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