ICNA-MAS Convention 2018
Hussain Kamani – Prophet’s Mission Changed People
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The speaker discusses their experiences with Islam culture in America and personal experiences with it. They emphasize the importance of honoring Islam and show respect for it. They also discuss the deeds of Islam's greatest figures, including Jesus Christ, Islam's founder, and the first Islamist to write a book. The culture includes a woman who is successful and a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who
AI: Summary ©
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when I was younger, and I thought of people who were involved in giving dollar
when I went to conventions and saw speakers speaking in front of a roomful of people, or a hall full of people.
I always looked at them as super human beings. I thought that these people were born in such though, when these people were born from their mother's wombs, they must have come out saying in the Abdullah Danielle Kitab wa Jalla Nina via wa Jalla named Mubarak and aina Quinto Sani Bismillah T was the karate madam to hire the words of a Saudi Saddam and his birth.
And my parents, a lot of your word them chose a path of studying Islam for me,
and is a path that I pursued. But as I pursued this pathway, as I move forward, I kept thinking to myself, I'm not made to do what those people do. I always undersold myself. And I thought that the people who are out there passing out flyers and those people that are on radio and those people that are on the TV, and the representing Islam, this is big stuff. And I'm no one, how am I ever gonna stand in a place like that?
So, while I was studying in the UK, there was a particular holiday that came up and I came to America. And I was in our small little Elizabeth town, Kentucky.
In our town until today, we still don't have a single Muslim Halal restaurant or meat store. And our family was particular eating the halal. So we would appoint someone every month to go to the next biggest city and they would drive this truck down there and fill it up with meat and bring it back. And it would be sometimes a two hour drive or sometimes a three hour drive wherever they found a good price. So it was the Imams turn to make the long haul. He said to me for saying you want to come along?
I was on break and I really didn't have much going on. So I said sure. So I joined along with him. Now when we were leaving the house, I had a feeling the drive might get a little boring, like, you know, what is the Imam going to talk about? That's cool.
So when I was leaving, I pulled one or two cassettes out of my drawer and I took them with me for those of you who remember these TDK cassettes that came in 60 minutes and 90 minutes. So I picked up a cassette or two and I jammed it in my pocket and I got in the car. We had some good conversation, but it was a long drive. And at some point, we were just quiet.
So I pulled the cassette out of my pocket, which had some odd poetry on there, sung in a very beautiful voice, and I jammed it into the cassette player.
The poet started reading the poetry and as he was reading it, the Imam who's driving, he almost like spat at the wind windshield. And he slammed the brake. And he he passed the eject button on the cassette player and he pulled it out. He threw the cassette in my pocket and set a stop for Allah.
I was kind of confused. I didn't know what was going on. So I had to share what happened. He said to me, those words might be Islamic, but that guy's knocking off a Bollywood song right there.
So naturally, I said what anyone would say what is that guys?
How do you know it's a Bollywood song?
And then he said one of the most profound things anyone's ever said to me in my life.
And he probably doesn't remember what he said. But it stuck with me. And I think of it quite regularly. He said to me saying Everyone has a past, only the intelligent know when it's time to move forward.
And this gave me hope.
Because it taught me that someone like myself could one day
stand in front of people and say, with honor and pride on Allah, Allah Rasool that Allah has said this, and the Messenger of Allah said this, and I realized that Allah subhanahu wa taala is Al Hakim. He is truly White.
When you're going through your moments in life, you really don't know why it's happening because our thought is so narrow, our ability to understand is so narrow. But when you look back retrospectively at your retrospectively at your life, all you see is the wisdom of Allah subhanahu Matana. It says, if Allah subhanahu wa Tada is giving you constant opportunities in your life to do something. And now it's up to you and I, whether we make something of those opportunities, or we just allow them to slip away, allow them to go away. As a student of history. When I read Islamic history in particular, I find that every region of this room was honored with the honor to serve as Dean places
in the world that you wouldn't imagine. And the greatest scholars came from there. These people served the dean in a very unique way. When I see the name of Imam Behati Rahmatullah here today, everyone knows who he is. Many of us like myself may think that he was Arab, but he was the furthest from being an Arab Imam Muhammad Allah, Allah is first tongue his first language was not Arabic. He was someone that it was expected least from, we think of Salahuddin a UV, many of us again think Arab, because in our mind, we're thinking that it was the people that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came to, and it was their generations that did the Panama and without doubt that these
people were the ones who served the the and there is no doubt on that at all. These were the people who are our forefathers, Allah said to us regarding them fine I'm an OB mystery man meant to be he forgot the integral that those who come later if their faith is equivalent to your faith, then they are guided Allah made their faith the benchmark so there is no doubt in that at all. But Allah subhanahu wa Tada didn't limit the surface of this deen and the propagation of his Deen to the auto brother Allah opened it up to the ashram as well. Look at the words of some of the greatest scholars in our history. There was a scholar, he wrote a commentary on Imam Malik Rahmatullah Haley's motto,
the motto of Imam Malik Rahmatullahi. Allah is one of the earlier collections of Hadith and it's very authentic. According to some scholars, this is not an agreed upon opinion. But according to some scholars, it's actually as authentic if not more authentic than sale Buhari. And there's a technical discussion there to have. But that's for another time. I'm just trying to, you know, express the greatness of this book. The book is in one volume depending on what print you buy, you might buy it in two volumes. There was a scholar who wrote a commentary on this book, and the commentary of this book consisted of 20 volumes. 20 volume book on the commentary of Hadith of Imam
Malik Rahmatullah Hua Li was a rich, which was originally one volume, and each volume has 600 pages when the original book only had 400 pages to it. There was a famous scholar from Makkah Mikado Masha Allah we al Maliki, Rahim Allah. He said, I read this commentary. And after reading it, this person's mastery in the Arabic language, this person's mastery in the Maliki school of thought Imam Malik Rahmatullah Haley's legal positions. This really amazed me and I told myself, I wanted to find the author and meet him. He said, I opened up the beginning of the book, and I started reading the biography of the author after I read the whole book after going through 20 volumes. And when I was
reading through the biography of the author, I found a name written there, Chef, Zachary conda, Levy, Al Hindi, and Hanafi. That this was written by a person by the name of Chef Zakaria Khandala V, who was from a small village in Khandala. He was Hindi he was from India, and he was Hanafy. He was someone who practiced the Hanafi school of thought, and it blew his mind away, that someone can write Arabic so beautifully. Someone can teach and talk about a fifth, that wasn't the fifth, they practice so eloquently with such detail. And I share all of these experiences to help us realize that through Islamic history, Allah use different people from different regions of the world, the
pieces the places where you expected, at least from because that's wisdom, that's the wisdom of Allah subhanho wa taala. When Allah subhanahu wa Tada plan something, it comes with a uniqueness, their style to it. You know, whoever thought that the great one of the greatest prophets of Allah Musala is Suriname, when I grew up in the, in the house of the enemy of Allah subhanho wa Taala whoever thought that would happen and for you to restrict Allah and think that that's impossible that the men like you, mumble hottie and Imam, Abu Hanifa and great men like him and all the other great scholars that came before cannot be born to our community is a fallacy and your understanding
your comprehension of who your Allah is. Allah subhanahu wa taala is Allah Tada. But the heart has to desire it. You have to actually want it. You have to learn to dream it. Who's sitting here I saw a dream that I've traveled from one part of the world to another part of the country. You know, from north to south east west, talking to people proudly about Islam, sharing with them the message of Islam. Unfortunately, unfortunately, rather than being proud of our Islam, we find most
somes being shy to speak of their Islam. We find Muslims who are afraid to talk about their faith, when pride should be there, in which religion can say they have such a complete religion like our religion. Don't we have a group of Sahaba who came before us who were proud of their religion, who are happy to be Muslims?
I mean, there's so many incidents that are crossing my mind to cite and to further reinforce his statement, but I'll leave it there. We should be proud and use every opportunity that Allah subhanho wa Taala gives us because I'm telling you, you will never know he will inspire. My mother was a Hindu. Someone inspired her. Someone came to her and very openly had a very candid conversation about Islam to her. Her first exposure to Islam wasn't even a conversation. She says I was traveling from one country to another. She was in her early 20s. And I had a stopover in Egypt and I was connecting my flight. And as I was walking past, I saw some people praying Salah in the airport, and
I thought to myself, what kind of people are these people like, you know, everyone's The airport is that piano, everyone's running in all different directions. And these people are taking up time to pray. I'm indebted to those people. When I make dua in my head with prayer, when I make dua for my family, when I make dua for my kids, those people that were praying salaam, the airport, I cry and I make dua to Allah subhanahu wa taala for them. I thank those people for making such that in front of Allah subhanho wa Taala and not being apologetic. I think those people for trusting Allah subhanahu Matana I can't imagine this sincerely. They must have had, I can't imagine the sincerity they must
have had. They're standing at an airport saying Allahu Akbar, Subhan Allah, Allah to Allah. And then there's a lady that's walking past who sees them, and Islam enters into her heart. And Allah gives her children who are not able to stand in front of people and with honor and with pride with joy and say, God, Allah Tala the suit, you know, this life, this opportunity, it lies with us Muslims sitting here, I kid you not. You know, there was a time in the 90s, where we had this massive influx influx of the art and scholars visiting us from outside of America. You know, there was a constantly a scholar coming from Egypt, and someone coming from India and someone coming from Somalia. And
there were these great few scholars visiting us in America, and they were assisting and helping and educating us, you know, and getting closer to Allah subhanho wa taala. But we're all aware of recent events and incidents that have occurred in the past 20 years and how that's changed. Nobody's coming to your country for dollar anymore. This responsibility is ours. This responsibility is on our shoulders. There was a great scholar from the subcontinent by the name of Shabbat Hassan Ali, another way Rahmatullahi Ali, one of the greatest scholars from Hindon, India, you know, just to express what kind of a scholar he was, he passed away in India, but his Janaza prayer was led and
how to Makkah Hara Medina on the 27th night of Ramadan, a man whose honor was accepted by the world, such a great scholar.
He traveled to the world and he, you know, he wrote his logs of his journeys. He has a he has a book called Karwan is in the key, it's in multiple volumes and the other language. So towards the end of his life, one of the last journeys he made, was to America. And he traveled the country. This was like a good 1520 years ago, and he was in Chicago, and there was an imam who hosted him at his house and that Imam shared this with me directly. He said, we were having dinner with Mohammed Hassan inside the living room, and we were talking and we were eating, and someone asked you that what are your reflections after visiting America, and Chicago and Hassan Ali, another way to come to LA he
actually said, as a student of history, as a student of history, and a student of knowledge. I have studied history, I have studied humanities, their rise and their falls. And by the way, he's written books on these subjects in detail. He says, From my observation, what I've seen in America, it seems as if the time has come, that the sun of Islam will now set in the east and rise from the West. This land right here will be used for the PIDM of the dean. He said Allah subhanahu, Matata will use these people and use their children for the service of the deen
changes will happen here. And I thank Allah subhanahu wa Tada for allowing us all to be a part of it. Opportunities are presented. We have to learn to make something out of these opportunities. Activism is at the core of our deen doing Dawa is at the core of our deen. You know, this isn't something new, inviting people to Islam, every Muslim understands it's a responsibility. It's a responsibility I carry. It's a responsibility you carry. But it's important to realize that there is a fine difference between pseudo activism and actual activism. There is an illusion of activism that I'm involved in activism people they think that you know what I'm I'm actually involved in Dawa
because the definition of activism on a broader scope is so narrow actually, it's so broad anyone can be an activist anyone can be involved in Dawa and in Islam. It's true. Yes, it is broad as well. That was a very broad word and it's very
very inclusive. But in our deen in our religion in our Islam, there is a heavy emphasis on the method. The means and the ends are equally important how it's done. Because if it's not done right, what was supposed to be for you ends up becoming against you, you know, as the word of the poet, he says, and I'll just translate line he says, and he says to his friend and he says, in effect, they suffer Oh companion of my journey, you know, where did the journey start off? And where did it end? We were planning to go somewhere, but we ended up going somewhere else. In Islam. When we talk about Dawa and activism. It's an actual journey. True divine activism is a result of a process. It's not
necessarily just a result of an idea. But one day you feel that I want to do something and you start doing something and then it ends very quickly. It's a process and it's a process that starts with YOU YOURSELF. Allah subhanho wa Taala says in the Quran, in the hola hola Johanna you to map your own hatha yoga you Roma unfussy him, Allah subhanahu wa Tada will not give you change until you desire it. You have to learn to feel it. When I'm asked to speak in front of Heath schools, you know, sometimes I'm traveling and someone will say that, you know, we have a little hips class going on here. And we'd like for you to address the students of the hip school. And when I sit in front of
the students, one of the things, one of the first things I say is learn to dream, learn to Dream High, have high hopes and Allah subhanho wa Taala what the world thinks and where their hopes or maybe hear your aspirations should be way above that. Imagine what kind of aspirations the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had, when he is granted the crown of prophethood. Just you know, a few weeks back, we took a group of economists to the seminary, we all went together, we took a group to for Ramadan, and we climb how to hit on the mountain together, and we were sitting inside the cave. And we got out and I addressed the crowd along with to help the Nasir and to stop Murphy. And when I
was speaking to the students in the attendees for the seminar group, I said to them that I really am lost. This is where it started. He was sitting here, trying to just focus on himself. And Allah turned him into the center of the universe.
This is where the last time in the world the Quran of Prophethood would ever be delivered to this dunya this is where
this fire of peace and guidance, this this is where the match was lit. And I reflect over that night and the Prophet said Allahu Allah was said I must have been so confused and worried and concerned and shaking. And he goes back to his wife, Khadija, the Allahu anha. And he says if he's telling her that I've just been granted Naboo I have to take Islam all the way to Baltimore somehow.
And how these other the Allahu Allah she could have said it's not happening. That's how we are, you know, our expectations of Allah's mercy are so little. And these are the Allahu Allah she embraces them and says, it's as if she's saying to him, it's going to happen. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sees that dream and he works towards it, he works towards it, and he works towards it. And the reality of the matter is true dalla. When it's sincere, the end result will always take birth.
You may not live to see it. Ibrahim I, they said I'm built the Kaaba. He didn't see millions of people flogging to the Kaaba. He was just sincere. He knew that what he had to do was for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa Tada. So if I can say, you know, for those of us that are interested in real and true activism, and we're willing to see that dream, don't let anyone come and tell you because you don't wear a hijab. You can't speak for Islam. That person believes that they have a monopoly over the deen and I as a Muslim tell you they do not have monopoly over this Deen. No one has monopoly over this Deen. You are an equal shareholder as I am. Every person that says La Ilaha illa
Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah has one Zima from Allah, Allah Rasool. There is no special limit to another person. Everyone's blood is safeguarded by this Dean, everyone's honor is safeguarded by this Dean, you can do it you just have to learn to trust yourself. And when you do decide to take on this journey, know that true activism is a result of a process. It starts with seeking and finding a mentor, a teacher studying with them in a time that we live in, even if the teachers are not available in your city. The truth is, you can find classes online, that excuse that I don't have access to teachers anymore, is not true. It doesn't apply anymore. There's so much out there you
just have to have a desire for it. The second thing, true dolla is a result of your personal data via people will see in you what you have in your heart. If you don't believe if you don't live if your heart doesn't carry what you're saying, Your words will fall on the ears and then fall on the ground. But if what you're saying is embedded in your heart, it appears from one heart into the next and by Allah who watched the changes you'll see.
Live Islam, live your deen as Allah Muhammad said. Hosts Nikita Doris
include him with just some Hajah K Billy's Peter J. K. Toma, Sandman hauj that embody in yourself the life of good character Cosna Kidada Cynulliad with just some Hoja embody in yourself the light of good character, good Belize, ptJ Decatur, musalman Hua, that even if the devil himself for to see you, he desired to become a Muslim as well. True activism and true Dawa is a result of your desk here, your spirituality, our chef used to say, the effort put in the hours of the night making dua of Allah will be what delivers your results during the day. The results in the day are dependent on the efforts made during the night, your connection with Allah subhanho wa taala. And the third
thing, Maha Sabha class, I'm going to pair them all together, which means you are sincere. You are patient, and you're continuously striving. You know, this is a bumpy road, my friends, you'll have five conversations out of which two people will amaze will be amazing. They will enjoy your conversation, because what you're saying is something that relates to them, and there will be that third person who will view you as a jerk, and there'll be really angry at you and they'll probably cuss you out. But that shouldn't stop you because you're not doing it for them. You're doing it for the sake of Allah subhanho wa Taala so I pray and I make dua to Allah subhanahu wa Tada Allahu
Medina. Wan Divina. wa Jalla suburban limitada Yarrabah Alameen O Allah we raise your hands in front of you and we ask that you guide us Yeah, Allah guide our children. Yeah, Allah guide our communities. Yeah, Allah guide this land and the people who live within it. The hearts are pure. The ears are willing to listen. The text is there. The example is there. The practicality is unmatched and unrivaled. The only thing is, we have to pick up these pieces and put them together and to sit back and watch the show. I pray that Allah subhanahu wa taala accepts will start Allahu Allah say that I'm Hamid AsSalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh