Yasir Qadhi – Syria – Signs of the Day of Judgment on Their Nation
AI: Summary ©
The shaming of Islam is a problem that is present in modern reality. The importance of science in shaming reality and the success of science in shaming history are discussed. The history of hadiths and their cultural significance are also discussed, including the use of multiple sources of evidence and caution when interpreting them. The shady and fabricated narrations used in the ACU-DAU movement are also discussed, including the claim that a man named Sufrowski will come from a place called the "will" and kill all the people of the region. The history of the ACU-DAU movement is also discussed, including the lack of "]].
AI: Summary ©
In light of what is happening in Bilad
al-Sham, I thought that one of the
things that I should do is to discuss
some of the ahadith, some of the traditions
that are going around that we should be
aware of with regards to the modern realities.
That is because when it comes to the
signs of the Day of Judgment, Bilad al
-Sham or this area of Syria, it plays
a very vital role.
And there are many traditions about Bilad al
-Sham.
And today we will be discussing not the
authentic ones, but some of the ones that
are very weak or fabricated, but are very
common on the internet.
Because we should warn against the weak and
the fabricated traditions, because too much is being
read in.
And people might become absorbed in trying to
recreate what they think the hadith says.
And this is a common problem throughout history.
So today's brief lecture is a summary of
some of the more common fabricated or very
weak traditions that I've seen being circulated on
Twitter, on WhatsApp, on Facebook, regarding the current
situation in Bilad al-Sham.
And by the way, we don't need weak
and fabricated traditions.
We have enough in the Qur'an and
in the authentic sunnah to tell us of
the blessings of Bilad al-Sham.
I just recited in Salat al-Isha the
whole verse about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
mentioning that, Everything
around Masjid al-Aqsa is mubarak.
And Allah calls it the holy land.
And the Prophet ﷺ said in a number
of authentic traditions, he said that, Oh Allah,
bless us in our Bilad al-Sham.
Bless us in our Bilad al-Sham.
And he said this when Bilad al-Sham
wasn't under Muslim control.
It was under Roman control.
And he said this supposed to belong to
us because this is where the prophets walk.
This is the holy land.
It belongs to us.
So we don't need weak and fabricated traditions.
And yet we find them commonly circulating amongst
the masses.
Now before I get to one or two
examples, very brief introduction.
I know I've spoken about this a lot
of times, but still a quick, very quick
refresher course.
Why are there so many, you know, weak
and fabricated traditions?
We need to understand the science of Hadith
is a very different science than any other
science known to mankind.
It is a unique science to the Muslim
Ummah.
No other tradition invented a tradition or a
science like the sciences of Hadith.
There is the unanimous consensus of the scholars
of Islam that the sciences of Hadith are
one of the unique contributions to human civilization
that only Muslims have done.
Jews did not have it.
Christians did not have it.
They didn't have a mechanism to sift what
their prophets said, the good from the bad,
the weak from the authentic.
They had no mechanism.
And we see this reality.
As for us, from the time of the
Sahaba Tabi'oon, from the earliest of times,
Muslims understood that we need to figure out
how to separate what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam actually said from what is being attributed
to him.
Why?
Because the Qur'an was compiled in the
life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and
within a year after he passed away, Abu
Bakr As-Sikh made the official copy of
the Qur'an from Fatiha to Nas.
As for Hadith, Hadith was organic.
Hadith was not compiled in a book because
it was not possible to compile in a
book.
Because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam spoke for
23 years.
Sahaba heard him throughout his life.
And so as the Sahaba spread, the knowledge
of what they heard also spread.
So you had Sahaba spreading a Hadith where
they went.
But along with the Sahaba spreading what the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, you had people
fabricating.
You had people who wanted to, you know,
figure out a mechanism to justify their theological
deviation, their political deviation, or their own interpretations.
And they made up statements attributing it to
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Along with this, you had another factor, and
that is the normal reality of faulty memory.
Can you imagine a simple example?
If all of your family came together and
began recollecting memories of your great grandparents, let's
say the legends that came down, right?
For sure, all of your, you know, cousins,
second cousins would have some stories exactly the
same.
And then within yourselves, you'll have a little
bit of difference.
And then maybe one person will have a
completely unique story.
Maybe he messed up, he got it from
another source, and he attributed it to your
great grandfather by an accidental mistake.
It wasn't fabrication.
Same thing happened with the Hadith of the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, where you had intentional
fabrication, and then you had faulty memories, people
who don't know that well.
And then you had the Huffa, the Mutqineen,
the scholars of Hadith.
So a science was developed called the science
of Hadith.
And slowly but surely, there was a sifting
that took place.
And just to give you a simple example,
a lot of people don't understand how difficult
and how complex the science is.
This was the course of my undergraduate study
when I was studying in Medina.
There was an entire college called the College
of Hadith, and that's what it specializes in.
Over 650 original books exist about Hadith, not
six, 650.
It is a massive encyclopedic enterprise.
Scholars from the first generation and second generation
all the way to the fifth generation, they
are compiling original books of Hadith.
It's not just Bukhari and Muslim.
You know Bukhari and Muslim because they're the
best.
In fact, over 600 books have been written
in Islamic history attempting to compile Hadith.
The most famous of the earliest one is,
of course, Imam Malik's Muwatta.
Look at the date.
Imam Malik died 179.
So Imam Malik's Muwatta, 179.
And then of the latest books, for example,
the Mustadrak of Al-Hakim or the Sunnah
of Al-Bayhaqi, 458 hijrah.
So from 179 to 450, that's not the
end.
There's even some written in the beginning of
the 500s, which is giving you one of
the famous books written.
Al-Bayhaqi, you hear it?
He died 458.
Imagine 458 to 179, 300 years difference, right?
From the first to the last.
Between the two geographic regions, you had scholars
in Yemen, you had scholars in Samarkand, you
had scholars in Egypt, you had scholars in
Mecca and Medina, you had scholars around the
world, each one of them compiling.
Now you have a large corpus of books
and you have to sift through them.
And our scholars categorize these books.
That's why out of these 600 plus books,
six of them became more famous.
They were considered to be the more authentic.
And of these six, two are the most
authentic by pretty much unanimous consensus because their
criteria were the strictest.
That is Bukhari and Muslim.
Now, long story short, I'm not going to
teach you obviously the sciences of hadith, but
I will give you the reality, the end
result.
I'm going to give you the end result.
How do you know if a hadith is
authentic or not?
The same way, how do you know which
position of fiqh to follow?
You have to ask the person whom you
trust.
That's all.
There is no other way to do this.
It's not your area of expertise, so you
have to go to somebody whom you trust.
And understandably, just like in any discipline, you're
going to find a spectrum of opinion.
Therefore, don't be surprised if a certain preacher
or a speaker gives a hadith and says,
oh, this is a good hadith.
It's an authentic hadith.
Another preacher says, no, no, this is not
an authentic hadith.
Such is the reality of hadith sciences.
Don't be surprised.
And one very important point to note, if
somebody believes a hadith is weak because of
a technical reason, this person is not rejecting
what the Prophet ﷺ said.
That's absolutely incorrect.
The person is saying, I don't believe the
Prophet ﷺ said it.
There's a big difference between the two, right?
One scholar might say, this hadith is authentic.
Another scholar says, no, no, I looked at
this chain and I think this is weak.
It's a technical difference.
So to reject a hadith because you think
it is weak is not a rejection of
what the Prophet ﷺ said.
It's a rejection of him having said it.
You see the difference between the two, right?
And so please be careful of this distinction.
Now, with that very long introduction, understand another
point.
Imam Ahmad famously remarked, there are three genres,
the bulk of traditions are false in them.
There are three areas, the bulk of what
is narrated by the people, and Imam Ahmad,
he's speaking around, you know, 250-240 Hijrah.
Imam Ahmad is speaking, you know, in the
middle of the third century.
Imam Ahmad says, there are three areas, the
bulk of what the people narrate, it's not
authentic.
One of them, tafsir, another of them maghazi,
and the third of them, the signs of
the day of judgment, which is our topic
today.
Imam Ahmad himself said, most of what the
people say about what's going to happen and
this is going to happen, this is not
authentic.
He realizes because this is where imagination, you
know, comes in.
This is where people want to speak a
lot about.
So we have to be very careful when
it comes to these types of traditions.
Now, as I said, today, I want to
mention one or two very infamous, weak, or
very weak narrations about what is happening in
Bilad al-Sham.
The first of them, and again, because there
are many authentic and khutbah I gave, I
mentioned some of them, and there's another khutbah
I gave a few years ago, the blessings
of Syria, when the revolution happened, I gave
a khutbah about the blessings of Syria, I
mentioned many of the authentic traditions.
Today, I want to mention one or two
of the most infamous, inauthentic ones that I
see circulating.
So the first of them I want to
mention is the infamous narration that is reported
in a book.
So again, pause here.
The scholars of the past did not have
a problem narrating a weak tradition with its
chain, because they're telling you that this is
a weak chain.
They're preaching and teaching to specialists.
So Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal, he has in
his book, many traditions that he himself considered
weak, no problem, because he did not say,
I'm only going to compile the authentic ones.
That's Bukhari.
If Bukhari has something in his Sahih, this
means he thinks it is authentic.
Muslim, this means authentic.
As for Ahmed or Abu Dawood or the
other books, they didn't have that high stringent
condition.
Why they didn't have it is beyond the
scope of today's lecture.
But suffice to say, if you had that
strict condition, you would have to eliminate the
bulk of traditions.
That's why Bukhari really was the strictest because
he had a very high standard in doing
so.
So we have in Muslim Imam Ahmed, many
traditions that Imam Ahmed himself knew to be
weak, but he wanted to record them that
you know the chain, because if you know
the chain, you can figure out it is
weak.
So Imam Ahmed has it in his book,
and it is also in the Musadarak of
Al-Hakim.
And it is also in other books, which
is the infamous hadith about the black flags
coming from Khorasan.
The black flags coming from Khorasan.
Khorasan, of course, it is Transoxiana, Transoxania.
And it is these days, it is like
Afghanistan and Samarkand in those regions.
This is this is the land of Khorasan.
So there's a famous hadith, allegedly, that our
Prophet ﷺ allegedly said, this is a contested
hadith, when you see the black flags coming
from Khorasan, then go to those black flags,
because in that army will be Khalifatullah Al
-Mahdi.
This is one version of the hadith.
When you see the black flags coming, then
go to that army and support them, because
within them will be Khalifatullah Al-Mahdi.
And in Ibn Majah, a similar version, but
a longer version, that allegedly hadith goes that
there shall be a civil war in which
three armies will fight over a treasure.
All of them are the sons of a
Khalifa, they're all princes, and then none of
them is going to be successful.
And then a black flag will come with
an army from Khorasan, and they will kill
everybody like nobody else has been killed.
Then when you see them, then go towards
them, even if you have to crawl on
ice and give your allegiance to that army,
because in that army is Khalifatullah Al-Mahdi
and hadith.
Now, this hadith is the famous hadith of
the black flags, right?
And throughout Islamic history, it has always been
invoked that there's going to be an army
of black flags, and that army was going
to be the righteous army, and it will
have the Mahdi within it.
By the way, even a few years ago,
you know, when Afghanistan happened, and you know,
the group came over there, they also have
the black flag.
And Afghanistan is Khorasan, it is the same
land over there.
And so this hadith also became popular over
there.
And now we have it again being resurrected.
But in fact, this hadith, according to many
scholars, and this is my humble interpretation as
well, their opinion as well, this hadith is
actually not authentic at all.
And it has been considered weak by many
scholars, including Imam Ahmed, including in our times,
Dr. Hatem Al-Awni, and the great Syrian
scholar Sheikh Salahuddin Al-Idlibi, and other scholars
have written treatises in which they have made
this hadith weak.
Now, I don't want to get into technicalities,
but understand one thing.
When the Abbasids revolted against the Umayyads, the
Abbasids, when did they revolt?
Which year did they revolt?
Who knows the year in Hijrah?
Quiz, quick quiz.
When did the Abbasids revolt against the Umayyads?
Quick quiz.
Close, very close.
So within the second century, so the middle
part of the second century, meaning from 147
to 151 in this era, this is 100
years before Bukhari, by the way, right?
This is 100 years before Bukhari, 50, 70
years before Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal.
So the Abbasids revolted against the Umayyads, right?
Around 149 Hijrah was when it really began.
The main person who led the revolts was
from Khurasan.
And his name is Abu Muslim Al-Khurasani.
And the banner that he used was black.
You see where this is heading?
So a lot of scholars have pointed out
that these genres of traditions seem to support
the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads.
And that's why these versions of the hadith,
none of them are found in Bukhari and
Muslim.
None of them are in the most authentic
books, we find them in the tertiary collections,
and some of them might have slightly weak.
And so later scholars say, Oh, this is
slightly weak, this is slightly with this light,
we put together, it becomes Hassan.
This is the opinion of some of our
scholars, we respect that other scholars say, actually,
not only is every chain quite weak, but
the content of it, it just goes against,
you know, it's feehy nakara.
They say it's reject, because it seems to
very much, you know, coordinate, if you like,
or act as a instigator to the Umayyad
and the Abbasid warfare that took place.
And in fact, that's why Ibn Al-Jawzi
famously considered this hadith to be fabricated.
Ibn Al-Jawzi considered this hadith to be
absolutely fabricated.
And he put it in his famous book,
Al-Mawduat.
And this, this notion of the Abbasids using
this, by the way, it was actually so
common in their time, they were the ones
using this hadith as well, that in fact,
Al-Mansur, who is the real founder of
the Abbasid dynasty, he's the one who founded
the city of Baghdad, Al-Mansur named his
son, Abdullah Al-Mahdi.
He named his son Al-Mahdi, Abdullah, and
his name is, I'm sorry, his name is
Muhammad, and his name is, sorry, his name
is Muhammad, his name was Abdullah, Al-Mansur's
name was Abdullah.
So his son was Al-Mahdi Muhammad Ibn
Abdullah.
And Al-Mahdi became the khalifa after his
father, because the father quite literally wanted this
hadith to apply to his son, quite literally,
he named his son Al-Mahdi.
And he named his son Abdullah, and his
name was, sorry, his name is Muhammad, and
his own name was Abdullah.
So Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, because another hadith says,
the Mahdi will be called after me, the
Mahdi will call after me.
So the khalifa Al-Mansur, quite literally, wanted
to enact a Hollywood script from these hadith.
And he named his own son Al-Mahdi,
because he was hoping that his son would
be the actual Mahdi that Allah sent.
And Al-Mahdi, by the way, is the
father of Harun Rashid.
Harun Rashid is the father, Al-Mahdi is
the father of Harun Rashid.
And if you read Al-Mahdi's biography, I
don't want to say too much, but clearly
he was not the Mahdi, let's leave it
at that, okay?
So this is the reality, by the way,
of politics and siyasa, right?
So in reality, this hadith is very fishy.
It doesn't make any sense.
And every few generations, an army wants to
implement by using black flags.
An army, literally, because the hadith mentions black
flags, they want to imitate it, and they
want to find legitimacy.
And so they use black flags, so much
so that in our times, black flags themselves
have become infamous.
We don't want to use black flags because
of all the chaos caused.
But why was it caused?
Because the first flag of the Abbasids was
a black flag.
They would use that against the Umayyads, and
ever since then, and because of this hadith,
every subsequent generation.
So in the analysis of many scholars of
hadith, including yours truly, I'm a student of
knowledge, but I strongly say this hadith is
not authentic.
It's not in the most authentic narrations, and
every chain is very weak, and the content
does not make any sense at all.
Another hadith we'll mention, and I shall call
it a day, and this one I'm seeing,
literally, I saw at least 10 accounts mentioning
it all over social media.
It is called the famous hadith of the
Sufyani.
The hadith of the Sufyani.
The Sufyani hadith.
And this hadith is not even found in
the Kutub al-Sitta.
It's actually found in the very tertiary books.
As I said, there's 600 plus books of,
you know, original hadith written.
One of the most obscure ones, which is
full of very weak and fabricated narrations about
the Day of Judgment, it is called Kitab
al-Fitn of Nu'aym ibn Hammad.
Kitab al-Fitn.
It's a two-volume book, and it's all
about the signs of the Day of Judgment.
And it is well known to be full
of extremely shady, very apocryphal, very dubious hadith,
which is just too vivid, too much detail.
It's not a source book at all, but
of course it exists.
And this narration of Sufyani is found in
that book, Kitab al-Fitn, is found in
this book.
And it reads as follows, that, the Arabic
is very long, that a man will come
who shall be called a Sufyani from a
Sufyan.
A man will come, he will be called
a Sufyani, and he will come from the
depths of Damascus.
By the way, Ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn al
-Qayyim, Ibn Taymiyyah, other scholars say, anytime a
hadith is very specific about the future, know
that it is fabricated.
One of the signs of fabrication is that
it mentions names and dates and specific occurrences.
Our Prophet ﷺ didn't speak like that.
He spoke in generalities about the signs of
the Day of Judgment.
So now you have, there are hadith that
mention, in the year such and such, this
will happen.
There are hadith that mention right now, from
the land of Damascus, a man by the
name of Sufyan will come out.
It's not something that is normal, inauthentic hadith.
These are signs that this hadith is, you
know, very fishy.
So, the hadith goes on, alleged hadith.
A man will come from Damascus, from the
depths of Damascus, by the name of Sufyan.
The majority of his followers will be from
the tribe of Kalb.
He will kill everybody, to the extent of
ripping open the bellies of women and killing
the unborn children.
Then the tribe of Qais will gather against
him, and he will kill all of them,
leaving no one to be able to prevent
the harm that he is doing.
Then a man will come from my household,
Ahlul Bayt al-Mahdi.
A man will come from my household.
He will rise in the district of Al
-Hara, and the news will reach Al-Sufyani.
He will send an army to confront him,
but they will be defeated.
Sufyani will then march with his own forces.
Then when they reach a desert area by
the name of Al-Bayda, Allah will cause
the earth to swallow them, and none of
the Sufyani army will survive, except a few
who will tell others what happened, end hadith.
Now, this hadith is now being forwarded everywhere,
because I don't want to get too specific
with their interpreting a certain person to be
the Sufyani, another person to be the tribe
of Kalb, another group to be the tribe
of Qais, and everybody.
So they literally read this hadith, they look
at what is happening, and they start assigning
like children playing games.
You play this, you play this, you play
this, and then they pretend this hadith is
applying over here.
This should never be done, even with authentic
traditions, much less weak and fabricated traditions.
This should never be done, even with authentic
traditions.
Our scholars unanimously say, never take something that
you find, even an authentic hadith, and presume
that an incident in your generation is exactly
what the process I'm referred to.
How do you know?
Could be another generation.
You may interpret, you may say maybe, but
never categorically link, because history has shown every
few generations, something happens, and great scholars link
an authentic hadith with what happens.
Turns out they were wrong.
In fact, even the Sahaba, they thought that
the Dajjal was amongst them, and the next
Tabi'un, they thought another person Dajjal, and
the next person.
Every few generations, somebody comes and says, oh,
this Dajjal, Dajjal, Dajjal.
Well, Alhamdulillah, he has not yet come, and
may we never live to see him.
May we not ever see, you know, that
time that comes.
So never, ever apply even an authentic hadith
to current events, how much more so when
it is weak and fabricated.
So this hadith talks about a figure known
as Sufyani.
What does Sufyani refer to?
From the descendants of Sufyan, Abu Sufyan.
And right then and there, you realize something
is fishy here, right?
Because the Umayyads were despised by many groups
of people, especially those who supported the Al
-Bayt.
And so the notion is, not that I'm
defending the Umayyads or criticizing, I'm just being
factual right now.
The Umayyads have a lot of good and
they have a lot of bad as well.
Just look at what they've done.
A lot of good and a lot of
bad.
This is the reality, right?
So I'm not defending or criticizing.
I'm telling you factually, the Al-Bayt, the
supporters of the Al-Bayt, the Shia to
Al-Bayt, they obviously did not like the
Umayyads at all for many legitimate reasons.
And so to say that there will be
a civil war between a Sufyani and between
an Al-Bayt, automatically this is the reality
of what was happening for the first hundred
years of the Umayyad rule.
Multiple civil wars between Husayn and the Umayyads,
and between Zayd and the Umayyads, and between
so many times between so many of the
Al-Bayt and between the Umayyads.
And then the Abbasids, I'll teach you a
double-crossed.
They're politicians in the end of the day.
The Abbasids allied with the Shia to Al
-Bayt.
The Abbasids said, we're on your side.
The Abbasids formed an alliance, Shia to Al
-Bayt.
And then they revolted against the Umayyads as
soon as they got to power.
First thing they did, massacred all of the
Umayyads.
Literally, they invited them to a peace treaty.
They invited them to a banquet, literally.
This is one of the most infamous episodes
of Islamic history.
They promised them safety and security, and then
they shut the doors, and they massacred down
to every last child.
And then they massacred Abu Muslim Al-Khurasani,
their own general.
Their own leader they killed him, because he
was getting too powerful, too popular.
And then they backstabbed the Shia to Al
-Bayt, whom they said that they would ally
with.
And they cut them off, imprisoned their Imams,
so on and so forth.
This is politics.
I'm not defending.
I'm just telling you what happened.
This is politics, right?
So you can imagine in this, there were
many battles that took place between the Sufyanids,
i.e. the Umayyads, and between the Al
-Bayt.
So to have a hadith that says, there
shall be a civil war between the Sufyanids,
and he's gonna kill people in the worst
manner, and then a Mahdi figure will come.
I mean, you automatically see it's just, it
doesn't make any sense.
And like I said, hardly any scholar consider
this to be an authentic hadith.
So please don't forward the Sufyani hadith.
It is definitely not an authentic hadith.
One final point that I want to mention
here.
A lot of people have asked me for
my opinions about the reality of what is
happening right now in Bilad al-Sham.
Listen, brothers and sisters, I love to talk
about classical stuff.
I love Islamic history.
I love Aqeedah.
I love Seerah.
I try my best to not get involved
in political analysis, because I firmly believe it's
not the job of scholars to do so.
And when we do so, detailed political analysis
of current events, I think our mistakes probably
are more than what was correct.
And this is something I'm not saying.
Ibn Khaldun very famously remarked this.
Ibn Khaldun, go read his muqaddimah.
He has a chapter.
Go check this out.
Chapter number 42.
The chapter heading is called, the majority of
ulama are the furthest people from politics.
This is the chapter heading.
Ulama ab'adun nasi literally has this.
He is making a remark here.
The least qualified people to run political affairs.
And I'm speaking as somebody who is inshallah
part of the scholarly tradition.
I've studied in that tradition.
I love that tradition.
And yet I warn ulama from getting involved
in politics.
I warn this, and I try my best
to implement it myself.
Why?
Ibn Khaldun remarks.
And by the way, just for the advanced
people in the audience here, subhanAllah.
What did Plato say about the ideal ruler?
Who knows?
Plato of Latun.
Plato said the ideal ruler is who?
The philosopher, the philosopher, the aqlani, the rajul
of aql.
Plato in his theoretical mind said, the intellectual
person should be the leader.
Ibn Khaldun is the exact opposite.
Ibn Khaldun is like, you should never put
the intellectuals and the philosopher, philosophical class and
the ulama as leaders.
And he says it in a polite way,
but I will reinterpret.
He says it very politely.
He says that is because the ulama, they
speak in generalities, and they speak in idealistic
language, and they speak in, I'm going to
say, he didn't say, utopic visions and dreams,
right?
And they don't actually get involved down to
the nitty gritty of real.
So let ulama preach utopic ideals.
We want to lift people up to those
ideals.
When ulama try to apply those ideals to
the reality, they mess up big time.
And we see this anytime a group of
clerics think they will run the country.
Look, and I say this with love and
respect.
I know my critics go berserk over this,
but I can't change facts.
Go look around you, look around you, wherever
modern scholarship has taken over a country, look
at what it has done.
The very people start to Astaghfirullah, hate Islam,
because scholars don't understand.
People are not qualified to be all the
way up there.
You have to start at the bottom.
And that's why Ibn Khaldun points this out,
that look, scholars are great for khutbas and
durus.
Scholars are great to inspire, but scholars are
not qualified to actually rule over.
And that's why, look at Islamic history, only
in the time of Khulafa Ar-Rashidun.
That's it.
That's why they're Khulafa Ar-Rashidun.
That's it.
And even they could not, their people could
not live up to their standards.
That's why what happened happened.
Even in the time of Ali radiyallahu anhu,
and he was who he was, the people
could not live up to that.
This is the reality, the disconnect between theory
and reality.
We see this, and with utmost respect, look
at the Arab Spring.
I don't want to get too blunt here,
but everybody, look at your own countries, the
good people who went into politics, where are
they now?
Where are they?
I'm not being too explicit, but you know
where I'm from.
Look at what happened back there.
And look at Egyptians.
Look at others as well.
So my humble advice as a student of
history to my brothers in Syria, and I
know it's not going to reach them, but
it's generic advice.
Learn from the mistakes of the last 20
years, rather the last 1,400 years.
Learn from history.
Learn from history.
Don't expect society to become ideal overnight.
You have to give freedoms to everybody.
We want religious folks to be religious.
We want religious folks to be able to
preach and teach.
But in order for them to preach and
teach, you cannot enforce a harsh version on
other people.
And therefore, levels of freedom for everybody is
actually the lesser of two evils.
And that's why in America and in western
lands, we can flourish the way we can
flourish.
This is the reality, the awkward reality that
most people of a theoretical ilmi nature don't
understand.
Learn from history.
Understand when you let others live, they will
let you live.
When you let others breathe, they will let
you breathe as well.
But when you try to enforce one very
narrow version, whatever it might be, whether it's
Baathism, whether it's harsh secularism, whether it is
your version of Islamic law and the people
don't want it, well then what happens happens.
So learn from history.
My sincere advice to them is that the
goal we want religiosity to be something that
is cherished.
We want preachers and ulama to have the
freedoms to preach and not be criminalized.
And perhaps the only way to do that
is to allow people a level of freedom
that everybody can inshallah accommodate.
We make dua for our brothers and sisters
in Syria.
We make dua that Allah SWT blesses them.
We make dua that Allah SWT provides safety
and comfort for all of the people and
allows them to be a role model for
other Muslim nations around the world.
Inshallah we'll continue next week.
Al Fatiha.