Transcript of When Technology Takes the Role of the Father | Friday Khutbah [Arabic + English] | Nouman Ali Khan

You might see somebody else on this temple and you say, "Oh, I want that." And now your entire objective becomes based on comparison. In fact, this is so powerful. Allah teaches us how to view the world. He shapes our view of reality. He shapes our view of truth and falsehood. Is it possible that these devices are now starting to shape our entire definition of truth and falsehood? Somebody actually decides what is true and what is false based on the temple they enter with a tap of the finger. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. foram. for Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Forehamd. forch. regime. forch. for for for for him. Forch! [Music] foreign. to read. The subject today is something that has to do with Ibraim. And I wanted to begin with um an example. And the real subject that I want to zone zone in on and really zoom in on from the story of Ibrahimam is the concept of fatherhood. And because his story is so important and fatherhood is one of the central pillars running through his story. When he's a child, there's a big dramatical dramatic episode with his father and later on he plays the role of a father. So fatherhood is probably the most consistent theme in the life of Ibrahim. Let's think about fatherhood for a moment. Fathers in ancient societies, they used to play the most central role in identifying you. like your your identity as a person, your place in society, your religious worldview, your sense of self, your dignity, your pride, your place in the world, your goals in life. All of them were coming from not just one person, the father, but behind him is an entire lineage, right? And you're an inseparable part from the lineage. You know, in ancient societies, if somebody messed with one person in the village, they've messed with the entire village because you don't see yourself as an individual. You're an inseparable part of a larger hole and you're connected to those people through your father. Your father is actually in a sense the umbilical cord that connects you to your tribe, to your people, to your race, etc. And that's why in many societies in the world, there's this our father's legacy, right? Even in modern societies with European societies now with the rise of fascism and the rise of, you know, ethnosentrism and racism, our forefathers, our forefathers, right? Or genetic purity. These conversations are now coming back all over again. Right? Just when humanity thought it's too modern to go back to village village thinking and too modern to go back to tribalism, we find ourselves with the mo most modern technology humanity has ever seen and the most tribal thinking humanity has ever seen all at the same time. Right? So this is humanity cannot evolve out of its fra. The same tendencies, the same weaknesses we had thousands of years ago are the same weaknesses we have today. You know, you know, because because we have modern technology or because we've advanced so much and because philosophy have has moved so far and sciences have moved so far, we have evolved. We have not evolved. It's the same exact thing. It's the same old pig with new lipstick as they say in Texas, right? And that's all this is. So, let's go back to the subject at hand. The father played a major role in my sense of self, my sense of belonging. Because a father doesn't just represent one person. He represents the entire nation. My connection to him, my connection to my people and to the world is through my father. That's how that's the role that the father played. Now I want you to use your imagination with me. In ancient times, there's some pagan village and there's a father. He's taking his child to a temple to sit in front of a statue and he's teaching his child, "This is how you're supposed to sit. This is how you're supposed to hold your hands. This is how you're supposed to light the candle. This is how you put the the incense and the food in front of and he's teaching him the adab of of right and he's and this happened thousands of years over and over again right and he gives his son three bits of advice he says number one this is who you are this is a part of your identity never let this go never forget who you are you don't have a sense of belonging if you don't do this that's number one your identity is coming from this place the second thing he said is all these people that are worshiping here do you know them Yes, that's grandma. That's my cousin. That's our neighbor. That's the butcher. That's the, you know, all of them are here. Why are they all here? Because we are all one people. And this place makes sure that we stay united. By the way, anthropologists and sociologists will talk about religious centers of worship being communal centers, right? So, communities organized around certain institutions. And one of the most important institutions communities or organized around were religious centers. Because if you think of any other place of organization, education was for the elite. You guys know that not everybody had access to education. The farm is not a place to hang out. The farm is for work for the farmer. The market is buying and selling and you leave. You're not socializing. You're just buying and selling, right? The courtroom is for when you have a problem. The hospital is when you're sick. When do you so where do you gather and you actually get to know families and you get to meet and there's no other higher purpose or higher problem involved, right? And that was the few places either they were places that were questionable like you know clubs and night places and things like that or they were places of worship. So worship centers throughout societies became the center of civilization in many ways. It's not a surprise that in European society for example we don't see many lofty castles even that survived in Europe now but the churches are much more grand than any castle right way more investment goes into churches in the ancient ruins of the world. You don't see many castles surviving, but what do you see surviving? Ancient temples, right? That's it's a phenomenon in the world. But anyway, so he tells this child, listen, this this is how we stay connected with our community. You're a part of these people. They're a part of you one for all and all for one. Your identity is here and your association he these are the people that are loyal to you. Never leave this place. Leaving this place is the same as leaving your people. This is your sense of connection. And the third thing was I know son you have some wishes and hopes and desires of your own and if you ever want to accomplish what you want first of all your hopes and desires will never come outside of a certain they they put a fathers used to put a boundary on your hopes and dreams and that boundary was like the boundary of the tribe and of the temple. So you if you have hopes and dreams, they better be within this fence, right? But now that you're within this fence, for example, you're only going to marry within this village or you're only going to do this job because your father did this job, things like that, they would set off fence, right? Now that you have and even if you have within that fence some desires, ask this idol in front of you whatever you want. Because if you don't learn to ask the right way, you're not going to get what you need in life. You're not going to marry the girl you want to marry or the guy you want to marry. You're not going to make money. You're not going to get the house. you're not going to get those things. You better learn to ask properly. So this is about your own goals. Three things, identity, association, connection, and goals. Those are the three things that he would give his son advice of when he would take him to the temple. This was the role of the father. But then let's fast forward. We're not living in ancient times. The industrial revolution already happened. And when it happened, millions of people left villages and left large family systems where you used to live next to your grandma and your uncle and everybody else and you used to see your father in you know morning, night and evening. Now the son has to go work in a factory in England or he has to go somewhere else travel for work and more and more people had to move into cities industrialized cities where they're no longer they can't even afford to live with their entire family. They can barely afford to live by themselves. Many people to get their head start, they can't even get an apartment by themselves. They have to have four or five roommates. I know places in the world that I've been to where taxi drivers take turns renting one bed. Like one of them is driving, the other one's sleeping, the other one's driving, the other they can't even afford more than that bed. That's it. That's all they got. That's the that was the new world. And now take another And did that have an effect on the connection between people and their families? Absolutely. In the billions. Absolutely. around the world. And the more industrialized you want to become, the more educated you want to become, the more professional you want to become, naturally, the more separated from your family, you're going to get. Because back in the day, the father used to go to the farm. And who was he taking with him to the farm? He was taking his son to the farm. He's going to go go to the well. He's going to take his son to the well. They're always together. There was this bond between the father and the son. That's no longer possible because now the son has kindergarten, preschool, kindergarten school, after school program, soccer practice, da da da, he's got all and the dad's got board meetings and business trips and two different lives. That's no longer possible. And so a separation started happening and then came a next re just like the industrial revolution changed the way the world works. The same way with the advent of social media, the world changed all over again again. But this time it was even more dangerous when young people move into cities, right? When they move and they're on a campus by themselves or in this in a big city by themselves, they don't have a mentor. They don't have a father figure. They don't have someone to guide them and help them, right? So they can fall into bad habits, bad company. They can mess up. They can veer off the path, right? And but they still know and somewhere in their heart, they still know my real mentor or my real values are somewhere. They're back in the village. Some connection is still there. What did social media do? If you remember, I don't I don't want you to speak because it's audited to this is the place where you will learn to achieve your goals and ask for your goals. These new machineries came into our lives, these little devices with these apps that connect us to billions of people around the world. And now these these devices started telling us about our own identity. You start identifying yourself with people that feel the same as you or look like you or you want to look like them. And your sense of value, your sense of self, your sense of where you belong in the world, your place, what you hate, what you love. An algorithm is now constantly pushing on you values that thousands of years ago a father used to have that role. Now this machine has that role. Right? And then it was a sense of belonging. Now you don't you could live in an apartment building next to your your next door neighbor. You don't know them for 10 years or the only time you know them is you made a little too much extra pizza or something and you don't want it to go bad. So you're like leave it outside their door or something. But who are you connected to? Random people on a different continent or you're part part of a WhatsApp group or you're part of a Facebook group or you're part of this or that and you're you're connected and you feel a sense of belonging virtually that you don't feel physically. The people in your actual proximity you're much less connected to the people in your virtual proximity right they are this is the new temple where people congregate people used to congregate in the ancient temple physically this became a place where people congregate and people of similar ideas start you know people used to follow the preacher or follow the the guru or follow whoever now we follow the influencer and we all congregate behind the influencer and he gives his pulpit speech and we all follow and share share and like and it's it's the it's same old pig, new lipstick. You see what I'm saying? This is what the I love that expression lipstick on a pig. The Texas has some wild wisdoms. This is one of them, right? My second favorite one just I'll share it with you. They say crazier than a cat in a nut bucket. You wouldn't know what that means. That means that's a lot of nuts. This person's really nuts, right? Crazier than a nut bucket. I don't know what a cat's doing there, but okay. But regardless, the third item was you get what you want. If you if you commit yourself to this idol, you're going to get what you want. You're going to fulfill your desires. You know, one of the craziest statistics I saw recently that's happening in the United States is that less and less people are in actual relationships. Even non-Muslims, they're they're not pursuing dating and, you know, intimate relationships. Forget marriage. They're not even dating. Less and less of them. And why is that happening? They're getting enough dopamine hits just from the swipes. And there there are now studies of men having less testosterone in their bodies, you know, significantly. 40 50% less 20 year olds now having less testosterone than 60 year olds used to have 30 years ago, 40 years ago. Like you're you don't have to leave and you're going to get what you desire. Just sit in front of this. So let's use our imagination again. And if somebody had a time machine and some some child who just got this turbia from his dad to show respect to the idol traveled through time and got access to a young man and a young woman and watched follow them all day and every two seconds [Music] or they're leaving to the bathroom and before they leave, oh my where's my phone? They would say, wow, we used to have to go to the temple and sit in front of the idol. These guys are so committed. They take their idol with them everywhere. They never let them go. And they don't they don't let a few minutes pass until they pay their respects again. And they have such a connection to their idols when they're in their idols. The world is happening. But they're just here. There's a baby crying over there. There's somebody yelling over here. But they're so connected. My god, this is this must be a really good God. This must be giving them everything they want because I used to go to the temple to get what I want, right? It's giving me everything I want. Right? These mach these companies that run these or these apps, they became the new fathers and the apps themselves became the temples that they teach you how to sit in. That that's what happened. When you read these ayat and you hear Ibraimisam is coming to the people and saying what are these statues that you're sitting in front of so dedicated I used to worship I used to wonder sometimes why didn't Allah just say that you're doing sag to them or you're worshiping them he said you're familiar with right when you cut yourself off from everything and you dedicate yourself holy in concentration and contemplation and you're just lost from the world. You disappeared from the world. You entered a different world. That's the world of Does that sound familiar? And you just do you need to go to the temple now to see people these things that demand so much attention and said my phone's the mushik idol. No, no, no. That's not what I said. But I said, "Can it be?" I'm asking myself and I'm asking all of you, "Can it be?" What is our relationship with Allah? Let's ask ourselves that our relationship with Allah is one in which we ask him, make dua to him. We do of him. We remember him all the time, right? He makes us laugh. He makes us cry. That's what he says about himself. He makes us. So there's an emotional relationship, laughing and crying. There's a remembrance. There's a seeking wisdom. We seek wisdom from Allah. We seek guidance from Allah, right? He teaches us what to do and what not to do. He dictates our culture. Does he give us a sense of identity? He gives us a sense of identity. Does he give us a sense of purpose? It gives us a sense of purpose, goals, objectives. Is it possible that this new machine, this machinery that we're caught in is demanding that we do constant vikar of it? Check how many views. Check if there's a new release. Check if there's a constant vikar. Does it even teach you to do dawa of itself and share with a million others? Does it teach you to get let your your emotions be dictated by itself? It's it's uh mandates. Does it start impacting your sense of value, your sense of self, your sense of belonging, your relationship with others, your goals? What are your ultimate objectives? What do you want in life? Where is that starting to come from? You might see somebody else on this temple and you say, "Oh, I want that." And now your entire objective becomes based on comparison. In fact, this is so powerful. Allah teaches us how to view the world. He shapes our view of reality. He shapes our view of truth and falsehood. Is it possible that these devices are now starting to shape our entire definition of truth and falsehood? Somebody actually decides what is true and what is false based on the temple they enter with a tap of the finger. Is that possible? Is that what's happening? So when when I I I'm inviting all of you to engage in real contemplation of the Quran and to actually ask yourselves when you read that the they replied we are sitting here in dedication to these idols they replied to Ibrahimisam that we we saw our fathers doing this our fathers instructed us to do this well the role of the father has disappeared isn't that where I started and many of the roles the father used to play Now there are companies that want to benefit from your attention that are playing that role. They've become the father. They've become the conversation has changed. So we have to read the Quran and we have to understand what it meant at that time and how does that reality apply to our time. What is it exactly commenting on? I pray allahel makes us a people of contemplation, a people of a people that can see reality for what it is. Ya Allah, show us the reality of things as they actually are.