up to 49 minutes - insha Allah I'll unite this with the previous post & it will be done!
Alhamdu llilah nahmaduhu w nastaa’inuhu wa nastag’firuhu w naa’uth bilahi min shururi anfusina wa min sayi’ati aa’malina, mai yahdihi Alahu fala modila lah wa man yudlel fala hadiya la wa a’ashhadu ana la ilaha ila Allah wa a’ashhadu anna muhamadan a’abduhu wa rasuluho bad. Khairo alhadithi kitabo Alah w khairo alhadi hadyu Muhamad sala Alahu Alaihi wa salam wa sharu alo’omori mohdathatuha wa kula muhdathaen bida’a wa kula bida’atin dalala wa kula dalalatin fi alnar
We begin by praising Allah, we praise Him, we seek His help and we ask for his forgiveness. We seek refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves and from the evil consequences of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides there is none to misguide & whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray there is none to guide. And I testify and bear witness that Allah alone is worthy of worship and that Muhammad may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him is the servant of Allah and his final messenger. After that the best speech is the book of Allah and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad and the worst of all the affairs are those matters that have been newly introduced into the religion. And every matter that is newly introduced into the religion of Islam is termed as a Bidaa or an innovation and all of the innovation are misguidance all of the misguidance is going astray and all the going astray is in the fire.
Here it is - Coca-Cola. What is this drink Coca-Cola. Lets read it. What does it say? Prepared and bottled by Coca-Cola. Untill there's given us the address that's nice. And it tells us the contents of this fantastic drink. the dynamic ribbon device and the contour bottle contains carbonated water. Carbonated water means fizzy water, water with gas in it. Gas. Sugar. Colour 1.50, food acid, flavorings and of course the modern replacement for the original ingredient which was cocaine is now caffeine. I mean it's very interesting because of course today's talk is not about coca-cola itself but it is about what Coca-cola symbolizes and what coca-cola stands for. Of course coca-cola symbolizes and stands for the American culture. The American culture. If there is one symbol we could say that identifies American culture it is coca-cola. And really it's increadibly appropriate that this drink symbolizes that culture. Because the coca-cola culture is a culture of materialism, it's a culture of consumerism, it's a culture that tells us that in order to enjoy life, in order to get the best out of life you should feed your passions and your desires and your appetites. That the way to be successful and the way to be happy is by surrounding yourself with the material possessions of the world. Buy this. Buy that. Have this. Have that. What you feel like - do it. What you feel like eating - eat it. The way you feel like behaving - behave like that. the things you feel like doing in life - do it. The God that is worshipped, the thing that is submit, the thing that the human being is to submit to and surrender to and obey are the passions and the desires. The "Nafs" what we call. The "Nafs". Al howa. The passions, the self, the desire. And this coca-cola symbolizes that pretty well. It symbolizes not only this attitude and this mentality and this philosophy of life it also gives us a pretty good idea of what is the real effect of living your life in that way. Because what does coca-cola do for you? You drink it, it gives you an immediate almost immediate response. The immediate response is a feeling of satisfaction, gratification and a boost of energy. This is what coca-cola does - you drink it, satisfaction, you get a boost of sugar from that, and a boost from the caffeine and probably a burp soon afterwards from the gas. But the reality is that very soon you follow a downward spiral. You follow a downward spiral. And soon after as you felt high you soon feel a low. And in order to try and reach that high again then you gonna take some more of this drink or some similar drink in order to reboost yourself. So in order to try and maintain yourself on this constant high then you are drinking more and more and taking more and more. And this is the reality of the person and the people who worship their desires and worship their passions and worship themselves. In fact it is illustrative of the whole manner in which Western society exists. Exactly that. there is no long lasting satisfaction. Satisfaction is temporarily, it is a temporary boost, a temporary moment of joy, it is followed by an equally low moment and in order to try and bring back that moment of happiness we consume more. We find more avenues in order to satisfy our desires but the reality is the passion and the desire can never be satisfied. This is a statement of fact about the human being. The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, said that if the son of Adam was give a valley of gold he would desire another one. If the son of Adam was give a valley of gold he would desire another one. Nothing will satisfy the desires of the sons and the daughters of Adam except the dust of the grave. Nothing is gonna satisfy our desires, the only time that our desires will end is when we are dead. So you see, a civilization if we can call it a civilization or a philosophy or ideology that teaches us that the way to be happy in life is by satisfying your passions and your desires by following your cravings, physical and emotional and ideological, that success in life is by surrounding yourself to material possessions. The reality is we know that this brings no long lasting satisfaction. We buy something nice we buy some new clothes, we get a new house, we get a new car, but how long does the joy and the pleasure of that last? A few hours, a few days, maybe a few years but before long we are craving for something more expensive, more beautiful, more fast. Faster. If our, we get our kicks from adrenalin that we try this sport and that sport but always we are looking for something that is gonna give us more of the adrenalin kick. Similarly some people satisfy their passions and their desires through sexual encounters - promiscuity, but there is no satisfaction because once you have tried everything then you need something else to excite you, you need something else to stimulate you so people go further and further down the road. Fetishes, orgies, same sex relationships, or it's not enough anymore that you have your own wife, you have to go and you have to enjoy yourself with another man's wife. That's how you have to get your kicks. Because this is the reality - you're never satisfied. It doesn't matter how much money you have - you want more, it doesn't matter how much fame and success you have - you want more, it doesn't matter how beautiful you are - you want to be more beautiful. This is the reality. So when we look at Western society what do we find? We find something pretty horrifying! We find the whole culture completely obsessed with consumerism. And what is the result and what is the consequence of that? What is the result and the consequence? The consequence is that we have a very minute portion of the world's population consuming a huge portion of its resources. 17%! 17% of the world's population consumes 70% of its resources. 1/7! 17% of the world's population consumes 70% of its resources. We know that the rain forests are being destroyed; we know that our environment is being polluted; we know that there is starvation, that people are dying, people do not have basic sanitation. People do not have basic access to clean water, to food, to basic medical care. But where is this taking place? these things are taking place in the so-called third world. But if you look to this so-called third world you'll find something very strange. You'll find that these people are actually exporting food, the are exporting, although the people are dying they are exporting food, although they don't have sufficient medicines they are exporting the ingredients to make the medicines. They don't have sufficient resources to clothe themselves the people do not have clothes yet they are making clothes for other people. Where is this food being exported to? Where are these ingredients and these resources and these minerals being exported to? Where’re these clothes, these fashions - where are they being exported to? Who is consuming all of these things? The West, America, Australia, Europe. That's small percentage of the world's population. Controlling, consuming and exploiting the resources of the world. Why? Because of the way of life the coca-cola culture that teaches you that the way to enjoy your life is by following your passions and your desires and satisfying your base animalistic instincts. This is the reality. And in order for this society, this culture to continue to exist it is necessary that large portion of the world's population lives in poverty and is subjugated politically, economically and ideologically. Because the Western capitalist materialistic system depends on being able to exploit people. It depends on being able to acquire food and minerals and resources and labour at the most minimal cost and to be able to repackage it and resell it at the maximum cost. This is the reality of the coca-cola culture. This is the reality of materialistic philosophy that is now dominating the world in which we live. And the reality is that the Western world will stop ultimately at nothing. Wars, instigating wars, inventing wars, murdering people, bombing them, killing them - this is not really important in order to achieve the ultimate goal of dominating the world economically and politically and militarily. Why? As they say "to guard our precious way of life." That's what they say. That's what George Bush told us: "to guard our precious way of life." The precious way of life means that we are free to follow our passions and our desires, that the way to be happy is to have as many material goods as you can, and it doesn't really matter if the rest of the world suffers as long as we have "our precious way of life." that's the reality. So what has this got to do with the Muslims? Why therefore do we choose this title "the coca-cola Muslim generation." What is taking place here of course is a war. A conflict. Not a conflict mind you necessarily of arms and weapons. But it is an ideological conflict. It is a war of ideologies. It is a war of world views. It is a war, a battle concerning what is the nature of the human being. What is the purpose of life? Why are we here and what is the reason of our existence? And what is the means for the human being to achieve true success and true happiness? This is the war, this is the conflict that is taking place. So what we find is another world view. Another ideology. Another concept. And that is Islam. Islam teaches something quite different. Islam teaches that the way to success and happiness is not by acquiring material possessions. It is not through seeking to satisfy your passions and your desires and your lusts and following your whims and your inclinations. Rather the needs of the human being are quite different to that. Islam teaches that those who follow this path, who worship this God, because it is a type of God it is a type of deity when you worship your passions and your desires. it is a type of religion in reality, it's a type of worship, it's a type of deity. But this is a false God it's a false deity. Islam teaches that this is not the way through which human beings can achieve the real success because that is not the nature of a human being. Rather Islam teaches that there is the Creator, one God, who has brought this universe and everything into, and everything in it, he has brought it into existence for a reason and for a purpose. Everything has a purpose. Everything has a reason. And this begs the question. This begs the question. What is our purpose? What is the reason for our existence? Why are we here? What is the purpose of the existence of the human being? We have now discussed already something about the idea of the coca-cola culture. The materialistic viewpoint. But what does Islam say, what does the Quran say? The Quran teaches us that God has created us for a noble purpose. The Quran says: "Wama khalaqtu aljinna wal-insa illa liyaAAbudoon." this means that God is telling us in the Quran that he has created us to worship him. Some people say: "Is that it? I mean the purpose of my existence is just to worship God?" And that's because they have a very narrow concept of what worship means. They think of worship in the secular materialistic term that has been defined by the Western society. Worship means, may be you know you go to the Mosque five times a day or you go to the church once a week, you perform some rituals, you perform some acts - that is considered to be worship. However the term Ibada in Islam which we translate as worship has a very-very deep rich meaning. It is something much more than some mere formal actions that you perform. Worship in Islam is a total way of living. It is something that is supposed to occupy the human being throughout all of their life. From the moment they wake up till they go to sleep and in fact even whilst they are sleeping. Worship is supposed to occupy all of your life and how does it do that? How does worship occupy all of your life? If we'd if we look to the definition of the term Ibada and that is what God has created us for Ibada, what does it actually mean? The, the word Ibada can be, we can explain it as meaning everything which God loves and is pleased with. Everything which God loves, everything which God is pleased with is Ibada. Everything which God loves and everything which God is pleased with is worship Ibada or we don't need to use the word worship whilst just say "Ibada". Whether it is from the actions of the heart or the actions of the limbs. What are the actions of the heart, people think what is the action of the heart. Actions of the heart are things like love, hope, fear, reverential awe, trust, reliance, intension, sincerity. These are examples of actions of the heart. So you have to try to make every action of the heart an action that God loves and is pleased with. And actions of the limbs are things like, it well it like everything you perform with your limbs. It could be prayer, it could be fasting, it could be the relationship between a husband and his wife, it could be how you walk, how you talk, all of these things are actions of the limbs. So you try to make every action that you do an action that God loves and that God is pleased with. And it is in doing this that the human being, and it only in doing this that the human being finds real peace, tranquility, happiness and satisfaction. Only in this. Everything else is like the coca-cola. You drink it it will give you a quick buzz it will make you feel good for a short time but that is not gonna last long. In fact just as it made you feel good, soon it will make you feel bad. And in reality it will never ever satisfy you. It gives you the illusion temporarily of happiness. Anyone who has been addicted to drinking alcohol or has been addicted to smoking marihuana or taking drugs they will experience this on a more severe level. This is something that anyone who's been down that path knows. When you drink alcohol or when you smoke marihuana or whatever other thing it is you get a moment it may be in the case of heroin for example it may last 24 hours, in the case of smoking marihuana it may last it depends you know a few hours. You have a moment you have that time when you feel a sense of peace, you feel a sense of happiness, but the problem is - is it wears out. And the other problem is that in order to get back that feeling you have to take more and more and more, in fact it gets to a stage that it doesn't even affect you anymore. But you are now addicted, you are addicted to the habit and you continue even when you know that this is no longer bringing you any benefit at all but you are upon this path of almost self-destruction, you have reached, you have become an addict. And the fact that it doesn't seem to do anything for you in fact now even the feeling of happiness is gone, but you are down that path and it is almost impossible sometimes to leave it. This is the reality. So it may seem that people who do not worship God who do not follow that path of righteousness, who do not try to do everything that is pleasing to Allah, it may seem that they are happy. It may seem that they experience moments of happiness and you may see those moments of happiness. And you may think: "Oh! These are happy people, these people have a good life, they have a good quality of life. But this is only a temporarily outward appearance. In fact that if you observe the situation for long enough, and you observe it deeply enough, and you observe it critically enough you will see that that is not the case. you'll see that they do not stay happy for very long. An example of this that came to light recently in England is was that the minister for health made an announcement that many young women were beginning to drink excessively. It's a problem in England. Many young women were beginning to drink excessively especially what they call binge drinking. And they were worried because of one of the major effect so they could notice is that this was causing a great deal of liver damage. It was causing a great deal of liver damage. And interestingly enough I came across an article in a newspaper written by two young professional girls, well-off, good jobs, and they confessed that they were binge-drinkers. But the interesting thing was why, why they were binge drinking, what caused them to binge drink? They said that our life is so empty and boring. "Our life is so empty and boring. And we feel a state of depression. And the only thing that seems to bring a moment of release is unabated hedonism." Meaning just indulging in our passions and our desires and doing whatever we feel like and then for a moment we get a relief. It's what she said. It's what they were writing.
How is it that people who have good jobs, nice income, beautiful flat, house, things, they have all the food they want to eat, they are clothed with what they want to clothe themselves with. How do these people feel therefore empty and depressed? What is there? What is there for them to feel empty and depressed about? So if you look at this and this one case and you will find many cases like that you will find the same story again and again and again. One has to wonder why? Why do so many rock stars go on this path of self destruction? Drugs, drink, committing suicide, killing themselves in many different ways - if fame, beauty, money, is supposed to be the means to achieve happiness then these should be the most happy of all people. But that’s not the fact, that’s not the way it is, there’s something wrong. So that’s what I am saying. When you look at the issue deeply you’ll find that although these people appear on the outward surface to be happy to be enjoying themselves the reality is something quite different. That this way of living produces no real sense of satisfaction or happiness at all, it is very temporary. Sometimes some people can string enough moments and acquire enough things to make it appear as if they have happiness in their life but that is not the reality of that situation. Islam teaches that the way to be happy is completely different. It is as we have already mentioned through making your actions , actions that are beloved and pleasing to God this produces within the soul of the human being, within the depth of the human being a deep sense of well being and happiness and contentment and the person who has acquired this could be subjected to the most horrific types of physical and mental deprivation they could live in extremely poor conditions, they could be deprived of what we might think are basic necessities, yet you would find these people experience a state of bliss and happiness. In fact some of the, some of those Muslims and some of those people who have embarked upon this spiritual path if you want to call it have put themselves in a situations where they are deprived of many of the so-called physical necessities because they consider them to be in some respect an impediment, a barrier between them reaching that state of true bliss and true happiness that comes from being a complete and true worshipper of God. Now the thing is this. This way of life Islam on an ideological level therefore is a competitor, a threat, a danger to the materialistic consumer philosophy the Coca-Cola culture, why? Because in reality there is something very sick about this culture and the sick thing is that it actually depends and relies upon you being miserable for its existence. The Coca-Cola culture actually needs people to be unhappy, because unhappy people consume, unhappy people need to fill their miserable lives with fashion, music, the fantasy of Hollywood, drugs alcohol, sports. They, the miserable people, need to fill their miserable lives with all these trinkets and these things give them these moments of happiness so miserable people consume. That is the reality. It is not people who are deeply content and feel a deep sense of wellbeing and happiness internally. No. These people are not good consumers. These people don’t care whether they have this or they don’t have that, if they have it, they are happy, if they don’t have it, they are happy. It’s the same to them. This is actually the state that the Muslims should be. If we have material possessions we thank Allah and we are happy. If we don’t have it we still thank Allah and we are still happy. So how do you persuade people like that to consume? These are not the people who will be buying your products, buying your magazines, listening to your music, going and seeing your movies. They are not good consumers. Therefore the reality is that these people ideologically and in fact even economically they are a threat, because their whole culture and society relies upon people being miserable, depressed and discontented. So a way of life that is gonna give them peace and tranquillity and happiness and you don’t have to drink a bottle of Coca-Cola or go and watch Steven Segal kill a thousand Muslims to make you happy right? Ok? You don’t have to listen to some music or go to some rave and dance all night to make yourself feel good. You don’t have to go and buy some Gucci and Armani, you know, Pierre Cardin, Chanel #5, whatever, right? Because, you know, it doesn’t bother you. These people are not good consumers, in fact that is a direct ideological threat. It is a direct ideological threat. So what we have to realize here is that there is an ideological battle. Many of us we have, we haven’t as Muslims and non-Muslims as well, normal people we haven’t realized that. This is something however I am absolutely sure the intellectual elite of the western world have realized that and certainly the multinational corporations they realize that. They see that threat. And this is why Islam really poses a threat. It doesn’t pose a threat to the normal people living in the world, not at all. In fact quite the opposite. It is the means to human beings achieving true peace, true tranquillity and true happiness. But it is a threat to the vested interests of a few people. Not only that, but because Islam is not a religion that is based or is not a way of life or an ideology that is based in the material. Then even on a political and military level Islam becomes very difficult to deal with. What do you do with a people who don’t really care whether they live or die in fact they will be happy to die if dying is something that is pleasing to God. And then they are happy to do it, what do you do with a people like that? What do you do with a people who you can’t really bribe them because wealth is not their concern. You can’t threaten them with economic sanctions and so on and so forth because wealth is not their concern. Then you can see therefore that even though these people may not have the latest military hardware, they may not have the latest equipment but they are therefore militarily and politically also a great threat. And this ideology also, this mentality is a very liberating one. It is a very liberating one. It is something that gives people the courage and the conviction to stand up against Western political economical and ideological domination. It gives people the courage to stand up for themselves, not to worry so much about the consequences, because what is important to these individuals is not the pleasure of their desires and their passions, but the pleasure of their Lord.
Now, I want to go back in history a little bit. And I suppose this part of the lecture I have to say may be a little bit more orientated towards the Muslims. If we go back in history a bit we will find something very interesting. We’ll fine many things actually very interesting that took place, in fact it’s a sad thing that Muslims do not study history and do not learn the lessons of history. But the particular thing that I want to focus today is on the spread of Christianity. Christianity started as a small we could say sect, insha Allah as we Muslims believe anyway it as a true sect, a small sect in Judea or what is now known Israel or Palestine, but at the time it was Judea occupied at that time by the Roman empire. There was a man, a prophet as we believe, he is a prophet and a man and he is not God or the son of God. His name is Jesus or Isa ibn Miriam, Jesus the son of Mary who was the messiah to the Jews, “the messiah” meaning the anointed one. He came to call them back to the true pure religion of God, that they should worship God alone and submit to his commands. Today we have a religion called Christianity which according to many western scholars and certainly this is affirmed by the Quran, does not resemble in any way, shape or form what Jesus or Isa ibn Miriam taught. It is a completely different religion. It doesn’t teach that we should worship God and submit to his commandments rather it teaches that we should worship Jesus that we should believe that he is God and that salvation comes by believing that he died on the cross for our sins. Anyway it’s not my proposal today or my intention today to go into a long theological and historical discussion about that, but anyone who has the time and takes the interest will find something very remarkable. You will know that in the year 345 a pagan Roman emperor called Constantine held a council in a city called Nicea which is in present day Turkey, it’s the famous council of Nicea which took place in about 345 years after the time of Jesus. In this council, convened by a pagan Roman emperor the bishops or some selected bishops of Christianity were forced and compelled to come to a decision about what is the creed and what is the belief and what is the scripture upon which the whole of the Christians should unite upon. Why would a pagan Roman emperor living 1400 years, living in that time nearly 2000 years ago, why would he do that, a pagan Roman emperor? Why, because Christianity was a very-very-very powerful force in the Roman Empire at the time. Constantine realized that as long as the Christians were disunited and arguing and bickering with one another, then the strength and the power of his empire was going to be sacked. So his idea was to now to unite the Christians upon a single doctrine. What happened to come out of that council was for the first time Christians were actually forced to believe a particular doctrine. This became known as the Athanasius creed and that is what we know today as the concept of the trinity, that Jesus is God and that he is of one essence with God, and from this council also the so-called four canonical Gospels were chosen. But what actually happened? Rome became the centre of Christianity, in fact it became known as the Holly Roman Empire. But what really took place? And this is the interesting thing. Is it really that Christianity took over the Roman Empire or is it that Roman Empire Romanized Christianity? In other words – was it Christianity that took over or was it really the Roman Empire that took over Christianity? If you look at it you’ll find it is that the Roman Empire had more of the influence on Christianity than the original teachings that Jesus had over Roman Empire. In fact I remember when I was being brought up a Catholic, and I was studying Roman and Greek mythology, I remember thinking as I was studying it. This is amazingly similar to what I believe as a catholic. The Romans had a trinity of Gods. Sertanilias, Sol Inviticus and Mithra. Mithra was the son of God, and he was God and he was the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world and he was born on the 25th of December. It was belived that by Mithra or by being a devotee of Mithra that your sins would be forgiven. And this is the way to achieve salvation. The Romans also had a pantheon of Gods which they worshiped and they called upon for different needs so if you needed something you call upon this God and if you needed something you called upon that God. Just as the Catholics if you lose something you pray to St Anthony, when you’re going travelling you pray to St Christopher, if you’re gonna do some art you pray to St Luke the patron saint of arts just as the Romans had their different Gods with different things. I say this is very similar. What my religion teaches me Catholicism is so similar to that. And it is only later when I began to study the issue I realized that in fact what happened was that Christianity had become paganised. That in fact there was no difference. The theology is exactly the same. That basic fundamental teachings that if you boil them down to what they are saying the paganism of the Romans and the Christianity of the Christians was very-very similar. Hardly different at all.
And that leads me now to the Coca-Cola Muslim generation.
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