THE STREET MMBAR JUM'AH KHUTBAH (14 March 2014) 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/apps/podcast/podcast/332171(12-27-2013)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oauzgNgHxYE
SECTARIANISM
Sectarianism with its catastrophic impact on Muslim unity has less to do with the deficit of moral awareness and observation and a lot more to do with a divided and immature or a non-existent public mind. Certainly there are lot of practicing Muslims in the world who look after their fasting in Ramadhan, who observe their salawaat, who pay their zakah at the appropriate times during the year and during the day but even so these practising Muslims are the fuel for the sectarian inferno which is incinerating large demographics in the Muslim world. So when we go to Islamic circles one of the things that you hear in our discussions within the context of this Muslim on Muslim violence is that unity is a by-product of iman. Many of those who say this say it in a slogan fashion but nonetheless those who say it are suggesting"if all of the Muslims had iman then unity would take care of itself"but they don't stop there they go a little bit further and they say "if the numbers that show up for salaat ul fajr or if every Muslim woman wore hijab or if ever Muslim ate halal meat or if most of the Muslims stood up for qiyam al layl or if we paid meticulous attention to our du'as after our five salaats then all of this diffusive devotional attention would somehow miraculously put us all on the same page." Brothers and sisters- this is the kind of reductionist thinking on iman that presents itself to us as sectarian wars and as Muslims consuming the lives of each other. You get unity when you work on unity not when you work on perfecting your prayer. You get unity when you confront the obstacles that stand in the way of accomplishing it (and) when you face the problems and discuss amongst each other how to solves those problems. Unity lays in the social domain not in the personal one; not in the private one. Individuals do not have unity people do. Part of the problem we have brothers and sisters is that we fail to frame the issue properly. It is impossible for any individual- regardless of the level of his scholarship the extent of his devotion- to have iman in its totality. In full flower imanis a social phenomenon. Individuals have access to taqwa, societies have access to iman. In full bloom imanis a social phenomenon and thus the only entity in society that has access to Iman in all of its dimensions is the Islamic Ummah. No individual can compensate for the level of iman that an Ummah can claim to have. Iman is not simply about our devotional attention to the commitments that we've already made for being a Muslim. When you become a Muslim you make a commitment to certain activities, to certain beliefs and certain aspects on how you ought to behave but Iman is not just about those well known things, Imanis about taking that commitment and extending it to an area where Allah's guidance isn't as clear. In fact it could be said that the highest form of devotional commitment to Allah is to use His guidance to solve a problem for which Allah Himself has not been explicitly clear about. This requires social contact (and) social engagement. It requires the kind of social humility which allows the best ideas (i.e.) the ideas that are closest to Allah's Qur'anand to the Sunnah of His Prophet to dominate. But in order to understand these ideas deeply we have to know what it means to have a public mind. A public mind precedes unity in the same way that taqwa precedes iman. A public mind in nurtured by social contact, by deliberation, by challenge and by exchange. When an individual Muslim makes a commitment to Allah's command council that is Islam but it is not Iman; when an individual Muslim makes that commitment to Allah's will, to His law, to the modes of behaviour that He has recommended the only way that commitment can be transformed into conviction which is Imanis when he brings that commitment into the public space, when he engages other human beings with a position of principle, when he forces other human beings to enquire about his principles (and) when he is forced to justify in a form of a discussion or argumentation to other human beings who challenge his positions. It is within this domain of challenge and exchange in the public space that your individual commitment becomes a conviction and that individual commitment which begins as Islam and ends in conviction is called Iman. The intellectual commitment that begins in the mind and is tempered in the public space with discussion, with challenge, with the providence of proof and evidence is what settles in the heart as conviction or as Iman. Allah says in Surah Al Baqarah with regard to bringing personal convictions into the public space so that those personal commitments can turn into social convictions
Are you not of he who argued with Ibrahim about His Sustainer? (Surah Al Baqarah verse 258)
This person who is arguing with Ibrahim (alayhi as salaam) was one whom Allah had given temporal power in the world. So Allah is asking
Are you not ware of he who argued with Ibrahim in the matter of His Sustainer after Allah had given him temporal power? When Ibrahim said "Allah is the One who gives life and deals death"; this one who had temporal power (i.e.) this king responded by saying "I give life and I give death." (Surah Al Baqarah verse 258)
Then he picked out two people at random and he killed one of them and he let the other go in a matter sort of responding to Ibrahim that he gives life and deals death.
Then Ibrahim responded and he said "my Lord is the One Allah is the One who makes the sun rise in the east so then you, (oh king), make it rise in the west! And so he who denied Allah's power presence in the human affair was dumbfounded and Allah does not guide those who do intentionally wrong. (Surah Al Baqarah verse 258)
So Allah is telling us that it is not enough to make a personal commitment (and) that that personal commitment can only be made into a conviction when it is brought out into the public space when other people are allowed to challenge those convictions or those commitments. He is telling us in this ayah that Ibrahimbrought his personal commitment to Allah in the public space by challenging the abuse of power from a position of principle; but challenging that abuse of power was not easy because the abuse of power has its own institutions, it has own rationalisations and it has its own justifications and this king was presenting his justifications for his exercise of power in the land. The degree of comfort that we Muslims acquire by taking our commitments into the public space, by engaging in deliberation and exchange and by accepting the challenge of an opposition is the beginning of a public mind. It is this challenge in the public space that nurtures the public mind, that erects the public mind (and) that matures the public mind. Conviction lies in the public domain. There is no such thing as a private conviction. There is no such thing as a private Iman. There is no such thing as an Iman that cannot face the challenge of its opposition in public for when we talk about Iman within that context we also have to talk about kufr. Kufris the organised opposition to Iman.There's no such thing as a personal kufr. And if kufr is an organised opposition to Iman how is there any such a thing as a personal Iman?! Iman is the counterforce to kufr in society and therefore it has to be public, therefore it has to be social, therefore it has to engage but the reality is that we Muslims are uncomfortable with taking our so called beliefs into the public space. We, Muslims, begin to cringe when we are forced to take our personal commitments into the public, when we are forced to defend the trashing of our deen, the insulting of our Prophet and the delegitimizing of our God in the public space! We take a reactionary position. We take a defensive posture. Brothers and sisters- this is not Iman. Iman requires us to confidently take our convictions into the public space to deal with the problems of the social life in the public space (and) to face those problems in the public space and because a conviction or Iman is something that belongs in the public space any Muslim who fears to take his commitment to the public space doesn't have convictions! As a social body on earth we Muslims have no convictions because we fear taking our commitments into the public space and so thereby we have no convictions. Imanis something that belongs in the public space. If we are not willing to take our Iman into the public space then we have no conviction and when you have no conviction you have no social values and when you have no social values it ought to come as no surprise that the world that you live in is inundated with massive munkars all over the place. Iman is a public mind that is socialised to Allah's command and counsel. Imanis not something private. Iman is not something that observes the letter of a moral code but at the same time divorces the spirit of its expression from the adjudication of public justice. We have to understand Iman as a collective public will and an institutional momentum that is grounded in Allah's guidance and that is launched at societal corruption at the political abuse of power, at the economic chaos and at military depredation. To deal with social deviations of this nature we need a public mind. Only a public mind can deal with munkar at this level. No amount of individual altruism or individual devotion is going to be able to deal with munkar at this level. We've quoted this ayah many times on this forum.
As for those who reject Allah's power presence in the human affair, they are allies and sponsors of one another and if you Muslims are not allies and sponsors of one another then oppression accompanied by great corruption will reign on earth. (Surah Al Anfal verse 73)
Well, look around you brothers and sisters you don't have to look past your living room to have to understand that oppression and corruption seeps into every aspect of your lives. We know that a corrupt government, a big brother, can intrude into the minute aspects of your lives and especially if you're a Muslim you are not alone- somebody is watching you. A divided self image doesn't make a public mind. In order to deal with a munkar at this level we need a public mind and because of the rampant existence of munkar all around us this means that the Muslims are deficient in having a public mind; in fact it means we have no public mind.
On a previous occasion we said, (and we're going to go back to this concept but we're going to approach it from another angle), it was said one side of the public mind says "the other side has a defective aqidah" and the accused side of the public mind responds in a reactionary way. It counters not by saying it but by drawing the same conclusion (i.e.) "the accuser himself has a defective aqidah." Brothers and sisters, this is where we have to back up a little. This whole idea of aqidah was talked about in some amount of detail in a previous occasion but when you have positions and counter positions both claiming to develop and promote the idea of an aqidah- brothers and sisters, what's happening? If I can put it in today's terminology I would say that in the world today you have people who are privatising iman not just in the sense of moving Iman from the public space where it belongs into the personal space but in the capitalist sense where something that should not be owned is owned! Yes, we have people in the world who claim that they have the license to define who a Muslim is and who a Muslim isn't and thereby they have come to own iman.Their endorsement is required to define what a Muslim is and what a Muslim isn't- this is the ownership of iman.You have human beings who own iman.Brothers and sisters, how is this different than a corporation coming into some third world country claiming it owns rain water there. Believe it or not, this is what is happening in the world that we live in. The corporation goes to one of these South American countries and forces people to pay for collecting rain water! This happened in Bolivia United States for rain water falling in South America . Finally a popular government took over the place and said "this is nuts"and it told the corporation "get the hell out of here" and it expelled those corporations that were doing stuff like that. In our world today just like you have corporations claiming to own rain water there are royal families that claim to own fossil fuel resources. Yeah, they claim "we can do whatever we want with the revenues that come in with these resources. We can buy a palace in Monaco , we can go gambling in Las Vegas , we can do tawaf around all the brothels in Europe ." This is what comes from owning things that are not to be owned but they can get away with this because there's no Muslim public mind. There's no Muslim public mind to put the guidance from Allah and His Prophet into the public space of ideas. There's no public mind to put these ideas into the space of public debate, into the space of public solutions (and) into the space of framing public problems. Yes, this is a hadith of the Prophet, people are to share in the collective administration of three commodities or services, (i.e.) water resources, whatever vegetation the earth produces on its own and energy resources. If we Muslims had a public mind why can't we put this in the public space? Because we have usurpers in the public space who are saying that these things can be owned. They are saying "water resources can be owned" and they've done it. They are saying "fossil fuel resources can be owned" and they've done it and because we have a deficient Muslim public mind that can't put these ideas into the public space and that can't put some muscle behind the implementation of these ideas so they can claim to own rain water. So if they can claim to own all the oil underneath the ground then why can't they claim to own iman? Yeah, why can't they go to the next step and claim to own iman? They got away with owning rainwater, they got away with owning oil, they got away with owning your bank accounts, they got away with owning the education you receive in your schools, they got away with owning your pocket book with the kind of taxes that you pay so why can't they own iman? That's just the next step, "let me just go out and buy this iman and I can just tell everybody who's a Muslim and who isn't." This is what happens when we lose our public mind. You can go into the Masjid or you can go into your house you can be devoted to Allah until the last day as an individual as much as you want; you can pray every minute of your life, you can fast every day of your life, you can stand up for qiyamevery night of your life but if you don't have the courage (and) if you don't have the mental and the emotional and the spiritual wherewithal to take that commitment into the public space and to solve the problems of the public space then you have no iman.
Dear brothers and sisters…
This void in our public mind- it's said that nature abhors a vacuum- and so this void in our public mind is going to be filled by something. In the past and in the present this void in our public mind (and) this hole in our public perception is filled by criminal enterprises and we recognise these criminal enterprises to be monarchies and dictatorships, criminal governments, unrepresented regimes (and) military usurpers of power. When we don't have a public mind we cede the public space to these criminal enterprises to come and redefine what belongs to the public mind. They come in and they give all these things their own definitions. As we said earlier, they'll give a resource their own definition and it's not beyond them to give imantheir own definition. Aqidah is something that belongs in this space. Aqidahis not something that belongs to a school of thought, it's not something that belongs to an individual scholar, it's not something that belongs to a association or organisation or even a government but because our public mind is fourteen centuries late in entering into the public space these criminal governments (and) these criminal enterprises have appropriated useful concepts, given them their own definitions and used them to kill off political dissent and political opposition by labelling all of it as theological kufr, A practical example will help us. We saw just a couple of days ago the regime in Egypt (or) the military dictatorship in Egypt declared the legitimate political opposition (or) the legitimate government of that country a terrorist organisation. The military dictatorship called "the Ikhwan a terrorist organisation." OK- so now we have the government of Egypt using the spectre of terrorism and putting it upon the only organisation in the country which runs the vast majority of health care centres in the country (and) which runs the vast majority of the soup kitchens in the country (and) which runs the majority of small educational institutions for the poor people of the country. This regime has labelled its main opposition a terrorist organisation. Of course when you label somebody a terrorist organisation that means you have the license to kill that person, that means you have the license to go and imprison anyone who belongs to that organisation and to torture them and to delegitimize them but is the Egyptian government alone in doing what it has done? Did the Egyptian government or the Egyptian regime, the military dictatorship, create the narrative of terrorism? Is it promoting this narrative of terrorism all around the world? Did it develop the stereotype of a Muslim as a terrorist? No it has participants, it has allies, it has sponsors. This narrative of terrorism was created here in Washington and across the Atlantic in Tel Aviv. They are the ones who are promoting it (and) they are the ones who are popularising it so that anytime you hear the word terror or terrorism you think a Muslim. The second thing that you think of is that we have to get rid of him; and get rid of him means that any Muslim anywhere in the world can be killed if he is labelled a terrorist. No trial, no court, no charges! If you or you or you is labelled a terrorist then some government is out to kill you and they don't need any other justification than the label. So in the absence of a public mind you have a government like the government here in the United States that can give a dog a bad name and you have a regime like you have the one in Egypt that can kill him. Unity, brothers and sisters, is a by-product of iman but not the kind of iman which is privatised or owned. Any iman which is privatised or owned doesn't belong to the Muslim public mind. Only the Muslim public mind has a capacity to deal with the level of munkar that we have in this world today. Anyone who claims to privatise the public mind (and) they don't claim it by what they say, brothers and sisters. Nobody is going to come and tell you "I own iman." Nobody is going to come and tell you that! You have to judge these people by what they do and by what they do they are indicating that they own iman Anybody who claims to own iman by what they do, not by what they say is the one who is courting kufr.
… and woe to those who claim to write scripture with their own hands and say this is from Allah. They do this for a trifling price and woe unto them for what their hands have written and woe unto them for what they may have gained as a result. (Surah Al Baqarah verse 79)
This khutbah was presented by Imam Afeef Khan on the occasion of Jum'ah on 27 December 2013 on the sidewalk of Embassy Row in Washington D.C.
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