Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Maliki Fiqh IllGotten Wealth Addison 04072020
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AI: Transcript ©
I apologize for being a little bit late,
in the start. The prayer times are shifting
around. After today, we will have
this a full,
half an hour later. So instead of having
it at 7:30 CST,
it will start at,
8 o'clock
CST and end at 9 o'clock CST. And
it will start,
then,
accordingly, at different times.
Start at 9 o'clock EST, end at 10
o'clock EST,
start at
6 o'clock,
Pacific,
and end at
7 o'clock Pacific.
And,
whoever cannot catch it live can always
catch it on the YouTube channel. And because
we had the request,
although I would have preferred to aggregate
all the views and
clicks in one form so as to be
able to leverage it,
because we have a message that we need
to get out and we need to be
smart about how we do that.
I had requests from some of the brothers,
particularly in Indian occupied Kashmir,
that have only access to 2 g Internet
and don't have bandwidth. And I suspect this
is the case in a lot of places
around the world too,
that,
that we can't do streaming of, like, high
quality video,
especially live. So for that reason,
we do record the audio and post these
to the sound cloud.
And,
now that they're there from the sound cloud,
anyone is welcome to benefit from them
even if you have,
high speed Internet. So, you can go to
soundcloud.comforward/hmakul,
and I've also
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So you can download them for free from
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You don't have
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You can also from a mobile, if you
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A a a a disclaimer. I don't know
about the I'm pretty sure it's legal, but,
like, you know, in case it's not, you
check with your own
legal counsel about that. And if it's not,
I definitely don't encourage you to do so.
But sc downloader will allow you to rip
the audio. From my side, I have no
problem with you ripping the audio.
It does result in less clicks and less
hits,
but,
as does,
you know, separating the the platform
amongst a number of platforms. But, you know,
marketing isn't everything. And, just like we have
to build up our platform to get our
message out in this world, we also have
a, an appointment on the other world that
we have to be
cognizant of. And I don't want anybody to
say that,
that we,
forgot our brothers and sisters who are going
through difficulty.
That being said, I also want to mention
that tonight is according to our local moon
sighting in North America,
15th night of Shaban.
And, people ask me about it.
Malik
it's as if he didn't
observe,
in any formal way
or concur,
the
Baraka this night.
However, the later Maliki scholars and in general,
the the tradition of Islam,
seems to see it as a Mubarak night.
Allah
mentions it in, I believe, source,
Al Hadid.
Stuff from.
At any rate,
so
the the
the mention of it is made indeed in
the book of Allah
And so,
although it's not specifically
mentioned in the Quran, whether it's the 15th
of Shaban, so the call of some of
the
some of the
is that that's just
the that's being referred to it.
But,
it is a,
it is a
that it is the 15th night of Shaban.
There are many people who say that this
happens or that happens on that night. And
without saying,
whether or not,
I concur,
Sorry. It's not Surat Hadid. It's Surat Dukhan.
I had a feeling that I'd said something
wrong and I did say something wrong. Allah,
forgive me. It's Surat Dukhan that it's mentioned.
So the,
the idea is what? Is that like
Is that, you know, some you know, there's
reports about your deeds being sent off and
this and that. And I'm not saying again
that those are correct or incorrect,
But,
at the bare minimum, a person of, a
person who reads the the afar
and reads the,
you know, the the aqwa of the aslaf,
it's clear that it's a
a Mubarak night.
And even Malik
is not having observed it formally or publicly.
This has to do something with Malik's
sensibility. You know? And this is something that,
you know, it's tangentially related with a couple
of other masala that I wanted to bring
up, but I was just looking for an
opportunity to bring them up. And that is
that the that Malik
was particularly
aware of,
the fact that
the precedents that they set and the things
that they do and say in that generation
are going to impact our civilization for basically
the less rest of its,
rest of its lifetime.
So he was very conservative, not necessarily,
not at all in the, like, Fox News
and Rush Limbaugh,
Sean Hannity
sense of conservative.
But, conservative in the sense that he would
be very careful to
do a practice or opine,
that something was
permissible
or or a sunnah,
out of the the fear that it would
be,
basically taken as deen afterward.
So So for that reason, he has a
number of peculiar fatawah. Like, one of his
fatawahs that it's makruder,
fast to 6 days of shaban, all in
a row, starting from the second of Shawwal,
which on the on the surface of it,
you know, one would wonder what's wrong with
that. In fact, many might think it's, like,
superior in some ways to do that.
But Malik
he he considered it makruhu hawaiyah. Out of
fear that people would think that it's far,
that if everyone starts doing it, people will
start thinking it's farther, that even it's a
sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
where indeed it's it's
not transmitted. It's not a transmitted sunnah of
the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So that's,
that's one fatwa. Another fatwa that's peculiar like
that is that he's solo he wrote
He used to consider it Magru to have
masahif, you know, the the the the copies
of the Quran,
sitting in a shelf in the message for
people to recite while waiting for the prayers.
And why? Because he said that the companions
were the Olam who used to recite while
waiting for the prayers, but they would recite
from memory. They wouldn't recite from us live.
And so this is a a type of
subtlety
in,
in his concern with regards to setting precedent
that shows that he was
thinking about things on a different level. And
for that reason, the 15th of,
Shaban,
and the observance of it's night and day,
thereafter,
They they are,
you know, you'll see the later Malakis will
will
take this up as a practice because it's
clear from the Athar that there's some sort
of barakah in this night that a great
number of the alaf used to used to,
you know, seek out.
But Malik himself, that's why he'd be probably
why he doesn't have Nas, for it. It
was known in his time,
but, you know, he he he felt like
he was
he felt unsure whether he wanted to cast
in his lot and legitimate it a 100%.
But that being said, there are a number
of Masai and Masai that are like this.
Not many. There's, like, a handful of them
that the the the the
the evidence is not doesn't seem preponderant
in one direction or another, whether it's a,
rigorously attested to or not.
And,
for that reason,
this matter, like other matters,
Our said that we neither command to it
nor do we forbid other people,
command people to it nor do we forbid
them from it. So if somebody doesn't wish
to observe
this night or seek the barakah of this
night, then we don't say that that person
is a deviant or that person is
wrong or that person is a hater, or
they're, you know, Erhabi, or Wahhabi, or Kababi,
or Shahabi, or,
Salafi, or Malafi, or, like, whatever. You know,
we don't throw we don't throw, labels out
of for that.
That's
their that's their opinion. It seems actually to
be in line with the the opinion of
the imam, of ours.
Although, I gave the addendum from before that,
you know, there may be a reason for
it that's not that's other than it being
completely inauthentic.
And then the flip side is what? Is
that,
you know, if a person wishes to seek
the barakah this night, then we don't throw
out a label at them and say, oh,
look, you're goofy and Sufi and, you know,
whatever, and, like, and
whatever.
We say no.
Maybe particular narrations with regards to the particulars
of what happens this night or what doesn't
happen this night.
This, you know, this may be debatable or
disputable or open to some
subjectivity,
and so we don't take a hard stance
one way or the other. But it is
clear that it's a Mubarak night that our
Aslaf,
used to seek,
seek the Barakah, which and when I say
Aslaf, I mean the PACE early generations.
So,
that's that's that. And we don't make, like,
a world war about it one way or
the other. Don't get into a fight about
it with people. And it's not one of
those things that the deen is gonna live
or die because of. And it really you
know, if Allah ta'ala
wished it to be such a clear matter,
he would have sent a surah in which
it says that, you know, it's a or
it's, you know, the most Wajibist Wajib in
the world. But, you know, Islam is the
kite of Islam is not gonna, like, fly
or or or crash because of, this one
thing.
But, what we did see, I'll tell you
this much, is that our mashaikh in the
east and in the west,
all of them, they used to seek the
barakah this night,
including in Mauritania.
This was a night that they used to,
spend in in some devotion in some devotional
worship,
to the lord, seeking the and with understanding
that there's something that to be gone from
this night that may not be available on
other nights. And,
likewise,
they encouraged,
their families, to do so
without
putting an emphasis on it that somehow
exceeds the balance of,
of what it is,
both in Mauritania and in
in, the Indian subcontinent, and many of them
used to also fast on the day of
15th. It's funny because I actually,
I got into,
I think, in, like, 2007 or something like
that. I got into a very long,
Internet,
on a email list. Like, who does that
anymore? Right? On the email list, they're real
back and forth with somebody
who was like, no, this thing is completely
baseless. And I don't even know why I
was arguing with them. Just maybe I was
fresh out of Madrasa,
and like I wanted to just keep my,
like, research and reading chops up. So like,
you know, the person seemed to have like
a relatively good level of
of understanding knowledge that he brought to the
debate. So I just go back and forth
with him. And so we got to a
point where and I was told later on
that even the brother who who was responding,
it wasn't actually him. It was someone else
ghostwriting,
for him, because the person who was actually
writing the the the responses wasn't allowed in
that forum.
And so
I'm fine with me,
So what happened was we got to an
impasse where he said, well, you know, the
I said the Maliki is you know, it's
written in the shuruhat of Khalil that it's
recommended to fast on 15th of Shaban.
And he says he says, well, of course,
it's gonna be recommended to fast on 15th
of Shaaban because the bright days, the Ayam
al Abid is the 13th, 14th, and 15th.
So that's just that's just because I am
Abib. It's not because of,
it's not because it's like some sort of
particular,
Baraka in that day.
And so
the last email in that thread was one
that I sent in response to that.
Must have been like some 30, 35 emails
or something like that back and forth. The
last email of the thread was me quoting
Khalafi from the,
from the Rafi Rafi Foru al Malikiya, which
is an awesome book. Anyone who's a student
of you know, it doesn't matter what Madhyab
you are. That's one of those books in
the tradition. Any page, random page you open
to and start reading, just filled with interesting
stuff.
It doesn't matter if you're Maliki or not.
Adafy was just like a like a genius.
Like, I just wonder. He's like one of
those people, like,
you know, like, I wonder. Like, I would
just, like, really, like, think it would be
cool to, like, just meet him and see,
like, what kind of, like,
like
like like
fantastic,
like, Lord of the Rings plus Jedi Knight
plus, like,
jinn plus ilm, like, level, like,
you know, powers this person must have had
in his lifetime to be able to write
the way he did. So Gaddafi,
writes,
something in the
chapter regarding Siam
that Malik's opinion was that the Ayam al
Abib
are not the are not the,
are not the 13th, 14th, and 15th of
the month, but that they're the 1st, 10th,
and 20th of the month.
And,
and so that kinda ended that conversation because
if that's the case, then fasting on 15th
is
gonna count for it. At any rate, it
doesn't really end the conversation. I mean, you
you could say something back to that as
well. But
the point is is that,
you know, it's not
I myself, you know, out of fairness, will
say that this is not like such a
slam dunk that we would shut down the
people who
who question the basis of this, of this
practice. But it's also not like such a
spurious bid, like, you know, like,
that you gotta pretend like it's just like,
you know,
it it was invented by, like, whatever, Louis
Farrakhan or something weird like that. So, that's
that. My,
Abdulrah Julian Jihad Abdulrahim.
I
say
my good friend.
So we we continue with reading,
with reading from the text from Ibn Abi
Zaid
and Nafrawi's commentary on it.
Hoping for the barakah of this night, insha'Allah,
whatever barakah there is in this night, inshallah,
that Allah
let us spend it in,
in in his obedience
and that, whatever barakah there is in this
night that he give us from it. And
that, inshallah, also reading this ilm ul so
it's from from from our taking of its
barakah.
Made haram to eat,
to consume wealth
through,
the wealth of others, through falsehood.
And there is a lot
of happening nowadays. People
attack weird hidden fees and hidden charges. They,
they like, you know, they they stint one
another. They'll say that I'm giving you this
or I'm giving you that. There's all sorts
of hidden charges and fees and things like
that. And they, you know, stinting means what?
There's a whole surah about stinting.
Who are the motafifin?
When they when they dish out, when they
when they, when it's being dished out to
them what they're buying, they demand full measure.
They stint others when they dish out for
others, but when it's time for them to
get something, they demand full measure.
And don't those people think that they'll be
raised, up one day,
the day where all mankind will have to
stand in front of the the lord of
the world?
And, this is unfortunately kinda how how this
is, that people tack on weird hidden fees
and,
you know, late fees and this fees and
that fees on,
on stuff, or they will stint
people if they can get away with, like,
stinting on a payment or they get away
with, you know, stinting in quality,
or or or cheating in somehow or another,
or selling something that's expired, or selling a
used car that has a defect, but they
somehow are,
you know, they they cover up or whatever
it is. All of it, it's curse.
That money you're getting or that wealth that
you're getting,
when you do such a thing,
It's the reality of it is what is
that's that that that person, it looks like
they're giving you cash. What they're doing is
they're breaking off a piece of the hellfire.
A cinder of the hellfire, they're giving it
to you and it will, burn in your
pocket and you won't feel it yet, but
the day will come where all of it
will be paid to you in full measure.
And Allah protect us from such a day.
Allah
protect us from such a day.
The,
you know, this is this is
This is what it means that you owe
a man money
and you don't pay them.
You know, you borrow it under false,
false assumptions. You don't pay them back. You
owe someone something. You don't pay them in
full. You're selling something to somebody,
and they pay you in full, but you
don't give them exactly what they wanted, or
you hide some sort of defect or whatever.
All of these things allow me to haram,
to consume the wealth of another person through
falsehood.
Walkhilabatu.
So, he mentions a number of,
a number of different,
genuses of,
of
of of of of consuming the wealth of
people
through falsehood.
So the first he mentions is ghasab. Ghasab
is robbery
or brigandry by taking taking taking someone's property
that you're not entitled to
by force,
or by threat,
even if you don't actually harm somebody, even
if you don't harm somebody in the process.
So if you say, here's a gun. Stick
them up. If you don't give me your
wall, I'll kill you. That's what that's what
brigandry or robbery is.
And, the sharia has a had the punishment
in it. And the had the punishment for
brig injury in our sacred sharia is what
is other person's right arm,
and their left leg should be, amputated, and
that person should be crucified.
So the sharia doesn't take kindly to this.
The sharia does not take kindly to this
at all. And,
you know, for those people who are,
criminals
in the Muslim world,
especially those who are masquerading,
as some sort of Islamic movement or whatever.
Any Muslim who you,
do anything through coercion, this is what you
deserve. If you don't get it in this
world, you'll get it, manifold on the other
side.
And, it's completely haram. You don't have the
right to threaten any other Muslim.
You have no right to take anything from
them through coercion except for,
what the sacred law allows.
And,
those are very few things.
So
here, it means
Nafrawi
defines it as,
doing something or using another person's property without
their,
without their permission,
or using it in a way that you
don't, you know, that that you don't have
permission to use. And so, you know, that
could be like for example, someone's, you know,
someone's
you see someone's thing sitting on the on
on this, you know, in in a place,
but you know it's not yours. Or you
could be doing something that is,
like, you know, something you have permission to
use. You know, you have permission, for example,
a rental car company, you have permission to
drive the car on the road. You don't
have permission to drive it like, you know,
like 120 miles an hour. You don't have
permission to drive it off road. You don't
have permission to use it in a way
that's gonna, like,
damage it somehow or harm it somehow.
And so,
you know, that's
that's that's what that is.
That's also
consuming the property of other people,
through battle, through falsehood.
And so you have to you have to
use things in the proper way. And unfortunately,
we're we're like we're really bad sometimes about
abusing
abusing other people's stuff. It could be like
privilege at work.
It could be public property,
you know,
parking in a place that you're not allowed
to park,
or,
you know, using some sort of public property
and saying, well, it's, you know, I pay
for it through my tax dollars. But in
a way that you're, you know, that collectively
we as a society don't agree that it's
allowed to be used.
And, you know, that's that's that's problematic,
indeed.
Or treachery. Treachery is what? That someone trusted
you with something.
Someone trusted you with something, and because of
their trust,
you took advantage of it.
So, you know, you test drive a car
and then, like,
take off with it and never come back.
You know, these things these things happen.
Or, someone trusted you with their, with their
with their money and you just never give
it back to them,
when they ask for it back.
Khayana or treachery is one of the most,
despicable
despicable of acts,
you know. And people can trust you with
more than just their property.
And, you don't trust anybody with your property.
You don't trust any just anybody with your
money. If you don't know that, you learn
it the hard way. You don't trust anybody
with your family until you have tested that
person a 1000000 times.
But, this happens sometimes. People are very trusting
and then they learn this
this the hard way. Sometimes circumstances
force you to trust somebody
even though you don't want to, but you
have no other choice.
And,
to, be treacherous with somebody after having trusted
them. It's one of the most ugly deeds,
and it's not something that a person of
iman does. And if someone has done it
in the past,
they should suck it up and,
recompense the person that they that they, betrayed,
before a day comes when Allah
will take vengeance,
for every wrong.
And that day will come.
That day will come. And that day, you
know, if you being, having a beard or
a niqab or hijab or praying 5 times
a day or, fasting the month of Ramadan
or crying when the Quran is being recited
or being from a particular family or being
born to Islam or being a convert to
Islam or any of the none of those
things are going to none of those things
are going to spare you or save you
on that day from,
the vengeance for treachery.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
cleanse
our ummah from,
from the people of treachery
and whatever,
sick part of the heart that we have
that is inclined towards that. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala cleansed it from our hearts. It really
is one of the most ugly and despicable
of things.
And, you know,
a good person and a clean person couldn't
live with themselves,
through treachery. Not only would they not desire,
not desire the the the money of treachery,
but they would rather just die,
than betray a trust that was given to
them. And that's how our forefathers used to
live. And Allah
give us tawfiq,
and protect us and save us. There are
many many shortcomings and shortfalls a believer can
have. Treachery is just not one of them.
We're reba and transacting in interest, transacting in
usury.
So rebah is interesting. I mean, there's a
whole chapter. So he mentions rebah, socht, and,
he'll mention in a sec second.
He,
and
so he mentions riba, which is usury,
and,
sakhd, which is ill gotten wealth,
of any times in general.
So
he mentions that, you know, there are a
number of different opinions with regards to sukht,
what it means.
But in general, the idea of socht is
it's ill gotten wealth.
One of the opinions is
the,
the money of bribery,
that a person that a person takes for
some for just doing what their job was
anyway. But if you ask somebody for money,
for example, to sign a paper, that is
their job to sign or to bear witness
for something that they're supposed to bear witness
to anyway,
or to let them pass when they're supposed
to let them pass anyway.
So, that's one of the tafsirs of sartis
is,
rashwa,
bribery.
And, one of the tafasir of it is,
price that is paid to a prostitute.
That, that's also haram. So to be a
prostitute is bad and to be a pimp
also is bad.
And there's a whole, you know, there's a
whole cascade of that happened with that. By
the way, this is a good time to
bring up the fact that that trafficking is,
like, such a just such a horrible issue.
And it's always been a horrible issue that
people should take, like, young girls, minor girls,
and then subject them to a level of
abuse that kind of destroys their
destroys their self esteem and self worth and
makes them pliable in order to be used.
And, I mean, I just read like these,
just distressing,
distressing articles about, about trafficking where, you know,
these girls will be put to work and
they'll have to basically,
they'll have to basically sleep with, like, so
many different,
I don't even wanna say men, you know,
because a real man wouldn't do that.
But, so many different, clients,
in a in in a night, and they
basically use them and wear them down to
the point where they die. And the average
lifespan of
a trafficked girl is is is just a
couple of years at maximum.
And, they'll literally they'll die. They'll either kill
themselves or drugs or
disease or, being overworked or malnourished or,
you know, by their by their own hands
or all sorts. They just meet a horrible
death.
And, whoever would do that to another human
being, whoever would do that to somebody's daughter
or son, or boys are trafficked as well,
whoever would do that to another human being,
just that person, may the scourge of Allah
be upon them. May, they never,
see any happiness or any,
joy in this life or in the next.
And, may Allah
curse their every breath and their every step
and every, blink of their eye,
and tell her unless they repent and make
good for for, what they've done for, you
know, to harm in terms of harm to
others. And, how how are you going to
how even if you repent, how are you
going
to, make it up to somebody?
You know, Malik
his tafsir is that that the only way
a murderer can be spared from the hellfire
is if,
you know, even if they repent to Allah
and Allah, Allah forgives them,
that the only way they can be spared
from the hellfire is that the person that
they murdered forgives them. That's why murder is
one of the worst of crimes because that
person,
you cut their life short in a way
that, causes their affairs not to be in
order. So that person may be may may
go to the hellfire because of your,
having murdered them, and they're definitely gonna be
disinclined to forgive you, you know. They'll be
very disinclined to forgive you. So so many
people will burn in the hellfire because of
murder.
And a person should be very careful about
taking the life of another. And so when
you do that to a trafficked person, you
know, through that first abuse, you take away
from that human being certain things that,
that really cannot heal. You know, it's like
taking a vase and shattering it. You can't,
like you can glue it back together again,
but it will never be together. You know?
And, that's why it's such a horrible, it's
such a horrible crime. And, you know, people
might be like, well, look, you know, it's
the 50th and I'm not a, you you
know, I'm not a human trafficker. I don't,
you know, use the services of prostitutes or
whatever. But the fact of the matter is
many of these,
services,
you know, quote unquote, you know,
services,
they're also how, for example,
* works.
And this is one of the, one of
the big pushes in the movement, even amongst
non religious people,
to shut down *
is that, like all of these
* websites,
oftentimes they'll have
they'll have material and content that is is
taken from,
those
girls
or those boys for that matter who are,
trafficked.
And, you know, like,
a normal person doesn't wake up one day
and say, like, oh, look, I wanna,
stuff for like, you know, sell my body
or put my body on display. It's not
part of it's not part of hayat, even
if a person is not a Muslim, you
know. Obviously, we know that it's haram, but
even people who don't have a lot tells
them it's haram. It's definitely not not a
normal thing that people want or a normal
thing that people desire. There's some sickness or
another that causes a person to get to
that point. And more often than not, it
has to do with coercion. It may not
be coercion in every instance, but the coercion
happened in the instances leading up to,
the the the the instance at hand, which
may lead to a solve false set sense
of,
what is the word that they use? Consent,
you know, like a false type of consent.
But it's like a consent of, like, what
the *? I'm already a broken and useless
person anyway.
I've been coerced to do this thing so
many times in the past that, like, you
know, what's the point of me getting killed
or dying or being beaten or being,
you know, in some cases,
shunned or ostracized or denied this, that, or
the other thing,
to say no to the thing that was
already taken from me by force.
And so,
you know, that's really bad. And really, we
need to have,
we need to have in our masajid,
we need to have about
this. Why? Because again, the Masjid public may
not necessarily be the group of people that
is
going to,
you know, pay for,
pay for, you know, such a abhorrent
thing to be done with these girls or
with these boys.
However, Masjid
people are a very diverse set of people.
We have Uber drivers. We have cab drivers.
We have convenience store owners. We have hotel
owners. We have, you know, police officers. We
have doctors. We have nurses. We have all
sorts of people that interact with the public,
and they should be able to see the
telltale signs of who's being trafficked. Because if
you live in a very sheltered
environment, you don't see, like, a man and
woman down the street and think, hey. Maybe
this guy is, like, you know, basically keeping
this woman by coercion and, like,
you know, forcing her to do x, y,
and z. You may you may not that
may not occur to you occur to you,
but there are telltale signs that you can
see. And oftentimes, if someone can say something
in the in the right,
moment,
it can result in, someone being freed from
such a a torment or such a torture.
And so, you know, that's that's something that's
I think it's it's worth mentioning.
And, you know, I don't know, like, if
somebody wants to reach out to me directly,
or in the contact, you know, like, contact
me, like, offline or whatever.
You know, whoever works in this,
field or has some idea about this field,
I would like to know I would like
to know who is a dependable,
organization that works in these things and doesn't
have some sort of agenda to, like, completely,
destroy religion. Because oftentimes,
you know, there are all sorts of intersectional
agendas and the intersections are not always good
ones.
And so I would like to have, you
know, some access to,
resources that we can develop training for imams,
for scholars, for community people,
in order for them to educate the public
of what to look for, in order to,
in order to to do so, to to
disrupt this process
without having to, you know, join the great
alphabet continuum, if you, if you understand what
I'm saying.
Because the moral teachings of Islam doesn't
doesn't condone trafficking, but it doesn't mean that
we have to, like,
throw out, all of our morality,
just in order to, in order to participate
in in the disruption of of this particular
evil.
So,
one of the, one of the well, about
Sukhdev is the price that a soothsayer
takes or a oracle takes because,
the soothsayer and the oracle will
lie about knowing the unseen and they don't
know the unseen.
And,
so that money is cursed as well.
Or the the the the money that a
beggar who takes that doesn't have to beg,
he's just getting more and more money faking
to be a person in need,
whereas he just doesn't wanna work.
That's also cursed money, you
know. And so there's there's a a there's
a number of different he has. And in
here, all of that, so this haram.
Riba is actually according to Malik the
the, greatest of sins
after Kufr.
It's the greatest of sins. And the definition
of riba is
the most basic definition of riba isn't what
people think of, which is like bank interest.
The most basic definition of riba is what
they call riba fable,
which is I'll sell you one quantum of
dates for a different quantum of dates. I'll
sell you one quantum of money for a
different quantum of money. I'll sell you one
quantum of,
of, for example, wheat for another quantum of
wheat. You know? So, like, selling someone $1
for $2, this is a bogus transaction.
This transaction brings no value to the system.
It brings no value to anybody.
It's a fake transaction. It's just, it's just
a voom. It's basically theft
that's, dressed up, to go to the party,
like Halloween, like theft put on the costume
of of business and went to the party.
But there's no benefit in society in it
at all. And it's really funny, you know,
like a lot of people, they tell me,
like, they're like, oh, well, you know, Islam
is really medieval,
understanding of market economies, and economies don't actually
work like that, and blah blah blah, and
this and another thing. And, like, how can
a how can economies, you know, function without
without interest?
Look, the Ottoman Empire was a multinational,
multilinguistical,
multicultural,
multi religious empire.
And and,
you know, later on, maybe they used to
deal in luxurious loans, but that was more
a matter of
being subdued by foreign powers,
before its eventual collapse than anything else.
Or,
you know, it was it it wasn't it
wasn't necessarily,
you know, the the the thing that the
system was built on.
And same thing with, Rashidun state. Same thing
with Banu Umayyad, same thing with Banu Abbas.
And same thing with a number of different
Muslim empires.
And so it is possible to run
riba. In fact, the economy runs better without
riba.
And when people ask me this question, like,
isn't this a bit naive? And like, you
know, you can't do that anymore or whatever.
I say, look,
let's simplify examples. Okay? Imagine all of the
world's people, instead of there being 7,000,000,000, there's
just 2 of them.
And one person that has a $100, the
other person is broke.
And so the person with a $100, which
represents the wealthy class,
says to the broke person, hey, look, I'll
lend you a $100.
You pay me back after pay me a
150 back after a year. Okay? Will that
person ever be able to pay the 150
back? No. Because only a $100 exist.
That's the problem with Reeba. That's why,
the economy goes through cycles of booms and
busts.
That's why,
you know, most money,
doesn't exist in real life. It's just all
fake zeros that are being cranked out on
paper.
And, that's why, it's not possible for all
loans to be repaid in full. And it
it's a remarkably
destabilizing
force. And one of the reasons why it
actually works so well is that people would
rather
labor under the illusion of fake money,
because of their lava money. So they'll they'll
crank out the labor rather than dealing with
what actually exists in the world. And,
you know, there is a,
you know okay. I'm not like an economist.
So, you know, whoever is an economist and
a philosopher will probably listen to what I
say and be like, well, it's really
super over simplified and stay in your lane
moldy and blah blah blah. And I accept
that's a valid criticism. Part of it is,
because, yes, I'm not a, like, super, like,
recognized, like, you know,
Nobel Prize winning winning economist or whatever. Part
of it is also because of the constriction
of time because we're not here to talk
about economics.
But,
you know, there's an individual I met when
I was in Pakistan by the name of
doctor Asad Zaman.
He claims to be the youngest,
graduate,
I believe, of of of of,
Caltech.
No. Not Caltech. Maybe MIT or MIT or
Caltech, one of the 2.
He he, received a PhD, and he left
it, and he went back to Pakistan. Why?
His PhD was in economics.
And he said I asked him. I said,
why would you, like, go and, like, teach
in this international university in Islamabad after having
been, an instructor at Caltech, which is a
very elite,
a very elite,
institution to say the least.
He said,
he said because I felt
inside, I couldn't
I couldn't,
perpetuate
the system, which is designed to completely, like,
go through the cycle of boom and bust.
I couldn't, like, perpetuate it in good consciousness.
And so I felt that the only way
of the only way of, like,
earning my living,
without being guilty for, like,
perpetuating this this system, which is itself, like,
fraudulent in its cyclical nature
in a way that will cause
massive windfalls and cash,
takings and rakings by the
elite classes on a cyclical basis and massive
suffering for the public.
You know, like, the only the only thing
I could do is teach,
an alternative to it. And he's not alone
in in in in saying that. And if
you want to really get into it, Inshallah,
I welcome you to contact him or individuals
like him in order to talk about that.
But the point is is this is that
look. If there's only a $100 in the
system and there's 2 people,
and the person who has a $100 loans
it to the person who doesn't and says
give me a $150 later,
that other $50 doesn't exist. There's no way
that he's gonna be able to pay him
back. It's going to be what? It's gonna
necessarily mean what?
It's going to necessarily mean slavery.
Because that person will will labor and toil
in order to pay that that person that
money back,
and,
they're not gonna be able to pay it
back. Now the argument then comes in, like,
well, maybe he'll take the $100 and he'll
make something or he'll,
use it, you know, in a business, and
that business will prosper and he'll pay back.
Says, yes. Some of the time that will
happen, some of the time the business will
fail.
And that person the price of failure is
what? But they'll enter to again,
debt slavery to the person who has the
money. And all the risk is on one
party. None of the risk is on the
other party, which is completely unjust.
And, and so the rubofuddle is is this
bogus transaction in which you pay,
one amount
you know, one quantum of one commodity for
a different quantum of the same commodity. So
say I'll give you $10 for $15.
And then the bank interest is like a
variation on that transaction because it it includes
time in it as well.
And so people say, well, what about the
time value of money that you could have
been doing something with that money? That's why
Islam
encourages investment.
That the person who has the money is
an investor, says, hey, look, I'll pay pay
you this much. You give me a percentage
of your business. If they make money, they
make money together. And if they sync, they
sync together. 1 party puts it gives the
idea and puts in the labor, the other
party puts in the money, or they put
money in at desperate
rates and they receive,
what you call, they receive the
the the profit from it at disparate rates
or at the at the rates that they
agree upon.
Or if there's a loss, they take the
loss together.
But that's not slavery. That's just everybody. If
we succeed, we succeed together. And if we,
if we fail, we fail together. And there's
incentive then,
for all parties to push towards success.
And that's that's essentially what that issue is.
And so when people say, how can a
system work without,
Reba, I I give this example and turn
the example around and say, how can the
system work with Reba? I don't know how
it can work with Reba, except for having
this cyclical bus where, like, huge amounts of
fake and bogus debt have to be,
erased from the system,
combined with, like, you know, increasing just printing
more and more zeros. Like, if you gather,
you know, they have this huge multi $1,000,000,000,000
stimulus, you know, Steve Mnuchin and, Donald Trump
are gonna sign,
checks and send checks to you. Mabarak
Mubarak inshallah. Donate to rebat.orgforward/donate,
you know,
or whatever. You know? Like, you're just gonna
what is it? Where is that money coming
from? Do you think that that that amount
of cash actually exists in the world? It
doesn't.
They're just basically printing more zeros. Now someone
can say, well, Sheikh, is it is it
permissible to, like, transact in modern paper money,
you know, given that it's all fake zeros
and blah blah blah, and it's based on
this, like, really luxurious and horrible system.
I'm like, yeah, it's not. But, like, you
know, until you can do something about it,
I'm not gonna, like, you know, it's gonna
be my every khalifa. But the hope is
that the Muslims,
if they could get together and, you know,
I don't know, like, stop killing each other
or, like,
stop, you know, being racist against each other
or, like, work with one another, trust one
another.
You know, believe the when they say, you
know, you should take your socks off and
you make wudu or, like, you should eat
halal or whatever. You know, if they could
be on the same page at that at
that level,
one would hope they would be in a
position to
relieve,
relieve
God's creation from the blight and the curse,
of the slavery of, of of of riba
and of debt.
Until then, it's another list on the list
of things to do.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, raised from amongst,
his his pious and righteous creation,
Those people who have the himna and the
courage,
to fix, what is broken,
and to take the oppressor by the hand
and hold his hand back,
from his oppression so that people can live,
with one another, in in in harmony,
mutual prosperity.
And, until that day until that day comes,
if it comes or if it doesn't come,
no one said that this duniya was meant
to be perfect.
There will be some people who will cast
their lot in in their
words and their deeds and their actions and
their professions
with the oppressor, and there are people who
cast their lots in with the oppressed. And
some of those who cast their lot in
with the oppressor are gonna,
come all Muslim y and look all,
bearded in hijab and niqab and kebab out.
And,
you know, they're going to come with turbans,
and they're gonna say, oh, the sunnah, this,
and they're gonna tell you hadith and ayat,
and all they're doing is, like, a paid
for mercenary smile or grin
on behalf of, of
of shaitan.
And Allah,
protect us from such people. Anyone who rubber
stamps,
voom,
that person, we have nothing to do with
them and they have nothing to do with
us. Allah protect us from ever,
you know, being tempted by that by that
money, which is also and
it's also.
And unfortunately, there are many people who take
it nowadays, even from amongst the learned.
Protect us,
from that. But the point is is that,
it's it's haram. It's very haram. It's more
haram than murder. In fact, it's probably what
causes most wars to happen. People blame wars
on religion,
and,
and I, you know, I don't really think,
you know, like,
I don't really think, like, I'm a relatively
religious person and I've never, like, had this
feeling, like, we have to go kill all
the Jews or kill all the Christians or
whatever, you know. Like, generally, we get along
just fine. We have inner interfaith
dialogues and they're all smiles and,
handshakes and respect.
As far as I can tell, wars happen
not because of religion, but more because of
people's greed.
And,
you know, what causes
famine and
want, and,
what causes people to leave their homes from
hunger and have to fight in order to
survive,
more than, more than this usury system. Allah
knows best. So I think it makes sense,
that this is basically the worst sin a
person can do,
short of kufr, which is not a sin,
but it's a disbelief.
And it really literally seeds
seeds the,
the the the wicked crop of every other
sin,
through it. Because because because of the inequality
will sow,
and the disparity in wealth, it will also
it will make
drive people through necessity to basically put those
things on the menu and make those options,
something they think about in order to survive
that they otherwise that no decent person would
have thought about,
with regards selling that which shouldn't be sold,
taking that thing that shouldn't be taking, taking
fighting that person that shouldn't be fought, etcetera,
etcetera.
So, people people
people should be careful about what they comment,
in the
comment section unless they
wish to hear something that they don't want
to hear about themselves.
So we continue,
with Sukh. Well, Timar. Timar is,
gambling.
Again, you know, someone might say, what's wrong
with Muslims? People are just trying to have
a fun time. Look. If you wanna have
a fun time, then go play game soccer.
You know, you wanna go if you wanna
have a fun time,
then,
like, you know, have a foot race with
one another. You wanna have a fun time,
then, like, you know, make some chai and
have a good conversation.
You don't,
you don't,
you don't do something that is a
a, you know, dressed up as a financial
transaction that gives absolutely no benefit to anybody,
in the world.
And, that's what gambling is. It's basically,
making money and losing money. And like secret,
you're always gonna lose.
You know, you know, and making it look
like a financial transaction, but there's no benefit
in it at all. And, this is one
of the the the dumbest things in the
world is when,
the economies crash into place,
oftentimes
as a a desperate
a desperate,
ploy for,
for for funds. Many states will say, okay,
we'll introduce a lottery, or we'll introduce, you
know, we'll give, like, limited licenses for casinos,
for tax revenue purposes, and we'll, like,
you know, it'll raise this much revenue, and
then we'll have money for education. We'll have
money for this. We'll have money for that.
Well, the problem is that gambling is
basically you build that hotel,
and the hotel is not free. You build
that casino, the casino is not free.
You build it all for, you know, on
what? On on someone pays for it. Right?
And so all of that is a waste
of money to build an institution where nothing
beneficial happens, where people will come and, you
know, spend $1,000
and come home with, like, 800, or come
home with nothing sometimes. You know? And, I
know people and gambling is addictive, and I
know people who have gambling addictions, and they're,
like, otherwise normal and good people. But once
they get
stuck in it, a person who is, like,
a very accomplished person, you know, they may
be like a medical doctor or a engineer
or a pharmacist or an IT
professional or a businessman and be very competent
in so many ways.
But,
you know, for lack of trusting their instinct
with regards to basic arithmetic or common sense,
there's something inside of a person that that,
like, they get addicted to this thing, the
rush, the thrill of it, which is you
wanna rush or you wanna thrill, then, you
know, I don't know. Go go skydiving. You
know?
You know,
get into a a a foot race with,
like, a with with with, like, a horse.
I don't know. There's plenty of ways to
get thrill that's, like, much more useful than
than,
than this. And then what ends up happening
is that they'll spend all of their rent
money, spend all the money that they need
to take care of their children. And then
again, what happens, just like in Rehba, they
become desperate at the end of it, and
then you you know, they'll commit crimes,
and you have to have police to jail
them and put put the pieces together, and
where is the family gonna live if rent
is not being paid? It causes, like, all
of this cascade of problems.
And so it's like slash and burn. The
government, in order to get, like, $2,000
worth of revenue, is gonna end up, you
know, like, causing a $10,000
problem. It doesn't make any sense. It's stupid.
There's no benefit in it. And it it
allows a type of behavior activity which is
not the behavior activity of productive members of
society.
And one group of people profits from it
and they get rich off of it, another
group of people suffers, which is the wives
and the children or the dependents of those
people who go and waste all of their
money. Because people say, well, it's a victim
of this crime. If the person enters into
it voluntarily, nobody forces them to do it.
Well, it's a dumb thing.
And there are people who are victimized by
it because of the their, psychological,
propensity
for, this type of addiction,
and no good comes from it. And again,
like we mentioned yesterday, if you think you're
gonna profit off of harming other people, you
got another thing coming. So you have all
these poor people. They've been spying lottery tickets
for a lifetime, and they never win the
lottery.
And,
you know, but they just have false hope.
Whereas if they've actually done something for themselves
or,
you know, saved the money and spent it,
you know, in a good way or lived
within their means or budgeted or, you know,
just done something. Like, you know, I get
the fact that, like, yeah, like, not going
to Starbucks one day a week, you know,
or cutting back like that is not gonna
make you part of the 1%.
But at the same time, you know,
just because that's not the solution to the
problem doesn't mean that doing something that's actually
harmful is not harmful anymore, if that makes
any sense to people.
And so,
you know, we,
you know, we we
encourage people not to to do these things
or not to sanction these things. And that's
the that's the
the the, like,
the very,
materialist outlook.
The spiritual outlook is what is that the
money that a person does win from it
when they win it, quote unquote, win its
curse, itself a loss. And so you see,
people who, like, win the lottery, what happens?
They squander their money.
They end up making enemies out of their
family. They make up enemies out of their
friends. They end up making friends with shallow
people who are just there after their money.
Many of them end up reporting,
that they're much less happy afterward than they
were from before.
And a lot of them just end up
killing themselves. Why? Because ill gotten wealth is
cursed. There's a curse in it. And, I
would rather I would rather spend my, my
halal salary
and live month to month than
take,
that thing which is haram and,
and and and, quote unquote, enjoy it, so
that I can destroy my life in this
world and then destroy my salvation in the
hereafter.
I hope COVID cleans out all of the
poker tables,
of Vegas.
It has. It's closed it's closed the,
it's closed many of the casinos.
And, the problem is is this is that
all actions are by intentions. So as long
as there's a sucker who,
you know, thinks that that's that's a good
thing. And who are who are I mean,
like, what happens with that that casino money?
You know who Sheldon Adelson is?
He's a a a a a very anti
Muslim
person who backs the worst candidates in every
election,
as well as a,
a big,
donor, and pusher and lobbyist for,
the Zionist cause.
And I have no problem with Jews, although
many
we may disagree,
about many things. I don't have a problem
with prosperity of Jews. I don't have a
problem with Jews having a lot of money.
I don't have a problem with them being
happy. I don't I don't have a problem
with any of those things. But like the
Israeli state,
anyone who wants to look me in the
eye and say that it's not a racist
state or it's not itself, like, perpetrating
a type of wound, which should be a
shame for anyone who believes in the Torah.
That person is just being disingenuous, and I'm
I'm very happy not to agree with such
a person. That's all what? It's casino money.
It's haram money. Obviously, you're not gonna support
Voom from,
you know, clean and, well gotten money.
So we we we definitely don't look kindly,
upon,
such people. And unfortunately,
you know, as much as, it's a nice
pastime to blame other people, I gave the
chutba in Las Vegas, in the Jameh Masjid
of Las Vegas once before having graduated from
Madrasa.
And, I could see all the major casinos
from the windows of the, of the Jamat
Masjid. And I wonder why you people even
live here. Like, you know, we should all
buy umbrellas in case rocks start falling out
of the sky. And I was told out
of the top 10,
casinos in Vegas, like, 3 of them,
3 of them, the managers were Muslims. And
I think, like, they actually were people who
went to Jamaa. Like, one of them, I
think, was a Muslim, like, by birth or,
like, whatever ethnicity or or whatever, which
doesn't really count, I guess,
theologically.
But, like, I you know, as identity identifies
as Muslim. But, like, the other 2, I
think, actually come to Joanne, things like that,
or at least attempt to practice some sort
of deen and say they believe in the
Quran and believe in Allah.
And so, like, you know, no need to
point fingers at other people, you know. We
have we have a fair number of scumbags
that,
that,
you know,
that that claim to be part of our
group. And Allah
give them Hidayah as well.
And if we weren't so in love with
people's money,
we would have enough self respect to, straighten
them out. But,
Allah Allah protect us.
Well,
radar well, Rish, inshallah, Rish,
we can talk about,
tomorrow.
Again, to
repeat, inshallah, tomorrow
our dars will be at,
like we said from before,
it will be at 8 o'clock CST, 9
o'clock EST,
and 6 o'clock,
Pacific.
And if you can't make it,
it's okay. You can always listen to the
recording afterward,
or you can listen to it on SoundCloud
as well.
Allah
give us tawfiq to take this
mubarak which is there for our benefit in
this world and the hereafter, and it's there
for our longevity and our prosperity in this
world and the hereafter.
Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam described things
as a ship.
You know, that,
that everybody on that ship, if we if
we float, if we're if we make it
to our destination
and we're saved, we're all saved together.
And if we sink,
all of us will sink together,
at least in this world.
So we have an incentive in
making the world a better place. Allah
keep the ship afloat.
May Allah enable those people who,
encourage good behavior on the ship
and all of those people who, are are
trying to drill holes in the side and
do other type of nonsense.
Allah raised from amongst his creation those who
will take them by the hand and spare
them from their own selves and spare the
rest of the creation from their,
from from their stupidity.