Bilal Philips – Islamic Law And Its Rationale
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of knowing the rationale behind Islamic laws and reforming human condition to address criminal crimes. They also emphasize the importance of praying to God and not just knowing the details of the spiritual process. The speakers stress the need for marriage practices and caution against standing in the wrong. They also discuss the history of Islam and its importance in protecting the body from deadly chemicals in the air. Finally, they emphasize the importance of protecting men digitally and avoiding alcohol in shaping society.
AI: Summary ©
hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah Karim, Allah Allah He wasafi woman is standing abbyson at laomi Deen all praises due to a law and mere laws peace and blessings be on his last prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and and all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day. The topic of this evening's presentation is that of the rationale behind Islamic law. And this topic is a direct product of the question which is often raised concerning Islam and the laws of Islam.
That there are too many laws. People ask, why are they so many laws,
you know,
makes Islam too difficult. Some people may be interested in some aspects of Islam, but when they're informed that there are these laws which govern life, etc, etc, they become reluctant feeling that there are too many laws in Islam, why are they so many? You know, whereas the freedom for human beings to choose for themselves, etc, etc. So, in order to be able to answer such a question,
effectively, it is very important for us to understand the rationale behind Islamic laws, the Wise
now,
one basic principle that we need to understand with regards to Islamic law and with regards to laws in general is that
the laws provide a system and an organization for
the religious life of the Muslim
people coming out of, say, Christian tradition, or other traditions of religions that are very loose,
find some difficulty in accepting the idea of laws governing governing all aspects of human life. However, if they were to reflect on
day to day life,
when a person wants to set up a business, for it to run effectively, he has to set up a series of laws, he must have laws governing that business from the time it is open to the time it is closed, times to be there, how much money is to be paid, how much you know profits, what they should be, he sets a whole series of conditions and principles etc, to govern his business.
If it is not properly planned, then the likelihood is that he will fail.
As they say,
if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
So that planning the planning involves setting principles and laws which are going to govern that business that you're setting up.
We recognize the importance of it in our daily lives, everything that functions effectively in society, functions effectively when the laws governing it are followed.
Now why should we separate our spiritual life from our material life?
If we can recognize the importance of laws in our material life, our physical life, surely, logically reasonably, we can see that there must also be laws for our governing and guiding our spiritual life. Because if we are left to run a business without laws, what we have in that business is chaos. And if we're left to run our spiritual lives, without laws, then what we will also have is chaos.
We will not worship a law consistently
As we will not in business succeed consistently.
So, we can say basically, that
the laws, Islamic system of laws
are designed
to organize the spiritual and material life of the human being. Because in the Islamic system, there is no separation between the material, and the spiritual. So it is there to organize all facets of his life,
to organize it in such a way, that the human being fulfills the commandments of God in all aspects of their lives.
That is every single thing that you may do in a day, whether it be in your home, in the society, out in your car, or on the bus or the train, or on your job, in the restaurant, whatever you do, there are laws from God governing them.
There are things which are pleasing to God
that he wishes for us to do. And there are things which are displeasing to God, which he does not wish for us to do.
So, the Islamic system
helps us to fulfill the wish of God in our 24 hour a day lives.
Now, with the laws,
which prohibits us from doing things,
what we find is that these laws are fundamentally there to protect the human being.
A law has not set these laws
arbitrarily.
That is, he just felt like making a law for you making life difficult, etc. So he made this law, no, a law the most wise, who understands the workings of men is society, his needs his destiny, he has ordained for us laws, which will protect us from harm, whether
to our physical beings, or to our spiritual being.
This is the goal behind the various prohibitions in Islamic law. And the laws of Islam are generally divided into two main categories
into those which are referred to as a bar that
acts of worship,
which are related to the to the link or the relationship between men and God.
And these may be of a purely religious nature, as in the case of Salah
prayer, five times daily prayer, and fasting so
or they may be socio economic, as in the case of Zakah, where money is distributed in Muslim community or Hajj, where we spend our monies, as well as we're involved in purely religious acts. And the second grouping is usually referred to as muamalat.
And those cover the dealings between men between human beings, these themselves may be divided into laws, which prop or help men in the propagation of Islam.
These laws are included under the general heading of jihad, fighting in the way of law defending the faith. Then we have family laws, second grouping, marriage, divorce, etc. We have trade laws, which have to do with our business, what is allowable to be sold what is not, and we have criminal laws which govern the needs of the society. In terms of crimes, what category do we put them in? And how do we treat those who commit these crimes.
What is important for us to note with regards to all of these laws, is that the basis for the legislation of Islamic law is to reform the human condition
to improve human state
and that the Islamic law
For the most part is constructive
and not destructive. When Islam arose in Arabia, it did not cancel out everything that the Arabs were doing,
wipe out everything and bring in a new set of laws altogether. No, there are some laws which were absorbed within the body of Islamic law, it doesn't mean that Islam has taken laws from other than the divine sources. That's not what it means at all. The reason why the Islamic laws have included some of the customs of the people of that time, is because when we look at the customs of people, they may be into gory of practices which were inherited from the messages of the earlier prophets. For example, in most societies, you will find laws against murder. The fact that Islam comes into an area and prohibits murder, it doesn't mean that it has taken that law from an unknown source which
is not divine No, because those laws which prohibit murder, these are from the earlier revelations, which came to the prophets that were sent to these areas. So, what is correct?
Islam confirms it does not have to wipe out everything, it confirms what is correct.
Similarly, things which are a result of human intellectual efforts, human reason, in our society, we will come up with certain laws, for example, like the traffic laws, for the purpose of, you know, avoiding accidents, organization, Islam. If Islam, for example, established itself in the country here, it would not do away with all traffic signs and say, well, no traffic signs belong to, you know, a Buddhist or cafe disbelieving society, we have to come up with something new, no.
traffic signs are valid. They're useful, beneficial to human society. So Islam would confirm this. So whatever is a product of human reason, because Islam appeals to the human intellect.
It is reasonable, because it is far from God and human reason is from God. So it makes sense that revelation what has been revealed, revealed by God will appeal to and will confirm what human intellectual sound intellectual reasoning has produced.
The third main category is that of human need. There are some things which every society needs. And these things, if they did not exist in a society which Islam came, it would Institute them.
If they already existed, again, Islam would merely confirm them.
However, I should say that the vast majority of the laws which are confirmed in the society of Arabia when Islam arose there
were modified in one way or another, they were not confirmed exactly as is.
There were modifications which took place either because the laws which had come down from earlier generations from the prophets had become distorted in how they were implemented, for example, like the Hajj you know, the practice of Hajj went back all the way to Prophet Abraham. And they said, um,
so when Islam arose in Mecca that people were practicing how much they made, how much but how did they make how much they were making to offer on the Kaaba naked. So Islam came, I mean, there's certain things this is just not acceptable. So Islam prohibited the tawaf around the Kaaba, confirmed, but naked, no, people had to be closed. So, like this, you will find that, you know, for example, marriage practices, people
had a system, different systems of marriage, Islam came in recognizes the need human society, for it to be organized properly, there should be marriage practices, their system of marriage. So Islam came and looked at the various systems that were there, it canceled most of them and it confirmed one or two of them,
modifying here or there.
So this was how Islam approached
the existing laws and does approach in any given circumstance, the existing laws in any society.
The fundamental
Goal of Islam or Islamic law is to remove difficulty
from human beings.
Though people tend to think of Islam as being a set of burdens, or burden now with prayer five times the day, before you had the choice, if you're a Christian, you could just pray on Sunday, if you felt like it, you know, whereas now it's five times a day. So there appears to be a burden here. How can we say Islam makes things easy on and this is not a philosophy here because a law has said in the Quran in surah baqarah, verse 185, you read the law who become a user, well, are you ready to become a loser? Claire, Allah wishes for you easy doesn't wish for your difficulty. So this is not something I'm bringing you philosophically This is something right out of the Quran itself. We also
have in Surah, Hajj, it's a sword 22 verse 78, a lot says, Well, my Giada alikoum fit Dini min Hodge, that Allah has not made for you in the religion, any difficulty.
This is the principle, there is no difficulty there.
However,
with a distorted understanding,
what may in fact, be good and make your life easy, may appear to you to be difficult. If you have a distorted understanding of what prayer is,
for example, if you think that prayer is merely the ritual of going through these physical movements, that is done, we learn the standing the record, the sujood making will do beforehand. And these things, if one thinks of prayer merely in these terms that these physical actions you have to do, and you have to stop your day and do this, and you have to remember, and there are times and so until then this may seem to be a burden, and obligation, which if we didn't have it, our life would be easier.
However, if we consider that the goal of a human being is righteousness,
righteousness,
that we live a life pleasing to God,
if this is a goal,
worship of God, which is righteousness. If this is the goal of life,
then
when we are obliged to pray to God, five times every day,
what we have been given is a system of organizing our day around the remembrance of God,
which will help us during those periods we remember God we get up in the morning to remember God.
As a person who is not conscious, you get up in the morning so you can prepare yourself to go out to work
to deal with your material needs, because the work is to provide you with money so you can get a nice home and you know, buy a nice car and you know, live comfortably your television, your video, and you know, this is this is what getting up in the morning is about. But if you are a believer in God,
if you believe that you have to return back to God, and that righteousness is the key to returning to God pleasurably to attain paradise, then
you will be able to grasp that remembrance of God is key. Because when we remember God, we are righteous. When we forget God, we become evil. That's a very simple formula, but not very complicated for us good and evil, very simple. We can understand how it happens when you remember God. When you're conscious of God, then you're good.
When you forget God, when you put God out of your mind, then you become evil. That's very straightforward. So for the believer, because his goal His righteousness, remembrance of God helps him to practice righteousness. Then when he gets up in the morning, he gets up to remember God.
First and foremost, now after remembering God dealing with his spiritual needs, then he deals with his material needs. He eats food and prepares himself to go out to work and touch.
When he breaks at midday, is not breaking for lunch, to fit fill his stomach so he can continue working to produce more material so that he can benefit his material life. No, he breaks in midday.
To worship God, to remember God, to help himself in righteousness. And the idea between getting up in the morning for fudger.
And praying at the door
is not that we remember God, that's fudger, then we forget him after you go to work and become a crook, you know, stealing from people cheating, lying, all these different things, then all of a sudden, we become pious again, no. The idea here is that between those times of worship, we are to remember God also,
by having at least those two times, it is easier to remember in between.
But if we have no times, then it's very easy to forget.
So that system of worship, praying five times a day organizing our day around the worship of God, this helps us it makes it easier for us, to remember God, and to be righteous. So God, has ordained for us the five times daily prayer, to make our lives easier in righteousness.
So the ease is there.
Furthermore, what we find is that, even with this ease which Allah has given us, in terms of organizing our day around the worship,
he has given us along with it certain concessions, that is, when you are a traveler, when you're traveling, you're allowed to shorten your prayers, which are four units, down to two.
And also to pray those, you know, that lower and also you can pray them together, among them, and you can pray together.
These are further concessions, which Allah has provided to make life easier for us.
Make our spiritual life easier for us make the path to righteousness into paradise, easier for us.
So fundamentally, the goal of Islamic law is to make the path of righteousness easier for men.
And we also see
in the various religious obligations,
that
when you add up the total number of things which are prohibited, you find that in fact, they are extremely few in comparison to those that we're allowed to do.
The things that we are prohibited from doing you'll find a lot names them by name, like the foods that we can't eat, you read in the surah, which describes the animals that are to die in certain ways you can't eat them, the one which is beaten, beaten on the head or its neck has been, it's been strangled, or it's been gored, or it's fallen off a cliff or whatever, these animals have remitted to us specified. But then after that, Allah leaves it wide open, all of the other categories are left wide open for us. So the things that are halaal and allowable to us are many.
And the things which are prohibited us are few. And as I said, again,
all of the prohibitions are there for the protection of men to protect him from harm, either on a spiritual level, or on a physical level.
For example,
on a spiritual level,
in terms of both the I'm not just talking about the prohibitions now, but also in terms of the things which have been made compulsory for us. I mentioned the case of Salah.
This helps us to remember God.
We also have zeca.
zeca helps us to be generous, we have fasting, which helps us to be sympathetic to those who
don't have, it also helps to train us to control our desires. So we see these are all control of desires, sympathy, to have sympathy for others, generosity, all of these are the higher spiritual qualities. These things have been commanded for us, to help us to develop these. On the same time, there are certain things which have been prohibited for us, which will help to protect our spiritual beings. For example, the idea of bowing standing on
prostrating for other people.
In Islam, it is prohibited for us to stand in honor.
When you hear the national anthem, you have people standing up for the anthem.
When the judge comes in the courtroom, everybody has to stand in the court.
When the king comes over this one, the governor or whatever you find people standing for. And this has come right down even into our educational systems. When the teacher comes in the classroom, all the students have to stand. Actually, Islam has prohibited this altogether.
When the companions stood for the problem was I sell them he forbade them, he said, Don't stand for me, because anybody who, who likes people to stand for me, for him in this life, will stand in the Hellfire in the next.
White.
Because this act of standing in honor of others,
eats away at our spirit.
We stand in prayer only we stand for a law, this is in prayer. We stand for a law similarly, we only bow
to a law, and we only make prostration. To Allah. And this is why the prayer has been. The prayer has been set in these forms. Because people sometimes wonder why in our prayer, we stand we bow and we prostrate. Because in this world,
when people seek to
impress their will on others, they do so by having people stand for them. If they are stronger than the people bow to them, and if they're very strong than the people prostrate to them.
So our system of prayer have taken these forms of showing honor to men and made them specifically for God alone.
So we do not bow for others. We don't prostrate and we don't stand.
on a physical level,
we see
things like
Islam prescribing that we eat
with the right hand.
Some people might say, oh, what does it matter? Why do we have to eat to the right hand?
Islam and set up a system you eat with the right hand and you clean yourself when you go to the bathroom with your left hand.
So there's a system there. It's only in modern times when people discovered the microscope that they were able to find out the diseases are spread by germs, etc. And so it did make sense that you don't use the same hand that you clean with to eat with
z it made sense. Well, of course somebody will say Well today we're using knives and forks no need for this so and so however, you know knives and forks are
or we may use now but you may find yourself in circumstances where you may not have knives and forks to eat with and you may have to go back to your natural knife and fork your hand. So that system stands because it is for all times. It is for everywhere. You have your hand with you everywhere you go knife and fork. You know
you don't can't necessarily carry with you everywhere. So the system is there. And it benefits us.
We can find for example, in the prohibition of the pig
benefit in the sense that the pig was one of the main characters of trichinosis
This is something found out in recent times. However Muslims benefited from Allah.
Furthermore, we find a very profound example in the prohibition given by Prophet Mohammed Salim for people to lie on their stomachs.
The problem is I seldom came across one of his companions lying on his stomach sleeping on his stomach, so he nudged him with his foot. When the miner woke, he told him Don't lie that way. It's the way that people have held lie.
So traditionally, Muslims do not sleep on their stomachs. This is Islamic tradition based on the fact that problems are seldom said that it's considered mokou disliked in Islam to sleep on your stomach.
What has happened is that in recent times,
after extensive studies
by Western medical practitioners
And this is information I'm giving you from a number of articles, which I've read, particularly in Time Magazine, which went into details about the back problems that people face curvature of the spine, you know, slip discs, etc.
I read a particular article at the end of it, they had a series of doctor's recommendations, after describing the various problems that people face in the various operations that they developed to cure these problems. Number one on the list was do not sleep on your stomach.
Now, I had been asked prior to the time that I read this article, why is this I'm not allowed to sleep on the stomach. I really didn't have an answer.
I knew problems. I seldom said don't because this is where people have the hellfire. Like, I said, Okay, fine. I don't do it. There must be some harm in there too. You know, because Islam is not calling us to give up things which are, in fact beneficial to us. Nor is it calling us to do things which are harmful to us. It's just the opposite. What it causes us to do is beneficial to us. What it prohibits us from doing is harmful to us fundamentally. So I just accepted it as the rest of the Muslim world accepted.
However, this article, for me was like a revelation. Because when I read it, it just really brought home to me, you know, the beauty of Islam. And the, the the fact that Islam is the religion of God. It is revelation from God, because here medical science was pointing out the same thing.
Don't sleep on your stomach. But they went on to explain why.
So Alhamdulillah I found even some added information that you know, is useful for clarity for people, to see the wisdom that exists in Islamic NGOs problems and sell them 1400 years ago, you know, did not give us these kind of details. These details have become revealed to us in these times.
They explained the medical doctors explained that when a person sleeps on his stomach,
the spinal cord spine, which is the heaviest bony structure in his body, when he sleeps on his stomach, there is no support for it. All in front of it are soft organs, your intestines, you know your stomach, your heart, lungs, everything. These are all soft, spongy organs. So the spine sags downwards, sags downwards, because there's nothing to support it.
You see. So, after sleeping like that, this becomes your habit in later life, you end up with your you see people walking around with their backs curve like this, they said this is a result of this curvature of the spine. And later life. Many of the other back problems slipped discs and, and crushed discs
are traced back to this.
They said the best way to sleep is either on your back
or on your side with your knees bent.
And when we go back to the sooner, we find that the way that the prophet SAW Selim slept was on his right side with his knees bent. That's his way.
So I said,
but not only did that I find that out. And I found that out, you know, a number of years back Actually, it was maybe about eight or nine years ago that I read this article. But a couple of years ago, two years ago, in England, medical doctors were doing research on what is called SDS Sudden Death Syndrome. They call it cut death for little children. one years old, two years old, they're putting their beds by the mothers, the mother comes back finds them dead? No, cause they can't find any reason why they're dying, but you have kids dying all around the world. So they're trying to find out what is the reason for these kids dying? And if so what what they did was they tried to
analyze get information about from the mothers, you know, about the child, his background, the way he was sleeping, his breathing habits, all these different types of things. And then they put it all down in computer and then they're trying to see what are the common factors to all of them, which may be one of the leading factors, guess what, number one on the list of common factors, which they said afterwards do not do is sleeping on the stomach. So these doctors said do not put your children to sleep on their stomach.
Because the children which are dying from death, this is a common factor. How it is related. They're not certain. But somehow these children are dying, who sleep on their stomachs put the stuff on the stomach. Recently they said that it may have to do with a genetic defect wherein people in breathing
Some people having this genetic defect, whilst in sleep, they will stop breathing, for instance, and then they start breathing again. But when the child is put on the chest here, you see when the breathing stops, it is more difficult for it to start breathing again, this is what they have proposed, some have proposed that this may be the factor involved. In any case.
This is revelation, Allah revealing to us through medical science, the wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad wa sallam 1400 years ago.
And when we look at this, we look at this and we look at the rest of Islam in the same light.
We have, for example, the example where the problems are seldom said, if a fly falls in one of your drinks, you have a drink and a fly falls in it. Right? dunk him in, then throw him out and drink.
Because under one wing is disease and under the other wing is its cure. Now, doctors you know, scientists today they say, No, no, the fly all we know about the fly is that it's got disease and this is dangerous. No, don't don't do that fly falls and drink, throw away a drink.
But the thing is that if you went back 50 years or 100 years, and you told people that there is in poison snake poison, a cure or an A that a medicine, for people who have heart problems, they will say to you, you are mad
when a person is bitten by a snake, that poison stops his heart and he dies.
But today,
snakes, Snake poison is collected in India and in other countries and sold to the west, the witch which extract from the snake poison
substances which they use for treating heart disease.
So for us, because medical science right at this instant, cannot find the cure that is in the fly. Right. And I know I just recently read about how medical science is now accepting the Chinese
cure using the ant right ground and that is good for rheumatism. You know, they have found that there's a connection there really is a a chemical connection and medical connection, which before they used to scoff at the Chinese was they'd have this remedy of, you know, grinding up ants and using it to for curing rheumatism. The Westerners discovered this stuff, now.
They're accepting it. So what they may scoff at today, because of their limited knowledge, we shouldn't fall into that trap.
And I mentioned this view for one reason, particularly because there is a book called Islam or the Bible, the Koran and science by Dr. Maurice Buckeye.
For the most part, the book is excellent. It's comparison between Quran and the Bible, you know from science from science background, showing you systematically that the Quranic view of the world is 100% agreeing with science, whereas the Bible you have so many ideas in the Old Testament, which contradict what is known to be scientific fact, not fiction, or theory, but fact.
Very beautiful book. And this man's research led him to accept Islam.
He's a French
medical doctor who studied learned Arabic, studied the Quran, and made this comparison and accepted Islam. However, in the latter part of his book,
he started to talk about Hadith, statements of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Salaam and this hadith about the fly, it threw him for a loop.
You see, because being a medical doctor, all he knows about the fly is that it causes disease. So I said, Well, you know, we can't trust Heidi's because this fly causes disease. And the Prophet said that there was a, you know, cure in it. See, but he did not follow the same principles that he actually set in the beginning of his book. You know, he got off the track in medical science, and he started now to attack a diff as not being reliable, merely because science is not able to identify the cure that lies in the fly.
But it's a mistake on his part. So I'm just mentioning that to you to be aware, that this was a mistake on his part, the latter part of the book.
So
we said that the prohibitions and the commands of the Quran
The sunnah of Islam,
they are fundamentally there to make the spiritual goals of the human being more easily attainable. Allah created us
to be in paradise.
That's what He created us for. That's why Adam and Eve were created in Paradise, because that's where our destiny lies.
However, we have been given a free will, to either work through this life in righteousness, to attain paradise in the next or not to, to reject righteousness, choose evil, and earn for ourselves, * in the next.
That's the reality, Islam system of worshiping God is there to make that path to paradise, easier for us.
Whatever has been prohibited or commanded in Islam, is primarily to protect men spiritually, or to protect him physically.
protecting him either as an individual, or protecting the community as a whole.
The needs of the individual are recognized as long as it doesn't present a problem for the community as a whole.
This is why when a person says to you, why does Islam prohibit alcohol?
For me, I only drink a little bit. I never get drunk, you know, maybe I only take it in communion, you know, or on Sundays, I control my drink. So why should it become prohibited for me? Well, the law of Islam does recognize that there are some people, a few people who are able to drink moderately, and never get drunk. And so alcohol for them is not harmful. However, at the same time, it recognizes that the majority of people, when they're given alcohol, they cannot stop at moderation. And they end up getting drunk. And when they get drunk, then they commit heinous crimes, they massacre each other, you know, with their cars and their accidents, etc, etc. So since the
greater harm
of alcohol is so obvious,
produces such havoc in society.
Islam has banned it totally, even for the individual who drinks moderately.
Because the law cannot come
stating, for those people who drink moderately, you may drink.
But for those who do not, you may not know the law can't come like that. Because everybody is going to say I can drink moderately, it's pleasurable. So who is going to give it up. So the law has to come taking into account the need of the society as a whole to protect it. It will prohibit this from the individual though that individual may take pleasure in it
as a closing point, because I want to give an opportunity for questions. And our time slot here is rather limited.
There is an aspect of Islamic practice which sometimes creates confusion for people.
And that is
the practice of favoring the right.
You know, in Islam, if you're putting on your clothes, you're encouraged to put on your right side before your left.
If you're putting on your claws, you have to put on your right side before your left. This is in Islam and courage is not compulsory. You must you are encouraged to put your right side on putting on your pants you put in your right leg before your left leg. You're washing yourself taking your bath you wash your right side before your left side you're making will do your right right hand before your left hand, right foot before your left foot. Coming into the master you're stepping with your right foot, going into the bathroom and stepping with your left foot you step out with your right
foot, you know, putting on your shoes, put on your right foot first, then your left foot, take off your shoes, you take off your left foot first and your right foot, somebody will look at it say, What is all this?
What is all this left, right left? What does it matter about all this stuff? You know, what do we need this this for? What does it matter if we jumped in with both feet at the same time, jumped out with both feet, you know,
what is a big concern about this? You know, especially for young people, I mean, why I'm mentioning this, because, you know, I taught Islamic studies to children, or young people in high school and junior high. And, and this was an issue for them, you know, so and it is something which is really important to understand. Because if we teach Islam,
to our young people, as just merely do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this. And see. And they're, and they don't understand why, then it's very difficult for them to accept it and to keep it. So when they come under pressure from the rest of the society, which is one of you know, free for all, you know, you just do your own thing, it doesn't matter what you do, right, they are not able to withstand those pressures,
they will not be able. So it is very important for us to look into the various practices of Islam. And the explanations are there, they're not very complicated, Islam is not not so you know, deep and mysterious, and so on, so that you can't find the understanding for these things, very important for us to understand them so that we can convey them to the younger generation, so that they can make these things a part of their lives and understand why they do it. So just in way of explanation to you, the reason why Islam has preferred the right over the left.
Besides the fact that it gives us an organization in our life, we're not like animals, although we are partly animal, you know, we belong to the animal kingdom, when we share certain things with the animals. A law has also given us a brain and an intellect
by which we organize our lives, which which makes us different from the animals who are not governed, you know, beyond certain basic, instinctual things that they do. They don't, there is no reason involved there at all.
So for us, when we organize the different aspects of our lives,
it improves the quality of our life. So when we have this kind of organization in terms of what we do, what we've done here also is that we have remembered a law
because if you remember to put your right hand in first into your shirt, because Prophet Mohammed saw Salaam used to do it, and we're doing it because problems are seldom did it. And he was the best of examples, as a law said for us to kind of look and feel rasulillah he was certain Hasina, the Messenger of Allah was the best of examples for us. You know, that reminds us of following that example. And in reminding us of following the example remembering Allah.
So in choosing to step in with our right foot first, again,
connecting us back remembering the law putting us in the right frame of mind going into the masjid.
Furthermore, what we find is that a law when he describes the people going to paradise, he describes them as receiving their book of good deeds in the right hands.
And those going to * receiving it in their left hands behind their backs.
So in remembering that also remembering the favoring of the right, it is also reminding us of the Day of Judgment.
We want to be amongst those who receive our book of good deeds in the right hand
of righteousness, choosing the right over the wrong.
So there is in these practices
help for us on that path to paradise.
And this is the way we should approach all of our Islamic practices, to understand them to understand the wisdom behind them, understand the help that is in them,
for us, in living righteous lives, lives, which are pleasing to God
and which are beneficial to ourselves in both this life and the next.
And as I said with that, I would like to stop after
this short recap of the presentation to allow you a chance to ask some further questions on the topic.
Which is the rationale behind Islamic laws? the whys and the wherefores.