 فاضميّ عو بالله من الشيطان العين الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والصلاة والسلام على أشف الأنبياء والمرسلين السيدنا ونبينا أبي القاسم محمد المصطف العمين وعلى أهل بيته الطيبين والطاهرين المأصومين المظلومين بل رأيخوه بروبا والسيسرين في الإسلام السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وببركاته ربك أرشاماً ان أت rather to welcome you to a second episode of this brief series in which we will be discussing topics pertaining to what I think are some of the more important topics relating to this period of Fatamiya. في الأحيان السابق، نتحدث about the importance of discussing history, and whether or not there was an etiquette in discussing history, and most importantly on a day in which we were discussing something as sensitive as Fatamiya. ومن الممكن أن أقول في today's world with the exception of the question of how the Prophet ﷺ died for those who believe in particular narratives. This has definitely got to be one of the more heated discussions. And what do I mean by heated discussions? I mean that of course when we say that Fatima تزهراء عليه السلام was crushed between the rib, was crushed between the door and the wall, sorry. And it's asked who were the party which came and raided her house. Obviously when she has given the names of individuals who they believe did this. And of course that includes according to Shia's people who were respected, venerated and praised heavily by Sunnis. It's quite difficult to not see how this isn't a sensitive topic. And I think there's a degree of naivety. And as I've said, may Allah increase us in our humanity and our growth on the path to the little bait. We've definitely myself, definitely myself, have been included in this camp of naivety where we're thinking to ourselves. So what? So what if people believe in a certain narrative? It's false and therefore I can speak to them and address them in whichever way I want. Of course this lack of sensitivity, this lack of empathy, something you expect from an adolescent. It's something that's very common in our Shia circles. But we in our desire in order to come to a fruitful rationalization, awakening from the past. We want to move away from such an immature attitude in terms of looking at Fatamiah. And so that's why today I don't want to discuss something which is sensitive to anyone else. Fatamiah is a period of time in which every Muslim should definitely be aware of what happened. And I would never suggest that this is a narrative which would be censored. I would never suggest that this is a narrative which should only be confined to closed indoor Shia gatherings and never talked about, never recorded and never presented to the public. All I've suggested is that there's an etiquette in how we discuss and an etiquette in how we react to what we believe about Fatamiah. But what is the importance of revisiting history? There's many people out there who say things like you Shias, all you do is talk about the past. I remember there's a particular social media celebrity who forwarded himself as a comedian I believe in which he would do very cheap parody about famous Muslim dais. And what he would do is he would do parody of these Muslim dais, turn things into songs and what have you. You got very famous. Nonetheless, it's quite common with these YouTube celebrities to want to raise money for themselves and so he'll do these shows in which he comments on pretty much everything. Even the things that are far out with what should we call his pay grade or his area of expertise. I've even seen him reviewing debates and what have you. This individual once made a comment whilst interviewing a person who claimed to have left Shiasm and he stated that when looking into Shiasm, I got depressed. I felt it was a depressing religion. All we're doing is feeling sad and talking about the past. Now, I think that was probably just his sunny roots coming out because that's not to say that it's not to attack sunnis and make them sound like they're horrible human beings. May Allah increase the soul in humanity. Rather, I think there is a tendency amongst certain quarters of the sunny population to have that idea, to have that view that look well, Shiasm is just something that's stuck in the past. It's just something that talks about the past, brings up the past and it's a religion that rarely looks forward to the future and focuses upon the present. So, how do we discuss such an idea? Is such an idea true? Is it true that we ought to stop thinking about the past and stop focusing upon it as a main source of guidance? And I'd like to discuss that very, very briefly. First, I would like to say that when it comes to Shias and focusing upon the past, it's not merely just focusing upon the past. You see, if every time you walked into a Husseiniyah and the speaker would be giving lessons from the life of سيد الخوي or سيد محمد شيرازي or, for example, ميرزة حسن الإقاقي or, for example, one of the great scholars, then we would say that, look, when it comes to these Shias scholars, if 365 days a year we would just have our ختيب speaking about them as they did in their childhood, that could be considered to focus solely upon history. If you found that every time you walked into a Husseiniyah or every time you switched on to a Shia-e channel, all you had was a lesson on the culture of Keravela during World War II or the trade habits of market dealers under the reign of the Ottomans in Najaf. This would be what we consider a focus upon history. You see, when it comes to the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt, we don't believe that they're just historical figures. Shias believe that theologically these individuals are guided by God, that these individuals carry on the prophetic line and essentially deliver us the wisdom of the prophets which they inherited from the first of the Imams, who inherited it from the greatest of the Imams, Muhammad ﷺ, the last of the prophets. And so when it comes to this, it's not that we're merely looking back at historical anecdotes in order to narrate history. It's not history departments. We're not discussing abstract things which happened in the past for no benefit whatsoever. Rather, we're discussing because when you believe that those men who lived in history are guides and their lives are filled with examples of how they would react in difficult times in every day-to-day situations, obviously we wish to extract that wisdom and implement that into our lives. Do we not? And so it's not something that should be just dismissed as oh, well, they're looking at history again because naturally we're going to look at history because these are the guides from Allah and they lived at a particular period of time. And so because they're not with us in a way which is clear today, we have to look back into the past in order to extract their wisdom. Now, in regards to whether or not it's depressing to always just look at the past and the tragedies of the past, I can see how that is something which many people feel. Yet you have to understand that it's only through remembering the past and the tragedies that occurred in the past that we're able to prepare ourselves for the future, for the present, and what do I mean by that? When it comes to any major tragedy, the Holocaust, some of the greatest human rights offenses which have been committed in history and even small day-to-day petty theft and petty crime, I remember a show that used to be on when I was a very young child growing up in this country. It's called Crime Watch UK. Often when they would reconstruct a murder that would happen or a tragedy that would happen, you would have a person saying, oh, and perhaps looking back if I had just paid attention to this one thing, I could have stopped it. You see, through learning the intricate details of things that have happened in the past, failings that this umma has fallen into in the past, we can rectify ourselves so that in the future we can learn to not be like those in the past, to try and learn from the mistakes of the past. We often refer to things as trial and error, but some useful experts in the field have said that we should really be calling it trial and improvement for every time we try something and make an error we're able to grow from that error by making an improvement. And so if we can do that, if we can learn from the mistakes of the past, if we can remember with our hearts the heavy tragedies that befell upon the family of a prophet, this prophet who states and is quoted to have stated in the Holy Quran nonetheless that I don't ask you for any recompense for any reward for bringing the message of Islam to you except, except that you show love that you show respect to my family. You see, this prophet when we read about his attributes in the Quran we understand that he's not just a regular guy he's not saying look after my family because he actually thinks to himself well you know what I can get my blood relations sorted after all it's the same Quran which has a whole surah in condemnation of his uncle so we can't look at it in that shallow simplistic manner rather when we look at the Quran we see the sifat of the prophet we see that his heart is heavy because he wishes khair for the mu'mineen and so when he tells you I ask you to show love to my family he's not saying that because he wants khair for just his family he wants khair for you he wants khair for you oh human being and so in showing your allegiance to these individuals these individuals who were appointed by God it makes sense that you would weep that you would cry that you would be aggrieved by the sickening inhumane way that this umma would often treat and so when muslims come forward and say things like it's depressing it focuses too much upon the past they're really not looking at the benefits of history and how when we learn from history we can avoid the mistakes of the past a nation which is cut off from their heritage is often one which is cut off from an identity of self and so that's why we find that many of these African-American groups when they were first freed from the inhumane transatlantic slave trade they were robbed of an identity of self why they'd be given slave names they'd be robbed of their original languages their original folk ways and mores and they wouldn't understand what their original history was and so as it's been said by many of their role models by many of the leaders interested in the liberation and self-determination of African-Americans it's been said that when you rob a person of a knowledge of self when you cut him off from his roots and the past you're essentially confining him to the present without an awareness of where he's come from he's going to find it difficult to know where he's headed and so we as Muslims we find ourselves in a similar position if we don't understand the past and our link to it in this great chain we often fail to understand exactly why things are the way they are let me give you a brief example today looking at the rates of development in the Muslim world looking at the rates of education looking at the production of technology advancements does it seem like the Muslim world the traditional Muslim world is the leading light in that area does it seem like when it comes to the area of rights and I'm going to talk about human rights that Islam does believe in does it seem like were the leading lights in the area of the human rights which were actually brought forward by the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه و آله no and yet when we talk about the barbarism when we talk about the failings of contemporary Muslim countries it's often said well you forget that they were under the yoke of colonialism you forget that they were put through through the hardships of being ravaged and plundered by colonialism by an invading force which promoted to them an alien ideology one which detracted them from the original Islamic teachings one which brought them away from the spirit of Islam and as a result they now find themselves in a stagnant backwards and a static state of affairs we're unfortunately there's so much corruption that we don't know what's going on when we see this when we understand this we understand why we can never stop focusing upon the past because the past is truly a madrasa for us all where we pick up from the lessons of history and that's why some of the greatest scholars have all written books about the philosophy of history in Islam people like Sayed Muhammad in his book for philosophy of history people like Sayed Muhammad with his book people like a Shaheed Muhammad with his book on historical trends in the Quran we find that these individuals that history is like a moving ship and that was an example given very close to an example given by a great American historian by the name of Howard Zinn who says that history is a moving bus and you can't just choose to sit on the fence rather we need to look at history and we need to take lessons from what has occurred in the past we cannot be of those who are unaware because to be of those who are unaware would mean that we gain nothing from all those great things that those who came before us have done we learn nothing from the mistakes of our ancestors from the mistakes of our predecessors is this the state of affairs that we wish the Muslims to be in if it came to the past not being relevant then why is it that Allah Azawajal did not merely concise the Quran or make the Quran concise rather to such a point that all he would do is mention the life of the Holy Prophet ﷺ the reason Allah Azawajal did not do this because there is great relevance in the stories of the past we are not merely bound to things that happened in the present we are not sons of the present and how did the present come about we are not born out of the past and as we speak as we listen the present itself is slowly becoming the past so dear viewers dear brothers and sisters allow those who do not reflect upon their own lives do not reflect upon their own narrative do not reflect upon the bounties of Allah Azawajal to tell you to stop looking into the past there might not be anything you and I can do right now to change what happened back then but we can certainly make sure that these tragedies are to happen again in the future if any of these inhumane things are going to happen again but we would be able to get directly involved and put a stop to them dear viewers I believe that this suffices for this very important topic and I pray that you have all understood why we cannot just take the criticism of those who say stop looking into the past for indeed the past is important indeed the past is the predecessor of the present and indeed the present within a short duration becomes the past so the only way we can even consider talking of the present and the future is to understand the past and to learn the great lessons that should have been learned by those individuals who committed those mistakes in the past dear viewers please forgive me if I touched the nerve of anyone it's not been my intention and I pray that you all have benefited even slightly from what I've said forgive me for any shortcomings والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته