Ali Ataie – Islam in Action Why We Worship Together In Community
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Inshallah, today's Khutba, gonna talk about community and
solidarity
and say something about the significance of culture
as well. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in
the Quran in Surah Alai Imran
He says, Hold on to the
habil of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The rope
or the lifeline
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala all of you
and do not be
divided amongst yourselves.
And this is important.
So the ulama say here that the habilullah,
the exegetes, some of the mufasareen in the
Quran, they say this is the kitabullah.
This is the Quran that we should hold
fast
to the book of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
This means you are not allowed to join
a firqa
and there's a difference between a firqa and
a madhab.
A madhab is simply a school of thought
and methodology,
a school of jurisprudential
theory.
So if we were to use an example
from our
context, we would say, for example, that 2
brothers, they wanna study engineering.
1 of them goes to UCLA. 1 of
them goes to UC Berkeley.
At the end of the day, they still
have a degree. They went to different schools
but both of them are still engineers.
There's different foci or emphases
in the different schools,
but both of them are valid. So these
are
fine. The madahib are ways or methodologies within
the hudood, the parameters of
Allah in which we understand the religion. Nothing
wrong with that whatsoever.
But a firqa is a group that believes
that they have the exclusive truth.
They are exclusivists. They're not inclusivists.
That they have the truth and everyone else
is a kafar. They make
a tekfir. They pronounce anathemas
on other types of believers.
So this is very important for us to
understand the difference between Ikhtilaf and khilaf.
That there's 2 types of difference of opinion.
And Ikhtilaf
which is, on the 8th verbal form,
this is something that
is defined as scholarly difference of opinion and
this is inevitable
amongst the ulama and there's actually a hadith
of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam which says
that, ikhdilaf baynalulama,
that this type of scholarly difference of opinion
amongst the scholars
is actually a mercy from Allah Sub
It's actually a mercy. Somebody asked one of
my teachers, why are there 4 schools of
thought? Why are there 4 madahib? Why not
just 1? At least 4. And he said
because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wanted to give
us more of His mercy and he said,
what do you mean by that? He said
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, He gave us more
of the sunan, more of the normative practices
of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam that these 4 imma
have codified in their schools of thought.
Difference of opinion is inevitable. So this is
called Ikhtilaf.
And the ulama, when they had difference of
opinion, they had amazing
adab
when they would talk about these issues. Imam
al Zahabi for example, Rahimahullah
Ta'ala,
he had difference of opinion with Imam Abuhamad
al Ghazali but when Imam
Daha'habi when he writes about
Al Ghazali,
you know he says, Yes, we have a
difference of opinion and Allah
Allah knows best,
but where are the likes of Abu Hamad
Al Ghazali today?
Why don't we have scholars like him today?
Right? So even though he had a difference
of opinion,
he has great respect
for the scholar
that Abuhamal Al Ghazali was. This is the
comportment. This is the adab. This is the
decorum
that the ulama had.
This is ikhtilaf.
But khilaf
is something that is,
is
not good.
Is difference of opinion amongst the laity
who don't have requisite knowledge. So Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala says,
and to see bum fitna, O you see
bum adabun a'ream. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
with regards to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, those who are going against him,
their mukhalifoon
that go against
the order of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. Let them be forewarned
of a fitna, a tribulation that will descend
upon
them or a painful
torment.
So Imam
Malik ibn Anas, for example, he considered jidal
which is debate amongst the awam, the laity.
He considered this to be haram because they
don't have the requisite knowledge and they're hindering
people from the path of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Once he was sitting in a gathering
with some of his students, they began to
argue. He stood up and he shook his
Juppa and he said, Antum harub, you all
are war and he left the the majlis.
This was his opinion. Nowadays, we go to
universities and we find students in the MSA
sitting around and debating with one another.
Debating Salafi Ashari
or Matoori Di Hanafi. This type of debate.
This is haram according to
many of the ulama to do that because
we don't have the requisite knowledge
to do that. That doesn't mean we educate
ourselves.
That doesn't mean we don't educate ourselves. Of
course, we educate ourselves.
But we have to have that comportment
that scholars had between themselves when they had
difference of opinion and leave it for Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. This deen is a vast
religion.
It's a vast religion. There's many differences of
opinion within the religion that are within the
hudood or the parameters of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. But it seems like every so often
somebody who's has no training whatsoever wants to
stand up and give a fatwa.
And this is something that is a disease
of our age.
Imam Musayuti mentions that the
Sahaba obviously,
the Khayru Nazkarni,
the best generation or the Sahaba. Only 7
of them gave fatwa.
7 of the Sahaba, those who had such
close
personal contact with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
They're called Al Muqthiroon, only 7 of them.
Imam Sayyuti relates that once a man came
to one of them and said give me
a fatwa. And this Sahabi was,
he was so reluctant
to give him a fatwa because to put
himself in that position of authority. They were
too humble for that. So he said go
to so and so. So this man went
to so and so. And then this other
companion, he said go to so and so.
And this worked all the way around back
to the original Sahabi
Cause they were so reluctant to express their
opinions when it came to the deen of
Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says,
Hold on tight to this lifeline of Allah
And this again according to the vast majority
of the exigence refers to the Kitabullah.
The Kitabullah based on another hadith, hadith thakalain,
which is a mutawatul hadith. The prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, he said hold fast to
2 things. The first one
is, This is your lifeline that extends down
from the heavens to the earth.
Hold on tight to the to the to
have i'rati sama to the book of Allah
and do not join a firqa. Don't be
divided, don't be sectarians.
And remember the favors of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala upon you when you were enemies.
And He made tatleef, He brought your hearts
together in love.
And you became brethren
by His mercy.
And
And interesting here the Ulema say that this
nirma that is mentioned, this is a reference
to the Prophet Muhammad
because he is a nirma to Uthma. He
is the greatest nirma. So here Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala in this one verse, He tells
us that unity and creed is based on
the Quran. This is our essential aspect
And unity,
our relational
unity in love is based on adherence
to the sunnah of the Prophet
The one who brought hearts together.
He would convert hearts.
This is one of the greatest miracles of
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. And this is why he was,
charged with being a saharat. They thought he
was a sorcerer.
At the Darun Nidwa, when they decided, you
know, what should we call him? They said,
let's call him a sha'er. He's a poet.
And they said, no. He doesn't he doesn't
compose poetry. But they said, let's call him
a kavib, a liar. And they said no
that's going to not going to fly either
because we call him a Sadiq ul Amin
and if we say now he's a liar
that makes us look bad. So they said
let's call him a sahir, you know, alwaleed
ibn Mughaira. This was his
recommendation. They said why is he a sahir?
Because he said that he They said that
he has the uncanny ability to divide
families.
Right? So that's all they saw because this
was early in the Meccan period. But in
reality, the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam, he brings
people together and he changes hearts. And this
deen is transformative.
Amr ibn al-'as,
who was a companion of the Prophet but
he did not convert until much later in
the Madinan period.
He says that,
once he came to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
after he became Muslim and he said the
prophet showed him so much love and so
much ihsan and so much
Mahaba,
and so much care that
Amr ibn al-'Aas thought to himself, I'm the
most beloved
person to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam. And
that was just the way the Prophet dealt
with people. He treated people like they were
the most beloved person. So this is what
Amr ibn al-'Aas thought. He was a new
Muslim, right? And he had so much attention
from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that
this thought occurred to him that I'm the
most beloved. So he came to the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam one day and said,
You Rasulullah,
agunas ahabbu ilaykh, who do you love the
most? And he expected the Prophet say, Oh,
it's you. Isn't it obvious? Look how I'm
treating you. And the Prophet said, Aisha.
He said his wife, Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha,
umur mumineen. SubhanAllah, this is something we should
think about. He mentioned his wife. So then
Amr ibn al-'Aas, he said,
from the men.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, Abu
her father,
Abu Bakr as Siddiq. And notice he said,
Abu
Right? Her father. Again, a reference to Aisha
And then he said,
And then Amr said,
and then he named a few other men,
meaning I wasn't one of the men. But
this is how the prophet
made him feel that he was the most
beloved person. He brought the hearts together. Amr
ibn al-'As, he said on his deathbed to
his son Abdullah, he said, Oh my son,
You Bunayya, oh my dear son, there was
a time when I hated the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam so much that I fought
against him in many military expeditions.
And there came a time when I loved
him so much I couldn't even look at
him in his eyes because I was awestruck
by him. And if you ask me today
to describe the physical appearance of the prophet
salallahu alaihi wasalam, I couldn't even tell you
because I don't remember. After I became Muslim,
I couldn't even look at his face.
Right? This is a transformative power
of the religion and of the sunnah and
of the character of the akhlaq of the
holy prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And we I've
seen this this transformative power in in many
of our youth. I was in a halakha
one time and his two brothers were there,
former gang members.
One of them was from, Middle Eastern descent,
one of them was from Asian descent.
And they were about the same age. And
they were talking about the
they were laughing about it. And one of
them said, I remember I was sitting in
my,
high school lunchroom.
Another student came up behind me and slapped
me in the back of the head. Another
student from a rival gang slapped me in
the back of the head with a lunch
tray.
And then when he said that, this other
brother, he said, what was the name of
your high school? And he said, the name
of the high school. And he said, that's
the name of my high school. In fact,
I'm the brother who hit you on the
head. This is incredible. They're sitting in the
same halakha. Right? So that was me. And
then they looked at each other and I
thought they were gonna fight. It's that look.
It was a tense look. And then they
started laughing hysterically
and they started hugging and kissing each other
and saying, SubhanAllah, look how stupid we used
to be. And look what the deen did
for us. This is a transformative power of
the religion. We have to understand this. We
take it for granted. That's why it's taken
from us, it's given to other people. And
this is the promise of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. And part of the problem is we
divide ourselves
over race and color and culture. I'll tell
you a true story from another community, very
disturbing story. There are 2 college students, university
students,
2 Muslims, a brother and a sister,
brother and dean and sister and dean, they
weren't related. The brother was African American convert,
the sister was from a South Asian descent.
And, the brother came to the sister's house
to propose marriage and the sister was willing
to do that, and these were beautiful practicing
intelligent Muslims.
So he goes to the house
and the father opens the door and slams
the door in his face, takes one look
at the brother and slams the door in
his face.
Why? So he's he's the wrong color. This
supposed to be a Muslim household.
Right? And then he had an emergency
Masjid,
meeting in his house. The board of directors
came to his house, and they said, we
have to start a new Masjid to keep
these people out of our Masjid.
This is happening. This happened last year in
a community in America. This type of Jahiliya.
You know, one time a Sahabi said something
to say in Bilal that was racially offensive.
Right? And this is a re one of
the great reasons Sayyidina Bilal became Muslim.
This is one of the reasons he became
Muslim because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said
You're not better than the red
the red or the black. And by red
here they mean the white. You're not better.
He's talking to the Arabs. You're not better
than the white man or the black man
except that you excel him in taqwa.
This is the measuring stick. This is the
barometer. It's taqwa. In aqramakum aandallahi atqaqum. The
best amongst you are those who are best
in taqwa.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
said, I am the best of you in
taqwa.
Right? So this is one of the reasons
why Sayyidina Bilal actually became Muslim. For this
reason that Islam has this uniting factor and
this other Sahabi. Because the Sahabi are not
Ma'asoo, he made a mistake. He said something
about him that was racially offensive. Sayyidina Bilal,
he told the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And the Prophet said, This is jai'iliyah.
This harkens back to days of ignorance.
So this other Sahabi, he heard about that.
He came to sayyidina Bilal crawling on his
hands and knees.
He laid down on the ground and he
said, Yeah, Bilal, just go ahead and step
on my neck. This is how I'm going
to atone for what I said to you.
Just step on my neck. Right? Teach me
humility.
And Sin Abu Lah said, No. That's okay.
I'm not going to do that. I forgive
you.
These were Sahaba.
Right?
The Deen was the most important thing to
them. They did not divide themselves
over these types of things.
I looked for a masjid one time and
I found this place called the Afghan Islamic
Center.
I said, why it's called the Afghan Islamic
Center?
And I felt, what what if I go
there, because I'm not Afghan,
and they say, hey, are you Afghan? It's
gonna make me feel uncomfortable. Imagine a a
a convert trying to go to this place.
And sure enough when I went there, the
first thing they said to me was not,
hey, assalamu alaikum, ahlani wusahlan, or Chaturahasti, or
Singhye. Nothing like that. It's who what's who's
your father?
What's the name of your father? So why
do you want to know that? Are you
Afghan?
No. I thought this was a masjid.
The masjid are for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Right? It's a very basic concept, but we
have this ingrained. You know, we bring this
baggage from overseas into this country, but it
just doesn't it doesn't fly.
One time I was in a masjid, and
I gave a talk and this brother came
up to me,
because he saw my daughter who's very young,
a child. Very young. She was 6, 7
years old. My daughter ran up to me
and she jumped. She gave me a hug
and she started kissing my face. His brother
pushed me and said, you know, if my
father would have seen you kiss your daughter,
he would have condemned you.
He would have condemned you. I said, Why?
Back in the motherland,
we don't even look at our daughters.
We don't even look at them. And if
we don't if we have daughters, we dress
them up like little boys
because they're a sense of shame for us.
Yeah. This is what he was telling me.
And when people ask us, how many kids
do you have? We only tell them we
have boys.
If I have 3 girls and no sons,
I say, I don't have any kids.
Not yet.
So that's that's interesting. Are you Muslim? I
say, yeah, of course we're Muslim. Wow. Because
when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was sitting
in the majlis and Fatima Zahra entered into
the room when she was very small, he
would stand up and kiss her hands on
her forehead.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he kissed
his daughter's hands and on her forehead. This
is a sunnah of the messenger Sallallahu Alaihi
Wa Alaihi Wa Salam.
There's an incident happened recently. A woman, old
woman, she came into the masjid. She was
crying, weeping. She was completely hysterical.
And the other sisters this happened a few
weeks ago in another community. The sister said,
What happened? What happened? She said, Oh, my
my daughter-in-law,
what happened? She died?
She had a girl.
She had a girl.
Right? It's like, oh, that's that's why you're
crying? Yeah. She had a girl. Turns out
her daughter-in-law after she gave birth to a
girl, she started slapping herself in the head.
She's wearing hijab. This isn't a hospital in
America. The nurses are going, what what is
this person doing? They had to physically restrain
her. She's wearing her hijab, she just gave
birth and she's slapping herself in the head.
Woe unto me, woe unto me, Allah why
why why.
This is a kind of Jahili and we're
dealing with in our community. It's even worse
than this.
I can't even go into details.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala addresses this in the
Quran.
So what kind of man his face darkens
with grief because news of a female is
brought to him and then he meditates.
Shall I retain this news with with, shame
or shall I just bury it in the
dust? Should I bury my daughter in the
dust? What an evil decision
to make.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, when on that
day, when there's a restoration of true values,
the little girl that was buried alive is
going to be asked, why were you killed?
Why were you aborted? Why are you buried
under the sand?
Said Nar Umar says, there's 2 things from
the Jahili period that I remember. 1 of
them makes me laugh. 1 of them makes
me cry.
The thing that makes me laugh is that
when I was a non Muslim, I went
on a journey and I took a date.
Right? I took a date and I said,
This is my God.
And I put it in my pocket and
I started journeying. And then I got hungry,
I took my god out and I ate
it.
And he said that made me laugh. One
thing that made me cry is that my
wife gave birth to a girl. I buried
her in the sand and as I was
burying her, she brushed my beard with her
hand.
And even when Sayyidina Umar was khalifa towards
the end of his life, every single time
he would remember this he would start to
weep.
He didn't wanna do it. That was the
culture of the day.
Right? So culture can be a very very
very
challenging aspect of our lives.
There's a brother who
this is quite common, unfortunately, in our community.
We're not immune to these things. Spousal abuse.
His brother was beating his wife and kids,
bruising them, battering them. So he said to
the brother, you know, why why are you
doing this? He said, you know, that's how
I was raised. That's my culture.
That's hap that's what happened to me. That's
what happened to my siblings. Well, so if
that's part of your culture, then that part
of your culture is complete garbage.
And you need to leave it. Right?
It's complete garbage. Islam does not call to
the roof. Doesn't call to the culture. It
calls to the Ma'aruf.
Right? And if the urs contradicts the Ma'aruf,
you always give precedence to the Ma'aruf. It's
very very simple.
So in your culture, if it's part of
your culture that men wear certain types of
hats, okay, that doesn't contradict
the teachings of our religion.
So you can do that. If in your
culture, people eat a certain type of food,
no problem. If in your culture people ride
bikes and don't ride in cars, no problem.
But if in your culture it says to
beat women and children and bruise them or
to oppress people or to steal things,
that type of thing, be racist,
then we reject that part of the culture.
We completely
reject it. We don't sort of,
Islamicize it because that's what we used to
do in other places in the world, so
that's what we're going to do here.
That's not the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Just 3 types 3 types of sunnah and
this is important.
Three types of sunnah. The first type is
called sunnatunmuakada.
Right? Emphasized type of Sunnah. And according to
the jurists, this is a type of Sunnah.
For example, praying the 4 raka'ah before
Right?
Wearing a kufi for the Hanafis in prayer
is Sunnah Mu'akaddah. If you do them, there's
reward. If you don't do them, you're not
punished but it can be blameworthy. So, we
should try to implement sunnah al mu'akada. The
second type of sunnah is called recommended mangu,
also known as mustahab or nafila, ghair mu'akada.
Right? This is complete extra credit. If you
do them, it's good. If you don't do
them, no problem. Labas Ali. No problem. Right?
The third type is called
This is actually trying to emulate the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in something of his
cultural aspect.
Right?
And this is done out of love for
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. For example,
you're wanting to dress like the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. You wanna wear the same
clothes he had. No problem. This is out
of love. If it's out of love, no
problem. You can do that. And that's a
good thing. Eating the same types of foods
as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. One time
Anna said pneumatic, he went to a dinner
party with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and
a bowl of pumpkin went by. And Anna
said, No, I don't like pumpkin. Keep passing
it. Then he looked and he saw the
prophet took a piece of pumpkin.
So Anas said, Bring it back.
So he took the piece of pumpkin. I
love pumpkin.
Why?
Because he wants to emulate the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasalam. Right? But the problem here is
sometimes
we get things backwards,
and we raise the zawayd over the muakada.
Right? So we look good, everything on the
outside is good, but then we're frowning in
people's faces. We have bad attitudes.
We're being disrespectful towards our mothers. Like this
one brother, he came to the Masjid, he
came to the halakha, and I said, Oh,
I thought you couldn't have come to the
halakha? He said, No, I snuck out.
So what do you mean? My mom said
I couldn't go so I yelled at her.
It scared her. I went to my room
then I snuck out. So I said, SubhanAllah,
you're coming to a halakah which is totally
optional.
And how did you do it? By showing
filial recalcitrance. By by by being disrespectful to
your mother which is haram.
Right? So we have to get our priorities
straight.
With respect to our cultures, we have to
understand that parts of culture,
there are aspects of culture that are detrimental
to the deen.
With with respect to emulating the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, we have to understand that
the fara'id is central, then the sunnah.
Right? These 2 have to be implemented.
That the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was
sent to perfect character. This takes precedence.
I was only sent a perfect character.
Right? We have to work on our character,
work on our ethics.
The prophetic ethics are more important than the
dress code of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. The dress code is important. There's no
doubt about it. And people are moved out
of love to emulate him. That's beautiful.
But when we have our priorities topsy-turvy,
it becomes problematic,
and we hinder people from the path of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So I'm in involved with a lot of
youth, and there's a faith
crisis amongst many of the youth. Many of
the youth are.
They have 2 faces, and the parents have
no idea.
We see them in the Masjid, these youth.
They make wudu. They pray. They look like
they have khusur.
They listen to the Quran. They read the
Quran.
Then they go to school or on the
Internet and they're atheists. They don't even believe
in God. They're actually arguing arguing against the
Quran on the computer. In the masjid, they're
reading a mushaf.
In the chat room, they're arguing against the
Quran.
This is very very common. Why is this
happening? Why is there a faith crisis?
Well, there's many reasons why.
Right? The youth have intellectual curiosity.
I met
a brother from Afghanistan who's a Christian pastor.
Afghan Christian. This is a big oxymoron.
When I think of Afghanistan, I think of
Islam.
Right? Afghan, Christian. It's like saying 4 sided
triangle.
Doesn't make any jumbo shrimp.
It doesn't make any sense. Right? So why
did you become a Christian?
I said, well, there's, you know, student Christian
students at my college and they were telling
me certain things and I tried to rebut
them. I said, well, have you studied Islam,
you know, in detail? He said, I went
to Sunday school when I was a kid.
So your Sunday school I said, what about
those Christian guys that were trying to convert
you? He said some of them are seminarians,
meaning they have, you know, master's degrees
in divinity.
They're sons and daughters of priests and pastors.
And your Sunday school education is supposed to
help you in that in that regard.
Right? So this is a problem with our
youth.
Our youth, they don't have
substantive knowledge, deep analytical knowledge,
know how to interpret certain things, to put
things in perspective.
Many of them are in what I call
in this Scooby Doo
Islam. Scooby Doo Islam. Islam is a bunch
of jinn and ghost stories. Right? That's all
it is. Like this brother came up to
me one time and said, I have a
very important question for you. Very important. Very
private question. I said, yes.
How do I catch a gin?
This is your very important question.
Yeah. Yeah. I said, brother, you play fudge
you play fudge?
No.
Okay. Why don't you start with fudge? And
then we'll talk about gin in a few
years in shah.
Right? But the same brother, you know, he
talks about
computer engineering like he's Bill Gates.
Very precise, very technical, very articulate when it
comes to some do know why do know,
some worldly thing. Don't don't know anything. But
when it comes to the dean, jinn story.
Scooby Doo religion. Right? This type of thing.
Why?
Because they don't take the time to study
the deen. The deen is not a simple
thing. If you if you go to it's
simply it's a it's a religion that everyone
can grasp at some level. That's true. But
in this context, we're not being we're being
challenged.
Right? Like my parents in back home in
the mother countries, there was no Internet. They
didn't meet atheists.
Right? Everyone was Muslim.
The questions were regarding orthopraxis.
They're they're ficki issues like, you know, how
do I pray? What happens if this happens?
What if I'm fasting and I vomit? And
these types of things. These were the issues
of the day in that generation.
Right? But nowadays, the youth in this generation,
it's not orthopraxis, it's orthodoxy.
The question is not what is Islam,
or how do I practice. Why Islam is
the question now. Why? Is there a God?
This is a question our brother asked his
parents one time. Is there how do you
know there's Allah? His father said to him,
Asafu and Allah. Go make wudu and pray
and Allah will reveal the answer to you.
You can't even give a You can't even
give this kid an answer.
Why? Give some evidence. This is how he's
geared. He's American.
He's westernized.
He lives in the Occident not in the
orient.
This is how he's how he's been,
socialized
into thinking about Akida, creed,
orthodoxy. Why should I believe? He's going online
and and and listening to Christopher Hitchens and
Richard Dawkins.
Right? These,
scholars
that teach at, you know, Cambridge and Oxford
that are anti Muslim, not even atheist, they're
anti theist.
Like one of them said, there is no
God and I hate him. They're listening to
these types of people talk about God, talk
about Islam.
Right? And they go to their father. He
says this and this. What do I do?
Go make wudu.
Go make wudu.
What does that going to do? Go make
wudu. Don't worry about it. Don't ask these
questions.
Right? Because that's how he was taught when
he was back home, but that doesn't work.
They want there's intellectual
curiosity.
They want more substantive
substantive answers. And then we have another crisis.
We'll end with this inshaAllah ta'ala because we're
out of time. There are some youth who
rise above this type of discourse, and they
and they engage in deep study,
and they want to be good Muslims. They
have high Himma, spiritual ambition.
And then they go to their father. The
sister goes to her father and says, I
wanna wear hijab. And he says, no. You're
not allowed to wear hijab. Sorry. You can't
do that. There's no. But it's for Dain.
I wanna wear hijab. And the father says
to her,
I will answer Allah on that day.
I'll take it up with God on the
Yomul Qiyamah. This is the answer they came
from her father.
That the unbelievers, they say to the believers,
Follow our way. We'll take your sins. Don't
worry about it. We'll vicariously atone for you.
This is Christianity.
What you talking about? I'll I'll answer Allah.
You're gonna answer Allah on the day when
when everyone is terrified on that day. You're
going to answer for your daughter.
Right? You're going to run from your daughter,
Yahvi. You're going to run. Flee. Flee. You're
gonna fill with Maruhim.
And she's going to flee from you.
Or you get this this brother who wanted
to study. This is very common. This just
happened. His brother wanted to to study when
he was in high school. He wanted to
study the dean. Right? He's junior in high
school. So he went to his parents. His
parents said, no. You cannot study the dean.
Not even a little bit.
You have to go get your master's degree
first.
7 years later, the brother gets his master's
degree, his parents call me.
So you remember that brother a few years
ago who wanted this Yeah. Yeah. He's an
atheist.
What do we do about our son now?
I said, well,
7 years ago, you told him to go
get get his master's degree. He probably went
to some university and listened to these secular
professors talk about Islam in a derogatory way.
You should have let him study a little
bit back then. I can't do anything for
you. Now I can talk to him. When
we talk to him, he's gone. Yani. Khalas.
It's gonna be very difficult.
Right?
So
we have to be balanced people. We have
to be balanced people. We have to think
about our communities. We have to support the
communities. The first thing the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasalam did in Madinah after he took a
census
of the city, because he wanted to know
who he was dealing with, was that he
built a masjid. And the Masjid isn't simply
a place of sajdah even though that's linguistically
what it means. It was a community center.
The Masjid was a community center where the
youth could go,
And they can ask questions and they can
learn. And this is very very important that
we support
these types of places.
Right?
Because the youth have answers and if they
don't get them here, don't think they're not
getting them from somewhere else. They're gonna say
you're in one of 2 states. Either you're
being either you're calling people towards something or
you're being called to something. That's it. Either
you're calling people towards something or you're being
called to something.
So these are just some things to think
about.