Moral Culture in Islam
Khutbah – Friday Sermon
@ Masjid Fanar
Bilal Philips – Moral Culture In Islam – 2018
AI: Summary ©
The importance of cultural Islam is highlighted, with emphasis on the need for individuals to prevent evil behavior and find out who their cultural counterparts are. The responsibility of individuals to prevent misogyny is emphasized, and the use of traditional Islam as a source of mis catering and fear is discussed. The "brane" dowry system is discussed, with examples of practices before Islam and the consequences of its negative impact on society. The "brane" dowry system is also discussed, with examples of practices before Islam and the potential consequences of its negative impact on society. A call to action for students to reform their societies is also mentioned.
AI: Summary ©
Brothers and sisters
having looked in the previous footbeds
at the Pillars of Islam and the pillars of Eman
and having looked at
the moral goals behind them
were these moral goals are implemented in our lives.
It produces
a moral culture,
a culture of morality,
a culture, which is most concerned about the moral upbringing of its generations
most concerned about the moral policies of its government.
Its main concern
is a moral concern.
Not technology is technology, though it is good, it's beneficial, beneficial
to sacrifice,
morality, for technology
is morally wrong.
to sacrifice the moral needs of the Society
for the sake of advanced technology is morally wrong.
And this is what distinguished the Muslim civilization
of the past it wasn't the technology
because the early civilization of Arabia had no technology. Technology was in Rome and Persia and India
and Africa,
but not in Arabia.
But what distinguished that
early seed of guidance was, its moral uprightness
a people stood firm, for a moral way of life. And that is the distinguishing characteristic of Islam.
It is a moral based civilization.
And that
is what the prophet SAW Salah meant when he said in the model as to loot me Mama Carnival o'clock, indeed, I was only sent to perfect for you, the highest tomorrow.
So when we look at the problem of the world today, the Muslim world today
one of the world's
yet
another civilization, Western civilization dominates globalizes its culture.
Mainly, it's technology.
And that technology is presented in an immoral package.
So there's technology coming, but the package is immoral.
The package is immoral.
And so our civilization suffers
because we want the technology.
But we can't separate it from the package.
We take the package along with it.
The only way forward for Muslims
is to go back to that moral foundation
is to rebuild
a moral culture
Islamic morality
that is the only way forward for us.
And to do so, on one hand, we need to understand the principles of Islamic morality and we spoke about that in
The Pillars of Islam and a man.
That's the foundation
which pervades everything else.
And on the other hand,
we have to erase we have to remove the obstacles, the obstacles which prevents us from realizing true Islamic culture, in our lives in our civilization.
those obstacles have built up over the generations
to the point now, where
we are unable to recognize,
to recognize them as true obstacles.
They have become so much a part of our Islam
that we cannot distinguish between Islam and Muslims.
We think everything that Muslims do is Islam.
But there is a lot
that Muslims do, which is in fact, Muslim.
Our challenge is to realize
what is not a part of Islam and to remove it. On one hand it is to apply
the true teachings, the Quran and the Sunnah.
And the morality which it teaches, and on the other hand, we have to erase, to eliminate to remove those obstacles to true Islam, so that the Islamic culture of morality can arise again.
Now
I lost my dollar in sewer Allium Ron verse 10
summed up that responsibility saying consume hydro mutton urgently NASS, Tamar una bill Maru for 10 hana and in one car, or two men on a villa.
You are the best nation extracted from among humankind because you command the good.
You prohibit the evil, and you believe in Allah,
you command the good.
You prohibit the evil, and you believe in Allah.
commanding the good and prohibiting the evil is a establishment of morality.
And you believe in Allah morality based on Islam.
Because we have people in the world today commanding what they perceive as the good
and prohibiting what they perceive as the evil, but it is not based on
belief in Allah. So, it is its consequences evil, even though it expresses good, says it wants to do good, it means good, but the consequences evil because that foundation of belief in a law is missing.
And that is what is missing in western civilization.
The core,
the most important element in human life is missing.
Yes, we do have those civilize that civilization. Many of the people within it say we believe in Allah.
Well, they say, Oh, God, not a lot of their Arab Christians, for example, they'll say Allah, yes. But for the rest, they would say we believe in God.
But
they believe that God was a man.
So that belief is not belief in Allah. It's not belief in God.
It's not.
Because if we can accept that as belief in God, then those people who believe God is a stone, or a tree or a planet, we have to accept that this belief in God also.
Because what is the difference between a man an animal a stolen or a planet? They're all created by Allah.
So that essential element is missing
Islam
offers that element to the world.
But in order for us to be able to properly present it, we have to ourselves find it.
We have to ourselves find it.
And to find it, we said, involves two things, one, applying the knowledge that we know and of course, we have to have knowledge to be able to apply it and that's why profit long is us lm said tolerable enemy for either local Muslim, seeking knowledge is compulsory for every Muslim, because the way forward cannot be established without knowledge, correct knowledge based on the Quran and the Sunnah, as it was understood by the generations, which lived it,
which lived the revelation.
And on the other hand,
we have to begin a systematic process of dismantling what is known as cultural Islam.
I'm talking about Islamic culture.
That is the Islamic moral culture. That is on one hand, what Prophet Mohammed Salim called. But on the other hand, we have Satan, calling to cultural Islam,
Islamic culture,
and cultural Islam, cultural Islam, commonly called folk Islam, by the missionaries.
They always point out if you want to reach these Muslims, you can't come at them through
Islamic culture.
The fundamentalists
who want to practice Islam, the way it was originally practiced, it's not gonna work.
The way to get to them is through folk Islam.
What the people practice in the village,
what the ignorant people practice.
This is the route that we can reach them through cultural Islam.
Because it doesn't have a proper Foundation, it is weak. So it can be dismantled at any time, all you have to do is read the stories of the so called converts from Islam to Christianity. There are a bunch of them on the internet.
If your faith is weak, don't want to read it.
But if you know what Islam is, and you really want to see how
fake Islam Muslim operates, you can see it in the lives of these people who converted to Christianity.
They will tell you I
grew up I Muslim,
and a Muslim village. And this happened to me and that happened to me and the other happened to me and so on. so on, so on. So once I realized that Islam isn't right or wrong.
And then I met this nice missionary,
a lovely man
who took took care of me, who showed me the true love that God has for human beings, and so on and so forth.
Now the section that he talks about, or she talks about what happened to them while growing up, this happened and that happened and the other happened.
If you know Islam, you will know that this was Miss la all that was going on in that person's life was, you know, cultural folk Islam. They were victims of folk Islam.
Focused about FGM lk. If you're not familiar with the word, it means Islam of the common people.
This is what we see. So we know that this is a danger.
And Satan
is the backer of this kind of Islam.
He is there, again, urging the people on to defend this and to stand firm with it.
Traditional Islam
I'm sure we're all familiar with some element of it in our home countries, traditional Islam, the Islam of tradition,
which from the time that we are
Children were taught, you must respect the tradition.
When you question the tradition, you are told if this was good enough for your father, your grandfather and your great grandfather, it should be good enough for you.
Don't question the tradition
accepted.
And so you grew up with this traditional commitment to defend and to protect the tradition. Tradition, of course, is
completely in opposition to
any kind of change. Change is bad.
traditional approach looks at change as bad.
That's why when Mohammed bin Abdul Wahab
back in the 18th century,
started a movement, calling people to go back to the original practice of Islam.
As it was known at the time of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he was looked at as an evil man.
An evil man
who wanted to change things change the traditional way of doing things. So he was looked at, he was labeled as an evil man.
And his movement was called
cynically, the Wahhabi movement
and the word Wahhabi, around the Muslim world came to mean extreme erratic, deviant, evil,
Wahhabi
and anybody who then called for change, let us change this. The Quran or the Sunnah doesn't agree with it, shouldn't we follow the you want to be a Wahhabi?
That was the response
in complete opposition to any kind of change.
So when people are invited
to the Quran and the Sunnah.
Come let's do what the Quran and Sunnah says. The people say,
that was not the way of our forefathers. That was not our tradition. We don't do things that way here.
And actually, that was said 1400 years ago, same words, a lot recorded in the Quran in about five six different places in shoreline diverse 104 a lot says they're worried that kilala home to Allah, Allah and Allah Allahu Allah Rasool Allah, who has buena vida de la habana. I will know kinda about whom La Jolla Allah Mona Shay. And while I do
if you tell them the law, speaking to the province or sell them, if you tell them come to what the law has revealed, and to the messenger,
they will reply. What we found our parents doing is sufficient for us. What we found our parents doing is sufficient for us.
And Allah goes on to say, even though their parents knew nothing, nor were they rightly guided.
So that answer
the traditional folk, cultural Islam is a standard
of Satan. It is a standard used by Satan to oppose guidance.
It is a source of misguidance It is used by Satan insidiously, to keep people firm in misguidance
and to feel themselves right in defending their way defending our forefathers our customs and our people.
So we see this is a big challenge.
It's a big big challenge in front of us.
But the only way forward is to meet that challenge.
akula cola was thought through lalibela Comoros islands, the minimum coup de dum dum flew
In No, right? I asked the laws, forgiveness, and call on you all to turn to a law to seek His forgiveness. For indeed, none can forgive our sins besides a law
hamdu Lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah.
The sources of
cultural Islam, or traditional Islam are basically four.
There are four main sources. One
is pre Islamic practices,
things that Muslims used to do before Islam which their lands to
adopted practices practices which Muslims adopted from other cultures and other societies.
Three religious innovation which the prophets are seldom cursed in every hotbar
and for factionalism, or fanaticism,
which is rife amongst Muslims in the various groups, each opposed to the other, ripping apart the oma
and we'll look at those in more detail in the coming hookless. But for today,
today, we want to look at the pre Islamic practices.
Now,
to understand how can pre Islamic practices end up amongst Muslims, we have to understand that Islam as a system
is a constructive system.
It is not fundamentally a destructive system. Meaning when Islam came, it didn't destroy the existing civilizations cancel everything they did, and then came up with something totally new. No.
What Islam did was the things which were done, which were good, Islam affirm them.
things which are good but distorted Islam corrected them.
Things which people did, which were wrong, Islam forbade them.
So it was a system which
helped, developed,
brought about the greatest possible good for the society.
Built on what was good,
corrected what was wrong
and modified,
what needed to be modified.
And there are many examples that we can see in the life of Prophet Mohammed Salah which illustrates that
the Hajj, for example, was already in practice.
Prophet Mohammed Swaziland did not Institute Hajj in Mecca.
Hajj was already in practice and established from the time of Prophet Abraham.
But in the years that
took place between his time prophet is mine is mine and Muhammad wa sallam changes to place.
So people came to make tawaf around the Kaaba,
saying, we are coming to you or law as you created us naked.
So they were walking around the Kaaba stark naked men and women.
We hear your call, Oh Allah.
So Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim corrected that put clothes on
a lot doesn't ask us to walk around naked.
Were born that way. But we don't live that way.
And so on and so forth.
So Islam corrected.
It prohibited
and reformed.
When we look now, in Muslim cultures, we will find today practices which were in existence in existence in those areas before Islam came.
And Islam came
modifying, correcting, prohibiting, etc
but
Some of these practices slipped in. And they weren't corrected.
Because Islam had this easy attitude towards what was called, or
the common customer of the people where it didn't seem to
oppose Islamic teachings, it allowed it.
So through this flexibility, some practices were not corrected in the outlying parts of the Muslim Empire, Muslim state.
Close in the to the center, it was eradicated, these things were cleared away. But as Islam spread further and further generations went,
the strength of the message became somewhat diluted.
Those who carried it out of Arabia and the early generation were affirmed clear
those who carried it further, and later generations were not as clear. And in the later later generations became somewhat
dubious. So these things crept in.
So we find, for example, just as an example,
in the indo
Pakistani subcontinent,
the practice of getting married in a red wedding dress,
red.
Now Islam doesn't have any problem with any color you want to marry in the colors of the rainbow, you can do it.
No problem.
However, when the society says, You must get married in this color, we have a problem.
Because now you're making obligatory on people, something which Islam didn't make obligatory.
So we have to look to see why is it Why is it people are insisting that you must get married in red.
And then we look at the Hindus. And we see their women marrying in red.
And we realize that's where it came from.
From Hindu practice, that was the norm amongst the Hindus to get married in red.
Muslims converted to Islam, and they brought red along with them.
So it became an obligation, okay, big deal. Red Dress, green dress doesn't matter really.
That might not seem like much similarly,
in other parts of the Muslim world, today,
we find
people marrying in the white dress in Lebanon, Syria,
Egypt, you get married women marry in white dresses. And again, we said no problem. Islam can be white, green, blue, black, any color you want. But when it becomes a cultural imposition, you must get married in white. Then we have to say, what's happening here.
What's happening here. And we see that this is the tradition amongst Christians. It is their tradition, to wear white, indicating purity, and virginity. And these are the types of things so they insist on it. So those people who came into Islam in these areas brought the white dress along with them.
And again, as people will say, this is something minor, nothing really big. But if we progress
if we progress forward
to other similar customers, and we have today in Egypt, Sudan,
Somalia,
Ethiopia, and that region. What has come to be a big cause amongst the feminists in the world today, do all kinds of programs about it and show what Muslims do to their women?
They raise the banner of
FGM
FGM. What is that? female genital mutilation
Muslims cut up the private parts of their women
mutilation.
And it's true.
Muslims in this part of the world do it also. So to the Christians, Christians in Egypt, Christians in Ethiopia, Christians in Sudan, they all do it. In Kenya, they're doing it.
So it's really not a Muslim thing, but it's associated with Muslims.
And it's only in that part of the Muslim world, the rest of the Muslim world is not involved in this.
But it is associated with Muslims.
And it is what is called an eternal fear only the Pharaonic circumcision.
It existed way before Islam.
But the consequence, what happens to the lives of women who undergo this
mutilation, and it becomes mutilation. A number of them die every year from it. infections, all kinds of horrible things happen to them, as a result of it.
It is an evil.
But it's attributed now to Muslims. And there is harm in the Muslim society from it.
That is one level.
Take it up another level.
In India,
the common practice when people marry is to give dowry
to the men.
My heart is given by the family of the women to the men.
The opposite. This was Christian tradition. Also. In Europe, that's how it was done.
Women were looked at as a liability, you had to pay off the men to take them off your hands.
This was not the Islamic point of view.
So it was a common practice amongst Indians. What was the result of that practice? The result of that practice is that
when a man wants to get his daughter married, he offers the young man all kinds of things a car, big television, nice house and all kinds of things to win him over to take his daughter.
And
what happens after they get married is that the Father is not able to fulfill all of his promises.
So the husband, he's putting pressure on his wife? Where's the stuff your father promised?
Where is it? Where's the car? Where's the flat screen? plasma TV?
It's not coming. The wife says you know he promised
she better get it.
You better make him bring it and he starts put pressure on her. And eventually he because he's not coming the only way out of this thing okay. Just get rid of her. How he and his mother Catcher in the kitchen. They pour kerosene over her and set her on fire
1000s of Indian women are burnt alive every year.
But they call bride burnings. This is the evil consequence of this way. The government is brave it did it. The Indian government recognizing the evil of it has prohibited this dowry system
well
Muslims of India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh
in the newspapers, I read an article it said woman burnt to death
that guy
a greedy husband burned to death his young wife at chick para in the city following a feud over dowry police said I read that to settle another case of Hindus because you can induce in Bangladesh
burning there right.
But then I went on to said Xia czar here Nia,
me, kind of strange name but za here is the name Muslims Gary.
czar here Mia poured kerosene over the body of his wife Shannon.
Start from 20 years old and set her on fire on Sunday. She died in Dhaka Medical College Hospital yesterday.
Another article,
domestic violence on the rise in Pakistan, at least 300 women are burned to death every year.
Muslim women
it's a long article, time is short.
But it's saying the same thing.
Muslim women burn to death every year over dowry.
So this thing has become an evil.
This thing is a great evil taking human lives, the lives of our women.
Just so that we don't think Dr. Bilal is always focusing on us Indians and Pakistanis.
In southern Egypt,
I read an article. It said Son held for killing mother
in Kenya, Egypt, a 22 year old son beheaded and dismembered his widowed mother when he found out that she had secretly remarried, breaking with tradition in southern Egypt. The police here said yesterday, Salah Ahmed has been helped by one of his uncle's forced Samira Salaam 35 years old, into the village Cemetery in nakoda. A Hamlet north of the southern resort of Luxor, where they strangled, beheaded and dismembered the woman police said they said the woman was pregnant Hasson and Samir, his brother were detained for questioning and admitted their crime.
What?
What was the basis of this?
This young man 22 years old, his mother was 35 years old.
His mother was 35 years old. Meaning she got married when she was 13 years old.
No problem. Islam is fine with that. So her husband dies and she's 35 she's still a young woman.
But in southern Egypt, if your husband dies, don't think about getting remarried.
Don't think about it.
This is the consequence.
You will be killed by the society. Your brother Your son will murder you. Why Where did this come from?
The origin of this is an ancient Egyptian myth concerning the goddess Isis. According to the myth, Ceph desired his sister ISIS, so much so that he killed her husband Osiris in order to marry her. However, ISIS refused to marry Seth and hid her son Horus until he came of age and revenge his father's death by killing his uncle Seth. The Cult of ISIS began in Lower Egypt and spread throughout the whole country.
ISIS, Osiris, Seth, what does this have to do with Islam?
This is an ancient pagan set of beliefs affecting the Muslims of Southern Egypt. So much so that they murder their women
because they seek to get married.
This is what is in front of us today. These are only a few examples, just to make it real, because I may speak about it and he said Yeah.
But we need to realize that this is a real threat in our Muslim societies today. And we have to eradicate it.
We have to reestablish Islam by removing these things, correcting it.
That is the only way forward.
And Prophet Mohammed Salam. He was the example of change.
One who came and reformed
the culture and evil culture with good of Saudi Arabia, a culture which
Buried its children girls alive.
So there was that kind of evil existence. But Islam came and prohibited these things
and corrected and reformed and made that change. And that's why a law calls us in the Quran saying in the law home, I like to use aluna Allenby yandina amanu, sallu alayhi wa sallam Otis Lima. And that's why we ask a lot of Peace and blessings on the Prophet Muhammad wa sallam because he was the example of change of reformation, the guide for us to reform ourselves and our societies, to bring them back to that moral ideal. And I asked the last one to Allah to give us the courage to take on this huge responsibility of reforming our societies and ourselves. ask Allah to help us to find our way back to true Islam, and to eradicate the false practices and customs in our societies. ask Allah
to keep our hearts dedicated to this religion, and to keep our faith growing till we die, and to make the last breath that we take a breath of faith and to live this life. In true belief. I mean,
the world's first tuition free degree BA in Islamic Studies, access to the knowledge anyplace, anytime, anywhere, it just doesn't get any easier than that. Classes text assignments completely online. Set your own schedule for the semester. No overseas travel required for the exams.
Subjects taught by qualified English speaking scholars, weekly live sessions and virtual classrooms with curricula based on those and El Medina University in Saudi Arabia, as har University in Cairo, and other reputable institutions around the world why wait any longer, he pages a symbolic registration fee and are ready to begin the adventure of higher education.
The most diverse student body of any university in the world 130,000 plus registered students from 217 countries login to the website for more details www dot Islamic online university.com