Planning for Tomorrow

Planning for Tomorrow

Opening Salutations and Blessings

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

Alhamdulillah. Ramadan Mubarak alaykum jami'an.

Personal Reflections on Distant Lands

When I was watching some of the footage there, for some people, when they watch these things, especially people in the United States, some of the young people here, they're very alien, distant images, but Imam Majeed, myself, Imam Zaid, people that have actually lived in these areas, because these are not foreign pictures, they're memories, actually.

Like, I was actually remembering places I'd lived in, places I'd been. Mali is particularly interesting for me, because, and I was telling Imam Majeed, and I don't really like to... I had a very interesting youth after I became Muslim, because one of the interesting things about converting to a religion with a lot of fervor, is that it's almost like a temporary insanity that you go through, because you are just so filled with this incredible inshirah, this expansion that occurs. And when I was in high school, I was kind of a daredevil.

The Daredevil Youth and West Africa

I used to do things that I think now I would consider completely insane. But when I became Muslim, one of the benefits of having a personality like that is that I would do things that I think more rational people would be hesitant to do. And one of them was going to West Africa, and with really little or no means, and pretty much joining a Bedouin tribe out there, and drinking water that they drank without ever thinking about any bacteria.

I used to just say (بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الَّذِي لَا يَضُرُّ مَعَ اسْمِهِ شَيْءٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَا فِي السَّمَاءِ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ - bismillahi alladhi la yadurru ma'a ismihi shay'un fil ardi wa la fis sama'i wa huwas samee'ul 'aleem) (Sahih at-Tirmidhi 3388) And I was convinced that that was enough, which is why you need that hadith with also taking pills, preventative pills, is sometimes a very useful thing to do. But I didn't think like that at that time.

A Brush with Death: Amoebic Dysentery in Mali

So when I was in Mali, I got amoebic dysentery. And I was with a man who lives in San Francisco, he was an eyewitness to this, named Hassan Barrett. Had it not been for him really, I was very fortunate that he was with me because I was in a place, there weren't any hospitals, there's no 911, you can't call and an ambulance shows up and takes you.

And I was literally defecating blood and going into what I would now understand as dehydrated state. I couldn't even get up. I mean he had to clean me, he took care of me during that time that I was sick.

But I was very fortunate in that some French tourists happened to come in to town and he was telling them about what was going on with his traveling companion and they gave him Flagyl, which is an antibiotic and it's specific to amoebic dysentery. And literally that, I believe, saved my life at the time by Allah. But it was serendipitous, it was very fortunate that they were there.

Just some pills. It's a very strange thing when you're sick and literally some pills can, you can be given pills and suddenly you're starting to feel better after a little time and you regain your health. So these things, when you watch these things, they're very real.

The Reality of Suffering: Guns, Germs, and Steel

There was a man who wrote a book called Guns, Germs and something or other. Steel, Guns, Germs and Steel. I think Jared Diamond's his name. Anyway, they did a documentary on that and he's a scientist that studied disease and when he was in Africa, he was in West Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and he was in a malaria clinic and if anybody saw that documentary, it's the most powerful moment, I think, in that entire documentary where he literally breaks down and starts crying. I mean, he was a PhD American scientist, wrote a very callous book about the influence of guns, germs and steel on civilizations and their rises and falls and there he was confronted with the reality of a disease right in front of him and seeing little children that were dying from this disease and he broke down. It had a serious impact on him.

The True Wealth of Mali

But I want also to remind you of a few things. As somebody who lived in this era, and Imam Majeed can say the same thing, you can talk about all the tragedies in West Africa and you can talk about poverty, like they said that Mali was one of the poorest countries in the world. I spent enough time in Mali to know that Mali, in my estimation, is one of the richest countries in the world.

The Malian people are an amazing people. They have beautiful social networks, they have a religious community, they are wonderful, generous people. The Bambara people, the Fulani people, you go and sit with these people and they don't need Prozac.

We've got dogs on Prozac in America. And you know things are bad when the dog is depressed about the house he's living in. No, seriously, we have dogs on Prozac.

There's probably some veterinarians here that have depressed dogs. We have cats in America are depressed. So when you talk about impoverished countries and wealthy countries, that depends on what standard you're using to determine what is poverty and what is wealth.

Material Poverty vs Spiritual Wealth

If you're talking about material wealth, Mali is definitely one of the poorest countries outwardly. But it's also one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources. Uranium deposits in Nigeria and Mali.

A lot of this stuff, we don't even know what's going on there because nefarious things happen behind the scenes. Much of the problem in these countries doesn't have to do with poverty. It doesn't have to do with inability or lack of human resources or all of the other things that are used in criteria.

The Root Problem: Corruption and Morality

It gets reduced to one simple major problem. Corruption. Morality. Basic human ethics. And this is a crisis that there's only two things that address this crisis. There's only two things.

One is fitra. Fitra. People that have an access to their original nature.

And this is why you'll meet people who are not necessarily religious, but they're morally upright people because they're connected to their fitra. But the other thing that addresses this problem is religion itself. The beauty of Islam is the religion of fitra.

That it addresses human nature. It recognizes our weaknesses and addresses how to deal with those weaknesses in the book of Allah and in the sunnah of the Prophet. If you look now, one of the most interesting things that's happening right now in our lifetime is this system of greed is collapsing.

The Collapse of Greed: The Bernie Madoff Case

People are seeing where greed takes people. Where the breakdown of community takes people. I want to use one example. And after this man, I don't believe anybody can ever take applause or awards seriously. And I love one of the aspects of Islam is that it's a religion that warns you about applause and awards. I love that aspect of Islam.

Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff in the hood, they call him Bernie Madoff. That's what preacher Moss just told me.

Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff. Between 1950 and 1972, the United States spent 1.4 billion dollars on the eradication of malaria. 1.4 billion dollars. That's about two weeks of Bernie Madoff's bookkeeping. Bernie Madoff was stealing all of this money from mostly Jewish investors that trusted him.

Got a trustworthy name. Head of Yeshiva's business school, a Jewish university. A wall filled with plaques attesting to his humanitarian impulses because of the million dollars he gave in donations.

But he was robbing these people blind. That's what he was doing. He was robbing these people blind.

Wall Street and the Crisis of Intention

When you look, Bernie Madoff is indicative of a certain state of mind on Wall Street. Make money at any cost.

Not a cost to you, at a cost to others. Many of the people that have looted the United States government were coming out of Ivy League colleges with degrees attesting to their intellectual abilities. Degrees in business and they always had a course in Yale or Harvard on business ethics. But all of that learning did not benefit those people in their human behavior.

This is the fundamental problem that unless this is addressed nothing else will change or work. What motivates you? What makes you tick? This is what our Prophet ﷺ called niyyah. What is your intention? What is your niyyah? What do you want when you're doing something? What's your intention for fasting? What's your intention for giving money? Once you begin to address the essence of your own being you can begin to understand who you are and that's why self-knowledge is foundational in our religion.

The Two Largest Enterprises: Armaments and Drugs

If you don't know who you are you're certainly not going to know whose you are. So we all have to ask ourselves we're living on a planet where the two largest enterprises are armaments and drugs. These are the largest economic enterprises taking the most vital intellects the most amount of human labor and activity is being funneled in to war and drugs mostly illegal drugs to numb people and opiate them from the pain of living on a planet whose two major priorities are building weapons and selling them and making drugs and pushing them.

That's what's going on. So if you want to ask who's happy and who's sad I'll take a Malian's happiness really I'll take a Malian's happiness any day over the scientists that are working out better ways to kill people that live in beautiful houses with their 401k plans or what's left of them. And I'm not just saying this I'm telling you I live this.

The Natural Joy of Simple People

I live with people who smile it's just a natural thing for them to smile because they're happy people they just smile. We're living in a country where despite the fact that it has the best dental health care in the world people aren't too generous with their teeth. When I try to talk to people at stores because in the Shafi'i Madhab you're supposed to have a human transaction. Transaction shouldn't just be commercial you should have a human transaction.

When I try to talk to people some people they don't want to talk to you. They just want to move it along reduce everything to a commercial transaction. Life is more than just commercial transactions.

Life is about community. It's about humanity. It's about sharing.

The Fitra of Children: Life is About Sharing

If you look at a child those of you who have children I've only got one who's very small now five but I've had five children and I've seen them through these stages. These children will come in you gotta see this come here

quick and I'll jump up, get excited, run out what what and it's some bug that they've never seen before. Look at that.

Now why does he have to share it with me? Why can't he just enjoy the bug? Because life is about sharing. Experiences are enriched by sharing them with others and that's what the fitra knows. That's what a child knows and that's what too many people have forgotten as they've gotten older in an increasingly cynical world and our religion is against cynicism because one of our foundational beliefs is that behind this universe is a benevolent Lord.

The Benevolent Lord and the Value of This World

We believe in a benevolent Lord. You wanna know about a mosquito? If this world had any significance and I'm talking not about the 'alam because a lot of Muslims don't differentiate between the world as the theater of divine attributes where God reveals himself to his creation. I'm not talking about the 'alam.

I'm talking about dunya. Hayat al-dunya. I'm talking about the illusory and ephemeral nature of the world. The belief that we're here for permanent status. The Quran condemns the dunya but tells us to look at the world to honor the world to care for the world to protect the world but warns us against dunya not the 'alam.

The Prophet ﷺ said, (لو كانت الدنيا تعدل عند الله جناح بعوضة ما سقى كافرًا شربة ماء - Law kanaat ad-dunya ta'dilu 'indallahi jinaaha 'ad-ad-ba'oodati ma saqa kafiran shurbata maa') (Sunan at-Tirmidhi 2320) - If this world had the weight of a mosquito's wing with God, an atheist would not get a drink of water.

An atheist would not get a drink of water. If this world was equivalent to the wing of a mosquito. So when we talk about who's suffering and who's not suffering.

Fever: A Purification from Allah

The Prophet ﷺ said that fever was from a place in hell. Fever, the Prophet ﷺ said removes wrong actions from the body. And I've been in very intense fever when I lived in Mauritania. Remnant fever. This is just normal life.

Getting a fever every four days getting a fever every three days every two days. This is normal life for many many people. All of those people that I lived with and I got fevers I got chills, night chills and I know that mosquitoes do discriminate. Somebody said they don't discriminate.

I know for a fact that they prefer white meat over dark meat. Because I used to wake up with red they were all over my arm and the kids used to marvel because they didn't show up red on their arms. I looked like I had smallpox.

The Ummah as One Body

Fever is a part of life. In this hadith and Imam Majeed mentioned earlier about this. In this hadith: مَثَلُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي تَوَادِّهِمْ وَتَرَاحُمِهِمْ وَتَعَاطُفِهِمْ كَمَثَلِ الْجَسَدِ - The likeness of the believers in their mutual love, mercy, and empathy for each other is like the body.

The likeness of the believer of each other in their mutual desire for mercy of showing mercy for each other and in their mutual empathy.

تعاطف is empathy to be empathic to feel the pain of another he said it is like the body it is like the body the ummah is like a body and then he said

(Sahih Muslim 2586)

His language is so beautiful if one part of the body begins to complain the rest of the body calls each other تَدَاعَى لَهُ calls each other تَدَاعَى لَهُ with insomnia and with fever the Prophet pointing to symptoms but indicating what's really going on تَدَاعَى لَهُ they respond with their immune system the سَهَر and the fever are only symptoms of a body responding to some harm this is what our ummah is like.

(Sahih al-Bukhari 481, Sahih Muslim 2585)

- The believer to other believers is like a building, parts of it supporting other parts.

In another metaphor he said we are a building we support one another. We have problems all over this world these problems aren't going to go away overnight but we are here for a short time to address these problems but unless we address the fundamental problems and I'm talking about the human element in all of these things.

The History of Malaria in America

Because if you look at malaria today malaria was a major problem here in Washington area this was a major center of malaria in the 19th century. Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York all had major malarial problems. Half of Illinois was infected with malarial fever in the 1860s according to their own studies at that time. Half of rural Illinois was infected with malaria. Malaria was widespread in the United States.

Benjamin Rush one of the signers of the Constitution of the Declaration of Independence was a physician in Massachusetts he was one of the most staunch anti-slavery founders of this country and wrote beautiful things he actually went to one of the African American churches in Boston supported them in their efforts he felt that ignoring the problem of racism was one of the biggest mistakes that the founders had done.

Land Cultivation: The Solution to Malaria

Benjamin Rush said just as clearing a land destroys it like when you go in and cut everything down you destroy land cultivating land and I mean by that and he said draining its swamps burning its brush removing its weeds taking away the unwholesome effects of too much moisture in the land makes it healthy renders the land healthy he said malaria will not be eradicated until we cultivate the land land cultivation this is why malaria no longer exists in places like Italy where the bonification efforts in the 1920s during the fascist government got rid of malaria Sardinia a major center of malaria England people don't realize that England was once a major center of malaria how was it treated?

Raising the standards of living cultivating the land changing the landscape changing the ecology so that the malaria bug could no longer flourish in that type of environment bringing in livestock because certain malaria bugs will thrive on livestock and they will actually begin to outnumber the ones that thrive on human blood these were the ways that malaria disappeared from large segments of the earth.

The DDT Mistake: Ignoring Holistic Solutions

But in the 20th century especially after World War II DDT was discovered by a Swiss pharmaceutical company and hundreds of millions of dollars went in to funding the idea of eradicating the malaria bug with chemicals unfortunately they found out later what DDT was doing to the environment this is always the problem of looking at the world without holistic eyes looking at the world without understanding the deep intricacies of the world that the world is bound up with each other you can't separate this from that you have to address problems ecologically.

War, Weapons, and Malaria: The Direct Connection

This is exactly and I'll use a political metaphor here this is exactly the plan of the Bush government in eradicating terrorism just like they want to eradicate malaria just send bombs drop bombs on people eradicate these evildoers and suddenly it's just all going to go away well life doesn't work like that life doesn't work like that you have to address the causes of malaria malaria is directly related to poverty malaria is directly if you look now on the map of countries that are suffering from malaria these have some of the highest rates of conflict in the world they're like maps for places where there's large conflict why?

Because war and malaria go together we have a history of war and malaria and that's why when you sell these countries weapons when you sell these countries weapons you are depriving them of health care programs you're depriving them of sanitary water you're depriving them of education that will elevate their populations that's what you're depriving them of and you're giving them malaria you're giving them yellow fever you're giving them HIV AIDS that's what you're doing there's a direct correlation to commerce and what's happening in the worst parts of the country and in the best parts of the country there's a direct correlation.

Economics Cannot Be Separated from Morality

You cannot separate economics from morality. Adam Smith who's called the father of capitalism and if he was alive today he would spit on the men that are calling him the father of capitalism because the capitalism that Adam Smith believed in and the capitalism that exists today has nothing to do with each other. Adam Smith before he wrote The Wealth of Nations wrote a book on moral sentiments saying that the basis of commerce was morality that every transaction is a moral transaction because it gives each of the people in the transaction a chance to honor the other and not cheat them and this leads to a win-win situation which is necessary for civil society.

That is a different type of capitalism than the type of capitalism we see when it's a dog-eat-dog world the high price of low cost when Walmart comes in and destroys whole communities we have to see the relationships.

Islam: The Last Religion Addressing Economic Problems

Our religion is an economic religion it is the last religion that is addressing the economic problems of humanity

the Jews have abandoned their economic injunctions the Christians have abandoned their economic injunctions it's in the Old Testament they know usury is prohibited in the Old Testament but nobody talks about it. Muwatta of Imam Malik two-thirds of that book deal with economic matters. Medina was a place of transactions.

Until we begin to address these problems and the fundamental core issues of these problems we need societies that are committed to law and order but you can't have societies that are committed to law and order when there are people above the law. If you have people above the law the people below the law see no reason to obey the law if they can get away with it.

The Problem of People Above the Law

When George W. Bush got away with murder and he did get away with murder and I encourage all of you to read Vincent Bugliosi's book on the prosecution of George W. Bush for murder. Vincent Bugliosi argues in that book that George W. Bush is guilty of murder in the first degree because in our legal system you have a principle called felony murder. Felony murder is a type of murder that occurs during the commitment of a felony crime. If you fire a gun in the air during a robbery and it ricochets and kills somebody in that room you are guilty of first degree murder in our legal system.

Lying to the American people to send them to war is a felony. Lying to the American people to send them to war is a felony it's a felony. Vincent Bugliosi who was the district attorney of Los Angeles said we cannot have a legal system a system of law and order when there are people above the law. This is hukm al-jahiliyya. This is what the prophet came to eradicate not malaria. He came to eradicate injustice and when you eradicate injustice you eradicate things like malaria because they're inextricably bound.

Working Towards Just Societies

That's what we should be working to do we should be working towards more just societies more just distribution of wealth this is what we have to be doing as a community the Muslims have lost their moral compass we have the most corrupt countries in the world we have no moral capital to speak from as a ummah but we still have individuals the ulu baqiya people that abide by the truths of the Quran and there are many people like that in this country there are many good Muslims in this country these are the people that need to rise up an ummah in this country to become a ummah.

- Let there be amongst you a group, most of the ulama say this is a partitive proposition that this means some of you, there should be amongst you those they call to good and they forbid evil. These are the people that we want to be from.

Rising to Address Root Problems, Not Just Symptoms

That's what I see in this country a thriving Muslim community that is dealing with root problems not with mosquito nets and that's good, and I'm not in any way detracting from that because I used a mosquito net when I

was in West Africa that's fine, but that's still looking at the symptomatic problems. Until the root problems are addressed and that's why we need malariologists we need scientists we need social commentators we need people that are going to write papers on how to deal with these issues we need our community to rise to the challenge not to be obsessed with the pursuit of wealth which is a false pursuit.

The Collapse of False Wealth

All of these people who've had the equity of their homes wiped out all of that pursuit, it's gone all of the wealth there are hundreds of thousands that they thought they had in their homes they'd spent their whole lives paying off their mortgages and they got wiped out in a usurious system that they don't even understand. They don't even understand fractional reserve banking or how printing up false money.

I was at a store two days ago and I gave him a hundred dollar bill and he was looking like that I said, man, you're never going to spot the counterfeit on that because the one that counterfeited that is so good at it it looks exactly like a real dollar he looked at me like I was crazy I said, the US Treasury counterfeited that, man that's right that is wealth that doesn't exist it's not backed by anything it's not backed by gold it's not backed by silver it's not even backed by debt anymore they're just printing it up, churning it out trillions of dollars bailing out all of these fat cats.

The Modern Bank Robbery

I mean, Jesse James and Frank James had nothing on the bank robbers today. They used to go in with their faces covered these guys are on the board of the banks seriously, they don't need to cover their faces they're on the boards of the banks they've got the congressman facilitating the robbery like John Dillinger who used to go in and pretend they were having a movie and the people would watch him rob the bank thinking they were part of a movie scene.

That's what we've got today. Americans watching their children's wealth and their children's children's wealth being robbed from them blind and they think that this is part of the recovery package. People have no idea what's going on there and Muslims should find out if they don't know and begin to educate our own community how can we address real problems not artificial real problems the real problems of this world.

Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins: Wealth Without Work

And I'll finish. Gandhi said there were seven things that were going to destroy us. Wealth without work people that want to invest in a hedge fund do nothing but put their money there no risk if it fails they get bailed out by taxpayers this has to end and the only way it can end is by a populace that's vigilant a citizenry that actually reads and knows what's going on and that's why entertainment and dumbing people down and keeping them from thinking about these things as long as that continues on as long as people are more concerned about what's going on on the reality television show they're obsessed with or who won this that or the other game as long as they're entertained by those things the wolves out there are going to keep eating the sheep.

Pleasure Without Conscience

Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. We live in a society where sexuality now has become a technique you buy a book to learn how to become a good lover there's websites now for cheaters.com where married couples can find other married couples that want to commit adultery what's happened to our society people you can't sit around and just think these things are normal these are terrible signs pleasure without conscience without thinking of the repercussions of what happens when you pursue pleasure without any moral compunction.

Knowledge Without Character

Knowledge without character going to Yale, Harvard, getting these degrees and then robbing people blind and laughing about it Enron, the smartest men in the room that's what happened in Enron they were laughing about the money they were robbing from old people there's transcripts of their phone calls laughing about grandmas that were losing their shirts paying for the high cost of energy in California because they were being completely robbed blind by immoral people.

Commerce Without Morality

Commerce without morality is an extension of business without character knowledge without character commerce without morality the foundation of Islam is character.

(Musnad Ahmad 8595, Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 2731)

- I was only sent to perfect character. That's the foundation of our religion inculcating character that comes from examples that comes from living in communities where character is practiced on a daily basis generosity, courage, modesty, chastity love of knowledge.

Science Without Humanity

Science without humanity we've got studies here on dogs seriously, on dogs and cats and I'm all for taking care of dogs and cats when the Muslims had thriving civilizations they had awqaf for dogs and cats we know that, they had awqaf even in Fez they had a waqf for stray dogs to feed them but when you're taking care of dogs and cats and you've got human babies dying something is seriously wrong with your priorities.

Because in a hospital you have what's called triaging every emergency doctor knows and nurse knows about triaging if a patient comes in and their limbs off and they're bleeding out you don't sit next to that patient talking to the guy with the headache and asking him is it sharp or is it cutting what type of headache do you have you take care of the man who's hemorrhaging to death triaging, priorities.

The Pursuit of Excellence, Not Profit

Science we've got all of our talented scientists developing weapons of mass destruction for enemies that are created out of thin air enemies that are more like characters out of a James Bond film living in caves somewhere boogeymen that are conjured up to scare people are you scared yet? That was a headline on Time Magazine.

We need our scientists to actually be in the pursuit of excellence not for profit not for the Nobel Peace Prize. في سبيل الله في سبيل الله - It's a completely different set.

Religion Without Sacrifice

Religion without sacrifice. Imam Zaid was talking about can you half-submit.

Enter into Islam completely. Don't be half-hearted, half-baked you can't have half-submission. It's called nifaq that's what half-submission is called in our religion it's called

They just get up, they're lazy they do it half-heartedly.

Politics Without Principle

And finally, politics without principle. Politics without principle. Barack Obama is from ancestry his father was from Kenya malaria is a major problem in Kenya it's a personal problem for him but when you're in a political machine that eats at principle when you can't speak the truth because you're so afraid of what the spin doctors are going to do Fox News will turn everything upside down and so will ABC and CBC and NBC and all of the other ones they just have different degrees of it.

But I'll give you an example of politics without principle when you don't deal with tort reform in malpractice cases that's politics without principle because the tort lawyers in this country are so powerful they don't want caps on malpractice suits which raises up the cost of everything it forces doctors to do unnecessary procedures which elevates the cost of healthcare but they don't want to talk about that because it's politics without principle.

Islamic Caps on Compensation

Instead of looking at the principle and we have caps in Islam the prophet put caps on a human life no life can be judged by wealth and that's the point the higher you go doesn't make it any less or more but the cap is a cap because people can't afford if you make things so exorbitant everything goes up with it we have caps a finger has a certain amount a tooth has a certain amount a ear has a certain amount it's already done Allah did it the Sharia did it we don't need tort reform in Islam but they needed in this country politics without principle.

Closing Words: Socrates' Wisdom

Socrates said in the apology to the people of Athens if you stop worrying about the interest of the state and start worrying about the interest of your souls the state will take care of itself.

Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh