Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Vessels of Light The Texts That Made the Saints and Scholars ICW 07212018
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By the father of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
we have gathered to
speak about
a great value of our civilization.
When I say our civilization,
I don't just mean the Muslims in DuPage
County
or in America even though we feel like
we're the special snowflake of God's creation,
but, really, we're not.
Rather, what's special about us is our connection
to this civilization,
which doesn't just start with
the immigration of people to United States
or the accepting of Islam of people in
the United States
or even whatever countries they came from
or even
the aslaf, the Sahaba radiAllahu ta'ala on whom,
or even the Prophet
or even Sayna Adam
The beginning of it starts with where it's
going to return to which is Allah
And knowledge itself is one of the sifat
of Allah
Allah
is
the one who possesses knowledge,
and knowledge is one of his eternal and
uncreated attributes.
And in appreciating just that one point, a
person should understand something about its depth that
it's beyond whatever
pep talk you received from your parents or
from your guidance counselor in high school.
People say learn, it will give you a
bright future. What do they mean by that?
You'll make money, you'll get a job.
Allah ta'ala gives
provision to all of his creation.
The donkeys they eat, the dogs they eat,
the cats they eat, the insects they eat,
snakes they eat. Allah gives to everybody. This
has
far less connection with the with the with
with with with knowledge than what we're talking
about and the reason that we have this
this gathering.
The reason for this gathering is what? Is
Is that Allah
made it a commandment to the prophet
and then afterward to the rest of the
ummah
that you will
take this knowledge,
you will
imbibe this knowledge, and through this knowledge you
will enlighten your life in this world and
in the hereafter.
And
the of this knowledge itself,
just mentioning it between one another,
itself is a source of barakah,
it's a itself a source of blessings.
And this is not pie in the sky
in July, this is in fact the reason
that we're here.
I see there's brothers here from Cleveland.
Lebron may come and go, and Lebron may
leave you. Allah, I will never leave you
inshallah.
So put your hopes and put your hopes
and and and and and the one who
will be with you forever.
It's it's sad but true, you know. There
are people literally their hearts break because of
these things. We learn our lesson. Some of
us the easy way, some of us the
hard way. Whoever learns is fortunate, whoever doesn't
learn is an unfortunate person.
But this this knowledge is what, it's what
makes a person's
dunya and their afirah
enlightened, and brightened, and radiant.
This
is again not pie in the sky in
July, it's the reason that we're all here.
There are so many things we take for
granted that we have because of the barakah
of this knowledge
that,
that not only Muslims enjoy people of other,
faiths, whoever they are, they enjoy and they
they they they reap the blessings of these
things. I mean, so many things. It's not
what the Bayan is about. But just to
give, like, an example, even the GPS itself
that that many people used in order to
come here. The trigonometry that that that that
the GPS needs to have in order to
be oriented properly, in order to make calculations
of distances because not every movement is in
a straight line.
That in and of itself, much of it
was developed by what? It was developed by
Muslims who are,
making
into how to find the properly.
So they used to make maps, old maps
of the world,
in which,
in which, like, the maps that they don't
look like the maps that we have over
here. Rather, the placement of cities on the
map have to do with, like, the cosine
of the angle from from from 0,
toward the Qibla. So it's like a weird
it's a strange map. Only a person who
cares about the Qibla will be able to,
find out what those things are. Whoever studies
mathematics and science later on will know that
trigonometry has to do with far more than
just triangles.
Literally, these are like the the the the
fundamental, like, plans on which the entire universe
is is based. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, all of
these things they they pervade into them. And
where did we receive what was our what
was our,
like, doorway that we were given in order
to enter into this knowledge?
It was Iqra.
Because if a person, right? What's to say,
all the
that dread like the beginning of the second
just because the ayahs are very similar to
one another. If it wasn't for Allah ta'ala
say,
This is a entire baba of knowledge would
be missing not just from the Muslims
but from all of mankind.
And the the number of examples like this
are what? They're innumerable.
They're innumerable because knowledge doesn't have a faith.
If we learn something or we figure something
out, the next person will benefit from it
as well in this dunya.
We hope that the next person will benefit
from it as well in the akhirah as
well. That was the hope of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And some people receive tawfiq, some people don't.
But when we say that civilization is bigger
than just us, it starts in this world
but it doesn't end. You will see manifestations
of what you learned from this knowledge on
the other side, the ayat of the Quran,
you'll see what they mean on the other
side. You'll remember the ayat of the Quran,
what do they mean when you enter your
grave and you'll say, oh, this is what
this means. I never understood it during my
life.
And when you're resurrected, you'll say, oh, this
is what it means. I didn't understand it
while I was in my grave. And then
you'll say, this is what this means when
people are being judged. The people who are
being burned in the fire will understand something
about the Quran they didn't understand in this
world. The people who are in their according
to their in Jannah will understand something about
the Quran that they didn't understand in this
world. This is part of our and I
don't want to again
move too far off of the, the the
the topic that's given to me.
The topic that was given to me and
I didn't choose it, I actually tried to
avoid it.
Is Imam Google versus the Mufti. So, spoiler
alert, Google is not really an imam.
Google is not really an imam. And what
is a mufti?
The mufti is a he's a person who
informs you.
Fatwa is what? It's an
an answer to a question.
And
in the vocabulary
of the sacred law of Islam,
the mufti is the person who informs you
when you have a question of what does
what is the hukm of Allah Ta'ala? What
is the commandment of Allah Ta'ala in a
particular situation?
The mufti is the one who answers on
behalf of Allah
Allah which is a very daunting
it's a very daunting,
responsibility.
This is why if a Mufti knows what
he's, doing, he will oftentimes
quote somebody else. He'll say so and so
says this, so and so says this, so
that the responsibility falls on that person's shoulders.
And then at the end of their at
the end of their fatwa, they'll write what?
Knows best. So which is what? Which is
one of the basic one of the basic
understandings with regards to knowledge of the Ahlul
Sunnahul Jannah
is that we we what we vouchsafe that
the knowledge
comes from Allah and it resides with Allah
And we know nothing of it except for
what he gives us. And so if you
want to see the truth, where does it
start from, where does it end? It ends
with Allah
You'll never go wrong with that.
But the mufti still at the same time
has carries a responsibility.
It's like a person wants to
open a business,
and they wanna know is the business legal
or not. What do they do? If they're
smart, they'll hire a lawyer,
and the lawyer will tell them, say, I
wanna open, you know and don't do this,
but, like, I wanna open, like, a smoke
shop and sell vapes or whatever. Does Villa
Park allow that or not? Does Wheaton allow
that or not? Are there any special taxes
that are associated with etcetera? Why? Because you
don't wanna run afoul of the system.
If your shop is running, the cops come
and seize all of your stuff, shut your
business down, this is bad news.
You may not recover from that. So you
wanna do things the right way the first
time. This is another thing that's again, not
neatly within the topic that I've been given,
but doing things the right way the first
time is really a wonderful thing that shouldn't
be underestimated, it's also part of our tradition.
So
what happens that you go and ask the
lawyer what,
you know, what does the city code say
so that you don't get shut down, you
don't run afoul of the system. This is
what what a Mufti is in the most
primary sense of,
of the meaning of the word. Mufti is
not something that,
you know, you do by spending a number
of extra years in madrasa.
Mufti is not, you know, something that like,
you know, the like they see people tack
on their names whereas Arabs like to call
themselves Sheikh and then the, you know, they
see say Mufti. That's not what it is.
Right? And Ifta is what? It's a it's
a branch of
It's a branch of legal reasoning that understanding
the Sharia from its,
from its bottom to its top, from the
most granular of its details to the most
universal of its principles. That's what a mufti
is, and if a person is a properly
trained mufti, that person is a Mujtahid although
because one of the values of our civilization
is
it's it's humility.
The one who's humble for the sake of
Allah
Allah will raise them.
Why? Because spiritual the spiritual reality that is
also something that that we live. Physical reality
is a reality we live, the spiritual reality
we also live that as well. In the
physical reality, the more strong and tough and,
like, pompous and and and, you know, built
up and puffed up and pumped up,
hands in front, you know, you're pumped up,
the more powerful you are. The spiritual reality
is what?
The spiritual reality is that, you know, if
you punch your fist in the wind, you're
not going to injure the wind at all.
The more humble a person is, the more
completely like invincible they are.
Allah
loves the humble, and Allah
whoever
portrays themselves as a tough guy, that's a
challenge, and it's not a difficult challenge for
him.
So the idea is what? Because of that
you won't have somebody who reaches that level
of learning, go and say,
I don't need to follow the Imams anymore
because I've read all of the books of
hadith,
I know the Quran inside out, I've read
all the books of tafsir,
I know memorized the books of Arabic grammar,
etcetera, no one's gonna say that. No one's
gonna say that. If they learned anything from
all of their studies, they're not gonna say
that because they know they're setting themselves up
for being destroyed, but there are still people
like that. There are people like that in
the ummah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. Strangely enough, there are actually a couple
of people like that in in even in
the United States.
There are people like that, you ask them
a question of whatever, they'll tell you the
answer from memory.
That's what a mufti is.
And in order to be a person of
ijtihad,
of worthy
of
exercising independent legal reasoning.
A person has to study the uloom from
the beginning to the end.
And no one can know everything
in details, in terms of details nobody can
know everything.
However, in terms of a a a an
overview of the different sciences of the Sharia,
there are people who are acquainted with all
of the different
all of the different, all of the different,
you could say, chapters of if is like
a has a table of contents.
When we say so and so is a
scholar, when you say so and so is
an what do we mean by that? The
most basic meaning of it is what? Is
that that person is at least acquainted with
all of the different
all of the different, issues and topics of
the Sharia. Right? So you have to know
something about the Quran, you have to in
its subsidiary sciences, you have to know something
about the hadith of the prophet
and its subsidiary sciences, which books you'll find
what in, etcetera. You have to know something
about the way it works, the way, you
know, the mechanics of it are, the principles
on which it's based. You have to know
something about the rulings that that that come
out of it. You have to know something
about spirituality. You have to know something about
aqidah, about creed, and and and and
the the the the iman of a of
a believer. You have to know something about
all of these things. If If a person
is familiar with all of these things, will
say so and so as a scholar. A
scholar means what? It's like a general practitioner.
Right? A doctor. There's a person who goes
to medical school,
and they're a general practitioner. They may not
be a specialist in anything, but what happens
when you first enter into the hospital, they're
the ones who will look at you and
say, you know, is this something that I
can treat right now and get done with?
Or is this something I need to send
you to a specialist? And which specialist do
I need to,
send you to with regards to this,
whatever sickness that you have. And sometimes a
person may have a rash
on the skin and you don't wanna send
them to the dermatologist. Why? Because the rash
is a symptom of something's wrong in their
liver.
The doctor, because he's familiar with the entire
you know, he has an overview, the general
practitioner of of of the entire, whatever, science
of modern medicine,
he'll know enough to be able to put
those 2 and 2 together and send you
to the place that you need to go.
And so how is it that these, that
these knowledges, you know, these branches of knowledge
have been communicated?
They've been communicated through an institution in the
dean
that that that we call the Mutoon. Okay?
So Matan, if you're going to translate it,
someone may translate the book Matan as like
a book or the word Matan as like
a book or a text,
but
there are certain attributes of it that make
it different than a regular text or different
than a regular book.
So if you want to learn, for example,
Arabic grammar,
if you're learning in Mauritania, right, they'll make
you memorize
or one of the of it. If you're
learning the in the subcontinent, you know, they'll
give you whatever
the or or or they'll give you a
they'll give you in that in that,
in that science. Right? If you're doing Hanafi
fiqh, they'll give you If you're doing Maliki
fiqh, they'll give you the first they'll give
you is whatever, the Muqaddim of Akhbari, etcetera
etcetera, and the different is different. If they're
giving you if you're reading,
they'll give you the
or they'll give you,
you know, they'll give you some other text
in in Aqidah. If you're reading tasawaf, they'll
give you a text in tasawaf. If you're
reading whatever you're you know, whatever science you're
reading. Right? If you're gonna start reading the,
the knowledge of hadith.
Not hadith itself, but the knowledge of hadith,
the ilm, the usool of hadith, the principles
that that that underpin the,
science of hadith. They'll give you,
something like the
the
which is what?
Which is it serves for that science as
a roadmap.
So for example, when you have a map
of the world, if I were to put
up a map on of the world onto
the screen,
you'll see the shapes of the continents.
Okay? Are you gonna be able to tell
where,
you know,
main stop in Lombard is gonna be?
I want a burger. I wanna go to
main stop. Let's go look at the map.
No.
The granularity,
the resolution, the amount of detail, it's not
there.
What is that what is that
It's an overview of it's an authoritative overview
of that science.
What does this teach you?
This teaches you that the Matan itself because
in the mutuum, they have different they have
different levels. Right? Every science you start with
a Matan and then you go through you
go through,
you know, you go through a
similar progression in those Mutoon,
in every single signs.
So the idea is the first Matan you
read is your introduction to the to the
science. The second Matan you'll read will have
more details. Right? So the issues that are
that are discussed in that branch of knowledge,
there'll be more detail details about what those
issues are. Then you'll move to a next
level where they'll mention start mentioning differences of
opinion.
Because a lot of things in the deen
have differences of opinion in them. Right? So
they'll say this imam says that this detail
is like this, this imam says this detail
is like that. Then the next level of,
the next level of,
methan
is what is it mentions the differences of
opinion and it mentions the proofs.
And then the next level is it will
it will literally go through the entire argument
between, like, the last level of books. This
is why you have like the master books
of every subject.
There these huge books that are,
that are completely, like, spread out in in
10 volumes, 15 volumes, 20 volumes, 30 volumes
is what? They will give you the entire,
debate between the different scholars
with regards to their opinions,
and what their rebuttals are to each other,
what proofs they give to each other in
a remarkable amount of detail.
Now the issue is this, is that because
we are people who are untrained philosophically
and we are given essentially a philosophical training
of materialism.
So the gut reaction of every one of
us is to say, what? More is better.
Let's just crack open the 20 volume
book and we'll just, you know, bypass the
silly children's stuff because I'm a sophisticated person.
Spiritually untrained, philosophically untrained. I'm a sophisticated person.
First of all,
at one time in the past,
someone would have done that and gone astray.
Why? Because they read the entire thing and
it's like it's like memorizing, you know, trying
to understand something about geography by memorizing, like,
all the street names in Lombard first.
And then I'm gonna move to Villa Park.
How are you ever gonna know what Germany
is? How are you ever gonna know what
Austria is? How are you ever gonna know,
you know, which, you know, you how how
you ever gonna know about Delhi and and
Baghdad and and,
Dimasht and Pahira.
Where how are you ever gonna find your
way to Mecca and Medina? You know you
know there's so many,
there's so many things you'll miss.
If you missed if you missed
you missed everything.
In the old days, the people used to
have at least there were some people who
were crazy and they would do doing this,
they would still reach misguidance, but they would
at least have the patience enough to read
the book from the beginning to the end.
If you're reading Facebook posts and Twitter posts,
your patience is gone.
It's shot.
Doctor Saab will tell you about how that's
actually like a physiological reality. I remember Twitter
upgraded like recently from a 140 characters to
280.
Our mashaikh didn't know what any of these
things were. They were good people. But masha'Allah,
Allah sends, you know, he he sends he
sends the the Qom, the leadership that they
that they want. It's kind of like Batman,
you know, Gotham is not getting the hero
they, need but the hero they deserve. Right?
So what is it?
If if someone's going to minister to this
kom, they also have to be
acquainted with its sicknesses. So I'm myself, like,
admitting, like, it's kind of like some sort
of like ill me AA meeting that I'm
Hamza and I have a problem. Okay?
As you say, hi Hamza, you know, you're
safe here. You can admit, you know, we're
not gonna judge you. Okay.
Twitter switched from 140 characters to 280.
And I'm looking at the tweets, I'm like,
how am I gonna read all of this?
What do you I mean
So, this was people used to do this
in the old days, This is a wrong
way of going about, understanding,
knowledge.
They used to do these things and it
would confuse the heck out of them, and
they would be mired in details
and granularity, and they wouldn't see the bigger
picture.
They wouldn't see the bigger picture, and it's
so funny. I so
funny.
So many times in my life, so many
times, there are people many of these people
nowadays are considered like heroes of the Muslims,
great defenders of the deen against whatever modernism
and this ism and that ism. So what
what do they do? They'll say, you know,
the old books, they don't have any solution
to our problems, you know. And he just
admitted to me 5 minutes ago, you don't
even know how to read classic or Arabic.
You couldn't even admit that. I said, do
you know how to read classical Arabic? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And what's your books in such
and such subject did you read? No. No.
I mean I can read it like as
in I can read the Quran, I don't
understand it. Okay. So you just
you can't read it. And those same people
those same people they're the ones who say,
you know,
look at these old fashioned,
look at all these old fashioned scholars and
traditional type people. They teach the kids to
memorize the Quran but they don't teach them
to understand it.
I say, you know what? If you go
to any Madrasa in the world, from the
shirk to the harp, if you go from
Morocco all the way to Indonesia and everything
in the middle, including Pakistan and India because
I know that's what everyone likes
to pick on, If you come before your
if you come before your
considered morally responsible in our sacred law, what
did they tell you to do? They tell
you to memorize the Quran. Why?
Because you could literally go I mean, you're
morally not responsible for anything under our sacred
law at that point.
So do that thing that's gonna help
you later on. The Quran is like this
vehicle and source of barakah for a person.
It's completely otherworldly in its usage.
Why? Because even if you don't understand the
lick of what's inside of the Quran, your
understanding of the Quran
is not helping you yet.
Read the entire thing, then you can understand
it later. You're it's like you're setting somebody
up. You know, it's like opening a college
fund for a kid when they're, in middle
school, and you're like, well, this kid doesn't
have to go to college yet. Why are
you wasting money on his college fund? Buy
more pencils for middle school. No. I mean,
what are you gonna tell the child about,
like, this complex realities
of, you know, wahi when they're when they're,
you know, you know, that's the time they
play PlayStation and baseball and things like that.
What are you gonna do anyway? So tell
them, memorize it. Your memory is spry, it's
sharp,
and and the Quran will be with you,
you know, a benefit in its spiritual realities,
and you're not even in a position to
understand what's there anyway.
If you and so those well, look, these
people, you know, these backwards people, all they
do memorization, wrote memorization, and it's funny how
they jump from like a to a to
b, and it's like actually jumping from a
to like, you know, some other language
which is what Because they make the children
memorize the Quran, this is why our entire
civilization is backwards and we were colonized because,
you know, they don't teach anyone to understand
anything.
Okay. Go to any of those after your
balir.
I went to Madrasa, I went to I
went to the mashaikh. Did anyone of them
did anyone of them tell me to memorize
the Quran? Absolutely not. I even asked. They're
like, no. You're an adult. You're legally responsible.
You need to learn what your responsibilities are
in the deen.
Once you learn your
then afterward you can go and
and and and memorize on your own time.
You need to this is the time in
your life you need to understand.
And so what happens? What happens? These same
people, you know, they say like, oh,
you know, modern times have different,
you know, needs.
And,
the reason I didn't read any of the
classical books is because the issues we have
to deal with nowadays,
they're not in the old books. So you
just admitted to me 5 minutes ago, you
don't know how to even read.
If you knew how to read, then I
would ask you, did you read any of
the books?
And the answer would be, no.
So how can you tell me what's there,
what's not there?
This is not an Islamic thing. This is
just like you having a brain thing. You
understand what I'm saying?
So I'm telling you this institution of Mutoon
is what?
It is how to take a person who
has zero knowledge,
and by the way, not all the ulema
were are like genius people.
Many of them are just regular people like
you and me. Regular level of,
level of, like, memory. Not everyone is like,
oh, look for photographic memory, I can read
back, wrote verbatim like what I read 40
years ago.
Most of them are regular people like you
and me. Most of them are what they're
even subpar intelligence many of them are. Why?
What's the hikmah in that?
If you're going to be the imam in
your village,
if you send
some Imam Ghazali
level guy
to that village,
he is going to drive everyone insane, he
is going to drive them away from the
deen.
They will literally leave Islam because of that
person.
Because he doesn't understand them and they don't
understand him. What's the point of that? The
system of was developed what? So that you
can universally disperse this this this knowledge. Anyone
who comes to the door, no matter how
smart they are, no matter how how, you
know, how less smart they are.
Because if I say stupid, my mother will
probably hear the live stream and smack me
when she sees me.
Right? No matter how smart or less smart
they are, what is it? Everybody will benefit
from it because you'll see, okay, this is
the world, 5 continents, 1, 2, 3, 4,
5. That's your first method and you understood
it now.
Then later on, years later, when you go
through like this hyper complicated,
hyper complicated arguments that people are don't have
the tools to understand. I mean, you can
read the book
but you don't understand how the pieces of
the puzzle fit together because you don't see
the big bigger picture. Now, you have a
context in which you can see the bigger
picture.
If you weren't able to master the highest
level of mutun,
you have at least mastered the basic level.
If you cannot be like the, you know,
$500,000
an hour neurosurgeon,
you can at least be the,
the general practitioner
who sees, okay, this person has like strep
throat here, take this
antibiotic
and like, you know, oh, I'm taking the
other one too. Okay. This one will get
a they'll have allergic reaction so use antibiotic
c instead of b on top of the
a that they're taking. These simple things a
person can sort out for other people and
for themselves in the deen as well because
the knowledge is not only for the scholars.
The mutun like, if you have 7 books
in a curriculum to understand the science, the
first three of them, there's no reason everyone
shouldn't read them.
This is an institution,
and where did it come from? And it's
so funny people are like, Oh, you know
I'm a Muslim. I'm not a don't say
don't say to me, don't say this book,
that book. Why can't you just tell people
from the Quran? Why can't you just tell
people from the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam? Okay. Come. Come like the
old days. You wanna you wanna be on
the
of the pious predecessors? Then do like them.
You know, forget about getting married, forget about
getting a job.
There are people in the ummah like this.
If you have the Himma to do it,
wonderful. I'm not saying not. I'm not even
mocking it. I'm saying,
those people have. They exist still. Right? If
you wanna do it that way, do it
that way. That
you miss miss meals and you ride on
the floor, out of hunger because all you're
doing is spending your time memorizing,
and and and, you know, taking the of
the Quran and the hadith of the prophet
one after the other after the other with
so much intensity and focus that you don't
have time even to,
see where your next meal is going to
be from. Go ahead and do it.
Oh, you're not gonna do it? Okay. Back
to the
which is what? It's a solution to this
problem that there's a huge
huge tradition.
If it only encompass this world, it would
be overwhelming, but it encompasses
the in front of which this world is
not even a drop in the ocean.
And you now have to communicate it from
one person to the other. So what did
the ulama do?
They sat together and they said, how are
we going to take this to everybody?
So nowadays, what who does that type of
stuff? Marketing people do that.
PR propaganda.
PR propaganda, they're like, you know, one's a
nice way of saying it and the other
one's like impolite, but it's it's essentially the
same thing. Right?
You should read about that, by the way.
Marshall, maybe doctor Salim can mention about the
the whole, you know,
PR is a euphemism for basically using like
a Freudian understanding of
of of psychoanalytics
in order to manipulate people into doing stuff
that you want them to do, mostly based
on fear and ignorance. Right? But,
and that has a little bit to do
with with what we're gonna what we're what
we're talking about as well. But the idea
is what?
Is that the ulama, they sat together and
said, how are we going to disperse all
this information? There's an entire ummah and if
you don't teach them, they're just as ignorant
as the next man.
There are people in this world who do
the most ignorant of things. There are people
who sexually abuse their own, relatives.
You think that doesn't happen in the Muslim
Ummah? There are people in this world that
rich people are stealing from the poor. You
think that doesn't happen in this ummah? There
are people in this world, they'll go decades
without reading praying a salat. You think that
doesn't happen with people who if you ask
them, they'll say they're Muslims? All of the
above happens. Why? Because we're human beings like
other people are as well. The solutions are
there. If we don't implement them, our people
are just as crazy as other people are.
Depending on like where and when, some of
them are even more crazy,
This is one of the heck Allah made
the made the,
like, he his
he made the proof against his creation so
complete.
There's no civilization of people you're going to
say that are more
literally ignorant
than the people literally, their entire civilization is
called
bearing infant daughters alive,
blood feuds between relatives that never end, that
make the Hat and
look like, you know, look like Care Bears.
This is
this is a reality.
If through this knowledge those people can become
straight, then everybody else in this world everybody
else in this world has no excuse in
front of the Lord. The institution of Matun
is what? It's the way that they transmitted
this knowledge
which is so much if you try to
just spoon feed it from a to a
to z like as like ditch like, you
know, like as,
you know, individual points of information, you're not
gonna be able to do so.
And these these institution the institution of these
is centuries old.
It's centuries old. The same people were memorizing,
you know, a 1000 years ago, some of
them are the same ones people are memorizing
nowadays. People say, Oh no.
We don't need the 1000 year old, we
need something new, we need something modern. Look,
certain realities are realities, they're truths.
If something is a piece of truth,
if it was
discovered yesterday or it was known for a
1000 years, does that change anything about it?
No. This is the baggage of modernism
that we have, which is that we somehow
assume newer things are better.
Nuclear weapons is newer. Is that better?
Someone was, Yeah. You can kill a lot
of people with it, whereas swords are so
hard to kill people. Yeah. If you're into
killing, nuclear weapons are amazing. For the rest
of us,
it's a complete tragedy, it's a catastrophe.
We should make dua against the people who
made these things.
Allah cursed them and anyone who touches them,
anybody who who who propagates this knowledge, Allah
cursed them, strike them dead where they are.
They should walk out of their houses if
you know, and get hit by lightning. Why?
Because these are the these are the fools.
They're gonna mess it up for all of
us. They're gonna everything is gonna be destroyed
one day because of people like this.
So the idea is what? We think sometimes
newer is better. Why? Because that's what we're
trained to think. You know, we're not we're
not trained to think. Somebody else spoon fed
us this nonsense.
If something you know, what is what is
common sense? If it ain't broke, don't fix
it.
What is common sense? If something was true
yesterday, it's true today, it will be true
tomorrow as well.
There are certain universal truths, that's the whole
idea of is not even from this world.
Revelation is not from this world.
Revelation wasn't that Allah taught the prophet how
to make a Boeing 747, and now we
need to have a Boeing 787.
If that's what it was, then we need
something newer.
That's not what it is at all. The
Mutoon are institutions, they've worked, they're tried and
tested, they worked for centuries.
They didn't stop anybody from getting on an
airplane, they didn't stop anyone from using a
microwave or automobile,
they didn't stop anyone from using any, technological
advancements when it comes to material things. The
idea of knowledge is what? Knowledge is not
just material things. Otherwise, the point of knowledge
would have been to get a job. That's
not why we're here.
This is not this is not paid for
like by a job fair or by your
high school, middle school guidance counselor.
This is not there's no uncle who's gonna
be giving a in
this
The focus of which is what? You're getting
a job.
You'll get a job anyway.
We, the uncles who are giving these bands,
are doing what? So that your duniya and
your akhira can be better, so that the
world can be a better place, so Allah
can put a light in your heart, and
life in your heart, that will make you
happy whether or not you have money. Make
you happy in this world, make you happy
in the hereafter.
So these mutun are in institution.
Every one of them. From
the from the
from these like simple books that we mentioned,
all
the way to the hyper advanced books. There's
entire cultures that have developed around these around
these books.
Why? Because they are a a really like
compact and hyper efficient way of transmitting not
just information,
but what has to come with that information
as well. Because we have this idea in
our deen that what?
If you don't make a practice on the
knowledge you have, this is a bad thing.
If you don't do, you know, if you
don't have seek the knowledge with sincerity, and
you don't dispense the knowledge, and you don't
act on the knowledge with sincerity,
this is a bad thing, this thing will
come back against you, will bite you, on
the day of judgment. Like a snake it'll
turn around and and it'll hit you. You'll
think, I did this for my benefit, this
is actually harming me.
The institution of the is what? The institution
of the comes even with with the spiritual
part of everything.
How many a book
you read? And the inside the text of
the book makes du'a for the ones who
study it, and the ones who teach it
until the day of judgment.
Some of these people, you cannot believe what
type of people these were that wrote these
books.
You cannot believe what type of people these
were that wrote these books. If you read
their books, you get their as well.
It's not just information, there's like the spirit,
this that come with these things. People read
the books and then they see those, people
who wrote those books in their dreams, in
their in their you know, they make by
their knowledge by by by day and by
night, they keep their
There's some secret inside of them.
Nothing survives without
without having some sort of,
a power to last.
The top 10,
hit music
music people listen to nowadays itself is like
a proof. It's itself itself a commentary of
why music is haram.
But some of the the top ten list,
1,000,000 of dollars in production.
Right? This is a completely, like,
desolate production. What we're doing right now, we're
using the Masjid's,
Masjid's podium.
Okay? We're in a church right now. There's
actually like stone engraved like
a verse from Isaiah outside.
Allah brought these people and for some reason
made them like build this building in the
direction of the qiblah.
Otherwise, if we could have made the the
Sultan Ahmed Masjid, if we could have made
like a masjid with the green tiles, and
if we could have made something like that,
we would have done it. But we can't.
We're completely
The people amongst us who think are rich,
they themselves are broke. They're like the they're
broke.
So someone is a doctor. There's a billionaires
out there. Someone makes like $150,000
a year. I'm supposed to be impressed by
that?
The only ones more broke than them is
us who are actually putting the program, you
know, who are delivering it, and and and
the ones who are the volunteers outside, and
the books that are being printed, and things
like that. This is completely all being done
on a
on a what? On a shoestring budget.
It's completely being done on a shoestring
budget. I promise you. Let me tell you
something.
Let me tell you
something. All of those hyper broke who
wrote these books and the ones who taught
them through the centuries,
they will do through their absolute lack of
money and absolute lack of means.
Their their hits will still be on the
chart when people forget about, record labels and
nobody,
you know, Snoop Dogg, what is this like
a dog? Like, I don't get it. Snoopy?
What what is it? Nobody will even remember
the names of those people anymore.
The entire civilization that built those people, people
will forget their names. Only some professor in
a university who's like a
a like a specialist in a certain
branch of history or certain period of history
will remember what their names are. But these
will still be around.
Why?
Because it's the entire package. You get the
information transmitted,
you get the understanding
transmitted, the the granular granular details are transmitted,
the bigger picture is transmitted so people benefit
from it, the spirituality is transmitted.
This is
a small I wanna take, like, a 2
minute
break inside of my talk from this topic
to mention something.
One of our I the I say he's
the sheikh of our even though I took
from him and I met him. And by
Allah's father, I took his duas which is
more a statement about his generosity and the
kurm of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala than anything
about me. One of my asatas are just
passed on to the rahma of Allah ta'ala
by Allah's permission.
He died at the age of at least
a 110 years old. At least a 110,
nobody knows because they didn't you know, there's
in the there's no like there's no like
register to record when people are born.
People like that when they pass away, the
entire world finds out.
These that we're talking about, he was a
master of them, He carried them all by
memory which is the old way of of
of learning and teaching.
And
even though I was there in 2003,
so that's what, like 15 years old, so
he was 95 at the time,
at least.
Still, he was teaching all the from memory.
When I when I when I,
one of the junior masha'if that I that
I read from because, you know, he was
he was very weak at that time as
well.
So, he wasn't in a position that you're,
you know, you know if you ask too
many questions you're just gonna bother him and
your quest my questions are like so simple,
they're so low level that we don't need
to go to like a master of the
sharia because I'm just a beginner.
I'm just a beginner as a as a
student of knowledge, if I can even say
that about myself now.
So when we would go to the other
teachers, they would say things to us, you
know, like one of these teachers says, Your
hamza, you don't read enough, you need to
read more books. I go, what are you
talking about? What am I doing here? I
just can't tell you that.
I like completely like moved to like weird
places in the world and I'm reading I'm
literally like reading darshwati. He goes, no, you
have to read other books as well.
I go, what do you mean?
He goes, don't you read?
I go I go, what?
He says he says, read read like read
read the the lisan Al Arab.
I said, what is that? What do you
mean read the lisan Al Arab? Lisan Al
Arab is a classical
dictionary of the Arabic language lexicon
and,
it's interesting. The Arabic dictionary itself is for
those not familiar with it that the Arabic
dictionary
is English dictionary is like this is what
this word means and I'm like, what? Is
Webb's Noah Webster or Nabi or something? He's
telling me what it means, why should I
believe him? You know?
So the the sun al arab is what?
It will tell you what the word means
and it will give you as well.
From the Kitab and Sunnah,
and then in case someone's like, well maybe
maybe, you know, the Muslims are just making
it up because non Muslims use the dictionary
as well, it will give Dalil from the
poetry of the pre, pre Islamic,
Arab poets.
Their language is a very refined archaic form.
It's something that most people will not understand
nowadays
without a deep amount of study.
And so he says he say, yeah. Literally,
what does he tell? So the Islam Arabic
is like a 26,
27 volume dictionary. He's like, read the dictionary.
When's the last time any of you cracked
the dictionary open?
You're like, why would I read the dictionary?
If I need to know a word,
I'll just open it up and, you know,
look that word up.
This is this is the what? This is
completely like one of We've now hit a
gold mine of like, what the point of
this talk is.
As an aside,
let the person think that this is completely
irrelevant to what what we're talking about. Who
was one of the first flagbearers of Islam
in this in this, in this land in
this century?
Malcolm X.
It's a Hajjisat Masha'Allah
Shaheed, Fisabeel Allah
What was one of the things he used
to do in prison?
He used to read the dictionary.
The dictionary that he had to read was
the English dictionary
which is,
you know, as far as dictionaries are concerned,
a type of poverty.
But he still did it. And that's how
he he what? He he got a command
over the language, a master over the language,
so that when someone is speaking to him,
no one can pull one over
on
him. And when he's speaking to another person,
right, the the the the the the words
are like a vehicle
and and the, content
is like the passenger that every passenger gets
to where it needs to go.
And his speech had effect on people.
So,
that's something people like watch like Malcolm X
where they read the the
the he he that people watch the movie
or they read the book and they think
this is something
this is something what, like,
unique. Right?
Let me tell you something.
Allah Ta'l prepared him as an ambassador of
of of of what? Of this civilization.
The ambassador isn't the president.
The ambassador isn't part of the government. He's
just someone who communicates
what the will of of of of the
people in power in that state are.
So I my teacher said, why don't you
read the lisan al Arab? I said, you
you are you gonna make mutara? Are you
gonna read the read the dictionary? Right? English,
by the way, only has like
100, 350 years ago is the first dictionary
is published.
Arabic Arabic is the first language that has
a dictionary. The whole, like, the science of
Arabic lexicography
actually starts with the
Sahaba right?
The Literally, the Sahaba invented dictionaries. That's what
I just said. In case you didn't understand
the Sahaba
amongst,
like, other like
a 100000 amazing things they did, they also
invented dictionaries.
So sheikh says to me, you should read
that, you should make mopala, you shouldn't read,
you know, from beginning to the end, the,
you know, books like the dictionary.
And I said, really people do that? He
said, Murabit not only, not only, read it,
he he thought this is a useful book
so he memorized it.
I challenge you to walk like half a
mile just carrying the the the
without dropping one of its volumes.
Right? This is what? This is what? This
is not like it's not like he read
the autobiography of Malcolm x ramble wa ta'ala.
You know, you understand what I'm saying? This
is this is Khalaf and Ansar of generations
of people that this is the level of
intensity of their love of knowledge and the
level of intensity of what they carried around
with them inside of their hearts.
And then the people who respond to them
are like,
you know,
LOL, I disagree.
So what what is it? What is the
vein we've struck?
People are really excited about people are really
excited about
computers and the Internet. Why?
Because you can look for what you want
right away.
I myself, what is it? I mean, we
read all of these books. I didn't memorize
my books. Allah forgive me, you know. That's
why that's
in front of Allah to even say that
I'm a student of knowledge. Because once
we see the actual students of knowledge, there
are people who literally died while they're studying,
they memorized every book that they read, nobody
ever asked them to give bayan,
nobody ever, fed them dinner and gave them
halal, Molana Saab, nobody ever,
put their name on a poster.
Some of them died while they're studying, some
of them lived their entire life, and they
didn't receive any dunya for what they, you
know, for what they, did for the sake
of Allah ta'ala.
And they died in obscurity for a very
good reason which is what? There are so
many other people who did it even better
than them, nobody even came and asked them.
Imagine what type of civilization that is. If
your weakest man
is is is is is a student of
knowledge that that has like, he memorizes books
and things like that, but there's there's so
many people that are more than that. This
is your weakest man. What do they do?
What does the what do you know, the
colonizer because everyone wants to return everything to
politics. Okay. Let's be political because we're in
a materialistic age. Anyway, everyone obsesses about government
and power and money anyway. Right? If your
weakest man is like a student of knowledge
who's so sincere
and he will spend his life struggling and
he'll Even though he knows his uphill battle,
they're He'll never make it.
Are you gonna bribe that person?
Is that person gonna spy for you? Is
that person gonna sell every sell other people
out? Is that person gonna be a mole?
Is that person gonna be a snitch? Is
that what is that person how are they
gonna are they gonna steal from you? Are
they gonna, you know, are they gonna take,
ill ill advantage of your family members? What
are they gonna do to you? There's a
time that that's how it used to be
actually.
There are still places that that's still how
it is. In fact, many Muslim nations, this
is one of the reasons why they they
they're failed states, they don't even have functional
governments, and still life goes on because in
general the is more than the
But the idea is what? The idea is
that that that technology that allows you to,
like, look something up. Right? So we didn't
memorize. The point I swayed,
you know, I strayed a little bit from
what I was trying to say, But we
didn't I didn't I don't shouldn't say we.
I didn't memorize. There's very few things that
I memorized from my from my books. I
barely, you know, I barely should be allowed
to even lead the prayer because even the
Quran I haven't memorized like I should have.
I haven't memorized the whole thing. The few
that I've memorized, I haven't memorized that like
I should have. But the idea is this
is, you know, I like I I like
it. I'm maktabash shammila and things like that.
You can, like, look up literally the text
of what you remember having read some somewhere
in the past and you can, bam, get
that text
right right then and there.
That's a benefit, nobody is going to deny
it.
But what happens nowadays?
Person x gets into a tiff on Twitter
with person y. I think this thing should
be haram, I think this thing should be
permissible.
What do they do?
They start looking up, you know, they start
looking up what are the books,
of this science,
what is the chapter of this science, You
know, someone even learned a little bit of
Arabic,
so they don't need to look for translations,
but what will they do? They'll blast off,
fire away at each other,
proofs for why they're right and the other
person is wrong.
What is it? It's a completely like a
targeted a targeted acquisition of knowledge.
It's a targeted acquisition of not knowledge of
information.
Knowledge is a part of information information is
a part of knowledge, information isn't all of
knowledge.
So what happens is that that information is
out of context.
Like, I'll give you an example.
Okay?
There was a a a a form of
students of knowledge
and one student of knowledge was saying that
the,
and you can look up, you know, I'm
not telling you position on the issue. It's
just an example. Right? The Nis Shaaban.
Right? That it's a sun that it's recommended
to fast on 15th of
And so
someone says, yes, this is something that comes
from our aslaf, from our forefathers.
And the other ones and the other one
says, no no. Malik considered it a bidda'.
I go well, the Maliki scholars in their
books, they write that it's
it's recommended to fast on that day even
if Malek didn't.
And she says, well, the Maliki scholars only
said that because what?
Because the the bright days, right, the 14th,
15th the 15th, 16th,
I'm sorry, the 13th, 14th, 15th are sunnah
to fast every day anyway. Right? That sounds
like a pretty, like, a pretty solid checkmate.
Right? Why? Because you look up certain things
and you don't understand the context.
If that person actually read,
like the the the long works on Malekithic,
they would have known that Malekith, his opinion
was that the bright days are the first,
10th, 20th.
In this in this chain of narration is
so and so narrator,
and he's weak.
Right? And Abdullah, Mufti Abdullah actually shut down
somebody on this on this issue. There I
forget what the Masala was, But the one
of the Dalilios, the Hadith, he says this
this narrator is in the chain of narration,
he's weak.
And so Mufti Abdulah because
he's read so many tabakaat of all of
the all of the narrators, what did he
say?
He said that this
person who you quoted is the grandfather,
The grandson has the same name.
This happens so much in our tradition. The
father son, father son, it will be like
Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Abdullah bin
Muhammad. See, you're quoting the grandfather as a
fasip.
The narrator here is the grandson.
If you knew about you know, if you
had read incomplete
you know, what you're talking about, you would
know that. That there's a grandfather with the
same name and there's a grandson with the
same name.
There are like 12 different narrators with the
name Mohammed bin Sinan. There's like there there
are so many, like, there's so many things
until you read like so you have these
like huge biographical dictionaries of narrators. Right?
Uh-uh. Multiple volumes.
And again, the used to make
and the used to memorize these books.
Right? The difference again between what? Between the
the the the Google and the?
The the the person who actually studied, went
to the system of is that even if
that person doesn't have all the granular information,
that person has common sense, they're oriented with
the map of what that knowledge is.
Because everything has a context, everything has, there's
a type of like a big picture that
they're getting because they learn the knowledge and
order. The person who's just, like, looking stuff
up one after the other, they'd see, like,
little granular detailed points of information, but because
there's no context around it,
often times this can lead to, like it
can lead to like really problematic outcomes.
It can lead to marriages breaking. It can
lead to people leaving the deen. It can
lead to, misguidance. It can be lead to
people like picking up a gun and shooting
at other people, thinking that this is the
of Allah, and his Rasulullah
someone, it's not. It can lead to all
sorts of problems.
Further than that And 415. Right? I have
till 415. Right? Right? So the the I
And I wanted to spend most of the
time talking about what? What the knowledge is.
Because I think it's more important for us
to know about what our
tradition is rather than refuting falsehood. The people
of falsehood, they circular
circularly refute one another.
Right? There's like 12 people, all of them
are crazy in their own way, and they
all talk garbage about each other. You don't
need to talk to an alum about that,
even though the ulema know better about how
crazy all of them are.
But a little bit about what? A little
bit about the Facebook post that you're reading,
a little bit about the Twitter,
post that you're reading.
Okay?
All of the knowledge that you get from
these social media platforms is curated.
What does that mean?
It's not that you're getting the posts as
they come.
There's an algorithm that will show you certain
things and prioritize certain things to you,
when you're when you're reading it. Thank you
so much. They'll prioritize certain things to you
when you're reading it.
Again, you don't need to have somebody, you
know, like, maybe Morabat wouldn't have been able
to explain to you about,
like, how curated content comes on Facebook and
Google and things like that.
You don't need to because if you have
the solution, why spend your whole lifetime reading
about the poisons when you have the cure
right there?
Those are happy people, those are people of
sa'ada.
Those are happy people. Everyone of us should
make du'a that Allah give us this shifa
inside of our hearts.
Don't be so don't be so like attracted
to,
you know, to,
don't be so attracted to people who refute
falsehood. And so,
amazingly, like,
excited about it that it makes you lose
your wudu.
It's a necessity.
Refutation of falsehood is a necessity.
But once it's done, the actual benefit is
in what?
In knowing what is right.
So at any rate, this is all it's
all curated it's all curated,
content.
How is that content curated?
Right? If you go to, if you go
to a museum, there's a curated collection. The
idea is maybe some academic will tell you
what's most important. Right? Unfortunately, the content in,
in all of the social media platforms and
Google etcetera etcetera. What's the number one way
of of getting getting that curated content on
the list?
Just pay money.
You pay money, your Facebook post will go
wherever you want it to go.
You pay money, your Twitter post will be
your tweet will be promoted.
You pay money, your Google,
Google result won't come to the top.
There are other ways of having it curated
as well. They're like little tricks and games
that, like, social media,
people do. They usually, like, corporations hire social
media people in order to run those things,
you know, election campaigns, etcetera, etcetera. I think
if you nowadays, if you Google idiot.
Go ahead, you have your phones Insha Allah.
I know you've been itching to why look
at Go ahead Google idiot on your phone,
see what happens. That wasn't an accident by
the way. Go ahead. No. No. Take it
out. Take out your phone inshallah.
The lama will, curse you and and make
dua against you if you look at your
phone during their talks,
all other times. So this is time. Go
ahead indulge yourself. Go ahead. Google idiot what
happened. See see what what the first results
are. Right? That wasn't an accident.
That wasn't
random. That wasn't because this is the definition
in the dictionary or in any by other
any other objective metric of what an idiot
is.
This was a group of people made a
concerted effort by which the influence that that
that medium and that curated content comes to
you because of that.
You may agree with it in this specific
instance,
but that's not the point.
The is not what you want to be
true, it is what is true.
And this is another problem this is another
problem,
with regards to with regards to what you
read on
Facebook and and Twitter and Google and things
like that as what?
Is that you become an echo chamber because
it analyzes every every time you every time
you,
you know, like something or dismiss something or
friend someone or delete their friend request or
do this or do that or
stuff will allow to protect us, you know,
swipe left and swipe right and god knows
what other people are doing, things other people
are doing nowadays. This analytics goes to somewhere
and there are, like, algorithms that, okay, Sergei,
this person is kind of like this, and
it will know things about yourself that you
may not consciously know about yourself.
Right? So every time, you know, every time
elephants are mentioned, you always like whatever.
You never like it and you always like
this and that. So maybe, you know, like,
that thing will figure out that, like, when
you were a kid, you had a, like,
you know, you're scared of elephants at the
zoo or whatever random thing. You may not
even remember that about yourself but it will
figure it out.
It will figure out there's some this person
has some issue with elephants because all the
posts have Whatever random thing it is. Right?
It figures out all of those things. Now
it's problematic to let somebody into your most
intimate thoughts in the first place.
That's not that's not what we're talking about
right now.
What are we talking about? If you're gonna
learn from these platforms,
right?
Right. Is what? To read things and to
learn, you know, new things that you didn't
learn from before. If you're gonna use these
platforms to learn something,
the whole, all these platforms are all echo
chambers.
It knows what you want from the first
place and it just feeds it more and
more.
So the person who thinks that, you know,
that we should save the whales will get
all the stuff about whales. The person who
thinks that climate change is
a conspiracy by,
you know, liberal elite Jews,
hom homosexual, the liberal Jews that live in
a certain block of Manhattan. There's at least,
you know, 10,000 other people who believe the
same thing and you're all gonna be,
you know, pinging each other. You go, look,
10,000 people agree with me. Yeah. It's like
a fraction of a percent that share the
same, like,
mental illness that you have.
But you will what? All it does, it
it actually increases the power of your nafs.
It gives your nafs like more and more
reinforcement.
Our entire tradition is what? That a person
should
remove the from
the decision making process.
The should only come in play when you're
eating food, and when you're, you know, when
you have relations with your with your spouse
and those types of things. The nafs is
that that same thing that, like, lets you
do those things that shouldn't be
making you decide which school your kids go
to or what. You you understand what I'm
saying? Like, what is good economic policy for
a certain area or, you know,
what I think about racism or what, you
know, these types of things. It shouldn't decide
it shouldn't, you know, be involved in that
decision making. But what is it? This is
a very technologically
sophisticated way into into what? Into making you
an animal again.
And there are peep someone who's like, well,
shit. Why would someone do that? Because there
are a lot of people who make money.
It's easier to make money off of somebody
when you make them behave like an animal.
Why? What's the proof of that? How many
how much did you guys pay to come
to this, majlis?
Still
still very few people come.
I promise you if somehow I could satiate
a person's stomach or their other,
carnal appetites,
the mustard will be the mustard will be
packed.
And people will pay money
and they'll fight with each other. They'll curse
it. They'll cuss each other out on the
street corner.
When it's full and there's no spaces left
in order to get inside.
If there's money to be made from it,
you know, people will do it. And that's
the issue. It's well, it's not like this
is completely altruistic, this meds list that we're
having which is what?
There are people
the guys with the funny hats outside and
Moana Tamim and all these people who helped
put up this thing and promoted this thing.
They also have a need. Right? Their need
is what? Allah ta'ala forgive them on the
day of judgment. We also have a need
that what? We don't want our kids to
grow up in a a a society of
complete yahoos where, you know, it's like the
prophet mentioned about the day of judgment, that
the day of judgment right before the end
people will be indulging their carnal appetites on
the street corners.
And the best of people are gonna be
who? The ones who are like, can't you
just go inside? Can't you just get a
room?
Who knows? Maybe those people themselves are like,
and all sorts of haram. But they at
least have enough decency to be like, can't
you just get a room? Let's still pretend
to be human beings. Like let's not be
complete animals.
Right? So the idea is what? Is that
you're,
you're you're you're in an echo chamber. Your
nafs is your own greatest enemy,
and all this information
is knowledge and it's masquerading as knowledge and
as
and as
But all it is is just what? It's
pumping your nafs up. But you think it's
information and so, it emboldens you to do
things that you otherwise wouldn't do because you
will believe in hold those convictions as if
they're god given. But all it is is
just somebody curating stuff that pumps your nuts
up so someone else will make money from
it.
And then people use these things to do
to actually affect outcomes in in real life.
Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, he he communicated the deen
from Allah to Allah also the outcome affect
outcomes in real life. People fast in the
month of Ramadan.
It protects you from the animality of what
people what you know, these people who are
kinda make money off of us and, you
know, what they're pulling us toward. It's a
shield. It's It's actually hadith of the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam. It's a shield against
all of that. Right? The prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam is trying to affect outcomes.
Go to Hajj.
What's the best Hajj? The one the person
who brings the money to give the most
salakah. He wants to affect outcomes. He knows
that there are people who are starving to
death and there people have too much money.
Go spend all your money in the path
of Allah
We need less hungry people and less people
who have too much money.
Right? Rasulullah
wanted to affect outcomes.
The person of knowledge, he extolled their virtues
so much
That he wanted the people to be attracted
to those people. Those are the ones that
they should they should be given prominence in
society. They should make decisions on behalf of
society for the benefit of all of society,
rather than the people who are best and
most adept at lying, cheating, and and smooth
talking,
other people, and then ingratiating themselves, and then
turning the Muslim world into what? The Muslim
world has turned into by and large.
This is also an agenda. The issue is
this, is that with all the analytics and
everything that you get from your learning, quote
unquote, from these platforms,
what ends up happening?
Cambridge Analytica will
package the data
and sell it to someone from Russia or
from China and, like,
you know,
who would ever
who would ever influence the an election in
another country? We, as Americans, never would
Surprise other people are doing it to us
now, and we're we're all heard about it.
And we should be. It's bogus. I hope
it doesn't happen. I hope someone upstairs wakes
up and, like, you know, starts to defend
our country against this nonsense.
It was wrong when we did it as
well though
to whatever all of Asia and South America
and etcetera.
But people are then using these things in
order to what? To make the world
in the image of what they want.
Rasulullah
salallahu alaihi wa sallam wanted to make the
world a better place. These people wanna make
the world into a place that makes money
for them, and if it burns and dies
of death and disease afterward, they don't care,
it's not their they could think it's not
their problem.
And this is something very important.
People are like, you know, people say this
You know, people are naive.
The believer is naive and,
and and generous.
The believer if you ask him, you know
like, you know, my feet hurt. I don't
have any shoes. Can I have your shoe?
No. You idiot. He'll take his shoes off
and give it to you. Even if you're
hustling them, and you actually run a shoe
store. He'll believe you when you say it.
Why? The one who's not himself a liar,
it's hard for him to relate to a
liar.
The one who's not a cheater, it's hard
for him to relate to a cheater.
This doesn't mean that once you know that
these people are liars and cheaters that you
should still work with them.
Having a good opinion of others doesn't mean
checking your brain in at the locker,
and then going for a ride with every
idiot who offers you a ride.
It means what? If you have no reason
to think a specific person is lying to
you than you, then you might not have
the fault default assumption that everyone's lying. This
is why academia is all very,
jaded. Academics are all very pessimistic people and
they're all very, I forget what's the word
I'm looking for right now. Someone help me.
Right? They're they're they're all very skeptical about
everything.
Why? Because they're liars themselves. They come from
a civilization of liars. So what are they
gonna assume everyone's doing?
This is also a type of crippling stupidity.
If everybody everything everyone says to you is
a lie, your mother from the day that,
you know, you were born is lying to
you and your father is lying to you.
That means there's no truth at all anyway.
And even if it there was some random
piece of truth floating around, how the *
are you supposed to know it's true?
Right? So the issue is this is that
these people use these things in order to
what? In order to,
influence the
influence, like,
things in the world around you, and it
has horrible consequences from,
you know, people in India sending mass WhatsApp,
text,
falsely accusing people of sexually abused. People die.
Literally, mobs will kill people because they think
this person is like abusing children, whereas it
was just somebody like, you know, has has
it out for them. You know, elections
are are are swayed. No need to talk
about it. You all know, you just watch
whatever's on TV and they'll tell you about
it. Elections are swayed. Products come up, come
down. People's careers are made. They're they're they're
they're destroyed. People's reputations are made. They're destroyed.
They've gotten the entire world to think that
us in this room, they're losing sleep at
night because they think that we're gonna
somehow harm them or kill them.
How are we gonna harm anybody? We barely
can have an election amongst ourselves.
I promise you someone's gonna fight about whether
you're supposed to have toes on the line
or heels on the line.
But what is it? I mean it's not
a joke. They've literally There are people who
have made plans. They have plans
to destroy and decimate, have a holocaust on
our community right now because of how afraid
they are because of these lies.
And I, for the life of me, have
no idea why anybody uses any of these
things for,
for their personal matters.
So seriously, you're on Facebook, you're on Twitter.
If it wasn't for the fact that I
I know. Right? I just started using Facebook,
by the way, like a month and a
half ago.
Okay? Twitter,
I was sucked into it by somebody else.
If it wasn't that I I I I
know that if we don't have those things,
nobody will even listen to what we have
to say.
Then we wouldn't have done it. So it's
like what? It's like, you know, imagine when
guns were invented, somebody who's like a martial
arts expert,
you know. He's like, I wish that it
was more elegant than when we used to
fight with swords, you know. It's like, yeah,
I kinda get what you're saying but you
have to get over it very quickly. Otherwise,
there's a dude with a machine gun on
the other side of the hill, and, you
know, your armor is very heavy.
So, this is the the the hand we're
dealt. These are the this is the that
that the battle is going to be in.
So we have to deal with these things.
But you have to know what that what
that, you know, what that,
platform is, what that plat it's not your
friend, it's not how you stay in touch
with your friends, it's not gonna benefit and
it sure as * is not gonna teach
you anything about deen whatsoever.
And the fact that randomly there is something
beneficial in it, any of it, is shaitan
literally by design is there to fool you
into thinking the other, like, 80 times that
you use it in order to, like, look
at the of a non mahaherm woman or
man or look at you know, you use
it to chitchat about whatever new movie came
out or comment about someone's, picture of, like,
the dinner they ate or any number of
inane and stupid,
like, brain numbing things that come through it.
It's only to justify that you get one
small piece of benefit and, like, 80 harmful
things get through the gate because of it.
That's not your and if you do it,
you do it, alhamdulillah. But just know it's
not a
replacement for
for, sitting in these majalis,
for reading these books from the people who
know them, this institution that our forefathers built,
it's still there, you can still benefit from
it. Allah ta'ala give all of us so
much tawfiq. I'd like to give a shout
out to everybody who's listening to this on
SoundCloud or livestream.
Okay?
Unless you have an excuse like I'm a
single mother who converted to Islam last week
in Kansas and there's no mastud within like
80 miles of my house,
you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Get up.
You
know,
our sisters
reward them. They have like other, you know.
The rest of you, if you're a man,
if you're in good health,
then know that the Quran itself says that
those people who sit behind and sit back
and don't show up, those people are you
those people are the
that's what the Quran is describes them as.
And I'm not saying, Oh, you're munafiq. I'm
just saying like, Look, you made a mistake.
In the future, get up and and go.
Don't keep
don't be married to that that that attribute.
Right? I know there are people in this
masjid, New York, Florida, Dallas,
Cleveland,
right? Cincinnati,
they're right? Right? I recognize you now, Right?
Cincinnati, there are people who are,
who like literally left their homes in order
to come to these things. There's
That's all part of this institution of of
how this knowledge
is revived. It's part of this institution of
how this literacy actually gives you some sort
of benefit because one would say, that's reading
this reading as well.
Allah give us from the benefit of
the sacred knowledge of our deen, and from
the duas of our mashaikh, and our ulamah,
and salihin, and from the, the the nabua
of the Prophet
and from the wahi that came on his
noble heart from Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, Abu
'Izzah. Allah give us,
from his from his, from his fable in
this age where everyone's drowning in the ocean,
that it should be like a
life jacket or
a life raft
through which we make it through unscaled
to a maqam in jannah in the hereafter.