Mustafa Khattab – Fitrah Restoring Factory Settings
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I bear witness that there is none worthy
of our worship except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And I bear witness that Muhammad salallahu alaihi
wa sallam is the seal of the prophets
and the final messenger to all of humanity.
Whoever Allah Subhanahu
Allah guides, there is none to misguide. And
whoever Allah
leaves to stray, there is none to guide
so last time we spoke about the fitra,
the human fitra, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
created us in this pure,
nature, in this pure stage that we have
as kids. And the prophet
said, every human being is born with this
fitrah. You can call it the default,
like a machine when it comes from the
factory. There are some defaults
and some original settings.
But with time, this fitra is polluted.
This fitra is.
And that was the topic for last time.
So the prophet said,
every human being is born with this fitrah,
but the parents and the culture,
they distort
and they cloud this fitrah.
So sometimes,
I always I always advise people, when you
feel like your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is messed up, and you feel like
your relationship with the people is messed up,
maybe you need to go back to the
original factory settings.
You need to detox and go back to
the original fitrah. This purity and this innocence
that we were created with.
And as the prophet
said, it is the parents and the culture
and the society
that force us and they change the fitrah
in us.
So say for example, when we are young,
this beautiful age, 3, 3, 4 years old,
no racism, no lying, nothing.
But with time,
this fitra is distorted for example, all the
the tyrant throughout history,
and all the bad people, and all the
good people, they came out from the wounds
of their mothers with this original pure pure
fitra.
So people like Hitler, people like George Bush,
an extreme example, evil people,
they were innocent
when they were 3, 4, 5 years old.
They were good people when they were young.
And you see how they ended up.
Stalin, and Hitler, and Mussolin, and all these
terrible people. They were good people when they
were young, but something went wrong along the
way. The fitra was distorted.
They started at the starting line
with
Muhammad Al Fatih,
Omar Al Mukhtar,
and some of the great personalities,
Allama Iqbal, they all started off as good
people.
But some of them retained and maintained this
pure fitra
to have a good relationship with the Creator
and to serve the creation, but some of
them they lost this fitra, the fitra was
distorted.
So as I said, the purpose of today's
talk is to try to restore this fitra
and to restore the original factory settings. Go
back to the very, beginning.
Settings. Go back to the very,
beginning.
So there's a lot of things we can
learn from kids. Sometimes we think as grown
ups,
there's nothing we can learn from them.
We're all very young, they have no experience,
they have nothing, but they have the fitra,
And we can learn from them. And as
a matter of fact, if you look at
the Quran, maybe one day we can give
a talk about what we can learn even
from animals. The Quran is filled
with stories about what we can learn from
animals. Even the Sahaba. This is amazing.
The Sahaba are told
in the Quran
to learn from animals and birds, especially when
it comes to tawakkul. There are some and
we go through and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling them, look
at the animals, and look at the birds.
They have
so do not let your in Allah be
shaken. Just like the birds and the animals,
they have true and Allah learn from them.
We'll share some of the stories
So there's a lot of things we can
learn from the little kids
in order for us to have a better
relationship with Allah
and restore the fitra. I'm going to start
with a story. I see a lot of
young faces in the crowd,
and by young, I've been 75 years and
and younger.
Because the school is off today, so I
see a lot of young, you know, cheerful
smiling faces. So I'm gonna start off with
a story.
The story,
they say this story it's a a true
story that happened a long time ago, about
1200 years ago,
in what is known today as India, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh.
It was under Muslim rule for for a
long time.
So they said the Sultan there, one day
he was walking in the street to check
on people after Malayb and see what is
happening, if everything was in order, everything is
good. So he came across this little kid,
he was an orphan, he had to go
out and work,
so he was coming back home after Marib,
so the Sultan stopped him. And the Sultan
had like only a couple of guards, and
he was under disguise so people don't spot
him.
So the sultan
asked the kid, why are you here in
the streets at this time of the of
the day, like, after Ma'rib? He said, I
have to work and provide for my family.
I'm a grown
I'm strong enough to work and provide for
my mom and my younger kids.
So the sultan said, this seems like an
intelligent kid. Let me ask him, and maybe
if he's smart enough, I'm gonna give him
a a reward.
So the sultan said,
do you see this diamond ring? Have you
ever seen anything more precious
than my ring? And of course, the Sultan
told him, I'm the Sultan.
So the kid said, yes. I've seen something
more precious than this ring, and that is
your finger. Your finger is more precious.
We can find so many
so many diamond rings that there's only 1
Sultan. You are more precious. So the Sultan,
Nasha Allah, this guy is amazing.
Then the sulsar said, which is better,
my palace or your house?
So the kid said,
if you are in your palace, your palace
is better. If you ever come to our
house, our house will be better than your
palace. Because what matters is you, where you
are. Right? So the Sultan said, masha Allah,
this kid is amazing.
Then the Sultan at the end said, I'm
gonna give him a golden dinar, one dinar.
So he said, here, one dinar. This can
help your family for, like, over a month.
One golden piece is is a good amount
at a time. So the kid said, well,
I can't take it. So the Suraj said,
why? He said, because
if I take it to my mom, she's
gonna call me a chor, a thief.
He said, why? He said, if I tell
her the Sultan give me one Dina, she
will not believe me. She will say you
stole it.
The sultan said, why? He said, because my
mother will say, she's a smart woman, she
will say,
the sultan is not cheap just to give
you one dina. If it is the sultan,
he will give you a bag of gold.
So the Sultan told his guards to give
him a bag of gold, and he said,
you know what? This kid, if I keep
talking to him for another 5 minutes, he's
gonna take my khilafa, my, like
you know, he's gonna kick me out and
take over khilafa. You know? So kids are
very smart when they are young, but sometimes,
subhanAllah, we dumb them down. We ignore the
fact that they are born with logic and
they are willing to learn. And this is
something that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned in
the Quran in Surah Naha, a 97.
Allah
brought you forth,
while you know nothing. You come like, you
know, like an empty
blank sheet of paper, and people start scribbling
on this sheet of paper. You come out,
you know nothing. Then Allah
gifted us
with the capacity
to hear and see and process information.
Somehow,
is basically,
intellect.
This link between the brain and the heart
is called in the Arabic language.
So Allah
gave us these capacities
so we can look around and learn from
our parents and culture.
Allah gave us the ability to listen so
we can hear and and learn things, and
Allah gave us intellect. And this is why
little kids, they always ask questions,
and and sometimes we dumb them down and
we don't answer the questions. They are very,
you know, they are very inquisitive and they
are very curious. They want to learn because
they are young. They want to learn
using their eyes, their ears, and their intellect,
their fo'al. Right?
So
at this age, 3 years old, 4 years
old, 5 years old, they ask all sorts
of questions.
Where did I come from?
You know, who created this laptop? You say,
oh, the guy from China. Who created the
guy from China? And you say Allah, you
say, who created Allah? They ask all these
questions,
they're very logical. They ask, you know, because
they want to learn. They don't want to
be disrespectful.
They just want to learn.
So if you don't fulfill this inquisitive nature
they have and provide them with the right
information,
if they don't learn from you, they will
learn from their friends at school, and sometimes
they don't give them the right guidance.
So Adi's, getting kids are born with this
fitrah, this innocence in them.
And over time,
we impose things on them. Like when you
see kids I have a kid, 2 years
old,
2 3 months, and he goes to the
daycare. Right?
And in the daycare in the room, you
see kids from all over. You see Asians,
you see Africans, you see Europeans, you see
Latinos, everyone is from different culture.
And subhanallah, they are playing with each other.
They are laughing and they are smiling because
at this stage in their life, they're color
blind.
They don't know what white means, what black
means, what Asian means, what Mexican means, and
so on and so forth.
And some of us, when we grow older,
we start to, you know, we have this
racism in us. Oh, he is dark. He
is this. He's Latino. I'm gonna build a
wall to stop these rapists from coming here.
There's gonna be amazing wall. Gonna be big
wall, you know. This racism
that we learn over time. And subhanAllah, our
parents and culture,
they force things on us. The culture,
some beliefs,
and so on and so forth, and where
you were born, this is something you didn't
choose. And these are things we fight for
our entire lives. Things we didn't choose. Things
that were forced on us, we fight for
to the rest of our lives. You know,
I'm superior to this guy,
have inferiority conflicts towards someone, and so on
and so forth. So these are things that
are imposed on us, as the prophet said
by the parents and the society and culture.
Also lying.
Kids are born
to copy and they absorb like sponges. If
you give them good stuff, they copy you.
If they see you praying at home,
they will come and make sajdah among you.
You don't have to tell them anything. 2
years old, 3 years old, they come and
make sajdah with you. They see you smoking,
they're gonna go and look for the cigarette
butts and smoke like you. Kids by nature
are honest, but we teach them to lie.
There are so many stories, subhanallah. Like
and sometimes because of their honesty,
they get you in trouble.
So I remember,
you know, this story, someone called, you know,
back in the day, we didn't have the,
the cell phones, just the regular phone, but
it shows the, the caller identity. So the
guy didn't want to pick up, so he
just told his kid, just answer this guy,
he's bugging me. Just answer him and tell
him I'm not here.
So the innocent kid, he picked up and
he said, Amu,
my dad is telling you that he's not
here.
So, of course,
a few shoes were flying, and chairs were
flying. We teach them how to lie, you
know? They are innocent. They don't know how
to lie. They they just look around and
and learn from us.
As I said, the kids are very logical.
If you want to do something, maybe try
to do it the kids' way.
I'll give you an example.
Learning a language.
A lot of us, especially adults, when you
learn a new language,
there's no progress. We don't learn anything.
The pronunciation is wrong, listening is bad.
Maybe we should consider learning like little kids.
They're amazing. They learn very fast, and they
learn in the proper way, the logical way.
So what happens when a kid is a
year and a half or 2 years old?
They, first, they listen. They listen a lot.
Then they pick up words, and they start
to use them, mama, dada, food, water, different
things, biryani.
So they learn how to speak at a
very young age, then writing and learning comes
at the end.
The way we do it is upside down.
We start with writing and reading.
We never pay attention to listening and speaking.
And this is why a lot of us,
we have accents,
we we have a problem with vocabulary,
you know, we don't pronounce words the right
way because we never listen.
I gave the examples before, delicious, you say,
deliquis,
you know, and so on and so forth.
Exapherence,
experience, stomachs, too much, and so on and
so forth. Because we don't listen. You just
look at the word and you try to
learn on your own, we always make mistakes.
Do it like kids.
Do it like kids.
So I remember there was a sister,
in, Saint Catherine's. I was in a man
there for 2 years and a half, and
she was
traveling from Saint Catherine's to Niagara Falls. Yes.
And all the way to Niagara Falls, there
are 2 highways, if you if you make.
One takes you to the, falls, and the
other one takes you to the US.
She didn't learn or she didn't try to
learn English properly,
and and she was just going. If it
says Niagara Falls, she said, okay, I'm gonna
take this one, and both of them say
Niagara Falls, US and Canada.
She ended up on the border of the
US,
and you'll know how tough the guys are
over there, and they said, okay,
where are you going? And she said,
well, she was so confused. She said, well,
I don't know. Like, you don't know. Okay.
You're coming here with a truck. You don't
know where you are going. You don't speak
English. Okay.
Let's ask you a couple of questions, then
it took like a week, you know, to
ask her questions, and so on and so
forth.
So the kids are very logical when they
learn things, and they're very honest and straightforward.
If you want to get an honest answer,
a straightforward answer,
ask a kid what they feel about the
certain color
or how food tastes. They will not lie
to you. They will tell you the truth.
And, also, the the kids are very literal
sometimes when you tell them because, you know,
the metaphors and the figures of speech, they
don't worry too much about this stuff. They
take things very literally at face value.
It is what it is, they tell you
right away.
So,
for example, if you tell them,
just go ahead and and hit your brother,
and you'll be in trouble. They will go
and hit the guy because they think, go
and hit your brother.
They don't know it's a threat, they feel
like it's an order. Go and hit your
brother, you will see, and you and they
go and hit because they, you know, they
don't accept,
figures of speech,
and so on and so forth. And I
remember this story, they say that a little
kid, like, 4 years old, he came to
his mom and and he said, you know,
you always called my young brother, 1 year
old, you always called him birdie,
as foodie. Right?
And and I found out today that he
is not a bird. She said, how? And
she said, I threw him out of the
window, and he didn't fly.
They take things very literally, you know?
The kids are very curious, as I said,
they ask questions,
and this is something we don't have when
we grow older. I know everything,
I have Google, you know, I don't have
to ask anyone. But when kids are very
young, they always ask, different, questions.
If you want to, you know, have a
better relationship with Allah
learn from kids, especially, this is an amazing
technique.
When it comes to dua,
learn from kids.
If they want something from you,
candy,
a toy, something,
they will bug you to death.
Mama, bah bah bah bah bah bah candy
again. They take you to the store.
They almost give you a heart attack because
they are very like bug you. Like, they
never give up. They never give up, and
eventually they will take what they want. Use
the same technique with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If you need something from Allah, cry to
Him as the kids do.
Ask day and night as the kids do.
Never give up on Allah. But some of
us, I asked Allah for something, I was
looking for a wife or a job. I
prayed once
for 5 seconds, and Allah never responded.
I gave up.
Wallahi, learn from kids. This is an amazing
technique that the kids use and eventually they
get what they need.
We ask Allah
to give us the best in this life
and the best in the love to come
and give us sincerity in everything we say
and do.
We're running a little bit late, so hopefully,
inshallah,
I don't want to keep you here forever.
So maybe next Jamba, Insha'Allah, will continue in
the second half. What we can learn from
the, kids according to Imam Suyuti. In one
of his books, he said there are certain
things that we need to learn from kids
in order to detox and restore the original
factory settings to have a better relationship with
Allah. And the people, we have to learn
from kids. So Imam Sayyuti is an authority.
So
next week, we'll continue, this discussion. We ask
Allah
to give us the best in this life
and give us the best in the life
to come, and give us sincerity in everything
we say and do.
Well, I like to go, like about