Third episode in Beauties of Islam series by Yusuf Estes.
Episode Title : Rights & the balance that goes with them.
Yusuf Estes – Beauties Of Islam – EP03
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Salam Alaikum, and welcome to the beauties of Islam. I'm Musa Festus and for the next few minutes, we're going to talk about another the beauties of Islam. We've talked about a lot of the different aspects, teachings and understandings in Islam, and discovered so much beauty surrounding each of these. And in this particular series, we want to talk about the rights and the balance that goes with it. You know, everybody worries about their rights. People talk about human rights, animal rights, grandparents rights. Now they're talking about plants, rights, fishes rights, the whales rights.
But we find that Islam is giving us something predating all of this, and more explicit and more balanced. Because if you allow me to write a book of rights, I'm going to be sure to give myself plenty of rights. The same would be true for anybody, whoever is going to write the book, he's gonna make sure he gets his rights. But what about the other fellow? Will he get his rights.
And so when we look at Islam, what we find is an amazing thing. Because Islam gives you the balance, rights, and limits, rights, and limits.
The first and foremost is the only right that has no limits. And that's the right of Allah, Almighty God, the Creator, the Sustainer of the universe, the one who created you, he created me, he created everything, he has the ultimate right, the right to be worshipped. Without any partners. There is no limit on that you worship Him, according to the way he wants you to worship him. That's Islam. That's the meaning one of the meanings of Islam is that you are surrendering and submitting to God in giving him his rights.
But the balance, and what do I mean now about this balance?
Because there has to be a balance in all the things that we do. Let us take for instance, a man and a woman
right away, we'll say, okay, women's rights, because that's real popular right now for people to talk about women's rights, isn't it? women's rights, women's rights? What about the man's rights?
We don't hear people talking about that much anymore, do we? Because in fact, if you said man's rights, it'd be like, Oh, so you don't have women's rights.
But we look to Islam to find out what is the real balance, this beautiful teaching in Islam is that there are absolutely rights for everybody. Everything Allah created has rights. Humans rights, men's rights, women's rights, children's rights.
Listen to this, even your enemies have rights.
Anybody that's captured in a war, there are rights that are ascribed to those people, they have rights, even though they're enemies, even though you've captured them, you still have to give them their rights. So as a prisoner of war, he has the right to be fed and clothed. He has the right that you're going to care for him in the same way you would care for anybody and give them what they need medicine, medical attention, and so on. Even in the war itself, the enemy who's fighting against you, he still has rights, even when he's fighting against you. How? Well let me give you an idea.
The Quran is clear about this subject, that you must never fight anybody unless they're fighting you. So if there is a war going on, and they're fighting and killing you, then you fight them, but look at this immediate and says, but if they stop, you have to stop.
Because why rights? They have rights. And in the teachings of Muhammad peace be upon him. He says, Okay, if you're in a war, and some people said, You know what, we stop, okay, you stop. And if even he just killed somebody, but he says, I want to change her. I want to become a Muslim. I want to interest them. You can't kill that man. Even though he just committed murder. You can't. Because he says a Chateau de la la la la, Chateau Mohammed or Sousa. That means by the way, I bear witness. There's nothing to worship, except him a lot. He has no partners. And I bear witness Mohammed said messenger. Now it doesn't mean that anybody can just walk up and kill people and say that and then
they get away clean. No, but it means that you don't kill them. You cannot can
Continue the battle against them. What you can do now is take them for judgment and the prophet in his time and whoever the judges are now will listen to the whole story. But at least look at this, right? You're giving rights to a person that was just attacking you. How about rights for your own family? and Islam is giving that Islam is giving the rights for the family more than you can imagine. I was just looking at this before the program and I was so happy to see this. It This is in a collection of teachings of Mohammed in a book called Sahil Bukhari. It's actually nine volumes that we have in it, and this is in. I'm taking this out of volume four, but it doesn't really
matter. What's important is what's being said that the Prophet peace be upon him talks about the statement of a law in the Koran. And it says our blaming cheaters in what takala allowed it to start aluna be here Well, our ham.
This is something amazing, because it says here to have Taqwa for a lot. And we talked about this in another program, but I'll mention it again. taqwa means to put a barrier or partition between you and allows punishment, put up something between you and the Day of Judgment so that you're not going to be in trouble, because you're going to be God fearing or have piousness. And that's usually how it's translated to English. But you get the understanding from this. To have this taqwa means to be God conscious. And it says, to have this, this God consciousness, through whom you demand your mutual rights, you're demanding your rights. And don't cut the ties of kinship. This is a
translation of our hum. What is our hum, it's the plural of RAM. And ROM. This is, believe it or not, the word in English is uterus or womb. And that's a very clinical term. But in Arabic, it's beautiful term. Our home ROM is coming from Rama, and Rama is the Rahim of Allah subhana wa Taala. This is his merciful, merciful, merciful, specifically merciful. Allah is so merciful. He's called Rahim, that's one of his name's Rockman is a general mercy. And Rahim has a specific mercy. But watch this ROM is the place inside your mother.
Where you started, this is where the egg was fertilized and attached itself inside of the raw.
It's called an English what you can call it the place of mercy. Because a lot created you in mercy inside of your mother, inside of the place of mercy. What a beautiful teaching. What a wonderful way to start your life talks about giving rights. Don't you see how now that a law should have the most rights over you because look, how he's even created you in mercy preserves you and mercy raises you up in mercy. So I'm not sure if it has the right destiny, but who has the most right after a law. And this happened, it was something that really happened at the time of Muhammad, peace be upon him. And what happened is a person went to me and he said, after a law
and His Messenger, who then would have the most rights on me, and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him in setting clear, I love this. He said, your mother.
He said and then who he said Your mother is that and then who? Your mother, and then your father.
You see this? Now keep in mind at the time he said this, in Arabian peninsula, women had no rights. No rights at all women were traded, bought, sold given away, treated less than property, like almost like dirt or rocks. In fact, it was considered such a put down, it was considered such a shame either to have a girl born to you that these ignorant Arab people would take that little baby girl to the desert and bury her alive. Dig the sand in the hot sand and put that poor little baby in there and let them die.
So how do you think it looks to these people when here's where I'm at peace be upon him coming to them and saying your mother has rights? Who? Your mother,
mother, your mother, the mother, your mother, and then your father. Look at this. What a beautiful teaching
when you stop and think of the right
Islam is given to the mother, the mother, the mother like this, I want you to stop and think about this too.
It did mention the Father. So the father is definitely having rights. In the Quran, Allah is very clear about the rights of the parents. It's so beautiful if you just knew how important it is to give the rights to your parents.
If you knew what would happen to you, just to obey the law on this one commandment, you could change your whole life.
If you're young, maybe you don't have any children yet, maybe you have some little kids at home. But if you do, I want you to think about this.
How do you want your children to treat you when you grow old?
How do you want your children to treat you when you become a senior citizen? An elder, you want respect. You want dignity? honor, you want them to care for you. You want them to bring you things that you need?
Even waters and mercy from Allah in it. But look at this. I want somebody to take care of me when I get old. I need my children to look up to me. I need them to respect me. I need them to care for me. Yeah. So what's the best thing I can do? Islam teaches me that if I take care of my parents,
then my children will take care of me the same way. But if you disrespect your parents, and you don't care for them, what will happen?
You'll find that your children do the same to you as you did to your parents. This is an amazing thing. It happened to me Actually, one time my children were in the kitchen arguing about who should wash the dishes. I started to go to the door to ask him what's going on. But I knew if I did, they would just go like this. Sorry, come Daddy, I see what's going on. Nothing. And you know where that goes. I said, Well, I saw my father sitting there. I went to my father. And I realized how many times he probably listened to me and my sisters argue about the same thing. I reached down and I kissed my father right here on the forehead. Now that's not our custom. We don't do the Arabs do
that. Some Muslim countries they do. But that wasn't our custom. But I did it anyway, I reached down and just kiss my father on the forehead and said, Dad, I love you. And I went and sat down. A few minutes later, one of my daughters came out of the kitchen, she walked straight over to me. She leaned down and she kissed me in the same spot. I'd kiss my father. She says Dad, I love you. And then I was so amazed. Because this is not something normal to us. And I sit there I was about to cry. And then the other daughter came out and now mind you they had not seen me do this to my father, my other daughter came out of she washed the dishes and she kissed me in the same spot.
And she said Dad, I love you.
This is an amazing thing. Allah was showing me right then how you treat your parents
is how your children will treat you.
This is one of the beauties of Islam.
For more like this, visit our website. beauties of islam.com. We're waiting for you. And until next time, Allah always guide you
to the straight paths and on Monday. Peace