Mirza Yawar Baig – Living Islam Session #21
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The generation gap is due to lack of understanding and ability to continue making sense across multiple age groups and geographies. The importance of content excellence and the concept of justice as applied to culture is emphasized. The speakers emphasize the importance of protecting people's lives and avoiding violence, while also emphasizing the need for strong message and support. The Sharia power is emphasized, and the importance of forgiveness and being a valued member of society is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Killer on Allah Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu, salam, Ala Moana, saline.
Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Shiva and my brother,
my brothers sisters, we are in our session of leaving Islam.
And I remind myself a new that as time progresses,
as we as individuals, and the Muslim oma itself as a group of people,
as we progress in life,
it seems as if the challenges of life only increase, they do not decrease.
There was a time when I was growing up,
where if my grandfather said to my father,
do what I have done in my life.
Meaning, the content,
the exact things
do as I have done in my life, and you will be successful, if my grandfather said that to my father,
that statement would be correct.
But then, again, a time
in my own life,
I started experiencing the generation gap.
And I'm sure my parents experienced that as well.
Now, what is the generation gap, the gap is not understanding, you know, modern day slang of the time.
The generation gap is simply a lack of,
or the loss of ability
to continue to make sense, in a world that is very different from the world that I lived in, or grew up in.
The reason for that
is because most people remain when in terms of their experience, they remain grounded, I'm trying to avoid the word stuck
in the content of what they said or did or heard or fit the content of what
they said or did.
And they are unable to translate that into content, conceptual learnings, which become content independent, and because they become content independent, they also become space and time independent.
Personalized,
had this amazing ability to do this.
And he was highly successful in being able to do that.
And that is reason why if you look at the nuts and bolts, the material content of his worlds, and compare that to our nuts and bolts and material content of our world, you are not just looking at two different
times you are looking practically at two different planets, completely two different words.
Except for the fact that he was human and his people around him were human, and we are also human, there is almost no
commonality between them and us between their time and our time.
Now, you might be surprised to hear this from me because I am the one who pushes the line to say that there is an uncanny resemblance between the time of Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam and our time.
And I'll tell you why. Both these statements which are apparently paradoxical are true.
There is a world of difference in terms of the content of what was happening there.
And there is an uncanny resemblance, when we take that content and we convert that into principles
of into conceptual principles of what was happening, conceptually what was happening.
The same things are happening today here.
Whereas the actual content
will be very different.
Here, for example,
interest based banking.
Conceptually, it is exactly the same thing.
That we are doing today. Content wise. Obviously they didn't have computers, they didn't have the internet. They didn't have wire transfers for banks. But did they have the equivalent of a power of attorney? Yes. Did they have the equivalent of a
NC? Yes. Did they have an equal amount of different payment? Yes. Did they have the equivalent of a promissory note? Yes.
Now, did they have the equivalent of venture capital financing? Yes.
Exactly how it was done in terms of nuts and bolts, reverse. Now this is important. And I want to I want to sort of pause on that, because
conceptual understanding and conceptual thinking solves problems.
When our concepts are clear, then we can transfer those concepts and those concepts will continue to make sense across the ages, across geographies, and they will continue to make make sense to people who may have nothing in common with you, racially, or religion wise or any other way, except that they are also human. And they're also living in a world where they are facing such situations.
But if you cannot conceptualize your life experience, then it's an ending like it doesn't really make sense to anybody. You will have lived an interesting life, it might be an interesting story for someone to read, when they have some free time but other than that, it's not something that will make sense to them or it's not something that they can make use of in their own lives. And that's why this conceptualizing is a very, very important thing.
Now, I'm not sure how
talks about this conceptualizing and he talks about the basic fundamental principle of society, which
underlies everything else in society in terms of its conceptual importance, and that is the importance of justice.
In surah, Nisa, Allah subhanho wa Taala, gelatin Allah who he says, Yeah, you and I will have a shock on the regime. This will not honor him. Yeah, you will levina Morneau Kurokawa mean, Bill
Diller he will know Allah and fujichrome I will Wiley Rainey one up rabina he will have a few fear for low v Hema
all however and you were in the loo out for inala Hakuna Matata maluna hubiera.
Said which means all you will believe stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to Allah subhanho wa Taala alone, even though that may be against yourself,
or your parents or your kin, meaning your relatives be he or she rich or poor.
A lot of animals Allah is a better protector of both than you. So do not follow the lust of your heart less, you may avoid justice and if you distort your witness, or refuse to give it Verily Allah is Ever well acquainted with what you do. Here is a beautiful example
of the concept underlying or goodness and that concept is justice.
Now, content wise where does it apply?
The way in which it is applied content wise may differ from culture to culture from time to time, from history to history, from geography, geography.
Justice as it is applied in a marketplace would be different from justice as it is applied in an organization will be different from justice as it is applied in a marital relationship will be different from justice as it is applied in a parent child relationship will be different from justice as it is applied if you are a ruler of a country
but what
Do you as a ruler of a country have to do apply justice deal justly with people, the principle of justice remains the same. The way it is applied, will change according to the time and place and according to the context. So, when you take something and convert it into a conceptual,
conceptual principle, then it becomes content and context independent. And it is applicable across contexts, and, and across various other
differences, in many ways. So, here is this principle of justice where a lot of Americans are saying
he's addressing specifically the Muslims, and unless things stand firmly with justice, as witnesses to Allah.
Now, think about this.
What is this, in my view? The one single reason why people behave unjust unjustly, is because they believe they can get away with it.
Right, there is almost nobody who will while driving down the road, there is almost nobody I can say there is nobody who will jumper red light if he sees a police car parked at the intersection.
Many times policemen do this, they parked the car, they leave the flashers on, and they've gone somewhere.
It's only when you come right up to the car and you stopped or your your or your pass the car when you realize that there was nobody in the car
not to follow the rules, because the police cars there.
Why is it that in places like Dubai, for example, people follow the laws very, very carefully. Because Dubai probably has the largest number of cameras on the on the roads. So it is almost certain that if you break the law, while driving, it's almost certain that you will be caught.
Like because some camera would have captured what you did. And then you depending on what you did, you will either get
a very expensive photograph, you know that you need to pay for in your mail, or you might get a knock on the door.
So people follow the law. So there are a single reason why.
Most people
there have been people who follow the law because their hearts are good. But for the vast majority of people, they follow the law, because they are afraid of getting caught. If there was a possibility for them to do injustice without getting God then they would have done it.
Unless matter is pointing out to this insane that you might escape traffic camera in someplace. You might escape a police one somewhere. But you cannot escape the one who whose shine and who's hot. And whose power is nohrian Majesty is that he is early movies that is pseudo. He knows what is in your heart was Samuel Brasil. He here and he sees real time 24 seven
right?
So unlacing stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to Allah, because Allah is witness to what you're doing. And there is no time and no place and no circumstance and no situation in which you could have been doing something which Allah subhanaw taala didn't see or unknown alerted, escaped Allah subhanaw taala the attention that doesn't question does not arise, because there is no such time and place.
Then Allah subhanaw taala is pointing to another reason why we are unjust. First reason we are unjust is because we think we can get away with it. So let's say you cannot get away with it because I'm watching.
Second reason why we are unjust is because
the action, the unjust action was done by me. And I don't want to be caught with that.
Right? So I'm the one who did it. And I don't want to face that. I know what we got with that. So I will pretend that I did not do that or I will, you know try to escape. Or that action was done by somebody who is close to me dear to me. My father, my mother, maybe my wife or husband, maybe my children, maybe close friends of my people.
Who I love very much, and they did something wrong. And I don't want to say that to them.
Let me ask you, especially the,
you know, South Asians, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, to some extent the Arabs.
In my country in India,
a large chunk of Bollywood film industry is based on mother in law, daughter law conflict,
which is either of them, one of them being unjust to the other.
And the man is caught in the middle of this between his wife and his mother.
So either reside with his mother against his wife, and he may he may be therefore being unjust to the wife, or he may be residing with a wife against the mother, in which case, he's being unjust to the mother, or is being pulled apart by the two of them.
Why Why is that happening? Because this one is dear to me, that what is dear to me? So the principles of justice, I am sacrificing, because of somebody who is dear to me,
just now in America, and we heard this, you have this
episode, absolutely fantastic, you know, incident that I heard of, in one of the states that not only in the state and so on, in one of the states, the governor of the state in this, you know, social distancing and lockdown situation, the governor of the state made his announcement and you know, people stay away from all places of gathering, shutting down all bars, and, and all restaurants and so on, except for food takeaway, and all of this, and then he give directions to the police to say, now go on patrol, and anywhere you catch, no exceptions, they must face the music, they will they will be punished, they will be fined, as the case might be.
Guess who the police caught?
The wife of the governor in a bar. She was hanging out with some friends.
So what do you think happened?
What do you think will happen in your country? The governor of the state,
which is equal at in India, that would be equal to the Chief Minister of the state.
Now, you might say, Well, you know, my state, my Chief Ministers not married. Or you might say my Chief Ministers wife doesn't go to the bar, forget about that. Forget the bar. If your chief minister's wife is found in a place
where there is some kind of a gathering. What do you think will happen?
In my country, I know the minister's wife will have her own personal police security.
And she will be in that gathering with her own security guards.
Is this justice?
Or is justice What happened here? Which is the case they report to the governor, they said your wife was
found in his bar? He said, What is your instruction? They said our instruction is no exception. He said exactly.
You have your you have your instructions, no exceptions, apply the law, whatever the law is, apply the law if she used to be arrested, and remanded to judicial custody, and if she is to be fine, go ahead.
The fact that you my wife makes no difference.
This is the meaning of justice, even to stand for justice, even if it is against those who are closest to you. Now,
who is closest of the closest yourself? What does it mean? It means admit that you were wrong. It doesn't matter how long you were wrong, it doesn't matter how much of agony on the face you will get, but believe me, man experience in life, if you are wrong, and if you immediately without justifying it without you know trying to escape and so, on the moment it is pointed out you that you are on, if you immediately accept that, not only is there no egg on the face, but you will be respected for that.
Not only will it not embarrass you not only is it not something which is negative, it is something which is hugely positive. People will appreciate the fact that you were just in this particular case. Whereas instead of admitting that you are at fault, if you keep on justifying it if you keep on trying to make excuses and so on and so forth, you lose respect in the eyes of it.
So I love to write that as teaching as a method whereby not only will we stand for justice and therefore 100 lie inshallah, when we meet a lot of animals Allah, this will not be a source of embarrassment for us, but we will actually gain
gain credibility and gain
People will respect us more, because they say that this person admits
when he is at heart.
So it's very, very important for us to
keep this mind keep to keep this in mind. So I think stand for just stand firmly for justice
as witnesses to Allah subhanho wa Taala, even though it's against yourself and against your parents, against your relatives, siblings, children, close, you know, close relatives.
And then Allah subhanaw taala now
catches another very important thing, which is
different strokes for different folks. And what is the general rule applied? different rules for the rich for rich people and different rules for poor people?
And that's one other thing. No,
justice means the same law applies across the board, to everybody, rich or poor. And Allah says Allah is a better protector for both than you meaning that don't worry about the fact that if you if you call out somebody who is wealthy, that there may be a blowback on you, Allah says no, don't worry about Allah is your protector,
rich or poor.
Stand up for justice, even if it's against yourself, stand out for justice, even if it's against the people who are closest to you. So one reason we are unjust is because the person is from my is close to me.
Like, you know, relative as long as one or another reason we stand up, or we are afraid to stand up for justice is because somebody is wealthy and powerful.
All three reasons Alice martella, covered union law said you stand for justice. And he said, Make a liar witness a lot smarter as a witness, because there is no one who is stronger than Allah there is no one was more powerful than less amount of data and to Allah subhanho wa Taala is our return belongs to Allah and to him his origin.
And then Allah said, and do not follow the rest of your heart. Meaning that there may be some other reason why you are being unjust, because you like something because you want something to happen because you are hankering after power and authority. So you think that if I succumb to some pressure here, then I will be elected as president or I'd be elected as you know, head of this organization or that organization. Or you might feel that now I am the I have been elected as the head of this organization. So then I must necessarily, you know, succumb to things and make compromises in order to retain my seat, unless rather than saying, No, don't do that. Don't do any of that.
Less to me avoid justice, meaning less, you might become unjust.
And then Allah subhanaw taala says very clearly that if you distort your witness, or you refuse to give it meaning, that if somebody comes to you, in the case involving justice, and you do not support that person, even though you know what is right, you are a witness, but you refuse to give witness, you refuse to bear witness, you know, don't put my name on it, why not? Because you are that you are the witness. Now I know what Alice Walker is saying. Remember, that Allah is well aware of what used to do, you can probably you probably think you can escape the people. And maybe you can, but you cannot escape. Allah Subhana.
Allah knows what you did. Allah was witness to it. You did it while he was watching and see and listening.
And now you say no, no, I don't want to talk about that. No problem. If you don't want to talk about it, remember, you did it and allows to another witness. So now the safety for you lies in speaking the truth and standing for justice, no matter who else is involved.
Just as I want you to really seriously think about this, because this is something which is so critically important, that if we lose track of this, then the whole edifice of society for
society must be based and can be based on this one single principle, which is the principle of justice,
as well as Ron Adela to put this into our hearts, and to make us people who are just and fair, and who avoid all forms of injustice no matter what, and who fear only and only the anger of Allah subhanho wa Taala and nothing else, like purify our hearts And may Allah fill them with his Crusher and nothing else.
I lost America, this
also mentioned
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Allah said,
in his famous vida,
Allah said, this is iron number 32.
Unless and because of that we ordained and this refers to give us more on the subject that comes before this, unless rather Is it because of that we ordained for the children of Israel, that if anyone killed a person, not in retaliation of murder, and, or to spread mischief in the land, it would be as if he killed all of mankind. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all of mankind. And indeed, they came to them, messengers with clear proofs, evidences and science, even then, after that many of them continued to exceed the limits
now
exceed the limits of the land. Now, this is of,
of sort of America, we hear it many times in these days, it seems to be quoted everywhere.
Allah said that if if a person
killed somebody, except in retaliation about it, and this doesn't mean that individuals have the right to retaliate against murder, but the state has this right. So when a person is convicted of murder, obviously, that means after due process in law, and in the light of the evidence presented, if a person is convicted of murder, then the state that court the judge has the right to implement the implement capital punishment has the right to condemn this person to death.
So also for something else, some other capital crime, for example, treason, and things like this, where the state has this right, so when alleging that
if someone kills a person, but not in retaliation for murder, it doesn't mean that we have this right. We of course, have the right to self defense. And, and this is to be understood clearly and differently. If someone is attacking you, you don't just stand there and die, you try to fight back. And in that process, if you win, and if you, you know, whatever happens, then you have acted within your right because you've defended yourself or defended your family. But
if you, for example, witness a murder,
you don't have the right to kill the murderer, even though the murderer might be there in your power that you Your job is to is to catch the murder and hand that murder over to the authorities who will then deal with the murderer according to the law of Allah subhanaw taala. Now,
the thing that is being said here is
that killing for the sake of anything other than the establishment of justice, the whole point here to understand is Allah subhanaw taala has permitted
not the individual but the state to take life as in to sentence somebody to death. But what is the what is the reasons that the state even the state can do one is in retaliation for murder. So somebody murdered somebody than a murderer should be given the capital punishment? Yeah, and I will come to how Islamic law is the Most
Merciful even in this context, we'll come to that in a minute. But as far as the courts authority to inflict capital punishment, yes, Islam accepts that Islam recognizes that and that is the punishment that is
that is permitted in Islam, for the judge to inflict capital punishment on a murderer.
And second thing is
to somebody can be given a capital punishment for spreading this trip.
The land which is, for example, treason is one could be
now.
So even the state is not given
boundless
authority to inflict capital punishment of people on people, for any and every reason, right.
So, in terms of war, for example, Islam does not
permit wars to be to be started, in order to capture territory in order to capture natural resources, in order to open markets, so to speak, you know, there's a famous quote, where they say that if goods don't cross borders, soldiers and armies will not and not in Islamic, not in Islamic law.
Islam says that the only way, the only time when the state has this right to do is when,
when when somebody has committed murder. Now, people might say, Well, you know, many people are against capital punishment. And I'm not promoting capital punishment as the, you know, I'm not so rapidly promoting it as always, no, because Islam itself doesn't promote. Islam is a situation where
Islamic law is the only law in the world, which has a scope for the
affected party, meaning if somebody has been murdered, then the affected party are the dependents of that murdered person, they are the family or the murdered person. Islam is the only law which gives where there is scope for the family of the affected person to
say to the murderer,
that
they are willing to forgive him.
If he pays a certain amount of money,
the concept of compensation monetary compensation for murder, which is called blood money, the reason for that being that a person may be the person who was murdered may have been the wage earner may have been the breadwinner for the family. So the family has lost a breadwinner. Now, just by killing off the murderer.
Nothing is so because the family now is minus sustenance, and sure to the gods of revenge because the murderer was killed.
But how does it help them? So Islam says, The basic principle in Islam is that Islamic justice is concerned more with the victim than with the aggressor. The rights of the victim take precedence over whatever rights may be of the aggressor, the murder.
So even if somebody kills somebody else, Islam takes the position that the killer knew that killing is wrong.
So now to say Oh, but you see, we should be compassionate with the killer, and we should not sentence the killer to get it should be compassionate with the killer. But tell me how should we have with the family of the person who was killed?
Should we be compassionate with them? Or should we punish them even though
they have lost the breadwinner, they have lost their father, they've lost their mother.
So there is that grief.
In addition to that, now, you want to sentence them to poverty
because now they have no sustenance.
There's not there's no their rights come first.
And in that context, in order for their rights to be fulfilled,
if it gives the murderer a way out, then so be it. So there is a concept where the murder can pay and the software and the money is a substantial sum of money. But he or she can pay that money to the family and apologize to them and you know, seek their forgiveness. And then the family says, Let this man or let this one go free and the court will honor that wish of the family
a step ahead of
the family of the murder person has the right in his
Islamic law who completely forgive the murderer for murdering without any compensation.
There was a famous case in America where this Malaysian I think Malaysian or Indonesian,
young boy, he was delivering pizzas. And he went to one place and he delivered, deliver the PIZZA. And for whatever reason, the guy that he caught he shot him and killed him.
And in the court,
the Bible the Muslim who died
straight inshallah May Allah granted Jenna in the court, the father.
He, when he saw the whole evidence, and so on so forth, he found that this guy who killed him was probably intoxicated at the time or something he didn't know he was not bearing a grudge against the man, he didn't to annoy him, he just just did what he did.
So the Father forgive the man. In the court, the Father forgive the murderer completely, there is no concept of blood blood money in American law.
So and in any case, the father was not interested in that. He just said that I forgive this person entirely. There is a very touching scene where the murder, the father actually goes and embraces the murder, he hugs him and the murderer is crying and saying, I'm so sorry, I did this. I didn't realize what I was doing. But the beauty is that a beautiful example of the forgiveness of Islam, and the power of the Sharia was established. Now, sadly, American law doesn't have any scope for accepting this. So this murderer still went to jail for God knows how many years for a very, very long time. But be that as it may, I mean, every every state has every country has their own laws.
But I'm saying that Islamic law, as far as this killing is concerned, is so open, where even the state which has the power to inflict capital punishment, there are so many safety nets
below that, right. So, but other than the state, the law is very clear. And that is that nobody has a right to kill anybody else. Whatever be the reason, whoever the other person might be, whether the other person is Muslim, or not Muslim, black or white man or woman, whoever, any description, no Muslim, no human being has the right to kill another human being, no matter what the reason, except in self defense. That's it. Now, another handle data,
emphasize this in this beautiful way, where he said
that if somebody kills another person, unjustly and I, in detail, explain to you the whole concept, so I won't go into that. If somebody kills another person, then it is as if he has killed
catalana surgery.
It is as if he has killed all of humanity.
I imagine what kind of what kind of river what kind of emphasis is this? You can one person Allah says it is as if he has wiped out the human race. Meaning it is that serious? Allah subhanaw taala views that as something which is that series is not a normal thing. Yeah, you know, it happened. No, it is as if you kill the whole human race. And conversely, Allah says, if a Muslim, if a person, not not a Muslim, anybody, Allah said, if a person saves the life of another person, then it is as if he has saved the lives of all of humanity. And
this is the concept of justice in Islam. Justice is that which is good for everyone, not something which is interpreted as being good for a certain coterie of powerful people or a particular individual. But actually it is detrimental to others. This is not justice. Justice, is something which is good for everybody. And this is what Islam
promotes and preaches. And that is what we need to express in our lives, in terms of our actions in terms of our speech, in terms of what we stand for, in terms of what we support, and what we oppose. We must ensure that we always, always, always support justice, and nothing else whatsoever. Ask a lot of anatella to be pleased with you and never to be displeased and asked to make us
People who are just and fair because we are going to meet Allah subhanho wa Taala one day and Allah subhanho wa Taala who will knock and who will added he is the truth and he is the just masala Alana Vickery while he was having an erotic I mean are hungry little bit LMU Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh