Bilal Philips – Faith – Part 03
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The importance of faith in Islam is highlighted, including the declaration of peace and blessings, declaration of faith in a law, and the importance of history of faith. Consent is also emphasized, and consistency in small deeds is emphasized as a part of faith. A program called IOU offers undergraduate and graduate courses online, providing resources for students to study. The session is closing and feedback is encouraged.
AI: Summary ©
Hello.
See,
Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh I'd like to welcome you again Dear viewers, to another in our series, the best in Islam, in which we're looking at what Islam considers to be the best in all spheres of human life. In this episode, we'll be looking at the best aspects of faith. And this is a continuation from a previous two episodes, in which we looked at the best of faith. In this episode, we'll be looking at a hadith narrated by Abu huraira in which the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him. As sane as a man no bid on WhatsApp Varun Aloha. Oh La ilaha illallah wa Jai Mata to lauzon me on it, buddy. Well, hyah Oh, sure, a baton, mineral man. Faith has over 70
branches, the best of which is the declaration that there is no god worthy of worship, but Allah, and the simplest of which is removal of a bone from the road. And modesty is a branch of faith. This Hadees
clarifies for us that faith has many aspects. The prophet SAW Selim had mentioned over 70. However, if we note that what is included in this is the lowest and simplest act of faith, removing a bone that is a broken bone that you might step on and hurt yourself with removing that harm, and hurt from the path. This is included. Faith is being defined by the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him as actions. These are not just concepts these are acts, particular acts, the declaration that there is no god worthy of worship of the law is an act. It is an act of the tongue, picking up the bone, or broken glass or whatever, from the road, which might hurt people is a physical act of
the limbs. So this is confirming what we spoke about earlier, when we said that faith in Islam from the Islamic perspective is not merely a concept, a belief in the heart, which might be confused with knowledge. This is not faith.
Faith has to be translated into some form of action. From action of the heart, it should become an action of the tongue or action of the limbs. This is true faith. So here Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, he declared that the highest level of faith was that of declaration that there is no god worthy of worship, but Allah,
that is the highest level. And that is consistent with what we said from the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. With regards to
faith, when he said that the best deed is faith in a law that faith and allies expressed in the term La ilaha illa Allah there is no god worthy of worship, but Allah. So that declaration of faith, that's what brings us into Islam. That is how a person becomes a Muslim. Oftentimes people will ask, okay, what do we have to do to become a Muslim? Are there certain rites or rituals that we have to
Go through, getting dunked in the water, water being poured over your head or what? and Islam there are no specific rites and rituals for accepting Islam. It's only to make that declaration. That's all that declaration is made publicly. Meaning to other people, it's not just kept within oneself, unless one fears harm, like the Najafi,
the ruler of Habesha, whose declaration of faith
would have caused these people to rebel against them, and maybe even kill him. So he kept it
away from the people
while defending and protecting the Muslims, who had migrated there from Mecca, he kept his own conversion to faith to himself. So much so that when the time came, and he died, there was no one to bury him.
No Muslim, their aim.
Or if there were, they didn't know. And it couldn't be done in a public way.
So Prophet Muhammad may God's peace and blessings be upon him, after being informed by a law
that the ruler of Abyssinia had died, he called the companions together there in Medina, and had them do Salatu janaza, or the absent prayer for him, knowing that none would have been done for him there in Ethiopia.
So, here was a case where the declaration of faith was kept silent, private, it was not declared openly. So there are times when this could be the case. But otherwise, as a norm, a person is required to make that declaration open to let people know that he or she is a Muslim. They shouldn't say okay, I accept Islam in my heart, and then they just carry on why? Because then society will not know that they're Muslim. So if something happens, they would know that, okay, this person needs to be buried as a Muslim, they were Muslim.
Also, if they see a Muslim, going somewhere, which is not good, they will try to stop that person and say, Well, you know, you're Muslim, and we shouldn't be doing this shouldn't be going there,
they could be a part of helping that person overcome their weaknesses, their sins. Also, for the person who is a Muslim, who has declared it and people know that he or she is a Muslim, they can more easily ask others for help. When time arises, where they need help, they're in a better position to, to be able to do that. So it is to their advantage.
And this declaration of faith is also
a declaration of transparency. They're transparent. They're not hiding anything from people, what is in their hearts, they share. If you believe Islam is good, then of course, you shouldn't even keep it to yourself, you should try to share it with others. So all of these things come into play, when we talk about the declaration of faith. But of course, first and foremost, it must be sincere. For it to be the highest act. It can't be a declaration of faith because a man wanted to marry a Muslim girl. And it's known Muslim women are not allowed to marry non Muslim men. So the man tells
the woman I'm ready, you know, I will accept Islam, no problem. You know, I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife. So I'll accept Islam. But don't expect me to pray. Or fast, or do any of those things I'm doing because I want to marry you. for her to marry him on that basis is wrong islamically because he has not become a Muslim.
He's only saying some words, which externally Okay, in the courts, they're gonna say, Yes, he's a Muslim, he declared his face and they'll record it as Muslim, but he's not, you know, as a woman, as the family who he has already told that he's not doing it to become a Muslim really is only going through the formality so that he can marry, then this is not a true declaration of faith is not allowed in Islam. that marriage is not a marriage in the sight of God, beside of God, that act of fornication. It's not marriage. So the declaration of faith has to be sincere. It has to be
Out of being convinced, believing that truly, no God is worthy of worship, but the one true God, whether you call him a law, or in Aramaic law,
or in Korean Hanoi nim, or whatever language you use to refer to that one, True God who is one alone, creator Sustainer of the universe,
who has no beginning and has no end, who is in control of everything, that one God
is the God of Islam, and the God of human beings, the true God. So that's what is the highest level of faith to declare that, to recognize that, to believe that. And we're going to take a pause now,
as
we have reached the middle point of our episode, and we'll see you after the break. So that was a coup Rahmatullah.
Welcome back from the break,
we were looking at
the branches of faith.
And we talked about in the first segment of our episode, the declaration of faith, being the best of the branches, then, the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, went to the other end of the spectrum, and said, that the simplest of branches is that of removing some harmful objects from the path that people walk on, whatever it may be. And this narration he mentioned, a bone broken bone, obviously, are something that you can trip over, hurt yourself. Some other narrations he mentioned, some times when he spoke, it mentioned this Hadith, or the statement, he used other or harm, it refers to anything that would be dangerous to people removing it from the path that is the
lowest level because that's something so simple. It seems to be nothing. What is the value,
most people will just walk by, they see something on the ground, they avoid it, and they carry on, they wouldn't think to go Okay, remove it, to get out of the way, cleared from the bath. Because what's the value of that? Well, it has value, it is a part of faith. And that is the comprehensiveness of faith in Islam, that it even governs the removal of objects from the path that people walk. That's how much Islam cares for human welfare. And its principles are universal. So that we don't need to say, well, we're now in the
21st 22nd century, times have changed 1400 years have passed, some is not really that relevant now we have to change our understanding of no is harming the place where you walk, roads might have changed,
our
shoes may have changed. However,
the idea of objects being in the way when people walk will always be an issue, it could be outside of your home, could be at the workplace, could be in the park could be anywhere, the idea of that people would drop things, and somebody else could be harmed by that thing
will remain. It's a universal principle.
And even if we say we reach that point in technology, where you know, you have cleaning robots that go and clean up every time anything drops anywhere, so and so it just immediately cleans it up. So we say we have perfectly clean place. Well, the robot still has to pick it up, you've dropped it before the robot could pick it up somebody could still step on hurt themselves. So, if you catch it before you remove it, so the idea of removing harm from people's way whether it is literally a broken glass or bone or something on the road
or whether it is a larger object, which could hurt people by falling on the road, etc, etc.
The point is that the principle here
There is that nothing is too small, to be outside of faith. The faith encompasses everything, every aspect of our lives, there is nothing in our life, which is not governed by faith. That's the bottom line. Faith encompasses all, when whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever we think, whatever we play, when all of that is done in accordance with the teachings of Islam, with the guidance that is there,
then it is all a part of faith.
And that's how Islam perceives faith as belief, and action, in accordance with that belief. And no action is too small. So as to be considered not a part of faith. The key that we mentioned earlier, previous episode, the key is that we are consistent
in doing whatever little that we do those small actions as long as we do it consistently, regularly. Whenever we see that, in the path, we do it, not just one occasion, when something has happened, and we look into try to do some good because, you know, we're suffering, our relative suffering, whatever we know, doing good, you know, helps to alleviate suffering. So we say, Okay, let me go find something good to do. Okay, here are some things in the road, I'll clear it. Soon as the person gets better, Okay, enough, you don't do it anymore.
That is not a real good deed. The real good deed, is the consistent good deed is one that you do because you know it's good. And because you know, it's good, you should be doing it. So you strive to do it continually. And that's the one which Allah loves the most, the consistent good deed, even though it is small, removing that harm from the road. But we do it wherever we are, wherever we go, whenever the opportunity presents itself, because it is a good deed ultimately, which is added to our scale of good deeds. And though we might consider it something small, a law may make it something very big. So we don't focus on small big, we only go for the big deeds, leave out the
small deeds No, because being consistent with the big ones much more difficult than being consistent with the small ones. And being consistent with the small ones trains us to be able to be consistent with the big one. So this is
a complete system.
That system of faith, as we said, includes all aspects of life. Nothing is too insignificant, too small, too irrelevant, to be considered a part of faith. And that's why when people mentioned For example, we spoke about clothing, what's best in clothing, etc. Where the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him that said, for example, for men wearing garments, that their garments should not be below their ankles.
This is a principle of dress in Islam, if you're wearing pants, or you're wearing a gown, so like what I'm wearing, it should not hang below the ankle. Some people say this is not important. In our we should be talking about the big issues of, you know, Jihad and this and we say brothers, if you can't deal with the little things, then know that when the big things come, you won't be able to deal with them.
Because it's all a part of the faith. It's all applied to the system of faith in Islam, which governs everything. It's not limited only to one area, the big areas, because the big areas, when you break it down has little areas which make them big, you combine them together they become something big, big is consists of a variety of other smaller things. So we should never consider any deed to too insignificant, too small to concern ourselves with.
And that is what the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him is telling us
When he speaks about removing harm from the way as being the lowest level of faith, the smallest, most simple. And then he goes off the head is saying that modesty is a part of the faith, modesty and higher is a part of faith. An important part when he said it's a party means it's an important part of modesty in all of its forms. Whether it is modesty physically, that one is modest in the way one dresses, not exposing oneself.
You dress modestly. You're modest in the way that you speak. You don't speak about things which don't concern you don't get involved in people's business, etc. You're a modest person. You speak, and try to speak good when you speak. Try to avoid just chatter and talk for the sake of talk. Or you're modest in how you spend your money. You don't squander it. You use it wisely, or you're modest in
any aspect of life. modesty is good. It is a part of faith. And the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him was very modest. That's how he was described, a modest person. So modesty is a part of faith.
And we should be conscious of it, and not be negligent of it. And not discourage people who are modest, to be more brazen, more outspoken, etc, etc. No. modesty is the right way. Islam encourages modesty. But it doesn't mean that you're so modest, that went wrong takes place you don't open your mouth. No, that's where you've gone out to an extreme and negative extreme.
modesty should drive you to not allow that evil to take place. You feel shy before a law that such a thing would take place and you said nothing. So modesty is a part of fish. With that. There are viewers we're going to close out our session now. Our session, which focused on the branches of faith, what was best? That was the declaration that there is nothing worthy of worship by the law. And we hope to see you in our upcoming episodes, where we continue to look at the best in Islam. I bid you farewell. Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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