The Crossroads Culture or Religion
Date:
Channel: Abdurraheem Green
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the challenges of following Islam and the importance of learning to handle one's behavior in order to achieve goals. They emphasize the need to be self reflected and learn to handle one's behavior in order to achieve success. The segment also touches on the importance of learning to handle one's behavior and finding one's own success in achieving their goals.AI Generated Transcript ©
National
Women's Day
were made
worse.
Why?
Why shadow, Mohammed Madonna Abu.
We begin by praising Allah, we praise Him, we seek his help, and we ask for forgiveness. And we take refuge with ALLAH, from the evil of ourselves and from the evil consequences of our evil actions. Anyone who Allah guides, no one can misguide. But anybody whom Allah subhanaw taala leaves to go astray. No one can die. And I testify that Allah alone is worthy of being worshipped.
And that Mohammed sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his servant, and His Messenger.
My dear brothers, and sisters in Islam as salaam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
So today, I have been given
a very controversial topic
Alhamdulillah you know, I always get the controversial topics.
And then I get in trouble afterwards. But I inshallah, I hope this will not cause any trouble. But what I do hope my brothers and sisters, what it will do, is caused us to think
it will cause us to think one of the things, one of the things, one of the objectives
of being a Muslim.
One of the things or one of the characteristics, I should say, that we we should acquire as Muslims that we should have
is the characteristic
of
self reflecting deep thinking, people.
It's very important brothers and sisters, that you develop, that you develop, and you it's not something that happens instantly.
It takes years.
It takes patience. It takes perseverance. It takes humility,
to be able to make an honest assessment of yourself.
So being self aware, being aware about ourselves,
why we do things, what motivates us
having that
self awareness is something that allows
the Dean of his plan
wants us to develop within our scope.
One of the most obvious evidences of this
introspecting of the profits from the long run he was
in the middle.
Very, and you all know this, I'm sure you all know this. Definitely, most certainly, every action is judged by
intention. And it goes on to say the meaning of which is and everybody gets what they intended.
So if your hedgerow
was for Allah and His Messenger, then you will get what your intended, but if you hate your words, for marriage, or for some other worldly purpose, then your action is for what you intended. Now this had been this saying of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the context of this saying of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was that there was a certain man
who wanted to get married to a certain woman of Medina. And he said, and this was the time of
So,
I will go to Medina and get married. And I will make a joke.
And so this is the context of what this what this
was revealed. That's very interesting brothers and sisters that the actual physicality of the action of this man is exactly the same. He left America, he left his home, he left his family, he traveled 250 miles, all the hardship and he went to live in another town.
The actual physical action is exactly the same.
If you do it for marriage,
or you do it,
for the deed, the physicality of the action, the actual
thing that you go through is the same as if you went from Mecca to Medina, because you are persecuted in Mecca, and you want to go and live in a place where you are more free to practice your religion.
The actual physical movement is the same. So what is the difference between the action of the first man and the action of the one who makes it for the sake of Allah? What is the only real difference? The difference is intention.
Its intention
and this is the case brothers and sisters, for everything you do.
Everything you do everything
you get up and think about your day. I want you to think about your day.
Yeah, you get up in the morning
you start to prepare nice dynamic.
This by the way, is the best breakfast in the world.
I know chef by Dr. Mohammed he doesn't agree with him I you know, pull up pull him out, you know, but you know, I said chef, I tell you what, I love this breakfast so much. I learned to cook it cook it at home. Yeah, I love masala Mac so I had for breakfast Nasi Lemak Mashallah. What And anyway, I'm getting carried away, it's not electrical.
So,
but think about it now.
What is your need?
Why are you making this breakfast?
Is it just habits? Is it because if you don't do it, your husband will say certain things to you or treat you in a certain way. What is your Nia sisters brothers, you get up you go to work.
You go to what what is your what's your intention in everything that you do when you eat when you speak when you talk when you greet when you meet? When you drive, when you work when you sleep?
in a lab,
if you have the right media,
eating can be something that will reward you with
even sleeping will be something that Allah can reward you with. This is an amazing Hadith. The Prophet
said that a man will get rewarded for having intimate relations with his wife get rewarded for that.
He said yes.
If you did it in a wrong way, would you not be punished? Even though there is reward depending on your needs.
Therefore you have to understand brothers and sisters, can you imagine how you have to be thinking about yourself and your motivations?
You should be self reflective. And that means you need to understand yourself, you need to know what motivates
you, you know what controls me.
I just finished a really interesting book. And this book was on
control.
And what was interesting is this book was written from a scientific perspective. It was not you know, a book of spirituality or to someone. It was a scientific work written by a non Muslim who believes in the theory of evolution doesn't believe in, you know, a law or it is a book written purely from a secular scientific point of view.
But
the key theme of this book is the same thing.
And what was very interesting about this book is one of the things that he was talking about is how easily we are influenced
without thinking about what goes on around us.
So we are very easily influenced by our environment. And a lot of the time brothers and sisters, you think you are making choices, but you are not making choices.
You are manipulated, doing things that certain people want you to do.
Even right now.
I'm manipulating you.
It's the way that I put
the words that I choose, the expressions that I use, the tone of my voice is all intended to make you feel and react to certain things.
This is the reality.
And this is why the prophets, Allah, he was someone
he mentioned, that there is magic in speech, there is magic in speech, the speech of people can make you do amazing good things, and unfortunately, also
terrible things as well.
And I was just talking to Dr. Mohammed Salah this morning.
And he's talking about how the treatment that he and some scholars would get in Egypt, how people would block them almost nearly kill them just trying to give the lambs and showing their love and affection, but it's all emotion.
Because the moment things start going a bit crazy, and you know, things in Egypt started going a bit crazy, then suddenly, things changed. Lots of emotion.
Not a lot of knowledge.
And that's how most of us are because we're not self reflective. The Sahaba on the other hand, one of the things we find mentioned about
these with them was they would never be taken in by the sweetness and the power of a person's speech.
They would never be taken in by it.
Even the scholars, even the students, excuse me of Eman Shafi.
It's a famous incident when they came to him.
And they said, Yes.
We think we understand what you're teaching us now.
So they said he said, tell me he said if we find a man walking on the water, we will not believe what he says. Until we first examine what is his acting that what is his belief?
He said, No, you're wrong. You made it too small. He said even if you
don't believe what he says, until you check, what is his Akita?
How many people will be fooled by the job? How many people will be taken in by the job?
By mistake of the job, how many people how many mcribs even will follow him. His fitna is so great.
His fitness
people will be fooled. He will come to a man a bedroom. He said believe he said believe in me that I am your your rock. He says no. He says what if I bring your brother and father to life?
Will you then believe I am the rub that I have resurrected them said if you can do that, I would believe and he will do it. But it will not be his brother.
It will be he will take the form of his brother and father. But because his ignorance
and he's taken in
manipulating, he will end up following him.
And this is the thing brothers and sisters, we are being manipulated all the time.
Especially now I want to talk about culture.
Because although I suspect that you're thinking I'm going to talk about, you know, Malaysian culture, does Malaysian culture correspond to Islam? This is maybe we will talk about that. But what I want to do is first I want to talk about global culture.
You see, in reality, I would think that unfortunately many of us, we are 20 years behind.
Yes, I could give you a talk about the conflict between, you know, the things that you've learned
as a Malay being brought up in Malaysia or it could be anywhere in Pakistan or Morocco. This applies to everybody. All of us of course. We learn from our parents. Most of us did not sit down and we did not learn
From a chef, and from reading the Koran and from studying directly, most of us did not get our knowledge of Islam that way. Most of us learn Islam habits. And by the way, this is not a bad thing. Some of us we think this is a bad thing, it's not a bad thing.
This is mostly my children. They have learned plan by habit. And that, by the way, is
you may be surprised, I don't sit down and give my kids lectures every day, sit down kids.
I don't, sometimes I I don't have a regular circuit and this on purpose. It's not, you know, just maybe it's laziness. But I don't think so. It's not, it's on purpose. Why? Because I want
to be something totally holistic for my children. It is something totally natural. It's something so normal, and part of their normal everyday life. They don't look at it as something that is separate. You know, there's a special time set aside, you know, you live your life as a Muslim, your life is a Muslim, it's something that happens to you all the time. It's just your state of being, this is a good thing. This is a good thing. Because
it is natural, and it feels natural. But this has a downside, this has a problem. Of course, we parents are human beings, our knowledge is limited.
And many of us also learned our Islam, from our parents. And we picked something here from this and we picked something there from that. And the other thing that has happened for most of us is that and this is normal and natural as well. It's inevitable.
how we interpret Islam to some extent, influenced by our environment,
even to the extent of some of the things that we consider is halal and haram.
Let me give you an example.
What would you think? What what what what do people thinking? I don't actually know. But maybe this is not a good example. But if someone was to put the foot down on the floor, what would you think of that?
Would people consider this like a
surprise you if I told you that in the mystery of the Prophet that the parchments and the blocks of wood that they used to write the Quran, they would pile it on the floor?
Would that surprise you? What if I went walking into the masjid over here the state beautiful state Masjid with my students?
What would happen to me?
Although Marshall in Malaysia definitely common, they'd probably be polite, but in some places, I don't know they might even kidding, seriously.
Would it surprise you if I told you the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for the people to pray with their shoes on
Christians with that surprised you? And I'm not by the way saying goes dumping into the masjid.
But what I'm trying to say is that what happens is our environment affects the way that we interpret things. Now, let me explain something to you this honoring the poor and is most certainly an act.
It's an act of disbelief if you dishonor the poor, and that is an act of disbelief, but what is this honoring the concept of dishonouring will actually be different from one culture to another. So in one place, doing a particular action may not be considered dishonouring.
Another
action will be considered as dishonouring. So you can do the same thing in two different places. One will consider it nothing and the other will consider it.
Right.
So naturally, is how you interpret Islam, to some extent is going to be influenced by your culture.
We can't, we can't avoid that.
So this is what most of us are caught up with.
Right? Which is,
which is
it's fine as long as we only live in the culture and the culture. And these cultural interpretations that we have are the only ones that we are really exposed to.
The Why does this all become a challenge? In today's world?
It all becomes a massive challenge in today's world, because like I said, you know we're living now we're talking about two years ago
because the idea of a Malay culture
Well as, you know, Moroccan culture, Moroccan,
you know, even now the government in England, British Islam.
I mean, obviously, they want to do that for their own political ideological reasons. But you know, and it wouldn't happen. As I said,
Muslims live in England long enough, there will be something British. But these local national, almost tribalistic interpretations are becoming more and more irrelevant.
In today's world.
Actually, I think the modern world is one of the very reasons we can even stand here and have this discussion. And
think about this. Because now, now, we live in the Global Village. Now we have a world wide culture, we have a culture that permeates almost every single corner of this planet. And that culture is really connected to this particular
eye, nor am I promoting Apple products.
But it's a lot to do with this. Because of the clip, I
can pull on my way here. So I stopped off in Istanbul,
airport, and I'm getting some food and the guy comes up to me. He says, Oh, I'm sorry, I watched your YouTube videos. Good. I really liked them. I mean, in Turkey.
I mean,
you have to think what happens to me, I go all over the world, and people recognize me and people know me, they know it because of this. Right?
This is a global culture. What is happening in the world today is there is a global culture.
And this means brothers and sisters, that there is a mentality there is a way of thinking, because what is culture? What is a good question, right? What is culture? Well, culture is basically what you do.
Culture is what you do.
Whatever you do, that's your culture. I know it sounds too simple, but really, when you examine it, and you studied culture, that's what culture comes down to what you do. And traditionally, of course, culture is influenced by geography. The way you dress generally is influenced by the climate. Yes.
I remember when I came to Malaysia, first time I came to Malaysia, I think it was the first time I came to Malaysia.
20 something years ago.
I walked around everywhere in a sarong.
Yes.
Yes.
I remember walking on the street and this guy, the street vendor, he grabs me. He puts his hand here.
Good, good.
You tried it? Right? Yeah. He does what he was thinking. Now, the interesting thing was, is that I'm walking around in a circle, which is the traditional dress.
The traditional, extremely comfortable dress.
Right.
Now today, we wear trousers and pants in Malaysia. It's hot in this country. There's a reason for 2000 years, 3000 years, 4000 years, people will start off there's a reason.
Right? Because it's comfortable. In The
Now I went to the Islamic University. Yeah. And I wanted to go and visit the university.
Because I was worried.
You can't come in dressed like that. I was outraged. I said, what how do you want me to dress up this dress? shirt and pants? I said but
he was telling me
he wouldn't let him in because he's wearing this.
And then I realized actually the king was
different.
But I was you know, I was really upset.
man couldn't pray.
They would no no please not understand that you know, I was still so angry.
But the point is, but
but traditionally culture the food you eat, it comes from the environment, what is grown locally in your local produce the local food what is available, right. So this is what makes culture these things make culture
Some of the People's culture, by the way, sometimes culture is
the mechanisms that people develop,
to survive.
Right. So these things have been in the past very, very important. They kept the scientists together, they kept people together, right? They stopped, everything falling to bits, the culture that people developed, is those systems that people developed to try and hold society together and keep it ordered. So now when something comes along, and challenges that culture, people feel often some people feel that the very existence and the impact of their society is being challenged.
And this obviously, is happening in many countries.
But the thing what is happening here, and many unfortunate I think now Hamdulillah, Allah, you know, the government's they're catching up, they're realizing that, you know, this idea of preserving a local reform of, you know, religion, and even the whole idea of nationalism is becoming less and less relevant in our global world, because people have access. And 20 years ago, we couldn't have hold a conference like this. Some of you who are old enough, you know, it would have been impossible to hold a conference like this in Kuala Lumpur 20 years ago.
Creation
things have changed. And you have I mean, there is just common sense, what is the point in trying to stop certain things and prevent certain things, when all a person needs to do is with a click of a button, they can access anyone saying anything anywhere,
anyone saying anything, anywhere.
This now this now is a new culture. This is a new culture. You have to understand. Now we want to think about brothers and sisters, the culture of this
the culture of this, how much of this the culture of this is compatible with Islam? I know many of you are hoping to me to give a long lecture on you know, Malaysia and Malaysian culture and is it compatible with Islam? I think that's 20 years old. 10 years old. Today we because that's that's already on its way out.
It was out when
Someone told me I can't go to the Malaysian Islamic University except I'm wearing trousers and pants. The global culture had already overtaken the minds of people on the habits of people and the behavior of people
20 years ago, now it is different. This is the culture.
And what is this culture? Are you if you've listened to my lectures, you know, you already know what's coming.
This This actually represents fundamentally the culture of consumerism.
This unfortunately, brothers and sisters, at the moment, predominantly, and it's just a tool, of course, it can be used for lots of different things. But right now, predominantly at the moment, this is being used to manipulate you,
to make you not into thinking people, but to make you into unthinking people.
How many of the things that you buy when you go shopping? I wonder how much do you really think about it?
how deeply Do you think about the things that you do?
Or how often do we just act upon our
feelings. And really, if you think about it, brothers and sisters, this is what we are getting from this. The idea that you should follow your feelings. Follow your desires, follow your dream, follow your passion.
It's very literally about duty obligation, self control, self discipline.
Follow your dream follow your passion. If you feel like it, just do it. Yeah.
Buy this buy that have this have that. The successful person who is the successful person,
the successful person is the one who has a nice car has a nice condominium. A nice house
has this thing and that thing. Success is married by success is measured by your job, your wealth, your position in society. This is success. Please. Brothers and sisters, do you think that this is the Islamic definition of success? When the more I didn't cools? Highland fella
is he saying, Come here. I will teach you business. I will teach you how to buy a nice car, how to get a good house. That's what you need to come to. Is that what he say? When he says hi?
Is that what further success means? No.
Absolutely not.
But this is how we measure it. Even the best of us believe me even the most religious of us. We are taken in we are taken in I'll be honest, am I happy with my iPhone five. See now.
I see Dr. Salah Dr. Mohammed Salah with his iPhone for six.
Looking at his big screen
and his first processor. I still have this chunky cranky thing you know Subhan Allah, this is how we've become.
This is how we measure success.
How many followers do you have on Facebook?
Mashallah for him? 600 then judges tell you, you know, 670,000
panelo
can you post this for me, please?
This is the new culture.
I came off the airplane and hamdulillah the brothers the volunteers, may Allah bless the volunteers for this amazing conference May Allah make we should also Pamela made lots of dirt off of them. You know, we come here we enjoy the event. You know, we go they've been working. I don't know how many months beforehand. They send me an email. I don't know how long ago, three, four months ago. That's organization. Yeah. So it started even before that, and it will keep going after you've gone home and you're relaxing. The volunteers will still be, you know, finishing everything off and tidying up and so May Allah bless them. So we were sitting there was a dinner for the volunteers and the chefs
were sitting there and I arrived, you know, all the shirts like this.
Somebody called him.
I said, What's this? The only
chef smile, Mufti monkey gets up. Give let me give you a hug. Marshall. Like maybe he's got an old phone. Maybe
he needs to upgrade
But you know, we can love of course, the chef's I'm sure they're doing very important things. You know, they're not looking at, you know, Kim Kardashian, you know, her latest outfit or her latest lack of outfit, you know, you know, 100 a day posting good things and you know, giving naseeha answering questions about Islam, of course, it's a tool brothers and sisters, it's a tool. This can be used for amazingly good things and amazingly bad things. It's a tool, right? But the fact is, we have to understand that this tool is influencing it's become our new culture. It's become our new culture.
Now, a brother was asking me just now as he's dropping me off from the hotel, he's telling me, you know, atheism amongst Muslims is a big problem.
atheism. And it is, it's a big problem. There is a big problem with Muslims are plasticizing. And if you think these are just ignorant people, no.
You know, I don't want to put some doubts in your heart. But I would explain this is sometimes even people who have memorized Koran who have been studying with the allamah.
People are leaving Islam, they are full of doubts.
And the reason is, they have access. And certainly I will tell you the truth, there is some stuff out there when you read it, and you hear it and you look at it, it will shock you to the core. You think, Sam, this is Islam? Does Islam say this? Does Islam say that?
And the problem is brothers and sisters, we are taken in and manipulated. Because in reality, we are not deep thinkers. We don't think deeply. We don't understand deeply. We are not self reflective. Personally, I believe that most atheists atheism in most I don't say every case. I don't say every case. Sometimes people become atheists, or they leave Assam sometimes out of what is for them at that time, a genuine intellectual conviction. But for most people, believe me 90%, maybe more, I can't give you an exact statistic. It is only emotional. It is an emotional decision. It's not an intellectual decision.
And the reason is, I believe, is simply because the global culture is a culture of following your knifes and doesn't Allah say in the Quran, the meaning of witches? Have you not seen the one who takes that knifes as their? as their God? They take their desires? Haven't you seen? How can you take your desire as a god? How can you take your desire as a God as an Illa? As an equal and arrival to Allah subhanho wa Taala? How How do you do that? Think about that. You think about it. What does that mean? Maybe you think that worshipping an idol only means when people build a statue and they pray to it. That's not the only sharp that's not the only idol worship. That's not the only God
won't be to the worship of the dinar and the ham the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, How do you worship money? How would you put a you know, ringlets? You know, on the shelf and you say, oh, ring it? offer it? No, you know, that's not what it means.
worshipping money. When you become a money worshiper, it means what we said previously, when you think that money is what makes you happy, and you think it works, it's what gives you success. And when you have it, you're happy. And when you don't have it, you're sad. And I don't mean on the substances level. Of course, everyone who's hungry from day to day and starving and has no roof over their head. That That, of course, is just a natural type of fear. But I'm talking about on a different level. You have food, you have clothing you have there's no insecurity in your life in reality, but no, no, it's all about the money. How much money money money can I get? If I have it,
I'm happy if I don't this now you you can understand. This is your God, as if this controls everything for you. Your desires, again, the worship of the desires, the one who always wants to satisfy their passion satisfy their desires. And this is exactly By the way, what this technology and those who control it. This is what they want us to be consumers they want us to buy.
They want us to believe that happiness comes from having those things that they have to offer us and they will do everything they can to manipulate us. It's a science.
If you want to be shocked, at to the extent to which and the money to which they
Spend and you want to research this topic, I recommend you read a book called brand washed.
We are brand new, no brainwashed, brand washed. It's very readable. It's not like a difficult book to read. And this man, he talks about how and millions and millions are spent even to the extent brothers and sisters, that they will scan people's brains. That cost you know, like 1000s of pounds a session 1000s and 1000s of session, they will scan people's brains when they are involved in activities. Let me tell you something. Yeah, what they found out about the iPhone in particular, the iPhone, not every mobile phone, the iPhone, what they found out is that when people use an iPhone,
the part of their brain that lights up is the same part of your brain that lights up when you are having a religious experience.
And believe me, it is designed like that. It is designed to replace religion, to make this your Illa to make this your gods
to make this your dean, think about it rather than sisters. Think about it. This is the challenge. The challenge, this is the challenge.
Believe me, I think if we are talking about the challenge of you know, our traditional cultures versus, you know, just you know, understanding the Quran and Sunnah. I think this is it still exists, but it's not the the major challenge for us today. The major challenge for us is how do we deal with this new technology? How do we deal with this new global culture?
So now the atheist, you see, atheism is so convenient. If you don't believe in God, then you don't need to believe in rules. Because we're all just animals. We just follow our desires, we follow our instincts. I don't need any religion to tell me what's right and what's wrong, what I can and what I can't do, who is anyone to tell me what I can and what I can't do, I am going to do what I want to do, I'm going to believe what I want to believe no one is going to tell me what to do and what to believe. You see most people brothers and that by the way. This may apply to most of you. And this applies to all cultural, whether its global culture, national culture, tribal culture. Most of us
this is how we are.
Most people hate to think that they are doing something bad or wrong. We don't like it.
We don't like to think that we are doing something bad or wrong.
So let me give you an example of something that might be controversial. Probably not in this whole today. But I'm sure you will recognize this is super controversial. Music.
Yeah, is music halal or haram? Right. Now I say it's controversial, but believe me in the time of the Imams, the Imams of Sona and I mean Abu hanifa Imam Malik Imam Shafi, Hamad bin humble. These are the four famous imams
it's not it was not controversial.
It was not it music was hot up, there was no controversy about it whatsoever. In fact, I challenge anyone to go back to the early writings of the form of our head and find any of the scholars including the 40 names themselves and their students who held an opinion other than music, musical instruments was Haram.
Find it for me, tell me please because you know, I would like to know if there is a genuine opinion from the early days of Islam.
I would be very interested.
So where does this come from?
How did it become something become controversial? Even some Himalayan Sahara Buhari the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he mentioned that people from my alma one of the things he mentioned they will make halaal musical instruments, the drinking of wine and the wearing of silk.
the wearing of silk for men, by the way, not for women.
Right.
So Subhana Allah
so now here's the thing brothers and sisters, most people prefer they prefer to find a loophole to find some way to make this heroine thing Helen, yes but this color and that color and you know most of the Muslims and why are you going against the tide? You are fanatic Noah who says this these days and you know, they will have everything they can to make it halal for themselves to try and find because they don't want to feel people don't want to feel that I'm doing something Haram. I'm doing an act of disobedience to Allah subhanaw taala
No, really in reality, the attitude of a Muslim and no one is going to be free from
Doing Haram, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, the son of Adam sins by night and day,
the son of Adam sins by night, and by day, we will commit change. It's inevitable you will commit sins. But the best of the sons of Adam are those who make Toba who make repentance. So this is the attitude of the believer. The attitude of the believer is,
I have done something wrong. I have disobeyed Allah subhanaw taala. Allah forgive me, Allah guide me.
And this is the difference between Adam alayhis, salam,
and shaytan because she can behaved when he disobeyed Allah.
What did he do? He made excuses.
How can you tell me to bow down to something that's made of clay and I made a file.
He's saying to Allah,
he's coming with excuses because you misguided me shaitaan is saying to Allah, as if he's accusing Allah of misguiding him.
So this is how we are most people. Unfortunately, this is what we do, we'll try to find a way to make it Hello Reba, music whatever thing our nuts we're following.
This is not how the believer should be. This is not the way of a deep thinking person. This is not the way of a person who knows themselves and understands the nuts and thinks about why do I do what I do? And why do I think what I think why do I behave the way that I Bay, this goes back to the beginning of my talk, you need to be self reflected, you need to understand yourself, you need to understand what motivates you why you do what you do. But for most people, I that's it, I don't want that's why atheism is so convenient. And now it's easy for them to say yes, science, or most scientists are atheists and all of these things, they will justify it. But at the bottom end of
this, and the end of this is only I just want to follow my knifes.
And what's the proof? If they were really sincere? When they started reading all of these things, and these shughart came to their mind, they would have gotten asked, they would have gone and found people who could answer the questions. You find most of them, they don't do that.
Some problems, some difficult difficulty comes, life is not so easy anymore. This switch.
So this is the challenge of today.
The global culture.
And that is a global culture, brothers and sisters that is so closely tied in with following your desires. And this is very important. And I'm going to finish with this. You need to understand brothers and sisters. And my appeal is especially especially to those people
have recently been open to the idea
of
and it's a good idea. It's a right idea in its basic concept, that it should not just be culture that dictates how we follow Islam.
That we need to go back to the Quran and understandings, we need to go back to the teachings of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And understand it, we need to do our best as much as possible to remove cultural interpretations and go back to
a clearer understanding of what it is that Allah wants from us because that's the key brothers and sisters
in them and our malewane niyati intention, sincerity airfloss we do it for Allah subhanho wa Taala seeking His pleasure, and Allah wants us to obey Him. So the problem here The challenge here, I say to those of you who have recently begun to think about this, this way of looking at Islam
The danger is you will you it's very easy for you to get caught up in intricate arguments and discussions about the my new tie, you know the small little things, should I point my finger like this? Should I wiggle it like this? Should I do little circles like that? Should I just put it up like this?
How many Raka is it for Ramadan, a rocker 20 or 32? You know, we will have endless discussions about this. We will have endless discussions about minute aspects of al Qaeda.
And sometimes it can be very enjoyable and you know chef and this and that and you know I want to know about this and this but we forget
that the whole purpose of
Islam of being a Muslim, of this religion is to connect you with Allah.
So if you know all the arguments to prove that our Ramana sdwa, that Allah subhanaw taala is above the heavens above his drum, you know all the arguments.
But it doesn't affect you, it doesn't put fear in your heart, it doesn't create for you all and for sure of Allah subhanaw taala, because that's the purpose. Brothers and sisters, when you study these things, your heart should be filled with all of the magnificence and the greatness of Allah subhanaw taala. And how far removed he is from our imperfection.
This is what this belief should instill with you. It is not an intellectual discussion. So we can have an argument with someone.
That's not the purpose. But that's what it's become. And unfortunately, for many of us who go down this path, that's what we get involved in and we forget that in the end, brothers and sisters, the purpose is to know Allah
to connect with Allah to connect with your Lord.
When you say your salon, you raise your hands and you make glorify a dean and you enter into that. So you begin that prayer.
Maybe you will be obsessed is am I holding my hand just exactly in the right places? You know,
all these little things, and that's your whole head is like, you know, filled with Am I making all the movements correctly? Do you think that's what the prayer is for that?
You think that's what it is? No, that's not the prayer. That's not what it's for. The Prayer is when you enter into this prayer,
and when you leave it you should have you should be feeling that you have just communicated with Allah. You have stood in front of our Abdullah Al amin,
and you have glorified him and praised him and asked him and that
this is what it should do. This is how it should transform you. Remember this brothers and sisters, be thoughtful. Know yourself, understand what makes you think, think and understand what makes you tick. It takes effort, it takes time. This is the way to come combat, all of the culture confusions that we have and we ask Allah subhanaw taala to help us to make our feet firm upon the Sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam We ask Allah subhanaw taala to make those make us of those people who love him
and make us off from those people who love those who love Him and make us from those people who are loved by those who love Him. And we ask Allah to cause us to love the deeds that will cause him to love us.
And then in sha Allah,
we will actually have a small taste of gender right now
and inshallah we will reach gender in the era Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Ali Salaam Salaam Alaikum