Ramadan 2022 – The Religion of Your Father #08

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today we're at SOTL MBR, that when he first stood up the Quran, and we're going to talk about Ibrahim Ali salaam, again from iron number 51 onwards, another important section that tells us something about Ibrahim Ali Saddam's career. The last time we the section that we were dealing with it from Switzerland, we learned some things about how he, you know, arrived at his conclusion and how he demonstrated that conclusion to his people and to his father. Now, we're actually going to see other passages of the Quran that zoom in on each of those audiences. So there's going to be another passage where he's going to have very direct interaction with his father, specifically with

his father. And there's a special passage where he's, you know, addressing the society at large. So I've chosen to go with the passage where he addresses society at large first, and then we're going to deal with the other passage where he deals with his father. But there's wisdom in that and Allah azza wa jal highlighted that, as human beings, when we speak up for the truth, when we follow the religion of Ibrahim Ali salaam, there are levels of challenges. And there are people that we have to engage with in the outside world, right. And we have to declare our message and stand up for what we believe and not allow someone to silence What we actually believe, and not be afraid of it, not be

ashamed of it. That's one side of it. But it can also be that what you believe is not acceptable within your own family, that are within your own inner circle, right, and you're being silenced or suffocated, for what you believe within that. And so, Ibrahim Allison's legacy addresses both of those challenges. And what comes with that, and they each have a different obstacle. So what we're going to see today is when he's challenging society at large, and you know, you don't have to be a public figure, or somebody who's always engaged with 1000s and 1000s of people, but we all have work business school, right? You you deal with non Muslims, and people that don't believe the same ideas

as you do. And now because the world's become one giant social media web, you know, people are commenting on the same material from all over the world, right? People have different beliefs and different views, and the commentary space that exchange space has become a very immature, aggressive, hostile kind of space where like, normal conversation becomes almost impossible, right? And there's a kind of mob mentality. Right? So and it's interesting that a lot of social media giants feel that by allowing hearts and angry emojis, and you know, so you can you can gauge how many people are being angered and how many people are like, and they're pitting people against each

other, and emotions against each other. So when somebody gives a thumbs down, other people jump on them and say, oh, yeah, you're one of those guys. And they, they come at them. So there is such a thing as a mob mentality, there is such a thing as the power of a large crowd, and how intimidating it can be, you see that play out in different parts of the world, even in the United States sometimes, but you know, for example, the kind of hostilities that are happening towards Muslim women in India nowadays, for instance, for wearing hijab, right or at universities, the kinds of things that Muslims have faced, for example, in Sri Lanka, that we don't hear much about, right. So

there are there are, you know, and this is not just and I'm not to say that only Muslims face

people face this all the time. But Ibrahim on Instagram story is going to be not just about the rights of a person, but it's going to be actually about the rights of Allah. Right? He's not standing up for his rights, actually. He's saying Allah deserves to be talked about in a way that is honest. Right? So it's not about himself. You know, usually when you see people speaking up, they're speaking up for a particular interest group. And even Muslims can become an interest group, Muslim, civil, civil rights, you know, Muslim liberties. And that's a legitimate cause, just like any other civil liberties that are are legitimate cause but that's not what's being talked about here. What's

being talked about here is actually your faith. What is it that you believe and why should you be, you know, why should you be be silenced? Against what you believe? So we're going to start reading this from again. Surah Al Anbiya Welaka attina, Ibrahima rooster joven Pablo. We're gonna be here early mean we had already given Ibrahim alayhis salam his uprightness from much before and we were fully aware of him we fully knew about him. It's called early OB he will call me he when he said to his father and his entire nation. Maha they hit Timothy allottee Antonella Aki phone, what are these? Timothy Lau translated in a second? What are these Timothy that you people sit in front of in

devotion. So Timothy comes from the Arabic word Timothy, which comes from methyl methyl is actually an example. Or an equivalent term seal becomes a representation. Okay, representation. So this is interesting, because for those people that didn't necessarily worship the idol, but the idol represents a god, that is somewhere and that God has these powers. It's not this idol, you could break the idol. And they know that too. But these idols represent something more. Right. And then the amulets that they wear, or the, the, you know, the trinkets that they might put in their car, or, you know, the amulets that they might tie around their arm, they represent something, right? So

they can say, Yeah, this is just a piece of string, it's just a piece of leather, or whatever it is, but it represents a supernatural deity behind it. Right. So this is Raheem Allison, I'm challenging a common thread that exists in many religions, which is what we take physical objects. And we say, this physical object represents something supernatural, it represents some kind of God represents some kind of superpower, right? So you might find a manifestation of that with, you know, with Catholics wearing a crucifix, and it's a holy thing that they're wearing, they're gonna kiss it, they're gonna keep it, you know, you'll you'll find in some parts of the world, drug dealers that

are devout Catholics that are, you know, before they go into a drug deal, they're gonna kiss their crucifix and go in because they, you know, or they're going to pray to a certain Saint that's going to watch out for them, while they make sure that you know, the narcotics distributed in the society properly. Right. So once you have this notion that objects become holy, right,

you can have in the United States for many hotels, you will open up the drawer and in the side drawer of a hotel room, and you'll see a copy of the Bible, you know, or the Book of Mormon in many, many cases, right? And it's not because somebody will read it necessarily, but it's also part of the blessings of it all. Or you will see like a crown in the back of a car, you know, and the thing is, Hindus do this, Muslims do this. I told you a story before our neighbor back in New York when I was in high school, old lady, she was going to what's that place past? Somebody in New Jersey, the gambling city and forgetting the Atlantic City. So she's heading to Atlantic City to gamble, because

it's their thing. They go on the weekend to gamble, right? And she was going out and she drops a picture frame from her bag as she's walking out of the apartment. And it was Ireland could see on a picture frame. And I was like, she taken shahada, what's going on? So I picked it up, I gave it to her. She was Why do you have that? She goes, I take it with me all the time. It's for good luck. You know. So the idea is that, you know, this is something that pagan religions have done all along. What's crazy, is then what Muslims started adopting. So that we started hanging like a microscopic copy of the most half from the windshield of our cars. Because we couldn't afford a car that has

dual side airbags or, you know, this is better security, you know, or will will, you know, it became an industry used to be an industry in other religions, people used to sell this hocus pocus to take advantage of people. And then this came into the Muslim world, many parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, even you can go to somebody who's really connected to Allah, you can tell by the disheveled hair, and you go to them and say, Well, you know, a couple of goes to themselves. We've been trying to have a baby, we can have a baby, and he'll just say, Okay, we'll write your names on this piece of paper. He'll get that piece of piece of paper and some water. You mean let the ink you know go

and do some hocus pocus. You know, things on Barney song in his head. I don't know what he's gonna do. And then he's gonna say now drink this, and I will turn an amulet and put it around your arm and

Don't take this off, and you'll have twins, you know? So and people pay good money for this. People actually pay good money for this, right? And this is actually

something that in the end, it comes down to this kind of thing people just turn to religion to get their wishes answered. Right. And the craziness of it gets to the point where the Muslim can go to the house of the hate, they can we can go to the Kaaba, and you have Muslims cutting up little pieces of the hill, half of the cover of the cabinet, the Kiswa, right, and I'm bringing it home. And, you know, like, this is a piece of cloth. This is a piece of cloth, you know, that those those stones that were used to build the house of Allah Our stones, our dean did not come for the worship of stones or to make stones sacred. And this is, this is a really important thing that we have to

internalize. Just because we're Muslim doesn't mean we're free from that, we have to be like Ibraheem Alehissalaam things have to you know, these things cannot represent something sacred, in and of themselves. It is the beliefs and the belief in Allah azza wa jal, who is beyond these things, that is sacred. And so he questioned his father and said, Ma, the hit the methine, what are these representations? What are these things that you think represents something powerful, that you sit in front of, that you have such reverence for, you know, I let the internal hierarchy food that you're sitting in, you know, ethics office, when you go and you devote yourself in worship, and

they're, they're doing that, right, there's, they can sit and, you know, be concentrated in worship eyes closed eight hours at a time, they can do that, they will do all kinds of long, long, long hours of worship. And so he put it, he put a question mark to that. Now, another side of that, that I want you to know, is that, okay? The world after, you know, post colonization and post industrialization post, you know, the, you know, we're, we're post post the new modern age, right? We're in this new new age, where, yes, there's a huge chunk of the world that's still religious, but many big cities were beyond religion. So most big cities in the world actually have very similar

sociologies. Right, the houses of worship are not full, people are working, you know, nine to five kinds of jobs. And they have, even if they're different religions, they all have similar kinds of goals, they all want certain kinds of house certain kinds of car, you know, they want to be able to enjoy their weekend in certain kinds of entertainment. Like, for the most part, if you go to whether you go to New York City, or you end up in London, or you end up in Sydney, or you end up in Jakarta, or you end up in, you know, downtown, you know, whatever Muslim country, you end up in Karachi, or anywhere else, you're gonna find similar things. Right, lifestyles have changed. Yeah, the dressing

of religion on top of that is a little bit different. But you know what, some things now became new gods. And that's what I really want you to take away today. The Old Gods used to be idols that represented something, they represented happiness, they represented protection, they represented these kinds of things. The new gods are, you know, things like, how much money you have in the bank, or what degree do you have, if you don't have this degree are worth nothing. If you don't have this kind of job, you're worth nothing. If you don't live in this kind of neighborhood, that's your object of worship, everything you do, so you can move into this neighborhood. Right, these are these

representations are now our ultimate goal, like what like the way somebody would like, die to or struggle their entire life to make it into Jannah we have these concepts of men when I get here, that means I've achieved you know, gender tomorrow, I've gotten it. Because this these letters are next to my name now. Or this, you know, this, I have this kind of a house, the kind of house that I can make videos about and post. And people can say, Whoa, seriously, look at that view, you know, those things have become now a kind of kinds of representations then the other thing that's become the new god that I've been referring to, I want to drill that in your head also, because we have to

counter it is the self the knifes has become a kind of God now has become a representation. So my happiness is the ultimate objective. My me feeling good, is the ultimate objective. Nothing can get in the way of me feeling good. You know. And so if that means that I have to be addicted to video games, because I want to keep getting dopamine hits by crashing candy, then that's what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna stay on it and stay on it and stay on it. You know, if it means that I have to keep putting more and more, you know, fake images of myself online and represent myself a certain way to build then that's what I'm going to do. Ibrahim Ali Salam is taking something the entire

society is obsessed with and saying what is it that you're spending so much time on? What is this? Why are you so sitting in devotion in front of these, these Timothy? I love this word Timothy that the Quran used here because it

It targets with Ibrahim Ali Salam was targeting, but it targets all the time a theme that will come after him. Like for ages to come, we're going to have different time I feel like we have different than Matthew Now, you know, how many studies are there now about people that are that are suffering from social media addiction, they can't get off of it. How many people are now in extreme levels of, you know, the low self esteem, low self value, all of it associated with the the addiction they have to these these devices. And these these comparisons, this new obsession with comparison, and we're just sitting before them, and we're, you know, hoping that we can make an agenda meaning we can have

this many followers. That's our agenda now. You know, so he said, and what is what was the answer that he got? We'll just talk about these two things today called Who was your dinner? Lucha RBD they responded, We found our fathers worshipping these things. I told you, we have to when we study Quran, we have to understand the history that it's coming from. And then we have to compare it to the reality we're living in. And only then you understand what is what is the Quran actually telling us in a timeless way. You know, to understand this, it will take five minutes back in the day when people used to spend the last two days before they leave hudge. Right. When the last couple of days

before we leave what Corolla via Yama do that? Remember Allah in the few days, that at the very tail end of Hajj, right, and you can stay when you know when to Angela for your main fella is smiling when Allah is smiling, they wanted to whoever wants to say a couple of days, they can stay a couple of days, whoever wants to stay longer, and remember Allah, they can stay longer. Now you're sitting there, you're not praying, but you're just remembering Allah doing vicar doing dua, etcetera, but you're all together, right? So eventually you start kind of having conversations, and people start talking about where they're from, what they do, etc, etc. Or if they wrote their friends, friends

talk about common interests. Allah says, In those days, he says, but could Allah can decree come Abba, Akuma, OSHA Decra. This, please pay attention to this point. He says, Remember, Allah the way you used to remember the way you remember your father's or even with more intensity. Remember Allah the way you remember who your father's how back in the day for the tribe, remembering your father, and what your grandfather did on the battlefield. Or I come from this tribe, my father did this. And my aunt, my uncle did that. And this was the thing to talk about. This is what they were big on. But now we're oblivious to our fathers. were oblivious. This is not the culture anymore. You know, this

was the culture back then your pride was associated with your father and his father and his father and in tribal societies, that makes a lot of sense. So if you visit a, you know, traditional tribal family in any part of the world, most of them are not, you're going to see people taking pride in their father and father, grandfather and so on. And now in the modern world, you ask an average child, tell me something about your grandpa. I see him on Eid.

What else? He's old.

It's pretty old. You know?

He talks funny little bit. If you don't know nothing, we that's not the source of our pride. But what is what is that you can have a conversation with with a young man, or middle aged man that will like fire them up. Or you could talk about the stock market, you want to have a conversation about cryptocurrency, you want to talk about, you know, cars, you want to talk about games devices, you want to talk about politics, there are things that like really fire people up, and they really want to have those kinds of conversations, right? So when Allah was talking to the original audience, he was talking to them about what's what was culturally relevant to them. But what we can learn from

that is we need to extrapolate that and say, Well, what is culturally relevant to us? Because it's easy for me to live by the I literally, I'm not gonna go there and talk about my father and his father and his father and his father, so I'm good with the I'm not I'm not violating the I'm going to talk about video games instead.

Talk about your your watch this YouTube video is really funny. You know, that's what I'm violating the IRS, because that was for them. You see. So the same way here? When they answered they said, We do this because our fathers did it.

We do this because our fathers, why are the fathers because you have the most respect for who your father is back in the day. You know, who you have most respect for nowadays, celebrities, athletes, popular people are what my favorite word, everybody. Everybody says that.

What do you mean? Have you ever seen somebody not doing that? Look, everybody's doing it.

Look at all these people that are so popular and successful. They're all doing it. They've become they've become our ABA.

They're the new ABA. You understand? So when they said when Abraham had some questions, everyone said, Why are you worshiping these idols? They said, because our fathers did it and their fathers and their fathers did it. But yes, in terms of raw religion, that may be true. This was passed down, but actually the new false gods that were worshipping we've accepted new fathers to new elders to and we look at these influencers and these

celebrities and these people that set these trends. And they define what is acceptable, what is normal, what is to be celebrated. And we give that as our justification. Because we've accepted them as the ideal to want to be like that. Once you accept that, then of course, they're going to set what is normal and what is not. What is good and what isn't. You know, there's a reason these people get paid big, big bucks to put product placement in their videos. So that, you know, people like you and me that are just worshipping their status, can go buy the same product so we can feel a little bit closer towards them. Forget uncoachable Allah is Allah corrymeela celebrity. You know, that's,

that's what this is. So here, Ibrahim alayhi salam is actually challenging cultural trends, cultural trends, and you cannot I cannot be a a genuine represented representative of millet, Amina Ibrahim, the religion of our father, Ibrahim Ali Salam, if I don't understand what these trends are. I don't understand what these new idols are. I don't understand what the force behind these idols is the influencers behind these idols are. So I know that when people are worshipping this stuff, where is it coming from? From their own mouth, which, which, and Allah, I believe our fathers, we saw our fathers worshipping this stuff. So obviously, if we're going to worship it, you know, what is that

about? Another, I believe one, one celebrity is going to say, Oh, I wear this or I drink this for my morning breakfast, or blah, blah, blah, how many millions of sales are gonna go up? You know, because of that endorsement? Just a little bit. You know, because we worship these things. Now, this has become a new form of worship. So may Allah azza wa jal protect you and me from it. And may Allah azza wa jal really allow us to see the world from the in the way that Ibraheem Alehissalaam used to see the world. That is actually what Allah azza wa jal wants us to develop the eyes of Ibrahim Ali, so the heart and the mind of Ibrahim Alayhi Salam. This is why it's the religion of our father

Ibrahim Ali so BarakAllahu li Walakum Quran Al Hakim on f&e Jacobi laity with the Creed Hakeem