Yusha Evans – The Promised Ones #02 Umar ibn al-Khattab P2
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And we said that dawah is the call
to what? It's a call to tawhid and
Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala and to Islam and all of
its But the first is dawhid and Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala which means that one must
have knowledge of tawhid. You must have knowledge
of tawhid. You must understand what does
tawhid mean. It does not mean that just
Allah is 1. There's a lot more deeper
than that and we'll go over that, as
well inshallah
to make sure that you have all these
things, but you must have knowledge of that
which you are calling to.
Number 2, you must have knowledge
of the situation of the person to whom
they are calling.
And I discussed this on one Sunday morning
is that the the analogy that I use
in dawah is that we are trying to
take someone from where they're at
and build them a bridge over to Islam.
Build them a bridge over to.
Now I'm on the side of. Correct? So
how could I build a bridge for someone
if I don't know where I'm building the
bridge to? If I don't know where I'm
building the bridge to, this means that you
need to have knowledge of the person to
whom you're giving
dawah to.
We will discuss some ways
throughout this,
series
how you can very quickly and succinctly
talk to someone, know exactly where they stand
and how to bring them over to tawheed
in that. And I'll just give you an
example. For instance,
and the reason why we do this, let's
say I go to someone and I start
talking to them about
Christianity,
Jesus, and I started giving them that way
in this regard.
And
after about 5 minutes, they look at me
and say, I'm not a Christian. I don't
believe in Jesus.
Well then what are you doing? You know,
you've wasted your whole time or you're talking
to someone
about atheism and they already believe in God,
etcetera. You see what I'm saying? You need
to know the person and there's ways you
can do that. I'm very I wanna quickly,
I'll just give you I usually ask them,
do you believe in God? Yes. That ticks
off the box right there that I'm not
dealing with an atheist. Do you believe in
formal religion? Yes.
What is your religion? Christianity.
Do you believe in the trinity? Yes. Within
3 to 4 questions, I already know exactly
where this person is. I know exactly where
they are and what I need what the
the I know what the hindrance is for
them. The hindrance for them is Jesus.
That is believing in Jesus as God in
the flesh or the son of God. That's
the problem I need solved for them. If
I were to go to someone and say,
do you believe in God? No.
Right away, I know the answer to the
question. I am dealing now with someone who
is either an atheist,
or an agnostic, and I need to find
out why
they don't believe in God because this is
not the fitra for anyone. There is no
such thing, and I've made this claim and
I back and and I've I've not found
anybody to disprove me. There is no such
thing as pure
atheism. Pure atheism.
Because atheism is denial
of God. It's not disbelief, and it's denial.
And in order to deny something, that thing
which you are denying has exist.
That thing which you are denying has to
exist. So to say that there is no
God,
there an atheist has to come up with
a lot of of of
roundabout
logical
explanations of why they don't believe that there
is a God,
and then they put that back when you
give us the evidence. Well, for me, everything
is the evidence of God. The fact that
we are having this conversation for me is
an evidence of God. But you see there's
certain ways that you can quickly find out
where a person is. So you need to
know who you're talking to in order to
bring them over. So you need to know
the situation of the person to whom you're
calling and number 3,
you need to know how to give the
call or to make the invitation
because this is a huge problem that a
lot of people have in, in dawah
is that they give a lot of information
about Islam, but then they do not make
the invitation.
They don't ask.
They tell someone so much about Islam
and then they don't ask them to become
a Muslim.
I've actually dealt with a few people in
my in my 20 years of doing Dawah
who said that, you know, I I've I've
talked to Muslims. I've been, you know, I
I've wanted to accept Islam, but I didn't
know how. No nobody ever told me how.
So you can't tell someone
that you have the most amazing product that
the planet's ever seen. Give them all the
breakdown of it. They want it, but then
you just walk away. You don't tell them
how to get
it. Every single product you see advertised, the
end of the sales pitch is always how
to get the product. How do you get
it? Where to go? Where to get it?
So you need to know how to make
that transition from giving them information about Islam
to giving them, which means to invite. You
actually ask them to accept Islam. If they
do,
If they don't,
it's not up to you, but you need
to know how to make the call.
The deeper levels of this knowledge
go to the three principles that we were
talking about before. The first deeper level of
knowledge that the dua should learn is.
The knowledge of
Allah Meaning that you should know who Allah
is. In terms of you should know who
Allah is in terms
of You should know why Allah is. A
lot of this knowledge will help you in
your dawah when explaining to people why they
should believe in Islam because Allah is
That the reason why we worship Allah because
he is the only Ilah and because of
the fact that he is the only Ilah
and this is
therefore, he deserves to be worshipped. He has
the right to be worshipped as the only
Ilah.
Therefore, his
is absolute. He is the only one. This
is, this is the
of Islam in regards to Allah's,
being the only.
Ilah. And also these help you in understanding
how people connect and make relationships
with Allah
I've told you before in one of the
that when you learn
Allah through his names and attributes,
you you obtain a deeper relationship with him.
You learn that you're not just worshiping Allah,
you're worshiping you're worshiping,
you're worshiping,
etcetera, so on and so forth. And what
these mean, and Allah says he's been given
that he gives himself the most beautiful name,
so call him by these names. So call
him by these names. So
understanding Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and understanding how the system that Allah has
created works, understanding how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
works with us, how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
decides his affairs for us, etcetera, so on
and so forth. These things are important when
learning dawah. Number 2,
knowledge of your prophet
Because when you learn the knowledge of the
prophet
not only do you learn
to have a closer relationship with the prophet
in terms of loving him, in terms of
knowing him, but you learn his attributes, you
learn his characteristics, You learn the ways in
which he invited other people to Islam. You
learn the ways in which he dealt with
people, the way he dealt with his enemies,
the the way he dealt with people who
were harsh against Islam, the way he dealt
with people who were,
maybe in favor towards Islam, etcetera. You learn
these things and you're able to use them
in your dua because indeed the greatest
was done by our prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. You're not going to do a better
job in than he did. So looking at
the way he
chose to spread Islam and the way he
dealt with people
is the most proficient way and the most
efficient way to learn how to give dawah
inshallah.
And number 2, number
3,
The knowledge of Islam with his evidences and
proofs. The knowledge of Islam with his evidences
and proofs. It it is one thing to
know
what Islam says. It's another thing to know
what Islam says with its evidences and proofs.
That means that I can tell you that
Islam says this, but then I can also
give you the evidences and proofs for it,
but there's a caveat to this, and I've
said this before. The caveat to this is
that
there is not an evidence and proof for
everything.
There is not an evidence and proof for
everything. Allah
did
not give us the why to everything.
Some of the things that Allah has ordered
us to do are simply done because he
told them told us to do them. It's
as simple as that.
I use this, this example.
If someone were to ask you, why do
we pray 5 times a day? Why is
it 5? Why is it not 7? Why
is it not 10? Why is it not
3? Why is it not 1? Why 5?
What is your evidence for it being 5?
Our evidence of the only evidence we have
that it's 5 is during the isra, the
prophet
where Allah
first ordered 50, then the prophet, met Musa
and kept going back and eventually it was
put down to 5. And as the prophet
was leaving leaving, he he could have asked
for more. Even Musa told him that asked
for less, and he said I was at
that point, I was embarrassed, but as he
was leaving, Allah said,
I will count it as 50. I will
count it as 50. That's all we know
is that Allah wanted 5. The end of
story. We don't we beyond that, that's it.
We do it because Allah
commanded it to be so. And there are
certain things in Islam that are just like
this, that we don't have
logical evidence for.
Some things are being known more throughout time
throughout time.
The reason why these things are so important,
like we're learning the medical benefits of fasting.
We're learning the medical benefits of staying away
from pork. We're learning the you know, we're
learning so many things as time goes on
and maybe there will be more evidence for
more things as time goes on, but as
that stands right now, there are certain things
that is just because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
said so, but
everything else that can be proven,
everything else that could have an evidence does
have it, and none of it has ever
been disproven. There's not a single verse of
the Quran that has ever been disproven.
Therefore, if there is a source that has
never been disproven,
then the things in it which we see
yet cannot prove, we take at face value
because of the source. Right? If you know
someone that's never lied ever, their whole life,
they've never spoken a lie. You take them
at face value and you take them at
their word. This is how we treat Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. We take him at his
word even in the things that we don't
grasp or comprehend or understand, and this is
a struggle for our youth today, is that
Western society and modern culture
is is in contradiction to a lot of
Islamic principles today and that's just the way
it's designed. And they find themselves at a
conflict of understanding, but why are we supposed
to do this? Why do women have to
do this and men can't do this and
women can't do this or men can why
is there all of this back and forth?
Part of it is accepting Islam even if
you don't yourself
Islam means to submit. To submit. That is
what the word
Islam means to submit to submit. That is
what the word Muslim means, one who submits.
We just submit to the will of Allah
But the more you learn about Islam through
its evidences and proofs, the more you are
able to come up with good arguments for
the religion of Allah
Like I told you guys one time about
the argument that I used in in in
an interfaith
event with Jews, Christians, and Muslims about the
Quran.
How many of you remember that argument that
I used? Anybody here or do I need
to repeat it?
Okay. Nobody. Alright. I was at an interfaith
argument,
interfaith
gathering where it was about the proofs of
your religion. Right? The whole point was that
the pastor, the rabbi, and the Muslim, which
is me, were to get up and give
a lecture about the proofs of their religion.
Right?
So in each one of us had an
hour.
The pastor got up and did his thing.
The rabbi got up and did his thing
and while I'm sitting there, I had this,
you know, this long, this long diatribe, prepared.
I'm sitting there and thinking like,
how could I sum this up in the
most
concise, succinct
way possible that's almost enabled to be argued?
So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking I'm
thinking I'm thinking
and then it came to me. So I
got up and I did my,
I did my,
my talk and I, and my talk consisted
of 3 questions
and it lasted about 10 minutes.
I said, how many of you in here
believe in Moses?
Raise your hand. Of course, everybody in the
room raised their hand. Right? Jews, Christians, Muslims,
they all raised their hand. I said, how
many of you believe that Moses performed miracles?
They all raised their hand. Right? I said,
how many of you have witnessed one of
the miracles performed by Moses during his lifetime
with their own 2 eyes?
Nobody can raise their hand. Right? Because you
believe in it by faith. Yes. I said,
how many believe in Jesus? The Christians and
Muslims, they raise their hands. I said, how
many of you believe that Jesus performed miracles?
They all raised their hands, except for the
Jews, of course. And I said, how many
of you witnessed one of the miracles performed
by Jesus during his lifetime with your own
2 eyes? Nobody can raise their hand. I
said you believe in it by faith.
I said okay, how many of you believe
in the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him?
All the Muslims raised their hand. I said
how many of you believe he performed the
miracles during his lifetime? They all raised their
hand because we know he performed many miracles.
Splitting the moon. There are all kinds of
miracles.
I said, how many of you have witnessed
one of the miracles performed by the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam during his lifetime with
your own 2 eyes? And a few Muslims
understood what I was trying to do and
they raised their hand, and I raised my
hand and
I reached and I grabbed one of these.
I had one. I said, look. I said,
the Quran. I said, this is it.
I said, this is the miracle of the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He himself said that every prophet was sent
with the miracles to prove who they were,
and the miracle that I was sent with
was the Quran. Was the Quran. Like for
instance, Musa had his stick. Right? Jesus had
he said the miracle I was sent with
was the Quran. I said, so I'm still
looking
at the miracle of the prophet Muhammad.
I said, so until you can disprove this
book, which has challenged you in the very
beginning of its of its of its compilation
to disprove it, to find contradiction, to find
an error. I said this challenge has stood
up for over 1400
years
and no one has yet been able to
create anything like it or to disprove one
single verse of it. I said, so until
you can do that, this is my proof
of Islam and you're willing to take it
home with you today. The whole table that
had Quran's outside was empty at the end
of the event. That was very simple, very
simple and logical. Sometimes you but and and
this comes from,
again, knowing Islam through its evidence as it
proofs. And I said, there is no more
stronger proof for this religion than that book.
There is no more stronger proof for this
religion than that book. And all the scholars
say this that the foundations of Islam, the
foundations of knowledge for the for for Islam
is this is this book. If you go
to I have a few brothers that I
know that studied in Muertaienia.
Right? In Muertaienia, they will not let you
study anything else until you have memorized the
entire Quran. They won't let you pass that.
If you go there, like you go to
Jami Islami in Madinah, first they send you
to the the the the Oluf Al Arabiya.
They send you to the college of Agha.
Right after that, you throw, you go, you
choose one of the other 3 colleges and
they send you to the college of the
Quran. They say when you've memorized this book
in its entirety, you can proceed beyond that
because this is the foundation of everything else
we're going to teach you. Everything we're going
to teach you is based on this book.
So this is what I mean by when
you understand Islam through its evidences and proofs,
it helps out quite a lot. It helps
out quite a lot.
So knowledge is something that the dua must
have and this is also what the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was commanded. He was
commanded by Allah in Surat al Youssef to
say
Say this is my way.
Say I call to Allah upon Basirah. Basirah
is interpreted to be sure knowledge from Allah.
Knowledge from Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Meaning that
he did not call to dawah based on
anything of his own whims.
Allah even says he does not speak of
his own desires. All of it is.
All of it is revelation revealed to him.
So we call to Allah upon knowledge. That
is it. You cannot call to Allah upon
anything other than what you know to be
true by the book of Allah and the
sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So this is
the most one of the most important principles.
After sincerity, you must have knowledge, and I
tried to put these in order of importance.
Sincerity has to be first, and then you
once you have knowledge,
that knowledge has to be always backed up
with sincerity. This they they kind of like
a chain with each other. Knowledge also has
to be with sincerity.
Some people learn knowledge for the sake of
arguing. Some people learn knowledge for the sake
of being known as knowledgeable. Some people
we know that one of the first three
categories of people that would be thrown into
the hellfire are the ulama. The scholars. The
people of knowledge because they didn't learn knowledge
for the reason of sincerity. To please
Allah They learned it for some other reasons
to be known as knowledgeable, to argue with
people, etcetera.
So knowledge has to be followed with sincerity.
Sincerity
is the thread that that connects all of
these inshallah.
The next principle
is
actions.
You must be willing to act
in a way and in a manner that
is befitting of the station to which you
are calling. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
this.
Allah says, who can be better
than those who call to Allah while they
themselves are doers of good? While they themselves
are doers of good and they clearly proclaimed
to the people that indeed we are Muslims.
Does this mean you need to be perfect
in order to give dua? No, because this
is an excuse a lot of people use.
A lot of people say, oh, I'm not
good enough to be giving dua. That's not
an excuse.
The point is that you should be backing
up your dua with good actions, trying to
do goodness, trying to help the world, trying
to be a good Muslim, trying to,
at least in public,
portray the actions
that a Muslim should portray, and if you
have your evils and your sins, etcetera, keep
them keep them away from everyone else. Keep
them away from everyone else. Keep them behind
closed doors. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said all of my ummah will be forgiven
except for those who broadcast their sins. All
of my ummah will be forgiven except those
who make their sins public. So keep your
sins private because if they're between you and
Allah,
then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one
who can forgive them. There's another reason why
you keep them between you and Allah and
this is a logical reason that we've learned
very
bluntly in in in in in our century,
in our generation
because the people
are not forgiving. The people are not very
forgiving.
The moment you expose your evils to the
people, they will hold you against those hold
those against you for the rest of your
life. There
are certain rules that society lives by and
one of them is that you there there
some people don't believe people are recoverable.
If someone has done sins or committed this
and acts or whatever, that's it. They write
them off permanently,
and I always tell people to treat everyone
else the way you want Allah to treat
you on the day of judgment. If Allah
were to write all of us off the
way you write each other off, we'd be
done. All of us are going straight to
*, but Allah is
forgiving. Therefore, we should be the same way
and we should not look for other Muslims'
faults. I've said this as well. That the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said whoever covers,
his brother's faults or sister's faults, Allah will
cover their faults on the day when they
stand in front of him. But whoever exposes
his brother or sister's faults, that means they
go and they look for their faults or
they find them in secret and they expose
them to the public. The prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said that Allah will expose their
faults even if it's hidden inside of their
homes. Even if no one else knows about
it, but between them and Allah, Allah will
expose it. So
actions must be followed up. That means we
should be people of action. We should be
trying to make the world a better place.
Not just with our dua. Our dua should
not always and does not always have to
be ideological dawah.
That has been the dawah we've been doing
for a long time, is ideologically
arguing with people
about Islam
but without trying to show them
why being a Muslim is a better way
of life.
Why Islam is a better system.
Because
Islam will make the world a better place.
Being a Muslim makes you a better person.
People need to see that. They did see
us on the front line
of of social justice.
We are when it comes to issues that
affect us directly. Right? When comes to Palestine,
when it comes to other issues, we're on
the front lines. Like, we will make a
huge fuss. Right?
But issues that are facing
everyday Americans,
we don't really care as long as they
don't affect us or affect our community without
realizing if we don't solve these problems, they
will affect us and affect our community. They
are starting to. If we don't deal with
homelessness, if we don't deal with crime, if
we don't deal with with with drug addiction
and abuse and and and things of this
nature, if we don't deal with them, they
will infiltrate our communities and they are. They
are. Addiction is infiltrating our communities. Homelessness and
poverty is infiltrating our communities.
Abuse is infiltrating our communities. All of these
things, we should be helping to fight against
in the larger society because it creates a
bubble that protects our community. It is for
the betterment of everyone. It is for the
betterment of everyone,
but we don't see ourselves in the front
lines of those things. We only,
get involved when it becomes a big issue
and the Muslims are are being affected by
it, but this is not what I mean.
The action of the prophet was
to try to do goodness for the sake
of goodness.
Like the treaty of Fudayl that was introduced
during his lifetime. There was a treaty for
justice entered into by some chieftains of the
tribes of
of of Qurayshi entered into it. And even
after becoming a prophet,
he sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, if my
people
were to enter into a treaty like this
again, I would enter into it with them.
I would sign it to it with them
because this is a treaty for goodness. This
is a treaty for justice. This is a
treaty to help the oppressed, etcetera, so on
and so forth. So we as Muslims should
be on the front
lines of trying to make the world better
than when we left
better,
a better place
than we found it when we leave it.
That is that is the simple goal is
that Muslims should try to leave the world
a better place when they leave it than
when they found it in whatever small way
they can. And we know this from hadith
of the prophet
What did he say that that that
that parts of your man or parts of
goodness or parts of faith
is to remove something harmful for the road.
Right?
You see something in the road, a stick
in the road or something, you know, harmful
in the path. You move it out of
the way. These are good deeds in Islam.
This is a good deed in Islam. Also,
he said that it was forbidden to to
obstruct the public path, like praying in public
roads and stuff like this because it
it affects the general society around you. So
we as Muslims should have concern for the
affair of the place where we live. A
lot of
times you will see,
and I'm not nitpicking at the immigrant community,
but the immigrant community
do not fully accept where they're living as
their home. Right? They're like, always we're gonna
go back home, you know, and and and
I've heard some some some uncles say that
and it's like,
my brother, you've been here for 30 years.
Yeah. You have children, you have grandchildren.
This is home. You know what I mean?
You might still have a house wherever you're
from in Africa or Pakistan, but this is
home. This is where you're living right now.
This is where you're planting your seeds. You
should have caring concern for this place
because we will be questioned about the society
we lived in as well. Did you try?
Did you make any effort? Did you do
anything? Did you did you try?
We will be questioned about this. So our
actions are our intellectual
meaning that we intellectually call people to Islam
with logical arguments. That's easy. Allah gives you
all the evidences for that and the prophet
did it very well. Just copy them and
you'll be good at it, but
the harder part is to actually try to
make the world a better place.
That's that's where the real work comes in,
trying to make the world a better place.
But the reason you do it has to
go back to what?
Sincerely for the sake of Allah
When I lived in, I lived in in
in Southern California for a little while.
I was doing some studies, on Garden Grove
with doctor Mozambel Siddiqui.
Anybody from the subcontinent you don't you know
doctor Mozambel. Meli is one of the giants
of of the subcontinent community in in regards
to knowledge and, especially here in the west.
We used to go out to Skid Row
and give out, food. Right? But we we
trained the dua that would do this,
that when you give someone something, if they
thank you,
respond to them and say, don't thank me
because
I'm only doing this in in fulfillment
of of obedience to my creator. So thank
your creator who has provided you with this
sustenance. I'm simply the means. I'm simply the
medium. I've given it to you, but the
creator support has provided this to you. It's
a very
smart way to get people to start thinking,
okay, who is this creator that's giving me
this food, etcetera. This is an opening argument
to Dawah because that is why we're doing
it. I'm not doing it so that you
thank me or that you you know me
as kind or whatever. I'm simply being a
conduit
of Allah's provision to you because if you
take and eat it, then that was Allah's
risk to you. I've only been a medium
for it. So thank the one who gave
it to you. Don't thank me. So the
action
the the the call needs to be backed
up with the actions.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also says in Suratahud,
He said, oh my people, have I have
you considered if I am upon clear evidence
from my lord and he has provided with
me a good provision from him And I
do not intend to differ with you in
that which I've forbidden you. I only intend
to reform you as much as I am
able, and my success is not but from
Allah. Upon him, I relied and upon him,
I return. So Hud is basically saying, look,
I'm only trying to reform you as much
as I possible. Reformation. That's what Islam is
about. Islam is about
reformation.
Reformation of the personal, the person,
reformation of the individual, and then reformation of
society. That is what Islam came for. Islam
came to reform the individual
and then to reform society in a better
way and it did. When Islam was prevalent
throughout the majority of the world or especially,
during the dark ages or whatever, it is
what brought the period of enlightenment. It is
what brought the reformation, is what began the
whole process.
People's encounter with the Muslim world and then
bringing back Muslim values
is what changed Europe. It's what changed Asia.
It's what changed a lot of the world.
In in in reality, I don't wanna I
don't wanna go too deep on a dive
on this right now. Maybe we'll have a
whole session for this, but
Islam
had a reforming
impact on
it wasn't even called America then, on on
whatever the natives called this land when it
was before before Christopher Columbus discovered it and
all that, Muslims had already been here. Muslims
had already been here.
We know this from native American history. Muslims
had already been here. They had already had
an impact on on on native Americans. They
had already had an impact on reforming them.
We also know this because the only reason
Christopher Columbus was able to find this place
was because of his Muslim compass reader, his
Muslim navigator. His navigator was a Muslim because
the map was in Arabic.
The map was in Arabic and
the compass was in Arabic. So there was
no way he he needed a Muslim navigator.
They had already been here before,
especially in the try in the tribes of,
like, the the the southeast
and and and the east coast. They had
interacted with Muslims
in in in in history, especially when it
comes to, like, the the the the Apache,
Indians,
the Cherokee Indians,
etcetera. But I'm not gonna we'll save that
for another day inshallah. But yes, Muslims had
been here before Christopher Columbus. The Vikings had
been here before Christopher Columbus didn't discover anything.
He literally only claimed it and then enslaved
it and then all this other we know
how that whole European
conquest and
and colonization goes. He colonized America basically. Before
that the Vikings had been here.
They they they existed coinciding with with the
native Americans, Muslims had been here, etcetera. So
actions, but it must be done with that
same sincerity.
The next one, and this is the one
we will finish on today insha'allah,
is
good manners.
Good manners. This is one of the biggest
forms of that you can do is good
manners.
Having a khalaq
is
far more important than being knowledgeable,
and yes, I I do mean that. Having
good manners as a Muslim
is more important
than having knowledge, even though knowledge is important
because good manners
is heavier than knowledge. The prophet
said
that the heaviest thing that will go on
your scale of deeds on the day of
judgment is
your good manners. That will be heavier than
your salah. That will be heavier than your
your zakat. That will be heavier than your
fasting. It will be heavier than everything.
Your mannerism
is the most heavy thing. So to have
the manners of a Muslim
is more important than having loads and loads
of knowledge, and this is why I praise
the Muslims of, like,
Southeast
Asia. Southeast Asian Muslims,
If anybody here ever been to Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia, no.
It's one place that I suggest all Muslims
go at least once in their life. If
you haven't gone to a mosque, Hajar, no
more to do that, but if you want
to visit a Muslim country
that exemplifies
the
good manners of a Muslim,
visit Malaysia. Visit Singapore. Look at the Muslims
there. They have such good manners. Their manners
are impeccable. It reminds me of Japanese culture,
but with Islam. That's what it reminds me
of. Japanese
culture, but with Islam. And I've always anytime
I'm invited to Malaysia, it's, like, if I
have if I have the availability, it's an
automatic yes because I
I love it.
I've always said to them that look,
the Muslims of Malaysia may go to paradise
based on their manners alone. They might make
it to paradise simply based on their manners,
the the way they treat people, the the
the adab, the etiquette, the akhlaq that they
have. They might to make it the agenda
simply on that alone,
and that is so important to understand. So
if you have a chance to visit Malaysia,
visit Malaysia. If not, find some Malaysian,
brothers and sisters and just spend some time
with them. You see their manners
are different.
Also in the Muwata of Imam Malik,
he said that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam told us, I was not sent but
to perfect your
I was not sent to perfect your good
manners. The reason I was sent was to
perfect your mannerisms.
Your mannerisms should be affected. And the reason
why I say it's also important than knowledge,
more important than knowledge, is because
you see a lot of people with knowledge
today, but they don't have manners. They don't
have manners or their manners are actually contrary
to the knowledge they have. And if you
find someone that has knowledge that doesn't have
manners, that means that the knowledge has not
penetrated their heart. Their knowledge is in their
head, but it's not penetrated the heart. Because
when knowledge penetrates the heart, it affects the
mannerisms that you have. It affects the character
that you have. And we see this, especially
in disputes.
In disputes, you find out where manners comes
into play. We as Muslims
are a community
that
should be able to disagree with each other
without becoming disagreeable.
It's a huge problem I have, is that
Islam
is not as black and white as we
make it out to be.
We have been
led to believe that Islam is this super
black and white system, that it's only this
way or that way. It is not. It
actually has a tremendous amount of color to
it. There are principles that are black and
white. Yes. When it comes to, like, issues
like,
it's black and white. There is edema upon
these principles. But when it comes these are
not the things we argue about. We argue
about smaller
principles.
And when we do it, we do it
in such a
disgusting manner, especially online.
And it's like
to see people debating knowledge
in a disgusting manner
shows that your knowledge has not really benefited
you. Your knowledge has not really benefited you.
Like do you really believe
I am going to stand in front of
Allah on the day of judgment And I'm
talking about
When it comes to fic, fic is way
more colorful. Way more colorful. There's so much
room for ichthy laugh that it's it's it's,
we shouldn't be arguing of these issues. But
for instance, I say that you
mean to tell me, for instance, an an
issue
of of of aqidah
about
the the the,
sifat of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Whether we believe in it, affirm it, or
we say it's,
just a meaning that has that has no,
jisim behind etcetera, or whether Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala has a jisim where the law has
a place, he's above his throne, or he's
not in his creation or outside of his
creation, he has no place, he's everywhere.
You really mean to tell me that you
believe when I stand in front of Allah
on the day of judgement,
having done everything else I'm supposed to do,
believed in Allah, prayed, fasted, all of this
that Allah is gonna say,
you believed I was above the throne when
I wasn't, therefore go to *. Or you
didn't believe that I was above the throne
when I was, therefore go to *. This
is is nonsense. This is this is
this is the type of craziness
that when you see people debating,
it's okay to debate it but when we
become nasty with each other and start saying
that you shouldn't pray behind a a person
who believes that Allah has a jisim or
doesn't have a jisim or that this is
where I'm starting to like, what what what's
going on in our heads? Like, what what
is going on in our heads? We believe
in Allah
alone. That's the end of it. Beyond that
are things that we can argue about until
the day of judgment, and we probably will
never solve these issues. We'll find out on
the day of judgment who was right and
who was wrong. But these are not issues
we should
be dividing each other upon. We should not
be dividing each other upon these things. As
long as they don't take you outside of
the fold of Islam, we don't divide each
other on these things. So our manners are
the most important thing.
Sheikh Husaynin
said,
one who calls the way of Allah should
possess the same characteristics and manners that he's
inviting others to adopt regardless of whether this
is in matters pertaining to worship, to dealings,
or to one's demeanor.
This also means
that our our good manners should be in
our business, in our business practices. When we
do business we should do business with each
other with good manners. When we have dealings
with none of it, we have disagreements with
everything should be done with manners. I should
be able to have a disagreement with you
and be able to do it in a
in a in a in a mannered way
in a mannered way. Even if we don't
come to a conclusion, we can agree to
disagree and that should not affect our brotherhood
whatsoever. But but I've I've warned people today
that
you don't really know
someone
until 2 things have happened. Ali used to
say traveling with them. That's another one you
learn. But there's some principles I've learned in
my 26
years 26 yeah. 26 years of being a
Muslim. Is that you come to know
your brother or your sister in Islam truly
after 2 things happen.
Number 1, you do business with them. If
you do business with them, you'll find out
who they really are.
Number 2, disagree with them. Have a disagreement.
Have an argument with them and you'll find
out who they really are. I say if
you can have a friendship that can survive
those two things, then that's truly your brother
or sister. That is truly your brother or
sister. But I've seen the majority of Muslim
relationships fall apart on these two principles. I've
seen it with my own 2 eyes in
my own life that when you do business
with people
or when you disagree with them, that's when
you find out you can annoy a brother
for 15, 20 years, have one disagreement with
him,
and that's it. It can descend into chaos
very quickly. I'll just use this one until
I'll put him back afterwards inshallah.
So our manners should go across the board,
across the board. We should always try to
remain mannered, remain calm, remain nice, remain kind
Unless the situation calls for something extreme and
that's very, very rarely. But dealing with one
another, dealing with one another we should always
be in goodness. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam, I will end with this and I'll
take some of the questions you guys have
insha'Allah.
He said
when when talking about he warned us of
a group that that appeared
briefly during his time, but he said would
become a huge problem later on, known as
the. Right? And that is a label that
is thrown all over the place these days.
You know what I mean? That label we
put out we we hand that label out
like bumper stickers. Right? This guy's Khwadir. That
guy's Khwadir.
He warned about the Khwadir very severely. He
actually said that they would be like the
dogs of hellfire and that one of them
leaves Islam
the way an arrow goes through a game
animal. But one of the qualities he gave
of the Huar as he said is that
they are soft
with the disbelievers
and they are harsh with the Muslims.
They are soft with the disbelievers
and they are harsh with the Muslims.
So you can look at these type of
qualities. He was talking about the softness that
it should be we should have towards one
another. You should always be soft with those
who believe. We should always have softness with
those who believe inshallah.
That is part of the mannerism
of a Muslim. But we will also on
on one of our series on Saturdays,
I have about a number of them planned
for the next 2 years. So I'd let
you know I'm not I don't plan on
going anywhere inshallah.
One of them is gonna be on mannerism.
One of them is gonna be on mannerism.
Mannerism
and manhood. Mannerism and manhood. I'm not going
to teach about womanhood because we'll find a
sister to do that. It's not my place.
But mannerism and manhood will be one of
the series that we train that we teach
for the community and the youth insha'Allah and
the mannerisms that a Muslim should have in
dealing in all of their affairs, binillayahu alayhi
wa ta'ala. Alright. Any questions on what we've
discussed so far today?
Any any at all?
Yes.
Yeah. The question so that everybody knows is
the brother said if Allah revealed the religion
to guide mankind, why is everything not black
and white? Why is there,
room for, for, for gray areas and, and
color, etcetera,
that will lead us to be divisive and
etcetera, etcetera.
Like I said, the the pillars of the
religion are black and white. The pillars are
black and white. What they are and what
they're about. But the reason why there is
this
ability to have ikhtilaaf is Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala made this universal religion.
He knew that this religion would come would
encompass the entire world
and people from all different backgrounds would come
to this religion. Right? People from all different
colors, all different ethnicities.
Therefore, there would have to be room
for
differences of opinion. You you understand what I'm
saying? There would have to be room for
these things that are are are allowed within
Islam
that might not necessarily because there's there are
certain things
that that that are that are allowed within
Islam. For instance, if part of your culture,
has has has one kind of, system of
doing things that's not against Islam, but there
might be another culture across the world that
sees it as offensive. Right? It's not impermissible.
It's just that they don't see it the
same they don't see it the same way.
But Islam allows for that provision. Right? For
instance, like when it comes to,
our
our covering your yourself. Right? For the for
the for the male he must cover himself
between his navel and his knees. His difference
of opinion is from the bottom of the
navel, top of the knees.
That's a whole nother ichkalaf.
The female must cover
pretty much everything and there's a difference of
opinion about her hand and her face and
her feet, etcetera. So you, you know, so
you have these differences of opinion. But
that doesn't mean that every brother has to
wear a robe and every sister has to
wear an abaya.
There's no there's no ruling for that whatsoever.
Whatsoever.
Culture has its place within that. Like, it's
a beautiful thing especially when you when you
when you travel around the world and you
go to Africa and you see the African
Muslims that have incorporated
their culture, a very colorful culture in in
into Islam and there's nothing wrong with that.
Or you go you go to Asia and
see how the Muslims incorporated their their their
culture into into Islam, the parts that are
permissible. Culture is is allowed. You know what
I mean? It is allowed as long as
it's not against the Quran and the Sunnah.
And because of the fact that this was
not going to be an Arab religion. This
was not gonna be a religion only for
the Arabs. There had to be this this
this this room
for for differences of opinion. Because if not,
it would be forcing everyone to be exactly
the same or follow, you know, the the
the the religion that the Arabs are upon
at the time, etcetera. And that would have
been problematic for the dua. You understand? If
you do not give that leeway. And that
difference of opinion also allows us to have
disagreements without having because if Allah wanted to
write out every rule. Right?
Then this book would fill this room. You
know what I mean? Like this there'd be
no there'd be no way for one person
to encompass it. There are going to be
scholars who are going to look at this
book and see things one way. Scholars who
look at it and see things a different
way. And part a part of that is
based on their culture. Part of that is
based on where they grew up. Part of
that is based on their their their understanding
of things. This is why you have the
4 Madahib, you know, and they all came
from different parts of the world. And since,
Imam Malik born and raised in Medina, you
have a Imam Shafi from a different place.
You have a from a different place. They
had differences of opinion. You have even, people
who followed some of the rulings of like
Ibn Hazm. Ibn Hazm, rahimallahu ta'ala.
I think if he would have been born
at a different time, he would have had
his own school as well. You know what
I mean? He he he was knowledgeable. He
was a scholar. He was a scholar. But
growing up in in in in Andalus at
the time that he did,
where the Muslims were living in, like, luxury
beyond belief. Like, they had luxury like no
other. Right? Like, they really had no enemies
at that time. The Muslims had no enemies.
His fatawa were were a bit different. Know
what I mean? The way he viewed the
world that he lived in was different than
the way Imam Malik, who grew up in
a time right after the the the the
companions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
saw things. So that for that reason you
have these these things. You have like Imam
Matoridi who saw things in a different way.
All of these have their place. They have
their place and they should not cause division
inshallah. That make sense? So we see them
in that way. But when it comes to
who is Allah, tawheed,
how what is salah? How do we pray
it? All those things are concrete. We pray,
we pray 5 times a day.
Like none of this is just your opinion.
But whether you place your hands on your
chest, whether you place your hands on your
navel, above your navel, below your navel, or
or even like some of the malekis who
pray with their hands to their side. Guess
what? It's all permissible. Why? Because there is
a there is an account of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam having done them all.
Having done them all. If you do them,
we can do them. There's no that should
not cause no problems. And I do know
places where brothers have gone in and tried
to pray with their hands to their side
and they've been kicked out of the masjid.