Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Principles Parameters Islm and Culture IFN 01132017.mp4
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So the topic I was asked to speak
about was what
was Islam culture.
It's a very interesting topic,
and it's
I find it, like, almost very simplistic. It's
a very
difficult topic to do a complete treatment for
45 minutes,
but these are the times that here goes.
When we talk about Islam and we talk
about culture, the first thing I want to
begin is the idea that somehow Islam is
separate from culture.
Islam is a complete way of life. It
has to do with a lot of things.
It encompasses a lot of things on a
lot of levels. So at the primary level,
what is Islam? Islam is
the key that a person has
that they use to purchase their eternal life
in the hereafter.
And they
enter through that door with this key.
The key is like
and then your good deeds are like the
teeth in the key, they're the one that
make it fit and open the door.
That is not the extent of Islam,
That is only the beginning.
Islam will dictate how a person does what
they do,
both in their ibadah and their individual
acts of worship,
as well as everything else that they do
in their life.
The rileman divide the akgam and the rulings
and the teachings of philosophy of the sun
in 5
distinct categories.
One is the ibadat,
another one is the. The ibadat are ritual
acts or acts of worship. Right? So we
have a
general meaning of what worship means and a
specific meaning. The specific meaning of worship is
those acts, those ritual acts that the importance
of which come from revelation.
So a person understands why they need to,
for example, get exercise so that they can
be healthy or why they need to go
to work so they can earn money and
pay for stuff. You understand why you're doing
all those things, you don't need to necessarily
even be Muslim to understand the benefit of
those things. Whereas what is the benefit immediately
of praying 5 times
a day or fasting a month of Ramadan?
It's something we accept it as beneficial
on the word of the prophet
Otherwise, without
reference to revelation,
we don't know
what Ibadah is, why should we pray madrut
at all, or if it should be through
our mouths or 5 or 4 or 2,
what the wisdom is of reciting not Ma'at
or so decided quietly.
These things are all set forms that are
given for revelation. So one is
another one is ahiyah, it's your beliefs.
These 2 are, generally speaking, the first is
what we consider piety.
Called, like, as as, like, a community right
now, not from a scholarly point of view,
but just as a as a community. You
think, oh, you know, pay 5 a good
Muslim is someone who prays 5 times a
day. A good Muslim is somebody who,
you know, grays 5 times a day, who
fastens the month of Ramadan, use a lot
of charity, etcetera, etcetera. And this is true
that this is a part of IT. These
are necessary these are necessary parts of the
need. They're good things as well.
However, there's a which
indicates that piety is much more than just
these things.
Who once during his caliphate
asked
a,
his pre privy council, the people who are
sitting around him that he was discussing with
and consulting with,
Does anybody know so and so, son of
so and so? You know, who what kind
of a person is he?
And, someone says, yeah. He says, yeah, I'm
your old man. I know I know he's
a good person. He's a good man. He
says, well, have you lived with him? No.
Have you done business with him? No. Have
you traveled with him? No. He says, why
are you saying that he's a good person?
On what basis do you have to say
that the man is a good man?
He stayed silent. He didn't have an answer
to this question. Said, Umrah
says that maybe you saw him standing outside
of the Masjid al Abad. Yes. You see
him when you go to the Masjid. That's
all.
And the guy's like, yeah. And so the
point is that, say, Omar was saying that
this is not enough. This is not your
entire deed. This is a prerequisite to your
deed.
It is something that with, you know, without
these things, without praying 5 times a day,
without doing those hard work actions, those obligatory
acts, the lost hamatah poses upon the strung,
whether they be from the the bibah or
from other than that. They are not the
goal of Islam, rather they are the starting
point
for a journey that goes far beyond all
of these things.
They are a starting point, they're a necessary
starting point, without them you're not gonna get
anywhere, but if you just fix yourself just
on those things, you will not achieve the
ideal,
achievements and the ideal attainment that Islam,
intended for every believer to achieve and to
attain.
The second is what
are the beliefs,
of Islam.
So in the hadith of the jibreel al
Islam, which is the first hadith of,
Sahih Muslim,
the deen is transfer is described as having
3 dimensions.
Right? Islam,
iman, and ihsan.
So Islam is what Islam is,
you know, it's described in Anita's praying 5
times. It it could bear witness that there's
no God except for Allah, and then then
Muhammad is
his messenger
and to pray 5 times a day and
to fasten up the Ramadan
and to pay sakat to make Hajj of
the hospital Allah
for the one who's able to do so.
And so the word Islam also has a
general meaning of specific meaning.
The general meaning of Islam is the entire
religion,
specific meaning of Islam is what? That part
of the religion which is manifested on the
limbs.
That part of the religion which is manifested
on the limbs.
So it's out of these 5 different divisions
of,
you know, of of of
of rulings and of teachings,
and of mandate in the deen. If the
first one is
has very directly to do with Islam. The
second one,
and and,
the the last day that Imam is described
then as what? As faith in Allah
and his angels and his revelations
and his prophets
and,
divine predestination
in all of these different things that that
are enumerated.
And the common thread between the 3 of
or between the 5 or 5 or 6
of these things, I'm sorry, that I mentioned
is by by conduction,
we find the common thread between them is
that that imam or is
the way that the deen manifests itself in
a person's
mind. So Islam is how it manifests itself
how the lives,
and is how it manifests itself on in
in the mind. And I say mind, they
could say brain.
We have a house filled with
medical
professionals or aspiring medical professionals.
The difference between the brain and the mind
is there's a difference between them. Right? The
brain is a a physical
apparatus. It's an anatomical apparatus.
It's a physical thing that everyone carries around
with them. A dolphin has a brain. A
rat has a brain, a monkey has a
brain,
you know, a lizard has a brain, a
fish has a brain,
but the mind
the mind is very different than a human
being has from other things because the mind
is a spiritual apparatus.
Just like that in the demon when we
talk about the heart, right? That that that
there's a morsel of flesh inside of the
body. If that morsel of flesh is rectified
and the entire body is rectified and if
it's,
faceted if it's spoiled, the entire body is
spoiled,
indeed it is the it is the heart.
We're not talking about the thing that you
go to the cardiologist to go and get
checked up. Four chambers.
Right? 2,
atria and 2 ventricles and blah, blah, blah,
and all this. That's not what we're talking
about.
That's important, but it's important for something else.
The heart, right, mind and brain are 2
different words for similar things. One is spiritual
and one the mind controls the brain. The
mind has a a a a connection with
the brain just like that. The word for
heart is used for both the spiritual apparatus
and the physical apparatus
and there's a connection between the 2 of
them. They physically reside in the same locus
inside of the body, but they're 2 very
different things. So the akhida is what? How
a person should,
how a person's
mind should submit to to
Allah just like me. The
are a way for the winds to submit
to Allah
Unfortunately unfortunately, none of us spent any time
learning the Haqqida of Islam.
For the lay people, it's just not a
concern. A person doesn't think about it.
For people who are somewhat
related to being, many people stay away from
Aqidah because to them, is
a word for sectarian arguments and sectarian fights.
And this is also an unfortunate,
result of the intellectual bankruptcy of the majority
of our community.
Why? Because we don't know who we are
and the only time we think about who
we are is when we're trying to define
ourselves at with with risk with risk you
know, regards to who we're not or who
we don't like.
And that's not an identity at all. That's
not saying who you are. Identity is knowing
who you are, saying who you are. That's
saying who you aren't. That's
You just told me who you're not. Who
are you? And this is a catastrophe. Unfortunately,
we have a centuries old tradition that has
an unbroken chain of transmission to the messenger
of Allah salallahu alaihi wa sallam. In every
single generation of that tradition, there is a
very meticulously and very elegantly
articulated
tradition,
of what we refer to as the what
we call the Sunni tradition. But nowadays, because
of the majority of people having ignored it
to such an extent that it's,
almost alien amongst people who identify as Sunnis
quote unquote,
We don't know what it is anymore. So
now, you know, instead of knowing who you
are,
the the the next best thing that can
identify a person as a Sunni as well,
if you think about it for 5 minutes,
I'm not Shia. I no. My father said
we're not Shia. Okay. That that means I'm
Sunni. That's not who you are. That means
who you're not. There's a whole tradition. Right?
There's such simple things. Right? This by the
way, this has very much to do with
the idea of culture. For example, if if
the masjid has a a a a fundraiser,
okay, there are 1 of 2 outcomes
possible. One outcome is the masjid raises a
$100,000, another outcome is the masjid outcome is
the message to raise $200,000.
Which one's better? Raise your hand. Tell me.
Someone.
Yes.
Maybe $200,000.
Now
I admire you for having gusto,
but generally speaking when as a couple of
years go by, you'll realize, like, some of
the elders is this is this is a
trap. I did a trap for you. So
don't take it personally inshallah.
This is an aqidah issue.
Someone says how are you saying aqidah issue?
We you're not talking about
with the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam or
does Jannah exist or not? This is an
akhidah issue.
One cannot answer this question right right off
the face of it. Right? What is the
2 $100,000 for for Haram money? What if
the $100,000
has some barakah and then the $200,000
doesn't? What if the gathering was a $100,000
is racist gathering in which people remember a
lot of these are some sort of law
audience. Some of them everyone cries and makes
over and the the bigger gathering which more
money has gotten,
is like something kind of devoid from any
sort of spirituality,
and it's just some some sort of like
degenerate form of esanglement,
you know, it's like esang but with more
beards and shawar hames and hijabs and hijabs
and things like that. Right?
This is these are questions that are Aqidah
forcing us to ask
because Aqidah people who are empiricists, who don't
believe in the you don't believe in the
spiritual world for them $200,000
always better than $100,000.
Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam, what did he
say?
He said that if the son of Adam
was given a mountain of gold, the only
thing he would want is the second mountain
of gold, and nothing will be enough for
him except for the dust that fills his
mountain is great. This is not the issue.
We never bothered to learn any of these
things, and when we do are not the
so that we can get into a fight
with someone and say you're a modernist, you're
a traditionalist, you're backwards, you're you're you're out
of your mind, you're crazy, you're conservative, you're
liberal, all these other things. It's in order
to fight with other people. It's not in
order to see what we believe ourselves and
apply our beliefs through our own mind. The
mind is reserved for going to medical school.
That's not reserved for anything else.
Masjid, Basra, salah, mind goes to the medical
school if not finished.
Yes. Between the 2 of them, there is
there is a a a barrier that that
one doesn't transgress over the other with.
It's not like that. Right? So this is
what number 2 we're at, like, number 2
out of 5. Number 3 is what Islam,
the person the spiritual teachings of Islam and
that is how Islam manifests itself on the
heart,
not the physical heart.
That you have bypassed your gaze on and
that you take liberty for for it and
all this other stuff. But on what? On
the spiritual heart.
Right? Within which the the within the physical
heart that that spiritual heart resides as a
locus, but it's not actually just a physical
heart.
That physical heart or sorry. That spiritual heart,
there are teachings that come over it as
well. The thumb is the spiritual apparatus,
specifically it's a part of the luwah where
intention where intention originates from.
It's a part of the luwah. It's a
part of the spirit
that intention originates from. Just like a person
has a body, it's like there's different the
body is different up here than it is
in your hand. It's different in your foot.
Your foot can't do the work of your
brain, etcetera. You know? There are every it
has parts all of which work together. It's
all there's specialization
in tissues and and and things like that.
Right? Just like that. That spirit has different
spiritual organs, different spiritual apparatuses, different spiritual components.
The purpose of the the the thalid inside
of the room, the purpose of the the
spiritual heart within the spiritual apparatus or makeup
of a person is what? It's in order
to guide intentions.
Allah
what's the importance of that heart? He describes
it as that thing that the day of
judgment
that the day of judgment is such a
day that a man will not be or
a woman will not be benefited
neither by wells nor by having a great
number of offspring and progeny.
Neither by wells nor by
offspring or progeny.
That Allah has this in the in Surat
Al Imran
that that it's been made beautiful. It's been
beautified for you for for
for for men. The love of women,
and the love of of of of wealth,
and the I'm sorry. The love of children
and the love of wealth.
I guess 2 of them still exist.
At any rate,
the,
the idea is what? Is that that the
day of judgment is described as the day
that a person will not be benefited by
their wealth or nor by their property except
for the one who brings a a pure
and a clean and a and a a
defect free or a blemish free heart on
that day.
What does that mean? That means everything you
do, you have to do for the sake
of Allah
Allah is pure, and he doesn't accept anything
other than that which is pure.
He doesn't accept anyone except for from the
one who fears him, which means the outward
form of giving can be one way
or the for 2 different people if the
inward form is crooked in 1 or both
of them, Allah is not going to accept
from them, Which means what? The $5 given
in a pure way with an intention that
this is only for the sake of Allah
that is superior to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If this world ended the hereafter,
then
the the larger amount of money that's given
in a crude way with an ulterior motive
because somebody else is watching or from ill
gotten wealth or from wealth that's spent in
a bad way or from wealth which is
given properly, but then afterward you now you
bug the person saying, remember I gave you
this, you remember I gave why? Because inside
the inside of the heart, spiritual heart, where
the niyam originates, there's something wrong there. It's
not clean. That part of the process is
a CCP,
the critical control point. That part of the
process, the entire process went wrong. And once
you, you know, in introduce just a small
amount of filters, like,
You know, people have Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts
and 2 liter bottles of of of Coke
which for the number of doctors we have
in the community, you should tell these people
don't drink so much Coke. Coke. But,
you know, like, if there was a 2
liter bottle with, like, 2 or 2 drips
of beer in it, nobody's gonna wanna drink
it. Nobody in the right mind is gonna
wanna drink it. Why? There's a lot of
us here. He doesn't accept anyone from anyone
except for that which is pure. However, our
lives are right with its conflicts of interest.
It's
Not only
in worldly matters, but also in de related
matters, sometimes, unfortunately, especially in de related matters.
And this is an issue. Then after that,
we come to what? And and and and
Muhammad asked your transactions, which is
a second way. There are 3 of them
out of these 5. 2 1 is imam,
1 is exam. 3 of them have to
do this. 1 is your.
The second is your Ibadan,
like, transactions that you have with people. How
do you buy? How do you sell? How
do you,
you know, how do you do business with
one another? For those of you who have
employees, how do you transact with your employees?
How do you pay your employees? You pay
them on time. You adopt them for stuff
that you're not allowed to adopt them for.
If you're an employee yourself,
do you do you fulfill the rights of
your employer that you're being paid per hour
and you're taking longer breaks than you're you're
allowed to? All of these things. This is
something we don't think about as Islamic at
all anyway.
We don't think about it these things as
as having to do anything with Islam
at all in the first place. There's maybe
a small, like, fraction of the community, a
very biased, okay, I got a guidance home
mortgage or university, Islamic financial home mortgage. The
last night, Muhammed Ala are completely done and
then they transact in haram ways with one
another all of the time,
without even knowing and without even asking a
person and if an issue comes up, if
you need a lawyer because you're gonna go
to court, you'll
hire someone who's passed the bar exam. But
if you're going to go to the court
of Allah
which is an appointment, neither will I miss
the one who has a turban and a
beer, nor will you miss even if you
think I'm a crazy fundamentalist.
Nobody's going to miss it. Not the sisters,
not the brothers. Nobody's going to decide appointment.
That's a court you're going to go to,
and the lawyer that you choose hasn't passed
the bar exam. In fact, they have an
idea what they're talking about. In fact, they're
making things up. As they go and we
think that Allah
is going to accept it for reasons not
only to us. Allah
is not going to accept it. This is
an issue. We have something with regard to
religion. I I refer to it magical thinking.
What is magical thinking?
Magical thinking is Allah can do whatever he
wants, and therefore, I can do whatever I
want, and he'll just magically fix everything at
the end. If that were the case, why
don't people go to the hellfire?
If that were the case, why do we
have a law that people get judged guilty
of things in? If that were the case,
why do we have any sort of rules
or regulations in the first place at all
anyway?
The spiritual world functions differently than the physical
world does. The spiritual world functions differently than
the physical world does, but this does not
mean that the spiritual rule is free from
any sort of rules.
In fact, rules are observed more steadfastly in
the spiritual world than they are in this
world. What are some of the rules of
the spiritual world? That a hasana, you do
a good deed and you will be rewarded
10 times as much. You do a bad
deed and you'll be,
punished equivalent to that bad deed. If you
make tawba with sincerity,
if you repent with sincerity to Allah
and do what you can to rectify the
wrongs that you did in this world, Allah
will write for you as if you never
did the sin in the 1st place. And
if for him with him you never did
the sin, then there's nobody from the creation
who could hold such a thing against you.
There are so many rules on those on
those transactions.
The reason riba is haram in this world,
the reason cheating at people is haram in
this world. We have Masjid having rafos. We
have Masjid doing all sorts of ridiculous masjid.
I'm not talking about individuals. I'm harping on
the Masjid now. We We have Masjid people
are coming to raise money for orphans. This
is Masjid takes 20% of of what's being
raised. I think it's a business
in undervalue, I think, in Algeria. The one
who smile should frown. The one
She I had a I committed sinah with
a non Muslim man, and I I, you
know, I had not impregnated you. What should
I do with the child? There's no one
else I can turn to except for you.
Imagine, people come in all sorts of vulnerable
conditions.
What our teachers
taught us is why when somebody comes to
you in vulnerable condition. Right? To let something
become halal in our if somebody's dying in
the street. This is not Texas, and you
can shoot someone
shaydah is not Texas and you can shoot
someone for spitting on your property. If somebody
you see someone's having a heart attack right
in front of you. You have a phone
and you could have called in bad health.
You can't say, well, I'm saving my minutes.
You're liable. You're legally liable for that person.
You're liable for for whatever happens to that
person, both in this world and in front
of Allah
You're liable. You can ask somebody to go
to *. I didn't give them that. It's
not my problem.
Well, lying is all of our problem, and
it's also all of our solution. If you
help that person, you'll also be richly rewarded.
And if you don't help that person, you'll
be liable for that person's death. Now there
are there are there are types of people
in the it is a responsibility, a legal
responsibility on the to help those people.
Rasoolullah Whoever has nobody to take care of
them, though whoever has no one to protect
them, I am the one who is to
protect the body of that person.
I'm the one who protects that person. I'm
the one who takes care of that person.
The one who opens and runs
that you become a troll under the bridge,
that you're sitting here. If you want to
cross this bridge, you have to pay money.
How about that?
I'm the one who comes to me with
all sorts of needs and all sorts of
vulnerabilities.
What if I were to as a person
say, yes. You know, you've you know, I'll
answer your question, but you have to give
me this and you have to give me
that, and I'll go come and make Dua
offer you, but I'll charge you $10,000 for
every Dua. And, you know, what if what
if I did that? What kind of a
person would I be? I'd be a horrible
person. People would curse me and they would
think nothing of it. But for some reason
or another, this,
you know, this is what's not what's good
for the criticism, good for the.
The
how to straighten out the of a person,
both individually as a community and as a
as nations, as an.
This is as much a part of the
deed and as much part of as Salas
and Siyan are, as prayer and fasting are.
What's after that?
How should a husband deal with a wife?
How should a wife deal with their husband?
Family relations.
How should younger youngers treat their elders elders
treat their youngers? How should the the the
unlearned treat the learned how should the learner
treat the unlearned? Social relation desocial relation. We
don't learn about these things. Half of the
people think, so once I get married, my
wife is my slave, and she'd work 40
hours a week, and she doesn't cook and
clean. If she doesn't, it's awful lot. Horrible.
And then the other half of the population
believes that, yes, you know, I don't have
to listen to anything,
you know, my husband says, I don't have
to listen to anything my wife says, this
side, and the other thing. And, things don't
work out in the past where,
you know, they're divorced right away. The rate
of divorce in the Muslim community is rather
approaching the rate of divorce outside of the
Muslim community.
Right? What what what issues do we have
with?
Right? Parents? Right?
Don't you dare disobey me. Allah
says that after
Allah, so I'm the one you have to
obey it more than anybody else.
Yeah. If you think about it, the reason
for that, if you ever think about the
reason for that is, is it because Allah
wished to you know, he knew that in
in his wisdom that after the civil war,
there'd be no more slavery, but he wished
to give you a slave anyway so he
wrote this into the sharia?
It's a 2 way street with great with
great power comes great responsibility.
So elders are giving bad bad advice to
their youngers. Parents are giving bad advice to
their children. Children are disrespecting their parents. Children
are disrespecting they're cutting their their ties off
from their siblings, and that's just as hard
as eating pork.
Culturally, it's not as offensive,
but it's just as eating pork.
Is going to come up on your peace
out just as bad on that day.
These things now we we've mentioned that Islam
has to do with all of these things.
Okay? And I'm telling you, if someone were
to implement Islam into all of these 5
categories, would this have a an impact on
a person's culture?
Of course it would. It would have an
impact on the way you wake up in
the morning. It would have an you know,
instead of instead of waking up in the
morning at 8 o'clock like everybody else or
7:30 like everybody else, you gotta wake up
at 5:30,
6 o'clock because you have to pray fudger.
Then you have to go make sure your
parents are okay. Then you have to, you
know, you have to you have you have
to, you know, like go to work on
time. You can't be late because it's hard
to, you know, scam your boss or you
have to, you know, you may not live
in the same house you would have because
of the method of purchase or because of
meeting other financial obligations that you may not
even know you have, but you have anyway.
You have to do all of these things
in order to maintain this lifestyle.
Now
people oftentimes have one of 2 anxieties with
regards to the the relationship of Islamic culture.
One extreme is what is that a person
says, oh, Islam
is just the way it was supposed to
be back in my village or whichever country
I came from.
Or now we all turn out people who
are, converts to the religion or people born
and raised in America who say, Islam has
to be just like
how I live in the place that I
live in in America. Both of them, really,
honestly, they're the same the same mindset. They
just take different outward forms inward. They're the
same mindset.
This is an extreme. Why? Because it is
not appropriate that we expect the divine to
conform to the mundane, rather it is our
job as Islam. Islam
doesn't mean peace. People say they should learn
they should learn Arabic morphology.
Islam doesn't mean peace. Islam means submission.
And the submission happens which way?
It happens it happens
from us to
Allah not the other way around.
So this is one extreme.
Right? One extreme. The other extreme is to
say that, yes, we have to get rid
of all culture. All culture has to be
devoid of Islam, that Islam should be this
sort of synthetic
and,
antiseptic,
you know, ideal
that is divested from all sorts of culture.
And the fact of the matter is you're
gonna have some sort of culture.
You're the the talk that's going on right
now, what language is it in? It's in
English. People are sitting on tables and chairs.
They're not sitting on the floor. So people
are not you know, not everyone is dressed
the same way, not everybody
comes in with whatever clerical vestments or or
or dress like they're from medieval Arabia like
some of us are. Right? Some people wear
different types of clothes. Some women cover their
face. Some women they they don't cover their
face. Some women don't cover their hair at
all. Some men have beards, some men don't
have beards, some are wearing pants in the
shirt, some are wearing these type of clothes,
that type of clothes. The idea is what?
Is that you cannot separate. You cannot just
like just like insisting that Islam be the
way that that your culture is, just like
that. You cannot completely separate Islam.
The way to understand all of these things
properly is what?
There's the understanding
of the need. What does mean?
Means principles.
Okay? A principle understanding of of the nim.
What does that mean? Okay. We live in
we live in a time of plastic terminology.
Plastic terminology
is words that are rich with connotation
and utterly devoid of denotation.
Meaning, they make you feel a certain way
when they're said, but they don't mean anything.
What's an example? If something's revolutionary, I have
this revolutionary program. Is that a good thing
or a bad thing?
Is it a good thing or a bad
thing?
Since I mean, like, if you have, like,
a focus group. Right? Now you know he's
trying to set me up and he's gonna
make me wanna it's a good thing. Right?
Revolutionary is a good thing. Well, what if
the thing that was there before is just
fine? Then if it didn't grow, it wouldn't
fix it. Revolutionary is bad.
So we need to, as a community, make
progress. We need to make progress. We need
to be forward thinking, forward moving people. Right?
Good thing or bad thing. It's a good
thing. What if you're at the edge of
a cliff? Is going forward very good? Absolutely
not. These are all neutral terms.
These are all what? They're neutral terms, but
because of
because of some sort of, like, philosophical agenda
that certain people have, whose a'ida is very
different than the a'ida of the the the
our forefathers, the.
We have accepted these things as false principles.
Revolution,
progress,
freedom,
empiricism, all of these things, they have their
place. It's not a 100% wrong either. They're
not a 100% bad. They're neither good nor
bad. They just are what they are.
Principles define what are good and bad.
Okay? Principles define what are good and bad.
That's what our musul are. You will not
learn the musul except for by studying habib
and except for by studying.
This is why the prophet
said what? He said,
And when we say knowledge, we're not talking
about medical school. We're not talking about
business school. We're not talking about engineering.
We're not talking about mathematics. We're not talking
about any of those things.
Those things are knowledge, but they are not
the core of knowledge.
What's the point of revelation?
Recite in your lord is most generous.
The one who
taught by the pen taught mankind that which
he knew not. The idea is what? Revelation
is that knowledge that you could have never
known, you could have never understood had you
spent your entire life if you were 10
times smarter than you are, 10 times more
hardworking than you are, and you live for
a 1000000 years, and there's a 1000000 people
with you collaborating on this project, not none
of you could have come to this conclusion
that
Allah sent down from above the
from above the archa alim. This is why
we call ad Din.
This is why it's not flexible.
Will tell us who are.
Will tell us his knowledge, will tell us
who are.
And so what happens when we don't understand
we don't understand the hierarchy of priorities.
So for example,
the Muslim community. Right? This is a very
important cultural issue. The Muslim community in America
for so long with regards to homosexuality
for so long. Right? Probably, I would say
the the
the watermark maybe 2,009.
Right?
For so long, the Muslim community to the
homosexuality
class, Homosexuality is horrible. We talk about homosexuality
as if it's a crime worse than kufr.
Is it worse than kufr? Absolutely not.
There's no sin that's worse than disbelief in
Allah and Hisr Rasool Allah alaihi wa sallam.
There's no sin that's worse than that. A
person can commit all the sins in the
world
and as disgusting or as
untasteful, distasteful as they may seem to you
or I, but from an objective perspective,
based on the principles of revelation, there's no
sin that's worse than tufr. But we have
people from our Mahabir, from our pulpits getting
up and just saying, oh, these people are
horrible. They're worse than animals. This is disgusting.
It's this. It's that. It's the other thing.
And what happens? One extreme engenders the other.
So so now the same creatures, oftentimes the
same creatures, because the one who's unprincipled yesterday
is oftentimes
unprincipled today as well. If they knew what
principles work, they would have adhered to them
in the 1st place. Now, you know, I'm
not, you know, in, you know, in favor
of it for myself, but I think that
everybody has a right to do it If
they want to, I'm not gonna choose for
you and you're not gonna
Allah
subhanahu
wa ta'ala like this
he told us what is sin and what
is piety, and he commanded us to love
piety even if we don't do it, and
he commanded us to hate sin even if
we do it.
This is a hallmark of imam.
There's no description of imam ever that a
a movement is the one who never come
to sin.
Do you find it anywhere? No. There were
people coming to the time of the prophet
who said
for them.
They come in and said, but they hated
it.
It was something they slipped up. It was
a trap they got hooked into. They hated
it.
Is there any where it says the believer
doesn't drink? Believer doesn't drink? No.
The are people who drink. We don't
they're alcoholics. They drink wine every day. They
like to hate it. Absolutely hate it.
There are people, they don't drink 5 times
a day, but if it's mentioned to them
that that that, you know, what do you
think about drink 5 times a day? Oh,
man. I wish I could do that. And
look at that people come up to me
because, you know, I love the way I
do this. It's like a billboard
walking billboard from the shayas, so everyone gets
their comments to different people, you know. So
people do that. They're like, oh, brother, you
know, it's really difficult for me to pray
5 times a day, but, you know, they
go after me. They go after me. I'm
like, well, you just wake up for other,
you know, also.
But that's different. The thing is fine.
Even though that's not sufficient, a person should
keep trying to implement implement these,
commandments in their life because they're for our
own benefit, ultimately.
But still, the part that's still functioning is
the part in the heart that they love
the obedience of
Allah even if they even if they weren't
able to perform it themselves and they hate
the disobedience of Allah even
if they're even if they're being tested.
You understand what I'm saying?
So coming back to this issue of homosexuality,
which is an example of Islamic culture.
If we have a and by the way,
who here thinks homosexuality is, like, a really
new issue that the Muslim world is dealing
with?
Anyone?
Because 9 guys know everything is a trap.
Right? It's not. It's not at
all. Forgive us. Go to a Muslim country.
Yeah. This is an issue that's been there
for centuries.
This is an issue that's been there for
centuries. I've written ancient books of them. If
a man is attracted to another man, you
know, is it hard for them to look
at another man? Is it hard for them
to teach small children? Is it hard for
them to for that man to do this,
for them to do that? These things are
all there. They all used to happen.
Right? People who live in the time after
the, you know, from the time of the
and after them, the,
and he would explain the answer to them.
So, Hamidah said the tabrah of the Allah,
and who the prophet
ordered them when they went up Hajj.
When they went down Hajj, he ordered the
people who didn't have a sacrificial animal with
them to complete a and to,
release themselves from
and then to take again several days later
when the Hajj the days of Hajj are
supposed to start. The Ansar
from them was saying
the who
he thought, how can I I'm on the
trip of Hajj? Right? How can I be
released from Iran when I'm on the trip
of Hajj? Asked Rasoolullah
says that, are we going to, go to,
Arafat?
Deceptive enough, you understand what I'm saying. The
used to be very open about things. They
used to get married if it didn't work
out, they used to get divorced. They didn't
have these kind of weird,
this kind of super taboo, weird bosses that
we lived in, that that we still live
in. Because of which we work all of
these things out of position. Now from the
beginning, if we dealt with this issue of
homosexuality,
it's the way that our forefathers dealt with
them. The way that the old dealt with
them, the old dealt with them, which is
what? I'll give a very beautiful example. One
of my colleagues, Sheikh Tamim, he is in,
California in the Bay Area. Some of you
may know him,
or listen to his lectures online.
A very beautiful person and a very iridized
and competent,
island, and a person who's doing great for
for the for for the community.
He said when he was in in in
in Pakistan studying, he's a he came to
America as an
refugee. His father was killed by the Russians
in the war,
in the the old war in Afghanistan.
But he said he said, you're sitting in
the masjid with the Sheikh. Imagine
these are all bearded people praying tahajjud every
day. Forget about 5 times daily prayer, praying
in congregation,
Praying in congregation. Praying the Hajjid every day.
People of vigor, people who read the books
of Hadith, the books of qif, all day
and night. He said, I was sitting in
the haunches of my Sheikh one time, and
a young man walked in, And, he said
I wanna talk to the Sheikh. And what
did the what did the Sheikh say?
So he said go ahead. Go ahead. What's
your what's your issue? He says, my issue
is that I'm gonna get married. My parents
arranged a marriage for me, and I'm gonna
get married in 3 months.
And I don't know what to do. I
said, what do you mean you don't know
what to do? That sounds like great news.
He says, the problem is I'm attracted to
men. I'm not attracted to women.
So he's shit shit the news says, oh
my god. I was like, what the *
is gonna happen now? He's like, oh, Mobysoft,
like, old school hardcore.
Mobysoft's in there, like, you know, what what's
gonna happen? Is Bhopalwa's gonna get up and,
like, hit him in the head with a
stick or something? What's what's gonna happen? He's
gonna get up and
stone him to death or something. Like, what
is he gonna do? It's in the shape
that looked at him. He said he said,
by this time, this young man is broken
down
crying. He's broken down crying. Literally, see if
something had this happened, right, half the people
would be like, oh, I embrace your choice
and another half would be like, suffer us,
throw us some rock at them, and the
kids in the back of the room snicker
and laugh. And, literally, it's something it's a
sign of our we're not trying to call
nobody out. It's a sign of our immaturity.
We can't even deal with these things without,
like, snickering.
Get lost, and everyone see you again, and
solve the lie you're horrible, you're an animal,
blah blah blah. No. He said he's he
he said to him he said to him,
he says as long as this urge you
don't act on it,
You don't have any sin rather you receive
more reward than another person because you have
to go through even more difficulty.
And he's and and he said this, this
guy kind of sobbing by this point. What
did you do? He gave him a hug,
and he says it'll be okay, inshallah. We'll
help you. We're here for you. We're here
to help you with whatever your problems are.
And that person used used to come regularly
to visit the Sheikh. He eventually got married.
He eventually had children. He eventually had a
family. He had a normal life.
He had a normal life. You see, there
are people who have been struggling with this
issue this issue. They still pray in the
Masjid. There would be for centuries, they struggle
with this issue. They still get married. They've
been struggling with this issue, they still go
to Hajjid. They still go read
when you cry and they go out, they
also cry as well.
This is the response of somebody who understands
that there are certain things that are more
important now if a guy comes into the
things that she I was thinking, you know,
we should worship idols.
You come and get out of here.
Right? Why? Because that's.
Something so simple I'm knowing that is worse
than sin.
It's like you're such a simple lesson. It
it affects how we deal with stuff so
much. It affects so much how we deal
with things.
So So much how we deal with it.
Someone will say, I I I I went
last year twice, my shot to Colombia.
Colombia, not the not the, the factory outlet
that I got my my
So one of the one of the people
between programs, he asked me a question.
There's one,
a, a senator in the in the part
in the in the congress, the Colombian congress.
She's
very, very staunch in defending the rights of
Muslims. If anyone says anything bad in the
Colombian congress about Muslims,
she's very staunch and pushing legislation that will
protect our community.
But I don't know if we should support
her or not because she's lesbian.
I said I said, she's not a Muslim.
She's not a Muslim.
I've written about this extensively.
After the kufr, there's no difference between sin
and between between piety
anymore.
The person turned their back
doesn't matter if they pray 5 times a
day. It doesn't matter if they're in a
heterosexual monogamous relationship.
The main part of what they should have
had with Allah
they missed it. Had they had it, even
the fact that they were practicing a lifestyle
that we find distasteful and we find sinful,
that would have been an issue, but it
would have been a mild issue, not a
severe issue.
You understand what I'm saying? They would have
still been a Muslim. But that person and
this is, like, simple simple ladder principle in
dealing with things. I said, you should support
her. You should politically, she's gonna save your
your community. It's gonna be good for your
community. You don't have to get up and
say, I support her lifestyle.
If she asks you to do so, say,
politely, we can't do that.
But the things that you're working together with,
is it better for you to support her
or support the other person who also turned
their back on the line and
we should
curtail the rights of your community and your
children and to shut down your and to
send people, you know, through all sorts of
harrowing difficulties.
This is a matter of.
A person who has under understands understands
that it's not enough to see that there's
good and bad in the world.
That's a a part of a person's.
Would have
some difference of opinion about it, But according
to, you know, according to many of them
right? Something
as beautiful and something as ugly. Something as
morally beautiful and morally ugly.
Right?
To some extent, everyone is born with a
simple capacity inside of them. They don't have
to be of a particular religion or any
religion at all In order to understand
that murdering is bad, lying is bad cheating
is bad stealing is bad kindness is good
helping. People who need help is good, etcetera,
etcetera. Everyone has some sort of capacity inside
of them. That's not the end of your
journey. That's the problem. That's just the beginning
of the journey. Some of us have problems
with that as well.
I'm not bringing this up to make fun
of them, so we need to get help.
We need to get help if there's issues
like that. These are oftentimes
psychological issues that happen with stress and trauma
from from from traumatic experiences we had before.
There is a a practice of clinical psychology
based on Islamic values, spiritual values, and,
and and and,
theological
religious values
in,
Chicago called the Selvive Center. I myself, I'm
on the board of directors, the Selvive Center.
It's not run by imams.
Imams have been dealing with people's, like, psychological
issues for so long. Here I'll read read
73
times.
You're gonna go.
Trust me. I'm the one who knows the
Valley of Green Heights will towards you 73
times. Maybe if some of us did it
a little more often, it wouldn't be good
for us. But that's not the only thing
that's there in the need. Some sometimes people
just need help. So what how about you
can go get that help? If there's an
issue with you, you can go help get
that help. But generally speaking, a person is
untraumatized
when they're born. They're born being able to
understand what the difference between good and bad
is. That's not the full that's not the
stage of fulfillment.
That's not the stage of enlightenment.
That's not the stage of, of perfection. That's
just the beginning of the journey.
A person, as they go further and further,
as they learn and based on the principles
that are given through revelation, they understand certain
things are more important, certain things are less
important. So if you have a choice between
2 things, you don't say both of them
are. Evaluate which one is which. If you
have a choice
evaluate which one is which.
If you have a choice between 2 things,
2 good things, you don't say, oh, both
of them are good. The more the merrier.
Right? You know, $10,000,000
is is like, you know, a 100,000
homeless
refugees that just came to America from Syria.
But you know what? I'm gonna go ahead
and give this money to the UAE society
because Sheikh told me that helping the dog
is,
you know, also has a reward in it.
Yes. You'll receive a reward for it. Obviously,
though, you're passing up something that's a far
higher priority
in order to get to that point.
This the mistake that many of us have
made, the foundational mistake that many of us
have made is to think that we can
differentiate between these 2 based on our own
intellect and our own disposition.
The first differentiation occurs based on your own
disposition, which is what what's good and what's
evil. That's an intuition that everybody has. The
second one is not based on your own
disposition. It's not based on your own preferences,
and it's not based on your intellect. Rather
it's based on the knowledge of. Your intuition
guiding you to Allah, his Rasool Sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. Now after once that door is
open for you, then you take from
him.
The thing Allah gave you that Rasulullah
gave you, take it. And the thing that
he forbade you from, then stop back off
from it. And fear Allah
because Allah is severe in his retribution.
Allah has severe in his retribution for the
person who doesn't obey his commandments
as an act of rebellion. Allah
To recap,
all of this was in some ways
an eloquent an eloquent and elegant
preamble to just a very small thing I
wanted to say with regards to Islamic culture.
And that is that Islam went to different
places
and a pigmented all of the movement.
Wisdom is the lost property of the believer.
Wherever he finds it, he has more right
to it.
If you find something
in a culture
that that that you carry over from where
you were from before,
Whether it be from India, whether it be
from Palestine, whether it be from,
you know, Mauritania
or from,
Ethiopia or whether it be from the hood
or whether it be from Virginia or from
New Hampshire or from, you know, Beverly Hills
or Gatos Ware. If you have something you
carry over from there, that's good and it's
beneficial and it doesn't
it doesn't,
you know, have a have
a
a clash with the the the
soul
taught, is also itself a sunnah.
Have you not seen in the Quran how
everyone of the prophets
when they address their people, they say, you
call me, you call me, oh my people,
oh my people. Meaning, they also accept that
they only have to be part of that
culture.
The only one who made it is Hussain
al Islam.
Why? Because he had he had no father,
and the lineage amongst the Arabs is transmitted
to the father. So he says, yeah, but
I'm sorry. You have but I'm sorry. Everyone
else. Allah
He says that Allah says to the prophet
this, remember, it says for you and for
your poem.
The own of the prophets of Allah sub,
is it Muslims? The own is Arabs.
Otherwise, why would all the prophets say, you
have only you have only you have only
you have only you have only you have
only you have only you have only my
people.
Corrected him in this, and he accepted the
correction after initially not understanding.
He said what? The the
of the Muslims is the the ummah of
the Muslims is Al Muslims. That's the word
ummah is used for a while. That that,
entity that transcends both political and both religious
powers. As far as the cultural grouping, every
every,
you know, there's no harm in being part
of a cultural grouping whether or not the
majority of those people have to say. There's
no harm in it as much as there
are certain cultural things that are not, you
know, that don't clash with, what Allah teach,
and there's nothing wrong with that.
You understand what I'm saying? So this is
the word.
Further than that, there's something about
the is that those things in the in
the that a that a does that are
known not to clash with the sharia. It's
actually a recommendation that a person follow those
things. It's a recommendation that a person follows
those things where they are.
However, others has a limit.
You can decide you cannot say, oh, for
my people to eat pork and therefore I
eat pork.
Why? Because it clashes with it. It primarily
established principle of the deed.
How are you supposed to tell which part
of the culture is useful that you can
carry on if you wish to, and how
do you tell which part of the culture
is something that you are obliged to discard
by the commandment of al Anasir.
That can only come from an ilm, and
will not be gained by.
Is beneficial some of the time. Unfortunately, I
wish I could say all the time.
It's not going to be, gained by,
you know, going to conferences.
It's not gonna be gained even by watching
a lot of YouTube videos. It's going to
be gained by sitting at the feet of
those people who have that knowledge even if
you detest them. And there are people who
detest them, some of us. Even if you
detest them, if you sit at their feet,
you'll get the knowledge from them. Then afterwards,
once you have their knowledge, then you don't
need them anymore, then you can have your
own ideas. But to make things up without
knowing about the law,
this
is a very dire sin and it's a
it's a path to his guidance, a lot
of that protectiveness is a path to fractiousness.
Because when 2 people don't know what they're
talking about and they get into an argument,
it's oftentimes a really bad argument. When 2
people know who know what they're talking about
disagree, they understand where they disagree, and they're
able to appreciate each other's point of view.
And if you wanna talk about unity, unity
starts with being on the same page, the
same book, not being in different libraries and
talking about different things. So Allah
give us sofid, Allah
make us people of knowledge, Allah
rectify our
and our and our,
our our and our and our and our
and our rectify us as individuals and as
a community.
Allah give us all, the toffit to, follow
his commandments.