Hamzah Wald Maqbul – The Superiority of Reason Over Animality Rihlat alUlum Lansdale 09222017
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And it's a very Adi Mushan Hadith,
and it's very interesting. It's narrated by Sayidna
As if to,
providentially
tell
the entire Ummah
that the Sahaba are the gatekeepers. If you
don't
accept them, if you don't accept all of
them,
this is something that you're barred access from.
He said
Whoever
Allah wishes good for, he gives him
is the one who gives.
This hadith is a very important hadith. There
are a number of issues of
that that that are understood through this hadith.
Unfortunately, is something that's abandoned. The study of
is abandoned, especially the books of Kalam.
As students of knowledge,
you shouldn't consider yourself a student of knowledge
unless you have the intention
of having achieved at least some sort of
moderate,
proficiency in every single one of the
loom. Not just say, well, I like so
you just do for the rest of your
life and you're of what's going on in
the books of. Not just I wanna be
so you become a great Mufti and you
are of what's going on
in the the, in in in the books
of Kalam or in Usul Hadith, etcetera etcetera.
You should
keep studying whether Allah Allah gives you,
an Ijazah
or people call you Molana or people, you
know, give you a job as a imam.
Yes, ma'am.
Or or some sort of, you know, some
sort of,
you know,
crumb that
the people of the dunya, the
the are happy with.
Whether or not you get those things, you
should have it. This is the thing that
I love. This is the thing I want
to do. Don't you see how we live
in America, the people around us. If somebody
wants to go skydiving, he was skydiving.
Someone wants to jump in a bungee cord
out of building, he goes and jumps in
a bungee cord out of the building. Someone
wants to go snowboarding, they go snowboarding. Someone
wants to go backpacking and, you know, some
volcano in Hawaii even though boiling molten rock
may vaporize
him. He still will do it.
Okay?
It's good. This is a good Sifa.
It's misplaced because they spend it in things
that are not really worth your time.
But the Sifa of wanting something and doing
it, this is a sign of being a
living person,
not being
dead. So if there's something that's important to
you, go do it.
Don't make excuses and don't
artificially and prematurely make
make depression and make regret for yourself even
though the door of opportunity for you to
do whatever you want to in life is
still open for you. One day that door
will close. That's the time to have regrets.
You don't have regret when you can still
do it. So I always wanted to do
this and you don't you don't do it.
That's that makes no sense.
So, you know, you you have to learn
all of these things. At any rate,
Rasoolullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam said what? He
Said whoever Allah is good for, he gives
them in the deen.
Is not
It's not having a whole lot of information.
I'm told there are some, students in this
madras have memorized.
That's awesome.
Right? But if you had to choose 1
or another,
memorizing or understanding which one is more important.
The understanding is more important.
And the memorization is icing on top of
the cake. And the memorization has benefit and
it has a Maqam in in in in
Ummah. But the the the the people, the
they're the fuqaha, the people understand things properly.
And understanding comes through
not having a whole bunch of stuff you
memorize that you can repeat by rote. I
don't wanna make fun of it or I
don't wanna
downplay it as if it's not important. It
is important as well.
But the higher rank is what is Faqaha
and the highest rank is to join between
the 2 of them. And Fakaha doesn't come
from
it doesn't come from just knowing a lot
of particular things.
It comes from what? It comes from understanding
things the way they are.
Now
because people don't read the books of Aqidah,
they don't read the books of Kalam, they
don't read the books of Falsafa, they don't
read the books of even Mantak to be
able to read those,
other books.
There's a lot of
assumptions that we accept
from the people of Kufr, and we don't
know that they came from the people of
Kufr. And because we don't know any better
or don't know anything else, we accept those
things as being
matters of fact.
So
nowadays, if you're to walk on the street
and you meet a yahudi or you meet
a nasalani or you meet a Muslim who's
not practicing,
or has some sort of,
type beliefs about the deen and whatnot. If
you tell them something, they'll ask for some
sort of scientific evidence.
What is scientific evidence?
What is science? You have a theory, right?
That I think that
when you make water hot, it will evaporate
faster.
So you take that theory and then you
what you do is you take a pot
of water and you leave it
or a bowl of water and you leave
it at room temperature and you take another
bowl of water bowl of water that's the
same in every other way except for you
heat it up and you see which one
evaporates faster, right? You you see until you
see with your eyes,
you don't believe anything.
This is what science is.
It's a perfectly
legitimate way of getting information about the world
around you.
But what the problem is is this is
that
only accepting knowledge that you can see with
your eyes or hear with your ears or
touch or taste or smell,
Only accepting the knowledge that you can get
from your senses. This is the knowledge of
animals.
This is the knowledge of dogs.
You take a dog and you stick a
lighter under the dog, the dog will feel
the heat as well. If you stick the
lighter underneath the human, the person will it's
exactly the same. The knowledge is exactly the
same. Allah gave human beings something different than
what he gave the animals.
Allah gave the human being the ability to
rationalize,
to use reason,
to use reason
that the the the the person can take
the knowledge that they know and then use
reasoning in order to extract from that knowledge,
knowledge that they didn't know.
Right? That reasoning is completely,
is completely
disappearing in the world around us.
The use of rationality is disappearing
in the world around us. The use of
of of of logic is disappearing in the
world around us. You will see always takes
a person away from the sunnah toward the
state of being an animal.
Right? And that's what the whole falsafa of
Kufr is. Is that we're essentially animals like
other animals. Sunan, have you ever seen an
animal that sits when it eats?
Absolutely not. Right? Human beings that follow Sunan
are the only ones. Human beings have progeny.
We have lineage. We have Nasab.
Animals have offspring.
People of Kufar are taking human beings and
putting them like animals that there's offspring. There's
no lineage anymore. There's no of anyone.
Nobody cares someone's married, not married. Who's the
father? Who's not the father? The you know,
if you're sophisticated, you'll get a DNA test.
If you're unsophisticated, maybe you'll go on the
Jerry Springer show or something and find out
who your father is. This is basically what
it is. It's moving people, everything, moving people
toward what? This, animalistic
state.
Everything.
I wanna do what I want to do.
You know, a man should be able to
marry a man. What's the proof? Look, in
Antarctica, these penguins, the 2 male penguins will
have * with one another. This is a
proof that this is legitimate.
What your proof is what? That the animals
do it, so we should do it as
well. All of these things push a person
toward being an animal.
Without even talking about Iman and Kufr, right,
the first zena and the first beauty Allah
gave to human beings, that's different than the
beauty that Allah gave to or different than
the state that Allah gave to animals.
Right? The the farq, the difference between humans
and all the other animals is what is
even if a person is a kafir, they
have the use of their rational faculty.
Kufr is what? It's it's this agenda of
shaitan
to attack a person's rationality and not get
them to use their their rational rational faculty,
not get them to use reason.
Right? What is it? The nafs, Hawa, the
Duniya and Shaitan, the 4 enemies of every
person,
none of them appeal to a person's rational
faculty.
None of them. And if they do what
it is is a kind of like a
losing bargain. So for example, they said, don't
practice the deen because if you're a Muslim,
halal meat costs double as much as haram
meat does.
That reasoning is what? It's penny wise pound
foolish because the Haramid cost, like, a dollar
less per pound, but you go to Jahannam
forever.
So the higher reasoning, the higher logic is
what?
Is that pay the dollar, it's worth it
to spare yourself.
These 4 enemies will never will never ever
ever
appeal to a person's rationality and appeal to
the person's logic. And this is something that
our Mutakalimin
say that our the the the the Imams
of Aqidah say,
which is that a person,
in order for their iman to be valid,
they have to use some sort of rational
method to arrive at even iman itself. So
someone comes in front of Allah to Allah,
Allah asked, did you believe in me? You
believe in my rasul, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam?
They say yes. Why?
Because
is
a pious guy and I see he believed
in Allah so I believe because of him.
This is invalid.
This is not iman.
Why? If Allah accepted that from that person,
then the next guy down the road,
right, Raju. He
He'll say, well, I saw the priest in
my my mother is also a nice guy.
Many of them are. Not all of them
are. I think not all all of our
guys are nice either. Right? Many of them
are nice too. They feed the animals. Some
of them, they don't even eat meat because
they don't even wanna harm animals. They don't
wanna harm human beings, nonviolence,
give charity, all of these things. They have
these values. Some of them are very nice
people.
But what this person say if they say
that, well, the the the priesthood Armandir was
was a very nice guy. And so because
of that, that's why I,
accepted worshiping elephant and monkey, and god knows
all these other things. Right?
He'll he'll have a in front of Allah
and say, well, for the same thing, you
know, the same methodology that that that person
used, I used the same methodology. Why is
it that my iman is not valid?
This is a good this and this this
would be a good question and a good,
line of reasoning. Rather the ulama say that
even the person who believes in Allah Ta'ala
has to themselves come to the conclusion that
Allah Ta'ala exists, that Allah Ta'ala,
is one, that the deen is correct, that
Rasool Allah wasn't a liar,
that the Quran isn't filled with lies, that
Islam is not just a big scam
for,
people to make money and for for, people
to exploit one another like other religions are.
It's not Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
You look at his life. He made no
money from the from the deen. He banned
his own family from receiving the money of
zakat. He was shown, say, the Fatima's death,
say, not Hussein's death. He was shown the
entire his entire family, children, grandchildren, most of
his children except for say, the Fatima. All
of them died in front of his eyes.
And he was shown the of Sayna Hussain
The family of the prophet suffered so much
abuse from this ummah that it's one of
the miracles of Islam that there are even
Muslims to this day. If you read history,
you see that this is something happens again
and again.
Banu Abbas becomes
a Khalifa after Banu Umayyah, and they persecute
the the, Ola of,
the Hasanin and the Ola of Hussain who
mercilessly.
But what there's still there's still the dean
was shown all of these things. This hadith
says that he knew all of these things.
What possible benefit in this world could he
have received from it? These are all what?
These are all rational arguments.
The Quran says what? This is
This is a completely rational argument. Allah does
not say I'm Allah Quran is the truth,
so shut up. Just accept it.
Although that's his authority. If you wanted to,
he could, and we would all be
to accept
it. But here even he throws you a
bone, says, okay. Fine. You're in San. Do
you like thinking about things? Think about this.
Think about
this. The one who made it the first
time, he can make it again. The fact
that he made it the first time, it's
a rational argument. The fact that he made
it the first time means to make it
again is a possible, a b,
it's it's it's it's easier.
Makes a do something the second time always
easier than doing it the first time.
The
idea is this is that
just the fitra of insan, we're not even
talking about the deen, just the fitra of
insan pulls them toward rational thinking.
And the highest function of rationality is what?
Is that allows a person to accept wahi,
which is a door to a complete other
realm of knowledge.
It's just like imagine a person lands in
the airport. Right? Like some of us did
or some of our parents or forefathers came
to this country. They landed at the airport.
The airport is a small thing. And then
there's like a whole big America outside of
it, right?
The rational faculty is like the airport
and the white is like the entire rest
of the country.
You can't get there unless you go through
the airport.
On top of all of that, what Rasulullah
salallahu alaihi wa sallam said, when
whoever Allah ta'ala which is good for he
gives him he gives a fakaha of the
deen. The understanding of the deen is not
in memorizing
so many particular things. That memorization is important
but to be able to put it together,
this is the Manhaj of Nabuwa, is this
Faqaha.
Don't you see so many examples of of
the Sahaba alayahu anhu.
Right? There's a hadith, maybe all of you
have read it before, heard it before. They
said Abu Abu Hurraya
who he he noticed
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is gone for a
while and nobody knows where he is. And
then,
he went and asked everyone, do you know
where Rasulullah is? And
they said they said they said, no, we
don't know where he we don't know where
he is.
And so he said, I scrambled to look
for him and I jumped the wall of
one of the buildings of the Ansar
and I saw Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is in a good state and he said
he gave me the glad tidings that take
my my sandals and give everyone who you
see the glad tidings that whoever says
will enter Jannah.
So he does it in the first person
he sees Saidna Omar Saidna Omar hits him
so hard it knocks him onto his backside.
Saidna Abu Huraira radiAllahu and who he
he he starts to weep. He cries. Imagine
how scary it is. Said the Omar big
guy, he he does that. And such a
person of so many hayba and wakar. So
he grabs him and drags him to Rasulullah
Rasool Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
first orders him release release him. So he
releases him
and, he says what's what's the you know,
what's going on? Said Abu Huraira radiAllahu who
says that that that you gave me your
and
you said to the said say to the
people, give them the glad tidings. Whoever says
will enter Jannah.
And, and I I did it and he
hit me and he hit me so hard
I fell on my backside and I started
to cry. So you say, why did you
do it? I'm not understand think about this,
okay? Think about this. Literally
there are people who read a translation of
a hadith from Bukhari.
Not the hadith itself, not the sunin,
just a translation of the Matan.
And they
come to a conclusion with it. And they
beat people up and say you don't follow
the sunnah and you you're a person of
because of that.
This is Sayna Abu Hurair who
who came with a with a hadith from
Rasool Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
What's the salat of the hadith?
Me and him Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam done. And as a proof,
none of these knuckleheads, they start wars in
different countries and they,
you know, make everything haram halal and everything
halal haram. None of these knuckleheads, even if
they do have this translation of a hadith
without a salat, none of them will show
you the Na'al sharif of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. He told me particularly here,
looks like. So he has like a he
has like a karina with it that's you
almost never find.
And still say, no, Amr radiAllahu and who
didn't accept the hadith, astaghfirullah,
this should be Kufr.
Right?
This should be Kufr. This is Nifaka. This
should be a person should get their, head
whacked off of their shoulders if they they
disobey,
treasonously
disobey a
direct commandment of Rasulullah salahu alaihi wasalam.
What did Rasulullah salahu alaihi wasalam say ask
him why did you do it? He said
because
if they had no if they if if
he had told this to the people then
they would have what they would have slacked
off and not, done their amal.
So what did Rasulullah SAWSAW say? Stop for
Allah. My command, you didn't listen to it.
This, that, and the other thing. This is
what this is what the Roafid will say.
This is, look, this is a proof you're
Omar that you love so much. He's a
Munafid. He he the direct commandment of Rasool
Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he didn't accept.
But
you can Rawafid, you can say that if
you want to. What did Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam say?
Said, yeah. You have a good point. Just
let them keep doing their.
He didn't chastise him at all. And he's
the Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that he doesn't
bear witness to Ba'athil, much less accept it.
He doesn't bear witness to, much less accept
it.
The interpretation of this is what?
Is that
salallahu alaihi wa sallam wanted to make tableer
of a part of the aqidah, which is
what? Whoever under whoever says that person that's
their najat is in there. It's not in
their ama, the najat is in the iman.
What did Sin Amr alayallahu anhu, what was
his ijtihad? He wasn't denying that fact. He
just said that right now I'm Aaliyah and
practically this is not going to this is
gonna have another bad effect.
He understood what the Rasul sallallahu alaihi wasallam
said explicitly
and also what his intention was in saying
it. This is what this is his Ijtihad,
Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam accepted it from him.
There are so many incidences in the life
of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the
the thekhira of the Athar, that you see
this is a process that happens over and
over again.
There's,
saying,
Amar Bin Yasser Radiallahu Anhuma
and are out in the path of Allah
Ta'ala.
Both of them in the night, they have,
a, and
they have to make
a in the morning.
And we say, now Amar bin Yasser, he
says, they don't know what are we supposed
to do because we don't have water for
hustle. So he said, I'm gonna go out
in the desert, and I'm gonna take all
my clothes off and roll around in the
sand. Right? Say, no.
I'm just gonna make the regular and pray.
And both of them come back to Rasulullah
and they present their to
him. And he doesn't chastise either of them.
He praises
for his taqwa for his,
and he praises for
being correct, for being right.
What does this indicate?
That the dean is what? The dean is
a dean of Usul. It's not just a
dean of.
It's not just a dean of, like, individual
pieces of information.
Coming back to the thing that we were
talking about when it comes to modernity and
when it comes to the
the the the culture of Kufr that we
have taken in for ourselves
that we don't,
you know, that we don't think about.
Everything when we gave the example of the
scientific method, everything
that we consider knowledge, like fact in this,
in this, this culture,
It's very specialized and it's very specific. It's
very reduced down to, like, very small points.
So there are people in the civilization that
have
amazing advanced knowledge
in very specific small things, but somehow they
missed the bigger picture.
So you can have someone who's so smart
that he knows
from just a small piece of plutonium
how to destroy destroy, like, entire country.
But he's not so smart enough to understand
that one day this technology I'm developing is
gonna kill everybody I love.
What is so smart in one way but
in another way, such an idiot.
Such an idiot.
So stupid. Even illiterate farmers have more, understanding
about reality than that person does.
And this is the the imperative of what
the people of of Din and the people
of knowledge which is to
preserve this preserve this understanding
amongst people.
Because
there's no civilization
in which people weep when they die
because of not having nuclear weapons.
There are civilizations
Allah protect us that may may weep because
they have them. But no civilization will will
weep that they don't have
them. But people will weep at the end
of the day. Why? Because they sold their
humanity.
They gave up their their brain. They wasted
their life doing stupid things, and the life
was a wastage in this world. The the
true punishment for that will happen in the
hereafter.
This is a very important task. This is
a very important,
work that you're doing. This is a very
important time that you're dedicating.
So don't be stupid like other people and
look at, oh, look. That school is so
nice, and they get to go on field
trips, and they this and they that, and
they're gonna get this job and the other
job and perks, and everybody will them for
for, you know, being a doctor or for
being this or for being that. Don't look
at those things.
Why? Because that's a Shaipani logic, the logic
of of small things. Yes. By that reasoning,
what you're doing right now is waste waste
of your time.
By the higher logic the
higher logic which is what?
That the the is
more intense than this world and it lasts
forever.
By that logic, this is the correct path
to be on.
This is the path that Allah ta'ala, if
he loves a person, he puts a person
on this path.
When when
It's a harder path. You have to work
twice as hard. And when you when you
go out in the world, you'll deal with
twice the number of difficulties.
But Allah ta'ala will give you thousands of
times the reward.
If you don't believe it inside your heart,
you're wasting your time here.
So for the sake of Allah ta'ala, please
as a personal favor, if not for anything
other reason as a personal favor to me.
If you're going to go out and be
like, oh, what is this? I could have
studied this. I could just go right now.
Go right now and do those. If you
don't know what the what the value of
this thing is,
know that you'll lose
it when the person gives you a gift
of very high value, a very great value.
This knowledge is carried from every generation,
the the the the best of them,
the best the most upright of them.
This is what Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said. Even if you don't have a job,
even if some crackpot has 10,000 followers on
Twitter and your Bechara Twitter account only has,
like,
a 150 people,
even if they drive
a Lexus and you drive a Toyota,
even if whatever
even if you're you know, they're they're wearing,
an Italian
shoes
that cost a pair that cost $300,
and you're still wearing the same after, like,
you're become the age of 50 or whatever.
What's better? If that's better, just leave right
now and go do it.
If the the statement of Allah and Hisr
Rasool, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam means something to
you, and you're the one, you wanna say
no. Allah gave me only one life.
Allah only gave me a specific amount of
time. Some of it is less. Some of
it is more.
I know a person. He's just a couple
of years older than me. He just yeah.
Yeah. He just got diagnosed with, with Lou
Gehrig's disease.
Right? It's a terminal illness. He's gonna you
lose your speech, your physical control of your
body, everything. You only have a specific small
amount of life.
I am not going to waste it with
the losers who are going to, like, pollute
the earth and pollute the air and pollute
the water in order to make money to
buy crap that they don't really need to
impress people that they don't I'm not gonna
do any of that. I'm gonna what? I'm
gonna be a real human being. I'm gonna
live according to the fitra. I'm gonna do
something good for myself and for other people
in this world, and I'm going to do
something that Allah has pleased with me before
I pass into into the into the Akhirah.
This is what you wanna do. If this
means more to you and you're happy with
that, then masha'Allah,
glad tidings, Allah Ta'ala will give you a
long career
in in in seeking knowledge, and you will
seek it. And Allah Ta'ala will give it
to you, and he will enlighten your heart.
And you'll share it with people, and they
will appreciate that from you. Their good deeds
will become your good deeds on the.
Their progress will become your progress. People will
come with a lifetime of good deeds. You
will come. Who knows where that ill that
you you took from your mashaikh, where it's
gonna end up, and how many armies of
people worth of, hasarat you'll come with. Why?
Because whoever Allah loves, he gives them the
the the the understanding of this deen. If
you can understand why you're sitting on the
floor right now and feel enveloped like a
person when they go to sleep, they cover
themselves in their blankets, feel enveloped in the
rahman of Allah ta'ala that you're here. I'm
not worthy of being here.
Right? None of us are. But if you
can feel the the the kindness and the
warmth and the of the rahma being enveloped
and that that that mercy that you get
to sit and take when everybody else is,
you know,
running up whatever carbon emissions and making the
world
a dangerous place to to be. If you
can understand that
Allah has given you
a great deal, Insha'Allah, may Allah give you
a great deal more.