Mustafa Khattab – Learning From Animals
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AI: Transcript ©
I bare witness that there is none worthy
about worship except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And I bare witness that Muhammad salallahu alayhi
wa sallam is the seal of the Prophets
and the final Messenger to all of humanity.
Whoever Allah
guides, there is none to this guide, and
whoever Allah
leaves astray, there is none to guide aright.
And then that, over the last
few weeks we were talking about
things that we can learn from children.
If we ever want to improve our relationship
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and our relationship with the people, we should
learn something from their kids.
Sincerity,
being logical,
when you make dua,
you cry to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just
like kids pray, you know, cry to their
parents, to get what they want. So we
mentioned that there are so many things we
can learn from kids. This month insha'Allah is
dedicated,
to learning from animals. I know this is
shocking to some of you, but this is
the, learning from the animals month.
We as human beings sometimes we need to
humble ourselves.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling us in
the Quran,
walk in the land and learn, and look
and reflect and and learn.
So one thing we need to realize, because
sometimes we feel like, Oh, MashaAllah, we are
everything,
we are the center of the universe,
we are the most intelligent there is, and
so on and so forth. So sometimes we
need to humble ourselves to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
We need to understand
that we are the babies of planet Earth.
So all these squirrels you see in your
backyard, all the lizards, the spiders, and the
mosquitoes, and so on and so forth,
they existed
probably 1,000,000,000 if not, and 1,000,000 of years
before us.
We are probably the last addition to this
world.
And for 1000 of years we have been
learning from animals, and birds, and fish, and
so on and so forth. And I'm gonna
give you some examples.
And subhanAllah, when you look at the Quran,
you will be blown away
by the number of things we learn from
animals, and so on and so forth.
One of the first lessons I learned in
the village I'm a farmer,
in a small village, I was born in
the village in Egypt, and for 20 years
I was in the farm. I was, you
know, working with my family as a farmer
and so on and so forth, and dealing
with animals.
And believe me, I've learned so much from
them.
So, the first lesson
is how to make a feasibility study.
Darazid Gadma. I learned this from a donkey
in the village.
This is amazing.
So how it worked, at the age of
7,
I was working, I take the donkey from
the house to the farm, I carry stuff
on the back of the donkey,
simad and fertilizers
and or by seeing some, you know, food
for the animals back and forth, I go
to the farm, and the house, and so
on and so forth.
So on the way, there was a big
channel, that I have money. Right? So there
was a big channel that we have to
cross.
So I remember,
I tried to force the donkey to cross
this channel of water.
So what the donkey did, if you try
to cross the channel with
with the, you know, the the donkey and
the stuff on its back,
So what happens, the donkey will go 2
steps to the back
and will look at the channel and make
some calculations.
If it is doable,
jumpable,
the animal will come forward and it will
jump.
If it is not doable, even if you
shoot the animal, you kill the animal, it
will never jump.
So one day, the load was heavy, the
channel was big, and I tried to force
the animal to jump, it went a little
bit to the back, did the calculations,
it is not doable, the animal didn't do
it.
Then I said, I will show you.
I just jumped
and I landed in the middle of the
water, and I was drowning. And I saw
this big smile on the face of the
donkey,
told you
it's not doable. So I learned before I
jump,
I have to make like some homework to
see if it's doable or not.
The pros and the cons. And this is
something I learned from the animal.
And we as human beings,
even without realizing it, sometimes we forget,
we have learned so much from animals and
birds and stuff. How did we learn to
build dams?
Through beavers,
building tunnels. If you go to Makkah and
you see the tunnels around the house, how
did we learn to build,
tunnels from animals?
And
storing our food
from the ants and from other animals. And
subhanAllah, the ants,
they take the seeds and they take the
stuff like, wheat and corn and stuff,
and they do surgeries on the seeds, they
remove
some of the stuff inside so it doesn't
germinate if water comes or rain comes. So
it doesn't grow as a plant in the
storage. So they remove the thing from inside.
How did they learn to do this? And
we learned from them.
Storing the food, and so on and so
forth.
Diving. How do you learn to dive?
From fish.
How how do you learn to fly? From
birds.
How do you how do you build helicopters
and choppers?
From the dragonfly.
The scientists will tell you, we'll learn from
them. Right?
How did we learn to bury our dead?
From the ghurah,
the crow.
This is how humanity learned how to bury
the dead. In the story of the 2
children of Adam and Surah Fai and Surah
Maidah, one of them killed the other. He
didn't know how to hide the evidence of
the crime,
So he looked around and Allah sent the
crow to show him how to bury his
brother. Right? So we have been learning from
animals and birds and for 1000 of years.
And SubhanAllah learned materialistic
things.
And when it comes to spirituality, there is
a lot to learn from them because we
know
as human beings,
you know, we have
to get try to get close to Allah
look around and learn. Because animals and birds
and insects by default,
they're Muslim. They worship Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I was telling the students the other day,
yes, we are not allowed to eat,
the pork. We're not allowed to eat pork,
but we are not allowed to abuse the
pig because it's the creation of Allah, and
a pig,
to their astonishment,
is a believer by default. A pig
is doing what a pig is supposed to
do. They they worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
by default.
Compared to a lot of human beings, because
they think they are smart and intelligent, they
don't worship Allah
And if you think,
I have never seen
and it has never been reported
that an animal or a bird or insect
would worship another animal or bird or insect.
We have never seen
animals or birds or insects
create a and
make to it.
All humans have done it. We make to
idol statues.
We worship other human beings, and
so on and so forth.
And some people worship animals. They make to
animals. And some people, they make to to
shaitan.
If you read about the church of the
devil in the US, they make surjat to
shaitan.
Animals would never do the same thing.
They would never do the same thing. They
humble themselves to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. They
know that He is their creator,
And they know that he is their provider.
There's so many examples in the Quran in
SubhanAllah,
in the story of Nuh alayhi salaam in
Surahul,
when Nuh alayhi salaam said to the people
around him, flood is coming,
Go on board the ship. Let's save you.
They said, you think we're stupid?
You are building a ship in the middle
of the business?
We're not stupid. We're not going on board.
He told the animals, let's go and they
said, okay, let's go. Jadim, let's go on
top. Let's save ourselves
in the middle of the desert.
So what happened? People were drowned and the
animals were saved. Even the son of Nuh
Alaihi Salam, he told his son, join me.
I said, no. I'm not going.
There is no water in the desert.
But the the animals and the birds, okay,
let's go.
Chalo, chalo, let's go. And and they were
saved. Subhanallah. There are so many examples. And
you know what?
When I say that, you know, we think
about how animals live and what we should
learn from them, sometimes, wallahi, we give animals
a bad name when we compare ourselves to
them.
They are ashamed of us sometimes. Like when
you tell someone,
you're a dog.
The dog is one of the most loyal
things in this world. Do you think a
dog will betray its friend?
We always stab our friends in the back
all the time. We steal their money, we
backbite them, we sell them out,
you know, and so on and so forth.
Adar will never do this to their friends.
They will die
defending their friends.
Also, go to any store, go to Walmart,
go to FreshCo, go to Best Buy, any
store,
and just go to the honey section in
the store and it says martial arts, big
fonts, pure honey, 100%.
It's a lie.
It doesn't have any honey at all.
0, honey.
And any brother,
sincere brother
who honest brother who works in the field
of making honey they tell you, according to
government laws if the honey has 5% or
less honey
it is treated as 100%
honey.
Right? So basically,
95%
of what you see in this, thing
is cornstarch,
artificial flavors, artificial color,
and we give bees a bad
name. How did the bee do this?
95% is not honey? No. It's from us.
The bees, they give us 100%
honey. And actually, the scholars say,
for a bee
to make 1 kilogram of honey, the bee
will fly a
400,000
kilometers for 1 kilogram of honey. So what
we do, we take it,
95%
cornstarch, artificial flavors, artificial color. Would it be
a bad name? Right?
And I was thinking the other day about
another example.
You know, I watch National Geographic and BBC
World and I learned from animals. There's so
much you can learn from them.
Compared to if you watch a parliament or
you watch human if you watch the news,
you will lose your faith in humanity. But,
subhanAllah, if you watch the animal world, you
will restore your faith in the creation of
Allah.
Animals and birds and insects will lay down
their life to protect their young.
Just go to any
lion and try to take the cubs,
or go to a crocodile and try to
take their eggs, or anything.
They will give you a hard time, they
will die defending their young. The other day
I was reading some statistics out of the
US,
50 kids die every year
because their parents intentionally
leave them in the van in the heat
and they go
shopping.
I don't know what to say. I'm really
ashamed. I don't know what to say. They
leave their kids to boil to death,
80 degrees, 100 degrees in the van and
they go and because there is, you know,
shampoo is on sale or,
you know, clinics is on sale, they leave
their kids behind and they go and they
do some shopping to save like a dollar
or 2.
Animals will never do this. So there is
something we can learn from them. Right?
And subhanAllah, as I said, when it comes
to spirituality,
there's so many things we can learn from
them. And there is this ayah in the
Quran.
Every time I read this ayah, Surah Hajj,
ayah number 18. I want you to go
and read this ayah and read the tafsir
of the ayah.
I feel terrible every time I read the
ayah. It's like a step in the heart.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is talking to us how, you know, the
creation of Allah submits to him
and he compares us
to the rest of the creation including animals
and we look bad. So the ayah says,
and I'll give the Tajm at the end.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying,
look around
and you will see the creation of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is submitting themselves to His
will. This includes the sun and the moon,
the stars, the trees,
everything.
And Allah said all of the Anahu Wa
Kingdom,
they submit themselves to Allah,
many humans do, many humans don't,
and they deserve punishment.
And whoever Allah puts to shame, no one
can honor. Indeed, Allah does what He wills.
So Allah is saying us, 100% of animals
in the animal kingdom, the birds and the
insects, and and all the animals and the
insects you crush
with your feet or you drive all over
your car because you have no respect for
them,
they worship Allah by default.
And Allah says many humans worship Me and
He said many turn their back on Me
because they think they're smart, they're intelligent.
So again, we this is another example, we
look bad.
I will give you a couple of quick
examples in the last 5 minutes and the
Khutbah then we'll continue next time inshaAllah.
There is the example of the Hupho in
Surah Naml.
We're talking about spirituality here and guiding people
to the way of Allah.
The Huphu and Hudhut in Surah 27,
you know the reason why the people of
Yemen became Muslim at the time of Surayman
alaihis salam is because of the bird. Everyone
knows the story but sometimes we fail to
make the connection.
So the bird saw people make sajdah to
the sun
and and the queen, and the bird came
and reported to Salayman alaihis salam, he made
dua to them, and they became Muslim.
And now I think of all the people
who take Shaharah and leave Islam because of
a Muslim.
Some Muslim
was not acting Islamically. I'll give you one
example. It's a story that happened with me.
I was in Edmonton, this brother was visiting
from Fort
McMurray. They call it Fort McMurray.
So the brother was coming to visit Edmonton,
he came to my office in the Masjid,
and he said, he came, I said, how
are you doing? I
said, okay, my name is Mustafa, what's your
name? He said, I'm an idiot.
I said, okay.
Why are you saying this? He said, a
few months ago, this guy, a non Muslim
came to the camp in Fort McMurray and
he stayed with us.
We gave him Quran
and Sira Muhammad SAW Salam he read, he
was so impressed he took Shahar.
Someone said, you have to dress like this.
The other one said, no, you don't have
to.
So after 3 months, they confused the haircut
of him, and the guy left. He said,
you guys are confused?
You are turning my life into a living
*.
I can't say like this, I'm confused.
And the guy left. Then the guy who
came to my office said, Okay, what am
I? I said, You are an idiot.
100%.
There's no question. Right? The example is so
many, the example is so many. Another example,
we'll do it very quickly inshallah.
The end in the story, the end in
the story, in Surah,
27, Surah Nam, the end.
When the end saw the army of Surah
Alaihi Salam coming,
the ant
said,
So the ant
saved the ant colony
to the surprise and the astonishment of Sulaiman
alayhis salam, and he told his soldiers to
stay away from the colony
because
the ant was trying to protect the colony
from the army of Salaam.
Compare this
to Surah Saba, a human being,
intentionally
left his people to be destroyed. He knew
they were going to be destroyed and he
let them. He let them down.
So
in Yemen, in the story of Saba, in
Surah Saba,
Amrit Na'amil,
he was a man living in Sabah at
the time and they have the dam,
so they can control the water and,
you know, water the fields and so on
and so forth.
One day he was passing by the dam
on the mountains, he felt like the dam
was going to be destroyed.
The water was coming down and he felt
like there were cracks and stuff.
He ran fast to his kids and he
told them, you know, the dam is about
to be destroyed, let's get out of here,
take as much money we can. And they
said, What about the people? I said, Don't
worry about them. You know, their
Let's go.
He told his youngest son,
when we're at the gathering with the people,
Amrit Nammal. He told his son at the
gathering in Nadi,
I'm gonna ask you to give me some
food, some tea, some biryani, some burgers, something,
and tell me I'm not gonna give you.
When I raise my voice, come and slap
me on the face, across the face,
At the on the face.
And this is exactly what happened, pass me
the food or the drink? He said, No.
He raised his voice, Intamu'altab,
Intamu'altab, Intamu'altab, Intamililililil Adar.
You know, he raised his voice to his
son, his son came and he slapped him
on the face.
So the father became so angry and he
said, Wallahi, I'm not staying in this land
where I've been disrespected
by my son.
I'm gonna kill him. The people said, No,
no, no. Don't kill him. He said, Khalas,
because you are protecting my son, I'm gonna
sell my house, I'm gonna sell my land,
and leave this land I'm gonna leave.
So they gave him all the money they
have so they can buy his farms, and
his palace, and everything.
He took his he took all the money,
and he left with his family including his
son.
He have this son at home, he kissed,
and you were so nice today. I'll give
you the Oscars
for this nice slap you gave me.
They left at night,
they took all the money, everything, and in
the morning people didn't find it, and they
said maybe his son felt sorry and he
laughed, and he's gay, poor guy.
And after a few days, the dam was
destroyed, everyone was was killed.
Compare this to the attitude of the ant.
It's totally different, subhanallah. Sometimes I feel ashamed.
There's so many other stories we can find
in the Quran similar to this, and, we'll
continue next time inshaAllah. We ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to give us the best in
this life, and the best in the life
to come, salallahu alayhi wa ta'ala.
Salallahu
alayhi
wa
lalahi
lalahi
lalahi
lalahi
lalahi
lalamin.
So the reason I'm talking about
this,
we need to humble ourselves as human beings.
We have learned to fly like birds, we
learned to
dive like fish and dolphins, and we learned
to build dams. And I think it's about
time that we learn how to live as
human beings, And I think this is so
important.
We are not acting as we are supposed
to do. Animals and birds and so on
and so forth when a bear
attacks a moose
or a lion attacks a zebra.
They are doing what an animal is supposed
to do. They are just living their animal
life.
But we as human beings,
when people kill one another in Syria, in
Utah, in Yemen, in Libya, in Iraq, in
Egypt, we are not supposed
to do this. We are supposed to live
as a human beings with compassion and mercy
in our hearts,
to care for one another, just like the
animals care for one another. So there's so
much we can learn from them, and sometimes
as they said, we feel arrogant because we're
smart,
and we say these are stupid animals, what
can we learn from them? And Allah is
telling us in the Quran, even the Sahaba
I'll give this example next time. The Sahaba
are told
to learn from animals, so they can have
a better relationship with Allah and they can
have tawakkul.
And this is an amazing story. There are
so many other stories we can learn from
animals. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
give us the best in this life and
the best in the life to come. We
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us
hikmah. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
give us tawakkul, and we ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to have faith in him.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make
it easy for our brothers and sisters in
Al Huza in Syria. We ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to protect it. We ask Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to make it easy for
them.