Nadim Bashir – Community Ethics Surah Hujurat Tafsir Verse 13
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The most iconic surahs when it comes to
community matters, community affairs. And once again, the
whole idea of community
is that you find the word unity in
the word community. If you spelled out the
word community, you find the word unity in
it. So if the community
has no unity,
it has then there is no community to
begin with. So this is why we cover
Surah Al Hajra. The next ayah, we talked
about in the last 2 weeks we talked
about that there are 6 things that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala he told us to stay
away from. 3 things that often happen in
front of a person, which is
These are 3 things that after that often
happen in front of a person.
The next ayah Allah says,
and then he says,
and
So these 3 things, these often happen behind
someone's back. So where whether it's something happening
on some on in front of someone, or
behind someone's back, anything that can disrupt
your connection,
Muslim sister, stay away from it. Now the
next ayah, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, he begins
the verse by saying,
In the surah, from the very beginning, in
many of the verses Allah began the ayah
by saying,
In the last 2 aya's, it was
In the beginning of the surah,
After that,
So there are many
This is the very first time in the
surah Allah says,
addressing
entire mankind.
Now the ulema, they say that even though
Allah is addressing the entire mankind,
because this what Allah is about to mention
is relevant to the entire mankind,
but still this is a very clear instruction
to the Muslim community. So what is Allah
saying? I have created you from men and
women. And subhanAllah,
right off the bat, this puts away any
kind of doubts, that especially the time that
we are living in, and all these different
identities that are becoming relevant in our communities,
and they're being pushed
and promoted, that there are so many other
genders besides
being male or female. I remember, subhanahu wa'ala,
1 time I was someone has shared with
me that they went to a website
where they were scheduling an appointment, and it
said gender. And subhanAllah, under gender, when they
clicked on the option, instead of just having
male or female,
there were literally 10 different options.
In this day and age, 10 different options.
When Allah says,
this puts away any kind of doubt, any
kind of questions.
Without a doubt, unequivocally
we stand by the idea as Muslims that
there is only just 2 genders. There is
male and there is female, and there is
nothing else besides this.
Now usually when you talk about this, people
call you homophobic. Adamant
and so adamant and so upfront about what
they believe in, then why as Muslims should
we be afraid of this? This is why
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran he
says,
No matter how faith No How well known
an idea may be,
how how mainstream
the idea is becoming, we stand by the
idea that there's only just 2 genders,
Then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala he says,
What is He says we have we have
created you into different
shurub. Shurub
is
to help you understand,
there is a source, a primary source. From
there, there are many branches.
That is called a sharuub. So you have
1 primary source, and anything that branches out
from that 1 primary source that is called
shurub.
Or you have many branches, and going back
to your
root roots where you actually come from is
also considered as a shurub.
So for us,
what is our shurub? Where do we all
come from? We come from Adham alaihis salam
and Hawa alaihis salam. And if we even
based in based on our current situation,
that now there are so many different cultures,
and so many different families, and so forth,
but if we were to all go back
Once again, you're talking about branches. There's so
many branches of a tree. But if you
actually try to go back to your
root where we all come from, we all
go back to where? To Adam alayhis salam
and Hawa alayhis salam. So this is what
the word
shru' means, that there are many branches. So
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when he tells us,
From from from these 2 people, from Adam
alayhis salam and from Hawa alayhis salam, there's
all these different branches, and it's all these
different groups of people. And not only that,
but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala used the word
kaba'il.
Kaba'il in Arabic is in reference
to different cultures,
different practices,
different ethnicities,
different languages,
different colors.
This is why Allah says,
This in itself is a rahma from Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The fact that Imagine if
we all were the same color.
Imagine if the entire dunya everyone was white,
or everyone was black, or everyone was brown,
or everyone spoke the same language or ate
the same food.
Imagine if you only had to eat briyani,
if all of us ate briyani. Okay?
Okay. There would be no spice of There
would be no spice in life. There would
be no excitement in life. Though I may
be whatever culture I may be from, but
I like to go and eat the food
of others. I like to mingle with people
of the others. I acknowledge
the beauty of other cultures and so forth.
So this is what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is saying that he has created so many
shurub and kaba'il.
Why?
The Ulema they say that litaarafu
First of all, let me give you a
let me give you a quick a quick
understanding of the word
taa'arafu. Taa'araf comes to the word orf. Arafah
yarifu.
Orf means something that is a custom within
a place. But
means to come to learn about something, to
come to know about something.
1 interesting thing to note is that when
you talk the talk about the word Arafah
or you'reifu in the Quran,
it means that you were ignorant about something,
you came to learn about something, now you
know about something.
That is why
generally or throughout the entire Quran, you'll never
find the word Arafa or You Arifu
associated with Allah.
Why?
Because Arafa
means that you were ignorant about something and
now you know about something.
The word,
you know about something. There was never a
sense of ignorance. There was never a stage
or a moment of ignorance. That is why
any place in the Quran you pick up,
anytime the word Allah used the word or
it is in reference to the human being.
Anytime Allah uses
or he talks about knowledge of himself,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala always uses the word
alima yaalamu. He always uses the words such
as alim.
Why? Because there's never a moment of ignorance.
So Allah subhanahu wa'ala is telling us when
he uses the word, litaaarafu,
that I created all these different cultures and
different ethnicities,
so you can learn about each other, you
can respect 1 another, and do not use
this
as a way to discriminate
against each other. Do not use this
to promote racism within your own community. And
think about it, even within the community of
Rasulullah
alaihi wa sallam, you had different people from
different ethnicities,
different backgrounds.
This was the beauty of Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and you have people who
come from all different walks of life, all
different backgrounds and so forth. This is the
beauty of Islam that it brings people together.
We all come together under 1 banner, and
that is what?
We come from different backgrounds, we come from
different cultures, and so forth, but all that
becomes irrelevant
when we come together as a community. So
if a community wants to thrive,
the the most important thing is that they
must not use
these cultures and these ethnicities
as a way to discriminate against each other,
or to push racism forward, which is something
that is very common, unfortunately, within our Muslim
community. SubhanAllah.
Alhamdulillah here in Dallas, you know, we don't
have these kind of issues. But you travel
to many places around the United States, you
travel to some other countries, I'm not gonna
take the name of those countries, but you'll
find the Pakistani masjid, the Indian masjid, the
Bengali masjid. This is what is dividing us
today, wallahi.
When Allah says,
Allah is telling us, do not discriminate,
do not divide based on race and so
forth. This is something that we see happening
with many churches by the way. If you
don't know, you go to many churches, you'll
find 1 particular race in the church. And
there are some churches
that have become That are not very mainstream.
They are, you know, they are like the
fringe. They are treated like the fringe,
the fringe categories of Christianity and so forth.
There That is where everyone from different ethnicities
will come together. But overall, you go to
many churches.
Okay? It is 1 predominant race, and this
is how it is. Our massages should be
places
where everyone comes. Any person who believes in
Islam,
and they believe in Allah, they should come
to the masjid. Why?
The basajid belong to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So Allah says, do not this is a
way to Allah for Allah to tell us,
do not discriminate against each other. Racism should
not be part of your community. Then Allah
says, another important lesson after this is,
You know, the reason why Allah mentioned this
is because when Allah created
when Allah said
often
these kind of things can create animosity and
hatred against each other. Everyone will try to
feel a sense of superiority, by the way.
Everyone will feel a sense of superiority. This
race is more superior than the other race.
This color is is more superior than the
other color. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he's
putting all that to rest.
If you wanna talk about superiority,
the 1 who has superiority
is the 1 who has the most amount
of taqwa. That is that is the that
is the standard. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
set the standard.
So if I want to be superior,
then it comes down to my taqwa. And
this is why subhanAllah you find in the
time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
there are people like Bilal radiyaallahu an who
did not have anything. He was considered as
a a lower class in the time of
the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam when he
was a slave. He convert to Islam. His
freedom was purchased. He became part of the
community of Rasulullah sallam. And immediately Allah the
prophet
he gave him an 'izzah. He gave him
honor, he gave him dignity by giving him
the position as the
And subhanAllah,
when Fatha Makkah took place, when the conquest
of Makkah took place,
at that time, all these leaders
who saw Bilal as a slave, they would
treat him without any mercy as a slave.
Now rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasallam, he's telling Bilal,
I want you to get up and make
the adhan. And when they were making when
he was making the adhan, these people who
were once his masters, they were feeling inside
that how can this
man, this man who was a slave at
1 time of ours, now rasulullah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam has given him such a dignified
position. Why? Because of his taqwa.
This is how rasulullah sallam would treat everyone
in his community. So if we want to
gauge who is superior, who is inferior,
the only way we can know that is
by taqwa. And the beauty is about taqwa,
taqwa does not show on your face.
Taqwa shows in your heart. You see, it's
not written on our forehead who has taqwa
and who is not who does not have
taqwa. It's not written on our head who's
the muttaqeen, who's not the muttaqeen.
Taqwa is in the heart. As Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wa sallam says,
He pointed towards the heart. So we don't
know. You see this is the key thing.
We don't know who's the mutati and who's
not the mutati. We don't know who's the
1 who wakes up at tahajjud. We don't
know. We don't know who the wali of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is. None of us
know about each other. That is our relationship
with who? With Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That
is why we don't treat anyone, and we
don't show that we are superior
compared to anyone else. Why?
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala finally he
says,
Why did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say Ali?
By the way Ali means
the all knower,
and khabid is the 1 who is who
makes everyone aware, who is the all aware
of everything. And they both are sort of
synonymous with each other. So the Ulemaadi say
that Al-'alim
is in reference to
the,
inullah alimukhabi. Al-'im is more in reference to
the inward matters.
The inward. The what's in actually inside the
heart, and kabeel is external matters. So Allah
subhanahu wa'ala is telling us that when he
says Al Aleem, Allah is telling us,
I am the only 1 who knows who
has taqwa in the heart.
When
Allah says then of course the next thing
is who has a taqwa? Allah says only
I am the 1 who knows who has
taqwa. You understand? So that is it. So
Allah subhanahu is telling us, do not treat
each other based on what you might know
about the other person. You might know 1
negative thing about a person, but who knows
on the back end, this person may have
made tawba, and now he is so close
to Allah. While we might be critical about
that person, but this person on the other
hand, he's the wali of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. So always try to treat everyone with
respect.
And this is this is this is the
end of the aya, so there are 2
things, 2 important things that we learned from
this aya. Number 1 is that we do
not discriminate against each other. There should be
no racism within our community, and by the
way, there's another additional point is
that we should not feel
that we are superior, first of all, as
Muslims. Why?
Because this gift of Islam
is a gift of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Even if I look at a non Muslim,
I look at a kafir, I should never
feel that I am superior than them. Yes.
It is there's nothing wrong to feel that
has given me a niyama, and Allah
may not have given them a niyama. Do
not ever look down on anyone. Why? Because
who knows that that person might become a
Muslim, and that they may become a better
Muslim than us. And here we're being judgmental
about them, just like in the case of
Umar Khattar radhiallahu
an, when the there was a woman at
the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
who was about to make hijrah
of amongst the very first group, and the
first batch of people making hijra to,
hamsha.
And Umar Khattab radiAllahu anhi passed by.
And he said that, where are you going?
And she said that, people like you because
at that time Umr Khatab was not a
Muslim. He said she said that people like
you have created
a very hostile environment in Makkah for us
to live in. We can no longer live
in Makkah and peace. That is why we
are going. And at that time, Umrah Khattab,
he says, as mentioned in some books of
Sira, he says, may Allah be with you.
This is what he said. And once again,
the reason why he said that is because
the Quraysh actually did believe in Allah. They
just committed shirk with Allah but
they did actually believe in Allah. So, later
on when the husband came and said what
happened throughout the day, she narrated the story,
the small incident or the small event with
Umar Khattal radiAllahu anhu. And at that time
he said something along the lines that perhaps
the the donkeys of the uhas of Muhammad
Khattab will probably convert to Islam before Muhammad
Khattab does. You see, these kind of things.
He may have said something along those lines,
probably not exactly that, but something along those
lines. Eventually, who did Umar Khattab, you know,
become? He became Aminu Mineen. And not only
that, but there are many non Muslim historians
who say that the golden era of Islam
was the time when Umar Khattab
ruled as a khalifa. So we don't look
down on anyone. Okay? That is the key
thing. We don't feel that I'm superior,
and they are inferior, because this also leads
to takabbotu.
So, that is the first 2 lessons, and
the third thing is it always comes down
to our taqwa. As Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, he said 1 time in a hadith
that, Your Rab is 1.
Your father is 1. Then he says,
There is no superiority
of an of an arabi over an ajimi,
a non arab, or or a non arab
over an arab. But he then he says,
based on except for your taqwa. So these
are a few things that we keep in
mind, and wallahi, once again, every single ayah
in this surah provides
some kind of lesson, some kind of reflection.
But if we were to apply them, our
communities will be united, inshallah. I ask Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to keep the Muslim ummah
together. May Allah subhanahu wa especially in this
day and age, with the situation that is
unfolding in Gaza. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
keep our hearts together. May Allah subhanahu wa'ala
keep our hearts united. May Allah keep our
communities united.