Summary: Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,<br> <br> First of all, again, I am very grateful that I have the opportunity to address all of you. And those of you that are familiar with my work know that I try to emphasize reflection and study of the Qur’an. And I recognize that it’s not the only area of study or contemplation that is necessary in the life of a Muslim .But I do believe it is central in the life of a Muslim that they have a direct relationship with the Qur’an and they extract from it as much counsel and as much advice as they possibly can.<br> <br> I am speaking to you in this final session with a little bit of a heavy heart because you know, as I, as I walk around in the conference I meet a lot of people and they come to me, and we have like 30 seconds with each other before someone else comes into the conversation and they tell me all kinds of really heavy things. And I realize that on the one hand we are talking about the book of Allah and we are talking about the time of sahaba and we are talking about this ideal era that we learn about in our sacred text, and on the other hand, in stark contrast to that is our reality. Our reality is so far from the things we talk about sometimes, right! And we have to bring those two things together. Sometimes these two things are so far apart from each other that it even feels like the Qur’an or the Sunnah or the religion, for some people it feels like it’s talking about a different reality, it’s not even talking about my reality. A lot of people feel like when they are hearing about the sahaba or when they are hearing about the great accomplishments of the prophets (alaihimus salatu wassalaam) that these are some legendary superheroes, that these are some amazing things that is so far removed from where I am or anybody else I know is. and we are just so much below any of that, it doesn’t even apply to us.<br> <br> So what that does psychologically for a people, is that it reduces the advice and the counsel of the Qur’an and Sunnah, to literally the same as the criticism of the kuffar, meaning the kuffar said, you know:<br> <br> “Asaateerul-awwaleen.” (Qur’anic term used in many verses for e.g. (16:24), (8:31) etc.)<br> <br> ‘These are stories and legends of old time, of earliest nations.’<br> <br> That all this is, this is just stories. And we unfortunately in our discourse sometimes have created an environment and a culture in which we talk about the past in a way, that we completely disconnect it from ourselves and we make it feel like we are never ever ever going to even come close to what has already happened in the past. And therefore, we stop looking for counsel and advice from the same text. Like, this is not about us, this is about people that are far better than ourselves, you know. And this is actually detrimental. It is very damaging. To give you an example of this, before I can talk about the ayah that I really want to talk to you about. To give you an example of that, you have for instance, in the case of the sahaba (radhiAllahu ta’ala anhum majma’een), you have the case of Abu Bakr as-Siddique (radhiAllahu anhu), the hero of Islam, Umar bin Khattab (radhiAllahu ta’ala anhu), these are heroes of Islam. When it comes to spending in the path of Allah and people are encouraging in a fundraiser or in a talk to have people donate, so they give the example of Abu Bakr as Siddique (radhiAllahu ta’ala anhu) who gave all...Or first they start with Umar (radhiAllahu anhu) who gave , how much of his belongings? You guys remember the story? Half of his belongings! Right! And then, and he felt like he has accomplished something and Abu Bakr as Siddique walks through and gives how much? All of his belongings! And you here this thing, you’re like yeah! I should give too! But you know what there are lot of people in the same audience that are saying,” I will never give half my belongings and I will never give all of my belongings.
