| THE STREET MIMBAR JUM'AH KHUTBAH (28 January 2010) webpage: http://www.facebook.com/The.Street.Mimbar http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_street_mimbar/ PLEASE e-mail Suggestions & Criticisms to khutbahs@yahoo.com It is in such a manner that We make plain Our signs so that the course of the Criminals may become clear. | Bismillah Ar-Rahmaan Ar-Raheem. Alhumdulillah. Peace and blessings on Muhammad (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam), his Noble Companions and Family. Brothers and sisters, Committed Muslims… Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/khutbassermons.htm (01-22-2010) ABU DHARR (R): SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER PART 4 We Muslims, (we mentioned it before and we say it again), there's nothing wrong in being frank with ourselves), have been incapable of speaking truth to power. This is our over 1,400 years ago weakness i.e. our inability/unwillingness/excuses for not speaking truth to power! We have tried our humanly best to explain/express to ourselves, (not in the emotional way that turns people away and not in the highly academic/scholastic manner that is only intended for a certain class of people), and we continue in that endeavour (regarding) this weakness of ours that now has over lived it's age! You'd think fourteen centuries are enough of being incapable of expressing the truth to those who are in power and wealth. We hope/think we made it crystal clear that we all belong to this weakness of ours. We don't care how you classify yourself as a Muslim we all have a common history of being unable to express the factual truth, not the emotional truth, to those who have combined power and wealth. All of this began in a noticeable way during the reign of Uthman (radi Allahu anhu), the third successor to Allah's Prophet. We saw how people who were beginning to combine power and wealth were nervous and against those people who were expressing truth to power. We gave a very clear example of Abi Dharr (radi Allahu anhu) and how he was treated. (That was) the first time we saw Muslims who are in power, and who have combined that power with wealth, not having the capacity to listen to other Muslims who had their point of view about how governance was turning during that time. To add another piece of information to the list of information that we have covered in the past… When Abu Dharr was forced out of Al Madinah… Brothers and sisters: please concentrate on our behaviour. We say it is our behaviour because it belongs to us- this is our common history. However way you want to approach it- at the end it is our common history. We began this common history with the incapacity of those who are in power and those who are accumulating wealth with power to listen to Muslims who disagreed with them, which brings us to the issue of Islamic internal disagreements. This is going to be a constant in Islamic social behaviour. There's going to be internal Islamic disagreements. No one, (that we know of), who is accountable by the book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger said that disagreements are not supposed to happen amongst the Muslims. Even the words of Allah endorse internal Islamic disagreements. The ayah says … and if you dispute/have differences about a certain issue then you refer it to Allah and His Apostle… (Surah An Nisa' verse 59) So this is a development that is inescapable. It's a development that we have had for 1,400 years yet we have not learnt from it. This our problem. It is hard for us to learn and sometimes we sabotage our own selves because we cannot take these lessons and look at them in a non-biased manner. We Muslims had a disagreement-OK. How did we deal with this disagreement? If we were to consider the events to learn from them in light of Allah and His Prophet we may have a head start for ourselves and not repeat the same errors and social and political misbehaviour that we witnessed once in our history- there's no need for us to go through this all over again. What do we observe/see? Uthman and Abu Dharr had their serious disagreements and these serious disagreements resulted in the people who had power and wealth forcing Aba Dharr out of Al Madinah. We want to quote for you our political behaviour at that time. Here is a Muslim, (he could be any Muslim of today who tries to speak truth to power anywhere), who he is told you have to leave Al Madinah. This was one of the founding members of the Islamic State in Al Madinah and now he is told this by those who are beginning to combine wealth with power. Listen brothers and sisters- this is a very important yet almost unnoticed element of our political divergence from Islamic, Qur'anic and Prophetic standards and values i.e. the combination of wealth and power. When he is told you have to leave… It's just like in today's world (when) someone receives a summons from the legal forces of the land and they tell a particular dissident, (this is in today's language), Abu Dharr was considered a dissident whose behaviour is bordering on insubordination and insurrection. Brothers and sisters- these are Muslims who have gone wrong in their combining of wealth and power. Need we say (that) when we rethink ourselves today, we should be focusing on the burden of 1,400 years of combining wealth and power?! The ayah in the Qur'an that we from time to time remind you of in Surah Al Isra' (is the one in which) Allah says … and if We, (in reference to Divine power and authority), want to destroy a social order, We have two classes- those in power and those in wealth- combined into one… (Sural Al Isra' verse 16) And what do they do? … they begin to institutionalise policies that cause their own societies to disintegrate… (Surah Al Isra' verse 16) At that time Allah's words are due. … and that particular society is utterly obliterated. (Surah Al Isra' verse 16) We don't know why these Qur'anic and Prophetic facts come to us, (and some of us recite them in our salah/du'a/recitation of the Qur'an), and it's as if nothing is being said and therefore with all of the rich lessons that our history has, we fail to learn?! So when Uthman, (who represents the first political combination of power and wealth- something that didn't exist before that), was approached by Muslims who were telling him this is wrong, you have to do something about this, (we remind you that), he and those who agreed with his ijtihad, (which we at least have 1,400 years to look back at and say it was an incorrect ijtihad), said to Abi Dharr how can I legislate/make it legal/write laws that impose on the Muslim citizenry/population az zuhud/austerity? You tell us, is this not still an issue that the most knowledgeable/educated/sincere Muslims are still debating today? This is not strictly a historical event that we can just dismiss. It's a lively one that still haunts the ideas and the ideologies of committed Muslims today. Can we legislate az zuhud? Nevertheless, Abu Dharr became an unwanted personality by the government of the time- not by the peoples. Wherever he would go, there would be positive responses from the average Muslim in Arabia and Ash Shaam- in both places; but the government could no longer tolerate such a person so he was told leave Al Madinah. At first, they didn't want him in Al Madinah and had him leave for Ash Shaam; then, in Ash Shaam when he began to have a cluster of people or what we call today a revolutionary trend developing, they couldn't tolerate him there, so send him back to Al Madinah. We went through this, and they finally they said you leave to a place called Ar Rabdah. Then, this is what happened in this particular incident… The official policy was no one should see/bid farewell Abi Dharr when he was leaving Al Madinah. That is what the government says. Then Al Imam Ali, his two sons in addition to Amaar ibn Yasir, Abdillah ibn Jafar and Aqeel (radi Allahuanhum) went to see him off. You'd think this is normal behaviour? It should be. But now, the Islamic government at that time developed an attitude and said no, you can't see this person off. When Marwan ibn Al Hakam, one of the confidants/advisors of Uthman, saw that there were people who were accompanying Aba Dharr as he was forced to leave Al Madinah, he says to Ali, Ameer Al Mu'mineen, (in reference to Uthman), has made it official, (listen to this, we're putting that language to today's language), that no one should acast/accompany Aba Dharr as he is leaving Al Madinah and if you don't know that, I am putting you on notice/letting you know. Then, Ali had a whip with him and he went towards him and he unleashed that whip unto the animal that this person was riding and he said to him, (which roughly means), just get out of my way or abandon the direction you are taking lest you go right into the fire. This indicates that there was a serious disagreement and divergence of opinion, but we Muslims even though Allah has given us over 1,000 years to learn from this lesson, we still show our inability to learn from it, much less to teach its meanings. This is our problem. When Allah is saying to us ittqu Allah … avoid Allah's power prerogatives and privileges in your life… Allah will manifest his power in our life but we keep on factoring in the powers of state or political parties or militaries! No one is really concerned with the power of Allah! No! That really is not a consideration! Allah is quoted; His Prophet is also quoted, but when it comes to real movement it seems like Allah is absent from the behaviour/plans/projections from those who put themselves in the mantle of Islam. We say this because even though we're taking a look at the genesis of the difference between an Islamic opposition to Muslims who are combining wealth and power. We have to underline/underscore/reiterate that we are speaking about Muslims who combine wealth and power, not Muslims who have power and don't have wealth or Muslims who have wealth and don't have power; that's another issue for another day, but what is so obvious is those Muslims who have blurred the lines between wealth and power or have integrated between two classes in society i.e. the class of wealth with the class of power- that's what we're talking about. Don't lose sight and don't let your emotions take you in every other direction. We have had demonstrable/obvious political and governmental mistakes that we should have the taqwa of Allah to look at without claiming these issues as if it's become a sect/cult when we look at these issues. Can we just step out of that for a moment and learn from it so that we can all learn together instead of someone presenting themselves as masters of history and others presenting themselves as fugitives from history?! Do you want me to be more specific? Shi'is consider themselves masters of history when it comes to these affairs! They don't want to listen to anyone else because they already know in themselves that they have a monopoly of the truth! This harms the cause, the individuals, the personalities in our history, our present Islamic accommodations with each other i.e. the brotherhood of Islam. This is not the approach! Then, the others- we are going to also be clear- the fugitives from history (are) those who consider themselves Sunnis run away from all of this history and their rationalisation is "why bring this thing up, because it is going to divide us!" This also is not the way to approach this issue! Its going to divide us about what?! If we approach our own mistakes and try to learn them, is this an issue of division?! It should be an issue of unity. So, along these lines we have the tragedy of Karbala'. If someone/anyone cannot see the abuse of power and wealth in its beginning during the time of Uthman, then they should be able to see the abuse of power and wealth during the time of Al Imam Al Hussein (alayhi as salaam wa radi Allahu anhu). What happened? Now, we have the consolidation. The Umawi dynasty- it's not called Al Khilafah. The funny thing about this is both Sunnis and Shi'is call the Umawi Kingdom/dynasty a Khilafah! This indicates both these segments of people have not outgrown a traditional history turned religion. It is not a Khilafah/Imarah/Imamah. This is a Mulukiya/monarchy. So what does this monarchy do? It goes out and commits the crime of all ages. Anyone who has a healthy approach to the Qur'an i.e. the word of Allah and the Sunnah i.e. the word of His Prophet can see that here is the teaming up of power and wealth against a person who speaks truth and, (beyond that), who acts truth to those who have blended power and wealth together. In anyway you want to approach it- we don't care who you are, where you come from or what your historical or traditional background is- you should be able to see this is a flagrant/obvious/an in your eye scream of how the combination of power and wealth treat those who stand up on principle. Hussein could have easily said "this is a lost cause. Why should I go out there? This is suicidal." In today's thinking, people would say "this is suicidal." It wasn't suicidal; it was a principled position to which there was no other option left, but it goes to show us how we, the Muslims, have been in possession of a history that expresses its economic/financial entangle with institutions of government and military and this is the result. The army of Yazid ibn Muawiya broke into Al Madinah- this was a couple of years after Karbala'- and they laid it to waste. This is the first Islamic State and the first Islamic State was virtually destroyed by this army and we don't want to speak about the details of what this armed force did to the people of Al Madinah?! It is similar to what armies that are not Islamic/have nothing to do with Islam do today. They go into a land/territory and they behave as if they are the authority/power- raping women, killing babies, torching houses, destroying a human habitat. Tell us what is that?! What legality does that have in the book of Allah and in the instructions of His Prophet?! Where do you find a basis for this? There's no such basis obviously, but why can't we just present it as a matter of history that no one can deny. It's there. Why can't we just present it frankly and objectively? Don't get worked up about it because the emotionalism of it is going to sabotage the rationality of it. But this barrier we still have not overcome. There were other uprisings in Al Kufa, in Iraq against the first dynasty in Islam that are clear examples of what power and wealth do, and still up to this very day, Muslims cannot approach this subject to look at it as a matter of the violations of all the principles, standards, values and tenets of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. What do we say to this? Oh Allah, we have done injustice to ourselves, so if You will not have mercy upon us and forgive us our mistakes we shall inevitably be accounted among those who are losers. Ayyuha Al Mu'minun, Muslims of commitment, principle and the truth… What is more demanding/difficult: to look at our historical behaviour and correct ourselves or to look at our current behaviour and correct ourselves? Obviously, if a person takes issue with Muawiya, Yazid, Hisham ibn Abdil Malik, Bani Abbaas or these other dynasties… they are gone. Hisham ibn Abdil Malik or his army or that person who killed Imam Zaid (radi Allahu anhu wa alaihi as salaam) is dead. Now, there is no immediate danger in trying to place him in the proper historical context to which he belongs; in other words to speak about his policies. Is he going to come out of the grave and kill you and me? It's not going to happen, but why is it that even though this person remains in his resting place six feet under for 1,300 years-or-so that we still don't have Muslims who are mature enough, (this is just an example; there are many of these examples- you can pick your choice), to place them in the context of the Qur'an and the Prophet? What's wrong? Why can't we do that? We can understand some Muslims today can't speak about the ruling classes that we have from the Pacific to the Atlantic who combine wealth and power- the issue no one wants to consider in their Islamic programs. Why are they afraid? "Oh, if we're going to speak about the President of Egypt or the king of Arabia and their Princes in the peripheries as an example then they may take action against us." Last week, two-hundred scholars of the Azhar petitioned/demonstrated in-front of a Ministry of government in Cairo and they had informants swarming all around to take their names and slash their salaries for a couple of months, but these kings and monarchs that we had in our past are not going to have informers coming around taking your name, putting you on the black list and killing you as a civilian. That's what they do- they kill you as a civilian. As a civilian you no longer exist. If you want to apply for a job, you don't get a clearance/approval/the requirements that are needed to obtain a particular job. We don't agree with this behaviour that can't speak truth to power, but we can understand it. And why are these governments today- those people who have power and wealth together- When you scan the Muslim territories of the world, can you come up with those who are ruling over Muslims who are conscious of the violation of the Qur'an and the Sunnah when it comes to the combination of power and finances? There is probably one place where that consciousness exists; and even in that one place, we don't have the maturity of 1,400 years to settle this issue for once and for all. Obviously, these authorities/governments that exist today in these Islamic countries have not only combined power and wealth, but they have also amassed power and wealth. We say this as a servant of yours from living a lifetime with the words of Allah and His Prophet. Those who combine power and wealth together disqualify from ruling the Muslims. Now, you take that statement and shred your Sunnism and Shi'ism with it so that you can be reborn anew the way Allah and His Prophet wanted you so that you can speak to the issues of our time. We have cleavages and gaps in which historical and contemporary enemies are working their way so that we cannot see Islamic self-determination, (what we mean by that is total/thorough/complete Islamic self determination), as it is being born in our generation and time. Therefore, not many people speak about these issues. All of them have their excuses. They're not short on explaining why they don't tap on this issue. All of them have what would appear to be logical answers when you ask them "why don't you speak about at taghut?" That's a Qur'anic terminology that has to do with power and wealth. "Why don't you speak about adh dhulm?" That is an Islamic, Qur'anic and Prophetic terminology that has to do with power and wealth. "Why don't you speak about al mustadafeen and al mustakbireen?" All of these are Islamic concepts/ideas that address the combined evil of power and wealth. Where is everyone? Where did everyone go? We can understand that people who are paid/employed by (other) "Muslims" who camouflage themselves with rituals but (who) in the policy of their bones or in the kernel of their strategies owe their loyalty/allegiance to everyone/anyone except Allah and His Prophet. All of this is so obvious, (but) why can't anyone see it? Because we are buried under 1,400 years of a tradition that substitutes for Islam. We label under local cultures that are explained as an offshoot of Islam and none of this has anything to do with Allah and His Prophet. We don't know how much and how long it is going to take before we can wake up and address these issues accurately, objectively and selflessly. Our ignorance of how long and how much it is not going to take away from our fervency for the truth in it. This khutbah was presented by Imam Muhammed Asi on the occasion of Jum'ah on 22 January 2009 on the sidewalk of Embassy Road in Washington D.C. The Imam previously led the daily and Jum'ah prayers inside the Masjid. His speeches were revolutionary and thought provoking, and eventually irritated and threatened the Middle-East Ambassadors who control the Masjid. Finally, the Imam, his family, and other Muslims faithful to the course of Islam were forced out, into the streets. This khutbah originates from the sidewalk across the street from the Islamic Center, currently under seige. |
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