Why Are We Here

Why Are We Here? - Yusha Evans

Opening

(السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh)

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim)

Introduction: The Question of Purpose

So why are we here? Why? Is there a purpose? Is there a reason? Let me tell you something. When you sit down to a good meal and it was placed in front of you and this meal is delicious, the first thing you think about after thinking that this meal is delicious, you think about the person who made it. Man, that's a good cook.

Whether it be your wife, whether it be your mother, whether it be the restaurant you think. First thing you think is, man, whoever makes this food knows what they're doing. It's an automatic reaction you have.

When you see a nice new car going down the street, you see a brand new Lamborghini, Range Rover, whatever it is. You see something going down the street, nice car, flashy. First thing you think, who makes that car? Who makes it? You look on the back or the front, you look for the symbol of the maker.

Why? Because you want to know who designed such a beautiful vehicle. If it has Lamborghini on it, you're automatically assured this is a top-notch car. Mercedes, top-notch car. Range Rover, top-notch. Because the designer is verified. The maker is known.

And the product is a witness of itself. It's just the way the human mind works. If you see a grand building being built in the middle of downtown Oslo, the first thing you would think of is what a nice building and what grand architecture.

Whoever put this together knows what they're doing. It's just the automatic thought process of the human mind. We have to think about that for a moment.

You think like that when you eat a good meal, when you see a nice car, when you look at a beautiful building, but yet you're being told and trained in Western education and universities that when you look around the world, when you look at the human body, when you discover how great its design is, how perfect and immaculate its design is, when you look at the world around you, when you look at the universe, the cosmos, with its great amount of things that we will never understand, you're told to just think of this as random circumstance of coincidences that happened millions of years ago. That's it. That's the end of the story.

Are you serious? I mean, this is beyond human intellect. This is beyond the grandeur of the mind that sits inside of our skulls. We have to be real with ourselves.

If all of this has a design and a designer and a fashioner and a maker, then how can the world and the universe not have their grand design?

I always question that. What am I doing here? Why am I here? And, you know, many religions and ideas and philosophies have branched off from this idea. But, you know, the beauty of Islam is that when I encountered it, it summed this question up so beautifully in a phrase.

In a phrase, this entire question of why I'm here was summed up and it became the motivation for my life. It became the reason I got up every morning. It has made me to who I am today. Not a good person, but a better person than I was 15 years ago.

The Danger of Hedonism

Now, why are we here? What are we doing on this earth? Is our life here a result of a random set of circumstances, and coincidences, and chances, and happenings that began who knows when, with who knows what inertia that created it. And all of a sudden now, this is what has become millions of years later. Is that the reality of life? Some people have that outlook. And let me tell you, that outlook causes a detriment to society.

When you look at the world around you as a random set of circumstances, and coincidences, and happenings that began who knows when, who knows how, and all of a sudden, these random set of circumstances and coincidences developed everything that you see around you, then that gives you a very bleak outlook on life. Because life is all about what I can get out of it as quickly and as rapidly as I can to the best of my abilities. It's called a life of hedonism.

Hedonism is just making me happy. I do whatever makes me happy. It's your life, do as you wish. To each his own. Eat, drink, and be merry, as they say. This way of life has destroyed civilizations.

And it will continue to destroy civilizations. Because then it becomes a life of just about I. Myself. What I can get. And we run over everybody else to get it. It has caused tyranny throughout the world. It has caused injustice throughout the world.

It has caused countless numbers of innocents to be murdered, and to be killed, and wealth to be taken, and usurped, and used for only 2% of the world population. This is what this idea created. This so-called idea. And I won't even name it what is being named. But this is what it's called. And this is what it creates.

It brings no benefit to humanity. I don't care what type of evidence you may think you have. If I had the time, we could go through them all, and show the fallacy of them. Unfortunately, you'll have to find me afterward if you want that.

The Purpose of Life in Islam

You see, Islam teaches us that all of this around us has a reason, it has a purpose. That your body in the way it is constructed has a reason, has a purpose. That your heart beats inside of your chest without you having to think about it for a reason and a purpose. Your eyes were designed in such a way for you to be able to look and

consume the world around you in a way that no camera that has ever been created by any human hands could ever do.

Your liver performs more chemical analysis and more functions to continue to detoxify the body than any chemist could ever do. Because it's doing it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without fail. The moment it fails means the end of your life very shortly.

The lungs and the way that they bring air in from the outside into your body and distribute that throughout the blood stream and give the organs and the muscles the vital oxygen that they need, without you having to calculate that out. We believe as Muslims is all part of a design. The world that is around you, the reason that the earth sits where it sits, just perfect for human life or for any living organism to exist, that it's there for a reason.

It was put there as a design and that everything else that exists in this tangible world that we can comprehend is there for one single reason and that's because the Creator of all things willed it to be so. The Creator of all things willed it to be so for His own purpose and reason. And through all of that immaculate creation that the Creator placed, we believe that He chose a special place for those things called human beings.

We believe that the Creator chose a special place for you and I because we are one of the only organisms that we know of that have the capacity to gain this type of understanding, to gain this type of dominance and use of that is what is around us. We believe that God created each and every one of us special and unique. And within that special and unique creation, and within that heart that He gave you, with that mind that He gave you, with those lungs that He gave you, that liver that He gave you, those eyes that He gave you, He only asks for one thing in return.

And that's why we are here. He asks to be worshipped. That's it. He asks only to be acknowledged for who He is, the Creator of all that exists, dominant over everything that exists, and He asks for you to worship Him sincerely. That's it. That's all that Islam is about.

For anyone to tell you more than that, they're complicating the matter. Because everything within the religion of Islam, every ruling, every verse of the Quran, every statement of the Prophet Muhammad, every bit of it, is to fulfill that one, why are we here? To worship the One who created us. Islam is very simple.

You see, I have something in common with all of you in this room. Our guests and our born or reverted Muslims. What I have in common with our guests is that I was once where you are, on the other side of the fence, on the outside looking in. I was once where you are. I didn't know what was the purpose of my life. I didn't know what I was doing.

I thought I knew at one point and then realized that that was just built on a bunch of fabrication. And then I didn't know what my purpose was. My purpose everyday was to get up and enjoy my life. My purpose was to get up and just make me happy everyday. And that's just how I lived. And I irritated a lot of people around me because of it.

Understanding Jihad

And finally I have one last thing that I want to clarify because this is a word that has caused so much hardship amongst Muslims and so much so that we ourselves have become distasteful to the word and it is being used against us when it actually is something for us. We just haven't figured that out yet. What is the most frightening word that is used throughout the media to scare people about Islam and Muslims? You all know what this word is.

Don't play with me. What is this word? Terrorism, right? But terrorism is an English word. What is the Arabic equivalent that they use for that word? Jihad.

Jihad equals terrorism. How many of you in this room agree with that statement? Jihad equals terrorism? Good. Because this is something we need to clarify.

This is the weapon that is being used against us when we know very beautifully what Islam says about this fact and we need to be truthful. Allah has commanded all Muslims in the Quran very beautifully and the Prophet ﷺ used to say this every single opportunity he got in his speeches:

O you who believe, fear the one who created you and speak the truth.

Speak the truth. This is our greatest weapon in this world is the truth that we have. And I will be very clear with you that jihad is a part of Islam. 100%. The Prophet ﷺ said that jihad is the pinnacle of Islam. It's the pinnacle, it is the top of Islam.

You cannot do any greater action than jihad. Now if I stop there, wallahi I probably will never make it out of this country. I have to clarify.

What does the word jihad mean? And the reason I'm using it is because we've already had our little Arabic lesson for the morning. Jihad is an Arabic word and it has a root and it has a meaning. What is the root of jihad?

جَهَدَ

What does the word جَهَدَ mean? It means to strive, to make effort, to work, to put in sacrifice. This is the word جَهَدَ and what it means. To make effort and strive and sacrifice and struggle.

For what? To implement Islam in our lives. Submitting ourselves sincerely to the Creator to have peace in this life and in the next. Doing that is the jihad itself.

And I will be honest with you since I have just a couple of more minutes. I will be honest with you that jihad, when it ever is mentioned in the Quran or in the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his family and his companions, that jihad is speaking of a physical struggle. It is speaking of a physical struggle.

There is no doubt about this. Anyone who takes any notice to look at the Quran will see this for themselves. When jihad is mentioned in the Quran or the Sunnah, it means a physical struggle.

But for what? To what end? Let me tell you right now. Jihad is a physical struggle to eradicate tyranny from the world. Jihad is a physical struggle to eradicate tyranny from the world.

To make sure that no one uses their power to hurt other people. This is jihad. Jihad is a physical struggle to make sure that the poor have a place to sleep at night. That someone who has no food has food on their table. That someone that has no money is given what is due to them. That's what jihad means.

Jihad means that no woman in this world has to worry about being abused by her father or her brother or her husband or anyone else. She can walk in the streets with her head held high, peacefully. That's what jihad is about.

Jihad is about making sure that everyone gets their due rights as the Creator created them to have. Now, let me ask you a question. Is any of the things that I said wrong? Would anyone in this room say any of those things to support justice and eradicate tyranny and oppression and poverty and homelessness and abuse of women? Is any of that wrong? No? Well, let me tell you something.

That's all jihad is about. That's all jihad is about. To struggle to make sure that the truth is known amongst humanity. And within that jihad, there are rules and regulations. Sheikh so-and-so and Maulana Fulana cannot make it up. It's written in the Quran and in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, how we are to go about doing this.

Islam didn't leave anything to chance. It didn't leave anything to guess. If I kill one innocent person, I am not doing jihad anymore. I am doing something called murder. And the Quran says, if you murder one innocent life, you might as well have slayed all of humanity because that's the way Allah looks at it. But if you save that one innocent life, you have saved all of humanity and that's the way the Quran sees it.

If you cut down a tree without rights, you are no longer doing jihad. You are committing a crime. If you kill an animal, purposely, without rights, you're not doing jihad anymore.

If you take down a school or a water treatment facility, or any infrastructure that determines that human beings will suffer because of it, you're not doing jihad anymore. You're committing a crime according to the Islamic

law and you will be dealt with and jihad will deal with you. This is what we have to let the world know.

That we're here for justice. We're here for society to be a better place. We are contributors to society.

But unfortunately that's only mouth profession for most of us now. We have to be involved. You have to get out there in the city and work and show and put effort in.

Not just living your 9 to 5 and going home and hiding in your home and hiding in the masjid and hiding everywhere else you can hide. Because the truth can't be hidden. I don't care how much you try to hide it.

There will be people who will stand up for it. And that's the way it will be. Because the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said, until the end of time there will be a group of my ummah who will stand for justice.

They will stand for justice and they will strive against evil. There will always be a group amongst them. So you can hide if you want and let those people take all of the rewards for you.

But this is what our purpose of life is here for. To worship our Creator and to make the world a better place than we found it. If Muslims are not doing that, then we don't deserve to call ourselves Muslim.

It's just the reality of the matter. If you're not doing that, then wake up in the morning and call yourself what you are. A person who worships their own desires. A person who only wants to please themselves. You can put on the garment of a Muslim all day long. You can grow the beard of a Muslim all day long.

You can cover yourself from head to toe all day long. But if your lifestyle is not in accordance to that which you profess, then you know what you are. You know what you are.

This Life is a Test

So brothers, please, sisters, friends, guests, take a look at your life for a moment and realize that if life has no purpose, if life has no meaning, then why get up in the morning? Why do anything if life has no meaning? And finally, for those who say, and I have to end with this, for those who say that life has no purpose because it's not just. How many of you would agree that this world is not just? Raise your hand. The world is not just.

Why? Why is the world not just? Because it's run by human beings who are not just. We run this world and we're not just. We're not perfect. We're flawed. Many of us are evil. It's just the reality of the world.

But let me tell you something for me. I don't even have to worry about that because I strive for justice as much as I can. But one thing a Muslim does know is that the purpose of this life is to worship your creator but this life is not the end.

It wasn't even the beginning. That the soul of a human being has a long journey and its journey began long ago. And this portion that we're living right now, this little bit of this life that we live now, is only a test. It's only a test. You're only played, you know, just like you go to school for a long time and then you take a test to deduce whether or not you paid attention in class. We believe as Muslims that this little portion of life that you live, 50, 60, 80, 90 years, 100 years, it is the exam for that soul to find out whether it was paying attention when it was created.

Whether it paid attention. And according to that exam, it will be blessed in the next life or it will be cursed in the next life. And we as Muslims believe that no true justice will ever be meted out in this life.

Real justice cannot be handed out in this life because we, human beings, are the ones doing the justice. We believe the only true justice can come from the Creator. So a tyrant can live his whole life tyrannizing people, harming innocents.

And he can die. And people can say, look, this world is not just because he got away with it. Who said he got away with it? He got away with it in this life, but he failed the test.

He failed his test and in the next life he will receive the reward of that fail. And the people he tyrannized, you may think, this world is not just. They were oppressed their whole life. They were killed. They were murdered innocently. They did nothing.

Well, to us, it's not a problem because they passed the test. They lived this life rightly. They worshiped their Creator. They did what they were supposed to do and they will receive the reward in the next life. And trust me, and in the next life, that's all you're gonna want. You're gonna care less about this little test that you went through.

The only thing that will matter is if you passed or you failed. That's the purpose of this life. Worship the One who created you. Submit to Him. Be sincere to Him. Be obedient to Him.

And then pass that test in this life and go on to reap the rewards of it in the next. You may call that a pie-in-the-sky dream, but let me tell you, that pie-in-the-sky dream, everyone is entering into it every single moment of the day. People are dying and they're going on.

You have to think about your life and where it's heading because it's either heading one of two directions, towards a pass or towards a fail. And that's depending upon what you're doing right now in your life.

The Call to Submit

Is there anyone in this room that heard what I had to say? Says that, yes, exactly. That's exactly why I'm supposed to be here. Maybe you didn't realize it before you walked in. Maybe you didn't realize it when you sat down.

Maybe nothing I said encouraged you, but maybe it was something that your mind thought about during this lecture. Is there anyone in this room that walked into this room as not a Muslim who wants to submit to their Creator right now? Raise your hand. Anyone.

I've done my job. And I'm not disappointed. You know why? Because your guidance is not in my hands. It's in the Creator's hands. So ask your Creator to show you the straight path. And if you decide that anytime during this conference, anytime that you hear that you want to enter into this beautiful way of life called Islam, submitting to the Creator, find anybody.

Anyone who looks like a Muslim. There's a lot of us here who look like a Muslim. Find someone and tell them that's what you want and we will direct you to the right place.

I thank you very much for your time and your patience. And at the end of the day, all praise is due to the One who created us. And for me, just forgive me for my mistakes.

Question and Answer Session

Question 1: Unconditional Love and Punishment

In Christianity, we have the term unconditional love. About what you said, you told about the path we choose in life now will determine whether we are to be in peace or in punishment. And I don't see the unconditional love in punishment. Because for me, unconditional love is eternal. So, no matter what we do, we are forever forgiven.

Thank you very much. And I'll repeat his question so that everyone will understand it. He is mentioning that in Christianity, there's a concept of unconditional love. That God has unconditional love. Meaning that love does not come with a condition. It is given freely to every single human being.

And that punishment, the punishment of Islam that Islam speaks about whether you choose a path of peace or punishment in the next life does not seem to fit in with the concept of unconditional love. So, how do we reconcile that understanding? Correct? Perfect. It's a very beautiful question.

I thank you for the question. It's actually a question that Islam deals with but unfortunately, Muslims don't deal with properly. And I'm glad I have time to address this question because it's a big question.

And it's actually a big problem in our dawah. Our dawah is intrinsically flawed because of this question. You see, unfortunately, how many people in this room were born into Islam? Your parents are Muslim. Your raisers are Muslim. Raise your hand. Perfect.

Hands down. How many people came to Islam later on in their life through finding the truth? Perfect. Alright.

Now, for most of us born Muslims, especially if you were born back home in your original country or your parents are immigrants from back home. And that even continues on through generations. We were taught Islam by a stick. Yes or no? Through the stick. Come on, all my Somali brothers and sisters. You know the ul? You know what happens in dugsi if you don't do what you're supposed to do.

The ul is coming out. Then you go home, there's a bigger ul. We were taught Islam at the end of a stick. That if we don't do this, Allah is going to punish you. If you don't do this, Allah is gonna throw you in hell. We were taught Islam at the point of fear.

The end of a stick or a spear. And unfortunately, that has carried over to how we associate Islam with the world. And that's really the most detrimental thing to a child, a Muslim child growing up, is to teach them Islam only at the end of a stick through punishment.

Because we forget one thing. We forget that Allah introduces Himself in the Quran as what? It's every chapter, except chapter 9, begins like this:

In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful.

This is how the Quran begins. In the name of the Creator, the most compassionate, and the most merciful. And there are too many, too many, realistically, too many things for me to give you.

But one thing I will tell you for sure is there's a statement of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ that sums this up clearly. He was once standing around a fire with his companions. And there was a child playing near this fire.

And when the fire would roar up, the mother would reach and grab the child and pull it back. And the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ began to weep because of this. He cried.

And the companions asked him, why are you crying? Because they knew his tears were for a reason. He said, do you see how much this mother loves her child, that she doesn't want it to be burned? They said, of course yes, this is the maternal instinct given to all mothers, or most mothers. Unfortunately we live in a corrupt world.

He said, no, for a fact, that your Creator loves each and every single one of His creations, more than that mother loves her child. Unfortunately, they themselves keep stepping into the fire. You see, this is how Islam explains it.

Is that the Creator, since the beginning of time, has always shown the right path to people. He sent His Prophets and Messengers. He sent Moses, Noah, Abraham, David, Jesus, Muhammad, peace be upon all of them, to show humanity the right path, and the wrong path.

And told them, this is the right path. This path, if you stay on it, will lead to eternal paradise forever. And this path, if you stay on it, leads to punishment and hell.

And at the end of the day, it is not the Creator who is the one throwing people headlong into the fire. It is themselves and their own determination actions which they walk into it. They walk into it freely of their own choice.

That's how Islam compliments or comprehends that idea. It's different than Christianity, yes. But we believe that God created everything, and His mercy is absolute.

When people say that Islam is not a merciful religion, Islam says that if Allah didn't have mercy, there would be no creation. Nothing would exist if the Creator wasn't merciful. If He didn't love us, we wouldn't exist.

Because He would punish us immediately when we committed sin. And not a single one of us would be left on this earth. It is the fact that we do sin, and then some of us return and repent to our Creator that makes us so special.

And that's what He loves the most about us. Is that, yes, we're going to commit sin. All of us are going to commit sin.

But through that sin, God has the chance to show that He is the most merciful, that He is the most compassionate, that He is forgiving and forbearing. He's able to show that through us when we return to Him.

So that's how Islam sums or compliments that idea of unconditional love.

That yes, God loves everything, but at the same time, He does not like when we disobey Him. And He said He will punish us if we live like that and don't fix it. I hope that answers the Islamic concept on that.

Question 2: Evidence for God's Existence

The question is about you spoke about Islam being the purpose of life, but what is the evidence that God exists and that Islam is actually the purpose of life? Why not any other religion that believes in God? Okay. Excellent question. Did anybody hear the question? Okay, perfect.

Now, I said in the beginning that I wouldn't be able to get into the whole philosophy of proving there's a creator and things of that nature without 45 minutes. And if I went down that tangent, it would take me double that at minimum. At minimum.

But I did allude to the fact that when you look at the world around you, to say that it has no design or no designer is beyond the capacity of the human intellect. That we look at everything based upon the meal, who gave it, who made it, who cooked it, the car, who makes it, the building, who built it. So the human mind rather than using its intelligence that it thinks that it has to deny the creator is supposed to use that information to prove and to show itself that there is a design to this.

That there is a design to this. Now if somebody said, prove that there is a God. I'm telling you that you are the proof. You are the proof that there is a God, that there is a creator. You are the living proof of it. Everything that exists, exists for the reason.

And God says this in the Quran. In the Quran Allah says, do you not look at what's around you? Do you not look inside of your own selves to realize that I exist? Is that not enough evidence for you? I've sent you prophets and messengers blazing with miracles. You have a Quran with you that is immaculate.

You have the world around you. You have your body and how it's designed. You have all of these things that if your intellect were allowed to just go its own path and let it be used as God wanted to be used, your intellect would confer with that evidence I have given you.

The problem is when the human being gets enough intelligence that they think themselves superior to everything else. This is the problem. When we allow our intelligence to make us greater than our own design.

And we start trying to manipulate the world and the ideas of how it became through our own understanding of it. And that's just not the way it's supposed to be. You'll never understand this world.

You'll never understand its intricacy. You'll never understand the complete anatomy of how the human body works. We just not. Our human brains are not going to allow us within our 90 to 100 years. Maybe the next people will add to it and other people will add to it, but we'll never fully comprehend it. We'll never fully comprehend what's out there in space and things of that nature.

So that is part of the test. Somebody says, I want you to show me living proof that there's a God that exists. Show it to me tangibly.

I would tell you one thing right now. There's a book that does that very beautifully. There's a book that will give you all of the proof that you need. That will be better than anything I can ever tell you. Do we have a table with the Qurans around? Go to the table where they are giving out information. Pick up that one book called the Quran and read it.

Read it. If you do not find within it the answers that you're looking for, for the purpose of life and the fact that there's a Creator, then I can't help you with any words that I can say. Because these are the words of the Creator.

Yes, they are translated into another language and they've lost some of the meaning, but they were enough for me. They were enough for our brother here, Yusuf Chambers, and they were enough for a lot of people in this room. So here is my request to you.

And it's the only thing I can say to you. If you're sincere and you want to know the truth, you really want to know the truth, then go home tonight. Go by yourself. I don't care whether it's in your room or in your car or wherever it is. Make sure you're alone. And say these words.

Even if you don't really mean them right, or you don't really believe them right now. You don't believe there's a God. Just say these words and mean it.

Say, Creator, if there is a Creator out there that created me, guide me to the truth. That's all you have to say. If there is a Creator who created me, guide me to the truth.

I do that as a Muslim at least minimum 17 times every single day in my prayers. I ask for guidance to the right path. If you say that sincerely, and you're really sincere about it, and you're willing to follow that path wherever it may go, you will find the truth.

Because it says in the Quran that we guide those who will to walk upright. Whoever searches for our ways, we will guide them to our paths. So if you're sincere about that effort, go home and do that tonight, you won't be left wondering.

So that's as close as I can get to answer that question without a whole another lecture about science and Islam and the Quran. We will go on and on and on. Maybe we'll save that for my next trip in Norway. God willing.

Question 3: Summarize the Purpose

My question is, can you summarize what you've just said? What do you mean summarize what I've just said? Which part of it? Make it easier. Make it easier for you. Make it easier for you, you mean about the purpose of

life?

The reason for the purpose of life is to worship the One who created you. That's it. That is the purpose of life. To worship the One who created you. Do what He wants you to do. Live your life the way He wants you to live it.

That's it. In Islam, it's very simple. You see, we were given something called a free will, right? Everyone in here has a free will, right? You can do what you want, correct? You can go out today and do whatever you wish. That's it. Do what you want. Free will.

Islam teaches us that that free will is also a test. That free will is also a test. And what Islam is about is submitting that free will, giving that will back, saying, look, I don't want this free will thing, man, because if I try to figure it on my own, I'm gonna screw it up.

Give that will back, now I want to do your will. So you make your will the will of God. What He wants you to do in your life.

That's all it's about. Because if we try to figure out on our own, we're gonna screw up. We've done it too many times. We have to have guidance. And that guidance comes through the one who created us.

Question 4: Predestination and Free Will

You spoke about non-Muslims choosing to go to the fire of hell. Is it not true that God knows about everything from beforehand and why can they be blamed for choosing? Isn't it Allah who chose for them that they will burn in the fire of hell? And how can that be justice? Beautiful question.

Beautiful question. We've had some actually very good questions today. Did everyone hear the question or understand it? Raise your hand if you didn't hear the question or understand it.

Okay, so I will repeat it. The question was, I said that human beings can willingly choose to go to hell fire by disobeying God and doing these things. But doesn't Allah, the Creator, already know who will and will not go to heaven or hell? And hasn't that already been ordained? Therefore, how is it that we're making that choice when that choice has already been made for us? It's a very good question.

And it's an issue that within the religion of Islam, many deviated groups have broken off the mainstream Islam based upon this issue of predestination. Predestination or القَدَرُ وَالْقَدَرِ. Predestination. Now let me explain something to all of you.

And this is something that many Muslims miscomprehend. And I'm not going to get too deep in it because I will confuse you and probably me and everybody else. You have Shaykh Haytham here and other resident scholars who are going to come on here that will answer these questions for you beautifully.

But I will sum it up for you in a way that you might be able to take it home. You see, we as human beings don't really concept or comprehend some things about God because of our limitation of our minds and our faculties. We look at the world through the prism of our eyes.

Correct?

Correct? This is how we see the world through the faculty of our senses, our eyes, our ears. We need them, correct? Do we not need our eyes to see? Can you see without your eyes? Yes or no? It's a question. It's an actual real question.

It's not rhetorical. Can you see if I take your eyes out of your head? No. If I break your eardrums, can you hear? If I cut off your hands, can you touch? No.

You see, we don't look at God like this. We look at Allah is that He sees without the need of eyes. He's not in need of anything. He hears without the faculty of needing something to hear. He looks at everything in a way that we can't comprehend. He sees the past, the present and the future, all very easily.

For us, we have to see the world through the prism of time. Can you watch a movie and see the beginning and the end at the same time? Has anyone had the capacity to watch a movie and see the beginning and the end at the same time? And all this in the middle at the same time? Can you do it? No, you have to watch it from beginning to end as it progresses. God does not see the world like this.

He doesn't see His creation like this. He sees all of it comprehensively. And He has the most intimate knowledge about things.

And I will tell you about these things so you will understand this question. The Creator knows everything that has happened. Everything that has ever happened at any place within existence. He knows it perfectly. And knows everything about it. Since the thing of time was created. Since time itself was incepted. He also knows everything that is presently happening everywhere. Perfectly within His existence and creation.

Everything. He knows it perfectly. Intimately. Even what you're thinking right now. Even what you're feeling. He knows it.

Number three. He knows everything that will happen at every time, every place until there is no such thing called time anymore. That means forever and ever and ever. Infinite. He knows all of it. And then also He knows something else.

Which makes His knowledge something we are unable to comprehend. He also knows what will not happen. But if it were to happen, He knows how it would happen.

Correct? He knows what would not happen. Meaning if you were given three choices in life. To do A, B or C. Not only does Allah know which one you will choose. But He also knows which one you will not choose. But if you chose them, how everything would be different. That's what's called ultimate knowledge.

That we as human beings can't comprehend. Therefore, yes, Allah has already written in His book whether I will go to heaven or hell. He wrote that in His book before anything existed. That I will be a Muslim and I will go to heaven or hell. That's it. I know that.

It's a part of my religion. But He did not make that choice for me. He already knew what I was going to do. Не knew every choice that I would be given in life and how I would make that choice and how that choice would

determine my life and how I ended it. That's ultimate knowledge. Ultimate knowledge.

It doesn't take away my free will. It's just the fact that Allah already knew everything that I would be doing. And I want to remind all of you of something right now.

The Story of the Pen

I want you to leave this place today with your head a little bit higher than it was. Because Islam gave us something called dignity and honor. And it was given to you long ago.

How many of you in this room have heard of the first thing that was ever created? And that's how I'm gonna finish because we have 7 minutes. I wanna finish like this. Because that was a beautiful question to be asked. Because it's all about what this is about. How many of you in this room know the first thing that was ever created? Raise your hands. Sister.

I'm gonna get a sister to answer. Yes, sister. Yes. What's the first thing that was ever created? Ever. A pen.

Beautiful. The first thing ever created was a pen. That's just beyond our understanding. And that pen was commanded only to do one thing. What was it commanded to do? Brothers. Anybody? First, it was only given one word.

Write. That's it.

It was told, write. And what did that pen say? Write what? What do you want me to write? Allah created a pen that can talk. Yes. Many things beyond our understanding can be created. The pen said, what should I write? Allah said, write everything that will ever happen from this point on. Write it all.

And then the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said something when he made his ascension into the heavens. The Isra wal Miraj. He said what? When he came back, he said, the pen has been lifted and the ink is dry.

In that book that was writing from the beginning of time, he said, the pen has been lifted and the ink is dry.

Meaning, what is commanded to be done will be done. I want all of you to think about some of the Muslims in this room and non-Muslims. I want you to think about this for them. And the first time I ever thought about this, it really overwhelmed me. And it overwhelms me every single time I think about it.

Somewhere in that book, and now I'm gonna tell you something about me. Somewhere in that book, Allah commanded that pen to write, Yusha, Joshua, Evans will become a Muslim. Somewhere in that book, the creator of all that exists saw something within the creation of me that he valued to the point where he decided that I would be guided to the right path.

Just thinking about that, really overwhelms me. Because that was before anything ever existed, called human beings or any of these worlds existed. Allah wrote in that book, you would be a Muslim.

Or he wrote in that book that you would come here today and hear these words. That means he valued you enough. The creator favored you enough to place you either as a Muslim or in this gathering.

What are you doing with your life to repay him? What are you doing with your life to repay him? That's something I didn't ask for and I didn't do anything to deserve because I had not been created yet. But for some reason the creator said, you will be a Muslim. I can't do anything to give that back.

I can't repay that. If you gave me a hundred lifetimes upon guidance, I would not even come close to scratching the surface of being able to repay that debt to my creator. So what do I do? I try every day to do as much as I can.

I try today to do as much as I can, tomorrow to do as much as I can. But it will never be enough. And this also gets to your question as well.

It will never be enough. When I stand in front of my creator on the day of judgment, I will have nothing. Even if I never committed one sin in my life, I wouldn't have anything that I could show to my creator and say, here you go, I deserve paradise.

You tell me what I've done that's valuable enough for eternal paradise. Nothing. Nothing.

And the prophet Muhammad ﷺ said this himself. He said, let none of you think that by doing good you're gonna go to paradise. Don't let your good make you arrogant in thinking that you deserve anything from Allah.

Because if you try to repay Allah for your eyesight, you couldn't. If you try to repay Him for your air that you breathe, you couldn't. If you try to repay Him for the heart He gave you, you couldn't.

What are you gonna do to repay that? What about the guidance that He gave you to the right path? Or the ability to be here in this conference today? What are you gonna repay Him with? You can't. You just try to the best of your ability. And the companions even asked the prophet ﷺ, and this is how I finish.

They said, not even you O messenger of Allah? Not even you? Even your good is not gonna take you to paradise? He said, not even me. Not even my good will take me to paradise unless what? Anybody know how this ends? Unless God, the Creator, Allah is merciful to me. Why? What if He committed no sin? Mercy of the Creator is just the fact that I can breathe.

The mercy of the Creator is the fact that my heart beats, that my eyes see, that my brain works, that I'm alive. Today is the mercy of the Creator. So unless He has true mercy upon us and forgives us for what we cannot do to make up what He has given us, none of us will ever make it.

Think about that today. That name, your name was in that book for a reason. Try to do everything you can to repay your Creator for it.

Because if not, you're a loser. A loser. You're a loser in this life. I don't care how much money you make. You're a loser if you miss this point. I don't care how much of a big home you have, fancy cars, beautiful wife, beautiful children.

If you miss this, you're a loser. And this was very clearly stated by the first two human beings that ever existed.

They said:

"[Our Lord, we have wronged our own souls. If You forgive us not, and have not mercy on us, we shall certainly be of the losers.]"

Question 5: Praying at Work

My question relates to worshiping Allah. As you have said, we have been caught middle of the whole process compared to living here, for example, in Norway and very many other places in Europe whereby you have no choice of praying during the working hours while you are at work. Now, if you cannot pray on time, and what I believe, prayer is one of the most strongest pillars in this Islam. And it's not just to pray, but to pray on time.

But if you are not given the choice to pray on time simply because of your work or your school cannot allow you to pray, what can we do, brother?

Good question. Thank you very much for your question. Did everybody hear the question? Raise your hands if you didn't hear that question.

Okay, he said, talking about worshiping and prayer, which is one of the first pillars of worship after acknowledging the Creator exists. What if you are in a place like work or in school where you are forbade from praying on time, and you are not allowed to pray on time, how do you reconcile that? You see, the reality is that I have to speak the truth. I cannot get up here and water things down, because I am wasting my life, and I do that.

The problem with this, and how many of you have ever faced this situation? You are in a place where it's not okay to pray, and it's time to pray. I'm in one of those places all the time, they are called airports nowadays. You see, the problem with that is, is that we've misunderstood who Allah is.

As myself and Shaykh Haytham were talking about yesterday, tawhid is what we are missing. We are missing this so badly that it causes us to not understand how to answer these problems. How many of you wanna know how to answer that problem? Do you really wanna know? Raise your hand.

Okay. You see, when you go to work, you go to work to pay your bills, correct? Raise your hand, how many of you go to work to pay bills? Raise your hand, raise your hand. How many of you go to work just to make money, to buy nice things? Raise your hands.

Sisters, you can buy whatever you want with your money. How many of you go to work just to put food on the table, brothers? Pay the lights. You see, this is a problem with our understanding of rububiyyah.

Of understanding that Allah is Rabb. This is a problem for us. Because if you go to work to pay your bills, guess what your reward for that work is? Paying those bills.

That's your reward. In the hereafter, there might not be nothing for you because you did it for the wrong reasons. Anything we do in this life is supposed to be only to worship Allah.

No matter what it is. Even if my job is to clean the sewers of Oslo, I should do it knowing that I'm doing it to please Allah. Work is worship according to the Prophet ﷺ. Therefore, if I'm doing a work that interferes with that worship, then that work is no longer viable for a Muslim.

That's the reality of the matter. That when it's time to pray, you pray. You pray. Allah has created this earth as a masjid according to our Rasul ﷺ. And there are only a few places you can't pray. And let me tell you, you don't work in any of them. You don't work in any of them.

You pray when it's time to pray. There's no one that can stop you from that. Because you have to understand that Allah is Rabb.

That money that comes to you is not from your boss. It is not from your job. It is not from anything other than Allah has legislated that money to be placed in your hands.

And if you are getting that money by disobeying Him, I am afraid of what is waiting for you in the next life. I really am afraid. That if you place something before Allah, that thing has become your Rabb.

That has become your Lord and tawheed is thrown out the window. We need to understand that. That look, I don't care what you have going on right now. I need five minutes to pray. This so and so fulan and this jack off can go outside and smoke for 20 minutes and you're telling me I can't pray for five? We need to wake up. We need to wake up and realize that we have rights.

I don't care what the law says, I have a human right to worship how I want to worship. As long as that worship is not evil in and of itself. And I don't know how prayer has ever hurt anyone.

So these things we have to understand, we have to stand up for them. Because let me tell you something about this world. Freedom isn't free as they say, but they say it for the wrong reason.

Your rights, you have to fight for them. That's the way the world has always existed. Rights are not inalienable as they say in the United States Constitution.

Rights are by what we stand up for. We stand up for our rights, we fight for our rights. This is the value of human civilization. This is what has been known of the Muslims since the beginning. We stand up for our rights and our dignities. You will respect me.

You don't have to like me, I don't care if you like me or you don't like me. But you will respect me and respect who I am and you will respect my religious values. If you don't like it, then do what you wish.

If you fire me because of that, guess what, I have Allah who is Rabb. I have an Allah who is Rabb who will replace what I left for his sake with something better. That is the yaqeen, the certainty that the Muslims have to

have.

If not, then we're gonna continue to be muddled in this mud of degradation and humiliation forever. We have to wake up to this. Hopefully that answers the question.

You gotta do what you gotta do. As they say, you gotta do what you gotta do. It's time to pray, I gotta do what I gotta do. You do what you gotta do to make that money, do what you gotta do to make those good deeds.

Question 6: Evolution

Evolution? Okay. Evolution from the Muslim perspective? Okay. Thank you very much for your question.

And in order for me to do justice to it, I would need probably about 100 more minutes added to this little ticker here. It's something that is going on all the time. She wanted to know about evolution. And the Muslim idea of evolution or what is known as Darwinism.

The question is about Darwinism evolution. The fact that all living things come from microorganisms that existed in the sea. How they got there, not going down that whole road. The big bang and all of these things of this nature. It has been dealt with very beautifully. By many, many, many speakers and scholars of Islam.

And let me tell you one thing right now. There's probably no better person out there doing it right now than a dear friend of mine and a dear friend of our brother Yusuf Chambers here. His name is Hamza Tzortzis.

Go online and look at some of his ideas upon this. This man has a mind that Allah has blessed him with. MashaAllah, may it continue.

But one thing that I will tell you. The evolution, that Islam looks at evolution in such a way that, yes, humanity has evolved. For us to say that humanity isn't evolved is unjust.

Unjust. We as Muslims believe that Adam, was he similar to us? Was he just like us? No, he wasn't just like us. He was different than us.

How tall was Adam according to the most authentic narrations? 60 cubits, which is almost like 90 yards. 90 yards, a huge, huge individual. And humanity has changed and developed and evolved into this, what we know now.

We believe that. But we believe that Adam was a man, a human being, just like us. With the faculties that we possess, just different.

We believe that humanity has evolved. Our knowledge has evolved. Our civilizations have evolved. Many things about us have evolved. But if you want me to say that we've evolved from microorganisms that were existing in the ocean, who came from who know where, and that before my great, great, great, great, great grandfather swung through trees and ate bananas and was a monkey, then my question for you is, then why are there still monkeys? It just doesn't make any sense for the logical mind to look at.

Islam looks at evolution in a way that, yes, we have evolved. But we didn't evolve from nothingness. You get what I'm saying? There is a beginning to all of this. There has to be a beginning.

There has to be a beginning. Even Darwinism, even evolutionists say there was a beginning. There was a big bang.

Well, what did it bang from? Bangs don't just happen. You have to have something that causes a bang. In order for there to be a bang, there has to be a cause.

In order for that cause to have happened, there has to be something that makes it move, correct? It's the law of inertia. A body at rest will stay at rest. An object in motion will stay in motion.

So if there was no inertia, there was nothing that caused the bang, well then, there would be no banging happening. So we look at that in the process that, yes, Muslims do believe in something called a big bang theory. But we believe it is that Allah commanded that to be, for that bang to happen.

And then those microorganisms and those particles and those atoms and the building blocks of humanity and life itself knew where to go when that bang happened. It was so funny to me to hear Stephen Hawkins say that all of these organisms existed and it was such a random coincidence that they weren't patterned. That if they were patterned, then nothing would exist because none of these particles would have moved.

It was just so happened that there were a few organisms out of place or a few molecules or whatever they called them, out of place, that began this motion that set creation into existence. I mean, that's just a really big stretch for me. It's a really big stretch for me.

All of humanity hangs on that one little random coincidence. We look at it as a purpose, as a design. That yes, there may have been a big bang and creation still is happening right now.

Astronomers can look out into nebulae that are out in space and that smoke or those particles of dust that existed at the beginning are still forming things today. Creation is still happening. And we see that as a design, as a design, not as a random set of circumstances and coincidences.

I hope that is answering sufficiently to the best of my ability within two minutes. But our dear brother Hamza Tzortzis, you go type in his name, his last name. I'm just going to tell you, just type in TZ and you'll probably get the rest.

He's done very good jobs with this, so go and look at them. And he has dealt with this very beautifully.

Closing

Again, thank you for your time and your patience. If anything that I have said is wrong, know that it's because I'm a human being who has no knowledge and does not deserve to be standing here on this stage today. And I ask you to forgive me for that. But whatever I have said that is correct and that is good, know that all good comes from the Creator.

And He is the only one who deserves any thanks for it whatsoever. Thank you very much for your time.

"Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings"

End of Khutbah