Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Riyad Al Salihin Preaching[1]
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Allah
said that the prophet
speech
was
separated.
So that everybody who heard it would understand
it. Separated meaning that he didn't slur his
speech. His enunciated
whatever he would enunciate very clearly,
and he would
space out words in such a way that
it was very clear to understand what he
was saying, which is a good idea.
It's one of the many annoyances of the
age we live in that nobody learns how
to speak anything properly.
Nobody learns English properly. Nobody learns Urdu proper
properly. Nobody learns Arabic properly. Nobody learns Persian
properly.
So you have a generated generation of people
that are highly sophisticated in whatever field they
have, but they don't know how to speak
anything properly.
And, that's kind of the opposite. And old
old people, anyone who's hung out with, like,
elders, you know, from a different time and
different age, they're very particular that things should
be read properly,
and things should be said properly.
The chapter regarding
listening.
If you're sitting with somebody to listen with
to the one that you're sitting with
as long as they're not speaking haram.
And the chapter regarding seeking the the chapter
regarding an alim
or a preacher, a scholar or a preacher
seeking the attention of those who are present
in his majlis, that that's something that should
happen, that attention should be sought. Before speaking,
you should make sure that everybody is quiet,
or paying attention somewhat.
As we've, like, seen this masjid is some,
you know, sometimes has a little bit of
improvement that we could do with this issue.
Right?
And sometimes maybe
some of us may be kind of at
fault for that.
So maybe we shouldn't try that.
There's like, you know, the, like,
the Jummah Khutba. How long is it?
Like, 20:25 minutes. 25 minutes? Minutes? Yeah. 30
minutes. Maybe some guy is like crazy and
he goes over. It's like 40 minutes max.
Right?
Whenever you know, like, they have, like, these
groups, like, from other interfaith groups, like churches
and stuff like that that come and, like,
speak or, like, you know, kids that have
to observe, like, the for a religious class,
the the
the congregational
worship of another religion for, like, a class
project.
And consistently, all of them are always, like,
amazed at how short the Jum'ah is.
Because if you go to church or if
you if you go to synagogue,
it's like long. Right?
Different churches are even longer than others,
Like,
the
the Latin mass that they used to they
used to celebrate, even the Catholics have stopped
celebrating it, or the mass in Greek that
the Orthodox celebrate.
It's it literally the entire mass is in
Greek and it's like 2 and a half
hours long, and it's pin drop silence for
the entire thing.
And so people come to this, and they're
like, oh, this is awesome. It's like so
short. I'm like, why? I thought maybe he
liked the speech. Maybe he wants to become
Muslim. Maybe he wants to. They're like, no.
It's like less than half as long as,
like, what they do at my synagogue.
I was like, oh, okay. Cool.
We'll get to that actually. We'll get to
that.
That that hadith is coming up.
Yeah. So that's that's like, you know, so
it's
it's short. It's like maximum the entire
ceremony from the beginning of, beginning of like
the imam getting on the member and calling
the adhan and tell us salaamu alaykum wa
rahmatullahi.
It's not more than 45 minutes. It's really
it's actually really short and you're actually doing
stuff in the middle. You're not even sitting
for the whole time.
So, you know, I don't know what to
do, what to say,
except for,
you know, I I don't know what to
say because we have, like, a lot of
people there. Under the under the law of
the Sharia, they're adults. You're an adult by
the time you hit the age of puberty
and people still talking and people listening. Some
kids, I've had to harass them, like,
to great great lengths
And some of them, to be to be
fair, after yelling at them, like, 5 or
6 times, then I noticed, like, they actually
start paying attention. But, like, it shouldn't be
that way. It should be it's not like
it's not a me thing. You know? It's
like it's for everyone's benefit. You know? We
should be like that. And then sometimes there's
adults who do that.
And what are you gonna do? You know
this person if you yell at them for
an entire lifetime, they're not gonna change so
you just gotta write them off. But at
least the youth you guys should be you
guys should be, you know, on top of
that. InshaAllah. I mean, obviously, it's haram to
say anything during the so if someone next
to you is talking it's even haram to
tell them don't talk. Right? But you know
you can always have a talk with them.
You know, maybe across the street from the
masjid after
after salat, you know, more instructive,
constructive criticism,
you know,
regarding the staying quiet in this clippus situation.
You know what I mean? And,
yeah.
Obviously.
Yeah.
So that's that's that's the the heading of
this chapter.
He said that the messenger of Allah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam said during the
which is the Hajj that the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam made in the last year
of his life,
and it was the farewell Hajj.
He said to the the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam said to Jari' bin Abdullah,
tell the people, tell the people to stay
silent and to, you know, to listen and
to pay attention.
So he did that. That was a function
that he served is that he silenced the
people. It's the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
And but that was
mind you, that was a gathering of, almost
a 100000 people.
That was a very large gathering in in
the days when there's no microphone or speakers
or whatnot.
So he tell he told Jari bin Abdul
not to tell the people to listen.
Then he delivered his famous speech that that
he quotes a piece of. He says that
don't return after me as ungrateful people. Don't
return after I'm gone,
to the state of
and ungratefulness.
One of the meanings of is disbelief and
one of the meanings is ungratefulness.
Don't be so ungrateful after I leave. Don't
be so ungrateful to Allah after I leave
that you enter such a state that some
of you kill each other,
which is unfortunately the case of many places
in in in in in the Muslim world
and many parts of the Ummah. You have
people fighting each other and killing each other
and thinking that it's permissible for a for
a Muslim to harm another Muslim. And, you
know, sometimes another Muslim can be very annoying.
You know, I'd be lying if I said
it wasn't the case, but you still, you
know, you can do a lot. You you
you just you don't have the right to
kill another person
except for very extraordinary circumstances.
A chapter regarding preaching
and being moderate in your preaching,
not going overboard.
And there are many there are many preachers
that are overboard.
Preachers make their living by going overboard.
And there are 2 types of preachers that
go overboard that are excessive.
Right? One of them are a type of
preacher
whatever, those types of creatures. Much of it
is because of the,
the very, advanced,
state of law enforcement in our country, which
is, you know, in many ways a blessing,
although it's also abused sometimes. And part of
it is also because there's not that many
people who have command over the English language.
And the English language itself is not, you
know, it's not that kind of it doesn't
seem to be that kind of a language
at least from what Muslim preachers are able
to do with it yet.
But they they riled people up by saying
excessive things, by saying excessive things, and playing
on people's emotions and like manipulating them through
their speech and like, you know, yelling and
screaming and kind of drama, Kuzchevs type like
banging your shoe on the desk type of
nonsense, you know. Generally, our massages are free
from people like that. In fact, I would
probably say that if there is anyone close
to anything like that when they speak
for American purposes, it's probably me. You probably
haven't heard many people come to the masjid
and yell and scream more than I have.
So I'm, you know but it's not I
mean, trust me, it goes much further than
this. Those of our elders who have spent
significant parts of our life in the Muslim
world know that there are some some orators.
Literally, I've heard people say that I've heard
so and so speaker,
and he started speaking. And then after we
we heard the and we didn't even know
where the time went. There are people like
that, but I don't see many of them
speak in the English language.
At any rate,
you you should be you should be moderate
in your in your preaching. Obviously, moderate doesn't
mean that you hold back from the hap,
but it's in the style of your preaching.
The other the other type of extreme preacher
is something that we have a lot of
actually in the Muslim world. Something that we
have a lot of in America. It's been
particularly in America
and they call them what I call them
is like televangelists.
People are very good at saying things people
wanna hear and avoiding things that people don't
wanna hear. So So as a speaker, people
are like, oh, this speaker is really good
and he's great and he may be good
and he may be great, but the problem
is is that that person is not the
the the purpose of. What is?
Is,
preaching but it means to to try to
compel or try to convince somebody to change
what they're doing to something better
or to convince someone of something. Even if
you don't convince them to change, at least
you convince them to stay the same, but
convince them of something.
And that's one of the that's one of
the
one of the the integral parts of the
that it has to be wild. It cannot
be merely informative. You can't just get up
on the pulpit and give a history lesson.
You have to be telling people, encouraging people
to do good and to do better than
what they are doing already and to fear
Allah
and to stay away from bad and to
do good.
And so what what what, you know, this
kind of televangelist preacher that we have a
lot of in America in the Muslim community,
There are people who are they're they're not
trying to
try to convince you to change to something
better or change away from something bad. Rather
they're they're people who have studied what you
wanna hear, and they're telling you what you
wanna hear in a very entertaining fashion. Very
carefully skirting,
quote, unquote, controversial issues and and and things
that, you know, involve,
bringing people face to face with their shortcomings.
And this is a much more subtle
type of, of of extremism in speech.
And, I consider it to be a treachery.
I consider it to be a khiyana with
people not to tell them the haqq because
that's what the
the the ulama specifically
were charged to do is to tell people
to tell people what the hap is and
what the truth is for their own benefit
and for their own good. So don't,
you know, don't be the type of person
who, only listens to the one that says
sweet things to them,
and don't be the, type of person that,
you know, doesn't give the amount of the
truth to people.
But, at any rate, there's a
the chapter begins.
It says,
Allah
commands, the believers to call to the path
of your lord with wisdom and with a
righteous exhortation.
Meaning, do try to convince people to do
the right thing and try to convince them
in a good way.
A tabri in one of the residents of
Kufa.
He said that Sayidna Abdullah bin Mas'ud was
again a very close companion of the Messenger
of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. 1 of the
huffal, the one who used to carry the
slippers of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the
one who used to pour the water for
the Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he would
make.
He was the one who killed Abu Jahl
on the battlefield in Badr
or at least struck struck him with the
mortal blow.
He was a close
companion of the Messenger of Allah and a
person of great.
So when the Sahaba radiya wa ta'ala anhu,
they established the metropolis of Kufa outside of
Madan,
the ancient Persian imperial capital,
which would rapidly become a bigger city than
Mecca and Medina and become the biggest city
in in the Muslim world. Kufa was the
biggest city in the Muslim world for several
centuries.
Baghdad is essentially a suburb of Kufa that
just got bigger than Kufa later on, but
it's essentially more or less the same
metropolis. They're just across the river from each
other.
The first teacher that was sent to teach
the people their deen and Kufa was said
and
so he used to teach people, he used
to teach the Awam and the Hawas. He
would teach the public and he would also
have his own small set of private students
that he would teach that were more advanced.
And so one of his public
classes or lessons that he had is that
he would give a what we call a
bayan or a sermon on Thursdays.
People would come and he would just preach
to them, about about different things and, you
know, tell them about, you know, what they
needed to hear as a society and as
a people.
And, they enjoyed it. The people of Kufa
enjoyed it.
They listened wrapped with attention.
And so someone once came to say,
and, he said, oh, Abu Abdul Rahman, which
was his,
even though he didn't have any sons.
I wish I wish that you could,
I wish that you could
preach to us every day instead of just
preaching,
preach preaching to us once a week.
And so he said,
he said in response to him, he says
that nothing prevents me from,
from doing that except for I dislike to
bore you.
And, verily I I set for you I
set with you a, you know, just one
time in the week in order for me
to preach to you,
because that's the system that the messenger Allah
used to use.
That he used to set specific times that
he would preach preach to the public
so that it would be easy for them
to attend and also,
it would,
be easy for them to attend and it
wouldn't become,
like dreary for them and boring and they
have to drag themselves in. Not everybody has
the ability to do that.
So whoever preaches shouldn't preach too much.
This is the hadith that was alluded to
by Doctor. Khala just a minute ago
narrated by Sayna Abu Yaqdhan, Ammar ibn Yasser
Radi'allahu Alaihi wa Salam who
said, I heard the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam say,
indeed having a long prayer,
a man leading a long prayer and giving
a short khutba
is a sign that points to that person
having a good understanding of the deen.
So lengthen your prayers
and shorten your khutbas.
It's a hadith narrated by Sahih Muslim.
Lengthen your prayers
and shorten your.
And why is it considered to be a
sign of the the fiqh, the sign of
the fakaha, the sign of the understanding of
the the the, the person to have a
long prayer and a short chutba?
It's because
the prayer is the more important part of
the two
things that happen.
The congregational
prayer is the more important. It's the main
event and the khutba is something that is
tacked onto that. And this is very contrary
to what people's understanding is nowadays. Many people
nowadays, they think that the Khutba is the
most important
part of the event and they they they
consider it to be so.
And that's a misunderstanding
that's a misunderstanding regarding the way the the
way
the
should work. Now there's a problem. What's the
problem?
You know, where is the place? Who's been
here before to a place that the salat
is longer than the, ever.
Never. Yeah.
I've been I've been to a number of
places.
I told you, remember, I spent Ramadan with
with one of my, and his master, the
Khutba, is extremely short.
And there's no there's nothing. There's no
or anything There's just a short you just
you show up
in Arabic, very short,
and that's it. You pray and you're done.
Many people are,
many people are,
very taken aback by that.
And,
really, there shouldn't be a need to. This
is a hadith. It's not like an obscure
hadith or a hadith. This is a hadith
of Muslim. It's
very it's very well known. And there's another
hadith that's worded almost sim almost the same
as it that's narrated in Bukhary as well.
One of the ways that the ulama have,
I guess, tried to deal with this issue.
There's problems in the Ummah. There's so many
problems in the Ummah. And one of the
many problems of the Ummah is that
how do you come to the Masjid? You
come to the Masjid 5 times a day.
That's how a Muslim comes to the Masjid.
Okay. Maybe you're gone somewhere 4 times, 3
times, at least once a day. Right? If
you look statistically at the people in,
you will know that a vast majority, more
than 80% of them don't
come to the masjid once a day. Okay?
And upon even more scrutiny and analysis,
you'll
realize that there's a great number of them,
a large fraction of them, that don't even
come every week.
That don't even come Every week. Every week.
So there's there's some gross breach of of
of of of of duty over there. This
is one of the reasons this is one
of the reasons that a person should be
very careful in juman, like not to jostle
people too much. And people who give the
jumah should be careful not to say things
that are too,
enveloped in, like, you know, like just that
that are not problems that deal with the
entire. They should keep the message very general
and keep the message very easy to digest
and give it with a lot of because
there are people imagine if a person's only
come to the masjid once a month and
then you come in and say something to
them that they completely don't understand and are
not able to appreciate at all. Right?
What will happen? They'll stop coming once a
month even.
And for many people that can be the
difference between their Islam and their kufr or
and
aside from the other problem, okay? It's a
problem that people come to the Masjid
so rarely.
Right? It's a problem that people come to
the Masjid so rarely,
and that has to be dealt with.
That's a completely another topic. Right? The Jamaat
Tablih going out 40 days and calling people,
knocking on people's doors and things like that.
This is one way of dealing with it.
Okay?
I mentioned this just to say that this
is a legitimate way of dealing with it.
This is a this there's been a lot
of good effect of it. It doesn't mean
that every single person who goes with Jarmakah
bleeding bodies,
the properties of a die properly.
No. Unfortunately, there are many people who go
on to believe that don't do a very
good job at it, and that's another set
of problems that we're also not gonna talk
about. But in general in general, it's a
good thing, but that's again, that's that's another
set of issues.
What what is it what is it that
makes people and imams and leaders compelled to
give very long Khutubaat? Right? The hadith of
the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
that, for every,
that you practice,
a commensurate amount of the sunnah will also
be taken away from you as well.
For every bida'ah that you practice,
the same amount of sunnah that that was
being practiced, also that will Allah will take
that away from you as well as a
punishment.
Means there's like a double for
for, implementing an innovation
in your life,
of the deen.
There will be there's a double there's a
double,
deficiency. One is that
itself, the harm of it you'll face and
also the benefit from a commensurate amount of
sunnah that also will be taken away from
you. Okay? And so what is a bida
in the deed of people nowadays? It's very
subtle but what is a The idea you
don't have to come to the masjid 5
times a day. The idea that you don't
have to come to the masjid 5 times
a day, this is a This is a
misunderstanding.
It's a problem in a person's aqidah and
it's a problem in a person's practice of
hibadah
because this is something that people before us
understood that you have to do it. The
worst people were who? The ones who come
in, like, late.
They they come in, like, late. They'll they'll
come in, like, at, like, the
telling the people and when I know that
Yeah. I mean, it's not compulsory, but it's
We are not promoting that. Yeah.
Yeah. We and and we should be.
We should be. And so
the yeah. So this is a to think
that it's like somehow okay. You know, it's
like a that they come to the prayer
mosque 5 times a day. You know? A
person shouldn't
choose,
you know, let's say, of their own choosing.
This person shouldn't choose to live far from
the Masjid. A person should try as much
as they're able to. If they're able to,
they should live as close to the Masjid
as they can just in order to get
the to get the reward of coming. So,
there's this, right? So, we were talking about
whoever practices a Okay. This hadith of the
prophet that a commensurate amount of the sunnah
will be taken away from them as well.
So this is one of the of not
coming to the masjid.
And one of the parts of the sunnah
that was taken away is that, you know,
the part of this that used to come
to the masjid as Muslims, Their used to
be the of
Muslims,
which is what? Very short and then go.
Right? You're coming 5 times a day. You
have
hour. You read and you leave.
But now we come to the Masjid like
Christians and Jews.
Once a week. And so now we have
to suffer the of the Christians and Jews
as well,
which is a long.
Okay? It's a long and it's difficult for
people to get that much time off of
work and to make that, you know it
becomes an imposition. It becomes a difficulty on
them. Now it's farth to be there from
the beginning of the until the end of
the. You understand what I'm saying? So coming
late to the coming late to the Jumaa,
you're missing some you're missing some part of
the fard. And if you are late, you
know, if you're late and you were able
to have come on time, it's actually a
sin. Everything you do during that time that
you need to to get to the khutbah
instead of getting to the khutbah, all of
that is a sin. All of that will
be counted against the person.
Means not just like go. It doesn't mean
it means do everything you can to get
there as soon as possible. And it's a
direct commandment of the Quran. There are very
few things that are,
so clearly,
commanded in the Quran.
But this is very clearly commanded in the
Quran. So what happens, you have to go
there. There was a time that this ummah
used to have ulama, people of piety and
taqwa and of knowledge. So if you have
to sit through through through half an hour
of them talking, at least you'll benefit from
them. Right?
Now we're like double stuck.
Why? Because the majority of the masadas in
America,
they have people who have neither knowledge nor
piety. Right? There are a lot of people
outside the Muslim community, and it seems like
a particular amount in the Muslim community that
like to have their voice be heard. They
like to talk
even if they don't have anything useful to
say. Now they realized something a long time
ago, ma'am. These imams have a good fraud
going because they can get up on the
member and people because of deen have to
listen to these guys, whereas nobody wants to
listen to me. Right? So how can I
have people listen to me? They realize they
figured this out is that if we can
get up on the member also, we can
use the fear of Allah to make people
listen to whatever nonsense we have to say.
I heard that
have absolutely nothing to do with deen whatsoever
ever before. I kid you not. Right? The
one one I heard,
one I heard was
about how we should, you know,
respect that weddings are very important.
And, like, you know, next time we go
to a wedding, you should like just instead
of just eating the food and going home,
you should respect that 2 people are giving
their
commitment to live their life together with each
other, brothers. And I'm like thinking like,
I heard I was in 1 Muslim country.
I heard a Khutba
speaking, about the virtues of the ruler of
that country,
you know,
and I just got up and left, you
know. I mean, you hear these kind of
weird
and you're stuck now. You're stuck because this
has become normal for giving this long and
weird
and very few places, you know, do we
even support ulama anymore. So even that, there's
no in it. There's no benefit in it
even then.
In most places, in many places. And really
it's a fitna.
I see some people, some khatibs are boring.
Why are they boring? Because the important thing
I think more important than the words that
the katib says is the how that's inside
of his heart. If he believes what he's
saying, then it will captivate and it'll capture
the audience that he's talking about. If he
himself doesn't believe it, he's sleeping himself in
his heart and he's putting everybody else's heart
to sleep as well. Some people literally, like,
it's like the kind of professor. It reminds
you of, like, community college. Like, they're just,
like, you know, like, you could see them,
like, unconsciously trying to switch slides on you
know, it's there's no
wildling at all whatsoever. Right? So this is
what happens is that we come now like
to
the masjid, and it's a situation we have
to deal with.
And so one of the one of the
ways that have tried to circumvent this problem
because the problem is that you have to
say something to the people. Otherwise, this is
the only they're gonna hear about Deen in
the entire week. Sometimes, if you don't say
a good word to them in right in
in the right time, they may even leave
Islam. But the problem is now in order
to open the door for this one small
good or one one important good thing, you
open the door to, like, 7 other, like,
problems. Right? So one of the ways that
ulama will get to you, inshallah. One of
the ways that ulama dealt with this is
what?
We did this, like, once or twice before
in this masjid also for different reasons,
is that they separate the the ritual hutba
from
from,
just a speech that happens before the salat.
Now what's the benefit of doing that? What's
the benefit of doing that? There's a number
of benefits. The primary benefit I see is
that it's a way of preserving the sunnah
of having a short and
having a relatively longer salat because the is
shorter.
Have a short Khutba in the Arabic language,
and it's very brief, and it's to the
point, and it has nothing, you know, anyone
would disagree with. And anyone who understands the
Arabic will understand it's mostly from the Quran
and from the sunnah of the prophet anyway.
You go, you do it. The main event
is what?
The salat.
Right? And you have a short and then
the the the salat starts. So you preserve
this this sunnah. The second benefit of it
is what? The second benefit is there's a
hadith of the prophet that
when the angels come
when the when it's the day of Jum'ah,
the angels stand at the doors of the
Masjid, and they write down the names of
the people attending.
Okay? For for the purposes of reward.
Once the adhan is called, once the adhan
is called, okay?
The angels then close-up their their their their,
their records.
And then they come in and they attend
the.
Okay? How many because I have to be
here on time, otherwise, you know, I mean,
I'd like to say because I'm pious. Hopefully,
that's why it is, but, you know, part
of it is also to be honest with
you. I'll get fired if I don't because
I have to give the. Right? So I'm
here on time anyway, and I can see
everybody. I mean, there's, like, the blind spot
just over here and over here. Right? But
most everybody I can see. How many people
with a nice beard and with a nice
and with a turban and with God knows
all the paraphernalia that's associated with jum'ah. How
many people walk in the door after the
footba has started? 70%.
70%, 80%,
sometimes even more than that,
And it's sad. It breaks your heart. You're
like, oh, man. I wish this person had
received the entire reward of Jum'ah
for having attended. Right? So it doesn't mean
that your jul'ah is not valid. It means
that you won't be punished for missing it,
but you won't receive the reward for attending
either. Right? So if the Khutbah is short,
right, and it's and it's a little bit
later, then there's a larger number of people
that will receive the reward for the Khutba
as well. Okay?
And, thirdly, there's a difference of opinion amongst
the ulema as to whether or not delivering
the khutba in.
Language other than Arabic is valid or not,
or is it makru or what is it?
And the for that is what? Is that
the is
mentioned in the, in the Quran
as a come with all haste to the
remembrance of Allah Ta'ala and leave
leave trade, leave leave your businesses at that
time.
And so the zikr of Allah Ta'ala, it's
a ritual practice. It should be in Arabic.
There's no,
there's no evidence from the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam or the sahaba
or the or the
from any of the salafs that they ever
gave a kutba in other than Arabic. Despite
the fact that after
the after the,
after the conquest,
they they ruled lands in which majority of
the people were not Arabic speakers.
So they would give the in Arabic also.
The would be short, but they would give
the in Arabic also. There's no record of
them giving it in any other any other
language. This is in and of itself not
a decisive proof that that the has to
be in Arabic, but it's it's a heavy
proof that at any rate, at least it's
a sunnah. It's the way of our aslaf.
It's something at least. It's.
But, you know, this is maybe like I
think 2 or 3 times in the past
I've done it mostly when we have guest
speakers.
Because
the guest speakers are travelers, And so there's
a difference of opinion as to whether the
of a traveler is invalid or not. And
so I let the guest speakers speak because
the crowd is here.
And then we'll we'll I'll read the chutba
briefly in Arabic. And sometimes people have, like,
a little bit of a like, you know,
there's a little afterward people like, woah.
Someone so and so said that he ruined
the, or why is he doing this? This
is weird. I never saw it before. Blah,
blah, blah.
It's based in the, you know, it's the
hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
To be honest with you, I would like
to actually switch the the khutba over to
that as well.
But, you know, I don't wanna, like, you
know, burn the house down all in one
day. Inshallah, we have a lot of
a lot of work to do. There's only,
like, what, 15 people here right now to
hear this. The rest of them, they're not
gonna hear. Maybe another 15 will listen on
SoundCloud.
You know? Probably 3 of them will be
in Ukraine,
We love you.
No. Because you get the stats you get
the stats from, like, who all the hits,
where they come from. Some of them are
from kind of type places. I assume it's
probably some sort of, like, ad bot or
something like that that's accessing it, but you
never know. I mean, the Internet is the
Internet. Right?
So, so that's that's yeah. But at any
rate, it's it's a sunnah that the should
be
that the should be short and the should
be long.
You know, I don't wanna belabor the point,
but,
you know, I I before I went to
Madrasa, I was
the president of the MSA in our university.
Did I ever tell you that? Yeah. I
was president of MSA, and we had our
own masjid, actually. The oldest masjid in all
of Seattle, the original jum'ah of the city
of Seattle is actually a house that the
MSA kids bought.
And the house is worth like 1,000,000 now.
But they bought it relatively cheap, like way
back in the '70s.
And it was I mean, it's the ownership
of the MSA. The deed is held in
trust, I think, by Nate, which is ISNA's
like
a holding arm or whatever. Yeah. But I
mean, it's the beneficiary of it is the
MSA. And so I gave there before I
went to Madrasa, which is probably not a
great thing. But, one of the things I
remember I heard the I read this hadith
before. So That's what we do at least
in Ramadan. We have a very short kutbah,
like, read or something like very you know,
much longer during the.
If I just put that over here, I
think,
you know, I think we should we should
just do it inshallah. When they come to
kill me, you guys can
very very make sure that, like, my, you
know, text works properly or whatever. But, I
mean, that's
it comes in the hadith of the prophet.
There's 2 sets of sunan for the recitation
of of of.
Right? One is the one is a Surat
which many people do.
The other one that's rigorously
narrated,
an authentic hadith is,
which is a bit it's a bit longer.
It's more than double the recitation of of
of and
the sunnah is not necessarily those specific surahs
alone. All of those specific surahs are sunnah
as well, but that amount of recitation.
But again, people will become fidgety and they'll
start to say my lunch break and You
should tell me the rewards. This hadith. Yeah.
But the problem is when I'm saying the
rewards, none of them are there.
So, I mean, that's good. That's it's good
that you guys you guys are here for
and we're going through all of these things.
You know, you start these things 1 person
at a time.
We're we're is this is this like the
most number of people we've had for the
whole 10 day I take off in Rockford
or has there been in the past years
that we've had more than We never have.
The the the the the the the the
the the the
the
the the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the the
the the the
So see, you learned the sunnah and he
was practicing it. They practiced it at the
wrong time.
He didn't know that. Right? So he says,
all of the all of the people and
you know, in the Masjid kind of like
threw a a a harsh look at me.
And then then afterward, he's he got he
got vexed. Why did they why did they
do that to him? So he says,
he says, he says,
a figure of speech in Arabic, right? Like,
what? Like, what did it, what happened? Did
I just die or something? Why are you
guys freaking out right now? So what
why are you looking at me like this?
So he said, and they're all like this.
And then he's like, why are you all
looking at me? Like in the prayer, you
know? He's like new Muslim. This happens sometimes
people are new to Islam and stuff like
that. It happens in the Masjid, you know.
And so he said everybody started to slap
their their,
their thigh to try to tell them to
be quiet.
He said, I didn't even know that they're
what they're trying to communicate to me, but
I just I became quiet. I didn't have
anything else to say, but But I didn't
know they were later I realized, okay, they're
trying to get me to be quiet.
But I I was quiet anyway. I fell
silent anyway.
And so he said that when the
was done praying, he says, I swear by
my mother, by my father, and by mother,
my mother, that I never saw a better
teacher
that was more beautiful in the way he
taught than the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
For wallahi,
he didn't he didn't chastise me, nor did
he hit me, nor did he curse me.
Right? This is kind of this happens, you
know, a little bit yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, he didn't do any of that
stuff. Right? He didn't do any of that
stuff. Rather, he said to him
said, indeed, this salat,
it's not,
it's not correct in the salat to speak
about anything with people.
Rather, the salat is to say
or to say
or to, read Quran. So this you don't
speak, communicate with one another, react, or do
anything in that sense sense. With one another.
It's only with Allah.
And so he said that to him. Now,
one of the, you know, one of the
things people do is they see hadiths like
this. They're like, oh, why why
people? You know, didn't he see the hadith,
this, that, and the other thing. People should
see look at the hadith also.
The the person one time that prophet told
him that he remembered for his whole life.
He even narrated the hadith about it. I
mean, the hadith, he didn't narrate it just
like the next day, like it's a,
you know,
like a like a reality TV show or
something. You know what I mean?
He he remembered his whole life and he
would tell people this is something important happened
that the prophet told me one time and
that's it. For the rest of his life,
he understood. Right?
So, you know, it goes it goes both
ways. It doesn't mean that imams and stuff
like that should be like and teachers should
be like really horrible and rough with people,
but
sometimes, you know, when the student is again,
unless you gotta crank it up a couple
of notches as well. So everyone should be
considerate
of the other, I guess,
in order for the system to work.
Says, so he says so he told me,
he said that the we don't speak in
the prayer. It's not correct to speak in
the prayer with people. Rather, it's
reading Quran.
So he said he said something to that
effect.
I said to him then afterward, oh messenger
of Allah, now that now that he's talking
to him, he said, well, I asked him
a couple of questions. He said that I'm
I'm new from Jahiliya. It's not, I've not
been a Muslim for a very long time.
And
Allah brought us Islam.
And I had a question
that there are some some people amongst us
that go to,
What is a is a is a is
a of
is like a soothsayer.
Right? Somebody who, like, claims to have knowledge
of the
have knowledge of the.
So they're, you know, like oracles and things
like that. They used to have these amongst
the Arabs. Right?
Like the oracle at Delphi, the Greeks, something,
you know, they used to have these things
or pagan people have these things.
No. There's something else that our fortune tellers
are.
I'll I'll I'll tell you about that also.
So, is the difference between
and is the claims to have
knowledge of the
completely.
Like, he knows, like, talks to the dead
and, like, knows what's going on in other
places and he knows what's inside of your
heart and he, you know, whatever. He's a
more complete. A is more complete
type of,
soothsayer.
Whereas,
the fortune teller, is somebody who,
just tells you, like,
individual pieces of information.
So the kahin is the one that they
would go to to make muchura about important
things in life. The is the one they
would go to like, oh, I lost my
phone. Where is it? You know?
That's literally that's what they did in the
shop there. They wrote the the difference between
them. Right? So So he said that their
people go to. Right? This word is a
strange word. It's something they accuse the prophet
of being a as well. Right?
And as far as I can tell, the
best etymology I've read for kahin is
is that,
has anyone ever, like, known a Jewish person
by the last name Cohen?
Yeah. Right? So Cohen is the is is
the word that they used to use in
Jakhaniyah for priests as well,
Semitic speaking people. Right?
So it must be it must be
something like that. That that one of the
word that they use in in Hebrew for
priest is
the one who does the temple sacrifices and
things like that. And so somehow in the
language, either the original meaning is the soothsayer
meaning and they say, okay, this is the
soothsayer of or
it's the flip side that the like the
Arabs and the people from around saw them
doing the sacrifices and these weird things and
thought that, okay, this is, you know, became
like a metaphor for
for a suit there. Allah knows best.
So he said, there are some some people
still amongst us,
meaning the people like me who just became
Muslim, that I see that they're going to
these soothsayers to ask about knowledge about the.
The prophet said to him, don't go to
them.
He said he said, even if people go,
don't go.
Don't don't visit them.
And he said that there are also amongst
us some people who
they they they are afraid of bad omen.
Right? Bad omen is what? Like, you go
out from your house and you see, like,
there's a rain cloud or a black cat
or god knows all these other things that
people, you know, people think as think of
as bad omens. Right? Literally, a right?
Is is a bad omen.
And right? That we take a bad that's
what the the the of so many said
to them.
That that said, we take a bad omen
from you. You're like a you're you're being
here is like a sign of bad luck.
And
so keep your bad omen to yourself. This
is nonsense. This is not like a logical
thing to say.
The word in Arabic for a bad omen
it comes from the, the
root, means in Arabic,
a bird.
And so how the Arabs used to do
the the the the
they take omens, they would say, okay, should
I do this or should I not do
this? You know, I think someone's stupid, they
shake the 8 ball or something down like
that and flip a coin. Right?
Right? The Arab version, because they didn't make
their own coins, I guess. Right? Not everyone
had a coin, I guess. Right? So what
they would do is they would go in
the desert to a flock of birds and
they'd run after it. And if the birds
would go to the right, they would they
would take a a human, a good sign
from it. And if the bird would go
to the left,
it's considered a bad omen.
Right? And so the process, I guess, because
of negativity, the process itself
of of taking omens is the same word
they use for a bad omen.
It's kind of like a negative outlook. Like,
yeah, it's probably gonna be bad, but what
the heck? Let's just try it out, you
know. So this is completely haram. Right? The
way you judge what you're gonna do, you
don't judge it based on omens. You judge
it based on does it make sense? Is
it a good thing? You know, use your
brain and use your use the in
order to find is it something righteous? Is
it something upright? Is it something worth doing?
Is it something moral? Or is it something
that's gonna benefit me or benefit other people?
That's what you do. And even if you
see every bad omen, you still go through
with it. And even if you, even if
you, see every good omen to do something
bad, you still don't do it. You still
don't do it. And, this is one of
the hadith of Sahib of the prophet he
he was shown some tens of thousands of
people from his
on the day of judgment. They will enter
into Jannah without being asked or having to
give any account.
And,
because,
because they, they don't take bad omens and
they don't take charms and amulets
and they trust in Allah to Allah. They
trust in their Lord whenever they do anything.
Meaning that even if, like, you know, a
100 black cats walk by, you know, in
front of their door. If they're gonna do
what's the hack, they're gonna do it. They
don't care. They trust in Allah. They're not
concerned with the black cat.
So he asked that there are some people
still that get get creeped out by bad
omens amongst us as well. And the messenger
of Allah
said to him, he said that that's something
that happens. Sometimes you see something,
and you find in your heart some, like,
demotivation
because it happened to do what's right. Said
he said that that the fact that you
feel the the or you feel creeped out
by something happening
is not the problem. The problem is if
you use that as an excuse not to
do what's
right. So if you see something like that,
just keep doing what you need to do
and and and you should be okay.