Ali Ataie – Ramadan is Rain Nourishing Seeds of Good Deeds Coupling Hope With Action
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We've entered into
the 27th night
of the holy month of Ramadan.
There's a strong opinion. There's nothing definitive
definitive,
but but according to our, the strongest opinion
is that is that tonight is later Qadr
Qadr Qadr, which is the night of power.
There's different ways of translating
The night of power is one way of
translating,
like,
The night of night of constriction.
Because the ulama say that on this night
night night night night night night
night night night night night night. Well, the
Quran says that the angels descend
The angels descend descend descend and there's a
type of type of constriction.
So there's a type of, constriction
on the Earth due to the
just the sheer amount of angels on the
Earth.
Another meaning of
is the night of destiny,
which Allah
decrees decrees
crees, for all of us what's going to
happen during the year
year year. And that is not to say
that we are we are strict determinists.
Said
that dua changes the Qadr.
Now in reality, nothing can change the Qadr.
Right? Allah
knowledge is perfect.
But from our perspective perspective,
we know that Allah
has given us
limited volition,
something of free will,
Unlimited.
We have no power whatsoever to do anything
intrinsically.
There is neither strength nor power except through
Allah
So we're given choice. We know this intuitively
intuitively.
You know, this is why we have courts
of justice in the world.
You know, someone who's caught,
you know, or convicted of murder murder murder,
you know, they're gonna say, well, why why
are you putting me in jail? This is
part of the Qadr. That's true. But we
know intuitively
that we have limited volition.
We know this. We know this. We know
this. We know this. It's part of our
nature.
So when we act, Allah
on the occasion of our action, he dispenses
his
he dispenses his power.
Another meaning of later Qadr is the knight
of of
honor or rank because Qadr in Arabic also
means
to have rank rank rank. So this is
truly momentous occasion occasion occasion occasion that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given us
to come and gather gather gather the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he said in a
hadith, which is sound sound sound.
Whoever stands
to pray pray
on Laylatul Qadr with faith,
which is maybe a better translation as confidence
than faith.
I don't have a problem with faith, but
some people, they hear the word faith and
they think, oh, that's the opposite of reason
reason.
Either logical and have reason or you have
faith faith. Right? And this is something that
the new atheists atheists
have really started in the West right after
911.
That faith is this type of type of
type of,
blind adherence adherence adherence to believe without reason.
Reason. Reason.
Reason.
So to have confidence in something is a
better word, and confidence just means faith. Con
fides, with faith. With faith. It doesn't carry
the baggage of the word. Unfortunately, the word
faith is being
it's been sullied sullied been sullied. So we
should try to own it own it, to
redefine it, or use a different word different
word.
But we believe because it is reasonable to
believe.
That's why we believe. That's why we believe.
You know? You know? You know? Ibrahim alayhis
salaam
he said to his people he
said to his people, he said he said,
do you not see do you not see
what you worship what you worship worship
worship,
you and your fathers of old fathers of
old. In Fakhruddin Ar Razi, he said about
this ayah. This is in Surat Ashura, I
believe I believe I believe.
He said that in this ayah, Ibrahim alayhi
salaam alayhi salaam,
he wants them to think about what they're
worshiping.
This is a verse. He says, this is
a verse
that condemns this type of theological taqleed taqleed
taqleed taqleed.
This type of blind adherence
in matters of theology. It's not permissible
to be a blind follower in matters of
theology. In other words, you have to believe
what you believe what you believe.
You have to be able to explain why
you believe something why you believe something. That's
called discursive theology discursive theology. You don't have
to be a theologian theologian theologian, but you
have to know something something. If somebody asks
you asks you asks you ask, you know,
you know, you know, why do you believe
in Islam? Why do you believe in Islam?
Your answer shouldn't be,
I was I was my dad's Muslim my
dad's my dad's Muslim or my grandfather's Muslim
or,
you know, I just raised in a Muslim
household household household. You should be able to
give reasons. Why do you believe the Quran
is the word of God?
Why do you believe the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi sallam is a messenger of God?
And one of the keys of of of
of getting these types of understandings understandings,
these types of openings and understandings,
because, yeah, there's there I mean, there's IQ.
Right? I think IQ is real. Some people
say it's not real. I don't know why
they say that, but,
yeah, your intelligence is probably to a certain
degree
determined by genetics genetics.
But we also believe in futuhat
in openings openings openings. Right? And I've seen
this with with I've seen people that people
that struggle with, like, learning Arabic.
Like, really struggle,
and then I see them a short time
later,
and they're
fluent in Arabic fluent in
Arabic. How did this
happen?
Well well
well well, Dua is
And sometimes we forget that. We forget that.
We forget that. We forget that. We forget
that. Right? This the essence. Dua, supplication,
calling upon Allah
is the essence of worship.
Right? We call Allah
from the depths of our hearts hearts of
our hearts of our hearts of our hearts
of our hearts of our hearts of our
hearts of our hearts of our hearts of
our hearts of our hearts of our hearts
of our hearts of our hearts. Allah
answers our dua. In some way or another,
he's going to answer our dua dua whether
in this world or in the next world.
But this has this has a a type
of
efficacy to it. Don't think Dua is falling
on deaf ears.
Call on us Allah.
Allah
says, and your lord says, call upon me
and I shall answer you answer you answer
you.
So whoever stands
with
confidence in Allah
and expecting a reward
from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So we have a good opinion of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
You know, the prophet, salallahu alaihi, salam, he
said wear the 2 na'alayn. Wear the 2
sandals of hope and fear.
Right? Of.
Right?
Right? So so we have hope in Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We have hope he's going to forgive
us.
And we have fear in Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
We don't have so much fear in Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala
that we start to despair of the mercy
of Allah
and it's haram to be in a state
of mercy.
Allah says, do not be in a state
of mercy. Do not be in a state
of despair
of the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
But but on the other side side on
the other hand on the other hand,
we don't have so much hope in Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala
that we start becoming a bit lazy. Lazy.
Right? And by lazy, I mean sloth. This
is one of the 7 deadly sins according
to the Catholic tradition. So sloth is spiritual
laziness.
Not in dunya. There's people that are lazy
in dunya. Yeah. But this is not what
we're talking about. You can work 80 hours
a week and have sloth. Sloth. Sloth. 80
hours a week in the dunya and still
be spiritually lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy.
Right. Right. Right.
So so so Don't have so much hope
in Allah
that you start leaving the prayer. Prayer. Prayer.
Prayer.
That you start,
disobeying Allah
Right? That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
has a Haqq upon us to obey him
to obey him. And one of the companions
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam,
Abdullah ibn Abbas Radiallahu anhu,
he came to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam
for advice advice,
and his related is the cousin of the
prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam.
And the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam said said
said said said Yeah.
Fiddhik.
Yeah. That that that literally
guard Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and he will guard you guard you guard
you Preserve Allah. He will preserve you. So
preserve Allah.
Guard Allah.
What is the meaning of this? According to
the according to the according to the ulama,
the meaning of this is this is guard
the commandments and prohibitions of Allah
And he will prioritize you. He'll give you
tofiyyah tofiyyah.
If we prioritize Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you'll
prioritize us.
Oh, you who believe,
give victory to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Give victory to us Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and so that he might give victory to
you, and he'll plant your feet firmly? How
do we give victory to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala? According to the exegetes,
we obey obey, obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And the means of our obedience is the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And this
is clear from the Quran. We
follow Allah and his messenger
messenger. This ayah in the Quran is chapter
3 verse 31.
This is called Ayatul Imtihan.
The first of examination examination examination.
So Allah
says to the prophet say,
say, say, if you really love Allah,
then follow me follow me follow me.
Follow the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
then he will love you and forgive you
your sins.
Allah is forgiving and merciful.
So adherence to Allah and his messenger. That's
not This is of paramount importance. Paramount and
paramount and paramount and And life is short.
Short. You know? Very short. I remember y2k.
Many of you were born after y2k.
I remember my first day of kindergarten.
I ran away. I ran away. I ran
away. I ran away. Our house was across
the street. I remember walking across the street
and looking at my shadow on the street.
I can still remember this. I can still
remember this. This was in in,
you know, you know, you know, 2017
dollars.
This was in the eighties. Eightyies. Eightyies. Eightyies.
I'm dating myself.
I'm actually younger than I look tomorrow.
That's what people tell me.
But time goes quickly.
And I as I always tell our young
people,
life is too short to sell out the
Deen.
Right? It's gonna be over soon. I know
that sounds a bit
maybe morbid morbid, but it's true.
And we need some we
need, some reminders,
you know, that are sort of
sober. We need sober reminders. Life is short.
Life moves quickly.
Right? Have istiapharma in their religion.
You know?
So
nowadays, especially, there's all this madness happening.
There's it's it's very difficult for a lot
of people. And the prophet
he said, there's gonna be a time when
someone who has patience over his religion is
like clutching onto a cinder, a burning coal.
You know, imagine holding a burning coal. That's
that's how hard it's going to be, holding
on to your deen. So you have to
keep juggling it juggling it juggling it juggling
it. Some people drop it drop it. Some
people get burned burned burned burned. But we
have to hold on to it hold on
to
it.
Allah
says in the Quran,
hold tightly to the rope of Allah
and don't be divided.
Right?
Means a type of grip that's going to
save your life. Like
the the
is the grip. Imagine the grip. Imagine you
fall into the ocean and someone throws you
a lifeline. Imagine your grip on that rope.
That's called.
Hold on for your life.
Life. The prophet said,
The imagery he's using to communicate this truth,
He says, I exhort you to follow my
sunnah and the sunnah of the rightly guided
caliphs
the rightly guided caliphs, Abu Bakr Siddiq
Hold fast to it and bite down on
it with your molar teeth.
This is what he says. These molar teeth
are very strong.
Bite down on it as if your life
depended on it. Don't let go of it.
Don't let go of it. Don't let go
of it. Because life is short. Because life
is short.
You
know?
And don't join a
means don't join
a A farroku is a group that believes
they have the exclusive truth
and everyone else is a kafir
amongst the Muslims.
This is different than a madhab. It's permissible
to join a madhab, even recommend it. A
madhab is a school of thought like a
university.
Right? The first firqa in our history were
the Khawarij, the Kharijites, as they're called.
They believed they had the truth. Everyone else
was a kafir. They make tafir of even
Sahaba Sahaba Sahaba. They they don't discriminate. If
you can say one thing positive about them,
they don't discriminate. They don't care if you're
Fulan or or Imam Ali. They make takfir
of you.
But that's a firkah, and the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam
he warned us against those types of people.
And the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam was
one who united the hearts.
Right? And his disposition was very gentle,
which is amazing because
he came into an environment that was extremely
harsh.
And the fact that he had this gentle
disposition is a is a miracle. I mean,
his life is a miracle.
If if people would just open their eyes
I mean, he he's he's the most praised
human being in the history of the world.
His name means the praised one. Right there.
It's like, okay.
How do people not see this? His name,
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, means the one who
is often praised. But now you have, like,
Christian apologists saying that's that's his later name.
That's not his real name. Can't be his
real name because that's such an obvious sign
that he was a prophet.
So, no, his his his actual name was
Al Abim, they say. That's his real name.
You know?
Completely completely,
misreading. No. That was his title that was
given to him, but you see the trickery
that they use.
Right?
Asadikul Amin was a title that was given
to him by the Quraysh before Islam.
Right? Because even they testified to his
his truthfulness.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam, he unites
the hearts.
And this is mentioned in the Quran.
It is part of the great mercy of
Allah
that you have lean
you gentle disposition.
If you were harsh or hardhearted,
you would have seen men flee from your
presence.
He was a gentleman. This is a beautiful
word in English.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam was a gentleman,
a gentleman, a true man.
Right?
And part and parcel of being a gentleman
is sometimes a gentleman
has to have a bit of have a
bit of, strictness strictness
strictness strictness because he has to be courageous.
He has to set the earth. He has
to, he has to,
place justice upon the Earth upon the Earth.
He has to defend defend defend,
people under his,
authority authority.
And so we see that beautiful balance in
the prophet
that no other prophet had. He's insan al
kamil.
Right? As he's called by our ulama.
Every prophet is insan al kamil,
but no one had the perfect equilibrium
like the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
You look at the prophet, statesman, military genius,
military leader, father,
right,
messenger of God,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
No one in history is like this.
This is a major sign,
a major daleel of our religion, a major
daleel of his Nabooah, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So engaging in the Quran engaging in the
Quran is very
engaging with Quran.
Do they not penetrate the meanings of Quran?
What does the Quran say about the prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam?
What does the Quran say about our lord,
Allah
And this is the month of the Quran.
So there's a few early surahs of the
Quran that were revealed to him, sallallahu alaihi
salam,
during a time of extreme difficulty in his
life,
right?
During a time when
basically the Quraysh were trying to
cancel him.
Right?
We live in a weird culture nowadays
where people are offended very easily. People don't
want to have discussions.
People don't wanna talk about thing.
You know? It's strange. They won't even let
you if you say, for example, you know,
I don't really think it's a good idea
to give children,
you know, hormones when they're 9 or 10
years old,
and them.
They don't wanna they don't wanna hear it.
They won't let you talk. They'll just cancel
you. They'll kick you off social media.
It's very
strange.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam during
the early period,
there was, you know, there was distress. There
was it was the time of anxiety,
even depression.
So I wanna talk about 1 Surah in
particular, and I mentioned this in the past.
But
nowadays
it's it's even more relevant.
Surah 93 of the Quran
is called Surat Al Duha.
And this surah really gives us a prescription
as to how to deal with
basically, the postmodern world that we're living in,
where more and more we're seen as
just very strange people, which is a good
sign, by the way.
Because
the prophet
said,
He predicted this
This deen began strange. It was very strange
for the Arabs. You know, there's one god,
you can't drink alcohol,
you know, no fornications.
What is this? Very strange. And then it
became normative.
Right?
Because when Islam spread around the world, it
became the standard.
And then he said it's going to return
to be strange again.
It's very strange.
Right? I remember
what was it? Year 2000? I was at
the copy machine. I used I used to
be an accountant, by the way,
making copies.
And,
one of the other employees said, I heard
you're getting married. And I said, yeah.
She said, oh, how long have you known
each other? I said, about 2 weeks.
What?
That's so strange.
I said, okay.
And they come by my cubicle.
Are you coming to happy hour?
No.
Why not?
You know, I I don't drink alcohol.
What? What do you do for fun?
I'll never forget it. What do you do
for fun?
We live for the weekend.
And then every Friday like clockwork are you
coming to happy hour? Same people.
Are you going to happy hour? No. Are
you going to happy hour? One of my
I have a neighbor, brother Muhammad, he said
he said that a a good way to
get out of that is just to say,
I'm a recovering alcoholic.
Never ask you again because that's something to
remember.
Right? I'll never ask you again.
But, you know, we're strange people,
you know.
We believe in traditional morality,
we believe in the difference between men and
women,
you know?
I had a
one of my professors at the undergrad was
a a rabbi.
And,
and, I asked him about shaking hands with
women. Because they don't he's orthodox. They don't
shake shake hands with women. Right? And vice
versa. It's called.
It's a it's a concept they have in
their halaka, which is their sharia.
And he said I said, how do you
how do you explain this to people? And
he said, I just tell them I'm sexist.
I said, oh, what?
He said, yeah. What's the definition of being
a sexist? You treat men and women differently.
In fact, we all do that.
And what's wrong with that? That's a good
thing. Obviously, the people who I'm talking about
mistreating
people of the opposite gender. There's only 2
genders, by the way.
I mean, it's it's intuitively obvious.
This is the problem with modern education.
You go to a u modern university, you
drop a 100 k on an education, and
you come out thinking there's 55 genders?
That's called that's called a robber. It's called
grand larceny.
They drain the common sense out of you.
You were smarter going in than you came
out. And now you're a lot poorer.
SubhanAllah.
Yeah. This is it's an attack against the
natural inclinations
anyway.
So
And then
I said, okay, and then he said, I'm
also discriminatory,
I discriminate.
I said, well, what?
You're a sexist. You're just he said, yes.
I discriminate. I treat people differently.
I don't treat my mother like I treat
my sister.
But the modern world wants to equalize everybody.
And this looks good on paper,
you
know. And I don't mean any disrespect, but
it's kinda like, you know, Christianity
sort of looks good on paper.
You know,
love. God is love.
It's love, man.
You died for your sins, man.
Isn't that beautiful?
But then you scratch the surface a little
bit,
it kinda falls apart.
Right? Anzilunasam andazilahum.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said treat
people according to their status,
according to their rank.
Right?
This is extremely important
that we have a concept of
hierarchy.
The word hierarchy
comes from the Greek. It means sacred rule.
Hierarchy
is established by God. The ultimate hierarchy, at
the top of the ultimate hierarchy is Allah
If everyone's just equalized suddenly, say we're all
equal, it sounds good. We're all equal.
We're all equal.
Then what happens? The people of knowledge are
completely decentralized.
My opinion is good as their opinion.
My opinion is I can make tafsir of
the Quran. Who cares if you have 40
years of training? Blah.
I have a translation here.
I can read.
I can take akham from the Quran.
I can interpret the Quran.
Right? And tell it al amaturabataha,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, It's
very interesting he chose
this in the hadith Jibril.
When Jibril alaihi wa sallam how many questions
did Jibril alaihi wa sallam ask the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, by the way?
Hurry. Hurry.
Hurry.
5.
Some people most people say 3.
It's actually 5 because we put the hadith
on pause.
Tell me about
Islam, tell me about Iman, tell me about
Ihsan, then we push pause.
Tell me about
sa'a,
the hour.
The one being questioned knows no more than
the questioner. Yes.
They ask you about the Sa'a, say the
the knowledge of it is only with my
lord.
Then tell me about its signs. That's the
5th question.
Tell me about the signs of the sa'ah.
And the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam could have
said anything here,
A,
a slave girl will give birth to her
mistress.
A slave girl will give birth to her
master.
Very interesting.
There's different ways of looking at this hadith
because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had
Joami al Hikam, Joami al Kalim
and Joahid al Hikam.
He had extremely comprehensive speech that's just saturated
with sapience, with wisdom.
There's different ways of looking at this hadith.
One way, according to modern scholars, traditional ulama
that are in the modern world,
is there's going to be a total leveling
of society,
that societal structures and hierarchies will be turned
upside down.
And we see that now. We see it
everywhere, and it's not a good sign.
People not respecting
scholarship, they're not respecting age.
He's not from us
who doesn't have mercy on our little ones,
our young ones,
and have,
wakar and have respect for our older ones.
Now you go into a university classroom
and, you know, they're referring
to the hey, referring to the professor by
his first name
and, you know, openly disagreeing
with Bad Adab,
you know. 1 of the
one of my teachers said recently that one
of these Etuna alumnus, he's at Georgetown,
and all these non Muslim professors are,
they love him.
He's a graduate student
because he shows so much respect
to them. He said, this is this is
amazing.
This is
very counterculture nowadays. It's just to show respect
to a teacher.
It's very strange,
you
know.
So this religion will return as something strange.
So during this time, the prophet,
he received
the the wahi,
iqra, and laid it to qadr. And this
is when the entire Quran was brought down.
It's called an Inzaal.
Inzaal means the entire Quran was brought down
to the Samat of Dunya,
and then 5 verses
from the Inzaal were given to the prophet
Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam, that's called the
Tanzil or a peace meal revelation.
So Iqra and then you
have,
Al Mudafir
and other early
verses of the Quran.
And then some of the mushrikeen, they had
caught wind that the prophet was
claiming
to receive wahi from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and then there was a break in the
revelation. It's called the fatra. There was a
break. And some say it was a few
days, some say a few months, even some
of the mufasilin say might have been a
year, but there's a break. And so the
mushrikeen began to
taunt and mock and ridicule the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Right?
And Umujameel
Bintuhar,
who's the wife of Abu Lahab,
who was canceled
by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala by the way.
That's a cancellation you don't want. That's the
cancellation we should be really concerned with
because nobody's going to remember us in
a 100 everyone in this room in a
100 years unless, you know I mean, they're
trying to upload their consciousness into clouds now.
That's what people are trying to do. There
are people who think whatever is latest is
greatest. This is their whole philosophy of life.
Whatever is happening now must be the best.
So right now what we need to do
is, you know, stop getting married, go live
in a pod, go buy an electric car,
start eating bugs,
and worship technology,
and go into the metaverse,
and become an avatar, and then eventually upload
your consciousness
into the cloud, and then we can download
it into a cyborg
and you can live forever. Isn't that beautiful?
This is what millions of people believe
because this is their philosophy, whatever is latest
is greatest.
And they say things like, you know, 3
years ago,
I was an idiot.
I was I was using, you know, the
wrong verbiage,
but now
I'm woke,
and
I'm so different from 3 years ago.
And then we say, okay. What about you,
mister Muslim?
The best generation is my generation. When was
that? 1400 years ago. Oh my god.
1400 years ago? You're a caveman?
That's crazy.
That's
what?
How can this be?
So, you know, this
anyway,
so one of the Moshelekin,
she caught wind of that the prophet was
claiming,
prophecy, and then and then there was a
break in the so she said she
said,
indeed. Oh, yeah. Abu Lahab. That's the wife
of Abu Lahab. That's what I'm talking about.
Tabadiada
abilahabin
watab. This watab means he's canceled.
Goodbye.
Abu Lahab is canceled.
There's only a few people, by the way,
we can say are canceled.
We have to have a clear yani daleel.
Abu Lahab is cancelled.
Abu Jahal is cancelled. Firaun is cancelled.
Right? There's only a few people, so we
have to be careful about consigning people to
the hellfire. This is haram to do this
in our religion. We can't do this. You
know, the Christians, when they debate with us
I've been debating Christians for
too long.
That's why I look older than I really
am.
Turn your hair gray.
But,
one of the sort of sales
one of the I don't know what to
call it.
Sales pitch. I don't know. They'll say something
like, I have I have a personal guarantee
I'm going to paradise.
A personal guarantee. Do you have this guarantee,
mister Muslim?
So it's not a personal guarantee. Then the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he said,
Whoever says
with with, with, with, sincerity will enter paradise,
but it's not a personal guarantee.
You know, the prophet said something, he didn't
say, you know, that that Ali from California
is gonna dakalaljannah,
But the Muslim I hope to be that
he said, that's not good enough. I have
a personal guarantee.
You know?
And it's interesting. A lot of these Christians
who claim to have these personal guarantees, they
con to Islam.
What happened to your personal guarantee? So you
say that you're you're
this this Christian over here who was who
was like you, a Christian, does he still
have a personal guarantee now that he's Muslim?
No. No. No. No. So what's the point
of saying you have a personal guarantee? Anyway,
so,
indeed his lord has forsaken him
and hates him.
This is what she was going around saying.
Right? And so Allah
revealed this beautiful Surah, Surah Wadduha,
as a surah of tasliyah, of consolation.
Consolation upon the heart of the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So he begins the Surah
by taking an oath. This is called a
qasam,
an adoration. And when Allah
swears by something,
that something is great.
And Allah says in the Quran, La Amruka,
by your life, he swears by the life
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. But
in this case, what duha. What is what
duha?
This is the morning light. This is the
light before the sun reaches its zenith,
so that light is always soothing. It's not
hot. It's not uncomfortable.
Right? Even the in the hottest of environments,
the the light of the duha
is soothing.
So the ulama say,
duha here symbolizes
the wahi, the revelation,
because this is a a source of consolation
and comfort for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So by the revelation,
and by the night when it is still.
So the opposite of duha is layl.
So the opposite of revelation
is when there's no revelation.
Alright?
So Allah
is saying
whether you're receiving revelation
or not receiving revelation,
your lord has not forsaken you. Allah is
saying, I swear
your lord has not forsaken you nor is
he displeased with you nor does he hate
you.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will never forsake the
prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam.
So what do we gain from this?
You know, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He's revealing
the surah to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, but we are the ummah of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And in the
Quran, you'll notice that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
seamlessly
moves from a second masculine singular
to a second masculine plural,
Speaking direct In other words, speaking directly to
the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and
then speaking directly to him and his ummah
without skipping a beat.
Right?
Without skipping a piece, tifat. This is in
rhetoric, ill tifat, sudden change. Turn your face
towards the sacred mosque in the singular to
the prophet
Wherever you are, turn your faces
to the sacred mosque.
What does this show according to the Mufasilin?
A very close intimate relationship
between the messenger of Allah
and the prophet and and his ummah.
That's us.
So this Surah,
Allah speaking to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam by but by extension to the ummah
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
That if
we obey Allah
and his messenger, Allah will not forsake us
nor does he hate us.
And this dunya
is just it's a test.
It's a trial,
and we should recognize it as being a
test.
And
the prophet
said, the most severe of tribulations come to
the prophets.
Right?
But it's never a punishment
for them.
It's a means by which Allah raises their
rank.
But for us, it could be that, but
or or else it could be a punishment.
So we make tawba to Allah
And if the punishment, then good.
We make tawba. Allah is purifying us in
this world.
And put us into Jannah.
We don't want the punishment in the next
world. Ibn Abbas, he says that if a
bala if a type of,
trial
comes to you,
then make shukr to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Because it could have been worse, he says.
Like, you know,
you you lose a $1,000,000, you could have
lost $2,000,000.
You know, you, you lost you the use
of one of your hands, you could have
lost both of your hands. Make shukar. It
could have been worse, number 1. Number 2,
it only happened in the dunya,
not in the akhirah. Number 3, it didn't
have anything to do with your Din, but
in only in your dunya.
So we should be in a state of
shukur.
So your lord has not forsaken you nor
is he displeased with you. Walalakhiratuhaylulakaminalullah.
What is later is better than what is
now.
Right? So you can take this in 2
ways,
that what is later
in Medina
is better than what's happening now in Mecca.
In other words, have hope. Be an optimist
for your life now.
Right?
Have hope
that your life, your conditions will improve, but
you have to,
take initiative.
Right? So the famous iconic statement, right, tie
your camel
then trust in Allah.
Zubaydah when I was outside, didn't tie his
camel, the camel was running around like this.
And the prophet, salallahu alayhi, said whose camel
is this? He said, that's my camel.
I've trusted Allah. He said,
hobble her, tie her down, then trust in
Allah.
So we have hope. We have raja in
Allah. Raja is different than tamannah.
There's 2 words there's many words for hope
in Arabic,
but
is sort of a hope without action.
Right? The Quran says,
will will will the human being have whatever
he hopes for vainly without any action?
Right?
Right? Sitting back
and,
you know,
making dua, but not taking any
any steps towards that towards that end.
Right? Muslim is an active participle. The word
Muslim is called an ism fa'il.
Right? Muslim, not Muslim,
not passive.
Muslim
is someone who's faal,
someone who is active, who's doing things.
Right?
Like it says in the Hadith Qudsi,
that if my servant draws close unto me
the span of a shibr, a hand span,
that I draw close unto him,
the span of a vira, which is a
cubit.
And if he draws near to me the
hands if he draws near to me a
vira, a cubit,
I I come to him a fathom, which
is this,
arm's length, a wingspan.
And if he walks towards me, I run
towards him in no anthropomorphic way.
Now, we have to take an initial step.
Right? So we have Raja and Allah.
You have in the messenger of Allah a
beautiful pattern of conduct.
Whoever has raja, hope in Allah, hope with
action,
hope with action in Allah and in the
last day, and makes frequent remembrance of Allah
Another meaning of this is the afterlife is
better than this world for you.
Right?
So,
you know, we we do our best in
this world, but we don't put all of
our all of our what is the expression?
All of our
eggs
in the spirit of Easter even though we
don't believe in it because He was never
crucified.
But, alayhi salam,
we don't put all of our eggs in
the basket of the dunya. A lot of
people do that. People of the world, ahludunya,
that are materialists.
This is all they have.
So they try to create this kind of
Jannah on Earth
by any means necessary.
This is tried in the past and it's
led to massive death,
massacres,
whole scale massacre, genocide.
It doesn't work.
You'll never actualize true justice in this world.
We have to do the best we can,
but at the end of the day, true
justice will manifest
on the Yomul Qiyama
by al-'Adil, by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And
on that day, we don't want justice. You
don't want justice.
On on the Yomul Qiyamah,
nobody is going to be saying no justice,
no peace.
Nobody wants justice on Yom Alekiahma.
You want mercy on the Yomul Qiyamah.
Mercy.
So
this is part of our
commitment as Muslims
that we believe in
the punishment in the grave, the questioning in
the grave,
We believe
in, the Yom Al Qiyamah, the Day of
Judgment.
We believe in the Sirat.
We believe in Jannah and Nar.
You know?
But we have hope in Allah
And then Allah says to the prophet
and by extension to all of us,
and soon your lord will give you something.
A'atah.
A'atah
means like a gift.
He'll gift you something.
Faterodah.
And immediately you'll be pleased.
So what is this thing?
According to Muhammad Suyuti, when the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam received this ayah And by
the way, this ayah was given to him
according to Suyuti in Ithhan,
directly by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
without their intermediation of Jabeel alayhi salam
is placed directly into the heart of the
prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi salam. There's a few
times there are few places in the Quran
where this happens, like the end of Al
Baqarah, Khawatim Al Baqarah, which contains our essential
creed.
So this Surah and the following Surah,
these were placed directly into the heart of
the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam.
Well, I saw here,
and soon your lord will give you something
and immediately you'll be pleased. And according to
Mam Suyuti, the prophet said,
I will never be pleased.
Never be pleased. While one person from my
ummah is in the fire.
So the ulama say, what is this thing
that's going to give the prophet
immediately
is that the entire ummah will enter Jannah
eventually.
Soon, I will give you this. Your entire
ummah is going to enter paradise.
Now look at what happens here.
Right?
This is Again, he's By extension he's speaking
to all of us. In times of depression,
in times of anxiety,
right, what does Allah say to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? He starts to remind
him of past blessings.
Did he not find you an orphan
and gave you shelter and give you shelter?
Don't you remember that? Is a rhetorical question.
In the Quran, when it says,
it's
a it's a it's a
rhetorical question.
The point of this question is not to
get you to say yes or no.
It's simply to remind you. In other words
in other words, you were an orphan,
and he sheltered you.
Like, alam tarakefa fa'alara bukabi as habilfil.
This again is second masculine singular,
speaking to the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasalam.
Don't didn't you see what your lord did
to the companions of the elephant?
In other words,
you should remember that event.
Why did Allah do that? That was the
year you were born.
Allah saved Mecca for your sake.
Right? Because that was the year you were
born.
And you were searching and he guided you.
And
here does not mean he was, like, lost
or disobedient or something.
This is by all of the mufasareen. Dua
lan has different meanings. One of the meanings
of Dua lan is wandering or searching for
something,
asking for something.
Because the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam,
he his beata was on later to Qadr,
but he was a prophet when Adam was
Bayna Rooh Bar Jasad.
He was a prophet before Adam alaihi salam.
And this is this is sound this is
sound aqidah. This isn't some goofy Sufism.
These are sound hadith.
He was a prophet before Adam.
He has Irhas. He has pre prophetic miracles.
Prophetic meaning pre
pre commissioning miracles
that, Bahira the monk, he saw a cloud
covering the caravan in Bostra, and he knows
from his knowledge of Ahlul Kitab that a
cloud signifies Tawfiq
because a cloud would follow around the Bani
Israel
in the Sinai
demonstrating God's tofiq, that God was with them
protecting them, etcetera.
So he invited all of these men into
his cell.
Right? He said, have a meal inside my
cell. He was a monk. He's surrounded by
manuscripts.
So he noticed
that there was a 12 year old, 10
year old boy amongst them and that a
palm tree had bent his trunk to to
shade him.
So he approached this boy, and he said,
I'm going to ask you a question in
the name of Allat and Al Erza.
And the prophet
does not interrupt people
unless it's absolutely necessary.
And he said,
no names are more detestable to me than
Allat and El Urza.
So Bahira said, okay.
He passed the first test.
This is a Muahid, and he's the greatest
Muahid, sallallahu alaihi sallam. He's the greatest monotheist
in the history of humanity,
and no one can deny this.
No one can deny this.
And the Jews, they they don't know what
to do with him.
He's an enigma for them
because that's their claim to fame as tokid.
That's what they say. We're chosen because god
chose us. They say Hashem chose us. God
chose us to to to to give the
light of El Echad, of tohi to the
Goyim, to the nations. That was their whole
job. But this one man does it better
than all their prophets put together.
All their prophets put together. He says, oh,
what happened here?
So some of them said, okay. He's a
nebbi but he's only for the non Jews.
So he's for 99.99%
of humanity.
Right?
Okay.
Yeah.
You're almost there. You're getting closer.
Because they're very reluctant. They're very reluctant
to ascribe it in Kib.
Right? They're very reluctant to do that because
he's he's he's so extremely
successful
as a monotheist.
How can we say he's making this up?
Okay. He's he's for the non Jews.
Right?
Ajiv.
So,
And you were weighed down with family responsibilities,
and we enriched you.
So to enrich someone spiritually as well as
financially.
In all of the Mufasilin
say, the means of his enrichment
was Assaydah Khadija tul Kubra, alayhis salam,
who supported him with her wealth.
So we have 3 reminders of past past
blessings. So when you feel depressed, when you
have anxiety,
when the modern world is
bewildering us, which happens
more and more now I can go into
some more details, very disturbing things
that people want to normalize. It's hard to
even watch a movie now with kids.
You can't watch a kid's movie.
You have to screen it 6 ways to
Sunday.
Right? There's all these hidden satanic messages and
everything. You can't go to a library.
You can't go to a the kids section
of the library and the kids, mommy, can
I read this? Oh, let me me look
at it.
No. What's wrong with it? It's a kid's
book.
I don't know. So you have to you
have to sort the books out. Haram, halal,
in the kid's section.
What's going on?
Ajib and gharib.
Types of things going on.
You know.
So
when we have this type of,
you know,
distress,
remember these past blessings of Allah
That number 1, he made you Muslim, he
put you in a masjid and laid it
al Qadr.
Who knows if you're gonna be here next
year? Even if you're alive, you may not
be here.
That Allah gave you tawfiq. Imam Malik said
and some of the teachers, they say don't
even say this, but
he said that if you pray in Jama'a
'isha, you have your portion for Laylatul Qadr.
Just if you pray Jama'a
'isha prayer.
You've caught the Laylatul Qadr.
Yeah.
And part of the wisdom why the exact
night wasn't given, because imagine a Muslim who
knows the exact night and he's nowhere to
be found in the Masjid.
How pitiful of state is that
if he knows the exact night?
Najib.
Remember these past blessings.
And then we have 3 imperatives for the
future.
So remember these past blessings, and here's something
to do.
As for the orphan,
don't be harsh towards them. Why? Because you
were an orphan. That's the subtext Allah is
saying.
Right?
So there's a correspondence in these ayat. This
is incredible in the Quran.
The Quran, the Surah is a complete literary
unit. The Surah are they they have this,
chiastic
concord to them. There's this type of parallelism
that is and this happens with short Surah
and Al Baqarah.
There's a book written by non Muslim, UC
Berkeley professor, Raymond Farron, called Coherence in the
Quran, where he looks at Surah Al Baqarah.
He says the entire Surah is a big
chiasm.
And if you're not writing this down, this
is impossible.
If he, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, is not looking
at these ayahs and putting this here and
this there, you can't do this.
It's 286
verses.
And not only that, he's receiving Baqarah and
then a verse from Al Maida and and
Nisa. He's not just getting all Baqarah and
then and then it's not in the way
he's receiving the Quran is not in the
canonical order.
It's in the chronological order. So he's telling
the scribes where to put this ayah, where
to put that ayah.
And you look at these ayah you look
at these surahs in the canonical order, and
they're all works of art.
This is impossible.
Unless he has a 400 IQ,
you can't do this. And this is what
people are realizing now.
Because the the classical sort of orientalist this
Koran is jumbled up and it's
it's moving tenses and it's talking about Adam
then Moses and then it's going back to
Adam and it's it's kranalah. No. No. No.
No. If you have the depur of the
Quran, you'll see the coherence of the ayat.
And our scholars talked about this. This is
not something non Muslims found. Imam al Razi
talks about this. He calls it almunasabat,
you know, the sort of coherence of the
ayat of the Quran.
As for the orphan, do not over overwhelm
him.
And the one who asks you for something,
the sa'il,
don't reject him.
What is this verse what's the sort of
parallel of this verse?
You were searching for something and he guided
you. So the one who comes to you
searching,
right,
don't reject them because you're searching.
In other words, treat these people like I
treated you. Allah is telling the prophet say,
treat these people like I treated you.
And as for the,
and as for the niema,
the blessing of your lord,
speak
talk about it. Speak of it. What is
this niyama?
Al Islam,
this religion.
Speak about Islam.
Right? So this is our prescription.
This is our,
this is our,
prescription for how to come out of type
of distress and and depression.
Right? Know that Allah
has not forsaken you
and does not hate you as long as
you are in obedience to Allah and his
messenger and we have Tawba.
Right? Tawba is a very beautiful thing. We
should be in one of 2 states, tawba
or shukur or both.
Tawba or shukur. And, again, the modern world,
they don't recognize these.
3 of the greatest theological virtues,
tawba, repentance I'll finish in a minute here.
Tawba,
Right? Repentance.
The modern people in the modern world, the
postmodern world,
they don't believe in god. Many of them,
they're atheists.
Tawba to who?
You know?
Why should I make Tawba? I didn't do
anything wrong.
What's wrong with me?
I'm
perfect.
And then shukr,
gratitude.
Gratitude to Allah
Contrast that with the victim mentality that's being
bred in these colleges, universities. Everyone's a victim.
Right?
This is totally satanic
because this is a satanic mentality.
Right? When Adam alaihis salam
made
Adam and Eve. It's in the plural. Right?
Oh, our lord, forgive us.
We have wronged ourselves.
And
if you don't forgive us, we'll be from
the lost ones.
Right? This is this is Adam alayhi salaam.
This is the Adamic
paradigm. What is the satanic paradigm?
Because you did this to me, he says.
You you
led me astray.
Shaitan victimizes himself.
The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam did not
victimize himself.
He didn't.
And there was real oppression happening.
And that's what happens when people victimize themselves
and they're not real victims. What does it
do?
It completely minimizes people who are victims
and then we don't see that victimization.
We don't see that oppression.
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, people threw
garbage on him. He went home. He wrapped
himself in his mantle. He laid down.
Oh, you wrapped in a mantle, stand up.
Means get
up. Literally stand up and also have istiqama.
You know,
and and dust yourself off. Clean your clothes.
They threw this on you. Clean it.
Don't expect someone to pick you up and
start cleaning you.
You have to do it yourself.
And shun their idolatry.
Shun their their their defilements,
and magnify your lord,
and don't expect anything in return.
Don't expect any reward from human beings.
This is only from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So
may Allah
bless all of you, bless all of us.
May Allah
accept our fasting and our worship. May Allah
blot out our sins. One of the greatest
of the dua, the adaiyah of the prophet
during the last 10 nights.
Oh, Allah. You are the one
Al Al Afu means the one who erases
the sin.
It's gone. Like, Allah is called al ghafir,
al ghafar,
al ghafur, the the one who forgives.
Right? But the sin is still there. He
just forgives it.
But the ahu is the one who do
it's deleted.
It's gone completely, and Allah can delete things
completely. So we ask Allah
to delete
all of our sins so there's no trace
of them.
And he loves the prophet said he loves
to delete sins
so delete them from us.
Assalamu alaikum. With your permission, doctor Aletta, a
few questions.
Put you on the spot.
Alright.
If you wanna raise your hands. Usually, the
sisters have the most bravery than the brothers.
So I'm looking at your side. I doubt
it.
Sisters?
Nobody? Oh my god. She letting me down.
No question. Oh, good. Alright. I'll come to
you next, brother.
Brothers.
So during the speech, like,
at one moment, like, what I heard when
you mentioned Khatejar,
like, her name. Right? You,
like, what I heard is, like, instead of
saying,
you said,
Alaihul Islam.
So I just want to know, like, what
is the right way to, you know, address
the area.
Yes. So sometimes when I do that, people
think I'm a Shiite.
So where are you from? Iran?
What is your name?
Okay. No. We can we can say alayhis
salam alayhis salam for sahaba.
It's perfectly permissible to do that. You'll find,
handwritten,
handwritten manuscripts of Sahih al Bukhari,
where they write Fatima alayhis salaam
because she's from Ahl al Bayt. Right?
So it's permissible to say it.
For some reason,
just kind of organically, I guess, maybe to,
I don't know, to maybe draw a distinction
between
Sunnis and Shia that a culture kind of
developed
where the Sunnis would say
and Anha in the in the Shia.
They would say
But when I meet you, I say
Right? I say,
to
you.
So,
so, that's perfectly permissible to do that,
You know?
And especially for Beit. I mean, the Beit
have a
in Sunni orthodoxy,
they have a special rank with us.
Right?
So and this is something in the Quran.
In Surah Jashuara in Surah Shura, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says, so the prophet say, no
reward do I ask of you for this
except love for the family.
And this is interpreted by almost by many
many
Sunni mufasilin,
that it is incumbent,
it is it is obligatory to love the
family of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasalam.
That they have a special place.
Right? And you have the hadith.
That's one hadith. It's a sound hadith, but
there's an even stronger hadith in our books,
Sunni books.
And there's no contradiction here. So what what
is it then? Do we follow the sunnah
or the Ahlulbayt?
Right? There's no contradiction because the Sunnah has
always been preserved,
in its most pristine form
amongst the Ahlulbayt. And most Ahlulbayt are alosunu
jama'ah.
Most descendants of the Prophet
are Sunni.
People don't realize that.
You know?
That's just a fact.
You know? I was in a Shiite mosque
one time and the brother stood up and
he said
he said
he said, do you do you follow the
Imams or do you or do you go
after the Khalifas? That's how he put it.
So what Khalifas are you talking about?
So you know the Khalifas.
I said, no, you name them. So okay.
He's Abu Bakr. Nam, I follow Abu Bakr.
Amar,
uh-huh, what's the one? Keep going.
Okay.
So the question is faulty,
The very question is false.
Right?
So, you know, we shouldn't fall victim to
these kinds of these kinds of simplistic polemics.
Right?
But,
you know, that's that's part of our tradition.
You know? We love Ahl al Bayt, and
we're not afraid to say it, and we
don't care what people think about us
when we say that we love Ahlul Bayt.
Okay, sisters.
Okay. Good.
I'll come to you, brother.
Sorry.
Assalamu alaikum.
I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
My question is, if you have
a consistent pattern of,
where you're you're having some kind of a
problem or question, and then you show up
to a a talk or a and
that conversation is being referenced
of what your troubles were or your questions
were. Is there a deeper meaning to that?
I've always been curious.
Thank you.
Aloha, Adam. I I don't know. Yeah. Probably.
I mean, we should keep our eyes open,
you know, for things like that.
You know, that Allah
is
is,
is using the asbaab. He's using certain means
to give us the answer to things.
This happens
I mean, it's people, you know, they say
this is coincidence and things like that, but
this happens a lot.
I remember just just tonight, I was
I was
I was
behind Qadhi Ammar and I was and, you
know, my
they say that if you can if you
can if you can keep your brain having
one extraneous thought during the prayer, you've reached
wilayah. Right?
And Abu Bakr did that. During his prayer,
he was completely focused. But most of us
are not aliyah. So during my prayer,
I thought suddenly it came to me, what
am I gonna talk about later?
And then Qari Umar recited an ayah, and
I said, oh,
like, right then. Wow.
Perfect.
So we could keep our eyes open. It's
like the guy, you know, who
what is the the joke he he was
there was a flood or something. He's standing
on his roof. Right?
And the
ambulance comes by and says, get in, get
in, it's going to be flooded. He's like,
no, no, no. I made du'a to Allah.
He's okay. And the ambulance goes away. And
then it's it's flooding, and a guy comes
with a boat.
He says, get in. Get in. You're you're
going to be drowned.
I made du'a to Allah.
And then the the water gets higher and
higher, and he's like he's about to drown,
and a helicopter comes, throws him a rope,
Say, grab the rope. You're gonna drown. I
made du'a to Allah, and then he dies.
And then, You
know,
he says to Allah, I made du'a to
you. Yeah. Allah says, I I sent you
a car. I sent you a I sent
you
a a a a rowboat. I sent you
a helicopter.
This was the answer to your duet. Three
times.
Okay. I'm coming, brother.
I'll go to him first. Yeah. I'll come.
So when you're speaking about the,
correct me if I'm wrong, please.
Yeah.
They were really strong even
more than the companions,
and they had this practice that where they
would count the
they would say,
like,
the and they would count it on
stones, and they would kinda put them in
front of them. Right? Would you say that's
equivalent to the prayer beads? Is there any
relation?
I was wondering.
That's okay.
Getting my stepson.
I I haven't heard that about the stones.
But according to the ulama of Ahlusson Abu
Jamal,
it is a practice of
lisalev,
to use
the and that it's a good thing to
use
the even just to have it on you,
even if you don't use it.
Because when you feel it on your person,
even if you don't use it, you'll you
tend to make dhikr or you remember Allah
So I I doubt seriously that it has
origins with the Khawarij.
But,
I haven't heard that before. But you're right
about the Khwarij. I mean, when Sayna Ali
sent ibn Abbas to them,
he said that during the,
after Duhr, when it's really hot
and the Sahaba are taking their naps,
you can hear buzzing like bees in the
dwellings of the of the
Khwararij because they're reciting the Quran.
Right? He says if you saw them pray,
you would you would nullify your prayer. You
think your prayer is nothing. But the prophet
he said the prayer, the Quran, doesn't pass
their throats. It doesn't in other words, it
doesn't penetrate the heart.
You know? So that's the danger of being
a formalist.
Right?
And
Isa alaihi salaam I mean, Imam al Ghazali
quotes a lot from Isa, alayhis salam, because
during his time, Imam al Ghazali was dealing
with a kind of pharisaic mentality
where there was all this sort of
importance attached to the outward and not necessarily
on the inward.
The outward is important. There's no doubt about
it.
But if the outward is sound and the
inward is corrupt,
you know,
then that's that's a problem.
You know?
Imam al Ghazali mentions the story in the,
Marvels of the Heart. He said there was
a
there was a sheikh a sheikh of sharia,
of fiqh. He was a faqih, and then
there was a sufi. And when I say
sufi, I mean,
I'm talking about
a man of Ihsan.
I'm not talking about some sect of Islam
or something or
some new age type of,
you know the Sufi, according to our traditional
understanding, is someone who doesn't have any dunya
in their heart.
So by by this definition,
the Sahaba were Sufis
by this definition. So Sufi or tasawwuf is
a technical term for ihsan, and ihsan is
the third component. The 3rd major component mentioned
by the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in the
hadith jibreel. Anyway, so this is not an
absolute dichotomy. It's not like there's fiqh on
one hand and there's this is just an
example he's given. He's he's given in the,
the marvels of the heart,
to demonstrate the importance of inward sciences. So
he says there was a faqih. His name
was Sheikh Ibrahim Al Raqqi, and he heard
about some mystic,
named Abu Khair. So he went to the
dwellings of this mystic,
and he he noticed that he was praying
Maghrib, so he caught the prayer behind him.
And then during the prayer,
Sheikh Ibrahim was thinking, this guy's Quran is
is horrible.
His voice is horrible.
Yeah. What is this?
He wasn't making any mistakes, but just his
voice was
you know?
So then after the prayer,
they had a conversation,
and, he said that, he may meant go
went to go make, refresh his wudu, Sheikh
Ibrahim.
And he went and he was over by
the wudu area, and he said he said
a lion came out of nowhere.
A lion.
Right?
Sheikh, like,
and he ran back.
He said he said to the he said
to Abukheir, he said, there's a lion in
your Wudu area.
And and the mystic said, he's still there?
So he went over there, and he grabbed
the lion by his mane. He said, don't
you know I have a guest? Get out
of here.
And then the sheikh said, oh, how did
you do this? And so Abu Khair said
to him, you put so much stock on
the outward, you're afraid of lions. I put
more stock on the inward and lions fear
me.
So ultimately, the state of the heart is
the most
This is what the Khawarij missed. The Khawarij
they were there's a story mentioned by ibn
Asakir where he says that
3 of the Khawarij, they massacred a a
a family,
a companion of the prophet
They killed him. They killed his pregnant wife,
and they they took out the fetus and
slit its throat.
These are Khawarij.
They did this to a companion of the
prophet, say, salam.
Because they said to him, what is your
opinion of Ali?
And they said, amirubu minin, and they said,
kill him.
Right?
And so
and and then ibn Esakar mentions they were
walking along and they saw this kinda orchard
area and they started picking grapes and eating
them.
And they suddenly said to to to themselves,
we didn't ask the owner for permission.
We're eating grapes. We're stealing grapes. And he
says, look at this mentality.
They have they have the blood
of a massacred
family from the sahaba on their clothes, and
they're worried about some grapes. Yeah. The grape
okay. It's you've sold some grapes. But look
at the bigger picture
here. This didn't occur to them.
Anyone?
You wanna stop? No. Go ahead. Alright.
Sisters, before I go to the brothers
yes. Oh, sorry. I'll be right back, brother.
So in the lecture, you said that, Allah
has, sworn by, life of, prophet Muhammad. So,
I just wanna know in, Quran, what are,
the other things that, Allah has sworn by,
and what is their significance?
So there's different,
adjurations.
So while Asr, right, Asr time, Allah takes
an oath. So you'd have to actually go
into the tafasir
to look at the significance of these things.
Right?
What are some other ones?
Right?
Right? So we'd have to go into the
tafasir.
Right? But there's there's great significance attached to
these objects.
So Allah can swear by whatever he wants,
We swear by Allah
We only swear by Allah
But Allah swears by the life of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam.
Sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
I swear by your life,
they are just
they are intoxicated in their lust.
Very interesting.
I
and unfortunately, nowadays, you have people that,
like I said, there's this kind of leveling
across the board. People think they can interpret
the Quran without requisite knowledge.
You know, an Alem an Alem is someone
who has at least 25 years full full
time training.
25 years full time studies. That's an Alem.
A sheikh, 40 years.
Right? So anyone under 40 who claims to
be an Alem,
I'm very suspect of that. I mean it's
possible they start studying at like 15 or
something,
but full time for 25 years.
You know?
But you go to, like, these you know,
you take a class on intro to Quran
at the university.
They have they they, they read these texts
through something called radical hermeneutics, which means that
you can basically interpret the text however you
want through any type of lens.
So you have, for example,
you know, a, I don't know, a feminist
reading of Surat Maryam,
an LGBTQ
plus reading of Surah Hud or something like
that.
Or they're arguing something that's clearly antithetical to
the text.
But then you point out, what about this
verse over here? They say, oh, don't worry
about this verse.
This is what every heterodox,
every firkah, every,
every shumba, every,
every heretical group in Islamic history, they use
the Quran to justify their positions. But they
don't they don't look at the entire Quran.
Juwahida. It's like one sentence,
and you can't just isolate something from that
sentence.
Right?
This is what Ahlul Kitab did.
Allah addresses Ahlul Kitab in the Quran. Do
you believe in some of the book but
not other parts of the book?
And they're very brazen about this. They're very
famous I mentioned this before. A very famous
feminist Muslim professor who says, you know, if
there's this if there's a verse in the
Quran that you are offended by it, just
say no.
Just say no to Allah. This is how
she puts it.
Just say no. No, Allah. Just say no.
When I was a kid in elementary school,
our teachers used to tell us, someone offers
you drugs.
Just say no.
That's good advice. Just say no to Allah,
bad advice.
But I don't know. You know, I I
feel sorry for
our young people entering into these institutions. I
really do. I mean, it's just I don't
know how they it's a jungle out there.
And, you know, if they can hold on
to their iman,
you know, that's
it's a it's a tough
it's a tough place,
Annie.
And it's getting harder, so we ask Allah
to
strengthen our iman,
you know, to give us to give us
istikamah,
to give us ifbat in the religion,
you you know, not to be afraid. You
look at these other religions, they're just
they fear human beings,
you know. They fear human beings. They don't
fear Allah.
The Quran says,
let the people of the gospel
take take by the gosh let let the
people of the gospel take a by what
Allah has revealed there. The Quran wants the
Christians to follow their text.
Follow your text
because that'll make for a better world.
This is why Muslim men can make Christian
women. You say, but they're Trinitarian.
Yeah. But
they have family values that are similar to
ours that'll make for a good marriage. They
believe in gender roles. They believe in traditional
morality.
Those things count in a marriage. They count
very high. It's very important.
Follow your book.
But nowadays, you have people,
you know,
they basically
interpret their text through the current lens, the
the current zeitgeist, which means the spirit of
this age.
Whatever is, again, whatever is
latest is greatest. It must be the greatest
because I'm I'm living now. It must be
the greatest.
I'm alive.
Right?
I know we can keep going all night
with questions, but we'll take one last question.
Yeah.
So,
in your experience, like, with Christian debaters, because
that's how I kind of, like, knew you,
Have you perceived, like, any shifts in, like,
the intellectual rigor,
over time? And,
what is the most prominent topic of discussion
with them currently? Because I'm noticing that they're
a little bit weak.
They're very they've they're kind of repeating the
same regurgitating the same discussions.
Also, I wanna invite you kind kindly to
clubhouse sometime
to, speak to some of the brothers there,
like, try to give. I Maybe we speak
to Christians there all the time, but,
yeah. Just, but, yeah. I mean, what is
what is kind of, like, the hot topics
now with Apologists? Because,
you know, Sam Shamoon, a bunch of these
apologist are just really weak.
Like, they really have nothing going for them.
So is it fun anymore? Like, kinda describe,
like, what's going on in that field, if
you don't mind, please.
Yeah. I really wish you didn't mention this
person's name.
You know? These people are Mustahazi.
Right? And and it's it's impermissible for us
to even sit with them.
You know? A mustahazi is someone who mocks
and ridicules
the religion, who mocks and ridicules the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. We're not even supposed
to give them a platform.
Don't even just completely ignore them.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, wakafa na what
does he say? Wakafa
but the mustahizzeen.
Allah says, I will suffice you with respect
to the mustahizzeen.
In other words, I'll take care of them.
Like Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab.
Right?
There's a few 7 or 8 of them
that were known. All of them all of
them were killed at Badr, or they died
from disease,
you know. So
I I wouldn't engage I would be very
discriminatory as to who you engage with,
Even if you're claiming to be Christian and
they come to you with smiles and this
and that and,
you know, I I learned my lesson the
hard way. I mean, there was a Coptic
Christian guy who was smiling and talking about
love, this and that, and he wanted to
have a debate with me in 2003.
And I said, yeah. And we met the
night before at a hotel, and we were
he was very cordial and this and that.
And and then the next day at the
event, he had 3 other debaters. So it's
like a 4 against 1.
And 2 of these guys were, like, fluent
in Arabic, and they knew, like, Baran and
Hadith and everything. I mean, he still won.
I mean, come on.
We took care of business. You know? I
remember the MSA was panicking. They're calling. We're
gonna try to get this local imam to
come help you. I said, relax, brother.
The haqq will win.
And then, it was just,
but I got I got to a point
because they were losing, it got to a
point where this man who's who's a he's
a Coptic,
you know, you know, lesson learned. Right?
But you're right. It's the same issues, you
know, they're bringing it up marriages of the
prophet, and
they bring up, the fact that the prophet,
say, salam, was a military
leader, and all of this is hypocrisy. I
mean,
I mean, if you look at the if
you look at all of the casualties
in every battle of the prophet,
he
did he actually did a study on this,
and he said there's about
1,018
casualties
in all of the kazawat of the prophet,
enemy and Muslim, mushrikeen and Muslims, a 100
a 1,018 men in 23 years, all men
on the battlefield.
Right?
Musa alaihi salaam in Exodus 34,
he comes down the mountain. He sees his
own people worshiping the golden calf. He orders
3,000 men slaughtered on the spot
in one night, but he's a prophet.
But the prophet
oh, no.
He can't be a prophet.
This is total hypocrisy.
And then, you know, they bring up things
like preservation of the Quran and things like
that. What they're doing is they're banking on
Muslim ignorance of their own text.
They know a lot of Muslims. They've never
heard of qira'at. They've never heard of the
akhrufa sabaa.
So they'll bring, like, a Quran. It says,
malik yomadeen,
mal with a dagger alif. And another Quran
says, malik yomadeen,
malik, malik oh, 2 different Qurans.
And then the Muslim
du'at that are very young,
right, they're there and they're doing their best,
they start going they they have this cognitive
dissonance.
You wrote this Quran.
You. This is a fabrication. You're calling this
a fabrication?
Yeah. Oh, really?
You know?
So
a lot of it sort of, you know,
smoke and mirrors. It's the same stuff regurgitated.
I don't find any strong arguments coming from
the Christian side.
You know? But, you know, we we have
to be cordial with people.
These kind of debates that are highly polemical
I mean, I I debated
this other guy. I'm not gonna mention his
name. Very popular
on YouTube, and this was about 16 years
ago.
You know?
And it's a prob it was a bad
idea.
But,
you know, we should have adab with people.
We should be discriminatory
with people as to who we debate.
And at the end of the day,
Right? So we should inform we should inform
with adaab. The Quran tells us how to
make dua.
Right?
So call people to the way of your
Lord with hikmah, which means dala'il according to
Muhammad Zamafshari and others. He says it means
with proofs, scriptural proofs, rational proofs, historical proofs.
Well mawidhatilhasana
means good,
good comportment,
right, with adab.
Right? So both of these have to
have to work, inshaAllah.
But, you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't disrespect
people's religions.
We shouldn't,
you know, mock people. This is not the
sunnah. You know, we're we're all guilty of
this, doing things like this in the past.
So we make tawba. We ask Allah
to forgive us because we'll be hindering people
from the path of Allah
We don't want that to happen. Allah says
don't curse their gods or else they're gonna
curse Allah.
Right?
So we could point things out to them,
you know, with adab. It's very difficult to
do. I don't have the temperament for debate
anymore. This is what I've learned. I don't
have the temperament because I let my ego
get involved,
and I I can't do it. I I
I would I thought that when I got
older, I would be more patient, but I've
just become a crotchety old man.
I don't wanna hear these bad arguments anymore.
You can miss me with all of that
now. I don't wanna hear it anymore.
I've already dealt I've already dealt with it.
That doesn't mean I won't come on Clubhouse.
I mean, I'll come I'll
come