Mustafa Khattab – Learning from a Donkey 1
AI: Summary ©
The importance of learning from actions and actions in learning about Islam is emphasized, as it is a habit and behavior. The speaker emphasizes the importance of following people's actions and not criticizing them. The speaker also discusses the use of "will" in Islam and the importance of learning from animals and non-Buddish people. The speaker emphasizes the importance of learning and applying the shrouds to one's life, as animals are better at responding to requests than humans.
AI: Summary ©
So when you read in the Quran,
you see there's an invitation everywhere in the
Quran to think and reflect
and conquer on the ayat of Allah subhanahu
wa'ala. You see it everywhere in the Quran.
So whenever Allah subhanahu
wa'ala talks about the creation, he talks about
the iman or faith.
He talks about,
the different things that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
created, the lessons that he put everywhere,
and the signs that he plays in the
universe, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is telling us
to think and reflect.
And you see it everywhere.
Do they not think?
Do they not reflect?
Are they not mindful?
Why would they walk around in the land
and think and reflect? You'll see this almost
on every page in the Quran. So there's
an invitation
to utilize
the, the abilities that Allah
has given you. Like, the eyes, he says
in the Quran, some people have eyes, but
they can't see.
They have ears, but they can't listen.
They have hearts, but they can't reflect.
They have brains, but they can't think.
Yeah. We have all these organs, but we
need to put them to use as Allah
says in the Quran.
And Allah
is telling us, as we will see the
examples I'll give, some of them are very
interesting,
That you need to think and reflect and
learn from everyone and from everything. Just look
around you. So you can learn
from human beings around you. You can learn
from animals and birds and insects.
You can learn from Muslims and non Muslims
and so on and so forth. Even plants,
you can learn from him something. And the
stories are so many in the Quran and
also so many in the Hadid.
When you're reading the Quran, there's one thing
you need to learn.
When you hear Allah
talking in the Quran because the Quran is
the words of Allah. He's telling you to
do things
or to avoid things.
Recommendations
and prohibitions.
This is what the Quran is all about.
Our problem is when we read the Quran,
when Allah says,
do this or don't do this, you don't
think he's talking to you. You think he's
talking to your cousin. He's not talking to
you. When Allah
says,
The prophet
whenever he received an ayat from the Quran,
do this or don't do this, he took
it on himself to follow it. And the
Sahaba, like, when the Sahaba recited something in
the Quran that talks about Jahannam,
It is as if they are the ones
who are falling into Jahannam and they start
to cry.
Whenever the prophet came across an ad that
talks about Jahannam, he would ask of the
whole lot, give it to me. If he
or Slaz and Adi talks about Jahannam, oh
Allah, give me away from it. And And
the Sahaba did the same thing
because they believed that the Quran came to
them, not to anyone else. He came to
you. So, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is talking
to you. He's communicating with you.
And this is why the prophet says in
the hadith,
when you recite the salah, you say, and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will say, my servant
has praised me. When you say, my servant
has glorified
me. So it's like a dialogue between you
and Allah. Every time you say something
and Allah will respond to you. So if
you want to talk to Allah, just read
the Quran. He's talking to you. He's communicating
to you.
When you look at the seal of the
prophet and the things that you learned from
him, you will learn that the the prophet
is all about Hikma. Hikma and Ali means
wisdom.
And wisdom is to do the right thing
at the right time to the right people
in the right way. This is what hikmeh
is all about.
Every time Allah
talks about the sunnah or the way of
the prophet and the way he thought and
the way he did things and the way
he behaved, Allah
So
Allah
is talking to the family of the
al Baytani Usa.
So Allah
is telling them, remember what is being received
in your homes of the ayatullah,
the words of the Quran, the verses of
the Quran, and the hidna.
And our mouths have seen they say that
the word Hidna here means the sunnah was
to teach
them the ayatulma,
the words of Allah Beykhna. They say the
words of Allah is to Allah Beykhna is
the sunnah of the prophet So if you
want to learn Iqma from a Surah's, just
follow his example.
Now you should think, what what should I
learn from him? His sunnah, his hikna.
Also, what can you learn from the Sahaba
of Rasool Ansas and the stories are so
many, and we hear the stories every day.
But a lot of people, they say or
they take the stories of the sahaba just
for entertainment, as if you are watching a
movie.
But you are not acting upon it. You
are not learning anything from it.
So the right way to behave for the
sahaba is to follow their example, to respect
all of them, and to follow from their
exam, to learn from their sincerity and from
their dedication.
Everyone of them did their best
to help Islam and to give Islam dignity
and honor. So you should ask yourself,
what did I do to give dignity and
respect to Islam? Did I do that like
the sahab? Did I follow the example of
the sahab? Did I do my best just
like they did their best to teach about
Islam and to live Islam?
It is easy to talk, but the Sahaba
were not talking. They were living Islam. Islam
was in their actions. Islam was in their
behavior.
And this is why hundreds of thousands of
people accepted Islam, and they didn't even speak
Arabic because they saw the Sahaba, and they
saw their attitude and their behavior,
and so on and so forth. The stories
are so many. Just read about it on
how it is in India and China and
all these places and Indonesia,
how people accepted the Islam. It was because
of attitude. It was because of behavior and
mannerisms.
And this is something we can learn also
from the Sahaba.
You can learn from all the people around
you. All young
men and women, Muslims, new Muslims, non Muslims,
animals, and birds. You can learn from anyone.
Just look around you. If you see a
Muslim doing something good like Ibadat,
why should you not be like them? You
should envy them in a good way, in
a positive way, which is to be like
them, to be as successful as they are.
You can learn from all the people because
they have lived long enough to have the
experience, so we can learn from them.
In my village, I always, when I was
there, I always used to sit with all
people people like my grandparents and sit and
talk to them, men and women. What do
you what do you advise me? What hikma
would you teach me? And I remember one
of them once taught me something that I
will never forget.
He said, I've left for so many years,
65 or 70. And he said, one thing
I learned through my life,
if you put people under your feet, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you put Allah over
your head, Allah will put people under your
feet. Which means you should only put Allah
in your mind. You should always do things
for Allah. Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will put people under your feet. And this
is a fear of his speech. If you
keep Allah in your mind, don't worry too
much about the people because Allah will take
care of it. But if you put the
people over your head, Allah will put you
to shame. So this is what he said.
It's just deep. Just think about
it. There's something you can learn from others.
The dedication and the hard work. They work
day and night. They never take days off.
They never ask for,
over whatever. They never ask for overtime.
They never take days off, and they never
complain.
You can learn from new Muslims. I remember
I learned one thing that I will never
forget from a new Muslim brother. Because most
of the time, when you see a new
Muslim brother or a new Muslim sister-in-law, they
won't know anything. They're just babies in Islam.
There's nothing we can learn from them. But
believe
me, there are a lot of common values
that you can learn from other people, even
new Muslims, and even non Muslims.
I think I shared with you one time,
I learned something from a new Muslim that
I will never forget. He told me he
has learned through his life. He was like
in his twenties. And he said, if you
are graceful
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he will give
you more to thank for.
The same thing.
But he didn't remember reading it in the
Quran because he was a new Muslim. And
I said, this is this is hikba from
the Quran, and this is something you have
come to realize after living for so many
years.
You can also learn from non Muslims.
Alhamdulillah. We have so many Muslims, but there
are some things you can learn from non
Muslims as well. The people that you work
with, the people you sat with, you can
learn from them discipline
and being untied.
And this is something I keep reminding ourselves
about, that sometimes we're not very particular about
time.
People would say, okay. We'll come to you
for counseling at 6 o'clock. They come at
7:30. Okay. It's not a big deal. When
are you gonna come to visit me for,
for lunch? Oh, I'm gonna come,
after us. And after after they come, like,
5 minutes before Monday. Technically, it's still after
us, but
the the the sense of time is not
there. The discipline is not there. So this
is something to learn.
Learning
from animals,
the animal kingdom, is a different story. It
has been weeks to learn from them. It
matters of life and also it matters of
religion.
So, say, for example, where did we learn
building dance from? It's from animals like the
beaver.
Where did we learn to store food in
the wintertime?
Where did we learn to fly? Where did
we learn to,
to make the chopper, the helicopter, to go
back and forth, you know, from the the
the the dragonfly?
And this is what the scientists say. Where
did you learn to make
magnificent
architecture?
It's from ants and bees.
The first reason I learned in how to
make a feasibility study, I learned from a
donkey in the village in Egypt. And, please
don't laugh because
it is true.
So, back in the day we used to
go to the farm
and
it was a road, a tight road, and
they have a small channel of water and
through the road they have smaller,
like, channels,
branches. So, the water will go to the
farm and irrigate the farm.
So, every
few steps you will see a small channel.
Right? Of water.
So, what we did, basically,
we would carry stuff on the back of
the donkey
and you will,
ask the donkey to cross this channel.
If it is tiny, if it's small, no
problem. The donkey would just jump. But, if
it is big enough,
the donkey will go back a step or
2 and it will make calculations
whether I'm gonna be able to jump this
channel or no.
If it is jump jumpable or if it
is doable,
then the donkey would jump.
If it is not doable, even if you
kill the donkey, you will never do it.
In our case, sometimes, I'm carrying stuff. Oh,
it's easy. I can't jump it. I jump.
I land in the middle of the channel.
But, you learn from
working with these guys right there that you
have to study, you have to look, and
you have to make calculations before you jump.
So this is something we learn from them.
And the stories are so many in the
Quran.
Allah subhanahu wa'ala that he's telling us in
the Quran
that animals and birds and and insects are
more grateful to Allah. They are more loyal
to Allah
than many humans.
Don't you see that to Allah submits everything
in the heavens and the earth? The sun,
the moon, and the stars,
and the planets,
and the trees.
What Duaab? The word Duaab and 'al, it
means every living being on earth.
Whether we're talking about animals, whether we're talking
about birds, or fish, or insects, all of
this is called Duaab and 'al.
Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala after saying that
all of this
submit to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the animals,
the birds, everything, all of them.
And many people submit
and many people refuse.
So this is what make us what makes
us different from animals and verse, that all
of them submit to Allah subhanahu wa'ala in
obeyed him. Allah
subhanahu wa'ala is telling us in the Quran,
Do you think that all these people around
you,
they can't listen
and they can't reason?
No.
They are like animals, and they are not
they are even less guided than animals. Why?
The Alamo have seen it. They say that
it is not a comparison here. Allah is
not saying that these people are worse than
animals
because it is not here.
He's saying that the animals, basically, are better
than self humans.
I don't believe in the theory of evolution,
Darwinism,
but sometimes I believe that some humans evolved
from cow,
and some humans evolved from dog, and so
on and so forth. Why? Because they behave
worse than these ants. So, without a lot
of concern, they say
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not telling us
that these animals are bad. He's telling us
that these humans are not as good.
How?
They say the animals that they know they
know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the
one who created them. He is the one
who provides for them, and he is the
only one they thank.
In our case,
yeah, we know that there's one someone who's
running the show, but when it is come
with when it comes to time to Ibad
and to thank Allah, not so many people
thank.
Allah says, very few
of humans give thanks to Allah.
What was the last time you saw a
dog
making sujood to another dog or a statue
of a dog?
You never see it.
In the morning,
living in the village,
you wake up in the morning and you
heard the the hints of the birds.
And it happens entirely when I listen to,
a recitation by Sheikh Abdul Basit, Mosheq Qosani.
When you fast forward the tape, the old
style,
it sounds exactly like birds. So So I
say, subhanAllah, maybe the birds are eating their
salah or maybe they're eating Quran. Who knows?
And being goose and the geese and the
ducks, they fly for immigration about this time
for the winter time.
You see that they're flying like a v
shape,
like the v shape,
and they are always following someone in the
front. And I say, maybe when they are
flying, they're actually in salah, and the the
this docket in the front is the imam
duct or the imam goose. Maybe. Who knows?
And Allah
is telling us in the Quran. He's giving
us example
to show us, Yeah. I mean, what we
can learn from these animals.
Can you believe that the whole Ummah
in Yemen
in Salat,
accepted Islam because of the bird?
The the hulhut, the hukoh in the story,
the sunnah.
So the bird came to Suray Ba'al and
said, look. And the hulhut
the hookah was pulling his hair off. He
said, can you imagine that these people that
are making sashlaf to the lady and they
are worshiping the sun instead of Allah? Even
the bird realized this. He said, what is
this? This is nonsense.
So he went, he took the letter the
letter from Suleiman, the story is there in
the du'a, and he gave him the lemma.
Eventually, he accepted Islam before of a bird.
I know some Muslims,
they are the reason why a lot of
people are leaving Islam.
They are not making dua. No. They are
the reason why people are leaving Islam.
I remember one time, maybe I told you
the story.
1 of the brothers came to me and
he used to work in Fort Mac in,
Alberta, Fort McMinn.
So,
he said, you know what? I'm I'm a
idiot.
And I said, why you think this? He
said, well, a brother who was non Muslim,
he, used to live with us and, eventually,
he accepted Islam. But we're like 5 or
6 living with him, and we started to
teach him,
contradictory things. We made his life difficult. So
in the morning one of them would say,
you know what brother? You know I am
a new Muslim. You need to learn. The
most important thing in Islam is the beard.
Then at night another person was saying,
forget about the beard. The most important thing
in Islam is a beard.
So, they started to confuse him and this
brother came to me and he said, eventually
this brother, we made his life difficult. He
was not learning anything. Eventually, he left Islam.
So, he said, why do you call me?
And I said, will I call you immediately?
Just like you said at the beginning. You
see? So, we need to start with the
priorities, and so on and so forth. You
read in the Quran
that an ant
was the reason why
the the kingdom of ants was saved from
destruction. Right? In the story of Surah Al
Nabi.
So,
the aunt was working for Amr ibn Ma'ud
for Naya l Nunka just to save her
people. Right? And you see Muslims, they saw
something wrong in front of them, they never
talk. And they even contribute
to the killing and destruction of other Muslims.
You just read the news and you will
get the grasp for the whole year.
How Muslims are shedding the blood of other
Muslims.
You read in the Quran,
in Surat al Seer that an elephant
refused to destroy the cow
out of respect for the house of Allah.
The new eve story is about how many
thieves are caught every year
during the Hajj season.
They buy tickets 1,000 of dollars, they travel
miles and miles, and they go there to
steal money from other pilgrims.
And they have tactics and techniques. They cut
things and they seal in the Haram in
the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And the stories are so many.
You read in the Quran
where we learn how to fire the dead.
We didn't learn it from other human beings.
We learned it from the Huwah, the
crow. So, at the Madida,
the crow
taught Khabin how to bury the dead body
of his brother. This is something we didn't
know. So, their stories are so many. When
you reflect on these stories, these animals and
birds and insects, they put us to shame.
Then when you read also about plants,
the plants
if you put if you're a farmer, you
plant something in your backyard,
you take the seed. It doesn't matter which
direction you put the seed upside down to
the right or the left under a rock.
It doesn't matter. The seed will come out
the plant facing up to the sky. It
doesn't matter.
So in your case,
if things put your life upside down, you
should always turn to Allah.
Raise your hands and say Allah help me.
Just like the client. There are so many
things we can learn, or you need to
just open your eyes, open your heart, and
look a lot around and learn.
We listen to a lot of things about
Islam. We come to classes and we come
to Fudda Tjumah, at least.
Fudda Tjumah.
So if you come to Fudda Tjumah regularly,
this means that you listen to 52 footballs
every year.
If you have been coming to footballs for
10 years, this means you have listened to
520
footballs. Right?
And if you have been coming for 20
years, this is over a 1000 footballs. And
so on and so forth. We do the
math.
Believe me, if you just apply
1 or 2% of what you learn
from the footbas,
this will take you somewhere else. It will
raise you in rank. It will give you
the knowledge that you need in your life.
Because the stars of the footabas always talk
about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and tawheed and
so on and so forth. So
the stories are so many and the footlas
are so many, but the most important is
thing is how do you receive the footlas
and how do you apply them to your
life?
So when you go to a football, when
you hear a story, you should not listen
to it because it interprets you. You should
learn it or learn something from it. And
this is the point behind the story.
When they heard something, they started immediately
to apply. You heard these stories about changing
the or
the prohibition of wine or the hijab story
in the Quran and so forth and so.
What does Sahaba did? Immediately, as as soon
as they heard something, they decided to apply
because this is the most important thing.
I'm gonna conclude with the story of
Dumat,
as the one of the
So he came to the prophet and he
said, I heard stories about you. They say
you're a court. They say you are a
mad man. They say this. They say not
about you.
So
would you give me the chance
to say something so I can hear you
from the valley that is overwhelming you? So
the prophet said, listen to me.
So the man said the prophet said, the
prophet said,
I praise Allah and I seek his help
and assistance. Wherever Allah guides, there is none
to misguide and wherever Allah used to stray,
there is no one to guide and so
on and so 2 lines. So the man
said, will you please repeat this to me?
The prophet repeated it 3 times. And the
man said, well, Allah, he had never heard
anything more beautiful than this. And he said,
give me your hand, and he took shahab.
On the spot,
I'm talking about the introduction to the Khutbah.
I'm not talking about the
the man took shahal
because of the 2 lives that we say
every Jew and the introduction. What about the
rest? So we need to listen with an
open heart and open mind that we need
to apply and teach those who are around
us.