Walead Mosaad – Session 4 Beautiful Islam
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AI: Transcript ©
Salam aleikum, I forgot to get Smilla Rahmanir Rahim hamdulillah
Robert Alameen on Homosassa wa sallim wa barik ala negotiator to
the Alameen. So you didn't know Mohammed Abdullah Al Hashimi
apology while earlier was Javi, Manuel from about. So Hamdulillah
I believe this is our fourth session from the sessions entitled
beautiful Islam. And I'm very grateful and honored that you all
take some time out, to participate with us and thinking about the
bridge between our practice and our spirituality, and how to
traverse across that bridge. And basically, how to be in this life.
As the Prophet SAW Selim said as a traveler, or IBD savvy, or someone
who just passing through, and understanding that the next abode
is the final abode, it's the real abode when a healthy adult or
mammal will cut, or McCobb. And that this is a place of passing
through. And the next one is where we will find our solace, and our
tranquility and our serenity, serenity and may Allah small town
to facilitate that for all of us, in sha Allah. So
in the previous sessions, we touched a little bit upon
kind of a vision of what we think of this beautiful Islam. And we
stated that Islam is intrinsically beautiful. And it may not appear
as such to some not because of the deen, but of the today you, which
is the way that people practice and apply their Islam or live
their Islam. And so, looking at it from that perspective, then the
next question or the logical question is Well, how do we go
about practicing in a way that is beautiful, that is, in here, we
define beautiful as that which is good, that which is
our FITARA, that which is inherent with our, our primordial states,
our FITARA that which is by its very nature, to people of sound,
nature's themselves will find magnetic and attractive and be
interested in and find themselves in it, and so forth. So, our all
have preserved this tradition. And they have taken the words of our
profits or set them and the words of Allah subhanaw taala in the
Quran. And they have devoted not just one lifetime, but many, many
lifetimes, over many, many centuries, to understanding these
beautiful words, which are the texts and auslin of Quran or
Hadith, and also spent just as much time thinking about how to
embody these virtues and these ethics and these principles that
are elucidated in both the Quran and the Sunnah, the Hadith. And
so, along with the actual texts themselves, we also have the
methodology, the way by which we approach them, which also has been
studied and has been disseminated and articulated over many, many
centuries. So Islam is an inherited tradition, it's a wisdom
tradition.
And so, the words of the wise before us, they become
disseminated and understood and transmitted from one generation to
the next. And so we had talked about
the importance of discerning reality.
And how,
you know, even though the, the words of the Quran and even the
words of the Hadith seem sometimes couched in this sort of ancient
language, and Arabic is an ancient language, but it is also unique
language, whenever you find Arabic described in the Quran, usually it
has the words movie and after
movie, and movie in is that mean a tab beam or minute begginer,
olamine Attabad all of these things are applicable. So, that
which is elucidating that which is clear, that which is a
in conclusive proof, and beginner so all of these things are there
about the language of the Quran, the the Arabic language of the
Quran, and in it there are many layers and shades of meaning. And
also in it we by not just reading the words, but also contemplating
the words and letting them kind of be and form into the fiber of our
spiritual beings. Then we can also begin to decipher as we decipher
the eight the signs within the book and muster within the lines
of the Quran. We can also decipher the lines of the book of creation,
which is the other book that they refer to Kitab Allah He and manure
so the manure is the one that is the one that we see. Ostensibly
with
Our eyes, but also interpret and Fathom with our hearts. And the
Quran is the key to both is the key to obviously understanding the
Quran itself. And also to understanding the signs all around
us signs on the horizons as the Quran says, okay, then you can
worry about human medical too similar to an Antonio guna Milan
Mussolini. And so and thus we have shown Ibraheem Alehissalaam the
signs in the meta code
in amongst the other realm of the realm of the other horizons so
that he can be amongst the Mussolini, of those who have
greater certainty of
all the items in movie movie unfussy home alpha to zero, and
upon the earth. There are signs for you to contemplate with the
emphasis and within your own cells fly too soon do not have this
Masirah alarm khulumani of Kahuna we do not have hearts by which
they can understand which they can see and and and elucidate and
understand what is real and what is not real. Into tabula hija
Allah come from Cornyn. If you have Taqwa of Allah subhanaw
taala, he will give you a for call, right? That tool by which to
decipher it's a spiritual tool. It's a spiritual state by which
you can decipher truth from reality. And so these are all kind
of things that we can we can avail ourselves of, there are ways of
knowing. But to go back to kind of,
if we had to put it within a type of framework, which is easier to I
think understand going moving forward, what type of framing
would it look like? And so we would discern three major routes
of knowing
when we may have touched upon this in the previous class, but I'm
gonna go into a bit further. So three major routes of learning, of
knowing and discerning reality and knowing truth from fiction, and
truth from falsehood. And what is clear from that which is
distorted, was that which is orchestrated before us, to present
us with some sort of picture that does not correspond to reality.
And, you know, we can make an argument that this has become even
more important in the times that we live in now with words like
post truth, or concepts like post truth and fake news and deep
fakes. And who knows what else is going to be used to describe how
people can seemingly manipulate
reality and it's not really that new.
The Sahara, the sorcerers of Moses, time of Musa alayhis salam
also did something similar.
Sahara uns is how the Quran describes it. So how do I
Unionists you know, they, they deceive the eyes, by their magic
the eyes of the people, but when the truth and the reality kind of
was thrust upon them in the form of Musa alayhis salam, and in the
form of the miraculous staff that he had done the Sahara, the
sorcerer's themselves, were the first ones to frustrate before
Allah subhanaw taala and say, that we have repented and that we
believe in the God of Moses and Aaron, we believe in the in the
God of Musa and how to Allah He was set up. So I think we can draw
some parallels and we know that the Quran is full of archetypes.
So the story of Musa alayhis salam is told in several different ways
several different times in the Quran. But those represent
archetypes they represent
Forms and Templates by which we can discern things later on. And
this is one of the I think the the keys to contemplating the meanings
of the Quran to think about, you know, the archetype of the
sorcerer's and the archetype of Pharaoh, and the archetype of
Hanged Man, and the archetype of call rune.
And the archetype of vellum. So all of these figures, that
sometimes I mentioned by name in the Quran are sometimes mentioned
by CIFA, by attribute or description.
They are things that formulate and kind of inform us of the reality
around us, both in terms of people that we meet, or people that we
have may not have met, and then kind of figuring out the world
around us. So Allah subhanaw taala, has endowed us with three
basic routes, as we said, by which to discern this reality. So the
first one, we call the intellect, and here by intellect, our lock in
the in the terminology of the automatic of the tradition, means
that which is used to discern truth from falsehood, but on a
purely conceptual or logical basis without needing
outside criteria to determine the truth of something. So when we say
we can discern something intellectually and when we talk
about the Austro Islamic tradition, when we say how the
Jews Alkalyn or this is something permit
suitable or logically conceivable, then we're not talking about
something that's experientially conceivable. We're talking about
something that's merely logically conceivable, even though that
conception may or may not actually exist, but it has the possibility
of existence. And it has the possibility of existence because
Allah subhanaw taala can give it the possibility of existence. And
the proof that we can imagine such a thing we can conceptualize it is
proof enough that it may or can exist. So, you know, when we say
the, the angels will do the melodica Jaya is Auckland that
Allah can create angels or in other words, beings that we cannot
see,
that have to carry out certain duties
that Allah Subhana Allah instructs them to do that they worship Allah
day and night unfalteringly. And that they also accompany us and
have certain duties attached to human beings. Like Rafi benighted,
like the ones who record our deeds and the other half of the guardian
angels, the ones that watch over us, and Mooka and Nikki are the
ones who come to the grave when Melikyan mouth and the angel of
death and so forth.
And Jibreel medical ye
e Melaka sama virtual art. So all of these different angels they are
exist. And
we say that they exist, because that because we can conjure it up
intellectually, but our intellects do not deny the possibility of
existence of such beings. So that's the first step to
discerning if something can be real, or be or not be real, which
is contrary to what we have in our culture and in society today that
things can only be real, if I can perceive them.
And the formula, as we mentioned, in the last session, they have
this beautiful principle, or the ornament have this beautiful
principle, add them in which they let you do allow them to shoot
something we should memorize even in Arabic items, which then later
you do, I'll add them in which would, so your lack of perception
of something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So you know, if you don't know,
you know, pi, to 18 decimal points, doesn't mean that nobody
knows it, but somebody else might know it, but you just don't know
it, or you don't have a perception of it. Or if you've never been to
Vermont, or Burlington, Vermont, for example, but other people have
been so your, your lack of perception of it is not a proof
that it's not there, which is one of the major logical fallacies. So
intellect when used, right, and one, I would say also trained in
this particular way, can very easily then discern things that
have this possibility of existence that those who do not. And we
mentioned earlier, this is very important. When we talk about
things of the unseen realm.
We don't say that paradise and hellfire and the spirit and the
bridge that will walk over and in the afterlife, and the how old
the grand pond or lake of the promissory Salem, all of these
things, we cannot arrive to their existence on our own
intellectually, but we can arrive to the possibility of their
existence. So in Islam, we were never going to declare something
as true. That is logically In other words, conceptually
impossible, that will never happen. So
that in essence, then the intellect has a very strong
role as a tool as an aid to help us discern at the very least, the
possibilities, right, and as you can probably imagine, it requires
a little bit of imagination, right, because to think about
things that you haven't actually seen, right or experienced, but
nonetheless, can imagine their existence based upon the
possibility of their existence requires imagination. So
imagination, sometimes we think of it as this kind of, you know,
children's imagination runs with them, and they think about things
that can never be real, but your imagination can imagine things
that are real, and they can imagine things that are not real,
but allotted the one of sound intellect will be able to discern
one from the other. So the intellect is one. The second
source is what we call trusted sources or authoritative sources.
And this is learning and understanding from people who know
and you do not know. So others who have knowledge of things that you
may not have knowledge of, and their knowledge may have been
gleaned from any of these three ways, actually four ways that I'm
going to talk about, and then they pass it on to you. So even though
you may not have experienced it, or rather to conclusion yourself,
nonetheless, because they are trusted
source you accept what they say.
And this is part of our Amen, specifically in the Prophet
Mohammed source. And so how does the Hadith describe him and one of
the Hadith, Hadith Bootsy, or one of the Sahaba, how was Saudi to
almost do a solid and must do a solid means one who is always
truthful and must do, which is the
smartphone or the one that takes the receipt or recipient of the
action. He is also the one who has always believed
so was thought of the one was always truthful. And the most do
the one who's always believed, and this is our Prophet Muhammad
spices, so he is the most trusted source. He is so trusted, that we
accept what he says about Allah subhanaw taala we don't know
anything about Allah, except that which we know from our Prophet
Muhammad SAW, I said that. We don't know the Quran except via
the Prophet Muhammad SAW, I said, that's why, you know, some people
who are unfortunately deluded and misguided and think the Quran is
enough. And we don't need the Hadith of the son of the Prophet
Muhammad sorry, send them.
Both of them arrived. By the same way both of them came to us by way
of the Prophet Muhammad SAW, I said, the Quran was not something
that was revealed to anyone other than the Prophet Muhammad SAW. And
so just like the Hadith, there's no one other than the Prophet SAW
Selim who spoke these words. But then these words were recorded by
his companions. And in much in the same way, the Prophet saw them had
scribes of the Quran, who recorded the way he recorded the
Revelation, He instructed them what to write. So, if both arrived
in the same way, you cannot question one without questioning
the other.
Although Allah, so
these trusted sources beginning with the Prophet Muhammad SAW, our
saw the good must do and then those are who are in his direct
sphere of influence in his direct periphery, namely, the Sahaba the
companions. So the general principle Jimmy Sahaba, will do
all of the companions we can we take their word for it, we don't
question their
trustworthiness, we don't trust we don't question their honesty,
because they are direct recipients and direct companions, and those
in the sphere of influence of the Prophet Muhammad SAW I said them,
and the promise I send them said about the Companions himself, as
hobbies can resume be at him. If the day to day to My Companions
are like the stars, whichever ones that you follow, you will be
guided, just like the desert Arabs, the ancient Bedouins used
to use the stars to guide themselves in the desert, the
Sahaba also are carriers of the Ye, right, they are homiletic ye
to they carry both the Quran as it was brought forth to the province
or southern was real to him, and then transcribed by the Sahaba,
and they are also homiletic, ye carriers of the way in that they
recorded the words and the deeds and the overall life of our
Prophet Mohammed source. And this idea of trusted source then also
extends to those who pass our criteria to be a trusted source.
So generally, the companions are enough of a trusted source on
their own by the fact that their companions, and obviously the
prophesy send them is unassailable. Then the generation
after that, which is a Debian is when the age of criteria comes in.
So the vast majority of those who are followers of the companions
are trustworthy
for the most part, but now they themselves are the ones who
started to talk about criteria, we started to talk about
trustworthiness and started to talk about precision in narration.
And then that extends to the generations after them. So the
great Maha defin, who were from Tebay TV, beginning with an Imam
Malik, Radi Allahu anhu, and extending to a memorable hottie
and even Muslim when necessary to measure that would.
And many other of them had the theme, the rest of the nine books,
as they're referred to, all of these people had criteria by which
they can discern that which is trustworthy from that which is
not. And
in essence, they have like a scale and many of you are familiar with
the words. So he has an Bife on Moldova. And the SA here are the
most rigorously authenticated the Hassan, which is very much
authenticated Dada Eve, which,
literally translated translates as weak. But in actuality the
position of the Oliver is that we believe that the prophesy send
them even what we consider to be weak Hadith. He actually said
those things. And the reason for which is they were so scrupulous.
They were so
discerning in the manner by which they would
Look at the Hadith, and the conditions and the criteria that
they had, that the
even for what we consider to be weak Hadith would still be quite
strong, and overall scale of looking at things. And then the
medulla, which is that which is made up which is fabricated. So
one of the unfortunate things that has come out, I think,
which I wouldn't say is part of beautiful Islam. But a type of
another type of practice of Islam is grouping the hadith of life
with the Hadith and mandala. So grouping, what is considered to be
a specifically technical term dive, it's not a linguistic term,
it's a technical term. So it doesn't mean weak as in matoke, as
in, you shouldn't use it. But it means weak in comparison to the
more authenticated IDs, which are Hassane, and which also have a
mold war, something that is fabricated, it's actually not a
hadith, it's something that somebody made up. So
but some people have grouped them together. And even There's a very
famous Silsila of books that talks about Hadith, a bifold model or
putting them in one category.
But then that is a failure of the recognition of the Islamic
epistemology. Because the two are not the same. So we have, I would
say, without doubt, without question, the most sophisticated
system by which to determine
our trusted sources, and what is a trusted source and what is not.
And even within the Sharia within the Islamic law, you see, there's
also certain criteria for the acceptance of witnesses, whether
it's a criminal case, or whether it's a case of a business
transaction, or whether it's a case about
involving marriage and boundaries, and so forth. Each of those
situations has very specific criteria that also
looks at the source itself and determines criteria for the basis
of trusting the source. And probably the commanding verse in
the Quran about trusting sources using Avenue injure confer circle
and being in front of a you know, and to see the problem with your
head. Or you believe, if someone who is not a trusted source facet,
which is the term usually used for someone who's not a trusted source
comes to you with some news, further value. So not outright
rejection, but whatever you try to determine the veracity of the
claim,
and do not act upon it immediately. And to see
willkommen, which are hella, otherwise, you may take action
based upon that false report, and then you may do harm to others,
but then you will be remorseful after that.
So we talked about the intellect, we talked about the trusted
sources.
The third would be experiential knowledge. So I said three, but
they're actually four. So experiential knowledge is that
which we discerned by what they say attach, deliver, or
experience. So seeing something repeated, or happening
repetitively, in our past, by way of intellect, we allow the
possibility that or most likely, that it will continue to repeat
itself in the future. So, we see that the sun, for as long as we
have known, rises in the east, and sets in the west, no one has ever
recorded anything contrary to this. And so, we have a fairly
sound presumption that tomorrow, the sun will also rise in the
eastern seven, the West and the day after that, and the day after
that, and the day after that, and so forth.
So, all of that is based upon
our experience with such phenomenon, and most of our
experiential knowledge, if not all of it is going to be based upon
things we can perceive with our senses.
And hence, the
the emphasis in the in the time period that we live in now, which
is the past two or 300 years of only accepting experiential
knowledge is true knowledge and reject rejecting all the other
forms that can come from other sources. So,
the intellect is not really used in the same manner as it was
before trusted sources, yes, to some degree or so trusted, but
none of them measure in our time, to the concept of experiential
knowledge, seeing is believing as they say, and being able to
perceive things for yourself and if they cannot be perceived that
they cannot be measured, then they cannot be real.
And so even what they saw what they call paranormal phenomenon,
or things that cannot be perceived,
in a conventional sense, by one of the five senses, you still find
efforts at trying to perceive them nonetheless, by some sort of
random instrumentation, you know, people who go to haunted houses
and they have some sort of
A
machinery to determine if there's a extra or paranormal being in the
house or not, and so forth. So people, scientists talking about
the God particle. So I'm looking for something within the
scientific realm that will either prove God or disprove God, and
these sorts of things. And this is not really where science can
tread. So what we call science today is actually nothing more
than experiential knowledge.
And outside of the realm of science, what we call the
metaphysical, which means outside of the physical, there are
metaphysical truths, as we said, that can be discerned by the
intellect, and can be served by trusted sources. In other words,
Allah tells us via his Prophet sallallahu sallam, and then of
course, we don't deny the validity.
Or the cogent nature of, of experiential knowledge. It's
important, but it's not the only source of knowledge. And it's not
all of knowledge. And perhaps it's not even the most important aspect
of knowledge.
And then finally, we have what we call the fourth tool to discern
reality, spiritual cognition, for sometimes referred to as spiritual
intuition.
And this is somewhat related to the intellect, it's a function of
the intellect, if we want to think of it that way.
But the automat genuinely tend to
try to discern the the pure intellect or Lachlan, from what
can be discerned by
a heightened spiritual awareness, they often referred to as the
club, or as the rule as the spirit and sometimes as the seer, which
is the innermost spirit. And so human beings also have the ability
to perceive these things by this sort of spiritual cognition. And
it's not really by
exercise of the intellect or reading books or looking at
trusted sources. But the ability to do so often comes from
spiritual discipline, or what we call Mujahid, or Teskey attend
nefs discute enough's meaning the purification of the human
condition, so that it would be in a more pristine form. And then the
barrier that is usually there between it and the perception of
higher truths or greater truths, is slowly removed, or no longer as
much as a barrel as it was before. Because now people have the
ability to perceive things and see things
as they are.
When before the human condition itself, the desire is the sum of
one's desires and one's anger and one's passions and one's
compromised emotional states tend to serve as a barrier between us
and ultimate truth. So
kind of that's a summary of the four
major ways of knowing or four major ways of discerning reality.
So
what's the most important thing to know then? Kind of is maybe the
logical question after that.
And the ultimate before us, they pondered this question as well.
And most of them said, oh, we'll wedge America to believe
that the first obligation the first thing that are the primary
obligation that one should know, to know that Allah subhanaw taala
is real, that Allah subhanaw taala exists, basically, what we call
the meaning of life. So you know, in popular culture, it kind of
takes
quite a bit of life experience.
Before people tend to arrive at what they think the meaning of
life is, and they go through, you know, maybe tragedy and they go
through all these sorts of different experiences of loss and
death, and, and so forth. And then they have some sort of epiphany.
And they're arrive at this meaning of life sometime later in their
own lives. Whereas in Islamic paradigm, the meaning of life
actually should be discerned or should be known as a primary
obligation. Why are you here? Who puts you here? What are the
expectations? What should you be doing with your time? When is all
going to end? And when it does in what's it going to look like? All
those sorts of things. So, one of the great great, great blessings
of this Deen of Islam is that those questions more or less are
answered for us. We know why we're here. We know who put us here. We
may not know how long we're going to stay here, but we certainly
know that it's finite. We know that it's going to come to an end
and we know that we're going to move on to something else after
that. So base
Typically, the basic life questions are things that we
should be teaching our children beginning to, you know, the, from
the age that they can begin to understand. So 456789 years of
age, these are life questions that many adults continue to struggle
with. But even as children, we should be taught them, and we
should be familiar with them. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone's
gonna know the meaning of their own life and their own particular
role or purpose in life, in terms of kind of, you know, what are
they going to be and, and how it's all gonna turn out. But we do
know, for certain that we do have a role, that we do have a purpose.
And our purpose here is not merely to exist, and
seek the
the sustenance of our existence as it were, it's not merely that,
that's certainly a part of it. And Allah subhanaw taala has made it
in the way that we knew do need to seek means and we do need to seek
material and do we need to seek how to dole out in existence
amongst the existence of all of our other fellow human beings and
fellow creatures on this earth. And we do have to sort out how to
contend with one another, and to contend with the finite resources
of the planet, and to contend with our finite lifetimes, and to
contend with the propagation of our of our own species of the
human race. And to contend with building and managing the the
institutions that will not just ensure the continuation of the
human race, but can can really ensure the continuation of the
human race to thrive, not just survive, but also to thrive and to
be able to put tools in place and institutions in place, then that
will carry that mission on from one generation to the next. So all
of these things are really what we should be busy with what we should
be thinking about. And it's really a waste of a life, it's folly,
just to be busy with
what you eat, and what you drink, and
where you spend your night and that sort of thing.
I lost my data credit us for something much much more than
this, and he has given us enough of a chance to be acquainted with
him to know Him. And the Quran reveals to us the means by which
we can know Him by using those God given faculties that he has given
us the ability to know well my father put general insight into
the abdomen elite Verifone have not created the gin and the INS
except to worship me in other words to know me
farlam and now Hola. Hola know that Allah, Allah Allah. How do
you still Adina? Yeah, Allah goodwill, Edina, la Alamo are the
ones who know the same as the ones who don't know, so many, many
countless verses in the Quran that tell us the primacy of knowledge.
You can even say that
the central concept in Islam is knowledge is not power. It's not
perhaps even justice or mercy. But those are things that are fruits
of knowledge. So knowledge is primary, so to know, which is
actually the distinguishing characteristic and future of the
human condition, our ability to know things. And so the most
important thing to know the first obligation is Allah Spano Tata.
And what about Allah, Allah do we have to know primarily, we have to
know that he exists,
not to deny the existence of God, and people tend to deny the
existence of God.
It's almost like they're denying the existence of humanity as we
understand it. It's almost like we deprive humanity of what it is to
be a human being, which is to be a creature of Allah subhanaw taala,
which is to be a recipient of the divine blessing, the gift of life,
and the gift of continued life and the gift of sustenance and the
gift of knowledge. And perhaps the greatest gift, the ability to know
God, to know him as as much as we can know Him in as much as we are
limited in our human state. But nevertheless, we can know him as
well as we can can know him by the permission of God by the
permission of Allah subhanaw taala. And so to deny the
existence of such a God to lie, the existence of a lost part of
that seems contrary to our very nature seems contrary to who we
actually are. If if we are not creatures of God, then what are we
exactly?
We're just the creatures who want the survival of the fittest. We
want the Darwinian sweepstakes, and we came out ahead, and the
dolphins and the chimpanzees and the gorillas and the ants last,
but somehow we were the ones able to be propelled forward
and basically have the art contemplate these big
Questions. I don't think the ants in the ant hills or the whales in
the ocean are contemplating
Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. But human beings, we have
the ability to contemplate these things and think about these
things. Which is something of the Divine, almost Matata, how would I
leave? Allah is the One who knows a lot about a hoe and Claudia. He
is the one who is omnipotent, who has power, when married, right, he
is the one who wills things. And so we have versions of these
things within ourselves that do not really
resemble their counterparts with a loss Parata Allah, only from the
linguistic perspective, we use the same words. Otherwise, we'd have
no frame of reference by understanding anything about Allah
spiraled out. So in one sense, Allah subhanaw taala is
incomprehensible. And the other sense he is comprehensive, but in
as much as we know ourselves.
That's why some of the Hadith indicate whether it's a hadith or
with some Akula, but the words are true, may not have enough so who
autofunnel Whoever knows themselves, then knows Allah
subhanaw taala and the meaning that we mentioned in the verse
earlier, will fill out the area to the morphine with the full
sequence and there are signs within yourselves what does it
mean their signs within yourselves by which we can know that Allah is
Huck that a lot is true. So, we see Jani these replication of the
linguistic aspect of these attributes of God within
ourselves, and then that is a means a tool, a way a Seville, by
which we can know Allah subhanaw taala. So Allah subhanaw taala,
honed by Buddha Huck, he is the one that is worshipped by heart.
In other words, no one else is worthy of being worshipped by
Allah subhanaw taala and the Kalima
the primal utterance, so, if the primal knowledge is to know God,
then what was what is the primal utterance that we say, La ilaha
illallah
forwards La ilaha illallah with only three letters, in all of
those words, three distinct letters, a Lamb will help.
And the mouth of the Elif La ilaha illAllah La ilaha illallah one of
the easiest things to say, but also one of the most profound
things to say, so simple but so profound. La ilaha is a negation.
No god
no god my booty, Huck, days of Nikita, my booty hug Illallah
there is nothing to be worshipped, right? To have to take up so much
of our spiritual and emotional time and energy. There's nothing
that's worthy of that. Except Allah Illallah il Allah Illallah
right and even Allah loves them Jelena. They say, you can take
letters away from it, but it still has the same meaning. So Allah and
then if you take away the first Hamza or Elif it becomes Lila.
And if you take away that lamb becomes law who, for Allah, and if
you take away the last Lamb, it becomes Hua. Right? If you give
them ed to the Hawa, he, which are all names of Allah as part of
that, so all of these are signs, and the beautiful signs that in
our tradition has brought forth to show us just not just the
contemplative nature of the words that we say, but the beauty of
them at the same time, right. And beauty can can be surmised in
something that seems simple to grasp and easy to grasp. And
really, that's kind of a metaphor for the R theta of homicide and
theta of Islam is not difficult.
It's not complicated. We don't have complicated aspects to it.
Really? Yes, we have very sophisticated arguments if we need
to resort to them, for those who will challenge or disparage or
generate misconceptions about certain aspects of that creed of
that athlete. But in of itself, it's not difficult. And it's so
simple, you can teach it to a child.
But at the same time, it's so powerful that it can transform
one's life. And the kennemer is the most beautiful thing to say
ilaha illAllah. So it's it's surmises, everything about
Alina yet everything that we need to be concerned about the Godhead
about the Divine Law, either this negation, right and it's kind of
almost a acknowledgment that there are people and even within
ourselves that we lose sight of this La Ilaha part as part of the
negation and that sometimes we
We take things as Gods even though we're not even aware we're taking
them as Gods was in the Quran, say of a writer that the tougher the
ILA, ha ha, have you not seen the one who takes his own Caprice as
his pillar as his God? So, God doesn't mean that you erect some
sort of statute. And that your prostrating before it doesn't have
to be so direct. It could be as subtle and as indirect as having a
belief that this creative thing before you whether it's a person
or whether it's an institution, or whether it's anything else has the
power to harm you or to benefit you.
And then in other words, based upon the Kadima, La Hawla, wala,
Quwata illa biLlah also negation and an affirmation was called how
color
and how color? So, yeah, how, right there is no strength or
power while oppo. illa biLlah except by Allah. So, here we have
this bear in esteana, maybe the Howler with a quarter illa biLlah.
So, even though seemingly looks like this thing is acting by
itself, where it's doing by itself, but the reality of which
the heartbeat law it's Billa right, it's with Allah and it's by
Allah. When Allah later is the Ramita, or their kin, Allah, Rama
another negation and affirmation this time of verse in the Quran
describing the Warriors have better one male roommate, and it
was not you who threw warcaster arrow is roommate, when you cast
the arrow, a seemingly seeming contradiction here without Amit is
the roommate, and was not you who threw when you threw. So there is
an negation and an affirmation within those words. The negation
of the Khalifa, the reality was not you is right, where I can hide
the Zohar. Even though ostensibly outwardly it was the Sahaba who
you who did cast the arrows. But then what was the reality of it?
When I came in Allah Brahma when I came in Allah Rama but it was
rather Allah subhanaw taala is the one who cast that arrow. If we
were to live that meaning, that Hatha Yoga in every ofs and every
breath that we take,
we would be amongst the great people of Alaska. We will be from
Adelina if we never lost sight of this heartbeat of the southeast of
the people in better of the Khalifa of the headcollar La hawla
wala Quwata illa biLlah and obviously, the athletes will have
to hate overall with the primary kennemer La ilaha illa Allah. So,
we know Allah subhanaw taala by also by knowing what he is not, so
we knowing what he is not and also knowing what is not Allah also,
from those two aspects, those are the powerful aspects of negation,
so we know what Allah is not right and this sometimes referred to and
we're gonna get into a second SIFAT to this civetta salute, I
will refer to Serbia. So these are all Socratic 10 Z, different words
they all mean the same thing. So these are how we understand Allah
Samantha by his attributes of Cadiz, right? We can call them the
Holy attributes or we can call them the sacred attributes, or the
attributes of invisibility. In other words, we negate what Allah
cannot be right we negate what is impossible for Allah Spano without
the two semester fat, a slew of synthetic toxic these these are
the attributes of
negation or the attributes of tansy or incompatibility Allah
subhanaw taala or inevitability of Allah subhanaw taala.
And we also negate that which cannot be Allah also. And this is
where the * color comes in La hawla wala Quwata illa de la la
ilaha illAllah. So, all these things around us, even though they
seem to have independent
power, when Hi fulva Here, right from the outside from an outward
aspect, but the reality of them is that you do not have any power of
themselves, the holder will go with it. He level, right. That's
why when, when when we
are at the hearing of a calamity or something we say the whole over
the whole the illa biLlah or something that was adverse. So it
may have been adverse may have been unfortunate but didn't happen
by itself. last final thought And nevertheless, will have to happen
it was by his house and by his own work. Otherwise, we would render
the phrase La hawla wala Quwata illa biLlah meaningless, but it's
not meaningless is full of meaning.
So, since the essence of God is incomprehensible to us and
Allah Subhan Allah, the Prophet SAW Selim instructed us led to
photography that he led with a defect photography, Allah II, or
chemicals or SLM, don't think about the essence of God. Because
the essence of God is incomprehensible. Because the
essence of God doesn't. Or in other words, the reality of Allah
doesn't fit in into anything. That is a familiar framework for us. We
can only think of things spatially spatially or,
by or temporally, outside of space and outside of time, we don't have
a concept. So when we think of things, we think of them in those
two rooms in particular, because that's how we understand the world
around us. And that's actually how the world around us functions,
space and time. But Allah subhanaw taala Munez is the main one and
McCain, Allah subhanaw. Taala is of a higher order, such as that
space and time, do not apply to him at all in the least. So one of
his suffer to sue or suffer tick tock This is that he has Kadeem
right are the means that he is the first without beginning. And also
that he is badly that he is the last without ending.
And that also requires as we said before, a little bit of
imagination. How was he the first but then he had never had the
beginning. But that means he was before everything else. And then
how is he badly, but he doesn't have an ending. That means after
everything else ends, Allah Saltado nevertheless, he'll still
be there for Kadima, the whole party. So these are from
Singularity, tuck these so we don't ascribe to Allah subhanaw
taala any of these things that have to do with time. In other
words, he has a certain position and time or began a certain time
or ended a certain time, nor do we ascribe to him anything that has
to do with space. So we don't say that Allah subhanaw taala is in a
place, and the verses in the Quran that may seemingly
say that right, may seemingly demonstrate that are not
understood in this way. So we don't say that Allah literally is
in the sky or in the heavens, it's a metaphor and language can
can convey meaning both literally and metaphorically, just as any
language can.
It is not a function of creed, to say that will only literal literal
meanings can be true and real. And metaphoric meanings cannot be
because that's not the convention of the language. Because language
is a convention, language is a way by which we convey meaning. And if
the Quran was revealed in the language, the ancient Arabic
language of the seventh century Arabs, and they use metaphor in
their language, and they understood what metaphor meant,
then also, we have to say that metaphor is certainly a part of
the Quranic language. So we don't say that Allah subhanaw taala is
literally in the sky, we say metaphorically, or in the Hadith
that mentioned that Allah descends in the last third of the light,
Allah does not move from one place to the next so that we say he is a
physical entity that can move through space that is not
applicable to Allah, or Munez Adeleke. Right, that is
incomprehensible for him. How do we know that? Well, we talked
about the intellect, we talked about the arc, right and the
intellect can give us the tools by which we to discern something,
whether it can be conceptually possible, or conceptually
impossible, or conceptually necessary. And so when we have
what seems like a contradiction between the conceptually
impossible, and what we understood from text, namely the Quran Wasana
then we say here that intellect gives us insight into the meaning
and the meaning is that it cannot be the literal meaning that Allah
literally is in the sky, we can say his knowledge or what was
called a shade, His mercy has enveloped all things, as the Quran
mentions. So, these things have both, they can even have literal
and metaphoric means, at the same time and shades of meaning in
between, could also be understood. And these things have been
elucidated and have been deciphered and have been discussed
by the ultimate centuries upon centuries upon centuries. So, our
trusted sources tell us from the pens and the mouth of the order
lab, that these things
are, are real, Allah is real, but the,
the medium by which we understand the last panel to Allah, which is
language, like the language of the Quran, or own intellects is never
going to understand him exactly as he is.
And that in of itself is a statement of understanding, as Abu
Bakr Siddiq said a larger a larger one Iraqi Iraq. So we start in
understanding God and understanding we can understand
him or we can understand him as he really is. Because only Allah
subhanaw taala can understand himself. Now
even the prophets and the messenger was going to understand
Allah, the way that Allah understands himself. And the
Prophet SAW Selim knew this hadith. He knew this reality. One
night, Isha, she found him and he was not next to her in bed. And he
had gotten up and she went searching for him. And she found
him praying near the bulkier, you know, the cemetery. And you heard
him saying the sujood
on Earth, the documents Subotica warfare, there can be no Qubic
we're becoming less Nazi theLA and Alec and Tekamah ethnic darlin of
sick, she heard him say in his sujood I seek refuge, by your,
your reader your contentment with us from Your wrath upon us. Or we
will offer attic mineral Cobra attic, and from with your pardon,
from your punishment will be coming. And I seek refuge with you
from you. I seek refuge with Allah subhanaw taala from you almost a
paradoxical statement. But then what did you say at the end, the
Nazi center and Lake intercom as Anita island of sick, we cannot
begin to comprehend or encompass how to praise you. You are to be
praised as you praise yourself. And they said this is the highest
form of praise because only Allah subhanaw taala can properly praise
himself. So Allah teaches us how to praise Him. Do we not say 17
times in the day in swallowtail Fatiha at hamdu Lillahi Rabbil
Alameen that we say All Praises to one who was the Lord, the
sovereign of Allah, Al Amin,
of all the worlds of all the realms of all the things that we
can think of that can be understood in worlds, Allah was
the sovereign and the ruler and the king, and the Lord over all of
them, whatever wood that we may imagine, or whatever that we made
to serve. So
that's the starting point. And it's also the ending point.
The starting point is we know that Allah subhana, Allah is
incomprehensible, but we can know him via the means he has furnished
for us to know him by his signs. That's why I set the photography
Allah He think about the signs he has put forth for you by which you
may know him. And the signs are all around us. And they're
constantly communicating with us as I think we said last time.
And then it's also the ending point
because even the art of biller even the one who has been given
the great gift of this higher order higher form of knowledge of
God, he will also come or she will also come back to the same
conclusion at the end that learn off season and Alec and take them
as Anita Lnf sick we cannot possibly praise you properly.
That's impossible. You are to be praised as you praised yourself.
So I think we've come to the end of the hour more or less I'm going
to stop here leave some time for questions just so I can move off
here watercolor fuchal As I love Ankara to come when I jack
McCloskey to come watch our community fair easy. One minute ID
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energy and Amina Amina affair is in vagenda Baraka la Feeco for
Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh