Mustafa Khattab – How Not to Give a Boring Talk 2
AI: Summary ©
The importance of practicing Islam and not giving the impression that you are humble is emphasized, along with the need to practice and practice what you preach to avoid mistakes. The importance of learning about different subjects and being open to feedback is also emphasized. The importance of body language and the use of facial expressions is also emphasized. It is emphasized that practicing authentic hadiths and providing practical advice is key, along with being careful when giving a story and focusing on the topic at the end of a talk. The importance of considering the audience's style and providing relevant and relevant information is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
To jail. We didn't have enough money to
study Islam. So I'm I'm basically an idiot.
I don't know how to talk about Well,
if
this is fake humility, if you don't know
how to talk about this subject,
why would you even talk?
So don't say this at the beginning of
your talk. This long introduction about how miserable
you are and how ignorant you are because
you think this will give them the impression
that you are humble,
don't do it because you are shooting yourself
in the foot.
Right?
You have to have a lot of wisdom
and this will help you to choose the
the topic, the style of your talk, and
how to be able to talk to your
audience.
And they say that Hikmah basically means
that you say the right thing
to the right people at the right time
in the right way. This is wisdom. This
is what wisdom means in Islam.
And also to be quick quick with it.
To be able to yes.
Then maybe it will come back.
Maybe from here.
Yeah. Maybe it will come back inshallah.
Some people are, subhanAllah, they are gifted.
They can
they can talk.
And no matter how hard a question you
give them, Alhamdulillah, they come up with an
excellent answer.
I think I gave
the story before
of the story that happened to Al Mutawakkil.
He was, Khalifa.
So what happened?
And
the, one of the assistance of Al Mutawakkil
got sick.
So Al Mutawakkil who was a Khalifa he
went to visit
his sick assistant.
So while they were waking up the sick
assistant, Al Mutawakkil, the Khalifa saw
the son of the sick assistant sitting in
the sitting in the living room. So he
said, okay. Let me ask this guy a
couple of questions. He was like 6, 7
years old.
So he said to the kid,
what is more
Have you ever seen anything more precious than
my ring? He had a like a diamond
ring.
So he says, have you ever seen anything
more precious
than this diamond ring?
So the kid said, yes.
So the Khalifa was like taken aback. What
is this? What is more precious than my
ring? He said, your finger is more precious
than your ring. He said, masha Allah, this
is an excellent answer.
Then he said,
I'm gonna get him this time. He said,
which which house
is is much better for you?
Your house or the palace of the Khalifa?
My palace is better or the house of
your father is better? So he said, this
is very easy.
Now because you are in our house, our
house is better than your palace. But when
you go to your palace, your palace is
going to be better than our house.
He ordered his guards to fill his mouth
with with diamonds
because he was so elegant.
One time,
George Burdeshaw,
I think he was Irish or Scottish,
is a very
very famous,
writer. Yeah. So one time he was having
a debate
with
a, politicians
because they were talking about
the,
authors and writers, they are not getting enough
support from the government.
So this man, I think he was a
politician,
and he said, you know what?
We should
work to,
build more,
slaughter houses
to provide meat for the people. This is
much better than supporting authors and writers because
writing is not a good thing.
So when George Bernard Shaw told him, you
know what? Do you know that dogs think
the same way that meat is more important
than books?
You know? It's a it's a it's a
same thing.
So I shoot the messenger
is
when you tell the people upfront that whatever
opinion I'm telling you is not actually my
opinion. I quoted this from someone. This is
from Quran. This is from Sunnah. This is
from this book. We give you references,
especially in controversial issues.
Also, you if you wanna be an an
effective speaker, if you want people to listen
to you, you have to practice what you
preach.
You see? If you tell them,
brothers and sisters, if you smoke, you will
be an idiot.
You smoke everyday. Wallahi, nobody will listen to
you. One time, Imam Abu Hanifa, people came
to he was a big scholar. So people
came to him and said, yeah, Imam.
The slaves came to him and they said,
yeah, Imam, we want you to give a
talk about slavery,
and we want you to encourage people to
free the slaves because this is a good
thing in Islam.
So he said inshallah.
So next Jumah, they came, they were excited,
they invited all the slaves. He's gonna give
a talk, and tonight we will be free.
Alhamdulillah.
So, Imam Abu Hanifa said, Alhamdulillah, Arabi Alamin,
InshaAllah, today we are going to speak about
the month of Sha'aban.
Sitting like this.
They said okay, no problem. Maybe next Khutbah
we will talk about slavery.
Then he started the Khutba. Salam Alaikum. InshaAllah,
today we'll talk about Fada'il,
the importance of the month of Ramadan.
I said, what is this? It was Ramadan
time.
Then they said, maybe next week or the
week after. Salaam Alaikum. Today we're gonna talk
about the importance of Laila Al Khadr.
What is this man? So eventually they were
fed up, they came to him.
And
the 4th time, he actually gave a talk
about slavery and we have to free the
slaves, it is not good, and, you know,
they are human beings like us and all
these things.
So they said, we waited for a whole
month for you to give the talk,
And everything you said was for from Quran
and Hadith. I mean, it was not rocket
science,
you know. You just gave the talk from
Quran and the Sunnah. What took you a
whole month to give a talk? He said,
because I didn't have a slave.
I waited so I can raise enough money
to buy a slave,
then free my slave, then I can come
and give a a very effective talk about
freeing the slaves because I just did it
myself. But I give I give a talk
about freeing slaves,
then the people say, what does he know
about freeing slaves? He never freed a slave
in his life?
And this is why when I gave the
football, people now are gonna follow my example
because I I just did it myself.
Also,
if you talk about an old subject,
try to,
revitalize the subject by connecting the subject to
our realities in this life. Because some of
the brothers,
Alhamdulillah, they come to the masjid and everything.
They are excellent brothers and brothers mostly. They
make a lot of sacrifices. They travel for
many days, but they always talk about iman
and yakin,
about abstract
subjects.
But here, we need to hear talks about
drugs, we need to hear about children,
we need to hear about abuse in homes,
we need to talk about
the different things that are affecting us and
our lives and our families here in this
country. Imaan and Yaqeen is good, but how
can you translate this into practical solutions in
our lives?
Right?
Also, make sure you record your footba and
listen to your footba
because
when you when you are talking, sometimes you
make mistakes and you don't realize. It's a
good thing when you ask a lot of
brothers
to come to you after the footba and
take notes, if you make a mistake in
grabber, if you if you say something that
was incorrect, to come to you and to
correct you. Because when you talk, you are
busy talking,
sometimes you say things and you're not paying
attention, you made a mistake.
Like one of the brothers,
he was,
I was leading Taraweeh and Tahajjud, so I
got tired. So I told him, you know,
you're
gonna pray with tonight.
You will make Dua Ramadan after Taraweeh.
So he made the Dua and at in
the Dua he said, Allahummaatatana
fiyadhayomaladhimidambanillahafartah
and at the end he said, walah mayitin
illa shafayd.
He says, oh Allah, don't leave any dead
person today, actually, any sinful Muslim without forgiving
them. And don't leave any dead Muslim without
giving them recovery.
Usually, you don't leave a dead person without
forgiving them and a sick Muslim without giving
them recovery. So he confused. He said, a
dead person without giving them recovery. He is
dead.
What kind of recovery are you talking about?
But he was confused.
He didn't realize it, so we corrected him
after the talk nicely.
So listening to feedback
and it is it's a good thing when
people present to you your mistakes. Because
if you make a mistake, nobody is talking
to you, or maybe they talk about you
behind your back, this is not gonna help
you. But you should be open to feedback
from the people, and this will help you
to improve.
The difference between a lecture and chutba
chutba, usually you have a limited time. You
choose a topic real relevant to the time
or the community.
The good thing about footba footba to Jummah
especially,
and this is something you don't find in
general lectures and stuff. In Jummah footba,
the most important thing about Jummah footba is
you have a guaranteed audience no matter how
miserable you are as a speaker.
They have to come to you. But if
you go to Brock to give a talk
and they don't like you, nobody will come.
Right? But Jummah, they have to come or
they would be simple. Right? So you have
a guaranteed audience.
Whether you give a Khutba or a talk,
you have to start big.
By this, they mean it is better to,
to attract people's attention when you start by
giving a beautiful story at the beginning or
giving a very interesting statistic
about something.
This will make people listen to you. They
wanna under you know, hear what you have
to say because you started big, you spoke
about something important.
And finish clean. By finishing clean, you can
sum up your talk in a story,
or you can give them a summary of
what you said or interesting things about the
subject matter.
Also, very important technique when you give a
talk, whether you give a talk or a
fukbah or you are presenting the people,
what they call the fan factor.
Not this fan, but the other one, the
regular one. You see how a fan works?
Yeah. This is what the Prophet SAW Alaihi
Wasallam did when he gave a talk.
When the Prophet SAW Alaihi Wasallam gave a
talk, he always
turned around and looked everyone in the eye.
So much so that the people would think
that he is interested you in you, and
he likes you as a person, you are
his favorite.
Because he's looking at everyone, so, he's talking
to me. Some of the footba' when they
speak,
they either look to the floor
or they just look at 1 person because
they are so, you know,
terrified. They don't want to look around because,
oh, they are expecting me to make a
mistake. Oh, man. They will get me off
the top after salah.
So what they do?
They look at one person or they just
look at one direction. Salaam Alaikum. InshaAllah, we'll
be talking about this, boring topic. And you
know what? I like this guy, but I
hate you. I hate you. No. No.
Just look at everyone in the thing.
Amr ibn al-'As radiallahu anhu,
he noticed this.
He said, the prophet
used to look at people and look him
in the eye, every single one of them.
So much so that I thought I was
actually his favorite because he was giving me
attention. He was looking at me and
yeah. So I came to him and said
one day,
do you like me better or you like
Ali radhiallahu better? He said,
Ali radhiallahu.
Then he said, do you like me better
or you like Umar Radhiallahu? He said, Umar,
I like Umar more. Then he said, do
you like me, Abu Bakr? He said, I
like Abu Bakr more. Do you like Uthman?
Do you like and he mentioned the number
of Sahaba, like 15 of them. So every
time I asked him, do you love me
better or that Sahabi better? So he would
say the other Sahaba. So he should, I
wish I never asked him because I wish
I stayed with this perception that I was
his favorite because he was looking at at
us when he gave the talk.
Also,
what they call addiction. You change your style
as you speak.
So you are talking normally, but in some
point, you have to raise your voice or
you have to lower your voice because the
tone of your speech so if people are
asleep, they wake up. So say for example,
if you say,
I went to the house, I put the
key in the door, I opened the door,
I went inside
and, you know,
the kids were playing with my,
my pants, and they got the scissors, and
they cut the, you know, the legs of
my pants.
And the food, they opened the fridge, and
all the food was on the floor.
Something this is so boring because you're so
monotone.
But you have to raise your voice sometimes.
Like, I put the key in the door,
and I opened the door, and I went
inside, and oh my god.
My pants. They were playing with my pants,
and I went to the kitchen and all
the eggs were on the floor. Oh my
god. Something like this.
You see?
Like when you
something is also very important when you speak
is to use your body language, the facial
expressions.
You know, the when you open your eyes,
like you say,
I went inside the house,
and
the food was in the floor. Oh
my God, I didn't know what to something
like this. You open your mouth
or,
I was standing there
and I wanna I was going to invite
my mother to come to,
the dinner next day, and my wife did
like this.
Yeah. This body language is very important. You
don't have to say anything,
but you say a lot of things with
with your hands and your and your face.
And this is also,
it's very important when you speak.
You know, in the hadith, when the prophet
was talking about different things, sometimes he used
to draw on the sand, sometimes he used
his fingers like me, and the person who
takes care or the person who sponsors orphans
we're like this in general.
So he is using his body to express
his, his feelings.
Remember the, story I mentioned?
And
I remember one time I was giving this
talk and,
I was talking about the technique of doing
dawah, and I said, you have to do
it with, sincerity.
And
it's a very small story, but when I
said it and I used my body language
and the people were laughing in the foot,
but, and of course, the old people were
after me and they wanted to whatever.
So I was saying, we're talking about doing
Dawah for a good reason. You see?
I wasn't one of the masala and they
have a very
big, you know, parking lot.
And,
after Asia, I was leaving the Masjid. I
have a couple of brothers with me. So
we're leaving and there is this, Muslim brother
who was standing with a non Muslim lady
in the parking lot in the back in
the
dark. So you heard this story before.
So
when they saw us coming, they did not
expect to see us. So when they saw
us, the lady started to run-in the streets,
and the Muslim brother was standing like this.
So I said,
what are you doing here? He said,
you know what? I'm showing her the light.
He's giving her dua. This is what he
meant. So I said, why do you show
her the light in the dark?
Why are you standing in the dark? You
can bring her to the masjid, we'll give
her dua material, you know.
He was not sincere. He just was having,
you know, whatever. He's just he's doing it
for the wrong reasons.
You can't say something sweet in the middle
when you give a talk, you say a
very interesting statistic, you give a short story
or something, whatever,
but don't be a clown. Some people turn
the talk into stand up comedy.
They they turn it, like
like, they go they give a talk about
death
or
what you do, the etiquette of the graveyard.
You know brothers and sisters,
well, like, this is funny. We're talking about
Janazah.
Do you know that,
funeral
starts with
fun? So it's funeral starts with fun. So
Alhamdulillah, we have to be funny, we take
the janaza, whatever, you know. No. Because this
is not the time to make fun. This
is a serious thing.
This is actually a short story that I
gave at one of the funerals in Edmonton,
and I said the
the story of Joha. He was sitting with
his father and his mom
in front of the house
and they were pa there was a Janazah
passing by.
So,
the Janazah was followed by the person's wife
and children. So one of the children
said, you my father, oh my father, they
are taking you to a place
that has no food,
that has no bed, that has no water,
nothing.
So Johansen
said, dad, are they,
taking him to our house?
Because we don't have any of these things
in our house. He said, no, no, no.
They're taking him to the grave. So the
point was when you go to the grave,
you are not taking anything with you. There's
no food, nothing there.
So make it sweet, but not too much
sweet.
When you recite Quran,
in the talk, if you have to recite
Quran,
make sure you recite it in a beautiful
voice. Like Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in
the Quran in support of the point I
just made.
Something like this. So it is not like
you are reciting a paper. Allah says in
the Quran, Inna Laveena Aamanu waamalusaalihatkal.
Like this. No. No. No. You have to
say it in a beautiful voice. You remember
at Eid, when I gave the talk,
and I said it's easier for some youth
to memorize songs than to memorize Quran.
And I said,
you know, when they listen to a song
from Justin Bieber, for example, they pick it
up very quick. They memorize it. But Surah
Quran, oh my gosh. It's a short Surah
but I can't.
You love me maybe I know you care
but I don't love you. It's a nightmare.
Okay. So this so compare this to what
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says somewhere in the
Quran then you recite the Ayaf with a
beautiful voice. Now you compare the lyrics of
the song to the recitation of the Quran
with a beautiful voice. Now it shows you
the difference. You make a good point when
you do this. Right?
So you have to make your recitation different.
Also use authentic Hadith because some of the
people when they give a talk,
they inject a lot of fabricated Hadith because
they are fancy. They are the people who
love my talk because,
you know, I'm giving this fancy hadith. Like
some of the people who say, you know,
if you read a surah from the Quran,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will give you $10,000,000
in Jannah. He will give you 10 palaces.
He will give you this. He will give
you that. But there is no authentic hadith.
But they are just doing this to motivate
you, but there is no such thing. So
make sure you you say authentic hadith.
Also,
when you give a talk about a problem,
you have to give solutions at the end.
You know, brothers and sisters,
we have a problem with our youth in
the community. Divorces are very high. The rates
of divorces are very high in the community.
Our youth are doing drugs.
Whatever is doing this is selling haram things.
We live in such a miserable community.
Nobody is donating money to the Masjid. The
Masjid is dirty. The Hammamat are dirty. No
one is coming to salah. But
so after Jumah, people say, you know what?
We're not coming to this guy again because
he makes us feel so horrible. There's nothing
good about us. You listen to him for
5 minutes, you feel like you wanna shoot
yourself in the head. There's nothing good in
our life.
No. But if you talk about a problem,
you know, the youth,
they do this, and these are the solutions.
123, you get practical solutions.
A work plan for the audience. If they
want to,
to solve the problem, you give them solutions
and 1, 2, 3, 4. You need to
do this. 1, 2, 3. If you have
a problem memorizing the Quran, for example,
then maybe you need to talk to a
shayef, you recite before a shayef, recite your
khef in the salah,
listen to a recorder,
use your recitation in salah in your salah
when you lead. Something like you give them
practical solutions
and give a lot of stories.
This is something you notice in the Quran.
Almost
50%
of all the things in the Quran are
stories. The story of Yusuf,
Nur, Musa, Ibrahim, they're all over the place.
You read the Sira Hadith from the Prophet
SAW, and there are so many stories.
Some of the Alama they used to say
that
Al Tasas
minjunudillah.
The stories are one of the soldiers of
Allah because they go straight to the heart.
I can talk to you for hours about
something, but if I just sum up this,
like when we spoke about Aluwul Himmah, aiming
high and thinking big, I can talk to
you for hours.
But when I gave that little thought for
3, 4 minutes about Muhammad ibn Abi Ahmed,
you remember the story? I'm not gonna say
it again, but it's a very powerful story.
It will sum up everything and you make
a very strong point when you give them
a very strong, story at the end and
also you give a summary.
InshaAllah, we'll be done in about 10 minutes.
Now
we spoke about you as a speaker,
and we spoke about your style.
Now we'll talk about your audience.
3 things are involved. You, your style,
and your audience.
Number 1,
you have to look at your audience. And
say for example,
if I'm giving a talk between Tawih and
Ramadan, salatul Tawih will start 11 o'clock. Right?
And Tawih takes about an hour. If I
speak,
like, in the middle of Taraweeh,
there is no way in the world I
can talk for half an hour. I have
to speak only for 5 minutes. I have
to make sure that it is very effective
because I don't have a whole lot of
time.
But if we have a lot of time,
then I can talk. You hear that you
read the story of Yusuf alaihi salaam faisalat
Yusuf
when they came to him with the 2
dreams, the 2 inmates,
before he gave them the interpretation,
a whole page, he's making dua to them.
He's he's sorry about something else because these
people,
they have nothing but time. Even if he
gives them dua for a month,
you know, I ain't going nowhere.
We have time, you know. Come ask, give
us talk to us.
So you have to pay attention to the
audience.
Also,
we give when you give a story,
make sure if you're talking to brothers or
sisters or brothers and sisters, your stories have
to be relevant to both.
Like say for example, if I give a
talk about guile.
Guile is, some of the things that people
do, smart things they do to outdo other
people, outwit them. So if you give a
story about brothers
who a brother who outwitted his wife, it
is important to give a story about a
sister who outwitted her husband to keep it
balanced or the sisters will be mad.
And also if you give a talk about,
you know, something,
make sure you understand the background of your
audience, if they are Muslim or non Muslim.
If I go to give a talk about
Islam,
you'll say for example,
if I'm invited by a church group to
give a talk about Islam,
I'm not gonna use the same argument
that I would use if I go to
give a talk to atheists about Islam. It's
a completely different subject.
2 different arguments. So you don't use
the same argument for different people. Otherwise,
they would this will be like
a doctor who is giving the same medicine
to his all all of his patients. If
you have a headache, I'm gonna give you
aspirin.
If you were a Tylenol. If if you
have tumor and then I'll give you aspirin,
Tylenol.
If you have a fever, Tylenol.
If you have the kidney stones, Tylenol. This
is not gonna work. You will kill at
least 70%
of
the people.
Also,
the audience, if they are young,
maybe they are not educated or educated. You
have to be careful when you talk to
people. Because sometimes
and this is the problem.
Say for example, with some of the Quran
translations,
they don't keep this in mind. They use
very difficult words.
Like, I remember I was talking to brother
Anthony. I spoke to him about the translation
project we're working on with, brother Marissa and
Hisham and some of the brothers and sisters.
He says, I'm using Yusuf Ali translation when
I'm preaching to them.
Thou, thine, maketh, giveth all these things. So
the inmates,
he goes to the federal,
presence to give talks to the,
to the to the inmates.
So when he uses they're happy when he's
giving a talk, but as soon as he
quotes from the Quran, they're sitting like this.
What is he talking about? Because it's all
English,
very difficult words, they don't know what he's
talking about.
Even if you use this Yani, it's a
very good translation but all only for academics
or someone, but not for for this particular
group. Interaction. Make sure you ask the audience
if they have a question, if they have
a comment, something to keep them engaged. If
you think they are bored,
you spoke for 10, 15 minutes or 20
minutes, half an hour, you feel that they
are bored, they're starting to look at their
watches
to, scratch their head or yawn,
some of them start to leave, then maybe
you need to to give a short story,
or maybe you need to cut this the
the Khukba short, Khalas.
Done.
Some people
believe me,
those who are prepared
you have seen a lot of speakers come
to, you know, to different places to give
different talks.
Those who are experts on the subject matter,
they speak short.
Those who they they are not who are
not prepared,
they talk for too long. Why? Because they
are not prepared.
They don't they don't have anything to say.
They think, okay, I haven't seen anything. Maybe
I need to tell them. This is why
some of the speakers,
you you say to yourself, why is he
jumping from one story to the other? He
started by talking about Sahaba,
about Hijra,
then he started to speak about the polar
bear, then he started to speak about Hillary
Clinton,
then he's gonna talk about,
Tim Hortons. What is it? Because he doesn't
have anything to say. This is why he's
talking about everything,
and his talk took an hour to finish.
But if the imam is focused,
10, 15 minutes, he should give you a
crash course on what you need to know
and Khalas. So the this is the difference
between a speaker who's prepared to speak and
someone who's not prepared to speak.
Also, if you are a good speaker,
you will choose the topic very carefully. You
know what the audience
wants to listen to. Maybe because of the
time, if it is the 1st day of
Ramadan,
you don't talk to them
about,
Ashura.
You don't talk about something. You have to
talk about this topic because this is the
topic of the hour.
If
something happened, something of interest to the community,
you need to focus on this, something related
to them. Say if I come here and
give a Khutbah about
about,
penguins
who live in the northern pole,
who cares?
Who cares? Nobody cares. Right? But if you
speak about
Dawah in the community, if you speak about,
elevating ourselves and uplifting our youth and our
families and how to stop
fights in our homes, these are very important
and crucial topics that everybody is willing to,
to listen to.
At the end, if it is not a
foot by you open the door for questions
and answers.