| THE STREET MMBAR JUM'AH KHUTBAH (30 May 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/341560 (05-02-2014)
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TAGHUT AND NIFAQ PART 1
Taghut and nifaq are enduring bedfellows. Even though these two words are part of the Qur'anic and the Islamic lexicon one would be hard pressed to find the Muslims using them in their common, every day vernacular to characterise or to describe the events that are taking place in their day and the circumstances that they happen to be oppressed by. Even when Muslims try to use these words they take a reductionist interpretation from translations and apply that to the extent that they restrict the meaning and domain of meaning of these words. It has gone to such an extent that the word nifaq is represented as simple hypocrisy and the word taghut, in the few times that it is used, is simply used to describe the actions and behaviours of individuals so when the word taghut is used by Muslims then they're referring to an individual tyrant or to an oppressor or to somebody who is given a position of leadership without being endorsed by the people but rarely is the word used to describe systems and governments, to describe social narratives, to describe socialising influences that affect the way people think for there are taghuti systems, there are taghuti governments, there are taghuti narratives of history and there is a taghuti prevailing socialisation which gets us to behave on a way that living side by side with tyranny is a normal behaviour. These ayaat which were quoted earlier from Surah An Nisa' tell us that there is a relationship between taghut and nifaq and by understanding this relationship we may be able to identify in the world we live in today who the taghuts are and who the munafiqs are. We read the Qur'an and this becomes a problem for us and we see these words used often and frequently but in the every day life we hardly see these words used; so how do we form an association between the taghut in the Qur'an and it's equivalent in the world that we live in. We don't hear the words used so how do we establish this association and that is the purpose of our talk today? The social and the political and the military expression of the word taghut in the world that we live in today is called imperialism and the chief executive of that program in our world is the United States
The word taghut itself has slipped out of common usage of the Muslims and it is buried under centuries of indifference, of expediency and of ignorance. Taghut at its very root in a linguistic sense describes excessive and aggressive power. It describes over-weaning, gargantuan and maximalist power. In other words, in our world today, the word taghut is equivalent to the word superpower or hyper power but when we talk about superpower, about hyper power, about aggressive power (and) about maximalist power we are talking about a kind of power that gets us as individuals to normalise the expression of tyranny in our lives. This power is used to get us to feel that the occupation of the lands of others is normal. It gets us to feel that it is power that confers legitimacy; that if you have power (then) whatever you do is ok (and) whatever you do is legitimate. The chief impact of this kind of aggressive and maximalist power is to get you- the average Joe in the street- to believe that you have a normal relationship with tyranny. These words in Allah's book are telling you that it is impossible, impractical (and) untenable to have a normal relationship with tyranny. The way that this aggressive and maximalist power exhibits itself in our lives today is Imperialism. Now if you go to the social science textbooks and you study political science (and) you study government politics you come across a number of definitions for Imperialism. You can go to ten different authors and they will give you ten different explanations for Imperialism and ten different motivations for such a program. Some of them say "Imperialism is the extension of state power by the forceful acquisition of the foreign territories of others"; others will tell you "Imperialism is governance by empire" and still others will tell you "Imperialism is the coalescing of people with less power into the territories of those who have more power." And the definitions goes on and on and as there are many definitions for the concept and the idea and the program of Imperialism there are also many many explanations for the motivations for such a program. Some of these political scientist will tell you "the motivations for such a program are economic- cheap labour, new markets, cheap acquisition of resources" more likely the theft of resources or the free acquisition of resources and within this domain of an economic motivation for Imperialism some of them will tell you "the chief motivation for Imperialism is a glut for investment resources," They will tell you "there is too much money and that these financial investments have to find markets elsewhere to help those markets grow." So were it not for a glut of capital resources these people suggest that there would be no need for Imperialism. Thus the argument has its detractors and it has its supporters but what really destroys this argument is the fact that in those places in the world that experience the greatest theft of resources- which is Africa, South America, the Islamic East and South-East Asia- what infrastructure development took place in these places during the heyday of Imperialism? The only time the infrastructure development took place was when the Imperialists were expelled. The extra capital that existed in these places before Imperialism took place, meaning in the Imperial domain, didn't find itself being employed to build infrastructure in the so called dark continents of the world- that only happened when these people acquired independence. So with these arguments these same historians and political scientists tell us "the golden age of Imperialism- what we refer to as taghut in our modern day- was from 1870 to 1914. This is the time when the greatest European expansion took place and the greatest acquisition (or) occupation of foreign territory took place, that during these three or four decades the European powers acquired up to twelve million square miles and they enslaved up to a hundred and eighty three million people." But in today's world that kind of Imperial occupation is not taking place because after World Wad One and World War Two many of these Imperial domains acquired a sort of second class independence- not true independence because if you were truly independent you wouldn't be haemorrhaging refugees so don't tell us that a particular country is independent if it is haemorrhaging refugees; but according to the United Nations these countries that were colonial domains in the past are now independent. What we are saying is that they have a second class independence. So in current usage the word Imperialism implies an interfering by the dominant power culture into the affairs (and) into the economic and political advancement of underdeveloped countries and territories. Western economist and historians go to the extent of trying to draw a difference between ideological Imperialism and Imperialism as a political program. On the one hand we have the Marxists who say "Imperialism is the final stage of a capitalism gone wild" and on the other hand we have the free market capitalist that suggest "Imperialism is a natural occurrence of wanting to expand markets and acquire new resources." So this discussion of what Imperialism is and what it isn't is a fertile ground now, or perhaps for the past thirty years, for the Marxists and their adversaries to have a discussion but within that discussion and argument of what Imperialism stands for we need to make two points and these two points come out from what we have learnt from these ayaat that Allah has revealed to us.
The first point is that when Muslims are derelict in there duty to place the word taghut within the domain of social affairs, political affairs and military affairs then it opens up the field for run away concepts like Imperialism to come in and dominate the discussion and they dominate the discussion with their own economic rationalisations and their opposite Marxist definitions and the only reason this happens is because we haven't brought the meaning of the word taghut into the public domain. For if we were to bring the meaning of taghut into the public domain then we would understand that Imperialism has a history, it has a past, and it belongs to a long book that has many chapters that explain the many flavours of taghut and only the modern flavour of taghut is referred to as Imperialism. But we Muslims are absent from the domain of ideas and therefore something like Imperialism doesn't have a past. It is hard for political scientists and historians to connect Imperialism to colonialism but that ought not to be hard for Muslims. It is impossible for political scientists and historians of our day to come up with a consistent explanation for what Imperialism is but this ought not to be hard for Muslims because the history which is given to us in scripture (and) the history which is explained to us in scripture tells us a social law, a social fact, a social reality, a social incontrovertibility that those who concentrate power with a view to concentrating wealth lose track of the meaning of social justice. If we put Imperialism with colonialism with foreign occupation in this domain we understand that Imperialism is just another incarnation of taghut and thereby we can give it a past. And if we can give it a past we can give it a solution in the way that Allah gives it a solution; but when we divorce this concept of its past we divorce it of its solution to deal with this kind of past. So when Marxists come to you and to us and they reject all religion and they throw out the baby with the bath-water meaning that they throw out the Qur'an with whatever is left of the Bible and the Torah we have to return to them and we have to tell them the Qur'an is the book of social laws, it is the book of social understanding and it is the book that gives us the only definable and executable program that can rid common people of tyranny and oppression. A famous person once said "the person who controls the past controls the future and those who control the present control the past" meaning that those who have power today tell you what your historical past looks like and if they desire to separate their particular flavour of occupation, tyranny and oppression from the flavours of occupation, tyranny and oppression of the past then they can compose their history books in their fashion and divorce you from the past and when they divorce you from your past they divorce you from your future.
The second point that needs to be explained in this domain of trying to equate Imperialism with taghut is that we cannot accept a defective narrative of history. The defective narrative of history that is in vogue today and that took over four hundred years to popularise and make it part of our social consciousness and it doesn't matter who you are- whether you're Chinese or South American or Eskimo or you live in Africa or you live in Russia or where you live, it doesn't matter where you come from- the narrative of history that you accept is a European exceptionalist narrative of history- you accept a European narrative of history as a standard, you accept is a European experience as a standard! That there is no other history unless it is comparable to the European history! There are no ideas except if they come out of the European philosophical context! There is no political philosophy unless it comes out of the European historical experience! Any other ideas are not ideas! Any other historical experience is not a historical experience unless it compares with the consensual historical experience of the Europeans. We have to understand that about the narrative of history and the only thing that can get you beyond a humanly poisoned narrative of history is scripture. This is the only thing that can take away the human bias from history. There is no human bias in Allah's narrative of history- none whatsoever. There's no favouritism, there is no elitism (and) there is no supremism. Nobody is favoured because of the way that they were born, nobody is favoured because of the family that they were born into, no one is favoured because of the colour of their skin and there-by no narrative of history is favoured because of the way that somebody else wrote it. When you read scripture, it is a dispassionate narrative of history and thereby it is the only source that is reliable enough to acquaint you with what happened in the past. Everything else is extraneous but we live in a world that is dominated by the European experience and this is what leads us to an understanding of nifaq.
As many of you have attended this jum'ah for several years you realise that nifaq begins to emerge when there is a clash between an Islamic power culture and a taghuti power culture; without the existence of either an Islamic power culture or a taghuti power culture there is no such thing as nifaq. Nifaq is an attachment to power not to principle and so far as to the way munafiqs behave they behave in a way that power confers legitimacy. If you have power you're legitimate (and) what ever you do is authorised. It could be said that whatever you do is right and beyond that it could be said that whatever you do is even moral. To the munafiq it doesn't matter what your principles are, all that matter is if you have power- "If you have power I'm with you" and in the worldly assessment of the continuum of power "if you don't have power I could care less about you. The only thing that gets me to gravitate towards you (and) to support you is if you have power" That's nifaq. But in the disproportionate power play in the Imperial domain of the world and the dispossessed and the occupied domain of the world a particular psychology emerges amongst those who are dispossessed and this psychology is peculiar in that it begins to appreciate Imperialism. It is infatuated with Imperialism! In fact it could be said that it has a fetish for Imperialism. When we talk about nifaq and its relationship to taghut all we have to do is follow these ayaat for we said a little earlier (that) one of the most potent expressions of nifaq today is sectarianism. In order to try and understand how sectarianism is an expression of nifaq let us just follow Allah's ayaat. Ok- so Allah says
Are you not acquainted with those people who claim or who pretend to be committed to that which came to you from on high and which came to previous Prophets from high? These are the ones who defer to the rule of excessive and aggressive power even though they were commanded to cease and desist and reject it. (Surah An Nisa' verse 60-62)
Ok- here we have an ayah. The ayah is describing or in fact the ayah is condemning a particular class of people who have a double mind. They come to the Islamic bloc and they say "look at us. Can you detect that we are not Muslims?" They say to us "if you talk like a Muslim (or) if you walk like a Muslim then you're a Muslim." You have a beard, your see him praying in the Masjid, you see him fasting Ramadhan, you wear the Islamic outfit and you wear the head-dress and so forth and so on- so he's a Muslim; but then when it comes to social policy, when it comes to political policy, when it comes to alliances what do they do? Brothers and sisters- when we are talking about nifaq and we are talking about it within the context of sectarianism what you ought to be doing (or) going over in your mind are those who are organising sectarian programs around the world, you ought to be going over in your mind what their economic policies are (and) what their political policies are, you ought to be going over in your mind where they go to when they need advice, you ought to be going over in your mind who they go to when they need protection, you ought to be going over in your mind whose views they defer to when they need to know what to do. We know where this sectarian program is being organised, we know where it receives its ideological input and where it receives its ideological support but at the same time, brothers and sisters, ask yourselves that when they need to gather funds to provide a financial base for their sectarian program where do these funds come from? You could say that these funds come from the sale of oil. But on whose auspices is this oil sold? If you're selling oil and you claim "the oil belongs to you and you're going to use it for various social and political activities" then why don't they sell the oil in riyals? They have a currency! They conduct transactions in their own country with riyals so why are they selling oil on somebody else's terms? Why are they selling oil in dollars? They claim they're independent, they claim they read the Qur'an, they claim the follow the Qur'an- this is what it means when Allah says
… they defer to the excessive and aggressive powers when it comes to social, economic and political policy… (Surah An Nisa' verse 60-62)
They affirm Allah with their tongues and they say "yes, He's the Creator and the Provider" but when it comes to following a law, when it comes to creating legislation and when it comes to enacting social policy where do they go? If we are on target with our analysis we know that they are just piggy backing on the sectarian program and in fact it is organised in Tel Aviv and Washington. For if they don't have a brain to sell their oil in their own currency they don't have a brain to organise a sectarian program! It has to come as no surprise that when they have this kind of inferiority complex where they prefer the temporal power of human beings or when they place more trust in the temporal power of human beings to the ultimate, unlimited and unrivalled power of Allah then they are the ones who raise the status of taghut to a position of a god. Yes- we have these either self appointed or taghuti appointed so-called leaders in the Muslim world and they are the ones who are popularising the idea that taghut is a god. You tell us brothers and sisters: do they fear Allah or do they fear America United states
There's a lot more to say on this subject; a lot more to say about the relationship of Yahud and with Yahud that binds taghut and nifaq together but what we need to understand (and) perhaps the nugget that we need to leave with on this occasion is that if there is no taghut there is no nifaq. If there is no such thing as taghut there is no such thing as nifaq. In order for taghut to drive its values and it's program into innocent territories and it's people of the world it needs this element of nifaq to enable it to penetrate into those territories and peoples of the world.
Brothers and sisters, committed Muslims…
We have to recognise that Imperialism has a past; only in that past it wasn't called Imperialism. The book of taghut is filled with many many chapters. Throughout history this taghut has gone by many names and the current name that this taghut is going by (i.e.) Imperialism is about to close. We take innocent pride in claiming some credit- not we as it refers to the Muslims here in the street, but we as it refers to the collective body of Muslims in the Islamic movement; we take innocent pride in helping to close this chapter of taghut. We are saying (that) this chapter of taghut is closing because of the facts that we see on the ground. The economists who study these kinds of things and who develop policy and definitions say "in order for a currency to be the worlds reserve currency fifty five percent of all international transactions have to be conducted through that currency with that currency as a medium. The number of international transactions that are conducted through the US$ has now fallen to thirty five present so it can no longer be characterised as the world's reserve currency. This ought to tell you that when we talk about Imperialism its dollar Imperialism (and) this ought to tell you that this chapter on taghut in the world is now closing. In the coming months the Russians and the Chinese are going to reach an agreement on an energy deal- a forward looking and a vast energy deal- and all transactions in this energy deal between the Russians and the Chinese are going to be conducted via local currencies and not with the US$. What underwrites the US Brazil , Russia , India , China and South Africa
Finally and most importantly elections are going to take place in around a month's time in Syria and these elections are going to take place outside the framework of choreographed democracy of the United States Arabia try to disrupt these elections. Their rhetoric is already disrupting these elections. They're saying "how is it possible to have free and fair elections in Syria OK- (in) answer to that we say how is it possible to have free and fair elections in Afghanistan Ukraine Ukraine United States
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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