| THE STREET MIMBAR JUM'AH KHUTBAH (28 November 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/343957 (06-20-2014)
SECTARIANISM FURTHERS THE STRATEGY OF KUFR
We happen to be living at a time when civil wars and sectarian wars are consuming the entire part of that world which is the majority Muslim part of the world; from Morocco to Indonesia and from Southern Russia to Somalia the entire Muslim world is in a condition that perhaps it has never experienced before with the members within countries and the citizens between countries engaged in a war that may not only last generations but perhaps go into centuries. For the last several decades the majority Muslim world has been the most volatile region in the world whereas the global state of affairs in other parts of the world may experience degrees of stability and degrees of disintegration the Muslim part of the world is now going through a phase when it is experiencing permanent degradation and permanent disintegration. But for this type of degradation, disintegration and destabilization to continue for the better part of several decades it ought to be apparent to us just as it ought to be apparent to our enemies that this situation is pervasive because it exists by design. This situation exists because there is a power culture in the world that wants if to be this way and the dominant power culture in the world prefers a situation of instability and perpetual war in the Muslim world because it, itself, is threatened by the potential ideological challenge that would come from the world of Islam. The dominant power culture is not threatened by an ideological challenge that might come from Russia, they're not threatened by an ideological challenge that might come out of China, they're not threatened by an ideological challenge that may come from India because all of the intellectual classes of those countries are educated tight here in Washington and in Boston and in New York and perhaps in the satellite cities of this dominant power culture in London and in Berlin and in Paris and they take this education back to their own countries and they implement the same programs of exploitation and degradation that have been made the ideological foundation right here in the home of that degradation in Washington. So even though this ideological challenge that could potentially come from the world of Islam is not mature and it is not at a level of potency to challenge anyone on the world stage just the potential of that challenge is enough to destabilize a portion of the world that contains over one-third to one-forth of the worlds population. The challenge that causes them to fear is the strategic posture of Islam or perhaps to put it another way the strategic posture that Islam equips the oppressed with. In times past we talked about strategy. We talked about the fact that strategy is what connects leadership to an achievable vision on the ground. We talked about the fact that strategy is the set of key decisions that shapes all of your other decisions. So fundamental to the strategic posture of Islam is the rejection of the excessive and outrageous powers of evil government. Brothers and sisters- let us make the leap beyond what the pundits and experts say in the media. Let us be prescient and precocious enough to make the leap to characterize the dominant power culture in the world today as evil. Let us make the leap that the combination of these three- Wahabism, Imperialism and Zionism- is something that is evil. So fundamental to the Islamic strategic posture is to reject and to deny the power of the Taghut in the world- to deny their foundations, to deny their systems, to deny their education that leads to the degradation of five-sixths of humanity. Indeed Allah says
There is no coercion in matters of conviction for the path of maturity has become distinct from the path of error; and so whosoever denies or rejects the excessive power of evil governments and endorses the power and the authority of Allah then he has latched on to a support that is unfailing and which will never give way and Allah is the One Who is All-Seeing and All Hearing. Allah is the sponsor of those who are securely committed to Him; He is the One who takes them out of a position darkness into a position of knowledge and light where-as those who are committed to excessive and outrageous powers of evil government are the ones who take people from a position of knowledge and light into a position of ignorance and darkness… (Surah Al Baqarah verse 256-257)
So this is our problem. We have no confidence in Allah and there-by as Muslims we have no confidence in ourselves. In order to have confidence in ourselves we have to have confidence in Allah, we have to have confidence in His Prophet, we have to have confidence in His ayaat, we have to have confidence in the fact that this education is the education, we have to have confidence in the fact that our systems have to be based on the foundation of these ayaat, on the foundation of the example of His Prophet; and if we shift our education, our foundation (and) our knowledge (and) the way that we approach the solution to problems and if we cede that responsibility and that foundation to somebody else's systems, to somebody else's knowledge (and) to somebody else's wisdom then we are helping them achieve their objectives and we are saying to ourselves that our own objectives and our own vision are not important. Symptomatic of our failing confidence in the world that we live in today is Muslim on Muslim violence (or) Muslim killing Muslim. No reason on Earth can be given for a Muslim to rationalize or justify the killing of another Muslim! That's the meaning of the ayaat that was quoted at the very beginning.
And whosoever deliberately kills or murders another Muslim he has earned the hell-fire and he has also earned Allah's rejection and condemnation and besides that he has earned formidable suffering in the here after. (Surah An Nisa' verse 93)
But by saying that there is no justification for a Muslim to kill another Muslim we are not saying at the same time that there is no justification for war. As much as the Islamic paradigm looks to contain the kind of bloodletting that we are experiencing in the world today and as much as Islam tries to limit that kind of activity we have to understand that war is a permanent feature of society and life. We can try to wish it away as much as we want but because it is a permanent feature of human life we ought to understand that war falls within the domain of moral rectification. There is moral war and there is immoral war. There is war with rules and there is war without rules and in the war that we live in today there is only war without rules! There are conventions which define the rules of war but there is a power culture in the world that signs on to conventions for the purpose of disarming its enemy. Conventions on peace, conventions of human rights, the desire for peace in the public discourse- all of that is a strategy and a tactic for continued and perpetual war. If we are reading the Qur'an and understanding Allah's ayaat and we're looking at the world in front of us we ought to understand the fact that were it not for Islam (and) were it not for the rules and the guidance that Allah has dispensed with His Prophets and in the Qur'an then today we would not be talking about a moral war or an immoral war for we live in a world where war is only immoral, where war is fought to gain access to markets, to control resources, to enslave populations and to occupy territory. Muslims are required to fight but Muslims are only required to fight to restore the justice fi sabil Allah and this excludes the possibility of indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, of non-combatants, of innocents all of which is endemic to what we understand today to be collateral damage that is associated with wars on turf, wars of occupation, war of aggression and assassinations. All of these exists because war today is fought without rules. Allah says in these ayaat
O you who are committed to Allah: If you go forth on a military mission then be cognisant of the situation that you are in and if you are approached by someone who gives you the salutation of peace then do not say (to him) that you are not a committed Muslim so that you can access some of the benefits of the worldly life… (Surah An Nisa' verse 94)
So we have to ask ourselves in what situation was these ayaat revealed? At the time of Allah's Messenger, he commissioned a group of Muslims to go on a military mission and on their way to their destination these Muslims encountered a shepherd and this shepherd came up to these Muslims and said Assalaamualaykum. So the Muslims thought that this person was just saying Assalaamualaykum (there-by) pretending to be a Muslim. So they killed him. They went and they killed this person because their assessment was that he's just saying Assalaamualaykum to pretend, (i.e.) he's projecting the idea that he's a Muslim but he's not a Muslim do they killed him. It was on that occasion that this ayah was revealed.
We have to understand the psychology of soldiers. We have to understand the fact that what inundates the thinking of a soldier is self-preservation. Any soldier is constantly thinking that he is going to be killed by the enemy in a surprise attack, in a forceful attack, in a head-on face on face attack- they're going to be killed. It is because of this psychology that soldiers even if they consider themselves to be on the right path visit all manner of atrocities on their enemies. So Allah's guidance is telling the Muslims
… if you find yourself of a war footing then be cognisant of the situation that you are in… (Surah An Nisa' verse 94)
This whole mentality of "shoot first and ask questions later" is not permissible for a Muslim even if he is in theatre of war! So this leads us to an important consideration, (i.e.), those who are trained to kill- it is Allah's responsibility to give life and to take away life but in certain instances He has issued a license for people to fight and to kill. So shouldn't those who are trained to kill either in a defensive or in an offensive posture be receiving a moral education that at the very least holds all innocent human life to be sacrosanct? If you are trained to shoot a bullet or drop a bomb then you ought to be trained to distinguish between that person who is an innocent and that person who is a soldier and if you cannot make that distinction then you ought not to have the right to pull the trigger. It's the moral education that gives you the understanding of the difference between an innocent (and) a civilian on one hand and a combatant on the other hand because in the world that we live in today there is no such thing as innocence, especially if your name is Ahmad or Muhammad! Bothers and sisters- we're not speaking figuratively of metaphorically- in the war on terror the entire world is a battlefield. This is not a joke. This comes straight to you from the White House and the State Department. In the war on terror they define the entire world as a battlefield and in the Muslim world in particular any man between the age of 16 and 60 years of age is considered to be a combatant. So if you're a male in the Muslim world, in a Muslim city in your house, in your business because that part of the world is considered to be a battlefield and you happen to be between the age of 16 and 60 years of age you are considered to be a soldier! When they say this and they define soldiers and combatants in this way (then) there is no distinction between a civilian and a combatant (and) that means that the entire Muslim world is a strike zone for a drone. It doesn't matter whether you're buying or selling, it doesn't matter whether you're going to a wedding, it doesn't matter whether you're a participant in a funeral procession, it doesn't matter whether you're going to a health clinic, it doesn't matter whether you're a student in a school- all of that doesn't matter, you are considered to be an enemy, you are considered to be a target and you are considered to be a soldier! If you are trained to kill and you are not given a moral education then you are no different from a missile or a bomb! To give you a characterization as a human being is erroneous. The most civilized country in the world and in history trains their soldiers to view the enemy as something sub-human, as someone alien, as someone who kills and murders because he likes it, as someone (for) who it is impossible for him to have any grievances. They portray the enemy as the devil himself; that to kill this enemy is a good thing, to rid the world of these types of people is a good thing. Not only do they educate their people to view the enemy and the other in this way, their film industry comes and indoctrinates those who may not be violent or who may not have violent tendencies into an atmosphere of fear to suggest that a terrorist strike is always around the corner and because you live in a perpetual state of fear that you ought to get used to a perpetual state of war in the world. To complement all of that you can go to your local video store and buy the latest war games where in the privacy of your own home and the comfort of your own home drinking a coke or a beer or watching your favorite football game you can get used to killing the enemy. What does the enemy look like? You've played these games. You've seen these games on television. What does the enemy look like? Does he have a beard? Does he say Allahu Akbar? There are those Muslims who are out killing other Muslims. Its one thing for the enemy's of Muslims to come and kill them (but) it's quite another for Muslims to declare other Muslims as enemies and then go out and kill them! These people are reading the same ayaat that were quoted earlier. They read these ayaat everyday, every week, every month, every year.
Anyone who kills another Muslim having no better reason to kill or to murder has earned for himself hell-fire and he Allah's condemnation and Allah's rejection… (Surah An Nisa' verse 93)
They're reading these ayaat. This ought to deter us from killing our brothers but we live in quite a different world than the world of the past. For in order to kill our brothers we have to first declare them to be Kafirs and thereby we say to ourselves "well if he's a Kafir it's OK to kill him." So why don't we ask those people who stand up on the mimbar here or elsewhere "where is it in the Qur'an that allows a Muslim to kill a Kafir just because he's a Kafir? Show us one ayah or one hadith that allows a Muslim soldier to go out and kill a Kafir just because he's a Kafir."
At the time of Allah's Messenger there's a delegation of people who came to the Prophet. These Christians came from Najran. The Christian delegation from Najran. How does Allah himself characterize this delegation from Najran? OK- so Allah, Himself, says these Christian leaders are guilty of Kufr in this 73rd ayah in Surah Al Maa'idah.
As for those who characterise Allah as one of three- they are guilty of Kufr… (Surah Al Maa'idah verse 73)
So the Prophet receives this delegation from Najran but did he receive them by killing them? He received them in his Masjid. He acquainted them with the Islamic message. Yes- in the time of the Prophet they had the right to be Kafirs if they wanted to be. It didn't bother the Prophet. They had made a decision for themselves that this is what they wanted to be (and) this is what they wanted to believe.
They have their deen we have ours. (Surah Al Kafirun verse 6)
But its when you transfer kufr into tyranny and oppression and when you transfer kufr into dhulm that Muslims are counseled to take up arms. No Muslim is allowed to go out and kill a Kafir- whether he's a Muslim or a non-Muslim; but when kufr takes this kufr into the realm of dhulm that Muslims are required to take up arms to restore the balance of justice. Without a moral program and a moral acculturation that comes from the Qur'an how do you decide what's dhulm and what's kufr? How do you decide? The sad fact of the matter is that today, we Muslims, are not in control of deciding who's a Muslim and who's a Kafir! Takfir for most Muslims is very easy. It our not to be that easy but the sad fact of the matter is that we're not in control of who's a Muslim and who's a Kafir. We've ceded that responsibility to our enemies. They're the ones who decide who's a Muslim and who's a Kafir. They've combed through our history books, they've combed through all our books of fiqh and hadith and explanations of the Qur'an and they know what buttons to push and when to push them. They're the ones who are disseminating the information now of who's a Kafir and who's a Muslim and because we are not educated of our own history (and) our own deen we accept the definitions of our enemies. We accept the labels that they give to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Our enemies are content with us self-destructing, with us calling each other Kafirs and killing each other because then we solve the ideological problem for them. They view Islam as the main ideological threat to them in the world. The president of this country came out and said "the Islamic Republic in Iran is the greatest security threat to the United States
Dear committed brothers and dear committed sisters…
With this backdrop we're going to try to be very brief with regard to certain current events; but because we cite one particular geographic area of the world doesn't mean that we're forgetting other parts of the world because if you happen to be a Muslim- and more particularly if you happen to be a Muslim who was born in another part of the Muslim world meaning that you're not born here- then you're affected by the tragedy that is taking place all over the Muslim world. In particular we'd like to talk briefly about the situation in Al Iraq. The forces of Imperialism, Wahabism and Zionism suffered a defeat in Syria Syria Iran to Lebanon Syria Syria they decided to regroup n Iraq Israel Turkey to Saudi Arabia Syria they're now re-grouping with this force in Iraq Washington , from Tel Aviv and from Ankara Turkey , if you are coached in Turkey (and) if you are given heavy military weapons in Turkey Washington Iraq and Syria Iran or in Pakistan or in Indonesia
This khutbah was presented by Imam Afeef Khan on the occasion of Jum'ah on 20 June 2014 on the sidewalk of Embassy Row in Washington D.C.
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