Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Riyad Al Salihin Leadership Qualities
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AI: Transcript ©
Whoever
pulls his hand back from
obedience,
meaning the obedience of the temple authority of
the Muslims,
This is not
the Masjid border, the Masjid imam, but this
is the sovereign state of the Muslims.
That person when he meets Allah on the
day of judgment,
there will be no proof that will be
admissible in his favor.
And whoever dies and
he has not given an oath of allegiance,
literally, there's no oath of allegiance in his
neck.
He doesn't take upon himself the responsibility of
the oath of allegiance to any temporal ruler
of the Muslims.
That person will die the death of Jahiliya.
And so
there are two variants for this word, and
is
what you call in
the person dies a death of Jahiliya.
And Nita is what they call ismuhayyah,
the way in which you do something, that
the person dies in the manner of the
people of Jahiliyyah.
Meaning what?
Obviously, it doesn't mean that a person dies
a captor,
but what it means is that a person
dies in such a such a
manner
of arrogance that it resembles the death of
the people of Jahilia. Why? Because Islam is
something that
brings
order and imposes order and
calls for order and demands order. And Jahiliya
is anarchy.
Jahiliya is something that every man is mutakabir.
Every man will run on his own system,
every man will run on his own whims
and his own desires, every man will not
like to have another person over them.
They will not find their place in any
ecosystem,
biological or spiritual rather, they will constantly be
sticking out and wherever they go, they'll create
chaos rather than order.
And
that that style of death is the death
of such a person.
In a different narration,
narrated also by Muslim, by Saidna Abdul Abhin
Omar Radhiallahu Alai Anhu,
that whoever dies and he has left the
the gathering of the Muslims or the group
of the Muslims, that person dies
a death
in the manner of the death of the
people of Jahiliyyah.
Someone has put over you in in,
command.
Means to use something. But in terms of
political
science, it means to
make a person governor over certain province or
a commander over a certain a certain group
of
people. So the is
is
meaning linguistically means someone who's doing something, but
the amil in in in political discourse means
a governor or a commander.
So here and obey even
if the governor over you or the commander
over you is a Abyssinian slave,
whose head looks like a shriveled raisin.
It's narrated by Bukhari. Meaning what? It doesn't
matter if you,
like the leader, you don't like the leader.
If that's the system that's the system everyone
agreed to, that's the system
not meaning everyone agreed to as in, like,
we took a vote from everyone and everyone
said yes.
But there's something called the social contract that
people generally
accept that the state is with the state,
the government is the government, the police is
the police. They may not be perfect. They
may actually be people who do a lot
of bad, but they are who they are.
As long as they don't ask you to
do something haram, you're expected to obey them.
You're expected to obey them and you're not
you're expected to help them and not to
cause difficulty for them in everything they do
that's not haram. Why? Because it,
enshrines
and empowers order and it sends away and
makes difficult chaos and disarray.
And so what did he say? This is
affront to their Jahili system that a, we've
mentioned from the last hadith that it's a
sign of Jahiliya that nobody wants a person
to
tell them what to do or be in
command over them or be in a position
of authority over them. Nobody likes anyone else
to do that anyway, even even if they're
equals. Okay? The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in
this hadith is saying forget about if they're
equals. In the Jahili system,
they used to consider themselves to be superior
to everybody else as Arabs. Okay.
Arab means to speak eloquently. Right? The word
that Arabs have for non Arabs is
a. Right?
Means what? It means
stupidity. You know how they say stop being
dumb. Dumb doesn't mean someone who's who's a
person of low intellect primarily.
It metaphorically means someone of low intellect.
The literal meaning of them is someone who
doesn't know how to speak or someone who's
unable to speak. And so that's what they
use that's that's the the wording that they
used to use, that their language is very
eloquent and that the language of other people
is unable to convey what their language is
able to convey, which we believe is true
as a matter of Aqidah.
But there was an arrogance that went with
it in the first place. And then amongst
them, amongst their tribes, one tribe would say
we're better than you, the other tribe say,
no, we're better than you. And, at any
rate, if you're not a free man, if
you're not from the Arabs, if you're not
from a noble lineage or a noble tribe,
then you're a person of lesser worth, a
person who's like as if you're subhuman.
What is the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam saying?
That you are to hear and obey
even if the person who is put in
leadership
through the system over you
is a person who's an Abyssinian slave.
Wa Salukah Zabiba, even if he's an Abyssinian
slave,
forget about a free Abyssinian free man even
if he's still a slave?
His head is like a shriveled razor.
Meaning that what? Not only is he Abyssinian
slave, he's an ugly one too.
It's like a it's a literary expression in
order to
to to put the thing push it to
the extreme limit. That if that's the person
that that's put in command over you then
even then you have to hear and obey.
And there's a very interesting discussion regarding this
because
the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam
is also that al imat al aymatubin
Quraysh
that your rulers should be from Quraysh. This
is the Sahih hadith of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam narrated by the great Muhaddithim.
And in fact, when the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam passed away,
in the Sateefah to Bani Sa'idah, the Ansar
radiAllahu ta'ala on whom gathered to choose a
leader for Madinah
after afterward. And their their idea was what?
We're gonna choose one of our cazar city.
We'll choose one of ourselves to be the
leader. Then messenger of Allah is the messenger
of Allah.
But afterward, it's our city, so we run
it like we used to run it for
centuries. We'll keep running it. So sayna,
Abu Bakr and Sayna Amar
they heard about this and so they went
to go and join that meeting, attend that
meeting. And so there's 2 of them from
the. How many are there? There are 2
of them. There are literally thousands of Ansar
there. There are 2 of them and there's
1,000 of Ansar.
And so what
happens
is saying, Omar radiAllahu anhu takes it.
So saying Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu takes a
turn to speak, and he reminds them he
reminds them of a couple of things. 1
is that your bay'ah was the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam when he made Hijra is
that that you promised him you would always
prefer other people over yourselves.
Is it true or not? They said, no.
Yes. It's true. We promised that we'd prefer
the Muhadrin over ourselves.
He said also the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam said and many people heard it that
he said, Al Ayimatumun
Quresh.
That the the temporal ruler should be from
who? From Quresh.
Did you hear that or did you not
hear it? And so they said, yes. We
heard it. And they accepted.
Right? 1000 of people, they accepted the argument
of 2 people. This is what the sign
of their taqwa and the sign of their
piety and the sign of the truth of
their faith,
So then they said, okay. Well, what's your
idea? So sayin Abu Bakr says, my idea
is that the only person that can lead
this ummah is this man, and he points
to Sayidna Umar. And Sayidna Umar
then asks him. He says that who is
the one, amongst us about who, was revealed
in the Quran, Faniyit Nayidhuma Filgha. Who is
the one amongst us about whom was revealed
the second of 2 when they were in
the cave? When he said to his companion,
don't fear, verily or don't grieve, verily Allah
is with us. And so Sayidna Abu Bakr
Abu Bakr, he, he didn't say anything forward.
So Sayna Umar then says, I suggest
that we, make Abu Bakr into the leader.
And everybody in the crowd,
not only accepted, but they all took Be'a
from him except for 1 man who went
home and said I I have to make
Mashra with my people first. And he came
back in that afternoon and he took bay'a
with him as well.
And, this this now the question comes is,
okay, what does this hadith mean with regards
to the Ayyim being from Quraysh? And the
answer to that is what?
Is that,
the pronouncement of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam about the Ayima, about the the leaders
being from Quraish
was not a, a fiqi ruling.
Rather, the ulama considered it there are some
ulama that considered to be fiqi ruling, but
the vast majority of ulama considered it not
be fiqi ruling, but to be a,
a a a kind of analysis of what
the political,
landscape of the Arabs was. That the Arabs
wouldn't accept somebody from,
the ulcer, the Khazrj to be a leader
over them because they consider themselves to be
superior to them. And you see when the
prophet passes away majority of the Arabian Peninsula,
even if they accepted Islam, they still had
a lot of inside of them. As
the had to come campaign for several years
to subdue and quell the kind of uprisings
of the Arabian Peninsula and put people in
in a mode that they would be able
to then do the service of Islam.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam understood
that the Arabs wouldn't have accepted a leader
from them. And so he said, keep keep
your leadership from Quresh because the Quresh were
respected amongst the Arabs even in Jahiliya as
the hand of Allah. That they're the people
that Allah Tawhid came and defended them, in
the year of the elephant, and he's the
one who defended their rule of the Kaaba
and the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam is from
Quraish, etcetera, etcetera. They could accept a ruler
from Quraish,
but they couldn't accept a ruler from somebody
else other than them. This hadith is the
what the is. Is that if the leaders
even if the leader is a slave,
you have to accept him. And the interesting
thing is that the Ummah has made
the the Ummah has made the Ummah has
made the Ummah. There have been slave dynasties
both in the Indian subcontinent and in Egypt
and Syria as well where,
Mamluk Dynasties were the the there's a
the between the slaves of the state,
whichever one of them is a capable and
learned and talented,
person, talented commander, talented ruler that they could
rise up to the ranks all the way
to the point where the were,
they gave, they they after several slave kings
ruled over Egypt one after the other,
they gave a
a saying that what? That in our sharia,
there's a problem that the temporal ruler of
the Muslims has to be a free man.
You can't have, like, a slave give the.
You cannot have the slave be the sovereign
ruler that take people to take Biafra. They
were slaves that were owned by the state,
by the.
You can't have a slave be the temporal
ruler of Muslims.
And the interesting thing is that the slave
dynasties, Mamluk's slave dynasties both in India and
in,
one thing that they kept in common was
that they had
that a supreme amount of respect for the
ulama.
In fact, the patronage for
and the patronage for dean
under the reigns of these slave dynasties was
unprecedented compared to the even the the the
free kings from before. So they listened to
the Alama. They said that you can't be
king if you're a slave. So they said,
okay. What do you say? What do you
say should the solution be?
They say that that what that we, say
that the solution should be that as a
formality,
the the state should sell the slave to
someone and that person should free them. And
then that person can be people people can
take with them as a ruler. And so
what they would do is they would do
that. They would have as a formality, as
an honor, they would one of the of
Al Azhar, they would sell the the person
who's gonna become king to him, and then
he would free him. And there's a thing
in the sharia what they call.
Right? That the person who you slit who
who you who frees you and the person
who you free, they are like a family
member to you in al Sharia in the
sense that that if there's no other
blood relatives, you inherit that person's wealth when
they die and they inherit your wealth when
they die. That person is one of the
mula fa. That person is one of the
legitimate
inheritors of the sharia. Even though they're kind
of on the bottom rung, but still there's
some. There's more between you in terms of
inheritance and a freed slave than there is
between, for example, a person and his second
cousin or something like that. And so as
a honor, they would they would be freed
at the hands of the ulama, sold and
freed at the hands of the ulama, and
then they would rule like that. But the
point is is what? The the the ummah
is actually made amule on this. And the
proof of what I'm saying also is what?
The Ottoman Empire,
they're Turks. They're not from Quresh, are they?
But the the the
something as close as you can get to
the Ijma'a of the Ummah regarding their caliphate
happened. And it's interesting, there are a few
people who near the end of the Ottoman
Caliphate started to,
started to object to,
the,
the Ottomans
the legitimacy of their caliphate by using this
hadith al-'Aima to be in Quresh.
There's a segment of them from the Indian
population. Ahmad al Zahandri was one of them.
He said these people are not the legitimate
rulers of India because they're not from Quresh.
Another person who
rejected or or objected to their
legitimacy was
the Sharif of Mecca.
But he has somewhat of a conflict of
interest. A, first he's not a alim. B,
he has somewhat conflict of interest because he's
trying to rebel against them. So, you know,
you can see how how much legitimate,
how much legitimacy that objection has. And by
by and large, for the most part, the
you know, it's difficult to claim Ajamaha from
a technical point of view because,
you know, who's there to go back and
say, was there nobody who who disagreed?
But something very close to Ijma'a, Masha'Allah,
of the Ummah. They accepted that the Ottoman
Empire was the,
was the legitimate rulers of the of the
Muslim world. The Khadim Al Haramain Al Sharifain.
Just like the Saudi the rule in Saudi
Arabia, right, that
the the custodian of the of the 2
harabs,
next to their name with the title. That's
what the the,
what you call
what the Ottoman rulers did as well. Right?
So if you go to for example, you
go to Istanbul, you go to the Yavuz
Salim Masjid in in in,
in Istanbul,
you'll see the inscription. It says right. It
says, the khadamal,
hadamal al Sharifayn,
Ulu, Haqan, whatever all their Turkic titles, this,
that, and the other. Salim Khan. Right? Nowadays,
Salim Khan is somebody we go and buy
meat from on Diwan. Right?
In those days, Khan meant something different. It
meant a big
it was like a it was
like nowadays like they had in those days,
but Allah made it easy. But at any
rate, this is a this is a making
making Amal on what?
This is making Amal on the hadith of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. The Nabi
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, whoever is the
ruler above you, even if he's an Abyssinian
slave whose head is like a shriveled raisin,
if once he he's a ruler, once the
system is going, everybody has accepted it, you
know, practically, if not verbally,
then, you're obliged to go with it. You're
obliged to hear and obey. And the only
exception to that is what we said from
before, which is what if they tell you
to do something haram, then you are obliged
to not hear and not obey.
Is to hear and to obey. It's a
commandment over you to hear and to obey
in times of difficulty
and in times of ease.
Otherwise,
some people obey in times of difficulty, some
people in in times of ease, whatever it
is, your how you're enjoying or how you're
not enjoying, there's nothing to do with it.
So in times of difficulty or in times
of ease,
as well as when you're motivated,
as well as when you're demotivated.
Is when you're motivated. When you're motivated to
obey, even then it's a commandment for you
to obey. And when you're not
when you're averse to obey, even then it's
a commandment over you to obey.
And even even if it requires you to
prefer others over yourself.
These things happen. Sometimes you have to take
a hit for the team as well.
Right? There are things, for example I mean,
there I I don't know if it's exactly
example, but,
you know, for example, like
eminent domain.
Right? There's like a need. Sometimes eminent domain
is abused by rich people in order to
dispossess the poor of their wealth, but sometimes
it makes a lot of sense. Right? What
does that you know what eminent domain is?
It's like when the government, for example, start
to build a road, you know, through an
area and you own a piece of land
that the road has to go through. Right?
What they'll do is they'll just give you
the cash value of the land and they'll
take it. And even if you don't wanna
sell it to them, they'll take it by
force. They'll give you the cash value to
get lost. Right?
Well, I mean, sometimes the the government use
it to dispossess people of their land unfairly,
but more, you know, more commonly,
you you know, it's something for the greater
good. You know, if there's a hospital needs
to be built, a road needs to be
built, a pipeline needs to be built to
bring fresh water to a city or something
like that. So those types of things, you
know,
when you have people come together,
you're always gonna have certain decisions that are
gonna positively impact some people and negatively impact
other people.
And you have to understand that
if you're negatively impacted
by a decision and it's for the greater
good, that you're still required to look beyond
your own personal
benefit and look toward the greater good. And
if there's a, you know, if you're calm
enough and and unbiased enough and objective enough
to understand that, then you should give up
your right in order that,
everybody, you know, like the greater good can
be served from something. And this is what
it means.
Even if you have to prefer
others over yourself
in the process of obeying, you have to
do so. And you know that you know
that at that point, there's a reward for
that as well. Allah will reward a person
for that as well. But that's part of
the process.
The system doesn't work if everybody is looking
out for number 1, so to speak. If
everybody is looking out for themselves and people
don't know who number 1 is anyway. Allah
and they made themselves into into that. That's
that's that that doesn't work. That system
descends into chaos. It becomes a law of
the jungle and people start living like animals,
which there are many people who
live like animals nowadays or pushing toward going
toward that that extreme. It's not gonna work
out.
Is a hadith narrated by Sayna Abdulah bin
Amr bin Asr radiAllahu ta'ala Anhuma,
in which he says that we were with
the messenger of sallallahu alaihi wa sallam once
on a trip on some sojourner, some journey,
and we all stopped and got down from
our animals
and so some people started to pitch their
tents,
and some people,
were
competing with one another, practicing archery
or,
horse racing,
competing with one another. This is one of
the things that they
used to have sports but their sports weren't
games.
There's there's a difference between a sport and
a game.
A game is something that's kind of like
an idle pastime.
It's one of the reasons
it's not haram, it's obviously better than what
a lot of people do. So in that
sense, I don't object to it particularly but
like basketball
and
and soccer and these types of things, they're
kind of their games. They're they're like fun
and silly things people do but they're not
practical sports
like, a person who learns martial arts, a
person who learns archery, a person who learns
riding, a person who learns these types of
whatever other things are practical. Obviously, there is
something practical, a person who can play a
soccer match, you
know,
is probably much more fit than the person
who, you know, sits and reads all day.
And so in that sense, there's there's a
bit of practicality to it.
But the Sahaba radiyaala ta'ala, who at any
rate, they didn't used to play games.
This is one thing very interesting that both
Indian subcontinent are so crazy for cricket. Our
madrasa had
a a ban on cricket.
The sheikh of Hadid said the madrasa said
this is the most pointless game in the
world. We stand around the whole day
because it doesn't
give your body any vigor. He says go
play soccer, go do something that that that
requires more more vigor, you know.
Standing around the whole day is not is
not is not It's not a fatwa, that's
just I guess a preference based on some
practical considerations. But,
so yeah, so this was a habit of
these to compete with one another and there's
a whole like move for competitions and tournaments.
There's a whole fit that the Prophet SAWSOME
laid down like you know, how is the
competition like gambling? How do you make it
non gambling? So for example, if there's a
archery contest between you know, between Uthman and
between Adid and between Anas
then,
you know, the prize money has to be
before the winner has to if you wanna
make a tournament or whether it has to
be given either a, from a 3rd party
or b, you know, 2 1 or 2
of you can give it, but you have
to have other competitors in it that might
win that are not paying anything in. So
if you guys say that I'll put in
5, I'll put in 5, I'll put in
5, whoever
wins takes the whole thing, then it's gambling.
But if it's,
if some external person puts it in or
a person puts the money forward as a
donation,
if a person
if a person puts in the money as
a donation and they let somebody else who
hasn't put money in compete in the in
the in the competition that has a reasonable
chance of winning, then the Prophet used to
allow that, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So they constantly
sharpen their skills, they constantly sharpen their skills
for all of these things.
And it would be, you know, it would
be good, it would be good if, you
know,
the I've seen some of our young people
get into a fight and it's bad a,
that they're getting into a fight but b,
then it's sad to see that they don't
want to fight
you.
So yeah, so some of us started
pitching our tents and some of
us started, you know, competing with one another
in these sports
and some of us,
took the animals because they have animals with
them, livestock and whatnot. The animals need to
be, you know, the riding animals and grazing
animals,
they need to be grazed and they need
to be fed and given water and all
of these other things.
And so some of us took the animals
out.
And while we were doing that, a caller,
the caller, the crier of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam called out that come together
for salat.
And so we all came together.
Is what the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam call
people to when he wanted them to come
together but it wasn't the time of the
father prayer.
Right. The father prayer that call for that
is the adhan. But, if it was some
salat like the salat for,
for for the eclipse or for
the Iden or for
something other than the 5 daily prayers, then
you would just have a cry and tell
the people that come together for the salah.
So we came together.
And then the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam after that,
he told us
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
that there was never a nabi, there's never
a prophet that came before me
except for,
it was incumbent upon them, an obligation upon
them
that they should guide their their Ummah to
the best of what they know
and to warn their Ummah's against the the
worst evils that they they could warn them
of.
And verily this Ummah,
of yours
its afiyah, its happiness
and its freedom from worry is in its
first part.
After its first part leaves
then it will be struck and afflicted,
the the last part of it will be
struck and afflicted by such a bala, such
a tribulation,
by by great tribulation
and by many things that it will dislike,
you know, many things that it will dislike.
And the the I guess the primary meaning
of the first part of the, the ummah
is
the time of the,
the khulafa of Ashidun or at least the
first khulafa
first 3 khulafa during which there was no
strife amongst the Muslims, The time of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in the time
of the first 3 Khalifa.
But by extension, a person could say that
the people who wrote these shulaha, the people
who wrote these
commentaries when they said that they didn't see
the time that we're in right now
because the pre modern time,
you know, something from from from, you know,
before World War 1, the landscape of the
Ummah is very different. It's very rare that
you're that you saw a person who would
leave Islam.
Whereas nowadays the the problem of apostasy,
the Musiba and the affliction and calamity of
apostasy is something that hit hit almost every
home. The worst of people were people who
read their father and didn't read their sunnah,
you know, but people were still by and
large Muslim. If a person felt the feeling
of apostasy, they kept it inside their heart
and they didn't share it with people. Nowadays,
they're
celebrated by people and they're they're put up.
But he says that the afiyah, the happiness
and freedom from worry,
of this ummah is what is in its
first part and whoever sees the the last
part of it they'll see that it will
be hid with tribulation
and with such things that that that that
you that the people dislike
dislike to see.
And fitan will come to it and and
calamities will come to it.
Every calamity that comes in order will make
the one that came before
seem like something very small, not a really,
really a big deal.
And such fitna will come to it that
that a believer will say this is such
a bad fitna, this will destroy me,
or this will destroy me. But then afterward,
it will when it's lifted, another,
fitna will come, which will make people think
that the fitna that came before it was
not such a big deal. And then another
fitna will come and the believer will say
this one, this one is the worst one.
And likewise, things will keep keep unraveling in
such a way. So who when that happens,
the prophet
says, when that happens, the person who wishes
to
be
saved from the fire and put into Jannah.
Right? The fact that the prophet mentions this
in the context of the fitan of the
world means that what? He's not primarily concerned
with the fitna of poverty or with the
fitna of of physical or political strife.
Rather, what is he primarily concerned with?
The fitna that affects your akhirah.
So he says that if because that's what
that's what the the what's that's what the
real fitna is. The real fitna is not
hunger and thirst in these things. The real
fitna is what afflicts your that will rob
you of eternal life. This is when these
fitna come, such fitna that threaten your
the one who wishes to be saved from
the fire and to be placed in Jannah,
let that person,
let that person
come to his death or meet his death
in such a way that he believes in
Allah and he believes in the last day.
And this is a very simple statement that
maybe someone may say it's like not it's
not rocket science or whatever. It's something I
knew from before.
But,
there is a a a a a a
very
big effect and a mystery in words.
So let him come to his death,
right? The is is a a classical word.
It's a word in classical Arabic. It's something
that people modern Arabs very rarely use anymore,
at least in their common speech. Right? Let
his to come to him,
in such a way that he is he
believes in Allah and he believes in the
day of judgment. And this is one of
the tribulations that fit in at the time
that we live and that we live,
A person
doesn't
spend time
learning anything about his deen.
Even though people will claim that I know
something about my deen, they don't know anything
about their deen. Really this is the fact
of the matter, the majority of people don't
know anything. People come to me and say,
Shaykh, make an announcement about this, Shaykh, make
an announcement about that. What am I going
to do? Make like a 45 minute announcement,
you know, every day after every salat? It's
nobody's gonna listen to it anyway. Someone says
to me, oh, Sheikh, someone was praying next
to me. He came. Arabic for Maghrib, and
when the imam made salaam, he made salaam.
He doesn't know how to make up the
prayer. So explain to the people how to
make up the prayer. Sheikh, people are yawning,
they don't cover their mouth. Okay. Sheikh, somebody
is reading from the must have during
and when they go into Luku, he puts
in the Mus'haf between his thighs,
in order to hold it.
If somebody sees someone doing that by the
way next to him, please just say something
to them. But the thing is, these are
things this is all like stuff I've heard
in the last 3 days. This is not
like, I'm not like searching or reaching for
a long shot here. Right?
So people people people
don't bother to put themselves in the company
of of of of learning or the company
of the zikr of Allah ta'ala.
Instead of, you know, reading 8 rakas of
tarawih, they read 4 and run away. And
then afterward, what happens? Some people say, well,
Sheikh, I have, like, legitimate, things I have
to do. I agree. We have legitimate. Everyone
has to feed their family and then to
keep their job. Okay. Don't lose your job
for. It's fine. It's not far. But the
thing is that you're going to your job
for
so many hours in the week and your
spiritual engagement quality spiritual engagement is so little.
And you went to school for
12 years of high school or, you know,
the public school, you know, and then add
another 1 year for kindergarten, another year for,
preschool. That's what? 14. Add another 4 years
for undergrad. We're up to 18 and other
4 years for medical school. I granted that
you went straight in from one to the
other, so we're up to, what, 22.
And then your 2 years of residency on
top of that or 3 years of resident
25 years of education,
whereas a person cannot point to even 1
year of education in the dean. Person cannot
even point to 1 year full time studying
the din.
All of that aside from the the the
like
knowing information,
all of that from a completely psychological point
of view has a an effect on a
person.
All of that, all of those coming 8
in the morning and leaving 5 at night
without hearing the name of Allah, Hazrat Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam.
Or if a person prays, they pray like,
you know, somebody somebody who's like fleeing the
Nazi army and the holocaust, like hiding somewhere
and praying, you know, and, you know, in
in seclusion and hoping that nobody will open
the door, nobody will see them washing their
feet in the sink or something like that.
And that all of that adds up. It's
puts rust on the heart of a person.
It's sufficient for a person that they're not
making the dhikr of Allah other be counted
as one of
the. Right? It's not a sin not to
make the of Allah in the sense that
a person will have other things that they
do in the day. And there are very
few people who are given the tawfiq of
constantly having the their tawajah on Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
regardless whatever they're doing. But
to expand that that amount of one's time
so much
and to compress the amount of time that
a person remembers Allah so much, what does
it do? It makes a person,
makes it normal for
them, makes it normal for them that that
that that,
you know, that this heedlessness of kufr is
something that they're accustomed to even if they
don't embrace
it. You know, you know, as a as
a as a matter of doctrine or as
a matter of creed. So for example, you
know, like, imagine a person dies. Okay?
To a husband, wife died. They have a
child. Right? As a Muslim child. Who will
you want your child to be adopted by
after they're dead? Gift or after after something
happens. You would want the child to be
adopted by a Muslim couple.
Right? You wanna want that what if you
say, okay, I'm gonna have this child adopted
by a non Muslim couple. What is the
what is the issue? They say, okay, no.
We promise we'll tell them that they're Muslims
or whatever. They can go to the mosque.
We'll take them to mosque on Friday.
Still, what is the fear of the parents
heart would be that what? This they they'll
become accustomed to Kufr. Especially the if
a person adopts a child and is doing
so much good for them and is there
for them to help them every time they
need help with their homework and, you know,
put a band aid on their wound band
aid on their wound every time they cry
and to, you know, be there them and
whatever. Obviously, we'll make a with them between
them and Kufr. You know, the same reason.
We'll go well, how about this? We'll give
your child to a gay couple.
What?
No. No. It's 2 men. They're married to
each other. They love each other, and they're
both Muslims as well. Okay.
That doesn't really make a lot of sense,
but why would you go what? It's gonna
become normal to them. Even if the child
the thing is gonna become normal to them.
They'll become completely desensitized to it. So that's
what happened to us as well.
And this fitna that's being described by the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is not a
fitna of it's not a fitna of,
it's not a fitna primarily of the duniya.
It is a fitna in the duniya as
well, but it's primarily a fitna of what?
A fitna of someone's akhirah, a a fitna
of someone's deen.
So what what should he do if he
wishes to be taken away from the fire
and he wishes to be entered into Jannah?
Let him believe in Allah and in the
last day. And so the part of the
part of the the rust that comes on
the heart is the thought that, oh, maybe
god doesn't exist. Maybe, you know, the material
world is all that there is to to
this. And when the dean says to you,
they're like, prefer others over yourself. This is
just a tool for oppression
that's being used because there's nothing after death.
And if you get cheated on this side,
you're not All these thoughts come into a
person's mind, I promise you that our forefathers
were not people who used to think this
way. These are things that come into people's
minds. Some people are strong enough to resist
them and still stay in Islam. Many people
many people, the apostasy of the people, this
Ummah,
openly and secretly is something that that that's
it's it's happening like a floodgate.
Allah ta'ala protect us from it. It's happening
like a floodgate, and it's something that that
no one is, right now able to stop.
So when a person has these thoughts, what
is the the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
the commandment of it. It's a hadith of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam when somebody
has a thought come to him,
of kufr or of disbelief.
Like a person thinks that shaitan comes to
a person and says to him, who created
the heavens and the earth? And they say,
Allah. And then he comes to him and
says, well, who created Allah? And so these
types of thoughts,
these are
rational,
rational,
fallacies.
Right? If, you know, if you actually study
philosophy, you'll see that these types of questions
are not legitimate questions, they're like the verbal
equivalent of dividing by 0. Allah if you
created time and space to think that someone
is gonna create him as well as to
not understand what that means.
You understand what I'm saying?
If he created time and space, that means
that the existence of Allah supersedes like order
and sequence and things like that. So there's
no there's no point in asking that question.
It's a question like, you know, asking can
God make a rock bigger than than than
than he can carry? If you can, God
do everything. If he can, can he make
a rock bigger than he can carry? The
question itself supposes that the premise that it's
based on is not true.
It's it's it's a it's something that that
that anyone who studies philosophy will know is
is is is is it's incoherence.
But the prophet
said to a person, because a person cannot
every time they have a thought of kufr
go through their head, they cannot
go through this long philosophical process every time,
again and again and again. In fact, often
times the thought comes to you and you
know it's wrong as well, but it's an
emotion, it's not a it's not a rational
thought, it's an emotional thought. So when the
emotional thought of kufr comes to a person,
what should they say? The prophet says, when
that happens to you, then say, I believe
in Allah and I believe in his Rasool
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
I believe in Allah and I believe in
his Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So what does
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam be informing
reinforcing. So when this comes to you,
know that if you want to be saved
from the fire and entered into Jannah, then
let your death come to you in such
a way that you believe in Allah and
you believe in the last day.
And this is something that we should remind
ourselves
over and over again.
And let a person come to the people
in a way that he would wish to
be, come
to. Let a person come to the people
in a way that he would wish to
be come to. Let a person transact with
people in a way that he would wish
to be transacted with. Let a person say
to people what he would be, how he
would wish to be spoken to. In that
time, this is what they call in the
west. They call it the golden rule. Right?
The golden rule.
The the the the outward form of it
is very similar to the golden rule,
but, the reality or the philosophy behind it
is very different. What's the golden rule? Do
unto others as you would have done to
yourself.
Why is that the golden rule for people
who are materialists?
Because this way everybody can live happily in
this world.
If If you do something good to somebody
else and they do something good to you,
you'll all be happy. It's a solution for
everybody, and then you'll die and it's done.
And if someone does something to you that
you wouldn't like them to do to you,
the entire system breaks down and becomes chaos.
There's no point in and of itself to
do to others what you would have done
to mutual benefit. Whereas in the system of
Islam, what is it? You do to others
the what you would like for the what
you would like for
the what you would like for the what
you would like for the what you would
like for the what you would like for
the what you would like for the You
do to others the what you would like
for the for, what you would like for
them to do to you regardless of what
they do back to you. Because the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, what does he say?
He says in another hadith that when the
time of fitna comes,
give other people their rights, but don't demand
your rights from other people, rather ask for
your rights of other people from Allah.
Why? Because if you demand stand and demand
your rights, okay, if you're gonna behave like
this with me, I'm gonna behave like this
with you. The entire system will will crumble,
and and and your your your transaction is
not with them. Your transaction is with who?
It's with Allah
That's why we have so many places in
the Muslim world that our failed states are
even stateless, where things still run because of
the human decency of people. There are people
who do us right even though they've already
written off any possibility of receiving any sort
of,
reciprocity
from people.
Why? Because they do it for the sake
of Allah. So in that sense, it's very
different than the western
concept of the golden rule.
And
what's the first thing? Let them die and
they, they believe in Allah on the last
day. The second thing is let them go
to behave with other people the way that
they would like to be behaved with regardless
of how other people behave with them. The
third is whoever
gives to a a temporal ruler. The word
imam is here is used as in the
meaning of the political meaning, meaning the the
the head of the sovereign state, not the
person who leads the salat in your masjid.
Right? Whoever takes or takes an oath of
allegiance from,
from from from a ruler
and gives him the the merchandise of his
hand and the fruit of his heart, meaning
that person puts his hand forward in order
to,
in order to take the oath of fealty,
and he also believes that this person is
the legitimate ruler of the Muslims,
let let him then afterward
obey such a person as much as he's
able to. And if another one comes then
from the outside,
and,
and and and then starts to, make fitna
and try to steal that leadership from that
person,
then fight against the the the the the
mischief maker. Fight against the second one who
comes and tries to make mischief.
It's a hadith narrated by,
by Muslim.