Mustafa Khattab – Jesus Of Islam . Shabir Ally
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Allah
Now in this thought by I want to
first of all,
look at a world situation,
and then I will get into the main
topic of today's discourse.
Looking around the world,
we are reeling this week
from news of
the demolishment
of Aleppo.
Aleppo, Halep, has been reduced to rubble,
and a United Nations,
spokesperson
says that,
this has marked
a a a black day
in the history
of, international
relations.
The government forces,
together with Russian forces
have, bombarded the city,
killing 100
and displacing
100 of 1,000.
It is a humanitarian
disaster.
The entire civil war has proved to be
a humanitarian
disaster over the last, half of a decade,
but now, this week, December 15th, in fact,
yesterday,
has marked, the apex,
of that,
horrible situation.
To the extent that,
the
Islamic Institute of Toronto
has called on Khatib today
to make a special dua
for the people of Halab.
And, we make that dua, we ask you,
you Rabbi Al Amin,
to help those people.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
help them by giving them a deliverer,
that will remove from above them, their oppressors,
and that will rescue them from this situation
of difficulty.
After making dua, it is our resolve
to help them in every
charitable
manner possible.
It is situations like this that,
inspires,
many of our youth
to take it upon themselves
to intervene,
to join rebel forces whether it be ISIS
or some other force,
and in order to defend the weak and
the helpless.
But we as Muslims,
believe in law and order.
We believe in peace, and we believe in
justice.
We believe in seeking peace and justice through
lawful means.
And, when lawful means are not available,
we resort to our Dua. In any case,
we make Dua,
but we know that our Dua is effective
and the one who listens to our Dua,
the Lord of the heavens and the earth,
he has all of the power to intervene
on his own schedule
and to make things right in the way
that he deems fit when he deems fit.
And in the meantime we seek the help
of Allah with patience and prayer. The Quran
tells us,
oh you who believe,
seek the help of Allah with patience
and prayer. So So we don't do anything
illegal, we don't do anything unlawful,
we don't do anything against our Sharia.
We do not, kill ourselves and kill innocent
people in order to make things right. That
doesn't make things right. It makes things more
wrong than it was before
because it adds a wrong to the existing
wrong. A double wrong does not make a
a right.
Now as for the main topic of today's
discussion,
I want to turn now to a positive
note and
recognize the fact that we are in the
middle of December.
You go to the shopping malls and Christmas
carols are playing all around you to the
extent that you come out of the mall
and it's still playing in your head. It
happens to me.
Especially since growing up as a child in
in Guyana,
it was a largely Christian environment,
and, when we went to school,
we
we we we recited the Lord's Prayer, a
prayer from the New Testament of the Christian
Bible.
And that's how we started our school day.
And Christian missionaries came to our villages, they
handed out cookies, they gave free milk, they
invited us to their Sunday schools, they gave
us pictures to color, pictures of David and
Goliath and Samson and Delilah
and so on. They came to the open
parks and they showed movies,
and, the movies were about biblical figures. So
we were attracted to these things, and then
they they sang the carols for us. And
obviously, this when you grow up with that,
it's, you know, it brings back memories. You
go into the shopping malls and, the same
carols are there being sung, and, you know,
there is a kind of a utopia. It,
it brings back something that may have been
there latent from before. May Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala give us, the right guidance and, accept
us for the service of his, religion.
Well, what does that do for us at
this moment?
It places upon us the extra responsibility
and, the deeper awareness that we need to
convey the message of Allah to our neighbors
and friends.
Now people are getting ready to celebrate Christmas,
which they re recognize
as, the birthday of Isa alaihi salam.
The first point that I want to make
about this is that we, as Muslims,
are believers in Isa alaihi salam.
A Muslim could not be a Muslim without
believing in Isa alaihis salam. One of the
pillars of our faith, one of the Arpanul
Iman al Sitta,
the 6 pillars of Islam is al iman
gur Rasool, the belief in the prophets.
And one of the prophets is Isa alaihis
salam. In fact, he's recognized in our tradition
as,
one of the,
one of the those prophets, those messengers of
great determination.
He is mentioned in the Quran by name
25 times,
and there are 2 chapters of the Quran
that give a detailed
narrative about his,
birth and the experience of Mariam alaihis salam.
That is, Surat
Surat Ali Imran
and, Surat Mariam.
Surat Mariam obviously bears the name Mariam because
it tells the story of Mariam in that,
very detailed manner.
And Surat Ali Imran is named after the
grandfather of Isa Alaihi Salam, the father of
Mary,
and that too gives us a detailed
story.
The gist of it is that for our
purpose now,
is that, the angel visited, Mary, what it's
called When the angel said, oh Mary, Allah
is giving you
good
tidings
of a child to be born.
His name is the Messiah
and Jesus the son of Mary.
He is, close
to God
in in this life
and in the life hereafter. He's honored by
God in this life and the life hereafter.
And he is one of those who are
close,
to God.
So, Milamu Korahmim, he's one of those who
are close, not that he is the only
one. The Quranic language is very precise
and, a lot of meaning is packed into
a few words. So now she asked the
angel,
how can I have a child when no
mortal has touched me?
And then the angel says to her,
Your Lord says, this is easy for me.
And,
when he decides a thing,
he only says to it be,
and it
becomes.
So Allah
creates in marvelous ways.
And, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the creator
of all of us. He is the creator
of, Isa alaihis salam. He is the creator
of all human beings.
In fact, it is known to our Christian
friends, that Isa alaihis salam is born of
a woman. Nobody disputes that.
And the Quranic statement at the beginning of
the same chapter, Surat alai Imran
says,
He, that is Allah, is the one who
shapes you in the wombs, of your mothers,
the way he wishes.
So somebody had to shape Isa alaihis salam,
somebody had to create him to make sure
he is born right. In in those days,
they didn't have ultrasound
equipment, so who was monitoring him and making
sure that he is growing up with all
of the right nutrients, with all of the
right chemicals flowing through his blood, and that
he comes out, as a a a perfect
boy? It is Allah who
supervised the entire process.
Islam is a baby, obviously could not have
been the controller,
of all of the stars and planets and
and galaxies,
that we know now to exist. But in
ancient times people took human beings, for gods
very easily.
The New Testament and the Christian Bible itself
bears witness to this.
On one occasion it says that, a a
Roman ruler came and spoke before the people,
and, the manner in which he spoke so
captivated the people that the people said, this
is the voice of a God we're hearing.
And, it so happens that according to the
Bible,
this Roman ruler was struck dead right there
on on the spot.
Whether that is true or not is another
story,
but,
but the the the bottom line of this
is you can see how easily people will
take a person to be a god and
in those times.
Likewise, it is said that, Paul, one of
the early Christians,
and, a companion of his named Barnabas
went and preached in a certain location.
And when they preached,
the priests
of that region came out and they said,
these are are gods speaking to us.
And this is Zeus and and Hermes together.
So let's make our sacrifices to them. And
they brought their animals
and and began to sacrifice the animals to
Paul and Barnabas, human beings. And they protested.
They said, look, we are only human beings,
but they couldn't stop the priests from carrying
out their rituals. So convinced were the people
despite their denial.
Again, the story may not be historically true.
Whether it is true or not doesn't matter.
What it illustrates though is a fact that
in those times people very easily
took human beings,
for for gods. So naturally,
they took Isa
himself as a god eventually.
The process was gradual.
When Jews began preaching about Isa
outside of the Jewish environment,
they had to find a significant way of
talking about Isa Alaihi Salam to the Romans
and Greeks who knew that they were sons
of God, but they didn't have any idea
what is meant by Messiah. What is meant
by Messiah? It was a Jewish term.
The the Jewish term, Messiah,
probably not only probably, but actually is a
reference to the fact that somebody is inaugurated
for office. And when he's inaugurated
for office, his head is anointed with oil.
So Messiah in Hamashiach in in Hebrew simply
means the anointed one. The one whose head
has been anointed with oil. He's called the
anointed one.
Hamashiach
or in Arabic, Al Masih.
So it was a Hebrew term.
And when the message of
was to be preached to the Greeks and
Romans,
and what was to be said to the
Greeks and Romans, if you told them that
Jesus is the Messiah, it makes no sense
to them. But tell them that he's the
son of God, then they can say, okay.
Well, yeah, we know sons of God many,
and he is the son of God, that
means he's a special person.
The Jews then, who wanted to preach this
message, were calling on their known traditions
in which in the old testament, there were
many who are called sons of God.
Soleiman alayhi salaam was called the son of
God. Yaqub alayhi salaam was called son of
God. Dawud alayhi salaam was called son of
God. So for them, it was, that was
their language. This is what they meant. A
a person who is special to God, beloved
to God. In Arabic, we'll say, Al Mustafa,
and he is chosen,
by God.
So is our prophet, so is Isa, so
is Mariam, alayhi salaam. In fact, the story
of Mariam, alayhi salaam in Surat Al Imran
begins by saying,
Allah has chosen you and purified you and
chosen you above all of the women of
the world. So she is a Mustafa. She
is one who is also chosen by Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The message of Isa, alaihis salaam then,
as preached to the wider world, started out
with the idea that he is the Son
of God in a metaphorical
sense. But when the Greeks and Romans heard
this, they took it in a literal sense.
He's literally the Son of God. And when
they took him as literally the son of
God, they made his mother mother of God.
The Greek term for that they they claimed
was
mother of God.
And hence in the Quran, we find in
Surah Al Maidah,
that Allah
asked Isal alaihis salam.
Did you tell people to take me and
my mother,
as as 2 gods besides Allah?
And he would say, Subhanak,
glory be to you.
It was not right for me to say
anything
except what you commanded me to say.
Ma'kotallahuillaamaaamartanibei.
I didn't tell them anything except that which
you commanded me with.
That you should worship Allah who is my
lord and your lord.
In Surat Ali Imran, he says,
certainly Allah is my lord and your lord.
So worship him.
This is a right path.
So this is our message,
to our Christian friends over this season
that, if you're going to celebrate
Isa,
celebrate what he stood for.
Believe as he believed.
He himself worshiped Allah
The bible is evidence,
of this fact. The gospel shows that he
was a worshiper of God. All of the
4 gospels in different ways. Gospel according to
John chapter 17 verse 3, he looks up
into heaven and he says, this is eternal
life that they may know you as the
only true God
and Jesus your messenger as Christ.
And so so he is a messenger of
god. He is Christ, which means and Christ
is the Greek term for messiah. Christos in
Greek becomes Christ in English,
and it is the equivalent of Hamashiach, the
messiah.
So he wants to be known as messenger
of God and Christ, but he's pointing out
the one that he was addressing as the
only true God. In the gospel according to
Matthew in chapter 26 verse number 39,
it is said that Esa, alaihis salaam fell
on his face and prayed. So he made
sujood, basically, as Muslims do today. So I
ask our Christian friends to recognize the fact
that we, as Muslims,
are true followers of Esa, alaihis salaam.
Everyone knows that this is how Muslims pray,
and that is how Isa, alaihis salaam, himself
prayed. He was praying to the God who
created him, and it is to the same
God that we pray. In fact, when Muslims
survey what we do as Muslims, you realize
that we're following not only our beloved prophet
Muhammad
but by following him directly,
we are indirectly following all of the previous
prophets.
That's why some of the things which are
known as the sunnah of our prophet Muhammad
is mentioned in hadith. These things are mentioned
as the sunnah of the prophets,
not only of our prophet Muhammad
So when a Muslim man wears his beard,
he's not only copying our prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, but all of the previous
prophets. When a a Muslim boy is circumcised
after birth,
on the 7th day, that that circumcision
itself follows the practice all the way going
back to Ibrahim alaihi salaam. In the in
the book of Genesis of the Christian bible,
it says in chapter 17
that, Ibrahim alaihi salaam was to
was to circumcise himself and all of his
male descendants,
and that was to be a lasting
covenant until the day of judgment.
But our Christian friends have largely given that
up due to the influence of Saint Paul,
whose name I mentioned previously
in this, Khutba.
But he was not one of the original
disciples
of He came on the scene later and
said that after
had been raised up to heaven,
appeared to him as a bright light and
then gave him a
message
to preach. And his message included the idea
that you no longer need to follow the
old Jewish law. This is one reason why
our Christian friends
will
eat almost anything that is sold in the
market without differentiating as Jews and
Muslims do
between kosher and non kosher between halal and
haram
because of the teachings of, Saint Paul to
a large extent. But we wanna follow our
Christian friends back to the teachings of who
is noted in Matthew's gospel to have said,
do not think I have come to abolish
the law and the prophets. I have not
come to abolish the law, but to fulfill
it.
He has to do what the law says.
And to the extent he says that whoever
breaks even one of the smallest commandment
will be called least in the kingdom of
heaven. And whoever
keeps one of the smallest commandment will be
called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So
that means the commandments have to be kept.
This statement itself as it exists in Matthew's
gospel may be an
exaggeration. The more moderate statement is what is
mentioned in the Quran. In Surah Al Imran,
Allah
has Isa Alaihi Salam saying,
I came confirming that which is before me
of the Torah
and making lawful for you some of the
things which were previously made unlawful.
So he made some aggregations
or or he was, making some of the
law of Mansur.
This is true, but not all of it.
And and Saint Paul,
took the teaching in a direction
that led Christians to understand that all of
the law is now Mansur, and they can
do whatever they they want. They don't have
to follow the law. Though, of course, everybody
realizes you have to have some law, and
Christians have largely embraced the secular laws in
countries which they live. But we should ask
our Christian friends,
is that really the law of God
as as it exists, or would you like
to see some modifications
to bring in more moral principles in what
is known to be the law, of the
land? And naturally, this is the hope of
all believers, whether Jew or Christian or or
Muslim.
We we see that there is a need
for correction
in the lands in which we live. Yes.
We embrace Canada and its laws. We recognize
that there's more Islam here,
than in some other countries even where Muslims
are majority.
That there is justice. There is a search
for truth.
There is the the the rule of law
and fairness to every individual
where people are treated as equal citizens. All
of this is Islam, so we embrace all
of that. But that's not the end. And
there is also the *.
There is gambling.
Alcohol is now being sold in the grocery
stores, and you have to watch your kids
because you don't know what what they will
be buying
when they go out of doors, and when
they hang around when they hang hang around
about
in the malls. So
there are some things which need to be
changed that calls for active activism,
that calls for awareness,
and, we have to partner with people of
other faiths in order to,
do what we can as people of faith
to make this country a better place.