Adnan Rashid – Muslim Indiana Jones

			Salam Alaikum everyone Adnan Rasheeda at Edmonton airport, I'm heading to Toronto. I just want to
request that every single one of you must subscribe to lifehack podcast YouTube channel, a lot of
amazing content is going to come up a series on Ottomans is already there. My podcast, which I did
with the brothers from Lifehacker is going to come up very soon. So watch this space and subscribe,
do not miss this opportunity to be exposed to amazing content on Islamic intellectual history, and
history of Islamic dynasties and all of that. So life hack is your channel subscribe. Slowly. No,
		

			no word of
		

			God Allah.
		

			Alright, Chef Siva, we got a very unique prop, especially
		

			in honor of you
		

			want to get a good I think, gotta get a I just, I need a I need a ship in
		

			history this is and this is that we got to get a nice picture with the ships like this. Wow, then
we're gonna have exploring history and all of this within those three centuries, and
		

			even though they are not part of the faith, that just indicates all this. Yes. So on that note,
		

			save some information. This was salatu salam ala Rasulillah salam alaikum warahmatullahi
wabarakatuhu. Welcome, everyone to another episode of The Life hub Podcast. Today we have a very
special guest with us and also an assistant guest as well, um, the law. So we have with us today,
Chef Adnan Rashid, which, you know, if you know how to use YouTube, then you're very familiar with a
shift, especially, I got so much feedback about his, you know, lessons on history. And you know, how
he goes into bring all these Islamic characters and events to life that we had to have shifted down
on the podcast. And then we also have with us, brother, Abdullah YouTube, as well. And actually,
		

			prior to this podcast, the conversations alone could have filmed another podcast. So we just
naturally organically went into conversation headfirst. So everything you're going to see is really
organic, because it's just a continuation of, you know, three brothers getting together and
discussing Islam, Islamic history, and just being passionate about it. And just like going like
going with the flow. So this podcast, we have some goals and objectives, but what you're seeing is
really untapped raw passion for Islam and Islamic history. And we have a special guest prop with us
here today. And with this actually device, it's usually use Shift, right? To look forward, correct,
		

			and to go see something that's forward or something in the future that you're going to encounter.
But you can't really do that, unless you know where you came from. And your history exactly correct.
Yes. What do you think? Is it important for us to know
		

			our Islamic history, where we came from? And what is your personal journey been in that discovery
process? Absolutely. Absolutely. I believe history is absolutely crucial to be able to see the
future in a better light, okay? Otherwise, you're blind. If you don't have history, if you don't
know your history, and if you don't know your history, you're completely blind to it, you're
ignorant. And if you are ignorant, then you don't have anything to look up to. Right, what we call
the precedent, okay? The Quran sets a precedent of the Stories of the Prophets. Allah tells us, we,
us being Muslims, we have the Quran as our guide, okay? It's the word of Allah Allah is the one who
		

			guides us through His Word. And when we read the Word of Allah subhanaw taala we see patterns we see
messages we see glimpses into the past, right? And the reason why Allah uses the past is to teach us
how to better predict the future and save yourself from pitfalls. Okay, pitfalls that people have
already gone through or fallen into in the past. So Allah tells us our dilemma shutdown regime so on
our MC refill our fun little k for Karna, aka bottle Maka Devi go in the line and see what happened
to those who came before you. Those who denied Allah subhanaw taala. They were very powerful. They
were very intelligent. They were very educated. They they had so much power that they
		

			Raised monuments like the pyramids, let's say, right? People are still amazed to this day. How did
they even build this is? When you look at Petra, when you go to a place like Petra in Jordan, what
do you see mountains, valleys upon valleys carved with bare hands? Why do I say bare hands? Because
they didn't have the drills we have today, right? You must have seen this guy. People work, you
know, on roads, they have these powerful drills. Sometimes they're trying to break the roads. And
they have these very powerful drills that break the crack the road, they didn't have any of that.
And Allah gives us specific examples of these people. Look at these people. They achieved all of
		

			this, right? But those achievements didn't do anything for them. Yes, right. They died unsuccessful,
because they took pride in those achievements. And that pride didn't really save them. Right? It
didn't make them happier. It didn't make them more successful. It didn't make them more content,
right? Because they kept the kept going. The Pharaohs will not work. They were they weren't
stopping. Okay, one after another. Each and every single Pharaoh was building his own legacy by
carving stones, resurrecting statues, building temples, and building palaces, or pyramids,
eventually as tombs, I guess they weren't stopping something. They lacked satisfaction for some
		

			reason. It is not the end. Yes. Okay. material progress, material success, technology, advancement
in, in creating towns, let's say or town planning, or building roads and hospitals, these things are
important. These are important outcomes of any successful civilization. But in Islam, what comes
before this success? Is the spiritual development of humans. Character building. Yes, making better
humans, right? You had Romans, let's say, very powerful, very powerful. But were they good human
beings? They were Greeks. Very powerful, very intelligent, highly learned. The carved Muslim
monuments, but were the moral characters. These are very important questions. We had Mongols,
		

			immensely powerful. Okay, very powerful. They carved a larger Empire then the Muslims had, because
they beat the Muslims in terms of land, land acquisition, right? But were they moral human beings?
So where does Islam come into this? Islam claims superiority based upon moral teachings, moral
values. So with Islam came upright moral human beings, who gave the world civilization we just
discussed. So we say the the current paradigm that people buy into is that to be successful
materially,
		

			you do it in spite of a moral foundation, whereas the Islamic approach is to be successful
materially, is the result of Yes. You know, morality, Islam, Eman. And so, for example, you
mentioned, you have, say, great infrastructure, nice roads, facilities, hospitals, and so forth. So
a person who comes at it from an amoral perspective, like, Okay, we want to achieve this for our
society, because that's going to make my citizens happy, that's going to, you know, improve my own
standing, whatever. And it's to show off to the world, look how bright and powerful and everything
that we are. So this is, you know, in spite of, and if you have to do a moral things, say in other
		

			countries to, you know, garnish the resources and to this, you know, extract the resources to make
that happen, you're going to do it. Whereas from Islam, it's a result of our, your, our Islam or
Eman in Assam, because if I'm a ruler, and I say, Listen,
		

			Islam tells me to do things with Hassan, I can't have as you know, katabi So think about, is there
some donkey, you know, getting tripped up in a road that because of me, I need to pay this because
it's an Amana? So it's like, I'm doing these material things, providing hospitals providing clothing
providing thing as a result of my morality, absolutely not in spite of my moral morality. 100%. So
look, the outcome of
		

			what we call the Western Enlightenment period, okay, in the 18th century, but one of the outcomes
was hedonism. Yes. Okay. pursuit of pleasure. How is the question pursuit of pleasure by following
material desires, right? Making yourself materialistically powerful
		

			All right. That's how you attain pleasure. In Islam. It is very different. It is pursuit of
happiness by by becoming a moral person, okay? Through worshiping Allah. So in Islam, the focus is
Allah. Why? Because Allah wants us to be moral people. And when we become moral people, by extension
as a consequence, we will become happier. Yes, like the Quran states, and that happiness definitely
constitutes material advancement. Young, what I gather from what you've just mentioned,
		

			is that the magnificence of Islamic history seems to be nestled within
		

			not just pragmatics of learning lessons to apply them for technology, technological development,
innovation, you know, products and so on so forth. Yes, you can drive those things. But what you are
gathering is that are getting at is that there is a psycho spiritual treasure in Islamic history of
certainly if we can tap into that perhaps we can not just be a better OMA pragmatically but we will
be a happier more fulfilled almost OMA that can be more connected to Allah subhanaw taala know its
purpose because as you just described, if you pursued pursued technology, your career studies
without that connection, that spiritual psycho spiritual connection Allah subhanaw taala then you
		

			are actually building your own shackles, your structure, you're building your own prison and you're
putting yourself in that prison. And you what you just described in terms of the Mongols that's what
they did. They built a magnificent prison for them to live in and dying and be destroyed it yes, we
have the roadmap, right? Because we have the Sunnah of Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, and we saw how
he won over the hearts not with brutality, and authority, you know, exercising authority, but think
about the his his greatest opponents during the time of Rosa Salem, how he dealt with them, and what
was the consequence he turned hearts, number one enemies to words, you're loving him. Yeah, then,
		

			and today, people who hated Prophet Muhammad SAW said him when they read his life, they become
Muslim. Absolutely. And even those staunchest of staunchest enemies, also encouraged us to tribes.
In Medina, they were loggerheads against each other, you know, they were they were, they were they
recently fought a war called boss, the famous war or battle among us, where many people were killed
from both sides, and they were inhabitants inhabitants of the same vicinity, they went to the
Prophet to arbitrate between them. And when the Prophet came to Medina, these very staunch enemies
became the strongest of friends, you know, they their hearts were so united, that, together they
		

			protected the progress of the Salah. Look, look how Islam transformed these people from being
staunch enemies to each other. Now they are united in one cause. So what you're saying is that it
seems that the transformation that they experienced through the dean, historically speaking, is, you
know, something that just opened up their hearts and their minds to read the true reality. Yes, and
that is that, you know, if we don't have the guidance of Islam with us, what we end up doing is
being a slave to everything that we create and to our own selves. But if we have Islam, and we have
the deen and we can even learn from our Islamic history to see how this was done by the sahaba. And
		

			by our righteous luminaries throughout history, then it can emancipate us Yes. And actually true by
being in the most honored state, most honor achievement you can get is to be a slave of the One who
created every thing that we know in reality. But beyond that, it seems that this actually gives you
true mastery over your own self. And anything that you create anything that these products that we
have around us, like you know, we have an iPhone with us, but most people the if they don't possess
the iPhone, the iPhone possesses them. That's right. And it seems that Subhanallah by unlocking this
connection to Islamic history, which can give us a more closer meaningful connection to our deen, it
		

			seems that this is a way for us to be emancipated from this cycle of * that's self
inflicted, from the dunya that we allow, we invite or being mesmerized or being affected by
influences foreign influences, that themselves are not very successful when we look at the grand
scheme of things, and so I almost wonder if you, you know, we'll start at nine if you were, you
know, a fisherman, okay. And you're, you have the shop and a big huge lake is behind you. And we
come to visit you and that lake happens to be the history of Islam. Okay, and we're going to go
fishing. So it seems that we've been just catching the same fish
		

			Every time where we're just looking at okay, what did Islamic history tell us about like, you know,
inventions and things like that? What are the fish that we haven't caught yet as a Muslim? What are
we missing? Absolutely amazing. That's that's a very good question and an important question, I
think our wisdom literature, okay. Our texts on morality for example, o'clock, okay, was a specific
genre within the civilization of Islam there were books written by scholars of Islam on manners, how
to conduct yourself, right? Allah tells us in the Quran in Ghana, Allahu Allah in the problems are
solving was sent upon the best of manners. What does that mean? Right? If he had the best of
		

			manners, how do we learn about his manners, right? We study him, and then study those books written
by scholars later on to highlight those manners in a more, I'm going to put a detailed
		

			way. So there are genres like o'clock, a dub literature, wisdom, poetry, I say, Okay, we have
neglected all of that. We are we are so affected by Western philosophies. Okay. We know all Western
philosophers, thinkers, points, amazing. No problem read them, there is a time to read them as well.
And there's a lot of wisdom they have shared, there is a lot of good in that as well. We as Muslims,
we are not bigots. Okay, we don't reject. We don't throw away the baby with the bathwater. We don't
believe in that kind of stuff, right? In fact, the principal,
		

			methodology McMinn. Okay, that principle is very much an Islamic principle, that wisdom is the last
property of a believer, you take it from wherever you find it, right. So we study philosophers,
thinkers from other civilizations, no problem. But before we do that, we need to study our own
scholars, our own lost literature is not lost. Actually, it's there. It's lying, is gathering dust.
Okay, it's lying around. We're not We're not discovering it. We're not even aware of it, that it's
there. Right? We need thinkers today. I mean, we were having this conversation earlier, that we have
too many doctors, too many engineers, too many accountants too many lawyers, because people are
		

			thinking of their stomachs. People are driven by their desire to pragmatic. Yeah, exactly the
pragmatic, so their desire to succeed, succeed in this life, and what is success to them? A good
job? A good vehicle, a car? Okay. And a good house, let's say a big spacious house with a swimming
pool in it. Right? The question is, let's say you have achieved all of that, then what have you
really achieved in life? Okay, versus what's so special, and the necessity for us? What do we need
as humans, what we, we need a limited amount of food, a limited amount of clothing, a limited amount
of space to live in, right? All of us we can achieve that if we work hard enough. That's not the
		

			end. That's not the purpose of our lives. The purpose of lives is to make this world a better place.
Okay? by worshipping Allah, right. So I believe Muslims are the only hope left for
		

			humanity, right, because all other systems have been tried, tested, they are failing. Okay, if
material success was to bring happiness, Sweden would have been the happiest country in the world.
Japanese people wouldn't be committing suicides, jungles, and forests. So all of these problems are
there because people feel empty, the souls are empty. They're not connected to the Creator. They
have lost the purpose of life. Right? So you know, all of this material success is not bringing
happiness people are looking for I'm excited to ask you this question. Because Marshall to work
late. You're an expert in history. And so I want to ask you, you like have your own almost to the
		

			bow of Islamic history? What are some of the things that you pull out in terms of that are almost
truths that are apparent if you kind of look at the whole thing as a whole, and that can benefit us
in unlocking our own selves, our own path forward in our daily life today? You know, there's almost
like Wonder moments, like epiphanies from the history of Islam. Yeah, like, you can go history and
gender or like, whatever you think would be kind of giving us some more insight and understanding,
when you spend time doing this. And if the brothers and sisters and myself listening to this, spend
time learning what Islamic history, there is something there there is a knowledge there that cannot
		

			be extracted from you know, your daily life. One of the lessons I have learned one of the most
powerful lessons I have learned from my study of history is that kindness never dies. An act of
kindness will never perish. It will live whether humanity survives or not.
		

			That act will live on. People will remember it and people will take lessons from it and they will
cherish it they will celebrate
		

			I can give you some examples. For example, one of the greatest things we know about photons ladina
up is that he recovered outputs for the Muslims from the Crusaders, right? But very few people know
him as a person, as a human being the norm as a general and has a kink. They know his history, they
know his legacy, generally speaking, Muslims are aware of what he did. But what was he like as a
human being? Okay? His acts of kindness are documented, and they will never be forgotten. That's why
he was so special as a human being. Likewise, we have another act of kindness or Marvin called power
of the lawn, walking the streets of Medina and patrolling and seeing whether people are in good
		

			condition. And they will a famine going on. And he found a woman with kids. And he helped the woman.
When the woman saw him, he asked the woman what is going on and she said, my kids are hungry, and I
will take over by the fall on the day of jasmine, not knowing that she's actually speaking to Omar,
the kale if the ruler of the Muslims, and ombre said to her, how does Omar know what's going on with
you? He said, he's our ruler. He should know our our condition. Omar runs back to Medina brings food
on his own show. I mean, he had a servant with him. He didn't let him carry that because he said,
It's my burden. I'll carry it on the Day of Judgment. So I carry it today. So he goes back, cooks
		

			the food for children himself, to an extent that his servant reports who is the reporter of this
incident, that when he was blowing into the fire, smoke was emerging from his bed, from the lawn,
and he cooked the food and gave it to the children. And then he waited for them to have the fill.
And they started to play happy. And then he departed from the family. Before he departed from a
family. The woman said, You should be our ruler, not Omar.
		

			And then he smiled. And he said, When you see armor, speak kindly with him, don't don't be harsh,
and didn't tell her that I am Orban. Hapa, the famous about what you've been condemning so far,
these acts of kindness, I believe are the cream of our civilization. And suddenly, it seems like
when you're telling me this, he was like, you can actually extract the truths and the lessons from
history. If you just even study history in general, if you have an Islamic lens on, then you will
know Okay, yeah, this was a good behavior. This is something that is praiseworthy. This is not
something that's praiseworthy, and it helps you actually categorize things as this is what we can
		

			take with us. This is something we can leave. Absolutely, absolutely. And we are we do we do justice
with people and civilizations, and we praise
		

			achievements, where they are moral, where they help humanity, where people have done great things in
the past. I mean, I'm a huge fan of certain people.
		

			I would say, I mean, if you teach them history, it's going to help them in life and they will take
inspiration and they will, the identity the attachment to Islam in the Muslim civilization will be
strengthened and they will feel
		

			they will feel as if they are part of a greater purpose. They are part of a greater family, a
greater heritage, a greater legacy. Right. And, and you will feel part of it though your children
will teach their children so it is an unbroken cycle.
		

			Salam Alaikum everyone Adnan Rashid here I just want to request that every single one of you must
subscribe to lifehack podcast YouTube channel, a lot of amazing content is going to come up a series
on Ottomans is already there. So watch this space and subscribe. Do not miss this opportunity to be
exposed to amazing content on Islamic intellectual history, and the history of Islamic dynasties and
all of that. So life hack is your channel subscribe slowly.