Quranic Reflections – Surat Nuh – Surat Al-Ghashiyah
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Channel: Adnan Rajeh
Series: Adnan Rajeh - Ramadan 2024 - Quranic Reflections
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of understanding the requirements and actions required to achieve success in the church, including belief, behavior, and spirituality. They stress the need for spiritual and moral requirements, including belief, behavior, and spirituality. The importance of da absorption is emphasized, and the need for understanding and following rules of Islam is emphasized. The importance of learning from one's own experiences and understanding the natural rhythm of life is emphasized, as it is crucial to carry out a job. The importance of knowing one's audience and understanding one's needs is emphasized, and the need for help for mental health disorders and the importance of avoiding negative language is emphasized. The segment also touches on various topics such as family crisis, migration, and social security.AI Generated Transcript ©
I talked for a few minutes before Isha
Insha'Allah, so I try not to cut it
short like I did,
a few nights ago when, the Hikma brother
came and spoke.
Let's go to the voting piece. Here we
are.
So tonight's the 28th night of, of Ramadan.
It's almost it's almost completely over. There's almost
nothing left. May Allah grant us the, the
barakah and the blessings and the mercy and
the forgiveness and the pardoning and, of of
of this of this blessed month. May you
grant us, subhanahu wa ta'ala, the ability to
live this month year after year with barakah
and khair, success and prevalence.
However, it does turn out to be the
last month that you grant us, Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, the full reward of it. We,
are going to have our katam Mishal Atana
tomorrow night.
Today we'll recite from Surat Noor to a
little bit more than Surat Noorooj. I I
I adjusted that so it'll be a little
bit more. Probably go to Hashi or something.
Was trying to make give more citation for
tomorrow. He was fighting with me so I
just,
kinda overruled and went to left it up
there so he didn't know but we're gonna
push it a little bit farther.
So tomorrow we start from Surin Fajal.
Our our goal usually is that the final
night of, Telawiya is is short.
It's only 8 raka plus 3 utir. So
there's, like, 2 less raka in total. And,
they're much shorter because this day we're just
reciting these last couple of sur and then
the bulk of the night is, is the
hatma.
I don't I don't do it what I
used to. I don't take as much time
as I used to.
It's still gonna be a longer drive than
than a standard one, meaning the 10, 15
minutes that we usually do. The night will
be maybe
somewhere around
a little bit less than double that.
I used to make the mistake of going
much longer than that up to 45 minutes
and that did not, sit well with most
people. So
we've, since adjusted our our time our time
limits.
So
today we can we will complete,
from Qaf to Anas are 4 clusters of
surahs.
Each one
talks about something very distinct and different than
the other one.
Hadith establishes the the choices, the options, meaning
the identifying factors of who you are as
a as a Muslim, what it means to
be a Muslim, what what is it, what
choices you're making to allow that to be,
appropriate. Surah from Mujadila to tareem is organization
aspects. All fiqh. It's all jurisprudence. Just talks
about any,
laws and rules and issues of organizing society
and individual
based relationships and individual
community relationships and community community relations.
And talks
about
what it what requirements
there are for you to be the ambassador
an an ambassador of Islam. And it doesn't
it's not a choice. When the moment you
say you are. You know by nature, by
default you're going to represent the deen. So
Allah is
teaching us, okay you're going to perform dawah
whether you like it or not. So here's
the requirements. You need you need a certain
amount of
ethics, spirituality, and behavior.
So the the 4st that they talk about.
The surah that we start with today, Nuwah.
Nuwah and Jin give us 2 examples
of dawah. One
that worked
out Surah jinn and one that didn't.
Even though
the effort was very different. Surah Nannu Khali
Salaam did everything right.
He did absolutely everything right. He did it
for a long time right, and he still
didn't get the
outcome. The outcome was still not even remotely
close. The highest number that the scholars give
in terms of the number of people who
meet believed in him, Adihe Saddam, was 83.
Right? 100 of years he spent speaking to
people. The, the breakdown is very poor. Like,
he had a very it's every every decade
that one person would accept this salam with
him, basically. That's how it kind of
played out.
So it took a very, very long time.
Yeah. He he worked he did everything right.
Actually, the Surah goes into detail of how
how he did it really well. He didn't
work out. The jinn, on the other hand,
accept Islam. Not only they accept Islam, they
state their beliefs, they start work reforming their
community, they start work and the prophet didn't
even know he was doing dawah to them.
He didn't even know. He didn't know they
were listening. He was just praying at night
alaihis salatu wa sallam. He didn't actually mean
it.
So these two examples
in Dao just kind of serve as a
reminder that you can't really
you can't for sure you can't control the
outcomes and you won't always know whether it's
going to work out or not. Even though
you may do everything perfectly. Do it textbook
and check boxes everywhere. You did exactly what
needs to be done. It still may not
work out.
Actually there's a high likelihood that it won't.
You can't control that. You just do your
part. And that's what's with Nuez'udal Jin serve
as. 2 examples of dawah. 1 that didn't
work out despite everything going right, and one
that did work out despite there being almost
no effort in the whole issue. There was
no
actual intention of it.
They talk about what it is you're going
to need in order for this to work.
Aside from the characteristics that which are your
requirements.
You need certain requirements. You need the 'ilm
and ethics
and behaviors and spirituality.
Here subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about the fuel.
There are 2
things.
Is whatever you cover your body with and
you can cover your skin with.
And here he talks about the fuel that
you need in order for you to be
able to actually do this job. You're gonna
perform dawah, you need your salah, which is
what Suraj al Muzammban talks about. You need
your salah, you need your your relationship with
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. If you go through
this surah, he doesn't just talk about salah.
He talks about dhikr, and he talks about
what he's saying in the Quran, and he
talks about yani dua, and he talks he
talks about all of the spiritual
milestones or hallmarks of what Islam isn't, and
he points them out, subhanahu wa ta'ala, as
this is what you need. You you can't
perform this job. Like you won't be able
to carry this burden
or fulfill your purpose if you don't have
your salah. And the Surah Mu'toth there talks
about the ethical
or
the practical guidelines. Here's what you're
going to be teaching.
Here are the guidelines of the actual book
of teachings. Here's what you're going to learn.
Here's what you need in order to carry
this message and here's what what you're going
to be teaching them. The first four surahs
are what your personal requirements are from the
four disciplines of life, the four different basics
of life. Here's what you're going to need
to actually carry this down. You're going to
need a certain amount of spiritual fuel, and
here's what you're going to be carrying to
people in terms of the teachings and what
they are. And that's why they're the earliest
2 surahs in the Quran along with Ul
Kalam. Right. Those 3, Muslimi Wudathir plus Qalam,
these are the earliest, you know, surahs ever.
Aside from qqwab Bismarab, nothing comes before them.
Fatiha and most opinions came after them.
Fatiha and most opinions comes after these 3.
These 3 were upfront. The prophet is being
is being explained to him. Here.
Surud Al Kalam, here's your here's your ethical
requirements. This is what you're going to be
need to carry in your hearts. If you
don't have this, people won't listen to you.
Here's the fuel that's going to carry you
through Your salah and your dhikr and your
tasbih and your Quran. Here's what's gonna carry
you through. And here's what you're going to
be preaching to people. And
he was left out of his salah to
us salah. Right? For 6 months, he didn't
receive any other revelation,
and then later on, That's it. He received
nothing else. And to figure it out through
with those 5 surahs. But if you think
about it, they do carry
basically what's needed. Here's your fuel. Here's what
you're gonna be teaching. Alright. Fuel yourself and
go teach.
Make sure that you're connected to Allah subhanahu
wa'ala. Pray at night and then
go
and then go
of them. We will be coming to them
at some point in the Sunday halakhah that
we run. It won't be for another
any 8, 9 months or more, at least
for us to get there. But when we
do, it's totally worth your time to at
least listen to those 2 surahs because they're
so early. And they're the prophet of Allah
is also being called by
in
a fashion that refers to the first night.
Is what he did the first night. When
he came running down the mountain, he said
to his wife,
cover me. Cover me. Cover my body. Cover
my
clothing.
He was freezing alayhis salawat wa sallam. So
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would call him by
references of that night.
Oh, al Muzham. Oh, the one who called
to be covered. Oh, almudathirudu.
And then give him the teachings.
Beautiful Surahs. Qiyam,
wil insan, wal musalat
are examples of how dawah can work. Meaning
what you would actually do. If the musamal
is the fuel and mudathr is the,
is the practical practice that you're gonna bring
to people the practice that you're gonna bring
to people. These 3 surahs are examples of
them. Qiyamah
is dawah with intellect,
dawah that is balanced, that is talking that
is using using your
your comprehension, it's using your logic. That's why
the Surah is filled with that
It talks about the instincts and the and
the human insight. Surat Al Insan is dawah
through desire, through through pitching the reward. That's
why the majority the bulk of Surat Al
Insan talks about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's Jannah.
It's a beautiful surah. We love to
recite it in the Jummah morning. It's all
about it tells you of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala has hidden for you in terms of
reward and what's
there's always going to be some reference to
to punishment whenever there's reward and vice versa.
But Surat Al Insane, the bulk of the
surah is talking about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's
reward. Surat Al Musa is the opposite. It's
Dawah through fear. Now that's why the bulk
of the surah talks about punishment, and there's
a small Yeah. Any little At the end
there's a little piece
about, that talks about, your reward. And those
are 3 ways that you perform dawah. Either
you do it logically, which is so it's
qiyama,
which is the first way to go. You
speak to people, you speak to their minds
first,
or you do it via desire. You talk
about reward. You talk about what's waiting for
them. Talk about something you bring them optimism
of what's going to come later. Or you
talk about fear, you talk about punishment, you
talk about
that reverence
piece.
And all 3 are acceptable. They all require
within them a little bit of the others.
Meaning, Surat Al Qiyamah is not completely stripped
of any speech of punishment or reward. No,
it has a little bit of in it.
And Surat Al As Salah is not stripped
from any speech of of punishment or logic.
You have some of that in it too.
And sudda musannas is not stripped from any
speech of reward and logic. No. They all
have that in it, but dawah can be
done with the bulk of of things focused
in a certain direction.
I'm gonna tell you a story to understand
how this is important.
So I come from a very
harsh village.
The people there,
they they're farmers.
They someone does salaam to you, and he
pulls his hand a little bit. He'll he'll
scrape the skin off your hand.
These people, you know, they work all day
long. They work all day long with,
irrigation and with animals, and
they're very harsh people. We had a really
beautiful imam come to our,
our village in I think I wanna say
it's
2003
or something like that. He was quite young
still.
And he came, and his name his name
is Sheikh Marwan. He's Houri Abu Qasim. May
Allah preserve him. He's a beautiful jammie. He
taught me a lot. I I learned a
lot from him. He's one of my teachers
in the masha'i, and he taught me many
more things. And he was a bit young,
probably my age now, back then. Probably my
age. He came to this village and he
started and he was, Michelle, a very,
it it it was very energetic.
And he was trying to, you know, bring
more people to come to Masasih in Halod
Rus'in.
And his method on the mimbar, he was
a very he was a very sensitive soul,
very sensitive soul. And the bulk of his
work on the mibbar was the love of
the prophet
the love of
Sahaba, El Jannah.
Nothing.
Getting absolutely nothing out of people. Like, the
numbers in in in salawat were still very
low. The halakat that he was running were
not Yani. Even though he's Michelle is very
knowledgeable, he just wasn't he wasn't picking up.
And after a few months of doing this,
Yani, he he complained. He complained in a
in a small in a small kind of
setting with, myself and a few other people
in the village.
And I I didn't really like, Yani,
and he was complaining. I told him, can
I give you can I just give you
my take on it?
I was I and he's he said, yeah.
Sure. Go ahead.
This is my village. I know my people.
This is not gonna sell.
Yeah. You're doing is not gonna sell. Yeah.
I know how you feel about
him, but it's not gonna go anywhere. The
you're talking to to people who are, you
know, dealing with cows and and,
and
plowing the earth all day long under the
sun. This is not love is a word
that is a little bit, you know, far
fetched to them. They don't really comprehend it
emotionally. You want people to change, get on
the and just start talking jahannam talk. Just
just go down, like, just go down that
just just really drill it in. Just drill
it in. Just talk about punishment. Talk about
wrath and talk about Allah.
Don't cause he was always like, he would
always refer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
He's like, no, no. Get on
the He's like, I'm not I don't know
how to do that. I'm gonna try once.
If it doesn't work out, yeah, you didn't
lose anything. He gets on the minbar that
come on. He gets on the minbar and
he just goes, like,
he just goes rogue. Yeah. He just starts
telling telling
he it was all
yeah. He was very fearful. I remember the
I'll never forget this kulpa. It was a
kulpa that was just he was talking about
the prophet
all the warnings that he brought
in the arab of Jahannam.
Four lines in fajal the next morning.
Four lines in fajal. I remember standing in
the 3rd line, and he looks at me
at the fajal.
That's our people. You want them in. That's
it. So you have to figure out what
works. Not not everyone receives not the key
is not it's not a cookie cutter key.
It doesn't work not every form of dawah
works for everybody.
You can't you can't standardize dawah for every
human being. Everyone's a little bit different. Everyone
responds to things a little bit differently. The
3 surahs that we have here, qiyam and
sun, I give you the 3 ways. You
can you can speak logically. You can speak
through desire and reward. You can speak speak
through punishment. You have to have a little
bit of everything in each of these surahs
in your in your rhetoric. You can't you
can't completely remove the other 2, but you
can have the bulk focus on focused on
one thing based on people's capacity to respond,
based on their psychological
build and the and just what and and
their in the context that they live in.
That's why when you speak to people, you
have to know them. If you don't know
them, you shouldn't speak to them. Like, if
you don't know who you're speaking to, then
you should not be addressing them. This is
a big deal.
I find that a lot of, this is
lost a lot. It's lost a lot in
the way that we run Masai. You
bring someone, you fly someone in to start
talking to a group of people he doesn't
he has no he knows nothing about. Right?
And and it's okay if if if some
information is being provided. Like, if there's a
census in this in this, in the city
and we have actual data on on the
demographics of the people that we're speaking to,
their struggles, their socioeconomic status, their education status,
whether they're immigrants or not, whether they yeah.
What what type of mental health problems do
they struggle with? What type of substance abuse?
What type of crime levels? Like, knowing this
information, where they live, that's really important.
Cultural backgrounds, where they come from?
Speaking to it really makes a difference. Are
you speaking to a majority,
Yani,
background,
like Palestine Ordon?
Are you speaking to a majority of Kharij
background? Are you speaking to a majority of
the subcontinent? Are you speaking to people who
come from Muslim and Libya? Who are you
speaking to? It's not an issue of,
it's not racism.
It's knowing your audience so you know what
to say to them. Because if you if
you speak to them and and you don't
carry the key to their hearts, then you're
not gonna be able to open anything. Like,
dawah won't work.
That's why I knew alayhis salaam his story
even though that didn't work out for him
the way he wanted to, he made a
case. He had to make a case. That's
what we're gonna hear in Surat al Isha,
the case.
I spoke to them publicly, and I spoke
to them personally. I spoke to them secretly.
I spoke to them in groups alone. I
I tried everything. I I didn't here's my
narrative. I'll show you my narrative. So he
gives a
and he tells you what he told them.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, well, maybe you
didn't say the right thing. So he explains
what he said. He tried everything and people
wouldn't listen. Because if he didn't try everything,
then he's gonna be held accountable.
So when you speak about Islam with people,
you have to make sure that you're you're
you're recognizing
what their keys are and what actually meaningful
not everyone responds to the same thing you
respond to, especially if you're a parent or
if you're an older figure. You may respond
to certain things.
That there's certain aspect of Islam that moves
you. Like, if you hear a certain talk
about something specific, it moves you. Others other
aspects don't move you as much.
Make sure that when you're trying to speak
to people, you're assessing
what is it that they're interested in.
Now you maybe they're not interested in the
logic. They don't want they want they want
to hear about reward. Or maybe maybe the
opposite. They're not interested about reward and reward
and and and and punishment. They want to
hear, like, the actual arguments. Figure out what
the person in front of you needs, and
that's what those few Suras do. And they're
beautiful, and they're very much, you know, very
enjoyable to listen to.
Surah is where we start the, Yani, the
the final cluster of surahs in the Quran
from naba to is is divided into 4
groups of surahs.
It's divided into 4 groups. The first group
are the first three surahs, naba, nazi'al to
abasah, and they establish the three elements of
faith. Number 1, the narrative of God himself.
It's called the Naba, the news. Ever watch
the news on in Arabic? What do they
what do they call it? Nationality Al Amba.
Right? Nabah. It's a it's a piece of
news. So Surah Al Naba is is Allah
subhanahu wa'ala telling us his perspective of existence.
Everyone has a different philosophy of how they
understand creation, how they understand existence. Fine. Have
that. You wanna hear God's narrative?
You wanna hear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala how
he sees it?
It tells you Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's perspective
on everything. It's a really beautiful when you
think about it that way, is very much
more meaningful because very more meaningful when you
start seeing it that way. Allah because you
actually in Surah Nabi tells the story from
the beginning till the end
of how he sees it all. So that's
the first element of faith is knowing what
the narrative of the creator himself is. So
Ibn al Zayed tells us what the tool
and the obstacles are gonna be, which is
the same thing.
The tool that you'll use to achieve
the objective of the creator
that you heard in the first one, and
the obstacle that the challenge that you're gonna
find that can hold you back is the
same things, the nafs.
Talks about the nafs. That's what you find.
Will be talked about talked to through this
through this through this manner. And then so
what Abbas says is the ethical standard.
It's the ethical standard that the prophet alaihis
salatu wasalam was held to. Yeah. That we're
held to after him. And that those are
the three elements of faith. You have to
know what God wants. Have to be told
what the tools you're gonna use to get
there and what the obstacles you're gonna in
front of you and what ethical stand you
have to hold yourself to, and that's the
first three surahs. This this the group afterwards
from taklir basically to inch
to talk about the sanctity of choice,
of human freedom of choice.
It looks at your freedom of choice from
every angle. So the says it's sacred. It's
god given. Allah chose for you to choose.
Now he chose for you his his will
is for you to have will. That's his
will, subhanahu wa ta'ala. You have will because
that's his will.
Nothing else has will but you. You don't
have it outside of his will. You have
it because of his will. He willed for
you to so it's sacred. It's god given.
No one has the right to take away
from you your freedom of speech or freedom
of thought. Whether you agree with his family
or agree with something else, no one has
the right to tell you that because that's
the only that's sacred. That's god given. No
one has the right to take that away
from you.
Surat al Infitar talks about the fact that
it's going to be recorded.
Surat al Mufafiqeen talks about the fact it's
going to be you're going to be held
accountable for it. Certainly, Shahram tells you that
it's a very small margin of choice, like,
you don't actually get to choose a lot
of things, even though we are reluctant to
believe. The margin of choice is really small,
so make sure that you choose wisely and
that you choose based on knowledge or else
you're going to be held accountable. It's a
very small margin. Surat al Buruj tells you
that not doing anything is a choice as
well.
Sitting back and doing nothing is also a
choice.
Meaning, when you decide that you're not gonna
get involved, you made a choice similar to
to the choice of someone who got involved.
So you're gonna be you can't say it
wasn't my problem. Everything is your problem. Everything
that's happening around you is your problem. Sometimes
the right choice is not to get involved
because it's not your business, And sometimes it
is, and the right choice is to get
involved and figure out how to get involved.
But you can't live in the world in
a silo where you're you you can't you
can't live in you can't isolate yourself. You
can't.
It'd be nice if we could because that
way, the people who have advantages like ourselves
could just live in quietly. We don't have
to think about anything. We don't have to
care.
Mom, you want to when you're disadvantaged
you're disadvantaged,
you want everyone who has the ability to
to make a choice to make a choice
for you. You get really upset
when they don't.
People of Gaza will probably never ever forgive
the Muslim ummah ever,
and no one can honestly ever blame them.
You'll probably never ever see the concept of
the ummah and the jama'ah and they're ever
ever again similar to how how they saw
it maybe before this.
It'll be hard to blame this generation of
people for feeling that way or thinking that
way. Because when you're disadvantaged, when you're in
a difficult situation, you expect people who are
advantaged to speak out for you. And the
people who are advantaged, they feel, well, it's
not my problem. I didn't do this. I
didn't, you know, blah blah blah. And then
they don't get involved, and then people will
suffer. So it's going to be hard for
the future. I remember when I left Syria
and it was almost completely destroyed. Like, almost
everything that defined what Sham was once is
no longer.
And
I wrote a poem and there was a
piece of poetry that I said, and I
said
this is what I was saying.
Now we're addressing the Arab and the Muslims.
It's okay. You didn't listen to me. You
didn't hear us. You didn't listen to us.
You didn't help us when we needed help.
Honestly, I was listening to you when my
house was doing well.
I can't blame you for not listening and
hearing us out when we were struggling and
suffering and dying and being
displaced and removed and people and * and
children washing up on the shores of Greece.
No one yeah. I can't blame you for
not listening to us and and and responding
because when
when my house was Almir, when it was
doing well, I wasn't hearing either. I didn't
hear the the I wasn't listening to the
screams of the people in Palestine or Iraq
or other parts of the world. We didn't.
We just kinda let it happen. I just
sat there and watched, and it was not
my problem. We just focused. I think that
we've come to a point of maturity in
our ummah at this point that you can't
really afford to do that anymore. Yeah. You
can't really we can't afford to do that.
We can't afford to say it's not our
problem or,
you know, we'll we'll participate maybe 5, 10%
of our time because it's not really our
issue. It's it's, no. It's not. That's not
how it that's actually not how Islam is
is is designed.
You accept Islam. Now you carry the the
the just causes of all humanity and specifically
Muslims. And specifically those who care who share
your faith, you carry their just causes. You
live for that. And you and you advocate
continue to advocate and educate. You can need
to work towards the nusula rata until the
last moment of your life. And I'm telling
you that this
wheel of destruction
that has found its way across probably the
the majority
of the Islamic world will continue
to roll
and will continue to destroy and kill until
Muslims decide to stop it, Until people stop
being until we stop being selfish.
But as long as it's not, you know,
destroying my country now, I can afford just
to continue to focus on my
on my life and the little things I
wanna build. No one's saying not to build
your life and get married and have kids
and have a house. Actually, these are normal
human functions. Everyone's supposed to do this stuff.
But when you get distracted by it and
preoccupied, it becomes the only reason that you're
around and you're focusing just on that and
nothing else really matters. It's it's not that's
not Islamic. I I don't know how else
to say this, Yani, but it's just not
this is not what Islam is about. And
we all we're all guilty of that, Yani.
We're all guilty of that.
We didn't listen to each other when we
were in pain because it was not my
pain. It was your pain.
So I kinda it was your pain. It's
not mine. But But when it became my
pain, I suddenly just felt everyone should respond
to my pain. But then I remembered I
didn't respond to your pain when it wasn't
mine. So I feel a little bit hypocritical
to ask you to respond. So I quieted
down and stopped complaining.
For a while, I started to complain like,
why? How could you watch this? Do you
not see
the the, you know, gassing
full towns? I had a friend who was
in residency with me who woke up one
morning, and everyone he ever knew was dead.
Everyone he had ever met in his life
is dead.
Not his family, extended family, everyone. His whole
village was gone. There was no one left.
They were all dead. He lost his mind.
Yeah. He couldn't he didn't finish he he
lost his mind. He he lost the atom.
I don't know where where he ended up
going, but he couldn't he couldn't function anymore.
These things happened and I started to wonder
myself, why why did everyone just watch? And
then I remembered, well, I did the same
thing,
and now we're doing the same thing.
And it's until we come to a collective
decision that that's not okay. That's not okay.
We can't we can't sit around and watch
people suffer and struggle and people live under
persecution and oppression, whether they're Muslim or not,
by the way. I've actually the the,
the part of it of this where it's
only it's only Muslim causes that matter is
actually problematic as well. Like, it's problematic when
when we decide that only Muslims,
are worthy of of you standing for just
causes for them, then that's that's that's also
a that's also a double standard. That that's
not acceptable. Yeah. We we we refuse oppression,
you know, across the board. We refuse all
types of oppression. We stand by the oppressed
wherever the oppressed may be.
We stand by wherever the Haqq is who
doesn't matter who the Haqq is with, doesn't
matter who the Haqq is against. Even if
the Haqq even if the Haqq is in
the hands of of of those who who
don't share your faith or culture and the
is in the hands of people who do,
then you stand against them because this is
what you do as a Muslim.
And that's Sahani.
That's why I think this I believe if
you wanna learn a part of the Quran
that you wanna start start from Taqir to
Buruj. Start by learning this importance of your
choices,
the sanctity of your choices. The fact that
they are observed, that they're recorded, that they're
accountable,
that there's a very small margin and that
you're asked to take a lot of interest
in how you're gonna make these decisions and
that even when you decide to sit back
and witness something, that's a choice that you're
making and you're gonna be held accountable for
that too. And if we felt the sanctity
of choice to be that
heavy on upon our shoulders, I think we
would we would
behave a little bit differently. I believe in
my core that if we felt the sanctity
of our choices and we taught our children
that your choices matter,
don't bail out your children all the time.
Make sure that there are consequences for them
so that they understand that when they make
a choice,
there there are results and there are consequences
because if they don't, then they'll live through
life
feeling that they're always gonna be bailed out
and they'll never take life seriously enough and
the ul Qiyamah will be very disappointed
because you have to you have to accept
that you make choices and you're accountable. I'm
not saying
any debilitating consequences that ruin their lives, but
they have to understand that this is a
part of life so that they value their
choices
or else we can't trust them to make
choices in the future. We can't trust them
to make personal choices, and we for sure
cannot trust them to make communal
choices, which is what we need. We need
younger people who will take on themselves the
of the ummah, the the I mean, the
worry and the and and the burden of
this nation.
And that requires people who have the capacity
to make choices that are in the best
interest of that nation. You have to be
able to to trust them to do that.
Making choices and and and is a is
an art. It's a it's a skill set.
It takes time. You have to make a
lot of wrong choices before you start learning
how to make the right ones.
You have to make you have to have
that margin of that time to make mistakes,
but you start by explaining that your choice
is sacred. It's god given. Do not give
it up for anyone. Do not walk blindly
behind anybody. This is your choice. And know
that every aspect of your choice is being
recorded and you're gonna be held accountable for
it. So think long and hard and make
good choices because the margin of your choices
are very, very limited. Think about it. What
do you choose? What do you actually choose?
What do I actually choose from? How many
options?
Not that many, really. You know? They're there,
but it's not infinite.
I can't choose to fly.
I can't choose to be a president tomorrow
morning. It's not it's not an option for
me. I can make other choices. So the
margin of choice is actually not as wide
as we think it is, which makes it
even more sacred, the sultan shikha teaches. It's
very sacred because there's only a few of
them.
There's only a few things you can actually
choose from. Make sure you make the right
choices, and that's the second group of surahs
in Surat in Juz'amma. The 3rd group of
surahs starts with Surat Al Tariq, and it's
the toolkit. It's the stuff it's the tools
that you require or you need as a
Muslim to face life. And each surah is
a yeah. The surah gets smaller and smaller.
They just talk about a talk a topic.
And today, you'll probably be to a
inshaAllah, just make them a little bit shorter,
so
So we're gonna go to
additional to us here and Tawak talks about
tawakkul.
It talks about the importance of tawakkul and
explains it in a really beautiful way. Then,
inshallah, you can go back to the surah
summaries or go back to the tafsir of
the Eid on these surahs.
You can listen to the full breakdown. It's
it's totally worth your time. So talaqtalks about
the spiyeh, exaltation, exalting Allah These are tools.
These are what you'll use to deal with
the world. You need to have that understanding
of God tasbih.
It talks about mujahada,
talks about sabah, It talks about perseverance
and resilience and grit because you're gonna need
that.
You think what you're in now is is
hard? Have you has anyone told you about?
It's way harder.
Whatever you're at right now is does not
compare to what's coming next. So so persevere.
You'll be fine. What's coming next is way
worse. And that's kinda where we stop. Tomorrow,
inshallah, will be the final night, and I'll
I'll I'll continue explaining the rest of these
Surah inshallah ta'ala before before salah. But let's
get through maybe a few of them.
We're not gonna get too many, so I'll
just do it with it. So let's do
it with jinn number 9. I I got
carried away. Yeah.
Quickly, this is just to make my point
yet again. I made these points many times
in the past.
This is what the jinn are saying. The
jinn are saying the following.
We used to have the capacity
to sit in places where we could hear
whatever it is the Malayic we're talking about
from Amr al Samah.
From any of us, and whoever tries to
listen now,
he finds for himself a comment that will
take him out immediately.
That's what is a jinn are saying. So
that's what the Quran says very clearly. So
when someone comes to talk to you about
and all this other stuff, just go back
and read the Surah and read item number
9. Again,
I'm not saying it didn't exist. It existed
at some point.
It doesn't exist anymore.
Whoever tries to listen today,
Who would you trust? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
teaching or some
some some other person telling you that you're
diagnosed with this or that or something else?
I have talked about this topic, Yani,
over
10 times over the last maybe 12 months.
And I know that
it it rubs some people the wrong way.
Now everyone agrees with it, but I have
to be very clear with you.
The usage of
to
get people to behave in certain ways, to
get people to be scared of something, to
get people feel that they need something outside
of their own capacity,
and to get them to pay money sometimes
is very dangerous. And it's and it's superstition
that is not welcome within our deen.
Muslims were never superstitious people.
Is beautiful. You should do it all the
time. The Quran is there. That's why it's
there. You should read it every day. Form
on yourself and the people that you love
daily.
This idea of every time things going wrong
or when people struggle with something or suffer,
for us to continue to use the rhetoric
of hasad and ayn and jinn and have
people actually offering diagnoses.
Yeah. Which is a whole different level of,
Oh, perfect. There's a whole different problem. I
don't know how do you diagnose and how
do you diagnose something that has no how
do you diagnose something when you have no
actual
concrete
evidence for it? Based on what? Based on
what you offer a offer a diagnosis of
of, of of jinn?
What what did you do? I really want
to know. How did you figure this out?
What what what jihaz do you have at
oom that is able to pick up jinn
on the inside of a human being? What
blood test did you use? How are you
diagnosing this? And then what if you do
diagnose this somehow? Somehow, if you diagnose it,
where do you get the treatment plan from?
He never gave a treatment plan, alayhis salatu
as salam, for this. That doesn't exist. Alayhis
salaam recited Quran for people. He used and
told them do. That's it. We have nothing
else.
This results. This comes from a super this
is a superstition
coming from superstitious communities that lack proper Islamic
education. That's all it is. Because I don't
understand why the jinn Yeah. They just don't
leave us for a while and come take
care of the western people for for a
few years. Why do all the jinn seem
to exist in my village?
Why is, like, gin infested in my family
specifically? Everyone else seems to be fine, but
gin is everywhere here. Hasid doesn't seem to
affect anyone else. And if hasid was the
way we think it is, then the time
you the moment someone puts a, an Instagram
post and gets a couple of million,
any,
views, they should melt. They should melt. They
should they should melt and die immediately because
I'm sure out of a 1000000 people looked
at them, there has to be a couple
of people who have
but they seem to be fine.
But then everyone else I'm not saying it's
not fair. See, I don't know how to
explain this, you know, better than I'm already
explaining it. I'm not saying that this is
not
is there as well and you do and
how you protect yourself from this, you recite
for and upon yourself and you make smart
choices. You don't show off what you got
in front of people who don't, yeah, who
don't have what you have. And you don't
show off what you have in front of
people who don't necessarily wish the best for
you. So you'll be humble and you hold
back and Allah subhanahu wa nayama you use
it for khair, you don't use it to
show off. Stop doing those things. There'll be
way more less ain, less hasad,
less but the concept of jinn going into
inside of you, that's a whole different game
ballgame They're going to somehow find a way
inside of your your brain and and hold
on and start moving things the way they
want. That's that's no.
There are mental health disorders that require mental
health care professionals
to diagnose and work with, and we need
to get people help. We need to get
people help.
I I
I don't know how to you have to
be careful with this rhetoric,
and then you're depriving someone who's suffering from
appropriate health care because of a belief that
you have. That is not even that is
incorrect. That's not Islamic.
Islamic,
I would have defended. It's not. We don't
have evidence for any of this stuff. So
be very careful when you when you decide
to go to a shaykh because he's going
to diagnose seihir for you and you're going
to even the idea of going to someone
for rukiah.
No.
You bring someone to for me to do
rukiah. Why would I do rukiah for someone
I don't even know?
Who who loves this person more? Me or
you? Then you're better to do ruqya. It's
it's not about the the the pronunciation of
the verses. It's about the the the sincerity
and the love that exists within it. Perform
rukiah on your upon your children. If you
are going out of your house asking for
rukiah, it usually means there's a mental health
problem in your house that is under undiagnosed
and you have not looked into it before.
And it happens almost every week and it
really breaks my heart and bothers me. When
the people come and ask, oh, my my
daughter or my son, they need rakya. I
look at the kid. I know immediately this
kid is suffering. There's something going on. There's
something going on. The parents are blind. They
can't see it. It's hard to see sometimes
when something's right under you. It's been there
all the time. It's hard to see it
and I'm not saying that you're at fault
for not seeing it but you have to
you have to ask for the correct help.
And then when I offer mental health, I'm
like, let me let me get this person
to speak to a specialist, a psychologist, a
Muslim psychiatrist, someone who helped them out. I
get pushback. No. No. No. No. I'll go
to Sheikh Jarman, you know, I'll go to
Sheikh
I'll go to Sheikh. And all the Sheikh
will say the same thing. Yeah. I mean,
this is this is not but but they
don't want to. They keep on looking to
find someone who will diagnose and then do
what they want, but it doesn't fix this
person's problem. And this kid is and this
young person is suffering. And mental health issues
get worse the longer we keep them lingering
around. The longer we take to actually identify
them and and teach the person the skills
they're going to need to deal with them,
and sometimes they'll need medication as well.
The Quran takes away the ability for people
to make arguments. I just don't believe most
individuals read the Quran to begin with.
If you try to listen now this is
the jinn saying. If we try if we
try to figure out anything about the future,
about if you listen now,
he's taken out immediately.
It changes the whole
whole dynamic.
Alright.
We'll do one more and then we have
a, inshallah, guest to share a few words
with us, inshallah. Let's do,
let's do most of that 32. And then
jazam will do tomorrow and that way we
Okay.
So remember I talked to you about Surat
al Musadda. It does dawah. The bulk of
it is is through fear. It's through reminder
reminding us of just punishment.
For this, Rukun Musilaf, he talks about jennig,
talks about logic, talks about history, subhanahu wa
ta'ala. But the bulk of it is talking
about a
severe warning for those who turned their backs
on what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told them
was the truth and they knew was the
truth that they refused to accept. So he
talks about Jahannam subhanahu wa ta'ala for a
moment. He says, Inaha this is this is
the description. Tell me
Indeed, Jahannam throws a spark like a castle.
You know when you have a the old
fashioned lighters,
and they're empty and you're trying to you
got a spark.
What's a spark? Maybe a couple of centimeters.
He talks about jahnem. He says, inna tarmee.
Indeed Jahannam, when it throws a spark out,
it's like a it's like a it's like
a mountain. It's like a castle.
Castles back back then, by the way, were
not,
not not the European kind of skinny castles.
No. Arab castles were were long. Like, they
would they would have, like, walls that would
go on for for kilometers and kilometers,
and that would be that would be called
a castle. That's a castle. It's not just
a small kind of it's not a vertical
building. It's actually a long horizontal
walling that would that would keep people inside
safe and that would be the kasl.
So tell me,
it throws a spark. It's as big as
a castle. That's the spark of Jannam.
Then what does the flame look like?
Then what does the actual then what does
the the the pit look like
if that's the spark?
And subhanahu wa ta'ala often does that. He
doesn't wanna talk to you about the he
doesn't go into the details of the of
of of the essence and the and and
the center of it and the pit. No.
No. He'll just talk to you about a
few things, a few symptoms, a few stuff
that once you
listen to,
It's as if it's a caravan of of
yellow camels.
See, it's long. The the concept of it
is very long.
One shalom.
One spark.
This is bigger it's bigger than
bigger than this place.
That's that's a spark of jahannam. Now what
is jahannam itself?
And what are we in front of it?
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from
it. These are the nights that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala feed us from feeds us from
this punishment so we should turn to him
Yeah, brother.
Yes. Yes. Who's got from MRC who's gonna
share a few words with us. I'm always
I feel that it's it's our obligation as
a community to, to support the, our local
organizations that advocate for us, that work for
with us, that help, serve our community. And,
we had Hikma a few nights ago, and
and I'm and I'm glad and and and
very honored to have, MRC share a few
words. So without further
ado, I'll move to brother.
I'll just stay here. I feel like that
chair doesn't belong to me.
Everyone.
My name is, Elias Farooqi. I am the
sisters at the Muslim Wellness Network for providing
this opportunity,
share a little bit about the work that
we do,
but also talking about raising issue and awareness
on the issues,
that he just spoke about as well.
The, and I wanted this evening just share
a little bit about the critical role of
the Muslim Resource Center in supporting our community,
established in 2009. So for the last 15
years,
Muslim Resource Center is a not for profit,
social service and a family support agency,
whose mission is to provide support for individuals
and families with anything
that impacts,
their family safety and family well-being.
We could talk about the issues that we,
support, provide support for. Some of them, Sheikh
Adnan just touched upon it, but also he's
been touching upon throughout
this, the course of the last month. But
the issues we respond to are family crisis,
anything with migration issues, especially migration issues that
impact
individuals with, their integration process here,
migration issues that are pre migration, post migration,
people that are impacted by wars in different
parts of the world, but try to come
here and try to settle.
Those type of issues that impact our community,
we try to respond to those issues.
We also provide support to individuals,
with mental health supports and services,
parent and child conflict,
youth and adult conflict with the justice system,
and, overall, any social problems that are impacting
our community.
Before we talk about our services,
I want to talk a little bit about
our approach,
that we provide at the Muslim Resource Center.
The approach that we try to respond to
our community is use professional,
social services for our community or provide professional,
social services for our community, but use that
in a culturally meaningful way.
What we mean by culturally meaningful way is
we try to incorporate
the professional services with the individual and the
family's culture.
We take into the account
the strengths in the culture,
the, strengths in the background, and the traditions
of the culture. So we try to incorporate
those as part of the services that we
provide. Of course, we also try to incorporate,
our Islamic traditions into the responses that we
provide as well. How can we use the
Islamic traditions that we have? Is our faith
as a strength factor to responding
to the social needs of our community?
But we also, try to provide support from
a family base lens. Of course, the focus
of the services are is on the individual,
so we don't try to compromise the safety
and well-being of the individual, but we try
to keep the focus
on the lens of a family based approach
when we're responding to the needs of our
community as well.
And so when you talk about our our
services, they range So they range from prevention,
services
to early intervention,
and then, critical intervention as well. You all
right there? Alright. Sure.
So prevention is, that's where this is where
we focus on how can we aim to
prevent the escalation
of family and social issues.
We do this through
outreach.
We do that with community engagement. Like, this
is an opportunity to do a community engagement.
We do, public education.
So really, the focus is how can we
prevent and, the escalation of issues that impact
our family and our community as well?
The second area of our work is what
we call early intervention,
and then, the third area is critical intervention.
This is where we provide social support, counseling,
family based programming,
any coordination of supports. So if there are
supports that are available in the community, in
the larger community, whether it's Muslim professionals or
the mainstream,
we try to coordinate those supports and services,
but we make we try to make sure
those services are, again, culturally
and,
Islamically,
more meaningful our for our community.
So, I don't wanna take too long of
this time, but,
for all your, support. And, if you want
to learn more about our work, we're here
once a week on Fridays.
There's also follow us on our website, on
our social media. It's mrcssi.com.
And, thank you for all your time as
well.
us.
us.