Mohammad Elshinawy – Whose a Solution Oriented Muslim
AI: Summary ©
The importance of promoting good and decreasing evil in Islam is discussed, including the need for promoting profitable behavior and avoiding false advertisement. The use of praise for Allah Subhana Allah and the importance of praying to God is emphasized, as well as the need for faith and deeds to avoid confusion and doubt. The importance of building faith and being aware of one's actions is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah Allah Allah He was a huge Marine who began the name of Allah All Praise and Glory be to Allah nice find this peace and blessings be upon His messenger Muhammad, and his family and his companions and all those who tried his path.
He's like a little played on for being with us this evening.
I have to make one disclaimer, being a solution oriented Muslim, is not false advertisement about tonight's talk, but not the best title, but I couldn't think of anything better. Regarding the the central theme of one of my favorite topics,
it was just more attractive than saying, being a proactive versus reactive Muslim or being like a constructive versus destructive Muslim or something like that. But this is not just about, you know,
being someone who just sees the cup as half full, or someone who's just optimistic and figures out what they can solve and ignores the rest of the problems or, or even someone who just, you know, solves a problem. And just any sort of way, when problems do arise, this is what I consider a fundamentally Quranic and we'll get to that in sha Allah.
universal principle, a universal rule on how to effectively minimize our problems or remedy them. Because there's a big difference, of course, between, you know, getting rid of your problem, and having an effective solution, right? Like, you can get rid of your problem. And another problem arises and you get rid of your problem, another problem arises, then you realize, oh, wait, I'm not actually addressing my problem. These are actually just symptoms to a greater problem. And it's going to be sort of endless work.
And
that is why going on the offensive, being proactive, being tactful,
being effective the way the Quran taught us to be, I promise you in sha Allah, once the examples start rattling off in this lecture, you're going to realize just how many domains you're going to be surprised and shallow, just how many applications this principle has.
But in
our day to day, even before establishing how Quranic This methodology is, we all understand it, like if you go to sports, they say
the best defense is a good
offense, right? No matter how good of a defender you are, it's not good enough, right? Like the best fighter in the world is called the coach is screaming his head off, get out of the corner, get out of the corner and get out of the corner. Because if you're just in the corner, you know, blocking punches the whole time, it doesn't matter. One punch will eventually get in and you don't get points. I think for blocking punches, you have to land punches, right?
And even
in medicine, across civilizations across human history, they recognize the concept of prevention, or an ounce of prevention is better than one
better than a cure because even if
you said
a pound of cure yeah Americans at least in ourselves and we say pound because we broke away from
the grams and kilograms system because of American exceptionalism. May Allah guide us but yeah, in other words, things of the same principle are everywhere, right? Because you preventing it is so much better than curing it when you realize that once it lands, you may not be able to cure it, right? And then even if you are able to cure it, you can't guarantee there won't be like left behind residual damage on your body or whatnot. Yes, so prevention is widely recognized way better than a cure. Even in business management, they tell you what, firefighting is a horrible model, right? You're always just reacting to you know the fire in the house. You'll never actually get rid of the
root cause of the fire or you'll be too busy as a brother awkward always says working in the business on the you know, imminent emergency over working on the business, how to actually build something grow it, stabilize it walk away from it, how do you do that? Right.
And so getting too consumed with your problems and always reacting to them or short sighted makeshift solutions. For them. The Quran actually came to show us a superior method. And
the of the many instances where this is crystal clear is
is the fact that, for instance, all throughout the Quran, you find this paired notion of an American model for Nithyananda monka, promoting or, you know, enjoying good and forbidding or preventing evil, promotion of good prevention of evil.
They're always there. And they're both important, like both have their function, you want to promote the good so that it's not lost, right? You want to teach people to good. So it's not forgotten through the generations. And also promoting good means encouraging it, incentivizing it, you know, promoting it in all those, all those forms, you know that so the good is not lost. But also you want to forbid evil, for sure, because when evil shows up, you want to minimize so it doesn't infiltrate the perfect system that is Islam, and so promoting the good and forbidding the evil two sides of the same coin throughout the Quran. But we never find in operando.
The prevention of evil being mentioned before the promotion of good It says if promoting the good should be taking priority over preventing the evil is that clear, the sequence is consistent, the pattern is consistent, because we are in fact more in need of promoting good. And we do benefit more from promoting good than we do from forbidding evil, even if both needs to be there. Right. Like, as they say, you can be good at identifying a problem, but you have to be better at creating a solution.
And in the time of the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam is actually a very interesting, interesting
choice of ads that he recited at the conquest of Mecca. You know, the conquest of Mecca is like the culmination and sort of the worldly triumph of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam when he finally returns to Mecca, and he subdues you know, the tyranny of
Quraysh he rides into Mecca and humility, reciting what I
what Punja I'll have proved was that happened Berkeley to in and Beltsville akan as a whole.
And see, Allah says, See, the truth has arrived, and falsehood has perished, falsehood is bound to perish. You think about that for a second, like? What do you mean the truth has arrived? Promise has been there for like 20 years, right? The Quran has been coming down for two decades now. So what do you mean it has arrived?
And then falsehood is perish? Because falsehood is bound to perish? Well, the Muslims have just been through a lot. What do you mean, if it's flimsy if it's bound to perish? Why did it take so long for the conquest of Mecca? Why did it take so long, you know, for this Triumph to happen? What does it mean the truth has arrived?
You see, the only way we can understand this is that the truth was not yet there was not yet to grown, promoted, cultivated,
you know, to equal force or comparable force with false Islam has grown on the ground. Islam has grown in terms of the numbers of people that are now Muslim, in terms of the maturity of the believers now who had flows through their veins and so on and so forth. Right. Now that the truth has arrived in equal or close to equal force, that is when falsehood has perish that's when falsehood in other words falsehood is bound to perish. falsehood is a bit pushover, once truth arrives, it stands no joint chance. And so it wasn't actually the presence of falsehood, that was the problem. It was the absence of truth that was the problem. Understand the concept now this is
the issue
and
fast forwarding 1300 years
one of the you know, the renowned Muslim reformers and and scholars of our last century was a man by the name of by the arrows is a man side Nursey Rahim Allah and you know not see as
Turkish reformer side notice Iraqi Mala died in 1960.
And he had to live through one of the most devastating eras of Islamic history, the cancellation of the Khilafah. Right? When the world powers finally put an end to and cancelled even though it was more symbolic than anything at the time in the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire or the Ottoman caliphate, officially disbanded, officially buried at that point. The Muslims knew they were in trouble, they knew they had a problem they just didn't know what the solution was. Right? And so everyone is like, you know, you just got woke up from your stupor, your bubble got burst you got you caught a real serious one on the chin like never before. And they're in disarray. Like what do we
do? How do we solve this and everyone has a bright idea and some people are so so jaded about the condition of the OMA that they don't even want to try anymore. Where do I even start and
So he used to a part of his reform project was to drill in people this very concept, this Quranic concept. And as he would phrase it, he used to say, national Isla Bina in Macedonia, what we mean Isla had been no Jude,
we are far more in need of building what's absent than destroying what's present. You guys see all of these problems and all of these enemies and all of this conspiracy and all of these challenges,
we are more far more in need of filling the void, and, you know, you know, compensating for the vacuum that made us so easy to crush, we got to build what's absent in our own the truth and the goodness and the infrastructure and all of that we need to do that more so than we need to simply get rid of the boogeyman or get rid of the enemy that's present.
Maybe we'll find time to circle back to this issue on Anoma wide level, but I just want to focus on it being a Quranic principle. You know that there is a man was a Quranic guy, by the way, like he has a very famous his most famous writing was a 5000 page DFC and slash commentary reflections on the Quran called rosette and you know, the messages of light from Allah azza wa jal, right, and this was such a clear message that he found permeating throughout the Quran and he was trying to get people to realize it that everything else is like a waste of time or inefficient that best is going to disappoint you to keep chasing after the symptoms.
And then you look into the Quran further. And you see like what is the biggest problem as per the Quran?
What's the biggest wrongdoing the biggest falsehood in the Quran
should write setting equals people on equal footing. Ideas on equal footing false gods rivaling Allah subhanho wa Taala should associating or attributing equals to Allah. How did the Quran come and remedy should
the scholars point out when you study like theology and Allah's names and attributes, in other words, they say the Quran spent so much time cultivating and people who Allah is right, it creates in people builds out in people. The author of Allah nourishes their souls with so much detail a third of the Quran is about to Allah is Subhana Allah God
as opposed to
attacking the endless list of those that are considered false gods when it comes to talking about to Allah isn't or why these are not worthy of being God. It usually happens what in brief in passing,
a smell and some major move. The Quran says these gods are but names that you call them as such, you call them God, that's your problem. You're nothing but the name. It's just the shell. As in the claim about him alone. He spoke about that. He said, it's as if Allah azza wa jal is telling them listen, we all know it's an onion peel, you calling it steak is not going to make a difference. It's not going to offer you anything. You call that a god. Nuff said. Right? You're worshiping the name that you snuck onto the sticker. That's it. But when it comes to Allah, it talks a great lengths about to Allah Subhana Allah to Allah and His beauty and His Majesty and his mind and his mercy and
his compassion and its knowledge and it builds in the heart of the all of Allah, the grandeur of Allah, the love of Allah, the adoration of Him Subhanallah without
and even the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Similarly, you know, he said to us, Kulu Allahu Ahad that Surah that's all about how unique Allah is is 1/3 of the Quran.
What does that mean? Some scholars said it means that if you recited you get their award for reciting 1/3 of the Quran, right?
Other scholars are given a Tamia Rahim Allah said perhaps what he meant sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was the fact that if you've understood deeply the theme of Kulu Allahu Ahad, you've mastered 1/3 of the contents of the Quran. That's what it's all about. Look how much is invested. In who you knowing Allah is unique perfection and perfect uniqueness. Subhanallah Dada, and then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also concurs, you know with this concept by telling you or let me ask you, did he tell us that the phrase Alhamdulillah is superior? Or is the phrase Subhan Allah is superior?
Which one
who thinks Alhamdulillah is superior?
Who thinks Subhan Allah is superior.
And the rest of you believe that voting is haram.
That joke never gets old.
So they go hand in hand that's upon a lot. 100 less fun a lot. hamdulillah but he told us Allah Allahu alayhi wa sallam that the best supplication
To invoke Allah who it is that Hamdulillah He said that
why it falls perfectly in line with this discussion we're having tonight.
It is because Alhamdulillah is asserting its Allah here so perfect. That's what 100 And that means all praiseworthy qualities belong to Allah, all compliments, all flattery, or more rightly deserved by Allah. That's what it means at hand. The praise is for Allah Subhana Allah means what?
What is the kind of mummy
is worthy? You're going to hold lecture guys to get this under our belts.
Yes, God, glorifying and
Jeremy, so it's, it's the counterpart, right Alhamdulillah is establishing who Allah is. Allah Subhana Allah double confirms that by clearing Allah of imperfection. So we'll handle less you're so perfect. Oh Allah. And Subhan Allah is nothing is imperfect about you, Oh Allah, right. But the more important of the two is what
establishing Allah is perfection. Not negating Allah's imperfection. You know why? Because if you spend more time or even equal time talking about who Allah is not, that in and of itself could be disrespectful, right? The Quran doesn't do that.
Like, imagine a king of this world, a king of this world, that you visit him and you want to praise him, but you praise Him by negating the negatives. So Your Highness, you are not a loser. Right? And you're not ugly, and you're not cheap, and you're not ruthless.
And you're not undesirable, and you're not impotent. And you just keep doing this, right? What do you think's gonna happen, I see the wrong, what he's gonna give you, you know, the extended tour dungeon downstairs, that's what's gonna happen.
Because you're spending so much time on the negative even if you're negating it sort of adds validation to it. It says if it's possibly a conversation, it might be true.
You know, if it's like I walk out after the lecture, and
I tell you guys, you know, cycle of hate for attending bluestone my shoes, right? And then one guy out of the whole crowd says, Wallahi, I didn't do it.
That's mighty suspicious. Why you negate the accusation from yourself of all people, that adds to the weight of the possibility that was you, doesn't it? Or like the kids, you know, like, who ate late or whatever, in the cupboard? It wasn't me.
Come here, right? That's the way it works. And so the Quran and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sunnah taught us that we are far more in need of learning about and internalizing who Allah is, then, you know, disqualifying and discounting these qualities, or these false gods and their qualities, and so on and so forth. It's far more productive.
Here's another big concept that we can apply this rule on.
Materialism and I mean, in the wider sense, I don't just mean like Shopaholic, materialism, just being obsessed with any aspect of this world. Right?
How did the Quran remedy this? This is a big deal, right? This is the number one, you know, fraud of our times. The number one lie of our times, is, as we said, the purpose of life is happiness and happiness is through owning and, you know, securing XY and Z of this world, right? It's not a small issue. That's what everybody believes that your value is determined by how salient expedient, convenient, comfortable, you know, prosperous your life is the brand of the shoe that you step on in the street. Can you imagine this is the mentality now, right? It has always been, but nowadays more than ever, we've become such you know, materialistically you know, consumer driven, thoughtless
mindless, in our you know, chase for material possessions, but how did the Quran remedy this because a very human Achilles, right, it's a human tendency.
Even though the claim keep in mind it will claim says many people when preaching when preaching this is a mistake preachers themselves make all the time and it will pay him talking about 600 years ago, 700 years ago. Huge mistake preachers make when they are so head when they're sort of minimalist and able to be live austere and live simple in terms of dunya. He said a big mistake they make when trying to get others, you know, to disconnect a little bit from this world is they attack people's love for dunya
he says and it's horrible strategy
He was like, you want me to hate dunya? I do I hate dunya it's the only world I know it's my oxygen and my sky and my earth and my mom and my like, how how do I like you know, he said, but the scholar not does that hit now not the one who was like the ascetic and you know, the simple live lifestyle diet, the minimalist, as we call them nowadays. He said, they fall into that trap, it doesn't work. There's too big of a transition. He said, What the people that have knowledge meaning of the Quran, they know the Quranic method, they do something else completely. They build what's absent, not trying to destroy the love of dunya, that's present, they build what's absent, which is enough love
for Allah.
When you grow someone's love for Allah, more than their present love for the dunya, then they're able to pick Allah.
When push comes to shove between Allah's choice, and your choice of this world, makes sense. Build what's absent, as opposed to trying to dismantle and untangle and demolish what's present.
I'll give you another example. Marriage is a great application.
Whenever people face, you know, struggles in marriage,
they are usually locked into the symptoms and the problems at hand. And they come to the chef. And they want the chef to become their newfound leverage in the negotiation. That's how it works. So people come to me, I tell them, I'm not a marriage counselor, number one. Number two, you're probably going to hate me in a few minutes. Both of you. Why? Because, like, I always say like, it's always 6040. Right? And sometimes 7030, almost never at 20. It's on both sides of the problem, right? And so each of you is making valid points, and each of you has true legit ammo against each other. But both of you are so headstrong, so forgive me * bent on the ship siding 110% with you,
so it's not gonna work.
But the approach to begin with, regardless of who's right and who's wrong on remedying your problems through a negotiation
is bad strategy.
Right? You see, you need to recall that in the good times, when there was more of a balance in each other's hearts of you know, like passion and compassion and warmth and fuzzy feelings and chocolate covered strawberries, right? All that stuff. When that was there, you guys weren't negotiating? Technically, this is my right hey, that's your, you had words, remember that it's not as tense right of a standoff. And so rebuilding that which is absent, right, is actually the way to get past many of these problems.
As opposed to you trying to flesh out and you know, get to the bottom line. And with the problems that are present, this is the true method. That's why when when marriage nears its end, in the Quran, Allah says well attends, I will follow by Nicole. And don't forget the graciousness between you, you went from sharing the same bed and sharing the same food and shelter, to now being petty and ridiculous about you know, unspeakable things in the negotiation as you parted ways. So how do you create room to to be gracious with each other to rewind to the pre conflict days? So building what's absent versus trying to overturn or destroy what's present, even has its application in
marriage?
Since many times we struggle with major sins or persistence and sins, or our loved ones, you know, are caught in these very and Islamic very toxic lifestyles. How do you remedy that? being reactive to it usually makes it worse or at best won't help. Right?
What's more important to stop committing a sin or to start performing good deeds?
Why?
Of course, they're both important. Once again, you need to stop your sins or it's counterproductive, right? I need to start. But what's actually far more important is for you to increase your good deeds, your acts of obedience, your acts of devotion for them to flush the sins out of your life, far more effective. That is why personally, I'm not saying you need to universalize this, I probably don't use it, you know, in the absolute sense, but my default My rule of thumb is when someone I know is struggling with practicing certain parts of Islam, I don't even address it until I verify first do they establish their five they don't establish their five I'm not very hopeful that will do
were able to change it anyway. That's the way I am because Allah called it I moved to Dean, this is the central column of the dean, I need to build the central column of the dean, Not go searching for all the termites, you know, that are gnawing away at just build something first, and we clear out the problems.
And so establishing the good, and making that your norm until it grows and evolves to get rid of the evil is the more effective method.
And another aspect with since here growing your Eman to begin with, you know, because when I say establish the salah first this Allah is our fountain of faith, it's what gives us Iman, but the man even, you know, rewinding a bit further, like I had a parents come to me, and they are many this is just anecdotal. But I've seen, you know, hundreds of these, they'll bring you the kid and say, Chef, he doesn't want to pray. She doesn't want to pray, doesn't want to, you know, put on the hijab chef, you know, please, you know, swing your magic slack or one or whatever it is fix them chef, right? By the way, I hate when parents do this, possibly because
I used to be on the other end of that stick
or that equation in the past, but I remember one parent, in another state, he came to me and he said this.
And I turned to the girl and I said to her, you know, why is your dad on your case? Trying to show her that I'm you know, I'm on your side? I'm here to help.
I don't know, I don't know what his issue is, you know, he's just always telling me, you know, like, I'm dressing wrong. I'm not praying on time. And he's always just critical, right? I said, Okay, so you don't pray you're five? She said, No, I don't. I said, Do you believe God exists?
I just had let me remind all of you believe it, or not sure.
So I turned to her dad. And I said, you know, with all due respect, you want her to pray to a god that she you know, things could be imaginary could be imaginary god.
That's one of the things that a lot of times we don't want to admit to ourselves that maybe I need to rewind farther than I think that I actually have to move all the way back to the ABCs and if you don't, you know have a readiness in you to go that far back and build what is in shambles back there. You may actually never move forward or move them forward in the deen.
If a person is not praying, their faith is borderline
non existent.
I Aisha Radi Allahu Ana, she said Quranic method. Remember, she said this is like a body that the first thing to come down of the Quran were super minimal fossil, these you know, short solos, right Kathleen kosali By now, right short solos. Like sort of off to the end, most scholars say is what she was referring to. But what is the theme the biggest theme in the sore in the end of the Quran so it got to the end, the short Soto's she says she had Vikram agenda Tijuana that contain so much mention of Paradise and the hellfire.
She said Philomath Saba, Nasser, Al Islam, Nasser, Al Hallelu, Al haram. Then when people became interested and inclined to Islam, then the halal and haram then the lawful and unlawful, the do's and don'ts come down. She says, listen to this, she says, and if the first thing to come down from the Quran was stopped drinking wine, the people would have said, we will never stop. And if the first thing to come down from the Quran was lattice new, don't find a Kate stop having relationships outside of marriage. The people would have said, letting the data ever that will never stop communicating.
We wonder why, you know, we can't shake off or get people to shake off the party lifestyle, right partying, it's because the man is not there. Had we addressed the man first,
we would have found better results results like the Prophet SAW Salah, the only man in human history that's been able to remove a society from being in the ruts. You know, one of the darkest moments in human history to Cairo, multinucleate Enos, the best community ever brought out as an as a model for other communities. Because the methodology was right, the methodology was from Allah building what's absent more than trying to destroy what's present. I'll give you another big one. So we're talking about building faith, the challenge of doubting Islam to begin with the issue of intellectual doubts
you know, because doubts, when I said, you know, if you're not praying you pretty much don't believe or you're very too close to not believing. That's called like, you know, live agnosticism these days. Say you don't say there's no God you don't say there's no
hereafter, but it's so fringe in the way you look at the world, it's practically the way you're living as if that is the case. But let's talk us even a step further. When people actually come and verbalize to us they communicate that, you know, I have a problem with the faith, or I find aspects of Islam problematic or my relative, you know, has these doubts regarding the deen? And they have they need the answers to these questions.
I get this day and night past 20 years.
One of the most important techniques people
I tried to get people to walk away with is that answering doubts, dismantling doubts, will actually never provide you with your thing. Never provide you with conviction Islam, it won't. I'll give you an example. Someone brings a hadith that supposedly gives women the short end of the stick hadith is presumed to be unfair to women.
Okay, I take them on a, you know, on a journey to explain to them the context and everything else, and what this actually means and the justifications and and let us say my explanation isn't good enough, right? Because these are, by the way, their, their sort of aesthetic judgments like preferences. If you're from you know,
a certain political orientation in 2022, you might disagree with me on either end, right? of gender norms, let alone in 1922, verses 1822 verses 1400 years, right.
It doesn't always work. But let's assume that I've effectively cleared this person's doubt about that hadith.
All that all I've done after all, that hard work is what? Islam does not oppress women. So what does it mean? It sounds true, you haven't done anything. You see the problem here? Dismantling doubts, does not equal nurturing conviction, or cultivating our conviction strengthening our certainty in Islam, there are two actually two different subjects.
You know, when people come with doubts,
they could have this doubt that has been bothering them for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? I can't find the answer to this question. And my dean is sort of in limbo, because this question is, and they simply don't have the ability to realize that the question itself doesn't deserve an answer.
He does want some examples.
If God is so powerful, can he create a circle with four corners?
These are not hypothetical. See, the true questions have come my way.
Like, Oh, snap, yeah, if you can't do things, you know, he's not the Almighty. No, actually, we're sorry, the question does not deserve an answer, because the question itself is wrong, because a circle doesn't have corners. And so you need to figure out what you want. And then you submit your application requesting it from Allah azza wa jal, it's just it's silliness. But they may not live long enough to get past they're not philosophically trained enough to realize, Oh, these are just word games, right? These are like gymnastics? Or if God can do anything, can he create a god?
As great as himself?
No, sorry.
I'm not answering that. Because you have to figure out what you want. Yes, you want him to create a god? That's like him, but him he's not created to begin with. So already, this is problematic. God, number two, we'd have a beginning at that point. And the first God doesn't have a beginning. And so you're confused. And we'll pray for you. We'll be polite about it. But the issue is, the question itself doesn't deserve respect the questioner, we should always respect people and be polite about it. Or like, Can God create sorry, I get too many of these can God create a rock so big that he himself can't carry?
This not only defies the definition of a god, it defies the definition of a rock.
Because what do you want? Like a rock is a finite object? It has length it has with it has depth, right?
And Allah is infinite. So do you want something finite? Are we talking about something infinite? Yes. But here's a more common one. This is called the Epicurean dilemma. It's been around for like 5000 years, Epicurious, you know, sort of
dance with this question. But keep in mind, pre modern times, so many people talked about this, none of them actually said there's no God. Right? They were just confused on how this could happen. Nowadays, because it's, you know, it's popular to try to argue for no God, and they tried to loop this into their arsenal when all the scholars who agreed with them in the past didn't necessarily say, Okay, this means there can be a god. But what's the question? It's called? It's like a three way, you know, dilemma. Epicurious says if God knows there's Eve
In the world and human suffering, right, and he can fix it. And he is all merciful, then there shouldn't be evil period. Again.
There's no way around it. He's saying it is today called the immovable boulder of atheism, the problem of evil. Well, no, we're sorry, who said God is only three qualities. He knows he can. He's merciful. God is also the most wise Subhanallah God, and he's the most just, and this world is not the end of it. And so problem solved, right? So these sorts of things, people, even if they get satisfied, finally, your life will never be long enough to go down this rabbit hole to the end, because there is no end. You cannot have your faith, you know, based on answering an endless list of questions, many of which you may never develop the training to see through. That's all and some
questions only Allah subhanaw taala has the answer for that's fine as well.
You know, the most common one, I can't leave this subject without speaking on it quickly, is because, you know, my college professor said this to me, so I have a particular bone to pick with this one. She said something wrong about Islam. I disagreed with her.
And then she looked at me like I was, you know, inferior. She infantilized me, and she said, like, shots on me are so cute and naive and stuff, right? She said to me, that's what's wrong with you, religious people.
You assume there's such a thing out there as truth. Like big T truth, not little T truth, right, like universal truths. But you have your truth. And I have my truth. And that's it.
And many people get stuck on this question. Also, they get it is a great source of doubt for them the concept of relative truth.
Of course, whenever someone tells you, there's no such thing as absolute truth. I always reiterate this, what are we supposed to say?
Come on, I'm sure you've heard me say I'm
supposed to say is that true?
Right. Because what the what you're saying, if there's no such thing as truth, then you just need to be quiet right now. You shouldn't try to convince me of anything. If there's no such thing as truth, nobody should having a conversation with anything, right? Because technically, what you're trying to tell me is, the truth is, there's no such thing as truth.
Well, then we're not going very far like this, right? It's self defeating circular, right? An argument like this, these are all just sources of doubt, that have a beginning and no end. And so to entertain these doubts, let me go look for all these doubts, and destroy all these doubts so that I can have faith is actually not going to work.
That leads to more and more doubt doesn't mean we shouldn't be open minded. We shouldn't be skeptical when it's sort of it's irrelevant and consequential for our practical lives. Right? It but what you should be invested in back to our principle is building conviction, different enterprise, right?
Different enterprise? Why do I know for certain Islam is true? Why do I know why am sure that it's not wishful thinking? It's not blind faith? Why do I know that the Quran is from Allah subhanaw taala Why do I know for certain that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is beyond doubt a messenger from God? Right? That's what you need to be invested in and invest people in
trying to answer doubts will never work. subjecting yourself to doubts. Is is reckless. You know, it's like someone saying, Let me run across the highway to just to check you know how agile I am.
Right? Let me go subject myself to 1000 You know, diseases to check how strong my immunity is.
This is reckless, right? This is insane. This is not the path. You need to go build out your conviction build out your certainty in Islam and why Islam? Is the truth provable, justified for good, very good reasons from Allah, then when you're there, let the doubts come and go, they will not rattle they will not destabilize you.
In our day and age, we need far more knowledge on why Islam is true than people of the past.
Because the airborne diseases of doubt are everywhere.
You know, I'll give you one example on this
as a sort of, we work towards our close in my second semester in college.
One of our professors
he was sort of an Orientalist like a critic of Islam, Jewish professor but he was also anti Zionist. So like
my, you know, very large
Jewish population from college didn't like him either. But anyway, he was critical of Islam and religions, very secular. And so we walk into class and he placed a
sheet on all of our desks Xerox copy of a page from Selection body.
And this page was an excerpt from the journey of ze didn't the fabric Radi Allahu Anhu is putting the Quran together. Okay. And you know, they didn't fare better the Lavon used to go get testimonies from other Sahaba before he puts the the idea in writing. And so he says I didn't find the end of sort of the Toba except with Abu Zaman, on Saudi, okay. And so the implication is obvious that the Quran was sort of haphazardly put together, some it couldn't find anywhere, and just some guy, right. And not a well known name, either in the Quranic sciences from the Sahaba, gave him an eye, and he threw it in there. And so it was unreliably transmitted. I remember when he shared that with
us, it bothered me a lot, because I didn't have the answer for it. Okay, I remember, it shook me. And I had to, like, get the answer to this. And I went online, did the research and, you know, AOL connections. But for those that can relate, I spent, I think, like, a few nights digging deep to get the answer to this question. I couldn't sit tight. It was a source of doubt for me and even more, so for others, right?
There has to be an answer, there has to be an answer. But until you actually got it, you were not comfortable. And of course, there's a perfectly good explanation. The bigger picture here is they didn't have it memorized the entire Quran. That's why the worker recruited him for this job, right. And he was not the only one. But he refused to document the Quran based on his memory. And he would always await for others that had it right to document
and some ideas that would come out come down later. And so not as many people knew them, and also people had died and so on and so forth. And so how about left Medina for campaigns and otherwise, that was the whole reason why the writing was taking place. And so that is why he said, I only found it with him. Nothing he didn't intend to he didn't know it himself. Is that clear? Anyway, long story short, I got my closure. 20 years later, very recently, someone shared with me a hadith. It's insulting to the manager. That said when they were busy burying the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam or preparing him for burial scenario by Aisha Radi Allahu Ana, a goat snuck into her room,
the room of Aisha della Juana and ate a piece of leather upon which is the Quran, some Quran was written.
I remember someone asking me, some of the Quran was lost, and I just couldn't help but smile. Smile at what? Now I know the history of the Quranic compilation. Now I know the proofs for the Quran being a miracle. Now I know why I am sure not just because I'm inheriting this from my parents that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the final prophet of Allah. I have all this in place. Now. I just I remember smiling and saying, you know, I'll get to it. I didn't need the answer. You see the issue here. Once you're you've built out faith, you don't need to make every last doubt tap out. I'm sure there's a very good answer. I'll get to it when I get to it. Right? I'll find out on the Day of
Judgment type thing. No doubt about some aspect of Islam can now in sha Allah overturn my fundamental certainty that I've built or Allah has built for me that I've worked on, on why Islam itself fundamentally is true.
By the way that had incident of the manager doesn't mean anything. Why? Because the whole thing was memorized, not dependent on the written records. And by the way, that had even seen every manager is also we had the scholars included there to help us understand that people that cite this, this is why now I'm citing it is unfounded. A lot of times that's it, see the issue there? That's where you want to be you want to build out faith for yourself and for people where you become immune to these lesser doubts. So these nagging doubts and I often share the story of my mother have you the Hala there was a bunch of sisters and we all family were sitting in her living room and there was a
hadith
that sort of they were getting into a debate on Hey, what exactly is Hadith mean with regards to us, women and so on and so forth. One of those the Hadith does seem, you know, problematic to women. And so they're going back and forth and I'm watching my mom, I'm smarter than the jump into the conversation, you know,
and mansplain my way through it, as they say, right. And so I'm just sitting there watching my mother my mother is so uncomfortable with the conversation and she's very anxious. I know why. She's just afraid that someone nobody was saying anything wrong. They were all being very respectful, the province Isola, but just interpretations right. And she was all afraid that someone was going to overstep their bounds. They were going to say something inappropriate regarding Allah's deed
Right. And so then it's getting like passionate and stuff. And then my mother says, What will will, will will, and you think she's gonna like, explain it now. She said, It's no big deal. When we meet the Prophet SAW son, on the day of judgment, and we drink from his hand,
is less at hand, Salah is at the helm, we'll just ask him what he meant. This is
It's cute. And it's funny, and it's beautiful. But that's where you want to be where I don't need the answer. I'm not dependent on the answer to continue in my faith. So this rule building what's absent more so than destroying what's present, applies here as well.
And it applies in 1001. Other places, you know, without diving any more deeper into any more of these big subjects, you can just make a list the issue of heroes, right? Why do we look up to the people we look up to? My kids keep listening to these people, or they're obsessed with these players and celebrities and athletes? And well, let us say, let us just let's be practical here. Let us say I can convince your child that this person is a shaitan. And they walk away from them have I solved the problem? I haven't, because they're just going to pick up another shuttle. Right? It's it's our problem to build for them.
Hero heroes teach them about those that are deserving of being idolized. Like the Prophet sallallahu is and the Sahaba the righteousness of Islamic history and the scholars. We can't just critique the dominant culture. We have to produce a counterculture, we have to produce a better alternative. Yes, we can be conversant and be able to identify problems, but that's not enough. How do you provide an effective solution?
And that'll be my final example. Actually, I'll share with you. Does anyone know who Madigan OBE is?
So melachim NaVi,
Rama Hola. Was like like an odyssey. He he lived through the debacle of you know, the Islamic Khilafah. He died in 73 Rahim Allah is Algerian writer and thinker and reformer. And he actually coined a few terms that are super interesting. When he was trying to tell the OMA how to rebuild. He said you, I'm paraphrasing a great deal here. But he says you Muslims, you people are so obsessed with conspiracy theories, and so obsessed with the external threats of the colonizer and where it's not for colonialism and the Imperial path. And this is true. I mean, we're not justifying any of this. It did happen. He's saying, but that you're never going to be able to climb out of it like
this. He says, instead of you
focusing on the colonial powers that, you know, made you tap out, how about you start focusing on what made you here's the term colonize a boat?
Right? He says you were vulnerable to kind of like colonization. That's why you got colonized. Right. And this is so important for you to say now today as well, people say, you know, worth not for the foreign policies of the superpowers always invading our lands and the United States and they're unjust wars, and they are unjust, and Britain and you know, false invasion of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction is that we're never there. And it's true. Yes, this is all uncalled for. This is all, you know, catastrophic. But do you think that they are the problem?
No, this is a, this is human history.
Strong eats week, whenever the fear of Allah isn't there to restrain you, everywhere in a in a marital relationship in a business relationship, right? It ain't wrong. If I don't get caught. It ain't wrong if you can't retaliate, right? It's a dog eat dog world. That's the way the world history is without the fear of Allah. In other words, if you keep saying, Oh, if only America would just mind their business, well, if America actually gets so weak that it would actually mind his business from other countries, that probably means you have a new problem. That could even be a worse problem called like China or Russia or something. It's not going to be end of the homeless
problems. It's just happens to be the current bully on the block. Right? Why didn't China get colonized or isn't colonized today?
Because strong nations respect strong nations, right? That's it, they were not able to leverage conspiracy against them in a way that they can against, you know, the so that's what metacommunity Rahim Allah was saying. He was saying that you keep thinking everything was fine and dandy until something came out of left wing unexpected and threw everything off called colonialism. He said, wrong. You're living in la la land. The Ottoman Empire was literally called the old man of Europe for 300 years before it actually fell. We were weak. And that is why it had to get overrun. Eventually, it was just a matter of time. It was just a matter of convenience for them, because they
get to determine because they're the strong ones. We were colonized of all because we don't have any internal strength. We don't have any self determination. And here's the other
term he coined, which is so awesome. He said, we had reached a point of if less how body civilizational bankruptcy, we were bankrupt. He said, You think it's a political problem? It's not. He's saying the political fallout happened after
we, as a civilization weren't producing anything. We were no longer known for our beauty and our justice and our strength, and our progress and our contribution, we were no longer, you know, known for these things that we were once known for. It was a civilizational problem that reflected a moral problem, right? We became immortal. We thought we were gods favorites. Like previous nations thought they were gods favorites. They're called the plagues of prosperity as they say, right. And that moral problem reflected a spiritual problem. He says, Once you own that, that's when you can start rebuilding your own mind.
So very profound, a lot to think about on the micro and the macro level.
Show sure we can curse the darkness. Sure we can identify evils, but we have to be sort of better at lighting candles and learning the effective way to offset these challenges in our life. That's it. Well, Allah Tala Allah, Allah Allah Allah Allah kind of dnn Muhammad Ali. He was