Muslim Youth

Muslim Youth and the Culture of Consumption

Introduction: The Global Monoculture

The opening address for MENA, for this conference, and it looks to me that the majority of you are MENA people. Some people aren't, but it looks like most of you are. So, what I'd like to talk about really I think are some of the things that are affecting our youth in this country, and really everywhere else, because now we're dealing with a global phenomenon, which is the monoculture of consumption, consumerism, and particularly Western culture, which is taking over the world in incredibly rapid ways.

I was just, for instance, in Spain, and we spent a month there, and the effect of Americanization, globalization, everywhere you saw billboards with Western actors who suddenly were transformed into Spanish-speaking people because their quotations were all in Spanish. A lot of them were for alcohol campaigns. They had a famous actor called Liam Neeson, I think, or something like that.

The Psychology of Imitation and Marketing

And several others, and when you look around and see these famous faces on billboards that everybody seems to know who they are, and for some reason people seem to be interested in what type of things that they drink, even though they probably don't drink those things, but they're paid massive amounts of money to at least pretend that they drink those things, because if they do, other people tend to follow them. Now, one of the interesting things about human beings sociologically is that human beings tend to imitate. In fact, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, in a book called I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in, says that one of the proofs for taqlid, which is the idea of somebody imitating somebody else if they don't know themselves, is that the fitrah, or the inherent nature of people, is to imitate.

Human beings tend to imitate. And if you look at this culture, the people that are put up as models that people are now imitating are done through very sophisticated techniques that have been studied very seriously, and many of the people involved in these activities actually have PhDs in psychology. Just to give you an example, in New York, and somebody sent this to me, it was a program that was shown on CBC, in New York they had a child psychologist who was on this documentary about using advertisements and directing ads at children, and they actually direct ads now at children that are two years of age.

Targeting Children: The Ethics of Manipulation

In other words, they're actually television ads that are designed for children that are two years of age. And at a certain point this interviewer asked this man, don't you find this unethical? And at that point it was as if this person actually didn't have that word in his vocabulary, any word that's either unethical or ethical, anything with ethical. And he looked at this person and he said, unethical, why? Why would it be unethical? And she said,

because you're manipulating people who really don't have the ability to discern because of their age, they're unaware that they're being manipulated.

And he said, well, if we didn't do it, somebody else would. And this was his type of justification. Now, I think that actually that the question asked by this woman was, I think it was an ingenious question for the simple reason that I think that it's not just children that don't realize they're being manipulated, it's actually everybody.

The Illusion of Immunity to Advertising

It's the adult population as well, because there's a lot of people that think that they can watch these things and they don't think that they're being affected by it. They actually believe somehow that they're immune to it. Well, it's affecting all these other people, but I'm not affected by it.

As he puts on his Ray-Ban glasses and ties his Nike shoes and gets into his Lexus car. I mean, all of those things, why does he have them? He didn't really choose them. They were actually implanted in his mind because he's buying on impulse.

Most people, in fact, they call it impulse buying. They don't actually buy because they want something or they need something. They actually have been programmed to buy these things.

The Bombardment of Commercial Messages

Now, the average person in this country is seeing, according to studies that have been done on this, 3,000 commercials a day. This doesn't include television. This is talking billboards.

A lot of this doesn't include, like, T-shirts. All these people going around with T-shirts. And I saw somebody today.

He had this Calvin Klein thing. I said, is he paying you? Do you have a contract? He said, no. I said, well, you're getting robbed because you're giving him free advertising and you're not getting any money out of it.

That's un-American. But that's the thing. Why is he wearing a T-shirt that says Calvin Klein on it? He's a pornographer, basically.

And then he's got a hat that says, I love Islam. I mean, something's, you know, it's one of those what's wrong with this picture type. And I don't think he's really thought about it.

That's my guess. I don't think he's really thought about it. Because a lot of us haven't thought about these things.

The Childhood Exposure to Television

A lot of us have been asleep for a long time. A lot of these experiments were done when we were little kids. We were put in front of televisions.

We didn't realize what was happening to us. It was actually a form of child abuse. Unfortunately, most of the parents didn't even realize.

The Parable of the Pied Piper

Because the television in this culture is used, and I wrote an essay about this, it's used like to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I don't know if people know that story. But when I was a little boy, that was one of the stories that was read to me.

And it was about a group of children. Well, the story is that a bunch of rats take over this town. And they're driving the town crazy.

So this piper comes in. And if you know European and Western motifs, the piper is usually the devil. Pan, Puck.

There's a lot of... But the piper is usually the devil. So the Pied Piper comes into town, and he says, I'll get rid of your pests for you, but you have to pay me. This is ancient pest control.

And so they agree on a price. Sure enough, he takes his flute out, and all these rats follow him out of town. And he dumps them over the ocean and the cliff.

And he comes back and he wants his pay. Well, now people are greedy by nature. And so the mayor decides, you know, well, they were probably left anyway, and we're not going to pay you.

So he gets upset, and what he does is he plays his pipe, and all the children follow him out of the town. And he takes all these children, and they're hypnotized. You see, they can't... And he takes them into... A mountain opens up, and he goes into the mountain, and everybody goes in except the main child.

One child doesn't make it. And all the children disappear, and they're gone. And then the town goes into mourning because they've lost their most precious thing, which is their children.

Television as the Modern Pied Piper

And in a sense, that's what's happened. The television is like the Pied Piper. Children have this interesting dual nature.

On the one hand, they're like pests. They're like rodents. People don't like them in the house.

They cause problems. They break things. They're smelly.

They do a lot of things that really drive parents crazy, particularly men. Men are driven more crazy than women. In fact, some people claim that women are much more in touch with their children than men are.

Because a lot of people say that men just think that there's a bunch of little people living in the house or something. But anyway, they have this pesky side to them. So what do people do now? They call in the Pied

Piper.

And they put this child in front of the Pied Piper, and he takes away that pesky element of the child. Because suddenly the child's no longer screaming. It's no longer clamoring for something to do.

It's no longer begging the mother to do this or that. It's literally completely pacified in front of a cathode ray tube, which has in the back of it something that they literally called, the engineers who designed it, a cathode ray gun. So it's a gun in the back of that television that's shooting rays.

The Reality of Cathode Rays and Brain Waves

It's a ray gun. I mean, if you've read Flash Gordon and science fiction, ray guns are what aliens had to kill humans. So this is what's happening.

There's a ray gun beaming waves out. Now what people don't realize is, when I was in the Muslim world, and I used to ask these scholars about television, they would say, oh, it's just a window. If it's good, it's good, and if it's bad, it's bad.

It's a nafidha. That's how they explained it, these ulama. Now there's no window in existence that you can open up which will start beaming cathode rays at you.

If you go out and open up a window in your house, there's no cathode rays that are going to be beamed at you. So what happens when these rays are beamed at people is the brain also has waves. We have what are called brain waves.

The Phenomenon of Entrainment

Now if you know anything about pendulums, everybody knows what a pendulum clock is. A pendulum clock, there's an interesting phenomenon that happens with pendulum clocks. If you have a clock and you put a whole bunch of pendulum clocks together and then you set them at different times, at a certain point, they will do what's called in physics, entrain.

They all begin to entrain. In other words, they will begin to tick, moving back and forth at the same rate. So you'll see they entrain with each other.

Now they studied this, and what they found it was actually oscillatory waves from the strongest pendulum begin to affect the other pendulums and they synchronize eventually. So what happens with this TV is it beams out these waves and the brain waves begin to entrain with it. There's an entrainment going on.

Your brain is literally going into sync with these cathode rays. That's what's happening. And you go into what's called a hypnagogic state which is similar to sleep or it's even similar to some meditative state.

Hypnosis and Suggestibility

So what happens is you put these children in front of these tubes and they're basically hypnotized. Now one of the things about hypnosis is people that are in a hypnotic state are open to suggestions. They're open to suggestions.

And this is why if you've ever seen a good hypnotist and they do this. They'll say, raise your right hand. And this person who's in a hypnotic trance will suddenly go like this.

And then he'll say, raise your left hand. They'll go like that. And then cross them over.

Go like that. And these are suggestions that he's putting in. And because this person's in a passive receptive state he will do them without resistance.

The "Important Message from the Sponsor"

So you put this child in front of this TV and then they have these things called important messages from the sponsor. Now if you translate that into Arabic which I like to do with these things because it kind of explains to you what important message. Risalah muhimmah.

That's important message in Arabic. Risalah muhimmah. Now risalah is actually the word for what the Prophet brought.

That's the Arabic word for what he brought. An important message from God. But this is not an important message from God.

It's an important message from somebody who thinks he's God. Now what does he tell these children? Well, he has very cute characters that are done usually round because they've done psychological analyses on children and they realize that children don't like square. They tend to interpret square as being evil and round as being good.

Psychological Design in Children's Advertising

So you'll notice that most of these cartoon characters are rounded characters like the Pillsbury Doughboy. He's round. And you'll notice that the evil characters tend to have square faces.

So whenever they show Muslims and things like that they get these square faced people. Right? To do that. This is really, I mean it's well thought out stuff.

So they have these children in front watching this and then this character comes on like Tony the Tiger. And Tony the Tiger's alliteration has got a little kind of sound cue. And he does these things like roars.

Children like that. Roaring and things like that. So he watches these things and before you know it then the mother's taking him to the store and if you notice at the store because they all work together.

Strategic Product Placement

All these corporations hire the same companies to do the same research. You'll notice the children's cereal is all on the bottom shelf. Because children are little people.

And it's hard for them to look up. But when they're down there walking with mom and they go down that aisle they look and suddenly they see Tony. And he thinks Tony's his friend.

Because Tony talks to him on the TV. And children have a hard time distinguishing reality from virtual reality. Right?

So suddenly the child's screaming I want that. Now at that point the mother's got a problem. Now some of them have gotten clever and they bring the Pied Piper with them so they give them when they go into the store one of these games that they can play.

Like a Nintendo type game. So the kids are there doing that. And that's between Ritalin.

The Hyperactivity Epidemic and Fast-Motion Programming

See they're all wondering why their children are all on Ritalin. Because they're hyperactive. Well another thing about television that you should notice about children's television it's all speeded up.

Did you ever wonder why that is? Why is Sesame Street in fast motion? Did you ever wonder that? Why Sesame Street is in fast motion? And A is for Allah is in fast motion as well. Or A is for Asad. They didn't even get that one right.

Alif is for Asad. There's a video of it. Quote unquote Islamic video called Alif is for Asad.

And that's in fast motion too because I actually watched it it gave me a headache. Now the reason that these things are in fast motion is because back in the 1950s they did studies on children watching TV and they realized that children under four won't watch normal time TV. They'd actually rather be in reality.

It's more interesting to them. But when they speed it up slightly it engages their minds. And they'll actually they'll be hypnotized by that fast movement like cartoon movement.

The Programming of Children Through Television

And what happens is before long they've been trained and then they can't pull away. They're literally entrained to the television. They can't pull away.

And that's why you go up to the child and you go like this. Do that. It's just an experiment.

Just go up to your little brother and go like that and he won't see you for three or four times. And then finally he'll come out. You break the entrainment because you're breaking the waves.

That's what you're doing when you do that. You're breaking the waves and the entrainment's broken and suddenly he's like leave me alone. Because he wants to go back and then he'll just leave me alone and then he'll re-lock into the television.

I'm not making this stuff up. Do you think I'm making this up? This is happening all over the world right now. There are millions of people in this country. There's probably about 200 million people right now in Canada and America sitting in front of cathode ray tubes right now entrained watching such inane tripe that they have to be told when to laugh with a laugh track. That's not real laughter. It's canned laughter.

That's how bad the jokes are. I mean have you ever noticed how you don't laugh at any of those jokes? Right? Really if you're intelligent. If you do it's a sign that you've got an IQ of less than about 70 so don't admit that you do even if you do.

Protecting the Mind: An Islamic Imperative

So how does that relate to all of us? Well now to get to what I want to say. I believe personally that if we are to maintain an Islamic identity then we have to protect our mind. Your mind is the most precious thing that you have.

Your heart. And it's something that Allah said:

"Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - all of those will be questioned about it." (Quran 17:36)

The hearing, the sight and the heart. All of those the human being is responsible for. You're responsible for them. Now the thing about why hearing first and then sight and then the heart. The reason the Qur'an almost always has hearing precedes sight.

Why Hearing Precedes Sight in the Quran

If you look in the Qur'an you'll always see sam' precedes basar. And the reason for that one of the reasons is that hearing is circular. It's not linear.

The eye looks linearly. Hearing is circular. You can hear people from behind you.

You can't protect your ears in the same way that you can protect your eyes. In other words people have quicker access to your ears than they do to your eyes. If you see something you don't want to look at you can immediately turn away.

But if somebody is telling you something it's very difficult just to plug your ears. And Abdurrahman al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) used to do that. When he would see muqtadi'ah he would literally plug his ears.

And somebody asked him why do you do that? And he said one of them said something twenty years ago that's still bothering me. It's still bothering me.

The Impact of Constant Exposure to Haram

Now this is an imam who plugged his ears when he saw a Muslim who had beliefs that were not congruent with Islam.

What do you make of people that have spent twenty years Muslims watching kafir television every day of their life? What are we doing? How is that affecting us? How is that affecting us if you turn on your television when you go home and you watch every possible haram thing that's imaginable. One of the things that the ulama say it's haram to watch the haram to look at the haram. What is that doing to our hearts? And how do we preserve our spiritual integrity if that's the state that we're in? How do we do that? So the first thing I really feel that everybody has to do as Muslims we have to turn off the TV.

The Call to Turn Off Television

How many people I'm really serious about this how many people in here are willing to do that? Not that many. I mean I'm glad that people are honest I'd rather have honesty than all these hypocrites. Allahu Akbar. Not that many I would say probably maybe it looks like about from here maybe fifteen percent of the people.

That's a start. In Russia in Moscow did people see that? The television the tower burnt down. So twenty million people didn't have TV.

And in one of the newspaper articles I read that was in the Guardian in London they were interviewing these people and they said I'm getting to know my family again. And one lady said I hadn't realized how much my husband had aged. But they said the parks were filling up people were actually going down doing recreational things walking people were having to actually talk to each other.

The Erosion of Identity in Muslim Children

People don't realize I really don't think they don't realize the impact that this machine has had on our lives. And it's getting worse and worse because it's everywhere now. In the Gulf states in Arabia children are growing up on this stuff.

My children who don't watch TV we were in Spain and we were with some children from Arabia and they were every time I'd see my son he'd have this word or new game or something I said where did that come from? And he said from so and so that they were playing that game. So I asked the boy and it was some television program he'd watched. This is a true story.

My boy was with an Arab boy and he drew a picture and it was a picture of a scholar and he said that's what he wanted to be when he grew up. And this Arabian boy said to him you should be a CIA agent. He didn't even

know what the CIA was.

I haven't told him about that yet. I'm trying to protect him for a little longer. But he said you should be a CIA agent and his reason was because they had all these cool weapons.

And he had seen Mission Impossible. And he thought that that was really cool. So this is what happened.

We have Arabian boys that want to be CIA agents in Mecca. Think about that. Seriously, think about that.

And they're the good guys if you watch most of those movies. They're the good guys. So this is what's happening people.

The identity is being fragmented until there's nothing left because these children have been giving this since they were little kids. And then they become completely entrained and brainwashed. So where does that leave us now? We're in this country and we're trying to maintain a semblance of Islamic identity.

The Islamic Message vs. The Message of Consumption

This is what we're trying to do. Now just let's look at the message of Islam in relation to this message. First of all the idea of consumption. The Prophet ﷺ said that there's no fault in a man if he has wealth to change his clothes to go to Jumu'ah from his work clothes.

Does everybody understand that? In other words if somebody has work clothes because on Friday traditionally Muslims work. Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on him) said it was makruh for Muslims not to work on Friday because he said it was like the Jews and the Christians who took a day off on their holy day. And he said there's no reason why Muslims should do that.

Traditional Muslim Work Ethics

So traditionally Muslims work 7 days a week but what they would do is they would work from 6 o'clock in the morning 7 o'clock in the morning until about 2 in the afternoon and then the day was over. That was their work day. And then the rest of the day was for family and for ibadah and study and things like that.

Anyway the point of that hadith is that a man who has an extra clothes if he can afford it to wear a Friday suit and change it and the Prophet was saying that there was no haraj there was no fault in that. And the reason for that is they had an understanding that those who are extravagant are the brothers of the demons. Those who are extravagant are the brothers of the demons.

Consumerism and the Devil

Now the word in Old English consumer is the word for the devil. Consumer means the devil in Old English because consumption is what the devil does. He consumes souls.

So all of these people out here that are consumers and this is their lives they are actually shayateen. And what you need to decide in your lives is whether you want to be shayateen or whether you want to be with the angels the mala'ikah. Because in this world you are in one group or the other.

You are with the people of light or you are with the people of darkness. All of our youth here you have to ask yourself whether you want to be people that go with the flow that watch all the latest movies that buy all the latest CDs that listen to the coolest or whatever the hippest radio station is and then you go to school and that's what you do with your friends. You talk about what movies you saw.

The Emptiness of Modern Entertainment Culture

I mean how many people now that's all they have to talk about. Seriously how many people now that you know when they get together what they talk about is what they saw on TV. What movie they saw.

What's that? That's what people talk about now. What do you think about that? Are you content with that? To spend your life watching imaginary people fictionalized characters portrayed by prostitutes because a prostitute is somebody that sells their honor for money and these people will take off their clothes they'll pretend to have sexual relations with people that they don't have any emotional feelings for or any legal relationship with. This is what they do.

And people watch this. You can't watch a PG rated film. The G rated films are filled with sexual innuendos.

And if parents think that because it's got a G on it somehow that makes it okay because it's for general audiences you haven't watched any of these films.

The Messages Behind Entertainment

You haven't thought about what are the messages behind them. These are messages.

And they're messages from enemies of humanity. That's the only word for them because they are shaitanic beings. And they've declared war on human beings.

They have declared war. And it's taken them a long time to get to this stage where they can just come all out now. They couldn't do it back in the 30s and the 40s when there were still Christians in this country.

There were still Christians in this country that actually believed that it was blasphemous. That this was against. It was sacrilegious.

It took them a long time to get to that stage where they could just keep at it like somebody chiseling. Just keep at it. Keep hammering.

Or like water on the rock. You break them down. And eventually it broke.

The Moral Bankruptcy of Modern Media

And now they're just full force.

They can come out with demon worship. Films in which criminals are heroes.

Criminals are heroes now. Look at how many films in which the hero is a criminal. There's no resolution of good versus evil.

Crime pays. These are the stories that are being told to people. They have a story now about a car thief.

And it's the joy of stealing cars. I know a couple of people have seen this film probably in here. Really, how many people, just be honest with me.

How many people, who's willing to really be courageous and say, yes, I saw that? About as many as that. Those are the honest ones. There's probably a lot more that have seen it.

I didn't see it. I wouldn't see it. But the point is, here's a film about a car thief who's a hero, according to what I read.

What is that telling you about a culture? It's completely bankrupt. This is the stories that they're telling. And this is the story that many of you are allowing into your mind, into your heart.

The Lasting Impact of Images

You don't think that's not having an effect on you? There's images that will be with you as long as you live from some of these films. I have images from films I can't get out of my inner eye. I can see them.

I can close my eyes and see them. People are laughing. You think this is funny.

It's hilarious. That's what they want. It will entertain you until you die.

The Reality of Death and the Grave

There's no VCR in the grave. You don't get to plug in the video to forget about reality in the grave. There's no DVD there either.

There's no CDs. There's no music. It's not there.

And either you believe it or you don't. And that's your choice. But if you believe it, my suggestion to you is to recognize what's happening to you.

You're basically possessed. That's what I would call it. If you're watching television on a regular basis, then you're under possession.

And I would suggest that most of you are probably addicted. You're unable to turn it off. You don't have the willpower to do it.

Understanding the End of Time

There's probably people that will finish this lecture, go back to their hotel rooms, and turn on the TV. And your brains will entrain. You'll feel comfortable.

You'll kind of get fudged out. Everything's relaxed. Maybe you weren't too troubled by what was said.

Or maybe you'll forget about it. You might go up and you might say, yeah, maybe he's right. And then obviously you'll forget it.

And you'll forget about it. The reality of what is happening with television can be compared to the reality of the end of time. The end of time is not just some far-off event. Every moment someone dies, and for that person, the end has come. When you die, that's your end of time in reality. And then there's the big end of time where this all comes to an end, which is going to happen. But Allah ta'ala a'lam, we don't know, I don't know, nobody knows that.

It might last for another 100, 200, 300, 400 years. Nobody knows that. Nobody knows the hour.

A Vision and a Sign from Allah

So this man came and that's what he said. He said he saw that dream. Now, we spent a month in this place.

And at the very end, the last talk that was given, the last words that were said, it was about the drought in Spain and that the earth was dying for sujud to be made on it. And that was the last statement. He came to me afterwards, just as I was leaving, I was on the way.

And he said, in this talk that he gave, that was given, his last piece of paper finished that he'd had with him for the whole course. On the last line, he wrote the last line of the talk and his ink ran out. Now, what that is, those are indications that Allah gives to people.

These are things that happen in your life that Allah gives to let you know that these things are real, that there's a reality, that Islam is true. And most people are completely veiled from these things. They're veiled in their lives, they're hidden from it.

Disengaging from Unreality to Engage Reality

And that's what happened. So, my hope is that you begin first and foremost by disengaging from all the messages that are being put into your hearts. If you want to engage reality, the first thing that you have to do is disengage from unreality.

And that's the choice every one of you has to make, and everyone's capable of making. And that's all I have to say, but I will allow some questions, if anybody has any questions.

The Balance: Don't Make Halal Things Haram

Allah said:

"O you who believe, do not make unlawful the good things which Allah has made lawful for you, and do not transgress. Indeed, Allah does not love transgressors." (Quran 5:87)

Don't make good things haram for you. And don't transgress. Allah does not love transgressors. Don't transgress the boundaries.

Time: The Greatest Gift

And one of the things that Allah has given us is time, and this is the greatest gift. Allah says in the Qur'an:

"By time, indeed mankind is in loss, except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience." (Quran 103:1-3)

By time, the human being is in loss. The nature of time is you're losing. It's dissipating. It's like the hourglass.

Time is running out. Except. Except those who believe, do good actions, enjoin to truth, to what's right, and then enjoin to patience. Because if you enjoin to truth, you're going to have tribulation. The point of that is those are the only human beings that are investing their time for the Akhirah.

The other people are wasting their lives away. Your time is dissipating. Your lives are a waste.

The Youth of the Prophet's Time

Some of you in this, the Prophet ﷺ, the majority of his initial people were under 20 years of age. Under 20 years of age. Some of them were in their early teens, and they were being persecuted for their beliefs.

So, you have to decide what you want to do with your life. That's what you need to decide. There are 30,000 Muslims convening here, approximately.

There were 35,000 registrations. 30,000 Muslims. 12,000 Muslims in 711 Christian era.

The Conquest of Spain: A Historical Example

91 Muslim era. 12,000 Muslims crossed from Tangier to Spain. They were then, they fought Christians.

They fought 100,000 Christians. It was 30,000 to 100,000. They were unarmed, ill-equipped.

It was in Ramadan. The battle began in Ramadan, on the 27th of Ramadan. The 27th of Ramadan.

And they defeated the Christians. The Christians had brought chains down to take them slaves. They literally brought all these chains down, because they were convinced that they were going to completely wipe out these Muslims.

There were only 12 Arabs. Only 12. They were almost all North African Berbers.

There was no Arab invasion of Spain. It was a Muslim invasion of Spain. Now, obviously, times have changed.

Modern Warfare vs. Traditional Honor

We don't go into battle with swords and horses, and we don't fight honorably on battlefields anymore. It's done with aerial bombing, saturation bombing, napalm, radioactive materials and chemicals. Civilians are killed, not soldiers.

I mean, the Muslims, when they went into towns, they didn't rape or pillage. Most of the towns surrendered by sulh, with an agreement to pay jizyah. They honored that.

Women and children were honored. They were not raped. They were not taken into captivity.

This is what happened. And these are human beings. Today, the Jebel Tariq is named Gibraltar, after that man.

Tariq ibn Ziyad. That's what he did with his life. He is mentioned in a hadith, according to Ibn Hazm.

The Hadith of the Muslim Navy

There is a hadith of the Messenger of Allah in which his aunt, Umm Haram, who was his aunt in rada'ah, she had, through breastfeeding, was his aunt. He came to her house, he ate, and then she began to massage his head. And he fell asleep.

And he woke up, and he was laughing. And Umm Haram said, Ya Rasulullah, ma adhakaka. What made you laugh? And he said, Subhanallah, I saw people from my ummah غُزَاةً فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ، يَغْزُونَ عَلَى الْبَحْرِ، يَرْكَبُونَ عَلَى الْبَحْرِ - ghuzatan fi sabilillah, yaghzuna 'ala al-bahr, yarkabuna 'ala al-bahr.

They were riding on the ocean, fi sabilillah. And she said, Ya Rasulullah اُدْعُ اللَّهَ لِي أَنْ يَجْعَلَنِي مِنْهُمْ - ud'ullahali an yaj'alani minhum. O Messenger of Allah, pray to God to make me from one of those people.

And the Prophet ﷺ made du'a, he made a dua for her. And then he fell asleep again. And he woke up, and he was laughing again, smiling.

His laugh was a smile. And she said, Ya Rasulullah, ma adhakaka, ma yudhikuka. What's making you laugh?

And he said, Subhanallah, I saw a second group of my ummah.

Allah showed me a second group, fi sabilillah, riding the ocean. This is the first Muslim navy. There was no navy.

It's a sahih hadith. And then she said, Ya Rasulullah, make dua that I'm from those. And he said, and then he said they were making jihad.

She said, make dua that I'm from those. He said, you're from the first group. Khalas.

You're not from the second group. You're already from the first group. I made the dua.

The Fulfillment of the Prophecy

Now, Umm Haram (may Allah be pleased with her) went with Muawiyah. She was on the expedition in which they conquered Cyprus during the time of Uthman ibn Affan (may Allah be pleased with him). And she was in that expedition when she was coming off, she was on her horse, when she was coming off the ship to land on Cyprus, her horse tripped.

She fell and died shaheedah. Ibn Hazm (may Allah have mercy on him) said that there's no doubt in his mind that the second group was the group of Tariq ibn Ziyad who crossed that Straits of Gibraltar and opened up Spain.

The Prophecy of Constantinople and Rome

Now the Prophet ﷺ said in a sound hadith, somebody asked him, Ya Rasulullah, which city opens up first? Constantinople or Rome? And he said, the city of Heraclius, which is Constantinople.

800 years later, Muhammad al-Fatih, when he was a young boy studying hadith, he heard that hadith. And he decided to be that person. Because the Prophet ﷺ said:

نِعْمَ الْأَمِيرُ وَنِعْمَ الْجَيْسُ

"Ni'mal ameer wa ni'mal jaysh - What an excellent leader and an excellent army that will open the city of Constantinople."

And he said, this was his himmah. I want to be that person.

I'm going to be that person. And that's what he set his life out to do. And Constantinople fell at his hands.

At his hands. Now the Prophet ﷺ said that the city of Rome would fall after that. The city of Rome would fall after Constantinople to the Muslims.

The Fulfillment Yet to Come

800 years it took for Constantinople to fall. And yet people believe that hadith. Now according to this other hadith, the city of Rome, the Pope's city, will become a Muslim city.

And we should believe that. Why should we believe that? And there's no reason why it won't open with, not with weapons, but with da'wah. Because da'wah, and people forget this, is from jihad.

Da'wah is in the bab of jihad. There's no bab of da'wah in any books of fiqh. It's called bab al-ahkam al-jihad.

The rules of jihad. Da'wah is in the rules of jihad. Because da'wah is part of jihad.

Really. So who amongst you wants to be one of those mujahideen? This is your life. You have one life.

What Will You Do With Your Life?

People say, what do we do without television? Make something of your life. Do something with your life. Be disciplined.

Memorize the Qur'an. Learn the deen. Learn your deen.

Or even do creative things. Do something creative. Do something that actually, there's an end product.