Shadee Elmasry – Sunday Halaqa 9 24 17
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That's it, there's a lesson in it, like what I just said as a lesson.
Gossip is an what we call an amoeba, which is telling tales
about people using their names that has no value. So it has value
plus, you didn't even make two three of the person's name, you
didn't even say their name. So
and also we do have no religion, cautionary tales of lessons we
actually have, we believe in that a lot. The Quran is all lessons.
Look at Quran tells us go look at the failures before you. So you
can take a lesson. So if we never talked about how horrible certain
behaviors
can be, right? Then why would we ever worry about actually, the
closer the the the incident, the better. So we have the opposite.
So in our authority in our religion is in the past the Quran
and Hadith, that's the authority. However, the effect is the
opposite.
So in terms of authority, the further back you go, the more
authoritative your evidence, however, the closer you get to the
actual lesson, the more effective. So we know that
a lot of bad things happen in the past, but nobody takes heat until
it happens in the community, then we all take heat, right? The same
thing happens for hundreds of years, however, we don't the human
being the nature of the human being is he doesn't take effect,
or he doesn't take heed unless he sees it himself.
Right. So this is also from the meanings of
I'm only again, I know your pain and have to repeat the three
levels of certainty, theoretical certainty.
And then,
I think is that you actually see it, and then how could the opinion
actually feel it. So if we are intelligent, then just by knowing
that Allah told us something is bad, we should stay away from it.
And if we're not that intelligent, if our man, a man is weaker, then
just by seeing other people far away, suffer, we should take a
lesson. And if we don't take a lesson from that, then we're only
going to take a lesson when we feel it when it hits home. Right?
Let's take example, on community.
By the way, that's only one meaning of those. I really again,
I know your pain and popular pain, which means the knowledge of
certainty, seeing certainty and experiencing certainty. That's
only one way to look at it. There's other ways look at it. But
when we look around that communities, you find some
calamities you find a lot of calamities,
you got drug problems, you have Zina problems, you have belief
from
peoples whose beliefs are off, right, they're becoming, they're
falling into liberal reform traps. So you look at and you have to
take heat, are you not? Are you going to take heat, but from
seeing it? Are you going to wait till it comes home? Do you have to
take heat, and you realize these communities they have, there's
always an anatomy to failure. There is never necessarily anatomy
to great success, great success, that's beyond the norm. That's
from Allah, however, good. And you could say maybe passion is there,
but a lot of people have passion. Like they tell you the seven
secrets of why the top 10 CEOs have succeeded. Why is this a
logical fallacy? Because they didn't tell you that they're the
only people to apply those attributes, how many other people
like they're gonna list your seven things that the great CEOs of the
world are doing? Right? Right? How many people are doing them and are
not from the grid systems? Like how many people are doing those
same things and our failures? So the real study should be what are
they doing that nobody else is doing? Right? And that is very
rarely exists. So to be great. It's really from Allah. However,
Allah azza wa jal has told us what it takes to avoid failure. And
this is where the Justice comes in divine justice. So although Allah
distributes success as he wishes, but he also has given us a formula
to avoid failure, and this is the big NAMUR. He's given us a formula
to avoid failure. And anytime human beings fail, there is always
a reason. But anytime human beings have great success, there's not
always a reason. Sometimes it's just from Allah. Right? Like we
could call it luck, and secular terms. We'll just say he got
lucky, right?
Or he was just a genius. We don't know where it came from. But
failure Oh, this is what we call. This is what I call the anatomy of
failure. That failure always has a reason
Your mind and Allah has done this right so that we can take heat so
we can not be crazy. Imagine if all your hard work if you did ABC
and D.
And you still failed, then what is the point of working at all? So
Allah azza wa jal has given us the right way outside of out of
failure. So when I when we talk about failure, there's only one
thing that we have to remove from that, and that is true, amen. And
Allah azza wa jal to belief in Allah that's only from Allah.
But everything else respect, you can train someone to be
respectful.
Not being on drugs, being educated, doing, you know passing
school, all these things. There's a formula, right? So when we look
at the calamities of the various communities, and you see their
drug problems, Zina problems, our feeder problems, organizational
problems, there's always an anatomy to these problems, the
intelligent person before he takes any endeavor, he doesn't look at
those who succeed. He looks at those who failed. This is what
many people make a mistake on. They say, Oh, look at this, look
at this great player, I want to be just like him, look at this great
organization, I want to be just like them, you're only learning
half the lesson. And part of that lesson, you can never learn
because it's just genius and tofield. What you should do is
study the people who failed. And see, why did they fail, because
they missed this. If they had this, they wouldn't have failed in
that way. So always to study the failures helps us avoid failure.
And the first step of success is avoiding failure. In any military,
the first duty of a king is to ensure that his own capital city
is not vulnerable.
Only after he ensures that he has enough guards around the city. Can
he go and send out an order? What is the point of sending out an
army conquering 10 cities then getting conquered tomorrow because
all your soldiers are gone. And this happens all the time how many
times you see stockbrokers for the stock are these people on Wall
Street, making $10 million a year, then losing it all in seven days.
Or sometimes it's seven minutes of the stock market crash on one item
on a Black Monday or something, whatever they call it, right?
And seven minutes, seven minutes, seven years of hard work is gone.
Which goes to show you it's not a real work at that point. Because
no real work.
Can seven minutes take away seven years. It goes to show you there's
a lot of gambling involved in the whole industry. Wall Street is a
whole nother story. That's a whole industry that's gotten gotten
sane, and we still haven't learned the muscles. So we in America and
economics. Capitalism requires you go for the kill. As for your home
base, it's fragile. No one cares, they're just still going for the
kill.
In psychology, they say supposedly a big part of the activism.
Because it's intermittent.
And because you're temporary.
When something immediate, you know, you keep thinking the next
one is going to be here, talk about gambling. Gambling is
another addiction. But until this it's an addiction. Right, but
until the seat he lumps it with alcohol and all these things. But
they also, I think people think that they're not going to be
walking because people that that drink forever and live it to be
like 100 something and then you see people like one of us
describing that, that that that
mean, there are people who drink until they're 80 but and then but
there's actually Muslim, there's a Muslim guy.
There's a Muslim guy, he gambled he was a gambling guy. And he
ended up one day going so deep into his gambling, that it wasn't
meant for Michigan, that he will gambled off his home.
I mean, I'm even wondering about these casinos like they should put
limits right the gambling out of his home, right and then he lost
it. So he killed 101 In the morning, by the time they got home
was like for him
shot his wife shot his five kids shot himself. So, it was to tell
you all you need is one incident like that right to outweigh
everything else.
So, this is why addictive things should be stayed away from and the
intelligent one at first ensure no loss. This is the rule of law.
This is like a rule of war and rule of Business at first ensure
that you will not lose. Okay. Ensure that first then try to win.
Okay, and
in our Dean if you look at
morals that were the laws that we put in place is to ensure that the
the peace and serenity and unity of the families, individuals,
families and communities, and therefore nations
is not disrupted.
That's the first call the first. And if that's all that happens,
then you've succeeded. Here's the thing. People don't realize if
that's all you have, how could you say you didn't succeed in life? If
you have your healthy in yourself, you know, your beliefs. You also
recognize you have a good family. The kids aren't on drugs, they're
educated, they're healthy, even health is, sometimes it's not in
our hands.
You have a community, there's no Zina in the community. There's no
drama in the community. There's no alcohol in the community, there is
no better in the community. Okay.
What How could you not say that you're not successful? And this is
the myth of check out what else not enough. Look at so and so they
got a $5.5 billion budget. Look at this message over here. They have
a dome that's 30 feet tall.
And then you start sacrificing what made you stable for these
glitter. Right for the glory. You sacrificed the footing of your
stability.
And tell look at, say normal ricotta, Allah subhanaw taala
said, so long as this man is within even amongst you, you will
never have pity.
Because this horrible hot dog had such a perception on the nature of
people.
And he had such a perception that the foundation is 90% of
everything. The foundation, foundation is solid. That's 90%
Some people say I was like, 50. Really? No, it's 90% the
foundation once you lose your footing, and that's why America
was so strict on Medina. If we lose our footing in the deen, and
then, like, in our humility, then why should the rest of the OMA not
lose their footing? He prohibited people to eat meat twice a day in
Medina, people think that's his federal, that's not his photo for
the Muslims. That is his ruling. His judgment. And every believer
can make specific judgments that he feels his sound. It doesn't
have to be a religious ruling for the people of Medina. Why? Because
the prophesy sound was just living amongst us. We are people we have
to handle such wealth. And such an OMA that's unbelievable. If we are
corrupted 1% We're gonna lose the whole thing. So He prohibited me
twice a day, He prohibited homes to be built so high, he forced a
counterbalance to all the wealth that was coming in. He forced
austerity, austerity laws. On just Medina, he said, we have to be the
example. Everyone else could do what they want, we have to be the
example of austerity because us once
in an incentive era, I was told, once an individual has so much it
becomes corrupt. It becomes corrupted. He had such austerity
laws and people think that's his religion as not his religion. In
particular, it's not as federal for the all people. That is his
policy of how to counterbalance wealth and success.
And that's why the almost succeeded, but now look when these
austerity laws were removed,
then look at what happened. What is the end result? Assassination
of Ottoman chaos, absolute chaos to Medina say now, he said we have
to move the could efforts Kufa to get rid of the memories, the
nightmarish one and a half years that built up over time, and then
after say Norman's death, until Medina was under siege. So, this
is hikma great hitmen of austerity was, and we should apply austerity
to ourselves if we have so much in America, just by default, if your
average middle class American, you have so much it's unbelievable. So
much so that the human being when he gets so much he starts even
becoming arrogant with Allah.
Looking at the religion, what is this religion? What do I need
this? I'm not doing all this. Right. And that's what's happening
but otherwise, austerity and corruption.
As we've talked about, so far, I was wondering, and alcohol
use disorder for
Muslims to come into this country
and purchase all kinds of things. I just want to give a quick look
at what incidents that
would be for listen.
That's a good question.
You probably look at some of the sociologists that have statistics
on these things.
Not to romanticize
that we're all being tested. Just just because one was one
country doesn't mean that they're not the same test. But I was I was
just wondering about that.
And as much as, as the gentleman here was saying that when you work
in the real world,
and certainly, we have friends who you know, who come to this
country, and then work.
And they support it, because they support it. Well, that's at that
point cufon At that point, because the sport would allow prohibited.
So if you do what I love prohibited, it's not perfect, this
isn't
the top 1% or the top of Pakistan, they have no problem. They have no
morals, they openly
implement their parties now that they've started serving alcohol,
the top, a one or two person, so
they do have no restrictions. And then they can go to Dubai, or
whatever work and do whatever they want. That's why
many times I look at it, and many people have difficult times with
their community. But the more you look at it, the more you realize,
and the situation as we are in right now, you definitely can't be
alone to be picked off to easily budget on or pick up.
A family
can't be alone, either, because the kids get more influence from
friends at a certain age than from the family. So the so what is
community, I would say, if we're going to
summarize what the meaning of a community is, I would say it's a
set number of families that meet in a location to do certain
things, right? I would say that those three factors, there's got
to be a set number of families, it's not a bunch of guys or a
bunch of girls, it's families.
Because you're going to pass it on to the next generation. And
they're going to marry from getting to know one another. So
families, they have to have a location where they meet, and the
deed the things that they do together.
That's the third.
Right. So if you look at if you define that as a community, then
through those activities that occur in that location, you
reinforce the basis of the community, which is the beliefs
and the rituals, the prayer, and the fasting and that on these
things. And the morals, the manners, the club, the law that we
live by,
you reinforce them, and through the fact that their families, the
children, the offspring of these people, they marry, and then keep
the wheel going. And it grows. Right.
So the more I think about it, even if a person is in a very, and many
people are like this, not just almost maybe you could even say
the normal, they go to the workplace. And it's a total
different environment than in their home. Or their thirds, their
third location, which is the community location, their masjid,
right, and the Jews, they have their synagogues and the
Christians that have their churches, and whatnot. But my
point is that even if, even if the workplace takes you so far, into
another zone, right, where the stuff that's going on there, the
way people talk the nature of those people, will the community
life will balance your back and the family life without you.
Right? So you're outnumbered them two to one, you outnumbering the
workplace, two to one, your home, and your message will outnumber
the workplace. Right? And even at the very literal least, you'd be
embarrassed, right? If everyone in certain jobs is getting tattoos,
and aren't going to from work, eight hours to home and back
working home. So one on one, you're not awake for eight hours.
At home. You're between eating and sleeping, right? And there's only
one person waiting for you in the house. But there are 30 guys
waiting for me at work. So work is gonna win eventually. But if that
one, you pad it with a community, that means you gotta go for
Ramadan, you gotta go for Java, you gotta go for a shot like once
a week at least, right? Average. You pop in for a show that will
counterbalance
whatever people experience at work if they can't control what's
happening in their job. So that's why I always go back and sometimes
I think, oh my gosh, this is a day and age. You sometimes you just
want to go go to Italy, get a little apartment, a checkup from
life. I have my olive oil, my son and my phone
Good. It's a sunny, it's a sunny day every day, right? Good food,
good food. And people are happy. But I don't speak Italian. So I
don't really have to talk, right?
You think that's what we need to do until you die. But in reality,
this is not a it's not gonna work, you got to actually you can do
that when you retire, go off for four months and come back. But you
end up have to having other families around. It's just there's
no way to escape it when I think about it.
You know, I understand that there are some people that come from
foreign countries. I mean, I've actually I've been to Jordan.
Anyway, I think that a lot of these people are predisposed to to
addiction, I mean, illustration for, you know, at least 20
something years. And the thing is that I don't I even when I drank
it was only like, once or twice a year. No, it wasn't like, I never
became addicted. And I tried. I tried marijuana was decided it
wasn't for me. I was put on tranquilizers, and never became
addicted. But I'm saying I don't have that, ya know, even if they
come over, you know, that probably being in an Islamic country,
prevents them from actually
imbibing and they have the community and everything. But I
will say that, that I think that they have the natural addiction.
Because for some people, it's very hard for some people. There are
some people who are weak magnets, and some people are strong magnets
in the some people, they just cannot control themselves. And
that's, that's a fact. Right? It doesn't mean they're morally less,
but they're vulnerable. But the more the less responsible, but
they're vulnerable. And the thing is that in England, you go to
England, what I think what the city seeks to avoid, we know there
are always going to be people who drink, right? But the share seats
avoid that becomes a societal customer. Because you go to places
like England, and you don't realize how much
the pub is part of life. I think they have to work Hong Kong, even
so much. So they don't have the laws that we had, for example, the
pubs or community places. We were We lived there was a pub
everywhere. It's a covenant. Every block, there's a pub. So there was
a public across the street to the right a little bit. When you walk
on Sunday, it's a family.
Everyone is outside on the picnic tables. They have the games on
they watch the soccer the same way we watch football all day, they'll
watch soccer all day. Right? And drink. And it's a family.
Right? It's not like drugs or something bad. It's
it's a total normal thing. So I think that's what she is trying
to. And by the way, there's some funny news though. It's actually
pretty funny that
the posts in North England, in places like Blackburn, Birmingham,
they are complaining of going out of business 20 Muslims. So they
actually have realized that if the Muslim population in a city hits a
certain percentage, you probably go out of business. It's amazing.
It's actually funny, right? And there's another story, right?
And it's sort of sad, because in the sense that it's it's, it's
another story that
butchers
have the same thing. When the Muslim population reaches a
certain number in England in a little talent, and your butcher
you have to become Hala to survive. So there is a pic a story
recently of this poor old white guy. I mean, I've heard it for us.
And we all these things are, it's the Dean but thinking about it
from his perspective. So he doesn't know who these people are.
He probably doesn't read. He probably never went to school.
Right? He doesn't know who these people are, all of a sudden they
don't eat my meat. Right? So I have to cut it the way they want
to slaughter it. So this butcher and his wife, they run the farm,
whatever it is, they had to go hire a Deobandi
brother came with a huge beard and a terrible
and I'm thinking he has to wear that even on the job. He's scaring
the guy. And there are these knives all behind them. And I'm
thinking Subhanallah look, if these people really were scared of
most, you would not take a picture with a guy with a big beard and a
big turban black just like ISIS with denial right there. Right. So
clearly, right? He's not afraid of him. But this guy saved his
business. You could look it up, he saved his business
by gone and of course he just had to hire one guy to do all the
cutting
I wasn't expecting
the question.
Should
businesses be
any need? They're all
everywhere.
The population now is dominating the Christian, friendliest sector
of the world is going to be business towards the muscles. And
here's the other thing too. I read in the paper too, when they were
just preparing for the job plus amazing article. Italy, the
runways,
modest long dresses are taking over the runways. Why is that?
Because in England, the customer of the future is a Muslim woman.
Think about that, like, you can't cut 20% of your business, right?
So they're now actually, if there's if these are the buyers,
then we'll cater for them. Right? So the question, my question is,
with all this stuff happening, is to keep in mind two things. Number
one, to be sensitive to not forget our purpose. So if we're all
accepted, if we become totally accepted, and everything is Hello,
and there's a jab everywhere, well, that already happens in
Egypt and Pakistan, they don't seem to get the message, right, we
have to focus on Allah and realize that that's the point not
acceptance, that's number one. And that's going to be the job of the
educators. Number two, also the job of educators is
that we should not look at here we are conquering people like Europe,
that's what it is. It's a contrast that the population shift is
nothing other than a conquest, because there will be Europe, as
you know, France and England, if it's you're talking about a
location like a zip code, it's always going to be there. However,
if a nation and a people is more than that, and it is a shared
heritage and memory of the past, then those countries will not
existed. Because the Muslim kids couldn't care less about what
happened in England and 2050 years ago, they care about what happened
in Algeria, for Pakistan, because that's what they really
are. They care about the Sierra moreso than they care about the
Magna Carta, right? It's not has nothing to do with their
civilization. So in that case, it will cease to exist. So we have to
have some degree of sensitivity to this. We are not going around,
like tribe versus another tribe. That's not what Islam is. You want
to make the people feel that the Muslims have brought some benefit.
You want to pay people to make to feel at ease.
With the presence of these people, right? We do not come as even if
we came as military conquerors look at how the prophesy centum
came as conquered with Rama. So that's something I always think
the non believers, do they view us
as people that they will miss if we're gone. Or that thank God,
they're good.
Because in Newark, and Philly and Camden, the biggest
populations of Muslims in terms of percentage, maybe not Camden,
maybe it's north and Philly. But the Muslims there are a bit rough
around the edges. And they have caused a lot of people to hate
them a
lot of people to hate
and hate his loss. Why should they hate you?
Right? They hate the Muslims, because they're so rough. They're
mean they're nasty. They're trying to steal your kids and make them
Muslim.
We can't do it. We really can't do that. Right.
So
yeah.
The one thing that is very sad about adults is that they keep on
thinking that they're not addicted, and they can quit
anytime. But that never happened. Well, that's what they
that's what they're trying to tell us now that there's a spectrum of
addiction,
a spectrum of addiction.
And we would actually like to in Islam, we like to pin things down
to some terms, right? And
we would say either way, it's not see it. But
different automa have put down different numbers that they
believe would indicate if something is a bad habit. First of
all, we don't even have these terms if you shouldn't do it at
all, like zero, right? It's not like
there's no compromise here. There's no compromise like, Okay,
once a week, that's not an addiction. There's no compromise.
So that's exactly the point. We don't want to compromise at all.
So if you if it's something that keeps reoccurring period, then you
need to seek help. Right. So we would have a very lower threshold.
Some of them even said this for years.
Right?
Do it regular
only once every four years, then you have a problem. Some people
say this other people's that 40 days, 30 days Oh, there's 21 days.
But I mean,
think about it. If you said if you pin it as addiction is the bad
thing, the non addiction isn't acceptable, right?
Which is not going to be the case for us. So we really want to
eliminate these things completely from my life. Not that doesn't
matter whether we're addicts, or whether we do once a year.
Right, you want to remove it completely.
Now, since this is a really solid in alchemy, he probably behoove us
to read one Hadith at least.
Look at the kind of female Kubla Khan men and Amina son
15 or
1504
D, that's 1504 pages 1124
Book of Darwin's supplications
is that's the bookmark that I have unless you have a different book
right what do you have? What are you
okay, so of course
so this hadith says look at the kind of female couple of minutes
in Miami nursing had there were in the previous nations before you
people who were inspired
for anything yet goofy omitted. In Oklahoma
there are people who are inspired, if there is any such in my
following you must be on
Sarah Isha narratives and say Muslims in that era narrates this
in
Makati.
Okay. And the meaning of Mohammed the tone is recipients of divine
inspiration. It's also we call it Madiha. Moon ill ham in the
science of two so off, they call this ill ham. And it is from the
highest levels of gifts from Allah subhanaw taala is to receive
inspiration directly from him. Now therefore, if that's what we're
going to say, then we have to give some parameters to this
inspiration. The first thing is that all inspiration is in the
category of speculative knowledge.
This is what's really important. It'll have we number one, we
believe that it exists because of prophesy set of sets, right? And
we saw it amongst us. And we saw it I wanted to have it in an
attempt to me know it's much better that it exists amongst the
muscles, someone is inspired with something. Okay, so what is this
nature of this this bridge? It must never, it cannot impossible
to
contradict the divine law. That's number one, it will never
contradict the divine. Because how can this it come from Allah and
Allah contradict the his own self is not going to be possible.
Shediac comes from Allah, the in ham comes from Allah, they must
differ match.
So you'll never find any inspiration that will contradict
the divine law.
If someone inspiration is not an inspiration, because someone feels
it,
it's an inspiration because he takes an apt course of action,
that afterwards all of the people see the positive result of it.
So number one, it's speculative knowledge, it's in the bunny,
speculative, it's not absolute. Number two, it is does not
contradict the sacred law. Okay. Number three will never obligate
or prohibit. In other words, it's never obligatory to follow.
Someone says I really feel like
I really feel that you should,
you know, marry this person.
It's never gonna be an obligation no matter how inspired they feel.
So, this is the nature of 11. And what is the reality of it? The
reality of it is that it causes a person to say words or do actions,
right. That would not normally be the case. However, that will not
normally be
their course of action, however, results in a positive result that
is testified to by all that everyone testifies to.
Yes. Okay, if you're, if you're, if you have a person that is
telling you to forget something that is
tennis shoes with it. But on the other hand, we know that they're
doing something else major that they shouldn't be doing. You
discount the whole person, or you just take what you can. And
if someone's speaking to you with evidence in religion, you take the
theory that they're given the idea, forget the person, that
means it could be the worst person. And he actually tells you
something true. Right? So what you would do is, you would do it, but
not out of obedience to that person.
So we have the example of Shawn coming to his properties and
saying, See,
what happens if a police came to you and said, Pray to us? What
would you do? What if his beliefs and bliss came to you and said,
Pray though?
Well, if you got up and pray to God, you would be obeying Him,
you'd set a precedent that you obey Him. But if you didn't break
the law, then you're disobeying God. So what do you do? We do it
say nice again, say nice, he says, I will do it but not a following
you.
So you're gonna do it. So likewise, if someone evil, let's
say, an alcoholic comes, and he corrects your tweet, right?
We have very crazy combinations of Islamic world by the way, right?
What happens if that happens? What do you do? You're gonna take?
But not not as he's your teacher and your email? No, right? You're
not my teacher or Amen. What all to fix that mistake.
Down to the, to the side, either.
Yeah, well, he didn't know what it was.
It was just a man. And the prophet the Prophet accepted that, believe
it or not, it bliss came in the form of a man in the month of
Ramadan stealing from zakat, money, food,
and Abu Hurayrah caught him and he forgave him one second time, third
time.
He said, Now I'm definitely going to take her to the Prophet. So the
law Buddy, he said, Look, free meat and I will teach you
something. He said, What is it? He said, If you say to Chrissy before
you sleep, no shaitan will touch you until the morning.
So that he wants I promise I sent him the next day. And he said, and
the prophesies I'm seem to have known what's going on. Because he
said, everyone I know has been visiting you. He said, an old man
is stealing from the food and I forgave him and on the last day,
he said, recite as a Christian before you sleep, no shaytaan will
touch you until the morning. He says prophesy Salim said, Do you
know who that is? He said that is shaped on and he says Sadako who
can who? He says he was he's a liar, but in this he was truthful.
He told you the truth. In this matter. He told you the truth, but
he's alive. So even liars every once in a while and tell the
truth.
All right, time for a break have any other comments or questions?
We can stop here.
Otherwise, we're back to our regular schedule.
Fantasy
solid semester.
Function. You can't turn this off. You can turn it off