Mustafa Khattab – All Women Matter
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AI: Transcript ©
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of our worship except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
And I bear witness that Muhammad salallahu alayhi
wa sallam peace be upon him, is the
seal of the prophets, and the final messenger
to all of humanity. Whoever Allah Subhanahu wa
ta'ala guides, there is none to misguide, and
whoever Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala leaves to astray,
there is none to guide aright.
So the the focus of the Chubba today
will be in response to some of the
questions
that I received
from a graduate student of Mengele Islamic Academy.
She came a few days ago with her
dad, she now she's now in grade 9,
and she was here last year, mashallah, 14,
15 years old, and now because she goes
to the public school,
her friends ask questions about Islam. Special questions
related to Muslim women. So one of the
questions was,
okay, why do women pray behind the men
in the salah? Not in the front.
Why you don't have a female imam?
And why do women get half of the
share of the men? And shahada, the testimony
of a woman equals half of that of
the men. So these are some of the
questions. So the the bottom line is, are
women
second class citizens in Islam or what?
So of course,
I I told her, MashaAllah, this is very
good that you came forward to ask questions
because in Islam, Mafaratna
filkitabi' mashay.
All the answers are there in the in
Islam, in the Quran, in the sunnah of
the Prophet SAW.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows that this
is the final deen, so there are always
answers for everything. But the good thing is
you came forward to ask a question, because
when I when I was her age, I
was very shy to talk to my teachers,
and ask them questions like this.
Waya turoon, ifakamal hadith,
2 types of people would never learn.
Mustahin 1 mustaqbe.
Those who are shy to ask, and those
who are arrogant.
Who is this guy, so I'm gonna go
and ask him something? So 2 types of
people would never learn, those who are shy,
and those who are arrogant. So Alhamdulillah, I
commended her and her dad for asking these
questions,
and of course I had to explain
that in Islam,
when you read in the Quran, and in
the sunnah of the Prophet SAW Alaihi Wasallam,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks about the equality
of all Muslims.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
Yeah, and he gave some
some qualifications,
and and and some abilities,
so men and women can complete each other
and not compete with one another. When you
read in the Quran, when Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala speaks about good things,
It says that men and women are equal
before Allah, and before the law. So for
example, if a man or a woman does
something good like salah, zakah, Hajj, they do
it exactly the same. They give the exact
same reward, like you and your wife you
pray namaz, you pray salatul mohr
with forshur, with all the requirements.
Do you get more reward than your wife
or you get equal reward? You get equal
reward. Same for salah, same for fasting, some
for Hajj and salatah, and so on and
so forth. And this is why Allah
mentions women by by name in the Quran.
It always talks about males and females, males
and females.
Allah
says in Surah Tawba that the believers, men
and women, they are guardians of one another.
Because they are equal before Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. And again, equal does not mean identical.
So men and women are equal before Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and before Sharia, but they
are not identical.
In the same way that I and this
brother from Afghanistan,
we are equal, but we are not identical.
We have differences, although both of us are
men, but maybe he's a bit taller, he's
more handsome,
so on and so forth. He can cook
better than me. So we are equal, but
we are not identical. In the same way
men and women are equal before Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala,
but they are not identical.
And one of the points that we have
to make clear
that Islam gave so much,
and gave so many rights to women that
didn't have back then, and some of the
women in the West
till, like, 50 years ago, they were struggling
to get the same rights. The rights to
vote in elections, the right to have a
say in marriage, the right to own a
property,
to keep the last names at the time
of marriage. We don't have an issue with
this in Islam, because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
gave the rights to men and women. Exactly.
The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam when he was
asked about women, Qalamu Nashakaay Qurijal. Women are
the twin
sisters of men, and the word he used
shirk, like when you split a bean,
one shirk and the other shirk, twins. Like
2 halves.
So, there we don't have a special status
for men in Islam, and a special status
for women, but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
wal abijalalihinna
daraja Men have a degree of responsibility.
To protect, to provide, and this is actually
is not a degree of honor, it's a
degree of responsibility.
It's not an easy thing.
And also,
I told the sister
that because Islam gave so much to women,
this explains why
3 out of every 4 people who take
Shahada are women.
75 percent of rebirths to Islam are women.
If Islam is so abusive to women, no
no woman would accept Islam. But 3 out
of every 4 people who take Shahada are
sisters. And I've seen this first hand. A
lot of sisters come forward and and take
Shahada.
Why? Because they see the honor that Islam
gave them.
We read about
300 years ago in Europe,
before that in the Middle Ages, there was
this big discussion between
theologians and
scholars of,
of Europe whether a woman had a human
spirit or a shaitani or animal spirit.
You know? So that was the discussion.
And in Islam, around the same time we
had scholars in the Muslim faith, we had
women who were scholars. Imam Bukhari,
one of his teachers was a woman.
A scholar of hadith and she was teaching
them. We have so many scholarly women spent
in different fields in Filk and Hadith and
different
branches of knowledge in Islam, and it's very
interesting,
and this is something that the scholars of
Hadith say,
there are some hadith that are fabricated.
Some people used to fabricate a hadith for
different reasons, we can't get into this some
other time, and they say although we have
hundreds
of fabricators who are men, there's not a
single female fabricator in Hadith.
This is something we can think about. Right?
Although there were so many women who were
scholars of Hadith, there's not a single one
who fabricated Hadith.
Not written, no one knows anything about a
woman who fabricated a Hadith, but all the
fabricators of a Hadith are men. Right?
So this is that.
Also, we need to consider
something else, like Allah
revealed in the Quran
whole chapters to talk about the rights of
women. If you take Surah Al Isaa for
example, it talks about the inheritance of women,
the rights of women in inheritance,
the orphans, the rights in divorce, the rights
in counseling, and so on and so forth.
There are also some rights in Sura Nur,
Sura Azza, and so on and so forth.
So all these Suras and these ayats were
revealed to protect the rights of women.
And there are some laws in Islam to
protect these rights. For example, if you read
in Surah Maidah about Halaba,
if a person, if a man
rapes a woman,
in this ayah about Halaba in Surah Maidah,
ayah number 53,
this man is put to death.
This is the punishment. If a person, if
a man rapes a woman, the punishment in
Islam is Halaba, death. The capital punishment.
If a man accuses a woman of adultery,
and he does not have witnesses,
punishment
the lashes
for attacking or for falsely accusing a woman.
If a man refuses to give a woman
his share in Mirof, he is sinful, and
there is a terrible punishment mentioned in the
Quran. And so on and so forth. And
it talks about the rights of women, the
Maharin,
and and so on and so forth in
the Quran. So all these ayat are there
to protect the rights of women in Islam.
So they have rights, and Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and the Prophet
gave him rights
to own property,
to have their own business,
to get an education,
to have a say in marriage.
But the problem is in some cultures,
some women don't get these rights, and at
the end of the day Islam gets the
blame.
So women for example have their own separate
financial identity.
The Prophet SAW Alaihi Wasallam used to work
for Khadija Radiullah. She was his boss, she
was his employer,
and he used to work for her, and
everyone knows this story.
So they have rights in Islam, but if
they are denied these rights in some places
in the Muslim world,
and because people here in the media, and
the people in general, they don't know the
distinction between Islam as a religion and the
cultures in Muslim countries, they confuse both. Couple
of examples.
In my village in Egypt,
women in in my village, some of them
tell do tell this day, they have to
put up a big fight to give a
get a share from the inheritance.
Although Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the
Quran that women have a share,
in many cases they go they don't get
the share of inheritance.
My mom had to go through this.
Right? To fight, and my aunt had to
fight to get her share of inheritance.
What they do basically, because her brother will
say, it is impossible, Allah Jusati mer rabbi
al Mustaqilah, that I'm gonna give a piece
of my dad's land to a stranger.
Stranger is his brother-in-law.
If you give him his share,
your wife will give you a share through
her father. Like, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is
just and fair.
If you tell them I'm not gonna give
you your share because this is not good,
you're saying basically that Allah is not just.
Because he told you to do something that
is not good.
So, what they do basically, the guy will
go to his sister and say, you know,
you're not gonna take your dad's land and
give it to strangers,
in laws. Right? What I would do because
I'm a good guy, I'm gonna give you
a compensation
for the land. And if the land is
worth a 100,000,
they give her 15, 20,000 only, because he
will say, you you don't like, you know,
I I don't expect you to treat me
like outsiders.
Like, market value is not gonna work between
me and you as a brother and sister.
You know, this is how, you know, they
they trick the sisters and they just And
if the sisters refuse,
Khalas, they put up a big fight, and
sometimes the father himself
will make a contract between him and his
sons
to deprive the daughters of their share of
inheritance. Although this is totally against Islam. Right?
It's totally against Islam.
Another example
is when a woman is not allowed to
get an education.
She doesn't have to be like a something
in rocket science or anything, but every Muslim
has to have the knowledge of the Deen.
To worship Allah, how to worship Allah,
seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim,
male or female.
When you stop them from learning,
and you say, no my daughter is not
going to learn anything,
this goes against Islam, and at the end
of the day Islam is to blame. They
say all Muslims and Islam teaches that women
cannot learn anything.
Also, in some places a woman is not
able to drive. Right? And get a driver's
license, you know. There's nothing in Islam against
this because, you know, at the time of
the Prophet SAWALAM his wives, they used to
move around on camel or on the horse
and visit their family. There is nothing wrong,
and the Prophet SAWALAM said in an authentic
Hadith al Bukhari, the day will come
a vaina, a woman will come out of
Iraq or Yemen
all by herself from Hajj for Hajj, and
no one will stop her. By herself. This
is mentioned in authentic hadith.
So, Islam is to blame at the end
of the day because people confuse
the religion and the culture.
So Allah
made it very clear that men and women
are equal before Allah
and before the law.
Now I want to talk a little bit
about the West here.
Because theoretically
men and women are equal.
But in practical life, in real life,
there is still a long way for women
to go to achieve equality with the men.
And this is based on official,
numbers.
For example, in the US,
government numbers say that for every dollar a
man makes, if we're talking about a doctor,
a lawyer, a teacher,
for every dollar a male,
worker, for every dollar they achieve, a woman
will achieve
75¢.
They get less pay for the exact same
job.
And we're talking about Caucasian women. If you
talk about Latino women, they get 10
10¢ less.
African American women, they get 10¢ less. So
they are not equal. And also on the
other hand,
if you think about for example,
Yeah. Someone needs to, remove their car, it's
a blue
Acura
887
because they are blocking the the way. So
if this is your car blue Acura, then
remove it inshallah.
So,
although we know in Islam we have this,
big discussion, a big debate between the scholars
about, Alwulayah Kubra, Alwulayah Uthma, Alwulayah Surah, so
Alwulayah Uthma, can a woman become the khalifa
of Muslime?
Most of the scholars say no. Because this
is the place of the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam, and only a strong man can
fill this place, and lead salah, lead the
army,
govern the Ummah. But for the walayhi suhrah,
can a woman become the head of an
Islamic center?
Can a woman,
lead salah for women for example, if sisters
are together, they have a halakah or something,
it is time for salah, can a sister
become iman for women? Of course, yes. Because
at the time of Aisha radiAllahu anha, this
is in Bukhari, other places, she used to
lead salah for women,
but not for both. Because all the laws
in Islam are to protect women.
We know that when we do salah,
we know salah is not basically making dua,
you have movements in in the salah, bending
over, going for sujood,
and imagine if you have a female,
Himana, leading the salah here, and all these
moving, with all busting all these moves,
I will pay you a $1,000,000 if you
can't focus for one second in salah. It
is not practical. I know because I'm a
man. It You know, it's hard to explain
to some people, but this is the reality.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows us better than
we know ourselves.
So when we ask Sisr to break behind
the man, we're not really getting them to
second class, this is just for protection.
For their protection. But if a man is
praying in the front and the women are
praying in the back, no one would look
at the man and say, oh, my shit.
Nothing. Right? And when we ask the sisters,
or ask someone, you don't shake my wife's
hand,
you know,
the Queen of England doesn't go around shaking
every man's hand. She doesn't do this. Because
she's a royalty, and I tell them, well
my wife is my queen, I don't want
my wife to shake every man's hand, and
I don't go around shaking women's hands. And
this is something the prophet
told us to do. Right? This is a
different opinion and so on and so forth,
but again, this is for the protection
of the sisters.
So in the last
250 years in the US,
400,
45 presidents have been elected. In the last
150 years, 45 presidents have been elected. From
George Washington
all the way to Abuja. Right?
45 have been elected to for president,
and 48 have been elected as,
vice president.
None of them is a man.
Not one of them is a man. Why?
A woman.
No, no one of them is a woman.
Sorry. Not one of them is a woman.
My bad.
Why? Maybe,
people are not ready for a female president,
I was thinking maybe Hillary Clinton will do
it, but it didn't
work. Bernie Sanders was the best option, but
Khalas too good for to be president. But
anyway,
people are not ready yet for a female
president.
In Canada, everyone will say, well, Kim Kaptel,
1993,
but she was never elected.
Mulrooney
decided to retire, 1993.
She was second in line. She became prime
minister for about 3 months, then they had
an election, and she lost a big time.
So not a single woman
has been elected in the last 250 years
in the history of North America,
maybe in Mexico, other places in Latin America
they have elected some, but in, the US
and Canada, not a single woman has been
elected to the highest office,
maybe because they are not ready yet for
a female president.
In the Muslim world, although I spoke about
the distinction between Malaya Ummah, Malaya Surah,
we have this debate among scholars
whether a woman can be a president of
a country,
president of an organization,
which
I think is acceptable, but for Khalafa Uma
it has to be for a man. But
with Aya Surah, the head of a state
and organization,
this is debatable among scholars, but I think
it's okay.
And although we have this debate among scholars,
we have saw seen so many female presidents
and prime ministers in Muslim countries.
The biggest of them,
in,
Indonesia.
The biggest,
the most populated Muslim country in the world
elected a woman as president.
Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Turkey, in the last
15, 20 years, they elected women, and so
many throughout Islamic history. So just to show
you the the comparison.
In Islam, as I said, women are allowed
to keep their last name, to have to
own their own property,
and and I'll talk inshaAllah a little bit
about,
inheritance and about the testimony
in shahab.
So basically,
one of the questions asked by the sister,
why do men get twice the share of
a woman?
First of all, this is not correct.
Because the word man doesn't mean anything, and
the word woman doesn't mean anything. The word
man can be a son, a brother, a
father, a grandfather,
and so on and so forth. And the
words to woman can mean a sister, a
wife, a mother, a daughter, a grandmother.
So these are vague terms.
To say that a woman gets half of
the share of the men is not correct.
In
in the rules of inheritance, and I want
you know to know the answer so when
someone says something, you know how to answer.
Women have about 34
different types of shares and inheritance.
In some cases,
few cases actually,
woman will get half of the share of
the brother. But in most cases, a woman
will get more than the man, and in
some cases she will get an equal share
with the man. Give an example.
Say for example, if I die today,
and I leave my father, and I leave
5 brothers, and I leave my mother, my
wife, and one daughter.
So we have a lot of females and
males in the in this case.
My daughter will get 1 half.
My wife will get 1 eighth, my mother
will get 1 6, the rest will go
to my father which will be a little
bit,
which is less than 1 third of what
my daughter got.
My brothers will get 0.
So you see in this case,
males, my brothers, 5 brothers will get 0.
Because I have a daughter, my father is
there, they are not getting anything.
My my wife will get 1 8th, my
mother will get 16th,
my daughter 1 half, whatever is left will
go to my father, which could be around
the same share that my mother will get.
Right? After you give all these shares. But
you see, it depends
on two things. The shares of inheritance are
based on 2 things.
Number 1, on your closeness to the deceased.
Those who are close to the deceased will
get more. Like my daughter will get more,
then my father, my mother,
my,
wife will get some.
But those who are distant, they get nothing.
And those who are young get more, and
those who are old get less. So my
daughter will get more than my father, or
my mother, or my wife, because they are
old.
Right? So this is how it works in
sharia, those who are young get more, those
who are old get less, those who are
close they get more, those who are distant
get less.
It has nothing to do with gender.
This is the least factor in the equation.
So in some cases, men in the in
the in the case will not get anything,
and the females will end up getting a
lot of things. And in some cases,
say for example,
if my mom was married to another man,
and she has children from that marriage,
then her husband died or divorced, then she
got married to my father, she had me,
if I die, my brothers and sisters from
my mother's first marriage
will share my inheritance 50.50.
The boy will give $10,000,
and the girl, his sister will get $10,000.
It's in Surat Al Lani Saab.
5050 for the man and for the woman.
And why does my son get twice the
share of my daughter?
Because
number 1, if my son gets $20,000
and my daughter gets 10,000.
My son has to provide for the family.
If I die, he has to pay for
everything. He has to pay for the rent,
for everything, for the food, shopping. My daughter
Islamically doesn't have to pay anything in the
house.
And when my son
gets married, he has to pay Mahal, he
has to pay for everything.
My daughter when she gets married, Islamically, she
doesn't have to pay anything.
In other words, our money
is their money,
sisters, money, and their money is their money.
This is how it works. So Allah in
many cases, women end up having more money
than the men.
This is for a fact, I've seen it
firsthand.
Right? So if you say that Allah is
not fair to women, this is not true.
Because in Islam, women have a lot of,
they get a lot of opportunities, and they
get shares and stuff, and men have a
lot of responsibilities.
So this is how it works in in
Sharia, in the distribution of the inheritance.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala honors women, and
he gave them shares although they might be
denied in some certain cases.
Also for Shahadah.
For the shahada. If someone here has a
50,
$50 bill, you can give it to me,
I'll give it to you later. So
for shahada, everyone signs this ayah in Surah
Baqarah,
about ayah to Dayn, the longest ayah in
the Quran, ayah
282 I believe, or 283.
The longest ayah in the Quran. It talks
about deaths. So for example,
we have 50.
Right. That's okay. I can take the 100.
Take the 100. Exactly.
So for example, if I borrow $100 from
brother Abu Mohammed here, Islamically we write a
contract.
Because if
if I die,
and my family would deny, then we have
the contract, I give the money back.
So the ayah Yasura Baqarah talks about loans,
if you talk a loan from someone, $50,
100, 500, 1,000,
you write it down.
The IRS says,
In business transactions, we know that in the
past, we're talking about 1500 years ago, women
did not get involved so much in business,
and traveling, and caravans, and stuff.
But the idea says, if 2 men cannot
be found, they give 1 man and 2
women.
1 will actually sign the contract, the other
one would be a backup.
Just in case the first one is pregnant,
or she just gave birth, or she is
sick, she can't go, or she doesn't remember
the details, the backup will go.
The olamat make a distinction between shahada and
ishad.
There are 2 different terminologies in fact.
Shahada is when they you sign the contract,
you have to have 1 man and 2
women.
Ishhad
before a judge,
the rights will be established even by the
testimony of 1 woman.
The testimony is accepted. Say for example, you're
walking around and there's a crime, a person
shot another, before a judge, if only one
woman saw 1 woman saw the, crime, she
will testify before a judge, and her testimony
will be accepted. There's a difference between a
shahad and shahad. Now this is a big
discussion among this couple.
Tayeb.
Now,
we talk about the $50 or the $100,
and this is only a special case in
Islam, just because when you're traveling you cannot
normally find 2 men to testify over this,
you can get a woman or 2 women
to testify. Okay.
Now we will talk about the highest forms
of shahada in Islam. This is the lowest
form, a $100.
It's down here.
The highest form of shahada in Islam
is if you come forward and you say,
Sameera to Rasool Allah SAWA SAWA.
In a hadith,
if you hear a hadith from Aisha Radulan
in Bukhara, she said, I heard the Prophet
SAW say this hadith.
And you get another hadith, different hadith,
from Abu Hurair Radulan, who I heard the
prophet say this and this. Do I accept
both a hadith as strong and authentic if
you are a Bukhari Muslim?
Strong hadith. We accept both. They are at
the same level.
They are at the same level, whether it's
narrated by a man or a woman, and
I'm talking about pillars of Islam.
A hadith about salah, about Hajj, about fasting,
so we accept both as equal. We're not
talking about $50 anymore.
Another high form of shahal, if you can
please move forward, people are waiting outside. We'll
be done soon inshallah, one minute.
Another high form of shahal in Islam related
to one pillar of Islam, in the books
of Fef.
We started this in the books of Firth.
For the beginning of Ramadan or for Eid,
for the month of Shawwal, the sighting of
the moon.
They say if 1 person, reliable person,
saw the moon for the beginning of Ramadan
or for Shawwal,
then the rest of Muslims have to fast,
1.6 Muslims have to fast,
1,600,000,000
Muslims have to fast for the sighting of
1 person at the beginning of Ramadan.
It doesn't matter if the person is a
male or a female.
Their testimony before jealousy is equal.
So we are talking about 1,500,000,000
people fasting in Ramadan, we're not talking about
$50 anymore.
So this is the highest form of Shahada
in Islam, and in some cases it felt
a woman's
Shahada would be accepted, and a man's Shahada
would be rejected. And things related to pregnancy,
virginity, and so on and so forth, are
the maxes, the shahada of a woman, and
they reject the shahada of a man. So
these are the different cases
of, you know, a face rulings related to
women in Sharia. What they do basically, they
take one aspect and they generalize. Oh, a
woman takes half. A woman's shahala is half
of the men. They forget about the majority
of the cases, so we need to, pay
attention to this inshallah. We ask Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala to give us the best in
this life, and the best in the life
to come.
Yes, your money.
Thank you.
So,
I'll make a couple of announcements inshaAllah and
we'll begin our salah.
The first
announcement inshaAllah for the youth program,
in March and in April it will be
done, we'll continue at Frank McKechnie from 7
to 9, not 6 to 8. Now inshallah
from 7 to 9 to make it easy
for more people to come, we have a
program for the boys and the girls, a
gym for boys, gym for girls. So make
sure inshallah, Saturdays your kids would join us
7 tonight. The last Saturday of the month
is here in the Masjid, we have a
program for them,
lectures, and my pizza, activities, and so on
and so forth.
The second one, a few weeks ago we
announced,
the need to expand the school because
starting next year, they would be losing money
because we reached the maximum capacity, 190 students,
and if we don't expand, the school is
gonna start losing money. We need to expand.
It's a must.
And one way to do this, inshallah, if
we get sponsorships for the classrooms.
6 classrooms out of 12 have been sponsored
so far. 1 raised his hand a few,
weeks ago, but I don't get their names.
If he is here inshallah, he can come
forward and give me his, information.
So basically if you pay
$25, sorry, $25,000
over a year, which means $2,000
a month, for 1 year we would put
your name on the classroom.
Or if you choose your parents, as some
people did, at least 2 brothers who sponsored
6 classrooms, they put their father's names, or
mother's names, or any name you choose, to
make it easy for you. So we'll put
your name, we'll put you on the wall
of honor, we'll give you a tax receipt
for the whole amount, you get a free
salah spot here, Sadaqa Jariyah for you and
your family. So inshallah, next week at Jum'ah,
I will do a small fundraiser, so we
get the rest of the sponsorships. We can
get one person to do it, or if
you talk to your brothers and sisters, and
collectively come up with a 25,000,
we'll put your parents name on the classroom.
It is easy, it is doable. Make sure
inshallah you talk to your wife, you talk
to your family, and come forward. We allow
up to 5 people,
people's names to be on the classroom.
Maybe a person is not able to give
25, maybe 1 person will pay 5, will
get another 5, and so on and so
forth, and put the 5 on the classroom.
This has to be done for the school,
Insha'Allah, to, to be in the right place
next to Olive Grove, next to Isnah, and
maybe better than them. Why not? We have
the potential inshallah to be an excellent school
in the GTA. We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala to give you the best in this
life and the best in the life to
come. And if someone is willing to do
the sponsorship inshallah, you can come to me
after the salah, and we'll figure it out.
6 classrooms are left, 6 are gone already.
Jazakatullah khayran.