Nadim Ali – One Body
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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 Allah guides, then there's no one who
can mislead him. And whoever Allah causes to
go astray, then there's no one to guide
him.
I bear witness that there is no deity
except Allah who is unique and without partners.
And I bear witness that Muhammad is his
worshiper and his messenger. May the peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him and his
family and and his and 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. And all mankind be careful of
your duty to your who created you from
a single soul and from it created its
mate, and from the 2 of them he
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 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 guide is at
the guidance of Muhammad
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 hellfire. And, oh Allah, save us
from it. Oh Allah, accept our
Surely the believers
are none but brothers unto one another. So
set things right between your brothers
and have fear of Allah that you may
be shown mercy.
And al Numan ibn Bashir reported
that the messenger of Allah, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, said
the parable of the believers
in their affection, mercy, and compassion
for each other
is that of a body.
When any limb aches, the whole body reacts
with sleeplessness and fever.
When any limb aches the whole body reacts
with sleeplessness
and fever.
And, always when I reflect on this particular
Hadith,
talks about again
the believers are as if one body.
And one of the points that my wife
was talking about a few months ago, she
said that a lot of times as Muslims
we say
we believe in Allah.
We believe in Allah.
But we have to ask by our actions,
do we believe Allah?
Do we believe Allah?
Because a lot of times, we will
look at Islam as just a religion and
just a set of rituals.
But you have to understand,
when you read Islamic history, and those of
you who are new to Islam, you have
to pick up
the seerah of the prophet, peace be upon
him, and the history of the Muslims,
specifically in Spain, and how
Islam
transformed
the known world.
That's the power that this book has.
That's the power that this book has.
And
some of the
scholars of Islam to talk about that, you
know, during the last days that the sun,
you know, will
will rise
in the West.
And one interpretation
of that
is that Islam will become
predominant in the West.
Are we ready?
Are we ready?
Are we really ready if Allah gives us
power even in Atlanta
or in this country,
in this world? Are we ready?
And specifically for our younger brothers and sisters,
you have to recognize, we have to basically
start to accumulate
the necessary skills
so that we get ready
to be able to run a society
and not just, you know, pray, bump our
heads, and that's it. And we continue to
to to put energy into this system, which
is a failing system for the most part.
When you look at the whole concept of
democracy, it means majority rules.
The pure democracy, it means the majority rules.
So whatever everybody
wants, that's what goes. But in Islam,
there are boundaries and there are standards.
And we have to start
internalizing
the boundaries and standards as individually
so that we can implement it on a
societal level.
One of the things that we have to
look at
is the whole concept of the one body,
that we are one body. One of the
things,
I was in Washington DC this week,
and we were able to
petition
some of the so called leaders in this
society, you know, on behalf of the Uighur
people, the Uighur people who are in China.
You know, Ramadan's coming up and the government
in China is not even gonna let them
fast for the most part.
They have watches in their houses.
They can't
establish their far prayers, not even in their
house.
The government has put a a video of
a fake Eid with people dancing on a
masjid
to show the world, oh, China's okay with
the Muslims.
And so
as Muslims who still have a voice, because,
again, that's how bad it can get,
You can imagine that you're not able to
pray, you're not able to fast.
And there were times,
specifically if you look at in history during
the Spanish inquisition,
they used to make people
take their shoes off to see if their
feet were clean because at that time, Europeans
didn't necessarily value cleanliness and bathing.
But the most they knew if your feet
were clean, you possibly made wudu.
And so that's how bad it gets. And
so as they say, history repeats itself.
And so you have fascism.
Fascism
basically
is covering the world,
hovering the world. It's hovering the United States.
It's hovering different parts of the world. And
so you have these fascists
who are connecting
with one another
against, for the most part, the the only
force that can stop fascism is Islam.
Democracy can't stop it. Because, again,
if democracy
says one thing, if everybody says one thing
that is inconsistent with Islam and inconsistent
with the values that Allah hasn't given us,
then they'll go with that.
Democracy will make wrong right
and and and and and and and right
seem wrong.
And so we have to look at how
do we establish
a sharia in our hearts,
you know, because they they've done a number,
you know, on the Muslims. They just used
the word sharia and then, you know,
they they they think people, you know, will
fear that. You know, we're not about just
bullying people.
And even in Jerusalem, when the Muslims
were
put out of Jerusalem
during the time of Saladin,
the Christians at that time,
they petitioned for the Muslims to come back
because they were treated so fairly.
They were treated so fairly. And so, as
Muslims, we have to respect others' beliefs.
And so, again, my message today is that
we are one body. We are one ummah.
So we have to start acting like it.
We have to start
basically
not
feeding into the ills of this society, the
criminality,
because,
you know, when I was growing up, a
thug,
that was their dean.
That was their dean.
They've they've believed
wholeheartedly in their thugism,
but when a a thug became a Muslim,
they shut all that down.
But today, we have Muslims
trying to have one foot in the thug
life and one foot in Islam,
and you urinate all over your deen.
You have to go full fledged into 1
or the other.
You're choosing Jenna or you're choosing Johanna.
You're choosing paradise or the hellfire.
Specifically for our young brothers and sisters, don't
allow
these nappers or rappers to pull you into
a way that's inconsistent with Islam.
Because we have work to do, brothers and
sisters.
We have work to do because
Allah has given us Islam, whether you were
born Muslim or whether you reverted to Islam.
It's an invitation that we cannot refuse.
It's a movement
that's basically
hovering over the world and it's, again, it's
gonna counter
the other movements,
the oppressive movements.
And when Islam comes into force, then what
happens is the world benefits.
As I'm always mentioning, if we just paid
zakat,
if the Muslims throughout the world just paid
zakat, there would not only be
no poverty amongst the Muslims, there would be
no poverty among anybody in mankind, the world.
That's how mixed people are not paying the
zakat. 2 a half percent.
You got the oil rich, you got the
mineral rich Muslims around the world, they're not
paying the zakat.
You got people with silver doorknobs
in the Middle East, and right next door
on the continent of Africa, you got people
starving, can't even afford food or medicine.
That's how much Muslims are not
basically internalizing
Islam.
So we can be Muslim,
but we can be one who is not
practicing Islam or not internalizing the Islam. And
that's and as long as you have breath
in your body, brothers and sisters,
you have an opportunity
to to be to be forgiven.
You have an opportunity to change.
So if you have friends who are
calling you to a way that's inconsistent with
this deen, you need to get rid of
them. What does the prophet said? Having good
friends is like having the perfume merchant as
your friend.
They smell good and that smell will rub
off on you.
And having the the bad friends are like
having the the blacksmith. And the blacksmith is
around horse feces and and horse, you know,
sweat and urine all day. They smell bad,
they're gonna make you smell bad.
And when the prophet, peace be upon him,
gave us
these hadith and and and information, he's given
us guidance.
In the Quran, it's guidance. It's a living
book. It's not a dead book.
It's not
about just having the
rituals, but it's about internalizing this deen so
that that we will actualize this deen in
the overall society.
We have homelessness in the society. We have,
you know, basically food in securities in the
society. We have basically environmental problems in the
society, and Muslims should be at the forefront
of all of those things. And you you
can pick an issue. You don't mean that
you have to basically,
address all the issues. You can pick an
issue.
If you want to deal with police brutality,
if you want to deal with, basically, the
changes that need to be made in the
overall society,
and if you want to get involved with
the politics, you have to basically
be involved in such a way that it's
not inconsistent with your deen because Muslims have
a reputation of being apolitical.
We have to develop
healthy relationships with one another. You know, as
the the hadith says, the parable of the
believer, in their affection, mercy, and compassion for
one another, again, is that of a body.
When any limb aches, the whole body reacts
with sleepinesses and fever.
You know, we have to, again, recognize
that the shaitan
can cause us to forget
and fall into disarray.
And, again, we end the month of Shaban,
and we are basically
almost in the month of Ramadan.
And so the shaitan gonna get busy.
And so we have to increase our fasting
even before Ramadan.
Get in shape.
Increase our fasting,
increase our charity,
increase making doer for those who are are
sick
and dealing with issues that, you know, basically
that that's causing them depression and anxiety.
We have to be of those
who, again, we're not just practicing Islam, but
we're actualizing Islam in our in our behaviors.
You know, again, as I mentioned about the
brothers
and and sisters in China and in Myanmar,
Burma, the Uighur people, as well as the,
the Rohingya people,
they are dealing with things that, you know,
we can't even imagine. But we have brothers
and sisters who are incarcerated in this country,
and we have to be,
empathetic towards their cause because Allah knows best
when we will be in type of situation.
But what is the great scholar says? He
says that if you incarcerate me, you put
me in solitude with my lord. If you
if you basically
if you if you kill me, you give
me martyrdom.
You know, so these are some of the
things. He said, what can my enemies do
to me?
And so as Muslims, we have to continuously
have that type of attitude, that no matter
what test is put upon us, even if
we have a cold or a cough or
illness, that's a means of expiation,
if we have a hardship. And that helps
basically
to give us a paradigm shift so that
we don't fall into a state of depression.
Because if we have a challenge, then it's
something you know, what what spiritual lesson we
have to ask ourselves, what spiritual lesson
is Allah giving me
based on this challenge?
Again,
we have Muslim suffering.
And as such, we have to be of
those to lend our voice
to help the oppressed
in this part of the world, in this
city,
as well
as throughout the world. And and in the
future, we'll be talking about some of the
the changes that we're going to be able
to institute because, again, we've come out of
coming out of the pandemic,
and so we have to be instrumental in
helping with the food and security. We have
to be instrumental in establishing,
you know, again, the masjid should not just
be a place of prayer. It should be
a prayer place of service.
And so we have to say, okay, what
kind of service do we want to to
be able to institute
as Muslims? What What types of things are
we
able to put into effect so that not
only the Muslims will benefit, but the overall
society, the overall area will benefit? Because wherever
there is a Masjid, there should be a
sense of safety and security
that people can can come to that place
and and and seek the assistance that's necessary.
If I've said anything that's inconsistent with what
Allah has given us and the prophet, peace
be upon him, has taught us, I take
full responsibility for that. And if I've said
anything in which you have gained some new
insight, as always, all praise belongs to Allah.
Abu Musa
reported that the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said, verily, the believers
are like bricks of a building,
each part strengthening each other. He put he
put his hands together like this.
The believers, again, are like bricks of a
building, each part strengthening the other. And so
if we have the abilities to to build
and another person has the ability to raise
funds and another has ability to to design
and construct, you know, we have to work
together to establish the institutions.
And one of the,
the lessons I learned when I lived in
in Saudi Arabia
is that I would meet people
and they would say
something like, you know, that master over there,
my grandfather established that. When they said grandfather,
and that's the only word they could translate
it the way in English, it might have
been their great great grandfather because that master
might have been maybe 2 or 200 years
old.
And so
what are our grandchildren and great grandchildren gonna
be saying about us?
Are we just gonna be,
you know, a community that used to exist
once this place is totally,
colonized.
Or we're saying,
oh, that that that that that building on
the corner,
you know, that that that that people are
coming to get food and people are able
to work out, and people are able to
get education,
and people who are immigrants coming in to
learn, you know, learning
English and learning skills,
and we, you know, and there's Hafiz School
that we've established. We have to basically
have a strategic plan, brothers and sisters, so
that as we move forward,
you know, again, it's not just having places
of worship, but we have to be able
to recognize that worship is not
just
praying.
It's not just praying.
He would run. People used to sit around
the mosque there all day. Some of the
brothers would sit around. He would run them
out of there, and he would say, you
know, that man
who's out there in the marketplace and and
and working to feed their family is better
than you who's sitting here all day in
the mosque.
That's how bad he was. You know, that's
that's what he would would do.
And so we have to have, again, a
paradigm shift on how we view
Islam and how we view implementation of Islam
in this overall society.
We've established the Masjid
throughout this area. Again, when I moved first
moved here, it was probably only 3 or
4 months in this area, in the metropolitan
area. Now we have well over a 100.
Have schools
with people who take 2 years out of
their life to learn the Quran, the whole
Quran.
None of that was here when I came
here in 79.
And so,
young brothers and sisters, you have to stand
on our shoulders
so that you take it to the next
level. We've established the houses of worship. Now
we have to start building the institutions,
and then others will come behind
and to build build other institutions.
And, you know, again, this week was a
learning lesson for me and
alhamdulillah.
There was a group called Justice For All,
and this is a Muslim led group.
And
we petitioned
a multitude of congresspeople,
both senators and
and,
you know, congress congressmen
and women.
And it gives on the behalf of, it's
a a bill called the International Anti Islamophobia
bill. And, again,
we'll put something together, and it'll be put
out on our social media.
And I want people to
write their representatives
to get support for that because, again, we
have to speak up.
We have to speak up.
And the concept of a Muslim being up
political is inconsistent with Islam
because you'd see that all of the prophets
dealt with the political leadership of their day.
All of the prophets dealt with the political
leadership of their day. We look at Musa,
alayhis salaam, he dealt with the pharaoh.
Esa, alayhis salaam, dealt with Pontus Pilate. The
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, dealt with
Amr ibn Hashimur, with known be better known
as Abuja. He dealt with the people of
his day and when he the first hijrah,
he dealt with the Negus of Abyssinia
to to send his people there. So he
dealt with the whole the political structures
of his day and all of the prophets.
So we have to deal with the political
structures of our day because, again, one day
we'll be that political structure because in Islam,
the quietest is kept. There's no separation of
church and state.
But as Muslims, we separate church and state
of mind or mosque and state of mind
Because we again, we're just practicing Islam
just in the Masjid, but we we go
past the outside the door, then we we
practice the Islam or her Islam.
So we have to be of those who
are consistent
in
integrating the Islam
into all of our actions,
all of our actions.
Anas ibn Malik,
who said the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wasallam said, do not hate one another. Do
not envy one another, do not turn away
from each other, but rather be servants of
Allah as brothers and sisters. And, again, it
is not lawful for a Muslim to boycott
his brother
for more than 3 days. And so we
have to be forgiving, you know, towards one
another. We have to be
forgiving, you know, towards one another. We have
to be of those who, you know, again,
you can forgive, but you see, you don't
necessarily forget. Like, if every time,
you know, I saw you, you punched me
in the face, I can forgive you. But
when you see you again, I can hear
you from over there. You don't you take
yourself out of striking distance so you don't
get hurt. You know? So these are some
of the things that we have to look
at. We have to to be forgiving.
You know, again, may Allah allow us to
be of those who struggle
in his cause.
And also may Allah allow us to continue
to pray for the people who are suffering
throughout the world and throughout this country, the
incarcerated
and those who are not only incarcerated
physically, but those who are incarcerated mentally and
spiritually.
You have people
living under bridges and standing on the corners.
So we have to be of those who
help them to to start to promote the
dawah and not just give the shahada and
leave them alone,
but to give them the shahada and also
give them the spiritual food that's necessary so
that they can become part of a pneuma
that is most successful because, again, you have
to look at during the prophet's day, peace
be upon him,
the lowest of the low came to to
Islam for the most part.
It wasn't the rich folks. You know, we
always revel in the fact that this celebrity
or that celebrity or that millionaire came to
Islam, but the prophet, peace be upon him,
his foundation were people who were will be
considered like homeless people or poor people for
the most part.
And so we have to give the dawah.
We have to give the dawah, bring the
people in, and also to give them the
necessary food,
necessary spiritual food.
The believing men and women
are allies to one another. They enjoin what
is right and forbid what is wrong and
establish prayer and give charity and obey Allah
and his messenger. Allah will have mercy upon
them for Allah is almighty and all wise.
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.
And I wanna ask, brothers and sisters to
keep brother Sabir in your du'a
as well as
Imam
Ahmed Ali. He,
he was one of the, the Dua of
Islam who, Allah took his sword early this
week. He he was in Tallahassee
and to, you know, to keep him ask
Allah to grant him jannah and forgive his
sins
and to Allah elevate him because, again, he
was influential
in, in the in the Muslim movement in
this in in this country. And so please
keep our Imam Ahmed in your du'a.