Code of Conduct #6 Wisdom

Salam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu Hamdu lillahi rabbil aalameen or salat wa salam ala Nabil Karim. So in today's lesson we're going to take a look at the next important principle of Dawa. Which is wisdom hikma, Allah subhanho wa Taala links Dawa. Directly to hikma in the Quran is Surah Nahal when he says, Oh either severely or optika been hikma call to the way of your Lord would wisdom.

And the verse goes on to mention other qualities of Dawa, that we will cover in later videos. But today, we want to focus on this phrase, Bill hikma, utilize wisdom in how you call people to Allah subhanho wa taala. So for this quality, we have an actual verse of the Quran that mentions this as a condition for doing Dawa, that your Dawa should be wise. What is wisdom what is hikma?

Wisdom means even came out Josie aroma says it means to put things in its light in the right place.

And what that means is that

you know when to say things, how to say things, you're able to analyze the situation, you're able to deal with different personality types, you're able to realize when it's a good time to speak, when it's not a good time to speak, you're able to read the room,

you're able to understand people,

you're able to figure out what you should say or shouldn't say when you should say or when you shouldn't say it. And this skill of wisdom.

It can't really be taught.

You cannot teach wisdom, the way you teach Vic, or Aqeedah, or even math or science.

Wisdom is internal it is a way of thinking.

And it is often shaped by our life experience. You know, when you apply for a job,

they ask How much experience do you have in that field? How many years have you spent working in that field. And one of the main things they're looking for in terms of experience is that you've made mistakes, and other workplaces. So you're not going to repeat the same mistakes when working for them. Because this is called wisdom. This is experience this is learning from your mistakes.

And this is actually the main way to gain wisdom.

The main way to gain wisdom

is to make mistakes, and to learn from your mistakes, and to never repeat them. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that the believer is not stem from the same snake hole twice. Meaning if you if the parable Yeah, is that if you walk in past a hole in the ground, and the snake jumps out from the and bites you then the lesson you should learn from that is not to walk past that hole again, you know, there's a snake there. And what this means is that you shouldn't make the same mistake twice. You shouldn't be someone who gains experience and wisdom to every experience you have in life in every thing that happens in your life, you gain more wisdom through it. This is the main

way to gain wisdom that you live life, you make mistakes you learn from your mistakes. When I was younger, I used to keep a mistake journal. Anytime I messed up in the Dawa, or in my personal life, I would write it down in the mistake juggler, I would analyze the situation. And I would come to a conclusion of what I learned and what can I do to ensure I don't repeat that mistake ever again. I don't really do this anymore. Now I do it internally, I'm able to work through things internally also don't make as much mistakes as I did in my 20s. And that's the thing, a lot of the younger art have to realize in your 20s you're going to make a lot of mistakes. So if you start doing Dawa in

your 30s in your 30s you're going to make a lot of mistakes. Whatever is the first decade of work, your first decade in this field, you are going to make a lot of mistakes. You're going to be zealots, you're going to be excited, you're going to be enthusiastic, but you're not going to be experienced, you're not going to know how to deal with people. Because of this, you'll mess up you make mistakes. We all do. It's part of life. It's important that we learn from our mistakes, and then we grow from our mistakes. This is how you learn wisdom.

But sadly, some people don't gain wisdom. Some people their whole lives will go by and they remain unable to understand people unable to connect with people

continuously repeating the same mistakes for decades.

And this is a lack of wisdom and lack of wisdom, classically is called foolishness, right? That's someone who is not wise

especially after having made a lot of mistakes,

and not learn from it is considered foolish. And a foolish person should not be involved in the Dawa, because they would cause more harm than good.

With the abruptness with their lack of character, with the inability to read the room and know when to talk to people and what to say and how to say it, they can actually cause a lot of damage and a lot of harm.

And over the years I've seen in many different ways, people

make many mistakes when it comes to not being wise in the Dawa. You see, you can't really teach wisdom. If you analyze the verses of the Quran, and the Hadith about wisdom, then what you will gain from there is that wisdom is number one, a gift from Allah. Allah can even give it to a young person, as you mentioned, in the case of yoga and use of Alexandre he gave them wisdom when they were young. So it's a gift that Allah can give to someone when they are young, usually due to a person having a really difficult youth, that they learn a lot of life lessons from going through a lot of difficulties early in life. Or there could be other ways. Allah just blesses some people with

more emotional intelligence than others. So they have a lot of wisdom from a younger age naturally.

The other way that you gain wisdom is through experience, as you mentioned, the Hadith about not being bitten from the same snake or twice. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that wisdom is the last property of the believer, wherever you find it, you take it. So wherever you have new experiences in life, whatever you can learn a lesson from in life, you draw wisdom from it.

It's not something you learn directly from reading the Quran, or the Hadith, it's something you learn from living life and, and, and gaining experience. Now, one of the shortcuts to gaining wisdom is to learn from the mistakes and experiences of others, to spend time with your elders to spend time with mentors and spend time with people who are senior in the field.

So they will tell you about their mistakes when they were younger, they will tell you about the times they messed up, or what they wish they had done differently.

And this way, you gain wisdom without having to actually make the mistake yourself. And this goes back to another principle that we will cover in a later video in the series, which is the importance of Sahaba are spending time in the company of the righteous, because that is one of the sources of wisdom, spending time in the company of the righteous. So how do we gain wisdom, through life experience from Allah to make dua to Allah for wisdom, from spending time in the company of the righteous, they're learning from their life experiences, right? These are the main ways that we gain wisdom. It's not something that you can write a book and call it the Book of Wisdom.

Because people's lives experiences are different. And what may work for one person may not work for another person, you see this also in parenting, you can't really teach parenting. Because every family is different. Every parent is different, every child is different. What may work with one child may not work with another you need wisdom to really parent properly. And that was the same. Imagine you have four children, you need wisdom to raise four children, because four children have four different personality types, and four different ways of dealing with them.

So now imagine you're doing Dawa to hundreds of people, there is hundreds of different personality types to deal with 100 different cases of wisdom that you need to know. And this is gained through experience. But one of the ways is to learn from the mistakes of others. So let's go through some lessons that I've seen

in my life of people doing Dawa without wisdom. Alright, so one way, one way of, of showing wisdom in your Dawa is understanding your audience and speaking to your audience on their level. You see different audiences prefer to be addressed in different ways. The way you talk to a student of knowledge is different from the way you talk to a Western academic, which is different from the way you talk to the average

person on the street. right the way you talk to adults is different from the way you talk to children, which is different from the way you talk to young adults. You have to be able to read your audience and yes even when you talk to men and women they are subtle differences. There is a wisdom in knowing how best to communicate with each gender, how best to communicate with each age group, how best to communicate to different audience in terms of the type of language they like. So to give you an example, some do art, get so across

Similar to a academic setting, and to talk in a academic manner with academic language will and this means using a lot of jargon, a lot of high words that people in the universities may be familiar with, they become so accustomed to this way of talking and writing, that even when they dealing with high school kids, they may be using the same language. And they end up losing the audience. Because the audience don't know these words not familiar with these terms, they have a different level of vocabulary a different style of speaking they are accustomed to. And so there is now a disconnect between the speaker and the audience. So Wisdom means being able to address each audience in the way

that is suitable to them. So when you are talking to students of knowledge, you may use a lot more Arabic words, because they are familiar with these Arabic terms. When talking to Western academics, we may use a lot of academic jargon, because they are accustomed to using these words in their speech. When talking to a high schooler, you may have to bring your vocab down to a high school level,

and simplify some of your points. Otherwise, you may lose your audience. So part of Wisdom is understanding who your audience is, and how to address them in a way that they will be able to receive the message.

Another important part of wisdom is to know the right time and the right place to present your message. And this also means being able to understand people and the emotions and the emotional states.

Understand that people at different times of their lives are in different emotional states. And this affects the ability to be receptive to your message.

Now I have seen people make this mistake with two opposite extremes.

On one hand,

I've seen people try to do Dawa, at a funeral

where people are in a state of heightened sadness and grief, they're not willing to hear somebody else's opinion out, they're not willing to discuss matters of difference of opinion.

They just want to grieve the death of a loved one.

It's not an appropriate occasion, to be discussing differences of opinion. Or as some of the Zealots, young people will say, to be doing our green Merovingian in monka. Right, I'm not telling you not to do on will be my roof and I and Moncure I'm telling you, that there's a time and the police Wait, and at the graveyard when someone is grieving at a janazah that's not the right time or place.

So I've seen this happen too many times. There are so many Janaza that I have attended, because they live in a community where Muslims come from a variety of different understandings of Islam.

It almost always happens that Eddie janazah one person will do some acts of worship that another person considers to be bigger, and they will end up fighting and arguing with each other at the janazah.

Now, even if you are right, the what the other person is doing is better.

What exactly is the benefit of bringing it up at that point in time.

Because wisdom should make you understand that that person is grieving the death of a loved one. This is how they deal with their grief.

They are not in the right state of mind to have an academic discussion and listen to somebody else's opinion and to change their opinion.

More likely is going to end up in a fight and just breaking ties with people.

So it's not the right time. It's not the right time to be telling someone you're doing better.

It's I'm not saying you don't ever tell them. But you wait for another day. We're in a better state of mind when they're in a better mood. When they are more receptive to your message. And then you discuss it.

And we're in one case, remember it all too clearly was once again and we were at the graveyard and one man starts making dua

for the deceased calling upon the wasu of the old year and the Gambia and one of his relatives stands up very angry and starts shouting at him. This is bit odd. This is shirk. How dare you do this without janazah and the two of them get into a heated loud argument at the graveyard at 1am in front of the entire family and nothing good came out of it.

All you did was break family ties.

And one can't help but wonder if you just left the discussion for another occasion. Maybe the other person would have

Your demand may be the one who was right would have been able to get through to the one who was wrong.

Rather than it turning into an argument.

That's not a time to do Dawa, because people are in a state of grief.

And they are easily triggered when they're in a state of grief. And they are not mentally able to year out a different opinion at a time like that. They just want to do what they feel is best for the deceased.

The opposite is when people tried to do Dawa at a wedding or some kind of festival occasion.

When people's minds are in a festive mood, they want to have fun, they want to celebrate, they want to enjoy the moment. Understand that everyone in the world has their trials, everyone in the world is going through difficulties in different ways. And these moments like a wedding, or eat or some other kinds of festivity. For many people, this is just a moment to forget everything they going through and to enjoy some holiday fun.

And unfortunately, some of them fall into haram fun in these occasions.

So

some of us were in our zeal, we may at a wedding, give a lecture or fight and argue with people about

the deen

know about something in doing being haram or beat up.

Again, it's not the right time, or the right place. Honestly, if you feel a wedding is going to have some kind of beat up or haram entertainment. The actual sunnah is to stay away from that wedding, not to go there and fight with people. Right, the actual recommendations in the books are fake, is that if you know there is going to be some haram elements at a wedding.

And that you cannot do anything to stop it, then you should avoid attending that wedding. Not that you should go there and make a scene.

It's some brothers in the zeal don't understand this. So they'll show up at a wedding, and fight and argue with the bride and the groom in front of the entire family about some kind of betta or something being around. You may be completely right.

But you are conveying the message at a time and in a way that it's not going to get through to anybody at all he's going to do is ruin the occasion, and break family ties and make people more averse to you less likely to ever listen to you. It wouldn't be wiser to sit down with the bride and groom before the wedding, or after the wedding. Or whoever the organizers are before the wedding or after the wedding. And conveyed to them. Your

point of view

with the evidences. But to do we did on the occasion is not wise, it's not the right time or the place, no one's really going to listen to what you are saying. Because they're not in the right frame of mind to do so.

It's very important to understand people's frame of mind when you're doing Dawa. You cannot do Dawa to someone who

they are not mentally in the state of mind to listen to what the other person is actually saying. You see what I find that, especially when you are calling someone to Islam, who is not a Muslim, I find that the best time and the place to do this is in a in a relaxed environment, where the other person, you know, maybe it's like at a coffee shop, the two of you will just sit down and you'll have a heart to heart. And they are open and receptive to what you are saying. I find this to be far more productive than to be screaming and shouting in the park and arguing with others about their religions. I'm not saying the other way doesn't work. No wisdom also means knowing when to use which

method. But this is my own personal experience in terms of what is most productive. When someone sits with you,

and they're willing to hear you out, then they in the right frame of mind to actually think about what you are saying and perhaps change their perspective.

And so part of wisdom is being able to get people into their frame of mind, having the right environment, the right setting, the right tone of voice, the right relationship for that message to get through in a heart to happen.

Now, the other ways that people do data without wisdom another aspect of lacking wisdom is not knowing when to be harsh and when to be soft.

Now we will see in the next lesson that the default of the dark ie should be compassion. And yes, we know there are some people today who demonize compassion. And they think that compassion is a weakness and even have

Rage is a slow, seeing compassionate Imam that is some kind of slur now Billa these are two positive words, Imam is a positive thing. And compassion is an important and integral part of our religion. We should not be demonizing words that are necessarily part of our religion.

This is extremely problematic.

But wisdom demands that you know when to be compassionate, and when to be harsh. The default should be compassion.

But they are times and the people with whom harshness works better.

And this again, comes down to understanding personality types and understanding the moment understanding the occasion.

So being harsh at a funeral or a wedding, never a good idea. That's a type of compassion.

But if there's a war going on, you need to be harsh against the enemies. You need to be firm on the side of justice. That's not a time to be a softy. That's a time to show your courage, and your manliness and your firmness on the trip. And yes, sometimes it means saying very harsh things to those on the other side. Because that is necessary to get your point across.

It's the same also with debates. This is why I prefer not to do debates. I actually don't like debates, I find them to be counterproductive, because in a debate,

you tend it tends to be the kind of environment where you have to be harsh. If you are too soft, you get steamrolled, people just bulldoze you.

Right, the other side shows up for a fact. So you have to be invited. So part of wisdom is knowing when to be in that fighting mode and when to be soft. And I'll say this much. The default is softness. The default is compassion. The default is to be a nice person.

wisdom is knowing when to be harsh, when to be strict. And sometimes it's to do with a person's personality. There are certain personality types out there, that if you are soft to them, they don't take what you say seriously. But if you are harsh to them, they respect you. And they actually listen to you.

And again, this boils down to wisdom, but you're able to figure out people's personality types, you know, someone's a softy, You're harsh to them, they're going to run away. So speak to them gently. Or you know, somebody else is a bit of a macho man, he he likes to talk harshly and he can't stand soft spoken people. So you do the Dawa to him harshly and he'll actually respect you and listen to what you say. Again, this boils down to understanding how people think, and what kind of speech they are receptive to. Unfortunately today, because some of us went to the approach of being too soft, others went to the opposite extreme of being too harsh or being harsh all the time.

And

as an excuse for this to justify this. They say that they are following in the footsteps of Omar Abdullah Al Khattab Rajala. The second Khalifa, Omar radula.

They are saying that they are following in his footsteps, that he was a harsh man and he was a rough man, so they want to be like him.

And a few responses to this. Number one,

we supposed to prioritize the way of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam over the Sahaba and Rasulullah Salallahu Alaihe Salam was compassionate most of the time, and harsh on very rare but justified occasions so that he was never harsh, and I'll do some locations where he was really harsh with people, but he was always justified.

Number two,

this is in this reading of who Omar Rajan was.

He never justified being harsh all the time. As an Islamic

an Islamic ideal to strive towards, rather study his biography actually go back and study his biography. He used to strive to be softer. He used to strive to be softer, used to try his best not to be too harsh, because he understood that being too harsh chases most people away. The average person can handle someone who is that harsh. He understood this and he will try to be softer with people and he will try to find balance. So you can't didn't use him as a justification to be harsh all the time because he

was not harsh all the time. We have so many innovations O'Meara milk hotdog, Raju, crying. We have so many innovations about him at night, anonymously, helping the poor cooking volume, counting the apostles

listened to them say, you know bad things about the believer not even realizing the talking to the Khalifa and just being quiet about it. We see so much softness one on one Roger only towards his people.

And we see a man who genuinely tried to be balanced. He tried to be harsh only with those who deserved it and to be soft to everyone else.

And this was what he strived for. I really think it is a must representation of Omar Roger ago to assume that he was harsh all the time. So that following in his footsteps, you are going to be harsh all the time. No, Omar Roger, I know what's yours? How should the enemies of Islam, he was harsh with the hypocrites. He was harsh with those who tried to change the religion. He was harsh with those who he considered to be traitors,

but to everybody else, with the poor, with the weak, with the orphans, with the widows, with his own family.

He was a gentle soul. Now there's so many beautiful narrations of genuine gentleness and compassion from a more regular one.

Especially when you need read about his night patrols. When you would go out at night and

help the poor anonymously. You see this gentle side of Mr. Raja Lovato

that really completely destroys this distorted image that these youngsters have.

So do not use the name of the Sahaba to justify your own meanness and nastiness on what Raja who may have been harsh with the enemies of Islam. But he was not nasty and mean and vulgar to his fellow Muslims, or to the average person.

He was a person of good character, he was a person of good manners.

And he utilized wisdom in how he dealt with people.

And so that brings us back to our main point,

every die must gain wisdom, you must learn to be wise in how you talk to people. In when you talk to people, in when you are compassionate in when you are harsh in the kind of environment, in your choice of words, in the level of discourse. All of this requires wisdom.

And we see wisdom in all of the examples of the righteous before us Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and the way that he did Dawa to different types of people, gives us many examples of wisdom

that he would appeal. If somebody was, for example, if he was dealing with someone who was

impressed by generosity,

then he would showcase the generosity of Islam in front of that person and narrate to them the verses of the Quran related to the generosity so that they could see that this ideal that they value, Islam values even more, and Islam develops it even further.

If someone was attracted to the concept of good character Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would focus in the Dawa towards them on how Islam perfects good character. So they could see that what they already saw as an ideal, Islam makes it even better. And we see this in his way of dealing with many different people.

And we even see that he was harsh sometimes when he needed to be.

And I mean, he had to lead battles. You can't be soft at the time of leading a battle. And so Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa salam, when they went to battle, he was in the front lines and he was brave and he was courageous.

And he did what was necessary.

Yet afterwards, in the treatment of the prisoners of war, in dealing with the aftermath, in doing Dawa, to the people that he fought, you would see his rock now you would see his compassion

and so there was wisdom in how he dealt with people.

You know, one of the prisoners in the battle the battle, so he'll even amor.

At that point in time he was known for his harsh words against the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam in against Islam. So when they captured him in butter

Omar Rajaratnam wanted to remove his front teeth removes the hails granted, so he cannot speak clearly again, so he wouldn't be able to talk badly about Islam again. Again, this is the harshness he had towards the enemies of Islam.

Again, you see the wisdom of Rasulullah Salallahu Salam and also a prophecy of Rasulullah sallallahu. So firstly, he said, Don't do that we don't mutilate our enemies. We don't torture our enemies. That's not from Islam. But he also made the prophecy and he said, Perhaps one day we'll use that tongue for good, and you'll be impressed by what he says.

Fast forward almost a decade later. So hailed as one of the last of the people of Makkah to convert to Islam. Rasul Allah so for the lowly surpasses away, some of the people of Makkah start thinking about a post stating and leaving the religion. And so he'll stands up in front of the GABA, and delivers a powerful speech in which he will remind the people that we were the first to receive the message and the last to accept the message, let us not be the first to reject the message and to abandon it. And because of his motivational speech, the people of Makkah remain formed upon Islam, and Omar, regular regular one who saw the wisdom in what Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi. Salam had

said all that time ago, over a decade before that,

that part of wisdom is realizing that people can change. You don't want to do something to permanently damage someone in a way that there's no, there's no room for redemption, there's no room for coming back to the straight path, there's no way back.

And so there was wisdom in how we dealt with the prisoners burden, not just to him, but many of the other prisoners as well.

And I highly recommend for every day, to take time to read through the Sierra. And every time you come to a incident of Dawa in the serum

analyze it from the perspective of wisdom. Look at how Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasalam deals with different personality types. Look at how he deals with different situations, how he does Dawa, to a large group how he does our one on one, how he does Dawa to somebody who is harsh, how he does that to somebody who is soft, how he does Dawa to a leader who admire specific qualities and how he does Dawa to an oppressed person who is looking for a solution. And you begin to see the wisdom of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and you can learn Dawa lessons from that, that you can apply to your own life.

So to conclude today's lesson,

it is necessary for everyone involved in Dawa to continuously be gaining more and more wisdom. How do you gain wisdom? Number one, you asked Allah, because wisdom is a gift from Allah. Number two, you make mistakes, you learn from your mistakes, you grow from your mistakes. Number three, you spend time in the company of the righteous in a company of the experience. And you learn from the stories you learn from the youth you learn from their mistakes, so that you you gain that experience without having to go through what they went through. Number four, you read the biographies of the people of the past, especially or assume the loss of Allah or the he was salam. And you learn wisdom

from how they dealt with people from how they interacted with people.

So wisdom is the last property of the believer. We should seek it wherever we find it. And we should call to the way of our Lord with wisdom and kind preachings. This is the teachings of Islam. These are the fundamental principles of Dawa every single day II must gain wisdom.

And I end with a reminder to all of us, that part of gaining wisdom

is being open to correction.

I will talk about this in a later video when we talk about Naseeha. But nowadays, many do art are not open to correction. They want to do everything the only way and their feelings get hurt if you try to correct them.

And they don't like it when someone tells them what to do or what they did wrong.

This should this should never be the personality of the believer.

We should always be humble. We should always be willing to learn. We should always be willing to gain more wisdom.

And the way that we do this is by listening to others.

If someone walks up to you so this happened to me many many times that I would

I deliver a lecture or a footpath. And then afterwards one of the elders will will walk walk up to me and tell me that, you know, the way you worded this wasn't good. You know, you could have worded it better. Or you know, the way you worded it gives off this message that you would unintentional should be more careful in your choice of words. Or maybe even that I was too harsh, or I was too unclear, or whatever it is.

And I thank them for their advice, because it's helped me to grow. It helped me to recognize my mistakes, to learn from my mistakes. And you should to never lose this quality of being open to correction, and open to learning. And always have people in your life who will correct you when you are on. Because we don't have people like that in your life, then you will have a lot of blind spots, and you will not gain wisdom from those blind spots.

So we ask Allah to guide us and to make us people have wisdom and good character, and to allow us to call people the way of Allah with wisdom and to accept our preaching and with Baraka in it. Zakah Hey, Ron Walker, da Juana and hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen.

I'll see you in the next video.