Shakiel Humayun – Why Takbeer and No Beer 42nd Sermon
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of protecting and strengthening one's intellect, rather than just doing it alone, in order to overcome challenges and develop a stronger intellect. Islam aims to protect and strengthen one's intellect, rather than just doing it alone, and the decline in drinking alcohol and the rise in black markets led to a rise in drinking alcohol. The speaker emphasizes the importance of belief and the love for Allah, as well as teaching children and giving them the right information. Despite challenges, one can use their intellect to face challenges and develop a stronger intellect.
AI: Summary ©
Allah Subhanah
has given us
a gift.
He says,
He is the one who has created you
and has made for you
hearing,
sight,
and intellect.
Little thanks
do you give.
This gift of the intellect to man
is one of man's
super powers.
Creating the heavens and the earth
and the variation of the night and the
day, Allah subhanahu says,
That in that there are signs for the
people of intellect.
And the word for intellect here in Arabic,
Allah uses is al bab,
which is the plural for the word Lub.
Lub means the essence
of something.
The sub the substance itself when it's completely
pure.
So what Allah is saying here is that
in that there are signs for people with
pure intellect.
Intellect
that is pure from any traces
of prejudice,
bias,
societal pressure.
Intellect that is pure such that it is
objective.
So Allah subhanahu wa'ts us
to think for ourselves,
to have this pure intellect that's not
influenced by prejudice or bias or other external
pressures.
To use this gift that Allah has given
us by turning to the first principles when
we analyze things,
to look at the premises of things,
to look deeper into
the causes and effects,
the relationship that they have, and make decisions
for ourselves.
Also when Allah subhanahu wa'ala in another place
describes intellect differently,
after speaking about how he has spread the
earth
and how he has sent down
rain,
which then waters the earth and gives us
vegetation
and plants for us and our cattle to
use.
Allah then says,
In that there are signs for people of
intellect.
But here Allah uses a different word.
He doesn't say,
but he says,
here gives us the meaning of
of the ending.
So these are people of intellect who analyze
the end results.
Look at consequences.
Look at what things lead to. Look at
the effects of the cause and effect relationships.
And also
has with it the meaning of,
prohibition.
So this is the strong intellect, the healthy
intellect
that allows the person
to inhibit its himself
or herself
for things that are evil.
So Allah subhanahu wa'ala
has given us
this beautiful gift,
this intellect,
and then He encourages us
to use it in different ways and methods.
Allah
wants us to develop our intellect
just as we would
with our muscles by exercising.
So the more we use our intellect, the
sharper and stronger it becomes.
So throughout the Quran, Allah subhanahu, use his
words to tell us to to make tafakkur,
to reflect,
to make taddabbur,
which is deep pondering.
Taddabbur is when you have this deep pondering,
but you do it
about something or on something from all angles,
from all signs. And
then uses
which means to recollect, to remember these things.
And that's from the power of the intellect.
So Allah wants us to deduce
and induce
and to use analogical
deductions and and and reasoning.
The reason that Allah wants us to have
a strong intellect
is that this intellect that Allah has given
us is a tool
that will help us be guided in this
world to pass the test of this life,
which is to worship Allah subhanahu.
That by using this intellect, this pure intellect,
this intellect that will inhibit us, this intellect
that will get us and to draw the
right conclusions,
we're able
to pass this test in this life. And
so, Allah, subhanah, gives us a glimpse of
the
And so Allah
gives us a glimpse of the future
when he talks about people who are entering
the * fire,
that they didn't use this superpower.
They abandoned
the use of the intellect or its proper
use that when they're entering the hellfire,
the angels
speak to them and question them.
Didn't a warner come to you? Didn't you
get the message?
And their response
before entering the hellfire would be,
That they would say, if we listened to
the prophets
or to the warners, if we only
listened, if we only obeyed,
and if we used our intellect,
we would not be amongst the people of
the blazing fire.
So one of the reasons of entering the
hellfire is if a person doesn't properly
develop their intellectual
capabilities,
and they don't use their intellect
in the proper way.
So Islam
came
for certain objectives.
And one of the objectives that Islam came
for
is to protect
the intellect,
to safeguard
this superpower.
And it is for this reason that Allah
has
prohibited
the drinking of alcohol,
wine,
liquor, and beer.
Because through these
intoxicates,
the intellect is compromised.
The intellect becomes weaker.
The intellect
becomes diseased and becomes sick and is not
able to operate properly.
And so Islam,
when we face
life's challenges
and difficulties,
and the ups and downs of life, Islam
does not want us
to grab a bottle and get drunk.
What Islam wants us to do is to
face these challenges
head on
and solve these problems in our lives by
using our intellect.
And when we do that, when we face
these challenges and we don't look for an
escape
in a bar or in a bottle, and
we see and recognize and deal with these
challenges with our intellect,
then we strengthen our intellect.
And every time we overcome a problem or
a challenge
by using our intellectual reasoning and analysis,
we develop further
self confidence
where the next challenge that comes, it becomes
easier
to deal with that challenge. And as we
deal with challenges
that get bigger and bigger because now we're
training our intellect to deal with problems
of life as we're able to tackle even
bigger challenges,
we as individuals
begin to grow.
Begin to grow
so that we're able to do more, be
more productive
in our life.
My dear brothers and sisters,
Allah subhanahu
give us this super power but we don't
have to do this alone.
We don't have to face these challenges just
by our intellect.
Allah subhanahu gives us an example in the
Quran
with prophet
Jacob
who lost his son prophet Joseph,
alohim al salam.
And he was grieving to the degree that
he became blind.
This challenge
of losing your son,
this grief.
So the prophet Jacob used his intellect to
deal with the issue,
but he didn't do it alone. He said,
He said, I complain about my anguish
and my sorrow
only to Allah
subhanahu. So while we're dealing with these challenges,
by using our reasoning
and rationalizing the best way out of these
problems or challenges,
we don't do it alone. We turn to
Allah subhanah.
So by avoiding the booze and getting drunk,
and sometimes some people face challenges by getting
drunk for days,
Sometimes for years.
Sometimes they're hoping to escape the problem, and
it just doesn't go away. And they get
drunk even more, and their lives start to
fall apart from all directions.
Islam wants us to protect our intellect.
Islam wants us
to strengthen
our intellect.
Islam wants us to deal with life's challenges.
Islam
wants us to deal with life's
challenges. Islam wants us not to do it
alone, but to do it by connecting and
complaining to Allah going into sujood and begging
him for the
way of the way out. So what happens?
What is the end result?
The person's intellect becomes stronger.
He develops
a stronger emotional intelligence with his connection and
relationship with Allah. He's able to manage his
emotions. He's not a firecracker
or he's not someone that becomes down and
not able to ever get up and his
whole life is destroyed.
So at the end, by avoiding
alcohol as a an escape or a solution
to life's problems,
In the early 1900,
the societies
in the United States of America
intellectually
came to the conclusion
that drinking alcohol,
beer, wine, and liquor,
is an evil.
To the degree
that they pass legislation
by a super majority
vote in the house, in the senate
to ban
and prohibit
the manufacture,
the exportation, importation,
the transportation
and the sale
of all
intoxicating alcohols.
As this was passed in 1920,
the amount of drinking declined.
And when the amount of out drinking alcohol
declined, they noticed
the health of people
got better. There was a decline
in the cirrhosis of liver,
people having problems with their liver.
There was a decline
in infant mortality.
There was a decline
in alcoholic psychosis.
So
people overall were getting better.
However,
the band didn't explicitly
say that you can't drink alcohol. You can't
consume alcohol.
So people
started making alcohol illegally in their homes.
And
and
the result was
that people were not skilled
in making alcohol, so they were not distilling
alcohol properly.
And so people started
dying
by poisoning themselves.
It's been recorded that there were about 10,000
deaths just because of people making alcohol in
their homes.
Then
black markets rose where people were selling alcohol
illegally.
And when black markets appear, crime also goes
up.
The US government then spent $300,000,000
to try to enforce
the prohibition
of drinking alcohol.
For 13 years, this went on until 1933
after spending 1,000,000 of dollars and 1,000 of
deaths
due to not properly distilling alcohol and then
deaths because of the crime
that this caused
because of the sale in the black market.
You've probably heard of Al Capone.
The US government
then
passed an amendment
to repeal the 18th amendment of the constitution
which banned
the sale of alcohol
to allow it once more.
This is a case in point
for people who say,
we don't need religion.
We don't need belief.
We don't need faith.
We are intelligent human beings.
We can figure out what's right or wrong.
This is a case in point because
the society's overwhelmingly
identified
intellectually
that drinking alcohol was an evil.
But in 13 years and after 1,000,000 of
dollars and 1,000 of deaths, they were not
able
to maintain that prohibition.
And that was because
one very important thing was missing.
That it was not done
out of the love for Allah subhanah.
For any prohibition to be successful,
it has to be done
out of belief,
out of emotion,
out of this love for Allah,
which drives and creates this energy
to withstand the temptation of, oh, I can
now make alcohol at my house.
Oh, I can now be a millionaire by
selling alcohol in the black market.
Or
caving into pressure and repealing
the amendment.
What was missing here was that key ingredient
and the time of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam when they used to drink
wine more than water, and then
And then the prohibition came
where Allah mentioned
that shaitan uses
the drinking of hamar, intoxicants,
drugs,
wine, liquor, beer, marijuana.
It's all
under hamar
as tools to create
to create enamity and hatred.
So that shaitan can block you from the
remembrance of Allah and shaitan can block you
from making the formal prayer salah.
And then Allah said,
will you not then abstain?
That one verse
caused people to take their barrels of wine
and overthrow it in the streets.
There was no need to spend $300,000,000
to enforce it.
There were no thousands of deaths for the
prohibition
of what's known as Umul Khaba'it, the mother
of all evils, this alcohol.
Simply because what was inculcated in their hearts
was the love of Allah,
which is the
understanding of Allahu Akbar, that Allah is greater
than everything and anything.
So I am leaving this not because it's
a mandate
or a a rule in the constitution or
a law love of my creator because
he will only command and prohibit what benefits
me. And so we
learn from this
that if we teach our children,
or if we give Dawah to others, that
we can't just make it completely rule based.
It can't just be a bunch of do's
and don'ts without,
without
its core,
which is the tahid of Allah, the love
for Allah,
love for Allah, and the worship of Allah.
I ask Allah to make us amongst those
who are
and Uli Nuha.