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/apps/podcast/podcast/53423 (03-11-2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSyWna4OF_g MUSLIM PUBLIC MIND, ABSENCE PART2 There are very important movements of people that we watch everyday/whenever the opportunity comes to present itself. People in such countries as Egypt/Yemen/Tunisia just to name a few places that we with our God-given minds are trying to think through- if we do that because there are many of us who don't even do that! The problem is not a recent problem. The problem has its historical depth. With Allah's help, to begin we want to draw your attention with the fact that when Allah revealed the information that we have to the Prophet who we have He did not refer to it only as al kitab. There are many ayaat in the Qur'an that refer to the Qur'an itself as al kitab/the divine writ but He also refers to it as al hikmah. In about twenty times in the Qur'an in Allah's words, His revelation is described as hikmah. In one of these ayaat in Surah Al Jum'ah It is He, Allah the Most High, who has sent to non-scriptural people a Messenger from themselves who puts in sequence the meanings of this revealed text… (Surah Al Jum'ah verse 2) Tilawah does not mean recital even though that is the way people use it. That's a very superficial/artificial way of explaining the word. The tilawah means the sequencing of Allah's revealed meanings as they pertain to man's actions/activities … and thereby raises their status and he meaning, Allah's Prophet, teaches them, (meaning these scripturally illiterate people)… (Surah Al Jum'ah verse 2) Teaches them what? … al kitaba wa al hikma the divine writ and "wisdom" … (Surah Al Jum'ah verse 2) This is the way the word hikmah is used in the English language- wisdom; but that conceals the dynamic meaning of the word. Hikmah in a more refined way means cognitive thoughts/ constructive thinking. Now it seems like all of this has been deleted. This teaching of Allah's Prophet to us, (to put it in very simple terms), of how to think- hikmah is how to think- all of this has been absent from our history and our present condition. Now, we want to go back to the beginning when all of this mistake began to take shape. The first contingent/group of Muslims who give us an example/demonstration of the absence of this hikmah/thought process are those who are referred to in our Islamic history as Al Khawaarij. They are a part of us. Whether we agree/disagree with them is another issue. We're not going to deal with that because this is not the time for it and we have covered some of this territory previously. They exemplified how thinking is absent from the way they interact with Allah's words. One of the historical incidents early on- this is the first century of Islam, we're not speaking now. Now when all these events take place all around us our minds scramble to find an Islamic/Qur'anic/Prophetic reasoning for what is happening- that is if we activate our minds because many of us are conditioned not to think especially when we go to Masajid and we listen to khutbahs! So these Khawaarij, (and once again we have to say/ repeat), demonstrate one of the first demonstrations of how the human mind is absent when it comes to Allah, His words and His Prophet's conduct. These types of Muslims kill a Muslim and they spare a Christian in their contorted understanding, (if we can even call it that), of Allah's kitab. In the absence of Allah's hikmah this is what happens and this is the detail of this incident… There is a very well known person called Abdullah ibn Khabbab/al Khabbab. He was known at that time to have taken the side of Al Imam Ali (radi Allahu anhu) against Mu'awiyah and we all know at least some of this history, (we hope). This person stood with Ali when the decision was made for arbitration/when the pages of the Qur'an/Holy Scripture were raised on the swords when the two sides- the side of Ali and the side of Mu'awiyah- met in the battle. The result of that is what is called in the Islamic history at tahkeem which is arbitration, i.e. instead of solving this difference of opinion at the battlefield we will solve it by speaking about it or by going through it with our minds instead of our swords. This person, Abdullah ibn Khabbab, disagreed with the Khawarij because the Khawaarij said this tahkeem/ arbitration is not legitimate so they broke away from Ali and this person disagreed with Al Khawaarij and their evaluation of Uthman (radi Allahu anhu's) reign/the time period/the twelve years in which Uthman ruled. He disagreed with their characterisation of it because they characterised the first six years as legitimate years of ruling and the second six years as illegitimate years of ruling. So they encounter him and he happened to have some verses of the Qur'an, or some people say the Qur'an itself tied around him/his neck and they ask him what is your opinion of at tahkeem? He expressed his Islamic well grounded opinion/ point of view about the tahkeem which is that it is legitimate which of course they disagreed with. Then they ask him about the time in which Uthman ruled. Then he said whatever his rule was he's not going to delegitimize him throughout those twelve years which is another point of contention with them because to them the first six years were correct and the second six years were wrong. So they told him the Qur'an that you carry on your chest orders us to kill you and they killed him. Now brothers and sisters: we bring this one example of our Islamic history to point out the fact that such an act is an act void of hikmah/rational thought. The same group of people go from there as if this was a following incident. In that same time frame, (whether it was in that day/week), they go from killing an innocent Muslim to a Christian who has an orchid of date palms and they wanted to buy some dates from the Christian. The Christian said I will offer these dates to you without naming a price. I don't want you to pay me for these dates. Maybe he was afraid of them- we don't know. He said you don't have to pay me for these dates you can take them. They insisted to pay that person for the dates in the same frame of mind that they insisted to kill an innocent Muslim just because he disagreed with their opinion. How do you kill an innocent/average/another Muslim who has another opinion that disagrees with your opinion? How do you say that Allah and His Prophet demand us to kill you and then when it comes to a person like this Christian farmer they say honour the conscientious status that your Prophet gave to People of the Book! Where's the thought here? How does a Muslim's life lose its sanctity and then all of a sudden an issue like this, (which is not a major issue), whether someone is offering you something free of charge and you want to pay/don't want to pay and then you make this as a major issue if we don't have the absence of hikmah/the simple matter of having the Muslim mind work on Allah's words and the Prophet's teachings?! That is what we had. On another incident just like this, this same category of people comes across another person who is well known in the rational literature of Muslims. He's the founder of the rationalist school of thought in Islam- Al Mu'tazila. A person by the name of Waasil ibn Ata' who was with some of his colleagues and then he noticed the approach of these types of people at a distance and then he asked his colleagues and said let me interact with them. Leave the words to me. Don't talk to them. Let me talk to them. So they approached and he knew (that with) the way they think if he was going to encounter them they are not going to respond to a rational presentation of facts from Allah and His Prophet- they don't have it. So these Khawaarij asked Waasil ibn Ata' and his companions who are you? They say we are Mushriks. These are Muslims- not only average Muslims but these are very enlightened/ thinking Muslims. They say we are Mushriks. These Khawaarij did not know who these people are. After he said we are Mushriks he said we want you to teach us of what you have. These were Muslims and they began to explain to them the meanings of Islam. Of course in the general sense they were explaining Islam as everyone understands it. They weren't explaining the technicalities of their differences with other Muslims. So these intellectual Muslims listened to these Khawaarij speak and then these Muslims say they want to leave with safety and security because the problem with the Khawaarij was that if they explained Islam to someone and this someone/these people did not accept Islam they may kill them! Brothers and sisters: when we're speaking about this incident we're not recalling for you some buried historical detail. This is something that relates to today's world. There are real people acting exactly like this! They have other names but the characters are the same. If they had the power/weapons they would kill other Muslims who disagree with them and they have done and are doing it. So these Khawaarij were reluctant but then some of them remembered the sixth ayah of Surah At tawbah which means If there is a Mushrik who comes to you and asks you for information about this Deen and for safety you provide it for him… (Surah At Tawbah verse 10) That's exactly what happened. Now of course there are other issues that are related to this. Is it permissible for Muslims to lie? I mean in this type of absence of thought, simplistic questions arise. 'Why were these Muslims lying?" They were asked who are you? They said we are Mushriks. Obviously if you have a choice between lying and dying you'd lie rather than die because those who are going to kill you are not going to kill you for purposes that were intended from on high. Then there is another issue of taqiyyah (that) some person's going to throw into this. These are not Shi'is by the way; Al Mu'tazila, Waasil ibn Ata' etc. are considered mainstream Muslims. The, (meaning of the), ayah if you're in danger you can misrepresent the facts to get out of mortal threats/life and death issues which they did. This demonstrates to us, (we have to reiterate/emphasize/repeat), that we have been plagued with the absence of a rationale approach of understanding what Allah has revealed to us ever since the first century of this Islam. We had people just like this- they preserve the life of a Mushrik, they raise the status of a kitabi and they shed the blood of Muslim! (This is) nothing new! Some people look at today's Islamic geography and they see Muslims killing Muslims (and) they say "how can this happen? What's going on? Explain this to us." Well what has been going on is the Muslim mind has been sleeping for thirteen centuries so when things like this happen there is no Qur'anic/Prophetic light on this subject and we are stuck with a Muslim mind which is incapable of thinking through the meanings of wisdom that have come to it from Allah and His Prophet! Another incident that you can only dig up from our history books and no one wants to dig from our own history to try to learn from our own experiences. There is a religious group of people in what is today Dear committed Muslims, brothers and sisters… We have a lack of confidence in our own convictions and that lack of confidence can be traced to the absence of a thought process. No thinking- no confidence! So much so that Muslims do not dare call a spade a spade, (as it were). They can't bring the language of Allah and His Prophet to today's world therefore from the Manabir/Masajid of Allah you don't hear the meanings of Allah's words applied to today's world. The brainwashers who are in the Masajid who have the public podium in their possession tell you "you cannot mention names/ be specific." Why? If we cannot use names/be specific then how are we going to decipher the meanings that come to us from Allah and His Prophet? They say to us "you cannot express yourselves in public." Who said that? Where did that come from? Muslims go to the Umrah and the Hajj throughout the calendar months and they express themselves in public there. If Allah is telling us that we should sever our dependency relationship upon the Mushrikeen and we demonstrate this ayah in our Hajj and our Umrah- the question becomes who are these Mushrikeen? In the absence of thinking there's never going to be an answer/definition of who these Mushrikeen are. So it's up to us. Are we going to think and thus decode what the word Mushriks mean? Or are we going to remain non thinkers and therefore permitting the slaughter house scenery that we are subjected to where Muslims have to obey the rulers of the Zionist/Imperialist persuasions that we have who camouflage themselves with Islamic names and Islamic rituals? Our psychology is so weak that we don't have the frank/accurate words coming from the Manabir/Masajid in this world to describe for us who these illegitimate rulers are with whom we disagree to the extent of unseating them from their thrones of power. This khutbah was presented by Imam Mohammad Al Asi on the occasion of Jum'ah on 11 March 2011 on the sidewalk of Embassy Row in |
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