The Role Of The Youth In Reviving Islam by Imam Siraj Wahhaj
At Plymouth, Part of the Forum For Social Studies Dawah UK Tour, 2016.
Siraj Wahhaj – Youth Reviving Islam
AI: Summary ©
The importance of youth's age and not ignoring media messages is emphasized in the discussion of Islam. The speakers also discuss the use of cookies and drugs in reality, the success of Islam in modernizing people's clothing and eating habits, and the importance of not abandoning religion. The speakers encourage people to ask themselves if they want to pray in public and practice their religion in public. The segment also touches on the success of Islam in Europe and the need for people to introduce it to their neighbors.
AI: Transcript ©
Big
Brothers and sisters, I'm very, very happy to be here. And I got some good news
and good news.
And the good news for you is that I'm not going to give a long talk.
And
honestly, I'm really, because I love you. I'm gonna give you a short talk, but I
want to be beneficial. Like to begin with the Prophet Elisa that was around Alona in
Oregon, seek refuge with you for knowledge that doesn't benefit. I don't want to be here 10 minutes with you.
Or 10 hours and you know benefit.
I've always believed that when people know better, they do better.
And people know better, they do better. And this is why the Prophet peace of blessings upon told us of a prophet that was beaten by his people so much, that the Prophet begins to bleed. And the Prophet wipe the blood from his faces, a lot, woman, extended counties
to give my people because they don't know. And you have a lot of people.
A lot of people in London, a lot of people Manchester and Birmingham, and people around the world who don't know at all.
I was given the topic,
the role of the youth in reviving Islam.
I'm going to spend a couple of minutes talking about the youth now.
Despite this gray, then you might think you say
I don't consider myself an old person.
But I am older.
I said Jamal, do you know when that moment came when I realized that I was older? I was in the airport, JFK Airport. I never forget this two years ago.
And we had to take a bus to our terminal.
And I'm standing in the bus. And there's the young man sitting down. He got up and said Sir, would like to have my seat. What
are you talking to me?
I owe
him I looked like I was old. But I want to teach you a lesson. There was a young man. You may have heard of music. Mm hmm. In New York, immensely.
Powerful speaker about six feet tall, white American. So we were at a conference in Connecticut.
And every speech that he gave, he told the people what he's going to do emails that are on the basketball court. I'm going to give you mom Suraj who beat him a basketball every time so he told me about it. So I made a tape. And they played the tape before his speech. And I challenged him to basketball game.
That night he was supposed to play at midnight in Hartford, Connecticut. So midnight on their classic shape. rajmohan play basketball, waiting for this young big Chabad to play basketball, right? So he show up.
So one o'clock, I'm about to go my room. And here he come. The first mistake he made. He came there with a Boston Celtics uniform.
I'm from New York. We don't like Boston
was the first mistake.
We play the game and it's on tape.
I will tell you how the game wins. I'll just tell you what I had to do after the game I played him. I had to make towel to Allah what I did to him
as the last forgiveness, because what I did to him. That's just an aside.
Let me first take a moment to talk about why we need the youth
to revive Islam and I come from the Hadith of the Prophet that leads to that was the non economic comes from
Shabaab Boko Haram is only one I want to talk about. You should take advantage of five things before five one is take advantage of your youth before you old age. Take advantage of brothers and sisters. Before you know what you see yourself growing
fast. You may be young today and tomorrow you'll see that you'll get older according to the war and what age does a man reach his full strength
40 years old
How old was possible 100 piece of lesson upon when he became the Messenger of Allah
40 years old. How many of you heard of Malcolm X?
And
how old was Malcolm when he died when he was assassinated?
Short of his 40th birthday, just short of his 40th birthday. How many of you heard him on Luther King Jr? Raise your hand on Luther King, Jr, one of the heroes of African Americans civil rights movement, very famous. How old was he when he died?
Just Sure, was 40th birthday.
I don't think any of that is an accident.
You see brothers and sisters that you have a vital role in this is
one of the mistakes that we make, in my opinion, is we ignore the youth
media message you go to I go to messages now I go all over the country all over the world. And I see now many messages.
They have a lot of chairs.
You know what I mean?
They have a lot of chairs and some Masjid. They have more chairs and other places in the masjid, to bow down because of the age of the masjid. Many of our communities are getting older and older, and the youth, we find them not engaged in many messages from sure that this message is a different.
One brother, his name is Ali. He visited me about 26 years old.
And he lives in California. He came to visit me in New York recently.
He used to live in Washington, DC. And whenever I gave a talk in Washington, DC, him and his friends would always after my talk, they will come and take me to lunch or take me to dinner. And so we had a good relationship.
And when he came to see me, he said, Hey, man, Suraj
I hate going to Juma prayer. I hate it.
So why did you hate going to Juma prayer? He said, because it doesn't relate to me at all.
doesn't relate to me at all. So the first bit of advice that I would have is that we must engage our youth because they will play a major part in reviving Islam second part, compliments almost Believe it or not almost finish my introduction.
The second part
is is tricky.
It has multiple interpretations and you have to be careful that you have the right interpretation. For instance,
there is a man named Paul Sperry he wrote a book called infiltration.
And in that book, he said the problem with Islam isn't the misinterpretation of the Quran. The problem is the Quran.
He said the problem isn't the MIS interpretation of the Quran. The problem is the Quran. So according to him, his needs a revival. A woman wrote a book what's wrong Islam?
I will argue today, nothing is wrong with Islam. Islam doesn't need revival.
But Muslims need to go back to the book of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And that's what I'm going to show you in the next couple of minutes.
There is a man named Daniel
perhaps one of the biggest critics of Islam.
And Dr. Jamal and use Shabbir Ali have to read an article
that he gave in the year 2002. You can find it in the New York Post 2000 July 30 2002. article titled
The problem isn't Islam.
The problem is that Islam is not going to take like maybe three minutes to talk about something in this article. He was actually attacking Islam when in reality, he was boosting Islam and I'm gonna prove to you that inshallah
How many of you were born to Muslim parents raising?
Born Muslim?
How many of you like me, converted or reverted to Islam? Raise your hand.
One, two.
You want to postpone
we guys we came late we Johnny come late because I like tall guy that actually question man. What's your name?
lol behold Villa
basketball
you don't want to play me right
now these two brothers here
like me
were born to the faith. Allah bless
some of you may Braddock's Oh
Be careful
because our losses in the end and we repeated every Friday
do not die. Except as a Muslim not how you born. How you die in this world is an intimate
team you shall be judged by your last deeds so don't tell me how you were born. Tell me how to die.
These brothers are brought to you for reasonable evolution
around trees
were you born with the name but now? No good when you born the name Idris No, good.
No. So we changed our name.
But these three brothers standing here
we have something over you.
We the three of us we got something over you.
The Prophet Alayhi salat wa salam said in the Emerald genome and Isa Toma Amma be follow Who?
Whoever believes in Jesus and then believes in me will have a double reward. So we got a double reward thing.
Ha ha ha
ha.
I believe it's my sincere minion
that we as Muslims have
misdiagnose
the essence of revival.
You see, the issue is larger than we think.
We think we need to get some Muslims in alone. And we got to figure out how do we revive Islam?
I would argue that your job and my job is bigger than that.
is bigger than us getting a
child to stick around figure out how are we going to revive these
is bigger than that.
In the real issue is we keep forgetting.
Consider what I was saying.
in
limbo.
Oh man, I am the messenger of Allah to you. All.
He said
every prophet went to his people. Specifically, when I was gone, I had been sent to all of mankind
with
Tommy,
to his people.
And when Jesus said all children of
Israel, I am the messenger to you. For Mohammed. Elise
is the messenger of a lot to everyone. Every human being
should be happy I was in Walmart in in the Atlanta, Georgia. We have one article
about Walmart.
And a Chinese man comes to me
in a look like his wife and his daughter,
in said to me,
and I was surprised because there is nothing about how he, his wife or his daughter would dress to suggest that they're Muslim. The only way I knew that were Muslim. They said I said what
he said to me, I am traveling from China. I've been here about a week. And can you tell me where I can get Hello food?
No problem. Give me your name.
Give me a phone number. I'll call you and get you the address where you can get Hello food. And what's your name? He says My name is Jonathan.
I said to him, your name is not Jonathan is from China.
So what's your real name?
Now? No, I know. I don't remember exactly what he said something like, I don't know.
As a whole, Jonathan.
But this is the point.
Why do you give me
the answer that was?
Someone asked
what Islam is best. He said.
What is that is that he said, You feed the people and you give alarms to those who you know, and those who don't know why.
And just like this, I looked like a Muslim. I didn't start out giving them.
But there is something about being in Islam and Islam is for everybody in the whole world. And Mohammed leads to that was that was sent to everybody.
You know, the problem we have,
the problem that we have and as Muslims is that we are interpreting it as if it only belongs to us.
Put it this way, the practically so that was
an MBO a lesson from shatta.
wale
profits, all of them are brothers. The motives are different, but the religion is one.
So if you want to revive Islam, for real is not just
reviving the Islam in Syria,
for Palestine, or Iran, or Jordan, or Sudan, or Iran, or it's, it's everywhere. We're right. And you can
see, why are you here?
If you tell me all of your parents were Muslims,
either
they migrated here.
And you second generation or the first generation you migrated here.
I came to education fine. Why did you come? Come to get a good job to make money? Fine. No problem with that. But the real reality is why are you here in Great Britain, in France, in Germany? Why we
if you're going to be servants of Allah say, Jonathan, to generate
the words of Allah. If you no longer Don't get mad at me.
If you really care about the people
do you cannot delete?
I mean, really, do you care about the people?
If you care about them, He will take time and introduce them to the thing that will save their life in this life in an era.
I was in the Doubletree hotel. You guys don't have to double check the hotel.
Can I be honest with you about the hotels and UK?
I'm sorry, I love you.
With your hotels.
In United States, we have hotels.
And there's a hotel called Doubletree when you get a chance, how many have you been to United States? Okay, coming one ago.
Okay.
You go
there, hotel. I want you to go to my favorite hotel. Double tree hotel.
Doubletree?
No.
The reason that I love Doubletree hotels, and you will notice this is because of their cookies.
They give you free cookies, a little bag.
Best cookies ever had in my life.
I think
in my opinion
They got drugs in the cookies.
Cookies.
And those cookies are
the best cookies ever ate my life. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. You got to get someone's cookies and give them.
Anyway, I was at a Doubletree hotel. And every room had a card.
Instead,
when you care, it shows
when you can show, I will call you when you don't care. It shows my master Brooklyn. One block south of my Masjid is an armory, and in the armory is 1000 homeless, black men and Latino men in that, that that homeless shelter. And I walked people all the time. And we have given shots there. We've given food there. But most people, they don't care, they walk past them, and they don't even care. I think a lot a lot that leads to Islam, that now that I'm the law, I'm a Muslim, and that I can reach up there and get people and bring them to the fold of Islam.
Now we've arrived at this line. I'm going to give you a two minute almost finished Can Can Can, can you give me a woman's
gonna get mad at me?
Throw pebbles at me. Because this guy said he want me to give him a shot.
Let me give you this this is
now
huge, especially the new Trump as another guy.
Okay, this is this is uh, this is brief again, July 13 2002. Leo goes global. And tonight. I want you to read the article. Can we get it?
This is what types of remember. He's trying to attack Islam. Right. His purpose is to attack Islam. He said
500 years ago, Jews, Christians and Muslims agreed.
Jews, Christians and Muslims agree
that owning slaves was acceptable.
But paying interest on money was not.
for Christians use this. He didn't say this. In his article. My question to you is this. Why is it that the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims agreed Why?
on one source what source?
scripture
in the Torah, in the NGO in the poor and against interest? He didn't say there will be no
to the next step. This man is a master of the English language. After a bitter, protracted debate,
Jews and Christians changed their minds.
Did he say after high school debate
is towards dinner infotrack
what do we mean by protracted
was portrayed?
Long it wasn't like a quick debate. Yeah, you might start with
animals.
People disagreed.
The Christians and the Jews change their mind.
So today, no Jewish or Christian body endorses slavery or has any religious
qualms about paying reasonable interest. what's reasonable interest?
1% 2% 5% 20%.
Muslim In contrast, still think the old way?
What do you mean by the old way?
But why do they still think the old way?
Because it is from Allah
has given us the crux of the issue. This is the issue. revelation comes, man has to make a decision. Are you going to follow the revelation? Are you going to follow what you have? I'm almost finished.
Here's his conclusion.
To enable pious Muslims to avoid interest in Islamic financial in the industry, worth an estimated $150 billion have developed over $2 trillion.
In other words, Muslims want to pay interest we're going to find a way I want to buy a house but I don't want to pay interest What can I do is institutions
will you can buy a house and not pay interest?
Now listen to this. This is this is the crux of the challenge ahead is clear. Muslims must emulate their fellow monotheism by modern, modern, modern, modern nisin modernizing their religion
you will
agree that we should modernize our religion What does that mean? Does it mean to abandon a lot?
Of course it does. So this is my conclusion. I'm almost loaded. loaded. I'd be shocked if two minutes I'm still speaking.
I'd be shocked if five more minutes I'm still speaking
10 minutes and I'm still speaking I would really be shocked
I'm not let me finish with this. I close with something that profit or loss
and I close with this.
Yeah, either the
11
Oh, my service, every one of you are misguided. Unless I guide you. Therefore ask me and I will guide you.
Did he say?
He said the majority of you didn't say most of you what he said.
Every one of you are misguided. Unless I guide you. Therefore acts me and I will guide you This is why at least 17 times a day we sit in a store autonomous stopping.
Stopping because you know what we needed? We need Can I tell you something about about about in London after Don't get mad at me? What can I
do tomorrow?
Or the end of this month?
For the first time
in London. We will have a full naked restaurant.
How are you?
Hi, Monica. Hi. I have a new restaurant. So do you do you go in and put your clothes
in Norway? Because if you don't have a lot of guys, you everything go in no way for the first time in the history. There are more atheists and Christians that I read this to you and I sit down.
I share this with you.
How many of you most of
us
are you Muslim? Yeah Muslim, even non Muslim youth they got on the back of their shirts proud to be Muslim.
You don't have to have a shirt to say proud to be Muslim if you proud to be Muslim. It shows but Padilla and answer Are you smoke. Yeah. Muslim, Muslim. Muslim. Do you pray? No.
for the month of Ramadan, no not really
reminded me something that happened years ago, I was at a program somewhere in United States. And when the program was over three young Muslim sisters came to me, none of them were in hijab. It's a man's crotch. We want you to show us in the quarter and why we should wear each app. We don't want to see how do we want to see.
Okay.
Rather than showing them guidance on this question,
this is this is do you pray?
They said, No.
I say do you find in the Quran that you should pray this in many places,
as we find in court and that you should pray and you don't pray? What made you think I show you one personal core and that you should wear hijab?
Because their problem isn't hijab. And Muslim Muslim parents have to understand that they harangue that you got to put on the job put on each dancer. That's not why that's not the answer, because their problem isn't the hijab, their problem is a man.
They have the man the man they put on.
So I leave this with you. A couple of points.
In France right now, 64% of the population claim to be Roman Catholic 64% of the population claimed to be Roman Catholic, but only 4% actually found the religion.
Is that happening now Muslims, that we claim to be Muslim, but as Dr. Jamal mentioned in his talk, not really.
I finished with this.
There are now more than 1700 official messages in Britain, many of them converted from formal churches.
The official citizenship survey published in December 21 found that the number of people who call themselves Christian in England and Wales have fallen off 10% in the last five years, the mosque alone is the largest mosque of Europe. It has an estimated area of 320,000 square feet and can accommodate 12,000 people. This is the last one I'm going to read to you in the night finish.
This last one I'm going to read to you and I think and then I finish.
I want you to think about that because we have some work to do. We're not coming here to entertain you will come in here to make sure that we revise our, our, our practice of the faith so that our children and our grandchildren our great grandchildren will practice the faith of Islam just the last one because I'm saying to you look to those who came before us. The Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam Wanda, you will follow those who came before you step by step, an inch package so that if they call the whole of the visit, you fall right behind them, just the last one scary.
Very,
at least 10,000 churches
have been closed in Britain since 1960 10,000. Another 4000 churches are set to be closed by 2020. According to Christian research,
the revival of Islam,
Islamic revival for no need to be changed. We need the power of Allah and His Messenger Mohammed, Salah Sutton
is never perfect for your religion.
We have to make sure that we practice number one ourselves, our family. And number two, you must you must introduce Islam to your neighbors. If you really care about them, and you should you should do it.