Latest / After Maghrib 🌙 / The Secrets of Prophet Muhammad's Life (Ft. Sayed Ali Imran)
Transcript
- 0:00Smila Rahman, Raheem Salaam Alaikum and welcome back to the
- 0:03Aftermath of podcast Al Hamdallah.
- 0:06Many of you by now tune in week in, week out and we are truly
- 0:08grateful for your support. However, many of you are still
- 0:11new to Aftermath, so I'm sure to subscribe so that you never miss
- 0:14an episode of ours as well as our weekly show Juma Nights,
- 0:17which is hosted by a great friend of mine, someone who's
- 0:20gifted and talented, and that's none other than Brother Muhammad
- 0:24Ali Salaam Alaikum. I'm.
- 0:37Great. Obviously you can see that I'm
- 0:38replacing Brother Ahmed this week again because obviously he
- 0:43has his commitments, but inshallah we'll be able to make
- 0:46it work. Inshallah and you know now I get
- 0:49to see you more off screen than on screen.
- 0:52So says a lot about our friendship.
- 0:56Now Inshallah, we are looking to discuss the Sierra of Rasul
- 1:00Allah Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wali Wasallam, the prophetic
- 1:03biography and the shall last some lessons from the life of
- 1:07Rasul Allah Muhammad, peace be upon him now.
- 1:10We can't do this alone. We are joined by the esteemed,
- 1:13the respected Sayed Sayed Ali Imran all the way from Canada
- 1:17who is currently the principal of Al Hadi School as well as
- 1:20someone who was involved with Al Mizan Institute, Sayedna Salaam.
- 1:24Alaikum Salaam brothers, how are you guys?
- 1:26Al Hamdulillah Good, good. It's a pleasure to meet you in
- 1:29person. Yes, yes, I see you only online,
- 1:31but. Now we are.
- 1:32Blessed with your. Pleasure is mine.
- 1:33Thank you for having me here and Shallah.
- 1:35We hope to have a good discussion tonight, inshallah.
- 1:38Inshallah, Inshallah. Now say it.
- 1:40Normally when we have an international guest come on the
- 1:44podcast, we sort of try to break the ice, sort of try to
- 1:47understand who you are off the pulpit, if one can say.
- 1:51So before we dive into the discussion, I want to ask a
- 1:53question. You've come all the way from
- 1:55Canada, Toronto and I'm sure you've been to the UK many
- 1:57times. And however, this year you were
- 2:01here for the nights of Muharram where you were delivering
- 2:04lectures with the sincere group of the Mutmani and the brothers
- 2:08Shabab, a subplane. And I'm sure there are
- 2:11differences when it comes to, for example, community vibes or
- 2:14how majalises are arranged even at Tabarrokan food.
- 2:16Who knows? But is there any like things
- 2:18that stand out between Canada and the UK?
- 2:212-3 examples. Yeah, for sure.
- 2:23I mean, I think a couple of things that were immediately
- 2:26obvious for me was we usually don't have English lectures in
- 2:30Toronto that late and I was kind of concerned before I came, like
- 2:34will people even show up and you know, after a moment, but it
- 2:37will be on humble. It would be like a packed crowd.
- 2:39So that was like the London and they told me that, but just told
- 2:42me that brought say it like this is London is going to be full,
- 2:45even if it's eleven in the night.
- 2:47So you know, that was a little bit interesting for me to see.
- 2:49And also just the amount of majalis like on one St. like,
- 2:54you know, just when I would go to lecture, like they would be
- 2:57like 2-3 centers, I would go past I guess Wilsden area and
- 3:00all that. So and then I think the
- 3:03strangest night was the night of Ashuta when after the majesty
- 3:06was coming back, like the streets of London were just guys
- 3:09and women with abayas and men with like dustashas black.
- 3:13And I was like, what where am I like, is this London or like
- 3:15Iraq, Iran? So yeah, that's definitely
- 3:19something like it was a unique experience for me for the first
- 3:21time. You don't really see that in
- 3:23Toronto. I mean, our centres are very,
- 3:25very spaced out. And so that's definitely
- 3:28something that was very new for me to experience.
- 3:30Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful.
- 3:31It reminds me of, I live near something called Asda, which is
- 3:35like a Walmart or something for those in North America, where
- 3:38whenever I go in during Muharram, we're whether it's
- 3:419:00 AM or 1:00 AM in the morning, there's all Mashallah
- 3:44people from the community and we see hajiat and sisters, even
- 3:47sometimes people from the mosque that are gone shopping after the
- 3:50mosque. And it's like it never ends.
- 3:51Yeah, I'm the like to emphasize how great the community is in
- 3:55London, how big it is. Yes, that's why I referenced
- 3:57this. I think also you're not the only
- 3:59one getting used to the late starts because in our
- 4:01communities, in the Hoja community, Pakistani community,
- 4:03generally speaking, it finishes at Mughalab as well.
- 4:05So right. Right.
- 4:06Speaking, yeah. It was the.
- 4:08Yeah, yeah. It's mostly the Arab centres
- 4:09that start after 9:00, so that says something.
- 4:13Yes, I would say I would say and one thing, one thing that's good
- 4:16about the Hoja community, by the way, if it says 703 the starting
- 4:19at 703. Yes, La Hamdalla say it now,
- 4:24Sharla, let's kick off the discussion.
- 4:27I I think I want to begin here. We live in a world currently say
- 4:31it's where we see or how I feel I see the world is that there
- 4:35are two sides of the coin when it comes to Rafael Muhammad
- 4:38peace be upon him. Is that you have, on one hand
- 4:41you have the Islamophobes who have this false perception on
- 4:45narrative on the life of Rasulallah, be it he was
- 4:49bloodthirsty, an evil man or someone who spread Islam by the
- 4:52sword. And then on the other hand, you
- 4:54have many respectable renowned historians who reference his
- 4:58great character. You have Mashallah daily
- 5:01hundreds if not thousands of people reverting to Islam,
- 5:04accepting the Rasulallah of Rasulallah Muhammad Sallallahu
- 5:07Alaihi asylum. And it goes without mentioning
- 5:10the millions and millions, if not I think close to 2 billion
- 5:12Muslims who revered up to and aspire to be and live like our
- 5:17beloved Messenger Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi Salaam.
- 5:19It all goes back to his life. The Sierra.
- 5:23What is the Sierra of Rasul Allah?
- 5:25What does it mean? Is it different to, for example,
- 5:27the Quran, the Hadith world or his actual Sunnah?
- 5:31Where do we begin with the Sierra?
- 5:33I said so I'd be lay him in a Shaitaan regime.
- 5:36Smill Rahman Rahim excellent question.
- 5:40So look, Sierra comes from the word save like a journey or a,
- 5:46you know, almost like a travel. That's what the sort of root
- 5:50word indicates. And the sera essentially, you
- 5:54know, just in the linguistic sense would mean the way person
- 5:57lived or the way that the person lived.
- 6:00And in that sense that yes, it is the Muslims did see the word
- 6:04sera different actually from the hadees, for example.
- 6:08So in, you know, in in in Islamic sort of theology or in
- 6:11even in Osul al FAQ, they always say that, for example, the whole
- 6:15of the mass woman's hajjah and the silent approval of the Imam
- 6:19is the, you know, mass woman's hajjah and also the fair of the
- 6:23mass woman's hajjah. So Sira actually has to deal
- 6:26with, not the whole, OK, OK, it has to do with the fair and also
- 6:30the silent approvals. Where do you get Because
- 6:33silence, Silence means there's no cold, right?
- 6:36So generally it won't be enshrined in a hadith.
- 6:39There is once in a while, you know, maybe a companion might
- 6:42say that hey, something happened in the Imam was observing.
- 6:45But very rarely do you see those type of reports.
- 6:48Most of the times it's actually in the Sierra.
- 6:50You will see that maybe something was happening and the
- 6:53Prophet was there or some of the IMA was there and you know, they
- 6:57didn't say anything. So that would indicate that that
- 6:59would be OK to do or their action and their way of life and
- 7:04the way that they lived, which is generally an application of
- 7:08the theology and the Sharia and all the teachings of Islam.
- 7:13Where do you actually see the application of that?
- 7:17And you see that in the Sierra, right?
- 7:19So this is one of the main distinctions that we need to
- 7:21understand The Sierra. Actually, we're focusing more on
- 7:23the actions of the Holy Prophet Salallahu Alayhi, and obviously
- 7:27in the Sierra of the AIM, which is an extension of that.
- 7:31But this is important. So it's not the Hadees in the
- 7:33sense of their whole, right? It's not like this is what the
- 7:37prophet said. No, that that's that is a hadees
- 7:40and that is treated and investigated in a very different
- 7:43way. If you notice, even the way our
- 7:46fake tradition is, it focuses more on the what you know, what
- 7:49is called a Sadiq or Kalal Baker, or this is what he said.
- 7:53And usually you don't know when did he say it?
- 7:54What was the time, what was the place, who was even the
- 7:57audience? You don't really know.
- 7:59And they have a methodology to sort of derive rulings from
- 8:01that. But the Sita is like, no,
- 8:03actually becomes very important to know where does this event
- 8:08you need to know when was the said, what was happening, what
- 8:11was the context? And then Inshallah, you know,
- 8:14during the discussion, we'll talk about how you learn from
- 8:17the sera because that's so now you will need a methodology to
- 8:20sort of understand and interpret that.
- 8:22So that's kind of I think so in relation to the Quran.
- 8:27Look, of course, what she is different than the sera, what
- 8:30she is the word of Allah. But I do I in my research, you
- 8:34know, I've done a lot of research in the Sierra recently.
- 8:37I generally intend to mix the two because the Sierra is going
- 8:43in tandem with the washi that's coming down.
- 8:46And oftentimes, you know, people ask what's the source of the
- 8:48sera, right? Like what are the books that you
- 8:51are using? One of the most important
- 8:53sources of the sera actually is the Quran, right?
- 8:57Because the Quran actually talks about how the Prophet was
- 9:00behaving and acting in certain scenarios or what allies telling
- 9:05him how to behave in a certain scenario.
- 9:07That's the sera. So for me, Quran actually
- 9:09becomes the one of the most important sources of the sita,
- 9:12right? And that's something that I
- 9:13wanted to mention that yes, it is different, meaning the Quran
- 9:17has his own Hajiya, its own sort of authority, and the Sierra has
- 9:21its own authority. But to sort of understand the
- 9:23Sierra and what it is, Quran becomes one of those sources
- 9:27that we can use to. So it's like parts of a puzzle.
- 9:30Yeah, yeah. And that's why I think this
- 9:32Muharram, when I was lecturing, I kind of talked about the
- 9:35importance of looking at the Quran from a chronological lens,
- 9:39which Surah was revealed first. And a lot of Mahakah keen in
- 9:42Iran have done a lot of research on this recently.
- 9:44They've even published some Tafazir in this order.
- 9:48I don't know if the audience knows, but they say the most
- 9:50half the codex of Imam Ali was in the order of revelation,
- 9:54right. So many researchers have tried
- 9:56to sort of figure that order out.
- 9:59And when you go with the order of revelation, it kind of goes
- 10:02takes you through the journey of the prophetic sera as well.
- 10:05So that's kind of how, you know, I think the relationship between
- 10:08the Quran and the sera, one can look at it in that way.
- 10:10They're kind of together. Yeah.
- 10:14With regards to the Sierra, then if you mentioned, of course,
- 10:17it's a genre that is kind of separate to the hadith.
- 10:20How was this genre basically then developed historically?
- 10:24And why is it that when we look at, for example, classes of
- 10:27Sierra, like today, for example, we'll see that other sects in
- 10:32Islam focus a lot on the Sierra and they teach Sierra and they
- 10:36have their own sources of CRR. And on the other hand, in our
- 10:41kind of circles, we don't tend to see as much emphasis on it.
- 10:45This is another important question and I have sort of
- 10:50addressed it in some of my previous lectures and stuff, but
- 10:52I want to address it in this podcast a little bit more
- 10:56differently and allow me to just give a little sort of like a
- 11:02context to this discussion. You see, Sira, when you say
- 11:06study the SIRA, that means we're studying a subject, OK?
- 11:09And in our daily life we have different subjects.
- 11:12We can study theology, we can study physics, we can study
- 11:15math, we can study art, we can study politics.
- 11:19And the ancient classical Olama of the Muslims had a very
- 11:24important discussion between the division of these sciences, the
- 11:28Taksim of the Olum, What is the division of these Urdu?
- 11:33Where does metaphysics come into play?
- 11:34Where does theology fit? Where does mathematics fit?
- 11:37And they made a distinction. They said, hey, science is in
- 11:40the Urdu. And the different subjects can
- 11:42be divided into two. One is the theoretical sciences
- 11:45and then second is the practical sciences.
- 11:48The theoretical sciences, many of them said that the reason for
- 11:51the theoretical sciences is that you study them for your own
- 11:54sake. So what is this?
- 11:56What is theoretical sciences? So metaphysics, OK, existence,
- 11:59you know how to you know God, for example.
- 12:03You're not learning about God for the sake of something else.
- 12:06You're learning because it actually helps you, your soul,
- 12:08your own existential values. Like.
- 12:13Or then they say like mathematics, OK, by the way,
- 12:16when they say mathematics there, it's just a summary.
- 12:18Like mathematics includes geometry, astronomy, even music.
- 12:21Actually music was placed under mathematics and these were all
- 12:25theoretical. And then you had physics and
- 12:28physics classically was also a theoretical science, the
- 12:30learning about the nature of matter when it comes.
- 12:33So this was theory in the practical sciences.
- 12:36They had ethics. And remember, it's not that the
- 12:39division was practical sciences are not for your own, not for
- 12:42the sake of just studying for the sake of it.
- 12:45It was actually to help you with achieving something.
- 12:48So they had ethics because a clock is to purify your soul and
- 12:52to avoid, let's say, moral vices.
- 12:55Then they had household management.
- 12:57This was an entire discipline and within that they had how to
- 13:00manage your house, how to get a job, how to manage your spouse,
- 13:03family, children's school, education.
- 13:05Everything comes under over here.
- 13:07And the last was politics. It was within politics where the
- 13:12Sira genre developed and it was developed under the Bani Umayya
- 13:17Bani Abbas. Why?
- 13:19Because they were running a government.
- 13:22This is going to become important to know why the Shia
- 13:24did not really develop it too much.
- 13:27OK. One of the reasons.
- 13:28So when the Ahlu Sunnah, the the Bani Umayya, Bani Abbas, they
- 13:31had government and they wanted to come up with policies.
- 13:35How do you deal with the Ahlu Khattab?
- 13:37How do you deal with the Kafar? What do you do in war?
- 13:39How do you take the tax? Hi.
- 13:41So they wanted to justify it with something.
- 13:44And then that's why if you notice the early historians who
- 13:47wrote Sita, they were all people who used to work in the courts.
- 13:51Very interesting, okay, they were.
- 13:53And that's why we sometimes question these sort of the
- 13:56reliability of some of the. Source the hand in hand with
- 13:59the. Yeah, okay.
- 14:00They were all being produced within that culture, that
- 14:03environment in the court, and the governments were funding.
- 14:06These scholars can't do without money, right?
- 14:10So they were funding them and so on.
- 14:11So that's where the Sira genre actually developed.
- 14:14Now in our rewiat, obviously you have many, many rewiat in our
- 14:18books that talk about the Sira. It's not that the Emma never
- 14:20talked about it, but the reason why they were developing it was
- 14:24more for politics. That's very key, OK?
- 14:28They would say, OK, the Prophet dealt with this tribe in this
- 14:31way. So that makes it gives us a
- 14:33precedence on how we will act with a certain tribe.
- 14:35Muslim, OK. And then obviously it developed
- 14:37over time. Then big guys came like Tabari
- 14:39and all of these big, you know, Yahoobi and Masoudi and all
- 14:42these guys and start writing large volumes of history books
- 14:45and including the Sira. They had access to many, many
- 14:48books and manuscripts like Tabari, for example, never
- 14:51actually even traveled, right, Which is generally as a as a
- 14:54scholar in that time is not a good thing.
- 14:57Like scholars, Olama Rehla and travelling was part of their
- 15:00learning process, but nobody had access to all the books.
- 15:02Actually, he never actually had to travel, which is very
- 15:04interesting, right? But that itself gives, you know,
- 15:08it's an interesting study to throw investigate like what was
- 15:10he doing? You know, how much access did he
- 15:12have to books? But anyways, that's such a side
- 15:14point. So that was one reason.
- 15:16Second reason I would say is that look, the XI community was
- 15:20obviously on the defensive, right?
- 15:22We didn't have the power. We were oppressed.
- 15:24You know, I'm Arim Salam. Many of them spend their lives
- 15:27in tortilla, for example. All this, all these reasons and
- 15:31a lot of the efforts were going into sort of establishing a
- 15:34theological point, which was the ulaya, OK?
- 15:38And that's why most of our discussions in the 2nd century,
- 15:413rd century, 4th, even 5th, 6th century injury, you notice it's
- 15:45mostly to do with proving the aima, the ulaya from the
- 15:49especially Imam Aliya Salaam. So Kitabul Irshad Sheikh Mufid
- 15:52Raisin, he skips the prophetic sera because OK, there's not to
- 15:56laugh on it. And there's no difference of
- 15:58opinion. We know he's a prophet.
- 16:00So let me start from Imam Ali Al Islami wrote the book on the
- 16:03biography of the Imams, for example.
- 16:06So historically speaking, there was no sort of opportunity, you
- 16:09could say. And also maybe there was no
- 16:12motivation as well because of the fact that there's other
- 16:15debates that are more priority at that time.
- 16:18So that's the reason there wasn't anything.
- 16:19Because I mean, it's not to say that she has never cared about
- 16:23the prophet. Now that was never the case,
- 16:25right? We never, that was never the
- 16:27sort of reason. It's just social political
- 16:29context. And then that's why now when the
- 16:33world has changed, we are no longer in sort of that sort of a
- 16:36context, the need for reviving the seat up for us.
- 16:41And now especially whether whether we live in the East or
- 16:43the West, we, if you notice when we move to the West, we have to
- 16:46develop frameworks and structures from scratch here,
- 16:51OK, we don't have anything here. We don't have no schooling, The
- 16:55politics, not ours, the education system, not ours, the
- 16:57legal system, not ours. So how do we operate in this
- 16:59sort of context, which has never existed before of 60-70 hundred
- 17:03years ago? This is where the Sierra
- 17:05basically becomes this. Is why it becomes now so
- 17:07important for us to revisit and then remember, right, because
- 17:10the IMR Ali Musalaam, they didn't come and do Tashiria like
- 17:15they weren't creating a new religion.
- 17:17It's an extension. That was the whole, that was the
- 17:20whole Dalil argument we gave that, hey, the Deen is
- 17:24completed. Allah has perfected the
- 17:26religion, but you need someone now to extend and sort of apply
- 17:30it and show you actually how it's applied.
- 17:33So even the Hadis and the seed of the Imams, it's like you
- 17:36almost have to know the seed of the Prophet to be actually able
- 17:40to be able to understand it. And that's why I when my majalis
- 17:43this year I started actually with a quote from Imam Hussain.
- 17:46I said, I said, look what he is saying when he leaves Mecca,
- 17:48Medina, sorry, he says I want to go and revive the seed of Majidi
- 17:54Prophet. And he says my father as well.
- 17:56But we know Imam Ali himself was kept on citing the seed of the
- 17:59Prophet right in the third, in the election of the third
- 18:02caliph, for example, The reason why I didn't accept him, he
- 18:05said, I will not follow the seed of the I will follow the seed of
- 18:09the Prophet. So we know that.
- 18:11So, So what is this sera? I'm going to look Imam Hussein,
- 18:14Saddam himself wanted to implement that and it makes
- 18:17sense. He's the Imam.
- 18:18Like that's what he's going to do.
- 18:19He's not going to make up his own own religion.
- 18:21That's not the understanding we have theologically speaking.
- 18:24So that's I think addresses your question about why we didn't
- 18:27focus, right? It was, it was Sera is a
- 18:31practical science. Actually, it has to do with
- 18:33practice. When you study it, it has an
- 18:35impact on your practical life and to study it, it would be
- 18:39under politics actually. When you say sorry that you
- 18:42mentioned that the Sierra of the Imams, Adam Salaam is basically
- 18:45an extension of the Sierra. So would you say that we get
- 18:51something, we're able to get something additional from the
- 18:54Sierra of the Imams that we don't necessarily get from the
- 18:56lifetime of Rasulullah due to different circumstances and
- 18:59different things? That so if we believe that the
- 19:02Dean has been completed and it has been perfected, so I believe
- 19:06that all of the teachings were given in the town of the
- 19:08prophet, this could this also means that many principles were
- 19:12given by the prophet. Yeah.
- 19:13OK, there's many things that maybe in the Prophet's own life,
- 19:17he didn't have that event happening in his life, so maybe
- 19:20didn't act on it, but he talked about it or he gave the
- 19:23principal or maybe he gave somebody else the solution to
- 19:26something, right? So when the Ayam Ali Musalam
- 19:29behave and act in a certain way and you say, hey, but the
- 19:32Prophet never had this. No, but that's not the point.
- 19:34The point is what was the principle that they were
- 19:36following, right? I'll give you a very simple
- 19:39example from our fake tradition. OK, I know it's not Sita, but
- 19:42just to kind of drive home the point, the famous eye of the
- 19:46Quran that says Prophet is Oswaton Hassallah.
- 19:49Many of the old classical Fukaha, they used to say that
- 19:52the Juma khudbah, you have to give it in Arabic.
- 19:55Why? Because of tasi, you have to
- 19:57imitate the seed of the Prophet, OK?
- 20:00By the time of Sheikh Abu Sheikh Sani, they started to question
- 20:03this ruling. They said, hey, if you want to
- 20:06follow and do tasi of the Prophet, it's not in the Arabic
- 20:10of the khudba, it is in the principle, that is you speak to
- 20:14the audience in the language that they understand, OK?
- 20:18So after that, then the khudba started to be given in Farsi and
- 20:21today in English and stuff. OK.
- 20:23But there so the folk are like he Tasi means to follow the
- 20:26prophet, but why follow the Hutuban Arabic?
- 20:29He was the reason why he was giving the Hutuban Arabic was
- 20:32because that was what the audience understood.
- 20:34So what's the prophetic principle?
- 20:37Speak to the audience in the language that they understand.
- 20:40So that's a classical basic case of, you know, prophets not
- 20:44speaking to Persians, right or Indian, Pakistanis or Gujarati
- 20:47crowd. So of course going to speak in
- 20:49Arabic. But you know, that's a very
- 20:51simple example in Arabic, how this idea of Uswa imitating the
- 20:56prophet, they fell back on this basic principle and they changed
- 21:00the fatwa. The Fukaha gave a different
- 21:02ruling over there. So, so in that case, if if the
- 21:05Imams were acting in accordance with the principles that
- 21:08Rasulullah told, and there may have been instances in the lives
- 21:12of the Imams I am Salaam that Rasulullah didn't necessarily
- 21:15experience in his time, then we can use the serial of the Imams
- 21:18to learn about. Yeah, yeah.
- 21:20In fact, you, you will even notice that sometimes there is
- 21:24questions about, let's say certain rulings like zakat and
- 21:28Holmes Masalan that what part of these?
- 21:31Because you have to give homes on certain things and you have
- 21:33to give zakat on certain things. You notice that, for example,
- 21:37Imam Ali Ali Salaam adds, you know, zakat and a couple of
- 21:40extra things. It's like, wait, what happened?
- 21:43Like the Prophet, the Dean was completed.
- 21:45So the ulama will use this practice of Imam Ali to figure
- 21:49out that the zakat and part of it was actually political in
- 21:53nature. So the Imam or the Wali Amar or
- 21:57someone who has walaya can actually based on the maslaha
- 22:00and the expediency and the well-being of the community,
- 22:03depending on his, it's a political decision, he can add
- 22:06certain things to the zakat, which is what Imam Ali did
- 22:08actually, right. And then later on they reverted
- 22:11back. So these are or for example, in
- 22:14the case of a temporary marriage or the eating of the meat of the
- 22:18donkey and the horses in the battle of Haber, right?
- 22:21You can tell that this was a, this was a, this was a case of a
- 22:25political ruling, temporary ruling based on the hikma at
- 22:30that time, right? So, but once again, that's your
- 22:33understanding. You will only figure that out if
- 22:34you understand the cedar properly.
- 22:37You're not going to be able to figure it out, which is what
- 22:39majority didn't of the Muslims didn't understand.
- 22:41To understand that Syria we use. Exactly.
- 22:46Exactly. Ultimately, they inherited.
- 22:48Yeah, yeah. The Syria of Rasool Allah and
- 22:51say the back can just go back a bit.
- 22:53There was so much to take in and I like the emphasis that we have
- 22:57to revive the Sierra as the Shia community.
- 22:59But what happened in that gap before Beniol Mayor came into
- 23:02power, let's say during the time of the first two caliphs?
- 23:07Why was there no work on getting the Sierra completed or compiled
- 23:11or put together? What happened?
- 23:13Look in the early generation and the early 1st.
- 23:16I also say because because from what I know may maybe I have the
- 23:20strong but it took about 100 years for the first compiling of
- 23:24the Syrah. No, I mean, you would expect it
- 23:26to not be compiled in the first few decades because, you know,
- 23:31the Sahaba and the Tabarin people who saw the Prophet,
- 23:34people who lived with him, they were living there.
- 23:37There was no real need. It's like almost like, you know,
- 23:40someone might say, why wasn't the biography of a hold Horasani
- 23:44or Sheikh Ansari written in the 1st 20 years after they died?
- 23:47Well, people were still there. There were people knew what they
- 23:50were like. It's only maybe like 70 years
- 23:52later now that I we don't have access to the people who lived
- 23:56at that time. Then you have you feel the need
- 23:58to write biographies of people for.
- 24:00Example, I think they say it was also alluding to kind of like
- 24:02the censorship of a hadith and that kind of stuff.
- 24:05Did that have any effect on the Sierra?
- 24:07I haven't seen anything specific.
- 24:09I haven't read anything specific to indicate that because
- 24:13remember, Sierra is not a hadith, it's not the pole.
- 24:17It's a the way that he behaved in certain ways in certain times
- 24:22and instances. And by the way, those that
- 24:24behavior could be over a span of couple of days and weeks and
- 24:27even months. It's not like 01 day.
- 24:30This is what the Prophet did. No, no, sometimes we need to
- 24:32evaluate his behavior over a period of time actually.
- 24:37So for that, I want to talk about community building.
- 24:40You cannot just take the Prophet like one day of his life and say
- 24:43this is what the Prophet did to build community.
- 24:45No, you're going to have to analyse the entire 1st 13 years
- 24:49of Makkah to see what he was doing.
- 24:52Actually, it takes a lot of time and energy to really see what
- 24:55steps he was taking and and so on and so forth, which is I kind
- 24:58of address this in my Muharram lectures as well this year.
- 25:01Yeah. Sha Allah say that I feel as a
- 25:04Shia community, we do a form of injustice when it comes to the
- 25:09life of Rasul Allah Muhammad in terms of Sierra and I see the
- 25:12Sunni world very active or was known as the Sunni world because
- 25:15there's many branches within the Sunni world.
- 25:18I I think we're lacking behind big time based on my experience.
- 25:22I knew growing up, of course, Rasul Allah is the mercy to
- 25:27mankind, the best creation of Allah Subhanahu wata Allah
- 25:29azawajal, but we didn't know more than that.
- 25:32We just knew about the Ehel Bates, we just knew.
- 25:34For example, we go to Majalis, we learn fear, we learn Akkam,
- 25:38we learn this is halal, this is Haram.
- 25:40But there wasn't an emphasis of knowing who Russell Allah is.
- 25:44How can we know who Russell Allah is in this day and age
- 25:47when there is so much, I would say misinformation,
- 25:50misconceptions even from other schools of thought where there
- 25:53are points where we disagree on what happened in the during the
- 25:56life of Russell Allah. How do we actually know that
- 25:59this is the actual Serie? Are you asking?
- 26:02For folk. Are you asking from the
- 26:04perspective of like the average person?
- 26:06The average? The average?
- 26:08Where do they go? Yeah.
- 26:09So I mean, there's nowadays there are books published and
- 26:12translated into English or even written in English.
- 26:16That's one. But I personally have noticed a
- 26:18number of she speakers in the last couple of years, they have
- 26:22done some very good work on the Cedar like say, I believe Baker
- 26:25Kazwini, for example. He has a very lengthy yes, Sera
- 26:30series. Sheikh Azar Nasir has a very
- 26:32good and lengthy series and your, you know, humble servant
- 26:36here has done some work as well on the sera.
- 26:38You can find all of these online actually.
- 26:41So, you know, people don't like to read nowadays anyway, so I'm
- 26:44going to avoid giving the book names, but these are things
- 26:47that, you know, your audience can sort of search online and
- 26:50they will pop up and you know, Flambo Sheikh Azar or say,
- 26:54because we need they've done a good job at the quality of
- 26:56production is good. The topics are very lengthy and
- 26:59detailed. So, you know, I think that's
- 27:01probably the best place for people to start and they can
- 27:05watch it at home at their own sort of pace and their own
- 27:07comfort. I think people definitely have
- 27:09to start looking into it 100%. Like they need to get a bit more
- 27:13awareness of it because look, man, when we talk about Muslim
- 27:16identity and you know, identity crisis and where do we go to
- 27:19find this identity was Islam and Islam was perfected and
- 27:23completed in the time of the prophet.
- 27:24And you know you're going to get it from him and the Quran.
- 27:28OK, so if you don't even know what on earth the prophet came,
- 27:31what was the message like? You're not going to form an
- 27:34identity. Like you'll always be confused
- 27:36or your identity will be made, will be fixed on something that
- 27:39happened in the 2nd century or something that happened in the
- 27:423rd century, something that happened in the 4th century,
- 27:44something that happened 500 years ago in our community that
- 27:47becomes your identity. Hey, identity should be made.
- 27:50Should the the assault of it should be from the 23 years,
- 27:54which is the era of Tashriya, the era of the Prophet, the era
- 27:58of Wahi. That was the whole point.
- 28:00And then Allah says that hey, today I have perfected it
- 28:03actually, yeah. After that, every era that came,
- 28:07you know, the imams or the Shia community were simply applying
- 28:11their understanding of the Sierra in their time and
- 28:14context, right? Sometimes people say like a talk
- 28:16about the Suffol ways. I don't know how hardcore this
- 28:18podcast is, but let's say the suffol was they did some stuff
- 28:21they the way they came and they took over Iran and stuff.
- 28:23You know, it's not fair to judge them actually in a negative way
- 28:28because time and context at the end of the day, right?
- 28:31Like that was they were living in a time where, yeah, they were
- 28:33really coming out of this after like 1000 years of oppression.
- 28:38And how would you react if you realize like, wow, we finally
- 28:42and got some power and freedom, right?
- 28:45How would you react? So for us to come, you know, 500
- 28:48years later and be like, hey, you know, they were really evil
- 28:50and oppressive. And no, no, I don't, I don't say
- 28:52that at all actually, because at that time and that context,
- 28:55based on the understanding of the Dean and the Sharia and the
- 28:58Ola, I mean, the Olama are there.
- 29:00They're not just doing things on their own.
- 29:01The Olama, Olama Karaki, all these Olama are there, right?
- 29:05So they did what they did based on their understanding for their
- 29:09time. My discussion is OK, that time
- 29:12is now finished. We're living in a postmodern
- 29:14world. The colonialists have literally
- 29:17destroyed us. There is nothing in the modern
- 29:20world that we created like authentically ourselves, right?
- 29:23The political systems are not ours.
- 29:25The education system is not ours.
- 29:27None of this, brother, even this mic is not ours.
- 29:28That we didn't create this mic, right?
- 29:30We have no creativity. Like everything that we do, we
- 29:33wait for the West to produce and then we mimic it, right?
- 29:37So Islamic school is just he let them figure out schooling and
- 29:41then we'll see what they do. We'll copy it, we'll put Islam
- 29:43on it and then we'll make the girls wear hijab in Salat in
- 29:46Islamic school, right? Or coronavirus came like the
- 29:49whole world is waiting for them to come up with a vaccine.
- 29:52If you're not anti vax, you know, but they're waiting for a
- 29:54vaccine. You know they'll develop it and
- 29:56then you know we'll. Just careful with that.
- 29:57We don't do misinformation. Maybe you can censor this part
- 30:02out, but that's my point, right? Like we wait for them to produce
- 30:06something or come up with their creativity, and then we just
- 30:09sort of put the word Islam on it.
- 30:11But this is because we have intellectual poverty and we have
- 30:14become weak actually in the practical sciences.
- 30:16So that Division I mentioned, you know, once the attack
- 30:19happened on the, when the Mongols attacked the Abbasids
- 30:23and the Islamic civilization sort of just got destroyed,
- 30:26right? They threw the books into the
- 30:28the rivers and whatnot, right? The Muslim society went into a
- 30:33crisis and a lot of them took refuge in sort of the Alco
- 30:37sciences, right? And you know, do this tabbies
- 30:39and do this, then this will happen and that will happen.
- 30:43And almost went towards a bit of like a almost like mystical sort
- 30:46of vibes. I call it vibes.
- 30:49And they became very weak in the practical sciences.
- 30:51So today, brother, we're all of our, most of our discussions
- 30:54focus on theoretical stuff, right?
- 30:56We're want to just prove this is the belief.
- 30:58This is the belief. I mean, this is England.
- 31:00You guys have just your speaker's corner.
- 31:02So look at Speaker's Corner. The debates are all about
- 31:05theory. Yes, yes.
- 31:07Where are the practical sciences?
- 31:09We are nowhere to be seen. And this is not over like two
- 31:12years. This has happened over 200
- 31:13years, right? And the Sierra, as I just
- 31:16mentioned, it's a practical science.
- 31:19The Sierra is practical. So, so when we look at this like
- 31:22basically from the angle of the West, like you said, of course
- 31:25we don't have. It's not in politics, it's not
- 31:28in education, not in health, and all of these things are the
- 31:32basic necessities for any society or any community.
- 31:35So how can we take examples from the Sierra and how do we build
- 31:39upon those ideas as a community? Obviously, you mentioned there's
- 31:44intellectual poverty, there's a lack of scholarship, there's a
- 31:47lack of thinkers in in in this space.
- 31:51How how would you say that? What, what are the steps
- 31:54forward? What are the steps that the
- 31:56community need to take from a perspective of philosophy,
- 32:00epistemology, epistemology, like looking at the CR and building
- 32:03upon that to build a system or some sort of framework in terms
- 32:07of our politics and our. Education.
- 32:09I believe the number one thing we need to focus on is
- 32:13education. Education, right?
- 32:15And I don't don't just mean from like a school because I'm a
- 32:17principal at a school, but generally educational
- 32:20institutes, we lack them severely, right?
- 32:25A handler in let's say North America.
- 32:27We have a couple like Nissan Institute movie Seminary and
- 32:30there are some in England as well.
- 32:31I'm not saying there's none, right?
- 32:33There are. But generally the focus of our
- 32:35communities is not that at all, right?
- 32:37You have need to bring people from North America to do like
- 32:39seminars for that's true, right? Which is interesting.
- 32:43But generally speaking, you know that's not the case.
- 32:45But when you look at the sera and you look at how the Prophet
- 32:49started his message, I always give this example because Surah
- 32:54alak is revealed first, right? And Allah Swantala says that
- 32:58hey, you know, ekra bismirabhikalezi khalak.
- 33:01OK, I created you from a small clot and I taught you Alama bill
- 33:05kalam. I taught you how to use the pen
- 33:08difference of you know what the BA means.
- 33:09But anyways, I taught you how to use the pen.
- 33:12I always say imagine the holy prophets, Allahu Ali Ali who the
- 33:15community thinks he's an omi. He doesn't know how to read and
- 33:18write, he's never been to school and he's coming and now
- 33:21addressing the crowd that hey Allah is the one that taught you
- 33:25how to use the pen. Now remember in this mukkun
- 33:28society, not more than 1718 people could even use the pen.
- 33:31So what's the point of this? Like it doesn't make any sense.
- 33:33Why is he? How is this even effective?
- 33:36It is effective, brother, because it shows that the
- 33:39message that he's bringing is so powerful and so miraculous and
- 33:45he has the confidence to go and go to a community.
- 33:48Because look, it's almost like imagine a 5 year old walks in
- 33:51today, OK, And imagine we have some, I don't know, a scientist
- 33:54sitting over here and a 5 year old boy girl walks in and starts
- 33:57talking about this technical jargon of medicine.
- 34:00I will be looking at the the child and be like, wow, now if
- 34:04the doctor freaks out, I'll be like, wait, this boy is serious.
- 34:09Like something must be very special about this boy because
- 34:11otherwise the doctor wouldn't be freaking out.
- 34:13But the doctor is like, you know, whatever, He probably
- 34:15copied a speech of Chachi BT or something.
- 34:17Then I'll be OK. This kid just memorized.
- 34:19If you notice, the elites of Makkah are freaking out because
- 34:23they know this is not normal and Imam, the masses are looking at
- 34:27the elites and like, hey, why are you guys freaking out?
- 34:30So that means this man who is talking about bringing these
- 34:33ayat must be something very serious, very deep, and he's
- 34:37setting the bar so high that he's going as an omi.
- 34:41He's going and attacking and confronting the elites of Makkah
- 34:45and that is all power of knowledge, power, revelation,
- 34:48power away. So whether the most important
- 34:50thing that and we need to prioritize is to fuck or tackle
- 34:54education and we do not unfortunately invest in
- 34:56educational structures. Mashallah, you know this, by the
- 34:59way, this podcast itself is one of those avenues.
- 35:01It's an educational endeavor at the end of the day, right?
- 35:04It's to get the information out. Education is one of those like
- 35:08instances of that. Mashallah for you guys to do
- 35:10that right. But generally speaking, I'm
- 35:13saying we don't do that. So this is the biggest
- 35:15inspiration that we can get from the Holy prophet #1 inspiration
- 35:18#2 there. I mean, there's many case
- 35:20studies we can discuss. I don't know if you want us to
- 35:22discuss them right now, or there's many, many, many case
- 35:25studies you can do from the seat of the Prophet.
- 35:27So for example, we talk about the hegde of the mutkins to
- 35:32Medina, the Mahajirin. You know, we tend to focus on
- 35:36the fall Isle of Amid al Montmini.
- 35:38You know, the Prophet made all these Mahajirin and the Ansar
- 35:41brothers, and we say to the hello, Sunnah, but look who Imam
- 35:45Ali was the Prophet's brother. Yes, brother is correct.
- 35:49And that is his merit, no question about that.
- 35:52But we kind of forget like the point of that event.
- 35:55What about the rest? And by the way, that event
- 35:57didn't happen in one day. There's hundreds of people
- 35:59coming, yes, to manage all the inquiries and questions.
- 36:03And the things the Prophet was expecting from the Ansar were
- 36:06not easy. You guys live in London, right?
- 36:08Your houses are very tiny, OK. The houses in Molina were even
- 36:11smaller and profit is is expecting the Ansar to give half
- 36:16of their properties for the Mahajan to come live in, give
- 36:19them jobs in their farms, for example, hire them.
- 36:23And in fact, there is an exception that the profit made.
- 36:26This is one of the exceptions that he made in that in that
- 36:29time that the Ansar can get its inheritance from the sorry, the
- 36:33Mahajan can get it from the Onsar is not allowed in the
- 36:36Sharia over there. He made an exception.
- 36:38I look at this entire event as a case study for immigr
- 36:42immigration. But I mean, it's probably not
- 36:45the best time to talk about immigration.
- 36:47But but let's but let's look at it, right?
- 36:50Whether you have Muslims or generally, you know, people from
- 36:53our countries back home, they immigrate here.
- 36:56Either they're refugees coming from war stricken countries or
- 36:58whatever. What infrastructure and systems
- 37:02do we have in place to facilitate these muhajirin
- 37:06coming in? Many of them will come in, they
- 37:08will be struggling financially. They will be struggling with
- 37:11their kids. Their kids might get get off the
- 37:13path. What I'll tell you when I came
- 37:15back from home, unfortunately I was like almost like a muhajir
- 37:20coming back to Toronto, OK. And in one sense, first thing I
- 37:24looked for was a Quran teacher for my kids.
- 37:27We didn't have, I was like, wait, we don't have Quran in the
- 37:29community. So I now have to find some guy
- 37:31on Skype on the Internet from Pakistan who's going to teach my
- 37:35and I don't like online teaching, by the way, right?
- 37:37But Majboor, I'm forced. There's no option, no solution,
- 37:40right? But I mean, that's a very small
- 37:42example. I'm talking more bigger level,
- 37:44like financial issues, educational issues.
- 37:46We had refugee crisis in Canada, England, you guys have refugee
- 37:49crisis in the Middle East. People leave their countries,
- 37:52they get facilitated by non-muslim organizations, NGOs
- 37:58that are non-Muslims and they will brainwash them.
- 38:00They will brainwash them. They will make them look like,
- 38:02you know, secularism is the most you know, we, we are saving you.
- 38:05We are your saviours. And see, this happened in
- 38:07Europe. Yeah, it happens.
- 38:09I know, I know. Yeah, it happens.
- 38:11It has already happened actually.
- 38:13But I'm saying if you looked at this event of the hijra from
- 38:17that lens, which is the, this is the SIRA.
- 38:19So I'm looking at them like, hey, wow, this is an entire
- 38:22policy you can derive about immigration and how you people
- 38:25who are living here for 50-60 years, you should have been
- 38:29ready for this. You should have facilitated.
- 38:31These are more mini incoming at the end of the day, right?
- 38:33Muslims are more mini incoming. They're part of your community.
- 38:36Nothing, not even a converse. It's not even a conversation,
- 38:40right? So this is just like another
- 38:42case study that, you know, you can look, look into over here.
- 38:45So as I said, there's, there's many, many, many, right?
- 38:47For example, another one is this is actually a book written by
- 38:51one of my teachers in To be honest, he was not my teacher,
- 38:54but I had a connection with him. He was a history teacher in one
- 38:58of the houses over there and he wrote a very interesting book.
- 39:01I know Inshallah if I get Tawfiq, maybe we will translate
- 39:04this. It is about how the Prophet
- 39:07managed conflicts in Medina. Communities have conflicts,
- 39:11whether doesn't matter if it's a community of Muslims or Shia,
- 39:16it's a nature, human nature. How did the Prophet handle these
- 39:20conflicts? And this book is very, it's
- 39:22amazing where he talks about what are preventive measures of
- 39:26the prophet took in Medina. So that conflict shouldn't even
- 39:28arise to begin with. So a whole discussion on that.
- 39:32Secondly is like, OK, if conflict is about to happen, how
- 39:36did the Prophet handle that? And 3rd is OK, let's say a
- 39:39conflict happened, now what? How do you handle that?
- 39:42And then how does he handle it between the Moneen?
- 39:45How does he handle it when it's the monarchy, right, because I'm
- 39:48nafiqeen are actually in your community.
- 39:50They're right. They're not non-Muslims.
- 39:52Brother. There's so much you can learn in
- 39:54terms of leadership, managing communities and I in Toronto,
- 39:58I've said the executives of the Masjid brother.
- 40:01Can you imagine executives, presidents, all these
- 40:04individuals running community centers, they don't have any
- 40:06awareness of the sera of the Prophet, the sera of the AL,
- 40:11albeit, And you are a president representing a Masjid of the
- 40:14Muslimeen. You must have some basic
- 40:16knowledge about these fields and part of that is the prophetic
- 40:19leadership. So a book, a book like this
- 40:20would be very beneficial for them.
- 40:22Right. I think that's very interesting
- 40:23because even with things like conflict resolution, these are
- 40:26things that are spoken about on like international level.
- 40:29In the United Nations and. There's many academics that
- 40:32write about conflict resolution. I think if we had an equivalent
- 40:37talk from the Sierra of Rasulullah and Alveta him
- 40:39Salaam, that's something very special.
- 40:41And we have, I mean, I'm just, I'm saying like we have enough
- 40:44in the Sierra where we can derive things and create entire
- 40:49policies around us. We have enough, we have enough
- 40:51information in this, in this field.
- 40:54Like, the scholar wrote an entire book on managing
- 40:56tensions, managing conflicts. There's so much, so much, right?
- 40:59So. This this might be a bit of a
- 41:01side note actually, but when you speak about these policies and
- 41:04the things that have been discussed academically, are any
- 41:07of these theories or kind of policies practiced in, for
- 41:12example, countries that are Muslim or follow the Sharia or
- 41:16even she are countries that. Have yes.
- 41:18So for example, in Iran, right. The reason why I actually, maybe
- 41:22I will can tell you a little bit of a history of how I got into
- 41:25the Sierra because brothers, I grew up in our own communities.
- 41:28They didn't know anything about the Sierra, to be honest.
- 41:31But when I went to home, there was a series of workshops
- 41:35happening by a scholar named Muhammad Taki Subhani.
- 41:40He's nothing, nothing to do with Jafar Subhani.
- 41:43He's one of the top theologians in Iran, OK, one of the top
- 41:46mutaka lemin in Iran, and he was doing a series called Fikhosira.
- 41:51I said Ajeeb, my fit already is complicated.
- 41:54I've never heard that one. Now you're going to do the 5th
- 41:56of the Sierra. So I said, Allah, let me check
- 41:58it out. And I started to read the
- 42:00transcripts, which are still online, actually 25 sessions in
- 42:04Farsi, Farsi, right? And I started to, that's where I
- 42:08got exposed to this entire discussion that, hey, wow, there
- 42:11is an entire field that you can understand what the Prophet was
- 42:15doing and derive understandings, and it contributes into
- 42:19policies. It actually does, yeah.
- 42:22For example, for example, in Iran, they have something called
- 42:24the Expediency Council, right, which Imam Khomeini suggested
- 42:29for it to be created after the revolution.
- 42:32So the ulama that said there, when they figure out like what
- 42:36is in the well-being of the community or the society,
- 42:39they're falling back to these traditions and these Torahs and
- 42:42this CEO of the Holy Prophet. So, yeah, there's a lot of
- 42:46discussion happening in in places like Iran.
- 42:48And they're not just in their institutes, in their politics.
- 42:51Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. But it's all mostly in Farsi,
- 42:54right? So it's not available in English
- 42:56for people to benefit from. Yeah.
- 42:58I love the case studies. Yeah.
- 43:00It's it's bring reality to life because, you know, as a father
- 43:04myself, I have two children. I'm not you're speaking about
- 43:07Quran teacher and you know, our leaders and communities, they
- 43:10don't know much about this year. I'm thinking now, am I in the
- 43:13right country? Am I, you know, part of the
- 43:15right community? But I think the real question
- 43:16is, I think we all individually have an obligation of, of
- 43:20somewhat to work towards this. But something is hindering us.
- 43:24And what is it and how do we overcome that?
- 43:26And how can we go towards this path?
- 43:29But I think, you know, let's say brothers like yourself who have
- 43:32maybe even if it's a small platform, right, or if you have
- 43:37contacts with people who have bigger platforms in the massage,
- 43:39it start pushing and facilitating scholars that are
- 43:44well studied and well learned in these fields to start running
- 43:48weekly biweekly classes. It's very, very important.
- 43:51That's actually that's what I did when I got back to Toronto,
- 43:54the first thing my home said. That's a Jaffrey, right?
- 43:58He was from his centre and he really, really since I got back
- 44:04from Qom, honestly, if it wasn't for him, I would not have been
- 44:06able to do all of these programs at our mosque, Al Mahdi Center.
- 44:12So I told him that I want to do a thematic sera.
- 44:16And you know, as you, as you said, brother, the Islamic folks
- 44:18talk about, you know, the wives of the Prophet, the wars of the
- 44:20Prophet. So the first thing I did was
- 44:21actually thematic analysis. I talked about the, the I talked
- 44:26the whole 2 1/2 hours about the wives of the Prophet.
- 44:29What, what I went to every single wife.
- 44:31How did the marriage happen? What was happening and how did
- 44:34you deal with them so that all the ayat of that are discussed
- 44:37over there. Everything, everything 2 1/2
- 44:39hours just on the wives of the prophet and, and critiquing any
- 44:42of those Islamophobic sort of claims and stuff or wars of the
- 44:46Prophet, you know, OK, he was a warlord.
- 44:48This is what the Islamophobes say.
- 44:50Discuss every single war, every single people don't even know.
- 44:53There's 13 sort of skirmishes happened before Battle of Badr,
- 44:58before the battle butter happened, right?
- 45:00Yeah. So I mean, people don't really
- 45:02know. And why were the Muslims trying
- 45:03to do that? Because all of their assets were
- 45:05taken away from the. The muckers had taken all of
- 45:07their assets. They wanted their properties and
- 45:09their wealth back. The muckers were taking them as
- 45:11caravans to Syria and Palestine to trade and, you know, do
- 45:15business. So the Muslim wanted their
- 45:17things back, right. So I did thematic sita and then
- 45:21in the month of Ramadan. So this was another tough one.
- 45:24So I I don't know. I said, I called me to say it,
- 45:27Ali, like you need to do Ramadan.
- 45:28I said I'm so busy with the school, this icon.
- 45:31I said, no, you must do it. I said, OK, I'll survive, but
- 45:34I'm not going to do it on the member.
- 45:36I don't want to do lectures. I said I want to so, you know,
- 45:40sit on the stage and give classes in the month of Ramadan
- 45:44on the sita. And he's like, OK, I said, well,
- 45:47I said, but you know, some of the uncles are going to get
- 45:49really upset and he's like, I'll handle that.
- 45:53And he handled all of the complaints because people are
- 45:56not used to it. The youth were coming, which is
- 45:59my main crowd at this point, you know, the next generation.
- 46:04And so those are actually all on YouTube that that specific
- 46:07lecture series where I'm sitting on the stage and these are
- 46:10Ramadan lecture nights, right? Just these sera and then also
- 46:15brothers I started to see every Saturday.
- 46:18So look, these two, three, three things are the starting point.
- 46:22Now, believe it or not, people might not know people who follow
- 46:24me online. I've done the seat of Imam Ali,
- 46:26Talema Mehdi twice, but it's not published.
- 46:30Inshallah, pray for me. I do a proper seat where it gets
- 46:32published, but I've taught it twice actually.
- 46:34And I do it in a way where I start with the seat of the
- 46:37Prophet and then I continue. And it honestly, it makes such a
- 46:41beautiful story at the end of the day.
- 46:44But we have to take a step, start it.
- 46:46If, if weekly is too much, which it might be, London's a busy
- 46:50city, bi weekly brothers, even once a month start something,
- 46:54get someone to come in who's done the work, done the research
- 46:57right and get them to start. You will see slowly, slowly,
- 47:00things happen slowly. And the prophetic Serie again
- 47:03itself is an indicator that shows us that, hey, things
- 47:06happen slowly. You know, when the Hijra happens
- 47:09after 13 years of struggle and you know, Prophet went to Thai
- 47:13if he got hit with the stones, Allah says alumnus.
- 47:16You know, when you read that, it seems like maybe there was like
- 47:19a small challenge that the prophet went through for like a
- 47:21day or two. No Allah saying alumnus in 13
- 47:25years of struggle. I'll mention one more story
- 47:28again, the sera, because this show, it gives me a lot of
- 47:32inspiration. When the Prophet came back from
- 47:34Thai F, he was injured, he was bleeding and he took some refuge
- 47:40in someone's garden and he started to do dua.
- 47:43He says, oh laleg, where should I go?
- 47:44Because I cannot enter into Mecca, Abu Talib, my army, my
- 47:48protector has passed away and the people of five don't want to
- 47:51accept me. What should I do?
- 47:53Based on the traditions Allah Matala revealed, Prophet Surah
- 47:57Nuh. OK if you read Surah Nuh you
- 48:02will not find the mention of the story of the ship of the Ark
- 48:06even though no that's the most famous Surah new is not about
- 48:11the ship it's a law sending the Surah to comfort the prophet
- 48:15that hey you think you had a tough there's another prophet
- 48:19who had it way tougher than you. He was there for hundreds of
- 48:22years struggling and struggling and and and he's quoting profit
- 48:25new Allah quotes profit new a a new is saying, Oh Allah, what do
- 48:28I do? I go in their homes, they don't
- 48:30accept me. I go, you know, public, they
- 48:32don't accept me. I go into private.
- 48:33They don't accept me nighttime, they don't accept me in morning.
- 48:36They don't accept me unless giving profit comfort and it
- 48:40gives you inspiration that hey, our projects, our initiatives.
- 48:44You know, if some people give up in 1-2 months, 1-2 years, they
- 48:46give up. No brothers, keep going.
- 48:48Keep putting your effort, if you are sincere, inshallah you will
- 48:52see the results and we don't we shouldn't have any doubt in this
- 48:55if we have any Iman and Allah Samant Allah in the in the
- 48:59Prophet and the IMA, look at their lives like they put in so
- 49:01much effort. Imam Sajjad Hai Salaam started
- 49:05the process. It still took 30 years.
- 49:09Then Imam Baker came, he started to put a little bit more effort
- 49:13into the school. Look, look at what they're
- 49:15focusing on education. And then Imam Salih Assalam,
- 49:18finally, after 40 years, 50 years, they were able to.
- 49:22But the spark started after Karbala, right?
- 49:26But if Imam Sadaj says, oh, you know, forget it.
- 49:28You know, I've been giving all these duas, nothing's happening,
- 49:30nothing's changing. Or Imam Bakai Salam came and
- 49:32said, hey, you know, my dad tried for 30 years, there's no
- 49:35point. This community is useless.
- 49:36No, no, no, no. They kept going, pushing slowly,
- 49:39slowly, slowly, slowly. You know, one companion comes
- 49:42from poofa, second one comes. Third one comes after a few
- 49:45decades. They have a whole sheer
- 49:47community built, yeah. I think what you said about
- 49:50starting classes is actually very interesting.
- 49:51If we look at other communities in the in the Muslim community,
- 49:56they do have their classes and they actually pack them out.
- 49:58And even like if we look in universities and even the
- 50:02seminars that we do in our communities at Hamdallah, when
- 50:04we do have a speaker come and there is a topic Hamdallah, we
- 50:08do pack them out. I don't.
- 50:09Obviously you had your seminar at.
- 50:11Stanmore Yeah, I was, I was. I was surprised with the turn
- 50:14out. Yeah, it was like 50-60 people.
- 50:16Yeah. Hamdallah handle.
- 50:17Yeah, yeah, there's a limit. We put a limit on the
- 50:19attendance. Hmm.
- 50:20Like when I did it in Toronto, I got 40 people, so 60 was more
- 50:24than the yeah. So I got I.
- 50:25Think it shows that there's a thirst for it?
- 50:26Yeah, it is definitely Pete. There is an audience.
- 50:30So. So why do you think it is then
- 50:32that we haven't been able to to get that going if there is the
- 50:35thirst and there are the people that want to go to these?
- 50:37Projects we have to facilitate, like there has to be individuals
- 50:40who facilitated, right? Like maybe there's shyness or
- 50:43hesitation, but there shouldn't really be.
- 50:44Yeah, yeah. I agree with Muhammad Ali.
- 50:46There is a thirst, yes, And I say that's why because, well,
- 50:49Ahmed's not here, otherwise he'll back me up here.
- 50:51But throughout the last few months, we've always said, look,
- 50:54we need to speak about us all Allah.
- 50:56We need to know who sooner more we know we want to discuss his
- 50:58life. So we are interested in this,
- 51:01like we're interested in having these these discussions,
- 51:03learning more about our love of messenger.
- 51:06And we do. But I think we don't know where
- 51:08to go because I think the people on top of us don't really
- 51:12facilitate anything or guide us in this in the sense.
- 51:16And I hope this conversation, at least in shall.
- 51:18I hope it becomes like a catalyst.
- 51:19In Charlotte, start open. The good kind of ones.
- 51:22I hope so. In shall I hope so, and.
- 51:25I think as Muslims, I think just as well given like the rise of
- 51:29the the rights we see here now in the UK against immigrants and
- 51:32particularly against Muslims as well when it comes to faith, is
- 51:35that as Muslims, how do we react?
- 51:37I think firstly, and we would know how to react if we learn
- 51:40from the case studies, for example, of what was the clock
- 51:44of Rasul Allah, How would he deal with such people, you know,
- 51:47wanting to come attack religion, attack Muslims.
- 51:50How do you deal with the people? How do you speak with them?
- 51:52Where do you go? Do you go on hiding?
- 51:54Do you defend yourself? Yeah, we're like loose cannons.
- 51:57Like we don't know if we don't know Rasul Allah, we don't know
- 52:00how to live the way he wants us to.
- 52:02To come. We don't have a compass.
- 52:04Like what do we? What are we doing?
- 52:05Yeah, I agree. I agree.
- 52:07So you mentioned obviously the series that you you recommended
- 52:11for the average Shia to kind of get familiar with or sort of
- 52:15that. How about for the the readers
- 52:17amongst the laymen? What would you?
- 52:18What would? You.
- 52:19Yeah. So I mean, there are a couple of
- 52:20books available. So if you are a reader, then I'm
- 52:25going to just mention books that are not necessarily just written
- 52:28by Shias because I'm assuming you're literate enough to know
- 52:33when something is like totally not right.
- 52:35But there's a very interesting, if you're more into, let's say
- 52:37like novel type books, there's a very beautiful book called
- 52:41Mohammed the World Changer. And it's written like a story,
- 52:44like a narrative. I actually did this book with
- 52:47our middle school students in school and they really, really
- 52:50loved it, right. And it's a narrative.
- 52:52They've storified the seed of the prophet.
- 52:55But in a it's very good. Like you'll be if you read the
- 52:57first couple couple of chapters, like it will bring tears to your
- 53:00eyes. It talks about him losing his
- 53:02mother and his, you know, grandfather and all of that.
- 53:04So Muhammad, the world changer and intimate portrait by
- 53:08Muhammad Jabara, the author's name.
- 53:11There's another book which is good for high school students
- 53:14and even older, like people like our age.
- 53:16It is called Revelations by I believe, Mehraj Mohyuddin.
- 53:21So he's not a scholar or anything like that, right?
- 53:23He's just an individual who's written this book.
- 53:25But it's very, very, it's like a textbook actually.
- 53:30So it has like maps and visuals and it costs like even Western
- 53:34academics where they have commented on the prophets life.
- 53:38But like in the bias in this book is like, for example, and
- 53:41it's diverted to such a long book.
- 53:43But like it doesn't mention the deed, right.
- 53:46When I was yeah, I was like, what on earth?
- 53:47Like what the what on earth? Right.
- 53:49Like you've written the whole book is very lengthy.
- 53:52So we just mentioned it. Like why did you not mention it?
- 53:54So that type of bias exists in works like these by the type.
- 53:57Sure reader. Like you will be able to pick it
- 53:59up immediately. Other than that, you have Sheikh
- 54:02Rasul Jafariyan. Some of his books are have been
- 54:04translated Prophetic Sera, a political life of the Prophet.
- 54:07You have Ayatollah Jafar Subhani's book called The
- 54:09Message. These are all available on
- 54:11al-islam.org, these ones. So yeah, these are some of the
- 54:14books that people can read and, you know, go through them and
- 54:17shall I? Yeah.
- 54:19I enjoyed this conversation. I don't want it to end and and
- 54:23say that I I I don't say this lightly like I've my heart has
- 54:26feel very content since the beginning of this conversation.
- 54:29First, because we're speaking about Allah, Salah Ali while you
- 54:31were selling, but I've actually learnt something that I have an
- 54:35extra added thirst to now knowing more about my prophet,
- 54:38our prophet and Rahmat al Ilan. I mean, ultimately, yes.
- 54:43I love Salah. Say it.
- 54:47We took a lot of your time, we learnt so much, we gained so
- 54:50much. And I know you've been very busy
- 54:52and you've been very kind to give us, how can I say, allowing
- 54:56us to, to feature here in the podcast because I know you're
- 54:58very busy. You've been in Bosnia, you're
- 55:00travelling in the next few hours to go somewhere else now.
- 55:03So it's good luck with the journey.
- 55:06Thank you so much, they Allah give you.
- 55:07The tophic and the shallow you can continue in the service of
- 55:10Islam and I know if anyone doesn't know much of the said
- 55:14yet, now is your chance to get to know the said.
- 55:16I know we can find you work online on YouTube.
- 55:19I've seen articles, some books published on aliceland.org.
- 55:22Where else can we find your? Website.
- 55:23So I have a website calledicraonline.net.
- 55:26OK, I have a YouTube channel by that same name, Icra Online and
- 55:30then I guess Instagram, but I usually just put up travel
- 55:32pictures. I'm being into travelling, which
- 55:35is as a side point. I travel for learning purposes,
- 55:38not for just having fun because I believe Rehla is part of the
- 55:42learning process, journeying. And so even my trips are all
- 55:46with that intention and sort of that goal.
- 55:49So people are interested in seeing how travelling impacts me
- 55:52and my exposure and you know all that they can check me out on
- 55:55Instagram. Other than that, brother, I'm,
- 55:57you know, I'm not world famous or anything so.
- 56:00I mean, I love the fact you say you actually capture the moments
- 56:03of your travels. Yeah, Because normally when we
- 56:05look up to first, let's say our lemma or scholars or speakers or
- 56:07something, we just see them on the pulpit.
- 56:09This is Islam. Go home, learn this.
- 56:11This is Haran salad. So it's nice to see, I think.
- 56:14Yeah, one. 100% I think it also like kind of enriches.
- 56:18It's, it's the, it's the kind of this is what our Lamar used to
- 56:22do. Obviously we, we spoke on drama
- 56:24nights. We did a series with regards to
- 56:26different books, classical books, we did out of Kalfi.
- 56:28So we spoke about Shekhar Collini's travels.
- 56:30We spoke about Shekhar Normani's travels, Shekhar Sadok's.
- 56:33Travels the Luke traveled to 30 plus cities.
- 56:35You know, when I read that, I was like, OK, I'm really behind.
- 56:39Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's it's nice because
- 56:41I think in our, in our day and time, people tend to think of
- 56:45travelling as something that people just do to put up
- 56:47pictures on Instagram. And so on and so forth.
- 56:49So it's good to have another angle on traveling and the
- 56:52scholarly kind of understanding of going places to actually
- 56:56learn and to see the different taraf.
- 57:00Yes. So yeah, Michella.
- 57:02Thank you so much brother, Thank you so much.
- 57:04It was my honor, my pleasure to be here and I hope inshallah all
- 57:08the benefit. The competition was beneficial
- 57:10for the audience and if there was anything that was said wrong
- 57:13or mistaken, we ask forgiveness from Allah, Inshallah.
- 57:17Thank you so much, brothers. That's what I'm saying.
- 57:18Thank you so much and for our brothers and sisters listening
- 57:21and watching wherever you are around the world, smash that
- 57:24subscribe button. Make sure you're tuning into
- 57:28Juma Knights. Believe me, if you haven't
- 57:29watched the show yet, you're missing out and there's so much
- 57:32to learn. Used to be you speak about many
- 57:33books. There's even Quran, TFC, there's
- 57:36like so much. Not FCR, it's more like A.
- 57:39Teddabur OK, OK, forgive me that.
- 57:42It's very important to make. Sense of but again, it's the
- 57:45pleasure Co hosting beside you. One day I'll be on Johanna
- 57:50Habibi. And there you have it.
- 57:51Thank you so much. What's Salaam, alaikum,
- 57:54warhmatullahi or barakat?