Living Islam Session #25

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

are unreliable alameen

salat wa salam ala COVID mursaleen

Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam just leaving Catherine qasida mavado

myrobalan sisters,

we are on the lesson of living Islam. And

I keep reminding myself and you

the whole purpose of this and all

my classes are to

remind ourselves to practice this beautiful religion that Allah subhanaw taala has blessed us with

Islam is the name of a practice a Muslim is the one who practices Islam.

Muslim is not the one who knows about Islam.

Muslim is the one who lives by Islam.

Many times people ask me,

which is the best form of Dawa

and they wanted me to talk in terms of you know, technology. So, is it

mean are lectures better? Or is written things better? pamphlets or, you know, what should we do? And how do we convey the message of Islam to the world?

And my answer is the best method is the method of Rasul Allah.

And his method was

to live by Islam.

He lived by Islam, he taught others to live by Islam. And as long as the Muslims lived by Islam, they were

highly respected. They were highly influential. People came to Islam.

Even those who didn't come to Islam are not hostile to Islam.

They looked upon Muslims with a lot of respect. And Muslims were highly influential.

I remember in my childhood, it was a common thing that people said in Hyderabad, that Muslim children are the best behaved. There's to say to our parents designed this to take a long day, but just upset children. Appaloosa Mara was among the Muslim children are the best behaved. So people used to say that I mentioned this before to you in on many occasions, in South Africa, I was very pleasantly surprised when once one of my friends was a judge there. He said to me that in the time of the apartheid, which was a

white supremacist, Christian,

and very orthodox,

Christian government for 50 years.

So obviously, I mean, that whole ideology was, was highly, you know, reprehensible. And we do not for a minute, stand for or support supremacy of anyone or anyone else. And we do not support racism, and segregation of anyone from anyone else, irrespective of who is behind it. And irrespective of who is being segregated. We don't we don't support any of that. islamically speaking, but the point that this friend of mine made

the point thing he told me, he said that the in during the time of apartheid rule.

Muslims were not required by law, to take an oath on the Koran or, I mean, obviously the Quran because normally they would have taken others Christians would take an oath of the Bible. But Muslims are not required to take an oath on the Koran, to speak the truth. Otherwise, you put your hand on the Bible or the Quran, and you say, I swear to speak the truth and nothing but the truth, but Muslims are not not required to do that. When they were called into the witness box, so I said why they said, because

people said that Muslims don't lie. Muslims don't lie. So if the witnesses are Muslim, then the default was that he or she would speak the truth. So there was no need to, to get them to take an oath to speak the truth because Muslims always speak the truth. And this was the

this was the

the feeling and the belief

substantiated by their actions. This is something that Muslim did

There is this famous video, which I'm sure all of you have seen.

Many of you have seen of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in South Africa, who talks about the time when he was a,

he was hidden, his mother was a single parent. And he lived in one of the shanty towns in South Africa. And he went to school, he did well, but he couldn't go to college, he wanted to go to law school, but he couldn't, he couldn't do that, because he had no money. And so he had to go to work,

in order that he could earn some money for his family to eat. Now, there was a Muslim gentleman who had a shop in that, in that town, that small town. And when he heard about this, he said to this young man, he said, you go to college, and I will give

your mother so much

you know, food, or money or money for food or, or supplies or food items, every month until you finish your college. And this man says that this was a lot he said, I you know, I give you this view, and you can pay me back when the time comes. And he said, When I finished my college I got into, into I became a barrister, become a lawyer. When I went to pay him back, he said, No, I don't need the money, just help somebody else. And this man, today is a super is the Chief Justice of the

of the South African Supreme Court. Now, I can tell you 100 many such stories.

The question to ask ourselves is,

are we still like this? Now? By no means? Am I saying that there are nobody that that that there is nobody in the world no Muslim who speaks the truth? Or no Muslim? Who is kind or no Muslim who's charitable? I'm not. I'm not saying that at all. If I said that it would be a lie, because hamdulillah we have very many good Muslims who are truthful, and who are having high integrity and so on. So I'm talking about the general rule, the general rule, what is the impression that the world has? And what you have asked yourself? What is your impression, as far as Muslims are concerned, in terms of reliability? For example, if you give a job to a Muslim, can you go to sleep

in peace and say that I don't have to ask him again, because this person will deliver what he or she undertook to deliver, they will deliver what they promised.

Doesn't happen.

I started my work career in Ghana, in South America, and

coming from India.

First time I give a task to somebody. And you know, we are we are we are schooled and we are trained to within course, follow up. And if you don't follow up, then there is a price to pay. So I followed up with this person, I gave him this task. And I said, Well, how about that? Have? You got 100?

He got offended. He told me, tell me, do you trust me? Don't trust me. So I said, my brother, of course I trust you. And I'm just wanting to know, sorry. Do you trust me, you don't trust me.

I trust you, he doesn't go away.

If you trust me go away.

And he delivered, he delivered on time what he had to do.

And I learned a lesson to say that, at least at that time in Guyana, the kind of people I worked with.

You did not need to follow up. If they gave you their word, their word was worth something.

They didn't just talk for the sake of talking. They didn't just say no, I will do it. And then you know, they have not done it. And then when you go back to them, then there is some big excuse they're giving you this happened that happened. So first of all, you do not do what you promised to do. And secondly, now you want to waste some more time making all kinds of excuses. And Allah knows best whether those excuses are even true or false. So maybe you are lying. This didn't happen.

This did not happen.

Let me give you another example. I give you many examples.

I give you a couple of

where I am currently in Connecticut, across the street from us we have there is a an American couple who live across the street from us. So I when I usually go for walks in the morning

and I see them sometimes sitting on the patio so I waved to them. They were back to me. They were back at me. We just exchanged some pleasantries. Good morning. How are you? How's this? How's it How's it going? and so on.

One day, my wife made some fabric masks face masks.

So I asked her for a for two and I just went across and I gave the two facemasks to these neighbors.

They were very happy they profusely thanked me and so on. And it so happened that the man was supposed to go to hospital, he had knee surgery, so he was good. The doctor had called him for some follow up.

So he said to me, you know, this is wonderful, because I am supposed to go to hospital tomorrow. And I was a bit hesitant. And this was a time when there was a shortage of masks in America, believe it or not. So anyway, so he said, this is a very timely and thank you so much for thinking of us. And please give our regards and thanks to your wife, who made it and so on. And so on. All this happened. pleasantries over

34 days later, knock on the door.

And his wife is standing there with a beautiful big pot of petunias. in full bloom, beautiful flowers completely filled, that pot is filled with that. And that water comes with a with a hanger. And

you know, the frame. And she brought it.

I said, What's this, he said, This is for you. And every time we were put on the mask, we think of you and this is just to say thank you. Now, what I gave them was two pieces of club that big. Now, of course, obviously my wife made them and that's, you know, her effort goes into that.

We are not trying to compare now the value monetary value of this is addressing that here. The people here are people who, having thanked me, it was not sufficient for them. They said no, we have to do something more than that. What do you call this in Arabic, in Islam?

So these people they're doing. So now this lady brings us part of beautiful flowers. For us.

My sister works in and I mentioned this story also. But I'm saying it again, very instructive for us. My sister works in a very big hospital in New York. So when we were going through this COVID first COVID phase, as you know, New York, New York was very badly hit. And literally every hospital in New York was filled up with COVID patience. At that time, there was a shortage of material as well of suits and so on and so forth. And dadada doctors and first line, people they got sick, and hospitals were full isssues full.

There's a lot of people dying of COVID. And to the extent that they could not have been they were burying people minimize cemeteries.

There's one Muslim cemetery opposite hospital, which filled up with COVID

COVID cases when COVID bodies and then they they actually have got a refrigerated van, refrigerator truck parked outside, and they're just stacking bodies in it, and then they would take and bury them when they could.

Very, very bad situation. Am I just I was in the COVID ward.

And of course, that's another story why she was there. She refused to take an exemption although she was eligible for that.

I'm very happy about the fact that

our parents brought us up well, now I the point I want to make my story is this. So my sister was working in the COVID. What? So I

I asked her I said she works on the night shift. So I asked her Do you take dinner with you? And she said no, there is no need for dinner because the relatives of patients are ordering food for us. So she says that our cafeteria the fridge in the freezer is full of food. She said we have we have ice creams and cheese cakes and and pizzas and hamburgers and you know all kinds of things which are ordered for us. We have a lot for us. So we just go pick up and eat what we want.

It's all on the house, this whole thing comes. Then she tells me that he said you know, and I'm sitting in the night in the ward, we get phone calls from the relatives of patients. She says every single phone call does not begin with the relative asking about their loved one who is on a ventilator in the ICU. It begins with them thanking us

to begin by them saying we are so grateful to you thank you so much

for being there for us, as you know the risks that you are taking despite that you are taking these risks, only for our benefit and

We are so grateful to you. He says every single phone call begins like this. And then they say, can you tell us house? So and so you know, how's my husband, my father, my sister, my brother, whoever, my wife. So the point is that this is a clock, I mean, what else is at this is behavior, which is showing us the way to go. Now, this is the whole point of the power of saying that how must Muslims behave?

I gave you examples, both of Muslims as well as non Muslims.

My question is to ask ourselves and say, Where do I stand in this? What do I do? Where do I stand in this? My brothers and sisters,

our thou, and our invitation towards Islam is only as good as our behavior.

If you behave without dignity, if you rave and rant, if you curse, if you use profanity, if you are rude to your people at home, if you are abusive, in your family relationships,

if you you know, if you're presenting that kind of an image, before your own family, where you are screaming and raving and ranting and abusing and you know, because you got angry, now you've lost control of yourself.

And then you understand and make a hotbar. about Allah subhanaw taala, about the lack of Rasulullah. Salaam, who do you think cares? Who do you think gives a hoot for what you're saying?

How many times have we seen this, that we have seen people

and this time I'm talking about the I'm seeing so called allamah not because I want to be disrespectful. But I'm saying that the people I'm going to be talking about are really so called because if they will not be behaving this way, the knowledge of an island must be visible in is o'clock. And if the knowledge of the item is not visible in his or her o'clock, then that man or woman is not an audience. Just because a have studied some books or just because they went to a Manasa does not make them an ally. Right that knowledge they have, it will be a witness against them. On the day of judgment, their punishment will be according to the fact that they behaved like

this despite knowing better May Allah protect us from this. So

how many times have we heard these bands, talking about how soloists are seldom used to treat children.

We have the story of

Anna's been Malika delanco, who was with Rasulullah sallallahu.

literally almost from the day that Nabi Salah Salaam came to Medina, and has been Malik at that time was about maybe nine or 10 years old. And he stayed with him until he passed away. So he stayed in the company of rasa in his house, as his servant as his hobby.

For his entire duration of the time that he spent in Medina, the full 10 years.

anabolic Allah gave him a long life of their land who and he used to say that he used to see the solar system every single day in his dream, after we passed away and some people are truly, truly blessed, blessed now and has been Malika delana says that I came into his household as a small child when I was nine years old or 10 years old. And then I grew up there. He said in that entire period that I was with him, I served him I mean, I did what he told me to do, but you know, he said I was a little kid I mean, I would sometimes I would do what he told me to do sometimes I would forget sometimes I would maybe not understand correctly and I would do something else. I would get careless

I mean that like he was a little boy like anybody any boy. He said in that whole period of 10 years. So he did not reprimand me even once he said forget about reprimanding. Never Jerusalem did not even frown at me. He his his forehead, didn't even have a single wrinkle. Even though I would have committed mistakes. He not only did not beat me or you know not curse me or

abuse me in any way. But he didn't even frown at me. Now, we hear these stories from our

all I'm coming to I'm saying that similarly

as I had been hired out of the Lana again, get

into the service of Rosa sallam. He was given to her as a slave by a digital camera delana it was again a little boy who had been captured from

by by by slavers and sold in the market of maca. And somebody bought him and gave her gave him as a gift to hadiya delana and Khadija delana gave him as a gift to

them, immediately freed him and treat him like his son. Literally like like his son. And he stayed in his house in in Makkah

said, Ron says that one day, Saracen gave me some money, and told me sent me to the market. He said, Go get this. He said, I went. And on the way, I saw some of my friends, they were playing a game, I got involved in the game, and I forgot all about the errand that I had been centered.

He says that after some time, rasulillah salam got anxious, because you know, here's his boy who was being

sent to the market. He hasn't come back. So you know what happened to him? So Roswell, so Sam came out, he said, searching for me anyway.

He said, When I saw him, I suddenly remembered what I was supposed to do. And I got very worried. I thought he will beat me or you know, he would be angry with me.

So he said, Yes, well, I forgot.

I forgot about what I had come to him said to him. Don't worry, it's okay. You give me the money. I'll go and get it. And you know, you can go play with your friends. Xavi Heiser says I searched in my pockets and the money's gone, because he was playing you know, money fell somewhere. Now, he has no money.

So is it yours? Well, I lost the money. He said the profits are rise, Elon smiled. And he said to him, finish your game, and come home. Don't be outlet.

Right? Again, no reprimand, I sent you out for something, not only do not get the thing you go and lose the money also, nothing nothing.

Not one word. Now my point is the people who say this, you know, and I know.

You know,

corporal punishment, beating children is the nonce. I always say that, especially in the hips classes. I always say that in that the data is this great, high tech tool for

the hips on the camera. And that is called a stick. I have yet to see, especially at least in my country in India, I have yet to see a Higgs or stod who does not have a stick. And it's so painful.

They have a stick. So the idea of memorization is to beat the Quran into the child that hammer it into the chat.

What do you think happens? If the child associates pain and suffering and humiliation with the memorization of the Quran?

What do you think will happen? What do you think he will become? Even if it becomes a habit you think he will ever love the Quran because the Quran only brings for him bad memories, because he will only remember that I used to be abused for this book.

Now, this is just my idea of for mentioning all these things is mentioned in both the positive and the negative Good luck and bad UCLA to help us understand that our behavior is what people see.

And that is what influences people

you know, in

the I still live in America,

from 97 to 2000. And in 2000, we returned to India. So when we returned to India, we

in Hyderabad, we had a flat and we were renovating it

bring up the interior and salsa. So part of that renovation because we have a water problem in Hyderabad. Or at least in those days, we had quite a severe water shortage. Yeah, we decided to put a

storage tank on the roof of the apartment building.

So I said to the plumber, who came the plumber who came was a Muslim gentleman, the big black beard. He came and he said to me that I'm not only a plumber, I'm half his Koran. And my family comes from you know, from Yemen and youth from barcus but you know he had this

he told me all this I'm very happy either Oh Mashallah. Very good level.

Let me give this business to a Muslim. And here is a man who's also half of the Quran. I'm so happy to do that, that this is a plumber. And you know, so according to me, I looked at him, I says, Well, this is the ideal thing here is a man who loves Quran, and he's doing plumbing and maybe he's deciding Quran the whole time he's working and so on. This was my impression that Okay, please go ahead. So now he, yeah, we did a, we made a new bar new bathroom. And so he had a lot of plumbing work. So he was doing all this work.

As part of that, I said to him, that we need to put a storage tank on the roof. So I said, Get a 1000 liter

storage view, you get this called tanks called syntex tanks, which is a hard plastic. It says please get there. He got the tank. But when the tank was brought to the building, the building people saw it. And then somebody came and said to us look, you can't put there's no permission for you to put a 1000 liter tank, you can put a 500 liter. So he said okay, I mean, we're not fighting with anybody who's no problem, whatever is the rule of the building, we will follow that. So I said to him, please return this 1000 liter tank and bring a 500 liter tank.

He said okay, he went returned that he brought the value. Now, I had given him money for the 1000 liter tank. So say for example, the 1000 liter tank cost 5000 rupees, the 500 liter tank costs half of that 2000 1000 rupees now, he had my 2500 rupees, which he was supposed to return to me.

No sign of that.

This past weeks past Alhamdulillah I can afford 2500 rupees, but I didn't want to do that I didn't want to

you know, lose the money. I obviously hate to lose money.

But apart from that, I didn't want to be in a situation where this man is literally sort of stealing the money from me. So I say let me ask him if he's not gonna give it. I'm gonna ask him. It. So happened it was Ramadan. So I got involved with you know, various things that are must be done. So eventually I called him.

And I said,

You know, I wanted to ask

about his money. So he, when I call this one, his wife picks up the phone. I said very soon. So

she says they will

pick up man. He can't talk. He's in Africa.

Here to the man sitting in Africa have his Quran who does not have the integrity to return the money that is due from somebody else?

So what use is that ethic? And what use is that if so far

I have another sister that remind you and myself, people listen with their eyes. They don't care what you say until they see what you do.

I can be Koran I can be the greatest album in the world I can be whatever

people are looking at what comes out of my mouth. And they're looking at my actions, my behavior and if what comes out of my mouth, and my actions and behavior

are

harmful to the evil to the like dignity.

If they are

you know negative then the fact that I

know the Quran by heart that I can decide it beautifully that I am a great ally and I am a great scholar and I'm a Mufti and I'm a professor and I'm a muhaddith and whatnot makes no difference to anybody. As far as they are concerned. This actually acts negatively and they will say look Muslim scholars all ama are like this.

Right? All ama are like this. Half is for files of Quran are like this.

Tell me Is this what you want to happen is this what do you want to be the person who brings a bad name to Islam?

a bad name to rasulillah salam because people will say these are the followers of Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam as if Rasulullah Sallam told us to do this?

Is this what you want? If that is not what you want, then I believe that we need to look at ourselves we need to look at our

brothers and sisters Allah subhanaw taala mentioned the beautiful, the beautiful behavior of rasulillah salam and Allah server in NACA, the Allah Hola, okay. Nazim Allah said indeed you O Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam

have a great moral character. This is Allah subhanho wa Taala bearing witness. This is Allah subhanho wa Taala

being the witness for you

Unless of Solomon saying that, indeed you are on the best moral character, Yamaha says,

right? Allah data now didn't leave VR his followers. So what kind of follower is it? Who is on the worst moral character whose moral character and the moral character of the one of his leader of the one who claim who he claims to follow? There is no comparison between the two, we are on two opposite ends of the spectrum.

This is the problem today, believe me what is happening in the world. If I look at it from the Islamic angle, what is happening in the world is that the world is saying to us, and it's saying to us very painfully, by persecuting us by beating us, they are saying, live according to what you preach. They're saying live according to you say you are the followers of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam live like Muhammad Sallallahu Listen, don't talk to us about Muhammad Salah, show us Muhammad Sallallahu listen.

Show us your profit. By behaving like a prophet, show us your profit in your speech and your behavior, your actions.

And the world is Allah has put them there and Allah said to them, go beat it out of them if you have to do that.

These are the people who were sent for you.

Come down here on martin oak reject leanness. Allah said you are the best of people and you have been sent for the people for the benefit of people.

Are we benefiting people? Do we benefit people.

And if you don't benefit people, then Allah subhanaw taala will make those people force us

to recall and remember our covenant with Allah.

And people will say you are for our benefit. So be beneficial.

Do what you have been sent to do?

Again, as I said, I'm not saying nobody's like this, but the

the commands of Allah the decisions of Allah

do not come based on the action of one person or a few people, the commands and decisions of Allah subhanaw taala come based on the actions of the collective.

So collectively, how are we?

That is the question

collectively, how are we

as individuals, as communities, as countries?

What is the impression that that others non Muslims have about Muslims? I know and I accept that there is a lot of propaganda. There's a lot of false propaganda. There's a lot of rumor mongering, there's a lot of lies, that are spread in the world about Muslims.

But tell me,

what is the impression what is the what is the

image that we are putting before the Muslims?

Take the six. You know, it's a very, very good example to take in today's world.

Today we have a situation where

almost any place in the world where there is somebody in need, whether it's a natural disaster calamity, whether it's a manmade thing like the the persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar. So, you go to the Rohingya camps in, in,

in Bangladesh

wherever almost the first people you see there is hillside is the Sikh community who are engaged in

giving aid to the people.

Somebody sent me a video of

a Masjid in in New Delhi, which was which was desecrated and which was burnt by miscreants, and, you know,

then what happens? And then this video, however, was of six from the locality. Now repairing that machine, cleaning it and doing everything else and you know, painting it and whatnot. However, why machines do that?

So the point I'm making is that what are the visuals that we are putting before the world

Now imagine if you are in that position and forget about, forget about propaganda, forget about, you know, lies and whatnot, people who Islamophobic people, Islamophobia is a big business. So people will do what they have to do. But my point is that if we are able to put out there in front of the world, image after image after image,

of positivity,

of helping people of being, you know, being exemplary citizens,

then how can propaganda work?

Even if propaganda goes on, the people who are watching it, I went to say, look, this is what you say about them. But look at this.

What do you say,

we have to give a light to that propaganda by our behavior.

Because if you try to

counter that propaganda, with your own propaganda, or with your own, you know, refutation of the lies, that only carries it so far,

should do that I'm not against it, I'm just saying that if that is the only thing we do, the truth is we don't even do that. But anyway,

that only takes you so far. What people need to see is real life examples.

Underlying this COVID lockdown in India at least, we saw many examples of Muslims, coming to the aid of other people, and going out and distributing food and, and supplies and so on. And I was very, very happy at 100 lab. It looks like you know, people are getting the message and people are,

are doing what they need to do. But believe me, we need to have much more of this, much more of this. So also take the area of AI, we're talking about UCLA, but I want to maybe within quotes, digress a little bit into the area of education into the area of

focusing on that and say that, let's look into that and say where are we with regard to that with regard to education with regard to science and technology? With regard to invention and you know, all of this, where are we in there?

Because we are a religion, which is based on a book among the Muslims knowledge is something which is extremely, extremely valuable.

But do we see that in our

behavior in our focus?

So Rasul Allah, Allah tala mentioned him and Allah subhanaw taala

spoke about Nusa Salaam, with in a way to to emphasize

the fact that

he was on the best of luck

right now, you know, they had his way and I wish him said guarantee for me. What is and he held his tongue like this, the guarantee for me what is between your jaws and what is between your legs and I will guarantee you gentlemen

he's talking about being

being being

pure

and of having a tongue with does not engage in negative stuff. No slandering no backbiting no cursing, no profanity no telling lies

in another place that was upset

say something which is good or remain silent.

If you don't have anything good to say keep quiet.

I mentioned this in Georgia Alaska vocal Lee baddie your coal Lottie here as

I said and say and tell my slaves to say that which is the best

it viability here awesome. Allison was back or

response respond to negativity with something which is

acid which is beautiful, which is the best

in another Hadith, in Muslim by Mohammed Abu huraira delana said Rasulullah Salim said I have only been sent to perfect behavior

in nama boys to Lou tema, Sally Holla Holla

He said, I have been verily I have been sent only to perfect behavior, perfect righteous behavior of others, just as I remind myself when you

let us think about this, and let us reflect on this and say, what is it that I need to do in my life? I want to close with that, which is what we do after at the end of each of our sessions. What is it that I need to start doing? What is it that I need to stop doing? And what is it that I need to continue to do? We'll continue with the topic, but for now, this is enough inshallah, I request you to think about this and say, how must I change my behavior, so that my behavior becomes the best behavior and B becomes a behavior, which is the reflection of the behavior of Rasul Allah He sallallahu alayhi

wa sallam Santa Ana will Karim Allah Allah He was a main parameter gamma amino hamdulillah Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.