Sincerely, Yours
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Sincerely, Ovamir Anjum
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Salamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. JazakumAllah khair for joining us for another episode of Sincerely Yours. This is your host Ibrahim Hindi with my co-host Sheikh Abdullah Aduru. Sheikh Abdullah. Yes, sir. How are you feeling? Alhamdulillah. Technical difficulties solved. We are here and we are healthy. Alhamdulillah rabbil alameen. Alhamdulillah. You got the bright video going and the lights and everything. MashaAllah. Looks amazing on your end. JazakumAllah khair. Alhamdulillah. For everyone out there, this is our third week together. We're so happy to be coming to you live every week with our guests. We have an amazing slate of guests throughout every single week inshaAllah joining us. We have a great guest today. We want to hear from you. This is your chance to connect with us and to connect with the guests that we bring on. We want to hear your questions. We want to hear your comments inshaAllah. Let us know where you're coming from. Where are you watching us? We'd love to know. We have sister Salma already. She's telling us she's from London and it's 12 a.m. MashaAllah. Look at the commitment. The commitment, Shaykh. They're with us at midnight. Alhamdulillah. So we'd love to hear where you're from. Any questions that you have for our guest inshaAllah, we'd love for you to put them in the chat. There's also a link in the description. If you ever have any feedback, anything you want to add or you want us to know or you want us to add to the show inshaAllah, please feel free to do so. We have awesome vlog coming from Cincinnati, Ohio. As-salamu alaykum. Brother Adam from London as well, mashaAllah. Lots of people from London joining us. So just let us know where you're coming from as well. Here's a comment from brother Hassan. I can't believe we're already in the sacred month of Rajab. We have two months until Ramadan. That is a very important point, subhanAllah. It's coming up so quickly.
Sister Huma from Illinois and she says it's Maghrib time there, mashaAllah. And sister Basma from Ottawa, Canada. MashaAllah, more Ottawa coming in. And sister Valerie from Texas. So that's on your end, Shaykh. That's on my end, yes sir. Fellow Texan. How's Texas doing today, Shaykh? It's funny you asked. Today there's supposed to be a freeze. So we're expecting some kind of freeze. It's actually now, it's like 6 p.m. So that's the expected time. It's a little drizzle, but it's kind of looking a little sleetish, turning into ice. So I think Thursday and Friday we're supposed to stay inside. SubhanAllah. Yeah, we're being told there might be another storm coming in Toronto with more snow. SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah. We have sister Rina coming from Brooklyn, New York, mashaAllah. MashaAllah. And sister Zaini, I think from Canada as well. So we have some good Canadian representation in here. Some folks from London, folks from New York, folks from Washington. It's great to see. We're hoping to build a community with all of you, inshaAllah. And like I said, when we get started with our guests, if you guys have questions, you want to ask something, please go ahead. Put your questions in the chat. Hopefully we'll be able to see it. We won't be able to get to everyone's questions. But if there's a few questions, inshaAllah, we can bring to our guests, we will do so. And with that, Shaykh, let's introduce our guest. Bismillah. We have with us Dr. Urwe Mir-Enjem. He is the Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo. He has obtained his PhD in Islamic Intellectual History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master's in Social Studies from the University of Chicago, and a Master's of Computer Science and Bachelor's in Nuclear Engineering and Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, inshaAllah.
And on top of that, he has also extensive Islamic training from scholars in Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria, studying fiqh and usul and qiraat as well. And above all of that, he is also the Editor-in-Chief at Yaqeen Institute. Shaykh Urwe Mir, jazakAllah khair for joining us. JazakAllah khair. Thank you very much for having me. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh, everybody. Wa alaikum salam. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. I'm happy my parents weren't in earshot of that introduction so that they would ask me why I don't have more degrees. Shaykh, mashaAllah, we had to cut down the amount of accomplishments we should, you know, on your biography. Yeah, it's just confusion, but it's fun. I actually, I should have added in your biography as well that you have a beautiful translation of Medarij al-Sarikin by Ibn al-Qayyim, which actually recently won some awards. And I encourage everyone who is with us to maybe purchase that book and give it a read because it's a beautiful book and Dr. Uymed did an exceptional job translating it. So Shaykh, before we get into our topic and our discussions and the questions we want to ask you, you know, the marketing team told us that you are the DIY king. The king of do-it-yourself. And I would love to know what that means and what you've been up to, Shaykh. What are the secrets you've been hiding? MashaAllah, our marketing team is good at, you know, taking a mole and making a, you know, hail out of it. But alhamdulillah, it's good. I do wish to be a carpenter. I want in my, you know, I do some woodwork. I've done wood floors and I've sort of like made a room in the basement once. Nothing fancy, but this is something I like to do. So, yeah.
So we're assuming that you made that background that you have there. I mean, we're assuming. Yeah, you're a hasna dhan, Shaykh. This is my wife's doing. MashaAllah. You know, Shaykh, it's actually an important skill. Like I have to admit, I mean, I'm embarrassing myself a little bit, but I have no toolsmanship whatsoever. But recently I broke one of the tiles in my kitchen and I determined myself, I'm going to fix it myself. So I, you know, I watched like hundreds of YouTube videos and I figured out how to pop up this tile and replace it with the other one. And, you know, it's like I felt the satisfaction after doing it, but I'm terrible at it. So it's great to hear that, you know, we have other Masha'ikh who are quite good at it. Yeah, you know, I'm not good at it. But I do alhamdulillah every now and then. Yeah. MashaAllah. MashaAllah. So Shaykh, you know, let us know, we want to learn more about you. And that's, you know, the whole purpose of these live sessions is for us to know more about you and for, you know, the community and the guests and sorry, the viewers to learn more about you as well. And so let us know, when did you decide to pursue knowledge? MashaAllah, you have all these degrees and you've studied with all these scholars, but when was that decision made for you? When did you decide, I want to study Islam? Jazakum Allah khair, Astaghfirullah for all the praise. But alhamdulillah, I was born in a religious household and my grandmother, Allah ya'rham ha, was a scholar and, you know, she had MashaAllah, a personality. So she was a preacher.
And my grandfather also on my mother's side, Allah ya'rham ha, had a big library, which of all the grandchildren and children, even I was the only one who used. So I was alhamdulillah interested in reading from very early on. And I, you know, read the tafaseer and tarikh. Those are two things that I read and fiqh. But I never thought that I, you know, I will do this for a living. I was more interested in science and I was interested in physics and advanced physics and whatnot. I was inspired by these Pakistani Nobel Prize winning physicists, Abdus Salam and also Abdul Qadir Khan, who is responsible for Pakistan's nuclear program. So I was fascinated by science very much. But religious studies is something that I did almost as a part of who I was, never as, you know, something that I wanted to do professionally. That happened when I came to Madison, Wisconsin to pursue my degree in physics and engineering. That is when I realized that I really needed to study society more. I never thought that I'll be doing Islamic studies in a Western university. And I know many people that I talked to have this reservation, you know, why would you do Islam here? And I had the same. But Alhamdulillah, I had enough background and connections that I didn't go to a Western university to learn Islam. I really went there thinking, what do I do now? You know, how do I take the next step? So I became interested in social sciences, not in Islamic studies per se. And so I did, you know, did social science, University of Chicago.
And then long story short, I ended up doing intellectual history at Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, Madison, to pursue some of the questions that have been with me from the very beginning. And so you could say it's a very, Alhamdulillah, an organic process from the beginning. I grew up, I think much more important to my formation was the condition of the Ummah. Right. So I was I grew up in Pakistan and in Karachi and Jeddah. Seeing those two societies, seeing the state of Muslims was much more, you know, that was my formative, if you were concerned. And coming to the United States, meeting many more Muslims. So I often tell people that more than the university, it was the Islamic Center and the people that I met there in Madison. That was my real schooling. So when you say when you say the people you met in Madison, was it like some Misha from what exactly was it? Could you describe maybe the first person you met, the encounter place? How did that incline you to want to study more? Ah, so those are two different questions. The first person I met there, I'll tell you the way things work. I arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, in the middle of a blizzard. We have a blizzard here in Toledo today, but Madison is on the snow belt, so much bigger blizzards. And it's the first time I saw snow in my life. And so it was such a, you know, unsettling experience. But anyway, I went, my dorm, it's the first time, and this is really, really odd, right?
It's the first time that I saw, growing up in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in fairly conservative environments, where I saw boys and girls mixing. And that was like the beginning. And to me, it was a shock. And it wasn't, you know, there was no event or anything. I felt I couldn't even go back to my room. And I just go left, looking for somebody who could point me to a masjid. Now, nobody knows where a masjid is in the middle of a blizzard. So I go to the student office there, ask them if there is any Muslim name that they could point me to. Some student who had a Muslim organization or whatnot. So they said, OK, there is a Pakistani Student Association guy. He lives on such and such street. So I walked, like, I don't know for how long, to this guy, knock on his door, and he comes out and he's drunk. And he has no idea where the masjid is, but he has only a guess. He thinks the masjid may be a few minutes, a few streets down, mercifully. So I ultimately ended up at the masjid. And so it was the masjid for me was very, very, personally, it was my home. That's where I spent most of my time. And it is there that I met just a large number of people from Turkey, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, Saudia. And at that time, the makeup of graduate students, these are all graduate students who are mature, who had good background, often religiously, and they were here to finish their PhD. So they were mature people, the kind of environment that sort of disappeared after 9-11, 2001. SubhanAllah. Sheikh, do you think when you came to that scenario where everything was so different, was that something that made you consciously say, like, this religion is important to me? Whereas before, maybe you didn't think about it too much?
No, actually, I'll tell you when I felt such a passion that I actually cried, physically cried, not one time, but a number of times. I think there were two such things going on around the time I was in high school. One is the Kashmir crisis. And you just felt so helpless. And of course, there was Palestine and we all we grew up with this issue. But for me, these are very personal issues. The other thing was in 91, when I was in Jeddah, and there was this American troops were coming to Saudia. Now, this again, it sounds to many of us like it was like, you know, a political thing, but really it was felt as a very deep challenge. It was almost such a humiliation to Muslims that to defend our holy places, we are inviting non-Muslim troops to fight other Muslims. And then there was lots of, you know, and as a high schooler, to me, this was a really formative moment of helplessness. There's something deeply wrong. So I think that was the awakening. And I would have nightmare, I think, for four years. And the nightmare was that, you know, there was some missiles that had been directed at us. And it wasn't so much that it was Iraq doing it or the US doing it, but it was just the feeling that, you know, we were so helpless as Muslims. SubhanAllah, that's powerful, powerful memory, I think. You know, I feel something similar in my life. Like I remember being a kid and I went to Islamic school in the Toronto area and a young kid.
And I remember just vividly television stations coming with their cameras and everything. They want to interview the kids about the crisis in Bosnia and the genocide that was happening at that time. And I remember that was something also in my mind where it was just like, SubhanAllah, people want to kill some Muslims just because they're Muslim. And it made me like really think about my deen and who I am and things like that. So I think a lot of young Muslims would really, you know, connect with that idea, SubhanAllah. Shaykh let me ask you, like, was there ever a moment in your life where you experienced doubt, for instance, about this path, about this religion, about, you know, you're pursuing knowledge? Did you ever get these moments of doubt that maybe crept up? And how did you overcome them if you did? Yeah, it's a great question. And I don't remember there being any serious kind of crisis. I do remember is in graduate school, you have, especially if you don't, you know, you don't have community of scholars and students of knowledge that you can talk to. So what often would happen is that you are reading very, very broadly and you're reading everything. And what would happen is that some doubt enters your mind and you don't even know it. So it's not like a crisis immediately. Oh, I don't have a response to this. But it's like a month later in the back of my mind, I'm still thinking that I haven't resolved that problem. And then something else hits and then something else hits. So that is how usually these doubts work. You know, it's not often the acute crises are relatively rare. But what happens when you're doing this kind of reading in graduate school or in academic work is that if you are not aware,
if your heart isn't ready, or rather I should say it's not sensitive that the first minute that a doubt comes and you deal with it immediately, then it grows. And even though it's a small thing, you don't deal with it. It becomes much bigger because you so what happens is kind of like you lose the pointer to it. You can't name it anymore. Right? Wow. There's I mean, you touched on something very important. And I think you're the most qualified people to give this advice. Because there's a lot of you know, it's kind of a two part question because I kind of want to rewind for a minute. How when you came to America, you know, you always find people say, you know, in America, you find Muslims with no Islam, but in other countries, you find Islam with no Muslims. Right. Being that I think all of us, we've lived overseas for a while and coming to the coming to America. You had a choice to make when you I mean, it was a blizzard. Shaitan could have affected you in many different steps in that process. You know, it's too cold. You got to go find his PSA. It's Pakistani organization. Are they really Muslim? You get there. The guy's drunk. You could have been like, well, just whatever. You could have walked in there with him and just, you know, solve your problems temporarily, you know, and kind of got warm with, you know, Jack Daniels or whatever the case may be. Right. But you kept going. The first question is, was it particularly that foundation that you mentioned from a religious family that served as an effect for you and kind of kept you? I'll generically use the word strong and motivated and steadfast when you were alone in America at that time. Yeah, I would say that it was, you know, it was propelled. I couldn't do anything else. And it was, you know, you know, the man is one thing, right? You know, as obviously it's very important, but it's the habit habitation of a man.
If you're used to something and you know, you're comfortable with it. OK, that's something if you will, when a man becomes a habit and it becomes your comfort. Alhamdulillah, I've had that. So to me, it was, I know I couldn't find peace anywhere unless something fundamentally wrong happened. It changed about me. OK, so what often happens, of course, in my life at times when you're testing is when you are out of source, like when you're. Extremely anxious or when you're extremely, you know, something creates a great sense of insecurity in you that no longer yourself. And then you would do things or say things that are that are out of habit and then maybe take you in a different direction. But Alhamdulillah, and at that moment, I remember one of the earliest couple of brothers I found there was a Kashmiri brother. Who was an engineer pursuing his PhD there and just really, really soft spoken. And he memorized the Quran or good parts of the Quran and he would lead Salah. He was not the only one, but and so I just found very much felt at home. Mashallah, the second part, the second part or the second question was, is how you mentioned and this is important for you, collegiates and parents of those that want to go to college. I mean, we have a professor in front of us, Mashallah, Tabarik Allah, and he's of the best to give the advice to those Muslim youth that may be confused or have some lingering doubts and they just leave it. And for the parents to know that when they're going into this environment, it can be challenging. You mentioned Sheikh how, you know, it's not something that is acute. It's something that is over a long period of time.
It's some small doubt that you have and it builds up and there's layers. What advice would you give to those young men and women that are freshmen or, you know, the first year and to the parents in regards to Islamic education pre-college? Yeah, you know, I would say Alhamdulillah, and this isn't, there are many better ways of doing it than the way I did it. So I don't mean to say that this is the way to do it. But one of the ways that Alhamdulillah my training in the past really helped is that I read the Quran. I read debates among the ulama of all different kinds. And it is even the way I read fiqh, there's a lot of ikhtilaf literature. I know some people don't like it, but to me, and this was literature of ikhtilaf in aqidah, in other things. And these are ulama on both sides. I was very comfortable dealing with complexity in deen. And so that was not, so I think that, you know, if deen is taught to you as a list of things to do, which is the case with most people. I just tended to be somebody who read more things than almost anybody else around me. But there are always people, there are always kids like that who are doing that. So I think that presenting deen and the complexity of our deen is especially important in preparing people. Because if you present deen as, you know, it's always just very simple, then what ends up happening is that when a complex problem arises, you don't think that in your deen there is any way to deal with it. So I think that the way you train, and this is something, by the way, I should say I learned also from a Christian philosopher, Alistair MacIntyre,
has a really good article which summed up my experience, which is where he says that the way to build a personality that is ethically, morally strong, he was not talking about religion, but he was talking about the way to build a personality that is ethical, not religion, but he was talking about morality. And the theoretical experiment that he does in this article is that, you know, take that guy who was operating Nazi gas chambers. And this guy probably grew up in a Christian family, right? He had an idea of morality. But he says, what would make this guy stand up and say, no, I will not do this? And he says, look, you know, he had the idea that this is good, but he also could justify what he was doing by saying that, look, I'm simply following orders. But he says that there is a practice of objecting to each other, especially to your elders, morally, right, asking questions. So your parents tell you not to lie, and then you notice, you know, when a phone call comes and, you know, your mom tells you, oh, just tell them I'm not home, right, or your dad. At that point, you say, no, dad, that's lying. And then your father, instead of, you know, slapping you or being angry, says, well, I'm really proud and I'm touched and I'm moving, I'll correct what I just did. That back and forth is what builds courage to use your ethics, your commitment to the level and brings it to the level of practice.
So what this Nazi gas chamber operator, what would have given him courage to object at the time to what the state was telling him to do, is he was if he was not only aware of the moral of what is right to do, but he practiced it with his superiors. In the past, grew up practicing it. The same way, when you think about learning the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, if you learn the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in such a way that you can ask questions. And this is a beautiful incident when Ibn Abbas, you know, radiAllahu anhu, you know, the Sahaba were sitting and they would ask each other these questions. So what they asked, what is the most hopeful ayah in the Quran? Arja ayah fil Quran. And everybody gave their answer and Ibn Abbas's answer was the most hopeful ayah in the Quran for me is when Ibrahim alayhi salam asks Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Rabbi aridni kaifa tuhyi almawta, qala awalam tu'min, qala bala walakin liyatuma inna qalbi. That instead of punishing Ibrahim alayhi salatu was salam for asking this question, O Allah, show me how you bring the dead to life. Instead of punishing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, answered him by demonstrating. And if he said if a prophet could ask for more evidence, right, then that is then we who sometimes have doubts have so much more hope. And so this is the most hopeful ayah in the Quran. SubhanAllah. I want to remind all of our viewers, inshallah, if you have any questions you'd like to ask, or you'd like for us to ask Sheikh Uweimer,
please put it in the chat and hopefully we'll be able to flag it and bring it to him inshallah later in the segment. So any questions, please put them for us in the chat boxes, bismillah. Sheikh, you know, something interesting that you mentioned, and it reminds me in the previous episode we had with Sheikh Ibrahim, where he was saying we have to teach the youth usul al fiqh. And, you know, you talking about the complexity, understanding the complexity of the deen. And actually it was something I tried in when I was teaching in Islamic high school. That same question, I would tell the kids, ask me whatever you want. And if they asked me a question, I wouldn't just give them an answer like this is halal or this is haram. I would say, OK, let's look at how the scholars dealt with this question. Let's look at the different hadith. Let's look at how they interpreted it. Because I wanted them to understand like Islam is not just right or wrong, halal or haram. There is a mechanism behind it. And when you understand that mechanism, maybe you have even more respect for the religion. That was just my thinking. And, you know, kind of fits with what you and Sheikh Yahya were saying. You know, but just to go off of that, you know, I think a lot of young Muslims, sometimes they go to university and they think, you know, it would be a really easy course for me to take. Islam 101. Let me go take Islam 101 in my university. I'm going to get straight A's. And then they go to those classes and it depends on who the professor is, but they might get, you know, dealt after dealt, after dealt, just thrown at them. So what advice would you give those youth or what advice would you give the parents, especially if their kids are going to go to university and about taking these courses? And how do you prepare themselves? Because even if they don't go to university and take those courses, they'll get the doubts on YouTube, right, in their pockets on YouTube. There might be a video that they watch. So what advice would you give them?
I think that the most important thing is that people have to be connected to the Quran and, and, you know, the basis of the tradition of our deen, which is the seerah and the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. And this is something that you have to we have to learn to teach better, meaning that we have to learn kids to read Quran and reading Quran is very difficult. It is not easy because so many people do it. Almost everybody seems to know how to read the Quran and memorize, you know, some. We think that it's easy and it's frustrating when kids can't do that. And there is almost a certain personality of a Quran teacher that's almost a, you know, a cultural stereotype. We need to change that. And the Quran, so there are, Alhamdulillah, better methods that are developing, but we really need to teach the Quran and to do so with love and patience and with meaning. But going to the question of doubts, I mean, first thing that helps is that doubts are not, you know, they're not an exception to the process of believing. That if you think that you are dirty for having a doubt, that you have lost your faith for having a doubt, right, then you don't understand Iman. And because you have understood and equated Islam to just this cerebral sort of connection that, you know, if I have no doubt, but Allah ﷻ always connects Iman to Amal, to feeling, as well as to this mental state.
And all these things go together. And sometimes you're having a mental doubt, but your habit and your habits and your sensibilities, the things that you love, right, they will keep you going to seek answers to those questions because doubts are natural, especially if you're being exposed to a number of questions of different kinds. And there is no one in the world who has perfect upbringing. Sometimes we take the idea of, you know, oh, you know, your mother may have yelled at you once, and that's why you're traumatized, and that's why you're going to become an atheist. That's not how it works. All of us have holes in our hearts. All of us have. So nobody's perfect. And nobody is going to be without doubts about this or that question. And one doesn't become a... but you respond to that immediately. And if, of course, you didn't, and it becomes a bigger problem, meaning that, you know, it's like you feel distant from your deen, right, then you need to do more work. But there is no point when you're too far gone. There are people who grow up without iman, people who grow up in kufr and find iman, and the best of us are like that, like if I... like Shaykh Abdullah, for instance. So there is no... we should not think of iman as something that is an outside doctrine that we are teaching people. Rather, iman is something that is the filth rock that they would love if they could only see it.
And so the way we deal with doubt should be, you know, by first of all accepting that it's not a big deal. I'm going to answer your questions, but it's not a big deal. I like that. I like, subhanAllah, you know, how you humanize the concept of doubt, rather, you know, universalizing it, that everyone, even Muslim, a Muslim that has iman, to have that istishqal, and I can't remember which author it was who said it, but istishqal nisfal'ilm, right, that when you find a problem in something, it's not exactly doubt, but you may find a problem in something, you may not understand it, you may challenge it internally, you may challenge it with someone else. And a lot of times where people are challenging, it's because of a doubt which made them ask the question or to challenge the instructor, the parent, etc. I like how you mentioned earlier, even the parent admitting that they made a mistake, the iman that says, or whatever, you know, scholar or parent even says, tell them I'm not here, but they're humble enough to acknowledge that mistake, to allow the process of their youth, their students, to go through, you know, seeing something contradictory to what they may have learned, which will further expand their education and their educational process. But it's beautiful how you mentioned that doubt is something that is normal, and that it's something that we all grow through. So for those out there, you know, that may be having their doubt in their faith, just as you said, Sheikh, you know, you're not dirty for that, or you're someone that should be casted out, or you're someone that shouldn't come to the masjid because of a doubt in a particular issue. It's just a part of, would you say it's part of the learning, the life process within learning religion?
Yeah, so I wanted to, you know, something, as you were talking, something came to mind, if you don't, you know, when you look at this, sometimes this modern parenting, which sort of gets into classroom as well, this style of protecting and sanitizing everything. But there is actually research that shows that children who, for instance, see their parents disagree, and resolve things, are much better prepared to deal with real life marriage and resolution. And whereas those who have this image of a perfect marriage, right, because this is how parents are supposed to be, they never disagree. They're actually likely to be more problematic as spouses. And it works this way as well, indeed, when you learn about deen. And so disagreement is a big thing that people are scared of these days. And I think that, you know, one example or one metaphor you could use is vaccination, right? What does vaccination do is like it basically create a cousin, a weaker cousin of the actual culprit, and let, you know, let your body create the immune system, the immunity to that. So in the same way, it's important to teach children about what's out there and let them respond, let them deal with it. Shaykh, you know, I want to go back to something you mentioned.
You mentioned your grandmother, mashaAllah, being herself a person of knowledge and preaching to people about Islam. And related to that, you know, I wanted to ask you about like who had the greatest impact on your life. And is that then your grandmother or other people as well you felt had a big impact on your life? If you're talking about my family, yes, I think that she had a significant impact. But alhamdulillah, you know, I come from a Pakistani family where my uncles and aunts are very close. And all of them have been important, you know, in different ways. MashaAllah. I think it's interesting to have a grandmother that was involved in da'wah on a big scale at that time, mashaAllah. Shaykh, is there an ayah or hadith that you wanted to share with our audience that can bring them benefits at this time? Yeah, so I guess I was just reading in As-Salatul Maghrib, I was reciting Surat al-Baqarah, And it sort of connects so well to our discussion of doubt, which is that Allah ﷻ begins by saying that this is the book in which there is no doubt for those who have taqwa. And for those who are mindful of Allah ﷻ and those who fear. And then Allah ﷻ goes on to describe the features of these people for whom this book is guidance. And there is no doubt in this book that this book is what will give you this healing and cure from your doubt. But, alladhina yu'minuna bilghaybu yuqimuna as-salati, you believe in the unseen. And you believe in what has been revealed to Rasulullah ﷺ and act.
So these three elements are all sort of part of maintaining faith and they appear in this ayah, which is that it's not just what you believe cerebrally, mentally, but also what you love. And, you know, and what you fear. And who are your people? All of these things. What are your practices? What is your body used to doing? Are you used to getting up for salah? Are you comfortable giving zakat or partying with your money or dealing with loss? All of these things, they are all connected to iman. They are all part of iman. And so I really love this ayah. It's like Allah ﷻ begins the book with the most pertinent question for a believer. You know, the most pertinent question for a believer is, is this, you know, you ask in Surah al-Fatiha, ihdina as-salat al-mustaqeem, guide us to the right path, and Allah ﷻ begins by saying, this is the book in which there is no doubt, guidance. And this is what you need to do. You need to start practicing. And sometimes doubt is resolved when you overcome your shahwat. Right? So there is a complex connection in our, in between our environment and our sensitivities and sensibilities, things we love, things we do, and our mental states. That's why I love this ayah. This is, you know, modern psychology and philosophical works show this, also confirm this, that there is a deep connection between our habitus and our outer state and our mental states.
And we should not think of doubt as merely a mental state, which means that sometimes when you are doubting, it's because perhaps you're hanging out with the wrong people, because you are lazy in your salah, because you are not practicing what you do know to be right. And as a result, you know, shaitan is putting doubts in you, and the best way to resolve that perhaps is not, you know, to read a philosophy book, but to go back and do what you know to be right. Right? Salah and zakat and hang out with the right kind of people. So anyway, this ayah is something that I always find very comforting. Absolutely, subhanAllah. You know, just like something you said reminded me of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, when he said, you know, shaitan will come to the person and tell him, man khalaqa hadha wa man khalaqa hadha, who created this, who created this, who created the heavens, who created the mountains, who created the trees, and the person will say Allah, Allah, Allah, and then shaitan will ask the person man khalaqa Allah, who created Allah. And then the Prophet says, fa-itha balagha dhalik, if it comes to this point, he doesn't give you an intellectual answer, he doesn't give you a rational response to this, even though there's many responses to this. He tells you, fal-yastAAib bi-Allah, seek refuge in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He knew that this is divine wisdom. Exactly, because it's not, even if you got the intellectual answer, it's not going to quell your heart, because the problem is in your heart, you need to seek refuge from shaitan, shaitan is influencing you one way or the other. So exactly as you said, Shaykh, subhanAllah. So Shaykh, there's a number of questions.
Let's see, subhanAllah, I had one question flagged right here, the brother brought up, specifically about the ayah you mentioned. So without you even seeing the question that he was bringing up, he mentions the verse that you mentioned, and then he's asking about da'wah related to it. So you answered his question without even seeing the question that he asked, subhanAllah, I just thought that was interesting. Shaykh, can I ask one question? I know we have a lot of questions. Shaykh, you mentioned one thing, hafidhukumullah, you mentioned one thing, the things that used to make you cry a lot, particularly those of, you said what happened in Kashmir, and what's happened, generally what's happened to Muslims worldwide. And it reminds me of something that when I was a new Muslim, my father pulled me in the room one time, and this was during the Iraqi war, and he asked, he called me Abdul, he said, Abdul, why did you become a Muslim when the Muslims are being held like this? He did this, right? I didn't have an answer. I had this belief in my heart, but I was like, okay, outside the Muslims are looking quote unquote weak. They're being taken advantage of, their vulnerabilities are being taken advantage of. When you saw that and you cried, I mean, you'll see that the driving force behind a lot of the youth going to join and going to fight, right, and to fight overseas, so the examples of ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the youth that go and do that, there's a level of iman that is in their hearts. Is there a level of doubt? And is there that emotion that you had at that time of being saddened, of being saddened for the ummah as we all should be, which is a sign of iman. Why didn't it lead you to just go and fight? Grounded.
I think that what helped me, Allah A'lam, is precisely because I was aware of the debates and the history. And so the ulama are talking about this, people are asking questions. And so you realize that the real problem is not simply more people doing this, there is time and place for that. But there was a deeper problem, you know, in our societies. Because ultimately wars are won not, you know, not just by bravery, but wars are won, it's, you know, when Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam won the Battle of Badr, because of those 13 years or 14 years prior, that is when the Badr soldiers are created. And this understanding was something that was already I had, even though not that I had all the answers, but I already had this understanding that, you know, we are living in times when there are such deep problems among Muslims. One of the things that really broke my heart was, you know, I was between Jeddah and Karachi, and in Karachi, I was very familiar with what's going on in Pakistan, even though I lived in Jeddah. And there was ethnic violence between immigrants from India who had settled. So my family, in fact, originally came from India, my grandparents.
And then the locals and various local ethnicities. And this was turning, you know, just a few years before I was in high school, this had become a really ugly ethnic violence. And that, to me, was just that I had, you know, I really, I would say I had no romantic ideas about how to do things. To me, there were problems that I was aware of. And Alhamdulillah, I think that was beneficial. Because to me, it was, you know, you could win wars, but you could still lose. And when your societies are not able to create, they're not able to maintain good ethical, moral life, then people would not want to belong to it. You have, you know, you need force. And then when there is racism, for example, in Muslim society, and it's another, it's just a form of racism, right? When you have racism, when you have classism, then the community to which you're calling people to is an ugly place. So it's important that we needed to, so that, those were problems. And so many of those problems came because we were absorbing, you know, ethnicity, ethnic problems, which are very much an Indian thing. India is a very ethnic communalistic place. And Muslims sort of were just following along. Similarly, racist problems, something that we absorb from others, or Islam is weak. So those were problems that already in my mind were serious problems. The other problem that I was quite acutely aware of was science.
And I think that the only thing that changed over time was that I realized science was important, a very important, you know, new body of knowledge that Muslims need, but there is something else that we need much more. That's why I ultimately changed course. But in a sense, even when I went into science, my ideas were, you know, how can I use this to do something for Muslims? So ultimately, it was that value of education, that previous education that you had, the methodology that you mentioned of studying different ways of thoughts and how they would, I guess you could lack of better words, debate or exchange their ideas with one another. Did that kind of have you ground you and served as your anchor somewhat when faced with these challenges? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, it was a, it was debates and different, different perspectives. And it wasn't just theoretical debates or reading books. In fact, I was aware of, so there is Jamaat-e-Islami, there is Tabligh-e-Jamaat, there are other people who are, and you go to everybody and you listen to everybody. Ahlul Hadith movement, Ibraheem Louise and all of those people are. And so knowing that, you know, these are their arguments and these are their arguments. I remember, in fact, going back to my grandmother, Allah arhamha, she wanted me to give bay'ah to her sheikh who was an Ahlul Hadith sheikh. And I remember, you know, I was only 12 at the time and I was like her favorite grandchild and she wanted me to be this. And I said, I can't do that just because somebody wants me to. So I had a rebel in me in the same way that she did. To me, it was I had to find my own way, but you know, go with everybody and see what they're saying.
So I think that it was, so in other words, seeing the debate play out in real life as well, that gave me, I think, a sense of maturity. So, you know, when I talk about Islam and I talk about Muslims, it's not out of any kind of romantic view that never existed. It is very much, you know, this is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has given us this deen and there are so many people in this ummah who are suffering, who have less than us, and then they need our help. And to feel that responsibility of now that images that we see in right on our social media of whether it's Syrians or Palestinians or Uyghur or Kashmiris, we should never feel helpless. We should consider these as data points. And this is my world and my plan is not going to be what I can do in a year or perhaps go and join this or that. My plan is I have, Allah has given me perhaps what 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years. And my plan should be how I'm going to respond to this situation comprehensively in that time. Jazakum Allah khair. So it started at 12, mashallah, 12 years old. Mashallah. Jazakum Allah khair for that answer. We have a few questions for you. This question from Sister Noor Zeehan, she says, my sons are now pursuing master's program in Sharia, but they now are facing more trials that make it more difficult for them to join Jama'at, Salat, be early at the masjid, etc. As their mom, I was hoping that they would have easier path to be better students.
She continues asking, you know, what could she do to support her sons to be more committed? Yes, subhanAllah, that's really tough. And may Allah bless you, sister, for worrying about this. I mean, I think that ultimately you are going to be, inshallah, their asset. And I pray that one day they will be sitting here and people will be asking them, you know, how is it that they became such great scholars and teachers? And I'm sure that inshallah, they will remember what you did for them. And I want to also say that, you know, young people go through phases. And so the fact that, you know, they aren't very good right now doesn't mean that this is right. This is going to be the case. As a father of five kids myself and my oldest is, alhamdulillah, and my oldest two are in college, I know there are ups and downs. So inshallah, take heart, sister. And if with your dua, inshallah, they're going to come back and inshallah make you proud. But generally, it's important to understand that the process of learning and teaching is one thing and the habits in which they grow up, they are different. And, you know, when people ask me when they're going to study Islam, in the West in particular, now in your case is different, so I'll come back to it. But when they want to study Islam in the West, at a Western university, and people go there to find their identity, like they're not sure, you know, there are Sunnis and Shia
and then there are Salafis and Ash'aris and Sufis. And I want to figure this out at a university. This is the worst idea. You don't find your identity, you're not going to find yourself in Islamic studies, in the Eastern Studies Department in the West. That's not what those programs are for. They, in fact, are designed to allow you to doubt, to empower you to doubt. And so your identity has to be formed based on your fitrah well before you go there. And your fitrah has to be strengthened. So if those of you who are planning to go, make sure that you have your connection to the Quran, that you have memorized the Quran, that you are aware of the Sunnah and Hadith very well, and that you pray Fajr and Isha at the masjid with all those Pakistani and Palestinian and Somali taxi drivers. If you cannot do that, then do us all a favor and don't go to Islamic studies, not at least at a Western university. Take care of those things first because it is the case that many people leave Iman. I'm not saying Islam, but you can no longer say that they have Iman after they go through this process. They become good at talking about stuff, but Iman is not something that is left with you at the end of this process, especially in the West. illa masha'Allah Now for you, sister, in this case, they're pursuing a program in Sharia. You didn't say where, but I'm going to assume that this is in Islam's context.
And all I can say that it does happen sometimes that they feel that what they are studying in theory is not connecting them to practice, and that's something there is a serious lack in the mentorship in many Islamic studies programs that are taught like anything else. And if you have bad teachers, sometimes you end up, and I'm not saying this is the case with your case, but sometimes teachers turn you off. Sometimes, often I hear that people go and go study Sharia and you see the character of the teachers, and they're not mature themselves. They're young, and so rather than understanding the complexity of human nature, they are disheartened because they see people, you know, a Shaykh smoking cigarette and or perhaps having a conduct that isn't fitting for that. So I think that those are tests that are part of the path of learning. And we can only pray to Allah subhana wa ta'ala, but masha'Allah, your concern for them, I think is one of their biggest assets, it seems. Masha'Allah, Jazakallah khair. Shaykh, another question. The person is asking, is it possible to disagree with certain stuff in Islam yet still be Muslim? Like for example, certain topic that you view differently, but you keep it as your own opinion, but you still follow Islam. Yes, because from your context, it seems that you don't know if it's against Islam, if it's against the opinions that you have heard, and you cannot bring yourself to believe it.
Now, the right way it would seem is to learn, right, and to learn in such a way, learn with people who have the wisdom to treat, you know, your questions respectfully, that they will not shut you down. Now, of course, there are cases when the opinion that you have may be disrespectful or offensive. It doesn't seem like that is the case with you, that you want to keep it to yourself and keep practicing Islam, even though you have some doubts. And I think the short answer to your question is yes, it is possible for you to continue to grow in areas in Islam, that you are part of those practices, but seek, you know, my advice to you is don't let doubts get bigger. Just seek the right kinds of teachers. So if you find that you're being, you know, somebody doesn't have the compassion, or perhaps they don't have your experience, right, so you come from a certain culture, you maybe have a Shaykh from a different generation who, you know, who sees, who doesn't see why this would be even a doubt, then it's not their problem, it's not your problem, there is just no match, and you need to look for somebody who can understand your context better. But don't let it, don't let it grow. If you can afford to find somebody, you know, Alhamdulillah, you have many places where you can reach out, and, you know, for instance at Yaqeen, there are many such opportunities, feel free to reach out. I like how you mentioned, just a small thing, I like how you mentioned, I mean the last answer you gave, there's a number of things you mentioned, but Mashallah, Tabaraka, I like how you mentioned,
it's not your fault, it's not his fault, it's just not a match. You know, you'll find sometimes if they don't get the answer from that Shaykh, then there's something wrong with the Shaykh, right? Sometimes the Shaykh will say, what's wrong with this student, because of these, how dare he, you know, ask these kinds of questions. I love how you mentioned compassion with their particular thought process and their journey. Mashallah, Jazakallah khair. Shaykh, would you say something really important here also is to maintain, like, humility, in terms of that, you know, you don't understand it, you think it might not be correct, you're following it, but you don't understand it, so maybe just say to yourself, maybe there's an explanation, I don't know, like, just to have that humility, rather than saying, I disagree, this must be wrong, like, even in our minds, but it hasn't been that, right? Yeah, and I want to add to that. I cannot tell you how many times people's problems are merely contextual. For example, you see certain practice in Islam, and you're like, this is unethical, this is wrong. But you go take a class in anthropology, and you learn about the radically different ways human societies have been set up in the past, and even today, right? And once you learn that, you realize that your ethical formation, right, you feel really, really strongly about when people should be able to get married, because in your state, the age is 18. And if you did otherwise, you might end up in prison, right? It would be rape or something. You go to a different country in the West, Christian West, the whole, everything the same, but the age is 14 or 12. And until
recently, there was no such age. You go learn about medieval India, for example, among Hindus, if a girl did not get married by the time she was 10, the village elders would think that this is a kind of abuse, because the father is keeping the girl in his house to do his housework, whereas he should be finding a husband for her, and the village elder could take your girl away. So, just like these anthropology and history are often, you know, that the lack of that knowledge and the arrogance that often Westerners have more than anybody else, which is that we have reached the end of history, we know the right answers to all such questions. So, in a way, you know, we raise questions that is in the West that nobody's ever raised before, because people recognize differences. And people are usually recognized that, you know, this happens in our neck of the wood, other people do it differently. But my point is simply that our, not that there are no moral standards, but those moral standards come from Allah ﷻ. And if you look at the Shari'ah, look at the flexibility of the Shari'ah, those moral standards and these cultural habits, Allah ﷻ provides such great leeway. And, you know, that's something also you see in Islamic history, that from Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, there are so many different, radically different cultures, all practice Islam in many, many different ways. Sometimes they would even, you know, do it in a way that would be considered wrong, but they were comfortable with it. And people basically adjusted to sometimes in extreme geographic conditions or whatnot. So,
to speak, and again, to reaffirm what you were saying, Shaykh Ibrahim, humility, just knowing that we don't even know what other human beings do, and, you know, or what they were doing 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago, that really helps. SubhanAllah, I wanted to end, but then people keep, putting up questions that are quite interesting. This is just a point that someone raised, I thought was important for us to mention as well. Sister Wafaa, she said, I also think that it's very important to reflect on why doubts come to the mind. Sometimes people may have doubts due to traumatic experiences, insecurities, etc. So seeking professional help may help. And that's definitely a point that we should be making as well. One question here, I thought was interesting as well, Shaykh. Brother Jad, he said, I noticed some young Muslims take the back home culture as the way to go, which I find not typical. What advice to give about culture slash Islam confusion back home? And I guess he is saying, you know, some people think that the way to practice Islam is the way it's practiced in their country back home, which sometimes might be right, but sometimes may not be right. And so, I think that's a good point. It might be right, but sometimes may not be and causes some confusion for those who are living in diaspora, living in the United States or Canada or Europe and so on and so forth. What would you say to this, Brother Shaykh? Yes, SubhanAllah, culture and religion, it's a whopper. It's a question you don't get at the end and answer it quickly. In brief, people say that, look, this is your religion, this is your culture, and let's separate that. Now, often the problem is that this doesn't work this way because culture and religion are baked together.
And they are separated often in conditions of like, you know, as Muslims in the West, our diaspora community, relatively new community and culture and religion haven't sort of fused together yet. So, we have a lot more questions about that. And of course, in the global world, we're dealing with this problem that many people's cultures come together and they contradict. And sometimes I feel very strongly morally about a cultural, about a religious problem, which is really just my cultural conditioning versus somebody else's cultural conditioning. So, being sensitive about that is really important. I don't want to say that what's happening in Pakistan or Egypt or Indonesia, their cultural habits are culture, whereas my cultural habits are Islam. Often American Muslims fall into this exceptionalist tendencies that are part of American narrative. American self-narration is that America is the city on the hill, America is the, you know, home of progress, America is where the history ends. And therefore, this sort of translates into Islam, that our Islam is the true Islam and other people's Islam is cultural Islam. I think that that is something that we should be aware of. But at the same time, the other thing that helps, and I guess I can't perhaps provide any solace that there is an easy solution to any cultural problem that you're facing. But knowing that almost every community goes through it, every generation goes through it, it is part of the test that Allah ﷻ has placed in this world for us. When Rasulullah ﷺ and the Sahaba moved from Makkah to Medina, they found that women are culturally different. They talk back more,
they are, you know, they have different habits. And this was something that led to some raised voices in the houses of the Prophet ﷺ and the companions. This is part of the test that Allah ﷻ has passed, and part of the beauty as well that Allah ﷻ has given us these differences. Allah ﷻ. JazakAllah khair, Shaykh. You know, your time with us is really valuable and I learned a lot personally. Before we can conclude, you know, a question from our side, a question we like to ask all of our guests really is that if you can go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self? Ah, that would be a book. I think that I think that it's not any advice, I guess, but it's rather the attitude I would tell myself. You know, the hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ which I knew but I didn't fully appreciate. That gentleness is something that you add to something, it adds a beauty to it, no matter what it is. And when you take away from something, it spoils it. So add gentleness to everything. Take it easy. I think that there are many conversations or moments where had I followed the prophetic advice, I would have been less regretful or embarrassed. But, you know, so that's really, it's really no easy way to tell young people to chill. Take it easy, kid. I like that.
If you don't mind, if you can just, you know, I mean, because you mentioned Madad, just sadly, earlier, Shaykh Ibrahim, but I don't think people realize the depth of this book, and they don't realize a lot of Ramadans and a lot of lectures in their masajid, when somebody says Ibn Qayyim said majority of the times, I think I can safely say that it comes from this book. So Shaykh, if you can just give us a brief overview of this book, and, you know, please mention to the world how long it took you to not just translate this book, but to, you know, with the commentary and everything on this book as well. Just let the world know really about this book and the greatness of this book. I don't think people realize it. Yes, I'm really thankful that you mentioned it in part because, you know, when I, it took me about 20 years to translate, and the first two volumes are out, and two more are on the way in several years later, inshallah. But each of the volumes is like, you know, a thousand pages, so you have plenty to read, inshallah. It's Arabic, English to Arabic, face to face, but in fact, I have the copy here, I can show you. So this is the, this is the, this is the book, then the translation, see there's Arabic and English face to face, I don't know if you can see. But what I wanted to also mention is that, you know, when Brill was publishing this, I told, I told them the only condition I have is that when you publish the paperback version, the price is going to be within the range of, you know, ordinary mortals, and $40 to $50. So they actually, I'm very pleased that they kept their, the end of the bargain, and the paperback version has just come out, and it's only, well, $59, 4,000 pages. This hardback version is 170,
and so that was, you know, beyond most people's range, and I really wanted to, to make that available to people. But this book, Medarij Selikin is a kind of, you know, a book that is a commentary on the Tasawwuf and Tazkiyah traditions, and there were many, many different traditions. Tasawwuf is sort of what I tell people is like a Kleenex, you know, it's like the title, the brand name that was given to many, many different movements in Islam. But Tasawwuf and Tazkiyah and Suluk or Malamatiya and Thaqr and Zuhud and Bakka'un, there were many different movements, and this is a really summary of the history of those movements, but not historically, but rather it's just, you know, it brings together all that wisdom, and this is written as a commentary on an earlier work by Abu Ismail Al-Harawi Al-Ansari, rahimahullah, and which was, who was the leading Sufi of his time, and you know, if you lived in the 5th century or afterward, anytime, it is his book, that is Ismail Al-Ansari's book, Abu Ismail Al-Ansari's book, that you would memorize as a initiate, as a salik. So that's why this book, in a sense, really gives you a critical commentary from the perspective of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and it's written as the tafsir of Iyaka na'budu wa iyaka nasta'ina, right? So it's a tafsir of this one ayah of Surah Al-Fatiha, Iyaka na'budu wa iyaka nasta'ina, and how all of the stations of Suluk, of Thaqr and Zuhud, and love and patience and gratitude to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and there are 100 such stations,
all of them come out of our commitment to Allah that we proclaim in Surah Al-Fatiha, Iyaka na'budu wa iyaka nasta'ina, you alone we worship and you alone seek for help. And it is accessible, you know, in the way that I've translated, it is one of the more challenging, intellectually challenging books, but with footnotes and, you know, with some sort of modern terminology, I think that, you know, it's a kind of book that you don't, you read as a companion to your life, you know, this is just, if it's a path of Suluk, if it's a path of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la that you want, then it's a book that you can read, you know, from month to month, Ramadan to Ramadan, and benefit from it. And I guess the last thing I would say about it is that this is a book that puts me to shame. So it's a book that was hard to write because when you compare yourself to it, and it's not a kind of book that you can read like any other book, it's a kind of book that puts you to shame. And sometimes that's a good thing. JazakAllah khair, Sheikh, Mashallah. There's so many questions I'm holding myself back. I'll just go to your room. I don't want to. JazakAllah khair, Sheikh, may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, you know, make us worthy of being in the higher ranks of the divine seekers of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And may Allah put your efforts in translating such a beautiful book on your scale of good deeds on the Day of Judgment. Ameen. And really, jazakAllah khair for your time and, you know, being with us and giving us of your wisdom and your experiences that inshallah all of us can benefit from it. Ameen. We really, you know, appreciate your time and I know the audience did as well and hopefully inshallah we can have you back at some point in the future. Inshallah. JazakAllah khair and thank you very much for having me.
Thank you, Sheikh. May Allah protect you. May Allah protect you. Inshallah. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.
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