Mustafa Umar – Islamic History 101 #1 Life Of The Prophet
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The importance of praising Allah and learning from his guidance is emphasized in a course on Islam. The course covers various topics, including history, religion, and the origin of Islam's life. The course is designed to cater to different mentalities and interests, and is designed for 12 months online. The importance of understanding one's life and the ultimate goal of Islam is emphasized, and the course is designed to provide guidance and support for those interested in learning.
AI: Summary ©
I begin by praising Allah,
and I ask him to bless the final
messenger, Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.
As I mentioned before, I'm giving you a
translation.
I'm giving you a translation of everything that
we're speaking of, because that was part of
what was advertised in our methodology.
So what we began with what I began
with just now,
besides the feedback,
was a formula
just wait a second.
Was a formula
which we begin most Islamic lectures with,
and that is we begin by praising Allah
and we ask Allah to bless the final
messenger of Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam which
means peace and blessings be upon him. We'll
begin with the dua,
that Allah we have no knowledge except what
you have taught us, and you are the
wise and you are the knowing. It's very
important that we begin with a supplication, a
dua,
and we ask Allah, Allah,
teach us what will benefit us and let
us benefit from what you have already taught
us.
One preliminary remark is that whenever we mention
the name of the prophet, we say peace
be upon him or we say sallallahu
alaihi wasallam or we say alaihi wasallam.
Now,
what is the actual ruling on this? The
ruling on it in terms of do you
have to do it every single time or
what if you don't say it or whatever
it may be, it's that you should say
it. There's a difference of opinion among scholars,
but you should say it at least once
in a gathering
whenever the name of the prophet is mentioned.
And the reason why I'm mentioning this is
because a very real story is that
many people have encountered
a situation where they only know one opinion
on a subject, and then they begin to
judge other people based upon that opinion. So
the example I'll give you is of myself
and one of my friends from Turkey, we
were sitting in class and there was one
teacher
who every time he would mention the Prophet's
name, he would not say salallahu alaihi wa
sallam. So we used to get very upset
and we started echoing together out loud
in front of him in the front row,
trying to get him to say it by
saying it ourselves every time he mentioned the
name of the messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. So we started going loud and
loud and loud, and we said we're not
gonna listen to anything this person says because
he has no respect for the messenger of
Allah. Well, the reality is that you only
have to say it, according to one of
the mainstream opinions is only once in each
gathering, so that's just a clarification from the
beginning.
So I'd like to welcome all of you
to the College of Islamic
studies,
sponsored by IIOC, the Islamic Institute of Orange
County. Alhamdulillah, I'm glad to see that so
many people signed up, and I'm even more
glad to see that most of them actually
showed up as well. Alhamdulillah.
So Alhamdulillah means, you praise be to Allah.
So that's a blessing from Allah. And I'll
share a hadith,
a statement of the Prophet,
salallahu alaihi wa sallam who said,
that whomever Allah wants to guide,
he will give him
a deep understanding
in the religion,
in the religion of Islam.
This is an authentic narration. So what does
that mean? That means
that if Allah wants to guide you and
Allah wants to show you what is the
true path of Islam, he will give you
a deep understanding, not a shallow one,
and not leave you in the dark, and
not leave you in ignorance, but give you
a very deep understanding of the religion so
that you can practice it. So that you're
you're able to actually understand what to do,
and what Allah wants from you, and you're
able to practice that. So that I think
is very important that we begin with this
because, alhamdulillah, the fact that all of you
have enrolled in a class,
which is a university style class, it's a
college class, there is there are examinations,
it is gonna be intense,
it is gonna be structured.
All of these things,
usually we're willing to take these type of
classes
when it comes to something that's connected to
the dunya, meaning the world. Something that you
can get some worldly benefit out of. So
in university, most people you ask them, if
there was no degree at the end, or
if if you had to do a subject
where there's no opportunity for you to get
a job,
right, there's absolutely no jobs there, you just
wanna go for the sake of knowledge or
for the sake of benefiting yourself, most people
would not be interested in taking those classes
or attending that school, or taking that degree.
And the vast majority of people here, I'm
almost sure that their intention is to learn
Islam. That's primarily their intention, over 50% at
minimum. If you get the certificate,
great, alhamdulillah. If you don't get the certificate,
still alhamdulillah,
you've learned something. So
I think that's we should begin with that,
that renew your intention.
Begin with a sincere intention that your goal
here is to learn
about your religion,
about what Allah wants from you, about what
your purpose in life is, and make the
intention that you're gonna practice the things that
you learn over here and that is your
primary intention. And it's not for any other
reason, it's not because your other friend, you
know, kind of dragged you in here, it's
not because your parents signed you up, or
your children signed you up, or whatever it
may be, it's primarily for this reason and
for this purpose to please Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
The second thing is
people become very intimidated
when they see,
especially when they see tests, when they see
exams, when they see deadlines, because we're not
used to those kind of things in a
in a in a classroom,
in a masjid, for example. We're not used
to those things in an Islamic lecture. Nobody
tests you on the Khutba,
alright, on the Friday sermon after the sermon
is done. So even if you got a
few points out of it, it would have
been fine. If there was a test, some
people would get a little bit shaky, alright.
No one is gonna test you that when
you come for Fajr prayer, say, well, which
which surahs did the imam read?
Half the people would fail, right. They would
not be able to even, you know, tell
you even what it was even if you
didn't even if you knew the surah, you
wouldn't be able to remember what it was
because just that that level of attention or
focus is not there. So we're not used
to
being tested when it comes to Islam,
but it's something that's very important, and what
I'm trying to tell you is do not
get intimidated.
Do not get intimidated and do not say
it's gonna be very difficult, I didn't expect
it, you know, to be like this or
whatever it is. It's really not gonna be
that difficult if you compare with the way
that you study other subjects. The way that
you study physics, and chemistry, and biology, and
you study people study nuclear science, they study
organic chemistry, and they study all these different
subjects.
We can do it in that, we have
a very high standard, but when it comes
to Islam, our standard at the moment is
quite low. So what I'm saying is raise
your own standard for yourself,
and you'll find all of this to actually
be not very difficult. It really won't be
that difficult, and you can do it. I
guarantee you can do it. I know you
can do it. Because that's why we set
the age limit at 16 and older, and
we set the limit that most people have
sufficient amount of English skills, which means they've
probably read quite a bit, they've probably read
many things in their life, so they can
do this inshallah. So do not, and I'm
gonna keep reminding you to give you a
little bit motivation,
do not
get,
you know, disheartened.
Do not think that, you know what, it's
getting a little bit tough and I have
this other thing to do, therefore I'm gonna
maybe I'm just gonna drop out because it
was only $50 you know, and we just
gonna leave it. We tried to put $50
just enough so that you're really motivated to
come, but you're hopefully not motivated to drop
so quickly. That was the reason why we
put that kind of limit there. Alright? So
InshaAllah, we don't wanna lower it or raise
it. We wanna kinda keep it around this
area. So please, you know, hopefully, we we
chose the right number InshaAllah.
The next thing is that
remember that these classes, this college level class,
is going to cater to different interests.
So some people have come with the intention
that I wanna learn
Everyone has a little bit different intention. The
intention is to please Allah, the intention is
to learn Islam, but everyone has a little
bit different style of which they're gonna, you
know, want to get from the class. So
some people will say, well, you know, I
I convey I I make dua. I convey
the message of Islam, I'm sharing with other
people. I wanna see how this can help
me in dua. I wanna see how this
can help me convey the message of Islam
better for someone, and there may be a
few points where you say, well, that is
not directly,
you know, related to to Dua, the thing
that I'm interested in, and therefore that's not
really what I had in mind. I thought
it would be more on on in this
field or in this line. And there are
some people who come and they're just teachers,
and they're maybe teaching elementary school children, and
they say, I came to primarily go and
teach these children, and now this person is,
you know, these things are too much related
to the field of dawah. You cannot please
everyone. Some people will come, they say, I
just want to teach my kids.
I just want to be able to teach
my kids and this this is a little
bit over my head and we don't need
to get so detailed.
And there will be some people who say,
you know what? This is something is a
very basic story. I came from a very
I wanted to be see an academic,
representation of the life of the prophet. Alright.
That's what I wanted to see. So I
didn't wanna see these little things about incidents
in here and there. I wanna see what,
you know, what the orientalist have to say.
I wanna deconstruct their arguments. I wanna be
able to battle them. I wanna be able
to do this. Everyone has a different intention,
different different kind of desires and what they
would like to see in the class. So,
my advice to everyone
is have patience.
Have patience
because there's we're trying to cater to all
different mentalities,
all different mindsets,
and the and the life of the prophet,
peace be upon him, is for everyone. It's
for everyone, and we can learn so many
different things. So have patience, insha Allah ta'ala,
you know, Allah willing, you will be able
to learn this and you will maintain, you'll
be able to stay in this class, insha
Allah ta'ala, and you will succeed. Insha Allah,
we will provide help. So I'm gonna begin
the topic. The class
is history 101,
history 1, life of the prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. What are we
gonna be covering this week? We're gonna talk
about the necessity of an accurate portrayal. Why
it's so important to actually have a correct
understanding about the life of the prophet? Number
2, the need for Muslims to know the
prophet.
What are some of the benefits that we
can get by actually knowing about his life?
Number 3, what is the methodology in which
we're gonna study this subject? Methodology is something
very important
because how do you study something? Right? You
can There's so many books you could have
picked up. You can go to a bookstore
and you can buy some books. You can
go and buy some lecture CDs. You can
go and attend a class somewhere else. But
if you don't have a methodology in which
you're gonna approach the subject, then it's haphazard,
and you don't know where you're going with
it. And number 4, we're gonna talk about
the origin of the the life of the
prophet as a subject or as a genre
what's called Sira, and we'll talk about that.
So before we begin, who actually read
the papers that we sent out, the reading
for today? Raise your hand high.
Alhamdulillah,
very good. This is gonna make life much
easier. Okay?
So,
yes?
You didn't get it? When did you sign
up?
Last week?
Okay, we'll look into that.
Okay. Insha'Allah, we'll look into what what the
reason for that was. Insha'Allah. Also, yeah. So
good question is,
what is my policy for questions,
alright, and interaction and all of that? Basically,
you're gonna answer it for me? Or you're
gonna answer it for me? Mash okay. What
is my policy?
Raise your hand and after your I ask
you that.
Michelle. Okay.
So, yes, obviously, Michelle, you got half of
it. Raise your hand. Right? Please raise your
hand. I will call on you. My policy
is questions will be
after each slide. So when the slide is
done, before we move on to the next
slide, I'm just gonna click on the next
slide, and then I'll give you time for
questions. If you see that I've forgot to
ask you that there's are there any questions
on this slide? Just raise your hand when
you see the next slide transition before the
first point starts.
So is that clear?
Okay.
So the necessity of an accurate portrayal. So
before we even get into this subject, let
us talk about why we're studying the life
of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He was chosen by Allah.
This is the most important reason why we
study his life, that he was chosen by
Allah to serve
as the last way that we could ever
know about our real purpose in life, why
we're here in the first place. Just I
want you to think about that. If you
were gonna be able to answer why is
it so important to study his life? We
can talk about his character and his demeanor,
we can talk about his different qualities that
he has, we can talk about all of
these things, but the most important thing about
the prophet is the fact that he was
chosen by Allah as a messenger,
And there is nothing more important than that.
That is the absolute most important thing because
that is the only way that mankind or
humankind
can ever know
about what their real purpose in life is.
People can think all they want. Philosophers can
reason. They can rationalize.
They can try and figure out some things
about this world. Scientists can use the empirical,
you know, empiricism or the empirical methods to
figure out some things in this world, and
test them, and see how they work, and
all of these things. But, the only way
that we can actually know our ultimate purpose
here is if Allah has communicated that message
to us. And that's exactly why it's so
important that we study his life.
Because today,
we find that many people, they believe in
God,
or they believe in a higher being, or
an intelligence, or whatever it may be. And
this, you know, this notion, sometimes it's called
deism, you know, being a deist. You you
believe in a higher power, but you don't
believe in any religion. And one of the
reasons why this is becoming more and more
common is because people have
made this generalization
that
all religions
are man made.
Right? Because they saw that the Catholic church
was abusing its powers in in medieval Europe,
they saw that clergy in, India, or in
Hinduism, or Brahmanism,
or in China or wherever it was, there
was abuse of power.
And, therefore,
people have concluded
falsely
that every single religion or every single
person who's claiming that there's a purpose in
life must be wrong because these these certain
groups
were abusive. These certain groups were wrong. We
know something was wrong with them. Now this
is a this is an overgeneralization.
This is not something that should actually be
applied, but it's becoming more and more common
today. And that's why people have this mentality
that I don't wanna follow an organized religion.
And what that generally amounts to is that
I'm gonna follow
the bits and pieces and the parts that
I think are correct.
So therefore, I'm gonna follow what I feel
is right, and I'm gonna pick and choose
whatever I feel, and therefore, I'm following my
own religion technically. And you can frame it
however you want, but this is a very
common attitude that many people have today, Therefore,
it's very important that we understand why this
is happening.
Now what does Islam say?
Islam says that Allah created this universe. Allah
created
if there's a multiverse, He created the multiverse.
He created every single thing in existence,
And he didn't leave them to be just
by themselves and you just kind of figure
everything else out, but he decided to communicate
his message or the reason why we're actually
here in the first place through certain people
whom he chose.
And
what happened was, over time, people began to
change the message, or people began to neglect
the message, or they began to add things
to the message, and that message became corrupted,
or lost, or forgotten, or changed, or modified,
or whatever you wanna call it. And that's
why when you find a religion,
or you find a system of beliefs
that
encompasses some of the teachings of the true
prophets that were sent and chosen by Allah,
you will find that that is a man
made religion in the sense that it's been
altered, in the sense that it's been changed.
Now do we believe
that each and every single religion out there
is falls into the same category? No. But
from a as a Muslim perspective, we believe
that almost all of them, if not all
of them, besides one, has been altered and
are man made in the end of the
day. So in one sense, we
agree
to an extent with this claim
that all but one religions are man made.
And that's why I I think it's very
important when we talk about religion,
right, when we keep using this word religion,
we need to be very careful. Because we
say sometimes we make this statement and we
say, well, you know,
religion is not the problem.
You see, all religions are peaceful. All religions
talk preach about love. All religions do this.
We as Muslims should not actually be doing
that. We should be very careful because who
are we to speak on behalf of somebody
else's religion? We can speak on behalf of
our own religion. We can speak on behalf
of Islam, but we don't generalize the way
that people have generalized.
Because a a lot of that or some
of it at least may be true to
an extent. So we have to be very
careful about the words that we use. So
there are altered religions and they're man made.
The prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, was the last and
final of these messengers that has been sent
by Allah for the guidance of all people.
And these previous messages were corrupted
during the time that he came. So the
message of prophet Ibrahim, prophet
Abraham had been modified, had been corrupted. The
message of prophet Moses, prophet Musa had been
modified and had been changed. The message of
prophet Isa, prophet Jesus had been either corrupted
or lost, it's been modified.
Therefore, it's very important that we actually study
his life, and it's very important that we
understand the context in which he came.
So now,
any questions on that before I begin this
slide?
Okay. Then Yes.
Why he was sent? The the prophet. Yeah.
He was sent at a time where the
other religions had already been changed or had
already been corrupted, and most people cannot figure
out what the original teachings of those prophets
were. Prophet Musa, Prophet Moses, Prophet Isa, Prophet
Jesus. Therefore, he was sent in a specific
time where that guidance had for the most
part been lost already. Therefore, there was another
prophet been sent. Every time the teachings had
changed,
Allah sent another prophet
to remind them of the teachings, so that
every single group of people received the prophet.
Is that clear? Insha'Allah. Okay. So the necessity
of an accurate portrayal. So why is this
why is it so important?
If you look at today's society, if you
look at the world in which we live
in today, probably there's never been a more
important time to know about the actual
life of the prophet,
and how he really lived, and what he
was really like, and all of these things.
Why?
Because we have so much misinformation.
We have so much propaganda.
And on top of that, we have a
general ignorance about Islam. The average person, particularly
in the west or in the world today,
they know very very little about Islam,
about what it really means. Most people, they
they only know what they see on TV,
or they know what they've read in in
some textbook or in a classroom or whatever
it may be. And the danger that's really
involved is 2 things. Number 1, you have
confusion
because of this misinformation and propaganda, or ignorance.
And number 2, you have bias.
So you have these two problems.
Okay? And one of the problems that we
face is that when people hear
a few things about the life of somebody,
what do they begin to do? Just a
few things without understanding them within a broader
context, they begin to make judgments
based upon
those small pieces of information that they've been
given. And this is exactly how propaganda works.
Right? This is the definition of propaganda. You
give people a few facts which are outwardly
true,
but they're completely taken out of context.
And this is why you find people today,
many people, they think that, for example,
when they walk by, they begin to racially
profile somebody.
Oh, if this person is black, or if
this person is Latino, or if this person
is such and such, then they may have
a higher risk
of, you know, robbing my car or stealing
from me or something like that. And if
you go to England, oh, this person is
Asian. Asian meaning Pakistani or * or whatever
they call. They have a different perception and
say, oh, this person probably is less educated
than the average person. And if you go
to another place, you go to France, and
you say, oh, this person is from North
Africa, is a Moroccan or an Algerian, people
begin to make judgments
based upon small amounts of information that they
have, and that's actually human.
It's human, it's a mistake, but it's human.
It's natural. There's a natural inclination because if
you don't understand all the variables,
you know, that are involved in a particular
equation or in a particular scenario, you're gonna
start making judgments.
And that's precisely
why we need to study the life of
the prophet, and everyone needs to study the
life of the prophet in detail today. Because
the amount of propaganda
and the amount of ignorance that's generally out
there is is at alarming levels, alarming rates.
Now there's a second problem.
The problem is that people today
who are, quote unquote, educated,
people today who have degrees, people today who've
gone to universities and gone to all of
these things, they're taught,
they're taught that having critical thinking skills is
the most important thing that you can possibly
have. That your ability to think and your
ability to analyze something is the most important
thing. So what they do is they take
those critical thinking skills that they have,
and they take a few incidents of the
prophet's life that they're that they're taught, and
they begin to make judgments without having an
understanding of any of these things. And they're
proud of that, Because they say with my
ability, I've studied so much, I have a
PhD, and I have a, you know, whatever
research degree here, and I have this many
awards to my credit or whatever it may
be. Therefore, I'm in a position to make
a very informed and enlightened judgment
about what the prophet's life is gonna be.
Now I want you to think about the
scenario. The scenario is like imagine you're in
a court of law, and in a court
of law you have a judge, and the
judge is presented with the case and says,
look, there's been a murder here. This person
has been killed, and this one person was
found next to the body.
And the judge says, look, the guy's got
blood on his hands, there's a weapon near
him.
It's very clear. We don't need to investigate
anymore. That's the scenario. And they say, well,
you know, judge, we actually found some more
evidence. There was, you know, some fragments of
DNA over here that don't match this person.
There was some hair found over here. I
don't wanna hear the other information.
I'm not interested
in the other, you know, evidence that's presented.
I can make a decision based upon what
I already know. And that's exactly what people
are doing today about Islam and about the
prophet. They're making decisions because they're not informed,
and they don't think that they need more
information.
That's why it's very important that we study
his life, and it's very important that everyone
studies his life. So, I mean, how do
you convince somebody else to study his life?
That's another issue. Right? But
knowing the facts to be able to determine
what is Islam and what is the life
of the prophet is something very important. So,
his life story
is actually,
this is what people do. His life story
is actually a history of Islam.
This is a very important thing to understand.
That if you wanna understand Islam in a
context, you wanna understand how Islam manifested itself.
And when I say Islam, I mean the
final manifestation of Islam.
Because we believe as Muslims that Islam began
with the first human being, prophet Adam. That
was Islam because Islam means submission to Allah.
So
when we're talking about the history of Islam
and its final manifestation,
we need to know about his life so
we understand what that history is. What are
you going to learn? You're going to learn
how he received revelation,
in what manner did he receive it, what
were the circumstances around which he actually received
that revelation. You're gonna understand the persecution that
he faced, the difficulties that he faced that
he tried to spread the message of Islam.
You're gonna understand,
how Islam began to
eventually gain way and, you know, become accepted
within society and how it began to spread.
You're going to learn,
about what the Prophet was actually like in
many things. So for example, what type of
person was he? Was he a kind person?
Was he a caring person? Or was he
a cruel person, generally? You're going to learn
how did he
operate
in the field of battle, for example. What
kind of political strategies did he use? You're
going to learn about how he was as
a family person, as a family man. How
did he treat his wives? How did he
treat his family members? You're gonna learn about
how he was with his friends. You're gonna
learn about how he was with his enemies.
You're gonna learn about all of these things.
And once you know the life of the
prophet, you'll be able to answer these questions
because you'll have a general understanding. So if
somebody says, well, the prophet actually look at
this one incident. Here's a report saying that
he did such and such. When you're able
to place that into the context of his
entire life story, you say, something must be,
you know, particular or unusual
about
this report,
or if it's true and this report is
correct, something must have been particular about this
situation.
Completely clarifies
the misconceptions,
clarifies certain doubts, certain confusions that even Muslims
have, let alone non Muslims.
And this stuff is coming up more and
more. Websites are popping up more and more,
and they happen to know every one of
these websites
happens
to be, on the cutting edge of utilizing,
what's that technology called to get your rankings
of SEO.
Right? Search engine optimization.
They happen to be on the cutting edge
of getting search engine optimization. So when you
search for something that's negative to Islam, that
could have been on a Muslim website giving
you the answer, the first website you're gonna
get is the non Muslim one. It's not
the non Muslim one, the Islamophobic one. The
one that is really bringing some argument. So
people don't have this context.
Either you can respond individually to each and
every single incident, or you can give people
and equip them with the general contextualization
of Islam.
So what actually happened?
What actually happened in his life? In his
life,
the most important thing is to come back
and realize
that he had a mission, and he had
a message, and he was a messenger, and
he was receiving revelation from Allah. So when
he received that revelation and he told other
people about his revelation, and he says, this
is a message from Allah, this is the
Quran, I'm receiving revelation,
there were a number of responses.
The first response was people,
accepted him. Right? Some of his companions, they
accepted him, and they accepted what he they
they believed in him, and they had very
good reasons for believing in him. And
while we're going through
his life,
we want to try to understand
what were some of the reasons why people
believed in him. The second response were people
rejected him, called him an imposter.
There's no other way to say you can
if you call him a liar or a
poet or whatever it is, in the end
of the day, you're saying
that this man is lying or he's deluded
or whatever it is about what he actually
came with. This is a second position. A
third position, you can say,
is that people
liked him,
they, you know, respected him, but they thought
that he's self deluded.
They thought that the prophet Muhammad is self
deluded, and there's something wrong. Because you can
only take one of these three positions. You
can either believe in him as a prophet,
you can reject him and say no, he
was lying for sure, or you can believe
a third one and say well, he's deluded.
Maybe you respect him as a person, maybe
you don't respect him and still think he's
deluded, whatever it is, these are three positions.
But now
we have a 4th position, which I'm gonna
talk about. These are the 3. There's a
4th position.
Okay? And the 4th position is a position
at which people believe to be a neutral
one,
and this is very common among people today.
They believe that they're taking a neutral position
because they're saying, I'm reserving judgment.
When you ask them and you you you
confront them and you say, well, what do
you really think about the Quran?
What do you really think about the prophet?
Do you think his message was true? Do
you think his message was false? Do you
They say, I'm gonna take a completely neutral
position. I have no stance
about
him at all, and I'm not gonna take
a stance. Now what is the reason behind
that? Right? What is the reason behind that?
What do you what do you think the
reason is? So be some interaction, child. Yeah.
It's safe.
It's safe. Exactly.
Exactly.
I know. I'm not out being rejected, and
then maybe
I might get a blessing that I didn't
curse him. Okay.
Oh oh, even from the afterlife perspective it's
safe, you're saying? Okay. So so I'll be
okay because I didn't curse him, but at
the same time I didn't do this. So
okay.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Good. Got it. Got it. Absolutely. Okay. Yes.
Any one of you?
They don't have to prove themselves.
What do you mean prove themselves?
Very okay. That's a very common you don't
have to prove yourself then. You don't have
to, you know otherwise, people will kind of
be feel, oh, I have a responsibility. I
have to be on the defensive. I have
to do this. I have to do that.
Yes. You don't have to take responsibility.
Right? That's another big one. Yes. They're uneducated.
They're uneducated. No. Why do they take a
neutral position? Willingly, when they know, when when
they when they're actually when they know, why
would they still take a neutral position? That's
that's the question.
Yes, sister? They
would like to get accepted by others. So
so the thing is basically we're seeing that
either there's going to be a worldly benefit,
you're not going to be judged, you won't
be, you know, on the, you know, on
people asking you why you're believing this, you
feel that I'm I'm not gonna be account
I don't have to be responsible, so I'm
not gonna be accountable, I could still do
whatever I want, and then there's the other
perspective like the brother mentioned that perhaps there
could be some people
that think in the next life as well
that maybe I have some argument, like from
ignorance that, you know, I just did you
know, if it's true, you know, I didn't
take a stance, God. You know, Allah didn't
take a stance about it. And if it's
wrong, and see, I didn't take a stance.
So you kinda appease people both ways. So
that's that's,
that's a very common position today.
Whatever the the the reasons people have in
the back of their mind, it's a very
very common position because they feel that it's
like a safe position, it's a neutral position.
But I want you to think about this,
is it really neutral?
From from from if you look at it
from the Islamic perspective,
right? Can it possibly be neutral?
It can't be neutral because let take this
example,
you're in a city,
you're in a city, and that city, there's
a hurricane,
flood, tornado, earthquake warning.
Right? There's no such thing as earthquake warning,
but I didn't imagine there was. Right? It's
like, it's there's an army coming, and the
army is gonna, you know, come and, you
know, drop a bomb on it or something
like that. And all of a sudden, this
news reaches you.
Right? You either have a few options, the
same kind of options. Right? You have the
option either to believe
it, and you get out of the city
to save yourself and your family. You either
reject it and say this guy is lying.
Right? And what are you gonna do? You
stay in the city. But if you say,
you know what? I cannot decide.
I just I can't decide whether this person
is is telling the truth or not, I'm
just gonna take a neutral position.
What did you end up doing?
You're sitting in the city,
and you're gonna be responsible for the consequences
if the news turns out to be true.
And this is a very very common position
that people actually have today. They say, I
can't make up my mind, or I have
a neutral position, or I don't, you know,
I I wanna be, you know, I'm hesitating
to take a position. I don't like to
take sides on argument because they feel that
something
related to truth,
this word is is anathema today, among intellectuals.
For them, truth doesn't exist. Right? In Islam,
truth does exist. People can be opinionated about
it, people can have different perceptions of it,
but it is an ultimate truth from the
Islamic perspective, from the Islamic world view. And
people are scared to take that because they
actually feel that the truth is relative.
So if you take a painting for example
and you say, well, do you think it's
nice or it's not nice? And one group
of people is saying it's so amazing, you
know, it's like a few stripes or whatever.
Right? And and some other group of people
is saying, you know, it's like a little
kid, you know, my my kid could do
something better than this. And you're thinking, you
know, I'm just caught between, they both seem
to have a good argument, I'm just gonna
take a neutral position.
Judging art
is not like judging
a revelation from Allah. There's a world of
difference. So there are times in life where
we take a neutral position, and there are
times in life where we should not be
taking a neutral position, and this happens to
be one of them. This is just an
understanding of how people react, and people need
to understand that. Now, what is the motivation
for people to actually,
for people to actually
study his life?
Right? What is the motivation for people to
study his life? The motivation
has to be there. So people will say
that, you know what? Imagine you go up
to somebody and you say, you know what?
Here's a life here's a book about the
life of the prophet Muhammad in Islam. And
this person doesn't know much about Islam. What
is the motivation? They may ask you a
straightforward question, and say, why why would I
read this book? I On my list of
books to read
is the biography of Malcolm x, I wanna
read about the life of Martin Luther King,
I wanna read about Gandhi, I wanna read
about Alexander the Great, I wanna read about
Aristotle, I wanna read about all these different
people. I wanna read what, you know, Steve
Jobs and, you know, how he was successful,
or I wanna read about the NRA, or
whatever it may be. Right? They wanna read
about something else. Why should I give precedence
to this?
Why should I give precedence to this? What
answer would you possibly give to someone who's
legitimately asking you that question? Why is this
considered to be a priority in my life?
Why should I take out the time for
this?
What makes this any different? Everyone else is
trying to sell something out there, and for
them, from their perspective,
you know, if you're not if whether you're
being hard or not, it's like why is
this person kinda telling me, you know, to
do this? Unless you're very close, then they'll
understand that it's more out of sincerity. What
is the reason? What what was the answer
that you would give?
I'm opening it up now. What is the
answer you would give?
The purpose of life route. Right. So you
can either go the purpose of life route
and say this is the real reason, you
know, for existence and all of that, or
you could say that, you know, this is
a very important figure and there's a lot
of things that we need to understand about
his life and all of that, and and
perhaps
in time, they will try and begin to
understand his message or whatever it may be.
Alright? Alright.
Jazakam. Okay. Yes. A very good point. So
so it's,
you
know, you to explain to people,
what the ultimate reality is and for example,
Malcolm. Why why did why did people produce,
what led to this person being produced in
the in that sense? Yeah. Okay. So inshallah,
so we'll leave it at that. So there's
many good reasons, alhamdulillah.
So,
you mentioned if you read if you did
the reading, you saw that there was one
reason mentioned. So just to let you know,
in in case there's, like, an essay question,
you know, as an assignment
on your test or something like that, then
we're actually it's it's open. You can answer
with more than one answer,
but something with a proper analysis, a good
analysis and explanation.
Here, from
the perspective of the Muslim,
the ultimate perspective,
is that this gives us
an understanding of what it is that Allah
wanted us to do in the first place.
This gives us an ultimate answer to the
question that many people ask in their life,
or you could probably say most people ask,
or maybe it's in the back of their
mind that why are we here in the
first place? What are we supposed to do?
What you know, why are we created in
the first place? This is the only way
to know it, and therefore, this neutral apparently
neutral position is not exactly,
a very, legitimate position.
Alright. So
what about someone
who's
just not interested at all? They're not interested
in taking a position. They're not interested in
in knowing about the, you know, knowing about
the life of the prophet because of his
message. They're not interested in that. They just
wanna know, like the brother mentioned, that they
just wanna know about,
you know, political events. They wanna understand what
is really happening in the Middle East. They
wanna understand, you know, why are, you know,
why are their bombs blowing up in certain
parts of the world and somehow they're being
connected to Islam. They just wanna know that.
What can they get out of that if
they're not interested
primarily at this moment in understanding what is
the ultimate purpose? What is the real
absolute truth purpose in life? They can actually
learn and they can understand
a number of key questions
that many people have in today's society. How
was the prophet? Was he a kind person?
Was he a cruel person? As we mentioned.
Was what what led him to engage in
warfare?
Just think about this question. So many people
are asking this question, well, you know,
prophet Jesus, or they they say Jesus,
whatever they believe about him, he, you know,
he never engaged in war.
He never he never told anyone to pick
up a sword, which is not true by
the way. If you read the bible, he
actually did tell people to pick
up a sword. But, you know, they don't
have this context about warfare.
They don't have this context of understanding him
to be in a different light. They is
he understood in a different light. So therefore
they look at the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and what do they
say? They say, well look, you know what,
if he engaged in war that means that,
you know, political leader probably capitalizing
on this followers and on the strength that
he had, all of these things. But if
someone actually studies his life, they will understand
what led to those wars.
What led him to actually going and starting
or participating
in a battle or in a war in
the first place? What is the context? And
they'll be able to answer, or Muslims themselves
will be able to answer, was it purely
defensive?
Was it purely offensive?
Was it a combination of both? We're gonna
learn that in this class as well, inshallah.
How was this message spread?
Most people have heard this common myth, right,
which has been sold over and over and
over again. Who's heard this before? Islam was
spread by the sword.
Has heard this? Almost everyone has heard it.
Many many people have heard this, and it
continues to repeat itself. It just manifests itself
in different ways, different, you know,
schools in academia
tend to pick it up and put it
in different ways. I remember I was doing
a a master's paper
on jihad.
And if you look how many books have
been written about jihad in the last 10
years, You can imagine in the English language.
There's just
so dozens dozens of books,
PhD theses have been written about the concept
of jihad.
And almost all of them almost all of
them, including ones from Berkeley, UCLA, all of
these different places, almost all of
them are pretty much
accepting the premise that Islam was spread by
the sword. What is is what does that
mean? Islam was spread by the sword? It
means that Islam was forcefully
spread by the sword, and people who didn't
wanna convert, they were killed,
and that's how Islam spread. It only spread
it could only spread
by having it forced upon the people. Like
the way that communism was forced upon people
in the Soviet Union, the same way Islam
was forced upon them. Therefore, it's not an
accurate measure to say that Islam spread and,
you know, it was a legitimate religion that
started spreading around. Now that, you know, notion,
we're gonna answer that notion as well. There's
a simp the simple answer to that is
that, look, you can convince 1 generation of
people,
you know, to to forcefully accept the religion.
You can't convince those same people to take
that message and to continue to propagate it
and to continue to force it on people.
If it's forced on you, it's very, very
unlikely that they're gonna be so motivated and
convinced that they're gonna leave all of their,
you know, desires and, you know, everything behind
and start forcing it upon everyone else. And
then that group of people is gonna leave
their life behind and start forcing it on
other people as well, if they haven't bought
into the idea itself. But we're gonna talk
more about that.
People can get an answer about how his
message spread.
People can get an idea about how he
treated people who disagreed with him.
Very, very important. How did he treat people
who disagreed with him? This will solve the
question right there. So having an unbiased
answer to these kind of questions
these kind of questions
is so important today that we often don't
realize that it affects political policy.
And it has always affected
political policy throughout history.
So as you read, I gave examples. It
it has even resulted in genocide, and I
want you to think about that. Think about
the Spanish inquisition.
The Spanish inquisition
where all the Muslims were either forced, you
know, either forced to convert to Christianity, start
eating pork and all of that, including the
Jews, they were also forced as well, and
Muslims were slaughtered left and right. Now if
you read if you read the literature
that was available
to the average Spanish person, non Muslim, and
the average,
you know, intellectual of Spain at that time,
you would be amazed.
Read through the poetry
that was produced by the Christian Spaniards at
the time of the inquisition, when it was
starting up and when it was taking place.
And you will be shocked, because the things
that they're saying is that
the obvious would be that Muslims are, you
know, of the devil.
Straight up. They're just of the devil, they're
of Satan. That's we hear that all the
time. Right? Still. But their poetry was saying
that they are the biggest idolaters
in in the world,
and their idol worship has to be stopped,
and they're quoting verses from the bible which
is talking against idol worship, and saying we
need to get rid of these idolaters.
And they're saying that they had, you know,
they they they changed the name of the
prophet, and they said, like, I forgot the
name that they used for him, and they
say, oh, they made this d they made
this statue. And all of them bow to
the statue, and that's his Muhammad that they're
talking about. And they bow to him, and
they started saying, they bow to him this
many times a day. It wasn't 5, they
were like way off, but they bow to
him this many times a day, and, you
know, they go and they bow to these
other idols, and they do these things, and
they do these sacrifices, human sacrifices,
most ridiculous things. But
that creates public support
for the policies that they had to institute.
And that public support wasn't as important at
that time. Today, it's even more important in
this society. If you look at Bosnia,
what happened in Bosnia?
Right? Muslims and Christians were living together
for so many years. How many decades? 100
of years? Side by side.
Anyone visited Bosnia? Anyone from Bosnia?
No one's visited Bosnia. I visited Bosnia. I've
been there. I've seen it. Now it's changed
a little bit, but they had all the
buildings. You could see the mortar shells in
every single building because they were not allowed
to be repaired, so that nobody forgets. And
literally you're walking through a city, you're walking
through Sarajevo, and you see giant building.
Nice building, masha'Allah, and there's a giant mortar
shell sitting in the middle of the building,
just been bombed. And there's a giant there's
just houses sitting there, completely demolished. The city
has moved on. But all of that is
a reminder of what happened. How did it
happen? It happened with a few songs,
right, against Muslims. It happened with some nationalism.
It happened with, you know, a miss a
misconception
or a misperception about what Islam actually is.
Had people not had these ideas
in their mind, they are very less likely
to support some of these things that are
happening. And the things we see that are
happening today
are also a result of the false propaganda
that is being put against the prophet and
that is being put against Islam.
Think about it very seriously, think about the
fact,
you see an average person who doesn't know
anything about Islam, and all of a sudden
they're told that the prophet is, you know,
you know, mistreating women, and he's like this,
and he killed people by the sword, and
he did this and he did that. And
now all of a sudden the ballot comes
and says, we're trying to save the people
in that Muslim country. It has nothing to
do with oil or whatever. We're trying to,
you know, go and help that one country
by giving them freedom or giving them democracy
in the form of whatever. They're not gonna
mention how the form comes.
What do you think the perception of that
person what do you think they're gonna check
off based upon what they've learned about Islam?
See, we this is horrible.
They don't even realize
what's going on in the back of their
mind, but it's still affecting their decision.
That's what I want you to understand. I
want you to understand
from one perspective,
from the absolute truth perspective,
why it's so important for people to know
about the prophet. Because it's their, quote, unquote,
salvation. It's it's their afterlife.
It's their purpose in life. But from the
other perspective,
we're talking about major
major political decisions that are gonna result in
killing and murdering
innocent people who've never done anything wrong, who
who who didn't deserve any of that. And
had the person not been misinformed, they would
never have supported such a decision. So hopefully
that's understood and that's clear,
inshallah. Any questions from the previous slide?
Absolutely. So how do we go about informing
other people? That's that's something that
we're gonna try to cover throughout the class,
And what you should be doing is, you
look at how
other people
conveyed the message of Islam during his life,
and you look at certain strategies that they
utilized. And when we learn that, we're gonna
learn different strategies we can utilize as well
in our society.
Insha'Allah. Insha'Allah. K?
5 minutes. Okay. So moving on. The need
for Muslims to know the prophet. So why
is it so important that Muslims, we also
need to know about the life of the
prophet? Number 1. These are just some of
the benefits, by the way. There are many
or more benefits we can come up with.
Number 1, it serves as evidence for his
prophethood,
and this cannot be emphasized enough. Because what
do we find?
We find that
most people
who are born
into a Muslim family I don't say born
into Islam because we don't believe that. Born
into a Muslim family, they usually end up
taking Islam for granted until
there's something kind of changes in their life,
they start thinking about life seriously,
and they start thinking, you know, what is
my am I really a Muslim
just because my parents were Muslim?
Or would I have been would I have
chosen Islam like some other people choose Islam?
Would I actually have chosen Islam for myself
had I not been born into a Muslim
family?
That's something that Muslims need to,
reflect upon. It's not a doubt in the
sense that you say, well, I'm gonna assume
that Islam is wrong and therefore I'm gonna
try and come back to it. No. It's
a type of it's a type of,
skepticism, a healthy skepticism where you think about
what is this really about?
You see, some people go and they overdose
on the skepticism,
and they say, you know what? I'm gonna
go to the other side so I can
rediscover it. I did this personally in my
life and it's it's I found out later
on, this was not the best way. This
was not the the right way. You don't
do that. Right? If you're in the middle
of
if you're in the middle of the street,
right,
and,
you just remembered
that you watched the movie called The Matrix
and you all of a sudden, you think,
you know what?
What if
all of this
is really just like a matrix? It's all
it's all a dream.
It's all fake. Alright? And you're in the
middle of the road, and there's a car
coming at you. And you say, well,
I actually have to go and completely doubt
what I believe now and jump on the
other side to start thinking this could actually
be a dream. No. What you need to
do is you need to first get out
of the road, you should first get out
of the way, right, and then you need
to analyze and say, why am I thinking
this? What is my basis for thinking this?
How did this thought come about? Had I
not watched the movie, would I been, you
know, would I have been thinking about these
type of things? You know, what if I
had I not read Plato in the cave
and his analogy in the cave of shadows
and all of that, would I really be
thinking about these things? So we need to
have a a positive,
productive understanding
of what is,
the way that we question things in Islam.
A positive form of questioning so that we
can have a firm and grounded faith. We
can have a firm and grounded belief in
Islam.
And that's something that, you know, insha'Allah,
when we read about the life of the
prophet, we actually learn
some of the reasons
why people
accepted Islam,
we learn about some of the reasons why
people rejected Islam,
and we learn about some of the reasons
why people took a neutral or quote unquote
like thought he was deluded. So helped him
but they thought he was wrong. And then
we begin to decide for ourselves and we
say, you know what?
These people who believed,
there was a sincerity there and there were
good, very good reasons for believing.
I'm speaking as a Muslim here. And then
we look at the other ones and we
say, you know, there's a, you know,
these reasons for disbelieving are very common today,
many people have it, these were really bad
reasons.
So therefore, I I I would like to
align myself
with these people who believed. I would like
to align myself and my thought and my
my heart with these people on this side,
so you have a deeper understanding. It's not
just mom and dad put me in Sunday
school, or mom and dad, you know, I
grew up in a in a quote unquote
Muslim country, and therefore that's my identity. That's
your identity.
But what is your actual beliefs? What is
your actual conviction? Because your conviction is gonna
determine how serious you are about Islam. It's
gonna determine how you practice it, it's gonna
determine what your connection to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is. So this is something that we
need to understand. The first is to know
about the proof of his prophethood. And the
interesting thing is even in the most of
skept the most skeptical of all societies, western
civilization.
And in when I say western civilization,
I'm including the Soviets and, you know, Russians
and all of that. That's my perception. You
know, the white man civilization.
Right? All of them, they tend to be
very skeptical
in the last, you know, 100 to 200
years. And many of them are still turning
to Islam. And we see many people today
who maybe have been very skeptical in their
life, and still they're turning to Islam. So
it means that there are very good answers
out there, and there are very good reasons,
but we need to kind of understand what
those reasons are on a deeper level, and
not such a shallow level. And by studying
his life, we actually begin to understand those
things on a much deeper level,
insha'Allah.
So we're gonna take a break here,
and Adam, how long is the break gonna
be? 10 minutes. 10 minutes. So the break
will be 10 minutes, insha'Allah.
And, just so you know, for those of
you who are familiar with the waleemas
and Muslim gatherings and all of that, Right?
10 minutes never means 10 minutes. Right? But
this is the College of Islamic Studies. So
10 minutes
actually means 10 minutes, Insha'Allah.