Ali Ataie – The Father of Nations Abraham (AS) in Our Times
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Good to be at service.
The topic tonight is
on Hajj
and the importance of,
Ibrahim alayhis salaam,
one of our,
role models, one of our greatest prophets,
one of our paragons of virtue,
and the sort of, you know, the or
the lessons we can draw from
what we, are told about Ibrahim alayhis salaam
in the Quran.
Ibrahim alayhis salaam, as I said, is
one of the greatest, human beings,
in the history of the human race.
He's considered to be from from the al
Azam,
the 5 most exalted human beings.
So who are these 5? Anyone know? I
know there's a lot of kids here. Takes
some Sunday school. Who are the 5 greatest
prophets?
Who knows?
This is for the kids.
It's family night.
Any kids know?
Yes.
The greatest. Yes.
Very good.
What was the last one? Prophet Nuh-huh. Nuh-huh.
Good. Yes.
So to go in chronological order,
the prophet Nuh alaihi Salam,
who is considered the first Rasul,
he received the sharia, the first sharia.
And then we have,
the prophet Ibrahim alaihis salaam.
By the way, the word Noah or
noah in Hebrew, it means rest,
that god gave rest to the earth from
the kufur,
the infidelity that had thrived upon the earth.
And then, Ibrahim, does anyone know what the
name Ibrahim means?
Maybe your name is Ibrahim.
You should know what your name means.
Any Ebrahims here?
Ibrahim.
What does your name mean?
Your parents never tell you?
Okay. That's good. You just obey your parents
blindly. No. I'm just kidding.
Just make taklid a fit but not a.
So anyone know? Ibrahim.
So there's a verse in the Quran here.
This is at the end of Surah Al
Hajj. Right? And of course, the Hajj is
a commemoration
of the rights
that were established
by Ibrahim Alaihi Salam.
And this verse actually gives us a clue
as to what his name means.
Right?
So the Hajj
is sort of our, I don't know, origin
story.
Right?
That we believe as Muslims that Ibrahim alayhis
salaam,
He,
traveled to the Meccan Valley,
and this is where he sort of dropped
off his wife, Hagar, Hajar,
and Ismail alaihis salam.
And then the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi salam
is a descendant of Ismail alaihi
salam. And nobody really disputes this,
you know, from Ahlid Khitab. Nowadays, there there's
a lot of revisionism happening. You know, revisionism
means these are sort of people that wanna
make a name for themselves
in different studies, usually historical studies. So they'll
say really crazy things so they can get,
like, a professorship somewhere.
You know? So they'll say, for example, there's
this guy, the actual
was Petra,
not Mecca.
Okay?
Or they'll say, yeah, the
what is this?
A bunch of crazy. The Quran wasn't
wasn't written in the 7th century. It's from
the 8th century. There's no evidence of this.
Right? But they have to say, you know,
say something like that.
But basically, everyone agrees,
sort of a general consensus,
we can say,
amongst historians
and and people of faith. That is to
say the sort of greater sort of Abrahamic
tradition, if we can call it that, Jews,
Christians, and Muslims,
that the prophet
is a descendant of Ismail alaihi salam.
And so
the Hajj has its origins in Ibrahim alaihi
salam. So this ayah says
So strive
in the in the,
in the, path of Allah
as you ought to strive,
okay? So, this word jihad in this context
means to really struggle and strive
because this world
is a world of,
tribulation.
That's the nature of the dunya.
We have to know the nature of this
world.
As Muslims, we're not meant to be too
comfortable in this world.
So if there's a little bit of unease,
that's okay. That's completely normal.
Right?
A dunya sigilul mumin is a hadith of
the prophet
that the world is the prism of the
believer.
Right?
That the believer in the in the dunya
should feel
a type of constriction.
This is completely normal. This is healthy. Spiritually,
this is healthy to feel this type of
constriction.
Right?
So
so keep striving. Engage in.
So there are certain things that happen during
our lives,
right, that we should have a proper response
to. We should be principled people. You know
what it means to be principled?
Does anyone know? Any of the youngsters here?
If I told you, you should be a
person of principle.
What am I talking
about?
Okay. Anyone.
Adults 2.
Yes, sir.
You should be what?
Very good. Yeah. This is what Sidi Faridun
was saying earlier today is that we recognize
there are hudud. There are parameters.
That we don't transgress these hudud.
Right? We stand for something.
Right? To be principled means you actually stand
for something. You believe in something. So one
of the struggles of the modern world,
right, this kind of postmodern world order that
we're living in now, which is now all
pervading, it's infiltrated every major institution whether it's
colleges, universities, where it's the media, workplaces,
is that there is no ultimate truth.
There's no such thing as ultimate truth
or is to say capital
t truth.
Everyone has their own truth.
So what's true for you may not be
true for me.
Right?
So this type of relativism.
So not only theological relativism, it doesn't matter
what you believe, who cares, but moral relativism.
You can do anything you want, nothing really
matters.
You can make your own reality.
It's called existentialism.
We don't have essence. There's no such thing
as human nature. Existence precedes essence. This is
sort of one of the mantras
of modern existentialist philosophers.
There's no right way to be a human.
There's no such thing as human nature.
So you can define what a human being
is.
Right? So whatever you are, just accept yourself
and
live your truth.
This is this is what's happening in the
modern world right now.
And I'm telling you, it's making people miserable.
And in the anglosphere,
which is the English speaking world, there's new
studies done on this,
by the World Health Organization. They found that
people living in the anglosphere, the English speaking
world, which tends to be more wealthy, more
technology,
there's a lot more people that are,
that suffer from mental illness
in the English speaking world than any other
places in the world.
So it's not based on
technology and wealth. What's happening in the anglosphere?
It's this type of philosophy that's pervading things.
That's making quest that's making people, young people
even question who they are.
That's, destroying
definitions.
People can't define things anymore. What's a human
being?
What's a man? What's a woman?
What's beauty? What's virtue? People can't define things
anymore.
And what does the word definition mean?
Right? Towards a limit, towards a had. Even
in Arabic, the word for definition is alhad.
That there's a parameter. There's hudud. But if
you remove those hudud, then words can mean
whatever you want.
And you can make your own reality.
So there's this type of philosophical existentialism.
I believe I can do whatever I want.
I can make my own reality. And then
there's going to be a type of, like,
real practical existentialism where people just, you know,
they stop getting married because they can just
live in the virtual world
and own a virtual house and have virtual
children.
Right?
One of the tenants of this of the
modern world that
this sort of modern religion, whatever you wanna
call it, the liberal world order or the
postmodern world order
is that basically, if we can do it,
we should do it. Technology is king. Whatever
is latest must be greatest.
Whatever is latest must be greatest.
Right?
And,
if I feel like,
if I feel like something is just wrong,
then I must be right. If I feel
it.
Everything's based on feelings.
Right? So they'll say things like, you know,
2 years ago, I used to use this
certain word, and now I don't use it
anymore because
I'm woke now. I've I've come to a
type of, enlightenment.
Right? That was 2 years ago.
I was so crazy back then, 2 years
ago. Well, they say, oh, in the 19
fifties, women in America,
you know, they were so crazy.
What were they doing? Look what they're doing.
They're, you know, looking after a home. Isn't
that crazy?
You know?
Had a conversation with one of these people,
and I said, there's a hadith that says,
the best
generation is the generation of the sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. When was that 1400 years ago?
Oh my god.
1400 year because they believe whatever is latest
is greatest.
Right?
So what's latest?
Well,
we should,
not own property. We should eat bugs. We
should live in pods. We should not get
married.
We should, try to upload our consciousness into
a cloud
and then download it into a robot so
we can live forever. This is what people
are talking about.
We can own houses in virtual reality.
Okay.
Good luck with that world. It's a strange
new world. Right?
There's a book by
what's his first name? His last name is
Truman.
I highly recommend it called Strange New World.
So check it out. So the Quran is
telling us that we have to strive in
this world. This world is a world of
Mujahada. Again, this is verse
78.
He has chosen you, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says, that he has chosen us
and has not imposed any type of difficulties
in the religion.
This religion is not difficult.
Right? This is a simple religion
and it appeals to different
walks of life.
Right?
So
This is our theology in a nutshell.
And a simple Bedouin can understand this
very clearly,
and then you'll have a double PhD write
a dissertation on this one surah.
The Quran appeals to every human being. It's
a simple religion.
The prophet
said,
What is illicit and illicit or what is,
permitted and impermissible are both clear.
Right? The Quran is clear.
It's a clear text. Let's not muddy the
waters.
Again, if you want a professorship, you can
say the Quran advocates a certain lifestyle
and here's
and here's how I'll deal with these verses.
And they start going into these ayat
and taking out and extracting weird definitions of
words, ignoring contexts
and ignoring wholesale other,
verses.
There's one of these professors,
right,
who says basically
Muslim professor. She said that if the Quran
says something you don't like, just say no
to the text. Just say no.
Right? It's called radical hermeneutics. If you take
an Islam 101 class
in 2023
at any public university,
what do you think these kids are going
to learn?
Five pillars, 6 articles of faith, Hadith Jibril?
No.
They're going to learn something called radical hermeneutics
on day 1.
How do I twist and turn the Quran
to be in line with my feelings
rather than the other way around?
I have to put myself in line with
the Quran.
This called mujahada,
but these things are lost on modern people.
We have theological virtues like humility.
Humility is a good virtue.
But for modern people, a lot of modern
people,
humility is something that's a weakness.
You should not be humble.
Gratitude for us is a great virtue, theological
virtue to be grateful.
But our young people, unfortunately, they're in a
culture where
they're they're always constantly taught to self victimize.
I'm a victim. Bow is me.
Right?
And so why should I be grateful?
And and according to the Quran, the opposite
of sugar is
So there's there's this parallelism in this ayah.
Right? This is very common in semitic rhetoric
and the rhetoric of the Quran. I don't
wanna get too technical. A lot of children
here. But basically, according to this ayah,
the opposite of shukr, of gratitude, is kufur,
is,
disbelief.
But if you're taught that you're a constant
victim and the world is out to get
you,
right, because of your intersectional identity,
You're brown and you're overweight and,
you're ugly and
all these different oh, woe ist me.
Somebody owes me something.
No. The fact that you're a Muslim in
the Ummah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam,
that should engender in us a type of
gratitude
that,
you know, is off the charts. We should
be basking in the glory of that
of that reality just by itself.
We have no idea,
the gift that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has
given us. So this is important.
And he has chosen you and has not
imposed in you any difficulties in the religion.
Like I said, the religion
is clear. There's some religions
where you have to be reborn again
to go to
some sort of afterlife that's good. You have
to be reborn over and over and over
again.
Right?
There's some religions that you can't even get
a grasp of what they're teaching. What is
this? Is this some sort of philosophy? Is
this an enigma?
What's going on here? There's some religions that
within the religion itself are schools of thought
that are contradictory.
How do you harmonize these things?
So this religion is is not difficult.
So going back to what I mentioned earlier
about the name of Ibrahim alaihis salam
That Allah
says here that this is the middleah. This
is the religion.
Al Islam
is the religion of Ibrahim alayhi salam.
The millah of Ibrahim alayhi salam
is
the teaching of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
So when I talk about the greater Abrahamic
tradition,
you know, Jew Judaism, Christianity, Islam,
That's not the millah of Ibrahim alayhi salaam.
Our religion, al Islam,
that was brought by the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi salaam, this is the millah of Ibrahim
alayhi alaihi wasallam. That's not to say that
these other religions don't contain truth.
Certainly there's truth in Judaism. There's truth in
Christianity.
Right?
But if we're familiar with the Quran, and
again, the Quran is very clear
on these things.
Right? The The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is called al bayhina in the Quran. Al
bayhina means the clear evidence.
So we are the millah
of Ibrahim alaihis salam.
And this millah is being
attacked
by the sort of current zeitgeist,
the
current
spirit of the age.
Right? So this is something we should understand.
It is the of your father
Ibrahim Al Asa. So this is the meaning
of Abraham.
The meaning
is the father of nations.
Right?
Abraham, Abba. Right? Abi kum Ibrahim. So here,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is not just speaking to the Arabs that
are Muslim.
Yes. Ibrahim alayhi salam is their progenitor. In
other words, their descendants.
But the middle of Ibrahim,
in reality,
is anyone who follows Ibrahim alayhi salaam.
Another way to translate,
father is patriarch, your ruling father.
Ibrahim alayhi salaam is the patriarch of this
religion.
He called you Muslims in the past and
in this, in the Quran.
So it is our belief that all of
the prophets were Muslim.
Right? In the sense that
they submitted to Allah.
Right? The terms,
like Jew and Christian,
these are these are terms that are,
in innovated.
Nis alaihis salam would not called would not
have called himself Christian.
Musa alaihis salam would not have called himself
a Jew. So these are Muslim prophets,
but Islam was perfected with the coming of
the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
In order that the messenger might be a
witness upon you. So the prophet
is our role model.
Right?
So the guidance we take from him
is,
sure guidance and is a daleel qatari. It
is a definitive proof of our religion.
So anything that contradicts what he brought us,
we reject.
The Quran says, take whatever he brings you
and,
reject,
ignore whatever he,
prohibits you.
And that you
in order for you to be
examples for humanity. So the prophet
is our role model.
And the role of the Muslim, what are
we supposed to do? We're supposed to be
role models for humanity.
Right? So people should look to us for
guidance
and we are becoming slowly the sort of
last bastion
of traditional religion.
You know? And people are starting to take
notice, and people are converting to Islam.
A lot of people are converting to Islam
these days
because they've noticed that this sort of current,
you know, culture,
this
strange new world that we're going into, people
you know, we talk about red lines, you
know, the
akhatahma. A red line for a lot of
these people
is their children.
So if their children in kindergarten or 1st
grade
are being told strange things,
that's a red line for the vast, vast
majority of human beings.
So they're gonna start looking elsewhere.
And it's interesting. It's it's, I don't know
if you heard about this, but there's a
city in
Michigan
called Hamtramq
Hamtramke?
Hamtramck.
Hamtramck.
Hamtramck, Michigan. You heard of this city?
You probably haven't heard of it because the
the the mainstream media probably buried the story.
But this city in Michigan, which is near
Detroit,
has a majority Muslim city council.
And they voted just recently, like a week
ago, 2 weeks ago, to ban
all rainbow
flags
on every government building.
And now Christians and this is a this
is a blue state. There's 70%
democrats.
In this state, it was a unanimous vote.
You know, the flag is a is a
symbol of conquest. When you've conquered something, you
you raise your flag. Apparently, there's a flag
on the moon of America.
Conquered the moon.
That's what it is. That's what the flag
means. That's why it's on government buildings. We've
conquered these lands. This is our government.
Right? So for these people that are
for these, you know, the other people in
in this city,
American democracy
basically betrayed them.
Because you have Muslims coming into the country,
and this is how they voted.
But then during the vote, they made this
huge spectacle. I won't tell you what they
did. It's It's pretty
shameful.
Just to basically anger the Muslims that were
there.
So in reality
our only ally is Allah and his messenger
and the believers.
Right?
And this is the lesson we take from
cities like this, where you have
maybe you have Muslims allying themselves with,
you know, different sort of groups that there's
this perceived,
perception of victimization
of oppression.
And then one group comes into power,
and next thing you know,
that allyship has broken.
Why? Because I'll tell you, we have nothing
very, very little in common
with this certain group of people, the the
alphabet people, the circus, whatever you want to
call them.
We are completely different wavelengths.
Alright.
So people are discovering Islam.
And that's where the Muslim comes in. That
we should be people of principle.
We're role models, witnesses over humanity
to give people that alternative.
So establish the prayer. It's very important that
we're praying.
The prayer is the pillar of the religion.
The prophet
said in a hadith related by Imam Tirmidhi
that between faith and disbelief
is leaving the prayer.
We need to establish the prayer. Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is telling us and it's amazing
these ayat in the Quran. You really see
the miracle of the Quran.
Why is the Quran harping on this issue
of Ibrahim Alaihi Salam? Ibrahim Alaihi Salam. Because
Ibrahim Alaihi Salam
is always going to stay relevant,
and he is the patriarch. You hear people
today of honoring people, down with the patriarchy.
Who's the patriarch?
Ibrahim alaihis salam. That's what they mean.
Traditional religion.
And traditional religion nowadays, the epitome of traditional
religion is Islam.
What the prophet brought
us. You know? So we have to realize
this.
So we need to establish the prayer
and give charity
and hold fast to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
that means hold tightly as hard as you
can.
Hold on as as tightly as you can
to Allah. What does it mean? Builda hold
on tightly to Allah means to the guidance,
the Quran, and the Sunnah.
Alright. And don't be afraid of people.
I gave a presentation in,
Canada,
and there was a young man there.
And he said, I'm gonna tell you something.
And he said this in front of everybody.
He said,
I don't I think his even his parents
knew. He said that my teacher I think
he was maybe in 5th grade.
He said my teacher took us to a
movie
called Buzz Lightyear,
and there's a scene in this movie. I
don't know if you've seen the movie. Don't
watch it.
Let's just say it's very disturbing.
And that's the other thing. That's how they
get you. Right? So you watch remember Toy
Story came out in 1996.
You probably saw it when you were younger,
and then you had kids.
And you think, hey, kids. Let's watch this
movie. It's a good one. It's Toy Story.
It's about toys.
It's for kids.
Toy Story. What's wrong with that? Nothing. Let's
watch it. They watch it. Oh, you know
what? There's a sequel to this. Toy Story
2. Let's watch that one. Great.
Toy story 3, it's amazing. Beautiful.
And a few years go by, hey, kids.
There's a there's a prequel called buzz light
here,
and they've got you.
Why can't we watch this one, daddy?
Well, we can't.
Why not?
We watched all the other ones. My dad's
a hypocrite.
They've got you. It's over.
Anyway, so he said, my teacher took us
out to watch this movie, and my teacher
told the whole class,
don't tell your parents
that we went out and watched this movie.
You know, there's another student,
same gathering. He said, I think he was
in high school. He said there was a
there was an assignment where we had to
watch a certain movie
that's completely haram,
and we had to write an essay about
it.
So I didn't wanna do it, but my
teacher said, if you don't do it, you're
gonna get an f.
Right? And then he said he didn't really
say it, but basically, he hinted that he
was too scared to tell his parents
that he didn't wanna do this. So he
went ahead and did it. So that's the
other thing. His parents,
you know,
it's not all about grades.
Okay?
So
once in a while, you have to take
one for the team,
stand up straight, be principal. I promise you
your your child will be okay if they
get a few f's on assignments that they
don't wanna do that are haram.
You know, we should be understanding. The child
didn't wanna do it, but it seemed like
he was being pressured by his teacher and
parents
to do this assignment.
Anyway, wa'atasi will be lahu ama'alaqum. So Allah
is our mola.
Allah is
our master.
What an excellent master.
What an excellent helper.
So that's the end of Hajj.
Right?
Telling us that we are the.
Like I said, many, many verses in the
Quran. The The Quran is good until the
end of time.
Alright.
Many many ayaat like this.
Allah tells us The Jews and Christians
will never ever be satisfied with you until
you follow their form of religion.
Right?
If you were to follow and here, it's
second masculine singular. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is speaking directly to the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu
Wa Salam. But by extension to the Ummah,
If you were to follow their ahuwa, what
is hawa? If you were to follow their
feelings and desires
and inclinations,
whatever they might be,
if you follow their desires,
now that after knowledge has come to you,
then you will find neither helper nor protector
against
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Allah
is telling us very plainly,
right?
So these ayats are clear. They're never going
to be pleased with us. They're never they're
never gonna have riddha with us.
That doesn't mean that,
you know, we,
we have bad adab with Jews and Christians
or atheists. No, we have good adab. The
prophet
had good adab with everybody, but he was
a principled man.
But just recently I attended an interview with
dialogue with MCC
and,
you know, interfaith dialogue. So the Muslim speaker,
you know, the rabbi,
rabbi who is an atheist.
Atheist rabbi.
You know?
Jumbo shrimp.
Foursighted triangle.
Stupid Iranian. It's it's an oxymoron.
It doesn't make any sense.
Sorry. I'm Iranian. That's why I asked.
But this is what's happening. She's, I don't
believe in any gods. Oh, you're a rabbi.
Yeah.
I would think that. Anyway,
I mean, breaking the first couple of commandments
of the doesn't seem like a good rabbi.
But anyway,
I think I'll
stop talking at this point, maybe take some
questions. I've spoken for about a half an
hour.
Any questions or comments?
Anything at all?
Nothing? Yes, sir. So what about the meaning
of Ibrahim? Yeah.
Father
of nations.
The father of nations. Yes.
Yeah. So it's interesting. We have there's 2
groups of sort of woke people.
One group is going to wants to try
to
syncretize all of these major religions. So they're
trying to start a religion called
Abrahamia,
which is basically an amalgamation
of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Right? And a lot of Muslims are falling
through these tricks.
There's another group that is completely trying to
eradicate
everything to do with Abraham.
The first group tends to believe in God.
Right?
But are not really committed to a tradition.
The the second group tend to be atheist.
Either way, Ibrahim alaihis salam is totally under
attack
in our modern world.
And the
prophet
he
is upon the we're told this explicitly in
the Quran.
Right. So indeed, the closest of Ibrahim alaihis
salam are those who have itiba, who follow
Ibrahim like this prophet, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, and those who believe the Sahaba
and the Ummah
of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Right?
So he's a progenitor of many nations,
but the guidance that was brought by the
prophet is a recapturing, a restoration of that
true millah.
And this is the millah that's being attacked
in our modern world.
Yes.
Given the, lack of guardrails and
truth with a big team
in the world that you're seeing today,
what advice would you give for
parents with with young kids or
or young kids who are in to marry
and have kids
and how to live in this society?
Do we do we separate? Do we just
come in, you know, homeschool in Islamic schools
and and kind of
take them away from the society? Or is
there a way to be
part of the society and I mean and
I'll give you a data point, like,
the the school my kids went to. Mhmm.
Now they have the the, you know, the
flag you mentioned. Oh, everywhere. It's everywhere. It's
everywhere. Yeah. So and how do you explain
that? How do you
rationalize that with the kids? So any any
thoughts, I'd appreciate.
Yeah. I mean, separation is always an option.
Maybe even Hijra is an option.
Isolation.
There are there are Jewish communities in New
York that don't even speak English. They just
speak Hebrew and Yiddish.
They live in America.
They don't have Internet on their phones.
Right?
That's obviously sort of an extreme example.
You have Christians living in the,
middle of the country called the Amish.
You know, some of them don't speak English
as just German,
Pennsylvania
Dutch.
They reject all technology.
They have horse and buggies. They don't even
have zippers.
I think zippers are good. I don't think
zippers are a bit off by the way.
I think they got that one wrong.
But that's an option that Jews and Christians
in this country
have exercised.
Now you might say, well, like, I can't
do that.
Well,
you know, it's it's up to the individual
person.
I mean, I think we have to be
honest with ourselves. You
know? It's it's difficult to be honest with
yourself,
but,
you know, to to preserve the tradition, we
have to watch over the children.
So if you have a dual income family,
maybe one of the parents should think about
educating the child in in the house,
homeschooling the child.
You're not gonna make, as much money, but
what's your worth?
You know?
If you can sort of avoid public schools,
I would do it at all costs.
You know, some parents maybe can start
a a co op, Like I said, homeschooling
is an option,
because it's it's it's all pervading now. It's
poisonous and it's everywhere.
And like I said, many times, most times
probably children won't even tell their parents what's
happening in school because they're told explicitly by
their teachers not to tell your parents.
So,
you know, we have to make drastic changes
in some in some cases.
And we're all in the same boat,
you know.
Not like anyone's immune to this.
But education is the key.
I think educating your children,
in,
our theology,
in the liberal arts is very important. The
tribune.
You know, people don't study these things.
So they're persuaded
oftentimes by sophistry. So in other words, sophistry
is basically speech that just kinda sounds good.
Right? So you you know, you wanna be
tolerant. Don't you?
Have tolerance.
Be kind.
Coexistence.
The same people who spout these,
these,
these mantras tend to be the most intolerant
of people.
Right?
Which is ironic.
So,
you know,
it's it's a difficult situation.
But, you know, when when that happened in
that city and and I can't I can't
even pronounce the name in,
in in Michigan. You have all these Christians
in red states going, why are we such
cowards?
You have these Muslims that came over to
the Middle East and they got on the
city council and they voted to get rid
this flag and they did it. Why can't
we do that? Why are we such cowards?
It was really it was really interesting.
Why don't we stand up for ourselves? How
come these Muslims have this istiqama?
Because the guidance is clear.
Right? So Allah
you know you know, Islam will prevail,
but Muslims come in and out, but Islam
will stay.
You know? So nobody is safe. Don't think
for a second I'm safe.
I'm good enough.
It'll be okay.
We have to be in a constant state
of
and constantly in a state of trying to
purify our intentions, purify the nafs, the lower
self.
Because, you know, tribulations are coming up. It's
gonna become difficult. There's gonna be tests of
iman in the next
decade, 2 decades with the rise of technology,
AI, things like this.
There's, you know, further divides. You know, people
don't wanna get married anymore. People, you know,
a lot of young people think a lot
of men think women are the enemy and
vice versa.
It's very strange.
Even from when I was, you know, in
the nineties, it's completely different. Even 5, 6
years ago, it's a completely different world.
The culture has changed so rapidly. What's what's
it gonna be like in 10, 15, 20
years?
So certainly, you know,
take measures to
to safeguard the dean, whatever that might be.
That a person is upon the religion of
their friends.
So, you know, I have a lot of
non Muslim acquaintances and kind of, you know,
kind of
congenial
sort of light friendships, but I'm not really
close with,
you know, these people.
You know, I'm not gonna leave my kid
at their house for a birthday party.
You know? So,
you know, we can be friendly with people.
We can have sort of light relationships, but,
you know, who you embrace as a friend,
you should be very, very discriminatory.
You should discriminate.
Yes. I said it.
Discriminate between people.
I tell people I practice discrimination and they
say, oh, how dare you? I'm also a
sexist, by the way. I treat men and
women differently.
Yeah. Of course, I do.
You know? So they they wanna they wanna
label us with their own definitions.
They wanna use their own terms on us
and for us to submit to them. Like,
this one guy who said to me, you're
a cis male. So what does that mean?
You don't know what cis means? No.
I don't accept that word.
In fact, to me, that word is a,
a a slur, a a heterosexual
slur.
You've offended me. Oh, I didn't mean to
offend
you. To play their own game against them.
Right? But we have a worldview,
and
we should be proud of that worldview.
And, it suffices us because for us, the,
you know, the the akhira, it takes priority
over the dunya. Like I said, this dunya
dunya literally means the low world.
It's fleeting. It's temporary. It's not worth
selling out.
Right?
So
I would just to answer your question, be
be especially discriminatory
even amongst our own community.
You know?
That's part of living in the dunya. It's
very difficult.
Yes, sir?
Advice for the children.
Children, if you go to a public school
and
your teacher is saying to do something that
you don't feel comfortable with doing,
you can tell your teacher, I don't feel
comfortable.
And don't let the teacher force you into
doing anything
that you don't feel comfortable with.
And you should come home and tell your
parents about it. It's very important that you
communicate to parents to your parents. Your parents,
even though sometimes it doesn't seem like it,
they only want what's good for you. I
promise you.
Okay? I promise you. They only want what's
good for you. So even something like, you
know, I want okay. Well, yesterday, I wanted
a cookie for dessert, and my mom said,
no.
Isn't that good for me? My mom said,
no. It's good
because
cookies are unhealthy.
Maybe you had a cookie earlier.
So 2 cookies are very unhealthy. So at
the end of the day,
your parents know exactly what they're doing. Okay?
So that should be your
your opinion of your parents. Trust your parents.
Okay? Respect your teachers,
but
it may it might be that your teacher
does not really,
know what's good for you as a person,
like your mother or father.
So don't feel like you're forced into doing
anything.
And if something does happen,
if somebody asks you a weird question or
something like that, you should go home and
ask your and and tell your parents about
that.
Okay?
Anyway, I I
I had a few examples come into my
head, but, like, I'm not gonna say them.
Maybe
later.
The thing is I would let children be
children.
You know.
It's going to happen organically.
You know, don't I would try to preserve
a child's innocence as much as possible.
Right? And eventually, I think a child will
come to the parent,
at some point and say, I heard this
or I saw this. What does this mean?
And then we can explain it to them.
But being sort of,
you know,
being sort of proactive
in the sense that
explain something to a child that,
is inappropriate for them at a certain age.
Maybe, you know, some some children are more
precocious and, you know, they're sort of more
they can deal with certain things like that.
You know your child well. You can be
the judge of that.
But make sure that, you know, we're not
introducing them to things that is inappropriate for
them.
Try to preserve your child's innocence as much
as possible. Happening in public schools is exactly
the opposite of that. I mean, kindergarten,
children in kindergarten, isolating the boys. Who feels
like a girl today?
In the in the the first the first
time the children are asked, it's their fitra.
And is it like that? What?
What what is this insane person saying right
now? That's the initial reaction of a 5
year old child from fitra.
Come on. You can tell
us, you ever play dress up and wear
your sister's clothes? That's what they're being asked.
And then eventually, what about you? You do
it? And they feel pressure. You do it.
Right? Yeah. How about you? Yeah. Alright.
It's all manipulation. There was someone who came
into a masjid years ago
and I said I quoted a hadith, you
know, one of these these walkies came to
the masjid.
And I said I said there's a hadith
that's
it's a hadith that
says,
discipline your children upon 3 things.
The love of your prophet
and the love of the family of the
prophet
and upon the reading of the Quran.
So discipline your teach your children to love
the prophet. And this person raised their hand
in the back.
The wokie.
And they said, I don't know if it's
a man or woman. That's why I say,
hey. I guess it was a man. I
couldn't tell honestly.
He said,
isn't that manipulative?
Aren't you being manipulative?
So what's what's manipulative?
You're teaching a child to love someone?
So what does manipulation mean? The word manipulation
comes from manus, which means hand.
So manipulating something means to mold something with
your hand. And of course, children need to
be molded
by their parents because the intellect,
is is lacking with children. They need to
be manipulated.
So the question is, whose manipulation is in
the child's best interest? Your manipulation?
What you're asking children
at 5 years
old, what you're asking them to believe in,
or what I'm doing. Let's have a discussion.
No. I don't wanna have discussion. They don't
wanna have discussion.
As soon as you say something like, is
it really a good idea,
to give children hormone therapy
at 10 years old? How dare you?
There's no discussion. It's just how dare you.
They don't wanna talk. They're they don't wanna
they don't wanna reason.
Right? It used to be, you should tolerate
us. Just tolerate
us. So yeah.
Okay. We'll tolerate. And then it was, you
should accept us.
You know? Give us a nod. You don't
have to join the parade, but give us
the thumbs up from a distance.
And now it's, if you don't join our
parade and celebrate us,
then you're a bigot and you're this and
you're that and
that's that's what happened.
And so a lot of Muslims in the
west are thinking, I don't wanna be called
a bigot.
So,
maybe we should think about joining these people
somehow and supporting them,
you know.
But it's a mistake.
There's only one life,
you know. What about Allah's opinion? The only
opinion that matters is the opinion of
Allah.
So, don't fear the men. Don't fear the
men. Don't fear humanity. Don't fear mankind.
Fear Allah Right? Why are these other religions
selling out? Because they fear people. They fear
human beings.
They're being afraid. They're afraid of losing tax
exemption status. They're afraid of losing dunya. They're
afraid of being canceled on social media.
So they sell out their principles and lose
their akhirah.
And then they try to justify it to
know, it's okay.
This first means this, this first means that,
forget about this first, sweep this first under
the road over here. Don't look at this.
Nothing to see here.
You know?
Right also, there's so many so much baggage.
Yeah. Definitely. I mean,
we're really not right or left.
Maybe sort of right of center
because we are more conservative.
You know, we believe in tradition,
traditional family values. You know?
We believe in truth with a capital t.
We have we believe in traditional morality.
So those are things that we have in
common with
with conservatives.
Right? That doesn't necessarily make us Republicans.
You know? So, like, one time I gave
a talk somewhere and I mentioned these things
and somebody said, so you support Trump.
So why why would you say that?
Because I said I'm against abortion.
So that's that's that's your let me talk
about a nonsecretary argument. Right?
So, no, we're neither right nor left. And
you have and people are becoming extreme in
this religion.
I mean, even the center is is crumbling,
and it's all in reaction to each other.
So you have now you have the extreme
woke left,
Right?
That wants to basically destroy everything that's traditional.
Destroy every type of hierarchy. Just level humanity.
Start all over again.
You have these, like, young people shaking their
fists
at 1000 of years of tradition thinking they
know better.
Right? And then you have now the extreme
sort of MAGA
on the other side. So this side is
saying we need to have gay mosques. Over
here at the extreme, they're saying no more
mosques.
We we don't fit and neither can.
You know?
Your only ally is Allah and his messenger
and the believers.
Right?
That's it.
And people come in and out of the
religion, Allah and his messenger.
You know, when the Sahaba returns from Murphod,
there there was a in Medina
who said in the NASA
The
people are gathering against you, so be afraid
of them.
Right? Just like right now,
the people of Anas are gathering against us,
attacking our tradition, attacking our religion, attacking our
morality, attacking our theology, attacking our children, crossing
these red
lines. What did the Sahaba say according to
the Quran?
It only increased their iman
when they heard that.
And they said, Allah is sufficient for us.
He is the best disposer of affairs.
So that level of iman,
you
know. Yeah.
Any questions over there?
Yes.
Repeat what?
Repeat the Hajj? Repeat the Hajj.
Oh, briefly.
Oh, you mean the topic of my lunch
that I never that I never talk about.
Yes, yes.
So, yes, the Hajj is a 5th pillar
of Islam,
and the Hajj is
pilgrimage to Mecca.
If you can make a pilgrimage to Mecca,
the prices are pretty crazy, but
if Allah
gives you toafik
and we should intend it every year even
if you don't think because you never know.
There are people that up until, like,
the day before they're
thinking, I'm not I'm going to hide. And
somebody sponsors them. The next day, they're on
a plane.
So,
so it's it's something that we should do
if we can afford to do so once
once in our life to to make Hajj,
to visit
the Kaaba in Mecca.
And the prophet
said, whoever makes the Hajj and is accepted
from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
then it is as if he was born
anew from his mother's womb. Meaning all of
his sins are forgiven, like a newborn baby.
No more sins.
Right?
And it's it's a it's a beautiful, right,
they they rarely show it on
on television in the west because they know
it's a very powerful image.
You would think a gathering of 2,000,000 people
from all over the world would be front
page news. No. It's nothing. They never show
it,
You know?
And there's, you know, there's reasons for that.
And if we can manage to
visit the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in
Medina and give our salaams to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, this is
a beautiful thing to do. Make ziyarah of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So that's what it is. That's what the
Hajj is. And the Hajj, as we said,
the the Kaaba,
was actually built. The foundations according to the
urnama, the scholars, the foundations of the Kaaba
were laid down by the prophet Adam alayhi
salaam,
the first human being. And then the walls,
initially were, raised by Ibrahim alaihis salam and
Ismail alaihis salam or 2 prophets.
These are ancestors of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi salam.
And so we make tawaf around
the baytulillah, the Kaaba sallahu alayhi salam, the
house of God. They make circumambulations.
This is the sunnah of Ibrahim alayhis salam.
This is the sunnah of the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alayhi salam. And even somebody is so
I,
we're told also visited,
Mecca,
during the times of
there seems to be a reference to the
Kaaba in the book of Psalms.
And then, there's different rights that we perform
during the Hajj, like the stoning of the
shaytan, which is when shaytan came to Ibrahim
alaihi salam and told him not to go
through with what Allah had commanded him. And
he picked up 7 stones and threw them
at the shaytan.
To remind us also, shaytan is an enemy.
And we talk about shaytan nowadays. People start
going, oh, do you believe in Satan? Are
you kidding me? In this day and age
and a Muslim one time said this to
me, in this day and age, brother.
So, bro,
have you read the Quran? Of course.
Okay.
No. He didn't.
How many times? 15 times, 20 times in
the in in the hula comb?
He is a clear enemy to you, Shaytan.
And now we live in a time when
shaitan is openly worshipped, openly praised. They had
Satancon.
They have a conference celebrating Satan,
in Boston just like a month ago.
They're claiming it's the largest gathering of Satanists
in history of the world.
What was the opening act if somebody got
up there and started tearing up the bible?
This book advocates
misogyny,
home homophobia,
homophobia,
homophobia,
and
patriarchy
and blah blah blah blah. Slavery.
Tear it up.
You know?
And a lot of those, you know, a
lot of these ideas I mean, the the
Bible is a book that promotes
traditional theology, morality,
objective truth. Those things are found in the
Quran.
Do you think they like the Quran?
Of course not. But what what do these
satanists actually believe?
Many of them are atheists.
They don't actually believe in Satan.
So
many of them actually they call themselves Satanists,
but Satan is more like a symbol.
He's not a real person. What does Satan
symbolize?
The worship of the nafs, this is what
they say.
Worship of the Hawa. And this is a
very very common form of idolatry
nowadays.
Everybody worship something.
We don't buy into atheism. There's no such
thing as an atheist.
The Quran doesn't entertain atheism.
Somebody everyone worship something.
Have you seen the one who takes his
Hawa as his god? That's his god.
He worships his Hawa.
You know?
So
that's what it is.
So even, like, you know, movies and things
like that, these things have to be screened
now. I mean, I I highly recommend before
before your child watches a g rated movie,
that you watch it beforehand.
This is how this is how we have
to live now.
You know? Because there's saloonal messages. There's things
in the background.
I saw this movie recently. There was this
thing in the background.
You know,
and the children are like, hey. Look. What's
wrong? It's a cartoon. What's wrong? I did
a cartoon.
Come on.
My dad is so strict. We have to
explain these things to people.
Explain things, you know, these things in a
calm manner with Adah
and try to impart upon the trial the
importance of
or the dangers of these types of things.
Basically, anything Disney,
you have to be careful. Yes.
Yeah. 120.
Yeah.
Is telling us the reality of the situation.
You know?
So
the lesson is to have uprightness in the
religion. Have
as the Quran says. Be upright as you
have been commanded.
And don't worry about, you know, like I
said,
about the feelings of people.
Don't try to intentionally hurt people's feelings,
but the opinion of Allah
every single time is more important than anyone's
feelings.
Okay?
The prophet
said to one of his companions,
say, I believe in Allah and be upright.
Stand up straight,
and don't be afraid of people who reproach
you. Don't be afraid.
Oh, you who believe. If you turn away
from this religion, Allah will bring a new
people
that he loves and they love
him. Lowly with the believers,
but having strictness against hostile unbelievers.
Being
principled, the unbelievers see them as having a
type of dignity.
And they're not afraid of those who approach
them for their religion.
So the other must say this
of course, in their tafsir of this ayah,
why do these people leave their religion?
Based on this ayah because they didn't have
the proper love of Allah
That's why he loves them and they love
him. And then why are they not afraid
of those who approach them? Because they have
rational arguments.
They have academic sophistication. They can defend their
religion
with clarity,
with coherence.
Right? This idea again of the trivium. What
is the trivium? Teach your children these three
arts.
They're called the liberal arts. But liberal, I
don't mean left wing. Liberal meaning the freeing
arts. They free your mind.
What are they? Logic.
How do you how do you think
properly?
Grammar.
How do you speak properly
and write properly
and rhetoric?
How are you persuasive?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was the most,
eloquent of human beings. He never made grammatical
errors and he was the clearest thinking human
being. He was a master of these arts.
Otherwise, it's sophistry.
It's just persuasion for the sake of persuasion
because I feel this this is what I
feel.
And if you don't feel it,
then you're
canceled.
But what about Allah canceling you? We don't
wanna be canceled by Allah. Right? Because that's
the real cancellation.
There's no coming back in that cancellation.
You know, if if
if,
what are these? I don't can't even think
right now.
Facebook, you know.
Instagram cancels you.
Maybe they'll let you back. Right? After you
do your penance and
your repentances and,
and your groveling and
but if we get cancelled by Allah, we're
in trouble.
So but the thing about Allah
is he is a tawad, which means he
is constantly
willing to forgive us if we make tawla.
Right?
So being a state of tova. But if,
you know, if you're if you're not recognizing
that what you're doing is simple, then you'll
never make tovah.
And this again is something that the modern
culture is teaching children
that you need to just accept who you
are and nothing you're doing is really wrong
because there's no objective
there's no objective truth and falsehood.
Nothing you're doing is really wrong in reality.
It's actually wrong.
So there's no need to make tova.
And if you cut off tova, then we're
in trouble.
Last question.
It's Tom.
Well
yes.
Yes. The question is, do I know about
the about prophet Ibrahim Alaihi Salam sacrificing Ismael
Alaihi Salam?
Yeah. So Allah
was testing Ibrahim alaihis salam. Allah did not
want Ibrahim to actually sacrifice his son.
Right? So the test was
to see if Ibrahim alaihis salam is willing
to put Allah above and everything.
Even above his children. Cause a person loves
their children more than anything more than themselves.
Right? So he passed the test.
When Allah said,
when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
told Ibrahim to stop.
He says,
you've you've already
been true to your vision. You've already fulfilled
your vision. In other words,
the the intention of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
was not to actually have him sacrifice his
child but be willing to make the ultimate
sacrifice.
To demonstrate his love for Allah greater than
anything
anything else.
That's the lesson we take from the story.
You know? You know, Christians take a different
lesson.
We don't take that lesson.
Yeah.
How do Jews and Christians
differ in their understanding
of prophet Ibrahim,
the significance
and meaning in our life today?
Yeah. So, I mean, traditionally, it's it's it's
very similar to our understanding that Ibrahim, alaihis
salaam,
he is
the the father of the tradition.
He is sort of the
quintessential monotheist.
Right?
A paragon of virtue.
But it I mean, it depends on nowadays,
it depends on what I mean, it's hard
to find a traditional Christian
anywhere now.
I work in Berkeley. I talked to Christians
in Berkeley,
and they believe in things that would have
them anathematized
from the church.
I mean, you have the pope saying things
that are very strange
which according to many Catholics, I mean, he's
he's said things that are cool for according
to many Catholics.
There's a pope.
So who knows what they, you know I
mean, there was somebody who told me earlier
that
and I've heard this before from modern rabbis
that Ibrahim teaches us that we can debate
with god, that we don't have to listen
to it. We can debate with him.
That we can ask god, you know,
what do you mean by that?
And, you know,
no. I'm not gonna do that.
So this is this is sort of the
lesson that some some of the the modern
rabbis are taking and teaching their congregations about
the sort of.
And then Christians sort of see
Abraham is more like typological. Like, what he's
doing with Isaac is more sort of foreshadowing
of what's gonna happen with
the and things like that.
But, traditionally, it was it was and I
think this is true to a certain extent
as well is that they see him as
the father of the tradition
and, a virtuous monotheist,
a true monotheist. And the Quran is very
explicit about that.
Well,
a moment
of
time.
Allah
bless us. May Allah
accept the Hajj of those who are coming
back from the holy lands. Please keep us
in your prayers.