 As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Bismillahir rahmanir raheem in the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala most gracious, most merciful Alhamdulillahi wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulillahi wa ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma'in We praise Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala We thank Him upon all conditions We send blessings and salutations upon Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam His household, His companions We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to bless them and to bless every one of you And your offspring to come up to the day of qiyama May Allah bless them Say Ameen You must be wondering, I'm not yet married How am I offspring going to be blessed? Masha'Allah Don't worry When you say may Allah bless my offspring It is an all-inclusive dua to say May Allah give me the best spouse And then the offspring And then bless us all So just say Ameen Alhamdulillahi My beloved brothers and sisters in Islam Have you ever sat to think who exactly you are? You might say yes I did So who are you? I'm a human being Have you ever thought what is the meaning of the term human being? Adami in Arabic It is called adami Why adami? Do you know why? Because Adam alayhi salam was the first of humankind The first species Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created The first of this species was Adam alayhi salatu wa salam We are called adami Because we are the family of Adam Okay What a beautiful beautiful way to begin The reason I start this way Is because many of us forget That we are actually related We are actually related in many ways And we are part of one huge family O people We have created you from a single male and female Allah says O people Be conscious of your maker Be conscious of the one who made you He who made you from a single soul From one soul Speaking of Adam alayhi salatu wa salam And Allah makes mention of this in many places Within the Quran Do you know what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says? Allah makes mention of the beginning When we created you When we fashioned you Fashioning meaning We gave you your identity Your shape We gave you your posture We placed all the organs In the place that we knew was the best And then Allah says We told the angels to prostrate to Adam Adam was the first And you and I know That everyone prostrated besides Iblis Iblis who was the devil Why did he not prostrate? Because he said I am better than him I am better than this creature whom you have created O Allah From this I learn That when I don't acknowledge The favor that Allah has bestowed upon others I have developed a quality of the devil The devil was he who did not acknowledge The favor of others that Allah bestowed on them People make money Did they steal from you? No So keep quiet Thankful to Allah Be thankful to Allah Someone is more knowledgeable than you Don't be jealous Someone is better looking than you Don't be jealous And by the way We are all good looking Subhanallah We are all good looking Because it is so unique That the taste that Allah has kept Of what is termed good looking Within the hearts and minds of people What differs? You might look at someone say Ooh, beautiful And someone say What? What? In the English language They say one man's meat Is another man's poison But I will not say that The reason is It's not meat And it's not poison We are talking of looks Mashallah You might argue that I already said it But I said I didn't say it Okay So Don't be jealous At what Allah has given others Because Allah has given you Something unique as well You have something You might not know it You might not have recognized it But Allah has favored every one of us In our own unique way Amazing Some people are extremely intelligent But they are not wealthy Some are wealthy But guess what? They haven't really had qualifications Have you ever seen that? You find some people very rich And he'll tell you He just dropped out of school At grade seven Have you heard that? See, the yes means in Kenya We have some of those Mashallah But Alhamdulillah It goes to show That education and sustenance Are not necessarily connected Although we have to work hard And we have to rely On Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Why do I start this way? I start this way To show you the diversity That we have We have the wealthy We have the poor We have those who are extremely intelligent Those who might not be upon that level And when I say extremely intelligent here It's also speaking about those Who passed their O and A levels And secondary school examinations At the beginning The first time And those who had to repeat it twice or twice Before they passed And those who did not pass But they were dropped out For some reason You are never a drop out From the mercy of Allah Remember that You are never a drop out From the mercy of Allah Just remember that Bear that in mind And in the same way I want the mercy of Allah I need to understand That the rest of the people here Are my family members Wallahi I was seated in front of you For a few moments Filled with love For everyone Wallahi I was thinking to myself These are my brothers These are my sisters I may never know you personally But guess what? You have a place in my heart The reason is You are my family What was my great grandfather's name? Adam What was your great grandfather's name? Adam Subhanallah Where the mink came from I don't know But anyway It was Adam And after Adam It was Nooh Nooh Allah says in the Quran It was his family That Allah gave the continuity to The rest of them did not continue Which means I'm related to you through Nooh Aleyhi salam Guaranteed Your forefather? Nooh My forefather? Nooh And guess what? It's even closer than that If only you know I did a little DNA test I'm talking of myself And I was impressed To know 15 generations Going back Where I came from What happened And Subhanallah You might be wanting to know But I can tell you It shows that we are Really definitely related In many ways So therefore When you look at someone Look at them as though They are your blood They are If you were to cut me You would see blood If I were to cut Or if you were to extract Some blood from yourself You would see blood Subhanallah There are only a few blood types That you have on earth Amazing So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Created us from a single source We are human beings And that means We are part of one family It's not fair My brothers and sisters To think That you are the only one Who deserves to live Everyone else They do not deserve to live It's not fair In the same way You have a brain A mind Eyes A nose Your opinion Is very dear to you In the same way Other people have That right They all Have exactly the same idea So if you were to think You are the only one And they were to think They are the only ones You would clash You would clash You would not help you in any way Because There would be disaster and chaos Let's go back to the teachings From the time of Adam A.S Take from the Quran Take from revelation The scriptures that Allah has revealed Let's look at the version That the Quran has Which is the accurate version Allah says Allah says A beautiful story Of the children of Adam First generation Children He had many children According to some narrations His wife Hawa A.S Gave birth 20 times Mashallah Strong woman Alhamdulillah My brothers Don't compare And don't compete May Allah bless you She gave birth 20 times Each time She bore Twins Male and female Each time She bore twins So she had 20 boys 20 girls The ruling At the time Regarding marriage Was you were allowed To marry The one who was Not with you In the womb At the same time That was the beginning Of man Rules and regulations Were different And remember When Allah created Adam A.S He took From the various parts Of the earth Different colors Of earth And that is why The shades we have Are exactly the shades Of the soil Across the globe Subhanallah Have you thought of that? That's Allah Allah created us However Two of his sons They started becoming Jealous One of them Became jealous Of another Actually That's more accurate In Arabic The names Habil And Qabil In the English language The names Abel And Cain So Cain Became jealous Of Abel Do you know why? There were many reasons One of the reasons was Because As mentioned in the Qur'an When they gave a charity As per the instruction Of the Almighty Then One was accepted And the other one Was not accepted And if you go back To the reasoning behind that Allah says it In the Qur'an One was taken One was not taken How did the charity Or how did it become Known that it was accepted It was through The burning of the fire They would leave the charity On the mountain And the fire would come And burn the one That was accepted And if it remained there It was not taken So because One was given with a good heart He gave good What we would term stock He gave that which was pure That which people would benefit from Etc He gave it with a good intention Allah accepted it The other one Allah alone knows But Allah did not accept it So one became jealous of the other Why is yours accepted Mine not Now look Why I started with this example I was speaking about Mending relations today The theme is building bridges We have to build as many bridges Never destroy a bridge Remember when you destroy a bridge How are you going to cross it You need to build bridges As many as possible The last time I came to Nairobi Subhanallah I remember It took much longer To get around But today I noticed There are new bridges New flyovers What happened It took us Very short time to get here Although We didn't realize When they said We are starting at 2.30 They were talking about Zimbabwean time And we started For your information Exactly at 2.30 We were not a minute late But it was my time Not yours May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala Help us I looked at it Positively And I came up with that I hope you looked at this Positively too InshaAllah My brothers and sisters The point I'm raising When you build a bridge You get to Jannah In a quicker way You see You're building bridges You're building relations Why? It's your family If your real brother If your real brother Was astray Wouldn't you cry for him Wouldn't you try with him If your real sister One mother, one father Was astray Or they were deviant Or they made a mistake Or they were on drugs May Allah help us all Or they had a bad habit Or for example They might have left The deen For a moment or two What would you do? You would be worried You would be concerned You would cry You would try You would approach You would want to solve the problem But you would not want anyone To attack them Harm them Destroy them And say right You made a mistake I'm killing you Astaghfirullah That's what happened At the time of Adam Aleyhi salam What did you learn In the same way you want to Subhanallah In the same way You want to correct Your real brother Or your real son Or daughter You would need to have the same Passion for the rest of humanity Because we are all sons And daughters of Adam And we are all brothers and sisters But the problem is We don't ever sit And think about it We don't ever sit And think about it You are seated next To someone today That's your sister Or your brother Not just in faith But in humanity To begin with You share the same parents Subhanallah Somewhere up the ladder Do you realize that You could be different Racist colors Tribes That means nothing In the eyes of Allah It is only there In order to recognize each other Allah says We have created you In different tribes Different people In order that you Recognize one another You look slightly different Why I grew up in a different part Of the globe I belong to another tribe It is not in order for us To say my tribe is better And this is a sickness That we face in the ummah And on the globe at large Every tribe thinks That it is better than the other Every ethnicity Believes That I am more superior You want to get married They say no, why Those people are bad They say Those people are bad We all say this Remember this Even good people say this They need to sit and think about it To go back to Islam Go back to Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's teachings He calls it Jahiliyyah He says it is bad It is distasteful It is ugly and unacceptable To draw lines According to your tribes When you are human You belong to the tribe of Adam Those tribes are only there To recognize each other You are created with different facial features Not for someone to say Because you are not You don't look like me Therefore I am going to treat you differently No! It is in order to recognize Imagine if we all looked the same It would be boring You want to get married Join the queue Why? Next number It is like buying a bottle of coke And you just stand in the queue Each one collects from the crate We are insan We are human being We have been honored We have been honored By Adam Allah says We have honored the children of Adam We have given them honor They carry themselves in such a beautiful way Amazing! In another place of the Quran Allah says We have created mankind We have created mankind In the best possible posture I love it I love that verse Because when I think about it It is a lot challenging you and I Saying We created you in the best posture No other creature has a better posture than you And you If you think about it You can never come up with a better posture Than what we have given you Have you thought of that? And I love this And I am going to say it Some of you might have heard me say this before See your fingers? Can you think of any better way Of positioning any of these fingers? Or any organ of your body? Can you think of a better place to place it? Any organ Think of a better place Than Allah put it Imagine if your hair was not here What would have happened? Well, mine is not Because I am bald by the way But Alhamdulillah Imagine if your ears were not here They were somewhere else Think of a place I cannot Imagine if your nose was at the back What would happen? I wonder what would have been here then Maybe some hair You might have a hairstyle here In the front Imagine your teeth If they were not here Your mouth was not here It was at the back I wouldn't want to eat this way here So Allah says We challenge you We made you the best The highest Live in that way Why is it we are so honored by Allah? But we fight worse Than cats and dogs With people who are our family Like I said When you have your own son Your daughter Your own brother and sister Who have done wrong Wouldn't you like to reach out to them In a beautiful way? Well, the rest of us are brothers and sisters But because the families become too big We don't know exactly where we've been meeting But we know at the back We're met somewhere up the ladder It happens to us When you have big families Second cousin, third cousin They don't even know that we're cousins Because there are too many people And they don't want to know nowadays But we go back Learn from the Quran Allah says One became jealous of the other So what did he say? Straight up I'm going to kill you That's what the Quran says Cain told Abel I'm going to kill you Why? What do you want to kill me for? What is killing to start with? Who taught you how to kill? Shaytan The devil The devil taught him What to do to his brother Otherwise, before that Who knew what death was? They didn't know It was the beginning of creation Nobody had died yet That was the first death It was a murder Have you thought of it? The first death The first crime to be committed on earth In that regard was a murder And the first life to be lost Was through a crime What did you learn from it? Why did Allah mention it in the Bible? Why is it mentioned in the Quran? Why do we have to read it? And we just think Oh, that's a tale Abel and Cain Cain killed Abel I remember when I was learning it When I was young I used to mix up the brothers Which brother was the one who had jealousy And which brother didn't Until one day Some smart person told me Cain killed Cain So Qa When you hear Qabil You must say Qabil qatalah He's the one who killed And after that I never forgot it Like Dawood and Suleiman When I was young I used to mix up Who's the father? Who's the son? They said Da is the dad Sir is the son I said, wow, beautiful Subhanallah You'll never forget that now, right? Dawood is the dad Suleiman is the son Da and sir Beautiful The same applies Qabil is the one who murdered Because Qa is qatal Cain killed Abel Okay So Cain was this guy Who had a Cain in his mind Why? He hated his brother Only because Allah blessed him My brothers and sisters What is the biggest blessing You have today? What is the biggest blessing? Isn't it your Eman Your faith Your conviction And thereafter Everything else follows In the same way You would not want people To kill you And harm you Because of your choice of faith You should not kill them And harm them Because of their choice of faith Subhanallah We are struggling as an ummah We are destroying ourselves As an ummah Because we've become people Who don't understand this Allah kept a day of judgment To judge people You don't need to say Because I differ with this person Halas I'm going to be nasty to them Don't be nasty Don't be nasty We have suffered enough On the globe All over By witnessing people Attacking those They differ with In one or two matters I will differ with you I'm a human I like this color You will like another I perhaps follow this faith You might follow another I tell you what I have the right To follow what I want And what I believe firmly Is correct But I am wrong If I believe That the others Do not have the same And equal right Because I'm a human Allah gave them the brain And the mind And they disagree with me Simple Build the bridge Don't destroy it How do you build the bridge Reach out to the people With your difference Reach out to them Speak to them Engage them If you have to Subhanallah I want to ask you a question We are living in a country Where we are in a minority I'm talking of this country My country that I come from Zimbabwe For example We are in a minority Mashallah We believe we are correct The Christians believe they are correct The Jews believe that they are correct Among the Muslims They are sects This one believes it is correct The other one believes it is correct The third one believes it is correct What is our duty? Don't we work with one another For one another We drive on the same roads Imagine a person I'm a Muslim I'm not giving a right to these guys You'll bump your car my sister That's not how you think You give right to anyone No matter who they are Even if the car is tinted Then you don't know That there's a ghost driving It's fine Nowadays they have those cars I don't know if you've heard of it They call them self-driven vehicles They're trying them out By the time they get to us They'll be working properly For now while they're still testing it It will be in the first world inshallah We only accept perfected items Positive way of looking at it My brothers and sisters What else? They're going to tell us You guys are 20 years behind We say no, no, no We wait for you to make all the mistakes When it's perfect We'll take it from you Don't worry May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Bless us all So imagine if you thought That I will not fulfill Their rights of the road Because they belong to a different sect Or faith What will happen? You damage your car You damage your life You injure yourself Because you are foolish They have a right to be on the road Just like you have Same way they have a right To live just like you have When you walk into the store Or when people walk into your business Do you say right Before you enter here Filling the application form What faith do you belong to? What inclination do you belong to? What sect do you belong to? How did you earn your money? They would not come to buy water from your place Never You would be at a loss Your business would run at a loss So we are ready to entertain people Of all sects and all faiths When it comes to our business That is only going to last a few years While we are alive We will benefit from it Why on earth are we not prepared To tolerate them in a similar way For something far more important And that is the dean and our faith What is more important? Belief, dean or dunya Your religion or the worldly life According to us it is your religion If you are prepared to tolerate people For something that is common logic That you have to tolerate them For regarding business and living And surviving Why can you not tolerate them For something much more important When the hadith says He says The prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam told Ali Ibn Abi Talib r.a. that If Allah uses you to guide a single person It is better for you It is better for you than all the materialistic items Of this earth So I will work I will build bridges I will continue Some may be guided through me Having touched them In a positive way Some may not be guided I did my duty What was my duty? To market the product What was the product? The dean For me to sell them Whatever my business is say I have a supermarket For me to sell them groceries Is less important But I do it But for me to showcase my dean I mean hijab I dress properly I am a Muslim I have a name I might have grown a beard etc And I am so kind And so polite To everyone They will be touched Guidance is not in my hands If the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Was told by Allah Inna ka la tahdi man ahbabta Wa la kidna Allah ha yahdi man yasha It is not you who guides It is Allah who chooses Whom to guide He guides whosoever he wishes If that was told to Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam And Allah told him Ma ala rasooli illa lbala hu lmubeen The duty of the messenger Is only to convey a clear message Convey it Once you've conveyed it The rest is in the hands of Allah My brothers and sisters That is called da'wah That is called inviting people Our duty is to invite Through what? Your character Your conduct You discuss with people Yes You market your product They will try to convince you About their product So what? They have the right to do it Just like you have the right to do it People will come to you and say And it's happened to me When I was young at school I had a friend I went to a Christian college And mashallah All the people of the majority of them Were not Muslim And a lot of them were Christian Most of them One of my closest buddies And you know when I once said This is a very important clarification When I once said that My closest friend was a Christian boy Someone actually said Sheikh It's haram to have a Christian As a friend How can you say that? I said my brother I'm allowed to marry a Christian Do you know that? How can you say it? You've misinterpreted the verse Of the Quran The verse of surah tul ma'idah Does not say you're not allowed to befriend The ordinary Jews and Christians It's talking of war It's talking of those who have betrayed you They've driven you out of your homes Those who have fought you Go and read the explanation The explanation of the Quran Surah al-Mumtahina Allah explains it The term awliya is being translated In surah al-Mumtahina Wilaya Talking of someone who is going to protect you At a time of war When you are going to be striking an alliance With those who have driven you out of your homes They have proven their hatred for you Then even your own father or mother Will tell you son Don't befriend those who have fought you Common logic Common sense But otherwise Allah SWT Speaks about that which is kosher That which is the meat or the food Of the people of the book Are you allowed to eat it? I know there might be some rules and regulations But the general verse of the Quran Is that Ta'amul lazeena ootul kitabahillul lakum Wa ta'amukum hillul lahum The food of the people of the book Is permissible for you And your food is permissible for them You cannot change that verse Never You cannot It was one of the last verses Revealed in the Quran For your information To marry a person of the People of the book I'm talking of the Jews and the Christians In Islam There is a permissibility Am I supposed to say You know what? I can't befriend you Not allowed to be your friend But I'm going to marry you I'm going to marry you You can love your spouse Even though she may not be A Muslim Technically I know you must be saying What did he just say? Go and read the Quran Don't argue with me That's Allah Yes there are rules governing it I'm not saying there are no rules But technically We know it's permissible It is a verse of the Quran You cannot deny No one can deny it Like I said It's one of the last verses Revealed Towards the end of the life Of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam So this young man tells me That you know what? I want you to become a Christian And he explained to me A lot of his detail I told him Well I want you to become a Muslim I believe in Jesus anyway It's you who doesn't believe in Muhammad Peace be upon him And we used to talk about it every day But we lost no connection In terms of friendship We were still friends Up to today He became a religious leader In Christianity And you know where I am sitting Subhanallah And up to today If I see him Interact with him Communicate with him We talk about faith But he's my brother in humanity Because he is also from Adam The problem is We become so passionate That we start hating people Rather than discussing the difference I hate this guy Why? Because I differ with him He belongs to another sect You know? Relax If that was the case We would hate everybody If your own brother Belonged to that sect What would happen to you? You would say You know what? He's my brother I differ with him I'll keep on engaging him I'll talk with him But I love him He's my brother Well we are all brothers And sisters Do you not see the logic? Don't let someone confuse you By telling you You're not brothers and sisters How could you say that? I heard one of the great sheikhs Saying You know our brothers The Christians And people fired at him Saying How could you call them brothers? He says Are they not our brothers in humanity? We were all astray at some stage We were all astray And in the same way We feel we are right They feel they are right If you're going to start Your own way of doing things And developing hatred You're going to end up like Cain and Abel Start hating on people Because something happened to them That didn't happen to you So what happened there? He killed his brother So Allah SWT Speaks about it Allah says Because he killed his brother He became from among those Who were filled with regret Filled with regret He regretted it Too late He's dead A lot of the people Who harm others Who have perpetrated injustices Against others They regret it Sometimes it's too late Sometimes it's too late I can give you a quick one Many people just go through a quick divorce Small difference of opinion in the marriage You know you like this drink And I like that drink Get out Go back home It's become as petty as that nowadays Petty They divorce And after a while they regret You know what? I shouldn't have done this Guess what? It might just be too late It might be too late That might be a light example A heavier example is When you harm people When you attack them When you kill them When you promote harming others Take it easy You want to hate the deed You may hate the deed But the individual You keep discussing Keep trying That's your brother Or your sister in humanity You share a relationship with them Just like you would When it was your own How would you like it if others Looked at your son or daughter Or brother or sister Or parent Who might be astray And they decided to harm them And attack them And you say No please don't Please don't It's my brother Allah says Even to Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Like I recited the verse I'll read another one Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says In alayka illa lbala Your duty O Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Is none other Than to convey the message Whether they accept it or not Is in the eyes of Allah Remember this What's your duty? My duty is to continue spreading good To continue reminding people They might remind me of something else I will remind them of what I know The goodness The kindness I would love that they were To accept Islam They may not And they might They might love for me To do something else I won't If I don't want But I respect them They are humans They believe in their hearts Something with a similar passion Of my own belief How can I say That you are supposed to attack anyone Who's different from you When that is the case Talk to them Address them And understand My brothers and sisters Somewhere up the ladder We were not Muslims Our forefathers Or whoever else Belong to another religion All together Someone was kind enough to come Either through good business dealings Either through expressing Discussing Relating Communicating In some good way They came And guess what We accepted the deal Why have we become impatient today Why It is this impatience that made us Speak about building bridges And this is why we say You mend the relationship Look at Abel and Cain Had they mended the relationship It wouldn't have happened He would not have killed his brother And there was a discussion Between the two of them Mentioned in the Quran Which goes to show That Abel Or Abel had tried with his brother To convince him Not to harm him He says Oh my brother He told his brother Oh my brother If you are going to extend Your hand to harm me I want you to I am not going to extend My hand to harm you Because I fear Allah Who is the Lord of the worlds What do I learn from it Why did Allah put that verse In the Quran Someone wants to harm you Fear Allah Who is the Lord of the worlds Why do you want to harm them in return Why? Learn from this verse The brother is telling his own brother To say I am not going to harm you The reason is I fear Allah This proves That those who harm others In the name of Islam They don't fear Allah You follow what I am saying? They don't fear Allah They create chaos They create confusion And they don't like people Who promote anything Besides that confusion I read you verses of the Quran Regarding the first crime And I am showing you the discussion that happened The brother says I am not going to harm you Because even if you harm me I fear Allah Please don't Let's engage in discussion Talk to me Let's understand each other We are brothers The brother still killed him When he killed him Allah says He became from among those Who regretted I read that verse After that Allah says From that reason What a powerful verse Allah says For that reason We wrote to the children of Israel We wrote to those Whom we sent the scriptures to That if you were to kill A single person Or you were to spread chaos And corruption on earth It is equivalent in sin To having destroyed humanity at large That's the verse of the Quran If you are corrupt Chaos You like to spread chaos And you kill people Even if you've killed one You are equivalent to the one Who has destroyed humanity Because you started a trend That will not end in a rush Look at the chaos we have Across the globe We are watching country by country City by city People by people In disaster Don't you see it happening? You read the papers You watch the news Every day you see people Fighting each other Burning each other Fighting each other Bombing each other What did you and I learn from that? We are watching them burning their houses We saw why they got to where they got to But we did not learn the lesson Sit down, relax Don't allow your house to be burnt in the same way Because tomorrow we don't want to be a statistic Where other people are watching the news about us Doing the same thing And we did not learn the lesson That's why we're talking about building bridges That's why we're talking about Mending relations Mend it Don't let your ego overtake you Mend the relation Try and keep trying Don't give up Learn from the destruction of others What destroyed them And understand that if you don't learn from their lesson And you don't stop yourselves from what they did You will end up in a similar way And no one wants to end up that way Look at the destruction None of us want to be destroyed So why is it that we keep on Doing the same thing that they were doing Before they were destroyed They started hurting each other Killing each other Intolerant of each other Based on what? Differences that I have I remember once we were talking to someone And he happened to belong to a different sect of Islam And the brother with me was telling me How could you speak to this guy? I said what's wrong? I said if I sat with you now We would also have our differences Even within one sect It's human We would be able to My duty is to discuss I am not saying don't believe that what you have is wrong Or right I am saying believe that you are right Believe that you are right Don't believe that what you have is wrong Believe you are right But understand the others have the same right To believe that what they are within is right And you have the human right All of you to discuss it with one another To talk about it if you want to To keep on engaging each other if you have to But you can never shove Anything down the other's throat This is why Allah says There is no compulsion When it comes to entering the fold of Islam How many people have declared Shahada? I have seen in my own life Countless people Whenever I have people who want to accept the Shahada I like to ask them a question Are you being forced? Is anyone compelling you? Are you sure? Your own free will? You are doing it for yourself? Because you believe? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes Then you can repeat the Shahada after me But if someone is forcing you I am sorry In Islam we don't force people to enter into the fold of Islam You need to thank Allah We are living in countries whereby Mashallah, look You are dressed with the hijab Thank Allah You have facilities to fulfill your Salah The Masajid etc. Thank Allah Appreciate these favours Because it has already been taken away from others Wallahi It has been taken away from others Appreciate it Learn to contribute to building the nation Learn Stop deceiving yourself Into believing that I need to harm and attack And believe ill about anyone who differs with me Because that is the way the others were destroyed And they are still being destroyed Where are we? Where are they? Let's look at another few examples Mending relations Look at Yusuf A.S Beautiful story I am sure we all should be knowing the story of the Prophet Joseph May peace be upon him The Quranic version Amazing It is the accurate version Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala speaks about The same quality of jealousy Who was jealous of whom? A whole group of brothers were jealous of one They planned his downfall I want to fast forward the story Towards the end It was very easy For Yusuf Joseph May peace be upon him While he was sitting in the position of authority The day that his brothers came It was very easy to tell His comrades and his chiefs Please jail them They have wasted 40 years of my life According to one of the narrations The gap was 40 years How many years? 40 But he didn't do that Why is his story mentioned in the Quran? We are relating to you the best of stories The whole Surah We hear it We read it We recite it We enjoy it What lesson did you learn from it? Zero Zero No lesson The man after 40 years He was in authority He could have jailed his brothers Fixed them up Punished them Like what some of us do With our own brothers and sisters We become a bit wealthy We become a bit in authority And we want to fix our own brothers and sisters Because he chose to marry someone from another tribe I don't ever want you to step foot in my house What's wrong with you? What did you learn from revelation? Godly person Those who are godly They promote harmony And peace And goodness And solution They build bridges They don't destroy A sign of closeness to Allah Is you are softened Allah says to Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam It is because of the mercy of Allah It is because of the mercy of Allah That you are lenient with them It shows you that leniency is a sign of The mercy of Allah When you are lenient with your family members Those who work for you Those who live with you Those whom you interact with Those of other faiths etc When you are lenient and kind with them That is a sign of the mercy of Allah upon you So don't be mistaken Yusuf alayhi salam What did he do? The best act The best act possible He was building bridges and mending relations Mending relations with those who had planned To kill him To harm him To destroy him To exterminate him Allah gave him authority It goes to show No matter how much people plan to harm you Or try to harm you They will not be able to reach you with harm In fact Their plan might be the same plan That will propel you into success Or a successful position Like the story of Yusuf alayhi salam So Allah says very clearly That Yusuf alayhi salam Ask them a question Do you know what you did to Yusuf and his brother While you were ignorant They looked at him and they thought to themselves No one knows what we did to Yusuf No one knows what we did to Yusuf Besides him and his brother So this must be Yusuf They asked him Is it possible? Are you Yusuf? Are you Yusuf? He says And listen to the answer Yes I am Yusuf This is my brother Allah has favored us Allah has favored us That was his first statement Why? I don't want to think about negatives He didn't say I am Yusuf this is my brother And now I am going to fix you guys That's what we would have said Yes I am going to fix you You see you will be jailed for 40 years We are going to destroy you Look at this look at that No I am Yusuf this is my brother Allah has favored us Had it not been for your plan I would not have been sitting here today I would have still been playing with you guys So it was Allah's plan You thought you were doing something negative But positivity And only positivity came out of the whole thing Amazing Look at how he mends this relation He says He says No retribution against you today I am not going to take any revenge Zero Allah will forgive you No And get dad and mom and bring them here Let's have a party Subhanallah Reunion Reunion With a party With mom and dad And everyone else After 40 years Of separation If you are not prepared To forgive You will never be able To mend relations Mark those words If you are not prepared to forgive You don't need to forget Forgive and forget is not an Islamic concept But forgive and forgive Is an Islamic concept You will have to remember it At the back of your mind You know what These brothers This is what they did to me I forgave them And I love them You don't need to forget it Completely Bear it It's a lesson If Allah wanted it To be forgotten totally He would not have mentioned it In the Quran Because why would he want us To talk about it For so many Up to eternity actually But Allah says No, learn a lesson From what happened in your past Learn it Maybe you want to speak about it In order to derive A positive message Or lesson Not in order to be negative So he says I forgive you And you know what Go and call mom and dad When mom and dad came They all gathered around And mashallah They spoke about the past And Yusuf Aleyhi salam Kept blaming shaitan In the verse He says Meem ba'addi anna zaghash shaitan Baini wa baini ikhuwati Allah has brought all of you From the desert And brought you here As Bedouins From the desert After shaitan had separated us As brothers We will not allow shaitan To do that So what's the lesson Look at how Allah loved this man so much Allah mentioned his story In the Quran Allah spoke about how he forgave Allah spoke about the beauty Allah spoke about his achievements Allah spoke about so much Because he forgave After so many years of hostility If you're not prepared to forgive And forgo You will not be able to build bridges You will destroy bridges You have to have a big heart Today All of us seated here All of us who are going to be watching this Or listening to it later on My brothers and sisters The message I have for you Take a lesson from this Build your bridges with your brothers and sisters Whom you may have destroyed them with Build them Mend your relations And Allah will speak about you Just like he spoke about Yusuf In this case He has stopped But Allah will mention you with the angels As he has promised It's a big thing It requires great courage and strength To forgive The one who forgives is the more powerful person It is a sign of strength We all have issues and problems and matters That's why we are here To remind us to say Don't let those matters and issues Make you forget the fact That you are actually brothers and sisters He who forgives shall be forgiven by Allah You have mercy upon those on earth And the one in the heavens will have mercy upon you I want to end with one more example You know at the time of Muhammad The people of Quraish Who did not accept the message They harmed the Muslims They attacked them They even murdered some of them They drove them out of their homes They usurped their wealth They perpetrated heinous crimes They attacked them They even murdered some of them They drove them out of their homes They perpetrated heinous crimes Against the Muslims They prepared armies to attack the Muslims The Battle of Badr took place The Battle of Uhud took place The Battle of the Trench took place The Treaty of Hodebiya took place The Treaty of Hodebiya is a topic on its own Where we learn how to build bridges Subhanallah And we learn the benefit of building bridges But I don't have the time to go through The Treaty of Hodebiya I want you to go through it yourself In the books of Seerah The books of history What was the benefit of building those bridges With your enemies There was a lot of benefit A lot of benefit However I want to take you right through to the victory of Makkah Where the Mu'mineen marched into Makkah More than a hundred thousand Subhanallah And they were beautifully And orderly Arriving within Makkah-ul-Mukarrama in large numbers Huge armies And the people of Makkah Knew that there is no way That we are going to survive today No way There is only one way This man If he has mercy on us That's the only way out If there is anything else We are gone He has the right to do What he wants with us Because we have done so much to them They wouldn't be wrong If they attacked and harmed And actually destroyed everyone But again Position of strength Authority The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Gathered them He told them Ya Ma'ashara Quraish Or people of Quraish It's similar to the question of Yusuf Alaihi Wasallam To the brothers When he says Do you know what you did to Yusuf? Here the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says Ma'adha tadunnuna anni fa ilum bikum O people of Quraish What do you think I'm going to do to you today? He could have said anything And he could have done anything Because they had wronged him And the Muslimin for a long long time What do you think I'm going to do to you today? They had no response Besides the murmur of some of them Where they said You are an honorable man You know what he says? I will tell you What the Prophet Joseph May peace be upon him Told his brothers Ifhabu fa antumu tulaqaa La tathriba aleykumul yawm Go all of you You are There will be no revenge or retribution against you today They were shocked This is the true quality of a Muslim This is the quality of the messengers of Allah Because it is really It requires power to forgive someone You are the most powerful person You have liberated yourself And all others When you forgive You liberate yourself For as long as you held it There was a burden There was hatred There was plotting There was planning There was harm There was loss of wealth There was loss of life There was so much of damage No Learn These people had not accepted Islam They were no ordinary disbelievers They were the kufar of Quraish They were the ones who harmed and killed the Muslims And here is the Prophet He did not say Whoever accepts Islam You are safe If you don't We are coming for you He didn't say that He made a blanket rule Blanket He says You are free today There is no retribution What did he do? He mended relations That were destroyed for years These are my family Members This is my tribe These are my people This is my city How can I harm them and kill them And destroy them How will the city flourish and grow If there is going to be fighting and killing in it Brothers and sisters Look across the globe Check the fighting and killing Are those cities prospering? Are they prospering in any way? Do people even pray in peace? No Be careful Don't allow those examples To fly by without a lesson for you and I The lesson is I'm not going to repeat What history has taught me If I were to do I would only end up in a worse way Never Build the bridge Ensure that you make the difference Here is the Prophet Peace be upon him As a result of forgiving the people of Quraish Wholesale Most of them accepted Islam Because they were shocked They were in awe They were shocked Imagine someone's harming you With us it's just our relatives It's only our relatives who do that People who interact with us Normally people complain about My father My mother My son My daughter My mother-in-law Those are the complaints We're not ready to forgive The Prophet Gave the Qufar of Quraish Your mother-in-law is nowhere near that May Allah forgive all of us Your daughter-in-law She's okay Don't worry Never mind No retribution Give them their way They will come closer to you They will come so close Because you did the right thing My brothers and sisters This example is correct Not just for your relationships Within your families Not just within your communities Not just amongst the Muslims With different sects But amongst those who don't Share with you your faith as well Because here it is The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Gave you the highest of examples Today I spent one hour Speaking to you And I've given you example Upon example From revelation To prove to you That this faith and this religion Is all about building bridges And it's all about mending relations Mending relations And that is why The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Says Laysal wasilu bil mukafi Innamal wasilu l-ladi man Ida qut'i'a rahimuhu wasalaha A person fulfilling his relations Is not one who has A tit for tat relationship They do something You do something They give you a gift You give them a gift They invite you to the wedding You invite them to the wedding That's not a powerful relationship The hadith says The true maintainer of good relations Is the one who strives to mend The broken relationship Ask yourself Do I strive to mend The broken relations in my home In my life If the answer is no Today You have learned something May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Help us Put into practice What we have learned May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Bless you all May Allah bless all those who have made this a reality And indeed As the MC had said at the beginning No fidgeting No doing this I think I was the one fidgeting And I was the one doing the most May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala grant us ease You've been such a blessed audience May Allah bless you all