The Echoes of God’s Word

The Echoes of God's Word

Opening Remarks and Introduction

I would now like to invite one of the most respected scholars of our generation, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim)

(وَصَلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَىٰ آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمْ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ الْعَلِيِّ الْعَظِيمِ - Wa salatu was-salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam. Tasliman kithira wa la hawla wa la quwwata illa billahi l-Aliyyi l-Azim)

(الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ - Alhamdulillah)

May Allah inshallah bless this gathering and give us the angelic presence inshallah and keep our hearts united. I inshallah will talk about a few things. One of them is about a hadith that is related from Sayyidina Umar.

The Hadith of the Four Dimensions of Islam

And there are many versions of this hadith. This is one particular one but the meaning of this hadith is articulated in several different ways. The Prophet ﷺ said, The Prophet ﷺ said, As the difficulties of the end of time begin to manifest.

And we're seeing these and so we have to be aware of them because we tend to forget sometimes that one-fourth of our religion according to the hadith of Jibreel are the signs of the latter days. This is one-fourth because Jibreel asked the Prophet ﷺ about Iman, about Islam, Iman and Ihsan. And then he asked him about the signs of the latter days.

And at the end of the hadith he asked Umar, Do you know who the questioner is? And he said, Allah and His Messenger know better. And he said, This is Jibreel who has come to teach you your religion. [Sahih Muslim 8]

And so the ulema took from that that there are these four dimensions to Islam.

Understanding the Signs of the End Times

And each of these dimensions is important and traditionally the signs of the end of time were part of the religion to understand. Now we're living in a particularly difficult time in many areas of the Muslim world and if people

aren't aware of the difficulties and the tribulations that come with being in the world, sometimes this can affect their Iman. So it's very important that we keep in our understanding, we keep this in mind and not forget this.

The Prophet ﷺ said that there would be great difficulties. One of the things that he said, My ummah is a ummah, it's a community that has the mercy of God on it. It's a marhumah.

And then he said, The difficulties of this ummah, the chastisement of this ummah is in this world.

(الفتن والبلايا والزلازل - Al-fitan wal-balaya wal-zalazil) - Social strife, tribulations, calamities and earthquakes.

Divine Wisdom in Earthquakes and Calamities

And it's very interesting that when you hear about earthquakes generally in the Muslim world, our earthquakes are huge earthquakes.

And a lot of people die in Muslim earthquakes. If you look at, like here they have an earthquake and two people die. Seriously, we have earthquakes here, two people die.

You have an earthquake in the Muslim world and you're looking at literally unbelievable numbers sometimes. There's a divine aspect to this that these are shuhada. Allah is taking them as shuhada because the one who dies having his house fall on him according to the hadith is shaheed. [Sahih Bukhari 2829]

Living in a Benevolent Universe

So we have a different world view and we have to incorporate this world view constantly in how we view things. That we believe that we live in a benevolent universe. We believe in ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.

All of the Quranic surahs begin with Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. And so we believe that Allah is rahmah.

And that he sent his prophet as a rahmah.

Wa ma arsalnaka illa rahmatan lil-'alamin - We sent you as a mercy to all the worlds.

We believe he was a mercy to the Christians. He was a mercy to the Jews. He was a mercy to the trees and the forest and the animals.

The Miracle of Uqba bin Nafi

There is a story of Uqba bin Nafi when he arrived to Qayrawan. And this is thabit in our tradition is considered a sound story.

In fact Muawiyah actually ascertained the truth of this by gathering several witnesses. It's considered a karamah mutawatirah. It is considered a miracle that's agreed upon.

And we tend to forget that we believe in miracles. There's a lot of Muslims now that don't want to believe in miracles. They say, ya akhi, the miracle of Islam is the Quran.

That's one miracle of Islam. But don't forget there are many miracles and miracles continue on. They continue on.

(وَمَنْ يُنكِرِ الكَرَامَةَ لِلْأَوْلِيَاءِ فَذَاكَ رَدُّ كَلَامًا - Wa man yunkiri al-karamata lil-awliya'i fa dhaka raddun kalama) - This is what Imam Al-Laqqani says in the Jawhara. That we assert miracles and anyone that rejects them, we reject him. The miracles of the Awliya, the people that are close to Allah.

Uqba bin Nafi, they needed a forest to build Qayrawan. The city of Qayrawan in the great state of Tunis. He called out as loud as he could,

(أَيُّهَا الْحَيَوَانَاتُ نَحْتَاجُ إِلَى الْغَابَةِ وَنَسْتَأْذِنُكُمْ - Ayyuha al-hayawanat nahtaju ila al-ghabati wa nasta'dhinukum) - you animals, we need this forest for our needs here and we're asking your permission.

The people that were in his army said for three days they saw the animals migrating from that forest. People don't believe these things anymore. Wallahi I believe them, I have no problem with them at all.

Miracles in Religious Traditions

Because these people were amazing people. And don't think Christianity spread without miracles. Judaism spread without miracles.

All religions in their formative period have a lot of miracles. That's how they get people to follow them. And then once it gets established, it's established.

But people believe in these things. So the Prophet ﷺ, when he said this that there would be tribulations, and he mentioned these earthquakes. We have major earthquakes, we have major calamities in Syria right now.

The Reality of Muslim Suffering Worldwide

You look at what's happening in Syria. I want to remind the Syrians because every Syrian I meet now, they say to me, why isn't anybody doing anything? This is fard, Muslims have to do something. And they're 100% right.

But I want to say to my Syrian brothers and sisters, welcome to a well-established club. You have membership in a club that has other members. And they have made the same claims and the same observances.

You're in the club of the Darfurians. You're in the club of the Palestinians. You're in the club of the Kashmiris.

You're in the club of the Chechnyans. You're in the club of the Iraqis. Really, we have tribulations in many of these places.

And people have been ignoring these things. This is why we get more and more tribulations. Because we ignore these existing things and more come.

The Purpose of Our Creation

We live in a world that Allah has promised us that unless we are directed towards Allah, He will do everything to redirect us. If we're not directed towards Allah, He will redirect us towards Himself. Because this is why we were created.

We were not created for 401k plans. You were not created for 56-inch television sets with Netflix to watch movies until you drop dead. You were not created... I'm serious.

You were not created to play solitaire on your computer. That's not the purpose of all of this technology. You were created to know your Lord.

You were created to study. You were created to delve deeply into the meaning of your very existence in whatever capacity you have because different peoples have different capacities. So the Prophet ﷺ told us that there will be tribulations and we should be aware of this.

Prophetic Signs Coming True

He told us that towards the end of time, you will see the people who were the desert people and they were poor and they were taking care of goats and animals and then they'll begin to build huge buildings. These are signs before your very eyes. We're seeing signs of our Prophet ﷺ ]Sahih Bukhari 50, Sahih Muslim 8[

He told us that you will see the buildings of Mecca reach the mountaintops. The buildings of Mecca will reach the mountaintops. And this is happening in our lifetime.

When I first went to Mecca, there were no buildings even close to the tops of the mountains of Mecca and now it's filled with buildings that are beginning to reach the mountaintops. I was on one of the tallest mountains in Mecca and you can see the clock tower now surpasses the mountains.

The Prophet ﷺ said in a hadith, he said, If you see Mecca, if you see its mountains with holes pierced through them, this is what it means, And you see the buildings reach the or in a riwayah, they will actually surpass the mountaintops.

And then he said, It means that the Sa'ah has cast shadow. Imam As-Suyuti says in this, It means that the hour is near, it's coming close. But if you took that literally, and in hadith tradition, in Usuli tradition, That if the Prophet says something, you should always interpret it literally unless there's a reason to go to a metaphorical interpretation.

Now we have the clock tower casting a shadow over the Kaaba. So the clock tower, what do they call it in Saudi Arabia? You could take it literally, the clock has cast shadow over the Kaaba. Literally or metaphorically, The hour is drawing near.

The Three Types of Sa'ah (Hour)

All of our lives are dissipating. There's three Sa'ahs according to our ulama. When we speak about the end of time, there are three ends of time.

The first one is the end of your life. The first one is the end of your life.

The Sa'ah. Allahu Akbar. What time is it? Kam Sa'ah. The Arabs say Kam Sa'ah.

What time is it? They used to ask Yogi Berra. You know Yogi Berra? He's a baseball player. They say, what time is it? You mean now? Because you can never ask what time it is because it's always moving along.

Right? So you say, what time is it? Well, when you asked it was this time, but now it's... You can't... That's the nature of time. You can't grab it. There's three Sa'ah.

Understanding Our Mortality and Generational Change

The first one is your life. Your life will come to an end. We all have terminal lives.

They come to an end. The second one is a generation. Right now we're having a generation disappear.

For instance, Holocaust survivors. This is a generation of people that experienced something. They have tattoos on their arms, many of them.

And they're living testimonies to a historical event that happened that most of us weren't alive when it happened. That generation is dying out. They'll be gone in a very short time.

So there are no more eyewitnesses to that event. The World War II generation is dying out. They're gone.

Just like now, there's no Confederate War veterans anymore. There's probably... I think the last World War I veteran died in England recently. So a generation will die.

And then finally you have the ultimate end which is when all of this is closed down. But we have a ways to go. And I want to emphasize this.

The Prophetic Teaching on Planting Hope

And that's why young people, don't be bothered.

But even if we didn't, the Prophet ﷺ said if the end of time comes and you find yourself planting a seedling, if you're able to before the actual end comes, finish planting. [Musnad Ahmad 12902] So we never give up.

Because you would rather meet your Lord having planted something and done something positive than meet Him without having done that deed. We're always looking towards our Lord. We don't look necessarily at the fruits in this world.

Like the Khalifa, the Caliph that passed by the old man who was planting Zaytuna trees. And everybody knows the olive tree takes a long time to mature till you get olives. And he said,

Limadha tazra'una al-zaytun? La ta'kulu minha - Why are you doing this Zaytun? You're not going to eat from it.

He said,

Zara'u fa akalna fa nazra'u hatta ya'kulu - They planted those before us and we ate from what they planted so we must plant for those who come after us.

Passing the Torch to the Next Generation

This is a vision of what we're supposed to be doing. Our lives are temporal but we have to see that we're torchbearers. That was a topic yesterday of passing on the torch.

Just like there's a certain type of marathon race. If people who know track, there's a baton and you hand the baton to the next runner. These relay races.

Right? I ran that in high school. And you have to learn how to get the baton and take the baton and you're the next person because you have energy. That person, he's worn out.

Take it, I can't take anymore. So you grab it, you carry it as far as you can. You expend all your energy and then you hand it on to the next group.

This is the nature of our lives on earth. We're carrying the baton for a short time but we have to think about handing it to the next group of people. And we have all these young people and I like Imam Al-Qasim said something beautiful one day in Toronto.

It had an effect on me. He said to the young people, if anybody tells you you're the future, say, no, I'm the present. I'm the present.

You have things to do right now.

You have things to do right now. And you should do them to the best of your ability.

Trusting in Divine Justice

But I want you to be aware. All of these tribulations and all of these calamities that are happening, don't worry.

We have to struggle to make it better, to do whatever we can in our power, but don't worry.

Wal-'aqibatu lil-muttaqin - The end affair is for the people of taqwa. [Quran 7:128]

Allah says,

Wa la takun fi dayqin mimma yamkurun - Don't get constricted about their plots. [Quran 16:127] Don't get constricted about all of the things that they're doing against you.

And then He says, if you have taqwa and if you're patient, Allah is with you. If you don't have taqwa and you don't have patience, then He leaves you to yourself. So we need to practice piety.

The Complete Program from the Quran

We need to practice patience. Allah gave you a complete minhaj in the Quran.

Innal-muslimeena wal-muslimati wal-mu'mineena wal-mu'minati wal-qaniteena wal-qanitati was-sadiqeena was-sadiqati was-sabireena was-sabirati wal-khashi'eena wal-khashi'ati wal-mutasaddiqeena wal-mutasaddiqati was-sa'imeena was-sa'imati wal-hafitheena furujahum wal-hafithati wadh-dhakireena Allaha kathiran wadh-dhakirati a'adda Allahu lahum maghfiratan wa ajran 'azhima [Quran 33:35]

who are people in a state of submission ascent to that submission that they believe in Allah because you can be a Muslim and be a munafiq but the mu'min, no this is deeper and then the people of qunoot some of the mufasiroon they say the people that continue to be in a state of ta'a with Allah they're continuous in their state

Qaniteena lillah - and

- stand before God in a state of obedience this is how we want to meet our Lord in a state of obedience

and then he says the people of truthfulness

Ya ayyuha alladheena amanu ittaqu Allaha wa kunu ma'a as-sadiqin [Quran 9:119] - be with truthful people we're a nation of sidq

Allah tells us to be witnesses for justice

Ya ayyuha alladheena amanu kunu qawwameena bil-qisti shuhada'a lillahi wa law 'ala anfusikum aw al-walidayni wal-aqrabin [Quran 4:135] - Allah says be people who establish justice and then he says be witnesses for the sake of your Lord for the sake of Allah even if it means witnessing against yourselves

when you do wrong things have the courage have the honesty and have the fortitude to say that this is wrong what I did was wrong what we did was wrong what these Muslims did was wrong we have to have the ability to be truthful even witnesses against ourselves our parents, our own relatives this is Islam it's a high thing it's calling you to rise above your nafs rise above your egos rise above your caprice rise above these things really elevate yourself

Allah says

Ta'alaw - which means come but it also means elevate yourselves it's from 'uluw come, elevate yourselves and listen to what your Lord has prohibited you to do because these things will elevate you if you avoid them you will be elevated in the world you will be elevated Allah will raise you up He will raise you up as a community but you have to be virtuous people you have to be people of virtue

The Virtue of Patience and Humility

and then He says the people of sabr

Was-sabireena was-sabirati - we have to be people of patience there are two fundamental types of patience

As-sabru 'ala at-ta'ah wa sabrun 'an al-ma'siyah - patience in obedience and patience in avoiding what is wrong because your nafs will be tempted your lower self will be tempted so you have to avoid those

and then Allah says that they are people of khushu' this is a very important attribute khushu' is tawadu' it is humility we have to be a humble people we have to be humble before Allah

Warning Against Sectarianism and Arrogance

now I want to focus on this for one second for more than a second I know I'm almost out of time but I want to focus on this we must stop all of this arrogance and sectarianism among some of the community members that we have who only have one way of doing things one way, there's only one way my way or the highway and that's it my way or the highway

no, we have a religion that is deeply nuanced, it has a broad usool, there are multiple interpretations for many of the rulings of Islam and beware of arrogating to yourself the role that Allah has given to his self alone Allah knows his religion

most of the ijtihadat of our great scholars were done by signing their fatwas with wallahu a'lam wallahu wa rasuluhu a'lam Allah knows best in other words, this is the best I can do but Allah knows best

we have to stop all of this madness where somebody says, ya akhi, haram you can't, that's haram is that mujma' 'alayh, is it agreed upon have you studied these books, have you studied the usool

because there are some things that the ulama say, there's a difference of opinion some of the ulama differ on certain things, and you will have this, you will have opinions of ulama that say

Innal-halala bayyinun wa innal-harama bayyinun wa baynahuma umurun mushtabihatun la ya'lamuhunna kathirun min an-nas [Sahih Bukhari 52, Sahih Muslim 1599] - that the halal is clear, the haram is clear, and between them are grey areas, many people don't know them, only the ulama have expertise in these, and we're talking about the giant ulama, not people who have studied and done their nizami course or done their graduate from 4 years at an Islamic university

The Deep Knowledge of True Scholars

no some of the teachers I studied with, studied for 30 years at the hands of their teachers 30 years, and they are lifelong learners, Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah one of the greatest living scholars today he studied until he was, he studied from the time he was about 4 years old until the time he was 21 every day, 5 to 6 days a week, 10-15 hours a day, pure study with his father and the other teachers,

he memorized 10 qira'at of Quran, he memorized all of the dawawin of the pre-Islamic Arabs, he learned all of these texts in Arabic grammar and learned the alfiyah, the another thousand lines after the alfiyah, he studied the kafiyah, he studied the mukhtasar Khalil, memorized the whole mashhur of the madhhab of Imam Malik

wallahi, when you see him with his piety and the way he addresses these issues, Allahu a'lam, I've heard him many times say, Allah knows best this is the best I can do and I've asked him about a hadith, he said it's not in the 6 collections this is a level,

and then we have people saying who is Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, who is he who are these dwarfs really, with no offense to physical dwarfs, I'm talking about intellectual dwarfs physical dwarfs, that's not a problem, you know, that's the way Allah created them, but an intellectual dwarf you created yourself

Allah gave you the ability to expand your mind, if your mind is not expanded you are to blame but knowledge comes with patience comes with learning

The Unity of the Ummah

Allah says

Wa inna hadhihi ummatukum ummatan wahidatan wa ana rabbukum fattaqun. Fa taqatta'u amrahum baynahum zuburan kullu hizbin bima ladayhim farihun [Quran 23:52-53] - Allah says, your ummah is one ummah, and I am your Lord, so have taqwa of me have consciousness of me and then what did they do? They divided, they split and followed different books They split.

No. Our book is the book of Allah and the sunnah of the messenger of Allah. But it is in accordance with valid understandings, not always in agreement, but in agreement that each one is valid.

And this is the beauty of our religion. It's the power of our religion. So my advice to myself and all of you, we have to be humble towards this faith.

Closing Remarks and Du'a

May Allah bless all of you. Take you back to your homes safe and sound. May Allah forgive me for anything I might have said.

The Importance of MSA and Campus Life

I want to add also, just in conclusion, I think the MSA is one of the most important organizations because we have many young people in college who come, and this is the lifeboat. Because college today in the United States of America is like going to Sodom and Gomorrah in many places. It's like going to Sodom and Gomorrah.

You have co-ed dorms now. You have co-ed bathrooms in some of the college campuses now for pure equality.

You see, because now there's a whole argument.

They want to have arguments to let women go topless. Because this is not right. The men can walk around topless, and a lot of them are so obese now that they have very large breasts.

So why should the women not be able to go out topless? These are arguments that they're making. Why should they go around not topless? Pretty soon we're going to have people walking around in G-strings.

The Decline of Western Civilization

We had a naked man in Berkeley walking around naked, bare naked, birthday suit on.

And he walked around the city naked until finally somebody worked out an ordinance that there's actually a health issue for him sitting down in public places. And they got him, forced him to wear some kind of loincloth. Tarzan in Berkeley.

This is the great American civilization. Man, a long way from Victoria. Queen Victoria.

Remember Victorian England? Charles Dickens? Really, Jane Austen? What would they think? They'd pull out their hair, pass out on the street, have a heart attack. I'm serious.

If they walked out in Georgetown today or down here in Washington D.C. and saw people, first of all, I mean, people have tattoos, they have tattoos of demons on their shoulders.

I mean, I was behind somebody who had a tattoo of a 1966 Mustang on their back. I worked out it was a 66 Mustang because the license plate said 1966 on their back. No, this is tragic for people.

This is tragic that this has happened to our society, our civilization. Really. And we're getting Muslims putting on tattoos.

We've got young Muslims now putting on tattoos. It's true. We have now these... In the Arab world, there are entertainers that are starting to wear tattoos.

The Islamic Alternative to Tattoos

Listen, we have tattoos in Islam. Seriously. But they're temporary.

It's called henna. If you want to put a tattoo on, just put a temporary one on there. If you're 17 or 18 years old, I want a tattoo.

Just put a temporary one on there. It'll wear off by the time your intellect comes back to you. All right?

As-salamu alaykum.