Ali Ataie – What Does Christianity & Islam Say About Forgiveness and Mercy
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the characteristics of Islam, including compassion, forgiveness, and the historical insight that Islam is a result of a Bible's statement of the lord is good to all. They also emphasize the importance of justice and peace in society, citing the book of John and verses 8 through 12 as examples. The speakers emphasize the importance of compassion and forgiveness in the church's core principles and emphasize the use of sh trading and Yo dealt to avoid promises. They also criticize the way the Prophet sallam broke into a grocery store and caused a racist comment, and stress the importance of proper conduct and not complaining about it.
AI: Summary ©
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says in the Quran,
that we did not send you, oh Muhammad,
except as a mercy into all the worlds.
That the the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is
the greatest
manifestation
of the compassion,
the Rahma
of the indiscriminately
compassionate Ar Rahman.
It is our master Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
The prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said in
a Hadith, and there's some weakness in the
Senate of the Hadith, but our ulama quoted
a sound in its meaning.
With the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He
said, adabani rabbifa ahsanata adibi,
that my Lord has
disciplined me, trained me, educated me, and how
excellent is my education
that the prophet Tarbia
is Rabaniyah. He has a Lordly
upbringing.
So just as Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is
the most compassionate and the most forgiving,
he has trained and disciplined
and commanded his messenger, Sallallahu Thus,
the
Thus, the Prophet, Sallalahu Alaihi Wasallam,
is the 'Abdulla par excellence,
a perfect
servant
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So aoha illa
Abdihi ma'oha,
a uniquely sanctified human agent
of the divine. Compassion and forgiveness are core
virtues
in the broader, what's known as the, Abrahamic
tradition.
It is reported that David, peace be upon
him, said in the Psalms, Psalm 145
verse 9, in the Hebrew language, he said,
that the lord is good to all.
And that his mercy or compassion is rahma
is over all of his actions.
Or to put it Quranically,
that my mercy encompasses
everything.
In Matthew chapter 9, Isa
is reported to have said,
speaking to the Pharisees, he says to them,
go and learn what this text means.
And then he actually quotes
from the written Torah. And this is very
interesting because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us
in the Quran that Isa alaihi salam said
that
he confirms,
the Torah. So he says
I require mercy,
and not sacrifice in the knowledge of God
more than burnt offerings. And this is interesting
because according to Christianity,
at least Trinitarian Christianity,
God himself
sacrificed himself
for our sins,
by performing this act of self immolation
or vicarious atonement. Now this is not the
teaching of Isa, alayhis salaam, even according to
Matthew's gospel,
where Jesus quotes from the Old Testament, and
certainly this is not the teaching of the
Old Testament, that I require mercy.
Mercy, rahma, not sacrifice.
God requires mercy, and He has inscribed
mercy upon his own self,
As Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says in the Quran. So the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam being that human reflection
of the names and attributes of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala at a human level. He says,
Ana Nabiur Rahma, I am the Prophet
of mercy.
I am a gifted mercy.
He said
show compassion and mercy to those on the
earth and the one in heaven, and no
anthropomorphic
sense will show you mercy.
With respect to forgiveness,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the famous
Hadith Qudsi, which is related by Imam at
Tirmidi,
where he says, You ibn Adam, oh
child
of
Adam.
Beautiful Hadith Allah
speaking upon the tongue of our messenger, Muhammad,
the
first person, but not Quran, Hadith Qudsi,
a a sacred Hadith,
where he says, oh, child of Adam, as
long as you have hope in me and
call upon me, I will forgive you, and
I don't mind.
I don't mind forgiving you. In a tradition
related by Ibn Khidban, we are told that
at the Battle of Badr, during the actual
battle sorry, the Battle of
Uhud, during the actual
Ghazwat Uhud, when there was blood streaming down
the face of the prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi
wasalam, he raised his hands and he said,
Oh, my lord, forgive me. Oh, my lord,
forgive them. Forgive my people, for they don't
know.
For they don't know. This was during the
battlefield when people are trying to kill him.
There's something similar attributed, by the way, to
Isa in the New Testament.
The gospel of Luke 2334,
where Jesus forgives his father, forgive them for
they know not what they do. Did you
know that this statement
attributed to Isa alaihi salaam in the gospel
of Luke is universally
recognized
as a fabrication to the gospel of Luke
by almost all new testament
critics.
But what is more authentic is that the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, when he came
into Mecca,
right, and he's fully within his rights to
extract vengeance.
What did he say? Quoting Yusuf Alaihi Salam
from the Quran. La tafriba alaykum yawfidullahqum.
There's no blemish on you today. Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala has forgiven you. One of my
favorite hadith of the prophet, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, a hadith that gives me a lot
of hope
is related by Imam and Nawawi when the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was in the
masjid after the congregational prayer, and a man
came to him and said, you Rasulullah,
I have breached
the boundaries
of the permissibility
of the permissible according to the Quran.
So so so punish me or bring the
judgment down upon me according to the book
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam asked him a very
surprising question.
He said,
didn't you just pray with us just now?
And the man said, nam. And the prophet
said,
That Allah
has already forgiven,
your sin.
SubhanAllah.
Of course, there's this another episode that's attributed
to Isa Alaihi Salam in John chapter 8,
what's called the Pericope adulterer, which you'll find
in every single Jesus movie ever made. That
a woman who was caught in the act
of adultery is being chased by these Pharisees
who want to stone her, and then she
falls down at the feet of Jesus. And
of course, he makes that famous statement speaking
to the Pharisees,
whomever among you is without sin, cast the
first stone. This this passage, which is in
John chapter 8 verses 1 through 12, is
universally
recognized as a fabrication
for the text of the gospel of John
and is not found in any of the,
most earliest and best Alexandrian textual type New
Testament Greek manuscripts. It is a fabrication to
the text almost by Ijma of New Testament
textual critics. So it's very strange. Often
forgiveness and and mercy. And it is
about forgiveness forgiveness and and mercy. And it
is about forgiveness and mercy. Those are core
attributes, core virtues in Christianity. But don't forget
that these are also core ideas
in our tradition
as well. That the prophet Sallalahu Alaihi Wasallam,
he at times
seemed to prioritize
compassion and forgiveness
over justice.
Now, justice is a great virtue,
right? It is the basis, Adala, according to
Imam Al Khortubi, is
the basis of our Sharia. Justice creates
social well-being, peaceful coexistence.
There must be justice in a society. Even
Plato
identified dikaiosune,
which is difficult to translate to justice or
righteousness, that this is the core, the the
the foundational attribute
of of of the of the republic
of a city that operates in a correct
virtuous
way. So there must be justice. However, compassion
and forgiveness
are also great virtues.
Now, none of us have compassion and forgiveness
in the absolute and perfect sense. That is
only for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And the
same goes for justice,
right? The same goes for justice, absolute and
perfect justice
cannot manifest
in this world. This is our belief.
You know? And sometimes I have to burst
the bubbles of some of our younger people
that it's just not going to happen. It's
not the nature of the dunya
to produce absolute justice
and to obsess in its pursuance
is an exercise in futility.
Now, yes, we must do our absolute best
to be just as much as we can
according to our principles. But, ultimately,
ultimately,
we will fall short of perfection, and we
have to recognize this.
Earthly systems, human interpretations
can never be perfect. We are not meant
to be too comfortable in the dunya,
And this is the secret to understanding what
it means to be in the world
and not of the world. Or as the
prophet said,
be in the dunya
like a stranger or one who is passing
passing through, passing by. Only
Allah can be absolutely just.
The state or some polity
cannot replicate or replace god. And to think
that it can is just beyond terrifying
and intimates really a crisis of faith.
They tried to do that. It's called Maoism.
It was called Stalinism,
fascism. This is why we we believe in
something called Yom al Tayama, the day of
judgment.
Right?
Yom
Hisab,
Yom Avim, a great day.
When everyone will stand before
Allah and guess what? On that day, we
won't want justice.
We will want compassion
and it's our hope in Allah's compassion
that gives us peace. It's our hope in
Allah's compassion
that gives us peace. No compassion,
no peace. That's going to be the sentiment
on the Yomul Qiyamah. No one's going to
be saying no justice, no peace on the
Yomul Qiyamah.
No compassion,
no peace, and it's a true peace, a
lasting peace.
You have in the messenger of god
a beautiful pattern of conduct.
For whoever has raja,
hope in Allah
This isn't some kind of blind hope with
no work behind it. That's called chamani.
This is someone who ties their camel then
puts their in Allah.
For whoever has hope, good hope, with work,
with with effort,
with practice,
hope in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and in
the final day and makes remembrance of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala with abundance.
In college, you might have studied someone you
may have studied someone called Friedrich Nietzsche, who
actually said that compassion
was a vice and an indication of what
he called a slave or herd mentality,
and he advocated for what's known as a
transvaluation
of all values, essentially, a rethinking
of all values,
you know. And what he meant by that
was really Christian values, but we have those
many of those values in common
with Christians.
We share those values. And some might say,
well, Nietzsche was a bit of a visionary.
He actually foresaw the type of nihilism that
would result in a society due to what
he called the death of God or sort
of this idea that, there is no God,
and you know, that's true he was somewhat
of a visionary, but it's very ironic that
this man's final sane act before he completely
lost his mind people don't read his biography.
He was walking in the streets of Turin,
Italy, and he saw a man beating his
horse,
And he ran and he he grabbed the
horse. He hugged the horse, and he was
weeping. His final same act, before he lost
his mind completely, he never spoke again after
this, was an act of compassion
towards an animal.
We see the greatness of this
and the hypocrisy of these of these weird
philosophies
that are speaking out against being a compassionate
person.
Now
what we cannot do
is align ourselves
with certain people,
who represent certain groups,
who are fundamentally
opposed
to our nonnegotiable,
metaphysical,
and moral
commitments.
And various Muslims do this for various reasons.
Probably the biggest reason is this kind of
shared perception
of victimization,
what's known in the academy as intersectionality,
or it's out of a need to,
assimilate
into postmodern,
quote, unquote,
progressivism
in the academy, which is really due to
a lack of knowledge
of or lack of confidence in our own
tradition. So they align themselves with people who
maintain these very strange beliefs, people who maintain,
for example, that all traditional
value systems
are inherently
oppressive,
especially the Judeo Christian
Islamic tradition, the people who have declared basically
ideological warfare
on the tradition of Ibrahim alaihis salam, on
Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic morality, people who believe that
there's no objective truth or morality,
which is in and of itself a contradiction,
but contradictions don't seem to bother these people.
People who maintain that there's nothing normative, they
hate that word, normative or normal or orthodox.
They hate these types of words. Why is
this a problem?
Because eventually, they will expect us
to compromise
our morals, our ethics, and our theological beliefs,
the very ethos of our religions
of our religion, in hopes of conjuring up,
into existence
some sort of radically
egalitarian and just
utopia
according to their
subjective
definitions
of justice, morality,
and right and wrong. You see, the Prophet
said there will come a time upon the
people.
Nothing will remain except Al Islam, except its
name. It's going to become a name without
a reality.
This indicates
that Islam
that that Islam, that there's a
normative
definition
of Islam. It is not defined by our
feelings.
You see, in the in the pre modern
world,
the Haqq, the truth was known by Naqal
and Aqal, by revelation
and reason. That's how you know that's how
you know the truth. That was their epistemology.
Right? Or nurun alanur, light upon light, which
is which is how many of the exegetes
of the Quran interpret that statement. Nurun
alanurinayatunur,
nakal working in conjunction
in conjunction with Aqal.
Now,
I'm not romanticizing
the pre modern world. Obviously, there's societal and
political issues, but what I'm talking about is
on an epistemic level. They got it right,
nakal and akel. Now we move into the
modern
the modern world, where our nakal is thrown
out of the window. Everything becomes intellect.
In fact, everything really becomes a type of
strict empiricism
where if you can't see it or taste
it or touch it, then it doesn't exist,
this kind of mechanistic
science, this kind of Newtonian physics,
this idea of total materialism.
So everything becomes,
the
empiricism and everything becomes
intellect. That's how you know everything. And then
we move into the postmodern period where both
Naqal and Aqal are thrown out of the
window.
Right? Revelation, oh, that's, you know, this antiquated,
divisive,
tool of oppression, and then the you can't
really trust your intellect. So what is their
epistemology?
How do you know the reality? Well, it's
based on your feelings,
whatever you want it to be. So now
reality is defined by the zeitgeist. No matter
how antithetical
it might be to the authentic teachings
of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. You see,
we can't go there. We have certain
theological
and ethical
tawabit,
immutables,
nonnegotiables,
underlying principles,
however you want to call it. Islam is
not defined
by our feelings. It is defined by Allah
and His Messenger
The Quran in the Quran, Allah
says that he could have made us into
one people.
We're all like minded
but he didn't do that. So, we have
to be principled. We can't be sellouts.
The prophet gave advice to his Sahaba. Speak
the truth even if it's bitter and don't
fear the reproaches of those
who find fault in your religion.
We're not trying to please these people. We're
trying to please Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Morality is not subjective,
and truth is real and falsehood is real,
and this is our deen. We should stick
up for it. And if people disagree with
us, that's fine. Just say
This is from the Quran.
What's more tolerant than that? You have your
religion, I have my religion. You have your
ideas and philosophies, I have my ideas. You
have your ideas of nature and nurture, and
I have my ideas of nature and nurture.
You have your ideas of what is virtuous
and what is not, and so do I.
Whoever wants to believe, let him believe. Whoever
doesn't want to believe, let him disbelief. I
used to teach at a college that was
predominantly,
Catholic, and I used to tell my Christian
students who would come into my office hours,
a Muslim professor, because they were being berated
by these professors spouting this type of postmodern
nonsense. They would come into my office, and
they would they would sit there and they
would cry, and I would give them advice
and say, believe in god,
persevere
in god. This is why I would tell
them. I I would quote their own scripture
back to them.
I would quote their own scripture back to
them. Jesus says to the disciples, if if
if the world hates you, remember it hated
me first.
Right? That people who are egocentric,
people who put themselves in the in the
center of the universe, people who are geocentric.
I'm not talking about, you know, cosmological
geocentrism.
I'm talking about people who put the dunya
in the center of their lives, of their
priorities.
The people that are theocentric,
right, the the former tend to hate the
latter. People who put themselves and the world
in the center of their lives tend to
hate and despise and mock and ridicule
the theocentric
people, the people who put Allah
in the center of their lives. Or as
Allah
says,
give give Allah victory so that Allah
will give you victory. This is if and
if this is our position,
right, if we take our stand and stand
firm,
then we will notice
that decent non Muslim people, especially people that
fear and love god, people who practice traditional
morality and understand
the power of compassion and forgiveness and are
not constantly
screaming
justice, justice, justice, which is really coming from
a place of,
then they will respect our differences.
They will advocate for peaceful coexistence,
and they will simply agree to disagree.
But with the postmodern
types, right, the moral relativists,
the critical theorists,
some of these nominalists, the philosophical materialists, the
social constructionists,
when it comes to them,
they will not agree to disagree with us.
What you will eventually hear from them is
if you don't agree with me, and if
you don't radically
reform
your archaic religious beliefs,
then eventually, they'll they'll say to you, then
you are a bigot.
You are a
transphobe,
a homophobe.
You're a misogynist.
They might call you a fatphobe.
Right?
You're just a caveman,
and you're a purveyor of toxic
patriarchy.
And you know what? There's no room for
you
in our little utopia
on Earth. By the way, the word utopia
means non place. That's what the word literally
means. A no place is not going to
happen. It's in the word itself. And my
response to those types of people is: That's
great!
Hasbun Allah.
Allah
is sufficient for us. So don't sell out.
It's not worth it. Have istakamah.
Life is too short to be a sell
out. Right? A man came to the prophet
and he said,
Tell me something about Islam that only you
can tell me. Give me something special from
you. The prophet said very very quick answer
but very profound. He has this gift
communicating profound truths with a few words.
Say, I believe in god
and be upright and be steadfast upon that.
Don't be wishy washy.
Seek a place with Allah
Right? Seek a place with Allah
not in the hearts of men. The prophet
is the beloved of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Yet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says to the
prophet
if you were to follow
their vain desires,
now that after knowledge of the truth has
come to you, then you will find neither
helper nor protector
against Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And don't forget
that the salient point is due to the
generality
of the expression, not due to the
specificity of its occasion of revelation. This is
an axiom in Quranic exegesis.
In other words, this
threat, or Wahid, essentially what it is, is
also for us, is for every single Muslim
that if we follow their vain desires,
now that after the knowledge of the truth
has come to us, then we will find
neither helper nor protector against Allah
To paraphrase a brilliant man, if we're going
to constantly complain
about other people and how bad we have
it, we better make sure that the evil
is truly out there outside of ourselves and
not in here, not in our own hearts.
The prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, he said,
whenever you want to mention the faults of
others, remember your own faults.
Whoever humbles himself, Allah
will exalt. Whoever exalts himself, Allah
will debase and humiliate. This is totally lost
on a lot of modern people.
Humility,
you know, being grateful.
Remember, inequality
does not always mean inequity.
Just because there's inequality in the world, which
is the nature of the world.
That's the nature of the world. High and
low,
ebb and flow. It doesn't mean that they're
always victims
of that inequality.
It does not always denote
injustice.
Some people are simply more intelligent than others.
Some people have more wealth than others. Some
people are better looking.
Now there are victims in the world. That's
true.
Definitely, they are.
Right? But what we tend to do is
self victimize.
We feel like someone owes us something,
and, really, the cure for that is self
criticism and gratitude.
Shukr. Shukr is a beautiful, beautiful
theological virtue in our tradition, and it's all
over the Quran. In Semitic rhetoric, there's something
called binarity.
This is when antithetical
ideas or concepts are juxtaposed
for some sort of rhetorical effect. For example,
Allah
he says, be grateful to me.
Have regard for me so that I might
have regard for you.
Be grateful and do not disbelieve.
Have shukur and don't be people of Kufur.
Very, very interesting. So shukur and kufur are
juxtaposed.
Right? They are antonyms.
In other words, ingratitude
ingratitude
is a type of disbelief.
In other words, the word for ingratitude in
the Quran is kufr.
So we have to be very, very careful
and check ourselves.
Right? There was a certain king I and
this is one of my favorite parables one
of my teachers told me many, many years
ago. I say it a lot. There was
a certain king in a certain kingdom who
had everything he ever wanted except he didn't
have gratitude,
so he was discontent.
So what he used to do is he
used to walk around the forest behind his
castle
and just contemplate. And he was in sort
of in a, you know, in this depressed
mood. And then he saw this popper, a
poor man, sitting beneath a tree.
And this poor man had a glass of
water. He had a a crust of bread.
He had clothes that barely covered his aura.
And he was making of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala with great joy.
And so the king approached the man and
he said, look, you're a you're a poor
man. Why are you so happy? Why do
you rejoice?
And the man said,
why shouldn't I be?
Right? I have everything I need. And he
said, what do you have? He said, I
have everything I need. And this man, this
pauper, he was an aras billah.
Right? And so he actually recognized that this
was the king, and he said to him,
you're the king.
Why aren't you happy? You have everything you
want. And the king said, I don't know.
So the pauper said to the man,
if you were lost in the desert
if you were lost in the desert
and you were going to die of thirst,
horrible death, how much of your kingdom would
you give for half a glass of water?
And the king said, half of my kingdom.
And then the pauper said to the king,
he said, if you drank that water and
you were unable to excrete it out of
your body and it was going to cause
an infection and kill you, How much of
your kingdom would you give for, you the
ability to get rid of that water? He
said the other half of my kingdom. So
the pauper said your entire kingdom was worth
a glass of water.
I have that here. I have a crust
of bread. I have clothes that cover my
aura.
I have the thikr of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
I have that and more. You see, this
parable is obviously meant to be hyperbolic,
but we get the point. Just be grateful.
Be content.
Be in a state of taslim
to the Qadr of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Continuous ingratitude
and
and obsession
for earthly justice
is upstream
to discontentment
with Allah's Qadr, and that is dangerous.
Right?
And a lot of young college students that
I come into contact with that have a
lot of zeal for this. I tell them
all the time. That's fine. Work for justice.
But just remember, you're not Aquaman. You're not
Wonder Woman. This is not the Justice League.
Nietzsche's Ubermensch or Superman is motivated
by a love of this world
and a rejection of the next world. While
the prophet
who is the true superman, he said,
love of the world was ahead of every
sin.
Just do your best and say
Right?
And just contemplate the
of
Allah
You became brethren by means of Allah's and
some of the here, they say, this is
a is a direct reference to the prophet
Muhammad
that he put love between your hearts by
means of his and you became brethren.
The prophet
is
this fact by itself should engender a type
of gratitude in the heart that should last
you until the end of your days. What
are we complaining about? Really, when you think
about it.
I can't even go to interfaith dialogues anymore.
I used to do these all the time
for 20 years. Now they've become exhibitions of
ingratitude,
Just like these pity parties
where there's no real knowledge being communicated, a
lot of anecdotal evidence.
Right? People just complaining.
Right?
I went to 1, the last one I
went to, somebody got Muslim stood up and
said 20 years ago, I was in a
grocery store and somebody made a racist comment.
Don't get me wrong. That's horrible. Racism is
horrible.
That's
obvious. It's axiomatic.
But is this something really to complain about
and bring up in an interfaith dialogue?
You know, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he heard worse than that to his own
face in Medina.
I'm not talking about Mecca.
In his own city where he's the head
of state.
Where the buck stopped at him. A group
of people walked by him. Assamu 'alaikum.
Death be upon you.
This was in Medina.
Why do we expect better circumstances
in America in 2020?
How can it be better than Medina tul
Munawwara,
the time of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam?
Right? And sometimes people do threaten our lives.
Sometimes people do make threats, and, obviously, that's
horrible.
And those are those are obviously things that
we should take very, very seriously.
But put things in perspective. What are we
complaining about?
Allah
did not pity his prophet. He sent him
of Tazilia,
of comfort, and consolation
to strengthen and encourage him. When the prophet
was
was abused in Ta'if and kicked out of
the city and he collapsed under the tree.
He's
I complained to you because of my lack
of strength.
He attributed
what had happened to him due to his
own weakness. This is from his
Right? This is our role model, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. We complain so much.
Allah gave us all something to complain about.
Look at us now.
But even now, we shouldn't complain. This is
not a time for complaint, exactly the opposite,
because this could be a 1000 times worse
when you think about it. This This could
be a 1000 times worse, what what we're
going through right now. This is a time
when we should look inward
and repent
and correct our conduct. The prophet, sallallahu alaihi
wasallam,
was a victim of verbal and physical abuse
in Mecca. But how did he handle that?
This is very important.
Now some of the ulama divide the Prophet's
life into what's known as I Sawi or
Christic and Musawi,
Mosaic periods. In other words, Mecca and Medina.
In other words, in Mecca, the prophet, sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
he practiced something called assertive nonviolence.
Martin Luther King said that Isa alaihi salaam
practice assertive nonviolence.
This should be our practice.
What is assertive nonviolence? It is it is
to be totally
nonviolent.
To be filled with compassion and mercy,
yet to be principled,
virtuous,
and devout.
Right? If you just read the New Testament,
Matthew 23,
Jesus, peace be upon him, and in his
life,
he was nonviolent.
Right? He didn't pick up the sword. He
was not in a position of power at
any time during his life. He said, if
if my kingdom were of this world, my
disciples would have fought, but it but my
kingdom was not from here. At least not
this time around.
Right? Yet, he spoke the truth.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
you've overlooked the weightier demands of the law.
Justice, mercy, and good faith.
You strain at the gnat and you swallow
the camel. How can you escape the punishment
of *? Hypocrites,
brood, vipers.
This is quoting from Matthew chapter 23.
Right?
To be to be totally nonviolent
yet principled, virtuous, and devout. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says to the prophet
after he was attacked in one of streets
and they threw something on him.
Oh you wrapped in a mantle.
On your feet, get up and warn the
people. You have a job to do. What
is Allah essentially telling the prophet
essentially telling him to continue to be compassionate
to them
in the in the face of their abuse
to you, because the prophet's vocation is as
a bashir and a naveer And naveer, a
warner. When someone warns you of something, essentially,
they're being compassionate to you to you. If
someone sees if someone sees a a car
about to plow into your house or something
or a tornado about to take it, destroy
your house and this person doesn't warn you.
That's that's an act of
of cruelty. But if he warns you, that's
an act of rachma,
mercy.
And stay positive. Magnify your Lord. You have
a rub. Don't forget that.
The rub denotes the imminent deity, the personal
deity, the God who loves you and and
takes care of you. Trust him.
And keep your clothes clean.
They did it to you, but you are
going to clean it. Work on yourself first.
Don't lay down on the ground
and say, well, this person knocked me down.
He has to pick me back up. Well,
I'm not going to pick myself back up.
No. Get up. Dust yourself off
and get to work.
Right? Get back out there and show them
compassion.
This is very, very difficult.
And shun their idolatry, their immorality.
Be principled. Don't be a sellout.
And don't think that they that they owe
you anything, and be hopeful
and optimistic. Don't be rash or impetuous. I'm
out of time.