Shia Strength: Muslim Unite Sunni and Shia KHUTBAH : PROPHETS AND JUSTICE

THE STREET MMBAR

JUM'AH KHUTBAH (11 January 2013)

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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.

Dear committed and sincere brothers and sisters …

In the name of God the mercy giver the very merciful.

Assalaamualaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh

I greet all of you with the greetings of peace- a peace that is impossible without justice.

Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/apps/videos/videos/show/17543130-prophets-and-justice-by-imam-muhammad-al-asi-12-14-2012 (12-21-2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDpWoju5rSQ

PROPHETS AND JUSTICE

First I would like to comment on the very refreshing and uplifting presentation that we just heard from Pastor Dankoff. I sort off, (it's like a split personality), was sitting down (and) living with his words and the truth and validity there-in and on the other hand living with some of the listeners knowing the type of background. I can understand the type of, (sometimes people call it), conspiracy theory mentality that is out there but I want you to rest assured that none of that element existed in this podium here from the previous speaker- you can take my word for that.

I think I have a title to my presentation and I'll try to meet the contents of that title- Prophets and justice- somewhat briefly and then I'll try to pick up with some more relevant and contemporary issues. We have inherited a history of Prophets. The Prophets stood for justice- that was their mission. It may have been polluted in some history books and it definitely is thrown out of the mainstream media; no one mentions any of that history. (Its) as if we have nothing in our human experience as far as these men of God when they existed on earth. Let me try to, maybe, dazzle some of you. Prophets were, (to borrow some contemporary vocabulary), ideologues. I don't mean that to demean Prophets, I mean that to uplift the meaning of ideologue and therefore they came into conflict with their power structures. Every Prophet in his time-frame and in his social milieu came into conflict with the power structure that they were living in. This is applicable to all God's Prophets however way you read them (and) whoever names you may give them- that's a common feature that they all had; the same way that today we find ourselves facing this contemporary power structure. This is nothing new if we were versed on the history of the Prophets and men of God in this world in the past we would realise that what we are going through right now is very similar to the footsteps that were new grounds that were broken by the Prophets of "ancient times." A thousand years are like one day so history is like the present- there's no disconnect but obviously there are people out there who are out to secure their own personal interests, their own class interests, their own peculiar interests- whatever they may be, national or racist or sectarian or whatever. So they want this disconnect between us and the rich experience that we inherited from this history. When I use the word Prophets it's synonymous with some people's literature when they say messengers, some may say emissaries, some others may say men of God, sages, etc. There are different terminologies for this but these Prophets who received scripture or revelation or communication from God- the same God that we affirm- actually bequeath to us a very precious experience to understand that if we proceed on the path to God then we are inevitably going to run into these power structures. Now what do we do? Now, first of all we use the word evil doers; before there are evil doers there are evil thinkers! To overcome the challenges in this pursuit of God (and) this destiny towards God these power structures present a very disturbing impediment and a very dangerous one too. This is real. This is the real world. We're not speaking about anything theoretical here, we're not speaking about something that has a distance of time between us and it. It is here and it is now. So what do we do? What did the Prophets do when they were forced to face (or) look at these evil thinkers and then evil doers? Did they cave in? Did they say "I'm going to out fox or out smart or out manoeuvre the power structure and play a game here with the power structure and play a little politics" and all of this or did they stand on principle, having a commitment and a conviction and a faith in God that "He is going to deliver me from this power challenge" that I have. If we become a little more specific- if we take the life time of Moses (alayhi as salaam)- Moses definitely dealt with the power structure. The power structure in Egypt at that time was a kin to a superpower, (in the language that we use today), and Moses was wanted by a superpower. What did he do? Did he say "you know, Oh God, please relieve me of this responsibility. I can't take it." Has anyone read any verse anywhere in which Moses had this communication with God saying "you know this is too much for me or something like that?" No! It doesn't exist. He was under tremendous pressure, he was wanted dead or alive the Egyptian authority was in hot pursuit of him because he had killed an enemy of one of his ethnic types and so he was "a fugitive from the law" and he had to travel from Egypt to another land of safety, (maybe along the lines of Mr. Geroldi's idea "we've got to get out of here for the time being" but the issue is that none of them presented us with a type of an escapist mentality. So we have to first of all acknowledge that there is this governmental power structure that simply doesn't want justice in life or in society or in existence or in its departments that are responsible for administering, at different levels, our lives. So what do we do? What do you do? The simplest answer to that is we stand on principle. God has given us insight, enlightenment and foresight. The least that we can do is to speak truth to power, no one can do anything less than that if you want to maintain your relationship with God. If you want to break that relationship, that's another subject altogether (and) I have nothing to do with that at this moment but if you want to maintain your relationship with God the least that is expected of you, (in the humble understanding of yours truly here), is to speak truth to power. It's not going to be easy. Here is where I want to make this transition from things historical to things contemporary and I take this from my personal experiences. I don't usually talk like this or present such personal experience but I think you should know. I think this information should be made public (and) I think we should counter think those right now in the CIA and the FBI and the intelligence agencies. Right now we have Homeland Security, (with all the budget that they have and the gathering of information and all of this stuff), leak out information, they tell us "there's twenty-six-thousand individuals in the United States who are on a no fly list." I don't know if that's true. It could be more but this is what they are telling us. Now wouldn't it be something to think about to counter the evil that they have on their mind and its consequences (and) wouldn't it be timely to, (with the computer systems that we have), try to pull these twenty-six-thousand people together? I'm not on the no fly list, (at least), yet. I don't know what is going to happen in the future but every time I go to the airport I get, (what they call), this "S-quad." On your boarding pass they stamp it with four S's after the airline makes telephone calls to Homeland Security (and) the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA and then after that they stamp your boarding pass with four S's so you have to go now through a screening process in which they pat you down. You have to take off your belt, you have to take off your shoes, you have to take off your jacket (and) whatever you have on and then they get a little sometimes feely/touchy with you and they go through your belongings thoroughly. Of course, there's nothing there. I just watch them. It's a scenery for me there. I just pay attention to them and may be speaking to them from time to time. Sometimes I take the opportunity to say "you know if it wasn't for Zionism you wouldn't be going through this and I wouldn't be going through this." I throw in that word if I find someone who is amenable to understanding or has a little common sense and these things. I haven't come across any number yet but I'm wondering in my internal self how many of us Americans or legal residents in this country are S-quads who get these four S's on their boarding passes. It would be nice to have them because everyone is on the computer nowadays. There has to be a way. These are fine people. I guess ninety plus percent of them are just like me and you- average people. We're giving our contrarians the benefit of the doubt, we are more than average but we are average people and we have no criminal records. We are morally committed and we vote, we pay our taxes, we honour our neighbour, we go to our Mosques or Churches- we do everything that an average person does so why are some of us on a now fly list and others with four S's on their boarding passes? Can we not begin to think? This is where they have taken from us our ability to counter think them. No- we want to counter think them. If they have these lists and they are suspecting us of doing something wrong- which we haven't done- then we have to by necessity suspect them because if you've done nothing wrong and they're trying to more or less have you feel that you are guilty or you are a potential criminal or an outlaw of some sort then we have to counter think them. I don't know, (I'm just throwing this idea out there), is it possible to through the computer system get on line and then have some sort of website and get the word out there that anyone who is being harassed by Homeland Security, and TSA, etc. This is in the United States. If you happen to be overseas you can be denied entry into the United States. The last time, a couple of months ago, I was coming back from the Islamic Republic in Iran (and) my flight was from Tehran to Amsterdam to Washington DC- this was KLM, the Dutch airlines. When I was in Amsterdam I wanted to board my flight back. They have two security systems there at the gate- one of them is the airline security system and the other one is the American Homeland Security personnel who have their officers stationed at different airports around the world- one of them is Amsterdam. It's not only the United States. Other countries have it too. Britain has its representatives there and I'm sure other countries also have their representatives but these are the two that I happen to have an encounter with on different occasions. So this person from American Homelands Security immigration customs, ICE or whatever, comes up to me and he sits down. They sort of appear to be common sense and regular individuals and then they begin a little discussion with you, "what do you do? Where have you been? Who invited you? What did you speak about? Where did you stay?" These are common routine questions that they ask and I give them the common, factual, truthful, routine answers that I give them. Then after that, one of them at one occasion, (not on this last encounter in Amsterdam, on an encounter before that), say "do you have a criminal record?" I said "no I don't have a criminal record." Then he said "how about unlawful entry?" Now I knew exactly what he was talking about. Back in 1983, (some of you know this some of you don't), we were in our Mosque in Washington DC- this is the cathedral Mosque on Massachusetts Avenue and Embassy Row and I was the elected Imam. I still consider myself to be the elected Imam of that Islamic Centre even though the Saudis, which is another word for the American and Israeli government, hired some vigilante force and forced us out of the Mosque on our Islamic Eid. It's like you're in Christmas during your Church service on Christmas day. It was our Islamic Eid, it was Eid Al Fitr (at) the end of Ramadhan (and) we were there in the middle of our services and they came and they took us to jail on that day. Then they took us to court. I know some of you are aware of this but it's a long story- I don't have time for it right now- but there were two charges against us: disturbing a religious service and unlawful entry into the Mosque. The jury, the judge who was a Presbyterian judge in the district court of Washington DC- by the way, these are misdemeanours, these are not felons- and he said "he was supposed to rule on disturbing a religious service charge and he ruled that we are innocent..." This judge died last year, his name was Judge Surrel. He requested the Justice Department "to drop this whole case." He found out it was a fabricated thing but the jury and by the way, you know who responded to the judge at that time? It was the end of 1983, beginning of 1984. The third ranking official in the United States Justice Department at that time. I don't know anyone can remember who that was. Later on he was to become the Mayor of New York city, later on he was to run for President of the United States. Guilliani. He was the third ranking official at that time of the Reagan administration and the Justice Department. He told Judge Surrel "we want to get these guys." So through the jury- there were twelve jurors- and they said "we are guilty of unlawful entry into the Mosque" that we were elected to be its administrators. There were fifty of us who were arrested on that day, on our high holy day and were taken to jail in Washington DC. We were released the following day but that's what happened. This is what happens and this is just a scintilla of what was happening in the lives of God's Prophets and God's men on earth- these things happen. Do we regret any of that? None of us regret any moment of it up until this very day. Not one detail of that has been regretted. So, (I go back to Amsterdam), this person working for Homeland Security said "unlawful entry." Of course he was reading probably in my profile and then I said "look…" Everyone had boarded by this time (and) you get a little tight on time here. I said "look, I was in the Mosque and I was elected to be its Imam and a vigilante force in addition to the Washington DC police came into the mosque and they arrested us when we were in the middle of our service. Do you call that unlawful entry?! If you were in your Church on Christmas day and the police came in and arrested you is that unlawful entry?! And let's say that, some how in your mind, this what we were doing was against the law- it was a misdemeanour. It's just like having a traffic violation. What's that?! You want to crucify me because of a traffic violation?!" He says "OK- but the sermons that you give, how would you characterise them." I mean, this person read very carefully whatever information was provided to him. He was asking me "how would you classify the sermons that you give?" I said "I don't know. That's a very tough one." He said "would you think that you are somehow propelling people…" (I'm using borrowed words here but this is the meaning), "would you think you were propelling people to action that would result in breaking the law?" I said "no. I don't think it will result in that. Yes, I would be propelling them to action but I don't think it would be action to break the law as you are saying." He said "but you speak about some of these issues that are, maybe, controversial or something like that." I said "I speak a lot about the Palestinian issue." This guy happened to be an Irish man. He was honest enough to tell me he's Irish man. I said "maybe you can characterise most of my sermons as being with the oppressed peoples. Palestinians, the Irish. I'm sure if an Irish man was listening to my sermon as well as a Palestinian, as well as an Afghani, as well as others who are suffering from occupation and military schemes would love to listen to what I am saying but I think those who are leading the charge in the military and in the high offices in government probably would hate what I'm saying- that's the best I can characterise this thing for you sir." They were telling me "you have to board right now." They were pushing me and I wanted to speak more to him. I told the latest one in Amsterdam, the one who stopped me a couple of months ago, "I said look- I would love to speak about this subject but I can't do it in a couple of minutes. Go tell your superiors to set up a timeframe that we can thrash out this thing out in a few hours (or) in a couple of days if it is going to take that to clear the air on that subject. None of us here are suspect (but) we are here suspect because we are trying to speak to real issues from a scriptural point of view." They want scriptures to speak about history or to speak about something ethereal (or) something that has to do with the imagination but nothing that has to do with real life, with caring for the poor, with coming to the aid of those who need help, with repelling aggression, with exposing real lies that cost populations their existence their existence. They don't want people speaking about that. So if you begin speaking about that you become a subversive. Moses was a subversive, Jesus (alayhi as salaam) was a subversive, Muhammad was a subversive because they spoke scripture to issues of real life. They weren't there drawing a picture of heaven that had nothing to do with earth or scaring people of a hell that had nothing to do with earth- both heaven and hell are earth related so you begin to put God's words in the context of these real-life issues (and) they begin to look at you insurrectionist. What are you trying to do?! Well- I'm not trying to do anything. That's God's will. This is what God wants us to understand and what God wants us to do. Does anyone have any problem with that?

I'm sure some of you are familiar with a site called the Investigative Project by this rabid Zionist called Steven Emerson. In one of the recent postings, it may have been last month, he has one in which MSAPSG, Muslim Students Association Persian Speaking Group is mentioned. There's an FBI agent who appears on that who said "his first assignment was to follow MSAPSG." This was back I think in the late seventies early eighties, way back then. OK- here he comes. He's sponsored by a Zionist outfit and he's speaking to more or less to the neo-Conservative types of Christians who are beholden to the Zionism and who genuflect. You saw the way the Congress was yo-yoing itself up and down for Netanyahu. So do you think they gave up? The FBI is no longer around?! The guy right now I think he's retired if I can recall correctly but he began to speak. You can go to that website. I don't encourage anyone to obtain any useful information from it but it is a website that will give you an idea of how closely they are listening and they are watching. So what?! Let them listen. I deliver my sermon every Friday on Embassy Row in Washington DC in public with a microphone for everyone to listen to me. They can hear, they can listen and so what do I do?! I get this imprimatur at the airport with four S's that's what I get for that. I think it's like what one of our speakers mentioned- it's a badge of honour. What are they going to do next? OK- worse comes to worse they have this National Defence Authorisation Act- they can pick up any American they want for no reason and have him disappear. Well- let's say this was going to happen to a Prophet, what would the Prophet do? Is he going to say "you know this power structure is more powerful than God Himself?!" If we are doing the will of God then we say this power structure (or) any other power structure in the world is not more powerful than God and if God to do His will has me or another humble human being go through a course in life in which we're supposed to be patient and we're supposed to refer the consequences of this encounter to Him then that's what has to be done. It's not an easy thing and if that's what has to be done then that's what has to be done. No one is going to welcome anything like this. I'm sure the Prophets were very patient with God's will but they worked God's will and this is what's required of us and if it's going to scare the daylights out of these people in high office that the truth is beginning to come out (and) people are beginning to catch up on what is happening then that's the consequence of what they are doing. If they were working their conscience they would have nothing to fear; they would not need these intelligence services and all of these agents to try to incriminate innocent human beings. What they're trying to do is to criminalise dissent. OK- if you want to criminalise dissent you have the power to do that. You have the courts you have the law enforcement you have all of this thing; we have no one except our God-given conscience, our God-given heart, our God-given soul, our God-given mind- that's what we have and if they're afraid of that… We don't have any machine guns. I don't have a BB gun at home. As much as a BB gun I don't have but I have the truth, (or at least I think I have the truth or a good portion of it), and if they're afraid of a person who has the truth and they are there at the airport… Let me tell you something at the airport that many people don't know- if you're checking in like I do. When I can here, to Houston, I checked in the airport in Baltimore and I had a connecting flight in Atlanta. Now when you check in at Baltimore you can understand- OK, you have to go through the security. They take you aside and they do the screening process that they go through but then when you get to Atlanta, (and I've done this many times in my connecting airports), I look at these gates to see if there's any of these TSA people at these other gates (and) I don't see these TSA people around. I just see people boarding in normally but every time I get on a connecting flight and the TSA is there at the gate. So what happened? I mean I just flew on a plane from Baltimore to Atlanta and I didn't leave any airport?! I'm still in the airport. What could I acquire? What could I obtain in that airport? A snack?! Is a snack dangerous? A bottle of water that I may want to drink maybe to rehydrate up in the air- is that dangerous?! So if they're becoming paranoid- which obviously they are- I guess it's a time for them to look at themselves. What's wrong with us? What went wrong? What are we doing- we're picking on innocent individuals like this. (At) one time I had a discussion at Dallas airport, that's the international airport in the Washington DC area. I was coming back from a trip from overseas. I had a discussion with a couple of these individuals. They know me and I know them because we've been through this routine many times; I'm a frequent flyer and we're familiar with ourselves now. So I ask them "now why do you pick on an innocent person like me? I just happened to have come through customs with about almost fifteen Saudi Arabians." As God would have calculated and assessed things about fifteen Saudi Arabians were right in front of me handing in their customs card to the final customs employee there and the speaking system was saying "welcome to the United States of America." This all happening at the same time and so this custom guy was taking the custom's cards from the Saudi Arabians and they were going through very merrily to their arrival area and here I- an American citizen who served in the United States military who has no criminal record here- am motioned to go for secondary screening. So when I got there I told these custom's employees "look- 9/11 was done by whom? I don't know your reading of it and I don't want to go through the details of it right now. Obviously this is a subject that can exhaust a lot of time but according to the official information out there fifteen out of nineteen individuals were Saudis who committed 9/11- that's what all this information out there. Here I am coming to the United States and I see fifteen Saudis right in front of me going right through as though they were Americans and here I am subjected to secondary screening as if I am a Saudi. Now how does that square with you? How do you process this?" One of them, she, said to me "well we had a colleague, he was a Pakistani- actually he works with us (and) he went to Pakistan and he is one of us. On his way back he was subjected to the same thing you are subjected to." I said "well doesn't that tell you something is wrong with the system? Come on! I mean the signals are coming your way from all every direction. Something is wrong. You suspect one of your own? He works with you- he's your colleague. You know him, he knows you. He went to visit his family in Pakistan (and) he's coming back and he's subjected to this? Doesn't that tell you something? Where are you? There's no longer the ability to think?" But this is exactly the point. They have drained us of our ability to think of what God and His Emissaries wanted to teach us and we have a rich history of it extending for thousand of years but due to the ungodly and secular establishment that we are living in we are disconnected from all of that and as if right now many of us are trying to recreate a needle.

Thank you very much. I think I'm told here I've run out of time. Hopefully if there's a question and answer session or if there's not a question and answer session we are brothers and we are beyond and above formalities.

May the blessing and the grace and the peace all of which comes from justice on earth your share here and in the hereafter.

Wa Salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh

Wa Sallalahu ala Muhammadin wa ala ali Muhammad

This khutbah was presented by Imam Muhammad Asi on the occasion of the Annual Conference of the MSA PSG on 21 December 2012 on the sidewalk of Embassy Row 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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