Suhaib Webb – SWISS Islamic Studies 1316 Part Two Learning & Growing
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
I hope all of you guys are doing
Masha'Allah. Awesome. It's great to see you and
welcome back to our 2nd gathering for,
Islamic Studies for 13 to 16 year olds.
I'm gonna be going through a book called,
Essentials of Islamic Faith. If you need a
copy of this book because,
I have it as a PDF,
you can email me.
I'm putting it in the chat right now.
Actually, this email is better. [email protected].
My apologies.
You can email me here.
Ignore the the first email, the second email.
Inshallah, I will send them to you. Last
time, we had a number of serious,
technical challenges, so we moved to the Zoom
format, and there's a number of reasons why.
First of all, we can
actually record this gathering, and I'll repost
the recordings of these lessons,
on YouTube on my YouTube page.
Let me see if I can find my
my YouTube page address for you so you
can use it. I'm not a big youtuber,
but I'll get it to you InshaAllah.
And you can utilize
the rebroadcasts
Inshallah,
to help you as you go through the
studies together.
I'm I'm I'm super excited actually, and and
I think it's gonna be really, really,
beneficial. And
and hopefully, we can all
learn something from it. Yeah. Here it is.
A a few housekeeping
announcements. First of all, the homework is actually
found in the text. Right? So
if you if you if you
if you look in the text itself,
you're going to find that it is the
like, in that text are questions and stuff.
In In that text are questions and answers.
I don't have my video turned on yet
because I'm gonna share
my screen with you,
Inshallah,
so we can read together. So one second.
I look all kind of messed up. My,
my baby was was up late last night
with me. So you should be able to
see the screen now, Insha'Allah,
as well. So let me know in the
chat box if you can see the screen
adequately, but I think I think you can
So okay. Awesome. Thank you, Fariha. Allah bless
you. My shout to a lot of people
here, and I'm super excited to be teaching
this book to you all, and I'm looking
forward to your feedback. And as I get
better at Zoom,
I'm I'm I'm trying to to
Yousef, if you go to the,
crowdcast
gathering, I put it there. Oh, that's there.
Think everyone else can hear. So if you
can't hear
Listen, I'm waiting. Come on. I'm with the
line. Look at your shoot. You mind if
I intervene for one second?
Sure.
Do you,
one question.
Out of curiosity,
how long is the series for?
So the series is actually up on the
crowdcast page as well as if you send
emails, we send out that it's an 8
week series with with the syllabus and the
schedule.
Okay. And if we need to go longer,
we'll go longer. By the way, Shayah, it
does an FYI. This isn't Iqan Haq. This
is his son. So Oh, hey. Ask your
father to contact me.
Yeah. No. I I actually did. I heard
your, cast from yesterday. I'm I'm 17, and
I just found this by, you know, by
chance. So and I know it was from
13 to 16, so I'm trying to figure
out, you know, how to go through your
series. You
actually,
the last time I actually met you was
when I was 3 years old or something.
Yeah. Yeah.
But seriously, I need to speak to your
father about an important fatwa issue. So No.
Inshallah. Uh-uh, text me and I'll I'll send
you his his email.
So that is also another thing. If you
have questions, just feel free to chime in.
Just kinda give me a FYI because I
really want you guys to feel that you
can engage.
Yeah. We're gonna stick to Zoom, Abdulrahmen, because
crowdcast is it should be called brokast.
Subhanallah, we've had so many problems,
with Comcast that it's really, really difficult.
Just so everybody knows I'm here because it
seems like everybody's freaking out.
I'm I am here. I'm with you. You
can see me.
We're hanging out together.
You should be able to see me now.
And let me see if I can pin
my there you go. So
everybody. It's me, like, the voice who hears
me. You don't have to freak out. I
look super super jacked up because
Last night around 1 o'clock in the morning,
my daughter decided to have a dance party
in her crib.
So from basically,
2 o'clock till Fajr time, I was learning
how to do all the popular dance moves,
that are out there today, man. SubhanAllah.
As well as feed milk.
To her. So a few quick house warming,
points. Number 1 is that the homework is
in the text. Right? So if you don't
have a copy of the text, you can
email me, and I will send you a
PDF.
Number 2, the lesson plans and syllabus are
still being made. We have almost
2,000 students
on our platform, so trying to keep up
with it has been, masha'Allah, really awesome.
The third thing is, inshallah,
if,
you have any questions, as I said before,
feel free to ask your question. If someone
says something that you don't agree with, there's
no need for you,
to get upset with them or anything like
that. So we're gonna start the book and
we're gonna actually start from the beginning because
last time a number of people weren't able
to be here. And again, I want you
to feel welcome and I want you to
feel confident. One of the things that should
come out of being a Muslim, alhamdulillah,
and and having a relationship with faith is
confidence. It's confidence, alhamdulillah.
If you can't hear, then you need to
check your audio. Yeah. If you can't hear,
it's important to to to note that, like,
if if, well, they're not gonna be able
to hear me anyway. So
if you can't
hear,
check your audio connections.
So let's let's start again with this text
and a little bit about myself. My name
is Suheb Webb. I accepted Islam.
Masha'Allah. I became Muslim in
1992 at the age of 20 years old.
SubhanAllah. And,
you know, I became Muslim because my friend,
in Islam, my friend was Muslim, alhamdulillah.
And it it was like a very profound
relationship that we had together as as as,
like, friends. And I would ask him questions.
And also I was a music producer,
and the people that I was producing,
and working with were in fact,
like Muslim to a certain degree. So they
exposed me to Islam.
And I mentioned here in the introduction of
this book why I put this text together.
This text actually came together when I was
on Snapchat a few years ago, and I
started getting all these questions from really awesome
young people
about
Islam, like Muslims and non Muslims.
And what I realized is, like, there needs
to be a text that kind of,
you know, precisely
addresses the questions that they have. So that's
why it's very important for you to ask
questions because the questions you ask, I will
potentially put in the second kind of release
of this text, if that makes sense.
Also, I have 2 teenagers. Well, one is
now 18, one is 16, and I have
a 10 month old baby. So my my
teenagers asked me questions that I also I
had challenges even in Islamic studies
to find resources in the English language for
them. So I mentioned here that one of
the important kind of components of learning, what
should come out of learning,
is a sense of confidence. Right?
When Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks about the
Sahaba in the Quran,
he mentions that there were people who were
confident.
Right? They were sent to people. They were
not
just simply living in the masajid. They were
they were able to engage people and engage
the world. Like, can you imagine some Bedouin
Arabs, many of them were completely illiterate,
were able to, like, spread this religion and
spread
it across different cultures,
different countries, and different places so quickly.
Obviously, there was a sense of of, like,
confidence in in their in their lives. And
what I feel sometimes,
and I've experienced this myself, I've had some
mean teachers,
is that Islamic studies teachers sometimes to be
sometimes tend to be very intimidating,
or or very harsh, and that's the opposite.
Sayyidina Anas ibn Malik
said, I never saw anyone kinder
than the messenger of Allah.
The other thing is that as a Muslim,
it's important for you to learn your religion,
man. You know, I I was shocked when
I when I accepted al Islam. I went
to an MSA booth.
It's like a table where people used to
get, like, dollar templates. Not hear you? It's
like it's weird.
I think I think
most people can.
Yeah. I can hear. Can hear.
If you can't hear
Yeah. But we can hear you. Would you
mind muting yourself?
That's cool, man. So
I was sitting at a Dawah booth. This
is my first week into El Islam.
And,
a person came and asked his brother
who was born Muslim, what's Islam? And he
said, I don't know. You have to ask
the sheikh
and go to the mosque. And the person
was like, I'm not gonna go to a
mosque to ask what your religion is. So
I had a conversation with him, like, listen,
you know, as a recent
convert to Allah,
it's very important that you at least know
what your religion is.
So it's very important that we take an
individual responsibility
to
learn our religion.
Especially, if we're frustrated sometimes at the community
or frustrated sometimes with teachers that if we
haven't learned,
then we're not really sincere in our criticism.
Like, if I'm critical of something that I
should learn about it so that I can
properly criticize.
But most importantly, as you as you grow
older and and the importance of young people
is
often mentioned in the Quran in many places.
Wanna be able to, like, learn your religion
properly so that you feel confident. As you
get older, you're going to meet people
through this journey of life who are going
to challenge you.
You may have experiences that challenge you and
rock your faith. You wanna be able to
root that faith in knowledge. And that's why
the prophet
here, when he sent Mu'adh ibn Jabal to
Yemen,
he said the first thing that you should
you should you should call people to. Right?
The first thing that you should call people
to
Like, that's where you start. You start with
faith.
You start with
faith.
With that in mind, I decided to write
this text for your demographic, for your age
group, and I hope that you'll benefit. What
are you gonna take from this text? You're
going to take the obligations related to what
you need to believe in as a Muslim.
What are the things that you have to
believe as a Muslim?
And those those beliefs
are going to allow you then to have
bigger conversations with people, like, about by
like,
evolutionary
theory, gender issues,
things related to,
science, things related to theology and life, why
does bad things happen, and so on and
so forth.
This is going to, like, kind of furnish
your life in a way that allows you
not only
to be someone who can answer people's questions,
but also someone who can answer your own
questions. And I have to say honestly,
perhaps some of the most difficult questions I
see people usually have are coming from themselves.
And they haven't prepared themselves, like knowledge is
like preparation. You prepare your heart for those
moments
and that that knowledge will come and help
you. Imam Al Shafi used to say, if
I'm lonely, my knowledge is with me. Right?
My knowledge is there to help me.
So we started last time with the first
statement, and this book is written by someone
named Sheikh Ahmed Dardir,
Rahim Muhullah. And again, I want you to
feel free to raise your hand and and
unmute yourself and ask any questions at any
time, especially as I try to learn how
to to teach this way. I'm used to
teaching
in crowds of people. Right? So this is
something new for me. And wallahi,
I I love you guys for the sake
of Allah.
You know, I mean that I don't even
know you, but I I believe there's so
much in
young Muslims, man.
There's so much good in you guys, and
there's so much potential.
And in the future, really, is coming through
you. And it's it's it's an obligation upon
us to be here for you.
Not not to be here to to
tell you how to live your life, but
to be here to inspire you.
Inshallah. So I hope that this course is
an inspiration
and really
ignites you. And I understand that these are
scary times.
And if you need to contact me
for anything, you have my email address,
which is the Swiss email address. If you
need to contact me about anything, anything that
you're going through, we have resources also,
that we can get you in touch with
if you need help. I really want you
to know that you're not
abandoned from the community, Insha'Allah.
So this book is written by a sheikh.
His name is Sheikha Badardir.
He's super, super awesome.
For some reason, I I'm gonna struggle with
the c the raising the hand stuff because
my computer
is really tripping. So if you want if
you want to ask something, feel free just
to unmute yourself
and ask a question, Insha'Allah.
This book is written by a scholar. His
name was Shekhad Dardir. He's from Egypt. He
was from Cairo. He lived in a very
old part of Cairo. He was a respected
scholar. And the textbook that you're actually going
through is still taught in in in what's
like the Hogwarts
of the Muslim world without the magic, of
course, is called Al Azhar. And he begins
and he starts with a primary obligation. So
how you wanna look at this book is
it's telling you these are the things you
need to know about God
and believe. These are the things you need
to know about prophets and believe. These are
the things you need to know about angels
and believe. And as we continue, if this
lasts longer than 8 weeks, I'm gonna continue
with you. You know, as long as Allah
keeps me alive, I'll continue with you, inshallah.
And we'll we'll continue to build on these
texts. So we'll go through theology.
We'll go through Islamic practice. We'll go through
spirituality.
And also, I I hope to create a
time
once a week like this for you where
you can just ask questions,
Anything that you wanna ask insha'Allah.
So the sheikh, he says
If you guys want, I can I can
try
to read this really slowly so you can
hear it? Yajibu, which means obligate it is
obligatory.
Allah,
upon the mukalaf
upon the mukalaf.
We're gonna talk about this today.
Marifa.
Marifa. We talked about this last time.
And marifa
means it's translated to know or knowledge.
To know. Right? Know the ledge.
Because if you know the ledge, you won't
fall. That's why it's called knowledge.
What?
Yajibu is obligatory
to believe about Allah
ta'ala,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, the most high.
And the prophets,
and
his noble angels.
So the sheikh, he, he, he, he begins
to frame
the primary obligation as being one of knowledge.
And this is a question that I ask
the 16 and 18 year olds insha'Allah
is what do you think
is the first obligation of Islam? And that
was their homework and they've been emailing.
And only one of them said knowledge.
People said, for example, salah.
People said,
you know, fasting.
People said being good to their parents.
People said this and this. But listen, if
you don't know something, how can you believe
in it?
And that's a question I want you to
think about now. If you don't know something,
how can you have true faith in it?
Is it possible? I'll ask a question. You
guys can either unmute yourself and answer, I
think, will be better if you can.
If if you don't know something, is it
possible to have true faith in it? It's
my question. What do you guys think?
I think no. Because,
if you don't know what you're believing in,
then you can't really believe in it if
you don't know what it is. Masha'Allah. Who's
speaking?
Reem. Reem. So you're you're saying can you
say it one more time?
You can't believe in something if you don't
know what it is because,
like, if you don't know what something is,
then you
can't believe in it.
That's beautiful. That's an awesome answer, Reed. May
Allah bless you.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
What's the first oblique?
What? Why
is it impossible
to believe in what you don't know? Yes,
sir.
Maybe it's because you don't know you don't
know it. So you don't know what you're
believing in.
Right. And and if I don't know it,
how can I how can I be certain
of what it is?
So here, I I want you to think
about something. This is a side discussion.
This is why we have the 99 names
of Allah.
Because the 99 names of Allah are
the means by which we know Allah more.
So you who who who, by the way,
who who gave the last answer? Sorry. I
didn't get your name.
Yes. He ran away. But, masha'Allah, So Reem
and our brother who gave the last answer,
masha'Allah, that's
correct. Islam
Islam states that it's very it's impossible to
have what we call blind faith.
Blind faith is not allowed in Islam when
it comes to
the foundational issues like God,
angels,
prophets,
books, the hereafter,
and why do good and bad things happen.
Those have to be learned
by every single person.
We have a very beautiful principle in Islamic
studies, and I can type it,
I'll I'll type it in an easier way
in the chat. There
is
There's no blind following in the foundations of
Islam or Islamic belief.
Meaning,
you must learn.
Everybody has to learn. And that's why last
time, if you recall,
I
mentioned, this
this verse right
in Surat Muhammad.
Surat Mohammed is like such a beautiful Surah,
masha'Allah, the 47th chapter of the Quran.
If you look at Surat Mohammed verse, I
believe, 19.
And I'll just show it here and you
can you can try to check it out
later.
Yeah. So here if you look at it,
fa'alem.
So no. This translation is a little bit
off. The word e'ala means you must know.
So you must learn. So I would I
would prefer the translation. I write in the
box is learn with like an explanation mark.
Learn.
You have to learn, and I have to
learn that there is no
Ilah except Allah. There is no God,
except Allahu Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Let me get out of here quickly. This
is kind of in my way.
This box.
So the first obligation, and I always found
this really beautiful,
is that in Islam
and for some reason, sorry about that, it
sent it to someone privately. So if you
look at it again, learn
is a is a better translation. You must
learn Mohammed
verse 19.
You must learn that there's no God except
Allah. So upon you, every single one of
you, it's not enough that you're born Muslim,
that your culture is Islam, that your parents
converted. None of that can help you. Every
single one of you is responsible. I'm responsible
for learning our religion.
And the more that we learn,
the stronger
our faith,
creates. And, also, that's a great question.
Iqra actually is read. It's an order. You
have to read.
Right? Because reading is a key to knowledge.
Excellent.
So the sheikh, he says, yajibu aalal mukalaf.
It is mukalaf. It is mukalaf.
It's in learning Islam
the meaning in Islam, learning the meaning and
implications of faith about God, the prophets, and
the angels
is an obligation upon every responsible person.
So here in the very beginning,
you will see that
I talk about the importance of knowledge
and why knowledge is important.
If you look at the 5th chapter of
the Quran verse 98, this happens over and
over in the Quran.
Know, learn, learn, learn, and Allah. You must
learn
that Allah is shadid in punishment,
firm and severe in punishment,
and that Allah is forgiving and merciful.
And the only thing, and this is so
beautiful,
that the prophet
he was asked,
or commanded to ask for an increase in
was knowledge.
Sure, Yousef. You can you can unmute yourself
and ask the question Habibi. You don't have
to type it in the Assalamu alaikum.
Yes. It can be sinful if we if
we don't learn to the point that that
learning will cause us to have proper belief.
So sometimes that's a great was that Youssef
that asked the question, Masha'Allah?
Yeah. That's awesome, bro. Great question, man.
When we say that learning is a sin,
it doesn't mean you have to become the
greatest scholar since, like, you know, heat needs
samosas, man.
What it means is that you have to
learn and I have to learn as much
as as needed
to have faith.
So for me to refuse to learn, and
I have doubts and I have issues and
I struggle, and I mean, I don't know
why my iman is so bad, man. What
is my iman is not strong? Well, you
need to address the issues of why you
have weak iman. We're going to talk about
that, in this class together inshallah.
So it's sinful if I don't learn what
I need to be
a believing person.
It's not sinful if you don't learn like
how to read the Quran, like the greatest
car party ever or, you know,
you go to Ezehar. That's not that's not
sinful.
What's sinful is that I'm not learning enough
to preserve my faith
and my practice. Okay?
In the text above, the sheikh uses this
word. We're gonna talk about it now, al
muqallaf.
The muqallaf
the word,
taqif.
The word mokallaf there. Mokallaf.
This sounds like a test question by the
way. It's from
the word.
And means to burden
to burden someone.
If if I say, for example, in Arabic,
it means that I am I am burdening
you with something.
I'm I'm I'm charging you with something. I'm
making you responsible.
The word that's often used in in books
like this and in theology is taqilif.
See if I oh, that's so cool. You
can do that.
Taqleef.
Taqleef is responsibility.
But here it means to be religiously responsible.
If you look at the last verse
of the 33rd chapter of the Quran,
Allah
mentions
that we are given, the the second to
the last verse.
Verse. Sorry. Allah
describes this idea of us being responsible.
We are created to be responsible, subhanAllah.
That is called takleef. Takleef means responsibility.
So Allah says, so the sheikh says,
So it is an obligation upon
the responsible person to know.
We talked about what Marifa means. Marifa is
a beautiful word. It comes from a word
to word which means to smell. Arf.
Arf. Right? Arf. If if
people can please try not to write on
the screen. It's gonna be super great. But
if you hear something that you feel is
like a good note, you can write it
on the screen. Maybe it will help other
people. But don't, like, make marks and stuff.
Come on. I'm starting to feel like I'm
in a subway in New York City with
all this cool graffiti. So
the word marifa
so the word marifa means
to know, and the mukallif
is who is made responsible by Allah.
Mukhalif,
if this if this had a kesrah here
instead of a fatha, it would be God.
The mukhalif
is you and me.
Is you and me and we know that
in the Quran Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
Allah will not burden you more than you
can handle
And we're going to talk about that as
well. In sha Allahu Ta'ala. So let's get
moving. We have a lot to cover today.
So knowledge we said is the central
primary obligation of Islam.
And then the next question is what makes
you responsible?
What causes takrif?
What makes a person suddenly where they have
to be responsible
for their faith,
for how they live their life, for learning
as Yousef asked about earlier. When I'm mokalef
now I become
responsible.
Naaman, you can unmute yourself and ask inshallah.
Hello. Assalamu alaikum. So,
I love what you said about the knowledge.
Like, if you have the responsibility to learn
about it. Right? So,
what if you can't, like, learn, like, financially,
mentally, or physically?
Hey. We're gonna talk about that in a
second. Good question, Naman.
Naman is Naman is ahead of the game.
Alhamdulillah. May Allah bless you, bro. That's a
great question.
I love questions, by the way, everybody. So
feel free to ask questions
and feel free to engage. And if I
don't know something, like,
if you're like, oh, man, I don't wanna
ask him this question. He might not know.
It's okay. I I don't know. I don't
know.
We shouldn't be that insecure.
So now and then we're gonna answer that
question now. What makes somebody responsible?
There are certain things that make you as
a young adult, all of you, responsible.
The first is what we call moral reasoning.
Moral reasoning,
The ability to understand the difference between right
and wrong.
So my daughter now, she's 1 month old,
10 months old. Excuse me. Last night she
woke up, she pooped her pants,
she grabbed my beard,
She, you know, was like looking out the
window at 3 o'clock in the morning. I
couldn't moralize with her.
I couldn't tell, like, you shouldn't poop in
your pants and you shouldn't look out the
window and she she let your baba sleep.
She's only 10 months old.
As we get older, right, we begin to
learn how to moralize what's right, what's wrong,
especially as you get into young adulthood like
all of you are.
And that is where this responsibility comes into
play. 10 months of Durkman, 10 months Afan.
That's where this responsibility comes into play. So
the first is morality.
Having the ability to
conceptualize
good and evil to understand what's haral and
understand what's haram.
The others are related to your to physical
symptoms. So like menstruation or having a wet
dream or the appearance of underarm hair.
Those are also the physical signs of taqleef.
So number 1,
he said is is the
the the psychological
logical ability.
Number 2 is related to physical ability.
The third, and this is really important.
So the first is related to, sorry, knowledge,
moralizing right and wrong. 2nd is physical ability.
The third is emotional and psychological health.
So
we're gonna unpack each of these in a
minute. And then the 4th, and this goes
back to not man's question, is actually knowing
about it
is actually knowing about it. So, again, what
are the 4 things that make you responsible?
Number 1 is knowledge, the ability to moralize
between right and wrong.
Number 2 is physically being able to perform
the act.
Number 3 is that someone's emotional and psychological
health is is okay.
And then the 5th is that they've actually
heard,
the 4th, excuse me, that they've actually know
about it. And then the 5th, and this
is important now in the in the case
of the virus, is that there are external
parameters around you
in the corporal world, in the physical world
allow you to perform the act. So for
example, now in Suratu Jumu'a
or going into prayers in the mosque, because
of the coronavirus, we are now
existentially,
right, kept from being able to practice
that obligation. Right? So we're no longer obligated
to do those things at this moment
because of the virus. If we go outside,
if we try to pray, if we meet
with people, we maybe get get sick. So
again, what are the 5?
And if someone can type them in the
chat, it's gonna be super awesome. May Allah
bless you. Or if someone wants to type
them here on the screen while I talk,
mashallah. Allah bless you.
What are the 5 things that make you
responsible
to worship God? To make you responsible for
your relationship with Allah, that make you responsible
being
a a
a a Muslim who lives a life of
purpose,
number 1 is
that you have the mental capacity
to understand.
Number 2 is you have the physical ability
to perform the act.
Number 3 is, thank you guys for helping
me out. Number 3 is that the psychological
and emotional health is there.
Number 4 is that you know about it.
And number 5 is that externally, you're not
kept from performing the act. Let me give
you examples of each one in a very
practical way.
So the first is related to to being
able to know right and wrong. I gave
the example of, say, my daughter.
That's a good example. Right? As a child,
she doesn't necessarily know between right and wrong.
A physical
but there are also times where,
for example, people with learning disabilities,
people with certain learning challenges
are going to be perhaps
inhibited
or kept from completely being able to perform
certain acts.
I'll give you an example. I had a
congregate once in my old mosque who
who was a,
she has severe OCD,
And
she would always, like, she would take so
long to pray, man. Like, I would go
into the masala.
She would be praying.
I would leave and come for the next
prayer and she would still be praying. And
she was a student at Harvard, masha'Allah.
So one time I noticed she was really
upset and distraught.
So I went to her and I said,
hey, assalamu alaikum. She said, wake up, assalamu
alaikum assalam. I said, what's happening? She's like,
man, I don't know if it's 2 rakat,
3 rakat, 4 rakat. Like, she she couldn't
she couldn't
remember.
Like, she was so focused that she was
unfocused.
So I told her, in your situation, just
pray and at the end, pray the sujood
sahwa for forgiveness. We'll talk about this in
the future and go. Like, don't worry about
it. Don't worry 1, 3, 4. Don't worry
about this. Why? Because her ability for cognition
is in inhibited.
Number 2 is
I'll give you an example of physical ability.
I received a message a few days ago
of a brother who's hospitalized with the coronavirus.
He can't stand to pray. He He can't
stand to
pray. So how how is he going to
pray? I told him you have to pray
sitting in your bed.
So he's not physically able to do it.
The third is someone, and this is very
important, that has emotional, psychological issues. So depression,
anxiety,
trauma that could be related to the past.
We take those things into consideration.
Another good example for the first is, is
when we have people with Alzheimer's or dementia,
and they struggle
to to know their worship. I had someone
reach out to me and say that their
grandfather
has Alzheimer's, and he doesn't remember
how much he's prayed.
Right? So I said, just let him pray,
man. Khalil and Yusali. I just let him
pray.
So we can see now how these things
become kind of more applicable to certain cases
in our lives that are very important. Right?
The ability to comprehend correctly,
the physical ability,
the emotional psychological health. I'll give you an
example of emotional psychological health.
I had a young woman who who reached
out to me. I think someone is playing
on the screen. If you can please stop,
I would super, super appreciate that.
If you're gonna get on the screen, it's
just to take notes. If not, I'm gonna
have to to ban everyone for being on
the screen. Sorry. Thanks.
I'm sure it was an accident. I do
it all the time.
But there was a person who who she
was a convert to al Islam, and she
came to me and said that
fasting the month of Ramadan triggers her bulimia
triggers
her her,
her anorexia. Sorry. So I told her, don't
fast. Right? If fasting is gonna cause you,
she told me, subhanAllah, I have not eaten
in 4 days.
Like, subhanAllah. I was like, how can you
not eat in 4 days? So fasting now
is triggering a mental health issue that we
need to look after. She needs mental health
professionals. Right? And she needs to see her
physician.
The last inshallah says someone the last 2
is that someone knows. So if someone doesn't
know, they're not held accountable. Right? Unless they
have the ability to learn, and that goes
back to
Yousef and Naaman's question.
And then the last one I gave is
the example of,
the coronavirus and being kept away from being
able to
to to practice,
right,
because of this
joining prayers, praying Janazah, and so on and
so forth. Now we can't do that because
we may become ill. So here are the
questions that you're going to need to email
me the answers to.
What is not why is knowledge important in
Islam?
Discuss with your parents as instant your parents,
not your parents'.
Discuss with your parents instances in which knowledge
of Allah has helped them in their lives.
What does responsibility
mean to you? And what I mean by
what it means to you is what does
it mean to you personally. Right? Not not
what it means to you. Like, don't give
me the Sunday school answer, man. Here's my
email in the chat, by the way.
And you wanna put in the subject matter
homework 13 to 16. K?
So what does responsibility mean to you? Like,
right now, responsibility means to protect for me,
be honest with you, to protect my wife
and my daughter,
my father,
my family, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law.
Like, in the face of all this stuff,
like, I feel like that's where my responsibility
is because responsibility can change
according to parameters.
What does it mean to your parents? I
want you to talk with your parents. One
of the things I hope that can happen
through this quarantine and one of the reasons
I wrote this book this way, no no
problem,
is that we begin to communicate. It's very
important in your age. I know it's hard.
I still have trouble even on 47,
you know,
communicating with my parents, especially because I converted
when I was very young. So when I
converted, it created kind of a strange challenge,
you know, between me and my parents.
But it's very important that parents
and their
children learn to communicate with one another.
It's very important. Inshallah, we hope to have
a workshop here at SWISS,
led by a professional on how to communicate
better as a family.
It's, like, very, very important.
Just one second. The Swiss staff is calling
me. Let me make sure everything's okay.
Saiko.
Good. I'm in a class.
Okay. Thanks, Saiko.
Making sure all our technical stuff is there.
So my my my my relationship with my
parents was was challenged, and then subhanAllah, over
time I learned to communicate with them.
The homework that you see is here, guys.
If you look right here, this is your
homework
that I'm going through now with you.
So you wanna discuss with your parents what
does it mean, what does responsibility mean to
them, What does it mean to you? And
how does that mesh with what we talked
about above here,
responsibility in Islam? What does responsibility in Islam
mean?
I now have to worship Allah.
What is taqleef? I talked about it above.
What is the mukallaf?
That's you, right?
Based on taqleef, can someone learn Islam for
you?
For example, can someone pray for you?
Can someone might pray for you?
And then your parents,
you want to ask them to do this
one. Ask your child when faith in Allah
has helped them.
Let's move on to the section, section 2.
And he's gonna talk about having a relationship
with Allah. You know, I received a phone
call,
perhaps,
3 weeks ago
from a person who told me, like,
that they they don't know how to have
a relationship with Allah.
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
This is a a 17 year old person.
Like, I I I I've been taught my
whole life that, like, having a relationship with
God is something very difficult. And, mashaAllah, thank
you for sharing the link. Hannah and Elias,
you guys are the best, man.
That's the link to the text.
So this person said to me, like,
I I don't feel that I can have
a relationship with Allah because I was told
by my parents my entire life that Allah
hates me.
SubhanAllah. So here's my question, and I want
you guys to discuss it in the chat.
And you can unmute yourself and engage me.
Right?
What would you tell to someone your age
who asked you
or said to you, like, I feel because
of what I've been told my whole life
whether from from a teacher or my parents
or someone
that Allah hates me,
what would you say to that person to
help them start their relationship with Allah? How
would you motivate that person
to try to have confidence in their relationship
with Allah? Who's gonna share with us inshallah?
Right. So try to ignore. Sometimes it can
be hard to ignore our parents though. Right?
Like, if it's a constant or from a
teacher, someone we look up to.
Someone else who's gonna share.
Can I go? Yes, sir.
Thank you.
So what I tell him was that, Allah
Allah's, most forgiving
so that, he will still love you if
you come on to forgive him and he
can stop pardon you and just, you know,
work and his prayer, and we run.
He can slowly,
get back back to, being good Muslim.
Nice. Nice.
And can I, go next?
Yeah. Go ahead.
Please go ahead,
Introduce yourself as well. We'll know who's here.
Hello.
So what I would tell them is
what a great thing to do is,
learn more about Allah and how try and
learn about
like, for an example,
knowing his names, like, every name is a
certain personality of his. Because knowing someone better
is
the a way you can love them more
and have a better connection with them. So
I would tell them, try and learn more
about Allah and try and
discover more
of the ways he can help you and
how
he he loves you just like he loves
everyone
else.
Excellent. Excellent. And and I like, Haneen, how
you you said, like, learn for yourself. Right?
So one thing I've seen with people that
go through this challenge who had been around
bad Muslims
is to like learn about Allah and also
learn about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Who else would like to share? What would
you say to this person who comes to
you,
has confided to you and said like my
entire life Assalamu alaikum. People have told me
I'm bad. What can I do? Who
is this?
Hello?
I'm Youssef again.
Hey. Welcome back, Youssef.
Hey. So basically, I mean,
Allah, I mean, he loves his creation. You
can't, like, not love your creation.
And he's the most merciful and most giving.
And yeah.
Nice. Nice. So try to have people
yes.
Is this Hashim?
No. It's a name.
Oh, sorry. Welcome back.
I would tell them that
if they truly want to have a relationship
with Allah, then
they should read the Quran because it has
a lot of guidance.
And just make dua
because it really helps
like, start having a relationship.
Nice. Nice.
Nice. Nice.
That's really nice. Masha'allah.
Anyone else have some suggestions that they would
share with someone who has been kind of
defeated by the community?
My name is Hamza,
and I would say that Allah
is always willing to listen to you so
you can make dua.
And
and inshallah, he will accept your dua.
Who else is going to,
share something with us?
Assalamu alaikum. My name is Momin. Momin,
Allah is doesn't hate anyone. He's he's the
most forgiving,
the most loving, and, if you tell them
that and you tell them to make the
law, you tell them to read the Quran,
they that starts the relationship that gets them
closer already.
Man. That's really nice. That's really nice.
How how important do you think also it's
important that, like, say, sometimes youth groups. Right?
They're cliquish.
Like, I've had people complain to me and
say
that,
you know, youth groups don't are not welcoming.
How how how important is it to
to make sure also not only are we
telling these people,
but we're also showing these people.
So what are some things like, for example,
with the guy that called me, I invited
him for coffee. Right? He's an older person.
I just spent some time with him and
kind of just like listen to what he
had to say. How many of you have
met people say in the mosque or youth
group settings that are hurt?
Was there anything you did that tried to,
like,
bring peace to their heart, peace to their
mind, and make them feel valued? Because you
can imagine. Right?
Hashim, can you please stop writing on the
screen, man?
Jazakkaloha
and Hashim Habibi.
You're, like, making lines and stuff on the
screen, and it's, like, throwing everybody off, man.
But
how many
times or has anyone ever met someone who
has
been hurt and you did something to try
to help them? What did you do? So
not only just telling them because you can
like if you came to me and you
said like, hey, I feel down. I feel
bad. And I said, well, just pray to
Allah. It may seem like I'm dismissing you.
So I can say pray to Allah, but
then what about like, why don't we like
play
Call of Duty together or like, why don't
we go hang out together? Right? Is there
anything you've done in these situations where you
tried to help
somebody
who has these challenges that's helped out? Can
anyone share?
So that's very important.
Yes, please. Good.
Because they had a problem with someone,
you could tell them to find the person
and talk to them in person, not just
text.
Yeah. Yeah. And I like that's awesome, man.
Thank you for sharing. And Bilal's response in
the chat book chat room is also really
good. Right? One thing I've seen is, like,
if someone has parents that are, like, hard
on them
and if you have awesome parents,
it's kinda cool to have them around your
awesome parents, man.
Just because, like, it it gives them, like,
an alternative model. Right? So sometimes we find
maybe someone's having bad experiences with people, then
let's let's try as best we can to
give them the opposite experience.
Let's move on to section 2. I really
appreciate you guys are so, mashaAllah, amazing.
And, I'm really enjoying this. Section 2
is going to talk about how do you
know God? How do you start a relationship
with God? And I'm just gonna read it
and then we'll start it on Friday,
For Yajibu, he said then it is obligatory
for you to know about God as shorin
asifa.
Twenty things.
Twenty things. Number 1 is that Allah exists,
that he has no beginning,
that he has no ending,
that he's different than creation, and creation is
different than him.
That he is completely independent, and that he
is one. So we're gonna go through now
on Friday these seven qualities. Right?
Alwujud,
wal kiddim, wal baqa,
alwujud,
wal kiddim, wal baqa, wal mukhadifatoo,
lilhawadis,
Twenty things. We're gonna do the first 14
now.
Wahi al Wujud
actually, the first seven
that Allah exists. We're gonna talk about how
do we know Allah exists?
It's a very important question. Wal qidim, he
has no beginning. Wal baqa, he has no
end.
Wal muqalafatul
alhawadis,
he's in opposition to
temporal beings. Alhawadith here means something that has
a beginning, something has an end, something has
a birth,
something
has, a death. I'm trying to actually turn
off everyone's microphones, but, masha'Allah,
some people are here and they're coming in
and the mics are on. Masha'Allah, we can
hear everything you're doing. Walmukhalathatulilhawadith,
opposition to creation.
Walqiam bin Nas, absolutely independent,
walwahdaniyah.
What I'm gonna do now, if you have
any questions that you wanna ask, you can
ask me either in the chat box or
by chiming in.
I saw someone ask, does not does not
Allah not like the disbelievers? Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala does not like disbelief.
Right? So disbelief
is like the cancer in the body. You
don't hate the body, you hate the cancer.
I saw someone else write about, like, you
can't take them as friends. No. That's not
what the verse means.
Means in a battlefield,
you wouldn't side with
the disbelievers against a Muslim, but it has
nothing to do with, like, friendship. Al Ma'asha'a.
That's different.
You Allah. So Yousef
is saying that his cousin died from coronavirus.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive
your cousin man
and
to give you and your family sakinah and
protect you all.
And may Allah bless you, man. I'm sorry
to hear that, Yousef, man.
May Allah make it make it easy for
all of you, Insha'Allah. You Arab You Arab.
So if you wanna chime in and ask
questions, I'll be happy to to do it.
As you can see,
It's been a this has been a nice
class. I really enjoyed spending time with you
guys, and I look forward to
to building a a relationship with you.
Look at all those Amin's Yousef, man. Look
at how many people love you, bro.
Masha'Allah. Yeah. This shirt is made by a
good friend of mine.
I'll put it on Instagram if you're interested.
He's a really good brother, masha'allah.
Somebody have a question?
I didn't see,
Nosheen's question. Can you, Sarah, can you repost
it for me?
Or she can ask also if she wants
to ask.
Yousef, man, again, making a lot of dua
for you, bro.
May Allah make it easy. And I'm sure
a lot of us, we have friends and
family now who are impacted by corona.
To make it easy for us. That's really,
really difficult to hear.
Can someone repost?
My Instagram is suhaib.web.
My IG,
suhaib.
The next class is Friday. So we meet
every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Insha'Allah. Does everybody understand
what the homework is? The homework is to
do the questions.
These questions.
And what you wanna read, you wanna read
this first section,
section 2.
Yes.
My name is Salaada, and,
her question was she said, if it's not
my responsibility to learn about my dean, how
do I know if STEM is the truth?
Yes. So it is a responsibility. That's what
I said earlier. Right?
The responsibility
is to learn as much as you need
to be convinced that Islam is the truth.
So you can look at knowledge is like
filling your stomach. Right? You eat not till
you're full. Right? But you eat till you're
satiated.
Knowledge is very similar to the knowledge of
religion. You wanna learn as much as you
need
to come to the conclusion that the religion
is the Haqq,
is the truth.
That's a great question. So your homework, guys,
is above and then I want you to
read toward to here.
Stop here.
So you wanna read to 2.7.
So you wanna do the homework
under 1,
and then the reading
is 2 until
2.7
2.8. Sorry.
Any other questions in the thanks, Abdulrahman and
Ahmed, for sharing the book with everybody.
I have a question. Yes, sir.
So, how do we show you our homework?
So you're gonna show me your homework by
emailing me. Look at this
email address
in the chat room.
You're gonna send it there.
I have a question.
Sure.
Question about, the class. Is it gonna be
on, crowdcast,
next week? I mean, the next class or
is it gonna be on Zoom again? Yeah.
No. We're gonna move to Zoom.
Okay.
Because, actually, I I I like this platform
better to teach. I feel like I'm closer
to you guys.
And also Crowdcast should be called Brokecast, man.
I have a question. It just keeps breaking.
Yes, sir.
So I did my homework, but I wrote
it in the book. So can I can
I take a picture of it and send
it to you or,
have to write it down somewhere else? Yes.
You can just send me a picture on
your phone, man.
Okay. The other thing is also
for for the Zoom class,
please
email me at this address.
I'm gonna do 2 things. I'll send you
the link to the Zoom class, the permanent
link. But if you're signed up in crowdcast,
we will send you an email through crowdcast
that has the the the permanent Zoom link
also.
Alright. So this is a temporary link. So
this link won't be here,
on Friday. We'll have a new one out,
and we'll get it to you.
So,
the homework, is it due tomorrow or the
next time that we The homework is due
before each
like, ideally, you wanna have it turned in
before
the next session. Right? Okay.
And do hey. Hold on a second, Warrick
Som. Do me a favor. Do not write
a novel.
You know what I'm saying? In your homework,
don't write a novel. Just write, you know,
write enough, but don't write a novel.
You had a question. Yes, ma'am.
Oh,
the classes,
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Absolutely.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And I'm going to post
this class
today on my YouTube page. If you look
up somewhere in the comments way in the
beginning,
I posted
here is my YouTube page.
I actually have a Google classroom, Rokayah. So
that's being developed, alhamdulillah. So I'm gonna send
every one of you a link soon to
the Muslim classroom. Thank you so much for
that advice. Masha'Allah. Google classroom. Amazing.
Yes.
So the link for Zoom will be sent
on webcast. Right? Sent on crowdcast, but if
you I'm gonna open up what's called a
Google Classroom soon.
So we'll send you the Google Classroom link
either through Crowdcast or you contact me at
that email swiss
atsuheiveweb.com,
and I'll send it all to you.
Alright?
Yeah. We should call some classroom. That's what's
up. I like that. We're gonna take a
few more questions. We have, like, 3 minutes
left.
And again, I plan to also start once
every 2 weeks just like q and a,
just like this with with all of you.
So,
we'll take advantage of it there. Any other
questions
before we,
make a move?
Absolutely not, Yafa. Having doubts is no. It's
not haram to have doubts about Islam.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, a man
came to him and said, I have these
questions that I'm scared to mention.
He had doubts. And
the prophet said to him,
the fact that you are
dealing with your doubts is
the sign that you have. Wow.
Pure faith. Pure faith.
So it's okay to have doubts. What's important
is
to
address our doubts. Yeah. Taklief is responsibility.
Layla. Taklief means to be is the word
means responsibility.
Allah
has made us responsible. We are mukalaf
to worship and live a life of meaning.
And that's actually in that section that's coming,
in the future.
I have a I have a question. Yes,
sir.
So when do we do, like, how to
squeeze in those stuff like testing those stuff?
We'll send that to you in the syllabus,
Insha'Allah,
so you'll see it. Okay.
I had another question. Yes, sir.
It was Sunday
5 at 10 PM on Wednesday. Is that
also today?
10 PM is, Quran reading. So it's not
it's not this class.
Harun, that's important. You should take this class
with us and continue taking this class. One
thing that's really, really important to think about
is dealing with doubts is a process.
Right? Oftentimes, people want to stop doubting immediately.
But
as doubts came
into,
into our lives, right, as a as a
process,
we have to get rid of them as
a process. Will this be recorded? Our Friday
virtual Chabaz starts at 1:45. Yeah. Abdul Abdulahi,
as I said earlier, all these things are
going to be here.
And if people want, we can move the
time on Friday to earlier so that people
can,
attend their virtual jamas.
But this Friday, we'll have it as scheduled,
and then we'll talk about it next week.
Is
it? Yes, ma'am.
Is it,
is it a punishment is the coronavirus a
punishment,
from Allah, or is it just, like, random,
like,
event that unfortunately happened?
Allahu Adam. But there is a hadith that
says the Ta'an. Right? The Ta'an can be
a punishment for the disbelievers
and a mercy for the believers, You
know, we'll talk about these actually gonna come
up later as we study this course together,
by the way,
and give some clarity on how do we
approach these issues.
It
has been awesome with you guys. I have
another class coming up for 16 to 18
year olds, and I will see all of
you. And I love these questions. These questions
are,
simply incredible.
We'll see you on Friday. Inshallah. And I
will post the recording of this
class up in the next hour or so
on that YouTube page.
Thank
you.