A Message to Humanity

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Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah Assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah. But I kept my short and I see how my short talk is going to be about standing firm on our principles and that we're going to be tested brothers and sisters. Now, before I get to discuss that we are going to be tested in our lives. And it is a guarantee from ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada, this life is a life of a pillar, it's a life of test, I want us to understand our context. Because if you really think about it, we should be so grateful for everything that we have Alhamdulillah honestly, we are in the top two and a half percent of the world. Just being in the West, we're in the top two

and a half percent of the world. The minute we have two or three meals a day is the minute that we should be thinking we are a kings. In actual fact, the definition of a king at the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was that they had access to running water, and honey on the table. Not only do we have access to water and honey, but we have everything else that we have access to. So from that point of view, brothers and sisters, we should be so grateful, living in the 21st century, living in this particular time, in this particular place of the world, because we have food, shelter, clothing, and everything else. So from that point of view, we have a lot to be

grateful for.

In this context, we also have to understand that we're going to be tested, we're going to be tested brothers and sisters with hardship. And we're going to be tested with the good times. Because sometimes when we think about tests, we think, Oh, I have to be in pain, I have to lose something. That's not necessarily true. The concept of a test in Islam is that we're going to be tested with the good life and with the bad life, we're going to be tested with the pain and with the pleasure. And there are so many aids in the Quran, so many Hadees from the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam that clearly indicate that we're going to be tested, very famous ayah in the Quran in surah Al

Baqarah, verse 2141, Allah subhanho wa Taala big basically says to us, the do you think you're going to go to Jannah without being tested.

And Allah refers to the people before the messengers, and the companions that were tested so much, that they said, Where is the help of Allah, and Allah subhanho wa Taala says, Indeed, the help of ALLAH is Corrib is close. So from this point of view, we're going to be tested. And the interesting spiritual wisdom behind tests

is that Allah subhana wa Taala uses it as a means as a spiritual mechanism for us to come closer to him, and for us to go into paradise agenda.

And this is why the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Hadith and telemovie when he said that when Allah loves somebody, he's going to test them. When Allah loves somebody, he's going to test them. And from this point of view tests are a spiritual mechanism and a means in order to come closer to Allah subhanho wa taala. Similarly, from this point of view, being in a state of test is also purifying, and testing our character. It cultivates the Islamic virtues, it cultivates the Islamic virtues, in order for us to be purified and elevated spiritually. So become closer to Allah subhanho wa taala.

And this is why it's so significant to understand that there is a lot of blessing in trials and tests, because it shows us who we are. And this is very significant. It's so easy to be a good Muslim, when you have your food, your shelter, your clothing, your happiness, your work, your job, your money. If everything is fine, it's easy to be a good Muslim, right? It's easy. And that's why in marriage advice I speak to some brothers when they asked me for the rare advice. And I say to them, don't judge somebody by what they do when everything is fine, but rather look into the character on how they react when they are tested with trials. That's when you know, the person is

someone of Taqwa or someone who needs some work. And it's very significant for us to internalize this concept and not to use it to judge others but to see where we are on the spiritual

spectrum how close are we to Allah subhana wa to Allah because the concept of trials and tests really shows to us, am I inclining towards Allah or running away from him? When things become difficult and hard when my dignity has been affected? When I lose a bit of money, I lose my job. Something is taken away from me. When I have slander, backbiting going on, something's happening in the community. People are pointing fingers, where do I go? Do I hurry towards Allah? subhanho wa taala? Or do I give my morals up? And do I give up my struggle towards Allah? And do I now struggle towards my own Hawa, my ego and my enough's. And this is very important that contest and trials

really bring up our true character. So in this context, brothers and sisters, I want to give you some principles that we have to stand firm on, have our ground, really dig our heels. So we could basically inshallah be successful as a community, not only in the United States, known in the West, but generally as an ummah. So principle number one, principle number one brothers and sisters, is the worship of Allah subhanho wa taala. This is where it begins, and this is where it ends. This is our raison d'etre. It's our reason for existence, worshiping Allah, what does worship really mean? It means to love Allah subhanho wa taala, to know Allah subhanho wa taala, to obey Allah subhana wa

to Anna, and to single out all acts of worship to Allah alone. This is what we mean by worship in and of itself. And for us to be true worshipers, we have to understand worship is not like a business transaction. Like you have one business partner, he's equal to another business partner, and they make a transaction. This is not worship, but unfortunately, amongst our community. You know, I hear some brothers come up to me and say, bro, Hamza, I prayed for whole month. I did tahajjud for whole month. And you know what, I still filled my exams. So I'm not praying anymore. Like, hold on a second. Who do you think you are? Right? You know, on the same level playing field

here.

You know, on the same level playing field, you are the slave, Allah is the master. Allah deserves worship, even if he gave you the crumbs of the world. And we really have to significantly understand this. Because we worship Allah because of who Allah is. Allah is Allah, Allah, He is the one deserving of worship, regardless if we receive anything from His bounty, but we do receive lots of things from its bounty. But that's not the point. The point is we worship Allah because of who he is. How many times do we watch the television, we watch great people have great sporting achievement, or singers or artists and we praise them. We give them a standing ovation, we say

bravo. We give them some kind of

honor, from the point of view of saying that they're such a great sports person, they got such a great voice. They have attributes that we praise, although they don't benefit us directly, yet we praise people because of some praiseworthy attributes. Now Allah subhanho wa taala, Lisa committed he che, there is nothing like unto Him and His names and attributes we affirm and we also understand they are totally transcendent and they are boundless. So when we say Allah is Allah would he is the loving, coming from the word would which means a loving that is giving. We mean here it's the purest form of love, is the maximal type of love. Allah is a maximally perfect, His names and attributes

have no deficiency or flaw. So from this point of view, something should be happy happening inside us, we would want to praise Allah because he has praised with the realities, His names and attributes. Because if we could do for a singer or pop star, or some guy who knows how to play a flute, or somewhat guy who could run 200 meters very fast, then surely, we should be wanting to show our perfect gratitude and praise to Allah subhanho wa taala. So it's very important brothers and sisters, that we worship Allah worshipping Allah subhanho wa Taala is where our success lies. Allah says in surah Menon, indeed, successful other believers.

That's the first principle worshiping Allah and everything now in our lives is a derivative of our purpose, which is to worship Allah. And if we don't understand it from this point of view, it's like committing spiritual suicide, because our main objective is to worship Allah. And if we don't see our whole life

through those lenses, then it's no different from committing spiritual suicide. Second principle, love for others what you love for yourself. Love for others what you love for yourself. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in a hadith lay you know I had to come up to you Hibbeler for him are you bull enough? See, you won't truly believe unless you love for your brother what you love for yourself. He he your brother, Mo Raja humbly in his compendium of wisdom and knowledge. He said, This doesn't just mean Muslim. This means insomnia and NAS humanity. You love for others what you love for yourself. There's another Hadith in Allah Buhari narrated by Al Bukhari interest al Kabir

is authentic hadith. And it says, To love for Linnaeus for people, humanity, what you love for yourself. So defining feature of who we are and who we want to be, is to love for others what we love for yourselves, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, let me know you won't truly believe unless you love for others, what you love for yourself. And if we love Allah subhanho wa taala. If we love the messenger, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, we should be giving this love to other people, right? According to this spiritual principle, these are Hadith if we love Allah and the messenger, and for us to be true believers we have to give what we love to others. Then if we love

Allah and His messenger, we should be giving that love to other people. Right?

Are you with me? So how do you give that love to other people? How do you give the love of Allah and the love of the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to other people, what do you have to do?

Give Dawa to do when the brother said Pay attention. Give dower exactly and this is why we need to be responding to the call of Allah subhanho wa Taala to that which gives us life. This is very significant. It's a key part of defining who we are. It's a key part of loving for others. What we love for ourselves is giving dower showing why I love Allah subhanho wa Taala showing why I love the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and especially in our times of a post Trump era. We must be showing people what Islam is about. Now, we can't be blaming the Zinus and Fox News anymore. Islamophobia. I really believe a lot of sama phobia is actually Tao a phobia, right? Is Tao a

phobia? What are you scared to talk about who we are, don't get me wrong, there are haters, they're gonna exist. But the point is, don't be a victim. Don't be a victim hood person that suffers from the pathology and disease of being a victim. This is not of the Sunnah. If you study the Syrah, you will see that every calamity and trial the Prophet salallahu it if somebody use in order to create a new realm of possibility in order for him to call people to let Ilaha illa Allah and this is very significant for us to understand brothers and sisters, so love for others for what you love for yourself. Third principle, tolerance and forbearance, tolerance and forbearance to forgive and to

overlook Allah subhanho wa Taala says, Don't you want Allah subhana wa Tada to forgive you so you should forgive others to this is a key principle in the Quran is a key principle in our tradition. When we study the life of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he was so forgiving, and he had tolerance concerning negativity and hardship. We know the famous story of the man who pulled him by the neck and left a mark and one of the Sahaba wanted to actually you know, saw him out and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with, with with him, with him with forbearance, and humility and compassion, gave them both advice.

We needed something better from both of you.

That you tell him to ask for his debt properly, and you advise me to pay for my debt. This sense of forbearance was a key feature of the character of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to forgiven overlook, so we don't become petty people anymore. We look at the price. We don't look at the small things. So what they said something about you forgive them, forgive them, it will free will from such a burden. With all these things that you're holding on your neck, the stuff that you're holding with that within you just forgive let it go. You and everybody got to go to Jannah you want everyone to be happy? You will free yourself from the burden of why did they do this? Why did they do that

pointing fingers? Keep your eye on the prize brothers and sisters paradise. Just forgive people. Everyone's gonna end in their grave. Everyone's gonna have to do

account for the deeds and speak to Allah subhanho wa taala. So from this point of view, understand that everyone's weak, everyone is on a journey, forgive an overlook and have forbearance.

The next principle brothers and sisters, is fooling Allah and His messenger. And this is very significant. It links to worshiping Allah that will bring it out as a key principle here is to obey Allah and His messenger. Now, the first point I want to add is, as a principle, this is the most irrational principle in the world, but were brought up in the west, to obey is very negative. To obey is like, you know, you have blind faith. I really hate this attitude. Honestly, obedience to Allah is the summit of intellectual spiritual activity, obeying Allah subhanho wa Taala is the peak of what it means to be a rational, spiritual human being. This is I'm being so honest here. Why am I

saying this? Because if you look at general life, when you see the atheist or the agnostic, so the other people, whoever they are, they will be something all the time. When you go to the doctor, you give them your symptoms, what does the doctor say? Take this medicine, what do you do? You take the medicine, you don't question. You don't say where are your qualifications? You don't say show me the science behind this. Because you admit that they are an authority, there is a certain authority or wisdom that you submit to I came here on a plane, I'm on a plane quite often these days. What do I usually hear? Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down and fasten your seat belt. There'll be some

moderate to high turbulence. What do I do? I sit down, I buckle up, do Ah, right. Well, I should be making it alright. Anyway. I don't basically say who does the pilot think he is the Sealy man. He doesn't know nothing about the plane or turbulence, and I'm gonna start moonwalking on the plane. That's not gonna happen, is it? Right, because I obey His authority, because I know he has a particular knowledge that I don't have, right. So whether on the plane at school, university, medicine, teachers, whatever the case may be, we submit our own limited wisdom and authority to a greater higher wisdom and authority. Just like the famous. Well, she's not famous, but I've probably

made her famous or spoke about her quite a lot. Dr. Elizabeth Fricker. She has an Epistemologists as a big word, don't worry about that. Basically, she says she says that, given my limitations as parametric that I have limitations, I have to submit myself to an authority. So the point here is this, who is a greater authority, the pilot, the teacher, the doctor, or Allah subhanho wa taala?

Who is the greater authority?

Exactly. So is it more rational to submit to a teacher, a doctor or a pilot? Or to Allah? How can you? Allah exactly, so it's the most rational thing to do. So this is not fall for the so called satanic intellectualism, right? The pseudo intellect of shaytaan. When Allah told him to bow down to Adam, what does shaytaan say, Hold on a second, I made a fly. I've made a flyer, he's been a clay, you need fire for clay, right? So he didn't obey. Because of his arrogance. He was the first pseudo rationalist he denied the ultimate authority. From this perspective, we have to understand Allah is Al Hakim, he has the totality of wisdom and knowledge, Allah has the picture, we just have one

pixel.

And that's a very key principle. And when we follow this principle, we don't adopt the methodology of our enemies. Let me repeat what I'm saying here. We do not adopt the methodology of our enemies, what do our enemies do? And I'm not giving any labels here, but our enemies, the other eyes us, whereas other realisation mean are the realisation is actually the basis for genocide. If you look at a lot of social theorists, they see two other eyes a group is the basis for hatred and genocide. Now, otherwise Asian brothers and sisters not to say, here are Muslims here, Christians here, Jews, that's fine. It's natural to categorize groups within a society. But otherwise zation is not only do

you categorize another people as a group, but you categorize them negatively. And you see there are monolith. They're all the same. That is other information. And unfortunately, we adopt the same methodology, right? We say all Republicans, they're just all right wing nuts. That's not true. This is not true. Right? In any shape. My publishers are Republicans, and they're really decent people. So what you need to understand is this, that we shouldn't adopt the methodology just because social media is saying something Google is saying something. Our groupies are saying something. Yeah, it must be right. We have to adopt a Quranic

is the approach to understanding human people, different peoples. Allah subhanho wa Taala says in Surah Al Imran verse woman three laces, Allah, they're not the same. They're not all alike. People are not all alike. If you look at the Mufasa in a Tabori, even cathedra. And others, they discussed that even amongst the Jews and the Christians, you have people that are different, and they're just an upright.

So from this point of view, Allah subhanho wa Taala is teaching us that, yes, there are groups of people.

But not everybody is the same. And this creates a more nuanced approach to understanding different peoples, and actually prevents extremism. Because violent extremism especially is when you have in your own mind, and in your own heart, that there is a group of people, they're all enemies, they're all negative, and they're all the same. This is not a Quranic approach.

Finally,

the seventh or eighth principle I lost count, is to follow our principles. Allah subhanho wa Taala says, Oh, you who have believed? Why do you say that? Which you do not do? And this is very significant. You know,

the Muslim community is very good at jumping on the Civil Rights bandwagon. Right? Social justice, right? Everybody loves social justice. Everybody loves civil rights. Yes, right. Am I wrong? No.

But what's very interesting is that we actually start now,

following that, which we preach, becoming that which we say, doing that which we claim to be, and being that which we know,

we have to be that which we know and what which we preach. If there's a disconnect, there's no baraka and I'm giving this a sincere advice. We have an amazing movement could Black Lives Matter? Okay.

This is an amazing movement agreed. Put your hand up who agrees with Black Lives Matter? Excellent. Now, let me just give you some advice, though, do black lives matter in our community, especially amongst some of the Desi community, and from a subconscious, psychodynamic point of view, and it's very significant, we dig deep, and we approve some of these things. So we have Baraka in our political social discourse. Because brothers and sisters, there could be many black brothers in this room who converted to Islam and some of the best brothers. I know in Islam, I black brothers, very principled.

And they became a Muslim in the DC community. 10 years ago, for example, and you hear Allahu Akbar, new Muslim uncles crying, right? Uncle's crying, here's some money but Ah, right. And then teach them how to pray take care of them. And they see the man growing in Islam over 10 years. And when he's mature spiritually, when he's mature socially, he goes to the same uncle Desi uncouth as black brother and says, Uncle G, he even speaks about what to do for him throws in the towel, poetry, whatever the case may be. It says Uncle G. I know your daughter's not my I'm humbly asking for your daughter's hand. What is he going to say? Generally speaking, his pacemaker is going to jump off his

chest 11 attack would have to do CPR if I were you talking about.

And but this is significant. If we were talking about this in our communities, we're going to be finished. It's going to be a shallow community. And this is true. And I see this all the time I travel the whole world, I get the same complaints. And what happens is very interesting

is that we take this as something very light. But you know, there's a hadith integrity, which is the authentic hadith and there are two versions. One is not authentic, the other one's authentic, and listen to this very carefully and it will shock you. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, If a man comes to your daughter with good morals, and you reject him for no good reason, there will be tribulation and corruption in the world.

I repeat, if a man comes to your daughter with good morals, and you reject him for no Islamic reason, right?

There'll be corruption and tribulation in the world and the Sahaba asked him why he has some kind of deficiency. Do you know how he replied sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? If a man comes to your daughter with good morals, and you reject him for no reason to be tribulation and corruption in the world, maybe brothers and sisters, Uncle Auntie for rejecting that nice black brother

or white brother or green brother or blue brother, whoever they are. Maybe that's part of the reason why we had calamity and tribulation in the world. And this gets us to realize that our moral actions, our spiritual state of being is affecting the whole Ummah, it's affecting the whole world. And we really have to internalize this point, Allah says in the Quran, that there'll be facade on the earth and the sea because what their hands have earned, we may be the weakest link. You know, we could be protest, protesting for the Rohingya, and for the Syrian brothers and sisters and people all around the world. But if we don't adopt and internalize our own principles, there'll be no

baraka and maybe is by not internalizing those principles, that we're creating the facade, and the tribulation and calamity around the world, it's time to wake up to this reality.

So brothers and sisters,

we memorize a lot. Some of us know more Puranam Sahaba, some of you know more Hadith and some Sahaba. But what made them different is that they internalized what they knew. And that's part of really following that key principle. So just to end, brothers and sisters, to give you some hope, now not to depress you all. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in an authentic hadith, it's an abode and tell me the, he said ahead of you, there lie days of patience, during which being patient will be like the grasping of a hot coal, the one who does good deeds, then we'll have a reward like that, or 50 men who, that who do such good deeds, and someone else added, they said, O

Messenger of Allah, the reward of 50 of them, he said, the reward of 50 of you. So maybe,

depending what Trump does, we may be living in those times. And any good deeds you do, it'd be like 50, of the reward of the sahaba. So that gives you hope, that gives you glad tidings as well. But don't be under any superficial self delusion. There's work to do, and is fine is to end on this I do apologize. I've slightly run over time.

Be Muslims of real life. Allah says in the Quran, all you who have believed respond to the call of Allah and His messenger to that which gives you life yikun That which gives you a sense of life. Some of the early MSA if you don't respond to this call, you're a dead Muslim walking, and only to reflect upon your lives. Many of us our lives are no different from a life of an animal, just like what Allah has already said in his alchemy of happiness in the first few pages of that book,

because we just respond to our instincts. You may get a PhD brothers and sisters but that's still an instinct survival on a good job. You may get a pretty wife, but what is that procreation, an instinct, no different from a camera or a goal or a bacterium? You took it to Mexico for our honeymoon, same thing based on your instinct procreation, you will big house survival, boy because survival, right? get loads of kids survival, procreation. Most of the things that we do as a human species is reduced to the cool biological instincts. We're no different from a bacterium on the posterior of a dead rotting rats.

What makes you different though, what gives you your life? Allah has given you the solution. Respond to his call, Imam Buhari said responding to all that is good, be good people. May Allah bless you. Salaam Monica Rahmatullah