 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen, Wa-Sallallahu Alaihi wa-Sallam Wa-Barek, As-Saidana Muhammadin wa-Alihi wa-Sahbihi wa-Sallam. Rabbish Sahih is Tadri wa-Yasalli Amri, Buhl al-Uqtathim, Al-Lissani, Afqa Al-Qawli, Wa-Sallallahu Alaihi wa-Sallam Wa-Barek, As-Saidana Muhammadin wa-Alihi wa-Sallam. As-Salamu Alaikum, Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Burekatu, Alhamdulillah, I hope everybody is doing well. So we are going to continue this series, inshaAllah, on the trait of the righteous. And today we're going to be talking about the importance of avoiding argumentation, and especially when it comes to topics related to the religion. So in the time that we live in, and this is especially relevant given that we're doing this class after a very, very intense election period, after a very heated election, after a very contentious election, and after just an overall time that has a lot of disunity in the country, this trait of avoiding argumentation is something that is not very much practiced anymore. And it's really a lost trait in the time that we live in. Everybody wants to argue about little details. Everybody wants to argue about matters in relation to our life, matters in relation to dunya, matters in relation to situations, matters in relation to issues where they differ. And then especially this is true in terms of matters in relation to the religion. In our tradition, one of the things that the righteous really focus on is avoiding argumentation with regards to religious matters. Why is that? Because when somebody is arguing, you have a certain level of fitna, a certain level of division that is present, and that naturally invites shaitan to it, to that room or to that discussion. And when people are in a state of peace, and you know, a regular discussion or an educated discussion, there's no problem with that. When people are in that type of situation, that invites sakina. So we prefer to have a state of tranquility in all of our matters versus a state of difficulty and a state of turbulence and a state of trepidation. And so this is one of the most important traits of the righteous. And that trait is that when they convey the religion, when they approach the religion, when they go through a certain type of situation, when they are conversing, that they do so with what's known as ihsan. What is ihsan? Ihsan is, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in the famous hadith jabriel, that ihsan is to worship Allah as though you see Him, and know that if you do not see Him, know that He sees you, right? And so people who are aware that Allah is watching them, that Allah is with them, that Allah is present, Allah is Majood, they have a very different approach to life and a very different approach to their interactions with other people. And that is because they recognize that if Allah is watching, I have to be on my absolute best behavior. And that could be best behavior when you're in private and certainly your best behavior when you're interacting with other people, right? Because if you interact beautifully with other people, Allah will reward you for that inshaAllah. It's one of the high stations of the religion known as the station of ihsan, the station of beauty and excellence. So we have to see Allah and everything it is that we do and really recognize that He's watching us. That's the first way to get this desire to always argue out of us. The second way is to recognize that the importance of having mercy and compassion deep down inside. And so somebody who has mercy for other human beings, who has mercy for their fellow believers, who has mercy for their children, who has mercy for their fellow family members, they're not going to want to always get into disputes. So that's a very, very important aspect of it. Now let's talk a little bit about what we're covering here. There are different types of discussions that human beings have. Nobody is saying that discussions are not permitted and nobody is saying that difference of opinion is not allowed. Difference of opinion is a very, very common part of life. People would disagree on issues. But arguing here is defined as when somebody disagrees and they have such a strong level of disagreement that anger and raising of voices, yelling, these types of things begin to manifest. And it actually affects your relationship with the individual after the whole discussion is over. Right? But the kind of classical form of the word arguing where one is debating a colleague with proper rhetorical arguments, with logical arguments, with a certain type of structured approach, that is not at all considered a bad thing. That's intellectual discourse. So let's differentiate between intellectual discourse about any topic and just argumentation, arguing about the things for the sake of arguing. And usually we'll find that people who have a lot of knowledge, they're very calm and they don't get into small arguments or they don't get into big arguments about topics that are really not that critical or don't get into arguments at all. You'll find that people who have a little bit of knowledge want to argue about something specific because they believe what their view is is very, very, very correct. But this is why conveying with excellence and avoiding argumentation is so important. Allah says in Quran that, Qul, say this is my way and I call people to Allah with insight. I am those who follow me. And so again here you're referring to calling to people with Allah with a level of insight, with discussing, every conversation you have with the human being can be an opportunity to call them to Allah. If we approach life that way, if we have that intention, all of our conversations with each other can have some intention behind them that we want to draw people closer to ourselves and others closer to Allah. But what is this insight when Allah says in this verse, I call people to Allah with insight. This insight is that you and I actually care about human beings. And it is a deep understanding that we actually want good for other people. If we want good for other humans, if we want good for our family members, if we want good for our community and if we have a deep level of compassion and a deep level of care for them, we are naturally going to want to call people and discuss things with people with a level of wisdom, with insight and with maturity. Versus if we don't care about anybody, we just want to prove our way. And that's it, you know, my way or the highway, that's all we care about. We are not going to approach things with wisdom. We're going to approach things with anger, with roughness, with intensity. And it's just going to be about being right. So ask yourself this, let's ask ourselves when we're in a discussion or situation, are we trying to bring out the truth or are we trying to just prove ourselves right? Because the person who's trying to prove themselves right, they'll even go to the extent of lying, of fabricating things, of coming up with facts that are not really very solid, right? And to try to get their way to win. But somebody who's trying to get to the bottom of something, who's trying to get to the truth in any conversation, they will admit eventually if the person who they're discussing with or debating with, that if they end up, quote unquote, winning, if they end up doing a better job at presenting their argument such that they're actually, their opinion has changed. They'll admit that because they're not just trying to go for the sake of, you know, talking, they actually want to get to the bottom of a certain situation, right? So regardless of how firmly held one person's views is, views are, we have to keep that in mind when we're having these types of discussions. Now let's differentiate this. Let's talk specifically now about religious discussions. Now this is very important. Many times we're trying to get a point across about religion, to our children, to our family members, to our siblings. Those are the closest people around us. And then from there, maybe for involving community work to the community, to our friends, right? People who are engaging it. Now it's very easy in these matters, and Shaytan is trying to get us in these matters to get heated, very easy to get heated, right? That if somebody firmly believes that something is the truth, and somebody else begins to disagree with them, naturally the human being will start to become a little bit heated because they want to get the truth across. But the people of Allah, what are they? They are grounded. They are grounded in spiritual realities. And when someone is grounded in spiritual realities, and they're grounded in thicker, they're grounded in knowledge, they're grounded in a state of patience and helm, a state of forbearance. What trait do they have about them? They approach things very differently. And you can see this when you meet people who are people of Allah. You'll see a tranquility about them. You'll see a type of calmness about them. They're not tripping out in the way everybody trips out about things. They're not getting heated and intense. Maybe they might get upset, but they're not getting heated and intense in their response. Look, it's one thing to feel something inside, and it's another thing to let it manifest. You and I are held to account for sure when that thing manifests. The people of Allah and the righteous, they try to hold themselves to account even for that original feeling. They try to work on themselves so much that that original feeling of negativity and of anger, that they try to work on it so that they're purified, such that they generally only have more positive type of feelings. But we are held to account when that emotion manifests. So if we disagree with somebody, okay, if we're getting angry, okay. But if we start to let that manifest and we say, screw you and this and that and cut one out and just go at them, right? And just try to say that you don't know anything. You're this, you're that. Now we're held to account for all of that. And the Prophet ﷺ told us that if you protect what's in between your two lips, that that is one way to guarantee you jannah, to protect the tongue, to hold back the tongue, right? To not, the tongue really gets us in a lot of trouble. It argues, yells, gets angry, curses at people, curses at situations, lies, cheats. I mean, there's so many things the tongue can do, right? The Prophet ﷺ told us that if you protect what's in between your two lips and between your two legs, your private parts and your tongue, then inshallah that jannah becomes a lot easier for an individual. So that's the way we have to try to look at these things. Now, when it comes to matters of religion, we have to remember, we're trying to get a point across. We're trying to let's say with our children. Our children growing up, this is one thing that we need to keep in mind. Children growing up in the United States of America will have questions and they will disagree. And the approach that we shouldn't take is like, what are you asking the question? It's this way because I said it is. Or it's this way because this is what your teacher said it is. Or your religious teacher or Sunday school said it's this. That's not going to achieve the result. Children are curious, they're naturally inquisitive and they want to learn about what's going on. They want to question things. It's not wrong for us to ask questions. It's wrong for us to arrogantly question. Children are not arrogantly questioning things. Children are asking questions. So when that happens, and I see this a lot of times, that you'll have different models. People who approach children's questions and approach a teenager as a question about something in the religion and they'll approach it with a lot of wisdom and try to explain to them the different points of view on things. And then you'll have people who just say, this is the way you better follow it. These are the rules and you got to follow them. And usually that's a lack of knowledge on the parents part or the people who are conveying that. Because they don't have enough knowledge and they're not equipped to have that discussion. That's okay. Point people to the right direction. But don't try to stop the learning by either arguing or by getting frustrated with people inquiring and having discussions or trying to approach things in a different way. Let's say that somebody is very, very curious about why the Muslim community functions in a certain way. Or somebody is curious about why the structure of the Muslim household is a certain way or whatever questions somebody might have. Instead of arguing about why something is a certain way. What we should try to do is just convey the knowledge with wisdom. Say these are the different reasons. These are the traditions of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. And I understand that why you might be curious about this because the model is maybe different, the Western model. Maybe different than the model one learns here in the United States when you go to school here. But these are the reasons why this model is something that's preferred. And just conveying that. Conveying things and convincing somebody with intelligence and eloquence is going to go a lot longer than just trying to argue and convince somebody via a certain level of roughness and a certain type of behavior. So what? And Allah tells us this. Allah says, call people to the way of your Lord. Or, that calls people to the way of your Lord with wisdom and with good teaching. And argue or discuss with them, He says, in the most courteous way. Right? So He's telling us and He's telling the Prophet ﷺ and He's telling the believers that call people to your Lord. But do so with wisdom and with good teaching and have discussions with a lot of courtesy. That's very, very important. So what does that mean? That means that all of these intense heated debates that people might get into on Facebook and comments and going intensely at each other about why you're wrong about this and you're wrong about that and you're wrong about this. To me, it doesn't sound like someone's using wisdom or good teaching or having courtesy. The common courtesy is to not expose somebody in a public forum, in a giant public forum about all the reasons why they're this, they're this. And then from there, the character attacks begin. I mean, I know myself personally, like if I ever get into a really heated debate, especially a political debate, and you disagree with people's political views, common example, like Trump supporters, like I personally cannot understand how somebody could support somebody who's so dejallic like Donald Trump. But if somebody tries to bring up not credible arguments in support of an individual like that, many times I will begin to question their intellectual aptitude. I wonder like, where is this person's intellect? And then from there, what does that lead to? Well, you might actually attack them at a personal and character level. That's not good. That means that the anger is getting the best of us. We shouldn't attack them at the personal level. We just keep the focus, if we're ever having that type of discussion at the more political level and at the more talk about the facts, don't talk about the personality. That's where arguing can become so dangerous and avoiding argumentation is so important because when you start lodging personality attacks and throwing jabs and disses at people, it can really, really mess up our state and it can mess up the state of the family, it can mess up the state then eventually of the community and then of the society. And Allah also says in the Quran, argue, you could say discuss only in the best way with the people of the book. So the Prophet ﷺ, he had to convince the people of the book of this, again, the Quran is a very, very structured argument. The Prophet ﷺ had to convince the people of the book, the Jews and the Christians of the Quran and of the message, of true monotheism and of accepting him as the messenger of Allah ﷺ. But he had to do so in the best way. Now imagine if I'm trying to tell you something and I just like take a sword out and I'm like, you better believe this or you're out. Of course the person will most of the time admit to believing whatever you're going to believe and you might actually get a lot more people to say yes to that way but that's not going to, it's not actually doing anything. The way to do it is in the best way. To do so, you have a discussion with them over a meal, build a relationship with somebody, try to understand their point of view and then slowly convince them about the topic of the religion. And if Allah wills guidance for them, inshaAllah the guidance will come. So let's separate this out into two sections. Let's talk about first about dunya discussions and then we'll talk about religious discussions. So in this situation, like a healthy discourse, like I'm talking about topics of politics and social issues, these types of things. A healthy debate, a healthy discourse, no problem with that. That's not what we're discussing here. But many times if you debate with somebody or you have a discourse with somebody who cannot handle it, you and I will get ourselves into trouble because our anger will start to manifest. And there are people who cannot handle discussions in the time that we live in because of the presence of social media and the amount of people who hide behind screens and who just want to type out things and who don't want to actually present anything or in the amount of fake news there is, the amount of fake facts there are, the amount of people who lie, many people are not able to have a real intellectual discussion. So it's our responsibility if we want to engage in a discussion to observe who are we discussing something with, right? Are we discussing something with people who are able to handle a level of intellectual discourse? Or are we only discussing something with people who are going to get upset very, very quickly? If you see somebody unable to handle it, just kind of peace out. Allah says in the Quran, when the ignorant person approaches you, when the jahl approaches you, say peace and just don't engage because there are a lot of people like that, especially when it comes to politics. So let's talk about common issues right now and the reason why this is so relevant in the time that we live in, the election just happened, right? Let's go back to the election with politics, with COVID-19 conspiracy theories, all these types of things. You have a lot of people who want to try to just argue for the sake of arguing or argue a point that doesn't actually have strong intellectual grounding. Now you and I, if we engage in that, or if we do that ourselves, we're wasting our time and we're acquiring bad traits and bad deeds potentially if we lose our cool with somebody. So for example, with the election, right? You have now, I mean people who actually think, I don't know if they actually think it or if it's just a trick that they're playing, but there probably are some people who actually think that this election was a fraudulent election, right? Simply because, you know, the president is not able to accept his loss, right? Now imagine that. There are people who will argue with other people without any facts, any facts. And they're arguing, they're yelling, they're doing lawsuits. I mean a lawsuit is the worst form of this because when you're doing a lawsuit, you're literally showing somebody, right? That you are not able to handle the discussion or the situation outside of a form of court and now you're suing them, right? And they'll go to every single extent and then their supporters are going to a situation or at a point where they will actually get violent about the topic. Either violent from a verbal point of view or violent from a physical point of view because they actually believe something wrong happened. That's the type of situation where there's no facts. There's no proof. There's no logic. So you don't engage in that discussion. I mean personally, there's no point in engaging in the discussion because it's a waste of time. Same thing with like people who get into all of these COVID-19, this COVID conspiracy, this look, the Muslim says la ilaha illallah, Muhammad Rasulullah. You say there's no God except Allah. You worship Allah. Everything comes from Allah. It doesn't matter how this disease got here. The fact is that Allah sent it and now inshallah there was news this week about potential vaccine that was discovered by two Muslim scientists. May Allah preserve them and increase them and expand their intellect that they now Allah inshallah will cure this disease. It came from Allah. It doesn't matter the means of which it came. We engage so much in this stuff and again, how do you prove that? You can piece together this and piece together this and try to piece together this but there's no actual valid proof. So engaging in that type of discussion in the time that we live in, it's not going to be fruitful. So these are the types of things we have to avoid and this is especially important if we're engaged in social media. If we're in this world, we have to know what status to comment on and what not to comment on. We have to know what person to reply to and what to not reply to. We have to know what situation that we should get us riled up and what situation we should try to stay clear of. We have to know that because if we spent our time responding to everybody's post about something that was factually incorrect or just problematic or we disagreed, we would have no time left for anything else and we certainly would not be using that time for Ibadah. So we have to know where to place these dunya-wee topics. So if we see ourselves arguing, again, intellectual discourse, discussion based on fact, discussion based on actual, the real rules of discourse you could say, very, very healthy and in fact it should probably make us smarter. That's all good. But if we can't find that and most likely we won't find that online, then if we see ourselves arguing, getting heated, firmly trying to defend a position just because we agreed with something earlier, like you see this in the political arena, someone will side with a candidate and everything the candidate does now, they have to somehow defend. But they might disagree with 90% of the things the candidate does, but they defend it because they don't really know, hold on, this doesn't make any sense. I supported somebody and now I'm backing up all these positions that they take even though it's not grounded in anything. So if we see ourselves engaging in that type of situation or arguing or getting heated or trying to defend positions no matter what, we have to reevaluate. We have to know one, that the heart is getting impacted. Imam Ghazali indicates that when you speak, whatever comes out of the tongue, the impact is drawn in the heart. Whatever you and I watch, whatever we see, whatever comes into our eyes, the impact is drawn in the heart. We have to be careful of the consumption that we have, the movies that we watch, the shows that we watch, the music that we listen to, whatever it is that we're consuming through either the eyes, the ears and the tongue. These are the most important inroads to the heart. Whatever happens makes an impact and then the impact doesn't come that day. Keep that in mind. The negative effects of that impact, they come in the form of anxiety, come in the form of worry, they come in the form of depression, they come in the form of not feeling calm. All of these, they come in the form of trepidation and they come later down the line and it's because we weren't able to avoid a sin earlier and we didn't make toba from it. So we have to keep that in mind. The people of Allah, they're constantly vigilant over the heart. It's called the state of muraqabah, constant vigilance. What is entering my heart today? What is entering my heart? What entered my heart yesterday? How do I remove that? I got to say astaghfirullah. When they say la ilaha illallah, one of the intentions that they make, la, everything leaves my heart, ilaha illallah, only room in my heart for Allah. Right? Everything leaving, that's what's going to get us to the state of tranquility, right? To be in a state of constant vigilance. So let's keep that in mind and let's not let ourselves get heated up and discuss things with regards to dunya we topics. Sorry, discussion is good. Let's not let ourselves get into argumentation or fights. If we see somebody who is, you know, there's always those people and this is especially true, unfortunately, in the Muslim community. There's always that guy at the masjid who just likes to like, just argue about something, right? There's always that person who just, everybody has that, you know, person in the family, the uncle or the aunt or somebody who just wants to like, you know, spark the discussion and create and watch and get amused or engaged because they like to argue. Just stay away, just completely stay away because it's a waste of time and it's not going to bring about any good and bring about any productivity. And sometimes people will get upset. I remember one time I was, you know, at like a dinner and I just remember like, you know, like somebody decent my older me kind of like an uncle you could say and he was getting so upset like him and the other people in the room were discussing something and he was getting so angry about what? About the neighborhood cricket team and why did this person on the cricket team do this thing and they were getting into this heated discussion about it and it was just so upsetting and sad also to see that like, you know, this is a small thing. I mean, this is the neighborhood cricket team. Probably all Muslims, maybe a few non-Muslims on the cricket team. Why get so upset about it? Why get so angry about it? But you could visibly see like the few and I saw that I could hear the void. I hadn't seen this person before. Like they're kind of like a distant family friend. I hadn't seen this person before and kind of have that type of emotion. So I was like, what's going on here? This is making me uncomfortable. Like I'm going to, you know, because you could visibly see the person getting upset. Now I wasn't really engaged in the discussion. I was listening, but if I was engaged in the discussion that would be a cue for me to either try to calm things down to cool off or to slowly somehow leave the discussion or try to change the topic. If you're an observer in a bystander, just know where to change the topic, how to change the topic when people are getting heated about certain types of discussions. Now what Shaytan is going to try to do Allah says in the Qur'an, the devils, they motivate their allies to argue with you. Look at that. That's Qur'an that the devils motivate, they inspire and motivate their, their homies, their allies, their people to argue with you and I to argue with people to argue. That's what the devils will try to do. And what they're going to try to do is split people up, make us lose focus and to try to like stop us from achieving our true result. What's our goal? Our goal is to practice good deeds, right? It's to work hard ourselves to help humanity. When bickering and arguing over issues that are so pointless to talk about, they're going to start to split the community. And this happens all the time. I mean, you and I know this in the Muslim community. How many people argue about like moonsighting in the Muslim community? Can we believe? I mean, when Eid and, and Eid and Ramadan and these types of things, people like go, go, it's, you know, they go crazy arguing about this like on Facebook and everybody suddenly has an opinion about that. And they're not, we're not scholars. That's not our place to discuss that. We can have an opinion about it if we're well read and we're well versed in it. Sure. But to argue about something like that, that's like a very, very, very foundational science. There's a science behind that. Like you, you and I would not just start to argue about organic chemistry if we have no knowledge about organic chemistry. Like we're not, you know what I mean? Like I would, I would go and discuss organic chemistry. If I had a question about that, like my, for example, my sister-in-law, she's, she's Masha'Allah really good at organic chemistry. I would go and talk to her about it. I would not go and try to argue about it myself with limited knowledge just because I know that, you know, there's something called a molecule and there's something called whatever other terms are organic chemistry. Thank God I did not study medicine because I don't know any of those terms. But I wouldn't do that myself. But yet when it comes to religious topics and science and religion, everybody is the Sheikh. Everybody wants to argue. And the funniest thing is that half the people who do that don't even like wake up or fudger and then they argue about things. That's a major sign of, of, of going down the wrong path. Major sign of going down the wrong path. We have to be careful about that. If we are don't not practicing basic religious duties, that we should be ashamed, we should be ashamed of speaking up about the religion. And the funny thing is the more people practice religious duties properly, the less they want to argue because they're so focused on fulfilling their duties and doing more and more and more and helping people and doing more thicker. It's a very interesting, usually you'll see most of the people who engage in argumentation don't actually practice that much of the, of the religion, right? It's a very, very interesting inverse state. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he warned us of this. He said, a people never went astray after they were upon guidance, except when they took to arguing. And let's look at the state of the Muslims today. Let's look at the state of the, of our communities today. We have people who split over small things. Communities must, a Masjid is already in one area and they'll start a Masjid just because of a minor difference of opinion in a different place, right? There's no issue with having more, more Masjids. That's a good Masajid. That's a good thing. But not if that's your intention, right? Do the intention for building it for the sake of Allah, not because you're building it because one people, you know, celebrated the Prophet's son's birthday and you didn't like that they celebrated. So you're going to start a whole new community. That shows a lack of understanding and a lack of insight. Look at the state of our communities. Prophet's son said, a people never go astray, never went astray after they're already upon guidance, except when they took to arguing. And Imam Al-Arwaza'i, he said that if Allah willed evil for a people, He would give them argumentation and prevent them from action. Now think about what argumentation does. Many times, like our goal in our religion is very clear. We have to believe it. Allah do good deeds and try to get, do good deeds with regards to worshiping Allah and with regards to serving humanity. And inshaAllah, that allows us to get to Jannah. It's very, very simple, right? From one perspective. But when we get into the minor difference of opinion, we can be arguing about them. We actually lose that time and lose those moments to do good deeds. And we all have probably been there where, you know, there's an opportunity to do something good, to do some dhikr, or to, you know, help people. And then somebody will start bringing up, but, you know, brother, is this really something that's allowed? Like isn't this a bidah? And this is like something that, you know, the consensus of the olimah is that it's okay to do. And they'll start to try to bring in a little bit of, you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Meanwhile, they're totally fine watching the soccer game, watching Netflix, watching all these things. But it comes when it comes to like a small religious topic, people want to argue. That is what? It's a sign from shaitan. It's a sign from Allah that shaitan is getting into our community because if Allah wills evil for people, He gives them argumentation and prevents them from action. The best way to prevent us from action is to prevent good things from happening. So look at the types of things that we argue about. And let's examine. We are in the month of Rabi Al-Owad, the month of the birth of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. How many people, instead of sending Salawat on the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in this month, instead of loving him and celebrating him, take to arguing about should we celebrate his birth or should we not, right? Without any real knowledge about the thing, right? And I mean, look, what is that? There's a gathering of dikkur and Salawat going on and you are telling me rather than going into that gathering, somebody is going to argue about it or, and then again, on their free time, they'll engage in all sorts of practices that you would probably never see the Sahaba engaging in. I mean, you would not see the greats of our religion engaging in the type of things that we do, going on Facebook and scrolling all the time and this type of thing. I mean, they would be so focused on remembering Allah. The Sahaba remembered Allah so intensely, so intensely that when they were asleep, it's like as though their tongues were moving in the dikkur of Allah, right? But people, when they argue about this, now you confuse people and you create confusion. Should I do this? Should I not do this? Is this okay? Is this not okay? Rather than just like doing something good, you created a fitna. What happens? You prevent people from doing action, good actions, right? The same thing happens with other minor differences of opinion in our Muslim communities and then what happens is at the wide scale, at the widespread level, you have a lot of youth who just like dip the peace out from the community because they're like, dude, all these people want to do is argue about small little things. Meanwhile, I'm over here trying to be a Muslim in America and trying to like grow up and trying to navigate these challenges and you guys are talking about whether you should celebrate an anniversary or celebrate like a birthday. Like is this really what you're talking about, right? I mean, we have to zoom out and think about this. The Muslim is the person who thinks about things holistically and comprehensively, right? But the amount of arguing that we have in our communities, the amount of bickering that we have, we have to know how to have civil discourse and to disagree with Ahsan and to disagree with civility and to disagree with wisdom but to not get into a state of anger, to not get into a state of argumentation, and to not let that split up our approach or our family and whatnot. If we think, for example, we're doing something right and somebody else is doing something wrong, do not get arrogant and think, look at this person, they do this and I don't do that. And then we talk about how kind of irreligious they are. Well, great, that's like, surely a great way to do things. One thing, always keep this in mind, trying to follow the sunnah in something without actually following the methodology of the sunnah and how you're engaging with that thing is hypocritical. So you're trying to follow the sunnah of doing the right thing, but your approach to doing the right thing was so against the sunnah that, like, I could keep that in mind, right? Like, for example, I remember one of our teachers, he mentioned one time that somebody after the prayer, you know, approached them and I believe like right after the prayer they did salam, right? And this person said, this is a bidah, this is an innovation or like some small thing that people can will disagree about so many things, we would be surprised. And they were like, yeah, but the way in which you yell at me isn't an innovation, like that's a sunnah, right? Like think about it. Let's try to approach things with civility. I remember one time I was walking into the masjid, somebody saw me with a thusbi, right, with one of these, with prayer beads. And like, I mean, you know, he had no business doing this, but like tried to tell me how this was not allowed and this and that. And I was like in my, and I was not able to, you know, I was not following the advice that I'm talking about right now. So this really, this lesson is for me. But I got upset. I was like, what do you mean? Like what's it to you? You have like a cell phone. Like you use your cell phone and I can't use a prayer bead. Like I'm super confused right now at how you understand what's allowed in the religion and what's not and where your knowledge and your discourse is coming from. The guy didn't have much knowledge and you know, we, you know, generally apologize later and whatnot. But point this is like, one way you're going to get into arguing is getting involved in people's business when there's none of your business and none of my business. None of our business. Just let people do what it is that they're going to do. People know, don't be the religious police. People know, convey with excellence and convey with wisdom, convey with mercy. If you really want to get a point across to somebody and you really think they're doing something wrong, take them, sit them down, go out to a meal, have some tea and just be like, you know, I apologize for the way I'm bringing this up and it's not really my business but I just wanted to mention because I am concerned that, you know, I noticed you were doing this one thing and I thought and I, you know, maybe it would be better if you knew about this other opinion and you know, you kind of bring it up in a very, very gentle way. Not in a spit in your face. I'm right your wrong type of way. So when we do have differences of opinion, how should we approach it? We should definitely not argue. Just leave people. Leave people. People just need to breathe. People just need to worship Allah right now. Let's stop arguing about small things and focus on the big picture. Right? And Imam Ghazali, he mentions that the Salaf, the people of the first generation, they would severely admonish a person if he or she, if they initiated an argument or debate. They would admonish them if they initiated a debate. Right? And he says the sunnah is to leave argumentation when inviting people to the sunnah. If you are inviting people to the sunnah, let's leave argumentation when we are inviting people to the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. And that should be one of our goals in life. So when we're talking to our kids, our family members, our relatives, our parents, anybody else, and we disagree, let's not let ourselves get engaged in argumentation. Let's just kind of calm down. I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, one time, I was in the masjid, and straight up, there was a man who was ready to lead the prayer. I guess like the other guy, he wasn't imam, he wasn't imam. But he was just like a guy who comes sometimes and he leads the prayer from time to time. He was like making analyzing and I guess he indicated to some value that they should wait for him to begin. But it was Salat-ul-M ISIS, And, oh my goodness, after as soon as he said, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah, now what does this mean when I say, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah? I'm saying like, peace be upon you, to the beaver, to my right, to the person, to my left, generally trying to bring a state of peace. He just stood up and he went off on the person who led the prayer, just completely went off on them. Just how could you do this? I should be the one leading the prayer. I came from so far, so I could lead the prayer. I was just like, are you kidding me? And they almost started punching it. It was insane. This was in a must shit. And people had to get in between. They had to say, you know, like just calm them down and try to, you know, get, and there was like at least 15, 20 people watching this. And you're talking in a much, and what is it arguing about? Yelling and arguing about how he should have been the one to lead over the other person. I mean, what is that? You were trying to establish leadership in a must shit by doing the opposite of a leadership demands, which is to be humble and to be relaxed. This is the type of issues that happen in our community. We have to work on ourselves first and foremost. When we work on ourselves, as Allah says, he does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. Inshallah, the situation will change. And Imam Malik, he said, argument in matters of Deen is worthless. It's worthless. He would leave. When Imam Malik saw people arguing, he would say, this, you are war. This is war. And he would get up. These, Imam Malik, the Malik-e-Madhab, the one who codified and founded the Malik-e-Madhab. I mean, we're talking like one of the greatest people ever to walk the face of this earth after the prophets and the Sahaba and the Taba'een. This is the Imam. He said, arguing about these matters is worthless. So let's not let ourselves get caught up in this. So finally, to summarize, in dunya type matters, politics, issues, these types of things, having civil discourse with intellectual discussion, no problem. But let's not engage with bigoted people. Just if you sense this person is a racist, this person is a bigot, this person is no point in engaging with them because you won't be able to get your point across. Especially in the world of social media and the way we do things now, most people don't want to listen. They just want to talk and they just want to try to tell somebody that they're right, right? And especially if it's about like a political matter or especially about things like the election. So let's use our intellect and know when to engage and when not to. And generally it's preferred to not engage if there's not like a proper intellectual discourse going on. In religious matter, there is absolutely no room for arguing. We should do our best to have the sunna methodology and everything. We should, the second thing is let's identify in our minds the topics that are controversial and stay away from people who want to talk about those topics and from who want to incite controversy, right? A small group of issues, a small number of people, they have issues with the mo lid. They have issues with, you know, small things like group thicker and this and that. Still again, that same people like they still watch movies and stuff. So I'm really confused at how they could have issues but let's just say that the issues are valid. Don't engage with them on discussion about this, right? Stay away from that discussion. Most of the time people who want to incite and engage are not grounded in knowledge. Focus then, right, on the good. So there's the third thing, focus on what unites us and not what divides us. What unites the Muslims, 99% of issues unite us, 1% of issues divide us. Let's focus on what unites us. We all agree that we want to work on ourselves as human beings. We all agree that we need to learn more and gain more knowledge and we all agree that we need to help more people and help our communities, help our families, help humanity. Let's talk about that. Let's spend our time talking about those things. Let's spend our time working on ourselves as a group. Let's not spend our time talking about the small little issues here and there that we might disagree about with some small faction and some small group. The fourth thing that we can do is to do a lot of dhikr to keep our hearts grounded when the matters of difficulty and trepidation come up. The more dhikr one does, Allah says in the Quran, A'la bi dhikr Allah tatma innal qalub. But barely in the dhikr of Allah, do hearts find rest. So your heart inshallah will find rest when there's a lot of dhikr that's being done. But the dhikr has to be done inshallah for the heart to remain in a state of calmness. And lastly, let's just be open to some disagreements. It's okay. We can live with each other. This world is not perfect inshallah. Jannah will be perfect. What does it say in Surah Yaseen? When you enter Jannah, Allah will send salam, salamun qawlamir rabbir rahim. Peace be upon you from your merciful Lord. I mean Subhanallah. Jannah is a place of peace. There's no arguing. There's no intensity. There's just all calm and chill and tranquil. That's Jannah. This life will have its disagreements. Let's accept that. Let's accept that people are different. Let's not argue about it. Let's engage in discussion. But let's try to follow the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who would not argue with his worst enemies, let alone with people who are his own companions or his own brothers. The Muslims are brothers and sisters. Let's try not to argue within our communities. Let's certainly not argue within our families. Let's try to stay away from things which incite evil. And let's all try to work on avoiding people who are going to incite a negativity and evil into a certain type of discussion. And may Allah make that easy for us, especially in the trying times that we live in. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam. InshaAllah we'll just check to see if there's any questions and otherwise we'll go ahead and end. InshaAllah we'll go ahead and end with a du'ab, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammadin Sayyidina Muhammad. Ya ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, ya fattah, ya alim, Allahumma fattahalina fattu al-arifinu fiqnatu fiqqas alihin, ya ar-Rahman ar-Rahimin. La ilaha illa anta subhana kinnikun sumina dhaliminya. Allah make us from the people of purity, make us from the people of knowledge, make us from the people of sakina, make us from the people of happiness, make us from the people of felicity, make us from the people who the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is happy with, make us from the people you are pleased with, ya ar-Rahman ar-Rahman al-ariminya. Allah allow us to avoid arguing, allow us to avoid argumentation, allow us to avoid intensity, allow us to avoid anger, allow us to be people of calmness, ya Arab al-arimin, allow us to bring the state of calmness to the world, ya Allah, guide this nation, guide all the difficulties that this nation is going through, guide all the people in this nation, ya Arab al-arimin ya Allah, bring a state of tranquility to this nation, ya Allah don't allow this nation to continue to do evil things throughout the world, ya Al- alreadymi ya Allah, ya Allah, protect all the Muslims who are suffering Indian-ese 코로나 especially the Muslims. Ya Arab al-arimin ya Allah, the Muslims in China, Muslims in Palestine and the Muslims in Kashmir, the Muslims in Syria, the Muslims in Yemen Ya Rabbi, remove their tribulation, remove the tribulation of all the Muslims going through any difficulty, anybody in our community who is sick, give them Shefa, anybody who is going through difficulty, cure that difficulty and allow us to be people of patience and people of shukr. Wa sallallahu ala wa sallam wa bariqa ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alayhi wa sallam wa ala alayhi wa sallim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil a'lamin. Jazakum ala khayr. Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.