Culture of Islam

--- *This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. * --- Alhamdulillah, O Lord of the worlds and peace and blessings be upon the most honored of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions, and he has accepted many many. So, we looked at the first of the elements of change that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, implemented in order to transform his community from being the most oppressed, the weakest to becoming the strongest and the rulers of their world of the time. And that first element was to change how we view ourselves. The reason for that obviously is that everything comes from the individual. All change has to begin with me. Anyone who thinks that the way to change the world is to change somebody else and I remain the same way, no, doesn't work. Doesn't work in any field. If I want change to happen in my environment, that change has to begin from me. And therefore, my identity, do I see myself as within quotes a ruler or a king? And I don't mean that literally, I mean in the terms of an attitude of like a king, meaning that I don't obey anyone, but everyone else must obey me. But this doesn't work because this is not who we are. Allah, the Almighty sent us as His Ibad, as His slaves. We are here in this world to obey Allah in the way of the Rasul, peace be upon him, who showed us how to obey Allah. Just think about that. Think about this. We just prayed Salatul Maghrib. We prayed three rakat. If I ask you, why did you pray three rakat? Why not four? Why not two? Why not one? What is the answer? If I ask you, why did you pray in this way? Why do you start the Salah with Tagmir, the Harimah? Why do you recite Surah Al-Fatihah first? Why do you recite Surah Al-Fatihah in every rakat? Isn't it enough to say it once? The answer to all of these questions is only one. Because this is the way Rasulullah A.S. prayed, period. Why, why, why, why, why? Because this is how Rasulullah A.S. did that. Actually, I remind myself is the same principle applies for everything in life. It is not restricted to Salah. Salah is the example which shows me how I should do business. Salah shows me how I must handle my family. Salah shows me if I'm a ruler of a country, how I must rule my country. If I'm a judge in a court, Salah shows me how I must give my rulings and my judgments in the court and so on and so on. If I'm a business person, business man or woman, Salah shows me how to do business. And that's the reason for studying the Seerah. The Salah is the example. We do it the way of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Then it becomes accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Then it becomes full of Khair and Malakha for all concerned, including myself. We go to the second part of the transformation that Rasulullah A.S. brought about, and that is a transformation in culture. We start with the individual, then we go into the surrounding of the the surroundings in which the individual lives and works and functions. And that surrounding is called the culture. The culture was to move from discrimination, from high and low to equality, genuine equality. Everyone equal before Allah. This is what Islam brought in Islam. There is no superior or inferior to the extent the Sahaba came to the Prophet, some of them were people in their travels. They had gone to the courts of different kings and so on. And they said, yes, if you permit us, we would like to make such that to you as the way of greeting you, because this is how the kings of Rome and Persia and other places. This is their way that when people come into the court, they are there, the demand there, they are commanded to make such that to put their hand on the ground in front of the king. So some of them just lie down flat on their face. And you deserve it more than any of them, because you are not only our ruler, but you are the Rasul of Allah. So therefore, we if you permit us, this is how we would like to greet you by making sujood to you. Rasulullah said, no, such that is only to Allah and we are all equal before Allah and I am his abu and his Rasul. In Islam, there is complete equality between all people in the sight of Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, I mentioned in this beautiful Ayatul Karima of Surah Al-Hujraat. Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, O mankind, O human beings, we have created you from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know, you may recognize, you may honor one another, not for you to discriminate and say the black man is is is is inferior to the white man and vice versa and so on. And the Arab and the Adam know. And Allah said, really, the most honorable of you is the one who has the most taqwa. And Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, is all knowing and all aware. So Islam changed the. Criterion of superiority from wealth and power and authority and skin color or concepts of beauty or whatever or lineage to taqwa. This is the sense of equality that Islam brought, which did not exist before Islam. And may Allah have mercy on us. It does not exist today. We have gone back full circle. Now, one way to look at that is to feel sad about it. But the other way to look at it is that if you have gone back full circle, then we can go back full circle, because go back to the stage where. The Rasulullah Sala Salaam and brought this law and people lived by that law and therefore they benefited. Now, like everything else, Rasulullah Sala Salaam demonstrated in his own life the things that he preached. Right. He demonstrated them in his own life. So any priest equality, he treated everyone as equal. He had a slave, Zaid bin Aritha, and he freed him. And in that case, it's a beautiful, long story. I won't go into that here because we are short of time. But he gave him the name Zaid bin Muhammad. And the name went back to Zaid bin Aritha only after Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed the ayat in Surah Al-Hazab, where Allah prohibited the adoption of a child, man or woman, and adoption meaning giving that child your own name. There is no prohibition to look after children. There's no prohibition to look after orphans. You can look after them. You can keep them in your home. That is the preferred way, not put them into an orphanage. The preferred way is to take them into your family. So then they have a sense of family with them. But you cannot give them your name. The lineage comes from the from the father. And biologically, that father remains the father. Rasulullah also, when he formed the Ummah in Madinah, Rasulullah made one Muhajir Sahabi with one Ansari Sahabi. And if you look at the pairs that he made, there are some of them which were very, very dissimilar, very different. For example, he paired Salman al-Farsi, who was a Persian slave, with Abu Darda al-Ansari, who was among the leaders of the Khazraj. He was a chieftain in Madinah. So he was an Arab, a noble Arab. He is being paired with a man who came from Persia and he was a slave. Now, see how the Sahaba did this. Now Salman al-Farsi, who was a slave later on, Rasulullah Salaam helped him to buy his freedom. He used to work for this man and he asked him, set a price, what do I need to pay you to become free? The man said, your price is 300 fully mature bearing date palm trees. So how are you going to find that? First of all, it's an enormous fortune. And secondly, bearing, growing date palm means what? Means he has to, I mean, you can't just pick it up from somewhere. So he has to grow it. So he came to him and said, this is what he's saying. Rasulullah Salaam said to him, first of all, Nabi Salaam announced to the people, he said, who is willing to help Salman al-Farsi, Rabel Anu to become free? Donate a date palm sapling, a small tree. So the Sahaba, they brought the trees. So they had these 300 trees. They were stacked in one place like a nursery. Rasulullah Salaam said to Salman al-Farsi, go and dig the holes, dig the pits and don't plant anything. Complete all the pits, do whatever you need to do. And then come and tell me. Salman al-Farsi, Rabel Anu, he went and he dug all the pits, 300 pits. You have to dig a big pit, three feet by three feet by three feet, big pits. You know, planters, we know this stuff. It's not easy, very difficult. And then you put manure and organic matter and God knows what in the thing. Get it ready. And then he came and said to Rasulullah, the pits are ready. Rasulullah Salaam went and he planted those trees with his own and all three of them by himself. I want an amazing lesson in leadership. That's the meaning of leadership. It's not a simple sit around and move this, move that. No, no, no, no. He takes an interest in this man who is a stranger from nowhere. He comes from Persia. He's a slave. Rasulullah Salaam takes interest in him to the extent that he plants those trees himself. With his own blessed hands, and Allah's will, the trees and the plants. Allah caused them to grow, Allah caused them to become bearing trees and then the Salman al-Farsi, the Dalai Lama was freed. So when he becomes the brother of Abu Darda Al Ansari, Abu Darda Al Ansari was a beautiful Sahabi. He was among apart from being a chieftain of the Khazran. He was a very pious man. He was known for his zod. He was known for the amount of Salah, the Zikr and his fasting and so on. He was a very pious man. He was very, very, you know, strict with himself. So Salman al-Farsi, the Dalai Lama, one day, like staying with him in his house. He did everything. So he comes home one day. Abu Darda is not there. Umar Darda is there. Abu Dalana. Later on, she became a great Wahadisa. And she was to give dars of Quran in Masjid al-Hadith in Masjid al-Rabbi Sharif. She was one of the first classical Wahadisa. Classical scholars of Hadith. So she was in the house and she was, you know,