Mirza Yawar Baig – Biggest Challenge #2
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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of
all the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the messengers
and prophets, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings be upon him and his
family.
My brothers and sisters, we are going to
do a very quick thumbnail sketch of what
I said in my last khatirah because there
were a lot of new people today here.
We were talking about the changes that were
brought on by the Industrial Revolution, 1760 to
1840, a period of 80 years, which completely
changed the world.
The Industrial Revolution, on the face of it,
was about a change in the method of
manufacture, from handmade goods to machine-made goods,
factories, assembly lines, and so on.
But what it actually changed was a lot
more than that.
The Industrial Revolution changed three things.
Time of day, the role of parents, and
it changed the culture of the land.
Time of day changed in an agrarian society,
agricultural society, time of day is sunrise to
sunset.
In an industrial society, it is from the
time the shift begins to the time the
shift ends.
So if you have a shift which starts
at 2 a.m., that is your morning,
and it ends at 10 a.m. after
eight hours, that is your night.
Second thing is the role of parents.
The parents in an agrarian, agricultural society were
also the teachers of the children.
The mothers taught the girls all the skills
of homemaking, of raising families, raising children, taking
care of infants, also all homemaking skills, stitching,
knitting, cooking, and so on and so on.
The boys were taught by the fathers outside
the house.
They taught them agricultural methods, how to take
care of animals.
They taught them ploughing, they taught them the
seasons, they taught them how to take care
of the fields.
They taught them also the martial arts.
These were people who were supposed to defend.
These were times where it was not so
safe, so they learned sword skills, they learned
archery.
When guns came, they learned how to shoot
and so on and so on.
So all of this happened with the...
So the father was the teacher, the mother
was also the teacher.
They were not simply places to go to
for food.
With the Industrial Revolution, what happened was that
because factories came into being, factories needed labour,
and so first the men got drafted into
the factories, then the labour was not enough,
so they needed the women.
So to get the women into the factories,
two things happened.
One was that there was a whole concerted
effort to change the mindset of people, especially
women, to say that my life and fulfilment
and recognition and honour for me can only
be found outside the house in a job.
I cannot find that in raising my children.
So the whole role of motherhood, the whole
image of motherhood was discounted and denigrated to
mean like this is a waste of time,
this is nothing.
I remember I have recruited and interviewed, I
don't know how many people, I've written a
book on recruitment called Hiring Widows.
Many times when young people would come to
me to be interviewed, I would ask them,
what does your father do?
Sir, my father is this, this, this.
What does your mother do?
My mother does nothing.
Your mother does nothing.
If your mother did nothing, how are you
alive?
Simple question.
If your mother does nothing, how are you
alive?
But the tragedy is not only does the
child, the son, think that the mother's job
is nothing, but the mother herself thinks it
is nothing.
So this psychological attack on the role of
motherhood, on the vaqar, on the izzah, on
the value of motherhood was done.
And concurrently with that, the fashions of women,
the clothing of women got changed.
Originally the reason for changing the clothing was
because now you wanted the women in the
factories and so they could not wear the
loose long skirts that women used to wear,
even in this country in the West, they
used to wear these long loose skirts and
loose clothing, it was dangerous next to a
machine, so they got them to wear tight
clothing.
Later on it became fashion and so on
and, you know, it's my body, I can
show what I want, that's a different thing,
but original reason for that was safety issues.
You didn't want anyone with loose clothing next
to a machine, so the clothing got changed.
But the most important thing was the psychological
impact of working in a factory and working
in a within court job, which brings to
the other bear, which is that the value
of society got changed from knowledge, skill.
For example, Antizan, a carpenter, he had his
prestige, his value was in the skill with
which he would do the work.
So, when you got a practice to a
carpenter, to become a carpenter, your job was
to learn to make furniture with that great
skill.
All of that got changed to one single
factor, which was money.
How much money do you make?
We even brought in terms like net worth,
what is your net worth?
So, effectively you are saying how much are
you worth?
You know and I know today in football
and soccer teams and basketball teams, and so
on, cricket teams, players are sold.
Literally, this is the language that is used.
So-and-so was sold for so much,
like you sell a horse or a cow
or a pig, and we accept it.
It's a matter of pride.
My price is so much.
You ask a man, I mean, you put
a price to a dog, you put a
price to a cow, you don't put a
price to a human being.
You have a price.
And you know what, you are not ashamed
to say that.
See how minds got changed, see how minds
got changed, see how values got changed.
And remember, all of this happened without force.
This is the thing that I want you
to understand.
Nobody put a gun to anybody's head.
All of this happened through psychological pressure.
In America, especially, also to a great extent
in the UK, that's where the brunt of
the Industrial Revolution happened.
That's where the big factories, the manufacturing facilities
and so on and so forth were set
up.
Came the Great Depression.
Now, imagine, you create a system which is
supposed to bring, you know, plenty to people
and they are going to earn more money
and they're going to do this and that,
but the result of that was the Great
Depression of the 1930s.
Right?
And an entire generation went down.
Entire generation died.
There is a very nice movie that you
should see called The Dollmaker.
The Dollmaker.
See the movie, it's called The Dollmaker.
That movie is about this family, it's a
true story, it's about this family from the
Midwest who go to Detroit to work in
the factories there.
So, this is a farmer's family.
So, they have now, they have, price of
potatoes has gone to literally to nothing.
So, they're almost starving.
So, they pick up their stuff.
So, the whole, first of all, the whole
struggle, the psychological struggle of leaving a house
and taking what do I take and what
do I leave behind because everything has a
memory attached to that.
And these are people who have lived in
their house for generations.
So, this is my grandmothers, this is my
great-grandfathers and so on and so forth.
What do you leave behind?
Now, to put it briefly, they take one
wagon, but that's all you can take, one
wagon.
There is one family.
So, one thing that the lady of the
family, the lady of the house, the woman,
she is also a carver.
She used to carve things.
So, she would carve, you know, articles and
utensils and so on.
And a devout Christian woman, she wanted, her
dream was to carve an icon of Jesus,
a statue of Jesus.
And for that, she found this log of
wood in the forest.
She drags it back to the house.
Keeps it very safely with this dream that
one day I will carve this beautiful statue
of Jesus.
So, now when they are going across the
mountains and so on, she says, this log
has to go.
And the husband says, you are mad, you
are crazy.
This log to carry this log in this
wagon for what?
She says, no.
So, she absolutely insists.
Anyway, the man gives in, they take this,
they reach Detroit.
And now he's gone to work, she's gone
to work.
They're struggling and struggling and struggling.
And they're living in a tin shed in
Detroit in the winter.
You can imagine what must be the situation,
right?
And eventually, that same woman takes an axe
and splits the log and makes a fire
to heat her home for her children and
for herself.
Imagine the psychological turmoil of all that.
So, the Industrial Revolution was not only about
this.
Final point of the Industrial Revolution was it
created the schooling system as we know it,
which is one teacher in a class of
20, 30, 40, whatever, or two teachers.
The original system was parents were teachers, where
the children needed to learn other things, specific
skills which the father or the mother couldn't
teach.
They would go to the teacher and become
apprentice to that teacher.
So, they would go to the carpenter of
the time, they would go to the stonemason
of the time, they would become apprentices to
the masons and the masons would teach them
how to build walls and how to build
buildings and cathedrals and so on and so
forth.
The carpenters would teach them, the carriage makers
would teach them, the different people of different
skills would teach them skills, one teacher to
one student, maybe two or three students.
The same thing happened also at that time
used to happen with regard to the teaching
of Islam.
There were no madaris at Jamia.
People would go to individual scholars, would go
to the muhaddiths and learn hadiths.
Then you would go from the muhaddiths to
the teacher of the Qur'an and you
would, first of all, that's where you would
start.
You would start with the hifz of the
Qur'an, you would learn the tajweed of
the Qur'an and so on and so
forth.
Then from there you would go to the
muhaddiths and then if you were interested in
fiqh, you went to the faqih.
If you were interested in something else, you
went there.
Individuals went to the asatizah, they went to
the teachers and after, there was no course.
There was no six-year alimiyyat course or
eight-year course there.
You went, you were taught.
How long it takes depends on the teacher
and you.
For some people, very fast.
Depends on their ability to take and absorb
knowledge.
Other people, it took a long time.
So when the student went to the teacher,
when Imam Shafir Rahmatullah Ali went to Imam
Malik, for example, or Rahmatullah Ali, he didn't
go for a five-year course.
He went to learn.
How long does it take?
It takes as long as it takes.
From that, we got the schooling system.
Which is the same thing also in our
religious schools today, same thing.
You have a class, you teach a book,
a kitab.
You have a teacher, you have students, complete
society changed.
Values changed, culture changed, because now the students
were not learning from their own kind, they
were not learning from their own elders, they
were learning from a stranger teacher who brought
their own culture, they brought their own values,
they brought their own beliefs.
What is right and wrong, the teacher brought
that and the students learned that and came
home.
You are seeing that to this day in
this country and any country.
Children come home and they have all kinds
of ideas.
Whole culture changed.
Right?
Now, why is all this important?
Why am I saying all this to you?
Because of one reason.
And that reason is, we are now going
through another revolution.
We are now going through another revolution.
We have been, as a matter of fact,
for the last 20 years.
But now we are going into it much
faster.
And that is the information revolution.
The information and technology revolution.
And now we are going into the AI
phase of that, the artificial intelligence phase of
that.
Next Saturday, I will tell you about that.
And I'll tell you what I foresee.
I'm not sitting here like a prophet, but
what I foresee, from my knowledge of history
and the world coming before us, the challenges
that we will face.
And believe me, I'm not exaggerating.
It will make the industrial revolution look like
a picnic.
That is the reason why I keep on
saying like a broken record, read, read, read.
Get yourself educated.
Get yourself on par.
Otherwise, you will lose your children.
I'm not exaggerating.
I really sincerely hope that I'm completely wrong.
And I know I'm not wrong.
You will lose your children.
Unless you make the effort.
You have to make the effort, not the
children.
Children are children.
You have to make the effort.
The choice is yours.
Because with social change comes dominance.
The industrial revolution gave us almost 300, 400
years of dominance of the West over the
East, which continues to this day.
It brought down the three of the greatest
Muslim empires, the Ottomans, the Mughals and the
Safavids.
No sign of any of them now.
What is coming ahead of us is much
more serious.
And whether we like it or not, like
in the past, and I will talk about
it more, like in the past, Islam and
Muslims are the only thing which stand for
and against these changes.
And if you stand and you are not
prepared, then that's not good news.
So please, read.
Invest in yourself.
Invest in your children.
Learn.
And build your connection with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Because that is our greatest strength.
That is our greatest strength.
Build your connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help
us to connect with Him, to help us
to learn, to help us to change our
ways, to help us to become strong and
to recognise our strength and to use that
in ways which are beneficial, which will help
us to see our children through to a
future which will be good for them, inshallah.
And peace and blessings of Allah be upon
the Prophet and his family and companions.