Greed

hamdulillahi Rabbil alameen

wa Salatu was Salam O Allah Shaquille mBiA will go serene.

Finally he was asked me for money send me some data he lives with the

alumni dynamin home, amin and Athena Avenue.

What are some? What are some of the subjects me deal with either me

or him

Alhamdulillah Hillary Angela

Sanchez, Monica, Malibu,

and

Santa magazine and here

we are Cindy Emily. I'm in the San Diego County.

I've been giving lectures for a very long time in my life and I am used to speaking while people are also talking at the same time, I'm also used to the fact that we Muslims Mashallah sometimes don't have very good recognition of manners, and the simple manners of, you know, you know, people are talking during Juma football. So people talking during the lecture is not a big deal. But here's an exercise that might help. If you see someone talking, stare at them.

If you find someone talking, simply stare at them. Sisters stare at them, like you stare at your husband when he comes home late.

You're familiar with that? Look.

Guys, just stare at people funny, and you know, like those guys will rather than stare at them. And you'll find things will come down very, very quickly, especially on the sister site. I've seen it work 1000 times it actually works pretty well. Okay.

So I've been asked to speak to you in these, I don't think I'll take long, I think I'll take maybe 20 minutes. And I'll stick to that and shallow

and share with you what I think are some very important ideas. And I'm going to LA very recently, I've had the opportunity to travel to different parts of the world, I haven't had the opportunity to go to the Middle East, I've had the opportunity to go to Malaysia, to Singapore, I've also got a chance to travel a little bit across Europe. And you know, Canada doesn't really calculate Okay, fine Canada to

Mexico. And it's, you know, when you travel, your perspective changes. And you realize you first think that you know, our problems in America are the problems of young people in America or the Muslim community are so unique. We are so different from everyone else. But as you travel, you realize, yes, there are differences. But as a matter of fact, on many levels, we're actually as a humanity suffering from the same things. As a human species, we're actually suffering from the same exact things. And I want to highlight what I think are some of the biggest problems that humanity is facing today. From my own perspective, you don't have to agree with me in this, and then I'll share

with you what I think is a solution from the Quran. And that's the end of my talk. That's all really I want to share with you.

Now,

I personally believe that the biggest problem of our time, is actually rooted in one thing, it's greed. The biggest problem of humanity is untampered unchecked, greed and selfishness. This Greed has led, for example, in economic systems, this Greed has led to major corporations that only care about the bottom line, and how will they increase their projections of their income per year to year to year. And whether that involves destroying entire parts of the ocean, or involves ruining entire villages, or involves destroying mountains or you know, ruining not only the physical environment, but even the social or economic environments around the world, it doesn't matter because at the end

of the day, it feeds the bottom line. So a great deal of the corruption in the world of political corruption, the environmental corruption that is so worrisome, right? At the end of it all, it all boils down to unchecked, unrestricted, uncontrollable greed, not one. That's what it comes down to. So I personally feel that that is actually the root of many, many, many problems in the world today. And if you explore this concept of greed, Allah azza wa jal in the Quran describes it in a very articulate fashion. He says women use kushwaha nuptse. For alaikum, a homophone is very interesting language. Allah says, Whoever has been protected from the greed that they have within themselves. In

other words,

Light is acknowledging the fact that all human beings have what

they have read, we're all greedy. That's not something that some people are greedy, and some people are not. We are all in fact, greedy. And then Allah says, woman you've got, which is the passive form. What that suggests is whoever has been given protection from God, greed. In other words, there's something inside me, and I can't even protect myself from it. Yeah, and he lent me a good woman.

Whoever was able to protect themselves from their greed, when I say listen carefully, now, if I say, I am able to protect myself, who's doing the act of protecting,

I am, I'm the one protecting who myself but if I say I am being protected, when I use that kind of language, who's doing the protecting someone else. So when I mentioned, Allah saying in this ayah, you have to be protected from the outside, there's something from the outside that has to come, that will protect you from the greed that lies deep inside of you, and that greed is inseparable from you, which is why we find in the language of the Quran, not even a short copy of CV, a shorthand enough CV, it's actually shorthand of CV, which means it's for grammar students, that's an MMA fighter, mobile phenom la la. And these two are locked with each other. You can't separate them off

from one block away. So rhetorically, it is as though saying, am I saying human beings will never be able to separate themselves from greed, there will never come a day where your emotion is so high, that you're no longer greedy, it will never happen every single day, you and I will have to protect ourselves against greed every single day. It's going to be a moment a moment struggle. I started with major corporations and the polluting and the destruction of the earth. But let's bring it closer to home. Every mother is greedy. Every father is greedy. Every son every dollar is greedy. Every child is greedy. A child says you bought me this toy last week. I need the next one. You

bought me You know, my my son asked me for a foot soldier, the new kind of foot soldier from the Ninja Turtles, right? Because they changed the foot soldiers. They're uglier. Now, they used to be a lot classier, but now they have like buggy eyes and skinny heads and weird looking. But she wants a new one because he's watching the new kinds of Ninja Turtles. So he says I'll give me the foot soldier. So I got him the foot soldier and I you know, he's really happy when I gave it to him. And then he said to me, I need three more foot soldiers.

Because I need one for each turtle.

You know, you catch the kid four guys fighting one foot soldiers under the law. He wouldn't lie, Roger. Oh, that's not gonna, you know, this needs to be somewhat of a fair fight. So even a three year old can have greed. You have you bring home a cake, you'll bring home Mmm, something small, miniscule candy, and kids will crowd around and one child will get one piece and one child gets two pieces. What is the first time they immediately say

his pieces yellow? Can I have a yellow piece?

With your M is bigger than my M It was a capital M?

Why don't those immediate comparison? You know? And so what you find, even as you asked children, you ask them you know, so if he eats too, and you eat one meal, yours tastes worse.

Yours taste any better? If it isn't the takeaway from your happiness at all, just knowing that somebody else has something.

And you know what's crazy about

it until you see someone else.

A kid is sitting there his toys sitting there, he's not playing with it.

His brother walks by.

He looks at the toy. And what does the kid do immediately.

Immediately, immediately, you become possessive in the presence of others. And when they're not around, you don't care. You don't we're learning. We're learning a lot of our greed is actually a result of our environment.

As a matter of fact, when we're in solitude, sometimes you don't want anything. Sometimes the most, the best thing you'll ever want is just to sit quietly and stare at the sky or sit at the edge of an ocean and just look out at the water and you want nothing happier find your content.

But when you drive down the street and you see a nice car, when you go to a nice neighborhood you see a big house when you travel to another city and you see like a better better weather than Dallas, which isn't hard to find. Right? So what happens immediately

I want that this read doesn't just pollute the earth. It pollutes families.

You know it pollutes families. It

pools communities. And greed isn't just about money. Greed is about wanting more than your share in life.

And everything.

If you're the Vice President, you want to be the president.

If you're the assistant teacher, you want to be the principal. If you're the principal, you want to be, you know, go beyond that and be the principal of a bigger school, if you're the janitor, and there's another guy who's a janitor, you want to be the head janitor.

You know, if you're in the MSA, and you're the secretary, you want to be the president.

Everybody wants to keep moving up. If you're working and you've got an entry level job, pretty soon you want to be the manager. You just want to keep doing your own. You want to keep pushing yourself.

You're never satisfied. You'll find people that are some of the most accomplished people in the world also live some of the most miserable lives. People that are making billions of dollars, they're making an insane amount of money. These people actually most of them have no life. They have no life, they have no family life, they have no vacation time. They don't like taking a vacation. They want to keep moving up. And they feel like when they're taking a vacation. There, the machine is slowing down. So they have to go back into it. And even if they're sitting on vacation, they're answering emails and they're you know, they're still at work mentally, they're never their mind is

never taking a break. This is what we can do to you grieve, you can actually give you a miserable life, just like the earth itself is feeling the misery of greed. Every human being is feeling its effects. Its misery.

What is what is the greed among young people, among you are grievous to be, you know, what is the needs of young people. And if all of us were young, at one point that never changes, I don't understand what the trends are today. I don't I'm an old guy, I don't understand. And you know, our elders, my elders don't even understand me. So how are they supposed to understand the teenagers here, they're not gonna and 15 years from now, you will understand the youth that are teenagers at that time, it's not going to be the case, you're going to be outdated yourselves. But you know, one thing remains constant, you want to be up to speed with the latest thing. Whether it's a gadget,

whether it's an app, whether it's a kind of clothing, whether it's terminology, you know, whether it's you know, a social practice, whatever it may be, you just want to be at the cutting edge. If it's new, you want it, if it's new, it must be good. You want to be the first to say have you heard,

cuz if you haven't already, you are the first to introduce it, you were apprised of it before anyone else, you jumped on it immediately. Which what that means then, is young people are the most volatile people on the planet. And that's always been the case, young people jump from one thing to another to another to another to another moment's notice. For young people, something was incredible, it was beautiful. It was cool. It was whatever it was. And then weeks later, the same thing is stupid, retarded, you know, pathetic, not worthy of mention.

You know, they will move on from one trend to another to another very, very, very quickly.

And as this happens, these trends happen. Of course, you know, the easy demonstrations of that are our newer versions of phones, right? newer versions of phones, which can look pretty much identical to the old version.

But people can still tell somehow that you have the four or not the five, or you have the five C and not the five s.

Or you could just tell, and you feel inferior all of a sudden, because you just have you used to have a phone doesn't even have the screen, you still have a button thing. You know,

this, this thing that's happened to human beings, let me tell you, let me get to my point. Now this thing that's happened, we're constantly thinking about acquiring more feeling like we're worth more, right. It's left us in a perpetual state of, you know, dissatisfaction.

We're perpetually dissatisfied. That's one result of it. We're just always miserable. We're always cynical. Everything that comes your way you make fun of it. You put it down in one way or the other by either by way of your humor or by way of your comments, or with a slight remark like a whatever.

That's your attitude towards everything. You become cynical, which you know what that means. You don't know what it means to enjoy life anymore. Because you dismiss everything around you, is just to you that's become the way to do things to dismiss things around you. You can appreciate anything anymore.

What happens with teenagers when you take them on vacation? Why don't you look happy?

How's the hotel

You know,

he was in a Yeah, that's okay. You know, whatever.

can appreciate it. You can agree

Lead that's taken away from you. The other thing that's happened as a result of this overexposure to read constantly in immediate gratification, you know what's happened. There's an entire generation of young people that are completely and utterly unmotivated. They are constantly drawn to do so much and acquire so much that they've just lost the will to accomplish anything in life. They can just sit at home and play video games all day and watch one episode after another after another on Netflix or an Amazon or on who are on YouTube or whatever. And they just keep going and you say, what do you want to do? Nothing. What do you want to do tomorrow? A little more than nothing? What

do you what are your goals in life? I don't have goals. What's your major? I'm not sure you're you've been a senior for five years. How are you not sure of your major? I'm not sure I tried everything I or whatever.

And so your entire generation of unmotivated people. You know what happens when you have an entire civilization of unmotivated people, that people read the people who do crimes, and literally plunder the earth of its riches and manipulate it, you know, the week, they get away with everything, because the vast majority of people just don't have the sensitivity to care. They've their greed made them completely desensitized, so long as my needs are met, what do I care? What do I care. So we live in a time now where you can watch, you can flip channels on TV, or you can be shown an ad or a Facebook page or whatever, have you know, some children that are suffering in Africa, or some

flood that happened in Bangladesh, or some earthquake that happened in Pakistan. And you can see those pictures and just nothing happened, nothing in us. There's no tear that comes out of your eye and nothing happens. You are emotionally completely disconnected from human suffering. Completely. And you know what, that is a really scary thing. Not even we're not even talking about, that we're talking about, we are now becoming less than human. That is a human emotion. You could be a Christian, a Jew and atheist for all I care. When you see human suffering, something is supposed to happen. There's supposed to be something that disturbs you, that makes you want to help. But when

that no longer happens, when you just change the channel back to what, you won't really want to watch a movie that will, you know, drain your brain again.

Which is what's happening today is a scary time. I went to one of the Muslim countries and I asked as an air conditioner. What is the past? What do you do here? What do young people do here? You know, the answer I got from almost 50 people consistent answer they like to hang out at the mall.

It's a hot air country is hot all day they stay indoors, the malls open up at night, from about Muslim time to fudge our time the malls are packed.

There's your There's your future. What kind of fathers will they be? What kind of mothers will they be? What kind of Islam will they be? What kind of governments will those people run?

What kind of human beings are they going to be? What kind of human beings are they going to be? You understand? And so I bring it back a little bit. I scale it back. I've gone over my five minutes short of being over my time.

What I wanted to really talk to you about today is the gift of the neuron. I know you've heard many lectures where you're told we have to learn to bond we have to understand what it means we have to study it, we have to recite it. Muslims have to connect with the Quran. I learned all of this before 1000 times. I hope I can add just one new dimension to that conversation. Just one.

I'd like you to understand. From my own personal experience, I'm sharing something with you. There have been philosophical problems. There have been moral dilemmas. There have been emotional problems that I've had in my life. Right everyone has emotional challenges at one point or another. Everyone has a philosophical crisis at one point or another and intellectual crisis at one point or another financial difficulty at one point or another. The greatest gift my my my teacher gave me he said when you have trouble turn to Allah's book,

turn to Atlas book. And my motivation for learning Arabic my motivation for studying to see was not so I can gain knowledge of the Koran. It wasn't like knowledge was not my intention. And it's still not my intention. I am not concerned with knowledge.

I am concerned with accessing a resource that will that will heal me.

It's like I see the Quran is a well and I get thirsty every so often. And I go back and I take and I get healed. I get it relieves me. You know, we have to understand the Quran as Shiva

is Shiva. It is healing.

A lot of people think well I read the translation of the Quran. I understand some of it. I'm studying

Some of it I'm learning a little bit of Arabic. Yeah, but that learning, and I'm a big advocate of learning, learning is not the goal. Learning is not the goal learning is simply learning to draw water from that well, so you can take it. It's like saying, I learned everything about healthy nutrition, but you don't eat healthy food. What's the point of learning it? I learned everything about proper dietary practices. good exercise, I know what exercises you should do, when you should do them. What's the best time to do that? Would you not do any of them? I know everything about cars. I know when you should change the oil, how to fix a broken transmission, but you don't take

care of your car. What are you doing? Why are you learning this? Why are you learning it? It's supposed to be something that helps you right? I'm arguing that for the most part, we keep pushing this idea that we should learn you should learn you should learn, but we're not pushing the idea that you should take taking is different from learning. You see. And Muslims can learn a lot about the Koran and be as miserable and as materialistic and as greedy as the non Muslim. except they're really knowledgeable.

There's no difference. A lot of us always have gave us this book, because human beings deviate. And when human beings deviate his book sets them straight again. And guess what soon later, soon after they deviate again. And this book sets them straight again. And then they deviate again, and sets them straight again in the huddle.

This moron guides to what is straight her, but a straighter, meaning you go this way, and it straightens you up again, then you tilt over it straightens you up again. Well, you must show me Nina Latina and

then it congratulate believers will get accomplished some good deeds, Allah is acknowledging the fact that you and I will make mistakes, but you will, I will have downs there will be moments of that were down.

But Allah is promising us if you develop a real relationship with this book, I am guaranteeing you if your intention to learn this book, your intention to learn this book is to benefit from its healing you will you a level open the doors of learning like you couldn't have imagined Arabic will become Piece of cake for you. Nothing is nothing studying 15 will become super easy for you. Why not because you're seeking the knowledge because you need the healing from a less word. You want the word of Allah to be able to enter inside your heart of Giacomo Dr. Nora, because she found

you know, this council has come to you this healing has come to you, you know, a here a cure has come to you.

This is really the message I have for you today. Some of you will listen to this as just another speech, just allow you to say that we're at the end, and some people clap and it's over. But I'm hoping some of you take this to heart. I can't help you build a relationship with God, the only one who can help you do that is a lot. If you can turn to a line and say Yup, I need this healing. I need this book, this book that you sent. So it can cure the problems of humanity. By the way, where does greed rest? Where does greed live?

inside the heart. So all of the problems of the world. We can never end them we have he never killed greed because it's a part of our heart. But you know what, we can heal it. We can control it. We can unlike a lesson. Remember, in the beginning, I said you are to be provided protection from the outside. Guess what that protection is? That's the word of Allah. When the when the word of Allah starts going inside of the heart, it starts getting stronger, you're able to curb your urges, you're able to control your addiction. How many young people it's a tragedy addicted to pornography. It's a reality. How many young people I've spoken to women tell me it's normal. What do you want me to do?

Everybody knows that. It's not even a bad thing. They've even accepted that the heart is so dead, that they can say it's normal. That's an indication that the heart is dead. You know, how is the word of Allah going to enter that heart?

You think about that. These eyes, these eyes on Allah gave you as a gift when you violate them with those images.

How are these eyes going to check two years for a love? How are they going to do that?

You're gonna use the same eyes, the same tongue I gave you so you can recite His Word. You spend all day cussing with it. Foul mouthing people. You know, the same hands you raised before a learn you put her out so you can stand in front of a lot. The same hands you used to make gestures of vulgarity to do read to do wrong, the same hands. How will we become conscious of what we are unless that's what I

was, oh, bozo don't become like people that people forgot about a lot. And when they forgot about a lot, what made them forget who they are, they forgot their own selves. You don't even know what you are. You're an honored creature of Allah.

Because of his greed, you've just turned into something worse than an animal. Please save yourself, save yourself. I can't, I have to try to save myself. You have to try to save yourself. And we'll look at the images and the marketing and the entire machinery that is there to keep us at the animal level is so powerful. There's so much money being spent on projecting sexual images onto children. So much money is being spent in this direction. There's so much money being spent into normalizing deviant deviant behavior and celebrating it and redefining what it means to be moral redefining right and wrong. And people are swept up in all of this and they are saying well the Koran says that

but you know, I don't feel that's right because their their moral compass is so crooked now when they see the straight when you're lying down this way the straight looks crooked.

We've gone so crooked the word of the law seems like I don't know if it fits with my moral with my moral compass your morals, you don't have a compass anymore. That's the problem.

This was the compass this is the thing that doesn't change and I can give you proof Allah gives it himself every single moral principle that is coming out now. Every single idea that people are celebrating one new idea after another after another 10 years ago, it was wrong now it's okay. 10 years later, something else will be okay. 10 years later, something else will be okay. These moral lines keep shifting and moving every 10 years. It's a different world from the world of ethics. But the word of Allah gave us right and wrong, and he gave it at the time of the results on the long run. And to this day, it is standing while

he didn't allow it the possibility to deviate, we deviate we go from one trend to another one philosophy to another one standard to another one definition of right and wrong to another. And if you can hold on to this book, The storm will come but you will stand your ground you will be able to stand your ground and if not you can be Muslim, Christian, Jewish Hindu atheist seek it doesn't matter you will be swept this way or the other the on the shell you'll look like a Muslim or somebody else. But on the inside it's the same greedy sorry excuse for a human being this Islam came to transform us on the inside, not just to change our appearance on the outside. The real

transformation of this religion is on the inside the world will look like it looks like a different place. When transformations happen on the inside.

That that is really the message I want to share with you. That change will happen if you would get the right attitude come to work. If I come to work with the right attitude, something will change inside us. Something will change inside. And I tell you when that happens. And this is the last thing I want to share with you. I promise.

When that happens when there's light of light of the last book, for me novella he was really he were nude in the insula, when the light of molars book enters into your heart, then a lot compared to your heart to a lamp and a lamp is lit. But a lamp also gives light. Isn't that true? a lamp is not only lit on its own, but it also becomes a source of light for its surroundings and a lamp is only beneficial in day or night time.

elmy nighttime, in other words, you will become people that are living in an age of darkness in an era of darkness, not only will you be lit, you will become a source of light for others. Because what is overwhelmingly surrounding us is darkness where we're at night, this is the night of human civilization. Technology has increased, you know infrastructure has increased human knowledge has increased but guidance and and along with this Greed has also increased. unrestricted Greed has also increased spirituality has decreased decency has decreased morality has decreased. Pamela I pray that Allah azza wa jal uses you people and your children to raise a generation that represents the

light of the Quran, that is able to become a beacon of light, not just for your own family, but for your neighborhood, for your community for the people around you, and will lie here, this will not happen until we get a lot more kids to do. So long as we keep pretending that a little bit, a little bit of time we get to the salon is enough. And everything else we can give time and this book doesn't generate time. And we don't come to it for really to transform ourselves. We just come to it for interesting information or beautiful recitation and that's all it is to us. So long as we keep that up. The world will keep heading down in a downward spiral. And Allah will replace us with

somebody else.

Same sign which Allah says intentando yesterday COVID-19 aku Malaya. kulu Allah says Why don't they reflect on the Quran? What's the matter are their hearts locked?

Their hearts not working. Why aren't they thinking so deeply about, by the way, reflecting, thinking deeply? Is that something you can do in a split second? Or is that a time? thinking deeply? takes time? When I say why are they spending time thinking about? What am I saying? Why aren't they doing that? Oh, it must be the case that their hearts are locked up. And guess what? They're locked up with greed. And then in the same suit, IPN suit Mohammed. Allah azza wa jal says we're in into one loan yesterday and Coleman later on.

If you people turn away a lover replace you with somebody else. Unlike you, and they will, they will be anything like you losers. Literally. You want to play around with this book, not give it its due. It's not hard for a lot to replace the entire oma with a veteran month. He's done it before. It's not new for him. I pray I know, I'm supposed to be like a humorous guy is supposed to kind of crack a joke here and there and stuff. But sometimes it's just stuff on my mind. I gotta let it off.

As well, the nights. Sorry.

But you know, in the entertainment, guys, let's get serious.

We're entertained enough. Don't you think? There's enough entertainment in life? Who's there to get serious? Something? It's I believe in humor? I really do. I think for too long Islam has been presented as an angry message. I don't like it. I mean, there's some things in Islam you should get a little mad about. That's a normal normal expression is a normal emotion. I'm not always angry, actually, I'm usually not angry. That's my normal state of being, I think, at least I like to think as my wife.

But you know what, for some things, you gotta, you got to take a step back and kind of really see what we're doing. We can really see what we're doing. I want to first of all, before I let you go, I want to have you guys give a serious round of applause. And a shout out to all the young people that put this thing together.

I have,

I have had an extremely long day, I'm already half asleep. I'm not even sure what I'm saying at this point. The switch was turned off sometime during a shot.

But I came here simply because young people are putting an effort. Young people are putting it I'm so proud of them. I'm really I haven't met all of the volunteers. But whoever you are, I salute you. I am so proud of you, that you're putting this effort and your parents should be proud of you. Your parents should not be yelling at you if your parents are here.

Your parents should be proud of you. They should be giving you a hug and saying good job. He do more of these things. I wish you spent more time with these other good Muslim people. You know, you have enough lousy friends Mashallah, you made some good friends here. And those of you that didn't volunteer volunteer next time? Well, God should be like this whole Hall should be empty. Everybody volunteering outside. You know, that's how it should be.

guys get yourself busy with productive things. So you learn to think about more than yourself. These young people, they could have been staying at home watching a movie. It's so easy man. Even on their phone.

They could they could have been doing nothing. They could have gone to the movie theater, they're gonna go to the hookup place down the street. I know.

You know, they could have done it. But they volunteered. The mountain only got yelled at by an uncle or two. You know, they probably got dirty logs. They've you know, all of that out and they still volunteer man, I respect that. I'm proud of it. Let's keep that up. You know, let's keep that momentum going Mashallah great job putting this together. And if you don't I it's very hard to book me. I'll be honest with you. It's very, very hard for me to come to do a speaking event. Usually when I come I don't come back for a long time. But you guys, the youth here you put an event together, I'll show up. I'm promising you that. You do. I live in I live in this city. This is our

city. This is a place that we have to improve. And if the young people here are putting an effort than whether they're putting this effort in, but you have to work with each other. Not our mistake. Not me. No, no. Everybody together. You do a collaborative program. I don't care if you do it in Irving, are you doing an epic ad even if you live in Arlington, I'll even go to Arlington. God, you know how serious that commitment is. I'm willing to go to Arlington.

That's like leaving civilization.

But I'll still go if you guys do it, I'll still go. Because I want you guys to build this momentum. I want you to build this and you the rest of you. You have to support this as I was not in our machines. All right, I'm going

no support their efforts, show up in bigger numbers show with your extended family. You know, do that because we know they need encouragement. They really they need encouragement. I moved to this city because I thought it's a great place for family and little kids. You know what I didn't notice in the city. When I moved here. I noticed there is no youth

activity. Young people, teenagers have no activity. College students. I see almost no activity. I want to see that change. I want to make this I this city should be the most active youth city. It's already leading the country in so many things, but the youth not yet. The youth not yet. Come on. Let's pick it up guys. Let's show that let's show the rest of the country not the rest of the world. But it's like what Muslim youth can do in a city. Let's do that and shall not die. Thank you so very much for listening.