Yusha Evans – Dhul Hijjah Key Dates
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Right. Right is left. Truth is falsehood and
falsehood is truth. This is the reality of
the world we live in right now.
And they say that the only certainty in
life is death. Right? That's one of the
things
that is said. The only certainty in life
is death. But for us as Muslims,
there is another certainty. What helps with that
certainty?
The one certainty that we have is Islam.
It's Islam. Our religion. This is a certainty
for us. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaks about
these people in the very first ayahs of
Surah Baqarah that are whom, you've been who
knows, who are,
believing without doubt. They believe in Allah and
His Messenger and the hereafter they believe in
these things with no doubt whatsoever. They have
They have full certainty in these facts. This
is our mainstay in any time of uncertainty.
In any times of uncertainty where people are
looking left, right and center, what is the
answer for this? What is the question for
that? What how do we work? Our
responsibility
is to go back to the deen of
Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Because we have a few things. We have
number 1, the Quran,
which is the kalam of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, which is the truest of speech. It
is a perfect book. It is a book
without fault. It is a book without any,
crookedness. It is a book without any contradiction.
So our first resource when we come to
uncertainty
is we turn to the book of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Then the next certainty we have is in
the sunnah of the prophet
which the sunnah of the prophet is
the explanation.
It is the first source of tafsir
for the Quran.
Because we know and I've said that
when she was asked what was the prophet
like? What was his character like? She said,
Quran.
His character was the Quran. He was a
living embodiment of the Quran. And this is
why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not send
any book without a messenger. He sent no
book without a messenger
because the messenger
was the explanation of the book. He, subhanahu
wa sallam,
was a living embodiment
of the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And he even told us that there is
nothing that would bring you closer to Allah
except I've already told you to do it.
There is nothing that would distance you from
Allah except that I have already forbade it
from you. So this is clear and Allah
says,
obey Allah and obey his message so that
you can be successful. So this is a
certainty.
The authentic sun of the prophet
is a certainty.
And
part of that certainty
is obeying the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
We know obeying Allah is mandatory, like that
is something we know. But obeying the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam is also very important. The
Prophet
we know that he has given a special
gift on the day of judgement. He has
given the howl, He has given the, the
basin,
by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. He said that
all of his followers will drink from it.
And once we take one sip from it,
he said you will never be thirsty again.
Again. It will be a sip that will
make us never thirsty again. After that, if
we drink in Jannah, insha'Allah,
it'll be just for the the enjoyment of
drinking, whatever you like to drink. You know,
if you like to drink, you can drink.
If you want to drink from the rivers
of milk, you can drink. If you want
to drink from the rivers of honey, you
can drink. If you want to drink from
the rivers of hamar that are halal that
do not leave intoxicants alike of this world,
you can do so. If you want your
mango lassi, it'll be delivered to you. If
you want what whatever it might be, you'll
have these things.
But the prophet
said on that day
there is an angel that is, you know,
keeping guard of who comes in,
to drink from this fountain.
And he will see this angel pushing people
back and telling them to go away. Pushing
people back and telling them to go away.
And he will approach this angel and say,
what are you doing? These are my followers.
These are my people. And he will respond
saying, yes, but you do not know what
they did after you.
You don't know what they did after you.
They did those things which you told them
not to do, and they did not do
those things which you told them to do.
And the prophet
will tell them get away.
You're not from me. He'll tell them go.
Get away. So may
Allah make us not from among those people
who disobey the prophet
The third certainty we have that I want
to talk about, 3 things. The third certainty
we have which is
the fulfillment of the Quran and its explanation
to the sunnah is the Sharia of Allah
The Sharia
is the compendium of what is in the
Quran and what we find in the Hadith
and the Sunnah of the Prophet
put into
a concise format so that we can implement
the Quran and the Sunnah.
The Sharia means what? What does the word
Sharia mean?
Oh wait.
When you go to the Middle East, what
are the names how do they name streets?
Sharia. That's it. This is the path.
Sharia. So, Sharia means a path. A path
to what? A path to paradise.
This is our path to paradise. This is
our path to how to follow Islam.
And this is the most important thing for
a Muslim. This is why,
I don't know if you remember a few
years back,
there was a big push,
to ban the Sharia in America. Right? They
were, they were scaring everybody with the Sharia
being the boogeyman in the closet. Right? Remember
this. Right? There were, there was even some
like local state legislations or counter legislations that
banned Sharia
in their local vicinities. And this is the
most, forgive me, it's the most asinine thing
that you can do. Why?
The people who did this,
they they they were fear mongering but they
understood the implications.
They understood the implications.
And this I was talking about this in
lectures during that time,
that to ban the Sharia
is against
the Constitution of the United States of America.
It is against the Constitution of the United
States of America to ban the Sharia. And
this is what I was working with with
some lawyers and some legal people, brother Hassan
Shibi and others, to make this, clear in
in court, in in court proceedings.
Why? Because America, the Constitution allows us what?
Freedom of?
Religion. Freedom of religion.
And the question was, well we're not banning
your religion,
we're banning the Sharia.
And our explanation was that they are 1
and the same. They are 1 and the
same. If you take away the Sharia,
then you are banning Islam.
Because within the Sharia, the Sharia, the only
thing that they were trying to scare people
about
was the,
fiqhul janeyat.
The laws of crime and punishment. That was,
you know, that was that was the big
issue. That, you know, Muslim sharia, they stone
adulterers, they cut off hands, and this and
that and the other. This is a very
very small part of the Sharia, I
said the Sharia
also teaches us how to pray.
It teaches us how to make wudu.
It teaches us how to get married. It
teaches us how to get divorced. It teaches
us how we are supposed to behave when
our children are born. It teaches us what
to do when someone dies. So if you
take away if you ban the Sharia, you
have banned the religion in its entirety because
it cannot survive without it. The Sharia is
the implementation of the Quran and the Sunnah.
And I gave a lecture at,
I forget what you I think it was
UCLA, you know, very liberal. No, no, actually
it was, even more liberal than that. It
was, what's that very liberal area in North,
in Northern California? Berkeley. There it is, Berkeley.
Questions,
And I asked some questions,
logical questions. I learned this from the Sunnah
of the Prophet
that he used to teach by asking questions.
And psychologically this has been proven. As you
know my secular studies is in psychology.
Psychologically questions open the brain. Questions open the
brain. If you tell someone to do something,
a lot of times it'll go in one
ear and one out the other. You learn
this with your children. You tell them something,
it goes in one but if you ask
them a question,
it causes them to think. Right? They have
to think about the question and and how
to answer it. So I asked a couple
of questions.
I said, let's talk about the area of
the Sharia that you guys consider the boogeyman
in the closet. Right?
The laws of crime and punishment in Islam,
which I said I could sit here and
go through a diatribe of of an entire
semester
of the laws of crime and punishment, and
I think that most of the students would
come out at the end saying that the
criminal justice system of Islam is the most
just
justice system on the face of the planet
Earth. I said because if we look at
the American justice system, it is absolutely broken.
It rewards crime. It rewards crime. Criminals do
not become reformed. That's why it's not called
a reformation system. It's called a prison system.
It's called an incarceration
system.
Because people go to prison, spend 5 years
and learn how to be better criminals from
other experienced and master criminals. And the recidivism
rate of crime in America
is astronomical.
It is astronomical,
the recidivism rate of people who commit crimes
and then they'll go on to commit another
crime. I said go to the Muslim world
and look at the recidivism rate of crime.
Look at the recidivism rate of crime. Look
at the statistics.
Look at the statistics of the amount of
murders and rapes and and and and and
and home invasions and thefts and etcetera. I
said, here in America, crime is incentivized. Why?
Because the security industry makes huge amount of
money off of it. How much money do
you think the security industry makes every year
off of selling the security systems and and
cameras and this and that. It's it's it's
massive. It's massive.
I said, but let me take 2 principles
and I'll share that with you tonight.
The 2 most boogeyman things that they put
against the Sharia. Number 1. Stoning the adulterer.
And number 2. Cutting off the hand of
the thief. Right? These are barbaric principles. I
said okay. Let's explore them.
Number 1, stoning of the adulterer. Is that
a principle within Islam?
Yes. It is a principle within Islam.
But
within the laws of the Sharia there
are certain
criteria that must be met in order for
any capital punishment to take place. Right? Because
life is sacred within Islam, and if you're
going to take someone's life you better be
100%
sure that that life that is taken is
halal, and you've done it in a permissible
way. I said there are only,
we're not gonna get into the smaller minor
opinions and maybe Sheikh Jabari can expand upon
this one then, Insha'Allah. We're just gonna talk
about the the agreed upon ways that someone
can be stoned as an adulterer. And this
comes from the seal of the prophet
number 1, there must be what?
Four witnesses. 4 well, not not.
Four witnesses. Now these 4 witnesses must be
known to the community. Right? These 4 witnesses
must be themselves upright and just and honest
and known that whatever they say is factual.
Right? Not only must these 4 witnesses be
honest, just, and upright in all of this,
but these 4 witnesses and I'm gonna be
very careful because we have children here. These
4 witnesses must witness what?
The actual act of you'll understand one thing
going into another thing. Right? They must have
actually witnessed
that act.
And if that happens, then that person is
put to death.
If 4 people if 4 people just right
on us just saw a man and a
woman who are not married or married in
bed together and they have no clothes on,
does that meet the criteria?
No. It is not. There is some punishment
there that they should be punished. This is
this is illicit behavior, but they cannot be
they cannot be stoned to death.
Do you know how many times
in history that it has happened that a
person has been stoned for this 4 witnesses?
0. It's never happened.
It has never happened
because someone who does this is not going
to do it in the presence of 4
honest, upright,
pious Muslims. So it's never happened. The second
way is what?
Yes. We're not gonna get into the oath,
and the oath, and but the second
very clear way is what?
Confession. They admit to it.
They themselves
admit to it.
They admit to it. And I said, even
upon the admitting to it,
the Qadi is supposed to reject that first
admission.
He's supposed to reject it, and talk to
them, and have them mourned, and advise, etcetera.
Because this was the way of the Prophet
I said to them, a woman came to
him, and I've said this here, whereas I'm
not going to go into it alone. And
she,
admitted to committing adultery and being pregnant by
it. And he What did he do? He
walked away from her.
He just ignored her 3 times. Every time
she would come he would just say, nope.
I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it.
Then finally he gave her the
the the the ruling,
go and have the child breastfeed, etcetera, come
back. If you come back 2 years later,
then that's a different story. Thinking that she's
not going to come back. You know, 2
years she's gonna think about this, she's gonna
have this child, she's gonna change her mind.
2 years later after the child had been
weaned, she came back.
And the prophet
had no choice but to
have her stoned to death. But then he
made Janazah for her and said that her
repentance was so sincere that if it were
to cover the people of Medina it would
forgive them of all their sins.
I said this is the Sharia. This is
the Sharia. This is the way how just
Islam is when it comes to taking a
human being's life. I said, how barbaric does
that sound to you? How barbaric? I said,
how many people has America put to death
unjustly that were not guilty, that come to
find out years later they did not commit
the crime?
Islam is at that the bar for taking
someone's life is so high. So high.
And if a person admits to it, that's
because they want to pay for their sins
in this life, and not to have to
answer for it in the day of judgement.
I said okay,
cutting off the hand of the thief. Is
that a is that a ruling in Islam?
Yes, it is. But there is a threshold
for which that must be,
done. Number 1, there is an Islamic. There
is a certain amount
of of of of monetary value that must
be stolen.
On top of it there must be something
called premeditation.
Something called premeditation.
It's not still like that now, but if
you remember going back,
you know, 10, 15, 20 years going to
Mecca and Medina. You go to Medina, there's
a lot of people selling, outside of Meshein
Nabi on tables. Right?
When they leave for Salah, what do they
do with their stuff?
They cover it with a cloth, and then
they walk away, and they go pray. There's
a reason why they have to cover it
with a cloth. Why are they covering it
with a cloth?
At the way, nobody steals, by the way.
Nobody stealing. What? The Sharia Court in Medina
actually is right beside Masjid Nabawi. If you're
facing Masjid Nabawi from from the main gate
to the right is the the the court
where you would get get punished. They wouldn't
have to take you very far, but the
reason they cover it is because then that
lays the burden upon someone who steals with
premeditation. They would have to go and lift
up the cloth, reach up under it and
steal. That sets that precedent and that burden
level. Correct?
If you steal
something that has
not reached the NISAB value, you don't lose
your hand. You will be punished, but you
will not lose your hand. If you
let's just say I have an iPhone. Every
iPhone reaches the Nissan these days. These things
these things are very expensive. Right? If I
were to forget this and leave it here
on the masher floor, and someone comes and
takes it, would they have their hand taken
off?
No. Why?
Because I share some blame. I share some
of that blame of of of the temptation
of leaving it there. They would be punished,
but I would share the blame. It doesn't
reach that level. Now, if they broke into
my house,
or broke into my car, or broke into
something that is my property and stole it,
then yes, they're gonna lose their hand. Because
they've put my safety, they've put my family's
safety, they've put,
society's safety at jeopardy. And there is very
few repeat offenders for this type of crime.
Usually once they lose the first hand, they
don't commit these crimes again.
So I said how barbaric does this sound?
If you break into my home, and you
steal from me, and you lose your hand,
then the recidivism rate is very low. It's
very low. If not, we have to have
all these cameras, and security, and this, and
guns, and all of this. You have to
have a 1,000,000 things to protect your home.
And you and that doesn't even help most
of the time because criminals know they're gonna
break into your house, threaten you with a
gun, steal all your stuff, and they might
get caught, they might not. If they do
they they're probably not going to do a
lot of time in jail for it. So
I said this is the Sharia of Allah
It is just. And the Maqasid of the
Sharia
is the sanctity of human life. The Maqasid
of the Sharia,
especially when it comes to fiqhul janiyah is
the sanctity of human life and property. The
sanctity of human life and property.
So this is for us a certainty.
We have to have this certainty.
Even at the things we don't understand, this
is what the scholars have taught us, even
the things which we can't find an explanation
for, we have a certainty in them. Why?
Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala made them as
such. For instance, if I ask you the
question,
because there is not an answer to everything,
That's the one thing that we know is
there is not a a logical or rational
or reasonable explanation for everything. Allah has not
given us all of that. Some of it
is just we do it because he told
us to do it. For instance, if somebody
asks you why do you pray
5 times a day? Not 3 or 7
or 9 or 10. Why is it specifically
5?
Because Allah said it was specifically 5. It's
as it's as simple as that. Because Allah,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, told our prophet
during his israel when niraj that it was
5. It started off as 50 and got
reduced to 5. It's 5 because Allah wants
it to be 5.
Why is fasting in the month of Ramadan?
Why is it not in some other month?
Or what? Because Allah said so. Why is
it from sun up to sun? There are
certain things that we cannot answer. We we
don't have all the answers. We just do
them simply because Allah has told us to
do them, and that is having yateen. That
is having yateen.
And and the things that even don't make
sense. And this is a big problem with
our youth today,
especially with sisters, etcetera, is that they're attacking
them, trying to logically explain to them the
irrationality of Islam. Why do you have to
do this? Why are you covered? There's no,
there's no equality. There's no justice.
Of course, nothing's equal. There's no equal in
in in in in in Islam. There is
equality when it comes to how Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is going to treat us on
the day of judgment about how we follow
the deen, but other than that we're all
individuals and we'll all be treated as individuals.
But these three things are our certainty.
The Quran,
the sunnah,
and the Sharia.
If we hold on to these three things,
then even in the most uncertain times we
can remain stable. We can remain stable as
Muslims inshaAllah.
So, yes, the world is uncertain,
death is certain, but if you stay with
the Quran, the sunnah and the sharia of
Allah
then you will have certainty,
even in the most tumultuous times, and your
death will be a good one,
So may Allah
allow us to follow these things.
There is some difference of opinion upon that.
If they change Let me, let me If
they Let's say, let's say that he's asking
about the stoning. Right?
Let's say that the person has admitted. Right?
And they are,
sentenced. They've been talked to, they've been questioned,
all the implications, but they are very insistent.
Right? So okay, they take them out and
they're about to stone them. And the person
is about to throw the first rock and
they say, wait,
I I take it back. I take it
back. Guess what?
You let them go.
You let them go. They walk away. They
walk away. You cannot take that life unless
there is 100% certainty, and they are okay
with it all the way to the end.
All the way to the end.
Any other questions?
No? Okay. Alright.
I'll see you guys later on this week.
I won't be here this weekend as I
said yesterday. I'm going
support the masjid inshallah. And then next weekend
I'll be out of town. But, Friday the
last Friday of June, I I will be
here for the hutba inshallah. And that's when
we will start a week weekly programs,
our weekly series, and all of that. Insha'Allah.