Hamza Yusuf – We Have Become Empty People
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of protecting one's privacy and being wary of foreign influence in Islam. They emphasize the need for a culture of soundity and privacy for the modern man. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of teaching children empathy and making them aware of their privacy. The speaker provides examples of successful Jewish community success, including their success in attracting immigrants and educating people on their values.
AI: Summary ©
And it's a description of the Prophet, which is very important because one of the things that every believer will be tested by is in the grave, it will be said to them first, who is your Lord? mirrabooka? And then what is your religion? And then what do you say about this man, and it says have a module, which they are used for presence, so people actually see the profit item in their grade. And they should know that description so they recognize them. So that's traditionally why the halo was very important for people. And the other thing about the Hillier is, what's stunning about the profit size stems physical description is that he was balanced in everything. He was neither
short nor tall, you know, he was a moderate stature, his skin was neither pasty white, nor was it dark, it was a middle color. He his his physical appearance was moderate, His hair was neither straight nor curly, it was wavy, that everything was balanced. So the prophesize Sam is a perfectly balanced human being not just spiritually and intellectually, but also physically. And so it's very important for Muslims, to remember that our religion is a religion of balance of a tea, that the Prophet was more attentive in everything, you would call all those descriptions that that were given up him, that it's much better, it's in the in between, you know, he could have been very tall. But
he wasn't, although he always appeared taller than whoever he was with. But that was one of his miracle. So in terms of the crisis of knowledge, I mean, one of one of, I believe that, that the crisis in the Muslim world is always a crisis of knowledge that every crisis that the world faces is ultimately a crisis of knowledge. If you look, for instance, at the economic crisis, the real economic crisis is not about collapsing markets, it's not about derivatives, it's not about triple A loans being,
you know, passed off, or single a loans being passed off as triple A loans. You know, those are all symptoms of a much deeper crisis. And the crisis is ultimately about what is economics? And then what what drives human beings to greed? Why are they greedy? And why will they, because of their greed, do things that are harmful to other people? What is it in the psychological makeup of certain people that greed will be so destructive, that they will actually destroy themselves as well as others? Those are all problems of knowledge. They're not that so. And then political problems? Why do politicians fail so often? Because they don't, they don't either. They don't utilize the
knowledge they have, for instance, many of our problems now we actually know what causes them. We have social scientists that study these things. But social science isn't us. For instance, we know what produces extremism, we know the social circumstances that produce extremism. And we know the types the psychological profiles of people that become extremists, but that knowledge is not used instead, false knowledge is presented platitudes. For instance, the Palestinians, Mark Twain visited Palestine over 100 years ago, he didn't describe them as being violent. They're quite the opposite. He didn't experience them as violent. We know that Florence Nightingale lived for almost two years
in Egypt. And she also lived in Turkey. And she actually has wonderful things to say, um, she was troubled by certain things that she saw in the political class. But by and large, she was very struck by a lot of the positive things about Islam. And so how is it that somebody
over 100 years ago, could write very positive things about Islam, and yet today, it's very difficult for people to say anything positive about Islam, right, this is a corruption of knowledge, because Islam has been presented as something other than it is. And there's agendas behind that. So for me, all of the problems that we are confronted with the ills of the world are ultimately related to how we understand the world. And so understanding is central changing our understanding rectifying our knowledge is really important. Well, I you know, I was struck I was with Satan of people outdoors the other day, and he used innocent ignorance and arrogant ignorance, and I and I hadn't heard those
terms before. Generally the way I learned it was compounded ignorance and simple ignorance. But I actually liked the idea of it using innocent ignorance and arrogant ignorance because essentially, that's, that's getting by saying compound ignorance and simply ignorance, you're not getting to the real problem. Because innocent ignorance is when people have a purity that enables them to say, I don't know, because being able to say I don't know, is comes from like a child. A child will just say, I don't know.
Whereas, you know, we have there's an essay written by an American philosopher, which, unfortunately he entitled it with a word that I don't say privately. So I certainly won't say it on the radio. But anyway, the initials are BS. And and what he argued in that is that there was so much BS in the world, you know?
And, and, and he he wants to he asked the question in the essay why why why is there so much
you know, people just pretend to know things and they just say things and it's just rubbish that's what the British call it rubbish. It used to be called Balderdash. Just empty, can follow the you know, the Iraqi say hace Fabi you know, empty words. Why is there so much of that? He argues in there, because people feel they have to have an opinion about everything. And and that's a disease, just to be able to say, I don't know, in fact, our scholars used to teach I don't know as part of knowledge, and they would say that it was half of knowledge that if you know I don't know, you already know half of knowledge. And and they warned about * saying letter who formally said I
could be here and don't say things that you don't have knowledge of the Quran warns us. Letter Kuru.
Letter seafood Taku Taku let's go to toss before acid elsina to commit Kadam had helado. Maharani testudo Allah don't describe with your tongues by saying lies about Allah as Dean, this is halaal and this is haram. So we're warned about these things. And yet arrogant ignorance is what compels people out of arrogance, even though they're ignorant. Their arrogance assumes that I can't be ignorant, because I'm me. You know, I'm so important. my opinions are so important. So we flooded the world with empty opinions. We have all these people talking nonsense. And people that know the subject they're talking about can see that they're just full of, you know, air, they're hot air, you
know, but this is a problem. And so simple ignorance. It's really important. Traditionally, people who didn't know they would just say go as soon so he knows Sahaba or the law on him. They didn't like to answer questions. They used to defer it to other people because they felt the heaviness of having to say what what the religion says about something as a weighty thing. Now we have every Tom dick and Bella just feels compelled to give their opinions on the internet, we have what they called trolls, you know, these empty people with vacuous lives that have no meaning other than defined meaning by defaming or slandering or attacking the words of other people. That's what we have. We
have an empty people that won't even write their real names. They won't even say where they're from. They're just they're just empty people. And so we have, we have empty suits walking around, the lights around nobody's home. And this is a crisis of the modern people, we've become empty people. One of the things humans are called Elaine, the two weighty ones, humans and jinn, they're called fucka. Lane. That's what the Quran calls them. Were the ones were weighty creatures. We're not frivolous, empty creatures, we're supposed to have gravitas. Wait, there was a film recent called gravity, which was just about these idiots out in space floating around. And this is modern man,
we've been freed from the atmosphere of the Earth. We're just are we're spiritually without gravity. There's nothing that's holding us down spiritually anymore. So we're just floating in space.
I mean, I, I'm a student of knowledge. I don't consider myself really a scholar. I'm probably by Western standards, but by by the standards of my own teachers. I mean, my my teachers were, you know, they started when they were very young, I became Muslim when I was 18. So the the key years are from about seven till about 24. If you really want to master the Islamic tradition, it's very hard once you get into, you know, the post, teen period, study becomes more difficult. The memorization is not as easy and our tradition demands a lot of rote memorization. But you have to love knowledge. Not everybody is meant to be a scholar, God did not intend for all of us to be
scholars, we should all love scholars, we shall honor scholars.
Ahmad ibn Abdul Aziz said that you should be asked and it's based on a hadith but he said you should be a scholar. He said about the statement of the Prophet via scholar, or be a student of a scholar, or be a helper of a scholar, or at least loved them if you can't afford to help them, at least love them. And, and, and don't become other than those and be perish. And so, almost another as he said about that, he said, God, the prophet sighs him didn't leave. He gave everybody a place. So like you remember cazale his father was very simple, man. He was a he's a world card.
Like some say that a facade is actually a facade with a shadow because his father was because he carded wool. But he was not a scholar, but he loves scholars, and he, he, he served them and he begged God to that his children would be scars, he has two sons, Mohammed and Mohammed of Mohammed, obviously love the Prophet sighs me name them both after the prophet and and they became both of them became great scholars, you know and and the parents of the half of Quran are given a crown of light on the Day of Judgment. So even if you're not a scholar, you should hope at least one of your children becomes a scholar, you know, Muslims, like Irish Catholics, because I come from, you know,
orthodox Catholic background, my father was Catholic, but the Irish Catholics used to always give one at least one son to the priesthood and one daughter as a nun. They have big families, but it was something they just, that's what you did if you were Irish,
you know, because they, they love their religion. And Muslims should really want you know,
at least one of their children to to, you know, they should all want them to all learn the deen and practice the deen but they at least want one of them to because it's such a noble thing. This is the, the wild leaf of the prophets is to call people to the truth. That's the wild leaf that's there. The prophets that innama Beretta more animal people don't want to be teachers anymore. You know, they don't, and I'm not talking about becoming a lot of people want to be famous, which is a sickness. You know, a lot of people look at, like, you know, people that have, you know, kind of celebrity status in our tradition now, because of because of media and isn't that's just a
tribulation. The Prophet said, It's enough of a fitna that people point fingers when you walk by, like, that's not a good thing.
So that is a disease if for to want to do that. But to want to be somebody who teaches elementary school and forms the, you know, the the minds of young people, that's very noble pursuit. And we don't have enough really talented people that want to do those jobs, because they're jobs that don't have a lot of social status anymore. And there's, it's questionable whether they ever did except in very rare period, say information that you have to love knowledge and art, like I tell students at zaytuna that the first year students, I say, if you don't love to read, if you don't love if, if dictionaries aren't one of your favorite pastimes, like I read dictionaries for fun, you know, so
if, if dictionaries aren't one of your favorite pet, you're in the wrong place. Yeah, you're in the wrong place. And and, you know, if you want to come and do dicker, or recite, you know, in shadow or something like that, that's not the path of study, you can go do that other places people do that they, you know, even Sufism now to solve was a serious pursuit study, you know, the Sufi is were traditionally great scholars. Now the Sufi is have that it's rare to find Sufi that have real knowledge. They don't know. They don't know al Qaeda. They don't you know, but but they, you know, they're nice people, they have good character, but they're not they're not of the early Sophie's,
it's very rare to find that, unfortunately.
I would say that, that, you know, making claims is a very dangerous thing in our tradition. There's people that claim to be the this saved sec, you know, I'd forgotten Nadia, if you ever hear anybody say that, that we're on the truth.
Then you should, red flag should go up. In fact, in the Quran, when Allah says, way, the PETA home led to sido for art in the magnanimous the home, and in the home, home and Musudan where I can lie around
him. So Allah says, you know, if it's said to them don't so corruption in the earth. They say, we're not corrupting. We're only setting things straight. And then God says about these people after describing what they say. He says, indeed, Aren't they the corrupters. But they're unaware. You know, it's like, they don't even know In other words, that it's that arrogant ignorance, you know, and
what Mr. McWhirter B says in his Tafseer is the first sign that they're not rectifying is that they claim to be rectifying.
That's the first sign the fact that they're saying we're setting things right is the first sign that they're they're not they're doing the opposite, because the people that really do the work, they don't make the claims. And so it's very dangerous to make claims. And, and, and what what I would hope I think every Muslim should be certain about Islam, but they should, they should always have a sense of fallible
about their understanding of Islam, we hope that our understanding is the correct understanding. You know, and we should believe that, but this idea somehow that my understanding is the only understanding is the only correct understanding. That is the height of arrogance. And, and so I believe in what I'm doing, and I believe that I believe in the format tabs, you know, I really, that's what makes sense to me, not because I was, I was taught that, and I was taught that, but because, you know, because I became Muslim as an adult, and I already had a formed intellect. And so when I came into Islam, I got very interested for instance, in the beginning, you know, I became
Muslim with Sudanese, but because of the Iranian Revolution, I got very interested in, in the Shia, because I, for me, I was just a Muslim, you know, and I didn't have any tribe, you know, I wasn't born in Iran, or born, you know, I was born in America, so, so I got interested in, in, in the Shia tradition, you know, because very exciting at that time, it was 1979 80. And so I started studying about the Shia tradition. But what struck me about Shia tradition that really bothered me was I couldn't understand how the Prophet sighs him could have companions for all his life like Abu Bakar. And, and, and that he was a bad guy, he just the Prophet just didn't know it. That just didn't make
sense to me. I just couldn't. So it didn't convince me. Like, when I read it, it just didn't convince me. You know, I know the fitna and I studied that period, and there was a lot of terrible things that were done to the Alan Bates. And, but the argument that was made, just didn't make sense to me. Whereas when I studied about the methods, the argument made perfect sense to me. One, it made me feel like that was part of the beauty of Islam, that there were different ways of interpreting and, and they the each school acknowledged the other schools, validity in in differing with them, because they were based on sound methodological principles. So that made sense to me. And, and, and
so and then also an RFP that it made sense to me that you would need a sophisticated dialectical theology, that made sense to me, because new problems would arise, and you would have to have some way of addressing those problems. So this idea that somehow the the theology that that developed in Islam is, is prohibited, and that this is a bit out or something like that. That didn't make sense to me. So the I was very convinced by these arguments, and then also the tasawwuf, which is the spiritual psychology of Islam, understanding the self that made sense to me with criticism. I mean, the greatest critic of the Sophie's was the mama, Daddy, you know, if you read what he has to say,
he was very critical, and he wrote a book about the delusions of the Sophie's, so the idea that anybody who claims to be a Sufi is simply rightly guided is that's foolishness, but to serve as a science is part of Islam, and should be taught as such. And so for me, that's the foundation of a sound tradition. And, and this is the Malaya Islam. You know, you were you were Shafi. Right. And you were Ashanti and, and, and, and and then you had different Sufi traditions in your culture. And that's the song that you embraced. That's the song that made sense to your ancestors. So to change that now to say, Oh, they were wrong. So you've been wrong all these hundreds of years. And now
we're going to bring you the true Islam. Well, that means you what you accepted wasn't Islam, it was something else. So maybe after reassess the whole religion, you know, this is this kind of argument just doesn't make sense. Well, the first thing to remember is a lot of groups claim to be at a pseudo GMR. You know, they claim to be but and and we should be wary, like I said of claims, but we can, we should be able to say that we know for certain who was on the sooner we'll jump right in the past, and we should try to be as close to them and as soon of the past for over 1000 years followed one of the format hubs. I mean, as hard which was a great bastion of Sunni thought, for the last 400
years, they've almost 400 years they've taught Ibrahim Allah Khan is Joe Hara. And in there he says, well, medical Messiah in Kedah herbal possum who that oma for YG Boone taquito Hebron Minho, cada hackle como Villa the new normal, which means that Moloch and he was a Maliki but he's a medic and the other three imams as well as our Casa meaning emammal Junaid the way of the the the soul of Imam at Junaid which email even even even taymiyah who's used sometimes as a sledgehammer against Sufism. He he agreed that Imam Junaid was rightly guided he mom so that way they said that it's an obligation to follow
Have these Imams and and that was understood that that Muslims had to follow an Imam. I mean I'll give you an example one example very simple example to show the complexity of this. It whenever you have a Hadees and it's prohibited for common people to to read Hadees without a teacher, but whenever you have a Hadeeth the item the scholar has to understand what was the How was the Prophet speaking because sometimes he was speaking as a Mufti and sometimes he was speaking as an AVI, and sometimes he was speaking as a judge, a ruler assault on because he was all those things. Sometimes he's speaking as somebody giving advice. So for instance, in the Hadith, which is in the collection,
Hynde, the wife of Abu sufian comes to the Prophet Salaam. And she says, obviously, Theon doesn't give me enough money to live. And so what should I do? And so he said, haldimand, Madhavan model, take from his money, what's socially acceptable for your status in Mecca? Take what you need, which meant take it without his permission. Now, Abu hanifa vilano said the Prophet was acting as as a movie. And so that means that a woman can take money from her husband
without him knowing if he's not giving her enough, but he said, No, he was acting as a coffee. And so it's only the party that can give the woman permission to do that. It's a different DC to understand the difference. So so that the same Heidi arrives at two different conclusions. In other words, with the party, every case is is is individual, and the party has to look into the case, but with the Mufti.
Also, it's individualized, but he's giving a general outcome, just a ruling. And there are many examples of that in our tradition. So people that go directly to the Quran and the Hadith will go astray. They will go astray, and they will lead others astray and the prophets are licensed said in a heartbeat and Buhari that one of the signs of the end of time is that knowledge is taken from people. And he said and then people will take ignorant people as their as their knowledge heads. These are the the the arrogant, ignorant ones. And he said they will ask them questions and they will give them fatwa. And they will go astray by doing it and lead others astray by giving them that
and this is a big problem. So now we have this dash what they call the dolla Islamia for the Aqua Sham, you know, we have these people in, in Syria and Iraq, the chopping off heads and doing all these horrible things in the name of Islam, where are they getting their source, they're reading the Quran, they'll quote you versus verbal rehab. The Quran says strike their heads off, they'll they'll quote you verses, but those are the meanings of those verses. And that's why the Prophet said that these are people less likely to gel with Quran. The Quran won't go past their throats. In other words, they'll recite it, but the meanings won't get to their hearts. That's how he described them.
And in the rewire of noraim been hammered in in the chapter of sciton. He said when you see the black flags coming, you know, the black flags, and he said, then you see these people, they will have names where they like Abu Koon a smile hongcun they will have names like Abu Flan, and he said they will be that miserable home or poorer, that their their names will go back to towns and like countries like Libya and Missouri and Iraq and Baghdad Baghdadi. That's what he said. And then he said, and their hair will be long, right? And he said, when you see them. Then he said these will be people without wafaa they're not loyal people. They're treacherous people. And he condemned them. So
this is one of the signs you know, that that these people were warned about, but people don't know these things. They're ignorant. You know, and so people think, Oh, this is the dolla Islami it's not a donut Islamia. It's a it's it's, it's not it's it's falda you know, it's anarchy. And you look at them, they're like little kids. I mean, they had one of them that was really spinning a tank around. I don't know if you saw that footage from CNN, he was literally spinning a tank like a like adolescents do with a car. You know, when they get a car and they like to spin it in circles. With the tank, I looked down and said these are just little punks. You know, they're they're like kids,
but but unfortunately, they're not kids. They're they're adults, and they're responsible for their actions. And and, and Muslims are fooled by this. I don't know which Muslims but there are because there are people going from other countries. And I hope the malayer spared that man came to the prophet and he said jasola the need for jihad. I want to go on Jihad and he said is Are your parents alive? And and he said yes. And he said for hemophilia had to
You had with by taking care of your parents. And also in shadia, you have to ask your parents permission to go and fight. They have a right to say no, you need to stay. I need you. They have that right. You know, Islam is not this simplistic religion. It's simple. Anybody can understand the basics of Islam. But it's a complex tradition. And you can't just think that that these simplistic answers or solutions are going to address the real complex troubles of our time. The prophesized man has nice, nomina, methodical melayani. The view from the beautiful as long as a man reminds his own business? And so that's a really good question. You know, about what do we do in our homes? The
first thing I would say,
you know, that after prayer, the biggest chapter in books, is his, his his family law.
Yeah, why is this very important? It's very important, because after your personal relationship with God, the next most important relationship is the relationship of the family. And then the next biggest chapter is commercial law. And the Hanafi is, I heard from chef Nibali Appleby, that the Hanafi students, they study a famous book of hanafy. And they divided into three sections. So they have the first section is a bad death. So you learn the five pillars. The second section is unki ha, so you learn the marriage laws. And then the last section is commercial law. And so they they say that the first section, the teacher, and the students understand it, the second section, the teacher
understands it, but the students don't understand it. And the third section, the teachers don't understand it, and the students don't understand it. Because we were so divorced from from commercial from real, practical, commercial solutions. And that's why Malaysia is at the cutting edge of trying to, to, to revamp the the Islamic finance tradition, really don't, you have to recognize how important that is. Malaysia is literally at the cutting edge. I mean, there's some of the Gulf states are concerned about it. But Malaysia is really trying to do a lot to get into Islamic Finance, and provide. I was with one of the senators here, who was the editor of a textbook,
on Islamic Finance, very comprehensive, you know, so it's really good. So, in terms of in the house, the first thing to note is that your house is Donald Islam, and the parents are the are the President and the pm in the house. And the children are your subjects, you know, they're the citizens of the house. And so you have to run the house like a little country. And and so you really have to see it as a country, and that you have to defend the house from invasion. And one of the biggest invasions is the television, because the armies of the police come in with the television, it really they come in, if you turn on that television, it's like having an open sewer in your front
room. It's just like, it's just letting all that filth come into those pure, innocent children's minds. And so that's my primary advice is it recognize that the television it used, you should not have broadcast television, if you do have a screen,
then you should monitor what they watch. And it should be very limited. Because obviously, you know, if you completely prohibited which the Orthodox Jews do, by the way, in America, the Orthodox Jews have no televisions in their homes. So and same with the Amish people have no talvin. So Christians and Jews, there are Christians, Jews that do it. Okay, so it's not like you can't do it. There are people from other traditions that do it. But
what what sometimes happens, especially when you're living in a society where all the other children do it, is it becomes the thing they're prohibited from, and the Arabs say, a level a sham, a hermit, you know, the most delightful things are the things prohibited, so kids will want to go and then they'll start being hypocritical, go behind your back. So it's important to have, you know, maybe some things that if you have Islam, some Muslim friendly,
things that they can see that are that are really monitored, you know, like, once a week, or something. That's, that's what, in the early period, I didn't let my kids see anything. But then I saw that they would go to other people's houses and do things. So as you know, as time went on, I realized that I had to do something about so I tend to, you know, let them see something, you know, once a week maximum, and I don't let them play on any of these Game Boys and things to have a total control. But yeah, you know, and I explained to them, why you have to let them once they get to the level where they can understand it. You have to explain to them
Why, you know, make sense to them. And once they get old, there's nothing you can do about it, they're going to do what, what they want, the best thing you do is instill those principles and virtues in them at a young age inculcate as much as you can. And then the other thing I'd say that's extremely important is empathy is teaching your children empathy. Malay, Mashallah, humility is a very natural thing for your people, which is a great blessing because the Malay children, you know, that that I can see it, they're just raised to be humble, which, which is a good thing. But also, you have to make sure that they're very confident. So you don't want them to be obsequious. You
know, where they're where they don't
have a sense of self, you know, you want them to have a, you know, where they're not gonna, they're gonna not to keep going to cave into pressure. You know, there's a, there was a man in South Africa, I think it was 105 or something. And he was asked about, you know, what it was like, were there any perks at being so old? And he said, Absolutely. And they said, what he said, No more peer pressure.
because nobody's alive at his age, right. So the point is, peer pressure is very strong. And when kids are young, is very important. They want to fit in, you know, one of the things that I realized in homeschooling my children is that they were very individualistic, so they didn't need to fit in. But if you send them to a school, they get a herd mentality. And we're, we're, we're tribal people by nature. Humans are tribal. Orang Asli is our everybody's background. We all came from Orang Asli, you know, and so, because of that, they want to be like others. They want to dress like them, eat like them, talk like them. And so you need to really instill in them a sense of self where they
don't The Prophet said what they know. Unfortunately, you know, that accustom yourself not to being Yes Men, either as an as a symptom if people do good, you do good way that has a certain ness to them. And if people do bad, you do bad, right? But he said, but do good when when they do good and don't do bad when they do bad. So that's something you have to train kids to do that. Anyway, I hope those are useful. He said that all of them come from three sources. And remember that he quotes him. So obviously, he a mama
Rosati, concurs with him about this assessment. He said tencha will fit into ansata de novo all fit and come from three people. It will be
part of his demand Akbar, Allah Akbar, newscasters, news hounds, and consumers of news. And he said, Well, I also had a Minnesota, hydrothermal mallamma, and none of the three are free from blame. So if that's true, if all fitna comes from from newscasters, people, spreading news, people seeking news and people consuming news, that means that that we're in the age of fitna, because the internet is either people spreading news, people looking for news, or people
consuming news. And so by the nature of the time we're in its age of fitna, unfortunately, the prophet warned us about this about the time of fitna and one of the things he said can help them analyse vatika you know, cling to your home because you can protect your home. So it's very important for people to recognize we have to rectify ourselves and our homes, our children, we have to protect our children. But it's very important for people to understand that you have a sound Islam here traditionally, it needs revamping, Islam always needs renovation to the you have to renovate. But the the basis of Islam in Malaysia is very sound, it is a sound Islam. It's it's an
attempt to try to bring in foreign versions of Islam that aren't your own, you're going to divide your people and and that you should be very wary of anybody that's teaching you a version of Islam that's different from what your ancestors taught you. That's the best advice that I could give you, anybody that teaches you a different version of Islam than what your ancestors practiced. You should be very wary of it. And and and that doesn't mean that everything that they did your ancestors did was, you know, the best case thing or someday they were human, they might have had their faults and things like that. That's true. But we have a principle in Monaco, that if people are practicing
something, and the deal is weak, and you have a stronger deal, you should not try to impose that stronger deal because once it has become practice, to try to change the practice will create fitna and so they actually saw that leaving people on what they were doing was better than trying to change it even if it was better. If in changing it you would create dissension amongst the people.
The thing about religion, the essence of our religion, is to bind our hearts to God, and then to bind our hearts to each other. That's the purpose of religion. And so if religion severs your tie with God, because of the harshness of people, that you know, now there's people turning away from religion because of the way it's being practiced. So if it severs your heart from God, it's not true religion, and if it severs your hearts from others, even non Muslims, yes, if it's doing that it's not true religion. Our Prophet didn't teach us to hate people. He said, Who, among the diseases of the civilizations has come to you and has to do with Baba envy and hatred? That's the disease of
competitiveness, and, and, and the disease of civilizations that are in decay. And he said it dead, but he they come, it comes slowly. And so now that you can see these things starting to emerge in your society, Malaysia was never perfect. No society is, but it has a lot of blessing. People have been criticizing me for speaking so highly of Malaysia. They're like, Brother, you don't know you haven't been here. It's not like you think it is. I'm not stupid. I know that you have problems every country does. But my, my focus is to remind you, be grateful for what you have for the blessings you have. Be thankful. Don't complain all the time because once you start complaining,
Allah will take those blessings away from you. Be grateful for what you have, and he will increase your blessings in Allah, Allah, you know, maybe Coleman had to you know, not be unforeseen, that he could be an Aloha, let me call Maria net mutton and Allah Allah Coleman had the Euro mobium husum. Allah does not change blessings that he gave to a people until they change what's in themselves in regards to those blessings. In other words, they don't honor those blessings. So Malaysia you have you have the blessing of family, guard your families, protect your families preserve you, you have the blessing of treating all people with respect, guard that you have the blessing of children that
obey your parents, to a large extent guard that protect that you have the blessing of a government. I don't care how bad your government is, I'm sure it's got problems every government does. But if you go outside, you have infrastructure. It's the government that's providing your water in your homes. It's the government that's that's facilitating your the the roads that you drive on. It's the government that that that that's policing your streets so that people aren't robbed and accosted, that government is a great blessing, just in and of itself, no matter how bad I live, my country is becoming increasingly like a tyrannical police state, it's still better than than anarchy. It's
still better than tyranny. There's a lot of problems in America. But those of us who live inside the country, we have to appreciate that there's social order, once order breaks down, it's Syria, as the Ask the 5 million Syrian refugees, what they think about the situation now? And if they could do it all over again, would they do it? Was it worth it? Was the great revolution worth it? Seriously, as them as the Libyans, what would they rather have a be under a value right now? Or would they rather have the situation like it is, as the Iraqis, if they'd like to have saddam back, if it would bring order back to their society, the vast majority of them will tell you they would. So people have to
be realistic, things break down, things fall apart, we have a
global order right now that has incredible problems. There's a lot and I am the first to criticize it. But let me tell you, you know, in a world where the global order breaks down, you have neighbors with great power, that don't have any qualms about coming and invading you because they've done it in the past, you know, and if they want your natural resources come, Malaysia is not a strong military country. So when you have a society where it's, it's the strong, eat the weak, that's not a society that, that people that that are weaker, want to live in. We want social order. And that's why if you don't respect the weak in your society, you know, the Orang Asli, the, the the
minorities, or if you don't respect them, then God won't respect you. And he'll send people here to you know, this is what he does. This is the Son of God in His creation, we get what we deserve. And so that's my advice. You know, you have Chinese people that live here, they're Malaysian, you know, that they're part of Malaysia. They're, they're not Muslim, but they're Malaysian people. And, and, and they've been successful. Sometimes people have resentment about that, but they work hard. They're hard workers, they're committed to education, you know, you have to see the good in them, you know, and and, and, and, and you shouldn't get become envious of them because, you know, they
have success in the world. They have success because they work hard and minorities have an advantage. An advantage of a minority is that they tend to work together a lot a lot because because they feel that they you know, that they're in a
country where the majority of people are not like them. And so they work out. That's why the Jewish community so successful in, in America, but instead of envying them, you should see the the virtues of being unified, of working together. Those are the things that you should learn from them, you know, and, and and then if, if, if if they have earned what they have earned, without hook or crook, then
that's that's their prerogative in a state that that is, is fair. My final advice to myself and to all of you, but that was seen and learned in public UI acumen and law, we have advised you and the people before you to be pious to have Taqwa and tequila is is to obey the injunctions of God and to avoid the prohibitions of God. He hasn't prohibited very many things. And all the things that he prohibited are harmful for people, for ourselves and for others. And, and what he's enjoying the Prophet said, to do what you're able to, because there's a lot, but at least do the follow up, and try to build on that. And then I would say, also, just to have gratitude in your hearts, you know,
then Chicago, termed as Eden accom. If you're grateful, I'll increase you in blessings to be grateful for, but if you have kofod, if you have ingratitude, a lot tells us His punishment is immense, you know, so, and then I would just say, as somebody I know, I've only been here for two weeks, but I've been here three times now. My experiences in Malaysia have have been positive. Really, they've been very positive. I think the Malay people are beautiful people. Really, I'm not I'm not just saying this. I don't say this about everybody. I mean, generally, I find that people, I'm old enough, and I've been in so many places that generally people are actually decent, human
beings are. It's it's a decent species, we have a lot of flaws. But humans are actually the most people are good people. They're not bad people. And if they're treated with dignity, they tend to respond by treating you with respect. But if you step on them, if you crush them, if they get angry, you drop bombs on people, they get angry, you know, this, this is a fact of life. But the melee people have a lot of really beautiful qualities that I haven't seen in other people. And I think of all of them the thing that really strikes me the most is that Adam and I hope I really hope
we're living in a time where
just good manners are disappearing.
You know, the internet, it's
the rudeness on the internet, the way the way people talk to each other.
So I really hope that
that you hold to that, you know,
because the
The Prophet said, at Devaney are before us and Devi, my Lord gave me a dab and what a beautiful Adam he gave me and he said in the mob right to leave with a minimum requirement of law I was only sent to complete noble care.