Johari Abdul-Malik – Islamophobia Yesterday & Today
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Beginning,
the khutbazulullah
praising Allah
and thanking Allah Azza wa Jal
for having walhamdulillah
guiding us
to this way of life.
A way of life, alhamdulillah,
which frees us
from the fear
of anything
except
to have
health for Allah.
That, walhamdulillah,
that we have been freed
from
irrationality
about the reality
of what this life
is. That, walhamdulillah,
we praise
Allah, rabi'alameelba
raq,
the one that everything
relies upon.
And walhamdulillah,
that Allah
doesn't rely on anyone.
That Allah, walhamdulillah,
is self sufficient.
Today, walhamdulillah,
we ask Allah's mercy on all of Allah's
guides, prophets and messengers, the mbyah,
culminating
with the last of them,
Muhammad ibn Abdullah
Rasulallah
We ask Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la
to cause us, walhamdulillah,
to fear Allah
as Allah should be feared. This is Surat
al Alaikin.
And die not except
in the state
of what we call Islam.
I want to back up for a minute
though, because
sometimes
because we're using
words in English,
and by the way, this is a great
gift from Allah, that the Quran is available
today,
throughout the entire world,
in the original
language revealed
from Allah
through Jibril
alaihis salam to the prophet Muhammad,
in the Arabic language.
So that there is no
doubt
about the integrity
of the message.
You know, they found now, and the British
Museum has a copy of the Quran,
the Mus'haf, the Quran reduced to writing,
and now
academics are going through
the Quran,
and they are seeing
that the words that you and I recite,
whether here or in
Timbuktu
or in Beijing,
wherever it is, then the Quran is being
preserved by Allah
for all of us.
And there are, walhamdulillah,
some great benefits
for us.
As Muslims,
and I shared with some people the other
day, that although I'm not an Arab, I
grew up in Brooklyn. I grew up raised
in a church.
I'm a black American, no doubt.
But part of all of us, part of
us, wherever you come from,
you have to have a little Arab want
to be.
They call it
in slang, wanna be.
You're an Arab wannabe.
Because the Quran, alhamdulillah,
is revealed in that language, so you need
to have some affinity,
some love
for the language of the Quran.
I love the Quran.
And you know, today I'm,
I'm wearing this,
whatever you call it,
SubhanAllah, in Arabic, Abayyah. They, you know, I'm
trying to help the English people,
right? Abayyah,
that was given to me by
Sheikh Mohammed al Hanuti Ibrahim Aladdin.
So I can't like, not think about him
today. He said, well, let's look at the
words in the Arabic language because
they have a
deeper meaning
than if you say it in English.
Because every language has its own connotation.
So if you say in Surat Al Ali
Imran in the 100 and second, aya fear
Allah.
People will say, well what kind of fear
are you talking about?
Are you talking about haf?
Have haf for Allah.
This is the kind of
fear
when you are afraid
that there are going to be consequences
to the exchange
that you're having,
and that there's danger associated with it if
you are not lined up in the right
way, this is half.
But then maybe you could say, well, people
will translate have taqwa
as fear.
Have taqwa for Allah? Fear Allah?
Sheikh al Hilati would say no, this is
not that kind of fear.
This is the kind of
relationship
where
you know that
Allah is watching you
and
you are being very mindful
of what you do
because you want to maintain
that relationship
with Allah.
Taqwa.
I'm connected to Allah through taqwa.
It's not the kind of fear, like, I
see a dog, I'm afraid of the dog.
Not that kind of fear.
It is the fear,
the mindfulness
that comes when I say I don't want
to be away from Allah. So if I'm
doing something that might displease Allah because of
my connection
with Allah, it keeps me from doing that.
Taqwa.
Somebody might say, well what about,
Khoshuah?
Some people might translate Khoshuah
as fear.
I like to think sometimes, you know,
if you if if you have like a
favorite
basketball player,
you have a favorite basketball player, let's say
Michael Jordan, you always want to meet Michael
Jordan, and one day Michael Jordan comes in
the masjid,
makes 2 of a cup.
You say, Safaamaha,
Michael Jordan.
That you're in awe.
You're amazed.
When we meet Allah
we will have this feeling, it's like a
kind of fear.
You'll be like,
it's
Allah.
I met Allah
and Allah was pleased to meet me. And
I was so amazed and pleased to meet
Allah,
and I was a little nervous too
by the greatness of Allah.
So maybe
when we are thinking about
different kinds of fear,
Health.
To
separate that,
because
as a Muslim, I love having those three
kinds of fear.
But right now, in America, many of our
neighbors are experiencing
another kind
of fear.
It comes from a Greek word,
phobia.
Phobia.
Phobia
is,
according I went to Wikipedia.
They said phobia as a suffix
is a technical term used by psychiatrists
to construct
words
that describe
irrational
and disabling
fear
as a mental
disorder.
Phobia
and irrational
and disabling
fear
as mental disorder.
Many of us,
we don't want to admit it sometimes, but
we have our
own phobias.
Now, alhamdulillah,
I pray that I don't offend anyone, but
there are some people, they have arachnophobia.
They are afraid of
spiders.
There are some of our neighbors,
they have
xenophobia.
Irrational fear of foreigners.
Maybe some of them,
they have what's called
Islamophobia.
Irrational fear of
Muslims
and
Islam.
It's irrational and disabling
because
the person now has in their mind a
certain perspective,
it's not related to reality,
but it disables
them to act normally.
Now I want you to know, Islamophobia
is not new.
I'm reminded that the Quraysh,
they had
some Islamophobia
in Makkah
in the time of the prophet salallahu
alaihi wasallam.
Their reaction,
once the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam announced that
he is the Messenger of Allah,
people start becoming afraid.
They are afraid that it will destroy their
way of life.
They have an irrational fear of the Quran.
The Quraysh,
when the Quran was the early
being revealed by the tongue of the prophet
to the people,
they would warn them, cover your ears. Don't
listen.
Don't listen, because if you if you start
hearing this, it's gonna have an effect on
you. They said to Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, maybe he is a soothsayer, maybe
he's a magician,
maybe he's matronoun.
We don't want to listen to his kalam,
his speech, because it may have some kind
of spooky effect on us.
And you know the Qur'an
and the jahadeel, they
were superstitious.
So they had many
phobias.
How did the
Prophet
handle
Islamophobia
in his city?
The first, walhamdulillah,
is by
leveraging
his personal
relationships.
You see, you you hear about someone
and you're afraid
of them and what they're about.
But then when you get to meet them
and you talk with them and you have
a relationship,
then you say, wow, subhanallah, that guy not
so bad.
And his message, I really understand it now
that I'm talking to him, walhamdulillah
Rasulallah he talked
and built relationships
with people,
that walhamdulillah
it touched their part.
The second,
his engagement, walhamdulillah,
providing maslaha
in the society in which he lived.
Now, you know, there are people who will
say, well
we are suspicious
about the engagement of
those people.
But then when we find out that really
they're sincere, they have akhlas,
they're just trying to help.
The people
in
Yathrib,
some of them they were suspicious
about the speech and the ideas of Raulullah
Some of them, they came to that place
called Aqaba, and they met, and they described,
and they discussed, and then they went back.
And he brought more people back, who some
of them were still kind of not sure.
And, well, hamdulillah,
through the power of their engagement,
they wanted to get the benefit from having
Rasulullah
and the Muslims
to be in their city we now called
Medina
Munawara, the enlightened city.
The third, walhamdulillah.
And this is why the way,
we are reminded in the Quran because sometimes
it is very
difficult
to do this.
And that is to be
steadfast.
That through difficulty
and hardship
and people who are
having an irrational
fear of you,
for you to be steadfast.
In Allah
is with the people who are steadfast,
patient, perseverant. They continue to do what they
are doing, what they believe in, wabhamdulillah.
And believe it or not,
because of your steadfastness, maybe stubbornness in your
opinion?
I know we don't have much time today.
One one day, I was on
Fox News.
Bill O'Reilly asked me to say on Fox
News, can you say that Osama bin Laden
is not a Muslim?
This is a very convenient opportunity. You could
just say,
well,
I disagree with what what he says and
whatever. He's not a Muslim. I'm sorry. I
said it was something in a lot, and
everybody got nervous. A few people started moving
around. Be steadfast.
I told him, I said, I can't do
it.
I never met him.
I only know what I see about him
on television,
on your show.
So
I cannot excommunicate
somebody
because of hearsay.
I'm gonna be steadfast
what I believe in my values.
Now, as strange
as Bill O'Reilly behaves sometimes,
Bill O'Reilly said,
Imam,
I have to respect you for that.
Now, the law in prayer means, the Muslim
watching, they're saying, oh my God, how did
he say that?
He said, I have to respect you. That's
integrity.
You're steadfast.
Then in Islam,
I, there are rules. Rasoolullah, there are rules
of how you come to an opinion, and
I can't come to an opinion about somebody
that is just hearsay.
Wallahi.
Rasoolullah
sallallahu alaihi was sallam
was
hated
by his opposition,
but respected because he was steadfast
in his principles and his belief.
That walhamdulillah,
if you are then patient and perseverant
with that
steadfastness,
this yaqeen,
that walhamdulillah
Allah will make us successful
in this
life and in the hereafter.
You know,
probably if if if I had my way,
Jumu'ah would be an hour. If you if
you went to the
if you go to some other religion, they
they go the preacher goes for a long
time. Alhamdulillah, bless you. You're a Muslim. In
the United
States, Jumuah is half an hour, almost California,
Chicago,
not Miami.
Well, hamdulillah, half an hour. So you'll be
able to escape in, like, 8 minutes each
other.
But
not without thinking about
how can we challenge
Islamophobia.
It starts with you and I.
Now I can tell you, probably,
there are 5
outcomes
of Dawah.
They say in America, if you watch play
football, I never played football
really, but I know about it.
The best
defense
is offense.
The best defense
is offense.
For many years, Muslims have given up
dawah
and outreaching to people and and saying
you should become a Muslim.
They're like,
what? No. Not now. You should become a
Muslim. Muslim is the best thing in the
world to be.
They said, no, man. You must you must
be joking. No, really. I'm a Muslim. All
my friends are Muslim. My family is Muslim.
Muslim is great,
And when you meet Allah,
Allah will accept you without any interrogation. If
you say, la ilaha illa Allah Muhammadan Rasoolallah,
and then you follow in the right way.
That's that's offense.
1hamdulillah.
Five
outcomes, effects
that we can use
to challenge Islamophobia.
The irrational fear of Islam and Muslims.
The first, walhamdulillah,
is the one I called, I could either
call it the Khadija effect
or the hamza effect.
These are people,
because of their personal relationship with Raulullah
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, they accepted Islam.
They didn't need a whole lot of explanation,
a whole lot of reading and dialogue.
Abu Bakr said, if he accept Islam,
I'm a Muslim. If Khadija radiAllahu anha, she
said, if if if Jibreel came to you
and said that
and Abu Bakr says nobody ever got that
message except that they were a prophet, then
I'm following you because you're a prophet.
Just the first effect.
Do you know this happens?
Do you know this happens? You look at
the history of Islam in parts of the
world.
If the leader says, I accept Islam, all
of the citizens accept Islam.
Look in West Africa.
Just what I'm gonna be if the learned
people say, this is it, everybody's with it.
That's the first effect,
and I invite I invite you to find
people that you know who are powerful,
influential.
Become their friend
and tell them about Islam.
Well, they accept Islam.
The hip hop movement in America,
some of the hip hopers accept Islam. That's
it.
The other father, when they start listening to
the beat, they say,
Don't even know what it is, but they
whatever it is, if he does it, I
believe it.
The second effect.
This effect, walhamdulillah,
this is the effect, walhamdulillah,
of
the uncle and the grandfather of Rasul
They say if if he believes in in
this,
I'm not going to become 1, but I'll
protect him.
So that he's free
to practice his religion, to do whatever he
wants to do
under my protection.
Because, alhamdulillah,
I believe that he's telling the truth, even
if on my deathbed,
I don't say,
but
I'll die defending him.
The third effect I call the Negashi effect.
When you talk to Christians and Jews and
others who have been told that Islam is
not the truth, Alhamdulillah, I have to engage
with them. The Negashi said the difference between
Islam and what I believe in is no
more than a line in the sand.
And so the Muslims can have safe haven,
they're saying Islam, Christianity, Judaism is all the
same. It's legitimate
from Allah.
The 4th effect, the one I call the
Abu Sufyan effect.
Abu Sufyan, before he accepted Islam, he said,
you know what? I don't like Islam.
I don't like Muslims.
But I think you should leave them alone.
And so, when the Quran's wanted to attack
the Prophet
because they were concerned about their caravan, they
wanted to go to Badr Abu Sufyan. He
said, don't go. Our caravan is safe. Leave
them alone.
I think of Colin Powell sometimes. Colin Powell,
told, but don't go, you don't want to
go. There's no weapon of mass destruction. Leave
the Muslim alone.
You're about to step into something you don't
want. Just leave them alone. They don't they
they don't have to fear them.
The 4th effect, and I'm closing.
5th effect, sorry.
The Abu Lahab effect.
This is someone, they hate Islam.
They know what Islam is,
and they know that it means the end
of prostitution,
gambling, corruption, lying, cheating,
stealing. If Islam ever
gets hold in the society,
morality and justice will be something that people
are striving
for.
You know, the Quran talks about Abu Lahab
and says, you know what, no matter
what he does, he'll never accept this
one.
Never.
Here's the good news.
That one kind of person,
they're a hater.
They don't like
blacks. They don't like women.
They don't like Jews.
They don't like immigrants.
They're xenophobic. They don't like Mexicans, Hispanic.
They hate everybody
except them.
But gathering
the other 4,
they also say we are Muslim, they also
say we respect Islam,
those say that Islam is like Christianity, Judaism
and
and other monotheistic
faiths, and the one who says, walhamdulillah,
even though I don't like it, they have
the right to have their religion. Those 4,
gathered together,
can put an end to Islamophobia.
We ask Allah
to guide us among those whom he has
guided.
To take us as a friend among those
whom he has taken as a friend.
For Allah to remove the fear from our
heart of anything except Allah.
We ask Allah to
remove from us our own irrational
fears of things in the society.
Know, alhamdulillah,
that whatever Allah has written for us, we're
going to have it. Therefore, we can move
forward with our reliance
on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We ask Allah,
azzawajal, to give us safety, that we might
spread the message of La Illa Illallah
Muhammadan Rasulullah,
until it reaches every house, and every home,
and every heart. Wa alhamdulillah.
We ask Allah
to have mercy on those who are suffering
around the world and around the corner. Oh
Allah, help us to be instruments of your
peace.
You Allah, help us, walhamdulillah,
that we might stand with steadfastness,
you Allah, for those things that we believe.
Oh Allah, we ask that you forgive us,
umadillah,
for the days when we fear something other
than you, You O Allah.
Oh Allah, we ask that you join our
hearts together, the husbands and the wives,
the hearts of the parents and the children.
You Allah, have mercy You Allah on our
old people You Allah. Oh Allah grant us
gritzkuntayyubun
You Allah. Oh Allah, those who have passed
away You Allah, we ask that you forgive
them of their sins, walhamdulillah.
Especially our brother who passed away in Ethiopia,
Izudin Abdullahi.
You Allah, have mercy, walhamdulillah, on him and
all of those who have passed away in
your cause, You Allah. All now, we ask,
what, alhamdulillah, learn to strengthen us, You Allah,
that we might establish, what, alhamdulillah,
your way, the way of your peace, You
Allah, and your mercy. All now, we ask
for your mercy and peace on the prophet,
alaihis salatu wa sallam, and on his family
and on his companions and all of the
Anbiya and those who follow the way of
your haqqia Allah until the day of judgment,
Annie.