Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Veneration of Arabness Is of Islm 11262019
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AI: Transcript ©
All praises to Allah and may his peace
and blessings be upon his servant and messenger,
our master, Sayyidina Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Allah commands
in his book in Surat Zukruf,
hold fast
to that which was revealed to you. Indeed,
you are on a straight path.
Indeed, it is a vicar for you and
for your home.
And you will be asked about it.
Here,
the meaning of fastamsik billadiuhria
ilayk,
court to be
says, hold fast to that which was revealed
to you. Allah means by it the Quran.
And then he says, if
a person
Allah
says that you are on a straight path,
a path that will, that will
safely
let you reach Allah and reach his pleasure
and reach his reward.
Allah to Allah's uh-uh
speech
indeed, it is a zikr for you and
for your.
The it,
is the Quran.
He says that the word dhikr here, it
means honor. It means honor.
Shut off. And, this is something that Kurt
will be mentioned a a number of times
throughout his tafsir that this is one of
the meanings of the word dhikr is is
honor,
and,
and that that's what what the word is
used to mean here. He says this means
that the Quran is an honor for you
and for your people,
the Quresh.
Why? Because it was sent down in their
dialect
and upon a man from amongst them.
And here the word
can mean dialect, or does mean dialect as
well as language. That it was sent down
in the language of the Arabs, and it
was sent down in the dialect of Quresh.
There's a specific and a general meaning of
it.
He uses the word dhikr to mean the
same thing, which is honor,
in Suratul Anbiya where he says, indeed, we
sent down to you a book, and it
is your honor,
and it is your honor.
From Quran, continues. It says because the Quran,
came down, in the tongue of Quresh, in
the dialect of Quresh, and they're the first
ones who were addressed by it.
So the people of all of the different
languages,
they,
they,
because of that, are in need of of
of their language, of their tongue, meaning the
tongue of Quresh.
Everyone who believes
in this Quran,
all of them then become dependents on on
Quraysh.
Because the people,
whoever they may be in whatever language they
may speak,
they all
have a need to take, from the language
of Quresh so that they can follow,
the meanings,
that were meant
by by it, meaning by the Quran
in terms of its commandments, its prohibitions, and
all of the things that it informs
about.
And because of that, the the Quresh,
in specific and in general, the Arabs
have an honor.
Their language has an honor over all other
languages.
And this is why it was called Arabic.
This is one of the meanings of the
word. Arabic,
the name of the language, the Arabic language,
is that thing which is expressed
clearly.
And,
so this is
a clear meaning of
this ayah, which
shows the
honor of
not just the Arabic language, but the honor
of Croatian specific and the honor of the
Arabs in general amongst the people of the
Ummah.
And
nobody will deny the honor of the Arabs
and deny,
the honor of the Arabic language in specific
and, in general the honor of,
the Arabs.
And nobody will deny the,
the honor
of, Quresh,
both in their language and in their people,
except for that person has necessarily denied some
part of deen.
The honor of the Arabs
and the honor of Quresh
is an honor Allah
has given them to the point where courts
to be also mentioned. It's called an abuse
and
and so this hadith of the prophet
indicates that the honor of the Quraysh is
something that is
not solely
connected with deen, Although it takes its full
flavor, and its full color,
in the deen, but it's not solely connected
with the deen of Islam.
The prophet
mentions that the people
are followers of Quresh
with regards to the affair of Islam
with regards to this affair.
So the Muslims,
will follow the Muslims of Quresh, and the
Kafirs will follow the Kafirs of Quresh,
meaning that in either,
either sense,
they will follow Quresh in the way that
they deal with, with this affair, meaning the
affair of Islam.
Further
furthermore, we read
in
the tafsir
of Kurtubi,
that he quotes,
when he says,
It says the meaning of your
here,
there are two opinions with regards to, the
meaning.
Both of them will consider them to be
correct.
One is those who followed you from your,
and this is the
the
the whole or the opinion of Katada,
and it's mentioned by that it's opinion of
Al Hasan al Basri
and it's the opinion, the second opinion, which
is the one held by Mujahid, the famous
mufassar and student of Abdullah ibn Abbas
that,
that your qaum is who it's your people
from Quresh.
So if it's asked,
who are they from, then a person will
obviously say that they're from the Arabs.
And, if it's asked from which of the
Arabs are they, it will obviously be stated
that, they are from Quresh.
Now,
what's the point of mentioning all of these
things?
The point of mentioning these things is to
emphasize that
the
Arabic language and the Arabs as a people
have a particular honor, and that honor is
not coincidental.
You know, it's not just that the prophet
happened to be an Arab, but it's coincidental
or tangential or unrelated to,
the the deen of Islam.
Nor is it,
as
puzzlingly,
it's been contended
that the Arabs are the worst of, mankind.
And
Allah sent the deen to them for that
reason,
which seems
even more nonsensical.
I won't try to explain the logic of
those who argue that. I'll let them
defend their position on their own because it
doesn't make a whole lot of sense to
me, why Allah to Allah would send his
message down on those people who are the
least
equipped,
to deal with, Islam.
Such a,
such a contention is,
easily used by those people who
wish to form Islam into their own image,
and
that's,
you know, the meaning of Islam is submission,
but the meaning of submission is not that,
the deen submits to you, but you submit
to Allah through the deen.
And so, I I I don't really see
a whole lot of merit in that argument.
Why is it important? I mean, what's what's
one of the wisdoms of,
of of of the veneration of the Arabic
language from amongst languages and the veneration of
the Arabs,
from,
amongst the different peoples of the world.
The language
in more than one place that we sent
it down as an Arabic Quran so that
you can be people of understanding.
The level of precision, the level of preservation,
the
the the the syntactical
precision, the morphological
precision
in the Arabic language is unique even amongst
Semitic languages,
much less amongst the, languages of the world.
And this is a discussion I think not
as many people will be,
you know, will be,
as inclined to object to it,
because of how obvious it is that the
Arabic language needs to be understood in order
to understand the Quran. Although we still have
people to this day who
are doggedly insistent that somehow they can read
a translation of the Quran and understand it,
which is completely puzzling
to me.
Not only for the reason that we just
mentioned that Allah ta'ala, he mentions that it's
an Arabic Quran.
But, you know, beyond that,
oftentimes people who make such claims do so
in a bid to,
like, challenge authority. Like, we don't have to
listen to any imams. We don't have to
listen to,
any,
and we don't have to listen to any
and
we don't have to listen to any and
we don't have to listen to any madhabs
or this and that. I can just read
the Quran on my own and figure it
out. Well,
you know, I got news for you. You
know, if you're reading the translation,
then you're following the Madhub of the translator
because how are you supposed to know,
whether the translation is correct or not? And
I kid you not,
so many times I've had this conversation with
people
and, their comeback or retort is like, well,
so and so is like a well known
and reputed translator even though they're not. So
most translations of Quran in English are horrible.
So and so is a reputed translator. So
they're they'd rather, you know, make taqlead of
Yusuf Ali or of, like, you know, whatever,
Muhammad Ali Lahori, the Qadiani. They'd rather make
taqlead of these people than than of, of
the, the salaf of Abu Hanifa and of
Malik
So at this point, like, everybody's making taqlead
or something. It's just, you know, some people
made a wiser choice than others. But unfortunately,
you know, usually such people are are are
are shallow and petty, intellectually unsophisticated,
and they don't consider their opinions before holding
them.
The the opinions are not something that's reached
at the end of an objective process,
rather,
just a trick of the nafs.
So
people oftentimes, you know, to make that argument
about the honor of the Arabic language is
something that is is doable.
It's easier done and people will accept it.
Oftentimes, they'll accept it more easily.
But the
discussion with regards to the honor of the
Arabs as a people,
for whatever reason,
Americans seem to have and, you know, this
age is the age of America.
As much as people wanna wave the flag
in Europe and in other places,
you know, really,
this age,
is
is is is
like the prophet
mentions that the people are followers of Quresh
in the matter of deen. The the the
world is really the follower of America in
the matters of their dunya in this age.
And so, you know, we have a a
number of hang ups in America
which obscure the proper understanding of what does
it mean to honor the Arabs as a
people.
And so, you know, in order to try
to start to deconstruct this
question,
we have to we have to answer,
first of all, the question of what does
it mean to be an Arab.
And then, further, we have to declutter,
what does it not mean to be an
Arab? And I think,
you know, part of the decluttering
process has to do with having a discussion
with regards to race.
And so
beginning the discussion with regards to race,
I I will submit for your consideration that
really there's no such thing as race.
There's no objective definition of what race is.
There's, like, racial theory.
But, like, according to the kind of racial
theory of,
the racial theory of
of of yore, which is definitely not something
that has any sort of basis in Islam,
nor is it something that I've ever come
across any classical source.
You know,
any classical source,
that that is fundamental,
discipline of the learning of, of of Islam
and of of of revelation and of Deen.
You know, according to the the whatever racial
theory,
a person from,
for example, a person from,
Sudan,
would be able to pass as a white
person. Why? Because they're Semitic speaking people.
And on the flip side, a person who
is,
from, for example,
you know, like, the ancestry of the Indian
subcontinent because we're Aryans also, We should be
white people, and, it's very clear that we're
not. And it's very clear that Sudanese people
are not white people. And it's actually interesting
that, you know, whatever the discussions of this
racial theory is, the co posts were moved
around as to what the definition of a
white person was and wasn't,
is and isn't in the history of the
United States, what the definition of a black
person is. It's so subjective.
Why is Barack Obama the 1st black president?
Well, his father is black.
Well, his mother is white, so he's just
as white as he is black.
Tiger Woods,
apparently
used to agonize about this as well that,
you know, that he says, well, my mother
is Thai.
You know, so he's just as Thai as
he is black. But for whatever reason, the
skewed way that race is looked at in
America,
that has an effect on,
you know, an effect on how we look
at these issues. And the fact of the
matter is there is no objective definition of,
there's no objective definition of of race.
Why is it that that a person who
is, like, 1 quarter black will be considered
black in America, phenotypically
speaking,
and not the other way around. You know?
What is it? Is there something scientifically you
can say about the genes of, quote, unquote,
whiteness that, like,
you know, that they're especially sensitive to dilution
or whatever.
It's not you know, these these these, these
questions the answers to these questions are not,
anything that are gonna that's gonna lead you
to anything objective.
Race is an American issue.
It it it's been used for political purposes
in America. There's no,
objectivity
with regards to it. And as far as
I can tell, it doesn't even exist in
the Sharia. So in the Sharia, for example,
like, if a woman,
you know, marries,
like, if a woman marries a man
without her father's permission. Her father can go
to the judge and get the the marriage
dissolved,
if he can prove to the judge that
it is not a proper marriage.
And one of the,
one of the places or one of the
means of the proof of impropriety is that
the the the groom that this woman married
is not,
is not kafaa, is not a suitable match
for the for his daughter
based on lineage.
Now,
people will often conflate this with race. Lineage
and race are 2 very different things because
lineage is something that can be objectively defined.
So if the woman is, for example, from
the example, from the Ahlulbayt to the prophet,
even according to those,
that
consider that lineage is a consideration that the
judge should take into account, which is not
a universal,
universally held opinion.
But,
even in those madhabs, if she can
prove, for example, she's from the Ahlulbayt of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and the
groom is also from the Ahlulbayt of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
then the judge will say that the that
there is kafaa. There is,
there is
suitability in the match with regards to lineage.
This has nothing to do with your skin
color. If a man is black and he's
from the Ahlulbayt of the prophet,
then the judge will uphold the suitability,
of the match even if the bride is
so white that you can hold her up
to the sun and see through her.
It has nothing to do with what we
consider notions of race. And, likewise,
being an Arab has nothing to do with
race.
It has nothing to do with the race
at all.
There are 3 things. And then the question
comes because it's important to get that out
of the way because that's clutter that people
have inside of their heads because certain races
in America, quote, unquote,
you know, or certain pseudo,
you know, like, the definitions of what race
are, have been used as a way of
certain people bludgeoning or oppressing or or or,
you know, keeping downtrodden other people. And so
people are very wary of saying, well, these
people have some sort of honor and nobility.
Why? Because those types of arguments have been
used in order to enslave people and in
order to treat people like garbage and in
order to, you know, economically
and politically disenfranchise people or get some benefit
out of them. So the first thing is
that Arab is not a race.
The second thing is then let's define what
being an Arab is.
And being an Arab is two things.
1 is speaking the Arabic language,
and in the context of Islam,
even though we admit that the Arab language
is more than just a dialect of Quresh,
but the one that is privileged and prestigious
over all of the other dialects is the
dialect of Quresh. Why? Because that is the
dialect in which the Quran was revealed. That
is the dialect in which most of the
Quran is
framed and phrased, and that is the dialect
in which,
most of the hadith and commandments of the
prophet
prophet as well as the
the a'far that come to us from the
ulama of the aslaf and the companions of
khulafa, Rashidun, etcetera
Radi Allahu Anhum Ajma'in,
come down in in in,
that dialect.
And,
you know, Kurtubi himself said,
when talking about in particular the dialect of
Quresh.
And this is important. This is something that
even people self identify as Arabs. You have
to come to terms with this. You have
to come to terms with this as part
of your dinah as well. Unless somebody think
that this is just some sort of, like,
Arab supremacy rant or whatever. This is something
that many of the people consider themselves Arabs
have a hard time coming to terms with
because of their disdain for for the the,
fusha,
for the
for the most eloquent dialect, meaning the dialect
of Quresh,
which we now refer to as classical Arabic.
They have they have a sort of antagonism
toward it. And,
that antagonism
is is harmful for your deen.
Allah chose it.
That we we see
Quran and Arabic and Allah sent it down
as a Arabic Quran. Meaning that what from
the the the speech of the Arabs, the
most eloquent and the most, honored
is the dialect of Quresh.
So, like, for example, I'll give a a
talk in the masjid, then I literally heard
this not too many days ago. Sheikh Yani,
we want we want we
he says that we want, like, we want
a talk in Arabic not in Fusha. And
I told him, I said that there's no
Arabic. If Fusha is not Arabic, if the
dialect of Quraysh is not Arabic, then there's
no such thing as Arabic.
So the first thing that makes you an
Arab is what? To speak Arabic,
to speak Arabic with eloquence. And when I
say with eloquence,
it doesn't necessarily mean in order to be
an Arab, you don't have to speak the
dialect of Quresh, but you do have to
speak,
something that carries grammatical case endings at the
end of it. You have to speak with
Fassaha
with with eloquence. It cannot be,
such a speech, which unfortunately
is the colloquial dialects of most people,
nowadays,
is that they they call it Arabic, but
there's no e Arab. E Arab, which is
the grammatical case endings and the grammatical markers,
that that that Arabic is known for in
the speech. The Arab
literally, the word Arab in Arabic morphologically
means to make something Arabic.
And this is the the the salient difference
between what we consider to be Arabic versus,
like, Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic,
you know, whatever ancient languages like Acadian, Babylonian,
Ugarit,
the different,
ancient languages of South Arabia, etcetera,
is I I don't wanna say South Arabia
is a strike south of Arabia, but, like,
the different ancient Semitic languages that are from,
that are not considered Arabian, is that that
from
the time of written record, all of them
had lost,
all of them, or if not most of
them, if not all of them, had lost
the grammatical,
markers or case endings in speech.
And so you cannot analyze that speech syntactically.
You have to analyze it by, like, order,
by word order,
sentence order. Whereas Arabic,
because there's markers,
the syntax is much far more flexible,
in terms of how you can how you
can say things. So for example, in Arabic,
you can say
Allah means Allah.
Means has no association with
means the polytheists,
and
his messenger.
So if you were to read this,
in terms of sentence order, this which is
actually from the text of the Quran. It
would mean Allah is
free of any association with the disbelievers
and and his prophet,
which is obviously
because Allah, if he had no association with
his prophet, then how would it be his
prophet? Not only is it Kufr, but it's
it's a nonsensical statement.
Whereas if you read it with the grammatical
case endings, it's very clear that that the
nominated case ending, the case ending is on
Rasuluhu,
meaning that the Rasul is also,
the active
participle
or sorry. Not participle, but the active
subject
of the of the verb, meaning that Allah
and his and his messenger have nothing to
do with the mushrikeen. Allah and his Messenger
have nothing to do with the mushrikeen.
This is what makes Arabic Arabic is it's
a bound of precision. I would like to,
you know, the listener to note that,
biblical Hebrew,
doesn't have, except for very vestigial,
grammatical marker, it didn't have case endings.
It doesn't have a arab in in its
kalam. Why would it have a arab? It's
not even Arabic.
But, like, they don't the the the the
whatever the Torah and Hebrew doesn't doesn't carry,
those grammatical case endings, which
means that
there's
almost definitely
verses of the Torah that are like, you
know, fascist, like, really, really, really, extremely misunderstood,
because without the grammatical case endings, it's difficult
to maintain precision and understanding what the text
says. But, at any rate, the first thing
that that makes a person an Arab is
what is being able to speak the language
of the Arabs.
And, again, even if it's not the language
of Quresh because the Arabs do have so
many different dialects, but it has to be
something,
something in which these grammatical case markers,
are preserved,
making it Arabic and differentiating it from other,
other extent or extinct Semitic languages.
And, this is this is something that those
who self identify as Arabs versus those who
don't self identify as Arabs, both of them
have to put an effort in order to
learn these things. And as far as I
can tell, as a class of people, the
only people who preserve the Arabic language like
this is perhaps some Bedouins,
and some, literati,
and, and the the class of. Otherwise otherwise,
the colloquial dialects of Arabic, I don't know
of any in which the Arab is actually
preserved,
and this is something,
you know, this is one reason why I'm
not really excited about,
the movement,
for,
you know, the movement for pushing things toward
AMIA, toward colloquial,
colloquial dialects, not necessarily
because,
you know, those dialects are completely,
erroneous and have no connection with Arabic.
But because they've lost their, they've lost their
their eloquence,
necessarily,
they will push a person away from what
makes Arabic into Arabic. So I'm not a
fan of seeing, like, a colloquial dialects written
not in street signs or advertisements,
nor it be them being used for, you
know, the delivery of, like, formal speeches or
reading the news
or
writing PhD theses or whatever, which I'm told
that there are pushes toward these things, and
I'm not really excited about them.
So the first thing that makes you an
Arab is what? His speech of the Arabs.
The second thing that makes you an Arab
is the adat and taqali of the Arabs,
The the culture and the customs of the,
of the Arabs.
And,
what are these culture and customs? It's not
eating falafel and shawarma. It's not listening to
kulfum and feiros
and Amr Diab and, you know, whatever, tamalimaaq
and all this other nonsense. It has nothing
to do with any of those things.
What is it? What are the Adat and
Taqali to the Arabs? Falafel and shawarma, neither
of those words are actually of Arab origin
if a person thinks about it. Their the
words are actually foreign loan words anyway.
What is what does it mean then to
be an Arab? There are certain cardinal virtues
that the Arabs used to have even in
Jahiliya, even Abu Jahl,
used to have those, those virtues.
And they include uprightness and telling the truth.
They include,
they include, Wafaa, that if you say you're
gonna do something that you fulfill your word,
which makes the
the current,
you know, kind of, like, insha'Allah means, like,
no, and I'm gonna blame Allah for it,
like, type of culture, especially egregious because that's
not how the forefathers of the Arabs were.
They were known for their religious,
religious fulfillment
of vows. If they said something, they would
fulfill their word as a,
as a sacred matter,
even if they were idol worshipers.
They were known, to be people of generosity,
that they consider generosity to be a cardinal
virtue, particularly,
generosity,
given to
generosity when shown to
guests,
hospitality, etcetera. So these cardinal virtues of the
Arabs,
these virtues were,
in shuja, bravery, etcetera.
These are the cardinal virtues of the Arabs.
Wasn't something that that in Jahiliya that was
preserved, but for example,
it was a a virtue that the Arabs
considered to be virtues.
Why is this important? The reason this is
important is that Islam is not I mean,
it didn't come
as a completely new religion. It didn't come
to say, like, what's in the Quran is
Islam and everything that's out of the Quran
is not Islam. Or what is in the
Quran and what the prophet said is Islam
and everything other than that isn't Islam.
Rather, Islam is what a fulfillment of a
tradition of prophethood that came from before
and it is built on the platform of
fitra.
It is built on the platform of the
Aboriginal human nature. A sound human disposition is
required in order to understand
the commandments of Din, and it was built
on the culture of,
of the Arabs. What was wrong with it
was negated,
and
what was not wrong with what was needed
by it was affirmed emphatically.
And in general, there are things from the
customs of the Arabs that are then,
you know, there's Imba' that they're they're they
they they continue,
as part of,
as part of the deen.
Even if not you know, even if there's
a tafawat, there's like a different gradation in,
like, how much a part of the din
they may be, but they continue as part
of the din,
in some capacity or another until the yawmukiyama,
even though they're not explicitly mentioned by the
text of the Quran or by the hadith
of the prophet
are commanded to. So something simple like wearing
a turban or eating with your hands or,
you know,
wearing an ezad or waist wrap
instead of wearing a pair of pants or
something simple like, you know, saying Marhaban
and, you know, these types of things. They're
not necessarily a part of the deen in
the sense that they're not from the sunun
and hudah. Even though the prophet
did those things,
he didn't come necessarily to, you know, make
people wear a particular type of lower garment.
Yes, in the sense that your lower garment
should cover you cover you, you know, in
a particular way. Yes. That's part of the
din. Then afterward, whatever color you choose or
whatever, you know, within a general framework,
whatever style you choose within a general framework,
those things are all they're all permissible.
But they're still part of the deen. Why?
Because if a person
does them because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam did them,
in love of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, Although legally, it's not, it's not something
that's,
necessarily commanded to.
Sufi in the Sufiq sense, the love of
those things and the emulation of those things,
if done for the purpose of emulating the
Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, they
become a good deed because of those things.
And in general,
the understanding of all of those things is
the context in which,
the text of the Quran and the hadith
of the prophet
and the sunnah of the prophet
and the aslafur,
it takes life. Without understanding those things,
you know, you won't understand context
and, therefore, the preservation of those things also
becomes a part of deen.
And, you know, this is why, for
ulama who were very pious people and scrupulous
people, they,
would preserve things like the Mu'alaqaat
Saba'a,
the the different, you know, canonical poetry of
Jahiliyyah, even though they describe
some really
impious
themes
at times. The reason those things were preserved
is because they, you know, form a backbone
of Arabic literature, pre Quranic Arabic literature through
which the language of the Quran can be
analyzed and dissected, etcetera.
And so, you know, the second thing is
what the Adat and Taqali that the Arabs
through them through understanding them and through their
preservation,
the the kitab and sunar understood.
And when Allah
says,
it's an honor for you and for
for your for
your people.
It means the Quraysian specific and the Arabs
in general,
and it's the text of the Quran. And,
you know, with all due respect, you know,
there is those who say, well, the qaum
of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is
is,
you know, is just a Sahaba. It's not
all of the Arabs, you know. It's not
the Abu Abu Lahab and Abu Jahal. With
all due respect,
linguistically, although there is an argument to be
made there in terms of of that this
this was a transmitted opinion of certain,
certain ones amongst the the Mufassirun.
In terms of the language of the Arabs,
even the Quran itself, all the
prophets that came to the different and previous
previous nations like Ad and Samud. They addressed
their people as Yakomi, Yakomi, oh, my people,
oh, my people. Even though, you know, those
people didn't believe and they were actually destroyed
by,
Allah to Allah and his the wrath of
his punishment.
So,
you know, to say that necessarily the word
qaum
means,
means only the believers. This is not really
borne out linguistically by the use of the
word in the Quran.
And,
this is actually a major objection I have
even to the
the poet of the Indian subcontinent,
Allama Mohammed Iqbal,
that he uses the word qom to be
an ummah
in his in his, in his, like, his
imagery and in his vocabulary,
through which he expresses his thought. And, I
don't I don't think it's a quite a
Quranic usage,
and he was actually, this was pointed out
to him
by, by Mawan Hussain Ahmed Madani from Surama,
and Allah knows best. But at any rate,
the the the the the honor is there
for
for the Qom. It's there for the Arabs,
and it's the text of the Quran.
Now one of the objections people have to
this, they say, well, what you want me
to, like,
you want me to honor,
you know, like Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab.
No. Nobody's asking you to do that nor
would anyone in their right mind do it.
But the idea is that it's a blessing
Allah gave them. And, you know, with all
blessings, if you show thankfulness,
then Allah will reward you on the day
of judgment. And if you, don't show thankfulness,
if you're ungrateful,
it will be a source of punishment for
you. But to say that it's not a
blessing,
that's just silliness or that it has no
meaning.
Firan was given great power. This is also
a blessing.
It doesn't make Firaun a good person because
he didn't do anything good with it.
So now what makes you an Arab? We
have the list, of up to 2 things.
One is
the speaking the language of the Arabs, and
the second is their customs and,
their Adat and Taqali. Their their customs that
they have and their culture that they have.
There are those who say there's a third
component to it, which is lineage, the Nasab
of the Arabs. You should have the Nasab,
the lineage of the Arabs.
But,
I would contend that this is not,
this is not not a requirement.
And, you know, one of the simple proofs
for it not being a requirement is what?
Is that from amongst the tribes of Arabs
in Jahilia
in Jahiliya,
you know, half of the tribes were literally
known as Mustara, being that they were people
who Arabized,
meaning they adopted,
they adopted being Arabs. Why? Because they're of
non Arab lineage.
The forefathers of the Arabs
are from South Arabia,
Hamyar, Khattan, etcetera.
And,
you know, a great number of the tribes,
if not half of the tribes of the
Arabs, don't actually come from that lineage.
They're actually Northern Semitic speaking people,
who will,
immigrate to the Arabian Peninsula
and,
take the the the the first two, the
language and the custom and culture of the
Arabs from them, and they will be considered
Arabs.
And, the prophet from
Quresh is actually
as well.
The,
Ansara, the allahu on whom are from the
Arab al Araba, the the people of the
old Arabian lineage, whereas the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
and Quresh,
aren't. They're they're actually most Arabian because Sayidna
Ismail alayhis salam,
learned the Arabic language and,
from his lineage come the tribes of Adnan,
Mudar, and Rabia,
Banutamim and Banut Tawlib and Banu Asad
and etcetera. All of these different all of
these different tribes.
They're not actually of Arab lineage and it's
it's known that they're not of Arab lineage.
Rather, their lineage becomes one of the lineages
of the Arabs. Why? Because of their wholesale
buy into what? Two things, the language of
the Arabs and the Adat and Taqali, the
Arabs. And this is something for those who,
again, consider themselves to be Arabs themselves.
That they should consider that what makes you
an Arab. It's not your falafel and shawarma.
If you can't speak the language and if
you're not, you know, if you're not, you
know, if you're a generous person, you're not
an honorable person, you're not a brave person,
you're like
a petty minded money grubber,
who, you know, doesn't know how to share
and, you know, doesn't honor guests and doesn't
keep his word, etcetera, etcetera,
then you're just deluding yourself,
at that point. This is not what we
mean by what we mean by by the
Arabs that that Allah honored them. And, you
know, just a final point,
before wrapping up.
Many people, again, object when we mention this
by saying, well, Islam is not there to,
like, promote a particular race. And we said,
again, the idea of race is not even
part of our discussion. It's not there to
promote
a particular poem.
You're right. It's not.
The favela and the virtue of the Arabs
is
something which is
it's part it's particular. It's not universal.
Meaning Arab being Arab is not what what
saves you.
Says that the most honored amongst you are
the ones who have,
the most taqwa.
Meaning what? That being an Arab is only
useful if you have taqwa. And this is
actually mentioned
by Kurtubi,
in this, in the tafsir of this very
ayah. And
he says,
came from,
from from war,
from
a mission or from a battle,
and he called Sayeda Fatima and
said to her,
And he says, oh Fatima, oh my daughter,
you know, purchase your
your your soul from Allah Ta'ala meaning,
you know, pay up, do those things that
you have to in order to,
attain salvation from Allah Ta'ala because I'm not
gonna be able to help you
in front of him at all. And it's
known that Sayida Fatima,
is the
that her lineage is the most noble of
lineages. Why?
Because in it is the messenger of Allah,
the greatest of of creation.
And he says to her I I can't
help you at all.
And he said the same thing to his
wives
something similar to his wives.
And he said something similar to that to
his, family, to his Ahlul Bayt, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
The prophet
said very emphatically, he says that Banu Hashim,
meaning his clan of Quraysh,
are not the ones that have the most
right to my ummah. The ones that have
most right to my ummah are those who
fear Allah. Nor is Quraysh those from the
people who have the most right to my
Ummah, those who have most right to my
Ummah are those who fear Allah
nor are the Ansar those who have the
most right to my Ummah. It was their
Madinah in which Islam was established, wasn't it?
But rather the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam says that the Ansar aren't those
who have most right to my ummah. Those
who have most right to my ummah are
those who fear Allah.
Nor are the,
Mawali, the non Arab
converts,
and freed slaves, those who have the most
right to my ummah.
Indeed, those who have most right to my
ummah are those who fear Allah, nor are
those,
so he says that that,
that all of you are from 1 man
and from 1 woman.
You're all equal,
and no one has any virtue over anyone
else except for through the fear of Allah.
Now one thing I'd like to mention is
that there this is a exception. Right? He
says that nobody has virtue over anyone except
for through the fear of Allah.
And I think a lot of people lose
track of the fact that through the fear
of Allah, there is gradation then in in
people, that there is superiority in certain things
over others.
And,
that doesn't again mean that, like, automatically, like,
you know, Arab is, like, a grade Muslim
and, like,
every, you know, everyone else's, you know, whatever
b grade or d grade or c grade
or whatever.
But these things do take color once a
person
fears Allah Ta'ala and the more they fear
Allah Ta'ala the more color they'll take and
the more benefit they'll have. So someone who
fears Allah a little bit will benefit a
little bit from certain things.
Whereas a person through their greater fear of
Allah
may have a greater benefit
than the person who has you know certain
types of knowledge or doesn't or has
you know a certain language of
knowledge of the language or the customs and
doesn't etcetera etcetera.
But there is gradation once, once the fear
of Allah enters into a person.
And,
you know, there's so many so many beautiful
hadiths that are mentioned.
Who is narrated from Saeed Abu Hurair radiAllahu
An who of course to be brings this
as well. It's a hadith that that's worth
mentioning,
more than more often than it gets mentioned.
He says that there are, there will come,
there will come such people
where they they they they came to an
end.
Such such,
such, such, such peoples
that used to boast with one another. But
all of their boasting about their lineage of,
like, how awesome they are,
all of it, it was just them boasting
about
a piece of coal from the coal of
the hellfire,
or such people were more evil or more
detestable to Allah
than a
creepy crawly creature,
that
that crawls in the in the in the
dirt so much so that even feces,
it would push feces out of its way
with its nose, meaning its face is so
dishonored that it would just use its face
to move feces out of the way.
All of you are, the the
the progeny of Adam and Adam is from
dust.
Allah
has rid you of the burden of the
age of ignorance.
Well,
fakhraha bil aba'i.
And he's rid from you. It's boasting with
regards to lineage. Again here, lineage is mentioned
not race. It's boasting
in lineage.
That a person will either be a believer
who fears Allah
or a profligate who will have a wretched
ending.
And so the idea is what is that
yes.
We see that a person's lineage won't save
them,
and it's not what what makes this this
Islam thing work for a person. It's not
what,
makes a person a good person or a
bad person.
That idea is is solid. What we say
with regards to the honor of the Arabs
is not a negation of that.
Rather,
what we say is that once a person
fears Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
then the Arabs do have an honor because
of the honor of the Quran and because
the honor of the
context,
in which the Quran and the teachings of
Islam were sent and the context in which
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was sent. Tell
me something, if the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
sent him and and described him as,
described him as a mercy to the world
and that he, he informed
us, through revelation that he is the best
of creation and the best the sayid, the
master of the the progeny of Adam alayhis
salam.
And he said that one of you will
not perfect their faith until I become more
beloved to them
than their parents and their children, and then
all other other than all other people.
Then their parents and their children and then
all other people. Then
does not loving everything about him
become an act of worship?
Until I become more beloved to that person
than their their their parents and their children
and then all other people.
Doesn't loving everything about that, Russell.
So I'm now become part of the deen
that a person shouldn't stick their nose in
the air and speak durisively about the Arabs,
knowing that the messenger was
one of them.
This love
doesn't
mean that if an Arab does something bad,
it becomes good.
It doesn't mean that, like, you know, like,
if a Arab commits kufr, it becomes iman.
It doesn't mean if a Arab commits a
sin, it becomes an act of piety. It
doesn't mean any of those things. It just
means what? That a person should be careful
even in the tone of their voice when
they speak about the Arabs. Why? Because they
know that the messenger
was an Arab, and they know that the
Quran is, an Arabic Quran. And I got
grief from people for mentioning
that you should, love the Arabs for three
things, that the Quran is Arabic and the
prophet
was an Arab, and that the, the speech
of the people of Jannah is Arab. And
so some people say, well, it's that hadith
is a forgery.
You know, a I you know, I didn't
you know, for those who saw this particular
social media post that happened recently,
I I didn't I didn't say
I didn't say I didn't say that this
that the messenger of Allah said this. But
for those who say that there is no,
no basis for the language of the people
of Jannah being Arabic,
There is a a a rewire,
an author from Saidna Abdul Abin Abbas who
mentioned the Muqasid Hassan of Sahabi who's a
prized student of Hafiz ibn Hajjar, that,
that that that there's an author in which
the same three things are mentioned.
And, you know, it's not a point of.
It's not a point of. It's
not a point of,
you know, a or whatever.
It is mentioned, and Allah knows the the
truth of it. But, you know, why why
argue on that point? There's no there's no
argument the messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi wasalam
was an Arab or that the Quran was
revealed in Arabic.
And if you don't wanna believe that the
speech of the people of Jannah is Arabic,
that's that's, like, that's tolerable. That's not that's
not, like, you know, a big issue that
that
I'm fighting about. And in in, you know,
in fact, the the point of the post
was not necessarily to not necessarily not at
all to prove that the language of Jannah
is Arabic.
But the point of the post was what
is that I see people disrespecting
the Arabic language, including those who consider themselves
Arabs. I see people
disrespecting,
Arabness,
and and degrading it as if it's not,
you know, something important, and it really is.
And it is a key. It's love and
respect and honor is a key to,
unlocking great amounts of both in a person's
knowledge and in a person's,
sufiq tarbia, their spiritual,
growth.
And,
this is the reason for sharing these things.
Allah
If there's anything beneficial said, Allah,
give us its benefit and whatever wrong, Allah,
forgive us, for saying
it.