Building Bridges

Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa sallahu wa Taala limited in what suddenly will suddenly more Allah and abhi Hill Karim Allah He of Baba salatu wa uttama tasleem rubbish rocklea sodbury via Siddeley emri melissani. Africa who Callie, my brothers and sisters and friends and fellow Canadians a set MRI they come to LA he robot a cattle.

Wow, all sound excited, makes up for the four and a half hour drive from last night to get here at 130 in the morning, right?

handed in LA, it's a pleasure to be back here in Ottawa. Once again, Canada's capital. You know, last year was really nice to be here was the first time I actually got invited to Ottawa to do a lecture at a conference of this sort. And it's nice to be back here once again. And the topic that they gave me was building bridges, and I had all these things going in my head subpanel, I'm like, Okay, this is what I'm going to say. And this is, you know, we need to plug it there. And, you know, I heard there's gonna be some dignitaries after so we need to, you know, make sure that they understand where we're coming from, and what we go through and whatnot, and so on and so forth, and

our responsibilities as Muslims as well in the community. And then my mother in law comes along with us, and then my parents drive in from Montreal, and now the pressure is on right. It's not about speaking in front of us speaking in front of your parents is totally different. SubhanAllah but Alhamdulillah It's a pleasure to be here. And we hope and ask Allah subhanho wa Taala that these seats get filled up not because we need tickets to be sold or anything of that sort. But we want to see more people not only from the Muslim community, but the non Muslim community, we want to see our friends and colleagues you know, joining us as well to learn a little bit about ourselves because we

share in so many values, and that's what I want to begin with in sha Allah hota Hana there are certain things that Allah subhanho wa Taala focuses on that God Allah focuses on in the Quran to teach us how to be better people. And Allah Subhana Allah gives us multiple examples in the Quran and throughout the Sunnah or the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, son, Allahu alayhi wa sallam, we see that he also teaches us to be great individuals. He teaches us to build bridges he teaches us to give back to the community in the society that we live in and around. If we were to simply take an example. And for any of you that may go to for Hajj or Umrah and visit the

city of Medina, there are certain hotels built around must have the number that when you're inside and you look at the mosque, you look at the Prophet's Mosque, the Masjid, you'll see how the entire mosque is in front of you and most people take pictures of the mosque. Like most people will come and see mustard the Napoleon's say, oh, Mashallah they're taking pictures and sending it to their friends, not realizing the amount of history and the richness of society that came from that spot in front of them. Now, that must be it alone, that beautiful picture and you could probably I don't know who's manning the projectors. Maybe they want to pull up a picture of Mr. The Nobu just to show

it to them. But that beautiful site

was the entire city of Medina.

And if you're in front of the masjid, and you're looking at, it's where people are facing, you know, praying this way. So you're standing in the direction of the Qibla, for example, and people are facing you, just to your left, you'll see this new place that was built, and there's, you know, museum and exhibitions and things that take place, that was actually the market place during the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. That's where they used to go to do trade, they would step just outside the borders or the boundaries of the city of Medina, which at that time was so small, and now it's just the size of the mustard area. That was the place where they went to do

trade. And just beside that

was where the Jewish lived.

And so the neighbors of the prophets on a longer it he was sanlam were the Jewish to one side, the Christians as well. And there was this rich, you know, community or sense of community that took place to the extent that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was the man of honesty, we know that he was a sonicwall amine, but what type of person was he really, he was so truthful, he was so trustworthy as well, that even the non Muslims would come to him with their scriptures with their texts with their books and ask him, can you legislate or can you decide or apply a law upon you know, this person or whatever incident took place? Can you be the one to figure out how we're

supposed to deal with this? We actually have that documented, proving to us that the prophets on a longer Allah who was Salaam would help and assist others, even with their own scriptures and their own texts.

Now, what does that mean for me new?

Because a lot of the time as Muslims are always saying, Well, people hate us people hate us. People hate us. A mass majority of Canadians. Don't hate us.

We talk a lot about hatred we talk a lot about, you know, hardships and it's understandable because some of us go through a hardship and we maybe relate that story to someone else. And that person then relates their story to us. And I'm going to relate a few stories to you as well possibly in the next session when we you know, after lunch in sha Allah have to add, but there's a few things that we experienced in life and we tend to sometimes just make them a lot bigger than they really are.

So let's not focus on that. Let's focus on our responsibility. Let's leave the negativity aside and bring positivity into our lives. Let's do with the profits on a long run it usnm encouraged us to do let's do what Allah subhana wa tada encouraged us to do. And Allah subhanho wa Taala says, rubella he mina shavon yamaji

What? One one and beat me 1111 if mi one.

Allah subhanho wa Taala says, What's your one Oh, lol berry what toccoa he tells us to come together to unite to do goodness unite in goodness to Harlan lol Berry. Being steadfast, being honest, being just being a great individual, a citizen to society.

What taqwa and someone who's also fearing of your Creator, someone who's conscious of Allah subhanho wa Taala. Someone who knows that my creator is aware of my situation right now. My creator knows what I'm doing. My creator understands my situation. Yes, I might be going through hardships, but he understands me is my goal in life to just reiterate and to constantly promote the hatred and by constantly talking about it, or am I supposed to be someone that tries to help the rest of society to slowly dissolve the nonsense that's taking place?

And this is where we look at some other lessons. In sudo Duchamp's Allah subhanho wa Taala takes an oath 12 times you know what it means to take an oath like you and I when we say one law he I'm going to pray for him today. Right? Well, law he and one law he for those that don't understand it's like saying I swear to God, right? I swear by God that I will do this I swear by God that I will you know, give you $5 I swear that I will pay for my ticket and as Muslims we believe that we're only supposed to take an oath by Allah subhanho wa Taala we're not allowed to take an oath. You know, by anything else, like you know that Pinky swear, swear over my mom's dead body. Why would you do that?

I never really understood like, why are we wishing for her mom to be dead? Right so hon Allah, but in Islam, we only take an oath with Allah subhanho wa Taala. Now what that teaches us though, is that our Creator is allowed to take an oath multiple times as well by many other things that he created and installed to chumps Allah subhanho wa Taala takes an oath 12 times

highlighting the importance of something grabbing our attention. You know, when someone says I'm gonna give you a million dollars, you're like, Yeah, right, man, whatever.

You're not gonna give me a million dollars. When someone says no, no, we'll law he, I swear by God, I will give you $1 million.

You're like, Oh, well, you better follow through buddy. Right? You better actually give me that million dollars because you just took an oath with a loss of bandwidth and so the difference there is someone just says I'm going to give you a million and someone says well law II I'm gonna give you a million everyone just pays attention to the law here. Everyone on this side is like yeah, brother, we've we've been told you're going to be donating to the mustard but just like hello, hi, and just make lots of dua because that's probably the only thing we're going to get from you. Right? So we see that saying what law he or taking an oath grabs the attention of an individual in them Allah

subhanho wa Taala does that to us? He says was Jim seewald more on

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Allah subhanho wa Taala just took a number of oaths to grab our attention to lead up to one thing,

God if Lucha Monza,

just before that Allah subhana wa tada mentions the knifes the soul, purifying ourselves, perfecting ourselves, cleansing our intention.

cleansing our hearts, trying to be people that are clean and pure and always going constantly doing that which is clean and pure as well whether within our soul within our heart within our minds, our actions, our statements, our clothing, etc.

And so Allah says, Those who are successful are those who have perfected their cleanliness of their heart, got the F Lucha Monza, kaha. But he also says worker, the harbor, Manda, Sahar, and those who lose those who are losers are those who failed to cleanse themselves from the negativity that lives or resides within their hearts. Now that we've said that,

as Muslims, when it comes to building bridges,

you know, we go through challenges, because sometimes people don't want to build a bridge with you. You think of yourself as being a contractor, you want to go and help society, but society just keeps pushing you down. And then you get up the next day, and you want to go and do something and society pushes you down. You can't work here because of the way that you look, or you can't work here. And I know we have laws regulating that. But sometimes the laws are not really implemented, right. And so we see how Subhanallah as Muslims, we feel that we go through hardships, and a lot of the time we just back off.

But the most precious things in life need to go through pressure.

The most valuable things in life need to withstand certain forces. And I was having this conversation with my wife, and she was, you know, she gave me two perfect examples. gold,

gold, a mineral that comes from the ground. It's just like a rock, like, whatever, no one really cares. But someone who knows that that's gold is going to take it. And then it has to withstand hundreds of degrees of temperature, just to filter it out in order to get that purity so that we can say, wow, there's value in this. You look at a diamond, what's diamond carbon, but it has to withstand 1000s of pounds of pressure being squeezed together in order for it to actually become that metal little diamond that people wear on their finger like oh, you know, I had to save my whole life for that.

Lots and lots of pressure, lots and lots of hardship. Lots and lots of difficulty is needed for us to actually become the greatest society for us to actually become the greatest of people for us to actually be recognized as people that are good. And so my brothers and sisters in Islam don't feel as though these hardships are things that stop you from moving forward. They didn't stop the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam from moving forward. They didn't stop him, they motivated him. They encouraged him, they pushed him to next level so that he could continue to be good and continue to do goodness to the rest of society. And Allah says to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to say

to us, in

Toronto, hey bounnam.

If you say if you claim that you love Allah subhanho wa Taala, for Derby Rooney or the blue moon or follow me as in follow the Prophet, peace be upon him, son, Allahu Allah, you send them follow him. And Allah will love you. You want your Creator to love you. You want God to love you follow the prophets on a long line of us Salaam. But what are the lessons that we learned from his life? What are the things that we see that he contributed towards in society, and this is where I want to pull out a few examples. We, as a Muslim community, we have a greater responsibility than the rest of the society that we live in. But we don't really acknowledge it. We don't feel as though we have the

responsibility. You know, Chef Naveed was just talking about Canada and moving forward and projecting a vision for the next 150 years, for example. And then we heard the emcee mentioning, you know, the youth and the younger generation, and she mentioned the word kids, but their youth who are being treated like kids, but they're actually adults.

We have youth that are 15 1618 2025, even 30 years old, in our Muslim communities, we know especially in the you know, my father's Pakistani so I deal with a lot of Pakistani families in the community just because they know My last name is but so like, Oh, he's one of us, right? So they all come to me like all the Pakistanis come to me and all the Indians, you know, they're like, Oh, he's one of us, right? He He likes to batarfi and lead doing jump jump and all those, you know, beautiful sweets that we enjoy, and the symbol says during Ramadan where everyone breaks her fast on the most unhealthy thing. You know, but some have a lot. A lot of people come to me and we deal with these

issues, right?

But the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

He was someone who took the responsibility to the next level.

He was someone

Who didn't just sit back

and say, You know what, in Canada

we have welfare.

So when we hear of our neighbor who lost their job or, or who's going through difficulty, who comes in ask for some money, we give them $5, we close the door and we say, Why don't even asking, we have welfare in Canada, they shouldn't ask, they don't need anything. We have unemployment, so one of our friends loses their job. And then you know, a bunch of other friends are trying to put some money together just to help them out just to make it easy for them help them to pay their rent, or help them to, you know, pay their their housing or their utilities or whatever the case is, buy something, buy some food for the family, right? And we become the world's biggest critics. Like,

well, we live in Canada, we have unemployment, what do they need our money for? Right? If I lose my job, is anyone gonna come and give me money? All right, we start thinking that way. But as Muslims as believers in Allah subhanho wa Taala, we take a step back, and we say, wait a second, we are Canadians. We have welfare, we have unemployment, we have health care, hamdulillah. We're not living south of the border, right? We have health care, we have all of these beautiful things that we enjoy, and at times we take for granted. But as a Muslim community, it doesn't just stop there. Even though society or our nation is providing those services to the rest of the people and to anyone in

general. That's Canadian, we still have a further obligation from Allah subhanho wa Taala. And this is what I like about you know, nationals a cat Foundation, I was walking around back there before and I saw ns NF nationals a cat Foundation, what is it, it's encouraging us as believers to fulfill the obligation because a law God obliges us to make sure that we look after society, even if society is being looked after. Even if we have welfare, even if we have unemployment, even if we have insurances and benefits. Even if we have, you know, health care, we are still supposed to look after one another. And I'll give you a simple example.

I walked into the mustard one day. Does everyone here know what a oven is? Or who the oven is and what I think is a person who calls the event the call to prayer, and that oven of that mustard where I lead drama and you know, was doing some counseling and social work, etc. He comes in, and I was talking to the Imam I had just gotten off a flight just returned back to Canada. And I'm talking to him, he's asking me, how was it etc. And then then comes in. This is the the designated person who calls the call to prayer. He's always there. He's there before that. mm is there. He's the one who unlocks the door. He's the one who locks the door when everyone leaves. He's the one who and

honestly this brother, Mashallah he drives around the mustard parking lot to make sure no one's hiding in the corner, because it's a huge parking lot. He makes sure no one is hiding anywhere and then leaves. When it's dark.

He comes into the masjid and he says, you know, I'm really upset.

And I was like, Why? You know what's wrong?

He says,

I was sick in bed and couldn't even get up.

And not a single person came to visit me.

And not a single person called me. And not a single person even realized or recognized or noticed that I wasn't even there calling the call to prayer five times a day.

And it hit me so hard. Because he turns to the Imam and he's like, You know what? I blame you more than I blame the community. And I was like, Subhana Allah, like, that's a serious accusation. You're like, it's understandable. He's feeling upset. He was in bed, no one came to visit him, no one called him but as a Muslim community, one of the obligations that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tells us, Muhammad peace be upon him, he tells us the obligation of our Muslim brother or sister that they have that we must fulfill as in it's an obligation for us. It's their right, we must fulfill this right? When they are sick, we must go and visit them.

And it's not a visit once it's fulfill their rights. What do they need? Are we actually doing that? And it hit me so hard, because he's telling that a man He's like, you should have been the first person to notice that I was not there. You are the one who listens to my eye, then you're the one who when you arrive and you're ready to lead the prayers, I am the one who calls the call to prayer. And you didn't notice for four days that I wasn't here. You never called me You never sent someone you never, you know, checked up on me. You never even asked anyone.

And it hit me so hard.

thinking to myself, we're not actually doing what we're supposed to be doing as a society as believers in Allah subhanho wa

Allah, as people who we consider we as Muslims consider ourselves the cream of the crop.

And anyone does. That's understandable anyone thinks of themselves as people, I need to be the best. Someone who doesn't think to themselves I have to be the best person is not someone who's trying to achieve great things. Everyone tries to be the best. And we know in our teachings that we are supposed to strive to be the best.

Two

or three gentlemen,

tomorrow, not tomorrow.

How on our honeymoon come to me know.

Allah Subhana, Allah tells us, you know, you need to be the best of the people. You've been given responsibilities, you have to look after others. And this is where we as a Muslim community need to start building bridges.

Put all the hatred aside, like we said at the beginning, put all the nonsense aside. start focusing on what I need to do moving forward. A simple example simple example of how we're not motivated enough. You know, yesterday, I was leading Juma. It's Friday, we're doing our Friday prayers. And half of the congregation is enjoying the fans that are blowing on them in the air conditioning. And someone forgot to turn on the switches to activate the fans on this side of the of the hall of the masjid. Right. And people are sitting there and you know, in your head, it's hot. You're standing you're lecturing you could you feeling hot yourself, obviously the people sitting there feeling hot,

just like right now, you're thinking to yourself, man, this guy's really boring, right? We don't want to listen to him any longer. When is this time gonna end? So I have eight minutes and 20 seconds, 19 seconds. 18 seconds, right? I'm understanding what you're going through. We need to be people that put ourselves in other people's shoes. But at the same time, I'm sitting there or standing doing this Congress, the sermon at the Friday prayer, and I look around and I say well, no one is turning on the lights and actually incorporated that in our Friday sermon was that we need to be people that are activated, we need to be people that get out there we need to be to be people

that don't just stick to our own kind. We are too comfortable in our comfort zones. If we go to an Islamic setting, like, you know, you're invited to a mosque, or many people came to this to this conference thinking, Oh, you know, it's the I lead conference. I probably stands for Islam, not AI, because we have AI, you know, phones and so on. And so some kind of law, we're probably thinking, Oh, this is an Islamic conference, right? Which is good. hamdullah we're here focusing on the deen we are. But when someone sees someone who may be maybe I'm not saying they're not Muslim, but maybe someone who we think Oh, you know what, I don't know if they're Muslim or not. Right away. We like

oh, you know, this barrier goes up between us like, should I say hello? Should I not say hello? Should I smile? Should I not smile?

Should I give them Salaam? What if What if I say said I'm wearing a comb? And they're like, Well, I'm not Muslim. Okay. Oh, that's gonna be really awkward. So you know what, just forget it. Let me just avoid it and walk away. Right? Why are we like that? We're too comfortable in our comfort zones. And we need to be people that branch out. We only become successful when we actually branch out and do something that makes us feel uncomfortable. Don't think the profits went along where it was selling was always comfortable. People were throwing stones at him. What did he do? Did he pick up a stone and throw it back? No.

He was in the uncomfortable zone of knowing that if I stand strong right now.

And as he told the angels, I hope

that from the progeny of this nation will be people that believe

will be people who are righteous will be people who do goodness will be people that contribute back to society. And that's an obligation upon our shoulders, brothers and sisters. That's something that we must do. We need to become activated. We need to be engaged. We need to be people that blend in with the programs that are being offered in society. And don't be scared when when an Imam or when a chef or when a speaker comes in says you you know us as a community need to blend in it doesn't mean like we were hearing before taking off your hijab? No, it means you need to let people know that if you're judging me, you can judge me but I'm not going to judge you.

If you don't like the way that I dress if you don't like my accent. If you don't like my name, you can't pronounce my name because there's no vowels in it right? You have a difficult time just being around me. You don't like the smell of my food. Well, you know what?

Oh Canada.

Simple. Oh, Canada.

Almost every single person sitting in this room. If you trace back

where you came from? You didn't come from here.

And that's what makes it so beautiful. That's what makes it amazing for us as Muslims as well, because we always feel like, oh, we're Muslims Muslim is not a race. Muslim is not you know, someone who came from a specific region of the world's

Muslim is someone like you and me who was born right here. You have turkey Palau faso See, you have turkey Cohen's re.

Turkey most butene. Right. Someone who loves protein, because I know we're in Ontario, right? You guys are close to Quebec, you you hear some French words, and you probably adopted protein. And I know in Ontario, people like to say, oh, protein is an Ontario dish, but it's not as from Quebec, right. And so some kind of law is is beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. But we as an oma can't stop there. We don't stop, we need to push forward. And I want to conclude with one thing. I want to conclude with a story

of a new hot tub.

After the death of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Abu Bakar was the Caliph was the Khalifa. After he passed away, the next Calif, was almost a man by the name of armor.

And this man, as the Caliph, as the leader of the oma of the entire Muslim nation, around the entire globe.

He heard of a family,

a mother,

a widow,

who had no food for her children.

And he thought to himself to go check up on this family in the middle of the night. So he goes to the house, he goes to the home. And he sees that the mother is there, trying to put the children to sleep, but they're not going to sleep because they're extremely hungry. They have no food. And the mother is just cursing the Calif, not realizing that the men who came to their home to check on the situation was him himself. And he played that position he played in cognito. Right, he was someone who showed up just as a person, not as the leader. And she was saying things about him, like, you know, he calls himself a leader, he doesn't even know that we don't have food, and my husband died

in a battle. And you know, we have nothing for us. She's basically the widow, of a veteran, the widow of someone who fought in a battle, who's left behind who has no one to look after her. She doesn't have that men that took care of her family. And now life change is completely turns upside down. And so, Bob, he's there and he hears this and he sees it. And she's also saying things like, on the day of judgment, I'll take my justice on the Day of Judgment, Justice will will come through. And that shakes him to the core, to the core.

He goes to beta male.

Beta male is basically like the central bank, for the Muslims, right? It's where we contribute. It's like a pool of money that goes into whether it's money or wealth or food or anything. And he goes and he gets a big sack of flour. And he gets, you know, some oil, some cooking oil.

And he carries it on his back. And when people see him, they're like, they're asking the requesting, let us help you. He says no, because you're not going to help me on the Day of Judgment. When I do get questioned about this. When someone is asking me when Allah Subhana Allah is asking me, you are not going to be the one that's going to save me on the Day of Judgment. This is my responsibility. I need to take action. So he carries this bag of flour on his back, he goes to the home of the mother

and he himself starts to cook up a meal. He lights the fire and the the the the mother, the woman. She's narrating this story. She says he had a thick beard and he was blowing,

blowing on the fire to try and make it more intense because they didn't have much wood either. She he's trying to start up the fire and she says you can see the smoke penetrating there's so much smoke, it's penetrating through his beard. And he himself is getting down and dirty with the community. He's the leader of the Ummah, but he's making a fire. Then he takes this flower and he takes the oil and he puts it in a pot and he mixes it together and he's making some bread some sort of a food right that they would eat. And then the children come and he takes his with his own hands and feeds the children. And in some narrations he takes the pot and he gives it to the mother so she

can feed it but he's blowing on it before she gives it to them to cool the food down so it doesn't burn the lips in the mouth of the children. He's blowing on the food.

And then he tells her he says tomorrow

come to see the Calif she still doesn't know that this is him. He says come to see the cow

If tomorrow I invite you and I will meet you there, giving her some confidence giving her some courage that don't worry, I will support you, I will testify that you had no food, you had nothing. And she agrees to come. And he leaves and he goes a distance and he watches and some others saw him watching and they asked him Yeah, Khalifa, what are you doing? You're watching, you know, a wife and her family. that's inappropriate. We as Muslims, that's the way we think we like, you know, why are you doing that? How Tom stuff that a lot? Why are you looking at them? He's not looking to try and see her, you know, get undressed or prepare for bed? No, he told him, he replied and said, I'm

watching because it's my responsibility to know that these children fall asleep because their stomachs are full.

And then he goes back and the next day she comes to see the Calif and she finds him sitting there. The leader, the Imam,

the shear, the halifa.

And he requests her now say something good about me. relieve me of this, don't hold this against me on the Day of Judgment.

My brothers and sisters, the lesson we learned there is are we going to be held accountable for the things we did not do to contribute to society? to give back to our fellow Canadians, whether they're getting welfare, unemployment, health care, etc? Are we actually looking after our neighbors? Are we visiting the people who are sick in the hospital? Probably, you know, not too far away from here. Has anyone passed by today to visit them?

I'm actually a chaplain at a hospital and I rarely get called in to come and see them Muslims are admitted into the hospital.

What are we doing?

The final story or the final lesson that we learned here before I conclude, is that you don't need to be the Imam. You don't need to be a chef. You don't need to be a counselor. You don't need to be a teacher. You don't need to be anything high status. You don't need to be someone great. You don't need to be the police chief. You don't need to be Justin Trudeau. You don't need to be anyone in society to give back to society. And we love the fact that we see all of us giving back to society. And we hope that we continue to do more. Does that come along here in about a couple of feet or something? Mr. alikum warahmatu Allahi wa barakato