Hamza Yusuf – Sacred Text Messages S02 E08 – When the Famous Become Infamous, Remain Faithful

			I was given a Michelle Obama regime this minara Rahim
		

			al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala and he was he was in
the city McCarthy era acetamide Omar Abdullah II obika to Al Hamdulillah.
		

			Today I want to look at a verse that's in Sora. And it's verse 53. And whereby Allah subhana wa tada
says, What kinetico Fatah and
		

			then Leah kulu.
		

			Eman Allah Hardin de Nina. That is Hello. I'm Abbi Shakir in.
		

			So this verse basically says that we have tried some with others.
		

			And the result is that they say, oh, did Allah prefer these over
		

			us?
		

			And then Allah Subhana, Allah says, doesn't God know who the Grateful are? Doesn't he know Who? The
shacking or the people of Chicago?
		

			So this is, I think there are several verses in the Quran that deal with this issue. We don't know
about other company but then fit now we made some of your trial for others. Allah Subhana Allah says
was, but it may akuto and tells the prophets Allah Allah, it will, it will sell him to be patient
about what people are saying. But I think the general idea and there are many verses in the Quran
that indicate this, that there's a lot of trial and tribulation, in in life on Earth. So one of the
trials that I wanted to look at today was the trial of, of scandal, the idea and scandal scandal on
it's a Greek word. And the idea in scandal is that somebody falls who is highly regarded. And then
		

			that leads to a crises in the people that highly regarded that person. So for instance, recently we
had in the Christian community, there was a huge scandal that involved a very, very popular
Christian preacher who'd been actually one of the top evangelical preachers for four decades, and
have laid it came out that this person was actually a scoundrel that he, in fact, his own
organization did an internal investigative
		

			study on what happened and interviewed people saw text messages, saw this corroborating evidence and
indicated that the person was indeed just simply complete, really hypocrite. And it had a huge
impact. I mean, it was quite stunning how many Christians actually did podcasts about it? And did
things and so what it made me think about was these when these crises happen with celebrity
		

			scholars or II moms, or do add people that publicly preach Islam to to others, that when it turns
out that there's some kind of
		

			shortcoming either serious or less than serious, I mean, sometimes it's just character flaws, people
get angry people.
		

			But sometimes it's very egregious, sinful mistakes, people that actually will end up abusing other
people.
		

			I mean, there are many examples of it. So but a lot of people were just really distraught because
they'd listened to this man for decades. And that turned out that they feel like they that he was a
fraud, that they were fooled. And then it it really creates a crisis internally and people about
wondering who, like go, does this mean? And so it brings to mind a tradition from even Massoud or
the Latino the great companion of the province will I send him when he said McKenna your stent
failure stand bill may get whoever is going to follow or take a sooner let him follow somebody who's
dead for in the year that our people because the one who's alive, we don't know what his end is. And
		

			that was a really just understanding amongst the people other than the Prophet sighs um, who is my
assume, like all the prophets. They're protected and infallible in that way. They they don't have
character flaws. They don't have any sinfulness. They live transparent lives. Nobody lived a more
transparent life than the prophets Elias and we know the arguments in his household. We know
everything that happened. We know how he bathed, we know how he slept. We know how he got up in the
morning. We actually literally know how he rose from the bed. He lived a transparent life and
		

			In that way, he becomes an exemplar for anybody that wants to find the best way to live. But
		

			other than the province is nobody is free from
		

			the trials and tribulations and also just simply hypocrisy. The follow up is a very real phenomenon.
One of the things that when I was studying Arabic, many, many years ago is almost 40 years ago now,
one of the I read the format, and there was a,
		

			which is a genre in Arabic literature. It's very beautiful that it's it was actually designed more
for vocabulary acquisition. So I, but I preferred a Harrier. He is the one that everybody reads, but
I actually really liked a bit there was a man on hamadani. But he had a character in there, and the
character was a religious charlatan. And so and he was very eloquent, he would go to the mosques,
and he would say, I saw the prophets alized him and he told me to come to this mosque, in a dream,
and he was so eloquent and everybody would be mesmerized by his eloquence. And yet he was a complete
charlatan, or he would go for instance, he goes to a place and he tells them that they have a
		

			drought and he tells them, I was told by the province, I simply come here and to lead you in the in
the rain, prayer, and rain will come but there's a condition that the says that has to be extremely
long. And and so he leaves him in the prey, they go into such depth, and then he gets up and robs
all their houses and leaves them in such debt. So it really struck me at the time, I didn't really
understand why he would do that. But I came to realize later that he was actually warning people
about a character. This is a character that's very common. Talk to one of the great players by
maleah, the comedic French playwright or two of which is really worth reading, because it's about a
		

			Jesuit, a complete hypocrite that comes into a house. And this man believes him to be this religious
saint and this guide. Meanwhile, at every opportunity, he's trying to seduce the man's wife, and the
wife knows, but But the man won't listen, he won't listen to her. Her telling him this man is a
complete fraud. Again, this this is because this character exists. And one of the problems with
religious frauds is that because religion is such a,
		

			an exalted thing for believers and human beings, they can't imagine that somebody would actually lie
about something like that, because they themselves couldn't do it, they, they couldn't find it in
themselves to tell a lie about God or about a dream, I saw the Prophet slice him in a dream. That,
to me has always been a red flag when people say those things, it's, it's just a red flag, whether
it's true or not, it's a red flag for me, because I think people shouldn't share those things
easily. Except with, you know, maybe a teacher or something like that, to find out what it means.
But
		

			so it's it's quite tragic when these things happen. So this man, this Indian preacher has really
caused this problem inside the Christian community, and, and some people end up actually losing
their faith. And which strikes me is very strange, because there was a atheist,
		

			many years ago, and for decades, he was one of the leading atheist. I think his name was Anthony
flue, and he, he wrote all these books, why there is no God, and all the atheists hailed him and put
them up as this great teacher. And here's our hijjah. This is our proof that there's no God, this
great philosopher, who knows everything, and he's so smart. So of course, there can't be a God when
somebody is brilliant, as this man says, There's no God. And then at the end of his life, he ended
up converting to Christianity. And suddenly all the atheists, they didn't become Christians. They
didn't suddenly revert to, oh, the leader has has changed sides, we must change sides. No, they just
		

			said, He's, he's looking at his death, and he's just hedging his bets. I mean, they explained it in
other ways, but they didn't change their faith in nothing. They still believed in nothing, which is
quite extraordinary. So for people who say they believe in something, then when their guy switches
sides, or turns bad, they lose their faith. That doesn't make sense at all. But the problem is that
people put too much faith in celebrities, they put too much faith in leaders and every human being
on this planet.
		

			It is under God's microscope. And until they're dead, we don't know the outcome. We don't know.
There were people that were companions of the Prophet who actually left Islam. Norma Habib's
husband, he he became a mortared in a Habesha, he didn't come back with the people. So there there
will be people that leave Islam. There might even be moms and people that you looked up to who
might, in this time of great confusion, end up telling us they don't believe in God anymore or in
Islam. How does that how should that affect you? Well, if you're a believer, it shouldn't affect you
at all because we don't worship men. I mean, even the say no Omar when the prophesized him died,
		

			that incredible situation where Satan Omar was, he couldn't, he said, if anybody says he died, I'll
I'll, I'll take his head off. Because they couldn't imagine it. They never imagined that he would
die. And aboubaker got up and in that incredible moment said whoever worship to Mohammed solo I
said, I'm just know that Mohammed is dead. But whoever worship Allah,
		

			know that Allah is living and never dies. I mean, what an incredible presence of mind at that
moment. The Prophet is a messenger, and we love Him with all our heart, and our soul, and we hope
for his intercession, the day of judgment, but he is a messenger, he is delivering a message. And
that message is that either in Allah, and that's what you have to hold to. You have to hold to that
with all your heart, and not let the vicissitudes of time upset you or turn you away, because
somebody fails to live up to your expectations of what they should live up to. And I'll give you an
example. There's There's a wonderful story in in Harada, tous, the great Greek, they call him the
		

			father of history, is a great Greek historian, but he tells a sore story of creases, who was the
king of Lydia, and creases was considered the richest man of the ancient world actually had had a
proverb. richer than creases would be like today saying he's richer than Bill Gates. And this was a
just a man of immense wealth, he led the Lydian Empire which is now in in Turkey. And he actually
conquered the Greeks took tribute from them. But Harada tells a story where Sol on the great
lawgiver of Athens, he was a extraordinary philosopher and, and created the laws that really enabled
the Athenians to live in, in peace for the time. And he goes, he ends up leaving political life and
		

			wants to travel the world. So he goes to Egypt and, and visits Lydia. So he went when he gets to
Lydia and he had a great reputation so long, so he goes into crisis, his palace and creases, the
great soul on from Athens is here. So he shows him all his riches and takes him to the Treasury, and
shows them all his palaces and everything, and he's spending these days with them. And then at one
day, he says to him, who's the happiest man you've ever known? Or you've ever heard of, and he said,
that would have to be tell us and
		

			creases says, Who? He said, Tell us, he was an Athenian general. He had beautiful and good children,
he lived to see them grow old. He lived to see his grandchildren, they all survived childbirth, and
then he died gloriously in battle, defeating enemies of the Athenians and was hailed and honored by
the Athenians as a great man. He said, Well, then, who, who after tell us and he said, Oh, that
would probably be clear vision, and beaten. And he said, to clear this and be taught Who are they is
they were to youth, who, when they couldn't find the oxen to take their mother to the temple, which
was 90 miles away, to celebrate a religious festival, they actually harnessed themselves to the
		

			cart, and out of filial piety, took their mother, those 90 miles and when they got to the temple,
they dropped dead. And so they were honored for their filial piety and, and to this day, they're
still honored there. And then he looked at Solon. And at this point, he was thinking this man's a
complete idiot. And he said, Well, what do you think of me? He said, Oh, no, we could never
determine your happiness until you're dead. Because a man we never know what's going what, what the
vicissitudes of time, will bring what tragedies could fall upon you. So we that's not something we
can determine. creases thought he was a complete idiot at this point. And later, Harada just tells
		

			us that he goes, he wants to invade Cyrus kulish, the great Persian king
		

			Who Some say his little codename? And he goes to the Athenian Delphic Oracle, and he asked them
		

			should he pursue that and the Delphic Oracle, in its usual enigmatic way says, Oh, well, if you, if
you cross this river, you will defeat a great empire. So he takes out as a green light, like April
glaspie, when she told saddam that the Americans have no interest in in Kuwaiti Iraq, he disputes
that he took that as a green light, little did he know how that would change. So So at that point,
he thinks, oh, he's going to defeat Cyrus, he doesn't know he, it's his empire that he's going to
destroy. And so he, he crosses, and then Cyrus defeats him in battle, and then to punish him and to
show the lydians and all the kings around, that they shouldn't mess with Cyrus, he orders that he be
		

			burnt at the stake. And so they create this funeral, this pyre and they, they put them on, on the
stake and and
		

			they light the fire. And as it begins to burn, Cyrus is watching this and he hears creases, call out
soul on soul on soul on and Cyrus wants to know what he's saying. So he tells him put out the fire.
Harada says it actually rained at that point. But then he brings him down, he asked him, Well, what
were you saying? He said, I was remembering a very wise man, whose wisdom I did not understand until
this moment. And it's he's a man that I wish every ruler could have a conversation with. The point
of that story is again, you don't know until people are dead their lives. People have horrible
scandals and things affect them. And if you look at somebody like there was a man that might you
		

			know, my father studied with Martin Van Doren. And he had a son, who was a brilliant man, Charles
Van Doren. And he had a terrible scandal he was, had an illustrious career ahead of him. But it was
cut short by the scandal on a television quiz show where he was pretending to know these answers and
didn't and ended up destroying his career and scandalized a lot of people. Because he was a lot of
kids were starting to study because they were so impressed with all his knowledge. But he is the
story they never tell about him and read for did a film on him, called the quiz show. And the story
they never tell about him is he spent the rest of his life editing the Encyclopedia Britannica, like
		

			he became that man that he was pretending to be as, like a type of penance, which is quite
extraordinary. It's, it's an amazing story. But this, this is life on Earth, and you cannot, you
have to be focused on God, you cannot be focused on people. And if you're fortunate to have a good
teacher, then that's, that's wonderful for you. But if you're, if you have the misfortune, of having
a bad teacher, just know a few things. One, that there's something to be learned from that, because
I've had, I've had teachers that ended up really disappointing me, but I've also had some incredible
teachers. And I genuinely hope that I never disappoint anybody, but
		

			this is life on earth. And you can't, you know, as as
		

			you know, the poet said, you say, you lost your faith, you know, it's not like that you had no faith
to lose, and you know it, I mean, that there's a lot of truth in that, like, what kind of faith is
it that you can lose it?
		

			You have to hold on to your faith, and certainly faith in in Alon is messenger. So when these things
happen, it's just really important to, to hold on. And just know that this too shall pass that
whatever happened, if there was real abuse, if you were the victim of somebody, who, for instance,
sexually abused like that, unfortunately, there's some of these so called teachers
		

			end up even violating
		

			women or children or whatever happens. It happened in our air, there's a parent teacher that was
actually turned out that he was molesting children. These things happen, they're great.
		

			calamity, calamities, that if we followed the son of the Prophet, if somebody invited you to their
hotel room, that's a red flag, you just don't go It doesn't matter who it is. And you and you think,
Oh, well, he's a chef, he must know. No, you should know you have to know the Sharia. And I'll just
there's there's a really interesting story. There was a West African chef who had some Mediterranean
students and he always showed deference to the morning.
		

			Italian students and the other West Africans were. They just were upset by that. And one day, they
asked the teacher, why do you prefer these Mauritanians? And he said, Well, it's something I know
about them. And that was his answer. But then Time passed. And when the day of arafah came
		

			the day before he told all of these students not to fast on our sofa.
		

			And so the next day they came, and he asked, who's who's fasting, and all the Mauritanian students
raised their hand. And, and then the chef looked at me said, didn't I say, not too fast tomorrow?
And they said, you did but the province eyes and told us we should fast. And and so he just looked
at the other he said, This is why I prefer them is that they're not blind followers. Like you don't
be a blind follower, you have, God has made you a sovereign individual, you cannot give up that
sovereignty for somebody else. You have to hold on to that. And you have to use your brain. And
Sufism, unfortunately, is one of those
		

			sciences that can be grossly abused in the wrong hands. And that's why again, traditionally, unless
you had studied shadia, you really weren't supposed to go into tussle wolf. Because you have to have
the criteria. You have to know the criteria to judge things. He Mamata has already said something
extraordinary. He said don't know the truth through men, no men through the truth.
		

			And and this is why it should not affect your faith when you see these things. In fact, it really
should just confirm the fact that this is about you and God. It's not about you, and
		

			whoever that teacher is. So unfortunately, there are abusive teachers out there. This is a time of
abuse the prophesies and warned us about monaca *, you know, and he said, The thing I fear most
for my oma is a hypocrite who has an eloquent tongue, somebody that doesn't do what they say. So I
just I hope people really think about this, because I think it's a really important issue. And and
		

			it's it's very tragic, and it's very sad. And for people who have been victims of these things, I
completely can understand. But you can't let this affect your faith in that way. If anything, it
should it should wake you up to the importance of having first and foremost a relationship with your
Lord and and with your profits on the lightest send them through following his learning his
teachings and following his teachings. And then being having discernment. And being able to discern
things red flags are real. And you should be able to discern when something's not right.
		

			And, and that's why the problems I sent it was said a stuffed aliquot of token, like listen to your
heart, even if people say otherwise, because one of the problems are not. And I'm going to talk
about this inshallah, about groupthink and the problem of groupthink because it's a very serious
problem. It's a human problem, but it's certainly a problem in religions. When people think as a
group as opposed to individuals, and we're raised up as four other the Quran says, we come to God on
the day of judgment as individuals, we're not judged as nations. The judgment of nations is in this
world. But the but the judgment in the next world is that as it was done with little or no soul,
		

			there's a sense of another soul.
		

			So that's really, really an important thing. And this could even be your own spouse, unfortunately,
um, you could be in a relationship, and then that relationship could turn you're like, why is God
doing this to me? Well think of us. Yeah. I mean, ASIO was in the house of their own. And she was
being abused by the greatest tyrant in human history. And she's asking God to build her house in
paradise. In other words, this house is this worldly houses a house in *. But I know that you're
real, and that this is a trial. And so just remember that people have suffered greatly. There's
people right now in horrible situations. There's people right now. I mean, I feel sorry for them.
		

			But there's people right now in in sexual trafficking, and some of them have faith. They're praying
to God to get them out of those situations.
		

			And, and so I think it's also important to keep things into perspective.
		

			Because we can, we can our own private little experiences can become so distorted in the grand
picture of things
		

			And the province of Lyceum reminded us of the people of the past. They had their tongues cut out,
they were torn from limb to limb, and yet it didn't diminish their faith. And he mentioned that in
that famous Hadeeth Habad.
		

			When he asked him to make dua, he mentioned that you're people that are you're, you're impatient to
stand, you know, you're trying to hasten something that will come in it's time. So stay on the path,
hold to the path, adhere to the path, don't deviate from the path. And if your teacher deviates from
the path, don't follow them, follow the path.
		

			In fact, I think one of the best examples of somebody who had false teachers and yet that did not
prevent them from continuing their journey. In fact, they saw that as part of their journey is the
greatest hobby salamander fantasy, because Sandman or the Aloha Anna was born in Persia and he was
actually raised as a fire worshiper, and he served the temple. He actually learned he the the rites
and traditions of the Zoroastrians, and he served the temple. One of the things that the priests
told him is the fire never went out, but he knew that it did, and they would relight it. So he saw
that there was something false about that. But then there were Christian nestorian churches in
		

			Persia, and he would hear them singing and praying. And he thought, this religions better than our
religion. In the end, he told his father and his father actually, at one point, tied him up in the
house, to prevent him that he was afraid he would go join the Christians. And then he asked the Kool
Aid, or he asked the Christians where their religion came from, and they said Syria, and so which
met Sham at the time, which included Palestine in these plays greater Syria.
		

			And so he set out to Syria. And then he came to when he got to Sham, he asked, Who was the best
person in this religion, and they said, Oh, that's the Bishop of this church. So he went there. And
he told the man, where he was from, and he said, I want I want to learn this religion and serve. But
the bishop was a bad man. He was a false teacher. And he saw him he would exhort people to charity,
and yet he would hoard gold. So he was doing the opposite of what he was teaching. And so salmaan
then went and looked for another teacher. And then he met a Christian who told him that the hour is
coming soon when the last prophet was, will come forth. And he's in Medina. And so then he set out
		

			from Medina, and he was actually tricked by people, and they enslaved them, and sold him to a Jew.
And so, I mean, this is incredible trials and tribulations, but he was so inner focused, that he
wasn't to, oh, this must I'm sincere. And yet here I am enslaved. He didn't he didn't do he didn't
lose his faith. He was searching. And when he came to Medina, he and the he heard from the Christian
the signs that the prophesized him had so because of his sincerity, Allah took him through bad
teachers and false religions, to the true teaching. And to the true teacher, the Prophet sallallahu
said I'm so I think he's a really remarkable example of just recognizing that you can have bad
		

			teachers, and that's part of your path to God.
		

			One of the first things in fact, it was the very first thing that I translated, when I got back to
the United States was a little text by CD Amazon,
		

			called the I called it foundations of the spiritual path. I mean, he called it all sort of Edina,
which are the roots or the principles of our spiritual path. And it was basically a way of
determining
		

			a true teacher from a false teacher. So we're gonna have a link, inshallah, to that paper that was
published in seasons, which was the journal before renovado. So if, if you want to look that's a
short piece, but it's very useful and I hope people derive some benefit from it. botica love UConn
was set on mighty calm