Nouman Ali Khan – Understanding Our History
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of preserving Islam's integrity and learning from history, particularly the Quran. They highlight areas of knowledge and encourage viewers to take a comprehensive journey into the Quran, including learning about political science and history. The title "Art of the Quran" is also mentioned, and viewers are encouraged to check it on Abena TV.AI: Transcript ©
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rubbish Allah Sabri mala silly Emory, Dr. Melissa Nia Ali Al hamdu Lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah Allah Allah, he was a big marine. So not not bad. Once again, everyone said I'm already Kumamoto la hora carto. Today what I'd like to talk to you guys about is a very important conceptual problem. It's a problem of thinking about ourselves, you know, thinking about Muslim identity. And what I want to present to you first is basically a kind of a riddle.
The prophet SAW his solemn moves to Medina, and of course in Medina, he directly encounters the Jewish community among also the Christian community. And in SoTL, Bukhara Allah decides to address the Jewish community that lives in Medina directly, yeah, Bani Israel, he decides to talk about talk to them directly. And many, many items total Baqarah, or that direct conversation between Allah and bunnies while he speaks to them in the second person, you did this, you did this, you did this, right. So he's talking to them in a very immediate and a very direct conversation. And the idea that I want to use as a as a space to talk about the nature of that conversation, Allah says, What is
Musa? Allah, Allah when we promised Messiah, we took a promise from Musa to be with us for 40 nights Allah had taken an agreement with Musa to come to him for 40 nights. And when he was gone for 40, nice throne, but the hufton will arrange 11 body, then you you people took up the calf to worship,
even after just right after he left. So as soon as he left you people started worshiping the calf. Now the words that are important here that present the the Curiosity is the words it has done. All of you started worshiping the calf.
The Quran is talking to the Jews living in Medina. Yes, who worship the calf?
who worship the cow.
their ancestors from many, many, many generations ago, isn't it? They didn't have a cow that they worship. They didn't have a calf that they worship. It was there many, many generations old ancestors. And a lot talks to them and says, When I called Moosa and you people started worshipping the calf, and you were the ones doing wrong. Then I forgave you. I didn't do it and you didn't forgive me. The one you forgive is my great great great great great grandfather somewhere back in the day who I don't even remember the name of him you forgive him. Why are you talking to me like I did it. So the Quran talks about Bani Israel and their history. And it doesn't use them. It uses
you, you people. But you and I know that we are not blamed for the mistakes of our ancestors. That you know, like the Christian concept of original sin we don't have that we don't have your great grandfather was a hypocrite so you're a hypocrite. You don't have that.
You know, my ancestry for example, my ancestors are Buddhist. A few generations back, you know, seven, eight generations back they're Buddhists they're not Muslim. Right? So that doesn't that's not held against me. That's not held against me. So why is Allah talking to them in this way? That's the question we're gonna try to address inshallah and through it, it we don't just learn something about bunnies, right, we learn something about ourselves, this is more important for ourselves. See what happened with bunnies slightly less they suffered with a lot of with from a lot of diseases. They had the religion, they were the only people left of that much knowledge of Scripture. Nobody
even comes close, actually, even in Medina or anywhere, arguably, in the world that has that much scholarship in their religion at the time as the Jews had.
Their rabbis were incredibly, incredibly knowledgeable. As a matter of fact, the word used for them was a bar. A bar is people that are dipped in ink.
They wrote so much, and they produce so much and they studied so much that they're just called people of ink. So it's no small thing. There's no small amount of knowledge they had. But the thing is to preserve the integrity of Islam that preserve the integrity of religion, it's not just knowledge that you need. You don't just need knowledge, you need the right kind of thinking.
It's possible that somebody has a lot of knowledge but they don't have the right kind of thinking. This is why the Quran doesn't complain about why don't you know, don't you know, it actually complains, don't you think?
attacchi luen that's a very common complaint in the Quran. The Quran is not holding against people that they don't know, as a matter of fact, when people don't know let make excuses for them and says valleca Vietnam, Camila Allah moon. That's because there are people who don't know, the idea means they will eventually learn. But you know whether you know or not every human being has been given the ability to do what to think, in the right way to think appropriately. But what happens with a nation when they emphasize knowledge, but they stop emphasizing the right kind of what thinking then they can't even benefit from their knowledge. When we saw he had a lot of knowledge, and by the way,
you could say no, no, no, but their knowledge was corrupted, and their books had been changed. And it wasn't what it used to be. Even if you argue all of that their knowledge was good enough. Good enough that when they saw the prophets Isilon, they could tell immediately This is the one mentioned in our books. yardie Phu Kham IRT funaab. Now, they recognize him like they recognize their own kids.
If that's the case, that means they do have a lot of authentic knowledge still, but seems to be the problem is with what? Thinking of an attack You don't? Why don't you think that's the complaint Elon makes, even against when you slide? Now to us? You know, we think that if you have knowledge, then automatically you must be a good thinker.
We assume that we assume it. So someone who has a lot of knowledge must be a really good thinker. It's not necessarily the case. So that now coming back to the question of history, you see, when you think that you are superior, maybe you think you're superior, because you have more knowledge. Maybe you think you're superior, because you have a better family background. A lot of people think like that even today, don't they? They feel like for example, they come from a noble family history, a lot of people feel they come for example, if they come from the family of the prophets of Salaam, which is a noble, noble history, then somehow they are superior to other people. They can act like
they're superior to other people. Other people might say we come from royal family background, we come from you know, this, this noble heritage, etc, etc. And as a result, we are better than others. And they develop that thinking. Some people even use Islam for it, I come from a family of scholars.
And because I'm from a family of scholars, somehow I have better DNA than you.
The thing is, whether you come from a family of scholars or not, or even a family of a prophet, you're still the children of other bodies around, you're still gonna stand in front of a large hotel the same way. There's not a VIP role for anybody on Judgement Day. You understand? Allah doesn't care about your ethnicity or your genetics. The only thing you can bring to a lie is a sound heart. It's all you can bring. He's not gonna ask what nationality what passport? What visa? You know what bloodline? That's not going to be a question. Is that clear to everybody? Now, the thing is, with Vanessa, even though they had knowledge, they started thinking that for some reason, they are
superior.
And when you have that thinking,
and you study your history,
then you study your history with the wrong kinds of glasses on through these glasses. You even read your own history, and the only thing you read is what makes you superior.
You only highlight the parts of your history that establish your superiority even more.
A Muslim I do this, we might read our own history, and the only parts of our history will read us the ones that make us proud. Yeah.
The Allahu anhu you highlight the parts that feel good. What do you ignore?
The parts that are embarrassing is our does our history have embarrassing episodes? Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, when he saw when they would talk about themselves as the superior nation of course they didn't just become the superior nation today. They became the superior nation A long time ago. And they keep talking about the great choices of Allah how many prophets Allah gave them will promises Allah gave them the blessings Allah gave them the highlight the highlight that history, that glorious golden history over and over and over and over and over again. And the more they remember that history, the more that it reminds them that how much better they are than everybody
else. So what I decided to do, Allah decides to give them a reality check if you want to quote the best parts of your history and take credit. Like you did it. You didn't do it. The people who did those great things came a long time ago and they're gone. You didn't do it, and you have no right to take credit for what they did. You're not awesome because of them. They are awesome because of them. This is why I'm certain but Corolla says telco Matan kottelat la casa de la comarca septum. That's a group of people, they're already gone. They earned whatever they could earn, you're going to earn what you're going to earn. Without this aluna American balloon. You're not gonna be asked about what
they used to do. You have to take responsibility for yourselves. Coming back to the point they would only highlight the glorious parts of their history.
Because it would make them feel better about themselves. And they would talk about them, like they're talking about themselves.
So Allah reverses it.
So he takes the ugliest part of their history.
And he talks about them. Like he's talking about themselves. So he uses you. And they could say, well, why are you using you? It wasn't me. I didn't worship the calf. Well, you know, when you talk about your victories, and you talk about your blessings, and you talk about people who lived 1000s of years ago, you say, we did it, we were this, we were that you like to put yourself together with them for the good times how much you put yourself together with them for the bad times to then
this is a reality check in history.
And what happens, you know, in modern times, when, of course, in the last century, a century and a half, a lot of new nation states were formed, right, a lot of colonizing nations left, and new nations were formed. And when these new nations are formed, there are lots of political tensions in the world. And as a result of those political tensions, when textbooks are made for children, and history books are written, then you have to write the kind of history books that make you love your country and your people and your ethnicity and your race more. And they make you hate the enemy more. So you highlight the parts of your history that increase patriotism.
And you erase the parts of history that can question it.
Our allegiance has not to the truth in so many nations, our allegiance is not to the truth. Our allegiance is to nationalism. Our allegiance is to this idea of patriotism, this glorified nation, the idea of a glorified nation. And unfortunately, even within the world of Islam, even within when we think about Islam, we don't like to highlight our own flaws, our own mistakes, our own errors, we'd like to talk about how everything was amazing. Every time you hear about the people of the past, they were the most incredible people, man, I don't even believe that they walked on the earth, they probably floated in the air. When they walk. That's how awesome they were, you know, you'll
hear and people that start exaggerating the accounts of history, and how there was a scholar who actually never made will do his whole life. He was that pure? Or you're sitting there listening to this going? Why?
So you didn't pray?
You know? No, no, no, Allah just never made his will to break a child Really? Fantastic. Fantastic. Allah would benefit some individuals more than he would benefit profits. What do you come up with this stuff? This happens as a result of a diseased mind when you can't think clearly when you have the wrong basic concepts. So Allah azza wa jal is clarifying those concepts and throughout his teaching is something very important. This is a Quranic lesson in one thing, an honest approach to history.
When we study our history, when this when we study the history, we have to study it, honestly, we have to acknowledge our mistakes, we have to acknowledge where we went wrong. And if you don't study your history, you'll never learn in the future. You'll just never ever learn, you will become drugged by the idea that you're already the best, you're already number one. And you'll be the worst the last people left on the earth, everybody will also move, we'll also move forward, you're going to be moving backwards, because you're already number one, in your little mind, you know, it's delusional, though the entire idea of studying history is to take the best examples and learn from
them, and take the worst of our mistakes and learn from them to acknowledge our mistakes and not be able to not repeat those mistakes again. And one of the worst mistakes in the history of the world that is highlighted through benissa L is a people who don't look at their own history, honestly. That's what gives them the false thinking. That's what makes their thinking false. And that's the highlight. That's the lesson today, I'll share something with you. I like sharing often because it's, I was very moved by it. It was a friend of mine, named Abu layth mentioned it, and I was really, really impacted by it. Why is history important?
Imagine that you're you just woke up today and you don't remember what happened yesterday, or anything before yesterday. Or even if you remember, you only remember the last 24 hours. That's it. You don't remember anything else.
You know it? Well, you know what can be said about you? It can be said you don't know who you are. Isn't that true? If you only remember the last 24 hours, then you don't really know who you are.
The entire oma the entire Muslim world was described by the prophets I seldom like one body, you know the Hadith. This is like I just said like one body. So it's like one person. And if that one person only remembers the last 24 hours, they don't really know who they are, isn't it?
So if the woman doesn't remember its own history, if we don't know. If we don't understand our own past, then it's almost as though we have no sense of identity. We don't really have a clear sense of identity, studying our book studying Quran This is my last comment now studying the Quran isn't actually
Just about studying tafsir
isn't just about studying Arabic, just about studying the vocabulary of the words. And what our Lama said, studying the Quran teaches you what other things you have to learn.
The Quran will highlight areas of knowledge, areas of awareness that you have to build in yourself, not only the book, but the book will make you aware of other things that are valuable. It's incredible. I lived one time asked me, it was sitting together a bunch of orlimar. And I was the only one who was not an island.
And he asked me, Why do you think a lot of talks about fit on so much? I mean, every eye of the Quran is supposed to be guidance for the believer, why are we listening to fit on?
For honest talks a lot in the Quran, you know, that he talks about? Why do we have to listen to frown? You know, and everything he did and how he walked how he talked. And I was like, Listen, you have to understand the genius of evil politicians.
You have to if you're going to live in this world, you have to understand politics, and you have to understand the best of it.
And fit all in was a genius evil politician.
And you have to study how he operated. Because he's not the only one, there's gonna be lots of add ons after him.
And if you understand him, you'll understand all of them, you'll be able to navigate with them, you'll be able to deal with them. This is valuable guidance. This through this, you will understand the corruption of you know, regimes, dictators, you'll be able to understand them. So everything in the Quran has value and it gives value to things on the outside. And today's lesson is the value in understanding and studying history. Young people here are doing their degrees. They're doing medicine, they're doing engineering, they're doing accounting, and one student says I am going to study history.
And their parents say What?
What are you gonna do with history?
Who's gonna give you a job? Where are you gonna, we're gonna go to, you know, what are you gonna get employed? History doesn't pay the bills.
don't study history. So we took our smartest kids, our smartest men and women. And we made them doctors. We made them engineers. We made them programmers. We made them architects. And we did not care to make them What? historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, I call it No.
And you know what, as a nation, we decided an entire generation of people should just be workers.
We're just workers. I mean, a doctor, I with all due respect, the doctors, the skilled labor.
It's labor, your labor, you're specialized, but you're still laboring, and architect is still a labor at work in a specialized field, who's doing the thinking on behalf of this oma, who's thinking on behalf of this woman who's restoring our identity as an oma? The best of our minds are not being used? Because they're too busy doing other things. I want you to study this and study then, you know, the sad thing is if you ask, why are you studying this? Why are you in this career? You know what the answer is most of the time?
Number one answer my parents told me
number two answer, it's a good job.
That's it. So the only legacy we're leaving for our next generation is the most important thing in your life is looking for a good job.
Looking for I'm not saying I'm not against getting a good job, by the way, get a good job.
I'm all for it. But you know what the world needs more than just people that make money.
And one or two careers. You know, I would argue if I had it my way, historians would be and historians and theologians and you know, people that are studying psychology and sociology, that would be the highest paid professors.
They'd be the highest paid researchers, in my opinion, because they're the people who impact how society operates. You know, they give direction to society. And if they have an Islamic mindset, man, they can bring a lot of good to the world. So even if it's all the young people here that are studying while you're studying accounting, Mashallah, and Allahu LA, Roger on on the side, take as many history courses as you can learn as much about other things as you can things that actually, you know, make you a refined human being a deeper thinker. You know, learn sociology, it's an important subject. There's a lot of sociology in the Quran. There's a lot of psychology in the
Quran. There's a lot of political science in the Quran.
And somebody says, No, no, but I want to study I want to be a doctor because there's embryology in the Quran.
Yeah, and like one or two if there's some reference to it, but that's not at the heart of it at the heart of it is human engagement, you know? So these humanities they are important and we have to restore them from the Islamic perspective. This is a this is a critical thing. And of course, history is at the center of that. Without reminder I conclude in sha Allah tala barakallahu li walakum wa salaamu Alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Thanks for watching guys. I hope you benefited it.
I'd like to encourage you to actually embark on a comprehensive journey into the Quran. I've done a video translation and explanation of the entire Quran. It's called Quran cover the cover. I'd like you to check it on abena TV, just do a little bit of it every day and before you know it, you'll have gone through the entire quote in translation with me. Hope you can take part Somali
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