Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – The Two Eids
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AI: Transcript ©
Well, hello, everybody. And I'll say salaam aleikum, which means
peace be upon you as well. Oh, you can actually hear because
generally this, I did hear that this was your first program. And
I'm hoping because of me, it doesn't become the last. Right?
This is, I see that we have quite a bit of a diversity here. And
while that's great for us to be together in that diversity, it
does make it difficult for the speaker sometimes to talk to
everybody. And I don't claim to be a professional, but I hope we're
going to have time for question and answers at the end. So don't
expect to understand everything. Keep it up, maybe 4060. If you
understand 40, think you're very lucky. Right? I'll try to keep it
as simple as possible. And then of course, if you have any queries at
the end, I'm happy to stay in sha Allah to take care of them. So
yes, this is not the time of Eid is it as past
Eid, one was, what about three weeks ago, that was the second eat
just depends on which one you call first and which one you call the
second, you can either have a large gap between them or a small
gap. So if you can have this one, the second one, the first one,
because it's the greater one, then the second one will come about 10
months afterwards. And if you call the first one, the first one,
which is the first one, I'm getting lost myself. Anyway, let's
stop that. So one was about two to three weeks ago, and the other one
was about three months ago. Let's put it that way. They're very
close together. And growing up I used to actually when I started
thinking about these things for myself, I actually started getting
very curious, why do we have two IDs because my concept of Eid was
just like Christmas or because in school, we did Christmas things in
the primary school. So my concept was okay, eat must be Christmas.
And they you do it once a year. But hey, we got to, but why do we
have to so close together? Specifically, it's about 70 days
in between two months and 10 days. That's what the that's what the
difference in the two eats up. So I used to always wonder why not
have it six months apart, because you've just had one, I've got all
these gifts. And then I feel that my uncles and aunts feel obliged
to give me a gift again, just in two months and 10 days, three or
six months apart, you know, I can understand that. So that was
because of my ignorance and unawareness of the significance of
the month. And now that I understand that I hope properly.
Now, it actually makes a lot more sense that it be this way. And
that's what I'm going to try to explain. Firstly,
it literally comes from a term that means to return. And because
these are
these are days of Mary Mary merriment and joy, and they come
back every year. So they've been called Eid, every word in Arabic.
And you know, it'd be nice to actually see some of your names
and what they mean. Every word in Arabic comes from a root term,
there's nothing out of that everything has to come from a root
term. And here, it just comes from to return and thus, the EAD
returns every year.
Then, obviously, to distinguish the two ends, we have an eagle
fitter, and we have an eagle adhaar. Now don't get too worried
about those terms, if you finding them hard to say because there is
a filter, which is a PA and it is kind of difficult to send the
other one as a board, which is one of the most complex and unique
letters of the Arabic language. I mean, how you even say it takes a
lot of practice to even get it right. So either fit or either not
what they mean either fitter means the EAD of ending the fast are
ending fasting, that's the eidl, feta eidl other means the eat of
sacrifice. So that makes it much more simple now.
One eat the first one, let's just keep it that way. You don't fit
the signals, the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, that
month could be 29 days or 30 days depending on when you see the moon
and what people agree upon. So generally, the Islamic calendar
goes by the lunar year. And that n tends to be 10 days approximately
10 days shorter than the Gregorian year, which is the solar year. So
you can imagine it as two wheels, one larger than the other
Gregorian larger wheel and the lunar year, the smaller wheel and
you can imagine how much ground that covers. So it requires 355
days for a year to finish. And that's why it will always be
approximately 10 days earlier every year. This causes a lot of
challenges. This course is a great challenge and sometimes a
nightmare for employees and employers. When do they take off
and then it doesn't have to be on one particular day every year. It
could actually be one of two days because if the moon is seen on the
20 on the eve of the or the night of the 28th of the month or the
29th of the month and the next day is the first day of the next month
because the moon signals the next month and if it's not seen then we
do an extra
Today and we count that as part of the previous month and do 30 days,
you can't have 31 days in a month, you just have 29 or 30. And that's
what we generally go with. So there is this now in the second
eat, because it takes place not on the first of the month, the
Islamic month actually takes place on the 10th of the month. So you
would at least know 10 days before. So that is a bit of a bit
of comfort that at least you can try to take off once the month has
been determined and the Eid is going to be nine days later. So
then that makes it a bit easier if that's any comfort for anybody.
You know what some people do some schools, they just give you two
days off.
Right? So give me the possibilities. It's going to be
this day or this day. Okay, we'll just take both days off. Make sure
you come the next day. I had a friend whose, whose son was going
to school, and he didn't send him on the day of eat, and neither did
he send him the next day. And it was called in by the head teacher.
So the head teacher saying Why didn't your son Come son, the EAD
was yesterday. So this was his argument. I'm not telling you guys
to use it. But this was his argument. He says, Look, you
understand that on Christmas? You are up too late. You don't sleep
on time on Christmas. So our children are also up to late 12
o'clock? How would you expect them to come and be productive at
school? So that's where they needed to rest it off. Right? So
anyway, I'll leave that up in there.
Now, as I mentioned, when we look at eat, the
understanding that I finally developed, there has a religious
significance, right, clearly, it's a religious day. It has a
spiritual paradigm.
And then beyond that, it has an award aspect, especially the first
it has an award aspect I'll come in, I'll come to that. But then
above all beyond that, there is the aspect of the joy and the
merriment and the excitement and the celebration. That's what
happens after all that now how do you mix all of that together?
You've got religion, you've got enjoyment, celebration, you've got
an award from God, and you've got a spiritual paradigm. And you
know, that that is really what makes it so wonderful to bring all
of that together.
It will fit or if we start with that one, which is the one that
follows Ramadan.
That one is essentially a day that follows the 29 or 30 days of
fasting. And on this day, it actually becomes prohibited and
unlawful for somebody to fast so if they've got some person who
wants to be a, some kind of serious Puritan, wants to overdo,
overly overly religious and he says, No, I want to fast on this
day as well. What's one more day he'll actually be sinful in the in
the faith for doing so.
The Prophet sallallahu sallam said, It's a day of eating,
drinking and for joy. So accept that from God. What kind of dry
asceticism or what kind of drive religiosity is this, that you
don't accept that from God? God says worship at this time, this is
a time that is not for that it's for eating and drinking, and you
can enjoy that. So
when it comes after the day of eat, there's a hadith. There's a
tradition, that when the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon he moved
from Makkah Mecca to Medina, he saw that there were two days that
the Arabs were had as a celebration day. Now, I've looked
far and wide, and the research shows that you can't figure out
exactly what they were based upon. It's probably some, maybe some
remnant of some Abrahamic tradition or someone's we just
don't know what that is, right? I'm getting a bit technical here.
But the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said that look, God has
transplanted these days God has replaced these days with the two
Aedes so now this is these are the two eats for you.
The first eat, as I mentioned,
is very significant in the fact that it finishes the 30 days of
fasting or 29 days. The first thing that happens in the morning,
there's a long tradition. Actually, many Muslims aren't
aware of this. From my from my experience,
it says that when that morning or when that morning arrives, the
angels spread out on all the paths and they begin to call out
unfortunately, in a minute my word, unfortunately in a sound
that only only everybody but the human engine can hear. Right?
Everybody but the human being can hear and they say come to a Lord
who is immensely giving and benevolence. That's what
that's what these angels say, No, we don't hear that. But we know
that we have to go to the mosque to pray. Generally. We then go to
perform a special prayer in the morning. So EADS are characterized
by a special prayer in the morning, right, which is the Eid
prayer, Eid prayers.
In London generally take place in mosques, because the weather is a
bit difficult to predict. But if you go to I've been to Africa and
I've been to other places. And there, what you see is, you
actually see that they always try to hold the Eid outside of town
outside, in on the outskirts of the town or city in a large field.
Because the whole idea of Eid prayer is that everybody should
come together. Everybody is encouraged to come out for this
prayer and do it together. You can't do it on your own Eid prayer
on your own every other prayer except the Friday prayer you can
do on your own. But this one has to be done in congregation.
Everybody comes out for this one. And you see people coming out of
woodwork and everything and they come to this prayer, right?
The point of this prayer is that you do the prayer.
And then God and then this hadith says that when the people are at
prayer, God asks the angels now I know there's a lot of metaphysics
involved here, right? And you're not used to metaphysics I know
this might sound really strange to some of you. But God says to the
angels, that what is the reward or the payment for an a laborer, for
a worker, once they finished their deeds, once they finished their
work and their and their responsibilities. So the angels
they reply,
that the only reward for that is that you give them the reward in
full, you give them their payment in full. I mean, there is a
tradition by the way in Islam, which were from the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be on and he says that pay the labor before his
sweat dries, pay the labor before his or her sweat dries, which
means don't dilly dally and payment. Right now. I know we get
payments at the end of the month here. Right, generally speaking,
right? And that's allowed, because that's a customer. That's
understandable, right? But so yes, they're telling God that that is
the case that you must pay them fully. So then God says, I make
you witness, he says to the angels, I make you witness that I
have, I have decreed that their reward of their fasting and their
standing night vigils at night and so on my satisfaction, I've made
it my satisfaction, I will be satisfied with them. And I will
forgive them. Now you can all return from this prayer place of
prayer, you can all return. And you can go being totally forgiven.
Now for our Muslim colleagues here, what? Who who's heard this
tradition before?
Right, so that's the minority, right? That's a minority. But it's
a very interesting when it actually makes going for the Eat
prayer less troublesome, less cumbersome, you actually like I'm
going there for a reason. Otherwise, I still want, okay.
It's just the prayer. It's just a prayer. It's a special prayer, you
don't do it on any other day, you do it this time. But actually, now
that you actually go there for rewards. So when you come back,
you feel a greater sense of enjoyment. This is what the sense
of enjoyment and eat is all about. Now, to move on.
There's another thing we do on this day, we do a sadaqa to fit in
Islam, pretty much with every excuse, there is something about
feeding somebody about helping others. There's, there's just so
many excuses to do that. You do a wrong in hudge. In the pilgrimage,
you make a mistake, you pay, who would you pay, you pay a poor
person, if it's a small infraction, you you basically pay
a small ticket, right, you pay a three, four pounds, if you do a
big one, then you sacrifice an animal in new fields, right?
There's just so much. There's just so much of that encouragement, as
penalties and so on, just so that we can distribute the wealth. So
at the end of Ramadan, for this day of eat, before you go to the
prayer, it's, it's necessary to pay a southern atoll fitter, which
is I mean, it's only about three, four or five pounds, but you pay
that on behalf of each member of your family. It has to be paid
before they Eat, Pray, the whole purpose of it is that it's given
to the poor so that they can also enjoy the day of Eid, get their
supplies, get their foods, maybe some clothing, whatever they need
to do. Now, one of the mistakes we make is that we actually pay when
we go to the IID prayer place. And that's quite a challenge, then to
get it to the poor straightaway. You don't have poor people in
London, like lining the streets, generally, maybe you do have poor
people in London, but you don't have them in poor countries. You
got out of your house, no poor people and you gave it to them.
And that was the day when they became like quite rich, maybe you
know, at least. But so I would encourage our you know, our
brothers and sisters here that give it before during Ramadan so
that it gets to the poor people beforehand so that they can enjoy
the day eat as well as we do. Right now, people come back. And I
tell you something, it's so amazing. You've met somebody, your
own brother, your own child, whoever it may be, you've gone to
eat pray with them. As soon as the prayer finishes, everybody wants
to meet each other. And this is just immense amount of love that
shown I mean, you've just been with them about an hour before.
Now the press finish and you're just like embracing everybody and
getting so excited and happy is just in the air.
You know, because of this sense of feeling, then it starts the rest
of the day, a lot of people, what they do is they go to the
graveyard to see the deceased to go and visit their deceased in a
graveyard. Now, that's not necessarily something that's
particularly ordered or even recommended. But the reason why I
think people do this is because generally, in most places, the Eid
prayer area was outside the town next to generally are very close
to the cemetery. So it was just convenient that you're out here
already. Let's just pass by the cemetery. Let's do some reading
and some prayer, visit our deceased in the cemetery, and then
we go back home. So a lot of people still do that today. But as
I said that there's no particular significance and doing it on that
day. And then after that, you go home, and then the visitations
begin, so you start visiting one another, right. And again, that's
just something we do because of the whole aspect of the joy. And
it's actually an excuse to be honest, right? In America, we had
the Thanksgiving, right there, you had to have a turkey bow, right.
But in this case, you go and visit people come to your house. And
then there's generally one house that everybody chooses maybe the
parents home or something and then everybody gets together for the
eat meal or something like that. But again, this is you wear new
clothes, you exchange gifts, children really love this day
because they get a lot of gifts on this day. And so that's basically
how they generally spend the day of eat. Now, one thing very
interesting is that when the month of Ramadan ends, and it comes in
the E is actually on the first day of the next month, which is called
shear wall.
Now, shear wall the first day of shear wall also symbolizes
something else, it symbolizes the beginning of the month of hedge.
Now, what are the months of hajj, two months and 10 days, basically
two months and 10 days prior to the Hajj taking place. Those are
all called the months of hajj that starts at Eagle fitter. So while
we don't know it, generally, the months of hajj have become not the
days of Hajj, the months I've had the general because that's when
people would have been preparing to go for Hajj. That is when if
you have enough money to go for Hajj, Hajj becomes obligatory the
pilgrimage becomes obligatory upon you. If you had money before that
and you lost it the day before Hydra would not be obligate
obligatory on you if you didn't have it during the month of hajj.
So that's like this time that qualifies you obligates you if you
have enough means to go for Hajj. So
now what happens is the month of hajj begin, some people they leave
for Hajj early nowadays, I think the maximum Hajj is generally
about six weeks, I think and most people in London, England they go
two to three weeks. Anyway. Now as we go we pass one month, the
second month, and then the third month is religious we have Chawan
Ville, Canada, and then we'll hit June that is the month of hajj.
Now the particular month, and on the 10th of this month, is are the
ninth of this month, the 10th of this month, those are the main
days of the pilgrimage.
Now there's going to be two sets of people, there's going to be
some people who have gone for the pilgrimage, they're in Mecca. And
there's going to be people who are left at home. The vast majority,
the elite have gone because they've got money and they've gone
right somehow they've got their the rest of us at home. And we
both have responsibilities
coming up to this eat. So the first nine days they eat is on the
10th of the month. So the first nine days, it's recommended to
fast. And scholars actually say that these nine days are the most
virtuous days of the year to fasting.
They actually compare it to the last 10 nights of Ramadan. They
say that the last 10 nights of Ramadan are the most superior
nights of the year, while these days are the most superior days of
the year. It's very interesting. So we're recommended to fast a lot
of people don't fast during this time because recommendation if I
fasted in Ramadan, and
what people do, though, is the on the ninth of the month, just the
day before before the hijo before they eat rather,
before they eat rather not the height. That is the day when the
fasting is very strongly recommended. In fact, it's very
strongly recommended the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said
anybody who first on this day. I have great hope in God that He
forgives their one year previous sins and also one year future
sins. Sounds like a good deal. So a lot of people fast on this day,
unless you're in hudge then you don't faster than today because
this is one of the business one of the very intense days in which
when you stand in our offer, and you pray to God and the Prophet
Muhammad, there was only a one year peace be upon him when he did
not foster that when he did not foster his date. That was in his
last and final year when he went for the Hajj. He drank milk in the
date
I'm proving that he wasn't fasting. And very interesting. He
actually died the next year. What's very interesting is that
some of the scholars, they say, just as a, as an interesting
point, that if you're guaranteed your forgiveness for your sins for
the next year, then hopefully that's a good sign that you live
for the next year at least.
If you're guaranteed by fasting on our offer, on the ninth of the
month, your past your sins forgiven, and your future your
sins forgiven, how are you going to be forgiven for the next year
if you don't live to maybe commit any since I'm talking about my
innocence. So again, this is not guarantee okay, you can't sue
anybody for that. This is not a guarantee. This is just a nice
point. And what they say is look at the Prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him. He fasted that day every year, except his last year when he
went for the * was in hydrogen fast, and he passed away. But
again, this is not anything that's mentioned in the Hadith itself as
being that you will stay alive, right. And it's just a nice point
that somebody came up with and I wanted to share it with you.
Now on the 10th, which is the end the whole world is going to be the
whole Muslim world is going to be getting into their clothes and
they're going to be preparing for their sacrifice the Eat, Pray
again, you go for Eid prayer in the morning, and then you do a
sacrifice. The people on Hajj on the pilgrimage, they don't wear
new clothes on that day, they are on that day, they have the two
white garments, you've seen it probably on TV, if you're if
you've been you've experienced it, the two white garments. And on
this day, this is now the first day that you can actually take
those off and come out of your pilgrim state. And you can only do
this if you've gone and pelted the devil's let me go into that a bit.
And you have
gone and done your sacrifice. And once you've done that, now you're
allowed to cut your hair, which signals that I'm out of the state.
And then you can take a bath, you can use perfume now, and you can
come out and wear your normal clothing. So that's basically for
the people up there. I was just there. And that's what I did. But
the people who the vast majority around the world, what are they
going to do? They will start the day of Eid, they would have
probably booked an animal sacrifice somewhere. Did some of
you do sacrifice this year? Anybody did it themselves? No, I
think that's very difficult in England right now. I mean, there
are still some people who go to a slaughterhouse and do it
themselves. But slowly, slowly, it's actually becoming a payment
now. You just send it to some country, you don't even eat from
it. Whereas the whole point of the sacrifice was that you read the
animal, right? You feed it and everything and then you sacrifice
it for God, just like the whole point of the sacrifice comes from
Abraham peace be upon him the patriarch, right. That's where it
comes from.
So the idea is, I mean, the story I know there's difference in the
Judaic and the Islamic traditions, in this case, Abraham, we believe
peace be upon him after he was about 70 Or so he didn't hatch
through sera, sera. And he has Salam. Then he had, what in
English is referred to who in English is referred to as haga or
Hotjar, or agile in Arabic. He had a child with her
after an old age after being so old. He is told to leave them in
Mecca. There's a long story, but he tells he is told to leave them
in Mecca.
And then he goes back and he is told that you must sacrifice your
son who is now about 12 or 13 years of age, it gets his son
after such an age. And then after his 13 years of age is seeing him
grow up and he said, in his dream is being told you must sacrifice
your son for three days he enjoys this dream. And then he realized
is that there's no escape from this is from God. This is a
revelation from God that I must do this. So unlike many parents of
today, he is actually very sensible. Right? He's a prophet so
he says to his son is smart he'll This is the Muslims believe this
was Ismail Ishmael. Right?
This is what I'm seeing. Mother Tara, what do you think?
Now imagine that conversation? How difficult would that conversation
be? So his son says if Alma took more strategy, Dooney insha Allah
Who Mina Siberian, do what you've been commanded to do, you'll find
that I'm a patient one. He's he is supposed to be a great person as
well. And again, I mean, if you just put yourself in that scene
that's quite now as he's taking his son to do this. Now in the
Judaic tradition, they believe this was Isaac, not Ishmael.
Right. This is big contention that's been going on for
centuries. But let's leave that for now.
As he is going the devil appears to him in three places saying,
trying to mislead him that no, this is a crazy idea, whatever the
case is, and he picks up a few stones and he throws it at the
devil. And it disappears, comes again he throws a few stones comes
again throws a few stones, and then now his latest sundown is
trying to sacrifice him. So he's trying to now sacrifice him but
nothing's happening. And then suddenly, he's told by God that
this was just the test. And he sent around from heaven. A nice
healthy round from
haven't installed the sacrifice that until today, this is a
tradition that Muslims continue. Now the most interesting thing I
mean, I know I'm diverging here, but among the three great
religions of the world, the three Abrahamic religions, because
what's interesting is that you know, Abraham, he was such a
patriarch, that after him in the line and succession of Prophets,
every single prophet was actually then from his children, from his
descendants. You know, if you look at Moses, Jacob, Joseph, David,
who else, Solomon, peace be upon them all, Mohamed Jesus, all of
them are his descendants, plus the four major books, the Scriptures,
the, the Old Testament, the Torah, the evangel, the Bible, the the
Psalms of David, the Quran, they're all from prophets within
his progeny. That's the very high status. That's why he's so
revered. So now, when he left his wife there were there in Mecca
where there was absolutely nothing in those days, there was no water,
no tree, in fact, it was just a pure desert.
His wife is left there with her child, and the child is thirsty.
She needs to feed it. So she goes, and there are two mounts nearby
the sufferer and the marula she climbs up one of them to look for
water, she climbs down runs across the valley climbs up the second
one can't find anything and she is desperate. She does this seven
times from one to the next, next and seven, she does the seven
circuits. And then she comes back down and she sees that well, a
water sources erupted from where her son is lying down. That's the
Zamzam water that Muslims will bring, you know when they come
back from the image. Right. Now, what I want to point out here is
that this independent single mother earth, well seemingly like
a singularity, where she was obviously with Ibrahim, but she
was left alone there and told that she was told to leave her he was
told to leave her there.
This is all her efforts. And in Islam until today, if you go for
Hajj, you are obliged obligated to go between these two. Now, they're
not much a mountain anymore. But it's still about a two mile total
walk that you have to do between the two. This in the three
religions. According to this our studies, it is the only act a
right is not only right to act of worship, that has its basis in a
woman's action. Right. Now, unfortunately, these things are
not in the four. What's in the four is that Islam is a misogynist
religion and all the rest of it. I mean, these are things that need
to be really understand today, actually, feminists are actually
discovering Hagar. Like, wow, what a woman she was, I mean, a
classic, you know, historical individual that did whatever she
did and brings up this whole civilization. Now, it's very
interesting. I mean, I know I'm belaboring this point. But now
she's got this water. There is a tribe from Yemen, of these
original Arabs, they are traveling and they you know, in a desert,
you look for water. And they see, and they come upon this area, and
they see water like Wow, wonderful. This what is nice. Can
we stay here with you? So she said she was very shrewd, you can tell
by this. She said yes, you can stay here because you need people,
it'd be nice to have people around here. Right? But no control over
the water. Water is in my control. I mean, that's a very independent
woman, right? Okay. You can be here, but no, the water is under
my control.
And then a whole, you know, whole community
develops, their Ishmael gets married in that community, Abraham
keeps visiting, and it's a long story. But anyway, all of that is
memorialized in the hajj. And that's why the Muslims go every
year, and the rest of the Muslims around the world, they do the same
sacrifice wherever they are in the world, as long as you got the
ability to do so if you don't have the money, you don't do it. But if
you have the money, you do that sacrifice. So this day, is a very
interesting day. It's a day of sacrifice. You can't do the
sacrifice until you've done the morning prayer. So you go to do
the morning prayer. And then after that people want to do their
sacrifice. Now, as I said, today, you've paid somebody and I what I
would recommend to people is that you can pay for sacrifices in
other countries of the world where they they're a lot more needy for
meat. Alright, you can do that. But you should also do one here,
so that at least our families, our children understand the
significance otherwise, they're just going to think it's like a
payment to us to make, right you're never going to see it.
There's no significance in that. So it's important I think we do
that. I'll just tell you that, you know, in the first eat, because
you fasted for 30 days, there's actually a recommendation that you
eat something before you go to the prayer in the morning so the
Prophet Muhammad is related that he ate dates before he went for
the prayer in this eat. You know what the best thing is to eat on
the second eat the big eat the sacrifice eat
meat,
meat because
That's the day when you said the Republic, the Prophet Muhammad
peace when he would come back, they would sacrifice the animal I
mean, and they would immediately the in, you know the the liver and
those kinds of things, they would do that first because it's the
fastest to cook takes his few moments, and then they would cook
the meat. That's why some scholars like following the following this
very closely, there was one scholar that I know she exactly,
or he would not eat anything but meat on that day.
And not to not to stuff himself, but to eat. Now I have to tell you
one thing, and I want to say this to my Muslim brand sisters, and in
particular, our Asian people who love their meat, we are a bit too
much in our meat, we need to take a night if there's some
vegetarians here, they're going to get excited about this. But
the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was a
semi vegetarian. What did that mean? How would you how you're
semi vegetarian? Essentially, he ate meat. And he loved me too.
When he got it. He loved the shoulder and he will give me
another one, right. But the majority of his days were spent
without meat. In fact, there are traditions which mentioned from
him that meat has an addiction, right, just like Winders
according to one other scholar, eating meat for 40 days hardens
your heart. Now I don't need to tell you all that kind of stuff.
Right? The cardiologist will tell you these kinds of things. But
what we've done at home, is that we started with one meat three day
a week, like no meat, because you know, even Indian Pakistanis, what
they do is even when they cook lentils, they have to have a bit
of meat in there to flavor it. Right. It's kind of crazy. And
it's really unhealthy to do too much of it. So we started off with
one meat three day a week. Now, thanks to God, we actually do, oh,
we only do meat about two and a half, maybe three days a week if
we're lucky. Right. And it's, I found it to be very beneficial.
And that means any meats, that means any meats, and of course,
then you've got the hierarchy of needs, the reds and whites and so
on. But I'll leave that right now that's not our point. But on the
day of eat, enjoy your meat, on the day of eat, enjoy your meat,
you know, have a barbecue, do whatever you like, enjoy that meat
on that day, because that's a gift of God, that's hospitality from
God. Of course, you don't have to do it on the same day, you're
allowed to do it up to three days. What's interesting is that you're
not allowed to fast, it's again, unlawful to pass on this eat as
well. And for three days following it. For a lot of people in those
days, this is probably the one time when you got meat because
there were no refrigerators, no freezes hot climate, how long is
meat gonna survive for that's why they dried meat. So they had built
on, you know, beef jerky, or whatever you call it, right? But
otherwise, meat was not so easily available. Either. They would for
three, four for the to eat, you're not allowed to fast plus three
days after this eats or five days of the year, you are not allowed
to fast. Even if you did fast, you'd be sinning. Right? So that's
what we that's specifically to do with this eat.
While these I mean, I just want to ask a question.
How many of us thought that Eid was just a day of celebration
didn't really understand the the religious significance of, you
know, all of these religious and spiritual acts that were related
to it?
Anybody?
Right. So, as I said, That's what I thought but once I understood
the significance that on the day of Eid Al Adha, around the eidl
adhaar. As you know, we do take me years, we glory, we magnify God,
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, God is great, God is great, we do it, we
start the day before, and we carry on for, you know, for three days.
So there's about four days of this that we do this for. So now you
can understand that it's not just the day to just enjoy yourself.
Right? It's a day that has religious significance. And then
it's just how do you reconcile religious significance spiritual
paradigm plus enjoying yourself? But haven't you seen that you can
actually enjoy and people do enjoy themselves straight afterwards
that they start, you know, visiting everybody each other and
the gifts and there's a lot of discussion that takes place.
Basically, another aspect here is that the Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him said that for every fasting person, there are two
sources of joy.
One when he breaks his fast he or she finishes their fast at the end
of the day, and when you get that
date, or milkshake or cold water, and you know, in London, in
England, when you have 18 and a half, mine was about 20 Because I
do the earlier sawhorse from one o'clock in the morning, right to
939 25. So we've got about three and a half hours to when I went to
South Africa, it was actually 12 hours and 12 hours. So while there
was so much easier, but I felt that there was no time in the day
because once if thought happens, then it just kind of will
finishes. And they were telling me even scholars, they're like, Don't
you guys, like can you guys just do seven hours or whatever? I said
no, no, it's fine. We do it even our children do it.
Right, it's kind of very interesting that when you're put
into that situation, you can actually do it, it's very healthy,
it gives a good detox from that.
So the joy is all part of the remembrance of Allah, because
you're totally told to enjoy that day, along with doing all of this
and be happy that God has given you. The basically, the joy of the
eidl fitter is that God has given you the ability to fast for 30
days, and now you enjoy and enjoy that you've been given the reward
in the other one, it's because it's homage, it's a pilgrimage,
and you've got all of this historical significance that it's
completely soaked in, right to take care of. So the I was talking
about that particular Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, he was
saying that for when you finish your fast, you get this excitement
of being able to eat. He said, the second excitement that you're
gonna get is on the day you meet your Lord, when he rewards you for
it. And I tell you something, if you fasted for 18 hours, or 20
hours, or even 12 hours, and when you are then allowed to eat, you
know, the happiness that you get, and the joy that you feel, if
meeting with the Lord is as good as that. That is more than enough,
right? That is what's going to happen. However, the other joy
that can be incorporated into this is that when you finish the 30
days, the E Day is a day of joy, as well as the finishing of the
entire month, not just the finishing of the day, but the
entire month.
What some scholars have said is Ramadan is the time to make the
effort and show your devotion to God, wherever you are in the
world, because Ramadan is done in the comfort of your own home in
your locality. And if you do well enough, and you are chosen, you
will be called in the next eat
to the holy sacred presence in Mecca.
That is a culmination. And only three I mean, this year, there
were about 3 million or so people there. And believe me, while it's
tough, there's a wonderful feeling where you're all doing the same
thing. I tell you in the 3 million p&l, and of course, I didn't
mingle with every one of those 3 million people. But I mingled with
a lot of people. I mean, there's no way you can avoid that. Right?
I only saw one petty argument taking place. Like these guys were
bickering at each other. And believe me, it's hot, it's 40
degrees to 43 degrees, and you are tired, you are stressed. You're
the food, the clothing, you know, whatever it is, you're not in your
normal surroundings, and you could. But the whole lesson of
that is amazing that I only saw one petty argument which was
diffused in my group that I went in 100 people, not a single
argument did I come across? That's amazing. That's amazing. When a
time for prayer comes, nobody has to stand there to organize.
Everybody just kind of stands in line in orderly lines. When you
look at an aerial view of it, you just see around the house of God,
the Kaaba, you just see people just automatically there, you
probably couldn't do this in any other festival, or in any other
carnival, or whatever large meeting, you need Ushers and
everything. Yes, they've got police there to make sure that
people don't do crazy stuff. But otherwise, prayer time, everybody
just stands and they know where to stand. And they just stand and
they pray.
So the day of Eid, while it's a day of celebration, they actually
based on very specific rights, and that have to be completed, a
happiness is enjoyed through them. They're not days of
a complete, you know, an absolute expression of merrymaking or a day
when God is set to look the other way that you can do what you want,
God is looking the other way, that's in some traditions, right?
Or a day that you can just drink as much as you want. Just make
sure you take a taxi home and you don't drive home. That's not what
it's about. It's, there's a religious aspect of it. But within
that we get to enjoy ourselves. And that's what actually adds to
it when you're in tune with the spiritual aspect of it. So I'm
going to pray to God, that He allow us to enjoy our Aedes even
further now that we've understood the significance and truly, truly
understand and imbue the significance and make it even more
worthwhile. Because as people of faith, this is what we want from
our lives that we've got God to stand in front of, and may He
reward us all. Just a few practical considerations, you
know, because that is where the challenge lies for many of us,
right? This is my observation.
And I know you've you've got, maybe your boss is sitting here as
well.
You got some Muslims, who try to be all righteous and pious and
very practicing.
So they tell their boss, it's necessary for me to pray and yes,
it's necessary on them, not denying that, but then they will
take extra time.
They will
come back late, they won't do their work properly, they'll make
excuses. And what that does is that creates a very bad image,
then you've got another extreme, who want to just hide and don't
even want to say they're Muslim. Right? So you've got that extreme
as well, right? You got a whole, you know, range of people in
between what we need to be is people proud of their faith, but
contributors, contributors, that you're valued for your job. And
I've got a number of friends like that, who, a friend of mine, for
example, he is working for a housing association. When he went
there, he says, Look, I need to pray, I'm Muslim, I need to pray
generally, in some, it's not too much in lunchbreak, you can do
your middle prayer. And then the other prayers are much later. So
it's okay. But in winter, it's a bit of a challenge, because all of
our prayers, you know, sunset is at four o'clock. And then before
that, you got another prayer, and then often when you've got another
prayer, so they said, Okay, we look at it, because I mean, maybe
just making some claims they did some research. And the next
meeting, they said, Yes, you know, what we understand, you have to
pray as a practicing Muslim. We're gonna rent a room in the thing was
a Holiday Inn days in next door. Right? Very convenient place. So
he was he got shocked. He said, No, no, you don't need to spend so
much money doing that I don't need a whole room for myself for the
whole year, I just need like a, you know, about a, enough space
that just lets me kneel on the ground. So they found a storeroom,
they put a cup in, and then they gave that to him. But the reason
they will do that for somebody is if we are contributors valued, and
we are seen as equal, with everybody else trying to do the
right thing, then we're allowed to do these kinds of things, if, you
know if we're allowed to do these things. But if you try to claim
your so called rights without actually contributing, then that
makes it very, very, very, and I've heard some bad stories about
this, why it's my responsibility to, to, to mention this. But I
pray that God make us all very valuable, and make us contributors
and make us of those who are both successful all of us successful in
this world successful in the hereafter. Thank you very much for
this opportunity. And I hope you all the best and many more
programs. Thank you very much.
So I actually in in I actually referred to that. And then I went
somewhere else. So yeah, very good one, thanks for picking that up.
The recommendation in Eat Pray is that because it should be
something where everybody comes together, and most of us won't be
big enough for that. So generally, people have an area, they tend to
all come to a single place, which is, I mean, the best place is a
park, right? But in England, that's very difficult for us to do
that each time because it could be raining, it'd be very miserable.
So that's why well, that's for one reason. The other reason is that
London has how many mosques? That has, I mean, we have we have
about, I think 1 million Muslims in London, which is about 15% of
the population of 8 million. And we have I think, the last time
which was 10 years ago, but at least 100 mosques then now we
probably have about 200 mosques in London alone. There's just no way
with the traffic and everything that you could all pray in one
place in Birmingham. I think they tried to get a huge crowd in one
one place this year, but they were still they had to have prayer in
mosques. So while it's ideal for everybody to get together, maybe
burros can get together you know because we kind of have our little
so there is a recommendation that everybody come together so it's a
good thing to do it in a park when you can it's we're not actually
dismissing the mosque for doing that because in the time of the
Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him the Eid prayer wasn't done in a
mosque it was actually done outside in what they call the
masala
the second eat is called a great to eat because it's got much more
historical significance with the first eat it's the end of the
month of Ramadan. That is something that started in Islam
but when you look at the second eat that comes from Abraham Stein
peace be upon him it's got a lot more actions in the you gotta
sacrifice taking place is not just the prayer, there's a prayer,
there's the sacrifice, there's the tech beers on the day, there's the
Hajj pilgrimage taking place. That's why it's a big eat the RFR
the day before, there's a lot more going on during that time. And the
thank you for reminding me but one of the reasons why I find them
very good to be close together is because they're connected with the
months of hajj as I mentioned it starts Shaohua starts the month of
hajj number two, you know everything spiritual, you know,
the spiritual elevation that you've received in Ramadan. Right,
I think it helps that the Hajj comes again you get another
opportunity to remember God and boost yourself up a bit more so
that it can carry you for the next several months. Firstly, I find
that to be the benefit of it is
to clarify, right now we have a square right it's a cube instead
of a black box Black box remind me of planes. Right? So it's a cube
in the time of Abraham peace be upon him it was not a cube it was
rectangle. So you know the semicircular boundary we have with
it that was all part of it. So it was actually the rectangle. He had
two doors want to go in and want to go out
But, and it was on ground floor, meaning the door was on the
ground.
During, over the centuries, the house had become dilapidated. The
people, the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him before he became a prophet. They decided to rebuild
it. And they said, We must only spend our purely gotten wealth,
no, ill gotten wealth, and they could only get enough supplies to
make it a square. And they had another aspect that they put on
the one door and they made it higher, so that they could they
could essentially regulate who goes in. So it was made a square,
then the Prophet Muhammad peace, we have an incomes. And he
mentioned a few times just as a desire that if it wasn't that the
people had have just recently become Muslim. And all their hard
work, they would probably see destroyed, I would actually make
it turn it back into the rectangle. Right. But I'm not
doing it because I'm concerned about their sensitivities. So he
left it the way it was about 60 years later, 5060 years later,
Abubaker the lungs grandson, Abdullah liveness debate, he'd
remembered this all along. He was a child in the profits of the
license time. When he became the governor, he decided to do that.
He made it into the rectangular shape. So where's that gone? Now?
His enemy had judged no use of this is getting into history, but
his enemy had judging the use of who hated him when he deposed him.
He put it back into the square.
Now he's gone.
The next leader, I think it was a puja for a monsoon or somebody of
the Abbasids or somebody. He came to Imam Malik, one of the great
scholars of Madina, Munawwara, that? Shall we make it back into
the rectangle as the Prophet Mohammed had desired peace be upon
him? And that's when Imam Malik said no, he said, This is going to
become a plaything that every new ruler that comes along every new
dynasty that comes along, it's because deciding, no, we want to
do this because the other guys did this or leave it now. So now we
have the square. Now, going back to the actual question is that
it's not the house, which is important. It's that location,
which is important. That's why when you are up in the big hotel
or up there, you don't have to face the house directly in prayer,
you actually face this direction. And what tells us this is that
it's actually the atmospheric location that goes all the way up.
And our belief is that on the seventh heaven,
there is the Kaaba of the angels, called the albedo, Mahmoud, it's
directly parallel to this, and the angels go around that 170 1000 get
to go around it every day, once they've gone around at once, they
never get a chance, again, because there's just so many angels, we at
least can go every five years, but they can't, right. So that is the
significance is actually of the location as opposed to the actual
bricks of the house.
So again, in this one, you do the sacrifice, then you're told it's
recommended this divided into three. So if you've done a goat or
a nice lamb, you divide it into three portions. One, you get
distributed among your family. Another one you distribute to the
poor. And the third one you keep for yourself. If somebody wants to
can keep the whole thing for themselves. It's only recommended
to distribute that way. But the idea is that you distributed so
what we've done in Hackney, we've got a local charity, so we
actually
we actually from before eat, we run a campaign that please whoever
wants to do eat for poor people, let us know. We they do a local
sacrifice somewhere and they give us the meat and we take it to
homeless shelters, domestic abuse places and other shelters like
that. And we actually give the meat out.