Adnan Rajeh – Activism – Our Path Forward – Answering the Why
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
The series of activism, our path forward,
is what I'm going to be continuing with
inshallah till the end of this month. And
as we are at the beginning of the
history or lunar year,
I am not big on
going over incidents that occur every year and
and just repeating stories, but I do think
that the beginning of a year is a
time where you are granted a
for for a good reason or or for
the lack of a good reason. You're offered
an opportunity
to revise yourself or to review, to think
a little bit about what you've done throughout
this year, what you hope to do differently
in the new year. In this
in this great and sacred month that Allah
has the Hijri year start with. We are
granted the, the opportunity to contemplate a little
bit of of who we are and why
we are the way we are and where
we're going with our lives. And I think
with it within the series of active activism,
it's worthy in the midst of it to
just
slow down for a moment and try and
do that together.
And the verse I recited for you comes
right after the story of the people of
the cave, which is what I'm trying to
review for you, or I'm trying to talk
about activism through it. And after the the
story of Al Hakaf, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he he uses this verse, and say the
truth from your Lord.
Say that the truth is from your lord.
And then you can do whatever you want.
Those of you who have the will, have
the intention,
may they accept and may they find that
belief and may they find that certainty. And
those who don't, may they not.
Those who do not want to believe and
don't want to accept, may they not accept.
It doesn't matter. This is not you're not
strengthening anything. You're not doing this for the
benefit of someone else, which is what I
want to review with you at the beginning
of this year as we talk about activism.
Why is it that we do it? Why
am I talking about this? Forget about that.
Why am why are we even why do
we care about anything that's happening to other
people?
Forget about that. Why is it that we
obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Why am I
standing on this minbar? Why are you sitting
in this room? Why does any of this
matter? What's the point? What exactly is the
reason for people coming in every Friday and
sitting and having a person stand up and
and talk to them and and and share
share certain ideas. What's the point of all
that? What is the reason behind it? Why
do we do it? Now you can say
the answer is to please Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala commanded. I'm
asking why to that.
Why? Why are we why do we try
to please please Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala? Why?
Because of the punishment that that fades off
eventually.
Meaning, it fades away eventually. It it it
just it it doesn't stick with you forever.
You cannot motivate yourself through the fear of
punishment for the entirety of your life. It's
impossible. The the fear is a motivation that
is short lived. It's helpful when it's when
it's used appropriately, but it's short lived. It's
not a long term motivation. It's not a
good motive for for the rest of your
life. Then why do we do this?
Why does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ask us
to do these things that please him? We
accept and we understand that they please Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, but why do we do
them? What is the point? What is the
purpose?
This has to be something that is clear
to you on a on a subconscious
level, not just on the conscious level. You
have to internalize this these concepts. I'm going
to recite for you. I'm just going to
use the Quran. The Quran talks about this
at least 15, 20 times directly the rest
of the Quran is talking about it indirectly.
He says subhanahu wa ta'ala,
Indeed to you has come the sources of
insight from your Lord. Those of you who
gain insight from them, they do that to
benefit themselves.
You do it for yourself.
You do it to benefit yourself.
That's why you do anything within our deen.
You do it for you. I do it
for me. Don't fool yourself as I don't
as I should not fool mine.
Don't we don't fool ourselves and say, we
do what we do to benefit other people.
No. We do it to benefit ourselves. We
do this for us. I do this for
me.
I don't do it for you. I don't.
I do it for myself. It's very selfish.
It's just that's what Allah subhanahu commanded. He
said the only way to make it, you
have to serve others. So I am doing
that because I want to help myself. And
I ask you, what you do, you must
do it for yourself. And when you serve
others, you do it to help yourself.
So that we don't lie to one another.
There's no reason for me to act. That
I somehow I am elevating and I'm serving
other people for others. No. I'm serving other
people for me. Why are you doing it?
For others? Stop doing it for others. Do
it for yourself. Do it because Allah commanded
you to do it and when you do
it you benefit yourself.
Four times in the Quran Allah Subhanahu wa
Ta'ala uses the same phrase, those who gain
guidance,
they gain guide they gain guidance for the
benefit of themselves.
They do it for themselves.
It's for you. It's going to help you.
In this duniya, it's going to help you
in the. That's why you do it.
That's why you do it.
And those of you who seek tazkiyah for
themselves,
those of you who seek to purify their
souls they seek it and they achieve it
for themselves. They do it for the benefit
of themselves.
Those of you who strive they strive for
the benefit of themselves. Indeed, Allah
is not in need of anything
or anyone.
Twice in the Quran. Those of you who
do good deeds, they do good deeds for
themselves.
They do it for themselves.
We gave indeed Luqman wisdom.
And those of you who are grateful, they
are grateful. They show gratitude for themselves
for themselves.
When you give, you give for yourself.
When you take money out of your pocket
and you give, you take it out and
you give yourself.
You're giving
yourself. You're not giving anyone else.
When you show excellence in your life, you
show excellence for yourself.
You need more.
Is what the Quran is saying.
Time and time again, the Quran will repeat.
What you do, you do for yourself.
No you no one owes you for anything
that you do.
No one owes you for even when you
do something that is selfless. Even when you're
doing something for the sake of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, no one owes you anything. You
are doing this for yourself.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is going to reward
you time an amplified amount for what you
did even though what you did did not
help him did not offer anything to him
he did not benefit from it in any
way subhanahu wa ta'ala he is giving it
to you for free. He is telling you
do something that does not help me and
I will reward you for it way more
than what you deserve.
How is it that I'm going to feel
that I deserve anything for anything that I
do? How can I feel deserving for anything
that I do?
It's all for me.
You become an activist. You live your life
for the sake of Allah. You do that
for yourself to say, give yourself,
to take care of yourself, to make sure
that
you make it. That's why you do it.
There is no other reason.
If anyone has told you to do it
for another reason, they lied to you. Fix
it in your own brain. No. No. You
do it for yourself.
You give sadaqah, you give it for yourself.
You you spread knowledge, you spread it for
yourself.
You know? You help build a community, you
build it for yourself. You take care of
someone who needs to be taken care of,
you're taking care of them for yourself. You
do it for yourself. That's why you do
it. And when it and and it works
the opposite way, it works the opposite way
as well.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses the same the
same language in the opposite way.
And they only misguide themselves.
And people they only oppress themselves.
And the person who oversteps
the boundaries of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, they
are oppressing themselves.
This theme
is one of the most clear in the
entirety of the book of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
And that's why we talk about these things.
The reason I point out to you the
importance of living for something beyond yourself is
so that you actually serve yourself.
When the world around you, when you're living
in a world that is focused
on the individual.
Right? When we're living in the in the
West, there's a there's a strong focus on
individuality,
on the individual, on the happiness of the
individual and what the individual wants. I am
not against that.
So some people say, no. We have to
get rid of the no. I I I
say strengthen it. I say, actually, increase the
focus on the individual.
Because if you truly understand what's best for
you and you focus on your on the
individuality
of yourself then you will figure out that
in order for you to make it to
Jannah, you have to order which is the
most individualistic,
most selfish need, most selfish hope and desire
is to make it to Jannah. There's nothing
that actually
trumps that in selfishness.
If you are truly individualistic in the way
you see the world and you wanna take
care of yourself only, then you'll realize that
this dunya is way too short and whatever
is in it is not worth anything. And
what you really want to do is to
make sure that your makayama, you are taken
care of. You're in the highest status. You'll
make it there. And if you become interested
in that, if that becomes your focus, if
you're individualistic enough to want to make sure
you make it to Jannah, then you find
out that the only way you do that
is by following the guidance of Allah. And
the guidance of Allah says that you must
live in this duniya in the service of
other people.
That the only way you're going to make
it when he explains this to you, that
the only way you're going to make it
to my jannah is if you live your
life now in the service of other
people. So when you serve other people, you're
not serving them because somehow you don't care
about yourself. No. No. You care about yourself
and no one told you not to. And
Islam is not interested in saying that you
should, you know, be be selfless. No. No.
Be selfless in dunya.
Be selfless in dunya so that you can
make it selflessly to the highest status on
the day of judgment close to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. That's why you do it.
It's like instead of
for you to achieve the ultimate selfish goal,
you have to walk a path of selflessness
first.
That's how he designed this story, Subhanahu wa
ta'ala. In order for you to enjoy the
fruits
that are completely and entirely selfish,
that will take care of you and the
people that you love the most. You must
walk a path in this life that is
selfless in nature.
But don't kid
yourself and don't lose track of why you
do what you do. We do it because
we want we want something for ourselves and
that's okay. You are you and I instinctively
don't have the ability
not to want
things for ourselves selfishly. We don't have the
ability.
Trying to do that is a waste of
time.
You and I are designed or created in
a way where we are selfish by nature.
There is no way around that. It's impossible
to change. It's a part of our instincts.
It's a part of who we are. You
try ruining that, you become lifeless. People who
don't want anything for themselves at all are
people who walk around who have no ego,
have no under they have no understanding of
things, and they just they're not alive, really.
People who go through horrible trauma end up
like that. If you run into someone who's
in shock of trauma,
they used to call it shell shock back
in the day. Yeah. They just don't they'll
do whatever you tell them to do, they'll
do. They just they don't know anymore. They've
lost the sense of self, and they don't
they're not really alive.
If you're alive and you are thinking and
you are wanting, then you are selfish.
It's just are you able to target that
selfishness in the right direction?
Am I able to take my selfishness and
just put it on the day of judgment?
Am I able to do that? In dunya
it doesn't matter.
What do you want from dunya?
Take
The prophet alaihis salallahu alaihi wasallam did how
he lived his life. He would tell her,
you fatimah binti Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallamah.
You fatimah binti Muhammad salini minmalima shiiti uratik.
Ask me whatever you want from my wealth,
I give you.
But you have to save yourself from the
hellfire.
You need to focus on what's coming. I
can't save you from that. You have to
do that. Your selfishness has to be directed
in a way that saves you.
Comes and goes. It's it's worthless. It's it's
the fact that are you gonna make it
on the day of judgment?
There's an there's a story
on the day of Uhud.
And this is a story I think that
is worthy of of contemplation
where Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Haram,
1 of the Ansar, 1 of the great
Ansar, Suhaba, and an elderly man in his
seventies. He had a large family and a
lot of daughters. And one son, his son
is Jabir ibn Abdullah, the known Sahabi, the
the narrator of Hadith and the faqih and
the great teacher of Islam that lived many
years after the prophet
passed away.
The day Abuhar Jibr was young. He was
in his late teens.
And Abdulla was an elderly gentleman, and Jabir
was preparing himself to go out for the
battle as it made sense for him to
do as being the the son and the
father to stay his elderly, stay home with
his daughters, and and he found his father
also dressing up reading. They can't both go
because there would be no maharam left for
the sisters that were that are left behind.
So they started to argue who's going to
go, who's going to stay.
Jabez is like, that's okay. You can stay.
I'll go. Nabla said, no. It's alright. You
can stay. And after a while, they figured
out that they both want to go, and
they're both actually standing their ground, so they
flipped a coin.
They flipped a coin and turned out for
Abullah.
So Jairus is in tears because he's missing
out. He's not with the prophet
alayhis salatu wa sallam of the day. Oh,
and Abdullah is getting ready. He would turn
to his son and say the following. He
would say
Had it been anything aside from Jannah, I
would have given it to you.
Had it been anything, had had we been
arguing over anything aside from Jannah, it's immediately
yours. I don't want it. Whatever makes you
happier. But it's Jannah. I'm sorry. I have
to save myself. I I'm
it's Jannah.
And he and this is the understanding that
they had. This is how they understood things.
This is how they saw their lives.
They saw that they have to to save
themselves.
And if that means that they need to
do whatever they need to do, they'll do
it. Whatever it may be. Whatever it may
be.
The concept that the Quran is teaching is
that whatever you're doing, you're doing it to
save yourself. Do not forget that. It's in
it's in your best interest. It is benefiting
you in Dunia. It's going to benefit you
Yomul Qiyamah. And if you allow any other
narrative to actually overcome you, then you don't
understand.
We can't act like somehow we are selfless
for no reason. No. There has to be
a reason. There has to be a reward.
Some people are selfless and they're looking for
a dunya reward. They want the reputation.
They want to be seen as morally
superior. They want to be seen as elevating
over others because they do that.
It's impossible to do things in this life
where there's absolutely no reward. Sometimes you do
something good and you're hoping for a good
feeling in your heart. Your conscious is just
annoying. It's an annoying sound. You wanna shut
it up. So you do it so it
stops talking to you. I am telling you
do what you do so that you are
saved, Yom Elkayama. Just change the intention. At
the beginning of the hizidi year, take a
moment
and review and revise your intention of why
you do what you do. Make sure that
the reward you're looking for for whatever it
is that you offer, whatever it is that
you do for the sake of Allah, that
you do it with the intention that Allah
saves you on the day of judgment because
it's
and it's
for yourselves.
Do you realize that the prophet alaihis salatu
wa salam's
ambition was in the hereafter? It wasn't in
Dunya. In Dunya, he didn't care.
You couldn't get him angry alaihis salatu wassalam.
They they tried. People would try and get
him angry. People would try and push his
button to see if he had a button
to push, to see if you could provoke
him, if you could get him upset, if
you get him defensive, if you could say
something about him that would make him feel
less about himself and then fight back and
say something. They couldn't. And this and there
are stories upon stories in our sunnah of
people trying to do this to him, alayhis
salaam. But man coming up coming up and
saying to him bad things alayhis salaam and
and continuously
saying bad things until some of the sahaba
were ready to to punish him physically. And
the prophet, alayhi, salam, holds them back and
tells them, no. What you should do is
you should ask them to to ask in
a nicer way. It should remind me to
be a better person. This what he would
say alayhi salaahu alaihi salaam and this person
will continue to provoke and provoke and the
prophet alayhi salaahu alaihi salaam would not respond
in a bad way until finally the man
who was provoking says,
We have in our book that the more
you offend him, the more you mistreat him,
the more patient he becomes with you.
He passed away and his he had pawned
his shield that he used in war
to pull money and give it as a
as a as a loan to someone.
He pawned his shield. When he passed away
alaihis salatu wasallam he left absolutely nothing.
Nothing was no inheritance, nothing to divide. Do
you understand what that means for a 63
year old gentleman to pass away and leave
nothing?
Have you ever do you understand? No one
does that. Who does that?
Who passes away today and has nothing to
leave to people after they who does it?
Unless someone else someone who was who's wasted
all their wealth on something no one does
this. But he did this alayhis salatu wa
sallam because his interest in dunya was nothing
was 0. But then his only request from
us, the only thing he requested from us
salallahu alayhi wa sallam was what? He made
one request to his ummah. He asked them
for one thing, for himself, for himself. He
asked us to do a lot of things
for ourselves, but he asked us to do
one thing for himself, for him. What was
it that he asked? He said, when you
make dua for me. See,
he said Allah
has a status.
He
gives it to one person. I'm hoping to
be that one person. Can you make dua
for me? So after
every
That's all he asked for himself. He asked
for something in Akhira. He was focused on
akhirah because he was doing it for himself.
He didn't say no. I don't want akhirah.
You can take the higher status in in
that's not no. No. No. That's that's not
that's not right. Do that in dunya. Give
the front seat to someone. Sure. Give the
better seat. Give the better but in Aqira,
he said ask for me. I want you
to make dua for me that I get
the highest rank.
So don't be selfless around akhirah. No. It's
okay, Sheikh. You can take the the higher
level. I'll take no. No. Why are you
doing that? Who told you that's okay? That's
not okay. That's not how he lived his
life alaihis salatu wa sallam that's not how
we're supposed to think about it.
Our focus is on being the we were
trying to achieve the highest ranking in Jannah.
We are trying in our life that we're
supposed to be doing. That's why the prophet
alaihi wasalam told us
If you ask Allah, ask him for
the highest point. Don't ask, roll me in
to the door. Just put me aside. I'm
okay. No. Don't do that.
You can say that Yo Mercieama when you
have nothing left to offer.
You can say that Yo Mercieama when your
deeds aren't being recorded anymore, but right now
they're still being recorded.
So you can, you can you can gain
insight for yourself.
You can give for yourself.
You can strive for yourself. You can gain
guidance for yourself.
You can be grateful for yourself, you can
offer your time for yourself as the Quran
said so you can make it to the
highest moment the prophet alaihis salawahu alaihi wasalam
taught us.
Even though the the beginning of the Hijri
year does not actually,
correlate with when the prophet
performed Hijri because he performed Hijri in Rabi'il
Awal in the month he was born. Alayhis
salatu wasalam. But since the beginning of the
year always reminds us of that and within
this month we have the day of Ashura
that many scholars see it to be sunnah
to fast. Within this month when you if
you take those three concepts, if you take
the hijrah of the prophet alaihis salatu wasalam,
the fact that he left his country for
Islam, The fact that he left his home
for Islam to never return to it. They
they actually
they they they tore down his home during
his time in Medina. When he came back
for Hajji, he couldn't there's no home for
him. The home that he grew up in.
The home that he raised his family and
the home he got to marry to Khadija
and wasn't there anymore.
You understand the heartbreak of that? To return
and find that they tore down your home,
built something else, other people are living in
it.
Yeah. Some people here do.
Yeah. Some people here do. It's still happening.
They're still
tearing homes down, kicking people out, building other
homes. People are living in it, and then
that person who was just living there last
week is not living there anymore. Whether it's
last week, last month, last decade or last
century, it makes no difference. Makes no difference.
The prophet alaihis salaam had to go through
that. That is the ultimate.
That's ultimate
activism. Willing to give your cause everything that
you have even if that means you're gonna
lose your country, lose your home,
never to return. He did that alayhis salatu
wa salam. He did the hira.
He left his home. He left his country
and went and lived in a place where
he he didn't he didn't belong there. He
made it his own alahis salatu wa salam
and he and he made something beautiful, but
it wasn't his. He had to he had
to a lot of people here did that
already.
You've done that much. You've relocated for this.
Just make sure you continue the path as
he did alayhis salatu wasalam.
On the day of Ashura Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
saved Musa Alaihi Salam from Firaun.
The act of Musa Alaihi Salam was one
of the most courageous acts of activism in
the history of humankind.
We don't understand what Firaun was. You sit
here and you hear his name but you
don't comprehend what Firaun was. Maybe some of
you who lived in dictatorships,
if you came from places like Syria for
example or other countries where dictators exist.
Imagine a dictator. Imagine someone who has no
has no care for the for human life,
who doesn't care about your integrity or who
you are whatsoever, who's willing to enslave a
complete race of people and call himself God.
Imagine the person like that.
Musa alayhis salam was asked to go and
speak to him.
Musa didn't lie. He said, I'm scared. I'm
scared.
This is scary.
Bring me give me Harun. Here's Harun. We're
scared. We're both scared now.
It's not just Musa now. We're both scared.
How do we go speak to this guy?
It's not simple to go and speak Tifaraun,
it's not an easy thing. But he went
and he did it.
He went and he did it and that
led to a sequence of events that ended
with Musa alaihi salaam go walking through walking
through the Red Sea.
The day of Ashura is there for us
to remember that. It's for us to remember
as Sayidina Husayn when he stood up and
did the same thing and went through similarly
what his grandfather went through.
And when he thought when he saw with
his eyes what he thought to be what
he saw to be acts of oppression and
he decided that he was not going to
accept it on himself and that it was
not representing Islam, it was not representing the
legacy of his grandfather alaihis salatu wasalam he
also spoke out.
Within these days, there are memories of people
who sacrificed,
who gave what they had, who gave everything
that they had only for us to take
a step back and remind ourselves that that's
what we're required to do as well. We
are required to offer that which we have.
And remember why you're doing it too.
Remember why it is that you offer everything
you have. You don't do it for anyone
else.
Don't do it for your people. Don't do
it for your nation. Do it for yourself
so that you save yourself.
And as you do it for yourself, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will teach you something in
your heart that you will find out later.
When you do it like that, Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala will put in your heart something
that you will find difficult to articulate and
explain.
He'll put in your heart a certain degree
of love and a certain degree of closeness
and clarity that you will carry with you
for the rest of your life. But we
can't kid ourselves.
We are here today. You are in this
Masjid, and I'm in this Masjid because we
have to be, because I I want to
save myself.
You didn't come to listen to me. You
came to make sure that your jum'ah was
going to be accepted so that you can
save yourself. Continue to live like that,
but prioritize saving yourself. Don't don't do it
in a mediocre manner.
Don't if you're gonna try and save yourself,
really try.
Go the full 100 miles. Just go the
full
the full extent of the journey.
Don't stop halfway.
I hope that was a benefit to you.