Nadim Ali – Leadership In Islam
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All praise belongs to Allah, the most high.
We thank him, and we seek his aid,
and we seek his forgiveness.
And we seek refuge with him from the
evil of ourselves and from our bad
actions. Whoever law guides them, there is no
one who can mislead him and whoever law
causes to go astray, there's no one to
guide him.
I bear witness, we bear witness that there
is no deity except Allah
who is unique and without partners and I
bear witness that Mohammed is his worshiper and
his messenger.
May the peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him and his family and his companions
and those who follow them with good intentions
until the day of judgment.
Oh, you who believe fear Allah as he
should be feared and don't die except as
Muslims again. Oh, you who believe
fear Allah as he should be feared and
don't die except as Muslims.
Oh, mankind be careful of your duty to
your rob who created you from a single
soul and from it created its mate. And
from the 2 of them, we spread forth
many men and women.
Be careful of your duty to Allah whom
you demand your mutual rights and be careful
of your duty to the wounds that bore
you.
Indeed Allah is our over
you. Oh, you who believe, fear Allah and
always speak the truth. He will cause your
deeds to be beneficial and he will forgive
for you your sins and whoever obeys Allah
and his messenger then he has truly achieved
a tremendous accomplishment.
For indeed the best speech is the book
of Allah and the best guidance is the
guidance of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
and the most evil of all affairs are
newly invented matters which has no precedence in
Islam and indeed
all innovations are astray and each astray is
in the * fire.
Oh Allah save us from it. Oh Allah
accept our
Dua. And we made them leaders guided by
our command,
and we inspired them to do good works
and to observe the prayer and to give
out charity.
They were devoted, the devoted servants to us
is from the Quran.
Surah 21
and Ayat 73.
And the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam
said,
that the hand of Allah is with the
united group. That's from Hadith and Al Jammidi.
And again it was narrated on the authority
of Ibn Abbas and his Abu, his father.
And in regards to leadership,
Ashat Ashat Abid mentioned 5 options
or 5 opinions.
The Muslim community
including
its jurors
and others,
Muslim scholars,
the companions of the prophet peace be upon
them, excuse me, and
what the Muslim community agrees on at large.
And again, Muslims if they agree on one
leader, this is the opinion
if they agree on that one leader. That's
from Al Tabari.
And alhamdulillah,
we need to look at
what transpired
regards
to the Eid and we'll be talking about
this for most of this, and
we want to look at it as using
it as a learning experience.
And
we the Magelis we met
and what we decided is also to put
interventions in place to minimize
this from happening again.
And also we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience
that you have experienced
and we take full responsibility for our decision.
You have some people say, well, you made
a mistake,
but we made a decision.
And as always,
when we make a decision,
you know, again, we have to take responsibility
for that decision
whether good or bad comes out of that
decision
and as always, all praise belongs to Allah,
not any man, not any human being.
And again, we must
communicate that that it was like within the
Islam, there are Islamic rulings based on that
in regards to the fact that you can
make a decision
that may not be satisfactory
to everyone.
And again, these are some of the things
that we have to communicate.
Now, really, Abdulah ibn Abbas, He said that
we went out to perform umrah
when we encamped in the valley of of
the and
we tried to see the new moon. Some
of the people said it was 3 nights
old. Others said it was 2 nights old.
We then met Ibn Abbas and told him
we had seen the new moon, but that
some of the people said it was 3
nights old and others that it was 2
nights old. He asked on which night we
had seen it and when we told him
that we had seen it on such and
such a night, he said the prophet
of prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam had
said, verily Allah deferred it to the time
it is seen.
So it is to be reckoned from the
night you saw it.
Also,
it is said in in Hadith said every
locale needs to follow its own moon sighting.
And
reported,
I came to Syria
intended my needs.
The crescent of Ramadan appeared over me while
I was in Syria, and I saw it
on Friday. When I came to Medina at
the end of the month, Abdullah ibn Abbas,
may Allah be pleased with him, asked me
about it and I mentioned the crescent.
Ibn Abbas said, when did you see it?
And I said, I saw it on Friday
night. Ibn Abbas said, you saw it? I
said, yes. People saw it and they fasted
as did as as did Muaewa.
Ibn, Ibn Abbas said, but we saw it
on Saturday night, so we will continue fasting
until we complete 30 days
or we see it. I said, is it
not enough
that that that Moira
saw it and fasted?
Ibn Abbas said no,
no such command of the messenger of Allah,
no no, so such was the command of
the messenger of Allah peace and blessings be
upon him.
And
after meeting he said that the people of
knowledge act upon this tradition
that the people of every land have their
own moon sighting
and one of the things I wanted to
emphasize that the companions
when they had this type of difference of
opinion, they didn't trip, they didn't go off
on the deep end.
You know, they basically, they would handle it
diplomatically.
You know, you'll get your Eid and the
other people will get their Eid. You'll start
your day on Ramadan and the others start
their day on Ramadan. By midday, people were
calling
saying, the Eid has begun
based on the sighting in in the in
the Middle East.
But when the Middle East is making Isha,
we're making Fajr. We don't we don't basically
base anything
on the Middle East except when it's time
for Ramadan. So it's important for us to
be of those
who not only follow
the the the leadership for the most part,
you know, again, it's on our backs. That's
the bottom line. It's on our backs when
we basically do due diligence
during the prophet's time, peace be upon him.
They didn't have the technology that we have
today. We can make a phone call and
and get get the word in Tanzania,
you know, that they were on the same
peninsula
and had different different needs. And so we
have to be of those to act with
knowledge and not act in ignorance as the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that one
learned worshiper is harder on the double than
than 1,000 ignorant worshipers. So we have to
be of those who are striving to be
learned
and
give advice to the leadership.
Give advice to the leadership,
not just criticize the leadership, give constructive criticism.
And there's a way in Islam that you
give criticism.
You know, so it's important that if a
group of people did due diligence and made
a decision
and then it took, we took all of
the people,
the strong among us and the infirm among
us into consideration in the decision that we
made. You know, the bottom line,
this will be happening until there's some centralized
leadership in this part of the world.
You know, in some of the countries, if
the king or the emir says it's time
to fast or it's time to stop, there's
nothing else to be said no matter what
the scholars say.
You know, so the thing is is that
we don't have a centralized leadership so you're
gonna have many different opinions and so one
of the things that when Imam Asim and
I used to talk to Rahim Allah that
you know, he used to say just follow
your local group, follow your leadership
locally.
No matter what we do in Philly, what
we do in New York, follow your local
leadership. So again,
we are still committed to a continental U.
S. Sighting and we search from Canada down
to the islands all the way through Texas
and in California
but
we got late reports,
late reports
and then
at that time the decision had been made
and we chose to basically
observe Eve tomorrow on Saturday. And again, as
I said, it's on our backs.
The consequences
of any decision
that leadership make will be on the leadership.
You know, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
his views on leadership
have been found in many sources, the most
significant source of course is the Quran.
In Surah Tamaeda,
in the Quran, it says verily Allah will
not give you more than what you can
bear and will not be able to and
and and you will not be able to
bear more than he gives you. The prophet
also said
that truly Allah loves those who lead others
to righteousness,
lead others to righteousness
and it said that the leadership in Islam
has 4 components, 4 dimensions.
Consciousness
of Allah,
competency, consultation
and consideration. They call it the 4 c
model, the 4 c model. And so
we were conscious of Allah as to what
would Allah
want what's best for the ummah.
You know, we've been doing this for years.
We consulted with one another, we consulted with
around the country and again, we were considerate.
So we followed that model and did due
diligence and again,
what happened is that we got late calls,
that's for the most part. And again, the
other thing too is we don't just meet
during Ramadan.
The Majlis meets sometime weekly, sometime biweekly throughout
the year and so we are consciously trying
to improve
the condition of the Muslims in this particular
area.
And for those of you who have ideas,
don't just go on Facebook with your ideas,
bring them to us. Constructive criticism.
You know,
I wrote a poem years ago called virtual
worlds and it talks about how people are
just stuck in this virtual world and they
lose touch in organic relationships. So let's re
attach organically
and if you have information, if you have
technical ability, bring it to the leadership
so that, you know,
I give the cookbook and I'm the sound
man too, you know,
and y'all need to look at that, especially
young folks.
You know, so these are some of the
things we have to look at. If you
have ideas, bring them in a constructive manner,
You know, and again, if you have technical
assistance which we can
improve upon not only locally but nationally,
bring your technical
ability to this. You know, again, we appreciate,
you know, efforts specifically of the emerging leaders.
Next week, we're gonna be having the Id
Fest and one of the things they did,
they say they pushed it way out so
they didn't get caught up in all of
the Id Wars,
you know, and that's one of the things
that that we have to look at. And
what happened when the group came to us,
the great beards got out of the way.
We got out of the way and say
y'all handle this. You know, if y'all need
our advice, you need our resources,
y'all got it.
You know, we got out of the way
and we see them as emerging leaders
And as I tell y'all all the time,
I'm not gonna be doing cook bars and
depends.
Okay?
You know, you need to step up. If
you have leadership ability, if you have ideas,
be of those who offer those in a
constructive way and not throw stones, not throw
stones. That's what leadership is about. And I
learned, you know, under Imam Jamil
and I served him well, I believe.
And so what we have to look at
is that just like a good leader
should be a good servant. If you look
at even in Saudi Arabia, what's the name
of the king? He's the custodian
of the 2 holy mosques and the people
will say, well, you know, custodian is this
grand title. No, he's the janitor
of the 2 holy mosques.
And
so, again, I will serve as long as
I can but the thing is is that
many people on this floor, you have to
start stepping up
and basically
putting up, putting up your technical abilities, putting
up your resources, putting up your time and
energy, you have to make sacrifices.
You have to make sacrifice because we are
going, I listened to all this Ramadan, I've
been listening to a lot of the scholars
and all of them
are basically convinced that we're going to go
through some rough times.
So if we start tripping about an Eid
or how to start Ramadan, what's gonna happen
when those people start attacking you? What's gonna
happen when we have to make decisions about
the safety of the Muslim Ummah?
Are we gonna h scatter?
Are we gonna be united under the leadership?
This is just a test brothers and sisters
and we have to learn from this test.
Just like it says that when you have
good times, you have to praise Allah. When
you have bad times, you also have to
praise Allah. You have to say
in good or bad times because even if
you get sick, that's an opportunity
to be purging you from your sins. So
these are some of the things that we
have to look at. Don't let your fasting
be in vain. As the Sheik told us
a few weeks ago that
our fast is not just from food, our
fast is a 24 hour fast.
We're abstaining from negative behaviors, we're abstaining from
inappropriate behaviors, inappropriate actions, we're abstaining
from
not talking
in ways that Allah would not be pleased
with us and don't just end Ramadan and
then go right back into ratchetness.
We have to be of those who are
striving
to use Ramadan, utilize Ramadan as a means
of improving ourselves
because we want, when we get to the
point where we're near that grave,
we wanna be as clean as possible.
We wanna be as clean as possible just
like when we get to new shahadas and
we tell them, you know if you died
right now, you're in a better condition than
us because your sins have been wiped out.
But
we pick up sins all the time and
the law gives us an opportunity for expiation
of sins from prayer to prayer, from juma
to juma,
from Ramadan to Ramadan, Umrah to Umrah, Hajj
to Hajj, we can get expiation
but we have to be intentional about that
expiation.
These are some of the things that we
want to share with you today, you know,
but again,
I reminded the story because, you know, I
always think, you know, people think that the
leaders should do everything and there was an
Imam, he locally, he was in a really
important meeting,
really important meeting with people who are gonna
fund some of his projects and all of
that And somebody knocked on the door and
said, Imam, the toilet stopped up.
The toilet stopped up. And he said that
was he said that was the time he
knew that was a time for him to
go
because
he was in this important meeting with all
of these people and
the person wanted them to to stop and
they can fix the toilet. And so what
we have to look at is
what
have you done lately
for not only this mosque but any mosque
that you attend on a regular basis?
Have you picked up any trash?
You know, have you even fed people during
this month?
You know, if you see something that needs
to be fixed,
you take an opportunity to fix it up.
You know, so we have to be more
intentional. I was talking to a brother this
morning
and he was saying that we have to
get involved with trying to build our mosque
on that corner, on that lot. We need
to we need to do that
so that our grandkids and our great grandkids
will be able to say, you know, my
ancestor built that.
They they lived here and they and they
they built that. And then if they're praying
in that, then that's like
water on a flower.
If if if they're if they're praying
in in in that mosque that we help
build. So we have to be intentional about
that and after it, you know, we need
to get more serious in in putting something
on that lot.
These are some of the things that we
want to try to to to get involved
in and not just get into
you know, I tell people all the time,
we don't do moon fighting, we do moon
sighting, you know? So we have to be
of those who are striving
to improve ourselves and improve our characters
and not be of those who are just
backbiting and basically naysayers and fault finders,
you know, we're going to, go forward with
the eve in the park, it's supposed to
be overcast and rain and then if we
need to, we'll come to the Islamic Center.
But right now, all of the masajid and
the machis will will go forward,
with the Eden Park Insha Allah.
And, looking at the weather, said there'll be
some rain
in the night, but we we need to
again make a collective doer and direct your
doer
that ask Allah to hold it up.
Hold up the rain
and then
inshallah, we may Allah give us a glorious
year. If I've said anything that's inconsistent with
what Allah has given us what the prophet
peace be upon him teaches us, I take
full responsibility for that. If I've said anything
that's inconsistent
with Islam,
you know, again, you know, the again, all
mistakes are mine as always all praise belongs
to Allah.
Some of the things we wanna remember
before the Eid,
you know, again, you wanna make just like
you make the a bath,
before Juma.
You know, again, cleanliness is a big part
in in some translations of the hadith said
that cleanliness is half of our religion. You
know, those who like to get married all
the time, they say marriage is half our
religion but cleanliness in marriage is a part
of that cleanliness.
So we have to, look at that and
clean ourselves, you know, before the
messenger of Allah, he used to take a
bath on the day of, you know, fiddeh.
And again, we are encouraged to, do the
same
and also try to connect with family, both
the again, the Muslim and the not yet
Muslim, you know, and connect with your local
family here, your surrogate family here in the
communities and and again inshallah,
we were supposed to have a brunch,
after the Eid salah and
so and there's also a sunnah to eat
some dates before the prayer, you know, and
this is again not to extend the fast.
The prophet peace be upon him used to
do this.
Put on scents. These are, you know, put
on some some some some oils and smell
good, you know, so you can create a
nice aura,
in the environment.
And so these are just some of the
suggestions that that are made based on the
sunnah.
And again, may Allah allow us to be
of those who
strive for righteousness.
You know, may Allah allow us to be
of those who have fasted for his sake
and only his sake alone. May Allah bless
the ill and suffering among us and ease
their distress and may Allah open up our
hearts so that that we
continuously sacrifice in his cause.
Our lord, take us not to task if
we forget or fall into error. Our lord,
lay not on us a burden such as
you did lay on those who have gone
before us. Our lord, lay not on us
a burden which we do not have the
power to bear and overlook our faults and
forgive us and have mercy upon us. You
are our protector and grant us a victory
over the disbelieving people. He come in your
father.