Ramadan 2022 – The Religion of Your Father #02

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What are the legal moody Ibrahima Mallacoota semi wet he will be near Khun Walia, una mina mukuni Shockley Sadi Sidley MD, of the family Sani alcoholic, but hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala Zb mursaleen ala alihi wa sahbihi as my mother. Once again, everyone Somali kumara Autobytel, Ricardo. Today's our second installation of the conversations we're going to have about Ibrahim alayhis salam and I want to start us off with what Allah tells us about him in silicon anom. My plan over the course of the month is to go through different places in the Quran and pay attention to everything Allah has told us about him. So we can learn about him in his own words,

like like that Allah introduce us to Ibrahim alayhis salam. So here, the way Allah introduced us in Switzerland. He started by telling us something about him the conversation he had with his father and his nation. He says What if kala Ibrahim the obi Azhar whenever Rahim Ali salaam said to his father, as before going on, you should know that some scholars, they have a problem accepting that Azur could be his father. So they say that was his uncle. And the reason they have a problem accepting that the different kinds of rationales that have been offered, basically boiled down to one thing, how can the prophet be the son of an idol worshiper or it's an insult to a prophet to be,

you know, the son of it I idol worship, etc. That's not a very founded argument. Allah has tested prophets with family all the time. Allah azza wa jal has tested Jacoba later on with his children. Allah has tested new la salaam with his wife. Allah has tested a Lutheran, a Salam with his wife, Allah has tested Nurhaliza with his son. And so the unlike the biblical logic, which is you know, we are inherently sinful and then sin is passed down from Adam, Adam is sinful, and we inherit the sins of our father. So human beings are born into sin. That's not the way Muslims see things. That's not the way the Quran exposes. Human nature Allah Allah says about human nature, we are born Island

fitrah the prophet tells us so Salam, Kulu Malu, then EULA, do Alfetta tea every every newborn is born in the nature that Allah azza wa jal created, which Allah describes as Fitzwater fritatta, Allah, Allah t katalor. NASA Elena, the nature that Allah created, that he he molded people on which is inherently good. Other places in the Quran will refer to this goodness as light itself, we have a light inside of us, there's a goodness inside of us. And there's a goodness it doesn't have to do with who your genes are. Like where you come you could come from a Hindu family and have goodness you can come from an atheist family and have Goodness It has nothing to do with who your father was

your mother was. In fact everybody has a unique start everybody through was poured into them from you know from the creation of Allah and that rule has goodness in it. This is why it doesn't matter if a person is fit our own even he La La Jolla, California. Even he can take benefit of a reminder maybe he'll become a fearful person to every single person has potential. There is no such thing as a curse nation, or a curse people are a curse set of genes. People say things casually like our families cursed or this is there's no such thing in our religion, and our deen every human being is an individual who lumati akala T human piano T further everybody will come before Allah individual

alone. You're not going to be judged on what family you came from, or what your parents did or what anybody else did. And in fact, the entire legacy of Ibrahim alayhis salam is about that singular responsibility. So it kind of undoes that if we get uncomfortable that his father was a was an idol worshiper. Or, as the story is told by different, you know, sources, a maker of idols in his village. In any case, the Quran is languages A B, when Ibrahim alayhis salam said to his father, as he mentions his name by name as a tetrahedral a snowman Ali Hutton Are you really taking idols statues as gods in the Urraca will call Maka feeble Allah moving, I see you. And I see your entire

nation as people that are lost in obvious confusion, obviously lost. I see you people as totally and absolutely clearly lost. So he criticizes his father and he criticizes his father's entire nation. Now this is the introduction we're getting in Switzerland and one of the earlier Sutras of the Quran. We're getting an introduction to the kind of person Ibrahim Ali Salam was, what is he doing that so revolutionary? First of all, in in ancient

societies, there were different kinds of authority, right? And the Authority came from the family. Now after, you know, in this postmodern world, we're living in a, in many societies were so hyper individualistic, like European society, American society, Australian society, we've become so hyper individualistic living in big cities, people leave their family from the village, or the small town, and they move to a bigger city to get a job, or they leave the country and get a job. So they're on their own. They're that they're not that's not checking on whether they prayed or not, or whether they ate or not, or what their who their friends are, they have an individual independent life,

right? And the hierarchy of the family, which was based on you, when you when your father speaks to you say yes, Father, yes, sir, etc, even in non Muslim cultures, that started disappearing, right, so we don't really see the authority of the parental figure, the way that you used to be in the ancient world. And the same way, the authority of the village or the authority of the race or the authority of the Emperor, right back in the day, nobody spoke about the emperor in bad words, you know, not just because if you, if they find out, you spoke about them like that, you're gonna get killed. But also there was this all in reverence for the ruler, there was this regard for the king,

it was part of your identity, that you had that this is the history of most societies. And actually, many societies in the world still have that kind of reverence. Many traditional societies still have that kind of reverence. But even in those societies, you'll notice, for example, if you go to Southeast Asia, for example, or South Asia, or, or different parts of Africa, you'll find the cities have a different kind of culture. And the village has a different kind of culture. Right? And the old world, the ancient world look more like the villages than it does the cities. Now, I'm seeing all of this as part of my introduction here, because it's important. Ibrahim alayhis salam lives in

a society where the authority figure is the Father. And beyond the father is the village. Those are the two ultimate authority figures. That is not the case here. That's not the case. In the United States, for example, that's not the case. In Canada, for example. It's a different kind of society. We you know, when I first came here,

in high school, I came from I some of my schooling from, you know, elementary school was in Serbia. So when I came to the United States,

first thing I noticed people were, you know, friends in high school, non Muslims were saying, Yeah, my old man's crazy. Oh, look, who's your old man. I didn't know the phrase. I didn't know what that meant, oh, they're referring to their father. That's a common phrase to use for your, my old man is this or that or the other. And then I had some friends who's like, what I went over to their home, and their dad's name is Frank, instead of saying, Hey, Dad, like your Frank, how's your day, and he's just telling his father, your friend, how's your day that was completely normal. You know, the idea that they don't deserve a kind of reverence is not a crazy idea in some circles. But certainly,

even in the United States, there are some very traditional farming society, communities and other more traditional families, church values, etc. When you go to those kinds of places you're gonna see Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, dad? Yes, Father, you're gonna see that kind of respect right. Now, what are we learning from this, what we're learning from this is Ibraheem Alehissalaam challenged the highest authority that was there, the highest human authority that was there, when they were wrong, he just straight up said, I, you can't impose that on you can't make me do what you're doing. You know, even if you're my dad, even if you're the highest authority, and the authority behind you is

your entire village. So in the Araca, work, Olmeca people are moving. So let's impose that on ourselves. Let's first understand this lesson. What What am I learning from this idea today? Right? In our times, there are forces that have replaced the father, it's not like you have no authority over you, you still have an authority over you. It's not like there's no pressure on you. There's still pressure on you and me. And that pressure can come from your university, it can come from your employer, it can come from your larger culture, it can come from, you know, forces in the media or social media, etc. Where if you were to speak out against something, or if you were to take a stand,

when everybody wants you to accept something as right, and you say, No, I don't accept that. That's right. Well, you're going to get flamed, you're going to get destroyed by the larger culture that says, How dare you question what we just told you is good. How dare you say that it's not good. Right? So you can you you can actually get in trouble with the larger dominant culture or any force of influence, because you're saying what is right and, and you know, what, back in the day, that's the next comparison, I want you to understand because a lot of times when people study Quran, they're like, Oh, well, people in the old times they used to worship idols. We're not in those times

anymore. You're right. We don't have idols made of wood. We don't have it.

idols made of marble or stone, right? We don't have carvings like that. But you know what we might have what we have. Instead, we have conceptual idols. We have philosophies and ideas that have now become unquestionable. And people will give their life to those ideas. And people will destroy anyone who questions those ideas. Well, basically those ideas and those philosophies and those worldviews have replaced physical idols. In fact, they're much more transportable, right? You don't have to have the physical idol. Now they're there. They're concepts in your head. They're concepts that are being imposed on society. And if you question them, well, then you're, you know, you're

going to be in big trouble. And the, you know, how also some would describe shirk, as something as subtle as a black and in the middle of a dark night on a black rock, right. But an idol is pretty, pretty shiny, golden, colorful, on top of a temple lit up, it's very obvious. So she takes other forms, you know, what scholars would call a shekel huffy the hidden form of Schick. That's what you and I have to be aware of there are, you know, there are forces at play in our time, like there were forces of played Ibrahim alayhis. Salam, his time, his the, the thing that was unquestionable was the authority of the idols. But in the thing we have to ask ourselves in my day and age, in my

society, in my culture, in my country, in my nation, in my world, in the world that I experienced, what are the things that are unquestionable that I don't even have a right to question it. And if Allah has taught me otherwise, doesn't matter, I should keep my mouth shut. And if somebody is asking me to be okay with it, I should just go along. This is the first thing Ibrahim alayhi salam defies he defies authority. He says, you're taking these idols as gods, these are your absolute authority. These are the things and Illa as an important word, it's not just it doesn't just mean God, it actually means someone or something that you adore, or love beyond all else, you know,

whether Illa the verb le ha, actually also means further delay, something you run towards, in desperation, something you're clinging on to, is actually an object of not just worship, but an object of your your adoration, your admiration, something you're desperately holding on to and it's from the degrees of love one of the words in Arabic for love as well, which means when you love that, it's like you love nothing else. It's about love beyond all else, right? And that's embedded inside the meaning of the word Illa. So when these people took these idols as they love them, they can't see beyond them. That's the ultimate ideal for them. They can't they can't imagine their

existence outside of them. And so when you question something that someone's so passionate about, you're definitely going to enrage them. This is not just some casual exchange of ideas. Like Oh, you think that players better I think this player is better. You think that car is better? I think this car is better. That's a casual conversation. This is about something that people hold on to for dear life, as father has society are built, they're building an entire culture, a foundation on these beliefs, they hold them dear. And it says dear to them as their own identity. They see them as inseparable. And yet, as a young man, he dares to question that does he do a sermon early in the

Arakawa, comarca? Few but I, from what I can see, I see you and your entire nation clearly lost, you're openly lost. This is actually a very aggressive stance, isn't it? It's a very, very daring stands. Where does the strength for that stance come from? How did he come up with the courage to challenge his society in this way? This is what Allah azza wa jal is going to answer in this passage. So I'm going to today I'll also inform you of the kind of schedule we're going to have. I'm going to start these loose. Like I said, before the Isha prayer, they're going to be short, because I want the attention span to be high. We're going to have the thought we have prayer on Saturdays

only, we're going to have a couple of extra sessions. So we're going to have the thought we had prayer come to an end, those of you who'd like to make the 100 rupee Amberlynn tonight, you can skip the winter prayer, we're going to I'm going to have another dose, then some salah, then another sets, then some Salah up until one or two in the morning. So that's that's the plan and those of you who like to leave and come back, you can leave and come back also, but on Saturdays, because it's an easier day on the weekend, I want to take advantage of some pmla tahajjud and also some additional reminders. So we'll keep carrying on with the series inshallah. So in our next installment, what I'm

going to talk to you about is what is the source of Ibraheem Alehissalaam his courage to be able to do what he did because Islam is not just a set of beliefs, it's actually a the courage to stand up for those beliefs, the courage to actually question when somebody is challenging those beliefs, or questions, somebody who's making you surrender to what is against those beliefs. Where do you get that kind of courage because the normal tendency for a human being

Just agree with everybody don't stir any trouble is going to cause too much of a problem. If you want to fit in, if you want to want to have a comfortable life, just be quiet. Just play along. It's okay. It'll pass. You know, just keep it safe. Right? And that's not the way of Ibrahim alayhis salam, he had no security, no backing as a younger guy in the safest place you have is your own family. And he's actually, by by this statement, he is rejecting the security of his own family. In fact, the first threat that came to him came from his father.

The first threat was given to him by his father, the place you're supposed to find safety is where he found danger because of what he said because of what he believed. So we're going to have to explore where this incredible strength is coming from. With that, I'll conclude BarakAllahu li Walakum political hacking on a family where he could be it was back in Santa Monica. Too late.