Imam Siraj delivers this lecture at the 42nd Annual ISNA Canada Convention which was held in May 20-22, 2016.
Siraj Wahhaj – Leading Ourselves With Love And Faith
AI: Summary ©
The importance of faith in love is discussed, including the physical relationship between love and faith and avoiding false expectations. The success of faith in love is linked to personal relationships and the cultural revolution that occurred in the 60s. The importance of love and faith in Canada and the world is also emphasized. The conversation touches on the suicidal nature of killing people and the need for more people to commit suicide, as well as the global crisis of suicides and the importance of love and faith in Canada and the world.
AI: Transcript ©
Salam Alaikum
Rahim hamdulillah
Chateau La ilaha illallah wa shadow under Mohammed Abdul Salam about
brothers and sisters I am supremely thankful and grateful to allow the almighty to have the honor
of addressing you this afternoon for a few moments.
I want to express my extreme love for Shaykh Abdullah Idris and let me tell you why.
I was not scheduled to be here.
This is a stop on the way of a journey.
And Shaykh Abdullah Idris ax me
say mom Suraj Can you come?
And because of my love for him, and you rerouted my schedule
to be with you for a few moments.
I want to talk about two things and and then we finish.
I want to talk about the divine relationship
between love and faith.
There is a divine relationship. We're going to talk about that.
In the second part, I want to talk about you
and I,
first of all relationships.
Martin Luther King Jr. said something interesting.
He said, life's most persistent and urgent question
is what are you doing for others.
Ironically, I'm going to begin this talk
with the very opposite of what I intend.
I want to end by talking about you and me and our level of faith. But I'm going to begin by discussing our relationships with others.
My thesis today
is that love is a gauge can be a gauge and an indicator of the level of faith that you have.
The more love you have, I argue, the more faith you have, and I'm going to try to prove that
in a number of ways.
And then I want to talk to especially the youth How many of you are in high school raise your hand
how many in college
could
first of all our relationship shake you know I love you.
And I love you for
itself selfish reason.
Kind of selfish.
The Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam said,
letter the kulu Janata to me No.
You will never you cannot go to Agenda until you believe. So the key to agenda is faith.
As a man
you can get there unless you believe
and then he said
to me No. taboo
and you'll never believe until you love one another.
Love is an indicator
of the level of faith you have.
second
color Rasulullah he saw lolly was suddenly molded enough sibiya de la you know I had to come Hector akuna habla la Manuela de of Aladdin Manas edge mine.
I swear by a lion whose hand my life is none of you truly believes until I am more loved by you then your parents and your children and all of mankind.
So Allah gives us a criterion of our faith based on our love of the Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam, love and faith
and give you one more
in this hadith Mustafa con la is an Al Bukhari Muslim
the Prophet and the who Color Fill, ln saw
the Prophet was speaking about the answer
he said, law you Hebrew whom in a
nun loves them except a believer
and none hates them
except the hypocrite
when they love them the answer Allah loves those who love the answer in the law hates those who hate the answer.
See the pattern.
There's a pattern here.
Before I talk about your Eman personally I want to talk about your relationship with one another
law you may know I had to come Hector you hit ballia he now you have enough see
another example
you don't really believe
and so you want for your brother what you want for yourself you want for your sister what you want for yourself. So let's let's pause here and just this weekend
my argument is this
if you want to measure how much faith you think you have
go back and reevaluate your relationship with one another.
Abdullah even even answered the line he said to the Prophet Alayhi salat wa sallam.
uh you know, like,
Who among people? Do you love the most Allah insha Allah and enhance the stop for a moment.
You know that the Prophet loved our issue more than anyone else.
How is it possible for a believer not to love a shirt or the liner?
I said
at the last minute rejected among men. Who do you love the most color? abou hair, her father, Abubakar.
Tell me Muslim.
How is it possible for you to not love Abu Bakr How's that possible? For a believer not Alibaba?
I said for men who Allah, Omar even Al Khattab wrote the law and then Omar Ibn Al Khattab question How is it possible for you to be a believer? And you don't love Omar? Is that is that really possible? What I'm saying is be careful. Because the Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam mentioned certain people may be maybe there are some other people whom Allah loves. And we want to make sure that we love those whom Allah love, and we don't hate whom Allah loves. I give another example of this connection between faith and love.
The same one, I'm Roger law and
on his deathbed.
He was facing the wall.
You notice the screen?
You don't see me do you?
Because I am a nightmare for the camera man.
I never stand still.
He was facing the wall. And he was crying.
He couldn't control himself. He was crying and his son, Abdullah, Abdullah, and whomever he tried to console his father and tell his father how good he was, and his father, he turned around and he thinks the people and he said, I have been gone through three stages in my life. stage number one, there was no one on the face of the earth that I hated more than I hated Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And if I could have I would have killed him.
He said had I died in that stage. I'm sure I would have gone to *.
And then he said Allah guided me to Islam. So I went to the practice.
fatale salat wa salam, and stretched out my hand and when the Prophet stretched out his hand to me, I withdrew my hand. And the Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam asks why you do that? He said, I do it with conditions. I accept Islam with conditions. The Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam said, what conditions He said, The condition is that I be forgiven for my sins.
And the Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam said, Don't you know that when you become a Muslim, Allah forgives you all your sense that when you make a pilgrimage, Allah forgives you, or your sins, when you make migration, Allah forgives you, or your sins. So he said I became a Muslim. And he said, there was no one more loved by me than Prophet Mohammed saw the last Sunday.
He said,
I never looked at him fully because of a splendor.
So if you asked me to describe him, I couldn't describe him because I never looked at him directly.
Love and hate.
You get an indication of faith
based upon love, can I give you one more? Can we get more?
Yes.
There was a man during the time of the Prophet alayhi salatu was Salam named Abdullah.
His name was Abdullah and they called him he had the nickname they call them anymore.
donkey
and they said he used to make the Prophet last bless. Our Prophet is really
he is so magnificent.
I ran out of adjectives years ago how to describe our Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon them.
So Hema, he used to make the Prophet laugh, but he had a problem.
He had a drinking problem.
And he was always brought to the Prophet peace and blessings be upon them. And you know, the Prophet would scold them, they would take like shoes or sandals and, you know, hit him a little bit.
One of the Muslims cursed him.
And the Prophet said, Don't don't don't help Shakedown against your brother for law. He, this man loves a lot and he loves his messenger.
He made he perfect.
Just like an hour, Gemma here in Toronto, in Montreal, in Quebec, in all of the provinces of Canada, in America and around the world, and none of us perfect.
All of us got some issue.
But even though we have an issue doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have no faith it may be the Prophet said Menaka would you hide on rojava in the last minute moment of that he was he couldn't hide a strong believer is better
and more love Bala than a week believe a strong believer, a weak believer but there's good and all of them has Eman, sometimes the Eman it goes up and it goes down.
So we got the first part pretty much that there is some correlation connection between love and faith we we see that okay.
Now, I want to talk to you.
I want to begin the second part, with a statement that the Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam made and we're llahi
I see it every day.
This Hadith could see this is the Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam
quoting Allah not in Quran
Yeah, he daddy
kulu condo loan Illuminati tow festa dooney
Oh my servants, every one of you are misguided. Unless I guide you. Therefore x me and I will guide you.
Did the Prophet say that a lot of said some of you are misguided.
A few of you
the majority of you
a handful of you know, what do you say?
And this is why Muslims
17 times a day. You know Serato stocking
guide me on the straight path.
Okay.
Ask your question.
How many of you love yourself raise your hand
If you love yourself, it's not a trick question.
You don't love yourself.
Okay, shake you.
You're not sure
you love me but you know sure if you love yourself
Let me tell you something.
You may think that this is the obvious. He said of course we love ourselves.
In 1968
in America, there was a famous song so famous. It was number one for six weeks.
Six weeks number one.
Now, most of you know about Prince
but the one I'm talking about, you may not know.
Anyone have any idea?
What song 1968
I give you him.
Shake. Even if I give you a hint, you will not.
Have you ever heard of James Brown?
For real? No way.
Yes. You know about James Brown.
Okay, that was in
1968 what song number one in us for six weeks?
No, as a good guest share. He said I feel good.
Say loud.
Who said that? Allahu Akbar.
Say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud. Why was this song so significant? Why was it so popular among African Americans?
Take a look at me.
I have a number of identities. One of them
is one
true
I am black.
And you want to have something
I love it.
I love being black swatch.
Really
my black skin my broad nose, my thick lips.
But you are asked me why?
Because Allah said who will or the user will confirm our hammock Aisha. It is Allah who created you in the womb as he please. If Allah pleased to make me a black man, I'm happy to be a black man. In addition to that, they say the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.
I just figured you may want to know that.
But why was that important? Because if you go back in my concern is that a lot of the history that Muslims are going through in some way African Americans went through that history.
How many of you know I know none of you ever went to movie ever in your life.
But if you were going to go to a movie
m would have seen the movie Malcolm X. How many of you
would have seen the movie Malcolm X? Okay, good. Good. Good.
I want you to go back to the movie. And tell me
what was the ending of that movie?
Tell me the ending of the movie Malcolm X by Spike Lee.
Hey, after the shooting.
Think back.
Huh?
again.
See this house in New York.
I am Malcolm X.
I am Malcolm X.
I am Malcolm X in the end of the movie.
Nelson Mandela comes on
And then we have some students from South Africa or maybe psuedo maybe, Johannesburg, maybe Cape Town.
And each one of them was saying, I am Malcolm X. If you remember, in the early part of the movie, The movie is educational, if you studied
Malcolm, the one who played Malcolm, His hair was hung.
Remember?
What do you mean here was
black men in those days, used to straighten their hair to make their hair, good hair. And when they meant good hair, when they said good hair, they meant like white hair.
So black people hated it ourselves.
If you study all of the social scientists will tell you how black people used to, there was a cream to make the skin lighter.
Black people hated themselves. So in the 60s, we had a cultural revolution.
To make black people love themselves. I remember shake, you may not believe this. I had an afro, in the 60s, you know, the afro is. My Afro was so big.
You can land a helicopter on it,
and how big it was. And so we had, we wore dicey keys. We had afros changed our names. Because black people now was getting to start to love themselves. And so they had to be reminded in song to love themselves. Say it loud. I'm black. And I'm proud because you don't know the condition of black people.
And so one of the things that we have to do is we have to do is to learn to love self because you can't love anyone until you first love yourself.
Hi.
I'm not sure how to do that. You could do it.
I just want you to get the message. Is my time up. Is that possible?
No, no, no, I can't because I told him I need a clock because I gotta catch a flight. I can't talk with you guys all night long.
I gotta
get another flight.
Oh, I love you, man.
All right, let me finish. So you got to help me. Somebody give me a time. So you got to help me. What time is it? It's not there.
It's five, five now.
It's five o'clock now. Okay, good. Okay, good. Okay, good. Okay. Okay. I'm almost finished.
You see, I am of the
opinion
that all the love of the Prophet, the love of each other the love of the answer.
I'm of the opinion that you got to begin by loving yourself.
Some of us may think we love ourselves, and maybe we don't I give an example.
I think about Malcolm, Alhaji Malik Chavez, look at what he was
in prison, every kind of crime that you can think about. He did spend time in jail.
Two weeks ago, I was in a city called Trenton, New Jersey. It was a fundraiser for MSG commercials, so fat.
And I just come from a different city. So I was there early. And I was sitting and I was watching the people as they found in.
We made we made prayer.
And at some point six African American young men came into the place together. They prayed together and they sat together and they ate together.
What I did, I didn't know them.
I sat next to them,
started to talk to them.
And found out that these young six African Americans lived in a halfway house. What is the halfway house. These are people that have been in prison, but now they want to go back to the society so before they integrated into the full society, they live in this halfway house. And as I begin to raise the money for this Masjid sassette
these six African American men live in the halfway house. Not one of them raised the hand to donate any money.
And I could swear,
looking into their eyes,
I could see teardrops
because I felt that they wanted to give what they had nothing to give.
Let me tell you something brothers and sisters,
which country is the most populated country on the earth?
China
1,000,000,300 something million people. But country's number two,
India 1,000,000,200, almost 300 million people.
What country is the third most populated nation on earth?
Say,
United States, United States, with a population of over 300 million people have the third largest This is the third largest country in the world by population.
What that means is that we in the United States represent about 5% of the total population of the earth on the one hand, and on the other hand, we represent about 25% of the total prison population. Right then United States put it another way, how many states does the United States have
50
if all of the prison population in America under the Department of Corrections,
probation, parole, etc. State Prison federal prison
if it was state of the United States will be the 13th largest state in America.
Put another way, if all the people in United States in prison were a nation
they will be more populated than 50 nations of the world.
I close with this.
I'm thinking about these six brothers.
I'm thinking about Malcolm
Malcolm is famous everybody loves Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm was charismatic. He was eloquent he was a great debater Malcolm was something special.
But if Malcolm never debated someone from Cambridge never gave a speech never even wrote the book, the auto biography of Malcolm X.
Malcolm would have made a great contribution to society household.
The Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam said, Allah Cooley Muslim Sadako
every Muslim have an obligation to give sadaqa to have an obligation to give charity every Muslim.
And you know what I love about Sahaba that whenever the Prophet said something, they would ask a follow up question to get more information. For instance, when he said Allah Cooley Muslim Sadako every Muslim have an obligation to give South Africa the law they said
right to unlimited.
What if they don't find anything to give? He said Allah salat wa salam, let them work with their hands and benefit themselves and give sadaqa
but they didn't stop there. What if they can't? Or I tell him yesterday?
He said, enjoying the good? What if they can't do that? Stop the evil. What if they can't do that? And I'm wanting to end almost on this last one.
But if you can't do any of that, he said,
let them withhold the evil from the people. And that will be for them. sadhaka
those six young men gave sadhaka even though they didn't go in their pocket, because of what they became. Allahu Allah, you Latina, ameno euregio minutolo Mattila? No. They come from the darkness you have no idea what some of these brothers and sisters have come from. But the light of Islam made them to love themselves. And when they love themselves, they do everything to protect themselves and to promote themselves. Shake. I bet you don't know my Konya. You say you love me, right. But you don't know my cone is a year rajmahal here. He used to be Jeffrey. Jeffrey kelsea. Yeah, but you don't know my Konya bit.
Huh
Say it again.
Oh my goodness. Oh my
Goodness, he's wrong.
But but but it was it was a good guess. Let me tell you.
Most of you know by now Allah blessed me with nine wonderful children, seven girls, magnificent, wonderful girls. And two. All right, good guys.
By the way, I want to compliment the men for winning the contest.
No, gotta leave it. All right. So with me, with my children, they will tell you, I give you the numbers, you can ask them to verify it. Every one of my children I gave allowance every week check. I don't know, if you give allowance to your kids? You do.
So I give him a given item allowance every week.
But I always say to them, whenever I give you allowance, you should always give some to soccer.
Now whenever you talk to your children, you have to look at them to see if they accept what you're saying. My son Mohammed was about seven years old. He didn't like what I was saying.
I says, Mohammed, what's the matter? He says nothing.
So come on, man. I know you What's the matter? He said, Daddy, what? What have you got to keep I'm wanting to soccer. Soccer is the name of his older sister.
And he thought
my oldest daughter named Masada My name is Abu Abu Sato. So you can call me Abu sadhika call me mom. Suraj Posada. So brothers sisters, I want to this this this drive this point home.
The 10th leading cause of death in the United States
is suicides.
More people take their lives than kill people.
Some 42,000 Americans take their lives every year.
Someone once said about suicide suicide is a permanent solution for temporary problem.
I wish that suicides didn't exist among us but it does even exist among Muslims, especially Muslim youth.
Suicide is an indication that you don't love yourself.
I wish here
and maybe
that none of you
would smoke cigarettes.
Cigarettes, Muslims market all over the place.
I'm not coming to your fat what
I believe is haram. I believe smoking cigarettes is haram. According to Islam. fatawa Islamia the shoe, as they say it's haram years ago, they said Makoto had a budget show. Now they're sure I give you an example.
According to the United
Nations World Health Organization, they said of the most of the if the if the people of the world did nothing. By the end of the century, 1 billion people would have died as a result of smoking cigarettes. That's obscene.
can't love yourself if you're slowly committing suicide
with cigarettes.
Some of you by youngsters may want to experiment on alcohol.
I admit before I became Muslim, I had some alcohol
I admit before I became Muslim I smoked some reefer but just a little bit
No, it was really was a little bit.
One Muslim brother told me he said,
Raj if if Allah blessed me to go to Jenna, all I want to do is smoke some weed.
Same Teresa happened to me. You got a couple more minutes.
Don't tell the speaker to take the time. The worst thing to do was telling him Ma'am, take your time. Because they will take it shake I was in Mecca
years ago. And it was a hot day.
And I went into the store to get something cold to drink.
And I looked in the freezer
and there was a drink called near there.
nib and bear, non alcoholic near bear
some
saugata nebia
and
started drinking it.
All of a sudden, I felt the buzz
shake. You know the buzzes? No, you don't know no buzz. You don't know no buzzes.
I felt like, you know what's going on.
So I stopped drinking. My fitrah was telling me something about this near there. I said it's not Apple, I was talking to myself.
alcohol. I said, Yeah, I know. But no, make me feel
you Okay, as
I found out, I learned that
if a a drink have a certain percentage of alcohol, if it doesn't reach that level, they don't have to indicate it.
They didn't have to tell me alcohol was in that in that. And I know it. I know it because how it made me feel. So brothers and sisters. I'm saying
love yourself in the last point. Is this.
Your gift to the world? His guidance? Give a couple examples. And then we finish. I just came from Norway not too long ago.
For the first time in the history of Norway, they are more atheist than Christians. 39% of the population of Norway are atheists 37% Christian, this is duplicating itself all over the world. People are losing their faith.
brother told me Sorry, ma'am. So many of our youngsters are turning into atheists. I have no way to prove that. But I do believe that some of it exists.
I don't know if you know right now. In June, there's going to be a new restaurant open in London. And have you heard about it?
For the first time in history, in London, in June, we'll open the first naked restaurant.
Already, there's a waiting list of 16,000 people.
Your gift to the world
is guidance.
Don't give it up.
Love yourself.
love Allah. Love the Prophet. Love yourself. Love Sahaba love the answer.
Love one another. manifest your love and your faith. Faith is not something that you merely say. It is something that's demonstrated. How do you expect the people to believe us? If we don't even love one another?
Our job here
in Canada is make Canada a better place. Our job in America is make America a better place is not going to happen. If you try to be like everyone else. Holly foolish became the professor opposite the opposite of the pagans. How you know it. You demonstrated by how we act.
I was the first Muslim to open up a session of Congress in 1993. I think it was no session of Congress is ever open except by a Jewish rabbi, or Christian minister until 1993, a Muslim opened up the session of Congress. And when I opened up the session of Congress, I didn't go any way than I ordinarily go. I just like this. I don't think I have to. But I love dressing like this. And I went just like that. How I dress. You know why? Because I don't apologize for being a Muslim. I'm proud to be a Muslim. And I want the world to be proud to be Muslim.
Love yourself, take care of yourself.
May Allah bless you bronze, this has been a great privilege. I'm sorry. I can't stay more, but I gotta go.