Enjoining Good, Forbidding Evil- Mufti Abu Layth

so with that in mind I'm going to invite our first speaker he's a certainly looks younger than me so I'm going to say he's a young man but he's far more knowledgeable than I am he spent eight years studying in Syria of course as we know the situation in Syria at the moment and those that have been to Syria to study I think I've been very you know special in their lifetime he said in Pakistan as well he's a half is he's an alum he's a Mufti as well he's had his degree in psychology recently he's traveled the world speaking so please welcome from your own hometown Mufti Abu layth to come and say a few words is he here he is he at hamdulillah bismillah

bismillah r-rahman r-rahim al-hamdu lillahi wa kafa salat wa salam o allah rasool mustafa reliability notable moment be hotel method will be a third a little medina text of a robot assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato it's good to see you all here to share the knowledge and the experiences that are being brought here by many of these

talented young people and especially Imam say rajma Hajj the legend who were all familiar with today I'd like to share some thoughts with you on the topic of enjoining good and forbidding evil a topic that is linked to the life of Malcolm X but this in itself is something that really touches the lives or it should touch the lives of each and every one of us Allah subhana WA Ta'ala

teaches us in the Quran kuntum hi Roma that you are the best of nations Oh Rita telling us that you have been taken out for people meruna Bill Maher oof what an hone anil munkar that you call people or you command towards good and you forbid that which is evil took me Nona be ladder you have faith in Allah in another verse Allah subhana Allah says Walter come minkum um that let there be a people

amongst you yet their owner ll hail they call people towards good to it goodness yeah Maronna Belma a roofie way and hone anil munkar that they forbid and command where necessary the good and evil ruler ek home a lovely home those people they are successful we will come back to this verse because it is extremely important on what I'd like to share with you tonight

the understanding that there is an apparent understanding of enjoining good and forbidding even first of all I want to redress the term enjoining and forbidding to encouraging good and discouraging because that's really the capacity we have there is a hadith that is transmitted by even abhi had him with the professor Ali Salim said to the Sahaba he said kafir become a that rectum al ahmar Vilma roof when nahi anil munkar how will you be when you

leave in joining the good and forbidding the evil so the Sahaba of the allahu anhum said our Karenin had a aerosol allah will this come to be aerosol allah the prophet solomon said what Sharon min who say yacon he said and worse than that shall be so they said were my Sharaman Dalek what is worse than that so the processor ilysm said he that a Martin will moon kurwa a martoma anil ma roof that when you start to cool people or command the evil and

kind of prohibit the good so the Sahaba said I will occur in how they aerosol Allah will that be and the processor ilysm said washer on men who say echo and worse than it shall come to pass so they say worse than that well my Sharaman Delic what is worse than that and the Prophet Allah Islam said for kafir become either hospital hospital my roof among Karen well moon Karuma alpha the how will you be when the good become

evil and the evil becomes the good there is an apparent meaning to this which many of us may have understood I would like to perhaps present a lease provoke a new perspective or a fresh look what does that mean when the munkar becomes the my roof and the my roof becomes the monk ER so with that in mind this encouraging people to do good and discouraging something we've seen in the

lives of many right from the Salafi to this very day and age crossing right through people who have impacted us including the likes of Malcolm X throughout his life it has certain requisites to it and I would like to break these down to three important factors one is the requirement before you do something like that the requirement the requisite the second is

an aspect of centricity that when a person is in joining or encouraging or discouraging who is it about is it about me as a person that I'm telling this person off is it about me am I the focal point because I shouldn't be it should be for the sake of the other the centricity shouldn't be about me and the third aspect is the objective that what

do I aim what do I sink to seek from me doing this what is the objective what is the purpose once again is it just a buzz factor just empowering myself this is where we find the a hadith of the processor Allison I'm saying at vina Nasia that it is good counsel that you it is good advice let's take an example one of the legends of this theme I'm not sure if many of us

are familiar with the name of Allah evening ABI rabaah ok a legend from the turbine somebody who had his own school of thought a student of even our births rajala whan he was the absolute I mean he was the scholar of Makkah in his day and age Allah Abu Muhammad so in his time the Holly Abdul Malik it number one has come to do Hajj he's doing Hajj there is somebody tells him about a toy bin ABI rabaah so he sends for him but

you know why don't I send some he'll get a bit of advice and all so he a partner beer Abba approaches after Malik hip number one the Caliph of the time and he shows him respect he says he Abu Muhammad Salam o aleikum and so on and and he says my Hodja took asked me for something let me deal with your needs so he says ok he says it tequila Hoffy Haram alayhi wa ha ramirez Uli he said fear Allah in his harem and in the harem of his messenger the harem is the sanctuary Makkah and Madinah

so he said okay so he's listening he said ok he said well it tequila is what tequila happy Abner Al Unser al-muhajireen said fear Allah when it comes to the matters of the children of the answer and muhajireen for in naka be him jealous Taha'a and matchless it is through them that you reached this station this place you have today so he said all right he said it tequila Hafiz the hotel muslimeen he said you know the border the Muslim borders that we have the tell Rotary's he said the people there are

they fear Allah regarding them said what the God immoral muslimeen look into the matters of the Muslims for in the calmest all on whom that you will be asked about this so after listening to all of this Abdul Malik says ok says a file inshallah I will do this so I thought if Navi rava gets up and he's walking off so he says yeah by Mohammed he says you asked for these matters but these need to do with you sell Hajj attack ask ask something for yourself and he said Mali

Alama look him in Hodja he said I don't have a need for which I have to turn to creation and he walked off and Abdul Malik he said he said wallah he inhalation off he said that that is honor in other words that is it dawn the way he's done that let's take a look at that the three things that I said first of all that the requisite the knowledge of what he's addressing that

was there secondly was it about him they clearly wasn't did it serve its objective it did subhanAllah this brings us back to something which is very interesting and that is that verse Walter coming come on Maya the owner ll hey let there be amongst your people that call to it to its goodness the issue here is what is goodness what is it because it's technically impossible to define I don't know if you've ever thought about it or if you've ever looked into goodness I mean

the philosophers have been struggling with it for over 2,000 years so I don't think anybody here will be able to just define it like that because when people say well goodness is giving charity and doing this and that that's enumeration of examples that's saying I asked you what is a car and you well it's a BMW each of these it's that that's not answering the question what is goodness per se people will struggle you can't answer what what is goodness I mean Socrates has dealt with this profoundly in his dialogues as collected by Plato you'll see so one way that

Muslims have answered this and the Jim who the majority of the olomana they face this on what is called the divine command theory the goodness is that which Allah has commanded okay this is known as the divine command theory so we say because Allah has said do this that is good because he said don't do that that's bad and that is the majority of the ulama including the general I mean there is some mr.

laughs but that's the main understanding that we're presenting right so if that's what goodness is it's what Allah has commanded then this raises a critical question that we have to know what God has commanded like if you don't know what Allah has commanded how can you be actually going out there saying well do this this is good an example is let's say in the time of the Prophet Solomon you have let's say an incident where on ribbon on her table he is one of the Companions reciting the Quran in a

different way he doesn't notice a famous story he drags the person to the professor Allison the proselytism says to him relax what he's doing is okay obviously he thought he didn't know at the time that that was okay another example let's say - there's an incident in the book of Timothy with two companions had gone off traveling one of them was injured quite severely that he chose he asked the other person I need to do who soldier what should I be worship and he said yeah yeah do wasalam from me he developed a serious infection which killed him and when they got back to the brothel Allison and the Prophet told

this person off he said what did you tell him to do that for and he said well III don't know I thought he said well if you don't know you should ask you see this so knowledge when you are enjoining or commanding something becomes an imperative it is absolutely necessary we have people and the reason I'm raising this is only a few months ago within the UK we had some people they were imprisoned over some

things they were doing especially in London they were known as the Muslim Patrol you've probably heard of them they were going around in joining the good and forbidding the evil on the streets they were doing this so though they've been in prison now but the thing is they were thinking this they are yet the owner a little higher what they were doing had no place within Islam but they didn't have knowledge of what they didn't know they thought what they're doing is absolutely accurate but was it

was this accurate telling people right ok you better leave that alcohol on YouTube walking down the road you know you let's say that there was an internet or a non-muslim man and a woman don't hold hands let go of each other's hands and do this and do that this is a Muslim area so on and so forth let's take a look at some of the traditional examples there is a fatwa from Imam Malik the Imam of darrell Hydra transmitted in the book el modo wanna and you probably some of you are probably familiar with this

book in the Imam Malik is being asked about the mesial of Palach in this one particular section and where did Imam Ali cliff we relief he lived in Medina he is being asked that there are people in Medina who are non-muslims obviously people of them are and this is how to get married and so on and is that ok is saying well they you know their marriages are up to them and so on and so forth what's interesting is he is then asked a question the person asks him that what about he says if they are marrying

incestuously that they are marrying their mothers and their sisters this is Emma Malik in the time of the Salaf in Modena so in my Malek says la you are rod alone he said that we don't get involved and the person says this is in the Madonna by the way so the person says yeah but they're doing this I mean shouldn't we kind of deal with this matter from our courts in my Malek says that if they come to us then fine he says well he says I don't like that we

should get involved in their matters and the person said even if they doing that he said if they see that as their way of life he said fallar you are table then saneun transmits from imam alex teacher Rabia who says that in octoroo that these people youth is saying you think that's bad he says well in uncut okay ro Allah Akbar I'm in Dalek he says Islam has tolerated for them much greater than that what who a share could be laughs he says that is that they commit shirk with

Allah we tolerated that the fact that they have this action he says minica he'll Hawaii well Omaha the fact that they married a mother or the sister much greater than that has Islam tolerated this was in the city where is this being asked in Medina - Rasul Imam Ali does he have the power to implement it yes he does is this not a great opportunity to stamp down yes it is could he not say 'aha jewel go for amine J zero till Arab he could does he know

was he a legend unquestionably these things they make us think once again the hadith when the good becomes evil and evil becomes good maybe it's talking about what our understandings are that we actually believe we're doing something good but we're actually doing something which is wrong it's quite on the contrary and the good in itself perhaps sounds strange to us if somebody said that to us today no just let them be would think what the

hell sounds strange but that's what the hadith said that Buddha al Islam or her eben the Islam began strange and it will return to that stage do not be kind of beguiled or do not kind of be misled by emotions when people say these type of things this is a responsibility for us to learn Allah tells the messenger while o Kunta fallen a little Alba few were harsh they would have disappeared from around you

the poet he says that uncle long - Aloma Ezra stop all this blaming and doing all of these things this it all it does it just makes matters worse he says Philemon yet I FLL me falsify turn tell somebody who claims to know what they're doing that they've got this knowledge have faith - a and Wahab a tanker a Shia that yes you may have learnt a particular thing but so many

things remain hidden from you yes but this no matter what sometimes people are doing this we have to understand there was a person that Allah has told us about in the Quran who thought himself so mighty that he said an Arabic woman Allah that I am your greatest law

anaerobic malala Pharaon what does allah address the prophets with at the time the messengers is haba Allah Pharaoh Nakota found in who Taha lie saying that he has a lie saying he has he has crossed all limits in Naruto ha ha who Laila who Olin Lagon and say to him a kind word hallelujah Tucker Oh Yasha

perhaps his heart might soften perhaps he may take heed Allah knew but still his harshness the poet says there's an order poet who says that mr. Assad Nirvana Hitoshi varsa to beat al varsa maybe that varsa that to do things like this if if you're just gonna be as harsh like a sword and unlike a sword things

just will not work I need somebody that can understand he's saying that somebody that can see the humaneness of the situation may fished okay so but kaleikini humsafar Kuja here guna Garza there are not worthy of the company of angels but I need somebody that can understand the humanists and the concept of sinning and

this is we the professor Allison teaches us that Kulu Bani Adam had thought that all of the children of Adam are sinful Maharal ha ha in a turban and it's interesting that the verb the word that is used is ha ha and not Mukti in Arabic octa a means to make a mistake with our intention but haha I is with intention Dustin and the president's a hearty he said hot bar excessively that this is what the nature of in CERN is but they will turn back but how do you do it

first of all those things you have to have the knowledge you had the owner ll here they caught with goodness they have to know what goodness is secondly it isn't about them thirdly it's about doing things in a wise way the outcome O'Doyle a severely replicable hikmah that cool to the path of allah with wisdom and this is something which is so needed at times so when we look at that and our history is full Allahu Akbar of

so many examples examples upon examples really and and in fact I encourage everybody to really reconnect with our legacy beginning with the very recent like we're learning about the life or the life of Malcolm X a legend of the previous century who has really contributed to the lives of many and keep going back right up until the time of the Salaf for us here within Europe Al Andalus Muslim Spain is full of

examples and legends for us to learn from but let me give you an example of how sometimes people in the past saw commanding or enjoining the good the story I narrated to you at the beginning of a tour if nubira ba is actually transmitted by a scholar known as a smile and he was a linguist a scholar an absolute lie into his poetry and everything and what happens is in his time he was in the time of abu jaafar elements or and you've all probably heard of which are four elements or like he was the caliph of one of the early caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty now in

his time Buju food was really into all the knowledge and he used to be into like learning about stuff and learning about fear and learning about poetry loved poetry but then you see the poets then obviously they you know they work hard for their poetry so they they thought that you know if they wrote a poem for you you had to pay them so he didn't want to really part with his money there's one of those that I don't mind the poetry but don't really want to pay for it type of thing so what happens is he puts out this claim now anybody who brings me a poem that I haven't heard of

write with the condition I haven't heard of it whatever they've written it on I will give them the weight of that in gold sounds very enticing right we've got some poets here haha alright so the thing is how poets got to it they started working on it started writing their poetry now abu jaafar elements or what they didn't know is he had like a photographic memory I mean he if you read a point to him he could just repeat it back to you just like that so and then in his court amongst many of his servants and slaves he had a slave boy

that had the memory like a solid memory that if he heard something twice he could repeat it back to you and he had this one girl amongst his court that if she heard something three times she could repeat it back to you so what he would do is he would have them kind of waiting behind a curtain I knew these poets would come they've worked really hard they've written this come up with this poetry this qasida and that you would say you know I'm a crop you know and they would they would kind of say they think it listened to it it's beautiful

but but you remember the condition yeah I couldn't have heard it before they say yeah that's fine he goes what I've heard this before say what are you talking about it said look I'll repeat it back to you this is this I've heard this since a while look I'll repeat it so you'd repeat it back and then it's the personal thing whoa wait I don't mean wrote they said you know what let me convince you is it go go cool for that slave boy of mine go cool for him so that guy who's waiting behind the curtain would like come round I need you know the first line of a poem is called a Mottola have you heard of this poem with this mutlar and the guy would say yeah yeah yeah yeah say we're gonna read

it and I would read it so the poet would be like wow and he said you know what I don't think that's quite convinced you wait there go call for that girl and she would be waiting behind the curtain she would come forward say have you heard of this mukluks this poem and she would say yeah I say alright go and read it she would read it so the poet would be just astounded that what the hell is this what's going on like I just came up with I mean how the hell did they actually manage to so that's it he would go they wouldn't get no money his efforts gone to waste so anyway this

went on and on and on for a while so all these poets have got together so they've got together and they're kind of crying and you know going what the you know this guy's ripped us off and everything and along comes us my who's the legend is it done in poetry it comes along and he says what what's going on and they say this is what's going on seriously it's not what he's doing all right I got this don't worry but it is he dresses up as a Bedouin and he goes to the courts of Abuja for al-mansour and he goes yeah you know I'm a Bedouin

and I've come with a poem and he goes yeah he goes but what's the condition he says all the condition is I have I can't I've heard this before remember that he goes all right cool he goes what do I get if you haven't whatever you written on its weight in gold all right cool all right cool he says this is called salt to Saphira bully that's the mullah that Hagee a jackal to be a thermally that means that the that the chirping of the nightingale has kind of moved my intoxicated heart this is right go for it

so he says Alma was aroma and Mazzarella will Macaulay is listening okay goes for anta ya Sayyidi Lee was AED were morally em em to em money was a yellow optically out of the home and what nothing mean left me were till Li la la la la la la vaca da da Mohar Willy well who - mala paraben mean family has or Raju Lee for one wellit's were wal wallet Wally Wally away Lily faculty-led

- well Willy obey hello Elly well you do Dhin Dhin Dhin le what table table table table table table table table table table table table table table table Ollie was so physically or rock suka totally he's and just when you think he can't he says one nasturtium Gemelli Vasuki bill tell al aliy well culo Kaka Kaka healthy woman wailing Lee lacking mushy to her eben Manhattan or can Kali illallah car Emily Keene Mazda Mumbai

jelly analyte evil Alma I mean hey Arden mostly nothing to kittens or efforts yeah geez and he'll at bully are all Luffy motley her so to Saphira bully so Abu Jeffers like what the hell did he just say he's Joe has dropped right you thinking what the hell was that all I got was sold to severe elbow bully I mean he's so he goes he goes yes yeah a middle moot meaning you know what say you just pretty much pretty much fit

your criteria hey girls I just wait there wait there he says go cool for that that boy see if he's around so he turns up he goes have you heard this sort of severeal hell no this is all right wait there wait there wait there he says that go call for that girl she turns up he says have you heard at this poem sold to Saphira mm-hmm I ain't heard of Salta Saphira bull body so he's like damn all right so I've got to pay this one out says all right then he says go on then

bring what you've brought it on written it on he goes yeah Ameer al-mumineen I'm a Bedouin I don't really have much possessions I only inherited a pillar of marble from My Father so I wrote it on this pillar of marble and so he says what is it you wrote it on wha pillar of more voices just go on then he says but I need about four people to help me carry it it's outside by the way so now obviously Abuja Foreman suit has to do that so he brings it in their way and it's costing him

almost the entire Treasury so then and he's got a Hyundai and there's all these witnesses he's thinking boy and say gives it to him and then somebody says I think I recognize that by doing that's a smile so he says that's my he says to him are you a smile because that's my they'd heard of us my II mean II was a linguist he was a legend in poetry and he says here he says ah look you hid your identity from me and listen listen is ask my system listen he says it reached me what you've been doing to

these poets and he says this isn't right that this is the Huq that these people work hard for what they do it is a talent and you deprive them and he said that he said what I will do is that I'll give you this gold back you can have it back but you promised me that every person that is that has written a poem for you that they will get their due and he said okay you said these people are my witness I will do that and he left and this

takes us back to perspective he could have landed with the what you're the amirul mumineen woman lam yahkum bima anzala moi and those who do not govern or judge by what Allah has then follow like a normal cafe rule most Valley more normal he could have tried that approach he was in the time of the Salaf did he know he went there he in fact almost you could say engaged was it about him did he have the knowledge was the objective correct

it did serve its purpose sometimes we have to go back to questioning and inquiring about what and why are we actually doing this these are my thoughts for tonight i ask allah subhanaw taala to give us all the topic to reconnect with this amazing legacy we have and we seriously do have an amazing legacy does our common law hate for coming once again I'd like to thank the people that have arranged this for bringing such Mashal esteemed guests and we've got poets and the legend imam

suraj here today i'm somebody who is definitely and i served as an inspiration to myself and i'm sure to everybody here may allah subhanaw taala bless the more and use our common law aid assalamualaikum warahmatullah al salam wa ta'ala can you teach me that point well we're going to stick with poetry