Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. Some music for teenagers. When I was a teenager, I liked that music. I’m guessing teenagers like that music more. Now I’m not sure if I do like it anymore, but yeah, it’s okay. It made me smile. Today what I want to talk about, is the topic of over-religiosity. Typically, this would be a good topic, where with some topics I find that it’s useful to just be ironic or to sort of almost ridicule, which is always not a nice way to do it, but some things when you step back, they just look ridiculous. Really ridiculous. And I cannot help but take that approach. But this time I’m going to try not to do it. If I do it, sorry. And I’m going to try not to do it, not to be ironic with it or not to use sarcasm to drive the point home about this topic, because there could be reasons beyond our control. There are reasons beyond our control for some of us which make us over-religious.

There are different reasons why people are over-religious. And what do I mean by over-religious? When I say over-religious, I mean like unnecessarily religious or harmfully religious. Yeah, a person can be harmfully religious. Let’s distinguish between righteousness and religiousness. Righteousness is pretty much always good. Religiousness is not always good. Probably Pharaoh was religious. The Pope is very religious. Is it good? Not necessarily good. But still, because for some of us over-religiosity is a little bit beyond our control, I’m going to try to be nice about it and not laugh at it. But at the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, should I laugh at it? So yeah, but I’ll try to be nice. Let me try to be nice.

So yeah, there’s different reasons why people are over-religious. By over-religious again, I don’t mean over-righteous or over-sincere; what I mean is over-religious—the person looks more religious than he really is. There’s something off. And reasons for over-religiosity are a few, and some of them are beyond the people’s control and others are within their control. Because some of those reasons are beyond their control, basically they are not bad reasons. I don’t want to laugh at the over-religious people. Rashad, by the way, did laugh at over-religious people, which made sense, but there are some groups of people who don’t have things under their control, so it’s not good to laugh at them. Okay, so just keep that in mind.

What are the reasons why people become over-religious? One of the reasons is low levels of intelligence. Scientists have done studies; they simply ask people, “Do you believe in God or not?” And it turned out that people who are more intelligent were more likely to say that they don’t believe in God. And they use this as some sort of proof that dumb people believe in God. It’s not actually the case. The reality is that people who are not as intelligent are more over-religious. So basically, only about 10% of people really believe in God. But people who are a little bit dumber are afraid to admit it because they are afraid that society will judge them. And people who are smarter will be like, “Oh, there’s no God.” If they don’t believe there’s a God, they will say there’s no God, if that’s what they believe. So basically, in those tests, the people who are smarter told the truth of what they really believe, and people who are not as smart were trying to hide it because they thought that they were going to be judged. Because of that, you’ll get a slightly larger number of people among the smart people who say that they don’t believe in God. So yeah, one of the reasons for being over-religious, unnecessarily religious, or religious because you think society wants you to be religious, is low levels of intelligence. And a lot of you probably have noticed this. If you go into some cultures, you’ll see, “Oh, wait a minute, these people are really religious.”

Another reason why people—and this is beyond a person’s control, by the way; we never laugh at low levels of intelligence. We don’t laugh at it because intelligence is just mind beauty. Would you laugh at someone who’s not as beautiful? No, it’s not nice. It’s not fair. God created all of us, and God can make anyone ugly or pretty; it’s God’s choice. So, it’s beyond our control. And because of that, we don’t laugh at people who are not good-looking. But at the same time, for the same reason, we shouldn’t laugh at people who are not as smart. They are what they are. It’s okay. Everyone is their own person. It’s fine. Everyone is good-looking enough and everyone is smart enough for their own good. So yeah, we don’t laugh at that. However, it is true that people who are slightly less smart will tend to be slightly over-religious. And again, it doesn’t show anything about their true belief. It shows their level of religiosity; it doesn’t show their level of belief or their level of righteousness or their level of sincerity.

Another reason why people might be over-religious is poverty. If you go to poor countries, you’ll notice that they are more religious, and they are forced by poverty. Because when you don’t have a job, when you’re poor, when there’s no other option, and there are people like that around you, yeah, you’ll kind of get into religious stuff unnecessarily. Like, for example, the bathroom needs to be fixed, you forget about it, you read the Quran or something. It’s a way to avoid the reality. Yeah, that might be over-religiosity. Yeah, fix the bathroom first, maybe. But whatever. But it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m trying not to laugh because, again, this is beyond people’s control. It’s beyond people’s control. No one can control how rich or poor they are. What does the Quran say? God makes people rich or poor. God gives and God takes. So if God wants to make someone rich, God will make someone rich. If God wants to make someone poor, God can make someone poor. It’s not in our control. And for that reason, if that causes a little bit of more religiosity, over-religiosity, it was beyond the person’s control. It doesn’t mean it’s good. Over-religiosity is first unnecessary and most of the time harmful. It confuses things. People who are not as good will seem better. People who are actually better will not seem as good. So it kind of confuses the situation. But it happens. It happens.

The third reason of over-religiosity is overcompensation for the careless life of the past. So let’s say—and I’m going to use some really bad examples here—but let’s say someone lived as a prostitute in the past, and then when she becomes religious, she now totally has to wear the hijab. Like, good women do not actually remove the hijab, but her past is like a prostitute, probably. So it’s overcompensation. Or people who might have been, let’s say, really harsh in the past—they beat people, they bullied people—now they’re extra nice, they are the nicest person ever. It’s overcompensation. So some aspects of over-religiosity are caused by overcompensation, especially if the sinful life was too long. Let’s say until their 40s or 50s someone was a bad person—which is okay, anyone can change. I’m not saying it’s okay, but anyone can change. I truly believe people change. They really change. Like, someone really actually can be a prostitute and become a good person; it’s possible. And that’s probably one of the worst cases, but it’s possible. So people can truly change. However, staying in a sinful life for a long time, is going to cause you to overcompensate. Then you really want to be the best of the best, which is not really sort of in your range—it’s beyond your league, but you kind of are trying. That’s because you’re trying to overcompensate. You’re trying to overcompensate for past sins. And this is probably a little bit reasonable, to try to overcompensate, but it also causes over-religiosity, unnecessary religiosity.

Another reason—and this is probably a reason to ridicule—why people are over-religious is ego. They think that they are special. And this is probably the most dangerous form of over-religiosity. They become religious, they think—typically a Jew will do this. A Jew will be religious and be like, “Oh, we’re God’s chosen people. I’m the best. I’m better than others.” So typically, if a Jew is over-religious, it’s because of his ego. He thinks he’s special, he’s better than others, his life is more important than the life of others. So that could be one reason for over-religiosity. One of the most dangerous reasons is ego, thinking that you’re special, that there’s something special about you compared to other people.

Another reason for over-religiosity is hypocrisy. And this is actually probably not a good reason to mention because hypocrisy can cause both over-religiosity and under-religiosity depending on the circumstance. It will cause over-religiosity when someone reaches leadership positions—let’s say the Pope, some Imams, some leaders. They become over-religious because they are leaders, but it’s because of their hypocrisy. They don’t believe; they want other people to think that they are really special and really religious, so they’ll become over-religious. Even the stuff they wear, you can see the Pope—like, over-religiosity because of hypocrisy, but other religious leaders as well. But I don’t think we should really use hypocrisy as one of the main reasons for over-religiosity because hypocrisy can also cause under-religiosity. Some people want to stay in between; they kind of want to embrace religion, but they think it’s too much. So, let’s take the example of the prostitute again because it’s easier. If she’s a hypocrite, she might be under-religious. She’ll be like, “You know what, I’ll embrace this. I’m going to fix my life, but you know, maybe I’ll still keep my makeup. I’ll still keep my provoking dresses and all of that, and bad clothes. I’ll still keep the photos on my social media; they are there, they’re in the past, but I’ll keep them.” Kind of like under-religious. So, hypocrisy can also cause under-religiosity.

Typically, in our situation, hypocrisy causes under-religiosity. Because it’s very unlikely in the early generations of believers, to have hypocrites among the leaders. Usually, in the very late generations of believers, the hypocrites can become leaders. Fake believers can become leaders; that’s usually towards the end. But towards the beginning, a lot of leaders here know that you always have to give more than you take. It doesn’t benefit anyone to be a leader and a believer in this situation materially. It doesn’t benefit anyone; you always have to give more than you take. All the leaders know this—whoever is helping and whatever, you see that you have to give more than you take. And this keeps the hypocrites out. So this is not really our problem. When I’m speaking about over-religiosity, really, let’s not be concerned about it. Let’s not sort of think that, “Oh, this guy is over-religious because maybe he’s a hypocrite.” That’s actually not very likely until the end of the world. It can happen, but it’s very unlikely. Because hypocrisy typically, in the earlier generations, causes under-religiosity. People kind of want to be religious, but they are always looking for a loophole. “Oh, is it allowed maybe?” you tell them, “Oh, don’t eat pork,” they’ll be like, “Oh, is it allowed maybe a little bit?” or “Don’t drink alcohol,” hypocrites will typically be like, “But what if it’s a tiny bit? What if it’s during the night? What if it’s kind of like…” They seek loopholes. Anyway, so hypocrisy can be a reason for over-religiosity, but usually among the leaders. So let’s sort of forget about it.

And another reason, unfortunately, of over-religiosity is what is called hyper-religiosity. And this is actually a psychological condition, a medical condition. If you search on chatgpt or whatever, what is hyper-religiosity in psychology, it’s a person who is acting really religious to the point of harming themselves and not being functional in society. Typically, this is caused by some types of epilepsy in the brain, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. So really, mental diseases can lead to over-religiosity, and these are easy to tell. They are really not that dangerous because you can tell, but they can be more dangerous online. Typically, these people cannot be—it’s harder to tell online when people are contacting us online, that the person has schizophrenia, or maybe he or she has bipolar disorder, or he or she has some kind of epilepsy which is causing them to be over-religious. So it can be a disease, but it’s not in their control. So it’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate for them; probably the best thing to do is to just ignore it. But online it can happen more often. You might face some situation like that in your life where someone approaches you online and they want to talk about God or Jesus or whatever, and they are just bipolar or maybe they just have schizophrenia. It happens online more because you cannot tell their behavior—it’s harder to figure it out through typing. But yeah, once you kind of see that there’s something off, you just disregard them. The Quran says disregard the ignorant. By ignorant, that means also the people who don’t know much, but also people who might have a mental disease. Just disregard them. Don’t deal with them. It’s okay. They have their own problems. You can feel sorry for them and that’s it, but you don’t have to get them out of their situation. In many countries, there’s a medical system for that.

So yeah, these are typical reasons of over-religiosity. Some of them are bad—ego, hypocrisy potentially—but others are beyond people’s control. That’s why we should be careful not to laugh at over-religious people. However, over-religiosity is not a good thing. Typically, it’s not a good thing. Let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah.

Alhamdulillah. Ashhadu An la ilaha ila Allah Wahdahu la sharika Lah. Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

And all of us are victims of over-religiosity. I just did it right now. I didn’t need to say it in Arabic; I should have just said it in English. It’s not necessary online because you guys can say it, but whatever. Yeah, I just said alhamdulillah La ilaha ila Allah. I could have just said it in English, that would be enough. But I was a little bit over-religious, maybe out of habit. But it happens to all of us. I don’t know—am I overcompensating? Maybe I’m a little bit dumb, maybe I’m a little bit poor. I don’t know what’s causing it. But yeah, it can be caused.

But let me now go to some examples of over-religiosity. One example is using expressions in another language. You ask someone, “How are you doing?” “I’m good. Alhamdulillah.” What? Okay, if the person has an Arabic background, fine. But quite often it’s over-religious, just the person trying to be more religious. Would he say it to himself? “Oh, today I feel good. Alhamdulillah.” They’d probably say, “Today I feel good, thanks to God,” when they think. But when someone else asks them, they are like, “Oh, I’m good. Alhamdulillah.” Whatever. And anyway, I’m trying not to laugh at it because it’s a good thing. But why would you say it in another language if that’s not your mother tongue, if that’s not your natural language? Why would you say it in another language? Does it just make it sound more religious? Like having expressions in other—or the Christians will be like, “Oh, praise Jesus, hallelujah, hallelujah.” Do they even know what it means? It’s kind of—it just sounds more religious. There’s some secret symbolism in there which they think is there. So yeah, it’s just over-religious. It’s just trying to act more religious than they truly are. When they exit that church or that mosque or that social gathering, they really are not those people. They are different; they feel different. But they are trying to be more religious than they truly can handle. So that’s one example of over-religiosity: just using expressions in another language which is not your language. Typically among the Muslims, it’s in Arabic. I can understand the Arabs, but not the other people. Why would you go to use an Arabic expression?

Another example of over-religiosity is, for example, naming the kids after previous prophets. I mean, who would name their kid Jesus? Or naming kids in languages which are not their own. If none of the parents are Arabs, why would they name their kid in Arabic? Or if none of the parents are Italian, why would they name their kid in Italian? So yeah, one of the examples of over-religiosity is naming kids. “Oh, I’m going to name my kid…” Let’s say, what are some of the prophets? John, Jesus… John, why? It’s unnecessary. Or to go even beyond that, naming the kid according to the name of a prophet in Arabic—why not even John, like Yahya, or stuff like that? That’s over-religious. And how do we know it’s over-religious? The prophets themselves didn’t do that. You don’t see any prophet being like, “Oh, I’m going to…” Moses didn’t go like, “Oh, I’m going to name my kid Abraham.” Abraham existed before Moses. Moses never said, “I’m going to name my kid Isaac.” Isaac existed before Moses, and he was a prophet, and Moses had respect for Isaac, but you don’t see that example there. You don’t see that. You see the opposite. They try to name kids according to names which were not found before. I mean, some cultures have respect for their elders; yeah, that’s a little bit understandable. Even if, let’s say, some people named their kid Abraham, it’s because they were recent descendants of Abraham—people who came just after Abraham. So it was because Abraham was their father or grandfather or things like that, but not for religious reasons. So yeah, this is one—I don’t think it helps with anything. Naming your kid after a prophet or using words from the Quran which are actually in Arabic, if you’re not an Arab, it doesn’t make sense. That’s an example of over-religiosity.

And you can see it typically like so many Muslims—I mean Sunnis and Shia—so many of them will name their kid Muhammad. Muhammad. How many Muhammads are there in the world? Can someone help me? Probably a big—I think Muhammad is the most popular name in the UK, I’m not sure, because everyone names their kid Muhammad. Muhammad, what is it? It’s ridiculous. So imagine the kid walking around, “Oh, who are you?” “I’m Jesus.” Does it make sense? It doesn’t make sense. Plus, it’s a little bit against the Quran because the Quran says Jesus was the Messiah. Does it mean this guy is the Messiah? Or the Quran says that Aaron was a prophet, and if someone is named Aaron, does it mean this guy is a prophet? So it is a little bit against the Quran—not fully, but a tiny bit against the Quran. Now, if we have done it or we plan to do it—if we plan to do it, I’d encourage you not to, but if you do it, it’s fine. What I’m saying is, it’s probably because you are over-religious, and it’s probably because you’re trying to overcompensate for your past sins. You’re trying to be more religious than you can handle, and it’s because in the past you were not religious enough, so you’re overcompensating. So yeah, I myself am happy that, let’s say, my mom named me Alban, and my siblings all have Albanian names. Our mom named us; I think. It’s fine. Actually, typically in the Bible, if you look at examples, they had names which had meaning, like Jewish names which had meaning. I don’t know what Moses means; it probably means water or something like that, like the one who is found in water or something. So they had a reason why they named the kid in that way, but not some other people’s reason—their own reason. What’s the reason to name someone Jesus when you’re not living in the time of Jesus? So yeah, that’s an example of over-religiosity. However, it happens to all of us because it’s beyond our control. Some of us have lived different lives, so there could be reasons which are beyond our control which can cause over-religiosity. So I’m not going to judge it. However, I’m also not going to approve it. If you can fix your over-religiosity, fix it. It’s okay. I think it’s better if you’re not over-religious. You have to be practical.

Another example of over-religiosity is pushing people. Like, some of us went to Hajj, and there were people pushing other people to go and kiss the Kaaba or touch the Kaaba, or be as close to the Kaaba as possible. That’s not in the Quran, but they try to do that. And why is that bad? Because by trying to be more religious than is possible, what they are doing is they’re pushing, for example, sometimes the opposite gender—men pushing women, women pushing men. How does that work? That’s against the Quran. Why would you touch a woman? Why would you touch a man if you’re a woman? It doesn’t make sense. But over-religiosity causes them to think that it’s okay. “Oh, in this case, it’s okay, we’ll push each other.” It’s never okay to push each other. I think probably in war, maybe in war there might be a reason, but in other cases, I don’t see a reason to push each other—or maybe jokingly, I don’t know if that’s a good reason. But what I’m saying is yeah, that’s an example of over-religiosity: pushing people to get closer to the Kaaba. Why would you push people?

Another example of over-religiosity is, for example—let me check my microphone if it’s on. Okay, it’s on. Another example of over-religiosity is decorating the home with religious symbols. I visited someone’s home once, a long time ago—not a submitter—and his house was full of religious symbols. Kaaba here, a verse there, a verse there, another verse there, another symbol there, the name of Muhammad there… what is it? It almost looked creepy. You know, if you go to a Buddhist home, there’s Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha. Or if you go to some kind of Hindu home, you have all these idols, symbols, different colors. What is that? That’s just over-religious. It doesn’t help with anything. Yeah, it can be even verses of the Quran. What? Yeah, this is probably an example of over-religiosity. Do you have a favorite verse from the Quran? If yes, then probably you’re over-religious. So if someone asks you, “What’s your favorite verse?” “Oh, this is my favorite verse, and I put it on the wall.” That’s over-religious. There’s no such thing as a favorite verse. All verses are equal in the Quran. God reveals all verses in the Quran; we shouldn’t separate them. But some people will take it, put it on the wall: “This is my favorite verse.” Yeah, we can do that for practical reasons. Rashad put up some papers of the mathematical miracle, kind of like investigating stuff, helping him to memorize stuff—that’s different. But I’m saying, like, people who now that we know the mathematical miracle, why would they even put like the number 19 here and there? It just doesn’t make sense. It’s over-religious. It has nothing to do with righteousness.

By the way, in the Quran, it says righteousness is not turning your faces towards the east or the west. Then it gives you a list of what is righteous. And putting stuff on the wall is kind of like—it’s religious, but it’s not righteous. Similar to how turning towards the Qibla is religious, not necessarily righteous. And by the way, a little bit of religiosity is okay. I’m here talking about over-religiosity. And what do I mean by a little bit of religiosity? Like Contact Prayers are religiosity. Yeah, we do The Contact Prayers, fasting, zakat, going to Hajj—that’s religiosity, but it’s also righteousness. But once you try to go beyond them, it’s probably over-religiosity. You’re just adding it on top; it doesn’t make sense.

Another example of over-religiosity is how people look. Typically, women will wear a hijab—it’s just over-religiosity. They think that they are better than they actually are. Or a man will grow a beard. By the way, this beard which I have right now has nothing to do with religion. Let me just make this clear. The story of how this beard came to be is like this: basically, I found online that after I got married, some women—a little bit less than half of women—prefer beards, meaning they think that beards make men look better. And a little bit more than half of women think that if men remove the beard, it makes them look better. So I was wondering which group my wife was in. So I asked her, “Do you think beards make men look better or not?” She didn’t want to sort of admit it, but I extracted it from her—I pressured her. “Which one is it? Which one are you?” And she said, “No, I think beards make men look better.” So I’m like, “Okay, I’ll do this for my wife.” So the beard is just for my wife. There’s absolutely no religious reason for my beard. And the second reason probably is practicality, and in this case, it’s actually anti-religiosity. I heard once—and I’m not an atheist, as we know—I heard once Fidel Castro, I think he’s an atheist but also a non-religious person, they asked him, “Why did you grow the beard?” and he said, “Oh, it’s just easier, it’s more practical because I don’t have to shave.” Yeah. So I satisfied my wife’s desires while also doing something which is easier. It’s easier for me not to shave every day. But either choice is fine. What I’m trying to point out is my beard has no religious reason.

But some people will grow their beard for religious reasons. That’s over-religiosity. And the reason for that is even if it is good—which I don’t think it is—even if it is a good thing to grow your beard, it probably falls on that range of good deeds which is beyond 75%. Meaning that some of you guys probably remember a video which I published called The Global Forced Behavior. In that video, I said that for our generation, the maximum good we can do is 75%. We cannot be 100% good; we can only be 75% good. So anything beyond that is just fake; it’s not possible. And even if the beard or the hijab falls in that range, it’s beyond that, so you’re just faking it. It’s not you. There are so many other things you can fix before that. How about before you wear the hijab, first start with having less glitter in your dress? A lot of those women with the hijab will have lots of glitter. “Oh, I have this design, that design.” How about stop the glitter first, and then wear the hijab? But no, they wear the hijab while still maintaining all the glitter, all the fancy stuff. Yeah, remove the glitter first, and then wear the hijab. So what I think is, even if it’s any good, it’s beyond what would make sense for anyone today. So it’s over-religious. It’s not what they would have done; it’s just them ending up doing it for different reasons which have nothing to do with righteousness—reasons which either have to do with their low IQ, living in a poor country, overcompensating, or ego, or hyper-religiosity, which I don’t think is the case for most of them because diseases are rarer than we think anyway. So that’s another reason.

Okay, let me give you actually a very good example of over-religiosity. How many of you—probably the younger men or boys will know this—have seen football players (but I’m going to call it the US version, soccer players) or even basketball players? I think with soccer players, they score a goal and then they prostrate, or if he’s Christian, he might actually do the cross before he starts the game or kiss the cross before he starts to play, or pray before the game. “Oh God, please help Arsenal defeat Real Madrid,” or something. “Please help Barcelona defeat Arsenal.” And why is this over-religious? Because even though it looks like it’s a good thing that the person is praying, what is he praying for? For a game. It’s a game. At the end of the day, it’s a game. Why would you pray to God for a game? It’s a game. First you have to realize that it’s a game. So what if one person from one team prays, and another person from the other team also prays, and they are both of the same religion? What’s going to happen? Which prayer is God going to answer? It doesn’t make sense. The only prayers where you pray to God to win is if the believers are fighting the disbelievers. But this is just two teams; it’s a game. Does it make sense to include prayer into the game?

By the way, I don’t agree with some institutions which try to prohibit it. They say, “Oh, sports should unite people, we shouldn’t pray.” Let them pray, whatever. But I’m saying it’s ridiculous. It’s over-religious. Yeah, they can do that, but it’s ridiculous. It’s over-religious. Why would you pray for a game? It’s a game. At the end of the day, you have to realize it’s a game. It doesn’t help the believers, it doesn’t help the disbelievers—it’s just a game. Since when did people start taking games seriously? Okay, has our life changed if Barcelona or Real Madrid won? It hasn’t. So, it’s just a game. And let’s say Ronaldo will go to Saudi Arabia to play, and then there, I think I saw a recent one, he’s like—oh, he says, Bismillah before he kicks the penalty. “Oh, I’m going to shoot the penalty. Bismillah.” Why? It’s a game. Why? So you’re afraid the penalty is going to go wrong. What if it goes wrong? It’s a game. Aren’t we playing to see who’s better? Not to kind of like include God into that. So yeah, that’s just over-religious. It has nothing to do with righteousness. It actually damages religion because it makes religion seem less important. It ridicules the religion by praying for a game. It’s a game.

Another example of over-religiosity is extra prohibitions. God, for example, prohibited pork. And they’ll try to be a little bit extra. “Oh, I don’t eat sugars. I don’t eat vegetables. I have a carnivore diet. I’m a vegetarian.” Okay, some of them might have medical reasons, but a lot of them are just over-religious thoughts interfering in your life. Unless the doctor tells you, “Oh, you shouldn’t eat meat,” why wouldn’t you eat meat? Or unless the doctor tells you, “Oh, you should only eat meat,” why wouldn’t you eat vegetables? It makes it difficult, let’s say, for your family. What are they going to cook? So yeah, that’s an example of over-religiosity, kind of those extra dietary prohibitions. “Oh, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that.” It’s over-religious if you do it for a religious reason, if you do it thinking that it’s going to make you somehow better, function better, and it’s going to bring you closer to God. No, it’s not. God has laid down the laws which are in the Quran, and that’s it. You don’t have to go beyond that.

To conclude, typically over-religiosity is when people go for more symbolical things which actually don’t change much, but they disregard the basics. They probably missed the prayer one day, but now they’re going to really focus on the night of destiny or stuff like that. That’s over-religious. God willing, I’ll deal with the night of destiny another day, where you’ll see that the conclusion is that, yeah, it makes sense to do something during the night of prayer, but typically when you have a mosque, not outside of a mosque. Still, what I’m saying is there’s these hints of over-religiosity, and all of us have them. I did it today, but they are not good. Let’s not fool ourselves with over-religiosity and thinking that it’s righteousness. A lot of it has nothing to do with righteousness.

And to conclude, I think we should be real. Be real. Black Americans have a very good saying, “be real.” Why don’t you be real? Let’s be real. And when you’re real, you don’t try to be who you are not. And that helps you prevent over-religiosity.

Anyway, I don’t know if I should conclude or should continue a little bit more. Does anyone have anything to say or some kind of example? Let’s try to keep it quick though. Let’s see if someone is typing. Faisal is saying, “I really like this sermon.” Yeah, I assume so, Faisal, you would like it. I don’t think Faisal is a person who’s over-religious. Some people can improve with over-religiosity. They can improve it a little bit. But again, a lot of that is beyond the people’s control, so let’s not judge it. It happens. It happens to everyone.

By the way, some of the stuff actually makes sense to be practical, to be over-religiously practical. For example, when we went to Hajj, the women had to wear the hijab, but it’s just for practical reasons. Just when you go to the border, you have to show the passport. It just makes it easier for you to do the other good things.

Trevor is saying also “Yes, great sermon.” Thank you very much.

Moneruzzaman is saying, “what about dhikr, some of the verses like last three ayats of Surah ‘Asr?” I don’t know which verses you’re referring to, but first of all, this is an example of over-religiosity. Surah ‘Asr—I don’t know, it’s Arabic. Can you tell me in English, or can you tell me the Surah number? But regardless, yeah, dhikr is good, but let’s not sort of try to package it into, “Oh, we do it during the night of destiny, we do it during this day.” Remembrance of God is good at any time; however, you don’t have to package it. I’m talking about the packaging. When you are over-religious, you package it. You give it a package: “oh, I’m going to package it into Arabic,” or “I’m going to package it into these circumstances,” or “I’m going to combine it with this night or that day. Maybe on Friday it’s better.” You know, remembrance of God is always good. That’s good. But once you package it into some certain forms—”I’m going to do it in Arabic, not English, not my language; I’m going to do this”—once you package it, it becomes over-religious.

Faisal is saying, “Would you say that hadith is over-religious or just as the wrong way to be religious?” It’s both, Faisal. Yeah, it’s both. Hadith is a good example of over-religiosity, but it’s also an example of fake religiosity and also an example of bad religiosity. So, it’s all of those. Also an example of good things gone wrong. You know, people with good intentions having led to the wrong conclusions, but maybe sometimes they were not smart enough sometimes. So, yeah, it’s an example of a lot of those.

Okay, so Adam Fraser is saying that his son’s name is Karim. Okay, it’s kind of a Quran Arabic name, but his wife is Palestinian, so it makes a little bit more sense. I myself wouldn’t probably recommend it, but it’s okay. May God protect your son, Adam. So his wife speaks Arabic, so it makes a little bit of sense to name his son in Arabic. It’s fine. Okay. Everyone is saying congratulations, Adam. Congratulations, Adam, for the son. I hope he’s healthy and I hope he has a good life, God willing.

Okay, so yeah, I’m going to end it here because I don’t want to—or maybe just a couple more minutes. Oh, everyone is saying congratulations, Adam. Okay, so I’m going to end it here and you guys can, if you want to continue to talk, feel free. 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