Bilal Philips – The Best In Islam #28

			Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Allah's peace and blessings beyond each and every one of
you. I'd like to welcome you to another in our series, the best in Islam. In this series, we're
looking at the guidance from Allah subhanaw taala. And from His Messenger, Muhammad, may God's peace
and blessings be upon him, pointing out and guiding us to what is best. From the perspective of
Islam in our affairs.
		

			We have looked at in the previous episode, issues concerning journey,
		

			and jihad, all pointing out that either we choose the best places to journey to Mecca and Medina.
		

			Or that we recognize that the basis for jihad is the struggle within ourselves and not merely
raising or carrying of arms on the battlefield. Moving on now in this session, to the best of our
leaders, who are they how fijne Malik he narrated that the Prophet Muhammad wa salam had said
		

			piatto a magical Alladhina to have buena home, where you have buena calm, or to Soluna la him with
Soluna aleikum wa Shirato, a multicam Alladhina to blu ray Duna, whom, for you will read on ACOEM
hotel and Hoonah, whom will Annunaki
		

			the best of your leaders are those who you love, and they love you, you pray for them. And they pray
for you. And the worst of your leaders are those who you hate, and they hate you. You curse them,
and they curse you. This
		

			gives us some guidelines with regards to how Muslim leadership should be. It should be a leadership
in which the people love those leaders. They're not cursing them. They're not speaking ill of them.
And of course, as they say, you can't please all the people all the time. But in general, the
leaders should be doing what the people want done, what is beneficial for the people, so they will
speak well of them. These are among the signs of a good leader, that people will speak well love
them, and praise them.
		

			As well as they also will love those who follow them, those who they're ruling over, and they will
make dua for them. And the people will make dua for the rulers. This is the blessed leadership that
the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, was guiding us to in this hadith about the
best of leaders. So it means in choosing our leaders, we should choose those, we can see in them,
the love for the people, they express that love in a variety of different ways, whether it is in
promoting certain policies, etc, by which the government benefits the people.
		

			Because really, in most countries, there is sufficient there to benefit the people. But most of the
time, due to mismanagement and corruption, etc. Then the leaders don't look out for the people. They
really don't love the people. They love the opportunity to be leaders so that they can milk the
people.
		

			This is unfortunately, the situation for many, many decades now in the Muslim world, that our
leadership is not one of love. One where the leaders love the people. And as a result, the people
don't love them. They may fool the people and fool many of the people by bribing and a variety of
other ways. But the mass of the people will not be bribed. They will know those leaders for who they
are and they will hate them.
		

			They will curse them, they will pray against them, they will speak against them. And that's an evil
state. This is not the way that a Muslim country should be the guidance of the Prophet Muhammad
salah.
		

			This hadith is found in Sahih Muslim among the most authentic sayings of the Prophet. This is
something that we should strive for, and we should choose our leaders. Well, moving on, under the
heading of L we have reached the L. livelihood, Zaid, even Jubeir quoted the Prophet sallahu wa
sallam was saying
		

			hydro wristy al Kapha
		

			the best livelihood is the bare minimum, the best livelihood is the bare minimum. What is meant by
that what is meant by that statement is that
		

			what is really best for us is that we earn what is necessary.
		

			Not that we seek to accumulate
		

			treasure
		

			four times which may never come, we just chase. After more, as the Prophet Muhammad had said, if one
of Adam's descendants were given a value of gold, they would want another one.
		

			never satisfied, the grass is always greener on the other side. That's how we are never satisfied
with whatever we have. But this is not a good state to live in. We're always wanting what others
have. In the West, they call it keeping up with the Joneses. Your neighbor buys a new car, now your
car is looking kind of old, before it was fine. But now that your neighbor got a new car, you feel
you must have one your family makes noise about it, you end up going and buying a new car, when he
sees you buy a new car, then he wants to buy a new car. And this is not the way to live.
		

			You got a car which does the job. And that's efficient. You don't have to have the latest model. You
know, this is how they have us going the iPhone for example, if you don't have the latest model of
the iPhone, then you know, iphone four now
		

			iPhone six six plus, and they keep us in this cycle of constantly wanting more, buy the latest, get
the newest, have the latest, this is not the way to live, we will not find peace, we will not find
comfort, we will not find contentment in all of this.
		

			But if we just go for what is sufficient,
		

			we get we buy, we take what is sufficient, what is enough to get by and we're satisfied with it
contented with it, then we can be contented with ourselves, we can be contented with life. So this
is what the prophet may God's peace of blessing be upon him was recommending
		

			that the best livelihood is the bare minimum what takes care of what you need. As he said, We should
be like travelers in this world, we should be like travelers.
		

			As a traveler, you have a
		

			suitcase, which carries what's enough to
		

			change your clothes, wear what you need wherever you go.
		

			But you don't try and carry a whole house with you your wardrobe, your kitchen sink and no. So
you're a traveler. So that's how we should look at this life. We're only passing through. So there's
no need to accumulate large amounts of wealth
		

			and judge people and judge ourselves and judge our families by how much wealth we've accumulated.
		

			Because strive that effort that focus on trying to accumulate all it does is blocks us to the
realities of this life of what we should really be striving for. And that's why Allah said in the
Quran, and how can we MacArthur heart does work toward Mikado.
		

			The striving to accumulate wealth
		

			has deluded you from the realities of life and you only wake up to it. When you end up in the grave.
That's when you finally wake up.
		

			We're living in a dream.
		

			running around chasing the elusive dunya which we can never get enough of. Leave that aside.
		

			Work, make efforts not to say you don't do that doesn't mean that you have to live in a
		

			apart, you know, you able to work and get enough to provide for yourself and your family etc. and
fine, don't feel you gotta get ahead in the job. If you don't make it to become the director, you
know the manager, you know your life, you're not satisfied, you're always eyeing the manager, I
shouldn't be there.
		

			You'll never be happy. You'll never be at peace. Because how many people make it to the manager?
		

			There are all the people would like to be managers, but only one that'd be the manager.
		

			So is it worth it?
		

			All that botheration all the depression that comes out of not achieving what you set for yourself,
		

			which may be unrealistic, never satisfied. So this is the advice of the Prophet, may God's peace and
blessings be upon him and that's how he lived. When he died. What did he leave behind? There was
nothing, he left nothing. Everything was given away, distributed. He died, leaving nothing behind.
And that is a much simpler,
		

			peaceful way to go.
		

			The Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, also spoke under the letter M. Marriage. He
spoke about the best marriage aka ibn Muhammad. He stated that the prophets Allah was salam had said
credo Nica I sorrow the best marriage is the simplest one. In another narration, we had heard the
Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem have said that the best woman was the one with the simplest Mahara.
This is connected to the marriage. So the simplicity of the marriage has to do with the Mahara. It
also has to do with the amount of money which is spent on the MaHA on the marriage itself. You know,
today, when people are getting married, it's a massive affair. So much money is spent.
		

			And a lot of this money is just wasted.
		

			For women. They have what is now known as a wedding dress. And you'll listen to the young women
getting married today, wanting that wedding dress, that wedding dress, they're ready to spend 1000s
of dollars for 1000s and 1000s of dollars for a dress that they will wear once and they'll never
wear it again. What is that, but it's rough, but extravagance something displeasing to Allah. In
Islam, we don't have wedding dresses.
		

			You want to say a walima dress, okay, you have a walima you know you have a meal, share it with the
people again, this is a sharing of the food, you know, with the community, they know you've got
married, you want to wear a new dress, no harm, a dress that you aware of other times to no harm.
But this wedding dress, which has nothing to do with Islam, which came out of Christianity in their
weddings, they have this wedding dress. Now, it has become an addiction amongst Muslims, young
people are clamoring for this now. So the expense for marriage now becomes massive. The wedding
dress, then the walima is not just a gathering a simple gathering. It now has to be an elaborate
		

			affair, it will be in a five star hotel and all the kinds of money that is spent again huge amounts
of money spent. This is not pleasing to Allah.
		

			This is not pleasing to Allah. So the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, advised us
in this manner
		

			that we should be simple in our marriages, making it easy making it possible so that we don't have
numbers of people who are unmarried simply because marriages have become so complicated and
expensive. It prohibits most people from getting married at the time they should be married. With
that, their viewers we're going to take a break and I hope to see you following the break. Salam
alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
		

			Welcome back from the break. So moving on
		

			to another area of the best in terms of men, the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam was quoted as
saying by Isha his wife, hydrocodone, hydrocodone, the early for ANA hydrocodone the early
		

			the best of you are those who are best to his family, and am the best among you, to my family. And
in another narration, from Amber.
		

			In the last, he quoted the Prophet Muhammad, Salah Salem is saying criado come here to calmly decide
him, the best of you are those who are best to their women. So in both of these narrations, you can
basically the same concept that what makes a person good is about the character, how they treat
others, how they interact with others. And then where do we start with that good interaction, it has
to start with the family, those who are closest your wife, and your children. So for a man to be
among the best, the best in the society, he should be best to his wife and his children. And
especially in this narration, this narration is talking about the wives, how best we treat our
		

			wives. And of course, we know that, as I say, familiarity breeds contempt. That husband, you know,
because his wife is there all the time, he kind of takes her for granted. He doesn't treat her in
the best of ways. So this is something that we have to overcome and be conscious of our
responsibility to treat our wives in the best ways possible. Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim went on to
say that he was best meaning his example example that he showed, in terms of how he treated his
wives, it was the best example. It's one in which you never hit them. And all this idea of hitting
wives now, this has become very widespread. Husbands beating their wives of course, in Islam, there
		

			is a permit, but as a last resort, and not hitting from the perspective of beating your wives.
		

			It is more that of patting her telling her in order to the expression extension from self patting
her telling her Listen, stop, you have to rethink about this one. So, if this is the manner in which
it should not cause any bruising, etcetera, means that you're not striking blows. This is not what
Islam permits, as now has become popular in our man, his wife spilled the tea. Next thing he's
hitting her, kicking her mean, you find this in Muslim families, and of course, this is not
acceptable. Islamically so Prophet Muhammad wa sallam his way in terms of dealing with his wives,
was the best way, you see that there was no hitting. He was very kind, he was gentle. You know, he
		

			tolerated their mistakes. He tolerated their ill behavior sometimes, you know, he was very kind and
gentle with them. Moving on to the masks.
		

			And what's good image Omar narrated, the Prophet Muhammad wa salam had said, Harold B chi, Al
masajid, or shadow Bukhari, as well. The best locations are the mosques, and the worst locations are
the marketplaces, meaning that
		

			if we're going to spend time in locations, then better we spend it in the mosque than in the
marketplace, grab surplus time. And we don't spend most of our lives is what happens today. You
know, families, going out means going to the mall, that's into the marketplace. So so much time is
spent, consumed in the marketplace. And this is amongst the worst of places. The Prophet Muhammad
has taught us to us to protect us against the evil of the marketplace, because there's so much going
on, which is displeasing to Allah, in marketplaces. So we should in fact, strive to spend more time
in the mosque. And of course, that means
		

			reviving the function of the mass because now the mosque is just the place where people just go and
pray and then leave. They don't spend time in the mosque or maybe they made sit back to read the
Quran for a bit or whatever. But the mosque doesn't have the character
		

			to her that he's had in earlier times, where there are circles of learning ongoing, you know,
there's books available.
		

			There are discussions taking place, you know, after the prayers, it's the mosque is basically dead,
the prayer is over everybody lives. For the Providence, Salem had said that among the people will be
shaded by a law thrown on the day when there will be no shade other than his throne was Roger lune
called boo hoo, wah Lacan, Bill, massage it, an individual whose heart is attached to the mosque.
So, of course, now it's a big struggle for wanting to spend that kind of time in the mosque. But we
need to revive the role of the mosque, in terms of educating the community, in terms of social
interaction. You know, we need to bring the masks back to life, so that it becomes really a blessed
		

			place that people would want to be want to spend time. This is really what the advice of the Prophet
Muhammad wa sallam is in the statement. It's not that we should not go to the marketplaces, we have
to go there, we have to purchase things. But that should not become the focus of our lives. Better
we make the focus the masjid, because that's where we pray. That's where we communicate with God on
a formal basis. And that's where we can learn the deen. We can interact with people for the sake of
Allah. We're not there, trying to get products from them or sell them products or whatever. We're
there, to worship Allah to spend time remembering Allah, and those who we meet, there shouldn't be
		

			those who also remind us of Allah. So this is the advice of the Prophet, because peace and blessings
be upon him with regards to the mosques, and a final Hadith, which supports the same concept, one
Narrated by Abu Huraira, in which he said a hub will be Laddie Elahi Messiah messaggi dua for abadal
bility Ilahi or swarco Ha, the regions which Allah loves most are its mosques, and the regions which
Allah hates most are its markets, the same concept, Allah of course, we should love the places that
Allah loves. We should dislike the places which Allah dislikes. So this is further guidance and
encouragement for us to spend more time in the mosques. With that the viewers would like to thank
		

			you for being with us in this episode from the best in Islam.
		

			We hope to see you in our coming episodes. And with that, we're going to bid you farewell and hope
to see you in our coming episodes of the best in Islam Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh