 So I actually forgot what I was supposed to talk about in all seriousness. So what I was planning to do was just to mention something we've done before. As a reminder to myself and others, there's some of the basic elements that are essential to keeping our communities vibrant and functional. And based on the example of the first community, the prophetic community, sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And in the context being reminded of what the topic is, try to work in some of the things related to surviving as a traditional community in a post-modern world. So the foundation of this talk is the verse. Sallallahu alayhi wasallam. So Allah Taala mentions those who inhabited the abode and came to faith before them. So referring to the Ansar. Not that they came to faith before the muhajireen, but that they came to faith before the muhajireen, migrated to them. So those who inhabited the abode and attained the faith before them, before the coming of muhajireen, so referring to the Ansar. So here are the three critical things that are mentioned in terms of farming and maintaining and cementing a community. So the first is there has to be a location for that community. So for example, the establishment of this masjid is up to consolidate the communal life for the Muslims in this area. This became the daar, if you will. So walladina tabawu ad-daara. So there has to be a location for that community. Well-e-man and the cement that holds that house together is faith. We are a community of faith. And this to relate it back to the original topic of surviving as a community of faith in the post-modern world is to always remind ourselves we're a community of faith and anything else is a community of atheism and kufr. And I'm saying that bluntly because, you know, I'm watching our young people being swept away by a tide of kufr. Every day, some of you are children coming home, they're lesbians, homosexuals, they're atheists. Where is that coming from? It's coming from a faithless ideology that has its prophets, it has its ideas, it has its language, and the prophets aren't our prophets. The language is in our language, and the ideas are not our ideas. It's that simple. Right. Deenika, deenika. Inna hu damuka wa lahmuka. You're dean, you're dean. It's your life blood. Take it from those who are upright. Take it from those who are upright. That language, ideas are mainly being taken from homosexual atheists like Foucault. Foucault was a homosexual atheist. And a lot of our young people are taking their deans, they're dean from people like that. They're all atheists across the board. Many of them are homosexuals. And not to hate on homosexuals, but to identify the source of the deviation, the corruption, and the undermining of our children. So they have faith. Wala deena tabawak daara wa imana. They have faith. We are a community of faith. As we remain a community of faith, we'll survive this type. Because these ideas come and go, but faith remains. Faith remains. Who takes Marx seriously in terms of the original Marx engulfed the ideas? No one take them seriously. Those ideas came and went. And then Lenin, he tried to correct it. So you hear the term Marxist Leninist. Leninist ideas came and went. Who really takes Freud seriously these days? Freud and his ideas came and went. The Frankfurt School, Horkheimer and Ordonneau, and these people, the ideas came and went. Actually, they're still with us. For those who know this well. But eventually they'll go. And Islam has endured even before that. And it's still here. And it's up to us to keep it here. And one of the critical things we have to do is remind ourselves we're a community of faith. We're not a community that builds our worldview on language that's incompatible with the Quranic language and ideas that are incompatible with the ideas that are informed by the language of the Quran which gives us a Quranic outlook and worldview. And so that's the foundation of our community. We have our predecessors. We have those who preceded us in this land. We can benefit tremendously from them. We can, if you look at the enslaved applicants who preceded us in faith here and inhabited this door, those African slaves and those who came after them and people like who were in the nation of Islam even though it wasn't proper Islam but they had faith that was extremely Islamic and they weren't very good at it. They were not very good at it. They were not very good at it. They were not very good at it. That was extremely Islamic and they weren't going to give it up for anyone. They had to beat it out of Konto Kente. A lot of you saw roots. They had to beat it out of him and whip it out of him. He continued to resist and he ran away until they chopped his foot, his feet in half. They weren't going to give it up. Some of us, we get one deviant idea and we're ready to leave this land. It's so cheap. What's wrong with you? Well, I have philosophy class and they were talking about deconstructing and so I started thinking and I deconstructed my faith. You went to one lesson in one class and you had a faith crisis. That's how cheap your faith was. Talk to some of the folks who talk like that. I read Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. Now I'm deluded concerning God. I never ever, ever, ever, ever, now one time talked to one of these people and said, did you read The Devil's Delusion? Atheism and the scientific pretensions are critique of Dawkins, no. Did you read God's Undertaker by John Reynolds, who looks Dawkins to shreds? God's Undertaker has science burry religion. Now I didn't read that. Did you read the Calam cosmological argument? William Crane Leg, no, I didn't read that. Did you read anything to refute these ideas that took your faith from you? That's how cheap your faith was? It was so cheap, you didn't even try to hold on to it? You heard one thing that undermined it and you didn't do anything to strengthen it? Bits in the valley mean a better life. Bits in the valley mean a better life. What a cheap exchange you've engaged in. That is in the law. We're a community of faith, we're a community of struggle. If you're checking your emails or please leave the room, I don't mind it, but we're a community of etiquette and adab and manners. So if something is more pressing, I could understand that. I'm saying something so important that you have to stay in the room and listen. But you should do whatever you're doing other than this in peace and quiet, tranquility, without being called out. So please, if you have an urgent message you're expecting from someone, please leave, and then when you've taken care of your business, come back. May Allah give us tawfiq and tasheer and kabud. That's part of tradition. Traditional societies have codes of manners. And that's what our mothers and fathers taught us when they had sins. Now they'll tell you, why are you calling me mister? Don't call me mister, call me Bob. He's got 30 years older than you. Why are you calling me mister? Don't call me uncle, I'm not your uncle. Just call me Bob. No code of ethics, no code of sense of hierarchy. We don't believe in hierarchy. Serious problem. Traditional societies have hierarchies. Traditional societies have meritocracies. You earn what you get. Shifu Salah-e-Din, martial artists, they have a hierarchy. You don't get a black belt just to make you happy. Because everyone's equal, we have to equalize. We were going up, you were involved in sports. There was in track and field. We have young kids in our family, we were on track and field. There was a blue ribbon for the winner. There was a red ribbon for second place and there was a white ribbon or a yellow ribbon for third place and after that there were no more ribbons. If you didn't get a first second or third, you didn't get a ribbon. And that was a hire, everyone didn't win. No one was deceived about life. And so you don't work hard, you get a ribbon because everyone gets a ribbon, we're all equal. The person who was running 23 miles a day before school, before they went to school, then after practice stayed and ran up the hill 15 times and put in the work and that's why he or she got the blue ribbon, they're equal with the person who just sat and watched TV and channel surf and came in 30 meters behind them and then they got a ribbon too. That's just telling our young people you don't have to work hard. You don't have to respect those who put in work. You don't have to respect them. We're all equal. There's no hierarchy and they don't deserve that blue ribbon any more than you do. Then we go out in the world and everyone's having nervous breakdowns and suffering from depression and trying to drown out the pain of losing with opiates and OD'ing left and right because they've been told lies. They've been lied to. Now, God give us Tophik. And so we're a community of faith and as a community of faith we're a traditional community and as a traditional community we have hierarchy, we have merit, we have incentives and without that our region doesn't work. Who's on top? Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is on top. So this modern atheist formulation you just get rid of God and then you don't have to worry about that problem. Now Muslims, someone came to me and said a Muslim has a problem with the term Ibad Karama Wa Ibadu Rahman They had a problem with the servants of Allah. Why should Allah have servants? Why should we be the servants of Allah? We shouldn't subordinate ourselves to anyone. This is a Muslim talking. I have a problem with the term servants of Allah. So you're going to take it out of the Quran? Because only in equalizing everything we'll liberate ourselves. That's a lie. Only by becoming a slave to Allah will you liberate yourself from human beings and anything else in this world that might enslave you. And the great ironies of human society even if you're a physical slave you can liberate yourself. And that's what I said to you. Some people don't even like this. I'm going to get a lot of tweets probably. I don't care. I'm an old person now. I'm too old to care. I'm sorry. You could tweet. You could Facebook. You could do whatever you want. I'm going to tell the truth as I received it to the best of my ability and let the tweets fall where they may. The last paragraph in Surah An-Diouf ends her book which is entitled Servants of Allah. And the following fashion those Muslim slaves may have been the property of Christian owners but in their minds they were free they were servants of Allah. In other words, this religion has the power to liberate you even if you're a slave because our true humanity isn't in our physical condition. It's in our mental and spiritual condition. And if our mental and spiritual condition orient us to Allah SWT and places nothing higher than our relationship with Allah SWT our relationship with people means absolutely nothing. It means absolutely nothing because we're elevated above it. A person who is in love doesn't feel pain when they're thinking of their beloved and they're focused on their beloved. They're like, I just snatched you. You didn't feel it? I was thinking about my beloved. I'm sorry. My apologies. My bad. Now, what give us Taufiq? Praise? Taba'u Adara. Well-e-man. You have boon and love. We have to have love. This modern condition it sets up schemes that make it impossible to love. It makes it impossible to love because this scheme, if you are a white, heterosexual, rich, I'm sorry. Male, you're not supposed to love anyone else. You can't love black people. You can't love black people by definition because you're an oppressor of black people. You can't oppress someone you love. And as a white person, you're an oppressor of black people. As a heterosexual person, you're an oppressor of LGBTQI people. As a rich person, you're an oppressor of poor people. The opposite is true. If you're poor, you hate the rich people. If you're a black or brown, you hate the white people. If you're LGBTQI, you hate the straight people. If you're poor, you hate the rich people. But that community has black folks like Bilal and Umayman, Baraka al-Habashiya. It has Arabs like the Prophet himself, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Abu Bakr al-Ufman, Ali. It has Persians like Salman al-Fadisi, Asians. It has Europeans like Suhaib al-Rumi. And they loved each other because their love wasn't built on some scheme, imaginary that was concocted in the mind of some atheist Catholic. It was based on their shared commitment to Allah SWT and their shared faith. And that gave them the ability to love. And some of the Ansah who received them were rich. And they loved them. And those poor Muhajireen who some of them were rich in Mecca like Abdul Rahman bin Auf, those people who received them, they loved each other and they loved each other because they had a brother. They loved each other and they loved each other because they had a brother. And they loved each other because they had faith. They had belief. They had a shared they had a shared source of unity. Their Lord Hold to the rope of Allah the Quran altogether. And don't be divided amongst yourselves. They had a common rope that they could hold on to. The rope of Allah the Quran. And because they shared so much in common, they loved each other. Now our modern condition is telling us to hate each other. You have to hate each other. You have to hate each other. And look at the polarization in our society as a result. People doing things that you couldn't imagine. Assuming the right to destroy people's property because they hate them. Assuming the right to slander and verify people because they hate them. There's no hussn of ban in that program. There's no hussn of ban. So to such an extent that the scheme that's operative and many of the lives of the educated is that a person has a a right to interpret someone's speech solely on their interpretation with no consideration for what the person who spoke intended. Your words were harmful. I didn't mean to harm you. I always read people like that. That was a microaggression that you did intentionally. I said I don't even know what a microaggression is. I was just trying to like, you know, what's up? I said, what's up to everybody? No, that was demeaning and belittling. And so hussn of ban. I thought I didn't know you'd read everyone like that. No, there's no hussn of ban. There's only my max, my ego that becomes the filter of everything that might occur in my life. And in that scheme, there's no hussn of ban. It wasn't about it. This is part of the whole program. Well, I love to those two feet and make things easy for us. We had bunan, menhaj, yara'ilu, then there's hijra. A lot of you move to this neighborhood because of this community. You uprooted yourself and you came here. You uprooted yourself when you put your children in Zaituna College. I know families that did that. Why? Because hijra is an integral part of community formation. And again, what is the motivational factor is it's love. I love those people. I want to be with them. Al-marqu, ma'aman, ahab. A person is with love. So, I'm going to make an effort to be with those I love. So, we have place. We have faith. We have Iman. We have a precedent. We have love. We have hijra. Menhaj, yara'ilu. Then comes perhaps the most important part. You can have those things and you could build a community. And it can have these foundations. But if there's jealousy, there's shaitan. The first inviar. And the qayrul men. Why did why are they prostrating themselves to Adam? And it said you to the tashlif, wa laa, saajda tal ibadah. Not a prostration of worship, worship or prostration of honor. Why are they prostrating to Adam? They should prostrate to me. And the qayrul men, I'm better than him. Through envy, Adam, alaihi salam. And so you can have all of that envy will tear it apart in a minute. Yadibbu ilaykum. Da'il umami min qabdikum. Al baqda'u wal hasad. The disease of the nations of the communities, al umami. So, jealousy will tear community apart. Yadibbu ilaykum. Da'il umami min qabdikum. Al baqda'u wal hasad. The disease of the nations who preceded you will creep up on you. Hatred and jealousy. Hatred and jealousy. Hatred and jealousy. And so what does it go on to how does Allah go on to describe that community that was built along the prophetic model. Yadibbu ilaykum. And they find no jealousy, no agitation, no discomfort in their hearts based on what the others were given. Based on what the Muhajireen were given from the wealth of Bani l-Abiyah. No jealousy. No agitation. No discomfort. And they gave preference to others. If it stopped there, we could say Masha'Allah when it goes on even though they themselves had need for that wealth or though they themselves had serious need for what they gave preference to others in. So now if someone gets something and we don't get it we want to take it away. Right? We want to why does the 1% have everything? We want to take it away and distribute amongst the 99%. That's not a tsunami. We have zakat. If the 1% has all of that they're paying a lot of zakat. And a lot of sadaqah. If they have faith they're distributing that wealth. And the poor people if they have faith that's what they're doing. What are the poor people doing if they have faith? The poor people are saying, I'm glad I don't have to worry about all that money. I could worship my Lord. I don't have to spend time managing my servants who are keeping track of my money. I don't have to worry about kidnapping my children and holding them ransom. Because they know I ain't got nothing. Then I want a million dollars and I'll give you my bicycle. I don't have to sweat that. I can read my Quran. I can go to college, I'm on this class and learn the Quran at the time on my hands because I don't have to worry about managing all that money. I don't envy them, I feel sorry for them. And I don't know, it's envy. It's bitterness. It's hatred. May Allah give us tawfiq. Why? Because it's built in the foundation that encourages those things. Our ummah is built on a different foundation because it doesn't prioritize the life of this world. It prioritizes the hereafter. The hereafter is better and longer lasting. The hereafter is better and longer lasting. So I'll get through this world but when there's no hereafter and there's no Allah and there's no Divine Mercy and there's no bidwah or war to pursue there's no pleasure of war to pursue through patience and through charity then there's no foundation for being for contentment. I'll be content and I'll be patient and I'll get a Bibi reward in the hereafter because of that. People who are rich in this world many of them will be totally impoverished in the hereafter. And people who are poor in this world they'll be the richest people in the hereafter. Just as they're the richest people in this world with Qana'a, Laysa, Anketrat, Arab, Awilgina is not based on power up the stuff of this world. World is based on contentment with what you have. If I am my bicycle because the kidnappers realize I don't have no money and they had no use for my bicycle. I got my bicycle I could ride it to the bar and take the bar to work and don't need a car. I'm rich because I'm content with my little bit. I'm content with my little bit. But if I have a Tesla and then someone drives by in a Bugatti someone told me that's the most expensive car. Even more expensive than a Bentley. What was that? Oh man, that's a Bugatti. You got to get a Bugatti. If you don't get a Bugatti you ain't got nothing. And then I'm like, man, call it up. Listen, I need half a million taken over my account. They said, what for? Go buy a Bugatti, fool. I got to have a Bugatti. They didn't get a Bugatti. Then this car goes flying like shh. What was that? That was a new flying car. They got flying cars now? I got to get it. That person's poor because they need more than what they have even though they have a lot. They got a Bugatti. But they don't got enough because when they saw that flying car shh. I got to get one of those. I need one of those. Real wealth is contentment. It's not on the how much stuff you have. Some of you saw the stuff the photo collage of people and their stuff. They had the American couple with a mountain of stuff standing outside the garage with a mountain of stuff. They didn't look all that happy. Then they had the couple in Niger. Like their stuff was like this big. Like you could put a stick in a pillowcase and carry it away somewhere. And they had big smiles on their face. Big Kool-Aid smile. Some of you holding up to know what a Kool-Aid smile is. They had a big Kool-Aid smile from ear to ear with this little bit of stuff. Stuff doesn't make you happy. Wealth doesn't make you happy. Contentment makes you happy. Your relationship with Allah makes you happy. You saw some of you saw the optimism report. You could go with this stuff. Some of the most optimistic people on earth were the poorest. They had more hope and optimism than people who had mountains of stuff. Right here, America. Wealthy country. Why are so many people depressed? Why do we have record opioid overdoses? Why record alcohol related deaths? Not car accidents, physical cirrhosis etc. Why do we have so many people using heroin? Why are so many people dying in Mexico to determine who's going to sell marijuana and cocaine to people in the United States? 100,000 people over the last 15 years have perished in these drug wars because we have such a tremendous demand for dope. Because you're so miserable. That's a hood job. That's a roof. That wealth does not give you happiness. As the people said, money can't buy you love. Money can't buy you love. Allah give us tofeeq. And so, jealousy can dish to all of that. But those people had no jealousy because they had Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know, go for your stuff. Abdu Rahman bin Auf. Inside things had been rabbiya. There were two sides. One, the nobles of the Ansar side, but when he was made brothers, the Prophet made brotherly relations.