Transcript>Clarity Admist Confusion

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Clarity Amidst Confusion

Date: May 13, 2019

I want to say, gratitude to Allah Subhana Watallah, for affording me the opportunity to come and be with this community and I know several of the people that asked me to come and their efforts and seriousness about trying to help the community here and in other places.

I didn't name the lecture and I feel the name of the lecture for me is a little bit difficult because of the idea of clarity in the midst of confusion; it's very difficult to be clear in the midst of confusion. Because when there's a lot of confusion human beings tend to get clouded and one of the signs of the latter days according to the prophets of Allah, is to them was that there would be a great deal of confusion he also said that the people of clarity would even become confused you had a movie on that even the people of clarity would become confused.

So confusion is definitely one of the signs of the times and what I'd like to talk about really is some of what I think is important in relation to our situation here in the United States and United Nations but particularly here in the United States because that's where we are and a person should be where he is.

Oftentimes people are somewhere else sometimes you talk to somebody and you see that they wander off they're actually not with you they're somewhere else and so a lot of people here who are Muslim are actually somewhere else and that's a problem. So before I do that I want to talk a little bit about some of the topics that seem to be in the headlines and also some of the things that people are seeing on Fox News and other stations and certainly the 700 Club and some of the talk radio shows around the country in which Islam has become a very important topic.

One of the things that seems to be coming up considerably and this is not new but it's new in the aggressiveness by which it's being presented to the people here and it's also new in the widespread nature of this idea now, the idea that Islam is a violent religion.

This is certainly something that we're hearing a lot and seeing a lot in the media and then images are shown of contorted faces in different parts of the Muslim world as a way of purchasing that viewpoint the Islam is a violent religion so I wanted to address the idea first of all of violence and how the West itself has viewed violence in the past and just look at some historical perspectives on this idea. First of all there are probably some people that are more inherently violent than other people. In other words violence will often actually relate to the types of geographies that people live in. People in southern warm climates tend to be less violent than people in northern and climates where it's cold and you can see this historically. There's a chapter in Gavin's in Hippocrates book and it's the first chapter of his book on medicine it's called Water, Airs and Places and he talks about the effect that geography has on people and generally Muslims have lived in warmer climates generally not always but the areas if you look where Muslims have lived in colder climates that you will notice that they have been more belligerent in their history I mean this is simply just a fact of history and it's not a racist or an ethnic attack on these people.

If you know in this country with the Native American people's the more violent clans tended to be in the north the horarms were a particularly brutal clan and they got a widow who was a whore on and a peacemaker had such a difficult time with his people that he actually migrated south to spread his message of peace amongst southern Native American peoples here.

So that does not mean that other people have not had their share of violence because violence is a human problem and wherever you go you will find violence. Now the if we look just historically at this idea of terrorism a lot of people think that somehow terrorism is a new phenomenon. Now if we take a definition of terrorism which is used by the, for instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation their definition of terrorism is an unlawful use of course of force against a civilian population as a way of intimidating that population into submitting to some political agenda or for to submit to social objectives. Now I find a lot of problems with that definition because I think if you look at that definition always the problem arises what is unlawful and who determines what is unlawful. Because we can do things as a state that are unlawful for instance by international law if you look at the Geneva Convention which is basically agreed upon by the nations of the world as the proper way to engage in warfare there are rules and engagement at the idea of killing civilians that is unacceptable and yet the United States of America in World War two after being convinced by the British is the best way to basically, to force the Japanese population into submission was to firebomb them because they made their houses out of wood and so they used incendiary bombs in Tokyo and fire spread over and tens of thousands of civilians were killed and it was understood that they would be civilians and that they would die.

There was also a choice to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that was done by the Truman

administration. Truman didn't actually want to bomb he was opposed to bombing a civilian population he preferred to have a military target but they felt that bombing Hiroshima which only had 10,000 Japanese soldiers in the whole city and there were over a hundred thousand civilians that died in that bomb and it was understood that they would die.

This was not collateral damage because collateral damage according to the dominant parlay of this war machine that we have is people who died as an unintended result of fire, in other words, there's not an intent to kill the civilians but they have to be and an unfortunate side effect in the same way when you use medicine to heal sometimes the medicine has side effects that cause illnesses. So the fact that they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki was basically a terrorist act because it was an unlawful use of force against the civilian population in order to intimidate them to a political objective and this is something that American analysts and theoreticians and war strategists will admit you they will not deny that fact. One of the reasons it's been noted that there was so little horror and so little objection raised in America about the use of the atomic bomb was because it was on Japanese people and they were non-European the idea even though the Americans did consider dropping bombs nuclear bombs on Germany some people felt that had it been done on Europe there would been a much better outcry and there was also a desire for vengeance in this country because of Pearl Harbor. December 7th 1941 when the Japanese attacked a military installation it was a surprise attack and then declared war the same day it was a proper surprise attack and it was considered very treacherous thing to do and so there was a lot of anger and resentment in this country towards Japanese people for doing that and you can even watch the cartoons of the 1940s when Japanese were made fun of and they were called derogatory names and it was very common and even in the 1950s and 60s there was still a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment and people it took quite a long time before Americans would even behind things from Japan.

Buying a Japanese car at one point was considered un-American if you bought a Japanese car so

the resentment that this country felt toward the Japanese was very intense.

Now it's terrorism basically if we look in the past terrorism has existed there are examples of terrorism we have if you read the Pelekenesian war facilities has a wonderful dialogue that occurs between the Athenians and the Malians and I reread it recently I'd read it a long time ago but I reread it recently I've seen it noted in some books I want to go back and look at it and it's a wonderful dialogue because in the Pelekenesian War which was a war between the Athenian state and Sparta which was a more warlike state the Athenians sent some delegation to this small island which was kind of like a Greek Switzerland and they basically told them you had to join our side. And the Melian said we don't want to join your side we want to stay out of this war remain neutral we have good relations with you we have good relations with the Spartans.

Well, the Athenians said, they basically said that we do what we will but you do what you must. In other words, might makes right that power enables us to do what we want and because you are powerless you will have to be in accord with our will. Now the Malians response to that is very interesting they warned them about injustice because they say what comes around goes around. If you are in just one day you will find yourself at the brunt of that same injustice now this occurred by the end of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans actually come into Athens and literally Massacre all the males in the city and this is all recorded by this Greek historian who knows that this was a tragic flaw of the Athenian state. He portrays it like a Greek drama where the Greek hero is brought down by his arrogance, by his hubris because he thinks he becomes so powerful that he can tell anybody to do what he wants and there's a deep warning in the past if we study history of taking this approach that that power the nature of power is that if you use your power unjustly that you bring down your own downfall it is inherent in that it's assumed antagonize and you see it again and again in history.

So you find the use of violence against civilians throughout history this is not new. In fact, it's very interesting that there are two basic ideas that come into the world that begin to change this idea and the first one was Christianity because when Christianity entered in on to the scene you had a brilliant theologian and scholar St. Agatha who was from North Africa who wrote about a just war and he introduced the idea of being fair and having this idea of proportionality that you should not use excessive force. Now this didn't really take hold in the Christian world but it's interesting that the idea was presented because as Christianity became more and more powerful it became part of a state apparatus and it became as violent as the Roman Empire and in some ways more so because the Roman tends to be very tolerant of other people's beliefs they did not oppress people for their belief they oppress people for basically not agreeing with them or not being part of the Roman Empire. That's what troubled and is it that you weren't politically in line with them but if you wanted to believe something else not only would the rest of the Romans accommodate you they would basically adopt your God and put them into the pantheon of gods. so if you were a North African and you worshipped Bal the Romans had no problem bringing Bal into the pantheon of Roman gods and it was a way of accommodating these people but the Romans had a very interesting attitude and that was that anyone that started an insurrection against the Romans would be literally destroyed the Romans would send armies on them and they would raid them to the ground and that was part of Roman policy and they felt that that was the best policy. So you have an example of this in the example of Hannibal who is the first non-Roman to attack inside Rome and he definitely takes his troops, the famous trip through Spain and across the Alps and into Rome and then for several years he undergoes up a guerrilla warfare and he had one time actually lay siege to Rome. Well, he was eventually defeated but what the Romans do is they go to Carthage and they raid the city of the Carthaginians and they literally sell salt in the earth so that nothing will grow again and this was the type of hatred that they had. Now another interesting thing about the Romans is that during their period of rule and they had a vast empire which extends into the Middle East during their period of rule the most dangerous rebellions and interactions against the Romans were led by people that had been trained by the Romans themselves and this is what they call in modern the CIA causes blowback. It's the unforeseen consequences of covert activities of state policy blowback, it comes from fire. It's a fire that you open the door just literally will take you out.

So it's an unfortunate consequence and this occurs several times in Roman history where they would train because the Romans at a certain point got lazy they didn't like to fight so they would train Germans or they would train Greeks or Cecelia. They would train them to fight what would happen is these officers would lead insurrections against them and this occurred in Germany some of the most important insurrection against our own apartment that by Germans who were trained by Roman officers. So the use of terrorism as a means to intimidate a people is not new it is not a 20th century phenomena it's very old and what has changed perhaps in the 20th century is the means by which this is done because in the past the weaponry and the technology was somewhat primitive so you needed basically manpower whereas in the present conditions you don't need manpower you need brainpower. In other words, if you have people that are clever enough that can build sophisticated bombs and sophisticated means or do something as sophisticated as hijacking four airplanes at the same time in a very coordinated military operation and three out of the four are successful in their intended mission as far as we can tell I mean that they might not have been that they might not have intended to do what they did they might have intended to do something else but as far as it looks they were successful. That is not manpower more than it is brainpower it's people that are capable of working at a very high level of precision.

Now the interesting thing about these people is like the Romans who had insurrections against themselves these people were trained by the Americans. You see they were trained that's why Muslims said Muslims could have done this because it was too sophisticated well if you were trained by extremely sophisticated people that it's obviously quite possible because there are many Muslims in this country working at very high levels, they've learned to work in a different way than they would work back home because the rules don't apply here that apply back home so perhaps in your job you can't cut the corners that you would be forced to do in another place, something like that. So the point is that this type of violence that has come back to haunt this country is a result of what their own hands have brought now that is a painful thing to deal with and that is why I feel even though researchers talk about this and honest analysts talk about this and you can read this it looks like the New Jackal where they have quotations from people within the CIA who admit this is a monster we spawned ourselves - one of the

heads of the CIA and that's a direct quote from the book of the new jackals. Admit it this is a monster that we spawned ourselves. So this is a problem because Muslims end up being blamed for being violent and yet that violence was taught to them by non-Muslims and the reason it was taught to them is because there was a cold war going on between Russia and between America and the Muslims in 1950s there was already talk within the US administration that the best way to fight the Russians, the godless Russians was to use the Muslims. And this actually becomes policy and you will see again and again is this policy is acted out and it culminates in what was known as operation Mosquito. The Afghanis were seen as a mosquito that could give the Great Bear Russia malaria and bring it down. That's literally what they called it and I'm not making this up this is things that you can read it's on official records. 1.5 million Afghans died in that war, 15,000 Russians died. 1.5 million now that does not include the number of Afghanis walking around without legs or with one leg, with one eye, with an arm with no arms, with their faces filled with shrapnel. That doesn't include all of the devastation that doesn't include the breakdown of the infrastructure. I mean I read there was a book recently they put out behind a veil or something written by a pseudonym.

This woman who lived under the Taliban Afghani woman. I mean I personally have a hard time believing that an Afghani woman wrote that book because I read some of the excerpts and one of the things she said is the Taliban ruined all her hopes were going to a university. Well I'm sorry nobody in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban had any hopes for going to a university because it was a state of an anarchy and that's accepted by anybody that knows Afghan history but unfortunately people read these books without any historical context and so they assumed it must be true these evil Taliban came and prevented this poor woman from going to the university. All of the universities were closed down, there weren't women studying there was anarchy, there was a state of anarchy and these people came in and they were supported by the CIA, by the Pakistani intelligence security and also by the Saudi intelligence by their own admittance. And this is this is things that they themselves have admitted so the situation that we find ourselves in is a very complicated situation. It's a spider's web and the more you look at it the more you end up like the fly in that web and that's the part of purpose of the web and all the intrigues and all the complexities is to draw you into it, is to draw you into it and you will forget what this whole thing is about because you can see I can go on and on I can talk for another several hours about the web. I've just talked a little bit about a few strands in the web. I could go on and on because I read a lot about it, I thought a lot about it and it's very troubling but I don't want to talk about the web. I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about the Muslims and their relationship to the web.

Now the first thing I want to talk about is anger. Anger is a very interesting emotion it resides according to traditional Muslim scholars who were physicians as well, it resides in the liver. They believe that anger was actually in the Kabit in the liver and who cabbie do means to struggle with something it's from the same room as Kabit and they believe that the emotion of love resided in the heart. Now obviously the liver derives its nourishment from the heart and anger is something that can enter into the heart as well it can affect the heart but what's really at the source of the heart is muhabba and the ideal of love that is in the heart is first and foremost love of God his love of Allah secundum johannem and all of his messengers and for us obviously the Prophet Muhammad Salah them takes precedence over the other messengers. Now anger is something that is conspicuously absent in the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallaahuatoms and I want to really ask you to go through the seal and try to find an incident in which the prophet of Allah Ari Husenen lost his cool whereas he became angry, where he threw something, where he shouted at somebody. I want you to find a place, somewhere in the theorem where he literally did that and I don't think you can. It doesn't mean that he didn't get angry he did get angry, he had probably laughs for the sake of God and that's indignation if he saw something that was wrong there was something that swelled in him but it was never something that overcame him. And this is why the prophet 26:18 said laser Shadid Shadid essaouira 26:23 26:24 26:24 26:25 26:26 The powerful one amongst you is not the wrestler that can throw everybody, the powerful one is the one who overcomes his anger when it arises that is the real strength that is somebody who is fierce and Allah says 26:46 26:47 those who are Shadid with the cofa. Now if the essence of being strong is to control one's anger that means that essence of being weak is to lose one's control over oneself in anything whether its food, whether its emotions is to lose that control. That is what weakness is, it is not having control and that's why powerless people are weak people because they have no control they don't feel any control now what a powerless people will do in order to explain why they don't have any control is they will formulate intricate conspiracy theories and this is because the nature of being powerless it's a difficult situation to be in, it's very painful and with pain comes sorrow.

Now there are two roads that one can go down that begin with sorrow the first road is sorrow moves to self-pity you begin to feel sorry for yourself and then that self-pity moves to anger, you get angry because you're hurting and then anger leads to blame. So you find a source to blame for all of your problems. Now that is one way to go and what it ends up is it ends up in gender and powerlessness because one of the interesting things about the Jewish people I find is if the Jewish people do not have conspiracy theories about why they were oppressed in the West. They don't have these intricate conspiracy theories in their view of the world because there are people that struggle and continue to struggle until they moved out of that condition of weakness because if you look even in the 19th century and early 20th century and people don't realize that in the 1940s in this country there were still Jewish only beaches in New York. Jewish people were not allowed to go to white beaches, they couldn't live in the nice parts of town they couldn't join the country club that's only 50 years ago in this country. So they have struggled very hard to achieve the status that they have achieved. It's very hard work and a lot of it was overcoming immense obstacles. Now, this idea of being in the state of powerlessness and deciding to go the way of blame is actually for those who want you to remain powerlessness is a very effective way of doing that.

In other words, people that want you to stay powerless they want actually not only encourage but they will feed you the means by which you can maintain those views. Sun Tzu says in him in the Art of War anger your opponents and send them into disarray because if you have people functioning from an emotional center they can't think clearly, they can't reason, they can't change their conditions and therefore if you look at the amount of energy that Muslims throughout the Muslim world spend on West bashing or American bashing if that energy was spent on actually attempting to look for constructive means to change their conditions would it not be better energy spent and wouldn't America or the West who's operating on a competitive basis wouldn't they prefer that you were in the West bashing as long as you were changing your condition if they indeed wanted to maintain the control over you. I mean doesn't that make sense?

Now the prophet 31:38 31:39 in a beautiful hadith he said a man said to him 31:42 31:43 and he said that 31:45 don't get angry. He said no, no. no al see ni I want some real advice. He said 31:53 don't get angry. He said Al si ni, three times he said it so. He said 31:59 don't get angry. So this emotion is very powerful will take you down that road where you end up pointing the blame on everybody but yourself. Now the problem with that approach is it will work in this world at the psychological level, not at any real deep level but at the psychological level it works it feels good, it's all their fault, the devil made me do it, I don't have any responsibility here it's all their fault. If America would just go away Pakistan to be a wonderful place to live.
Really, it would be a wonderful place we'd all be in paradise because there's no problem with us we're all great people it's these evil people out here and this is a mannequin view of the world. It's dark versus light and the Quran tells us the dark versus light is happening inside the soul it's not happening out there, that's one aspect of it this happening right in between your own two sides. So you can go down that road now the other boat is another road and that is to go from sorrow when you go to the state of sorrow and grief and then to introspection. If you actually attempt to introspect that in order to do that you need to detach in other words you need to step outside of the emotions that you're feeling now one of the interesting things about the human mind is that emotions are often related to our likes and dislikes. See the emotional baggage that you have for a person is often just a feeling you have whether you like that person you don't like it and the best example of that is 33:50 33:51 who said 33:52 33:53 33:54 33:55 33:56 33:57 that the eye of contentment sees nothing but no faults but the eye or contempt can see nothing but faults. So something doesn't like you all they see is your faults and if they love you they can't see any of your faults and that's why you all know people like that and you've probably done it with people but you're not aware of it so you need to detach. Now one of the ways they're doing that is to examine why you don't like something or somebody or their position.

Why don't I like this? Now the Quran says in summing up this concept 34:40 34:41 34:42 maybe you love a thing and there'no good in it for you.

34:47 34:48 34:49 and maybe you detest a thing and in it is much good for you, in other words, you want to think about things deeply you can't just assume that might get likes and dislikes are giving me a clearer perspective on reality that's what the core I'm telling you that you might be deluded by your life in this life that the hatred of something or someone or an idea is preventing you from being just in your assessment and that's why the Quran says 35:26 35:27 35:29 35:31 35:33 Do not let the loathing you that you have for our people prevent you from being just towards those people because that is closer to piety that is closer to chakra. Because God is not he is not a petulant God we do not believe in a God in his petulant, that has likes and dislikes this there are suna and we don't believe in these emotions that God has emotion. And 36:04 36:05 if you look at the traditional interpretations they always warn you do not think this is like human emotions 36:12 36:14 36:15 36:17 in Malaya. He likes very specific things and he tells you what they are and if you're one of them you will love you and if you're not like the people who 36:26 we are the children of God and his beloved and then they're asked 36:32 36:33 then why are you punished for your wrong action? Because if your child or the one you love you don't torture them, you don't reach havoc on them, you discipline them. So that's a question if you have this chosen status then why do you find yourselves in these horrific conditions? No, because there's a reason for them and if you want to understand them and you have to think deeply and take it to another level. Many of our 37:11 in the past and among them was even Tamiya he said37:16 37:17 37:22 37:25 37:26 that God will maintain more just polytheistic people over and unjust Muslim state. Now that's the kind of God you want. You want a God that is consistent with the principles that God is teaching you. Isn't that the God you want to be submitted to? A God that does not have a set of principles for one people and then another set for another people and a lot of Muslims don't understand that justice is not the sole possession of Muslims justice is a concept that is out there and 38:12 commenting on the form of 38:15 when it says a one pistol milady 38:19 38:21 that justice from in other than the Quran for a people will never be established. 38:27 this is justice only amongst the Muslims as for the non-Muslims they can have justice without the Quran and even though the Quran says about the Torah and the injeel see who does there see whoever knows there's guidance and mind in it and when the Jews came to the Prophet Salah what did he test them by? The Quran? No, he does it by the Torah. Do you think the prophet Elijah would judge by something that was unjust? Hasha. He would judge them by their own book and when they were killed 38:59 they were killed not according to the Islamic ruling but according to the ruling of the Torah and even for your opinion you've been judged with it. So yes the head of the Jews tried admitted to the prophet Elijah that you've been judged in your judgment. So anger you can go down that path, you can go from sorrow and then you can go from this self-pity, anger and blame or you can go another, way which is to go the way to have this detachment, to look outside of the situation to remove yourself from the emotional content of the situation and attempt to see it at a different level and this is something the prophet 39:53 wants his son look at 39:58 when he was being attacked in the presence of the Prophet Allah incident and when al-jabbar began to as the prophets that regionalize him smiling as man was slandering of Abubaca and at the moment that I would welcome to began to defend him so he couldn't take it anymore because the man was telling untruth.

He couldn't take it anymore Abubaca began to defend himself apologized and stood up and walked out of the room Abubaca when he saw him later he said 40:28 when when I was silent you were there smiling and then when I defended myself which is my right you got up and left and he said as long as you were silent I saw the angel I could hear that angels defending you Abubaca and when you began to defend yourself Chevron came into the room. At that point she had argument and I don't sit in a room where Chefon is. So the point of that story is that there is a higher road that if you take the road of detachment and which leads ultimately this intersection because it gives you an ability to actually look critically yourself which leads to compassion that you begin to actually see the situation in a different way, in a different light. You begin to understand that the person who was attacking Abubaka is the one that we should have pity for not Abubaka. He's the one that you should a pity for not the one being slandered the one doing the slandering. This is a different way to go and this is the path of the phrophet Mohamed Salah de Sena when he looked at the people that were persecuting him he said alumnus of communism overlooked these people because they don't know,what they're doing. Really, when he looked at them, look at something when he went into subbies and he looked at these people they didn't even have the dignity to persecute him themselves they sent their servants and their children to do it. They threw rocks at him they bloodied his feet, he walked out of 42:17 and we know the story what happened. The two angels come Avada or punishment and said we will destroy the city and the prophet 42:25 said no don't destroy it because I would hope that there comes out of their loins those who worship allah subhanallah, in other words, I would prefer that they make Toba than that they're destroyed. See that's the detachment that's not getting caught up because if you were there in an emotional state you just be angry yet I 42:49 just get rid of it. That's what somebody in an angry State would do but he had the detachment to see these are ignorant people and what they're doing they're doing largely out of ignorance it's a different planet it's a harder path I mean the beauty of Quran is it allows for vengeance hoorah allows for vengeance the Quran says 43:11 43:12. If you kill somebody and there are killed you oppress them in that 43:20 43:2043:21 43:22 we have given here's the wedding of that person the one who's in the position of the agnate the male relative like the father, the uncle, the son we have given them authority to get retribution but then almost it says 43:46 do not go to any excess in your retaliation, in your retribution. In other words, don't make adventures because what will happen when you make it vengence in the Buchanans war?

That person that you're going to access in the vengeance he has other allies that will want vengeance from you and this is the cycle of violence. This is what creates the cycle of violence you see. A Palestinian goes and blows up some Jewish people and then the Jews go into a neighborhood, not of people who blew up just they had nothing to do with those people they just want retaliation it's a retaliatory strike but it's vengeful, why? Because those people might have had nothing to do with it and more likely than not they didn't and so you're taking, you're punishing a people who they've done nothing wrong and that's wrong because what happened all of those people, the people that are relatives to those people now they want vengeance. And the cycle continues and Islam came to break those cycles but you have to be in control of yourself in order to break those cycles. If we want to break those cycles we have to go to another level of understanding now we can't take the path of neurism to fight nurism which is exactly what terrorism is. It's neurism because it says basically anything goes that the end justifies the means that's not our religion that. That is another religion, it's not our religion and once you go that path you have forfeited the possibility of being the one who can break the cycle because you have become the very thing you're fighting. One, because you don't have control over yourself.

You're not thinking, you can't think strategically and Islam is about strategic thinking and I'll give you an example strategic thinking. In the fifth year of hijab the messenger of allah promised that they would make Humba. He took 1400 of the suha including his wife to make huma. What happened? The Quraish said we're not going to let them come in, we're not gonna let them humba. So they got all their weapons and they were ready to go out and one of the 46:23 46:25 went to the prophet Elijah within and he said for Asia ready to kill you, they're gonna fight you and they're not gonna let you go in the house. What did the 46:33 46:34 ? Did he say well we'll fight then we'll kill them? No, he said we didn't come to fight 46:42 we came to do an Omrathem we came to worship 46:47 and then he said 46:49 46:50 and war has really had a bad effect on Poresh.

In other words, Poresh was moving. So yeah he said this thing hasn't been working out for you. 47:03 47:04 If you want we'll give you some time, we'll make a mosalaha I mean look at the power he's saying to them if you want we'll give you time, we'll let you have a truce and so this man 47:20 goes to the Quoresh and he says I listen to this man and this is what he said and he told them. So they sent another one out to do a follow-up to head. Now when 47:32 goes down to Malmo he can't exactly do the truce because they decided to try to get a truce with 47:41 Suher comes what does the prophet 47:43 say when he saw him? 47:45 Everything's going to be easy now why because Suhel is here. Suhel means the one that is easy, is easy going. So even for a non-Muslim he took a good omen in his name. In other words, he saying here's Suhel he's going to make everything easy for us. They sent us to hell, was it an easy truce?

The first thing that he says he called Sigma Ali the man says to him alright let's write this thing 48:12 - go ahead write the same. The prophet 48:17 says 48:18 48:19 write in the name of Allah the mercifully compassionate - what is - he'll say 48:25 48:26 48:28 we don't know this thing called Raknah write what we usually write. 48:33 in the name of Allah Allah that's what the Quoresh to write on their treat.

At that point what did the Muslim say now Allah 48:43 48:44 they all shout 48:46 48:47 what did 48:50 48:50 say 48:53 48:54. So he writes it down Next one so to have an Abba Muhammadan Rasul Allah this is what Allah muhammadun Rasulullah this is what connects the message of God his life what is to him say no 49:10 49:11 49:13 If we thought you were the Messenger of God we wouldn't be fighting you. Don't write Messenger of God. What did the Muslim say? They're ready to pull out their swords and this is after it was permitted to fight. What is the messenger of Allah almighty am say? 49:31 49:32 I am The Messenger of God 49:34 49:38 49:39 this is what Muhammad the son of Abdullah. This is compromise and then what do they say the prophet 49:49 says we're going to make a truce that we are allow to make on God what is to enhance 49:57 49:59 50:00 50:02 50:03 50:05 You can't make the amla this year, because we're not gonna, have Arab saying that we were pressured by you.

So what does the nasir apostle license say 50:15we'll do it next year. Every single point and then he gets to the next point what did he say? He says any Muslims that come we are allowed to keep them if they become awesome. 50:32 50:33 you won't be allowed to keep them. At this point, the Muslims are fearing Omar looked at me and says 50:40 50:41 aren't you the Messenger of God, in other words, what are you doing, why are you doing this? This is humiliation. Why are you taking us his route. We're strong, there's 1400 were ready to die. 50:56 50:57 says and at this point Allah an amazing thing happened the Sun if you know Albertans agenda who's the son of Suhe come in chains and he was one of ones that they were keeping in chains.

He comes begging the 51:15 and he had been tortured it literally says 51:18 he had been tortured terribly. Now at this point you think about this is the messenger Allah, with 1,400 men all with their swords and this is year five, they have permission to fight and here's this man saying don't send me back to them 51:35 and what does Suhe say? He's the first one you sent back the promise of life said we haven't signed this yet let him come with us and he says that a lot I won't.

So the prophet Elijah and him tells him to be patient. Allah will open up a way for you. Ahmar they were furious at this point really the Sahaba were really upset about this but the Prophet was looking, this is called 52:01 looking in long-term, not short-term gain, long-term gain and so at that point the prophet Salah said to them he's agreed on all of these points and then what did he do? Didn't you say we were gonna make Oma? I mean Oma is angry and Oma said I did much charity as a way of expiating my behavior on that day. Oma felt terrible later because he was in an emotional state he wasn't in a detached state. He was in an emotional state and then at that point he says to him a 52:43 did I say I was gonna do it this year? So then Oma goes to Abubakar and he says isn't in the measure Omaha said the exact same thing throw to license that even wasn't there when he was saying it. He told him the exact same thing, the same answers and Oma said I realized the station of Abubakar on that day.

See this is a level of understanding that's different from now what happens is they go on their way back and the first 53:12 53:13comes. We have given you a vast opening.

It looks like then it was all compromised, it was all keeping up, it was all terrible that's such. Now you know what's interesting about this? Some of the biggest enemies of the 53:26 became Muslim because and they said the character of that man that day they saw who he was. That they saw that he was doing this for a lot, it wasn't about him and that's why 53:53 became Muslim 53:55 became Muslim they were so devastated by his 54:03 and what people have forgotten is that this thing is ultimately it's about, it is about ethicasy that's exactly what was said earlier that the ones who have the best 54:17 are the closest to Allah and that's what this Ummah lost. Its lost Edeh and it's lost understanding, its lost wisdom and you're not going to get it back by getting more angry by going into more emotional states, by going into but it's not going to happen and you're just going to be like Sun Tzu you'll be like those people that are in disarray and their enemies will just wreak havoc on them really so this is the choice. There's two paths but I challenge all of you to reread the Sera about prophet Elijah there's people don't even know how many times there were assassination attempts on him.

Who in here, really who can tell me how many times they attempted to kill the messenger Allah? Anybody knows? Most people think it's one or two. Thirteen assassination attempts you don't know about it because he was he wasn't concerned about those things, he was with Allah he wasn't concern about their plots and Allah says in the Quran 55:26 55:28 55:29 don't be depressed and don't be constricted about their plots. Why are you getting so caught up in all of their plots? 55:42 55:43 They plot and Allah plants 55:48 So we have now and I just want to talk, I'll finish this and then open it up I want to talk just about a few things about this community in the US. We have a historical situation in this country that is unprecedented as far as I can tell and that's what Dr. Alma was a great historian that's his opinion is that's his opinion is that this community is a historical community because we are in this country in immense numbers with immense talent, immense manpower, financial power and we are not doing what we should be doing and that's the tragedy because history are really windows of opportunity, historical moments are windows of opportunity and if you don't see them they close and we don't know and I don't know whether there can be an American Muslim. I know that there's been an American Muslim identity so to speak I know that Islam has been in this country for at least 500 years and possibly pre-Columbian and we know that beyond a shadow of a doubt because at least 20% that's conservative estimates at least twenty percent of Africans that were brought here as slaves were brought here they were Muslims and we know that and some people think it's as much as thirty and in some periods it was at least thirty.

Now one of the things about the Muslims like Sultan Neesam said who wrote The Gulag Archipelago, he said that the one people in the Agulhas when these internment camps in Siberia the one people that would not accept the psychology of submission and humiliation were the Chechens. See they were the one people that the Russians could not break that's what's so neat and it was not a Muslim he's just looking at that watching them and he said they had a haughty pride about them and they wouldn't allow the Russians to break them and he said and the fascinating thing about this is that the Russians actually feared them more. It made them fear them and the thing about the Muslim is the Muslim is a problem. In a society where you want people to be docile consumers to believe that they were created to buy, to believe that they were created to have gratuitous pleasure, created to be object and treat others as objects in a society where you want people to think that the purpose and goal of life is to accumulate more and more stuff. Muslims are a problem because they know that that's not why they were created.

They were created to submit to our most 59:06 to Allah and that's why they don't submit to 59:09if they're true to their faith and that person will always be a problem when you want people in a state of abject humiliation and submission and the worst form of humiliation is turning people into slaves to their lowest appetites which is what's happening to this society and unfortunately to the Muslim societies as well. People are losing their dignity as human beings and the Muslims are there to challenge that but not to challenge it with violence to challenge it with intelligence, to challenge it with the sense that civil that has ended and that does not mean that Islam does not have war but Islam has war with rules and with a specific time and appropriate places Muslims do not fight just like we see in the 1:00:00. They do not fight it whether there's a better outcome and benefit not to fight and those are weighed in the balance more than us and there is no vigilantism in Islam and anyone that disrupts social security in a society, the actual security of people living amongst each other the one who to switch that security is a demon.

They are a demon because it is a blessing from Allah. Allah says in the Quran said 1:00:32 1:00:32 1:00:33 1:00:37 let them worship the Lord of this house who gave them freedom from hunger and freedom from fear. Now in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you can't think about spiritual matters unless your stomach and your anxiety is quelled - unless you have a sense of security and that's why Allah is saying if you're well fed and if you feel secure worship me and that's why if you're starving or if you're in a state of fear there's no worship. You can't worship up a line those states. So if you're in that situation where Allah has breathed your society from fear and given you what you need for your livelihood the onus is on you to be a servant of Allah and not to change that condition because it's a blessing and if you think it's easy to build a society once you've created anarcky just as the empirmy how easy it is. Because there are Afganis that would wish they were living under Najiba law. There's Afghanis that would wish it was 1972.

A nation once destroyed cannot be rebuilt that sunsuit, that's an old understanding Sun Tzu says do not lead your people into war out of anger because he said a life once taken cannot be restored and a nation once destroyed cannot be rebuilt and then the best victory is the one that no bloodshed is spilled that's the victory of the foot at Mecca 1:02:30 one of the Sahaba said to the carrion you think that the great opening was Mecca no it was a Judedia. That was the great fetch why? 1:02:41 1:02:42 1:02:44 Allah is pleased with those who take there with you. They got sort of won on that day and it was all compromised but it was compromised for a higher purpose or goal. We don't compromise 1:02:59 never compromises principle and even 1:03:05 1:03:06 and this is a sound transmission that 1:03:10 others have related. He was taken prisoner, he was the man that was sent to Kisof and Kisof ripped up the letter. But he was taken prisoner during a battle during 1:03:19 and the Roman ruler told him was a like a general told him, he said if I won't kill you will you reject your religion and become a Christian? He said go ahead and kill me do it. And then he took they had a boil a pot of boiling water and they dropped a Muslim in there in front of him and he said I'm going to do that to you unless you become a Christian and at that point 1:04:06 wept and this ruler looked at me said you feel some fear? He said 1:04:15 I'm not feeling any fear he said I was weeping because I realized I only have one soul to give for Allah and I wish I had the number of souls as the hairs of my body and at that point, this ruler said to him he was impressed with him now. He said if you kiss me on the forehead I'll let you go and 1:04:42 said 1:04:44what about my brother, the other prisoner? I said in my own self this is an enemy from the enemies of God not with value 1:04:58 1:04:58 1:05:01 1:05:02 he said this is an enemy from the enemies of God and I don't care this will help my brothers. So he went kissed him on the forehead and then he let them go because people kept their word and he when he got back to Omaha they told Omaha what had happened and Omar had him come and he said 1:05:19 1:05:22 1:05:24 every Muslim should kiss at the forehead of this man and he went kissed his forehead because that skirt does not understand you have to look at 1:05:34where is the benefit lies and we have to be intelligent. Muslims need to be intelligent.

Now in this country, we have several things that we have to do the time we have right now. One of the things we have to do is that we have failed to let people know who the Muslims truly are. We failed to do that and this is a benefit not just to the Muslim community here that's the least of the benefit is a benefit because we do not want the Muslim demonized in other parts of the world because it becomes easy for people that have the power that this country has been given to drop cluster bombs on their head, to do these things.

And unfortunately we have individuals out there that are acting in delusional ways, misguided ways and then they end up condemning whole nations in the whoever killed that reporter in Pakistan he's upsetting every Pakistani because that's what people are gonna look at and that's because people are that's the nature most people. People don't think they're emotional and they look at is emotional and we're lucky that there's enough thinking people here that don't react that way I mean we're fortunate so there are many things that we need to do but that's one of the most important and this needs to be more organized, it needs to be done more intelligently, it needs to be done with structure, we need to have outreach to the communities, our civic duties as a community in this country of law-abiding citizens because Muslims are law-abiding they abide by laws or they migrate. No one has the authority in this country by Allah no one has the authority to use break the law or disrupt the security of the society and if they do they're in a state of disobedience with Allah 1:07:35 the prophet 1:07:39 the 13 years he was in Mecca he did not have cells of people that were undermining the Meccans that were blowing anything up, that were killing anybody he didn't do that because permission was not granted to him until he had a state, a center of government and at that point 1:08:01 1:08:02 permission was granted for them to fight because they were oppressed.

Well, they were impressed in Mecca, they were oppressed in Mecca why wasn't it granted in Mecca? Because had it been granted in Mecca it would have set precedence then anytime Muslims are in a state of oppression they can fight but that's not the case you have to have legitimate state authority in order to wage wars and total war theory is not part of Islam. It's actually antithetical to Islam. Islam does not believe in total war and we do believe in Soleh in alliances, in treaties and all of these things part of the Sharia. So it's very important we also have to spread tip and then part of the major problems in the Muslim world now is because there's not enough tip. There are people that don't understand the Shedia and even when you study Shedia you have to get to a level of Usul. There are people now speaking in the name Islam that have never read a text on basic Islamic jurisprudence they haven't studied kaffir, they haven't studied with teachers, they read things on the weekends or in their free time and I guarantee you-you can find whatever you want in the books of Islam to justify whatever you want. You can work out a Fatchwa from several different sources to justify September 11 and the Christians can do the same thing with their book to justify their own heinous atrocities. I mean priests justified slavery against black people in this country and the Jews as well as the Rabbis in this country. There are treaties that were written by Christians and Jews justifying racial slavery not slavery, racial slavery that there were the accursed descendants of Ham and that they're inferior. That was justified by the Bible. So you can use scriptures, you can use the words of the scholars. I mean there's an opinion in the Ofia that is recorded that 1:10:06 said that it's permissible to kill Priests in war and Nuns. Now I've seen that translated into English and a book written by a Muslim and that is wrong. It's a wrong opinion that is not the opinion of the 1:10:23 nor that the opinion of Imam Malik but it was transmitted and the thing about the Muslims they transmitted everything because they were honest so everything that scholars mentioned - the good the bad and the ugly it's all there and if you want to find the most crazy insane positions you can find it in Islam I guarantee you. You can find it in the books and I've seen them I've read stuff I can't believe it there is a misogynistic things in early Muslim books, things that are clearly unacceptable to say about women that were said that are not in the spirit of Islam but you'll find them in the books.

So we pull those out and we start spreading this teaching, no it's not acceptable because it's not. But people are products of their society and there were a lot of strain in Islam and people who are from there in here subcontinent know that there are Hindu influences on the Muslims even though the Muslims have been Muslim for over a thousand years they're still Hindu influences. There's Zoroastrian influences in Afghanistan and in Persia so jahadia runs deep.

And scholars are not immune to that, scholars can also have their mistakes but who clarifies it the collective body of scholars? And that's why one scholar always has mistakes but is the collective body and that's what you study. You study the collective body and that takes effort so we have to spread this and that needs to be done through the schools and people really need to be trained, we need to have media spokespeople. Every community needs to do that and they should be people that speak English preferably without an accent, there have been polls that have been done in this country that 25% of Americans have a difficult time understanding foreign accents.

So you can lose one-fourth of your audience just because you're not speaking and our law says that the only sense of people with the tongue of a messenger with the time of
its people to be 1:12:24 only with the tongue of its people and tongue is not language it is flesh and blood, it's deeper than just language of knowing the language, it's knowing that the idioms it's knowing the culture, knowing how to talk to people and then also knowing how to speak in a way that there's Muslims that quote outrageous things that the prophet 1:12:51 1:12:53 and he said do you want people to disbelieve what Allah and his - messengers say don't tell him about that. He wasn't telling them something wrong but the man wasn't at a level to understand it and there's some Muslim think you can go out and talk about 72 1:13:07 because these people have a whole different and when it's crude they're people that assume that this is all about crude sensuality which it's not. If you think it is you're misled and Genma has no najasad it has nothing impure it's not if it's absolute purity and that's what it's articulated it's articulating about purity.

So we have to have training in that and then a community need to come together. This is a time for unity. We also have that communities have to have relationships with the law enforcement but it should be done at the community level. It should be done by people that represent the community, they should be together they should not be seeing people alone. We have to be very careful about this. So it's very important all of it especially right now because there's a lot of suspicions, there's a lot of trouble and we need to dispel these things and people need to realize that the Muslim community is not a threat to the security of this country. The only thing Muslims are a threat to is corruption. That's a true Muslim he's a threat to what's bad in a society not what's good. He affirms the good and security and lawful conditions are conditions that we want and we agree with. We also need to have defense funds in every community. The community are to have a defense fund and you should organize that at a level of people can trust because we need to have local and national defense funds for Muslims that are unjustly, cases that have merit that are examined by a body they need to be defended by lawyers that are capable of defending.

Now in terms of the American foreign policy, we also have to have a voice here. We need to have a voice it's important Muslims cannot be silent about what is wrong but we need to do it intelligently we need to do it with discipline and I appreciate when chairs send these things out it says respond courteously and that is the way we'll do it. I mean you read some of these things that Muslims write on the internet and it's shocking you wonder what where do people grow up did they have their parents, where did they learn that language? I mean why are Muslims speaking like that? Because a believer does not have foul language and then also the good honor of Muslims if we're told to defend the honor of Muslims if you speak about people you speak generally you don't speak specifically unless somebody has clearly done something that's condemnable that needs to be and you have to be careful with that because what you might think is condemned from your lack of understanding 1:16:17 1:16:18 1:16:23 how many people find fault in a statement and the fault is in their lack of understanding and then about the foreign policy I think we need to remind Americans what George Washington said so I want to read in a tone for the finish line. This is from the farewell address of George Washington to the American people and I think that he George had they taken his advice there wouldn't have been a September 11. He said observe good faith and justice towards all nations, cultivate peace and harmony with all religion and morality enjoying this conduct and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoy it. It will be worthy of a free enlightened and no distant period a great nation to give mankind the magnanimous and two novel examples of a people always guided by an exalted justice and the benevolence.

Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be bought by a steady adherence to it.

Can it be that prophets meaning God guiding force has not connected the permanent soliciting of a nation with its virtue? In other words the well-being of a nation he's saying that God has connected it with the virtue of the nation. If the nation lacks virtue then God's guidance and his protection is no longer there. The experiment at least is recommended by every sentiment which in nobles human nature a last is rendered impossible by advisors. In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. Well that is all that we could ask of this country that's all we could ask is if they live up to this. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or an individual abominace is in some degree a slave and this is getting back to that likes and dislikes. You become a slave to your likes and dislikes it prevents you so these people studied ethics, they knew ethics that's where it all comes from. I've actually seen mind I know what's in his brain. I've seen and read the same books that he read and where he's getting his stuff and whether he lives up to it or not that his own business not my business.

He's speaking the truth, this is true it is a safety animosity or to his affection either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from his duty and interest and tripathy and one nation against another disposal each moreover insult and injury to lay hold of slight causes of numbers and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

So likewise a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces of variety of evils sympathy for the favorite nation facilitating the illusion of an imagined common interest in cases where no real common interests exist and infusing into one the entities of the other betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducements or justification. Does everybody understand that? That means if you're passionately attached to a nation without thinking and thinking do you have some common interest that nation will draw you into its war with its enemies who are not your enemies and into your detriment. It leads also to concession to the favored nation of privileges denied to others which is asked doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained and by exciting jealousy, ill will and a disposition to retaliate in the particulars from whom people privileged in the parties from the legal privileges are withheld and it gives the ambitious corrupted or diluted citizens who devote themselves to their favorite nation, facility to portray or sacrifice the interest of their own country without 1:21:27 sometimes even with popularity 1:21:31 with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion for allowable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition corruption or infatuation against the insidious rival foreign advancement. I endure you to believe me 1:21:53 . The jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake. So history and experiences 1:22:01 is one of the most painful pose of recovering policy. Now listen to this they get so caught up they want to see danger from the enemy of that bigger nation. They don't see that that bigger nation might be dangerous as well and then what happens?
Real patriots who may receive the entry of the things are liable to become suspected and obvious while its tool and duties certainly applaud and confidence of the people to surrender their interest. The great rule of context for us in regard to the foreign nation is extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far we have already formed engagement let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith, let us hear stop. That's very well addressed. So that's what we should just tell them. Listen to your founding president. Listen to him that's all we want it just must be fair. Right across the board, treat everybody the same. And Alexander the great they asked him how he became such a great empire by such a young age he said "I made my enemies my friends." And that's a challenge because we need to recognize that Islam needs new blood and we hope that new blood will come from these people, come from other people around the world. There are many areas that the messages haven't been taken to and we need to take it to those areas and we need to have a Broadbent understanding and allow people to come in at their own time in our own paces and not to expect everybody to be at the same level of commitment and find out the same. We need to treat each other with respect, mutual dignity and just do the best to satisfy our differences fortunately now in this difficult time case we're in a troubled time and I hope that we can all do that 1:24:30. 1:24:35 1:24:36 1:24:37 The first question what did the Quran says regarding man to turn the other cheek.

Like I said earlier the Quran has two approaches; 1 is the approach that give the right a mess of the mess 1:24:56 a sin for sin, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and it gives that way but can follow those verses and then it says after that and those who forgive is closest. So you can take both paths but what did the Quran say? 1:25:11 1:25:12 1:25:13 those who listen to the Quran and they follow the best of it. What do they say about the best of it? They say to forgive it's not for want and vengeance, its not o want retaliation. That's the way it's focused to life now. But rightful retaliation, that next 1:25:27 You have a right in this mosque to get recompensed financially if there was manslaughter you have a right if somebody kills somebody that their life is taken or you can forgive them. It would solve the death penalty problem in this country. If people want to forgive they can forgive. People who don't want to they don't have to I mean that's a fair resolution to that problem.

You said in a transcript that ended with Michael Enright you said that were jihad is probably one of the highest concepts that the by the highest concepts that the Arabs and Muslims have in the Quran. It's never once used to express a military meaning not once. What I meant by that is there is nowhere in the Quran where jihad is used to mean chilling and I have put that another is that going out in the way of Allah 1:26:28 that a military expedition is the jihad but when Allah speaks about confronting the enemies working these tendencies the word 1:26:41 is not Jihad. Jihad encompasses is a comprehensive meaning and certainly one of the meanings is defending the land Islam or pre-emptive strikes under a balance have you done something like that. So that's the point that nobody can say that that military struggle is not part of Jihad. It is part of Jihad and I would never say that but it's not used to mean children in the Quran. It is not. You can't find that. When Allah says 1:27:18 and that's what he says 1:27:21 1:27:22 1:27:23 1:27:24 1:27:26 1:27:27 1:27:29 1:27:31 1:27:32

That is the idea Qetal and Jihad are two different things. One is s specific and the other is universal. Jihad has a much more universal application than just fighting the way of Allah. And certainly meeting the enemy is called Pitab. You try it, get up there and be interviewed on a radio where you're having to think on your feet and I'm sorry I did my best if I made mistakes my Allah forgive me. But you want to go and sit around and look at everything I said and criticize it all, have a nice life. I'm not gonna waste my time. Somebody said if you're gonna rant and rave you should go home. People should go home. People that don't want to be here just leave. That doesn't mean we don't have to be responsible and I said that but we shouldn't be ranting and raving. And I was speaking specifically about there are some people out there in some places that literally say the most unbelievable things on television. You know the Prime Minister of England should be killed and this and that and it is just unbelievable and that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about legitimate descend about Muslims speaking out. And with some people it’s like I joined a new world order sound inner peace. I'm 1:29:01 I was in a situation that I did not want to be in and I did my best and that's all I can do, do my best and if people want to take me to account for that I'm glad that your not Lawyer. Seriously, I'm glad because he looks at what's in people's hearts and good Muslims tend to do that. They try to have a good opinion of people like Iman Seras.

I mean when I saw him in New York and we did that 60 minutes and people got upset at 60. You ask him what I said on that 60 minutes and then you asked them what was cut. Alright and that's the problem and there have been things said in these in these articles if you want to believe that man in the Quran said 1:29:46 1:29:47 if a fasiq comes with news you better find out if it's true or not.

So just because it's in the Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal whatever that's not 1:29:58 1:29:59clothes. You know, you should find out I mean I was like in a mystical sect or something like that I never said that somebody else said that to him. So there are things that are said I don't know where they came from that's the truth and did I regret saying what I said? I would say that the only regret I have is not universalizing it, that's all and the whole world is condemned. If I have any regret about that it's just that I'm looking out at the world. I just met Abubakka Seraudin this summer and he said the wrath of Allah is reaching the brim because there's just so much disobedience on the planet and we hope it doesn't spill over.

These things that happened in a traditional understanding are signs, they're warnings.
It doesn't mean that Islam condones September 11th but it does have a metaphysical import it has a metaphysical important and if you ignore that, if you deny it then you're an earless you just believe that you events have no meaning and those lives that died were meaningless deaths no they have meaning. No you have to try to understand the meaning because we have a just God. You said the street that blame we are right, they are wrong dark versus light seen in this world. We know there is another world Asa powered it all shake down in 1:31:33 . Well the 1:31:36 is one of the things that one of the founding fathers said here that is consistent with Islamic doctrine George Mason. He said that God does not take nations to account in the next world he takes individuals to account. So his punishment falls on nations in this world. So if a nation is unjust they suffer calamities and that a founding fathers said that. I didn't say that. That was their understanding because they were still in a religious perspective and a metaphysical view of the world now there is truth to that because the hadith says that an affliction will come to a people and then and they'll all die but then they're raised up according to their intention so Allah can take a whole people to account for the actions of some of the people but then they're raised up as individuals and that's important because what is being said in the Quran is 1:32:41 1:32:42 1:32:43 1:32:44 1:32:45 Fear calamities that don't just afflict the wrong ruler, they afflict everybody even innocent people. And the reason that Allah allows innocent people to be afflicted because it forces innocent people be vigilant about wrong in a society. If only the wrongdoers got punished nobody would be troubled about what wrongdoers do because they know because they know they're going to get punished but when innocent people get affected by the wrong of bad people then you have an interest in being vigilant about prevent preventing wrong in a society. Things that you think are we can do to improve our image as a whole and image is substance.

See we don't want image we want substance I mean we need to improve our substance and the image will take care of itself. I mean part of the problem too much concerns
with image and that's what this whole society is obsessed with image. We need to
have substantial changes and I think if we just behave properly and there are
many good Muslims in this country I know that and a lot of people have come to do
that because of the fact that there are so many with Muslims in this country
there are many Americans now have a reasonable good opinion about Muslims
because they know people that are Muslims, they have traditions that are Muslim, they
have a worked with an engineer's who's a Muslim. So that's an important thing of just
being an upright person and Allah says 1:34:16 1:34:17 1:34:19 that maybe Allah will put between you and those who have animosity between you love 1:34:26 1:34:27 Allah is capable of doing that and the Poet 1:34:32 said 1:34:32 1:34:33 1:34:34 1:34:35 1:34:36 that don't hate a person to where the won't be your friend one day. If you have animosity towards somebody keep it in check because they might be somebody that you love. In the Ashara just to answer that question people are going to judged as individuals and then they can't 1:35:01 1:35:02 don't blame me. 1:35:04 you're just blowing your stuff. Shefan say he won't let you do that. Here he'll let you do it he had fun. That day he blames you only once but in 1:35:12 he won't and he says they call it 1:35:16. He gives hope to all the people in hell. It's a great cookba like 1:35:23

So in terms of changing things we have a lot of things we do. The media is a
double-edged sword but the media not all evil. It is not an evil Empire. There are
people in the media that have agendas and there are other people that are
generally trying to do something fair but pardon the nature of the media even a
fair-minded one they have to do this it's like they're training to do a certain thing. They like to have some controversy they like to bring out, I mean that's a part of the whole media game. So when you go into that arena you just have to deal with the facts and that's why I printed media tends to be better visual media especially in America because it's very superficial, it's very quick and things like Fox News I man that's moronic television and I'm sorry with all due respect to people who watch that you know if you can watch those things I mean that that's just eating your brain out.
I would really avoid that type of stuff if you can and then also reaching out to
the communities. One of the things that we have made a serious blunder and I
really believe this is the reddit we've had with the Jewish community just been
wrong, it's been un-Islamic and it has to do with political circumstance and I believe that I wasn't raised like that and I don't see any justification for it in Islam that people that normally that has not been part of my teaching but I have made remarks that I feel that they were inappropriate as men on Islam because the promo item one of the most powerful things about personas you can't find anything in his Hadees or anything that you did you have to explain or that you have to I mean the probable incident everything that he said he said with absolute consistency with his principles and unfortunately we're not up to that level, as simple as that like what would I have said? Do I have contradictions? Yes, I have contradictions.

So there many people in this country that are actually very disturbed by Palestine
amongst the Jewish communities and they don't like what's going on and they see
the irony, they see that the elements in there of what was done to them in Europe
and this is in their literature you can find it in there literature and some of the most
powerful critics of Israel are Jews in this country people like Finkelstein and Chomsky and ColonI mean there's some very powerful critics.

For us to use an anti-jewish type of rhetoric is just wrong alienating is wrong. We should be against oppression whether it's Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus whoever had it we're against it. Because the Quran will be witnesses even against yourself and that's how we should be so if people are oppressing we're against. It doesn't matter what race or creed or color they are, it's as simple as that.

That is a good question it's about trying to get the major organizations to
work together and I'm in Charlotte I know that there are some efforts to make
that happen, it's going to take time but it needs that, it really needs to have more of an
unified voice and I think that that could happen there always be people dissent and things like that and dissent is healthy it's not a bad thing as long as it's with 1:39:08 and I want everybody agree with me you know, I don't get everything right I know that and I've talked to people I take feedback from and I have teachers when I discuss things with. I don't expect them for the release it was that but I would hope but as a Muslim, they would adhere to the ethics of Islam in their disagreement that's all. That's what I'm hoping it would also I mean you can read extreme Islam now that which is a book that somebody just went onto the internet pulled off all this Muslim material and made a whole book out of it now it’s on the best seller thing you know. They're just reading what we're saying; Muslims on the internet and they give you the websites to look up and that's another thing we need to speak with the assumption that we're
speaking to everybody and that's something that we have also done wrong and the
Prophet I think when he spoke he spoke that's why Hadid you can read them anybody can read them. He spoke and women understand him. It's a universal message and we're not secret society ad we shouldn't have a secret discourse we should be open and clear about what our aims and objectives are. Do I see a future in Muslims in this country? I don't have a crystal ball and I don't know what's going to happen. I hope and at a loss without a doubt, there's no more madness that occurs and certainly not from the Muslims but I think a lot of people were surprised at the genuine outreach of a lot of people here somebody was in Athens Georgia was right on the road and they told me that on that Friday after the event they were worried about going to the Mosque but they went to go to Jamaa and there are all these flowers on the mosque steps with notes from people that had come and it just really instructed this person that happened in our community as well.

I think that happened in a lot of communities, whoever did that those are good people Those are good people and we shouldn't alienate those people and our rhetoric is often confrontational and it alienates people and it's not the Sunnah of the Prophet and a few times he doesn't have strong rhetoric it was very specific instances and it's always been
understood and when you want 1:41:33 1:41:34 he said that habib but he said it, he was dealing with these mockers. They used to mock to 1:41:41 and he was warning them that if you keep this up you are in big trouble and they were. Now the mockers they were finished because they attack it was too heavy in the Quran we will deal the people who mock you that's from Allah. So he warned but and also when he made a joy against eclam and the tribes that have been treacherous that du-ha is not meant to be universal all. He didn't make 1:42:07 like that there's a very strong duality that they made because they chilled Quran teachers. They ask for these Quran teachers and he sent them they actually killed them. And so he made very strong to odds against them at 1:42:20 . But you read those Juhads, those Juhads were for a specific situation. It was an absolute worse type of treachery. I mean Muslims yeah there's a question about you know, Muslims our identity, we have a worldly identity and then we have an otherworldly identity. The wordly identity is finite. The otherworldly identity is infinite and ultimately our allegiance is to our otherworldly identity. We are Muslim above and beyond everything else including being a father, a mother, a daughter, a son so that's our identity - what we are Muslim. If we're citizens of this country we are citizens as well and not as a temporal identity and you're expected to behave as a citizen.

A citizen has rights and responsibilities and we're expected to maintain those rights and responsibilities it’s as simple as that but our identity is that we're a little more servants of God and that should be our identity ultimately but we do have temporal identity among them is being a citizen. You can also migrate, you can leave a place to go to another place and Islam is permitted like divorce. You can divorce and always Allah gives us options always you only have options. And that's why the expectation is to do the appropriate thing. If you're in a bad marriage you have certain options you can be patient. If your husband's horrific, if he's terrible, he's abusive, if he doesn't wash you can be patient. You can try to get him to change, you can bring in your male relatives, with some muscle to say this is my daughter you better treat her right. You can do that, the Quoran says that - bring in the male relative you can bring in an arbiter you can do all of these things. Can she start poisoning him with arsenic? No that's not an option.

She didn't get that option. She can get a divorce - the options are all there so in every situation you have options. The intelligent person is the one that tries to do the most intelligent one. Now you might make mistakes but as long as they're still within the Halla you're all right because it's finishing you Hannah and you have your proof so we have options in this country to do certain things. One of the things that we cannot do is be violent or disruptive it's just not an option. Obviously, unless you're physically defending yourself that even this country gives you the right to defend yourself and we can do that. If somebody breaks into your house you have a right to defend yourself. If somebody accosts you on the street you have a right to defend yourself. That's true right?

Somebody said I believe in 1:45:32 1:45:35 show me in anything where I said that. I don't even understand what to do how can you believe in something you don't understand? Like Einstein's theory of relativity for me, it's just another I mean if you mean Allah is one I believe Allah is. If you mean this is Allah I don't believe that. But that I mean I've seen said that she's probably somebody has got the shahid that you said people worship me then. If you look at that I should say if there were martyrs they would be that's called a conditional statement in English all right that's all I said.
And if you understand English you know what that means and martyrs if you look it up in the Webster's dictionary is somebody who sacrifices his life for somebody else. So
somebody died trying to pull somebody out of a fire inefficiencies she's a martyr in English. She did nothing and there were Muslim a fireman in there as well. People don't know that I know that for a fact there were Muslim firemen in there that pulled people out. So that was the point it. Martin Luther King he was a martyr for his cause and for his people it's as simple as that.
Now in Sharia is a Muslim who dies 1:47:11 so that has a shraper but a martyr in the
Greek language matieros which means witness. It had the same meaning as Shaheed in Arabic but if somebody dies witnessing what he believes so he's a martyr to his cause. It's like suing Mecca. People here they say Las Vegas mecca of sin you know now, it's not nice to use the word but if you look up Mecca in Western dictionary it's an English use of the word. Whether you like it or not it's not Mecca of Saudi Arabia but Siobhan has a throne that he imitates and if you go to Las Vegas it looks just like Saudi Arabia. So Chebang went out there and built his own little chocolate like structures where people go in there and do their Fallah and things like that. That's what he does, he likes to imitate. So that's their warship and he has children he's probably every year we have three millions children this year. I mean they call it pilgrimage as well so that's what Chefon does he imitates. He likes to imitate and it’s a bad place. There's some good Muslims there I told him to leave but I mean I went there and at the airport it says submit to your desires. That's what it says.

And that's the Creed of the devil. If you chant that in Arabic 1:48:43 1:48:44 become a Muslim of your desire and that's what Allah said. You know people 1:48:51 1:48:53 there are people that take their desires as their God. Exactly what gambling is. So can you explain different types of jihad? Jihad, the struggle of jihad which is in the book Seth called bhava jihad imam attic put it in their Iveta in the section on worship he considered it an act of worship. There were basically three levels of jihad in the Quran. The first level, well I mean there's jihad of the nos which is in the end of sort of around Kabul which is a mecca diet and levena 1:49:40 1:49:41 1:49:43 those who do jihad for our sake we will guide them to our ways 1:49:49 1:49:50 with the people of 1:49:531:50:161:50:18 1:50:19 that's amongst Muslims you struggle with that and the prophet Elisha said if you see something wrong change it. With your hand, you're in authority, with your tongue if you're a scholar and with your heart if you're an ignorant person but you know it's wrong so those you can't change something with your hand if you don't have authority to do that unless there's something obviously two people fighting you can pull them apart but like if there's a bar in Cairo you can't go and burn it down or something it's wrong to do that. Only the government can shut down that is harmful for people to do that. And then you have the jihad which is there are two times of jihad. Defensive and offensive jihad. Defensive jihad was given when the profile migrated to Medina and it
was 1:51:17 1:51:18 1:51:19 1:51:22 1:51:23 1:51:25 1:51:27 1:51:29 1:51:31 1:51:32 1:51:35 1:51:36 1:51:37 1:51:39 1:51:41 1:51:42 1:51:44 That Allah says that permission has been granted to people who are oppressed because they've been driven out of their homes to fight. They've been granted that permission, they've been driven out of their homes to fight and Allah has given them victory and the only reason they're doing that is because they say our Lord is God and then Allah has had it not been that I'll believe some people to defend other people holy places would be destroyed Church and in synagogues temples and mosques wherein Allah's name is mentioned so I mean that's the purpose of the struggle is to protect worship and to protect people's right to be safe in their homes in their places and then the next verse that came down meant to be designed in your possible become what affected in the LA City
fight the fight of the way of Allah those in the fight you and don't be aggressive because Allah does not love aggressors. Now the last stage which came slow to Toga it's called 1:52:52 1:52:53 1:52:55 1:52:56 that kills the mushriks wherever we find them that verse came after with breaking of the treaty and when it said wherever you find them it meant even in the sacred with the sanctuary of Mecca the public was giving permission to fight them even in Mecca and they were people are broken a treaty and they were treacherous and 1:53:19 and he declared a four-month period them to either become Muslim or they would be fought as simple as that.

Now there are a number of reasons for that and this is the opinion of 1:53:32. There's other scholars that think that that applies to anybody who's an idolaters but the opinion that was it practiced in the history of Islam in India and in North Africa was that idolaters can pay just like Jews and Christians and that's what the hannasseys used in India with the Hindus and that was the appropriate position and the best position. So the idea of fighting people total wars is not it's not part of Islam.

So there is and also their diversity 1:54:04 1:54:05 1:54:07 1:54:10 1:54:13 1:54:14 1:54:15 1:54:16 1:54:18 1:54:19 1:54:20 1:54:21 1:54:23 1:54:25 1:54:27 1:54:28 that you will buy and sell the credit, when you follow the ways of the world like agriculture geology and you leave struggling for the sake of God which is jihad then what will happen is you'll have enemies subjugation that you will be subjugated to and you will be humiliated and that humiliation will not be removed until you change your condition or return to that state. Now that is human being prepared and Muslim countries where Muslims are majority they have a right to defend themselves and be military to be prepared and history shows that if you're not prepared people commonly take you over. It's just like the colonialist did if when and they just took the Muslim world over and did terrible things to them I mean Lord Kitchener I had the great Lord Kitchener who went to avenge the death of General Gordon in Sudan. He had the message body, this is an enlightened Christian Lord from Britain in 1885 he had the mathís body dug up and then he mutilated it and had it destroyed and dispersed and then he wanted to use the skull as an inkstand. And this is a man who was a general in World War one with Winston Churchill. So the idea of not
defending the Sudanese I mean he went killed him just because the man he was trying to defend his land and people. People have the right to defend their land. That's why the Quran said 1:56:04 1:56:05 1:56:07 1:56:08 1:56:09 That Allah doesn't prohibit you from the friending or doing good better-showing righteousness, feeling piety, al these things to people who do not oppose you in their religion and don't force you out of your homes that you are good to them and you actually can share in your money 1:56:25 1:56:28. You can actually give them money, show then your money during and that's why in Cheria if somebody holds you up and said give me your money it's permitted to give them your money because you can just put them in a shape with Allah and just say here take it. Or you can fight and defend yourself. So either way that's acceptable.

So jihad is a very misunderstood concept most of the time. Well thank you very much and no father images or anything and shall I really hope we need to move to a higher level and
I hope all of you I this has been some benefit to you and even if it's just things I thought for more reflection thank you very much.

Clarity Admist Confusion

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