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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the most honorable and most righteous,
Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him,
and upon him, peace and blessings be upon him,
and upon everyone, and upon everyone.
My brothers and sisters,
the thought I want to share with you is that
idolatry or worshiping of idols
is something that changes from time to time
in the way of the shape of the idols.
Now, I don’t mean the idols from being
marble statues of Jupiter and Zeus
became the stone statues of the Hindus worship and so forth.
I’m not talking about that.
I’m saying that
idol worship is not restricted to icons.
It’s not restricted to stone.
It’s not restricted to pictures.
It’s not restricted to symbols
like the cross and others.
Idol worship is really something
where a person sees benefit or harm
in others than Allah
and therefore obeys that thing
where he sees the benefit and harm
instead of obeying Allah .
And my dhalil for this is from the Quran
where Allah said to the Prophet
Have you not seen those who have taken as their ila?
Now, Allah did not use any other word.
He did not use some other word, you know, more important.
Ila is an object of worship.
It’s a deity.
Say, La ilaha illa Allah.
There is no deity.
There is no one worthy of worship except Allah.
Right?
We are not saying La Khaliqu illa Allah
or La Maliqu.
No, we say La ilaha.
The one who is worthy of worship.
Only and only Allah.
Allah used that word with respect to desires.
Now, usually we tend to translate desires as,
you know, just the haram stuff.
Somebody wants to drink alcohol or smoke or vape or whatnot
and fornication and this and that.
All of those things, yes.
But it’s not restricted to that.
So desire is anything.
As I said, my understanding,
may Allah protect me if I’m wrong.
My understanding is that the Hawa is anything
which you give precedence to because you like it
over Allah .
Now, one of the, to me, therefore,
the biggest idol that we worship today
as so-called monotheism,
is the Prophet.
So-called modern society.
Is technology.
Because for us, technology can do no wrong.
Our icons are people who are technology barons.
Who have technology companies,
who are billionaires in the technology field.
They are technology manipulators,
not necessarily inventors.
Because that’s another aspect of this.
It’s a combination of technology combined with wealth.
Because how many people, for example,
know the names of the inventors?
For example, one of the things that everything
or everything runs on is the algorithm.
Right?
Algorithms, they bring stuff to you
and they choose and whatnot.
How many people know where it started?
How many people even know how the name came to be?
How does the name algorithm come from?
Where does it come from?
I’m not going to tell you.
You look it up.
So the point I’m saying is that
we are not even excited by or
we are not even look up to the actual inventors.
We look at the Elon Musk’s of the world and others
who are people who manipulate that technology,
monetize that technology
and make money out of that technology.
Right? I’m not against the idea of that.
I mean, if somebody is doing that in a legal way,
alhamdulillah, if he makes a lot of money, that’s fine.
Let him do that.
I’m just saying that
what do you respect?
The reason I’m saying this is because
the other day somebody said to me
talking about robotic surgery for bypass,
hard bypass.
So this person said to me,
the bypass operation
is nowadays being done in such and such a place
by robotic surgery.
So there is a, you know, non-human thing there, AI.
Powered, which is actually doing the surgery.
And that is saving a lot of lives.
So this robotic surgery is saving a lot of lives.
So this was the statement made to me.
And again, the statement made to me was one of my,
was by one of my dearest friends.
And I know that he, may Allah have,
bless him and have mercy on him,
he’s one of the nicest human beings going.
He’s not committing shirk or something.
He just said something.
Now there is my belief in life is
there is no such thing as said something
or just said something.
Everything has an origin.
It comes out of somewhere.
It comes out of where you live.
So I will say some things which indicate
my core beliefs,
my attitudes, my ethics, my values.
And I will not say other things
because they clash with my core beliefs
and so on and so forth.
The same thing applies to anybody else.
So these,
you know, these, these are
apparently
accidental statements or
by the way or in passing,
they actually indicate
some much deeper issues
of what you believe in.
And a lot of that belief is
not conscious belief.
You don’t just sit there and say,
I have consciously,
I have considered all the options
and I have chosen this to be the correct one.
And so therefore I believe this
in opposition to everything else.
You don’t go through this entire,
you know, intellectual process.
This just comes into it.
It’s like getting used to a smell.
In Islam, in the Sharia,
Israf or, you know, ostentatious spending
is haram in everything except in perfumes.
And you can buy a perfume,
expensive perfume,
it does not amount to Israf.
And the reason for that is because
the person wearing the perfume
very quickly doesn’t smell it anymore.
So the perfume is more like a sadaqah for others.
So you wear the perfume and you go,
people are enjoying it.
You get nothing out of it.
So therefore we say, okay,
you spend a bit more money on that.
I mean, I’m not here promoting perfumes
or telling you you should spend more money on that.
But point being that
something for the perfume,
the reason I’m saying that is this perfume thing,
it comes, something comes to you
without your being aware.
It happens to us in an unnoticed manner.
Take the hadith of the Prophet
where he gave this example
of somebody sitting in a blacksmith’s foundry
compared to somebody sitting in an attar shop,
in a perfumery.
And he said that even if you don’t buy the perfume,
you will come out of the perfume,
perfumery or perfume shop smelling nice
because you are in an atmosphere which smells nice.
Whereas if you are in the blacksmith’s foundry
and you are in the presence of fire and smoke
and all of that,
then you’re going to come out smelling of that
and you won’t smell nice when you come out of that.
You’ll be sweaty and you know,
you have this bad smell.
So the point here is that
the company that we keep,
what messages we get.
So here we are saying that,
Bypass surgery, robotic bypass surgery
is what saved lives or saves lives.
And now the question first and foremost,
I want to ask you and ask anyone who makes this statement
or who may Allah have mercy,
has this belief.
The first question I want to ask you is,
do you know who invented bypass surgery?
That should be the first question, right?
Because you’re talking about bypass surgery.
So who invented bypass surgery?
Again, go look it up.
If I remember this at the end of this thing,
I will tell you or actually I’ll put it in the description.
But here you are impressed,
hugely impressed by this robotic bypass surgery.
And you do not even know the name of the person
who invented bypass surgery in the first place.
The robot is just doing something which
surgeons did all these years.
Now you’ve got a robot doing that.
And you’ve got a machine which is programmed.
So maybe it doesn’t make mistakes or whatnot.
But that’s it.
So you say this, this thing cures.
So I said to my friend,
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala cures,
not the robotic surgery.
So he then said the normal thing again.
I’m not criticizing him at all.
This is what everyone does.
So he said,
That goes without saying.
So I said to him,
if you want to do this,
you have to do it.
So I said to him,
if that goes without saying,
why do I need to say La ilaha illa Allah?
Because it should go without saying
that there’s no one worthy of worship except Allah.
But if I want to enter Islam
and I say that I believe this in my heart,
but I will not say it with my tongue.
I have the opportunity.
I can say it.
I will not say it because it’s understood.
Why must I say it?
What will you say?
Because,
Iqraar bi’l-lisan,
to say it with your tongue,
is a condition of entering Islam.
Why is that important?
Another example,
our condition of our hearts.
For example,
I’m walking in this absolutely fabulous place,
which you are seeing here.
Ashley is the wire.
And I’m here again with my dear friend
and my teacher,
Mauraan Omar.
And may Allah bless him and have our company.
We have this company,
InshaAllah,
you know,
as long as we have,
live here and then in Jannah,
InshaAllah.
Now,
then,
we are Ali’s spiritual technique.
Well,
today,
you know actually we have the skill and power
to standing a standing position I have here.
But my spiritual corrective thing I will not say.
Al- Nahi Syaikhin,
in the
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قليلا
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So,
Because Allah knows what’s in the heart.
Doesn’t He know?
What’s the answer?
The answer is another question.
Why then did Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala say,
command with a wa’eed,
with a promise of a punishment
at the end of that ayah in Surah Ibrahim.
وَإِذْ تَعَذَّرَ رَبُّكُمْ لَإِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَعَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
وَإِن كَفَرْتُمْ مِنَّهِ أَضَابِلَ شَدِيدًا
Why did Allah say that?
And then again, grammatically, if you look at it,
two, three times Allah is emphasizing.
لَإِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَعَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
وَلَإِن كَفَرْتُمْ
Imagine all of this emphasizing.
If the person thanks me, I will increase my blessing.
And if he is ungrateful,
then let him be aware of my punishment.
Why should that?
Why should you say it?
Why must I say, Alhamdulillah,
Ya Rabb, I am so grateful to you.
Alhamdulillah.
كل شكر لك يا رب.
All the sugar is for you.
And so on and so on.
Why?
Why must I say that?
Allah knows.
It’s in my heart.
Allah knows it’s in my heart.
Allah says, no, say it.
Because it is not about the other.
It’s about you.
We thank Allah to show our gratitude.
Not because Allah does not know,
but because it is the position of the slave
to show his gratitude.
Whether the creator, our owner,
our creator, our maalik, khaliq,
hakim alayna,
whether he knows,
or does not know,
is not the issue.
The issue is as a slave,
as a mark of my abudhiyat,
I must express this.
Why must I say, La ilaha illallah?
Even though it is the most clear thing in the whole world,
because I am entering Islam.
And because it is my job to reiterate that,
to announce my allegiance and my submission to Allah .
So anytime anyone makes this statement and say,
because of this technology,
because of that,
because of something,
right,
so and so was saved,
or so and so was killed,
no.
Life and death is in the hand of Allah.
Cure is in the hand of Allah.
It happens if and when Allah wills,
not otherwise.
Two glaring examples.
Princess Diana was riding in the backseat
of an armored Mercedes Benz.
Right?
Very interesting.
In South Africa once,
South Africa they make Mercedes and BMW.
So there was an accident.
There is a beautiful road in Cape Town,
which follows the,
which is on the side of the mountain.
And it’s a windy road.
It’s an absolutely fabulous view,
beautiful drive.
So if you go to Cape Town,
you must go there.
Now there was an accident.
There was a guy who was obviously drunk or something,
in the night.
He was driving a Mercedes.
He drove off that cliff.
He fell from there in his car,
God knows how many,
hundred feet,
onto the rocks,
which is,
this cliff,
the feet of the cliff are in the,
in the ocean.
So he fell,
the car fell into the rocks.
And this guy walked out of that unharmed.
So,
some clever ad guy for Mercedes,
next morning they put on an ad,
and they said,
he was saved because he was driving a Mercedes.
Next day,
there is an ad from BMW saying,
if he had been driving a BMW,
this would not have happened.
There would have been no accident.
Now the reason I’m saying that is,
not as a joke,
but to show,
that if you have a BMW,
you can drive it.
You can drive it.
You can drive it.
So,
that for us today,
to not specifically state,
that it is Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala,
who cures.
It is Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala,
who feeds.
Right?
Who Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala,
who guides.
The beautiful,
ayat of the Quran,
very Bible-ly,
Psalm says all of this.
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Does not the Adhab,
where is gim.
is there any knowledge about the adhab,
and it is something.
View,
you know,
right?
Just seeing the Adhab.
And at this time,
a lot of people will figure out,
and they will use a Multiquite,
Doctor does not cure you, Allah cures you.
And say it, say it loudly and clearly.
And say it as many times as you have to say it.
And if somebody tells you,
This is understood.
No, it’s not understood.
It is not understood.
That is why it is idolatry.
Because we make these idols.
And today our idols are not made of stone.
They are made of these ideologies
and of this awe and majesty of technology
that we have ingrained into ourselves.
And as I told you, this is like pollution.
It’s there in the air.
You breathe it.
It becomes part of your body.
Nobody actually goes and sticks his nose
into a tailpipe of a truck to breathe in the fumes.
It comes through the air.
And this is what our modern idolatry does.
It is…
It is in our phones.
It is in social media.
It is through all the so-called conveniences we encounter.
Right?
We have Siri.
And we have this one and that one.
Do this for me.
Do this for me.
Do that for me.
And you say, oh wow, look at technology.
Right?
All that Siri is doing is taking the place of a little notebook
that I used to carry in my pocket.
What does it…
My notebook cost me nothing.
It did the job better than Siri
because my notebook…
I write actually in it.
So the writing itself is beneficial.
Plus, I don’t write…
I won’t write by mistake something.
But with Siri, Siri can misunderstand my accent or something.
And, you know…
So…
So the point I’m saying is very, very important for us
to keep this in mind
and not allow this idolatry to form part of our thinking.
Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Wa sahibu ilaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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