Lauren Booth – Heart Soul – Episode 29

			Welcome to heart and soul on Qf radio with me Lauren booth, your space to reflect. Today it's my
honor to welcome back chef Sajid Omar. Chef Sajid has a bachelor's degree in Sharia. He also holds a
master's degree in judiciary and is now pursuing his PhD. Chef Sajid is renowned as an international
speaker and a galvanize of communities as salam aleikum.
		

			wa rahmatullah wa barakato. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you in all our different
amin, and thank you so much for that. And the subject today is the much misunderstood word Ji had
jihad. First of all, we're going to look at it share with its linguistic meanings we know that the
often in the newspapers or unfortunately, on our televisions, we will see the word Jihad linked with
wanton violence, pointless violence, agree jus cruelty, and this would in many people's minds must
not be linked to the meaning of jihad, can you explain its actual linguistics and dimensions?
Excellent. In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful and seeking God Almighty
		

			assistance,
		

			I say that, you know, he had even Arabic and linguistically, it refers to the concept of striving
and exerting oneself,
		

			you know, making an effort, as we were saying, the English language, so that's basically it
linguistic
		

			meaning, and maybe the dimensions of Islam, it carries on,
		

			or it sort of takes on the linguistic dimension, which refers to striving and making an effort
		

			and doing something and, you know, exerting yourself. And it refers to a number of things within the
Islamic dimension within the Islamic dimension. Now, you know, as you said, nowadays, people are
associated with violence and violence, shouldn't be a term associated with Islam will surely be
associated with,
		

			with jihad. However, however, you know, we can excuse those who actually have come to the
understanding, because, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, they are even people who act
		

			under the guise of Islam, and call what they do or call the abnormality, and they, you know,
		

			the violence really, they call this jihad. And this has obviously been published out by the media
and people who never knew better, they have now come to learn about jihad in this manner. So it's
unfortunate, it's unfortunate. So as we clarify what you had means we should also make an excuse for
those who have taken the wrong understanding. Because unfortunately, the term has been hijacked by
people that are not coming from it.
		

			I just want to ask you, Chef, because there is an active physical dimension to that what was
traditionally understood as jihad in the early times of Islam, please tell us about that. Yes, so
jihad, these are various kinds of in the dimensions of Islam, right, as we step into within the
dimensions of several, okay. It does include, you know, taking up arms, that is a dimension, and
we'll come to that there are various dimension.
		

			Some dimensions are obligatory upon everyone who is accountable. When I say accountable, I mean,
they've reached age of puberty, and they have mental sanity. Right, so they are adult human being,
in some types of jihad, quote, unquote, Jihad obligatory upon them. While some are, you know,
considered communal obligations, that as long as a few people in the community take care of it, then
publication of actually exerting yourself in this way is lifted.
		

			And some kinds of jihad quote unquote, Jihad must have been missed to have by Mr. Gu referred to as
recommend, right? So there's something in his camera one of the dimensions of jihad within the
dimension of the strategies known as Jihad ness, which is jihad against oneself,
		

			and jihad against the shavon or the Satan or the devil. And this type of jihad is obligatory upon
every believer upon everyone who is accountable, right. So basically, this jihad is
		

			Suffering does not entail you being violence upon yourself Absolutely not. Right. And the reason why
I'm going to keep on quoting the terms you have it so that it sort of resonates with everybody. And
they actually knew that, you know, it's not so taboo to say the term because the term, we actually
understand how good or bad is term is by looking at its meaning. And there's actually more to the
term in terms of meanings than what we previously have seen on the television, for example. So, you
know, geography itself, this is called jihad. What does this mean? This is basically you waking up
every day to beat yourself, not to beat yourself up.
		

			Don't beat yourself up to beat yourself, right? What does this mean? This means that, you know, you
wake up in the morning, you have desire
		

			to do a lot of things, some of these things that impermissible now for you to go against yourself
and beat yourself meaning to live that day upon the instructional compromise, that requires
patience, it requires effort from you, requires you leaving that what your body really wants to do,
but you're not doing it because you know, it's wrong to do, right. So you are actually exerting
assets, to beat yourself. This is a type of jihad, and I beat the face of this.
		

			So jihad is obligatory upon all. So what we're talking about here also is the conquest of the self,
where there are different ways and conditions of waking up in the morning, one condition can be, I
physically want to get this food today, I'm dreaming of this work, and I'm going to achieve these
very physical material aims. And there is another condition, which goes along in parallel with those
physical needs, which is, I'm going to wake up today, and I want to be kind to five people, I want
to call my mother and my father, I want to be nice to people at work. And I really need to be more
generous, and, you know, these are all elements in the jihad, is that correct? Absolutely,
		

			absolutely. So if you, you know, you can yourself having a conquest over yourself, you know,
sometimes you want to speak, you know, you frustrated about something somebody frustrates you, but
you exert effort and you maintain your values, you know, stopping yourself from being with other
people that aren't their values, and rather being with them upon your values. This requires effort.
This is a type of jihad, which is considered jihad in Islam. Right. So, you know, if anything good
character, maintaining good character, you know, if I could,
		

			you know, dress up this discussion, for this particular point, this is a type of jihad, and that is
why that is why when the scholars explained what she had in the jihad, you know, beating yourself,
or, you know, experiencing a conquest over yourself, then they say, This entails number one,
striving to learn the teachings of Islam. And note that they use the term striving, because jihad is
about exerting an effort, it's the strife. Yeah, and you could, you could mean that that's what
Jihad means, even linguistically, to strive for a striving to learn the teachings of Islam, without
which one cannot attain success and happiness in this world or in the hereafter. Right? This
		

			striving is that you have, and this is a Jihad striving to beat oneself. So number one is the
conquest of oneself. Okay? Number one, then effort of striving is to gain knowledge about why we're
here to at least theorize about it to at least acknowledge there's a greater purpose and to look at
that from different angles. That's number one. Yeah, yeah. And just to add to that, you know, it's
very easy for everyone to do that. look at things from different angles and to, you know, release
the bias and, and, and give themselves a chance. That is an effort. I mean, today, he's an expert as
well, you know, just to give somebody a chance, give you the goal that needs an effort. Because
		

			remember, Satan doesn't want you to give it a chance. Satan doesn't want you to read the Quran to
open the final custom inventors really with an open mind. So that's an enemy working with a few
there. And then you have the evil of the South working against you as well, for you to manage that
image in that way, in an appropriate way needs you to strive against these massive needs you to
strive need to take that assets that are easy to to experience a conquest. So this is one place to
study Islam. The next point is that they say is striving to make oneself act in accordance with that
which you have learned. So now it's a case of us striving to put your knowledge into action.
		

			Practicing upon the idea that you let go, sometimes you might know something to be good, but we just
don't have the ability to practice it. We might know smoking is bad. We still smoke. Alcohol is bad,
but we still consume alcohol, right? So to have the ability to even when you're going on a diet, and
somebody might have a sweet tooth
		

			and you're going on a diet, you have to you know you have to strive to stay away from those sweet
you have to
		

			Strive so you don't break protocol. Okay? disable your surprising now because I've actually just put
a brownie into my mouth. So that jihad, literally while you were saying that,
		

			May Allah help me? Yeah, you know. So it was the site the first dynamic quality then, by the way I
didn't know you
		

			know, it's more just don't have brownies everyday. So this this first level is to seek the divine
and seek greater knowledge that's one of the elements. And we can call that a striving element
element. The second element is in daily habits, what are our bad habits, what's holding us back in
our daily lives, whether it's in our intention to be more healthy, we know that poisoning our
bodies, bad for us, bad for our faith, bad for our relationship with us with a spirituality, whether
that's eating certain things, or avoiding not having enough vegetables, or smoking, all of these are
negative, and we may want to get rid of them. It's another level of striving. So there's a practical
		

			element. That's what you had as well. And that's why in Islam, in Islam, there's something called
the terms of faith. And that is knowledge. That's action, right? So to gain knowledge needs you to
strive, you need to make an effort and to apply that knowledge needed to make an asset. And if you
do that, then Paradise is worthy of you because you have exerted effort. It's not easy. God Almighty
never said, it's easy. And that's why he's given the reward of paradise for those who managed to
learn what they should be knowing. And then they put into practice that which does lead, because
these are two elements, the devil doesn't want you to follow, you know. So this is jihad. This is
		

			jihad, this a Jihad of the self, this is you experiencing a self conquest, right, and looking after
the sense of faith, then, you know, even the importance of jihad, if the self is is you striving to
teach other people, the ideals that you have learned and has put into practice? This is the type of
striving that Islam teaches us with regards to Jeff, for you to go out and teach. You know, teachers
are people in jihad, somebody might say, well, how is it possible? Well, it is possible when you
understand the reality of the stem Jihad and release yourself of, you know, the wrong understanding
perpetrated by those who hijack them and hijack the religion unfortunate. So violence is really not
		

			a term associated with united in a systematic method. It has its linguistic definition, and it has
its dimensions within the realm of Islam, such as the ones that I'm describing to you right now.
Now, I'm not going to be you know, you know, I'm not going to be a hypocrite in that discussion. I
guess Jihad entails taking up arms. Yes, he does. And we'll come to that shortly. Right now we're
discussing, you know, the other dimension, we will come to just to, you know, ensure that we're not
using our view view as yet because sometimes we see people discuss the term of jihad and express it
in such a way
		

			in that they don't get it right. They don't give you this right. So they sort of leave out the
discussion that it can include taking the path. And then people can tend to, to to to view that
discussion as, as a hypocritical discussion. There's one that we can always sense as human beings
when something thing is being missed out and hypocrisy is absolutely not acceptable. I'm going to
recap before we go into a break of these lovely dynamic moments with Chef Sajid Did you had one
understanding why we're here, who's created us looking for that, that is a Jihad of the spirit to
habits of change Jihad of the daily life, to had the struggle against wasteful, hateful habits. And
		

			three, part of jihad is sharing and changing the way to attain betterment. And that, again, involves
teaching what we know to be good and to be truth, and we're going to take a very short break.
		

			If you ask me
		

			about it, my answer would be
		

			the pure love to our souls to
		

			me.
		

			As he promised he will always be to bless us with this
		

			And his mercy as a promise to always be is always watching
		

			god
		

			you're listening to heart and soul I'm Qatar foundation radio with meet Lauren booth, sharing his
gems of knowledge with us today is Chef Sajid Omer. Welcome back.
		

			And happy to be back.
		

			We're coming back on the subject of jihad. And we need to talk about the dynamic physical element,
which involves armed struggle. This phrase, Jihad has been used in recent years in the media, to
embody all it is violent and unpleasant in the current state of the world. Take us to its meanings
and understandings in Islamic sense, please, okay.
		

			I'll be glad to but I have a subtle request, if I may. And that is a request towards as
		

			lengthily this particular program to a part two, and then we can dive into that particular
discussion in departure is something you will accept the reason why I'm saying that is because
actually share a little, some, some dimensions as well pertaining to this you have, you know, before
the Bretton Woods discussing, that, you know, what she had been through pacifically what it means,
		

			within the realm of, of Islam and the Sharia, which is one of the most biggest meetings that she had
carried, if you sort of, you know, have experiences a conquest with yourself, and developing
yourself. And once when the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him came from the backdrop, he said,
we have returned from the lesser Jihad to the major jihad. Right? So just ponder with these words,
though, he sort of reference the battle as the lesser jihad. And he cited what they came back to
really back to the homes and their families and life as the greater Jihad
		

			teaching us that, you know, the reality of jihad is you living with yourself every day, in a manner
that God Almighty remains pleased. That's what it is, if you waking up every day to sleep at night,
and God Almighty pleases,
		

			right, so this is the greatest gi not to Best Buy, not to be vulgar in your speech and your action
not to use up the rights of other people, not to cause other people to become upset. Right? All this
is a type of jihad and that's why would you know, just before the break, we spoke about, you need
Jihad to learn, need to you need she had was striving to practice what you learn, you need to have
are striving to also teach what you learn, right, because God Almighty wants us, you know, the
legacy of prophethood. And, you know, was not transferred to anyone, man after the Prophet Muhammad
peace and blessings be upon him. Rather, it was translated to an entire nation, after the prophet to
		

			the final prophet peace and blessings be upon him. So the work of the prophets hasn't stopped with
the possibility of the final messenger, rather than that legacy has been transferred to your
shoulders, to my shoulders, and to the shoulders of our viewers. Right, this concept of inviting
towards good and teaching goodness and pulling people against evil and teaching them what's wrong.
So to do this whole practice of teaching, requires Jihad we need you to strive needs to take that
effort you need to spend from your wealth and expand from your time. And then what happens when you
teach people system or be turned against you, like the people, of the messengers that they went to,
		

			they turned against them. So this needs you to strive to be patient to deal with it. They're not
getting depressed about it, do not lose hope, do not give up. Right? This needs this needs jihad, it
needs you to strive, right, the process needed to practice Jihad every day to wake up every day and
continue teaching, even though people were there to insult them and to, you know, harm them and how
they follow us and so on and so forth. You had a teaching we think of Noah, peace be upon him, who
strove for more than 900 years, to talk to his people about the message of oneness of God, and how
to live their lives and was rejected by the people. Yes, that imagine that belonging and thank you
		

			for writing that point, because I think it will exacerbate the reality of the term jihad in the
minds of the listeners. Imagine living inviting people to God Almighty for 950 years. Imagine that.
		

			And for 950 years, only a handful of people accept your message. Right? I mean, we would give up on
something within a few months. We'll say start working
		

			But for me, I'm wasting time I'm gonna go on to something else.
		

			for 950 years of Noah continued, he was absolutely patient, you know, he was, you know, experiencing
the conquest of the self, that you you write the label
		

			every day, he had to, otherwise you'd have given up on the duty. Right? So this is Jihad to go out
and preach and preach and preach and preach. And, and and we have an entire chapter in the Quran
		

			dedicated to Prophet Noah, and it's actually called the chapter of Noah and it's God Almighty, of
how he spent his life inviting people to God Almighty. You know, God Almighty automatically, invite
them in groups, and nicely invite them individually. And I invite him, allow the nice, invite them
to whispering and he tried every method, he was so dedicated to the cause.
		

			Right? You know, you can, if I was a fly on the wall, looking at this theme, you'd like to be
feeling sorry for him.
		

			saying that he was piling and piling and trying and trying and reviewing strategies and renewing his
strategies and trying new things, and so on and so forth. And people are just not not with it. But
he keeps on doing. It's like the old man in the corner who just keeps on speaking, and nobody's
listening to him. But despite nobody listening to him, he just keeps on speaking.
		

			Right? That's, that's a Jihad that needs a strategy where you just remain true to the cost. Right?
And you continue. Now why did the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him say that we have returned
from the lesser Jihad to the greater jihad, you know, fighting the battle, that's the message. Yeah,
that's just the type of jihad and unfortunately, today, people say all of jihad is fight. But the
Prophet peace investing said, that is the lesser, that's a minor Mecca.
		

			You know, if you want to say all of jihad, and they all have the highest, you're beating yourself,
thank you being the best you can be when you yourself, is working against yourself to be the best
when the data is working against you to be the best. And that leads us to a discussion in the forum,
because God Almighty describes the three stages of the self. And when I talk about self, I mean, you
know, the soul connected to the body on Earth. This is this is the definition of what we mean when
we say the self. So when you are alive, God Almighty says that we exist in three sort of stages, or
three sort of
		

			ways. The first way is in a way whereby you are inclined towards even a great inclination. Right?
except with God Almighty has mercy upon everything evil is beautiful for you. And it's easy for you
to indulge, right? That's that's the first stage. God Almighty says in the chapter of Joseph, in the
Quran in the next issue that indeed the SE, is showing, trying to even if so inclined towards
immersing itself in all that we call mighty dislike, except the South Dakota mighty shouts, mercy
upon. So that's one way and one stage, the other stage is a praiseworthy stage. And God Almighty
takes an oath, by this stage in the chapter known as the chapter of the Day of Judgment. And indeed,
		

			God Almighty takes an oath by the self reproach himself,
		

			right? by this by the spouse that reproaches itself. Look, you know, if this is exciting to do, but
God Almighty doesn't like it, I'm going to go out and practice Jihad and strive for the future. And
I'm, you know, I want to but i'm not i want to but i'm not i want to but I'm not you keep on
repeating yourself, and you strive within yourself, otherwise he loves that he takes an oath by and
then God Almighty says that you don't continue striving against yourself like this except that you
reach the third stage. And that is the stage of the content stuff. And that is the self that is not
experiencing what the previous self experience whereby I wanted, but I will, the content itself
		

			actually says I don't want it. It's relax. There's no there's no striping taking place now. Meaning
being good and obedient is natural. In fact, you know, it's hard work to do that. That is a
fantastic place for us to cool ourselves to account for today, and take a pause until tomorrow, when
we will return inshallah with Chef Sajid Ouma on the subject of jihad May peace and understanding
descend upon us all Assalamu alaikum the producer for this series is it have a chef