Crisis Of Knowledge

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Hilary Donnelly has a woman Kundalini Sadia, Lola and Haddon Allah. Wa Salatu was salam wa Jalla wa ala alihi wa sahbihi woman was a bad and the Sahaba Imam Al Bukhari Rahim Allah who to Allah, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us of a very beautiful narration, very beautiful incident that happened many 1000s of years ago, involving a Christian monk by the name of George, George, meaning George, as we say in our times, but George is the classical name. This Christian monk, as was the custom of the monks of old, had cut himself off from society, and would worship Allah subhanho wa Taala. Constantly, the monks of old, they would literally devote

their entire lives for the worship of Allah, nothing except pure worship, Vicar, ibadah, Salah, reciting their holy books, that's all they will do fast every day. And they would cut themselves off from this world where the worst of garments, cut themselves off from any enjoyments and pleasures. So this joy age was one such monk. It's so happened that his mother, who was an old lady needed him for some chores for some help in her house. And so she came to this monastery where God had established himself It was a monastery just for God. And she could not enter the monastery because the fifth of the classical, not the classical, the fifth of the previous nations before Islam did

not allow women to enter the holy place. Women could not enter their messages in their mosques of all of course, Islam has a different ruling. So the mother of Judah, called out and she said, Oh, George, I need your help come to me. George was right at that time praying.

So he thought to himself, oh, Allah, should I prefer my salah and continue? Or should I respond to the call of my mother, George continued in his salah and ignored his mother, he was praying, had he not been praying, it would have gone out. And by the time we finished the prayer, his mother had left. The second day, his mother came again, and said, Oh, your age, I need you please come out. Once again, he was standing in prayer. Once again, he said, Oh Allah, should I choose my mother over my prayer, I'll choose my prayer, thinking that this is piety and righteousness. For the third time, the same incident happened July 8, once again, continued in the Salah, and neglected his mother. And

his mother then became enraged three days in a row, she wants help from her only son, she's not coming out to help. And so in that anger, she makes a dua against her son. And as you know, the daughter of the parents, for and against their children, is accepted against as well meaning if your father mother gets angry at you, and makes against you, then really are always a bit less equal, as refuse because that will take place, make sure your parents never make the law against you. So she said, Oh, Allah, make sure jurij never dies until he sees the faces of prostitutes meaning, make his reputation go to nothing, allow him to be seen with prostitutes and her anger. This is what she

said, he has this good, solid reputation. Everybody loves and respects him, destroy that reputation. And so a lot of xojo responded to her death. And it's one of the beauties of the incidents and also saved Julian's reputation at the same time. And it's a long story have to summarize it because the point is only one sentence, it'll come to you in the end. So a prostitute offered herself to the town, firstly to George, and George ignored and neglected her and basically told her to, you know, leave him in his worship. So in her anger, she went to the townspeople and said, Do you want me to basically seduce George and get him into trouble? And they said, Yes. So she applied it in plan but

God Germain immune to her temptations, until finally, once she could not find a way to judge, she got pregnant with another man, a shepherd, a farmer. And she then claimed to the townspeople, this is the child of July. July, you're supposed to be a chase to holy man never touched women supposed to be a worshipper of God. Now this prostitute comes and says, This is the child of George. So the townspeople got so angry, even though they were the ones this is the way how people are the villa. They want to see some action. They were the ones who enticed the prostitutes. Well, when the prostitutes successful, they now take their anger out to enjoy rage. And so they went to his

monastery, and they broke it down, and they destroyed it. And they started beating him with shoes and sticks and stones stoning him saying, How could you do this? George?

George said what what did I do? They said

This prostitute has accused you of fathering her child. And so he immediately remembered that of his mother. And he said, this is the daughter of my mother happening in front of my eyes, that I have been accused. Now this is the face of the prostitute that I'm seeing what I have been accused of doing this immoral deed. So to make a long story short, it was about to be executed by the townspeople, he said, allow me to pray to the cat. So he prayed to the cat. And then he poked the baby the child and said, speak, who is your father? And so the child, one of the few children, every one of the few babies ever to speak in the history of mankind. Another one obviously, who was the

other baby, that's all from their credo. Everybody knows the Prophet sallallahu sallam. And there are other narrations as well, maybe three, maybe four at max that we know of the spoke from, from the cradle. So the child said, My father is the shepherd. It's the other person. And so when the people saw this, they apologize to George and they saw that a miracle that occurred and they said, We will rebuild your monastery with golden silver. They said no, build it with mud and sand as it was and let me continue in my worship. Now of course, there are many benefits of the story, one of them being that even though Allah azzawajal accepted that though out of his mother, he also saved or

dredgers reputation in the end both came out Victor's if you like, but the point that I wanted to really emphasize here in one version of the Hadeeth in one narration of this Hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Rahim Allah who Georgian loca Locanda for keihan. java on may Allah have mercy on George, if only he had been Athene, if only he had knowledge, he would have responded to his mother, instead of continuing in the prayer, he would have saved himself all of the hassle, if only he had knowledge. And this is one of those ahaadeeth there are many others, one of those ahaadeeth that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the knowledgeable scholar far exceeds

the status of a continual worshipper. Here is George fasting, praying, reading Vicar cut off from the world. But in his worship, he didn't have knowledge. And that was to his detriment at the end of the day, even though because of his knowledge, Eliza just saved him from those evils. Yet another indication of the superiority of knowledge, over acts of worship, even though acts of worship are of course busted and holy, but of the holiest acts of worship after the photo, it is knowledge. Yet another indication is another story from the children of Israel. And that is the story of the mass murderer, the mass murderer, who had killed 99 people with his own two hands, strangled him to

death, chop them up with his own two hands, he had killed 99 people

in the history of the modern world that we know, we don't know of any mass murderer in modern history, mass murder, meaning with his own two hands, who would probably the streets and killed more than 3040 people jack the Ripper, they say had 20 something. And this is considered a huge number, this guy had 99 to his own credit or discredit, if you look at in their paveway 99. He then repented and he went to a monk, once again, the same monk type of thing, just worshiping and worshiping and worshiping. And he said, I have killed 99 people with these two hands. Can Allah ever forgive me? As a monk said, 99 people, a lot can never forgive you. So in his anger, he made the 99 100 via the

mock,

meaning he killed the mock.

he repented again. And he then went to a rabbi, a scholar. And he said, Oh scholar, can Allah forgive me? I have killed 90 Excuse me. 100 people, 100 people I've killed can Allah forgive me? And the scholar said, and who is there who can come in between Allah and His mercy? Who can who can be so powerful as to prevent Allah's mercy from coming to you who is there that can prevail over Allah Rama? Of course Allah can forgive you, but you are living in an evil land. You're living in a place where these murderers and these evils are made alluring to you? We're obviously there was no law that's why he could get away with it. were no shady I was being established, so on so forth. So he

said, immigrate, do hijra to a pious land the land in such and such a place and go worship Allah there. And the Hadith goes on, he met his death on the way there, the angels of mercy the angels of punishment argued over who should take him until finally it was the angels of mercy who took his soul because he wanted to repent, even though he didn't get to the land of repentance, but Allah azza wa jal saw his intentions, but the Hadith and this incident once again proves to us

the superiority of knowledge over mere worship. It is knowledge that is needed before worship. And that is why mamod Bahati in his sahale, which is the most blessed book, after the Quran, and the most authentic book after the Quran, in one of the chapters, he says, the chapter of knowledge before actions and speech, you need to have knowledge before you open your mouth, you need to have knowledge before you do anything, the chapter of knowledge before doing anything, or saying anything, an entire chapter dedicated to proving this point. Yet another illustration of the blessings of knowledge. And this is a profound illustration, a profound example that we have in the

Quran, is that when Allah azza wa jal decided to create man, and he told the angels I'm about to create this creation, that will die one after the other and leave successors. In other words, hollyford the proper meaning of Khalifa here is those who will leave one generation after the other, the angels, they don't die, they will only die the Day of Judgment, the same angel that was alive from the time of pre Adam will be the same Angel until the trumpet is blown. They don't procreate. They don't have children, they don't die. Angels are in that sense, they have very, extremely long lives. So Allah says, I'm creating a new creation, they have something called free will. And they're

going to have generations after generations. The angels said, Oh, Allah, how can you create a creation that is so evil, it's going to shed blood? It's going to do this, it's going to do that? We are so pure, we're not going to set the Home Depot. No, but the story is in the first few verses, we praise you all the time. We worship you all the time. Why do you want to create another creation? So Allah azza wa jal wanted to show the status of this creation, he wanted to prove to the angels that mankind when they are pious and righteous, they are in fact, better than the angels. And this is one of the points of theology about either that a righteous man, or Rajan saw they are worthy of Allah

azza wa jal, he actually has a status above that of the angels, of course, the faster than the evil person, that's a separate story. He has a status below that of animals, as Allah says, in the Koran, but the righteous man has a status above that as the angels. How did Allah prove this? Did he make Adam taller than the angels? Did he make Adam broader than the angel stronger than the angels? Did he make Adam go run faster than the angels? Quite the contrary, angels physically, are much better than us. They can travel extremely fast, long distances quickly, they have the power to do this. And that Angel gibreel with one of his wings only managed to do with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,

what he did, he tapped the city with one of his tips of his wings, and the entire city flipped up and turned upside down as the head he tells him one Angel, and that's just one tip of the wing. The angels are huge in their creation. They are extremely beautiful, extremely handsome in their looks. They have been preferred over us and all of these things, and yet, we are preferred over them overall. How did Allah prove this? All of you know, why I lemma Adam and

a lot taught Adam in the knowledge that the angels didn't have. He taught Adam the knowledge of all of these things, the names of all of these things. And then he asked the angels Do you have this knowledge? Can you tell me what these things are called? Do you have a knowledge that Adam doesn't have? And when the angel saw with their own two eyes, the angels do have two eyes, when the angel saw with their own two eyes, that Adam had been given a knowledge that they have not been given. They realize Allah has preferred this being over us. And they said so Hannukah la even Medina, Elana Adam, Tana, we have no knowledge exalted you are, Oh Allah, we have no knowledge other than the

knowledge that you have taught us through knowledge, the superiority of Adam alayhis salam and his pious progeny was shown over that of the angels. And that really allowed this point to sink in, that when a lot of zoa jen had to choose one characteristic to show the superiority of Adam over the angels. It was not height, it was not color, it was not physical strength and prowess, it was not looks, it was knowledge. And so through knowledge, the superiority of Adam was shown over that of the angels. So many ideas in a hadith tell us about the blessings of knowledge and the importance of knowledge. We can only quote a few of them here of them. Allah azza wa jal says, In nema yaksha la

hominidae by the hidden roadmap, that indeed, the only beings who truly fear Allah, from all of his creation, are there odema out there Mr. mentioned by name, the only beings who truly fear Allah

Are there odema? That's it. Nobody can reach that level of pure knowledge of Allah and fear of Allah and love of Allah than the aroma. This is because the worshiper might do the outward acts of worship, he might pray, he might fast you might avoid the sins. But it is that on him who understands the spirituality behind it, who understands the wisdoms behind it, who is more conscious in that worship, then the person who doesn't have that.

Likewise, in the entire Quran, Allah azza wa jal only commands the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to ask for one thing in a large quantity. Not money not Allah doesn't tell the prophets I send them older sutala asked for more money. He never tells them ask for more health ask for more wealth. Nope, only one thing. And that is what could rob busy Dini and say, Oh, my Lord, increase me in my knowledge. The Prophet system is being commanded by Allah to make regular to and this is that a suit of Allah? Oh Allah give me more knowledge, I will not increase my

Likewise, the Eliza just tells us that the very status that our soul has, is primarily due to the knowledge that he has been given, as Allah says in another verse ones that Allahu Allah Kitab but when he committed what I lemma commanded him to contact them, what kind of football logic Allah, that Allah azza wa jal has given you the book and the Wisdom, meaning the Quran and the Sunnah. And he has taught you what you don't know why lemak Madame de Quintana, and because of that, the blessings of Allah upon you are very manifest and great. Through the knowledge, the status and superiority of Adam was shown, as it was shown through the status and superiority of the Prophet

sallallahu alayhi wasallam as well. He has that knowledge that none of us have. He was blessed by Allah with blessings, many blessings more than just only but have the greatest of them is the blessing of knowledge. Likewise, we'll return to the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, once again, there are a huge quantity of a hadith that instruct us that guide us that exhort us to learn knowledge of them is the famous Hadith in Sahih Bukhari where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Man you really love we'll be hiring you photography Dean, whoever Allah subhana wa Taala once good for

he gives him you *y who have this knowledge of this religion, he gives him an understanding of this religion. If Allah desires Good for you, this translates into you having knowledge of Islam. It's that simple. This is what the Hadith means. If Allah wishes Good for you, then he will give you knowledge of this religion. The converse also applies. He who has no interest in Islam and Islamic sciences, it is obvious that his share of blessings has been diminished and reduced. If Allah azza wa jal loves you and wants to show that love, it will be done primarily through your knowledge of this religion. And of course, knowledge a part of knowledge is acting upon it as well that is

another topic in and of itself. Yet another beautiful Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is that knowledge is one of the few things that benefits us even after we die. Once we are dead, our Sadat comes to an end or is that God comes to an end or fasting comes to an end. A lot of the good that we used to do is cut off. Only a few things remain, and have them the prophets Allah sent him said, in one unified will be he knowledge that is benefited from that this person taught. So this person taught somebody how to pray. As long as that person prays,

the initial teacher will get some of those blessings. Because you taught him how to pray. And the one who prays his blessings will not be diminished a lot. He doesn't need to be like he is not stingy. Eliza l Kareem and Alma, Nan, he gives an he gives an he gives. So the one who prays will get the full reward. But the one who taught you how to pray will also get a reward for every prayer that you do. Every rocker that you pray, your teacher will get one reward of that, and you will get the full reward as well. Every time you recite Surah Al Fatiha, whoever taught you through that if it was if it was your mother, if it was your father, if it was your teacher or chef, whoever it was,

he or she will get reward as well. Not just that the teachers teacher will get the reward for the teachers actions and your actions as well. And the teachers, teachers teacher, and so on and so forth, because it's like a domino effect. It's like a domino effect. Every single Domino that fell because of you even if you're 10 generations away. You are

part and parcel of that Domino falling by the blessings of Allah. So you will get some of the rewards, even if it occurs centuries after you have died, because you're the one that elect chose you to pass that knowledge down and spread it to people. Many are the Hadith and the ayat we can quote about the blessings of knowledge. Many. The purpose of this talk, however, is to talk about knowledge in North America scholarship in North America. What do we do to gain this knowledge? It's all fine and dandy to talk about Quran and Sunnah and how it praises knowledge. What do I do as a college student, as an engineer, as a doctor, as an accountant? What do I do in this country to gain

some of this knowledge? And of course, it goes without saying that the knowledge we're referring to is primarily Islamic knowledge. This is the knowledge that is praised in the Quran and Sunnah. As for secular knowledge, that is, of course praiseworthy in its own right. But these blessings that we've talked about this is Islamic knowledge, knowledge of the Quran, the sooner fifth of seer added all of these things and because Allah xojo tells us that of the worst of mankind are those. Yeah, and Mr. Nava here a minute hated dunya What am I going to Mojave Don't they know plenty about this world, they know plenty about engineering, medicine, science, physics, they know plenty about it,

but about the knowledge of the Hereafter, about the real knowledge, they are completely ignorant. And likewise, the Prophet salallahu it he was sent them told us that of the worst of people, men shiradi, one of the worst of people in this world, are those who spend their lives in the knowledge of this world, but neglect the knowledge of the hereafter Oh come upon a Heidi's do this, meaning that they waste their entire lives, waste because the knowledge that they've gotten might be useful, but there is a far more important knowledge that was neglected. And that is a knowledge of your religion and your Lord and your Creator, and your purpose of life. So the question really is, what

do I do here in North America, to further my knowledge, and to increase it.

The response to this is manifold, there are many things that can be done. First and foremost, as a small introduction to how exactly to attain knowledge.

I want all of us to appreciate one thing, and that is that

we, as a second generation here in this country, are growing up. And it's inevitable that leadership will be passed down to us as well. And we have plenty of complaints about the old school, our fathers and mothers and their generation, we have plenty of reasons to complain as well, we have plenty of complaints about our moms in our messages that they can't speak English, and they don't understand our problems. And this and that, and they don't speak relevant hoppers and this and that. And you know, all of these points are valid. We all understand and realize the need for students of knowledge and Alana, to speak English to be American. We all understand that. But the sad reality of

the matter is that when the time for leadership does come to change, when the torch is passed down to you here sitting in this room, and those of your age, ask yourselves, are you ready to receive that torch? All of your complaints that you have religious and invalid, I share those complaints. I'm just a little bit older than you don't get fooled by the beard. I'm not that old. I share your complaints. I too would go to the masjid and there's this Imam speaking in either accented English which you can understand or talking about a topic which has no relevance or worse, talking in Arabic, you have no clue what he's saying. And weeks go by and turn into months and years and you go

to the mosque and you don't really care about it because you don't feel relevant there. And you hear any hope in English and it's amazing. It's a breath of fresh air. The guy might not even be a good speaker, but just because he's speaking English on the member, you go feeling happy hamdulillah I heard one IR one Howdy. We all understand brothers and sisters the need for a scholarship. But who amongst us is ready for it? we criticize these imams? Are we ready to stand in their place? Are we even qualified to lead the prayers properly? Do we know how to recite the Quran? With the property suite? Can we stand up to give a basic basic holds about about any topic? Do we have the tools

needed to research anything out? Brothers and sisters, I am honestly scared of a possible crisis. I am optimistic that you here and people of your age will be much better and community development and building relations with the people out there and fostering harmony in getting rid of a lot of their racial stereotypes. And a lot of the negative things we had from the first generation are very optimistic about that. I think inshallah, without it from that perspective, we will have better messages in that regard. better schools, better civic responsibilities and agendas. I'm very optimistic. But what I'm pessimistic about and I pray that a lot so what did proves me wrong? What

I'm scared about? Is that Islamic

We're nowhere close to the level of scholarship we need. In order for any community to go forward, you need to have odana from that community, scholars from that community. And that is why Allah subhana wa tada that says in the Quran, we have never sent a messenger, except that he was from the same people that he was sent to.

You have to be from your community. If you're not, how do you expect the Pakistani molvi to understand your problems? With all due respect, if you went to Pakistan, you'd make a bigger fool of yourself, then the MacBooks anymore, we just in your machine, you'd have no clue as to what the youth are facing and their problems and realities. Give him some slack. The reality is when it comes to your turn, are you willing? And are you ready to be in his place? Can you really and truly be a mentor, a guide, a spiritual leader, a *y, a Mufti? A hoppy and a mom? Are you ready to take on this responsibility criticisms aside? Where is the substitute, and as long as we have to continue to

import our odema and import our do art forever, the progress of American Islam will be impeded. We need to strike a balance, we need to have some of us studying the engineering and the medicine and all that that's all fine and dandy hamdulillah. But we need to have a healthy percentage interested in Islamic Studies, a healthy percentage, not 100%. Obviously, not not 90%, not even 80%. Only a few of the Sahaba actually reached the level of factor of a staff during the life of the prophet SAW most of them not that many, only a few of the Sahaba became the main narratives of Hades less than 12, who were the main coordinators of heavy, but they had them that's the point. We don't have that.

And that's the worry that I have that until we continue to import scholarship. Really, and truly, we're not looking at a healthy Islam in North America, until we have American rula odema that have really and truly studied Islam properly. And they're fully American. They speak English without an accent, they understand where we're coming from, they sympathize with our situation, they're not living in another alternate reality until we have plenty of such edema, not just one in every city one in every Masjid. Really, and truly, we are facing a crisis of national proportions as an oma in North America. And I'm very scared that Allah Allah knows what's going to happen when, you know, as

I said, When leadership is passed on to us, that's what I'm worried about. So in order to solve these problems, we really truly have to get reintroduced to our religion. Now, much can be said here. And perhaps in the question answer, we can elaborate even more, much can be said here. But a number of points first and foremost, brothers and sisters, in is not an on off switch is not that either you have it or you don't know. There are millions of shades of grey in between. There will be some Alaska which blesses them, that they can drop everything, give up their secular education, and go and study in Azhar in Medina, in Indonesia and Islamabad going steady all over the world spend

decades. But those are the exceptions. If you can be like them, and hamdulillah If not, the first point that I'm going to say, don't just throw in the towel. Don't just say, Okay, well, I can't go to Medina. I can't go outside. I can't go I'm just going to sit here and do do nothing in Islamic Studies. No, there's a lot you can do. sitting right here. Now, a lot you can do to better yourself intellectually in the Islamic sciences. So don't have an either or mentality. Either I become the shift and move to North America, or else I'm gonna remain as giant as M for the rest of my life. Sorry, brothers and sisters doesn't work that way. We only need one Mufti for North America, maybe

five 600 are good. That's all we need. But we need hundreds and 1000s of basic Imams, hundreds and 1000s of students of knowledge, and you can get to that level without ever traveling abroad you can. Secondly, once you realize there are Shades of Grey, and I need to just improve a higher shade. That's not that easy to do. Once you realize this, sit down and say okay, what time do I have? And trust me, every one of us has plenty of time. Every one of us has the same 24 hours a day. Nobody has any more any less. This is one blessing as a scholar say mankind has been given it the same in terms of you know, the time that we're living, everybody has one second right now, nobody has more

or less of that one second, of course, you have different lifespans, but in terms of time as it goes by, okay, tangential time is the same with everybody. Everybody has the time. Look at your schedule, what do I do? Do I drive to work or do I take the bus or whatever, I have time to listen to CDs and mp3 is I have an iPod I have this and that instead of listening to music, or instead of wasting my time listening to things that have no relevance and add value to me, let me buy a series about the Sahaba let me buy a series about the profits. Let me buy a series about fifth series or variable

important because you build, it's not just talks here and there. And every day, I'm going to listen to these CDs and these talks every single day until I finish the entire collection. And then I'm going to listen to them again, to solidify what I know, time when I wake up in the morning, what do I do, I surf the net for 20 minutes before leaving, I don't really need to, I can cut that down to five, that gives me 15 minutes. Let me read some, some interesting book about Islam. Let me build up my knowledge of my religion. So time you need to find out how much time you have and schedule in knowledge you need to schedule it. And thirdly, you need to find a mentor. This is necessary. Why?

Because if you don't find a mentor, you have no clue what to study, and how to study and what books to buy, and what CDs to listen to. You're just going to be, as they say, in Arabic, how to be ln, which means somebody goes out at night and just collects all types of firewood, he might collect a scorpion and a snake he has no clue what it is because it's in the dark, you don't collect firewood in the middle of the night. You just gather whatever you can know, you need to have somebody who's more knowledgeable than you doesn't have to be the biggest shift around. It's difficult to get in touch with some of them. Somebody who's preceded the path and is higher than you and you say what do

you recommend? What do I start with? Where do I go once you've done that you'll take you to a different level and so on and so forth. Fourthly, certain things you need to study without any exception, the most important of them are on instrument. This is something you need to do. This should be a daily routine every day read some Quran in Arabic and then his translation English, no exceptions. You need food to live. You need Quran and Sunnah for your soul. The food for your soul is the word of Allah and the word of the Prophet sallallahu I sent him if you don't have this food, your heart will die every day, injecting some time to read the Quran in Arabic that's the Baraka and

then understand it in English and then some books of Hadith one handy today, I recommend you to books and I encourage everybody to have these two books and read them at least one Hadith a day the first and then the 40 hadith of knowing read this book cover to cover very the most useful Hadith for the layman and then once you've done the 40 ideas you know we move on to Rio de Sala hain. Also by mmm no we, this book was written for you literally. It is, in my humble opinion the most practical and the most useful book of Hadith for the layman, the other side of him gardens of the righteous many translations in English, Bengali or do every language in the face of desert. It has

been translated into gardens of the righteous. The third thing you need to study after Quran and Sunnah Sierra, the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, make sure you know the life of this man. Brothers and sisters. It is really a sad testament to our knowledge. How much filth we know how much fascia and corruption we know how much evil we know about everything. How much useless information we know about music, about movies, about sports, some of which is hard on others of witches MOBA, none of witches bless it. It might be Haram, it might be neutral. None of it is bless it. It is a shame that we have so much crammed in our heads. And I'm sorry for daunting you in this

lecture like this. But that's the reality. Okay, it is a shame that we have so much knowledge, really, if we did a quiz of the latest movies and who started what and what are the latest? I can't even say these things. hamdulillah I plead ignorance. And I'm proud of this ignorance, who are the latest rappers and the musicians and whatnot. You know so much about them. So much even statistics about sports crammed in our heads, if only we had as much knowledge of our own religion and the Sahaba and the taboo and the great scholars were wouldn't be now. So prioritize, prioritize, make sure you have nobody's saying cut off all the sports and anything else that's MOBA permissible,

fine, spend some time doing that as well, but also spend some time with this religion. Lastly, lastly, Alhamdulillah there are many institutes that have now formed brothers and sisters when I started practicing in the sense that I was always practicing but meaning interested in knowledge. When I started getting interested in knowledge in the early 90s. There was nothing out there nothing that I could go to to sit and study. There were no students of knowledge that were active all over the country, you know, preaching and teaching advanced levels. There were a few cassettes here, a few books here. There was a time when pretty much any good book on Islamic Studies, I had it under

my shelf in the early 90s. Now I handed it up, there is a plethora of books, hundreds of cassettes, and you know mp3, you know, files, I mean hundreds and 1000s of them. There is no dearth of choices, just what do you want to listen to? So one aspect that hamdulillah we have now in North America, we have many Institute's many Institute's that are teaching and preaching advanced Islamic Studies. of them, of course, is a Muslim Institute which I'm affiliated with, but there are other Institute's as well. There is Sunni path which is short for us Rabbani is affiliated with there is

Deen intensive, there's RM courses, there's a tuna Institute, many Institute's are out there that are offering advanced Islamic Studies, find the one that you like the most you're the most comfortable with. And then study your religion. know the basics of your brothers and sisters, the sad reality we're lucky we don't even know how to do we'll do properly. We don't even know what factors break, but we'll do. Don't you think that I mean, and I'll tell you for myself, I felt disgusted at myself once upon a time that when I started studying stuff, and here I am, I remember clearly. I mean, it was like an organic chemistry book that thick you guys all know, organic

chemistry books, right? How they are. And then how I did it. I mean, I got A's in the classroom and memorize all these equations and all these mechanisms and all that. And I thought to myself, ooh, Billa, I know this entire material. But I don't know the book of Allah, even a fraction. As I know this, I don't know, the sooner that I felt into it, I speak for myself, I felt disgusted. And that was one of the turning points as I went through a whole chemical engineering degree I graduate, I just couldn't take it anymore. How much am I going to cram in and remain ignorant about my religion. Now, as I said, brothers and sister, you don't have to drop everything and go abroad 100 and that

that's not for dying. It's not at all. But what is dying upon all of you is you know the basics of your religion, how to pray, how to fast how to, you know, do the will do properly, what factors break the will do whatever business you're going to, if you're a businessman and a trader, you need to know the fifth of economics. If you're a doctor, you need to know what is permissible, what is impermissible, whatever field you go into, you need to know the basics of that field. And all of this is available in English now 100 in that, so brothers and sisters, there are now these Institute's out there as well. And they're active in many communities, along with the books, along

with the CDs along with the lectures, along with personal tutelage, if you can find people in your locality and community, try to avail yourself to this opportunity, which I have handed in that this is a blessing from Allah that you brothers have, I didn't have it when I was at your stage, we didn't have that opportunity. Now this knowledge is being brought to you at your doorstep. You don't have to go abroad to study if you do no doubt that is the best you can't beat that quality. You're surrounded by real are them. As for us, I speak for myself, I'm not an island. We're just minor students of knowledge that allows the widget has blessed to be in the company of a redeemer. Now we

come back and we give you some tidbits here and there. If you can go with the viola hamdulillah. If not, there are plenty of opportunities, plenty of students of knowledge, plenty of centers, plenty of Institute's that are out there helping the community Do what you can make dua to Allah subhanho wa Taala put your trust in Allah and bit by bit slowly but surely, you will rise up in these shades of grey and you will really benefit and contribute to the North American Islamic academic scene. I pray that Allah subhanho wa Taala grants us the motivation to study his religion. He grants us the sincerity to really truly give it the right that it is due. And He grants us that the field and the

patience and the determination to then put that sincerity into action will go to that one and in hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa sallahu was setting out about a karate Mohammedan while he was so happy he Marian was said Amara Kumara La Hoya barakato