Muhammad West – Is The MJC Needed
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my beloved brothers salam alaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh
Alhamdulillah Lamine always and we will begin with the praise of Allah Masha Allah Allah Allah Allah would be willing to testify that there is none worthy of worship because Allah subhanaw taala and we send our love and our greetings salutations to be loved and to be Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam to His pious and his pure family to his companions and all those who follow his sunnah until the end of time. May Allah subhanaw taala blessed us to be amongst them. I mean, I mean from the law today Subhan Allah very, very controversial topic. The topic is not just the for its clickbait, is the MJC needed. It is something that we are going to talk about, and why are we talking about the topic. And
I always when I begin a controversial touch on a controversial subject, I always begin by reminding us that we're not here to create further controversy. But it is our duty, when there is a controversy, to give guidance. It's very easy for us to give a very vanilla Huzzah, you know, but then we are we gonna get the answers. And So alhamdulillah the committee was with the, you know, advice for the committee, we've decided to take this topic and to give advice, because there is a fitna that occurred this week, and I always say for those of you who have no clue what are we talking about Alhamdulillah, Allah saves you. But if you are away, you won't spread the fitna, then
it's our duty to discuss it. Now this fitna, this issue, this topic is so much more difficult to talk about for me, because I am involved in it. I am part of the story. So they when I see your name on the front page of the newspaper, and just for context, so peoples are what's going on what's happening just for context, if you read the statement from the MTC, you understand everything is there, everything that you need to know is in the statement. I remember raised concerns that there were certain financial issues happening that he wanted clarity on.
The concern was eventually was responded to a committee, a commission was formed to investigate it and part of the committee. We investigated, we found issues, we drafted a report and we gave it to those who are in charge of governance of the organization. They had the report, they accepted the report, there were no objections to it. And they instituted corrective measures took members to task with a disciplinary and this process happening Hamdulillah that report has after six months leaked, coming to the news, everyone. So it's an internal report, like every organization, your internal reports, and now there's a fit now. And now we have lots of comments, questions, people, our people
want answers. And I've looked through the I've tried to read through the social media comments and you find very harsh comments. Some of it is we should disband the MJC altogether and all the Allama bodies, all of them from day one were corrupt. This is what I'm not saying this is what's in the comments. They're all a bunch of one affix panela sprang of heavy heavy heavy words you know, heavy words that we will all have to be accountable for what we say, you know, we can delete our posts but with key hammer Allah is trying to hold these things accountable. Who can you trust?
If you can't trust Obama, then who can we trust. And we understand that people are angry. People are disappointed people are hurt. And it is, it is understandable. I am hurt, everybody's hurt. We don't want this to be seen. We don't want this to be happening. We don't want this to occur, we expect better, and we should have better. But even worse than that, worst in these comments for me, of the comments of those who people didn't comment, and they basically said, what's new? I'm not surprised. I've long time lost hope, not just in this organization, but in the Alama altogether. At a time when religion is becoming irrelevant. That religion altogether people are not interested Wow, religious
leaders don't really care about the dangerous times and a future where the Alama become irrelevant is a very, very dangerous future. However, one might say why don't we take this Buddha's advice and look this band or the random our bodies, we don't really need them. They are backwards as as what happened in Europe, in many parts of the world, when they got rid of the religious class, and we said, you are just day two, we call you up to give a nice talk and at a wedding, but you don't have any authority. When we did that society move forward. Should we really go down that route? Now, we are a Muslim minority. We don't have a Khalifa we don't have an amine, we don't have a court. And in
such times, it is the rule. It's the principle of the Sharia. If you want to live by the Sharia, then there has to be some authority. And listen to this beautiful words. I'm gonna blast the great Sahabi who was a politician and a governor and he says to his son, that listen and memorize my words. That a good authority, a people that are in charge of you and they are good is better for you than all the rain and the money in the world having a good leader.
And it is more dangerous for you than a lion trying to eat you then having a ruler when authority who is corrupt was paired. A lion trying to eat you is better than a ruler. That is bad. But even worse than I had ruler when authority that is problematic. Worse than that is no authority. With his complete anarchy, chaos, everyone does what they want. That is worse. Even Tamia. Ramona says one day of having no authority, no orlimar no courts, nothing is worse, within 60 years of having a ruler that we're not happy with SubhanAllah. And so if you look at, as I said, we are a minority in this community and our leadership has always been as a Muslim community. Our leadership has
defaulted on Malema. In fact, when we talk about the founders of Muslim in the cape, we talk about chef Mustafa matassa we talk about tomorrow. These are not political leaders, these are Allama. But it falls on the Alama to lead when there is no one else. It falls under Obama to fill the role of the salon as best he can. Where there's no one else and if you look at the roles of the salon, some of them they're gonna have to do for example, they're gonna have to establish the rule of law we have to teach what is happening wrong and halal. Encouraging people to to live a life according to the Sharia. To assist the Muslims in time of need. The lady comes and she needs to she has a
problem. Where does she turn to Alhamdulillah the first port of call is still the Imam and that shouldn't change. The first person you turn to where you have difficulty is the Imam why because you believe that the Sharia will protect me not the Imam will protect me but what he represents of the Sharia will protect me to give Dawa to the non Muslims when there is conflict between Muslims. This father is talking to that son and that what do we turn to it is the job of the yes, the the Hakim, the the the judge, but we don't have a legal authority. So we have the Allama that mediate these things of our time is spent mediating marriages and to create an environment to help people to
practice the deen and to create a group. Because we're a minority, we have to look out for each other Subhanallah if we're all individuals, one by one, that's how we get picked off. So if any law any group wants to harm the interests of the Muslims, we need a collective body. And so this organization, the MDC, whether you like them don't like them, the work that they do is necessary, the work that they do is necessary. And it is essential for us as a community for for them to function and to function well. And if things aren't functioning well, it is our collective duty to make it function well. So in this fitna, in today's football we're going to talk about advices to
the general public, what do I do in times what should I do as a person on the outside and then we need to talk about advices to those of us inside and to the Allama what do we need to do? Because this relationship must be strong the relationship between the rolana and those and the police of the community this must be working if it doesn't work we are all we all before will all fail collectively we on one ship we are one ship as the very famous Hadith gonna be some says that you're all on one ship. If the people at the bottom break the ship, the guys on top are also going to drown you cannot you cannot
you cannot be outside of the discussion. So for those of us will receive this
and other reading and commenting and following it on social media. These times are fitna fitna, meaning you don't know what is right or wrong which way to go. What should I say? What should I say? The advice as then a piece of advice is in times of fitna restraint is based.
Those who run into fitna will be destroyed. Those who engage in it will be destroyed most of the time when you try to put out the fire you're gonna get burned. This is the nature of fitna and Allah Subhana Allah says in the Quran, particularly about receiving information you will already know I'm an old people of iman in India, I confess sequin that if anyone of doubtful character of any information comes to you, that is from a doubtful source for the Fabian then first check if this thing is authentic. How do you know what you have in these credits? How do you know what you what you what you reading is correct? Why and to see willkommen be gehalten you perhaps will act and say
something and harm someone out of Indian ignorance, but to speak Halima Felton, Nadine. And then you become regretful sweeping statements, all of them I'm gonna fix all of them are corrupt Parliament's over 200 people in this organization. You show about that? The FTM or all those 200 people?
You're gonna answer about that Pamela. So these things we take very careful. And also in these kinds of issues. Allah says in the Quran, and do not let your animosity and hatred for someone or some group make you turn away from justice. So maybe you don't like and this is general thing this only as an organization, you might not like someone, the principal of the of the School of your kids, you might have some words you don't like him. But when he wants to do something good, don't stand against him just because you have some beef with him. Allah says Don't let your personal hatred cause you to do something which is wrong. Even if so this man I don't like this man. We think that I
don't like this man. But if he says something good even I don't like him personally, I support him when he speaks the hawk. And so then abyssal zone says be careful. It is enough of a person to be deemed a liar. By just conveying forwarding what he received. Just forwarding what you receive, you can you will be deemed a lie not me, Russell Russell saying this. And how bad is it is for someone to keep saying I heard someone so said such and such and such such and such and such. And so number reminds us, we will in times of fitna saying a wrong word because a wrong word in the times of fitna can be more devastating than assault. We're talking about the collective good of our community.
This isn't about me, and you and your family. My family is about the community. In fact, my family has advised me, stick to yourself, don't worry about the rest of us do your own thing. But that's not the answer.
Not going to stop taking the advice of my family and my lawyers by saying we need to get involved because this is our community at stake and the future of our deen in this country, in this community. And so whenever we have these issues, yes, we want things to happen quickly. We want answers now we want process to happen. Now.
Allah the Prophet says deliberation is from Allah, taking your time waiting and thinking and assessing things is from Allah and acting hastily is from Shavon. And talking about service is the believer, He reserves judgment, don't give judgment, until the matter is proven until all the all the checks and balances, every single person has the right to a fair hearing. And when things are clear, then we pass judgment.
So in terms of social media, and where things are, you know, coming up, how do I correct someone? So this is again, a general advice, and we'll get to the specifics about this saga in a minute. But such as general advice, I see something wrong with it is someone especially someone in authority, how do I correct? There is if you correct someone publicly? How would you like your manager to correct you? If you make a mistake? Do you want your manager to call you up in front of the whole staff and says that report you did was wrong and how bad you are and blah, blah, blah, even if he's telling the truth? No one likes to be corrected publicly. It is the ADEPT correct, to give advice to
give Naseeha. Privately, then abbyson says, Whoever intends to give advice, especially to the authority, especially the person who has some position, this is not me. They're also saying, then take him you should do it privately and publicly, you should take him by the hand and say I advising privately, Chef Brother, don't do this, do that XYZ.
And if you don't do it like that, then really you should ask yourself sincerely is this really to give Naziha or is to humiliate, is is really to give advice out of key or to hit a low blow. And if that is your Nia to settle scores publicly. If you check you near about that. Subhanallah there's a long statement of even the Raj everyone read all of it, but he says whenever you give advice whether it is your father, your mother, your kids, your friends, to Allah, Ma, whoever it is, give it with love.
I'm giving you advice because I genuinely want hired for you. I'm not there to to tell you what to do and dictate to you I want goodness for you. And if you really want to judge your sincerity, if you're giving
advice to someone? Do you make dua for that person?
Your mom gives you advice, study, blah, blah, blah. And then she will make DADGAD and make dua for you, because that's not see her with love. But when you give advice, and you actually feel good when a person makes a mistake, that's not mercy Ha, that is arrogance from your side. And so it is not allowed for a Muslim who years and as well on all of these things, we need to take these things into account. So this is the public. When you hear something someone did something wrong. Remember, in our Sharia, we have what we call a personal Dawn presumption of, of goodness, you have to presume what is good, although no one is infallible. No one is above the law, and everybody is bound by the
law. Everybody is bound by the law. The Alim the Mufti the share. Everybody has the same Sharia and must be held accountable to the same Sharia.
If someone is found guilty, these are both broad principles. We do a process we take the product, we reserve judgment. And if and if someone if someone is found guilty, we must uphold the law of Allah subhanaw taala on the person. But also in our business. This is beautiful Hadith, and in my research, beautiful Hadith, then resources, how do we look at someone who made a mistake? I make a mistake. How do you look at me afterwards, after that, after the mistake that's between he gets the punishment, we do what needs to be done afterwards, then absences, then you overlook a person who's committed a good person who has good character overlook their mistakes. We don't diminish the
person's character after the fact. But we have to uphold the rule. So now we need to talk about reform. So that is all about being cautious and careful for all of us on social media, and making sure we don't harm someone's rights which Allah had given. But we can't allow things to continue happening.
year in year out mistakes, mistakes, we almost make mistakes, but we need to correct our mistakes. And we need to reform whether it is in one organization, or organized in our marriage, for example, if there's a problem in the budget, and it is raised and it is highlighted, at some point, we need to say there needs to be changes. And so there'll be some very clearly says to all of us, having said what we just said, he also says whatever you see is a wrong action. It is the responsibility of you to change it with your hand if you can. And if you can't, you need to speak out. If you see something wrong, you can't just remain silent, you need to raise it, you need to advise you need to
give Naseeha. And if you can't even speak, you don't have the courage or you don't have the ability to speak, then of course, you should hate it with your heart, and at least make dua. And so for the Allameh, and I say this with love, because I find myself amongst you all, we're all human, we will make mistakes, as everyone else makes mistakes. We at times, try our best and fail. And if that happens, we need to be must be brave enough to do self reflection, and self correction. It shouldn't be coming from outside, if we make a mistake, it should be coming from inside.
We should have and this is for every single person, every family
look at big be brave enough to look at the faults because we're not perfect and correct our mistakes. We have mistakes, the culture of silence is not good. And we should always be proactive. We shouldn't wait for a crisis or someone else to raise it. And then we try and fix things, fix things now that we can fix. Otherwise, it's going to be a disaster in the future. And something which could have been resolved easily now becomes a fitna and everyone gets dragged into it. And it becomes a lot bigger than it should be.
We should also remember and again I say this to my Allama if my son were to ask me, should I should I become a chef? I'll probably advise him not to.
And this is off this Pamela, this is a side note for you. This week was of the roughest weeks of my life. In terms of my other my job as an accountant. I went to work one day, Monday, Tuesday, I worked into Fajr the next day went home showered came back to work. And still I would say it's easier being an accountant than an email.
It's difficult being an imam. It's difficult being a community leader. It's hard. But you signed up for it. And then remembering the visa Salam says to the Allama the very first person that's going to Jana I'm not fear I will not believe not your mother in law. The very very first person is going to Johanna is who the island the Mufti the CHE.
One Allah first person is going to join them.
Someone might say why would you even want to go into this? This area? Because they are also the islands. Also the water through Ambia. They are also the best of them are those who are in the footsteps and the rest of people that follow the follow the footsteps of the Gambia they do the job of the Gambia and what is the job of the Gambia to teach the people to lead and to be a moral authority. And so we need to ask ourselves hard questions. If our people have lost trust in us, they don't have faith in us anymore. If there's a sentiment you're all useless, worthless, corrupt. We need to ask why instead of being defensive and saying, Oh, they are XYZ. We need to ask why.
Why have they lost trust in us? Why do we not have why when we look at the comments and listen to the scene
sentiment of the general public. It's mostly negative user hunger, you have the you will always have people who are supportive and give good comments. But by and large has been negative, why, why is that?
We should learn from history. How other as we said, other religions, when they people lost faith in the clergy, and we don't have a clergy in Islam had lost faith in the religious people. They got rid of them altogether. And once getting rid of the priests and the rabbis, religion went with it. And so religion became something very small in the life of people. We don't want that for Islam. We don't want that for Islam. And shaytani will look at every avenue to create a wedge between the rolana the people have knowledge of Dini knowledge, and the layperson.
And if we allow that through our mistakes through our continuous shortcomings, eventually it will not be detrimental only for us as people, but for our religion.
Allah ma, we need a strong will Mr. Fraternity, we all want, whichever, whichever group you from here, I'm sure you want your Allama to be
trusted, to be sincere, to be doing the job to the best of their abilities. That's what we want. And if we fail, we don't only fail ourselves, we fail the entire community. And if we make a mistake as on our mouth, remember, we tarnish not only if I make a mistake, it's not just myself. You tarnish the entire fraternity of Malema and the dean itself, when people look at an imam making a mistake. It's not that guy Muhammad, you know, he's a bad driver. Or he swore that shitshow and then all the chefs die like that. And Islam, these people, and that's how we bring the entire Deen of Islam into disrepute. And so that's why
if you're in the Manzella, you're in the position, you need to uphold those ethics. And the challenges Han Allah that were faced are so many.
Maybe in the past that hamdulillah it was okay. It was easy for you know, the
people with an Islamic learning and knowledge coming from a room or coming from Al Azhar or Medina was enough for them to deal with the issues now. Subhan Allah the world has moved so fast.
imams are asked to comment on things that we are reading books that were written more than 1000 years ago, the world has moved on so drastically. And so nothing about social media, Facebook, you know, keep tabs, nothing about cryptocurrency, about domestic violence, and abuse, and all those kinds of things that we deal with now.
But these are the things we deal with. And if we don't own up to our own, there's nothing wrong to say I don't know. I mean, it was SubhanAllah. As Imams, we tell the people. First I don't have the beginning, we do not alimony if you don't know don't give fatwa, we preach this day in and day out to our community, we should say the same to us. If we don't have knowledge about media, accounting law, then bring in the people that have the expertise, bring in those who have the skills, and Hamdulillah. Allah has blessed us with so many competent, capable people. And so the time has come that we really should open the doors and work together. And this is maybe an opportunity. Well, I I
mentioned about the bad comments and the messages that have been received and all the questions that are being asked, but the nicest responses are those who phoned and say, What can I do to help? I'm a lawyer. I'm an accountant. I know something about this. Just tell me what you need. And I will be there to help free of charge. We don't want money. We just want to help and serve the fraternity for the sake of our community. And subhanAllah remember this conversation we have thought about today and today and a problem that we have this week. The last conversation I had with my grandfather Rahimullah passed away with a Suleiman Fidel, I called him Papa, who is really a shield but
something about myself if I would, if you'd asked me who was my role model that I've made this be it would be him. Man who walked out in the community. Last conversation I had, I remember very well, I just finished a gym session. I know it sounds like a fairy tale now, but But it's through walls.
And he found me. Otherwise Papa phoning me and it was just when I had been co opted to join the executive MDC. And he called to congratulate me and said how proud and happy he is and reminded me I mean, he's got Marshall foster in 91. So it's been 90 years older than the MDC. And he's seen every chapter. And he said, the importance of this organization, the good, the bad, the ugly, I've been there. I've seen no, no worries, but we need this organization to thrive. We need this organization to do its job properly. And so go with the and serve, don't get involved in politics, don't get involved in issues. Just offer your services. Why? 50 years, 60 years, 100 years from now, we want
to make sure our grandchildren are still Muslim. We want to make sure Islam is still practicing. We still have Masjid. We don't want to disappear as a community, like many communities have disappeared.
And therefore it's essential that the Allama have functioning. They do the job properly, and the community trusts them, that the community comes to them for advice for Naseeha and they get good advice and advice people in need come to them and they're able to assist. This was his advice to me. After that he had a stroke the next day never spoke to him again password. I'm gonna log on to Agenda two fellows. So, my brothers sisters, in these times a fitna Yes, this anger, we are allowed to feel angry. And we should bring out our mistakes. We shouldn't close them that shut, you know, cover things up, we should open them and follow a process. And we will make mistakes, we should
rectify it. Give him a chance and rectify things. We should not walk away from each other. And we should not become disillusioned with today. We should build for a better tomorrow. That's what it requires, requires bravery. As I said, I was advised to so biased by the people who love me the most. Don't get involved, easier for you to step back. Focus on yourself that design and do your own things. Pamela, that's not the answer. If we want a better community, and this applies to you in your organization, in your kids madrasa in your kids school, if all of us just focus on ourselves, and Subhanallah what are we going to leave for our grandkids in a few years time some Allah guide
us, protect us and give us a US market. I said anything that offended anybody that hurt anybody's feelings is not the intention. Intention is only to give sincere advice and a time of fitna May Allah forgive us and Allah help us, help us our Mama will help us and Allah bless that we have the best best of all, Amma to lead us and Allah subhana bliss our leaders to be the best of people will hamdulillah and Forgive our faults. And may Allah bless us as a community. I mean, just a few announcements. Again just a reminder that Yoko machines in the back so if any of you have not you know don't have cash please assist donations at the back and inshallah all our reminder for those of
you on YouTube to join our YouTube channel the villa sokola Haider was ALLAH Cena Muhammad Ali salaam listening from La vida anime Salam alikoum are live barakato