Ali Ataie – Dawah 101 Do’s and Don’ts When Calling People to Islam
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AI: Transcript ©
My topic is how to make a dua
to non Muslims.
So something we have to understand initially is
that the word dua
means a call
or a summons or an invitation.
So an invitation can be rejected.
So this goes back to a principle that
we have in our religion,
that there is no compulsion in our religion.
I can't force you to believe in something.
I can't inject
iman into your heart. Right? I can force
you to do something, and, of course, I'll
never do that. Right? But I can't force
you to believe in something. Now what's interesting
is that
on the auspicious date of September 12th, a
few years ago,
the Pope with the Catholic church, he actually
quoted this verse.
Right.
In a speech he gave in Germany.
And he said that this verse,
is.
It's been abrogated
because it's a Meccan Ayah. It was revealed
in Mecca.
Right?
So what's interesting here is that the Catholics
believe that the pope is infallible in his
doctrine,
but he's just plain wrong here.
This verse is from what surah? Does anyone
know the name of the surah?
It's from Al Baqarah, which is a Madinan
Surah.
And then he said
that the prophet Muhammad did
not bring anything new.
Right? Do you guys remember the speech by
the pope?
You know, it's really interesting.
So he didn't bring anything new. What's interesting
about that comment
is that the dominant philosophy in theology in
the Roman Catholic church
is based on a text called the Sumo
Theologica
by a medieval Dominican monk
named Saint Thomas Aquinas.
And Saint Thomas Aquinas
was heavily influenced
by the likes of Abu Ali al Hussein,
Ibn Usina, Avicenna,
Abu Hamad al Ghazali, and many other Muslim
philosophers
and,
theologians.
You know, in the early days of the
Christians,
the look if you look at the 1st
few centuries during the time of the
early church fathers,
there was a church father named Tertullian of
Carthage.
And Tertullian was debating a pagan,
right, named Chelseus
about the trinity.
And they were going back and forth,
and
at the end, Tertullian said, I believe in
the Trinity because it is absurd.
That was his final
that was his final comment. It's absurd. That's
why I believe in it.
Now a 1000 years later, however, you have
Thomas Aquinas coming out and saying,
that there's a book of reason and a
book of Revelation,
that there's
and.
Where did he get that from?
You know?
He came out and said, there's 4 cardinal
virtues,
right, of and Adala and and Hikma.
So all of these types of things, he
acquired
from his contact
or his studies
indirectly from Muslim theologians and philosophers.
Rene Descartes,
who, is the father of Western
philosophy.
He's a Frenchman who lived in the 17th
century. He is a staunch defender of occasionalism,
of creationism,
defending God's omnipotence.
And he took that directly from the incoherence
of the philosophers
by Al Ghazali.
And he was a very devout Catholic.
So when the Pope says that the prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam did not bring anything
new,
Basically, he brought the Catholic church entire philosophy
and theological system.
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
So the Ulema say
that
half of dawah
is du'a,
is supplication.
Some say 9 tenths
of dua is du'a,
supplication.
And supplication, according to the hadith of Bukhari,
at du'a
that
supplication
is the essence of worship.
It's the bone marrow
of worship. The prophet
said in the hadith of Imam
That nothing is more honored in the sight
of God
than supplication.
So we have to learn how to
pour our hearts out to Allah
and earnestly
and sincerely seek for the guidance
of humanity because this is a prophetic concern.
When the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
was in a battle on the day of
Khuzwad Uhud, and there was blood coming from
his blessed face.
He was reportedly trying to keep the blood
from striking the earth,
and his companions asked him, why are you
doing that? And he said, because if one
drop of this blood should strike the earth,
then immediately
punishment will come upon
our enemies who are fighting us.
And then a short time later, they saw
him with his hands raised and he said,
God, guide my people
for they don't know. So the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, peace and blessings of god be
upon him,
was praying for his enemies even in the
thick of battle because of this prophetic concern.
He said,
He said that none of you truly believe
until he loves for his brother what he
loves for himself.
And the the
scholars of hadith have commented on this on
this hadith of the prophet, the statement of
the prophet,
and have said that the word brother in
this hadith doesn't simply mean
your brother
in Islam,
but rather your brother or sister amongst humanity.
In other words, the prophet, peace be upon
him, is appealing
to humanity.
His message is universal.
His message is cosmopolitan.
He was sent as a mercy unto all
the worlds.
And what is
Everything except God is
So it's incumbent upon,
sentient beings,
to believe in his message, which are jinn
and ins. We can establish
or
responsibility
upon jinn and ins because they have a
limited free will. But the prophet, peace be
upon him, is also sent to the earth.
He's sent to animals.
He's sent to angels.
How is he at mercy unto the angels?
It's reported in the story of the night
journey and ascension
that when the prophet visited or saw the
hellfire
accompanied by the archangel Gabriel,
the guardian of * named Matic
saw the prophet sallalahu alaihi wasallam and smiled
for the first time in his life.
And then he's never smiled after that.
The very countenance of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
sallam
brought joy to people's hearts.
So there are many methodologies
as to how to make dua. There's the
passive
and the active.
So some people believe that if you're going
to make dawah to people, you have to
give a speech of some sort.
One of my teachers said that sometimes the
best type of dawah is just to keep
our mouth shut,
because oftentimes Muslims
do more damage when they speak.
Right?
So dawah is wisdom.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Call humanity to the way of thy lord
with wisdom, with hekma,
and
wise exhortation.
So we know how we have to know
how to change things up. It's not just
a script that we read for people. Right?
So for for example, if we're talking to
a group of elementary school students,
that's gonna be very different than
a speech or a lecture that we deliver,
at a Christian seminary.
Right? The content will be different. The message
will be essentially the same, but the content
will be different. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam,
he spoke
all of the dialects of the Arabs. He
would speak to an Arab in his dialect
because he would immediately
in he would immediately,
endear himself to his heart by speaking a
person's
language.
He sent Mus'aib ibn Umer
into Medina before the Hijra. Why did he
send them there? To speak with the people
and get to know them. This is the
Khazraj, the Bani Qureida, the Bani Nadir. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he wanted information
about the tribes in Madinah, so he can
tailor the message. It wasn't haphazard.
Right? It wasn't just a fly of the
moment type of thing. He wanted to do
his research, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He sent
Zayd ibnuthabit,
who is one of the chief scribes of
the Prophet,
to live with a group of Jews to
learn the Hebrew language.
Right? And Zayd learned the Hebrew language in
18 days. And if you know Arabic, you
can learn Hebrew very quickly.
Right? And why did he do that?
To make the Dawah more effective.
So for the general masses,
the best
dawah that we can make, the most effective
dawah that we can make as as general
masses
is to have good character.
Alright? Have good character. The prophet said,
I was only sent to perfect your character.
Allah
says about him in the Quran,
That verily and there's there's there's emphasis in
this ayah twice.
The inna harfatokid,
the lam, is also for emphasis.
Right? Ala,
meaning on top of to dominate something.
Verily, verily, you dominate magnificent
character.
So I'm going to be talking about
2 types of dawah,
behavioral
dawah and intellectual
or academic.
And these are not mutually exclusive. Right?
If you consider yourself an academic, it doesn't
excuse you from having good ad dab with
people. In reality,
it's all based on your behavior.
So let's look at some of the manifestations
of personal huluq in the life of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam. The prophet sallallahu alaihi
sallam, according to our,
prophetology,
the science of of prophets
was the best of creation,
yet he had humbleness. He had
He said,
He said, He said, whoever exalts himself
will be debased, and whoever humbles himself will
be exalted. So there's an inverse relationship. It's
paradoxical.
Allah
says,
Many times Muslims, they only quote the first
part of this verse, and then they push
the pause button. Right?
Pause.
We're the best people. Khalas.
Listen to the rest of
them. What does that mean? What is the
significance
of
Right? For the service of humanity according to
the exigence of the Quran,
that you're only great if you serve humanity.
Right?
The prophet
was extremely humble. When they were going out
to Khazwad Badr, there was a shortage of
camels to ride. So 3 men had to
had to share 1 camel.
So the prophet
was sharing a camel with Sayeda, Sayeda Ali
and Abu Lu Baba.
So 2 men would ride, 1 would walk,
and then they'd rotate.
Right? So it it came time for the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
to walk.
And his 2 companions,
Nahali and Abu Lu Baba, they said,
don't worry about it. We'll walk for you.
Go ahead. You can ride.
The Prophet said,
Neither of you are as strong as I
am.
And I am not in in need of
less, and I am not less in need
of reward than you too. So the first
statement is true. The prophet is extremely physically
strong as a strength of 70 men. The
second statement is from his Tawadur.
It's from
his humility, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he used to acknowledge children
and used to play with children.
And this was seen as something that was
unmanly at the time amongst the the desert
Arabs. He was kissing his grandsons one time,
Al Hassanain,
and a tough
Bedouin came and said, you kiss your children.
I have 10 sons and I've never kissed
a single one of them. Right? He was
proud of this idea. I've never kissed my
son. Right? The prophet said, there's nothing in
my religion,
for people who have no compassion in their
hearts. When he was standing on a minbar
given a khutbah, his grandson, Imam Hussain
came into the masjid. This here, following the
voice of his grandfather.
The Prophet descended the Minbar,
picked up his grandson,
re ascended the Minbar, and finished his Khutba
carrying his grandson in his arms.
Right? We get mad if we're trying to
watch TV
and our son comes and wants to play
with us. He's giving a khutbah
during Friday services.
When Fatima would come into the room, the
prophet's daughter, the prophet would get up and
give his seat to her and kiss her
on the hands.
He would greet children, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Right?
The one who initiates a greeting is free
from arrogance.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, it was
very hard to preempt him
in giving salam. It was very hard to
say salam to him before he gave it
to you. Even with children, he would beat
them to the salam. With children, I mean
this is how humble he was sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. And he wouldn't talk down to them.
He wouldn't look down and talk to children
because it was very imposing.
He didn't he didn't want to scare them.
He would actually get down at their eye
level and speak to them,
salallahu alaihi wa sallam.
His wife, Aisha, was asked,
What did the prophet do in the household?
She said,
He was in the service of humanity.
He was in the service of his family.
I'm sorry.
In the service of his wife.
What was he doing? Menial jobs around the
house. In another hadith, she says,
He was just a man amongst men.
You know, he would fix his sandals.
He would milk his own goat. He would
serve himself
salallahu alaihi wasallam, sit around for someone to
serve him.
Right? Like a king sits in his throne,
go serve me, bring me some chai, bring
me some coffee, bring me the biryani,
whatever it is. He would serve himself, sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
He would stand until his feet were swollen,
Right? In prayer. And his wife said, this
is related 3 times by Imam,
Tivmidi, Abu Risa Tivmidi in the Shamayo. 3
consecutive times, he wants to stress this point
that the prophet would stand until his feet
were swollen. And he was asked, why do
you do this?
And he
said, should I not be a grateful servant?
Right? The worship of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam transcends just
fulfilling a commandment. He worshiped Allah
because he loved Allah
The prophet
was courteous.
There was a Jewish boy who would come
and sit in his majalis sometimes,
and he would he would ask to do,
you know, certain things.
And the Jewish boy didn't show up a
few times, so the prophet went out looking
for him. And it turns out that he's
actually on his deathbed. He's going to die.
The prophet went to his house
and asked him to become Muslim. And the
Jewish boy looked at his father,
and his father said,
Obey Abu Al Qasim. And he became Muslim
and he passed away. The prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam, he visited sick children. He visited
the brother of Anas,
who is 6 or 7 years old,
because his pet bird died.
Right? The brother of Anas had a bird
called a nuhair. Right? It was a nightingale.
And his pet bird died, and he was
crying. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam who's
imam al mursaleen,
he is the the leader of the messengers
of God.
He goes to this boy's house and he
says,
Right? He wants to make him feel better.
The bird's name was Omer, so he uses
a oh father of to cheer him up.
What did the bird used to do? Tell
me about the bird.
And you know, the bird used to sing
this song and that song. This is the
best of creation, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, humoring a
6 or 7 year old boy.
Right? We have to think about this.
He stood for the man's funeral. He went
to the he went for the, there was
a a neighbor of his who used to
put garbage on his, we know the story,
on his front porch, and he would remove
it with a stick. One day the garbage
isn't there, so he goes again searching around
for her. She's not abusing me today. What
happened to her? You know, she's also very
ill.
Right? And back, you know, and she he
sat with her and immediately she became she
became Muslim. Because back then, people were very
tribal.
They weren't as individualistic
as they are today. Right? It was very
tribal. They make taqlid of their leaders. So
back then she was thinking something like, you
know, Abu Lahab is making fun of him.
Abu Jahl is doing that. Al Waleed, ibn
Muhayr is doing this. These are our leaders,
so I'm going to do it. This is
how Islam spread over North Africa. Right? Because,
you know, the orientalists will try to say
that the Muslims forced people and killed people
and so on and so forth. They don't
under there's no historical consciousness
of what happened at the time.
Right? This is when this this when Sa'd
ibn,
Musa'b ibn, Umair went to Medina,
they told him to talk to Sa'd ibn
Mu'adh
who was the chief of one of the
tribes. Because if he converts the entire tribe,
he'll convert. So this woman sat with the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam a few moments and
she became Muslim.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
had excellent disposition.
He was very easy going disposition, right? Easy
to talk to. He had gentleness.
In the Shamayil, it's related. He had
which is translated as he was always grief
stricken. But it also says,
that he was always happy. So how do
we reconcile these 2?
So the ulama say that when the prophet
was in his solitude,
when he was in his solitude,
that he had the appearance of being grief
stricken.
But it wasn't really grief.
It was a contemplation.
This is a man who had seen an
angel. This is a man who saw paradise
and saw the hellfire.
Right? So he was in this extreme type
of
He was raptured in the presence of his
Lord. He wasn't grieving, he was contemplative.
Oh, so when he was with the
he had the appearance of being grief stricken.
But when he was with the when
he was with the people,
he was always happy, he was always smiling.
Abdullah ibn Hara said,
I never saw anyone smile more than the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Aisha and Ali, they both relate a hadith,
and it's significant that it comes from these
two people because they were raised in the
Prophet's household from a very young age, 9
or 10 years old. They said,
Rasulullah he salallahu alaihi wasalam, imraatan,
oh hulaman,
oh waladan, but the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam,
he never struck a woman, a child,
or a servant. Sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
He had gentleness.
He didn't do things like that. We all
know the story of the Bedouin who came
and relieved himself in the mosque. You probably
heard the story
millions of times. And if you if you
haven't heard it, you're gonna hear it again.
So the Bedouin came, maybe you haven't heard
the end of the story.
What happened at the end of the story?
Because when the Bedouin was relieving himself,
some of the Sahaba got up to address
the situation,
which is a way of saying that they
were going to attack him.
Right? And the Prophet prevented that and came
to the Bedouin, who's rough around the edges,
and he said, you know, this is a
masjid and we don't do these things. He
didn't know any better. He showed him lean,
showed him gentleness.
Right?
So then he became Muslim. He washed himself
and he prayed with them. And as the
Bedouin was leaving, he shouted,
May Allah have mercy on me and on
Muhammad and nobody else.
And he pointed to the Sahaba that tried
to attack him.
The prophet laughed. He thought that was funny,
and he said, don't constrict something that's vast.
The prophet had a sense of humor. There's
a whole chapter in the book of the
called the joking, the jesting of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Right? The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
always spoke the truth, and he would become
angry, but he they wouldn't know he was
angry because he wouldn't act like we do
when we get angry. When we get angry,
we throw things, we start
shouting, right? We start beating people.
The only reason the only way the Sahaba
can tell if the Prophet was angry is
because his face would turn red, and there
would be a vein between his his his
eyebrows that would protrude. That's the only way
they can know he's angry.
Right? So they asked him, should we write
things down from you even when you're angry?
He's by the one who sent me in
truth. Nothing comes from this except the truth.
Write down anything
that I say. Everything he said was tempered.
It was guidance.
The prophet was the most truthful of human
beings.
There's 2 hadith of Amr ibn Al-'as
who was shown so much love to the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that he came
to the Prophet one day. And remember, Amr
ibn al-'as used to be an enemy of
the Prophet. He fought against him in many
battles. Then he became Muslim, the Prophet showed
him love.
Right? And then he comes to the Prophet
one day and he says,
Who do you love the most?
Expecting the prophet to say, it's you. Isn't
it obvious?
Right? And he said, Aisha.
He said, his wife. He loves his wife.
Right? And this was also seen as something
unchivalrous
for that time. It wasn't it was it
wasn't seen as manly for a man to
say, I love my wife. Right? He loved
his wife, but he never admitted. Oh, that
woman, yeah, whatever.
But then he'd go home and, I love
you and
so on and so forth. But he said
it very clear, Aisha.
And then he said,
from the men. Who do you love from
the men?
And he said,
her father. Again, her father.
And
then he named a few other men. Meaning
he wasn't one of them. In another hadith,
he says,
I wish I never asked him that question
because I thought I was the most beloved.
But the Prophet was always truthful.
Right? He didn't say things to people just
to placate them, just to make them feel
good. He was truthful when he said things.
Right? Like the story of Surakah b Malek.
You guys know the story of Surakah b
Malek, when the Prophet was making hijrah. Surak
Ibn Malik wanted 100 camel
bounty to bring the Prophet back to Mecca.
So he chases after the Prophet, he finds
him in the desert, Surak ibn Malik was
a master tracksman.
Right?
And he sees the Prophet and
immediately he's thrown from his horse. And he
was an intelligent man.
And he said to himself, I've never fallen
from my horse. This is the first time
in my life.
Right? There's something about this man. So he
says to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, guarantee
me safety.
Right? See, the tables have turned. He's come
to turn in the prophet for a bounty.
And now he's asking the Prophet for a
guarantee of safety. So he says, I guarantee
you safety.
He says, why have you come? And Surakah
says, 100 nuk, 100 she camels.
And he says, can you give me something
better?
And the prophet said, yes. He said,
How does it grasp you that you're going
to wear the bracelets of Kisra, the king
of Persia?
And this came true many many years later.
And Surak ibn Malik, even though he was
not a Muslim at the time, he wanted
to turn the Prophet in for a bounty,
he told the Prophet, can you write it
down for me because the Meccans are not
going to believe me. He knew the Prophet
is truthful. He's a Sadikul Amin. This is
a name his enemies gave him. This is
not a name that his companions gave him.
His enemies before Islam gave him this name,
Asadipul
Amin, the truthful one.
So
this is may Allah
help us engender and cultivate
these prophetic characteristics.
This is the most effective method of dua,
is good character.
The most effective method of Dawah is this.
Now we're gonna switch some gears
and now go to some
intellectual academic things.
So there was a Muslim scholar named Abu
Bakr al Bacallani
during the Abbasid Empire.
And he was a brilliant man. And he
used to get invited
to debate with Christian scholars.
So he was invited to debate a Christian
king one day,
outside of the empire somewhere.
So he goes to this king's palace,
and he goes to enter the throne room
where the king was sitting.
And he noticed that the throne room, the
door to the throne room, was only about
this high,
about as high as a man's waist.
Right?
And the reason
that it was that high is because this
king obviously had some issues.
He wanted people to bow to him
as soon as they entered into the throne
room. Right?
So Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is waiting outside
this throne room and thinking, how am I
going to enter into this room without bowing
to this king?
So he thought, you know, I have an
idea. So he turned around
and he went in backwards.
Right?
And then the King says to him, you
know,
wasn't one of the wives of your prophet,
accused of adultery?
His response was, there were 2 great women
accused of adultery.
One provided a child,
one did not.
And who is he talking about?
He's talking about Maryam, Mary alaihis salam. So
a lot of times, it's just kind of
exposing
this kind of hypocritical methodology in people. Like
you read a lot of I read a
lot. I don't advise doing this, but I
have to do it
for my job, I guess. I read a
lot of, you know, polemicist
apologetics
written by Christians against Islam, and they, for
example, they attack the marriage of the prophet
with, 'ul Mumineen Aisha
Right? You hear this a lot coming from
the Christian camp.
What's interesting is
that the proto gospel of James,
people don't we have nobody knows about these
things. Right? The proto gospel of James written
in the 2nd century
was revered by Christians of the 2nd century
as being the word of God. It didn't
make it into the Bible,
but that's a different story.
But it says in that document that Mary
was 12 years old
at the time
when she
got married to Joseph the Carpenter. 12 years
old. Right?
The new Advent Encyclopedia says that she was
12 years old. I I asked a Russian,
or Orthodox
priest one day, I said, how old was
Mary when she married Joseph?
Right? How old? And he said that she
was 11 years old,
and Joseph was 90.
So he had
he had grandchildren
older than his wife.
Right? Or they say something like, I don't
accept the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam because
he participated in battles. He fought in Hazawat,
Maghazi, these military expeditions,
so I don't believe he's a prophet.
Right?
Now, if you counted up all of the
casualties
and all of the battles of the prophet,
enemy and Muslim casualties,
right, over 23 years.
This isn't war. This isn't, Yani.
This is in war.
Enemy and Muslim casualties. Sheikh Abu Hasan An
Nadeh says, there was 1018
in the entire life of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. 1018 in war, in battle
situations.
Right?
In Exodus chapter 32 in the Torah, we
are told that when Musa alaihi salam, he
descends Mount Sinai,
sees his people worshiping the golden calf, and
he orders 3,000 of his own men killed
on the spot in 1 night.
So it seems kind of strange.
I don't accept the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
because he participated in battles.
Moses, who is accepted as a prophet by
these people,
killed 3 times as many men in 1
night.
Right? So we have to expose that. This
is hypocrisy.
Right?
So when dealing with Ahl al Khattab,
it's not black and white.
Now, one of the most
interesting,
aspects we can bring up
is
fulfillment of prophecy. So
Justin Martyr, who was a 2nd century Christian,
scholar,
he,
he wrote a book called, and this is
he's the the architect of logos theology, right,
this idea that Jesus is the word of
God.
He wrote a book called Dialogue with Trypho
the Jew, in which he tries to prove
that Jesus is the Messiah
based on fulfillment of prophecy.
Right? This is the strongest argument he can
make to convince the Jew.
Not miracles, but fulfillment of prophecy.
For example, it says in Isaiah chapter 7
verse 14
that a young woman, some say it says
virgin, actually says a young woman,
shall have a son, and his name is
Immanuel.
And Christians say that this is a reference
to Jesus, peace be upon him. But if
you read the very next chapter, Isaiah chapter
8, it says that Immanuel is born to
King Ahaz. How can this be a reference
to Jesus?
So traditional Christian exigits like Origen of Alexandria
will say, you have You see, there are
there are multiple levels of meaning in Scripture,
multiple levels of meaning.
So there's an esoteric
meaning contextualized
historically, but then there's an esoteric meaning which
foreshadows
something to happen in the future. In this
case, the birth of the Jewish Messiah.
Right? And this is something that is not
foreign to our tradition.
We don't wanna get into a theological discussion,
but the difference between
the and
the is vast according to our theology.
The,
the speech of God
through,
modes of expression
and the a modal speech of God, which
is infinite in its meanings.
So we have to we have to understand
how
they approach the scripture, that scripture has multiple
levels of meaning.
And I advise Muslims to do
some research as far as,
historical dates,
right, in Judeo Christian history, like 325,
Council of Nicaea,
381, Council of Constantinople,
4/21, 5/53.
These are very important dates.
Right?
So
when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, when he
came into
Medina,
there was a rabbi in Medina named Abdullah
ibn Salam,
and he says
he relates to Hadith himself. He says,
He says, I can tell by looking at
his face it wasn't the face of a
liar.
Right? So the omen must say, how can
he tell that? Perhaps the prophet had a
honest looking face,
or perhaps he
recognized the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam based on
some sort of description of him in his
scripture. So this is,
very important
for us to,
to research. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Those who received the previous dispensations,
they know the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
like they know one of their own sons.
Right? Those who follow the messenger,
the unlettered prophet whom they find mentioned,
who's mentioned in the Torah and in the
gospel. This is what the Quran says.
And
has 3 possible meanings according to the
the exegetes of the Quran.
It could mean either a motherly prophet,
a motherly because means mother.
A motherly prophet,
right, meaning a prophet that has,
Jalali attributes as well as Jamali attributes,
or it could mean
an unlettered prophet, no formal education,
or it could mean a gentile
prophet because the word for gentile
or goi the word is goi
in Hebrew, which means a non Jewish person.
The word for gentile in Arabic is
Right? There's no like it says in the
Quran.
So it could mean the gentile prophet.
Now I want to share with you to
give you an example of what I'm talking
about.
I hope I'm not boring people here.
There's a book in the Old Testament called
Shir Hashirim.
Right?
Song of songs,
Shir Hashirim.
And this is a way of saying the
most beautiful songs.
Right? This is a superlative in in the
Hebrew language. Like if you wanna say the
best king, you would say the King of
kings. The best book is the book of
books. The best song is the Song of
Songs.
This was written,
3000 years ago according to,
the traditional opinion.
So I wanted to quote some of it
to you. It is really interesting.
But before I do that,
we have to establish a few things.
That one of the titles of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is the beloved of God.
So you have a sadeep, you have a
khalil, and then you have a habib.
Right? So Ibrahim Abraham is the intimate friend
of God, but above and beyond that you
have the beloved of God.
Right? So the Sahaba were talking about the
stations of the prophets
one day,
and they were saying Abraham is a friend
of God, Moses spoke to God, Jesus is
the spirit of God. The prophet walked by
and he said,
but I am the beloved of God.
And I am the master of the children
of Adam, and I do not boast.
So we believe he's the beloved of God.
During the conquest of Mecca,
the prophet entered the city with 10,000
companions.
He was a leader of 10,000 men, and
he declared general amnesty on that day.
Right?
Now according to the Shamayil,
in the hadith of Ibrahim ibn Muhammad, who's
one of the grandsons of Ali, he describes
the prophet,
The prophet's face was round rounded.
Not completely round, but more round and slim.
Which means white with a redness,
with a red tinge.
Right?
Hind ibnu Abi Hala, and another hadith in
the Shamayel,
who is the maternal uncle of Imam Hussain
and Hassan,
he describes the Prophet's complexion
as
as a pink complexion.
Of course pink is what you get when
you mix white and red.
Azhar can also mean,
a luminous
complexion.
So he's beloved of God.
He's the
the chief of 10,000 men,
and he's white and red in his complexion.
So let's read the first line
of the song of songs, chapter
5 verse 10
says, in the Hebrew language, which was written
3000 years ago,
My beloved
is white and red.
The leader of 10,000
men.
It goes on to say
in the hadith of Anas ibn Malik,
that his hair wasn't curly nor straight, but
between the 2. He had wavy hair.
He also says in a hadith that when
the prophet was in his sixties, he
says,
That he did not have more than 20
white hairs on his head and in his
beard in his sixties.
So he had very dark hair.
So we go back to the Song of
Psalms.
It says,
His head is like gold.
His locks are wavy.
And black as a raven.
Right? Now what's interesting here is that the
word
in Hebrew
is made up of 3 letters,
or
Arab. So this is also the word for
Arab.
Right? You can actually translate this black like
an Arab. His hair is black
like an Arab, but I haven't seen a
translation like that for obvious reasons.
Next part says,
so in the in the Shamayel, the hadith
of Ibrahim, Ibrahim Muhammad, it says,
that he had big, dark, and deep eyes.
Long lashes.
That his
his his glance his glance was,
was passing. In other words, that he wouldn't
stare at things, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He
would just glance and look away.
That he would be more looking towards the
earth than
the heavens.
Song of Solomon. And I'm just quoting some
highlights here. This is obviously not all of
the passage here in the Hebrew bible.
His eyes are like the eyes of doves,
which are very big and black and delicate,
dark.
So then
we'll get to
the hadith of Abu Hurairah
who says,
The prophet was white in complexion.
As if he was
sculpted from silver.
His neck had looked like the ivory neck
of a statue
in the clarity of silver.
Alright. So verse 15
in the Hebrew says,
that his body looks like carved ivory.
Right?
That his,
countenance is like Lebanon, which is means white.
Not a pasty white, but like milk type
of
a dark milk.
And then
verse 16 says in the Hebrew,
that his mouth is sweet.
He is altogether lovely.
This is my beloved,
This is my friend,
daughters of Jerusalem.
So
This is the actual name of the prophet
sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. So this, again, is the
strongest
According to Justin Martyr,
this is the strongest case that we can
make for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is
fulfillment of prophecy.
I know I'm running out of time here.
I'm sorry.
So
it's very important
that before a Muslim can even make a
Dua
in the active sense,
he or she must have some knowledge of
their own theology.
So what what's going on right now, unfortunately,
is that there's,
a faith crisis
amongst the Muslim community,
based on some sort of intellectual trauma.
Because Muslims, they don't study Theology anymore. A
Muslim, it's wajib upon every Muslim to have
some sense of Theology.
Right? And when there's a lack of theology,
there's a lack of real gnosis of God.
And gnosis leads to love. Right? The path
to mehabba is marifa.
You can't love something you don't know
unless it's a love that's based on intellect,
called
alhupul akhli.
Right? Which is possible, but it's not a
real type of love unless you know that
person.
Right?
So it's incumbent upon Muslims
to
study some level of Usuluddin
or al Fikal Akbar
theology. Not to the point where you can
construct these polemical responses
to different types of deviant groups or whatnot,
but just enough to protect yourself because, you
know, the youth at 16, 17, 18 years
old, they're hearing a lot of things from
the university professor,
and the university professor has a PhD, so
he must know what he's talking about. He
has a PhD.
Right? Or this this guy, this puppet on
TV, he's he's on TV, so you know,
obviously he's credible. Right? And he's saying this
all these things, and it's very confusing for
youth,
but if he has that knowledge of theology,
he can set up a protection against that
type of thing.
So intellectual proof to deal with,
you know, the the neo
atheists.
Have you heard of the neo atheists?
Like, these guys like Dawkins and Hitchens and
right? This is very appealing for some reason,
Sam Harris, to young people. These are the
neo atheists. These aren't like the
the OG's, the original gangsters of atheism, like
Nietzsche,
and Freud,
right, and Karl Marx. I mean those people
actually studied theology
and they actually,
considered what would actually happen if there was
no religion in the world. There would be
chaos.
But the new the neo atheists, it seems
like they say, you know, if if every
mosque or a church was converted into a
Starbucks, it would be much better, well, it
doesn't work like that. Right?
So there's a major movement of apostasy right
now actually going on in Europe. People are
leaving Christianity
in massive groups in Europe.
Right? So this is going on.
So one of the biggest proofs that we
can actually use
against this
is that
the vast majority
of humanity
the vast majority of humanity since the beginning
of human civilization
has believed in a higher being, a supreme
being. Right? There's been an internal calling for
deeper understanding.
Of the vast majority of humanity.
And the atheist feels that as well.
But the irony is,
he takes that
and he rebels against it and tries to
prove that there is no God, whereas that
is actually the calling of God
towards him. So someone like Dawkins will say,
belief in God because obviously for him there
needs to be some sort of natural explanation.
He'll say that,
it's a virus
in the human DNA.
Well, if it's a virus, it should be
weeded out eventually, but it's not being weeded
out. Even today in this post modern world,
the world of technology,
the vast majority of people still tend to
believe
in god. Why?
Because that's the nature of epistemology,
the nature of knowledge,
is that the the more one actually acquires
knowledge,
the more one comes to know that in
reality, he or she doesn't know anything.
Right? It's like what the brain surgeon says.
He studies the brain.
And he said, I thought I knew something
of about the brain, and then I did
more research, and I noticed I didn't know
anything.
Right? So the more one studies, the more
one comes to realize
that,
we don't know anything in reality.
So the Quran doesn't really go out and
prove that Allah
exists. It's taken for granted
that God exists,
but rather that Allah is
that he's unique.
Right? It's a clarification
of who God is.
So I'm I'm totally out of time. I
have to stop talking.
I can tell people are getting antsy.
I just want to finish with this one
story.
Just 2 minutes inshallah.
Abu Hanifa
is known as a jurist, but before he
was a jurist, he was a mutakalim.
He was a theologian. He used to actually
debate against the sectarians.
Right? And he would debate atheists.
And one day, he was teaching his, class,
outdoors. It was a beautiful day in Kufa
in Iraq.
And an atheist approaches him
and says to him,
you you're a you're a Muslim scholar. He
says, yes. He says, answer these questions for
me. Just go ahead. Ask your questions.
He says, why
do you believe in God when you can't
see God?
Why do you believe in God if you
can't see God?
And how is Satan punished with fire when
he's made from fire?
And number 3, why does God take you
to account for things that He knows you're
going to do anyway?
Answer these three questions for me. And all
the students are waiting for
Abu Hanifa to answer these questions.
So Abu Hanifa, he thinks about it for
a minute, and then he
reaches over, grabs some dirt,
makes a nice little ball out of the
dirt,
and then throws it at this guy's head
and hits him right between the eyes.
Right? So the man is shocked,
and then he leaves.
So then a few days later, a summoner
comes to Abu Hanifa and says, you know
this man he wants to see you in
court.
You know, he wants
to sue you for damages.
Right? So Abu Hanifa, he goes to the
court, and the Khadi, the judge asks him,
why did you throw a clay ball at
this man's head?
And Abu Hanifa says, because
I answered his questions.
He said, what are you talking about? He
said, he left. He didn't let me explain.
What's your explanation?
He said that,
why do you believe in God when you
can't see him?
Right?
He can't see pain,
but he knows it exists, because he felt
pain.
So it exists. There's something that exists that
you can't see.
And then he said,
he asked me, how is Satan punished by
fire when he's made of fire?
Right? So I took clay, he's made of
clay, he's from treen, he's from tura.
Right? Human being is made of dirt and
clay. So I took some clay and punished
him with it to let him know that
I can punish him with clay even though
he's made from clay.
And the third one was,
that why does God take you to account
for things that he knows that you're going
to do?
And he said, God knew before he created
me that I was going to throw that
clay ball at his head. And why am
I being sued now? Why am I being
taken to account for things that were already
known by god?
Right? And, obviously, there's a lot more examples
like this, but I'm totally out of time,
and I apologize for going over the time.