Social Media in Light of Surah Al-Hujarat Part 2 – Jumah Khutbah

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam O Allah Nabila, Karim momento de Lena who

we begin by creating a lush of a Hannah what Allah and asking Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the final prophet, Mohammed bin Abdullah, so Allahu alayhi wa sallam and all those who follow his way with righteousness until the last day.

So today inshallah we will be continuing on the topic, which I began in my last Juma presentation three weeks ago.

And before we begin the continuation, I just want to do a brief recap of what we covered in case you were in jail for the quarter three weeks ago.

The topic that we are discussing is Surah Al hoogenraad. And its application to social media and our life in general. Now, this sure I've chosen to discuss it over two footpaths because it is a very relevant surah to the problems that our community faces today. The surah is all about social interaction is all about how do we talk to each other? How do we deal with each other? What do we say? How do we say what Shouldn't we say?

And so the guidelines that we find in furano hoogenraad, they apply not just to our physical interactions, but our online interactions as well. Even when you are on Facebook, video in the YouTube comment section, when you on Twitter, the same guidelines apply there that apply in the political world.

There are some people who have this misconception that what I do online doesn't matter. You know, it's just social media. It's not real.

But what they forget, is that something bad or harsh that you write on social media, it affects another human being for real, the effect is the same as saying it to them to their face. So it's very real.

So we need to take these guidelines and apply them to our life. And one of the primary messages, which I want to drill home to the listeners today and those are going to listen to this online as well is the importance of understanding and applying the Quran in our daily lives. For those of you here who are fathers or mothers, we need to make this a habit in our homes, that we recite output

that we discuss output that we reflect on

and that our homes and our lives are governed by the Quran. The Quran is not just something that we placed on the top shelf, and we take it down to read for Barranca every now and then. This is Columbia Law. I want us to realize what that means. This is Columbia Law. This is a large, eternal, unspoken word. Eternal spoken word. This is the word of Allah. tala moolah. This is a more jeiza it is a miracle that Allah gave to the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. The Quran is a miracle that Allah gave to the prophets of Allah Islam and by extension, we all benefit from this vertical. When you recite the Quran,

you are reciting a large message to you.

Which means you need to listen up what is Allah saying to me directly, and you need to apply it to your life.

So, I wish that each and every one of us makes this a habit in our life if you are young,

then

take up the challenge of reading the entire translation of the Quran

and attending the local c classes and starting your life on the right track by making the Quran a part of your life. If you are older, if you are a parent introduce the practice of reciting and reflecting on the Quran to your families. This will bring Baraka to your homes, and we'll need all for all of us moving in the right direction. The Quran is the foundation of the life of the believer.

And so we must make it the foundation of our homes once again.

So in the studio, we did discuss certain verses and how they apply to our daily lives and more specifically to our usage of social media.

So, in the previous quota we looked at verse six and verses 10 and 11. And today inshallah we will look at verses 12 and 13. This is a brief recap verse six, Allah subhanho wa Taala prohibits us from listening to or forwarding unverified information.

And we know this is a major problem on social media today. Everybody's sharing everything. And people will forward the message to 1000 people, and they later apologized for the message as it was was failing. I didn't know it was fake. So Allah subhanho wa Taala commands us in this verse, but

verify isn't a command in the Quran, before forwarding any information to anybody else, but be verified.

Then in verse number 10, Allah subhanaw taala commands us that when we see believers, fighting with each other, for us,

for us, you will

make peace between your brothers.

Make peace between the believers do not be a cause of further fighting. Find ways to stop it. Find ways to get people to cool down. No, it is a physical confrontation between people is actually easier to get them to cool down. You can take someone away in another room, right? You can tell someone to go home, you can stand between you and make sure you don't come to physical blows. But when the heated confrontation is online and social media, and you are third party witnessing it, there's not much you can do about it. Right? You can't tell the person to go home he's already at home. You can't time to go in another room. He's gonna take his phone with him and continue fighting

in the room. So you have to become more creative and wise and how are you going to stop this from happening?

Sometimes it simply means pressing the block button is complete, we'll have to be blocked.

And then the next verse was delivered. We spoke about three prohibitionists. Number one, don't walk anybody, don't walk anybody. mockery is something which our religion does not allow. to such an extent we are not even allowed to mock the false gods of other religions.

More mockery does not benefit anyone. It does not draw anyone closer to you. It does not draw anyone closer to Islam, it pushes people away from you. If you mock someone for their sins, they are going to become more pious is going to hate you. makani has no benefit to Allah has prohibited us from walking.

Then there is the prohibition of defamation, assassination of character, trying to ruin somebody else's reputation.

Be careful,

will become very quick to forward messages online. We are so into has committed a sin, or that's what the message says. And before we leave everybody we know without even waiting, you know to see whether it's actually true or not. And we may ruin a person's life based on life.

Do not be quick to assassinate somebody else's character believe the best of your brothers and sisters.

And then the last revision that we covered in the previous one is do not call people by offensive nicknames. I do not call people by offensive nicknames. Meaning if you have a nickname for someone and they like it, there's nothing wrong with that. know if it's a nickname, The delight, the joy, defining pool of money fun engineering, there's nothing wrong with that. But if the other person doesn't like the name you're calling them by it is haram for you to call them by their name, even behind it. Don't use it at all, do not use names that the other person is offended by.

And now we come to today's topic, verses 12 and 13. And we particularly going to spend a lot of time on verse 12 because it's quite a long verse and it contains three four editions all three which are linked to each other. And all three which require a detailed explanation because these are the three issues which are very much misunderstood by our community. In fact, some of them you might not even realize abbreviations in the Sharia. So let's begin with the reading the verse and translating it. Verse 12. Siracusa

says yah, yah Latina, our monetary buka Filomena gone in Nevada.

Oh, you will

stay away from suspicion and thinking bad about others, because very often suspicion is in of itself a sin.

While at the justice you do not

spy on one another or another translation

Do not invade the privacy of one another, or third translation, do not look for other people's secrets.

What are your

data and do not backed by each other?

Are you Hebrew or how to come? A Murphy meter?

Would any of you love to eat the flesh of your blood your brother after he has died? for God to move you would eat it for too long. So fear Allah be conscious of Allah love your life, in accordance to the laws of Allah. Allah azza wa jal Rahim Allah except your Toba, Allah is most merciful, very powerful person, one of my personal favorite verses in the Quran, Allah Subhana, Allah has prohibited greetings from this bus. And these three things.

If you look at sequences of sin in our life, one leads to the other. So what are the three things that are prohibited number one, is suspicious or thinking bad, assuming the worst of others. The second is to look for faults in others to actively and physically look for somebody else's fault or secret sense. And the third is to backbite. Now I'm going to explain all the details with the exceptions and the application for our life today. But before that, let me give you an example of how if you don't follow one of these prohibitions, you ended up falling in all three of these sets. Right? So for example,

if you suspect that a friend of yours is committing Zina, and it's an unfounded suspicion, you just think so you know, this guy, he looks like the kind of guy that

usually the unfounded suspicion. So you already committed the person of thinking bad about your Muslim brother. But he doesn't stop there. That all bugs you, it bugs you, it bugs you until eventually, you start looking at his private messages. This is the second self understand this to look at somebody else's private messages is Hara. I believe when you saw her, I'm not even allowed to look at your own spouse's private messages.

Seriously, his verse is very clear that they just do not invade the privacy of anybody else. To pick up a friend's phone and to go to the private messages, the private pictures, this is how many Muslims will know this.

So this is what you do. Right? So firstly, thinking that of you, then you start going through private messages. And you find a message from a female. Which it could have been something innocent, but because you're reading it in this state of mind, you assume the worst.

Right? You assume the worst.

So what do you do with that information? You will tell all your other friends. That's the number three kriva backbiting. You see how eats and leads to the next lesson, a sequence of events. A word prohibited in this order. Don't think bad, don't spike don't backwards. Once you start thinking bad, it leads to spine which leads to backbiting. How do you stop yourself from backbiting? Don't even think bad about others. You don't think about others you have nothing to back right about. You have nothing to spy about. You have nothing to look for false about because your heart is pure from thinking bad about others.

Now each of these three things require a detailed explanation. I'm sure you have a lot of questions about it. So I'm going to base my explanation on the questions I normally get when I teach these verses.

The first thing what what is meant by Don't feel bad about others.

These are very important concept in Islam which is missing today. And that is the concept of Houston is what Houston has done means to give people the benefit of the doubt, to think well of others.

And the opposite is what is prohibited in this verse to assume the worst of others. They will give you an example.

You discovered the one of your friends is awake at 2am

person who has pushed no one who thinks good about it assumes he spread his pain to hatred.

The person who has sold what evil thoughts assumes that person is involved in harm activities.

And the person with neutral thought things may be just constantly right?

But what these thoughts reflect really is our inner selves, our own knifes our own false because if you are assuming that that person, priest 100 that is a reflection of the kind of person you are you're the kind of person who pays 200 at a time. If you are assuming that that person is involved in sin, what does that say about you what you will do if you're weak?

You see when we think bad about

Other reflection on ourselves. So Allah subhanho wa Taala has prohibited, not totally, but partially thinking about others. Is it interesting, diverse doesn't prohibit it totally. Allah says in this verse, stay away from often thinking bad about others, and doing it all the a lot more often. And then as I said, in the bundle, sometimes it's easy.

You see how qualified MCs always isn't. He doesn't say you must have everything better with others. Rather, he says sometimes. Why? Because there are times, we assuming that someone is guilty is not innocent. You walk into a room, there's a guy wanting a knife is a dead body on the floor. It's not, it's not a sin to assume that that guy is a murderer.

It may be right or wrong, but he's not assumed to think it at that point in time. So when is plausible evidence that somebody did something wrong, it is not a sin, to think that that person may be guilty, it becomes a sin to backpack about them becomes a central pass judgment without evidence. But the thought is no longer because now there's plausible evidence. Right. So there are situations where assuming something bad about someone else is worrisome. But most of the time, it gets to such an extent that the prophets voice only has informed us now theoretic ideas. He says in Jaco worldgen for inner observable Hadees. He said, beware of thinking bad about others, because it is the worst

type of life.

The process was considered thinking bad, what is the worst type of life, when you are assuming the worst of others, you are lying to yourself about everybody else, you are lying to yourself with everybody else, you think this person is a dummy. And that person is a deviant, and this person is going to help and that person has a secret addiction, and you think bad about everybody else. And 90% of what you're thinking is all lies, you are lying to yourself on a daily basis, and creating hatred in your heart for your fellow believer

based on lies, so the proper size and quality is one of the most line types of torture speech, one of the worst types of lies.

So we need to purify our hearts. We need to pray Our hearts from thinking that about the next person. How do we do that? by training our brain to assume the best

training your brain to assume the best?

We know there was a brother on Facebook who he and his lady were always posting comments from each other. So some people began to assume the worse, they began to assume there's something haram happening between them.

So I told him, don't assume the worst investigate. When they investigated, they found that that was wise.

That was his wife. He was talking to his wife on Facebook. But because you don't know. And because our hearts are so filled with these evil ideas, we assume the worst.

So why am I giving an example simply to teach us?

The process or some thought is this practically once the Prophet slowly someone with his wife, Sophia at night, standing outside and talking, and two of the Sahaba were walking past a stadium, and he started walking faster. So the professor called him back. He said, Come back here. This is my wife, I'm talking to

her. He told us our This is my wife I'm talking to

below, we never think something bad about your practice law is and we never assume something bad about you. And the professor says, Yes, I know. But she thought she would put these thoughts in your head.

So what the prophets thoughts and thoughts in this release? Number one, even if you're a good Muslim, she was going to try and make you think bad about others. Number two, he taught us how to practically stop people from thinking bad about you. How, by always being transparent. Don't do dodgy and secretive things. Right? The process was that we didn't let them walk past that either. You call them back? And he said, This is my wife.

Right? So that people don't assume anything wrong in his interactions. Right? Of course, no one will assume you have the prophets voice. I'm in general, but is to teach us that. Can you see your brother at night talking to a lady outside the mall? That could be his sister, that could be his mother. That could be his Auntie that could be his daughter could be his niece? Why are you automatically assuming it's a harar relationship?

Who's knows what is necessary? When we don't have one? We end up being a community that hates each other. A community that's always suspicious of each other. A community that does not trust each other

There can be no unity in that situation. So we must revive

the second part of the verse and this is a prohibition and many people don't even know exists. Law justice.

The Justice rule, I spent the whole morning thinking how to translate it.

Because the most of the books of translation they translated as do not spy on one another. By this African context, spy has a different meaning in other countries, right? We say spy will mean that you go and tell someone about somebody else's fault. That's not what this verse is talking about. Yeah, that comes into the backbiting part. Yeah, the justice or spine, a democracy and he explained it to me to look for someone else's secrets. This is the meaning of the justice to look for someone else's secrets. It is haram to look into someone else's secrets

is haram to look at people's private conversations, to go to their browser history.

To go to their private photo collection,

you go to a friend's house, and he goes to the teaching to make your cup of coffee. So you secretly are going through his magazine collection hoping you find something bad

around people

around to go to other people's positions without their permission.

It is so haram that the practice was stated that if you somebody peeks into your house, and in retaliation, you knock the eye out it justified the purpose of it is justified because they have no right to be peeking into your home.

They have no right

to be forgotten this for some reason, this aspect of the show is not taught today, we do not have the right to pry into the private lives of others. If Allah has kept somebody's sin a secret, it should stay a secret. You have no right to find out other people's secrets things or to expose it to the world. It is completely wrong.

It is so haram that in the title

below and Whoa. There are many different stories where when Omar was doing his nightly rounds, and he peeked over a wall into somebody's home as a different story, either he saw someone committing Zina or he saw someone drinking alcohol. When he tried to bring it to the judges attention, the judge would say whether the Justice

around for you to even be looking at your home in the first place.

is supposed to be seeing what people are doing in the privacy of the homes.

The Evil One the ration, our commander knows how authentic it is where we'll over look into the manhole and he saw him with a lady and a bottle and he confronted him about it the man said

call Allahu Allah left justify. Oh, I mean, we allocated to not look into other people's secret lives, and only a little cadaveric right. So doctor, you spoken to Trump and he left America as is. So why what why did the slump? Tell us not to look into people's private lives? Well, let's talk about this realistically, right? Every human being alive today says every human being has this sense. Every human being has some habit or something in their life, which is

the difference between the righteous and the fast it is not that the righteous is endless. The difference is that the sins are few and his sins are secret. The only a line you know about this is

not in that situation where personal sins are secret, it's between them and Allah Allah has protected the honor in in public, they do the tobei and repentance in private. What right as any other human being have to know about instance.

And if we cannot respect the privacy of other people, the result of that is that NSA what what goes around comes around, right? If you are going around spying on other people looking for their private streams exposing it,

Allah will make sure the same thing happens to you. And every one of us have things that we don't want to have exposed.

On the other hand, it is narrated in the authentic hadith, that the Prophet voice unstated, who ever conceived conceals the sins of his brother, allow will conceal his sins on the Day of Judgment.

And there's even more detailed explanation given that Allah will take that slave behind the job behind the veil and seek as he told us needs a long list. These are all your sins

and we will get one.

What are you gonna do about it? I'll say I'm not telling anyone about it. You're forgiven.

Why, because he did not talk about other people's sins, he did not expose the sins of others. So Allah keeps his sins a secret in this world and the next, on the day of gentlemen, everybody sins are in full display for the whole universe to see those people who kept their sins and the sins of others a secret, Allah will keep this as a secret on the Day of Judgment. if for no other reason, for that reason alone, we should stay away from the Justice from looking into people's private lives.

So this is prohibited, because there is 99% chance that if you are looking for a secret or a fault in someone, you are going to find it 99% when I look at who the person is, he can be the most pious person you know, he can be the most trusted person you know, it can be the most knowledgeable person you know it can be your closest family member. When you go kicking around for people secrets, you will find Secrets You don't like.

So don't don't do it. It is haram to do it is haram to go into that which Allah has conceived. If alliancebernstein issue sequency is nobody else's business. It is now between the and the master. It is between the slave and the master Watson's a individual converts in private, they repent to Allah in private, and the rest of the world has no right to know about it. That is our religion. Because the owner of the minibar is sacred Islam.

Respect the honor of the next person next to you think good up there and don't even think about looking into the light and looking for secrets.

But today, not only are people looking for other people's secret cells, but they are taking screenshots of the conversations and posting it online for the whole dounia to see.

So we've taken the justice to a whole nother level. Not only are you looking for someone's secret sins, but you want the whole world to see this ecosense

as if,

as if there's there's no left for the individual.

And that takes us to number three, la yaakob bada bada, none of you should backbite anybody else. Now this requires a lot of explanation. What is backbiting?

And he will always hold on and are the exceptions to the rules. These are all the questions that come to people's minds. So the Prophet slowly said, he wants to ask the Sahaba Do you know what the Riba is? What backbiting is?

And the Sahaba replied Allah and His Messenger naugus. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he gave us the definition of backbiting. He says it is to say, Listen very carefully, he says he is to say about somebody else, something that they don't like to hear, to say about somebody else behind the back when they're not around. That which they don't want to would not like anyone to hear about.

This, they have asked a very important question. They say, Oh, rahula what if what we are saying is true. And that's what most of us use to justify our backbiting, right? This is not always true, speaking the truth what we seek is not lies. The Sahaba asked the Prophet, what is this bad thing? We sing about somebody else? What if it's true? The prophet SAW Some said if it is true, then it is he by his back by saying, if it is false, then it is slander, which is even worse than backbiting.

Meaning, it is haram to talk about the sins of anybody else. Even if it is true.

That excuse the people made that what I'm saying is true. That's not a

acceptable excuse. Right? To backbite about your friends will be evil. You cannot

see that this is the truth swatting Batman. Now, there are exceptions to the rule. I will come to it in a moment. But just to give you an idea of why is backbiting.

No, I know certain rather he is he's commenting. So why can't I say it's haram for multiple reasons. Number one, there's no benefit in it. That's the main reason. There's no benefit. If you and your friends are sitting together and talking about a third person said,

What good comes out of that.

You just you're just creating animosity between believers, we just drinking hatred between believers. We're just making people look down upon each other. There's no healing that is no good.

So the exception to the rule is when the benefit outweighs the harm. And the scholars have mentioned three types of situations, three way becomes permissible to mention somebody else's. So listen carefully here the only three times where you can talk about somebody else's sin even if it's a secret number one, if it's going to affect some

Somebody else's life.

Two examples of this, if you know that a man has a secret drug addiction problem, and the righteous woman is considering marrying that man, it is your obligation to tell her about his problem.

Because she needs to know that you know what you're getting into to make the right decision. In that case, it is not backbiting. It is saving her from fitna. And we have an example of this in the life of Rasulullah. Salah when a woman came to the prophet SAW some and said, these are two Sahaba. I'm considering marrying one of the two, the prophets why some said, don't tell you that one because he has no money. And don't marry the other one because he hits his wife. And for those of you who are hitting your wife is something allowed in Islam, why did the Prophet slome see this.

So it's all documented either of them in the exposing dounia folder of one and the default of the other, don't marry this guy goes in there money, he's not gonna be able to protect you and provide for you, and don't marry that one because he's abusive.

So he expose the private sin and try with worldly fault of two Sahaba to protect a woman from marrying a man who would not have been rightful. So in this Hadith, we have an example that in these situations, when a sister is going to get married to a man, you cannot hide the faults in that situation, she needs to know what you're getting into.

And how many times in our community have we seen this? Have you seen a woman, you know, been lied to? The whole family knows the guy is a drug addict, the whole point he knows the drug addict, no one says anything. Why?

fix it?

That's not Islam. I know where this came from. But that's not Islam. islamically, she has the right to know, she has the right to know and to make an informed decision. Another example of this where Justin may harm somebody out his business. So you know someone is always beating people down your business, right is always not paying him on time, calling them whatever the case may be, and your friends about to go to business with that individual. In that case for you to go and tell your friend that Listen, this guy is a scammer. This guy is a con artist, it is not backbiting it is not because you're protecting him from harm. So in that case, it is permissible.

The second case, where it is permissible to say something bad about someone else is when you are getting that person somehow when you are getting a person some help. So for example, if you have a friend who is addicted to drugs, and you go to the rehab center, and you tell him about your friend, and he's problem, and they are able to help him with the problem, it is not backbiting for you to speak to those individuals, because they can help you. And the purpose for you some has told us to assist our friends, our oma whether they are right or wrong. When they say boss, how do we assist them when they are wrong? He said by getting them out of the room. So this is not backbiting. But if

we know of a childhood getting into bad company, and you tell his parents, that's not backbiting, because you are assisting him and protecting him from that evil.

So we have to use common sense here. That backbiting is haram because it causes problems in society. But where what you are seeing is going to solve a problem is not a problem, as in the case of protecting some third party from harm, or getting the individual help in those cases, to those specific individuals, it will be permissible to say it but not publicly, we still don't have a right to go and publicly talk about somebody else's sense.

And the these and I read today one of the books that I've seen that they mentioned one time when it is permissible to publicly talk about somebody else's assets. And these the scholars have said is when they are committing those sins in public and everyone knows about it anyway. So if someone is and we see the three of people are openly boasting about distance, we should mention them, we should mention that that is a sin. We should mention that that is wrong. We should mention that you should not take that person as a role model. Why? Because in that case, if we say nothing, the community becomes desensitized to that sin, and they begin to think it's normal. So in that case, to talk

about the individual even by name will not be backbiting because everybody already knows they're doing it, doing it openly and proudly. So that's not backbiting that's protecting the oma from that individuals.

So these are the times when it is permissible.

Finally, one last verse before we end off and that is the verse number 13 verse as most often quoted from the surah, Allah subhanaw taala says, oh, mankind, we created you from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes so that you can get to know each other. And the most honest of you in the sight of Allah is the one who is most conscious of Allah.

Indeed, Allah is the one who knows everything and is informed of everything. This verse, you

Although it to me that racism is wrong. We notice we say this all the time. But when you go on South African Muslim, Facebook and you read the comments, racism is clearly still alive in our community. And many people who pretend not to be racist in public, they feel okay to make racist statements online.

As if social media suddenly makes it right. So what can we do about this, we don't have much time to go into this topic. Now, sad to say, even though a party ended in South Africa, 20 years ago, it's still alive in the hearts of many people.

And here's what we can do about it. When you see someone being racist, whether it's in person or online, confront them, and tell them not to do it

doesn't matter if the if it gets awkward, doesn't matter if they get offended or not. He uninvolved car is an obligation

prohibiting people from evil is an obligation.

And I've had many situations like this, you know, once a brother was talking to me, and he mentioned a certain race using a derogatory term. And I told him, I stopped him right there. I said, don't ever use that term in your life, which is wrong.

And you can be shown over and over using a term of Buddha. Nobody ever told me I can use no one ever told me it's wrong. And I told him, and I explained to him why it's wrong. And since then, he's never used that term, at least not in front of me, I don't know but elsewhere. But the point is, you have to say it. Even if it gets awkward, we need to revive within us this ability to say what is right to call people towards what is right, to tell them not to do or to tell them to stay away from what is wrong.

Now, please be too worried about offending people will be too worried about hurting people's feelings. And that's good in general. But now when it comes to I'm going to be my roof in the Hanuman car. If you're afraid of hurting the feelings of the races, when you go whining about the feelings of all the people who've been racist towards that doesn't make any sense. Right? You have to find that balance. So find a nice way to say it, find life occasions and feet, find the wise way to say it, but says Don't be complicit to racism. We've seen people being racist online, don't just confront them online if they know the person confront them in person. And speaking about the

educated about it, teach them the correct way of dealing with people across different groups. We really have to move past this. Islam came to get rid of this 1400 years ago, and 1001 is needed. We still stuck in this mindset. We Allah forgive us and guide us and protect us and purify our hearts. So with that our time is up have actually gone over time. Please forgive me for that. We ask Allah to grant us the understanding of the poor and the ability to live by it and to be role models of it and to spread it to our families and our communities. And to give us the ability to live our lives both online and offline in light of Sudoku, gerat Papa Dhawan and Domino Solomonic