Deen in for Dunya

Religion, deen, is very much designed for this field of our mortal existence, this life. Proper religion is dunya based. Dunya based, for lack of a better term. In other words, it's very specifically and very consciously about defining our function here and now, our role here and now, you know, our relationships with our surroundings and with others and with ourselves here and now in this life. This is why the West's whole whole whole, conception about religion and secularism and so forth is just so utterly foreign, and so, so strange and only it's peculiar to them.

And again this comes out of their experience, their experience with their religion, with their church, with their monarchies and so forth, their feudalism and so on, their whole conception of religion and what have you, this has nothing to do with us. This has nothing to do with Muslims. Islam is as secular as it is spiritual. You understand? We deal with worldly matters in Islam.

That's the whole point. SubhanAllah. Islam is not religion as a way of escape. It's a real it's religion as a way of engagement. We follow Islam not to try to be otherworldly, but precisely to deal with the realities of this life in a successful manner.

And we don't belittle our experience, we don't belittle our presence in this world, and we don't seek non participation in the life of this world. We don't negate, human emotions and human qualities as being things that need to be overcome or things that need to be renounced. They just need to be regulated, that's all. They just need to be regulated and balanced. We don't blame people or stigmatize people for for for normal human desires and normal human urges.

The whole point is to try to help you deal with them properly, knowing that you have them, you know. In many other religions, it's almost as if they look at human beings like they're being blamed for being human beings. There's a there's a kind of underlying disrespect for normal human qualities. You're sinful and you're animalistic by nature is what they sort of want you to believe, And your religion is supposed to purge you of all of that, purge you of all of your, basically your humanity. You were born wrong and religion is supposed to make you right.

Now this is not correct. This is not our understanding in Islam, not at all. Like I said last time, you were born good. You were born with a natural orientation, your fitra, which is good and it's right. There's nothing wrong with you innately, intrinsically.

There's nothing wrong with you at birth.