A verse in the Quraan hits my heart every time the issue of reform is brought to the table. Praise be to Allah for sending such a miraculous book that helps us at all times and all situations. When I become in charge of any project, I tend to be very critical of what has been done in the past in order to be able to bring about a change. While doing so, I also tend to offend several people who sweated to get this project where it is. I remember one of the founders of our full time school, a MAS project in our area, told me angrily responding to a joke I made about the school being a kitchen school*, “if it weren’t for the kitchen school of yesterday, you wouldn’t have your school of today.” Only then I realized how much harm we bring to the table when we are not careful about what we say and the way we present our criticism.
Why is that relevant to the TAM discussions? Well, very relevant!
As we take part in discussions regarding:
- how important diversity is in MAS,
- how crucial it is for indigenous Americans to be part of MAS,
- how vital it is to empower the young generation and give them the chance to lead,
- and how the American culture should be naturally embraced for Americans to consider us seriously,
we tend to undermine a lot of the wonderful work people of the past did. We tend to blame our immigrant community of bringing to America their cultural baggage who alienated so many people. We keep blaming them for speaking broken English. We keep blaming them for not being actively involved in the society. We keep blaming them for not being politically involved. We keep blaming them for not involving the youth. And so on and so forth.
I know this naturally happens as part of our analysis and critical views of the past, but we ought to adapt another attitude while going through these exercises especially while presenting our opinions. This attitude is what is described in the verse I started talking about in the beginning of the post. Allah says, after praising the immigrants of Mecca and the people of Medina, “… And those who came after them say, O our Lord, forgive us and those who preceded us in embracing the Iman and do not put in our heart any hatred to those who have believed …”
What is really worthy of noticing here is that the call for forgiveness is NOT ONLY for those before us but for ourselves as well. As if we are saying, “we too make mistakes. We too have shortcomings. We too are not perfect. We too will not fulfill our duties towards you O Allah and towards our deen. We too want forgiveness as those before us do.” I found this attitude a genuine Islamic feeling towards our parents, our teachers, our elderly, and the founders of our beloved organization, MAS.
Another important point to make is that we tend to judge people while we are not aware of the context they lived in and the struggle they went through. One time Huzaifa ibn al-Yaman, the companion of the prophet was talking to his students when one of them said, "if we were to meet the prophet and live with him, we would have prevented any harm from reaching him (PBUH)." This student of Huzaifa is saying that after the fact. Huzaifa taught him, and accordingly us, a lesson by telling him a short story***. This short story brought this man to the reality of not looking down to other's achievement while not living the same experienc as ther were.
In the eyes of Allah, they will be held accountable for what they did and we will be held accountable for what we do. As Allah said, “That was a nation who has passed away. They shall receive the reward of what they earned and you of what you earn. And you will not be asked of what they used to do.****”
O Allah forgive us and all those who preceded us in serving this dean and do not let any hatred comes to our heart to those who believed, Amin!
* There was so much cooking and food parties taking place, so much so it became more important than education (shhh)
** 59:10
*** this stroy is a home work
**** 2:134
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Things that I learned in the TAM 08: A definition of following the Sunnah
I was asked to share some of the things I learned from the TAM and some of the action items that we need to take into consideration ISA. I will have to start by saying that I learned a lot, especially by the challenging questions and discussions from my brothers and sisters to the instructors including myself. I will keep it as brief as possible and I will try to write more messages as I find time ISA.
I was presenting the part of the Basic Tarbiya Training course in which I was running a discussion of how we can establish love with people around us. I mentioned the incident of the Prophet (PBUH) grabbing the hand of Moaaz (r) telling him, “O Moaaz, I love you for the sake of Allah …” and continued to give him the advice. The discussion at that point transformed into a fundamental discussion of the definition of the Sunna of the prophet (PBUH).
One of the sisters said, “I find it so weird that someone picks my hand and tells me I love you.”
The question that came to mind and to the discussion was: is grabbing the hand of someone and saying to her I love you, part of the Sunnah of the prophet?
The answer is definitely YES. The Sunnah, as defined by scholars of Usul is what the prophet (PBUH) said, did, or approved of after he became the messenger of Allah*. Therefore, grabbing the hand of someone and telling him, I love you, is part of the Sunnah. How is it then weird to this sister?
There are two reasons that will make someone feels that an action of the prophet (PBUH) is weird or not accepted. First, one should question the basis on which we base our judgment. We often tend to judge the Sunnah based on factors that need judgment themselves. For that matter, we should actually use the Sunnah to judge those factors and not vise versa.
The other important reason is our misunderstanding of the Sunna of the prophet and that is the point I want to focus on here. I want to first write a very clear yet subtle difference in the definition of “following” the Sunnah of the prophet. People tend to borrow from the definition above and say, “following the Sunnah is following what the prophet did, said, or approved of.” This definition, in a sense, is not accurate (unless you define accurately what the word following means). The prophet did so many things and none of the scholars would dare to say we should do to follow his Sunnha. As obviously known, the prophet dug a ditch around Madinah at the time of al-ahzab and no one ever claims that this should be done these days. Although the Sunnah of the prophet was to dig a ditch around Madina, it will look weird if someone does that these days claiming that he is following the Sunnah of the prophet.
Although, the example above is naïve and all of us know it, in many ways of our life we dig a ditch around us and claim that we are following the Sunna of the prophet. The way we dress, the way we speak, the way we express our feelings, the way we think of Islamic work, and even the way we deal with our families is full of examples in which we are literally following the model of digging the ditch around us. We are the ones who make the Sunnah appear very weird and irrelevant to people around us especially people who are closely monitoring us to find out what Islam is.
We ought to define following the Sunnah of the prophet as doing what we think he (PBUH) would do should he were to do it now. With this definition we will make the Sunnah as relevant as it should be and it will make sense to all.
Coming back to the Basic Tarbiya course***, one should understand that the Sunnah of the prophet (PBUH) is to love others, care about them, express this love, communicate his message to them, etc (as we described in detail during the course). The methods and the tools are subject to change and are dependent on the context which the prophet himself would have changed them when the context changes.
Comments are appreciated …
* Sheikh Mustafa Al-Seba3i (r), “Sunnah and its position in Islamic Sharia”
** One would claim that it is proven scientifically that this specific tree branch is the best way of cleaning the teeth. Well, you know my answer
*** the whole sound track of the course is available and will be uploaded if the requests are a lot :-) (since it is kind of long)
I was presenting the part of the Basic Tarbiya Training course in which I was running a discussion of how we can establish love with people around us. I mentioned the incident of the Prophet (PBUH) grabbing the hand of Moaaz (r) telling him, “O Moaaz, I love you for the sake of Allah …” and continued to give him the advice. The discussion at that point transformed into a fundamental discussion of the definition of the Sunna of the prophet (PBUH).
One of the sisters said, “I find it so weird that someone picks my hand and tells me I love you.”
The question that came to mind and to the discussion was: is grabbing the hand of someone and saying to her I love you, part of the Sunnah of the prophet?
The answer is definitely YES. The Sunnah, as defined by scholars of Usul is what the prophet (PBUH) said, did, or approved of after he became the messenger of Allah*. Therefore, grabbing the hand of someone and telling him, I love you, is part of the Sunnah. How is it then weird to this sister?
There are two reasons that will make someone feels that an action of the prophet (PBUH) is weird or not accepted. First, one should question the basis on which we base our judgment. We often tend to judge the Sunnah based on factors that need judgment themselves. For that matter, we should actually use the Sunnah to judge those factors and not vise versa.
The other important reason is our misunderstanding of the Sunna of the prophet and that is the point I want to focus on here. I want to first write a very clear yet subtle difference in the definition of “following” the Sunnah of the prophet. People tend to borrow from the definition above and say, “following the Sunnah is following what the prophet did, said, or approved of.” This definition, in a sense, is not accurate (unless you define accurately what the word following means). The prophet did so many things and none of the scholars would dare to say we should do to follow his Sunnha. As obviously known, the prophet dug a ditch around Madinah at the time of al-ahzab and no one ever claims that this should be done these days. Although the Sunnah of the prophet was to dig a ditch around Madina, it will look weird if someone does that these days claiming that he is following the Sunnah of the prophet.
Although, the example above is naïve and all of us know it, in many ways of our life we dig a ditch around us and claim that we are following the Sunna of the prophet. The way we dress, the way we speak, the way we express our feelings, the way we think of Islamic work, and even the way we deal with our families is full of examples in which we are literally following the model of digging the ditch around us. We are the ones who make the Sunnah appear very weird and irrelevant to people around us especially people who are closely monitoring us to find out what Islam is.
We ought to define following the Sunnah of the prophet as doing what we think he (PBUH) would do should he were to do it now. With this definition we will make the Sunnah as relevant as it should be and it will make sense to all.
- Digging the trench is a sunnah but protecting your land with all possible sophisticated means is the real Sunnah
- Grabbing the hand and saying I love you is a sunnah but expressing the care and love is the real Sunnah
- Sending people with messages is the sunnah but utilizing all possible sophisticated means of communication is the real sunnah
- Brushing the teeth with a specific tree branch is a sunnah but using the best tooth brush and tooth paste to clean the mouth is the real Sunnah**
- And so on ..
Coming back to the Basic Tarbiya course***, one should understand that the Sunnah of the prophet (PBUH) is to love others, care about them, express this love, communicate his message to them, etc (as we described in detail during the course). The methods and the tools are subject to change and are dependent on the context which the prophet himself would have changed them when the context changes.
Comments are appreciated …
* Sheikh Mustafa Al-Seba3i (r), “Sunnah and its position in Islamic Sharia”
** One would claim that it is proven scientifically that this specific tree branch is the best way of cleaning the teeth. Well, you know my answer
*** the whole sound track of the course is available and will be uploaded if the requests are a lot :-) (since it is kind of long)
Friday, September 26, 2008
Evaluating yourself against a high quality Muslim
The qualities of the servants of the Most Gracious is eloquently mentioned in Surat Al-furqan. One ought to measure him/herself to such high standards. I picked a couple of important attributes of those people and presented for us to aspire to be. Listen and evaluate yourself
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
Friday, July 11, 2008
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Time to Travel
This speech is about the tradition of the Prophet (PBUH) when he used to travel. Since this time when people travel, I thought of sharing his tradition with the Friday gathering.
In the following few points we will go through a list of traditions prophet Muhammad used to do.
Planning your trip
1- Istikharah. The prophet (PBUH) used to ask Allah Ta’ala for guidance, a process called Istikhara (asking for guidance). The way you do this is to make 2 Rak3at of Salah other than the mandatory Salah and pray using the following prayer: "O Allah, I consult You as You are All-Knowing and I appeal to You to give me power as You are Omnipotent, I ask You for Your great favor, for You have power and I do not, and You know all of the hidden matters . O Allah! If you know that this matter (then he should mention it) is good for me in my religion, my livelihood, and for my life in the Hereafter, (or he said: 'for my present and future life,') then make it (easy) for me. And if you know that this matter is not good for me in my religion, my livelihood and my life in the Hereafter, (or he said: 'for my present and future life,') then keep it away from me and take me away from it and choose what is good for me wherever it is and please me with it."
2- Time to leave. The prophet used to Choose the best time to go out. He used to choose early morning and rarely start his trip other than Thursday.
3- Choosing company. Traveling alone is not recommended. As a matter of fact the prophet discouraged it a lot. He encouraged people to travel in groups of three and up. He also recommended that travelers should choose a leader from among themselves to lead the group in the trip.
4- Asking for forgiveness and repenting to Allah before you leave
5- Delivering any trusts to people if any
6- Saying good bye to the family and friends. The prophet used to say to those whom he leaves behind when he leaves: “We leave you as a trust with Allah, the one whose trusts are never wasted.” He also used to make Doaa for those who travel telling them, “May Allah provide you with piety, forgive your sins, and guide you to the good wherever you are.”
7- Asking the traveler to pray for you. The prophet used to ask the traveler to pray for him and he mentioned that the prayer of the traveler will not be declined.
Starting the Trip
8- What you say when you ride. When the prophet (PBUH) rides on his ride, he says, “Glory to Him Who has subjected this to us, and we could never have it (by our efforts). And verily, to Our Rubb we indeed are to return!”
9- Supplication when you start the trip. “O Allah, we ask You during this journey of ours for righteousness, piety and such deeds as are pleasing to You. O Allah, make easy for us this journey of ours and make the distance short for us. O Allah, You are our Companion during the journey and the Guardian of the family and the property in our absence. O Allah, I seek refuge in You from the hardships of travelling, unhappiness connected with ghastly scenes and evil turns in property and family.”
10- Making Supplication during traveling as it is not declined.
11- Remembering Allah and mentioning Him during the trip. The prophet advised his companions to say “Allahu Akbar,” every time they are going up hill and “Subhana Allah,” every time they are going down.
Arriving at your destination
12- What you say when you arrive. The prophet used to say when he enters a village, “O Allah, I ask you from the good of this village and the good of its people and I seek refuge by you from the evil of this village and the evil of its people.”
Coming back home
13- When coming back, the prophet used to do the same thing for the departing trip and he adds, “To our Lord we continuously return, to Him we continuously repent, to Him we are in continuous obedience.”
Arriving at the home town
14- When you see your home town, you should say, “O Allah, make me dwell in it in good and provide from me a blessed provision.”
15- Start by 2 Rak3at in the Masjid if you can.
16- Do not surprise your family. The prophet used to inform them that he is coming and he would never arrive at night in surprise.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
In the Shades of Hijrah - Part I
The event of Hijra is so important in the Muslim history. It is so interesting that we talk about the incendent itself and forget about what made this event what it is. In this speech, I tried to go back years before this event and learn some lessons. This will be continued next week ISA. Please listen and comment. We need to learn more lessons ISA.
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
Friday, January 04, 2008
What is Haya'
The prophet says, "Every religion has its unique charachter trait, and the character trait of Islam is "Haya' " Here is what it means and how important it is
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Eid al-Adha Speech 1428 - 2007
Some lessons from the farewell speech of the Prophet during his last and only Hajj
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
Lessons from Surat Yusuf - Part II
This Jumaa Khutba talks about some lessons learned from the surah of Prophet Yusuf--PBUH. A lot of lessons that could help us live our lives as righteous and successful human beings despite the lack of support we get from people around us.
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Lessons from Surat Yusuf - PART I
This Jumaa Khutba talks about some lessons learned from the surah of Prophet Yusuf--PBUH. A lot of lessons that could help us live our lives as righteous and successful human beings despite the lack of support we get from people around us.
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
Monday, November 12, 2007
Psychological Projection
Since I am no authority in psychology, I refer you to read about this here. But in brief, psychological projection is a defense mechanism by which people deny their own ill thoughts and behaviour by blaming it on others. It is amazing to know that this is happening all the time. Pharaoh accused Moses of "declaring mischief on earth." Moses? Allah's prophet is the one who is going to declare mischief on earth? How about you Pharaoh? Calling people to Allah? :-)
You will find it all over around you. People accuse one another of things they personally suffer from: "She is not sincere to me," "He did this because of his ill heart," or "No one loves me." How often you heard some people saying, "Muslims do not accept to live with others who hold different ideas or embrace different religion." That is projection.
Those who keep blaming Muslims of not accepting others ARE the ones who do not accept Muslims who proved time after another throughout their teachings and their history that they can live sincerely and willingly with others and bring to their communities what is best for them.
Just a little hint to the reader. If you find yourself accusing others with things that they do, examine your heart. You might be a victim of psychological projection.
Wallahu A3lam
You will find it all over around you. People accuse one another of things they personally suffer from: "She is not sincere to me," "He did this because of his ill heart," or "No one loves me." How often you heard some people saying, "Muslims do not accept to live with others who hold different ideas or embrace different religion." That is projection.
Those who keep blaming Muslims of not accepting others ARE the ones who do not accept Muslims who proved time after another throughout their teachings and their history that they can live sincerely and willingly with others and bring to their communities what is best for them.
Just a little hint to the reader. If you find yourself accusing others with things that they do, examine your heart. You might be a victim of psychological projection.
Wallahu A3lam
By Allah, That is not the Character of a Liar!
This story happened in the streets of Mecca at a time when Prophet Muhammad was completely disbelieved by his people. There was a huge negative image around Islam and around him personally. Islamophobia was at its utmost at that time. People were warned not to talk to him: "He is a liar. He creates problems between people and their spouses and their sons and daughters. Stay away from him." He--peace be upon him--never stopped calling people to Allah. He never stopped living as a sincere human being with high quality character in a society that was prejudicial to him.
While walking in the marketplace, Prophet Muhammad found a very old lady struggling to carry the goods she bought from the marketplace to her house. He, unhesitatingly, offered her help. While carrying her stuff towards her house, he never called her with a name except "O my mother." After he dropped all the stuff before her house, she told him that she cannot pay him back for what he did for her except with a sincere advice. "There is a man in Mecca called Muhammad. He is a liar. Do not listen to him." She advised him sincerely. He-peace be upon him--responded by saying, "O My Mother! By Allah, I am not a liar." It was a surprise to her to know that this man whom every one accuses of being a liar is the very same man who helped her getting her stuff home. Shortly, she realized that she was a victim of a false rumor. She then told the prophet, "By Allah, that is not the character of a liar!"
Living at a time when so much hatred spread around about Islam and Muslims, we must follow the tradition and the character of the Prophet in serving our society and showing humanity who Muslims are and what Islam is. We will soon make people who were prejudicial to us to proclaim it clearly, "This is not the character of a liar!"
Wallahu A3lam
While walking in the marketplace, Prophet Muhammad found a very old lady struggling to carry the goods she bought from the marketplace to her house. He, unhesitatingly, offered her help. While carrying her stuff towards her house, he never called her with a name except "O my mother." After he dropped all the stuff before her house, she told him that she cannot pay him back for what he did for her except with a sincere advice. "There is a man in Mecca called Muhammad. He is a liar. Do not listen to him." She advised him sincerely. He-peace be upon him--responded by saying, "O My Mother! By Allah, I am not a liar." It was a surprise to her to know that this man whom every one accuses of being a liar is the very same man who helped her getting her stuff home. Shortly, she realized that she was a victim of a false rumor. She then told the prophet, "By Allah, that is not the character of a liar!"
Living at a time when so much hatred spread around about Islam and Muslims, we must follow the tradition and the character of the Prophet in serving our society and showing humanity who Muslims are and what Islam is. We will soon make people who were prejudicial to us to proclaim it clearly, "This is not the character of a liar!"
Wallahu A3lam
Friday, November 09, 2007
Importance of Character in Islam
This Jumaa Khutba talks about the importance of good character and its value in Islam. How is all the rituals we do are related to good character and how our faith cannot exist without good character. It then concludes with the virtues of good character. May Allah grant us and guide us to good manners, Amin
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
How to Worship After Ramadan
This Khutba touches upon the idea of our Iman going very down after Ramadan and how to prevent this from happening. It basically gives the advice to worship Allah in a comprehensive manner not only focus on spirituality. Enjoy!
As usual, your comments are more than welcome
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