Taha Karaan – The Dangers of Assimilating for Muslim Minorities (1 of 2)

Taha Karaan
AI: Summary ©
The history and culture of Islam in South Africa is discussed, including the adoption of the Islam and the need for acceptance by minority communities. The segment also touches on the importance of following Christian standards and the rise of Islam in the West. Additionally, Speaker 1 discusses the pressure on individuals to conform to their religion and how it is affecting their appearance.
AI: Transcript ©
00:00:00 --> 00:00:07

Muhammad in the Rasul Allah one early he also here woman wonder why bother for Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.

00:00:13 --> 00:00:14

There are several challenges faced

00:00:15 --> 00:00:17

by any minority community

00:00:19 --> 00:00:30

of the most important, and the most strategic of those challenges is the demand by the majority to conform and to assimilate.

00:00:33 --> 00:00:54

Our own community in South Africa, is an example of a diaspora minority community that was displaced from its original roots came into a land that was not its own, established its existence and maintain that existence at a time when the existence of so many of so many other minorities had been completely obliterated and wiped out.

00:00:56 --> 00:01:01

Most certainly, there would have been certain reasons and certain secrets to the success

00:01:02 --> 00:01:07

of the original Muslim community in South Africa that had allowed it

00:01:09 --> 00:01:19

to continue to exist without being assimilated without having to conform and lose its own existence.

00:01:21 --> 00:01:24

The idea of conformity, conformity,

00:01:25 --> 00:01:28

the idea of assimilating is as old as time itself.

00:01:30 --> 00:01:35

And every major religion that Allah Tala has sent emerged as a minority within its own milieu.

00:01:36 --> 00:01:44

And from within that society, there was immediately thereafter the demand that people conform and do things as that always been done by the majority.

00:01:45 --> 00:01:49

If we look for example, in the case of Vanessa ill

00:01:50 --> 00:01:56

when they emerged out of Egypt, and entered of the Merkava the holy land

00:01:58 --> 00:02:33

when they started living side by side with other communities that had ways of life that had cultures and religions of their own, it wasn't long before they came up with him themselves a tendency to conform to the others they said to say no Musa alayhis salam inshallah Allah hon Carmel home earlier, may God's for us also as they have got, they had become used to in the time of the exile in Egypt of seeing people worshipping idols and having a different method of religion than the one that Allah Allah revealed to Musa. So when they saw other people doing certain things they also felt that we should conform

00:02:36 --> 00:02:42

to a certain extent some of them did. And Allah Tala sada came time upon time, they came

00:02:43 --> 00:03:23

the love of Allah Tala in the form of the destruction of the temple for the first time by Nebuchadnezzar. They came the destruction of the temple the second time, by Titus, the Roman and thereafter the expulsion of the Israel from the clan on account of the crimes committed by them and an account of having drifted away from the way that Allah Tala had revealed. Judaism continued in a diaspora community in Europe for many, many years. We're once again, there was very strong pressure upon them to conform to European standards of life. Eventually, late in the 18th century, they took that particular plunge, they took that plunge and decided to deform the religion along European

00:03:23 --> 00:04:01

lines. The story The story is somewhat long and somewhat detailed. The outcome however, is that when you drift away willingly by choice and voluntarily, you abandon that which Allah Tala had revealed, then the hijab of Allah Allah will descend upon Bani Israel descended and other as not too long ago as the Second World War on what happened before that the extermination of Jews in the camps of the Nazis. Now, whether it was 6 million or whether the figure was somewhat less or more, let's not of material concern right now, the fact is that they had been punished in to a great and very severe degree.

00:04:02 --> 00:04:13

Within Christianity, the same thing had happened. It started as a very small community initially within Palestinian Judaism, Judaism, and afterwards when they tried to convey their religion to others,

00:04:14 --> 00:04:53

Paul was the man known as St. Paul today was the man who came with the idea that we need to conform to Roman standards. We need to allow people to live according to the same old religions to eat the food that they used to eat before to maintain the cultural standards that they did before. All they need to do is accept Jesus as a savior. They do not need to conform to the Sharia that Allah Tala had revealed Christianity took the wrong path, Judaism took the wrong path and therefore Allah Tala brings it to our attention, where we have to remind ourselves every day in every rock of the Salah, Idina surat al Muslim, Surat, Alladhina Ananda Darlene oil mobile, we are a mobile lien. We also

00:04:53 --> 00:05:00

love to lead to guide us on the right path and the right path is not left unidentified. It's not left undefined. It's very clear

00:05:00 --> 00:05:28

Nearly define the path of those whom Allah Tala had given his favor to, and not the path of those upon his anger descended as he descended several times upon Bani Israel and not the path of those who industry which is the NESARA as a habit as Rasulullah, sallAllahu wasallam, who are the multivolume? And who are the Darlene or the the Odin and Asana, I'm useless, and I'm asked Who else? It's exactly those two communities. We should hold up in front ourselves of ourselves of our eyes as the examples of what not to do.

00:05:30 --> 00:05:43

When Islam came Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi salam and the Sahaba the Allahu Anhu also found themselves in a minority. They were in Makkah small, downtrodden and Chris Whelan community, finding themselves within the largest sea of very, very

00:05:45 --> 00:06:11

severe Cofer that wanted to leave no stone unturned, but to extinguish this particular phenomenon called Islam. They tried in every possible way eventually they came with the idea that change your religion somewhat change your religion make a certain adaptation in a certain adaptation there and then we would be prepared to accept you and Allah Tala spoke to his apostles Allah Allah Azza wa sallam about that particular demand and that challenge to conform and to assimilate.

00:06:13 --> 00:06:44

And Allah Allah says, Why Inca do Leia stuff? God will IFT no naka, honey, lovey, oh hyena Ilica. Lita for that era. Lena Yura who it is, they came quite close to the point where they would have misled you and deceived you into changing that which we had revealed unto you that you must then ascribe something else and say, well, Allah Tala didn't reveal that he's revealed this now. From your own side, you must make up something else and say, This is what Islam is not what the Quran says. Not what what he has brought.

00:06:45 --> 00:07:01

What even let the Hudsucker kalila if you weren't prepared on wahama to do that, Allah Allah says, then they will definitely be in your friends. They would have said these are people with whom we can speak. These are people with whom we can strike a deal. These are people with whom we are comfortable to have amongst us.

00:07:03 --> 00:07:44

One I will answer but NACA the Quran goes on. While hola but NACA NACA the kids that are gonna lie him che and kalila Muhammad if we had not given you steadfastness and firmness of heart, it might just have been possible that you might have inclined some little bit towards this particular demand of this. We must understand Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was built many Nara over Rahim. He had great mercy towards the believers not just towards the believers, his Ramadan, Nila al Amin, and that spirit of Mercy might have just induced him to think that for the sake of coexistence, for the sake of peace, we might just, he might just have imagined that it is a certain possibility of

00:07:44 --> 00:07:52

accommodation. Before that idea should even occur to the mind of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam Allah Tala makes it very clear.

00:07:54 --> 00:08:15

Allah Allah subhana Calacatta Canadain shame kalila even had you done that? Oh, Muhammad had you done that? That Kanaka VR fell hayati well there fell in my mouth Have you done that? We would have punished you before you're now Mohamed Salah is and I'm Beloved of Allah Tala even he does not have the right to change Allah Sharia either.

00:08:16 --> 00:08:25

We would have made you taste you personally Muhammad you would have had to taste double the punishment of this will double the punishment of the era where he then

00:08:27 --> 00:09:08

felt hayati. Well there are filmer from Isla de Du Lac arlena and I'll see ya you will find no one to help you against Allah Tala had you change the religion of Allah Allah, no one would have stood for you. No one would have defended you. If the punishment of Allah Tala had to defer had to descend upon you. This is Allah speaking to His Beloved, if this is the way, if this is the jealousy with which Allah Allah regards his Sharia, that is unchangeable, and corruptible, there is no space for accommodation and there is no space for conformity by the highest and most the greatest authority amongst mankind and that is Mohamed Salah lesson himself than everyone else, it applies to them with

00:09:08 --> 00:09:45

even greater force, there is no space for such conformity, the fact that we live in a country as a minority, the fact that there are such great pressures upon you. Now, those pressures sometimes come in the form of visual demands, sometimes or more, most often they come in the form not of any specific demand, but they come in the form of societal pressure, a certain pressure to conform a certain pleasure to say that you are a minority in our country become like us, in terms of your dressing in terms of your culture, in terms of your everything and your way of life, you should accommodate and you should become, you should conform to the standards to the norm. That is the

00:09:45 --> 00:10:00

nature of every majority it wants him or not minority to assimilate within it. We are seeing this tendency elsewhere in the world. We are seeing it in France for the hijab debate. We are seeing it elsewhere where multiculturalism in Europe is steadily getting eroded. We are seeing

00:10:00 --> 00:10:44

In the anti Sharia stance that the American courts are taking, we are seeing it all over within our own country, multiculturalism still exists. But the majority will always have either spoken or an unspoken idea that we want you to become like us, it is just within the nature of a majority, that it would want everyone to conform to the same kind of ideal. At times such as this and a juncture such as this, we need to revisit the past once again, if we have managed for 300 odd years to maintain our our existence. If we have managed it, we must at the same time take cognizance of the fact that there are other similar communities that did not manage to preserve their existence. At

00:10:44 --> 00:11:17

the same time that Muslims were being brought from the home countries to this particular southern tip of Africa. They were other Muslims being taken from West Africa taken over the Atlantic to North America and South America. They were taken there, and they were Muslims, many of them 1000s, hundreds of 1000s, who had been Muslims, and their descendants had completely lost any trace of their religion, only to rediscover the fact that their forefathers had been Muslims. Early in the 20th century with in the middle of the 20th century. By then only did they start discovering that they had different routes, that they were not Christians to start off with something that had

00:11:17 --> 00:11:57

belonged to them, once upon a time had been taken away from them. In the late 1800s. And the early 1900s. There was large scale emigration from Arab countries, such as Syria and Lebanon, to South America. There are hundreds of 1000s If not literally millions of descendants of those particular Lebanese and Syrian citizens that had moved to South America, still living in South America to the present day. And a large percentage of them had completely lost their religion, because they entered this particular society as immigrants, they came to live there, and they did whatever was necessary to conform and to assimilate within those communities. In the Falklands war that was fought between

00:11:57 --> 00:12:34

the UK and Argentina in the 80s, one of the leading generals of the Argentinian forces was a person called Muhammad Ali Zeno Dean, Muhammad Ali is no Dean was no follow of Muhammad. He was no Muslim. His father had been Muslim once upon a time he himself was a committed Catholic. The father had been Muslim the son is a committed Catholic, this is one example not what there are several other several other there are hundreds of 1000s of similar examples. There had been other days for our communities, other minorities that had given into the pressures to conform and eventually completely lost their not just their identity, not just the culture, but they lost the Iman and the Kadima La

00:12:34 --> 00:13:14

ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasul Allah, Allah, Allah is Allah, our very reason for existence upon this earth, the very purpose of creation upon this earth had been lost, and it became a matter of what of earning a living or getting a position or pursuing a certain profession that became more important than preserving Allah that was the this community. The South African Muslim community, as a minority, also faced the same kind of pressures. It was by no means free and exempt from such pleasures, but somehow or the other it managed to maintain that identity and culture and most importantly, to maintain its Karima its sense of purpose not just in life, but for the very

00:13:14 --> 00:13:30

existence upon this earth. It managed to preserve it to some extent of the other. How did that happen? We need to revisit the past to see where those who made the mistakes made the mistakes and those who got something right God, how did they get it right? In order to plot the course for the future? Where do we move from here onwards.

00:13:32 --> 00:14:02

It is the father, the grace and the mercy of Allah Allah that within the South African Muslim community, there have always been certain elements that saw to the preservation of this Deen of ours. Most importantly, from the earliest days, yonfan Olympic landed in South Africa in 1652. Within a few decades of his landing, there was a Muslim community already. And within that Muslim community, Allah Tala has offered to transplant to these shows in the 6094 share views of my cousin. He stayed for a number of years passed away on the show

Share Page