Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Knowledge, Information, AltFacts & Fake News, Brownstown MI 02182017.mp4
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The topic
that I was assigned for this talk
is our identity
through thick and thin.
What does identity mean? Anyone here in advanced
algebra or taking advanced algebra at any point?
Right? What is identity matrix?
Is it a movie?
You don't remember?
Nobody?
Really?
No one took algebra too?
Identity matrix. Identity. What is the identity matrix?
Do you remember?
Doctor Moustak, man. They pay you a lot
of money. Do you remember what the identity
matrix is from from algebra 2? I don't
remember at the time. Alright.
Identity identity matrix is the matrix that if
you
multiply
a matrix by it,
the result will be the same matrix that
you
multiplied by the identity matrix.
Identity means 2 things being the same.
Identity means 2 things being the same.
And one of the things in the Arabic
language is the word one of the expressions,
I guess, for 2 things being the same
is what
is. Now all of you gentlemen have attended
a fair number of bands in your lifetime.
Is a good thing or a bad thing?
It's generally a bad thing
that, you know, the from
the there was one there's a a that,
one of the brothers from Detroit actually sent
me
in a different language, but the the translation
of which was
that even even if I worked on myself
so much that one day I became just
like an angel,
this enough site still have suspicion of it
that it's cooking up something to screw it
up screw up what's going gonna happen later
on,
which is what
the
indeed the nafs is
it commands.
It's not just like commands to what is
evil. It's like always commanding to that which
is evil.
Except for the except for the the nafs
that my
Rob, my lord has had mercy on.
Otherwise, what is it? If you didn't have
to wake wake up in the morning to
go to school or to work, would you
wake up?
If you didn't weren't gonna fail your classes
or get fired from your job, you wouldn't
get get up in the morning. If you
didn't have to fast, if Allah
that the the fasting has been recommended for
you
just like it was recommended for the people
before you so that you can learn taqwa.
You think anyone's gonna fast?
Nobody is gonna
fast except for very few people.
Even those people who did it, they're they're
gonna act like they, you know, like, oh,
I fasted one day out of the year
or 1, 2, or 3 days in Ramadan,
and, like, I'm a big shot. The nafs
only will the nafs is a good and
this is Masha'allah,
the coming back to what we talked about
in New York earlier.
The nafs is like a horse.
Right? And your your
your higher spiritual functions are like the rider,
your intelligence,
right, your intelligence, your kindness,
your fear of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, your
humility, your trust in Allah ta'ala. All of
these things, they're like a rider. The nafs
is like a horse. Without the nafs, you're
not gonna make it because the nuffs is
what's tied with the functioning of your body,
the spiritual command of what's functions with your
body. So for example, if a man is
not hungry,
he's not gonna remember to eat. He's gonna
starve to death. If a man doesn't get
sleepy or a woman doesn't get sleepy, they're
gonna,
keep working themselves to death.
They're going to keep working themselves to death.
Right? There's a drug
that's very popular, unfortunately,
with many,
of our fellow Americans called crystal meth. People
get hopped up on crystal meth. You can
work for days on end, and then you
crash. Actually,
this is something I've heard that it was
actually, the drug was developed by the Nazis
in order to have their soldiers to be
able to push the limits of not having
to sleep, that they'll go for days on
end without eating, without sleeping, and they'll just
keep working, keep working, keep fighting, keep fighting.
And, you know, that that drug impairs a
natural function of a person. What happens when
that drug wears off? Either you keep taking
it till you die, or it will wear
off, and then those people, they go into,
like, coma for, like, several days. They're sleeping
and whatever, and they just wake up when
the hunger forces them to wake up.
Well, your nafs is what makes you hungry.
There's a good there's a good reason for
it because you need to eat at certain
times, you need to sleep at certain times.
If a person didn't have shahawat,
then what would happen? The human race would
go extinct.
There's something that attracts a man and a
woman,
And despite the the the stern looks and,
like, shame and beating that you received from
your parents with regards to what that attraction
is, the The fact of the matter is
if it didn't exist, there would be no
children running around. Nobody would,
nobody would procreate
because,
actually the act
of procreation is in many ways quite
let's just say it's not a clean act
and it's something that there's a reason why
it's not permitted inside of the Masjid
even though all of us were born from
it. Do you understand what I'm saying? The
nafs is something that overwhelms you and makes
you go to that that that act. If
you do it in a haram way, it's
haram. If you do it in a halal
way, you you receive reward for it. If
the nafs wasn't there to draw a person
to that, the entire human race would have
gone extinct.
You wouldn't see any children running around. It
would have been it. That would have been
done. It would have been over. So nafs
has some use. There's some benefit in it
as well. But it's what? It's like the
horse,
and then your higher spiritual functions
are like the rider.
So when you talk about identity, right, when
you talk about identity, what are you talking
about? You're talking about. You're talking about yourself.
And the fact of the matter is that
the identity of person
that they're born with, that nuffs that they're
born with, it has all the same functions
as what an animal has.
A rat, a dog,
you know, there's some animals we like like
we like dolphins and whales. Right? They all
have they all have the same nuffs.
Gorillas, monkeys, chimpanzees, all have the same nuffs,
a zebra, gazelle, whatever. All these animals, they
have this
same nuffs.
It's not what differentiates us from them.
And so if you,
look to your reality through that nuffs,
then what will you inevitably
end up as? You'll end up inevitably behaving
like an animal.
Now tell me something, do do animals
have marriage and lineage?
No.
Do animals associate with their mother and father?
A little bit, but not really so much.
Not in the way that we do.
Someone will say, well, you know, in killer
whales,
the mother takes care of the pod and
the grandmother stays with them and things like
that. But you don't see, like, for example,
this killer whale has this name and it
remembers its forefathers for, like, 40 generations. You
don't the way that the the depth of
relationship that we have as human beings, animals
don't have them, and the killer whale maybe
is the the exception, not the rule. The
other the other animals, most of them, what
happens? Right? The the when it's time to
mate, a brother and sister will mate with
each other and have children. The parents will
mate with their own offspring. They'll have children,
and that's it. They move on. Why? Because
there is no when
when all it is is nafs, there's no
marriage. There's no lineage.
Right? When it's animals, have you ever seen
an animal sit down while it eats? No.
Because it doesn't have any adab. It just
do does what it needs to do.
Right? Have you seen any animals that have,
for example,
wear clothes?
No. They don't. Maybe, okay, you can say,
like, a snail has a shell, but that's
very different than than than than the,
you know, the clothing human beings wear. There
are all of these things that are different.
We talked about this yesterday,
that
we have honored.
One of the honors
Allah gave to us is he gave us
all of these higher functions.
You will see everybody who
associates or identifies
themselves with the nafs rather than with a
higher spiritual identity.
You'll see all of these different things that
human beings do that separate them from animals.
All of them will degrade and they'll start
to behave like animals. So there are people
out there
who have no ta'alok and no nisbah with
Allah.
Do those people care about marriage?
No.
Do those people do those people care about
wearing clothes?
Not really.
In fact, they find the fact that Muslims
wear so many clothes, they find it to
be kind of detestable, don't they?
Right? They say, oh my god. You you
you oppress your
whatever. Your your women. And even though if
you look in a traditional culture of every
Muslim people, right, the traditional culture of every
Muslim people, even the men, they never go
out except for the only thing that's exposed
is their face and their hands.
Look at the Arabian Peninsula. Look at the
Indian subcontinent. Look at Egypt, look at all
of these places. And men didn't used to
go out without without their heads covered as
well, and they used to wear full clothing.
You don't see, like, pictures except for Bedouins
or, like, farmers while they're working on their
farm. You don't see anyone without a shirt
on. You don't see anyone without their head
covered. You don't see anybody,
you know, just like maybe like a pearl
diver.
He'll jump into the water in order to
dive for the pearls, but when he's not
on the job, what will he do? He'll
clothe himself. He'll cover himself.
But the thing is you'll see the people
who identify with their animal
part, you'll see them all the distinguishing traits
of humanity.
The more they identify with their their animal
nafs,
the weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker
their,
connection with
with humanity will become
to the point where, you know, there's no
care about Nessa. There's no care about lineage.
There's no care about,
marriage. There's no care about wearing clothing. There's
no care about any anything higher than something
that's self serving. Right? So they're like, okay.
We agree that you should be nice to
one another.
Why? Because if I'm bad to another person,
they're gonna be bad to me. It's gonna
ruin the whole society. But it's for my
own sake that I'm nice to another person,
and this happens in, you know, in the
society we live in, this happens.
So what happens, like, every now and then,
an armored car that's carrying money will break
down at the side of the road. Once
people know that they can take the cash
and no one's gonna say anything to them,
all all of that civilization, all of it
breaks down.
You see, like, wherever,
like, for example, they had to deploy the
National Guard in New Orleans when the floods
were happening, hurricane Katrina. Why?
Were the National Guard there to help people?
No. It's because people were looting things. Why
are people looting things? Because they know they
can get away with it.
So all of these things that distinguish a
human being from an animal, all of these
things, they will start to,
all these people who who identify with them,
they will start to have their humanity break
down. It may not go away completely
that a person is, like, outside and, like,
eating his own feces and, like, throwing it
against the wall and, like, you know,
no longer speaking human language or whatever.
It may it may weaken instead of break
completely, but you'll see it will weaken and
weaken and weaken. And every society where,
every society where that that, identity with the
nafs is stronger than the identity with a
higher spiritual reality occurs. You'll see that that
certain things that are from the fitra of
insan, from the original Adamic disposition, which is
inherited from Jannah. It's not from here. Where
is Sayidna Adam from?
Sayna Adam, alayhis salam, was created and lived
originally in Jannah, and human beings have these
qualities. Right? These these these qualities
of being from a being different than than
everything else in the world, all of those
will degrade and go away, and the human
being will revert to an animalistic,
a completely animalistic form or move in the
direction of it completely animalistic form. And you
see that there are human beings in the
world that eat other people.
There are human beings in the world that
don't have that that Zina is not a
a problem with them. There are human beings
in the world that don't clothe themselves. There
are human beings in the world that have
all of these issues, you know? And that's
one of the things Islam is there to,
distance a person from. So why are we
talking about Islamic identity?
Why are we talking about Islamic identity? The
first thing I wanna say is that
we don't there's no such thing as Islamic
identity.
Okay? We live in a in a in
a society which is filled with identity politics.
So if somebody wants to look at from,
like, a sociological
point of view, from a political point of
view, from economic point of view, at this
gathering, for example, They said, oh, overwhelmingly
immigrants, overwhelmingly the children of immigrants. They're speaking
this language. Where are are the women? How
come women are not there? How come black
people aren't there? How white people aren't there?
How come this is not there? How come
that's not there? And all of these things
then they become a foothold to start making
objections about something.
Whereas it might be a it might be
a problem. Okay. For example, black people aren't
in this in this gathering. I don't see
anyone who's, like, African Americans gathering. Maybe somebody
is and I just didn't notice. Right? But,
you know, I don't see anyone who's African
Americans gathering.
That is not automatically mean that there's something
wrong with the gathering. It might mean something's
wrong with the gathering. If there's a sign
outside of the Masjid that says black people
are not welcome,
then it's something very wrong. But
if it so happens that no black person
showed up, it doesn't detract from the reality
of or reality or the falsehood of anything
that's being said here.
The truth is known by its own merits.
The truth is owned by its own known
by its own merits, which comes to another
another issue, a philosophical issue, which is what?
Which is, as Muslims, we believe there is
such a thing called an absolute truth.
Everything in the society around us
is geared towards saying there's no truth, absolute
truth with a capital t. There's only a
bunch of lowercase t truths.
I have my truth. You have your truth.
Now if there's, like, several different truths, then
none of it is true.
What's true to you is true to you,
and what's true to me is true to
me. There's nothing there's no truth that that
that governs, the relationship between us. There's no
truth that governs all of existence, the overarching
existence. That means what? To me, if zinnai
is okay, then it's okay. To you, if
it's not okay, good for you. I'll you
know, the one who likes zinnai will keep
committing it. The person who doesn't like zinnai
will will keep abstaining from it. This is
this is nonsense. This is a type of
this is a type of, of of madness.
This is the meaning of the the the
verse of the
Quran.
Don't be like the people who forgot Allah
for he caused them to forget themselves.
What does that mean?
We're talking about a person behaving like an
animal.
That's what it means for Allah
to to say that he caused them to
forget themselves.
In this world, you will lose it, the
sifat and the attributes of humanity inside of
you.
And in the akhirah, you will literally lose
yourself completely to the fire.
In this world, you will lose all of
the attributes of humanity,
and in the next world, you will lose
yourself literally into the fire.
So if you want to talk about identity,
we don't identify with things from this mundane
realm because it's not where we're from and
it's not where we're going.
Rather, our identity is based on what? Our
anchor, like the anchor that that that we
make all decisions about life around us, it's
not internal, it's not inside of you.
It's outside of you. It's not internal. It's
external.
What is it? It's not your own nafs
that I look at another person and see
he's like me and I identify with that
person.
What is the the the the anchor of
your reality? The anchor of your reality is
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's the revelation of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that came down on
the heart of Sayna Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
That is the truth. What Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala commands as right, that's what's right. What
he commands as wrong, that's what's wrong.
The thing that
that Rasul gives you, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
then take it from him. And the thing
he forbids you from, then stop.
And fear Allah
because Allah's
punishment is, is is is severe.
Now
what's the difference? What's the difference?
The difference is that there are people
in the society around us
because
they don't know anything other than their own
nuffs. They don't acknowledge this higher truth.
There's truth with a capital t, this absolute
truth, which is equally true for you and
it's equally true for me. They don't acknowledge
it. They wanna ignore it. So what is
it that they see themselves as? They see
themselves primarily as what? I'm white.
I'm black.
I'm, you know, homosexuality is a really interesting
interesting example of this. Okay?
When is the last time you saw a
person, their primary identity was that I'm heterosexual?
I'm a man attracted to a woman. I'm
a woman attracted to a man. That's what
I do. I go out and have marches.
I go out and have,
what you call I go out and have
marches. I've informed political opinions
based on this issue. This is my thing
that I have a parade every year for
the you don't see it. Why? Because people
don't identify themselves with that.
But on the flip side and do you
think that there's never been any person who
has been,
tried by this fitna in the Muslim world
today or in our history?
The 5th books are replete with examples of
what do the fuqaha say that a man
who is attracted to a man, if he
acts on his shahwa, what is his desire,
what is the punishment? If he doesn't act
on it, if he restrains on him, he
restrains himself from acting on his desire, what
is the reward for that,
if a man is attracted? And they you
know, these are our masha'id people ask these
questions. Right? Somebody is attracted to,
boys, like, for example, Quran teacher. This is
a problem that that that that happens. It
happens in the Muslim world. Quran teacher is
attracted to young boys.
So or he thinks he wonders, am I
there's this is a issue that happens to
other people. Is this issue there with me?
Right. Hazrat Henry, what did he say? He
say take a child and and sit the
child in your lap. If you feel something
is wrong at that point, then you shouldn't
be teaching the children at all. You should
go to another career. It's not that you're
going to Jahannam and you're a horrible person.
No. This is a problem for you. This
career is please don't do this. You're gonna
ruin yourself. You're gonna ruin someone else's life.
Go do something else. Go write books. Go,
teach adults. Go and, you know, get a
software degree and sit at your computer and
code, you know. Go and become
become
an engineer and, you know, whatever. Inspect bridges
or whatever. This is not the career path
for you.
What's the difference between those people and the
people nowadays in the society that we live
in? They're the homosexuality
of those people and the homosexuality of these
people.
Why is it that those people in our
in our civilization there are people who had
it. You know what? They still pray 5
times a day. They still read the Quran.
They still read salat al tarawi and weep
at the khatam of the Quran. They still,
you know, get married, they still have children,
they still go to Hajj, they still go
to Jumu'ah,
why is it that nowadays, you know, that
homosexuality is completely incompatible incompatible with Islam. Once
you become homosexual, the imam of the masjid
will cuss you out in front of everybody
and kick you out of the masjid, and
then the other homosexual people, how could you
believe in how could you believe in a
God that,
that that, you know, doesn't accept you for
who you are? Look, if Allah Ta'ala exists,
there's no connection between Allah Ta'ala's existence and
between his accepting or not accepting this way
of life.
If he exists, he created the heavens and
the earth from nothing. Nothing comes without being
created. Right?
What does that have to do his existence,
what does it have to do whether he
accepts your way of life or doesn't accept
your way of life? The second question is
irrelevant to the first question,
but it's irrelevant to us. Why? Because we
believe in an absolute truth that he created
the heavens and the earth. That's a separate
issue whether he likes what you're doing or
doesn't like it. Whether he'll forgive you or
won't forgive you, it's a separate issue.
If your entire view of the universe around
you is based on who you are,
that the universe has to conform to who
I am, then this other line of thinking
makes sense to you, which is, like, look,
this is what I do,
Everyone has to like it. If they don't
like it, khalas, I I have no connection
with them. I have no connection with them.
So the person,
they define themselves
by their own desire by their own desire.
Now maybe there are some person person in
this, in this
room, okay, likes pizza.
Janab, I'm a pizzaist.
I'm gonna open a pizza political party.
And I know I like pizza, but I'm
not a pizzaist. You know what I mean?
An open pizza political party.
If you don't like pizza,
then you and me cannot be friends anymore.
And
I'm gonna eat pizza every day. And if
I go to a mustard event and they
have burgers or their biryani instead of pizza,
the that mustard event is being discriminating against
me.
And it's ridiculous. Why? It's pizza. Okay. You
like pizza? What's the big deal? How come
you're making an impinge on all of these
other things?
But that's exactly what people do. That's what
people are doing in this society.
That's what people are doing in this society.
My nafs. Right? I'm like my body is
a certain way. I'm a I have a
certain attraction. I have a certain language I
speak, I'm from a certain cultural background, my
skin is a certain color. What does that
have to do with with anything? When you
die
when you
die, is it gonna be relevant or not
whether you're black or white?
When you die, is it gonna be relevant
and or not whether you're
tall or
short, whether you're muscular and, like, chiseled, or
whether you're obese, is it gonna matter anymore?
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's going to it's
absolutely not gonna matter. Whether you're young or
old, is it gonna matter? Sayyidina Nabi sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, an old woman with great
piety and humility,
she came and asked her said now Raul
alaihi sallam, is there a place in Jannah
for an old woman? You know, like she's
saying about herself. Raul alaihi sallam, there's no
old woman in Jannah. She almost started she
started almost to cry. It's, ah, that that
in Jannah, everyone will be young again.
Everyone will be young again. Imagine this. Inshallah,
by Allah
you know, who here your who hears what
their children are with their parents? Raise your
hand. Who here is in the room with
you? Your father is here. Right? Imagine you're
the older brother, younger brother.
Right? And then your guys' father is here.
InshaAllah,
everybody will go to Jannah in this room,
inshaAllah.
Everybody will go to say, Amin. Amin. Right?
So you'll be in Jannah forever.
And how awkward will it be you'll be
the same age as your father?
He's not gonna be older than you. You're
not gonna be younger than than him forever.
Does that have does that I mean, does
that really have any ultimately, does it really
have any reality?
Absolutely not. No generation has come except for
the young kids have been like, oh, man,
old people.
And no generation has come other than the
old people are like, oh, can you believe
kids' days? They're all, like, messed up and
blah blah blah and the other thing the
other thing. These are all temporary conditions that
pass over a person. You cannot identify yourself
or identify truth or reality based on any
of these things.
These are all animal conditions that pass over
you. They're all animal feelings that pass over
you. There's a reason for them being there.
Sometimes the reason is beneficial for you, sometimes
it's not. Sometimes the reason is good for
you, sometimes it's not.
Okay? You're attracted to a woman. Is that
a good thing or a bad thing? Tell
me, is it a good thing or bad
thing?
Is it? Tell me, is it good or
bad?
It might be a good thing, it might
be a bad thing. Okay? If you're attracted
to your own wife, wonderful thing.
If you're attracted to someone else's wife, very
bad thing. You understand what I'm saying?
All of these things, they really, in and
of themselves, don't encompass,
encapsulate,
keep any sort of they don't house any
sort of fundamental truth or reality about the
universe.
What does encapsulate,
What does a house? What does,
carry with it truth
with a capital t, an ultimate truth that
you can judge things based on?
That truth is
all taught to us by 1 of 3
sources of knowledge.
1 of what? Three sources of knowledge. By
the way, you know, when you go to
Madrasah, one of the things they teach you
is philosophy. Sometimes they actually teach the books
of philosophy outright. Sometimes
the philosophy percolates through the other subjects that
are that are being taught.
This is this is a basic part of
philosophy because all of you guys are gonna
grow up and become doctors. You probably never
gonna learn this. I'm gonna teach it to
you right now inshallah like very brief crash
course. Okay?
There are 3 basic sources of of of
truth, of knowledge
in the in the universe. Okay? One is
what the Ullama call
the experiential truth or empirical truth, which is
what?
Does fire burn you?
Yes or no? Yes. Yes. Do you have
to be have taken physics or chemistry in
order to know that?
Do you have to even be a person
in order to know that? No. If you
take, like, a small animal don't do this.
It's hamdah being mean to animals. Okay? But
if you take a small animal and you
put its paw into the fire, it'll it'll
scream. It'll be like, oh, what are you
doing? It'll pull its paw back. Right? If
it didn't know that fire burned from before,
after that, the animal will be scared of
fire. It won't won't come anywhere near fire
because it know it burn it burns.
And a person might ask, well,
maybe it was just that fire. Maybe another
fire won't burn.
And you're like, no. Pretty much every single
time
every single time I've touched fire, it's not
been a good experience.
So come on, brother. Be open minded. Why
are you so close minded? Why are you
so close mind be open minded. Do you
free thinking you guys are from village back
home, somewhere from a foreign country? That's why
you're so close minded about all of things.
Be open, but keep open mind about no.
I'm
pretty sure it's gonna burn every single time.
I'm pretty sure that water feels a certain
way. I'm pretty sure that,
you know,
cold, it feels a certain
way. I'm pretty sure that,
you know,
when I'm sleepy, it feels a certain way.
When these things are all by they're they're
you know, when you, you know, the salt
will taste different than sugar will.
You know, I'm pretty certain about those things.
Why? Because you've experienced them directly.
Which way does gravity pull things?
We're pretty sure about which direction gravity pulls
things. Why? Because you've never thrown a ball
and shoots up into the air and goes
up to space. Right? It always comes down.
No matter how hard you throw it up,
it will always come back down again even
if, you have like literally, not not metaphorically,
literally a rocket arm and you can throw
something so hard that it will launch into
space. Even then, the amount of
force your arm throws into the thing, it
will be slowed down by the amount of
the acceleration of gravity.
It may even launch into space, but it
will go slower than the than the initial
velocity that you release it release it with.
This is all from what? From your experiential,
experiential knowledge.
All of science is contained within this.
All of all of science is contained within
this.
All of science is contained within this set
of knowledge, this type of knowledge.
Okay? What is science? I have a theory,
I have a hypothesis. Right? My theory is
what? My theory is that
burning
coal will turn it into gold.
It's a theory. Who knows? Well, a scientist
what will a scientist tell you? Right? I'll
tell you you're a moron for other reasons.
Right? But a scientist will tell you you're
a moron. Well, I'll tell you for this
reason as well. But a scientist will tell
you you're a moron for this reason is
to go bring up piece of
coal. Okay?
Burn it.
You burn it. Where's the gold? No gold.
Because you experience this is a direct experience
that you have.
It's just this piece of coal. Okay. Go
bring another piece of coal. Burn it. You'll
repeat the experiment a 100 times, and what
will it show you? Then you can write
a paper about a data.
Right? And then percentage of coal burned that
turned into gold, and the bar will be,
like, like, at 0 0%.
And, like, based on the data, we conclude
that the hypothesis is wrong. Right? Anyone seen
the the the show Mythbusters?
Right? That's the whole thing. Right? Someone has
a someone someone has a theory that this
is something that will happen. Right? They have
all sorts of, like, cool stuff. Like, they
they, you know, they show in the movie,
someone pours gasoline on something and takes a,
a drag off a cigarette and then throws
it on the gasoline and then sets it
on fire. Guess what? Cigarette doesn't burn hot
enough to ignite, gasoline, so they showed it
again and again. It won't set it won't
set anything on fire. Right? So, you know,
instead of watching movies, like, just, you know,
live a real life, Insha'Allah.
So that's what all of that is all
of sciences encapsulated in this knowledge. This is
the lowest rung of knowledge.
This is the lowest rung of knowledge.
The level of knowledge is higher than that,
they call it rational knowledge.
They call it what? Rational knowledge.
What is rational knowledge?
Rational knowledge is a set of observations that
people have made
that allow them to understand something about the
truth without actually having to experience
it. So for example,
if you have 3 bottles, label 1 a,
label 1 of them b, label 1 of
them c.
If you have a a weigh scale, you
know, the the scales that balance out.
If you put bottle a in one scale
and bottle b in the in the second
scale, and they they balance out.
K? And then you put bottle b in
the first scale and bottle c in the
second scale, and they balance out.
Can you predict without having to actually weigh
the the the bottles, can you predict what
will happen when you put a in the
first scale pan and c in the second
scale pan?
They'll be
even. Right? This is a perfectly solid piece
of truth,
and you don't have to make an experiment
about it. You don't have to test it.
You can test it. When you test it,
then this piece of truth becomes experiential. It
becomes it comes down to the first level
as well. But without testing it, you still
know its truth. Why? Because it's rational knowledge.
Now we use rational knowledge every day
so many times intuitively. In fact, that's what
they say that they say that man is
the rational animal.
The word in Arabic,
for rationality
for for for the expression in Arabic, I
should say, is that
He's
the the the animal the rational animal because
is the the word for,
for logic in in in the Arabic language
as well,
that man is the logical animal even though
man behaves very illogically
a lot.
But what is it? The more rational you
are, the more logical you are in your
behavior,
the more you show your
possession of your humanity. And
the less rational you are, the the the
the less you're able to be like, oh,
fire burned last 10 times I touched it.
It's probably gonna burn again this time, and
I should keep my hand out and be
like, no. Don't be closed minded. Be open
mind keep an open mind about stuff, man.
Keep a you know, be open minded,
Right? And so you go up and you
touch the fire 11th time and get burned.
That's a very animal thing to do.
Right? Even some animals are are are are
able to transcend that. Even some animals are
able to transcend that that that urge.
So this rational knowledge consists of a number
of principles that are universally agreed upon. Like,
one principle is what?
That the a part of something cannot be
greater than the whole of that thing.
Right? So, like, 2 can't be 2 of
something can't be greater than 3 of something.
A part of something can't be greater than
a whole of a thing. Now tell me
something.
Tell me something. The Nasara, they say that's
in that is is
is is god. Right? They say he's the
son of god, but meaning he's a a
a he he himself is is is just
a manifestation of Allah
ta'ala.
Right?
Okay. So tell me what rational principle does
that violate?
That Allah
is greater than the heavens and the earth.
Allah created the heavens and the earth, and
now this is a small piece of the
earth, the material that the universe is made
up of. And you're saying that that piece
of the piece of the material universe is
greater than all the universe? That's a rational
fallacy.
That's irrational. It's an irrational proposition. Why? Because
you're you're saying that the juz is greater
than the you're saying that the the, at
the very least, though, there's actually several rational
irrational, irrational fallacies and several irrationalities that are
muraqab that will come that you'll invoke by
saying this. But the most simplest and basic
of them is what? Is what? That you're
saying that somehow,
part of the universe can be greater than
the entire universe.
It's not it doesn't work that way. It
doesn't it doesn't what? It doesn't work that
way. And this is a fundamental this is
the fundamental
fallacy of all of Kufr.
This is the fundamental fallacy. What does fallacy
mean? It means fallacy is like the the
opposite of of rationality.
Fallacy is something that violates the rules of
logic.
Fallacy is something that what? Violates the rule
of rules of logic. The fallacy is the
idea that you're looking for God in the
creation.
Right? The creator is not the creation.
Because things don't create themselves.
When's the last time you saw something that
creates itself?
When's the last time you're looking at, like,
you know, just an empty space, and you
just saw something spontaneous, like, oh, look, there's
a peanut butter
sandwich. Just like that.
Peanut butter sandwich.
Just like that. It's stupid. Right? It's dumb.
I mean, you're not supposed to say dumb
in the masjid stuff a lot. Right? But
the thing is, like, you know, like, you're
you should use good language in the masjid.
It's not it's not the most intelligent thing
in the world. You don't have, like, a
PhD in in physics, do you? No. But
you know that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
don't just come out of nowhere. Now tell
me, what's
dumber
to think that a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich
will come out of nothing or to think
that the entire universe, which contains millions of
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and other stuff
as well,
Stars and planets and all this other stuff.
Right? That that all of it is gonna
come out of nothing. Is that possible?
Absolutely not. So you you if you if
you think the material world is god,
there's a whole that comes with that.
To think that the material world is god,
there's an entire that comes with that, isn't
there?
That all of a sudden, what's the most
important thing?
Money. What's the most important thing that you
have a certain position in life status? I'm
gonna give the Adan.
You're gonna give the Adan Insha'Allah. Can you
do mind giving me just like 5 minutes?
I'll finish and then you can give the
Adhan Insha'Allah.
You know better. Barakul, if you can give
me just 5 minutes. Adhan is
the first
or your speech. Let me just finish the
speech and then we'll we'll we'll give the
adhan, Insha'Allah.
So the the,
the idea is what? That the the
the the created thing, it cannot be the
creator because things don't create themselves. Right? So
these are all rational. Right? These are all
rational principles. People say there's no proof for
the existence of Allah Ta'ala. It's not, strictly
speaking, true.
The first type of knowledge we talked about,
which is what?
Experiential knowledge, empirical knowledge. Empirical means something you
can observe. Right?
We,
as Muslims, Quran itself says
The vision, we can't see him even though
he sees all the visions. Right?
There's nothing like unto him. So we're not
gonna see Allah
because even what we see with our sight,
it's all created.
The sight cannot encompass the creator. Right? So
we say that, okay, when you say that
there's no proof in it, then show me
God. You said that's not possible. That's rationally
not possible.
But we don't say that that, oh, we
only believe in Allah based on faith.
Right? There's a rational necessity for Allah's Allah's
existence, which is what? That things don't create
themselves. Everything needs someone to to created things
don't create themselves. Everything needs something to create
everything the created world needs something to create
it. Right? Because we have 5 minutes, inshallah,
there's a little bit more expansion that someone
will raise certain objections and whatnot, but those
objections are easily plowed through as well.
The idea is what is is that this
is a second type of knowledge. And then
there's a third type of knowledge that the
the the the first two types of knowledge,
everyone who has a sound mind, they accept
it. There's a third type of knowledge, some
people accept it, some people don't accept it.
Which is what?
The knowledge of revelation.
That knowledge that the higher the higher realm
places in the lower realm. The spiritual
realm places into the physical realm.
That's what the Quran is. That's what the
message of all the
is. People are atheists, they don't believe in
it.
But why don't they believe in it? It's
not because it's rationally impossible for it to
happen or even that it's rationally impossible for
it not to happen. The reason they don't
believe in it is because they're not trying
to pay attention to that right now. Because
the alarm clock is going off. Some people
are trying to go to the masjid and
pray fajr. Some people are trying to go
back to sleep. If you're trying to go
back to sleep, you're like, yeah, revelation blah.
Right? You're you're done with it. You have
no need for it. You have no want
for it. You're gonna ignore it. What do
you do with people you don't like?
The worst thing you do with someone you
don't like is to ignore them, to give
them not respond to their letters, text messages,
emails, not repost their Facebook things, not like
their post on Twitter. You just ignore them,
you block them in fact. What do you
do? You just hit the block button. Of
course, you're done with them. And if you
see them in a public place, you avoid
them, you know, I'll go to the next
Starbucks down the road because I don't wanna
talk to the person in this Starbucks. You
understand what I'm saying? So the idea is
what? The idea is that this third type
of knowledge,
there this is the highest form of knowledge,
just like rational knowledge because you don't have
to actually go and test everything again and
again and again. It will allow you to
process so much more knowledge than experiencing things
directly all the time.
Just like that, the revelation is something that
teaches you certain principles
that will allow you to understand so many
things
that you would never be able to understand
if you have to try to rationally reason
out everything in the world. Your life is
not long enough to be able to understand
all of these types of things. There are
people, they go through their entire life just
to learn a very small lesson of din.
Right? A man might go his entire life
and have all sorts of bizarre and strange
experiences. He's dying on his deathbed of AIDS,
and all of his children hate him. And
then he he realized, oh, man. Is not
a good thing.
Right? This is just one teaching of Din.
You can ream through
a a a thousand of them within an
hour.
What is it? It allows you to process
so much more information than you would have
been able to,
otherwise.
So the the the summary, and we'll we'll
end the talk inshallah and then have the
adhan. The summary is what? Is that the
deen if you want to identify with something,
we're taught not to identify with our animality
or with material,
but with the spiritual and with the absolute
truth, which is
Allah And even that identity is not an
identity because what?
You are tying yourself not with the thing
you're like, but with the one that you're
that's unlike you and unlike any of the
creation.
The reason you're tying yourself to that one
is what? Because absolute truth resides with him.
You make friends with him, it'll be good
for you. You don't make friends with him,
it's gonna be bad for you, but he
is what he is. He is who he
is. It's not gonna change anything for him
at all. It's only for your benefit, for
my benefit that we do
that. What are the things that that are
involved in accepting that truth? These things are
taught through the deen of Islam. They're taught
through the uloom of Wahi, and they're taught
very specifically
very specifically through the knowledge of Aqidah.
The knowledge of what? The knowledge of Aqidah,
the the beliefs of the Muslims.
Right? You can go through in the Aqi
that Tawiyah, you can go through in 15
hours. You can go through a book like
that. It's not that difficult.
Masha'Allah, we have brothers in this room that
I've that we've read it with before.
Mufti and I can teach it to you.
Your other Muftis, local Muftis can teach it
with you. If you're bored with them, you
know,
Right? The house the chicken raised in the
house is less valued than even the than
dal. Right? So that's fine. If you're annoyed,
then you call Moana Tamim, you call Moana
Bilal. If they're all booked and you're like,
oh, man, then you can call me. I'll
come do it.
You can go through all of these things
very easily, very simply. Like this one thing,
you can't prove to me God exists. Who
said who can't prove to you God exists?
It's a very simple it's a very simple,
like, rational syllogism.
But because people are what? You see remember
remember what we talked about? As you start
to abandon as you start to abandon your
humanity, you move more toward the state of
an animal.
And animals, their
basic
form of knowledge is what? It's experiential.
It's not rational.
Animals have if they have some rational function,
it's very basic, it's very low level, and
most animals don't do that as well. So
you will move in that direction, and that's
what science is essentially. All of it is
empirical. Science doesn't science, if it's not an
empirically provable question, science is not not even
asking it. It's not even forget about giving
you the answer, it's not even asking the
question in the first place. It's says it's
a wrong question. Take this question to somebody
else.
So as we move in that direction, you're
like, oh, science, that's really wonderful. Science is
gonna answer every question in the world. No.
What is it? Actually a move toward animality.
It's a move toward behaving more like an
animal than like a person.
If you read and you spend, you learn
this from sitting with for, like, 30, 41
minutes and 23 seconds. Maybe if you sit
for another, like, you know, couple of minutes,
you may learn a couple of other things
that are very profound and very beneficial for
you and your
view of the world around you. Allah
give out all of us so much, tawfiq
wa sallallahu
ta'ala.
By the way, as a fithi masala,
it's not wajib to give the adhan right
away when the time comes in. If there's
a little bit of delay, especially if the
salat is going to be,
done a little bit later than exactly after
the time of the adhan,
okay for a little bit of a delay.
It's not haram or makru or any of
these things.
The the Adan of Isha in the time
of Sinema radiAllahu anhu was actually delayed to
what 1 third of the night. So that
it's not a sin didn't happen, inshallah. So
we don't have to because I know some
of us in our love of deen, we
don't want these things to be pushed around
because we we feel like it might be
something haram is happening, Allah is not pleased
with it. But just like the salatasfarth,
making rectification of and
teaching those those branches of that are farr
the ayn, that are individual
obligations on people, these things also,
you know, they're they're very important. So don't
ever delay the adhan because you're playing PlayStation.
But if something further is happening like the
prayer is further, a little bit of delay
inshaAllah is is is forgiven.