Shia Strength: [MahdiUniteMuslims] KHUTBAH : THE GENESIS OF THE BREAKDOWN OF TAQWA- PART 3

THE STREET MIMBAR

JUM'AH KHUTBAH (16 July 2010)

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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…

Before I begin I know it's hot and I know I have the tendency of sometimes maybe going beyond the limits of hot/cold weather; so please, if you feel it's hot, you can stand up to remind me- don't say anything- and I'll immediately click in my mind that I need to wind down.

Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/khutbassermons.htm (09-07-2010)

THE GENESIS OF THE BREAKDOWN OF TAQWA- PART 3

With Allah's presence and help we will continue to look into the neglected areas of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. We will keep on looking at those who make and break policies and strategies and in doing so they disregard Allah and His Prophet. We're speaking about the rulers i.e. those who are responsible for the sad/pathetic condition that Muslims, ourselves included, are in. (There are) two ayaat from Surah Al Ghafir… OK- What does this mean? And dare these preachers from the Mimbar deal with these ayaat and their likes in the Qur'an.

Bare in mind… (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

One of the explanations for idh is (that it is) short for udhkur; the other one is

and as they arguing in the fire… (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

There's an argument here- people are shouting back and forth. In the middle of that suffering/agony/anguish/torment, what are they saying?

…the powerless people in this world are saying to Alladhina Istakbaru/people who had all this power (militaries/weapons of mass destruction/biological-chemical warfare/finances/banks/institutions/establishments) in this world… (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

They appear to be powerful. Well- Allah brought all of them in. As a consequence to the way they were behaving in this world and now they are collected in the fire and Allah wants us to have a preview of what they are saying and doing. Thus this ayah. OK here we, people who don't have power in this world. Some of us are going to be in the company of the big shots/wigs who have all the power they want in this world. Imagine people who have these names- Abdurrahman/Ahmad/Uthman/Ali, and then they find themselves in the fire with the Pharaoh/Presidents/Kings. You can fill in the words. Who's your President/King around who has an influence on your life if you want to go to Makkah or Al Madinah.

… we were following you… (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

OK. That's a confession and that's the truth. In this world many people who have the wrong impression about power gage power in the physical/material sense. So if they don't have airplanes/vessels/missiles and all of these stuff they think they are powerless. And when you don't have Allah that is the logical conclusion. So in this world, when they didn't have Allah, they thought of themselves as powerless/oppressed/disenfranchised. These types of people are saying to the Presidents/Dictators/Despots who are now assembled in Jahannam

… we were your ardent followers. Can you spare us something of Allah's adhaab? (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

This broken psychology in this world speaks in the world to come. They take with them the false impressions that they had here! They think all these people who have all of this power can do almost anything. That's how they think in this world; so this thinking is transferred to Jahannam and they express themselves there. They look at these Presidents- Obama from the United States, King Abdullah from Arabia and you can add the others to the list and then they say "hey can you help/protect us from this torture and torment? Please help just a little. Do something?

… they said we are all in this together… (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

At least they had enough sense to respond. You see- these people who in this world had all of this power (and) were abusing/misusing go over there and now they are facing the facts. The facts are you reap what you have sowed. You planted something in this world and now the results is sprouting up in the final world.

… "Sorry we're all in this together now." Verily Allah has passed his judgement on His subjects/creatures. (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

His judgement/ruling is just and final "so forget about it. There's nothing we can do for you now." We have this mentality in our communities/conferences/committees/congregations. It permeates everywhere. You'll encounter it. People will refer to those who are in power- physical and material power- not the power of Allah. They don't think about Allah. Allah is just a matter of rituals that they go through but when it comes to making decisions Allah is not on their minds/hearts. These rulers today who have amassed the wealth and power that they have in the petroleum producing countries, especially in Arabia, they consider this natural resource to be their personal property and they possess/claim it. They are the landlords of the natural resources that Allah has given peoples and populations and they are not challenged. Why? Because this crippled psychology is alive and kicking in the average Muslim. So they release their lusts and they finance their fancies with all of this wealth. They don't report to people. They are supposed to be public servants but they're no public servants. They serve their carnal desires with fortunes/treasuries. The of profligate lifestyle that they have condemns them. Should we speak more about these thieves? They've stolen governance/natural resources. They've even stolen people. The people who walk on this earth consider their own populations just as they consider the wealth beneath the earth- they consider them also their possessions. They can do with them whatever they want to do. If someone tries to open up these ayaat and ahadith, they'll say "you have to shut up and if you don't then the consequences will follow" and we know what those consequences are. That's how they behave.

Because many of us consider the Prophet of Allah to be the optimum ruler. All of us consider his behaviour/interaction with people/lifestyle/character like that. There's no argument/second word about it. OK- let's try to look at his behaviour/deportment when he, in addition to being the ruler of the Muslims, was the Messenger of Allah- something that these rulers don't have. None of them are Messengers of Allah. If we were to scrutinise them more, we would say "they are Messengers of Satan." Let us now take a look at the standard Prophetic model and then you can compare that model with what you see and hear today about these rulers who want us to dwell in darkness on these issues. On Amr ibn Absa (radi Allahu anhu)… this is a person who was a fellow of Allah's Prophet. We're going to quote for you because sometimes we have these types and we don't want to give them these gaps; we're going to quote this first as it was pronounced and then we will translate it. He said the Messenger of Allah led the prayers in the presence of the war booty, many of the camels, that was obtained. After the Prophet prayed he took one hair from a camel and then he turned to the Muslims with him and he said the only thing halal for me of this war booty/spoils of war is one fifth of it. And then he said and that fifth eventually returns to you. Need we say that today's rulers who claim that "they are in the image of the Prophet" claim everything! Forget about four-fifths and one-fifth, everything is theirs!

There's another fellow of the Prophet, his name is Masruq (radi Allahu anhu). He said I entered upon Aa'ishah (radi Allahu anha) and then she requested some food for me. An obvious gesture of hospitality. Then she said I don't satisfy the hunger that is in me as much as I would like to and then I break down into tears. And then he said but why? And then she said I recall/remember the condition in which Allah's Prophet parted from this world. By Allah he did not satisfy his hunger twice a day eating bread and meat. There's another narration of this same hadith in which she says the Messenger of Allah never satisfied his hunger for three consecutive days meaning one or two of those three days he would go hunger. Aa'ishah is telling this person if we wanted to satisfy our hunger we could have done so but he used to prefer others to his own self. This is another measuring stick. You take this behaviour of Allah's Prophet and compare them with the rest of the rulers that all the Muslims have among themselves. How many of them? Fifty-sixty of them! Compare them to this. You can easily reverse the meanings. If Aa'ishah is saying the Prophet of Allah in the course of three days, (one after the other), didn't experience hunger in one or two days, now you can reverse this! Never in three days do we have these rulers who don't experience hunger. Isn't that true? They've reversed it and come and tell us/knowledgeable Muslims that we have rulers who are in the image of Allah's Prophet?! How can you do that?

Then there is another fellow of Allah's Prophet by the name of Utbah ibn Ghazwan (radi Allahu anhu), (of course these are not familiar names because as we said much of this information is dropped from public communication and discourse). What did he say? He said I saw myself one of seven people with the Prophet/Messenger of Allah. We had no food except for the leaves of the trees until the edges of our lips had blisters on them. I took a piece a sheet of cloth and I cut it. I shared one half with Saad ibn Malik (and) I covered myself with that cloth and Sa'ad with the half that he took put it around his body. That was in the time of Allah's Prophet. Utbah is speaking after the Prophet of Allah passed away and after we had this flood of finances and this machinery of might that took over. He says but today there's no one left of us except that he has become an Amir in such and such a region/country/city. They were eating the leaves on the tree and now they have become the Umara'. I ask Allah's protection that I may think of myself that I am someone very important/paramount; but in the eyes of Allah I am a miniscu/tiny. Now compare these statements with the first King we had- Muawiyah. What did he say? This is his words. He is ruling. He is in power. He has the money/possessions/wealth. He said the land/earth belongs to Allah and I am the Khalifah of Allah. Whatever I take from Allah belongs to me and whatever I leave alone and don't take from Him it still remains permissible for me. He didn't leave room for anyone. It's like saying everything belongs to him. This is when all of these problems began.

The second successor to Allah's Prophet, Umar (radi Allahu anhu), said the following. He considered himself to be in charge of the Islamic budget the same way a wali is in-charge of an orphan. When an orphan is in the custody of a guardian, that guardian is instructed by Allah in Surah An Nisa'- the ayah says

Whoever has the means/wealth then they should take of it the minimum- not indulge/claim/possess it- and whoever is poor and in need then he should take whatever his common sense dictates… (Surah An Nisa' verse)

Al Ma'ruf here is in the meaning of common sense/whatever is self evident. You would think that's how the people who are ruling/Kings/Presidents today consider the treasuries that they have?! Esti'faaf and Aklun bi al Ma'aruf. Not whatsoever! They don't know these two descriptions. (It's) as if they have never read these ayaat in the Qur'an.

(There's) another incident to show the difference between today's rulers and the ones they hold in high esteem. The second Khalifah of Allah's Prophet Umar says this… Compare what Umar says and how the Kings/Presidents who are imposed on us behave today. I entered upon the Prophet and he was sitting on a mat. Now something has to be explained here about the mat. The mat of those days was made out of hay/dry straws from the field and these straws were tied into knots and these lines of knots were tied together to make a mat. So Umar entered upon the Prophet while the Prophet was still on one of these mats. So he said I sat down and I noticed that the Prophet had his garment on and he had nothing else on just a garment. None of these fancy/flashy stuff that you see polluting the images of today's rulers. Umar says I saw that this mat had left an impression/dent on his skin. He says and I see that there is a handful of barely, much less than a pale. He's observing what is in this room of Allah's Prophet. There's a type of plant that is very well known in geographical Syria and the Nile area and the Prophet had a stem of that plant in one area of the room and he had a piece of leather that was put on the wall. Umar says tears began coming out of my eyes. So the Prophet asked him why are you crying son of Al Khattab. Umar said Oh Prophet of Allah how can I not weep when I see this mat has left its mark on your side and you have something like a cabinet and I see nothing in it but what I see; and there you have Kisra and Kaysar the two predominant Kings/Emperors of the time. They are ravelling in the produce and the fruits of the world and its running water/rivers/rivulets. In another narration he said Kisra and Kaysar are sitting on, (what you may call in today's world), couches the frames of which are made out of gold and the cushions that they have are made out of the fine fabric and silk. Then Allah's Prophet says they are people whose good things have been expedited for them- meaning that they are enjoying the good things immediately in this life- and in a very short time it's going to be disconnected/ended and we are people whose good stuff/things/life has been postponed to our Aakhirah. Have you heard any of those who rule in today's world who you could quote with one sentence that can come anywhere near/close to this statement from Allah's Prophet? (It's) as if the Prophet saw this coming. He said there are going to be folks in generations to come who will be racing with their lusts/desires the same way a dog owner races with his dog. The dog doesn't leave any part of the body- whether it's a joint/blood vessel except that it is exhausted in that race. This is the race that these people who are going to have power are going to be in, with their own carnal desires/lusts. And if you think that this is only a feature of our current rulers, you're wrong!

Go back to the Hijri year 248. (It's easy to remember that year). During the Abbasi Dynasty. We mentioned earlier that a son killed his father to become the ruler. The same son, called Al Muntasir Billlah de-legitimatize his two brothers. What is meant by this? Before killing his father- this is a ruler of the Muslims at the time who some people incorrectly call Khalifa. Don't call him that, he's a King. This King became the ruler of the Muslims after he killed his father and his father had written a political will that gives the throne to this son i.e. the one who killed his own father. This son had two other brothers so this father designates these two other brothers respectively as the heir-apparents of the throne- what is called today "The Crown Prince of the throne." So when you hear the words "The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia" you can trace that word all the way back to these rulers of those times. So when the father wrote this political will for his children to inherit the throne/ government/power… Who inherits power?! We are plagued with the problem that we have this happening for hundreds of years and still is the case today. Then what happened after that? The history books says? After this was written and power became an inheritance matter, people endorsed this or, (to put it in today's world), voted for this… We know this is silly because the political expression of Muslims was curtailed early on- scores and scores of years before the year 248 but this is what they tell us. (It's) same like today, there's an election and then they say "the Muslims voted for so-and-so." In the case of Kings they don't have a voting system. They have a Crown Prince who sits on the throne and then they have a charade/theatre of people who say "they gave the bai'ah to this type of King." Brothers and sisters- listen: when we die, as fathers/parents, we don't even have the capacity/legitimacy to give of what we own i.e. we don't have the "freedom" to give the money that we have to whoever we want. That's the little amount of possessions that we have in our supervision as parents. There's a law- al mawareeth/the inheritance law- that kicks-in and then the wealth is distributed according to these God-revealed/given laws. This has to do just with a some amount of wealth/money/possessions/assets- a small amount. So who says that a King/ruler- whoever that is- can come and say "I am now distributing power into my family for when I die such and such a son is going to become the ruler of the land?" Where is that? But this is how we're behaving and this is who we actually are. It's a sad position to be in but it's a fact and the facts have to be stated as they are on this day and this time because this is a day and a time of taqwa. If we factor in Allah's corrective power presence that we have to speak the truth. We don't care about these false powers. They can do whatever they want to and their mistakes/injustice are going to catch up with them. In the meantime we continue on this path to Allah- As Sirat Al Mustaqeem- speaking the truth and then devaluating what may be the consequences of that.

Brothers and sisters…

After listening to these divine guidelines and understanding the character of those who are supposed to be in charge of Islamic affairs (and) after comparing Allah's Prophet with the type of rulers today we know there is a world of difference between them. The Prophet of Allah died as a simple man- (there's) not much in his home. He and his family used to live on the poverty level. We're not exaggerating. There's not something that we're trying to score here or anything like that. Brothers and sisters- the Prophet and his household used to live at the survival level. Contrast that with the way these rulers live today, especially the ones who are in the same geography/region/cities that the Prophet of Allah lived/struggled/died in. We would be ashamed to say that they have anything to do with us/Islam/Allah and His Prophet. All of these acrobatic rituals that they go through- sujud/ruku and up-and-down and forward-and-backwards- is not going to fool anyone. Remember- we can't reconstruct for you all of the blood that is flowing and all the tears that are shed almost everywhere in Muslim territories- you will think that when the Prophet of Allah says he has the khumus/one fifth and that one fifth is eventually going to return to the Muslim public… When you compare that with these people who claim everything and then they want to occupy us with trivial issues. Let us tell you (and this is also not something that we are trying to be personal about. You may not know this because you don't live there and this information does not make its way in the mass media to you/me in the general public) that a couple of weeks ago (there was) "a very central and important issue" in the Arabia of Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an. What was that important issue? You would think that they're thinking of withdrawing the money that they have to give it back to the people that it belongs to? No. (Do) you think they're thinking about some type of way to send assistance to the Palestinians/Iraqis/Afghanis who are living a life that is near death? No. So what is it that they're preoccupied with? We're not joking- their scholars of all people were preoccupied with the argument of "whether because of the hot heat/weather in the summer of Arabia they should make it official to join Dhuhr prayers with Asr prayers at the time of Asr when the sun is on its way down." This was occupying their minds and they were struggling with it. As if the Prophet didn't make jam'a in his prayers. Anyone who knows anything about these issues should be at the minimum surprised if not shell-shocked that they would be corolling all of their minds around such an issue that is so simple- whoever wants to make his jam'a at Asr time may do so; whoever wants to make it at Dhuhr time may do so. Is this the issue now that all our minds should be chained to and forget about all the blood/misery around? But that is exactly what they mean to do. And when we have that mindset/psychology that we began to speak about i.e. ad d'uafaau min an naas

… you people who are going to follow these rulers into jahannam to have an argument there… (Surah Al Ghafir verse 47)

that we already heard in Allah's Book. You make up your mind where you want to be…

This khutbah was presented by Imam Muhammed Asi on the occasion of Jum'ah on 9 July 2010 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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