Zaid Shakir – Sunni-Shia Hatred: A Disease We Must Fight

smilla rahmanir rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salam o, Muhammad Ali, he will be at your marine center, Marty kumada law.

Thank you all for being here and to all the study circles around the world. And that's a great honor and pleasure to begin this class with imams a checker. And the, the idea behind the class is the importance of reviving love, mercy and affection within the oma of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and to build a prophetic community and strengthening those bonds of love in doing so, just very briefly, an introduction about loneliness in the world today, I work a lot with with students, and it's not uncommon to come across students when they come for counseling, who are dealing with a range of emotional issues, challenges, sometimes some mental challenges. And one

thing that I see time and time again, particularly at a place like the University of Toronto, which is a very busy academic, lifestyle, and many people commute. So they spend a lot of time getting to school getting back home. And that the entire time they're either in class or at the library studying is there isn't a whole lot of time with friends, just you know, real human interactions. And there's a shift both kind of on the ground level with students and as a whole, in many human relationships, the family unit, society community, and we need to be aware of these changes, and we need to know how to respond. Just a few statistics about the dangers of loneliness.

And these specific statistics here are related to the United Kingdom, you have 51% of people over the age of 75, living alone,

that they live completely alone. So half of people who are over 75, are alone all of the time, or live alone. And there was a story in a newspaper of an elderly couple in the UK that called 999, which is like 911, they called the police and the police came to their apartment, and they said, We just wanted someone to come by because we were lonely. Can you have a cup of tea with us? So they're calling emergency, you know, just so someone will spend some time with them. 40% of elderly people say that TV is their main source of company.

This isn't progress. This is a regression, in in just the basic human human relationships. There's also an increase in loneliness. You know, in the United States, this is from the US Census, in 1940, less than 15% of people were in single households. That was the 1940s and 1970. census, the number rose between 15 to 20, who are living alone, and in the 2000 census over 25%. Were living in single households, over 25%. So the number of people who are even just living alone is rising. And there was a you know, a story from Satan that I might have known called La Valle de la Han, who, where a man committed a man committed a crime. And Satanism as punishment for the man was to banish him for

a year that he had to live in exile for one year. And when the man came back, when said no, I'm not allowed to and when he saw the effects of being alone, and that extreme condition on this man, he said, I'll never punish someone with this punishment again, I'll never do that to anyone again. So you're starting to see this rise in loneliness, and many people are saying social media does not, does not compensate. It does not make up for it. And you know, a loss of a sense of community, and even

they're saying, in terms of medically and the effect on physical health, they're saying loneliness increases the odds of an early death by 45%.

That being alone increases the odds of an early death by 45%. And they're saying it's worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being in a state of loneliness. And inshallah we'll have on the the forum, an interesting TED Talk called the lethality of loneliness.

by dr. john Cacioppo so inshallah without further ado, we'll have imams eight Charla share some some wisdom with us

this Mila Rahman r Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen was so that was sent him and I say you didn't we're sitting. Say you didn't I'm humbled while early he was sadly he was sending him tasneem and kathira Suriname widecombe Rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh hamdulillah so great honor to be here at these secrets hub such a beautiful, inviting space. The colors are very tranquil. And the message is tranquil divid dignity, reverence, serenity and love and high aspiration, Allahu Akbar.

And the people are very beautiful.

And the youngsters especially so

they'll law protect them and protect everyone and protect this space and bless it to fulfill its mission. and bless all of you out there in the various seekers, circles of knowledge and aspiration. Allah, Allah bless all of you. I would like to speak in the context of the subject so very beautifully and movingly introduced by MJ Tara seen the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Norman dibny Bashir in or the Allahu anhu and Homer

called Kala Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam methylone what me Nina fatawa de him. Ouattara hermy him What are two fiom mythologist at industry tech admin who earned one today, sir, it will just study the Sahel one

Rahul Muslim, so this high d3 data by the Muslim and others on the authority of Normandy many Bashir, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, both of whom were companions, similar to me are best for me our best and his father our best were both companions. So we say radi Allahu hoomans humor a lot be pleased with the two of them. That the Messenger of Allah May the blessings and peace of Almighty Allah, Allah Almighty God be upon them.

That the Messenger of Allah, the blessings and, and peace of Allah be upon him, said, the likeness of the believers, and their mutual love the mutual mercy their mutual affection, is like a single body, if one part of the body complains of some injury, the entire body, the all of the parts of the body call to each other, with fever, with sleeplessness, rather and fever. So this is a very, very profound and powerful Hadith and it goes right to the issue of, of community that not only are the Muslims or community, not only are the believers or community, but they are an affectionate, merciful and

emotionally invested community now, or we should be anyway. So the first quality of that community that the Prophet mentioned, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is love. And it's not just love in the abstract, it's mutual love, to wed de him their love for each other. And this reminds us of a very, very important aspect of our religion and that's mutuality. Allah subhanho wa Taala when he mentions Love Again, there's mutuality involved, so he doesn't just mention his love for the believers or the believers love for him. He mentions the love they have for each other. So for example, yeah, you have Lydian and will mean your Ted demoon kumaun Dini for software yet Tila who be calm and you have

boom we had buena

is the technology Catherine village and Alamo meaning, etc, to the end of the verse. So oh you believers and so again methylone what me Nina, the believers are being referred to here. Similarly in the area, the verse

Yeah, you Hello Vina and I know the believers are being addressed whoever amongst you turns back on is Dean and most commentaries mentioned this is an lt, dat akdy

It's not

creedal or

theological apostasy, but it is mainly our Ted dimin Come on loose Rati Dini from helping the religion so we have a responsibility to help our religion brothers and sisters and tonsil rely on soracom A and tonzura Dino llahi young soul come, if you help allows religion a lot doesn't need help. Well Gandhi with Hamid is worth it free of all knees Worthy of all praise. So if you have the deen of Allah, Allah will help you but the point he will bring another people in your place. home he will love and they will love him mutuality, home he will love and they will love him. And so the love mentioned in this hadith is a mutual love their love for each other. So the love that we have

shouldn't be unreciprocated love, which can be the most painful form of love, love that's unreciprocated. It's terrible. We all have our experiences with that in our youth. So I won't elaborate on that. But just to mention the magnitude of love, that it's a part of our faith

in terms of completing and perfecting and fulfilling our faith. So for example, let me know I had to come head to head belly as he he may have been enough. See, no one of you truly believes until he or she loves where their brother and sister what they love for themselves.

So again, love for brother, love for our sister, connected with the completion of our faith, let me know so it's not a negation of faith, you know, saying you absolutely don't believe but no one's faith is completed.

Until amongst other things he or she loves for their brother or sister of what they love for themselves

to the love for their brothers and sisters what they love for themselves. And this this hadith amongst other things is a one of the foundations of doubt.

We should be people actively inviting people to Islam that's part of our mission. The other side so one wall here in the secrets hub, Masha Allah, dignity, reverence, serenity, love, and high aspiration Adam, a vicar on the other side. Yeah, you have nebby in our Seneca shahidullah mubasher. On one era, where da n ELO law he isn't he he was the Raja muneera. So people, we have since you testing my glasses now, as a witness, a bearer of glad tidings and a warner as a caller to God by with His permission, and a shining light, so as a caller to God. So this is an integral part of our activity as both as individual Muslims and our community, as it was an integral part of the prophets

mission Salalah while he was selling them, so why did I say that? Our brother and sisters in faith our brothers and sisters in humanity, we should love for them to have faith, as we've been blessed with faith, we should love for them to have the personal security and serenity. serenity again. On the other side here, I feel like

ping pong ball, bouncing back and forth from one side one wall to the other, but serenity so that the need for drugs, the need for alcohol, etc. The need for these various addictions shopping until you drop, which is an addiction. The need to just eat is not there. Why? Because there's inner peace and there's inner serenity. Why? Because there's faith. And we who have benefited from that some of us know that how Islam has empowered us to overcome various things we were wrestling with, wouldn't we love for our brothers and sisters who might still be afflicted with some of those addictions to have that inner strength and inner serenity to help them overcome them? Similarly, let's head to

hallucinogen let me know. Well, I mean, who had had Habu Ella, I don't know Kamala Shay and either foul to move who to had up to actual Salama Bane, okay. So you won't enter Paradise until you truly believe and you will not truly believe until you love one another. So again, the mutual love is not hot, too.

Have you had

to have boo, until you love one another?

Shall I not direct you to something which were you to do it you would love one another spread the

the greeting and the essence of peace between yourself after Salama main

and that means first and foremost the actual greeting but not the greeting Sonico

Why are you bothering me?

Is mine in my business when I get into my new business? You know you get scared to give people so out like a brother should quiet people not Muslim you crazy. But you know what's going on in the world?

I Solomonic one

is Adnan

hamdulillah and after Salama beno calm, the main the greeting, actual greeting and the spirit behind it what is the spirit behind it? Where does this lamb come from? selime Yes, Ramu Salomon. Salima Yes, Lambo, Salomon, so it comes from Salomon was Salima to render someone safe? And so what is the spirit of the greeting and Muslim Muna man and Muslim movement Solomon was the moon I mean, listen, he was here yet. The Muslim is one. The other Muslims are safe from their tongue and their hand. That's the spirit behind the greeting. So there's the greeting as salaam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh why likoma salam, why not why he will get a tattoo. And then there's the spirit of it.

And Muslim woman said email Muslim Mona Lisa and he will yell at the Muslim is the one the other Muslims are safe from his or her tongue or his or her hand. Now give us tofik and then the mutual mercy. So mercy again is another vital characteristic. And Mercy is the willingness to suffer loss, pain, hardship, for the sake of the one mercy as shown.

And so, love can be confined to the a the emotional realm. And love can be very subjective. But Mercy is expressed in the world through action. And Mercy is very objective. Love can mean many different things to many different people. And there's the the objective aspect of it in terms of body fat, how it's defined, but mercy, most people It means pretty much the same thing to virtually everyone. It's very objective. And the essence of it, the willingness to sacrifice and the willingness to suffer on the part on the part of one one shows mercy to And so again, this is a mutual

phenomenon, if you will, that should qualify our community and qualify our relationships with each other. So the companions will use the rune Allah and foresee him although can it be him kasasa they gave preference to others. This was a manifestation of mercy even though they had dire needs, they were willing to suffer deprivation, to suffer hardship, to go without food, so that the other could we could eat he thought. And so this is a manifestation of mercy. And again, this should qualify our relationships with one another and it should qualify our community in terms of the characteristics that define our community. One should be mercy. And again, a hadith very close to the one we

mentioned concerning love. Land Title kolu Land Title colon janitor, hot mineral water to me new hot Tara humble.

You will not enter Paradise into you truly believe in you will not truly believe until you are merciful to one another. Cool Luna Rahim on your Rasul Allah all of us are merciful messenger of Allah.

Lay set, rattler to lay set Rama to a Heidi come Sahiba this isn't the mercy one of you might show to those closest to you. That's the easy part.

Parents to the child child to the parents, relatives to the relatives.

His friends to friends, people to their neighbors, we know those people were close to them. And so because we loan them and our lives are connected with their lives, it's easier to be merciful to them. But the prophet mentioned subtle Allahu alayhi wa sallam, and various version versions in the mat. Here are hammer to nasci Rahmatullah. Amma is mercy to all people more mercy to the generality of people to the general public. So, we are merciful people, we should be a merciful community and that mercy should be reciprocal, and it should be reciprocated. And then he mentions what to How to Feed him, and their mutual affection. And just in the interest of time, two of the strongest

affections that we have, our emotions were the mutual emotion, their emotional attachment and connectivity, our happiness and our sadness. And one of the Hadith our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam reminded us with and moved me into Yahoo before a hottie. He the believer is pleased and happy by those things that makes his or her brother or his or her sister happy?

Well, yes or no, because, and he's saddened by those things that sad in him. She's sad, and by those things that sad in her.

So again, our attachment should be so close. And our hearts should be so close, that those things that bring joy and delight and happiness into the lives of our brothers and sisters, and Hamdulillah, there should be happiness and bring happiness to our hearts and into our lives. Understand there's a wedding or two right now, even as we speak, we should be overjoyed by that, Allahu Akbar.

We should be very happy, especially for the sister. Because it's tough for sisters to get married. And some age groups and some parts and some demographics. So we should be overjoyed. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar Kabira.

So we're happy with that which and we should be saddened by that, which saddens our brothers and sisters, we should be saddened by the situation. Many of our Muslim brothers and sisters are enduring not only in faraway places in Syria, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or parts of India that are experiencing persecution or wherever Libya and the turmoil there.

We should be also saddened by those things that sad in our brothers and sisters right here in this, this country here in Canada, what I'm currently speaking from around the United States, we're in shall be tomorrow,

we should be saddened. And but not we shouldn't be crushed by sad and sadness, because then we can lose hope. And we can stop working. But we should be motivated by sadness, to work harder on their behalf, to do more to alleviate their suffering, and not more in terms of responding to the hardship that befalls them. Responding to the disasters and calamities and catastrophes is very, very important, but also doing more to help to alleviate, and to eliminate the causes, rather to eliminate the causes of that hardship doing more to try to address the policies that lead to wars to address the tension. And the torn relationships, the very opposite of what we're talking about. Now.

We're talking about love, we're talking about mercy. How did the hatred come between the hearts of so many Muslims that they're moved to take up arms against each other? We should try to address that brothers and sisters. That's our responsibility. We should try to protect our hearts so that that disease doesn't spread into our hearts, as some people would have it. There are many people they want the Sunni Shia friction that present in many of our countries, they wanted to come here to North America, we have to protect the hearts against that. We know Sri Muslims haven't done anything does. They're saddened and grieved by the situation. They're disappointed in their

fellow Shia brothers and sisters who have been dragged into situations where they're oppressing or killing and aggressing against Sudanese. They're saddened by this situation and many of you know people in that in that particular boat for lack of a better word.

So we should protect ourselves so we can protect the positive emotional attachment and help to ward off the negative. Because there are negative emotions we mentioned love, there's hate. When we mentioned mercy, there's apathy.

We mentioned

positive emotional attachments, there's emotional detachment

that has to do with that energy issue, we'll learn about how to do. So here, feet are wet the hem here, let abanda do don't hate one another don't Foster and harbor mutual hatred against each other. So a lot of it was setting them. So the Prophet sallallahu wasallam, he says, all of these positive emotions, and these positive attachments, create a situation where we're unified like a single body. And if one part of that body is afflicted with something harmful,

all of the body parts called each other, they rally each other. And again, this is the mutuality continues. So just as it's not a one way street, in terms of the emotions and the attachments is not a one way street in terms of the response. So of the fingers hurt, just the finger complains, listen, this cuts gonna get infected, if you don't do something,

then you don't have an effective finger. No, today I say rule just said, so to da, da, da, da, all the parts call each other your head. But again, on this foot, you better get over to the doctor. You know, the whole body is involved. The entire body cell just said. So the whole body's rallying the various parts.

To what extent if if the injuries unaddressed?

There's sleeplessness. So you going to bed, you didn't address your fingers. so busy saving the world and organizing and working, you didn't take care of the cut and some bacteria got in there. And now your fingers turn in colors, and it's swollen up three times as normal size, and you try to go to sleep and you're sweating. You have a fever.

Right?

So you can't sleep and you have a fever.

And then you say I better do something, I should have listened

to the body. And so hamdulillah you finally listen. So this is at the end, that's the end of the line, the infections gotten so bad, I can't sleep, I'm sweating, I have a fever, I better get to the doctor for real. So this should be how we are as a community, we should be very sensitive to each other, we should address the wound right away before it becomes infected.

And because once is infected, right if the infection is really bad amputation,

and so the Brotherhood the sisterhood breaks down to certain extent, then now that injured part is separated from the body. And so we don't want to see that we want to see all of the brothers and sisters united. And their various levels. We don't have to all go and eat in each other's houses. But the Unity exists to the point that we're not going to be slandering them, we're not going to be looking for the little differences we can exploit that will drive us further apart and maybe eventually lead to that amputation of that limb. But we're we're going to try to keep it together and we're going to try to address the injuries and of course they're not always physical like the

infected finger. There's emotional injuries that are far far more dangerous potentially, because of physical injury might kill the finger. The cut on the finger gets so bad and deep gangrene, we have to amputate it. But the non physical injuries that can we sometimes can even inadvertently afflict each other with my kill the heart

and when the heart is dead, everything dies and our NFL Jessa de moda Horton de Sala heart Sahaja Sudoku is a faster that faster than Jessa Dooku who Allah will he'll come so the heart when it's corrupt, and if it dies, respectively, everything's corrupt or and or everything will die. So we thank you for your attentiveness. We think that the mgh chaplain memjet for such a wonderful framing of the issue in the class in the subsequent sessions we think shape for us for his hospitality.

And his kindness and opening the opening the doors and let's make a fatty half for the completion of his recovering from his servant

surgery, fat Alinea till

she fat, the Shaykh Faraz Rabbani. alohomora. Bananas at double beds ish Fantasia, what was that when was oh and to move and tell mo de la Shiva Isla Shiva, Shiva okay? Yeah Alhaji Falco Yola Shiva okay yeah Ali abacha will call the mecca we'll call the mill mobile muslimeen Shaykh Faraz Rabbani Shiva and now you got to sockeye salmon, sockeye salmon, Allah Allah Allah

what's a little violin CD? You know Mohammed while early he was happy with sentiment esteem and cathedra was Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. I

just,

I just wanted to,

to just,

firstly express my thanks to him for coming and gracing us. And this of all topics that Dave could have talked about. For me this is the most poignant of topics of of brotherhood.

Imam Zaid is our is our senior but from when we from when I came to know him in person, I've been following him EMS aid for over 20 years from his

we had we had tape tapes of mZ, recorded back in the day, yeah, from from when he was in New Haven, Connecticut, but we met in Damascus in 97. And though he was he's significantly older and senior to us, he's always been

a an older brother for so many people, and always there. And I remember once I was just book shopping, and I found a book, it had to do with something related to West African history or something. And imams aide was traveling from Damascus, that

in just a few days later, so I got a copy of the book and I gave it to him.

And Amanda received it the day before he was traveling, the day of his travel and we lived on two opposite sides of Damascus, the day off his travel, imams aid came, even though he knew that we were going to come to see him

to get off to the airport.

He came from his house to drop off a gift to reciprocate. It was a it was a book and, and, and something and I'm like, What are you doing here? We're about to come there. But But I gave him a small book, nothing significant. Like in NASA. He came across town on the day he was traveling from Damascus to give a book a new mom dad's always been there. I've been to the barrier a number of times and we've had a small a small fundraiser for for seekers. And I calculated that you've set like 5060 miles from where mom's aid is. Someone just asked Could you come and after a long day of teaching center moms aides there right at Rs you see all these people I met the Imams aid had an

appointment of mZ did this and that. So this is really, you know, for me an example of that brotherhood i.

So, you know, do keep in mind zaidan in your in your daughter's mom's aid, is surprisingly active on social media now do follow him, he posts some really invaluable lessons and teachings. And also he has some amazing articles, always very topical and pointing on his website new samick directions. And also the idea of mutual concern among zayde. With

our dear teacher, Sheikh Hamza is at the forefront of this visionary project of zaytuna College. It doesn't matter if you're not attending your siblings aren't attending, you know, you don't have kids yet, because you're not married, you don't plan to go to the US to study. We should be supporting such projects, right? Even if you're you're directly learning from other places. And also, you know, we should recognize that all this good that we see whether it be the RS conference or all these projects. It's through the efforts of our seniors mm z, then she comes up and they're like, and we should all be supporting these projects, keeping them in our doors. And likewise, of course the

Muslim chaplaincy project as well. This is a very important topic is CDM. Jed has shared a breakdown of the lessons. So in Charlotte, do come out for the upcoming lessons and encourage friends and family as well to come it's very, very

Important and to look at the qualities of what brings believers together, Monica Atal, if you come I know a lot of you have to get to the

the Grand molad it's going to be packed so so so do get there and shout out to him and hit him. I love that.

To see that that's that