| THE STREET MIMBAR JUM'AH KHUTBAH (19 March 2010) webpage: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=182501078290&ref=ts 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. Ma'shar An Naas- Brothers and sisters … Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/khutbassermons.htm (08-06-1999) WHEN RITUALS IS NOT IBADAH Muslims today suffer from a serious misunderstanding of who they are; what their responsibilities are; what is a priority and what is not; a priority a particular emphasis on certain things that should not be emphasized and a neglect of certain things that are central and focal to their lives and to Allah's words to them. We encounter Muslims who would find it extremely important to render unto Allah, (what we call in Islamic terminology), an nawaafil or voluntary rituals when at the same time all the Muslims are guilty of being unable to render to Allah what He has made mandatory. To go back a little into the fiqhi language- there is something that is known as fard áyn (i.e.) a personal wajib and there is something else that is known as fard kifaya (i.e.) what may be rendered as a social wajib. A personal wajib is like as salaah that you, I and the rest of the Muslims perform on a consistent and daily basis. A fard ala al kifaya is defined as a mandatory act that when performed by some Muslims relieves the rest of the Muslims of that responsibility. In the diminishing public mind of the Muslims, the prime example is given of salaat al janaza or the funeral prayer. If some Muslims perform it, it's as if all Muslims have performed it or in other words when some Muslims do it the responsibility of others doing it is annulled. But this understanding that current day Muslims have is a damaged understanding of reality. This is not how we should understand our responsibilities. Fard al kifaya means that we should be able to do in a reciprocal way an assignment that will make us self sufficient and not reliable on others. And he who does what is right in the course of his worldly duties there shall be no denial of his efforts, and We, (Allah says) indeed register for them the credit of what they do. (Surah Al Ambiya' verse 94) How many types of specialties/work/jobs/job descriptions are we responsible for? Life invites us to a variety of duties/tasks, without which we cannot live. But what type of Muslim do we have? We have Muslim engineers/chemists/physicians/professionals of an assortment of skills and what do they do? They still cannot put together an independent Islamic will/self-sufficiency. They can't do it! And when you get to know these individuals who may have PHDs, post-graduate work, etc. (and when) you meet them, they will present to you a trivial mindset. They will begin to argue whether, (this is just an example, there are many other such examples), it is permissible to pray two nafl rakaát while an Imam is presenting his Friday khutbah. If you had let's say a pharmacist or an engineer who are arguing a fine fiqhi matter that is peculiar only to the inner/developed circles of Islamic scholars, you begin to feel that Muslims are in disarray because they are not capable of pursuing to the degree of self sufficiency the knowledge and skill that they are supposed to command. Allah says in another ayah We have made available iron or the formulas of material powers… (Surah Al Hadeed verse 25) Al hadeed can mean literally steel or it could be the honing of the human intellect to gain power position by which there is combat … and from which there are benefits to the human crowd so that Allah will come to know who will support Him along with His Prophet through the distance of ghayb. (Surah Al Hadeed verse 25) Isn't it a waste of time and a damage to the Muslim character to have Muslims incapable of pursuing their skills and what knowledge they have obtained to a degree of self sufficiency? Let us put this in a way probably that is probably more understandable… Allah has given you, I and the rest of the committed Muslims an immense responsibility not only to govern our individual selves, but to govern the world. Our responsibility is to see to it that this governance belongs to Allah. This is an immense responsibility. In exchange for that, He wasn't expecting of us to only verbally glorify Him. It's nonsense to only verbally glorify Allah! You can better understand this if we approximated this responsibility to our mundane lives. Let us say that there is a king/ruler who gives the responsibility of governance to some of the citizens of the State and instead of shouldering those specific responsibilities in the field, these individuals come to the king/ruler's palace and glorify the king. The king/ruler has no need for individuals who come to his palace and glorify him?! What happened? Are they not doing their duties/jobs? The same thing, (with the magnitude of difference), is applicable to us. When Allah has given us these duties and responsibilities and we wind up coming to the House of Allah verbally glorifying Him at the same time we are abdicating our responsibility! We are not doing our job, (as it were). Remember this ayah… And He who does what is his responsible duty with virtue/righteousness while being committed to Allah, there shall be no denial of his efforts… (Surah Al Ambiya' verse 94) It is an ache and a pain to be exposed day-in-and-day-out to some Muslims who think it is a virtue to enter into the fine points of fiqhi when they spent years and years of their life gaining a skill and a profession that Allah will hold them accountable for! You see some nominal Muslims who are lax in their duties and job, but when time of salaah arise, they snap into order and they want to perform their salaah in a perfect sense, but all the time/hours before/after that salaah, which they are qualified to do, they don't pay attention to it. This becomes very obvious when there are certain parts of the Muslim Ummah who need other parts of the Muslim Ummah. (Take a) look at Iraq as an example. A population of 20-odd million people are dying and Muslims, (over 1 and-a-third-billion Muslims in the world), cannot put together their medical knowledge, expertise and technologies and save their own. Their medical knowledge have no value! Among the Muslims of 1,3billion Muslim, how many physicians do we have? What can hundreds of thousands, if not millions of highly qualified physicians/medical doctors do when millions of their own are dying in front of their own eyes and they are more interested in performing as salah/namaz on time, rising their hand in a du'a to Allah and shedding crocodile tears in front of Allah when (with) all of the years of their profession they cannot save a single soul of their own. This is the contradictory/conflicting positions that the Muslims are in. Allah is giving you a trust. You spent many years of your life becoming a doctor/an engineer/any other type of physical scientist, and when it comes for you to use your skills you are unable/incapable of doing so and in the sight of Allah you become worthless. Their types of salah was nothing but reverberation sounds and echoes. Allah says … and those who honor their trust and who honor their commitment. (Surah Al Mu'minoon verse 8) Where do we have the type of Muslims nowadays who can honor these commitments and this trust. You tell a person to go to college/university for 4/8/12 years and they graduate with Honors and they are plugged into a non Islamic establishment and when it comes to the fate of their own Muslim brethren, they are unable to do one thing to support them or to rescue their lives! Is this the type of Islam/the type of responsibility that the Prophet of Allah spent his life communication/explaining? Obviously not. The petroleum industry has scores of specializations. Many professions and degrees are related to the petroleum industry and we the Muslims in this world are the proprietors of petroleum. In all the Muslim population, (1,3 billion people), we don't have what it takes to put together a petroleum industry! Can you believe this- brothers and sisters? After almost a century of the discovery of petroleum in our own lands, (we're talking about 4/5 generations), we have the petroleum but we don't have the petroleum industry! Are you listening to Allah? Allah praises those who honor their commitments and their trust. If Allah has given us a trust of having this resource in our land/backyard/Ummah and we don't even know how to draw it out of the ground?! We don't have the heavy industry that builds the lighter industry that extracts the petroleum from our own territories! Where's this Muslim skill? Where are the Muslims who have all of these degrees? They can't do it! Governments have to contract Total, British Petroleum, Aramco, Shell and the rest of these to draw our own petroleum and then refine it. We can't even market our own petroleum! Why? Because to begin with, we have a contorted/lopsided understanding of Islam! We don't have it right in our heads, minds and hearts! All these graduates together, who are incapable of putting together one industry- imagine if the kafir doesn't want to supply us with medicine/food; we may die of disease/hunger when all around us our lands and minds are fertile! But we can't get this one issue together! Why? If we have fertility in nature and in ourselves, we end up at the begging side of life. Why? Has anyone ever asked themselves? Still, we have people that don't read the Qur'an or if they are reading Allah's words they don't understand what He is saying! They still think it is a virtue to wake up early in the morning and pray fajr salah or even more than that, to stay up during the night and pray the nafil salah and to shed some tears and then pray the other salaahs of the day in the meantime their efforts/work/schedule/programs all of these serve the kafir/mushrik/dhalim! None of it serves the Muslim/Mu'min/Mustadháf. Then, they come out to society and they are supposed to be polished Muslims. Who said staying up during the night or praying mechanically on time is virtue? It is not! When your whole purpose of living is sacrifice to kafir establishments and systems as is the current condition amongst contemporary Muslims. Allah said Allah knows the proportion of night and day and He knows among us that there will be physically incapable persons/individuals who are ailed and others who are exerting themselves making a living and there are others who are on military missions… These are exempt from staying up during the night. They don't have to. Ibn Masúd (radi Allahu anhu) who is known for all the efforts that he placed in the rendition of the Qur'an/Mushaf that we know today used to say I prefer iftar to saum or I prefer to break my fast, (not in Ramadhan, outside Ramadhan i.e. the voluntary fast), because it helps me in my effort with compiling, reciting, communicating and distributing the Qur'an. No one came up to him and said "oh, you don't understand what Islam is." He understood the Qur'an, which he spent his life working on. But we have our current Muslims today who (think they) understand the Qur'an better than the Prophet, the first generation of the Prophet, the first generations of Islam and better than the scholars, and then, with this type of understanding we have a world that is incapable of diagnosing this problem and saying "we Muslims are not able to obey Allah. This is ibadah i.e. when you do your work- no matter what your work is- to gain a living for your family and to serve other people on the outside, that is more important than praying." But we have today's Muslims who make/perform this salaah at the expense of their conformity to Allah in what they do in life. That is why we are incapable of independence, self sufficiency and helping ourselves even when we want to. No one doubts that many Muslims out here feel shattered to see what is happening to other Muslims in the world. We gave an example of the Muslims in Iraq. We can give an example of Muslims in Africa. Wars have erupted there like no time before. Who cares? Do you see Muslims responding to that? Does anyone mention this issue from the Mimbar in the khutbahs? No! What they want you to do is to shed crocodile tears and dislocate your priorities and yourself in your relationship with Allah. Allah will throw their salah into their faces on the day of accountability when their salaah did not stimulate them to do something about the larger affairs of life. Is their salaah barring them from the grand munkar and fahsha' that is all around? Not at all. In a sense, some of them having tamed their salaah to justify for us this grand fahsha' and munkar that is all around. It is not virtue to turn your face to the mashriq or the maghrib… Surah Al Baqarah verse 177) It's not virtue becoming a mechanical Muslim the way most of these individuals are. Have you ever heard of a Muslim machine? This is what they are. Muslim machines! The higher purpose of living is lost they have become a routine part of this establishment/system that is at war with Allah and those who belong to Allah… Brothers and sisters, Committed Muslims… Alhamdulillah. We thank Allah for extending to us His words of wisdom, redemption and guidance. We acknowledge through these ayaat of His that what happens around us is not happening by happenstance. It is not a freak occurrence that we have social and natural sources that are at work- all of which are in the command of Allah. If there is a flood here or a drought there, some people see these as random acts of nature; we see these as calculated acts of Allah. We know that there are certain quarters in this world that have targeted Allah, more to the point, they targeted those who are for Allah/with Allah/from Allah/to Allah in this life and in this world. We know that they cannot defeat Allah. We know that He will not let them escape. They said in this last year, (1998), "2,400 alarms went off at US diplomatic missions around the world." That's close to seven or eight alarms every day. Imagine- every day around the world seven or eight threats are scored/registered around the world where the representation of this Shaytaan is established and they want to sink in tens of billions of dollars to protect themselves. What does this say does this say? That Muslims are on their way out of this life?! We may be critical about ourselves, but this criticism is a building block that goes to strengthen/enhance our performance in this life before we return to Allah. They have atmospheric conditions in this country, (US), and beyond this country that are eye catching, but you probably have no one that is trying to draw a line between these atmospheric developments and the social/political developments of man. They want the Mimbar, Masjid and Muslims to be empty of this correlation. Far from it. We are increasing our knowledge of this correlation and are coming to realize day-after-day incident-after-incident dilemma-after-dilemma catastrophe-after-catastrophe which side Allah is on and which side Allah is opposed to. The indications and the signs are clear; you only have to open your eyes. What type of society are we living in? When people are upset at work, they immediately think of committing crime/killing other people- quick draws! It's happening. It's something they don't want to talk about. It's something they/we all should be talking about. Sexual perversion/homosexuality is promoted all around, but (when) a religious individual/Catholic in the armed forces refused to stay underground with a female co-worker/another military person for 24 hours because that violates his religious principles/beliefs, the military wants to reassign him! You know, (when) you go underground for 24 hours, there's a small room and there's only two individuals that they place in that room for 24 hours- a man and a woman. Is this coincidental that they place a man and a woman to work together away from everyone else for a 24 hour shift where there is a bed and other amenities that is provided and a person in the middle of all of this has a life conscience and says "I can't take this! It violates my religious beliefs/convictions" and now he is taken to court. (Can't) you see? Their aggression is against morality? And morality is part of Islam; and because this individuals Christian belief has a central component of morality in it, they are against this representation of morality; but if there were two homosexual individuals down there, then they would not be opposed to it. They are not opposed to the act of sex itself, they are opposed to how that act is performed. If it is done morally/bi al maáruf, then it is against their law. If it is done with fahsha' and munkar, it is sanctioned by their law. And their law is now at odds with Allah's law and the law of Allah shall survive and their man made laws of deviation/perversion shall be vanquished/defeated. If we haven't learnt anything from Allah's presentation of man's experience throughout the times, we have learnt that. We are grateful for that among the other many things that we are grateful for. This khutbah was presented by Imam Muhammed Asi on the occasion of Jum'ah on 6 August 1999 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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