Morad Awad – The Importance of Endowment
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AI: Transcript ©
And,
Alaa,
white belt.
We praise Allah
And we send our peace and blessings
upon our Prophet Muhammad alayhis salatu wassalam.
And I remind myself and yourselves on this
blessed day of yomuljumuatifirullah
As Allah reminds us to fear Him,
when He said
in the translation of the meaning of the
verse, O you who believe, fear Allah the
way He should be feared and do not
die except in the state of submission to
Him. We ask Allah that we die in
the state. We ask Allah that we are
resurrected in the state. And we ask we
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to enter us into jannatul firdaus in the
state. Ameenirubalalameen.
In a world
where dominant culture
is becoming
increasingly
individualistic
and social isolation
is on the rise.
The phrase me, myself and I became
very popular.
People working
for themselves and concerned about themselves.
There's a need in this type of world
to revisit
to revisit the necessary the
the necessity
of Muslim communal obligations.
As we know brothers and sisters,
Muslim communities have obligations.
But these obligations
are not only restricted
to what impacts them individually.
But
there are communal obligations
that
impact them collectively,
that we should prepare for
and worry about and work towards.
Also,
to provide
a wide range of other essential
and so and social
and financial services
to the Muslim communities around us.
As a community, we have a responsibility
to look after the physical,
mental
and spiritual well-being of one another and not
just that of our own selves.
The messenger of
salallahu alaihi wa sallam illustrated this
in a famous hadith that we all know.
When he said, The example
of the believers to one another
are like the blocks or the bricks of
a building.
They all depend
and rely on pulling each other together
so that they can become a fortified structure.
And not only that, the prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam illustrated this with his own hands.
When he when he
showed his fingers
together
he put his fingers together
and he said, This is how believers are,
Not this.
Meaning,
collectively
we work together
for a better future. Collectively
we worry about
our future generations
and collectively
we want to enter into jannah together.
As Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam
will
not
want to see jannah without every
single one of us.
But in order to do so, we must
think collectively
and we must
think communally.
You see,
these responsibilities,
my dear beloved brothers and sisters are not
simple and are not light
because the failure to understand them
and the failure to
perceive
the impacts
of them
and to our future
will jeopardize
our the essence of our existence,
our presence,
our impact and the da'wah
we all care about spreading, the da'wah of
Islam.
Brothers and sisters,
in Islam there are actions
that are
You know, there are actions, there are words
and there are agreements.
Things that we,
agree to.
And everything that we do or we say
has a ruling. It's either obligatory,
it's wajib
Or mustahab, it's
it's recommended. Or mubah, it's halal, it's permissible.
Or makruh, it's disliked. Or
it's haram, it's impermissible.
Every single action and every single saying that
we can say has one of these rulings.
But
there are rulings
that do not fall upon us individually.
There are rulings that fall upon us communally
and that is what we call
a fard, an obligation
that can only be established
by a community
collectively.
And if it fails to do so,
then they all
are held responsible,
accountable
and are sinful
for the lacking of fulfilling this responsibility and
obligation. Because
of the individualism
that impacted our dominant culture, we care so
much about
the obligations of
is what?
Involves us individually.
But is the other
side of
because there's
what's on me, what's obligatory on me, what
I am sinful for if I do not
do like the 5 daily prayers, like fasting
the month of Ramadan,
like giving my zakah, like for like performing
hajj. These are things Allah will hold me
accountable for individually.
But the other side of
and the side that is not addressed too
often is the fardul kifaya.
The obligation, the communal obligation.
And this is something that was stressed at
the time of the Prophet
The Prophet
he urged
the sahaba
to collectively
carry the
responsibility
of those who come after them.
And this is why the Prophet
as he recommended to Umar radhiallahu ta'ala anhu,
for a piece of land. Why do you
not
give this piece of land sadaqa
and let it pay off its workers
and anything excess of it from profit? Let
it be sadaqa to a particular cause.
This is the concept of
endowment.
The concept of wadif
which existed at the time of the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam and became very popular
after him
until
the end of the khilah.
And then
it started
to plummet from therein
after the imperial
powers came in and enforced
their own concept
of how money should be exchanged
in their own economy
which was not the idea of how muslims
traded and muslims perceived the economy in their
time.
At the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam,
they understood the ayah where Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala said,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is referring to the
wealth
of the people and he said,
to distribute it in order for what? So
it does not stay
amongst
the select few wealthy ones amongst you.
If the wealthy are not encouraged
to give in a way
that will make the weak, the poor, the
needy,
self sufficient
and independent
of them,
then there will be corruption in society.
If the Muslims
educational
and social services institutions
are not
funding
themselves
on their own
independently,
then they will always be subject to the
opinions
and
dare I say, the whims and the desires
of the wealthy and powerful in society.
And this is something
that
muslims
do not want to see.
Brothers and sisters,
we're living
in this post modern age.
And a lot of the Muslim lands post
imperial
slash modern
ages.
And we have to deal with
the absence
of these concepts that were part of the
foundation
of Muslim societies in the past.
At the time of the Prophet
the wife of the Sahabi Abu Talha,
she was the first to engage in one
of the largest endowments in Madinah.
As all of the sahaba, they would go
and they were prosperous. Many of them who
would go and fight and come back and
Allah
gave
them 1 5th of,
the booty. And they would receive
land, and wealth, and whatnot. But what about
the poor people
that are incapable of of of leaving? The
people that didn't have houses, The people that
didn't have the ability to participate
in any of this.
Either politically or in the army or in
any of this. What did they do?
These people
had wawqaaf established for them.
The wife of Abu Talha, she was one
of the first who endowed
600 palm trees
in Madin al Munawwar.
And these 600 palm trees, all of the
poor people in Madinah
would not starve.
They would all eat from these palm trees.
Why?
Did they need to go and beg?
Did they need to ask it from the
treasury?
Did they need social services
committees and what? No. They didn't.
They had
a waqf, an endowment.
And this endowment had people
in charge of it. A board of trustees
what we would call today.
And these people were entrusted with distributing it
equally
and rightfully amongst the weak and the poor
and those who are deserving of it.
And this is how
poverty did not spread.
Brothers and sisters,
this continued
all the way until
like the times of of the ottomans where
it became very prevalent.
They say during the time of Suleyman al
Khanuni or Suleyman the magnificent, the Ottoman
sultan, his wife endowed,
bakeries
and factories
of soap and textiles and so on and
so forth in Palestine and Lebanon.
They said almost everyone there ate from its
bread
and dressed from its clothes.
That's how much of an impact it had.
Everyone in those lands. Subhanallah.
At a certain time,
towards the end of the Ottoman Empire,
there they said about And these are estimates.
About 1 third
of the agricultural lands of the Ottoman Empire
were endowments.
One third.
And that only left 2 thirds for the
rich to control,
and trade with,
and grasp on, and cling to, and be
greedy with, and whatever they want to do
with it. Because 1 third of it was
already endowed for the poor and the needy.
The masajid were self sufficient and independent.
The schools were self sufficient and independent.
The the ulema, the scholars were independent.
Scholarship did not need a stipend and this
is one of the plagues of our societies.
When a scholar is in need
of the payment of a government
or of a body that influences
their own fatwa,
this is when the religion becomes corrupted.
And this is one of the problems of
our societies today.
When you go to the Muslim
in Muslim lands, It is now a government's
institution.
The governments are the ones that control all
these endowments.
The governments control all these endowments.
The governments control
the salaries of the scholars who are issuing
issuing these fatawah.
How can the fatwa be mutajaridalilhaqq?
How can the fatwa be true
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when it is
dependent on others?
This is why
the concept of endowment was something
that the muslim ummah took very seriously.
Or else why would 1 third of the
lands of the vast Ottoman Empire
be endowments?
Wallah, I lived in Madinah for 2 years.
And I used to pass by hotels,
pieces of land,
houses,
big huge gardens with dates. And as I
entered, I would read
the names of sahabas,
Uthman ibn Affan,
Abdulrahman
ibn Auf, Tal Abnu Ubaidullah
Anam Jami An.
And I asked, and this was the first
thing when I first lived there, subhanallah.
I would ask, but this said this says
it's an endowment by Uthman.
This is a hotel with like 1500 rooms.
How does Uthman ibn Uthman own this? Somebody
told me, Wait, wait. Come, let's show you.
I found out that Uthman ibn Affan
has
a bank account, an an Islamic bank of
course, alhamdulillah.
He has a bank account
with 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars in it.
All of that generated by his endowment until
today.
And all of that
money
is what pays
for the what? The da'wah materials, the books,
the
the
the
education,
the feeding of the poor, the sufras. You
know, you ever been to Masjid Nabi'i?
And you see all like the dates, and
the yogurt, and the bread, and the you
know. Every single day there would be iftar
sa'im.
They're feeding Where did they get this money
from?
It's all from endowments.
When I went, we would go and study
a class or a course, and we would
get set of books.
Ten volumes. We're like, Allahu akbar. Where they're
getting all this money from?
Endowments.
Subhanallah.
Until today,
these sahabas have endowments.
But what happened to this culture amongst the
ummah of Islam?
Where did it go?
We need to revive it today.
Our masajid brothers and sisters
have to be
self sufficient and independent.
We need to carry on the communal responsibility,
not think of ourselves.
Why would these sahaba
endow
this much of their land unless they really
understood
what the future holds and how much of
responsibility
they have.
Brothers and sisters, we live
in a world today.
They said they said in
I think year 2020,
7,800,000,000
people,
about
50 or 60%
of them
live
under this the the the line of poverty.
They're they're under poverty.
They make And and many of them, most
of them make less than $2 a day.
People are in need.
Most of the wealth of the world is
concentrated
in the top 2 or 3 percent
of the people that own. Why? Because
riba,
interest was institutionalized.
Because individualism
was promoted,
because
communal responsibility
was replaced with communal
slavery.
That all work for a system
created
by the wealthy,
for the wealthy, and only for the benefit
of them.
These people who worked on the alqaf
as
in the beginning of 20th century
and towards the end of the Khalifa
and the fall of the Ottoman Empire,
all of these lands were occupied and taken
over. What happened to the people who were
responsible for them?
They all turned into employees
that receive wages, simple wages,
to work for some greater body.
And they didn't control any of the wealth
that came in.
This board of trustees,
they became mere accountants for a greater
governing system.
And it was all gone.
But we need to revive it. And it
starts with awareness and it starts with something
small.
It starts every journey brothers and sisters begins
with a footstep
and every journey
begins with a vision.
Be part of this vision insha'allah and
be from amongst those who pioneer
in
this communal
responsibility
and in this vision for East Plano Islamic
Center.
Brothers and
sisters,
when we look around
the United States,
And I am someone who was born and
raised here.
And you can see it for those of
you who were and for those of you
who weren't.
You probably seen or didn't see what I
am about to say.
Older communities
around the United States, older Muslim communities
and the masajid
are now going through
a great dilemma.
And that is
that the masajid
that were built
in a thriving
economy
or in a place
where that was prosperous at one point,
Those places
were now replaced with other places.
And the older communities,
and their masajid
and the congregations
began to deplete
and get smaller and smaller and less and
less until the masajid
were unable
to pay
their own bills or even guarantee
their own future
existence
in that locality.
One of the greatest things,
one of the greatest sadaqa jariyah
is a masjid.
A place where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
worshiped. A house of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
in this world.
It is one of the greatest actions but
one of the worst
feelings is to see
a house of Allah
sold,
changed,
converted
into something that has nothing to do with
it.
Some of them into a restaurant, into a
government office, into
into
a business, into whatever it is. Imagine,
there are masajid and I come from the
northeast and I don't know what's going on.
But I know in the state that I
came from,
I know a few, Masajid,
that are going through this problem.
I know a few, Masajid, that are going
through this problem.
But why?
There's one reason,
like and I think about this a lot.
And I look at these communities and I
said, these communities
flourished at one point.
This city was prosperous at one point. It
was the center of economy at one point.
And I can imagine these masajid doing fundraisers
and raising tens
if not 100 of 1,000 of dollars at
one point.
Now
failing to raise
5 to $10,000
enough to pay their own
electricity bills.
How did they get into this problem to
begin with?
There's only one thing.
The people of that community
did not think
forward.
They did not think ahead. This communal
responsibility,
this
that I'm speaking about
did not exist and was not present
in the minds
of those people at that time.
It was simple projects.
You know, let's do this, let's do that,
let's expand, let's change the rug, let's change
the chandelier, let's renew the windows,
Right? Let let's,
feed the hungry. Mashallah, these are all good.
This is great.
But until the masajid are self sufficient
and independent, wallahi,
we're not thinking of our future.
Today,
Plano
is a good place. Economically,
alhamdulillah.
But what about tomorrow?
What about the day after? What about in
50, in a 100, in 200 years?
We need to think of our future brothers
and sisters so that
our masajid,
our legacies, our donations
for building this infrastructure
do not go in vain.
Everyone, every person who donated
to build this beautiful facility,
this beautiful masjid,
this gymnasium, this fitness room, the classrooms,
everything that we have.
This can all
equal everything
if we guarantee
that it's self sufficient or it could mean
nothing if it ends up the way these
other masajid ended.
Because these other masajid,
wallahi there some of them are beautiful,
huge,
But now cannot find a congregation of 15
people to pray salatul Ishaat.
At one point, flourished.
Where did they go?
I think
I think it was the mindset
But insha'Allah
I think we are a ummah
that learned from their mistakes. And we are
a ummah
that does not fall in the same ditch
two times. And we are a ummah that
learns from the ummah before them. We look
at the churches and the synagogues and the
other
other religious organizations
or facilities that are being sold, and we
take heed.
We learn our lesson.
We plan,
and we prepare.
And this
is the sign of a successful ummah and
a successful community.
If we truly care for our kids,
then we will care
about the self sufficiency
of our own masjid. We ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
to make
our masjid, East Plano Islamic Center self sufficient,
independent in its revenue, in its income. We
ask Allah to make it a beaker of
light
to everyone in the nation. We ask
to protect it from evil eye. We ask
Allah
to protect our communities,
to protect our children, to protect our spouses,
to protect our families. We ask Allah
to unite our hearts upon this noble and
just cause. We ask
Allah
to unite our hearts upon this noble and
just cause. We ask Allah
to guide us to the straight path. Show
us the
truth. Guide our families. We ask Allah to
forgive us and have mercy on us. Oh
Allah, uplift
the oppression
that is going on to the muslimeen all
over the world. We ask Allah to help
our brothers and sisters in falasteen
around al masjid al aqsa, defending al masjid
al aqsa. We ask Allah to free it
of oppression and occupation.
We ask Allah to free it of oppression
and occupation. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to show us a free and liberated
in our time, in our life.
We ask Allah
to uplift
the oppression
that our brothers and sisters are undergoing
in the Uhuru, in China, in Burma, in
Kashmir, in Iraq, in Afghanistan,
in
Shishan,
in,
Yemen,
in surya, in Egypt, and all over the
world. We ask Allah
to protect our brothers and sisters all over
the world. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to unite our hearts upon the truth and
make us a community that raises a generation
that understands
their responsibility towards the ummah of Islam.
Straighten your rows.
Make space inshallah. If there's space inside the
musallah, then you can move up brothers outside,
you can move to the back rows.
You can stand inshallah with your heels
on the line that way the rose will
be straight insha'allah. So
a
Just a quick reminder inshallah that tomorrow
tomorrow 6 PM
will be our fundraiser for the epic endowment
inshallah.
Make sure you make it. Dinner will be
served. We'll have daycare
and youth activities as well.