Addressing Cultural Islam by Dr Bilal
This Lecture was delivered at Phoenix School – Doha, Qatar
Bilal Philips – Addressing Cultural Islam
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the challenges faced by the Muslim world, including cultural Islam and the need for people to be aware of its cultural aspect. They stress the importance of recognizing the culture of the Muslim world and the natural process of cultural Islam. They also touch on the devastating consequences of wedding dresses and the cultural process of wedding. The segment emphasizes the importance of acceptance of Islam and finding the right person to teach it, as well as educating people on the topic and using online learning to improve understanding.
AI: Summary ©
hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah Karim.
Ali was Hobie
woman is standing up as soon as he niomi Dean appraise you to a law and realize Peace and blessings beyond the last prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day.
The topic addressing cultural Islam
is
a critical concept that the Muslim world has to deal with
in this time.
This is the biggest challenge that we are faced with
cultural Islam.
From the perspective of the West, the Muslim world is a challenge.
It represents the only civilization that has an alternative
to Western civilization.
All of the other societies communities have been absorbed by Western civilization.
They have accepted those values and the norms that have been set by
Western secular civilization.
It is only the Muslim civilization that stands in their way
to true globalization of Western civilization.
However,
though, in their eyes, we represent the Muslim world represent a barrier or a hurdle, which stops that globalization process.
The fact of the matter is that due to problems that we are faced with internally,
we don't really pose a threat.
As the Muslim oma awakens,
this is where the threat lies. The Awakening in most recent times from the 80s 90s, there is an awakening taking place throughout the Muslim ummah.
This is where the greatest threat actually lies, but the mass of Muslims the vast majority of Muslims remain asleep in cultural, Islamic traditions and rituals and rites.
So, we, till today, in spite of the awakening that is taking place, we still have a long way to go to really pose a threat.
Resistance. We do pose even in the ignorance that is widespread in the oma
Muslims in general still feel that Islam is the best way that we should live.
So that
poses something of a hurdle
and keeps the Muslim world in general, together
as a threat
or potential threat in the eyes of the West. So
reality, reality for us is that
The prophetic
statement in Surah Allah marohn in which a loss of 100 Allah had said kuntum Hara Martin allegedly NASS taumarunui Maru Fatah and how Nana Moncure may not have been law
you are the best nation extracted from among humankind
because you command the good
and you prohibit evil and you believe in Allah.
This statement which allow men describing the Muslim Ummah
is not one which is applicable to us today.
We do not command the good
globally, the UN commands the good
and we do not prohibit the evil, it is the UN, which prohibits the evil.
We do believe in a lot. Okay, the last portion,
we still have that,
but commanding the good and prohibiting the evil, which is the distinguishing characteristic of what belief in a law should actually produce we are not engaged in it.
In fact, to some degree,
Muslims may command the evil and prohibit the good
as a result of
the influence of cultural Islam.
Cultural Islam
prevents the oma from fulfilling
its duty. Its role for which a law has extracted us has chosen us from amongst humankind.
The realities that face the Muslim world today
is that
the average Muslim
is unable to distinguish between
what is cultural
and what is strictly Islamic.
What is cultural meaning from tradition, and custom.
And what is specifically from the sources of Islam.
For most people,
everything that Muslims do is Islam.
Whatever Muslims do is what Islam is. That's how they perceive it.
So they're unable to distinguish between cultural Islam or as the Christian missionaries like to refer to it focus lab.
When you read the writings, they talk about the common practices they call it focus lab.
This reality
is what has to be cleared.
People have to be able to make that distinction so that we can get back on Serato Mr. T. This is the bottom line
because Serato monster team, that straight path
which we pray for 17 times every day. So router monster team
is based on what
the Quran and the Sunnah, it's not based on cultural Islam and the traditions etc. It's based on the Quran and the Sunnah.
As the prophet SAW, Selim had told us to rock to feed Kuma moraine. I've left with you two things, intimacy, * Bahama, if you hold on firmly to them, lanta de la vida you will never go astray. You will never go straight from sirata Mr. T.
Most Muslims accept Quran and Sunnah. Yes, we do have some people who are what they call Quran you
We have them paarvai Z's in Pakistan and they popped up in Malaysia and other places to people who say we should just follow Quran.
The Sunnah is stuff made up hundreds of years after the time of the Prophet Muhammad wa Salaam we can't rely on it.
But they represent a very small number a vast majority of Muslims they recognize Koran and soon as
crime This is a book, we read it revelation from a law, the Word of God and the Sunnah, what Mohammed Salah, did we recognize that yes, this is Islam.
However,
if we point out to them,
brother, sister,
what you are actually doing here is not in accordance with the sun now.
Prophet Mohammed Salah sallam, he did something else. Here is Sahih Bukhari Hara Sahih Muslim, here is what the Sahaba said, that was Sula, la Salatu was Salam wasallam did.
When we say this to people who are cultural Muslims, traditional Muslims,
they cannot accept this.
They will start to
express Express, you know, concern about the forefathers, they will say, well,
we're our forefathers wrong. But this is what my parents did this what my grandparents were doing is what my great grandparents were doing. So what are you saying here? They're all wrong.
They're a stray. It's only you that's on the right path.
This
is the attitude that people tend to
turn to.
Basically, they're saying, you know, hey, if it was good for my parents and grandparents, then it's good for me. It's enough for me. I don't need anything else.
Because they were good people.
They prayed. They fasted, they did all the things. So
now this attitude is not new. We might find it frustrating. Those of us who have come in into a new understanding of what Islam is.
We might find it frustrating, you know, why are people saying this? Why are they doing this? Why are they taking this attitude actually know that it is not new?
It is ancient.
It's actually recorded in the Quran in a number of chapters.
Among them in Surah, Al majda fifth chapter, verse 104. Allah says they're worried that Tila home tala in Amma Angela Long Way Laura soon. Call who has been ama jedna La Habana.
If you tell them come to what Allah has revealed, and to the messenger, they will reply, what we found our parents doing is sufficient for us.
It's enough. That's what the Quraysh said to resolve the loss or Salaam when he tried to bring the message of tawheed to them,
let's say know,
what our four parents were doing was enough for us. So this is not a new attitude. So don't be disheartened. If you run into this issue within your family, your close relatives
as you find out about Islam, and you try to share it with them. you've run into this time and time again. So don't be disheartened.
Just be patient with it know that Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam had to face it. So if he has to face it, who are we to complain?
So,
if we look at
having that
level of understanding, we look at this process of cultural Islam and its sources because for us to deal with it, we need to understand its sources to understand the print
supples behind
those different positions which are taking
what makes up cultural Islam?
Well, first and foremost,
cultural Islamic practices
may be ancient,
before Islam, pre Islamic practices that people were doing in a particular place, when Islam came to them.
The people accepted Islam, and they brought these practices in with them.
This is the natural process. This happens, it's to be expected.
If the people learned enough about Islam, then they're able to
leave those practices where they went against the Sharia. Because actually, Islam is not against culture.
Reality, Islam didn't come to wipe out human culture and replace it altogether. No.
It came to guide human beings.
And naturally, some of our cultural practices
may have no implications on our practice of Sharia,
they are just preferences of people in particular places at particular periods of time.
And Islam doesn't say, Well, no, you can't have these preferences, no.
So we have in Islamic law, a principle called or,
or represents the custom of the people.
So where there is an established custom,
and it doesn't go against Islamic law,
then it is accepted within the the system, the legal system of Islam,
in that particular area.
Now, the point is, though,
if you have enough Islamic knowledge, then you can make that distinction between all of which is acceptable, and which is not.
That's the point, you have to have knowledge to be able to do it. You can't just go according to I think, I feel
this should be okay. I feel good when I do it. This is not the basis by which we determine what is acceptable customs and traditions and what are not, this is the point. So there has to be knowledge in order to be able to make this distinction.
But we who have this consciousness have to be aware of this process,
and not to oppose it in all of its shapes and forms, but only in the forms that go against Islamic teachings. So, for example, pre Islamic
practice in the subcontinent.
If we look at a Hindu wedding,
in India,
and Pakistan, and we look at a Muslim wedding,
huh, you may be have a hard time distinguishing between the two.
Very similar.
Though,
the teachings are quite different.
But the traditions are very similar. So for example,
in India, and to a large degree in Pakistan, when women get married, they wear red wedding dresses.
The color red is critical.
If a woman wants to get married in other than the color red, it's a problem.
A big problem.
You can find something similar in maybe Egypt and Lebanon, Syria were under Christian influence their India its Hindu influence and that also
The area it's Christian influence where they traditionally get married in white, with red wedding dresses. So if you want to get married in a yellow wedding dress, or a green wedding dress, you've got a problem. People are going to be resisting and struggling with you over this.
So, of course, technically speaking from an Islamic perspective, it does matter. Islam has not prescribed a particular color that wedding dresses should be.
It's left it to people.
But the only problem that comes up is the issue where the prophet SAW Selim had said, Manta Shabaab, the coalmine for who I mean home, whoever imitates the people
is of them.
Meaning you are likely to absorb not only the way that they dress, but also many other things that they do.
You will become indistinguishable from them.
Muslims should be distinguishable.
We see so many things the prophet SAW Selim instructed us to do to distinguish ourselves from non Muslims.
So from this perspective, we can say that, yes,
a red wedding dress is not against Islamic teachings. But in India, where people have made it an obligation,
then this is the place where they need to break that tradition.
In Lebanon, and Syria, Egypt, where it's a white, then we need to break that tradition and do it in other colors.
Because people have made it an obligation, almost a religious obligation.
So those types of practices
we need to tackle.
Especially math, one might say, but this is very minor. You know, what's the harm? It's so small. But if you see what comes along with it.
In India,
they have a necklace called a tally.
And this necklace is from
Hindu beliefs and traditions.
The tally is shipped.
And the women who wear the red dresses make sure that they wear the tally. So the problem wasn't in the red dress, but when they brought along with it the tally, then you really have no problem.
In the case of those who are in the white,
okay, the white was one problem. But then they brought along with it.
wedding rings and engagement rings, right? And the wedding ring goes on this finger.
This is the wedding ring finger.
And if you saw the marriage of Princess Diana, you can go on YouTube and get it
when the bishop
was conducting the ceremony, he takes the ring from
Prince what's his name, then? Charles, Prince Charles. And he puts it by her thumb, and he says in the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. So this wearing of that ring on that finger is affirmation of the Trinitarian belief in three gods.
So that's when it now becomes serious, particularly serious because it's affecting now our belief system. We have accepted this practice and this comes along with it. So we do have to
hold our ground. And some of these matters.
And one might still say still that kind of lights, you know, it's not really like life threatening. You know, it's just, yeah, it's off but the people who are doing it, they don't believe in the Trinitarian idea.
Well,
if we consider
among the practices that people have inherited,
In Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, and East Africa, Kenya,
what is now called female genital mutilation
where women are supposedly circumcised, but it's not circumcision according to Islamic practice teaching, it is in truth, female genital mutilation.
Now it becomes something really serious, because people die from it.
They suffer all kinds of, of ailments, etc.
It's horrendous, the consequences of this practice. And it is something that the West points the finger at muslims for nothing look at look at these Muslims.
it distorts the image of Islam,
though, in fact, it's really not a Muslim thing. Because Muslims are 1.7 billion
the total number of Muslims who practice that maybe around 500 million
countries that practice it.
It's a fraction.
It is not the majority of Muslims that is practiced in some areas, because even of those people in the 500, maybe those who actually practice it are less much down to 100, or maybe even less.
Other parts of the Muslim world never heard about it. If you go to Indonesia, and you talk about female genital mutilation, they say what
they had no idea never came across it unknown, completely.
Malaysia
Philippines unknown.
So it is limited to one part of the Muslim world but it has devastating consequences. And it distorts the image of Islam today.
And
it produces great harm to women.
Women are the ones who suffer the most from it.
Another example of life threatening
traditions and customs
is the Hindu practice of dowry.
dowry in Hindu tradition
is given by the family of the female to the male.
This is the opposite of the Islamic way, Islamic way it's the male gives to the female, showing his preparedness to look after female. But in Hindu tradition, also in European old European tradition.
It was the family of the female who give money, property etc to the male.
As a consequence of that practice, it stopped in Europe. But in India, it's alive and well. As a consequence of that practice,
a phenomenon arose in
recent times on a big scale called bride burning.
Bride burning. What is bride burning? Well, the family of the girl promises the young man that she's going to marry
all kinds of things
after the marriage.
The family is not able to do the things that they promised.
The young man is complaining where's my car? Where's my 60 inch television? You know, where's my this where's my that? And the young ladies you know my parents.
My father business whatever. Can't do it. So what happens
he conspires with his mother
catches the wife in the kitchen pours carry
Seeing over her and set her on fire
1000s die every year in India. Because of that, the government outlawed dowries to try to stop it, but this tradition is deep rooted, people are not giving it up. It is goes on
what we say okay, that's the Hindus. So what does that have to do with Muslims? Well,
there was an article I read in Gulf News,
in which it said woman burned to death in Dhaka,
Dhaka, Bangladesh,
mostly Muslims.
A greedy husband burned to death his young wife at sick para in the city following a feud over dowry. Police said. They said Zaheer Mia poured kerosene over the body of his wife, Shannon was 20 years old, set her on fire on Sunday. She died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital yesterday
as Muslims
because Muslims follow that same tradition.
As a result,
a Muslim sister loses her life.
This is the custom This is the tradition which has been brought in from Hinduism into
Islam.
And
in Pakistan.
I have an article here from Gulf News
in which said
domestic violence on rise in Pakistan, at least 300 women are burned to death every year.
At least 300 women are burned to death every year. They went on to describe it Dalston, kerosene, and burnt by their close relatives.
Similarly,
in Egypt,
there is a tradition in southern Egypt
that
if a woman is widowed, she does not remarry.
That's just agreed upon.
tradition. Custom.
A woman is widowed her husband died. She does not remarry. She remains a widow until she dies.
Well,
an article and golf news.
Sun held for killing mother
in cleaner Egypt.
A 22 year old son beheaded and dismembered his widowed mother when he found out that she had secretly remarried, breaking with tradition in southern Egypt. Police here said yesterday, so a lot of medicine
helped by one of his uncle's forced
sumeria salaam, who is 35 years old.
into the village summer Cemetery in nakada. A Hamlet north of the southern resort of Luxor, where they strangled, beheaded and dismembered the woman. Police said
Where did that come from?
Can we get any more serious with tradition?
This practice was based on
a myth.
There was a
mythology mythological story about the Gods of Egypt, right? Where the goddess Isis
according to the myth,
her brother desired her.
She was already married to Osiris, another of the gods, right?
But her own brother,
Seth, he desired her for himself as his wife.
So he kills or Cyrus, this is myth.
This is myth mythology. He kills Osiris.
expects them that
ISIS will marry him. But she refuses. Her husband is killed. She's now a widow, but she refuses to marry Seth.
Instead, she hides her son Horace
is the God who they use the hawk to represent. You'll see the bird in their hieroglyphics, with the hawk the big misses for us.
So
Horace grows up
and he kills Seth.
That's the story,
total myth.
But what it said is that ISIS, widowed, did not remarry.
So that cult of ISIS, which is different from ISIS, you know, the ISIS in Syria, that is a different. This is ISIS real name, the cult of ISIS spread over much of Egypt, but its home was in southern Egypt. So that tradition remain extremely strong, there may be in other parts of Egypt too, but not as strongly as it is in the south.
So we can see here that these customs, I mean, there are Muslim people who are practicing this.
This customs reached the point of people losing their lives, that's how serious it can become.
So this is not something that we should treat lightly.
We do have to have proper information
and be able to distinguish between what is true Islam and what is cultural.
And
what goes against Islamic teachings. Even if it is harmless, we say it's harmless no real harm.
We should
make that distinction stand our ground there.
If it's not against Islamic teachings, Okay, no problem.
We also have what may be called adopted practices.
One of the well known practices where Muslims
Muslim society absorbs from a contemporary society, their practices. It's not before and they brought it in with them, but it appeared amongst them and they took it also. We have a lot of that today.
But in the past
when 300 years after the time of Jesus, when Jesus Christ was lift lifted up, a Salah Salaam.
Initially, Christians did not celebrate birthdays.
It was a known pagan practice. pagans did it.
However,
they began some 300 years after the time of Jesus time on Earth, they began to celebrate his birthday, they first identified his birthday 25th of December, which of course has no evidence
connected to idolatrous beliefs that they had.
And that became
the standard, they celebrated the birthday. And that celebration became bigger and bigger and bigger, you know, as it spread into other areas that they introduced other things wasn't just a celebration of the birthday, no giving out of presents that day. Then they brought in the tree. From the Scandinavians the tree came in the house, and they put things on it and you know, Santa Claus, you know,
this is celebrating the birthday
of God.
I mean, which is ridiculous in and of itself. The idea of celebrating God's birth
is
your mind you have to shut your mind off to accept that really, it doesn't compute.
But that was their tradition.
And when it became widespread and strong amongst them, we had some Muslims who felt
Prophet Muhammad SAW Salah is greater than Prophet Jesus. So if the Christians can celebrate Prophet Jesus birthday then we should be celebrating Prophet Muhammad SAW self growth, which we should be doing even better.
So
the 40 Min, Shiites, Egypt began the practice 400 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
And
the celebration of the birthday is one thing,
but it became a religious right.
And now it is on the calendars of Muslim countries, wherever you go, you will find holidays Muslim holidays, one of them is the birthday of the Prophet sauce. It's become now a standard part of our culture.
The problem
besides accepting an idea which is false.
The problem comes when people go overboard with this and the prophet SAW Selim warned us about that. He said, Don't go overboard in your prayer, praise of me the way the Christians did with Prophet Jesus.
I'm just Abdullah was
a slave of Allah and His messenger. However,
people
went to extremes.
We know the celebrations those of you in your countries, you know what goes on the parades and the, you know, caring of objects and all kinds of things going on. And the praises that come, you know, in the various poems and the songs and all of this that comes, so much so, that in the most popular
poem
for the mounted, written by Elmo Siri,
who is a Berber
he wrote a poem called a seeded Alberta.
This is like he's the 13th century
person
from the 13th century. In it
are extreme praises of the prophet SAW Selim to the point of ship
and it is the most popular poem that's read on those occasions.
One of the verses in one of the verses he said,
for men Judaica, dunia widow raha
Omen or lumic and malarkey well pollen
from your kindness
is the world
this world and the hereafter saying Rasulullah Salah
that from the kindness and the gifts,
this is not the total now, this is a part of the gifts of Rasulullah saw Salaam to us is this world and the world to come
that is so gross woman or lumic and from your knowledge, not the totality of your knowledge, not just a bit of your knowledge is the knowledge of the tablet you know the tablet a lot of fools
a lot hammock foods
where a lot all the pen to write everything
that wasn't would be other
recorded
that is only a part of Rasulullah Salah salams knowledge
woman Aloo MC
in Malawi one column. So the knowledge that was under
protected tablet as well as whatever the pen knew it, he knows.
So, these are extremes.
This is the qualities of a last word Allah
not the qualities of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam.
So
these
represent
particular
dangers to the oma because it affects
the dean itself.
Among them
are religious innovations
under the general heading of what may be called Sufism,
or mysticism,
and mysticism,
is defined as the experience of union with God is the essence of the mystic thought
that
the human beings goal in this life
should be
to unite the human soul, with God with Allah.
Now, this is an ancient thought, it's not something new. The Greeks had it before Plato wrote about it, in his symposium.
And the Hindus have it in the concept of what they call Atman Blackman
that the human soul Atman is a part of Brockman.
one and the same.
We hear Christians talking about what is inside of everybody's heart, we all have a piece of a lie in us, God in us,
the soul is looked at as a piece of God.
And it's even Muslims. I've accepted this idea too,
that the human soul is divine, a part of a law is within each and every one of us, which creates all kinds of problems. Because we know that some of us and we pray that we are not among them will be going to *.
So then what are you saying that piece of Allah which is in you, it goes into * gets burned? Come on. Problem. Doesn't make sense.
It's illogical.
The soul? Yes. aluna can call the Rothman and the rumbek
it might be Omri Robic, that is the soul they when they ask you about the soul, tell them that the soul is by the command of your Lord.
Fire could Allah commands it to come into existence, it came into existence. It's not a piece of a lot. So this idea which became widespread through these Sufi circles,
encouraged this way of thinking that the goal of human beings is to become one with a law. And with that process, a parallel religion
developed.
They spoke about the Sharia,
and the 30.
The Sharia was the outer and the 30 was the inner
and
that knowledge, which they got from this,
and in the tariqa, it came from special sources, when you will ask them, okay, so where did this knowledge come from? They'll say, Well, my chef had a dream.
Or my chef chef had a dream.
Or they will go back and they say, Well, you know, when Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim was in the cave with Abu Bakar.
He revealed his knowledge to Abu Bakar.
And aboubaker passed it down, they have a chain of narrators, and in the middle of the chain there is hidden,
hidden. How did it get in here? Yes, it's still alive.
So they have stories to provide a basis for this claims that they make.
And they developed a whole system of training oneself spiritually, to go through the various levels until you eventually reach a lot.
So your goal is funner
where you dissolve into a law
and that may be preceded by or may be parallel to school where you arrive at a law. These are the main two thoughts. So those people who are considered to have reached a become one with a lot and we had a large
who used to say
I am Allah.
He used to say that in Arabic also, he would say that you're alone, I am alone. You don't need to worship anybody outside of yourself, you can worship yourself.
It's very popular, his writings is tafsir quad.
The point is that
those people who now claim to have reached that point, they gave them special titles, to
abdol various names, but they became special people who
were then placed as intermediaries between ourselves and Allah.
This is the biggest calamity of that whole system of belief. Intermediate see where people are placed between us and Allah, those people they called saints.
They gave him a type title since the Islamic title Alia.
Wali
is the saint. And
we have built
huge edifices, shrines, Muslims over
those among them who died of the past. And admir.
You have millions
competing with Mecca, millions who come there every year to admin rajastan.
people doing all kinds of things here prostrating at the grave, kissing the grave, making toe off around the grave.
writing notes and putting it inside of the framework latticework that's around the grave.
tying it with strings,
paying money.
So business, big business for those people. Collect and inform the others that your prayers have been answered. Now pay no big business. But point is that people caught up in this intermediate see, they no longer pray to Allah.
They're praying to other than a law they say, Well, you know you are dirty with sin.
How can you possibly turn to a law dirty with sin? Allah is pure.
So how can you dirty with sin now turn to a law, you need to go to someone who is closer to Allah, Who is pure. And that person can take your prayers to Allah for you.
Just like if you want to see
chef Tamim
or Hamad
you can't just go to his palace, knock on the door and say, listen, I'd like to have a little conference with you. No, doesn't work like that. You have to go to somebody who knows somebody else who knows somebody else who's got a connection with this one and that one? Yeah. Eventually what you want to do gets to it the same way. That's how life is
but they have sabotage
our relationship with Allah.
And the last of the major sources of
cultural Islam
is
religious fanaticism or factionalism.
And this is manifest in the math hubs. Because this is another area where we run into issues
where you try to explain something to somebody, they say ah, your hobby.
I know about your hobbies
are the hobbies they have different names.
We are sapphires.
We are Hana fees.
We Hana fees do it this way.
We shall face do it this way.
This is held up
and has become one of the emblems or the symbols of cultural Islam.
Because what people are practicing today, they say I'm a sharpie, but
a mom
a sharpie wasn't the Sharpie
and the hammer fist
am a hanafy but imaam Abu hanifa wasn't hanafy because what they're practicing today wasn't what he practiced and taught. Some of it is, but much of it isn't.
The school's took on a life of their own.
And they became so dangerous to the oma that
Hana fees refused to pray behind cafes
and shops cafes refuse to pray behind Hana fees.
The Kaaba, where people are going for Hajj today, up until 1925 for almost 500 years
had four different Salah going on around the Kaaba.
If you look at the old pictures before 1925 you will see in the pictures a number of other structures that you don't see anymore.
And if you see the titling on it, you will see one structure it's called ma calm hanafy ma calm Shafi ma calm Maliki ma calm hanbali
and if you research what are these macarons we know macom Ibrahim, everybody knows McCauley brain and Hodge bernama calm Shafi Where did that come from? macom Shafi was the place where the Shafi mom would stand. After the van is given our time for prayer, Shafi mom would stand they would make a comma, and all the shots phase who were making to offer etc, they would come prey behind him.
When he was finished, then the Hanafi mom, he would then make a comma, then all the HANA fees will come pray behind him. And then
Maliki then Hambali
for different prayers going on around the Kaaba. In fact, even the Hanafi is ruled in their books of fick that it wasn't permissible for a hanafy to marry a Shafi
that it was permissible for a hanafy to marry a Christian, but a good marriage of a
Wow.
How far can you go?
But this was madhhab fanaticism at its worst. So though people make a big deal about the the Saudis, you know, look what they're doing. They're changing the haraam. They make, you know, whenever they do anything, new building, whatever, people scream, look at them destroying our artifacts. We don't have artifacts. We have no religious artifacts.
We have the Kaaba.
We make tau off around it. The buildings around it were built by people and torn down and rebuilt.
What people are fighting over right now from the time of the Ottomans. Others before them, the Ottomans changed it. There was nobody crying and screaming when the Ottomans made their expansion. brought in a new design. No. But now, the Saudis are the bad guys. So everybody screams on Facebook, you know, whenever any new change takes place, the Saudis are just destroying the religion.
Reality is that 1925 when the Saudi family took over Arabia, they tore down all those McCombs, and they said, One Imam,
end of this, they ended it. So if that's all they did, got us all, to pray behind each other, again, I'd say at hamdulillah * akmola.
So
the man has, it's not to say, it's wrong to follow madhhab following a madhhab is like following a scholar,
that scholar is going to have a must have
meaning that you don't have knowledge, you depend on him having more knowledge, you trust him, he you and you need to do something, he advises you to do it this way or that way or the other way, you don't have enough knowledge to go and find other otherwise you follow him.
So you are following his madhhab Simple as that.
And if you move someplace else, and you find another scholar,
then
you ask that scholar he tells you something, something else maybe tells you something different from which the first scholar
God gives you some evidence sounds right to you, you follow him? No problem.
Allah says in the Quran Allah Allah decree in quantum law tala moon as those who know if you don't know. Now this was a problem for me when I first came into Islam accepted Islam in Canada
and the people that I met when I first came into Islam were herpes.
I went with Gemma tablea and so on. So they taught me and sat with them. Alana's took my notes and
and they told me, this format helps.
But most Muslims are hanafis.
Most Muslims are hanafis.
And Imam, Abu hanifa. He is a Miami alum as his title, the greatest deema because they're the ones who gave him that title.
So I said made sense. Okay. Since most Muslims are an official biography.
So what was the big deal? Well, at that point, the big deal was the Sala of the female hanafy.
Salon of the male, no big deal. You put your hand down below your navel and you don't raise it when they say a lot, but okay, no.
But the salon of the female
was acrobatic.
If you didn't learn it from childhood, you will be falling all over the place.
And I had to learn it to go teach my wife. I couldn't just tell her how to learn it. They taught me I learned how to do it, you know, until I could do it properly. And I said, Okay, I took it back and taught it to my wife.
Of course, when you go into the sun now
much of what the woman does, the female the Hanafi does is against the Santa Rosa law says don't put your elbows on the ground. They say put elbows on the ground. Don't put your chest on your thighs die, they put the chest on the thighs, everything that the bronzer said said don't do this, that women you do that.
So
hanafy then I moved near to a different Masjid Imam there was from Egypt.
And he's teaching me further.
I'm learning for kasana studying, then I start to notice this is different from what he said Shafi Shafi,
I thought it was all the same.
Fine, Shafi they were bringing the evidence is, you know, with the HANA fees, they were just saying do don't do do don't do. But this Imam his father was a scholar from Azhar. So he was saying, here's the evidence.
A law said, messenger said so and so since
then, after that, I met some brothers from Morocco.
I found them doing other things, praying with their heads by the side. What is this said?
Maliki.
That's when I decided you know, if I'm going to learn this Islam, I'm not going to be able to learn it from these people here. I need to go back to the sources you know where Islam started, go back to Medina go study there. That's what drove me to go and study from the source.
And ultimately,
I to say, that contradiction that I saw was a part of it. The other part of it that was problematic, was that they taught all of everybody agreed that it didn't matter which month Have you followed? They were all the same.
They're all right.
Right? Although they told me the most Muslims are Anopheles leave that aside, but still, if you choose to be one of the others, it's okay. They're all the same. All we're right. But then,
when I studied with Shafi
Imam,
he said that if a man accidentally touches a woman, she has he has no do, and she also has no will do.
But the hanafy said, If a man accidentally touches the woman, his widow is not broken. Nor is hers. So here came the problem for me.
One said you had to do the other one said
You didn't have to do. So if you had to accept that both of them were correct. It means it is possible for you to have to do and not have to do at the same time.
That's like the Christian, three gods in one.
God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, three gods, but no one
for you to accept that you have to turn your brain off. Right? Your brain says no, it's three, not one. Same thing you have to do, you don't have to do your brain says you got to have it or not have it you can have it and not have it at the same time. So one's got to be right. So this was the other element, which sent me searching. So in the end, the differences amongst the scholars that
people
created math hubs about which they became rigid in following those differences were natural differences. Because if you ask, what was the math hub, Abubakar, he was the best of the oma after Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam.
So surely his madhhab should be the best.
You ask? What was the madhhab of Abu Bakar was the Hanafi
schaffen, Maliki humbling.
Those people who are hired into my tabs, they just look at you and say, You're just a problem.
You just want to make problems, because they know he wasn't any of them. Okay, what about Omar?
No, Osman
Ali.
Nobody can make that connection. They were not any of the four.
And as I said, even Abu hanifa was no hanafy.
Mr. Malik was an American,
a Shafi was nothing
made him humble was not humble. So then what were they?
What was abubaker? What was the madhhab that he was following?
anybody here know?
What was this? My family?
Huh?
Huh?
The madhhab of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. That was his mother.
His madhhab was the madhhab of Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, he was trying to follow the way of the prophets. Awesome. So it was Omar, Osman Ali, the Imams, that's what they were trying to follow. So there's just one mother, the mother of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi salam, that's all there is.
Now the scholar who is teaching you, He will teach you as best as he is able to determine from the information he's gotten, etc. and you follow him. And you're following this method to follow the method of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam. So that's where it ends.
These are the areas
of traditional Islam.
We need to understand them.
So that if we are caught up in them, we need to let them go and find correct Islam.
If we have understood
and we are trying to share on this understanding with those around us, then we need to be aware of the backgrounds where these things are coming from, to help people understand, to be patient with them to understand where these things came from. We need to be understand we don't need to be hired.
You know, either you follow this way or I'll have nothing to do with you know.
So
the only way forward for the oma for us to come together and solve the problems that face the oma today is to clear away
that baggage that we have inherited of traditional and cultural Islam, which goes against the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah.
What is acceptable we accept
and be able to
Go along with and when we learn the deen we learn it in its fullness
in a number of places I've been to,
in West Africa
where some brothers from Morocco, they came and they prayed, led the prayer and one of the masjids
and at the end of the prayer
when everybody is expecting the Imam to say salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa salam aleikum, wa rahmatullah.
The Imam said Salam aleikum
didn't finish the summer.
They didn't know that Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam ended the prayer on more than one occasion, simply by turning to the right and saying Salaam Alaikum.
End of prayer. So where you don't know, then this can look like somebody who's changing the religion, they're innovating, they're doing something.
So this is part we have to be open minded. We have to be tolerant, we have to be understanding, and we need to increase our knowledge. And hamdulillah Islamic online university is one of the sources for you. by which you can increase your knowledge from your homes without having to stop everything you're doing and going back to another school again, no, you can do it from your home, in your spare time on the weekend.
This is an opportunity
to help us fulfill the motto of the university, changing the nation through education.
This is the main
rissalah message that we are seeking to convey and to apply changing the nation through education. As we know Allah said in the law Hello, I have a Roma Coleman had a Roma be unforeseen, that doesn't change the condition of people, until they change themselves change what is within themselves
from good to bad, or from bad to good. So for us to change from bad to good. We need knowledge. Knowledge is something that is now available to us on a scale unknown before. unimaginable
before the only way for you to get the knowledge was to take trips, halfway around the world go on
journeys. When you read the life of Imam Bukhari and the other great scholars, it was arduous. Today, it's at your fingertips.
The same place you go for Facebook,
Skype, wherever you can go to the same place and learn Islam. Learn more about Islam. And Alhamdulillah. I
am proud to say that the students in Islamic online university 50% of them are women.
You know, usually in Islamic universities, women are
small numbers. And the countries that I visited over the last couple of years visited maybe 1516 different countries. And I would ask them, is there an alima amongst you?
And they would say
we don't know of any
but the first generation of Islam, the fourth most prolific narrator of Hadith, teaching us virtually a quarter of the Shetty out was Ayesha
Raja aloha Lohan, on Salama
and how many other
so hobby act were engaged in
spreading the knowledge from Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam. But today,
we can't find the island. So one of the goals of the Islamic online university is to revive and to bring back in the midst of the oma females who are scholars females who have knowledge that they can guide and raise a generation that would understand Islam
and be able to change the world.
In sha Allah,
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