Suhaib Webb – Revival & Decline
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Islam's deeds and deeds is discussed, as it is a means to achieve personal and political goals. The speaker emphasizes the need to learn to be a Muslim to push for change and benefit the society, rather than just focusing on minor issues. prioritizing personal growth and building healthy relationships is also emphasized. The importance of learning to be a part of one's own community is also emphasized, and the need to stay after and lighten their grave is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
I should I know my mother
Muhammad
We praise
Allahu
of blessed praise.
We send peace and blessings upon
our beloved Messenger, Muhammad
upon his community,
his family, and his companions,
and those who follow him until the end
of time.
This
gift that Allah
has placed in our hearts, in spite of
ourselves, the gift of Islam, waradeetulakumalismadina.
As he mentions in the Quran,
I have I am pleased for you.
Islam
as your deen
compels us to be people who ask serious
questions. We find in the Quran, Yeslunaka
Yeslunaka
Yeslunaka Yeslunaka
That they would ask the prophet Sallallahu alaihi
wasallam
about several issues that were very important.
If you want to know the difference between
today's Ummah
and yesterday's Ummah,
look at the kind of questions they ask
in the Quran.
They ask about orphans,
they ask about purification,
they ask about the ruh,
they ask about natural phenomena.
It's sad that recently,
we saw even some scholars
arguing about Imam Anewi,
His historical
reality,
but nobody talked about
Alastaha
Anawiyyah.
The proliferation
of nuclear weapons
that threaten all of us.
The early Muslims, they ask questions as
Shahwali alaladehilawi
notes, and Hujutullahahi
baliqa, that are important.
But now we find
Muslims asking questions and arguing over things which
are superficial.
But on major issues,
important issues,
Imam Anawi, he already died.
But
asliha An Nawawiya,
nuclear weapons could lead to our death.
And the Quran teaches this.
And that's why Sheikh
he mentions that when something is important in
the Quran,
it expresses it, it goes into detail.
If it doesn't, it's not important.
That's why Imam al Shattabi, he said, anything
in the Quran that's important or in the
sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
there will
be an explanation and detail about it.
Or
if it's not important,
it will redirect you to alamal,
to actions.
So for example,
when a man came to the Prophet
and he said, matasaa.
This is a question. When is the day
of judgment?
The prophet
did he get to some long
argument with him? He said,
what did you prepare for it?
He didn't shame him, but he redirects him.
But when Sayyidina Jibril
alaihi salatu salam,
he asked the Prophet
what are the signs
of the end of times?
We see
Him He goes into great detail. Why? Because
the signs of the hour,
when we see them, they inspire us to
live.
So we find in
people tend to ask questions. Whenever I've taught
the tafsir of tafsir,
adults, not children, children are a little different.
Always at the end of the tafsir, after
everything that's talked about, the battle between the
spiritual and the material,
the corporal
and the soul,
the first question is, what kind of dog
was it?
If that was important, it would be mentioned
in the Quran.
The story of say to Adam and his
wife. The first question, what kind of tree?
And so the sahaba,
we never find them asking those questions.
They ask questions that bring value
individually,
socially, and at a policy level to the
society that they live in, so that the
value
of Islam permeates people.
I remember one time, one of our teachers
who was a student
of the student of Sheikh Mohammed Abdul, the
mujedid,
Rahim Ohola, he said that there was a
tafsir that he used to teach in Lebanon
when he was not allowed into Egypt.
And he would teach tafsir. And if you're
from Lebanon,
this is gonna sound incredible.
And the Maronites used to come and listen
to his tafsir.
The non muslims.
And the sheikh, he didn't change anything.
Just teaching tafsir
but
bringing the relevance of the Quran
to the people
so that it impacts everybody. There's a value
for everyone.
And so he told me
that someone went to them, and they said,
it's like
strange
especially to see a marinites in the masjid
listening
to the teacher,
teach an explanation of the Quran.
And you know what they said?
We benefit.
My neighbor,
when I lived in New York City,
I experienced this Masha'Allah.
I was walking outside and she came to
me and she's like,
hi mom. Hi mom.
I said, yes. She said, do you know
someone named Omar Solomon?
Omar Solomon.
I said, Omar Solomon?
Sounds like he's haveshi.
I said, you mean, Omar Suleiman? She said,
yeah. I just love his
Jannah series.
I benefit from that.
I challenge you to find any religious community
that is more invested in cannibalizing itself online
than Muslims.
I challenge you to find any religious community
that will destroy its leadership and
find joy in it, or destroy its own
membership,
like the Muslim community now.
And I challenge you to think critically.
Is that not the outcome of a post
colonial hangover,
mixed with the protein powder of white supremacy
and Eurocentricism
coupled with the threat and pain and trauma
of being an American Muslim
after 9:11?
Find one community, religious community
that allows itself to cannibalize itself
the way that we do,
because we forgot how to think
at a higher level.
And that's why
in his explanation of the famous verse,
I have not created human beings and jinn,
except to worship me,
he explains it,
except to know me.
So what we wanna talk about on the
second part of the hutba
is how we can pull above
this
secondary
sort of
crust
that we get caught up in. It's like
a mouse trap of glue. We get caught
up in it, we can't get out and
people will live their Islam this way for
20 or 30 years
and fail to truly find
the blessings that Islam can lead them to.
We ask Allah
We praise Allah
We send peace and blessings upon the Prophet
We're talking about now
the serious nature of being part of the
Muslim community.
It comes before ethnicity,
It comes before language.
It become it comes
becomes in front of everything else. If I'm
true to my Islam,
I do not put nation, color, race or
language in front of this deen, but
I identify myself, alhamdulillah,
as a Muslim.
And the Muslim is the one who submits
to Allah.
It's not Islam, it's Islam.
And one of the keys to doing this
is to to begin to think
at a deeper level. That's why their first
obligation, according the majority of Sunni theologians is
to think.
Ibn Aashir,
he says in his famous poem,
So the first obligation, this Andalusian scholar
is to think,
to use your mind.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not command
the Prophet
to ask for an increase in anything
except knowledge.
My Lord, increase me in knowledge.
And Allah
challenges us
to be people, not scholars. I'm not talking
about scholarship,
functionality,
functional knowledge.
How do I turn my knowledge into functionality
in my my worship, in my character,
in my membership of society?
Are those who know the truth like those
who don't know the truth?
And Allah
promises to raise the people of functional knowledge.
Allah will raise the people of knowledge.
So how do I push in
to thinking at a higher level?
The first is I need to understand
that the majority of issues that scholars debated
are open for debate.
And that a very small percentage
of what we have in our Islamic academic
tradition
is absolutely sacred, immutable,
and not open for debate.
For example, belief in Allah, belief in the
Prophet as the final Prophet, belief in the
hereafter, belief in Qadhan, Qadr, the angels, and
so on. This is not up for debate.
5 daily prayers, not up for debate. Hajj,
not up for debate. Calling to good and
forbidden the evil, not up for debate.
How far you have to travel before you
can join your prayers, up for debate.
Say the Imam Ahmed himself, on one issue,
had 15 opinions. That means, there's only 5
akem. So that means he changed from his
position on multiple times. Imam Abu Hanifa changed
his own ideas and positions. Imam Malik edited
the Muwatta for 44 years or so.
What does it tell you?
The continued commitment to growth,
and that there are areas of Islam
that are negotiable. But what we find, and
this is the
first, is to make sure before you get
upset and argue and destructive,
take the time to learn.
Is this issue open for debate or close
for discussion?
Because to do the opposite
is what we tend to do. We find
Muslims passionate about issues that are open for
debate,
and not willing to get into issues
where there's no room for discussion.
And how do I do that? I ask.
I ask Imam Dawood.
I ask Sheikh Atiyah.
Ask people around me, Imam Ahmed, Imam Atiyah
and others.
Is this issue open for discussion or not
amongst the scholars? If it is, Sayyidina Sheffi
says,
These kind of issues we shouldn't fight over.
We know the famous story of when
he came into the masjid, and people were
fighting over the number of and he said,
is
or sunnah? I said, sunnah. He said, is
unity
or sunnah
So you gave up the the the for
the sunnah.
The second
is that I should challenge myself
to think
what I can do as a Muslim now
to benefit the society I live in.
I've seen this done in remarkable ways in
Los Angeles, California, one of our brothers, Sheikh
Mujahid, in the early nineties, he asked himself
this question and he is the one who
negotiated
the peace agreement between the Crips and the
Bloods.
As a Muslim,
he pushed in.
We see things like recently, the heart,
invention.
We talked to this brother at the Fiqth
Council of North America, alhamdulillah.
This is a Pakistani uncle, a doctor,
very well versed, a genius,
who began to ask himself questions about how
do you push in and bring benefit to
the people around us. We see Muslims doing
this all the time, alhamdulillah.
How do I move beyond the secondary issues?
The third, I should busy be busy with
myself.
Not to the point that I don't call
to good and forbid the evil if I
have the knowledge,
but I put myself
first.
Save yourself and your family from *.
Say it to your wife and your family,
Then to the rest of the believers, Sayyidina
Nabis
Allah says, Arabicum
fusakum.
Focus on yourselves,
And the hadith of the prophet,
Imam ibn Hajr says, it's a good hadith
that the one will go to Jannah who's
busy with his or herself,
to the point that they do not notice
others. What does this mean though?
It means that I do not get caught
up in the secondary issues,
those negotiables,
to the extent that I neglect my own
form. I remember one time years ago, there
was a brother, he kept missing fajr.
So our teacher asked him. He said, you
know, I go on forums every night, and
I and I debate
Like, I spend my whole night arguing online
with people,
and the sheikh he said, but you miss
Fajr?
He said, yes.
Sheikh he said,
You need to argue yourself
because it's very easy to to explode my
ego
by looking at others when I failed to
look myself. Al Qadi Abu Bakr, ibn al
Arabi, the Madiki Jewish.
He says very interesting story, that he went
to Al Aqsa. May Allah free Al Aqsa
and bless people there in Palestine who are
being decimated. Look, Muslims.
There is not one Sunni leader in the
Muslim world that defends Sunni Muslims.
Not one.
We are slaughtered wherever we are, yet you
and I are fighting over
things which are not actually that important in
the broader scheme of things.
Not one.
Al Qari Abu Bakr ibn Arabi, he went
to Al Aqsa, and he was praying.
And after he finished praying, the person next
to him said, Sheikh, the guy on your
left, his prayer is wrong.
He said, why? He said, his finger is
in the wrong place.
Then the guy on his right to his
left, he said, Sheikh, the guy on your
right is wrong. His salah is.
The sheikh he said, why? He said, he
didn't move his finger like me.
Then they asked the sheikh,
judge between us. He said,
I was busy with Allah in salah.
I didn't see you. I didn't see you,
but the question is how did you see
the guy next to me and how did
you see the guy next to you?
We have to realize we're gonna die,
and if we appreciate the fact that you
and I, death doesn't care if you're ahlubida,
ahlushunday,
it doesn't care.
Death is gonna take every single one of
us.
Nobody can flee death. No matter how much
filler you get pumped into your face, no
matter how much serum you throw on your
skin,
gravity will win.
It will pull you back.
You're gonna go back, I'm gonna go back.
And if I think about my death, then
my shortcomings become clear to me.
So the last is
not to be busy
with these antics.
And I can say this, and I don't
have time.
I have seen instances
when intelligence agencies
purposely try to heighten
these differences amongst us to keep us from
achieving
our success.
I'll give an example close to home.
That's outside of the Muslim community.
I was interviewed by a reporter once, brilliant
woman, who told me that she covered the
Ferguson
riots.
They weren't riots, that's what these people call
them, but they were a demand for justice,
which is very different. Even the wording, you
be careful.
And she told me,
I saw Fox News
paying people to engage in vax of violence
to destabilize
the situation.
Let that tuck you in, fans of Tucker.
I saw Fox, and I'm not giving the
neoliberals a pass either because they got more
problems than we can imagine.
But just as an example,
don't get outfoxed.
Shulky says, mistaken is the one who thinks,
and here is a double entendre for you
that the fox has religion.
But the point is she said, I saw
media, the neoliberal media and the neoconservative media,
and I don't remember all,
paying people, giving them money and food
to go into the demonstrations
and create instability so they would have a
story to cover.
You don't think that's happening to us?
You don't think people will come between us?
And usually, it's the most
harshest,
the most seemingly outwardly dedicated religious one that
you gotta be careful of, by the way.
And that takes me to the last point.
We should have priorities.
Nothing comes before our families.
We should make sure as fathers that we're
spending time
working on our marriage,
as mothers that we're spending time working on
our marriage as wives,
That we are present in our parenthood,
and then we put our children as a
priority,
and we focus on them, we make dua
for them, we teach them, we instruct them,
we guide them, we love them,
And if we do
that, Allah said, we will unite you as
a family in Jannah.
So how do we move beyond
the things that are holding us back?
Some of the points I made today,
Investing and asking questions and learning, not assume
that I know.
Number 2, trying to be an equalizer instead
of a divider.
Number 3, understanding that our issues open for
criticism,
but that has to be done in a
way that allows us to grow, not everything.
Number 4, thinking about how we can contribute
to the society around us
and bring a hayer and remind the people
of Allah
and remind the people of the message of
the prophet
That is our first responsibility
to non muslims.
And then finally, being aware of
those who create instability and destabilization,
and building healthy families and strong relationships within
our families.
Today, we have a Janaza of one of
our dear brothers,
very pious, respected brother. We ask you to
stay after.
And also we're just a few days away
from the anniversary of the passing of Mufti
Omar.
We ask Allah
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless them and
increase them. May Allah lighten their graves
and bring nur into their lives, into their
family. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
give our brother
when he's asked those 3 questions in the
grave. We ask Allah to lighten his grave
and to make every letter
that the students of Mufti Omar read
or say or recite as a means of
his malfira. We ask Allahu
to protect Pakistan,
to bring unity and peace to Pakistan. We
pray for Kashmir and India, where India is
this modern Andalus,
where mosque are being destroyed.
People's institutions are being uprooted.
To be Muslim, the amount of social pressure
is indescribable.
We pray for our brothers and sisters in
Bosnia.
We pray for our brothers and sisters in
Mali, in Chad, in the Congo, and Senegal.
We ask Allah, Subhanahu, to bless our brothers
and sisters all over the Arab world. We
ask Allah to bless people in this country
and allow us to be a means of
their guidance. We pray for those who became
Muslim.
May Allah bless you and bless your parents,
bless your friends, and make you a light
for Islam.
We ask Allah to protect our children as
they go back to school.
We ask Allah to make what they learn
a benefit for them in the hereafter.
There will be a after salah. The family
is asking people who can stay to stay