Nouman Ali Khan – A Wake Up Call for The Ummah
AI: Summary ©
The current President's actions towards children and the grandparents are a wake up call for everyone, but it is a wake up call for them too. The importance of unification and building momentum is emphasized, as it is a real frustration for them. Financial regulations and building a unified agenda are also discussed, with the need for understanding and respect for others. The importance of understanding the third target audience and transformation of the world is emphasized, with a focus on transformation of the world and strong hearts and minds to achieve their mission. The Bay effort is offered as a sponsor for students on Bay.
AI: Summary ©
This is a wake up call for This
this book is a wake up call for
humanity, but this crisis I pray is a
wake up call for the Oman and for
every single one of us. That we we
see ourselves aligned with a very particular agenda,
with a very particular focus
simultaneously.
And if enough of us have that awakening,
if enough of us have that consciousness, we
are far too many to think ourselves as
weak,
or far too many.
I was requested this Friday to speak about
the situation in Masa.
And,
I'll be as honest with you as I
can be. When I made such a request,
I feel paralyzed.
I feel paralyzed because I don't think my
feelings towards what's happening in Gaza are any
different from any Muslim or actually any decent
human being, but more so any Muslim.
And every time I look at my own
child, I can't help but think of
the unbearable pictures of those children
that are suffering, the countless that have already
suffered, and the countless that are suffering,
and their parents and the bereaved,
and it is
it is it quite literally is paralyzing. And
then I step back, and I realize that
our deen, one of its
fundamental
requirements
is that one has to have control over
their emotions
before they speak.
You have to have composure.
And you cannot
think, and you cannot act on this deen
unless you have such composure.
In fact, one of the fundamental teachings of
our religion that
our success depends on is the word
in Suratul Asr for instance.
When Allah says,
Part of the meaning of what Allah is
we're going to lose patience.
We're going to lose our composure. And we
have to be there for each other to
give each other composure,
to keep us on track. That's part of
the agenda.
I also think about
how easy it is given that I have
public speaking background, and I know how to
raise my voice and lower it. And I've
I have an understanding of communal
and, you know,
you know, psychology social psychology
that I can give rafunk but at the
end of which there's gonna be a very
loud takbir.
And there's going to be a lot of
excitement and, you know, the hearts will be
at ease at some I heard something that
felt good.
But I actually stop myself from doing that.
I stop myself from doing it because
I feel
that that has almost become
a pacifying drug.
At least we heard something that felt good.
At least, okay, that that eased our pain
a little bit or that gave us some
comfort,
you know. And every time there's a crisis,
we turn to what are our scholars saying?
You know, my heart is hurting. I need
to hear something from our scholars, our du'a,
our speakers, that they need to say something
so that I and it's in a sense,
I almost feel like I'm betraying distrust because
I'm just giving someone something they want, not
what they need.
That's what it feels like to me.
And so when when that request is made,
I I actually went through quite a bit
of a a a few stages
since I heard that request. I casually said
yes, but it's not easy for me
because I do take take that as an.
And
after a lot of thinking and a lot
of talking with friends and colleagues and mentors
through last night,
just on what to do, because
I'm not any different than any of you,
like I said, those emotions are mine too.
And if I step back and I try
to seek what it is that Allah wants
from the Ummah in this in this hour,
what does he what does he expect from
us? I come away with two things. The
reason what's on all of our minds is
that we're powerless.
That's what's on our minds.
This frustration
is not
the
you know, the the killers, the murderers,
the the the massacre the massacres of children,
the genocidal maniacs, they shall think. It's not
they're gonna do what they're gonna do.
They're just doing what they're supposed to do.
The real frustration is not with them.
The real frustration is with ourselves. Why are
we so powerless?
Why is this happening in front of our
eyes? We're making all this noise, and it's
going on. So, actually, if you step back
and think about it,
the real problem is ourselves
because, you know, the it's it's you can't
get angry at shaybaan. Shaitan's job is to
do what he does.
But we're supposed to be and and the
enemies of Islam,
they're going to do what they're going to
do.
And Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is entire sila
is about one thing. It's about him having
his agenda as much as they anger him.
They anger him all the time, and they
anger the believers all the time. The kufar
angered believers all the time.
But he has Allah has put him on
a track,
and the objective of that track is to
me, one of the objectives is really straightforward.
And the objective is if you get off
track, you're never going to build the power
you need to build to put a stop
to them.
You're you're never going to build that power.
In fact, giving into your emotions
will take you off track.
And even though you'll feel like you
released some hot air,
you didn't even make steps towards
ending that problem. But because today, for instance,
if we do, you know, somehow this crisis
comes to an end, the damage is already
done
for generations. The damage is done.
And tomorrow it might be another country,
and tomorrow it might be another location. And
already we know the Ummah is on on
fire in multiple places around the world. So
the real question is, what is that track?
What's the pathway the Ummah is supposed
to be on? It's easy to say, we're
not united. Our leaders are corrupt. It's, you
know, this one's when is the ummah gonna
wake up? What in the world does that
mean when is the ummah gonna wake up?
We need unless you and I have a
clear agenda in front of us, here's what
I need
me to do. Here's what I need you
to do. There's there's supposed to be some
level of clarity
on an agenda, on a unified agenda.
Then it shouldn't be difficult for 20% of
the world's population
to exert their influence
and to flex their muscle because we are
that. We're not a small population.
So something has to be there. And in
order to try to I I'm not claiming
that I have the answer to that question,
but I think I have somewhat of the
right direction. And I wanna share that with
you with this tukah.
In the Quran, Allah has given us essentially
2
problems,
2 responsibilities.
1 responsibility faces inward and the other faces
outward.
So a great place to look at for
these two directions
is what I recited to you from salut
Alhamba.
In in fact, even Surat Al Asr is
the same thing. It's inward and outward. When
you think of
it's inward. And when you think of what
it is outward. Right? So there there's always
these two things.
The same thing Allah says,
That's inwards. That's my tabwa. I have to
die in the state of Islam. I have
to be in surrender to Allah.
So let's stop at inwards for a second.
There are those of us
who will feel well, we're not doing the
inward. We're not really people of Taqwa. We're
not we don't really have the right kind
of iman. And if we just have the
right kind of iman,
then the problem of the ummah would be
solved. The world would look different. We wouldn't
have this oppression anymore. But that would that's
only half the equation.
So we have to address that. But why
we're addressing that? If you look at the
very next ayah,
Allah says, you know,
There's another step right after that. Don't fall
into division with each other. Now, we're already
taking a step upwards. It's not just about
my taqwa now anymore, it's about unification.
Step so first is my own reform.
Step 2
is steps towards unification.
And then step 3,
Now you're calling to something good, but you're
calling as a unified force
to something good.
And calling someone
is something even did.
Right?
You know, salih alaihi salam did dawah. But
you as a group, you won't just be
dawah. You will then build enough momentum behind
you that you will go from
dua to You're gonna go you're gonna take
bigger steps.
This is gonna get bigger and bigger. There's
a development here.
1, 2, 3, 4. Here's what you have
to do. Right? So now let's look at
one for a second and understand something. I'm
gonna talk first in a few for a
few minutes just about the inward. What is
Allah saying about the inward?
Allah has given us
a pretty detailed
description of the Israelites in the Quran
of an Islayim.
And Allah has described how Allah had given
them a religion that they should have surrendered
to. They are, in fact also descendants of
our father Ibrahim alaihis salam. The religion of
they are a religion that
they follow that same religion.
They declared Islam for themselves too, the the
sons of Ya'pud, the sons of Islaib. And
Allah will describe elaborately
how they played with Allah's law,
How they manipulated what Allah had revealed.
How they used it to generate power for
themselves and wealth for themselves. So they had
these classes of not just rabbis but also
priests that you couldn't you couldn't be purified
unless you went through them.
Your sacrifice would be accepted. Your worship would
be accepted unless you went through a priest,
and unless you paid these kinds of monies.
The same thing the Catholic church did with
the Pope, the Israelites were doing.
And they were playing with the law of
Allah, taking the haram and making it halal,
taking the halal and making it haram, adding
things to the sharia that had nothing to
do with the sharia. They were doing these
kinds of things. They were playing these kinds
of games with the wazoos. And clearly the
things Allah had made haram, they were openly
violating that.
Now Allah gave us that example not just
so we can look back at them and
say, look at these people. Look at how
they mess with Allah. Allah gave us that
because the first instruction was, if you wanna
fix things,
And by the way, at the end of
that very passage, Allah will say,
Don't become like them
because they they didn't observe Taqwa, and they
didn't come into Islam completely.
So the first
all this book and I'm not just just
giving this like
a, you know, a rhetorical speech. We all
have to have taqwa. You you heard about
taqwa a 1000000 times.
I'm not just saying that. I'm saying, if
we have to look I have to look
in my family.
You have to look in your family. We
have to look in our community. We have
to look in our culture, and say, how
much of the book of Allah do we
actually apply in our personal lives before we
talk about anybody else?
How much of it are we actually living
by? So for example,
much of the Quran,
much of the book of Allah has to
do with financial regulations.
Inheritance law is financial regulation.
The Maharaj marriage is financial regulation. Child support
is financial regulation. Zakat is financial regulation.
Earning halal money is financial regulation. Staying away
from rebal is financial regulation.
Right? So money matters are huge chunk
of the Sharia. And another huge and by
the way, all of us have money issues.
So that's one one part of the equation
where we could say, if you wanna see
I wanna see for myself. Am I living
by the word of Allah? Am I observing
taqwa
of Allah outside of my basic worship, my
5 prayers, Ramadan,
Hajj? The first litmus test, easy litmus test
is money matters.
Am I involved in riba? Am I giving
the inheritance shares? Does my did I did
I did I, you know, shortchange my sister
or my, you know, my my mother or
my whoever else on the inheritance? Did I
give the maha? Am I providing the support
I'm supposed to provide the finances that I
owed? Am I giving the zakat? Am I
paying the loan back?
Right? These are these are all that's easy
with this test. And
the way this the state of the ummah
is I've I've I've been in business for
some time
other than education. I've been and one of
the hardest lessons I learned in business is
it's hard to do business with Muslims.
It's it's an ugly lesson
because these are my brothers. These are the
people I learned deed with. I pray with
them. I, you know, I I I do
dawah work with them. I discuss Islam with
them, etcetera.
When it comes to money though, I don't
know. Something happens.
Something happens.
And you know what? That is
psychosis.
So I can I can look like I
have I can pray like I have
I can talk like I have
but my financial dealings
don't have
That's a problem?
The second, one litmus test, whether we're living
up to the first condition.
What because you know, we get in these
ayaq, we eventually get to a place where
we can we can command the good and
forbid the evil.
When you command the good, it starts with
just speaking up, but eventually ends up with,
you know, you can stop. You have the
you have the power to stop it.
This is how you get to the place
where you have a power to stop it,
and the step step 1 is internal, and
that is you have to abide by Allah's
word or everything else you do,
Allah will deal with you no different than
how He done with the Israelites. And what
did you do with the Israelites? When they
played with Allah's law?
They were humiliated, they were powerless, and they
received the rage from Allah.
So and
you're not gonna find any change in the
way Allah does things. So if I'm gonna
say for myself and yourself and us as
a whole, the, you know, the the 100
of 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of us,
Let's start with step 1 at at least,
let's begin here and say, hey, I gotta
bring the back into my life.
Starting with the worship and financial dealings, the
next place would be the qudoodah blah blah
in family,
in my personal family life.
You might not know this, but the term
or the phrase
is referred to in the Quran
except in one place in Surah Tawba where
it's mentioned generally.
Every other place it has to do with
family law.
Bond. We think of fudud, what do we
think of? Cutting the head of the thief.
We think of, you know, the, you know,
the the, you know, the punishments in Islam.
Right? The the punishment of the and this
and that and the other. In the Quran,
where is being used? Family law
family law.
So
money
and family law will give us a pretty
good idea of what tafwa looks like. Now
I started this kutaw by saying Islam is
inwards
and outwards.
For yourself,
do a study of
the
for yourself
From 57 to 66. You know what you're
gonna find? You're gonna find
fighting,
spending.
The Muslim military, you're gonna find those And
in the middle of those you'll find
you're gonna find
In the same surah that Allah says,
Why are you making halal? What you know,
what are you making halal
for you? Because you're making your wives happy?
A family issue, isn't it? So what is
Allah teaching us? Allah is teaching us these
two things go hand in hand, that you
can't separate them.
The internal and the external. And the internal
is taqwa. And taqwa, 2 big places we
can look at ourselves. Are we living taqwa
in our money matters, and am I living
taqwa in my family matters?
Those two places.
Easy litmus test. Okay. Now let's take the
next step. And it's not, oh, until you
do this, you can't take the next step.
No. No. No. You these these are concurrent
things that are happening.
They're not, oh, right now, I'm working on
financial and family, so don't work don't burden
me with the problem of the ummah right
now. It's not like
that. Because family drama will be with you
for life, like Yaqob alaihi salaam.
If you're gonna wait until it's all it's
all solved,
then Ibrahim alaihi salaam had family issues until
the very end. Rasul alaihi salaam, most of
his family disbelieved
and was against him until until
Nuh alayhi salam 950. He's got other things
to do. So you have to deal with
the eternal
while dealing with the external. These are concurrent.
Okay. So that's
The second thing of Allah says is
2nd step is forget about the rest of
the world, now look at the Muslims. Let's
look at each other. Don't fall into disagreement
with each other.
And how will you do this? By holding
on to Allah's book
together.
So that all the law is giving us
as a mandate.
You and I have to become I've I
I don't have a lighter word to use.
You and I have to become obsessed
with the Quran
together.
We have to develop a collective obsession
with Allah's book.
And that obsession is so powerful
that our racial disagreements,
our ethnic disagreements,
our family disagreements, our fit disagreements,
you know, our historical different disagreements,
our national disagreements,
they start becoming so small because there's something
that binds us that is so powerful.
The the I'll give you just an analogy
of this, like, you know, democrats and republicans
can absolutely hate each other in this country.
Right?
They're listening to different podcasts. They're listening to
different radio stations. And atheists can have absolute
disdain for, you know, fundamentalist Christians,
The far left and the far right. But
they're both,
you know, they're both, Dallas Mavericks fans.
And they're both in the same stadium cheering
for the same team, and they're both going
crazy, and when they you win a, you
know, on the buzzer, they win a shot,
they're giving each other a high five. One
man, like you hate each other.
No. No. No. That doesn't matter. More importantly
right now, we're in the playoffs.
These are the finals. This is more important.
Something that is so
captivating for them that they forget all of
their they could put all of those differences
in a box for a stupid game.
You you would think about that? You think
all the people that are in the stadium
watching a sport, they're all politically, religiously, philosophically
aligned?
No.
There could there could be people that took
each other to court during the same stadium.
But it doesn't matter. Right now, we're all
on the same side.
Go team.
It's insane.
But you know what? Allah has given us
something far more powerful than a stupid team.
Allah has given us His final word,
and that word should inspire passion inside of
us. And the more it does, the more
it naturally brings people together.
The Ummah is in
is right now obsessed with disagreement. I would
argue the opposite. We're obsessed with disagreement not
with agreement.
And the reason is the opposite of disagreement
is not agreement. The opposite of disagreement and
division is Quran and the Quran.
So our
our
our overwhelming disagreements and divisions
are just an just a manifestation
of how far from our
actual alignment with the Quran, and how the
Quran is no longer
the the conversation. The Quran is just a
side reference.
The Quran is just the book of the
from my point of view. I'm gonna show
you where aqida is wrong. Let me bring
these ayaat and show you your aqida is
wrong. And this one will bring the other
ayaat and show this their aqdeed that is
wrong. We're using the Quran to slap each
other, instead of actually surrendering before the word
of Allah together.
So our approach is actually my ideology comes
first, and to support my ideology, I will
bring the Quran. Instead of my ideology is
the Quran.
So instead of the Quran serving my thought,
I'm using the Quran to serve my thought,
if you understand what I'm saying.
And that's our second problem. The first problem
is.
Concurly, and that's a social spiritual problem. The
second problem is intellectual.
The intellectual discourse of the Muslims now must
be dictated, mandated,
obsessively with the Quran.
We have to bring it back into popular
conversation.
I this last week, many of you attended
me going through Surah Ma'arij.
And for many of you that have been
listening to the rusul Quran, good for you.
You this was just reinforcement. For many of
you, this is the first time you're actually
taking the time to study a surah deeply.
And as wonderful as that is, isn't that
a tragedy?
Isn't that a disaster?
That the people that call themselves Muslim, the
people of this Quran, they can be they
can be raised in a Muslim family saying,
And they can be 18, 20, 25, 30,
35 years old, and this is the first
time they took the time to think deeply
about the Quran like this, or have even
have the opportunity. Whose fault is that? The
kufra?
Did they do this?
That's all
us.
And
that's why this ayah,
it this is the ayah about brotherhood and
about unity.
You used to be enemies before this.
After this comes, now that we're unified. Now
we know how to think. The Quran teaches
you how to think,
how to understand the world around you.
This is kitab of
This is dhun. Nur helps you see. Thinks
is something that clarifies the world around you.
Now you're able to engage
in intelligent conversation
with the outside hostile world. Now you're able
to take their counter arguments against you, their
propaganda,
their their hatred, and you can break it
apart like Ibrahim alaihi salam broke apart the
arguments of the idol worshipers.
Now you're able to do that because now
you're equipped.
You're equipped with revelation. Ibrahim alaihi salam was
equipped with revelation.
Nuh was equipped with revelation. Now, you're equipped
with revelation.
Now you because you held on to the
Quran like that, your personality, your thought process,
your world view has evolved, and now you're
ready to make that one.
Now you can have conversation.
I'm not giving you a full amount of
these zayat, but
there's a logical progression that I just wanted
to highlight.
And once you do that, this on just
da'wah, I just I'm just gonna make mention
one more thing because time's up.
Just one more thing.
The Allah in the Quran interestingly
is broken up into
3
target audiences.
3 target audience. So society, the Quran One
way the Quran breaks up the society,
is it breaks it up into 3 audiences.
One of those audiences is general average people.
They just need to hear something
good,
something some advice that hits their heart.
They need
That's what and that's a huge population of
society.
So even as you're spreading the word of
Allah, not everybody is debating with you. Actually,
most people say, wow. That's really beautiful. Can
I learn more about that? Can you tell
me more about that? That's incredible. Where can
I be born? Where can I find more?
In fact, we're not even doing dawah. And,
you know, these kids are picking up these
non Muslim kids are picking up a copy
of the Quran
and talking about it on TikTok
because it's speaking to them. They they get
the mohr albhasana
from it. But that's our job. Our job
is to introduce them.
The
is for the masses of people. The new
I call them the neutral masses. The new
even if they're against you, they don't really
know why they're against you, and when they
come into contact with this message, They're like,
I don't even know why I was against
that. I actually agree with this.
I find reason in it.
The second group of people
is the people that would love to keep
the masses, the first group. They would love
to control those masses using their propaganda.
You can call them the hawks.
And these hawks, they're very very vocal.
They're very aggressive.
They're very insulting.
Every society has hawks
for their ideology.
And those hawks, you need to understand them.
You need to understand their arguments, and some
of us have to be equipped to respond
to their arguments with something better than their
arguments.
Right? That's that's the hawks. And that's the
last part of the ayahu wajadilum bilatiyahassa.
That's one another part of dawah.
But the middle part of
Dawah, which I particularly chose to talk about
this here because this is a university town.
Many of you are university students, and many
of you are professionals.
Allah says,
hikma first, actually.
And that's actually a a really important part
of dawah.
Every society has
a certain group a certain population of people
that are lower in education.
They're lower in education, and that there's a
smaller population of people that are higher in
education.
And they are in a certain intellectual
elite status,
whether by way of university
or other training or whatever, they are at
a higher level of thinking.
Right?
They need something
that engages them where they are.
They need a conversation at their level.
I need to be able to make dua
to the sociology
professor and the anthropology professor
and the and my PhD mentor in the
program of neuroscience.
Those people, I need to be able to
have a conversation with them too. They're not
too smart for Islam,
but Islam can be presented to them at
the level of hiknam
that needs to be present and that's a
different class of society.
I I mentioned 3 groups.
The general public,
Right?
The Hawks,
And first and foremost, actually the smartest people
in society. Quran actually began with a hikmah.
And you know what?
This is the time. This is an opportunity.
Now that this this heinous,
inhumane satanic
behavior
and this crime has been exposed before the
world,
intellectuals are starting to question
their allegiance to western ideas,
their allegiance to blind allegiance to capitalism,
or, you know, their fantastical
allegiance to what they think is democracy, etcetera,
etcetera. This is a time to have very
intelligent conversation
with those intellectuals.
Because the first change that happens in the
world is not military change.
The first the real change that happens in
the world is actually a change in in
in thought process and manis.
If there's a true if there's a if
the Quran came, one of the things it
did is it revolutionized how people think.
And once that happens,
now you're in a position that when you
do amr bitmarwuf,
the intellectuals can't stop you. The masses are
in agreement with you. The the the hawks
have been silenced. Do you understand? You become
more and more dangerous. And the Quran was
targeting, hitting all these 3 with one arrow
constantly, constantly, constantly,
which is why for Mecca, Islam became unbearable.
It hit all 3 audiences.
It became unbearable for them.
This is the agenda Allah has given the
ummah. When we lose sight of that agenda,
when we don't live by this agenda, then
what is the model in the Quran? Either
you're doing this
or you are just like wabhu iswa'il did.
Those are the 2.
That's why right after this, Allah mentions them.
Whether
It's right after that, For a
reason. Because this this is the old this
is this is the model, this is the
revolution brought about by Muhammad
and how to transform the world,
or you can do what the Israelites have
done before you and suffer the consequences that
they suffered.
This is a wake up call for this
this book is a wake up call for
humanity, but this crisis I pray is a
wake up call for the Ummah and for
every single one of us. That we we
see ourselves aligned with a very particular agenda,
with a very particular focus
simultaneously.
And if enough of us have that awakening,
if enough of us have that consciousness, we
are
we're far too many to think ourselves as
weak,
or far too many.
You don't need 1,000,000,000 to bring about a
change. Quran already taught us that, the Sila
already taught us that.
You just need to you just need enough
strong hearts and minds that's all you need
and Allah's will bring those strong hearts and
minds out of this and every other community
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