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Alhamdulillah Rabbil ‘Aalameen, wa salatu wasalamu ala ash-Sha’ifa al-Anbiya’i wal-Mursaleen, wa hamdu lillahi Rabbil ‘Aalameen. Tasliman kathiran kathira. I am about to share with my brothers and sisters the first hadith in Al-Baqarah, narrated by Umar ibn al-Khattab (RA). He said: “The first thing is…”
This is an important thing for us to remember because the reward is not only in the Akhirah; the reward is also in this Dunya. The reward is in the sense that what you get out of something depends on what you want from it. Why did you enter that? What’s the reason for you to enter that situation? So what you get out of it depends on what you want from it. So what you get out of that situation depends on the intention with which you went there.
For example, today they have this terminology where they talk about religious scholars who give lectures and so on. They say speakers; they call them speakers. Here is a session, Speaker, so-and-so. If that person is a speaker and you are going there, then what are you? A listener. The speaker, you are a listener. So at the end of the lecture, if I ask you, “So what will you do?” You will say, “What will I do?” You will say, “I already did; I listened.” The speaker, I am a listener. The lecture is over, khalas, my job is over. I listened, going on.
But in the same situation, if you go there and you see that person is not a speaker—that person is a teacher—now what does that make you? A student. So what is the job of the student? To learn and apply. Same situation, nothing has changed, right? Nothing has changed. The same person is talking, you are the same person. What has changed is the intention with which you went there. That’s all. But that intention will change your whole life. I am not talking about the Akhirah. Insha’Allah, Allah will reward you. I am talking about this life. When you go to listen to somebody with the idea that the person is a speaker, then you will listen; sometimes your attention will wander, sometimes you will get involved, which happens most of the time. You will get involved in judging the speaker. In comparing that speaker to some other speaker. Right? “I listened to so-and-so. Oh no, but you see, the other person’s speech was better than his.” The story he is telling is not so interesting. Or it is very interesting. So you are sitting there now in some kind of judgmental position: The good speaker, not the good speaker. How is the speech?
That is why many times in America especially, when they have a religious lecture and so on, they used to have somebody pass out a seat saying, “Please give to the people,” or say, “Please give your feedback.” And what is the feedback? The feedback is about the speaker. So I stopped all that. I said, “This is nonsense. This is complete nonsense, right?” You are not there to judge the speaker. Who the hell are you? I mean, what do you mean? You are there to judge the speaker? Good speaker, bad speaker? Who cares? If you want to do something, I said, forget your feedback. Your feedback is immaterial. It is worthless. We don’t want your feedback. Write down: What did you get out of this speech? What is your takeaway? What is the benefit you derive from the speech? Don’t worry about the speaker. Because at the end of the day, you get the speaker. Oh, you know, he does not have an American accent. Who cares, man? He spoke. Did you understand him? Yes, we understood that. You look and say, “What did I take away from this? What did I get from this?” Right? So this is the importance of the speech. Of intention. Because how you look at the teacher defines how we look at ourselves. And that will define our attitude which will define the benefit that we get from this action. So whichever that action is.
So I am giving you just one example of speakers and teachers and so on because we are here. But take anything. Take absolutely any action that you are going to do and ask yourself: What is my position here? People get married; they are very anxious to get married. I get these cases all the time. Very anxious to get married. “Oh, immediately I must get married.” Blah, blah, blah. Then six months later, gone down the drain—divorce. So what was this marriage about? You entered the marriage for what? To do what? And that depends and that decides what you are going to do. How that marriage will be successful or whether it will fail. You have children. What is the intention behind that? Do you even have an intention, or is the child some accident which happened? Okay, so the child is an accident. That time you should have had an intention but you did not have. At least have it now. Make an intention and say, “What is my intention with respect to this child? What kind of child do I want? What kind of person do I want this child to become?” Because then your input into that child is based on that. Right? Supposing you say, “Now Ahmad, for example, you say, ‘Ahmad, I want Ahmad to become this, this.'” Then your whole effort will go behind this. Again, remember, as far as children are concerned, just because you are the father does not mean that you even have the capability of giving that child everything the child needs. I am not talking about physical needs. For example, if you say, “I want my child to develop cognitive ability for structured thinking,” you may not know how to do it. So what will you do? But because you have the intention, what will you do? You go find a teacher. But you have no intention in the first place.
That’s why I say this all the time. I say, “How is there a difference between how you raise your child and how you raise your cat? Is there a difference?” For most people, there’s no difference. The child also gets food at the right time; the child gets clothes; the child gets a comfortable place to stay. So also the cat. Cat doesn’t get clothes, but otherwise the cat also gets food. The cat gets a nice place to stay. There’s no difference between your child and your pet. That’s why children aren’t growing up like this—like animals. No manners. No, you know, akhlaq, nothing. They don’t know how to deal with people. No social skills. This is not how you raise children. Even cats and dogs you train. I mean, if you don’t train them, you have a problem with them. We don’t train children. Because of the intention. Now Islam, if you think about this issue—to come back to the example I gave regarding teachers and speakers—Islam is the name of a practice. It’s not the name of a theory. It’s not a philosophy. Islam is the name of a practice. This is the other big problem that we fall into. Somebody sent me the other day. Allah, at one time in his life, he wrote a book called *Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam*. Right? It is one of the worst books in the world. It’s full of kufr. Because he was going through that phase in his life. It’s completely motadila, akhida. And it is based on a fundamental principle. Where Iqbal went wrong.
Somebody sent me this thing. I mean, I read the book. My father gave me that book when I was just out of high school. I was getting into college. I was in PUC or something. My father gave me the book. He said, “Read this.” Small book. So I read this. And he said, “What do you think about this book?” I said, “I’ve got lots of doubts.” He said, “Exactly. So think about it.” So on a side note, what books do you give to your children to read? Do you give
Any books to your children? I have to start from the absolute bottom. So my father gave me this book. The other day, somebody sent me a little video of a woman speaking, saying that how Iqbal said—a message which came, or they didn’t actually use the word philosophy—but that’s what they meant. That something which came a thousand years ago; how can it still be relevant and so on and so on. Which is Kufr, complete Kufr. If you believe that, you have left Islam. Simple as that. Because you are saying the Quran is no longer valid. That means you are no longer Muslim. Period. Right? Anyway, Iqbal came back to the straight path. That is how he also wrote the famous *Nazm-e-Shikwa*. And then he got pushback from the scholars. May Allah bless them. And may Allah bless him also because he was able to understand his mistake. So then he wrote *Jahaz-e-Shikwa*, which is really his own repentance, recanting, and coming back to the orthodox path. So he wrote this thing. So somebody sent me this thing, and I said: “My point is this is apples and oranges. You are comparing apples to oranges.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “You are comparing philosophy to revelation.”
So understand this. You are comparing philosophy to revelation. The theory that you are talking about—which is to say something which was postulated a thousand years ago, how is it still valid—is a valid question for philosophy. Question is valid. Question is valid for what? It’s valid for philosophy. So you say a philosophy which was postulated a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, five hundred years ago. Aristotle said this; so-and-so said this; Plato said this. Right? Imam Ghazali said this; whoever said this.
He said that this thing is it valid today? Can it be valid today? Does it need to be evolved? Does it need evolution? Does it need to be corrected for time and place? All of these questions are valid for philosophy.
They are not valid for revelation.
Philosophy comes from human beings. Revelation comes from Allah ﷻ. The Quran al-Karim is not philosophy. The Quran al-Karim is the actual speech of Allah, *Kalamullah*. What is the meaning of *Kalamullah*?
Allah’s speech. What is the meaning of it? Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said: “Allah’s speech.” It’s not a created thing.
So all the concepts and theories about time make no sense in revelation because it’s not a created thing. Time is a creature of Allah. Time is created by Allah. Allah is the creator of time. Allah is not subject to time.
With the philosopher, you can say okay Mr. Aristotle, you lived a thousand years ago, so you knew what was in the world. You could not possibly have known what’s going to happen one thousand years from now.
So whatever you say is good for today. Maybe it’s good for another year, or some more years, even some more centuries, but a thousand years from now, two thousand years from now, because you are a human being. You are subject to time. Allah is not subject to time. Allah created time.
So if somebody is saying does Islam need to be evolved? Does the Quran need to be evolved? This person is playing games with the intellect.
Apples and oranges. You are trying to compare philosophy with revelation.
Two different things. Two completely different things. How will you compare? There is no comparison. There is absolutely no comparison between philosophy and revelation.
We take the word of Allah because it is the word of Allah, and that word of Allah is true for all time because it is beyond time. Time is a concept that is restricted to this world. This world we have four dimensions: length, width, height, and time. You get in a rocket and you go out of the purview of this world; you go into outer space, there is no time. So you don’t have to go all the way to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala; even a human being gets in a rocket and goes up there, there is no time. Time is for this earth because time is a factor of the revolution of the sun and the moon. The sun gives us the day and the moon gives us the month.
So once you are out of that purview of the sun and the moon, there is no time.
So, attitude—how do you go about it? So Rasulullah ﷺ did not come to tell us *about* Islam. People say, “I want to learn about Islam.” You can learn about Islam till you die, but you will not be a Muslim.
I am not saying don’t learn. I am saying if you restrict it to that—”I am learning about Islam”—then you can learn about Islam your whole life, but you will not be a Muslim. Rasulullah ﷺ did not come to teach us *about* Islam. He came to teach us how to *do* Islam. How to practice Islam. Not learn about Islam. Practice Islam. That’s why he said, “Pray as you have seen me.” He said, “Pray as you have seen me pray.” He didn’t say “learn about Salah.” No. He said, “Do Salah.”
Not learn about Salah. Right. So the Sahaba learned to practice Islam. They learned to *do* Islam.
It’s like any martial art. You can learn about it and become an expert, or you can do it and become an expert. Both are experts. The one who learnt about it is also an expert. The one who learns to do it is also an expert. But only one will remain standing if he is attacked in the street.
There’s one who knows about the martial art. There’s one who is doing the martial art. And if they get attacked in the street, who will remain standing?
The one who does the martial art. He may not know as much as the other one. For example, if you ask: “Who started Aikido? What is the name of the person who started Aikido? What are the principles of Aikido?” And so on and so on. He may know all of that. The other man may not know all that, but he knows Aikido. He knows what to do with Aikido. He knows how to practice. He knows how to fight.
Both are experts.
But only one will be standing.
And that is also the principle of Islam.
Knowing about Islam *Alhamdulillah*, no problem. But if you stop with that and don’t practice it, then it doesn’t help.
Chaitanya will come and hijack you.
So we ask Allahﷻ to help us to practice Islam. To actually *do* Islam. So that when we are faced with challenges, we are able to fight those challenges. And that when we meet Allah ﷻ, we meet Him in a state where He is pleased with us.
Wassalamualaikum. Kareem ala alihi wa sahbihi almayim bi rahmatik ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.