Light Upon Light
Mufti Menk – The Effectiveness of Social Media
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the use of social media and the importance of privacy and boundaries in marriage. They emphasize the need for privacy and boundaries and encourage individuals to use social media to express themselves and show their identity. The speakers also emphasize the importance of avoiding makeup and being offended when discussing relationships. They encourage people to focus on positive things and not lose time on social media. They stress the need for people to be aware of their behavior and avoid abusive language.
AI: Summary ©
Islam teaches you to love yourself as Allah made you you look at yourself in the mirror and you say Alhamdulillah I'm good looking mashallah and you are no matter what some of the guys are looking at me like you're the first guy telling me this okay? It's okay you are Mashallah. You are good looking. You must love yourself Allah made you
bla AsSalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah. Allah Allah, he was heavy in my in my brothers and sisters speaking about social media.
Many times when the young and old are told that scholars are going to be speaking about social media, they think that we're probably just going to say everything is everything is haram. Everything is haram. So haram, haram haram guys get off everything, switch of your phones and hand them here. And I'll have a big pile of phones on my right Shala.
No, that's not true, we're not going to say that. And that's actually nowhere near what we should be hearing.
If you have a knife, you need to be warned about how to use it so that you don't cut yourself.
But it's not prohibited to use a knife. But if you're going to be irresponsible with it, you may hurt some unknowingly or unintentionally, do you not agree.
And at times, if you intentionally do something wrong with it, you become a criminal.
Agreed. So the same rule would apply to anything that comes into your hands. If you use it in the right way you will benefit if you use it in the wrong way you will harm and if you are not conscious of what you're doing, because you don't know how to use what's in your hands, you may unintentionally hurt yourself. And others. In a nutshell, that's what social media is about as well.
You need to know how to use what you're using. Last week, someone messaged me and told me, I donated $10,000, I just want to know if you received it. And I said to whom. So the response came to you. And I'm like, Oh, but I Okay, I don't even know who this person is. They haven't even communicated with me. And then when I told them, I don't know what you're going on about. They sent me a load of screenshots. And then I said my brother, if you don't know how to use social media, you shouldn't be on there.
You know what, on YouTube, there is always a bogus guy or two, calling themselves a similar name, but without a tick. And if you were to click on the icon or the image you would find it's just an account with five or 10 followers that was created, designed to try and con you out of something. And they'll give you a little prayer and say me, God Almighty bless you. And there was one that I saw you in my dream and so on. I don't know how people can actually believe that. Do you know that there is something called authentication on YouTube, as well as many other social media platforms, if you don't know how to use it, stay out of it, or learn about it before you dive into it.
It's like emails, you can be hacked very easily by
opening attachments or emails that are from people you don't know it can happen. And then when they hack your system, the other day someone promised a person a visa to some country. And they said, Well, you've got to apply and you've got to do this and do that and send this and send that and guess what happened? Everything was done. And it looks so legit and genuine. And finally, there was one glitch. So this man on the other side says you know what? Try again, but they expire is midnight. So you'd better make sure before midnight you have all these documents in and if you can't, then I'll do it for you. How will I do it for you? Well, there's no other way. You just got
to give me your password. And I will do it from your email. Don't worry, everything's almost sorted. And it's just these documents left. As soon as the password was given. The email was hacked. Everything else happened. The bank accounts were tapped and they started emptying themselves. And what happened it was bogus. It was a fake. So
We have to admit that there is a dark side to it, especially when we don't know how to use things. And that's why we are here to say my brothers, my sisters be responsible. It's one word be responsible in the way you use social media,
which is the platform that is the most popular on Earth at the moment. Which social media app is the most popular? Yes. Say,
not Instagram, Instagram.
Tick tock, who agrees? Tick tock.
Wow, who has a tick tock account? Just put up your hand?
I see. Some people are hiding. They just doing this? Yeah, they put in the hand right down here. Don't be shy. You have a tick tock account. Just put Jan right up.
Mashallah, a few more people are telling the truth. The rest of you are?
Okay.
I want to say something. It is the biggest platform on Earth. I spoke about it yesterday. And it's important for us to speak about it today. People say Get off, get off. What's your advice? I tell you what my advice is.
You don't need to be on those platforms. That's something. But there is a there is this fear of missing out? You know, they call it FOMO. Right? Fear Of Missing Out, I'm missing out. But do you know that if you were on some of these apps, you could spend a lifetime scrolling, and you still would not have scrolled everything there. And those you meet and see and look at 99% of them are filtered and photoshopped. So much so that even Snapchat has some amazing filters. Subhanallah amazing filters. Tick tock has some unbelievable filters. You meet someone they say?
Do you not know me say but from where?
Where do I know you from? Say
social media? Come on. And we friends? Ah, it's you. Okay, I didn't realize that. Wow. Finally, you know, you have to show the person.
You have to show the person the filtered image because you know what you didn't show them the real image. I remember seeing a small clip of people. It was an in Arabic. But some of you might have seen it, where we become so used to the mask that we identify people by their eyes and the way they put on the mask. And then later on, if you were to see them for the first time in their lives, without the mask, you probably wouldn't recognize them. It was a little video clip, where there were these two guys who greeted each other at a restaurant and the one didn't recognize the other day. And he says, Don't you know me? He says no, I don't. He says, How can you not know me? Come on.
Don't do this to me. Don't insult me. He says no, I don't. He says, oh, okay, wait, wait, wait, he put on his mask. He says, Ah, it's you okay? And they have each other and so on. And the third guy came in and the same thing happened. So the same happens to us when we use social media because the pressure on us to look perfect is so much that we become embarrassed of our own selves. Your real identity that Allah gave you, you're too embarrassed to actually acknowledge it and love it and like it.
Islam teaches you to love yourself as Allah made you you look at yourself in the mirror and you say Alhamdulillah I'm good looking Mashallah. And you are no matter what some of the guys are looking at me like you're the first guy telling me this, okay? It's okay. You are Mashallah. You are good looking. You must love yourself. Allah made you. Yeah, you
know, my well.
Being can carry him, Oh man, what has deceived you and driven you away from your Lord who is the most honoring
and loving Allah Kapha Kapha Allah Caffee you saw fee Surah team
Gurmukh Allah is the one who made you He fashioned you he gave you your identity. He actually shaped your face. He gave you your image he gave you who you are, how can you turn away from Allah? The Quran is saying, Oh man, what has deceived you to turn away from your own Lord Who made you he gave you your eyes and your nose, your ears, your lips, your tongue, your cheeks and whatever else you have, Allah gave you this identity, how can you turn away from Allah? That's what Allah is saying.
You've got to love yourself as you are with the blemishes and you know what we have to make it a norm
to be okay with a few blemishes and marks and spots on our faces. So
We can have mercy on the new generation who would feel normal when they are really normal. Because if we were to live a life, that was only a filtered life where we were embarrassed to the degree that we would not even be able to answer the door simply because of what we looking like, in that case, we would be enslaved enslaved by what people say no, but that's a sign of freedom. Do you know, actually, I was on the verge of making a clip video clip
on a very sensitive topic, and I'm going to open a can of worms right here. A very sensitive topic. There have been, in the last few months, several divorces that have taken place, and I have had people come to me
to ask me
about
the divorce, saying, Is it okay to divorce this person? Because now that I've married them, they look nowhere near what I knew them.
As before marriage, and I say, What do you mean? Guess what it was?
Take a guess. Make up. I heard it from the women themselves.
It's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's something it's okay. But do you not agree that there is a limit to it? The question that I wanted to pose and I don't want to answer it.
I don't want to answer it because you need to answer it.
Is it the rights of the man and the woman? Notice I'm adding the woman there? To see each other prior to marriage? Without makeup?
Is it the right?
Can someone say listen, I'd like to meet you but without makeup at all? Is it their right to say that? Would you be offended? Would you would you be ready and prepared to go and see the person whom you want to share the rest of your life with with no makeup? Just yourself?
The men are silent because I see men also put on makeup nowadays. It's a fact. It's a fact. You'll be surprised.
You see a good looking guy and you wonder, next thing.
Where did that come from? Allah forgive us. They say no, it's equality. I'm allowed to do it as well. Okay. No comment, no comment. But the question is, we should not be embarrassed Listen, we are Muslims. Be proud of your face Your looks no problem. You are allowed to touch up here and there. You are allowed to use a little bit of makeup. Nobody's saying it's totally haram. Like I said earlier, you can't say this is totally haram or totally valid. You've got to know where and what but when marriage is being spoken about, there is a right there is a right of the people and you need to know that right?
And that's why I say the question and I want to ask it and I'm going to ask it and I'm going to stir this controversy inshallah online. Is it right for the guy to say, Listen, I'd like to meet you with no makeup. Would you be offended? That's the question. You guys have answered it. But online, perhaps it will be a different answer. Because here, it's in person.
My brother's my sister's
life on social media is generally filtered, almost 95% of it is filtered. So there is an element of deception you don't believe what you see or watch most of the time. It's not as beautiful as it appears to be because it's made beautiful, just for the online world. But in real life.
It is more beautiful, but society looks at it as less beautiful.
Would you rather have an E wife?
Or a real wife?
Would you rather have an E husband or a real husband? I just coined that term now, but what it means or what I'm sure you know what I'm trying to get at. You have someone who you marry for example, virtually never get to see them in real life, but you're married to someone and there they are just on your screen. Metaverse by the way mashallah, you as soon it might be happening. Who knows? You might have to come back and ask the rulings about it.
We never physically going to meet but this is my wife. Where's your wife?
Screen cracked notice.
Mashallah.
I'd rather have someone physically there with their blemishes with their smile and crooked teeth with their few things here and there, slight bent nose, one side of the face is always bigger than the other for 100% of us. Going to
In the mirror, if I'm wrong, give me a slap.
Nobody's absolutely perfect. You know why? Because Allah says we've created perfection for genital dose paradise.
Paradise gains its value due to the imperfections of this earth. That's when paradise and why it gains it's funny. Because if everything was perfect, your face my face, people say wow, so gorgeous. I promise you the same person you are saying so gorgeous, is actually looking at himself or herself in the mirror and finding every fault and making sure that they believe that they're actually have flaws. And there are times they even believe they're ugly. And the world is saying, Wow, did you see flawless, amazing, and the woman's depressed or the guy's like suicidal because of what he thinks my nose is like, a nano inch that way. Subhan Allah who wants to know all of that. This is what social
media is doing to us, my brothers and my sisters. It's making us enslaved in another way.
Take it in your stride. It's okay. Enjoy it within limits. It's fine. No, that is just a laugh most of the time. It's just a laugh.
Don't take it too seriously.
You can have people saying things and doing things that they didn't do in real life. The other day I saw someone you know, you can tell when they do these deep fakes where something is wrong with the teeth or something is happening some way they make someone say something they didn't say, have you seen those videos, the deep fakes they call them. And you find a guy, maybe a leader of a country, or maybe another prominent person, they did it with me as well, where they make you say things so your face, there's something wrong, they make your the teeth are not yours. Because when they computerize the movement of the teeth, and to synchronize it with what they want you to have said,
even though you didn't say it, you can notice that no, there's something wrong here. Deep fake. It's a fake video.
But that's the world. That's what's happening.
Remember, and this is the main point I want to drive here at the beginning of my talk is to say you need to love yourself for who you are your true identity with your blemishes and with your normal human
bodies.
We are human beings. By fingers, they'll there will be a few flaws here. They will be one or two things wrong. What's the big deal? My health? What's the big deal, I will have one or two matters maybe more, maybe less. Depending the way I look. Someone on earth will find you good looking, don't worry. People say you're too big, you too short, you too tall, you too small. Some people are so obsessed. They only love short people. They're not attracted someone tall. And the other side, the other side of the coin is also true where there are others who are only attracted to tall people and not short people. It Kate Allah has made every one of us different. Every one of us different wide,
so that he has catered for everyone.
Some people say too big Well, there are people who would die for a big person. And some people say, Oh, too small, too thin, whatever. We don't need to worry about all of that for as long as you're healthy. You're okay, you know, you're you're fine. You're trying your best to maintain that body of yours and whatever else, you're doing the best if you do have something that you feel you want to deal with, yes, if it's an abnormality, a real abnormality, you're allowed to correct it people say, am I allowed to enhance, for example, a certain part of my body, whatever it might be? The answer to that is
if it is not normal, what you have, if it's not normal, and you want to bring it to the level of what's considered normal, it's permissible on condition that the side effects are not so bad that they would destroy your health in another way. You find what I just said? It's a very interesting answer. Because a lot of people have these questions. Can I do this? Can I do that? Well look, if what you have is normal and it's okay, don't touch it. You won't like what comes out of as a result of something that was normal that you played with. You just tampered with it Allah says in the Quran, don't do that. It's part of the work of the devil, while a moron gnome fala Yan Hulk, Allah
Hi. Shaitan has promised that I'm going to I'm going to instruct humankind so that they change what you made. They're not going to be happy with it. That's the promise of shaitan the Quran says it so I need to be worried and watch out. If the Quran says that one of the plots of the devil is we're not going to be happy with what we look like and what we are to the degree that we are going to want to change it and we're not going to be satisfied with Allah's creation. Even though there's no abnormality for example, then I must become more conscious of it and love myself even more and say no problem myself, my toes
My toes are not exactly equal the toes of this foot and the toes of that foot. There's one that's a little bit this way, that way, it's okay. It happens to all of us.
I have a small little point on one of my ears very slight point, what's the big deal? A lot of us have it. It means we are related.
Yeah, one of your one of the ears has a little point, a small little bump here, right?
Means you come from my part of the world. I see the guys feeling their ears. Come on, come on, guy, relax. But Allah grant us goodness, what I'm trying to say is, we are struggling as an OMA, especially our sisters, I won't lie to you, because people are presenting some perfect sort of image and videos on social media, to the degree that we feel imperfect, we feel useless, we feel unacceptable, we are depressed, we are not good enough, because we cannot match that. And you tell yourself, my nose is a little bit bigger. It's more bulbous than that. You know what, it's a filter, go try it out. It's there.
The nose becomes thin, it becomes bigger, your face becomes slum becomes fact it's up. It's just it's just a flick. It's a flick, check it out.
And we losing sleep over that SubhanAllah. And I want to tell you one other thing as Muslims, if the fake filtered, you makes you more excited than the real view, you need help?
Did you hear what I just said? If the fake filtered you makes you happier and more excited than the real you. It means you need help. Because one day you're going to be depressed, you're going to be embarrassed to step out in front of others in the real you. And it's going to be a little bit.
Not the word embarrassing is wrong, it's going to be so awkward, because you haven't yet loved yourself and allow tells you to love yourself the way he made you. And yes, I must say if there is something abnormal, you're allowed to bring it back to normal, for example, you can't see so well and you want to correct your eyesight with a laser treatment, you may do that. For example, if you don't have a top lip, and you'd like to actually get it done, you may do so for as long as it is it's returned to what's normal. But if you have something normal, and people say no, this normal, it's okay, it's fine. And then you say no, but I'm not too happy with this, I promise you change it
if meaning if you changed it, you would be
less happy
with it that way. You become saddened by what you see, as a result of the tampering. That you just have people say, Can I do it? Can I have a nose job? Is it permissible? Is it okay? Number one, a lot of it is to do with pressure of social media. Number two is nose job. Okay.
Why do you want it? Is there something wrong with your nose? Do you have a problem breathing? Or is it totally bent? That you know you're so conscious of it? If that is the case? Yes, you can correct it. That's the word to correct it. So your nose is like that you can correct it because that's not normal. Okay, you can correct it. But a slight this way, that way, all of us including myself, we have it?
No, brother, your nose is fine. hamdulillah Don't worry, I see you smiling bro.
We're not issuing fatwas to everyone say go get it done. I'm trying to explain to you the ruling. And the reason why we're talking about this. That's the topic social media, the effect the impact what it does to us SubhanAllah. This is a part of it. It messes our minds at times, because when we don't know how to use it, we haven't had the instructions of how to use the knife, and then we throwing the knife all over, it's going to slice us.
So Subhanallah to bring something to normal is fine. But to find fault to look at yourself, this is wrong, that's wrong, I need to do this I need to do that all of that is a waste of time, it gets to a point where it's an obsession. It's an obsession, and we start playing with the creation of Allah and we will never ever be happy with what we have
true liberation in Islam
is when you can just throw on a little cloak and walk out without anyone judging the shape of your body, the color of yours, whatever your skin, the you know, your your your size, whatever else it may be, it's all covered. Liberation. No one judges you at all based on
your shape and size and height and whatever else it may be your race and so because they hardly you know what they have to deal with you based on your intellect based on what you've put forward based on your service based on reality and so on. But not based on your looks. Unfortunately
Today it's become such that people love judging others based on looks. I promise you, I've seen it with these eyes of my simple walk into any mall. And take a look
at what happens nowadays throughout the globe.
You have people giving attention to some who have dressed in order, according to them to feel good about themselves, not realizing is it really the case? Is it really the case? Have you really liberated yourself? Or have you done it? Because you just want to feel good in the sense that people will give you that attention?
Isn't it unfair on those who don't have what you have, or those who might not be able to do what you've done. And then what happens is no attention whatsoever, you have a simple person walking through
into the stores, watch it, do a little experiment, I did it. You just have to walk in lounge around while you're shopping, even if it's your real shopping and just watch, you find attention given to people who are
showing what they have.
So suddenly, because you look a little bit better. Everyone wants to serve you. I remember years back, there were two grannies who had a flat who had a puncture, you know, there, and nobody was stopped and I stopped that vehicle and they said, Oh, wow, thank you so much for stopping and says they said so many vehicles have stopped. But you know what? If we were to young girls in miniskirts, I'm sure even if we didn't have a puncture, they would stop and say, Why don't you have a puncture, you know?
And I just laughed, I said, Wow, that's where the world was heading today is no longer about that. It goes a step beyond. Well, the only reason I say this is because let's understand the term liberation from an Islamic perspective when you are liberated. It's a point where you are.
You love yourself as you are and you don't mind going out that way.
My brothers and sisters, we thank Allah Almighty that has given us beautiful teachings, beautiful teachings in the Quran and the Sunnah. Allah Almighty asks us not only to dress appropriately, but Allah Almighty asks us to be polite, to be respectful, and to do that which will benefit us in this world and in the hereafter.
You know, when? When you ask a young man, listen, if you were
to meet the Prophet, peace be upon him.
And he were to ask you,
what prayer would you like me to make for you? What would you say?
Did you hear the question? I want everyone to think of an answer. If you met the Prophet peace be upon him. And he looked at you and he said, My child, what prayer would you like me to make for you?
What would you say?
Can I have a volunteer to what would you say? Mashallah, mashallah, how old? Are you? 10 you said, How old are you? 10 Mashallah. Mashallah, another answer?
Yes
mashallah, at the back? Yes, yes, you you young boy.
Mashallah, you see, I always knew there was something special about Bradford.
I always knew. One young man says I would say I want to memorize the Quran. Allah. Wow. Beautiful. May Allah bless your parents. And this young man says I would ask him for Jenna. I want Jenna. Amazing.
Anyone else?
My brother, you're not a child, man. You're an adult's. Yes. Yes.
I can't hear you.
For you and your family.
That's good. These are beautiful answers because we're asking him things that would help us in the hereafter. Yes
give money to charity to human appeal right? Mashallah. Yeah, they wouldn't need to come and beg anymore hamdulillah May Allah grant us goodness Yeah. See, everyone's laughing there Mashallah. It's good. These are It's okay. These are really good answers. The reason I say this is because some people might ask for something that's temporary in this world. I don't mind the struggles with whatever I little that I do have on earth for as long as you get paradise. Do you know earlier today I was speaking to someone about success. And we were asking what is true success? What do you think true successes. If anyone says well, when you have money, you have a job you have good looks. You
have a good
Powles, you have good children, you have good this all that is temporary success for this world. true success as a Muslim is what this young 10 year old boy said, Jana, that's it. If you have achieved paradise, that's true success. It doesn't mean we should not want the temporary successes as well, but not at the expense of the permanent one. You understand what I mean? I want a goodness, I'd like a good salary. I'd like a good home, I'd like a good car, I'd like lovely things I'd like beautiful, whatever else it may be, you'd like to look good, you'd like to have nice clothes. There's nothing wrong with that uncondition that it does not compromise your permanent goal, which
is truly the real success. Jana.
Now how we're using social media today, would either lead us this way or that way. Ask yourself
how am I using social media? Do you know? When you do good, Allah Almighty, will show you that good. And when you do bad, Allah Almighty will show you that bad. And on the Day of Judgment. Allah Almighty puts the deeds on a scale.
The good on one side and the bad on the other. When you have more good than bad, where do you go?
to Ghana.
When you have more bad than good, it's up to Allah what He wants to do. But he's warned you he says Listen, don't say I didn't warn you. If you've done more bad than good, you're gonna pay a price. Okay? You pay a price.
Imagine the Mercy of Allah is such that he knows all of us will have some bad deeds, who from amongst us has never committed a bad deed? Even my hands are down look.
Right? But the Mercy of Allah, Allah says, Never mind, you might have done something bad, but you sought forgiveness. You did good, and you're good outweighed the bad, I'm going to ignore this bad. Do you know that if you have more good deeds than bad deeds, Allah ignores the bad deeds completely gone? go to Paradise, you did? Well,
when you get 51%, in an examination, they ignore the fact that you had 49% of the questions wrong, they just say pass, do you not agree? Pass. And if you get 2% less than that, they ignore the fact that you answered 49% correctly, you still fail.
So Allah operates in a similar way, where Allah says, You know what, we will ignore this and you you are passed. You go to Ghana.
So when you use social media, ask yourself, Am I doing good or bad? If you've done a few things that are bad, you must make sure
you've done double, triple, quadruple 10 times more good.
I'm not condoning the bad pattern, I'm encouraging you to do good.
I'm not telling you do bad. I'm saying if you have done bad,
increase the good.
People ask,
How can I
forget? You know, a few days ago, I made a video and I said, I forget the bad things that happened to me in life. And I chosen not to remember them, so I can't remember them. Some of you might have seen that video. It's a short two, three minute video. So people asked, How do you forget the bad? We also want to forget the bed? Good question, right?
There's a simple way, concentrate so much on positive things and on the good things, and keep yourself occupied with those good things such that automatically the bad is forgotten.
But when you've got nothing to do, you're bored. You're sitting, you start blaming your failure on this one, and that one, and the other one and this person here and that person there and what happens, you keep remembering these things, it keeps coming back, because you're not occupying yourself with good things or with positivity or with anything constructive.
So we need to realize that with us as well. When we've done something bad, increase the good and concentrate on it, Allah will help you wipe out all this bad and inshallah you will still earn a lot of goodness. The reason I say this is when you scroll through social media, a lot of what you see on there, to say the least is a waste of time. And your time on Earth is limited. You're running a marathon, you don't have the time to stop because you're going to lose the race.
You need to keep going.
You can't waste time. A lot of it is a waste of time to say the least bought but some of it is really bad stuff. Sometimes we don't realize we being sliced like I said about the knife at the beginning when you don't
Know, you will end up, unintentionally hurting yourself and others. So what happens? We hear the song.
We hear these lyrics.
We don't want to go into an argument of haram halaal regarding music because to be honest, 95% of the people on social media, they don't even care.
May Allah strengthen us. So we have to start at the point where we talk about lyrics to begin with the words. Let's talk about the words to begin with.
Is that a good enough beginning point?
Come on, guys, don't make me feel like I'm talking. I'm saying things that are irrelevant here.
Let's talk about the words when you want to post,
a mimic or a repeat whatever they call it a repost of a song. Please, if you're a believer, the minimum you've got to do is check the words. Check the words, are you prepared to watch what you just made in front of Allah on the day of judgment as a deciding factor of whether you're going to go to the left or the right.
I'm not dooming you. I'm just telling you a fact.
Allah says
that on the Day of Judgment, he's going to give you your deeds. He's going to say, listen,
read your book, check your own book, and bear witness for yourself or against yourself. Do it yourself. So Allah is going to show you what's your book, you get your mobile phone, for example, whatever it's going to be in a way that I don't know. But I'm just giving an example. Take this phone, you open it, watch it, check it, see it in front of us. Look at your own book.
And now you decide what you've done here. And you decide where you deserve to go.
Ikara kita back, read your own book. Kapha BNF SIECLE. Yeah, Yong. Malaika Has Eva, you are sufficient as a witness against yourself on this day. Do it yourself.
Allah says that. So when someone tells you, you're going to be made to watch your own videos, be there on tick tock or social media or wherever they are, what you did, you're going to be made to watch it. And you're going to be asked to decide which way it heads, ha, they're not judging you. They're only telling you a fact, based on the Quranic verse, You follow what I'm saying? So all you've got to do is nobody's dooming you. You're, you're going to be facing a lord who's loving, kind, caring, merciful, forgiving, beneficent, etc. Oh, he's going to be mean, he is the best of all.
So at least give him a bit of an excuse to say, okay, you know what?
Through your mercy, we enter Jannah Oh, Allah. Oh, Allah, I tried. You know what, I did a lot of haram stuff. But then I stopped it at a point and I said, Oh, Allah forgive me, and I started doing good stuff. But unfortunately, I didn't know I would die at 32. But I thought I was going to live until about 70. So I said, maybe at 65 I'll just stopped the Haram stuff. But I'm so sorry.
It sounds a little bit hard, doesn't it? Allah He with this virus around you never know when you're going to go back to Allah, do something good for him, prepare a little bit for Allah do something little bit of Quran every day, a little bit of it, no matter how sinful you are, no matter how you dress, no matter what it is, work on your weaknesses. One by one, one by one, I found something the most beneficial is the five daily prayers, if you stick to them, and you become strong on them, and you don't give them up at all. Allah strengthens you with everything else, one by one by one by one SubhanAllah. So going back to these videos, you know what?
So you listen to the lyrics if they're dirty, or vulgar, or they have bad words, or they refer to your private parts in any way. Drop it, you don't need it. I don't want to watch this video on the Day of Judgment in front of Allah. In fact, I want Allah Almighty to say, we saw what you did you attempted to do this, but you didn't because you were concerned about this day, when you're going to meet us, Allahu Akbar, what a great success. You follow what I just said?
Because there's one major problem we have where Muslims, don't we learn from the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him that whoever sets a good example gets a full reward for anyone who benefited from it, who learned from it? Who followed it right up to the day of Yama. Have you heard that hadith? And the same Hadith continues to say, Whoever sets a bad example gets the sin of it and the sin of everyone who followed it, who, who, who achieved it, or should I say who was destroyed because of it? Who sinned because of that example, and so on. Why would I put up a silly, dirty *
post? That was vulgar just because
I needed it to be quickly viral so that the rest of the world can laugh at it or whatever else they may have done. Without realizing I'm a believer, I didn't need to do that.
The need the urge, the feeling to become famous overnight has made people do the silliest of things. You know why? Because these silly things are more popular than things that are upright. That's common.
stupidest things are very, very popular.
I'm talking about generally,
if you really want something to go viral, all you need to do is just something
totally haram, it will probably go viral in five minutes.
But if you put something good, it will be not as common it may go viral, but perhaps not as common.
So my brothers and sisters, I am concerned.
I'm concerned.
I pray that Allah except that the fact that you're just concerned, you need to be concerned to just the concern is good enough as a starting point, to say Inshallah, I'm going to do a little bit better on this. I'm going to try what this guy is saying is actually right. He's actually right to say, You know what, I am going to use social media. If you have no control, try and cut it out. Okay.
Yesterday, I said something, and one of the brothers sent me an email, he told me, for me, the most powerful take home yesterday was
the following.
You know what I said?
I said, when we're scrolling
you know, it's created in a way to keep you there, you know, that
it's made in such a way that
brains have come together in order to make sure that this app that we have, you stay on it. So you flick, and then you flick, and then you flick, and it goes on and on and on. And what happens. I said and I repeated,
Salah time comes, what are you doing?
You're still scrolling, Salah time is gone. What are you doing?
The next Salah time comes
you're still scrolling.
The next Salah time is over and you're still scrolling.
You need to go to the loo what happens?
You go right. You go to the loo
under normal circumstances you what do you do?
Take the phone with you to the loo
a few years ago it was the other way around normal circumstances put the phone away and then go to the loo Now normally, you're watching it and you walk into the loo you go into the loo you don't even know what's happening. Next thing your pants are down you're ready to sit on this on the on the toilet seat and you're down and you're still on your phone and you're still scrolling. Next thing you've paid and you don't even realize and you're still scrolling. It's the reality. Am I right? Look at all these boys. I told you I knew you were guilty.
Allah grant His goodness
no, no, but it is a reality. Okay, let's look at it the other way. Right? Say for example, the norm. You flick, Salah went second Salah went you wanted to use the loo you put your phone down. You went to the do you came back and you got your phone again. Do you know what you've just done?
For Allah you couldn't stop but for P you stopped love Akbar. Did you hear what I just said? For the loo? You stopped the call of nature. You decided to answer it, but the call to success? No way. I didn't even hear it. I didn't even notice it came I didn't notice it went and you're a Muslim? Come on. Shouldn't we talk about it a little bit? Shouldn't it tickle you a little bit inside your conscience slightly to say hey, this is right man.
I need to become a little bit more. What are they saying? I am saying today that come time for Salah. If you're scrolling, at least put it down, read your Salah and come back on it. Why not? I hope you're not doing haram stuff anyway. But whatever it is, we're talking about the pause in order to pray and to come back. That is a sign that you still have some goodness within you by the will of Allah. So that was the point I raised and this young man is telling me it's the most powerful thing you said that we can pause for the call of nature but we cannot pause for the call to success.
Look at where social media is located where we are. Look at how we are in Tangled.
So let's be a little bit more responsible insha Allah the way we use social media, by the will of Allah subhanho wa Taala
So,
Allah Almighty has blessed us because He wants us to do a little bit of good.
In the same way that it's easy to spread bad on earth through social media. When I say bad i mean vulgar words may be abusive things may be, you know, * words when I say * words, sometimes it's not an image, but it's just the words are so filthy man. You know, people say but
why is Islam so hard? It's not it's it's actually Christianity, Judaism, Islam and all major religions that will tell you you know what, this type of word or these type of words are wrong, you should avoid them, you should abstain from them. So like I said, if you if you hear the words before you repost or before you mimic and before you actually act in it, listen to it, if it's bad, cut it you Allah, he will achieve success. To stop something that you attempted to do for the pleasure of Allah is a great act of worship.
Very big act of worship, Allah will be pleased with you. Because of the baraka the blessings of your abstention will be felt in your life in other ways.
It will be felt when you do good the good comes back to you when you do bad the bad comes back to you. That's how Allah has created us.
So if I stopped myself from doing bad it's going to come back to me in a nice way Charla
and then what do you do increase the good.
So I want you guys to go back to your social media profiles. Whenever you have a chance tonight, tomorrow, whatever it may be, whatever app you have, whatever social media you're on, whether it's tick tock or Instagram or Snapchat or whatever else it might be. Take a look at your use of it. How do you use it? What do you do? What are your posts? Fair enough? Write your posts. When you look at your post, tell yourself what category does this fall into.
If there is only bad
all I'm telling you to do, and I don't want to be too hard on anyone because we're living in the real world. When you're hard on people, they run away.
All you've got to do is when you notice there's a lot of bad happening, meaning there's a lot of posts that are not going to help me on the day of judgment. For example, we are believers. Start doing good ones. Small reminder, one small reminder, a short five second clip, a reminder of something that you think is pleasing to Allah.
Is it difficult?
Is it difficult if it's a prayer, if it's some encouragement to do something, to give a little charity, encouragement to attend a talk such as this one encouragement maybe to to improve one millimeter in your dress code male and female encouragement perhaps to read a word of the Quran. You know what, that could be your ticket to General.
People will watch it, they will see there'll be affected by it. It goes in your record. And mashallah, at least on the Day of Judgment, when you're when you're when you're just about to be given all your stuff to watch, you're going to be thinking, Hey, I've got those two, three posts that I forget, let's look for them. I'm sure Allah will be so happy to see those. Do you agree with what I'm trying to say? They're close. So to those few. And when you start that, and you see the result of it, you will notice I wasted my time with 510 posts. And I've got one two good ones 510 wasted time. One, two good ones 510 Wasted time, three, four, good ones, and so on until you improve
yourself in a big way. What I'm talking about is not even the ideal, I'm talking about reality realistic. The ideal would be don't use it at all for bad use it only for good. The ideal would be use it only to encourage people to get closer to Allah in one way or another. But none of us live. In the ideal world, this whole world is not ideal.
Realistically speaking we do have a problem.
And that's why we're here talking about May Allah subhanho wa Taala strengthen us. May Allah Almighty bless all of us. You know, there is silence here. Everyone's listening. I've already spoken for 50 whole minutes, and everyone's sitting and watching and listening. I just hope you don't think that I've come here and bombarded everyone because I have it
all all I aimed to do and all I think I did is just to make myself and yourselves think think about what how we're using social media and inshallah we should improve. So do we all make an intention to improve inshallah?
Come on, come on yesterday I did. I had to say the same thing in sha Allah doesn't mean yes, please don't fool anyone in sha Allah could mean no. Do you know that? It's either a yes or no? Do we make an intention?
mashallah, Mashallah. Mashallah, Mashallah. So we will improve by the will of Allah subhanho wa taala. May He grant all of us, Jenna, may Allah look at the smallest good deed and grant us, Jenna, and may He overlook all our bad deeds and still grant us Jana Amin, amin
SubhanAllah. I'm so happy to have met you guys and I'm so happy to have been here. Beautiful, majestic venue May Allah bless the people who made this happen, the owners, and the others, the brothers and sisters, those who were involved in whatever way those who made it happen and all of you who are patient enough to attend to participate, who made this event a success. And I'm pretty sure that Allah Almighty is prepared for all of us good, a good place and a good abode. The only thing is we need to be responsible, and we need to behave ourselves or we need to behave in a way that we believe this would be pleasing to Allah wherever we faulted. seek forgiveness and don't ever
doubt the forgiveness of Allah. Allah Almighty will forgive you no matter what Islam is based on mercy. No matter what you've done, no matter what weaknesses you have, Allah Almighty is prepared to forgive you for as long as you seek that forgiveness. May Allah forgive us all. Akula Kali hada SallAllahu wasallam albaraka ala Nabina, Muhammad
Allah