Purpose Of Life
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Channel: Bilal Philips
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of praise for actions and understanding who we are in order to achieve clarity in our actions. They stress the need for clarity in actions and words, specifically in shaping society. The speakers also explore the history of Islam and the importance of understanding the purpose of actions. They emphasize the need for mutual agreement and clarification on laws and values, particularly in regards to racism.AI Generated Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah Nakamoto Anna Stein who wanna start through when I was a villa Himanshu Ram fusina. Amin sejati. I'm Elena, Maja de la Fernando de la la. Or my lil fella hodja Allah. Why shawanna Inanna la wahoo la sharika wash Mohammedan Abu rasuluh indeed All praise is due to Allah. And as such we should praise Him and seek His help and seek refuge in a law from the evil which is within ourselves, and the evil which results from our deeds. For whom so ever a law has guided, none can misguide. And whomsoever a law has allowed to go astray, none can guide and I'd be a witness that there's no God worthy of worship Allah, Who is alone and without partner.
And I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the last messenger of Allah
Ignace de la de Chiquita boo la Indeed, the most truthful form of speech is the book of Allah. For Hydra, Hydra, Hydra Mohammedan sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and the best source of guidance is the guidance which was brought by Mohammed Salah long when he was
well, Sharon muramasa to her and the worst of all affairs are innovations in religion.
For in Nakula McDevitt in VEDA, wakulla Allah Allah, Allah, Allah Allah.
For indeed, every innovation in religion is a source of misguidance. And all misguidance leads ultimately to the hellfire.
Brothers and sisters.
Today,
I would like to begin
a thought,
I thought, which each and every one of us must reflect on
perhaps the most important thought that we should have in our lives.
The thought which, which determines the course of our lives, whether our lives are successful, or whether their lives of failure,
the most important thought at any one of us can possibly have
that thought is
why were we created?
Why were we created?
Why did Allah created us?
This question,
is a question which human beings ask themselves throughout the world?
Why am I here?
For what purpose?
In most cases, there are no answers.
most religions don't answer this question.
Because they are manmade.
And as human beings are incapable of determining, by themselves, the purpose of our presence here in this world The purpose of our existence,
then it's not surprising that they don't have any answers.
Islam has a very clear answer.
It is a clear answer, which brought for me light in terms of my own personal existence, having been a communist
after having been born and raised the Christian
understanding the purpose for me,
gave me clarity.
The path of life for me became clear.
And I have never looked back, since realizing that
it is something which each and every Muslim should know
because it is clearly
stated in the Quran it is not something which Muslim philosophers have Phyllis philosophize about. So you have different opinions. Some philosophers thought it was for this purpose and others thought it was for this reason or a variety of different ideas are out there.
So unless you read the books of the philosophers, you really had no idea. It just remained the level thing of confusion. No, it exists in the Quran itself, where our law states in no uncertain terms, why we were created.
However,
on one occasion,
when
a Muslim, brought Muslim from India, young man, he brought a
Hindu
to my office.
And he wanted he had been giving some Dawa had been explaining Islam to this Hindu young man. And he felt that he was close to
understanding Islam and needed some just further clarification.
The first question I asked him was,
Why were we created?
In your opinion, what do you understand being a Hindu?
What is your purpose for being here?
He looked at me said, I don't know. I really don't know.
Nobody ever told me.
I said, Well, you know, this is the difference between Islam and Hinduism.
And the other isms,
that in Islam, that purpose is so well known that even children know it.
And I turned to the brother who brought him and I said, Isn't that so Brother, tell him the purpose of creation.
And the brother looked at me with this blank stare.
And I realized
that I had made a mistake here.
Though it should be well known,
since it is in the Koran.
Not every Muslim knows it. And that is really a very sad state of affairs.
A very sad state of affairs
that we have in our midst.
Muslim brothers and sisters, who don't know why we were created.
I won't ask for a show of hands.
It was enough of an embarrassment for me in that occasion. So I don't want to embarrass anybody else here.
I will assume that in fact, there are amongst us, those who really don't know why we were created. What is our purpose here?
And
I will quote for you the verse.
For those who know it is a well known verse.
Well, Maha Lupton, General INSA inlandia, Buddha,
Allah states, clearly, I have not created
the jinn
or humankind
except to worship me.
Very clear.
Allah I mentioned the jinn first
because they were created before human beings were created,
in case you were wondering,
and he stated that their purpose they were created to worship Him. This is the essence of the purpose of our creation, to worship a law.
Having understood that
the question
remains in the back of some people's minds
and may be raised. If you tell others that this is the purpose of our creation
because
When we create, we create a car, for example, we call it creation, but actually we have manipulated a lot of creation and made a car.
Why did we create that car?
To serve us?
Right?
To serve us?
Did we have a need for that service?
Yes, we created the car, because we had a need,
that car fulfills one of our needs.
Ease of transportation.
So we created it out of a need that we have.
So the question is,
why did the law create us?
To worship Him?
Does he have a need for our worship?
Of course, this is the question that would be raised. And I've heard non Muslims say, I'm not interested in worshipping the God who
has created me so that I have to worship Him.
He could have created me for some other purpose.
Because the idea of God creating creatures so that they will just bow down before him. You know, it is like, pride.
I'm not interested in worshipping a proud God.
I've heard this is of course, blasphemy.
But this might come to somebody's mind.
And so we need to understand.
Why did Allah create us to worship?
reality as we said, Allah said, lay second Miss Lee Shay. There is nothing similar to him. So if He created us out of a need for our worship, then he would be like us,
creating a car out of need for its service.
So we know that's the wrong answer. That's not the right answer. A law did not create us out of a need that he had for our worship.
So then what is the purpose?
Why then why? for worship? Why not for something else.
Because of the fact
that in worshipping God, and worshiping Allah,
we become the best possible human beings that we can be.
The worship is for our benefit.
He created us
as the creator.
That is one of his attributes
that he creates.
Not other we need, but just out of the manifestation of his attributes of being the Creator, creation exists.
But that purpose of worship was not for his need
to have us worship him, but for our need to worship Him.
Because in worshipping Allah,
we become
the complete and best of Alaska creation.
As the law said, that He created us in Santa Fe,
were created in the best form.
So Miranda, who feed us fairly successfully.
But when we turn away from that worship,
then we go to the lowest of the lows.
He allows us to submit to sync and to become even lower than the creatures of the earth that he has created, as he described those who have rejected him,
saying, Come kill, and I'm Balham.
They're like capital.
In fact, they're even worse. The capital will just eat,
drink,
procreate and die.
That's life. Eat, drink, procreate. procreate is a big word saying giving birth to children, having offspring,
having offspring and dying. That's what the animals do.
If that is the totality of our lives, then we are no better than the animals.
And in fact, you have modern
secular thought in the West is that Yeah,
we are like animals. We're just animals who happen to be able to talk.
Other Animals don't talk the way we do.
But
no difference really between us and them.
It's just our good luck that we happen to be walking upright and have more intelligence that we
control everything. But really,
we're like animals.
And so when they study,
psychiatry, and they study human behavior, they always look back at the animals.
And they interpret human behavior based on what animals do. They don't have any problem with that, because we are just animals who happen to speak.
However, reality is that Allah has given us a status above the rest of creation.
And this was clear when he created Adam, and had the angels bow before him.
This was a special status which Allah gave human beings. And because of that, he described the creation of Adam as being done with his own hands,
and the blowing of the spirit into Adam as being his blowing
because of the special status that human beings
and are capable of achieving.
So the essential purpose of our creation is a badass worship. But it's must be understood as worship, not in the ritual sense, as understood in the religions of the world. You have a particular day, you go before your deity, your God, you do certain acts of worship, and you've done your worship, then the rest of the time you do your own thing. You have a day dedicated for worshiping your gods, you do that. But the rest of the week
you do your own thing.
That is not worship in Islam.
The Friday Muslim
is not a true Muslim.
The Friday Muslim is not worshipping Allah
is worshiping his own desires. As Allah said, Have you seen the one who has taken his desires is this God.
That's what a person who chooses to worship Allah only on Friday. He only comes to the masjid on Friday prays on Friday. He is not worshiping Allah is worshiping his own desires. Because the law said that prayer for the believers is at fixed times, five times a day. at fixed times, not all five in the night before going to sleep.
At our own convenience,
worshiping what some days are not other days. This is not the worship which our last one the Allah prescribed, when he prescribed for us to worship him.
His prescription of worship was according to the way that Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam clarified for us
it is worship 24 724 seven
different from 911
24 seven means 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, meaning all the time
no vacation,
no vacation from worshipping Allah.
And it is governed by
the divine command. pul se, in the soul it Allah Suki, Mama Hiya, Mama Martini layerable alameen, India, indeed,
my prayers, my sacrifices, my living and my dying are for a law, the Lord of all the worlds.
This is worship in Islam.
where a person seeks to do what is pleasing to Allah
at all times.
This is worship, through worship.
Because what is pleasing to Allah is what is good.
And what is displeasing to Allah is what is evil. No matter what benefits we see in what is displeasing to Allah, it is ultimately evil.
It's evil, it's greater than its good.
And no matter what we see, as being evil for us.
If a law has declared it to be good, then it's good is greater than it's evil.
It's good, is greater than its evil.
This is worship of Allah. It is a slam submission to the will of Allah. I ask Allah to Allah, to put Islam back into our hearts, to give us the realization of our purpose here to make our lives dedicated to his worship, and to seek to fulfill the requirements of worship in all aspects of our lives. While our forgive our deficiencies, our negligence, our disobedience, and keep us on your straight path. Apolo kolyada was stuck to the line he Welcome recyle Mr. minimun condemn for stock flow flew in a while ago for rain. I say that, asking a lot to forgive myself and yourselves, and calling on you to turn to Him seeking His forgiveness, for indeed, only He forgives sins. hamdu
Lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah.
Having identified our purpose,
I should point out
that that purpose,
is translated in Arabic, as sherea
sherea.
Living the law of God,
living a life in obedience to the commandments of Allah. That is the implementation of the Sharia.
And this is what forms the foundation of Muslim culture.
Remember, before we spoke about the struggle, which exists in the world today, how to put it into our context? What is going on?
What is going on with the world? Why does the West have this attitude towards us, because of Sharia.
Because of our desire, to make the law of a law, the law which governs our lives,
the West has a different agenda.
their agenda is called secular democracy. This is the difference. What is secular democracy? secular means take religion out of it.
Religion has no place in the decision making process of our lives. That's what secular means. What is democracy? democracy is our means. There's to me
For those who hold it, for deciding good and evil for our society,
this is the machinery, the mechanism by which laws are decided, democracy.
So when we hear people saying, We want democratic Islam,
or we want democracy instead of Islam, that's what it means it's instead of Islam instead of Sharia,
instead of Sharia,
because the two cannot coexist.
We understand that is the essence of the cultural struggle that we face today, in the world.
as Muslims, we want to live lives in submission to the will of Allah, meaning that Allah decides for us what is good and what is evil. And we run our lives in accordance with that.
Globalization that we hear about is globalization, of secularism, remove religion, from decisions, why, because religions are manmade. This is a civilization, which has now rejected religion as a basis for truth, good and evil. Religion was for them.
What we call myth, folklore, human creation,
there isn't really a god.
So therefore, whatever religions we have, they're made up.
And you can follow any one of them you want, it's your life, you can do with it as you please. But let us not make that the basis for determining right and wrong.
What should then become the determining factor,
human decisions, we as human beings, there is nothing greater than us, we can decide for ourselves. This is Democracy, democracy, you should understand just basically, it's based on three fundamental principles. Just to keep it simple. The first principle is referred to as equality.
Now, the principle of equality, we don't have really any problem islamically with
that principle,
recognizes that human beings are fundamentally equal.
That they are endowed with the ability to reason to think
whether male or female, they're fundamentally equal. Of course, it may have other implications in western civilization. But in Islamic civilization, Islamic culture, we recognize that basically, human beings are all equally responsible to Allah.
We're all equally responsible to Allah, whether male or female, we all have been required by law to do certain things. And we're equally responsible to fulfill them because everything which is required of us will be according to our ability. Now, in terms of abilities, of course, we're not equal. No two people are equal. Everybody is different. You have abilities in certain areas, weaknesses and other areas, we're all different. But in terms of our responsibility, to worship a law, we are equal, so there is no problem there. The second principle is called rational empiricism. Basically, what it's saying is that human beings have the ability
to learn from history and to determine for themselves, what is best for themselves. That's why we don't need God to tell us, we have as human beings, the ability and when we get together,
we apply the other principle the third principle called discussion and consent. We discuss what you have understood what I've understood what everybody is understood, and we can come to an agreement as to what is best, and we apply it. That's democracy,
democracy, which from Western perspective,
is not restricted only to government it has to do with all thought in society and becomes the driving principle of Western civilization.
Now, what's the problem was saying that human beings have the ability to rationalize to reason to understand and to decide for themselves? Well, what that means in their context is that
human beings know better than what has been written in the religious, holy books of the various religions.
Holy Books, put them aside, we decide.
So, as human beings, we don't need to depend on anyone beyond this, we can decide ourselves as to right and wrong.
Well, it's not true. Can't we decide personally, what is right and wrong? Well, let's look at it this way. Human beings are a product of their environment.
We are born
same way. I suppose I seldom said kulu mo luden. You lead? Well, fitrah every child is born with a natural inclination to believe to worship Allah to submit to Allah. This is our nature. However,
about wha hoo. You have with Annie? Are you mad giussani are you not see Ronnie, but his parents will turn him into a Christian, as Zoroastrian or a Jew. It is the environment, the parents represent the environment it is raised in, they will change that nature.
So the person is a product of his environment.
So when he sits down to decide what is right and wrong, he does so based on how he was raised.
So you can't trust his reasoning.
It is not foolproof. It's not to say that you can never find anything right? Now you can. But you can trust yourself to find what is right every time. That's why Allah subhanaw taala. That said, if the religion were based on reason, and logic, human reason and logic, then we should wipe the bottom of our socks and not the top. But I saw Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wipe the top and not the bottom.
So that puts us in the correct context. We follow Revelation.
Revelation besides just to give an example of how human beings can go astray, with the best of intentions
in the Constitution
of the United States of America,
written in 1787 1787 600 plus years ago, or 300 plus years ago.
It states their
article one, Section two, and you can still go to Washington and go and read it. Article One, Section two, it is called the three fifths compromise.
What was the three fifths compromise?
The three fifths compromise stated that black men,
non white Americans, black men,
were to be counted as three fifths of a white man.
These were the enlightened minds
of the 18th century, who put together a constitution to govern America as it broke away from England.
That's what they concluded.
So it means most of us here
would be considered three fifths of Europeans, white men,
and that is in the constitution till today, of course, they canceled its operation. They don't use it anymore. They've amended it. But that is the origin
That is what human minds came to. Now, those founding fathers who put this document together, there are many other good things in the documents about freedom and justice and equality and all these other things where they're beautiful statements, wonderful statements. Islam would agree with many of them. However, at the same time they wrote this one. So we say, What happened here?
What happened here?
The reality is that those who wrote the document, were raised in a society in which black people were slaves, who had no rights. They were bought and sold,
like cattle.
But they understood that they were something of human beings.
But obviously, not on the same level as white human beings.
So for the purpose of voting
for the purpose of voting,
if one man had 10 slaves, and another man had no slaves, or he had three slaves or four slaves, should the vote of the one with 10 be equal to the one with three? No, they said, No, we have to work on the formula by which those who are voting, they're not talking about the black people voting now. They're talking about white people who own black people voting. So if I have 10, black slaves
equal to three fifths, then they are equal to have recall, if we say, Yeah, what's, what's the calculation of that? How many people six, they're equal to six white people. 10, black slaves are equal to six white people. So my vote is one white man is one white man plus six. So I'm counted as seven.
Where there's one who has only three, right? He was counted as one plus one, or two is given to, he has himself plus two more additional votes, he's counted as three votes. So this was a formula, they call it the three fifths compromise, we had to compromise on this issue here, come to some agreement on it. Okay.
What do we say today? This is what this is racism.
Racism, in its most ugly form, the ugliest of forms, right? They're put together by the most enlightened minds of the 18th century, they're in the United States of America.
So we say, we're those minds capable of arriving at what was really good? No,
it was relative good. Relative to them, white people, it was good. Relative to the black people, it wasn't good.
So that is why as Muslims, we don't trust people to decide, we let a law who has no interests, he has no influence, nobody can influence them say, well, they help us out. We're Egyptians, you know, make the law on our side? No, no, we don't have that. A law reveals what is right for human society as a whole, regardless of their color, their location, their size, their shape, their beauty, etc. Regardless,
the second principle of discussion and consent, what does this mean? It means that the majority rules,
whatever the majority agrees on, this is what is going to be good for us. And
the discussion can only take place
on the basis that nothing is sacred, anything can be argued. The law which was made yesterday can be argued about today.
The law which was made today can be argued and change tomorrow. Meaning what? No stability,
no stability,
no stable moral principles. These principles are changeable from time to time. And this again is the difference. The Sharia what the law has revealed. There is no change. What the law said was Haram is haram until the last day of this world.
Human beings cannot get together and decide no it's not haram now know. Times have changed. We're in a modern world. Our needs are different.
No
What is haram remains haraam until the last day of this world. That is the difference.
But this doesn't mean that Muslims don't have any principle of mutual consultation Shura, which Allah speaks about Rama Rama Shura by Noam. Islam recognizes that role of the society should be done with mutual consent of people of knowledge, not anybody, because he has money or he has good looks or whatever he becomes the decision maker, no, those who have knowledge in the society specialists, etc. You have a higher council that looks over the rulings, etc, and comes and advises the ruler etc. This is recognized by masala took Shura from his companions, though he didn't need it.
So there is that element there. But that is not the main element for Islamic civilization. The main element for Islamic civilization is Sharia. What a law has revealed and we live in accordance with that. So any globalization principle which means giving that up, that is the basis now of the clash of civilizations.
India
has accepted secular democracy.
Hinduism doesn't have any system to rule the country anyway.
The only other choice would be Islam. And, of course, we're not gonna go there.
Russia, China, they accepted secular democracy, that is communism, communism is secular democracy.
The only part of the world
which has not accepted it.
In the core of the society is the Islamic world.
Maybe our rulers, maybe some intellectuals, etc, have accepted it. But our scholars are scholars, Muslim scholars who still hold a position of respect in the Muslim Ummah,
as the preservers and the protectors of the Sharia,
they don't accept it
100%
because it is not possible to accept it, knowing the Sharia.
So, that means that the powers that be
feel it is their duty
to crush this Sharia and to replace it with democracy.
However you do it, do it. And that is the essence of the struggle.
So, Prophet Mohammed Salah Salaam
was blessed by last month Allah to lead us to this rotten mustard team,
the straight path of the Sharia.
And we are called upon
to ask for laws Peace and blessings upon him
because of the guidance that he showed us, so I asked her last month Allah to make us instruments to bring back the Sharia in our lives. The Sharia, which is a bother
to make a commitment to begin with ourselves. Our commitment to change ourselves and our lives to ones in accordance with our laws will
accordance with Sharia, and a bother. ask Allah to give us success in this effort, and that this effort would spread from amongst us to other parts of the oma and to bring the oma together for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala ask Allah to bless the Muslim Ummah, to find its way back to the path of Allah. I ask Allah to bless the oma to come to the aid of its brothers and sisters in Gaza, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Chechnya in the various parts of the Muslim world that are bleeding today. ask Allah to forgive our weakness and our lack of ability to come to their aid as our brothers and sisters in Islam