 I want to begin by quoting the Qur'an, the book of God, in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, God exalted and transcended is He. He speaks directly to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He says, Have we not expanded for you your courage, which is an idiomatic phrase, meaning have we not made you courageous? And removed the burden which was weighing you down on your back. And have we not raised your remembrance or exalted your name? So it's reported in a hadith, this is a prophetic tradition of al-haqim, that Adam, peace be upon him, Adam, when he was asking God for forgiveness, he was taught special words of inspiration from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or from God, transcendent and exalted is He. Of course, Adam did not commit a conscious sin, according to our prophetology, a prophet cannot consciously disobey God. But he had been deluded by Satan and he forgot the command. So he ate of the tree and nonetheless, he is in a state of repentance to God. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, That he had learned words of inspiration from his Lord. So then God relented towards him or forgave him. And according to this hadith, which is related by Siddh-e-Umar ibn al-Khattab, a companion of the prophet Muhammad, Adam said, For the sake of Muhammad, forgive me. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, And then God, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, manifested himself in no anthropomorphic type of way, without any type of modality. And he said to Adam, How do you know of Muhammad? And he said, Well, when you created me and blew into my nostrils of your Ruh of your spirit, again in no anthropomorphic type of way. I opened my eyes and I saw written on the arch on the throne. There is no God except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Muhammad is the messenger or the apostle of God. And I knew that you wouldn't put anyone's name next to yours, unless they were extremely beloved to you. And then God said to him, Yes, this is my beloved. If I would not have created him, I would not have created the cosmos. So my question to many Muslims is that when we know the name of the prophet is written on the throne and then God has said, Have we not exalted your name? What could any one person possibly do to compromise that about the prophet? Peace be upon him. No one can, no one can touch his rank. He's untouchable. It's like one of my teachers, he used the analogy of dogs barking at the moon. All right, because the prophet oftentimes it's a pair to the moon and a lot of devotional poetry about him. Peace be upon him. So when dogs are barking at the moon, does it affect the moon, the beauty of the moon as it traverses through the majestic sky? No, the moon doesn't even, it's not affected one iota by the barking of dogs, right? It continues to be beautiful. And for those of us on earth, the barking of dogs is just white noise, right? It's just annoying, but nothing can touch his rank. So the name of the prophet is Muhammad. And this is on the second verbal form in Arabic. It's a form denoting intensity or repetition. It's a passive participle, meaning the one who is constantly praised, right? Now Muslims, there are one out of four human beings on earth is Muslim. And Muslims pray five times a day. So someone right now in the world is praying to God. A Muslim is praying to God. 24 seven. And Muslims in their prayers will send blessings of peace upon the prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon him. So every second of every minute of every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, of every decade, of every century, of every millennium. 24 seven. Someone is sending blessings of peace upon the prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon him. And that's what's going on in the terrestrial realm. In the celestial realm, we are told in the Quran, Inna Allaha Wa Malaikatuhu Yusalluna Alan Nabi. That God himself, who is Allah, Rabbul Samawati Wal Ard. Khaliqu Kulli Shay'in. The one who created everything, he is sending blessings of peace upon the prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon him. So what is our praising compared to his praising, right? It's nothing. It's like putting a needle into an ocean and extracting the needle and comparing the ocean water with the water on the needle. It's nothing. When God praises the prophet, what is our praise of him? Absolutely nothing. So these ad hominem attacks, right, against the prophet. Peace be upon him. These are something, you know, these are things that don't surprise me. And if something is not surprising to me, it doesn't make me angry. Of course it concerns me, you know, I have concern for the human condition. I can know why people are doing that. But if you expect someone to do something, how can it get you angry? How can it anger you? If you're expecting to meet someone at one o'clock for lunch and they arrive on time, then that's fine. If they're late a half an hour, then you might become angry, but it's better to show patience. But if they call you in advance and they tell you, I'm going to be late a half an hour. So they show up half an hour late and then you get angry. Your anger is not justified. Because why? Because you expect this type of thing. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an وَلَا تَسْمَعُونَ مِنَ الْلَذِينَ اُوْتُ الْكِتَابَةَ That you will hear much from those who received the book before you وَلَذِينَ اَشْرَكُواَ And those who associate partners with God. You're going to hear much from those who received previous dispensations. Like Jews and Christians and many other people. That's going to annoy you. That's going to be offensive to you. But then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us how to react in these situations. But to show patience and to show self-restraint. This is the final, this is the best reaction. This is the determining factor in all affairs. That we show patience and we show self-constraint. Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, is reported to have said to his disciples and Matthew, blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil about you falsely. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven. They persecuted the prophets that came before you. So we have to understand that certain people have agenda since 2001, seven individuals were paid a total of 42 million dollars to denigrate Islamic sanctities. We'll get into more of that later. Insha'Allah ta'ala. So there's a verse in the Qur'an which says And God is speaking in the first instance, the holy prophet peace be upon him. And by extension to all of us, say they are not the same. Pure things and foul things. Even though the sheer amount of the foul things might surprise you. Even though the amount of these foul things might sway your judgment potentially. So it's interesting because when our youth go on the internet, the Google, whatever, and Yahoo, and they put in the name Muhammad, you have page after page after page after page of khaba'if, of foulness. And this is very dangerous for youth because they don't know how to navigate. And many of them don't know how to have access to qualified scholarship. And this is something that's interesting. This is kind of a genre of literature now is these ad hominem attacks against the Prophet. And they're very good sellers. The truth about Muhammad, Islamic invasion, there's one called Prophet of Doom. There's one called the psychology of Muhammad. The latest from Robert Spencer is did Muhammad exist? Right? This type of thing. I mean, these are things that we find in a bookstore, a whole genre of literature. And there's many things that aren't even reported by the American media that we read about from overseas. For example, very interesting thing. Recently a group of rabbis, they met in a place called Kiryat Arba, which is a a suburb of Hebron in Palestine. So it's called Khalil in Arabic. This is where Ibrahim or Abraham was buried. And they had a Majlis. They had a gathering. What was the purpose of this gathering? Was to send cursings or curse the Prophet Muhammad. La'an upon Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. This was the whole purpose of the gathering is to sit around and pronounce anathemas to curse the Prophet. It's really strange, but this thing happens. This type of thing happens all the time. And it shouldn't surprise us, right? Because Allah SWT, God tells us in the Quran that you should expect that to happen. You should expect that to happen. It doesn't touch the rank of the Prophet, one Ayodah. Not one Ayodah. Allah is sending blessings of peace upon the Prophet, God himself. Nothing can touch his rank. When tasburu wa tattaku. Show patience and self-restraint. And then it says fattakullah. So fear God. Fear God, meaning according to the exeggents of the Quran, to have self-restraint. Because violence is the language of the inarticulate. And no one was more articulate than the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He said, I was given jawami al-kalim wa jawahir al-hikam. Comprehensive and articulate speech, dropping diamonds and pearls. Every time he opened his mouth. Ya ulil al-bab, the Quran says. O people of al-bab. Al-bab is the plural of lubba. Lub is the core or the seed or the kernel of something. So the heart has these four spiritual layers. The sadr, the qalb, the fuad, and then the lub. This is the place of intuitive, not discursive cognition. The seat of essential understanding and discernment. Real knowledge. To preserve, to perceive the world as it is in reality. This is what happens in the lub. So Allah SWT, God is telling us. People of extreme intelligence. People of discernment. You should know that just because there's a proliferation of foul things, it doesn't make it true. Right? You should be able to discern. So that's very important. Now there are three ways of looking at the Prophet. There's three ways of knowing, according to our epistemology. The first way is by our senses. Called Al-Hawas Al-Khams. Our senses. And we know that our senses are extremely limited. So when you read something about the Prophet that's based on understanding him through the five senses, it's very dry. It's like reading a description of him in a history book. You know, names and dates and so on and so forth. But we know that our senses can also deceive us. Right? There's the classic example of the four blind men touching four different parts of an elephant. Right? And then they're asked, what does an elephant look like? And one says, oh, he's very long like a snake because he touched a trunk. One says, he's very light and floppy because he touched the ear. And one said, oh, he's huge and he's fat and because he touched the stomach. Who's right? None of them. Right? They're based, that's based on their senses. Even if they can look at the elephant, they're still limited. Because what's on the other side of the elephant? What's on the inside of the elephant? Right? So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says to the Prophet in the Quran When you call them to guidance, they don't hear you. You see them looking at you, but they didn't see. You see them looking at you, but they don't see. Right? In other words, they're looking with basar with their physical eyes, but the basira, the insight, the inner eye is blind. Right? They have hearts by which they don't perceive. They have eyes by which they don't see. They have ears by which they don't hear. They're like cattle or even worse. They're heedless, right? Seeing they see not, hearing they hear not. Neither do they understand. This is from Jesus Christ. Peace be upon him. According to the New Testament Gospel. So when people look at the Prophet through their senses, like many of his generation did, like this man Abu Jahl, who hated the Prophet and fought against the Prophet, when he looked at the Prophet, he said, This is he's an orphan from my clan. He's my neighbor. So he used to be a ra'i. He was a shepherd. So he's a Prophet now. He's claiming to be a Prophet. Why can't I be a Prophet? Right? He's looking at the Prophet through his senses. When certain Jewish elements in Galilee looked at Jesus, same type of thing. This is a carpenter, son of a carpenter. He's from a backwater town called Nazareth. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Right? As Nathaniel says in John. Right? They have a weird accent. The Northern Galilean Jews had a weird. Now he's the Messiah. Are you kidding me? Right? Why? Because they're judging Jesus. Peace be upon him. By their senses. That's one way of knowing something is from your senses. But again, the senses can deceive us. The second way of knowing something which is at a higher level is from the intellect which is called akal. Right? So to give you an example of how our senses can truly deceive us, Imam Al-Ghazali who's a great theologian and philosopher in the medieval times in his book Mishkat Al-Anwar. He says look at the sun. Someone who looks at the sun without intellect may come to the conclusion that the sun is no bigger than a dirham which is a silver coin. Say look it's only about that big. Right? But his intellect knows better. His intellect knows better. That it appears to be the size of a dirham but it's millions and millions of miles away. 93 million miles away. Or he says look at a small boy. He doesn't appear to be changing but your intellect knows better. He is changing. He's getting older but you don't perceive it but you know it's happening. Or he says describe a tree to me. He says you might say the trunk, the branches, the leaves. Is that it? You say no. There's also the roots. Right? He says well I can't see the roots but you know they're there. Your intellect knows better. But with the intellect as well we find that there's a limit. The intellect as well has a jurisdiction. Intellect cannot prove everything. Science cannot prove everything. Science cannot prove morality. Can science prove someone's moral morality over someone else's morality? No. Science is fundamentally non-moral. Not immoral, fundamentally non-moral. It doesn't deal with morality. It cannot prove morality. Science cannot prove metaphysical events. Things that happened in the past. Can it prove what I did last week? Prove it. No you cannot reproduce it. You can't prove anything. You can produce evidence. But can you prove it? No you can't. Science cannot prove human emotion like love. Can you prove I love someone? Can you prove I hate someone? You can't prove it. Or so he's sweating his heart. How do you know what emotion that is? How do you know what's going on in my heart? You have no idea. You can't prove it. Science cannot prove mathematics. It uses mathematics. It takes it for granted. Right? If you claim that science proves mathematics then you're arguing in a circle. It takes it for granted. So when people look at the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him through their akal, through their intellect. Non-Muslims they have glowing tributes about him because they understand just from intellect just from their reason that this was a great human being. George Bernard Shaw. He called the Prophet the savior of humanity. Thomas Carlisle. He said that he's my hero prophet. Alfons de la Martin in the history of Turkey 1870. He says that is Muhammad as regards the standards by which all human greatness may be measured. We may well ask is there any man greater than he? Michael Hart. He wrote a book in 1978. All Muslims know about this book, right? He said that the most influential human being in the history of the world was Muhammad. He's non-Muslim, right? This is based on his understanding on his research, on his akal, on his intellect. Then you have Gandhi, John William Draper and the list goes on and on and on. That's the second way of knowing. And then there's a third way of knowing which is called episteme. This is the highest way of knowing. Episteme is a Greek word it's a compound word. Epi is a preposition which means to stand which means to be upon something and histeme means to stand upon something. Right? So the analogy here according to Platonic Socrates is like standing on the top rung of a ladder and having a God's eye view of the world. To see the world in other words as it really is. True knowledge. This is called marifa in Arabic. Marifa. And it's by way of Hidayah. True gnosis is given by guidance from God. It's only given by guidance from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The Ahl al-Sufiya, the Sufis I'm talking about the true Sufis not the goofy Sufis. They call it al-alimul laduni. Knowledge directly imparted by God through mystic intuition. And there's evidence of this in the Quran. There's a person named Khidr in the Quran who encounters Moses or vice versa. Moses encounters Khidr. And Moses is a prophet and he has exalted status. He's a prophet. And he meets this man Khidr. And God describes Khidr by saying that we taught him special knowledge from ourselves. Right? Given either through a ru'ya a dream a vision or ilham or some sort of inspiration. I'll give you an example of this. And this is um and Allah knows whether God knows whether this is a true example of episteme but it's very very interesting. And it wasn't reported. It was only reported by one of the media outlets in Israel, Palestine. There was a rabbi in 2008 whose name was rabbi Yixach Khuduri. Right? And he died in 2008. He was 108 years old when he died. Okay? 108 years old when he died. And it is it had been his claim the last few years of his life that almost every night he would be visited in his dream by the Messiah that come to him in his dream. Right? And he would have this conversation with the Messiah. And he was declared a tzaddik this man rabbi Yixach Khuduri. Tzaddik means he's basically a great saint of Judaism. He had these visions of the Messiah. And then on one of the visions the Messiah reveals to him his name. This is my name. And it was embedded within a statement. Right? So he wrote it down and he told his son who was an 80 year old man he said when I die wait one year and then open this and you can read it and you can discover the name of the Messiah. Right? So rabbi Khuduri he died. A year later his son opened the this note he had written which the Messiah revealed his name. And it said in Hebrew Yareem Ha'am by Yixach Khuduri the Torah to Umdim. When you read this statement the translation is he will raise up the people and he will prove that his word and his law are standing. He will prove that his law and his word is standing. So initially Christians did not like this statement because it seems to slight their understanding of the Torah that it's been abrogated. Right? That it's we're free from the bondage the curse of the law as Paul says in Galatians we're living in the grace not that his law is standing. Right? So initially they didn't like this statement. But then we can actually extract the name of the Messiah from this statement. You take the first letter of every word and what do you get? You get Yehoshua Yehoshua actually Yehoshua which is the word for Joshua but it's also the Hebrew way of saying Jesus. Right? This is how you say Jesus in Hebrew. So after that many of the Jewish elements they didn't like this statement as well. But we Muslims have no problem with the statement. Right? We have no problems with the statement. Jesus is the Messiah. We believe that the Qur'an says so and the Qur'an says that Jesus said Musaddikalimabayna yadayamina ta'ura that I have come to confirm the essence of the Torah the law of Moses. Whether that's an example of episteme or not God knows. Just wanted to give you that interesting example. So we have senses we have akal and we have episteme. Now when we deal with akal with intellect the questions that we ask are what and how. And when we deal with episteme true knowledge we ask the question of why. So I'll give you an example. William Chidak uses this example in his book The Vision of Islam. He says, imagine you have a painting like the Mona Lisa or something and you tell a scientist to talk about this painting. So the scientist he runs a battery of tests on the painting because the scientist is oriented towards what and how. Right? So he'll say, you know, he'll do some carbon 14 test or whatever it is. He'll do some tests on the canvas and on the paint. Oh, say this paint is from 15th century Florence. All of these tests describing these minute details about the physical physicality of the painting. But then you ask a small boy. Right? What do you think about the painting? And the small boy will say, I wonder what the artist was thinking about when he drew this picture. So my question is which of these two has a greater understanding as to the mind of the artist. Which of these two is the second one, the boy, right? Because he's asking the question of why. What's the purpose of the painting? And it's the same thing with the universe. When it comes to the universe, we have what and how. What happened? There is a explosion of a primeval atom. How did it happen? Scientists don't really know. But Lawrence Krause says 13.72 something. I mean, they can date the universe to four decimal points according to Lawrence Krause. They can date the age of the universe to four decimal points. 13.72, five, six billion years. Right? But how did it happen? They still don't know how it happened because how can you get something from nothing? Right? That's impossible. When does that happen in nature? How can you get something from nothing? Right? So to believe in that, like there's an atheist named Daniel Dennett who said that the universe came from nothing, for nothing, by nothing. Right? It's an interesting statement because that's worse than believing in magic. Right? Because if I pull a rabbit out of my hat, I'm still producing something in its real magic, let's say. It's not an illusion. It's not sleight of hand. Let's just say I've produced a rabbit out of my hat. I'm still producing something from something. Thin air is something. It's certainly not nothing. Right? When we talk about nothing, we're talking about the absence of being. Aristotle said, nothing is what stones dream about. What do stones dream about? Nothing. Right? How do you get a universe out of nothing? So they don't know how this happened. Right? So ultimately, they're going to make a metaphysical claim. So it Daniel Dennett says, the same atheist, he says a universe in an unbelievable act pulled itself up by its own bootstraps. Can you pull yourself off the ground by your bootstraps? No, it's impossible. That's a miracle. It's a metaphysical claim. Either way, you slice it, we all make metaphysical types of claims. How do you reconcile infinite regression? Because it used to be that the universe was infinite in the past. Right? This was the standard model of the universe, that it was chaos and it has negative infinitude. And then God at some point turned the chaos into cosmos, into order. No one believes in this anymore. This is an old world view, an old cosmology. Right? Infinite. But that doesn't solve infinite regression. Right? There has to be a primary cause. For example, if you're someone standing in front of me and I say to him, I'm going to give you a hug. Right? But first I have to ask this guy behind me. Can I give him a hug? He says, hold on, let me ask the guy behind me. Right? And he says, hold on, let me ask the guy behind me. Let me ask the guy behind me. Let me ask the guy behind me. Let me ask the guy behind me. And this goes on at infinitum, like what they used to believe. The universe is eternal in the past. There's no beginning. Will I ever hug the man I'll never hug him. So when you ask the question, then who created the creator? That's tantamount to disbelieving in the existence of a universe. There's something here. Eventually I hug the man. Eventually there was a universe. How can you traverse an infinite number of events? It's philosophically and rationally impossible to traverse a negative infinitude. There had to have been a space time beginning, a cosmogenesis where space and time and materiality came into being. Who has the ability to do that? One who is necessarily spaceless, timeless and immaterial and apparently extremely powerful. Right? This is a simple answer. This is how we can philosophize. This is called the kalam, cosmological argument that Christian and Muslim philosophers have used since the Middle Ages. A philosophical argument that proves that God creates ex nihilo out of nothing. Right? So this is, can make a long story short, the atheist or the scientist will tell you what is the universe and he'll give you an idea of how it happened. But he can't tell you why it happened. This is where episteme comes into play. Episteme, ma'rifa, the highest type of knowledge. Why did it happen? This comes from God. This comes from Hidayah, from guidance from God. It's like one of my teachers, Abdullah bin Baya, who is a great contemporary scholar, wrote a letter to extremist Muslims. Right? And he said, He said, You know what your Lord said. You know what he said, but you don't know why he said it. Anyone can quote the Quran and justify anything. I can quote the Bible and justify the killing of anything, of children, massacre. I can quote anything and make it look like a terrible book. I can quote Thomas Aquinas and make him look like a homicidal maniac. I can quote Augustine of Hippo. I think anyone can quote anything. But the question is, why was that verse, what is the context? That's the most important thing. This is a higher level of understanding. So let's look at some of the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. These are statements of the Prophet, rigorously authenticated. All Muslims believe in the statements of the Prophet. Most Muslims have heard of them, but I'm guessing that most non-Muslims have not heard of them. So when we're dealing with the Prophet, the verse of the Quran that is kind of our anchor is in chapter 21 of the Quran, verse number 107, in which it says, And this answers the question of why was the Prophet sent. We did not send thee except as a mercy unto all the worlds. He was sent as a mercy to all the worlds. Al-alameen is kullumasi wallah. Is everything in existence except for God. He was sent to everything. He's a cosmopolitan shepherd. This is the greatest demonstration of God's mercy. And Aquinas, for example, Christian philosopher will say the same thing about Jesus. Because Aristotle said that it's impossible. Right? Aristotle was a deist, so to speak, that it's impossible for God to truly love man. Because they're not the same genus. Right? Like he'll argue that you don't really love your dog, do you? You don't really love him. You might claim, I love my dog. But do you really love your dog? He'll say no, you can't love your dog. He's not a human being. So how do you bridge this gap? How do you bridge the gap? Right? You bridge the gap according to Aquinas by God becoming a man and becoming the genus of a man. Right? In Islam, the gap is bridged by God sending messengers that he does not need to send. It is an act of mercy and love. There's nothing compulsory upon God. Right? So when we talk about God as a primary cause or the first cause, some of the theologians they don't like calling him that. Because they say, in your mind, when you think of a cause, you automatically attribute to that cause an effect. There's cause and then there's a necessary effect. If you're going to talk about God as a cause, you should know or detach this idea that he must necessarily affect something. He doesn't need to affect anything unless he chooses to. God is a free agent. He's al-fa'il, as Imam al-Ghazali calls him. So, this hadith is in Musnad Ahmad, the Prophet said, Qadha Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam ar-rahi muna yarhamuhum ar-rahman that God chose mercy to those who show mercy. Irhamu man fi'l-ard Yerhamu kumman fi'l-samaa show mercy to those on earth and the one in heaven will show you mercy. This hadith is taught to children at five years old. It's called hadith al-Rahma, the hadith of mercy. This is the hadith that sets the foundation of their Islamic education. There's 23 links in the chain of this hadith all the way back to the Prophet. 23 links that go back 1400 years is a sound rigorously authenticated hadith. Show mercy to those on earth and the one in heaven will show you mercy. This is what children learn at five years old. Another hadith. The Prophet said, laa tadkhu luna laa tadkhu lujannaa ta hatta tukminu wa laa tukminu hatta tahabbu You will not enter paradise until you truly believe and you will not truly believe until you love one another. Right? Love one another. And he said to his disciples or companions, shall I tell you of something that will increase your love? And they said yes. And he said, afshu salama bainakum spread peace amongst yourselves. Love and peace. Fundamentals of Islam. In case you didn't know. Another hadith. Qala Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam Ya ayyuhan nas afshu salama wa at'imu ta'ama wa silu al-arhama wa sallu billayli wa nasu niyam tadkhu lujannaa ta bi salam He said, oh people spread peace. Feed one another. Maintain ties of kinship. And pray in the night when others are asleep and you will enter paradise in peace. The person who related this hadith was a rabbi in Medina named Abdullah ibn Salam. Another hadith. He said, none of you believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself. And the commentators of hadith are unanimous that when he said brother here he's not simply talking about your Muslim brother. He's talking about your brother or sister in all of humanity that you prefer others over yourself. This is called altruism. In Arabic it's called ithar. Imam Nawawi he commented on his hadith and he said this means love for humanity. Brother and sister put them above yourself. One time Imam Nawawi he was walking down the street the same man who commented on this hadith he was a great scholar of hadith. He's walking down the street and a thief ran up behind him and snatched his bag and took off running. So the Imam what does he do? He starts running after him. He's an old man. He says running after the thief and he's shouting at the thief. He says please ask me for it. Ask me for it. And he says what? The thief says what? Ask me for that. And he says can I have this? He says yes. And he stops running. He didn't want him to be punished by the authorities. He didn't want him to be punished by God because he's stealing from a scholar. He prefers others over himself. This is called ithar altruism. This is the teaching of our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Another hadith ليس المؤمن بالله يشبع و جاره لجنبه جائع. He is not a Muslim or a true believer who goes to bed satiated while his neighbor is hungry. All right. This is in Bukhari. The Prophet when he was living in Mecca he had a neighbor who was a woman who did not like him and every morning she would put his she would put her filth on his doorstep. So every morning when he would leave his house and it was still dark he would go to the mosque and worship. He would have to cross over and move this filth out of his doorstep. Now one day the filth wasn't there. So now he's concerned. Now he's concerned about her. The filth is not there. Now he's asking where is that where is this woman? Is she okay? Right. She didn't leave any filth on my doorstep. So he finds out that she is very ill and about to pass away. So he goes and visits her and this touches her heart and she becomes Muslim and she passes away. Right. So the Prophet peace be upon him. He said Gabriel exhorted me to be so kind to my neighbor that I thought he would command me to make my neighbor my successor. Right. This is how much the love of neighbors is important. Like Rabbi Akiva said in the second century. He said Leviticus 1918 love your neighbor as yourself. That is the entire Torah and everything else is commentary. Another hadith the Prophet said He said facilitate things for people. Make them easy for people. Don't make things difficult. Give people glad tidings and don't drive them away from you. Right. So we talk about Islamic law a lot. Muslims have to pray. They have to fast and so on and so forth. We fast during the month of Ramadan 30 29 or 30 day fast. There's a story. There's a hadith of the Prophet when he was living in Medina. A man came to him and said Oh messenger of God I intentionally broke my fast during Ramadan. I couldn't help myself. It was one of the first few days of Ramadan. Right. So I broke my fast and according to Islamic law there's a kafara. There's an expiation you have to pay if you break your fast intentionally. Right. So the Prophet said to him you have to fast 60 consecutive days now. And he said I can't even fast five days and I couldn't control myself. So the Prophet said can you afford to free a slave? He said no I can't afford that. So then the Prophet said to him you have to feed 60 people. He said I have nothing. Feed what? I don't have anything. So the Prophet himself he goes out and purchases a large basket of dates and gives it to the man and says here take this and feed people with it. And the man says feed who? And the Prophet says al-fukara the poor people go give it to the poor people. And then he says oh messenger of God Wallahi I swear to God nobody is more poor in the city of Medina except my own wife and kids my own family. There's no one more poor. Fadahi kannabi The Prophet laughed and he said take this and give it to your family. Right. So this is justice being mated out of him by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. You break the law you're going to get punished. Right. This is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam fulfilling this man's kathara his expiation for breaking the law. Another hadith. This is a hadith of the Prophet that he uttered during the farewell pilgrimage Haja tul wadaa in front of over a hundred thousand people one of the last things one of the last sermons he ever made he made sure that there was hundreds of thousands of people that were there to record his statement. Right. And to remember what he had said. Treat women well. Treat women well. A man came to him and said Oh messenger of God Who do you love the most from amongst the people? And he said his wife. Right. And according to the Arab culture at that time it was seen as sort of uncouth to admit that you love your wife. Right. Wasn't seen as quite chivalrous or manly to admit that you love of course you love your wife but you will go into the tendency you know honey I love you but to say it out in the open like that. Right. So he's breaking this cultural norm and he's using her first name which is something the Arabs did not do either. Aisha. Right. He loves his wife. When his daughter Fatima used to come into his gathering his little daughter Fatima when she was very young he used to rise from his seat. Right. And he used to kiss her on the hands and on the forehead. I heard from a Muslim one time I was in a mosque a couple of years ago my daughter ran up to me I grabbed her and I hugged her and he said to me What are you doing? He's a stall fiddle law. May God forgive me. What are you doing? I said well what's wrong brother? If my father saw you do that he beat you with a stick. Said why? Back home in our country we don't even look at our daughters. Really? You don't look at your daughters? The Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who is best of creation according to our prophetology when his daughter Fatima entered the room he would rise from his seat a little girl walking to the room kiss her on the hands kiss her on the forehead. He used to pass his hand over small children who were playing in the street touch the tops of their heads and bless them. Make do offer them and he would greet them first it was very hard to preempt the greeting of the Prophet he would say Salaam to you before you even knew he was there right? Al Baad Iub Salaami Bari'u Min Al-Kibar the person who initiates the Salaam Alaikum the person who initiates the greeting is free from arrogance this is what he said and he would not let let go of your hand unless you let go of his hand right? And he used to talk to children by getting down and looking at them eye level instead of looming over them and intimidating them he was a huge man right? You get down and look at them eye level He used to play with his grandsons one time he was kissing his grandsons he kissed his grandson on the cheek in this tough Bedouin Arab right? And the Bedouin were very rough around the edges Mansaikin al-Badiata Jaffa the Prophet said whoever lives in the desert becomes harsh becomes gruff right? So this Bedouin saw him kissing his grandson he said you kiss your sons you kiss your grandson and the Prophet said naam yes and he said I have 10 sons and I've never kissed a single one of them and he was so proud of this fact I've never kissed a single one of my sons and the Prophet said there's nothing in my religion for those who don't have any mercy in their hearts there's nothing in my religion for those who have no mercy in their hearts right? So this is how he was with children another hadith he says اتعم الجائر وعود المريضة وفق العانية he said this is Bukhari and Abu Dawood he said feed the hungry visit the sick and free the slaves he said according to his wife Aisha and who knows a man better than his wife right? So this next hadith is not reported by a male companion who might have seen him once a month or once a week or something or in public places but never in private this is his wife Aisha who grew up in his household when she was eight, nine, ten years old she's been in his household and Imam Ali reports the same hadith almost verbatim and he was also raised in the household of the Prophet she says in another translation or another transmission ولا ولا دن she says the Prophet Muhammad did not strike anything with his hand did not strike anything with his hand did not strike a woman did not strike a servant did not strike a child this is what his wife says who knows better than his wife the Quran says you have in the messenger of God a beautiful pattern of conduct he said peace be upon him he said don't take the back of your beasts as pole pits right in other words don't sit on your camel don't sit on your donkey or your horse and start pontificating about things right dismount and then you can talk because it hurts the back of the animal so animal rights don't curse the rooster why because he wakes you up for prayer don't curse the we don't hear a lot of roosters around here do we but in pre-modern times we hear roosters right at the time of Suhur just before the dawn prayer another hadith Ayesha relates that the Prophet was not crude and did not engage in crude language he did not raise his voice in the marketplace which is very interesting because a lot of Muslim scholars they'll look for Muhammedin typologies in the Old Testament very much like Christian scholars do with Ayesha with Jesus they'll look at prophecies Christological typologies in the Old Testament and say these are fulfilled by Jesus in Isaiah chapter 42 we're told of a slave of God who's the chosen one of God and it describes him by saying that he will not raise his voice in the marketplace right so Ayesha says this that's what she says the Prophet did not return an evil for an evil but he would forgive and overlook the Prophet said there is neither facilitating harm nor reciprocating harm do not facilitate harm and if harm is done to you do not reciprocate harm right this is what he said we all know this famous story the Muslims know it quite well of one time a Bedouin again they're kind of rough around the edges he comes into the mosque in Medina it begins to relieve himself right and the hadith says the people got up and they were going to attack him in mid-urination which is a big no-no right so the Prophet said leave him and he said no turn around and leave him alone so then the Prophet himself approaches the man and he says he's all my Arab brother he's trying to make a connection with him so you know these are places of worship and reading of the Quran and remembrance of God we don't do things in here and the man honestly didn't know so he watched himself and he prayed with the Muslims and he became Muslim right because the Prophet showed him this gentleness this rifq right in the Quran we're told that God tells Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh and to speak to him qawlan layinan speak to him with mild words to Pharaoh who on earth is worse than Pharaoh nobody qawlan layinan who on earth is better than Moses nobody right one time the Prophet was in Medina and he was walking with Aisha and there was at times in Medina there was some animosity between Jewish elements and the Arabs right they're walking past a group of Jews and one of the Jewish men who passed by the Prophet he said very quickly sounds like but means may death be upon you instead of may peace be upon you so Aisha immediately jumps all over the guy and says wa alaykum wa l'anatullah wa ghadabullah right and upon you and the curse of God and the wrath of God right so the Prophet looks at her and says ya Aisha alayki berifq oh Aisha I exhort you to have gentleness I exhort you to have gentleness wa iyaki wa al-unth wa al-fuhush and I warn you not to have violence or harsh language right so then she says oh messenger of God she thought maybe he didn't hear what they said maybe he thought that they said salamu alaykum right so she said didn't you hear what they said and he said didn't you hear what I said right so he's setting he's the teacher he's making the example that's important there's a hadith of Anna Sibnu Malik one of the companions of the Prophet where he says that there was a boy in Medina whose bird had died his pet bird it was a bulbul a nightingale right and this boy was just inconsolable you know like children they love pets and then when the pet dies they're just you know for a couple days they're just inconsolable right so the Prophet heard about this and he said I have to visit him I have to think about this the Prophet from a from a temporal perspective is the head of state in Medina right he's got so much on his plate and he's going to visit a boy whose bird died right from a spiritual standpoint he's the Prophet of God he's the best of creation but he goes and visits his boy and he says to the boy yeah about Omer ma fa'alan nuhir oh father of Omer the bird's name was Omer apparently what did the bird used to do tell me about the bird and then the boy said he used to sing this song and he used to chirp in the morning you know it's therapeutic right so he used to visit children who were sick this was not he didn't say I am the Messenger of God what do you think I'm going to go visit some boy right he didn't consider it above below him the Prophet peace be upon him had compassion for everything and for everyone and this is evident in many hadith one time they were traveling to a place with a group of his companions and there was a shortage of food it was very little food and a companion named Abdullah ibn Muqaffal al-Muzani radiAllah ta'ra'anhu he found this piece of meat right a small piece of meat that he had and he puts it under his arm like this right so he gets down low to the ground and he says la'urati ahaddan minha shay'a and he just says it under his breath I'm not going to share this with anybody I'm not going to share this with anyone right and then he said he looked up and at a distance away several several yards away it was impossible for him to have heard him he sees the Prophet looking at him and the Prophet is smiling at him and it's a disapproving smile right and you can tell the Prophet was angry how can you tell the Prophet was angry one time said Narmad was reading something and he looked up and the Prophet was angry so he he dropped what he was reading they asked Narmad how did you know he was angry and Omar said he was smiling what he was smiling he said yes because the Prophet when he would get angry unlike us when we get angry we start cussing we start throwing things they're beating up people right we start acting like tyrants no no no when he got angry his face would turn slightly red there would be a vein protruding in the middle of his forehead and he would smile this is how he got angry did not raise his voice right so Abdullah ibn Muraf al al-Muzani he sees the Prophet smiling at him a disapproving smile so we called five other men and they all shared this little piece of meat that he had found right so the Prophet has concerned for his ummah even to that degree according to descriptions of the Prophet he's described as that he had the appearance of being grief-stricken right and so the scholars of hadith they elaborate on this and they say that in his isolation or in his solitude right when he was by himself he had the appearance like he was grieving but he was not grieving he was contemplating he was very contemplative he was raptured this little istighraq he was absorbed in the presence of his Lord right he was very contemplative and then it says that when he was with the people canadaim and bishraq but when he was with his people he was always smiling and laughing and this is one of his names at the haqq the laughing prophet the Qur'an says you're almost killing yourself with grief over them because they won't believe he had great concern for people the Qur'an says and there's no taqsees in this verse there's no specification that this is only for believers he says there has come unto you all a messenger it grieves him that you should perish deeply concerned is he about you want to tell you a story by way of comparison so in the book of second kings in the old testament we're told a story of a Hebrew prophet named elisha he's a Hebrew prophet according to Judaism and Christianity he's believed to be a prophet his name is elisha all right elisha is going up to a place called bethel and as he's going up a group of boys begin following him and the the Hebrew says very small boys and the boys they start making fun of him they start saying to him aley kareach in Hebrew aley kareach that means go baldy he has a bald spot get going baldy hurry up baldy so elisha a prophet of God what does he do he supplicates and curses them in the name of God then what happens these two bears bears come out of the forest and they completely rip apart 42 young boys for making fun of a prophet's bald spot right apparently he's very very sensitive we look at the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam he went to a city called taif right outside of mecca to call the people to Islam he was rejected by the people he was stoned out of the city by the slaves and the children and they were punching him his feet were covered in blood he lost consciousness pushing him down kicking him spitting on him right he collapsed under a tree in an orchard and were told according to our traditions that the angel of wrath descended and said oh messenger of God give me the word and we will destroy the city right and what he said Baal arju min asla bihim no i have hope in their descendants if they're not going to accept it maybe their descendants will stoned out of the city bleeding unconscious did not seek retribution sallallahu alayhi sallam on the day of the conquest of mecca i highly recommend people to read the biography of the prophet read about how he used to treat his enemies right the conquest of mecca people that had fought against him for years and years and years and years over 23 years constantly trying to kill him and have killed many of his companions and family members right he forgave them on that day la tathriba aleik mul yawm there's no blemish on you today there was a woman named hen bintu urtba who at a battle called uhrud cannibalized the prophet's uncle hamza cut off his nose and ears made a necklace split open his belly took out his liver took a bite of it this woman hen bintu urtba she did this and hamza was very beloved to the prophet he was only three years older than the prophet he's like his brother he loved him this same woman comes to the prophet on the day of tatham mecca on the conquest of mecca and she's completely veiled and she says to the prophet praise be to the one who made his religion victorious and the prophet says man ant who are you and she says this is hen bintu urtba and he says what kill her marhaban welcome marhaban this was his response sallallahu alaihi wa la alaihi wa sallam there's many many examples of this the quran says idfa'a billati he ahsan repel evil with that which is better repel evil with beauty right this is a great quranic imperative so the question is then if all of these things are true then why haven't we heard about them right I mean we always hear about Jesus on the cross saying pater afeis atois father forgive them right even though most by the way most new testament scholars don't believe that Jesus actually said that that was a later addition to the text nonetheless we hear about it all the time that doesn't mean Jesus wasn't merciful of course he was this particular text according to the majority of textual critics is not a authentic verse from the gospel of luke but nonetheless we hear it all the time but we don't hear any of these things about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa l-ali wa sallam and the level of misinformation staggers me and I'll end with this inshallah then we can eat and I think later we're gonna have a q and a so I gave a talk one time at a university to students of to masters degree students people going for their masters in religious studies like christian spirituality getting their mdivs one of the questions I got from a doctoral student doctoral student she said why do muslims worship muhammad they went so wait a minute do you think we worship so no why do you worship we don't we don't worship muhammad so you don't right so this is something that's just so amazing to me that the foundation of islamic theology is that there's nothing worthy of worship whatsoever nothing worthy of worship except god except the creator of everything no one else is worthy of worship nothing in creation has any intrinsic power in and of itself except god right but this is someone who's going to is almost a doctor of religion imagine the average joe schmo on the street what is he thinking about islam what's his perception about it what is he thinking about muslims what muslims believe what muslims what what their quote unquote agenda is in this country things like that it's really scary stuff so I hope that I might have shed a little bit of light on some things and maybe cause you to think about a few things as well in a different way so at this point I think I'm going to because it's past seven now and we're scheduled to have dinner so uh kind of let that marinate a little bit while you're eating and you can speak amongst yourselves and if you have any questions or comments I'll be more than happy to I think we're gonna I'm gonna come back up after dinner and we can do some q and a and I'd like to hear from you as well inshallah thank you very much and may god bless you sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin