asked he told him look for the purest food I mean this is in surah that calf
looked for the purest food because people of righteousness are always concerned with what their body is made
up up because it's the body that is going to be your energy either spiritual
or demonic and when you're eating negative food you're going to be doing negative things CDM it's a rope male
lust banana Wattana have mercy on him and may Allah soo pan over to Ana restore him back to his place of resting
because we recently found out many of us that City Ahmed Shah Rukh's grave was
desecrated in Libya literally dug up and these people claimed that Libyans were
worshipping at monza rope Syria Hamas Arak said that all of the blessings of
the world are in two things the company you keep and the food that you eat so
make sure your company is good company and make sure your food is pure food we
should be encouraging organic farms we should be encouraging organic gardens we
should be at the forefront of the urban homesteading movement these are things that Muslims should be involved in we
should we should reject don't think you know don't think I'm going to go to McDonald's and have a halal fish right
seriously because the whole way that McDonald's everything about McDonald is antithetical to our profits Eliza
managed sooner and I'm speaking openly I don't care what anybody says I am Telling You that fast food is something
that is destroying people and we have to oppose fast food consumption don't drink
coca-cola don't drink Pepsi Cola don't drink CalFire Cola don't drink Cola drink water drink milk drink soy milk if
you want to but don't drink these drinks that have no nothing good for you and
the way they're produced is unhealthy we have an unsustainable consumption of
plastic if you look back there and look at the number of plastic cans that our plastic bottles of water that are back
there we've got a garbage fill in isne because we're drinking this is
unsustainable it cannot be sustained we have to find alternative approaches to
the way we consume things we have to be committed to being green the green bean
we have to but we have to have commitment I don't want applause I want real commitment I want people to commit
to changing their lives we need to divest in our homes we need to be with
people we talk about boycotting Israel I'm talking about boycotting all of them
if you can recognize their names you should be boycotting them because these people are destroying this planet
they're over consuming they're over selling Costco is a crises the whole
Costco mentality do you know that they don't even put labels on Costco halls so
you don't know where things are in Costco because they want you to wander around because they know people will
have impulse buying and buy more things than they actually needed this is social psychology you are being manipulated
like mice and a maze and we need to oppose this type of mentality because
it's destroying people so I'm really asking you to really think about the
better world buying guide we should have our own Muslim version of that of really
making choices I don't fly United air anymore because they get a F I don't fly
American I fly version American I fly southwestern and I fly the the JetBlue
because these have the highest ratings in terms of how they treat their employees in terms of their commitment
to social responsibility the amount of money they're having legislation is not having an impact on these people they
control legislation the only thing that will have an impact on these people is that we stop supporting them because
they have bought our senators they have bought our congressmen Mitt Romney speaks on their behalf and Barack Obama
speaks on their behalf we need to take back our country and the way we do that
is by educating ourselves and educating others and making moral commitments
moral commitments to not being part of the madness that we're in allah subhana
wa ta'ala said kuno shuhada Annan s be witnesses unto mankind be witnesses unto
mankind be consumed hyeon Metin Hara Jet Li Nass you are the best community
brought forth we have to embody those meanings we need to stop supporting
quote you know I get now my clothes are made I have a tailor who prays five
prayers in the Masjid and I go and he makes me my clothes
in one day and I know that the garments are actually Fairtrade garments I don't
want to support this system anymore and I don't think you should want to or you should we need to have an exit strategy
and we can do that there are morally committed Americans that are not Muslims
that are living pure lives in terms of what they practice then most of the Muslims that I know I know people that
don't carry credit cards in their wallets because they don't believe in them non-muslim peoples that are doing
this they will not carry credit cards I met a Catholic who was so committed to
the idea of not having usury and she felt and she actually engaged the
Muslims and she said I was so deeply disappointed because when I found out Muslims like the Catholic
of old before 1832 Muslims also maintained the prohibition of usury but
still unlike the Catholics still adhere to it and she said when I went to try to create a group of people that could work
together to get out of the yuzuriha system we should have our own credit cards we can do this Muslims can have
their own credit cards we need to have our own banks banks are not easy they're
not hard to start it's very easy to start it's so easy to start that instead of the bank the the bank robbers they
used to rob the banks they realize we can just start our banks why rob them and risk going to jail let's just open
up our own banks and then we can rob all the people right this is what they did so they actually got on the boards of
the banks right really this is what's happened so this is absolutely
imperative that we really think about this I would recommend going to move your money org about moving out of the
major banks into the smaller credit unions local credit unions local banks as a first step because all of these
major banks they own all of the pawn shops they own all of the yuzuriha s--
check cashing schemes in the poorest neighborhoods it's the same companies you should look at the documentary maxed
out and see what they do it's sinister what they do and they destroy your credit scores because they
want you to have low credit scores so if you miss one payment you get knocked down on your credit score because they
want you to pay more interest it's all a game it's a scheme and people have been really unfortunately they become victims
but it's because of our lack of vigilance it's our lack of vigilance though so this is I really feel this
absolutely necessary that we become part of the solution and not part of the problem but we have to do it with real
moral commitment that's the only way the final thing that I want to talk about is the problem of Anitha Mehta's ation in
our communities the problem of attacking other Muslims my father last
read the the Quran from beginning to end in English with notes and I said what's
the thing that struck you most about the book he said the prohibition of sectarianism I want you just to think
about that the prohibition of sectarianism that was what struck him
most somebody who's familiar with other revelations and other religious
literature and that really hit me because I started thinking of all those verses in the Quran while some movie huh
buddy died he well at of hiraku right don't be shy at acuña Shia and
don't split into sects all those prohibitions of sectarianism and I really took it to heart and I just
thought one of the most extraordinary things about our community is they developed a type of tolerance of
difference of opinion that is really unique in the history of world religions in many ways they they were able to
literally incorporate difference of opinion within the framework of a
exegetical tradition a way a hermeneutical way of interpreting
literature recognizing that there are many ways to understand the same thing there are limits to those it's not
infinite so they did put parameters but the parameters were quite broad and they
were very very wary of Anitha Mehta's ation the idea of saying somebody was
not a Muslim it's very hard to get kicked out of Islam it's very easy to
come into Islam it's very hard to get kicked out but we have so many Muslims now that have irrigated to themselves
the idea that if you don't agree with me you're not a Muslim they they they have
lost a sense of what what what has been turned in in in some traditions
fallibilism the idea that that we are fallible creatures by our very nature we
can be certain about Islam and we should be certain about Islam because European certainty is one of the prerequisites of
faith in our religion but we should always have a fallible istic understanding of our
our own interpretation of that religion or our own understanding of that religion Imam Shafi one of the greatest
scholars in religious history said whenever I debate with an interlocutor I
always assume if I believe in my position that I'm right but I could be
wrong and that he is wrong but he could be right in other words he had a sense
of fallibilism that my interpretation might not be the right and I should always be open to listening to another
possibility this is certainly for the scholars more than for the common people but it's very important that we
incorporate that in our understanding this idea of just calling anybody that
disagrees with us a Kaffir or a mob today this is a serious problem in our
community and we need to take it seriously really we need to take it seriously one of the the the principles
in our tradition is it was articulated
by abu hanifa or Delano and cidade velha what had you brahim in one of his books
says it this way in poetry were mutirão elfin men and malaria a problem in
Makkah region of San wahida to deem a thousand atheists to be Muslims by error
is easier in the sight of God than to consider one Muslim a kaffir
we should really take that seriously be very careful about making TUC fear of
other Muslims and I know many of my closest friends have been called calf
ears really many of my closest friends somebody up here who I know saying I'm
one of them you know we have this problem so we need to understand I'm a
committed Orthodox Muslim I follow the monarchy school right ooh follow the
dominant opinion I was trained in the UH shaadi Kalam tradition I inclined
towards the text of Imam at the Howey in terms of just what what as an articulation of creed
and I accept the way of Junaid ass Alec this was our tradition Islam is
threefold it is Creed it is law and its beauty and
the making of beauty these are the three dimensions of Islam if any one of them is lacking we have an incomplete Islam
our Islam is incomplete if we're not making things beautiful then something's
wrong with our Islam so my request to all of you in sha la is really commit to
turning your abode into doddle Islam into houses of Islam making your houses
houses a pure food of a pure clothing of fair trade using fair trade becoming
green in your homes teaching your children these things exercising them in our massage yet I'm so tired of going to
massage it and seeing Styrofoam glasses and plates really we shouldn't be doing
this it's not
One Mauritian (ed: Probably Shaykh Qatri) was here in the United States
We were here in Arizona in New Mexico and he had just gotten here and he was raised in a bedouin tradition
Someday took a glass and drank from it and then threw it into the garbage can.
he said "what did he just do he just threw that cup into that garbage"
I said, "Well it’s a throw-away cup"
He said "What do you mean ?"
I said, "They just use it one-time and throw it away."
He said to me, <ARABIC> "This is the most extreme extravagance"
and he said <ARABIC> "Extravagant people are the Brethren of the demons" <Arabic> "Allah hates wasters."
He said "That was a perfectly good cup, he could have used it over and over again."
Think about this, it's not tenable. We're in a real peril right now.
Our fish are going to be dead in about 30 years
We're living in really Apocalyptic times and people are taking it like a joke. We need a global planetary Taubah
we need a global repentance
we need a global
repentance as a species because we have messed this planet up so badly and it's
not right to our children it's not right to the future generations we should be stewards and caretakers in EJ I don't
fit are the Haditha I'm putting in the earth a caretaker when the Angels heard that they said are you gonna put one
that sheds blood and so's corruption facade could mean pollution as well and and Allah said any animal mad at adamant
I know what you don't know what he knew is there would be always that community of believers that reminded people of
what they should be doing marathon we need an excuse with our Lord on the day of judgment we should be those people to
sakamaki Iran was salam aliekum wa rahamtullah