Brussels Bombings

I was thinking long and hard today about giving the hood but in response to what has occurred, the tragedy that's occurred in Belgium, that I'm sure all of you are very familiar with. And the first thought that ran in my mind is that our immediate reaction is problematic. Our immediate reaction, typically in these kinds of situations, is to rationalize that Islam and Muslims are not the problem, that this is a product of extreme behavior. This has nothing to do with our religion. And we have to understand and remind ourselves that our religion is free and innocent, of promoting any kind of senseless violence. And crimes like these are the furthest thing from what Islam itself

says. And I don't want to dedicate this code to that subject. Even though just as a reminder, I will say one thing. As a reminder, I will say that when the Quran was first revealed, and when it first came down, when it talked about the oneness of God, when I told people that they should only worship one God and be mindful that there is such a thing as heaven and hell that's coming, there's a judgment day that's coming, and that previous nations that that disregarded messengers have been destroyed. So the Quraysh, the original audience of the Prophet salallahu, alaihe, salam, they better they better take this seriously because that same punishment might come to them. When that

conversation was happening, Muslims were in fact over time, starting to get tortured, and Muslims were being persecuted. But in the middle of all of that the the focus of the Quran remains something else. And this is where we lose sight of Allah azza wa jal actually in the Quran complained, for example, fidelity Kennedy and all your team or whaleoil motif in Allah says the Allah criticizes the rich people in Quraysh the non Muslims who used to push the orphan around who used to, like you know, dismiss people that don't have any monetary value in society. Allah didn't say they push the Muslim orphan around the orphan. The Quran came to speak on behalf of the orphan whether he was born

in a Muslim family has nothing to do with Islam. But Allah was offended that orphans should we shouldn't be taken care of. When a lot talked about the corruption in the marketplace in the Arab marketplace before Islam he says the worst kind of held should be for people who cheat their customers in business and they skim them for a little bit of profit and with a fifth is the one who makes a little bit of money by giving you they owed you one pound they gave you point nine pounds they got just a little bit more for themselves or they skimmed you just a little bit just a little over you know how the these companies nowadays they charge you for you know ambiguous service and

they'll add a little sphere that for you the other fee and that's there's really nothing there except these terms. This is the thief and unless has the worst kind of hellos for these people not for the people who charge Muslims these prices, but the people who charge other machinery cool and the idol worshippers who charge other idol worshipers these prices. The only point I'd like to make in these two minutes is that when the Quran is concerned that worldly, not other worldly, worldly harm should not come to any human being, even in matters of money or health or well being. How can the same Islam justify the killing of other human beings? This same religion is concerned not just

about the well being of Muslims, and not just about the afterlife of humanity. It's this Deen is concerned about the well being of people in this world and in the next and in the next and some people think that Allah is only concerned with giving people heaven and saving them for Hellfire from Hellfire and it has no concern for the well being of people as they live in this life. That is not the concept of the Quran. It is not it's simply not or if there is something good in this life. It's only for the Muslims. Nope. Well as the Haleakala chromaffin of the Jamia and he created for all humanity he addressed all of all of humanity. How do we know that in Sultan Baqarah

min and you hottie bonobo you Hello Xena Amano Kaya evenness

in Madani sutras. When the Sooners were revealed in Medina, the audience was the Muslim community. So Allah would always say, Hello, Xena, amanu, believers, believers, believers, those of you who believe, but he would go out of his way, even in mother the Koran to say some things apply to all humanity. So he says yeah, you had NASS or Buddha, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah.

Allah Allah Kuma for me and he created for all of you, whatever is on the earth for all of you for humanity to share. So this concept that Islam somehow wishes harm upon non Muslims in any way, shape or form is foreign to the Quran itself. I'm not telling this to non Muslims. I'm reminding my Muslim brothers and sisters of this reality, but that's not really the subject of my Cobra today. The subject of my homework today is we need to take a step back. You know, when you're in a state of emergency, when your house is on fire, all you can think about is putting the fire out and getting out of the house. That's

All you can think about.

But if you fix that state of emergency, and next month, there's another fire next month, there's another fire the month after that there's another fire and you keep now you've bought yourself a fire extinguisher, you do the same thing over and over again, it seems you and I have not identified a bigger problem, maybe there's something else that we're not fixing, because we keep coming after the same fire over and over and over again. And it keeps repeating itself over and over and over again. And by the way, this house can only take so much.

It can only take so much. We are we are lost in this this situation that we find ourselves in today where innocent people for no good reason, for no good reason I've been killed for no good reason people families have been destroyed for no good reason children have been made orphans. And husbands or wives have lost their spouses for no good reason whatsoever. We found ourselves in this situation not too long ago in Paris not too long ago before that, and some other attack or some other incident. And we find ourselves in the same situation again, and this has been going on periodically, Time after time after time, senseless violence that is attributed to Muslims in one

way or the other. And here, we pull out the fire extinguisher again, we need to take a step back and say maybe there's something bigger that we need to solve. The first thing I'd like to acknowledge is in these few minutes that I have with you, I don't propose to have the solution for all of our problems, the world's problems are a lot bigger than one can solve. So there are some things I'd like to talk about. But there's going to be 1000 other things that I didn't talk about inside this whole book. So my humble request to all of you would be to ponder over what is being said, instead of making a list of things that aren't said, and that's the mindset of a lot of Muslims today. I

know you said this, what you didn't say that, that, that, that, that that and that. So we'd love to think about what wasn't said instead of thinking about what is being said. So okay, I'm already acknowledging I can't say everything. But whatever a few things I would like to bring to my to my own attention and to all of your attention. Let's ponder over them a little bit. As I was thinking about what to talk about in this code, but this ayah came to mind. And in the beginning, as I recite this ayah and tell you it's translation, you might not see the connection. lm taraki forgot about Allahumma Kalimantan

Didn't you see how Allah gave an example of a word? That is beautiful, a good and pure word. kashia Ratan Tata, good and pure word is just like a good impure tree. A pure tree sabaton. Well, for half a summer, a tree whose roots are very well planted and they keep growing fast, and they keep getting deeper and deeper in their roots. The systemic fabric actually means something that lasts beyond generations. So this is Tabitha Girard. They used to have butter Jarrah, they also use when the Locust is actually about to lay eggs, it's going to build it, it's going to breed its next generation. So the idea of the word Sabbath in Arabic is something that is rooted, it's going to

last generations. So this tree that Allah says good words are like a tree. And that tree has roots that are going to last generations. Well photo half is summer, and its branches and its upper branch is extending up into the sky, it's pointing upward. And that's the first part of this parable. And then he says to to Cola, Harmon, Cola, Coca Cola Heenan with niraamaya, it provides fruit at every hour, all around constantly, it is providing fruit. Now trees only provide fruit in one season.

You know, they produce the season when you pick the fruit and then the rest of the year you wait again for the fruit to come back. But this tree is strange because it provides fruit all the time. And whether someone comes to it in the morning or the evening, in the summer, or the winter, in the cold and the you know in the in the heat, it doesn't matter, it's gonna provide them food, it's a different kind of tree. It's not a typical kind of tree. It's the kind of evergreen that's producing fruit. But this this would be in yellow, Bihar by special permission from its master, meaning it miraculously produces fruit. Now all of this, this image of a tree that's giving fruit all the time

is being compared to just one thing, a good word, just that's it. This is think of a good word like this tree. And then Allah says wildly bill LaHood unsettledness, Allah gives examples for the benefit of people. Allah doesn't need examples, you know, a professor in the university gives examples to students, because the students are having a hard time understanding calculus, or they're having a hard time understanding advanced chemistry, or they're having a hard time understanding, you know, difficult accounting. And so what does the professor do, he gives them an example. And the example of suppose to simplify the subject and the student goes, Oh, I get it. Now I get it. Thanks

for that example that really helped. In other words, a good teacher always provides good examples. The teacher himself or herself doesn't need an example. It's the students that are in the need of an example. So Allah says, I've given you this example where you can compare a good word to a good tree that constantly produces that is very stable because its roots are deep. It's going high up into the sky. It's got these three qualities but understand

This example is being given. So you can think about something Allah doesn't need examples, he can see things beyond example. And then he added one more thing.

He gives this example for all people in the US, I love this handy dandy Latina hamano. for all humanity has given this example, and it also means that a good word just like a good tree, a tree doesn't give fruit and says, Why is it a Muslim picking a fruit? I'll make it sour? No, no, no, a fruit gives. It gives its benefit to anybody who comes and picks it any human being. So ally is saying the benefit of a good word does not discriminate between people. It will benefit everybody. Anybody can come and listen

to homeopathic Caruso, they may make an effort to remember and this is important when a law says they make and hopefully they'll make an effort to remember it, it suggests that the reality and the wisdom that is being taught inside this example is easily forgotten. So let's giving an example. That's easy to remember. Because there will be times where you will forget this and you'll have to make an effort to remind yourself that I don't know quite yet. they'll remember,

you know, a thicket in Arabic to remember the duck code from the thyroid actually has machaca. And it's an effort to remember. So when you Why do you have to make an effort to remember something? Well, something that gets easily forgotten? That's the idea. So the truth of this statement is something easily overlooked. And that's why I decided to make it a point to talk about this in the Holbein hopefully, in the limited time that I have tied this to the reality we talked about in the beginning. Look, there are things that we can't change, I cannot change, I cannot compete with mass media, we can't. There, they have resources and assets and ability to reach people. And there are

people within that mass media that have a very clear agenda to instill hatred and fear towards Muslims, fear mongering, and every tactic they can use, they will use to that advantage. There are political players who understand that their campaigns will only take wings, if they say more hateful things about Muslims. So this is actually not because they hate Muslims, but because it's what it's good for their stats is good for their poll numbers, it's good for their campaign. So it's purely business actually, in a private meeting, they'll even sit and tell you and I've been made privy to this in political gatherings than private meetings, they'll sit and tell you, it's nothing personal.

It's just good for the campaign.

You know, we know this stuff isn't true. But we need to be careful, because the votes we're trying to get those people have these emotions, and we want to make sure we pander to these emotions. And we excite those emotions. So they give us those votes. That doesn't necessarily mean we're going to be like that later, these things are actually openly been said in multiple political gatherings. This is not a secret, that people's people's emotions are manipulated through this kinds of rhetoric. And there's nothing we can do about that. These people are going to play the games that they're going to play.

But today, my conversation and we could I could give you a call back complaining about politicians, I'll give you a football back complaining about the mass media, or complaining about governments or complaining about what what these people aren't doing, those people aren't doing. But at the end of the day, I could do that and come back and complain about it next week. And the week after that, and the week after that, and we'll just spend our lives complaining. There are things that are beyond our immediate control. And then there are things that are within our control.

You could say this is a desert. There's nothing that grows here. We don't have any food.

And one of us instead of complaining about there's nothing here look at people are starving. One of us takes a seed and plants it in the ground and decides to grow a tree. Nothing comes out in one day. everybody else's, what are you doing, man, there's such a big problem. And he's just watering this thing. And he's making sure no weeds come to it. And everybody else is in panic, but he understands something, I may not be able to turn this desert into a garden overnight.

But I need to learn to step back and think long term.

The idea of growing a tree that is going to give fruit is the idea of producing change that doesn't come overnight. It's the idea of change that takes a generation. And the idea of growing a tree there are trees, I've seen trees that are hundreds of years old. trees that have fed great great great grandchildren, and now are feeling great, great, you know, great grandparents from back then that have fed entire generations. And they grew and they mature and their beauty expands as they age. And all of this has been compared to what a good word, just a good word. Don't underestimate the power of a seed that will turn into a tree. Don't underestimate the power of power of a good

word that will expand and it's its growth and its benefit. You cannot imagine I cannot imagine it is beyond us. Before I go on to make my point I still haven't been able to make my point yet.

But before I do, I do want to allude to one reality that I wanted to make sure I include in this

and that is the reality of our profits time. So a lot more. So there are some parallels it's it's actually in my opinion, it's

mature to compare the profits time to our time, just like that, oh, there are times we're just like our times I don't agree with that. I think there were a lot of differences. And we should be mindful of that. But there are some parallels. And here's one of them.

Our Prophet alayhi salatu was Salam was in a very small minority when he started preaching Islam. And what he had to say about one God and an afterlife, and revelation and an angel coming and speaking to him and all of this, it sounded crazy to most people. Most people who heard what he had to say thought he was insane. Most people felt bad for him. Actually, they weren't even evil. They're just people who weren't used to hearing something like that. So they just dismissed it. They didn't think anything of it. And as it grew, even the people who controlled the media of the time, the people who control what most people should be hearing and thinking, the people who were the most

influential politically and financially were people who were against the Prophet Elisa, the prophet SAW someone was in a position of almost bankruptcy, barely being financed by his wife, barely being financed by a handful. And even most followers that we had were either slaves, or youth, or people who have no financial worth, no political worth, right, these were majority of the Muslim followers. And the people that were most adamantly against Islam were some of the most powerful people in that society. So in that sense, there is a parable in that we are compared to people who speak out against Islam, almost invisible in our resources. It's not even comparable. It's not even

comparable. And yet, the only thing the Prophet had some a lot more on he was alone is a good word. All he had was these words, that Allah keeps giving him the good word of revelation that olark keeps giving him. And somehow Allah empowered this word, that it would put seeds inside other people, and it's fruits they could bear, they could benefit from to the point, if you told those companions, then that, you know, you know, a fifth of the world's population is going to hold these words, in high regard. one fifth of the planet, is going to be revering this book, and considering it the Word of God, when there's only less than a dozen followers of the Prophet site, so it would be even hard

to imagine. But they believe they believe in something they believe in a good word carrying and resonating its effect in the most impossible society. That is the most impossible society. What I'm trying to say is we don't we have underestimated the power of spreading the word of Allah, spreading education about the Quran itself, it has already proven itself, I'm not telling you something that happened in the unseen, something we have to have faith in that we've never experienced or seen in the world, the world has already seen its map transform, because of the word of Allah, that's already happened in our history. It's not something that didn't happen. It's not a fairy tale. And

there is no reason it can't, if it happened at the hands of just a few people, just a few people who truly believed in the power of this word. Can you imagine how many more we are today? There must be something missing in our confidence in this book and what it's capable of doing. Because it's the same book that hasn't changed. It's the same message. It's the same God, maybe people have changed. Maybe our hearts have changed. Maybe that's the only missing ingredient now. So now I want to quickly get to the point that I wanted to make in this club. And what we can affect I told you, we can't necessarily change mass media overnight. We can't affect politicians overnight. We can't do

that we're a small population, especially in the United States. What can we affect? I want you to think about two groups or four groups of people, at least, when these kinds of horrible incidents happen. I want you to think of it in four groups. One group of people hates Islam. They have a political agenda. They have a business agenda. They have whatever agenda and they make money off of spreading hate about Islam, they love these kinds of incidents. They love them.

Because they feed off of them. Their business grows from them. They can sell fear, and fear mongering.

And there are people who profit off of the Islamophobia industry, it is in fact an industry, they sell their books, they sell their seminars, they sell tickets to their events, etc. This is their industry. And if these kinds of events stop happening, their business goes down. That's one group of people and those group of people is no worth talking to them. There's no point because those people are not genuinely against what you are. They're just they don't hate Muslims. They just love money. And they just love politics. That's what's driving them. On the other extreme, is a group of Muslims, or at least they claim to be Muslims, who are doing these horrible things in the name of

Islam. And they're mutilating the message of Islam to large populations of people. And they are, they are calling these things Jihad disobedience. And they're quoting I out of the Quran as they make their videos and all of it. That's the other extreme. And both of these extremes, believe it or not, they need each other. They depend on each other. These extremists

I can quote those extremists and say that's why we exist. And these extremists can, quote, incite these extremists and say, that's why we exist. They and these are both very small, criminal, fringe weird people in society. They don't represent the majority of anybody. They are both the extreme ends. Now what's in the middle? I want you to think about the middle as a huge population of non Muslims who don't know any better.

They're not bad people. They're not evil. They're not. They're not hateful towards Islam. They're just they don't know what's going on. They don't you know, they're victims, really, they're victims of propaganda. And they're victims sometimes of these attacks. Think about the people in Belgium, how sad they are today, how afraid they are today, how angry they justifiably are today. That's the majority of people. And on the other side is the majority of Muslims, the huge population of Muslims who are also confused, who are also like, what do we do with this? Where do we go with this, and actually, the real victims of these extremist forms of extremism are the people in the middle, these

two populations, a large population of non Muslims, and a large population of Muslims. Today, in these few minutes that I have, I want to share something with you just about the population of Muslims, maybe at another time about the non Muslims. But today, just some things about the Muslims. And I'm mindful of my time, I'm pretty much out of my time. I think this comment should take five minutes, no more, and Sharma

within that population, over the next couple of generations, I'm not talking about tomorrow or the day after, I want you to think long term because the AI is teaching us to think what long term, long term one of two things are going to happen. one of two things will happen to our next generations, our next generations are going to hear a message about Islam by these loud extremists on this side, and these loud extremists on that side, that make Islam look so ugly. They make it look so violent, so uncivilized, so irrational, so barbaric, that a huge population of the next generation of Muslims is going to say, I'm not sure if I want to be Muslim.

I'm not sure if this is a good idea. If I want to live in the modern world, if I want to survive here, then I don't think I believe in these values. They don't have a strong education in their religion themselves. All they just like anybody else is getting their information about their religion from the news. Or they're getting it from these events. And sometimes they ask their parents, but their parents didn't have an exhaustive education in their religion. That's not their fault, either. They're going to start developing a lot of questions about Islam, Muslims, generations of Muslims are going to start asking a lot of really hard questions about Islam. And

they're going to ask their parents and their parents are not going to be able to answer and their parents are going to say, let's go ask a shave. Let's go ask any mom and he's gonna say I'm scared of that guy. He looks like the guy on the news, I don't want to go talk to him.

You What we're going to do over time, it's already happening. What we're going to do over time is we're going to alienate an entire generation from their own religion. As a result of this extremism.

And the other side, that's that's one problem that's going to happen over the next couple of generations. The other problem is going to happen over the next few generations is there are going to be young people listen to this carefully. There are going to be young people who love quotes, love of Islam in their hearts. He puts a love of Islam in their hearts, it doesn't matter if they live in South Lake or Sydney, Australia, or they live in taco or they live in Lahore. And doesn't matter if they've been partying their whole life, and they don't know anything about Islam one day, they're gonna wake up and say, I want to be a better Muslim.

And they're gonna start praying, and the girl is going to start dressing better. And the guy is going to start learning to recite Quran, and they're going to learn, they are going to want to learn their religion. These young people, not because of their parents, not because of anything else, something a lot, putting their heart, and they're going to want to learn their religion. And when they want to learn their religion, they will go online.

And when they go online, the loudest voices are going to be these extremists and these extremists. And these extremists will say to them, that the real Islam is the one that we follow. If you really love Islam, if you really want to make dough by and repent for your sins of your party life, then you have to do jihad with us.

And these young, sincere, Islam loving young people,

they are going to become victims of that propaganda

are going to we're going to have a young group of young people that just don't want anything to do with their faith, they're ashamed of it, or they're going to become very extreme. They're going to be attracted to one of those two things. And this is going to keep the problem is going to keep growing and growing and growing. There's only one solution out of this. The only solution out of this is Kelly Martin tiny button Akasha gelatin tiny button

facetune or photo half is

a good word is like a good tree. If a proper thought provoking education in the

The Quran of the word of Allah, the good word of Allah, if that is actually spread among the generations, we make it easy for people to learn what the Quran actually means. We make it easy for people to think not just follow think about what God is saying, if we can make that easy for generation on top of generation on top of generation, then these two extremes, what they have to say is Kelly, mutton hobby is filthy words. And those filthy words will have no effect on people that are benefiting from a good and this good word will last and will be able to save future generations. More. You know, experts, political experts are saying it's religious education. That's the problem.

That's why you get extremists. I am telling you proper religious education, proper Quranic education is the only solution to extremism. It is the only solution if we don't furnish that education worldwide, worldwide, across every village, whether there's internet or in a hut, in every university, in every neighborhood, if we don't provide a thought provoking education in the book of Allah in the seal of the prophets, I saw them then we are in for big trouble in this in this life and in the next that's the reality of what's going on. May Allah azzawajal make use of the people who are able to hold on to a good word, and they're able to give and pass that good word down to

their next generations. I'll leave you with the hopeful words of Allah you submit Hola Hola, Xena. amanu will coalesce with Phil hayati. dounia orfila Hara.

Think about these words, Allah will give firmness. Allah will give firmness to those who believe with the firm word bucola thermit in this world and in the next that's a lost promise that's what he says next. This is a less promise. And so when you will you will avoid the mean Way of Allah Masha and Allah will mislead those who do wrong and Allah does when he wants. Allah is giving us look you can go either way. But if you want firmness and you want stability to come back to this oma Allah cola Sabbath you to muster, but the word the firm word, the strong word, the stable word will give this oma stable stability again, may Allah azza wa jal restore this oma to its stability by its

ability and its willingness and its eagerness to hold on to the stable word of Allah barakallahu li walakum filco Anil Hakeem when a finally when it when the hamdulillah he waka Salatu was Salam. O Allah Eva da da da da da da volume Maha tamina been Mohammed amin vida de wasapi yaku la hora

de la Jim in De La Hoya mala e Kotaku, soluna lmdb Latina amanu sallu alayhi wa sallam Moses Lima Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Ali Mohammed conocer later Allah Rahim Ali Ibrahim Fidel Amina in Mecca Jaime de Majeed Allahumma barik ala Muhammad Ali Muhammad

Ibrahim Ali Ibrahim al al amin in naka hamidah Majeed arriba de la rahima como la it tequila in the La Jolla, Morro Bay, San Juan del Cordoba. And in fact, you will won't come with an eco la he will La Jolla.

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