 I begin in Allah's name, the beneficent, the merciful. Allah swt in the second chapter, which is the last verse, 286, is a very profound verse. Of course, the entire Quran is profound, but this is very interesting discussion we need to have in order to understand the function and why we exist on this earth and what do we need to do. Allah swt in the second chapter, 286, is a very profound verse. Translation. Allah does not impose upon any soul a duty, but to what they can handle, but to their ability. For it is the benefit of this soul of what it has earned and upon it what it has lost. Meaning, when you commit good, it's for you. When you commit evil, it's for you. And then there's a dua. As you know, this last verse has many qunud duas. We use it in qunud, but it's a dua. Meaning, Allah is teaching us how to worship, to believe, and to be the Muslims we are supposed to do, to be through the dua. He says, Our Lord, do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Meaning, Allah is merciful. He's telling us to tell Him not to punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord, do not lay on us a burden as you did lay on those before us. Meaning, there were those who had a lot of burdens which maybe to my back I cannot handle. Our Lord, do not impose upon us that which we do not have the strength to bear. Meaning, don't give me a trial that I can't bear. And pardon us. Grant us protection. Have mercy on us. You are our patron, so help us against the troublemakers, the unbelieving people. Now, this is a beautiful dua and it sets a standard for what you and I need to understand. First and foremost, the verse says, This is a very profound fundamental verse in the Quran. That Allah does not put a burden on any being more than it can handle. So even for a dog, even for a cat, even for an insect, Allah puts a burden on it just what it can handle. You and I have been given greater burdens because we are stronger. We are wiser. We are more intelligent. We can control our environments. We can predict the futures. We can plan our futures. And we can store for our futures. And we can learn from the past. So Allah says, So this is a huge conversation in the sense that when we look around people, there are those who are very intelligent, very capable of achieving high levels of success. And then there are those who are less intelligent. So we ask what will happen to the less intelligent one? You know, assuming they've not been endowed with that much intelligence because that is an inheritance of some sort. You will notice that by the standards of the Quran in a quick summary, a person of less intelligence in the sense of their capacity can occupy the same level of paradise as the one with the higher capacity of intelligence as human being. This might come as a shock to some of us, but this is the principle of adalat, the principle of justice in the sense that the way Allah creates. You'll find in our societies there are those who are extremely intelligent and they're able to lead societies. They're able to discover secrets that the average human being cannot. The taqlif, meaning the burden on that person or those kinds of persons, should be the ones to lead. And if they don't lead, and if they do not discover, and if they do not change their societies in more positive ways, then they stand to be punished because they were given the capacity to do something which they did not utilize. By the same token, the individual who is unable to lead, the individual who is incapable of seeing the bigger picture, they just don't have the capacity, Allah will not punish them for not doing it. So the Quran is setting a foundation. What you and I need to do in our lives is to recognize and realize what is our potential. What is our potential? Should I become a leader? Should I be in a position? What should I be doing for Allah? I'm a soldier on the battlefield. Should I be on the front lines? Should I be the nurse? Should I be the general? You see, should I be the regional, you know, the local commander? What's my position? It's like in work, you know, when you hire employees, you interview them, you hire them for different positions, but over time through experience and dealing with that employee or employees, the owner of the HR department can decide where this individual fits best in the business because they start to see their potential through experience. So Allah SWT has put that as an injunction upon us that we should recognize ourselves. You see, the nafs, as you know, is mentioned in three positions. There is nafs-e-ammara, nafs-e-lawama, and nafs-e-l-mutba'innah, three levels. In between there are more, but the three main levels the Quran talks about. Nafs-e-ammara is the material self, the selfish self that does not consider the world as a partner. And the nafs-e-ammara unique characteristic is I am not the problem, I am the solution, and everything outside of me is the problem. Classic example are children. When they are hungry, they can scream at three in the morning, they're telling the mother, I am not the problem, I am hungry, and you will get out of your bed and you will feed me. And you are the problem mom, if you don't serve me, you are the problem. Now is it bad? No, no, it's instinctual. The child needs to have that quality. They say if the baby doesn't cry, the mother will not know when to feed it. Because the crying is a sign of a child on its ability and its means of communication. That's why amazing when a baby is born, if it's silent we slap it to make sure it starts to cry. Because it's a sign, okay, it's communicating. So the irony of nafs-e-ammara though is that there are people in their 20s and in their 30s, they're still in nafs-e-ammara. They're in their 50s, 60s, 70s, to the point of their death, they're still in nafs-e-ammara. What is nafs-e-ammara? Nafs-e-ammara states the world is mine, I am the universe, and the problem is outside, very important to understand. That's nafs-e-ammara in the generic sense. Nafs-e-ammara is mentioned in surah Yusuf. The self has a desire to deviate, except by the mercy of God. Here, by the way, deviation is deep. Ammaratun bisu doesn't only mean deviation, it means consciousness. The second level, Allah mentions in Surat Qiyamah. Surat Qiyamah. La'uqusimu bin nafsil lawama. Allah swears by the self-accusing soul. The self-accusing soul is the one who realizes that they are potentially the problem and therefore they are potentially the solution. You start to introspect. You start to look at yourself as to how much of a ripple and waves am I causing in the universe rather than blaming the world in causing waves and ripple. That second level brothers and sisters, subhan Allah, if you and I and inshallah we will, if and when we reach that stage, we will have achieved much greatness. If you study psychology, you'll find human beings who are the biggest troublemakers are the ones who are in a state of denial. Where they are finger pointers, I've seen that by the way, even in day-to-day practices in business, even at the schools, parents will come and say the school is bad, the weather is bad, the books are bad, the surrounding is bad, the teachers are bad, everybody is bad. Would you say, well your child is bad? No. Your bad? No. Potentially your bad? No, impossible. There's nothing wrong with me. That state is a very ignorant state. We call that compound ignorance. It's when you're ignorant about your ignorance. That's the worst state to be by the way. Wisdom is knowing how ignorant we are. You might think wisdom is how much knowledge you have. No. Wisdom is knowing how ignorant we are. So we know our boundaries. So we know what to do with it. But when there is this compound ignorance, it's darkness upon darkness, that is where shaitan works the most effectively. He fools societies under that condition. If you look in the time of Imam Ali, as you know when he took the reins of power, you find that there were three groups he battled with. Three groups that challenged his position. Three groups that were unhappy that he became the commander, although Allah appointed him already. The willi of Amir al-Mu'mineen was appointed already. It doesn't matter if the entire human race rejects him. It's irrelevant. It's like if we reject Allah, it doesn't make anything different. But you find that there was one group known as the Khawaraj. They were a group of Munafiqeen. Today the ISIS type, the al-Qaeda type. Compound ignorance. They are so ignorant that levels of ignorance are at so many layers that if you say anything, it can and will be used against you. And to talk to them is very, very difficult. It all depends on their mood. On what side of the bed they woke up on. But they look very pious. In fact, in Nahrawan, when Imam Ali was fighting them, the soldiers on Imam's side were stunned as to how pious the other side looked. They looked very religious. But Imam says, don't be fooled by that. They're living in intense ignorance. They use religion to hold on, but they use the same religion to destroy the very thing they hold on to. And they say, ignorance is so dangerous. The Prophet said, the more sick quality of a human being is when they're in a state of jahiliya. Ignorance. How do you get out of ignorance? You have to introspect. You have to gauge. If you look at the law of nature, our young generations, when they're growing up, you will find that they are more loyal to their friends than to anybody else. They're more loyal to their friends than their parents. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. At that moment, the reason is not because they don't honor the parents. They're in that growth stage where they're reflecting upon themselves through people of the same group. They're in a state of self discovery. So teenagers and preteens, adolescents are in that stage of getting to know themselves. And they see adults and parents as their future. But at the present, they don't know who they are. They want to know. They look at themselves in the mirror and they want to know, am I normal? I have these habits, you know? I have certain habits. Is it normal? I don't know. And then you find they start to imprint and they start to copy friends. So there is always within the group of friends, if you study human social behavior, there's always one who's a trendsetter. In a group, you'll always find somebody in that group setting decisions, dictating where the group is going to go and what they're going to do. They're basically the mind and the emotion of the whole group. When I deal with kids and teenagers, even adults, I keep a careful eye on the trendsetter. Those are the captains of the group. Even when we have our kids at the camp and the groups come in, I watch who's the leader? Who's the one who sets the trends? Because that's the one you've got to watch the most. The rest will just follow. It's the trendsetter who can create trouble and it's the trendsetter that can bring harmony. How do you get to the trendsetter? How do you get to the captain of that group? You see? So that's another aspect of this conversation. But all those who follow, follow because they need some identity. They need some validation. They want security. If you ever want to really, really put a child in a precarious situation in a very uncomfortable situation, it's when their friends drop them. They no longer talk to them. It's like they were left in the middle of the desert. Mom can come and hug them. Dad will hug them. But deep down, somebody of their own kind has violated them and they will have a scar in them. That's why it's very important for us to maneuver and manage how our children develop their self-worth. You find children who have committed suicide, sadly, due to cyberbullying. They've never met the other person. But they have bashed them, called them ugly. They called them names, put them in bad situations, or taken videos that they edited and made them look bad and it went viral. And they could never reclaim their honor again because now it's spreading out in the cyber world and Reddit has copied it and it's waiting to be pulled forever. You know how dangerous that is? This is why Qura'an says, Do not backbite. Do you like to eat the flesh of your dead brother? It's disgusting, but we do that. Why do we do that? This is a discussion in itself. Our children, when you see them, many of them, they lack confidence. Fathers come to me and mother says, My son doesn't want to pray. He stopped believing in God. He doesn't. I said stop, there must be a reason. Every child is born pure. Allah creates everyone pure and beautiful. This child must have been victimized somewhere. Something must have struck them. And therefore they took it to heart in a serious way. And it is building in their subconscious and in their unconscious. And what it's doing is that it's manipulating them. And if you plug that, think about the potential of a child was massive and it just got stumped to a smaller potential. You know how debilitating that is? The taqlif capacity was debilitated because we looked down upon. I have met children who sadly, and we must take lesson on it. It's very depressing when I hear this. It's because of ignorance. Because jahlia. You want to see the damages of jahlia? You go into the nuclear family of every society and you will see somebody's hurting somebody. And if you talk to them, they don't mean it. Exactly. Because jahlia will destroy. And you don't know why you've destroyed it. This girl comes crying to me. She is extremely overweight. She says, brother, you know why I'm like this? From childhood, my father always called me ugly. Since the day I was born, he never wanted to spend time with me. And he's called me ugly. And I looked at her for the first time. I said, if you want to put a knife in somebody's heart and rub it, you do that. How would a father say that? Because of jahlia. And then we come and say, my child doesn't want to do this. By the way, I'm not blaming the parents. It could be outside forces. It could be something that we didn't even pay attention to. It could be out school. It could be the school the child is going to. You know how many children get bullied every single day? You know the kind of subtle bullying that takes place? It starts from very subtle smirks. But it adds up. Eventually it leads to violence. Literally grabbing the child, putting their heads in the toilet, smashing their heads, and they can't say a word because they're afraid the bully will bully them more. Should they say that? All of this bala is upon us. We cause it. Allah says, And God does not harm a human being, even an iota. It's humans who harm themselves. So we have an obligation in this month of Ramadan. When Allah says, We don't spend much time to understand that the Quran has vociferously with incredible amount of force told us, Do not bully. These verses, verses 11 and 12 of Surah Hujurat, which is Surah number 49, Read it. Make it an article of faith to recite it. All our young brothers and sisters should read it. Walk it, talk it. Have zero tolerance for any form of bullying because you are stunned. You're stunning the growth of this nafs that needs to reach nafs al-matima inna. When I see children that don't want to pray, they don't want to fast, they've lost faith, or they don't want to come to the masjid or to the centers, you see. Unfortunately, you come and I go a lecture around the world. We find in some places, Masha'Allah, it's a big vibrant young generation and some communities, it's just the old generation. Why? What went wrong? Oh, you know the young children, they're so excited to do other things. I said, Walt Disney figured it out. People say, you know, babies, children, even children like, you know, nine, eight, nine, they've got such a short attention span. Five-year-olds, oh, forget it. Can't even talk to them. Two minutes. I said, well, Walt Disney was a genius then because he's got these kids glued for hours and they don't even blink. You call them by name, they say, don't call me, I'm busy. So how is a child able to focus for so many hours? Because Disney knows how to present it. Although the story may be silly sometimes, but they know how to present it. We within our religion, we become very archaic. Or we say, ossified sometimes. We're the rituals that are good, do not get discussed as to why they're good and we are so judgmental and we bicker on petty issues. But in the same breath, we say, our religion is the best. And the child sitting on the sideline says, wait a minute, if it's the best, how come you guys can't get it straight? How come we're all fighting? And how come we are bickering on petty little issues? And how come we have so many assassinations of characters taking place within the same religion, all in the name of Allah, in the name of Rasulullah, in the name of Sohail Bey, and we say, Ya Hussain. How? This apathy stunts the growth of the nafs. It prevents it. It's very important for you and I to manage this child's growth and to give it maximum potential. The prophets say the child has three periods. Zero to seven, they are the princes. Let them ask you any question, talk to them, maneuver them, show them the rules. But don't punish them. Look at them, converse with them. But there's an achlach on how you raise a child. These are no rambunctious. They're very hyper, they can't sit. They're not hyper because it's the genetics. And then of course the doctors are ever so willing to prescribe it as ADHD and give them all kinds of anti, you know, these drugs and drug companies are just raking in the billions and the trillions. And this poor child is branded. Oh yeah, I was an ADHD child. I am an ADHD. I met a kid who says, I'm an ADHD. I said, sit down. Oh, the doctors told me. How? Well, you know, I'm an ADHD. So that's it. Throw some drugs at you. Brand them, put them in a box, ship them out. This is society today. And here's the problem. What you and I are failing to understand is that if we do not reach this properly there is a monster in the room. It's called the elephant. Do you know in the United States every week there are shootings in school? 52 weeks a year. Every week. Yesterday? Today? Today, the shooting took place in Texas. Fort Myers. 10 people killed. 10 kids and now adults kids. The shooting. You've got one side of the divide in Washington arguing by the NRA that guns are good for you. We're a very democratic nation but you've got to hold a gun like the Wild Wild West because you don't know who's going to attack you in the democratic country because we're very civil. And it's not enough to have a gun. Let's have the ones with the bumper stock on it so that I can kill 50 people at one time. Like what happened in Vegas. And we'll argue it's needed. Very important. And there's a direct research showing that the Australians gave up their guns. Crimes went down. But no. There's a billion dollar industry out there. Like the arms industry. Well, we've got to go and divide nations. Yemen is being bombed every single day by the United States and Saudi Arabia and everybody's silent about it. But we're very democratic. We care for humanity. In Gaza, people are being bombed left, right and center. But we're arguing about border dispute. This thing is a border dispute. There are no borders. The borders are much narrower than what you think they are. But no one's talking. Our children are watching all this hypocrisy. And they're confused. They're angry. And all he takes is a little YouTube video to trigger you. And the kid starts amassing guns because they can get it for very easy. And then they've got anger with the teacher. I'm in Columbine from what I understand. The kid was dating a girl and he said no to him and said, okay, I'm going to shoot you now. I mean, is that how it works? Why are our children holding guns and killing? Can you imagine going to school where you have to go through metal detectors and you got policemen all around like a prison? What kind of an educational institution are we going to become in the future? All of this is because we have stopped looking at the nuffs. We have proposed an idea of compound ignorance as the status quo of society. And we do not want to discuss such matters. Religion has become a place where we come and recycle our faiths. But this minimal conversation is to the values. And I deal with so many youth in the world today. And adults who come to me and say I'm at borderline agnostic, I'm an atheist or I'm losing faith or I stop praying I'm still a Muslim. I don't know. I'm not convinced blah blah blah blah blah. And I look at them and I say, you know, I'm not going to blame anybody. Maybe I'm not vocal enough. Maybe I need to be better. 100 times better. No doubt. But between us, this blessed month of Ramadan is a gift of Allah to solve this problem. People don't realize that when we get together and have your ta'a together and we recite dua'a left at ta'a and we have discussions and we fasted the whole day and you encourage this child to hold on to your free will. There is value in this. You are somebody. You are ugly. You are not fat. You are not stupid. I have zero tolerance for people who look down on others. I have zero tolerance for people who bully others. It's haram. Allah says you are committing a grave sin stopping the growth of a child. Today our children lack that confidence. But the minute you sit with them and you look at them positively and you say no. Oh no. You are very important. You are somebody. Whatever shape you are, circle, square, triangular I don't care. I like you the way you are and you are going to grow the way you deserve to grow. That's the deen of Allah. In these nights of Ramadan let's have dialogue. I've seen some of these young boys come in today full of akhlaq. They sit down. They are not fidgety. We need thousands like them. Sisters were sitting in the front. Thousands like them. That's what we need. Research shows human progression is when people sit and discuss. A Harvard professor was talking in Australia talking about principles of life and majority of the audience were university students. They were glued to this professor. Glueed. Pin drop silence. It's amazing. Pin drop silence. And as the professor is talking he is talking about politics, about societal rules. What are the moral arguments? What should we do as a society? What are the limits? And why do we have problems in politics the way we have with the presidency and so on? And he is discussing this and I am watching this you could hear pin drop silence and everybody is raising their hand oh we follow you, we listen to you Harvard professor, well known professor and they asked him what is the solution to the problems of our society? He said from the simplest perspective of research it shows when we get together and discuss such matters we become less deviant. What happens then is by law of nature we become introspective. I love when parents come to me even adults that brother we heard this lecture yours or somebody we got in the car it was a 30 minute drive but we discussed that lecture we asked each other what was the best part about the lecture what was the part that didn't make sense so that we have a dialogue he says our children have become very intelligent just through these conversations it's these gatherings these are the practical approaches to reaching nafs al lawama Allah said I swear by the self-accusing soul not in a negative accusation positive accusation how can I make me better how can I stop me being a problem not the one where you say I'm horrible I'm terrible I'm going to hell you know I'm damaged goods I'm ugly I'm dumb I'm depressed leave me alone I want to kill myself no those are not within the jurisdiction of deen when you and I hold on to the rope of Allah but there are many people in that stage why because no one gives them hope hope is to say by the way hope is the rope of Allah the day you and I lose hope we're finished so I conclude tonight there are three stages I'll talk about it from this verse I'll speak about it tomorrow in greater detail you will see that this killing that's taking place rampantly they can have all the conversations in congress they won't solve it they won't because when they stopped having discussions in schools and they turned towards an economic system that the impulsive nature of society is what makes the most money then you get an impulsive society that will damage you a society that sits and converses and questions existence and says why do I have problems can I solve it you know when children talk about God many parents say children come to you and say brother can I ask you a question can you convince me about God I do believe it don't get me wrong I said how much do you believe it I said because your father told you your mother told you the sheikh told you I said that's good you're going to yourself you're going to go and research it you're going to ask question you're going to find Allah because he's closer to us than a jugular vein Allah says we are closer to you than your jugular vein let's encourage each other converse dialogue and there is no dumb question ask it you will be surprised that the law of nature and when children hold on adults become the role models of Haq children love it if there's one thing you and I are looking for it's tranquility through security that means we're looking for people with confidence in order to have security in order to have tranquility and there are many fake ones out there that pretend to have security that pretend to have tranquility and then the drug abuse starts in communities 60-70% of our young generations are already smoking weed marijuana it's one of the most dangerous substances you can take it causes shrinkage of the brain tetrahydroconabinol actually causes your brain to shrink it causes you to be addicted but they come through medicinal values sure it has medicinal values but we all understand through the basic protocols that a physician needs to describe this direction not just freebie where you go to a supermarket and just pick up how many kilos you want or how many pounds of this stuff you want and the question you and I must ask as I leave this question to us all why is the world so eager to do it you know in the town I come from the shisha bars are packed on weekends packed it's smoky loud you get dizzy secondhand smoke with Hubble bubble that's the scientific name of shisha is more dangerous than the one of smoking let alone the one of smoking and they're hanging out there bouncing their heads all night and you're thinking that's a professional his $100,000 car is parked outside why is he here oh I'm too stressed I need to destress and the owners of those places are making millions and there's a rise in pancreatic cancer directly related to this kind of problem but doesn't anyone care because there's no solution to the problem we're all cycling ourselves to become rich and powerful and secure but there's no goal in it it's cyclical so it becomes empty the more you buy the more you do it's empty Allah says when you have zikr of Allah you have eternity you have goals you love this world but the year after is better it's perpetual and forever but how can it be forever without Allah so Allah says when you do my zikr then your souls will come at rest and when you keep practicing I conclude inshallah we will become who is the Fajr the Fajr return to your Lord radiatan maradiyah what an expression radiatan maradiyah there's one thing to be satisfied meaning Allah is so pleased that this human being took their potential to the maximum they maximized their intelligence and wisdom they avoided the suppression they avoided the bullying they avoided the fault finding they saw the blessings of Allah and they took it to its maximum you can see that whether it's now an earthquake or a solid ground they don't care because they're holding on to the rope of Allah Allah says come back well pleased enter among the believers enter paradise because that is why you were created for salawat ala Muhammad wa al Muhammad my time is up inshallah we'll continue this conversation tomorrow this is a problem that needs to be carefully reflected on but as a summary let us all start at the dining tables if you go for salah you sit together circle get together talk discuss have something to say whether it's an opinion a political opinion anything have something to say even if you're wrong get into it it's healthy peace be upon you all I'd like to wish you all Ramadan Mubarak thank you for the very powerful speech as we get ready for the prayers inshallah just two quick announcements one is that there is live broadcast of the program for every night and the link you can find it on the website IEC's website there's a link and you can also share with family and friends also the DVDs of the movie Muhammad Rasulullah which was displayed few days ago at IEC is also available for sale for those who are interested they can refer to brother Salimi on the DVD