No Doubt Course (Session 3): 10 strategies on how to deal with your and other people's doubts (2020-11-12) #

0:00:02 [Music]
0:00:09 [Music]
0:00:12 let us begin in the name of allah
0:00:28 called no doubt these are of course 10
0:00:31 crucial strategies
0:00:33 on how we can as muslims deal with
0:00:36 doubts
0:00:37 that people may have and how to deal
0:00:39 with them
0:00:41 um i want to i wouldn't in fact begin
0:00:42 and start with a summary
0:00:44 of uh the things that were discussed
0:00:46 last week by our brother hamza
0:00:48 um in fact his focus last week was on
0:00:52 making a distinction uh and and i think
0:00:55 that
0:00:56 the importance of summarizing and
0:00:58 revising and reviewing our content is
0:01:00 very crucial
0:01:02 because it helps us to in fact better
0:01:04 internalize
0:01:05 the things that we collectively learn
0:01:07 together
0:01:09 the main the main study in fact focused
0:01:12 on
0:01:12 uh on key differences between between
0:01:15 shahawad which are
0:01:17 our desires our blame where the desires
0:01:19 emanating for our
0:01:20 our nafs our low selves and should we
0:01:23 have the destructive doubts
0:01:25 that can create uncertainties uh in
0:01:28 people
0:01:28 about about the foundations of islam so
0:01:31 therefore the focus last week was on
0:01:33 the distinction between shubu had and
0:01:36 shahawat between the destructive doubts
0:01:38 and between blameworthy desires i
0:01:41 remember of course this is a this is a
0:01:43 course that
0:01:43 that will go into 10 key different
0:01:46 strategies in dealing with
0:01:48 doubts people might have about islam or
0:01:51 people you might know others who have
0:01:52 doubts about islam
0:01:53 and how we can deal with them as muslims
0:01:56 the first section that again brother
0:01:58 hamza
0:01:59 uh um you know uh dealt with and the
0:02:02 first week was called to be aware
0:02:04 to be aware to be on guard and he gave
0:02:07 an analogy about being in like in a
0:02:09 boxing match or in a fight not to be
0:02:11 not to go into the fight blindfolded not
0:02:13 to enter into life
0:02:15 and be surrounded by uh you know things
0:02:18 that could
0:02:19 impede upon our faith uh without
0:02:21 awareness
0:02:22 right to be aware in fact you have a
0:02:24 sense of awareness knowing that
0:02:26 uh that uh situations that can create
0:02:30 doubts do exist
0:02:31 but to be prepared for them and to prep
0:02:33 and they can prepare us
0:02:34 for knowing how to deal with with these
0:02:36 kind of doubts and superhad
0:02:38 uh if we're aware of doubts that do
0:02:40 exist if we're aware of spaces
0:02:43 uh in which doubts do if we're aware of
0:02:45 spaces that facilitate
0:02:46 the emergence of doubts we can better
0:02:49 prepare ourselves
0:02:50 we can effectively navigate around and
0:02:52 through those spaces and therefore
0:02:54 survive those challenges and that was
0:02:55 the focus
0:02:57 uh hamza touched upon uh the spiritual
0:02:59 diseases
0:03:00 um like uh like up like self-amazement
0:03:03 like nifak like hypocrisy
0:03:05 uh and that the focus should always be
0:03:07 on allah the moment that we make our
0:03:09 focus
0:03:10 uh on ourselves or our self-amazement uh
0:03:13 we're undercutting the great spiritual
0:03:15 tradition of islam which is focused
0:03:17 entirely on
0:03:18 on allah and allah's greatness and a key
0:03:20 verse you mentioned last week was
0:03:23 about about the battle of
0:03:28 it is not you who threw but it was allah
0:03:30 who threw
0:03:32 uh right so it was through when you
0:03:34 threw but allah who threw
0:03:35 meaning that there should not be this
0:03:38 sense of self
0:03:39 amazement and self-indulgence in the
0:03:41 muslim
0:03:42 even in himself and that was quite key a
0:03:44 point he was making because it kind of
0:03:46 tapped on uh you know being aware of
0:03:49 self-grandiosity right internal
0:03:52 internalized traits we could exhibit as
0:03:54 people as muslims
0:03:56 that we're not aware that these in fact
0:03:58 could have a bearing
0:03:59 on our on our state as human beings our
0:04:02 condition how where we are with allah
0:04:05 and i think i think was a key point that
0:04:07 hamza in fact mentioned
0:04:09 last week um the other key things of
0:04:12 course was to be cognizant to be aware
0:04:13 of our
0:04:14 utter dependence on allah subhanahu wa
0:04:16 ta'ala and that even sahabah
0:04:18 were worried about doubt they were
0:04:20 worried about in fact they're worried
0:04:21 about uncertainties they're worried
0:04:23 about
0:04:24 uh you know about hypocrisy and that
0:04:27 even if the best of people in that
0:04:29 sense the prophet's companions could
0:04:30 have these feelings and they would in
0:04:32 fact approach the prophet
0:04:33 with these uh concerns that we know we
0:04:35 have we we
0:04:37 we feel some things or we imagine some
0:04:39 things or we're thinking about some
0:04:41 things that we wouldn't
0:04:42 we're too embarrassed to even tell you
0:04:43 that and the prophet then says
0:04:46 that in fact is faith the fact that you
0:04:48 have those feelings is not a sign
0:04:50 of a weakness or faith all it means is
0:04:52 that now we need to know how to deal
0:04:54 with them
0:04:54 and better prepare ourselves for
0:04:56 encountering things like these in life
0:04:59 um there is of course in this a lesson
0:05:01 for you
0:05:02 and for others for all of us that we
0:05:05 sometimes
0:05:05 uh swim in in shark-infested waters and
0:05:09 that was an example that was given last
0:05:11 week about swimming in shark infested
0:05:12 waters we don't
0:05:14 throw ourselves carelessly haphazardly
0:05:17 into uh into the ocean into the sea
0:05:20 where these sharks exist
0:05:21 but if we're in the ocean we need to
0:05:24 learn how to navigate
0:05:25 to safe areas and that was the key point
0:05:27 right so either we
0:05:29 were in the ocean we're dealing with
0:05:31 these kind of things that we need to
0:05:32 know to navigate
0:05:33 in the safeway and therefore no one is
0:05:35 protected entirely
0:05:36 you know except from tawfiq from allah
0:05:38 subhanahu wa
0:05:39 or the key point was we don't enter the
0:05:42 ocean
0:05:43 itself right so you don't put yourselves
0:05:46 in situations you don't give attention
0:05:48 right so before any
0:05:49 adult might exist uh you know to drain
0:05:52 your iman
0:05:53 you need to stop and avoid and ignore
0:05:56 these with the key
0:05:57 the three key points about stopping
0:05:59 avoiding
0:06:00 and ignoring not to engage with media
0:06:02 platforms for example
0:06:04 designed specifically to create and and
0:06:07 engineer those kind of doubts
0:06:09 in people's hearts and minds right you
0:06:10 don't expose yourself and put yourself
0:06:13 in a situation
0:06:14 that is harmful for you the same way for
0:06:16 example if you're driving a car you're
0:06:18 aware
0:06:18 of the road signs because you're aware
0:06:20 of potential hazards on the road
0:06:22 you don't deliberately put yourself in
0:06:24 harm's way in anything
0:06:26 in life so one of course is to do with
0:06:28 the practicalities of life right you
0:06:30 could
0:06:30 experience a physical harm but but at
0:06:33 the same time there are even
0:06:34 more colossal amount of more potential
0:06:37 spiritual harms that really
0:06:39 affect our hearts remember of course of
0:06:41 the prophetic hadith
0:06:42 when the prophet he said sallam that
0:06:44 allah is in the body
0:06:48 a lump of flesh and indeed if that lump
0:06:50 of flesh is sound
0:06:52 then the entire body is sound but if
0:06:54 that lump of fresh flesh is corrupted
0:06:56 then all of the body in fact is
0:06:58 corrupted
0:06:59 so therefore the sense of protection
0:07:01 that allah mandates on that lump of
0:07:03 flesh
0:07:03 allah for example many many times i mean
0:07:06 too many times even enumerate
0:07:08 mentions the importance of of the of the
0:07:11 vessel of the heart
0:07:12 in the beginning of the quran allah
0:07:14 mentions
0:07:18 allah says in their hearts is a disease
0:07:19 that means if the heart has a disease
0:07:22 i mean it's a spiritual disease that the
0:07:24 heart has a heart has
0:07:25 you know waywardness the heart has
0:07:27 deceit the heart has
0:07:29 doubts that heart has arrogance pride
0:07:32 indulgence
0:07:33 vanity all of these in fact are
0:07:34 spiritual diseases of the heart that
0:07:36 impede upon
0:07:38 the effective human condition that allah
0:07:40 wants for a person to
0:07:42 to to navigate through life in a way
0:07:44 that is that is pleasing to allah
0:07:45 subhanahu wa ta'ala
0:07:46 so therefore the focus was to be aware
0:07:49 to be conscious
0:07:50 uh knowing when to stop to avoid to
0:07:53 ignore not to
0:07:54 you know haphazardly enter into domains
0:07:57 and realms that are going to be
0:07:59 destructive for you because
0:08:00 at one point we might be ill-prepared
0:08:02 unprepared
0:08:03 in dealing with those doubts for example
0:08:06 and so therefore not to engage with
0:08:08 media platforms even if it means
0:08:09 not to be on the internet accessing
0:08:12 sites that might be
0:08:13 you know attacking islam critiquing
0:08:16 islam
0:08:17 in ways that we don't know how to
0:08:19 respond to those things for example at
0:08:20 this particular point in time
0:08:23 sometimes if we're there then we need to
0:08:25 know where to navigate how to navigate
0:08:27 if it's like for example if you're in
0:08:28 the ocean
0:08:29 where sharks man eating shots sharks
0:08:31 exist
0:08:32 you will know because you're experienced
0:08:34 you will know how to navigate to safe
0:08:36 spaces to safe areas and that's the key
0:08:39 thing for us
0:08:40 in learning from last week the prophetic
0:08:42 advice of course was to stop
0:08:44 to seek refuge with allah and even for
0:08:46 example in that very famous hadith when
0:08:47 he says that you know
0:08:48 uh you know shaitaan would come upon a
0:08:51 person and will ask him questions like
0:08:53 in his mind insinuations from shaytan
0:08:55 like you know who uh who created the
0:08:57 world people would say allah he would
0:08:59 ask who created
0:09:01 allah right and that's simply uh
0:09:04 to engender those doubts in his mind
0:09:06 well if everything is created
0:09:08 well then who created allah of course
0:09:11 allah is the creator of all things uh
0:09:14 and he himself is uncreated
0:09:16 allah is had allah is summoned allah is
0:09:19 absolute allah is unique
0:09:21 but the point is that the prophet told
0:09:23 sahabah
0:09:24 that just stop those thoughts and seek
0:09:26 refuge with allah right so even in that
0:09:28 situation to be able to say
0:09:31 that i seek refuge to allah allah is
0:09:33 subhanallah allah is
0:09:35 supreme allah is beyond all
0:09:37 imperfections allah is unique allah is
0:09:39 absolute
0:09:40 right he said in the same hadith he said
0:09:42 or in a different hadith but he said say
0:09:44 aman
0:09:45 say just say as a positive verbal
0:09:48 affirmation i believe
0:09:51 in allah right so even to the point
0:09:53 where persons having doubts about allah
0:09:55 for you to just
0:09:56 have a positive affirmation and saying
0:10:01 in fact i do believe in allah ta'ala
0:10:03 would in fact
0:10:04 dispel those doubts and those whispers
0:10:07 and would distance yourself from
0:10:09 shaitaan
0:10:09 and it's all about really learning to
0:10:11 ignore because ignoring in fact has a
0:10:13 very big
0:10:14 effect on on the human condition um
0:10:18 and the second thing you know hamza
0:10:20 mentioned from last week was about to be
0:10:22 able in with respect to those um
0:10:24 doubts and uh and and and
0:10:28 and shahawad and desires to be able to
0:10:31 make distinctions between different
0:10:32 types let's say for example of shubohant
0:10:35 uh of these different doubts so for
0:10:37 example
0:10:38 if we can make if we can distinguish
0:10:40 between them we can better
0:10:42 recognize and deal with them to be
0:10:44 empowered spiritually
0:10:46 some people you can't make the
0:10:47 connection between their sins
0:10:49 and the mercy of allah as an example for
0:10:51 example so one of the things i'm working
0:10:53 on currently with sapience institute
0:10:55 is i'm producing a very lengthy response
0:10:57 to uh
0:10:58 william lane craig professor in america
0:11:01 who's an evangelist
0:11:02 but i think that one of the key one of
0:11:04 the key points that's oftentimes missed
0:11:06 by
0:11:07 many christians who might look upon
0:11:09 islam and trying to reconcile between
0:11:12 the tragedy of sin uh as seen let's say
0:11:15 from
0:11:16 the beginning from adam alaihissalam
0:11:18 committing the sin
0:11:19 and then human beings being bound almost
0:11:23 by that sin
0:11:23 coming from the belief of the original
0:11:25 sin and of course there are differences
0:11:27 amongst christians concerning this not
0:11:29 all christians believe in that the
0:11:31 armenians don't believe in that the uh
0:11:33 eastern orthodox don't believe in that
0:11:35 either
0:11:36 but catholics do uh some protestants
0:11:38 also do
0:11:39 right so they try to explain therefore
0:11:41 the necessity of the salvation or the
0:11:44 savior
0:11:45 model archetype paradigm through jesus
0:11:47 christ isa al-islam
0:11:50 because of the existence of sin that was
0:11:53 carried through
0:11:54 from the fall you know what they call
0:11:55 the fall of of adam alaysalam
0:11:58 uh but but knowing of course how islam
0:12:01 deals with that understanding therefore
0:12:03 for example for us to understand
0:12:05 the connection between between a
0:12:07 person's sin
0:12:09 and the mercy of allah for me i think
0:12:11 one of the
0:12:12 so super profound points allah mentioned
0:12:15 in the quran about this narrative
0:12:17 is allah gives us an entire sequence of
0:12:20 how to deal
0:12:21 with understanding sin so for example if
0:12:23 our father
0:12:24 adam alaihi salam sinned against allah
0:12:26 for sure allah says
0:12:30 allah says that they're both adam and
0:12:32 his wife not one
0:12:33 seducing the other but both stumbled
0:12:36 they slipped
0:12:37 right we all in fact as human beings
0:12:39 slip in life
0:12:40 all of us have consequences situations
0:12:42 circumstances
0:12:43 that cause us to sometimes come off
0:12:46 guard you know stumble and lose our way
0:12:48 slightly and we slip and allah says
0:12:49 that's what happened they both slept
0:12:51 but then allah says a beautiful thing
0:12:53 allah says
0:12:59 and this verse which is my current focus
0:13:01 i think is just so
0:13:03 it's so uh it's just so good it's so
0:13:06 cataclysmically profound
0:13:08 because allah allah allah just answers
0:13:11 the whole
0:13:12 deals with the whole conundrum just in
0:13:14 fact in a single verse i
0:13:16 incidentally made up a fact of three
0:13:17 parts but it's a single verse
0:13:19 and allah says that
0:13:23 adam was met with some words with from
0:13:25 his lord meaning adam
0:13:27 adam was inspired with some words from
0:13:29 his lord to say
0:13:30 meaning allah was aiding and assisting
0:13:33 adam to seek
0:13:34 allah's forgiveness meaning allah wanted
0:13:36 adam's goodness
0:13:38 right allah had a divine plan for this
0:13:40 for adam and his progeny
0:13:41 was not one entirely bound by the
0:13:43 consequence of a sin
0:13:45 then allah says and then he repented to
0:13:48 allah
0:13:48 and allah is oft forgiving allah's offer
0:13:51 in allah allah accepts repentance of his
0:13:53 servants
0:13:54 a beautiful explanation a beautiful way
0:13:56 allah tells us how to deal with that
0:13:58 but some people can't make that
0:13:59 distinction between or the connection
0:14:01 between their own sin and the mercy of
0:14:03 allah therefore they would
0:14:05 wallow in sin increase in sin right
0:14:08 um you know they might simply uh be able
0:14:11 to
0:14:12 uh you know unable to experience
0:14:16 uh satisfaction of knowing allah's
0:14:19 forgiveness
0:14:20 simply because they're bound by by the
0:14:23 sin
0:14:23 and not knowing about the mercy of allah
0:14:26 therefore that's an example of it
0:14:28 another thing the whisperings from
0:14:29 shaytan that generate doubts
0:14:31 uh completely disappear if we if we
0:14:33 learn you know to
0:14:35 ignore them uh now in terms of
0:14:38 our class today inshallah on on point
0:14:41 number four
0:14:42 out of these ten strategies of dealing
0:14:45 with doubts
0:14:47 number one of course was to be aware
0:14:48 number two to make the distinction
0:14:50 number three your environment
0:14:51 this is today's inshallah discussion
0:14:53 number four next week will be study
0:14:55 islam
0:14:56 uh a bit presentation by our sheikh uh
0:14:59 fantastic critical thinking will be week
0:15:01 five
0:15:02 week six final specialists dealing with
0:15:04 trauma
0:15:05 and focusing on your heart and then the
0:15:07 last one on dua
0:15:08 so today inshaallah is your environment
0:15:12 now of course the environment is is very
0:15:14 uh
0:15:15 key for all of us i'm gonna move away
0:15:18 from the
0:15:18 first slide here we are okay uh
0:15:22 well let's in fact just begin with a bit
0:15:24 of a summary before we
0:15:25 we go into the main topics about your
0:15:28 environment as a bit of a summary
0:15:30 about what we're going to expect
0:15:31 insha'allah to hear today
0:15:33 now what we will look at today in jala
0:15:35 is the effect of your environment
0:15:38 and what your environment does to help
0:15:40 ingrain
0:15:42 into you uh beliefs values
0:15:45 uh ideas and even even behavioral
0:15:48 patterns
0:15:48 both positive and negative and it's a
0:15:51 very simple point and one that we're all
0:15:53 aware of because
0:15:54 we've all lived a life our life of
0:15:56 course has been
0:15:57 uh dependent on uh many factors or or
0:16:01 our way of life
0:16:02 depending on many factors they include
0:16:04 our setting our social settings our
0:16:06 friends
0:16:07 our families our networks our schooling
0:16:11 you know uh the things that we we watch
0:16:13 or maybe on social media
0:16:15 all of these things in fact have an
0:16:16 effect on who we end up becoming as
0:16:19 human beings
0:16:20 in a very beautiful hadith in fact the
0:16:21 prophet once told his companions
0:16:25 you have two attributes which allah
0:16:27 loves allah
0:16:28 is prophet love and the prophet's
0:16:30 companion was amazing he says
0:16:32 uh well what are they he says
0:16:35 you have forbearance and you have a
0:16:37 really pronounced profound sense of
0:16:38 patience about you
0:16:40 you can deal with tragedies and stuff
0:16:42 and the prophet's companion says well
0:16:44 was i born with these or did allah
0:16:48 or or did i learn these things later on
0:16:51 in life was i
0:16:52 born with him and the prophet says no
0:16:53 you in fact were born with him it
0:16:55 doesn't mean he was
0:16:56 physically born with them but it means
0:16:58 from an early age he was predisposed
0:17:02 to these traits and qualities
0:17:05 because of many factors it could have
0:17:06 been for example maybe his mother and
0:17:08 father
0:17:09 had helen and anna maybe he had learned
0:17:12 from his teachers in school
0:17:13 helm and that maybe his friends
0:17:17 had forbearance maybe his neighbors had
0:17:20 great patience maybe he's learning from
0:17:21 these from these incidents because of
0:17:23 where he was based
0:17:25 as a child uh but then the scholars had
0:17:28 discussed that for the person who did
0:17:29 was not predisposed to these tendencies
0:17:32 for example
0:17:33 he has even a greater reward because he
0:17:35 has to learn them
0:17:36 he has to learn them and practice them
0:17:38 with sometimes with some difficulty
0:17:41 and so therefore everything in your
0:17:43 environment would affect
0:17:44 you as a human being think about for
0:17:47 example when you were young
0:17:48 think about when you were in school uh
0:17:50 your early friends think about how
0:17:53 uh how impressionable you might have
0:17:55 been how eager you
0:17:56 were to fit in to like especially when
0:18:00 you're going from a primary school to a
0:18:02 secondary school so when you're
0:18:03 you're breaking away from some friends
0:18:06 in your primary school but you're then
0:18:07 going into
0:18:08 uh a new school where there are a new
0:18:10 set of of friends
0:18:12 well potential friends so if you're in a
0:18:14 secondary school some friends will
0:18:16 follow you in perhaps into the new
0:18:17 school
0:18:18 but then there'll be other faces new
0:18:19 faces from all across
0:18:21 the the county or the town uh who are in
0:18:24 that same
0:18:25 space as you now right so think about
0:18:27 how impressionable you might have been
0:18:29 right how eager you were to fit in to be
0:18:31 accepted to be
0:18:32 liked uh these motivations in fact
0:18:35 they exist with us not only in a school
0:18:38 setting but in fact in our entire life
0:18:40 think about a workplace
0:18:41 when you enter a workplace you want to
0:18:42 be you know with the with the crowd you
0:18:45 want to be
0:18:45 accepted by them you want to be you want
0:18:47 to be with them you want to be
0:18:49 um you know you want to be liked by them
0:18:52 you want to be
0:18:53 popular perhaps i mean in school it's a
0:18:55 big thing about popularity about what it
0:18:56 means to be cool
0:18:58 in school and and to be with the popular
0:19:00 people in school
0:19:01 and we're going to look at some of these
0:19:03 things and the way that these all have
0:19:05 an effect
0:19:06 on our sense of being and how they
0:19:08 affect us and doubts in
0:19:10 islam now uh
0:19:13 these motivations in fact you know they
0:19:15 exist
0:19:16 in in the entirety of our lives you know
0:19:18 except
0:19:19 the settings can be different right the
0:19:21 the friends the social influences the
0:19:23 pressures
0:19:24 sometimes we might struggle to confirm
0:19:28 uh or to conform in fact to patterns of
0:19:30 behavior
0:19:31 uh and so therefore we we
0:19:34 we adapt and we adjust to other patterns
0:19:36 of behavior
0:19:37 that are more in line with with the
0:19:39 popular grouping that we're seeing
0:19:41 around us
0:19:42 or even to beliefs uh just like when we
0:19:45 were younger at school they carry on
0:19:46 through us so therefore
0:19:48 your friendship and your company have a
0:19:49 direct bearing on who
0:19:51 you will become and who you are in fact
0:19:53 today
0:19:54 um and so i want us to begin in sha
0:19:56 allah with with this is a very brief
0:19:59 uh summary now the first thing we will
0:20:01 discuss together inshallah is about
0:20:03 social
0:20:04 conformity what does that mean to be to
0:20:06 socially conform
0:20:08 it means that therefore sometimes we
0:20:12 based upon our social environments can
0:20:14 yield
0:20:15 to situations to pressures to
0:20:18 uh the status quo to peer pressures
0:20:21 because of what we see of informational
0:20:25 conformity so therefore we could have a
0:20:26 desire to be right you might for example
0:20:29 see yourself as as less less worthy or
0:20:33 less
0:20:33 knowledgeable uh or less uh or
0:20:36 even weaker physically and therefore you
0:20:39 would yield to
0:20:41 uh you know a grouping a social
0:20:43 structure
0:20:44 that you believe to be uh more
0:20:47 knowledgeable or even stronger
0:20:49 so on the one hand we have informational
0:20:52 conformity which is the desire to be
0:20:53 right
0:20:54 so look at the first bullet point this
0:20:56 usually occurs when a person
0:20:57 lacks knowledge and looks to the group
0:20:59 for guidance it happens in in all
0:21:01 situations right you could find that in
0:21:03 a workplace you could find that in a
0:21:04 school
0:21:05 right you could for example um you know
0:21:08 be in a setting you could be university
0:21:11 and at university i remember when i was
0:21:12 when i did my my first degree my first
0:21:14 degree was a ba in history
0:21:16 and and so because undergraduate
0:21:19 students are quite impressionable
0:21:20 because they're going to the school
0:21:22 in fact i remember in fact subhanallah i
0:21:23 remember uh
0:21:25 i remember a course i remember a unit we
0:21:27 did on the birth of western christendom
0:21:30 and uh and i'm in the lecture theater uh
0:21:32 like everybody else is and it's our
0:21:34 first year use kind of your fresh out of
0:21:36 college or sixth form uh in the
0:21:38 university
0:21:39 uh first year you're in the first time
0:21:41 you're in a lecture that ever is very
0:21:43 kind of empowering
0:21:44 uh and you're there and the uh and
0:21:47 uh and and the lecturer was giving a
0:21:49 lecture about
0:21:51 i don't know something i don't know
0:21:53 early christianity
0:21:54 and i remember it was so it was so
0:21:57 difficult to understand
0:21:59 i mean the words he was using were just
0:22:00 way above all of us
0:22:02 and i remember being in the library in
0:22:03 fact on that same day that afternoon
0:22:06 and i'm in one of the aisles and i see
0:22:07 this group of girls who've gathered in
0:22:09 the library
0:22:10 and they're all kind of whispering
0:22:12 amongst themselves
0:22:13 and all saying things like oh my god oh
0:22:16 my god
0:22:17 did you understand anything and they're
0:22:19 all saying no one understood anything
0:22:21 about it you think we are all actually
0:22:24 in the same boat
0:22:25 but that social experience has created
0:22:28 that
0:22:29 right now what had happened maybe maybe
0:22:31 now of course i've i've lectured in so
0:22:33 many places
0:22:34 but you do realize something that you
0:22:37 know when you have a group of students
0:22:39 and maybe they're all
0:22:40 ill-equipped they're ill-equipped for
0:22:43 that class
0:22:44 in the beginning because they've never
0:22:46 entered a class like that before they've
0:22:47 never
0:22:48 seen lecture theater they've never even
0:22:50 heard a professor or lecture speak
0:22:53 they've never they've never been there
0:22:55 before now the words you use
0:22:57 your vernacular your vocabulary could
0:23:00 have a great impression and it will have
0:23:02 a great impression
0:23:02 on those students and it's likely
0:23:05 therefore that whatever you're going to
0:23:06 say they would accept it they would
0:23:07 believe it because they think well you
0:23:09 are a person of authority you have
0:23:11 knowledge
0:23:13 and so therefore a person who's in a
0:23:16 situation like that in the audience
0:23:18 does have an intrinsic desire to be
0:23:21 right and could con
0:23:22 conform uh to a setting where a
0:23:25 particular in epistem epistemological
0:23:28 uh bias is being presented right but
0:23:31 that's
0:23:31 that's because he just wants to be part
0:23:34 of that social grouping so therefore he
0:23:36 would look for
0:23:37 uh you know a a person who uh
0:23:40 who who maybe knows more right a person
0:23:43 if a person is lacking in his knowledge
0:23:45 he would look for a group for guidance
0:23:48 and i've got a few examples for us to
0:23:49 think about him
0:23:50 uh the first example i thought of the
0:23:52 example of christopher brown and
0:23:54 christopher browning wrote a
0:23:55 extraordinary book called ordinary men
0:23:57 um now ordinary men in fact is about
0:23:59 it's about nazis but it's about nazis
0:24:03 particularly in the village of here's
0:24:04 the chapter on the village of jerusalem
0:24:11 his book in fact is about a particular
0:24:14 battalion
0:24:16 but in the village of jerusalem focuses
0:24:18 on
0:24:19 uh you know a village made up entirely
0:24:21 mostly of jews
0:24:23 and an order was given for these nazi
0:24:25 soldiers
0:24:26 to kill all of these jews of course
0:24:28 indiscriminately
0:24:30 horrific horrific act of of mass murder
0:24:33 uh but what he focuses on in fact is to
0:24:35 focus on
0:24:36 some people uh or some of these nazi
0:24:39 soldiers who
0:24:41 who who had a disinclination to do that
0:24:44 you know that they they wanted in fact
0:24:47 not to do that
0:24:48 because of the sim the simple point of
0:24:51 human consciousness i haven't
0:24:52 in fact a book called on being human uh
0:24:55 published by
0:24:56 uh sapiens institute how islam addresses
0:24:59 othering
0:24:59 demonization and and empathy which in
0:25:02 fact goes into this
0:25:03 this topic and in fact has a section on
0:25:06 on the village of joseph what happened
0:25:07 with these soldiers
0:25:09 um but you have other people in fact
0:25:11 others of the soldiers who who wanted to
0:25:14 partake in that act of murder but from
0:25:17 the testimonies we find that
0:25:19 a lot of it was based upon one thing to
0:25:21 be uh
0:25:22 man enough wanting to be part of that
0:25:24 crowd wanting to be accepted
0:25:26 you know by the other sword and it's
0:25:27 something very typical in in human
0:25:29 warfare
0:25:30 right that you might find soldiers some
0:25:32 of them in fact who might be
0:25:34 who have a a deeper sense of
0:25:36 consciousness and they they could even
0:25:38 resist you have
0:25:39 you know people of um you know
0:25:41 conscientious objectives to that
0:25:43 um but at the same time uh you also have
0:25:47 to think about
0:25:49 uh to think about people who who would
0:25:52 would acquiesce i mean
0:25:53 they would not uh yield to that some
0:25:56 would and some some wouldn't
0:25:57 uh the second thing of course you think
0:25:58 about epimysmological biases
0:26:00 uh in the sciences or the arts or
0:26:02 culture or anything really
0:26:04 right so you could for example and even
0:26:06 if you could even take this from a
0:26:07 global viewpoint
0:26:08 that they could be uh perhaps there is i
0:26:11 guess
0:26:12 in some places there definitely is uh a
0:26:14 way that
0:26:15 in a part some parts of the world have
0:26:17 been perceived
0:26:18 as being more humane more civilized
0:26:22 uh more intelligent than other parts of
0:26:24 the world right and so you get that of
0:26:26 course
0:26:26 so uh think about you know different
0:26:30 continents of the world
0:26:31 right think about uh i was reading an
0:26:33 article in fact about
0:26:35 uh how difficult it is for
0:26:38 for african professors to have their
0:26:41 works
0:26:41 published in reputable academic journals
0:26:45 that when they want to publish their
0:26:48 work they have to
0:26:49 approach the uh you know the
0:26:51 institutions of the west
0:26:53 right the they have to approach uh the
0:26:56 printing presses of the west because
0:26:58 even if they published work uh in their
0:27:01 own countries i'm sure they have
0:27:02 amazing publishing houses in africa in
0:27:05 african countries
0:27:06 but it's about perception it's about the
0:27:08 world the way that the world would
0:27:10 perceive them
0:27:11 so if they for example let's say you
0:27:12 have an amazing academic professor
0:27:15 uh but he in fact
0:27:18 he in fact uh you know uh wants to
0:27:21 publish then his findings or his work
0:27:23 and maybe he's
0:27:24 he's made an amazing discovery in
0:27:26 science or or whatever
0:27:28 uh he he would see it's better fit that
0:27:30 he publishes
0:27:31 in a western academic press because uh
0:27:34 people would take him more seriously
0:27:37 that's how he would
0:27:38 figure it it's more of a serious way for
0:27:41 him people to accept what he's trying to
0:27:42 say
0:27:43 but but these biases they do exist you
0:27:45 know in sciences and arts and culture
0:27:47 we've been kind of in some ways
0:27:49 pre and programmed to think like that
0:27:52 based upon
0:27:52 our susceptibility again to social
0:27:56 uh norms to social pressures to media to
0:27:59 to our literature things that we we read
0:28:01 and all these kind of things
0:28:04 now uh now or when a person is an
0:28:07 ambiguous for example
0:28:09 if a person is unclear if he's not
0:28:12 doesn't know fully well uh about what to
0:28:15 do how to
0:28:16 behave what to think what to believe and
0:28:18 socially compares their behaviors with
0:28:20 the group
0:28:20 so therefore uh look at the example of
0:28:23 diffuse responsibility
0:28:24 right a person for example you know you
0:28:27 have these two things these were
0:28:28 mentioned by people like um
0:28:30 philip zimbardo in his book uh called
0:28:33 the lucifer effect
0:28:35 of course he took a lot from stanley
0:28:36 milgram in in in his experiments on
0:28:39 uh on on you know about obedience to
0:28:42 authority
0:28:43 but diffuse responsibility means
0:28:45 therefore you could have let's say you
0:28:46 have a
0:28:47 a group of people if five of you are
0:28:49 walking you know in the town center
0:28:51 and you see one beggar now he argues
0:28:54 therefore that it's less likely
0:28:57 for any one of those people in your
0:29:00 group
0:29:01 to help that person uh by giving him a
0:29:03 pound or a penny or whatever
0:29:05 but if a person was by himself right
0:29:09 and saw that beggar he'd be more
0:29:11 prepared and willing to give that person
0:29:13 some money
0:29:14 now in a sense in a social setting the
0:29:17 responsibility becomes diffused because
0:29:19 each one is in fact uh looking upon the
0:29:23 other one
0:29:24 each one is looking upon the other one
0:29:26 uh i know you're asking questions i'm
0:29:28 gonna have to
0:29:29 answer these inshaallah towards the end
0:29:31 of it uh the book i just mentioned is
0:29:33 called the lucifer effect by philip
0:29:35 zimbardo uh and the other one was uh
0:29:39 obedience to authority by stanley
0:29:41 milgram
0:29:42 um and so therefore diffuse
0:29:44 responsibility is very essential because
0:29:46 if you think about
0:29:47 uh moments of uh of genocide and again a
0:29:51 lot of these things are discussed in my
0:29:52 book on being human
0:29:54 which you can download free in fact from
0:29:56 the sapiens institute website
0:29:58 i i also discuss diffused responsibility
0:30:01 i think also in that book
0:30:02 but that's an example therefore about
0:30:04 the way that a person's uh
0:30:06 attitudes a person's behavior is
0:30:08 influenced by
0:30:09 uh the crowd he's in right so because
0:30:12 others are not taking part in that act
0:30:15 of charity
0:30:16 he feels less inclined sick by an act of
0:30:18 charity all right so helping a beggar
0:30:20 therefore is an example look at the
0:30:22 example of the kitty genovese this is
0:30:24 very very famous
0:30:25 a very famous case this is from 1955 or
0:30:28 56 if i remember and this is new york
0:30:30 american so you had this poor woman
0:30:33 kitty genevieves who was on her way back
0:30:36 from work it was very late around
0:30:37 midnight
0:30:38 and she's on her way back to to uh from
0:30:41 work going home walking
0:30:42 and a man from his own testimony who was
0:30:45 intent on on mass murder on that day
0:30:47 uh drives his car in his own in his own
0:30:51 words he was looking for a woman to
0:30:52 murder
0:30:53 uh finds his poor woman walking home and
0:30:55 he approaches her
0:30:56 takes out a knife or something and and
0:30:59 there's a bit of a scuffle
0:31:00 and what happens is that uh
0:31:04 uh one of one of the um
0:31:07 you know one of the people who was
0:31:09 people are asleep
0:31:10 but somebody in one of the apartments uh
0:31:13 puts his light on
0:31:14 and opens a window and says these words
0:31:17 and says
0:31:18 um it says leave that woman alone
0:31:22 right leave that woman alone and so
0:31:25 uh now that's interesting and so what
0:31:28 happens is that when that happens
0:31:30 uh the the man panics and he and he runs
0:31:33 back into towards his car but then he
0:31:36 comes out a second time i think even the
0:31:37 third time and the third time when she
0:31:39 was
0:31:39 already in her home and he pushes the
0:31:41 door open and he stabs the woman to that
0:31:43 but what happens is that a.r rosenthal
0:31:46 who was the
0:31:47 uh journalist uh covering that story
0:31:50 then writes this book called 38
0:31:52 witnesses
0:31:54 where he discovers that each of those
0:31:55 people
0:31:57 when he interviews the the inhabitants
0:31:59 of those
0:32:00 apartments he discovers that each of
0:32:02 them were saying something very similar
0:32:04 which was that i didn't want to get
0:32:06 involved right there's a diffuse sense
0:32:08 of responsibility
0:32:10 and so one neighbor would look upon the
0:32:11 other neighbor look upon the other
0:32:12 neighbor
0:32:13 and if all the lights are off then
0:32:15 they'll think this is why i'm going to
0:32:16 keep my light off
0:32:17 at the same time as well and so now this
0:32:20 type of conformance usually involves
0:32:21 internalization where a person accepts
0:32:23 the views of the groups
0:32:25 and adopts them as an individual so you
0:32:27 could for example
0:32:28 uh be in a social setting where uh
0:32:31 you know religion could be considered as
0:32:33 a taboo topic
0:32:34 could be for example that if everybody
0:32:37 is
0:32:38 irreligious or has no uh
0:32:41 willing to talk even talk about religion
0:32:44 talk about god
0:32:46 then for anyone to talk about god
0:32:48 becomes
0:32:49 kind of he's entering into the the
0:32:51 remain domain of the taboo meaning he's
0:32:53 he's saying something that's not
0:32:54 socially uh acceptable almost in that
0:32:57 setting amongst that crowd
0:32:59 to be spoken of and so uh
0:33:02 religious taboo i think is a good
0:33:03 example because um
0:33:05 you know if he uh if a person ha
0:33:08 if that's if that's what's being said so
0:33:11 for example you could be in a place
0:33:12 where
0:33:13 uh where people simply don't pray
0:33:16 it's an example okay they don't praise
0:33:18 salah or even in a home where people
0:33:20 don't praise salah
0:33:21 okay and i think many people in fact
0:33:23 encounter this when they first
0:33:25 embracing islam or they're coming to
0:33:27 islam or they're beginning to praise
0:33:29 salah for example you could be in a home
0:33:30 people don't praise allah
0:33:32 right and for one person therefore start
0:33:35 then
0:33:35 praying salah right is seen as something
0:33:38 that
0:33:39 you're almost like breaking a social
0:33:41 code
0:33:42 in that home because that's simply
0:33:45 not a done thing right uh and so
0:33:49 for example you could find let's say the
0:33:51 others
0:33:52 who maybe uh would side with the ones
0:33:55 who are not praying
0:33:56 in their desire to be right that's
0:33:58 informational conformity
0:34:00 right and then the other person the one
0:34:02 who's remaining is almost seen as the
0:34:03 outcast
0:34:04 because religion therefore is a taboo uh
0:34:07 another example of course you think if
0:34:09 you think i have africa and atheists
0:34:11 just a thing just to get your mind
0:34:13 thinking imagine for example uh imagine
0:34:16 africa
0:34:16 was was atheist i mean africa is a very
0:34:20 religious
0:34:20 continent in fact people are very
0:34:22 religious uh but imagine
0:34:24 africa was atheists okay and we are
0:34:27 we're here in the west
0:34:28 and we're looking upon on africa let's
0:34:31 say this is because of
0:34:33 our social programming yeah and this of
0:34:35 course has its
0:34:36 has its seeds uh in in in long
0:34:40 disastrous uh you know years of brutal
0:34:43 colonization and occupation of of
0:34:46 african countries um
0:34:48 anybody who's read heart of darkness but
0:34:49 joseph conrad you know would know that
0:34:51 uh or about uh you know uh king leopold
0:34:54 ii
0:34:55 then and uh and the brutality of
0:34:58 of what happened in the congo and
0:35:01 perceptions people had of
0:35:02 africa in fact even in the photographing
0:35:06 of that great continent they would have
0:35:08 uh pictures that were blackened
0:35:09 blackened pictures to even give
0:35:12 the continent a kind of more of a
0:35:15 of a darkness about the continent you
0:35:17 know
0:35:18 uh just to kind of create that sense of
0:35:21 very negative perception
0:35:23 about the people about the place and the
0:35:25 people who
0:35:26 who inhabit that place and so um
0:35:30 uh no i think therefore if if africa was
0:35:33 is atheist and where in the west would
0:35:36 people
0:35:36 be inclined to to atheism right so
0:35:39 imagine everybody in the west in the
0:35:41 west
0:35:42 was uh was uh was religious and
0:35:45 everybody in the in africa was
0:35:46 atheist if you had this tilt if you have
0:35:48 this imbalance
0:35:50 uh you know would people favor atheism
0:35:53 and the cause of atheism
0:35:54 uh you know maybe maybe not and so
0:35:57 therefore the first one is informational
0:35:58 conformity desire to be right and then
0:36:00 the other one is
0:36:01 desire to be liked and this is very
0:36:03 powerful this will normative conformity
0:36:06 so uh it means to yield to group
0:36:09 pressure because the person wants to fit
0:36:10 in with the group very simple
0:36:12 very very simple right uh this it's this
0:36:15 it's
0:36:15 so many so much for us to say in fact i
0:36:17 think about this one
0:36:18 uh if you look at historical events
0:36:20 again a similar year
0:36:22 as the the tragic killing of ktj navs
0:36:25 was a very tragic i think even more so
0:36:27 tragic killing of of sylvia lykans
0:36:30 um there's a very there's a very tragic
0:36:33 book
0:36:33 called house of horrors uh i have the
0:36:36 book somewhere in the book but i
0:36:37 couldn't find it before the class to
0:36:39 to get the name of the author um but
0:36:41 it's about this
0:36:42 uh tragic killing of silvia likens was
0:36:45 just
0:36:45 i think she was just 14 at that time and
0:36:48 she
0:36:48 her mother gertrude benichowski uh
0:36:52 you know was uh her and husband were
0:36:54 carnival workers and they had to leave
0:36:57 for a month initially and so she meets
0:36:59 sorry
0:37:00 not gertrude jessica was not her mother
0:37:03 uh but
0:37:04 gertrude jessica was the one that her
0:37:06 mother approached
0:37:07 uh to just keep the children for a month
0:37:10 and she paid the lady
0:37:11 and to keep uh silvia likens and her
0:37:14 younger sister
0:37:15 for a month whilst uh the parents are
0:37:17 away
0:37:18 working in the carnival get rude banjos
0:37:20 agrees to that but
0:37:22 in the home there were other children
0:37:24 gertrude benjeska's own children
0:37:26 uh her own daughters and her own sons
0:37:29 and
0:37:30 uh and and and a lot kind of
0:37:33 emerged from this based upon envy and
0:37:36 jealousy
0:37:37 um and fitting in and so sylvia likens
0:37:41 was really picked on and targeted
0:37:45 but what really makes this such a
0:37:48 horrific
0:37:49 but and also uh a horrific but also
0:37:52 a telling example of of this normative
0:37:56 conformity is the fact that there was
0:37:58 one of the boys in fact who initially
0:38:00 liked sylvia likens he liked her
0:38:02 but when all the others had ganged up on
0:38:05 her
0:38:06 and her and had tied her up in the
0:38:08 basement and they were torturing her
0:38:10 uh he also took part in that you know he
0:38:13 also took part in
0:38:14 that you know and it was here another
0:38:17 example
0:38:18 therefore of of yielding to group
0:38:20 pressure because you wanted to be
0:38:22 like the other members of that group
0:38:24 right even if it meant
0:38:26 hurting physically emotionally hurting
0:38:29 the one that he in fact
0:38:30 he in fact liked her you know uh but
0:38:33 this is what happened think about the
0:38:34 betrayal of hussein
0:38:36 and in karbala in kufa uh we know when
0:38:40 when the uh when hussein when
0:38:43 when the cousin of hussein ali had
0:38:46 arrived in kufa
0:38:48 you know and and and people were
0:38:50 pledging their like oath of allegiance
0:38:52 you know to hussein banali or
0:38:55 there was then this mass betrayal from
0:38:57 the people of kufa
0:38:59 towards hussein so whatever ali gets to
0:39:01 kufa
0:39:02 the people have all scampered they've
0:39:03 run away and he doesn't have that
0:39:05 support base anymore
0:39:06 but many of them because it was based
0:39:08 upon uh
0:39:10 not just diffusion of responsibility but
0:39:12 also audience inhibition
0:39:14 right so people were being threatened
0:39:16 well if the armies of
0:39:17 yazid came from damascus then you
0:39:19 wouldn't have any chance
0:39:20 of fighting uh you know on the side of
0:39:23 hussein against
0:39:24 against against yazid
0:39:27 but therefore because of that society's
0:39:30 uh yielding to to pressure to fit in
0:39:33 with the dominant group in that case
0:39:34 would not be the group of hussein it
0:39:36 would be the group of
0:39:37 of yazid and his henchmen uh of you know
0:39:40 despotical rulers in uh in in iraq and
0:39:43 kufa
0:39:44 uh that's what what happened um another
0:39:47 one is conforming because the person is
0:39:49 scared of being rejected by the group
0:39:51 right so to avoid like social
0:39:53 punishments peer pressures
0:39:55 uh think about uh you know i mean it's
0:39:58 just
0:39:58 it's it's exists everywhere just you're
0:40:00 scared to be rejected by the group
0:40:02 so you could find for example uh people
0:40:04 hold to a belief
0:40:06 right they might you might find a group
0:40:08 of people in one case
0:40:10 let's say they don't pray okay
0:40:13 and a person knows that he needs to be
0:40:15 praying or a person
0:40:16 believes in allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
0:40:19 but another group of people
0:40:20 are christians who believe not in allah
0:40:22 but they believe in
0:40:24 in the triune god that they've that
0:40:25 they've created or are people of a
0:40:27 different faith
0:40:28 even but that's what that's what they
0:40:29 believe right
0:40:31 now a person who might be a muslim in
0:40:34 this case right
0:40:35 could say i'm going to conform uh to
0:40:38 that group
0:40:38 of christians or or atheists
0:40:42 because i'm scared of being rejected by
0:40:44 that group you might say i i'm
0:40:46 it's just incentives for me to be part
0:40:48 of this group
0:40:49 because uh i have friendship with them i
0:40:52 have a social network
0:40:53 i feel protected with them right i can
0:40:56 go places with them we can socialize
0:40:58 together we can go places together i
0:41:00 feel so happy being with them
0:41:02 right so why would i want to compromise
0:41:04 all of that uh
0:41:06 because of my belief and that's the
0:41:07 whole point right so what we're
0:41:09 discussing there for is that
0:41:10 social conformities have a great effect
0:41:13 on
0:41:14 on a person's uh not not just the
0:41:17 emergence of doubts but in fact the
0:41:19 entrenching
0:41:20 of those doubts because if a person
0:41:22 remains complacent
0:41:24 you know with himself thinking that you
0:41:26 know i have these but i'm going to stay
0:41:27 where i
0:41:27 am because i'm happy with this other
0:41:29 social setting uh
0:41:30 that's of course to his own detriment
0:41:32 we're going to cover some verses of the
0:41:33 quran shall after this slide
0:41:35 and but but but that's what happened so
0:41:37 therefore to avoid that sense of social
0:41:38 punishment
0:41:39 where people might exclude that person
0:41:42 peer pressure
0:41:43 is is a very very big thing think about
0:41:45 anybody all of us have been in school so
0:41:47 we would we would know that think about
0:41:49 in school towards a teacher right so
0:41:54 you could conform to a teacher's
0:41:58 sometimes incorrect views right teacher
0:42:00 could get things
0:42:01 wrong uh incorrect views because
0:42:04 you want to be in the teachers uh good
0:42:06 books you know so you want to be
0:42:08 accepted by that teacher you don't be
0:42:09 rejected by that teacher
0:42:11 think about bullying bullying is a very
0:42:13 big one for this one a very very big one
0:42:15 for this one
0:42:16 all right this is humongous i mean think
0:42:18 about uh
0:42:20 you know one of the first articles i
0:42:21 ever wrote in fact uh
0:42:23 yeah many many years ago uh 2008 in fact
0:42:27 it was published
0:42:28 was an article on on bully side and so i
0:42:31 i
0:42:32 in fact i bought two books i remember
0:42:34 one book i bought from america
0:42:36 called bullyside um
0:42:39 and that was a book by um
0:42:42 what's her name um
0:42:44 [Music]
0:42:46 uh i can't remember the woman but but i
0:42:48 know i was i know i was the
0:42:50 first person or second person to have
0:42:52 that book i bought that book in
0:42:54 in the uk because the only publisher of
0:42:56 that book uh the woman's name was brenda
0:42:58 high so the book is called bully side
0:43:00 and the author is brenda high h-i-g-h
0:43:04 and her son in fact uh committed suicide
0:43:08 because of bullying and
0:43:09 she then teams up with the other parents
0:43:12 uh who had similar experiences and they
0:43:13 and then she publishes this book
0:43:15 uh and then she writes a note from me on
0:43:17 the book saying that you know you're the
0:43:18 second person i'm selling this book to
0:43:20 in the uk
0:43:21 but i bought that book you know to to
0:43:23 understand this
0:43:24 this uh the situation of what it means
0:43:27 and it's just a haunting
0:43:29 the stories are so haunting about
0:43:31 children who get
0:43:32 bullied and then end up killing
0:43:34 themselves another book
0:43:35 uh with the same title bully side death
0:43:37 that play time
0:43:39 uh from the from uh publisher in the uk
0:43:42 uh and that was in fact focused on the
0:43:44 story of a young boy called
0:43:47 stephen shepard uh who killed himself uh
0:43:50 you know
0:43:50 decades 1960s sometime but in fact that
0:43:54 book has a disclaimer at the back of it
0:43:56 and it says
0:43:56 if you have unresolved symptoms of
0:43:59 traumatic stress offering this book
0:44:01 seek professional counseling i mean it
0:44:03 was that it was that horrifying
0:44:05 the stories in this book but one of the
0:44:07 things that really sticks out
0:44:08 is that you have these different groups
0:44:10 that emerge just like in any
0:44:13 mass killing or genocide or
0:44:14 victimization you have the perpetrator
0:44:16 you have the victim
0:44:17 you have the bystanders then you have
0:44:19 the rescuers
0:44:20 right so out of those four the ones that
0:44:24 are really
0:44:25 critiqued a lot by the family
0:44:28 by the friends are in fact the
0:44:31 bystanders it's those who
0:44:33 simply uh just egged the crowd on
0:44:36 it's simply those who had this almost
0:44:39 passive
0:44:40 uh involvement uh although i think
0:44:42 everything is active really
0:44:43 you know in that bullying experience and
0:44:46 that drives that person to
0:44:48 to feel like they have to kill
0:44:49 themselves and of course it's all of
0:44:50 this is terrible
0:44:51 um but think about that so conforming
0:44:54 because a person is scared of being
0:44:56 so you could find therefore you could
0:44:57 find a very popular boy
0:44:59 or a girl even in a school who's
0:45:01 bullying somebody else and i've
0:45:03 incorporated her the very tragic case
0:45:05 of rattia parsons you know who
0:45:07 tragically killed herself
0:45:09 uh you know some years ago uh but her
0:45:12 case became a very big case in america
0:45:14 because she was
0:45:15 raped by these by these boys you know
0:45:17 from the testimony of
0:45:19 of her of her parents uh but because
0:45:22 there was
0:45:22 lack of uh support you know from the
0:45:26 police and
0:45:27 and authorities she ends up killing
0:45:29 herself this
0:45:30 this poor girl rataya he was only like
0:45:32 15 i think or something
0:45:34 when that one that happened to her um
0:45:37 but
0:45:38 again so you're going to find from the
0:45:40 testimony of her friend
0:45:41 saying things like uh there were people
0:45:44 that
0:45:45 she knew people that she knew
0:45:48 that in fact had befriended her in fact
0:45:50 she once she said to her parents
0:45:52 where are my friends you know it's so
0:45:55 tragic it's so it's so it's so ugly she
0:45:58 said where are my friends
0:46:00 and the point is is that uh her other
0:46:02 friends would say things like she had
0:46:04 friends but because those friends
0:46:07 were now in other social circles where
0:46:11 you had
0:46:12 people who were calling her horrific
0:46:14 names and taunting her and abusing her
0:46:17 uh those friends you know acquiesced to
0:46:20 that and so therefore they were
0:46:22 more inclined to to be uh liked
0:46:25 desire to be liked and therefore they
0:46:27 went with the group
0:46:28 of of taunters and and perpetrators and
0:46:31 abusers
0:46:32 and therefore the one that therefore
0:46:33 struggled and suffered was was uh
0:46:36 was uh was was retired in a parsons
0:46:40 uh in that actually therefore lost her
0:46:42 friends because to do with
0:46:43 the fact of of conformity normative
0:46:45 conformity
0:46:46 now this type of conformity in fact
0:46:48 usually involves compliance
0:46:50 where a person publicly accepts the
0:46:52 views of a group
0:46:53 but privately rejects them so think
0:46:55 therefore think about these pressures
0:46:56 when you think about yourself
0:46:58 any doubts you know you might have or or
0:47:00 doubt you might know others people might
0:47:02 have
0:47:03 think about what are their social
0:47:06 pressures
0:47:06 right what are our surroundings who do
0:47:08 we mix with
0:47:10 what do we what kind of social settings
0:47:12 are we in
0:47:13 that could make us predisposed in fact
0:47:16 to
0:47:17 to these doubts shibu had or shahawat is
0:47:19 another big thing of course in
0:47:21 the fact that we could have not not
0:47:23 doubts but just simple
0:47:25 desires and it's it's it's our
0:47:27 infatuation
0:47:29 or being encapsulated in that world of
0:47:31 desires that is keeping us
0:47:33 away from uh a world of of remembrance
0:47:36 of allah of loving of allah of
0:47:38 connecting with our lord subhana wa
0:47:40 ta'ala
0:47:41 and so that's the first one social
0:47:44 conformity
0:47:45 uh now here we have some experiments for
0:47:47 us to think about i want to look at
0:47:48 these
0:47:49 some of these that you might be aware of
0:47:51 um the first one
0:47:53 is is a line experiment at this line
0:47:55 experiment it was really about
0:47:57 uh this was this was um i think the
0:48:00 year this was uh this was done uh
0:48:04 this is uh where are we here we are the
0:48:06 day is already here
0:48:08 so this is uh solomon ash
0:48:11 uh from um december 2018.
0:48:17 now what had happened here is that if
0:48:19 you look at the picture in front of you
0:48:21 solomon ash uh he was a psychologist he
0:48:24 asked a group
0:48:25 of participants uh to
0:48:28 to complete like a task right a simple
0:48:31 task of
0:48:33 a like perceptual task and and he asked
0:48:36 each of them
0:48:37 to choose a line right to choose a line
0:48:39 look at the lines over here in the
0:48:41 one in a good abc that that match the
0:48:44 length
0:48:45 of one of the three different lines all
0:48:47 right so you have
0:48:48 the first line there then you have the
0:48:51 line a
0:48:52 b or c and they have to choose a line
0:48:55 that matches with
0:48:56 the first line now what had happened and
0:48:58 this was of course the experiment is
0:49:00 that when
0:49:00 these participants were asked
0:49:03 individually
0:49:05 the participants would choose the
0:49:07 correct line because it's quite easy you
0:49:08 can simply see
0:49:09 and perceive uh you know what
0:49:12 what the the first line might correlate
0:49:16 with if it correlates with a b or c so
0:49:18 they would choose in fact the correct
0:49:20 line
0:49:21 but then what happened is uh when they
0:49:23 were asked in
0:49:24 in the presence of uh of other people
0:49:27 who were
0:49:28 like volunteers were part of that
0:49:30 experiment
0:49:32 and who intentionally selected the wrong
0:49:34 line
0:49:35 right it's a bit like the the milgram
0:49:36 experiment but it's in a very different
0:49:38 way
0:49:39 uh around 75 percent of participants
0:49:44 uh conformed to the group
0:49:47 at least once right so the group that
0:49:51 that indicated the wrong line right so
0:49:53 think about that
0:49:54 right so on on their own they could
0:49:56 identify the right one
0:49:57 but when this other group of the
0:49:59 majority group
0:50:01 all identifies the wrong line
0:50:04 the individuals feel that sense of
0:50:08 of pressure right because they think
0:50:09 well maybe
0:50:11 somehow i'm not seeing right maybe
0:50:14 you know i have distorted vision or
0:50:16 something that i can't see
0:50:18 um but this is interesting because uh
0:50:21 you you see that
0:50:23 uh this is a good example of of this
0:50:25 kind of a normative influence because
0:50:27 the participants you know changed their
0:50:29 answer and conformed
0:50:31 uh to the dominant group who got the
0:50:34 answers wrong
0:50:35 just to fit in and just to avoid
0:50:37 standing out and see how
0:50:39 this could happen to us in life right
0:50:41 just that you could in fact
0:50:43 uh not feel the confidence you know of
0:50:46 proclaiming
0:50:47 your belief or the confidence of praying
0:50:50 solo the quantity of remembering allah
0:50:52 the confidence of even saying allah or
0:50:54 even saying muhammad
0:50:56 sallallahu alaihi wasallam in a setting
0:50:59 sometimes because you're just scared
0:51:01 that if there's a dominant group right
0:51:03 uh who
0:51:05 are all antagonistic towards this kind
0:51:07 of thinking or this kind of believing
0:51:09 uh then you just need to
0:51:13 um similar
0:51:21 you know you would you could a person
0:51:22 could change their belief a person could
0:51:24 change their views
0:51:26 uh about about anything islamic anything
0:51:29 islamic
0:51:30 um just in order to fit in and to avoid
0:51:33 standing out just like this line
0:51:35 experiment is showing us
0:51:38 um now the other one there's a few more
0:51:41 i think
0:51:42 here we are okay this is a good one this
0:51:44 is called eat your
0:51:46 veggies experiments if you go look at
0:51:48 this beautiful picture of this wonderful
0:51:50 array of vegetables
0:51:52 a beautiful picture made of different
0:51:55 colors and it just looks so
0:51:57 beautiful this is from experiment
0:52:00 by uh let's see the names over here
0:52:05 yeah thomas ursel and robinson uh and
0:52:08 more
0:52:08 this is from 2017. now the
0:52:12 what this is showing is that the
0:52:13 introduction of posters
0:52:16 uh displaying social norm messages about
0:52:19 social norms
0:52:20 which emphasize that most people eat
0:52:22 vegetables with their meal in a
0:52:23 workplace restaurant
0:52:25 was associated with an increase in the
0:52:27 proportion of meals purchased with
0:52:29 vegetables so therefore
0:52:30 they they found that if you have these
0:52:33 pictures
0:52:34 displayed in in in workplace restaurants
0:52:38 uh when people saw those pictures
0:52:41 uh they would feel more inclined to
0:52:45 uh to purchase vegetables with their
0:52:48 meals okay and even after
0:52:51 the posters were removed uh
0:52:54 still people continued purchasing
0:52:57 vegetables
0:52:58 with their meals right so therefore
0:53:00 there are there's a connection between
0:53:03 uh what we're seeing of social norms the
0:53:05 visual
0:53:06 uh perception of social norm and
0:53:09 messages
0:53:10 uh in and people's and behavioral
0:53:13 patterns and they could be even they
0:53:15 couldn't
0:53:15 they don't have to be uh images they
0:53:18 could even be slogans
0:53:19 slogans right catch phrases that that
0:53:22 kind of tap into and
0:53:23 enter into uh people's uh in a social
0:53:27 landscaping
0:53:28 and so uh this could uh this this
0:53:31 this is interesting now if you think
0:53:33 about for example uh think about
0:53:36 let's say um think about the uh
0:53:39 the media and the way that the media
0:53:42 affects our social norms so
0:53:44 things that we perhaps hadn't even
0:53:46 considered
0:53:47 but because of the of their frequency on
0:53:49 the media or social media
0:53:51 these things have now entered into our
0:53:53 social landscapes and have an impact
0:53:55 on on our behavior uh and our thoughts
0:53:58 and our beliefs
0:53:59 now if there are let's say for example
0:54:01 if there's multiple programs about
0:54:04 let's say the absence or the loss of
0:54:05 religion or religious faith
0:54:07 being aired on tv now we might come to
0:54:10 think
0:54:10 uh or people might come to think of it
0:54:13 as simply an acceptable
0:54:15 trend like a social trend has become a
0:54:16 social norm because
0:54:18 because you're seeing it played out
0:54:20 every day all the time
0:54:22 you might even start thinking that yeah
0:54:23 most people maybe uh
0:54:25 are like that now you know therefore
0:54:27 there's evidence that our perceptions of
0:54:30 what
0:54:30 other people in the this picture is
0:54:32 showing that
0:54:33 the perception of what other people eat
0:54:36 uh might predict our own uh
0:54:40 our own style or sense of eating right
0:54:43 because
0:54:44 explaining why um uh
0:54:47 maybe you might have like social
0:54:49 groupings of similar social classes but
0:54:52 you might have
0:54:53 similar dietary patterns right
0:54:57 because because of this therefore that
0:55:00 the dietary patterns of
0:55:01 socially connected people might be quite
0:55:03 similar
0:55:04 right and there's evidence that you know
0:55:06 people use the eating behavior of others
0:55:08 as sometimes a guide for their own
0:55:10 eating uh decision
0:55:11 so this is therefore another good
0:55:13 example of that the way that social
0:55:15 norms are
0:55:16 generated are created and based upon
0:55:18 things that we're seeing
0:55:20 and what people you know begin to buy
0:55:22 into over time and begin to practice
0:55:25 and then they don't even need the
0:55:26 picture as a stimulus anymore
0:55:29 and then there's one more we have i
0:55:32 think
0:55:32 no that's it okay we answered therefore
0:55:34 there was oh here
0:55:36 we missed this one the jelly bean
0:55:38 experiment
0:55:39 uh yeah this is the important one
0:55:42 so this is an interesting one this is a
0:55:44 very simple one this is from
0:55:46 uh jenny's in 1932.
0:55:49 uh now in this one what the what the
0:55:51 hell what had to happen
0:55:53 is that uh they said hey you have you
0:55:56 know you have a
0:55:57 a jar of jelly beans and people had to
0:56:01 estimate the number of beans in a bottle
0:56:04 okay a number of beans in a bottle
0:56:07 so uh now what happened is at first they
0:56:11 they estimated
0:56:12 the number individually right so they
0:56:15 could give
0:56:16 you could say for example in that in
0:56:18 this a jar of jelly beans is going to be
0:56:20 i don't know
0:56:20 let's say uh 400 jelly beans okay so you
0:56:24 could have an individual estimate
0:56:26 but then they did it later on as a group
0:56:29 now
0:56:30 after did it as a group the and then the
0:56:33 group results came out then they were
0:56:34 asked again
0:56:35 individually uh but what happened is
0:56:38 that
0:56:39 the people did it individually in the
0:56:40 first time they they they shifted their
0:56:42 estimates they changed their estimates
0:56:45 after they had what the rest of the
0:56:47 group had to say so therefore
0:56:50 uh it shifts from the original guesses
0:56:53 uh to something closer to what the other
0:56:55 members of the group had
0:56:56 had then guessed and so therefore it
0:56:59 just shows the way that
0:57:00 uh sometimes if we're in in a social
0:57:03 grouping
0:57:04 uh if if the majority in fact are saying
0:57:07 one thing and we're saying something
0:57:08 else
0:57:09 even though what we're saying might in
0:57:10 fact be the correct thing
0:57:12 sometimes people conform to what the
0:57:15 majority is
0:57:16 saying and it's interesting in fact
0:57:17 allah in the quran is really
0:57:19 striking this message for us because
0:57:21 allah is saying allah says for example
0:57:23 that if you
0:57:25 allah saying to brussels that if you
0:57:27 obey the majority of them then then they
0:57:30 would
0:57:30 you know mislead you allah is telling
0:57:32 the believers if you
0:57:36 if you obey the majority if you uh if
0:57:39 you
0:57:39 listen to the majority of them then then
0:57:41 you would go astray
0:57:43 and allah in fact in saying the quran
0:57:45 for example says
0:57:48 a small minority of people are truly
0:57:50 thankful
0:57:51 that allah is saying that uh you know
0:57:54 not to always therefore think you have
0:57:56 to be with the majority because
0:57:57 majority perhaps is going to be wrong in
0:58:00 many cases but to allah saying search
0:58:02 for the truth
0:58:03 be people of understanding be people of
0:58:05 reason be people of understanding
0:58:06 perception
0:58:08 people of insight uh have that own sense
0:58:10 of self
0:58:12 uh consciousness about you in fact the
0:58:14 prophet sallam
0:58:15 he um he once addressed his people in
0:58:17 makkah and says
0:58:19 oh quraysh is you know ransom your souls
0:58:23 before allah
0:58:24 because i can't help you in anything he
0:58:26 says to his daughter your father
0:58:28 muhammad oh o
0:58:29 fatima daughter of muhammad ransom your
0:58:32 soul before allah
0:58:33 because i can't help you right because
0:58:34 he wants all of us therefore to have a
0:58:36 our own sense of uh you know of
0:58:39 consciousness our own sense of
0:58:41 strength and and willpower and and these
0:58:44 kind of things and so
0:58:46 uh these things i think are extremely uh
0:58:49 important uh now
0:58:52 we're coming to the end of it very soon
0:58:54 in fact there's only a few slides left
0:58:56 and so
0:58:57 uh i don't mind if you if you wanted to
0:58:59 take a break but i got to continue in
0:59:01 charlotte because of the recording
0:59:03 um now look at the quranic advice
0:59:06 allah gives us here and it's very very
0:59:08 powerful i want all of us to really pay
0:59:09 attention to this a lot
0:59:11 uh in the first one allah mentions this
0:59:13 verse from chapter 25 verse 27 28 allah
0:59:16 says and beware of the day
0:59:18 the day of qiyama day of judgment all of
0:59:19 us will stand before allah
0:59:21 there's nothing that we do in our lives
0:59:23 that will not be measured on the on the
0:59:25 ground divine scale
0:59:26 right nobody is free from that
0:59:29 everything this is a very key point
0:59:30 for the for atheist people to think
0:59:32 about right
0:59:33 imagine without the sense of moral
0:59:35 accountability meaning it would mean
0:59:37 your life is this like
0:59:38 utter utter purposeless nothingness
0:59:40 because
0:59:41 everything you do has no consequence
0:59:43 tomorrow on a day when it's supposed to
0:59:45 have consequence
0:59:46 it would mean therefore that your
0:59:47 actions the way that you treat other
0:59:49 people
0:59:50 right uh the way that you are treated by
0:59:52 people the way that you whatever you do
0:59:54 in your life
0:59:54 has no consequence because there's no
0:59:56 there's no bearing but allah is telling
0:59:58 us
0:59:59 right from the beginning believe in
1:00:00 allah believe in the last day believe in
1:00:02 allah believe in the last day
1:00:04 meaning if you do that then everything
1:00:05 that you do in this life
1:00:07 would have uh you know would be
1:00:08 meaningful you'll be able to
1:00:10 regulate your sense of behavior your
1:00:12 beliefs you know to be in line with what
1:00:14 allah intends for you
1:00:15 and allah says and beware of the day
1:00:18 that the wrong doer will bite his nails
1:00:19 and regret and say
1:00:21 oh i wish i'd followed the way along
1:00:24 with the messenger
1:00:25 and he will say ya laitani woe to me
1:00:28 i wish i'd never taken so and so as a
1:00:31 close friend
1:00:33 right i wish i'd never taken such a such
1:00:35 person
1:00:36 as a close friend because friendships
1:00:38 are so key
1:00:40 so if you think about our sense of
1:00:41 conformity uh and our patterns of
1:00:44 behavior
1:00:44 uh our influences are are just dictating
1:00:48 to us
1:00:48 who we end up becoming right you our
1:00:51 friends make us
1:00:52 who we are right if you think about i it
1:00:55 goes back
1:00:56 to when you were young i mean your early
1:00:58 character development
1:01:00 really has a lot to do with who your
1:01:02 friends were in those days it's about
1:01:04 you know the company you were keeping
1:01:05 the words you were hearing
1:01:07 uh you know the kind of thing even likes
1:01:09 and dislikes perhaps or influenced by
1:01:11 that and that's something that's
1:01:12 inescapable because we're all
1:01:14 involved we're all members of society
1:01:16 but we have a choice
1:01:18 on who we choose to be friend we have a
1:01:20 choice right either we can choose very
1:01:22 negative company we can choose positive
1:01:24 we can choose people who are you know
1:01:26 good or people who are bad it's very
1:01:27 very simple like that it's like the
1:01:29 parental message of of eternity so it
1:01:32 says
1:01:36 i wish i had never taken such and such a
1:01:38 person as a close friend
1:01:39 that the verse in fact continues by
1:01:41 saying like
1:01:45 he says that that friend misled me
1:01:48 after guidance had come to me look at
1:01:50 that the the bad friend had misled me
1:01:53 after guidance came to me
1:01:55 what kind of shaytan and the shaytan the
1:01:58 satan the devil
1:01:59 is for the human being ever a deserter
1:02:02 in the hour of need
1:02:03 right that shaytan would desert you
1:02:06 right and even on that day people would
1:02:07 deserve one another because everybody is
1:02:09 in it for themselves on that day if this
1:02:11 is an individual
1:02:12 testing and accountability so therefore
1:02:14 don't be
1:02:15 so you know captivated by that always
1:02:17 remember that
1:02:18 you know you have your own sense of
1:02:20 being at the same time and if you're
1:02:21 going to keep company keep company with
1:02:23 the best of company uh here's another
1:02:25 one all in quran says
1:02:27 do not mix truth with falsehood or hide
1:02:30 the truth when you know it
1:02:32 now this is the second part the verse
1:02:33 was very striking because it says keep
1:02:34 up the prayer
1:02:36 and pay the zakat the prescribed arms
1:02:38 and
1:02:41 and make roku bow your heads with those
1:02:44 who bow their heads
1:02:45 like you know therefore allah is saying
1:02:47 keep good company
1:02:49 right that you know be not just that
1:02:51 you're doing things like you're
1:02:52 establishing the prayer you're paying
1:02:53 the zakat but at the same time your
1:02:55 society
1:02:56 your social influences should really
1:02:59 uh complement the fact that you're
1:03:01 keeping up the prayer and you're paying
1:03:02 your zakat
1:03:04 allah says bow your heads with those who
1:03:06 bow their hands meaning keep that sense
1:03:08 of company
1:03:09 of of pious people of good people uh
1:03:12 and and that's what allah wants you know
1:03:14 for you to and this is just all your
1:03:15 social
1:03:16 nourishment that's your that's your
1:03:18 social success your spiritual success
1:03:21 um uh next verse allah says
1:03:25 uh and allah says
1:03:28 and keep yourself patient with those who
1:03:31 call upon their lord in the morning and
1:03:33 the evening
1:03:33 seeking allah's pleasure allah's
1:03:35 countenance and let not your eyes pass
1:03:37 beyond them desiring adornment
1:03:41 of the worldly life and do not obey one
1:03:43 whose heart we have made heedless of our
1:03:45 remembrance
1:03:46 and who follows his desires and whose
1:03:47 affairs ever lost
1:03:49 uh in neglect and this is so powerful
1:03:51 this verse allah is saying
1:03:52 you know be with good company if i'm
1:03:56 always caring about
1:03:57 allah's greatness and allah's
1:03:59 remembrance that's going to have an
1:04:00 effect on my heart or my being
1:04:02 right i'm going to feel connected to
1:04:04 that i'm going to feel as if you know i
1:04:05 should remember allah
1:04:06 right but if you're always hearing let's
1:04:08 say for example always around people who
1:04:10 swear
1:04:11 and always use foul and filthy language
1:04:14 right that's gonna have an effect on you
1:04:15 gonna have effect on your heart you're
1:04:16 gonna feel ugly there's sustained that's
1:04:19 horrible
1:04:20 right you're gonna be hearing that all
1:04:21 the time and allah hasn't created your
1:04:23 your senses you know for hearing that
1:04:25 for saying that for seeing that
1:04:27 right but allah is saying keep yourself
1:04:29 patient that is patient because it's
1:04:31 going to be testing for you
1:04:32 right that's going to be tough for you
1:04:34 it could be for his i is so profound
1:04:36 because
1:04:36 when allah says keep yourself patient
1:04:39 with those who call upon their lord
1:04:40 maybe that's just not the
1:04:42 the the the popular thing to do
1:04:46 maybe isn't the the most popular thing
1:04:48 to do to keep yourself patient with
1:04:50 those who call upon the lord maybe
1:04:52 that's like the the group that's seen as
1:04:56 uh as inferior maybe that's the group
1:04:58 seen as
1:04:59 as kind of worthless right in in
1:05:02 people's perceptions also with with this
1:05:05 social conformity the way that people
1:05:07 have just conformed to other people's
1:05:09 perceptions
1:05:10 and allah is saying but wait keep
1:05:12 yourself patient with that group
1:05:14 with those who call upon their lord in
1:05:16 the morning and evening
1:05:17 and seeking allah's pleasure allah's
1:05:19 face and let not your eyes pass beyond
1:05:22 them
1:05:22 not just not just keeping a separation
1:05:24 with them allah says let not your eyes
1:05:26 pass beyond them desiring adornments of
1:05:29 the wildlife meaning
1:05:30 you're making a wrong choice choosing
1:05:33 people whose hearts
1:05:35 are connected to the hereafter and
1:05:37 instead you're choosing a people
1:05:38 whose hearts are sunk in only seeking
1:05:42 this temporary short ephemeral fleeting
1:05:45 passing life
1:05:46 right and allah says and do not obey one
1:05:48 whose heart we have made heedless of our
1:05:50 remembrance
1:05:51 and it follows his desires and whose
1:05:52 affair is ever in
1:05:54 neglect and then the last verse allah
1:05:57 says close friends will be enemies on
1:05:59 to one another on that day except the
1:06:01 righteous so even though people might
1:06:02 think that if i'm with
1:06:04 uh certain such popular people uh i'll
1:06:07 find
1:06:08 agreement i'd find uh acceptance
1:06:12 i'd be liked uh you know more uh
1:06:15 by being with them and allah is saying
1:06:17 but close friends
1:06:18 will be enemies and that they accept the
1:06:20 righteous one they may allah make
1:06:22 us all amongst the righteous and make
1:06:24 allah make us choose the best of friends
1:06:26 uh look at the prophetic advice in the
1:06:28 next slide so
1:06:29 um the prophet says that
1:06:37 that a person is upon the religion of
1:06:39 his close friend
1:06:41 so therefore he said look closely you
1:06:43 know beware beware
1:06:45 of the one that you befriend right
1:06:47 because
1:06:48 if a person is on the religion of his
1:06:50 friend that means that your company
1:06:52 would influence
1:06:53 what you take of the religion right if
1:06:55 your if your company
1:06:57 is is mocking religion allah in fact in
1:06:59 the quran says that whenever you're in a
1:07:01 gathering of people
1:07:02 if they begin to say bad about allah
1:07:05 allah says leave that gathering
1:07:07 right it's like the example of hamza of
1:07:09 his you know
1:07:10 as a course of his class last week about
1:07:14 stopping and ignoring and and just
1:07:16 leaving that gathering
1:07:18 so allah is saying that you know if
1:07:19 you're in that gathering allah says just
1:07:22 get up and leave and come back when
1:07:23 people just change the conversation
1:07:25 right that's something for us to do so
1:07:27 therefore the prophet said that
1:07:29 a person is on the religion of his
1:07:31 friend so beware
1:07:32 look closely who you befriend right it's
1:07:35 a key advice for all of us
1:07:37 in fact one of the beautiful words of
1:07:38 ibn and jersey is that he says
1:07:40 uh adeen the whole religion
1:07:43 is character
1:07:48 therefore increases you in good
1:07:50 character increases you in the religion
1:07:52 meaning therefore now that's quite
1:07:54 profound because the good
1:07:55 character there is in fact really
1:07:57 informed i think with
1:07:59 with the company that you keep you keep
1:08:01 your friendships your allies
1:08:02 you know your your social setting uh all
1:08:05 has a bearing on your character
1:08:07 right but if if that's corrupted then
1:08:10 the whole religion therefore is really
1:08:11 is compromised
1:08:12 so therefore be careful about your
1:08:14 friendship because your friendships
1:08:16 would really have a great bearing on
1:08:18 what your character would end up
1:08:19 becoming uh look at this next hadi this
1:08:22 is beautiful the example of a good
1:08:23 companion
1:08:24 who sits with you in comparison with a
1:08:27 bad one
1:08:28 is like that of the musk seller and the
1:08:31 blacksmith's bellow
1:08:33 from the first one you would either buy
1:08:35 musk or enjoy its good smell
1:08:37 while the bellows would either burn your
1:08:39 body or your clothes or you get a bad
1:08:41 nasty smell thereof meaning
1:08:43 good companionship right you might not
1:08:46 do what everybody
1:08:48 does in that good company but that's
1:08:50 okay that's fine
1:08:51 but at least you would take a good smell
1:08:54 you know from him this is the analogy
1:08:56 uh but if you're in a bad company right
1:08:59 you might not
1:09:00 say and do everything that bad people
1:09:03 say but if you come out of that
1:09:05 at least at least you're gonna get
1:09:06 you're gonna have a bad nasty smell from
1:09:08 that but the worst is you're gonna burn
1:09:09 your clothes
1:09:10 right so therefore think about your your
1:09:13 company a good company like a perfume
1:09:15 seller and a bad company
1:09:16 like a blacksmith's bellows all right so
1:09:19 you're going to have
1:09:20 a good effect from the first one even if
1:09:23 it's not the fullest
1:09:24 still you're going to come out with a
1:09:25 good smell uh and and the bad company if
1:09:28 you're not going to do exactly what
1:09:29 they're doing but still at least
1:09:31 you're going to be influenced and
1:09:33 tainted and stained
1:09:34 by that negative company and the last
1:09:37 prophet says that
1:09:38 you will be with those whom you love
1:09:41 right so choose carefully therefore
1:09:43 all of us about the ones that we love if
1:09:45 we
1:09:46 uh the ones that we love in this life
1:09:47 are the ones that you know will be
1:09:48 within the next life and so therefore if
1:09:50 you choose the best of company
1:09:51 who have the best of manners who have
1:09:53 the best of faith uh
1:09:55 you will be with those whom you love and
1:09:56 may allah make us
1:09:58 uh in the next life with our prophet
1:10:00 sallallahu
1:10:04 these i think are for us in important
1:10:06 lessons for us all to take
1:10:08 uh now i want us to i think we're at the
1:10:11 end now so we're going to go inshaallah
1:10:13 to the last
1:10:14 of all the slides and that is uh
1:10:17 here we are here we are okay here we
1:10:20 have a
1:10:21 basketball okay and this is our
1:10:24 concluding lesson uh for this
1:10:28 session uh on today's course
1:10:31 um on uh you know your environment and
1:10:34 the way that your environment has a
1:10:35 great bearing
1:10:36 on on yourself doubts the way that we
1:10:39 overcome the doubts the people that we
1:10:40 keep company with that would help us to
1:10:42 overcome the doubts and these kind of
1:10:43 things and the way that
1:10:44 the opposite is also true that if we put
1:10:47 ourselves in bad situations the
1:10:48 situation is like that shark infested
1:10:50 water thompson mentioned last week
1:10:52 uh because if we're in the shock
1:10:54 infested water around
1:10:56 sharks and then we're gonna be of course
1:10:59 uh
1:10:59 you know we're exposing ourselves to
1:11:01 that uh to that danger
1:11:03 now here we have a thing about playing
1:11:05 basketball with mma
1:11:07 fighters now the the point is this that
1:11:10 if
1:11:10 if a basketball player plays a
1:11:12 basketball final league winning game
1:11:15 with mma fighter is he going to win or
1:11:18 not did you imagine that so if imagine a
1:11:20 basketball
1:11:22 player let's say a top of the end is
1:11:25 playing a basketball
1:11:26 final league winning game
1:11:30 with mma fighters do you think he's
1:11:33 going to win
1:11:35 he won't win that low let he won't even
1:11:37 score many points but if he plays with
1:11:39 other professional basketball players
1:11:42 his chances of winning are much better
1:11:44 because he's in an arena in an
1:11:46 environment
1:11:47 of his own of his own simply right
1:11:51 now just like if you think of life like
1:11:53 that as a game although his life isn't a
1:11:55 game in fact
1:11:56 it's like that's like what macbeth says
1:11:58 when when he receives the news
1:12:01 why lady macbeth committing suicide you
1:12:03 know towards the end of macbeth
1:12:05 and what does he say he says what is
1:12:06 life life is like uh
1:12:08 a man who has like his hour on stage a
1:12:11 tale
1:12:12 told by an idiot you know so life is
1:12:15 not life isn't life is subhan allah life
1:12:17 is a
1:12:18 the gift allah has given us but but
1:12:21 the the analogy is just like the game in
1:12:23 life
1:12:24 then you know your job is to find your
1:12:26 teammates of iman
1:12:28 not your teammates you know of disbelief
1:12:31 and teammates of doubts may allah make
1:12:33 us of those inshallah who have
1:12:34 great strength in this i pray inshallah
1:12:36 this was beneficial
1:12:38 for myself i was in need of this as much
1:12:41 as you were in need of this
1:12:43 we're all in the same journey of life um
1:12:45 but i pray inshallah this was uh
1:12:47 was of some benefit inshaallah for you