THE STREET MIMBAR JUM'AH KHUTBAH (4 July 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.
Dear committed Muslims…
Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/apps/podcast/podcast/344254(06-27-2014)
COMMENTS ON THE PROPHET'S LAST SPEECH IN SHA'BAN
We are approaching the month of Ramadhan, a month that brings peace to our souls and vigilance to our conscience and enlightenment to our minds; otherwise we're not observing Ramadhan. There're people who just observe a physical fast, meaning they don't eat, drink and indulge their senses during the daytime and from thereon it's eat as much as you can during the night. We pray for these types to liberate themselves from their instincts and from their worldly desires to take advantage of this month of blessings and this month of compassion. Allah says (in) the first ayah that speaks about this yearly observance in Surah Al Baqarah
You who are divinely committed, fasting (or) abstaining has been assigned to you as it was assigned to those who preceded you… (Surah Al Baqarah verse 183)
We're not the first people in the world who are fasting. There have been other followers of other Prophets in times that preceded the time of Allah's Prophet and the time of the Qur'an who also observed fasting.
… as it was assigned to those who came before you…(Surah Al Baqarah verse 183)
For what reason? Why is all of this fasting?
… so that you are able to avoid Allah's corrective power. (Surah Al Baqarah verse 183)
This is very important. The whole exercise of fasting in the whole month of fasting is for one purpose: the objective (and) the goal is one thing and that is that we shield ourselves from Allah's power presence- that's all. That's why we fast. But what do you say to a world and many Muslims in this world who are not even aware of Allah's power presence? What are they fasting for? If that is not the objective then the whole month of Ramadhan has not served its purpose. Allah is the power. Allah is the strength. Allah is the might. Allah is the force- period! There's nothing nuclear or nano that can measure up to Allah's corrective power. We haven't began fasting yet. In a day or two most of us will begin fasting.
The word kutibameans to put together. Originally it doesn't mean write like the average person understands; it means when you put things together, anything. When you assemble something it is called kitaba. Assembly is kitaba; but it was taken (or) it was mainstreamed to mean when you put letters together and technically speaking when you put them together in writing or when you put them together in voice it is still kutiba. (Do you) see how far we have gone from the original meaning of the word? So the best way to deliver this meaning into the English language is to say it's been assigned. There's an assignment that has been given and an assignment is made up of components and these components fit into a larger assembly of obligations and responsibilities.
You who are divinely committed, fasting has been assigned to you as it was assigned to those who preceded you so that you are able to avoid Allah's corrective power. (Surah Al Baqarah verse 183)
That's the first ayah in the sequence of ayaat that explain to us what the meanings of these twenty nine or thirty days are. We covered much of this territory in previous khutbahs numerous times. We are not here to bore anyone with a type of repetition (but) suffice it on this occasion to say (or) to quote Allah's Prophet in light of these ayaat of fasting from the first one which was just repeated to the last one which is
Don't consume your wealth, moneys, investments, financial transactions in an illegitimate way and then you bring this type of illegitimate financial transactions to rulers so that you may obtain a portion of people's wealth wrongfully while you should know better or while you know better or while you should have gained the knowledge of this or eventually while you know this to be the case. (Surah Al Baqarah verse 188)
In the sequence of all of these ayaat anyone who has a thinking mind would ask what does wealth have to do with abstaining from food and from water and the sexual desires during this month of Ramadhan? What does money have to do with it? We said the objective of fasting is taqwa, (i.e.), observing Allah's power in this world and one of the areas that most people don't observe Allah's power is when it comes to money and finances. They lose sight of Allah as if Allah doesn't exist, as if Allah is not going to correct them, as if Allah doesn't have the means to catch up with their wrong doings. Certainly He does! That is why we are required to observe His power presence in this month- and we don't mean observe it in your personal and in your individual and in your private life. No! We observe Allah's power beyond that in our society, in the government that dictates to us, in the wars that are imposed on populations, in the mal-distribution of resources and wealth, in the advantage that is taken by (the rich). There's a recent number that came out that said- we don't know whether this is correct or not, it's one of these survey agencies that goes around counting these things- "the number of millionaires in the world is 1.1%." It's almost as accurate as the slogans we were listening to two or three years ago where there was the 1% and the 99%. This was of course strictly in the context of the United States
So on this occasion in this context-and you know the khutbahs of Allah's Prophet (but) this wasn't a jum'ah khutbah. This was a khutbah that the Prophet of Allah gave to the Muslims on the last Friday of Sha'ban-just like today this is the last Friday of the month of Sha'ban. He said the following, this is the Prophet speaking, Oh people, indeed the month of Allah is approaching you with blessings, with mercy and with forgiveness. We should remember these words when many of us are systematically denied. Why are there so many Muslims dying of hunger? Dying of wars? It's not natural that that occurs. It's because of man's policies and man's greed. The bottom line is greed! Ramadhan wants to solve these issues. Allah wants to solve these issues in the month of Ramadhan at the core. If we can get rid of greed- that's the core; if in yourself (and) in your societies you can get rid of greed you've gotten rid of poverty and you have gotten rid of wars and everything in between. A month as far as Allah is concerned is the best of all months because of this feature to it (and) because we get involved. There is something (or) there is a goal that we are working towards. The end of the first ayah in these ayaat
… so that you are able to avoid Allah's corrective power. (Surah Al Baqarah verse 183)
and the last ayah in these ayaat
Don't consume your wealth, moneys, investments, financial transactions in an illegitimate way… (Surah Al Baqarah verse 188)
Be conscious of them in your mind and in your heart when you are observing this fast. The days of Ramadhan are the best days, he nights of Ramadhan are the best nights, the hours of Ramadhan are the best hours. It is a month in which you are invited to Allah's hospitality. A worldly person would say "hospitality?! What are you talking about? I'm depriving myself in this month. What is this hospitality?" When you deny yourself you are giving others and when we all- those of us who have- begin to deny ourselves and when those of us who don't have begin to receive what they don't have then we have a world in which there is Allah's hospitality. You are rendered in this month from the folks of Allah's generous giving. Your breathing in this month of Ramadhan- the fact that you are inhaling and exhaling- is a tasbih and your going to sleep in this month is an ibadah. Sleeping is an ibadah. Of course, this conflicts in the average mind out there that thinks "oh ibadah is you go through ruku' and you go through sujud- that's ibadah."Your fasting during the day is ibadah, you go to the hajj is ibadah(but) no one says- if only they could listen to Allah's Prophet and educate themselves- your sleep is an ibadah. What you do in this month of Ramadhan for Allah is accepted and your du'a during this month of Ramadhan has Allah listening and responding to it. But your du'a can't be a silly du'a and your du'acan't be a disengaged du'a. It has to be an active du'a because in another hadith the Prophet said Allah said you will ask Me and call upon Me but I'm not responding to you. So ask Allah (or) ask your Sustainer with good and true intentions and with pure hearts to help you in this month long fast. And sequence the meanings of the Qur'an. Here, once again, we encounter the traditional mind that thinks that tilawat al Qur'an means reading the Qur'an. It doesn't mean that! The word reading is iqra'. The long lost meaning of tilawah is sequencing the meanings of the Qur'anic words (and) the Qur'anic statements which requires our minds. It doesn't require sound cords like people think tilawahis to vocalize the words of the Qur'an. That's not the meaning of tilawah.Tilawah means the sequencing of the meanings of the ayaat in the Qur'an-that is tilawah. A wretched person (or) a miserable person is truly the one who has been denied the forgiveness of Allah in this grand month. Bear in mind as you are hungry and thirsty in this month of Ramadhan the hunger and the thirst of the month of Ramadhan. We have Muslims who are going to be fasting and they're going to feel the pangs of hunger during the day time and then at night they're going to have three, four and five meals. We have some Muslims who fast during the day, and these are particularly those in the Arabian Peninsular, but what do they do during the day? They're sleeping. That's how they fast. They go to sleep at fajr time and then they wake up close to maghrib time. So they say "they fasted" and technically speaking they did fast. They made their intention. The niyahwas there and they went to sleep and then they woke up and that's how they fast, meaning they stay up during the night and eat and drink and indulge themselves and then during the day they abstain from what they're required to abstain from. So technically speaking they fasted. To add to that during the day they didn't speak against anyone because one of the issues that invalidates the fast is if you speak ill of someone, (i.e.) you have a personal grudge or you have something to score against someone else. We're not speaking of someone who is in public positions. People who are in public positions and are responsible for policies can't say "because this is the month of Ramadhan we can't consider the wrongs that they are doing." This doesn't mean that. It means if you want to get personal with someone you can't do this during the month of Ramadhan.Give your sadaqah to the persons and the people who are in need and who are poor. Who's during this during the month of Ramadhan? We, Muslims, have trillions of dollars of wealth locked up in banks and we don't know where and their owners probably don't know where and we have hundreds of millions of Muslims who are in need. Could they listen to this hadith? Give those who are in need. We don't see an act of giving during the month of Ramadhan.These people who are hoarding this wealth and placing it in financial institutions that are inimical to Muslims and to Islam are not observing what the Prophet is saying and they listen to Allah's Prophet more than they listen to Allah Himself. They quote the Prophet more than they quote the Qur'an.Well, here is the Prophet speaking- do you want to listen to him? Respect your seniors (and) be kind to your juniors. Visit your relatives (and) be in control of what you say. Discipline where you look (or) don't look at things that are prohibited and don't be listening to things that also are not, so to speak, kosher. Be compassionate to the orphans of people. This sentence here from Allah's Prophet is a reminder of the orphans now who are in Muslim lands. Iraq and Syria
There are other words from Allah's Prophet but as we said because of the weather in winter when it gets very cold we have to shorten the khutbah and in summer when it gets very hot we also have to shorten the khutbah. The Prophet put his hand towards his chest and he said taqwa is located here, taqwa is located here, taqwa is located here. If there is no consciousness of Allah's immediate power presence then the whole lesson of Ramadhan and fasting have eluded those who are void of Allah's conscience.
Dear committed brothers and dear committed sisters...
This part is where the traditional and the conventional and the customary Muslims have difficult with (i.e.) when we make a transition from Allah's words and His Prophet's words and their meanings and we want to understand what Allah and His Prophet are saying in our time, in our world (and) in our society. This is where officialdom says "you, Muslims, are not permitted to do that" and many of the policies in our time rotate around this fact. We have a conscience and we have a thinking mind and we have a heart and soul that belongs to Allah- they don't belong to a pay master and they don't belong to a power configuration. The rulers of Arabia, just yesterday and today, come and they say- listen to this, listen very closely to this- they announce officially in their media "they are going to expel any person that they say is a foreigner, any foreigner, who is caught breaking the fast in public in Ramadhan." That regime in Arabia, (we're talking about the Saudi regime), gave these people the visas. They deny Muslims- qualified Muslims professional Muslims, a Muslim from Pakistan or Nigeria- no! But there's another one from Europe or the United States who's not a Muslim and has the same credentials they trash the one from Asia and Africa and then they give priority from the one from Europe or America. This is the regime that is in control of Makkah and Al Madinah. By the way, you should know the background to this- it has been pursuing in the past year an active policy of expelling people from Arabia, particularly Muslims but they let in nine million. This is their number. We didn't come up with this number. It's in their own propaganda instruments- newspapers, radio, TV the internet etc. Nine million who come from all over the world- they want to get rid of them now. So this is the one thing they are using as an excuse. Brothers and sisters- can we not think? During Allah's Prophet's time there were non-Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula. They didn't fast Ramadhan and the jurisdiction of the Muslims expanded from the Hejaz to Najd to Al Qaseem to Hadhramawt,to Al Yemen, to the North of the Peninsula, all over. Never was it said by any Islamic administration "we're going to expel a person who doesn't observe the fast in public." Never! Then, on the other hand to sweeten the pot, they know this is a bitter pill, they're offering free food at the airports. What do they have- one or two international airports there? They're offering anyone arriving free iftar and free sahur. What's this? This is being done on our watch in real time! This is in our generation. We're not speaking about history, we're not speaking about the future. We're speaking about here and now. Here they are in control of the Masajid. This is one of them and they have hundreds of thousands that they control around the world. This is what they are doing. They don't want people to speak about their vices- their political vices their procedural vices their policy vices. No! How do you that? That's munkar and munkar has to be exposed! If we are in the process of exposing this munkar we are in the service of Allah.
Another thing- that same decrepit kingdom said today "the beginning of the month of Ramadhan is going to be on Sunday."They did this not because they are scrupulous about watching and looking and watching for the crescent of Ramadhan. No! They don't care about that but right now they are in a political alliance with the government in Egypt and the government in Egypt said two days ago "the beginning of the month of Ramadhan is going to be on Sunday" because in Egypt they have a simple calculation. Egyptians have been following this for many many decades now. It's a simple calculation. If in Egypt the crescent sets after the sun sets, and that can be determined by scientific calculations, even if the crescent sets after the sun by thirty seconds then that means the following day is the first of the lunar month. The Saudis never went by that but now because there is a political expediency here they want to be chummy-chummy with the Egyptian generals and the Egyptian military class and the Egyptians are saying "we are looking out for you. We will send out our military to defend you." They had military exercises a couple of months in the gulf. All of this is done and we are supposed to be looking the other way.
Oh Allah we ask You to have this month of Ramadhan an eye opener (and) a fertilization of our souls and a movement towards the objective of taqwa.
This khutbah was presented by Imam Muhammad Asi on the occasion of Jum'ah on 27 June 2014 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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