a massive problem. That
assimilation there is weird, right? Because of the lies that
hey there. It's a crazy kind of situation. There's other countries
in Scandinavia where I've been and people are not proud to be from
that country, though they live there. But mashallah, here. You
guys feel at home? You're made welcome. And you have freedoms?
Look, we all have challenges, no place is perfect in the world, not
even Muslim countries are perfect, believe me, right? I've traveled
to a number of Muslim countries, and they have limitations there as
well. There are certain things that you can't say and you can't
do there as well. But we've got the freedom here. That's where
Allah subhanaw Does place you now the benefit that you have in this
city, is that you've got a number of Allah ma, right? You've got a
number of alumni, how many at least 10 alumni here, at least,
but the six, six is still decent, you've got four months, four or
five months, students maybe more, right?
It's just about
asking them. Now generally, a lot of people will complain, okay, the
scholars don't do this. They don't do that. Don't wait for them to do
something. Be proactive. You've got an idea. Go and say to the
Scholars, this is what we want to set up.
Can you do this for us? If one says no, go to the next one.
Somebody has to be proactive. I'm here just for the short amount of
time, just to raise awareness, raise awareness that Allah has
given us this Deen, this beautiful theme, which speaks of the life to
come. Everything else in this world is just going to speak about
this world. And remember, this world is limited to the amount of
time that Allah will give us in this world, whether that be the
next 50 years, the next 70 years maybe or the next 10 years or
maybe five years. Whenever Allah wants to take us. That's it. What
are we going to do for the life to come? is the most important
question. That is something Allah has given us. What are we going to
do about that? Imam, the hobby Rahmatullah. Here are one of the
great scholars of Hadith criticism is such a great scholar that
Subhanallah he is such a great scholar.
He says, after everything, he says one of the greatest problems that
this ummah is always going to face. One of the greatest crisis
of this OMA
is what ignorance. We don't know what it means to be a Muslim. We
don't know what Allah wants from us in this particular situation in
this particular context.
That's one of the biggest maladies that we have. What is the point of
having so much, but you can only benefit from it in this world.
You can only benefit from in this world, see every single one of us
here. And you know, mashallah, you know, the two brothers that I was
with, right? I asked him, okay, what are you studying? So this is
becoming a medical doctor. Right? So, with what you have here, in
terms of free university and everything, do the best that you
can.
That's wonderful.
But with all of this, you're going to get a better life. Because
these are generally the way you you know, you you study, you
become this, you become that you get a better life. But what are
you going to do for your hereafter?
What are we doing for our hereafter?
And we have to keep being inspired. We have to keep
learning, we have to keep increasing. And it's not two
mutually exclusive paths, that if you become a doctor, then you
cannot become a scholar of the Diem. Or you can take a few
courses.
And not saying that become an alum or Alima. That's fine. Don't go
and take some courses. Understand what your fic is, understand what
hadith is, understand what our key there should be. Today, a number
of people are studying philosophy at university. And they have
absolutely no idea what in depth Islamic Aqeedah is, the only
belief they know is what they were brought up with, that their
parents told them. A general crude understanding of God is one. And
Muhammad Lord ism is his prophet. And there is a hereafter some
basic, rudimentary beliefs, or if they went to a murderous or mucked
up, and what the teacher told them, that's all they know. Now,
they're getting into some very complex metaphysical discussions
in philosophy. And they have no idea.
And sometimes they a lot of them are losing their faith.
In England, it's happening.
One person who's in the first year of his physics degree, in one of
the major universities in London, he says he knows two Muslims in
his class in his year, who are from
pack one is Pakistani background when he's Somali background, and
they clearly say that we're not Muslim anymore.
We don't know what it means to be to be a Muslim.
These are people who may, you know, you and I can, can relate to
similar backgrounds.
And this is happening for various different reasons. So I will give
you give us some certain practical suggestions that I've seen that
work elsewhere. And then in sha Allah, we ask Allah subhanaw
taala, to assist us, first and foremost, do well at your work.
But to understand what it means to be a Muslim, we're going to need
to, to learn. And you do that by reading books. And by sitting
by sitting at the feet of scholars. Now, you can't always go
and sit with scholars and learn from them directly. If that's
difficult, mashallah you have their own amount available in your
area, use them.
If that doesn't work out for you, for whatever reason,
then you've got at least online sources. There are many online
Institute's providing, you know, for example, on zum, zum,
academy.com, which is ours, it's just virtual, it's just online.
So, maybe this talk will, you know, get online as well. So, it's
just goes online, and but it's all free, we've got number of courses,
you know, several courses on there, everything from in depth
Aqeedah issues to business fic, to zakaat, and solid, and,
you know, please feel free to avail from that. Then there's
Rayyan Institute, right, I'm an instructor on there as well.
Again, you of course, it, there's a number of other other other
possibilities on there.
So try to do as much as you can. Now, if you have not had the
ability to memorize the Quran, or, or even parts of the Quran, at
least try to memorize parts in Ramadan, but make a decision and
make a firm dua to Allah subhanaw taala, that when you have
children,
you will try to make as many of them at least a half is of the
Quran. And then they can be whatever else they want to be as
well. You got the Quran in the heart Subhanallah the reward that
you will have the baraka in the house that you will have, and the
Archaea because every child who has Hafiz of the Quran, he takes
his parents to Jannah. Right? They get a crown in they get a crown,
and so on. There's lots of benefits to that.
And I'll say one more thing, which is that
there are five things that I generally suggest to university
students, but anybody this for everybody, it's not just for
university students. There are five things which will probably
take
About half an hour of your 24 hours of your day, right 24 hours
of your day, it'll take about half an hour of that.
If you do them, you will see that and this is science. This is
empirical. It's based on. It's based on, it's based on
experience, that if you do this within three weeks, you will feel
closer to Allah subhanaw taala.
So what am I saying you must do. It's very simple. Every day,
morning and evening, twice a day, once 100 times in the morning 100
times in the evening, you will do is still far
right. The benefit of St. Patrick's day for me is to seek
forgiveness, a style Hula, hula rugby Minh Colombia to LA I seek
refuge in Allah, I seek forgiveness from Allah subhana wa
Tada,
my Lord
from every sin, and I returned to him, I repent to you do this 100
times in the morning. So everything we've done from the
night time, the evening time, all of that is forgiven, then we do it
100 times in the evening. So everything we've done in from
since the morning that gets forgiven. So it's like having two
showers in a day. That means we're never dirty. Right? It's a
constant purification. It's like we're cleaning our phone twice a
day. Right? This is going to be very streamlined, very clean. Now
we need some benefit, we've had a shower, you need to put some
perfume on, you need to adorn yourself. And you do that by doing
100 Salawat on Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi, Salam Durood,
Sharif, in the morning, and 100 in the evening. And the benefit of
this, again is baraka and blessing because the prophets, a lot of
them said that whoever sends 101 blessing on me, Allah sends 10
blessings on him. And just one blessing of Allah is beneficial,
more than enough. So that's number two. Number three is
we have to have some association with the Quran. Because Quran is
our Savior, it's, it's the gladness of our eyes, it's what
gives the heart the satisfaction, and you stay away from the Quran,
life is dark. The Quran, it gives provides light in our life and our
and our hearts. So if you can just read
two pages a day.
If you can't read one whole Jews of the Quran, or even half inches,
and you can just read two pages, or even one page a day will do
that much. Just do it regularly. Just make sure you read that much
a day.
And if you can read it with meaning, then Subhan Allah that
would be even a greater benefits. So that's number three. Number
four, is we need to spend some time with Allah subhanaw taala.
Every day,
you know these five things I'm going to mention they are separate
from the obligatory things we must do like salad and so on, we must
try to do that as much as possible. If we miss a salad, we
should make it up. We should be avoiding as much Haram as
possible. That's all x that's all. There is no negotiation with that
this is the extra half an hour that we want for ourselves as our
investment for the hereafter. So the first one was 100 is the farm.
Number 200
Salawat delusionally. Number three is some Quran. And number four is
some meditation, some intimate discourse meeting with Allah
subhanaw taala. We may be praying, but unfortunately many of us our
prayer is empty. Right? How do we get concentration.
And the benefit here is if you just spent about 10 minutes, seven
to 10 minutes thought every 710 minutes in which you do some kind
of meditation, what kind of meditation, there's so many types
of meditation, somebody could just be thinking of all of the wrongs
that I have done, and how Allah has blessed me so much that he's
given me to wear what I want to eat what I want to eat. He's given
me security by putting me in where I live. Believe me, you go to
other places where there is no sense of security, you go outside,
you could be killed. Right, you go outside you could be violated. And
here we can walk around as we wish that is a bounty on its own.
Believe me, when you see it in other places that you don't have
it and you don't take it for granted. So you think of Allah's
Bounty is upon us, and you think how
problematic we have been. One of the ways that I've Morocco that I
found to be very useful, that really get you focused, is that
you sit down in a quiet place
With your head lowered without any distraction. So your phone
shouldn't be you know your function and be around it should
be on silent completely. No blinking lights, nothing. You
close your eyes you look down and you set yourself up by imagining
that Allah's Mercy is coming on your hearts. So you focus on your
left side, your heart is there. You just focus that Allah's Mercy
is coming down and because Allah's Mercy is everywhere, and then you
just remembering Allah with your heart, not anything with your
tongue.
You're just remembering Allah with your heart. Allah, Allah, Allah,
Allah and you're just imagining that your heart is just calling
out to Allah, Allah, Allah. That's it just calling out to Allah.
You will be distracted. If we did it here for 30 seconds, you will
see how difficult it is. We're going to try it right. I'm going
to give us
30 seconds, I'll tell you when to start. You need to look down close
your eyes. And just with your heart. Imagine that it is just
saying Hola. Hola. Hola calling out to Allah. And don't think of
anything else just for 30 seconds. Right? Let me let me let me tell
you, I'll tell you when to start.
How many of us did not get distracted at all?
Mashallah, that's quite good.
You didn't hear
the sound? No, no creaking of the chair. Not is 30 seconds up.
Okay, just then you just went into it now. That's wonderful.
That's wonderful. Now the benefit is if you do it for 10 minutes,
then you will concentrate for maybe 40 seconds and then you lose
it in something and then you remind yourself you come back into
it. So you get and eventually you will get the full amount. If you
can do that, then when you start praying that inshallah you will
see that you'd have concentration, your prayer. When you start
reading Quran, you will not be distracted. This is just the
practice of that is dedicating yourself with charisma robic And
remember the Name of your Lord. That's what we're doing
essentially, with charisma robic, right, remember the Name of your
Lord. Very, very powerful.
So that was number four. And number five is just generally
trying to think about Allah throughout the day. One of the
best ways to do that is if we can learn some of the doors, you know,
the most known doors.
We got to do our book Bismillah R Baraka Tila in the Navy, when you
start eating, I begin eating in the name of Allah and with his
blessing. You wake up in the morning, right
Alhamdulillah Hilary are here Anna Burma amat Anna while they initial
all praises to Allah, who gave us life after death.
And to him is the gathering and the return. Right? Allahumma
Bismillah Emoto here when you go to sleep, oh Allah in your name,
do I live? And do I die? So you're thinking about Allah in a very
specific way in each of these, so learn that was in their meanings.
So it will just remind you and when you remind, when we are
reminded of Allah when we remind ourselves of Allah Most often,
then Allah subhanaw taala will be mindful of us as well as if not
bacilli, Allah, and it's totally the Prophet sallallahu sallam. Be
mindful of Allah and Allah will be mindful of you. Be mindful of
Allah and you will find a lie in front of you, you will find Him
wherever you need him. So may Allah subhanho wa taala, grant us
Tofik to do these five things, but believe me, I'm telling you this
from experience of a number of people that if you do this for
just three weeks, you will see the benefits you will feel closer to
Allah, your depression, a lot of your depression will be removed,
you will not get worried and perturbed about small things that
have happened in your life. Because a lot of them happen
because of the weakness of our heart. We can't bear it. When you
develop a connection with Allah your Tawakkol and reliance in
Allah gross. And then you understand he's in charge. So when
that happens, then you feel much more confident. Then you will feel
like praying.
You will feel bad about missing your prayer. You will feel bad
about doing wrong things
and it'll just get you to focus better Inshallah, in your studies
and everything. So may Allah subhanho wa Taala grant is still
fake. I'm going to stop here I ask Allah subhanaw taala to bless us
all. And let me make short DUA and then we'll open up for questions
inshallah.
Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa in early so you didn't
know Mohammed were Bertie co Salam Allahu manda Ceylon wanting to set
the bar on the agenda with the Quran Allah who may or yaka human
medical studies Allah who may or Hana Yama, Nan la isla
Learn to Subhan Allah in the Quran Amina Lottie mean Allahumma salli
wa salam ala so you didn't know Mohammed Werner early so you
didn't know Mohammed or vertical Salam. O Allah we ask You for Your
Mercy of Allah we ask You for Your forgiveness
of Allah we ask You for Your Rama of Allah we ask You for Your
blessing of Allah we ask you forgiveness from all of these
years of heedlessness of Allah, we ask you to protect us from
distraction. What Allah we ask you to focus our hearts, our hearts on
your deen of Allah, we ask that you aim in. You infuse our hearts
with your light. Oh Allah we ask that you Illuminate our hearts
with your Quran. Allah we ask you forgiveness from all the sins that
we have committed. Oh Allah the sins we have committed and the
openness of day and the darkness of the night of Allah we ask you
forgiveness from all of those sins that have stopped our progress of
Allah, those sins that have brought depression in our lives,
those sins that have brought misery and loss and setbacks in
our life of Allah that we ask you forgiveness from all of those
sins, that have taken the blessing away from our lives are Allah.
We ask that you grant us closeness to you. We ask that you fill our
hearts with your love. And you grant us good company surrounding
us. Oh Allah, we ask that you bless us in our endeavors of Allah
in our studies, in our businesses, in our work in our families, of
Allah in our life in general. of Allah protect us and our iman, oh
Allah protect us and our iman, oh Allah. There are so many
challenges out there. There are so many difficulties out there. Oh
Allah, we ask that you preserve us and preserve the entire Muslim
Ummah around the world of Allah. Make this gathering a beneficial
one. Oh Allah allow us all to turn away from here after having been
forgiven. Oh Allah, we ask that you forgive us all of Allah that
you remove any sins that we have you in our accounts, and Oh Allah,
that you turn us towards you. Oh Allah. Oh Allah bless us all in
all of our endeavors and our families and our progeny until the
until the day of judgment of Allah, we ask that you make our
final statement in this world, La ilaha IL Allah, Muhammad Rasool
Allah, and you make the best part of our life, the final part of our
life. And Allah make that day a blessed one. When we stand in
front of you, to be questioned of Allah, we ask that you make all of
the stages of the Hereafter easy for us, oh Allah bless all of
those who have made this program who have organized this program,
who have assisted in this program, and who have attended this
program, oh Allah make this a source of great sadaqa jariya for
them, make it a source of baraka and blessing for them, or Allah
bless them in their lives are Allah bless them in, in their
families, in their work in their studies of Allah. There are so
many other things that many people sitting here could have been doing
this Saturday afternoon, instead of coming here, but Oh Allah, they
chose to come here. And they express they have expressed their
love for you. They've only come here out of your love. Otherwise,
there are so many other things that they could have been doing.
We have so many distractions. So Allah accept this coming from us
all except this coming and gathering from us all of Allah
except this gathering from us all, and any chores that we have to do
any other tasks that we still have to do. Oh Allah, we ask that You
grant us baraka and blessing and allow us to complete them. Oh
Allah,
we ask you finally that you send your abundant blessings on our
messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa salam and that you grant
us his company in the hereafter. Subhan Allah because Allah is
setting I'll see phone was alone when a little more sannino and
Hamdulillah. Europe In early mean.
Firstly, the whole philosophy behind it, you can't spread a
religion by force, because once you do that,
and then you go away, then people are not they will only be Muslim.
Outside they won't be Muslim in the in the house. But when you see
throughout the lands, when people became Muslim, they became serious
Muslims. So if it was spread like that, then there would be no
possibility of people becoming sincere Muslims. That's the first
thing.
Number two, why the reason? Well, maybe one of the reasons that come
to my mind is that if you look at the spirit of the Prophet
salallahu Alaihe Salam, so you've got the Mk and Sierra, the first
13 years.
That is where it was primarily persecution. So they being
persecuted in Makkah, then the prophecy wasn't go
was to Madina Munawwara and then in those 10 years
he's got a bass now in Madina Munawwara and there's more
Muslims. And the people of Madina, Munawwara have all embraced Islam,
the main two tribes.
The people of Makkah, don't leave them alone.
They start attacking them. So now back to the butter 100
And then it carries on. So the next 10 years, at least eight of
those years is filled with battles,
primarily all defensive battles, because they're being attacked.
That's why you see that
brother is close to Madina, Munawwara or her. Madina,
Munawwara 100 Madina, Munawwara. They came to be attacked, they
were in Madina Munawwara didn't go to Makkah.
So, I think that anybody who reads the Sierra,
they're going to see a lot of battles.
They don't then think about why these battles took place. They
just use that as a smear campaign against the Muslims.
Otherwise, if you look in India,
where when I say India, I mean, Indian subcontinent, how many
people here are from the India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, right.
That's the majority. Right? That's the majority of people. How did
the people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh become Muslim?
Right. Does anybody know?
Exactly from Moinuddin Chishti Rahmatullah he came from He's
originally from Afghanistan, just I think is in Afghanistan, he goes
to Baghdad, and then from the UK comes to India, and all these
people become Muslim, right? Just by
Malaysia,
Indonesia, anybody from the area? Right? That whole Malay
Archipelago. There's these businessman that go there, and
they just see the interaction. So huge areas, there was no war
whatsoever. But some places there was like Iraq, Persia, the Roman
Sham, that area in the beginning, because you had the Persian Empire
and you had the Roman Empire. So if you look in the first
the if you look in the biographies, and the history of
Abu Bakr, Siddiq rhodiola, Juan Omar, the Allah one, and Earthman,
or the Allah one, there's a lot of battles that take place, because
until now, the people in hijas were Makkah, and Madina. Munawwara
is they were left alone, nobody wanted to rule over them. On the
north, you had on the north side, you had the Roman Empire. And on
the eastern side, you had the Persian Empire, two very, very,
very powerful empires of the time. But nobody wanted to deal with
these people because they were seen as wild. Now suddenly, after
the Prophet salallahu Salam, these people become very civilized, they
become very strong. And slowly, slowly, they've got borders with
the Romans. This happened even during the time that was the last,
you know, the Battle of Muda, where Jaffa, abdulai, Nava, and
Zaid, three of them were martyred. This was with the Romans, because
in those days, when you you're bordering the Romans, they're
going to start feeling afraid. So they're going to preempt, attack
you so you're gonna have to attack them back. So slowly, slowly, the
the skirmishes and the wars with the Roman started and on this side
with the Persians. So
if the Persians attacked here, we would attack them back, we would
take that piece of land, then they would want to carry on attacking
and then it would they just weak and they just, eventually the
whole of the Persian Empire dissolved. Right. So a lot of the
wars of the first few centuries of Islam were by circumstance.
Amara, the Allah did not even want to go into Persia. He said, stop
at Iraq, don't go beyond that. We don't want to go into the Persian
lands. But there was just in those days, you couldn't help it because
otherwise you'd be attacked. Or you have to then respond. So that
is, if you know the history of it, then you'll see it. That that's
what it is.
Yeah, that's what I think is because a lot of the initial
history is to do with wars.
And there was a sword used, right? Not for the sake of spreading
Islam, but for the sake of defense, but then those lands came
in under Islam and people became Muslim.
And those lands are still Muslim until today. Those very lands are
all Muslim until today, you know, all the way to Persia, Iraq,
Syria, majority of these lands are still still Muslim.
In fact, in Egypt, which was also taken, you still have the Maronite
Christians there right from the beginning. Nobody's forced them to
convert. They're still there.
Right.
So there are two types of sins. One A minus signs are
sorry, minus sins which sometimes we don't even realize that we're
doing.
They will automatically get wiped out by the good deeds as the
system of Allah, you do something good. And the minus sins get wiped
out for the major ones, then you need the intention.
Now the idea is that if you can do 100 distinct for morning and
evening,
then eventually you're going to feel like I want to do this from a
major sins as well. So it will encourage you to do proper Tober
from these things.
Well, if you go to Trump's there's two messages in Tromso,
one of them uses Oslo time, they have the timetable Oslo time. And
the other one uses Maccha time.
Right, we would suggest that they use the Oslo time, because that's
the closest place where they have a sunset. So whatever the Oslo
people do, then they will do the same thing. So that's what they do
in Tromso.
Yeah, I believe that these are not two mutually exclusive things. So
if you realize that when I said read the Quran, then with meaning
as far as possible, then it will multiply that
for many non Arabs, right, it's much more easier for them to
memorize the Quran because they've got a system in place to do that.
And we generate and hope that a lot of these people who memorize
the Quran will then learn the meaning afterwards. That's what I
did. Right, you have this other girl. Okay, Abrahamson. So that's,
so this is generally what happens. However, we do also acknowledge
that there are a lot of people who memorize parts of the Quran, but
they don't know what the meaning of even fatty is. So they're
making solid for 50 years on the first row of the masjid, but they
don't know what sort of the fattier means. And that's really
sad. So
generally, when Ramadan comes, I tell people that you should spend
50% of your time maybe reading, but at least 25% of the time, the
bar of the Quran. So we have to encourage both of these things,
they're not mutually exclusive, we have to encourage both of them.
But memorizing the Quran is that it gives it to you in your heart,
the benefit of it is that you can then do read it in your Tahajjud
prayer, you can then read it when you're driving, you don't have to
have a Quran in front of you and Inshallah, in the Hereafter, you
will be able to ascend in paradise as well. So there's a benefit
there as well. But they should not disregard the meaning they should
focus on the meaning as well.
The, as mentioned in the Quran, see, marriage is a is a religious
union. So religious union. So generally you need the same
religion for a marriage to work, because it's a religious
institution. So you need a Christian and the Christian, a Jew
and a Jew, a Muslim and a Muslim, Hindu and a Hindu, that's default,
because it's a religious union.
It's not a civil union, a civil union, just get two people
together and say, Okay, I pronounce you husband and wife
civil, that's a different thing. But from a religious perspective,
for a marriage to come together, then you need religions to be the
same. Now, God makes one exception in the Quran, for men, Muslim men
to marry Christian Jewish women. But he doesn't make that exception
for Muslim women to marry Christian or Jewish men. And while
that's allowed in the Quran, for a man Muslim man to marry a
Christian or Jewish woman, that scholars have not encouraged it,
it's allowed in certain circumstances, because I have seen
myself where they do this and just huge complications that generally
follow in that regard. So that's the
look at the basis of religious institution is still is very
applicable today in the in the context
it's not haram it's invalid.
Meaning it just won't even work. It'll be a Zina, it won't be a
marriage because
for something to be
to work, both of those things need to be suitable for that thing. And
here the suitability is just not there. So it's
what the scholars say Allah say, it will not be valid. It's not
haram. It's beyond the Haram
it's invalid.
I had that I had that case once there was a Muslim woman who
wanted to marry a Jewish man. And they came to the masjid, this was
in America and they said, We want you to marry us. Donica. So I
explained to them and I said, Even if I get 10 chiefs 10 scholars to
do Nikka it won't work because it's just not,
you know, you just can't, just doesn't work. Right? Of course,
civil marriage you can do, but it's not religious marriage.
So how much research does a person have to do? Before they can eat
from a place? You know, the problem with this issue is that
the more you know, the more difficult it becomes. For me,
because I know the industry it is so difficult. It is so difficult,
right? I won't even tell you what I eat and don't eat in no way.
Right? Because I've been here quite a few times. And
so
I have an article about this. Because in America, this was a big
deal. So I wrote an article about it. If you go to
it on zum zum.
I think it's on zum zum. Academy look for zabiha meet madness. Look
for the beha Zed a big H A. So you'll find it on there or white
thread press.
No, yeah, so in America, anything that is meat is halal. As long as
it's not pork, that's all halal. According to them. Just say
Bismillah needs it. This is the beehives when a Muslim has
slaughtered it with his hand. So they say Brother, this is halal.
But this is the Bihar
it's just really crazy.
But what I would suggest to people is that this is what I've
mentioned, you can read the article fully, but what I have
mentioned generally is that if I go to a new area, I will generally
ask the local religious people, right? That what do you consider
to be halali here? And if it sounds right to me, I will eat
from there. For a normal person you go to a restaurant.
Now you see the problem is that in England, and probably here as
well, because there is no government law
that prohibits a person saying Halal if it's not properly Hello.
There are so many non Muslim takeaways and restaurants in
England that says halal.
They have the Arabic word you know, halal. It says that and
people just eat and I guess the shopkeeper doesn't even know it's
halal, or what it means this isn't this. The somebody told them
another restaurant told them if you put the sign up, you get lots
of customers. Right?
There was one Sikh, you know, see
another religion from India. He had a meat shop halal meat.
So somebody else is this halal? You know, where do you get it
from? This is not halal? Is it just the name of the shop is
halal? Just my brand is halal meat. Do you understand? There's
too much abuse, because halal meat costs more. So you get the other
meat and you sell it as halal meat, you make a lot more profit.
So what I would do is I would go to the restaurant, like let's just
say that I find myself in Gibraltar. Right? And I'm really
hungry. I'm semi vegetarian anyway, because the prophets Allah
was semi vegetarian. So I, if I don't have meat Alhamdulillah no
problem, right. But I know the Pakistanis and Indians, they like
their meat
seven times a week.
So I would go into the shop and say, Brother, you saying it's
halal? Yes. Where do you get it from? I'll ask him a few
questions. And I'll see how forthcoming he is with his
answers. If he gets upset the standard and said, okay, just like
a locker, I just want to see their reaction how forthcoming they are,
I want to feel confident, it's not my responsibility that, you know,
I must go and check his supplier, as long as they get confidence.
First thing I ask the people around, if I can't ask people
around, then I will ask myself and I want to be confident, confident
Bismillah then Allah knows best.
And this is because there's a problem. If I go to
if I go to Turkey, I generally won't question.
Most of their meat is local. That's why
there are Muslim countries, unfortunately, where their meat is
not local. Most of it is imported from crazy places. So it does
cause a bit of a confusion. But if I go India, or Pakistan, right,
I'm not going to question I'm going to eat for me the question
there would be wrong, because I'm doubting the default. To
understand the default in these countries is that there's a
problem because there's too much it's too much problem. So that's
how you
To take it
semi vegetarian in the sense that he would eat meat, very seldom.
But when meat came, he would enjoy it. He wasn't vegetarian anti
meat. He liked his meat. And once he was eating and he said, Okay,
give me the shoulder part. So they gave him the shoulder parts. So
give me another shoulder pops give you another one says give me
another one.
Right. So I think the person said a lamb or whatever only has this
many. He said if you had kept giving me what have come out
Baraka so when he got meat, he ate it, but his majority diet was not
meat. It was dates, barley, and other things. That's why there's a
hadith in Mata of Imam Malik, which says that meat has a
addiction, just like wine has an addiction.
Imam Ghazali Rahmatullah. He has written that if somebody eats meat
consecutively for 40 days, their heart becomes hard. Now we know
that from a cardiology point of view anyway, right? So that's why
we just cut down on meat
activities
to engage in with non Muslims. Do you guys have any poor people
here?
Romanians,
they're not from Norway. You have no Norwegians are poor. You're
definitely they are. There's a lot of immigrant people there. Yeah.
Drug Abuse. Yeah. So one of the best ways is obviously to do
something like that. Because you know, when it comes to Muslims,
one of the problems we have is that we will help for Muslim
causes, but we don't help for humanity causes in general, so and
for us to be seen as doing something proactive. We need to
look for those kinds of causes.
Do you guys have churches here?
They have people there. So maybe you can have a football? What's
your sports here? By the way? Football. Okay. Not Quidditch.
Okay. Football, basketball. Do you know what Quidditch is? Heard
about it? Does anybody know what Quidditch is? Yeah, just joking.
is annoying me. I don't know what what kind of support you guys
have.
So how about having a football match with one of the churches? A
friendly one?
Here, yeah, very good idea. We have that in America. They have
the chaplains. Harvard has a chaplain. Rutgers has a chaplain
in England is not as many. But it's a very good idea. Because
students need people. They need somebody because a lot of students
are troubled. They go through depression, they go through a lot
of pressure, they go through problems. So it's good if they
have somebody do you have a Christian Chaplain on site? Yeah,
then you should definitely have a muslim or you should ask for it.
It's a very good get somebody. Montana's ready, I think, because
he's already at the university.
What what he should do, he should be the one. Do you guys have Juma
salat on campus? Budget is very close. Oh, it's kind of okay.
Hamdulillah. So he will just give certain talks, counseling,
surgery, like you know, every Monday every Wednesday, whatever,
some three hours, somebody comes, they've got problems.
What else do chaplains do?
If there's any conflict, if the Muslim students want a wudu place,
or they want a prayer room or something, he should be doing
that? If there's halal food demands, there's rights, all of
these kinds of things. So counseling,
and anything else that you'll see that you'll see that as you start,
then you'll see other things that you will come up with?
Yeah, that's a good question. How do you differentiate what's good
and what's bad online? Because everything seems good, right?
Yes, in terms of Islamic speakers, and so on, the main thing is that
firstly, we need to see where they have studied.
And you need to get an idea that have they studied traditionally
through other teachers, do they have a chain a connection back to
the Prophet salallahu aneurysm? That's very important, because
that is our tradition. That's always been our tradition. Number
two, we need to see if they are acting on their knowledge, not
cutting corners and finding isolated opinions. So you will
find people online who say they are movies and shakes and
whatever, but they
do
Providing a completely different way that even your parents have
not seen before. Right? That should be avoided. So what is
their knowledge? What is the apparent piety? We can never and
we can never get an understanding of somebody's inner true piety,
but at least from the outside, most of the things what they do is
good, right?
And number three, which is very important, is that how do other
scholars view them?
That's a big criteria. For example, if there's a doctor if
somebody says he's a doctor,
but the other doctors all can know like now yeah, he's a charlatan,
he doesn't know what he's doing, then you wouldn't want to go to
that person.
So generally, you have to look at people who other people in the
same industry, if they respect and approve that person or not, that
is very, very important.
And above all, keep asking Allah is a very good dua for that.
Allahu Allahu Arenal Hector hakama is looking at the bar what I
didn't know about till about you know what is your finished dinner
but even if you can't remember in Arabic that's fine just do the
dining visual Norwegian whatever Allah Show Me The Truth is truth
and allow me to follow it and show me the wrong as wrong and allow me
to stay away from it. You keep doing that though alone show you
the truth inshallah.
Just like a Lafayette is our time up any more questions?