Ismail Kamdar – Foundations of Islamic Morality
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The speakers discuss the importance of understanding the rules of morality in Islam, based on user's preferences and their own desire to achieve their best possible goals. The Islamic system of marriage is designed to protect the integrity of men and women, but also to protect their health and bodies. The system is designed to prevent evil behavior and is designed to be a source of good, creating problems for individuals who take it out of their bodies. The speakers emphasize the importance of protecting individuals' identities and culture, building people who lead to a better way of living, and showing support for Islam.
AI: Summary ©
hamdulillah Madhu and as they are known as struggle Pharaoh, when we hit the Wirkkala lay when we left him in Cerulean fusina Amin CRT and Marlena, Mejia the healer who further moody Allah will make you do for the Hadith and my bad minister called Hadith Nikita Bula will call you howdy howdy Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was sharing morning monitors to help with our COVID-19 dolla Kulu dollars in Pune Ahmedabad.
Last week we recap the D message of the Prophet lute Alayhis Salam, and the message of Prophet alayhi salam is very relevant to our times. It's very necessary for dealing with the trials defeated that the Ummah is plagued with today.
Today, I want us to take a step back further, and to understand the foundations upon which these rulings are based. Now that the rules are clear, we know clearly what is halal and what is haram in Islam when it comes to these areas. It's important to understand why
Where does our legal framework come from? Why do we consider certain things to be halal, certain things to be haram, why is this something that cannot change? And what is the goal and the purpose of these laws? This is something important. That should be central to our discussion. When people ask us, Why can't you just change your religion? When people ask you? Why can't you just support us? When people ask you these kinds of questions, you should be able to articulate an answer to explain to them why.
And so we begin with a very important point. And that point is where does morality come from? How do you figure out what is right and what is wrong? It is on this very point that our world, the Muslim world, and their world, the secular world are completely divided. We are coming from very alien perspectives to each other. Because morality, as per secularism is subjective. It's something that people make up. It's based on the norms of society, it's based on what the majority wants. So morality, for them doesn't have a basis. There's no, there's no objective truth. In the secular world. Everything's up for debate. Everything's up for interpretation. It's all based on what does
the majority of people want.
And so this is a very alien perspective to us. Because for us, morality is objective. It's not just objective is not just set in stone. But morality for us doesn't come from us. It doesn't come from our desires, it doesn't come from our intellect. morality comes from the Creator. This is the Islamic perspective. Allah subhanho wa Taala created humanity. Allah subhana wa Tala knows best, what is good for us and what is bad for us. And based on this Divine Wisdom of Allah subhanho wa taala. He has made certain things haram and certain things are obligatory, and they have the rest of it halal. Our entire moral foundations and system comes from this one simple premise. Allah created
us, Allah knows what is best for us. So whatever Allah decides is halal and haram, Samia, what we hear and we obey. It's as simple as that. And this is the key point that is often lost in discussion, right? That we are arguing from very different points of view, the way we view the world and the way they view the world is very different. They view the world as something where everything's random, and everything's by chance. So why don't we just make up our own rules. And we view this world as something structured, created by Allah for specific purposes. And we also were created for a specific purpose. And he out of his divine wisdom and mercy sent us the law sent us
the messenger. So we know what our purpose is, we know what is right, we know what is wrong, and we can follow it. And this is built upon the idea that Allah subhanho wa Taala is Al Hakim, Allah subhanaw taala is infinitely wise. His wisdom is infinite.
Our wisdom is weak. You know, we think something's a good idea. Five years later, we look back and think we were nearly stupid five years ago, right? Because our wisdom keeps growing, our understanding of the world keeps changing. We come up with an ideal society. And 10 years later, we wonder what was society thinking? And we keep repeating the cycle over and over again, because our wisdom is lacking. We don't have infinite wisdom. We can't see 10 2050 100 years down the line. Allah's wisdom is infinite. And we firmly believe that the laws that Allah revealed are built upon his infinite wisdom. Allah knows what is good for humanity in the long run. And Allah knows what is
bad for humanity in the long run.
So it may be that a human is looking at something in a very short sighted way. They're looking at what do I want now? What will give me pleasure now? What do I think is best for me in the moment? But Allah He knows in the long run that what you want for yourself right now it's not good for you or society in the long run.
And so this is the premise we must begin from. If people want to know why do Muslims believe what they believe when it comes to what is right and what is wrong? And what is moral, what is immoral, we begin with this foundation, we believe in one God, we begin from a foundation of Tawheed because this entire system of morality is grounded in Tawheed. They if you believe you have a creator and your creators and messengers and your creators and laws, then you have absolutely no right to question or change those laws, you will follow those laws, whether you like it or not, because you know, your Creator knows best. You know that your Creator is most wise, you know that your Creator,
He His laws are what is best for you. And this is something that is mentioned over and over again in the Quran, that Allah wants what is good for us. Allah is trying to protect us from harm. Allah knows better than us, right? Will Allahu Allah mu unto latter, Allah knows and you do not know, this message is repeated over and over again in the Quran, to drive home to us, that morality comes from Allah
building upon that, the modern problems that we face in regards to identity, and orientation, and sexuality and all of these issues.
What is Allah say about it? Does that is the Muslim perspective, the Muslim perspective is not like what I want, what's popular what the society wants? What do the majority were no, to Islamic perspective is What does Allah want from me? Because Allah created us, Allah created that bodily function, Allah created that desire. And so Allah has created a system in which it is halal and outside of that, what is haram. Right? And so
if you have to look at the Quran and Hadith and analyze, Why did Allah create that specific act, these two things mentioned number one for procreation, so that humanity can continue to have children and to grow and to, you know, generate generation upon generation. That's the first reason or biological reason why that act exists. And the second is for the husband and wife to bond with each other in a loving way. And so because of this, the Islamic system is very simple. It is between a man and his wife within the confines of marriage. That is what makes it halal. Any other kind of relationship of that nature is haram. Right? And Islam is very simple. You want that kind of
relationship, you get married, and marriage is only between a man and a woman. Right? This is very clear in the Quran very clear the Hadith, a matter of consensus in our religion, marriage is only between a man and a woman. And we cannot change these things because they are matters of consensus. Furthermore, there's an entire system of law built upon this. When you look at the goals of Islamic law, that Islam came to protect five things, or are the six things right, this difference of opinion, you say five or six, Islam came to protect our lives, it came to protect our fate. It came to protect our lineage, it came to protect our wealth, it came to protect our intellect, and it came
to protect our honor. And I would argue that the Islamic system of marriage and morality, it's there to protect almost all of these. The if you follow the Islamic system, of marrying and doing these things in the right way, you protect your feet, you protect your life, right, because let's face it, a lot of murders these days are crimes of passion that take place because of the chaos and immorality in society. You protect your intellect, let's face it, these things are driving people crazy, a lot of what is called alternative lifestyles, they are just mental illness. Number four, you protect your lineage. Look at the modern world. People don't know who the father is. People
don't know who the grandfather is, or people have no clue. You know what family they come from. There are people out there who are searching from neighborhood to neighborhood trying to figure out who my dad is, right? Islam came to protect our Lynch, a very simple, very, very simple system. You get married, you have children within marriage, everyone knows who their father is who the grandfather is, some people can trace the ancestors all the way back to the sahaba. Because it's always there, the system of protecting lineage is always there. And this system came to protect honor. It came to protect dignity. Because when you get married and you do things that Islamically
and you have your family Islamically you have a dignified presence in society. You have a dignified lifestyle. You are someone who is living a honorable life. But when you engage in Haram, when you go into these immoral ideas and lifestyles, immediately, you lose your dignity, you lose your honor, you lose your credibility. And these things have a long term effect on every aspect of your life. So in Islam, this entire system is designed to protect the family that we have a system where
Children grew up in a family, they know who their mom is, they know who their dad is they have access to mom, they have access to dad, the father plays a specific role in their life, their mother plays a specific role in the life, the grandparents for your specific role in their life, you have a cohesive family system that has worked for generations there has worked since the time of our family. So now this system works. And any attempt to divert from the system to change any aspect of the system has led to problems, whether it was doing away with marriage and saying, Oh, it's fine to live with a girlfriend or boyfriend that caused chaos that caused problems with it's the idea that
it's fine to have children out of wedlock, that caused lots and lots of problems. Right? When he was the idea that a man can marry a man or a woman can value a woman that has caused even more problems. And now the problems had gone. So so far down that people don't even know what is a man or what is a woman anymore. People are confused and very basic aspects of, of, you know, biology.
And so, when you explain this concept to others, you need to explain to them that in Islam, we view this as a gift from Allah, within marriage. Allah has created this to be a system between the husband and wife in which they bond and they build the bonds of love. And that is where it is allowed in anything else is prohibited. Because anything taken out of its place, causes problems, anything, anything that is good, if you take it out of its place and put it in something else, it can become problematic, it can become a source of evil. And so these acts are the same when they are done in the way that Allah once they are a source of good, they are a blessing. They are something
that is rewarded is something that that builds bonds of love. It's something that produces children. It's something that society is built upon. And when that is taken away when it's done in any other way, chaos problems, families fall apart and understand this much that when the families are weak, society is weak. And when families are strong societies strong, and trying to tear apart the moral foundations of society. This is tearing apart the family and he's tearing apart the civilization. And the long term repercussions of that over a 50 to 100 year period will be devastating.
There is a statement attributed to Salahuddin a UB Rahim Allah, where he said if you want to destroy a nation, let fornication and the * become common amongst
basically said any nation, where Zina and unity is normal and it's open and there's no shame, they will be destroyed overnight, they will destroy themselves overnight. society cannot function without honor. without dignity. Without modesty. It cannot function. It will collapse internally. And this is what's going to happen over the next 50 years. We can avoid that by staying firm on our principles.
Another point that needs to be made as to why we have this moral system in Islam is that we firmly believe that anything that Allah has prohibited must be harmful to us. And there's two levels to this. Number one is those things that we can prove the half you can explain No alcohol is harmful. Yeah, the harms of alcohol. Yeah, the statistics. And then they are those things where we might not know the harms yet. We don't want to learn it the hard way. Right. So some people may say, oh, what's the harm in this lifestyle, and we may not have statistics to show them the house. But 50 years down the line, I guarantee you there will be statistics to show why it was harmful. We don't
want to wait until then. Rather, if Allah says It's haram, it must be harmful. If Allah says haram, there must be there must be fault in it. And so trusting Allah as divine wisdom, we understand that anything that is clearly prohibited is haram. Finally,
a point that's raised is isn't Islamic law flexible. Now this is the point that's raised country change based on time in place.
And my response to that is that's a technical issue that doesn't apply. Yeah, that is a technical point. But it doesn't apply here. Because understand Islamic law is of two types. Right? You have that which is set in stone that which is Quran, sunnah consensus that which everyone agrees upon. This does not change ever this will be the same from the beginning till the end things like this five daily Salah there's no point in time where you can say you know what we can pray five four times a day now or let's increase you to six times a day. No it's five daily Salah this fasting the month of Ramadan doesn't reach a point where you can say let's start fasting more months. Let's
start fasting less much. No, you fast the month of Ramadan. Right in terms of what the obligatory you do not change the fundamentals. That's the point and this right to the issue of marriage the issue of sexuality, the issue of intimacy, this is a fundamental, this is something that doesn't change. This is something that is set in stone. This is something with the Quran is clear. The hadith is clear. The consensus of the scholars is clear the books of fig are clear. There is no room for difference of opinion.
And anything that falls into that category, there is no room for change or reinterpretation. Doing so doing so really becomes an act of comfort if you know what you're doing. Doing so can take a person out of the fold of Islam. I'm not making the fear of anyone. I'm simply wanting that the act of changing a fundamental of the religion can take a person out of the fold of Islam at the sight of Allah.
What does change I this is where people get confused, what does change what Islam allows for change, when it comes to our laws? Are the secondary aspects of law, things that are that are decided upon, based on the opinions of scholars based on culture based on need based on necessity, based on interpretation of Scripture. Right? So any second, any laws of that nature? Yes, there's room for difference of opinion has room for reinterpretation. There's room for change based on changing times or culture. But those are very secondary issues. Right? Those are issues like how do you celebrate a wedding? How do you celebrate a marriage that will change from culture to culture, how they
celebrate a marriage? There's no set laws on that? How much money should the husband provide to his wife that will change based on time, place, culture, economics, the family stability, there's nothing set in stone dead, right? Because there are many factors that change.
You know, where do you place your hands in Salah that will change based on which Hadith you think is strongest Right? Or that your automatic is strongest. So those are secondary aspects. That's what Islam allows changing. Islam allows adjustments in the secondary aspects of the law, though did absolve me those which are based on the opinions of scholars not on that which is clear cut in the Quran and Hadees. So that argument does not hold weight. The argument that Islam is open to the interpretation we see no, it's not. The fundamentals of the religion are not open to reinterpretation. Only secondary aspects of Fick are open to reinterpretation. And this is not a
secondary aspect of Fick. This is a fundamental of our morality. This is like one of those things where basically this is one of the Kaaba is one of the major sense is like saying, can we reinterpret the prohibition of murder?
I can we reinterpret the prohibition of alcohol? Can we reinterpret the prohibition of Xena? No, you can't. A major sin is a major sin. There's no room for reinterpretation. The same applies to this issue that people are pushing for reinterpretation of today. It is a major sin, there is Jamar upon it. So if we go back to our primary point, our morality comes from our Creator, I will create those best summit in our Atlanta we hear and we obey We ask Allah to allow us to be from those who understand this will live by this and remain firm on this regardless of what direction society moves in Shahana Rebecca Robin is at Yama, Yossi Boone was salam ala Celine with hamdu Lillahi Rabbil
Alameen.
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So how do we deal with others? How do we deal with the fact that the majority of society today there is this pressure
on us to either reinterpret our religion, or to at least ally with them and support them? What do we do with this with this situation? I want to offer a solution. That's not easy, but that will be greatly rewarding in the sight of Allah. And that is to turn this into a Dawa opportunity.
You see this world is called or be called, you do Dawa, or they do Dawa to you. And for a long time, we have been on the defensive. For the long time we like know, our religion doesn't really say that. No, you know, this difference of opinion, where we've been very defensive, we've been very apologetic. We need to change that we need to be people of action, we need to be people of hope. We need to be people who lead we need to be ambassadors of the faith. And this is a great opportunity for Dawa. This is a great opportunity to call all of these people to a better way of life, for a better way of thinking, to show them that there is more to life than identifying yourself based on
who you're attracted to. It's a very shallow way to live your life, that your whole identity is built upon who you are attracted to. But for a Muslim, our identity is built upon our relationship with our Creator.
Right? You want to call people towards that. You want to show people there's a better way of thinking there's a better way of life. You want to show people that what you have been brainwashed into. And really this is a a global brainwashing. children growing up today. Every movie, every TV series, even the video games are promoting this nonsense towards them.
And this is a slow brain
Washing gets people to start thinking it's not so bad. It's not a big deal. Maybe I should try, maybe I should explore, right? It's a brainwashing, we need to undo the brainwashing we need to show people a better way. So when people try to call us to support them, we should call them to obey Allah, we should show them a better way of life. Because that's what's best for them. Not the worship of the soul, but the worship of Allah, not the obedience of their desires, but the obedience of Allah, not building your entire personality around who you are attracted to, but building your entire personality around being a servant of Allah. And this is a chance for Muslims to really lead
once again,
that for too long we have been in the background, we have been defensive, let us be the leaders again, let us lead the initiatives to protect morality, let us lead the initiatives to bring people back towards a honorable and dignified way of living. Let us lead initiatives of reviving you know the culture of marriage and the culture of a family and the culture of morality. Let us be the ones taking the lead. Instead of it being such that the Department of Education is telling Muslim schools to teach something and now we are in defense, what do we do about it? Why don't we take proposals to the Department of Education First, why don't we be proactive? Why do we tell them? This is what we
believe this is what we want to teach. You know that we have freedom here. Why can't we do this? Why don't we be proactive instead of reactive? So let's use this as a chance to lead let us use this as an opportunity to do Dawa. Let us use this as an opportunity to show people that Islam is the one true religion because it's the only religion rates followers don't change their religion based on what's what's the norms of society is the one religion we will hold firmly to what We believe in, even in the rest of the world is going mad. And this is the only the best our opportunities in a long, long time. People all over the world. They look at Muslim and think, wow, they're the only
ones holding firm. They're the ones leading the protests. They're the ones refusing to budge and reinterpreting the Scripture. And this is attracting many, many people towards Islam. So let us now view this as a Dawa opportunity. And let us lead and let us turn the tide around because it's not too late to turn the tide around. It's not too late to turn things around and to bring back morality and to bring back on and to bring bring back dignity. It just requires strategy. It just requires planning. It just requires being proactive. It just requires wisdom standing up and being in the lead instead of being defensive and waiting for things to happen. We ask Allah to guide us you ask
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