AbdelRahman Murphy – Jumuah Khutbah 12-07-2024
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AI: Transcript ©
The month of Muharram is the 1st month
of the Islamic lunar calendar.
And more importantly, it is one of the
sacred months, one of the 4 sacred months
that Allah
has deemed
as sanctified,
meaning that it is a month in which
every person should focus on devoting themselves to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala just that much more.
This month has
many events
in it that are significant for the Muslims.
And today in the Khuddah, we're gonna speak
about 1 in particular.
And that is really the foundational event that
defined
the significance
of not just the month of Muharram, but
also the day of Ashura.
The prophet, alaihis salam, when he arrived in
Medina,
was not the only
group. The Muslims were not the only group
in Medina at the time. Time. Medina was
actually
a relatively pluralist society, meaning that there were
other traditions there. There were other tribes, and
those tribes had different religious beliefs and backgrounds.
From amongst them were some of the tribes
from the Jewish community.
The prophet
had
a civil and a good relationship
as the leader of Medina
and as the manager of peace
in the area.
The prophet, I salsas salam, was the
leader of that designated region. And those tribes,
they agreed and they submitted to be under
his leadership
for the time that they
had determined until later events.
In the moments where the prophet had
this amicable relationship,
They would obviously be observant of one another.
And there are some narrations that even talk
about how the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
engaged with them in their legal disputes
and advised them to go back to their
tradition to solve their legal disputes amongst each
other. But one of the events that is
very interesting
comes to us in Sahih Muslim
or the prophet, I salsalam,
it's told to us by Ibn Abbas
that the prophet,
He came and he noticed
that on 10th
of the month of Muharram,
that this tribe, these Jewish people would engage
in the act of fasting.
Now this was actually before the month of
Ramadan.
So the Muslims didn't have any particular analogy
to go off of. Of course, fasting was
always encouraged,
right? As Allah Ta'ala says,
that they were aware that fasting was a
devotion.
But it wasn't as if the Muslims had
the rhythm of Ramadan to identify that this
is fasting and we do this too.
So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he
says,
That what is this day to you
that you're engaging in this act of worship
that you don't do normally? Fasting is a
special deed.
They said, this is
a day that is very special to us.
This is a great day.
And it's almost you can hear in the
tone. They're they're they're they're about to explain
something
incredible.
They said,
That on this day in our history,
Allah
He saved Musa
and his people, I. E. Our ancestors. They're
saying,
And he destroyed by the act of drowning
and
the army that were pursuing them.
And so Musa himself, as a commemoration for
this event,
he began the act of fasting every year
on the day of in Muharram to thank
Allah for that incredible salvation that he gave
them.
And at
the same time,
as a as an ode to Musa
following his sunnah, we also fasted as well.
So the Jewish tribe here is telling the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and is sort
of giving an explanation
as to why they do this action. Now
we're gonna pause here for a second.
Now we believe as Muslims, of course, that
Islam is complete. The Quran, the sunnah of
the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam, there's nothing
that we need spiritually outside of our tradition.
Meaning, we don't need to look at other
religious traditions and say, hey, that's pretty interesting,
or hey, that looks pretty cool. We should
try that. We should add that. In fact,
there are other examples where the prophet, alaihis
salatu alaihis salam, when the companions would try
to bring in certain elements, not out of
any ill intention but out of practicality,
the prophet alaihis salatu sallam would redirect them
towards the elements that we had within our
own tradition.
But the prophet
here, he identifies something, and he says something
very powerful. Faqara Rasoolallahu alaihi sallam, he says,
He says, that's interesting
that you guys are doing this
because if you think about it,
you're the tribe that eventually deviated away from
the path of Musa alaihi salaam.
Musa alaihi salaam came, he delivered the message,
and then Allah
sometime later sent, Isa, and you rejected him.
And if you really wanna follow
the the prophets of Allah, you don't pick
and choose who you follow. You don't say,
You know, we're gonna follow him because he's
better than this prophet. No.
Allah says, we do not determine and distinguish,
oh, who is better than who? No. We
accept them all as mbeya. They're all prophets
of god. So the prophet
here, he's identifying a little bit of their
double standard, their hypocrisy.
And he's saying religion is not for you
to pick and choose who you want to
follow.
And so he says, as a result of
this, his analysis
instantly drives him to this statement, which is
what?
Interesting that you do this because
we actually stayed on the path of Allah
We actually followed
not only Musa, but also Isa,
and the believers of the prophet followed
him as well. So he's not saying this
out of boasting. He's not saying we're more
deserving, and we are more Musa belongs to
us more. It's not about,
grandstanding one another and trying to boast and
flex on one another. No. He's just making
a simple statement of truth, and he's saying
that, well, interestingly enough, we're the ones that
are on this path as it stands.
And then he says,
he narrates. He says, so the prophet,
he himself fasted this day,
and he commanded us to fast this day.
Now this was all again before the month
of Ramadan,
but this is
a a hadith that gives us the historical
context
of the power of this day of Ashura
in this month of Muharram.
Allah
in the story of Musa,
he gave and granted
prophet Musa
a very special kind of liberation,
a very special kind of liberation. You know,
Firaun
was such a tyrant.
Firaun was such an oppressor, such an evil
person that his name and his status and
symbol became an archetype throughout history
for evil and oppression.
The prophet alaihis salam
in a later narration, he says, Every nation
has a pharaoh.
And even us we have our pharaoh. Right?
And he identified the pharaohs of his nation.
So the prophet alaihis salam,
he identified that this person is so evil
that, of course, the liberation from this tyranny
is something very unique and special.
And so we as Muslims, whenever this day
comes about every year, inshallah, it's coming up
on Tuesday as the calendar says.
Whenever this day comes around, we identify and
we remember and go over some of the
lessons from this day and what makes it
particularly
unique to us. Now Allah ta'ala in the
Quran, he actually details
in summary
the event itself. Musa alaihi salam, Sayyidha Musa,
peace be upon him, our our
the messenger in the fraternity of messengers that
we follow,
he was the prophet that was sent to
the children of Israel.
And his job was to deliver the message.
Just like every other prophet had their ummah,
this was his ummah.
Now this ummah, similar to every other nation,
had their fair share of troubles and difficulties.
Just like the ummah, the prophet alaihi wa
sallam had persecution,
had years of persecution, the ummah of Musa
alayhis salam also had years years of persecution.
Firaun was dead set
on destroying
not only Bani Israel but also prophet Musa.
And his persecution, interestingly enough,
began before even he was born.
Had a dream, as the narration tells us,
that his demise and his downfall would eventually
come from 1 of the children
of this nation, one of the boys. And
so he put out an edict
to
every other year
to execute the young boys that were born
in Egypt
in that year so as to protect himself
from this prophecy.
He only did every other year, the narration
says, because he still needed this workforce, this
slave workforce
to build and to increase his empire. And
that's why his brother, Harun, lived. He was
in a different year, and Musa was in
a year which coincided with the edict, the
order.
So prophet Musa alaihi salam was in a
very difficult place before he even was able
to take his first breath outside of the
womb of his mother. So Allah
tells us in the Quran
that he sent
a revelation.
He inspired
the mother of Musa that when he was
born and as she's panicking and as she's
concerned about the future of her child, we
inspired, Allah ta'ala says, to put Musa into
a
basket. After you nurse him and you take
care of him, place him in a basket,
and put that basket
in the river. Now I want you guys
to think for a second
about
what we hear the story and so we've
already processed that this is okay. We know
because we know the ending. Right? When you
know the ending, it's hard to emotionally connect.
But imagine for a second that you were
told to do this.
Imagine that you were told, many of us,
you know, can't even leave
something much less valuable than our children
out of our sight for even a small
while. You get a brand new this or
that, you buy a car, you get some
clothes, and you're, like, staring at it. You
go back and make sure it's okay. You
look at it. You check it because you
wanna make sure that you take care of
it. Now imagine
you've gone through 9 months of bearing a
pregnancy of a child, and this is a
very special
child. And you have to follow the command
and the revelation of God to place this
child into a basket and place this basket
in the water.
This is something that is truly miraculous. But
what we find here is that when a
person submits to Allah,
despite all of their math and all the
process that their mind does when their heart
submits to Allah, that's the moment when Allah
gives them miracles.
Many of us become an obstruction
to the miracles that Allah ta'ala has waiting
for us. We're too busy mathematically
trying to figure out exactly how we're gonna
get what we need.
And in that process of trying to mathematically
figure things out, we miss out on the
beauty of submission, the art
of letting Allah take care of the situation.
Ibn Atta'ala has a beautiful statement where he
says,
He says, Rest yourself from the over meticulous
planning.
Because he says, Why would you put it
upon yourself to take care of a situation
that someone much better than you has already
taken care of?
Many of us were so concerned about the
ins and outs and the details, the nuts
and bolts of our lives.
All we are told to do by Allah
is what we can. And beyond that, we
leave it up to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So the mother of Musa
has done what she can. Notice Allah says,
nurse him. And then at that point, once
you're done nursing and you fear for him,
place him in this basket. But then Allah
ta'ala, he makes a promise. He says that
we will return him to you.
We will bring him back to you, and
we will make him one of the messengers.
This is the optimism
that we are supposed to have with Allah
You know, no matter what
evil or what darkness we are up against,
the believer is different than everybody else and
that we always end the story with a
happy ending.
We always do that, even if we don't
know what it is. Notice, by the way,
Allah does not give the details of how
Musa is going to be returned.
Notice, Allah ta'ala does not give the details
of when. There's no
specifics.
All Allah ta'ala says to her or reveals
to her is what? You will see your
son again, and
he's going to be in a much elevated
maqam and status than he is now.
Many of us, again, we obstruct these miracles
from happening because we wanna know exactly when,
how, what it's gonna look like, and
please give me the ETA on that. That's
not how our duas, that's not how Allah's
provision works. We ask Allah to make us
those who trust him.
And so, Allah
continues, and he says, it happened to be
the case that the people of Firaun, when
they see this basket floating down the river,
it floats towards the palace of Firaun. They
pick up the basket, and
without realizing it, they take in
this young boy because the sight of Musa
softened the heart
of the wife of Fir'aun, and she said,
can we please keep him? And the story
goes on that Musa was then
taken in. They tried to find somebody that
could feed him, that can nurse him. They
went and looked in the city for mothers
who were nursing. They ended up finding his
mother. Somehow, some way, this baby prefers this
mother. Okay. You can nurse him. And that's
one of the ways in which Allah ta'ala
returned Musa to his mother. But to go
to a different point in the story to
identify
just the length of difficulty that Sayedna Musa
alaihi sallam had to go through, We fast
forward now 4, 5, 6 decades, subhanAllah.
His life started with difficulty and it continued
throughout his journey. It kept going and going.
But I wanna take us for the purpose
of time
to the end of this journey.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
he says, Musa. He says, We revealed to
Musa and we told him that,
You need to leave
now with all of my servants, with your
nation because you are being followed. You're gonna
be persecuted and pursued.
Pause here for a second. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala did not give Musa alaihi salam all
of the details. He just told him, You
have to go. You have to trust me.
You have to leave.
We'd create the analogy with the Prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when he has to make
hijra, when he has to leave from Mecca
to Medina. He's not given the exact details
of why he has to leave or when.
All he's told is that now is your
time to make your migration.
The way that trust works with Allah is
that it does not need every single detail
to be said. Allah ta'ala continues and he
says,
in that moment where Musa is preparing his
people to leave and they start to leave
this community of
people, Fa'aun gathers his army and he mobilizes
them and he takes them to all the
different cities.
The num the the number difference is very
tangible here. Allah
informs us that Firaun's power is seemingly much
greater than the power of Musa if you're
to measure it based off people alone.
Is walking around, and he's mobilizing armies of
people with weapons and shields and all types
of artillery.
Musa is going with
a community of people that includes young and
old,
people who are able and people who are
less able. If you've ever traveled, you know,
I was talking to somebody recently and they
were talking about, man, traveling by yourself and
traveling with your kids is a totally different
traveling experience.
And they said, when you travel by yourself,
you get to the airport maybe 45 minutes
to an hour. When you have kids, you
have to get there 5 hours before.
And they were talking, but this is the
exact same analogy.
Musa, alaihis salam, by himself, can easily make
his way away, but he's responsible.
And sometimes when you're responsible,
that responsibility
demands that you handle it with that prophetic
grace. He didn't just tell his people, look,
every person for themselves.
Right? Every prophet for themselves. They're like, You're
the only prophet.
He says, No. I gotta take you with
me. You're my responsibility.
You don't shed responsibility in times of difficulty.
You embrace it. Prophet Musa alaihis salam takes
his people. This is the command of Allah,
and they're moving slowly. And as they're moving,
Faraun's army is catching up, and they're sweeping
through the territory, and they're looking for these
people to capture them.
And
in the next ayah, Fir'awn's army even identifies
them and says that these people are a
small number, and they're almost hyping themselves up
saying that we'll have this. We're easily gonna
take care of this. You can feel the
arrogance
that they had against Allah
Allah ta'ala, when he describes this though, he
says, in their arrogance and in their power,
in their drunkenness,
he says,
He says, we are the ones who took
them out from their gardens and from their
springs.
Meaning that they thought that they were gonna
accomplish a new empire. They thought they were
gonna establish more dominance. They thought they were
gonna expand what they already controlled. Allah said,
no. This was the beginning of the end.
You know, brothers and sisters,
it's been
seemingly forever
that we've been witnessing the crimes happening to
our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
And there comes a time when you see
the pictures and the videos and hear the
stories over and over and over again,
And you see the impunity with which oppressors
behave.
Just last week or so, we came upon
the anniversary
of Srebrenica
where the Bosnian Muslims were massacred, the genocide
against the Bosnian Muslims. You're seeing in Sudan.
You're seeing across the world. Why is it
the case that oppressors
seem to always be on the up,
always on the rise, never ever having any
sort of difficulty.
Allah
here gives us a little bit of a
sneak peek.
When the oppressor thinks that they are at
the climax of their growth, that is the
beginning of the end.
And this is detailed through the story of
Fa'aun.
He thought, we're just gonna leave our beautiful
palace and mansion and garden. We're gonna go
take care of these people really quickly, and
we'll be right back. And we're gonna inherit
all of their land and their gardens and
their springs as well. But Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, he knew more than they knew, of
course. Allah is the all knowing.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he then
continues and the for the sake of time,
I'm not gonna go through the whole story.
But there's a point subhanAllah, where Allah tells
us that the people of Bani Israel themselves
had a little moment of weakness, had a
little slip. They're following Prophet Musa the entire
way. They're making it, and they come across
and they come upon the Red Sea. And
this is seemingly the end of the journey.
I want you to imagine, they look behind
themselves and they see the army. They look
in front of themselves and they see the
water.
And they say,
As soon as they looked and they saw
the scenario and they did the math, they
said, this is it.
We're done.
Again, trying to solve spiritual questions with mathematical
answers.
What's gonna happen now? And they look at,
say, Namuz and they say, this is it.
This is the end. Everyone say your prayers.
And it's at that moment, subhanallah.
It's at that moment that prophet Musa alaihis
salam. And again, I want you to feel
the pressure of all the doubt
that the people he's in charge of are
projecting onto him.
Every person who's in charge of something has
always faced the doubt of the collective.
Do you know where we're going?
Do you know what we're doing? Do you
know where we're gonna eat? Do you know
this or that? Do you know when the
power's coming back? Do you know when this
is gonna happen? And you don't just feel
the the situation, but you feel people turning
on you. You feel that sense. And sometimes,
it's even those that you've never ever had
to worry about them turning on you.
It's at those moments where you have to
dig deep and see who do you trust
beyond yourself. Musa doesn't say, guys, I know
the answer.
He doesn't say, look. Look. I'm a prophet.
It's gonna be fine.
Who does he point back to?
He says, No.
You failed.
You made a mistake, huge mistake
because you forgot
that Allah is with me. Not me. It's
not about me being in charge, it's about
the one who's in charge of me being
with us.
He's
going to give me a way. Again, the
way is unknown.
He doesn't say,
Hint, right?
I'm gonna give you a I'm gonna do
a spoiler alert. My staff in that water,
just wait.
By the way, he's used the staff before.
Allah told him to strike the stone.
And so he knows that this staff and
I mean, you know, at the point of
desperation, you try anything.
So you could argue mentally that he's a
prophet, he's done this before, maybe he takes
his staff and tries to do something. Allah
knows best.
But instead of even taking an atom's weight
of credit on how to solve this problem,
who does he say is going to solve
the problem? Allah.
This is just reminder. Again
and again, Allah gives us stories so many
times that the moment you put the pressure
on yourself and the moment you think the
solution is going to come from within,
that's the beginning of the end for your
solution.
But the moment that you commit to understanding
that Allah is the one who will provide
the solution
and he will give you the way out,
that's the beginning of the solution itself.
And at that moment,
Allah says,
We told Musa, we revealed to him, we
inspired him, take your staff and strike
the sea.
If anyone has stood on the coast of
an ocean or a sea
I mean, I want you to imagine again,
he's not carrying, like, a staff that's 100
yards long and there's, like, a visual effect.
You guys know the sticks that your kids
pick up and carry in the park?
It's like 3, 4 feet tall.
Take this staff and strike this massive body
of water.
Again, a moment where things could have gone
south for trust in Allah.
Really? Like, this is gonna solve it?
Like this is the solution?
He takes the stick and he strikes
the. Allah
then says,
At that moment,
the sea was split.
There was no build up. There was no
loading. There was no buffering.
Everything was instant. As soon as he struck
it, the sea was split.
And at that moment, it was like 2
giant walls of water and the path in
front of them was as dry as sand.
Allah had separated the particles of water from
the dirt and the path to freedom was
clear for them.
And Musa alaihi salam looks at his people,
and he says, let's go.
They walk through,
and after they go through, Firaun and his
army catch up. And at that point, one
of the narrations tells us
that Firaun was actually telling his army because
again,
what does every oppressor or tyrant end up
experiencing?
They end up realizing their own delusion
and their own lies. His army is questioning
him saying, you didn't tell us he could
do that.
You didn't tell us this was gonna happen.
And he goes, no. No. No. This is
me. I made it happen.
I made it happen. I'm the one in
control.
Come on. Let's go. Because they had a
hesitation. Once they saw the power of Allah,
like anybody would, their hearts tremble. And Firaun
eventually with his arrogance,
with his oppressive intoxication,
with his tyranny,
he dragged himself and his army to their
ends.
They walked in. As soon as the people
of Israel and Musa were out and they
were in,
the walls collapsed and Allah drowned all of
them in that moment.
What's interesting
about this story
is that the day of Ashura
is a day that carries so much significance
in our tradition.
Even beyond this, after the life of the
prophet
there is the tragedy
of
the assassination
and the killing
of Al Hussain
the grandson of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
at Karbala.
And this is a tragedy that weighs heavy
on the heart of every Muslim. If you
love the Prophet of Allah and his family,
this weighs very heavily to know that this
happened on the day of Ashura as well.
But
we look back at history and we understand
that Allah's design and his strategy is not
pointless, is not purposeless.
Allah demonstrated moments of oppression and salvation on
this day
because oppression and salvation
are themes of life eternal.
We see oppression today.
The test is the test that we all
are struggling with right now, and you don't
have to admit it because it's tough.
But when you see the oppression happening to
the ummah today, the test that every heart
feels is where is the salvation, you Allah?
Where is the salvation?
When is enough enough?
Khabab, the companion of the prophet said,
Where is the help of Allah?
Even a companion would ask the prophet of
Allah, where is the help? Is this just
gonna keep happening
over and over and over again?
But the day of Ashura reminds us that
there's a process
to the miracle of Allah
There's a process. There's a submission. There's a
trust that must be experienced, that must be
felt. And in order for the miracle to
become manifest,
we all have to submit to the trust
of Allah.
We cannot think that we are
doomed like the people behind Musa did. We
have to say what? Even as bleak
and as dark as the situation looks right
in front of me, more missiles,
more artillery,
more tanks, more funding.
Presidential candidates both supporting. It seems like there's
no hope.
We have to say what?
In
the Our lord is with us.
He will guide us to the solution. And
when we are there, we will look back
and we will just like many when they
looked back after they walked through the split
waters and they saw the drowning of their
oppressors,
they said we should have never ever lost
faith in Allah for one second. We ask
to give us strong faith. We ask
to make us those who reflect and those
who understand.
Brothers and sisters,
this, this
was just a short
summary
of the the the virtues of this special
day.
Like I said, next Tuesday
is the day of and is the day
in which the prophet
he advised just like the sunnah of Musa
was established
and he himself,
a sallam,
followed that sunnah of his brother in prophethood.
He advised that the believers fast on the
day of Ashura
as well as if they can, the day
before
and or the day after.
And he said that for those who are
able to fast this day and the day
before or the day after, whatever they can
from those 3 days, that the promise of
Allah is that they will be forgiven
from their sins from the previous year. And
so this Tuesday, inshallah, as a community here,
we're gonna be hosting
a small iftar at the time of Maghrib,
inshallah,
as well as some conversation and some reflections
on the virtues of the day of Ashura,
inshallah, at the time of Maghrib to, again,
really understand
our heritage, our tradition.
Many of us, these days, they come and
go. Arafa, Ashura, etcetera.
They come and go, and we're not familiar
with them as we should be. But these
are the inspirational moments in our history and
our timeline
to give us that connection to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala that we otherwise
lose. So we ask Allah to accept from
us. And please join us on that day.
We ask Allah to uplift
the oppression from those who are experiencing it.
We ask
Allah to give salvation and to give his
mercy to those who are seeking it. We
ask Allah
to bless those in this gathering. We ask
Allah to forgive all of us and those
who have passed away. We ask Allah to
give Shifa to those who are sick and
to give to give his cure to those
who are suffering. We ask Allah
to give barakah to those who are seeking
in the rizq. We ask Allah to protect
all of us from harm that is from
within us and that from outside of us.
We ask Allah to allow us to follow
the example of his blessed messenger, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Are there wheels or okay. No. That's not
this one.
Straighten the rose, inshallah, and fill the gaps
as much as you can.
And pray this as if it's your last
prayer.
Accept from all of us, and, give us
the ability to be steadfast in this new
year, in this, 1st month of in the
new year.
You're up.
We have a du'a request for one of
our
community members' relatives. His name is doctor Munir
Chima. He passed away. May Allah give him
his rahman, his forgiveness.