What was the Problem with the People of Lut

Thank you very much for inviting me. I love maths, I love maths, Queens and masculine Brooklyn and the whole concept of youth centered.

Dawa, and youth centered life, a lot of masajid. And organizations talk and talk and talk and talk about youth empowerment. But very, very few are willing to actually be crazy enough to turn over the keys to see what youth empowerment really looks like. And mass does that. And so that gives sort of authenticity, and an edge to what you do. And it's really, really cool to see, I'm always happy to come down. It's just a four hour drive from Utica.

Whenever we're in the neighborhood, we love to come through.

So tonight's talk, obviously, it's a very hot topic, we're talking about the people of loot. And obviously, that bears some resemblance. So it's not completely identical to the issues that we face today. But it provides a good sort of springboard to jump off. And to talk about it. I was forwarded a set of questions, I kind of chop them up and rearrange them. And so I'm going to take us through sort of looking at some of the verses that our brother just recited for us a second ago, the problem of Luke's people, right? This is sort of a paradigmatic story. Okay, come to the Quran, Allah Subhana. Allah, He tells us stories, and he teaches through stories. And there's a selectivity in

that process, obviously, because it's only 600. And in four pages, Allah subhanaw, Taala didn't tell us every single story that ever existed. That would be, you know, kind of difficult for us. He chose certain stories to put in there, and he chose to exclude others. And so you have to take very seriously that the stories that he chose to put in there, there, historically true, yeah, but they're also larger than life, meaning that they have continuous relevance. As time goes on. They resent certain types, or a certain sort of paradigms, or certain sort of archetypes that keep on happening over and over again in history. And so the story of luthiery, Saddam, and his people, it's

not 100%, analogous to what we're going through today. In fact, some of what we're going through today is actually much, much worse. And we'll talk about that. But it does give us again, that background, a place from which we can begin talking about issues of gender issues of sexuality, issues of desire, and everything else that surrounds them. So

we're talking about, we'll start with talking about the people have looked at a sedan, and particularly, the question that was posed to me was, how did they collectively get to the point where it was men that were trying to pursue other men for their sexual desire and their sexual pleasure? And I liked the way that the question was put to me because one word and one key word was putting that question that was collectively, collectively, because when this is going to frame the whole discussion today, if you look on an individual level, right, anybody can be given a series of tests from a loss of panel data, right? For some people, some people are tested with, you know, with

infidelity, other people are tested with kibbled, a tester with arrogance, other people are tested with showing off other people are tested with laziness, right? Every single one of us has been given tests by Allah Subhana Allah, and some people have been tested with this thing of sexual attraction or sexual desire towards the same sex. So for looking at things when it comes to the individual level. Well, that's when I as an Imam, put my pastoral hat on, and I try to attend to that person and say, you know, you're somebody who is struggling, and how are we going to approach this together? And how are we going to, you know, put you on a path where you're both obeying Allah

subhanaw taala, but you're also taking very seriously and very real, the issues that you have been dealt or the hand that you've been dealt with the person who gave me this question, they put that word in there collectively. And that gives it a whole new valence. And what I mean by that is that if you look at society today, do you know that Gen Z, okay, some estimates some data says that one out of five 20% One out of five people your age, identify as something that is gender dysphoric, whether it's you know, that they use, they them pronouns, or whether it's that they don't feel like they're exactly the same agenda as the body that Allah has given them, etc, etc, etc. This is an

enormous like we're talking Explan exponential explosion of people who are recording this type of issue, compared to even my generation. I'm a millennial, full disclosure, let alone the people before me, right. So can we explain this phenomenon just by this is just what individuals are going through, or this is just something that's in the water or the chemicals that are in the air or whatever, they might have a role. They might have a role, but there's something else going on.

Something that some social commentators and critics have called social contagion, okay, is that there is a dimension to this thing that has a an ideological element to it, not ideological element that is pushed on us in media, in movies, and in film and TV, and in schools and in other sorts of venues. So we're going to look at that, if you came here today, hoping for sort of like a more pastoral talk about you're an individual that's dealing with these things on an individual level, I'm just going to be very honest with you, this talk is not for you, right? If you have these issues, then you can approach me individually or somebody else who's probably more qualified to deal

with these things individually, to get the sort of historical attention that you need. But I'm talking about society. Today, I'm talking about where we're at as a country, I'm talking about where we're at. And all of the forces that are kind of pushing on us from outside that actually have effects, real consequences on how we experience life, and how we experience even something so intimate as our sexual desire.

One thing I want to I want to lead into so how can we account for this social contagion? How do we get from, you know, 1%, or less than 1%? We're talking fewer people than there are Muslims in the United States of America. Okay, who are either identifying in some sort of sexual identity that's attracted to the same sex? Or Thank you? May Allah bless you? May Allah bless you, I felt like I was like the voice from beyond or something like that. I knew we could do it.

Take a second. Enjoy that. All right.

How do we get from one place to another? All right, we weren't here before we have exponential explosion.

The key thing to understand, and it's going to be sort of a heresy. Compared to some of the things that were taught today, is that what you believe in actually matters? Surprise, surprise, when it comes to shaping how you experience life, and the decisions that you make and how you experience the world around you? Why do I call that a social heresy compared today? Because you and I were both brought up in a society if you were brought up in the United States of America, that told us time and time and time again, it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're a good person. How many times have we heard this mantra? And yet, this thing is the furthest from the truth actually,

what you believe in matters, everything, it's probably the most significant matter. Fourth thing, when it comes to shaping your capacity for the things that you're going to do the things that you think to say, even how you experience and feel emotionally the life that you live beliefs, shape, capacity for action, if you want a demonstration about why this is true, okay? Just consider this. If you're somebody who believes that there's an afterlife, okay, you believe that when you die, you're gonna go somewhere, there's going to be some sort of eternal consequences one way or another, good or bad for what you do? How is that going to affect your life on this earth? How is it going to

affect how you approach your daily routine? How's it going to affect what happens when you get cut off in New York City traffic and queens, which happens every single second of every single day, that you're here, right? You might want to unload on the person you might want to, you know, shoot on the bird or do worse than that, if you're one of the guys, right? Maybe you just come out of the gym and you got that testosterone pumping, not what's gonna stop you. You believe in the afterlife, you believe that there's eternal consequences, you believe that there's a perfect God who can hold you accountable to those eternal consequences rather than the imperfect and infallible cop that's

checking his phone when you're speeding by him on the freeway. Right? So that belief has a very, very consequential influence on what you're going to choose to do. Okay, now compare that to somebody who doesn't believe in the afterlife, somebody who thinks that we're just a sack of cells, we're just atoms, we're dead matter that there is no sort of afterlife there is no God, there is no eternal consequences. Well, guess what?

If it comes to you and me, it's gonna be me. I'm gonna choose me every time, right? I don't care about what's going to happen to you. I don't care about you see how what we believe in actually does influence our ability to act, or our inability to act.

That's why when you look at people of faith, you go back, if anybody's really curious about this, you can read some of the literature, the Holocaust, and people who went through the Holocaust, right? People who went to concentration camps, the people who fared the best, were the people who believed in God. The people who kept on acting on principle, who didn't cave in to just like acting like animals, were the people who believed in God, because everybody can say, well, it doesn't matter what you believe. Well, if you have your belly full, and I have my belly full, and we both have jobs and money and you know, Netflix, then it's cool. And we can maybe get along. But what

happens when war breaks out? What happens when famine breaks out? What happens when these sorts of things happen? Then the only people who do righteous these are the people of belief and the people who believe in something greater than

themselves. If I only believe in myself, that I'm going to take care of me more than I'm going to take care of you. People used to understand this, okay? If you rewind like 100 200 years in the English language, people use the word atheist in a very different sense than we use it today. Today we use the word atheist. And we're talking about somebody who doesn't believe in things or who believes that there is no God, it's kind of like a set of propositions that the person believes in. Rewind 100 200 years, people use the atheist to describe an immoral person, and say, This person is an atheist, it means not just talking about what they believe and what they don't believe in. But

their whole approach to morality, this person's like an immoral person, you can't trust them. They're not. They're not someone that you would depend upon. Right. Now we have a language for this. And it's fallen out of use, we used to talk about fidelity, and infidelity. And that's where the term infidel came from. Because the idea that you could actually be in a universe in a world that was so amazingly, stupendously fantastic, with foods and its colors and flavors, and friends and talents and fun stuff, and still disbelieve in the God that put it all there, that was considered such an act of ingratitude that people used to refer to it as infidelity. Well, we've come a long

way since that, whereas people now we're only talking about do you believe in something? Or do you not believe in something? And that is something where now we talk about atheists, and it has a very, very different meaning? What's the point of all it the point of all this is to say that what you believe in matters, everything. Whether you believe in an eternal God, a perfect God, eternal life, after death or not, is literally going to shape your possibilities, your horizons, what you can feel, what you can think, and what you're going to do. And so we come today,

to the point that we're at, where we have elementary school teachers that are targeting kids and asking them, what's your gender? Do you feel like a boy today? You feel like the girl today, right? Or all the other sort of nonsense that we see? And we say, how do we get so far? How do we come to this place? We came to this place, because of what we're submitting to. Okay, that's my thesis, what are we submitting to, for us as Muslims, our main thing, if you're going to distill it to a single sentence, is that we believe in submitting to the Creator. That's it, whereas the rest of society is telling us something very, very different. They're not telling us to not submit? No, that would be

better than telling us to submit to something else and telling us to submit to your designers submit to what you want. Whatever you want to do, that that's what you should do. And all it takes is a Disney movie or two to realize that this is what society has been pumping you with, since the time that you were a little girl or a little boy.

Hola, subhanaw taala talks about this phenomenon. Again, a lot of talks about archetype she talks about stories and those stories keep recurring and recurring and recurring throughout history. And so Allah actually discusses this. He says in the Quran era, it's a minute Takada, Allahu howhow. Is it Have you seen or considered the person that would take their own desires, what they want to do as if it was a god? Okay, remember that worship is more than just praying and fasting worship means obedience. So you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, what are you obeying? Are you obeying the Creator of the heavens and the earth? The person who gave you your wonderful self? Are you

obeying sort of whatever sort of occurs to you in the moment? Well, I want to do this or I want to do that, or I feel like this or I feel like that. Which one? Are you obeying? And which one are you submitting to? That's what it's supposed to get us to think about. Now, at this point, we have another question.

What's the nature of this sort of once you want something, okay. Whether it's a job, whether it's a car, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a certain lifestyle? Okay.

Let's get a real cute example. Okay, yesterday was hot, right? Was yesterday hot? Yes. It was really, really hot. Okay. What do you want? When it's hot outside?

Water shade?

Ice cream, maybe? I just gonna sounds good, right? Let's go with ice cream for a second. Okay, it's super hot like soup. You want ice cream?

It's not? Yes, yes.

It's nothing wrong with that. You can want ice cream. I love ice cream. Okay, but now we have a decision to make. Okay, are we going to get the ice cream? Are we not going to get the ice cream?

This is actually like a philosophy experiment. What you choose is actually going to have a consequence on how desire functions. Let's put it another way.

It will reveal what you think about desire is choosing to have ice cream on a hot day. Is it something that's going to satisfy that desire? Or is it something that's going to make that desire stronger in the future?

You can make an argument for both right? But there's definitely a component if we're going to talk about society or Islam versus modern society. Modern society is only telling you

If you feel like you want to have ice cream and baby, you better go get ice cream, that the only way to fulfill your desire is to satisfy is to go out and do it. And if you don't, you're going to live in so much internal anguish and cognitive dissonance that you might just one day kill yourself. Right? That's what society tells us. That's not the only way to deal with desire. There's another way to perceive desire. And that is that every time you choose to act on a desire, you actually make it a little bit stronger. Okay? It was what was it yesterday? 100. And something? What was the temperature 90 something? Okay, it's in the 90s. Let's say tomorrow, it's 105. All right, yesterday,

you chose to get ice cream, tomorrow's 105? How likely are you to go out and get ice cream tomorrow? Are you more likely or less likely, since you went out and got ice cream yesterday? You're more likely, right? So this is something that Aristotle called habitus. It means that when you choose something, it actually kind of paves a pathway. Like if you guys are in the neuroscience, there's like a neural pathway. And so it makes it more likely that you're going to choose that thing in the future. Okay. This is another way to think about desire, and how desire operates. Why are we getting into this, because desire is not some sort of sacred thing, okay, that God just gave you your

desires and your desires are sacred. And now you have to act on your desires, or else you're going to be a miserable person, desires are plastic, desires can be shaped desires can be pushed this way and pushed that way, and they can be strengthened, they can be weakened, right? It's not something that's absolutely essential to who you are. Basically, if you want to sum up traditional pre modern wisdom of every single civilization and religion in place, they say that you are not your desires, well, let's say you are more than your desires, you're not dealt a death sentence, or you're not doomed to only be your desires. If you happen to desire something, then you have the choice, whether

you're going to engage with that thing or not, whether you're going to choose to go down that path and maybe make it a little stronger, or whether you're going to choose another way, and go in a different direction, entirely. We see the relevance of this today, because society is telling us that we can't live if you have a sexual attraction to somebody of the same sex as you to not act on that desire is basically just a betrayal of your autonomous and authentic self, the worst thing that you could do, you're going to live in this horrible sort of conflicted nature, to the point where Allah knows what's going to happen to you. Right? It's based on a certain type of logic and a

certain type of understanding of what desire is Islam and every other faith tradition out there says, No, hey, wait a second, we can look at desire in a completely different way. We actually want to have a critical engagement with our desires, we're not willing to be doomed to the things that desires that come up every day, if I find myself if somebody finds themselves attracted to the same second person, that doesn't mean that that's a life sentence. That doesn't mean that this thing is an essential part of who I am. It doesn't mean that this thing can't be shed or shifted or molded or pushed, it actually can. But it depends upon our beliefs,

pivoting for a second. So we have this archetype story. Okay, the people have looked at a sedan, and what they were doing and what they were on. Let's look at the Koran for a second some of the ads that the brother recited, may Allah reward him. And let's look real carefully close reading to see how Allah subhanaw taala describes this people and describe this sin. Before we get into downstream stuff like gender ideology, and you know, this sort of thing. We're going to talk just about what has been termed homosexuality, even though that's not that's not the perfect term for it. Right? same sex attraction, I think is a better term, even better acting on your same sex attractions,

which is what obviously was the cardinal sin of the people have looked? What are the characteristics that Allah Subhana Allah uses to describe this group of people in this particular sin? The first thing that he says is that this particular sin that they did, it was unprecedented, and unnatural. Meaning literally, nobody did it before them. He says, well, a little fun. If Caudalie call me he, that's a tune Alpha Heisha NASA come home behind me a hottie mineralium, Milan, I mean, this thing that you're doing, that nobody has done before you, okay? It's no coincidence that the LGBTQ lobby and the gender sort of ideology has really, really worked hard to try to find examples in the past

of traditional indigenous people that had same sex attractions or whatever, in order to justify themselves themselves on this account and make it seem natural to make it seem like it's just a normal part of human culture and physiology. Allah is bound to Allah tells us straight up. This is something that was unprecedented. Something that had never literally happened before. That before the people of Zuta lay Sadam, this thing didn't exist, there wasn't even a name for it. And so they were the first ones to go down this path, and it was unnatural, and we'll get to why it was unnatural in a little bit, actually. Next. The second thing Allah subhanaw taala characterizes the

sin as is wasteful

less wasteful. He says in the course the words of loot arrays ram in the cupola. tattooin original Shaohua 10 Min dune in the SAP bill and Tom Foreman must reform you are a people who waste what's the waste here?

Life? How? Because Allah created them and they know exactly. Okay, I thought you were going deeper than that. But yeah, there's a different way that life is wasted life is literally wasted. What comes? Okay, is everybody mature enough here to talk about this? You're supposed to be male and female. So like if they're doing that they're going backwards. Okay. Yes.

reproductive capacity, thank you life, that's life literally quite literally. Okay. reproductive capacity is ended up in the wrong place. Okay, this is waste. alasa pounds. Ana, put this thing here for a reason. It's not rocket science, you've got a nut, you've got a boat, the things go together, Allah subhanaw taala created these two things that go together, he created the institution of marriage, he created all of this for the reproduction of the human species for the continuation of the human species. So you guys are going to do what now you're going to take this thing and you're going to put it to use how complete waste complete waste. It's like, for example, let's imagine,

let's imagine maths like gets really rich, may Allah make maths really rich? Seriously, money.

Like you're swimming in money, like a pool of money you can do you can open 100 youth centers all across the city. Okay, and so little miskeen Imam Tom comes in town, and you're like, you know,

let's give him a little something, you know, like, let's, let's throw them a Rolex or something or a car, you know, because you're that, you know, just like, you got that much money. Okay, let's say you give me like a Tesla or something.

Just saying, imagine I took that gift. Okay. And imagine instead of using that gift in the way that it was designed to be used, which is what?

Driving, right transportation. I don't know. I go in and roll and like a demolition derby with a Tesla that you gave me. I got some nice spray paint, you know, and I like make it look real mean put, like, you know, fangs on the front or something. And then I just like, destroy the thing. How would you feel as mass? Like you just gave me this gift? And I literally just trashed it. That would be a sign of ingratitude from me. Correct? Correct. That will be a sign of ingratitude Allah Spano Tata gave you we literally call them by Isaac F and biology class reproductive organs. What are reproductive organs good for reproducing? Yes, if you're using them in a way that is against

reproduction or the reproductive capacity that allows plants to intended you're wasting it you're wasting it just really really simple black and white it's like mathematics like we I don't know how well okay that's another story.

So Allah spends otter is dead correct when he says mostly form that you guys are wasteful this something that's capacity a lot of talks about the marriage bond and how you're supposed to complete one another male and female you're supposed to find Sakina and one other all the things that we recite during those casts, right? All the beautiful add half our deen right the things from the Hadith, and you're going to waste it. How ungrateful This is a characteristic of this or something very characteristic to the sin. The next thing It Gets Better It Gets more interesting. Allah subhanaw taala describes this sin and the people who are caught up in the sin as people who are

intolerant Oh yeah. intolerance and hates purity. While my Canada Weber call me he Ella and Cole who rijo home in Korea, Chico, in the home owner so you have to the Haroon their only response when Luca Alayhi. Salam brought them facts brought them biology brought them you know, revelation from Unhide. What was their only response? The only response was get them out of here. Kick them out, get rid of this guy. And then they say something interesting. There are people who are pure.

So look at first of all, how corrupt they become that what's dirty becomes good to them. And what's good to them becomes dirty. But second, look at how they're intolerant. They can't handle to be challenged. And haven't we reached that point in our society where if you try to stand up and if you try to challenge this, people then say you're a bigot. Get them out of here. doxim cancel them, put them off of his platform. Dave Chappelle, even Dave Chappelle, get them off on Netflix, right? This is exactly what Allah told us. And the irony why we find it ironic is because when this group of people were put when they were in a position of oppression or marginalization, the way that they

drummed up sympathy for themselves was by preaching tolerance. All we want to do is be tolerated. We just want tolerance. And then once they get a little bit of power, we see the real

already have it. Just like louzada He sat down saw the reality of it. It was never about tolerance. It was about a power grab, and then trying to marginalize and oppress everybody else. And there's other ads that reify the same thing.

Next thing that allows us to characterize this group of people who have it's not just fallen into the sin as we're gonna see in a second, it's dedicated to the sin taking the sin as their Deen bought in and invested their selfhood in this sin is that the people who support them and enable them are also guilty. And that's kind of scary, but that's bound to ourselves says for NJ now who had a whole elaborate who can let me know when or if the brother just recited and then another i and another surah Allah spawn to Allah he says don't have a lot more method Allah Dena CAFO Murata know what I'm not look what was a lot, Canada data Aberdeen in a bad in a Saudi haina Sahana tell them

they betrayed. So he's talking specifically about the wife of loot on a sedan.

And that even though loot Ali Salam was preaching the truth and was trying to guide his people out of his goodwill and his love for them, we'll see that in a second. What was his wife's position?

His wife was an enabler. His wife was an ally, his wife was someone that was trying to carve out space for them to do what they were doing.

And then what happened when it was time for the punishment of a law sponsor alaka to come down, she was swept up in the punishment just along with the people who are doing it. Scary, scary. Now, we're not talking about people who made some sort of political calculation or miscalculation, and thought that whatever we're talking about people who believe that they have the right to be doing what they're doing. That's a different thing. Right, a political miscalculation versus a theological error. Somebody who believes that they should have the right they should have the right to do what they want to do in the bedroom. What's What does that have to do with me last month, Allah tells you

right here what it has to do with you. That if this were a different scenario, if Who are you in the story that's why a lot of talks on archetypes, yes, it's historically true, but it's also an archetype. Find yourself in a story Who are you in a story?

Hopefully, we're on the side of loot on a sedan. Hopefully, we're not on the side of his wife. Hopefully for darn sure we're not on the side of the people that loot on a sedan is trying to stop.

And so Allah is bound to otter, he also the next thing he characterizes them as people who deserve punishment, and we're going to pay attention real close to why they deserve punishment from other people who not just did an action and not just did a sin, but they took that sin as their men hedges their method as their lifestyle as there are Thida as their dean. This is my way and nobody else can tell me what to do. That's none of your business. What am I what am torna Ollie Matera Sandler cave akan kibbutz will usually mean a lot calls them criminals. Why, in the fee that he will mechanic Clara home, meaning that I that the brother recited for us, because they didn't believe it wasn't

necessarily because of their sin, every single one of us sins, this sin, honestly, and this is something that other people have brought up and it's correct.

It's not as bad as *. It's not shirk is the worst sin to worship something else besides the last time data is the worst thing that you could possibly do. So even no matter how heinous This crime is, it doesn't reach that level. However, if somebody becomes dedicated, somebody tries to justify a sin. There's a big difference between somebody who says, Listen, I struggle with this, and I do it. But I know what's wrong. And I hope that Allah guides me versus somebody who says, nah, this is what I'm doing. And I don't care what Allah says about it. Two very, very different things. The second group of people or the people of Luther today, he said that they were so committed to their desires,

they were so invested in their desires, they believe that their desires were who they were. Sounds familiar. And so it ended up being very, very bad for them. That's a brief summary of how Allah subhanaw taala characterizes this group of people and a particular thing that they were involved in. Let's check the other side. How was the reaction of Luca he said, I'm to them, okay, if we're talking about archetype. So this is something that repeats and we find ourselves in a similar though different situation as Luke, that we better pay attention to how he handled it, right. What is his orientation towards them, no pun intended, what is his sort of way that he's going to, to deal with

them? We find some really important lessons. The first thing that you notice from Luke Alehissalaam, is that everything that he does is based off of sincerity and goodwill. He loves his people. And part of loving his people is that he wants him to be guided, and he wants their success in the afterlife. And this is a terrible irony. Because you have people these days, Muslims like you and me, you know, we're Koofi, wear a hijab or whatever. But when it comes to this issue, we'll say well, I just want them to be happy. I want the

never be able to do what's going to fulfill them. I want them to be able to follow their heart, I want them to be able to be fulfilled, as if you're doing that person a favor, you're not doing that person a favor, and you're not showing that you're loyal to this person. Because if you really cared about this person, if you were really loyal to this person and had Goodwill for them, one of the best for them, you wouldn't just care for the couple of decades that they were here on earth. You would also care about their afterlife and what's going to happen to them after as well that's real loyalty. So Luca, he Salam is completely loyal to his people. And so he has complete goodwill. He

wants them to be guided. He doesn't take any sort of intellectual wages from being right and they're wrong. He's gripped in discomfort and sort of awkwardness and exasperation and frustration that they're not responding to his message and his argumentation. And we see this as that he's anguished. That's the word I was looking for. He's anguished by what his people are going through and what his people have fallen into. And he's Alaska says well let manager at rasuna Lutron. See me him. What are cubby him? Nara, Wakata, Pather, Yamaha see you. He was tormented on the inside, because of what his people had fallen into. And that's the sign of sincerity. And that's the sign of goodwill. And

in other places. lowpoly Salam, he stresses his sincerity to them. And he actually tries to demonstrate it, and to prove it to them so that they know that he's not trying to just be a jerk, and stop them from having a good time. He says in the law komatsuna Amin, well known as Alchemilla, him and Azure, in agilely, Illa, Allah, Allah, Allah means that Listen, I am just a trustworthy messenger that sent to you. And I'm not asking you for anything, I don't want money from you, I don't want fame, I don't want power at all my status. My reward only comes from Allah subhanaw taala. That's somebody who's sincere. That's somebody who deserves to be trusted. So if you want to

do Tao, or if you want to interact with anybody in your community, whether they're Muslim or not, or if they're Muslim, or struggling, these sorts of things, don't think that you're going to get anywhere,

not adopting looks sincerity, or his goodwill towards his people. The very, very, very first thing you need to have as sincerity and goodwill, don't get yourself on a high horse, thinking that you're some pious person, and you're some sort of righteous person, and this person has nothing that's toxic, and it's only going to ruin you. And who knows what's going to happen on the Day of Judgment. You have to come just like the prophets came from a position of sincerity and goodwill, that the only thing that's motivating you and your actions and your statements, the fact that you want what's best for this person in this life, and the next.

If you start from that level of sincerity, then you're going to take every single reasonable mean and tactic and strategy to make sure that the things that you say and the things that you do are going to be received well, right. So if luthiery Salam has completely loyal to his people, and he wants their success, he's going to think super hard about his strategy and how he's going to try to maximize the likelihood, give them any sort of fighting chance to come back to the truth. He's not going to be just like, Yo, you know, I told y'all and y'all done for See you later. Bye. I'm out. That's not the way he's going to try and try and try it and he's going to shift tactics and you're

going to see that it's a demonstration of his loyalty and sincerity. The first thing that he does is he tries to appeal to their sense of taqwa, their sense of righteousness, their commonality that recognizing that Allah subhanaw taala is the is the Lord of All the Worlds he says, photog Allah will be your own. Be conscious of Allah. Yes. Even in your sexual proclivities, your sexual activities, your sexual desires, be conscious of Allah even in that and obey him. Okay, this isn't out of bounds. Everything has to be according to what Allah subhanaw taala wants.

The next that didn't work, obviously, they were overcome with their desire to the point where they didn't want to hear it, remember their response, just get out of here. We're gonna kick you out. So the next tactic that Luca Lee slam uses, he tries to reason with them, he tries okay, you're not going to go with righteousness and piety. Let's try to reason with you. And so Lootah Lee cerami says a tuna the Quran Minette al Amin, whatever wanna Holla Holla Mahala camera Bukom Mina, as well as recon, Bella and some common doom. He says this The one of the ads that was recited? Are you guys going to approach men among the creation and leave that which was created for you your spouse's?

Your wife? So he's trying to reason with them? It doesn't make any sense. Who did Allah create for you? We've gone back to reproductive organs, right? Who did Allah put here for you? Are you going to abandon them to go after people of the same sex as you is trying to respond to their reason and we have a parallel sort of tactic that we can go here with evolutionary biology, right? If you talk to even atheist, people who are atheists should be sympathetic or people who believe in evolution should be very sympathetic.

Guess what, if you want to take a homosexual sort of activity and behavior and apply it to all society, evolution has done for and we are done for as a species, this is an anti evolutionary activity. Right. So that's the sort of second sort of maneuver or the sort of tactic that Luther acnm was trying to appeal to China appeal to their reason, because they wouldn't listen to a theological discussion or sort of channeling their fear of a loss of power and data. The last thing that he tries with them before he kind of gives up but doesn't really give a OC is he tries to plead with them and he tries to divert them to something else. And this is from Hickman, this is from

wisdom. Sometimes, sometimes when it comes to people that are wrapped up in sin, it's best to just lead them one step away from it. If you can't lead them more than that, to give them something else to do instead. Right? It's the lesser of two evils. Right. We hear that a lot. Look at how Luca, he Sadam, he went through a certain sort of like, you know, protocol. Now he's at the last straw and the last straw is lesser of two evils. And so he says to them, which I who call me who? You Harada la he want me and Corbin who can who Yama Luna say at all they have told me how old How old are you been at? Home the odd Hello Lacan. He says, you know, here's my daughter's,

like, that's kind of crazy, right? But look at how he's pushed and look at how it comes from his sincerity and his goodwill. He's tried everything he's tried to be like fear Allah respond to Allah. Okay, that didn't work. All right. What about your reason? What about you know, think about it, logic, whatever it didn't work. It's like, take my daughter's anything to try to give these people a way out from sinning and going down the path of they're gone. But what was their response? We see again, and again and again, that they're not having it. Why aren't they having it? Is it because that they're simply overcome by the desire. Now, it's much deeper than that with a people of look,

or a salon. What it is, is that they are dedicated to it as an aspie, that they're dedicated to the thought of following their desires that their desires are their God, just as the last account Allah warned us about. And so after trying to appeal to their god consciousness after trying to appeal to their reason, after trying to appeal to even just any diversionary tactic, and whatever. Now we come to the stage of Allah Allah. Now we come to the stage where Lusardi said, he disavows and he distances himself. Look at how loyal he was.

You and I would have given up long before the loop on a synaptic, but he stuck with it until the very end until it was completely hopeless. And then at that point, he says, call it in knee, Lee, many come meaner or lean. I despise your actions. Look at that. Another lesson. He didn't say, you as a human being all of you. He said, I despise your actions once you're doing this thing is completely wrong.

And after that, the next thing that lives on Instagram does after he disavows the story, this is himself the weapon of the believers he makes do. He asks Allah subhanaw taala to intervene. Rabina Genie will actually be Mariama Loon, Bala Robin solani, Allah will call me off CD.

And we see that his dua is answered and soon that he is granted the assistance that he's asking for. But there's one other thing that looked out at Sam tries one thing that he asked for, and this is going to be super important to the very, very end of this talk. In addition to asking Allah subhanaw, to audit to sort of deal with it, look, makes a passing comment. And it's something that's very instructive to us. He says, God, lo Anna Lee como, oh, we Illa Rockton Shadi, if only I had some power over you, or I could lean on some sort of pillar,

talking about capacity and talking about some sort of ability to structure society, we're talking about some sort of ability to influence Ruth Alehissalaam. He was actually expressing regret that he didn't have this power. He didn't have this ability over that. And so he was resigned to making dua until letting the angels take care of what they were going to take care of.

Time to re emphasize what was it that stopped the people of Luca Lee Sudan from taking a Scotland so I mean, if you look at it, it was very generous. Who thought he cinammon literally tried everything. I don't think a single one of us could blame loot Alehissalaam for giving up too soon. He tried to appeal to their god consciousness that didn't work. He tried to appeal to their reasons that didn't work. He tried to give them an alternative, even leaving behind all the messed up sort of beliefs that they had that didn't work. He may do that. He expressed regret. Maybe he was even blaming himself a little bit for not having established authority or control over the society. That's all of

what he went to. But what was it that stopped his people from getting the message and following

It was their disposition of ingratitude towards the loss of panel data. And we call that it's not simply a sin, it's taking that sin, as this is my religion, this is what I'm following, I would rather follow the things that I want to do than follow the revelation, the guidance from my Creator.

And that's a very, very, very dangerous place to be in.

For the remainder of the talk, we're going to now try to transition and pivot once more to talking about today. And the situation that we find ourselves in presently.

Can this happen to us was the question that was posed to me today, where a whole lot or many of the newer generation becomes, quote, unquote, sexually deviant? I've already answered that question as Oh, yeah, you betcha, as they say, in the Midwest.

And we've already seen it to be honest, again, look at the numbers, we have people who are now we have one out of five Gen Z is identifying with gender dysphoria in some way, or shape or fashion, saying that either they're not sure what gender they belong to, or they're not sure that their gender corresponds their biological sex, and many, many, many other permutations beyond that. And that's where we see that this thing is a little bit different from what Luca, he said I'm faced and what the people of Italy salaam are doing. The sin of Lourdes people was fairly simple and quaint in comparison to what we find today, because their sin was, you know, I'm attracted to this type of

person or the same sex as I am. And by doing it, I'm going to do it and no one's going to stop me. Okay? That's a lot different from putting into doubt. The very idea of gender, the very idea of sex, you got people trying to push now to the point where they're saying that some of the books that they're pushing in elementary school saying that, at the time of birth, doctors, they just put take their best guess, as to what your gender is.

This is something that's much more dangerous, in my estimation, than the thing that the people have looked at a lot of them are caught up with.

How do we get here? Why is ours worse than theirs? What are the sorts of different complicating factors that have led us to where we are? Well, we exist in a time where our entire culture has been hyper sexualized, if you're on Instagram, I don't need to say another word. Okay, I don't care how clean your search history is, or how clean your viewing history is, once you upload something, the algorithms gonna throw you something, they're gonna throw you something, and they're gonna try to tempt you towards something that as we say, Sex sells, right? And so we live in this kind of paradox where you go out on the street, you know, subhanAllah, the things that people wear these days, it's

a very similar thing, sex and sexualized existence is everywhere. Everybody is trying to tell you subliminally, not necessarily explicitly, but subliminally that you're worth, especially the ladies, sorry, but you know that they're targeting you more than they are us that your worth is tied up to how much sex appeal you have. That's a society teaches. And unfortunately, it has tremendous, tremendous, tremendous effects. Now within that hyper sexualized space, where now everybody is sort of valuating themselves, you know how like Forbes 500 talks about like, what's your net worth? Well, on the you know, the school playground, your net worth is your is your sex appeal. And now you've

got society and your sort of surroundings that are sort of evaluating you're putting this value on you according to your sex appeal. What happens if you don't match up to the standard that they set up? What if you don't have the puppy lit the puffy lips and the big booty and the whatever that they're telling you is supposed to contribute to your sex appeal today, this is a mature audience only discussion, by the way, sorry, if you can't handle it, you know,

what's gonna happen is you're going to start to question yourself, you're gonna start to question so maybe I'm not as much of a woman, maybe I'm not as much of a man.

I don't have the full beard. I don't have the big rippling biceps. I don't have, you know, the chiseled six pack. And, you know, it happens to guys too. That was the guys too. But unfortunately, the ladies are much more targeted than the men, but it happens to guys too.

And so what happens is back when I was growing up, you know, if you weren't sleeping arounds, they used to say, what are you gay? Well, now, if you're not doing these sorts of things, doing these sorts of things to sort of increase your sex appeal or flaunt what you have. Now the message is, or maybe you're not really a girl at all. Maybe you're really a boy, maybe you've got gender dysphoria, maybe you're really somewhere in between maybe there's a new gender, one of the 172 genders that are recognized out there that you need to identify yourself with now, you don't fit up to this hyper sexualized ideal.

That's one ingredient among many. Another ingredient is this idea of moral autonomy. Autonomy is the idea that you have you derive your value and satisfaction in life from doing what you want to do.

Right, we talked about this in the beginning, that the idea is you are your desires. So if you want to do something, and anybody's telling you to not do it, they're toxic, they're oppressive, get them out of here, patriarchy, whatever. Because they're assuming that you are your desires. And if you don't act on your desires, and you just infer a whole lot of trouble and frustration,

isolation, individualism also plays a big role, we're more fractured as a society than perhaps any at any point in the past, it's crazy to think that you can have 1000s of followers on the gram, and not have a single good friend, to talk to a rely on in your time of need, nobody that's really going to go to bat for you, no matter what they say. That's where we're at, in this moment in society. And so, you know, they say that the wolf goes after the lone sheep, okay, if you have a strong support network, you've got friends that are ride or die, you've got, you know, good family around you good influences, you're going to be more resilient to these pressures that society is putting on you. But

if you don't have any close friends, or most your friends are fit, you know, they're fakes. They're phonies. They're not real friends, your family is kind of torn apart, you feel very isolated and very alone, you're going to be much, much more susceptible to this type of thinking, questioning your value, questioning your gender questioning, whether you really match up and belong.

Part of that is a loss of purpose we have

the real pandemic wasn't COVID, it was the loss of purpose that we have in society. And nobody knows what the heck we're here for, or what we're doing, you know, and part of that we can put blame on a lot of it a lot of different directions for that we don't have to go on to that all here. But we've lost the plot. We're getting too distracted by the side quests, of life. And we need to keep in mind that the real reason that we're here is the afterlife. And this is the talk I gave in Brooklyn last night, that the real reason you're here is to die. Sorry, it's to die. But it's to die. Well, it's to die, right? And everything else is just frosting on top of the cake. And the last thing is that

we have an a machine of indoctrination, unlike anything anybody could have dreamed of fit around. If they don't have the weapons of indoctrination that they have in American society, or man, he'd be like, Rob, he'd be like that guy in a purple suit behind the tree and the mean was rubbing his hands together, right?

The centralization of schools, the curriculum, the boards of curriculum, you've got the American psychiatrist and pediatric Academy with their latest standards and protocols. And everybody's completely captured on this new gender ideology. And they see dollar signs just like Scrooge McDuck because guess what, if you go on with gender

reassignment surgery, they take away your one reproductive organs and try to give you another, they just found a lifelong patient.

So we are in a position. Unfortunately, that is much worse than the position that Luther a sedan found himself. And in my humble opinion, I could be wrong. But the way I see it, it's a lot more deep than what Luther they said I'm faced.

So how are we going to protect ourselves? What are we going to do?

Two things only because they're big things. Okay, the first thing it comes back to recognizing who's your God at the end of the day, and this is the fitting of our time, right? Is your god Allah?

Or is your God your desires is your God what you want to do is your God, your sense of self, who you think you are? Well, that's not who I am. I gotta be true to myself on my own truth, live my best life.

They're all slogans just to get you up. And those people who are pumping you up with these slogans, they're not going to help you on a day of judgment.

Your real God is Allah. Your submission is due to a lot, not yourself. Not what you want, not what you think is cool. Allah is bound to order. He's the one and he sent the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, for us to bed word conformed to oh my god, conformity yet to conform to, we're supposed to conform to something. Whether it's Khadija or Aisha or selama was the prophet Muhammad Ali Salam or the other companions, find somebody and conform yourself as best you can. That's the way to have success in this life than the next.

And not to submit to either the pressures that are on you from outside or to these things that happen on the inside. You'll be surprised, you know, as imam, I hear everything. Okay. I hear everything. And you will be shocked at the things that some people are tested with. You think that calling your agenda into question is bad.

Or

that is not even the beginning of what some people deal with. And yet, I've seen some people get through it. Maybe it took him 10 years, maybe it took him 15 years, maybe it took them 20 years, but they decided from the beginning. I'm not going to be defined by this thing. I

I am not my desires, whether it's my sexual attraction, whether it's the kind of whatever I want to be or how I want to be seen or how I want to be perceived, that's not me, I'm someone else, I have a soul and a soul first. If that's your decision, you're going to be okay. It's not going to be easy. It's going to take time. But eventually, it's going to be okay. That has to be the paradigm for every single one of us that we have a paradigm of submission that we submit to a loss of data. And to not anything else, remember that you had to start with the negation law.

There's no God, nothing worth submitting to nothing worth a bank in the law, except the last panel data. And this is why identity on the side quest to identity is not enough. The Muslim community, we got tied up in identity politics, especially how sort of politics happened, you know, in the United States where we started thinking, Okay, everybody else is agitating, and rallying, and sort of coming together on an identity. Well, we have our Muslim identity to that's true. But being Muslim is much more than an identity. It's about being constituted by something. It's about having something on the inside. Right? Don't only worry about how you identify, worry about being

identifiable.

You can identify as a Muslim all day long.

But when you die, and you go to the gates,

or the angel is going to recognize you, are you identifiable as a Muslim or not. That's what really matters.

And finally, that little statement of Luth Alehissalaam if only I had power,

if only I had a rockin something to lean against.

As America,

we've got rights. We've got room to maneuver, we can still make mass youth centers, we can still make Islamic schools, we can still do a lot of stuff, we have a lot of liberties, we got a lot of room to move, okay.

It's not guaranteed forever, that we're going to have those rights. That's not guaranteed forever. 50 years from now, America could be like Sweden, they could be taking your kids away from you. It could happen, right? Canada is already on the path it could happen. So if Luca he sedan had a regret, you know, when I was in Medina, I used to ask the older students. I was like to her Lisa, right? Are they female always would ask the prophesy Saddam, tell me about the bad stuff. All the other companions would ask about the good stuff, or they was like, tell me about the bad stuff. When I was in Medina, I would talk to the older students. And I would ask them, don't tell me about what

you've achieved or accomplished. Tell me about something that you regret.

Because regrets are always more honest. regrets, regrets are always more sober. And regrets are always more real. So take a lesson from the regret that little eraser them set here, if only I had power. If only I had some sort of influence over them, someone that I could rely on or something that I could rely on.

We have the ability to build political power here community building, you can elect people to a school board, you can elect people as mayor, you can elect people as City Council. You can have judges you can have people make laws, you can you have a lot of room to build power, maybe more room than in any other country. I don't know maybe to build power.

As every single one of you comes to the point where you have to decide what you're going to do with your life. And I know your parents are pushing the Holy Trinity on you have Doctor lawyer engineer. But if I could stump for something else, we need a whole lot more than that. As a Muslim community, we need to look at how to build power as a Muslim community so that we can carve out a space so that we can resist both culturally, intellectually and otherwise. And Allah Subhana Allah knows best bottle coffee calm. I appreciate all of your attention.