Internal Challenges of Muslims Today

Mohammad Elshinawy

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Channel: Mohammad Elshinawy

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The topics of,

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of the interior, cleansing, whether it's interior, meaning within the human being, like spiritually purifying ourselves within our hearts, or interior, meaning we need to clean up our act as a community.

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They automatically shift over to, we have bigger things to worry about. We have like global problems to worry about, we're always talking about these things that are not very

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practical.

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And there are many reasons why that sentiment exists, that feeling exists. One of them, by the way, we may not realize is that the very materialistic very tangible nature of our times, right, like, what does the heart have to do with the problems of the Muslims on the ground.

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And also, one of the reasons why we feel that way is it's always easier to think about something that will not call us to action, right, we focus on something you can't really solve right now. So you get busy from doing what you can do by lamenting and drooping and complaining about the things that you can't do.

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And so in that case, it should be very logical for us very logical for us to reconsider this. That it's it's like absolutely insane for us to think that complaining and worrying and crying and just scrolling and getting depressed about the state of Illinois ever going to do anything. Like why won't they stop bullying us? That's a big problem.

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Because like, think about it, can you imagine if someone said we should, like hold like a global conference or something to ask all of the rapists sistah being rapists and murderers is about being murderers and the bullies to stop being bullies. You know, if you're in your right mind, you're gonna say no, no, we need to start spreading more awareness about this problem. And then taking steps towards protecting ourselves from the problem because you're not gonna be able to convince every last rapist to stop raping and every last the murderer stop murdering, correct. That's the nature of human beings strong eats weak unless the fear of Allah is there. So it's like a phenomena

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throughout human history. If I can get over without consequences, I'm going to get over, even if I'm gonna play dirty. So you're gonna have to be able to protect yourself against those who play dirty, we're gonna, we're gonna start giving mace to the community members, we're going to start teaching self defense classes, we're going to tell people not to work, walk in dark alleys at night all by themselves, that would be the smart thing to do. What can I do to face this problem correctly.

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And part of that when it comes to the oma is focusing on the interior which is in our hands. And it is actually the most effective thing we can do against the external problems even allows diligence at this point to minimum with a turbo diadora concave dome shape, if you are to have full faith, strong faith and have consciousness of Allah become more aware and alert about religion. And of course, as a result beautiful to him. Their plots their schemes will not harm you in any way.

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They'll always be there but they won't always be effective.

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And that's why I like people all the time. They say you know conspiracy this and conspiracy that and we love talking about conspiracies very much why don't conspiracies work against China why they only work against us Muslims?

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Why

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I'm not against conspiracies that of course there's conspiracies let's just you know,

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add them on a set of conspiracy was pulled on him by shape on it. conspiracies are part of the human phenomenon, right tricking people to get over. But to be bent on conspiracies consumed by conspiracies, no conspiracies hurts those that are vulnerable to conspiracy. They don't work with China because China is a strong nation. And strong nations are not bullied by other nations.

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You know, our oma is weak on the ground. Like the civil Muslim civilization as we look at it today does not resemble at all it's in shambles. It doesn't resemble at all what it once was. What enabled them to do that to us. Right? The the opponents of this oma those who the you know, the, the colonists that colonized so much what made us compromisable to begin with? How did our lands get invaded because our hearts and our minds were open to being invaded? Right. It's an internal issue.

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And so that is what's worth what's Worthy is the focusing on

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and even the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that there are certain age old

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ILS diseases that are internal that continue to rise and plague this oma and jeopardize it when he said frankly

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sample

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the nation's will soon invite one another to devour you, right? The Hadeeth. You all know, the same way diners invite one another to a plate, they'll say we're going to be little, it's not going to be plenty, but you're going to be weak. They say what's the week it is, he would say the love of this world, right? Your hearts will be contaminated.

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And the hatred of death,

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or the Hadith where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, I asked a lot to protect this ummah from like epidemics that will wipe it out. And I asked them law to protect this oma from an external enemy that would annihilate them. And he gave me all of this. And I asked him to not make our hostility internal like against each other. Femina. Anyhow, he will tell that from me.

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And then even if you look historically, not just the prophet SAW Selim foretold these things, but historically, that's what's happened in the history of

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the times that it got hit the hardest, were the times were

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the dunia the temptations of this world seeped into the Muslim societies. And as a result caused this unity.

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I mean, when I found what they loved Thailand who was killed, why was he killed? That was the most devastating event. You know, after the tranquility of the prophet SAW Selim Simon, there was conflict, there was tons of conflict, but it was external. They were titling it on the inside, when did it fall apart? When the oma expanded to a point where there was so much prosperity, and people wanted a chunk of that prosperity, and if not what they love and forgive I refuse to give them a share of it and so they made up any justification the same way we do by the way in our internal conflict sometimes you make up any religious reason to say he deserves to be removed right? for

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dunya reasons he refused to make them governors of certain provinces that's what it was the very first time a Muslim ruler Muslim Khalifa was killed from an external force this was internal for external force was because every citizen was the boss and and above that, right when the when the Mongols came in, and they assassinated him it was because everybody was so consumed about themselves and what's mine and their own little city and their own little province that divide and conquer was the easiest thing in the world. You know that the when the Mongols came in, like you love protecting the oma but when the bucket back then what happened in those times was was far more vicious than

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what's happening today. Like 800,000 people, some historical reports say 1,800,000 people and so discrepancy but the point is about a million people at least were killed basically immediately on the same day when the Mongols entered but

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then they went to like Bukhara and did double that. And then like city by city, they were cleaned out every last Muslim rahima home Hello, Jimmy I love mercy on them all, the day that my person was killed when when the when the opposition is able to march all the way into the hearts of the Muslim ummah.

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It was said that in Morocco, Sam was sitting there in his royal court.

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And he was being entertained like the dancing girls in front of him dancing. And he did not know about the arrival of the Mongols until an arrow came through the window and killed that girl. Can you imagine like how, how contained we how consumed we were. And there are so many examples of this in Muslim Spain all throughout history and studying history is always very liberating.

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But the idea is as one of the Targaryen said,

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the true difference is not the external problem, the true difference from the age of strength and this oma and the later ages, he said that the so habit or the low dollar annual, the dounia was in their hands and not in their hearts, right. And this is another part that I want to get to now for the second half of this reminder. The dunia was in their hands, not in their heart. As for us, he said it got into our hearts is where a friend was killed. He's saying

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he said the dunia got into our heart so Allah pulled it from our hands.

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That's the idea. The dunya needs to be in your hand. The dunya needs to be in your hand, but then it can't get into your heart. It's an important balance. That requires a lot of interior work to make sure that the first place in second place don't get switched. Because Listen, this oma will not rise. In Dean, you're gonna think I'm crazy. Just give me a minute. I'll explain. I promise. Okay, I know it's early just like imagine I didn't say it. If it bothers you that much. You were sleeping.

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The oma will not rise in Dean until it rises in dunya first

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sounds crazy.

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It's true. Because who said that like when you become like religious in the very limited

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Understanding of religious or I just become religious like things are just going to become rosy overnight.

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That's not the nature of this world. This world has certain laws, a certain reality, a certain dynamics, physics. Allah created this world with them. Whoever does not respect those laws that he made will not be shown favoritism by the creator of those laws. And also if the moment you become religious, and I keep saying it with quotes, because it's not actually religious, it's like a selective partial understanding of what it means to follow this religion, but become religious, like you're given victory, then where is the test of life anyway? Like believers automatically get

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the world well, then everyone just become believe. The moment you become Muslim.

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Be a strong Muslim, you get rich and you get strong and you get happiness and you get everything else everyone becomes.

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At the same time allies have didn't give us the most difficult tests that no matter how religious you become, you'll get nothing in dunia. You just gotta wait for Alaska. Right? But there's like a little bit of both on both sides. Because donia is not the most determining factor.

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But at the end of the day, without confusing and jumping all over the place, you need dunion allies, God spoke about the nature of this world about how he created it. He said, What Jalla Fie has a poet feel about it. I mean, so and this in it. And then he placed in this world, its provisions into this in four days. So and Lisa iliyan, equally accessible to all those who seek it. Whether you're Muslim or not, you seek it, you get it. You seek strength, you get strength, right. You seek security, you get security. That's the standard rule. That's not the exception

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for the seekers, not the believers, not the disbelievers for the seekers. Equally accessible.

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That's why

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Abdullah Masuda De La da da No, he said what he said we were not able to pray in public. The Deen is getting established slowly here. We were not able to pray in public until who became Muslim

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Rama Rama de Laval when he became Muslim, and he's the most religious Muslim automatically. Or there are people for obaku there, the prophet SAW Salah was there, right? But this was a strength and what Indonesia This was physical strength, and like strength of other dimensions as well. And so we have to climb and dounia to engage our realities, right. So to accelerate what we do.

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But the trick is that when you do climb in dunia, the dunia doesn't devour you as you're climbing. That's why you got to focus on this one. Like we have tons of Muslims, by the way, in very high places, don't we?

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But sometimes the cost of getting to that very high place what you forgot on Route makes you there sometimes irrelevant.

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Aren't there people in the media? Aren't there people in politics? Aren't there people in it that are extremely wealthy, but the unroot to becoming extremely wealthy? The Muslims lost all sorts of benefits from that person.

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And that's why Subhana Allah the Prophet, Allah Azza wa sallam said to us, I'm not worried that you become poor, you're supposed to seek to become wealthy and established resourceful, but I'm not too worried about I'm what I'm really worried about is when you get rich, and then you start competing in the riches. And competition won't just happen.

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Because that's what's gonna cause the infighting right. It will not just happen in money, and that'll be my last point.

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It will happen.

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In egos more than anything else, right. I mean,

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all of the different conflicts that you see around the world, the debates you find online, the viciousness you find between Muslims of different I don't want to say seconds or groups or organizations and my brand than your brand. What's all of this is all ego is all like aloofness is all about me, right? Me, me, my group, my group, my group, it's all groupism.

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But

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where does that come from? It comes from you being so bent on the dounia like pulling things your way. pulling things your way worried about it like me not being able to get it right if I don't pull hard enough.

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Even the assumption sometimes like without me, the oma is going to fall. Right? Some people feel like they have to say something in the most nasty way. like as if like the oma is dependent on them. That's an internal problem or like, it's very arrogant of us to think that way.

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I don't want to branch out too much.

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I really don't. But let us realize that that we

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Sometimes in religious spaces

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may not realize that we have one more battle to fight.

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And that battle is the battle against ourselves.

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It's very tricky. Because like in Hungary, Lahore in the masjid, you know, trying to think of like what to speak about two Muslims who prefetch in the mesh, it's about a kilometer long crisi that will keep you that way.

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Because you may have gotten past like the law or the temptation of certain things or money, fame, shopping, gardens. But there is one thing left

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that you have to get past. And that is yourself.

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your self shavon got past everybody, he outdid everybody. And then when did he trip,

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when he looked back and said,

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I did pretty good. When he didn't realize that there was one more person ahead of him. And that was him. Right? He tripped on it. And when the higher you go, the harder you fall.

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So you have to never look back and say,

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I've arrived, I'm entitled, I'm not gonna make surgery. Right? This is the most dangerous thing we can do to ourselves. And we see this in all of our internal conflicts, perhaps the most obvious of them, to be honest, is our marriages.

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Like, we can be religious on so many levels. And then we refuse to recognize

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the difference between us being the leaders of our homes, and between the limitations in our leadership in our homes. And so we violate, we violated the law Sallam said, he said, Apple will not be wherever justice because it destroyed the people before for because it is darkness in the Day of Judgment. He said what Apple should know, I'm sorry, he reversed it. It's apple. Sure. Like Americana, public ownership, beware of greed, pulling your way. Greed is not just about money, be wary of greed, because nothing destroy the people before you like greed pulling away.

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He said, and beware of bullying.

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Because m beware of injustice. Because when you were greedy, you're automatically going to pull to heart, you're gonna violate

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it and be aware of when he said, because nothing is further healed before you like like, boom, it drove them to violate each other sanctities and spill each other's blood.

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That was in here.

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You know, and then on the opposite end as well, like the difference between for for, you know, the spouses, our wives, our sisters, the inability for them also to know where they're, you know,

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rightful just the grievances are, you know, difference between what is this authority or this abuse of authority. So they may lean because they're one of the two disputants. So they're going to be unfair, right? They're going to say this is abuse of authority.

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And we will lean on the opposite, end the other column and say, what this is my authority.

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And this is not in reality true requires a great deal of humility, to say I'm not part of the fight, I'm going to remove myself from the equation and just come to the end and say, Where do I have authority? Where Don't I have authority? And for her to say Where does he have authority or does he does not have authority or else we will have that power struggle in our house. And if it's in our house, then it's definitely gonna be enormous edge and it has enormous edge it will definitely be between this edge and if it's between massages will definitely be in the room.

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And in reality, this is a spiritual problem.

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And it's sometimes it's easier to pray your five and faster Ramadan and pay yours I can go to Hajj and Umrah but the internal cleaning the deep cleaning is the hardest work, that we are supposed to be doing all of these other things to try to reach Allah. They said to me, Allah sort of Allah, this man prays at night, and then in the morning, he steals, meaning forcefully or Mickey cheats people out of their money. He's greedy. Basically, in the morning, he steals. What did the prophet SAW Selim, tell him? He didn't say there's no point in bringing it tonight. Some people today would say something like that, right? What's the point of these religious people? They have very bad luck and

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they're always fighting. No, he didn't say the police officer. He said set him narrow who metaphor he will be prevented by that which you said in that thing you said about him and he performs night prayers that will prevent him when we prevent him. When he gets better at it. We are supposed to excel and finesse perfect our edit. So they make us more aware of Allah so that we can rinse with the awareness of Allah, that unnecessary excessive awareness of ourselves and demand for ourselves and violation of others that happens because of being too centered on ourselves. I hope that was somewhat coherent and I hope a lot of benefits me and you with it. So it was great to see everybody

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here at these Plano

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So a lot of us a lot of water kind of b&m from $1 and it was

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2500 like kept it at 25

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