 So we call this course prerequisites to Sunni theology and the course actually is about this word, teklif, which probably all of you know very well. Teklif we translate in different ways as moral responsibility. What you'll see in this course is that the concept of teklif is subtle and it is nuanced. Teklif is ethical responsibility. You are a mukella before God and the verses that Shaykh Hamza cited were verses that concluded the end of Surah al-Bakara with an explicit reference to teklif that Allah does not impose upon anyone. Teklif that is beyond their capacities. So teklif is a very important concept and many of us have studied about it a little bit. We've talked today about the prerequisites of teklif that what is required for you to be mukella and we will see that you have three preconditions. We're going to talk about them in a few minutes. But many of us we don't really think about teklif for a sake and we don't reflect on it and this is really important. Now teklif is called the prerequisite for Sunni theology because the responsibility to know Allah, to know God and to know the prophets and to receive the prophetic message from the prophets and to live by it and to be moral and ethical and upright. This comes with teklif and so we have to talk about teklif and after teklif comes when we have teklif then we have the first obligation that comes after that which is the obligation to learn theology. You know so this is why we refer to it that way that if one doesn't have teklif then there are no other obligations after that. If one does have teklif then the first obligation is theology, is to learn about God and about the prophets and about the unseen. We won't be talking about that but we'll be talking about teklif. This is a very very important topic and you know so we have to understand what this means. This world that we live in is the abode of teklif. It is doubt of teklif. Teklif, moral responsibility is also the aptitude to live a moral life and to draw near to God and to live a life that is acceptable. So you know we as Muslims we need to understand what it's teklif and that way also we can see whether we are fulfilling the obligations that teklif imposes upon us. Teklif should define our attitude towards the Creator, towards the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, towards the message that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam brought and our approach to life. It is one of the most basic concepts and one of the most important of all concepts in Islam. So we will begin in this first presentation with the first precondition of teklif and this is biological maturity which in Arabic we call it also by other words like yash tilam. Before we begin that we want to talk a little bit about the importance of knowledge. Our religion is a religion of knowledge. It's a religion that opens the doors to knowledge and it makes knowledge especially sacred knowledge which is the knowledge of how we know God and how we obey God and how we please God. Absolutely important. The messenger said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim. Seeking knowledge is a fariwa upon every Muslim. So Islam is based on this obligation. Islam is based on our response to this obligation to seek knowledge, to gain knowledge, to cultivate knowledge and to live our lives on the basis of that. We have to know what puts us in this deed. We have to know what is it that qualifies us truly to be Muslims who have a religion that is acceptable to our Lord and we have to know what puts us out of this deed. What are the things that if we believe them or say them or do them that we actually rupture this relation that is between us and between God and it is very important for us that we beware of creating comfort zones of self-satisfaction and negligence where we forget or we don't talk about the primacy of knowledge in our religion. Many of us speak of Islam as a very simple faith. Islam is straightforward. Islam is not complex. If Islam were complex people wouldn't follow it but in its directness and in its simplicity it is a religion of deep knowledge, profound knowledge and we have to learn that again seeking knowledge is an obligation upon you. It's not just an obligation upon Shaykh Hamza or upon other scholars. It is an obligation upon you personally and you must not forget that and you have got to be sure that what you know about this religion is sound and that what you know about this religion is adequate. This is what you will be asked about. This is the most important thing of all. This Dean is about ultimate salvation. It is about living a life that is acceptable to God and we as followers of this great religion and we as people who speak on the tongue of knowledge you know we have to be very very clear about that. A lot of us today have the idea that Islam really doesn't require much knowledge. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. Everybody gets it and they create comfort zone in which they can live like that and they neglect the most basic things so we have to be aware of that and in Darul Qasem this is one of our primary objectives. In fact this is our primary objective to focus on the knowledge which validates this religion that makes it sound and gives us the keys to salvation. This life is very short and when you go back to your Lord after this life there will be only one thing that concerns you. Did I obey or did I not obey? Did I receive the prophetic message accurately and did I follow it or not follow it or not and so many of the things that concern us today as Muslims popularity and ads and what is acceptable to people and what is not that must not get in the way of this very basic obligation that we have to live this religion properly to know this religion and that's all that's what Tikdi is about. At din and nasiha as the prophet said that this religion is giving sincere counsel you know if you give counsel to me it means that you are concerned with my interests you are concerned with what will make me the best human being I can be you're not concerned with how do I fit into the furniture of your life how can I be manipulated how can I be used and when I speak to you it has to be the same way if I give you nasiha means I give you something that you truly need to know it's not that I say something to you to get you in my party or to get you to come to my group or to have you as a follower that's not what it's about so to emphasize the primacy of knowledge this is part of nasiha this is part of our obligation to speak about this religion in an honest way and in a way that constitutes counsel for you so that when you go back to your lord you don't say they betrayed me they told me I didn't have to do these things they told me I didn't have to know these things they told me everything was okay and it's not and then who will you blame at that time you know so uh knowledge is very important there is no practice without knowledge you cannot pray if you don't know how to pray you cannot purify yourself if you don't know the rules of water yet what kind of water purifies and what doesn't what is clean what is unclean and you have to know how to pray of course most of us have learned these things from the time that were little and we take them for granted that these are the most important things of all these are the most important things in ignorance is an ominous sign the prophet said sallallahu alaihi wasallam among the signs of the coming of the last hour of the last day the end of the world is that knowledge shall be removed and ignorance will be established again the wear of the comfort zones that say that we don't have to learn everything's okay we'll just enjoy ourselves okay that's the establishment of ignorance wine shall be drunk and pornication shall appear in an illicit sexuality which is something that we see a great deal of in this time that we look okay this is a description of the age that we live in so sacred knowledge opens the path to salvation sacred knowledge the knowledge about God the knowledge about the prophets the knowledge about what God requires of me and what he requires of you and ignorance closes off that the ignorant man or woman as the prophet taught us sallallahu alaihi wasallam may say a word that they think nothing of and they fall because of that insignificant word in their mind for 70 years into the top of the fire they fall from the bridge the syrah is 70 years until the surface of the fire which is called jahanan okay so it's very important we must know what we what is right we must know what is wrong and we must be aware of ignorance ignorance you know so we live in a society that has extensive information um you know this is a society actually in which there's tremendous potential we benefit a great deal in this society and a lot of the things the muslims are doing in the united states of america at dawn opossums a tuna that leave you know um e-man many of these different groups that we have seekers hub in canada canada is very similar to us these are really amazing developments they're very very monumental and uh i was in egypt in uh at the end of january this year and i was with a lot of really interesting young egyptians masha'Allah but some of them said that really when we look at what is being done in the united states in darul pastan and say tuna and tagli collective and these other wonderful organizations we really feel that that's the most significant thing happening in the muslim world today so it's very very important and inshallah may Allah enable us to remove this ignorance but we live in a society that has unparalleled information we have access to information about so many things these computers these ipads the ipads you know all the technology that surround us we know more things about the natural world the world in which we live the physical world the chemical world the biological world then was even imaginable to human beings just a few generations ago yeah this information is not rooted this information is not fully meaningful this information is not information that necessarily leads to knowledge of what is the nature of reality and as Allah says they have knowledge of an outward dimension of this world they know volume they know an outward aspect of this world but of the hereafter they are negligent and so this is the compartment that we have to bring in that how do we live in this world in the most intelligent way in the wisest way how can we be lights that guide to God and guide to his messenger and yet at the same time benefit from this society and also benefit the society and ourselves by waking up to the reality that we live in and the reality of the world to come the messenger said sallallahu alaihi wasallam whoever takes a path by which he seeks knowledge God will make easy for him a path to the garden so that's about you that's about me and this is a well-known hadith it's transmitted in many collections it also follows by saying that the scholars are the errors of the prophet you know so you have the obligation to take a path to seek knowledge and when you do that God will make easy for you the following of that path and God will make easy for you the path to the garden and here there are two paths that are spoken about first of all there's the actual physical path that you know you have to come here today for example to listen to this presentation which I hope and pray is sound knowledge that will benefit you so God makes it easy for you to do that God facilitated for you to do that and he will help you to take care of other problems that you have in order to come here you had to give up other things there was a change of right you know but God will bless all of that he will bless that physical path that time that you took to come and then also there is the figures of that which is the work the effort staying awake at night reviewing notes memorizing making good use of our time and I don't want to see these in our plate of about it in our plate of who put it who let our talk about it within our plate of who bought it when you're taking knowledge is precious it is more precious than diamonds and gold and silver it is more precious than fame knowledge is the greatest thing this world is cursed our prophet said and everything in it is cursed except for knowledge Ali a man a woman of knowledge and a person who does the thicker of a lot and a person who teaches right so um you know in this and taking the path of knowledge God will bless you on both of those paths you know he will give you success God will give the secret of knowledge success on both paths in this life and give him or her an easy path to the garden and if God blesses you and maybe bless you all with this and all of us with that if he enables us to get this sacred knowledge then you receive the inheritance which is worth a thousand times a thousand times anything that you could receive from your family in inheritance gold and silver and property and that is you become a heir of the property and this is one of the most important things that we have to talk about in Tikvi because to leave this um moral aptitude that we have is about becoming true heir receiving the knowledge that they gave us and living by that knowledge authentically knowledge is an essential part of Islam so we must seek knowledge personally every one of us it's not something that's for other people you know we have in this community by the grace of Allah great scholars um Shaykh al-Hafid al-Amin who I have the honor to work with I've known him for 13 years this is a unique scholar I do not know anyone that is his peer we have scholars like that Shaykh comes in use of Imam Zayn Shaykh Yaqul Rabih Shaykh Hamza Chaudhry you know we have so many Shaykh Faraz Rabani you know Dr Jackson we have many scholars in this community but it's not knowledge it's not just for them and it's also for you you know this is also an obligation for you to see personally you must be sure that you know everything you have got to know to lead this life of yours in a way that is correct and also we have to cultivate professional scholarship but we have to cultivate professional scholarship in our community we have to build institutions that enable us to cultivate scholarship at the highest possible level this is really really important and we have got to be able to create a dynamic dialogue where we engage every aspect of this society around us at the highest level making it clear where does Islam stand on these things where is the life where is the diet not just in the basic things like prayer and fasting and Hajj and Umrah but also in things like bioethics the environment and other issues that we have also as part of this because this is a religion of knowledge we have to honor the authority of the scholar we have to honor our scholars men and women by virtue of the knowledge that the law has blessed them with this is your mission and if this is what you are required to do and inshallah you adopt that mission with the greatest sincerity and it is also a double possible mission which we are here to represent to the best of our ability so as we said we're here to talk about teklif to go into teklif with some kind of depth the secrets of teklif moral and legal aptitude as we said teklif is the most fundamental and far reaching of all Islamic obligations of all Islamic conceptions teklif is the purpose of our existence it embodies the divine trust the divine trust the anana that was given to us this is all about teklif it means that we embrace teklif in the most honest way that we can it also embodies the wisdom of God in the creation of the human being and as we will see it also is a reflection of his mercy teklif embodies the very essence of what it means to be human this cosmic trust the anana about which which we have spoken so there are three preconditions of teklif and we will focus on each of these for hopefully about an hour and then we will end by speaking about teklif itself and then we can have questions the first precondition of teklif is biological maturity we might refer to that also as majority that you know when the child ceases to be a child when the child becomes a young adult and we refer to that as and as we said there are other there's another word which is also used for it and is very meaningful the second precondition of teklif is mental maturity which is akhl intellect and we'll talk about that the ability to understand and also akhl as we'll see is the ability to be self-conscious and it's the ability to stand up for yourself to understand that certain things you know are that you need certain things you have to have them the other things are harmful that you've got to keep them away from you okay so basic intellect sound intellect and then the third precondition of teklif is reception of the prophetic message which we call will move and download that we receive the download we receive the call that the prophets and the messengers have announced to human beings from the time of our father Adam alaihi salam so these are the three preconditions of teklif and they are a matter of consensus among our scholars they are a matter of ijma'a all the imams agree to these and all of their schools and taboozi he says that it is part of God's wisdom and mercy that there is no teklif on children or on the children of Adam from the beginning of their lives or during childhood it didn't have to be that way that's not a logical necessity but it's a function of God's wisdom and it is mercy it is said that angels have teklif from the moment they are created angels as you know are infallible angels don't sin but this is actually a very subtle reality because they are mucalifory they do carry moral aptitude and also moral responsibility and from the time that they're created they have that Adam and Eve our mothers and fathers they also had teklif from the time that they were created Adam begins his first breath in a with teklif and their opinions about jinn that differ as some scholars say that jinn have teklif from the time that they are created that intellect comes with them immediately and others say that that's not the case and we won't go into that but in the case of us the children of Adam we begin our lives with this period of several years in which we are not held accountable in which we can say whatever we say and do whatever we do and God does not take this into account and then there comes the watershed there comes this time when all of a sudden we are responsible we are accountable and that comes with majority which physical maturity it comes with adequate intellect and it comes also with perception of the truth the prophet said some of the seven the ten of divine reckoning has been lifted from three persons this means that they will not be taken into account they will not be judged the pen of divine reckoning has been lifted from three persons from the sleeper until he or she awakes from the child until it reaches puberty and from the insane person until he has intellect until he returns to sanity and understands what he is doing so children are not taken to account for wrongdoing this however does not deny the fact that when children do good God gives them rewards a law is very merciful so as we'll see it's part of the teaching of our prophet so long so long that we train our children from a very early time that they do good we teach them to have good character we teach them to help others we teach them to respect others we should even teach them to pray when they're very little and in fact they get rewarded for that God blesses them for that but God does not take them to account so the negative aspect of responsibility then is something which is not there if you do good then God facilitates the path to do even greater good even our vass was asked when the orphanhood of the orphan is finished we in Islam we refer to the yateen as any boy or girl who has lost his father usually in the western world we refer to the orphan as the one who lost the father and the mother but in Islam we call we use that word for any child who loses the father um and you know this is the way that's that's that's our understanding of it and uh orphan good lasts until the time that we become adults so once a person is able to take care of himself or her son and is able to understand then we don't call them an orphan anymore so even our vass was asked when orphan good finished he said by God well I mean a man may grow here and still be weak in standing up for himself but he's still ugly to see man can grow a beard and still he can't stand up for himself and he can still be weak in giving of himself uh when he begins to stand up for himself seeking the beneficial things uh that he needs and that people might take then you know we can refer to him as no longer being an orphan so here you have a very interesting illustration of the role of intellect and of maturity here that is it's not just physical maturity as he says a man might have a beard a young boy may be going to grow a beard when he's quite young maybe he's 12 13 or 14 but he has to have another quality and that is that he has the kind of self-consciousness and he has the kind of assertion that enables him to say that I have to have this I cannot have that he stands up for himself he understands where his benefit is and he understands also where harm lies and then he takes a distinctive position on that whereas a child often may not be liked at all as they say it's like taking baby from a candy taking candy from a baby you know of course a lot of babies you can't take candy from them but you know the baby doesn't necessarily understand you know the importance of things right you might be able to take from them the dollar bill and to give them a nickel they don't understand the differences between those things so this is also this clarifies the legal proportion of biological maturity that is not enough in itself we have to have a sense of identity we have to have a sense of self assertion that enables us to stand up for ourselves to look out for our interests and to be responsible Imam Ali was asked the same question and he said there is no orphanhood after puberty it's not enough just to have a beard you've got to have this other quality as well teklif and capacity the foundational verse or one of the foundational verses in teklif is the one that our sheikh Hamza Chaudhry recited to us God imposes no burden upon a human self except to its capacity at the end of surah al-Bahar verse 286 God imposes no burden no moral burden no ethical burden God does not judge us he does not impose a burden upon a human self except to its capacity a lot of us understand this verse in a way that is not the way the traditional commentators understood it a lot of us take this as sort of a statement about our personal odyssey in our lives that you know God will never hold me responsible in my life he will never test me with anything that is beyond my ability that's not what it's about but it's saying that you know teklif which is this concept that we're talking about you know this moral aptitude this moral license this moral answerability that God will not put that on you beyond your capacity to bear it and so therefore when we talk about capacity here we are fundamentally talking about being of age being strong enough and being self assertive enough that we can live up to that responsibility and then it means also that we have the intellect to understand what we are commanded to do and then it means also that we have the content of the message so this is a fundament but this is the basic meaning of the verse according to our traditional scholars and this goes hand in hand with the beautiful hadith that we took just a minute ago about in a jelly pen how are we coming with time in this first session where's the time keepers i can see that too that's why i'm asking the question like are we finished with the first part or yeah i don't think that's fair you know but okay so in that case i'm going to have to speed up here and um we're going to talk about Arabic roots let's just look at one word i was going to look at balaha that you know we'll skip that and let's look at the root ha lam me now this is the root from which we get puberty hulum and the ilam ibn fadis who is one of our great scholars of language he says that this root um which implies puberty the painting majority um you know it has two root meanings two semantic meanings at its base one is not the haze and the other one is to see a dream especially and uralic one and uh we say and we say and we say is the child and if we look at the word child which we're not going to do because we don't have time but the word in Arabic it implies that the child does not have self-control the child doesn't have the ability to reign himself in so when the child gets beyond that then he has puberty um the Quran says when your children attain puberty and hulum let them ask permission to enter your private rooms al-Raghub al-Isbahan he says maturity is called hulum because the child who has attained it is capable of hell of forbearance of self-control and hulum also means ako so it's very interesting it means intellect as well because self-control results from intellect so it's very nice how in Arabic you know this word combines the physical reality of puberty with also this intangible element of the appearance of intellect in us al-Gurusawi who is one of our great scholars he says about hulum which is this quality of forbearance a person who is halim does not hasten things in the Arabic definition of the child the sabi this is not the way the sabi is the sabi hastes in the things that he wants or doesn't want when the child wants to be nursed he doesn't wait until an appropriate time right it could be 2 a.m 1 a.m when the child wants to be changed when the child doesn't like something you've done they don't wait immediately let they let you know and immediately they demand to have the thing that they want or they demand to be released from the thing that they don't like the halim endures difficult this is very important so physical maturity then gives us the ability to endure he is not perplexed when afflicted by unpleasant things children are children want something and if you take it away well you might not call it being perplexed they're angry but they do not understand you cannot make them understand that he is not quickly moved to anger if an ashur he says helm is sound opinion good character and being merciful to created things so here we see the intrinsic connection between puberty hulum hulum as a precondition of tibli and self-control helm which is also a quality rooted in intellect training children for the rule we're going to skip some stuff looking at that stop watch back there the prophet may god extol him and grant him perfect peace of the low hearted he said command your son to do the prayer at seven years of age spank them for not doing it at ten and separate them in their beds at ten so this is a very important hadith and this hadith um is addressed to you or to the guardian of the child it's not addressed to the child themselves or the children themselves again they're not mukalla they don't have that answerability in a bit you too and um our scholars took different positions on this that imam malik would want this to be recommended um imam apu hanifa ashat iri and ahmet hanbal may Allah be pleased with them all they took it to be obligatory that you must have your children pray when they're seven years old and you must see when they're ten that they do it if he's seven or eight and they don't pray you don't do anything but when they're ten you have to see that they do it and many of us don't use that now in our community often by young men and women in our community they may not start to pray or even think about praying until they're college and this is very serious this is very serious you know so it's our responsibility as their guardians to get them into this habit when they're little they are not morally required to do it they're not morally required to pray until they are mukalla fun but you are morally required to guide them and to help them help them develop good habits then when it becomes time to pray it's easy for them if we don't do that then when they come to be whatever age it is when puberty appears then often it's very difficult for them to pray um if spanking is done it must never be subdued and it's just to show that we are serious about this and is that it is the threat that is much more important usually than the actual spanking um and um it should only be resorted to if we know that it will have a good effect you know so you know that some children children differ you all know that right brothers and sisters differ some children are extremely affected by the threat of punishment some children are extremely affected by punishment itself they won't do it again other children are not at all some children uh the threat of punishment doesn't mean anything and punishment itself doesn't mean anything so you have to be able to gauge that you know and we don't want to hurt the children but we just want them to know that this is serious you have to take this seriously and uh you must never insult them okay this is something very important again sometimes in muslim households we don't do that you know there are certain muslim cultures you know where parents abuse their children and sometimes they even curse their children i've heard that i've lived in muslim countries where i've actually heard parents curse their children and teachers in school curse the children if the children don't do what they're supposed to do that is the most viable mind which evolved at all and you have to be very careful we say the sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me who made that after us that's that's not true at all i forget about the sticks and the stones and my broken bones they get well but the word that my father said to me that cut into my heart that i never will forget or my mother that's why you as an adult especially when god blesses you with children around children watch your tongue be very careful what you say children and children hear things and they remember things that we pay no attention to i know the child whose father whom he loved very much told him that you know you're lazy and you're like this good for nothing neighbor that we have who just would sit outside and read newspapers all day and not work and that child bore the burden of those words for decades in his life and it would be because he believed his father it's not like my father is telling me this so that i will be good it's like then i'm a failure although he was like 10 years old see but it's like what am i going to do then because i'm not like you you know you work hard you're you're a responsible adult i'm like this neighbor who's been for for nothing see so we have to be really careful what we say we do not insult children we do not use bio-language with children we have different kinds of children and we have very little time but it's very important to instill exertion exertion which is sad and the ability to work the ability to exert yourself you know this comes with puberty that the the the young adult is now able to do hard tasks which children are not able to do okay but you have got to instill exertion in our children we see today a lot of young people they cannot discipline themselves they cannot stay on task they can't even listen you know they're um you know span of attention is extremely short and they need pictures they need images you know they've been brought up on video game you know and this is something we have to be really careful about you know and uh even young adults that are going to become policemen and they go into the army a lot of times if the sergeant yells at them they begin to cry can you believe that that is true this is the generation of people we have today that there used to be if the sergeant you know would yell at you and you're drafted or you've enlisted you just take it you know and you don't like it but like I will do this and today you have people you know that will cloud up and begin to cry love what are you talking to me like that it's like what you're going to be a soldier this is this and this is a major defect you know in the culture that we have so you've got to instill in your children sorry the ability to exert themselves and the most important thing to do is to have them pray when they are little this training is tadid and you know uh buru must be preceded by basic learning and exertion if ensena says before seven children should not be instructed in anything other than basic morality good character and proper behavior in the household is it after seven then you can begin to teach them the difficult things I know a lot of you uh really pay a lot of attention to your children and a lot of you uh in fact begin teaching children relatively difficult things before they're seven uh whether that's the wisest thing or not to do is something to be discussed uh in another time but again in ensena who has a lot of medical and psychological knowledge he felt that when the child up until the time of seven it's very good for the child to be relatively free and you know you want to give them moral teachings you want to teach them to respect others um you want to teach them to help out in the house you know you have to give them guidance but don't make life difficult for them when they come to the age of seven then you can begin to teach them things that lead to adult knowledge and of course you have your own research to do on that and you have your own view um the child is a wali prior to buru this is something we'll talk about in a minute this is very interesting every child is a wali of Allah children are born with the filpros they are born with this beautiful natural believing obedient nature that we have and uh they have that this is what makes children so beautiful i gave a speech on mouth of x i gave two speeches on mouth of x at a very great islamic school in chicago and first they have me talk to the little kids and like that was so much fun and they have all studied about mouth of x and they have all sorts of questions and they're all raising their hands they all want to ask questions and get answers and then after that i want to talk to the high school students and they're just like whatever whatever you know i mean it's like most of it's like they were so different and um one of the reasons for that is because of the fact that those children are only of Allah they're like little angels this is how they're born this is also why we do not use bio language and we do not insult children and we do not abuse children this is abuse of the odia and this is Muslim children and not Muslim children you know we have to honor children that when bulul comes which is this appearance of intellect the ability to make decisions then also this is part of the wisdom of thought the wilaya that is natural and that child is eclipsed and now they become people who have powerful desires powerful emotions they can become clouded they can become darkened they're very different it's very important education to try to sustain that wilaya that beautiful sainthood that is there in the child so that it goes into the young man or woman that has puberty but nevertheless as a rule the wilaya the wilaya of the natural belief itself that ends at the time that we reach puberty and then what happens at that time this other faculty takes in and that is intellect that enables us discursively in terms of the things that we see in this world the concepts that we share with others to talk about God and to talk about truth and to talk about value and it's very important that that transition is made okay so i think that we will probably have to end here yeah i think we can end here but in any case let's just end with something that one of the things about puberty and this is one of the wisdoms of making puberty a sign of teglif is the fact that it is tangible it is something that you can actually measure and it is of course the biological so growing into an adult that is now capable of that very fundamental human necessity of reproduction that women are able to have babies men are able to have children okay so therefore the signs of puberty are both biological and those are the basic criteria and then they are also age but age could be said to be a default criteria in other words we expect that there will be biological signs and if those biological signs for some reason don't appear then we will go by age the biological signs are those very fundamental things you know that we in talking about human beings as the reality that we are don't we're not ashamed to talk about and these are those things that are connected to reproduction so we have the admission of semen and you also have vaginal fluid in sleep or otherwise that when those occur in the male or the female then we have puberty that is a clear physical sign we also have the growth of the of course cubic hair again the male and the female so those are very clear signs they show that puberty has been reached and then also in the case of women you have menstruation and also uh pregnancy usually of course pregnancy is delayed but pregnancy sometimes very very early and when that ability to have children becomes then of course we have uh puberty uh this malachies also add other things voice change the cleavage in the tip of the nose um odor you know in the armpits things like that these are things that are uh indications of the fact that the human being has now entered a new biological stage if that doesn't appear then we go by age the default criterion in the absence of biological signs and for imam malik and imam abu hanita that is 18 lunar years and for abu yusuf ashaybani ashay khan great errors abu hanita and for imam ashaytari and for imam ahmet and hanbal it is 15 lunar years okay so um we're we're going to close here so that we can go to the next presentation um now should we do that immediately we go into the next presentation or do we take a break or we stand up or what what do we do okay so then if you don't mind we'll take a few minutes break and then uh the second piece of this which is intellect we refer to gulub as biological maturity and uh perhaps we could refer to apu as mental maturity it means that the person has sufficient ability to conceive and to understand it refers to a basic and adequate competence and uh the onset of intellect is the guide to reflection and to sound that he is our force um if we look again at the hadith the pen of reckoning we can see that it really focuses on intellect where the pen of reckoning has been lifted from three three persons to sleeper until he awaits because the person who is sleeping is a person who does not have the full use of intellect and then also we have the insane person until he has intellect again because he is deprived or she is deprived of that basic capacity we saw when uh we looked at the meaning of hulum of puberty that amazing amazingly in Arabic semantics puberty and intellect they go together they mesh together um it's important that we emphasize that puberty has independent value in other words it's not just there because it is an outward sign of intellect um when the child reaches maturity then the child begins to develop physical strength endurance um other qualities a strong identity they enable them to be themselves but at the same time uh puberty is an index of akho puberty is something that is tangible it is something that is quantifiable whereas akho is something that is subtle it is intangible it is often arbitrary it is difficult to discern one of our great scholars at the busi he said by stipulating guru by making physical maturity a precondition of technique God put the outwardly manifest condition a setable life biological science or age in the place of the inwardly hidden condition a setable thought which is the appearance of puberty puberty is quantifiable intellect is not quantifiable things are known by their contraries so usually when our scholars talked about uh how we know whether the person has intellect or not uh they look at the contraries of intellect and um so therefore um we look at things like insanity that is mentioned in the hadith we look at things also like imbecility or dementia out of them but we look at things like foolishness stupidity set up so these are qualities that our contradictions intellect is that quality that negates insanity that negates imbecility and dementia that negates stupidity and foolishness that enables us to live our lives in a serious way also we look at contraries that represent lack of access to the faculty so sleep for example takes away access to intellect a loss of consciousness of a man if you faint or if uh you know you have a fever and lose consciousness you know when you do that you are not morally responsible you are not motel things like epilepsy also forgetfulness um if you forget that you didn't pray asa then a law will remove from you the burden of that forgetfulness and you pray it when you remember it this is one of his mercies also inattention distraction ruffler and um kata which we can translate i believe as honest mistakes not a mistake that is a willful mistake it comes out of neglect or ignoring what is right but just an honest mistake there are also other contraries that our scholars refer to in the definition of intellect um such as conditions that obstruct the faculty uh intoxication super taking drugs to heal um also willful compulsion from others i guess we could just say compulsion but like if people force you to do something if someone puts a knife in your hand and forces your hand to stab someone that you are not responsible for that you do the best that you can do to avoid it but compulsion removes the effective intellect it obstructs it and then we have also something which our scholars refer to as il ja which i have translated here as overpowering circumstances non-willful circumstances and uh they use as an example of that things like falling off of a cliff or being swept away in the flood you know there are things that happen to us that are not compulsion per se but when they happen we lose control usually i mean we have certain people are very strong who you know if they fall from a height then they will think about how am i going to land and i've got to be really careful but the ordinary human response would be just to scream i'm falling right and you have people that if they were caught in the flood they would begin to think about how can i get myself out of that but that's a very unusual human condition and in fact that's the kind of thing that usually you can only do if you've been specially trained like for example you see people like stuntmen and stuntwomen you know who jump off of buildings and run through fires you know they have to go through a lot of training so that they can do that still using their intellect and making sure that their bodies are doing the right kind of thing have they not been trained and they would be probably in a condition like most of us il ja or we just scream we lose it so you know in cases like that also the tech leaf is removed because the intellect is removed or you believe do not approach the prayer while intoxicated until you know what you are saying that isn't telling you about hope in fact the sucran you know which is the Arabic word for and for being intoxicated being drunk um you know is from the word sakkala which is to close in Arabic today in dialect it's sakkala but close the door which comes from that same root and the sukker is called closing because of the fact that it closes the intellect it wants all access to it islam is based on apple islam is a religion of intellect it is a rational reasonable religion but intellect is one of its provinces intellect is one of its objectives and this religion is based on the imperative to guard and to protect and to cultivate intellect and as you know in islam we have certain major objectives of the prophetic law which we refer to as mahasid asharia the ultimate goals of the sharia which are six some scholars make them five i prefer to have six and these are preservation of the dean preservation of sound religion that this is something we must absolutely do this is why we are here today this is why we take our religion seriously this is why we study this is why we are scholars this is why we have to develop institutions like diable possum and say tuna and other institutions we must preserve the religion and it's got to be sound it's got to be authentic it has to embody the message that our prophet delivered to us this is the first obligation okay and then you have to preserve the nefs the self you must be safe from attack you must be safe in your home you must be safe in your farm you must be safe as safe as you can be from disease you must be healthy to the extent that that's possible so we have an obligation to protect our physical self to eat right to drink right to get enough sleep and you know to protect ourselves from all kinds of dangers right this human being has got to live this human being has got to flourish and then comes up into it so this fundamental quality that we have which is the opposite of sanity which is the opposite of intoxication which is the opposite of foolishness and imbecility and so forth this quality must be preserved it must be guarded we must do everything that we can as a community to see that we are that we are men and women of reason our religion is a religion of reason of wisdom of goodness and justice and sometimes we see most of us do the strangest thing unbelievable things but this is a sign of deviation this is a sign of harmful innovation that they fail to understand anymore the rational content and objective of the faith they're not aware of consequences they are not looking at consequences okay so we have to preserve intellect and of course intellect is where we begin the religion with tech lead and then we have to preserve it then also we have what is called nestle which is progeny or lineage and nestle is lineage nestle is progeny having children and naseb is lineage but who is your father who is your mother alhamdulillah you know that uh who are your fathers who are your mothers you know that's really important and uh you know many times especially today there are many people who don't know the answer to that question even in the days of the prophet so there were people who didn't know who were their father was okay and uh this is something which is a big burden to them uh you know islam is the father of a person who has no father and islam we are jumbu not kind of not probable islam removed whatever was before but these are very important things um you know then we can also say that this is part of family you know and it's also part of identity um you know every year i have the honor to go to the gambia we do some programs there that i hope are beneficial but certainly beneficial for me and uh african americans often come to be with us in the gambia and many of them their roots are actually from that country or if they're not in that country they're from that area and the benefit that comes to them from reconnecting with that root is amazing and i've seen it in people uh such as our brother mustapha davis allah bless him then like he is a sound human being he is a deeply rooted human being and it's like in my mind it's like well mustapha davis also be affected by this and he was deeply you know because this is the secret of who am i where do i come from who are my fathers who are my mothers it's a very important thing so islam protects them to the extent that we are able to do so and then mal which is property halal well halal property you know you are responsible for your property you have to earn it in the best way you have to take care of it and you can't just throw it away when we talk about afal again we have to talk here today that we have to respect but rush is a concept that is very closely connected to afal and rush to islamic law when it is defined is almost always defined in terms of whether you know how to use money do you throw your money away how many cars do you buy how many shoes do you have um sisters forgive me i think any sisters probably have special license in that regard i remember this one uh system we invited uh my wife who's over here uh you know to come to her house and she said this will be private there'll just be like four people in here and we opened the door and they're like 50 pairs of shoes and i said i thought we said this will be private she said it is i said what are all these shoes she said they're my shoes it's like what 15 pairs of shoes she probably had another 50 pairs and looked in the clothes that's actually not regarded to be rush you have to use your money carefully they get it right and keep it and let it grow in a way that is and be generous with it also that's part of our use of it and then which is honor and that you have honored we have honored you know the children of adam you know and uh you have to stand up for your honor you have to stand up for your dignity you know this is a very important thing but here we just we really want to talk about awkward the salvation is based on knowledge and knowledge is based on how do you learn that knowledge how do you remember that knowledge how do you um how do you own that knowledge how do you make it a part of you that's awkward right you think about it you think about it uh performance is not enough la yap the al-qadhi wa huwa al-qadha the judge shall not hand down the judgment while he is angry why because when the judge is angry just like you or me or intellects are not functioning properly and the judge has got to be able to be balanced this is very important we have to keep this in mind also when we talk about things like boards of directors and imams and heads of community that when you are angry excuse yourself and because you need to do what you do and say what you say when you are balanced and when the intellect is functioning it's husband and wife that's also extremely important you know the the marital life is a beautiful thing it's also a great test and when those things happen to us that lead to misunderstanding between husband and wife beware of anger and beware of the stupid things that we are inclined to say when we are angry these things can ruin the situation you know so intellect is so beautiful and this is again why we have to guard it beware of anger if the man came to the prophet and he says give me counsel right i'll receive it and i promise it back now do not do not be angry he said give me another counsel tell me something do not be angry three times this was a person obviously who this is what he needed to do control your anger and we have to guard our intellect and one of the ways we do that is to guard against anger anger turns us all into fools the most intelligent human being when he or she becomes angry says things and does things they would never do otherwise we have to preserve our rational balance we must keep the intellect intact and we must keep it in control it must be preserved with overpowering emotions anger here as some of our scholars have noted is a illustration it's not as if anger is the only problem no any powerful emotion that overpowers you your passions our biases our personal preferences our friendships our enmities you know we have to deal with these in the most fair and just way that we can in order to preserve the balance intellect we must always seek to open the door of objectivity if we look at Arabic roots we're going to cut this down a little bit but let's just look at the one the word we're talking about so the root of awful in Arabic is which academicians like to use this little tiny seed that you see that's the eye it is a consonant and it is in all the Semitic languages and Semitic languages I call them up all is the fundamental moral attitude remember again the quotation of us when he said that a man may grow a beard yet he still cannot stand up for himself he still cannot assert himself he cannot claim what it is what is his right and he cannot defend himself from things that will harm him so awful is that quality that enables us to take a stand that I will insist on this even though I don't want to do it even though it's not pleasant even though it means maybe that I come into conflict with people that I don't want to be in conflict with them but I will try to do it in the best way the most intelligent way that I can so awful is the basis of moral attitude even faddis when he talks about this word he says that the root has the basic meaning of which means to fall back but we use it in Arabic for example to hobble the camel you know which is when you take a car which is from the same route and you tie up the camel's leg and then the camel can't do very much have you ever seen a camel hobbled I've seen it in Mauritania um I remember the first camel I saw hobbled in Mauritania it was a big camel it was one of the biggest ones going Mercedes Benz of the camel family and they had tied up his leg he was a stallion and that camel actually was afraid because he was so big that if he fell to the ground he would hurt himself and camels he knew that so he then spread his legs out he was like a tripod and he wasn't going anywhere you can I've seen smaller camels that they hobble and they will just hobble along that's where we get the word hobble you know they go slowly they can't go very far but the big camel once you hobble him at least in my limited experience he just stands there because if he falls to the ground then he may be ruined he may break the leg or something like that so this is the route that we get up across the apple hobbles you what is it how will you from from doing what is wrong from saying the thing that you must not say from doing the thing that you must not do from drinking the drink you should not drink from eating the food you should not put from looking at the woman you should not look at or the man that you shouldn't look at right so here apple hobbles like this it controls it holds us back and we also use apple in Arabic as a root meaning for that which for that faculty that holds us back from reprehensible statements and deeds so uh in Arabic you have many words for there are many words but apple is the one that we focus on here because apple has a fundamentally moral quality fundamentally ethical quality you know you are not apple and you are apple but we are not until we can say no to the things that we want to do that we should not do and until we can say yes to the things that we are supposed to do that we don't want to do and you know how difficult that is that is more difficult lifting weights you know and carrying burdens and cleaning the whole house and building a new house right for me to do the thing I don't want to do but study somehow you don't want to study I know that I should study but like it's so easy to check email these are easy to look at the news on dvc right and like no don't do that this is time for you to study to prepare you know for your class or prepare your lesson or review the plan or whatever it may be so apple is that good that enables you to do that and also don't do the things you know you're not supposed to do the certain things you're not supposed to look at the certain things you're not supposed to listen to the certain things that we don't eat and drink and so forth so apple is that quality that says you don't do this okay and that is essential to our moral character um a raga that is the handy says when god reprimand reprimands the godless for lack of apple for lack of intellect it refers to their lacking intellect that leads them to guidance and holds them back from ruin in other words like they don't use their intellect you know they strip the screw it doesn't work anymore so anyone in their rational mind that would think about life and think about the world that we live in and think about the proximity of death and evaluate the prophetic legacy especially crowned with the legacy of the last prophets why don't you accept guidance why don't you do this thing even though yes you won't be able to eat pork anymore you won't be able to drink wine anymore you can live with them you will open for yourself the doors are all good why can't you do it this is a deficiency and then why do we not hold back from the path of ruin people who take drugs people who drink have drinking problems they know this is ruin and yet they can't stop people who are addicted to pornography pornography is extremely destructive extremely destructive and yet this means there's no apple it means there's no intellect you've got to stop you've got to be strong one of the great things about the pastor from above is that it cultivates in us intellect this ability to say no and to say yes that i'm going to fast every day of this month as difficult as that may be and i will deprive myself of food and drink and other things during this time and i will not rate that fast i won't go into the kitchen and drink a drink of water that no one can see and when we are able to hold to that as you do one of the great gifts that this gives us is that it cultivates apple it cultivates intellect the ability to say yes even though we don't want to do it and the ability to say no even though we do want to know it the path to the fire is paved with delicious and delightful and pleasant things that you've got to say it's for good and fruit i will not taste it i will not go there and the path to the garland is paved and you've got to say that i will do this i will pray my friend i will keep good company i will learn my religion and i will do what is right but this is the fundamental quality when god represents the represents the godless for lack of apple it refers to lacking intellect that means them to guide them that means them to accept guidance and hold them back from ruin um a law says it is not the eyes that become blind eyes do become blind but that's not the blindness that a law represents but the hearts within the breast he says death dumb and blind in the heart in the intellect they will never understand they will never use their reason to understand they have it but they don't use it they don't have the habit of listening to it the worst of beasts that tread upon the earth at the site of god are the death and dawn those who do not use their reason to understand somebody says they are the worst the most evil of all that walks on the earth these people they listen to other things instead of the truth be sure that we don't do that listen to the truth don't listen to anything else they listen to other things than the truth so that they no longer hear the truth forget that any consideration they can't even recognize it you know lying is one of the moral qualities that our prophets some of them love more than anything else and in fact the early muslims one of their qualities was that they did not lie they were honest people as a rule their culture was a culture in which people kept their word there were of course people who didn't hypocrites and others but as a rule in that early out of society people shut their word and when you keep your word and you're honest as you are then their gifts that come from that or should get light hard to spill the food but also you can then recognize the truth you can then know a truthful man just like the better one who came up to the prophet and looked at him and said this is not the face of a liar liars have faces that show that and you because you're an honest man you don't have that face and you know that this brother doesn't have that face and this sister doesn't when people lie they one of the purses that comes with that is that they can no longer tell the difference between the liar and in fact they even get to where they cannot tell the lie and i i know people that are affected with that you know it's like they cannot tell the truth and sometimes it's almost as if by telling a lie they think they change reality what is happening what is happening so uh-oh holds us to these good qualities don't strip the screw protective keep it strong um at public he says then you know that they listen to things other than the truth so that they no longer can hear in the truth they can't even recognize that when it comes forgive a consideration they do not have the intellect to follow god's command and to observe his prohibition and your ability to follow the command of the law and to stop short of the prohibition this is awful this is into us this great gift we could talk about that in detail apple as we said is intangible that's why part of the mercy and the wisdom of god is he puts puberty and intellect together puberty is tangible it is and usually when it appears apple has already come in fact apple may begin to appear in a lot of boys and girls when they're even seven years old depending on who they are depending on their parents their environment and so forth but apple has subtle degrees um imam al-basadi and i'll all be pleased with him he says it is the sunnah of god that certain human faculty such as apple occur and developed by degrees you are capable of incredible you are capable of flying to the greatest metaphysical truth by way of your uncle really truly when we study akida which is the next requirement that comes after technique we talked about that we instead we believe in apple we believe in pure reason and we can use pure reason to fly you know when you talk about the history of logic you know a lot of people say that almost all of the comic aris material logic and you know they should be following modern logic no modern logic hasn't done anything new the only thing modern logic did was to say that logic must be hope you will not be allowed to use logic for any metaphysical proposition that's what it's about the limitation of so-called modern logic is all about restricting the use of the human mind the tangible things quantifiable things like computers and mathematics so that you cannot say that the finite points to the infinite and it does and you cannot say that possible existence necessarily implies the realm of necessary existence and it does and that you can't even look at the point universe theory expanding universe theory that they call the big bang which is a lousy name and they say that and you say this is creation from nothing it's what it is it is creation from nothing that they will say no there could be no metaphysical intrusions in physics what how am i supposed to understand i have an intellect that is able to look at the point theory of the universe and say subhanallah this is creation from nothing they say i can't conceive of that and you're not allowed to say that i am allowed to say that i'm a free man you're a free man and we will have our own school and we will have our own institutions where the intellect is free to grow and free to speak this is very important the western world in the last 250 years has hobbled intellect you will not use this to tell me anything about metaphysical truth you will not be able to look at the world around you the world of change and to tell me that change indicates temporality it does and you will not be able to tell me that this world cannot be taken for granted random cannot produce anything and it can't but that's an intellect which Aristotle and Plato and the ancients in general knew was the highest form of knowledge and we would say after prophecy okay so intellect is is really important and it has degrees imam al-bazali says it begins on the break of dawn so this beautiful child that you have that is your responsibility whether it's your own child or your nephew your cousin or an orphan that you've adopted whoever it may be you know when this dawn begins to break in them you have to take care of this is a precious precious gem it is almost imperceptible in the beginning and then grows stronger and stronger and stronger until sunrise apple first appears in the child often the seventh sometimes even before seven you know fredesh goes who was one of the great mathematicians mathematics is pure intellect it's pure intellect pertaining to quantity geometry is pure intellect pertaining to connected quantity mathematics is numbers and his father was a great mathematician at famous german university grüdingen and his father would correct mathematics papers you know and he'd put his son fredesh on his lap and fredesh would watch it and no doubt his father would teach him things also and then at the age of something like seven or eight fredesh gauss began to correct his father right intellect that is intellect it's not necessarily moral intellect we can't assume that fredesh gauss knew that he shouldn't smoke or that he shouldn't drink or you know that he shouldn't curse or that he shouldn't eat his sister or something like that you know because that's a different dimension of intellect but nevertheless the life of intellect you know the life of intellect appeared in him and many children have a very early age okay so it appears and then it grows and it grows and it grows and you have to cultivate and this religion the way we pray the way we fast the things we do this cultivates intellect marvelously you know one of the greatest things in intellect is to know that certain things are unnecessary one plus one is two certain things are impossible one plus one is not three it cannot be and certain things are possible that's the way intellect works and you live a life in which certain things are of limited you must pray five times a day and you do certain things are prohibited you cannot look at pornography and you do not okay and certain things are recommended and you try to do them and other things are disapproved and you try not to do them and we don't blame you if you do because we can't we're not allowed to and certain things are due to mubash you could have put on a green sweater or a yellow sweater that's all up to you right so when we live inside that these could do what does that do to you it's like a physical psychological moral way of living that cultivates an intellect that knows that if it is necessary it is true if it is impossible it is not true if it is possible it could be true and this enables us to believe in a way that is absolutely profound and in a way that we have to teach other americans and canadiens and westerners and other people today to think so this skip on a little bit running out of time sound intellect so the jurists when they talk about intellect as a function or precondition of um techniques they're really talking about the first basic intellect sound intellect and they often use the word gatti dialogue which is the soundness of intellect the balance of intellect you know when intellect now is really able to do all the things that it's supposed to do and it will do much more but it's now able to do the basic tasks and this is the basis of technique this is the basis of moral responsibility it is the basic moral aptitude and intellectual capacity that brings the ability to understand and to perform what is good and to leave what is evil and to do what is required so gatti dial this word that we're using here in arabic it's used for the middle position between between two streams two extremes i'm sorry it's used for the middle position between two extremes gatti dial is the middle position between heart and pulse it is the middle position between tallness and shortness it is the middle position between heaviness being heavy fat and slim okay so apple then from a legal standpoint the precondition of technique is that middle point between the inception of ten years which is the ability to make distinctions and between the full development of intellect as this monumental gift that god has given us at taboos he says it differs from person to person and is difficult to discern uh because of this difficulty again uh lulu is put there as an index to help um primacy of intellect uh at taboos he says when god created the human being for the trust god honored him or her with intellect so that he be worthy of the trust this is what makes you truly human apple is the noblest of all things god created it represents our totality as a human being you know so when we talk about apple we're not just talking about mental capacity and we're also not just talking about moral capacity to do what is right and not doing what is wrong actually we're talking about the whole you the whole you you as an organic fatality um el vazali says apple is more noble than god's throne and the throne is the greatest thing that god created but apple is more noble than that the apple that is in your heart the apple that is in your chest in your brain you know this is more noble in the site of god than the throne of himself above the seven heaven okay so you have to take care of that you have to do it um apple is bestowed is a capacity bestowed on us by mercy as we said before when bulu comes um and n comes to innocence um the intrinsic we liar the sainthood of the child it ends with the appearance of these passions that are accepted that are associated with the sexually mature person bulu veils the soul okay the apple is the key that opens access back up to the light it appears with bulu as a rule and enables us to bring about the gradual unveiling of the soul apple enables us to understand and it makes the burden lighter apple is referred to as the universal messenger some of our scholars refer to it as rasul the messenger which is a rosy says it may be said that apple it's god's universal messenger in humanity it is the messenger without which the message of no messenger could be established as truth how do you know that this quran is so beautiful that it is so rational how do you know it's the truth how do you know when you study the life of the greatest of all creation our beautiful pocket soul of self how do you know this is the truth sincerely you've got a heart right you know this is the truth you're able to write apple is the initial messenger it is a rasul asli they said it is the first messenger the fundamental messenger because if you don't have it then you get benefit from the prophet you can't understand jesus or noses or the prophet mohammed or any of them um the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood comes with apple apple allows us to understand the binding proof of rational demonstration and the fact that it must be followed there is no technique on the child among the primary proofs of apple is the metaphysical capacity the ability and this is the word we don't even use today do we this is a precious word but in the history of the west metaphysics is almost like talking about sorcery it's like talking about charlatans that's not true metaphysics is that realm which you cannot see that dominates the realm that you can see so you have physics physics is the natural physics is nature in greeks greeks and metaphysics is what is around the natural world i cannot understand the natural world until i can link it to its ultimate cause and that is the existence of god you know who is the infinite so apple has this capacity and as we said before one of the great crimes for mistakes in my belief of western civilization in the last two hundred and fifty years is that negated not interested in that apple is the ability to discern the essence of the galaxy finite being points to infinite beings it must we can talk about that we've got to understand how we look at this world and see it as signs of god and this is not magic this is not something that you know is intangible it simply requires us to use and to cultivate our intellects and to get the right cognitive frames um the primary fruit apple disbelief in god your soul believes in god your intellect believes in god it is embedded in human nature the thought and again it is the first right of god upon us it is the mother for the foundation of all obligations to know god by your intellect this is very important because many most of them they don't study this anymore you know um a lot of us are attached to the religion for very good reasons that we love the prophet the greatest of creation okay and we have to cultivate that love in our heart we love this religion we love our prayer we love our fasting we love breaking the path that these are emotional things and this emotion is good for you but what about your children what about your grandchildren we have got to be able to open the mind so that we train people to look at creation and to read the book that is there and to see that what we believe about god is absolutely true and demonstrable but you can only use that with intellect for all the jurists the first obligation after typically is to have rational knowledge of god it is um believe that every rational human being must come to terms with tawheed during their lifetime whether they receive the prophetic message or not and Abu Hanifa has Qur'anic books for that he has rational books for that the only thing that i would say is that when we look at our brothers and sisters in the modern age um maybe this is a little bit different with them because of the fact that the modern human being is a person whose cognitive brains have been tempered that's been fundamentally changed traditional people and traditional societies often were people who could just look at reality and glorify god you know this is something which is there that modern human beings we we don't understand the most fundamental concept and we don't know how to reflect we don't know how to think so when we teach affidah which is this is our first obligation we have to give people the cognitive brains that enable them to look at the finite and to understand how it points to the infinite and to see the change and the potential of change does necessarily indicate temporality that things have a beginning and time and place these are powerful concepts and you know we've got to understand these and we've got to give other people this understanding and when you do that that will be a revolution that will be a revolution american people need to learn how to think european people need to learn how to think they don't know they know how to do all sorts of complications you know they are very intelligent human beings they are builders they are amazing but they do not know how to reflect they do not know how to read the book of creation abu hanifa might not have excused them he's certainly that's his basic position in the Quran Allah says that the disbelievers say if only we had listened which means listened respectfully not mocking if only we had listened and used our reason we would not be among the companions of the fire if an ashur says they did not listen to the call of the messengers with respect and they did not use their intellect to reflect on God's signs or on the message that the messengers gave them for this we under from this we understand that the roots of guidance are in good reception of the message honest reception of the message with adab with person to lucky receiving it in a good way and careful consideration person model no prejudice no bias i have to know the truth you know so if you think you have the truth i have to listen to you also uh bursa we says this first indicates that apple is a hijab that apple is a manifest people so he's just as hearing the message is they did not listen with their hearts or use the intellect of their souls they listened with ears that were blocked by prejudice by passion you know by self-interest many other things and with intellects that were locked shut and defective for that reason god makes the apple a proof against the disbeliever this is very important you have to have apple to be morally responsible that means you're not insane it means that you're not a little average drastically right but you can still have apple but you do not lose the moral responsibility to have used it before and this is when apple becomes a proof against us and uh a law says when you call to prayer they take it from mockery and play otherwise they don't have the intellect that says take religion seriously what are they doing they're praying to god how can you mock this how can you take this as a white thing that is because they are people who have no intellect they are people who have intellect but they don't use it and because they don't use it god has made it impossible to access and he would use it to destroy them a law says as for those who disbelieve or those who willfully disbelieve it is the same to them whether you want them or not want them they will not believe why god has put the seal on their heart he has put the seal on their intellects they have it they have hearts but they are sealed and on their hearing so they're not able to listen over their eyes there is a veil this is because of what they have earned for them there is a great foreman we must be worthy of our intellects we must not miss it um a law says also in the Quran no rather their hearts have rusted over by the evil they have earned so this is the curse of not using it again all the good that you have you have to use it when you use the good that you have god will reward you in the next life right you believe you do good god will reward you but he rewards you right now because he's kareem and his reward to you right now is to keep you did good you had good thoughts you had good ideas you did good things so he makes it easier for you to do good he opens the door he opens the doors of salvation and if we don't do that we have evil thoughts you know if we are not honest with ourselves if we do not understand the seriousness of life and we make a mockery of all things and play then Allah punishes us part of that punishment is that he makes it more difficult to do what is wrong and that can go on and on until he seals it like you have passed the point of no return and therefore your intellect will be there i will seal it off and it will be a proof against you in fact you will not be comfortable with what you're doing because you know it's not right you know we knew a woman in michigan years ago who was it she didn't believe she was a feminist at the time when there were few feminists she was an atheist she had a little boy she thought her marriage was broken unfortunately and one time she was a group of our brothers and sisters and she was talking about she was an atheist she was saying speaking the strongest terms and her sons got far away from her into the street and then she noticed that a car was coming really fast and that that child was going to be killed she saw it he was between the cars he came out in the street and what did she do she said oh my god she wasn't very fun she said oh my god like that and that's what that's isti lach that's what we call calling upon god for help she said oh my god so what is this what were you just saying the second ago and this is because in her heart she knows that the apple is there but it's sealed over yet in instances of extreme fear or joy it can come out and then the next day and then and the child is saved because when you call upon a law it gets to you all an extreme necessity necessity you will answer your prayer and so the car slammed on its way there was dust and noise and screeching and the child came out just by an error and he wasn't touched and then he ran to her she ran to him she was crying she embraced it and said she has it done and may god guide her it and may god enable her to access her intellect but you have to do good okay and we're out of time aren't we okay so um truly we have created but you have many spirits and human beings they have hearts they do not understand they don't use them they have eyes with which they do not see they can see that they choose not to they have ears with which they do not hear such as these are like rather they are warps it is these who want to eat us they don't take life seriously so we'll end right here we have to guard and defend our interests and we have to guard and defend the faith this means in a nice way in a merciful way in a loving way we have got to be able to take this message to ourselves to our communities to our families to our homes and to the society of war and it's we have got to teach many things really you know the task we have before us is a beautiful task it is enlightening look at the people I share how they use it look at the brilliance with which you speak look at the depth that he has that's not fascinating yes it is fascinating and this is what we ask of you learn this deed imbibe this deed learn how to defend it in your own life because you've got to do that doubts come to you doubts are not a sin doubts are a test how do you answer those doubts you have a right to ask questions about doubts and you have a right to be answered a lot of scholars who can't do that so they say you shouldn't have doubts you shouldn't ask about these things okay but um you know we you've got to be able to defend this belief in your heart and you've got to be able to defend it for your children and for your family and they would have thought our neighbors in this society we have to be good neighbors right this is our team you know none of you he among you believes that Allah in the last day let him honor his neighbor sahih hadid okay so what do we do it's like no you know I've got my religion asking about it um you know I just go to the mosque and I'll go back home um you know uh that we have to really have confidence but we've got to understand look at the facts he was built you know um 48 years ago yesterday February the 21st no it's two days ago right February the 21st 1965 I remember that that was it and um you know this is a person you know who wanted to take this message to everyone and this is a person who read books why because he wanted knowledge because he wanted to understand he wanted to be able to speak he's one of the greatest speakers in American history one of the greatest human beings you know the man who stands for nothing will fall for anything is they say that Malcolm is the master of sound vital you know the man who stands for nothing will fall for anything what a beautiful statement Malcolm's life is like that it's like he's a man and you're like I want the truth I want to understand the truth and then I will speak you know I will say it clearly and plainly so that I can enlighten my brothers and sisters and other people that's you you know we have to do this we've got to take this message and we can do that we've got to write we've got to produce you know we have like brothers who are doing poetry and sisters you know we've got to take this message so this is a constant obligation and one of the things that you know we need to remember also in our end with this is that you know Islam is a religion of Da'a'la we can talk about that a little bit in the next class. But remember this, it is a greater obligation on you, according to Islamic law, to bring your fellow Muslim back into the deed and to give your fellow Muslim a sound understanding of the faith that it is to bring new people into the fold. It is very important for us to bring new blood into this religion. When I met Shed Hafeb, I mean, 13 years ago, the first words he said to me was, he said, Islam needs new blood, you know. I mean, I am new blood. I was born a Christian. You know, this is new blood. See the Ahmad James, Barak the Blue. You know, we have a lot of new blood right here, you know. Islam grows by new blood, because it is a prophetic fact. Where does Islam do the wonders in history that enable this religion to live and to reform and to continue? Usually on the periphery. And what is the periphery? The periphery is any place where traditional Muslims come into contact with non-Muslims and have got now to make sense of this religion to people who it makes no sense to at all. And when you have those places which is where conversion takes place, then a special chemistry happens there. You know, one of the miracles in Islam is the fact that Allah, He knew where to put this message. He put it among the Arabs. I love the Arabs, the Arabian Peninsula is incredible. He knew where to put this incredible language there. You can talk about that for hours. You know, these are people, you know, and Ja'Allah, the Ka'bah, the Bayt, the Haramah, the Qiyamah, the Nass, you know, Allah made the Ka'bah, you know, you know, a king for the people, a Qiyam, Qayyim, because the Arabs had no kings, they had no state. They had the Ka'bah, they had the sacred month. That verse is a huge verse. These are people that had no civilization of cities. You know, they didn't have governments, they didn't have kings, they had the Ka'bah, they had the sacred month. They had the Arabic language, this beautiful, esteemed, ancient, ancient Ka'bah. And then when they come out of Arabia, having accepted the life of the chosen one, they mix with Persian, Greeks, Latin, Berber, Visigoths, Indians, Afghans, different people. And they inherit overnight all the civilizations of the known world going even to the walls of China. And the Chinese come to them. And then in the process of about a hundred years, you have the production of one of the most amazing civilizations in history that is unique and new. How did that happen? It's a Qarama. It's a miracle for profit. But one of the secrets of that miracle, Salaam, is the fact that you have converts coming into the faith who know the civilizations of the past. You now are taking the hand of our converts, companions and successors of the Prophet, who have got the light. And then out of this chemistry, there comes something new. The first original book written in Islam that is not a compilation. We have the Muqtah of Imam Mahdi, which is one of the earliest compilations of law. It's a beautiful book, elegant, superb and subtle. It's the first original work that is not like the Muqtah, or like the compilation of the book and itself. It's what? You have Sibaway, the book of Sibaway. And this is the book of Arabic grammar and Muqtah. And it comes at the same time as the water of Imam Mahdi. And Sibaway, he is a Persian who has also Arabic law. But we don't know that for sure. But he in his family converted to Islam, he was born a Muslim. He learns Arabic perfectly. He knows Persian. He is an heir of two galaxies, two worlds. And then taking the study of his Sheikh Khalid ibn Ahmad, his Sheikh, he is able to compute this in a Persian way. As the Prophet said, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that if knowledge were hidden in the play of these, the stars of the play of these, in outer space, far, far away, a Persian would be able. And that's Salman al-Fadisi. And it's also Sibaway, a little fragrance of Apple. That's what his name means. And Sibaway is the one who says, and he says, you know, he is the one who says, what is it? What is it now? And the West, they still don't know what it now is. They say, a Persian place of things. No. Sibaway said, it is a word that indicates a meaning in itself and is not connected to time. It is a word that gives a complete meaning in itself and is not connected to time. What is the word? It is a word that gives a complete meaning in itself and is connected to time. And what is a house? A particle. It is a word that has no meaning in itself, but indicates a meaning in a novel or a verb. What is this? Sunlighters, moonlighters. Why? Why did you make it so beautiful? What are you tempting me with? You know, when I first made the house, I was like, you've got moonlighters and sunlighters. 14 letters are moonlighters and 14 letters are sunlighters. I want to study more. This is really the greatness that it's like. But this is because of the fact that you have new blood coming in with the people who receive the message and the history of the madhasa system that lots of things in Islam are like that. And this is where we are in the United States today. This is a critical time. This is a critical time. And this is a difficult time. You know that, right? You watch Fox News, you see that. Oh, it's like, what happened to white people? I don't know. It's like, what's wrong? There's a book called What's Wrong with White People written by a white person. And what's going on? Cognitive frames. That's what it is. The debasement of cognitive frames. Don't think of an elephant. George Layton. And we are in a jihad. This is a jihad of the tongue, and of the pen, and of courageous spirit, and the ability. We have got to live this religion. We've got to show this religion. And in shalom we can wake them up. And when they wake up, these are people that, you know, they have to be. Allah in His mercy gives every people on the earth a chance to learn the truth and to follow it. You don't think these people have a chance. I believe they will. And we have to give them that chance. And we have to make it easy for them to understand what a great faith it is that you have that you inherited. Allah gives us all beautiful attention. That attention is everything. And, you know, may He give us long lives and good health, and may He illuminate your heart with sound knowledge the greatness of this religion so that you can take that light to others. So we break now, right? So in this last session, these last two hours, we want to conclude the prerequisites to Sunni theology, and we will do that by talking about the third item, the third precondition of technique which is receiving the prophetic message, the rule and doctrine of the college that deals. Again, the preconditions that we know are biological maturity, mental maturity, and then this is actually the congenital. This refers to the way that we respond to the prophets and the legacy of prophecy and human civilization. To begin with, one of the major tasks of the prophets themselves is to awaken the apple. Human beings are given this great faculty. And this faculty is so profound, so metaphysically powerful that it can be referred to as the universal messenger of thought. But for most human beings, it is difficult to follow the dictates of Allah. It's very difficult for them to do the things they know they ought to do, and to give up the things that they ought to give up, especially when that conflicts with their communal interests or their self-interest and other things like that. So the prophets, then, one of their basic rules is to awaken the apple and to empower the intellect. Even Hayan says, God sends messengers, peace be upon them, to call people to attention, indeed, so that they use their minds and mother, so that they reflect, and awaken from the slumber, the rough depth of negligence. This way, he goes on, they cannot say to God on the day of judgment that they were unaware, and that if he had only sent them a messenger who brought them to attention, they would have reflected on the proofs of intellect. The messenger of the prophetic law, the prophetic law itself is the message, and it is sent to bring out what was in the human's instinctive nature of the knowledge of good and evil. We're given this incredible nature that knows God, that knows the essence of evil, and one of the main purposes of the law, which is the primary thing that all prophets talk, is that it brings out in us this instinctive knowledge that we have, this instinctive capacity to relate to the good, to use our minds, this ability to seek out felicity and to avoid infelicity. The person who has instinctive preparation for this type of perfection is moved through the prophets to what is instinctively good for him, he was moved to receive their call, and has the desire for the truth, this is aroused in him, and he seeks out those who can teach him and receive affirmation, this message, and accept it because of this inherent accountability that we have in us for the primary prophetic responsibility is communication of the message. When we study about prophets in Islamic law, in Islamic Aqidah, we know that we believe that all of God's prophets and all of His messages, they were truthful, there was people, people who spoke the truth, they were worthy of the trust, they were people who we can emulate, and they completely communicated the message that God sent them, which this is why in the history of prophecy, prophets have to be protected, otherwise people will kill them, people will drive them out because in teaching the truth, they say things that are not acceptable, but their primary responsibility is to deliver the message. God says in the Qur'an, never do we punish a people until we send forth to them a messenger with divine guidance. Either that messenger comes to them in person, like Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Joseph, or Moses, or Jesus, or the Prophet Muhammad, or representatives of that messenger come to them. God says, if you turn away, then know that our messenger is only required to make clear conveyance of the message. He only has to do al-balāhu l-būmī. This is what the Qur'an says, whenever a throng of disbelievers is cast into the fire, its keepers say to them, did they not come to you for forewarners from God? They say yes, they did indeed come to us for forewarners, but we belied him and said to him, God did not send down anything to us. God also says in the Qur'an, this is a clear conveyance, this is al-balāhu l-būmī. This is a clear message that is being delivered to human time so that they be forewarned by it. One of the main tasks of the messengers in delivering the message is to establish proof of the truth of the message. Here I have Ipāmat al-khūdjī, and that's just a mistake, it should be Ipāmat al-khūdjī. So this is one of the main things that the prophets have to do. This is also why the prophets of God, the messengers of God, are chosen among the very best of human beings. They are perfect human beings, they are complete human beings, beautiful human beings, honest, merciful, upright human beings, because this is also part of God's mercy in making the message clear, that the messenger is also part of that message, and the message of a person that inspires you to follow them. Allah says in the Qur'an, they were messengers, hearers, the bearers of good tidings and forewarners, so that after the coming of the messengers, people would have no argument for God to justify their misdeeds. God is truly overpowering all wise. Allah also says, oh messenger, proclaim all that has been sent down to you from your Lord, for if you do not do that, you will not have conveyed this message, and have no fear for God will preserve you from the people. So it's very clear that in doing this task, which our prophet did and before him Jesus and John the Baptist and Moses and all the prophets, that necessarily in telling the truth that God wants them to deliver, that they will say things that are displeasing. They would displease the oligarchies, the groups with self-interest, and so forth, and so therefore people will try to destroy them, as they did with our prophet and all the prophets before, but in this case God promised our messenger that he would preserve them. God will protect you. Allah says God does not destroy the people until after their excuses for disbelief have been removed, and he does that by sending to them messengers who establish the proof of God. This is also our responsibility as heirs of the messengers, that we have to live Islam and we have to teach Islam in a way that makes it clear that this is the truth, that this is the divine message. That's why one of the worst things a Muslim can do is to misrepresent the faith. And especially when misguided Muslims today do things that are absolutely horrendous, that no person with the right mind would ever do. This is an amazing, this is a huge sin because of the fact that this blocks people from the message. And it shows that it makes people think that this cannot possibly be true. Who are these people? What is this religion? We have to live this faith and we have to represent it right. Also there are intervals between the messengers. And we refer to these in Arabic as tattaraat. The word tattaraat in Arabic is with the pah, which we write in English as a t with a dot under it, pah. Here the letter is tatt, so it's petal. It is a gap, a period in between. And so you have then messengers who are sent in history and then their message is delivered. And always in the history of prophetic messengers, just as the messengers must be protected because of the fact that what they teach will not be popular. So also after the messenger is gone, those people who would have opposed him in life, they will now oppose him by trying to change the message or alter the message or get rid of it altogether. So therefore throughout the course of human history, you have the appearance of the life of prophecy and people like Abraham, for example, who illuminates the world with his message. And then you have those who faithfully keep the message. The most faithful of all people in keeping the message of Abraham were the children of Ishmael of the Arabian desert who kept the pilgrimage, kept the sacred months for thousands of years. The deviations that came into Abrahamic religion in Arabia, the worshiping of idols and other things like that. This was actually very late historically. It was only generations before the coming of our prophets, so to speak. The children of Ishmael kept the message very, very pure for a long, long time. So you have people who keep it, people who don't keep it. In the case of the children of Ishmael, one of the reasons why they are able to keep the message is because they had the Arabian peninsula and the Arabian peninsula is simply not accessible to the outside world. It has no rivers, it has no natural ports. It's huge and it has in it places for people to live who belong there, like the tribes. But outsiders cannot come in except with the permission of the people to live there. So the peninsula was like a fortress, a protection. And then, the house of God that Abraham rebuilt in Mecca and the sacred months, the institution of pilgrimage, and one third of the year, it was forbidden to fight and to have war. And the pre-Islamic Arabs were very careful about preserving the sanctity of the sacred months. In a many of our early commentators, they say that a man would need in the sacred months the person who killed his father or killed his brother, and yet he would not touch him. Because it was totally taboo. You do not fight during those months. This enabled the tribes to come together to make peace, to visit with each other, to intermarry, to preserve the Arabic language, this ancient tongue. Arabic is the most ancient of all known Semitic and Semitic languages, much more ancient than Hebrew, much more ancient than Haranae. And one of the reasons for that is the Arabian Peninsula that preserved its integrity, and then also the establishment of the pilgrimage. So in history, you have this question of what happens to the message of the messengers after they're gone. And in many cases, the messages are completely lost. They're distorted beyond recognition. And this is why the task of the scholar as an heir of the prophets is that we preserve this message. That's why it's so important for us to have knowledge. And it is responsibility of you and me and all of us that when we represent this faith, and when we teach it, that we do it authentically. And that means that we have to teach what we know is the truth. We have to show people that it makes sense and that it is the way to live, but we do not move the goalpost. Our values remain, our values, the truth remains the truth. And this is a major responsibility that we have. Whenever that responsibility is not kept, and the message is lost, then you have what is called a you'd have a gap in which ignorance comes. The message is lost, but then ends the festival by sending a new prophet. And then with the prophet Muhammad, so he said that who is the last of all the prophets and the messengers, he is given success in history, like no prophet before ever had. And then it becomes the responsibility of you and me, of his community, that we live that message and that we carry it on. Abu Hanifa says that the people who are born in the intervals are required to believe in God's oneness by virtue of their intellect. They don't have any excuse for not believing in God's oneness. That's his view. He said, even if God did not send a messenger, it is obligatory for people to have knowledge of God. There's a lot of discussion about these intervals between the prophets. And the Ash-Ari position basically is that people born in the intervals when the message is lost, they are not mukhada. They don't have takvi. But Imam Nauwi, who isn't Ash-Ari, he said, but there is hardly ever a true period of tattra. In other words, like we speak of these intervals between prophets, but in reality, they're never or rarely ever 100% intervals. In other words, usually human beings have an instinctive nature that believes in God, and they have legacies that they perceive in the past. So usually enough of the prophetic message comes to them that they know basically what is good, what is evil, what you shouldn't do, what you shouldn't do, that God exists, and so forth. And a lot of our scholars have taken that position that no matter what happened to the message of Jesus, or the message of Moses, or the message of earlier prophets, that there is a basic knowledge of God which is there among almost all people. And that that is enough to show them that they have to seek the truth and they have to try to find it in their lives. If they don't, find it, and they die as people of the interval, then God judges them according to what they knew. And now he says, whoever dies in the tattra, in the interval between prophets, in a manner like that of the Arabs and free ofonic kinds and worship idols shall be in the final. This is not a case of their being taken to task before the coming of the da'wah, because the call of Abraham did come to them, and that of other messengers indeed. People are required to think critically. This is very important. So no matter who you are, no matter what society you belong to, no matter what your social class is, you have to look for the truth. And the Qur'an is very clear. It repeatedly states that people who blindly follow leaders into misguidance will not be excused. They had intellect. They made this choice. It was their responsibility to seek out the truth. God says, when those who were followed into disbelief, disavow themselves of those who followed them as they witnessed the torment awaiting them, thus all ties between them shall be utterly cut off. And those who followed them shall say, if only we had a chance to return to the world, we would disavow ourselves of them as they have disavowed themselves of us. And another verse for us says, those leaders of disbelief against whom the word of damnation has come to pass shall say to those who followed them, our Lord, those we deluded, we deluded only because we ourselves were deluded. We disavowed before you their claims. It was not us whom they worshiped. In another verse, they will say, our Lord indeed, we obeyed our leaders and the great ones among us. So it is they who have made us stray from the path of righteousness. Our Lord give them double torment, curse them with the terrible curse. And when they shall dispute with one another in the fire, the weak shall say to those who were arrogant, indeed we were your followers. Can you avail us even a little against the portion, any portion of the fire? Those who were arrogant shall say, indeed we are all of us in this, in it. God is already judged between the servants in justice. So it's not easy to make excuses. Human beings have the obligation to understand the meaning of their life, to search it out and to look for the truth. And it is our responsibility to make the message clear. Usually our scholars say that what is essential to the technique for the fulfillment of the technique is reasonable exposure. Being born in a Muslim family, for example, is reasonable exposure. Non-Muslims living among Muslims are often generally believed to have reasonable exposure. They should check this out. They should find out about it. They should be honest about this. The question usually is about people who live in remote areas where the message does not reach them. So the messengers then have the obligation to receive the message and deliver it. People in order to receive that, they have to be of age. They have to have aloo and then they have to have adequate intellect to be able to understand it. And then they have the imperative to follow it. That this is what life is all about. This is what the test is all about. And says, We God said, Come down from the garden all together. Whenever guidance shall come to you from me, then know that as for all those who follow my guidance, there shall be no fear upon them when they are assembled for judgment, nor shall they ever breathe over the life of this world. So this is a basic fundamental technique that when the truth comes, you have to follow the truth. Some of our great scholars, they say that when the truth comes to you, it comes like a mountain. And if you will embrace it at that time, it remains like a mountain in your heart. But if you don't embrace it, you know it's the truth, but you turn your back on it, then it will go away. And if it comes back, it won't come back like a mountain. It will come back as something much less than that. And if you take it then, then that's good. If you don't adopt it, then it will go away. And it comes back as something weaker and smaller. So we all have this responsibility that when we learn the truth, we have to be serious about it, and we have to follow it. We have to adopt it. This is what life is about. So among the natural corollaries of Guruvadaawa, this is something that is very important for us, it's not just that it validates the truth and that it gives us the aptitude to obey, but we must receive the message. We must preserve the message. We must live by the message. And having intellect requires that we follow our intellect. Receiving the message requires that we preserve that message and follow it. And this is our responsibility as a community, and this is especially the responsibility of the scholars. Scholars are the heirs of the Prophet, of the prophets, as we said before. As Messenger said, the excellence of the scholar over the ordinary worship room is like the excellence of the moon over the other planets. The scholars are the heirs of the prophets. So authentic transmission then is one of the corollaries of receiving the message. And this is one of the reasons why in Islam, we follow imams. This is the way of Sunni Islam, that we have the imams in phil. These are imams. Why? Because of the fact that we know historically that these are people who took obedience to God seriously, and they put the bar of itch you had high so that whatever they tell you, when you go back to your Lord, you can say that this is obedience. This was obedience. It's very important for us to keep that bar high. This is one of the corollaries of receiving the message. God says in the Quran, we sent down the Torah. In it there is guidance and light. With it the prophets who submitted themselves to God gave judgment for the Jews as did the rabbis, the people of the Lord, and the scribes, because they had been entrusted to preserve God's scripture. So this is what scholars have to do. They are entrusted to receive the scripture and to live by it, to interpret it properly, to represent it in their lives, to stand by it. Because they had been entrusted to preserve God's scripture, and to this trust they were mindful witnesses. They were martyrs, in fact. That's what the word implies in Arabic. God said to them, henceforth you shall not fear people. In other words, you belong to me. You receive this message. You understand the importance of this. You must not fear people. You must not alter this message because of the fact that it's not popular, or because of the fact that some people accept it and others don't. You have to be true to it. Rather you shall fear me, nor shall you sell my revealed signs for a small price. You can't interpret this message in a way that betrays its truth. Whoever does not rule by what God has sent down, then such as these are the disbelievers. So reception of the message requires us to live by it, and to do proper if you have. This comes as a corollary of receiving the message. You must live by what we have received. You must judge by it. And this is the dynamic aspect of it. Misrepresentation of the message is the greatest scholarly evil. Inauthentic transmission, betraying the message, improper if you have. God says, so tribulation is for those who write the scriptures with their own hands, who interpolate the scriptures. In other words, they change the message and then say, this is from God. They do so to obtain thereby a small price. So tribulation to them for what their hands have written and tribulation to them for what they earn from it. Indeed, there is a faction among them who distort the scripture with their tongues so as to make you think it is from the scripture, yet it is not from the scripture. They say, this is from God, yet it is not from God. Thus they speak lies against God, and they do so knowingly. So this is very, very important, that we receive the message, to leave them, is fulfilled, and then we have the responsibility to keep that message to interpret it properly, to live by it, and to give it to others. To betray the message is to break the covenant. Thus for breaking the covenant, and this is in the context of interpolating the message and changing it, we curse them, and we made their hearts hard, for they altered the words of the scripture, omitting them from their contexts. They forgot the carbon portion of the Torah out of neglect of the very thing that they had been reminded to uphold. So therefore, out as a consequence of receiving the message, then we have the obligation to do ijtihad. And this is to interpret the message in a way that is correct. We want to open the door of ijtihad, we have to open the door of Tafbeed. We have to follow these imam who were honest and sincere in receiving the message and carry it forth on that basis. The fact that this umma of Islam is an umma of ijtihad is one of its highest honors. And it is a indication of the integrity of the companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the successors of the companion who received this message. When we look at the children of Israel, the children of Israel receive more prophets than any people before them or after them. And this is a great blessing from God. By this God ennoble them over all people. But it's also an indication of the fact that in the history of the children of Israel, there is a legacy of disobedience and of betrayal. This is the way that Moses was received and this is the way that all of the prophets of the children Israel were received. The main task of a prophet is to restore the law, to bring back the message. So in order to keep the law alive for generations of the children of Israel, new prophets were sent one after the other. In the case of our umma, the Prophet comes sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he delivers the message fully and then it is received by his companions and they are entrusted to ijtihad. They are entrusted to keep that message alive and to take it forward by interpreting it in a way that is authentic and genuine. And this has been the history of Islam, the history of great wujtahideen in all of the fields of Islam who receive the message, who honor the message and then who carry it forward. And this was given to us as a test but also the fact that this is the nature of our history. It indicates the great integrity that Muslims were known to have and that they have to have with regard to their message. So the finality of prophecy then indicates that these are signs of the special merit and integrity of the Islamic community. The children of Israel did not merit this. They had hundreds of prophets in order to ensure that the message would remain unchanged as long as possible. This is what the Quran tells us but this is also something which is borne out in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered after World War II in Jordan are biblical writings that were kept by a community of Jews in the Dead Sea who had received what they believed to be the authentic message, the message of Moses. One of the things that they write is that they have to have this protected community, this secluded community and secreted community because if they disclose the message that Moses actually taught that they will be killed and the message will be distorted. One of the primary beliefs of the Dead Sea Scrolls community is that they believe that the coming of the Messiah was near. In fact they lived in the Dead Sea Scrolls only decades before the coming of Jesus, peace be upon him and they believed that the Messiah would come and they would receive him and then after the Messiah would come the great prophet of the end of days who's called in the Bible the Deuteronomy prophet of 1818, the prophet that Moses said he will be like unto me and he will be from the midst of your brothers and whatever he says you must obey, you must follow and whoever hears that prophet and does not receive him God will take him to task. So for the Dead Sea Scrolls community that was the most important belief of all. It was the belief in the prophet of the end of time which is our prophet so long ago and they had to protect that message if they revealed that message as they say that that would not be acceptable for the children of Israel and they would be killed. So the keeping of the message is a great challenge, it is a great responsibility, it is a great difficulty and you know this is the foremost responsibility of the scholar and of the community. As part of this also we have the responsibility to deliver the message. And Lucy says it is clear that our home has the obligation to call others to the religion of Islam. We have general and specific obligations and you know this is one of the greatest ones that we have. Al-Imam al-Bazali says regarding our prophet he's be upon him that there are different categories of ignorance about him. There are those who do not receive his da'wah and have never heard of him and he said that these people shall certainly have regard. There are those who receive his da'wah and the appearance of miracles at his hand and knew his high moral character and noble attributes that did not believe in him. These will surely be people of the high. There are those who heard false reports of him as if he were God forbid an antichrist they didn't tell. For those I hope that they will be people of the garden because they never heard anything to await in their desire to believe in him. That's certainly the condition of a lot of people today. Let's go on now to the final lecture and then after that we'll have time for questions for you. So now we want to talk about the meaning of the word techleaf which I have called here moral and legal aptitude. Just as the intellect has different degrees so also techleaf has different degrees. There is a type of techleaf which is a burden which is the answerability that comes for people who don't respond to the truth, who don't care about the truth. So all human beings that are of sound mind have majority. They have this ethical moral imperative to see what is right and to do what is right. And in that sense a techleaf is a burden. It is answerability. It is responsibility. It is a duty. The other aspect of techleaf is that techleaf once it is embrace and once it is accepted it empowers. It becomes an aptitude to do good and to approach God and to be accepted by God. It enables us to approach him through fulfilling our responsibility. Let's begin by looking at the Arabic word. The word techleaf comes from the root kath lam thad. And again Ibn Fadis when he studies the root meanings of Arabic words he tries to take them back to one or two root meanings. And he says that this root has only one basic meaning. And it is the one expressed in the Arabic statement, keli thashay, which means that he loves a thing passionately. keli thashay is to love a thing and to be passionately attached to it. So this is the meaning that's at the root of the word. Out of this root they're developed other words that indicate undertaking something that involves hardship. Or difficulty. Mashaqqa or hardship also. The word khulfa in Arabic means difficulty. It implies mashaka. And literally the word techleaf means the imposition of difficult. It is when a khulfa is imposed on you. Okay but it's very important for us to understand that the kind of burden that is imposed upon us is for us a burden of love. In other words you know we have to receive the prophetic message that's not easy to do. We have to believe in the prophetic message. We have to live by it authentically and genuinely. That is the imposition of difficulty. Yet at the root of this is the love that we have for God and his messenger and the love we have for the truth. So techleaf then in terms of its root meaning implies a type of difficulty that is rooted in love and passionate attachment. We could illustrate that for example by the difficulty a mother has in bearing and caring for a child. That is one of the greatest difficulties of all. And yet the woman is miraculously able to do that because of the love and the passionate attachment that she has to that baby. It is like the difficulty a good person endures to care for the family the sick the elderly and others that we love. It is like the difficulty of a physician who loves and honors his profession or her profession and therefore takes care of the patients and bends it over backwards to do the best that they can. It is like the difficulty of a lover of knowledge which he or she endures to master that knowledge and to spread that knowledge to become worthy of it to be a scholar to be a teacher. Most profoundly it is like the knowledge of the man or woman who knows and loves God and seems to fulfill the rights of God's Roardship over us and to read and to read through service. This also implies that it is a difficulty assumed by choice. It is not a moral burden that we bear whether we like it or not. We gladly accept the Techleaf that God calls us to. Techleaf establishes the right of God's Roardship and the duty upon us of servitude. This is the most fundamental of all obligations. God is the Creator. God is the Lord. So we accept that right that you have over us and we affirm the obligations that we have to be God's servants and to devote ourselves to him ourselves to him. Techleaf then is more than mere moral and legal responsibility. It is more than just accountability but for those who have intellect and who turn their backs on it, for those who receive the message and turn away from it, the only aspect of Techleaf that they have is that they will be judged and that they will be held accountable. Techleaf though for the believer who accepts it and embraces it with love, it has an aspect of moral and legal eligibility. It is a type of qualification. It is an adequacy that we have, a capacity for competence. So therefore, full Techleaf is much more than just, it is that full Techleaf is full moral and legal competence. It is Ahlia as some of our scholars say. Techleaf is God's exclusive prerogative. God has the exclusive prerogative to make obligatory. What is obligatory to prohibit what he prohibits? It is his prerogative to make obligatory upon us what is difficult for us to do. And if he doesn't do that, indeed, gives us a way of life that is easy, that is a mercy from him. Techleaf is the obligation God composes upon us to hear and to obey. Qualification for Techleaf makes us fully human. Techleaf is the hallmark of the divine trust, the manner that each human soul carries. God says in the Quran, we offer the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains that they refuse to bear and we're here for others yet the human being for it. Techleaf embodies suitability for the trust. At Davusi says, the competence of the human being to carry out the binding obligations of the prophetic law is the trust that human beings have taken upon themselves. The human being is created as fully suitable to carry out the obligations of the prophetic law and to fulfill the rights of God's upon us. But fulfillment of this trust requires authorization and particular modes and preconditions. It is not natural law. It comes from the prophets and goes back to the prophets. It has continuity and it has community. Techleaf embodies the wilaya of God and the messenger. To have wilaya over a thing means to have complete control over it and to take care of it. And this is a fundamental characteristic of the lordship of God and in it comes our obligation to obey the command and to avoid prohibition. The bottom line of divine wilaya then is techleaf. God says and to God alone belongs the command before and afterwards. You who believe do not place yourselves before God and his messenger. God is the patron, the willee of those who believe. One of the things that I have in here before but you know when I redid this I think it out you know is to look at the word willee or wilaya which is the word that we're talking about here. Like a lot of Arabic words you know it has it has different meanings it like projects into other meanings. So the basic meaning of willee is the one that I just talked about that the willee is the one who owns something and the willee is the one who takes care of that thing. For this we get guardianship for example and then out of this you also get the idea of muscle of coming to the aid of others. So we in accepting the willaya of God we rally to his call and then God also protects us and then out of this also you get the notion of nearness to God which is the willaya that becomes sainthood. So technique then is the very it's the first type of willaya that we recognize that God is our Lord. We recognize that he created us. We recognize that he is that he owns us that we belong to him and therefore we also recognize that he takes care of us and we accept that. So this is the basic line in technique. Allah says oh you believe obey God and obey the messenger and those in authority among you and if you dispute anything then refer it to God and the messenger if you truly believe in God in the last day that is the best in Paris resolution of your disagreements. So technique means to accept the obedience of God in his messenger even if we not fully understand the wisdom behind the man and the provision. We live in the abode of technique technique pertains only to this world. After this world we go into the other worlds before the judgment and there there is no technique. There we only have the consequences of technique in this world whether we accepted it whether we rejected it. To some extent there is a universal degree. To some degree every person has moral capacity and spiritual responsibility. All creation as before and teaches us of deceit is God. Al-Baji says there is no difference among their ummah that non-muslims are called upon to believe. They are mukhatibun. God addresses them and calls them to take it. This universal qita, this universal address to believe has the most basic theological and moral components. Islam the prophet said cuts away yajumpu what came before them. Al-Qarafi one of our great scholars he says this hadith makes it very clear that non-muslims have a certain theological and moral competence before entering Islam. If they didn't then there would be no meaning to Islam's cutting away the wrongs that they have done. There is also a specific dimension of technique and this is the privilege of accepting it and coming into it and this is why fulfilling pre-conditions is essential. We must submit to Islam to have the gift of full technique which is this aptitude to please God and to approach him. Islam is based on God's prerogatives to impose technique upon us through his prophets and messengers. Islamic technique is theological, moral, legal, and spiritual authorization and competence. Technique comes with qita with perceiving the word. Qita the address that God gives to all people in revelation gives reception of God's command and prohibition to the prophets. It comes with qulub ad-da'wa when we are of age and able to understand. It implies immediate obligation to obey. There is a judgment with people. There is no judgment without people. We can illustrate that for example in the story of the son of Noah and of Ishmael the son of Abraham. Quran says, and Noah called out to his son who was in a place of heart, my dear son embark with us and do not be among the disbelievers. So when Noah calls upon his son this is people. This is the address of the prophetic message and when his son rejects it then this makes his son a disbeliever as the Quran says. On the other case in the case of Ishmael Abraham said my dear son I have seen in a dream that I am to sacrifice you. Consider this and tell me what do you think. He said my dear father do what you recommended. So Abraham's son hears that he calls. He receives the address of the prophetic message and then he accepts it. So then he comes in to pull Tiklid and he is pleasing to God. Tiklid is a weighty commitment. It is a dhimma. We use this word dhimma from a root which is to be unworthy of praise, to be worthy of blame. That is because one who does not keep that commitment does not deserve praise but deserves blame. Tiklid is a principal gift and mercy. Tiklid is the key to salvation. Tiklid makes us fully eligible for salvation. It links us directly to the living prophetic legacy. It brings even permission and continuity. Tiklid also allows us to draw near God and do him his pleasure. Tiklid therefore entails potential reward. As God says in the verse that we cited before, never do we punish a people until we send forth to them a messenger with divine guidance. But this also implicitly indicates that we do not reward the people also until we do not fully reward them until we send a messenger. Ibn Ashura says the verse only mentions punishment because its context is one of justifying God and establishing his proof against those who disbelieve. Its context is not indication of divine blessing but of the opposite of that. Yet it implies that if we receive the message and we follow it, then we deserve the greatest reward. And if we turn away from it, we deserve the greatest blame. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here and we'll take the next verse.