Johari Abdul-Malik – 3rd Khutbah 1132017
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the guidance of Allah on Islam, including belief in Islam, history, and equality. They emphasize the need for reform in public schools, highlighting the impact of Islam on society and addressing racism and bigotry. The pressure on politicians to hold them accountable is real, and reform is necessary for political gain. The speaker also addresses the importance of carrying out subhanous pressure to hold politicians accountable and encourages them to hold their current positions.
AI: Summary ©
Seeking Allah's guidance and Allah's mercy and forgiveness.
Acknowledging
that whomever Allah has guided is guided aright.
That Allah has never failed to send
prophets, guides, and messengers
to humanity with without aid down throughout the
millennium.
Combining
with the last of Allah's
prophets,
Muhammad
And Allah
has sent us
this guidance
in
a way
that we can be assured
that the Quran says to us
This is the book in It is guidance.
There's no doubt in
it.
For the people who have a connection
with Allah, we call it
And then this
word from Allah
unchanging.
That Allah's guidance
never changed.
And so for
us, we should, as
believers,
in the first instance, say that whatever is
happening in the world,
know that the unchanging
word of god will never be lost from
us.
And in it,
there are injunctions and guidance. There is law
and order, justice
contained within
this book.
And no matter what happens,
it will never change.
This divine
guidance,
we call it Arabic sharia,
the way to the war,
the way to the sustenance, the way to
purity.
And what happened,
dillah,
if we were to look
through the last 14
centuries
of Islam
under the guidance of the prophet Muhammad,
you
will discover
that
what Allah has ordered for us,
no matter
who
is
the
the governor.
No matter who is the rais. No matter
who is the king or the monarch.
That the obligation of a Muslim remain the
same.
They asked the Prophet
give us some background. What is Islam?
He said.
It's based on five things.
We believe in Allah and we believe in
his messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
We
have established prayer wherever we are.
And to Zakat,
we give for our wealth for both who
fit the category of poverty, of need, of
homelessness,
orphans,
widows.
And it doesn't matter
where we live.
The objective
on us is the same.
Now many of you
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. So
my my reality, my background is different.
But I know I know there's some people
here that grew up in countries where they
had dictators.
If there's any hope for you,
people have remained Muslim
under dictators.
People living under the president pray 5 times
a day. We have a woman here the
other week.
She said, Imam, I grew up in Albania
where the outlaw
practicing
Islam. There was no freedom of religion under
the communist.
We used to go in our houses and
hide
so we could
pray.
Even with that,
Islam
has survived.
And so for any of us who feel
any anxiety
about the current political crisis
and the the the speech you might hear
in the public discourse,
I am completely
confident.
Not only will Islam survive,
but it will thrive.
If we were to look
and to see one of the fundamental
elements that
have maintained,
It is at the heart
of the deen of Islam,
justice,
law,
equality.
It is a message that
with the principle, with the purity of every
human soul.
And so in the face of opposition,
people rather than leaving their faith, weaken deeper.
This is why in some places in the
world,
the only people who will stand up against
the dictator
are the religious people.
It was true
even in America.
I I remind you all sometimes because I
think you forget.
I'm a descendant of
enslaved Africans in this country. My grandparents
can talk about
when their parents were enslaved.
And they used to pick cotton and all
that all that stuff you hear about.
That's not something I I I saw in
a movie.
But I can tell you in this country,
what is
and oppression
was calling people to the fundamental
elements of morality and justice.
As an American,
I can tell you something.
There is a concept
we take, I think, as Muslims for granted.
To live in a country where they say
that
our nation is 1 nation
under God,
indivisible,
with liberty
and justice
for all.
Now the reality is that in America,
that haven't always
been
how America
functions,
but it has always
been the creed of a learner.
Now some people might ask, well, where where
would they get such a creed from?
I want to remind you all
that Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison
were the 2 main
authors
of the constitution
of the United
States.
And I know that they were influenced
by
Islam.
By Islam,
how I know?
Because
Keith Ellison,
the congressman from the 5th
congressmen from the 5th congressional district in Minnesota
took his own office
off the plan of Thomas Jefferson.
And they would put into the document of
the constitution
something that no other document at that time
had.
The Magna Carta didn't have it.
If they were to look back into the
records of the Greeks and the Romans, they
wouldn't find it.
They found something in the Quran.
And the Arabic language of Allah says
let there be no
compulsion
in religion,
the
law, something that you only found within Israel.
That this will be a nation where people
are free to choose their religion
after Quran is crowned.
And by the way, if you don't believe
me that there is,
doctor Aziza Hemri,
You can find her article
in the law journal
of the University of Pennsylvania.
Because I know when you go to when
you go tell your neighbor that, they're gonna
say, what proof do you have about the
the Quran
and Islam influence on the constitution?
So you you have to send them to
the library.
And if they wanna see the Quran, Thomas
Jefferson, they can go to the Library of
Congress.
Because
even though we were here before
Columbus as Muslims,
our influence
on the nature of the society
is well documented.
And I don't want it to be a
secret from you.
You should know
what hamdulillah,
the impact that Islam and Muslims have had
on this country.
Well, I say that
you and I know right now that America
is
not
perfect. They're not perfect.
This kind of society is a work in
progress.
And we are about to come up on
the this weekend, the birthday of Martin Luther
King.
Doctor King
said that
America has to be held accountable
to her creed.
That we as a people who live here,
according to the constitution,
if the government
does not
provide
for us as citizens what we should receive,
then we should challenge the government.
Peaceful.
I forgot that's in the constitution.
Peaceful.
And that the moral arc of the universe
is long.
Many will go through something right now,
some discrimination.
But it means taught justice.
Right here in Virginia,
it's power law.
Right here in Virginia
in the 19 seventies, I came here to
go to college
in Virginia
that has segregated schools.
You try to you try to think of
I mean, at my age, I'm thinking the
19 seventies, I was like, you know, everything
was cool.
People fought.
And in their fighting,
marching and demonstrating,
registering people to vote,
holding their elected officials accountable.
They made America better.
Doctor King reminds us that
justice is not going to roll in on
the wings of inevitability.
People will get as much justice as they're
willing to fight for.
And this moment should be in the forefront.
You know, I was in a in a
organizing meeting one night. I think I might
have mentioned it to you before.
And we were going up against
some banks who were charging a lot of
rebar
and ripping people off and foreclosing on their
homes.
And with the help of some senators,
we brought together their heads of some banks.
And we held them accountable. The Washington Post
and others, they covered it.
And from the pressure that came from the
community,
they said, okay,
we were wrong, we backed down, we're gonna
pay 1,000,000 of dollars to help poor people
get back in their homes.
There's no change that's going to happen unless
there's some pressure.
Verily,
with difficulty
comes ease.
And so, alhamdulillah,
for us,
I'm challenging
each and every one of
us to be part of the change.
I know
I heard a lot of crazy stuff in
the news.
But in the last few months, we've had
many of our friends.
We had the attorney general here,
highest ranking law
official in Virginia,
come to affirm that Muslims have the right
to practice their religion, and the government has
an obligation
to protect them.
That attorney general today, he's down at the
Arab Center.
Not only saying it, but we'll hold them
accountable.
And so I'm going to invite you, subhanallah,
to hold fast to the rope of Allah
altogether
and be not divine.
And alhamdulillah,
if we are steadfast in this thing,
Allah will make us successful
in this life.
I didn't hear anything.
You
know,
I I've been thinking lately about
how crazy
the politics in America is.
And as an American,
I'm not used to
it.
But then I talked to some of my
friends who are from other countries.
They said, well, we're used to it. We're
used to it.
You think of the
country? We're used to
it. Right. You can pick your own country
where Muslims are the majority.
You look back 10, 20, 30, 40 years.
You say, wow.
All the kind of
strange leaders,
corrupt,
dictators,
tyrants.
People still practice in Islam.
They
If he will end on the communism.
So I have no doubt
that his Muslim will be fine.
Not
Nothing for a pound within Allah.
And if I am on Allah's side,
I don't have anything to worry about.
You know, while we're having a little history
lesson,
when Abraham Lincoln was at
Gettysburg,
they were fighting the civil war that would
ultimately end slavery in America.
Some were saying, we pray
that god is on our side.
Abraham Lincoln said, we pray that we're on
god's side.
That what happened to Eli, we're on on
Allah's side. We're alright.
Right now, brothers and sisters,
there's a spike
in Islamophobia,
anti Muslim
people. Kam and Christopher, we've been organizing
in schools talking to parents and children about
what our children are experiencing in the public
school.
We don't have enough private schools for all
Muslims to go to private school. That's how.
97%
of Muslim children go to public school.
So, we gotta fix the public school. In
the public school,
children are learning from their parents and from
whatever to say something Islamophobic
to call the little girl hijabs is full
to call the ISIS.
But guess what?
My friend and rabbi, Bruce Lustig, in in
Washington, he said,
Ebaum,
I'm not gonna say the word because that
that's all that's the only thing I show
on TV if if I say the word.
But there's a bad word they call Jewish
people.
He said Jewish children are now
being called that in the public school.
Life is okay.
Black Lives Matters is talking about how the
life of African American youth, not as valuable
as the life of others. There seems
to be a a trend where people can
take
the law into their own hands.
But I'm confident with him that he learned.
Many of you may not know this.
Enforcement in. The local police department there,
most notably a man called Bull Connor,
was abusing
black people who were demonstrating.
Doctor King
put pressure on
Lyndon Johnson, who was president then,
and Robert f Kennedy, the the brother of
John f Kennedy,
to send federal troops
to protect
the civil rights and civil liberties
of those marchers.
And
it
was the federal government that came in
and defended
the rights
of people to
protest against racism and bigotry.
In Virginia,
the Blue Kloops Klan
was dismantled
by the FBI.
So now you have one group. You have
Bull Connor on one hand and the FBI
on the other.
But the art of justice is long, but
it bends towards
what's right.
I am
thoroughly convinced
that if you and I, alhamdulillah,
do what Allah wants us to do, we're
not in America by accident.
Some of you grew up in other countries.
And I know you had friends and relatives
who wanted to come to America.
Some of them will lie. Maybe you
they they weren't
smarter.
But Allah told you
that you're here for a reason.
It's not a vacation.
And you're here and you're practicing
Islam in America,
which for some people is unthinkable.
You would come to America. They have alcohol
everywhere. They got gambling everywhere. They got,
everything is free.
You wanna do it.
But because of your commitment to the shayi
alpah,
you say I'm gonna follow the laws of
Allah because I'm free to do so in
America,
to pray and to fast and to to
to give my zakat.
And I'm gonna do it
My favorite
reminder after 9:11.
The night Surah
Surah Al Tawba
the 32nd army.
They will unsuccessfully
try to extinguish
the north of
Allah, b f y
a, with their mouths.
Sound familiar?
And then Allah prefers
to increase the nur of Allah locating a
capital no matter how much they dislike it.
For you and I now will have the
eleventh. When I see that, I know it's
happening.
Temple door, a lot of what the priest
is like.
It's happening.
Ask the lord to help you. You will
have to learn
to be part of the change.
We have, meetings. I'm closing now, but
Colin Christopher is begging everybody to help us
with Virginia's organized faith and faith community engagement
because people are coming
to us, asking us
to help them lead the fight in America
to make it better.
We had a meeting found the organized meeting
last weekend.
Neighbors
It's not what you
think.
You you think that when you hear this,
it's bad, but you're too I know Allah
is not in peace in life.
So
we ask Allah to make us among the
that you might strengthen our community, young woman.
All that help us strengthen our relationship with
our neighbors, young woman. All that help us
to remind you among those who would establish
justice, young woman. All that we ask for
your forgiveness. All that your mercy on those
who are suffering with difficulties. All that we
have a sister
of
We ask for your peace and your mercy,
your Lord, the prophet
and
all his family, all his companions.
And all of the NBI guys, prophets and
messengers, you Allah, and those who followed the
way of your heart until the day of
judgement
end.
Straighten the lines, close the gaps,
and we pray this prayer as it is
our last.
Allah,