Why We Celebrate Muhammad ﷺ [Hamza Yusuf]

government about what we should be doing so alhamdulillah you know these are some of the treasures that I wanted to share and there's another treasure that I would love to share um and I'm just very honored and I hope you all will also appreciate this treasure but I here's the place it comes up what a blessing I knew I knew that background was familiar it's Upon A Lot we're so blessed to have you this is amazing how are you I'm I'm doing well but I'm doing a lot better now I'm inshallah because is my teacher and really he inspired this whole organization because you know his T his lessons inspired me to fall in love with the prophet saws and go on this journey and start this organization so this really means so much to me alhamdulillah thank you I'm going to leave the floor to you because we want to hear you hello may Allah give the visions of our Prophet sawai Saddam and increase and Elevate us and get us closer through practicing his Sunnah the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam came to guide the world and the world needs guidance everywhere you see there's crises and most of the problems that we're seeing in the world are from the sins of humanity the distance from their lord we live in a time where people have forgotten Allah it's akin to a spiritual dementia where the the soul doesn't even remember that it's created that people deny their createdness and createdness necessitates purely by Logic that there's a Creator our Prophet saws was born into a jahili society the Arabs were up until that time although they do have some ancient civilizations certainly for a large period of time they were a very insignificant people historically they did not um have any type of political organization that would enable a civilization to develop they were constantly fighting each other the Clans fought each other they had very very horrible Jihadi practices infanticide not simply male and female and fantasized but they also very Boys Alive a lot of people don't know that the majority of the infanticide was females so we're living at a time when abortion uh is condoned and abortion especially any any you know formed fetus it's clearly infanticide and the fetus forms very early so living in a time where even in certain countries they use ultrasound to determine whether or not it's a boy or a girl and if it's a girl they get rid of it they abort it and that's why China now has a huge crisis of too many males because they were boarding all of their female children because of their one child policy in India this also happens so and I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in other places as well but the point being is that these these the the things that the Quran points out are Eternal problems and and the Eternal meaning just long term in the world nothing's Eternal other than Allah and what he deems to be eternal um but the prophet saw I said came into that world and he turned it upside down in in a positive sense he he completely he made humility of virtue and he made pride a sin the Arabs prior to his coming were prideful people they boasted they actually had a whole there's a whole tradition of poetry that's up it's boasting and he he condemned those qualities um and and so he really changed everything and nobody what's amazing is the the Quran changed their words they completely transformed the meaning of Karam izutsu wrote an extraordinary book on the ethical transformation that the Quran carried out by by linguistically by changing all the meanings of the term so they they had meanings prior to that but once the Quran came it changed everything and the prophet saws is so consistent in his um in his understanding it's really quite stunning I mean the prophet saws you know he used to say when the winds would come he would say Allah make it Allah make it winds not a wind why would he say that because in the Quran the plural is always associated with positive things and the singular is always associated with negative things so if you want to know the prophet saws his character is the Quran everything that we need to know about the prophet saws is in the Quran because he embodied the Quran his Sunnah is the Quran the embodiments of the logos he is the embodiment of the Divine speech that Allah revealed to him and that's why if people would go back to these teachings that that all of these problems would be resolved but human beings are obstinate they're arrogant they're filled with pride they're puffed up uh they're also over weaning Pride they human beings think far more of themselves uh than they want um were very insignificant creatures while at the same time we have great momentousness and significance but in in the grand scheme of things Allah says are you a greater creation are the heavens I mean we now know that everything we see there's only one Galaxy that we can see the with our human eye and yet there's Untold number of galaxies out there each Galaxy what we see up in the heavens is just our galaxy it's one Galaxy amongst many galaxies and so that is a type of insignificance when you think about it but the problem is according to Josie in his book you type of Roy he said the prophets is bigger than the whole universe and people can deny the prophet saws but reality is reality if if a man is walking in rain and and he says it's not raining it doesn't change reality it's just his own subjective Madness so the prophet saws what you know the Arabs says the Caravan moves along and the dogs bark so the prophet saw I sent him his guidance is there until the end of time and it's for anybody that wants to take it and the taking is the practice you have to practice the prophet saws I mean we have to get better at it we have very short time it's not a long time it's a very short time we're here for for this it's it's like a flash of an eye the Quran calls it it's it's just a very quick time they'll say come to victim how long did you tarry in the earth they say like a day or a part of a day that's what it's going to feel like and so as we move along tomorrow tomorrow Creeps in this Petty Pace it's just the the days add up people don't know that we don't the average human being has four thousand weeks when they ask people how many weeks do you think you have most people will actually give it a six-figure number most that's because we're deluded the famous dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna he he he asked Krishna on the battlefield what's the strangest thing in the world he says that people see death all around them and they don't think it's coming to them that is the strangest thing in the world and one of the mysteries of life is that Allah hides death from us you don't see dead animals everywhere in fact it troubles people like we've recently had birds falling out of the sky and all these fish showing up dead it's very troubling to see those things but normally Allah hides death from us because if if people wouldn't prepare for tomorrow if they really had a complete perspective on reality they would just be so in the moment and so there's a great blessing in the veiling uh one of the I was looking at this earlier today about inanimate things well one of the things about the prophet isem is inanimate things spoke in his uh hand so so he held up Pebbles and they started doing subhanallah and not everybody could hear it Omar could hear it not everybody can hear it so this is from another teaching but it's very interesting this is from the Chan tradition the teacher said the monk asked the teacher if inanimate things have the nature of mine can they teach the teacher said they are clearly always teaching uninterruptedly in other words the whole creation is teaching it's all ayats ayatina you know we will show them our sign that's mentioned three times in the Quran we will show them our signs so the ayat are going to manifest there's things today that the prophet saws have told us about that nobody would have ever thought in a million years that this the the buildings in Mecca could reach the tops of the mountains the prophet saws have told us that nobody ever thought that inanimate things would talk the prophet saws told us that that metal would speak he told us that people would carry things on there on their hip that would tell them what their family was doing he said that people would talk to their in Arabic that's one of the meanings of shirakana which is the universal sign for the telephone you know he told us that shoes would talk there's a Hadith that said shoes would talk Nike produced a talking shoe and in fact their ad said these shoes were made for talking and the prophet saw Islam said that the shoe would talk towards the latter days the prophet saws said the the proletariat would rise up and overthrow the aristocracy he said are the aristocrats and the tahoot are the the the the people who have no you know they're the the low people and the prophet said one of the signs of the end of time is that the low people would overthrow the high people the aristocrats would be overthrown all over the world that everywhere there were Kings now there are no Kings and even the ones that are there they're they're not like real Kings they're they're tourist attractions so this is this is what's happened the publicization told us all these things so time is running out the love of The Proposal isem is extremely important it it's something that that it's well the Arabic word is beautiful because hope is is one of the uh derivations of Hope is Hub which is seed so hope is something that is you know people fall in love but then they end up in divorce court what happened because they were all Gaga about each other when they first met and they're all uh swooning and writing poems and and just talking about the future then down the road it's suddenly they're at each other's throats hating each other what happened that hope was not watered this the seed that was there at the outset was not watered I mean there could be other reasons for it obviously part of it is simply romantic love which is Western love is is a high that once it's worn off it's like a drug they need it again so they go looking for it over and over again they did a study where they they had people it was very interesting study that was dying it was at Harvard where they took uh they had pictures that people could choose but once they chose it they had to stick with it and they couldn't refund it or get it back then they but the other one they gave them uh three months to return it and get another one and what they found is the people that chose the one knowing that they couldn't choose another they were actually satisfied with it and actually had great regard for it whereas the ones that had the choice they actually had the opposite effect where they didn't value it and even the one they chose to replace it with they didn't value it and that's what happens they found out for instance that that people that have premarital relations their the divorce rates are much higher than people that enter into marriage as a virgin so this is part of the problem of the time we're living in is that people think they uh they they can just go go throughout life just picking and choosing whereas the reality of it is you have to know early on and then stay the course and that's the gift of this tradition the prophet saws came to us he actually gave us guidance there's nothing that I mean thank God we don't have tattoos I don't have any tattoos why because the prophet saw I said maybe if I wasn't a Muslim I'd be like everybody else I hope I wouldn't but maybe I would and have tattoos all over my body why because I have guidance from my Prophet saws who said it's Haram to to face God's handiwork it's like graffiti on this extraordinary creation of God like how dare you like by what right do you have to deface God's handiwork so so that's guidance alcohol there's people because they can drink you know when I I was growing on the Greek side of my family I'm mostly Irish but my grandfather was Greek so they always when I stayed at my grandfather's during the summer they would have we were little kids they would give us like a half a thing of line and water like that's Greeks do that well the alcoholic rates are pretty low in Greece because they accustomed these kids you know to just a little bit and um but the point is there are there are benefits that they'll tell you about drinking wine but there's going to be a percentage of people whose lives are devastated by alcohol so our religion the the we forego certain things for the greater good there's benefit in it but it's harm is greater than its benefit and so our prophesy gave us guidance about drugs we don't take drugs I don't need drugs I mean all these people out there they can't handle reality so they check out our reality is our law everything else is the illusion they can't handle the illusion but when Allah is your reality you can handle the illusion because you know it's one it's it evanesces in front of your eyes it's all changing and disappearing and then we're going to die and be raised up and we're going to be with reality so we don't need to check out of reality because reality is what we're pursuing we want reality we want and how so so this is really really important to know that you should love the proposal Isam for his sacrifice for his guidance for all these things that he's done us but also simply because nobody is more worthy of love than the best of creation I mean you should love roses like you should love rainbows even though you know they've been stolen uh as a symbol but the rainbow is a promise of Allah it's a man it's a promise from God he won't destroy people for their sins so we should love the rainbow we should love uh Beauty we should love Liberty we should love Justice all these things we should love why because they're they're beautiful and they're perfect even if we don't experience them if somebody's in a jail unjustly they should still love Justice because of what Justice is and what it means they should still love it and so the prophet saws is worthy of love simply because of who he is he's worthy of our love but when you think about all we owe him how much greater is is the weight of the gratitude that we should display in our love for him so Allah so um so anyway this uh this monk he said uh you know why don't I hear them like the the rocks and things and the teacher said you yourself don't hear that's why you don't hear because you can't hear yourself and then the teacher said the Saints can hear and then the monk said have common people no part in it you know in this sainthood like calling people that can't hear reality the teacher said I teach for common people not for Saints the monk said am I deaf I do not hear the teaching of inanimate things you must hear it the teachers said I don't hear it either the monk said if you don't hear it how do you know inanimate things teach the teacher said lucky I don't hear it if I could hear it you wouldn't hear my teaching the monk said Can Common People ultimately get to hear it the teacher said if common people hear it they're not common people anymore they're Saints so so the point is is like the proposal I said I'm just imagine what he knew and how he had to sit with mere mortals he was Immortal and I'm we're not deifying the prophet but his his knowledge his vastness all of these things were so great and yet he sat with this is this is The Man Who tricked the seven heavens who saw hell with all that it revealed to him who saw the heavens with all that it revealed to him who spoke with angels like we speak with each other who heard the Rocks praise in his hand who heard the mountain says they come to him this is the prophet saws and yet he sat with us she sat with us and he spoke with us and he prayed for us he didn't say to God let me stay here I don't really want to go back there you named it Dunya no he went back to help all the rest of the people who he wanted to take them to as high as they could get as high as humanly possible so he's he's worthy of our love sallallahu and so the best thing that you can do if you really love the prophet sawsim and I'm not against in shad and I'm not against all these things I'm really not um but if you really love the prophet saws give the Quran it's due you can never in reality give it its due but at least give it a baseline due which is to read it once a month just make that commitment I know people are watching TV I know they're reading online they scroll down they go through their Tick Tock for half an hour they go through their YouTube it takes a half an hour to read one juice a day that's it if once you get maybe 45 minutes if you're a really slow maybe an hour but I guarantee you you waste I don't know I mean I know how much time I waste because we all waste time everybody wastes time and partly we need to waste time Allah has made it so you need kind of a Down time you need that Recreation but make a commitment to the Quran the prophet saws said in these latter days uh saying Ali said what how what's the way out you said hold to the book of Allah is the Quran the prophet called it it's the Quran hold to the Quran Quran said try to practice be patient about what they say all these Muslims get angry they get triggered Allah says don't get triggered just be that person be that person that that follows those teachings because there's so many people in our community that just do not give the Quran uh the right that it has over us because it's guidance that's what it is foreign foreign so I wanted to uh alhamdulillah there's there's another thing if we can find it here it's not here um so um okay I can't find it yeah here it is so this is a guy the 67 . you have to control yourselves with some foundational principle that you can go back to and that's knowledge and action so you learn and then you act on what you know because this will prevent like to show this is to be too you're all over the place and to share with this disorderly um you have to follow a teacher and that teacher has to be someone who follows the Sunnah whatever so that you can go back to the source of knowledge in what you need or what's sought from you and and also with with taking those benefits that go back to that Foundation uh that that you have either movement because wisdom is the Lost Property of the believer well because it's like the the bee that goes after every uh every good thing but it only will it'll always go back to its own hive or else it couldn't benefit from its uh its uh its honey moon and the later androsians they differed uh about the the weather books sufficed uh instead of teachers she and then they sent letters all over the Muslim World each one he uh basically responded based on his own understanding which uh so so all of them though he said go back to three things all the answers they got uh were around three things the first one is what type of Shield are they um like learning a really intelligent person can can basically once they know the foundations of knowledge they they can basically teach themselves because they learned how to learn because a lot of what we learn is actually autodidactic um you have to do that basic learning but we learn all our life but we had teachers they taught us how to read how to write how to understand things you know you learn those things so once you do that if you're clever then you're able to do it well it suffices to have good company like you don't have to have a Sheikh of torvilla if you're in good company that's going to reflect you and help you get get better yourself as for the Sheikh that elevates you it's enough to sit with them have a meeting with them and take the Baraka of their company because those are people that if you if you spend time with them you get more energy you get more Hima you use like Imam said we used to go visit and then we would like really look down on ourselves for days afterward in other words he was such a amazing human being that they would say oh we have such a long way to go so you don't get arrogant when you're around people like that because you just it's always good to look at people better than you in the dean but in Dunya look at people lower than you see we do the opposite people look at the majority of people they think oh I'm good I pray five times a day I sat from Obama look at all those people they don't do that and then when they look at Dunya those people oh I wish I had that and he said got an amazing house oh his spouse was so beautiful you know that and so they Envy whereas it should be the opposite you look at Dean yes and so then he says uh with Thani so the second question the second answer had to do with so and believe like somebody who's not very Brides he has to have a teacher but he's always going to have problems and that's why sahaba they had the problem and traditionally it's good to have a teacher who is like that unfortunately you have to be very careful because there's a lot of people that are not qualified these are days when people should be humble and just recognize that the greats are are largely gone there are very few people that really really have that and then they're limited they can't have they have a few people around them I mean there was a shift that I used to visit in Morocco who was an amazing chef like I never saw more light on a human being than this man like he could literally light up a room he he was the great Quran uh master meki in and uh his house you couldn't get into it it was like a fortress they would open the door look and then if you were you know and they would only let people so I was fortunate to to go there more than once but he did Quran from one of the uh seven every week so they would do one week like [Music] then the next week and then the next week house on Allison and then the next week even catheon and they did that and he did that for decades every single week and I remember I mean I'll give this give you this Friday when we finished I was there for a khatam they finished the one where in the last uh Jews they say Allahu Akbar after they finish the the Quran and and uh and and so everywhere when they said they were asking for Dua and they were all asking for a fat in the Quran and so I was like the last person in line I got there and I put my hand into his hand and then I was gonna ask him for in the Quran but I did I just said like he just got so excited he said no no and he just said it over and over again like you got it you know you got it like that's it like that's it so you should all want that so that's the student you know but the problem with the student who doesn't have a teacher is he said he won't be free of ego problems and and very often he'll be he said you know he'll see himself yeah and you see that in in people that didn't have targeted this is a really important one so here's the third one looking at the mujahadat a you do not need a chef because it's clear what you have to do and it's clear uh the Sharia the guidance of the prophetism is clear what you need to do Allah knowing those and then following them and then what is but to be upright you know in your character and all those things you need a teacher in that because they'll show you what's more appropriate the better way and really clever people can it all suffice books but if you start having like unveilings or having spiritual experiences you need you need a doctor so that's where you know you have to and unfortunately you know it's tough these days but anyway and he says the the answer the proof for that is so he was having a spiritual experience she took him to the person that would understand it and he told them this is namus he knew what it was so that's a proof that when you have spiritual experiences you need to go to somebody who understands them to help you because you could go mad people go mad uh so anyway so that's uh that's a little fatty done inshallah take care I might as well just let you know we have a program tomorrow uh I'd say tuna uh on for to celebrate the moment and by the way the mo lid I mean I don't need to tell celebrate Mercy the people this but it is a public holiday in every single Muslim country except for one so the prophet said be with the majority um so we celebrate them but we should celebrate it I mean I'm not like the molded as a molded as a practice I know some people do it in different Traditions the tradition I learned it was done in particularly on the 12th night um there are other people that do these things a lot I think if you're not if you don't have a word of Quran don't do other Liquors that's that's my personal advice to you the prophet saws said the preference of the Quran over other speech is like the preference of God over his creation you know so it's the Quran teach your children to love your Prophet to love his family because if you you can't love somebody you know you can't love somebody without loving uh their family even if they have problematic relatives you're still just because they're related to the one you love you're going like that the the the Moroccans they say and I would you know the branch is from the tree even if the branch code is crooked so so if you love the tree you accept the branch so loving the family and then loving Quran and that's what he said recitation of Quran and we have to we have to encourage that in our community because there's not enough recitation of Quran one of the most beautiful things about Moroccan uh civilization is that they do the hatam every month they start on the first day of the month lunar wise like today you would know that uh the the Jews today is the tenth uh just of the Quran you would know that or the 11th depending on which uh things because if you start on the first day then you'll know where you are so 100 in there so if you look it's going to be an old one if you go on your thing there so it's the 12th of whatever I'll like right tonight yeah so it's tonight so today was the 11th of the uh of the Jews and then alhamdulillah by the way just one thing about tattoos you know there's people that become Muslims that had tattoos in in the past that is I wasn't talking about those people you know because they didn't know but if you're a Muslim and you did that as a Muslim then you've done a sin so so don't judge people I don't judge people you see people you just have that compassion for people uh that don't have the guidance that we have and they might have an excuse on the dead judgment so I just want to let you know I'm not in any way I feel they don't mean people that don't know and do something out of their ignorance and partly because the Muslims haven't spread this guidance to the places that need it most a lot of philosophical and tomorrow's program will it be streamed on as they tuna's YouTube inshallah it's it's being streamed yeah I don't know anything about that though okay inshallah well what we want to definitely encourage everyone to go to the natuna website they have it listed there the program for tomorrow inshallah College site um and also I'm showing the logo for zaytuna college here and also um definitely check out Sheikh hamza's um sacred text messages the podcast inshallah we want to encourage you all to uh check out that we're so grateful to Chicago we got so many comments that came in masha'allah um this this was a surprise to me I was not you know I was not expecting this upon Allah uh ostada hosai really just surprised us um this was a huge huge surprise masha'allah what a gift and we got so many comments we were sharing some of them um just a little bit earlier masha'allah but definitely check out Sheikh hamza's sacred text messages podcasts podcasts are very popular and it's a beautiful beautiful uh there's multiple seasons of this podcast as well and for those who want to attend and zetuna's programs over the course of this month especially the one for the 12th will be I will check it out you can learn more at the zetuna college website zetuna college.edu or zetuna.edu we'll share the link in the chat here inshallah um and as always you know try to follow um uh shikhansa's Team are posting some of his insights on social media frequently um or programs where he's teaching uh so check that out inshallah Facebook Instagram Twitter oh we have Sheikh Mendez who just commented here Sheikh Mendez is still tuning in may Allah preserve and bless your Hamza and all connected with him we know Sheikh Mendes recently was in California and got a chance to sit with Hamza masha'allah we're so grateful for him you know I I we had she comes on the program Friday gems in late 20 20 in late 2020 December 2020 I believe um in that in that webinar I shared pictures from my first ever uh program that I met shakhamza which was in 1998 1998 as you can see here in this picture Hamza Yusuf in Fez Morocco I went to the recla and Fez I was only 17 years old um I'm gonna embarrass myself a little bit but this was the picture of me and shikhamza in 1998 more than 20 years ago subhanallah but this was a life-changing uh event for me that really uh got me to to learn more with shikh Hamza I was inspired to read Martin Lings to study the Sira some more and then start celebrate mercy so we're talking about the fruit and the trees for me Chicago is the tree for me shikamza is the tree and celebrate Mercy is the fruit is one of the many fruits from that tree alhamdulillah so we're so grateful to shikhansa for joining uh and everyone please keep him in your Dua and usted and all the I mean so many of the teachers we've had on the program today are students of shikhamza as well so may Allah bless him reward him and uh you know bring him with the prophet saws into Paradise together with the prophet saws and his family and all of his great teachers as well masha'allah um so that that really took us by surprise but what an amazing miracle for tonight you know I I actually really wanted to invite she comes the Youssef to this program um but I was afraid that it was a last minute invitation and you know that it would look kind of disorganized you know to invite him at the last minute or not last minute but just even in the last you know in the last week and so I was embarrassed to send him the invitation but I really wanted secretly I was really hoping could be a part of this and I didn't expect this at all subhanallah but look at this amazing gift and surprise that he joined you know he joined um and we were blessed to learn from him uh may Allah bless him I mean inshallah his family

Channel: CelebrateMercy

Views: 17,468

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Id: Mac0_cRS7Cs

Length: 41min 48sec (2508 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022