Morad Awad – The Age of Foolishness
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the trend of minorizing ridiculous and disrespectful behavior on social media platforms and the importance of not being afraid of reality. The shift in people' views on technology and the need for more access to wealth and fame is also highlighted. The speakers advise parents to read and listen to the pages of the Bible and avoid criticizing followers for their actions. The speakers also suggest avoiding and filling one's time with beneficial content to avoid and avoid being too busy with it.
AI: Summary ©
We praise Allah
We seek His assistance,
and we ask His forgiveness.
And we send our peace and blessings upon
our noble Prophet Muhammad alayhis salatu wa salam.
And I remind myself and yourselves in this
blessed day of yawmuljumu'ah,
in in this blessed hour of salatuljumuh
to fear Allah
The way he should be feared as Allah
reminds us of this in the Quran.
When he says,
All you who believe,
fear Allah
the way he should be feared and do
not die except in the state of submission
to Him. We ask Allah that we all
die in the state of submission to Him
and upon the state of tawhid. And to
make our last words in this dunya.
My beloved
and dear noble brothers and sisters,
we live in very
tricky
times
and very
challenging
times. In a time where
priorities
found
themselves in the back of the line,
with all types of trivial nonsensical matters in
front of them.
Perhaps,
we haven't watched
a video about the suffering
brothers and sisters in China,
or about
the children
in parts of Africa that work in mines
for 20 hours.
20 hours a day
just to extract
minerals
being forced
in labor and perhaps
a picture that is even worse than the
picture of slavery the way we imagine it.
But everyone watched
that funny looking guy
who danced around in the middle of the
street,
or that guy who sprinkled some salt on
top of a steak,
or that person
who
pulled a prank on his classmates
or his teacher.
Something that we find ourselves
following and watching and looking at, perhaps for
some on the day to day basis.
Put those books aside.
Why read?
Why not just
distract ourselves
with a feed of videos
that are absolutely pointless and non relevant
to our day to day lives, And give
us absolutely
no benefit
in how
we
should
become when we grow up.
Or give us no sense
of a role model
in our life.
Pointless content just to make us laugh,
Open our eyes wide.
Drop our jaws.
Nod our heads.
Say, wow. That's pretty cool. And perhaps,
share it with a friend,
or share it with somebody,
or even call someone.
Or the next time we meet in the
masjid. Hey. Do you watch that video?
We're coming to worship Allah, but all we
can talk about is that trivial
video
that we saw on that feed.
Something very funny,
but
distracted us from something very important nonetheless.
Don't ever be curious
of the shift of power in the world,
or don't be curious
about how a minority with a corrupt ideology
is imposing
its
counter moral
ideology
on the vast majority of of humanity
and specifically on the people in our country
and in our communities and societies.
Don't pay attention to that.
But pay attention to some other foolish things.
Curious
of
what
is coming up
on the next feed,
Feeding into
all of this
all of this trivialness
and this nonsensical
content. We find
programs
where people who act silly are given a
platform
called idols.
Not the idols of hubal,
andlat, and uzza, and manat. The idols that
we read about in the Quran. But idols
that come to perform
nonsensical things to be placed as role models
for
for our children in our upcoming generation.
Perhaps even worse than the idols that stood
stagnantly
before a child like the idols that Ibrahim
alaihi salam
broke and shattered to prove to his people
that they have no power or control. But
these idols actually move and they actually do
things and they actually instill corrupt values
into our future generations.
Perhaps
a bunch of experts flew
from all around the world and all across
the globe to judge a few
a few
objectified
females in a beauty pageant.
Just to judge which one is the most
beautiful in the universe or in the world
or on the globe or who wins this.
Sad
realities that we live in
Where these things are actually given a platform.
These things are actually given a platform.
And unfortunately,
it isn't only
the small minded, the uneducated, or the unintellectual
that is falling. Pray for this. But it
is sucking everyone.
It is burning the green and the dry.
Everyone is being burned by this.
This trend
of trivialness,
a foolishness
that is plaguing humanity
through these social media platforms
that
spread like a wildfire.
Billions of followers
around the whole world exposed to this content
on the day to day basis
and
everyone is prey, unfortunately.
And for some odd reason, and it is
something
that is perhaps one of the greatest problems
of our time.
It is crazy how capitalism
managed
to make
even the most foolish things
a form
or they made it into a product that's
worthy of consumption.
When someone
who's plagued with obesity perhaps
takes off his shirt and starts dancing with
his belly flapping up and down,
posts it up and everybody watches it gets
a 100,000,000 views and becomes a rich person
after he was a poor person overnight.
And somehow,
that person who would have never found a
way to be heard, to be seen, to
be spoken to or even given some attention
in previous times is now not only given
attention but is now
the center of attention.
And the one who is becoming a role
model. Look at this person. He was just
He was a McDonald's employee.
He dropped this trivial
he dropped this foolish little clip and it
went viral. Man, I'm just looking for the
next viral thing for me to do.
Kids go to
school, walk in the street,
talk to their friends
about how they can do something stupid enough,
silly enough, trivial enough
to be heard or to be seen or
to gain viewers because somehow this capitalistic machine
discovered
that people are actually attracted to foolishness.
They actually had a big research
that was done.
And they discussed
very silly things
like what shoe colors people are attracted to,
or the biggest shoe size in the history
may And and and they
they started to call people to watch this.
And it actually attracted so many people which
generated a study.
I forgot the name. I don't know the
name of the study. But this study basically
proved that people are actually really inclined
to
watching things that make no sense
or that have no benefit for some odd
reason.
And this is plaguing
our time. There hasn't been a single point
in history where the foolish were given a
platform to speak like in our time.
Imagine in the time
of the Sahaba.
What did the foolish
say?
What did the person who
did not have a sound logic say? They
had nothing to say.
They would stay quiet and listen.
And even before that,
in the times of the disciples,
or in times of the prophets of Bani
Israel, or in the times of even Socrates,
and Plato, and whoever it was, when these
people would sit down, would the foolish have
anything to say amongst them?
No. But today,
they have everything to say and they're given
the platform to say it.
And this is perhaps one of the most
dangerous things
in our time whether we understand it or
not.
And to prove how dangerous it is,
companies invest
1,000,000,000
of dollars into the study
of what attracts people,
what brings their views because
their foolishness
became consumable and worthwhile for them.
If it brings customers,
then why
shouldn't it be worth some money?
I remember when I was,
when I was in high school,
they wanted to pay someone to dress like
Spongebob and dance in front of the street,
in front of the store to get kids
to come in and buy
children's clothing and whatnot. And nobody wanted to
do that job
because nobody liked Spongebob and nobody wanted to
dance in the street, although their face is
covered and
they,
you know, they would make a good, you
know, side hustle for a 14, 15 year
old high school student.
Why not?
But I remember
them having trouble finding someone because nobody wanted
to do that job.
But today you bring the same job
and the kid would not only do it,
but create a social media page. Ask his
friend to record it. Do something even crazier
than what the company asked him to do
and then post it on his social media
so he could get more of a following,
more likes,
more follows.
Very sad reality will lie.
You look at people
talk about things that they have no idea
what they're talking about.
They get a 100,000,000 views,
200,000,000 views, 5,000,000 likes.
I don't know how how many million, 1,000,000
shares.
But when a scholar comes to talk about
the change in climate
or when a scholar
talks about
the best health diet we can we can
have, or what to avoid what foods we
should avoid so we could preserve a healthy
lifestyle.
Or an Islamic scholar
talking about how to be saved in the
times that we live in,
and how to avoid
these trials and tribulations or how to maneuver
ourselves in them, you get 1, 200 people
watching live
and perhaps a few comments by people who
have no idea,
no idea
what they're talking about. They leave some comments
in the in the comment section
disagreeing with what the scholar has to say.
And all of a sudden that comment has
more likes than the views on the video
itself.
I don't even know how that's possible
but
somehow
it
is.
Such challenging times that we live in because
in the world
of foolishness,
things changed. It's not about the service you
have to offer or the value
you have to offer to humanity.
But it is just about
how to access
more wealth
and how to gain more fame and popularity.
It doesn't matter
how the wealth is attained whether it's halal
or haram. And it doesn't matter
what you're known for as long as you're
known for something.
And these are the two things that matter
for this generation
that we need to try to save. And
if we don't try,
they're just going to be lost.
Brothers and sisters,
the people that created
or the people that made these inventions that
we live with today. We drive on a
bridge
every single day.
We, you know, we we
we live in reinforced
concrete
houses
and we,
you know, we benefit from electricity and
and all types of things. Right? And we
fly our planes, and all these things came
from who?
Scientists and researchers and people that dedicated their
lives to educate themselves
the best possible way
so that they can get to these things
that we take for granted today by using
electricity
for foolishness.
Think Thomas Edison would would want
If they told him, your great great grandkids
are going to sit down and watch these
nonsensical videos all day because of the electricity
you invented, he might have not invented it.
He might have just kept it to himself.
But we're not carrying this on.
Instead of reading books, we read SparkNotes.
Instead of finding the professor with the most
credentials
and the best the the the best ability
to to explain a subject or the one
with the most thorough knowledge, we go to
rate my professor and we find the easiest
professor out there with the easiest grade giving
policy and the easiest tests that can be
passed down from generation to generation.
Just so we can pass with a degree
that really means nothing more than we paid
the tuition
and we're able we're able to figure it
out somewhere in between.
So a few bumps here and there but
we made it.
Instead of graduating and saying, we know it,
they graduate and they say, we made it.
Right? Like it's a race.
Right? Like they're running
track or something.
It's nothing like that. The times change.
And it's only gonna get more challenging now
with chat gbt and and AI
coming into the scene. You type whatever you
want in there and it just gives you
it.
Research
isn't gonna have much value.
You know, back in the day, I remember
they they'd asked the older generation about robots
taking over.
And and they would always laugh, like, what
are you talking about? You always have the
creators of the robot.
You have
human beings there.
You know, if they made a robot, they
can make a better robot that can put
that other robot away. There there's no way
for robots
to take over.
But you know, the new generation,
and the way it's
being oriented, it's very possible.
The reason they see the possibility
of artificial intelligence threatening humans
and robots and whatnot is because they see
themselves getting
dumber and dumber
for lack of better words.
It is It's it's a challenge.
We live in very challenging times but what's
even
what's very miraculous in this is that the
Prophet
mentioned this specifically
more than 1400 years ago. Say Allahumma sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam said in a hadith narrated by Abu
Hurairah and Anasib ibn Malik
as well.
He said, there will come upon humanity
very
tricky times.
Very tricky times.
The liar
will be believed.
And the honest person will be called a
liar.
And the one you cannot trust will be
entrusted.
The betrayer will be trusted,
and the trustworthy
will be called a betrayer.
And there's a specific type of people in
this time
called
the
prophet called them the
The sahaba never heard of this word before.
They never heard of this word because
there wasn't any of them in their time.
Nobody was ever derogatorily
called Aruwaybila in the time of the sahaba
because they never seen a foolish person speak.
So the prophet
said,
the highest voice, the loudest voice, the most
heard, the most seen
in this time will be a a fabric
of society called the Ruwai Buda.
They said, who are they Rasulullah?
He said,
he said, the person that is
foolish
that speaks about the most trivial matters.
The foolish person that speaks about the most
trivial matters is the one with the loudest
voice in this time. And wallahi, it's as
if he was talking about our time today,
1400 years ago, alayhi salaatu wasalam.
There's no time where these people had a
louder voice than our time. And it seems
to only get louder
where Allah
tells us how to act with these types
of people
rather than follow them, share their content, and
and and and narrate
what they did,
or increase their following, or like, or comment
on their videos, or what not. Allah
said,
He's talking about the believers. Allah said,
And the believers, when they hear
these nonsensical
things, they just avoid and ignore it.
Man, I'm worried about my own actions. You
know, this doesn't make sense to me. It
has no benefit to me.
My action is for me and your action
is for you. You're gonna stand in front
of Allah with whatever you posted, and I'm
gonna stand in front of Allah with the
time that I spent watching you, so I'll
rather not watch you. That's basically what Allah
is saying a believer
does when they see people engage this way.
What is the solution?
Where should we go? We'll discuss that in
the next Khutba. We ask Allah
to guide us and to forgive us.
Brothers and sisters,
it's unfortunate that
we have to give
a
like this upon, you know, on the brink
of Ramadan.
We're 2 weeks away from Ramadan. We only
have 1 Jummah after this before the month
of Ramadan.
We would
and we should speak about Ramadan.
But it's unfortunate that many people's Ramadans go
to waste or partly to waste or could
be utilized
much more effectively and efficiently
if it weren't for these things that we're
talking about in this kutba today.
Brothers and
sisters,
these very interesting times that we live in,
not only do
people
on these platforms share
funny
matters,
jokes,
and whatnot,
But they also
dive into politics and economics
and religion
and philosophy and all types of things.
Every single matter, you'll find somebody talking about
it that has no idea what they're talking
about. They have no qualification.
Commenting on something that they have no idea,
never studied Islam. Commenting on what a scholar
has to say about Islam.
Commenting on what an economist
that spent his whole life 30, 40 years
in economy, and then some kid in high
school comes and starts
to comment on what this economist concluded
the economy is is heading to.
And people actually
follow and listen, actually
marry
these points
as if they're facts.
And this is part of the fitna
of our time. But you know what's dangerous
is,
and perhaps we don't even see this as
danger, is that this drives
some
zealous,
passionate,
pious, driven Muslims
to go and open alternate
platforms,
accounts on social media to preach Islam, to
speak about the deen.
Right? Driven by the love they have for
Allah and His Messenger and they love the
love they have for Islam. And Alhamdulillah,
they make strides. They call people to the
deen. They effectively they effectively do it to
the extent of knowledge that they have but
the danger in it is that
if they gain
a large following, they actually start to believe
that they know a few things. When they
never formally received an education in Islam, never
studied under the wing of a scholar, don't
have a religious mentor, never read a book
from beginning to end.
The Quran or even Bukhari or Muslim or
any of the main books of aqeedah
or hadith or whatnot.
Never did any of this. But they heard
some videos here and there. They narrate. They
know how to speak. They created a big
following.
But it's dangerous to actually give
them more credibility than they should get because
it's a test for them, and it's a
test for the ones who are listening to
them as well.
Because it leads to discrediting scholars and whatnot.
You go to you go to somebody
who's talking about the dean
live
on Instagram.
100,000 people are tuning in. Not a scholar,
speaker, has a, you know,
vibrant kind of youthful engaging way.
100,000 people on the live
on the live Instagram.
And
a scholar
actually given the hootba,
one of the biggest scholars
in
in Texas like doctor Salih Hasawi. I go
into his Khutba a couple of weeks ago.
There's only 4 people tuning in.
Huge scholar.
The big scholar.
But guess what? The it's these are the
times that we live in.
It's just like that.
So, how do we save ourselves brothers and
sisters?
I'll summarize it in 6 points in the
next minute Insha'Allah and I won't,
dive into
each point. The first
is to avoid them.
Is to just stop following them.
Is to fill our time with something more
beneficial,
something that interests us more. It could be
anything.
If
It doesn't have to be seek reading Quran,
seeking beneficial knowledge although that's the most ideal
situation
But it could be something
like signing up to a gym, working out,
playing a sport, going, you know, doing martial
arts, doing something
beneficial with that time,
staying around or organizing gatherings with good people,
righteous people that remind you of Allah, Get
you away from these things.
The second is,
don't give a platform
to
the people. Don't give a more hype than
they deserve. If if they have a certain
level of knowledge, don't over exaggerate that. And
don't give them more credibility than a scholar
that spent their whole life
studying Islam and studying the deen. They have
the credentials,
they have the qualifications because
it's only inevitable that somebody without too much
knowledge is going to slip up.
And when that slips up, when that slip
up happened, it's going to reflect on
the iman of the people who revered this
person and held them to a high esteem.
The third
is parents should be careful of what their
kids are consuming as well. Be more cognizant
of it. Be be aware.
Right? See see just Open YouTube and look
at the feed.
Look at the recommendations. That's just gonna give
you an idea of what
what what YouTube the algorithm is recommending for
them. That speaks loads by itself.
You can look at everything, you know. As
a parent, you need to engage like this
especially if your kids have smartphones.
Fill the hearts with iman.
Have gatherings of of iman,
with your for yourself,
you, your friends. If there's a there's a
lecture, there's a halaka, engage in it. If
the same thing with the children, the kids.
Next is read more.
Encourage reading amongst kids. Sit down, read a
book together.
Open it and read it together as a
family. You read a book.
Read more and more because that is going
to increase your interest and curiosity
in what the book has. The moment you
start a book, you read the first couple
chapters, that's it.
You're going to be hooked. Better to hook
yourself something like that than something bad.
The 6th is to read and listen to
the biographies of those who came before us.
There's so many books like
or books in English like fiery ambitions by
Sheikh Muhammad Ismail Muqaddim. Great book. But like,
Men Around the Messenger by Muhammad Khaled. These
are great books
that
that, you know, we could read, our kids
could read, that give us an idea of
how the
how ambitious the people before us were. So
we could know how much we're slacking and
we're behind. So we can get ahead of
the game, insha Allah.
Brothers and sisters, the wise man once said,
be the change
that you want to see in others.
Be the change that you want to see
in others. So let's start
with ourselves changing insha'Allah ta'ala. Let's not complain,
let's not
talk,
I told you and I warned and it
is upon you
to benefit from the reminder, for indeed the
reminder benefits the believers. We ask Allah to
make us true believers in Him. We ask
Allah
to guide us to the straight path. We
ask Allah
to guide our children and make them steadfast
upon the deen. We ask Allah
to guide our spouses, to guide our parents,
to forgive our parents and have mercy upon
them. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
unite us all in jannatul firdaus. We ask
Allah
to show us the straight path.
Brothers, inshallah, if you can move in and
fill the last rows in the
there's still some gaps in the back. Make
sure you fill both rooms
on the right and the left.
Allahu Akbar.
Allahu
Just wanted to make an announcement and we
have
a brother who wants to take shahada today,
Alhamdulillah, blah. Alhamin.
You
can come up, guys. Faisal.
I'll give him this one, Insha'Allah. Yes.
For tonight before we do the shaydah, tonight
we have
a program for the sisters inshallah at 7
o'clock. Make sure sisters high school,
we have a special duddhist, f and l
night Tonight, we also, for the brothers, we
have a car show, and then a meet
up, at a restaurant afterwards. If you do
have a nice car, and you never came
to the car show, then do come to
the epic car show. Don't rev, don't speed,
don't be loud but, you know, come and
let let everybody check out your ride.
Just a nice way to get up.
This is tonight.
And, now,
with the shahada.
Yeah, it's a great experience. My first time
doing the Friday Jummah. For sure. So What
background do you come from? I'm Indian. So
like I've said before, I grew up in
a Hindu household. So I've always believed in
God, but there was a disconnect where I
was praying to God and I realized that
I wasn't picturizing a God. I wasn't praying
to a certain God. There was only one
God that I'd I'd always pray to. So
when I read the Quran for the first
time, I realized that the Islamic conception of
God made the most sense.
And,
and when I read that Allah doesn't burden
a soul that,
more than what he can endure, it really
resonated with me. And so may Allah keep
me on the straight path inshallah.
I mean,
so inshallah you're gonna
to more than 1 and a half 1000000000
Muslims around the world. Right now, you automatically
have rights over
more than a 1,000,000,000 and a half Muslims
all around the world. You are a Muslim,
you're a brother to all of them, alhamdulillah,
abba'alameen.
I'm sure you feel amazing right now that
you took shahad,
But guess what? There's another surprise.
Allah
promised in the Quran that not only will
he forgive all of the sins and the
shortcomings of the past, but he'll also replace
them with good deeds. So not only do
you start a clean slate as just one
of the 1 and a half 1000000000, you
start with a head start better than all
of them with all of your sins expiated.
How do you feel now, inshallah? I feel
great. You know, I've already said the shahada
by myself because I've read online somewhere that
you don't have to, you know, go, to
a mosque to do it. Of course you
don't. It comes from the heart. So I
already said it when I was praying,
but it's great to do it in front
of all you guys. Thank you so much.
Alhamdulillah. There's only one difference between the shahada
here and the shahada'un.
Here you get flooded with hugs. Right. Right?
So
Yeah. So your new brothers are happy that,
you know, it's like, you ever saw a
video or something like long lost brothers, they
finally meet, and then Yeah. It's gonna be
something like that.
So
brothers, welcome the brother to