Power of knowledge #4

Muhammad West

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Channel: Muhammad West

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Episode Notes

POWER OF KNOWLEDGE #4 – CONCLUSION

  • Unfortunate state currently
  • Ummah under threat
  • Challenges facing the ummah
  • Dangers due to lack of learning
  • Brief look at evolution of religion
  • Religious secularism is the religion of today
  • Modern mind – no room for religion
  • Modern mind – Morality
  • Modern mind – Current issues
  • Today
  • As a result
  • So what’s the answer
  • Change your attitude
  • Learn systematically
  • Critical thinking
  • Controversy
  • It should lead to change
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Are the hula hula Donna rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala COVID mursaleen syedna Mohammed not early or savage Marian, my beloved brothers and sisters in Islam as salaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh

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hamdulillah of galantamine or president of Allah Subhana Allah and Allah, Allah, Allah Allah we witness that none has the right to worship besides Allah subhanaw taala. We thank him and we praise Him and we submit to Him, and we send our greetings and salutations, beloved Nabi Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam to spice in your family to his companions, and all those who follow you soon until the end of time. Now let's have Hana data please as soon as Dr. Juma Allah subhanaw taala forgive all our shortcomings in this last week, mala guide us in the week to come. May Allah subhanho wa Taala put Baraka in our lives in our families in our risk in all that is good. And Allah grant the

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steadfastness on this Deen of Allah grant us to be united in general for those amin, Iraq medical layou Murat, amin Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah. Over the past few weeks, we're talking about knowledge and the importance of knowledge. And I hope after these three weeks, you've seen that the importance of knowledge, you know, this, this, this meme was a meme. Some of you don't know what a meme is a meme where you feel see this water tank, you know, coming out, and a guy puts a splost on the tank, right? And they usually say the Juma put, but yeah, Palestine is an issue. You hear this the Rohingya as a problem, the wiegers problem, you come to Juma and the Hadith talks about the

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miswak sort of like, were unimpressed with reality, and some might feel so much has happened. And I know in the back of my mind, there's a lot of things that are happening, what's happening in Palestine Subhanallah, we need to talk about it, in fact that no one is speaking about this very shocking. The fact that what is what's happening in India, shocking, what's happening in China we spoke about and so on and so forth. But this topic of knowledge, it might not seem related, but what it is related, but everything that is wrong with our oma or not everything but so much of what is wrong, you know, oma goes back to us losing our way in terms of learning and knowledge. And we saw

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over the course of this

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you know, lecture series, that knowledge was of the first things Allah subhana wa tada highlighted maybe Adam, it was the thing that Allah showed will make you Oh, inside you pieces of mud and clay, you will be honored above all of creation, if you use this very special thing that Allah gave us, our gave us something very special that no creation has when we exercise it. But if we don't use it as a surf medium, then we become lower than the low we have the potential to be greater than the angels, or less than the animals, even Allah protect us. If we don't use what Allah has given us, in our minds, and ultimate, we hope will affect the art we saw over this past series, the honor that

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Allah subhanaw taala has given to learning and knowledge, the promise of success, we saw how Allah subhanho wa Taala had elevated the early generations of Muslim in the great scholars of the past, both in the dunya sciences and in the religious sciences. And we lead the world in civilization and how we lost our way to a point now today Subhanallah without any shame, they can steal our land, and they can do it publicly on TV, there's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can even say Subhanallah we've gotten to this point where they can lock us up, lock our women up, and there's nothing we can do. There was a time Subhanallah when one woman was taken, one woman was taken by a

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Roman soldier. And she wrote, and she made a poem about the halifa. And immediately he mobilized the armies and he made the entire Roman Empire pay for that one woman, one woman, he made the entire Empire pay SubhanAllah. Today, millions of women and children. And there's nothing that we can do now pause this these big issues.

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They go back to grass roots problems. And when we spoke about what is the cause of these problems, and Subhanallah, anyone that comes here and wants to say these are the problems, these are solutions to Allah, no one is that qualified to do this. But if we look at we begin to fix things, and we look at the issues, look at where Allah began. And he began with Accra. So when we look at our oma and we just recap some of the points if we look at where we are today, so instead of looking at all the things for the last 1400 years, understand where you are in the world today, understand where you kids are in the world today, and what that means, what are the risks they are to us, to us, our

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minds and our hearts. So we said our dunya and our Deen is under threat. as Muslims, our Islam is under threat. And our dunya I mean, for us, it's not even a secret anymore. Our lands are being invaded, and those lands that are not being invaded, are ruled by Subhana Allah even worse than the outside invaders. This is the reality of our lives today, we in South Africa Alhamdulillah. By now you should realize that you and I in South Africa year have very, very fortunate have the most Blissett of the most fortunate Muslims in the world. Even Muslims in Muslim countries do not enjoy the freedoms and the the abilities that we have in terms of practicing our Deen and then

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Look at the sad numbers in the oma 40% of our oma cannot read or write, but isn't reading or writing the Quran even at 40% of the oma cannot read or write. This is like the dark ages in Europe, we are hundreds of years, centuries behind the rest of the world. Right? So behind Allah, this is a major problem. And one of the reasons why we are in this weak position is because we lack those knowledge because we don't have the scope, the tools, the skills, the medicines, the the resources to move us forward. And so we become under threat, and we become our lands become under threat, our property, our persons become under threat. But even more than that, our ideology, our aqeedah our beliefs, our

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identity, comes under threat. We live in a time now. So behind Allah, that our minds with whether we realize it or not, we are indoctrinated in many ways to the world that we see, we already see the waist, and the ideologies of the waist, and the models of the waist as the leading form of civilization. And if we just look at how the waist itself moved, so just a little bit easier. There was a time in the in the dark ages in Europe, where Europe was where we were a few centuries ago. They had mes, illiteracy, people could not read or write, and the only people that really monopolized knowledge with the people in control your elite, royalty, and your ama, the church

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scholars, and it was these people that dominated and controlled and subdued the masses. And they told their people, for you to read or write is not your concern, this is not your job, your job is to work in the fields your whole life, to work in the mines, and we take from you and that is how God had made it. This is how God had made it. This is what they said. And you should not study this dunya you should only study the akhira you should not look at this universe. But you look at the metaphysical, the spiritual, you focus on God, and that will be it. And so the maned in this backward, this backward phase, until as we mentioned, one of the things that came, books became

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widespread. And people started to go against the church, they went against the rulers, and they started to learn, they didn't rebel, initially openly by fighting, they began by learning the first form of rebellion was when they started to learn in secret, they would get together and they would study and they would educate one another. And then when they actually opened the Bible, they realized what is being spoken and being taught from the pulpit is nothing what's in the Bible. What we've been believing all these centuries, was manmade, was not from God. And so there was a revolution against the status quo. And this is basically that in a science and the enlightened

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phase, and so slowly, but surely, the masses of Europe moved out of this darkness. And they blamed and one of the one of the outcomes of this is they blamed not the religious scholars only, but they blame the religion itself. They blamed Christianity for that. Now, through Christianity, we know was lost long time ago, and it was changed by human beings. And because of that, it only lead to, to the harm that it caused to what the church did to its people was harmful. And so with time, the people now said, we spent all our life learning about God, learning about the soul learning about the ark era, and it brought us nothing but misery on the earth. Now, when we open our minds to science and

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technology, when we start studying the body, when we only look at what our hands and our eyes can see, and touch, and hear and smell, now we are seeing the progress. Now we are developing, now we are curing diseases, now we are moving out of poverty. So automatically, within the Christian history, or the European context, it became it became a a, you know, a belief truth, that religion will keep you backwards. And it is the opposite of science and technology and progress. So to move forward, you need to get rid of religion. This concept is something a phenomenon that happened in Europe. And because Europe and the western theology now is the dominant theology, it has been

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exported to the world. And they will say to you and me, yes, your countries are backwards. You have 40% illiteracy. The problem is your Islam. Once you've shifted Islam away, like we move Christianity to a ceremonial kind of thing, then your countries will move forward. And this is the threat that we live in. That is why many people who don't have a backing a grounding in Islam or Islamic history, and they don't know the great hate to teach that we have when they come to learn the dunya sciences, and they get challenged in university for example. That's why atheism is sort of the

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The religion of the elite of the scientists, that it is backwards for you to believe in religion, and it is keeping you back. So the the religion of the world today, the dominant religion of the Walter not in terms only of numbers, it is secular religious secularism, which basically means religion is a private matter, what you do and what you worship and how you worship, that is for your house, and for your mosque, and something you do on a wedding. But don't bring that into the public religion has no guidance in terms of the real world. And the real world, there's no guidance for that. It can't offer any solution to the problems of the world. In fact, it will keep us backwards.

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And some are so bold, and we live in a time when it's so boldly said that you know what, even practicing it privately is like practicing fairytales.

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But if we look at our world today, if we look at what our so we live in a time, where the dominant trends is no is without religion. And when that's behind a lot, a lot of good has come a lot of good has been achieved in this past few decades, science technology, we've gone to the edges of this solar system, we've gone to the depths of the earth, with cure diseases and all these things. But with our with all this technology, with all this knowledge, we have a society that is completely absent of any morality.

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There is religion now as we say, there's no place in law, it has no place in in government, they if there is no such thing as divine instruction, I give them explains a bit of a deep concept. There is no such thing as true morality, meaning that if we as we agree, as a community, the majority agrees that it is best for white people to live in a certain area, and black people to live in a certain area. And we agree on that, then that is what is best. And it happened a few decades ago in this country. That was right, then we agree that a white person, a black person cannot get married. That's a model. And that's the model, if we agree that's basing in a certain way is okay, or not

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dressing in a certain way is okay, that's fine. So long as we were able, we agree today, this is what's right. When there's no such thing as ultimate truth and morality, that tomorrow, a new thing can emerge. And this would be accepted. And the past is backwards. This is the world that we live in

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complete liberalism, where you can do and say, as you wish as you please, so long. And this is the only caveat so long as you don't harm anyone else. But even in that in this aside, Nokia, even in that liberal framework, even in that the easy policy, because the minute you say fine, I respect your way of living, I will not allow you but I will not interfere. If you want to live in a certain lifestyle, you want to practice a certain type of relationship, I won't interfere in that. But they don't interfere in my lifestyle. If I want to wear hijab, I don't interfere in my lifestyle, if I want to teach my children, this, my models and my ethics, not handling our country. This we don't

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have that kind of issues. No one has stopped us in practice our religion. But in the most liberal societies, in the most enlightened societies, we know our sisters cannot wear hijab, the, we can't even have a Moji that looks like a Masjid. You cannot even have a Hello stem sometimes on certain things. So we is the liberal, you know, freedom ways that it only works, when it agrees to what the dominant theology or the dominant thinking is going. And so we live in a time where you idolize, you know, the whole concept of Islam is to worship Allah alone. Right, that there should be one Allah, and Allah is the focus of everything that you do. Today, we will say, Well, why do people worship,

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they worship themselves, they have, as Allah speaks about the Quran, they are people who worship, they have power, they worship themselves in terms of whatever they choose, whatever they believe is right, whatever they want to do, they do it. And there's no one that can tell you anything less, we will live in a time when we don't, as once one scholar said, when we grew up, or some people grew up in a time when you took pictures of other people today, we live in a time we take more pictures of ourselves. It's all about self self, you know, idealization. So our Islamic values, and therefore and you know, the further the West progresses, or the Western world, when I say Western includes,

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you know, the eastern countries that are also quite advanced, the more they discover, and the more they achieve, and the wealthier they are. And the bigger the gap between our Muslim countries, the more outdated Islam looks, the more outdated our scholars Look, the more backwards our scholars look. And therefore it's not a it's not at all a shock when the brightest of our youth and the smartest of our thinkers genuinely believe, as the wish that we should follow the trends of the West, that yes, I'm a Muslim in terms of my culture. I'm a cultural Muslim, but this whole thing of dressing in a certain way and performing five sides

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And you know, having to follow a moral compass what I eat and kwon do then is for the seventh century desert, we live in a new age, where Islam is really just a cultural practice that I have at my, at my wedding, maybe I'll have an Imam say a few words. And that's it, when I die, they can be a janazah. But beyond that, Islam is a personal ceremonial thing. We, as we say, we believe that this is the guidance for life, that this book that Allah sent was not just for something to recite on a Thursday night, or to recite in your Masjid and put it away in house and you live your life separate from it now that should give give guidance to life. So why are we not being? Why are we not finding

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that guidance.

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And the discussions are becoming more and more difficult and complicated. Now, for many of you, you're older people, hamdullah you're working people you're not involved in, you know, you just want to get through the day, you just want to love to get to Friday, so you can sit down and relax the weekend, and you get back to work and get hammered. Right? That's not that we get hammered in the weekend on the weekend, right? The weekend is for us to sleep and relax. And then we get hammered at work in terms of working. And as you get older, you stop really asking questions, sometimes a good thing or a bad thing. But you stop asking you feel like you found yourself. By the time you get

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married. Your wife tells you who you are you accept that that's who I am. That's who I am. I don't need to ask and explore. And you know, I know who I am. And that's it. But our younger, you know, teenagers and those in the 20s. They're still asking these questions. They're still asking questions like, we see people have a different sexuality. What does Islam say about these things? What do we say about people that they haven't decided what gender they are? Now, these are the things that are on the table. This is the reality of today.

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And these are the things that we are being debated in the real world. And then sometimes you find you open the chat of the Imams and scholars and they're still debating something which was discussed 1000 years ago, you know, about is this waterfall here? And is that water? Yes, there's a time and place. But Subhanallah reality has moved on from us.

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15 Sharia laws, things that we find in the Sharia polygamy, hijab is this is this is this possible even in the world that we live in, you know, and hamdulillah for some of us, we have a very, very unique situation in South Africa, we without much effort, it seems to have worked. But that's not the case for many parts of the world. In most parts of the world, especially in the Western world, you either live in your Islamic cocoon, we only hear the Beyonce and you only some of you don't even maybe not even go to school, you only get home school, the auto Muslim school, you only learn online and you live in a little Pakistan inside of New York, but you don't go outside. And there are others

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who Well, if I want to go into the real world, I need to leave of everything of Islam. So that's the reality of the world we live in. It is materialistic, it is self centered. It is. And while the Muslim lands, you know resembles the backward world, the the the forward thinkers with all the technology, it is completely devoid of morality. It is godless. It is it has brought about so much war. Now, it would assume assume you would assume. But with all our thinking and all our technology, we've gone so far into space, we've discovered so many things killed so many visas, we can solve the very basic problems of the world feeding the hungry, giving homes to people don't have homes helping

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the orphans, we have failed at that. And it's a known fact that more people have died in these last few decades, the last 100 years from us our killing than any other time before. With all our technology and all our enlightened thinking and theories and liberalism, we of course more bloodshed and harm. So we live as we sit in a time that is self motivated these wall across the globe. We are destroying this planet. We have racism. And of course in this country, we had grand racism, you know, the base racism as they've seen the world. We have man made catastrophes. We are the first generation that have enough food to feed everyone. But we have the most people starving.

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Waste lots of this has grown and wasted some people here that are very at they know technology and food and farming. We produce enough food to feed every man, woman and child. But because it doesn't make economic sense. People are left starving the inequality Never before have we seen this extreme split between the rich and the poor. And our city you can see it very clearly. You just need to drive 10 minutes from the Atlantic seaboard to the cape flats and beyond that you will see the level of inequality, crime corruption, so as much as we've advanced and as much as Allah has given us and Allah teaches us a very important lesson that well, that knowledge that power, it is a tool. How you

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Use it will ultimately determine if it is a blessing or a curse. And the thing that will make you use it correctly is your morality, the person you're on the inside

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the same people, the best of minds, the best scientists, the turn of the century, they invented the nuclear bomb that killed out many hundreds of 1000s of people. That thinking, if not used for the right reason for the sake of Allah, for the sake of humanity will be will be to our own detriment. And this is a quote from Martin Luther King. He says, and this was 50 years ago, this was 50 years ago, it's become even much worse. You know, in our time, he says, our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles, but misguided people, what's the point in having guided missiles, but you have misguided leaders? What's the point of having this technology, if it's

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in the hands of the corrupt if it's in the hands of the greedy, if it's in the hands of an elite, whose sole mandate is to dominate, and therefore it is no shade, no surprise, look at the people who are ruling the world's panela from the east to the west. And they use this technology and they use this knowledge for the furtherance of harmful to do harm.

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You know, as one scholar says, We live in a time of great knowledge, but we live in a time of great jania.

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What we saw in the time of Jackie Leah of the Arabs, what they did to each other is what we do to each other today,

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the level of harm that one human being does to another is what we see happening today. So we need our technology, our smart devices, our fancy clothes and phones, we are back to the desert Jamelia days. And that's why the promises is this religion started at something a bit strange corrib something strange, and it will return to being something very strange, something out of sync with, with what is happening in the world. So glad tidings to the stranger be like the stranger be like the one who is might not be you might not be cool with what is happening in the world. But when you live in that time, when what is normal is actually abnormal. Realize that what what is what you

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seeing in the society is not what should be happening. So what's the answer? You know Juma should not be when we list all the problems. It's not Monica Juma is not meant for us to list a whole bunch of problems to give you more what is upon your body's already you have enough What is hamdullah? January is almost over. I mean, that's, that's a positive for some of you, hamdulillah. And

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how do we fix this? How do we move away? How do we revive this must handle? How do we come back and you find many, many people speak about the revival revival? And the answer is that there is no one answer. There is no one fix. You can't just put a plaster on it. And this is going to fix the oma. You can't just put a plaster on it. And it's going to fix the oma, if you look at the ambia from Navin ohada salaam,

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up until the prophets of Salaam, it is a gradual, slow, difficult process that does not begin on top and you fix the top and the rest of the body fixes doesn't work that way. It starts with a gradual fixing one by one individual by individual family, by family budget by Masjid community by community and slow. So so the change works bit by bit

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and a big component. So while the answer isn't very clear, if you listened to the scholars of the world, whether they thought the scholars, Salafi scholars, Deobandi scholars, Shia scholars, whatever it is, they will come back and they will tell you tell us, the answer lies in returning to the basics of the deen and to re ignite this concept of learning, reignite this tool in year that every one of us here has the special gift that Allah gave nabby Adam that made the angels bow to him, everyone has a 1.6 billion of us, surely if we use this quickly, might not be tomorrow. But with time, we will bridge that gap with time we'll start fixing problems. And we'll move forward

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like it's been done before. And this is not something which as I said, hasn't been done. The people of old did this, the Sahaba by the grace of Allah pull themselves out of deep Jamelia to leave the world with the same answers and tools. And so one of the ways forward, and this is for you, for me, to inculcate in our life is to rethink the way we approach knowledge and then we need to rethink about that. So we need to ask, why do we learn? And it's a very deep for those who don't do learn, and someone says, I don't learn so I don't have to ask that question. And I don't have to ask why do I learn because I don't learn. We need to ask ourselves again. The purpose of learning of reading,

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studying, it was never just to get a high paying job. I know for many of us here and you're working people. The reason why you study to the reason why I studied the reason many of

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study was simply to get a good job. So they can earn a lot of money, have a nice house, travel the world will hamdulillah This is success.

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Now we should realize by now, when you look at the global situation, when you look at South Africa, you and me going mainly on our on our lives, working nine to five, during my job coming home, feeding my family, it's ultimately it's going to be detrimental to you and me, because above us there are going to be people that will our our country blind and we will be sitting with loadshedding we will be people above us will make bad decisions that will lead us into war that will harm other people. We cannot sit idly by and do nothing. We cannot just insulate ourselves and not care about those big questions and just go on with our lives. Because ultimately it's going to be to

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your detriment might determine my children see through you feeling it's fine. Allah low cheating, not your fault, not my fault. You pay your taxes, you've done your fake electricity. Why should I pay for this? Partly because we allow it to happen.

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What's happening in Palestine in China in India, these things are happening because we allowing it to happen. Our Muslim EMA has just stood by and setback. And so everyone has a smaller responsibility. I'm not saying everyone I was not going to ask each and every one of us How did we not fix this problem? But there is an a responsibility. And it begins as we said, one of the areas is to think about this mind Allah has given us What are we doing with it? So we need to really assist this Nia of learning. Why do we learn? Or at least I have that conversation, not using it with the kids? Why do you study? What's the purpose of learning? You need to be honest with

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yourself, I need to be honest with myself, How much time do I how do I value this thing? This thing which Allah Subhana Medina says, is the greatest blessing of the eyman this thing which Allah has, you know, in the sight of Allah, it is the most powerful thing of the human, how much time do I spend in learning? We lost Have you read a book will not survive the book will not have we listened to a lecture as one alive The only lecture you listen to is Juma Friday, this is the only lecture you do you really need to pay attention and at least at least be awake in the summer lecture. But pot costs, even a dunya theory reserves talk about ophira sciences. Because if we don't do that, if

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we don't do that, we are turning off the steam which Allah has given us. So how much time do you spend on it? How much time? How much importance Have you given to Islamic knowledge? Do we know the very basics of Islam? These are questions each and every one of us must answer.

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What have I contributed to my society? What have you contributed? What have you don't have good when that time is up? And ultimately those accounts are drawn up by Allah subhana wa tada? What excuse? What can I say to Allah subhanaw taala you've put me on the dunya you've answered me about all of creation, you've given me all the tools, you've made me live in a time when all the knowledge of the world is accessible by the fingertips of me not on my hand, I can learn anything, you can learn anything.

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What have you done with it? Allah will ask us this question. What have you done with that? This is an Amana that no nation, no generation before us had. So what are we going to answer when that question comes. And so if we're not learning, understand, if we are not learning, we are exacerbating the problems that we see in this woman. If you and I,

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by you know, not, not directly but indirectly, what you do, what I do what my family does, if we all as an Alma continue the stream, and then we're going to continue the stream of domination, of colonialism, of backwardness of corruption, it's going to continue, we're going to be exploited again and again and again, if the change does not start from an individual level, you know, we live in a time of superheroes of angels Justice League, there's no such thing as superheroes. Another love superhero died sallallahu wasallam, 1400 years ago. Now, it's left up to the oma for individuals to make the change one by one, one by one, the Sahaba of the lion, and it's such a

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beautiful thing to listen to the Sahaba.

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It was not a work of one person wasn't abubaker. On a normal day, it was a collective work of JAMA, there's a hadith that says he had llamada JAMA, the hand of Allah is with the JAMA that when the Muslims are united upon something, and they work together for the goodness, they will be hearing that Allah subhanaw taala will bless that, but they must be in JAMA, we must come together and work together and assist each other. So the first thing that I take from the series, I want you to have an appreciation for knowledge and learning. And when there are resources, it is forever. It is compulsory on every man and woman to learn. There is an obligation that if you and I are not

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learning

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Not listening to lectures, not reading a book. And I said, even as a science book, you're not doing anything like that they may is a failure in that regard, there is Alma, we failed miserably for the last few 100 years in that regard.

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Number two, learning is something which will always be difficult. Learning will always always be difficult. And this is again, a lesson that Allah has taught us from the beginning, he will not give away knowledge for free, because this is the, this is the key to success, you're not gonna get that key, cheaply, you're not gonna get it. And that's why, you know, it's difficult to learn. It's difficult to sit in a lecture, you know, on a Joomla, 30 days, I see the humans behind Allah. Let's see the humans. And it's difficult. It's difficult, but it has to be done. You know, I'm sure I told you the story. You know, the story when the provinces alum received a call, right? When Salam

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received revelation, what did you do to going to be so solemn? he squeezed him three times. Why? Why did you begin squeezing?

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why there was a young girl that says, because you bet he will miss him so much. So you had him but he was very strong. So he doesn't realize how strong he certainly wasn't because of that, to show that if you use the resource, getting knowledge, to get that knowledge, you need to pay a price of sacrifice, you need to go through some some difficulty to receive this knowledge. Allah does not give it for free. So learning will be difficult. Learning will be difficult, but it is patient and consistent learning that will lead to success. Again, leave the Do not leave.

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Leave the oma just worry about your dunya success in your career. Do you know that the CEOs they interviewed 100 CEOs, the top fortune 100, the 200 biggest companies in the world that is served by on average though CEOs, the people that I'm those companies that are multi billionaires, millionaires, the bill gates of the world, they read one book a week, you have to you have to just you know, stop eating, drinking, if you don't do it, you becoming stagnate you stagnating. One book a week, they read swannanoa 50 books a year.

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They said at least one hour a day must be devoted to learning something new. This is the most sexy dunya we just talked about the dunya when Allah did, he told us in the Quran, he will elevate you and give you a jack in goodness. But Allah promise that we see it today, one scholar of the past, you know, but 100 years ago, more than that, he was from Egypt. He learned and he studied Swan, Allah was the Grand Mufti of Egypt. And he looked at how the Egyptian community was so backwards. And then he went to Europe. And he saw the technology and the culture of leading the libraries. And he said, Subhanallah, I went to Europe, and I saw Islam, but no Muslims. And I came back to the

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east, I saw Muslims, but no Islam, Islam, the concept of learning and thinking has been lost on us. So you need to learn systematically, we you and I need to make time for that we need to force ourselves. Some of us are not disciplined another sometimes a disciplined person. So I need to force myself to sign up to something. And if I put my money down, maybe that's going to help me I forces me to study or in a group of study, you know, if I in a group of people, one is going to force you to do it. So you need to find a way to learn, and you need to find a teacher or mentor. It's really important. Find that teacher mean to that helps you because this is how it was meant to be. Allah

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had not left us blind, he sent us ambia and the Sahaba. The one generation would mentor and teach the other generation, we have lost this concept of having a mentor someone that we can speak to someone that can share what's the Wait, why should we repeat the mistakes over and over? It's so much easier if he is a mentor. And very importantly, smile I add this year when it comes to Islamic knowledge. Whether you sit in the gym while you listen to a YouTube thing. You know, don't take you don't take your deen straight off social media. Authentic knowledge, please. We live in a time we, our you know, our forefathers could use an excuse. I did this because that's what the chef told me

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who's only had access towards the Imam of the masjid. That's what he had. That was his Grand Mufti, he's, you know, everything was that man, that was a Thomas. And that's okay for him. But for you and me, we have access to all the hard work the scholars did, to get authentic knowledge. He said that still today, people with PhDs in secular studies, practice things that are wrong from a sonic perspective, the basics are missing, because they don't find it authentic knowledge. The knowledge has been refined, you have it done for you pack package. So be way when you learn to learn authentic knowledge. And so from an Islamic perspective, if someone asks, How do I learn, what do I need to

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know I want to learn I want to study where do I start? start with the basics. Know your Pillars of Islam, your five pillars of Islam, how do I make sada they are sometimes we take this as trivial. I've learned that in Marisa when you remember

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But when you were 15, or 14 or 10, there was just so much your mind could absorb. Now when you're 25, you will learn that same thing, you will learn that same story of NaVi Adam, but it means so much more. Now I understand SubhanAllah. Now I understand when the vibrato effect is slow to satisfy you what that means, now that I have a child's Viola. So it is about learning the basics and mastering it, because that is what leads to Jenna. Remember that? Had he thought that Beethoven was his era? He had? No he had no, this is the Beethoven didn't know any better. He's javelins, he didn't know. He said, What must I do to get to Jenna for the prophecy. So seldom do the five

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pillars. And he said, I will do this five, nothing more, nothing less. And so he left, and the promises who says if this man is telling the truth, he will go to Jenna is gonna go to Jana, he just does that you will not make one more Salah one more fasting, but he will do the basics properly. So please do these basics properly, and then move forward to things which are relevant to you. If you are a finance person, you need to know how the boat works. If you have a bank account, you need to know how the boat works. If you are married, you need to know the rights of azmin as a wife, but our inheritance these are now compulsory on you. You might not need to know all the deep things about

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thick. But if you are, for example, in the engineering space building materials, what is permissible impermissible these things you know the medical fields, viola lots of questions about the lady comes, she's not dressed appropriately. What can I touch? What can I touch these things are important to know because it's relevant to you. You need to know those things. And some things to to make life easy, as we said, just you know, the hats they say, just be in a company of people that talk about knowledge, and it will brush off on you be aware of modern events. One is, at the very least as a man, we should know what's happening in Oman. If you don't know what just happened in

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Palestine, when it said, we don't know what's happening in China, in terms of the Muslims, it's quite sad, you know, at least know what's happening. Be informed.

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Some easy things to do make your traffic time standing in queues, let that be a time for learning. Listen to something on the radio that is beneficial to have the music live music as a hello how long we're going to discuss that, you know, we're not going to fight that fight today. But just use something that time for beneficial listening, listen to something with a dean or dunia.

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We live in a city Alhamdulillah that almost every Masjid has some kind of clauses and your moms are more than happy to teach you go and ask that class. Go and ask for those questions. Online. There's so many platforms, there's so many if you don't want to know if there's any topic that you will live is any topic that you are interested in learning, asked me and inshallah we will guide you to either something in Cape Town or something online. No excuse no excuse anymore.

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First thing, change our attitude to learning. Number two, learn consistently number three, critical thinking. Now once we do the basics, we have to ask those questions. If we don't ask those questions, our kids will not know what is happening. We need to look at Islam critically, we need to look at the knowledge of the world critically, and we need to contribute to it. That's the next level, getting the inshallah one day and avoid controversy Subhanallah Don't worry what the selfies are doing with the selfies are doing. Don't worry about what anyone controvert controversial issues are not for me and you there is a time and place for the scholars to discuss these matters, leave it

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to them. But don't break down with one group is doing and what one group is not doing. That is not great, that's going to be counterproductive that is going to be counter productive. And ultimately Subhanallah this knowledge, if learned properly for the right reason, consistently,

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eventually, it will bring about change. This is a promise from Allah subhanaw taala. It was proven by the prophets of Salaam it was proven by the Sahaba eventually, it might not be today tomorrow, it might not be in your time, my time. But we will see that results in our community. So we live on the line of a very fortunate time a very fortunate place here in Cape Town. We learning is possible. This is something which each and every one of us must be ignite within ourselves and in our families within the law. And so when we see that change, when we see you know that learning, prospering well hamdulillah On that note, I must apologize that I speak about losses and all that and for two weeks,

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I wasn't here for class, and I was sick, you know, like me, Mark wilhemina Zuma, who if you are sick, and I saw I was sick. I wasn't on Tuesday when you travel this Tuesday. For those who did come some of you are not from the area you waited and you didn't I wasn't Yeah, I asked you for math. So we will we will continue very important topics. Viola. We're going to talk about saying earlier of your life. And it was in his time when we had the emergence of getting sick. It's the Hawaii to the shears. How did this all happen? Why is this a fight? Why is this Sunni Shia, this is where you learn those things. So you don't have to take it from YouTube or Facebook or whatever. Come to the

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masjid and learn it properly.

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So understand this thing. So it gives you It informs you inshallah, and then after that, we don't want to learn all the controversial stuff. I want to go back to basics always Allah, that's after that same class inshallah that is also on on Tuesdays from six o'clock our nursery school as availability, Islamic studies with secular studies. You know, if you want your kids to go into goodness cscope liberal nursery is available. Any questions, concerns and comments with [email protected] Jazakallah fayda salaam alaikum