Hosai Mojaddidi – Reflecting Righteousness The Qualities of the Righteous
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of dressing up as a mirror to reflect on one's actions and avoiding confusion. They stress the importance of action and reflectivity in achieving blessedness and achieving three things, including action and action in achieving achieving three things. The speakers also stress the importance of actions and reflectivity in changing the world and bringing the world back to a state of fear. They stress the importance of faith in restoring the balance and bringing light to our bodies to see the truth.
AI: Summary ©
So I've met her and he met him that I was set out to set and why
they should have an MBA one more setting. Say that our Mowlana What
have you been able to have been? Some Allahu Allah He was salam
while you Savio salam to Sleeman Kathira
Salah shamira Walk you and I will likely put you to sleep. I am
really tired. So I'm going to ask for your forgiveness ahead of time
but Masha Allah following you is so difficult. Now really, because
Michelle, she's amazing. I feel like, you know, if you seen those
pictures of like these spider webs, you know, there's some of
them that are kind of just messy. And then there's these gorgeous
ones. And that's how I imagined especially mirrors brain, like
this gorgeous web of intricate just tangents and just designed
but everything comes full circle, you just do it so beautifully.
mela increase you and protect your preserve you. And Hamdulillah. Um,
you know, as your mind, it is an honor to be with all of you here
today. And I want to think again that I have a foundation, and all
of you for for being here and for supporting this incredible
organization. This is as a side effect of I mentioned our fifth
installment of this series. And Michelle each time we've come
together to spotlight incredible women in our tradition, but I'm
going to veer into a different direction today similarly to what
others shamira presented in terms of this concept of reflecting,
right, so I'm actually going to share some reflections, I'm going
to reflect on reflecting righteousness. And I'm going to
start off as I love to do, I'm a teacher I like to teach. So I like
to look at words and what they mean. So if we look at this word,
reflect, you know, Webster's you can look it up. But I'm
specifically I'm I want to actually focus on on specific
definitions here, there's many of them, you can there expanded
definitions, but here to make manifest or apparent, right. And
then reflection is the production of an image by or as if by a
mirror. So I want you to keep in mind those concepts, right to make
manifest or apparent. And then this concept of a mirror, because
it's very relevant to our experience as believers and what
Allah subhanaw taala asks of us here in chapter sort of a budget
ought, I have 13. All that's how the says, oh, humanity, he's
speaking to all human beings, right? Indeed, we created you from
male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may
get to know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight
of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly all
knowing, all aware. So to make one to become known to one another.
But also in order to do that, you have to make yourself known. And
this is one of the great gifts of our tradition, especially for us
as women, is that by wearing our hijab, whether you wear it all the
time or not, you know, and I've given a talk on this subject
before, but I really encourage you to not fall into this black and
white type of thinking that I have to, I have to either be a hijabi
or don't not a hijab, you don't do that. Just wear the hijab embrace
it. It is a beautiful symbol. And it's an act of devotion and
worship. But also one of the gifts of the hijab is that we recognize
one another right? How many times have you been somewhere and maybe
you didn't feel safe, for whatever reason, right? But then Subhan
Allah, Allah brings someone around the corner. And immediately you're
like, 100 love my sister. She's here. She came to bring me relief
when I was feeling something, right. So we get to know one
another through this beautiful gift of hijab. And you don't have
to, as I said, fall into this binary of either identify as a
hijab, I'm using specific words, or I don't know, just wear the
hijab, just like with prayer, pray, do they get it's all access,
we have full access to all of us. And many people actually, by doing
that, slowly, they never want to take it off, and inshallah that's
the goal.
He now speaks specifically to the prophesy setup, and also through
him to us. He says, Tell your wives and daughters and the women
of the believers sha Allah that includes all of us to draw their
cloaks over themselves, thus, it is likely that they will be known,
right? So this is specifically what I was referencing. So we are
a parent to one another. And this is the gift again, of reflecting
our faith outwardly.
Mirror, remember that was part of the definition. So one of my
favorite Hadith, right that the believer is a mirror to the
believer.
right at the moment and there at the moment, some of you have heard
stories that I've shared over the years. But the one that always
this hadith reminds me of, is the story at the airport. And if you
haven't heard it, I'll quickly tell you, I don't want to bore
you. But I'll tell you, because it's a good reminder. This is when
I was waiting for someone many, many years ago. And I used to
dress a certain way that I thought fulfilled my identity at that
time. And I was very, very focused on the outward so I dressed in all
black and I wanted to look very intimidating. I had certain very
strange ideas, may Allah forgive me.
So I'm at the airport, and I'm, you know, sitting waiting for my
ride. And I want to kind of, you know, I'm doing the typical thing
that you do people watch, but I'm also sending a message, you know,
like, I'm not scared to be on that. Whatever it is, I'm doing,
I'm doing it. And then Subhanallah this car pulls up, and this woman
comes out and she is not, she's scantily dressed. She's not
dressed modestly. And of course, you know, I just started
immediately judging her. I looked at her, I was like, stuff a lot.
Look at her.
Tank top shorts. What is this? You know, all these thoughts came to
me. And I'm just sitting there and Subhan Allah,
Allah and has perfect timing and his perfect wisdom. She puts she
was getting something out of the trunk of her car, she puts the
trunk down, and she looks directly at me across all these people, and
I see her full eye contact. And she just starts to be lying to me.
She walks to me. And at this point, my heart is like racing,
like what's going on?
Was she in my mind? I don't know, maybe. But she comes in, she
stands right in front of me. And she's so humbled. She's puts her
head down. She do what she's not looking at me. Now. She just kind
of head down. Hello. And she's like Santa Monica.
Not the words at all. I expected to hear from her. This is an
American, white,
average, blonde, California woman. We're not thinking she even knows
those words, let alone saying them. And then she proceeds to
tell me she's embarrassed that she's dressed the way she is. And
she is Muslim. But she would you know, she saw me Subhanallah look
at her state. She saw me and she was so happy. Because she felt it
was like a sign that Allah wanted her to come and meet me and asked
me she has a son who she's raising Muslim, she wanted resources. So
we start talking, and the entire time I'm filled with
disgust in myself.
Because I just had all these horrible thoughts about this
person. And Allah sent her to me with such humility. So to me, that
single event was the mirror that Allah subhanaw taala reflected to
me to for me to see my inward ugliness. Whatever I judged her
for her outward, whatever display my inward ugliness was far worse.
And hamdullah. That was a huge turning point for me spiritually.
So this hadith reminds me of that. And this is why it's so important
that when we see each other, we see each other as mirrors that are
reflecting and that's why we have the beautiful sunnah of smiling,
right? This is a son of the prophesy Saddam because we want to
reflect as Satish Mira beautifully beautifully elucidated the light
of faith. And we do that through prophetic character, we do that
through receiving people with pleasant faces. So it's very
important to do that and also to remove burdens, right? How many of
you have ever been low, and a low point and someone just by their
smile, they uplifted you? Right? And you just felt instantly
transformed? Because even whatever was going on at home, maybe your
health wasn't well, but someone's energy, Mashallah. I mean, we just
experienced it with this other shamira. Right, she just she has
that ability to just wake people up. But people can do that people
can transform. So we're mirrors of one another. And it's a very
important concept to internalize that when you're out and about,
that you see yourself with that capacity. And to be honest, I feel
like it's such a gift. When you really think about what outwardly
displaying your faith does. It not only reminds you to be better, but
you're also inshallah serving as a reminder for other people. And
these are the types of rewards that await us on the Day of
Judgment that most of us will have no idea about, because we're doing
all these things unknowingly, that Allah so generous, he's taking it
to account for us, just you know, guiding people, there are people
and I'll tell you, this is a kind of an odd story, but it's still
something to share when I was in college because I was when I wore
hijab it became you know, kind of buzzword of the day
And years later, I met a friend from college who was sick, she was
not Muslim, but she, she had a turban on. And she said, You
inspired me to wear my turban.
And I thought that was amazing. You know, I didn't either she just
saw me wearing my hijab and she started looking into her faith and
next thing you know, she's wearing her Sikh turban. So you know
humbly that, but this is the capacity we have inshallah to help
ourselves and help other people.
If we go to the next word of the title of my talk, which is
righteousness. This is also a very important word to understand. This
is specific, right? The words here that I've highlighted, really do
bring us back to the Divine Law, morality to be upright. And this
concept of righteousness in our tradition is something that we
also need to understand in terms of the terms that we hear because
there's a lot of terms that are interchanged, often when we're
talking about this concept of righteousness. So here Allah
subhanaw taala says, what the Iowan who had Bidri what Taqwa so
these two words, specifically bit, and Taqwa are what we need to
understand, in order to have real clarity about what it means to be
righteous, right, and they work beautifully. They're complementary
to each other. How is according to the scholars Albear is the
comprehensive term or phrase for acting upon everything which Allah
loves, and is pleased with right from the outward and the inward
actions, that's better. So when we do things that almost pride that
loves, we're showing better, we're showing purity. And then Taqwa is
the comprehensive phrase for avoiding everything which Allah
Subhana Allah, His messengers, so a lot of Saddam, dislike from the
outward and the interactions. So they're both needed in order to be
righteous, we have to act and that's why even in the Quran,
they're often paired together. We need better and Taqwa.
And again, here's another reminder, Allah's Prophet, and
this is a beautiful reminder, because all of us have to ask, I
love if I wish, I don't know if there's a list maybe someone
knows, of all the questions all opposes us on the in the Quran.
But I really think that is a wonderful way of interacting with
the Quran is finding maybe someone can do that. And any students here
want to take that project, though.
But to take all the questions out, and just see them as an aggregated
list, so that you can examine the questions that we should be asking
ourselves that Allah wants us to ask because he's asking us, right,
he's asking us, will you enjoin PT upon mankind? And then forget
yourselves while you recite the book? Do you not understand? I
mean, this is this should put some fear in all of our hearts, because
a lot of us, we'd like to, you know, correct. Other people,
police other people, right?
I mean, we can ask our husbands and I'll tell you that right now,
my husband to be the first to say, Yeah, you're you're the police in
the house, you know, correcting him. I do this, why don't you put
this there?
We like to correct a lot our children, you know, our siblings,
any older siblings in the room, you know who you are.
I'm in the middle. I have one younger sibling who doesn't even
listen to me. So I get piled on a lot from older siblings. But we
like to correct others. And then when do we examine ourselves,
right? So this is why these verses are really important because Allah
is asking you to examine yourself, right?
So how do we then achieve this concept of Taqwa? How do we get to
the place of better and Taqwa this right? The concept of
righteousness? Excuse me? Three things. I wish this was you know,
in a in a way that I could, like reorder it, but it goes in this
order. I was like Ark Ark works, but it doesn't so Aker is going to
be the acronym for this. Try to remember anchor, anchor, how to I
don't know, what can we come up with? But what is what are the
three components of achieving righteousness? First is action.
It's very important that we call ourselves to be people of action.
We are not people of just words, right? We're not
people of action
so we must take action to move away from and I'm gonna get to
this specifically each one I'll expand on a little bit, but we
have to have action to move away from what three things that
destroy us spiritually, doubt, distraction, and despair. These
three things also, you know, I like alliteration, so DDD, right
it
these are the things that take us away from the remembrance of Allah
subhanaw taala. And we have to be people who move away from these
three things. And I'll get to that in a moment. Knowledge, we are a
dean of knowledge blind. Faith is not acceptable in Islam, you have
to, and I read this recently, it's not enough to believe in Allah
subhana wa Tada, you have to know Allah subhana wa Tada. And that's
very powerful. Because if you just believe without actually really
examining you, right, because he calls us to look, pay attention,
look at the signs, then you'll come to confirm that belief, but
if just believing because your parents told you, or whoever told
you is not enough for the for the believer, so we actually have to
learn. And then we have to learn about our faith, our Creator, and
our purpose, what are we doing here, and then we have to
obviously act upon what we learned, and then reflection. So
this idea that is informing the theme of this whole program of
reflecting is also part of our responsibility as believers,
right? That we openly and outwardly act upon our knowledge,
to keep ourselves accountable and reflect the light for others. So
this, these three are how we do it. So how do we do this
specifically? The first one, right? This is from a hadith where
m&r May Allah, please be pleased with him, he said that the servant
will not reach the level of true righteousness until he leaves what
wavers in his heart. So this is why if you're having doubts, you,
it's on you to seek and ask those, as Allah says, Ask those who know,
you can't just sit and, you know, be okay with that. And I recently
had this incident with someone who was having some doubts. And we,
you know, I explored it with them. And I, I gave them answers. And
they said it was sufficient. And then a few weeks later, they came
back and expressed the same issues. And I said, Well, I
thought you said it was sufficient. And I said, Well, you
know, I didn't want you to be frustrated with me. And I said, I
stopped for a while, I would never become frustrated with you, I
would want to help you. But you can't be okay with just sitting
with those types of doubts, because that's where you give the
inroad to shaytaan to come and monopolize, right? He's the West
West, he's the whisper, he comes, when you're having a seed, and he
will fly out, he will water it, you will pour on that seed until
it flourishes into something that really now causes you a crisis of
faith. So that's why you have to nip it in the bud right away. Seek
out people who can answer those questions and don't ever lose
conviction. The answers are there were insufficient. Like I will
tell you right now, I don't have all the answers. But our dean,
Allah subhanaw taala said it is perfected, it is complete. That
means there's nothing that's missing. The prophesy said I'm and
all the prophets completed their mission, it's part of the, the,
the responsibility of the prophets that they give you the full
entirety of the message, they completed the message, it's
perfect, we are limited, but we can at least do our best and find
the answers in shallow just through, you know, through our
connections and networking. But don't let shade on convince you
otherwise. So it's on you though, to move away from it. And also
with despair, if you're in a state of sadness over something that has
happened in your life, you've got to remember this life is temporal
and and despair is forbidden. We cannot become hopeless. We cannot
become hopeless because when you're hopeless, what you're doing
is you're showing a lack of confidence in Allah subhana wa
Tada to change your circumstance. And there are people who have been
through horrific, atrocious circumstances, who are walking
with smiles bigger than many of us can maintain. How does that
happen? If it's not for the power of Allah subhana wa Tada. They've
been through loss of everything that you can imagine. And we don't
need to look beyond our province or the lives to see the
possibility of a heart that is strong with Allah subhanaw taala.
And Allah can change their circumstances. So never let this
despair and depression sink you down. And then distraction. This
is very important because we are in the age of distraction. This is
the age where our minds, our hearts are every minute. You know,
I was speaking to someone recently about these phones. They're so
intrusive, it's so difficult to have like a clear, organized
thought, right? How many times have you planned something but
then you get derailed because oh ding ding, ding, ding, ding
anything. So we've got to accept that. There's too many
distractions. And that's why you have to hold on to the things that
help you to get out.
of distraction. Number one being prayer. Your prayer is literally
like, you know, imagine you fall asleep at the wheel and then you
get a splash of water on your face, right? That's the dunya
dunya is like we're constantly falling asleep in terms of
distractions in terms of just forgetting our focus. And the
prayer is wakes you up, it's sobers you up, like wake up. And
remember, you're not here for to eat and drink and listen to music
and watch TV and socialize all day, you are here to worship Allah
subhana wa Tada. So we need to hold on to those things that break
up our minds from the distractions of the dunya and what that will do
when we're actively doing this right this is where action is so
important, being proactive is we will inshallah increase in our
knowledge, which will increase our certainty and our conviction,
right, and this is, this is the path Inshallah, so that's action.
Now knowledge is also important, because we talked about, you know,
the, what it what it, what is top one and its essence, but what is
knowledge of the, of the mortality of the one who believes and who
has these beautiful qualities, this verse again, ALLAH SubhanA,
Allah Bacara is teaching us and I love that he starts off with what
what it isn't. It is not, pa t to turn your faces towards the east
in the West. Very powerful. Subhan Allah, because what is I mean,
there's, you know, I, when I first read this, I was thinking
Subhanallah, you know, of the, you know, the end of prayer, you know,
what do we all do we give our Salam. So I just thought, Okay,
this is like this reflexive act that we're all doing, we're all
very, you know, proud of ourselves very happy with ourselves, which
is, by the way, one of the dangers of the neffs is whenever you get
content to content, but sometimes we think, Oh, I'm doing, you know,
the bare minimum, I'm praying, I've got my bases covered, so you
get too comfortable. But then I read that I've seen it. And it was
specifically referencing the the Christians who prayed toward the
east and the Jews who prayed toward the west, and I'm sure
there's more opinions. But anyway, either way, he starts off by
telling us what it isn't. It's not pious to turn this way in that
way, or to basically outwardly do certain things that we may find
ourselves, proud of, but rather, what is pod.
We believe in all of us. Pantha, the last day, the angels the book,
the prophets, we give wealth, look at the qualifiers here, despite
loving it. Right? When you give that which you love.
It's this is tough, right? Because it's hard to give away things that
are nice or money, we want to hold on to it, we're scared. And this
is where shaitan is he, you know incites fear in the heart of the
believer by the threat of poverty, right, this is one of his tactics.
So you give for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala, even if you love
that, what you're giving, to who, to your family, to orphans, to
those who are in difficult circumstances, travelers beggars,
and then the one who performs their prayer and gives the, the
arms I'm sorry, there's a there's a typo here. And those who fulfill
their oath when they pledge and those who are patient in
misfortune, this is also this is these are all qualities of Taqwa.
So not only are you doing your basic, you know, obligatory
actions, but you're also what patient in misfortune, which has
to do with according to the Tafseer, it specifically has to do
with loss of wealth or struggles with wealth that your patient and
hardship which which is referencing health issues. So if
you are dealing with financial struggles, or health issues, these
verses are speaking to you that your patient, and then moments of
peril are, when there is like war, or any, you know, meeting of the
enemy, there's more on that specific definition or term, but
it is the they who are sincere and it is they who are reverent. So
these are the qualities of a person who has this sense, this
concept of righteousness, right, but Antiqua. And here they are in
an organized list for you, if you like lists, which I love lists, so
and again, forgive me for the typos, I actually have two copies
of this presentation, and I realized I edited the one that I
did not send to. So there you go. That's what happens when you don't
sleep it up. And so but here they are, right the beliefs and the
actions. And this brings us back to that second quality, right,
which is actions are the first thing that you need to have up
law, knowledge. And then the last one, which we'll get to is
reflection, but this is a quote that I was reading. This document
was just really fascinating. I can't wait to finish it was long,
but it was a Christian document. And it was really dealing with the
modern world and how Christians have lost their way. And it was, I
think, published in the 80s. But they were dealing with some of the
things which I'll get to in a moment relating to post modernity.
So they wrote this I said this is so relevant
Because for you know, this program was designed for the youth as well
so that really happy to see a lot of the younger teens girls in the
room but I love this message because I saw myself reading this,
you know, when I was your age, I was very zealous, you know, we
zeal, the zeal of youth makes you want to just act, and you just
want to be active. And we were I was doing so many crazy things
when I was in college, like the stories actually, I'm so glad the
internet was not around.
All I know I sometimes I swear I'm like, Thank you, Allah. Because
nowadays, like imagine you do something and then people have a
picture of it. And it's like, on your record for life. So anyway,
but the things that some of the things I did, like just protesting
and being very, very active. What the warning here, especially in
the second quarter, let's just read it actually many of the
important world changing movements in history. were started by
teenagers and young people. So those of you who are youth heed
this warning. And that's because they're still fresh enough and
idealistic enough to believe that the world can be changed, right?
You get to our age, you're kind of like looking at the exit door.
You're just like I'm out. I'm just we do our best but I'm can't wait
to get out. But with you guys Marshall yourself, hope so hammed
it up. But here's the warning. If you're going to change the world,
you had better be informed about the issues before you change it,
and have an informed commitment to changing the world. And not just a
youthful zeal that is without knowledge because action without
knowledge actually leads to darkness, which is the opposite,
right? We want to reflect light, we don't want to just be acting.
And that's what this culture does is it activates people with zero
basis of knowledge or purpose. And you just have all these people
that are emotionally just triggered and dysregulated looking
for something to as an outlet to get those emotions out. That's not
our tradition, our tradition is a tradition of knowledge. First and
foremost, you'll get to the action. But you've got to work
yourself first, before you start dictating to the world, right. So
just a really great reminder. And why do I mention this? Well, I'll
get to sorry, I have more to say on that. But this is also another
important concept in terms of reflecting right so there's many
things that we could do, but my brain Oh, I like as I said lists.
I feel like the simpler the message the easier that we can
retain it. So just if you can work on these for all of us and we can
work on these four things. We're good and shallow, we're good,
perfect our Salah
have a relationship with the Quran, where we never and I wish
Can we just do that now? Can we just do that right now?
Y'all Allah can we make an oath right now every single one of us
y'all Allah. That's how I'm gonna get emotional because just make an
oath to never leave the book of Allah for a single day. Can we all
make an A Nia right now, y'all Allah, never let me leave your
book for a single day.
If that means a verse Alhamdulillah if it means half a
page Alhamdulillah if it means more than that Alhamdulillah but
you have to this is what action is making notes and stick to it. I
will never ever leave the book of Allah, how could we leave the book
of Allah I'm mortified what I think of the days that I love the
book of Allah.
And on the Day of Judgment,
the regret that we will have the most is the hour that we did not
remember Allah, we will regret many things, but that is going to
be the biggest regret of our lives. So have a relationship with
the book of Allah, you never leave it for a single day. Dua we have
to
make the appeal that we want. I hear all the time. When I talk to
sisters or people, my children, my parents, you know, and we have so
much weighing on us about the future and so many fears. Take it
to the mat as they say, Wake up, wake up and cry to Allah.
Ask him to save your marriage. Ask him to heal you from your burdens
physically ask him to bring you know your family. If your families
are are fighting where there's problems, ask him to bring those
things ask Him to guide your children to keep them on hop. We
don't know if we're going to be around. You have to think about
these things asking me a lot you can do anything just protect them,
but make our da and make that a part of
your life that you don't also leave and then Viken being in a
constant state of the remembrance of Allah panda. I know that sounds
like a tall order but it's not because if you're as Michelle said
that she may have said if you're looking with the divine light, you
can't help but see Allah subhanaw taala in everything. You'll see it
you'll see it in the people that he puts you around. You'll see it
in every blessed
thing that that you have, you'll just be like Subhan Allah
hamdulillah and that's why the prophesy said look at his life and
he was constantly in the praise of Allah Subhana Allah because that's
all he saw. We can do that. That's why He gave us these doors. But we
have to want these things right. So if we can work on these four
things, we will reflect in sha Allah the righteousness that the
light that is in our hearts.
And then we can also and we should also reflect righteousness in our
companionship, the proposition was asked which of our companions are
best. So look for these companions. If you don't have
friends who do this, May Allah bring you friends who do this. I
am so grateful for the people that I call my soul sisters, these
beautiful people. So Suzanne, please make sure that she returns
people who we love.
So the money from our hearts like, Oh my God, because why they remind
you of Allah, we don't come together to talk about frivolity
and idle talk. Nobody's talking about television and music and
concerts and handbags, I couldn't care less. You give me a bag from
the 99 cent store is just as valuable as a Louis Vuitton. I
couldn't care less about brand names. Why are we obsessed with
these things? So you come together with your sisters, look for people
who their appearance reminds you of Allah, just looking at them.
You're like Allahu Akbar. That person she reminds me of God,
whose speech increases your knowledge. When they speak, you're
like, every time I leave, I learned something. That's the kind
of friends you want. And whose actions remind you of the
Hereafter you see them running around helping people serving,
doing high end because you know, a SABIC, one Assad because that's
who these people are, I want to be like them, that's the
companionship. So reflect that right reflected. The prophesies
instead of person is on the religion of his companions.
Therefore, let every one of you carefully consider the company he
keeps. And then said earlier, the law and said mix with the noble
people, you become one of them, and keep away from evil people to
protect yourself from their evils.
Now this is just going to be the closing, I do have a few more
slides after this. But I really want to send this message This was
really the the most essential part of what I want to share,
especially as it relates to the youth here.
We want all of us should be as we've talked and heard to reflect
the light of our truth, the truth, the single truth, the truth of
Islam, it is the single truth.
In order to do that, we also have to be mindful of the time that
we're in. We are in an era where there is a huge push, to privatize
faith to suppress the practice of faith. We have to be the ones who
reject that openly I will not be suppressed. That is why I will
proudly unapologetically wear my hijab. I will proudly say my name.
I will proudly greet people. The way that our deen teaches us to
greet you can greet non Muslims with Peace be upon you. Salam
aleikum, say it. Why not? It's a beautiful gift to give, right? And
when we do that, in sha Allah, we restore the balance. So what do I
mean by this concept of privatization of faith? This is a
post modern world. What does that mean? You need to look into post
modernity but we're in it. It's the world that we're in it. And
what is it? It's this framework that teaches right that there is
no universal truth with a capital T? These are atheists,
secularists, Neo realists, Marxist many of them who deny God, they do
not believe that God exists. So what do they believe there for
that we all have little truths. Do you have your truth? I have my
truth. We can all just be in a truth. I don't know. Party all day
long. We're just partying up a little truth. No, there's a single
truth, right.
But they what they've done is they've created a society in our
world now, where religion is consigned to irrelevance. Like
it's irrelevant if you're religious or not.
How does that How do Muslims exist in a time where this is acceptable
or normalized? How can we I mean, exist, right? We can't accept that
we cannot accept this worldview because religion is literally
every we are Dean, we are not a it's not a faith that we just
have. It's a way of our life. It's a way of our existence. So it
cannot be irrelevant. It is the most relevant and the most
essential part of our entire being is our faith. Right? All of these
other things is what we call the accidentals. Your oh the family
you were born into the, you know, color of your skin, your height,
your weight, your color, all those things are accidentals. You
had nothing to do with them, the essential is your heart, the
essential is your faith. So the most essential part of us is
actually our faith, right. But what they've done is they've
privatized faith practice, where it's a separation now, right
between the private and the public. And this is something that
this philosopher Christian philosopher described as a two
story truth. This is what this society has created. And in order
to, again, normalize the secularization of society, we're
seeing massive changes happening. I know, we're all shocked, I'm
sure I feel like I'm shell shocked. Like, every time I open
the news, I'm like, what this now I was already dealing with this.
And now I got to deal with this, this happening at such a rapid
rate, the, just the decay of our society. But that's in order to do
that they have to force people to privatize their faith in order to
secularize the society. So it all works to their agenda. But let's
look at this concept a little bit more again, visually, okay. This
two storey model of truth, this is a two story house, okay, just bear
with me, I was looking for a good image, this is what I found. Okay.
So there's a two story building here. The top is where they want
our faith to be consigned to, which is not basically grounded.
Okay. Think of all the symbolism here, right? Facts, knowledge,
science, reason, rational thought, right? These are verifiable things
that are grounded. So they're on the ground level, right? The
physical level, it's touching the ground, because that's where in
the world of materialists and scientists, and then people who
care more about this physical world. So they want us to just
keep our ideas because they're, you know, personal. They're non
rational, non cognitive, there's not much thought it's all heart.
Right? And this separation to create this, this division that
faith is in the heart is actually quite, it's It sounds nice, right?
This it's kind of purposefully
presented that way, it sounds nice, but it's actually quite
insulting. Because what they're saying is that we're not we're not
rational thinkers, we can't think if we have faith, right? You're
not using any thought it's all driven by your heart. No, this is
why our deen Subhanallah maybe the other traditions that claim could
be true. But if there's ever I mean, if from all of the world
religions, there is no greater emphasis on knowledge acquisition
than in Islam, you will not see any other tradition, focus more on
knowledge and learning and activating the brain than Islam.
So we reject this idea that our faith is consigned to the heart,
it's in the heart. But it's absolutely a rational thing. If we
think about things we're supposed to anyway. Right? We're supposed
to be thinking. So we need to really take this seriously,
especially for parents and educators, that when we're
teaching our children that we get this message across to be
unapologetically proud of your faith of other people are out
there celebrating all the stuff that they're doing, most of which
should never be even known to anybody else. Why are we being or
accepting this idea that we have to hide or minimize? Because even
like, you know, if you're, if you're outwardly wearing your
hijab, but you feel like you have to minimize your faith and what it
means to you, you can't really openly talk about it with your co
workers or your neighbors, or whoever reject that and be like,
No, I will openly talk about it, because this is how they're
getting away with what they're doing. They're making, they're
shaming us into oblivion. And other traditions have gone down
that path. But our deen is all about outward, we just went
through the verses that teach you to be outward and proud so that
people can know you. So we don't accept this. And that's why it's a
very important message. And I hope you're with me here. Now. I'm
going to close. I don't know if you know this story. I love this
story. It's so powerful.
The Parable of the elephant in the blind man.
This is a story. I don't know what culture it comes from. But it's
often used to talk about atheists will use this to talk about and
some, you know, perennialism to kind of have this idea that
there's truth in every faith that religious people are just a bunch
of blind people who are like these people touching different parts of
an elephant and that is all that they
are experiencing. So they believe that part of the elephant to be
true. So one will fit, you know, touch the tusks and say, Oh, this,
you know, it's smooth, and another will touch the trunk and say it's
rough and then the tail. The point is, is they've this concept comes
out of we're all just blind faith believers, right? That's what they
want to categorize all
People have religion. We're like these people with blindfolds on.
And we all think we have the truth because we're just blinded by the
section that we've been given. And that's all we see. We can't
experience anything outside of that. So they create this idea.
And then that's what they perpetuate. Whereas again, Ardene
is all about
what? Light, it's about knowledge. It's about, like, I mean, I just
had this little, you know, image here that I created, but this SR.
I was like, it's so obvious what the solution is, right? They're
all kind of trying to fumble around this elephant, not sure of
what's going on. And the answer is pretty obvious. Remove the
blindfold, remove the blindfold, and you'll see truth as truth.
That's the issue. And for us, that blindfold is not interesting
ourselves to ourselves. Don't Don't entrust yourself to
yourself, no matter how smart you think you are, no matter how you
know what family you come from, you need ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada. We
all need Allah subhanho wa taala. No matter how much you've been
practicing, how old you are, how many heads you've done, how many
prayers you've completed, how many Quran you've completed, if you
think for even a moment, that you can last in this world without the
Grace of Allah subhanaw taala and his guidance, you are on a path to
utter darkness. So for us, don't trust yourself, we remove the
blindfold, and we put our hands ourselves in the care of Allah
subhanaw taala that is what being a person of kappa is is always
reliant on their Lord never getting ahead of themselves and
never falling for the for the spiritual pitfalls and disasters
that are that so many others go through. And so we don't accept
this idea, right that we're all just a bunch of blind believers.
No, we we are turning on the lights, we're removing the
blindfolds we're learning. And when you do that, you see the
truth. The truth becomes manifest because Allah is so generous, that
He gives us your the ability to see the truth. And so as the DUA
that says, shamira
left us with I will also leave with the same die because we
should be calling on Allah subhanaw taala with this beautiful
dua from our Prophet saw the light of Saddam who taught us to ask
ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada for so much light that you're overwhelmed by
it. It's overwhelming to you. It's not just turn on one light, flood
me with light bring me from all directions make me light turn me
into light. That's the kind of utter desperation that we have to
beseech our Lord with because this world is dark and it will remain
dark and the only light is the light of Allah subhanaw taala So
may Allah subhanaw taala make us again people of light and sha
Allah and we should do this thought together Oh ALLAH place
light in our hearts light in our tongues light in our hearing light
in our sight light behind us light in front of us light on our right
light on our left light above and light below place light in my
sight I think in my flesh and my blood in my hair and in my skin
place light in excuse me in our soul and make light abundant for
us make a slight and grant a slight I mean you had a bit ad
Amin just Docomo Hayden said Armonico Muhammad Allah Who but it
can't do.
Disciple often