Abu Taymiyyah – The Fallacy of Atheism & its dangers Shaikh Saleh As Sindi
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Respected brothers and sisters, today,
our
topic
hopefully will be very beneficial,
and that topic is something that will hopefully
benefit the speaker and those who are listening.
It is an extremely important topic.
It is not something that we can just
walk past and ignore it due to the
fact that we don't need it. It's
a topic to do with our reality.
All of us are in need to study
it and understand it and implement it.
And the topic is atheism.
What is it? Why and how?
So the lecture will center around answering these
three questions,
because it's a new type of atheism
and therefore we need to know what it
is. So that's the first question. What is
it?
And we need to know its danger
that it represents to the Muslims and ourselves
and our children
and the youth? The second question is why,
why,
is it that some
Muslim youth fall
into this dangerous trap? And the third question
is how?
How are we supposed to deal with it
and fight it?
And I ask Allah to help us all
and, the speaker and those who listen and
to assist us in
properly studying this topic.
And in recent years,
there's been
a huge
wave of atheism sweeping across,
the world and starting from the West, Europe,
and other countries
and going all the way to the Muslim
countries, and the statistics
speak for themselves. In 2,005,
in Europe, 18%
of the people,
associated themselves to be atheists. They consider themselves
to be atheists.
27%,
they did not believe in any creator. They
believed of some
supernatural force.
Therefore, almost half of the population
in 2,005
did not,
agree and they refused to acknowledge the existence
of the creator.
So what can we say now
after more than 10 years have passed?
For that reason,
it's extremely important for us to understand
this thought
and
properly,
properly deal with it. Why? Because it has
reached our shores. It has come to us.
And, of course, now with the development of
social media, our families and our children are
not safe at all. It's extremely, extremely dangerous.
Anyone who has an Internet connection, and that
probably includes all of us, is not safe.
It's
a type of danger
that hunts you and pursues you rather than
before. Before you had to look for
different thoughts and ideologies that were dangerous.
But now it's hunting you and it's pursuing
you in your own home.
And, today's topic
and today's
development of,
atheism that is modern type of atheism
is extremely
dangerous and extremely vast.
And we are not talking about the atheism
of people like Darwin or Karl Marx or
others
who lived with them and in their time,
but we're talking about the new type of
atheism
of the likes of, Hutchins and the people
who are living in our time today.
And this
thought is not different from the thought of
those who preceded them.
It's the
it's not acknowledging the existence of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala and it was extremely rare to
think like that before
but now it's very widespread.
In the past, it's not
known exactly who started this thought.
It is the same you can say theory
but now they have
new language, you know, they talk differently about
it. They have new ways of presenting themselves.
So what is some what is that that
we must fear?
That what we must fear is that the
people who carry this
thought in our time
they're extremely active and they do everything possible
to spread it in every way possible.
Now we find that there are new ways
to spread this thought of the modern atheism
and they target all
types of the society, all layers of society.
And there are books that have been
translated.
There are best selling books. There are,
you can say small booklets.
There are books that are entitled, for example,
atheism for dummies. Meaning that even someone who
is not very well educated,
he can actually become an atheist and he
can understand it. There are stickers, there are
t shirts,
there are temples
even when they realize that they need and
they call them churches or temples.
They need to come together somewhere
and they have songs. They have films
made by famous people in Hollywood and other
places. They have websites. They use
social media.
There are thousands of books.
Some of them pretend to be scientific
in proving that Allah doesn't exist.
Some follow other ways. Some follow the way
of the philosophers.
So it's much, much more well developed
and the ways of presenting and spreading this
modern thought has evolved considerably
in our
time.
And,
second thing that we must bear in mind
when we consider and study modern atheism
is that the presentation
now is much more aggressive than before
and before
people who were atheists
they would generally assume a defensive stance.
Nowadays, it's more geared towards attacking others and
other ideologies.
So anyone who's iman, whose faith is weak,
looking at this aggressive approach,
he will think that the people are extremely
confident,
meaning the atheists and those who present atheism
of the
their way being right and them themselves possessing
the truth.
And the third distinguishing feature you can say
of the modern atheism
is that the people who ascribe to it
and spread it, they read extensively
from those who differ with them, generally from
the adherence of religions and those who believe
in the existence
of God,
the existence of Amba. And they try to,
show the other people the so called mistakes
they find
and spread them so that the people, the
followers of those religions,
when they see the so called mistakes,
they become disappointed in their own religion and
they leave following it and the same applies
to the followers of Islam. Another point that
we must bear in mind which is number
4 and that is that the they use
very well world events
that happen in the world to their advantage.
So for example, you can see if you
analyze for the past years, you can see
how they have been using,
the issue of terrorism
and ex extremism
and radicalism
to show that, following the religion of Islam
equates to being an
extremist
and a terrorist.
So in order for you to be actually
free from terrorism and extremism,
you must free yourself from Islam.
So the first part here was the answer
very briefly of course to the question what
is the modern
brand of atheism?
The second question that we have is why.
Why is it that some
Muslims, especially
the young generation,
fall into the trap of this modern atheism?
And
if you actually analyze
the
theory of atheism,
you will find that it is not actually
based upon any
sufficient proof that will convince
the person of the proofs and
the actual theory itself and the thought.
So how is it
that it has become
present among some Muslims?
There are certain
factors that have contributed to that and made
it easy
for these arguments to reach the Muslim youth.
The very first one
is that the a lot of the Muslims
they do not consider themselves or their religion
to be worth following
and they they are self defeatist.
Meaning that they look at others especially the
West with the eye of being extremely
amazed
And also they consider that this technological
advance has only happened
once the West have left their religious adherence
to their religions.
And of course, if you compare that to
Islam,
this is extremely
wrong to compare these two
these two factors. Why? Because first of all,
our religion is the religion of truth.
It's a religion of progress.
It does not stand in the way of
development and scientific research
as it was the case in the whole
of the history of Christianity
and other religions.
Therefore,
we, as Muslims, we must understand that that
our religion does not go against the intellect,
does not go against logical arguments,
unlike other religions.
And, also,
Islam in the past and now and will
continue doing so
calls to progress
and to development,
and it gives attention
to our worldly affairs
but with conditions. Firstly,
that it must not be the the end
aim and the, ultimate aim of us existing
upon this earth.
It it must be secondly
subdued to,
serving our religion.
The second,
factor
in the fact that this,
you know, new modern atheism
finds its way towards the Muslim youth
is the fact that there's a huge current
of doubtful matters
and issues that people can't find answers to
bombarding them.
Some sometimes they take the form of scientific
so called arguments,
sometimes philosophical,
sometimes
emotional. So people are bombarded by them,
and sometimes they say that your religion has
this issue and that issue, which you can't
really understand.
And they are really bombarded by that. And
most people, they don't have answers to these,
issues. Why? Because they are not really
educated enough. They they do not spend time
educating themselves, protecting themselves, and their families
against these issues.
There's a huge,
chunk of society that's,
extremely
we're talking about the Muslims,
is not really educated
and doesn't have enough sound knowledge
to actually,
for example, know that their religion is extremely
is the best religion.
And to know that their prophet
is the best prophet
and the great qualities that he had.
Therefore,
any little doubt that comes their way, they're
affected by
it. And any doubt that comes the way
of a Muslim
it's
at the same time
very dangerous
and very insignificant. It's very dangerous for someone
who doesn't know the answer to it and
insignificant
in relation to someone who knows the answer
to it.
So for example, a young man
called the sheikh said called me
and told me told me that he had
heard something from an atheist,
which actually
he couldn't find an answer to.
And that was a very simple question.
Do you know that Allah exists? He said
yes. And he told him, have you seen
him? He said no. So he said, what's
your proof then? Maybe he doesn't exist.
So this young man said, I became confused.
And the answer to it very simple.
Does seeing something with your eyes physically,
is that the only proof of existence of
something?
So the sheikh said, I told him this
mobile that you have in your pocket,
how do you actually speak to someone else
on the other end of the phone or
the other phone? How do you communicate with
others?
Through sound waves.
Do have you ever seen sound waves? Why
do you believe that they exist?
Have you ever seen electricity?
Have you ever seen many other things that
you believe they exist?
So
seeing
physically, like, for example, the the soul in
ourselves.
Through the soul, we are alive. When the
soul leaves the body, we no
longer are alive.
So we cannot say that. Therefore it's very
easy to answer if you know the answer
and if you think, analyze.
And therefore Allah
is known through His signs.
He is the proof for everything.
That's why the prophets when they were sent
to the people,
they said to them
can you doubt in the existence of Allah
the one who created the heavens and the
earth?
Therefore they bring about all these doubtful matters
in the form of a cartoon,
in the form of a scientific so called
argument,
emotional argument.
And if it enters the heart and the
mind of a Muslim and doesn't come out
quickly,
it will cause a lot of destruction
because a very small doubt can become a
very big issue if it's not dealt with
properly and timely.
And the third factor
that
makes people fall into atheism
is the extreme desire
to follow whatever they think is correct and
not to be bound by anything called halal,
haram,
not allowed, and things like that. Not no
bounds.
Because atheism and following one's desires,
they fit each other. Why? Because there is
no,
you can say conscious
conscience that says to you stop. This is
not something that is not allowed
and something that will tell you that Allah
is watching you. He made this haram. He
didn't allow it. So some people claim that
they will, if they enter atheism and they
leave the religious obligations, they will so called
relieve themselves
of the of this worry
that they may have
if they do something Haram and they follow
their desires.
And therefore, they decide to alleviate
the
worry by actually not following any religious obligations,
any religious instructions.
And generally,
these
factors they don't come alone.
Generally you will have 2 or 3 or
more factors together
why people will follow this modern,
thought of atheism.
No. No.
The 4th,
factor is for the parents and the people
in the family not actually controlling what our
children and family watch and read and do
these things. And the sheikh will now ask
us a question.
Is it correct to assume
that
most of us here gathered here,
most of our children, if not all there,
find it very easy
to go on the Internet. They may have
some
smartphones or,
pads and things like that, tablets and things
like that. Is that correct to assume that?
Who amongst us with what we have just
heard from the answer
actually, exactly knows where their children go, which
sites they visit, or their family for that
matter, who among us, for example, follows their
Twitter feed or their Facebook
if we
are honest?
Therefore, as a result of this quick questionnaire
that we've just conducted,
we're facing a huge problem
in that our children and families,
they live a parallel world, you can say,
and they live in their own bubble.
Even though the family may be religious
and the father and mother may be religious,
they have their own room, their own,
devices,
electronic devices,
which they use to access the Internet.
And the Internet, as you know,
is full of,
evil and full of,
snake pits, if we can put it that
way,
and full of the,
Satan's, the shayateen of humans and jinn who
Allah described them. They plot in an extremely
big way. And Allah described their plotting
from that plotting,
whole mountains can be removed.
So, therefore, we we cannot underestimate
the danger
that we are facing
in not following and not knowing what our
children are doing on the Internet.
So let us look at the 3rd question
which is how. How are we supposed to
deal with this issue
And so that we may be safe and
our families may be safe
because there's a huge,
bombardment as we said, an attack
on the integrity of we
must
be upset when the, we must be upset
when the,
religion of Allah
is being threatened.
And therefore, it must be the most important
thing in relation to us because Allah described
those who have believed
as loving Allah more than anything.
So denying the existence of Allah is a
huge
issue and huge problem and it's a terrible
crime
and look what Allah said
about those who attribute
a child to Allah.
Allah said and they say the most
merciful Ar Rahman
has taken for himself a son.
And Allah said you have done an atrocious
thing
extremely great.
The heavens almost rupture
and the earth splits open and the mountains
collapse in devastation
that they attribute
a son
to Ar Rahman
and it is not appropriate for Ar Rahman
that he should take a son
And therefore that's what Allah said in relation
to attributing
a son to Allah. What do you think
about denying the existence of Allah?
And that of course does not deserve our
attention?
Should we not be concerned?
Should we not fear?
Even if we assume that we are safe
from this problem,
we should still be upset because someone denies
the existence of Allah.
And what do you think if we're in
danger
of being consumed?
Because we have seen people from religious good
families
that their children
actually
followed the thought of the modern atheism.
And what do you think
when we have this, the danger of the
Internet,
the information technology and information exchange that we
have nowadays,
the danger is extremely
close to our homes and closer than we
think.
Let us have a quick example in terms
of
diseases and epidemics. If we have an infectious
disease that spreads very quickly
and we have an epidemic
outbreak
and we have out of millions and millions
of citizens of a certain country and people
who live there, 1 or 2 cases
of a disease that is extremely infectious
and spreads
very quickly.
That government or the the government
of that particular region or country would mobilize
everything in their power to protect their population.
They would set up quarantines
and health programs
and everything necessary in order to eradicate
that issue
from
their locality or their country,
and especially
if that illness
is infectious and it spreads very quickly.
And what do you think and this, of
course, is to do with the illnesses of
the bodies,
physical illnesses.
What do you think if it's to do
with our religious beliefs
and religious practice?
Doesn't it deserve more attention than that?
So how should we deal with this and
how should we save ourselves and our families?
First of all, we must feel
2 things.
The first is the danger
of the
present situation,
and secondly, the trust and the responsibility
that we have in front of Allah for
ourselves and our families. The prophet said
that each one of you is a shepherd,
and each one of you will be asked
about his
flock.
So when we deal with this issue, we
have 2 parts. The first is
the treatment, you can call it, and the
second is the prevention.
So let us first have a look at
the treatment.
When we know some of someone who is
affected
by this, we must also
make a distinction
between a person who's been affected by the
doubts of this particular ideology
and a person who is obsessed with some
thought.
Someone who is obsessed and he has a
psychological problem, he should be directed
to remember Allah much and to also
try and seek refuge with Allah from this
and to also consult,
medical
professionals
for him to get appropriate help.
The second point,
to bear in mind when we know of
someone who has been affected, especially the youth,
we must open our hearts and our minds
and our
houses
and give enough time
and sacrifice our efforts
to try and be nice to them and
feel them welcome,
then we should try and attempt to actually
solve the problem
and treat the illness.
One of the greatest mistakes is to actually,
when the person is in trouble,
to try and make them quiet and not
concern themselves
with them and to say, leave these issues.
Why are you asking
about this? Why are you,
so,
persistent? And this kind of approach is not
going to work. Why? Because we have the
Internet.
If you're not going to answer them and,
show them that you care,
they will go on the net and they
will try to find the answer there as
has proceeded
in the pits of snakes.
Therefore, we must be ready to embrace them
and we must be ready
to, listen to them, and we must be
ready with our answers that must be based
on knowledge and understanding.
Therefore, this cannot be achieved
except if the connection that you have with
your children and your family is extremely strong.
So we must try and achieve the level
of friendship
with our children and family
that they're able to come to us at
any point in time and they consider us
their friends
and their close family
so that they're able to share these issues
with us. And as you know very well,
bringing up children these days is extremely challenging
and difficult,
and,
they must be able to find in you
someone
with whom they can share their thoughts and
open up with.
And if you are
the rock
that's going to be behind them
and the rock that's going to
break their doubts
and calm them and show them care, then
you will be successful. But if they find
that there is there there is an obstacle
between you and them,
In fact, they will not even tell you
what they're going through. They will not tell
you that they may be thinking of something
or being affected by something,
and you will be thinking
that everything is,
as it should be.
And you will be busy with your work
and with your career, with other things to
do with the dunya.
And the the something will be going on
with your children and family
that you will not know and,
you will find it out when it may
be too late.
The third factor in dealing with this issue
is that the person who wants to answer
and solve the problem and answer the doubtful
matters
must be of certain level of knowledge and
understanding,
and he must have the necessary qualifications,
meaning in knowledge and understanding to in order
to refute this doubt.
Why? Because there may be certain premises
given
before actually people start talking about the actual
problem.
So those premises may be from physics, from
biology,
from other sciences,
and if the person doesn't understand them, then
the fact that he is weak in his
presentation and answer
will show the other person that his religion
is weak.
Therefore, if you have the necessary knowledge and
understanding,
then you can actually do this job with
your family.
If not, then you must try and,
give them the, to to go to someone
else who is knowledgeable in these issues
or
to say to them,
if it's someone who has been who has
been affected with atheism,
to say to them that you want to
postpone the meeting
and you have an excuse
and you want to look it up, you
don't have to say it, but you look
it up yourself and then you come and
refute it. And there was a case when
when,
young man came to the sheikh
and said that, he actually went into atheism
and then
by the mercy of Allah and then through
the sheikh, he came back. And one of
the problems he faced was that he used
to go to imams of mosques whom he
used to be to think knowledgeable,
and they wouldn't be able to answer some
of the issues that he had.
And that actually increased him in,
thinking
that,
his religion didn't have answers,
and that increased him in his problem,
and that forced him and pushed him to
go more and more into atheism
until he found himself an atheist. But, alhamdulillah,
by the grace of Allah, he returned
to the fold of Islam and,
due to the fact that he found someone
who was able to answer these issues.
Also a very important factor is that we
must increase our efforts
in distributing
and translating
the the huge amount of material that has
been,
authored and written
in actually,
going against and explaining atheism and its flaws.
And we have,
centers dedicated to this And those who speak
Arabic, of course, they can directly,
understand those leaflets and books. But those who
do not speak Arabic,
they need the the translations
which must be done by people who are
qualified.
Let us now have a look,
very briefly at the second part of dealing
with this problem and that is preventing it.
And this is much more important than the
first one which is,
how to treat it,
how we
can prevent our children and families from in
the first place falling into the trap of
atheism.
And, of course, we believe that,
this,
is and shall remain,
an
ideology alien to Islam. Alhamdulillah. And we believe
and we trust Allah to help us against
it. But we must do certain things, and
we we must put certain,
you can say,
means of protection
against it in relation to our families. First
of all, we must dedicate ourselves
before anyone else
time and effort to study the book of
Allah,
and to think about it and understand it
and act upon it and the sunnah of
the prophet
and Allah said in the Quran,
and how can you disbelieve
when the ayaat, the signs of Allah are
recited upon you and his message, his messenger
is among
you. And whoever,
tries to hold on to Allah, he shall
be guided
to the
straight path. And the prophet
said, as it is in that
I have left among you
something
which you if you follow and hold on
to it, you will never be misguided.
The book of Allah
and, in the collection of imam,
he said the book of Allah and my
sunnah. So it's extremely important.
And,
also extremely important for us, which is the
second factor,
ourselves before anyone else
to taste
the,
the taste of iman
and to feel the,
sweetness of iman.
And,
then a person who has done so after
with the help of Allah
will be safe from this. And this is
done through
being,
pleased with Allah as your lord and prophet
Muhammad as your
messenger and prophet, and Islam as your religion.
And,
Sahih Muslim, the prophet said that anyone who
who finds or who does the following
will taste
the taste of iman because iman has a
taste
which the people can find in themselves,
but not through the physical
qualities,
through through their hearts.
Whoever is happy and pleased with Allah as
his lord
and, Muhammad as
his prophet and Islam as his religion, he
shall find the taste of iman in himself.
How can we achieve that? First of all,
by studying, understanding,
and pondering
about the names and attributes of Allah
Secondly, by pondering and understanding
the greatness of our religion, and this should
be done often
so that the people understand
how great and beautiful and precise
and merciful and organized our religion is.
It's extremely important so that we do not
become like camels
who carry
the water above ourselves,
and we ourselves are dying of thirst,
meaning that we have this greatest religion and
the greatest path.
And,
we, by not appreciating it and not realizing
it, actually thinking that we don't have anything
and our religion is not correct. No. We
must always understand and try to study Islam
to understand the greatness of our religion
so that anything other than that, we will
understand that it's not doesn't even come close.
Thirdly, we must study the life and the
biography of the prophet
and those factors that prove
that he he truly was,
a prophet of Allah
sent to mankind.
And there are a lot of doubtful matters
being,
directed
to disproving
that the prophet
was really a prophet of Allah and sent
by Allah. And we have more than a
1,000 proofs
to show that Muhammad alayhi salaam was truly
sent by Allah, and he truly was a
messenger and prophet of Allah. So this is
extremely important for us before anyone else and
then for our families to actually take time
and study this.
And the 3rd,
way to actually
fight this is to know the correct belief
and to actually
implant it in our families and our children,
especially the following topics to do with our
belief.
These topics, if they are not correctly taught
and understood,
then,
the people will not be able to actually
believe in their own religion properly.
First of all, the belief in the Rububiyah,
the lordship of
Allah. Those proofs from the Quran and sunnah
and logical proofs that show that that Allah
truly exists
and that He is the Lord of everything.
Secondly,
things to do with the unseen.
Thirdly, to do with the qadr, with predestination,
and how to reply to those
people who try to make the person doubt
that Allah predestined everything and why.
Fourthly,
the wisdom behind
the actions of Allah
and what he says to do and what
he says not to do.
Because, the majority of the doubts that people
bring and the atheists bring to the, Muslim
youth, they come through Qadr and,
the
wisdom behind what Allah does.
Then next, we have the relationship
between our intellect
and what Allah has told us in his
book and the sunnah.
So therefore, this is the job of the
imam of the mosque and the
student of knowledge
and the khatib, the person doing the khutbah,
and the father and the mother,
to be able to actually themselves know the
answers
and the correct belief in these issues and
to answer the doubtful matters
in a satisfactory
manner.
Also, a 4th factor is that we must
instill in our children
respect for the proofs of our religion
that come from the Quran and the Sunnah.
So we must instill that respect,
towards the Quran, and when it is recited,
we must say to them, listen. This is
the speech of Allah. And when the hadith
of the prophet
is read, we must also instill respect
to the hadith and the statements and actions
of the prophet
in our children. And if we manage to
do that, then it will be one of
the greatest factors
that will protect us and them from deviation.
Also, the 5th factor is that we must
be able
to constantly,
follow them and know what they get up
to in terms of Internet usage
and the websites that they go to, whether
they, feel it and know it or not.
This is our responsibility
in front of Allah and we must not
run away from it so that we can
save ourselves and our families
from this.
Now the 6th factor is that we must
follow proper Islamic guidelines in dealing with doubtful
matters. We must instill in our families
that,
doubtful matters which we call in Arabic or,
They are infectious diseases. They're extremely dangerous.
The person must not,
feel too overconfident
to actually,
expose themselves to these doubtful matters because the
scholars say that the hearts are weak and
the doubts are very strong.
Therefore, one of the,
strongest,
reasons,
for the Muslim youth
in following atheism and other ideologies
that go against Islam
is that they go to any website or
to any,
that they want to listen to any speaker,
for example, or any book, and they think
that they they can withstand
these arguments and they can counter them and
they feel overconfident
when in fact,
gradually
they go
on to these websites or they read these
books and they exposed themselves
to these individuals,
with time, they actually do not notice
how they,
leave them,
being affected
negatively and their religion being affected. So we
must teach our families that they must not
go on these websites
or books or individuals,
and they must listen to the truth and
the right things,
and they must not expose themselves to fitna
to try their religion and, make experiments with
their religion. The prophet
said that who exposes
himself to the fitna
or who runs after it, then it will
swallow him or it will affect him.
Therefore, it's very important for us to view
it correctly from the Islamic perspective.
So for example, if someone had,
a poison,
would they really want to drink it or
take it inside or ingest it,
thinking that they have actually an antidote?
What if the poison affects you before you
have any time to actually administer that antidote?
So therefore, it's extremely important
to, make ourselves aware of this and teach
it to our families.
And finally, the 7th factor is very important
as to remember Allah much because the one
who
actually inspires these people to spread atheism
and to defend it is the shaitan. And
We know from the nature of the shaitan
that if you remember Allah, he goes away.
And that's what we find in the Quran
and the sunnah as Allah described him as
someone who whispers
who runs away when Allah is mentioned. And
in the hadith, the prophet
said the same way, the human and the
the son of Adam, he can only protect
himself
with the remembrance of Allah. And in Sahih
Muslim, the prophet has said that the son
of Adam,
the shaitan, continues
to whisper to him until he says Allah
created everything,
then who created Allah? If we look at
the narrations that sheikh al Mahindra hammar has
mentioned in the first volume of the,
we find that there are 5 things that
must be done to counter
the,
this.
The first is to say I have believed
in Allah and his messengers.
The second to say that Allah,
is
one he's the one who whom everyone needs.
He did not give birth nor was he
born, and there is no one equal to
him. Thirdly,
to spit to your left three times.
Fourthly, to seek refuge with Allah from the
accursed Shaitan.
And, fifthly,
to actually stop thinking about this issue in,
totally,
and, therefore, the prophet
said if he follows these steps,
then that
will leave him.
And finally,
we would like to ask Allah to protect
all of us and our families from all
the fitan, the they, those that appear and
those that are hidden, and to make us
firm upon our religion and to make us
understand our religion and follow it.
And
I would like to thank the Sheikh for
coming all this
way, and giving us this beautiful lecture.