When was the last time you heard a fellow Muslim leaving Islam? In this lecture on how to survive in the west as a Muslim, Br. Abdurraheem Green talks about family values and the importance of teaching your children about Islam. Many immigrant parents focus on wealth and financial success when they move to the west, but forget to spend quality time with their children. It is very important to teach your children about Islam and encourage them to teach others about Islam as well.
Abdurraheem Green – Living Islam in the West
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The speakers discuss the challenges of living in the West and the importance of protecting oneself against infection and danger. They emphasize the need for individuals to protect themselves against these risks and the negative impact of social media on mental health and family life. The speakers also emphasize the importance of being aware of Islam and respecting laws and taxes, while avoiding the idea of "right thing" that comes with it.
AI: Summary ©
And then finally learn to stain on a stock photo when I will be there he mentioned Audi and fusina. women say Madinah de la who Fernando de la
la la Illallah, WA shadow, Mohammed Abdul Rasulullah that we begin by praising Allah, we praise Him we seek his help, and we ask for his forgiveness. And we take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves, and from the evil consequence of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides, no one can misguide. But whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray, no one can guide.
And I testify that Allah alone is worthy of worship. And the Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
is his servant, and His Messenger.
Brothers and sisters.
What I want to talk about today is something that I consider one of the most important subjects for Muslims living in the West. And that is the subject of data. And when I say Tao, I very specifically me, TAO to non Muslims.
I believe this is something that we Muslims have neglected, and we are neglecting and because we've neglected it. And because we continue to get neglected. This is one of the major reasons that we find ourselves in the situation. And we find ourselves with the challenges and the problems that we have today.
The night before last, I just spent a large part of the evening with a family whose son had a pasta sighs from Islam to Christianity.
This was a boy who was praying five times a day. This is a boy who halala his mother was saying he refused to eat the sweets and Halloween because he said it's Haram.
And this boy has now become a Christian.
And by the way, this is not the only case when I was here last year, not here in Vancouver. But when I was here in Canada, but I was in Edmonton,
a brother invited me to his house and was explaining sorrowfully how his son had become an atheist.
Why are these things happening?
Believe me, I do not believe for one second, a person becomes a Christian, because Christianity makes any logical sense. Nor do I believe a person becomes an atheist, because atheism makes any logical sense.
You will find that when people become Christians or atheists, deep down inside, when you begin to look, you see the issue is an emotional issue. It's an issue of identity. It's an issue about how does that person think about themselves?
So usually, before I talk to the person, I want to see the family. I want to have an insight into what is the background
unwish this kid is living.
But one of the things I discover, almost universally is nowhere do I find
parents, except in very, very few cases. But you don't find any cases of Apostasy amongst those families who bring up and they teach their children to have a proactive, dour mentality.
You see why most of us come to live in the West? What's the reality?
While Why are most of us living in the West, what is the reality? Why are we here for what reason?
And the reality is brothers and sisters, most of us are here in the West.
For materialistic reasons. We came here and we continue to live here because life
comfortable.
Life is easy materialistically
that's the reality.
But you know, the strange thing is, if any one of you was to go to Uganda, or Rwanda or Burundi, for example, or Congo,
I'm just mentioning those places because I went, well, I didn't go to Congo, but I went to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi relatively recently.
I am sure that all of you
will make sure that you find out
what are the inoculations and the vaccinations that I need? Because I'm sure it's in your mind, wait a minute, that places that's the tropics is going to be full of, you know, diseases. And because it's a third world, backward country, there's going to be, you know, sanitation issues. And so you got to make sure that you protect yourself that you inoculate yourself, and if you took your family and make sure that you got all those jabs and those injections and things like that.
But I wonder how many of you when you came to Canada, you thought about
inoculating yourself?
I don't mean inoculating yourself against physical diseases.
But what have you done to inoculate? inoculate yourself against
the dangerous ideas that you're going to be exposed to?
I wonder how many of you here today, if I sat down with you
could give me a convincing
and solid explanation about how do we know that God exists?
How many of you could refute basic simple arguments of atheists? How many of you could deal with some basic ideas that a Christian missionary would put forward to you or your children? How many of you are able to articulate a case against or explain to your children? What is Islam's position on the theory of evolution, for example?
Because these are all ideas,
that your children by going to school are going to be exposed to every day? Or how about the idea of the predominant idea of secularism that you should separate religion, from your everyday life?
You see, that's the strange thing, brothers and sisters. You wouldn't hesitate to get all the jabs and injections that you need to protect yourself from a physical disease, but something that is much more damaging, something that is much more dangerous. What have you done to protect yourself and protect your family?
Because you know, if you get malaria,
you get cholera.
Or you get locked jaw.
Or you get diptheria.
And you die, and you're a Muslim. And you have Eman, Alhamdulillah Allah you're gonna be successful, you will be successful.
You will be successful.
If you live the healthiest life, and you never have a cold or a flu any day that you and your children
they die outside of Islam.
You failed.
That's the biggest disaster that can ever fall upon you and your family. I asked this brother. I said brother, how much would you pay now? How much would you pay for your son? To become come back to Islam? He said anything, brother, Anything?
Anything?
What did I find out? Let me tell you about the life of this family. There is no life of this family. The family has no life. The father was so busy working seven days a week.
seven days a week. I said what do you do is a family. Nothing. What trips do you make together as a family? Nothing.
Do you know what this family do not even eat together. The mother cooks the food. And the kids take the food and they sit in their rooms and what is in the room? The Internet. This mother would not let her son who's who's the pasta sighs she would only let him go to school and come back go to school and come back to Seoul strict
but she lets in his room. Something that contains what is worse than what you will find out so you even in I don't know the back streets of Vancouver. You won't
Find the filth and the rubbish and the corruption that comes through that internet.
And a parent will allow their child to sit in a room on their own with the internet.
What madness is that?
What madness is that?
They don't sit together. They don't eat together because I was asking the young because, you know, I thought okay, I heard enough from the parents let me ask one of those little go I She must have been like, I don't know, 12 or 13. So tell me I shall What do you think?
What do you think I shot?
She said, we never talked to our brother. We never talked to our brother. He sits in his room the whole time.
I said, Why did you bother having a family? Why bother having kids?
Just you, your wife enjoy your life. And you know, you can have a nicer car and I said, What would you do it for you? You have no family?
You see, I could see that disease. This is not about logic or reason or what religion made sense. No, no, this is this is a deeper disease.
I wonder how many of you live a diseased life like that?
This is not a family. It's not a family life. This is not an Islamic life. So you make movements that resemble a movement of the prayer?
is Islam just making movements and seeing some words in Arabic that you don't understand?
going through some rituals? Why is marriage half of your deen? Why?
And you would think that at least Muslims would have a good family life. But believe me, even if you have a good family life is not enough.
Because we have to build into our children. You see, let's be I'm going to be frank with you. I'm going to be really Frank and brutal.
Really Frank and brutal. When I became a Muslim
26 years ago, one of the first books I read, I don't remember the author. But this book had a profound impact on me.
This, this book was called conquest through ideas. And basically the book was an exposition of how, although Muslims have thrown off the shackles of colonial power,
in physical terms, in reality, their minds was still occupied, they were still occupied, they were still colonized, because the worst colonization is not the colonization of your lands. It is the colonization of your mind.
When your ideas have been conquered, when you begin to think, like your conqueror,
then that's the worst type of occupation.
That's the worst type of colonization.
So let's be frank.
I wonder how many of you,
although you, I'm sure you consider yourself Canadian, that's fantastic. But deep in your heart, you look at yourself as inferior.
You look at yourself as inferior, you feel you have come from an inferior culture, a place or lands that are economically socially, politically, philosophically scientifically inferior.
You look at your recent history of the last 300 years. What is the world of Islam produced in terms of advancements in science or civilization or technology or, or anything? What are we contributed?
And then you come to a West clean streets or a traffic, nice clean houses, medical care system, social welfare, system,
technology, military, economic, social, political superiority,
how you not going to feel inferior,
how you not going to feel inferior? What is there to make you feel that you have anything to contribute, you know, and that's how a lot of kids feel.
So what is gonna happen to an individual, what is going to happen to a person who's bought up like that, thinking like that?
But it shouldn't be that way.
way,
it shouldn't be that way.
Because in reality, my brothers and sisters, the real and this is the reality.
And I've heard the saying even a brother said this to me yesterday, he said, Do you believe this saying to him, that we came to this land and we found Islam with no Muslims. We found Islam with no Muslims. And we looked at the Muslim lens, and we find there are Muslims, but no Islam. I said, Listen, brother, if you mean, in terms of their social welfare, if you mean in terms of some aspects of their governance, and the way that their society runs, okay, there is some truth in that. That is only because historically, they looked at
the Muslim lands, they looked at Muslim civilization. And they found certain things that were admirable. So they copied some of those systems, they copied some of those processes, they took some of those things.
And they develop those structures. But at the time, at the core of it was still that Christian, they had a faith, they were still Christian.
But I tell you what, the problem is, it's a shell with no with no coal, it's a shell with no cool. And the problem is that is never going to stand for long. It's never going to stand for long. If you take out Christianity, if you take any concept of absolute morality,
a definitive concept, an idea of what is right, what is wrong, how we should behave, how we shouldn't take that away, what have you got left, you've just got the shell, and you see it happening in Western society. How things that people have always accepted and known to be wrong, have now become right. And things that have always accepted to be right has become wrong.
There is no idea of good and evil in any real sense anymore.
What is what is the ultimate? If you follow that trajectory? Where are you going to end up? Think about it? Where are you going to end up?
I mean, at the moment, things are held together by the concept of rule of law. But at the end of the day, why? Why do I follow the laws? What Why would I follow the laws? Well, you know, maybe I'm afraid that I'm gonna get caught if I break them.
Or, you know, maybe it's just what people around me say, but if people around me don't care anymore, and I'm not afraid that I'm going to get caught, I'll do whatever I like. And you will see, it doesn't take much for a society like that to collapse
is one of my friends, he always calls it the house of the spider,
the house of the spider, you know, Allah gives the example in the Quran.
The House of the spider is the most fragile and houses the most fragile.
It's like that.
So no, I don't really agree. I think these things that we're seeing are all too fragile.
But that doesn't mean that
you know, we have to reject this society, not at all.
We have to look at ourselves as people.
If I say we have something to contribute, that's not enough. Actually, in reality, what we have my brothers and sisters, is what every single human being needs.
What we have is what every single human being is desperate for.
Because what gives life to the heart, what gives life to the heart is knowing Allah subhanho wa Taala and loving Allah subhanaw taala and worshipping Allah subhanaw taala. This is how the heart was created. This heart the soul, its sustenance is from knowing Allah.
And if our heart is devoid of knowing Allah and loving him and worshiping Him, it is a hot that is dead. And if the hot has died, then we're just what? We're shells.
We're living dead. So Pamela, this one shift. Just last week, someone told me that a chef came to to UK.
And he said, amazing. He said people in London, they die at the age of 17. And they're buried
When they're 70
by the time they're 17, they're already dead.
It's just their bodies walking around for the rest of their life. Their souls have died.
That's the reality.
I remember, even as a non Muslim, going in London on the underground, and people, it really looks like the land of the living dead, the land of the living dead. And when I went to Cairo when I was a child,
what I would find it really difficult to cope with. And in retrospect, I look back. And what I found was really difficult was people were so alive. People were so alive.
They didn't have a lot of wealth.
But they had something else, which I didn't see in the people in London.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he gave a very beautiful metaphor, a very beautiful example.
He gave the example of a boat, and this boat has an upper deck, and this boat has a lower deck. The people on the upper deck have water, whereas the people on the lower deck have none.
Number people on the lower deck begin to get thirsty. But they feel shy to disturb those people on the upper deck. So what do they do? The people on the lower deck, they begin to drill a hole in the boats to get the water that way.
So let me ask you, if the people on the upper deck do not stop the people on the lower deck, what's going to happen?
The boat will sink and they will all drown, right?
This is the example of America meroofer National Moncure of enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong, if the people on the top that do not stop them, everybody will drown.
Everybody will suffer.
This example is the example of the Muslims and the non Muslims.
The water is the book of Allah,
which gives life to the hearts. The people are thirsty. What other people thirsty for the people are thirsty for the knowledge of Allah subhanho wa Taala. Really, this is what the hearts of people are yearning for.
This is what their hearts are yearning for.
They're yearning for Allah to know Allah subhanho wa Taala.
Because this is the nature of the soul, this is the nature of the heart. They are thirsty, but they feel shy to distill the people on the upper deck. Or maybe it could be the example of the allamah in respect to the people, or the Muslims in respect to the people.
If we don't stop them, digging this hole in the boat, we're all gonna drown. We're all gonna drown all of us.
This is a very important thing to understand.
Once the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he had a dream, and he woke up and he said won't be to the Arabs for what is about to befall them. And Asha asked the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, she said, Will we be destroyed when there are still good people amongst us? And the Prophet said, Yes, when the good when the evil becomes more than the good.
When the evil becomes more than the good.
And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, in an authentic hadith is sincere, it's in a tournament it's an authentic hadith. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, You must enjoy what is right and forbid what is wrong or else Allah will send upon you a calamity and you will make and it will not be accepted. Allow us and upon your calamity.
You must enjoy what is right and forbid what is wrong. You must This is what defines this nation brothers and sisters. What defines this nation? Yes, we are the people of Eman We are the people of tawheed.
But also, why did Allah subhanaw taala How did Allah distinguish this nation?
The best of nations? Richard, okay raised up for the benefit of mankind.
Why because we enjoy in what is right and we forbid what is wrong
and this is as always
hottovy said, if you don't do that anymore, if you don't enjoy what is right and forbidden what is wrong anymore, then the title is not deserving of you. It's conditional
with the best of nations raised up for mankind, because we enjoyed the right and the wrong if we stopped enjoying the right enough of it in the role, we don't deserve that title anymore.
That's what distinguishes us.
So this is the task that Allah has given us brothers and sisters.
We need to invite the people to Islam.
We have to invite the people to learn in a in the law.
This is what Allah He told us in the Quran, he said to the prophet to say cool hair, the sabini say or Mohammed had the disability. This is my way. I do a law I invite to Allah, Allah, Sita with knowledge and a woman at avani me and those who follow me, meaning if you follow Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, you will also invite to Allah with knowledge. It doesn't mean you have to be a scholar. You don't have to be a chef or an Imam, or a scholar.
To invite people to Islam, but it does mean you you need to know how to invite people to Islam, you need the knowledge.
And this is this is what we have been brothers and sisters. Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam his Hartman Nabhi he's the seal of the messengers. There are no more prophets, no more messengers, after Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
So then let me ask you this question. If Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he is the last and final messenger, whose responsibility is it then to pass on the message of Islam?
Whose Tell me
ours.
It's our responsibility.
It's our job. It's our duty.
Allah guides who wants to guide you know, the beautiful thing is a lot did not make you responsible for making people Muslim.
Allah didn't make you responsible for making people Muslim. But he did make you responsible and he did make us responsible for conveying the message for passing on the message that is something we have to do.
This is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said belliveau valaya
convey for me, even if it is one ayah and this is a proof that you do not need to be a scholar, you do not need to be any man You do not need to be a chef. If you know and you understand one I have an omni convey from me the prophets of the law while he is saying convey the message pass the message.
And the nature of the obligation brothers and sisters is dependent upon
your environment and your situation.
The I don't think that Allah subhanaw taala is going to ask our brothers and sisters who are for example, in the mountains in Kashmir or, you know Pakistan, or or wherever you may be right. The rice fields of Indonesia is Allah. Do you think Allah is going to ask them? Why didn't you tell the people who are not Muslim about Islam?
It's very unlikely
they're going to be held accountable for that. But you
you lived here for what? 20 years, 30 years.
You live next to people who are not Muslim. You went to school with people who are not Muslim. You work with people who are not Muslim, and you fail to pass on to them the message of Islam.
You failed. Aren't you afraid that on the Day of Judgment, they will blame you that these people your neighbor will come along ask that person Why? ask that person why I don't know about Islam, ask that person Why didn't worship you. That person was supposed to be your servant, your slave and they never told me about Islam. I knew them for 20 years. 30 years they never told me about Islam.
I'm going to tell you a story.
I want to tell you a stool. It's a made up story. But I want you to think about it, I'm going to finish with this inshallah.
Once upon a time, there was a king,
a great and powerful King.
And he received a message from a faraway land. And this message from the faraway land was all King, we would like to accept you, as our Lord.
So this king chose
his servants,
a close and special servant of his, Abdullah, Abdullah, the king said, Go to that land, and tell the people, I am the king, that they should obey my laws and pay my taxes. So Abdullah left,
many, many years passed.
And the king had not heard from Abdullah.
So after many years, he sent his other chosen special servant.
He said, Oh, Ahmed, go to this land and see what has happened to my servant Abdullah, maybe he has been killed or he has been betrayed or these people betrayed us,
then we will certainly send upon them a force to be reckoned with.
So I have my travels, and he goes to this land.
And he goes to the people. And then he starts to ask them all my people, all people have you. Do you know Abdullah?
They say no, Abdullah, we do not know Abdullah. So then he begins to describe Abdullah Abdullah, he looks like this. And he is like this. And he is he say, yes, yes. Oh, a mama. But there is not that's not his name. His name is not Abdullah. His name is abs.
And, you know, yeah, he's a very good businessman.
He has a very successful business. And he has a very nice house and a beautiful family on the edge of the city is a very nice person. Yes, that must be you're talking about ABS that he's in such and such a place.
So I have a ghost and he knocks on the door.
Sure enough, who opens the door, Abdullah
Abdullah,
what happened to you?
Didn't the king say to you go to that land and tell the people I am your king, obey my laws, and pay my taxes.
And Abdullah says,
Do you know I love the king. I never set up a king besides the king. He is my only King. But I thought I would come here and show the people you know we are nice people. And you know the servants of the king. We are nice people. And and I thought I should marry and make a business first. And you know, after some time, you know, I will get around to telling them about the king.
Does that sound like someone you know, brothers and sisters,
I don't need to explain to you the meaning of this story.
I hope it's enough for you to think about what really is your duty and your obligation and why you are here. And what is the reason for you being here.
It is not to have a nice house and a nice business to have a nice family and relax.
We here for a short time on this earth my brothers and sisters a very short time. Our life is very, very brief.
Soon we will be in the grave. And soon we will be in front of Allah. And he will be asking us about every single thing that we have done and every single thing that we have not done. Please my brothers and sisters take this responsibility of dour really, really seriously. And Allah subhanho wa Taala will bless you and Allah subhanaw taala will increase you in goodness in this life and the next Allahumma salli ala Muhammad in one early he was happy to sell images