Johari Abdul-Malik – Take Over To Make Over
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Beginning the Khutbah
to Jum'ah today, praising Allah.
And thanking
Allah,
And we use the word
Allah because this is the word that Allah
uses in the Quran.
If you talk to Christian Arabs, they will
use the word Allah
in the Bible
translated in Arabic.
So we thank Allah
for so many blessings, we cannot count them.
Allah having sent to us over the millennia
guides, prophets, messengers,
sending us all
a common message
from Allah
through many
messengers.
So, alhamdulillah,
we thank Allah for all of the messengers,
ending with the last of them, Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
I want us to begin
today
with just
a very short reflection, and I ask for
your prayers
for those people who lost their lives
on the recent Egyptian airline,
accident.
Most of us think
that we have a lot of time to
live.
We have loved ones who are traveling and
doing things. My daughter was
saying to herself,
and then I mentioned it and she said,
well dad, I'm worried because
I was in Egypt not too long ago.
And, we have many friends who fly a
lot.
But alhamdulillah,
we know that everything is in the hand
of Allah.
To try to live our lives in a
way that if
today is our last day, if this hour
is our last hour,
that if Allah calls us back,
then we will be ready for the meeting
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But we ask
Allah's mercy and peace
on all those who are following Allah's path,
that Allah would have mercy on them and
grant them Jannah, Ameen.
There's something very interesting, alhamdulillah,
about
Allah's
mercy.
We say in al Fatiha,
in
al
Fatihah, the capacity
to have mercy and to be the source
of all mercy
is a characteristic
that belongs to God alone.
And in it the prophet
gave us some insights
saying that
although human beings do things, make mistakes,
put themselves in conditions where they're not at
their best.
That Allah forgives
from one salah, one prayer to the next
prayer.
From one Jumuah, this hour that we're praying
in
to the next Jumuah.
From one Ramadan
to the next Ramadan,
And from the beginning of our lives until
the time when we make the pilgrimage,
the
pilgrimage to the house
established by Ibrahim,
alaihis salaam and his son.
In the example of the prophet Muhammad,
sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
These
periods of forgiveness.
Why? Because Allah is so merciful
that we as people, we get,
we get out of shape.
We get
like everything in the universe.
It breaks down.
If you have something,
it gets rusty. If you have a metal,
it gets most of them, they will get
rusty.
If you have something which is new, after
a time it becomes old.
If you have
a computer, after a while you have to
go through and clean out some of the
junk.
Maybe virus got inside of the computer, malware.
So every now and then you have to
take your car in for maintenance.
The maintenance, the small maintenance from one salah
to the next.
The maintenance for
our our souls,
from 1 Jummah to the next Jummah.
From 1 Ramadan to the next Ramadan.
We are about to enter
that period.
It is a an opportunity
for us
to take over
to make over.
It is an opportunity
for us
to take our lives
over,
And to make our lives
over by the mercy of Allah, Subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And,
when I say this,
let's begin with
3 things
to let us understand something about
who we are,
and how we should function.
The Quran
is for us the
ultimate
authority,
and Allah describes to us in the Quran
something about the human being.
Saying to us that we were created
Aksani Taqim.
The human being was created in the best
mold,
the best shape.
As
a Muslim, we believe, alhamdulillah,
every person is born free without any sin.
Human
beings are born
with an inclination
toward good.
We were
created
in the best mode, 1.
The second,
Allah reminds us in the Quran
that those who believe in Allah,
they have amin for Allah. They have a
connection with Allah,
and they have a connection
with the Prophet
that they have already achieved
the great success.
So
those who say,
I understand
who Allah is, what Allah is,
and I understand the example that I should
be living in. I have it from Rasulullah,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
I'm already successful.
Maybe I'm not,
I don't make the most money.
But
I'm successful.
Maybe I make a lot of money,
but if I'm not following what Allah wants
me to do, my creator, and I'm not
living an exemplary life, I'm a failure.
I'm just a failure with a lot of
money. I'm not gonna mention any names.
So the second, whoever believes in Allah and
his Messenger have all already achieved the great
success.
3rd,
Allah describes to us
in the person of the prophet, alaihis salatu
wa salam, the prophet Muhammad,
you have the best example
of human
conduct character,
husnulhuluk.
That you have the best manners.
Now let's think about this for a minute.
Human being is
created in this
excellent mode,
and then you have a method
that you can follow.
In theory,
Quran,
read it,
and then you have the walking Quran as
Aisha
said that the prophet Muhammad, he was walking
Quran, then you have, the Allah says it,
you have in him an excellent example.
If this is the case, and it has
to be the case,
then what is wrong with us?
Something must be wrong with us.
And I'm I'm not going to to beat
up on you too badly,
but one man he said,
if you look in the parts of the
world where Muslims are the majority,
he said, there must be something wrong.
Why don't we have
the advancements that we see in other parts
of the world?
Nigeria is the largest
Muslim country by population in Africa.
Why don't they make cars?
Why don't they,
make airplanes and computers?
If in fact, this is true,
there is something
that we're not doing.
Now, we
have the best example, we have the best
book,
they found the British
museum, where all of, most of the things
from
the, Asia and Africa, the best things are
there. You can go there and find them.
What's happening to us?
Somebody said,
well first
we have the element of Shaitan.
And Shaitan
has said that
the human being is inferior.
Shaitan says, I'm better than him. He's made
from
mud,
and me, I'm made from
fire.
It's embedded in him.
And Allah describes that, yeah, the human being
has problems.
The human being has free will.
They can either be the they
can be the best people, or they can
be
the they can be worse than the jack
off. Worst, worst.
It depends
on whether or not
they will take over
their urges,
their their lower nature,
and
follow the example
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
If they would do that,
everything would be added to them.
People who are righteous, who are upright,
everything would be added to them if they
would just get in line
with the guidance from Allah.
Allah
informed Shaitan,
Satan,
that I will allow you until the day
of judgment
to do whatever you want to do, to
misguide human beings,
and then at the end, we'll see.
And the reality is Allah is saying, you'll
see that the human being is created.
He really is created in the best mode.
That the human being really is going to
be ultimately
successful in establishing
peace, and justice, and order, and mercy.
You're going to see it, and, walhamdulillah,
you're going to see them in the example
of the prophet
out of his kindness and his mercy and
his care and his justice. You're going to
see it. And
even you and
I, with all of our shortcomings,
even the respite that we've been given,
is so that we have the opportunity
to remake ourselves.
We have the opportunity.
Our challenge today
is to seize the opportunity
to take over our lives again from Shaitan,
from the other influences,
and to make ourselves over
into people who walk in the example of
Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Oh, pass me this spell.
But maybe,
maybe I can
make it a little clearer for you.
I accepted Islam
as an American
maybe
25 years ago.
I was a young man then.
And when I accepted Islam, subhanAllah,
I accepted Islam because
Islam
was so much like the values that I
had been told about as a young person,
but I didn't see people doing it.
When I met Muslims, subhanAllah,
and they told me about Islam,
they told me, subhanAllah,
if you want to be a Muslim, you
have to believe in Allah.
You can't worship anything else except Allah. You
can't worship your race.
You can't worship your status.
You can't worship your national origin.
You can't say, well you know, because I'm
educated,
I'm better.
I
said, no, if I am a Muslim,
I have to be, well, hamdulillah,
the best example of human conduct because I'm
the representative
of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
People like Malcolm X who yesterday would have
been his 91st birthday. People like Malcolm X
taught us then to say a Muslim is
excellent. A Muslim is pure. A Muslim is
hardworking.
They are honest. They are trustworthy.
The Muslim word is his bond.
That a Muslim, Alhamdulillah,
doesn't take revenge.
A Muslim
has sincerity
in all of their dealings.
So I accepted Islam.
And the people that I met, they were
the, they were Muslims like that.
One of my students,
who took shahada with us years later,
he now is a successful
businessman.
And I said to him, you know brother,
you are an exemplar
of the way
that a Muslim should operate,
not only in their private life, but in
their public life as a businessman.
And I said it's important, subhanAllah, that you
do business,
not only with the wider society,
but that you do business with other Muslims
to help.
Because
as a Muslim, you provide a level of
excellence, and sincerity, and transparency,
and SubhanAllah.
So the other day he called me, he
said, imam,
I put a bid
for a contract
for building a masjid.
I'm a construction
building design company, and I put a bid
for the masjid. In my bid, I bid
low
because I want, as a Muslim, to be
part of building something for Islam.
He said, when I met with the board
of the masjid,
I said, I'm
so happy as a Muslim, I'm here, and
and
this is gonna be a great project.
He said, Imam, I was perplexed.
He said, the members of the board said,
brother, cut all that Islamic stuff.
We we need to come for that.
All we want is the person who's gonna
deliver the job, the cheapest price.
He said, well, my bid is low. He
said, yeah, man, but cut the Masha'allah stuff,
all the brother, all the Islamic brother stuff.
He said, he said, Sheikh, I I he
said,
I
was doing what
you people taught me to do. SubhanAllah, I'm
a Muslim,
and I'm doing Muslim with my brother.
And and with that, I wanted to express
my love for Allah and his messenger, and
and to work with each other.
I said, you know, I I forgot to
teach you something.
And that is that for many
Muslims,
Muslim means inferior.
If you want a doctor, don't get a
Muslim doctor, Imad.
Go get go get another doctor because,
the because he's a Muslim, I want a
good doctor.
If you get your car fixed,
I don't want an I don't want the
Muslim mechanic, man, because he's the IBM mechanic.
That's the mentality.
I said, brother, there are many Muslims
who
they believe that
Muslim means unprofessional.
Muslim means he's gonna show up late,
that your product won't be quality.
He said, I but I don't understand.
I said, yeah, I know brother.
I said, let let me give you an
example. I said, son, I I was visiting
a country,
Muslim majority country, I'm not gonna mention the
name.
Majority Muslim country
are there 5 times a day.
Going to the marketplace, and one of the
local brothers, he said to me, Brother, be
careful when you go to the market.
I said, Why? He said, Because somebody might
try to cheat you.
I said, cheat me? This is a Muslim
country, brother. He said, brother, when you go
to the market, if the man says,
know that he's lying.
I said, it's not for the law.
He said, brother, I'm just warning you.
I said, this is the state of Islam
in this country,
subhanAllah, in America.
When I need a Muslim,
Muslim meaning, Muslim means subhanAllah.
He's going to safeguard
my interest even against his own.
That if they are Muslim doctor, you know,
one out of 10 doctors they claim in
America is a Muslim.
Do you know those those doctors they put
in more work, more hours?
The Muslim University professor who's really a Muslim.
They deliver more
because they say,
I said, so son, the problem is that
we some of us have an identity
problem
that needs to be made over.
I said, have you ever been to the
zoo?
You see, when you go to the zoo,
you can see a lion, and you can
see the tiger, and you see the elephant.
Except that there's something wrong with them.
They were they were created in the best
mold by Allah.
They have their their natural characteristics, but something
happened to them.
They are suffering from the effects of captivity.
Many of us were suffering
from different kinds of post traumatic colonialism
stress
disorder.
That we have forgotten
who we really are.
If the real lion if you met the
real lion, not the one in the zoo,
and you get near him, if he yawns,
you'll lose your wudu.
If you go in the zoo, you see
the real elephant.
He can't be kept inside the little pin.
He's been conditioned since he was a small
child to think that he can't break out
of the zoo.
Many of us, we need a makeover
because we have been confined
by the training that we have received
to think that we're inferior.
And so I'm saying to you now,
in this month of Ramadan which is coming,
use Ramadan
to take over your lives
and to make them over.
Every night reciting the Quran, every day fasting,
and
realize that the zookeeper is not your master,
that Allah is your master.
That your employer
isn't the one who's controlling you, your paycheck,
Allah controls your paycheck.
To put yourself, alhamdulillah,
in makeover mode.
To say that I was created,
I'm in the best mode and I have
the best example in Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
I don't care what these people say on
television.
I know who I am.
And I'm gonna use Ramadan to get myself
back together again. That be it's Nila Allah,
Allah will make me over. That my iman
will, Hamdullah, will increase in a way
That will cause people when they see me
to ask the question, what kind of person
are you?
Because
we're allahi, we've never seen
a person that upright before in our lives.
This is my
request of you to prepare yourself for Ramadan
in a way
that you will seize the opportunity
to make yourself over.
We are reminded in the Quran that the
month of Ramadan,
That makeover is your taqwa.
O Allah, guide us among those whom you
have guided. Oh, lord, keep us in the
path of those whom you have taken as
a friend like Ibrahim alaihis salam.
Oh, lord, we ask that you protect us,
Oh, lord, have mercy on us and our
families. Oh, lord, help us to make ourselves
over, you Allah. Oh, Allah, that we might
walk in the example of your Rasool, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. Oh, Allah, we ask that
you remove the fear in our hearts.
Anything except displeasing you. Oh, Allah, we ask,
oh,
that you open our hearts to love and
mercy, you Allah. Love and mercy between the
husbands and the wives,
you Allah. Love between the parents and their
children.
Oh, Allah. Cure us those who are suffering
with diseases, you Allah. Oh, Allah. Who are
suffering with the loss of loved ones and
wealth, you Allah.
Help us
that you return it to us with something
better, you