Category: Sermons

Video Transcript:

 
Introduction

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.

I hope this jazz music doesn’t make anyone feel bad or non not serious about this. I just wanted to include all kinds of music. I don’t know, maybe it’s appropriate, maybe it’s not. I’m not sure. I’ll decide later, God willing.

Today I want to talk actually about professionalism. In the last Friday sermon, we talked about being humane, and I purposely talked about it first because I think being humane is more important than being professional. Unfortunately, most people are either more professional or more humane in different countries, different groups, different families. They tend to be a little bit more humane or professional, and it’s really hard to find both. So when I want to talk about professionalism, don’t forget that you also have to be humane.

Before I go to actually talking about professionalism, which is an important aspect for believers within their group, let me actually talk about what I call toxic professionalism. Professionalism can go both ways. That’s why I titled the video Professionalism is a Weapon. A weapon can be used for good or for bad. You can use a weapon to let’s say slaughter an animal and offer it to God, which is a good thing, but you can also use a weapon to kill someone, which is a bad thing. Professionalism is a weapon. In the right hands within the community of submitters, it’s a good thing. Within the wrong community, it’s a bad thing.

A lot of times, because in these days we live among the non-submitters and we have to deal with non-submitters, professionalism quite often is actually sort of used as a way to gain power rather than to actually be professional. So I call that toxic professionalism.

Examples of Toxic Professionalism

Let me just give you examples. Probably a perfect example of toxic professionalism is what they call double speak. Double speak is used pretty much by every business and every government agency. Most of the time they use double speak. Double speak means that they find a different way of saying something which is bad, which would actually be unacceptable otherwise.

For example, let’s say there’s a police task force, there’s a SWAT team, there’s an army or whatever, and they’re talking on the radio and you hear one of them say, “Go kinetic.” What it means is kill the guy, kill the person. But it’s double speak. They say something, but they mean something else. They say, “Oh, go kinetic.” It’s a way to make themselves feel better that they are actually not killing a person, they are just doing their job, they are being professional. “I’m so professional, I can hit the target anywhere.” No, you’re just being a bad person and you don’t want to admit it.

For example, there are cases when killing a person actually makes sense, but quite often it doesn’t quite make sense. Or let’s say there’s police who in their contract it will say—I don’t even know the police rules, but especially here in the US, in US and Canada, not this much, but in the US people are a little bit too aggressive—so sometimes they’ll be like, in the contract it says you are not allowed to point the gun at someone unless they use aggressive behavior towards you. Let’s say that’s what it says in the contract. What will the police do? They want to pull the gun and point it at you because they feel unsafe for whatever emotional reasons or whatever. So they will use professionalism to actually do what would not be the right thing to do at that time. They’ll be like, “Oh, you’re being aggressive,” and they’ll pull the gun even though you’re not aggressive. So as you can see, there’s a way to actually make professionalism, to use it for bad, and people use it for bad.

Or let’s say, as you guys, some of you might know, Kanye West, he’s kind of a little bit mentally not okay. It’s fine, I mean it’s his problem, but clearly he’s not okay mentally, but also he’s kind of right in so many other things. Using that against him to let’s say stop his bank accounts, like to pretty much leave him without money, I don’t think that’s actually right. That’s a way, that’s toxic professionalism. I’m quite sure the banks when they sort of blocked his bank accounts, whatever he said, it doesn’t matter what the guy says, that’s his money. Banks shouldn’t actually do what they call debanking. They shouldn’t debank him. I think they are not debanking him anymore, but when he said some things which some groups of people didn’t want to hear, what happened? Banks just used toxic professionalism to debank him, basically to steal his money. And I’m quite sure they used double speak. He probably received an email which said, “For your safety, your bank account has been paused for re-evaluation,” or something like that. “If you want to reactivate your account, you will have to fill this report.” No, I had the money, it was fully safe earlier, why do I have to refill it?

Or with PayPal actually, it’s quite concerning. Some of you guys, thank you for actually sending the chats to the PayPal account and it has worked so far, but sometimes I’m concerned about it because PayPal will quite often put stuff on hold. Some countries actually have rules about PayPal, so then PayPal, instead of taking that as their own problem, they’ll put the problem to you. So they’re like, “Okay, the money has been sent, but it’s on hold.” How long is it on hold? Sometimes it’s a month, sometimes it’s a week. I want to know how long is it on hold. Someone actually, one of you actually sent an email: “I sent the money, but did you actually receive it, because I’m not sure.” So kind of they keep it on hold. Yeah, I can see how they do it to prevent crime, but yeah, I’m not the criminal, why do I have to go through it?

So yeah, professionalism can be toxic. In my last job which I had, I didn’t like the IT guy. God is actually kind of compensating me for the struggle I had to go through there, because the work with Fenol is really fun, he is really a professional guy. So I’m really, it’s really going well with the website, the management of the website and all of that with Fenol. But with the previous IT guy I had to deal with in my last job, he was terrible. Let me just give you an example.

Basically, the job which I had to do, it all culminated, the research work which we had to do for pretty much six months, almost a year sometimes, we would present it in what we would call a scientific conference. I think, by the way, these scientific conferences are what gave Rashad Khalifa the idea to organize submitters’ conferences. It was just something he learned from being a scientist, it’s not necessarily a religious thing. Anyway, so in those scientific conferences, I was responsible for organizing it. So imagine there’s like about 40, 50, sometimes 100 scientists coming. They come to present their studies which they have done for a year. It’s pretty much their year’s work, they are presenting it now. Some of them have brought their work, let’s say they are going to present it in some sort of PowerPoint presentation or whatever, and some of them have sent it through email, some of them have brought it through USB. And the IT guy at the last moment finds a way to say, “You know what, I don’t think they can use their USBs because there might be a virus.” Okay, so you want to lose six months of work and sort of derail the whole situation because you’re afraid of a computer virus right now? So yeah, that can be toxic professionalism.

I’m quite sure that’s probably in some rules which he made himself. The IT guy made himself: “Oh, we don’t use USBs to put in our computers because they can have viruses.” I can see how he made that rule, but he made it. It’s not like it existed, he made it. I can see how that’s helpful not to have viruses, but in a situation where people didn’t know better and it’s going to destroy everything else just because you want to save one computer from a virus, that can be toxic. Anyway, I don’t know if this is the best example, but it’s an example which annoyed me. Maybe he was right, maybe someday people will think that he was right. To me, it seemed like a little bit too professional.

So I just want to point out that professionalism can be toxic, and unfortunately disbelievers use it for bad things. But in a group of submitters, within our group, professionalism is a good thing because it’s a weapon. A weapon can be used for good reasons and for bad reasons. Before we go into the good sides of professionalism—which is pretty much we should try to be as professional as possible with each other and within our group because it’s a good thing when used in the right context—let’s repent first, and then we’ll talk about it.

Let’s repent.

Professionalism Among Submitters

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

Let’s talk about professionalism within our group. How did I come to value or appreciate or learn that professionalism is important even for religious purposes within a group context, even within a personal context? It’s really important to be professional even in religion.

I came to realize this when I was going to the publishing company in Kosovo. I had translated Rashad’s translation of the Quran in Albanian with all the appendixes and all of that, that’s why I wanted to publish it. This was years ago, probably 15 years ago, more than that, probably more. As I’m going to the publishing company, I had put all the pages in a layout so they can publish it. As I’m going there, I realized that the margins were a little bit off, so they were kind of like too much on one side. Imagine you have a book, it’s all correct, but the whole text is a little bit off the margins. The margin on the left and the margin on the right don’t fit.

It was not easy to make it. You actually don’t want to make it fully equal because in a book, when you open the book, the middle of the book is harder to read. So usually what the publishing companies will do is they’ll push the text a little bit further from the center so that the text is more towards the edges of the book where the book is more flat. If you check any book, you’ll see it’s kind of like that. But what I had done is I had pushed it too much. Thinking about it, I had pushed it too much.

So I’m going to the publishing company. As I’m walking, I didn’t have a car, I think I was in a bus, and then I got out of the bus and I’m walking. I’m like, “Okay, I knew that it was a little bit off, but let me just do it today.” I was excited, let me just do it today, I don’t want to come back again here and stuff like that. Then it hit me. I’m like, “Wait a minute, if this was my own work, if this was my book, let’s say I was Tolstoy, a Russian writer, if I was Tolstoy and it was my book, would I allow this? No. Why do I allow it for the Quran? Why do I allow it for something which is even more important?”

People sometimes allow it because it doesn’t feel like it’s their own work, and it can trick us. A lot of times people will be like, “No, wait a minute, this is just a voluntary thing I’m doing.” Yeah, but do it right. For example, there’s a verse in the Quran which says why do you give, don’t take the bad thing to give to charity. Let’s say you have some apples and you’re like, “Okay, this is charity, I don’t have to do it anyway, so I’m just going to sort of pick a bad apple and give it to the poor people.” Well, that’s not professional. It’s not professional to do the bad thing just because it’s voluntary, because even the poor people don’t want it. Sometimes people will give bad clothes to poor people. These days, poor people don’t even want bad clothes, they want good clothes. There’s enough clothes in the world, so even they want to wear nice clothes. Why would you give them torn clothes and bad clothes? Sometimes we do, but what I’m saying is just because it’s voluntary—and that was my thought, just because I’m doing this voluntarily, I don’t gain anything from it, and I’m publishing a book—that doesn’t mean that I should not be professional. So I went back and fixed it, and then weeks later, because then we had to reschedule the meeting and all of that, it delayed the whole thing, but at least I did it right.

Since that moment, I decided, no, I’m going to be professional even in religion. This is something which a lot of us can improve on, and I’m going to mention some examples. Please don’t feel bad, because it’s probably not only you. Usually examples I mention, it’s more than one person who has done it, let me say some unprofessional approach, so don’t feel like, “Oh, I’m targeting you.” I’m not targeting anyone, I’m just bringing examples. If I mention something, if you think I’m talking about you, it’s probably someone else as well. So if it makes you feel better, it’s probably even more than two people who have done it, that’s why I’m bringing it up.

Scriptural Examples and Principles

So where do we find it in the Quran that professionalism is a good thing within a group of believers? Now, the Quran doesn’t mention professionalism directly, because the reason is because it can be a bad thing as well in different circumstances. But the circumstances I’m mentioning it, I’m trying to bring it within only within the circumstances when it’s good. So that’s why you don’t find it directly in the Quran, but you can sort of see verses which imply professionalism within a group of submitters.

Let’s go to Surah 8, verse 60. It says:

“You shall prepare for them all the power you can muster, and all the equipment you can mobilize—and as we agreed, professionalism is a weapon, and actually in Arabic I think it says not only equipment, all the weapons you can mobilize—that you may frighten the enemies of God, your enemies, as well as others who are not known to you; God knows them. Whatever you spend in the cause of God will be repaid to you generously, without the least injustice.”

So you don’t want to go to war and not take your sword or your gun. How does that work? Where are you going? Does anyone go to a professional basketball or soccer practice and not take the shoes with him, or the sportswear? No, they wouldn’t. The trainer will be like, “No, where are you going? Go back, come dressed back next time with your shoes.”

If you go to, let’s say, I would hate it sometimes, in some poorer countries, you call a person to fix the door or you have a problem, and they actually don’t bring the equipment. They come there, they don’t bring the equipment. They’re like, “Oh, can I borrow a screwdriver? Can I borrow this? Can I borrow that?” I thought you were doing this, I wouldn’t call you if I had to bring the screwdriver. So yeah, that’s not professional. What I’m saying is, as you can see, even in a religious context, you have to bring your equipment if you really want to be ready for whatever we have to do in a religious context. Let’s say when we went to Hajj, people had to bring whatever they had to bring. There’s a video about it where I tried to help you with what to bring, but imagine if you went unprepared.

Here’s another example of professionalism, actually an example of how Saul wanted to work with professionals, not non-professionals. It’s probably a perfect example because Saul, as we know from the Bible, is a person who used to be good, then he was bad. As you can see, professionalism can go both ways, but in this case, it was used mostly for a good thing.

In Surah 2, verse 249, it says when Saul, who was the king chosen by God for the Jews, not necessarily a good person—he didn’t end up to be the best person in the end because David was better—however, at that circumstance, they were ordered by God to listen to Saul because God chose him as a king for them.

Surah 2, verse 249 says:

“When Saul took command of the troops, he said, ‘God is putting you to the test by means of a stream. Anyone who drinks from it does not belong with me; only those who do not taste it belong with me, unless it is just a single sip.'”

It’s actually in the Bible, in the Quran it says one handful of water. They drank from it except a few. So as you can see, most were not professional, they drank from it. Most people actually didn’t listen except a few of them.

“When he crossed it with those who believed, they said, ‘Now we lack the strength to face Goliath and his troops.’ Those who were conscious of meeting God said, ‘Many a small army defeated a large army by God’s leave. God is with those who steadfastly persevere.'”

Now if you look at the story more carefully, in the Bible it’s a little bit mixed because sometimes part of the story is attributed to another person in the Bible. But you can see kind of Saul had this strategy. Even with food, he ordered at one moment actually people to fast before the war. He was just trying to distinguish the professionals from non-professionals. Pretty much the way I imagine this story, which is probably very close to being correct, is here’s this king, he can see a lot of unprofessional people. There’s a verse in the Quran, by the way, it says, “Had the weak people come with you in war, they would actually make you weaker.” It’s bad. Sometimes you’re stronger with 300 people if you go to war who are strong and professional, compared to a thousand people if weak people join, because they actually can cause panic. They can tell you, “Oh, let me fight for tomorrow,” like, “Oh, I didn’t bring my weapon.” Now you have to deal with that, what do I do, things like that.

So this was Saul’s strategy. Saul was again the king of Israel before David. The way I imagine the story is, here’s this guy, he wants to know who’s professional, who’s not. He knows that if an army of a thousand people start to drink from a stream, of course if you’re a professional, you’re not going to go and drink with your mouth because bacteria can spread. You have to put your feet and your hands within the river, then it kind of gets muddy. Let’s say the more professional way is to just take it with your hand. In this way, other people don’t feel gross about it, that’s more professional. In this way, the whole army can drink and not feel gross. Or you can put your two hands in the river and the feet and go in the river and drink like an animal, and in that case it becomes muddy. Yeah, for one person it works, but for an army of a thousand people it doesn’t work, it just makes it worse for everyone else.

So Saul, if you look back in the Bible, I’m sort of mixing two stories because I think they misread the stories. The way I’m imagining this, how it happened, taking an educated guess based on what I’ve seen in the Bible, here’s this guy, he wants to know who’s professional, who’s not. At the same time, he wanted them to fast so they can be spiritually ready. Both of these fit in this case.

This is an answer actually to fasting. Sometimes people ask, “Am I allowed to taste when I’m cooking something? Can I taste so that I don’t get it wrong?” Yeah, you’re allowed. In this case, it says, “Unless it is a single sip.” So even if you’re fasting, if you’re concerned that you cooked some food incorrectly and you want to make sure that it doesn’t have too much salt or too little salt, yeah, you might taste it because, as you can see here, a single sip is not counted as drinking. You might have to swallow a pill, I don’t know. So I’m not saying no. Some people can abuse it. Clearly in this case, most people abused it, but some of them were professional about it.

What Saul wanted to know is who’s going to be professional. Some people took it with their hand, one sip, crossed the river. He went to fight only with those people. He left all the others behind, and they won. David killed Goliath, and they won, because he wanted only the professionals. He didn’t want people who will cause problems unintentionally just because they’re not professional.

So in his mind, he’s like, “Okay, who is going to, I’m going to tell them drink only one sip. Whoever just uses his hand, one sip, passes the river, that guy looks like a professional. Whoever is going to go and drink like an animal, that doesn’t seem like a professional, and I’m just going to leave them behind.” It’s okay, probably later they joined, it’s okay, we don’t have to be fully professional. What I’m saying is, as you can see, here’s an example of a king who wanted to distinguish the professionals from the non-professionals.

Examples of Unprofessional Behaviors to Avoid

I’m going to bring some examples here. Of course, there’s many examples of unprofessionalism among the Sunni, Shia. Even when we went to Hajj, there’s so much pushing, it’s so unprofessional. The police look like a joke in the sense that they hit people in their hands. Put a sign there, put them in prison if they do something wrong, whatever, don’t deal with it in a very unprofessional way. Tell people ahead of Hajj, give them a guideline: “Okay, if you go and touch the stone and push other people, you might be put in prison, or you might be asked for your family to send extra money for the problems you’ve caused,” stuff like that. Do it professionally, not like hitting people, pushing women. So many women were being pushed by police, and the women were unprofessional. There’s clearly a line there, they put something there so you don’t go, and they kind of sneak in, jump on ropes, stuff like that. That’s not professional. So yeah, there’s many examples of non-professionalism among the Sunnis, the Shia, the other religious groups. So let’s not be like them, let’s be more professional.

What does it mean to be more professional in our group? I’m going to imagine examples of non-professionalism so we can learn from it.

Let me give an example. Sometimes people fill the form to become submitters, but they use two emails. A lot of people might have two emails: one for serious things, another one for whatever they might want to subscribe to, things which they are not sure if their information is going to be stolen or whatever. Anyway, I can understand that partly. But then some people will actually join the submitters with their non-important email, and then how am I going to know? So that email then is put into the group chat, and then they send me an email, they’re like, “Oh, why is there not a check mark in my email?” Well, why do you use two emails? How about you explain that first, why do you use two emails? Which one was not serious when you filled the report, when you declared the zakat, or is it now that you’re communicating? Because one of them is not serious. Either you were not serious when you became a submitter, or you’re not being serious now. That’s not professional. Why would you use the non-important email, the email which you don’t check often, the email which you have as a side email? Why would you use the side email to declare the zakat? Use the main email, use your hopefully only email address. But let’s say you might have to have two, okay fine, then the main email address. That’s professional. Do it professionally, so then we don’t have to go through, “Oh, my check mark is not here, who submitted, who’s not, it’s not showing, I cannot sign in, what’s going on?” You cause problems if you are not professional.

Then there’s people who actually fill the zakat form not properly. They leave things out or add extra things. Let’s say a very clear question, let me say, if they want to calculate the zakat, calculate how much money you have in the bank and cash on this and report it. It’s very clear. I actually wanted to make it the simplest possible, even to report it in their own currency. They don’t have to transfer it into US dollars, I made it very easy so that they can report it in their own dollars, which causes me to work, but anyway. And then what do they do? They’re like, “Okay, I have $5,000, but my uncle owes me three, and I’m expecting an additional salary, so do I include that?” Just put a number, please be professional, just put a number. It’s not helpful if you’re going to tell me a story. The field there I left is just for a number, I don’t want the story. You can tell me the story later, but be professional. It’s a form, you fill a form, don’t leave something out.

Let me give you an example. You might think people who don’t do it, they might think it’s impossible, but it happens. Let me tell you here’s what happens, and again, if you’ve done it, please don’t think that I’m targeting you or that I’m trying to make you feel bad, because a lot of people have done it, that’s why I’m mentioning it.

Part of reporting zakat, I’ve made it so that they submit an audio file if they don’t know anyone who has seen them do the contact prayer. They have to submit an audio file of me hearing their contact prayer, in this way that we know that they do the contact prayer exactly like us. It’s not the first time, it has happened many times that people will actually only recite Al-Fatiha. I’m like, is that the contact prayer? They will actually not do the full contact prayer, they just recite Al-Fatiha, the first Surah. I’m like, “Okay, how unprofessional can it be?” And then I say, “Oh, please—of course it’s going to cause extra work—please can you do the full contact prayer? You’re not supposed to do only half of it.” And they are like, “Oh, I wasn’t sure. I thought it should be like this.” It’s just not professional. You’re just not professional if you do that. If it says contact prayer, do the contact prayer. Some of them will actually, if it’s dawn prayer, they’ll do the other prayer, or let’s say it’s the noon prayer, they’ll do the other prayer just for me. No, do the actual prayer and record it if we don’t know that you have done the contact prayer, if we don’t know how you do the contact prayer. Now, for most people, they don’t have to do it, most people know somebody who has witnessed that, so you don’t have to submit that. See, I made it as easy as possible, but I want to know, do you recite the shahada? Someone might say, “Oh, what’s the problem? You can know from that that I recited the Fatiha correctly.” Imagine there is a problem, because what if you are hiding the fact that you have a different shahada, a different declaration of faith? What if in your shahada you mention Muhammad? I want to see that, I want to know that, because if you do, then you’re not a submitter, you’re not with us. So the fact that you’re not submitting the whole thing, it causes me problems.

And then there’s other people who add extra stuff in their own language. How do I know you’re not joking? The instructions are clear to record an audio of them doing the contact prayer, audio, no video, just audio, and put it in the form. What do they do? They add extra stuff. They’ll be like, in some other language, whatever the language is, they’ll give a speech. I don’t know what they’re saying. They’re probably saying, “I intend to do the prayer and this is for whatever.” How do I know you’re not saying, “Oh, I’m just going to do it for you, but I don’t believe in this”? How do I know you are not saying that when you speak in another language? So now what do I have to do? Go and turn that into text and then ask Google to translate what you said. It’s not professional. Just do what you have to do, no more, no less. It’s a simple form, just do it, be professional.

Another example: connecting to the Friday sermon on time. How many times do we see people joining the Friday sermon 5 minutes late, 2 minutes late? That’s not professional. You should connect on time. This time, actually, thanks to God, it was actually good, guys. As if you knew I would speak about this today, I was happy with how people, I check sometimes, “Oh, who’s connecting late today?” Today it was really good. In the past, there was room to improve, and thanks to God, we’ve improved a lot. Today people joined on time, amazing, amazing. We’re becoming professional.

Last time I asked people to send a chat. Someone might have said, “Oh, wait a minute, I didn’t have my phone in my hand.” Some people send the chat very late, 2 hours late, 3 hours late. All you have to do is tell us about yourself. I understand, by the way, I understand, let’s not use professionalism to put people down, because some people have kids, some people are, I can see someone might have had to go to the washroom emergency, bathroom emergency, whatever. It happens, it happens, I’m not trying to put anyone down. However, we know we can improve, and I think we’ve improved a lot. Even with the website, you can see we’ve become more professional, our website looks better, it looks more professional. I’ve become more professional, I’m improving, I’m trying to be even more professional. So there’s always room to improve there.

An example of not being professional: in the last chat, most people are professional, but then there’s some people who are not ready. If we’re going to do the Friday prayer and we’re in a group chat, you better be ready to type something if I ask. I don’t know where your phone is, what you’re doing. Are you sleeping? Are you taking a nap right now? I hope not, I’m quite sure you’re not taking a nap, I’m just joking. But here’s the thing though: if I ask someone, “Oh, what do you think about this?”, you better respond, because what are we doing right now? We’re doing the Friday sermon. Don’t respond three hours later to something which needed a five-minute response.

Then another case of non-professionalism: talking about things off topic. As I was typing my own response to teach you how to do the responses about introducing ourselves, some people were typing, “Peace, peace, peace.” Okay, so it doesn’t look professional, it just doesn’t sound professional. Yeah, we should be polite and all of that, yeah, “peace” makes sense, I can see how a lot of people say “peace,” I love that actually, by the way, but there’s a time for it. When the Friday sermon starts, you stop, we have to listen. You don’t say that when the Friday sermon starts. Before it starts, yeah, but you know it doesn’t make sense, you have to be professional.

Or let’s say we schedule a meeting and we have to decide to work on something, and you didn’t bring, you don’t have the computer on. So we start the meeting, and then halfway in the middle of the meeting, the person is, “Oh, let me go get my laptop.” I thought the meeting was so we work. I understand a lot of people don’t have laptops, in the future they might not even have laptops at all, with AI and all of this, people might even have just phones with AI doing all the work. So I’m not creating rules, all I’m saying is we can improve. Where are you going? Do you go to a soccer practice without your soccer boots? How can you play soccer without the ball? It doesn’t make sense. So yeah, you have to be ready. The Quran says you have to prepare all the equipment you can prepare before you go to war.

Now, this is me trying to encourage you and myself, because I’ve improved a lot. As you can see, the website has become more professional. So this is me trying to encourage you to be more professional, and myself also to be more professional.

Semi-Professionalism with Non-Submitters

However, now how do we deal with non-submitters? Unfortunately, some people then sometimes feel like it’s an obligation for non-submitters as well. We don’t have to be fully professional with non-submitters. We can be semi-professional, partly professional.

Let me give you an example. An example of professionalism is in the Quran, and I’m going to tell you how they kind of semi-applied it or broke it when it came to non-submitters.

Surah 2, verse 189 says:

“They ask you about the phases of the moon. Say, ‘They provide a timing device for the people and determine the time of Hajj.'”

Then it says:

“It is not righteous—if you read it in Arabic—it is not righteous to come to the houses from their back door.”

Why? Because it’s not professional. Why is it wrong to go to a home from a back door? Some people actually think it’s funny, they go as a guest, someone invites them as a guest, let’s say a family member or whatever, and they go, they think it’s funny: “I’m going to go and knock on the door and scare them, or on the window,” let’s say they go from the back window, “Hey, hey, I scared you.” Whatever, that’s not funny, it’s not professional. When you go somewhere, you enter through the front door, because the person might have not expected you to go from the back door. Maybe he just took a shower and he’s exiting, maybe that’s his habit or her habit, they just use a towel when they exit the bathroom. Some people do that, it’s their own home, they can do whatever they want. So you don’t want to go from the back door and surprise them. What if they think that you went there to steal, you’re a robber? It’s not good, you don’t want to create the situation where they pull a gun on you because they didn’t see you. How are you going to explain that to your wife back home? “Oh, I went to my neighbor’s, and his neighbor’s wife opened the door.” Which door did you enter through, the dog’s door? The back door is more for dogs. “Oh, and I saw her do this.” Well, maybe you should have knocked and waited on the front door. Do you see what I mean? It’s not professional to enter through the back door.

Now, knowing that it’s not professional, with non-submitters, you sometimes want to be semi-professional. You can see we know for sure that going through the back door is not good, but then we see here in Surah 12, Jacob giving instructions which are almost semi-professional on purpose, but this is only against non-submitters.

In Surah 12, verse 67, it says:

“And Jacob said, ‘O my sons, do not enter from one door; enter through separate doors. However, I cannot save you from anything that is predetermined by God. To God belongs all judgment; I trust in Him, and in Him shall all the trusters put their trust.'”

So basically, we know we should be professional with believers, enter through the front door. But Jacob, knowing that with non-believers you don’t have to be professional, he instructs his sons to actually enter through many doors, through separate doors, back doors, front doors, whatever doors they had, gates from the back gates of the town and things like that. It says when they went to Egypt, whatever, they entered in accordance with their father’s instructions, although this could not change anything decreed by God. Jacob had a private reason for asking them to do this, for he possessed certain knowledge that He taught him, but most people do not know.

So here we see, comparing these two cases, one of them tells us, “Do not enter from the back door,” the other one is telling us that Jacob told his sons to enter through many doors. You can see that submitters are supposed to be professional with each other as much as possible, and semi-professional only to what it suits them with non-submitters. Yeah, professional even with them is good sometimes, but you don’t have to do it always.

I call this with non-submitters Guerrilla tactics. Guerrillas are non-professional armies. When you’re not safe, sometimes you have to use guerrilla tactics. Let me give you an example. When we went to Hajj, I purposely did not create a WhatsApp account. Someone created a WhatsApp account, I purposely didn’t create it. It was semi-professional. Why? I didn’t want the police catching someone and then checking his messages and then catching all of us. So I didn’t create a WhatsApp. Someone created a WhatsApp, and it actually helped us a lot, by the way. It was professional, but it was professional with partly the wrong people, within the wrong context. It was good, I can see how it benefited us, creating a WhatsApp group for Hajj. But then someone said, “Oh, maybe let me go tomorrow.” There was some panic, there was some uncertainty because of that. I purposely was semi-professional during Hajj because people there are semi-professional.

Or let me give you an example of being semi-professional on purpose. I received an email from a bank. The bank sent me an email saying, “Oh, we would like to see, can we have a meeting? We would like to see how we can reduce your fees.” Clearly the guy who’s sending the email is some kind of mutual fund investment manager or whatever. I can clearly see that they want to call me to trick me through lower fees and making me invest in things which they want to invest. So I just didn’t respond. I was on purpose semi-professional, I just didn’t respond. It’s professional to respond to your emails, it’s professional to respond on time, but with non-submitters, you know they don’t always have good intentions, so you’re just semi-professional on purpose. So I didn’t respond. I’m not being professional on purpose with non-submitters. No response in that email, it’s not professional, but it is what it is. If it was a submitter sending me the same email, I’d probably respond.

Or if it’s a submitter sending me an email in another language, I haven’t responded, by the way, any email I’ve received in other languages, almost in all of them I’ve not responded. It’s not professional. You know I speak English, what are you doing sending me an email in another language? You want me to copy it and paste it and translate it? Just do it for me, do it for the other submitters, be professional.

Handling Workplace Situations

And let me bring something important, by the way, and this kind of is also an answer to one of the questions which one of the submitters asked a couple of weeks ago. One of the submitters asked, “What should we do in case, let me say, we want to go get a new job, and should we tell them ahead of time, before we sign the contract, that we do the Friday prayers and then within that half an hour or 1 hour we need time off or whatever, that we cannot work during that time? Do we tell them, the new employer, do we tell them before or after, or when is the right time?”

I think a lot of people gave good responses, and I’m glad that they were open-minded about it. I think all the responses were good. I just want to say that there’s sort of more variety which we can use there. I’ve used all methods in my life regarding telling the employer that I do the Friday prayer. I’ve done it after, I’ve done it before, I’ve done it at the time of signing the contract, I’ve done pretty much all. But in the last job, I was semi-professional on purpose.

Let me give you an example. It’s not professional when people push their opinion without asking you. For example, let’s say they sell you a car and they’re like, “I know you’ll like it.” They kind of make the decision for you, that’s not professional. However, in this case, the Friday sermon, we should assume as believers that the Friday sermon is obligatory and they should have known that it’s obligatory. So basically, we come from an approach which is not fully professional, however sometimes we have to take that approach, an approach where we don’t ask them. Because when they say no, what then? What are we going to do?

So in my last job, here’s what I did. I’m not saying it should always be done like this, I’m just giving it as an example of semi-professionalism with non-submitters. In my last job which I had, I went, signed the contract under the assumption that they should know that everyone should do the Friday prayer. The next day, when they called me after signing the contract for the introduction—sometimes they give trainings in jobs like, “Okay, so this is going to be your email, is there anything you need to know?” Most jobs have a welcoming day—on that day, without asking, I was like, “Oh, by the way, I do the Friday sermon, but I’m sure you’ll be fine about it, and don’t worry, it’s not going to cause any problem.” I made the decision for them. Now, if they don’t like it, they don’t like it. I had to do what I had to do. If they say, “Oh, you didn’t tell us,” okay, no, you didn’t tell me you don’t do the contact prayer. Why didn’t you tell me that you don’t do the contact prayer? Because I thought everyone is supposed to do the contact prayer. You should have told me that you don’t allow the Friday prayer. It wasn’t my responsibility, it was your responsibility to tell me that you don’t do the contact prayer. So it was semi-professional from my side. I sort of didn’t tell them on time, however they deserved it. So I just told them, “Yeah, it’s going to be fine, don’t worry,” kind of just sneaked the information in while we were talking about something else, and yeah, I didn’t even let them respond. It’s semi-professional, it’s not professional, however you have to be semi-professional with non-submitters sometimes. As you can see, Jacob told his sons, even though he knew that the right door is the front door, he told his sons, because the Egyptians were disbelievers, he told them, “Enter through the back doors.” Once in a while it’s safe, once in a while it helps you actually with non-submitters. I call this guerrilla tactics, because when you’re too weak and the disbelievers don’t care about your safety, you might have to use guerrilla tactics, meaning that you’re not a fully professional army.

Anyway, does anyone have any question? Let me try to keep it quick. By the way, regarding how what you should do with the Fridays, when you should tell the employer, all of them work. You decide your strategy. You know the potential employer, some of them Christian, some of them Muslim, some of them it seems like it’s going to be a problem, some of them it’s not. So yeah, all approaches are sort of okay. I just told you the last approach, which was semi-professional from my side on purpose. And I’ve done the other approaches as well. There are jobs where I’ve told my employer ahead of time, I’ve tried that as well, and I’ve tried another one where I didn’t tell them at all. They kind of all worked somehow.

Q&A

Q: Is the word professional in the sermon context meaning being efficient and considerate while working with a group?

A: Yeah, it’s included there, but mostly I meant prepared. By professional, I mostly meant prepared. Let me give you an example. God willing, I’ve told you like six months ago almost that we’ll have some sort of submitters’ retreat. Now of course, I cannot tell you exactly the details because it depends on governments, it depends on visas issues, whatever. So let’s say three months before we have it, or four months before we have it, I tell you guys we’re going to have the submitters’ retreat in this location, this time. And then imagine someone says, “Oh, I don’t have the passport yet.” That’s not professional. You have to have a passport, you want to have all the strength you can have so you can use it against the disbelievers and to help the believers. So if you know that there’s going to be, you might have to travel, maybe not, maybe we don’t do it, but maybe we do, and then you say, “I don’t have the passport,” that’s not professional. You knew I had mentioned that we might have a retreat, if you don’t have the passport, why didn’t you go to create the passport? So I’m talking more about preparation, being prepared rather than…

Q: Is it professional to propose some ideas that might be very useful in the long term, but from the surface they look like additional effort right now?

A: Well, the professional way is to introduce it when we are talking about it, like not out of topic. It’s not professional to bring things out of topic. You see someone is busy with something, you’re bringing something else, that’s not professional. It has to be within the context, like people are busy, people have to do, it has to do with that, it has to be connected to something they are trying to do.

Comment 1: Praise God, I should type in English when praising God.

Response: Yes, that’s a good example. Yeah, just type in English. It’s not professional to say, “I’m going to do this, inshallah.” It’s not professional in English, in another language it is, but in English it’s not.

Comment 2: Praise God is great.

Comment 3: The sermon was very good, peace be upon you all.

Okay, so I think I should end it here. Peace be to everyone, and for those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. Peace be upon you.

 
Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains why he chose to speak about being humane rather than professionalism, and reminds us that there is a human being with a story behind everyone we meet online.

Video Transcript:

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God. Today my my plan was to actually talk about uh professionalism. But I changed my mind because I think I I could sort of either do it too early or get it wrong or be let’s say inhumane by pushing too much professionalism. let me just give you an example. professionalism is keeping the mosque clean. That’s professional. but I don’t want to go in a place and be like, “Oh, why do you guys not clean the mosque?” And the guys are, “You you know, we lost our arms in the battle.” So yeah, then that would be inhumane to say, “You know, why did you guys not clean the mosque?” when the guys don’t have arms. so yeah, I don’t want to get it wrong with human like with being humane. So I’m going to either postpone or never do it or I God willing I might do it because I think we need to be more more professional. I might do a Friday sermon about about it. But but I I want to focus on being humane first and then we can talk about professionalism. And that’s why actually people have, I think, part of the reason. There’s many reasons, of course. Part of the reason why people have two parents, a mom and a dad, a mother and a father. because first it like and that’s why they first get sort of connected with with their mom and then with their dad. It’s because first they the mom is humane towards them and then the dad teaches them how to be more more professional. the mom might teach them how to be kind, how not, you know, to people and stuff like that and the dad might teach how to hunt. We don’t hunt these days, but you know, things like that. how not how not to injure someone while you’re hunting, like be careful with your arrow. because you can hurt someone like that. So, yeah. just like God created people with a we Not everyone has that, but you know, typically, people have a a mother and a father, and yeah, that’s why it’s important to have both sides to to both be humane and to be professional. Yeah, so I just want to focus on the humanity first before I talk about professionalism, maybe another day. There’s a verse in the Quran which says and I’m going to try to keep it short, by the way. There’s a verse in the Quran which says “We have honored the children of Adam.” It’s Surah 17, verse 70. It says, “We have honored the children of Adam, and we provided them with rides on land and in the sea. We provided for them good provisions, and we gave them greater advantages than many of our creatures.” So, as you can see, children of Adam are honored, which means that we should respect that in others. Meaning that you have you They are created within a context. We are created within a context, which is that we are children of Adam, and there’s some honor in that. And then, when you see another human being, you should respect that he has been honored by God as well. So, you know it’s something of value. You know it’s something to be, let’s say, to be considerate towards. I don’t know why this came to my mind, even though I don’t like to to to I don’t like to bring up movies as as as good examples. I think there’s a movie called Kingdom of Heaven. I’m not sure if that’s the name, but it’s probably that that’s the name. And in the in that movie, the there’s a Muslim army and and a Christian army fighting for Jerusalem. I I think it’s set in the times of the Crusades when the Christians and Muslims are fighting against each other. And I think the Muslim, whatever, uh, leader or the Muslim commander, even though he’s fighting the Christians and one of them has some kind of disease in his face, so he wears a mask. A lot of guys probably might know this movie. Usually men watch this movie. and so the the leader of the Christians has a mask and because he has some kind of disease in his skin. So the Muslim guy, even though he’s fighting him, he sends his doctor to him and and to treat his his disease. which is a humane thing to do. It’s just at the end of the day what humans because we’re all children of Adam and seeing someone who you know is also a child of Adam. That’s actually the the the there should be some respect at the beginning at least in relation to that. and understanding that they all have stories. Everyone has a story. Like no one just dropped out of nowhere. Everyone has a story. Everyone has the has their struggles. Everyone grew up through struggles or good times, but both.

But especially the struggles. they create they shape our character. They shape so yeah, they everyone has that. So you have we have to respect that. And not just kind of try to to let’s say, forget about that and then try to achieve a goal which is not which is not taking into account the human story. Then in Surah 6 49 verse 13, it says, “Oh people, we created you from the same male and female and rendered so it’s all of us from the same male and female.” What does it mean? We’re all family. It’s just a one large family. Humans. and or means that how would you treat your family? So, it’s kind of like the we have it’s important to be humane. Of course, some people have betrayed us which are not submitters, non-believers, but that’s another issue. I’m just focusing on the fact that starting from a humane perspective it submission is also important, belief is also important. actually, they are more important, but this is the topic of today. So, yeah, it says in Surah 49 verse 13 it says, “All people, we created you from the same male and female and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes that you may may recognize one another.” Why did God create distinct peoples and tribe tribes? Meaning distinct also in in looks. Some people look different, some people look you know, someone is shorter, darker, lighter, taller, more weight, less weight, different nose shapes, different eyes, different It It’s a They are not that different by the way, but you know, there’s differences. Enough differences for us to recognize each other. Because like that we know that there’s a story there. There’s a There’s a There’s it helps you sort of understand. Most people, for example, would be able to tell uh even from the photos. You guys have just posted photos, but if we had to guess who Who among you do you think is a mother of of children? We can kind of probably imagine. Definitely, I’m not a mother. But you can see from like just like the There’s a story behind everyone. And Yeah, so unfortunately online, it’s really hard to to sort of know that there’s a human being behind whoever is talking. With today with AI we kind of like have almost personalize it. I I think I caught myself finally calling the AI he. I’m not sure if I did, but yeah. So, if AI can trick us into let’s say talking almost like a human, but if you ask AI, you know, what’s who’s your brother? Who’s your Where were you born? It’s It doesn’t have a story. It doesn’t have a human story. Like it doesn’t have brothers, it doesn’t have sisters, it doesn’t have a dad, it doesn’t have a even a dead dad. You know, some a lot of people have a story because their dad died. And that’s a story in itself. or you know, in what context are they did they grow grow up and things like that. So, AI at least it doesn’t want to replicate to to pretend to have that. So, yeah, let’s let’s repent. The two way in Allah.

Praise be to God there is no other god except God. Okay, so in this last in this second sermon what I want to do is actually I want you guys to sort of help me do the sermon by actually telling your story. Not a full story, just let By the way, this is kind of important also because recently there’s there’s been quite a few submitters, not quite a few, a lot. A lot of submitters who have joined us and we don’t pretty much know them. I we don’t know who they are. And a lot of people actually even the existing submitters from earlier, they don’t know each other as much. So, what we can do as a part of the Friday sermon is is um if everyone can tell us who they are. I’m going to start first just so you don’t get uncomfortable. I’d rather not do it, but because it’s public. And by the way, I’m not going to actually make it public. So, I’ll I’ll write on the the on the group chat. I’ll write sort of my who am I and in a human way, it’s the what the human side of me. And I want you guys I’ll I’ll end this I’ll end the video and then after that you guys can write on on group chat. So, I’m not going to make it public. And then as you know, the group the the chats on the group get deleted after 1 week anyway. So, let let me go to the group chat and and write my story, let’s say. So, peace. Do I say guys? Okay, guys. See, there’s a story there. Why do I say guys? Because that means I’ve been exposed, I guess, to US culture. Someone says peace, whatever. Peace, guys. By the way, guys, let me finish my story first before you write something. Okay, peace, guys. so, I am Alban. I live in Canada with my wife. I have I Okay, you guys might have heard the there’s a the dog barking. So, my wife has a dog. I have a let’s say a mini dog, a small dog, mini dog, mini dog. I have a brother it who lives in US. I have a sister who lives in Kosovo, who is not married. I have and lives with with her parents with my parents with our parents and lives with our parents. I have another sister who is married and lives in Kosovo and she has a husband and two children of teenage years. of course I have two parents. I have two parents. All my family members are submitters except for my dad. What else do I say? Yeah, once in a while once in a while me and my wife go back to Kosovo for vacation. Where where I also visit my family. Part part of my family. I actually don’t talk too much to my dad, but yeah, I guess it’s not very humane, but it is it is what it is. my wife go back to Kosovo for for vacation. Okay, let me just finish this writing.

Back to Kosovo for vacation and also meet my family. This is kind of This is just who I am. Like just the human side of me. What else? Yeah, I like to go on a walks, but there’s a lake by shore here close by. I like to go on walks by the lake shore sometimes. Pretty much that Yeah, you guys can say whatever you want. But focus on the family because you you you cannot start the story without a family. We’re not in a movie where the the main character just starts out of nowhere. He’s an astronaut like he’s like a pilot and there’s no story. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t have a family, he doesn’t he’s nothing. He’s just a pilot. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not we’re not we don’t live in movies. We are real people, we have real stories. So yeah, you have to start with a family. Even if you don’t have a family. If you live alone, just say I live alone, my family, whatever. or my my children now live on their own, whatever the situation is. If you have 50 sisters, say you have 50 sisters sisters, it’s fine. It’s a human story. Yeah, that’s it. And I’m going to end the the sermon now and part as part of the next as part of the I’m not going to end the sermon actually. I’m going to end the video. As part of the continuation of the sermon, you guys write your story and read each other’s story and you get to know each other. I I hope you guys get to know each other. So peace be upon you and after you you read each other’s stories, you can go and do the contact prayer whoever whoever has to do the contact prayer. peace.

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza discusses the community’s use of the website chat and explains that God rewards us for our deeds, not for our positions.

Video Transcript:

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. That introduction music sounded like some some start of an Australian show or something. which was nice in a nice way. what do I want to talk about today? Oh, yeah. The the the the chat the we’ve been using the chat a lot recently. I hope we didn’t annoy someone by like lots of messages. lots of messages and when when I was trying to design the chat feature in our in our website, I had concerns whether we it’s going to be used for the right things or the wrong things. And yeah, the the wrong things is if you try to write when I’m speaking, that’s the the during the Friday sermon, that’s the wrong way to use the chat. but I think we’ve been using the chat in the right way recently and I I recently but also most almost always and I’m so happy about it because u it was mostly intended what I call for sort of like work like work like communication. If any of you have jobs, you know there’s usually meetings, there’s people communicating, but they communicate for work. They don’t communicate for uh for debates and and and taking positions on things. now but and by the way before and before I go to like to talking about this, let me just say that in the group chat, God willing, I’m going to post in the following Friday sermons. As you guys know like as you guys know we have been working on the Quran making the Quran in a sort of v video format for YouTube and God willing in the probably that during the next year I’ll quite often I’m the plan is that I’m going to post the link of suras in the group chat and tell you that oh during this let’s say during this Friday sermon just listen to this surah here is the link so We might not go live. It’s really really important for you to remember this. We might not go live at all, but you’ll know in the group chat. You you’ll see it in the group chat. So today the Friday sermon is going is going to be a surah. Here is the link and it’s going to be in the group chat. That means we will not go live. now I hope someone reads it and doesn’t then say, “Oh, why is it not live?” because today you’re supposed to to listen or or view as read or read a sura as part of the Friday sermon. So don’t get surprised. I’m going to post it in the group chat. so that’s kind of the idea of the group chat group chat to help us, you know, organize and work better, not to to to have positions. And I’m using the word position here because I just want to use simple English. What I really mean is stance, you know, political stance like a stance on, you know, what is your stance on homosexuality? For example, what’s your position on on homosexuality? and a lot of people think that that’s how the religion should be like having positions. What’s your position on on homosexual sexuality? Oh, well, I am against homosexuality. And in the next world, do you think God is actually going to pay you for your possessions or your deeds? Who chose you to be a king to have possessions on things? Oh, my position is that we should not eat I don’t know, we should not eat meat. That’s my, you know, some people might say that. so yeah, we we are supposed we are God rewards us based on deeds, not based on positions. And it might sound a little bit ridiculous to express it like this. but only prostitutes get paid for their position. Everyone else gets paid for their deed. I mean, even they don’t get paid for, but you know what I mean. So, yeah, it’s that’s really important for us to understand. If you think you’re going to get rewarded for your position, oh, my position on on this issue is we should do that. Who is who’s asking you? Do you think you you’re actually going to change it the world by having a stance, having a position? No, you should do something. Not necessarily about that. We got paid for for our deeds, not for positions. And so when someone asks and I’m going to give you an example of what’s you know why actually having like doing deeds is better than just taking a position. And and I this is important because we I want people to use the group chat as a working relationship, not to take positions on things. for example, if someone asks me what’s your position on homosexuality, I don’t know. I my position is I sit straight on my chair, if you guys know what I mean. I I’m a grown man. I don’t sit on people’s laps. I s sit straight on my chair. That’s my position right now. I’m sitting on a chair. That’s my position. I’m I’m just trying to make it ridiculous because well, who who cares? I mean, it does matter. It does matter what like uh it does matter what people do in relation to whether they are homosexuals or not. It just doesn’t matter what our position is.

Oh, we’re against we’re who who cares like who’s asking you? who appointed you. To be fair, Congress members do get paid for their position a tiny bit. So, prostitutes and Congress members a tiny bit. They get paid for their positions. The rest of the people, no one is really getting paid for their position. You’ll not get get paid for your position in on in when you go to heaven or hell if you think positions are going to send you to heaven. so yeah. Now let me give you an the example of why doing the deeds is better than actually having positions. there was this guy some of very a few of you might have reme might remember him. I’m not going to mention the name. but like probably he was like about three years ago, four years, I don’t know. Time has passed past maybe three years ago. and he joined us he he joined the submitters and but he had some some questions like he he wanted he by the way he’s not a submitter anymore but that’s why I’m kind of like talking bad about him but yeah so he joined and then very soon after he joined just a few days later he had a question about oh why why does do we have to report the zakati this way or that way like he had some questions and like the conversation I had a convers conversation with him and a voice conversation and I was and one of the examples I gave him is like oh you know this is kind of important because you know what what if you have you want to know who’s who’s available for marriage and stuff like that and then my deed not position my deed I was trying to do something you know I’m like and by the way I think there there would be someone suitable for you and you might be interested and I would like to help you get married. So this is my deed. I’m trying to actually do something. And the ne the next day he just doesn’t doesn’t stop communication. He stopped being a submitter, stopped commun talking to me. That’s it. That was it. Then I go check it on his Facebook profile and stuff like that. What’s going on? How did this guy vanish? Yesterday he was my best friend. Sort of pretending to be my best friend. Now he just vanished and then I see based on his Facebook that very likely he was gay. As soon as I mentioned marriage he he ran away. So what I think happened is the guy noticed as noticed in our website because in our that’s still our what we post on our website. In our website it says as long as you do the contact prayer and the obligatory charity you are among us. You are a submitter. So, I guess he thought, you know what, these guys might be progay because they they all they care is the contact prayer, the zakat, and I’m gay. I guess I’m just going to go in this group and they’ll accept me. Well, I don’t have to take a a position on homosexual homosexuality. But when someone comes, I try to to help them get married and they run away. They don’t like it. No, please. No. and by the way, when we see as by just doing the deed and not taking a position, it was better. The guy just ran away. I don’t think we have any gays right now in our community. Even though we never took a stance. I have no video. I I don’t remember. At least so far. God will probably make a video for explanation purposes. Not so we not so we take a position. But but so far I don’t think we have any video on gays. I don’t think anyone is gay. one guy who try one guy who was gay whatever who tried to to join us who joined us actually and then left immediately almost immediately. yeah he ran away because we because of what we did not because of our position. Now had we taken a position this is how it could be worse because if I say for example we are against homosexuality anyone who who is gay is gay cannot join us. What that can do is actually it can exclude also the parent of a potentially of a let’s say of a child who has homosexual tendencies. you know someone is like oh you know my son my daughter they have they don’t like boys they don’t like girls whatever the situation is that can happen it’s a b biological thing but me being their parent and I can see this community they actually do not accept them I don’t feel welcome so ba basically when we take a position we exclude the parent who’s not gay at all but he just feels unwelcome and there’s no need to take a position on that like just just don’t do it. Just don’t do it. It’s it’s as simple as that. so yeah, that’s an example of where the deed are actually better than taking a position on on something. let’s repent.

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. I’m just going to read some Quran verses which actually support this idea. Surah 36:54 says, “On that day, meaning in the last day, no soul will be wronged in the least. you will be paid precisely for whatever you did. This is Rashad’s translation. Now, Rashad was a genius in some way because he he translated it the word precisely here. But in Arabic, he translated it more suitably for our generation. But in Arabic, it says, “And not you will be paid except for what you used to do.” Meaning that you will not get paid for your possessions, you’ll get paid for your deeds. You’ll not get paid for your positions. Oh, when you go to heaven, do you think God is going to ask you? Oh, what was your position on homosexuality? Did you agree or did you not agree? That’s not what he’s going to ask you. God is going to ask you as an adult grown man, did you sit in someone’s lap? That’s if you know what I mean. If you’re a child and sit in someone’s lap, yeah, fine. You know, your parents lap. But he’s not going to ask you what was your position. You know, you’re not the king. You’re not a congress member. Like who cares about your position? so now Rashad didn’t kind of excluded the word only because in Arabic it is only. You will not get paid but except meaning only meaning that you will only get paid for your deeds nothing else. and Rashad said you will be paid precisely for your deeds. He kind of excluded the word only because sometimes people misunderstand it. They think that comm sometimes they don’t know that actually communicating is part of work like when we chat on the group chat or oh do you like this font what do you think about this could we post it like this or you know that’s actually part of work. So that’s a deed you know typing typing in the computer that’s the deed you will not get rewarded for your position you will get rewarded for every keystroke you made you know or whatever swipe so God will reward you that’s that’s how much God will reward you by the way that’s why we deserve less less rewards these days because this we use our finger for to get rewards you know type it here do that do that use the mouse do this so God is going to reward me for Yes, this is the movement similar to how God rewarded a tailor who was fixing the the clothes of of a person who came from battle and let’s say one of the one of the disbelievers was trying to kill him and he cut his clothes and now he has to fix his clothes. So let’s say his wife now is trying to fix his clothes after the battle, you know, kind of suing the clothes. See, it’s similar. It’s a similar similar movement. I She was doing this, I’m doing this, you know, doing that. So basically what I’m doing is similar and what you some of you guys are doing helping with the Quran videos and all, you know, you’re just moving your fingers. That’s the deed. That’s the actual deed. And you can see it’s kind of like similar to helping someone in battle rather than actually being in battle, which is a good it’s still good. You know those women who who sued the clothes of the soldiers when they were came after battle, we might get paid similarly to them because what what are we doing all day long? Just moving our mouse. Here we go.

Click click click click click. That’s that’s the deed we do. But that’s what we get get paid for. It’s a just a finger movement, but it gets rewarded because the Quran says even an atom’s weight of good will be rewarded. So don’t underestimate it. It’s just a finger movement, but it’s going to get paid for you’ll get paid for it in the last day. But you will not not get paid for your position ever. Now going back to Russian’s translation he didn’t use the word only in this case because I think he was thinking about you know some people will communicate and some people write some and that could also be part of the de and then they they’ll think that oh are those things excluded no they are not excluded but you are doing there something you know in a meeting in a work meeting at least you are trying to sit straight in your chair you know you’re not laying down or something so that’s part of part of work part of deeds But God doesn’t pay us on our position on our stance. He pays us for what we do. So guys, if you want to know like how good you’ve done is if you’ve held the helped the community for which you’ll get rewarded in the next world is how many finger movements did you make to help the community or if not actually some people by the way I I this is a good opportunity to thank a lot of those who actually haven’t who make sure that they don’t forget to pay the penalty zakat. I was thinking for example, let me just give you an example of whether we have enough money to to do the Quran in video format because you know some of these things cost and and I was I almost decided to go with a just black screen as a background and then in some for some way it didn’t really work very well and and in the meantime one of the guys here actually had paid I don’t know it seemed like penalties I I just received money on PayPal in our group in our community PayPal and I’m like oh this seems like just enough for our project. So that guy now what will that guy who send the money just in time get rewarded for? He will get rewarded for all the because I think he also has a has a work where he put types and stuff like that. all the typing he has done at work, he took that, he sent the money and God will reward him in heaven for all the finger movements he did he did at his work. So that’s a good way to help and also people will help. So what I’m saying is even when you actually help with money that’s a deed you are actually getting paid for the deed which you did at your work when you earn the money. or some people are unemployed, they might help with deeds within the community. Either way is fine. Either way is fine. It it wouldn’t work without both. It wouldn’t work without both. We kind of need both. Employed and unemployed unemployed people. because they are equally important to to whatever we do. So when we do the Quran, please don’t think that it’s only the ones who got involved were part of the success. the ones who paid for it are also part of the success and they will also get rewarded probably more in some ways sometimes sometimes less it depends how much they you know who did more so yeah it’s we’re going to get paid for our for our deeds another verse in the there’s so many verses in the Quran probably like at least 20 who emphasize this verse 3739 says you are paid only Rashad translated did it more closely to the Arabic in this time. You were you are paid only for what you have done.

surah 66:7 says, “Oh you who disbelieved, do not apologize today. You are being paid only for what you did.” Verse 27 90. As for those who bring evil works, they will be forced into hell. Do you not get paid only for what you used to do? As you can see, it’s all about deeds when it comes to the rewards in heaven. It’s not about possessions. It’s because at the end of the day, think of it like this. If you just have a position on something but never did anything about it, how is that different from acting? You know the Quran says that actors are pretty much useless people in the sort of that’s a way of describing it. It kind of says like they are followed only by the strayers. it doesn’t label that and then it it does some exception of some of them might be good. But what I’m saying is how is that different from acting? You know an actor who goes to to an actor who pretends to be a soldier in a movie. He’s just communicating. He never fought. It’s not real. So what I’m saying is how is that different from acting? If you just have positions, my position is that we should go not go to war in in in Vietnam. That’s your position. How is that different from from an actor who would does a movie about how bad war in Vietnam is? It’s not different. He never went there. He never stopped from being there. Do you see that? The like the how how similar they are acting and just taking a position on things, you know? my position is the same. Pretty much essentially the same. So if you just have a position, you’re just acting. But if you do something, and I’m not saying do something about it. We don’t have to fix someone’s sexuality. Like I’m not a doctor. Like I’m not I also I’m not a therapist. Like I I don’t have to deal with it. However, I don’t have to do there are things we can do, you know, we can build a mosque. We can we’re way we are some people are trying to help with I don’t know in different ways. And by the way, don’t feel guilty if you there’s nothing to do for you right now. What you can do is work in your job. Find a job, work, send the money. That’s also that’s one of the best ways to help actually to that money is going to be used in the cause of God of course. So that’s how you you sort of earn deeds in the next world not on based on positions. I don’t like it when people go in chats and they are like, “Oh, our stance on this issue is that our stance.” How how often did you guys have to deal with that? It’s most of the time you we never had to deal with it like in real life. It’s like it’s unrealistic. It’s like live your real life. does anyone have any question?

Someone is typing so I’m just waiting here.

I’ll try to keep it short by by the way. Maybe just one question or two and that’s it. yeah, great great great uh great point Jad. So Jad is saying the only positions that we will be rewarded are our positions in prayer. That’s actually a very good way to put it. Even that is kind of like we get rewarded for the movement, not the position for actually standing up and bowing down. And so the movement is the but You guys get the point? Like it’s it’s a very way a very good way to prove the point. I don’t think it’s fully correct because we actually get paid for the movement, not the position. But but it’s a very good way to prove the point. The only positions I’m going to repeat, very very nice saying. It should be a quote in our website somewhere. Guys, make a poster out of it. The only positions that will be rewarded are are our positions in prayer. That’s it. And Trevor is saying, “Don’t get arthritis, everyone.” Yeah, that’s funny. Also, okay, cool. Okay, so yeah, I I I I think you guys got the point like coming up with these nice quotes. You got you you got the point. so maybe I should Yeah, it’s because I’m I want people to get the chance to actually be able to read the group chats, especially the guys who work and are busy. And I’m going to keep it short so people can actually read the group chats to catch up if they haven’t. okay. So, uh, for those who have to do the contact prayer for which you get rewarded, u do the contact prayer. the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza talks about meditation as described in the Quran, such as appreciating God’s creation, and how it keeps us from worrying too much.

Video Transcript:

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God. so again, sorry guys for the like the making you wait. The microphone was not working. I think I know why. Like I was testing some audio software during this week to kind of edit some audios and um I guess it messed up my microphone and I wasn’t aware that this is going to mess it up for the live video. so what I want to talk to about today is yeah so we’re planning on doing a a video Quran and just a second. Kata is still saying that she can just see the video but without the sound. Can you guys confirm again? Can you hear the sound?

Yes. Okay. So, people can see. okay. So, guys can hear the sound. Okay. So, uh yeah, I was talking about like how the the plan, God willing, is to do the the Quran in a video format. And I was thinking of of naming it either Quran or video Quran and but also Quran or maybe video Quran for meditation, inspiration and maybe healing. So imagine the title would be for example video Quran for meditation, inspiration and healing. Now the healing is a claim in the Quran. So like the Quran itself claims that there’s healing in the Quran. So there’s no need to explain there. And also when I say inspiration, I don’t mean like revelation like the way they meant it in the in the ancient Arabic times. what I mean is like inspiration the way we use it today in art in in let’s say when we watch a movie I I you say I got inspired to let’s say go work out. Maybe you see a movie where the person is fit. So it inspires you to to go work out whatever in that way inspiration. Now inspiration can be from God or from the devil. So you don’t know exactly for sure. That’s why I’m careful when I use the word inspiration. But in this case I’m not claiming that the any specific type of inspiration in the sense that I’m just saying the Quran for inspiration. You can use it for inspiration. I’m not saying that this will give you inspiration from God. So we have to be careful about that. I’m not making that claim. And I don’t like when people make such claims when they’re like sometimes they want to be religious and they’re like, “God inspired me to do this. God inspired me to do that.” How do you know it was God? Maybe it was just your idea. Maybe it was just your opinion. Maybe that’s what you like. Maybe it was from the devil. so yeah I’m usually careful about uh about about inspiration how I use the word inspiration but in this case it makes sense because it’s kind of like let’s say the product the video Quran God willing will be for inspiration. So that’s kind of what I want to title it for meditation, inspiration and healing and the word meditation there. That’s kind of what I want to focus today on like to explain what is meditation. Rashad used the word meditation quite a lot in the Quran and the I think people sometimes misunderstand it which is why I want to explain it a little bit. Let me first actually read what the how Rashad used the word meditation in in the translation. so I’m just going to read some verses from the Quran which used the word meditation from Rashan’s translation. so starting with verse 317 it says they are stat the believers they are steadfast truthful submitting charitable and meditators at dawn. Verse 341 says he said my lord gave me a sign. He said your sign is that you will not speak to the people for three days except through signals. Commemorate your lord frequently and meditate night and day. Verse 9 112 says they are the repenters, the worshippers, the praisers, the meditators, the bowing and prostrating the advocate advocators of righteousness and forbidders of evil evil and the keepers of God’s law. give good news to such believers. Verse 1779 says, “During the night you shall meditate for extra credit that your Lord may raise you to an honorable rank family.” I I think it’s talking about Zechariah the sanctuary and signal to them meditate on God day and night. Verse 2564 says in the privacy of the night they the believers meditate on their Lord and fall prostrate. Verse 26, 218 says, “Who sees you when you meditate during the night?” Verse 37, 143 says, “If it were not that he,” I think it’s talking about Jonah resorted to meditation on on God. And the verse continues something saying about he would not be saved or something. Then verse 39:9 says, “Is it not better to be one of those who meditate in the night, prostrating and staying up, being aware of the hereafter and seeking the mercy of their lord? Say, are those who know equal to those who do not know? Only those who possess intelligence will take heed.” Verse 50 says, “During the night you shall meditate on his name and after prostrating.” Verse 732 says, “Meditate during the night except rarely.” Uh then the next verse says the meditation at night is more effective and more righteous. Then verse 7320 says your lord knows that you meditate during twothirds of the night or half of it or oneird of it and so do some of those who believe in God. Now Rashad used the word meditation in English. However the med word meditation in Arabic really in Quran and in Arabic really doesn’t exist in the Quranic Arabic. so a lot of times when the there’s translations there’s words which which are a combination of many words. So then the question is why did Rashad use this? Well he had to he he had a purpose but I want to explain another one later as well. The reason why he used this is because he wanted to sort of get away from the standard labels which unfortunately the traditional Muslims will will will use. like just recently I I saw someone had fallen like one of the submitters had fallen for the that trick as well. he used the word kiswa I don’t I think it means cover of the cabba or something. and it’s kind of like a label. It’s a it’s a brand. Let me let me tell you why it matters when you why it makes a difference whether you use the Arabic branded name versus not. if I say for example, I’m wearing my Nikes today. It’s a Why am I saying it in I think Nike is in Greek or German maybe. I think it’s Greek. I don’t know if Adidas is also in Greek. Or I’m wearing Adidas. See, I’m using the word in that language. Why? because I I I admit I’m admitting that that is a brand which comes as a package. No one can say half Nike. It’s just either it’s Nike or not. So it’s either like they serve it to you as a package. So when we fall for those let’s say tricks which are used by by religious people religious leaders of the world. they brand it and then when we fall for it, it’s kind of like we’re say we’re admitting that what you serve us is going to be that or nothing else and we are not going to change it. So kisvah, if you use the word that word, whatever that means, it’s a specific form of a carpet which only they can decide what it is. So it’s kind of like it’s it’s a trick. It’s a trick to keep to brand something which is not. There’s a verse in the Quran which says have they monopolized God’s knowledge? Basically, they are monopolizing. They’re saying you either either use our term or we’re not going to talk. So, let’s not fall for it. So, Rashad Rashad did with this translation, he didn’t fall for that stuff because when you go to the traditional Muslim world, they will actually they have specific words for these things. They are like, okay, have you done? Have you done? This is how you do. Or like if you go to the Sufis, they’ll have specific words. You know, the swirling dervishes, they have a word for it. they have different words for it’s like sufis do they do meditation in so many ways they the problem is that they have specific words for that which then tricks you into thinking that that that’s the only way to meditate that’s not the only way to meditate there’s so many ways to meditate so Rashad kind of shied away moved away from that from falling for that trap and didn’t use the Arabic terms he used the more general term meditate Now in the Quran, let me just give you examples from the Arabic Quran. What what did he translate as meditate? One of them is actually it says ask forgiveness and Rash translated as meditate. Another case it says glorify but Rasha translated as meditate. Another one literally means stand up or be awake. Rash translated as meditate. Another case I think it means something else something like uh glorification. I mentioned that. But there’s another or go out. It’s interesting like to go out and Rash translated as as meditate. It literally means go out. But like what does it even mean to go out? Go out of your body. Go out. Yeah. Anyway, so what I’m saying is he used purposely used the word meditate because these terms have been abused for centuries. These other terms, the Arabic brandings, it’s a branding. It’s not actually the language. I’m not against the language. the the Arabic language language is really nice and pure and beautiful. The problem is the branding. They use it as a brand. So Rashad shied away from that. and and that was on purpose so that they do not force only their form of worship to into you. meaning so for example if you if he used the word let’s say whatever to stand up whatever the word in Arabic is then people would think that oh we have to do the traditional way of the sunnah which where people do extra after the the salat and stuff like that see I’m okay with two with two brandings by the way salat and zakat I’m okay with that branding because that’s a common common let’s say ritual which we share I’m I’m okay to to share that brand salat zakat is Okay. Others I I I don’t like branding. or Allah. Why brand it? Why give it a brand? It’s a name. It’s a name. It means God in in English. And yeah, we can use God. It’s okay. So uh because then it makes it look like it’s a brand like the the only version of God which people should can understand is that if that’s how they explain it. Yeah. Anyway, so that’s you know that’s how they think. so regarding meditation as you can see rash there’s no actually a word meditation in the Quran the meditation does exist in English it’s a real thing but there’s there was no need in Arabic to describe it other verses which when you combine them they they can give you the word meditation in English in meditation in English for example there’s a word in Arabic like there’s quite a few verses in in Arabic which say do not worry There’s there’s a verse in the Quran says don’t believe in God the hereafter and read the righteous life they have nothing to worry nor will they grieve basically meditation should be understood as the basic ability not to worry in the basic level like if if you want to think of b simple meditation more advanced meditation but it can be tricky to say it like that but I’m just going to say what I mean like like if you understand it a little bit deeper is the ability not to think. A lot of people when you tell them oh like I’m meditating or like which I wouldn’t say that it’s kind of weird but anyway like if someone says I’m meditating like a guru whatever Indian guru or something like that Hindu guru tells them you know let’s meditate or this is how we meditate most people especially in the western culture misunderstand it they think that it’s some sort of thinking it’s actually not thinking the ability not to And u and it’s connected because what it does is it enables you not to worry because why do people think? Because they worry. If you think about planning to go to work tomorrow, why do you do that? Because you worry. You worry. You don’t want to lose your job. Why do you think about what you’re going to cook today? It’s because you worry. You worry that you will go hungry if you don’t do that. So thinking and worrying are quite connected. and the ability not to think can also enable you not to worry. Now I don’t I’m not saying to go be totally stupid, but there there’s such a thing as you kind of let’s say reducing your brain activity to a level where it’s not worrying. You’re you’re not worrying. And that’s that’s basically that’s meditation. Now there are tricks of let’s say tricks to to to sort of activate that a little bit which is pretty much you have to be in the present because the reason why people think it’s mostly for the future or the past either they daydream usually in the past or some kind of imaginary scenario which is not meditation or they plan they think about the future. Oh, what am I gonna do tomorrow or they talk to themselves? Like there’s many I don’t know how people think. There’s I think there have been studies about like what people spend most of the time doing during the day like thinking during the day. like some people actually talk to themselves other imagine talking to others others will think about the future like how they are going to do certain things, which job they are going to apply to things like that. others think about the past, you know, they have nostalgia about the past. So the people have a tendency to do that and that’s not meditation. Meditation is stopping that too much. and basically the the the way to do it is anything which keeps you in the present right now. What am I saying right now? What am I feeling right now? What basically how can I be in the present without worrying about the future without thinking about the past can I be in the present and um yeah there’s I think the best ability to meditate is not to use any any tricks but most people use tricks like the way let’s say some gurus will teach you or whatever they will use tricks to do that to achieve that because people are not let’s say that that good at meditating if they if let me put it like this if medit meditation has to be taught, it’s because you’re not good at it and it’s because you’re not doing it well. So, however, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t use it, do it like that. again, I’m not teaching you how to meditate. I think it’s overrated. because God willing, as I’ll tell you that it’s actually we do meditation anyway during the day. But, what was I going to say? So the yeah there are methods to kind of keep you in the present but before I go there let’s actually repent.

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God. so yeah, how do we sort of how can we encourage I I don’t want to use the word enforce but how can you let’s say you don’t know how to meditate and ask someone ask you how do I meditate it’s basically just you have to to tell the person or whatever to tell yourself to be in the present and how can you be in the present is by sort of not thinking and unfortunately People are not good at not thinking. People are not good at not thinking. Right now like you they just cannot stop their mind. The mind keeps going like you think you think you think you think. Especially if you have anxiety, depression, like it’s you’re going to think more and more and more and more and deeper like more like the thoughts have bigger emotions. So it’s the ability not to think and people are not very good at it which is why we sometimes use tricks and those tricks I’m calling them tricks because I don’t want to people to kind of abuse it as some kind of method which you have to do. It’s a trick. It’s okay. It works. and some of those tricks is just you you let’s say focus on your on your senses. For example, some gurus will tell you breathe breathe slow you focus on your breath. Okay, that keeps you in the present. It just like prevents you from thinking about the future or the or the past or right now. Let’s say wherever you guys are sitting, just focus on what you’re touching or where you’re sitting. That’s because now that removes the worries because you’re in the present. You’re right now, right here. Not thinking about the future, nothing about the past. Right now, you’re in the present. You’re just being. You’re not thinking. you’re just being. That’s meditation. Or let’s say people do it so much more than they realize, which is why I let’s say think it’s overrated. It’s overrated as a as a let’s say as a word. for example, when you smell a good smell, it actually brings you in the present. So let’s say you were thinking about, oh, what am I going to do today? And then suddenly you’re passing through some flowers and there’s a good smell and you’re like, that’s a good smell. what it brought it just brought you to the present and you’re more happy. It brought you to right what you’re feeling doing right now. So it kind of like prevents you from those bad like worrying thoughts from worrying too much and actually it happens much more a lot of the what the Quran describes for example the Quran describes appreciation appreciation is a form of medi meditation like when you appreciate something you see a flower you appreciate it and uh that’s actually why why is it the meditation because it it keeps you in the present When you appreciate something, you cannot think about tomorrow. You’re just you’re appreciating it today. You like it today. A hug is meditation because what it it what does a hug do? It prevents you from thinking about the future or the past. It just keeps you in the present because you have to let’s say engage your feelings. like so many things are meditate. When we eat, we meditate. When we watch a movie, we meditate. Now these are tricks though. These are not most people don’t have the ability to meditate just on their own. So they need external stimulation to to meditate. I think music is probably the best. If you want to know how people who really know how to meditate feel it’s just like when listening to music because what does music do? It does it it keeps you in the present. That’s all. That’s why it feels good. It keeps you now right now because there’s a note and then you know the next note is is right there immediately after that and then there’s the next one. So it constantly keeps you in the present right now right here. What are you feeling? What are you seeing? What are you thinking about now? Only about now. so so yeah what I’m saying is just listening to music is just as good as what a guru will teach you. Now he can what I basically what I’m saying don’t don’t fall for gurus because what they’re selling what actually they are telling you is how to not do other things when you meditate they are not teaching you how to meditate meditation you can do on your own anyone can meditate just sitting if you’re if you if you have the ability to just sit alone do nothing and not worry most people if they just do nothing they will worry You can just do not by by the way and this is risky because it’s when when you teach it the way gurus teach it is actually they are teaching apathy. They are teaching um an life which is not active. If I get take an example from let’s say fitness fitness is good however most fitness people will teach you how not to be successful in life because they oh you have to train five times a week you have to do this you basically you’re telling me not to go to work and not to read and not to to do stuff for my own like which matters more the same thing with those gurus who talk about meditation they basically anyone can do it the problem is that when People go to gurus they tell them the way they teach it to them is they prevent them from doing more than just meditation. Unfortunately today people because we don’t live complete w complete lives we we have to choose what like what we want to do specifically about like in about different things. For example we either do meditate or we train or we eat or in the past they would do it pretty much all together. you could you can eat and meditate you know you can walk and chew gum the that but today they have to do it specifically. Oh let’s do this specific thing or that specific it’s it’s mostly because we don’t live a complete lives because you don’t have time for all of them by the way. So what are you going to do? Meditate or train or or which one are you going to do first? It’s there’s no not enough hours in the day. that’s why I don’t like yeah I believe in meditation the let’s say Rash translated I I think it’s a good thing that translated that he translated it like that mostly because people were branding other things wrongly. however I’m just kind of want to sort of warn you not to fall for the other side which is to think that there’s some kind of like secret into meditation. It’s just being in the present that’s all and not worrying about the future. And you can sort of uh tri trigger it. Maybe not trig maybe the word trigger is is better. You can trigger it. You can trigger meditation through certain techniques. Breathing, focusing on the on the present, what you’re smelling, what you’re hearing, what you’re seeing, appreciating, not worrying. Now, the best form of of meditation is the contact prayer. Reading the Quran is also a very good form of meditation. But the best is the contact prayer as a form of meditation. because what does the contact prayer do? It keeps you in the present. You have to constantly say something which means that you cannot talk to yourself about some other thing. You have to constantly feel something because as you are let’s say standing up what do you feel? The the the bottom of your feet. You feel it. You feel the bottom of your feet touching the ground as you’re standing up. When you go to prostrate, you feel the ground in your hands or whatever your head. You feel the ground here or you feel the body moving. So, it keeps you in the present. It stops your worries. You don’t worry as much anymore. That that’s it. Now, but as you can see with the contact prayer while meditating, you’re doing so many other things. You’re remembering God. you are uh glorifying God. You’re appreciating you are submitting to God. You’re obeying God. There’s so many other things you are doing with a contact prayer including meditation. So basically what others teach you about meditation, I’m not saying it’s wrong or it’s not. It’s just it’s more limiting. You can do more. You can do more than that. So whatever the gurus tell you, whatever in Buddhist religions, Hind religion, yeah, there’s some truth to it. What I’m saying is like yeah meditation does exist. It’s it’s real. However, they are teaching you how to do it less. You can do it more and more means you do meditation and other things. By the way, let’s say and this is why I think let’s say some countries are more poor sometimes. partly I think a German who is working and enjoying his job some kind of physical work he is meditating more than he realizes compared to a guy who has gone to some Buddhist temple somewhere in Nepal or India or whatever and he’s focusing totally on his meditation. He’s probably not meditating as much as a German guy who is just focusing on his work. Work is meditation if you if you enjoy it. If you hate it, no. If you hate it, if you have to plan. By the way, even today, that’s why I say we don’t have complete lives because because even work is not always meditation today. Most of our work involves what I call administrative stuff. A lot of people think, oh, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m gonna Half of the work just means filling documents. You’re not actually talking to patients. You’re not teaching what you know. It’s administrative stuff. Whatever profession you are, probably half of your work is something else. And a lot of young people actually get surprised when they go to work. Let’s say you are you they hire you to be a teacher and most of the time you don’t teach. Most of the time you have to to report your program or whatever, report your plan, report what you did, things like that. Now, that’s not meditation. But meditation is when you’re actually teaching, let’s say, and you’re enjoying it because you’re in the present right there, right then. You’re not planning. You’re not worrying. So what I’m saying is some German guy who’s who nobody will think that he’s meditating. He’s just working. He don’t doesn’t care about religion. He doesn’t care about Hinduism. He doesn’t he goes to work. What type of work could I take which is let’s say a good example? let’s say he let’s take it as simple as cleaning the street. So some you know some people in some cities they hire people to clean the street. So the guy is just cleaning the street. Why is that meditation? Because it doesn’t allow him to think about the future. It doesn’t allow him to think about the past. Not much at least. he’s not worrying because he has to think about every brush like every movement he does he has to think about it so it’s keeping him in the present he has to just think about that next sweep so it’s keeping him in the present he’s meditating he’s meditating meditating and working so even though I’m not against meditation I think the way the meditation has been branded today it’s less than what you could have done otherwise basically you can meditate and work. Work is meditation. Reading the Quran is meditation. Work is not always meditation. But reading the Quran is always meditation. What I’m saying is work is mostly a meditation. then but the contact prayer is the best meditation because you do that plus everything else. It doesn’t stop you from other other good deeds. by when I say everything else I every other good deed and intention you can have this all combined in a contact prayer including the meditation. So it includes the meditation. yeah I don’t I don’t think I need to say much about this by the way. I’m not trying to trash meditation. I’m also not trying but I’m just saying don’t fall for branded meditation. I’m against branded meditation. It’s just, you know, meditation. You don’t have to brand it like it doesn’t have to be some specific form. Yeah, it can maybe if you just breathe slower, it’s it’s a good medit. I’m not again I’m not putting it down. There are methods. Some people need sometimes meditation because they might have a stressful life. They’re like I basically I’m saying it’s probably a it belongs more to psychology and therapy. you know, if someone needs therapy for depression, anxiety, stuff like that. Yeah, meditation is probably one of the tools, I don’t know. I I don’t like it’s not my profession. It’s not that important. What I’m saying is yeah, I’m not against that. But most of the time, if you don’t really need have a specific need for it, you can just do it in a way where you also achieve other things. You can go to work if you enjoy it. Really, it’s actually meditation. yeah. Does anyone have any questions?

The only thing you need to remember is meditation is not worrying and in the ultimate form not thinking which is kind of almost impossible Oh, by the way, let’s say one of the forms Rashad did u let’s say meditated is what they call in Arabic like remembering God like saying yeah that’s a form of meditation but can you see that it still achieves the same thing it keeps you present because as you’re saying it it doesn’t allow you to think something else about the future yeah Someone is saying listening to the Friday sermon is a good meditation. Yeah, that’s also meditation. so the video Quran is partially intended for meditation. You were originally you were originally saying yes. So that’s so my answer is yes. The video Quran is partially intended for meditation because it uses some of those tricks. It’s a trick like it has nice views. God willing it will have nice views. Some a little bit of music, maybe some sound. By the way, a lot of let’s say videos you go if you go on YouTube and you search video for meditation, what is it going to be? Just some plain simple sound. There’s no nothing secret there. It’s what all it does is keep you keeps you in the present. It doesn’t let you think about the future or the past because why? As you’re hearing the sound, it prevents you from having other thoughts because you’re focusing on what you’re hearing. That’s all. So yeah, there’s meditation there because of people have to focus on the Quran and there’s if there’s some let’s say additional sounds or videos there, it can help them meditate. It’s artificial. I know it’s artificial meditation. Basically, it tricks people into thinking that they are better at it at it than they actually are. But it’s okay. It’s okay. We do artificial stuff today anyway. I wouldn’t do it if there was no competition for it. Like there’s online there’s so much stuff which actually tricks you into their own version of meditation basically. And it’s not really a trick. It’s more like let me yell louder so so people can can hear me. Yeah. Yelling louder is a trick to get people’s people’s attention. If everyone in the market is yelling, oh, you know, buy this gold, buy this gold. And if you go to a really really crowded market and everyone is selling their product and let’s say you want to go there and preach, you would have to yell because everyone is yelling and that’s a way to keep the attention of the person in the present there right there what you have to say. even now I’m probably yelling because I’m used from competition of yelling I guess from work from life and things like that. Sorry for too much yelling, but yeah, it’s just a way of grabbing the attention. it’s not the only way. Yeah. So, I think maybe it’s it’s enough for today. meditation is real. The way they present it to you is usually overrated. There’s not much more to it than the act than the actual just simple working or listening to music. And all music listening to music is artificial. I’m not saying that’s how you should do it. All I’m saying is it does happen even when you don’t do not intend it. And I’m not saying you should actually if you can meditate without music it’s then you have better skills of meditation. anyway so let’s for those who have to do the contact prayer do the contact prayer. The rest of you peace be upon

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza congratulates the community on the tolerance shown while designing a website logo, and discusses the difference between tolerating other opinions and compromising on what is right.

Video Transcript:

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. during this week we tried to to create a logo in the website and as some of you know the ones who participated in the discussion, it wasn’t easy like to sort of have agreement just for a simple button. which actually is not even important. we could have even removed somewhere else and put it somewhere else. and and I would like to congratulate you guys for the actual tolerance. I think I think all of us showed despite the discussion we showed tolerance about let’s say not insisting on our own um opinion which all of the opinions were kind of good. So I would like to but I would like to congratulate you about the tolerance which you guys showed regarding the just a simple button by not insisting that your opinion be let’s say applied more than than the others u by the way before I go to the tolerance topic of the tolerance let me say that usually I have this discussion because I do actually respect the professions of everyone if you are an engineer I do value what you have to say about engineering so I’m not a person who who becoming who by becoming religious now I totally think that there’s no value in professions there are religious fanatics who who will who will do that who will be like no like you know not we know better I’m I’m going to use some ridiculous situations The Muhammad told us to eat to drink camel urine for your whatever for your illness. The doctor doesn’t know. I think the doctor knows better when it comes to healthcare. however, despite what the doctor might tell you is, you’ll probably still do the contact prayer. I I’m quite sure the doctor will tell you that fasting is not as good. But despite the fact that it’s not the best for health, actually I agree fasting is not the best for health. You know, some people would say fast is going to be bad good for your health. Fasting is not the best for your health, but it’s we do it for God. it’s also partly good for your health. I mean, it’s not as bad as some doctors will tell you. it’s almost equal when it comes to health. It’s probably a little bit bad. It would be if you want to lose weight, it would be better if you eat a little bit more often. That would be better for your health compared to eating a big meal later during the day. But, so I respect the doctor’s opinion in general, but I’m I’m going to have to go a little bit against the doctor once in a while u because I just want to fast. In in the same way, let’s say if I asked an um an engineer an architect, what would be the best let’s say design for a mosque? I’m quite sure he would be build spacious windows. because that’s the general trend and the general recommendation in architecture. You want light and you want space and you want good views. So I’m quite sure that the architect would recommend something with big windows. and I would respect the opinion of the architect in all pretty much all the cases. but probably not for a mosque in the sense that Cabba doesn’t have windows. We don’t need need windows. We don’t need views. We go there to worship God. So yeah, in that part partial case, we can break that rule. I know it’s a good rule for architecture. I still respect it. I I like places with good windows. To me, views are really important. When I go to, let’s say, rent a place, I check the views. I don’t know why. I like a good view, a big window, but not for a mosque. So, yeah. So, what I’m saying is I hope I I didn’t insult anyone’s profession in the process of discussing these things. I do respect your profession. for most things I would listen but there are things where times when like I have to go against it simply because it’s kind of like there’s probably bigger priorities in religion sometimes just like with fasting I would fast regardless if the doctor told me it’s not it’s good or not good for your health unless it’s really terrible for my health then in that case there’s a verse in the Quran it says like you know if if you can fast but with great difficulty then yeah don’t fast so Yeah. now going back to the topic of tolerance. So I I think you guys showed great tolerance because I’m quite sure you had experience and professional background where you could see how your opinion was better. U but yeah, sometimes it’s just hard to reach an agreement about some things depending on what what we’re trying to achieve. And despite that, you guys had tolerance. And now I want to go to and this is really important because I want to go to the to to the Quran and read some verses about tolerance and and compromise because a lot of let’s say people who have not been religious for let’s say most of their life then they become religious they us sometimes are not very tolerant. This is because in the past tolerance was used by the what they thought was tolerance was used by the devil to trick them. So now they finally realize no I’m not going to tolerate being a bad person anymore. I’m not going to be and then they use it they might use it even in in a within a religious community. so they can misapply the devil can trick us to misapply the tolerance or the compromise. so uh before I actually read the verses, let me say that actually the tolerance and compromise according to Rash’s translation, it’s not necessarily that definition like in general, but according to Rash’s translation, compromise is a bad thing. Tolerance is a good thing. So let’s make that distinction. Compromise is a bad thing. Tolerance is a good thing. Then le let’s read the verses and understand how in what context are tolerance and compromise uh mentioned. So I’m going to read the verses about compromise first in surah in surah 60 surah 68 verse starting with verse 8 it says do not obey the rejectors they wish that you compromise so they they too can compromise I think it’s called compromise or compromise I have no idea if I’m pronouncing it right Um so basically it’s mentioned as a bad thing because compromise what does it mean? It means obeying the rejectors going according to the wishes of the rejectors. It says do not obey the rejectors. They wish that you compromise so they they too can compromise. Do not obey every lowly swearer, a slanderer, backbiter, forbid of charity, a transgressor, a sinner, unappreciative and greedy even though he possesses enough money and children. When our revelations are recited to him, he says tales from the past. So here compromise is mentioned as a bad thing. Then in surah 72 starting with verse 14, it says among us are the submitters. The gens say this among us are the submitters and among us are the compro compromisers. So you can see the compromisers are seen as nonsubmitters. As for those who sabeta they are on the right path. As for the compromisers they will be fuel for gehana. So definitely compromisers are seen as bad people as a bad thing. In Russia’s translation we see that the comp compromise compromisers are bad people u or bad creatures. But you know we can misunderstand comp compro compromise for tolerance. So let’s read what the Quran says about tolerance. Then there’s verses which talk about tolerance but in a positive way. In surah 2 verse 61 it says recall that you said oh Moses we can no no longer tolerate one kind of food. So basically the they in this case they should have tolerated that tolerated one kind of food but they didn’t. And then this is in the case when they when God rescued them from the Egyptians. So it says they said to Moses, “Call upon your Lord to produce for us such earthly crops as beans, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, and onions.” He said, “Do you wish to sub substitute that which is imperior for that which is good? Go down to Egypt where you can find what you asked for.” They have incurred condemnation, humiliation, and disgrace, and brought upon themselves wrath from God. This is because they rejected God’s revelations and killed the prophets unjustly. This is because they disobeyed and transgressed. So here we say we see a case where tolerance would have been a good thing. They didn’t tolerate but it would have been a good thing to tolerate. in surah then in surah 6 verse 125 it says whomever god wills to guide he renders his chest wide open to submission and whomever he wills to send astray he renders his chest intolerant and straightened like one who climbs towards the sky. God thus places a curse upon those who refuse to believe. Again here the word tolerance implies a good thing. In surah 7 verse 199 it says you shall resort to pardon advocate tolerance or support tolerance and disregard the ignorant. Then in surah 24:22 it says those among you who are blessed with the resources and wealth shall be charitable towards their relatives the poor and those who have immigrated for the sake of God. They shall treat them with kindness and tolerance. Do you not love to obtain God’s forgiveness? God is forgiver, most merciful. So here we saw verses in the Quran which mention compromisers which are bad people or bad creatures. And then we have in the Quran which mention tolerance as a good thing. Then what’s the difference? What’s the difference between tolerating and making a compromise? before we do that, let’s let’s before we explain that, let’s repent first to let’s repent.

>> >> Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. So what is the difference between tolerance and compromise? the difference is in the in pretty much the motive. If you are putting your desires second because you value the peace and the prosperity of the community of the submitters, then you’re tolerant. But if you put the community and the religion second because you value the s your success in the community or outside of the community, then you are a compromiser. Then you that’s a bad thing. So as you can see depending on the motive it can be tolerance or it can be compromise and one of them is bad one of them is good. So again let me repeat because it’s important. If you put your desires your opinion second meaning that I’m just going to put it in the shelf somewhere. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to have it. You can still have it but put it put it back somewhere. Wait wait wait wait for a better time to see if things will change. Things like that.

If you put it second, I don’t I’m not saying put it last, put it second. At least put it second. If you put your opinion second or your desire second to the to the importance of the of the peace and the prosperity of the community. Basically, if you’re if you put religion first, desire second, then it’s then you have made tolerance for the sake of religion. But if you put your desires or usually it’s not expressed as desires. Let’s say the your intention for success first and religion second then it’s a compromise because now you have to you have to change things in because if the religion is second you have to change things in the religion to fit your your goals of success. But if your desires are second, you have to change things in your desires to fit the the piece of the community. So that that that’s the difference between tolerance and and compromise. And let me give some examples. the a good example of tolerance was the the button the lo the button which we talked about. People tolerate it. Okay, I don’t think we actually came with the best version. People tolerated it. It’s okay. We might change it someday. And let me give you another example of example of tolerance. when when we went to Cabba, when we went to Hajj, someone sent actually us a photo of of of of Hajj. I think sent a photo of Haj Mah that was really a good photo. So when we went to Hajj, my opinion or my desire is is actually that I don’t think Aba should should should covered in a black cloth. I don’t I think it’s it’s it’s not it doesn’t show class like any if you go to the best let’s say palaces on earth you know if you go to the palace of Versailles in France there’s like one of the most beautiful palaces other palaces on earth you will see that the dominant color of the walls is white with golden decorations you know Trump doesn’t have probably Trump might be one of the worst people you know on earth but he does have taste when it comes to to building buildings. And he you can see like even the the ballroom what they call the ball which they stopped I guess which he was trying to build is like just white white walls with golden decorations that that shows glass that that’s my opinion though. I think that’s that’s prettier. but for some reason some guy in the 12th century or whatever not not even during Mohammed’s time some guy in the 12th century decided that a black carpet on top of Cabba would stay nice or whatever. I maybe he wanted didn’t want it to get dirty. I have no idea. So that that was let’s say the the opinion of someone. By the way, if you look at history, you’ll see that actually Muhammad kind of agreed with me more mostly because during Muhammad’s time, I think even the Khalifas, the early Khalifas, they actually covered the Cabba with white carpet with actually not gold. I think gold would be classier, but they covered with with red decorations. So, primarily white with red decorations that was during Muhammad’s time. but because that they were influenced by the let’s say Persian carpets. Persian carpets are mostly white with red decorations. and then later on I think they had the red color, they had the green color before they came to the to the black color. and you can see even like the the photo which Forn sent us, you can see in the background when they wanted to make a really luxurious building, it’s white with gold, white with gold white walls with gold decorations. If you guys can see the photo here the photo which someone which one sent in the chat you can see the let’s say the ceiling there it’s white with gold decoration. So they know what class is. If you ask the Arabs you know what’s what would be a very classy dress they would say white with with gold decorations. That’s that’s how they dress themselves. But when it came to dressing dressing cabba they dressed it black which is what they tell their women to dress basically secondass secondass citizens and so it’s they’re treating kaba as secondass uh what was I going to say by the way when the mi comes the the last messenger god willing mi if you’re listening if you can do it peacefully Not not with war. Not if you can do it peacefully, make it white or or remove it completely. Makea white or remove it completely because actually even without the carpet probably it would be nice because it shows the the value of the ancient times seeing the actual stones from the past. That’s I think that’s that’s also classy. like if you go to let’s say to some temples you can still see the stone the stones anyway. So now despite all of this of the fact that I actually think Kaba should have a white carpet or no carpet at all. I tolerated a black carpet went to Hajj spoke did not speak about it. Did not say anything about it because we share cabba with the Sunnis. We share cabba with the Sunnis and for the sake of peace I thought it was important that I that I go through it and there’s here’s this black carpet on top of a bu the most important building on earth and I just I just went through it because why? Because peace and religion are more important than my personal desire or opinion. I think my personal opinion is better but still I tolerated it. So that’s tolerance. Tolerance is putting peace and religion on first your desires second. So that that’s an example of tolerance.

Now anam so that’s a good example tolerating a black carpet on kaba is fine. It’s okay. It’s just a carpet. It’s it’s not the most important thing on earth. Even though my my opinion is better, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to tolerate it. the it’s fine like I I intend to go to Caba again and again and God willing whenever we go guys go I think we had a great time. God willing we’ll have a great time again. It’s just a carpet like let’s look past it. You know sometimes people don’t dress the best in your wedding. It’s fine you know it’s okay. you tolerate it. Now compromise is different. If some if my manager told me that you know what you you shouldn’t you know you shouldn’t take a break during Fridays because you have to work and then I say you know what actually yes I have to make a compro compromise I have to tolerate I have to make a compromise because my manager is saying you know don’t go during the Friday so maybe he’ll let me for 10 minutes but not 20 minutes can I then please Just do it for 10 minutes. Okay, do it for 10 minutes. See, now I’m compromising because now I’m putting religion second and my desire my desire for success first because I want to succeed in that job. So now but to succeed in that job I that means I have to listen to my manager and to listen to my manager he’s asking me not to do the Friday uh prayer together with other submitters and in that case I would be compromising if I if I listen to him so as you can see there’s a difference it depends on the motive are you putting your opinions second even they might be better opinions they totally might be better opinions are you putting them second though for the sake of peace and are or are you putting the the religion second for the sake of your desires. So it depends on the like depending on what the motive is then you sort of cooperating with others or tolerating or compromising with others uh does does make a difference. So let’s call the the the the bad case compromise, the good case tolerance based on Russian translation. It doesn’t have to be exactly like that always, but let’s go along with this translation. which is part of tolerance. We’re tolerating Ras Rasha’s definition.

yeah, by the way, and this is kind of important to sort of be aware that we have to be tolerant, especially within the within an online community because the devil can trick us and and especially with messages. Sometimes it’s and it’s this is not only among submitters but the rest of the world. The messages, the way we message today, it can be really tricky. It can create animosity. it can create bad feelings because of the way communication is is arranged. uh let me give you an example for example let’s say someone has an opinion you know what I would I think you know the logo should be like this and then the other person who receives the message he’s like oh why is he insisting that does is why would he even send the message does does he think this is very important on one side the person who receives the message thinks that he has re received the other person’s strongest opinions while the person who actually sent the message probably wrote it from the toilet just gave a very likelyhearted opinion. so because the technology has enabled us to communicate in such a way where the sender and the receiver can have despite what they say can have vastly different opinions of the importance of that message. One of them think is okay I’m just going to send a because in the past if you received the letter you would typically receive the letter receive a letter from a king or from some authority otherwise no one would send a letter and when you receive something in writing that seemed very important and to this day we have that idea like oh I received something in writing this this shows that the other person thinks he’s talking about something important but it’s not the case anymore it’s like probably not something not important because the person as I’m saying is he probably wrote it in the toilet or while eating you know having a sandwich and writing a message. Oh, let me just say something. so yeah it’s really important to not let the the communication style these days with messages and to let to let the devil trick us into sort of being intolerant. It’s really more important to be tolerant in a situation where you’re we are communicating with messages and may God bless all of you for actually being tolerant and maybe today we can keep it short because I think people have tolerated me too much. People who go to work with long Friday sermons uh I’ve been holding Friday sermon which which last about an hour. God willing, I’ll try to shorten them eventually in the future within half an hour hopefully, unless it’s something very important, but I’ll I’ll try to keep it within half an hour and maybe we can skip the questions today because honestly I I feel a bit sorry for people who have to work. Let’s give them some priority a little bit. so yeah, that’s it. for those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer or if you’ve done it, may God accept it. and the rest of you, peace be upon

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza uses the story of Abraham and the idols, and everyday examples such as praying on muddy ground, tasting berries and first aid, to show how to be practical in religion by doing what you can, where you are, without transgressing.

Video Transcript:

Praise be to God; there is no other god except God. Today I want to talk about being practical in religion.

Abraham and the big idol

Before going into the details, I want to read some verses from the Quran and use them as an example of being practical. I am reading from Sura 21, verses 52 to 67, the story most of us know, where Abraham destroys the idols.

He said to his father and his people, “What are these statues to which you are devoting yourselves?” They said, “We found our parents worshiping them.” He said, “Indeed, you and your parents have gone totally astray.” They said, “Are you telling us the truth, or are you playing?” He said, “Your only Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, who created them. This is the testimony to which I bear witness. I swear by God, I have a plan to deal with your statues as soon as you leave.” He broke them into pieces, except for a big one, that they may refer to it. They said, “Whoever did this to our gods is really a transgressor.” They said, “We have heard someone threatening them; he is called Abraham.” They said, “Bring him before the eyes of all the people, that they may bear witness.” They said, “Did you do this to our gods, O Abraham?” He said, “It is the big one who did it. Go ask them, if they can speak.” They were taken aback, and said to themselves, “Indeed, you are the ones who are transgressing.” Yet they reverted to their old ideas: “You know full well that these cannot speak.” He said, “Do you then worship beside God what possesses no power to benefit you or harm you? You have incurred shame by worshiping idols beside God. Do you not understand?”

We know this story well. It is a very good example of monotheism, of not being an idol worshiper. The Quran tells us that Abraham was never an idol worshiper; he always worshiped God alone.

But I want to focus on one part of the story. If Abraham was preaching God alone, with no other idols, why did he destroy all the idols except the big one? The Quran says “that they may refer to it,” but that is God’s reason. What was Abraham thinking as he was destroying them?

I had a similar experience when deleting Muhammad’s name from some mosques, so I think I partly understand Abraham’s state of mind. I don’t think he planned it in detail. He was simply being practical.

Imagine there were about 25 idols in that place. Abraham probably used a big stick, a bat or a sword. He likely started with the smallest ones, because it is easier to test whether it works, and moved on to bigger and bigger ones. Then he reached the big one. Imagine it was as big as a room or a house. Maybe he could not climb it, maybe it was too high to reach, or maybe he hit it and nothing happened.

So even though Abraham was a total monotheist who did not want to allow any idols, he ended up leaving one for practical reasons. That does not mean the idol should be worshiped. It means Abraham could not fully finish the job. If each small idol took him one minute, he could destroy 24 of them in 24 minutes before anyone caught him. If the last one would take another hour, fetching chisels and tools, it would put him at much greater risk. Abraham never approved of that idol. It was simply impractical to destroy it.

Doing what you can, where you are

Abraham was being practical even in such an important situation. It was simply too much work to achieve a tiny bit more. In economics this is called the law of diminishing returns. If you are hungry, the first bite of food may save you from starvation, and the second bite also does a good job. At some point, an extra bite does not help much. In the same way, destroying that last idol was not that important. He had already proved the point that idols should not be worshiped.

Then the question is: should he destroy all the idols in the world? There were more idols than those 20 or 25, so should he go to the next town and destroy those too? In theory, yes. In practice, he was in that town, and that is what he dealt with. He was not going to fix the whole world.

Fixing the whole world is good in theory, but in practice you start from where you find yourself. You fix your home, your neighborhood, your town. If you never reach the whole state or the whole world, it is what it is. That is what I mean by being practical in religion: you do your best within your means. The Quran may tell you what the full picture should be, never worship idols and destroy all idols, but in practice you do what you can. If you want to stay in the same religion for a long time, you have to be practical. Theory is one thing; practice is another.

“Without being a transgressor”

The Quran itself gives us a practical allowance. In Sura 2, verse 173, and in some other suras, it prohibits eating the meat of pigs, blood and similar things. Then it says that if one is forced, without being deliberate or malicious, there is no sin. That is how Rashad translated it. In the Arabic it is closer to “without being a transgressor,” and one meaning of that word is “without going too far.”

Why is that word there? It means that if you are about to starve, you may take a bite of pork, but not too much. Be practical about it.

Another example: when an animal is slaughtered, there is usually no blood in the meat, but a few droplets may fall on it as it is cut, because no one does a perfect job every time. In theory, we should not ingest any blood at all. In practice, there might be a drop somewhere that you swallowed with the meat without knowing it. The Quran says that if you did not do it deliberately, it is fine. God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.

I am not bringing these as rules. My point is that when you are practical, you know when it is fine not to apply a rule fully. I am not saying don’t apply the rule; if you can, do it. I am only saying that sometimes you have to be practical.

The muddy prayer

New submitters, whatever their age, often try to implement religion in a way that is not practical. Young people especially do this.

Say you are 15 and your mother still washes your clothes. You are walking home from school through nature, where you have done the contact prayer before. It is raining, everything is muddy, and your shoes are full of mud. Then it is prayer time. A young person who has just become religious will think, “Prayer time, I have to pray,” and kneel in the mud. Now his clothes are covered in mud, and who washes them? His mother.

Compare the benefit with the harm. Washing those clothes by hand might take her 20 minutes; the prayer took five. He caused 20 minutes of a bad thing to do five minutes of a good thing. In those 20 minutes, she could have done the prayer four times. So he kept his mother from four prayers so that he could do one.

If he were practical, he would think: maybe I can make it home and pray there without being late. Or maybe today I will do part of the prayer mentally as I walk, without putting my knees in the mud.

The Quran has foreseen many of these situations, such as shortening the contact prayer. But even when you do not see a clear exception, you should be practical, because otherwise you can do more harm than good. Some people focus on the exact minute of a prayer, even though in Muhammad’s time they had no minutes or seconds; the smallest unit was the hour. New believers often do not know how to put theory into practice without causing additional harm.

Before I explain why, God willing, let us repent.

A sense of amounts

Praise be to God; there is no other god except God. So why do young people, and people who are new in religion, fail to be practical enough? Because they do not have a good sense of amounts. Yes, there are laws and rules in the Quran, and they are all important. But the amounts matter.

For some reason I keep my vitamin D next to where I give the Friday sermons. My doctor told me my vitamin D was low, and I bought it in gummy form because it tastes better and I don’t forget it. There is already a practical choice here: I try not to eat too much sugar, but getting the vitamin D is worth a little sugar. More importantly, any good doctor knows the amount matters. If I thought “more vitamin D is better,” taking too much could kill me. The doctor says one pill a day, or two, or three; the amount matters. In the same way, the Quran has rules, obligations and rituals, but how important each one is matters too. Stealing is not as bad as killing someone. Some amounts are implied by how much the Quran mentions a thing, but the most practical way to learn them is through practice.

The snake. Tell a child that a snakebite will kill him, and that is the rule everyone knows. Someone who has lived in nature knows a baby snake will probably not kill you; maybe he was bitten by one once and only got a skin problem. When he sees a small snake, he does not panic. He walks around it, and, more importantly, he knows that where there are baby snakes there may be a big one, so he slows down and watches more carefully everywhere else. A child either runs from every snake or makes the mistake of not running at all. He may avoid the small snake, keep walking just as fast, and get bitten by the big one. Both know the rule; one knows how to be practical, and that comes from practice. The longer you stay in religion, the more practical you become, and that helps you stay in it longer.

Brushing your teeth. We teach children to brush their teeth, and some get into the habit of doing it every day. Then one day the family is late for the airport and might miss the plane, and the child says, “No, I haven’t brushed my teeth today.” Catching the plane is more important. The child sees it only as a rule; he does not know how important it is. Someone with experience knows that skipping it for another half day will not make a big difference. You can buy chewing gum at the airport. It is better to brush every day, but sometimes something else is more important, and knowing the weight of a rule gives you a feeling for when to skip it.

The berry. This has happened to me twice. There is a fruit in nature that looks very much like a blueberry, but it is poisonous. I learned in biology class, from people without experience, that you must never eat it. If you live in nature long enough, you learn that a tiny bit of most poisonous plants will not kill you. Tasting one will not kill you; eating a lot of them will. A blueberry tastes sweet and the other one tastes bitter, so I wanted to taste it to find out. Someone without experience said, “What if it’s poisonous?” But the amount matters.

Spoiled milk. Nobody wants to drink spoiled milk. If you have only a little and you are not sure, you just throw it away. If you have five gallons, why throw it all away over a doubt? You might taste a little to check. Children, please don’t do dangerous things at home. But experienced people learn which amounts matter.

First aid. Everyone is told to apply pressure to a cut. A doctor with experience knows how much pressure. Someone without experience may apply too much or not enough.

The head of the fish

Sometimes being practical looks counterintuitive, as if you are breaking a law of the Quran. Here is a religious example. The Quran tells us not to waste food. I don’t have the verse in front of me, but you can find it: eat from the provisions and do not waste. That is the rule in theory.

I have been cooking fish a lot recently. Probably half the world throws away the head of the fish, even though it is edible; the eyes have oils that are good for your body. Most people don’t eat them, and that goes against the Quran. But when you cook, you have to be practical.

When I say practical, I don’t mean I am compromising because I don’t want to apply the full law. Sometimes applying the full law adds very little compared to applying 80% of it. Our pan at home is a bit smaller than the fish we buy at the market. If I’m busy, frying is quicker, but the fish will only fit and cook well if I remove the head. Or I can bake it in the oven and keep the head, with its extra nutrients. But the oven takes more of my time and uses much more energy, because you have to heat it first. I’m quite sure there is a verse that also tells us not to waste energy; nobody wants to waste electricity or water unnecessarily. So saving the head while wasting more electricity might be just as wasteful.

So most of the time I remove the head, and sometimes I keep it. It depends on who is eating, whether it fits in the pan, and whether I feel like turning the oven on.

Organized religion is like cooking

This is also a good example for organized religion. Jesus said it first, and Rashad repeated it often: the worship rituals are food for the soul. That is a very good basis for understanding religion.

If religion is like food, then organized religion is like cooking. Some foods you can eat raw or cooked, like tomatoes; that is like an individual good deed. Other foods must be cooked. I asked an AI which foods are most dangerous uncooked, and the answer was chicken and flour. You can get diseases from them, and even fine flour can get into your lungs. In the same way, some things simply have to be organized, like the contact prayer and the zakat. You could take them “raw,” but it is dangerous.

There are different ways to cook. As with the fish, some cooks remove the head and others leave it, and the result is very similar, because what you gain in one way you lose in another. If you keep the head, you keep the extra food, as the Quran recommends. But many people can’t stand the sight of a fish head, especially children, and they may refuse to eat the whole fish. Then you end up throwing away the whole fish instead of just the head. So you are practical, and you apply most of what you can.

Being practical in organizing the zakat

One of my main duties as a messenger has been to organize the religion. In doing so, I, Alban the human being, have sometimes “removed the head of the fish.” In theory, the videos are there and they are complete; that is all you need. In practice, even knowing the videos, I have sometimes cooked it slightly differently, because there are cases where applying a rule costs more than not applying it.

Small amounts. Say someone’s penalty zakat is to donate 2 kilograms of lamb, and he lives in another town. It makes no sense for him to slaughter a whole sheep just to bring 2 kilograms; he would waste the rest. You would be making him do more harm than good. There is a minimum amount below which it stops being worthwhile, so you don’t deal with very small amounts.

I try not to laugh when people report their zakat down to the cents. The energy you spend typing the comma and the cents is probably worth more than the cents. You did anti-charity instead of charity.

The sheep. I know how the zakat should be done perfectly, but I was practical about the forms. Because we are organized online, I didn’t include anywhere to report livestock. Does anyone here have more than 40 sheep, cows, camels or goats? Please write in the chat. I don’t think anyone does; even most farms probably don’t have that many. A farm or business would not register as a submitter anyway; submitters are people. Maybe one in a thousand or two thousand submitters has 40 sheep. I don’t want to waste the time of 2,000 submitters asking, “Do you have 40 sheep?” just so that one person can apply the law. So I skipped it. If you still want to do it, do it individually or donate through our PayPal account.

The tax rule. I worked in the tax department of the Ministry of Finance for about eight years. One rule of taxation is that collecting a tax should always cost less than the tax itself. If a $10 tax costs more than $10 in bank transfers, paperwork and staff to collect, you have gained nothing. In the same way, I tried to estimate where collecting the zakat would cost more than what we collect, and I left those parts out.

People often ask me, “I made this mistake; should I donate $10?” Talking to me about it cost us $300. Or: “My brother poked my eye today; let me ask the messenger.” Here is a real example. An Albanian man living in Sweden, before he was a submitter, asked me what he should do about a single gray hair in his beard. He knew I was educated and had translated the Quran into Albanian. Whatever correct answer I gave him would be worth less than the harm of involving me in it.

Write-offs. In history, some caliphs did not collect zakat from areas suffering poverty, because those people needed it. Imagine a flood. Are you going to go to the flood area and say, “You have to pay zakat,” and then, “Who needs the zakat? The people of the flood,” and give it back to them? You gained nothing and wasted their time. So you write it off for that situation, a flood or a fire. We are still applying it, indirectly: we imagine we took it and gave it back.

Gifts from non-submitters

Another part I left out of the zakat reporting form is gifts from non-submitters. Let me give the rule first, and then why I left it out.

People already pay a penalty for being friends with non-submitters: about one sheep, or 4 grams of gold, which is a little over $300 today. That is in the form, and it covers the basic relationship, like small gifts such as a cake. But sometimes the gift is bigger than that, and that was not accounted for. A relationship with a non-submitter is usually a working relationship, based on mutual interest rather than love; maybe you have a business together.

I already covered this in the video about atoning for mixed deeds through penalty zakat. We pay 2.5% zakat because it used to be 10%. Those who believe in the Quran pay half as much because they are rewarded twice, and those who believe in all of God’s messengers pay half again, because their reward is doubled once more. So 2.5% is the same as 10%, and God multiplies every deed by ten, which makes 100%. Christians and Jews, who do not believe in the Quran and all the messengers, have to pay 10% if they want to go to heaven. When you act like them, for example in a gender-mixed setting they are fine with, you owe the remaining 7.5% on top of the 2.5% you already paid. A gift involves no work at all, so the full 7.5% applies.

So the rule is:

1. If your net gifts from a non-submitter for the year are $350 or less, they are already covered by the penalty.
2. Net means the gifts you received minus the gifts you gave them. If you gave $100 and received $200, the net is $100.
3. On anything above $350, you pay 7.5%. If the net comes to $500, you pay 7.5% of $150.

In practice, I skipped it entirely. We have had about 69 registered submitters, and in four or five years this has happened only once, to the person who asked me about it. I don’t want to ask 70 people every single year how much they received, whether it was more than $350, how much they gave back, and then to calculate 7.5%. The work it would take all of us would be more than what the community gains from it in the cause of God.

If you are still concerned, God willing, I may add a way to make ad hoc individual payments on the website in the future. For now we only have PayPal, and not everyone has PayPal. Then people ask whether they can pay with Bitcoin or by card. It would cost more than it benefits.

When it is too complicated, guilt will tell you

When something is too complicated to calculate and not worth explaining, here is the best rule: you will know in your heart whether you feel guilty about it, and how much you feel like giving away. Some things cannot be measured, like love. It is very hard to calculate whether someone has done you more favors than you have done them. That is why some relationships fail: people think they can calculate it, but how do you put all the tiny details into numbers?

I don’t mean follow your desires; the Quran prohibits that. I mean you will know in your heart. Maybe that gift was a little too much and you didn’t deserve it, so pass something on: give something to your family, or give some extra food to someone. Maybe you haven’t done many good deeds recently, and you should do some. Guilt and shame will tell you. They are the totality of all the numbers you didn’t calculate.

Closing

Does anyone have a question? Quickly, because we are almost at an hour. I don’t think anyone has a question. Good.

By the way, someone sent us a photo of having done the contact prayer; that was a really good photo. For those who want to, do the contact prayer now. To the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza uses a table of what people say versus what they mean to examine idol worship, and gives a three-step approach to ambiguous situations where cultural traditions may seem like a false confession of idol worship.

Video Transcript:

Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

What a beautiful melody, a good way to praise God.

Quite often, we hear people say, “You know what I mean?” or “Do you know what I mean?” And they say it because people are aware that when people say something, or when they say something, they might mean something else, or when someone else says something, they might mean something else. So we have two things: what people say, and what people actually mean. So these are two things.

The Speech vs. Intent Matrix

And then we can create a cross-tabulation, what’s called a cross-table, from these. So basically, we can have what people say and what people don’t say. And then we can also have what people mean and what people don’t mean. And when we combine these from these two-by-two situations, we get four. Let’s go through these examples, and then we’ll use that, God willing, to understand something deeper.

Basically, in this table, I’m showing in this row what you say. So we can have what you say or what you don’t say. These are the two options. And then we have what you intend to say and what you don’t intend to say. So basically, what you say and what you don’t say, and also what you intend to say and what you don’t intend to say.

Now we combine these to see what we get:

1. What you say, and you intended it. This is one example. Basically, for those who know how to read tables, if you combine what you say with what you intended, then it’s what you say and you intended it.

2. What you don’t say, but you intended it. Next is if you combine what you don’t say with what you intended to say, then the combination is what you don’t say, but you intended it.

3. What you say, but you did not intend it.

4. What you don’t say, and you didn’t intend it.

Explaining the Four Communication Categories

Maybe I should give some examples from these. Now, these are all four situations. What is the situation when what you say and you intended it? Before I go there, let’s label these. What is the situation when you say it and you intended to say it? That is what I would call an explicit expression, meaning you explicitly said what you intended.

Then, the next example is what you don’t say, but you intended it. That would be implicit. Basically, you are not saying it, but even though you don’t say it, you mean it. I’ll give you examples later, or maybe let’s go with examples here.

What’s an example of explicitly saying something—saying something and intending it? For example, let’s say someone asks you, “Someone told me that he likes a Porsche, a yellow Porsche,” and you’re like, “Did he actually say it?” You say, “Yeah, he explicitly said it.” He said it and he intended it.

Let’s take another example—an implicit case where the saying is implicit. If you’ve seen movies, you can see some movies where there’s a mafia boss—a leader of a criminal organization—and he talks to someone and he’s not happy with him. And then he tells his people, after he’s gone, “Take care of him.” He didn’t say to kill him, but he intended it implicitly. He didn’t explicitly say “kill him,” but what he meant when he said “take care of him” was kill him. Basically, implicitly he said kill, but he didn’t explicitly say it. So you can see these two situations are different: he meant it, but he did not say it.

Then we have another situation: what you say, but you did not intend it, which is the reverse. This is confessing falsely. Let me give you an example. For example, you go and buy a car, and you manage to negotiate really well, and you buy the car really cheap. So then your friend asks you, “How much did you buy it for?” You’re like, “Oh, it was a steal.” You didn’t actually steal the car. What you mean is it was really cheap, or “I bought it really cheap.” But you’re confessing falsely that you stole it. Everyone knows that you did not steal it, or people are aware that very likely you did not steal it, but you’re saying it as though you stole it: “Oh, I stole it. It was a steal.” Or let’s say when a lot of people will say something—let’s say they eat some cake from someone’s plate and they’re like, “Can I steal your cake?” That’s false confession, confessing falsely. Someone is claiming to steal, but they did not actually really, really steal. So this is another case when you say something, but you did not intend it that way.

And then the last situation is what you don’t say and you didn’t intend it, and this is simply not confessing. You’re not saying anything, so you’re not confessing to anything. This doesn’t mean that you’re hiding something bad; you’re just not confessing, you’re indifferent.

So we have these four situations:

• We have explicit claims or confessions.

• We have implicit claims or confessions.

• We have confessing falsely or claiming falsely.

• We have not confessing, or not claiming anything—not saying anything.

Applying the Matrix to Idol Worship

These are four different situations. And we can actually apply this logic, this table, into the situation of idol worship and understand it a little bit better. So let’s sort of use the same logic and make a table about idol worship.

Let me go through all these four examples:

1. Claiming idol worship and intending it: This is called explicit idol worship. What would be an example of that? Let’s say a Hindu says, “I worship whatever this god,” which is not the only God, and he says it and he means it.

2. Not claiming idol worship, but intending it: This is implicit idol worship. Pretty much a lot of the Jews, the traditional Muslims, and the Christians do this. They don’t say that they worship Muhammad, but implicitly they intend it. Because when you tell them, “So according to you, Muhammad in this hadith—which Muhammad didn’t even say—said this, but God in the Quran is saying this. Which one do you follow?” “I follow this.” Implicitly, that’s idol worship. Or if you ask a Jew, “God says in the Bible, ‘Don’t kill people,’ but your rabbi is telling you to kill the peaceful Palestinians. Which one do you follow?” They’re like, “Oh, of course, the rabbi.” So that’s implicit idol worship. And if you ask them, “Are you actually idol worshipping by doing that?” they’ll be like, “No, no, of course not.” So that’s implicit idol worship. With the Christians, if you ask them, “Do you actually worship Jesus? Do you know that that’s idol worship?” they’ll be like, “No, no, because technically Jesus is part of God, so we’re not worshipping another God, he’s part of God.” But then you ask them, “If Jesus says that, or if people tell you to do this for Jesus and this for God, which one would you do?” They’d probably do what they think Jesus would want them to do anyway. So we have this case of implicit idol worship.

3. Claiming idol worship, but not intending it: This is the case I want to focus on today.

4. Not claiming idol worship, and also not intending it: Basically, not confessing anything.

Focus Topic: Confessing Falsely to Idol Worship

Now, I want to focus on this third case because the fourth case, there’s really nothing to talk about unless in the future someone comes with an example where I really have to deal with it, but it doesn’t seem like an important case.

The first case and the second case—explicit idol worship and implicit idol worship—I’ve dealt with them in another video titled literally Explicit Idol Worship and Implicit Idol Worship. It’s a Friday sermon; you guys can find it on our website, on YouTube. I explained these two first cases in that video. However, what I sort of didn’t explain in that video is this third case, which is confessing falsely to idol worship. This is the case when someone is claiming idol worship—claiming to do idol worship—but he or she is not intending it. This is a third case, another situation. God willing, let me deal with it now.

This yellow area which I highlighted here is going to be the focus of our discussion today. Before we do that, though, let’s repent and pray.

(Pause for prayer and reflection)

Okay. Praise be to God. There’s no other god except God.

So we know what we’re going to talk about today, and we know how it fits in the context of other things. We want to talk about claiming idol worship—people who claim idol worship, but they did not intend it. So basically, they are confessing falsely to idol worship.

Cultural Traditions vs. Real Intentions

Let me give you potential examples of confessing falsely to idol worship—where it might not necessarily be idol worship, it could or it could not be, but they are confessing it, probably likely falsely:

• Slaughtering an animal for the birth of your son or child (a tradition in some subgroups of Muslims).

• Celebrating birthdays.

• Celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad.

• Celebrating Halloween.

• Christmas celebrations.

• Visiting the grave of a loved one.

• Building extremely decorated graves.

• Valentine’s Day.

• Mother’s Day.

• Father’s Day.

• Many different wedding customs (breaking a glass in some Jewish or other wedding celebrations for good luck).

Why would I say that these are confessions of idol worship, but they are not necessarily idol worship? Basically, people, when they do this, are saying that they are doing idol worship, even if they don’t know it. Why? All you have to do is to ask “why.”

For example, if they tell you, “Oh, I sacrificed an animal for my newborn son,” or if they say, “I sacrificed an animal,” you ask them why, and they say, “For my newborn son.” So, as you can see, they are doing it for someone else other than God. That’s what they claim, that’s what they are saying. Are they actually doing it like that? That’s another issue, but they are claiming that.

Or let’s say celebrating birthdays: they say, “We made a cake.” “Why did you make a cake?” “I made it for John, he’s four years old today.” So basically, why did you do it? “I did it for someone else, I didn’t do it for God.” That’s basically idol worship when you do things for others other than God.

Celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad—same thing. Halloween—similar things. Christmas celebration—they say they do it for Jesus.

So these are situations that are not all equal; there are different levels of what could be confessing falsely to idol worship. But the way they say it, it almost always sounds like idol worship. But it’s not necessarily idol worship.

I want to talk about it in more detail. Why is this not necessarily idol worship? Because let’s go back to the example: someone can claim to worship an idol, but not intend it—basically, a false confession. How can that happen?

Let’s say someone says, “I slaughtered my animal for my newborn son.” It’s very likely that what he means is, “I’m slaughtering my animal for God as a way to thank Him for blessing me with a newborn son.” Now it’s not idol worship, but he just shortened the sentence, basically.

Or let’s say celebrating birthdays: when they say, “I did this birthday cake for John because he’s four years old,” what they really mean is, “I’m so happy John has grown up.” Very likely they could mean, “I’m so happy John has grown up, and I wanted to be charitable today to show my appreciation to God for the fact that John managed to be four years old and still healthy.” This is probably what they mean if they are good people, usually. But they can say it totally wrong; they can say it as though it’s idol worship.

So all of these cases, the way they say it, it sounds exactly like idol worship. But as you can see, it might not be idol worship; very likely it’s not. So then the situation is: wait a minute, we cannot know if it’s idol worship or not. How do we deal with this?

When someone does the birthday cake or slaughters an animal for a newborn child, they could be in the yellow square, which is claiming idol worship but not intending it. But they could also be in the situation where they claim idol worship and they intend it as idol worship. So how do you know which one it is?

Basically, trying to know which one it is is going to a person’s intentions. Here, the claim is the same in both cases: the claim is that they are doing something for other than God. However, in one case, the intention is good—they are actually doing it for God, but they just expressed it wrong. In the other case, the intention is bad—they are actually doing it for other than God.

How do we deal with this? I came up with this topic because someone wanted to know if those cases are prohibited. My response to that is that they are neither prohibited nor the other way, because we have to clarify before we decide for each individual case. So when someone says, “Are birthday celebrations prohibited?” I would say each individual case is different. Why? Because we don’t know the intentions. Every claim is idol worship, but the intention could be different.

What do we do when we don’t know the intention? How do we deal with those situations? Let’s take an example situation.

Example Situation: You meet your cousin, and he brings you some meat to eat and tells you that it’s from the animal sacrifice which he did for his newborn son. The way he said it is clearly idol worship, because he said that he did it for his newborn son—he sacrificed an animal for his newborn son. That’s the way he said it. However, we know that someone can claim something and not be it, and someone can claim something and truly be it.

So what do we do? We just clarify.

I came up with a three-step approach. It doesn’t have to be exactly like that every time, just to help you understand it:

The Three-Step Approach to Ambiguous Situations

Step 1: Evaluate what law from the Quran we could potentially go against.

The person has slaughtered meat and he’s claiming in front of you that he did it for his newborn son, for his baby. The first thing that comes to our mind is Surah 2, Verse 173:

“God only prohibits for you the eating of animals that die of themselves without human interference, blood, the meat of pigs, and animals dedicated to other than God…”

…which is what this person is claiming; he dedicated the animal to his son.

“…If one is forced to eat these without being malicious or deliberate, he incurs no sin. God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.”

So if it is true that it is idol worship in that particular case—as we said, in some cases it is, in some cases it’s not, every case is different—then what law are we breaking? We are breaking the law in the Quran which stops us from eating animals dedicated to other than God.

Now, the bigger question which we need to ask is: is eating animals dedicated to other than God, even though you did not dedicate them, idol worship? According to the Quran, that’s not idol worship. Because He’s also prohibiting the meat of pigs—that’s not idol worship if you eat them. If you eat blood, that’s not idol worship; it’s breaking a law in the Quran. It’s bad, but it’s not necessarily idol worship.

Why is this important? Because the rule which applies in this case versus if it was idol worship as well, the rule is a little bit different. I want to point out something which Rashad said which applies to the other case in one of the conferences he held, where he gave a very good philosophical argument. He said when something maybe is idol worship and maybe it’s not—it doesn’t apply to this case, but he said something maybe is idol worship, maybe it’s not—any intelligent human being, knowing that idol worship is the only unforgivable offense, would run away from that situation even if he was not sure. Meaning that even if we don’t know for sure that it’s idol worship, and we think maybe it is, maybe it’s not, in that case, we don’t do it because if it’s idol worship, it’s unforgivable. So that’s the case which Rashad presented.

Why is this case different? Because here, eating the animal which could potentially have been dedicated to other than God does not automatically make you an idol worshipper. It made the guy who dedicated it an idol worshipper, but to you, it only would mean that you break this law—just simply like drinking alcohol or drinking blood. That doesn’t automatically mean idol worship.

Which means that if it is true that what the guy is saying—that he sacrificed the animal for his son—if it is true that he intended it as idol worship, even if you eat it, you’re breaking a law in the Quran, but you’re not idol worshipping. Which means that now the rule which Rashad was applying doesn’t apply anymore, because he was talking about idol worship versus no idol worship. Here, we’re talking about eating an animal which has been dedicated to other than God by someone else versus not eating the animal. It’s one step removed from that; it doesn’t have to do with idol worship anymore, it has to do with breaking a law in the Quran.

Given that we’re dealing with breaking a law in the Quran versus not breaking it, in that case, we shouldn’t just run away from it even if we’re not sure. We should just clarify it, meaning that we just want to know if it’s idol worship or not. So, in Step 1, evaluate what law from the Quran we could potentially go against. Potentially, we could go against this law, and if we break this law, it’s not idol worship, so we don’t have to worry about it because it says if you’re forced without being malicious or deliberate, you incur no sin.

Step 2: Clarify their intentions creatively.

Why clarify the intentions? Again, let me go back to that table. Basically, we have two options here if the person claims that he’s doing idol worship: either he intended it (which means what he said is true), or it’s false what he said (which is the yellow case). We just want to clarify which one it is: did he actually mean it, or did he not mean it?

When he says, “I sacrificed an animal for my son,” is that what he actually meant, or did he mean something else? So we just clarify that.

Why do I say creatively? Because there are so many ways to do it. Some people are better at it, some people are not as good at it. People who are very rigid—I’m sort of one of those people—sometimes don’t know how to solve these situations. My mom, for example, is very good at these; she can actually navigate her way out of a bad situation with a discussion. So it does involve some creativity.

Here’s an example of how we clarify that situation: Your cousin comes and says, “Oh, here is some meat. I sacrificed the animal for my son.” What he’s claiming is clearly idol worship. You don’t want to eat the food which is dedicated to idols. And then you clarify, because you don’t know if he means it or not. You help him not claim that it’s idol worship. You say, “That’s so nice of you! I guess you are so happy and you want to thank God for giving you a beautiful baby, right?”

And they say, “Yeah, right!”

In this case, he didn’t mean it as idol worship; he said it as idol worship, but he didn’t mean it like that. So in this case, you can eat the meat.

Or if you try to clarify and the person insists on his idol worship, that’s different. For example, you say, “That’s so nice of you. I guess you wanted to thank God for giving you a beautiful baby, right?” And then he says, “Oh no, it’s an obligation.” Now it’s entering into the territory of idol worship because he actually thinks he has to do it; it’s not about God, it’s about his son. Or he says, “If not for my son, for who else?” He makes a statement which makes your case stronger that he’s idol worshipping. Or he might make a statement which makes the case stronger that it’s not idol worship.

Basically, you’re just clarifying, but with some creativity, not acting like a judge (“Is this idol worship or not?”). You kind of help him with that.

He says, “Oh, I sacrificed the meat for my newborn son.” You say, “That’s so nice of you! I guess you are so happy you want to thank God for giving you a beautiful baby.” Basically, you’re rephrasing it to make it sound like it’s not idol worship, and then you ask, “Right?” And the person says, “Right,” or “Yeah, that’s right,” or “I’m so happy.” In this case, it’s not idol worship; they are just appreciating God.

Step 3: Reduce the circumstances which usually lead you to those situations.

For example, next time when you go back to your country to visit your family, maybe don’t go to your cousin’s home. Maybe meet him outside, or maybe don’t meet him at all.

Why is this important? It’s important because if you don’t do this, you are going against the verse in the Quran. If you don’t reduce the circumstances which lead you to unclear situations—as we can see, we did not decide if it was idol worship or not for any of these circumstances (Christmas, any of those); the way they express it, it sounds like idol worship. However, we are in a situation where we have to clarify: “Oh, so you mean this, right? Or do you mean that, right?” in a creative way.

The fact that we end up in a situation where we constantly have to clarify means that we are not finding ourselves in the best circumstances. If you’re in a good circumstance, you wouldn’t need to clarify; the person would say the right thing. But a person who is saying something and meaning something else is confusing. That circumstance is not perfect, which means that you put yourself in such a situation.

Step 3 is to do better next time. You don’t go and think too much about, “Oh, did I eat the wrong meat?” No, just try to make the circumstances better next time so that you don’t end up in that situation.

Why do you need to do that? Because there’s a verse in the Quran, Surah 7, Verse 199:

“You shall resort to pardon, advocate tolerance, and disregard the ignorant.”

Basically, it’s an obligation to disregard the ignorant. And then it says:

“When the devil whispers to you any whisper, seek refuge in God; He is Hearer, Omniscient.”

What does it mean to disregard the ignorant? Of course, no person is totally ignorant; there are levels to it. Someone is 90% ignorant, someone is 30% ignorant, someone is 50% ignorant. According to that, you are obliged to disregard them—basically avoid them, not engage in deep discussions with them. It’s not like you have to run away from them because they are not totally ignorant, but you avoid those situations.

And that has to do with Step 3: reduce the circumstances which usually lead you to those situations. Usually, ignorant people will say something and mean something else because they don’t know how to express themselves very well.

If we go back to the example, someone who claims idol worship but did not intend it is usually an ignorant person. Because if he is a smart person and he’s an idol worshipper, he will actually make a very clear claim about it. And if he’s a smart person and he is not an idol worshipper, he will also know how to avoid stating it in the wrong way. It’s usually the ignorant people who say something and mean something else; they need help with clarification.

Basically, you help them clarify it. In this way, you know which case it is: is it prohibited or is it not for you? You don’t have to say it like that to them, you just clarify it by saying, “Oh, so you’re doing it for God, is that what you mean?”

Your cousin is probably not smart because he says that he did something for his son, but he actually meant that he’s thankful to God for giving him a son, and he doesn’t know how to express that. He’s at least partly ignorant. In which case, you try to avoid him mostly—maybe don’t meet him in his home, maybe not as often, maybe don’t meet him at all if he’s too ignorant. Basically, don’t waste your time with people who don’t know. We don’t have to actively avoid them, we just don’t go along with what they say. It’s not smart to follow stupid people or do whatever they tell you.

So we reduce the circumstances based on this verse. We just disregard the ignorant, and then next time we reduce it even more, and eventually we find ourselves in situations where we don’t have to decide between these two cases. We find ourselves in situations where when someone claims idol worship, it is idol worship, and when someone claims non-idol worship, it is not idol worship. So your life becomes more and more clear.

You don’t have to force it, though. Just try to do it better each time. That’s what I mean by “reduce.” I’m not saying “stop,” because no one is so totally ignorant that you have to stop communicating with them. Who could be totally ignorant? I don’t know, like a cow. You don’t try to talk to a cow; you don’t reason with a cow. You take care of it, but you don’t reason with it. You don’t think that the cow will understand you, do you?

So these are the three steps:

1. Evaluate what law could be broken (usually it’s eating something dedicated to other than God based on what they claim).

2. Clarify whether it’s true or not (this is the most important part).

3. Reduce those circumstances gradually.

When someone asks, “Are birthday cakes prohibited for me to eat?” you can never give a decisive answer. You can say, “It depends on their intentions.” If they say, “I did this birthday cake for this person,” you say, “Oh, you mean that you are so thankful to God, so you wanted to make a birthday cake to express your gratitude as charity?” That’s a better way to say it, and they might say, “Yeah, that’s it! That’s what I meant.”

Each individual case is different. We can never say that birthday cakes are prohibited; we can never say that birthday cakes are allowed. It depends on the intentions of that person. And because we don’t know the intentions, we need to clarify. We ask them, “What’s your intention?”—not directly, but in a creative way so that they don’t get insulted.

And then we try to reduce them gradually. Next time, you don’t have to go to every birthday. In some work environments or classrooms, there’s like 300 students—of course there’s going to be someone’s birthday pretty much every day. You don’t have to go to all of them. There should be a reduction, a limit.

So that was about how to disregard the ignorant people. Does anyone have any questions? Quick, though.

Questions & Answers

Question 1: If I find myself in a situation where they told me the meat is dedicated for their newborn son explicitly, but I witnessed the slaughter and I heard them say “In the name of God” upon slaughtering the animal, do I assume that they are confessing falsely to idol worship?

Answer: No, you don’t assume; you need to clarify. Here’s why: hearing them do it in the name of God does not exclude that they do it for idols as well. One can say “In the name of God” and kill the animal, but also do it for someone else as well. Doing it for God doesn’t exclude idol worship, because they can associate something else with God. Or basically, they can do it for God (which is true) and someone else. So you still need to clarify.

I think it’s kind of tough, especially for young people; they don’t know how to navigate outside of these situations, and young people usually find themselves in these situations more often. But eventually, with time, you learn how to creatively avoid these situations or clarify.

Question 2: Is it better the more explicit you are when asking?

Answer: Yeah, it’s better, but then there’s a level to whether it’s going to be insulting. You can find a way to do it nicely, because what if it’s not idol worship, and if you were too harsh with it, maybe you were unfair to them?

Question 3: Someone is bringing meat; they sacrifice animals for Eid, they claim it’s for God and Abraham did it. Is that second category of meat allowed?

Answer: Here’s the thing: I didn’t say that meat is allowed or prohibited. All I’m saying is it needs clarification in each individual case, including Eid. Sometimes it’s not good, sometimes it’s good.

Let me go to the example of the situation where they sacrifice an animal for a newborn son: that is a good deed if the baby is a believer, but it’s actually a bad deed if the baby is a disbeliever. And the person doesn’t know, and in most cases, it’s a disbeliever, so most cases it’s actually bad for them what they are doing. I’m talking beyond idol worship here; I’m only talking about whether it’s good or bad.

In the past, when people were one community—like when God chose a community of people like the Children of Israel in the past (not Jews today)—there might have been such a tradition where it made sense. But today it doesn’t make sense; we don’t know for sure whether babies are believers or not, because God doesn’t choose today based on your tribe or ethnicity.

Question 4: The days of the week have idol names, like Thursday. Is it idol worship?

Answer: This is a good example of people claiming idol worship. On the surface, it looks like idol worship, it sounds like idol worship, but from practice, we know it’s not. This has been clarified, because when you ask them what they mean, they just say it’s the next day. Most people don’t even know that Thursday comes from Thor’s day, or Friday comes from Freya’s day, or Saturday from Saturn (the day of Saturn), or Monday from Moon day (the day of the moon).

It’s a case where they are claiming idol worship, but we know for sure, or we can clarify it once and for all, that these are the days of the week—that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and the seventh was rest for Him. Everyone knows what a week is. This is actually a case where you don’t need much clarification.

Closing Remarks

I’m going to have to end the Friday sermon here. I hope this situation is clear. Basically, again, every case is different, and you clarify which case it is by being nice to the person and finding creative ways to ask about it.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. Or if you already did the new prayer, fine, that’s also good. And the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains in detail how the community’s marriage system works: making dowry offers, calculating dowry proportions, rankings and matchmaking, the limits that apply to men and women, and the assumptions and agreements participants accept.

Video Transcript:

Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. Today I want to talk about dowry calculations, limitations, assumptions, and agreements. It’s connected with a Friday sermon which I delivered two weeks ago.

It’s a really dense sermon in the sense that it has lots of information. Try to pay attention. Most of it you don’t have to really know, but I’d like that people sort of get exposed and informed about that information so that they know what’s going on, however they get a feeling of what’s going on. However, you don’t have to know everything. In the end, I’ll tell you what you actually need to remember. You don’t need to remember everything.

Inspiration Behind the Marriage System

Before I do that, maybe actually I should sort of congratulate myself. I don’t know if people have seen the Mark Zuckerberg movie. There’s many movies about him, like probably four by now, if not more. In some of those movies—I don’t remember, I haven’t seen all of them—at least in one of them, and I think it’s kind of a true story even though Mark Zuckerberg denied it later, the way Facebook started is that Mark Zuckerberg was trying not really to create Facebook. He tried—I’m assuming he was concerned about his looks, like whether women like him.

This is my own interpretation, like this is what I think was going on, but he will tell a different version, his friends will tell a different version, the movie tells a different version. This is my assumption of what I think was going on. He was in college, women didn’t really like him as much, I guess. So I think he was curious whether it was his looks or maybe he’s not charming enough. So he created an app, being a nerd that he was, where people would actually go and rate each other’s photos. He kind of stole the photos from—I think it was in Harvard or somewhere, I don’t know where he was in college. You know how students, when they go to college, they get an ID photo, and they take photos for all the students? So he stole them from the university database, and then he asked the students, of course unofficially, to rate each other’s photos, compare like: “Do you like this more or that? Do you like that or that? Do you like that or that?”

In this way, he could create some sort of rating and know pretty much how much women like him, how much they like other men, and how much other men like other women, so they have a better idea—pretty much to put people in their own place. Eventually, he kind of sort of got criticized for that, so he switched it into a social media. However, his initial idea probably was better, with the wrong motives though, because he was trying to do that so people can hook up.

My motive with this marriage system is that the ultimate motive is correct: we are trying to do it for marriage. By the way, it’s a similar system to what Mark Zuckerberg did, and I think it’s actually better in the sense that it calculates better, it makes certain sort of assumptions, it makes better assumptions about people. So I just want to sort of congratulate myself for doing what Mark Zuckerberg did years and years ago, but doing it better. I pray to God that God rewards me with more than what Mark Zuckerberg has, but I want it in the next world, not in this world. Whatever Mark Zuckerberg got in this world in wealth, I want that a million times more, because I think this will help more. This will help the people more than Facebook. This is better than Facebook.

Of course, when we create it in an app, however right now I’m just presenting it as a starting point.

How the System Operates: Making Dowry Offers

How does this work? How does the marriage system work? I’m going to explain it here in what I call the dowry calculations, limitations, assumptions, and agreements.

Imagine some of you guys have filled the questionnaire, or the marriage compatibility CV, or if we have an app, it’s going to be called probably a profile. You filled your profile: your photo, who you are, how well you know the Quran, and stuff like that. You fill the profile, and then let’s say John—let’s take John as an example. Let’s say John filled the profile. The next step he will do, he will receive another CV. John will receive another CV, and he will have now to make dowry offers.

Here’s how it sort of would look—an example of how John’s dowry offers look. This will happen soon; guys who have filled the CV, they will actually receive another questionnaire to actually make the offers or make the dowry requests if they are women.

Example of how John’s dowry offers look: John will get this sort of a page where it will say, “I read all the information in the marriage compatibility CV profiles, and after thinking about it, and while agreeing with the dowry calculations, limitations, assumptions, and agreements presented in the Friday sermon about it, here are my dowry offers for each woman.” This is from John’s perspective; he’s a man, so he’s going to make an offer for each woman. Let’s say there’s four women who put their CV out there through the system so that John can see it. Then he makes dowry offers.

I had to make two sections for each person, because in today’s world, unfortunately, we have to do that because it doesn’t measure it very well otherwise:

• My dowry offer to marry Emma and move to her country: Let’s say he puts a number, let’s say $10,000.

• My dowry offer to marry Emma and have her move to my country: Maybe John wants to stay in his country. “I’m going to offer Emma let me say $30,000 to move to my country, but $10,000 if I go there.”

Then:

• My dowry offer to marry Olivia and move to her country is this number.

• My dowry offer to marry Olivia and have her move to my country is this number.

For each female, he makes two different offers: one to move to her country, another one to have her move to his country. The reason I did two is because usually what people are willing to marry in one country versus if they move to another country is way different. It can be very different, so I really had to sort of go into that detail. I wish we didn’t have to have two, but unfortunately, we will have to have two, at least for the time being when people cannot travel easily from country to country. In the future, we might just have one if travel limitations become easy and when countries become more similar.

This is what John would fill. Now, how are the calculations, or let’s say what will go in the database? Let me present it here.

Database Structuring and Dowry Offers vs. Requests

These are the offers by men. These will not be seen by people. This is all John sees—he sees this. Then when he puts his numbers here, which are real offers, sincere offers, legally binding offers, then this will go into a database. In a database, it will look like this. Basically, I’m going to do it manually for a while until there’s enough people, so for a while I’m going to be able to see them. Eventually, the database will go in the app, and it will be secret—no one can see it of course, except God.

How does it work? Let’s say John had his offer. John is offering $0 for Emma; he just doesn’t want to marry her. $0 for Emma if she comes into his country. Zero again for Olivia. He kind of likes Ella; he would give her $5,000 if she married him, and he kind of likes her country, he probably wants to go to her country. But Ella, if she comes to his country—I don’t think he likes his country as much—so he’s going to offer Ella $30,000 if she comes to his country.

Then, apparently Aurora is the top woman there, according to this database. John is willing to offer Aurora—what do I mean by top woman? Not only by her looks, but because the CV asked other questions about her knowledge, about what she does, her belief as well. Aurora, I guess he prefers, he likes Aurora more, not just her looks, everything about her. If he likes her more, I guess he’s willing to pay way more for her to marry her—not to buy her, but to marry her. John is willing to offer $40,000 for Aurora if he has to move to her country, but he would rather stay in his country, so he’s willing to offer $100,000 if she moves to his country.

This is kind of the same for Nick; this is what Nick is offering, different numbers of course. Ryan is offering different numbers. Leo, I guess Leo thinks he’s attractive, so he’s not going to offer much. He’s like, “Oh, I can do better.” So Leo is not offering that much to women. He’s like, “Okay, if you want to marry for $0, fine, otherwise I’m not interested.”

Arthur is offering something to Emma, but he would rather move to her country. Then Arthur and Olivia: there’s an empty space here because Arthur and Olivia are brother and sister, so they don’t have to offer each other dowries. That’s why that is empty there. If someone is family, they don’t have to offer a dowry. In the questionnaire, they will tick a box which will say, “This is family, I don’t want to offer it.”

These are the offers from Arthur. Now let’s go to the requests by women, which are red.

Women are requesting usually more than what most men were offering, because they want to avoid—by the way, this is all free will; if they don’t like someone, they want to avoid him. There’s no way to avoid them unless she asks a lot. She cannot say no, all she can do is make it impossible.

Requests by women: we’ll deal with the limitation later. Women are not allowed to request less than $1,000.

Emma is asking from John $15,000 if she moves to his country, but Emma is asking from John $10,000 if he moves to her country. I guess she would like to go to his country. Whatever the motivations are, it doesn’t matter. Of course, the motivation should always be marriage, but people have preferences.

Emma is offering this for John, this for Nick, this for Leo. Women are asking less from Leo because I guess he’s the attractive guy. Look at John: maybe John is a 70-year-old, not very good-looking man who doesn’t have much money and doesn’t have any sort of future. Of course, they are going to request—Aurora definitely doesn’t want to marry him, she’s like, “$1,000,000 or nothing.” Or maybe Ella, she’s like, “$500,000 or nothing.” Olivia is probably okay with it.

They are making a request, but the request is made in a sincere way where you truly do it in a way where that’s how much money it would take for that man to convince you and to give it to you—not to just dangle it in your face and not give it, but to actually give it to you.

These are the requests by women from men. In this case, they will all be hidden. No one sees them except for the person who filled their own number, which they know, but they don’t see the database.

Calculating Dowry Proportions and Binding Engagements

Men are making dowry offers, women are making dowry requests, and then they get matched and compared. Let’s go now to dowry proportions. Instead of dowry differences, I did it as dowry proportions for a reason, so we can also measure the percentage differences, but here’s what it means:

We take each number in this table, divide it by each number in that table, and we get this table of proportions. What do these proportions mean? It’s John’s offer divided by Emma’s request, or John’s offer divided by Ella’s request, or Ryan’s offer divided by Ella’s request.

This number, 1.5, represents Ryan’s offer for Ella to go to his country and marry him divided by Ella’s request to go to Ryan’s country and marry him. Why are these numbers important? The most important part which that database does is, if anything is bigger than one, that means they can agree.

Basically, Ryan is offering—we have two numbers which are bigger than one here, but the biggest one is 2.5. Ryan is offering Aurora 2.5 times more than she asked from him. Basically, they can agree, because what she’s asking and what he’s offering is way more than what she’s asking. As long as this number is bigger than one, that means that they agree. If the numbers are smaller than one, they don’t agree.

What happens if there’s two numbers which are bigger than one? The bigger number matters, because the bigger number shows that Ryan likes Aurora much more than he likes Ella. Ella would agree to marry Ryan, Aurora would also agree to marry Ryan, but Ryan likes Aurora more. Can you see the difference? It matters what Ryan likes, but it also matters what they like. Unfortunately for Ella, Ryan likes Aurora more, so he’s going to marry Aurora. He could afford to marry both of them, he would agree with both of them, however in the database, he’s going to have to marry only one, because Ella made the request under the assumption that Ryan was not married. Now that he gets married to Aurora, Ella’s request is not applicable anymore.

If there’s a match, Ryan and Aurora are removed from the database, and the rest of the people now do the same thing over again. They don’t have to go through the whole process because the CVs are already there, but it’s going to be done in cycles. This is how the calculation happens. Basically, we’re trying to see who is agreeing. This is what we call an agreement about the dowry. If there’s more than one, they agree, and they actually are considered officially, according to the Quran, engaged. It goes straight to engagement, then they can do the official whatever they want to do extra. But if they agree, it’s an engagement.

Have that in mind, because you cannot say later, “Oh, wait a minute, I didn’t mean it.” No, if you use this database, you should be serious about it.

We found here a couple who would be the best match for each other and who would agree. These two here are because Arthur and Olivia are brother and sister, so you cannot divide by zero, by nothing, anyway.

Repent to Allah. Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

Understanding Ranking, Percentiles, and Matchmaking Results

Now we have a method to match the dowry requests with dowry offers, and to see if they agree, if there’s an engagement. For the rest of the people, this is still useful even if it doesn’t happen in the first cycle. It might happen in the second cycle, third cycle, fourth cycle, because once these women see that men don’t like them as much, maybe they’ll lower the dowry request, if they’re smart, or the men will increase it or try to work harder to increase it, or to sort of think, “Oh, maybe they like someone more.” It’s a constant update. In the app, it’s going to be constant; here, I’m going to have to do it in cycles when there’s enough new people.

Now, what Nick sees at the end—let’s take Nick as an example. These will not be seen by anyone. It’s all in the background of the app. The thing which Nick will see—unfortunately this time around, Nick didn’t get married, there was no number which was bigger than one. What Nick sees in the end: Nick is going to see best matches according to your wishes and capabilities. Based on what Nick wanted, and based on how others liked him:

• Nick’s best match is Aurora in a woman’s country.

• Then Ella in a man’s country.

• Then Aurora again in a man’s country.

How did I come with these calculations? Basically, all the app does, we go to dowry proportions and check which numbers are the biggest. The biggest number here is Aurora in a woman’s country, at 0.4. Basically, this means that Nick offered 40% of what Aurora wanted, but that’s the biggest number he got. Aurora in a woman’s country is the top woman for him right now. Basically, he’s able to see who are the best matches according to his wishes and the women’s wishes. These numbers are just ordered from biggest to smallest, and then those names are put there.

What about this other information which Nick will receive: best match according to the other submitters?

• According to the other submitters, Ella would be the best match for Nick.

• Olivia would be the second best match.

• Emma would be the third best match.

• Aurora would be the fourth best match.

Basically, this will help Nick see what others think about him in relation to who he should marry. You know how sometimes people want to help a couple, they’re like, “Oh, I see this boy and this girl, I think they would be a match.” Basically, the app does that, except that it does it for everyone.

How does it do it? These numbers—it looks like, how could numbers reflect emotions and all? Actually, they do a great job at that.

We go back to these numbers in the database, and we see here that dowry offers by men which were made to these women: on average, Aurora received $36,000 as an offer. Basically, men are willing to offer her a lot for her to go to their country, or they are willing to offer her a little bit less for them to go to her country. Then, Ella is the second preferred woman for men. Then we have Olivia, who is the third preferred woman for men. Then we have—no one will know these, it’s all in the background in the app. No one will be insulted or put down if someone is last. Emma in this case is last, but she will not know that she’s last. No one will know that she’s last in the app. However, this number will be used to actually put them in a percentile.

Basically, it’s just ranking women from men’s perspective, and men from women’s perspective, but ranking them in a percentage. This person is the top 1%, that person is the top 15%, the other person is the 15th percent in a row. If there’s 100 women, Aurora would be 13th in a row in relation to how much men like her.

Then I did an average for both countries: Emma in a man’s country versus Emma in her own country, in a woman’s country. The average between these two numbers is 81%. Because there’s very few submitters right now, we can get a number which is similar or the same. In this case, we just order them in any order, but the more submitters there are, the more accurate this gets. At this point, it’s about 13% inaccuracy, but later it’s going to get better and better. If there’s five submitting men and four submitting women, then the accuracy of the app is 97%, but 30% can be wrong.

It’s important that others—let’s say there’s women or men who think, “Why should I even go here? I’m not that interested in marriage.” Maybe a woman thinks that she’s too old, maybe a man thinks that he doesn’t have enough money. However, you would actually do a very good service to the community by helping rank those people, even if you never get married. Basically, you would be doing a service to the other submitters so that they can get married with the right match instead of the wrong match. Through an app, you’re doing what in real life would be like trying to match two people which you think are a match. You’re using your influence, even if you never get married, to help the community have better marriages, better matches. That’s important.

If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for others. Even if you never think that you’ll get married or want to get married, go there. Because when you rate the man, if you’re a woman, what you’re telling the other women who might get married is: “Look, this is the best for you, then this guy is the next best for you, this guy is the next best for you. Based on my opinion, this would be the best guy for you.” You’re actually helping create better matches, even if you never get married, or even if you’re not interested. It’s charity to do this, even if you get nothing out of it.

I’d encourage every man and woman who’s eligible to actually go and fill the questionnaire, the CVs, because in this way, they actually help the system work better, and they help the couples who would be the best match actually find each other. They might not find each other if you guys don’t help. That’s why it’s important for people to do it, even if they are not that interested in marriage.

Now we have Emma who is at the 19th percentile in her country or in the man’s country, then we have Ella, Olivia, and Emma. These are the percentiles. This is where they would rank if we had 100 women: Emma would be 81st, Aurora would be 19th.

Now let me go to what the women requested. Here we have the ranking of the men. Unfortunately, here the accuracy drops because there’s only four women. It’s really hard—I don’t know if it drops, but it’s kind of not very high. It actually increases a little bit, but it’s within 10% of error. There’s 10% error because there’s not enough people. In statistics, by the time there’s 30 people, it really measures well. But even like this, it actually helps, it works. It’s better to be 90% accurate than not at all.

Let’s explain these other numbers here: these are calculations. Basically, this is the average of all these numbers in the woman’s country, and the average of all these numbers in the man’s country. Then we calculated the percentile from these, and again, it’s the same as previously.

Nick, in the end—look, this is the last number for Nick, taking Nick as an example. Nick is in the 55th percentile, meaning that if there’s 100 men, women would rank him 55th based on how much they like other men, how much they like him, and how much they like other men below him. Nick is an average guy. What this means is that Nick is an average guy.

What would be the best match according to other submitters for an average guy? An average girl! Of course, other submitters will never propose to Nick, “Oh, you should get the top girl, even though you’re average.” No one would say that if they’re reasonable. Nick might not think so—Nick probably thinks he deserves better or worse—but other submitters think he’s an average guy based on this.

We found that Nick is in the 55th percentile, so that means that Nick is average. When we tell Nick, we don’t tell Nick that he’s average. He will never know that he’s average. He might think that he’s a top guy, he can still think that, it’s okay. He will never know that he’s average. What the system does is that it finds the average girl in these numbers here. Which one is the closest to an average girl in these numbers here? It is number 44—44%. Ella! Ella is the average girl.

Now the app is telling Nick—here’s what Nick sees: “Best match according to the other submitters for Nick is Ella.” Why? Because Nick is average, Ella is average.

Who’s the next best one? The one who is closest to it. Let’s go to the numbers: remember, Nick is in the 55th percentile. The next closest number to 55th percent, I think it’s 81%. Olivia and Emma will be next, and Aurora will be the last one. Olivia is next, then Emma, then Aurora.

Nick will never be told that he’s average. However, Nick will be told who’s the best match for him, and that woman will be average. Then the next best match for him will be a little bit above him or a little bit below him, and then the next best match will be a little bit more above him. From the 55th percentile for the case of Nick, the system will propose him the 56th, then the 54th, then the 57th, then the 53rd. Without insulting anyone, without making them feel bad, the system will propose an average girl to an average guy, a top girl for a top guy, and a bottom girl for a bottom guy, if that makes sense—whatever that means. That probably sounded bad, but anyway, you guys get it.

This is how the system works, and this is why it’s important that people use this. Why is this important? Because there’s no way to help other submitters in marriage unless, in today’s world, you do it for all of them at the same time, otherwise you are unfair.

How is this different from the past? In the past, two people would meet, and no one else was there—let’s say one family with one family or something, and that was the whole pool of marriages, and then they would meet someone else later. Here, we all know each other at the same time because we do it online. Because it’s online today, the difference is like in the past, people would go and trade with people in the market. Today, we trade on Amazon, and on Amazon, the buyers and the sellers are matched all at the same time. There’s no way to match them unless there’s some kind of advanced, accurate, and fair system. This is the fair system, accurate, which is fair, accurate, and helpful for the submitters.

This is how the calculations work. I spoke about the calculations. The next thing I want to talk about is the limitations, then assumptions and agreements. Sorry guys, this is a long sermon.

Dowry Limitations: Rules for Men and Women

Let’s talk about the limitations: dowry limitations. I’m not going to go into detail, but I’m just going to sort of tell you what they are:

1. Men are not allowed to offer a dowry which is more than half of their net wealth plus two years of their net income. Why is this important? It’s important because we don’t want some man who doesn’t have the money to offer a big dowry just so he can get the girl. If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money. However, some people have just finished college, they don’t have the money yet, but they have promise, they have income. Eventually, they’ll get the money. For those people, they get a chance to actually offer up to two years of their net income—half of their net wealth plus two years of their net income. Why specifically this? There’s a verse in the Quran which says: “Would you elevate the subordinates to higher than yourself?” There’s a verse in the Quran which says that—basically saying that if you do that, you’re stupid, you’re stupid and you are immature if you do that. When the man offers a dowry, he’s actually also proposing to make the woman a subordinate. If he gives her more than he has, then he’s left with himself. Basically, he’s going to make the woman richer than himself; he’s elevating her more than himself. Actually, because of that, she will not respect him. Women don’t like the man who likes to be second; she likes him to be first, but she also wants to be second after him. She wants to be the best person in the world for him, but she wants him to be the best as well in front of her. What I’m saying is, it’s stupid for men to offer more than half of what they have, according to the Quran. It’s allowed, but it’s stupid. I’m just protecting stupid men here. Men are not allowed to offer a dowry which is more than half of their net wealth plus two years of their net income. Why the two years? This has to do with how it happened with Moses. I’ve calculated it years ago. It might be three years, but I just sort of remember it as two years, I don’t know why. The verses in the Quran which I used for this is that Moses worked to marry his wife for eight years. I did adjustments, because that was a different era: I did tax adjustments, I did life expectancy adjustments, I did the fact that Moses got free housing—we men don’t get free housing—and stuff like that. I did all those adjustments, and those eight years which Moses spent to work for his wife are now reduced to two years. Basically, you can only offer a dowry up to half of your wealth plus two years of your net income. If you don’t have any of those, unfortunately, just wait, get a job. Get a job, and then you can actually have a dowry. Either get a job or have money, unfortunately, otherwise I don’t think you are actually ready. Anyone can get a job if they try hard enough, even if they are not wealthy.

2. Women are not allowed to request a dowry which is less than two months of average world rent. Why is that? I relied on the verses in the Quran which say that women wait for three menstruations after they divorce. Basically, you don’t want a woman who requests less than $1,000, and then the man just uses her unfortunately as a prostitute and leaves her in the street. She has to have two guaranteed months of rent—by the way, this is actually more like four months, but it’s half of the rent, which means two months, because she would only pay half of the rent, not all the rent, because half of the rent would be paid by the man. That’s why I made it two months. Basically, if a woman is asking for less than $1,000 in today’s world—in the past it might have been different, in the future it’s different, it might be more—but basically two months of average world rent. If she asks for less than that, then she’s stupid. He’ll probably just use her and leave her.

These are dowry limitations. In the past, they didn’t exist because women had guaranteed living conditions. Today people rent, so it’s different.

Pre-Marriage Assumptions and System Agreements

All dowry offers are made under these assumptions and agreements. Why is this important? This is important because some women might get married and are also planning to get half of the wealth when they divorce. They want all the good sides of democracy including all the good sides of marrying a man in a religious marriage. You cannot get both: if you get one, you don’t get the other, or you have to adjust them. You cannot go, “Oh, I got a dowry, now I also want money after divorce.” No, you got the dowry. Basically, if women agree to this system to get a dowry, they also give up some of their rights, which is that they are not going to go to a judge and ask for more money.

Let’s go to all the issues which need to be agreed upon:

1. Daughters of submitters fill this dowry request together with their fathers because they need their father’s permission. Other submitting women, if their parents are not submitters, fill it themselves. Basically, if you’re a daughter of a submitter, you do the CV yourself—you don’t have to ask your father, it’s just a photo, information, all that—but when it comes to the dowry, you ask your father. You’re like, “Father, we did the CV. There’s these men who would be potentially interested to marry me, what do you think I should ask from them?” The father might be like, “You’re still in college, I think you should ask a lot, at least they should pay for your college,” or he will be like, “I think there’s nothing better you can do, how about whatever you want to ask.” If your father is also a submitter, you should ask your father for the dowry, like what it should be. He might actually help you to sort of be more realistic. He probably knows that men have more and you might not know that, or he knows that men actually don’t have enough and you might not know that, and it might be helpful. That’s the first assumption: that the daughter has filled the dowry requests together with her father.

2. The newly married couple will live in the city which corresponds to the dowry which they agreed. Basically, if they agree to a dowry which implies that the man will move to her country, that’s how they should stick to it. Or if they move to the other person’s city, they simply make up the difference between the two dowries. Basically, they have to adjust it. They’ll be like, “Wait a minute, I agreed to come to your country, but unfortunately I cannot move. Would you like to change the dowry so you can move to my country?” and stuff like that.

3. The wealth which one spouse had before marriage belongs only to him or her and will never become the other spouse’s wealth. Some people, typically women in the modern world, they even want wealth from what the husband had previously. Of course, don’t give that to them—even courts will protect from that, however they will try. The wealth which one spouse had before marriage belongs to him or her and will never become the other spouse’s wealth, of course unless they die, which is inheritance.

4. Any new income after taxes and expenses for going to work—this is key: expenses for going to work—which any spouse earns during marriage, 30% of it will be given to the other spouse. A woman gets a dowry, however if only the man works, she’s not going to get half of his salary; she gets only 30% of his salary. Or it can be the opposite: maybe the woman works, he shouldn’t get all of it or half of it, he gets 30%. I’ll explain this another time.

5. If one spouse immigrates to the other spouse’s country, the spouse in the home country is financially responsible for all his or her expenses for one year. Basically, if you are a woman let’s say, or a man, and you are offering or requesting a dowry, have in your mind that if they come to your country, you will take care of them for one year. Let’s say you’re a woman, you don’t have any money, and you know that if you marry a man, you’re going to have to take care of him if he comes to your country. You add that into the dowry: you be like, “Okay, I want $5,000 more, because who’s going to take care of him?” Or the opposite, whatever the case may be. Again, I can find support about this from the Quran. Basically, the person who moves to his country should get free expenses for one year. They cannot ruin their job, their career, the people they love, and all of that just for one spouse and then get nothing.

6. Both spouses plan to work with reasonable efforts and cooperation in their professions. If one of the spouses already plans not to work for some time or permanently, they should mention it before marriage and seek the agreement of the other potential spouse. If they both agree that one of the spouses will not be expected to work for some time or permanently, then the spouse who stays at home is expected to carry the main burden of the house chores which happen during the time when the other spouse is at work. Only when the other spouse is at work; the spouse at home should actually do something at home, not stay and waste time.

7. In case of divorce, no spouse will seek additional money. They already should have received their agreement money before and during marriage.

8. Both spouses will rent the space to live together, with rent and living expenses paid 50/50. Even if one of the spouses owns the place already, the other spouse will pay their portion of the rent. Some women, but also men these days, will get the dowry and then also want free living. The man can use that house to rent it to someone else, so you’re going to have to pay half of the rent if they decide to live together.

9. If they decide to live together with the parents of one of the spouses, the other spouse should live for free without having to pay rent. In today’s world, women don’t get free housing; however, they also typically don’t live with the parents of the spouse. In the past, the only reason why they got free housing is because they agreed to live with the parents of the spouse. If they decide to live together with the parents of one of the spouses, the other spouse should live for free. If a man says, “You know what, I want to marry you, but I’m still living with my parents. Unfortunately, I cannot move out, we will have to live with my parents,” in that case, she will say, “Okay, but I live for free.” No problem! If she wants to stay with his parents, no problem, but: “I’m going to have to live for free in the home, I don’t pay rent.” Now the opposite: if she wants to say, “You know what, I don’t like your parents, I want to move out,” fine, but you’re going to have to pay your rent, you have to pay 50% rent. The same thing if it’s a man and he has to live with a woman’s parents—it happens these days more often than we know. If he agrees, if the woman asks him to do that, she should offer him to stay for free. Why would he stay with your parents if he doesn’t get free housing? Otherwise, the reverse is also true: if he wants to move out, he better be ready to pay half of their rent. Basically, you pay with money; if you don’t like someone’s parents, have money, move out. Otherwise, you’re going to have to actually respect someone’s parents.

10. If the man is already married, the woman should make the dowry request under the assumption that he will continue to stay married with his current wife. This is just a case for men who are already married. If another woman wants to marry him, the woman should make the dowry request under the assumption that he will continue to stay married with his current wife, she will not try to separate them in any way. The husband should assume that the wives will naturally want to live in separate living spaces—he cannot assume, be like, “Oh, I want to marry another wife and I’m going to bring her in the same bedroom, same home.” No, you should assume that it’s going to be a different space, and assume that the wives will naturally want to live in separate living spaces with equal, separate time spent with him, unless one of them willingly makes tolerances for particular instances.

11. Any disagreements before, during, or after marriage will never be sent to court without the approval of the congregation director. If someone uses the court system despite not getting approval from the congregation director, then that person will be fined with the penalty zakat equal to the amount with which the other party got damaged. If the person does not pay the penalty zakat, then he stops being a submitter and is excluded from the community of submitters. Basically, if you use this dowry system and then years later you got $10,000 or $50,000, and years later you want to divorce and you want to go to court and get more, in that case, if you didn’t ask the congregation director to tell you if it’s okay or not, the congregation director will say, “No, you actually damaged this guy, you have to pay him a penalty zakat.” If she doesn’t pay it—the zakat basically takes the money from her and gives it to him—if she doesn’t pay it, she hasn’t paid zakat and she gets kicked out. It’s a risky business. Of course, if there’s something really bad which happened to her or him, like there’s a crime going on or there’s adultery and stuff like that, of course she might send him to court or he might send her to court. However, once they consult the congregation director, he will agree with it because he’ll see that there’s something wrong.

These are the rules and assumptions under which you request the dowry and under which you offer the dowry. Don’t assume something else. Basically, men are paying, but also they should get some privileges out of it, which is that they have priority in some issues and things like that because they are paying.

Summary of Essential Steps for Participants

Does anyone have any questions? Quick though, because—should I even go into questions? It was a long sermon, sorry guys, but it’s hard to cover all of these.

God willing, whoever has filled the questionnaires, the CVs, soon—I don’t know which day, soon when I have time, I will send you another questionnaire which will be visible only to you, where you can actually make dowry requests and offers for men and for women, like men for women and women for men. After that, we can go in another cycle.

Before I go into answering any questions, let’s actually summarize something very important. What do you need to remember? You don’t need to remember all the calculations; all you have to do is trust that it works.

What you need to remember:

1. Fill the marriage compatibility CV. You can do this on our website at any time, the sooner the better. If you go to the website, go to publications—it’s working slow this time—go to publications, and there’s somewhere where it says “Find a marriage partner” or something, and then you click there and fill the CV. You can fill it at any time, you don’t have to wait for the next cycle. However, because I’m doing it manually, I’m going to spend some time until a lot of people fill it. This time it’s just going to be the ones who filled it already, but you can fill it anytime. It’s going to take me some time until I do something about it.

2. When given access to the other gender’s CV profiles, make your sincere dowry offer as a man or dowry request as a woman.

3. Wait for the results.

All you have to remember is these three things. If you don’t want it complicated, just remember these. If you’re an eligible man or woman, do these three things. You will have helped the community find the best match for each other, and you might help yourself. Just in case, do it for others first and yourself second.

Q&A Session

Let’s go to the questions quick.

FAL is saying: “So what you said according to the Quran, if the number is higher than one, it’s engagement. However, what about the dating process, is that notified?”

Dating: I’m not going to prohibit it. You guys in the meantime sort of can talk to one another if there’s a close match or so. However, the reason people date is because they want to know if it’s the right person. What more do you want to know? If you know that she is a submitter, and she tells you how much she reads the Quran, she tells you how she looks, she tells you basically everything you need to know, why would you need to date? If you’re serious, you’ll just make an offer. It’s not easy to make an offer because you want to make sure that it’s the right person, but it’s mostly your problem, your doubts. I’m not stopping it; what I’m saying is I have given enough information, and the best information you have is that the person is a submitter. People who date outside of submitters basically want to know that the person is a good person. We already know by the fact that we’ve joined this community, we already know that.

Guom is saying: “Can the civil marriage be done also in addition of the rules you mentioned?”

We are doing this under the assumption that the civil marriage can be done, but it will not be considered valid in the sense that—you can do it for reasons of immigration and things like that. However, at the end of the day, when that contract says, “Oh, we will be equal partners,” all of that means nothing if you do it like this.

Adnan is saying: “If I’m correct, agreement is only and only if the number is higher than one, else there is no need to proceed.”

If men want to avoid a certain woman, they just offer less than $1,000, and she’s not allowed to request less than a thousand, so you kind of avoid her. Same thing for a woman: just ask a lot, whatever would actually make you change your mind, and in this way you can avoid him. In those cases, it’s going to be less than one.

Guom is saying: “What if the man and the woman decide to live to a third country, or if they want to move after the wedding?”

It depends how much after marriage. If it’s years and years after marriage, they’ll negotiate. They’ll be like, “Okay, kind of like this.” It depends who wants it. No, I didn’t go into all the details; this thing is not perfect. I thought of it, I just thought it’s something to be worried about later.

Closing Remarks

Yeah, so this is pretty much the dowry system. I think it solves the issue of keeping it fair, being helpful, and at the same time—this is hard—while not insulting anyone. People will not know where they rank; they will only know who’s their rank.

That’s it. God willing, whoever has filled the questionnaire, I will send you the dowry questionnaire to fill it. Whoever has not filled the questionnaire, please fill it, because the next cycle might be soon—it might be a week later, it might be two weeks later, it might be three months later, I don’t know, whenever enough people fill it. It might be a year later depending on how many people join the marriage system.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, peace be upon you.

 
Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains how a believer should be intentional about marriage yet flexible, drawing on the story of Abraham finding a wife for Isaac, and then discusses the community’s marriage questionnaire and the low participation from women.

Video Transcript:

Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

As you guys know, a couple of weeks ago I created this questionnaire or a marriage system. Before I actually go into discussing it, I would like to talk about a topic and sort of get some ideas from the Bible. Not that we rely on the Bible, but I just want to show some examples.

What I want to talk about is that we as submitters—I mean believers—because as a submitter, you can actually believe; you don’t have to be perfect in this issue. But a perfect believer is open and intentional about marriage, yet very flexible at the same time. We don’t believe like the traditional Muslims that marriage is an obligation, or like the Christians who think that not being married is better or is more holy. That’s not the case. The case is in between. So we don’t judge people for not being married; we don’t judge people for being married. At the same time, we are intentional about marriage.

Defining Intentionality

What does it mean to be intentional? I’m going to take an example from the Bible to show what I mean by intentional. Basically, we don’t leave it completely to chance. We try to do something about it.

Let me give you an example of how intentional Abraham was in relation to the marriage of Isaac. So you can see—if some of you can see, because I’m a little bit disappointed actually about it, that’s why I’m talking about this topic. A lot of you actually—that’s why I’m disappointed—a lot of maybe most of you, I don’t know, can actually learn what it means to be intentional about marriage. You have to be intentional. What does it mean to be intentional? You have an intention.

Intentional vs. Non-Intentional (The Car Analogy)

Before I go to the example of Abraham, let me show you what I mean by intentional. Intentional versus let’s call it accidental or non-intentional. Let’s say you want to buy a car, and let me say you know what you want: you want an electric car. Being intentional means you go search online or you go to a dealer and you ask, “Do you guys have electric cars?” That’s intentional. Of course, we don’t have markets like that; unfortunately, we have dating apps, which I don’t think are good for submitters. But that’s being intentional: you go to a specific place to look for something, you know what you want, and you are not ashamed about it. That’s intentional.

Non-intentional is you wait until one of your friends accidentally, one of these days in passing while he or she is talking, tells you, “By the way, I’m selling my car,” and you’re like, “Oh, since you’re selling, I’ll buy it.” That’s non-intentional. It’s kind of like it just happens to be there, so you’re just going to buy it, even though all along you were interested and had no intention to do something about it.

So as you can see, there’s a difference: one of them is intentional, the other one is not. It’s really important as submitters to be intentional about marriage, even though we don’t judge people for not being married or for being married or anything. But we have to be intentional. If we are believers, we have to be intentional.

Now I’m going to show you an example. By the way, people can get discouraged; it’s hard to be intentional when you fail so many times. The world of the disbelievers has beaten us so much, it’s really hard to actually believe that you can get the car. But you have to be intentional about it.

The Example of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 24)

Now let me go to the verse to show you how it happened with Abraham and Isaac, his son. This is in Genesis Chapter 24. I’m just going to read some of it; I’m going to skip part of it because it’s just repetition. The same thing is repeated over and over, so let me actually share the screen.

I hope you guys are seeing it now. It’s Genesis, the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, Chapter 24. It has a subtitle which says “Finding a Bride for Isaac.” So there’s an intention there.

Now Abraham had grown old, was well advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. So Abraham instructed his servant, who was the oldest member of his household—servant meaning pretty much the slave—who was the oldest member of his household and in charge of everything he owned: “Make this solemn oath to me as a promise to the Lord, the God of heaven and the earth, that you won’t acquire a wife for my son from the Canaanite women among whom I’m living.”

By the way, just so people don’t think that Abraham was racist here, he didn’t want a wife from that region because in the past regions were different. Basically, they just didn’t have very good women and men as well. Sodom and Gomorrah were pretty much bad. Of course, it doesn’t make sense for Abraham to go to Sodom and Gomorrah to find a wife for his son, because they are just bad people. So in the past, you had communities which were bad and worse, and communities which were better in qualities, in culture, in whatever. In the past, there were drastic changes, and it was reasonable to look. If you want to go and get a good car, you’re not going to go to some country which produces some cheap car; you go to a country which produces a good car.

What I’m saying is that then let’s not take this example for today’s time. That’s why it’s not actually good to rely on the Bible for many things. But what we can learn here is the intentionality. He has an intention: he knows what he wants, and he’s doing something about it. Here he’s actually doing a lot; that’s what I’m trying to get at. He’s asking his servant: “Instead, you are to go to my country…”

By the way, Abraham lives at this time around Israel in that region, and this country is almost in Iraq. How far is that, 800 kilometers? Check ChatGPT, I don’t know exactly, but about that distance. How long did it take in the past to travel 800 kilometers? Two weeks. So Abraham is telling his servant, “Travel for two weeks and go find a wife for my son.” That’s intentional. It’s not like, “Oh, by the way, since you guys came around here, let me have a drink. Oh, by the way, I see this girl or this boy, let’s kind of like chat and see if it works.” No, you are intentional about it; you don’t leave it up to chance.

Balancing Intentionality and Flexibility

Of course, you have also to be flexible. You cannot control the whole situation, and we’ll see that even in this case you see that he doesn’t have full control of the situation. However, he has an intention.

Then the servant says, “What if the woman doesn’t want to come back with me to this land?” Basically, he’s saying, “What if it doesn’t work?” The servant asked, “Shouldn’t I have your son go to the land from which you came, Isaac with him as well, to go and sort of find a bride for him?”

And Abraham says, “Make sure not to take my son there.” Abraham replied—why? We know from the Quran that Abraham left that land of idol worshippers, however he still thought that they have good qualities for women’s behavior, I have no idea. “The Lord God of heaven, who brought me from my father’s land, who spoke to me and promised me ‘I will give this land to your descendants,’ will send His angel ahead of you, and you are to acquire a wife for my son from there. If the woman isn’t willing to follow you, then you’ll be free from this oath to me.”

So he’s also flexible. It’s intentional: this is what I want and this is what I’m doing. You’re free from the obligation; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Okay? However, you can see the intention.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone should travel two weeks, because the difference is that the failure rate today—because people are picky—is much higher, so people get discouraged. You don’t want to travel for two weeks because the last time you traveled for two weeks, if you did, it didn’t work because the girl or the man was too picky. So now you’re like, “Oh, it doesn’t work these days, whatever.” So I can understand that. But you can see the intentionality, and that’s what I want you guys to understand, that there is an intentionality about it. Being left to just, “Oh, let’s go to a bar and see what happens”—no, you know what you want approximately, but you’re flexible about it. It’s not going to be fulfilled 100%; 50% could be good. Some intentionality even includes losing weight, looking better. “So I’m losing some weight, I want to look better.” Why? There’s an intention. Just an example, but that’s probably not the most important part, it’s not even that important, but that’s also part of the intention.

Identifying Qualities in a Partner

Anyway, so he goes there. The way they decide which woman to choose is that whichever says when the servant asks—I’m not going to read the whole thing—when the servant asks one of the women, “Can you please give me some water?”, if she says, “Let me also bring water for the camels,” that’s how they know she’s a good woman.

Anyway, even to this day, that’s actually a good quality for women, but it’s much more rare, and for men actually. Like that shows empathy; that shows intelligence. “Someone traveled two weeks, of course his camels are going to be thirsty, let me bring water also for their camels.” Maybe the person was shy to ask about water for the camels. So yeah, it shows some sort of awareness, empathy, and empathy is important in marriage.

So yeah, that’s how Abraham chose a wife for his son Isaac. As we can see, he was intentional about it. Let me stop sharing this.

Addressing Past Disappointments with Men

By the way, guys, I love you. I really think you’re good believers; I think you’re really special actually, because no other people could actually sort of go through what you guys and including me are going through, and sort of still stick to the same belief and keep improving and doing better. However, when it comes to this issue, I’ve been disappointed over and over again by so many, unfortunately. I have to say it, I’m just going to be honest, and I hope this doesn’t turn this into some kind of—I’d rather turn it into some kind of rant.

First of all, I was disappointed with men. This is years ago, from years ago it has been going on, and I was trying to fix it. Sorry for fixing it a little bit too late for some. I was disappointed by men who, while having women submitters available who would actually say yes because I know them, they went and married non-submitters in plain view. That was an insult to all the women submitters. It’s different if she doesn’t want to, if she doesn’t like—what was the intention? Abraham was intentional about it. If you think that she would say no, what about it? What did you go out to find out if it’s a no or if it’s a yes? Nothing. So there was no intentionality about it. Fine, maybe you just prefer the non-submitter. Okay, that’s already disappointing. So I was already disappointed about that part.

Low Participation from Women in the Marriage Questionnaire

Then, I don’t know, there’s a line of disappointments, but maybe I’m just going to mention two here. Now that we have a marriage app, I’m actually disappointed from the women’s side, and this is the situation. You guys had two weeks. You guys had two weeks, girls and women, whatever, two weeks to fill a simple questionnaire to show intentionality, basically to make yourself available.

By the way, if you were embarrassed—and this is because some people might have sort of been embarrassed, or maybe they thought, “Oh, I don’t want to be…” Because to be fair, in the Bible, Abraham is looking for a bride for his son, so it’s the father, the parent who is doing it, so it kind of makes more sense. When you do it yourself, it looks a little bit more like begging. So some people might hesitate. However, if you understand the issue correctly, you will not hesitate. The reason is that you don’t think about, “Oh, what do I get from this marriage, or what do I need?” If you’re embarrassed from that, think the other way: there’s lonely men out there, there’s lonely women out there. What can I do to help them? You can solve it the other way, now you’re not embarrassed anymore. Think of it as charity: there’s a lonely man, what can I do to help them? Maybe I could be their wife, or vice versa—not me, I’m a boy, but anyway, you get the point, I’m trying to think as a woman.

So yeah, if you think like that, then you’re not embarrassed anymore. But if you think, “Oh, what can I get from a man, how it would be,” things like that, then you’re embarrassed, of course.

Going back to the intentionality, this is the situation, the disappointing situation unfortunately. Before I go there actually, let’s repent.

Part 2 of the Sermon

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

Okay, so here’s the situation: you had two weeks to fill a questionnaire. Five men filled it, which is already too low, because I know there’s more men who are not married. And then only one woman—from I’m quite sure there’s many, many more, manyfold more women who are actually not married.

Anyone can find a reason, a justification. Maybe you had good intentions; maybe you don’t think you look good, you don’t want to disappoint the man. All of them don’t make sense, because the Quran says even… So what I’m saying is, the devil could trick you the other way around as well. Maybe you think you are too good for these men, which is bad already, but maybe you think you are not, you don’t deserve these men. Maybe you think these men are better than me. If that’s the case, you should actually believe the Quran, which tells the men: God knows that you men will like the women. So basically, if you think that men will not like you—I mean, there’s levels of liking—but if you’re convinced that they will not like you, if that’s what you believe and you are absolutely convinced about it, the problem is that you’re not agreeing with God. God is saying otherwise; God is saying they like you, you’re saying, “No, they don’t like me.”

Unfortunately, you might have been convinced based on circumstances: you are not married yet, you might be a certain age, or that’s different issues, I don’t want to go into that. However, not filling the questionnaire because you thought that is a disagreement with God.

Now, so what I’m saying is whatever reason you had, any of you—except for those who clearly knew that they didn’t want to get married—is not good enough, because you have to show intentionality. Just fill the questionnaire. And here’s the thing: filling the questionnaire would actually help others. Even if you never get married, it would help others to sort of rank each other better, because now you help with the ranking. God willing, you’ll see how that works. Sorry guys for these noises, there’s messages.

So yeah, what was I talking about? Yeah, the important thing is to be intentional about it, to make yourself available, to basically go in the market. You don’t find a car if you’re not going to go in the market. Go in the market! You don’t have to buy anything, no one is forcing you. Just check around, see what’s going on. But no, just one woman.

Feedback on Submitted Questionnaire Profiles

By the way, even that woman—and by the way, whoever filled it, you know who you are, you did a great job, I congratulate you. You could improve a little bit: one of the photos had makeup, so unfortunately even that is not going to be useful, because if I tolerate that… One photo was perfect, very good photo in the sense that it filled all the criteria; the other one had makeup. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can send that to men, because then it’s a slippery slope. Maybe the other women didn’t actually fill the questionnaire because they thought they would look better with makeup, and I’m not allowing makeup. So it’s kind of like an unfair game, I don’t want to allow unfair games. Now, if I change my mind in the future, I’m going to change this for all, not just for one. But for now, those were the rules of the market. The market can set the rules, and you didn’t fully follow them. Pretty much everything was perfect except for that photo which had makeup.

So please, can you actually… By the way, for people who hesitated to fill it, I already thought about it: I made it so that people can change them. So you can go change it, remove that photo, put another one, and it’s perfect. That’s the situation of the woman who filled it.

Now on the men’s side, pretty much four of them filled it correctly. One of them, the problem is he took a photo in the bathroom. I don’t think that should be acceptable. Plus, the criteria clearly stated show your face and your shoulders, kind of like me, maybe like this. But he showed pretty much his body all the way to maybe below his waist, which is not a big problem. However, it’s a slippery slope again, because the next day if that’s allowed, then the next day the other guy is going to wear a tight shirt because he knows he can show the body. Then the next day the other guy is going to show his abs, and then it turns into a thirst trap. Now we are evaluating who has a better body. There’s already a question in the questionnaire what your body type is; just say athletic. By the way, a lot of the men who filled it are young, and sometimes they said, “I have a normal body.” I think of them as having athletic bodies. Don’t be too modest about it, because you should compare yourself with all ages, not just with your age group. You definitely have a probably better body than me at my age. If I just got a little bit better, I’d say I’m athletic, I’m joking! But you get the point, it’s okay, don’t be modest about it. If you have a good body, you have a good body. However, those were not the rules, and the idea was not to show your body. I mean, you cannot avoid the shoulders, but…

So yeah, basically all we’re left with is four people, basically, and all of them are men, because those other two have to fix it, so they are not fully available right now. Please go fix those two photos for the man, and for the woman fix those two photos. You can change them, it’s possible. Just go back to the questionnaire and you can change it, and then it’s perfect for both of you.

Pledging Support for Poly-Marriage

The other four of you who did a very good job, I want to sort of encourage you by actually supporting you into something which I think you guys deserved. I think the reason why this happened—I was so disappointed, but at the same time I think the reason why this happened is because God wanted to distinguish you in this issue. You put yourself out there, available for the women, and what did the women tell you? “You’re not good enough,” or “We’re not even going to bother,” or “We can do better,” whatever they wanted to say implicitly, not directly.

So basically, you guys were vulnerable. You said, “Okay, well, we’re going to trust this system. We’re going to put our photos there to the embarrassment of me seeing them, and we’re going to do our job, we are going to be intentional about it,” which is what Abraham did in the Bible. Women didn’t even show up. They embarrassed you, they basically implicitly insulted you. According to them, they are not even going to bother, despite the fact that they were not only going to get marriage of probably one of the best men, plus money, but they still didn’t bother. I don’t know why. I kind of know why for each individual case, however I don’t care, there shouldn’t be a why here.

So what I think happened: I want to congratulate you guys, because I think you just earned my support, my full support for the rest of your life. I’m going to support you to have two wives. I’m going to support you. So if you get married, let me say for five or 10 years—five if you’re not a very good man, maybe 10 years if you’re really polite about that—when the time comes, you don’t need a reason, just get back to me, God willing. And then I’ll try to support you in the sense that together with you, we can talk to the first wife and we’ll be like, “You know, this guy is a good man. This guy deserves another wife. This guy, when he was there, nobody was there for him. When he showed up, no one showed up. He basically did more then, and he deserves more now.”

So I’m going to—for four of you… By the way, one of you is partly an exception, but for four of you I’m going to support you with two wives. Let me tell you about the exception first. For one of you, before we did the system, a few years ago I did actually offer to help with marriage, and there were cultural limitations on his mind, and he didn’t go with it, unfortunately. I think it was a mistake by him, but okay. Unfortunately, because of his cultural limitations, he didn’t take the chance. So now it’s just equalizing, meaning that I think he lost the chance for two wives. Basically, he was already in the negative, so now he’s at least in positive, which now I can use against him and say, “You know what, it’s not in your culture, it doesn’t really fit your culture.”

Am I still live? I guess I’m live. Yeah, okay.

So what I’m saying is for the three of you—so now it’s down to three—three of you, you know who you are. You guys are between, I think, in your 20s or whatever, I’m not sure exactly. You know who the three of you are. I’m going to support you to have two wives, God willing, in the future. And we will try—I will try to give a very good explanation, sort of a recommendation, why you guys should have two wives. You did your job right. Women have told you, “We can find better, we are not even going to bother.” So when you get married, I would understand if you say to those women eventually—not immediately, eventually—”You know what? We also think we can find better.”

Historical Perspectives on Marriage

And I’m going to bring the case of Muhammad in this issue. A lot of people actually judge Muhammad for having many wives. They judge him because they don’t understand what he went through. Where were those same people who judged him for having too many wives? Where were they when he married a woman who was old, who according to hadith again didn’t have her teeth? He married a woman without teeth and wrinkles. According to hadith, she had lots of wrinkles. Basically, in today’s society, that would be considered a 60, 70-year-old woman. Now, where were those people when he went through that?

Basically, what society told him: “You’re an orphan”—implicitly, not probably explicitly—”You’re an orphan, you cannot do better. Just stick with this, it’s fine. It’s fine for you, you can handle it.” And basically what society told him is, “This is how much you can handle.” Now, if that’s the criteria, then later on if Muhammad can handle more, then maybe he should get more if that’s the criteria.

So nobody felt sorry for him. Nobody felt, “Oh, wait a minute, I feel sorry for this guy. Let’s find a slightly better wife for him.” Nobody said that. Then later on, he would feel sorry for his wife, he’d be like, “You know what, I feel sorry, I’m just going to marry one, maybe two, I feel sorry for her.” Then the rules are the same: sorry for sorry, or ability for ability.

So these three men, boys or men, whatever they are, I’m going to support you to have a second wife, God willing, in the future, and without reason—meaning you already have a reason. The reason is women humiliated you, and when you get the chance, when you get powerful, when you get rich, I’m going to be on your side, God willing.

Final Remarks and Closing

So that’s all I have to say. Is there any questions?

By the way, there’s still time. You guys can still fill the questionnaire, whoever wants to, but that doesn’t mean this round is over. It was going to be in rounds, let me say in cycles. Now for the rest, don’t think that marrying two women—I’m going to support you, you have to sort of deserve it. You have to earn it. What battle did you win? Which life did you save? Where were you insulted? What good opportunity to make saber did you use? So it depends. But for most cases, almost all cases, one wife is the perfect way, the best way. But in this case, I think these guys have been insulted. You women have insulted them.

Okay, so any questions? If there’s no questions, it’s okay. And again, I’m not mad at anyone, it’s probably nobody’s fault. It could be just how you brought got brought up; it could be the parents’ mistake. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter, be intentional about it. And being intentional about it, unfortunately in today’s world because we don’t have markets, dealerships like for cars, for marriage, pretty much this is all we have. That means you kind of have to use this.

Okay, that’s it. For those who have to do the contact prayer, let’s do the contact prayer. For the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

Summary:

In this live Friday sermon, Alban Fejza describes the cultural limitations people carry, in marriage, dowries, food, dress, housing and names, and explains how to recognize them as human defects rather than religious requirements, followed by examples from the congregation.

Video Transcript:

Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

Um, today I want to talk about what I call cultural limitations. I kind of thought about bringing this topic up because I think it might be needed for the following Friday sermons when we deal with—let’s call it the marriage app. It’s not yet an app, but whatever, the marriage system we have. I realize there are quite a lot of cultural limitations which might be challenged by it. So I just wanted to bring examples about this issue: the cultural limitations which people have, which I’m not trying to change, I’m just trying to bring them up so that people can become a little bit more aware and hopefully someone can grow spiritually, culturally, so that there’s less limitations.

By the way, this is a sermon where I’m not trying to change anything. All I’m doing is raise awareness so that people can feel comfortable to look within themselves and within their own cultures to maybe realize that, “Oh, maybe they can be a little bit more open-minded.” Again, it’s not something which necessarily has to change, because I believe it’s part of the global force behavior. But some people actually might want to open their mind a little bit more, but they didn’t think about this before, and for those people it might be helpful.

Defining Cultural Limitations Through Personal Experience

What do I mean by cultural limitations? Like, I just played a music; it was rock. And in the past, probably for me, culturally it would give me a bad feeling and unacceptable feeling if I heard it in the context of a Friday sermon. But then eventually I outgrew that limitation, so I’m okay with rock music in a Friday sermon.

Another limitation I had for a while was I couldn’t understand jazz music. Jazz music was not something which I thought was good music; I thought it was tasteless music. I don’t think it’s tasteless music anymore.

And people have those limitations. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m trying to say that all music is the same. All I’m saying is that it could be that it’s your limitations about cultural limitations. And by the way, they sometimes don’t have to be fully about your culture—the whole state, or the whole country, or your people. They could come from family relatives, the way you grew up, something you heard which your mom laughed at. All it takes when you’re five years old, seven years old, all it takes is for your mom to laugh at something or someone, and then it’s forever in your mind that that’s not acceptable. They didn’t even try to discourage you, they didn’t even tell you not to do it, but you probably heard your parents laugh at it, and now, forever in your mind, you just cannot imagine yourself doing that.

Now, what I’m trying to do is not change that, because I also have my cultural limitations. But at least be aware that we have our cultural limitations.

Scriptural Context: Human Weakness & Cultural Bans

Let me give you some examples. I’m going to start from my own culture and the things which are more—and by the way, I’m not trying to justify them, at the same time I’m not saying that those are good, because the Quran says… and here more specifically I’m talking about things which the Quran does not prohibit, but people culturally prohibit. The Quran says in—let me find the verse, I hope I can find it quick… okay, so I think it’s in Surah 5, verse 87, it says: “O you who believe, do not prohibit good things that are made lawful by God, and do not aggress. God dislikes the aggressors.”

So the Quran is telling us not to prohibit things which are lawful. However, many cultures will prohibit things. What I’m saying is that’s bad, it’s definitely bad. However, they have no other choice; it’s kind of like within the global force behavior. They technically have a choice, but it would take such big efforts. Let me put it like this: if all people, all they can do is only apply 70% of the Quran, and 30% is always left out by the nature of our weakness… The Quran says that people in the past were stronger, we are weaker, we have more limitations. Some people will limit some parts of the Quran, other people will limit other parts of the Quran, another culture will limit some other parts. So there will be differences in cultural limitations, however, it’s probably all of them will limit kind of a similar amount.

So what I’m saying is it’s bad, but it’s unavoidable given the strength which we have. Let me give you a perfect example: not fasting during Ramadan is bad, but there are limitations some people have. Like a child who is probably eight years old, I would understand if they don’t fast. It’s fine; I’m not saying it’s good, it’s just their limit, it’s just too much for them. So they have a limitation to how much they can do.

And limitations can even come from physical limitations. Someone might be so overweight, I don’t think—of course it’s bad if they don’t pray, but they might not be fully able to do the prayer in the perfect way. It’s a limitation; it comes from whatever weakness they had from their parents, their culture, whatever. But it is what it is. I’m not going to tell them it’s good what they’re doing, but also I’m not going to judge them for having that limitation.

So all I’m doing is raising awareness, not trying to change it, that there are limitations: physical limitations in some people, in some ages, and also limitations in total, like the whole culture in some cases for certain issues.

Cultural Case Studies: Marriage Practices & Dietary Habits

So I’m going to start with my own culture’s limitations and some limitations I have which the Quran does not limit, just so you guys can understand what I mean.

For example, for some reason, my background where I grew up… I grew up in Kosovo, and it’s about 95% traditional Muslims, something like that. For some reason, people in Kosovo inherited Islam from the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish people. They got Islam from the traditional Muslims, but for some reason, they never got cousin marriages. They could never accept it. And because of that, because I grew up in that culture, I grew up with the idea that it’s kind of unacceptable to have cousin marriages. I’m totally aware the Quran allows it, I accept that that’s the truth. I accept that cousin marriages are allowed in the Quran, but it’s really hard for me to imagine doing that myself.

And I’m not presenting it as some sort of, “Oh, I’m better than the Quran.” I’m presenting it as a shortcoming, as a limitation, as a flaw which my culture has. Probably if cousin marriages were allowed in Kosovo and in most of Europe, Europe wouldn’t suffer from a population decline. Maybe there would be some things which would be better if that limitation didn’t exist. Well, the limitation does exist, and I’m not trying to change it, because it’s their flaw, it’s their limitation. It would be better if they changed it, but I’m not going to try to change it.

Here’s the good thing about it: we as Submitters accept each other and each other’s cultures. We don’t approve it, we don’t say it’s good, but we sort of accept someone even with those cultural flaws as long as they do the contact prayer and the zakat. That is what unites us. Because we have something which unites us, we don’t have to agree on everything.

So basically, I have a flaw that comes from my culture: I cannot imagine myself marrying my cousins, it’s just hard. Let me give you another example. And by the way, I’m not going to judge any culture where they marry their cousins, because apparently the Quran actually is on their side. Now, it has advantages and disadvantages, I’m not going to go into details. Sometimes they bring up medical issues, like having more child defects, but they also have more social advantages, like the food is the same, it’s easier to communicate with people you know, and stuff like that. They’re kind of equal, which is why the Quran allows it. However, for some reason, Europeans could never wrap their minds around it, including Kosovo, which is a majority Sunni Muslim country, who could never accept this because of their culture. It was a cultural limitation.

Let me give you another example. There’s a verse in the Bible where it’s explained that John the Baptist, when he was baptizing people in the desert, lived by eating locusts—grasshoppers, pretty much. So he was eating grasshoppers and honey, that was his main diet while living in the desert. Now, I cannot imagine myself… I’ve never eaten a grasshopper, and I cannot imagine myself eating a grasshopper anytime in the future. I don’t think I should judge other people if they eat grasshoppers. Apparently in the Bible it’s allowed, the Quran also allows it, it doesn’t stop it. It’s apparently a good source of protein if you ask medical people, but I just could never overcome that cultural limitation, and I might never.

Now, in this case, what do we do? I’m not going to tell others what not to do, however, I just pray to God He doesn’t put me in that situation. Please, God, don’t put me in a situation where I have to eat grasshoppers. It’s kind of hard for me, that’s all. It’s a limitation. I guess I’m not as complete as John the Baptist, because the more complete a person is culturally and in life experience, the more they can overcome these cultural limitations.

What do I mean by complete? The more complete you are, the more experiences you have which are mentioned in the Quran. Let’s say the Quran mentions goats; many people have never seen a goat, or they’ve never lived close to a farm with goats. The Quran mentions dates, camels, cows. Some people have seen camels but not cows; some people have seen cows but not camels. They haven’t had a full life. Because my life was not complete, like even for people of the past it wasn’t complete, but it was closer to complete, they could overcome those cultural limitations. I guess I’m just more baby-like. Some babies cannot eat spicy foods, it’s just too much for them. So let’s imagine that we’re just babies in some areas and we cannot overcome that.

So yeah, I don’t want to even think… I think if I really tried hard, I could probably eat grasshoppers or locusts. It’s not beyond my mind, this is probably something which I could overcome, but that’s not an area where I think I can grow a lot. I could probably grow somewhere in some other area.

So yeah, I have a limitation, but I’m not going to tell other people, “Don’t eat grasshoppers.”

Now, in the same way, you guys and other people can be more aware about the cultural limitations that you have and accept them as limitations. If you accept them as limitations, we are not going to force you to change them, because again, as long as you’re Submitters, you do the contact prayer, you do the zakat, you’re a Submitter, it’s fine. You can have your cultural limitations. I’m not going to call them good—I might still do a Friday sermon where I call them bad—but it’s fine. You have a limitation, it’s okay; I have a limitation, it’s okay. We’re not complete people, we have flaws, and sometimes total cultures have flaws.

Polygamy and Relational Expectations

Let me mention some others which might help for the upcoming Friday sermon: some other cultural limitations.

Having two wives, for example, is just a cultural limitation. And I think this is kind of what brought me into this topic, because apparently one of the women was not happy about the two wives issue. I think she should just accept that it’s her cultural limitation rather than trying to prohibit what the Quran allows. Now, I have discouraged two wives in many videos. I found ways to discourage it because people abuse it. I totally support any woman when the husband abuses the idea of two wives. However, let me not try to prohibit it, let’s not try to stop it, because the Quran says, “Do not prohibit what is not prohibited,” and the Quran allows more than one wife.

However, if someone has a problem with it, first of all, before even talking about it, accept it as a cultural limitation instead of saying, “Oh, can we change this?” We can start from the position: “I didn’t grow up like this, this is a little bit too hard for me to accept.” And instead of telling people what to do, say, “I hope God never tests me with this.” Maybe you can just pray to God that God never tests you with this. And I’m quite sure if someone is a really, really good wife, God will not test her with that issue.

So yeah, let’s accept if a woman has a problem with it—sometimes even men might have a problem with that—it’s just a cultural limitation we have, and let’s accept it as a cultural limitation. It’s okay, someone cannot imagine themselves with two wives, they just cannot imagine. It’s okay, we accept you like that, it’s fine. I can see many reasons why today it doesn’t make practical sense, but I’m not going to stop it. Which is why in the last app questionnaire thing which I was trying to do, I allowed it. I sort of implied there that it’s allowed because it’s not prohibited in the Quran. But if you have a cultural limitation about it, it’s okay, it’s your cultural limitation. But let’s agree it’s your cultural limitation, it’s not prohibited in the Quran, and it’s okay if you cannot overcome it.

I might never overcome the grasshopper issue, I just maybe will never eat grasshoppers. And I’m quite sure I will never overcome the cousin issue, it’s just not in my mind. Maybe my mom, when I was five, might have laughed at someone who married their cousin. I don’t know where it came from, it’s just really hard to overcome it. I just cannot imagine myself doing it. And some people cannot imagine the two wives. We’re not going to try to change you, but hopefully it never happens to you. And it might happen to someone else, but hopefully it doesn’t happen to you.

So that’s the idea: let’s not try to make cultural limitations into religious laws. Let’s accept them as shortcomings, and it’s fine. We can all have our different shortcomings. For some people it’s hard to accept something, for other people it’s hard to accept something else.

Now, you can try to grow and try to understand how it would be different and find more growth from that. However, you don’t have to, it’s okay. We as Submitters accept—and especially me, I accept all people the way they are as long as they are Submitters, which includes doing the contact prayer, giving the zakat, that’s the minimum. The rest of it, we can be different. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t wrong and right. Yeah, some things are right and some things are wrong, and I’m going to say them, but I’m not going to force them, I’m not going to tell people what to do.

So yeah, let’s just try to be aware that there are cultural limitations among all of us, for sure among all of us.

Western Cultural Norms: Dating, Dowries, and Money

Let’s give another cultural limitation. I can see how I’m coming up with examples which are more from the Western world, because I’ve lived more in this world. This doesn’t mean that other cultures don’t have limitations, they probably have even more. But if you’re going to laugh, at least start from your own people, from yourself first, and then your own people. This doesn’t mean that I think they are worse, but it’s just what I know.

Okay, another example: especially in Western culture, they have a limitation about how marriage should happen. They think that they should have a girlfriend first. Unfortunately, it has affected a couple of Submitters among us. They think that they should have a girlfriend or a boyfriend first, and then get engaged maybe after a few years, and then have a big wedding—it’s a cultural limitation—and then get married. It’s kind of like a process of many years where they have to pass all these stages. It’s a limitation of people getting married. Now, I’m not saying don’t do them, but accept them as a shortcoming, accept them as your limitation, rather than as something you really have to do.

Now, if you cannot overcome the idea that you first have to do the engagement, the big wedding… if you cannot get over it, fine, it’s okay, it’s your limitation, I’m not going to change it. However, let’s first agree that it’s your limitation, and it’s okay. Maybe it will help you once you accept that it’s a limitation from your side, maybe from your culture, from your parents, from your relatives, then maybe you can overcome it easier. Some things you might never overcome—I might never overcome eating grasshoppers—but some things maybe you’re ready to overcome.

Maybe overcoming the idea that you have to make a big wedding might enable you to imagine marrying someone outside of your culture. Because part of the limitation of marrying someone outside of your culture comes from the idea that people in your culture will see them, and they will see them if you have a big wedding. Can you see the connection? If you cannot overcome the limitation of having a big wedding, or having a girlfriend or a boyfriend… and again, I’m not trying to stop the wedding, I’m against boyfriends and girlfriends, but what I’m saying is if you cannot overcome that limitation, then it’s going to limit other things. Now you cannot even imagine marrying someone outside of your race or culture, because you know that that’s going to involve a big wedding, and “Oh, how am I going to justify this to my parents, to my relatives?” It becomes a limitation.

Another limitation… this is actually also in Kosovo. Even despite the fact that they are traditional Muslims, the dowry… it’s mentioned in the Quran clearly. Some cultures, especially what they think are modern cultures, they just cannot understand the idea of a dowry. If you go to a girl in Kosovo or Albania or whatever, and you talk about the dowry, she’ll be insulted instead of being like, “Oh, actually I get something.” She’ll feel like, “Oh, are you trying to pay for me?” You know, it’s an insult to her. And a lot of people in the Western world might have that limitation. They’re like, “Oh, why are we even talking about money and stuff like that?”

This brings me to another cultural limitation: in the Western world, they don’t like to talk about money, about salaries. If you bring up, “Oh, how much is your salary?” of course in a very public situation it’s probably not a good idea, it’s a little bit naive to bring it up, but maybe someone is just curious: “What’s your salary?” In the Western world, it’s a cultural limitation, they just don’t talk about it in a lot of cases. They’re like, “None of your business,” things like that. It’s okay, the Quran doesn’t prohibit it. Actually, the Quran says express God’s blessings, show what God has blessed you with, but some people think it’s private. Anyway, it’s a cultural limitation, I’m not going to change it. It’s okay, you want to keep it private, fine. In some situations it might be required regarding zakat, but it’s not my business to change that limitation. If you someday grow and change it, I’d be happy, but if you don’t, it’s okay. You have a limitation, just like a baby cannot eat meat, they can only drink milk. That’s their capacity.

Social Expectations: Dress Codes, Housing, and Naming

Sometimes cultures will have—especially the women—cultural limitations about dressing. And unfortunately, they judge each other sometimes. The women in the Western world will judge the women in the Eastern world how they dress, and the women in the Eastern world will judge the women in the Western world how they dress. It’s just a cultural limitation, they cannot imagine themselves doing it the other way.

Another cultural limitation is if you cannot imagine living outside of your parents’ home even when you can afford it. In some cultures, they just never leave their parents’ home even if they have money. They are too shy, too afraid to ever mention it, it’s just a limitation. The Quran doesn’t stop it, especially if you get married, but they have that limitation.

Or it could be the other limitation where people never want to stay with someone’s parents. By the way, this brings me to an issue: God willing, when we talk about this, I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay with parents of a spouse if they are non-Submitters, because it doesn’t help you, you don’t want to add another non-Submitter to your family. But especially if they are Submitters, I think it can be fine. But it can also be fine not to. Let’s not let our cultural limitations limit our marriage possibilities because of these things.

I noticed a cultural difference—I wouldn’t call it a limitation, because in this case I don’t know where the limitation is, is it on this side or the other side… I’ve noticed that in the Western world, they tend to call people by their first name, by their name, and that’s fine. You can go to a doctor and call him by his name. For example, when people call me Alban in Canada, in Kosovo, in Europe, whatever, I feel like that’s natural. But in some cultures, when I went to India, they called me “Sir,” “Mr. Fesa.” And when they talk to each other, they refer to their last name or in a more honorary, respectful way, usually connected to their profession, like “Doctor this,” “Doctor that,” even when they talk in a friendly situation.

Now, in this case, I don’t know which one is the limitation, because I can see how it’s good to respect someone by mentioning their title, but I can also see how calling someone by their name is more true. So they are both good and bad in their own way. One of them is more respectful, the other one is more true, because someone is not a doctor always. Some people write me a message and they’re like, “Oh, dear messenger of God.” I’m not a messenger always, not when I’m writing emails and talking on group chats and stuff like that, but they still refer to me like that. I guess they try to respect me. It’s not true, but it’s respectful.

So yeah, in this case, I’m just presenting the cultural difference. I don’t know where the limitation is, is it in that culture or this? Probably both. Definitely, though, in some situations the limitation is on one side, on one culture, and not in the other, and they have different limitations.

Before we talk further about this, let me… let’s repent.

Reframing Culture: Human Defects vs. Religious Perfection

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

Now, another cultural limitation, for example, in some countries—probably in most countries, actually—is marrying outside of your country, or outside of your race, or outside of your ethnicity. For some, they just cannot overcome it. It would be nice, it would open more opportunities if you don’t think about that too much, but if it’s your limitation, it’s okay, I’ll accept it. We should respect it if people don’t want to marry outside of their culture. However, I’m going to call it your limitation. I’m not going to say, “Oh, you’re right.” I’m going to say it’s your limitation, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess you haven’t grown enough, and it’s okay, I’m not going to try to shame you, but it’s a limitation.

So yeah, that’s another… By the way, this is something I want to bring up because quite often in social studies in today’s world, in work culture, they try to say that all cultures are the same. I don’t think all cultures are the same; they have differences, and actually they are not equal. They don’t have the same total level of limitations. Typically, poorer people in poorer countries have more cultural limitations, people in richer countries have less cultural limitations. But that doesn’t make them better, because people in richer countries then break more prohibitions, and people in poorer countries break less prohibitions. So basically, one group is limiting more than the Quran is asking them to limit, and the other group is allowing more than the Quran allows them. So they fulfill the prophecies in the Quran about different aspects of what could go wrong.

Let me try to finalize this. This might sound controversial, but deep down, when we analyze it more deeply, actually all cultures are bad. Here’s why: because if there’s something good in a culture, it’s part of religion. Imagine that there’s religion in every culture and there’s some culture in every religion. If there’s something good in a culture, it’s part of religion, we can just call it religion. Whatever is left out of that religion which is part of that group of people, we can call it a culture, but whatever is left out is bad. Everything good is within what the Quran mentions, it’s within the religion.

So then the question is, if all cultures are bad… or we can say, “Oh yeah, part of the culture is within religion,” but in that case, I’m just going to choose to call it religion. Within my definition, the way I’m defining it, if everything religious is not culture, then all cultures are bad.

What this means, by the way… and why are they different? Because there’s so many different ways to be bad, and there’s only one way to be good. But let’s not judge each other’s cultures, even though pretty much it’s all bad, because all of us are bad in different ways. Some people will break some laws in the Quran, other people will break other laws in the Quran, and at least all of us break 30% of it. Now, maybe a certain culture might limit themselves not more than 30%, maybe 31%, but 31% is not that different from 30%. It’s not different enough for you to laugh at it to be like, “Oh, these people are worse,” because it’s not different enough in level, it’s different in type. Some people have some limitations, others have some other limitations.

Anyway, so this is kind of what I wanted to raise awareness about. It doesn’t mean that I’m trying to change it. It’s our limitation, it’s okay. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, I’m just saying it’s okay in the sense that let’s not let it bother us too much. If someone can grow a little bit more and be more open-minded and understand other cultures more, it will be nice. If they don’t, it’s okay as well.

Audience Q&A & Community Examples

Now, we can just end it here if you guys have to go, or maybe someone actually has some examples they want to bring. Please, let’s bring them in a respectful way, not in a laughing way: “Oh, these people do that.” And especially if you bring something from your own culture, that would be nice. Does anyone have any examples to bring? You don’t have to.

Can anyone think of any examples? By the way, it’s hard to bring them because the limitations in your own culture… it’s really hard to imagine how that could be a cultural limitation. But if it’s in another culture, then you’re probably polite enough not to say it. So let’s see if someone has something.

I might read this without names so people don’t… I’ll see depending on what you guys write. By the way, if anyone has to go, they can go and work or whatever. This part is really not that important, I’m just spending some time.

Individual Comments: Sexuality, Food, and Regional Practices

Okay, so Adam is saying… Oh, sorry Adam, I mentioned your name. Being okay with family members who are not heterosexual. Yeah, it’s a cultural difference. In Western culture, some people are okay with family members who are let’s say gay. But in some cultures, they are not okay with that. That’s another issue we can talk… We all know being gay is bad, but what do you do if you have a family member who’s gay? In some cultures they’ll accept it, they’ll tolerate it; in other cultures, they don’t. Is that… I hope that’s what you’re trying to mention, Adam. Yeah, I’m not going to go into detail about this whole new topic, I’m just mentioning it as an example. So yeah, Adam is saying yes. So yeah, that’s a cultural difference. I don’t know which way is the limitation: is the limitation by having to accept someone, or is the limitation by having to reject someone for being what they are? I can talk another day about this because it’s a sensitive topic.

Yeah, okay. Fasal is saying, “I really enjoy having my preferred cuisine in the kitchen.” Yeah, okay, I can see that. Actually, the food cultural limitation is probably in all countries, in probably all people, more than they realize. I’m glad you are aware about it, Fasal, that you accept it as a cultural limitation rather than as, “This is better food than your food.” It’s like, “Oh, it’s a cultural limitation I have, I cannot tolerate some food.” It’s kind of like I don’t eat grasshoppers, you might not like some other stuff.

Yeah, so Mad Bay is saying some cultures actually eat raw meat and others find it disgusting. Guys, this is a perfect example. So actually, I think the Lebanese culture eats a little bit of raw meat, and Mad—I think Mad is from Kazakhstan—he cannot understand eating raw meat. Let’s bring another example which is less extreme: some cultures cannot tolerate fully cooked steak, other cultures cannot tolerate rare or medium steak. They just cannot think about it, and it’s a cultural limitation on both sides, actually. They just cannot imagine eating steak which is not fully cooked, or they cannot imagine eating steak which is fully cooked. They’re like, “Okay, what is this?”

Okay, Jad is saying in more conservative cultures, being repulsed by some homosexuals… We kind of mentioned this. Okay.

Thanks… I guess you’re defending Lebanon now! So he says, “In Lebanon we eat raw meat, cooked meat, and burnt meat.” Okay, so all of them!

Yeah, okay. So another example which Medi is bringing is that the women have to be virgins in Algeria. So that’s a cultural limitation in Algeria, that’s not in the Quran, by the way. Now, I’m not going to say that women shouldn’t be virgins, I think losing your virginity before marriage is a bad thing. However, what happens in the past is in the past, people change, people make mistakes, and it’s a cultural limitation to sort of have that as a rule. It’s not a rule in the Quran.

Faisal is saying, “We’re not defending, just informing.” Yeah, okay, thank you, Fasal. I was joking.

Okay, by the way, there’s also cultural limitations about jokes, like some people understand jokes differently. And I think I’ve failed to understand Fasal’s jokes quite a few times. Maybe I have a cultural limitation of how jokes are done in some cultures, I don’t know.

Reflections on Diversity vs. Unity

Anyway, what I’m saying is, let’s accept these as cultural limitations. We don’t have to all be the same. By the way, this brings me to another issue: I don’t believe that there is strength… You know how they say, “There is strength in diversity”? In today’s modern world, they say there is strength in diversity. I don’t believe that’s true. Actually, the Quran says that there is strength in unity: if you are united, you can succeed. However, the only way, unfortunately, to be united today is to allow some diversity so that we can unite in more important things. So we allow diversity in less important things so that we can be united in more important things, and from unity brings strength. But we tolerate some diversity so we can emphasize the unity.

Further Audience Chat Contributions

Okay, someone is saying… Mad is saying, “In Ghana, people dance with graves.” You mean probably with coffins when people get buried? Yeah, I’ve seen videos about that. It’s a cultural limitation. There might be, by the way, another cultural limitation in Kazakhstan… I guess Mad is from Kazakhstan… about graves or funerals which you might not be aware of, or maybe you are aware.

Madvey is saying, “I’m from the Urals.” Okay, what does it mean, Urals? The mountains, or which state is that?

You’re from Russia! Okay, sorry, sorry Mad, I thought you were from Kazakhstan. Okay, thanks for clarifying that. So you’re from Russia, near Yekaterinburg, or whatever it is.

Okay, I’m not going to read all of them because some of them are a little bit too sensitive to read.

Okay, yeah, Natalie is saying some cultures eat food with their hands, others don’t. It’s a cultural limitation when people cannot understand how you can eat with your hand, but it’s also a cultural limitation when they cannot understand how you don’t eat with your hand. Both sides are a little bit limited. Some foods are probably better with hands, other foods are not as good with hands, whatever it is. Just accept it as your cultural limitation so you can be prepared, especially if you get married with someone who eats differently, so you don’t get shocked.

Adnan is saying in many parts of the world, you can only eat with the right hand. Yeah, that’s more about Hadith.

Some cultures prefer bathing versus showering and vice versa. I wasn’t aware of this. Okay, this is an interesting thing I learned.

Mad is saying some cultures probably tolerate stealing things which people left more. This seems like more than a cultural limitation, it seems more like just plain wrong. But I can see how that would be a limitation, because they tolerate it; it’s not that they are stealing it, they are tolerating the bad deeds. Yeah, that’s true, some cultures will tolerate bad deeds more than others.

Yeah, Guillaume is saying in France, people eat snails.

And Natalie is saying snails aren’t bad. Okay, so some people don’t have that limitation in their mind.

Abdul is saying in Ghana, they find it disrespectful if greeted or given something with the left hand. Okay, although… By the way, so yeah, we are presenting these while being aware that it’s just our culture, we don’t try to impose it on others, so that we can be united. But it’s okay if you cannot do it otherwise, we’re not going to try to change you.

Concluding Remarks & Closing

Okay, so maybe I should end it here, because it’s almost 50 minutes, I guess. Okay, I’m just going to wait one more minute because you guys seem to have many examples.

Yeah, Jad is saying beards might be one. Yeah, some cultures tolerate beards more, others will judge you for having a beard. Some don’t like it if you go in an office environment with a beard; in other cultures, they might actually judge you for not having a beard.

Gorgin is saying in France, we also eat frogs’ legs. But here’s the thing: the frogs and the snails is more like… it’s not a limitation, it’s another allowance. I’m talking about things which are not prohibited in the Quran, but people still cannot do them. This is another topic for another day.

Anyway, I’m not going to read everything, because it’s probably going to be lots of examples.

Okay, so for those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, peace be upon you. God willing, talk to you next Friday.

 
Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director