Cape Koesieste Culture

Muhammad West

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Channel: Muhammad West

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languishes on the road. James Miller man Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala shopping with Cindy and Sadie now Muhammad Ali he was happy Jemaine my beloved brothers sedap Malik Kumar live as

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always we will begin with the praise of Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah will testify that none has the right to be worshipped besides Allah you send our love greetings salutations. So beloved Nabi Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam despise his poor family, his companions and all those who follow his sunnah until the end of time. May Allah bless us to be amongst them. I mean, I mean, what hamdulillah Al Hamdulillah we continue, we'll continue with our series on the first Khalifa and the campaign's of hardened Walid Inshallah, next week with the lab, as you know, tomorrow, great calamity public holiday falls on a Saturday. Unfortunately, for all of us, one of

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the greatest merci was, except for those who work on a Saturday, as Pamela. It is, of course, Heritage Day. And it's important for us to talk about heritage and culture and customs and traditions, these are very, very important. And the title is what have clicked by cassette tape, because it's the culture. I know, this Kitco system mentality. We're not talking about that. But what we talk about is the cape, not Malay, but Cape Muslim culture, because this is a very unique community, in this part of the world that you will not find anywhere else on Earth. It's a very unique kind of a community, one of the oldest Muslim minorities in the world, many Muslim minorities

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are very new people moving to America and England 5060 years ago, trying to find themselves and we are very distant from the centers of the Muslim world. If you look further north, Namibia, Botswana, Islam is really only beginning. So it's very strange to find a Muslim community 350 years, yet the end of the world that has been here for a very, very long time, and a very unique and diverse history. We don't come from one community only, not only from Malaysia, Indonesia, but they are people from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, all came together to form a brand new kind of community. And so it's important to talk about this and is it important, so Islam, you're in the cape, and this

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is not to isolate anyone? If you are new to Cape Town, or what have you, part of this biryani Alhamdulillah. The Cape Islamic community is a rich culture and rich in tradition, and has played a major role in shaping the city. In reality, the culture of Cape Town has in many, many ways been influenced by our presence here. And our history, as you know, many of us we know the history and I won't go too much into detail. It's it was a history that is built on a lot of sorrow, a lot of hardship, a lot of oppression, a lot of difficulty, but Alhamdulillah time and time again, by the Grace of Allah, this community has survived and thrived and move forward. And many of time those

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oppresses those people who challenge this community, they have disappeared. Al Hamdulillah we remain by the Grace of Allah, we know that the one

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we could say benefit of colonialism is a terrible, terrible thing or evil a system one and Allah shows his power, that in the colonialism, they were able to exploit Islam, two parts of the world that you would not have thought would come because the same people who colonized our forefathers in in India and Indonesia colonized this land. And so of course we know by that they brought slaves and this land was really a place of punishment and sorrow you find in tourists letters, he calls this

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the cursed land or something like that, in terms of how difficult it was for those people to be taken from their homes and brought here but they made a point of starting something new. They did not think about going home. They did not think about giving up they wanted to start something new. And you can imagine this community slaves. This community had people who are exiles people who were prisoners, people who are the local Khoisan and you have Subhan Allah amongst them are royalty who are taken from the of course the our many of the so called Olia Rahim Allah, Allah. They were royalty mujahadeen Allah who felt taken from the lands and the prestige and growth here with

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basically nothing. Even the Quran to one guru couldn't bring the Quran with him. And so many of the leadership of the of the Muslims here had a great illustrious history in the past they came here with nothing, Chef Usul from Macassar to guru, and we talked about to one guru, Rahim Allah because really, he's someone that inspires me and inspires all of us a man who fought he dedicated his life in learning Islam, memorizing the Quran being a scholar being a judge Icardi traveling the Arab world's learning Islam, then finding his land being invaded by an outsider and fighting jihad against them, doing everything for the sake of Allah and then losing and losing everything. His

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family, his position his home, and coming to this land in the 60s, late 60s and not go to Cape Town we know he was imprisoned in Robben Island for 13 years we take great pride, along with hundreds of years before Nelson Mandela and the ANC went to Robben Island. The first blood in the first fight against oppression was the blood of the Mujahideen in this land, the first fight against injustice, where the Muslims have stood up for against all kinds of injustice not based on color, or race, but on truth and bottom. And so for 30

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yours Ramallah twang guru was in prison. Look at how we use this time authored books, man, at 67. You have a life sentence you don't think you're ever going to leave this present? But what am I going to do sit and cry. Some of us might even say hello so just make that you then I die. But he said, Look, I might go to the city one day I might get free, go to the city. There are people there that are Muslim, but they have not been in touch with orlimar. They don't even have a Quran. They don't even know how to read and write. I'm going to start with Alif pata. This is a judge a professor, bring himself down to the people of his time, wrote the Quran by hand Subhanallah of the

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13 years is fried starts from scratch. And it must have been his sincerity Allah knows best and the sincerity of we know the lady Sachi for kneecap lady who was born to two slaves, her parents were slaves, worked hard to get free, worked hard. Her father was the first man as a slave to own a house. I mean, owning a house now is a challenge. Imagine if you were a slave. And you had to work so hard to get your freedom. And then you could buy a house. And he gave that house to his daughter, you are free girl, you, you, you I mean for her to own a property. She was like Sinaloa. And then she donated that as the magic. Who of us will give her house as the first Masjid in South Africa.

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When Google comes out, we making Joomla in the quarry, because we couldn't have a masjid eventually. Hamdulillah we were allowed to have a machine. But now we don't have land. The only person who has a house, she don't makes that make this the Masjid. So is that sincerity, that Allah subhanho wa Taala loves and stays for generations. So we could say the one guru was part of the big things fighting jihad, armies and politics and governments. And that, obviously, that you would as Allah, but the seed that really survived, was in teaching Alberta, starting from scratch in a little house around the corner. That is what put all of us in the skills of goodness. Listen for us. Sometimes we think

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of the big, big things, and we forget about the little things that happen around us. And that is the things that really Allah subhanho wa Taala wants us to focus on. So very rich, and beautiful history. And as we said, what that generations upon generations, new people came, new problems emerged, new difficulties came and this culture, this culture has survived until now. And so we ask this question and you find this conflict, should we even preserve this?

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Should we even preserve this culture? Should we even maintain it? We have Islam? Should we even preserve it? Islam? And there's this discussion between Islam and culture, culture and Islam, you find cultural practices. Last week I spoke about grumpies and someone asked me what is the Trump is way in the Quran, you find that MPs, okay, so we need to talk a little bit about culture and Islam. It's important to note that Islam is the rules and the laws of the law of Allah. And Islam are the principles and the models that we abide by. We our culture, clashes with Islam, within our culture, we you find in many cultures, certain practices that are anti Islamic, certain cultures, the man,

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the girl pays the dowry to the men, certain subcontinent cultures. If you're a Muslim, this is haram. It's not for us. So wherever your culture clashes, Islam, you throw it away. But Islam also allows for culture. Islam is not a predatory kind of culture. The Sahaba did not come from Makkah conquered the world, and made everybody Quraysh and made everyone and really sometimes we confuse Saudi culture, Saudi Arabian culture with Islam, that we still have never dressed like that.

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Islam did not force itself in areas which were not haram, it maintained, if that's the cuisine of your people, if that's the way you'd like to dress, if that's the colors you want, as long as you keep it, you keep your language. In fact,

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there'll be some Solomon said, the Jews may know that these flexibility in our religion, really, I've been sent with a truthful lineage religion. This was when the Abyssinians came to the northeast was masjid and they were doing kind of an exhibit, showing off the culture doing a kind of a show. And the Sahaba said, Dr. Lau, can we allow this leave it we is flexibility in our religion, these times for enjoyment, and it's a place for our culture. And one of the beautiful symbols of how Allah allowed leniency in the culture is he revealed the Quran not only in the dialect of the Quran, the Quran was always in Arabic. But there were other tribes who spoke a different style of Arabic like

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you have Ozzie Australian English, British, the Queen's English or the King's English now, right, the South African,

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manual, so whatever you want different types of the same language. Allah allowed the Quran Allah revealed the Quran in those dialects, but of course the Qureshi the the Arabic of the Prophet Salam that was the highest and is the the best, and that when the visa Salam conquered Saudi Arabian Peninsula, he kept some of the GI Helia practices which were in conformity with Islam, many things of Janelia which was good, throw it away. And so we have Islam we don't need your system. He kept

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those things which were, which were good. And the Sahaba, as we said, when they conquered Egypt, for example, they didn't destroy the permits. They didn't destroy all the heritage of all these lands, even though it was under the control for under Islam for 1400 years, these artifacts remain. And Islam allowed culture to maintain, so long as he does not go against go against the tradition. And so we might ask the question,

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tomorrow, his heritage, the

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heritage is not about just the sisters you eat, and the dress situate and the widower, and all of that. Those are outward symbols of your culture. Heritage is what our forefathers has given us, the good and the bad. And we might sometimes have this view, do we even need this heritage? Should we give it over to our generation our kids and say, Yes, we are Muslim, but we also have a presence in this land. And we learn certain things, what good is our culture? Some might even say in the line of Quran and Sunnah. What good is the and one of the benefits of this culture is that it was modeled. And if you really study this culture, it was modeled on the basis of Islam. I want you to think

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about this very clearly. You will not find tomorrow I'm doing a heritage day, talk to non Muslims. I cannot talk about Cape Malay heritage without talking about Islam, you cannot find a person says I want to be a Cape Malay, I want to do all the practice of Cape Malay, but I want to be a Muslim. That doesn't work. Because every almost everything that is in our culture was somehow modelled on Islam, our our, our customs, our habits, Booker,

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LeBron, you know, all these, how we do our analysis. This was because it was a community that tried to give Islam over Oda Ma, and you can think of the beauty in it, Rhoda Ma, who wanted to give Islam over to a people who were not academically, you know, the ones sitting in dark rooms, how do you teach people to practice the Islam, you can teach them to read a book, or you can live show them how you live your life. This is how you eat around the table. This is how you invite people to your house, when someone gets sick. This is what you butcher, when someone dies, this is the ceremonies you do. And so they developed a model that highly qualified Alama to a very, very illiterate

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community, sincere community gave Islam over in a cultural form, in a practice form, sometimes Alhamdulillah they will mistakes. And we can see that now we have maybe the foresight to see where things didn't go according to Islam as it should have. And those things we can talk about. But the purpose of this, the culture survived. And with that Islam carry through. Now I want us to think about our kids, they're going to be part of a globalized world, where they're going to see European culture, they're going to see Western culture, they're going to see, you know, their friends in China or in Japan, they're playing anime and all these different cultures and, and groups and

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associations. You want to be part of your Manchester Club, where you all black steam, or your as I said, your your enemy clique, whatever it might be, who are you part of what is your identity? When they go out in the world, they must be clear who they are, that they are Muslim, yes. And they have their own identity, their own culture. But underneath all your different things that you wait, there is a default culture of what makes you who you are. And so, culture and our heritage is a means by which we preserve our deen. In a world where it becomes multicultural. Everyone is sort of together. And it gives us a sense of identity and is now one of the beautiful things of this religion. And

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this culture was it took people that were very broken slaves,

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if you will, 300 years ago, you were told that because of the color of his skin, you were inferior, you will mistake that there is a hierarchy in the sight of Allah that God favors a certain the more pale your complexion is, the closer you are to God. In fact, there are pictures of him, many of the women of Issa, that's what God looks like. Right? And the darker you are, the less like God you are. And you have people from all different parts of the world, different languages. And yet this could be said, we're going to start a new command. We're not Bengalis anymore. We're not Indonesian anymore. We're not Malay anymore. We are in Cape Town we Capetonians now, we are Muslim Capetonians

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are we going to start a new identity that will make us different to the rest of the people? Yeah. And it will give us in cerveza that this will give us strength, this will be something we identify with. And when I say that goofier it means something in the past it means something even if it means something today, in the past, the guy always had an equal feel he doesn't realize the guy who is an equal fear we can trust him.

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The Imam dressed in a certain way. You know, you have respect for such a person. non Muslims have the respect for such a person, a lady dressed in a hijab. Okay very strict. And Allah says this in the Quran. Yeah, you wouldn't be Allah says this in the Quran. Oh Nabi saw Salam said

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Your wives webinar Tika and your daughters when he says, in all the ladies of the Muslims, that they should cover themselves who are the Jollibee, Danika, Aetna and you're off now why Why should our ladies wear hijab? Why should they dress like a Muslim so that they may be in the, you know, not be seen no. So that they may recognize also they may stand out that you're a Muslim, that you stand for something different. And subhanAllah when you are in your offices, when I'm in my office with all different kinds of religions and cultures, we stand out for good things that this is what my culture teaches me, my religion teaches me and I weigh those symbols proudly. And so it is perhaps for this

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reason, and Allah knows best that Islam survived in the VVD hostile environment, we cannot deny that this very simplistic form of giving Islam overthrew traditions and customs and culture is a way in which it outlasted the Dutch colonial powers. It outlasted the British Empire in our loss to the perfect

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Islam piggybacked on this culture. And kept it, you know, kept our people a sense of identity of who we are. I say this always, people know, if it's 12 o'clock, one o'clock on a Friday, we don't schedule a meeting because they go into the mosque. It is just no now in this part of the world. People know if it's a work function, there are Muslims, they it must be catered for halal. We don't ask. It's known. Most parts of the world Muslim minorities don't have this. You need to choose a veg option, or whatever it is, but you're not going to that is the world is you know, getting the but this culture, this community of certain its identity, this is who we are, what are we about

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Alhamdulillah in gave that gave us that Riza that honor.

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And as we sit in the role in the 21st century in the world going forward, and we need to talk to you about our kids who they are what is the young men and women they're going to be they should be proud of the of the heritage. We are built on the backs of people like to build on the backs of people who struggled and suffered and fought through the challenges we also learn that every community had its challenges every time had the problems, our problems, crime, load shootings. panela make it easy. Back in the time of one guru and electricity Subhanallah right candlelight learning the deen over candlelight Alhamdulillah but they fought the problems. They didn't pick up and leave Subhanallah

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maybe they couldn't leave but they didn't Subhanallah just give up and throw in the towel. I think of our forefathers. Like in District Six for example. You You know your whole life is dedicated to that masjid, you to preserve the masjid to protect the masjid, you get taken up and thrown in a pot which part of Cape Town that you never live. You can either become angry and defeatist. Or you can say we're going to start a new managing a new community. And so we every time every place our forefathers were thrown, they saw that imagine

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look at its panela wherever they went, they started a new magic today. It's so difficult to start. I mean new months, it's with all our resources and all our knowledge and all our opportunities. So difficult to find new magic starting but those people with very little materials, very little knowledge, little freedom. Wherever they went, that community got together the boots and said okay, we are here now, we're finding ourselves in the islands. Okay, we never thought we'd end up yo Mitchell's plane. Let's start the managing. Firstly, we will do the magic, then our kids need to learn to start with the SATA madressa we need an imam to teach our kids we're gonna appoint an imam.

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That is priority for us. And that is how the deen survived and Allah gave him the dunya as well. Allah preserve the dunya as well. And this is for us to remember Subhan Allah in the face of challenges we don't throw in the towel and give in we continue the fight and we do the basics Allah once. So in a global village, our this is who we are, it is our brand, we are part of something bigger. We are part not just of Islam, and the history we take Alhamdulillah the history of Harlan Waleed and the Sahaba and the history of the of Salahuddin it's all part of how we see. But we're also proud of our contribution in this land. You know, we're not a spectator style history, this

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golden age of Islam, we also have our own chapter to write. And it is also Subhanallah, a buffer against predatory and negative ideologies. sad reality. Many young people, if I look at our young people, if they went through their life, and they maintain the Islam and they married a Muslim girl or a Muslim boy, and they continue to practice Islam, many a time it wasn't because of a conscious choice. They just found themselves in a Muslim group of friends and they bumped into a Muslim partner, the minute they're outside of the comfort zone, and they're part of a group that challenges the identity or they meet someone they fall in love with someone who isn't a Muslim. That's where

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you find the becomes problems. Now really, how strong is that Islam? The power of association is very, very important. It preserves it preserves who you are. And so on top of that, and beyond that, we say, we also offer salute

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Since the problems in the world, the crime, the corruption, we say we have a solution for this. And we love that solution. I was just told in the at work. Youth, one of the reasons why Alhamdulillah that many Muslims find themselves successful at work is because we have a system of time and a system of dedication, if that's the case, that our Dean teaches you discipline, it teaches you to be to work on time, and that if someone pays you a salary, it's a hack. I need to make sure I deliver. That is what our DNL yes, they say it's culture. We said, This is what Rasulullah taught us. Everything in our culture that is good is from Rasulullah Salallahu Salam. And so through us loving

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walleye when you love your deen, you might feel odd and awkward. But when you love your Islam, people will admire you. People will respect you. People will hunger for that what you have, like when you first we hungry but the hunger to have what we have of of enjoyment in our deen it might feel a bit odd I'm the only one picking up and going making Salah you know, saying Guys, I need to leave the meeting I need to perform pray. But people will admire you for that. And so we want and this is for for those of us when we become old and shalom Allah grants a long life. We don't want what our forefathers fought, bled and died for to disappear. We don't want Islam to disappear in

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this land. And we don't want of course, our culture and the heritage that we have in this thing. We don't want that this community dissolves away, like many, many Muslim communities throughout the world disappeared. And so it is our time to write the next chapter and give our kids something else. And how do we do that? As I said, it begins our culture is based on insha Allah based on being a Muslim,

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our culture is meaningless if it's disconnected from Islam. And as Allah says, In the Quran, I mean in the light at Qualcomm in Allah Allah, Allah Mojave and when it talks about heritage and culture, who is the best of all cultures, is the Qureshi culture the best is the mainland culture. The best is the Cape Malay, the Indian culture, the cockney culture, the base, Allah says, when he talks about culture, those who are closest to Allah is the best. Doesn't matter what you eat, what colors you weigh, so long as it is connected to Allah, that is the base, and we remind ourselves, Islam, your first identity in nominal Muslimeen I'm first a Muslim, a Muslim is one who submits to Allah

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and obeys the rules of Allah. And in that I'll talk about in tomorrow Inshallah, if you have any non if you have any non Muslim friends who are interested about Islam, or culture, we will assist or whatever, tell them to come to the masjid tomorrow. In live in o'clock tomorrow morning, we'll talk to them about our heritage. But as I said, we cannot talk about our heritage. We don't talk about Islam, our religion, what does Islam mean? It means to submit and to surrender. And when you surrender to the higher power, you will find peace and tranquility in salaam comes in assalamualaikum then you will find peace in that, that Allah subhanaw taala in Medina and Allah

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Islam, the only way of life that Allah is going to accept is the way of life in which you submit to Allah. When we do that, in our business, in our family, you would find everything goes right. The second part, which is very important, after we teach Islam to our kids, it's important to teach them about the identity. When you learn about hardening Malik, for example, and what we've done, we learn about the crusades, we learn about Spain under Lucia, it gives us a sense that we're not just a what they show us on TV, if you took your identity what a Muslim is on TV, you owe it to us, your backwards you live in a cave, that that's what your your deen is that you don't have a legacy. But

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when you study our, our rich heritage and legacy, it will change your perception of yourself and your religion. And so know who you are, know the contributions that were made in this land and throughout the world. Many of the great scientists for hundreds and hundreds of years were Muslims. There's a time span a lot. When we talk about the golden age of Islam. They said that if they were Nobel Prizes, from the seventh century, until the 15th century, every single field would have been won by a Muslim for 700 years, in every field of science, their greatest contributions by people who sit La ilaha illAllah. Today, we wait for the West to solve our problems to give killstar disease

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what are they going to do? When are they going to give we wait for solutions? We don't make solutions. And as I said, so important to know, your heritage, who you are and your identity. Number three, Association. We know this very famous Hadith Whoever imitates a people is one of them. And the reason salaam Manta Shabaab becoming forming whatever ways the clothes of a certain people, he dresses like them, he wants to copy them. He wants to emulate them, then you are from them. So we are not copycats. We don't copy people we only copy Rasulillah Salam and we have our own identity. So we should tell our kids who are exposed to bigger cultures, global cultures. That's for them.

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This is for us. When you stand by your own identity you ever seen cerveza and then lastly, as we said, Be proud

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and express your Islam. Even if you are the stranger than everything says Islam began as something strange. It was odd in the time of going to be salam for a Muslim to practice his deen and the time will come will be odd to be a Muslim Alhamdulillah we don't have that problem walking in the masjid wing, though we don't have that in this country. I was asked Subhanallah because I was in New Zealand. Oh I was in Australia when that New Zealand shooting them as you will remember Allah Grantham shahada genital fellows. And I was asked by the newspaper, do you as Muslims in South Africa because you also a minority, worry about someone coming to the masjid and shooting you up and

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bombing your mother? I said, Honestly, we have no such worries, we worry someone's gonna steal the shoes. That's the only way we have.

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And that was a strange thing because he said in other parts of the world, the Muslims have security at the masjid because they're in such a hostile environment. Alhamdulillah our forefathers fought those battles. There was a time when they were strangers, they will look on and they will, you know, abuse and go into the masjid might have been dangerous. But they fought and fought and made themselves present in this community. Eventually the community loved them because they added value hamdulillah it's a wonderful structure to build on. So don't be shy. If the Muslims have old good practice the Islam when was illegal to be a Muslim, surely you and I can take five minutes from our

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time to make salah. Surely you and I can have to weigh our Islamic attire, when the time when it's when it's when it's appropriate when we have to do it. And may Allah Subhana Allah bless us and maintain what we have here. I mean, just a quick announcement again, as I said, it's a heritage tour tomorrow but really, it's a dour tour. If any of you have non Muslim friends who are interested then there's a number of functions happening but I think the the primary one is going to be tomorrow in the masjid in sha Allah I think 11 o'clock and that's when we will talk about Islam and then against Pamela we calling is to all the men we have enough women for meeting three two we looking for men

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between the ages of 30 and 50 the some one asked me now when are the married men going to be able to find a second I was inshallah we know today but make dua make dua inshallah Zack Lafayette or Salah Satan and Muhammad Allah Islam whistling Pamela rubella enemy