Adnan Rajeh – My Maxims #04
AI: Summary ©
The importance of educating, mentor, and empowering students to make a difference is emphasized, as students in their thirties often manipulate and pressured into change. The need for clarity and transparency in political climate is also emphasized, along with the importance of working with others and avoiding falsehood. The speaker discusses the need for reform to improve the situation and brings change to the Muslim community, as well as accepting the lack of human suffering and fixing the peace that is missing in Islam. unity is a healthy process and a toothless and clawless thing that cannot be solved by reform.AI: Transcript ©
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Brothers and sisters,
as we witness more and more campuses across
the world at this point, not even just
across North America,
we witness students
taking upon themselves the obligation
of speaking out against what they believe
is false, what they believe is oppression and
transgression,
and they are doing that in the form
of peaceful protests and encampments with on with
on the within their campuses.
It's it, for me, it
it strengthens a point that I've been talking
about for many years.
And I don't, unfortunately, right now have the
audience to make this point, but it's recorded
so maybe it'll it'll reach them anyways.
I spent the majority of the last 10
years speaking to university
students
whether it was on on campus or off
campus,
in different settings. And what I used to
always tell them is that you have all
of the ammo.
You are the ones who change the narratives
in the world.
Every group, every
government, every institution,
regardless whether it may governmental,
charitable or not,
require your blessing in order for things to
work. They don't realize people in their twenties,
they don't realize that the world works based
on what it is that they think is
reasonable, what they don't. But because of the
majority of them just don't care about anything
because you're 20 and you're young and you're
youthful and you just don't have time to
care. So you're you're easily manipulated.
So when and when you're manipulated
those who who want to keep the status
quo going, they they do. But if it
were to be somehow that this age group
decides that something is wrong and has to
change or something is right and has to
be, then those two things will occur
will occur regardless of how many other
regardless of what exists on the other camp,
how much money and how much how much
politics, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You
you have the strength and you have the
power. You always did. You just don't know.
People like us, we know that. I am
in the end of my thirties. It's I
I don't carry that anymore
because I don't have that I don't I
don't possess that degree of passion anymore.
Life beats it out of you.
You don't have that time anymore.
You have kids, you have a mortgage, you
have a house, and you have a job,
you have too many things you don't have,
but you're 20.
Yeah.
No wonder the prophet
took interest in that age group. Right?
Study his seal now study it after listening
to this and you understand why he cared
about Ali and Zubayr and Talha and Saeed
and why he cared about these people. Because
when you hear the stories like, we how
they were 13, why why would you even
speak to a 13 year old? Yeah. That's
that's why. Because it's people like that who
can change the world. It's people like that
who can force narratives.
It's people like that who can force the
hand of the oppressor to do something different.
It's people it's that age group. May Allah
grant them the guidance, and grant them the
clarity, and grant them the courage, and grant
them the commitment to do that which we
have failed to do for them.
And allow us to be
people who stand behind them and help them
and empower them and allow them to move
forward because that's the only way for this
to work. You understand that Sayidina Ali radiAllahu
anhu after he was asked to lie in
the bed of the prophet alayhi salatu wa
sallam that night, the night of hijrah,
Once he got rid of when he did
what he was asked to do, and he
gave back all of the Amanat that he
carried,
that he ran to Madinah.
He was 24. He ran to Medina.
You understand? Let me it's 400 kilometers.
All the narrations we have in all books
of Sila. He ran. He did not have
an animal of any sort to ride. He
had no way. He just ran.
Because because he loved him, and he wanted
to be with him. He believed in his
cause, and he was doing what he was
required to do. In the moment he didn't
have to do it anymore, he just
just ran. When he got there, he had
no shoes on his feet anymore, radiAllahu anhu.
Waqam from Allahu Wa Jalayhi
Salaam. Because he because he loved it. And
all of them were the same. You've studied
their lives, you find the same.
Because that age group just possesses something that
the rest of us don't.
If you try if you if we continue
if we continue to try and and put
a lid on them,
control them and suppress them and we don't
get anywhere,
The the key is you educate, you mentor,
you guide, you teach, you empower, and watch,
and sit back and watch. But you can't
sit back, but you can watch.
And
today is the 3rd day of the encampment
over at UWO.
Our students have decided that they're going to
stay there for as long as it takes
to get their demands met.
It's an obligation upon us as a community
to support to support our students
To support our students. They don't belong to
any political party of any sort.
And they're not demanding anything that's political. They're
demanding something that is humanitarian in nature. They're
asking for the world. They're asking for the
organization that is teaching them ethics and morals
and values to uphold those ethics, morals, and
values that they teach.
Is that unreasonable?
Is it unreasonable for you to demand the
teacher who who is preaching something to you
to practice that which they preach?
And to
so we must support them in something, I
think, worthy of, of all of us to
be,
inspired by by by that commitment and by
courage, inshallah.
Those weren't the 2 max that wasn't the
part of the maxims I want to share
with you. This series is based on a
number of maxims or self evident truths or
principles that I live by that I want
to make sure that those who listen to
me understand. So that you know where I'm
coming from, so we can meet halfway. Because
I believe that one of the one of
the problems we have in our community today
is that there's lack of clarity. The imams
are saying are speaking about this one thing
and the people are hearing something different and
then they're expecting something also completely different And
we're all just existing in our own little
silos with completely different expectations and really almost
no no common ground anymore. And I don't
know how else to fix this aside from
just explaining to you where I'm coming from.
You can listen to it. You can agree
with it. You can disagree with it. It
doesn't matter, but at least you know. And
maybe if we can find that common ground,
maybe then as a community, we can get
things done. Maybe we can stop complaining about
the exact same problems that the person before
me 15 years ago complained about, and the
person before him 15 years before that also
complained about maybe we can actually fix them.
So the the first point that I'm gonna
share with you today is the following.
Division is evil.
Within Islam, the concept dividing the ummah is
pure evil.
There is no good excuse for doing it.
There's no good reason for you to cause
more division within your ummah. Period.
This is a this is something that's not
my accent. This is the prophet, alayhi salatu
wa sallam. It's easy. The Quran
points it out time and time again. I
recite the verses to you every imam.
Right? And ends there. Continue the verses.
Forgive me. Continue. What did you say?
Hold on. In protection of yourselves, of your
existence,
to the rope that that that connects you
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's a figure
of speech. There's no actual rope.
But it's under you understand what it means
without meaning meaning to explain it to you.
And don't divide. And then he gives a
few points. And then again,
he says it again, don't be like those
who divided.
And they fought amongst themselves after they were
given clarifications.
The clarification was it
And
then they went and they divided.
They were only told to do 123 and
they divided.
When Musa Alaihi Salam came to Harun, and
he found the people worshiping worshiping an idol.
They were worshiping a golden calf.
We don't take time and think about what
he said here.
That I I felt like I didn't have
the ground to say anything. And if I
said anything, it was going to divide Bani
Israel. I didn't want you to come back
and find me the reason for the division
of Bani Israel. So I waited for you
to come back because they'll listen to you
and you can actually get things that I
can't. If I open my mouth, it's going
to divide them. I'm not I'm not I'm
not gonna carry that in front of God.
SubhanAllah.
This is the wording in the Quran. I
could you can't make this stuff up.
Indeed those who divided their ummah, you have
nothing to do with them. This ayah is
addressing the prophet, alayhis salatu wasalam. We're not
responsible for the division they caused.
They will return to Allah and Allah will
will talk to them about this, about that
which they did.
There's no good reason
for us to divide.
Saying that, that doesn't mean that you sit
around doing nothing because you're scared of division.
This doesn't mean that you're allowed to take
a stance
and say this is a stance, and if
you take a different stance then you're dividing.
Even though your stance is wrong. The lack
of collaboration is division.
The lack of willingness to collaborate and work
with others, that's division.
The lack of tolerance of other people's opinions,
that is division.
That is division. When when a masjid runs
in a certain way and other people come
asking for maybe some changes that suit them,
for the person who's in the position of
the status quo to say, no. You're causing
division by asking for something new. No. You're
causing division for lacking tolerance
and lacking open mindedness and lacking the ability
to see the needs of others.
So not everything
division is not just bringing something new. I
want to make that clear. If you have
things in a certain way, if someone comes
and starts poking that maybe that needs to
change, that someone is not necessarily causing division.
You using that card against them is division.
Saying no. Is this how it's always been?
It has to And if you're gonna change
that, then you're causing division. No. No. No.
No. Closed mindedness is one of the sources
of division. If you're in the position to
make changes that help people, and you're being
and it's being brought to your attention that
this way of of doing things or this
way of functioning is not healthy, and you
diffuse to change because that's how it's always
been,
then you're the cause of division.
You must, every single decision that you make,
think, will this cause division?
Will this cause tafarruq?
Was it will it cause the Ummah to
to lose its essence even more? You lose
its unity even more. You have to ask
yourself that question. Can I have could I
have done it in a way where that
wasn't going to happen?
What could I have done to keep the
unity of my community and the unity of
my ummah? That's what you have to ask.
And sometimes you have to make decisions
and division will occur because you made that
decision. It wasn't because you made it, it's
because other people made other decisions that caused
it.
But if everyone listening to me would take
that upon themselves,
then we would be in a different position.
Where we sacrifice to keep the unity,
where we bend backwards to keep the unity,
where we learn to work with those whom
we don't like or agree with, to keep
the unity,
because there's no good reason for division.
And I don't know how we will explain
ourselves in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We come with a divided ummah and a
divided and if we get the on its
on a larger scale is I
you all know, I can't we can't talk
about that. That's beyond our grasp. I I
can't change the reality of the Muslim world.
2,000,000,000 people, they're living all across the there's
a but at least within a small community
like this.
Is there is there a good reason for
division here? Maybe we start there. I like
I don't like people who talk world politics
when their backyard is a mess. I don't
like it. It bothers me. It really does.
It's one of my pet peeves. Like, I
can't stand it. I get really I I
walk away. When they start talking to me
about world politics or world politicians and our
backyard is filled with garbage.
The same garbage that we could if we
just put a little bit of effort, we
could clean it up so that our kids
the next generation can actually function, but we're
gonna sit down and talk about some ruler
somewhere that we have no way to affect
or influence in any manner.
But that which we can change, we're not
gonna talk about that.
Why? Because there's politics in our community. There's
no politics out there, just just in our
community.
You think the politics of, of of countries
out there is is less complicated than the
comp than than the complex political,
yeah, in the field of of London, Ontario?
This is pathetic.
It's pathetic as nothing.
There's just lack of understanding of the importance
of unity,
of bringing people together,
of wanting to bring of wanting this community
to be 1, to function as 1, to
feel as 1, to care for each and
every person as
as equals.
Not to care for one group's needs and
the other group doesn't matter because they are
from a different part of the world or
they don't speak Arabic or whatever. Whatever reason
we come up with.
Everyone has to be cared for equally in
order for this. If you don't, then you're
walking down a path of falsehood. And the
path of falsehood may be attractive for a
short period of time during your existence but
it ends with darkness
and it ends with failure,
and that's how it always ends.
And Haqq may be dark at the beginning,
but the light you'll see the light at
the end. It it it will change.
The second point I'm going to make with
for you and make me probably be be
talk about a little bit next week as
well.
Islam without reform
doesn't function.
I'll leave you with this phrase, and I
want you to think about it for a
while. Islam without the concept of reform in
it doesn't do anything.
It is toothless.
It's clawless.
It has no impact.
It doesn't change anything. It doesn't help anyone.
It doesn't it doesn't do anything. It's it's
it's meaningless if it doesn't have reform in
it. I'm sorry. These are heavy phrases. I
I'm aware of that. If you remove the
concept of Islam
from Islam, meaning Islam is no longer there
to see deficits, see problems, and and and
bring reform on a social level, ethical level,
financial level, political level. If Islam does not
have that edge, if we don't unsee Islam
as a tool
for us to bring reform for ourselves starting
on the level of my subconsciousness,
starting on the level of my heart and
my intentions,
and spreading to the level of how the
world is governed. If you don't see Islam
involved
in bringing reform to the world, I'm sorry.
So might as well not even have it.
There there's no point. It becomes an opioid.
It becomes something that it becomes it it's
it's it's it's a it's a car it's
a carcass. It doesn't do anything. Yeah. You
come to the Masjid. You make
The sheikh says something we all recite. We
laugh. We we shake our we walk out.
We go back to how things are. Then
we come back again and do the same
thing. Couple of times every day. After a
while, it becomes come couple times a week.
After a while, it becomes once a week.
After a while, it comes a couple couple
times a month, and then once a year,
and then it comes till you dies. Because
people don't want to come to a that
does not help them change their lives.
People who you come to the Masjid, you're
looking in that book for solutions for your
life. You're looking for change. You want to
be better. At least I hope so. You
want to be a better person. You don't
want to live the same way you're living.
You want to elevate your status in the
eyes of Allah
and you want to function better. And you
want that functionality
to improve not just for you, but for
other people. You want it to spread to
the community and then for it to spread
to the world, and that requires Islam to
have reform in it. That requires Islam to
have the ability to look at a mistake
and say, that's wrong, and that has to
change.
And yes,
with your mistake, but we have to work
on it because it needs to change. It
has to get better.
Acceptance of people does not mean acceptance of
status quo. It's not the same thing. The
different things. We accept people. Of course, we
do.
Regardless of who you are and what you're
doing.
This is your place. But why are you
coming here?
So that I celebrate everything you do. Why
are you that perfect?
Masha'Allah. Everything you do, you want to be
celebrated.
You're welcome so that you can start working
on being a better person.
We come here so that we can become
better.
So I can change, so I can identify
my mistakes, my shortcomings, my pitfalls, and I
can become better. And we do that as
a jama'ah because we all have our shortcomings.
So there's no need to judge one another
anyways. Because whatever shortcoming that you saw from
me, well, you have one that I just
didn't see from you, so there's no point.
And we work on becoming better people. If
you remove reform from Islam, if you remove
that edge,
then what's left of it? What's left of
any religion? What's left of any theology or
ideology or way of life? What's left? Nothing.
Honestly nothing.
It just becomes a social gathering
where we stroke each other's egos
and make each other feel a little bit
better about ourselves. Whether we're doing well or
not, whether we are adhering to the to
righteousness or not, whether we stand by Haqq
or not, whether we believe for justice or
not, whether we are people who are functioning
the way we should and living the lives
we should live or not.
And I don't see any value in that.
All the prophets were reformists.
They came
and they focused on the aspect of their
society that needed to change.
They didn't focus on some other aspect of
society that didn't need to change. Think about
it. When you read the story of Shoaib,
what's the focus there?
The focus every time you read his story
in the Quran.
He's talking about
the fact that financially they cheated in their
transactions.
He didn't ignore that. Say, well, that's that's
one bad thing, but they're very nice people.
They're very kind. They're always smiling. Let's focus
on that. Let's focus on keeping that going.
As they cheat.
As they cheat, need haram.
Yeah. But we can do that later. There's
only one problem.
That's all it needs.
You only need one problem
to sink a society if the problem is
left unchallenged and unchanged.
It goes for every story for the NBA.
They come, they see a problem, and then
they're like, nope. This has to change. And
their and and their congregates, the people will
say, can you just let this one go?
Just let this one go.
They came and told him,
We love what you're saying, but does it
doesn't do we have to change what we
do with our wealth?
Then he said, yeah. You have you have
to change.
So they said, yeah. No.
Sorry. It was really nice, by the way.
Everything it says those saw that they say
the same thing.
Hey. We used to like you, What is
this that you're telling us? Because the moment
you challenge something that's wrong, people like, no.
No. Hold on. Slow down. Slow down. It
was nice up till up till this moment.
Don't change anything
Islam without that peace goes nowhere, does nothing,
adds nothing to the world and it's not
useful for you. It's not useful for you
or for me or for this community.
You come to Islam as you are, but
then you accept Islam as it is.
And you learn from it and you reflect
and you project it on yourself and you
see what's missing and and then you focus
on the peace that is until you fix
it. That is something you do on a
personal level, that's something we do on a
communal level as well.
I'll talk about that a little bit more
inshallah in the next few weeks. I hope
that was a benefit to you.
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