Changing Our Condition- Understanding the Past, Examining the Present

Changing Our Condition: Understanding the Past, Examining the Present

Opening Salutations and Praise

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. (بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim). Allahumma la ilaha illa anta la hakim al aleem.

Wa sallallahu ala sayyidina wa habibina Muhammadin (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) khair al arabi wa al ajmi wa al anam. Wa ala alihi wa sahabatihi wa man tabi'ahum bi ihsan. Alhamdulillah.

Introduction: Travel and Reflections

Just before I start, I was scheduled to arrive in Toronto this afternoon at about three something. But I was supposed to arrive at about seven o'clock and then we came by car to this place. And so I literally got off the airplane and came right here.

So people have to bear with me. This happens unfortunately enough times that I should be used to it but I'm not. And so it's coming down from several thousand feet of altitude.

And I don't say that lightly because I think that (الْأَجَلُ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ - al ajala min al shaytan). Speed is from shaytan. And we go way too fast when we travel nowadays.

I used to travel... Now somebody can say, well the Buraq was much faster than the jet. So, and certainly the Buraq was not one of shaytan's modes of transportation. But there is a hadith in which the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said that towards the end of time the dajjal would jump between clouds and do amazing things.

The Daunting Topic and the Purpose of Reminders

So it's something to keep in mind. I want to say first off that the topic is daunting to say the least. I certainly don't claim in any way to have all of the answers.

It's something that I've certainly given a lot of thought. And I was thinking on the way on the airplane actually that I really in a sense don't have anything to add to this discourse that's original. Because this condition that we find ourselves in which is in a sense exacerbated in the present times for a number of reasons is nonetheless a condition that this ummah has been in for quite some time.

And some far more scholarly and more intelligent people than myself or others have looked at it and considered it quite deeply, written several books and many, many talks given, many lectures. And yet the process goes on and it continues. And as I was thinking that, the ayah in the Qur'an came to me.

"And remind, for indeed, the reminder benefits the believers."

I looked out the window actually. Remind people because the reminder benefits the people of iman. And so in a sense we have nothing to offer anymore in terms of the discourse, the people speaking in this age other than reminders in the hopes that ourselves and that others will begin to heed the reminders.

Using a Medical Model to Understand Our Condition

And this is the purpose of dhikr that we remember. If you look at the title about understanding the past, looking at the present condition and attempting to look at some possible ways of change for the future, the first thing that I'd like to point out is that I want to use a medical model. It's useful, I think it's Qur'anic because the Qur'an says that, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an

- This Qur'an has come down as a mu'idhah, an exhortation.

And Allah says that it is a rahma, it's a mercy, and it's a shifa, it's a healing. It's a shifa for what's in the breast of diseases and illnesses. And so the language of medicine is the language of the Qur'an and the prophets.

Understanding Signs and Symptoms

Now when you look at a disease or an illness, there are certain things that you have to examine first. You have to look at the nature of the illness. What is its characteristics? And illnesses have many, many different aspects.

One of them is in medical tradition, you look at what are called signs and symptoms. Now a sign generally, there's probably people in here that are studying medicine, or maybe doctors or nurses or people in that medical profession. But a sign is something that is objective, that the one observing can see it.

And a good physician is the one who learns to literally see signs that lesser physicians don't see. In other words, they see things that the average person doesn't see. So a sign is an objective outward manifestation.

Or it could be inward now because we use very sophisticated ways of measuring blood and cells and these type of things. Then there's also what's called a symptom. And a symptom is something that is articulated by the patient.

The patient tells the physician what's wrong. I have a pain here. Well, what kind of pain? It's a sharp pain because I can't tell that.

If I'm taking a case history, I can't tell that, that it's a sharp pain. That has to be told to me and that's a symptom. The sign is that there's swelling, that it's red.

Those are signs we can see outwardly. So we have to know the nature, its signs and its symptoms. And then we have to know the cause.

Understanding the Cause (Etiology)

What is the cause of the problem? The illness itself has a cause. And this is called etiology, trying to understand

where does this disease come from. Now when you look etiologically at an illness, you have different aspects of it.

You have a, what they call, causa profundus, a very deep profound cause. You have causa occasionalis, something, an occasional cause. For instance, somebody could have asthma, but it's a stress that suddenly brings it on.

You see, that's not the cause of the disease. That's simply an occasional cause. It's something that emerges and actually wakes up a sleeping illness, right?

And this is something that stress does. So you have superficial causes and you have deep causes. Now if you look in the world, the vast majority of what we read in newspapers, what we read in magazines, are very superficial causes. If they're causes at all, they generally tend to be signs and symptoms.

And this culture is brilliant at articulating signs and symptoms, and yet they have not a clue as to the cause, the underlying diseases, that are affecting humanity, that are afflicting humanity in any time and place. They have no understanding whatsoever, because they know the outward of this world.

- They know the outward of this world, they can elicit the signs, but they do not know the inward, they don't know the cause.

And the greatest cause of all things is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and they're the furthest from knowing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is ultimately the only cause, that everything else in fact is means. So we have to look at the cause, and it has superficial aspects, but we have to look also deeply at it.

Understanding the Prognosis

And then we have to understand the prognosis, which is, what does this mean generally? Because the Qur'an is filled with prognosis.

How does it tell us the prognosis? By looking at the ancients, by showing us the same signs and symptoms, telling us what the cause was, and then saying, if you get the same disease that they had, then you have the same prognosis that they had. And this is again and again in the Qur'anic narrative, it comes again and again, we see the same afflictions, they don't come with anything new. I guarantee you, read the Qur'an, look at the people that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala destroyed, they come with nothing new.

The same old game. The people playing today are the same players, they change the names, but they're the same players. We have our archetypes, and I'm gonna talk inshallah about the archetype of Qarun, because he's a fascinating Qur'anic archetype.

Learning from Qur'anic Stories

Allah doesn't tell us about these people to tell us about some story that happened in the past. When Abu Dharr (رضي الله عنه - radi allahu anhu) was reminding Muawiyah (رضي الله عنه - radi allahu anhu) about the people that were hoarding gold, and he quoted the

ayah

Quran (9:34) - Those who are hoarding gold and silver, Muawiyah (رضي الله عنه - radi allahu anhu)

It - نزلت فيهم عبرة لنا ,That ayah was revealed in the people of the book. He said - يا عبدالله نزلت في أهل الكتاب ,said

was revealed about them as a way of taking a lesson.

والسعيد من اتعظ بغيره - The felicitous one is the one who takes heed from the afflictions of others, so that he doesn't fall into the same afflictions. So we have to look at how then do we predict, according to the Qur'anic grid, where we are headed if we don't change our ways.

And this is very important. Now, not only a prognosis, there are two types of prognosis. There is a prognosis if you don't take a cure.

Here is what generally will happen. This is what the doctor says. But there is another prognosis, and that is if you take the cure.

Now the difference between their medicine and the Qur'anic medicine, This is a book, there is no doubt. In their medicine it's conjecture. 95 out of the statistical studies that we've taken, 95% of the people that do this treatment get better.

Well, what if you're in that 5%? You're not in 5%. It's 100% for you that you didn't get better. Right? So their science is not exact.

It's based on conjecture. It's based on a type of kahana, what the Qur'an calls kahana, really. And also on hukm al-'adah, which is making a judgment based on repetitive events and occurrences.

Understanding the Past: Two Paths

Now, to look at understanding the past, where do we go? The first thing in understanding the past, there are two types of paths that we can examine. I'm sure there's others, but these are the ones I'm concentrating on. The two types.

There is understanding spiritually what took place in the past, and understanding materially what took place in the past. If we look at the matter from a spiritual point of view, or, and I would have a slash there, unseen, al-ghayb. In trying to understand the past, we have to understand what are the spiritual and the unseen influences that are involved in the history of the human being.

The Materialist Denial

Because these are real. The materialist denies them. He says there's nothing other than the material world.

And some of them, like Hume or Kant, they say there might be other things, but we can't know them. The only thing we can know is the material world, and therefore we're cut off from it. And this is Kant's whole critique of the ability of the human being, of reason itself as a way of understanding the supra-phenomenal world, the numina or the world that goes beyond this stuff here.

We can't understand it. It's impossible. So we cannot know metaphysics.

In the end, what's beyond this natural world, it's not worth studying anymore, and now we move into deep material sciences. And so the pursuit of man in the western world, which is very different from the Muslim world, and inshallah, I'll try to get to that. The pursuit of the western man, because again, in understanding our past, there are two paths now that we really have to understand.

Understanding Two Histories

We have to understand the past of Ahl al-Kitab, and we have to understand the past of the people of Islam.

Because the other players in this global scene are really, when we look at them historically, they do not have the same impact on Islam that the Ahl al-Kitab have. اليهود والنصارى - And when the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said

لتتبعن سنن من كان قبلكم - You will follow those who went before you, the ways they went, hand span by hand span, arm length by arm length, to the point that they go down the lizard's hole, you'll go down the lizard's hole as well. (Sahih al-Bukhari 3456, Sahih Muslim 2669)

And in a rewording in the Mishkat حَتَّى لَوْ كَانَ مِنْهُمْ مَنْ أَتَى أُمَّهُ عَلَانِيَةً لَكَانَ مِنْ أُمَّتِي مَنْ يَفْعَلُ ذَلِكَ - Even if there was one of them that went to his mother sexually, there would be something that imitated that. وَالْعِيَاذُ بِاللهِ - Now the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) وَمَا يَنطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَى Quran 53:3) - But he did not speak from passion. When they asked him, will we follow the Jews and the Christians, ya Rasool Allah, he said, who are the people? فمن الناس - None of that.

Who are the ummah? Who are the nations? Who are the civilizations? Other than those people. In other words, not that there weren't other civilizations, there were, Rasool Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) was aware of that. There were the Dravidians, the Hindu Kush, the Chinese, the Confucianist culture, the Japanese culture.

But we're talking about the impact. Who is being imitated today? The Jew and the Christian. Nobody's imitating the Japanese.

People aren't walking around dressed like samurais. They're wearing jeans and t-shirts and cowboy and baseball caps. When the Chinese president came here, that's what he did.

He put on the cowboy hat and went to the hoedown. Right? Not like ho is a Chinese name. Hoedown is what they do in Texas or something like that.

That's what he did. You see, he comes and you look. It's amazing.

It's interesting because in the pictures that they showed in the magazine, his wife, because China is still a deeply conservative culture. And when you see Hillary Clinton next to his wife, his wife is what these people would call a wallflower. Is a non-entity.

There's no personality being expressed. And next to her is this woman glamorously turning 50. Right? They work very hard at it.

The Importance of Knowing Our Age

So we have outwardly when we look at attempting to understand the past, there are two paths going on that we have to be concerned with as Muslims, as attempting to analyze and understand the age we're living in. Because we cannot be ignorant of our age. Sidi Ahmed Zarruq mentioned in his qawa'id that in the suhuf of Ibrahim, the Prophet ﷺ was quoted as saying in the suhuf of Ibrahim, one of the wisdoms that Ibrahim عليه السلام was given was,

(عَلَى الْإِنْسَانِ أَنْ يَكُونَ عَارِفًا بِزَمَانِهِ مُمْسِكًا لِلِسَانِهِ مُقْبِلًا عَلَى شَأْنِهِ - ‘ala al-insāni an yakūna ‘ārifan bizamānihi mumsikan lil-lisānihi muqbilan ‘ala sha’nihi) - upon incumbent upon an individual to know the age that he is living in, to take hold of his tongue, because that's the milak, that's the thing that will allow you to possess all of good in Islam, is to hold your tongue, and then to get on with what is your business.

The Prophet ﷺ said

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2317)

- From the good Islam of an individual is that he leaves what is not any concern to him. So, in understanding this past, we have to know the Muslim past and the European and American past also. And I can't do that for you, you have to do your own work.

Avoiding Simplistic Analysis

The Muslims have to look, and they have to look in an intelligent way, in a sophisticated way, not in these simplistic ways that we've been given to looking at things for some time, looking at superficial causes, talking about the superiority of technology, as this is some cause in which the Muslims are defeated.

Subhanallah, if there's anybody in this audience who still believes that, they haven't read the Qur'an. And if they read it, they have not understood it.

Because the Muslims have never been defeated because of 'uddah or 'adad. They are never defeated because of 'uddah or 'adad. And just to... It's very interesting to know, many people don't know this.

But between the period of 1920, the early 20s to about 1938, there was active resistance against the French in Morocco. Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, jazahu Allah khayran wa rahimahu Allah, one of the great Mujahideen of this century, killed three times as many French, his people, his army, during that period than were killed in World War I. People don't know that. They don't know that the Muslims were putting up a resistance.

Now, there are causes that have to be understood. We have to understand what they are in a deep way, so we have to look at history because history explains many things to us. Now, if you look at... And you can understand it at an archetypal level.

The Qur'an as History at Its Archetypal Level

You can really do without history if you have a deep and profound understanding of the Qur'an. I guarantee you. If you have a deep and profound understanding of the Qur'an, because Qur'an is history at its archetypal level.

It is history that is constantly repeating itself. And by archetype, I don't mean it in... I'm really using it idiosyncratically. I mean it simply that it is explaining to us human phenomena.

So we can see the pattern repeated again and again. We can see Musa and Fir'aun and see that struggle with all of the prophets and the oppressors. We can see that struggle again and again and that's why it's repeated so many times in the Qur'an.

Spiritual and Material Forces: The Beginning

So at looking... Now, to look at some spiritual and material forces. We can go back to the first and primary concerns which takes you to the Qur'anic narrative in understanding what goes wrong right from the very beginning. Because the Qur'anic narrative is very powerful in that Adam alayhis salaam, his wife Hawwa and Shaytan are three... They are the three important creative figures that must be understanding the Qur'an.

We believe that they existed, that they are real and that the story is not a mythology. It's not a narrative. Adam alayhis salaam is created by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala from water and clay as we all know.

Which modern science has added nothing to that statement. Nothing, whatsoever. Modern science has added nothing to that statement.

Because you can take apart this human creature and you will find water and earth. That is what we're made out of. From it we came and to it we return.

That's reality. So the Qur'an is not pre-scientific. It is science at its most accurate descriptive state.

And I say that because it speaks in a language that not some arcane group of scientists can understand. But it is open for everyone to understand. Adam alayhis salaam is created as a khalifa.

The Story of Iblis

And there are different stories that the mufassireen relate. Iblis, that Imam al-Qurtubi says that he was an angel. That he was in the highest gathering.

Other of the mufassireen say that he was not. That he was from the jinn but he was allowed in to the angelic realm. But the point is, is that Iblis was a knower.

He knew Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He had tawhid. And he was worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And he was actually sent to the earth to subdue, according to Imam al-Razi, to subdue a rebellion of the jinn on the earth. He came back and he was told that Allah is placing a khalifa in the earth. That was Adam alayhis salaam.

And he was told, when the angels were brought forth in the presence of Adam alayhis salaam, they were told to bow down to Adam. And they bowed down. They went into prostration, sajdah.

Now this is not shirk. Angels do not commit shirk. They were not bowing down in worship.

This is called sajda of tashrif. It's a sajdah of honoring. And it was something that was done in the pre-Islamic times.

The Prophet ﷺ abrogated it. His sharia prohibited it. And he did not allow it.

A man made sajdah to him. And he prohibited it. He didn't say you're a mushrik.

He knew what he was doing. He was honoring him because the man had tawhid. He was a student of the Prophet ﷺ. He studied with... And the first thing the Prophet ﷺ taught was la ilaha illallah.

He didn't teach anything before that. That was the first message of our Prophet ﷺ la ilaha illallah. And if you understand that, you cannot... If you understand that correctly, you cannot commit shirk.

That is what removes a person from the boundaries of the mushrikeen. So they were commanded to bow down. Not as mushrikeen, but commanded by Allah to honor Adam in that way.

All of them bowed down immediately. And we know there's a discourse that took place before this when Allah told them that he was (إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً - ‘innī jā‘ilun fī al-’arḍi khalīfatan) (Quran 2:30) It was not a... They were not opposing Allah's wisdom in placing a khalifa.

They were attempting to understand because of what they previously seen done by the jinn on the earth. They were making an analogy that these people will do the same. And Allah said (إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ - ‘innī a‘lamu mā lā ta‘lamūna) (Quran 2:30) - I know what you don't know.

All of them bowed down except Iblis. Istakbar. Iblis was arrogant.

The Disease of Envy

Now if you look, what is the illness there? What is the disease? The fundamental disease is envy. This is the disease of Iblis. It's envy.

Now, I want to look at a very interesting explanation. I might not have it here. Of envy.

This was written by a Danish man. Envy is concealed admiration. An admirer who senses that devotion cannot make him happy will choose to become envious of that which he admires.

He will speak a different language and in this language he will now declare that that which he really admires is a thing of no consequence. Something foolish, illusory, perverse and high-flown. Admiration is happy self-abandon.

Envy, unhappy self-assertion. I think it's a very profound definition of envy. Because what he's saying there.

You see, Iblis knows this is a creation of Allah. And Iblis knows. Iblis knows Allah.

Allah doesn't make some... You did not create this in vain. This is not vanity. This is not some foolish thing.

Allah did not create Adam as some foolish creation. And Iblis knows this. But Iblis thinks that in admiring Adam عليه السلام he will not be happy.

He will not be happy. In fact, he becomes angry because he's envious. Hasad is the disease of Iblis.

He is envious. And he says, you created him from mud. I'm created from fire, from air and fire.

I'm superior to him. This is saying he's a thing of no consequence. I'm a thing of importance.

Why are we having them bow down to him and not to me? This is very important. And inshallah, I want to return to this, especially with Qarun. Now, at that point, Iblis is cast out from the inner circle, from the mala'.

Iblis's Promise to Mislead

And Iblis is told, he says, give me time, give me respite. You see, give me respite. And then he tells Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he makes an oath.

In the same way that you led me astray. Just as you have led me astray, you will not wait to meet. He blames his going astray on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

He blames his going astray. And this is the nature of the envious one. He blames the other.

And this is important when I get back to understanding the present condition of the Muslims. He blames the other. And he says, you did this to me.

And then he said, I'm not going astray. So I'm not... This is how foolish Iblis is. You led me astray, and now I'm going to lead them astray.

You see. Spite. And he promises to do that.

He said, I'm not going astray, except those of ikhlas. The people of ikhlas. And not mukhlas.

Mukhlas is a passive form. People of ikhlas, but to feel for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And he says, he promises Allah, you won't find them giving thanks.

Shukr. He promises. He doesn't want them to give thanks.

So in Iblis we have two very important qualities. One is ingratitude. He's indignant.

And the other is envy. He's envious. So this is important in understanding our past.

Because this relates very profoundly to the human condition. And to fundamental causes for strife and grief within the human circumstances that we find ourselves in. Now, at the other spectrum, this is a more negative in

terms of unseen influences.

Revelation as Guidance

There are other unseen influences. So you have shaytan as an unseen factor in the human situation. You have other factors involved here.

One, and the most primary, is the fact of revelation. The fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has chosen out of His bounty to send human beings to communicate Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's intention to His creation. Now if you look at this, it's very important to understand that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in His intentions to His creation, what He's done, what His irada is for His creation, where His rida, His contentment lies.

He sends human beings, not angels, human beings. And He sends them amongst the people. And He sends them with the language that they understand.

There are people that eat. There are people that sleep. There are people that have human needs.

They are not from the angelic realm. They are human beings. And Allah has sent them contiguously since the beginning of the human condition until the last one was sent over 1400 years ago, who is our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمand we have the honor of being from his community.

So revelation here is guidance from Allah. There is an unseen factor which is misguiding creation. And there is an unseen factor which is creating or bringing into existence guidance for the human condition.

The Duality of Guidance and Misguidance

So you have both of these factors. You have an unseen element that is misguiding, and you have an unseen element that is guiding. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promises us and tells us that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who guides, whom He pleases, and He leads astray, whom He pleases.

In other words, we are not dualists like previous traditions. We do not believe in the god of darkness, of Ahura Mazda, of Ahriman. We are not like the Majus.

We are not like the dualists. We believe in two opposing gods. No! We believe in the oneness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Sayyiduna Ibn Sharif.

So we believe over him. We believe it's good and it's bad. It's abundance and it's want.

It's sweetness and it's bitterness. And Shaytan is from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this is why our tawhid is so essential to understand this situation.

The Angelic Realm

Now, you have some other unseen factors there. You have the angelic realm, which is really, it's part of the realm of guidance. And there is an element that is related to revelation.

But you have the angelic realm. In this room, there are angels. These are real entities.

They exist. This is not imagination. It is not mythology.

They are real and they are present and with us. We have guardian angels, al-hafalah. We have a guardian angel before us and behind us, according to the Quran.

We have an angel on the right and on the left. One is responsible for writing and the other is responsible for writing the sayyid, the good and the bad.

And the one who writes the bad is under the charge of the one who writes the good. He cannot write the good until he takes permission. He cannot write the bad until he takes permission. And the angel who writes the good tells him to wait to see if the man makes tawbah during a certain period of time.

So this is real. There are khawater malakiyah. There are angelic inspirations that come to the human being.

Just as there are khawater shaytaniyah, nafsiyah from the nafs, from shaytan. There are also suggestions that come from the angelic realm and these are having influence on the human being. And depending on the purity of the human being is the greater the influence is.

The more pure an individual comes, the more strong the angelic influence is on that individual. And it moves into the realm of hifz. Not the 'ismah because the 'ismah is for the prophets alone.

They have impeccability. They cannot fall into error. There is a type of protection as an individual moves higher and higher into that realm of purity of the self.

Material Forces and the Materialist View

Now if you move and I could go but the time is limited. If you move to... you can go into nafs, khawater dunya, shaytan, the enemies of the human being. But I want to go a little bit into the material world now.

Looking at the... we have to understand that that's there and it's important because we're not materialists. You see the materialist if you read Montgomery Watt, who is a Christian, he should know better but he doesn't. Montgomery Watt in a book he wrote on Spain, he says, and when these Muslim warriors came over he might not use that word but when these Muslims came over their main goal and I'm paraphrasing, their main goal was conquest.

The Problem with Materialist Interpretation

You see and they wanted booty. Now, were you there Mr. Watt? No, seriously. Did you know the intentions of all of those people or are you simply making an analogy of the people that you know or maybe your own self? Do you see? This is how the materialist interprets and the munafiq is similar to that.

When Abu Dharr al-Ghifari رضي الله عنه and Abdurrahman bin Auf brought in the... one brought gold for the ghazwa and the other brought dates. The munafiqun said, Abdurrahman, you're showing off, he wants to show off. And they said about Abu Dharr, he wants to be mentioned.

This is a disease in the heart. You see, in other words, they are projecting their own diseased hearts on to pure human beings whose intentions were Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and His messenger. They were not diseased people.

By the shahada of the Prophet himself صلى الله عليه وسلم they were not diseased. But, they are being considered as having these ulterior motives, axes to grind because those very people with those motives are projecting their own internal reality on to the internal reality of these other people and it's not applicable because we do not have that. (أُمِرْتُ أَنْ أَحْكُمَ بِالظَّوَاهِرِ - I was commanded to judge by the outward.)

(أَفَشَقَقْتَ عَنْ قَلْبِهِ - Did you split open his heart?) And look into it. When Usama killed the man, who said (لا إله إلا الله -

And he said, (يا رسول الله قد نافق - He was doing it out of hypocrisy. Did you split open his heart? And look into it.

And in another riwayah, he kept repeating to him. And he said, (لا إله إلا الله - Until Usama said, I wish that I hadn't became a Muslim until that day. You see.

And so this is how the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was teaching his people. That intentions are for Allah جل جلاله alone. Now we can see signs of a munafiq.

We can see signs of a munafiq. Do you see? Allah has given us signs of hypocrites. They have signs.

But to judge a person is a very dangerous thing to do. To judge their intentions. And this is what the materialist does.

So we have to recognize these other forces, these other realities, that the materialist will not look at. Because he only knows the outward of this world.

Internal and External Material Forces

Now, when we move to the material, and we have to keep the spiritual in mind. But when we move to the material, we also have two forces working. External and internal. In other words, the material, there are causes that I'm not relating to the unseen world, but I'm relating to the seen world.

But there are signs, and there are also symptoms. And the symptoms we do not know, unless they are articulated by the very people that are involved in the matter. So we do not know.

Now, in looking at the material, we have two important things to look at. One is kufr itself. And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم has said (الفرملة واحدة - (Sahih Muslim 1773) - Kufr is one system. It is one millah. All of kufr is one millah.

You have the Marxists, the atheists, the communists, the socialists, the national socialists, international socialists, the capitalists, the free market capitalists, the American anti-NAFTA, anti-GATT capitalists, all different types of capitalists, ultimately one phenomenon called kufr. It's all kufr. It goes under the rubric of kufr.

The Syphilis Analogy

But it has different permutations. And you can see syphilis. Very interesting disease.

One of the doyens of medicine in the 19th century said, know syphilis in all of its manifestations, and you've mastered 80% of pathology. Because syphilis is called the great mimicker. Syphilis can look like a lot of different diseases.

And this is a syphilitic culture, right? They had syphilis. You know the way they wear wigs, right? You see all these pictures of men in wigs. What cultures had men wearing wigs? Their hair was all falling out.

They had syphilis. Really. That's what happened.

And then the scrofulas. You see they had syphilitic scrofulas, so they started wearing these high collars. Very uncomfortable to hide the syphilis.

It was a very common disease in Europe. I'm not exaggerating this. It still is.

It's just all gone underground in this culture. They call it AIDS now. And AIDS is... If you look at AIDS and study AIDS, it looks exactly like syphilis in fast motion.

Seriously. I mean, a physician will confirm that for you. AIDS, dementia.

First thing, they break out in rashes, right? Then later on they go into dementia, which is tertiary syphilis. And interesting to note that that community that AIDS began first showing up in, the first signs of it, homosexual community, was a community constantly exposed to syphilis and rectal gonorrhea. It's a fact.

You can see the statistics of the public health in the Bay Area. It's very, very disgusting. It's all part of their culture.

So you have... The point I'm using about syphilis is a grotesque example, but syphilis mimics a lot of different things. It can look very different. It's still syphilis.

And the same is true with what Nietzsche called syphilization. It looks very different, but ultimately it's kufr. So the eastern bloc looks different from the western bloc.

It's still kufr. Now, if we study kufr, and it's an important study because Allah spends a good deal, tells us, not that Allah does not spend, but tells us in the Quran, much of the Quran is in explaining kufr, so that we can

understand it. Now, if you look at kufr, the European kufr is very different from other kufrs, in that, the Europeans have a deep agitation for centuries.

The Corruption of Christianity

And that agitation, Allah ta'ala, relates to the fact that they have partial truths mixed with a lot of pseudo-truth, things that appear to be true. Their religion was tainted from very early on. Their books were altered from very early on.

Now, if you look at the Christian text, the very first Christians were called Nazarenes, by their own testimony. They're called according to the Quran, Nasara. Now, they're finally realizing, realizing, and they actually realized all this in the 19th century, but now they're starting to sell books about it in places like Barnes & Noble, after nobody can read, right? See, that's, now they can just, you can go get all the information about what they're doing, about their kufr, everything.

You can go get it now, because nobody's gonna read it, because they're all watching TV. So, it works. They can tell us the whole story.

Hans Küng's Admission

If you look at a book that Hans Küng did, called Christianity in the World of Religions. Küng writes, admittingly, current research would indicate that any direct dependency of Islam upon Jewish Christianity, and you see there, admitting there was something called Jewish Christianity, and that was the first Christianity, of whatever sort, because there were various types, even early on, will continue to be disputed for a while. In other words, we're trying to find the direct dependency.

So, it's in dispute right now, because they have absolutely not one shred of evidence. But they do not, and I'll get to the reason why he has to say this, because it's a very important point he's making. We simply know too little about the Arabian Peninsula in those centuries before the Prophet Muhammad.

That's rubbish. It is not true. But the analogies are as astonishing as ever.

In other words, between Islam and original Christianity, because we believe that it was Islam. This is what he's telling us, and this is very important, because this man is one of the dominant theologians of this age for the Christians, even though he's basically excommunicated by the Catholic Church, because he's just telling the truth, and the truth destroys the foundations of the Catholic Church. It's a big problem.

Even if we could never scientifically verify a genetic connection, the traditional historical parallels are inescapable. What does he mean by genetic connection? A materialistic connection. We don't believe it's Revelation.

Christian again. Shame on you. You're supposed to believe in Revelation.

But he can't, because he'll have to become Muslim. So we have to find a genetic material link. And how can we explain why Muhammad survives?

Although he rejected Orthodox Christology, nonetheless, always spoke sympathetically of Jesus as the great messenger, indeed as the Messiah, who brought the Gospel.

In his Theology and History of Jewish Christianity, Hans-Joachim Schoeps, taking up the research of Harnack and Schlappner, and completing it with the studies by Clement and Adria and Schader, comes to the following broadly substantiated conclusion: Though it may not be possible to establish exact proof of the connection, the indirect dependence, and indeed by indirect, we don't have any evidence. The indirect dependence of Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم on sectarian Jewish Christianity is beyond any doubt. In other words, we can see it very clear that the Quran is articulating the Christianity that our own historical research is coming to realize was the original Christianity, and that is the Christianity that the Quran is saying is the Christianity that the Muslims believe in.

This leaves us with a paradox of truly world-historical dimensions, and when kuffar use the word paradox, it means we can't explain it materialistically. The fact that while Jewish Christianity, Christianity in the Church, came to grief, in other words, it disappears, it was preserved in Islam, and with regard to some of its dogmas, by the impulse, at least, it has lasted to our own time. End quote.

Hans Küng, Christianity and World Religions, Doubleday, New York, 1985, page 124. For anybody who can write that fast. So, there you have it.

The Impact on Christian Belief

The Christians have done their own research. They did it in the 19th century. They realized that their religion was a false religion, but there was an original Christianity they called the original gospel, Q. It's what the Germans entitled it, which in the Quran is called Injil.

See, we know what it was called. They call it Q to mean the original, the quell, the source gospel. We know that it's the Injil.

Now, they can no longer believe in the Christianity that they have if they're intellectuals. The people that believe in it are Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and a whole generic, other group of generic, what they call fundamentalists, right? Who are people that will only read the Bible, Islam, but the shahul has, which necessitates that they believe and show that it's false. They can't do this.

They can't. So, the Quran, you know, comes with, it was teaching in England, in a robe, in turban. He spoke Arabic.

He was accused of being an infidel. He was a monk, had heavy influence. He said, we have to learn from the Arabs.

Muslim Influence on European Thought

And then you have Albertus Magnus reintroducing Aristotelian teachings into the church through the commentaries of Ibn Rushd of Córdoba, which now somebody showed me on the way over, the Life Magazine, putting Ibn Rushd up there as one of the most important characters of the last 2,000 years.

Because they're recognizing it now, and they've translated all his books now, Butterworth and these people at Princeton, I think. They know.

They're finally admitting it. That stuff was in Latin for centuries, and now they're admitting that this man had a massive impact. Now, Ibn Rushd, (رَحِمَهُ اللهُ - rahimahu Allah), was a scholar of extraordinary depth and profundity nonetheless.

He was basically, if we look at his *fiqh* writings, which are Maliki and are actually considerable, and they're substantiated writings. In other words, the Maliki scholars used him as a source. But his philosophical writings are rationalist, and he was attempting to join rationalism with revelation, which is very, very difficult.

And if anybody did it, the Muslims came close, but there's still massive problems and gaps that will continue to be there. That what happened is that they began to read these people. Ibn Rushd was one of them.

Ibn Sina is another. Al-Ghazali. And you can look the Arab influence of European civilization.

It's better to use Muslim, but they always use Arab. Many of them were Persians. And you can see passages side by side that are absolutely identical between, you look at Imam al-Ghazali's writings and then St. Thomas Aquinas, put them side by side.

He was well before St. Thomas Aquinas. It's almost a direct translation. And they were not quoting their sources.

The Abandonment of Religion

So this happened. They had massive influence by the Muslims. What that did, when they took the intellectual, scholastic teachings of Islam, removed from the pure revelatory source that maintained those teachings within a framework.

Not a framework. Really it is reality itself. And so, the Muslims did not go astray because of that.

They abandoned the true understanding of the world, which is through Tawheed. And they took this teaching, which was the intellectual and rational sciences of the Muslims, and it began to go diametrically in opposition to their own religion. In the end, they chose to abandon their religion.

This is what they did. They abandoned their religion. And this is the crisis of the modern world.

When they abandoned their religion, and Nietzsche is the one. He declared it. God is dead.

The Bestial Nature Exalted

You killed him. In other words, the God that we used to believe in, this Trinitarian mystery, it's a fairy tale. We don't buy it anymore.

We know its sources. We know the pagan sources of it. We studied it.

He was a philologist. It's over. Because of that, it's only now that they are beginning to reap the bitter fruits of their abandonment of their religion.

Because the center doesn't hold in this society anymore. And this is where you've got the leveling, their nihilistic tendencies. It has become a world of the most base aspects of the human creature.

The Bestial Nature Exalted

The bestial nature is exalted. The angelic nature is denied. It is denied completely.

Greed is good. Get what you can. Stab them in the back before they stab you in the back.

There's a book, bestseller in America, *Learning to Swim with Sharks*. Right? In other words, how to become a shark. That's the real title that he doesn't want to say.

Right? Because only sharks swim with sharks. Right? In other words, learn how to be as ruthless as the next guy. And in a wage slave society in which jobs are completely expendable and you're given, everybody's worried about their job.

And they don't care about the next guy because they know that the boss doesn't care about him. So he's got to do what he can to get ahead, to stay ahead. And this is what it does.

Make myself as marketable as possible. Increase my skills. Bulk up my CV.

Get it honed down. Get it refined. And this is the game that's played constantly.

Right? This is the game of this culture. And it's just a type of *kufr*. Right? Marketing yourself.

The human being as commodity. Now, what happens in... is that you can't just phase out religion. You see, you can't just get rid of religion.

From Theism to Deism

It's too deep. It has roots that are very powerful. So what did these people do? The first thing they did is they moved from... from what they call theism to deism.

In other words, an immanent god that actually has miracles, impacts his creation, sends prophets. We have to move that god out of the way. I mean, that's horrific language, but this is really how they looked at it.

And we'll replace him with another god. A distant deistic god. And who's a god of natural laws.

And this is the enlightenment period where they begin to talk about these laws and there's no miracles. And this is David Hume, the great... he's the big cathedral of England. He's one of the big abanis of this whole story.

And he also borrowed heavily from the Muslims, interestingly enough. And again, removing it from its revelatory source. So, because he makes many, many very valid points, but he basically says, you cannot know things through human understanding.

It's limited. All you can know is the world. But you can't know anything metaphysical.

Everything that we explain must be explained through material causes. Well, the man who takes this up is Darwin. Darwin reads Hume.

The Evolution Myth

And Darwin realizes, how do we explain the origin of man if we remove God? Because every people before that has a supernatural explanation, something outside of nature. Whether it's a multi-God story, some creational myth, there's always a supernatural element. This didn't just appear out of nowhere.

Well, Darwin says, how do I explain the origin of species without bringing God into it? And he thinks deeply about this. He was a very clever guy. And he comes up, after reading Malthus, with natural selection.

And, goes into this whole idea of random chance. And I guarantee you, evolution is complete *kufr*. And if you believe evolution, you have been duped and fooled.

Really, duped and fooled. We do not believe in evolution. Absolutely not.

And if you understand it, as the biologists do, and you still say that you believe in it, really, it's like a *hukm* of riddah. Because Allah does not, there's no chance in Allah's creation. There's no random chance happening.

There's not mistakes made over and over again until it suddenly gets it right. And then that gene is transmitted. Really, it's against the teaching of Islam.

Which does not mean there's not a micro evolution and things like that. The macro evolution is a story. It's a narrative.

It is a narrative that explains the origin of man without any recourse to the divine. That's all it is. And if you believe it, you have to recognize the religious nature of the belief in that narrative.

And again, it's *taqlid*. It's just blind imitation. Because most people are not biologists.

Most people have not studied. They're just taking for granted. Oh, it must be true because he got a PhD from Harvard.

Really, Harvard is like al-Bukhari used to be with the Muslims. That's what they used to say. It's in Sahih al-Bukhari.

Now they say, I heard it from a doctor from Harvard. And read what's going on in evolution. Read Darwin's Black Box.

The collapse of Darwinism. Not from Christians. I don't read that stuff.

The Christian creation science... Spare me. You know, Earth was created 7,000 years ago on September 21st. But don't just catch on to the latest fad.

And it's not late anymore. I mean, there's been Neo-Darwinism. You know, they've gone on.

They're not Darwinists, pure Darwinists anymore. They have to restructure the whole thing in the 1940s because there were so many holes in it. And then in the 1950s, with the explosion of electron microscopy, they have to... They haven't dealt with the information they've got.

This is what Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box. He's a microbiologist who's saying, we've got some major holes here and Darwinism doesn't answer them because the cell is not a simple organism. It is incredibly complex.

There's more information in a unicellular bacteria than there are in all the libraries in New York City. Darwin thought it was just empty protoplasmic nothings down there, if you got down deep enough. And we don't even know what's beyond that because we're limited.

I mean, what if they discover another thing beyond that? We don't know if there's something underlying there. Really, we don't. It's all... They follow conjecture.

And their scientific theories are the latest and most explanatory to them to whatever they're looking at. So, what happens then in the Muslim world? Well, I want just to bring another fellow, very important. And I would recommend Muslims reading this book which is by David Fromkin, *A Peace to End All Peace*.

The European Colonization of the Muslim World

Because what happens basically is the Europeans desired the Muslim world for several reasons. But they really wanted the Muslim world. They wanted the wealth that was there and they also wanted to basically destroy a continuing threat to them which was Ottoman power.

Because we forget that the Ottomans themselves were continuing their movement in the invasion of Europe or what we would say the Futuhat, really liberation of Europe. And so the Europeans were very frightened of them.

But as the Ottomans began to diminish, become less and less powerful, and they obviously saw, and this is the tragedy of it, the Ottomans saw the waning of the Muslim powers and the waxing of the European powers.

The Ottoman Decline

And what the Ottomans did at that point is that they began to bring European advisers in. And the Tunisian Pact of the 1840s is already a radical departure from the Islamic tradition. This is already happening within the

Ottoman state, you see.

And the Germans are being brought in, money is being borrowed. By the time Sultan Abdul Hamid, great Muslim ruler, enters into power, he is literally powerless to change the massive destruction that had been done before him. And this is a good sign of a just ruler who can come into power but because there is so much corruption or corrosion at every other level, he is unable, as an individual, to do what it takes to complete the task at hand, which is to renew the Islamic tradition.

The same is true in Morocco with Moulay Hafid, who was a great Islamic ruler at the turn of this century. He is deposed by the French. He was a scholar, he was a lover of knowledge, and he was attempting to revivify the Islamic tradition within Morocco and to protect Morocco from the incursions of the Europeans, but he also failed.

The Great Game

Now, what the Europeans call this is the great game. This is what they called it. They called it the great game, playing with the Muslims.

And it's still going on. The game is still going on. And it's actually quite frightening because what happens is, is what I'm becoming to realize now, is that all of the so-called liberation movements of the 1950s that were centered out of Egypt were in fact nothing other than the power plays of the Americans that were moving the Europeans from their colonial influence in those lands.

The Americans were directing those movements, and this evidence, I'm telling you, it's there, you can find it if you do the research. They were directing these movements. They were undermining the European power, and they were moving in for this Pax Americana, the American century, post-World War II.

So, many noble people fought from the Muslims with the best of intentions. Many of them died in the sahaba li ajli ajenda. But the truth of the matter is, our countries, after all of that bloodshed and all of that suffering of the Algerian people, the land of a million martyrs, look at the state of Algeria now.

Really, look at the state of Algeria now. A million martyrs fought late 50s into 1962, were killed at freeing the French. And for what? For Benbella and Boumediene, people that betrayed, the people that shed their blood, for that land.

And Benbella then becomes a, you know, he's like a, you know, he's saying now Islam is the only solution. It's what Sheikh Hisham al-Kabbani, I was once in a gathering in the Emirates, and there was an ex-Syrian president there from the early 60s, can't remember his name. And he was saying how Islam is the only answer.

And Sheikh Hisham al-Kabbani said to him, why is it that you people never realize that when you're in power? And then when you lose your power, you know, suddenly it becomes obvious. This is a very good question.

Now, if you look at this book, it's very amazing.

Lord Kitchener and the Capture of Islam

It really is extraordinary what they were doing here. Right? Lord Kitchener. Kitchener sets out to capture Islam.

Kitchener and his colleagues believe that Islam could be bought, manipulated, or captured by buying, manipulating, or capturing its religious leadership. And they did. Seriously.

They did it. There's as many as you that were in the same Freemasonic lodge as Lord Cromer in Egypt. It's historical fact.

They're all declassified documentation. You can see their own handwritings, their own signatures. In fact, you get this blue, you know, the Freemasonic in the French Revolution, the Freemasonic colors were red, blue, and white.

Égalité, liberté, égalité, and brotherhood. A little nonsense. Freemasonic rubbish.

Right? And so you get the Azhari suddenly showing up with red and blue instead of black tassels. I'm not making this up. Blue instead of black tassels on their turbans.

Where'd that come from? Red, blue, and white. Right there, the French flag up on his head. And now it's the American flag.

He just needs some stars up there. It's very sad. They were intrigued by the notion that whoever controlled the Khalif controlled Islam.

And it was Kitchener who actually did not want to split Islam up and to settle different countries. He wanted to control the Khalifa. And he said, it's better if we got the leadership.

We can control the whole thing at one time. The other British divide and conquer. It's a better policy.

We can make a lot of money selling them weapons while they kill each other. So, for Kitchener and his entourage, the possibilities of a Muslim Jihad against Britain was a recurring nightmare. Right? So they set out to undermine it.

The Creation of Nationalism

Now, what they did is they created nationalism. Right? Now, I just want to read Fromkin here very briefly. But it's very interesting what he says.

Often referred to as nationalists, these men are more accurately described as separatists. They did not ask for independence. They asked for a greater measure of participation in local rule.

They were willing to be ruled largely by Turks because the Turks were fellow Muslims. He's talking about Egyptian and Syrian and Lebanese people at that time. They were not nationalists.

Unlike European nationalists, they were people whose beliefs existed in a religious rather than a secular framework. They lived within the walls of the city of Islam in a sense in which Europe had not lived within Christendom since the early Middle Ages. For like the cities built in the Arab world in medieval times, the lives of the Muslim circles centered around a central mosque.

They did not represent an ethnic group for historically the only ethnic or true Arabs, in quotation, were the inhabitants of Arabia while the Arabic-speaking populations of such provinces as Baghdad and Damascus and other places were mixed ethnic stock. Anyway, the book goes on.

The First Arab Nationalist

Now just look what Weizmann, founder of Zionism, one of the founders of Zionism, says was introduced to Prince Faisal, not the one that was killed but the one that was working with Lawrence and his people, and was enthusiastic about him, a Zionist enthusiastic about a Muslim.

That's a bad sign. Weizmann wrote to his wife that, quote, he is the first real Arab nationalist I have met. So this is an indication that it did not exist in the Muslim framework only less than a hundred years ago.

It didn't exist because he said he is the first real Arab nationalist that I met. He is a leader! Exclamation mark. He's quite intelligent.

Quite. Can't be very intelligent, right? He's an Arab and a nationalist, right? And a very honest man. Handsome as a picture.

He is not interested in Palestine like Sultan al-Khayr. But on the other hand, he wants Damascus and the whole northern Syria. He is contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs who he doesn't even regard as Arabs.

It's apparent. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) said my Ummah will be destroyed by little children from the tribe of Quraish. That the Ummah will be destroyed by little children, like little children, little boys from the tribe of Quraish.

Islam Redacted

So it goes on, the big game, right? They dismantle Qur'aish, Sultan al-Khani, dismantle the thing and then what we're... Islam is redacted. People don't realize this. That a whole new version of Islam is written.

And begins emphasizing things like (حُبُّ الْوَطَنِ مِنَ الْإِيمَانِ - ḥubbu al-waṭani mina al-īmān) - The nation is from Iman. Which is a saying that refers to Akhira primarily.

Right? Because the famous poetry that Imam Nawawi has in the introduction to his... in his introduction to the Riyad al-Salihin, is that the people who realize the dunya was not their watan. Right? They realize that the dunya was not their watan. So they divorce the dunya.

So nationalism becomes, I'm Egyptian, you're Assyrian, he's a Lebanese, you're a Pakistani, he's a Turk. And this is the separation, divide and conquer. We no longer see ourselves within the fold of Islam, the brotherhood that Allah has given us.

The believers are brothers. We now see ourselves, I'm an American Muslim, he's a Pakistani Muslim, he's a Indian Muslim, he's a Bengali Muslim and on and on and on. False designations that Islam rejects completely.

And you can go on and on and when the story goes on it just gets worse. So what I'd rather do is look quickly at our present and then...

The Disease of Envy in the Muslim World

When I mention about envy, the disease of envy is a very important disease to understand. Because the Muslims have become deeply envious of the West.

And you can see it in that original quote that I used about envy that it's a secret admiration. Envy is a secret admiration. You want to be like them.

But you know your happiness is not gonna be in admiring them so you become contemptuous of them. So we have rhetoric from Indonesia to Morocco about the West and how terrible the West is. Everybody dresses like them.

They eat like them. They want to study in their universities. They want their green cards to America and Canada.

And one of the Muftis in Palestine, jazahu Allah khayran, gave a fatwa that anyone who sells land in Palestine, in al-Quds to Jews is a murtad. Because the Jews were offering them $100,000 Canadian citizenship. And who runs Canada? To sell land.

Because they'll just buy them out. And then they'll say, look, we've got it. It's all deeded to us.

We bought it from them. They sold it. Anyone in Palestine now, if they're just sitting in their house, really, just sitting in their house, is a murabid.

Really, just sitting in the house is an act of jihad in that place. Now if you look at this disease of envy, because everybody's watching their television.

The Influence of Television

Satellite dishes everywhere. They're cropping up all over the Muslim world. Every rooftop. Look at Damascus.

Somebody was telling me that the minarets are pointing up straight to the heavens. And all of the satellites are pointing to Europe. And it's like you have two choices.

Wahy, right? From Allah, or wahy from Shaytan. Because Shaytan has a wahy. Right? (يُوحِي - Yuhi).

Shaytan has a wahy because he tries to mimic God. Just like Allah said his throne is on water. Where does Shaytan put his throne? On water.

You see? So they bring in these unseen influences. Shaytanic influences. And I'm not making that up.

It's not an exaggeration. Television, you don't know what's going into your brain there. But they're all watching it.

I mean, I just came from a Muslim world, not that long ago. They're all in their houses. I went to visit people.

You can't even have a conversation. Because the TV is on and you're trying to talk and they're like this. And then every once in a while they'll kind of come back.

Right? No, I'm not making this up. It's unbelievable. We have to throw that machine out as Muslims.

Really, give it up. It's a drug, it's a drug. That's all it is.

It's like any drug, you kick the habit, you start feeling good. Get that out of my system. And unfortunately, the images come back and things like that.

Right? Really, they're all imprinted in there. You can watch movies, you don't have to go buy new ones, go out and get the video. You can just play reruns in your mind if you have a good memory.

The Story of Qarun

So look here, present condition, right? Envy. Now, about Qarun. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says about Qarun.

He says that he was from the people of Musa (عليه السلام - 'alayhis salaam). In the tafsir they say he was his cousin. Some say the uncle, some say Ibn 'Amm.

Most of them say the cousin. (بَغَى عَلَيْهِمْ - Bagha 'alayhim) - He acted insolently towards them. He became proud.

Why? Because he'd been given him wealth. Who gave him the wealth? Allah. (وَآتَيْنَاهُ مِنَ الْكُنُوزِ - wa ataynahu mina al-kunuz) (Quran 28:76) - We gave him مِنَ الْكُنُوزِ

تَبْعِيض - It's a partitive. We gave him some of the treasures that exist. So much so that the keys of those treasures would be a burden to a group of strong men just carrying the keys.

A wealthy man. Bill Gates, modern Qarun. (أُولِي الْقُوَّةِ - Uli al-quwwa) - And he said to his people, his people said to him, (لَا تَفْرَحْ - la tafraḥ) (Quran 28:76) - Don't rejoice because you have dunya.

Because Allah doesn't love the فَرِحِينَ the people who rejoice with dunya. (فَبِذَلِكَ فَلْيَفْرَحُوا - fa bi dhalika fal yafraḥu) (Quran 10:58) - With the huda of Allah, with the fadl and the rahma of Allah, the Qur'an and the messenger of Allah. That's what you

should rejoice in.

(هُوَ خَيْرٌ مِّمَّا يَجْمَعُونَ - Huwa khayrun mimma yajma'un) - It's better than what they're gathering. And this is what the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) when the Ansar were being affected because he was giving the Quraysh new Muslims. تَأْلِيفُ الْقُلُوبِ - He was giving them all the dunya that they got, the booty.

And the Ansar began to feel like he's neglecting us. And one of them mentioned that to the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam). The Prophet gathered them and he said, Aren't you content that they get the booty and you get me? Because he went back, he left Mecca, he went back to Medina with them. They were happy with that.

When they heard that, they all rejoiced. Because they were believers, not deluded by dunya. Now, and then Allah says (وَابْتَغِ فِيمَا آتَاكَ اللَّهُ - Wabtaghi fima atak Allah) (Quran 28:77) - And this is the beauty of Qur'an.

You can't translate this. Because the same word بَغَى now is used ابْتَغ - But now it's used in a mutawwak form. It's a reflexive, do this for yourself.

Use what Allah has given you for the dar al-akhirah. Don't do it for dunya, do it for akhirah. (وَلَا تَنسَ نَصِيبَكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا - wa la tansa nasibaka min ad-dunya) - Don't forget your portion of the dunya.

The mufassirun say, the kafan is your portion of the dunya. That's what you take with you. That's your portion.

What you take is your kafan, what you're wrapped in your funeral shroud. That's the portion of dunya you take with you when you die. Don't forget that.

Desire, and there's other interpretation that it means that it's permissible to enjoy the mubahat, but not to go to excess in them. But most of the early ones prefer that one that is, use it for akhirah. And then he says, (وَأَحْسِن كَمَا أَحْسَنَ اللَّهُ إِلَيْكَ - wa ahsin kama ahsan Allahu ilayk) - Show ihsan just as Allah has shown ihsan to you.

And then, (وَلَا تَبْغِ الْفَسَادَ - wa la tabghi al-fasad) - Again, bagha. Don't desire corruption in the earth because Allah does not love those who sow corruption. So here's Qarun, a man from Bani Israel.

Bani Israel were the Muslims of that time, let us not forget. And here's a man who, because of wealth that was given to him, he becomes oppressive. And we can see many examples of that in the Muslim world now.

The Response of Qarun

The Muslim world has some of the greatest wealth now, right? They do, massively wealthy. And we have many many Qaruns now in the Muslim world, many of them, on and on. But he's being told.

Now what does he say? What do they say? Then he says (قَالَ إِنَّمَا أُوتِيتُهُ عَلَى عِلْمٍ عِندِي - Qala innama utituhu 'ala 'ilmin 'indi) (Quran 28:78) - this wealth is from me. I have a knowledge. I have a PhD from Harvard.

That's how I got this wealth. I'm more clever than you are. I invented this machine, and I got the patent.

That's how I got it. Allah didn't give me this. That's what they think.

Doesn't he know that Allah has destroyed those before him from other generations? They have more power than him, and they have more wealth. But he will not be asked. The Mujrimun of this age won't be asked about the wrong actions of the previous people.

So when he came out to his people,

- He came out all embellished. And those, (قَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ يُرِيدُونَ ٱلْحَيَوٰةَ ٱلدُّنْيَا - Those who want the life of this world, what did they say? They wished they had what Qarun had. See, this is the disease.

This is the disease. They want what others have. The Muslims want what America has.

They want what Europe has. They want it. Why can't we have, everybody have a car? Why can't we all have refrigerators too? Really.

Why can't we have all this dunya like they have? Now, look what Allah says after that.

- Those who had knowledge, what did they say

- The reward of Allah is better for the one who believes and does righteous deeds.

(وَلَا يُلَقَّىٰهَا إِلَّا ٱلصَّٰبِرُونَ - Now, here's the key here. Sabr - Because there's two conflicts. The conflict of the human who's been given things, which is either to show ingratitude or to show gratitude.

The Choice: Patience or Envy

And the conflict of the human being who has been deprived of things. And this is either to be patient or to become envious. This is the choice.

You either become patient and recognize this is Allah doing this. Don't think, you see, when people look at the Europeans now, the Americans, they say, look, they're not following Islam and they have all this, it's all working for them, which it's not. But this is the way a lot of superficial people look at it.

It's all, why is it that they're in control of us, look at us, we're all backward, this and that, etc., etc. These people have nothing. They are a whip that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is using to beat the disobedient servants.

They are our discipline. That's all they are. They're discipline to the Muslims.

They're disciplining us until we learn the lesson. And they'll keep disciplining us until we turn away. Until we lose our sadistic tendencies of envying what we can't have and desiring the dar al-akhirah, giving up our love of dunya, returning to jihad, returning to mujahidah of the self, working on getting rid of the diseases of the heart, not on increasing them.

The Destruction of Qarun

So those people were warned. Now what happens?

- Allah caused the earth to swallow him up and his abode. And in the tafsir, they say that Musa was given permission to destroy him.

And he made a dua and the earth took him a third of his body and two other people that were with him, that went with him instead of going with Musa because they wanted his dunya. And the other ones decided to go because he argued that he accused Musa of some things that were false. And the woman that was used to accuse him admitted that she was paid by Qarun to do that.

And Qarun called on Musa (ٱسْتَغَاثَ بِمُوسَىٰ - Musa, help me. He made dua and he was thrust again. A third time he was destroyed.

And Allah revealed to Musa, Musa, had he called on me, I would have had mercy. But he called on you. Musa

كَانَ شَدِيدًا

The Prophet ﷺ said Omar was like Musa. And Abu Bakr was like Ibrahim. So when they saw that, he was unable to be helped.

- So those people when they realized, they were desiring yesterday, they wanted to be like Qarun. They say, we're lucky we're not like him. You see now, the Muslims want what the Americans have.

They're getting it. And they're getting the corruption of the television, the destruction of the families. It's all happening.

Now not only do they have social corruption, corruption within the house itself. Losing the women. Really.

I mean just look, look around us, look what's happening to the Muslim youth. Right? I mean this is quite hopeful, there's a lot of good youth here. But how many for every one person in here, and I'm not saying just because Alhamdulillah, I mean any, going to the masjid, any Islamic function, anything.

But for one person in here, how many Muslims are out in Toronto? Right? Wasting their lives away. Wishing they had what Qarun has. And after that Allah says, this is the house of the akhirah that we give for those who do not desire to be exalted in the earth.

The Way of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم

The Muslims, we do not desire to be exalted. We should not desire to be prancing around like the American. We want that the kalimah of Allah is exalted.

Not the Muslims. When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم came into Mecca, he came in in a state of humbleness. His head was lowered.

He came in with his head bowed down. If you look at the way tyrants come into their cities when they conquer them. They come in with drums.

Montgomery, you know this guy Montgomery, the British general. He used to come in with bands and drums when they defeat. This is the way he came in.

Right? Clapping his hand. All of them, they're all arrogance. Arrogant people.

Mustakbirun. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم came in with humility because he saw where the victory was coming from. It wasn't from him.

It was from the tawfiq of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The Nasr is from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala alone. So this is the disease.

It's a vicious one. And it's interesting that Allah, the second to the last surah of Qur'an

- The envier when he envies. Now, just the present state, looking at the present, I think that sums it up.

The State of Muslim Lands

There's a few other things. You can look at the fact that even though we condemn the West for all of its degradation and its depravity and this and that, look at our own lands. Look at the Muslim condition today.

Look at it. Reflect on it. I mean they had a study done here in the West in which they said that the most corrupt country in the world was Nigeria.

And the second most corrupt was Pakistan. Right? And then somebody said in fact Pakistan won but they bribed Nigeria to take the first prize. Now, Nigeria, Pakistan and all the rest, the Muslim countries, these countries are corrupt also.

But like I was taught from a physician friend of mine who taught me how to analyze patients, said never examine a patient under artificial light. So when you look at the West, you're looking under artificial light. The Muslims, it's natural light.

So they look as bad as they are. Up here, it's artificial light. So they might look a little perkier than they actually are.

But they're in bad shape. And they're corrupt. Their corruption is deep.

But I will say, my own experience in the West has been that generally in certain aspects at the individual level, you will find, and Allah says this in the Qur'an

- There's some people from the book of, from the people of the book, if you give them a lot of wealth, they'll give it back to you. So from them are good and from them are bad. But generally, the level of corruption has not permeated to the extent that it has in the Muslim lands.

And that's a very serious indictment of the Muslims. Because our experience, most of us who've traveled in the Muslim world, we've experienced this and it's quite devastating. So I'll end this by hope for the future.

Hope for the Future: The Diagnosis and Cure

Because we're hopeful. And we all have to because we're Muslims. And the hadith that diagnoses our disease, which is also, once the disease is diagnosed, is an indication of what the cure is.

And the cure is also mentioned in another hadith. The hadith is related by Abu Nu'aym. And it's from Mu'adh, رضي الله عنه . And there are many versions of it, but this one is interesting.

أَنْتُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ تَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَتُجَٰهِدُونَ ,is reported to have said صلى الله عليه وسلم ,He said

فِي سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ثُمَّ تَظْهَرُ فِيكُمُ ٱلسَّكَرَتَانِ - You today are on clear proof from your Lord, you command the good and forbid the evil and you strive in the way of Allah.

وَتُجَٰهِدُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ - And then there will manifest in you these two very serious symptoms of impending doom.

سَكَرَةُ ٱلْجَهْلِ - Ignorance وَسَكَرَةُ حُبِّ ٱلْعَيْشِ - And the disease of love of living, love of dunya. ثُمَّ يُوشِكُ أَن تَدَاعَى ٱلْأُمَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ

مِن كُلِّ أُفُقٍ كَمَا تَدَاعَى ٱلْأَكَلَةُ إِلَىٰ قَصْعَةٍ فَيَقْتُلُونَ مُقَٰتِلَكُمْ وَيَأْكُلُونَ فِيكُمْ وَيَسْتَحِلُّونَ حَرِيمَكُمْ وَيُنزَعُ ٱلرُّعْبُ مِن قُلُوبِ أَعْدَآئِكُمْ وَيَجْعَلُهُمْ أَسَدًا وَلَا

يَفِرُّونَ لِحُبِّكُمُ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَكَرَاهِيَتِكُمُ ٱلْمَوْتَ - Then it is likely that the nations will call upon you from every ufuq, from every horizon, and they will eat from you, from your plate, like eaters eat from a plate.

And they said, Ya Rasulullah, is it from that we're few in numbers? They said, no, but you're like scum, the foam on the top of the flood. And there's a weakness in your hearts, and fear is taken out of the hearts of your enemies. And the reason for this لِحُبِّكُمُ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَكَرَاهِيَتِكُمُ ٱلْمَوْتَ - because you love dunya and you hate death.

Very simple diagnosis. Which means that the cure then are two things. One is that jahil has to be removed.

The Cure: Knowledge and Love of Death

And every single Islamic renaissance, if you study the history of Islam, began with intellectual renaissance. And you show me one that did not. Because the very first Islam began with Dar al-Arqam.

It began in Mecca, in a house, with one man صلى الله عليه وسلم teaching men and women tawheed of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And moving from their hearts love of dunya. And Umar said to the Persians, we will send an army that love of death with them is greater than your love of life.

And this comes from knowledge, because the more knowledge one gains. And we're not talking about مَعْلُومَات information. There's orientalists that learn all the rules.

That's not real knowledge. There are orientalists that know Islam, they can lecture about Islam, they can tell you everything, they can give you the 'aqeedah of the Muslims, they can tell all these things. But in the end, they do not believe.

So it is not real knowledge. Real knowledge is of two types. One is a knowledge in which one is limited in their intellectual understandings, but the knowledge penetrates their heart.

This is Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali. And the second is where they join the two. They have the outward and the inward as well.

And these are the people that are the leaders. The hujjat Allah in Islam. And the third type is somebody who knows the outward but it doesn't penetrate the inward.

And that's called a hypocrite. And they're the ones that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم feared more than anybody.

And finally, the last thing that I'll leave you with, is I think a very powerful statement by an American who's talking about the disease of the autonomy of man.

Solzhenitsyn on Humanistic Autonomy

Solzhenitsyn, the Russian, said that the modern western mindset can be understood as humanistic autonomy. Man transgresses in that he deems himself independent of Allah. And these people now deem themselves independent of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And this, according to this man, Solzhenitsyn says, is an autonomy of man from any higher force above him. Commenting on this, if superior forces are not allowed, current epistemology has no way to register them. I have argued then, human life has no alternative but to appear autonomous.

In other words, if we deny the material, the spiritual influences in our lives, because they only look at the outward, and we look and we look at and analyze things, we keep in mind, we keep in mind both aspects, the outward be a manifest and the inward be hidden. They are only looking at the outward, they do not see the inward. And so, because of that, there's no alternative but to appear autonomous.

The human being is autonomous. There's nothing behind all of this. If we were surprised to find Solzhenitsyn blaming this presumed autonomy for the fact that the western world has lost its civic courage, a fact which cannot be disputed, is the weakening of human personality in the west.

Look at, seriously, look at the people that are being produced in these cultures. He tells us, it is because mechanists we have largely and unconsciously become, we assume that if superior forces exist, they would tyrannize. We take their absence to be liberating.

So we deny that there's anything superior to us, and we see that if there was, it would only be a tyranny over us. It would be a tyranny over us. This is very important.

It would be a tyranny over us. It seems not to occur to us that such forces might empower us and liberate us. Submission in Arabic Islam was the very name of the religion that surfaced through the Qur'an.

Yet its entry into history occasioned the greatest political explosion the world has known. That's the outward he's looking at. Where did the power and the impetus of that political explosion, where did it come from? The unseen forces.

If mention of this fact automatically triggers our fears of fanaticism, says the Western reader, Islam exploded onto the world. Those were those crazy Saracens, the fanatics. Here's what he says.

This simply shows us another defense. Our agnostic reflexes has erected against the possibility of there being something that better than we are in every respect could infuse us with goodness as well as power were we open to the transfusion. See, what he's saying is that if you look at Islam and what it brought and the civilization that it created and the dignity of man that it established, the educations, the traditions, the institutes, the artifacts, the remnants of those cultures are sold for massive amounts of money because these people, the rich people in this culture want to have them ornamenting their houses.

You see, Islam is powerful. It's transformative. It is transformative and it can transform every single one of us if we're open to it.

The Need for Comprehensive Islamic Education

At the individual level, all of us have to make an absolute commitment to studying our deen, to studying it in its most comprehensive and broad-based orthopraxic tradition. In other words, the parameters are broad within limits. We don't go outside of those limits.

But the Muslims traditionally have had different views and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has allowed that, given us different ways to practice our faith and to understand it within generous guidelines of our messenger. So inshallah, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us people of this deen and people of the level of this deen and ask forgiveness if I went on for some time.

Questions and Answers

This is a good question. What is the objective of our brother Abu Yusuf? And the reason I ask this is because we Muslims are already divided up into various organizations, movements and groups. What is your purpose in setting up a distinct group? What is the objective of the groups which you're trying to provide?

First, really important statement. I am not setting up in any way, shape or form a group. I'm really not. Wallahi, Allah is my witness, I'm not setting up any group. The institute that I did is actually a sheikh from Mauritania, who I brought over, we had one previous before that, myself and a few student aides that I have working in the community there, trying to provide some Islamic education for the people there.

But there is no, I have no group, I guarantee you, I don't. I don't want any titles. I'm not even an imam.

I don't use that title. You can call me that. It's not a title.

I absolve myself of that title. I'm not an imam. Imam is a very high title traditionally in Islam.

I'm not an imam of a mosque. Really, I'm not a sheikh. I'm not, you know, all I'm trying to do inshallah is, I benefited from very generous scholars who were very generous with me with their time.

Never asked me for money. And I'm just doing what they told me to do, which was if you learn something, you should teach it. That's it.

But I really don't have a group, so I want everybody to be very aware. I benefited from very generous scholars who were very generous with me with their time. Never asked me for money.

And I'm just doing what they told me to do, which was if you learn something, you should teach it. That's it. But I really don't have a group, so I want everybody to be very aware of that.

On Sufism

Concerning changing our condition, when we as Muslims accuse somebody of something, we must have witnesses and concrete evidence. It is not lawful that we accuse somebody of something that they are not, that there are those who deny what you accuse them of. So I respectfully ask, are you a Sufi?

And I would say to that question, definitely not. No, I'm not a Sufi. And I would say also, just to qualify that statement, I think it's very important when we use that word, we distinguish, as the classical scholars generally did, between what are called the Sufiyah and the Mutasawwifah. The Sufiyah, according to Orientalists, is anybody that claimed they were a Sufi.

The Sufiyah to the traditional Muslims were usually called al-Qawm, and they were people like Fudayl ibn 'Iyad, like Malik ibn Dinar, like al-Hasan al-Basri, like Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, like Imam al-Junaid of Baghdad, Sidi Abu Qadir al-Jilani, those type of people who were 'ulama, and they were very sincere people, and they were especially concerned with the diseases of the heart, and in helping people rectify the diseases of the heart.

And that was traditionally what was understood as, it was called Tasawwuf, it was called Ihsan, it was called Suluk, which is a very common term for that, and it was considered, and still is, one of the sciences of Islam. Maharrat al-Qulub is a book that's studied in Mauritania, about that, which is looking at diseases like hasad, like kibr, like riya', like 'ujb, and attempting to rectify those diseases by first identifying them, identifying their causes, and then giving cures that are based on the book and the sunnah.

Imam al-Junaid himself said (عِلْمُنَا هَذَا مُقَيَّدٌ بِكِتَابِ اللَّهِ وَسُنَّةِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ - 'ilmunā hādhā muqayyadun bi-kitābi Allāhi wa sunnati Rasūli Allāh) - Our science is directly connected to the book of Allah, and the sunnah of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam). Whoever does not know the Qur'an and has studied the hadith, should not speak in this science. Now later, there came a group of people, called the Mutasawwifah, and they outwardly would dress like these people, and sometimes they would use their expressions, and many of them used it as a way of gaining money, of gaining followers, and things like this. The pir syndrome in some areas of the world.

And you find this also in the Muslim country. In the Wasilah of Mukhtar al-Kunti, which is a text on 'Aqidah that is studied in Mauritania, he says (كَانَ الْقَوْمُ يَمْشِي عَلَيْهِ سَالِكٌ وَسَالِكُ الْيَوْمَ هَالِكٌ - kāna al-qawmu yamshī 'alayhi sālikun wa sāliku al-yawmi hālik) - That this Qawm these people, they used to live the best way of living, which is zuhd, in dunya. And then after that it became a means of gaining livelihood.

They used to call the one who went on that path a salik. And the salik of today is halik. It means that they're destroyed.

And he wrote that a few hundred years ago. Sidi Ahmad Zarruq, in his Qawa'id al-Tasawwuf, said that, really, the real people of this science are gone. So, there are many people that are really best to be called just pseudo-practitioners, who call people to doing practices, and they don't teach them knowledge, because people have to learn the deen.

And in the Sabi' al-Ma'ashi, which is a text that I studied in the Mauritanian tradition, it's a traditional text, and I studied it with Murabit al-Hajj, the first section is on Iman, the middle section is on Islam, and the last section is on Ihsan, and he calls it the ba'dh al-Tasawwuf, or the ba'dh al-Tasawwuf. And he just talks about taqwa, about husul al-taqwa, imtitha' awamirillah, ishtina' al-nawahillah, about ghadd al-basar, about lowering the eyes, guarding the ear from hearing bad things, that's what he says. So, you know, there's a lot of craziness in the Muslim world, that is called like Tasawwuf, like grave people that spend their whole days at graves, and they say that those are Sufis, and these type of things, and it's more like a folkloric Islam.

And I would say, but I'm not a Sufi, I really don't consider myself Sufi, and, you know, and I mean that, I'm not just saying that. There are, Imam Hamza, Imam Hamza, there are many parents, interrupted who are concerned about their classes, they say you're into Sufism. You know, again, you know, I don't have like tariqah, I don't give tariqah, but people know, I mean, the people that have been in my classes, they know.

There's people here who know. You know, I don't have bay'ah, I don't read, I don't, I'm not, I mean, this is not some secret thing, you know, like, you have to, you know, be in the group, and then I'll get you, introduce you into the higher esoteric secrets. I guarantee you, I'm not making this up.

On Improving Our Condition

So, in the Muslim Ummah, specifically in the West, what do you think is, what do you think is the primary issue Muslims should focus on in order to improve our condition, which, frankly, I and a lot of people don't want to change the condition of other people until they change the condition of themselves. That ayah traditionally was interpreted to mean you don't go from good to bad until you stop thanking Allah. It didn't have the modern interpretation as to switch it around.

Because, look, we're in ni'mah, I guarantee you. We're in such a ni'mah. If you just look, wallahi, we're in ni'mah, and if you begin to thank Allah for the ni'mahs that we're in, Allah will increase you in those ni'mahs.

And if we always focus and look at the worst of little stuff, it just gets worse. So we, although we have to recognize that there are very serious troubles and things, we also must recognize the deep blessings that this Ummah has. That Allah put our punishment in this world, not in the next world, inshallah.

It's a hadith of the Prophet (إِنَّ اللَّهَ جَعَلَ عَذَابَكُمْ فِي دُنْيَاكُمْ - 'inna Allāha ja'ala 'adhābakum fī dunyākum) - He put your punishment in this dunya. The things that happen to us are nothing compared to the other people. So I really, you know, what we have to do is start

showing gratitude, articulating gratitude, changing the way we think, becoming less negative, beginning to change our behavior and our character, and certainly beginning to take control of our tongues in attacking and slandering and doing all these things to each other, because it's horrible.

I mean, look how many hospitals all over the world that exist, and yet, the mosque is supposed to be a hospital for the hearts. And there's people that now go to the mosque and it makes them sicker. They really, they get sicker going to the masjid because everybody's fighting, people, everybody's attacking (كُلُّ حِزْبٍ بِمَا لَدَيْهِمْ فَرِحُونَ - kullu ḥizbin bimā ladayhim fariḥūn) - Every group is just rejoicing for what they have.

(تَذَبَحُوا الزَّبَدَ - tadhabḥū al-zabad) - Throwing, you know, this is that, and he's that, and he's that, and just attacking and doing all these things. So, about segregated masjids, I think that at one level, it is a very natural phenomenon for groups, for cultures to be together. That is a perfectly natural phenomenon.

When it becomes 'asabiyah, is when it becomes a danger. In other words, nobody can come, like, for instance, the Libyans who I'm very close with, there's a Libyan community, they're a very tight-knit community, but there are people that come in who are Palestinian, who are Jordanian, who are Syrian, and there's not a type of 'asabiyah, or he's not one of us. So, it's natural that people that share cultures, that share language, that share food, and these type of things, it's very natural for them to be together.

But if it becomes where, that's that group out there, it becomes a type of ethnicity, and things like that, then you have serious problems. And there is, there's a lot of racism and trouble. You've mentioned marketing yourself as a kind of shirk.

I don't remember saying that. I just said it's a disease of the modern society. But I don't, didn't think that I called it shirk.

If I did, I certainly didn't mean that. But in such a competitive society, well, competitive capitalism is (دَاءُ الْأُمَّةِ - dā'u al-ummah) (لَا أَخْشَىٰ عَلَيْكُمُ الْفَقْرَ أَخْشَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ أَن تُبْسَطَ الدُّنْيَا عَلَيْكُمْ ... - lā akhshā 'alaykumu al-faqra akhshā 'alaykum an tubsaṭa al-dunyā 'alaykum) ... He said that, that I don't (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) according to the Prophet (فَتَنَافَسُوهَا - fatanāfasūhā) - I worry not poverty for you, but wealth, that you begin to compete for it. So wealth becomes competitive.

And it destroys you (كَمَا أَهْلَكَتِ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ - kamā ahlakat al-ladhīna min qablikum) - And it will destroy you just as it destroyed the people. It's called da' al-ummah, competitive.

On Syria and Algeria

You mentioned Syria. The situation in Algeria could further elaborate. You know, subhanAllah. It's just, it's tragic.

I mean, now they have some Algerian soldiers that, you know, that they refused to... They left, fled to France and they were saying that, you know, the government was having them grow beards and put on robes and go into villages and kill people and then blame it on the Islamists. And this is what's happening.

And it's a very tragic situation. And wallahi, the Muslims, we need to make a lot of dua for our brothers and sisters in Algeria because they're in a very difficult situation right now. And the same is true in many places in the Muslim world.

But Algeria particularly because of the level of violence and the level of oppression that's going on there. And it's very, very sad. And we ask Allah to relieve them of their suffering and to bring about justice in those lands.

Closing Remarks

So, I think that's probably enough for today. I mean, there's a lot more that could be said, but I think the main points have been covered. The most important thing is that we recognize the disease, we recognize the symptoms, we recognize the causes, and then we begin to work on the cure.

And the cure is knowledge and action. Knowledge of our deen, deep knowledge, not superficial knowledge. And then acting upon that knowledge in our daily lives.

And recognizing that the transformation has to begin with ourselves. We cannot wait for some leader to come and fix everything. Each one of us has to take responsibility for our own condition and for the condition of our communities.

And if we do that, if each one of us works on ourselves, works on purifying our hearts, works on increasing our knowledge, works on improving our character, then inshallah, the change will come. But it has to start with us as individuals.

And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us among those who hear the reminder and benefit from it. And we ask Allah to forgive us for our shortcomings and our mistakes. And we ask Allah to guide us to the straight path and to keep us firm upon it.

And we ask Allah to unite the hearts of the Muslims and to remove the divisions and the discord that exist among us. And we ask Allah to grant victory to Islam and the Muslims and to humiliate the enemies of Islam.

And we ask Allah to make us among those who love for the sake of Allah and who hate for the sake of Allah.

And we ask Allah to make us among those who are sincere in their worship and their actions.

(وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ - wa ākhiru da'wānā ani al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi al-'ālamīn) - And our last call is that all praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

(وَصَلَّى اللهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا - wa ṣallā Allāhu 'alā sayyidinā Muḥammadin wa 'alā ālihi wa ṣaḥbihi wa sallama taslīman kathīrā) - And may Allah send blessings upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions and grant them abundant peace.

Wa as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.