Mohammad Elshinawy – Divinely Sheltered – Reflections on Surat Al-Hujurat 05
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sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and his family and his companions and all those who tried his path we ask Allah azza wa jal to guide our hearts to his book and buy his book and allow us to purge the diseases of our hearts with the cure that is his book Allah whom I mean.
So we welcome everyone back to the euro. We are at the 10th area tonight the 10th and 11 and potentially 12
Ayad of sudoku gerat And we just wanted to gerat Center the discussion around relationships and managing the relationships in a healthy way, in a proper way whether our relationships with Allah or the different various relationships we have with his creation, with the creation of Allah azza wa jal. So last week, the first we began with or ended with was, Oh, you who believe?
No, and if two
factions of believers fight one another, then reconcile between them and one of them transgresses against the other, then push back against the oppressor until they come to their senses and then judge between them in a fair and equitable, equitable manner in Allahu Hibben mousseline Allah Who loves the
the just those who are just this idea we're going to begin with today now is in NEMA me Nona Watson for us little Bina kawaii come WhatsApp Allah La La come to hormone. So one segment at a time enamel Muna fo the believers are no less than brothers are nothing shy of brothers. The word in nema. If you're familiar with Arabic, it's at that two house. It is a it's it serves to indicate exclusivity, or restrictiveness. So in normal mode, me no network could be read as only the believers are brothers. But that can't be the meaning.
Because we know for a fact that your blood brothers and sisters and relatives, Islam does not dismiss that relationship, right? Even the prophets of Allah subhana wa Tada throughout the Quran. You know, Allah says, and you know, to this people, we sent a ha home their brotherhood, their brother saw that their brother, shall I. And so Allah affirms the Brotherhood, the biological brotherhood, the clan brotherhood that's there.
And so it doesn't mean that there is no other form of brotherhood whatsoever, except for the brotherhood of faith. But it means compared to the brotherhood of faith, there is nothing like it. Okay, there is nothing like the brotherhood of faith.
And of course, the closer a person is to Allah subhanho wa taala, the greater share of our brotherhood of our sisterhood they should enjoy. Because this is really about what it's about me not measuring people, and portioning my love for people based on how close they happen to be, to me in blood relations, because that doesn't make that much sense. Because the end of the day we all came from does throw going back to us. There isn't the intrinsic value there. Right? Yes, there's love because we are familiar with each other and we have rights on each other. And we we've been kind for a lifetime to each other and resemblance with each other fine. But the pinnacle, the most supreme
way of loving is what? To love Allah Most.
Right, and then to dispense from your love based on how love certain people are to Allah. Right. So in the center of it all the pinnacle of my faith is loving God. And then I complete my faith, right? I completed by loving for Allah loving for the sake of Allah azza wa jal, and if that is the the way we measure it, the closest people to us are going to be who are the closest people to Allah because I'm not operating on an egocentric mechanism anymore. It's an God's centric mechanism. Now Allah is the center not to me. And so the prophets of Allah who will be the closest people to me, who I love the most, and then those nearest to the prophets and righteousness, and then the nearest believers
in general, and so on and so forth. That's intentional love, I choose to love and prefer those people.
And so now think of the context of this verse. Even if they be at odds have taken up arms against one another, that will not violate this they are still our brothers in normal mode, meaning that even in this context, the believers are no less than brothers.
They are no less than brothers for our celestial being a Polycom so rectify between your brothers. The strongest bonds should not be
be broken, even if there's conflict. That's the meaning of this verse in this context, even if there's conflict,
you know, we Muslims will never stop having conflict with each other. Human beings will always disagree and some disagreements will spill out into conflict, right? It's just It's human. Right? It's not osmosis, it's human.
And so unless our brotherhood, our unity, is built on faith,
it will never happen. Right? If we don't see that our faith is so great, that it's worthy enough to gather us around it, regardless of our differences, then we don't understand the NEMA Luna aqua, that the believers the faithful are a single brotherhood by virtue of their faith.
And you think about like,
within the Ummah, you have groups, different groups, do they hold each other, as equals simply by their faith? Or do the Muslims from this group or this camp? Consider themselves and the people in their group more Muslim more and more men than others? Right? Like when a scholar from a certain group or camp dies, they say, Rahim, Allah, Allah, may Allah bestow mercy on him, and he was so great, and so on and so forth. And the other guys are afraid to like recognize any sort of distinction or virtue for him, or make the why is a Muslim, even if you disagree with him, even if there's huge disagreements, he's still your Muslim brother. And that should be the overarching the
dominant factor in the relationship.
And, you know, as some of the scholars said, this verse ends by saying, rectify your relationships between your brothers and fear Allah so you may attain his mercy. It just is turning our attention to the fact that your problem is actually with Allah, not with the Muslims, if you don't love the Muslims simply for their faith, even if they're not treating you well, even if they don't agree with you on much else, besides Islam, a man or an Mohammed Ali Salatu was Salam. O Allah chose him as worthy of being his servant, a Muslim. So how can he not qualify to be your brother? Then your problem is not with him your problems with Allah azza wa jal himself, Allah is protective. Allah is
defensive regarding his believing slaves all of them. So this is the first Iron enamel Muna and whether believers are no less than brothers, they are the truest brothers. So rectify all relationships between your brothers, WhatsApp, Allah And fear Allah so that you may attain mercy.
The next two, that are going to speak about the behaviors that erode that brotherhood,
that erode that weaken that brotherhood, weaken the fabric, that glues the believers together or weaves the believers together. Allah azza wa jal says in the 11th is now yeah, you have Lavina Amman Oh, you have believed Oh believers here. Listen up, right? Lie Yes, heard of Coleman mean Coleman Assa. Kuno Hiram minimum, let no group mock another group.
For perhaps they the latter may be better than them the former, maybe the ones being mocked are actually superior in the sight of Allah azza wa jal, then the ones doing the mocking
while Anissa on mini set in nor any group of women are mocking another group of women, I sat in a cool new hire on Manhattan, because perhaps they too may be better than them. The second group better than the first. You know, there's a few things here that are really interesting in the Quran Subhanallah and it's so nuanced. The more you dig, the more you study, the more you will find. First of all, Allah did not say
oh, you will have believed let no group of men mock a group of women or let no man I'm sorry group of men mock a group of men or group of women not mock a group of women. He said, Let no group of people, right. No group of people.
Why a group? When does mockery usually happen?
Most of the time this mockery usually happened with someone on his porch looking around the passerby and saying, you know, and like making a laughingstock out of it, or is it usually in gatherings, it's usually a group pitted against another group.
And by the way, the more commonality the more size and the more commonality this group has, the more self centered they become. Right.
So if we are all from the same ethnic group
whoop and the same madhhab and the same socio economic class in town, right? So same neighborhood that's hires, the likelihood of developing the sense of these people are not equals to us, right. Group ism is extremely dangerous and extremely contagious. It causes the most intelligent person and it turned his mind off. Right? And so beware of group conversations where this may happen.
No group of and then now let's move on now nor women from women, you know the word group here could have included men and women.
Because comb the word comb, it is primarily male, it is primarily male.
Should I get into this or not? You know how some languages there are pronouns for the masculine pronouns for the feminine, right? And then when there's a plural of masculine and feminine, they pick one, right? Like Spanish for example. Who knows Spanish here
Hmm, don't be shy Nazir. I'm not going to test you test you. But basically you say lows for
what?
Okay, I forgot to
Yeah, plural of
men are both masculine or both. Last is for feminine, a group of only a group of women only los is what? A group of men
and if they include women as well, this is the dominance pronoun. This is the dominance pronoun.
And so the same thing here in our Arabic is the same way when there's males and females the pronoun
is the male plural pronoun, it includes both It suffices for both. If you don't get what I'm saying ignore it. I'm probably just explaining it, but Okay, so the word comb comb usually refers to males like the man is the thigh em, he's the caretaker right? Even you know something also very beautiful about the Quran.
The prophets always say to their people, yeah, call me oh my people, and he's addressing the chiefs and it's like, you know, patriarchal society males leading and so he's speaking to the chiefs, right? He's addressing them, yeah, call me my people. What is Ali salaam, Jesus peace be upon him. And this will lie is a miracle of the Quran that the Prophet Salam is not writing this to police his language, he is speaking the Quran not writing it. And never once did he say reciting the Quran. That is Ali Salam said, Yeah, comb. Oh my people, because my people here is referring primarily to males. And he has no male relation to them. He's born of a woman he doesn't have a father.
It's not a paternal ancestry that is fully linked through. And so he would always say in the Quran Yeah, Benny is sort of in Obon was like oh children of Israel
whereas all the other prophets would say what you have comb all my people who I share a common right, full male ancestry with anyway so bringing it back to this surah when Allah saying let's no comb mark, another comb that should include male and female even if it's primarily male, okay,
so then why does the verse continue to say
well and he said Oh Minister in nor any group of women mock should mock any group of women
what I'm about to say is very politically incorrect and will probably get me canceled but it's okay
why does it say
if the word comb let no group mark another group is enough to address males and females right? That pronoun can address both then why do we single out the females again?
You're not gonna say either your Wiseman not till retirement.
Women do what more?
He said.
I baited
this was Allah azza wa jal cautioning women in particular, women in particular, to not fall into this mockery of one another. This is not you know, like a baseless stereotype. This is not a trope. This is Allah, who told us men have certain weaknesses. We do that you know, are far greater for males and for females. Here he is addressing everyone and saying and especially the women, be careful of
mocking other groups of women pay special attention to this, the concept that, you know gossip or mockery or these things are purely, you know, equally distributed between males and females is not true. And there are reasons for this many reasons for this. I will speak about one reason that is applicable to males and females though. What is it? Why do people mock people?
Why do people that are always in the business of chastising making fun of humiliating others do it?
Do they feel superior or do they want to feel superior?
Just think with me.
I want you guys to dig dig. Let's brainstorm. Let's psychologize this
so this is arrogance. Arrogance, belittling people as arrogance when the Prophet SAW salem said, no one enters paradise with a speck suite of arrogance in their heart. They said Yeah, Rasulullah we like to have nice clothes. We like to have nice shoes. Like it's just we like to look nice.
He said arrogance is the rejection of truth. And the belittlement of people. Arrogance, okay. So arrogance is when you belittle people, mockery is obviously done to belittle people to make people little. Why are they arrogant people making people making others little wish to make others feel little and appear little so that they can appear big, because they don't believe that they're big.
So people mock others due to insecurities they have so many times. That is where arrogance comes from.
Why did shaytaan mock Adam Alayhis Salam, he is made from mud. Why? Because he was just told that Adam is superior to you. So insecurity is many times where mockery comes from. It's like a defense mechanism. It's a projection of the insecurity onto the other person to crush them, squash them down to big themselves up.
This is different than what this kid did. Arrogance, belittling of others, because you're insecure.
is different than conceit. conceit is when you actually believe your hot stuff. When you actually believe that you're great. So people that believe that they're great, don't usually mock others as often. What do they usually do?
You think you're amazing? What do you do?
You let hear you let the world know how amazing you are. That's conceit. That's one disease of the heart, a destructive one, of course, right?
And Allah constantly gives you opportunities to humble yourself, you need to always look for them. But there's another, you know, antithetical quality and other disease, you know, contrary to humility, which is arrogance. Arrogance is when you are Contentful and scorning and mocking of others, because you believe you're a nobody.
Because you have this insecurity.
You know, some people not me, okay. Some people say the reason why women are involved in many verbal altercations, right? Is because they are not as physically aggressive as men.
So a man
it's just like, I'm, if you cross me, I break your nose, like it's just the way we are. We're more like, just physically aggressive, we're more aggressive.
More aggressive Gender Studies shows this.
Whereas women are less likely definitely can happens all the time less likely to engage in violence, right? So they leverage that with what?
Yes, with that drama that usually happens verbally, making other smaller to make themselves bigger. This is how they assert themselves. Right?
Again, we have our disasters, the Prophet SAW, Selim said that, you know, men struggle, for example, way more with the command of a certain hormone in our body, right than women. He said, I have not left you know, any trial after me behind that is more dangerous to the men of my own within women. We are much weaker in that respect. But it's good to point out so that we can be one step closer to, to salvation.
And so perhaps this is of the reasons why greater carefulness needs to be had with women. But this is something that all people do, and all people fall into, and we should recognize it as a sign of insecurity. So arrogant people mocking people they don't really hate you, they hate themselves. And so they're trying to compensate for that actually.
Last Ken Coleman calm and I assume that they might be better than them. Well, and he sat with me and he said, and no group of women should be mocking another group of women Amy better
They may be better than them.
Well I tell Mizzou and Fusa Comala tenaga Double L Cobb and do not
shame each other. Do not shame each other.
Lambs is basically gestures or statements of condemnation, or shaming, right? When you are much this short person or that wise, these sorts of things. These are lambs. And you know Arabs have different dialects for what is hems and what is lambs? Like one of them is done with the eye like rolling your eyes or one is done with the hand. And that's why in the Quran, Allah azza wa jal says we don't liquidly homeopathy Lomasa, that short Sula, that all of you know, whoa to every
home as that, Eliza, you remember? What are they?
Mocking scorner is the official translation. That's what you were looking for. Right? You scorn at people, you mock people, you lampoon them, you ridicule them. And so Allah azza wa jal is saying, Well, I tell miss you and do not scorn at each other. But with the I actually doesn't say that, to be honest. And full circle means yourselves I
told you, the Quran is very intricate. Allah says, Do not shame yourselves. Why yourselves?
Why did he say each other?
Why yourselves?
Do not be too critical. Don't criticize don't condemn yourselves.
There's one or two reasons, or perhaps both. The Quran has dual and triple meanings many times one meaning is that we are all one body. So when you condemn your brother, you share in this condemnation. He's your brother, right? Like if you care about him, you call them up and say, Listen, people are saying stuff. You're not the one that says stuff.
This is your brother. So you're doing it to yourself, right? We're all in the same boat. We are a single body that believers as one brother said, we all own the same store. If you make fun of his merchandise, that's your merchandise to your sales go down as well. Right.
So that is one of the meanings of Do not be critical or shaming of yourselves meaning your brothers are wanting the same with you. The other meaning here is beware of the cyclic nature of condemning each other. Because when you condemn someone, they likely will condemn it right back and then some, right. That's why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said mean accurate burial Kava. And the Alana Raju were leader who one of the greatest sins in Islam is for a man to curse his father. They said yeah rasool Allah Allah if Allah had another like almost no load anyone actually do that? Who would curse out ask Allah to doom his dad? He said Ali Sato Salam who are Raju yella, and whoever
Raju, Fela Anu Abba Hua Oma. This is when a man curses another man's father. And so in return, he curses out his father and his mother. It escalates, right? So you are cursing out the Broncos, I'm saying you of course you're dead. How? by provoking someone into cursing your debt by to reciprocate what you did about their debt. And so do not curse do not condemn yourselves, meaning ultimately, the cyclic or, you know, the reciprocity of this sort of language in a community well at Mizzou and fullcycle while at Anapa, do Bill l Cobb, and do not hurl offensive names at each other. The word Elcom comes from lockup lockup just means a nickname or a surname or like an honorific name
sometimes, because it could be positive and negative. So when I when I when someone says to me Ebru I bet father of I bet that's a laptop, right? But
I can't give you a good example in English. The Arabs they would replace your son's name with a condescending name father of so and so they'll say like everybody house or something father have a bad smell or something right? Or, you know, but in our time, simply put, it doesn't have to be father of like just a nickname, right? When you call someone, a monkey or a cow or you just this is not permitted for anyone and believers don't do this. And is that really how you reform you help out your
because that's the idea. Some people also give like religious justifications to this, you know, this, you know this, this facet. Right? You should not call a believer that you should not call a believer that and we'll get to the exception, but the exception should never be the rule
Yeah, they're the exception should never be the rule because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said seabob will Muslim, if forsook to insult a believer makes you a facet is forsook it makes you a flagrant sinner. So what is the festival It's like the second or third time we touched the word facet. A facet is, I may have told you, the person who commits a major sin
or persists in the committing of a minor sin. A facet is someone that deserves to be punished period. He may be forgiven by Allah Zildjian, but he's deserving of punishment. He has qualified for being punished. That's what a festival is. So basically someone who commits a minor sin, these minor sins get washed away with our five prayers with our Ramadan with our Friday to Friday, right with our charities they get with our afflictions they get washed away the major sin or you know, your repetitive, perpetual commitment of the minor sin makes it a major sin. This major sin makes you someone that needs to repent, to be forgiven, or to be guaranteed forgiveness. You may be forgiven,
but you're not guaranteed forgiveness once you enter the zone of being a vessel.
And so Allah says do not hurl these offensive names at each other beat Sally small for Sue Koba. Amen? How awful is it to wind up categorized as a facet after you've come to faith after you've been a believer. He says women lemmya tube for Allah aka Homer volley moon and whoever does not repent then certainly they are the wrongdoers, by the way, that is general, whoever does not repent. So there's two categories in Islam.
The Muslim who repents, and the wrongdoer.
You have to constantly be in a state of repentance because we are constantly wrongdoing.
Right.
The last idea we will cover very quickly because there's Kashmiri tea or tea tonight and that's important
is when Allah subhanho wa Taala said yeah, you'll have Latina Amma No Oh, you have believed it. utente whoo kefir, Amina Vaughn, avoid much suspicion. This is also have what hurts the fabric between the believers suspecting suspecting
should we really get into this? It's a big topic suspecting avoid much suspicion. So back to brotherhoods question. That means some subset suspicion is allowed. When is it allowed? We said when is it allowed avoid much not all so meaning played extra safe with suspicion but it doesn't mean that all suspicion is haram which suspicion is allowed is halal.
Which then he will get the Ramona one avoid much suspicion. When are we allowed to suspect sisters?
Helped me?
Yeah, it's a good example. Just not sure how clear it is.
You Yeah.
You're allowed to suspect when there's substantial reasons to suspect when there's significant evidence tell you that right, either a precedent something that happened in the past, or some corroboration, right evidences that make it a great likelihood. Right, then you're a lot suspect or else you will be super naive, right? If all the, you know, the arrows are pointing in a certain direction and you still ignore it until it becomes as clear as they are, you will paralyze yourself, you will be eaten alive you'll be consumed. Islam does not ask you to do that. So avoid much suspicion in BB of one if because some suspicion is sin, which some the baseless suspicions. So
listen, for you to simply assume wrong,
could be sinful.
This assumption does not mean
a passing thought. But if you allow a certain for you to tell yourself in a conclusive way, this person is a show off. You have no proof for this right? For you to say this baselessly to yourself is a sin.
You know, Sophia and Rahim Allah feldy I believe it was he said I was not I was poor.
punished by being deprived of pray and pm will lay the night prayer for six months, because I saw a man crying and I said he was showing off. He was faking it.
You know, and now we're homos. This is what's called what some scholars call the internal or the hidden form of backbiting. When you say meaning you assert, you conclude, this is what happened. He said the same way you're not allowed to speak negatively about someone
with your tongue to others, you are also not allowed to speak assumptions to yourself. If shaitan suggests something in your head, and you shoot away stuff for Allah and keep it moving. you suppress it, this is fine. beyond your control, you did your due diligence, but to allow it to settle this you are accountable for suspicion, some suspicion on its own before you even act on it. Is sin in Nevada, Vaughn neath?
Well, it just says Sue, and don't spy.
You know, when you suspect something, what do you start doing? Start probing
the province outside and forbid you from probing in the Hadith. He said well at the house, so don't investigate. Why do you want to know? Right? Usually, if you if you suspect something is there, you'll tell yourself it's called confirmation bias, right? You'll tell yourself I found it. If you suspect there's a boogie monster, you'll assume that you saw him once the lights go out. Right?
Because of the bias that you're so when you have these suspicions, unless you are forced to investigate, like you are the authorities or the stakes are so high or that the evidence has mounted, you don't investigate?
Well, as I just said, Sue, and definitely don't spy investigating is less than spying. Right. Spying is when you start spying, invading privacy. Investigating could be asking around keeping an eye on right.
Well, as I just said, Sue, while I have to bother Kumbaya, and do not let any one of you back by to one another. nor should one of you ever backed by one another.
There's so much to say about backbiting.
Let's start your next week. Let's not rush it because there's backbiting and what isn't isn't backbiting and the exception the six exceptions to backbiting and the gravity of backbiting. It's a huge topic. Right? And a huge social ill so let's not
shortchange it.
Subhanak Elohim diksha de la ilaha illa. Anthony, Mr. Furukawa to you like May Allah better our cloud than yours and teach us that which will benefit us and benefit us with that which he teaches us and increase us in beneficial knowledge Allah whom I mean any questions