Inviting The People of The Book – Ramadan Series

Hello.

Islam has a very practical religion. And so when we talk about the wisdom of Islam, we notice something that differs from other religions in a structural way. And that is that we have rules in our religion in Islam, to teach us how to relate to people from other religions. And this is actually part of a sign to us that this revelation that we have is from Allah subhanho data. If a revelation came and it was just cooked up by some person, it wasn't a real revelation. It was a forgery, then you would imagine that it would only sort of be it would be tribalistic, right, it would only sort of give you guidance for how to deal with people who thought like you and well

everybody who was different than forget about them. But that's not the Koran. And in fact, Allah subhanaw taala blames the Christians and the Jews in the court and for having kind of fallen into this attitude. He says a sort of sort of ultra we'll call it Syria who delays it in the Surah. Allah che will call it in the Surah. They say who Allah Sheikh will whom we have to run kitab. Right, so that they're claiming that the other side isn't on anything, it means that they don't have any redeeming qualities, nothing good about them, that they're completely categorically off. Well, homeopaths know, Nikita, he said, and they recite the scriptures a lot as suggesting that there has

to be some sort of good, even if they have a lot of bad things, even if they completely reject the message, we have to be just, we have to recognize what's good and what's bad. And this is why we have an Islam actually that Islam is not supposed to

exist in isolation.

As Muslims, we're not supposed to go out and just build our own intentional communities or communes that only have Muslims. Islam has meant to be lived practically, pragmatically, in society, alongside other people, the Prophet alayhi salatu, Salam lived among the idolaters, and Mecca, and then he lived among Jews and Medina. And that was the way it was. And there's things within Islam that accommodate for that, and give us guidance for how to do that when it comes to certain rules that have to do with marriage and certain rules that have to do with food. We have guidance where to draw the circle, what can we be okay with? And what do we have to put our foot down and say, That's

not okay. Well, Islam was not meant to be or we should say maybe Muslims were not meant to live completely in isolation, that they're meant to mix with the people. And this is, this is an expression of Allah's wisdom. There's wisdom behind this.

One of the things that make this a very, very wise part of Islam is that when you do this, when you live among other people who don't think the same as you, you get to show them the beauty of Islam. We see this every day in the West, there's lots of people who, you know, the smallest thing that we do in Islam and presses that we had the viral video of the the one Christian pastor who was riding a taxi, I think in New York City it was and the taxi driver was a Muslim and had the stop to pray though. And he went and he gave a whole sermon about it to his congregation about how inspiring it was that this Muslim individual had to stop to pray without realizing that this is normal behavior.

For us. This is not something new. You have people that were amazed at Habib, the UFC fighter, the former UFC fighter, who, when they were traveling around with him, he's the star, he's the big the head honcho, right. But he's not the one who's writing up front, he would always make his dad right up front as a sign of respect. And this is from a slam. And so you have people that are not used to this type of behavior. They're not used to this type of consideration for other people or this high and moral standard and was so when they become exposed to it, they love it. And it brings them closer to the deed. And the other piece of wisdom behind this why Muslims are meant to mix with the

people and Islam as a pragmatic, practical religion is that it shows Muslims, the false ways of those people who are outside of a stone. We see the way that people abuse alcohol, we see the ways that people gamble, we see the ways that people dress we see the ways that people raise their kids, it gets worse and worse in modern society, seemingly every year. And this is an opportunity. There's wisdom in this because we can look back and we can say Alhamdulillah for Islam, that the benefit of Assam, the blessing of Assam is the greatest blessing. There's nothing better than the blessing of Islam. Look at how much dignity we have, because of Islam. Look at how much cleanliness we have,

because of Islam. Look at how much purity we have when it comes to Islam. And that doesn't mean that every single one of us is living a perfect life and doing all of these things we sin, but we know what's right and we know what's wrong. This is something that I've reflect

that upon many times as a convert people who they're born into a Muslim family, they don't realize this amazing blessing or how amazing this blessing is. Because when you're from a Muslim family, even if you lead a life of sin, and we all sin, but even if you have a high degree of sin, let's say, you know, at the end of the day, what you have to do to get right, you know that if you want to straighten up, you start going to the mess sheet, you start reading poor and you start doing your liquor, you start getting better with your prayers, you start treating your parents, right, you know what to do what's right and what's wrong. But for those people who they're not from a Muslim family,

the scariest thing for them is that even if they want to do the right thing, they don't know where to start. They don't know what prayer looks like. They don't know which book is going to guide them. They don't know where to go, where they can worship Allah subhanaw taala and be with other people that are going to be part of the same project that they're part. So this is all part of the amazing wisdom of Islam. Islam is meant to be lived by people who mixed with a society, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, It's better that you mix with the people and be patient with their harm, then you retreat and never mixed with these people in the first place. And that's the

general wording that goes for both Muslims and being around non Muslims. And we hope that we live up to that expectation where we are attracting other people to a stem by our actions and we hope that we have faith that is sincere enough and sensibilities that are pure enough that we recognize the evil that when we see it, and we recognize the good when we see it