Zia Sheikh – HIKMAH Wisdom
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AI: Transcript ©
Use wise words, do not hurt a person's
feelings, do not admonish him in public, and
use such wording that makes a person come
closer to you rather than pushing him away.
This is what Hikmah is about.
And this also goes back to the issue
of inviting non-Muslims towards Islam.
A lot of people get hung up on
these issues of a woman, for example, a
non-Muslim comes into the masjid without hijab,
and people go crazy, how dare she come
into the masjid without hijab?
But she doesn't know any better, okay, she
doesn't know any better, so, you know, why
are you making it a huge issue?
Why are you making a big fuss out
of it and scaring her away?
And this happens that people come to the
masjid with true and sincere interest in learning
about Islam, and somebody says something to them,
and they get scared, and they never want
to come back to the masjid again.
So this has happened on many occasions.
Just last week we had a huge group
of people, about a hundred people came to
the masjid early in the morning around 8
o'clock, and, you know, pictures were posted
on our WhatsApp groups, and people just raised
that same issue again, that why non-Muslims
are in the masjid, in the musalla, they
shouldn't be in the musalla area, and so
on.
You know, there are so many examples of
the Prophet, a.s., allowing non-Muslims into
the masjid.
The people, group of Christians, came all the
way from Najran to have a dialogue with
the Prophet, a.s. The Prophet, s.a
.w., had a dialogue with them in the
masjid, in Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi, and then
on top of that, when the time came
for them to pray, he even permitted them
to pray inside the musalla.
So the issue is here that when a
non-Muslim is coming to sincerely learn about
Islam, our actions sometimes push a person away
from Islam rather than get him close to
us.
Very very sad situation.
And many people that actually became Muslim, they
say that, that when we initially came to
the masjid, we used to get bad treatment
from people, we were sitting in the masjid,
listening to lectures, listening to talks, you know,
becoming more and more interested, and suddenly somebody
tells us, oh you are not a Muslim,
you have to step outside the masjid and
stay outside the masjid.
Very very sad situation, and not something that
we should tolerate.
We have to be a little bit more
lenient when it comes to these issues.
You know, there is a ruling for a
woman, you know, who is in her menstrual
cycle, which is a state of impurity, that
when she needs to, okay, when she needs
to make arkan of hajj or umrah, and
she has no other choice but to make
tawaf around the Kaaba in that state of
impurity, then she is allowed to do so,
okay.
There is a dhamm, which has to be
given, basically a penalty that has to be
given, but the point is that even in
the state of impurity, she is allowed to
make tawaf around the Kaaba, the holiest place
in the world.
So, you know, this should give us an
indication of that impurity is not something that
is transferable in the sense that we look
at it.
So especially being a non-Muslim, non-Muslims
are not mukallaf, meaning they are not held
accountable by Allah SWT for their actions.
So therefore, the state of impurity that they
may be in, it is not an issue,
especially when we are trying to invite them
towards Allah SWT.
The next thing that Allah SWT says is,
وَالْمَوْعِبَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ Call people to the way of
your Lord with hikmah, we've talked about hikmah
already, and الموعبة الحسنة, which means good speech,
good speech means that don't let any Joe,
Joe Schmo, just, you know, give the lecture
if the person doesn't know what he is
talking about, okay.
Don't let a person who has no knowledge
of the subject try to advise people who
are in need of good advice.
The person who is talking must know what
he is talking about, he has to have
the correct knowledge before he gives dawah.
So الموعبة الحسنة means that whatever dawah, whatever
type of dawah he is giving, he needs
to know what to do, he needs to
know what to say.
When he is talking to Muslims, he needs
to know what to say.
When he is talking to Christians, he needs
to know what to say.
When he is talking to Jewish people, he
needs to know what to say.
So depending on the situation, the expert in
that particular field needs to be brought and
he is the one that should be given
the lecture, not any person, the person who
knows what to do, he is the person
that will give dawah.
After that Allah says وَجَادِلْهُمْ بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ
and dispute with them in a way that
is the best.
جِدَالْ actually means to fight, all right, but
here this is جِدَالْ in the sense that
you have a dialogue with a person.
So when you are having a dialogue with
a person, it should not be in an
insulting way.
Do not talk to the person in an
insulting way, do not talk to him in
derogatory terms and that is why the concept
of debate in Islam where a person tries
to put the other down, this is not
really something that is appropriate in Islam.
A dialogue is a better word to use
rather than debate.
In a debate you try to prove the
other wrong using his own proofs and so
on, sometimes that is counterproductive.
You are insulting him in a way that
you are pushing him away.
Allah says in one verse of the Quran
وَلَا تَسُبُّوا الَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِنْ ذُونِ اللَّهِ فَيَسُبُّوا
اللَّهَ عَدْوًا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ Do not curse those
that call to other than Allah SWT, otherwise
they are going to curse Allah SWT in
return.
So if you curse a statue that a
person worships, he loves that statue, he loves
to prostrate to the statue, he thinks highly
of that statue and you insult that statue,
do you think that he is not going
to insult Allah SWT or insult our religion?
Of course he is going to.
So وَجَادِلْهُمْ بِالَّتِيهِ أَحْسَنُ means dispute with them
in such a way or dialogue with them
in such a way that is good.