Zakariyya Harnekar – My Chemical Romance It’s not too late
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AI: Transcript ©
Everybody's slow?
Really?
At these 2 long sessions, is there enough
place to, like, stand up and just jump
around quickly and then sit down?
There's a brother who started it over there.
Okay.
Anyways,
how good is that?
There are other guys that really spoke about
all my stuff, so,
I'm kind of at the lost words. But,
inshallah, may Allah guide my words and guide
our all of our hearts.
They kinda gave me the bad guy topic.
So,
yeah, I'm not a bad guy.
Anyways, as you can see, the topic says
I think it says my company on the
last night, I just felt like changing it,
so I changed it to My Chemical Romance.
What the topic is about is,
you know, love, dating, infatuation, all that kind
of stuff.
And the reason we chose to put this
topic here is because,
yeah, it's not so hard to stay away
from drugs
and,
like,
having *.
And,
that's all good,
But,
yeah. Even alcohol and so it's not that
hard to stay away from those things, clubbing
and stuff. But dating's so normal, like, having
girlfriends.
To be honest with you, when I was
your guys' age,
I knew it was possible.
But, like,
I didn't really believe it. I didn't really
believe it.
So, because I didn't actually see it happen
ever before that. Beside my parents.
Yeah.
Even a mic is sharp.
But, anyways,
so,
yeah, whatever. Okay. So my topic is my
chemical romance. And I think most of you
well, hopefully, possibly, I didn't know what it
was about that time, but
Islam is actually opposed to
dating.
Do you know that?
Who didn't know that?
Everybody knew that.
Yo, you guys know your dean. I I
did actually didn't know that thing was haram
when I was your guys' age. But anyways,
I put something controversial up there. And,
Rizan already mentioned. The West promotes arranged marriages.
Once they have arranged marriage.
India.
Your daddy will get you sorted.
What do you guys say?
What I'm saying is
the west promotes arranged marriages and Islam promotes
choice.
Now that might sound strange,
If I get to choose who I date,
I get to go out to them forever
long I want to.
That was my choice, wasn't it?
But
in Islam, I like to marry the person
first and then get to know them and
stuff.
So do I really get to choose whether
I want to marry that person or not?
Or whether I want to be with that
person or not?
But my statement still stands, the West promotes
arranged marriages,
and Islam promotes
choice. So just keep that in your mind.
Right? And let's get into what Islam says.
What does the Quran say about dating?
Allah says,
That you should marry
females
with the permission of their families, their guardians.
Give them the the,
like, in a good fashion and what is
customary.
What should the condition of these females be?
They should be chaste women.
They shouldn't be lewd and illicit females.
You guys never well, most people don't know
that the Quran actually speaks about having girlfriends
and boyfriends and stuff like that directly.
Right? So says,
the females that you marry,
they shouldn't be females that
had boyfriends or at least you should hope
they should have tried not to Or had
repented if they did.
Right? But that's what the Quran says.
I just wanna get to the end of
this verse because I don't have time to
get into the entire verses, all of these
things, the very long verses. But at the
end of this verse, Allah says something, something
profound.
Allah says,
speaking about marriage and stuff like that.
Allah says,
that you have patience is much better for
you.
That you have patience is much better for
you.
And Allah is Most Forgiving,
Most Merciful.
Most Forgiving, Most Merciful. Why Most Forgiving Most
Merciful?
When do we need the forgiveness of Allah?
When
when you need someone's forgiveness,
any forgiveness, when you do something wrong, right?
So all those reminds us that he is
the one that will always forgive you. Because
along the way, we're very likely to falter,
to fall somewhere,
make an error somewhere, but you must remember
Allah's forgive.
And Allah's Rahim, Allah is not placing these
laws to harm you, as Mulla Khaliel mentioned.
Allah puts all of these things there because
he loves you,
because he knows what will benefit him.
That is with regards to females.
In another verse, with the Quran, Allah Subhanahu
wa
Allah
says here, speaking about males, they should marry
females that are chased females and all that
stuff, not illicit.
But how should the males be?
Not just that the females mustn't have boyfriends
and stuff like that. All I see here
because guys are not thinking, you know, there's
this stigma that goes around society. A guy
can do whatever he wants to, but when
he wants to get married, he can just,
you know,
choose the
the pill in a
what's the pills sitting in their shells or
whatever?
But ladies, if they do something wrong, then
it's, you know, there's a stigma attached to
them.
But although Swahadar speaks about males here as
well and he says that males also shouldn't
have confidence. They also shouldn't have,
secretive relationships and stuff like that.
That's why we can't have confidence in boyfriends.
Big thing.
Your life's gonna change now. Sorry.
Right?
So that's the that's Islam's concept of dating.
We're gonna get we're going to get to
what Islam
proposes as the alternative to dating. But let's
look at the Western concept of dating. You
guys tell me,
I don't know so much about dating. I
don't date.
I can say it proudly now. I can
say it proudly now.
But you guys tell me what's dating about.
What happens when you date? What do you
do?
I don't know what you do when you
date. I mean, how
do you get to the point that you're
dating?
What happens?
You guys at school, right, you just magically
happen to be with a girl. What happens?
I was gonna pick someone. I'm gonna pick
like the the guy who looks
like I know the guy with the
tell me what happens.
I saw that cap go on his head.
So I knew, okay. That's a guy I
was picking.
What happens when you date?
You didn't know about dating?
Those are okay. But, generally, what happens? You
guys, you see a girl that you like.
Right? She looks pretty, maybe she's cool.
You see some things you like about her
and she tickles your fancy.
For girls, the same thing.
Hopefully, she's not tickling you but,
like, she
strikes a chord with, you know, you it's
like your flavor or whatever.
The same thing happens for girls.
Girls see a guy that they they like
that that, you know, he's a hunk or
whatever.
Let me not use that same,
a figure of speech there.
But you see someone you like and you
get you guys maybe start chatting. You get
together and then you stay together.
And sometimes you fight. And then you realize,
you know, I don't really like this person,
but you stay together anyways, and then you
get married, and
you become old and you die.
Right?
And oftentimes, those marriages end up in divorce
because you didn't you weren't actually looking for
that long term relationship. You were looking for
a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
Right? So just keep that in mind.
The point of my topic is getting into
the chemicals or chemical occurrences
in lust or romance or infatuation or whatever
you wanna call it. Right?
Disclaimer,
this is not
love.
This
is love comes from Allah.
Allah
places love in your marriage. As Allah mentions
in the Quran, You created spouses for you
from amongst yourselves.
Allah is the one that places love between
you, and he is the one that places
that loving mercy between you as well.
Right?
So let's just see what happens in infatuation.
Actually, got these slides from Wale Mall Road
here. But let's see.
Falling in love, the Hollywood love story.
So a boy sees a girl.
Man sees a lady.
Whatever.
The 2 of them meet up somehow. Maybe
they just give like a, you know, eye
flirting.
And then there are no signals on. That's
that's a that's a catch. Let's do something
about it. Right? The 2 of them eventually
meet up.
The 2 of them eventually meet up.
When they meet up, that guy got all
his lines lined up.
You so fine. You blow my mind. I
don't know what the
whatever. Right? But
he
he has all his lines because he's been
thinking about it all the time. He's on
a hunt
and he doesn't go hunting without his ammunition.
Right? So he goes hunting.
The 2 of them meet
Well, he gives all the lines. The girl
is, like, all blushing.
I know it's so good. It makes me
feel so good about myself.
Yeah. Then she gets all butterflies and he's
like, yes, my my arrows are hitting
the target.
You start feeling good about yourself, giddy. You
talk for hours. You know, you have intimate
conversations. You chat all the wee hours of
the night,
about nothing.
Yeah. Back in the day, it just mix
it. You just go check. Is that person
online? Yeah. They're online. Okay. You can still
do it with WhatsApp. They have that last
seen thing. The person online. Okay. Then you
send a message and then you chat and
you just chat. How is it? What color
is your due for you tonight?
My favorite color
my favorite color is still blue.
Didn't change since yesterday, don't worry.
Whatever. And you get the conversations about life,
you start sharing your problems with each other
and that person becomes an integral part of
your life
until such a point that you can't imagine
life without that other person.
You can't think, you know, you you think
to yourself, you know, imagine if I couldn't
talk to that person tonight. How bad am
I gonna feel? Like, my night will be
empty and
yeah. It's just not gonna be the same
and
I need this.
I I need it. Doesn't it sound like
like drugs? Yeah.
Right? So you date for a period of
time. I I have friends that dated for,
like, 8 years.
And,
8 I'm not actually older. Yeah. I'm I'm
24. So 8 years is a long time.
That means they were 16.
That means they were and I'm sure many
of you will be 16. They dated for
a long time.
And then they got married.
And they live together.
I actually have one friend that that got
married and then okay. I hope he's not
here.
He got married and then he
this is his full lesson. If he's easier,
but I'm using this as a lesson.
It didn't work out. In a very short
period of time, it it things didn't work
out. But he didn't date. He actually did
it the right way, so it doesn't work.
Anyways, so you you you you get to
this person, you're married to them, and then
you find out all their other habits.
Because when people date, they don't show you
everything.
They don't ever go to a date without
brushing their teeth,
number 1,
which is something you'll find out on the
1st morning of marriage.
When you wake up, maybe your spouse's mouth
also be nice and fresh smelling because they
got a little bit earlier than you and
go go brush their teeth.
But you wake up and you think that,
hey. Yeah. I think I need to brush
my teeth,
but it's a bit late now. So that
person will see that side of you
that they didn't see before.
That side where you don't have your teeth
brushed.
And it's not a nice side.
Eventually, sometime in your relationship, you're gonna have
to fart in front of the other person.
That's not a nice side either,
especially if you've been eating some, bad foods.
You they're gonna see you when you're angry,
when you're tense,
when you're under pressure. They're gonna be with
you all the time. All the time.
Right? When you're not at your best, when
you didn't have time to prepare your lives,
when you didn't have, you you didn't have
a chance to go, but I was through
your
Shakespeare textbook to just find me your wherefore
art thou, Romeo,
or was it Juliet? Wherefore art thou? I
can't remember.
I read it back in the day. But
anyways,
they can see the other side of you,
a side that they don't see when you're
dating.
Right?
And the reality is, they might not like
that side.
That side might involve
bad habits that you can't keep. That side
might involve drugs that you never came to
know about.
That side might involve
bad relationships with your family that that you
can't stand.
But now you're kind of, like, caught in
something. You don't have a way out.
You don't have a choice anymore.
You eat it already. You've been with this
person for too long. You can't imagine any
other way.
And the reason that things go this way
is substantiated by the chemicals, occurrences that happen
in our body when
when these kind of things happen. Now before
I mentioned this, last night, I actually went
to go check a whole array of scientific
journals.
I'm still like, I can still get into
UCTs, libraries,
and stuff like that. So I went to
check an entire array of scientific journals to
substantiate these things. The effects of these,
hormones that
come to the fore in our body when
involving intimacy.
So I was reading an article last night
about someone or some doctor that classifies
our relationships, our social interactions with people into
3 parts. The first stage is
is lust,
Not love. It's just lust. When you think
it's love at first sight, it's not love
at first sight. It's lust. You just
smack that person.
Right?
So you see the person and you something
about them likes you. It just gets you
off. Right?
Then testosterone
gets,
produced in your body for males. Testosterone for
females, estrogen
and, you know,
those
chemicals come to the fore. I don't want
to speak too much about them.
Then attraction happens.
After you you just fall in love with
the person, you start speaking to the person,
whatever, and then attraction happens. You become attracted
to the person, to the nice qualities that
person shows you.
And when attraction happens,
you get
adrenaline pumping through your body. What's adrenaline? Where
do you guys where have you guys heard
about adrenaline from?
Where?
Skydiving,
hiking, doing any extreme thing. Right? You get
adrenaline. What does adrenaline do?
Makes you pump.
Is it you are like when you wanna
go to gym, you do certain stuff to
get your adrenaline pumping so that you can
be on peak performance. Isn't it?
So
imagine that
you
okay, just for a lack of a better
way of saying it, you're on the chase.
Right?
So your adrenaline is pumping. Your adrenaline is
pumping. Your heart races. You you you become
sweaty. You feel nervous and anxious but all
of that stage that your game can be
on form. Right?
Then
dopamine gets produced in your body. This chemical
called dopamine.
You know when you get dopamine?
When dopamine is produced in your body?
When you take drugs.
When you take
drugs.
Yeah.
You're on drugs.
So just think about it. Do you remember
when I said earlier, you feel like I
need this? I need it. How can I
do without it?
Even if I chat to that person and
say nothing, I'm still gonna chat to them.
Right? That's because your body is producing hormones
that make you addicted to things.
So dopamine
gets produced in your body.
You have increased energy, less need for sleep
or food, focus attention.
Yeah. That's why you can stay up till
1 o'clock and then still get up in
the morning at 8 o'clock for school. 1
o'clock is 1 o'clock too early. Go sleep
budget time. And then you get up for
I remember that back in the day, they
also called it a mix it all nighters.
It's our all nighter. And then everyone's like,
yeah, let's have a all nighter.
And then you think why afterwards.
But anyways, you have the the
the levels of serotonin in your body change
and that's equivalent to becoming OCD, obsessive compulsive
disorder.
Right?
Then
when things become intimate,
when you start talking about intimate things, about
deep things,
guys,
if you wanna get a girl, just talk
to her about deep stuff.
I'm not telling you that to you so
that you can do it. I'm telling it
to the girls that you know when the
guys talk to you about deep stuff, just
be ready.
And
and guys don't do it. I'm not encouraging
you to bed. I'm encouraging you not to
do it.
But, yeah, when you start talking about deep
stuff and things become intimate, whether you're touching
the person or you're not touching the person,
you're just creating,
very intimate feelings in the person,
this thing called oxytocin gets released.
Oxytocin.
Oxytocin,
was first known as the hormone that is
released
when
mothers
breastfeed their children
and when
they give birth.
And it creates a bond between the mother
and the baby.
So what kind of bond gets formed between
a mother and a baby?
You tell me. What will a mother do
for the child
when the child is just born?
That mother will protect the child with her
own life. She's so attached to the child.
Until babies look ugly.
Like, newborn babies look ugly. They look like
rats sometimes.
But, like,
but mothers are still like, oh,
so cute.
Sometimes I I I'll never tell it to
the mother, but I mean,
you see the baby and, like, that thing
is not cute.
But the mother is still so attached to
the baby.
A mother is still so attached to the
baby.
The mother will do anything for the baby.
And imagine that when you're talking about that
deep stuff, that same hormone gets released that
attaches a mother to a baby,
and it now attaches you to this person
that you're having these intimate conversations with. You
become attached to that person.
Generally, males become more addicted
to the action.
Right?
Guys get addicted to the try is for
lack of a better word.
And ladies get more attached to the person.
Ladies get more,
like emotionally invested in the person.
So can you see the danger of that?
Can you see how it clouds your judgment?
In fact, I was reading a study last
night that likens this love hormone, oxytocin, to
alcohol.
It impairs your thinking.
You are willing to overlook so much
to get whatever you want.
And I actually I still I mean, I
I kept a list of, journals that I
read last night. So if anyone wants,
like, references, I have the references on my
PC so you can get them if you
don't believe me.
But just think about that for a moment.
You become addicted and attached to a person.
So whether you just
got with this person, fulfilling,
because you like the chase, because you felt
good in the time and you looked good,
You become addicted to the person and you
you guys especially become addicted to the action,
but girls become addicted to the person, attached
to the person.
If after a week or after a month,
you find out the worst things about this
person
and you're forced to stay away from this
person, you still feel sad, you still feel
bad, and you'll do anything to get back.
You'll do you'll do anything to get back.
You'll do it's like a drag. You'll do
anything to get you fixed.
And that's sad because you don't have a
choice anymore.
When you think to yourself, the day you
got married, I chose this person so lovingly.
The reality is you didn't choose that person
very lovingly, you chose that person because you
were
*.
And now
and now you are stuck with the decision
you made when you were under the influence
of your hormones.
Yeah. And that's not good for you because
you can't get out of it anymore. And
the funny thing is neither do you want
to get out of it even though it
might harm you.
You don't want to get out of it
even though it might harm you because it
makes you feel good Because it makes you
feel good.
On the other hand, what does Islam say?
What does Islam say?
Boy or girl hear about each other. I
have a young sister.
I know some good guys.
So I tell her, Mariam,
I know this good guy. He's quite cool.
I'm not obviously, it's my sister. I'm not
gonna look for a ugly guy for her.
He's handsome. He's, you know, he fits a
whole list of criteria, and he's quite good.
So I think,
you know, maybe it'll be nice for you
guys to meet each other and check it
out.
Right?
So you hear about this person. You you
find out more about this person. You get
to know about the person. Is it a
good person? Do they have any dark secrets,
any bad habits, anything that I don't want
in my life?
Right? The 2 of them meet each other.
They discuss things with each other under supervision
so that the judgement
the clouded judgement because when they meet each
other, their hormones still might flay
so that the the
their cognitive abilities aren't impaired.
They can think straight.
They get to assess each other.
You actually get to check, does this guy
fit my bill?
Is he my
wonder man or whatever?
Right? And guys, you get to to assist
to think, is this girl going to be
the person that I really want to live
with and that I want to be my
wife?
And so it sounds a little bit robotic.
But at the end of the day, you
won't be sorry.
You won't be sorry.
Right? So the 2 meet each other, they
converse, they discuss things, they find out more
about each other, they can find out about
these people from other people.
And she's a shy girl.
She's very shy.
But even on our wedding day, she was
so calm and it's like weird because she's
shy. And it's the first time she's talking
to me, the first time she's with me,
the first time we're together.
But it was so calm. It was like,
it wasn't normal.
But exactly that, it wasn't normal. Because when
you do things the right way, Allah
puts something there. Allah puts that giddy feeling
there. Allah is the one that makes that
comfort be there.
Allah is the one that that, makes you
have the mentality that I'm gonna make this
work.
And so you start out with a little
bit of love that you had on the
day that you got married, and you keep
on building and building and building and building,
and you become more in love and more
in love as you go along.
Because I didn't start off with a fake
picture of you.
I started off with you.
The very day we got married,
the very next morning, I woke up, and
I think she brushed her teeth before me,
but my teeth wasn't brushed.
And she didn't have an expectation of me
to wake up with a brushed mouth.
She didn't only experience
me perfumed.
She knew that there was something else because
she was thinking with a brain,
not with the hormones.
Right?
So she had a choice. I had a
choice.
Alhamdulillah,
Allah made it work.
And if it didn't work at the end
of the day, we could have just decided,
well, you're not the one, you don't fit
my bill, no odd feelings, I don't really
know you.
And it's
break up and try the next one. I'm
not attached yet. So it didn't work like
it. I see
Rishan is here. But,
it didn't work out like it. And it's
beautiful.
Till this very day, I can be my
lazy self. And that's all she knows of
me. So she's happy with me like that.
And, yeah,
you see, she had a choice. And that's
what Islam promotes. Though Islam tells you to
get married first,
Islam allows you to choose who you want
to get married to and choose rationally with
your brain, not with your hormones, not under
the influence.
The Western culture, the culture of dating,
it lets you choose at the beginning but
then you get attached to the person, you
become addicted. And the day you choose to
marry that person, you're not thinking with your
brain.
You are not thinking with your brain
at all. You're not thinking with your brain.
So I'm telling you that Islam allows you
to think with your brain. Islam allows you
to choose
to really be
who you think is going to please Allah
and you are allowed to fashion your life
in such a way that Allah
replaces Baraka in everything you do.
Right? So,
yeah, my advice to you is and and
this is very good the reason we're speaking
about this because it's a hard thing.
My advice to you is don't date.
Don't date. And if you are dating, get
out of it.
That's why I started with those ayaat of
the Quran.
Because at the very least
at the very least, right, we must know
that dating is haram.
If I'm in such a relationship or if
I'm planning to get into a relationship like
that, now is the time that I don't
do it.
The first reason that I don't do it
is because Allah told me that it's wrong
and I want to please Allah.
And the second reason is that it's not
good for me, and I've just shown you
chemically why it's not good for you.
Right? So firstly, because Allah doesn't want it
from me.
And thirdly
oh, sorry. Secondly, because it's not good for
me.
Because it's not good for me.
And then I go back to the beginning
or the ending of that ayat where Allah
tells you that he's
He's most forgiving and most merciful.
If you are in such a thing, turn
back to Allah. Break up now.
Tap out your message now. Break up. Just
do it.
No. I'm I'm not joking.
You know,
that's all that it takes. All that you
have to do is you just break up
now. Don't think about the consequences. Don't let
your hormones kick in. Just shoot your brain
off just shoot your hormones off and just
break up.
Right?
And think about the consequences later.
But the consequences will be good. I promise
you. Right?
Allah will forgive the past and Allah will
Allah will make your life better. He'll show
you that loving mercy. And I end it
for the court.
I know this is a hard thing. I
know it's something that's hard to get out
of. I know it's something that you're gonna
fall along the way.
And I said, may I
Allah subhanahu wa'ala, I just expect you to
turn to him. Allah will make the way
easy for you. I end it for the
saying of Imam Shafi'i Rahmah Wa Ta'ala Or
it was either him or his student,
Rabia.
He says,
Travel to Allah.
Travel to Allah limping and broken.
Subhanahu wa'ala.
None of us are perfect.
He says, travel to Allah
limping and broken with all your faults.
With all your faults.
With all the hiccups that you know are
gonna come along the way, it doesn't matter.
With all the bad things you do, with
all the good things you don't do, it
doesn't matter.
Travel to Allah limping and broken.
Because you're waiting for the time that you
are perfect and you are pious and all
of that stuff.
That's a waste of time. It's never gonna
come.
Allah wants you to come to him limping
and broken. Come to Allah. Come to Allah.
And the first way that we can come
to Allah is to remove the bad things
in our life.
So let's try that even at the heart.
Let's decide at this very moment. Just take
a quiet moment. Don't listen to me what
I'm saying this evening. Just think to yourself,
Oh Allah,
With all the weaknesses that I that I
have, with all the faults that I have,
oh, Allah. I'm turning to you right now.
I'm turning to you, and I'm coming to
you limping, and I'm coming to you broken,
Allah. You fix me.
You fix me.
And I promise you, Allah will make the
way easy for you. Allah will make the
way
easy for you.
And and just lastly, I want
to just commend you on this. SubhanAllah, it's
beautiful.
It's beautiful to see so much youth here.
And I'm sure you didn't just come for
the tribe and the demonese.
The guys might have come because they knew
they were going to be lots of girls,
but
but you knew there was going to be
something Islamic here. You knew there was going
to be something about Allahia.
And you still came to listen.
And I promise you, if that was your
intention, Allah is gonna look at you with
mercy. Allah is gonna look at you with
mercy.
So once after you've taken this step, take
the next step. I promise you Allah will
come running to you. Allah will come running
to you. Allah will come running to you.