Understanding Egypt, A Spiritual Look

Yasmin Mogahed

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Channel: Yasmin Mogahed

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Mr. Lake, this is ismene. Magellan, and you're listening to serenity streaming live on one legacy radio. Today, we'll be discussing some major things which are happening in the world today. As many of you know, the the people in Egypt have taken a serious step towards freedom and standing up in the face of a tyrant. And so I wanted to talk today about what's happening today in Egypt. And to give it some perspective, and inshallah talk about how it really does apply to us today, standing here in the United States and all over the world. But before I begin, I want to actually start with painting a scenario for you.

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Prophet Musa alayhis salam stood in front of the Red Sea, and as he stood there, there was a tyrant and his army approaching from behind. Now, while they were in this situation, there was some of the people amongst, you know, amongst Moosa amidst this situation, who began to divide. And those people, when they looked ahead of them, they saw only defeat.

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Allah says in the Quran, in chapter 26, verse 61, and when the two bodies saw each other, the people of Moosa said we are sure to be overtaken.

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But Musa alayhis salaam had different eyes, his eyes were spiritual eyes, and they saw through the illusions of worldly hardship and defeat, he saw through with his heart which was connected to the Most High, looking at the very same seemingly impossible situation. Musa alayhis salam saw only God.

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Allah tells us in the Quran that Moosa says something very, very powerful. Once he gets into this situation. He says Kela in my Robbie, say, Dean, he says, By no means, so when they are saying, we're going to be overtaken, we're going to be defeated. He says, By no means my Lord is with me, and He will guide me through.

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Now, we right now are standing

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in a very similar situation. But you'll see that what happened with Musa alayhis salaam is exactly what he what he said would happen. Indeed, Allah did just that. Allah then tells us what happens next. In the Quran, he says, What's translated as then we told Musa by inspiration, strike the sea with your rod. So it divided and each separate part became like the huge firm mass of a mountain. And we made the other party approach. We delivered Moosa and all those who were with him, and we drowned the others.

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Now today in Egypt, we are standing in front of a Red Sea. Today in Egypt, a tyrant and his army are at our back. Today, there are some who are seeing only defeat. But there are others whose eyes are seeing through the blockade to the path and the hope beyond it. See today in Egypt, there are some who even though there's a tyrant at their back, is saying, in my Arab be saya Dean, indeed, my Lord is with me, and He will guide me through. Now, here's the question I wanted to get to. A lot of people are probably asking and wondering, why is it that at such a critical time in history, we would even be talking about these ancient stories? Why would something that happened 1000s of years

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ago, be relevant today. The reason is this, it is not just a story, nor is it ancient. It is an everlasting sign and the lesson for all time, because you'll notice that in the very next area, Allah says, very early in this is a sign, but most of them do not believe. So what is it a sign of, it's a sign of the reality of God and the secrets of this world. It's a sign that tyranny never wins. And that blockades and obstacles are only illusions created to test us, train us and purify us. But most of all, it's a sign of from where success comes. And it's a vision of what that success looks like against all odds at a time.

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When we think we're trapped, defeated and powerless. Now some people right now are wondering, why if indeed we are on the side of God, does victory not come easily? Why is it that we Why doesn't God to just give the righteous people victory without such an immense struggle and sacrifice? Now the answer to this question is also given to us by Allah in the Quran. Allah says in chapter seven, verse 94, we did not send a prophet in a town, but we overtook its people with distress and affliction, in order that they might humble themselves. Now you'll notice in if you if you read the the, this, the the wording that's used here, Allah says La La homea around. Now the concept of

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Todaro is important because Allah is saying that the reason we are giving them this hardship or this distress or this affliction, is in order for them to reach this state of Dada. So then the question is what really is pulled on a rock, wall to load rock can be translated as humility, but to doTERRA is much, much, much more than just humility, to really try to visualize and understand the concept of raw, imagine for a second that you're in the middle of an ocean, and you're all alone in a boat. Now imagine that all of a sudden, a huge storm comes, and the waves turn into mountains surrounding you and about to take over you and the boat. Now think in that situation, about calling for the help

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of God. Think about what kind of state you would be in, think about the the the level of awe, and dependency and and humility that you would be in at that point, when you call on God. And if you think about that, you'll understand that that is what the lottery is. So what a lot is saying as though again, that he's actually he actually creates these conditions of hardship, in order to give us this gift. God says, See, because you have to understand that God doesn't need to make things hard for us, right, he creates situations in order to allow us to reach a state of closeness to him, which we would otherwise be unlikely to reach. So this priceless state of humility, near and utter

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dependence on God is what the Egyptian people have been blessed with today. And it is through that hardship which they are going through right now that they were given this gift.

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But Allah also mentions other purposes, for these hardships and struggles. So for example, in the next area, Allah says, What's translated as and we divided them throughout the earth into different groups of them, some were righteous, and of them some were otherwise. And we tested them with good times and bad times, that perhaps they would return to obedience. And that's chapter seven, verse 168. Now we'll go ahead and take a break right now. But when we return, inshallah, we'll discuss what this other purpose of hardship is in our lives.

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Welcome back. This is yes, mean Mujahid and you're listening to serenity on one legacy radio, where we're talking about Egypt and how we can interpret what is happening right now in terms of ourselves, and, and in terms of the whole world? Join us in the discussion by calling in at 800-955-5548. So what we just finished speaking about is what Allah talks about in the Quran, when he talks about the reason for hardship, because the natural question that a lot of us are wondering is that if you know this is really a struggle as as it as it most definitely is against tyranny, and we err on the side of the good, why doesn't it just come easy? Why is there all this this high

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price, why is there this sacrifice in the struggle that we have to go through? And so what we're doing is we're talking about, well, what does the law say, is the purpose for this struggle and this sacrifice in the Quran? And what we've just recited was the translation of one of the ayats where Allah says that that he

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Tests us with good times and bad times, that perhaps we might return to Him that allow me to Jerry on the other Jeroen means he needs to come back to Allah subhanho wa Taala. And in another area, and this is this is in sort of lm Ron and it's it's a it's a it's a very, very powerful as and I'm going to go ahead and read the translation. This is sort of lm Ron verses 140 to 142. Allah says, if a wound has touched you, be sure a similar wound has touched the others. Such days of varying fortunes we give to men and men by turns, that God may know those that believe and that he may take to himself for your ranks, martyr witnesses to truth, and God loves not those that do wrong. Now this

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is this is the part I really want you to focus on. Then Allah says, Allah has object also is to purify those that are true in faith, and to deprive of blessings, those that resists faith. Do you think that you would enter heaven without God testing those of you who fought hard in his cause, and remained steadfast. So here Allah is describing the purpose of hardship as being something which in Arabic is called campaigns and campaigns is actually the same word that's used to describe the heating and purifying that happens to gold. So you know that without heating it up, gold is a precious metal, however, it is full of impurities. And in order to purify gold, what do you do to

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it, you heat it up. And this is what God also does to the believers. By under by by putting them through hardship by putting them through struggle, believers are also purified, just like gold. And so you'll notice that that is actually exactly what has happened to the Egyptian people. SubhanAllah. Only days before this uprising, the world had considered the Egyptian youth a lost cause. We believe that they had lost their direction and their purpose, we thought that they had chosen to live their lives instead, on the streets, cat calling out to girls or at internet cafes, smoking hookah. Through this hardship the Egyptian youth have been brought back from the dead. Now,

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instead of standing on the streets of the hookah bars, the very same youth are standing on the streets in defiance of tyranny on their knees praying, and with their hands facing towards the sky calling on Allah, the same people who just days before, barely prayed, stand now in front of military tanks in order to bow down to their Creator. Only days before the uprising. The tensions for example, between Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Christians had grown to an all time high. Today, the Christians and Muslims stand side by side, in defense of each other and of their country. And the same people who could not trust one another the day before, now are coming together as brothers

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and sisters as one single body to defend their streets, their homes and their neighborhoods against these thugs. And through this hardship, a person who only days before lived for his cell phone, shisha and cigarettes has become willing to sacrifice his own life, to give freedom to his people.

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A lot tells us in the code on say, Who is it that sustains you in life, from the sky and from the earth? Or who is it that has power over hearing and sight? And who is it that brings out the living from the dead and the dead from the living? And who is it that rules and regulates all affairs? They will soon say Allah say Will you not then show piety to him? chapter 10 verse 31. It is a law who brings the living out of the dead, and he has brought us back from the dead. But we should not think we should never think for a moment that any single moment of everything that is happening is not happening with a purpose, a deep, profound and beautiful, liberating purpose. One other thing which

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is extremely, extremely deep, is that for decades, the Egyptian people have lived a life of fear.

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But when you let fear control you, you are a slave. A law has liberated the Egyptian people from the slavery by making them actually face and overcome what used to be their greatest fear.

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Allah has liberated the Egyptian people by allowing them to look their oppressor in the eye and tell him and the entire world that they will no longer live in fear.

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And so whether MOBOTIX stays or goes, lives or dies, it really doesn't matter. The Egyptian people have already been liberated. They have been liberated. Hosni Mubarak is irrelevant. He's nothing but a tool, a tool by which God carries out his plan for the Egyptian people and for the entire oma, a tool to carry out his plan to purify, beautify, and liberate the Egyptian people and the oma at large. And whether we are in Egypt today or not, is actually unimportant, because Egypt is just one limb of our body. The purification of Egypt is a purification of the whole body of our oma. It is the purification of you and me. And it's our chance to ask ourselves to what we are attached to.

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It's a chance to ask ourselves, what are we afraid of? What are we striving for? What do we stand for? And where are we going?

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We'll go ahead and take a break now. And when we return, we'll just continue the discussion about what we should learn from what's happening now in Egypt.

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Welcome back. This is yes, mean Mujahid and you're listening to serenity on one legacy radio. We are talking today about the happenings in Egypt and what it means for us, for us internally for us all over the world. So if you'd like to join the discussion, please go go ahead and call in at 800-955-5548. So we were talking about how this purification of Egypt and of the people of Egypt and especially the youth in Egypt, is not only a purification of Egypt, but of the entire Ummah as a whole because as we were told by the prophet, so little Lavanya was setting them, the entire oma is like one body. And so if there's one thing that's happening in one side of that body, so if there's

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something happening in my arm or in my leg or in my foot, it affects the entire body. And if there's a part of my body that's being purified, the entire body is being purified. When, and and that brings us back to the issue of that when a body is in a deep, deep slumber, rather a coma. It is only out of Allah's infinite mercy, that he sends us a wake up call. It is only from his infinite mercy that he sends us life where there was once Only death. We were heedless. So he sent us assign. We were asleep. So he woke us up. We worshipped this life and preferred our material possessions to the liberation of a soul attached to and afraid of nothing but him. So he freed us. How many people

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will experience something like this in their lifetime? How many people will experience the opening of a see the humbling of a tyrant? Shouldn't we ask ourselves why we were chosen to see it to witness it? Shouldn't we ask ourselves why we were in what we were intended to learn, change or transform. Because if we think for one moment that it's all just about the people of Egypt, then we've desperately missed the point. We, you and I were asleep. And Allah chose to wake us. You and I, we were dead and Allah gave us life.

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See, we're conditioned to believe that our enemy was outside of ourselves that he had power over us. But this is also an illusion. See, the enemy is inside of us. All the external enemies are only manifestations of our own internal diseases. And so if we really want to conquer those enemies out there, we must first conquer the enemy inside of ourselves. This is why the Quran tells us that Indeed, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they first change what is inside of themselves. We must first conquer our own greed and selfishness and Schick and ultimate fear, love, hope and dependence on anything other than God. We must conquer our own hope adonia our own love of

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this dunya of this life, the root of all our diseases and all of our oppression. Before we can defeat the pharaohs in our lives, we must first defeat the pharaohs inside of ourselves. So the fighting

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Egypt is a fight for liberation. Yes, but liberation from what? Who is truly oppressed? Are you anti free?

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What is true oppression?

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In the Tamia Rahim Allah one of the greatest scholars answers this question when he says, quote, the one who is truly imprisoned is the one whose heart is imprisoned from God. And the captivated one is the one whose desires have enslaved him.

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You see, when you're free inside, you will never allow anyone to take away your freedom. And when you have that inner freedom, that's when you can look through the tyrants and the thugs to the Lord of the tyrants and the thugs.

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When you are free inside, you become an enslaved bubble. Because you can only enslave a person with attachments. You can only threaten a person who is afraid of loss.

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You only have power over someone when they need or want something, that you have the ability to take away.

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But there is only one thing which no person has the power to take away from you. And that is God.

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And so when we fight to free Egypt, on a grander and a realer scale, it is a fight to also free ourselves. It is a fight to free ourselves of the tyranny of our own neffs and desires. It's a fight to free ourselves from the servitude to the slave of fight to free ourselves from our own false attachments and dependencies, from everything that controls us from all that we worship other than him.

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It's a fight to free us from our own slavery, whether we are slaves to the American dollar, to our own desires, to status to wealth, or to fear, the purification of Egypt is a purification of us all.

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That's why you'll notice that the formula given to us in the Quran for success, it consists of two elements. One is suburb, and different forms of suburb, which means patience, perseverance, standing firm. And the second element is taqwa, fear of God alone. Allah says what is translated as in sort of lm Ron, this is the final area of suited lm Ron, all you who have believed, persevere, and endure and remain stationed, and fear God alone, that you may be successful.

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And so if we watch Egypt today, and it's as if we're only it's only a step, spectacle happening outside of ourselves, without cleaning, examining, and really changing our own selves and our own lives, then we have really missed its purpose. Because after all, it's not every day that a sea is opened before our very eyes.

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A holy holy Heather was stuck for a la de la comme innovaphone Rahim. I pray to Allah that that he purifies the entire oma and that he makes the people of Egypt stand firm in front of the tyrant, the tyrant that is outside and the tyrant that is inside. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. You're listening to serenity on one legacy radio