kind of the unitarian submitted christianity but the quran anyway recognizes them
as righteous people well because of that an army this army comes from ethiopia
and this army that comes from ethiopia that basically takes over yemen yemen
was very weak at that time and there was a yemeni
anyway the uh the army comes over and this ariat is the leader and he has
a general called abraha well ariat wants to get rid of abraha because he's
a problem and he and he actually tries to kill him abraham ends up killing him and taking over well abraham
basically sends to the ethiopian king that he's going to build him a cathedral
that there's no likeness of it on the earth and he's going to
take the the the hajjaj that go to mecca
and bring them to yemen this is his idea so he builds this cathedral well
one of the meccans hears about this and gets very upset and he was actually at what they
call a nasty which are the the calendrical people the people that made the calendars for the arabs
moving haram days the arabs the arabs the arabs basically and we tend to
forget that the pre-modern world was a world of famine because there was
not a lot of food and food was susceptible to droughts
so agriculture was susceptible to droughts you had a bad year and people began to starve it was very
common and so the arabs survived based
on raids all the arabs tribes did this as a
practice and they're actually quite ethical in the raiding practices they did certain things that
they the women would all flee to one tent and that tent was considered maharama they could they couldn't go
into the if the woman couldn't get to the tent before they could take her so there were certain legitimate rules
in the game but basically if she got into the tent it was like a sanctuary you couldn't um
uh take her and so the arabs that that was their practice but so they created these day these months
called the haram and we're in one now rajab the reason it's called rajab the
singular rajab or the unique raja is because the other three are together whereas rajab is separate
as a haram month so rajab the the the haramans are very interesting
because what what the arabs they respected these months they recognized the sanctity of the month so
it was really preparing the arabs for the idea of inviolability
it was preparing them psychologically to understand the nature of haram that there are
things you couldn't do so but because it was difficult to have three months in a row
without raiding the arabs when muharram came
they somebody would get up in in mecca and say to the nusat these people that
would do the finagling the calendar they would say
ansa you know fix this thing so maharam comes later so they would
basically do that and give them space to raid so this was a type of and that's why allah an asiya to see
adatum fer kufri is in the khutbatarwada that to manipulate the calendar is a
type of kuffar it's it's an addendum to kuffar that
manipulation of time results from not respecting allah's order
so that this man when he heard that abraham had the audacity
and you have to understand that the arabs were not christians there were very few christians amongst
the arabs even the few that were christian um i mean there were definitely
christians and the rasasina many of them were christian the tenure banu
they were christian but the the arabs were not christian there was a group called hunafa which
were the hanif people they they were inclined towards
a unitarianism but the heirs were not christian and they did not like the idea of abraha creating a cathedral
to bring them away from the house mecca which they they remember
the arabs are ishmaelites so they have a connection to
abraham remember ishmael his mother was a jeromite so even the yemeni
arabs are related they they all share this this
connection to ishmael and to ibrahim all the arabs it's quite an extraordinary thing that all the arabs
share this connection also the the the himalayas
are sons and daughters of a prophet hood an arab prophet so this
this arab goes to this cathedral and he defecates in it
you know it's that's a pretty intense thing to do if you really want to upset somebody you
know go desecrate their their sacred space you know it really upsets people so
abraham when he sees that who did this in one of the arabs you know the
from from mecca well that's it so he decides he's going to go and
destroy their house and that's a very important thing because one of the principles in islam is called sadavaraya
which is to cut off pretexts if you give people excuses to do
dastardly deeds you are partly responsible for the dastardly deed
we tend to forget that people don't like to think about that that when you do something to somebody
that really upsets them and angers them and then they do something back to you and it's a vicious cycle i mean this is
one of the things that you know a lot of people after 9 11 just did not want to hear
this idea that well you know what have we been doing around
the world to upset people around the world that they would want to do something like that that that just
wasn't because people don't like to think about that but also the muslims have to think
about that as well you can't see the muslims just say oh well think about what you're doing well most of them need to think about what they're
doing too that's the thing nobody likes to do they like to do it for the other but nobody likes to do it for themselves
and that's why when the prophet saw i saw him said don't curse your parents
would one of us curse his parents because the arabs didn't do that he said yes he said how he said by
cursing another's parents and then they curse your parents in
other words you caused it you don't like to think about that but if you burn somebody's flag
and then they burn your flag who who caused it
so that's a very strong principle and this is what basically what this arab does is he incites abraham
and he goes out to destroy the house now abraham takes an army he's got elephants
and he he actually comes here to tha if and when he gets here benue
who were here and this restaurant you know what it's called here
how as in because hawazan was the brother of takif and these were the tribes that were here beno hawazin
they're still here i mean don't think these people have gone away there are thakafis here right now in this city and they know
that they're from benit there are hawazan here
all these tribes are still here the anazah the the mudar split you know that the two uh
tribes of ismail are rabia and modar these are the two dominant
tribes of ismail the the kahatan is our hinyara and kahlan and the adnan is
are the western arabs rabia are the eastern arabs anazah which is one of the great tribes
of all of the rulers this was an aristocratic tribe all of the rulers of the east are from
this tribe the al-saud the
al-thani they're they're related al-fani and al-saud are from tamim tamim
is is from rabia so they're adnanis they're not
but they know this and these are all tribes that were here at the time of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi salaam so the when abraham gets here benue who worship
the let go out and they say oh no you don't want us you want the guys down the road
because they had a little temple here for latin but they go out you know not very nice they they even
give them a guide to take them down to mecca right well the guide goes down there
and he gets to muramas and dies and he was buried there and the arrows were stoning him up until islam
his his grave down there they were stone so that shows you when when you side with the
wrong side people remember you it's like benedict arnold you know had he had the british won the
war he'd be a hero today he bet on the wrong side and that's what this guy did
he thought abraham is a big army looks good i might get something out of this he goes down there
and he is he dies there down in mohammed so he gets there with these
his army is a massive army for the arabs is the biggest army ever amassed at that point other than
some invasions that occurred um in the the romans invaded yemen and
one of the interesting things you know the romans called arabia and particularly this this side the
southern side of arabia anybody arabia felix
do you know what felix means in latin huh felicitous arabia
you know the happy arabia and uh
it's very interesting also alexander the great one of his last
his last expedition was to come to arabia and he died
so nobody ever conquered arabia they conquered the apraf
the persians had client states on the east eastern shores the byzantines client
states on the northern extreme and then the romans and the
ethiopians then to a certain degree the persians also on that side but allah protected
this peninsula from invasion it's never been conquered even
even during the worst period of islam when the colonialists took over the entire muslim world they did not take
over uh the the peninsula here the hijaz and
thenesh they didn't take it over so the when abraham gets
down there he he basically [Music] his army camps there in muhammad and
mahmoud who is the lead elephant was told by ibrahim who was one of the
arabs there whispered in his ear that this is the haram of allah
when he was when he was told that the elephant went down and he just stopped well they got these metal
staffs and started hit beating this elephant to get him up and he wouldn't get up and so
finally they they turned him to another face facing another direction and he got up and started running towards that
direction but when they tried to turn him towards becca he wouldn't do it and so each direction they turned he would run to except for mecca he would
just go down and so at that point abraha sets his
camp and one one of the the sores of these
ethiopians gets 200 camels from abdul who who had a lot of camels
and at that time abdul muttalib was said of quraysh the quraysh
the arabs had two systems of government they had the kings and those were like
the the hemia rights had a king the assassina and the lachmites had kings
but there were only three groups of arabs that had these kings mainly from the yemen the yemeni arabs
but if you look at the adnani arabs they had a more egalitarian they were actually quite democratic
but they did have asyad like which are like senators and then there
would be like a president they called it president is is like the head right they had a
raise the the the head of the kabir sheikh
it had to do with wealth with lineage with also even just height and good looks had something to
do with it and that's why in the books of when they put in kamal the conditions
of perfection or the completion the conditions of completion for leadership they put a good face
like a leader should have a good face and even in the tartib of the imam that
one of the levels is the best looking should lead the prayer and and and if you study
psychology now and see what good faces people that have good faces make more
money they get jobs before other people so this is something that allah it's a fitra that allah
has put into people and that aspect of islam is an acknowledgement of that it's an
acknowledgement one of the things that ja health who was noted to be extremely ugly
jah has said that from the great great justice of god he rarely gives
somebody great beauty and great brains at the same time and he rarely gives somebody great
ugliness and and without giving him immense intellect as
a recompense and and he said that he was actually quite pleased with the deal
like he would rather he would rather have the intelligence than the beauty
um he he was very self-deprecating uh interestingly he was very dark and he had big bulging eyes which is what ja
health means um but he uh they they say once he was in the he says
that he was in the marketplace once and a woman uh grabbed him and said could you come here and drags him over to a
a jeweler and she said hakada and then she left and jail said to the jeweler what was
that about and he said she came to me she said i want a picture of shaytan
and i and i told her i have no idea what he looks like and so she brought you and she said just
like this
it's not nice is it yeah you know but he took it quite well i mean that's yeah
so but it was incredibly beautiful and he was stunningly beautiful man like
really handsome and they arranged a meeting with
him and abraham and when he came in you know he really considered his face
beautiful and ageloho like he because of the way that the man looked
he wanted to honor him right and this is this is social
psychology now i mean we really these are real things so he he comes in and abraham actually
got off because he the ethiopian would not allow somebody to sit equal with the the ruler
but he actually got off of his sarir and went down and sat at the level of
now when abdul muttalib he says to him you know what do you want
and he said i want my camels and then abraham says and this is
through a translator because he speaks amharak and and he has a translator he says to
uh you know when you came in here i was very impressed with you
but now that you've opened your mouth i've really lost my respect and he says
why and he said i've come to destroy the house of your religion
that you of the god that you worship and you don't seem to be concerned about
it and you know all you're asking for is your camels and abdul muttalib said an amazing thing
he said as for the house it has a lord william he'll defend it
as for me i'm the lord of the camels and that's what i'm responsible for
and then he gives him his camels back he goes and he tells the quraish because
they were thinking can we fight them he says no and so in his wisdom he tells them to
leave the city and go into the mountains which is what they did and then he prays and he asks allah subhanahu
wa'ta'ala to defend the house but he says in his prayer if it's in your wisdom to destroy your
house then i accept it so this is somebody who's really looking
with the the eye of taheed and the eye of acceptance and it's proof that the prophet's
ancestors were people of tahid because this is our but this is the dominant belief of the
sunnah is that his ancestors were all the all of his direct
ancestors were people of tawheed they were not people of shirk so this is what he says and then when
abraha sets out the birds come
the and they looked like bats they came and they pelted they had three stones that were
like chickpeas in the beak and in the the claws and they pelt the
army and none of them got hit by it except they died and so they all died there now what's interesting about this
lilace
when that verse was revealed there were people alive
who witnessed that so this is not this is mutawatar
it's it's a multiply transmitted his transmitted historical fact
the arabs witnessed this they saw this with their own eyes it was something all of them witnessed
and experienced and from that day forward the quraysh were known as allah
the people of god and the arabs became very frightened of them because they felt
that these people had some some power with god this is also very
important for the preparation of the arabs for the advent of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
and the the place that the quraish would have in the scheme of things so the the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam was born in that year that year is called which is probably 570 or 569
um but that was the year that the prophet was born and the arabs named momentous events according to
the year that they happened they would call it the year of the flood they still do this in muritania and so
that that year was called amilfield the year of the the elephant which is for mahmoud when the elephants came and
this this is the uh this is the beginning so you can see
the all of these um these different ingredients that were
coming together at the advent of the prophet isaiah are quite extraordinary the relationship of all the arabs the
fact that the quraysh are bound to these the adnan and the because
they're jo jo might and their uh their they're from mudar so they have
these two uh strains and that's why the prophet saws has relation
he's related to all of the arabs we'll also find out there was an arab ruler from the tubbat
the tababia where the the the rulers of yemen before
the ethiopians there was a ruler who actually his father's son
was killed uh cruelly by some some of the arabs in in yatrib in
medina and he actually sets out to and this is again uh about a hundred years before the
prophet saw isim's advent he sets out to medina which was then
yatrib to destroy the city as a vengeance for his his father's son his brother
being killed when he gets to the city um he he he he uh they they fight and
and the the austin who were called benokela and and ben okay are
uh our kahlan that the dominant opinion is that they're arabs they're not adnani although there
is some scholars say that they're actually from nabit not from
so they're actually ishmaelites that are from the other brother whose ancestors
survived uh they claimed that the assassina and the uh the mights and the else and the khazraj
but the dominant opinion is that they're from so they're yemenite arabs originally that lived there they
were from the the southern arabs that moved north some of them went all the way to syria now the prophet sallallahu salallahu
we know his his uh he has right
the the uh the maternal side of his family are related to the uh
so the prophet has he's related to them which is very interesting how the the interaction between all of these
forces but this anyway the king that goes there uh to um
to medina they he they would fight during the day because the arabs fought at the day they didn't fight at night
and at night time the benokela would send food to his troops
so he was very moved by that like he's fighting them and they're sending him food and
so he asked why and and they were told because they were told by these jews
that the last prophet would come to that city and so they always honored people that came to the
city no matter who they were or under what pretense they came they would honor them
out of fear that they might be that last prophet so he brought the two jewish rabbis came
and they said don't you don't want to mess with this town because if you do you'll get destroyed
and and and then they told him about the last prophet coming to that city so he actually
bought a a house in the city as a walk for that prophet
and that house is the house that abba yuba ansari lived in and that's why what did the
prophet sam say to the about the camel when they were trying to take the camel he said
leave the camel because the camel knows which house to stop at
so these are amazing and these are real things these things
happen we have so many eyewitnesses to these events
but they're really quite extraordinary events so the prophet saw a lot he said there was so much preparation for his
coming so much preparation and the the jews and the christians had
news of his advent which is why when and when we get into this later
which is why of of the the seven cities of revelation
in the book of revelation the seven cities of revelation which were the centers of christianity
all of them became muslim they're all muslim so all of the eastern christians
with small exception became muslim over this period of time
one of the reasons why the nestorian christians not so much the byzantine who were orthodox
but you had the nestorian and the jacobite malachite you had these different
they were more they weren't heretics they're actually called schismatics
i mean some people would put schismatics as a type of heresy but schismatics tend to
not be heretics in that they're they're still within the fold a heretic
is outside of the fold a schismatic is seen as within the fold like the great schism that happens in christianity
in the 11th century uh between the catholics and the orthodox christians the the the the uh they split the two
churches split but and for a period they kind of anathematized each other
but the catholics accept the communion of the orthodox and vice versa so
they they argue over the pope and a few other things there's some doctrinal differences but the uh these christian sects that
were in this area were were basically um they were
expecting a prophet i mean even if you look in the gospel with john the baptist
he was asked you know are you are you ilias and elijah
and and the most the jews have a belief like some muslims not all the muslims
but some of the muslims that elijah uh still walks the earth some actually equate elijah with
al-qaeda and some say that al-khadr is different but elijah still walks the earth
and that's why they said are you elijah and then he said no and he said are you the
messiah he said no and he said are you that prophet and he said no so he he mentions the
messiah and then he mentions another prophet that's different from the messiah now we know jesus was the
messiah so where's that prophet because john the baptist was
the prophet immediately before jesus and so there's another prophet mentioned
and john the baptist said no i'm not that prophet so who is that prophet and then if you look in
in john 16 where they jesus says he has to leave so that
the the paraclete can come and then he describes the paraclete he
says that the paraclete will come and he will abide with you
in other words his sharia is going to stay i mean the christians interpret it to be
the holy ghost but we know that john the baptist was baptizing with the holy ghost we know that jesus was supported by the
holy ghost so the idea that he had to leave so that the holy ghost could come does not really make sense if you look
at the idea that he's all the holy ghost is already with him
so and we believe in the holy ghost by the way because in arabic means holy ghost
ghost is ruach and kodus is holy and we
also believe that the whole you know how the christians say the spirit took him you know they say that we believe in that
the prophet saw he said when hasan had been used to recite poetry he the prophet would say allah
oh god strengthen him with the holy ghost so we believe in that that that force is
working in the world and that that it's a spiritual force that's real but this is this is what he says that he
he's going to come after me and i have to leave so that he can come now he calls him the paraclete
paracletos in the greek means an advocate or a shafiya in arabic that's what it means shafiyah
in arabic if you look it up in any greek dictionary parakletos means shafiyan now some of the muslims said if
you change the vowling of it and means the praised one so it's very
similar allahu anam but the word that jesus says when he tell he says that he is giving
news of a prophet uh
he doesn't say muhammad he says ahmed now ahmed is the prophet's name on
yomakiyama when he is the shafiyan he is ahmed shafir muhammad is his name
here so the prophet now the other thing is the word in aramaic for the paraclete if you look
at the earliest aramaic translation is muhammad
muhammad which is according to ibn hisham and our scholars is
syriac for muhammad now when these christian eastern christians
heard muhammad they looked in their book and it said
there's a there's somebody i have to leave so that muhammad could come so they just said
that's close enough and many of them became muslim
and also the aryans who were very widespread bishop aryan was a fourth century bishop that that
differed with bishop athanasius who was a staunch trinitarian aryan did not like
the idea of calling mary the mother of god theotakos
which is the bearer of god and believe that jesus was not uh you know that the human
the jesus in the world was not divine that was his his argument so but the
aryans where do they go the aryans are in north africa and in spain the visigoths were aryans
so if modern aryan theology has reemerged in jehovah's witness so if anybody knows
about jehovah's witness doctrine a lot of it's taken from aryan theology but the aryan christians also
became muslim so you had all these christians in north africa who were not
catholic or orthodox christians who become muslim and the visigothic christians
over a period of time although there's a strong argument that the andrusians never reached a majority
in islam they never got over 50 percent that's that there's a strong historical argument for that
it took egypt according to khadi blankenship who's one of the finest historians that i've ever met khadid blanchard told
me that egypt took 300 years to get to 50 i mean the muslims have this fantasy that the
sahaba arrived and everybody said rasulullah you know and that's why it
really bothers me like muslims in in in the in in the west you know how the kafir how do you know
he's kafir i called him to islam how long five minutes you know
you know the prophesies and abu sufyan fought him for almost 18 years and he's still
working on getting him to become muslim 18 years fighting him in all these battles and in the end he embraces him as a
brother in islam and that's the prophet's lies in him so
if you spent five minutes with somebody and didn't convince him you know give him another 20 years
is there any question anybody have any
all right that's in in john in the gospel of john
[Music] the long gone arabs
and some even called the him that they actually are not originally arab speakers
um can you comment on uh like the way to possibly like study like some of the christian texts
because obviously some applied to islam and you know it's hard to just like you know pick up a bible because we're not going
to have yeah i mean my you know i think earlier i would have i don't think it's good to
argue with christians or debate them like i'm very opposed to the kind of
some of the muslim polemics it's much more important to respect their religion i wouldn't even go into
the quran doesn't really you know it it the thing that we need to
do is teach people about islam tell them what islam don't tell them what their religion is or should be
or i mean i think it's important if you're explaining that we believe in the bible and then they say well why don't you believe jesus died for your sins
then you can explain well islam actually says that there were alterations in the
book and if they you know if people are open to that you can discuss that if you know what you're talking about
it's important to have knowledge or something like that um in a situation like that
so i mean i i would i would definitely get very strongly rooted in the islamic
tradition before i would go into in fact it's considered prohibited to do that by sharia
you have to learn islam and especially before you go into learning other creeds
we have some of the scholars even tamiya was a master of christianity
and wrote us it's been published in six volumes but it's not in the original six volumes but quite an
extensive text analyzing the the bible and and uh there are many books polemics against
the christians you know christianity islam and judaism it's there's a very
interesting relationship between these three religions because we're so similar
on the one hand we we believe in very similar things we believe in a
creator god we believe in the unity of god because even christians and and anybody who seriously studied
christian theology knows that christians believe in one god the personas which is what the trinity
is are masks for the godhead but in catholicism if you study saint thomas
aquinas he's very very clear that god does not have a body that god cannot be in
in place or time i mean you know the
they're not idiots you know but the trinity is a problem for us um and for the christians it's a mystery
that's that's how they state it it's a mystery incarnation is a problem for us the idea
of god coming into the world incarnating becoming flesh the the
christian argument is well you have in bibliation which is god becoming book because quran
is it's the uncreated word of quran the way
that our scholars dealt with that was by saying that the quran is not
the the quran is not the must-have it's not the quran in matlu it's not the
recited quran it is the eternal uh me the the the the hadith
is what is called like in your heart you have words and the tongue is the translator of what's in your
heart but what's in your heart is something that's beyond words really
even when you like if you say i love you
the words are translating a state and so all words are translating
experience even like when we say look at that tree if you look at each one of those words
look that's an experience at right just helps you get there and then
tree is an experience so language is really articulating meanings
and this is what i was talking about the other day the ibrah you know abbarah is to abra in arabic means to
to to cross something to like is a bridge so the ibara is the word
the ibara is the way that you cross from one thing to another from one meaning to it
to another so you take the form its form to meaning that's that's the
obor the form is is the the love like you say
shajara is the surah and that
it it takes you it enables you to cross from form to substance from form to
meaning that's the gift of language and so that that's how we say that now christians to be
fair to them would argue a very similar argument about jesus so it's a problem it's not easily resolved
but the quran is very clear don't say three the quran is very clear
also that god covers
that um although they don't say
you know the the the christians it's very complicated and it really is
it's not it's it's not an easy problem this is religion and theology and and and they're problematic so um
yeah there's like for instance there's a uh eclipse in the middle of the month which
has never happened and by physics it can't happen so it's it's either it i think it could
happen when the earth is doing its uh you know the uh uh
the revolution you you know like there's certain planets in our solar system like
mercury does it every 24 hours it's either mercury or venus it literally goes from
south pole to north pole so it flips the earth has done it we know that that
it's flipped because we know that there's been shifts in the magnetic polarization so we know that
einstein actually thought that it would happen again as the moon because the moon comes incrementally
closer to the earth and so at a certain point it's going to cause the earth to flip
that that's one believe i mean a lot of scientists don't uh adhere to that theory but that is a
theory that the earth now if it did that you could technically i think have an eclipse
at that midpoint
it would rise from the west yeah definitely but i don't know if people could survive it allah adam i mean i don't know
that i think the physics of it would create such global destructive destruction you know so allah adam but
it definitely that would happen the sun would ri rise in the opposite direction
um you mentioned studying islam before you look into other religions is really important but looking at islam reading islam in
isolation can cause problems because islam in effect superseded judaism and
in christianity so do you not think it's important to study other religions in particular
of the abrahamic traditions in conjunction or rather even before islam and to actually respect
them and see how islam grew out of or christianity and judaism
yeah that's a good question and also in in addition to that sorry which was my original question
you mentioned the holy ghost are there other um
things in christian theology or jewish theology which as muslims we should be aware of thank
you um yeah and the holy ghost we differ on the meaning of holy ghost because they they for for them the holy ghost is
uh a mediator between logos and and between you know the father and
so so we don't have the same concept but the word is identical to you know in translation
to to our understanding of jibril the um it's a good question i mean i
would say i think for us especially everybody here i mean i've read your bios everybody here is is is
educated by modern standards i mean i think all of us are a little disappointed with
our educations and if you're not i think you're deluded but that but that's okay
um but you know everybody is educated in ways that pre-modern peoples
would be astonished really i mean really astonished the amount of things that people know
today are just mind-boggling i mean if you take something like sheikh abdullah abdullah
it's you know i mean i've known him for 20 over 20 years i ca it's just
he's just he's an ocean like literally i mean he just he is an
ocean of knowledge he it just amazes me the things that he knows and i ask him things all the time just
because i want to hear him because i know that people don't ask him those questions you know
i asked him a question the other day and he just floodgates you know it's amazing
thing but but people if you look at what people know now he he's had the blessing of being
very focused um you i think people always say to me oh i have a terrible memory i i've never
met any human being unless they're imbecilic that doesn't have a phenomenal memory it's just we memorize the wrong things
you know people memorize amazing amounts of information and facts and figures and
i mean just if you look at your what you know in your own city like all the streets you know you
know to turn right there turn left there you know how to get it's just amazing what the mind i mean that the topoi was the way that
the ancients used to do memory was by when they wanted to memorize something
they would put the things in places that they knew in their town or something and that was a way that they
to do association associative memory so but and and because you're educated i
would argue that just to be a citizen in a globalized world it's essential to have some
working knowledge of the world's religions like i think a world religious course the reason i became muslim is
partly from houston smith's book [Music]
because i took that course that was my first year in college i took a course in comparative religion and that was the
book and that was that was one of my first exposures to islam and
so just knowing about religion i mean my degree at the university was in
religious studies and i learned a lot i mean i i benefited immensely from the other traditions my
appreciation for other traditions has increased over the years i think when i first became muslim i i adopted a
very arrogant attitude towards other faiths and par that was partly because
of some of the teachers that i had i don't want to blame them entirely but that you know when i came to the arab
world there are certain attitudes about other religions that are quite endemic
in the muslim world that that they're just nonsense well i i do not believe that i think that
the vast majority of these traditions have probably 85 maybe even higher
percent of what they're teaching is very positive and very congruent with islamic teaching
then there's things that are not but i also believe that even the animistic
traditions i i know that the arabs they used to go to these old women that
were were the rafa and the kahina even that's who he went when they asked him
who's going to settle the dispute over zem zam because they they they wanted zem zam he found zem zam
from a dream but they he said let's go the only one i want is the
kahina she'll decide and then they went on that journey when he was going to sacrifice abdullah who did they go to the kahina
in in medina what did she say she gave the advice the 10 she said how much is the dia they
said ten camels then she said then throw the the arrows that's what they used to do
is divination like i ching throw the arrows and and each time they
go towards abdullah add ten more camels until they go towards the camels and then sacrifice that number of camels
well he did that again and again again where did they get to a hundred and then he said
that claude said finally it's done he said no no it's not enough i want to make sure let's throw it again so they threw it
again it went to the camels he said i'd still not convince i want to make sure i'm doing the right thing throw it again
they threw it again it went to the camels so 100 was the number of camels of
sacrifice that's why the diya in islam is a hundred so the diya in islam comes from
a kahina now the the arabs were using these
people as ways of solving their problems and it was part of god's provision for
them because that's what they had at the time because there's a wisdom in why god doesn't send pro i mean he could
have sent prophets in every generation every birth but he doesn't but he gives people the sustenance they need so even the
idolaters they have their sustenance in their idolatry until something better comes
along and and to not recognize that is a crime against human devotion and human desire
to to to find guidance outside of themselves and that's why many many christians i
mean i know christians that that weep reading their bible that really believe in their bible and deeply and
and i'll never forget i was at a a conference where they had a muslim who
was doing a thing about the bible and he just made fun of christianity for about an hour in a lecture and i was in the
audience and i brought my father and my brother and i it was unfortunate but he he made fun of christianity for
about an hour and then what broke my heart is a woman got up and she just start
she literally was shivering but she just said you know i was a christian a baptist and
the thing i didn't like about baptists is they always made fun of other religions and i came here tonight thinking maybe
islam had something for me but you're just doing the exact same thing that really
sent me away from you know it's just amazing we don't think about that you know and then again that gets back to sadda
varaya you know that you can cause people to reject islam you can be the
cause for people rejecting islam who's going to be answerable on qiyama
because the prophet said i will be the advocate of a me
who is wronged by a muslim on the day of judgment the pro now if you've got the prophet as
your lawyer you think you're going to lose that case seriously if you have the prophet as
your advocate on the but he's going to be against the muslim
supporting the case of the vimy who was unjustly wrong because that could be a reason why he rejected islam
thinking that that was islam so it's i think it's very important that we
we hold to our guns like shaykh abdullah said today you know we have a religion we have a creed we believe in this creed
and we do believe that islam superseded that's what i was taught that's in the akhida of the muslims that islam
and it's what was has been taught so i'm not a perennialist i don't you know adhere to that philosophy that
all these religions are still valid but i do believe that there is a validity in those religions
and then to the degree with which that validity is there allah maintains and sustains people through it
i do believe that i think they get spiritual help from it spiritual aid when they're sick when they pray when
they do these things because we have a generous lord and until something better comes along
that is what god has given them you know i mean my mother when i was 12 years old
told me that the only reason
that you go to orthodox church is because your grandfather's orthodox
she said if you were born in sri lanka you'd be a buddhist right now so this is a purely arbitrary situation
and i never forgot that because that's that's that's the way she saw it you know the
the world's a big place and there's a lot of people on this planet and there's a lot of weird stuff going
on out there and people are doing a lot of weird things muslims are doing a lot of weird things seriously even some of the rituals and
practices and we have we have honor killings and people think that has something to do
with their religion and we've you know we're a mess so there
you know there's a lot of problems out there and and uh i don't think we contribute to
alleviating them or removing them by denigrating others and one of the things that i heard from cd
abubakar which i really appreciated he said when you when you denigrate other religions
you are not elevating your own religion but you are succumbing to spiritual arrogance which is one of the
most dangerous states for a human being to be in and i really appreciated that statement
so i'll just repeat it when you denigrate other religions you are not elevating your own religion
but you are succumbing to spiritual
arrogance why did the arabs have the muharram monts what brought that about well they're
definitely this is uh maharamans
that he did not abrogate the maharamans they're still considered sacred months but they don't
have the same sanctity that they had at the time of the prophet in the rules of sanctity so we do
consider them to have a horma so it's obviously from prophetic tradition
that because the prophet sam recognized them and the quran recognizes them
can you explain the holy ghost
ghost is is a saxon word for spiritus in latin which is
the and uh and holy is uh is
is also a a saxon word that that comes from complete
means something complete and which where we get our word whole from holistic things like that so the uh
you know the idea of a uh produce is holiness
produce is one of the names of god the holy um it's something that is infused with
sanctity and we do not believe we believe that the prophet was holy
that he had uh and and that is a dua of the muslims
that is a dua of the muslims the bait is the place of holiness is the holy
city the the the the kaaba is
you know it was a desa a holy place a place kadasahu allah
allah gave it holiness sanctity and so
holiness is is the infusion of that spiritual energy that um that
that we we recognize i think if people are open to it they they recognize it in those places i read
a book called the sanctity i it was um it was about the sanctity of places i read it
it's like 20 years ago so i can't try and remember the name the power of place that was the book the power of place and
his argument was that that the places that have these type of sanctity are places
that are the electromagnetic fields are very strong there so people feel different in there now there might be some basis to that
the kaaba is a very powerful place uh you physically can feel the the
power of the place so there might be something to that but that still uh you know materialism you know this
reductionist attitude of the west is to try to reduce everything to material explanations but
nonetheless we experience these things and and those experiences are real and however you want to interpret them
however you want to identify them
one of the most profound experiences i ever had was
on a drug that's very similar to heroin called fentanyl if anybody's ever had
fentanyl uh yeah i had my the first realization of
why people become drug addicts because it was just such an amazing experience but
i had to get my arm you know i broke my arm very severely and i had to get it um
you know to jabir like i'm set my bones set so they gave me this
fentanyl and he could have chopped my arm off for all i cared
i was i i you know but i you know i i really felt like i got a glimpse of i mean
if god can do that here that what he can do in the achara
you know really i mean people have no idea so bliss blissed out states i mean drugs are are
drugs are are you know people want to get high for a reason really i mean it's
it's it's an attempt to get into a transcendental state it's just doing it uh illegitimately um
it's it's um you know um
to to to make make an attempt at a contention you know uh drugs are to spiritual
states what um you know xena is to
nuptial bliss that's halal you know it's like
they're very similar and that's why people uh people want those states
now my own teacher mark told me that we don't worship allah for states
but if the states come it's a blessing but we don't worship allah for states that's not why we're doing this
but people if you do practice you will have experiences that are very pleasurable
spirit experiences and there's a lot of discernment there's there's actually a way of discerning
spiritual states from nafta states because there are enough sani states that are very similar to spiritual
states and people can get very confused which is why people that know how to discern those things are important to have around
so that people can know that i mean i've seen people go into religious psychosis from doing dikkar i've seen people who
were doing a lot of dikka and started thinking that they were like the mahdi
um i you know i've seen these things happen to people so we're dealing with very powerful things
and they're also dangerous um how is the boundary of the hadam brought about that is tokifi the haram is something
from god from revelation
if quraishites believed in allah and were why did they have a hard time believing
in our prophet's message to lies and well they not all of them there were mushriks amongst the quraish not all of them
it was only a handful that were and some of them were jealous of the prophet some of them wanted to be
prophets themselves um and then also it's very difficult the prophet saws
you know he grew up with them and when you grow up with somebody it's it's like it's like you know i know
people that i knew years ago when when i was like 18 when i first became
muslim and they just still have kind of a hard time seeing me as um you know
hamza i'm just that kid that they knew back then you know there's there's
that's a very normal type of experience so i think people find it difficult you
know i know him he's we grew up with him we used to play with him
you know who's he so i you know i think they just it was hard
for them to accept also the the quraish were people they were aristocrats and they they also had this sense
of you know why isn't it why isn't it uh and even
waleed you know why not him because he's such a great man why did god give it to this orphan from benihashem
and benny hashem at that time was a very weak clan even though they were still considered aristocrats they were very weak
they were poor they they'd lost their wealth and they'd lost their position in in in the in the quraish hierarchy
so they just saw it as you know why wasn't it somebody else so i you know there's
i i can't i don't know what that means
i don't know i don't know what that means uh regarding loud dikkar in unison
i read in your book purification heart about what that
yeah that's true so why is it so prevalent and acceptable then
um the majority of uh maliki later maliki
scholars accepted it the muahidoon introduced the idara in the
jamaa as a way of preserving the quran and they based it on the hadith
no group gathers reading the book of allah yet allah he didn't say or
he said ye to luna and it indicates that it was done on in in one even though the sahaba did not
do that practice but the the hadith indicates the permissibility and that's where they
took it from which is in sahih muslim so and that's what syria abdullah ibrahim
said in uh he says
you know that the gathering for recitation of the quran and doing dhikr is the is
it's the practice of the muslims in all the cities of islam and the the sound hadith is a proof for
it it's a proof for it and there's other hadith the sahih hadith of
of the that allah has the malaika that are traveling in the earth and the sunnah
they're looking for the circles of zika and they find people you hallelujah
they're saying you said they're saying subhanallah they're in a circle doing that now like
nakshabandi say you do it each one does it on its own but the you know the other uh scholars
said you you do it uh you can do it together and that's permissible so that it's a giraffe if
people aren't comfortable with that's fine but don't make the incar you know of the other group that's all
if you're not comfortable with it it's perfectly fine you know i i prefer the position that says you shouldn't do it to say it's
haram is way overboard you know to say that's haram i mean you really have to have a proof
and and tarq is not a proof because the sahaba did not do it is not a proof
uh for taharim like that because
people always forget that little malaysia minhu whoever introduces something into this
religion that is not of essence from the religion then
it's rejected so the practice like you know there's muslims that if the
imam after the prayer in maliki madhhab you know the imam it's makru for the imam to make dua
but uh ibn abigail mentions that you know
um that if you if you try to implement that today and force
that on people you'd create fitna in other words that's this is the amla
of the people this is what they're doing and and there's nothing wrong with it it's a dua the other madhhab is permitted
uh the hanafi's do it they like to do it right the imam should do and then the people
they say i mean so there's nothing wrong but if somebody doesn't want to do the dua with the imam after because
he thinks it's fine don't do it you know but don't say you can't do that it's a
or something like that's really what we're fighting is is we're fighting that attitude that
that religious provincialism the irrigation of absolute authority in the religion
that this religion belongs to you and you alone and you are the only one that has the right opinion
and everybody else can go to hell you know that's just not a healthy psychological state to be in you're not
well and you know may allah help you if that's your state but it's not a good
state to be in and that's too many muslims are in that state religious muslims
which is driving away the other muslims that's why they don't want to go to the masjid
because there's too many people you know it's just so strange i find it really
strange but anyway so that's you know
p group thicker there's nothing wrong with it as long as it's with the adap i mean was generally he
didn't like it because he he thought
that it would become ritualized like you know if you do it like at the same
time every day the group gets together and does it becomes like a ritual and then he felt it it had an element of
bitter that it that yeah you've actually made a type of bidah in the religion by doing something you
know every thursday let's you get together eight o'clock sing qasida for an hour and you do that as a
practice um that that was his opinion but there's others that differed with him on that
so i mean is a mataki usually scholar the malikis are very worried about what
they call uh um to think that something is an obligation
imam matic will actually consider something makru out of fear that people will start thinking that it's part
of you have to do it that's why he did not like people to fast the six days immediately after um
ramadan in shawwal he said you should wait because if you do the six days he said i'm afraid people will think it's part
of ramadan and that happened in some places there's places where they would fat they had to
fast the six days immediately after their eid so that's why he doesn't like some say
that's why he leaves the hands at the side very few muslims know today that this
is not even a sunnah it's not a sunnah to hold your hands like that none of the
four imams consider that a sunnah of the prayer
but muslims if they see you praying with their hands inside it's like you did this horrible thing
and and yet many of the said of prayed with their hands at their side it's the medhab of laith
it's it's uh the med habit of imam shafiri in in the um in the
in his uh book of
it's perfectly fine to leave him at the sides as long as he doesn't play with them
and that was shaving so
somebody asked him about the saddle he said this is the prayer of my grandfather he said you can do what you want
so there are strong opinions for the saddle and then there's strong opinions for the couple people want to do that fine if they want
to do that fine just leave people alone but you know you see somebody doing that
where'd you get that that's a shia thing where'd you get that you just leave people alone
unless you really know i mean you know if you're a giant scholar uh you know that that mastered all of
the hadith you know imam azuri once saw a man in in all end with this imam
zuhd he saw a man in medina do the teslima twice
[Music] and he went up to him because he was the imam of medina
and he's one of the strongest harijal of al-bukhari and he was imam maddox teacher from the
taberean so he said where did you get that teslima the two prayers this is in which is
in the hadith of aisha about the testanima that the prophet sallamus islamic that he only pray he said salaam one
time so zahudi said where did you get that
teslima he said on so and so on so and so on that the prophet sam did he said i don't
know that hadith so the man looked at me said do you know allah hadith
he said no he said do you know two-thirds of the hadith he said no he said do you know half of the hadith
he said yes he said put in the half you don't know and so imam zahri
it said you know he laughed like he had good sense of humor you know you got a point
[Laughter] but in the medina it's one taslima which
is why in the malik's method you do one teslima the hadith is weaker than the system of two but the amal strengthens the hadith and
elevates it to mutawatar with malik so these are also differences and there's fosha in the
dean i mean if you see somebody praying the wrong way straighten him out do you know
and even that in america you might have a little problem
you
Qurrat 3
ng to look at is is called korotarabsar
it's a text by syria abdrazis mcnasty al-fasil maliki he was a scholar
from morocco he was born in in the 9th century
of hitara around around 880 and he died somewhere in the
in the middle of the 10th century which is 16th century christian era so it was a
difficult time for the muslims there's a lot going on during that period the um
he was a master of these traditional sciences he in in the classical
period of islamic scholarship and shaykh abdullah is somebody who is definitely a master
of that tradition most of the scholars today have
a working knowledge with a lot of the sciences but the mastery of each one of the
sciences was the tradition so that a person was not simply
somebody who knew a basic knowledge about hadith but who had
actually read the six books and often remember like i've heard him say on many occasions
it's not in the six collections if i ask him about a hadith so which means he he
he he knows what's in the six collections so the the scholars
today there's more of a tahasus like if you go to an islamic school you have somebody is teaches arabic
and and they're good and they learn the language and they can teach that but if you ask them about fic they they
don't really they might know and studied some basic things but they don't have a working
knowledge a deep knowledge of that so this
tradition was a tradition of mastery and and even jose kelly said there were 12
sciences that had to be mastered before you could actually give tafsir of the quran he mentions that in the mukha
the one of them is arabic language but the arabic language
has several knowledges that you have to master in order to be considered a master of the arabic language
in in the classical period you would have studied the
and and that was just the beginning today that's pretty much the end
so in the classical period that would have been the the mupptedi or mutawasap would have
gotten to that point and then there were many other books that would have had to have been read
before you would have been considered a master of the arabic language including
which is a massive encyclopedia of just the prepositions and particles in the arabic
language because they're so diverse so he was a master of these
sciences according to ahmed baba who he met his father ahmed baba
is one of the great scholars of timbuktu who during abu mansur dahabi's
invasion of the sahara he was taken prisoner taken back to marrakesh
but he wrote a very nice book of biographies um on ibn farhoon's
earlier work and naded nehle lipti hajj
and in there he has his biography of and mentions that his father met him in
medina because he's moved to medina but he did he mentions in there that
he that see aziz had sent his brother a didactic poem which would have been an
arjusa on the bahara rajas which is what this is the arabs called himar
the donkey of the poet because it's a very easy um to
to meter you know it's it's it's the uh the meter of the like in english we have uh you know
a uh yeah iambic pentameter uh you have um
uh hexameter you have the different what they call the uh the links of the
of the of the line so this is i mean arabic's different from english because we have accentual poetry it's based on accents
on the on the uh the actual letters whereas in arabic it's it's a it's based on the time so it's
it's uh it's the length it's not the accent so it's more it's closer to greek uh poetry which is
why they write they like the hexameter it's very hard to write in in
doesn't work in english but in arabic it's more common that's what the rajis is very easy to write him but he wrote this
this poem and in it he summarized 20 different subjects
so like grammar rhetoric logic it was a it was a massive poem so
that's the tradition that he comes out of and he wrote this this is probably what he's known for now
and it's one of these rhyming titles that the arabs really
like so i tried to do it uh as best i could in english the discerning eyes delights
in perusing the chosen ones days and nights
the arabs say you know that the eye has cool tears and hot
tears that hot tears are painful tears and cool tears are tears of joy
so the arabs say is is what gives your you tears of joy
cool tears so he begins at alhamdulillah
all of these poems begin with praise of allah either with the bismuth some of them
avoid the bismillah just not to to versify a quranic verse
uh according to those who have it as a quranic verse but um they uh they begin with either
hamd or with in the name of allah there's two riwaya the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam
said that anything that begins without the bismiddah or without hand is cut off it's cut off from barakah
them in a reward it's it's sickly so it doesn't it doesn't have that
blessing so he begins alhamdulillah praise be to allah or to god who by
means of ahmadabi ahmeda sababia there by means of ahmada hada
to the the stratus of paths of those who guide so through the prophet salallahu we were
guided and the the hamd is to allah the humd is
thinner and it's it's a praise that does not
necessarily come from something that you have been given
from that person that you're praising in other words hum does something that you would do uh irrespective of
your relationship to the one that that is being praised it's something that is intrinsic
in the person or the object of praise um the prophet's grandfather was called
shivatul hemd because he was noted for his praiseworthy qualities
so ham desert is a praise for allah that but that ham never ends that you
cannot give thanks or gratitude or praise to allah that's why
we're not able to really truly praise you you are as you have described yourself
so the human being is incapable of truly praising allah subhanahu ta'ala and then also
praise al-hamden sukhar is a type of praise but shukur is a praise
that is a result of being the object of some blessing from the one that you're praising
so when you ashkuruhu the shukra is because you you've been received
something from the one that you're blessing and it is a blessing to give thanks and so
it's basically an infinite regress situation you you can't if if you if you're given something from
allah and then you thank allah that it's it's a blessing that you're
thanking allah because many people don't thank allah i mean i'll give you an example one of the first things that has taught
me was the dua of leaving the bathroom
that is an amazing dua and he told me that one of the in the tafsir
that the the prophet who was described as shakur
that the shakur means somebody who's always giving thanks it was because he never called he never
relieved himself except that he praised allah for that blessing
so people don't think of even those things like just being able to urinate just being able
because there's people that can't do that they have to have catheters put up their uh genitals in order to get their urine
out and if you've ever seen those type situations horrible there's people that
that can't defecate they have to have so people don't think even the most basic
human uh functions we have and those are things that we're conscious of there's
all these things going on in our body right now you could have been exposed to some foreign proteins last night and
your your white blood cells right now are elevated and they're fighting off this thing
that's coming to your body and you're completely unaware of it but allah is doing that for you
so what we know is so much less than what we don't know in terms of praise of
allah so the the gift of saying alhamdulillah is such a gift that you should say
alhamdulillah for saying al hamdidah and then for saying alhamdulillah for saying alhamdulillah you say
alhamdulillah ad infinitum you can't that's why you can't ever get to the end
of just thanking allah subhanahu wa to anna and that and that's the reality of our
situation so but the best thing that you can thank allah for is guidance
praise be to allah for the blessing of islam and it suffices as a blessing now how did we get that blessing what
was the means be ahmed by the means of the prophet salallahu salaam and so we are praising allah this is
what he's beginning his poem by praising allah hamdan a praise that is renewed constantly
everlasting it's it's continuing that recompenses this continuous
succession of blessings that those that were aware of and those that were unaware of
so this is a way of you know the prophet salallahu had certain to as that he said alhamdulillah
he would he he would there were certain things that he would do he said that if you get up in the morning and you thank
allah that it's enough for the for the for the day just to have done that as just thanking
allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala so to be in a state of great praise and gratitude is very important
but you know as a way of recompensing these blessings is just to acknowledge the blessings
that's why parents and the right of parents is so immense because when you show filial piety to
your parents you're in essence acknowledging the debt that you owe to your parents first and
foremost for your material being because they were the means by which you came into the world and consciousness is a is an immense
gift to you
wasn't there a time when we were not even known there was no there was no mention
of us and now we've come into the world and and we have a
a universe of relationships of people that know us that know our names and consciousness
looking at the world and being able to contemplate and yesterday i went out with the sheikh
and and he just stood under the shade of a tree and felt the breeze
and he was just he's saying subhanallah you know the
the the the blessing of the uh just the breeze it's such a beautiful
blessing you know consciousness being consciously aware of things like that that people
there's a lot of people that just are oblivious to all these amazing things that are happening around them
at every instance so and then he says
followed by benedictions and peace one after another
upon the most majestics of messengers in rank and stature and this is mujmale
it's agreed upon we don't the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam said
don't say i'm better than unicib he
also got upset with some of the sahaba that said to some jews that the prophet was better than moses
in nabuwa all of the prophets are equal in the same way that in humanity all of
us are equal adam we're all equal in our humanity but people have distinctions
so this is what in logic they say it's it's the the same in its uh
you know the the the jinsu
you know the genus is the same but the kind is different so it's it were of the same genus but a
different kind uh the moroccans say muhammadun
is a human light like uh but he's not like other humans in that
the ruby is a rock but not like other rocks so people
are equal in their human nature but they differ in their distinctions the things
that make them better than other people that their knowledge their uh generosity
all these things these are what give distinction uh amongst people and we honor those distinctions that's why we
have hierarchical societies uh when when it's a healthy situation the
hierarchy is is tends to be uh intellectual spiritual
when it's dysfunctional it becomes based on wealth and power so this is but this is the human
condition we recognize even wealth and power why do we recognize them because they're attributes of god
and and so what you're really acknowledging in the human that has wealth or power
is a tajelli some manifestation of divine attribute that's what you're seeing that's what you're in awe of
but the delusion is or the illusion is that that power or wealth is
intrinsic in that person it's not it's just a manifestation of an attribute of god in
the world and that's what you're really in awe of but you don't you don't realize that you don't see that
so then he says
and upon his family the al of the prophet there is a khiraf the dominant opinion is that they're
beno hashem the people the hashemite people so the hashem is the
the prophet sallallahu isaam's grandfather abdullah uh and then hashem
so uh hashem the hashemites are
a branch of porreish and the al are the people that go under
the hashemite group then you have other opinions that no it
extends beyond that his family goes actually to the people of abdul munaf to the people
of jose even the the uh anybody that's from adnan so and then
the poems say that his family are the people of taqwa salman umin salman is
from us our family and some say he said that because he was a maula but
some say it's because of his maqam with with allah subhanahu wa town and
then the sahaba or anybody uh
that he meets the prophet believes in the prophet and dies on that belief without having
lost the belief sometime in between so there are some people that met the prophet and then actually left islam
during the riddha and then came back to islam they're not considered sahaba they're considered tabirin because
they lost all of their actions by their kuffar so the sahaba or whoever met with him
and the meeting is a normal meeting it's a meeting that happens in this world so
the prophet met with with the prophets but they're not considered his sahaba in
that way like isa ade saddam although some consider asa to be unique and have that
distinction because he follows his sharia at the end of time
and and he met with him for that reason so aloha and then mansarak is the saluk is
is this spiritual traveling on their path so they travel on their path as long as
planets revolve in their orbits and that's just that's a poetic way of
saying forever because
to proceed know well that the best of what is sought in siroto mukta the best of what is
sought by those of celestial aspirations himmah is you have him madaniya and himalaya
is worldly ambition there are people are different in the world some people are very ambitious
and some people aren't very ambitious people if they have certain i mean there's a lot of elements that go into
to success but they can have worldly success spiritual ambition is where you
have a desire for other worldly things spiritual wealth not material wealth so
just like you see people will work day and night to acquire material wealth there's
people that will do the same to acquire spiritual wealth there's people that will get up at four
in the morning to check the stock market in because in
japan it opens up at a certain time this is people really they do this they'll do that because why they want to
increase their material wealth there's also people that will get up at four in the morning because they want
their stocks to go up with god it's it's it's the same basic uh idea
but one is a high hima high aspiration the other is a low aspiration a worldly aspiration
so he's saying that the best thing for people that have this this him this high this celestial
aspiration the best thing that they can seek for is to know the seerah of the prophet
salallahu that's the best thing that they can seek for
and then he says and here i am making mention in this
didactic poem a teaching poem mindaka enough of that subject to remove
probation so to to what he's giving you is enough to where you're not
impoverished you have enough knowledge of the seerah to where you can't be considered
uh bereft of knowledge of the seerah or impoverished and and this book in muritania this
all the women from the zawaya used to memorize this this was just a given for the women because
they would teach their children seerah they considered a very important thing
to give to the children to teach the children the seer of the prophet isaiah so they would memorize this poem
but this is this is the poem that most of the more italian scholars memorize by wrote
quote from it and teach it and then he says
for those seeking to learn from the possessors of guidance i do this that perhaps i too in
benefiting others with the poem will benefit and this is the reason why ultimately
uh teachers teach if they have the right intention it's that they benefit themselves
spiritually they they learn and and also it's the zakat of
knowledge if if if allah is giving you knowledge then you have to pay that zakat of
knowledge by giving it to other people and then he
says i have entitled that the eyes delights in the designated intercessors days and
nights
i've organized it into sections in order to facilitate the students objectives
is one of the gifts of the hellenistic tradition into the islamic community
the muslims if you look at a lot of the works before the hellenistic influence on islam you
will note that they are often not as organized imam matic is probably the first person
to really have a seriously organized work but you will see
as the influence of of the greek sciences come into the muslim world
you begin to really get organizational uh writing and i think it's probably epitomized in
somebody like imam razali in the haiyan thing so he's following that tradition of
organizing the the work and and then he says and from the
sustainer of the cosmos blessing i see the gift of strength to complete i seek the gift of strength to complete it
the own is from allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so whatever energy you have in the world is
a gift from allah and allah can take that energy away from you anything that you do the most depressing thing for people
that uh have work in the scholastic tradition i think uh is when you read about in the
biographies they'll say well
you know he started a commentary on such and such a book and he but death ca