Khalid Latif – Imam Nawawis 40 Hadith for Modern Times #13
AI: Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of memorizing wording in hadiths and the migration of Muslims to their new kingdom. They emphasize the use of narratives to portray two groups of companions and the importance of faith and learning to be a person with a certain understanding of the universe. The speakers also stress the importance of finding one's own definition of honor and finding one's own success in society, including the use of metaphysical elements and the heart and nature of the heart. Engagement in businesses and online programs for students is emphasized, along with creating a community wide reading group and attending community lunch events. The speakers encourage students to participate in groups and reflect together on topics such as mindfulness and the heart and nature of the heart.
AI: Summary ©
What's so funny?
What's so funny?
I'm watching the live trying to watch the
live stream.
Can you hear this conversation on the live
stream?
Because that means then the mic's working.
That's So what are we doing?
Okay. Should we get started?
So we haven't had this halakha
in, like,
a month
and a half?
A month, maybe?
We've been looking at the 40 hadith, imam.
No way. Next week, we're gonna reset all
of our classes. We'll still continue with this.
We'll have a bigger advertising push. We're gonna
add some other classes
in the coming week.
But we'll continue with this. And then I
think on Mondays after this, we'll add a
second class. If you're here in the summer,
we're doing something that was just on, like,
foundations
of religion.
I was going through, like, the fiqh of
prayer. According to the school, it's probably do
something similar
for our convert community. People just trying to
rebuild a relationship
with their Islam who were born into it.
But that'll
be next week.
And we'll still continue with this, but then
after, probably have a class, so just look
out for it. So we're on hadith number
6.
If people wanna really quickly just pull it
up on your phone, if you Google
something like,
40 Hadith
6, it'll pop up. This is a hadith
that's on
the heart. It talks about matters of halal
and haram.
It's narrated by a companion by the name
of Norman,
who we'll talk about in a bit. But
if you're looking for the hadith,
once somebody has it, it'd be great if
they could read it also.
Does anybody have it in front of them?
Yeah.
That. Right?
Yeah.
Great. Can you read it?
The halal is clear and the Haram is
clear, and between them are matters unclear that
are unknown to most people. Whoever is wary
of these unclear matters has absolved his religion
and honor, and whoever indulges in them has
indulged in Haram. It is like a shepherd
who carries his sheep too close to preserve
sanctuary,
and they will eventually graze in it. Every
king has a sanctuary, and the sanctuary of
a law is what gives me time. There
lies within the body of within the body
a piece of flesh. If it is sound,
the whole body is sound, and if it
is
corrupted, the whole body is corrupted.
Verily, this can't be alive.
Great. Does anybody wanna read the Arabic?
Or can somebody read the Arabic?
Afi, are you trying to hide right now?
Are you are you trying to shrink?
We're not this isn't a, like, a I
can't I'm not gonna call on you too.
Yeah.
Hadith number 6, the Arabic. Somebody read it.
Are you trying? Yeah. Go for
it.
So just like we were looking at the
previous hadith, you wanna try to memorize these
hadith or parts of the hadith as best
as you can. The barakah
in, like, just learning the hadith, but also
when you're
actually narrating hadith,
it's important to just know the wording that
the prophet
is conveying it to us through.
There's nuance that gets lost sometimes in meaning.
So the companion who's narrating this hadith, his
name is Norman ibn Bashir.
And we looked at the previous 5 hadith,
they were narrated by Omar Ibn Al Khattab,
Abdullah ibn Omar,
Abdullah ibn Masood,
and
Aisha Bint Abi Bakr. We talked about the
4 of them, gave a little bit of
biographical information about them, gave some insight on
who they were
and kind of the placement of the Hadith.
So Nur Rahman ibn Bashir as a companion
is interesting because both of his parents were
also companions.
And essentially what happens is when the Muslims
leave from Mecca to go to Medina,
there's
things that are said about them
that
claim that they've been cursed as a population,
there's no children that are gonna be born,
and for quite some time in Medina, there's
actually no children that are born.
And some of the companions get into a
state of disarray wondering as if these words
that are being applied to them are actually
valid in some capacity.
There's 2 groupings of individuals
that we're taught about
when we're looking at the companions more broadly.
Right? So just as a recap, like, somebody's
considered to be a sahaba,
a companion of the prophet, peace be upon
him, if they both met the prophet in
their lifetime
and passed away in the state of faith,
right, on a state of iman.
So for example,
Abu Lahab,
who would have met the prophet, wouldn't be
considered a companion
because he didn't die as a Muslim. Does
it make sense? Right? And then if you
were to subdivide
that grouping of companions into categories,
there's different ways that the prophet describes these
individuals,
people we can look at in a variety
of ways, the 'Ashara' and 'Ubashara', the 10
who are guaranteed paradise. Right? The Cholefar 'Ashadun,
the 4 rightly guided caliphs,
etcetera. But 2 generic
groupings of companions
are people who are called the Muhajirun,
the ones who made hijra,
meaning they migrated from Mecca to Medina,
which is a second migration.
Right? It's important for us to understand this
because the first migration that takes place
is from Mecca to Abyssinia.
Right? A group of people
go from Mecca to Abyssinia,
They find sanctuary in the Christian king, the
Najashi.
Abyssinia is modern day Ethiopia,
and that's an entirely
important conversation
that one should have, but,
really remarkable. And to think out what that
must mean if you've been coming to the
SITO classes we do on Wednesday,
we talk about elements societally
of race and class and how that impacts
Meccan society,
that this group of Meccan Muslims,
and then this group of Meccan Mushrikeen, these
non Muslims who follow them are now in
this kingdom
that is
both presided over as well as the majority
are people who are black,
and it's quite distinct from the society in
which they're coming from. But this Hijra that
we're talking about, this migration
that the Muhajirun
are associated with is when they leave from
Mecca
to go to Medina to establish the city
of Medina.
The people who welcome them in, they're called
the Ansar, the helpers.
Right? So here's the 2 categories
in this conversation.
We're looking at Muhajirun
and Ansar.
Nurmah ibn Bashir is from the Ansar.
He's from a tribe called the Khazraj tribe,
and he's a child
that
is born,
amongst the first children born in Medina.
So after some time when no one has
been born
and people are getting distraught,
there is a companion by the name of
Abdullah ibn Zubair,
who is the grandson of Abu Bakr,
who is born
in Medina.
The people are so
elated at the birth of this young child.
They say Abu Bakr, like, holds him upon
his shoulders and walks through the streets. It's
the first child born in a long time.
Noman ibn Bashir is born to the Ansar,
6 months later. Right? So he's one of
the first children.
Why is this something that's important to understand?
Any thoughts?
He's born in Medina,
and he's born now,
like, sometime after the Hidra takes place.
What can we also, like, understand about him?
Yeah.
1 of the Christ children born in Muslim
society? Yeah. But as a person who's, like,
telling us this hadith now do you know
what I mean?
What do we then know by virtue of
who he is in just relation to his
birth, the timing of his birth?
He's a child. He's a kid. Right? Because
how long were people in Medina after they
migrated from Mecca before the prophet passes away?
10 years.
Yeah.
So if the prophet is in Medina for
10 years and his companion is narrating on
behalf of what he's heard from the prophet,
then he's gonna be narrating this at a
young age.
And if he's a baby at the early
part of Medina,
then we can also understand the placement of
this hadith is coming at a time where
he's gonna be old enough
to discern, like, language.
Right? So if you ever met a baby,
as smart as the babies are that you've
met, they're not gonna be speaking
and narrating hadith,
let alone like saying anything.
Do you know? That to get to a
certain place where their faculties and capacities
are capable of being able to do this.
So you can contextualize
now that this statement
has to have been heard by this person
at a time that is in this stage.
Numa'an Abid Bashir
doesn't narrate like thousands of hadith.
The number of hadith that are attributed to
him are probably,
like, in a 100 and some change,
And quite often the hadith that he's narrating
are
hadith
that are done through a companion,
like another link between him and the prophet
because of the age that he has.
But here is a hadith that
Nomad Abin Bashir is narrating
just through himself directly.
There's a lot that we can derive from
this,
but fundamentally
as a child,
he's still now
invested
within or embedded rather within this broader system
of proliferation
of Hadith.
And he's giving us this insight now in
a Medanese period
of Hadith.
Right? That the prophet is still talking about
these things, but they're gonna be relevant to
Medina
because in Mecca,
the Quranic verses that are being revealed
are not necessarily about the legality
of situations.
Right?
Because how are they gonna pray when people
are persecuting them? How are they gonna establish,
like,
fasting and charity
when people are literally boycotting them? We talked
about Abdullah ibn Mas'ud
who is the narrator of the hadith,
like 2 hadith prior to this,
where he talks about embryology
and the kind of Qadr. Do people remember
what I'm talking about?
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud,
he was a black Sahaba,
right? There's narrations that talk about his hair
being in braids.
He was the 1st companion to recite Quran
publicly.
He was
beaten and abused as a result of this.
You know, there's so much that we discussed
about who he is, Radiallahu an, the influence
he has on the development
of Islam and Kufa, and in turn, the
Hanafi school and so much more.
Nomineb and Bashir is growing up in a
different setting.
He's not in a place where that's what
his reality is growing up with his Islam.
He's also unique because
he's born to 2 companions.
So you're seeing at his birth
the advent now of something that's interesting
that is generational Islam
because more or less all of the people
that were coming prior to a lot of
this were people who converted into the religion.
But
growth of a community
can be rooted sociologically
in the sustaining of identity through generations.
You see? It didn't stop with his parents
generation,
but he's born into it, and he's one
of the first children born
in the Medina period of
the prophetic
experience.
There's a lot that they talk about Numaan
Ibn Bashir radiAllahu an in terms of who
he was
as a young person, but he's a child,
you know? So you're not gonna
have narrations of
Naman Ibn Bashir,
like, fighting at Badr and Uhud and these
plays. He's a baby. Right? Do you know?
And you wanna you wanna think about these
things because these are people who lived entire
lives,
and they still have placement within historical context.
There's a lot of different narrations that speak
about Noman ibn Bashir,
but the prophet had a relationship with him
as he did with other children, and he
loved children and he engaged them in these
ways. So there's one narration, for example, that
the prophet
gives, like, 2 bunches of grapes to Naman
Ibn Bashir. And he says, have one for
yourself and give one to your mother. And
then Norman
takes the grapes and he eats his, and
then as he's going to his mom, like,
he eats that one too.
And the prophet said, like,
what happened with the grapes?
And he says to him, you know, a
messenger of God, like, I ate the grapes.
Right? And the hadith says the prophet, like,
pulls on his ear, but he's essentially, in
an endearing way, like saying to him, you
know, you're like a little rascal, like, what's
wrong with you? Right? But that was the
kind of relationship that they had with each
other. Do you know?
He's a child
and this hadith we can break
into essentially 3
different kind of settings of information.
The first part, the prophet is talking about
the halal is clear and the haram is
clear.
But you wanna juxtapose
your understanding of halal and haram to this
boy's understanding of halal and haram.
Because the way that it's been conveyed to
him is not just now about the outward
because the last part of the hadith,
right, that indeed in your body, there's a
there's a morsel of flesh. She talks about
the heart. He's being introduced to the concept
of halal and haram holistically.
Not just don't do this, don't do that,
this is bad, that's wrong, your haram, everything
you do is terrible.
But as a child,
he's been given an insight into religion
that conveys this now from the standpoint of
how that which is outward
and external relates to that which is inward.
And then the middle chunk of this is
relating to now this amazing
kind of,
metaphor that the prophet does,
illustrate
in terms of giving an insight into
like how one should be relating to this
concept of the halal and the haram,
and there's a lot to extrapolate from that.
Nomad ibn Bashir was also known as somebody
who is a great orator.
His communication skills were really remarkable.
Do you think about it from a socialization
standpoint? If as a child, he is narrating
hadith from the prophet, that means he's spending
time with the prophet of God.
And the prophet is an amazing communicator,
right? His speech is remarkable.
And so
no one in the hadith can find
anybody that says, I spoke to Muhammad and
I didn't understand what he was talking about.
There's no hadith that you read where somebody
walks away saying he didn't get me and
where I was coming from. You see? And
so this young boy now is in Medina.
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud
is reciting Quran in front of the Kaaba
publicly and people are beating him. In a
controlled environment
where you have the establishment
of a city that is Medina,
you're now able to benefit within a space
of stillness
from the teachings in ways that are different.
And so the qualities
that are being passed on also from a
good teacher is the ability to effectively
kinda take from your positive traits. So these
young people who are in the prophet's company,
they're gonna also pick up on his oration
skills, and his communication skills, and his ability
to be very effective in the way that
he disseminates, like, knowledge. Does that make sense?
He's known as being, like, a good poet.
Right? That his words are really remarkable.
And there's other stuff that goes into it,
but you wanna think about this from the
standpoint of those different frames. But being able
to understand then as a boy, if he's
hearing this, it's gotta be at a place
where it's in Medina,
and the prophet is, like, speaking about these
things still in the city of Medina.
After they've established their city, they have their
community,
there's growth, and he's telling these people these
things. Your heart
is what is your guiding compass.
There's these boundaries
that you don't want to transgress,
and there's a connection point between the outward
and the inward. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Okay. So if we start from the beginning,
right, where the hadith
is giving us these, like, really remarkable
kinda
phrases,
such depth,
That indeed
the permissible
is unambiguous.
That's what it means by clarity. There's no
ambiguity to it. You can't, like, say, maybe
it means this, maybe it means that. The
permissible
means this
and the impermissible
means maybe that. No.
Means clarity in the sense that there's no
ambiguity
to it.
Do you know? Like, if I said to
you,
give me the iPad,
all of you know definitively what I'm talking
about.
Right? If I said to you,
like, hand me the microphone, everyone knows there's
no ambiguity
to it.
If I said to
you, like, write down what love means,
all of you would probably write something different
from somebody else.
Right? It doesn't mean that what you're saying
is wrong,
but it doesn't have the same concreteness
to it. Right?
What does, like, goodness mean? Write it down.
You'd also still have some distinct
perspectives to it. This hadith is saying, there's
no ambiguity.
The halal is clear and the haram is
clear.
What I'd like you to do before we
jump into it
is turn to the person next to you.
More people have trickled in. Introduce yourselves.
Right? Share some names. What do these two
words mean? Halal and haram.
And when were you first
exposed to them?
It makes sense the question,
right?
And with an understanding
that if you're new to like some of
the halukas that I do,
your job is to not like correct somebody
or remedy someone.
You're not supposed to speak only when you
have the most correct thing to say, we
have to benefit from everybody's perspectives.
Don't keep yourself from talking because you're worried
about saying the wrong thing. Right? There's no
wrong answer. When was the first time you
can remember
hearing the word haram and halal? And what
do these words mean to you? Right?
And then we'll come back and discuss. You
wanna get comfortable to a place where you
can reflect on religion.
You can develop a connection to it through
like a thoughtful process.
Does that make sense? Right? This hadith is
important.
There's so many people who are collectors of
hadith.
One of the major books of hadith
within Sunni Islam, the Sunan of Abu Dawood,
Imam Abu Dawood, he cites this hadith as
one of 4 hadith
that if you know any hadith, like, if
you know these 4 hadith,
then
that's all you need to know to know
Islam. This is one of those hadith.
There's other companions,
there's other scholars,
Mulla Alikari,
he
cites that is one of 3 hadith
that you would need to know. Right? Just
foundational hadith that everything builds upon. So it's
an important hadith. Right? So we wanna understand
these concepts, but we wanna benefit from each
other's insights also because you can just memorize
something, but to build a relationship with it,
there has to be that intimacy. Do you
get what I mean? And we also wanna
benefit from each other
and kind of being in each other's company
and building our relationships and bonds on things.
They're a little deeper than this. So we
all know this verse.
Yeah. That, oh,
mankind, we made you from a male and
a female into nations and tribes so that
you know one another. Right?
Is the objective.
That's like the point of it. So that
you know one another and it's an intimate
knowing. Right? It's not
which is just concrete information knowledge, 2 +2
equals 4. I know this.
Or it's not that
I can comprehend
the 2 +2 equals 4.
Taaruf
is an intimate knowledge. That's the whole point
of being made into diverse groupings of people.
The objective is outlined in the verse. It's
not a
product, it's the objective. The point is, when
you come together in diverse groupings
that you want to build that intimate
knowing of one another. How you can do
that if you don't talk to each other?
Right? But you come and you hear one
person just talk at you all the time.
So
there's residual benefit from sharing your ideas and
thoughts,
become more acquainted with each other. Do you
get what I mean? Does that make sense?
Okay. So just turn the person next to
you, ideally in pairs. Like, try not to
do more than 3 so everybody gets to
talk. Somebody's sitting around you
and they,
like, have no one talking to them, invite
them in to talk with you. Like, what
do these two terms mean, halal and haram?
And when were you first introduced to them?
And then we'll come back and discuss. Go
ahead.
Okay.
So what do these words mean?
Because we hear them a lot. Right?
What does it mean?
What does the word halal mean?
Yeah. But what does that mean?
Yeah. You can do it without any religious
harm to yourself.
Okay. Great.
Do you see the difference
between this the word permissible
and you can do it without any religious
harm to yourself? If we were to build
upon that, what else would it mean then?
Just harm to yourself.
Yeah. But what if I didn't do it?
That would be fine too. That would be
fine too. Right? This is the difference between
the word halal and fard.
Right?
Because the fard
is also permissible,
but if you don't do it,
then it has the potential
that
there can be punishment as a result.
But the permissible,
merely permissible
doesn't mean that.
Does that make sense?
What about haram?
What does the word mean?
Don't say impermissible.
That's how you get there. Like, if you
do it, you are committing harm. I have
to be hard with myself if I do
if I do something that's wrong. Yeah. It
can be a grounds for punishment.
What makes something permissible?
That it's not
That is not for all? It's kinda like
It's not everything else that it's
Yeah. But how do you know?
Okay.
And how do you know something is not
permissible?
Same same thing. You're also told.
Great. So it's not, like, fully applicable.
Right? Now if we start to break this
down categorically,
there's 2 types of categories that these things
can be broken into. There's what's called the
Ibadat,
the matters of worship, and the Muamalat,
like, the more non worship oriented. Let's just
call it that. So worship and everything else.
In this category that is worship oriented,
in order for something to be permissible,
there has to be an evidence that permits
it.
In this category that's not worship,
everything by default is permitted
unless there's evidence that says it's not permitted.
Do you see the difference?
Does it make sense?
So
I can't tell you
that one of the ways we worship Allah
is by sitting in gray chairs
at 6:35
PM on Monday nights
and pray
sitting down.
This is now like a form of prayer
that we have. I'd have to have a
basis to be able to make that claim.
You see what I mean?
This point is important to understand because in
Imam Nawi's hadith,
we're on hadith number 6, and I'm gonna
try to go through them much quicker. I
know we've been going through them like a
little slower,
but you wanna like
engage it so that you can actualize it.
There's no point in just engaging it so
that you know it. Like, that's the bridge
between
knowledge and wisdom. You act upon what you
know. Right? May Allah make us people of
wisdom.
So here, you're in a place where the
hadith prior to this from Aisha radhiallahu ta'ala
Anha
is the hadith that talks about like
matters of innovation,
You know? He who adds something to this
faith of ours
that is not from it, it'll be rejected.
Right? Remember those of you who were here
a month and a half ago last time
we talked? Anybody know what I'm talking about?
Yeah. Great. Okay.
So
I can't
say,
like,
just because
this is how we are going to now
engage
in matters of worship. Worship is not just
prayer
and fasting
and charity and pilgrimage. It's all of those
things. Right? Duas, supplication,
etcetera. There's gotta be a basis to it.
And on the other end of it, there
has to be a basis that says, this
is why something is not permitted.
The hadith
gives us an insight
that we can all understand
with ease.
For example,
marriage is permitted in Islam. Right?
The halal is clear.
Fornication
is not permitted in Islam. Right?
The haram is clear.
I can give you a gift
in Islam.
Right? It's permitted. Right? You can give me
gifts whenever you want to.
It's permitted.
I can't steal something from you.
That's
not permissible.
These are things that have clarity to them,
and we know it.
Do you get what I mean?
And that's where a lot of the Quran
and the Hadith give us insight. It just
says things straight up.
Pork
can't eat it.
You know? Don't eat pork. That just means
don't eat pork.
There's not really, like, room around it. So
somebody says, why can you not eat pork?
Well, it's one of those things. You can
eat a 1,000 different things, but don't eat
that. Don't eat the carcass of an animal.
Don't eat something that has had other than
the name of the divine uttered over it.
Right?
The verse has a lot of different facets
to it, but it's carving out now from
what the normative understanding of consumption is, the
exceptions.
So for in that act that is not
worship oriented,
for you to understand
what is not permissible,
there has to be a basis to it.
You see?
It doesn't come just out of nowhere.
As you grow in your relationship with this
religion,
you don't understand it as a sociological
identity variable that I'm just born into it
and I inherited
or it's a title that I have, but
it's a way of life.
So what we have
as essentially,
categorization
of acts
that we can bear manifest through our sheer
will and determination.
Every single thing you do
can fit into
a box.
It has what's called a hook them to
it.
Right?
And there's what's called the sharia,
that a whiteboard behind me, I would write
it. But just picture in your head, you
know. So you have at the ends,
like, what is obligatory,
the fard,
and what is Haram, impermissible.
In the middle,
you have what is called Muba or just
neutral,
And then between
what is obligatory
and neutral,
you have what's called Mustahab
or kinda recommended,
and then you can have another category
that is sunnah
that is, like, a prophetically
practiced,
like,
recommended act.
And then between
neutral and haram, you have what's called or
what's disliked.
Are you okay? Yeah.
Yeah. Did I say something to upset you?
I'm sorry. Yeah.
Ideally, when you get to a place
where you understand how you relate to Sharia,
you
know the hookam
of what you're going to do before you
do it.
So after you start working,
is not the ideal time to think, is
this something that's permissible for me to do?
Do you get what I mean?
When you're, like, immersed in it
yeah. Like, you should still do it had
you not done it before.
But the goal is to not know all
of it across the board, but how does
it apply to me
ideally before
I exert decision making on it?
So what is the ruling on this thing
before I actually do it?
Does that make sense?
How do I familiarize myself with it?
And where the halal is clear and the
haram is clear,
and you start seeing these hadith connect to
each other, there's not really, like, room to
suddenly maneuver around it in ways that is
not within our authority.
The challenge that comes in is that
we have sometimes
tenuous relationships with some of these terminologies.
Because if you think about this spectrum in
your mind that we just put out there,
haram
and then all the rest of this stuff,
technically,
all the rest of this stuff can fit
in the realm now
of what is halal.
Does that make sense?
So there's a lot that goes into permissibility
in comparison to the sliver that is impermissible.
But if you don't have a relationship with
terminology
and you don't build foundation
understanding,
it doesn't need for you to know it
in order for it to still be
categorized in the ways that it is. But
quite often, what ends up happening is that
we build a jaded relationship with faith because
people tell us things that are haram that
are not haram.
And then the things that are actually haram,
we try to intellectualize
in a way that doesn't necessarily
fall within the parameters of religion.
Islam doesn't function off of prisms of just
rational and irrational.
Something makes sense to me or something does
not make sense to me.
There's a third frame that interjects itself that
is super irrational. It doesn't need for me
to understand it in order for it to
be true.
A god centric religion like Islam
is based off of the assumption that there's
certain things that God will ask you to
do that you love to do, certain things
that god asks you to do that you
will struggle with, and certain things that god
asks you to do that you don't really
understand why this thing is what it is,
but you still yield to the idea that
Allah knows best.
Does that make sense?
And so the halal is clear and the
haram is clear.
It's not because my grandma told me that
this isn't allowed or that's not allowed. And
then you use language that supposes these terms,
but in ways that
are just
throwing people off track.
So somebody sits you down
and
says, tell me about this Islam thing.
The Islam thing you're supposed to x y
or z, but the word supposed to
is in a problematic way alluding to this
is an obligation.
Do you know?
Or you're not supposed to do this. Right?
Does that make sense? It's better to do
this than assumes that the other alternative
must be worse.
But this is not, like, things. Do you
get what I mean?
I went to
a conference
when
it's probably, like, in my late twenties,
an MSA conference, college students.
And I'd given a talk,
like, at a session
in a lecture hall at this university that
we were at, I think in Philadelphia.
And then there were some kids there from
North Carolina,
And one came up to me and said,
can you talk to some of us after
the session's done? I said, okay. And everybody
exited the lecture hall and then 30 people
walked in from this college, and they were
in the seats, they were looking at me,
and I was looking at them, and I
said, what are we doing here, guys? And
they said, just tell us something.
And I said, what what? What does that
even mean? You know? And they were like,
tell us about, like,
something that we should know.
There's not a lot of speakers that come
to our campus. We just want to take
advantage of this time.
So I said, I don't really know, you
know, what
you want me to talk to you about.
And they said, how do we deal with,
like, things that our friends aren't supposed to
do?
You know, talk to us about, like,
gender interaction and listening to music and this
kind of stuff.
In my head, I was like, man, I
don't wanna talk to you about this. Right?
But what?
But you'd wanna think, why does this person's
mind automatically go to that's what Islam is?
Right?
So I said, well, tell me about your
college, and they kinda doubled down on that.
And this girl was talking to me, and
she said, you know, like, boys and girls,
they're not supposed to talk to each other.
And I said,
I'm a boy.
And she said, what do you mean? And
I was like, well, you're a girl.
Right?
And I said, is this haram?
And she said,
I don't know.
And I said, what does the word haram
mean?
And then someone said, something is Haram if
it hurts you.
And I said, if somebody called me on
the phone right now and said my dad
went to the your
religion
be taken away from you
if you don't actually educate yourself
on what the foundational parts to it are.
And if at this stage in your Islam,
regardless of how many weeks, months, or years
you've been Muslim,
what you've been given is just what somebody
else possesses
that doesn't have an understanding
of, like, the linguistic and technical aspects. All
you gotta do is learn it once.
Then you're depriving yourself of
the breath of beauty that can come from
this religion.
The opportunity
to really delve into an idea that through
this, have I conceptualized
a divine entity that's an angry old man
in the sky looking for a reason to
punish me? Or do I believe in a
God that believes in me more than I
believe in myself and has set these parameters
for me for my benefit, not as something
to suffocate me.
Another time I went to
my parents' home, my dad, when he wasn't
sick, he used to do a halukkah for
some of his friends and other families
in my parents' home,
and they were talking about
something relevant to zagat. And I was visiting,
they said, can you say something?
And I don't remember how the conversation landed
where it was, but we started to talk
about
and one of the verses in
it says
like the doers of zakah
are the ones who are successful.
The believers have succeeded, says the initial verse.
And then the characteristics that define it, one
of the characteristics says,
the ones who do zakat.
So I started talking about, like, and
zakat in that sense and whatever else. And
then when it wrapped up, there was a
older auntie that was there.
She was older than me, at least at
that time.
Her son was there, and her son is,
like, in this awkward phase.
You know, he's 12, 13 years old, but
he's, like, 5 foot 10, still trying to
grow into his body. He's got, like, these
little hairs above his lip, you know.
And the kid is 5 foot 10. I
am not 5 foot 10. Do you know
what I mean? But he's looking at me,
like, from, like, the corner of his eyes
as he's trying to just hunch over
as if he wants to disappear into himself.
And
his mother said, you know, it's so nice
for you to come and talk to us
and this and that, but what have been
great is if you talked about this other
verse that
says that from the characteristics
of the believers
are the ones who avoid what is,
like, what is futile.
There's no benefit to it.
And she said, my son,
he just plays video games all day. He
sits in front of the television,
and he plays these games.
And it's.
Can you tell him it's haram?
And I said, you know, auntie,
I'm sorry, but, like, I can't tell him
it's haram.
And then the kid, like, straightened up a
little bit more, you know, and, like, looked
at me.
And I said the word haram means something
very specific,
and I don't have a basis of being
able to tell him that this is haram.
He's just playing a game that's,
like, virtual. Do you know? If the content
of the game is haram, that's a different
question,
But he's not. He's just playing like a
video game. Do you know what I mean?
She couldn't
grasp this idea very well initially.
You know? She was like, no. No. But
just tell him it's haram. Right? I was
like, no. Like, that's not something I can
do.
Right?
That kid
exists within
millions of Muslim people
who growing up
had adults who didn't know what else to
say, and they said,
if you do this,
God will hate you.
If you do
this, you're going to *.
If you do this,
you're going to be punished.
Or in the context of what we're talking
about, this is haram. I once had an
uncle who told me that
eating baked ziti is haram.
I'm a little kid, and I'm like, I
like eating pasta.
Do you know? And he's like, we don't
eat these pasta things. This is haram.
Right? But
the loose
application of this
is what the entirety of the hadith prior
to
is evoking.
Hadith number 5.
You add something to this religion
that's not a part of it. It's rejected.
It's just not a part of it.
And when we break it down
in matters of worship,
you need an evidence as to why it's
done.
And these non worship matters, the Muamalat,
you need an evidence to say why it
cannot be done. So the one thing that's
impermissible
is in a sea of a 1000000 things
that is permissible.
Do you get what I mean?
You can't drink this one thing, but there's
thousands of things that you can drink.
You can't eat this thing, but there's thousands
of things that you can eat. Allah does
not render something impermissible
within the frame of the mundane, the non
sacred and non worship.
Though, wait, like none of you is wearing
the same outfit.
Right? Why?
Because there's so much more that's expansive
in permissibility.
You can literally wear every single one of
the things you're wearing. And likely,
if we walk through all of these buildings
in their entirety, every floor, you won't run
into any person that's dressed exactly the same
as you.
Do you get what I mean?
So you can't make something restrictive that's purposely
meant to be expansive.
Right?
You understand, like, these two things
as
benchmarks,
but recognizing that
this is like a part of our religion.
It's not for me and you to suddenly
say what's halal is not and what's haram
is not, And it's not based off of
I feel, I think, I want. It's definitely
not rooted in kind of supremacist
ideology
that makes us self loathing and self deprecating
and tells us that we need to be
other than what we are. Now you have
a pride in your Islam, and you find
a sense of comfort and empowerment through it.
It's gonna be hard to digest these words
if you've never thought who Allah is to
you.
Because
the lawmaker
and the law giver is the same. That's
Allah.
And in the back of your head, if
you just see your Sunday school teacher
or the guy who has anger issues on
the pulpit
or like parents who have generational trauma
and they're putting all this stuff or like
the person who thinks they're like the most
knowledgeable Muslim
in
whatever experience of Islam that you're in that
makes it devoid
of the sense of understanding of compassion and
recognition
of so much more.
Yeah. Then, like, you're gonna be where you're
at right now with it. Do you know?
And we can delve into this in a
lot of different ways, but it's important to
understand that, like, all of us in this
room likely are doing things that are Haram.
That doesn't mean we become indifferent towards it,
but that means we also all have things
that we can improve upon.
And if you're in a place where religion
suddenly
coincides with everything that you do exactly,
then you're probably not practicing religion in a
way where you're subservient to Allah, but you've
made a law subservient to you.
It's not possible fundamentally
that someone isn't making a mistake in some
capacity.
Right? The amount of dumb stuff people lie
about.
Do you know what I mean?
It's so crazy what people lie about.
You can see just how many people lie
in the world around you right now. Right?
And the kind of things that they lie
about, and they have no qualms about lying
about anything. Do you know what I mean?
These things have to be rooted primarily
in theology.
So if there's not faith and belief and
conviction,
it's just in a vacuum sociologically,
then at some level you're gonna say,
I'm not of this cultural background. Why do
I have to do it this way? But
you're not thinking about it from a religious
experience standpoint. Do you see what I mean?
Right?
When the prophet dealt with people who struggled
with haram,
he walked with them through it. He didn't
condescend them
other than when the haram they engaged in
was hurting other people.
So there's companions who would come to the
prophet,
I
kissed someone I wasn't supposed to. I
drank alcohol.
There's a Sahaba who comes to the prophet
who I think we've talked about either in
this class or different class
where in Ramadan,
he is physically intimate with his wife.
They end up having, like, a sexual experience.
He comes in, he's like, messenger of God,
I'm done.
Like, basically saying, I'm rude. Like, there's no
good there's nothing that can be done for
me. Do you know? The prophet keeps telling
him to do different things. Right?
Said it this, like, emancipate this person, give
this much,
this and that. And every single thing, you
know, the pro he's I don't have charity
to give. The prophet tells him to fast
like 60 days. He said, Rasoolallah, I couldn't
fast one day. You think I'm gonna fast
too much straight? You know? It's a real
interaction.
Do you get what I mean? They're having
a real experience. Somebody comes then with a
thing of dates,
and the prophet says, where's so and so
and such and such? And such a beautiful
part of the hadith,
you don't quite often see the people who
have some of these struggles named.
Right?
The prophet says, we're such and such a
person.
He comes
and he gives him the dates, and he
says just go distribute this to the people
who need it. And the man who committed
the sin, he did the haram.
He says, nobody's in more need than me
and my family.
And your prophet then, like, smiles and laughs,
And he says to him, just go and
keep it yourself.
Do you get what I mean? That's how
he walked with people who struggled with haram.
Other than when people were being racist,
oppressive,
or abusive,
there was no words minced.
The opposite is what happens these days.
You get people in your face about
these things that there should be compassion about.
And when you know somebody is abusing a
woman in their life,
you turn the other cheek in a way
that just
creates cyclical problems. You see what I mean?
And the prophetic mode of engagement
was in the other direction.
You see what I'm saying? Does that make
sense?
You want to start to build that relationship
with yourself
and shift paradigms through what these terms are.
It's not just something
that is
kind of conjecture. It's fact. There's a lot
more that's permissible than what is impermissible.
And in the realm of what is obligatory
in the form of worship, there's actually not
so much that goes into it.
And then you start to apply it, and
you think from the spiritual standpoint, and that's
what the rest of this hadith is gonna
bring us into.
So that which is lawful is clear, and
that which is unlawful is clear. And between
the 2 of them are doubtful or ambiguous
matters
about which not many people are knowledgeable.
So they're making now a distinction, the hadith,
between people of knowledge and people who are
not people of knowledge. Does it mean that
somebody's at fault if they don't know? No.
But it's giving an indication
not to stratify society,
but people know certain things that other people
do not know those things. So if you
don't know, it's better not to give into
a matter that is doubtful.
How do these things start to apply?
Well, there's a fundamental principle
that you give in to certitude
more than you give in to doubt. What
you know
is what's clear,
and what is not clear, don't let that
be the case.
So for example, like, you don't know if
you lost your will do
problem that many people will experience at some
point or another in their life.
The legal maxim
that is derived from this
is that certainty is not lifted by doubt.
So you're taught that if you know that
you major would do
and you don't know if the wudu broke,
then you continue as if you still have
wudu.
Does that make sense?
It applies in the other direction on matters
of doubt also.
You come upon some food, right? We can
use meat for example.
And we don't know the method through which
this meat was slaughtered.
Was it a Muslim butcher? Was it a
Christian butcher? Was it an atheistic brooch butcher?
Was it somebody who's like a devil worshiper
who slaughtered this thing? You don't know.
So in that instance,
the same principle applies,
but because
you know for certain
that you don't know
who did this,
the default isn't to assume
that it must be permissible.
The default is that based off of what
you know,
that you don't give in to the matter
of the doubt, which is we don't know
who actually slaughtered this thing. Do you see
what I mean?
The doubtful matters can also engage in what
are the
Makruh actions that
there's not clear defined,
like, evidence that renders it haram
as a category because people didn't play around
with these words.
They weren't just arbitrarily
saying, well, it must be haram or it
must be fard. They were trying their best
to draw
rulings from what the divine
was wanting us to do.
And so someone would say, for example, like,
it's Makru
to
talk while you make wudu.
Right? That's like one accent
thing of something that has, like,
to it.
But, like, smoking, for example. Some people say
it's haram, some people say it's.
When we were
in Egypt on our layover,
or in Saudi, like during our Umrah,
if you ever gone to, like, any of
these other countries
different from the United States, you see a
box of cigarettes,
and it's got like this little surgeon's general
warning here in the United States. When you
go to these duty free shops
in other parts of the world, if this
is like the cigarette box, this much of
the box in big capital letters says something
like smoking will kill you.
You know, like, it's just huge. Do you
know what I mean? Right?
The more cautious thing would say, let me
abandon that which has potential dislike to it
because I don't know.
Because I don't know, I'm gonna leave behind
what it is that I don't know.
Or if you have, like, 2 opinions on
something,
one that says this is permissible
and one that says it's impermissible.
Someone would, at face value, say, well, it's
permissible.
Maybe I should just then be able to
do it, which is fine. Like, that's not
a problem. You should. But to just illustrate
what we're talking about here,
you would have the argument made that because
there's different opinions on it and one of
the opinion says that this is something that's
either impermissible or disliked
that it would be better to out of
caution
not engage in it because
there's thousands of things that are permissible,
and there's just a handful of things that
are impermissible.
So if Jake so and so says, like,
the job is good. Right? But there's others
who say, don't be engaging in that kind
of stuff.
Then you try your best to be in
a place that says, let me leave behind
the things that are doubtful.
Does that make sense?
Right?
And so when the prophet says, thus he
who avoids these doubtful matters certainly clears himself
in regard to his religion and his honor.
What does this have to do with honor?
Because we can probably deduce what it has
to do with Dean.
Right?
But how does honor factor into this? Does
the question make sense?
So if you turn to the person's next
to you, if I am the person
who
does not
stay away from the doubtful matters,
how does that impact my honor?
Because the prophet is saying say Salam,
that whoever avoids doubtful matters,
then in regards to their religion and their
honor, they're clearing themselves.
So where does honor come into this? How
does that factor in as a variable?
You can just turn to the person's next
to you and talk about it, and then
we'll come back and discuss. Go ahead.
Okay. So what does this have to do
with honor?
What does it have to do with honor?
Like, how does honor relate to this?
Any thoughts?
Like, Yeah. I have one idea that the
haram is we want to avoid the haram
to elevate, like, ourselves as as Allah's creation.
And
in the gray areas, even if you have,
like, a slight bit of Haram in there,
it's it's sort of like
there's a doubt there's like a doubt in
someone's character, which you can't you can't really
see with the doubt.
It you can't really be elevated if you
have a doubt in your character.
Who will doubt your character?
The people you're dealing with also a
Okay. Other thoughts?
Hey, Doug. Yeah.
When we were speaking about honor, we defined
it as,
another standard that you're holding yourself to. So
something
outside of
just what's clear and what's unclear, but that
metric of goodness within the gray zone.
Any other thoughts?
Yeah.
Could be, like, the highest honor is getting
into.
And so
that could be another definition of or, like,
thick and cold. But this is like dignity,
honor.
Right?
So here now, they're in Medina.
Everybody is pretty much Muslim,
and this is a young boy who is
narrating this hadith to us. We already established
this.
If you act upon something
that
has
this kind of
public nature to it,
you're creating an opportunity for people to now
view you doing what it is that you're
doing. Do you know what I mean?
So
if I taught this class,
I gave Jummah. Right? How many of you
come here to Jummah, like for on Fridays?
Yeah. A lot of you.
If I gave the in
a pair of shorts and a tank top.
Right?
You might be surprised.
Do you know?
But also after the fact,
it might impact how it is that you
understand me to be as a person.
If you saw me do something haram, God
forbid.
Right?
By, like, cursing my wife in front of
you. You know, may Allah protect us from
this.
Do you know?
If you saw me,
like,
spitting on the floor of the,
it's not like haram
as such,
but why? Why would I do that?
The religion in and of itself gives you
a right to privacy.
Rama Radiallahu An, he once sees somebody engaged
in haram in their home, and he tells
them you shouldn't do this. And the person
says, why are you looking in my house?
But you enter into the public sphere now.
The relationship you have with the divine is
uniquely your own, but you have accountability
for what it is that sets precedent for
those who see you doing certain things.
One of my colleagues who was an Orthodox
Jew, for example,
he
would eat at a restaurant I used to
own down the street.
And his dietary restrictions,
he kind of changed up a bit for
himself,
and I sat down with him and I
was like, how does this work in terms
of your kind of religious law?
And he said, it's fine. Like for me,
I'm making my own decisions.
But my father said to me that when
you eat in these restaurants,
it might be good for you to remove
your yarmulke.
So that nobody who walks by and sees
you like this,
thinks that they are also now permitted to
eat in this place.
Do you understand the concept that's being illustrated
here? You can't, like, look at it from
the standpoint of a defensive mode of engagement.
You just have to understand that your actions
will set precedent,
and it goes back to what we were
saying before.
All of these acts have a hook them
to them.
So if you don't know what the hook
them is of the act you're engaged in
before you're doing it, it still doesn't mean
there's a hook them to it.
So if somebody sees you in spaces,
where publicly
you are engaged in the Haram,
that's one thing,
versus
you are now engaged in what is doubtful.
You know?
It can create now this opportunity
which people should mind their own business,
ideally. Just like we said, this hadith is
one of 4 hadith
that Imam Abu Dawood says that you got
these 4 hadith, that's all you need. Another
hadith that he mentions, he says,
that from the beauty of one's Islam
is that he leaves behind that which does
not concern him. It's It's not your business
when somebody's gonna have a baby or not.
It's not your business if somebody is married
or not. It's not your business, like somebody's
got a job or not. Mind your business.
But when you walk on the street
and you are choosing to now engage in
something in the public arena,
you have a responsibility
towards what's there. And what the prophet alaihis
salam is saying is that you don't want
somebody
to start talking about you, and you're giving
them a reason.
So if I walk into this and
you all see me spit on the floor,
Can I get upset with you
for then thinking
that there's an aspect
of honor lacking in my character?
Do you get what I mean?
Does that make sense? You don't think so?
I I guess it makes sense, but I
wouldn't say that. I mean, you're just a
nice person.
Yeah. But do you get what I'm saying?
Right?
So here,
this is where this is at. And so
you clear your honor because you've removed
the doubtful matters
from being in front of you.
That I'm not in this place where I
play a role in it.
Nobody should be gossiping in the 1st place,
but if you create the opportunity for some
of it to come up, there's an argument
to be made
based off of, like, the intentionality
of how it is that you're engaged in
the act to begin with.
And so that public private nature of the
act,
we're blessed that we're in a community
where the gross majority of people are, like,
nice non judgmental people. There's some idiots here,
right, not in this room, but there are,
you know,
And we wanna be mindful of that.
And so there were still people during the
time of the prophet who had their struggles
in a very public way.
The prophet
affirmed them constantly.
Abdullah
takes lashes, a HUD punishment for drinking alcohol
publicly.
People spoke poorly of him,
the world in which he drank.
The prophet would say to those people, do
not assist Shaitan in victory over your brother.
Indeed, he loves Allah and his messenger.
Right? That's the approach you want to take.
So don't judge Khalid if he spits on
the prayer floor. We don't know what's going
on with him. Do you know what I
mean?
But the potential is there still nonetheless,
that it impacts,
like honor and dignity
in a way, the way that you carry
yourself in a public setting. You also have
what can be advantageous or disadvantageous
in a city that's filled with so many
people that nobody's really paying attention to so
much that we do to begin with anyway.
But here, for example, you think about a
Medanese society,
right? The prophet gives his farewell
to a 120,000
people. It's not like a 1000000 people, let
alone a 100000000 people. Do you know what
I mean?
So there's a lot more room now for
certain things to kinda take place. What are
also other things that have happened? If this
is happening in the Medanese era and this
young boy is born
into the Hijra
as one of the first children born in
Medina,
then you're gonna have like the hypocrites who
has spoken poorly
of Aisha
the Hadith Al Ifq. You're gonna have, like,
these instances
where people who are munafiqeen,
they weren't there in Mecca. The munafiqeen,
they're in Medina.
Right? There's all these other variables that are
coming to play. The prophet is telling his
people, guard your honor.
Like, be in a place where you walk
the way the Quran says,
that the servants of the merciful are the
ones who walk on the earth with dignity
and honor and grace. Do you know what
I mean?
So you're in a place where you're recognizing
and readying that for yourself. Do you do
you get what I'm saying? Does that make
sense?
One of the interesting things about this hadith
yeah. How
how do you define honor as
people's assessment of your standing in society?
Honor,
no.
It could be an element of it.
But your honor, as was said before, but
offering a different frame to it,
is essentially, like, that sense of kind of
presence that you're bringing within
to any given environment whatsoever. Do you know
what I mean? So what is it that
could be undignified?
You know? Like, if you're the person that's
constantly just, like, joking uproariously,
you know, you're the person
that
demeans themselves, like, in a public sense or
setting. Do you know what I mean?
What is it that is bringing that? And
these are
sociologically,
like, societies that function a little bit different
than the way American society does. It's very,
like, individualized
society.
This culture is one that's rooted in principles
of shame and honor. You know, these are
tribalistic societies,
so you're in a place where who you
are
represents bigger than just yourself. You represent an
entire tribe, an entire clan, entire community.
There's, like, a sense of my name carries
more meaning than just me. So how I
carry myself. Right?
These can be things that sway in different
directions, you know? But this can only also
be impactful
when you understand, like, other hadith
that validation is simply about the pursuit of
divine validation.
Because just because somebody likes you, that doesn't
mean that Allah likes you for that reason.
And just because somebody dislikes you, doesn't mean
that Allah dislikes you because of that also.
Do you know? So you could be in
a place where the most honorable thing that
you do
is to get up from your office and
pray your prayers, and people can mock you
for it. Do you know what I mean?
I got a meeting invite
from people in senior leadership at the university
for Friday,
like, around Jummah time. And this is important.
We need this and that. I wrote back
to them and I said,
this is during our Friday prayers.
Like, I'm not gonna be able to make
it. Do you know?
They don't have to understand where I'm coming
from. Do you get what I mean? Right?
But my sense of self dignity is rooted
in this idea. The halal is clear and
the haram is clear. Do do you get
what I'm saying? And that's where we also
understand that, like, there's no beauty in doing
the haram
from the standpoint of what is understood as
religious beauty.
You know? You can't say that there's attractiveness
to an act of disobedience.
Do you get what I mean? And that
becomes like a starting point, and then a
second layer to it becomes now these doubtful
matters as well.
Do you get what I'm saying? And you
your body is wired for this. You don't
wanna think about it in a simplistic way.
It's like, oh, man, This guy is smoking
this thing or listening to this thing or
he's dressed like this or she's dressed like
that. Deepen your understanding what the Haram is.
Right?
Like, how much does it hurt you when
you hear people speaking poorly to people?
It just stings in certain ways.
You know?
Some of you went for Umrah with us,
and I talked to a bunch of you
after the fact. And a lot of people
said when they came back from Umrah for
the first time here
that it hurts so bad the first time
they heard family members yelling at each other.
Do you know what I mean? Like, the
first time they heard someone, like, being in
a place where they were just speaking
out of self righteous anger as opposed to
righteous anger. Do you know? It removes honor.
It removes dignity.
Do you get what I'm saying?
And sometimes the most honorable thing you can
do is
go against what, like, the norms are also.
Right? So, like, you get up and you
walk out of class when there's a walkout
for Palestine.
You know?
Your family tells you, like, what will people
think?
What will people think cannot compare to what
Allah will think?
You see what I mean?
Right?
And so there's kinda some of those gradations
to it. Does that make sense?
Here, we live in societies that structure success
around the amount of money that you have,
like wealth you possess, materialistic things, and that
becomes the base of honor. Right? Or honor
is rooted. And do I have a ring
on my finger? Do I have babies? Do
I have a house? You know what I
mean? But that's not what Islamic honor is
rooted in, you know. That's not what dignity
is rooted in. Do you do you see
what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah.
Nora, you're gonna say something?
Yeah. I'd like to ask,
what
a culture that so closely guards honor, like,
how that relates to
Yeah.
Well, if you can think behind me, like,
if there
was
a if there was, like, a a whiteboard
because there's a difference between shame
and honor. Right? And a lot of us
live
in cycles of shame,
and the way cycles of shame break themselves
are through
empathy and love.
Do you know? But a cycle of shame,
for example, like, how do people respond to
shame? They might, like, just avoid it altogether.
So if I borrowed your car
and when I borrowed your car, I got
into an accident
and I then came back to your house
and I just walked upstairs and locked myself
in the room. I'm, like, avoidant of it.
Do you know? Or I can, like, blame
you for it. You're, like, Khaled, what did
you do to my car? And I was,
like, why did you let me drive it
stupid? Right? Do you know?
Like, there's modes through which we exist in
these cycles of shame. And you can pass
on generationally
like shame,
which is a little bit different from honor
because an absence of honor doesn't necessarily denote
modesty.
Right? Has a specific definition.
Is that Allah doesn't find you absent from
a place that he would want you to
be seen in, nor does he find you
present in a place that he wouldn't want
you to be in. Do you get what
I mean? And that can be about the
states that you present yourself in also. But
just like the kind of gatherings,
the, you know,
the actual, like, purpose of communing, so to
speak. Right?
When you get to a place now where,
like, your own innate desire
is
at conflict with,
like, what is shut on.
This is why decisions are either in one
of 2 directions. It's either, like, what Allah
wants you to do, or what Hawa wants
you to do. Right? It's like
or your desires. That's it.
And so there's people who get to this
place and they can make these claims, but
they're overtly problematized.
None of this makes sense
if theology isn't the root of all of
it, and the baseline theology in a Meccan
period
is both about
a building of relationship to monotheism,
as well as the building of relationship to
an afterlife.
So that guy who in his house
is an animal and outside of the house
perceives himself to be like a saint, you
know.
His very limbs are gonna still speak about
what he did,
as are the limbs that were
witness to his transgressions.
And this is, like, why God's dominion has
to be understood
and who God is to us
because we're gonna stand in front of the
divine.
I remember
the first time I met a man
at a masjid, they used to, like, pour
water out to people
as they broke their fast for ifthars.
And then during
prayers,
he would also in Ramadan,
like, just pass out water as people were
listening to the sheikh give talks.
And at a young age,
like, I found out that this man
was also physically abusing his daughter.
And later on,
just so you know the kind of person
I am, when I started doing what I
do now and I start to learn how
to help people, I helped that woman get
out of a forced marriage.
But at that age, I didn't know what
was going on or what to do. But
in my head, I'm trying to reconcile this
question
of, like, this jerk does this in his
house,
but here, he's doing this kinda outwardly.
Do you know what I mean?
This is a problem. Do you see what
I'm saying?
It's hard.
You don't have to put the burden upon
it on your shoulders.
Quite often,
most of us don't make decisions based off
of what we believe in.
We're not challenged in that way to stand
on our own feet in terms of what
our values are, what our ethics are. And
then for many of us who are born
into Muslim families,
one of the dilemmas that we face
usually surfaces
in its initial state when we go head
to head with, like, family members on different
perspectives.
It becomes
overwhelming and inundating
because I've never had to stand on my
own feet in terms of what I believe
in before.
You know? And now as I'm doing that,
I have to go head to head with
somebody who's part of my family.
It creates like that much more of a
challenge. Do you know what I mean? It's
not a religion that equates,
like, difference or disagreement to disobedience.
You know what I'm saying? But sometimes also,
the people that surround us, they're doing, like,
things that are deeply un Islamic.
And we have to be able to, in
our own capacity,
create resources as best as we can.
I was having dinner with some of my
friends, and they were talking about some of
their family members who are stuck in abusive
situations.
And may Allah grant them ease.
And one of my friends and I, as
we were talking about it, and the others
are like, you know, it's so hard and
it's so difficult, and she's gotta stay in
this situation because of financial reasons and this
and that. What can she do?
I said, well, the problem isn't, like, she's
making this decision to stay in that place.
The problem is that the rest of us
haven't built for her what she needs to
be able to have the confidence that she
can break out of that and still have
communal support. Do you see what I mean?
Does that make sense? And that's why, like,
these elements of honor and dignity become important
for us to recognize
and understand
that they play a central role in our
religion.
Because where is the sense of, like, respecting
that woman's honor?
And how do we dignify it to the
extent
that we
take our resources and our talents and our
wealth and build for her with honor,
like an excellence real Hassan,
what she needs. Do do you get what
I'm saying? Right?
It's all attached together.
You might not wanna think about it this
way, but you're not, like, here at Jumah
as an obligation.
You know, you're not sitting, like, in a
local masjid having iftar. You chose on a
weeknight to give up your time to come
and learn something.
So the mode through which, for example, I
roll out of bed at my leisure, throw
some water on my face and in my
pajamas, just bang out mindlessly
after the sun has risen for fajr, or
I don't even pray fajr at all. It's
all connected to each other.
The metaphysical aspects of engaging in what is
the Farahid
and leaving behind the Mahatam
become important to understand how then we are
able to be vessels that carry out ourselves
with dignity and grace. Do you see what
I mean? Does that make
sense? Right?
Okay.
I wanna be mindful of the time, because
I'm gonna try
not to, like, go on and on.
One of the interesting things about this hadith,
Imam Bukhari,
who within, like, the Sunni tradition of Islam,
his
Sahih
is one of the major books of hadith
that people rely heavily on, they study in
traditional courses
of study.
He places this hadith,
the halal is clear and the haram is
clear,
in a chapter that is called
meaning the book of transactions.
And it's interesting that that's the chapter that
he puts it in.
Right? The one that tells you about how
to engage in business dealings.
How do you, like, treat people, like, across
you know, in that type of relationship? Do
you know what I mean? Swad and I
were just sitting here with a brother who
was telling us about, like, a land grant
that his family has. You know? And he's
telling this crazy story
about,
like, all kinds of things.
I was I'm taking it in, and he
said, yeah. Same thing happened to me. Like,
you know, when I was dealing with somebody
who passed away in my family, Allah grant
them peace. And to think about
in those moments
where there's
money, and there's wealth, and there's all this
other stuff,
Imam Bukhari puts this hadith in that chapter
that tells you, like, hey, man. The halal
is clear, and the haram is clear. And
where there's doubts in the middle,
it's better
to maintain your religion and your honor to,
like, leave the doubtful things.
You get what I mean?
You wanna be able to start, like, reflecting
on these things too. So you're not just
looking at it in a vacuum, but seeing
how did people see this, and where was
its applicability
to them? Do you know?
This young boy, Noman Ibn Bashir, is hearing
this at a young age.
And some of us probably will hear this
also
at some capacity
as we are navigating,
like, our relationship with religion.
But here now the prophet adds in, like,
other elements to it. He gets to a
place where he gives this illustration
of the shepherd taking
the sheep to graze, and at the end,
he talks about what is a very important
part of the hadith. The entire hadith is
important, but the end part is extremely important.
He talks about the heart and the nature
of the heart and how
these things relate to each other. So we're
gonna take a pause here and we'll pick
up on the latter part of the hadith
next Monday,
and likely, what we'll do is go till
around this time,
7:15, 7:30.
So 6 to that time.
And then
from, like, 7:15 or 7:30 for an hour,
we're gonna do kind of a Islam 101
class.
It'll either be on Monday or Tuesday night.
We didn't decide yet, but probably on Monday
nights. So I had done one in the
summer where we went through the fiqh of
prayer.
There's a lot of people who
were,
like, new Muslims or exploring Islam, but also
people
who were Muslims for years, and they were
just taking the class
so that they could rebuild the relationship. And
a lot of people came to me and
said, I didn't know any of these things.
You know? And it helps as you're maneuvering,
like, to know
what these things mean concretely
in your day to day so that you're
not creating
more difficulty for yourself. We'll likely focus on,
like, Ramadan related topics in that, thick of
fasting and other stuff too because Ramadan is
in just, you know, less than 2 months.
May Allah bless us in this month of
Rajab and the coming month of Sharban.
Enable us to reach the month of Ramadan.
And then there's some other things we're gonna
add on. Also,
some, like, kinda afternoon lunchtime events,
some regular programs,
probably in the coming weeks, but
definitely after Ramadan,
into the summer, we're gonna add on, like,
a lot of book kind of reading groups,
for different segments.
So, like, community
wide, but also, like, a woman's reading group,
you know, for our Latino community,
reading
club that is
oriented towards understanding, like, black experience within the
development of Islam,
you know, various segments that will engage. So
as a community, we start reading together,
and then we're gonna interject
also like a Quranic reading circle.
It's not just the Arabic of it, but
just reading the translation.
Right? There's a difference between tafsir,
which is
like a academic scholarly science, you're extrapolating meaning
from text, and what's called the
that you reflect on a text.
When you do tabbur and you reflect on
a text, you're reflecting on the Quran, and
what does it mean to me? So
we wanna get back into a place where
now after we've kinda gone through some stuff
with COVID, etcetera,
regulations are kinda back to normalcy.
We wanna build a relationship with our book
and learn from each other and reflect together.
So we'll have some circles where we're just,
like, reading,
like, from page 1, you know, the verses
together and hearing from each other and reflecting
together on them, you know. Why I'm sharing
this with you all is they're not gonna
all just start next week, but over the
course of the coming months,
you wanna make time for these things.
1, so we can benefit from your insights,
and 2,
so that as a community you were also
benefiting from these, like, amazing things that Allah
has given to us,
Right? Unlocking the Quran
and making it a central anchor in your
life is just gonna be a source of
light and benefit, Insha'Allah. Do you know what
I mean? And if you have like a
day that goes without reading Quran,
it's a day that you've missed like an
opportunity for real increase and benefit. It Doesn't
have to be pages and pages of it.
Just engage in some aspect of reflection. It's
easier sometimes when you have a buddy to
do that with. Do you know what I
mean?
So all of that will be put out
on the email list. We're waiting for our
students who came back today, most of them.
Some started a week ago. Some started, like,
right after New Year's in our med school,
dental school, etcetera. Our law school started last
week. A special du'a for them. Allah Put
in their studies and grant them
in all of their efforts. But we'll have,
like, a welcome dinner for them on Wednesday
where we'll share a lot of these things
and then
give them the cycle to, like, sign up
for next week.
So just kinda keep that in mind, and
all the other halukas we do are gonna
be happening also.
If you are a student, undergrad or grad,
on Wednesday at 5:30, we're gonna have a
welcome back dinner,
that you should definitely come to. It's gonna
be in the building next door, the Kimmel
Center.
Friday is gonna be,
we're gonna have a community lunch after. We're
not I don't think we're doing fried chicken
Friday. There's a new Palestinian restaurant that opened
in the Bronx,
that's delivery only.
So we're gonna
have them cater just as a way to
kinda, like, raise awareness.
We'll share, like, their information so that you
all can, like, tell people to order from
them also. And then Saturday,
we have a all day conference taking place
here.
Sheikh Saheb Webb's gonna be here. Sheikh Mikhail
Smith, Sheikh Yasir Berjaz, and others.
We're doing it in conjunction with Mass,
New York.
And,
it's gonna be a really great
set of discussions. You should definitely come out
for it if you can.
And it's not just for, like it's called,
like, mass youth, but that's just their name
of their thing. Do you know what I
mean?
There's a mass youth center in Brooklyn, for
example. Right?
But it's not just for, like,
I think the age restriction is actually 16
and up. So it's not, like, for younger
kids. You know? It's for, like, everybody, for
all of us. Try to come, encourage people
to come. I think we've got, like, a
few 100 tickets for it already out,
and it's not gonna be like one of
the last conferences we did.
If you remember the conference
we did in October, if people came to
it, we were seated on the ground. This
one, they wanted everybody in chairs. So we're
only gonna have about 400 people, I think,
at most,
in the room.
So don't wait till the last minute. We're
not gonna, like, not let people in, but
you know? And people can't afford the ticket
price. When we have these events where there's
a charge, it's usually the outside organization that's
charging for it, but just let us know,
you know, if it's something you can't afford.
That shouldn't be like a barrier to entry,
and you can just let me know, but
let your friends know also.
And if you could circulate amongst people, that
would be great as well. Okay. Was there
anything I was forgetting?
Newer has these postcards in the back that
we've been having people sign from on the
table for folks. Yeah.
Yeah. So this is a action that we've
been doing for our brothers and sisters in
Gaza. May Allah grant them ease and end
the occupation there. If you take 2 minutes
to sign it, that would be great. So
just really quick so that the last thing
we did is not you hearing from me.
You guys turn to the people next to
you for 2 minutes. What are some of
the things you're taking away from tonight's conversation?
Then we'll come back,
and we'll call the athon for Isha. But
just really quickly so you guys end with
a little bit more concreteness,
some of the things you're taking away, and
then we'll wrap up to pray. But go
ahead.
You can turn off. Yeah.