Hosai Mojaddidi – An Agenda to Change Our Condition (Session 18)
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam
ala should have an MBA you want a more serene say than our mole? No.
Have you been on Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam while
he was Sofia Selim, the Sleeman Kathira Salam alaykum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. Dear brothers and sisters Alhamdulillah
it's great to be with all of you. We had a missed week last week
because of the Innisfil Shabbat program. So Hamdulillah, I am
happy to be back with all of you. And this will, we're actually
going to try to close out the book Inshallah, we did. Chapter Four
last, if you remember where we talked about the inroads to the
heart, and Hamdulillah, I mentioned that the next class
would be the last section, which is chapter five. So let me go
ahead and share the slides. I did type out some of the slides but
there's a lot of text in chapter five, where it's on page 61, for
those who have the book. So I'm going to be reading and commenting
but I'll still post or put the slides up for those of you who
want to follow along. So Inshallah, let me go ahead and do
that Bismillah
one second here
Okay, and here we go. Inshallah. Alright, so chapter five.
What we want to understand is up until now, right, the entire book
agenda to change our condition has really been there's been an inward
focus, right? How to Develop oneself, how to attain taqwa,
obviously, how to, you know, look at the inroads to the heart, and,
and, and take practical steps, right doing exercises daily, on
how to protect those inroads. So there's been a lot of inward
focus. So we start to shift now in chapter five to the outward focus.
And so I'll go ahead and start reading here, and then we'll stop
for some commentary. So they,
they started off here and said, as we conclude this agenda, right
agenda to change our condition, let us now direct our attention
from our inward state to that of worldly matters. This orientation
is not an effort to encourage us to take from the world, as this
would contradict much of what was mentioned earlier, right. So this
isn't about suddenly becoming super materialistic or chasing the
dunya. Rather, it is part of an effort to improve the world in
which we live. We believe that this is an Islamic imperative that
Allah subhanaw taala says in the, in the Quran, right? Quantum
Hainan or mutton of the Jutland nurse, which is what you are the
best of communities brought forth for mankind.
So then they provide this quote from this a booster root, who says
in his commentary about this verse, that this means the best
people for others. This is an unambiguous expression, which
states that the good mentioned here in this verse lies in benefit
provided to the people. This is also understood from the
expression brought forth for mankind, namely brought forth to
benefit them and advance their best interest. So this was his
commentary. And then the Hadith that also they cited here is, and
we switch, the slides here are prophesy. centum said, Allah will
continue to assist the servant, as long as the servant is assisting
his brother, we can thereby understand that divine aid and
succor will accrue to this community to the Muslim ummah, as
long as we are providing the same to fellow members of the human
family. So this is also a really beautiful commentary here, that
the brother here isn't speaking of, you know, blood, blood brother
or brother in faith, but rather brother in humanity. And this also
reflects what we've talked about before, with regards to this, the
sun and of this world, right, this law of reciprocity that what we
put out into the world will be returned unto us. So when we are
servants and we are helping, and we are aiding and we're benefiting
in sha Allah, that will then come back to us, in sha Allah in the
form of divine aid, right, which is a really beautiful sentiment
and something we should all be very, very aware of and how to do
that. So, you know, it's interesting, this discussion, the
timing of this particular chapter, earlier today, I was in a
clubhouse room. I don't know how many of you are familiar
With the app called clubhouse, if you're not familiar with it, I do
recommend that you check it out. It's for iPhone users only. But
mashallah, I found it to be a beneficial social media app. It's
not like other apps, where you're consuming a lot of visual content.
And we talked about right. Last time, when we talked about the
inroad to the heart, we certainly we stressed the importance of
lowering our gaze and making sure that we're really filtering the
content that we take in with our eyes. And this is very difficult
on social media, because we're bombarded with imagery, we're
bombarded with videos and, and things that we really should not
be looking even if we're not, we're not intending to, you could
just go through Facebook, for example, and you're trying to
maybe look at some news content, and then the ads pop up in that
inappropriate. The same with Instagram. And of course, other
mediums as well as Twitter and Tiktok is a whole other issue of
just really visually terrible things. But anyhow, the point is,
is a lot of these other mediums they do test us in those ways.
With clubhouse, what I found to be beneficial is, first of all,
there's no real visual
worry, there's nothing really visual about it other than profile
pictures that people use to, you know, to basically identify
themselves with. But there's no ads, there's no videos, there's no
chats, private, you know, type, like text chat, you can open up a
room.
It's an audio input device or app where basically people are kind of
having like live podcasts in real time. And you can go into
different rooms, as they call them, based on the topics of those
rooms, and inshallah listen and benefit, you can go up on what
they call the stage and actually comment and have these live
interactions. So I found it to be very beneficial. But earlier
today, I was in a room, I was invited to participate in a
conversation on how to do Dawa. And this topic came up of the
importance of Muslims, recognizing that we do have a responsibility
as believers to really look out for our fellow human being. And
what better way of doing that than to teach them about this theme.
And of course, in the most beautiful way, following the
example of the prophets of Salaam, which is to invite people to know
Islam, but that we really have to take that as a responsibility that
we want to be people who are beneficial, right, that that, in
general, to our family members, or loved ones, or close intimate
circles, we should, we should certainly strive to be beneficial,
but also to our community, right, our neighborhoods, our our cities,
our towns, and the end humanity at large. And so this is really what
this chapter is about is how can we, again, as we are working on
ourselves, and trying to really protect our character and
strengthen our own belief and work inwardly, also move from that
inward, you know, focus to the outward to try to be more
beneficial to humanity as a whole. And so this is really what we're
going to focus on. But this hadith, again, is reminding us
that as we behave in this world, right, what we put out there, that
energy that we put out there that in sincerity, that is sincerity
that we put out there to help the assistants, all the good
intentions, the good deeds, the good works that we do in sha
Allah, it will be reciprocated back to us. So that's a really
powerful reminder. Now we move into the next page here on page
62. And they now go into a little bit of history. So again, there's
so much texture, I did not type A lot of it. So I will be reading,
but let's go ahead and get into it. The historical basis for
involvement. So in today's socio political environment, concern and
benefit can be understood as civic involvement. The word Civic is
derived from the word city. Hence, civic involvement refers to the
meaningful ways in which a private citizen is best involved in the
life of his or her city. Despite its appearance in a largely
agrarian context. If we consider the nature of the dominant means
of economic production at the time of its emergence, Islam is best
associated with the city. Our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam is identified with the city Allah mentions in the Quran, la
Cosimo be handled Bella do unto Shalom be handled ballot right I
swear by this city and you are a free man of the city. So the
prophets migration was from Mecca to Medina from one city to another
Islamic learning and culture is associated with great cities
right? If we look at our the Muslim world there are many cities
that we can identify as hubs or centers of learning demand.
Ask us But dad Cairo is behind in Iran right? Summer Camp Bahara
Tashkent, Kira, Juan, Fez, Cordova, severe, severe or
Seville, Seville, I think that's the pronunciation Spanish,
Grenada, Istanbul, Sarajevo, Zabbix, Timbuktu, Delhi and many
others. So they're just highlighting that city is actually
a really powerful reference, when we're talking about the public
sphere were Muslims dominated and are associated with oftentimes, it
was the involvement of Muslims in the lives of these cities, many of
which were established before the arrival of Islam, which define
them in their historical contexts. As Muslims, our involvement in the
life of our cities should similarly leave a lasting and
positive mark on them. And you can tell, again, you know, I'm kind of
looking at my own past, and, you know, being in the Muslim
community active for over 20 years or so, back, you know, maybe talk
about 20 plus years ago, this message wasn't really very common,
it was needed to be to be active, you know, civically, to be engaged
in politics, local politics, or to be concerned about one's you know,
civic duties and responsibilities. Unfortunately, we didn't really
have this message, I remember because, you know, this is kind of
the community that I, you know, saw around me, and, and what some
of them, just the discussions that were happening, I think there was
more of a desire to keep the Muslim community very insular, and
there was almost fear of getting too active, but I'm sure many of
you may even remember the issue of voting, for example, I mean, it
was kind of like, you know, there were, there were actual debates
about whether or not Muslims should vote in this country. And
so it's in there, certainly people who may still hold those views,
but it's just interesting to see that here is a historical
precedent, it is clearly part of the way of Muslims and, you know,
and many, you know, parts of the world to be actually involved in
their cities. And, you know, I mean, Montreal, they took us all
the way back to again, of course, the prophesy sound, just reminding
us that this isn't something new, that we should be, you know, that
we should be debating, we should just look at the precedent before,
which is that, indeed, Muslims were very politically engaged and
involved. So it's a good reminder for all of us, insha Allah. So
then they go on to say, surely we have much to offer in that regard.
This is especially true if we can be people whose lives are changed
by the principles and exercises outlined earlier in this agenda.
So that's also a really powerful reminder, if we're doing all of
that internal inward work, that, you know, working on our character
development, and really trying to, you know, to, to reflect to the
beauty of our faith and the ways of the prophesies that I'm in his
virtues and really try to, you know, inculcate that within
ourselves, then that makes us actually the best representatives
to be engaged in the public sphere, right. So if that's,
that's like a prerequisite, we should be working on that first,
and then inshallah we can look outwardly, which is really what
the book is doing. Right? It's giving all that content before
that's really more inwardly focused. And now once you're
ready, once you've done all that internal work, you can now use the
skills that you've acquired and, and all that of that towards
benefiting other people. So that's a really good reminder too. And
then they go on to say,
it is not without purpose that Allah has placed us in significant
numbers in and around the great merkaba metropolis is of America,
now is the time for our constructive involvement in the
lives of these cities to commence. That's also something to be
mindful of, right? Because we do see a lot of what we would call
ethnic or religious enclaves. Right. But but for our community,
there are quite a lot of different whether they're immigrant
communities or established communities that have been here
for decades, there are a lot of Muslims in major cities, right? We
have, I'm here in the Bay Area, we certainly have hundreds and 1000s
I actually don't know the exact numbers, but I'm very well aware
of the fact that there are massages in every city, that it's
quite a very active Muslim community. And of course, we could
go through all of the major cities in the US and even in Canada, and
we'd find that there are large numbers of Muslims so that point
is also important that we shouldn't look at that as it's
just some coincidence, but rather than maybe in sha Allah, this is
you know, by with that all spot that wants us to be here, you
know, for the purpose of inshallah making some positive changes,
right.
Such involvement is especially critical
In these times of political transformation, and the
redefinition of both the role and scope of government here in
America, as the two major political parties become
increasingly responsive to special interest groups, particularly
those with big business, large unions and wealthy individuals,
their role as facilitators of democratic and civic involvement
is being eroded. This shift in responsiveness is leading to what
is referred to as a D alignment of those parties. This D alignment
causes private citizens to search for new institutions to serve as
their primary means of political involvement, which consequently
results in the proliferation of smaller grassroots civic
organizations. The collective weight of these organizations and
their facilitation of direct citizen citizen involvement in
local politics is viewed by some as the reinventing of American
democracy. And I think we're pretty much witnessing everything
they just described, right? We're seeing that the Democratic and the
Republican parties are seeing this. It's completely changed and
transformed, especially over the past maybe couple of decades with
more diversity and more more groups, special interest groups,
or private groups, or even minority groups that are now more
civically engaged. And so they're actually really transforming the
political landscape here in the US. But as Muslims, we do need to
look to how can we have a seat at the table? What are we doing in
terms of our own involvement on a local level and on a state and
federal level, to be active in the political life of this country,
and kind of deciding how we're going to do that. And so then they
get into some ideas around that. So the next section here is on the
position of Muslims and contribution. So now, it's really
giving us like laying out a nice plan for us in a way of how we can
use our current, you know, our first of our population
demographics are in the different bill, they'll get into it. Now, as
far as the capital that we have to, to benefit the, you know, our
cities, our country, as a whole our communities as a whole, as
well as ourselves, right? So there's this mutual benefit there.
So let's now read this section. And just FYI, because I was, you
know, as I was preparing for this, I realized that this is a really
short chapter. So today's class unless there are questions, and
people want to continue the discussion, we will have a shorter
class today, because there's not that much content to cover. But
inshallah we'll go ahead and, and finish this section. So now they
talk about the position, the current position, I have Muslims
and content contribution. So let's look, they say that the potential
contributions of Muslims and the benevolent influence of Islam in
this process are tremendous for a number of reasons. In terms of
addressing issues associated with poverty. The social welfare policy
of both governmental and nonprofit organizations has centered on what
has been referred to as a deficit model that focuses on the
deficiencies of individuals and communities, rather than building
upon the individual associational, and institutional assets and
networks that already exist. So they're just kind of giving us
some insight into the current situation right. This deficit
model systematically weakened citizens and communities as the
power of governmental and private agencies a sense, as government
retreats from the obligations assumed by the welfare state, the
aid for the aforementioned organizations are threatened.
Hence, the existence of this ineffective model is also
threatened. As a result, an opening exists for Muslims to
provide an alternative model of civic involvement in activism. So
now they're going to lay it out, what is that alternative model?
The unique position of Muslims is rooted in the dichotomous nature
of our community. Right? So we have we're positioned well is
really what they're saying. First they focus on what they say here
is that there's the less affluent write largely minority converts,
and recent immigrants who live in inner cities, while more affluent
and established immigrants reside in suburbs. So these are the two
groups right we have the minority groups that are in the inner
cities, and then you have those who are more affluent and they're
established in the the suburbs right now, how can we use this
position, the position of these two groups in a unique way? This
dichotomy creates a situation in which the Muslims of inner cities
have a tremendous potential of social capital, right, or the
ability to draw on developed internal communal support systems
and networks with other organizations, such as churches,
schools, neighborhood associations, local politicians
and small interest groups. So that's really
important to highlight the fact that hamdulillah because we are,
as we mentioned, there's so many Muslims who are, you know, who are
living in very highly dense, densely populated major cities
across the country, that gives them advantages to be able to work
with other organizations in particular, as was mentioned,
here, churches, and schools, neighborhood associations, and
just to be more politically engaged and active because of the
proximity of being so close to all of these different institutions or
organizations and having common interests. Right. So that
increases their social capital. And you do you see this, you find
Muslims who are in major cities, they're much more again, active in
the public life, they tend to have more bridge
building, you know, or efforts, whether it's organizational or
interfaith, but they do tend to be more in tune with what's going on
on a local level, because of that proximity. So that's one group,
right? Then they focus on
the the Muslims who are in the suburbs, right, the established
immigrants or other more affluent Muslims who live in the suburbs.
So let's see what they offer here. They say on the other hand,
Muslims living in the suburbs have tremendous intellectual and
financial capital. So that's also important. I mean, we, you know,
we know from the just basically being in this world, that money is
power and wealth is power. And so when we have an Hamdulillah,
Muslims who are still part of the community who identify as Muslim
tourists who was strong in their faith, and they also have the
financial capital, that's a tremendous advantage, right for
the community as a whole, because they can support programs, they
can, you know, be the backbone that really
holds up our infrastructure and gives us again, advantage to work
within the system. So they say here now that if we could
constructively right, in a healthy way, bring these two reservoirs of
capital together, so the social capital, and financial and
intellectual capital, all of those strengths, and, again, these are
privileged positions that each group have bringing them together,
right, we could then develop a demonstrable model that could
initiate a revolution in American civic participation. And you know,
this quite fascinating if you think about it. Because
Hamdulillah we are such a diverse community, we're certainly not
monolithic.
In terms of our ethnic ethnicity, the representation in terms of
ethnicities or, or cultures, but the faith brings us together,
right, and so Hamdulillah, when we think about the Muslim community,
visa vie, other communities, we do see, there's more cohesiveness.
And so this isn't as implausible as some may think, or idealistic,
because other faith groups, for example, Christians are so many
different denominations, and they each are very separate, in many
ways, right. And so they might have their own interests
independent of one another, because of the their differences.
Whereas for our community, for the most part, we do have very common
held common interests. And we do so that it's quite possible that
this could actually happen if we find a way to marry these two
groups together and the capital, that they each have to work for
the betterment of the entire community. Right. So then they go
on to say that
that revolution lies in our potential to reverse one of the
most damaging implications of suburban sprawl, which is the
depletion of intellectual and material resources from the inner
city. And that's actually a really great reminder, because, again, as
we're finding, which is very true that yes, if you look at our major
cities, and the way that the, you know, the, that our that our
cities are run, you find that those who are in inner cities do
tend to have diminished resources, as opposed to those in more
affluent areas. So this is what they're really speaking about
here. Right? That that's something that we have to certainly prevent.
Because if the Muslims that are in the inner cities are not able to
get access to the same type of education or other resources, then
certainly it's going to be difficult to implement this, but
if we can find a way to around that problem, right?
Then then inshallah we can maybe try to implement this, right. So
it's, it's, again, something to really think about and consider,
but this is all context about how again, we should be having this
large sort of view, you know, of optimism, you know, we need that
we need optimistic people to be leading these conversations
because people can get really cynical and just kind of
Negative, especially when it comes to politics. And it's like, oh, we
can't change systems. These are all, you know, oppressive systems,
how are we going to change them? Well, we know and I think we also
have to just look at
historical precedent that if you have, you know, if you collect, if
you gather, and you really mobilize, and you have a strong
vision, and you have those leaders who are in the forefront, who have
the vision, and who can, you know, kind of be patient and work within
the system, you can make change, it's just not something that's
going to be done overnight. So we do have to be realistic, right,
that these things take time to bring it to come into fruition.
But it's just, you know, nice to see it kind of spelled out in a
way for us about how our community is positioned in a, in a way where
we could potentially really, you know, do something that hasn't
been done before, because of the fact that we are, we do have these
strong positions, we just have to bring them together, right? So
then they go on to say,
rudimentary efforts undertaken by Muslims to counter this trend have
already begun. So the hamdulillah organizations such as inner city
Muslim Action Network in Chicago, combined the material and
intellectual resources of suburban Muslims, with the organizational
expertise, and networking potential of inner city Muslims to
create a dynamic synthesis that is having an ever greater impact on
the life of both Muslim and non Muslim communities. And it's true
I have that I don't, you know, know a lot about the work of
humanity. But I've certainly heard of, I think, Brother, brother,
Rami nashashibi, I think that's how you say his last name, that
he's mashallah very highly, you know, praised for the work that
he's done for what he's provided the Chicago subcommittee, but also
the community at large, the city of Chicago has recognized him for
his efforts. So I think the fact that we do already have an example
of this model working in this organization, Ema is really
encouraging, right? My show that we can do this. So that's, they
mentioned that and then they also mentioned that in Los Angeles, and
this is also another organization that I am familiar with. The OMA
community clinic right demonstrates how the vision and
focused action of suburban university students can create a
major center that provides one of the few venues where poor
residents of the South Central Los Angeles community can receive free
basic medical care, and referrals from for more advanced treatment.
And Marshall, I used to live in Southern California and the clinic
was very well known and had a great reputation with the
community, not just the Muslim community because of the services
they provided. So again, mashallah, this is Faith in
Action, right? It's taking the principles and values of our faith
to be served, you know, to serve to serve people to to try to be
engaged and involved into benefit, Bring, bring benefit to people,
and it's actually you know, bringing it to life. And so these
organizations are great representatives of our community
and Hamdulillah.
They go on to mention, also, that in the, in the Washington DC area,
there's a cat project initiated by the all Dallas area Muslim
society, the Adams Center, right, builds bridges of goodwill and
helps to initiate avenues of communication and coordination
between the wealthy Muslims of suburban Northern Virginia and the
poor communities of inner Washington DC. So mashallah,
they're going one by one city by city, major cities and identifying
leading organizations and the work that they're doing that actually
does use these two positions, right, the more privileged a
fluent community you know, those resources to be able to benefit
those who are in the inner city so it's really incredible that
mashallah we have in a relatively short amount of time if you really
look at the the Muslim community in terms of the immigrant Muslim
community, of course we know that mashallah African American
brothers are our black brothers and sisters our African American
brothers sisters have been here for for several decades, and
they've certainly established themselves here, but when we do
find, you know, come to the lab in a relatively short amount of time
we've been able to do quite a lot when it comes to the
infrastructure and these organizations Mashallah. So
then they go on to talk about sort of where to okay here in rich in
Richardson, Texas, the Islamic Association of North Texas i n t,
provided the funding to renovate one of the oldest mosques of inner
city Dallas, in Santa Clara right here in the Bay Area, a suburb in
the southern San Francisco Bay Area that Rahima Foundation works
in collaboration with Masjid worth worth a dean of inner city Oakland
to help feed 300 families a month and this is this book I'm not
actually sure when
The last publication was of this but that's likely higher even now
I'm assuming mashallah they do they've been working so diligently
for a very long time they were Hema foundation.
So then they, you know, this is now the closing, we've just got a
couple paragraphs left but mashallah ending on this high
note, this note of hope, write this note of Insha Allah, you know
that this isn't just ideals that we're, we're, we're sharing here
these are actual real, really, because they're implemented,
they're real, they're real ideas that can be implemented. So now
they say, if we can expand and develop these efforts, a new and
unprecedented model of civic involvement can emerge. This
development is in no way limited to the social service sector
mobilized social capital would inevitably engender deeper models
of citizen involvement that involve greater forms of self
governance, and enhanced collaboration with other economic,
social and political actors. However, for these developments to
occur, we need a revitalized type of Muslim one who is instilled
with a bold and God conscious vision. This is why the agenda to
change our condition is so important, if implemented, it will
engender Muslims with a healthier relationship with a lot and to
healthier relationship with Allah will lead to a healthier
relationship with our neighbors, that enhanced relationship will in
turn lead to a change in our collective condition, God willing,
may Allah may excuse me, May blessings and peace be upon the
Messenger of Allah, as long as those who remember him continue to
do so. So Allah you said, mashallah, what a wonderful way to
really wrap up this text right to give us first of all, reminders of
everything that we should be working on up until this point,
but also a plan a vision, and also some examples to look forward or
to look to, to see how this is possible. That once again, we work
on our selves we work on really cultivating all of these wonderful
virtues that we've covered over the past, how many weeks has it
been, I've lost track, you know, martial law, there's just been so
many gems in this book that we we've covered, but to really take
the time to transform ourselves, and go through this
transformational process, that we can eventually get to that place
where now we, we take this healing, right. And that's really
how I see Islam. And I mentioned it earlier to in the room that I
talked about on clubhouse. The app, that Islam to me is a
medicine. And it is, you know, something that I've personally
benefited from tremendously ever since I became a practicing Muslim
Hamdulillah I was born into a Muslim family. But it wasn't until
I was in college. And I started to really appreciate and value my
faith and take it seriously and commit to my faith that I realized
the power and potential of it right, and so on hamdulillah it's
such a gift that Allah subhanaw taala blessed me with and blessed
my family with that for me, when I do any type of Dawa, whether it's
to Muslims or interfaith work, it really does come down to this
feeling of responsibility that I can see that so many people are
suffering in the world and if they take the same medicine that I
took, that helped me that inshallah they will also come out
of that and this is just a proof right? Our Deen Alhamdulillah has
literally transformed people's lives. And if you've ever worked
with converts, where people have come into Islam, they come from
all different backgrounds and all experiences but they will attest
to the fact that Islam offered them something that they couldn't
find anywhere else and it did it improve them, it just made them a
better versions of themselves, it refined them to be the best
versions of themselves and that's what this beautiful tradition of
ours can offer anybody regardless of where they're at in their life
or what stage or age they're at in their life, if they take this
faith seriously and they start to with intention, work on bettering
themselves, then they will see the transformation of the or the
transformative power within themselves and in their
relationships right your families will just start to get healthier.
And then of course it has a ripple effect because when we have
healthy families we have healthy communities and neighborhoods and
then healthy cities and inshallah healthy states and inshallah I
mean, you know, we can hope for we should always have the highest
hopes and aspirations when it comes to these things that
inshallah you know, it will just continue to spread in that
direction. But the starting point is, of course ourselves, which is
why this text is such a wonderful gift and we have to make immense
you know, just have immense gratitude and make dua for our
teachers. Our scholars show Hamza Yusuf and Imams a check it for up
Putting this together for us in such a concise, thoughtful, really
just easy to follow, structured way that anybody, even if they're
not Muslim can just pick up this book and gain a lot of insight and
benefit from it. But I've really enjoyed this class. And I thank
all of you for tuning in week after week or every other week, I
should say, and being patient when we, when we've had some technical
difficulties, but you've been very mashallah consistent. And I
appreciate that.
And just for those who may have kind of caught the class like
midway, I want to invite you to go back because the way that I
started, the class was a little bit unconventional in that I
didn't begin with the beginning of the book, I actually started with
the appendix, the Appendix A, at the end of the book, so right
after chapter five is the section that I started with. And I did
that intentionally because I found
what what is the Appendix A, again, if you don't have the book,
I highly recommend you getting it. But this is where the advice from
sue the Amazon group called the foundations of the spiritual path,
they've actually added it to the book to this book agenda and
change our condition. And this is an incredible advice. It's a long
text. But it's just one of my favorite absolutely favorite
things. I think every single believer should read it and should
be very familiar with it. Because it gives you again, it lays out
the foundation, we must all the teachers, our teachers should
Hamza anyone I'm say they've given us really a guide, and a very
elaborate explanation on how to do this on a practical level day to
day to day, and then kind of just the roadmap of it all. With this
advice. It's very
precise in terms of just laying out the, you know, the foundations
and kind of for all of us to really think inwardly about how
sincere we are, and what we want. If we do you want to be on the
spiritual path, and how to start filtering and kind of making those
necessary changes, you know, what are the prerequisites of even
being on a spiritual path? I mean, we can say that we all want to be
on a spiritual path. But if that claim or that wish, and that
desire is true and sincere, then you'd have to really be willing to
do the work. And so he kind of lays it out for you like, what,
you know, if you want to be on this path? Well, the first five
things that you need to have, and are you willing to have them is
are you willing to be mindful of Allah, publicly and privately,
right, so that's the very first thing he lays out there, this is
the foundation, you have to be willing to be consistent that it's
not just a display or a show or performance, but you truly are
mindful of a lot. You truly have that awareness that God is
watching you and that you're thinking about him. Right. And
that's privately and publicly, publicly. Then he says, are you
willing to basically adhere to the Sunnah. Write in Word. And indeed,
so it's not just that, you know, certain teachings of the prophesy,
son, I'm that you may know certain aspects of his life, but you
actually follow them, right? Because there are many people who
know. But unfortunately, they don't. They don't implement and
that's that's the real danger of not being consistent there. Then
he says, The next quality is that you're indifferent to the
acceptance or rejection of others, right? So that you're not really
affected by praise or criticism, but you kind of, you know, because
it's all about Allah, it's not about people. Right? So are you
willing to, to work on that? You know, because this is
foundational, you know, in order to be on a spiritual path, you
have to have these qualities, right? Satisfaction with Allah and
hardship and ease, right? Are we the type that have very, a
conditional relationship with Allah or a transactional
relationship where it's like, okay, as long as I get what I
want, then I love you, then I worship you, then I have, you
know, I see you in the best light. Is that how we are? Or is it
really, even if life is really difficult, and he's testing you
that you still have a readable format that you have no
complaints, you don't look to us for handout with this negative
lens ever? You just won't allow yourself to do that you accept
everything he gives you? Because you know, it's for your best. Is
that the case? If not, again, it's a prerequisite. It's a
foundational part of being on a spiritual path. You have to get
there to do that. And that requires a lot of introspection
and commitment, right? And then the last one is related in a way
but turning to a lot and prosperity and adversity. Are you
is that? Does that come naturally to you that you turn to Allah when
you're going through some you know challenges in life or when things
are going really well? Or do you only go to Allah when you're in a
desperate situation?
Right where's your Wow house?
strong is your connection. And so this is just the foundation. And
then he goes on, it's a much longer text, but he goes on to
provide all of the, the foundations that that precede
these. And so it kind of builds upon itself in a way to, to arrive
at these five. But the point here is that, you know, it's such an
incredible text. And so I really invite all of you again, if you
don't have the book to please get the book, it should be really in
every Muslim library. And as someone who works with teens, and
youth, I think this is also something that we should be
sharing with our youth, you know, a lot of times we work backwards
in our community, where people will take classes that should be
really taught at a very early age much later in life. And that's no
fault on anybody, sometimes those resources aren't available, but if
we're doing it the correct way, we should be teaching these things to
our kids from a young age, they should know, you know, for
example, you know, just basic introduction introductory, like a
pay the, you know, concepts they should know about the skip and
enough's, you know, purification on the soul purification of the
heart, they should be learning about the diseases of the heart,
because it's about character development, right. So they
shouldn't be learning these concepts, of course, having to do
their iba, they should know those things. But we shouldn't wait to
be in our 20s and 30s, and then arrive at a place where we sat
suddenly, now, because we have free time, we want to, you know,
study Islam as, as some leisure activity. These are, you know,
treasures that have been left for us. So that we can really navigate
this very complex place called Dinya. So we have to just
appreciate when our teachers have put these things together, whether
they're teachers of the past, or the present, that these are all,
like I said, you know, medicine, they're medicinal, they're,
they're healing for us. And so I really think it's so important
that we are grateful for the knowledge that has been given to
us and preserved for us, and then also the access to this knowledge,
because many of these texts traditionally are in languages
that maybe some of us are, don't speak or don't have access to
whether it's Arabic or Persian or otherwise Turkish, or what have
you, or to do. So the fact that the teachers went to the that, you
know, the next step of translating it into a language that we can all
access here in the West is also another great blessing that we
have to ask, you know, make make a lot of God for on their behalf, to
all of us out there for them because of their contributions.
But you know, So anyhow, if you joined the class midway through or
towards the end, you can go back and watch the recordings where we
do go over the appendix first and then we jump into the book if you
if you want to kind of catch up. But I just want to thank all of
you again, for tuning in. Inshallah, I hope to be doing some
programs during Ramadan, I'm kind of trying to figure out my
schedule, but I do want to do something. So until I look out for
some, some notice about that. But this will be our last official
class of agenda to change our condition. I want to thank again,
the team and MCC, in particular brother Solomon who has been you
know, mashallah he. He's why we're able to do these every week. He
does all the tech work in the back to set it all up. So I want to
thank him immensely, brother, Munir and of course, all of the
people at MCC for making this possible. And all of you for your
contributions to the discussions when when you've had questions or
what have you. I've appreciated that feedback. So thank you so
much. And I'm gonna go ahead and stop the screenshare now and see
if there are any questions maybe I don't know.
I'll go ahead and try to pull up the screens here and see if
there's any lasting comments that anyone has insha Allah and then we
can we can end it for today
so I'm just going to check a few pages Please forgive me for any
delay.
Okay, so I'm checking the MCC Facebook page
all right, I don't see any questions or anything. I mean, I
see some very nice comments. Thank you, but I don't see any questions
so I'm just going to check the YouTube page. And if we don't see
anything, we can end early for today. And inshallah I will I hope
to see all of you at a for another class soon but just give me one
moment while I get the YouTube page going here, inshallah.
Okay, I'm gonna
alright, I always do that forget to press mute. Alright hamdulillah
Oh, Thank you Sister Lisa. MashAllah for your kind
comments there and hamdulillah so I don't see anything else unless
brothers on the man has something that I don't know about, but I
wanted
Thank you all again inshallah we'll go ahead and end in the eye
and I pray that Allah subhanaw taala makes the month of Ramadan
easy first of all that we all witnessed the month of Ramadan or
Alamo benevolent Ramadan inshallah and that was part of facilitates
the month for all of us that were able to inshallah be with our
loved ones that were able to fast with ease Inshallah, and that all
those fans that it gives us, rewards us for our fast for our
prayers, our dogs, that were able to really connect with the book of
Allah subhanaw taala we should all try our best to really commit to
connecting with the Quran, it is the month of the Quran. So we also
try to make it easy for us, again to do all of these things and you
know, we had the experience of, of Ramadan in in COVID or quarantine
last year, so inshallah it's going to probably look very similar to
that. But hopefully our state is a little bit more settled now.
Certainly we were very tense and and there's so much uncertainty a
year ago. But other than that, I will show you that allows promises
true for intermodal cities right in the mountains years ago,
because there is immense ease, much more ease now than there was
a year ago. So in sha Allah, we should be positive, we should feel
encouraged. And we should be hopeful that this will be a
beautiful Ramadan experience, even though yes, we're not likely going
to have access to the masjid as we did last year. The same situation
I should say, we didn't have access to then either. But again,
attitude, perspective, all of that has been shifted to ensure a more
positive mindset and we should enter the month with a lot of
hope, and also gratitude because the amount of time that we are
given it's another year of time if we really think about the you know
the windfall of time that this entire experience of being on
lockdown has given us it's been an immense blessing and have the line
and also a lot of people have struggled with it but I'm
specifically speaking about time because in Ramadan I think that's
always something that we want more of right? Not necessarily maybe
for the fasting part of it, but more for the stretching out of the
baraka of the month, right? People really, I think observe that there
is immense Baraka in the month and we're always heartbroken when it's
time for it to end so inshallah you know mellow spa that make it
easier may we all have the most beautiful Ramadan of our lives. I
wish all of you nothing but the best and thank you again so much
for being here consistently. For every session and inshallah we'll
see you soon. Inshallah we'll go ahead and
all the blame and shaytani R rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim, Allah
azza wa jal in Santa Fe Hospital in Alladhina amanu I was very
happy with them I saw Bill happy with the rest of the summer so had
to go home over him because Shalom in the interest of Furukawa to
buoy Lake Allah homestead in the cinematic honestly then I will
Modena What have you been on Mohamed Salah hottie who was
Saddam? Why that he was happy with Saddam this Sleeman Kathira just
like welfare and again everyone have a wonderful evening
inshallah. We'll see you soon. Saramonic Omar Abdullah he'll
record