Adnan Rajeh – Knowledge- The Muslims Savior. – Celebrating Two Years of IDA
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AI: Transcript ©
Before I start on a new series,
I wanted to take a moment and talk
about what I believe
is the savior for the Muslim mumma.
I was brought up to believe this and
I truly believe it, and it is the
motivating force behind everything that I do
and I really have no doubts on the
importance of this one topic.
No matter how far back you go within
the
story of the Quran or the story of
creation itself, you will find that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala talks about this one topic with
some degree of depth, and he repeats it
subhanahu wa ta'ala in different ways.
And there is no book that I am
aware of that emphasizes
the importance of knowledge and critical thinking and
utilizing your intellect in a positive way as
the Quran does. I am not aware of
any book of scripture or otherwise
that spends so much time emphasizing the importance
of seeking knowledge,
of gaining knowledge,
of thinking critically about the world that you
live within, and using your intellectual
faculties in ways that will help improve your
life and the life of others. The Quran
talks about this everywhere. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
when he talks about creation, he calls himself
Al Rahman, the most compassionate. And the first
thing that he
attributes to himself in actions is Quran.
He taught the recitation.
He taught the the meanings
and the rulings and the ethics and values
and principles of the book of the Quran.
Then he says,
created the human being and then again,
He taught him how to articulate. He taught
him how to describe things, how to think
about, how to imagine something, and to describe
it with words. Just the only difference really
between us and any other mammal running around
on this planet.
But before creating the human being, he said,
Allahum al Quran.
How could you teach something when there's no
one yet to to learn it?
Unless Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is.
And this is the essence of who he
is. He is the omniscience and knowledge.
One of my teachers
used to say that the most beautiful thing
in Jannah in his in his mind, what
he looked forward to in Jannah, if Allah
granted him that and granted us that is
the unlimited
access to knowledge.
The unlimited access to the knowledge of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. We when you understand
the reality of our ignorance,
knowledge becomes that much more valuable and that
much more beautiful and intriguing.
What did Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala do first
with Adam? But the the moment Adam was
created, the manikah had a problem with him.
Why? Why are you creating him? What's the
point? Why does he have a why are
you creating a creature that has the option
to do wrong? Why are you creating the
crea a creature that has the option to
to to spill blood?
I told you
why why are you putting someone on the
on earth that is going to fill it
with corruption and spill blood?
And as as angels, we are in a
constant ongoing state of praising you and exalting
you and singing your praise. Why do you
need this create creature? Allah doesn't need anyone.
Why do why are you creating him? What
is the point? They couldn't see the reason
of why create someone that would have the
option to cause so much harm. So what
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala do?
When he taught Adam. And once he taught
Adam, he told him, come.
Tell me, describe these things. Give them names
and describe them for me.
They said, we we don't have the ability.
We don't have the intellectual faculties to do
this. We only know what you teach us.
The information that you put within us is
the information that we have. You didn't give
us in that that information, so we don't
have it.
So he told
tell
them. So Adam started to describe and articulate.
And they watched Adam, alaihi salam, learn.
They watched Adam
have the potential and ability to learn. They
saw him. They saw how Allah
describes certain things for him, and then how
Adam put it all together.
How Adam alayhi salam was able to draw
parallels
and to connect the dots and to and
to conclude things from information that was given
to him. They watched Adam alayhi salam's potential
for knowledge.
And when they saw Adam alayhi salam do
that,
that's when once he told them, when he
gave them when once they watched him do
this, this function that they didn't have the
ability the ability to do.
Did I not tell you that I know?
They they gave up. They submitted. Yes. Yes.
There's something there's something here that's different.
There's something about him that's different. Yes. There's
a potential for harm, but the potential for
the
potential for learning, for gaining knowledge, and what
that knowledge can do for him is beyond
what you could even imagine and they had
to and they and they witnessed it. And
once they witnessed it, they they they they
apologized.
They apologized. Yes. We we don't know. We
don't know what we're talking about.
We take it back. We we thought we
that is different. He is different. This creature
that you have created is very different.
The faculties that he has, the abilities that
you have put in him, the potential that
he carries is something we don't understand.
Subhanakala
They had no they had no response because
they observed Adam's ability to gain knowledge.
They saw Adam's ability to learn.
This has been the secret of why humanity
is,
why we are here, why Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala gave us this opportunity because you have
the ability to learn in ways that nothing
else can.
And if you decide not to,
then I don't know exactly what what we're
doing. If we decide not to learn, if
we decide that is not as valuable to
us as Allah made it valuable to us,
then I don't know what exactly we're here
to do on this planet. Then there is
something fundamentally missing.
The first words he would receive
in that cave in the middle of the
night was ikhara. Read.
He didn't know how to read the written
word
He didn't he didn't that wasn't something he
was educated doing growing up. So if you
gave him a text, he couldn't read the
words. He didn't know how the letters looked
like.
So he thought that what was that that's
what he was being asked to do. Ikhulah.
Read the he's like I I didn't I
I wasn't taught to do that unfortunately. Why?
Because he would grow up as an orphan
No one had time to teach him. He
had to work from the age of 8.
So he wasn't sent to to where the
kids of Quraysh were sent to learn to
read. So he didn't they never did throw
his life, alayhis salatu wa sallam. Why? So
that this word in the Quran would continue
to carry its eternal meaning.
If this word in the Quran meant to
read the written word,
then the prophet would have done the with
the first one to do it. But Iqla
means much more than that. Iqla means gain
knowledge. That's what it means in Arabic by
the way. If you're go if you're if
you are to go to the dictionary
and look up and start reading what the
what what they use the word for,
they almost never used it to to refer
to recitation of the written word. They use
for that.
Means that you are reading situations.
You are reading scenarios. You are reading history.
You are reading into things. It was the
reading of a specific event and not the
reading of the words that were written about
it.
Read.
Read what?
Twice he gives the command neither time that
he tell us what.
Read what? He doesn't say.
Just read in the name of the Lord
that created created the human being from
a cloud of blood.
Then read again, ikla. Like what? This time.
And your Lord is the most generous. Just
read. Just read.
Read what? Anything. Everything.
Anything and everything just read. Just do what
I'm explaining to you. Just learn. Just make
sure you spend you be a lifelong learner
and you will be fine.
If you read and if you learn, and
if this become the way that you carry
yourself throughout your life then
watch watch how generous your lord will be
with you. See what was going to happen
for you as a human being once you
learn.
The one who taught it with the pen.
The one who taught it taught the human
being that which he would never be able
to know otherwise.
This is the value and
this is the easiest
easiest topic to address when we talk about,
anything in Islam. Honestly, I I I require
no no prep for this at all.
Because I actually what I have to do
is I have to remove things. I won't
talk about this, I won't tell this story,
I won't go into that because then this
whole book will be 3 hours. It's the
easiest topic to explain is the importance and
significance of seeking knowledge.
By far, there is nothing that even comes
remotely close to it in the Quran. The
Quran talks about nothing negatively as it talks
about the concept of ignorance to the point
that all the that Allah's that talk calls
the era right before the prophecy of Muhammad
salallahu alaihi wa sallam. He calls it the
time of ignorance. He called it jahiliyah.
He that's what it's called. It's not called
shirkia, the time of shirk. No. He calls
it Jahiliya, time of ignorance. People were ignorant.
And then they were enlightened. And then they
were granted knowledge. And that is what made
the Sahaba special. It wasn't their numbers. It
wasn't the type of tanks that they were
riding. It wasn't amount of money that they
made. It wasn't how high the buildings that
they built.
It was the knowledge that they carried inside
them. It was the knowledge they had the
least of them. The least of the Sahaba
is more knowledgeable than anyone here. The least
of the Sahaba, they carried knowledge. They carried
knowledge that was applicable,
that was implementable,
that actually was something that touched their hearts
and allowed them to behave differently. It was
the knowledge
the prophet produced a knowledgeable group of human
beings.
You see, that's not in the best interest
of the status quo.
That's not in the best interest of of
those in control.
And in a well informed, well educated population
of people
is not what they're looking for.
That's not what the world people who are
empowered aren't looking for that. They don't want
you to be well informed, well educated,
critical thinkers. No. That would be too much
of a then you'll find out how they're
really treating you. Then you'll figure out how
corrupt they actually are.
Then you'll figure out how
oppressive they are and how little interest they
have, what little interest they have in you
as a human being and your well-being. If
you find that out, you won't sit around
anymore quietly. Acc
complicit with with with with what with what
is going on. You wouldn't you wouldn't do
it anymore because you know. So they don't
want that. They want you to be educated
just enough to run the machines.
Just to run the machines and to make
the excel sheets and to advance the whatever
whatever apps they need you. Whatever is they
want. Whatever it needs to keep the economy
running. Just smart enough for that. But not
smart enough to actually question
what's actually going on. Not well informed enough
to see things for what they are. A
lot of the Sahaba didn't have the, mechanical
knowledge that you do today. They didn't have
the medical knowledge that you have today. The
chemical or mathematical or physical knowledge that you
have today, but they had an understanding of
the world. They had an understanding of the
world and their role in it
that exceeds our understanding
by by light years.
He produced
a population of educated human beings
who understood why they were alive or well
spoken about it. You want things to change.
Do you want this ummah to remove itself
from
this very low point that it is in
it is in today?
If this is what you want, if you
are tired of the rhetoric that you hear
on TV and on social media, aulis or
media aulis. If you're tired of the complaining
imams on the manabir from things not working,
then I'm offering you the solution. The solution
is
It always has been and it always will
be. And there is no other solution aside
from Aside from people going back and learning
and learning all that which they need to
learn. Starting with the word of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And from the word of Allah,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala himself will point you
towards the sun and towards the moon and
the mountains and the rivers. He will point
you towards the human body. He will point
you towards economy. He will point you towards
sociology. He will tell you go learn those
things. Go learn them so you can improve
your life.
But without knowledge, there is zero hope. An
an uneducated
will do nothing,
will go absolutely
nowhere. Uneducated people, ignorant populations have no hope,
have no hope. The only hope they have
is if they educate themselves and we carry
we carry the beacon that the prophet left
with with us, which is nothing else but
knowledge.
The Quran is knowledge. The Quran only sees
value in knowledge and the Quran wants you
to continue to seek knowledge until the day
you die.
And then after you die, to continue to
ask and learn
on your journey upwards inshallah.
He says,
made by and a bunch of others
authentic generation.
The
one who follows a path in life where
they are on
an ongoing
basis and consist continuously
and consistently
seeking knowledge, Allah will ease for them a
pathway to Jannah.
Indeed, the angels will come and put their
wings on the ground to cushion the footstep
of the knowledge seeker out of happiness and
acceptance of what he is doing.
And indeed, the scholar or the person of
knowledge,
everything on earth is seeking forgiveness for this
person. Even the
even the whales in the ocean are asking
Allah to forgive them. Why? Because the because
the creatures are like, yes, this person figured
it out.
They're like, okay, yes, this person figured it
out. They figured out what's valuable.
They figured out that it was not money,
that it's not power, that it's not fame,
that it's not it is knowledge. They've this
person figured it out. As Malaika,
as mammals, as creatures, we don't have we
don't have access to knowledge. We don't have
the potential for knowledge that they do.
They wish they did but they don't. And
you do. And when they see you seeking
it, they're like, yes, this person figured it
out. So they make it so far for
you.
Indeed, the scholars are the inheritors
of the prophets. And the prophets left they
didn't leave a legacy of wealth.
But they left the leg the legacy that
they left their inheritance. They don't prophets when
they passed away, there's nothing left. There's no
money to to divide amongst people. There's no
pieces of land or buildings or a bank
account. There's nothing. What they left behind was
knowledge. That's their inheritance. That's what they left
you. For the one who goes and takes
that inheritance has taken
They they took something very, very valuable.
Brothers and sisters,
I honestly don't know how to emphasize this
point. I don't know who been in a
situation where there is something that is so
important and you have so much information about
it. You have so much to say about
it that you don't feel that there's anything
worth saying anymore about it. I don't know
how to bring this forward to you. I
don't. I whatever I say is not going
to be adequate. It's not gonna be enough.
It's not gonna be adequate. There's gonna be
something missing in it because I cannot emphasize
the importance of seeking knowledge. Making sure that
you're a lifelong learner and making sure that
your family is a lifelong learners, that they
are willing to learn and they're willing to
increase their knowledge of what Allah the sacred
knowledge that Allah has left us and every
other aspect of knowledge. There is no knowledge
that is evil, knowledge that is good. There's
no knowledge that is not worth learning, and
knowledge that is all knowledge is higher, but
the knowledge in the book of Allah
trumps all.
When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in his
book, that has to come first. And when
you learn that, and when that becomes a
part of who you are,
it just it changes things. This is how
the
ummah has changed.
When you go to the Quran, you find
Allah using a phrase. I wanna just share
this phrase with you at the end of
the Khutbah. He says when he talks about,
Musa, he says,
And he talks about Yusuf and other stories.
And then he talks about
All throughout the Quran, you find
What are these two things? Is knowledge obviously
simple.
Is the ability to make decisions appropriately.
It's knowing how to that requires mentorship.
That requires suhba. Mu musahaba. That requires you
spending time with people who have experience. Seeing
how they live, seeing how they make the
decisions, seeing how they make choices in life,
and then doing that. But without without whether
that's how your youthful generation
actually achieves things. We will have a generation
of you of people who can make a
change if we are able to make sure
that they are knowledgeable, they have they know
what's right and what's wrong. They know what
works and what and they have. They have
the ability, they're empowered to make decisions because
they've had people to mentor them, walk them
through life, let them make the mistakes, and
then fix it for them so that they
have the confidence and the ability to make
decisions.
A generation
is not gonna go anywhere. A generation does
not have knowledge and does not have the
ability to make good choices is not gonna
go anywhere, and we're going to fail. And
if we are not focused on this point
that I don't know what we are focused
on that has any value to it.
If one in knowledge is a beautiful thing.
I know schools have made us hate it.
I hated school.
I hated every moment of school. From grade
1 to the end of my university, I
hated every second of it. I enjoyed none
of it.
Just putting it out there in case you
think, I hate but I did not hate
knowledge.
But I did not hate learning. I loved
to learn. I was taught to love to
learn, to be curious, to want to know
more. The way schools function unfortunately aren't always
the best. If you grew up in the
Middle East, you know what I'm talking about.
I didn't like the idea of learning with
someone carrying a stick over my head. Didn't
feel very authentic to me.
I didn't like to be forced to memorize
things I didn't see how they're gonna benefit
me in my life,
but I still loved learning.
They will the world will try and beat
out of you the love of knowledge.
I am telling you this because it's going
to the world is gonna try and beat
out of you the love of learning. Do
not allow it to do so. Continue to
love learning,
to continue to be curious,
ask questions, and read, and increase your knowledge,
and and make sure that learning is something
that it doesn't end. The idea that I
finished my studying, you're finished, you're studying. What
do you mean you're finished you're finished learning?
Are you insane? What do you mean you're
finished learning? The only reason that you're you
continue to learn until your brain stops working,
until your brain does not function anymore. And
you're under the ground, then you stand, you
say, you have no choice. But as long
as you're alive, you will continue to try
and learn. That is the only joy that
really matters in life. That's the only real
function for us as human beings. And why
wouldn't you? And what brings you closer to
Allah
is the is the secret behind life itself.
It's what the prophet left
us. It's the value of this deen. It's
to continue to learn. You continue to learn
it. You continue to learn everything in life
for as long as you're around.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has blessed us with
this place.
We've been running for around two and a
half years now.
At the end of, this month today actually,
we celebrate 2 years of the Imam Development
Academy. This started
in September of 2020
2,022.
And I wanted to share with you some
piece of information, but, of course,
why would
I why would I think otherwise?
Very naive of me to think that that
would work.
We have 10 faculty, alhamdulillah, to date. Most
of the amount of the city are a
part of our,
of this, of this academy. And those who
aren't are going to be, inshallah, part of
it as well. We've been running in 4
we have at least 4 locations in the
city that we run. Almost every night after
Maghrib,
at this masjid, there's a course that's being
offered.
The goal here is parallel learning. You don't
have to actually go and and stop whatever
you're doing. Stop your your high high school
or prem my primary school or university or
job to learn. You learn as you do
everything else. You take a course in the
evening and you come and you listen to
Islamic knowledge and you follow along and you
take an exam, you take a certificate, you
learn. And if you do that over a
couple of years, every semester, every couple of
months you take one, you'll find at the
end you actually have something worth
worth noting. I mean, knowledge is not you
can't we were taught that you have to
cram stuff, meaning you spend all year running
around playing and then the 2 nights or
3 nights or 4 nights or a week
before the exam, you you completely cut off
the world and you go and you said
that you don't learn anything like that. And
if you do learn things like that, which
you don't, you don't, you finish and you
forgot all about it and doesn't help you
at all, but you cannot learn Islam like
that for sure. Islam is not learn you
can't learn the knowledge of Allah subhanahu wa'ala
that we can't cram it. You have to
learn it slowly, consistently. You have to allow
it to sink in. You have to allow
yourself time to reflect upon it and contemplate
and enjoy and ask questions. That is how
you actually learn what Allah subhanahu wa'ala put
us here on this plan to learn. And
I wanted to share with you these ideas
because this is what we're trying to achieve.
A parallel learning is how most scholars of
Islam learn their deen. The scholars of Islam
did not years ago, many many centuries ago.
They didn't live off the.
They didn't live off some, yani,
salary paid by a by a sultan or
by a Khalifa. No. The scholars, they had
jobs. They had professions.
They were, merchants and businessmen and physicians.
All of the teachers that taught me in
Damascus, all of them had professions.
Some of them, either doctors or dentists or,
pharmacists or,
engineers or or or accountants. They all had
professions. They made they made a living. You
have to make a living. How do you
learn to stem? You don't have to completely
end your life to learn. You just have
to be someone who's able
of consistently picking up pieces of knowledge with
time. Here's what we're offering, yeah, within within
these courses. And we've offered over 40 courses
over the last 2 years. Over a 100
students have written exams and passed them over.
And 200 or or or 300 students have
actually attended these courses throughout the last 2
years. We do do them both in Arabic
and we both both in English, and they're
open. Registration is required. But even if you
don't want to actually write the exam, you're
welcome to come in and attend. And people
always come and ask me this tell tell
you,
we want to teach our we want you
nothing's running, there's no lesson. So we run
lesson and no one shows up. Some people
come and say, there's not enough Arabic in
the I run Arabic, courses, no one shows
up.
So I am starting to believe that some
parts of our community just like complaining for
the sake of complaining.
That there has to be something to complain
about. It can't be that things are working
well so we complain. This is being offered.
They are the the these courses don't use
the QR code because we're gonna we're gonna
send out the the courses for this, semester
in the WhatsApp group on Sunday. So you'll
have access to all the courses that are
out there. The ones that written done in
Arabic, the ones that are done in English,
and they run, within this center and sometimes
in other parts. So the center we're actually
even running with the MSA over at Western,
and we're planning each all to do the
same thing at Fanshawe.
This is what this ummah is going to
be saved by. The savior of our ummah
is.
It always has been. It's very simple. This
makes my life very easy. I don't have
to really think too lot too much about
what to do next. I know what to
do. Like, even in even in the midst
of the tornadoes that we're living through right
now. Even in the midst of this extremely
difficult time of ongoing death and ongoing
destruction and people suffering and and the holy
land being being being destroyed the way it
is by by these criminals. I know what
I'm here to do. I'm not being This
is not making it difficult for me to
focus. I know what my job is. My
job is to seek knowledge and to spread
knowledge and that's your job too. And if
we just do that long enough, we do
that consistently for a number of for for
a number of years, the
reality of our Muslim nation will change. Once
the reality of our Muslim nation changes, we
are capable of making change in the world
and this will stop. Sometimes we have to
think beyond our noses. Sometimes we have to
say maybe we can't see we can't seem
to stop this one problem that's happening. We
don't have enough push or pull. We don't
have enough weight. Fine. How do we make
sure we have that later on? It's
You make sure that you have an educated,
well informed Muslim generation.
Do that and then watch and then sit
back.
Alaihis salatu could afford to pass away.
He afford he could afford to pass away
when he did that. Do you ever think
of that? He wasn't around.
He wasn't around for Qadisi yaw yarmouk. He
wasn't there for those stuff. He didn't have
to be. He didn't need to be.
He prepared a generation who knew what to
do, who knew how to make what steps
to take, and what moves to make, and
where to go, and how to fix things.
He did
when you think about it, he wasn't there
to make sure it all happened the way
he no. No. He just made sure that
all of the knowledge
was spread. He just made sure he taught
everything that he made sure that his followers
had that they had
and then they were able to run things.
And we have to do the same thing
if we hope to see change in the
future of this nation of ours. If we
hope
not to have
what happened since October 7 till today occur
again. If we hope for that not to
happen again, then we need
we need to do things differently. And we
need to emphasize
knowledge. And we see need to see knowledge
as the most important. We need to make
sure our children see it that way. We
need to make sure that we encourage them
to learn and that people continue to learn
all of their lives.
And once we have that, we will have
a different reality altogether.
I hope you take my word on that
one.