I don't want kids to go away with just knowing
that you do this in Islam you do that,
and they just equate the Russell Brand’s New Age Ideas;
we get the same result of doing whatever we do.
But I was thinking of saying that maybe
Islam is about also our reason of existing.
What you have to realize is
we have definitions in the dictionary;
But what we're doing is you've got 1400 years worth of tradition,
But now you're you're trying to kind of force into English terms.
You can't do.
And you're not teaching..
what the purpose of Salah is like
the whole purpose of Salah is to gain nearness to Allah,
is to ultimately get awareness Like you said, ihsan / excellence ...
Prayer is not really teaching it properly.....
But I would say that you're teaching it.
You need to have a structure when you're teaching it.
For example, if you're teaching Shahada
You think you believe that
There is none worthy of worship besides Allah
and Prophet Muhmmed (pbuh) is the His last messenger
and you believe firmly without there being any space for doubt
with absolute certainty, that Allah is the one.
And then you go into Zakat, and then you break them down.
So it depends... systematic
I'm a primary school teacher myself as well.
So if you're teaching Salah (Islamic prayer)
and you're not teaching, what the purpose of salah...
Like the whole purpose of salah,
The whole purpose of salah is
to gain nearness to Allah, to ultimately get awareness.
Like you said Excellence. So that's the ultimate objective of Salah.
But if you're praying salah just for movements,
and just so you don't get bad deeds, then the intention is wrong, isn't it?
Yeah. So the intention has to be that
you're worshipping Allah (swt) to gain Piety, to gain nearness to Him.
And that's the objective of all forms of worship.
And that's what you're supposed to be like...
even before salah Like people say, how do I improve my salah?
My Salah is not at that level.
If a person is just teaching. No, just pray.
And it will be at that level, nope.
If you speak to the people of knowledge,
they will say, look, just like a person that's preparing for a boxing match.
If he doesn't do anything, a preparation beforehand,
he's going to go into the boxing ring
and he's going to get knocked out very quickly.
So a boxer, whenever he's preparing, you'll see him punching a bag
where somebody that doesn't know what this is about,
what on earth is he doing,
why is he punching something that's not punching back?
And then he starts pulling stuff and he does the rowing,
and he starts doing weights, and then he starts going jogging.
The whole point of that is preparing your mindset, is getting you ready.
So when you enter the ring and the ring is salah,
and then when you start salah, because your mindset is ready
and you're prepared, your salah has more weight behind it.
It's like there's another narration that says,
if a person doesn't eat halal,they don't watch halal,
they don't do halal (Legitimate ),
And then they ask Allah,
And then they aresurprised that their duas aren't accepted,
but everything that the person is doing is haram (forbidden).
So Islam is interlinked by presenting one thing by itself as a ritual.
You are 100% right
It turns the deen into a mockery..
And it makes it seem not practical to somebody
that is living in the 21st century,
and It does, it should and it has to have a spiritual effect on you
And and it does and it should make you refrain from sin, for example,
if a person has a bad relationship with his mother
and he praises Salah, after that salah..
that Salah should have an effect on him, it should make him reflect.
In fact, there was a study done, if I'm not mistaken,
I think it was about 2008 or something.
And that study said that prayer; It comes, the amygdala, amygdala part of the brain
that makes a person feel very stressful, agitated
The flight or flight response, exactly....
So we have even scientific reasons or justifications
of why praying salah can calm a person.
If science can tell us how Salah is coming up,
ensurely religion should have something more to offer
and the more they offer is purification of the heart..
It removes sins from the heart, makes you see things more clearer, more calmer.
So I would say to him, when you're teaching salah..
definitely teach it with an emphasis on spirituality as well,
because that's the emphasis of Islam.
That's why I thought the pillars of Islam and Islam that Eman / faith,
That are lke differnt types,
how do they connect then?
Yeah.
so praying salah and doing the remembrance of Allah,
it ultimately leads you to Ihsan /excellence.
So excellence is the goal, salah is the means.
That's what it is.
I think that's like in one sentence about us to put it,
these rituals are worshipped to the means.
and the means is taqwa/ God consciousness, for example,
even with Ramadan and fasting, whenever we ask anybody or why do you fast?
They say, so we feel that the poor people feel.
That's one of the reasons,
however, that's not what the the Quran says,
The Quran says we fast to gain God consciousness.
That's the objective. That's the goal.
However, feeling what the poor people feel and other such reasons....
They are peripheries... They're like branches.
They're not like the main trunk or
main route and the main route with any ibadah /worship is God consciousness.
That you're going down the street and you fear Allah..
If you're in a situation you see maybe £50 on the road,
your Salah should affect your decision at that moment in time.
And that's the beauty of Islam.
Islam is a practical religion whilst other people will say yes,
we aim to get closer....
Sorry about it, he does it every week.
If you want we can swap.
..... All of these speakers...they're trying to just convert islam into like these...
I think you've got something else ... [Meaningless acts of worship]
So What Jordan Peterson does is because Jordan Peterson is inherently a Christian.
But Jordan Peter understands that
the traditional kind of form of Christianity is it's no longer being adopted by people
like people have seen through it, especially with the council of nicaea,
and a constant reformations of Christianity has become a shell of his former self.
So what they're doing now is they're taking principles
and they're taking a new age ideas
and they're kind of merging the two.
Yeah. What he will do?
There's a term that he uses
even when he's talking about..
he likes talking about a novelist like dostoyevsky ...
but he willultimately.. you notice he will link it to Christian.
But what he does is there's a term forgotten it now what he says is
these stories begin with A... it's like they're figures
I guess if I was to use a simpler word, I'll say they're metaphors.
And that's the kind of thing that he goes for,
certain things, like even certain Muslims,
They will say, I think the Qadiani
like they say, Jesus (A.S) is a metaphorical rising to the heaven.
But I mean all the literatures;
The Quran and the hadiths say otherwise.
But going back to the point, you're 100% Right.
Because if you're going to the whole Jordan Peterson, Russell Band,
you know that Russell Brand
Yeah, that's a very good point because
it's unfortunate that some Muslims the way they preach the religion.
It's exactly this. I'll give you an example..
When parents ask their children, have you prayed your Salah?
Have you prayed you Salah?
But the scholars, they say rather than constantly asking, have you prayed your salah..
Now that you prayed your salah..how do you feel?
So automatically from a young age,
you are getting a child to think my salah supposed to materialize into something.
that this is what I do as a primary I teach year 5 students..
That's what I tried to do even from a young age,
even when they're praying salah, there's one salah I call it the rocket salah
That when you're praying your salah even before salah,
you do an exercise; you say Allah is watching me.
Allah is watching me. Allah is watching me.
You say that a good 10 to 15 times, and when you kind of into habit
and then you start your salah, 'Allahu Akbar' but it's still like a track
like a chorus of a music track l still running in your head, reminding you.
So it's these sorts of techniques, sisters
that I think as educated is very important for us
to be educated as educators and then educate the children.
Otherwise, you are 100% Right.
We were pushing forward this. I wouldn't say ...
Pointless... Mindless..
And that's why I would take Russell Brand out of that,
Russell Brand, he's very inclined towards Hinduism.
What does he say about Islam?
with regard to Islam, he's very wishy washy in the sense
that he would say it's a means to God.
Like, it doesn't matter what it is.
No matter what means you take.
Yeah, it's thing to God.
But I mean, the doctor Zakir Naik's approach,
which is you got somebody that says one plus one is one.
One plus one is two. One plus one is three...
Although it may be a bit simplistic, but it does make sense in the sense
that you got so many people giving so many answers,
But ultimately speaking, there is going to be one answer.
For example, you got one group of people saying no, God has a son,
Others are saying, no, God doesn't have a son,
God has a son, God has a mother, and there's hundreds of other Godlings as well.
How on earth can you reconcile all these three world views? You can't..
So naturally speaking, there will have to be a time, when a person goes,
You know what, I really need to look into this because
it's only going be one that is ultimately truth.
Yes, we do need to respect the other ones.
And yes, I'm sure
it's come from a source.
But ultimately speaking, there is only one answer.
Yeah. It'll be interesting to hear what
the Hindu teacher has to... kind of saying with the glass of how...
He's open-minded actually to be fair to him,
but i was thinking that because he's almost me.
I think too deep sometimes and
I'm like I don't want kids to go away with just knowing that
you do this in Islam, you do that...
and they just equate the Russell brand new age ideas,
we get the same results doing whatever we do.
But I was thinking of saying, maybe Islam is about also our reason of existing as well.
That we're here to cultivate the land..
Maybe they can start growing something or
I mean thinking because He is an academic, maybe
if we just give him, like, a few points,
it might not necessarily be materialized into anything.
I mean, reflecting on it, two books do come to mind that do go a bit deeper.
One that might be really relevant to him is called
'A Thinking Person's Guide to Islam'
And that's a very good book
where he has delved in deeper into the kind of spiritual aspects
and he's linked old age old age kind of thinkers and philosophers
like Socrates and Plato, and he has kind of looked into it.
Very good book, A Thinking Person's Guide to Islam.
And the other one that I would say is, Imam Ghazali's book;
That's a very good book as well.
It's a concise. 'IHYA' 'ULUM AL-DIN'/ The Revival of the Religious Sciences
These two books are in English
It's something really fancy, like
the Light of Guidance or something like that.
Yeah.
So these two books; They delve a bit deeper
They give the spiritual aspect as well.
They cover the Five Pillars as well.
That should do it.
sometimes like I was thinking of.. maybe talking about why Allah created us
like talking about I did create him for worship ...
The only thing with...
That's problematic... some people say that.
no, because the Quran says that Allah created us..
Allah's created Jinn and man for His worship.
But that's the thing that verse,
it's a very kind of condensed verse, you need to then unpack it.
What do you mean by worship?
When I say worship to Him, what comes to your mind?
just off the top,
anything could be enacted upon to be considered as a worship..
Exactly.
But an average person, they would say, oh, prayer, doing tasbeeh, reading the Quran,
and then they're running out of things to say.
But I would even say giving dawah / calling to Islam in the park,
or seeing a non Muslim and offering them a seat on the bus.
You know what I'm saying?
Going out with the family and praying Zuhr salah as well.
So there's a lot to unpack.
That is the term worship, sister, because what happens is, what you have to realize is
we have definitions in the dictionary.
But what we're doing is you've got 1400 years worth of tradition
that now you're trying to kind of force into English terms
you can't do.. like worship and slavery and stuff like that.
It's not what it means in the 21st century sense like......
It needs to be read in context,
You know what I'm saying?
So sometimes I think literature like this,
it'll be worth in reading through, maybe in the holidays or something,
because for him as a teacher, you need to have a lesson plan.
And for him over there, sometimes you have to think on the spot,
especially when students ask your question.
So it might be worth especially
because students can ask the most outlandish questions.
They're not prepared....
So definitely these two books,
'A thinking person's guide to Islam' and
Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (Rah)'s book 'IHYA' 'ULUM AL-DIN'
So both of them are that big.
And just tell him just before a lesson...
just kind of flick through that and just use that in the lesson.
Thank you so much. [My Pleasure]