Nouman Ali Khan – Building Disciplined Communities
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AI: Transcript ©
No doubt Allah is the one who loves
those who fight in his path in rows.
Saffan, rose.
Allah added a new
qualification.
It's not enough that you want to fight.
It's not enough that your intentions are good.
It's not enough that you're brave.
That's not enough.
If you truly mean what you say, you
will show me discipline.
Safran.
I'm dedicating
today's khutba to the opening ayat of Surat
Asaf.
It's a surah myself and
my colleagues happen to be studying. We've spent
the last almost couple of months
trying to understand the message of the surah,
and there are some takeaways from the beginning
of the surah that I thought should be
wider spread,
at least, Insha'Allah. So I pray that I'm
able to do some justice to the wisdom
that is encapsulated
in these ayat.
The first thing I'd like all of you
to know is that
almost by consensus,
this surah seems to has have been revealed
after Uhud.
So the Muslims
were engaged in the battle of Uhud.
Many of you, if not all of you,
are familiar with the losses that we suffered
at Uhud,
and the kind of faltering in the discipline
of the Muslims that led to the chaos
that ensued
in which the prophet himself sallallahu alaihi wasallam
was injured severely. At one point, he was
even rumored to have been killed.
70,
the most important companions of the prophet
were murdered. Their bodies were later mutilated
by the enemy.
After Badr. So Badr is the first and
Uhud is the second.
And this surah is coming
after Uhud.
So it's a commentary
to the Muslims in that state.
And it's remarkable that the opening of this
surah describes not the believers
but it describes the skies and the earth.
Everything in whatever is in the skies and
whatever is in the earth continues to declare
Allah's perfection.
It can it it always has and it
always will in a sense. Declare Allah's perfection.
And he's the ultimate authority,
the all wise.
Just a quick note about that.
Human beings have their ups and downs in
this world.
We have some days where we're closer to
Allah. Some days we're not so much. Some
days we do better at obeying Allah. Other
days not so much.
Some moments we have good deeds. Other moments
we have bad deeds and failures.
We have our ups and downs. And Allah
begins by saying, you can have your ups
and downs here on this planet,
but the rest of Allah's creation is in
continuous.
Of Allah. There's no faltering anywhere else.
No no one else is falling short in
this tasbih.
In fact, every time you hear tasbih in
the Quran,
you should remind yourself of the first historical
mention of tasbih.
The first historical mention of tasbih is the
angels themselves
who were questioning the creation of the human
being,
and they couldn't understand when they exist already,
and they already do
The angels understood something, the entire sky is
the earth, and especially also the angels constantly
do
They declare God's perfection.
They're in com complete surrender to Allah. What
could be the purpose of creating something,
and giving them so much responsibility
and a position of honor,
when they have such potential for failure
and terrible deeds? What would be the point?
So every time this has mentioned, it's almost
as if the criticism of the angels is
echoed again.
You know. And Allah said, he knows he
told them, we know something we don't that
they don't
know. In any case, that's
And the other thing you should know about
this in the Quran is that it's used
many places
as an expression for the salah itself.
When Allah says
for example,
many places in the
Quran,
That it's not just talking about tisbih. It's
actually talking about prayer. It's actually talking
about salat.
So sala and tisbih are actually
closely related to each other. They're very very
closely related to each other. In fact, the
ultimate form of is
actually our prayer.
It was actually the salah.
In any
case, Allah then opens the surah with these
two names of his, Al Aziz Al Hakim.
Allah is the ultimate authority, even though there
are people in this world who would fail
to recognize or refuse to recognize
that authority.
They don't see the point in it.
There are others who even if they recognize
his authority,
when Allah gives a command,
there's somebody who might say, okay fine. Allah
said it but I don't know why he
said it. It doesn't make any sense to
me.
I don't see the point in it. Let
me put this another way. I don't see
the wisdom behind it.
Why should I follow this? I don't see
the wisdom in it. I don't see the
logic in it. I don't see the point
of it. And Allah explains that he's not
just the authority, he's also al Hakim. He's
the owner of all wisdom.
So when he exercises his authority and when
he gives a commandment,
then there is wisdom behind it.
Now, there are narrations surrounding the revelation of
the Surah, and one of them is that
somebody came and asked the Prophet
among the sahaba, some new sahaba, he came
and asked, what's the best thing I could
do?
Which which deeds are the best, most beloved
to Allah? And Allah revealed fighting.
And they Some people didn't like that he
revealed that.
Right? Why would he Why would fighting be
the best thing to Allah? Give me some
dhikr to do. So give me something else
to do. Why are you talking about fighting?
And they couldn't understand the logic behind that.
And it's as if Allah's response to that
entire thought process is already in the first
ayah.
All of the rest of creation
recognize
Allah's ultimate authority
and His wisdom, which is what makes them
do continuously
anyway.
It's as if Allah is saying, he doesn't
need yours.
It's as if Allah is saying, whether you
do it or not, we'll change nothing. You're
a you're a lot smaller
than the rest of Allah's creation, and you
cannot take away anything from the of Allah,
or from the of Allah, or from the
hikmah of Allah, by your little question. That
that's not gonna happen.
Then the other side.
This is I keep saying this is after
And Allah
says,
This is the 2nd ayah.
Those of you who believe,
why do you say things that you don't
do?
Why do you say things that you don't
do?
And this phrase,
why do you say things that you don't
do,
is open ended like, what did I say
that I didn't do?
Allah didn't specify.
If you compare this to suratul Munafiqoon,
Allah specifies
exactly what the Munafiqoon
said.
Exactly. He quoted them. Exactly what they said.
If you go to
Other other places in the Quran exactly what
people say Allah quotes it. He tells you
exactly what they said. In this surah, it's
as if Allah left it purposely
ambiguous. He didn't say any
Why do you say something you don't do?
Why do you why do you say what
you don't do?
So the each person listening
would have a different answer to that question.
They they have to ask themselves what is
it that I said
and what is it that I didn't do.
You understand?
And even if you have this narration that
some people asked about, what's the best deed,
and the fighting is the best deed, and
all of that. What I need you to
understand is, when the Quran was spreading,
that
meaning that one person who came and asked,
not everybody knew about that.
Everybody knew about the surah, but not everybody
knew about the question behind the surah.
And you have this is an important lesson
in the understanding of the Quran.
Even if you find a story behind the
revelation of an ayah, that doesn't mean even
at the time of the Prophet
everybody was thinking about this ayah because of
that question.
That question was 1 individual, 2 individuals. It
didn't happen in front of the entire city
of Madinah.
But the Quran was recited, memorized and spread
quickly
without that background story. You understand?
So, what do we learn from that? Allah
uses an incident or somebody comes and ask
a question
which is a small question but Allah gives
an answer that doesn't just benefit that one
person. Allah gives an answer that benefits many
questions and gives many answers.
So it's actually a mistake to reduce the
ayah to
what incident. That would be a mistake.
In any case, Allah says, why do you
say what you don't do?
If you connect this to what Allah just
said before, everything does
Everything How does a how does a believer
do tasbih? The believer says, subhanAllah.
In fact, even saying
is a form of tasbih.
In fact, Muhammad rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is a completion of our tisbih and I'll
tell you quickly why.
Before the coming of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
the two religions of the book were Judaism
and Christianity,
the two religions of the book.
Tasbih
from anything that is not suitable for God.
That's what this means. Now, you have a
pure concept of God, that you don't adulterate
that concept with any other corruption
in it.
We know that christians glorify God.
But the Quran comes along and says, you
may be glorifying God but you're certainly violating
because
your concept of God has been corrupted.
The Jews had their own version of commemorating
God, but certainly one thing missing from that
commemoration was
Now the Christians did it in their faith.
In their faith, they made Jesus divide and
all of that. That's a violation of tasbih.
The Jewish people did it in a very
different way, even though there were some issues
there too. But practically they said yes, God
gives laws.
But sometimes they're not the best laws. We
can change them.
So they violated Al Aziz al Hakim.
You understand?
So the What existed in the world
is some concept of god but it wasn't
the the the Allah
that is
And the Quran came and revealed to the
believers
the true meaning of subhan'Allah,
the true meaning
of But once you say that,
once any believer said that,
that statement itself was a promise. And that's
this is where I want you to stay
with me. That statement itself, to accept that
there is no God except Allah, to accept
that Muhammad is His Messenger
This was actually a promise
at the time.
Let's first talk about that time. What was
that promise? Now that I've accepted him as
the messenger, I understand that he is the
final messenger.
I understand this is the last
mission of guidance
given to this man. And these 23 years
that we call them, these 23 years of
the seerah,
Right? These are the most important 23 years
in the entire history of humanity and for
the entire future of humanity. And now that
I've accept I'm in I'm in the proximity
of this man, Muhammad
his burden
has now been shared with me.
I am now a part of his mission.
I don't just get to say that and
say, okay, I accept it and sit back.
This statement comes with a very heavy burden
that has now fallen on my shoulders.
Now when a burden comes on the Of
course the sahaba do this,
and this is why they stayed with the
prophet
through thick and thin. They migrated with the
prophet knew what
knew sahaba accepted Islam and financially sacrificed in
Madinah. In Badr, we we we put our
lives on the line. So the Muslims know
this. They know what it means to go
through difficulty. In order to understand the next
part of this khutba, I really want you
to understand
one more thing about Madinah that will help.
One more thing about the city of Madinah.
I want you to understand that the population
of Madinah,
the Muslim population of Madinah,
is actually 3 different populations.
If you understand that, your understanding of the
Quran that was revealed in Medina will become
a lot
easier. There are 3 populations in Medina. And
of course, this surah is revealed in Medina,
so this will help us.
The first population in Madinah
are what Allah calls
The best of the best, the first and
the foremost,
whether they are from the migrants of Mecca
or they are from the Ansar.
This is the first category of belief.
These are the people that are the best
of us. These are the Abu Bakr as
in the, Iqdawna bin Khattab radiya abba ta'ala,
etcetera, etcetera. You know them.
The second
category is on the opposite extreme. Allah calls
them
the the hypocrites.
These
are of 2 kinds.
Well, some of them accepted Islam for the
wrong reasons. They accepted Islam because Islam is
winning, Might as well join the winning party.
That's one reason. The other is, they accepted
Islam because they thought it was nice.
But once they accepted it, they realized this
is a pretty heavy burden. Then they're like,
I don't wanna do all this work. I
mean, I like the Islam. I like the
Tawhid thing. I like the dhikr thing. But
this He wants a war? You want me
to go to war? You want me to
give up what? How much of my money?
You want me to what? Bring these guests
and have them live in my house? Come
on. What is this?
I thought you just give me Let me
just pray 5 times. That's good for me.
Don't give me these other requirements.
So they the bunafiqun were of this category.
Right? Either they they accepted Islam for the
wrong reasons or once they accepted Islam, they
only like some parts of Islam. They were
uncomfortable with other parts of Islam. And they
complained about it and even tried to sabotage
it.
So there's the the true believers and the
hypocrites. But there's a third category in the
middle. You could basically call them the regular
Muslims.
They came into Islam for good reason.
They wanna learn more,
and they haven't matured in their religion yet.
You can think of it like a new
Muslim.
Hasn't quite learned everything yet.
And these people in the middle there, you
can think of them as the majority.
And this majority
is being inspired
by the first group.
They're being inspired by the first group, and
they're sometimes also being influenced by the second
group.
Sometimes when they sit in the company of
Abu Bakr as Siddiq or Umar or Uthmar,
when they sit in that company, their iman
goes up and they feel inspired.
When they sit in the company, who says,
why do we have to go to war?
Everything was fine.
We could just be here and get along
with everyone.
Shouldn't Islam be about peace with everybody? They
sit there and say, I mean, that that
makes kind of that kinda makes sense.
But she'll appease 2. So now they're kinda
being pulled
on two sides. You understand?
And this is the population of Madinah.
When the Quran in Madinah came and said,
It actually included all 3.
But most directly,
it's actually targeting the middle population.
And it's targeting the middle population to tell
them, be like
the and avoid being like
the hypocrites. You understand?
This is why Allah will say something like,
Those of you who have faith, have faith.
What is how's that wickedly sentence?
It makes sense because those of you who
have come into faith now demonstrate
real faith,
like these people.
Or
Those of you who've claimed to have faith,
don't be like the ones who caused Musa
pain.
Who caused Musa pain? The
of Musa caused Musa pain. So So don't
be like
the in the time of Muhammad
That's what they're being told.
So Allah is telling the this middle population
and I that's important to note because actually
I consider myself and most of us, we
give benefit of the doubt. We belong kind
of in the middle.
Sometimes we are inspired by those that are
doing better than us. Other times, we're influenced
by people that are doing much less than
us and they wanna pull us. We're we're
kind of being pulled in both directions. And
these surahs are talking to the people that
are pulling in both directions.
And to them, Allah is saying, why are
you saying
things you don't do?
Why are you saying things you don't know?
Some of the I want you to know
one at least one story about this. It's
really cool.
Before This surah came after Uhud. I keep
repeating so it gets drilled in your head.
But before Uhud
before Uhud,
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam took a
survey and he wanted to know
the opinions on where we should fight. And
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's own opinion
was we should fight from inside the city.
We know the city, we know the terrain,
we can break up the larger forces because
they won't be able to take us head
on. They're gonna have to go through the
streets and the alleys, and we can set
up traps and corners, and have strategic advantage
because we know the terrain and they don't
know the terrain. So if we make this
into an urban war, as opposed to a
war on the battlefield, we will have strategic
advantage.
Some new Muslims had come into Islam after
Badr.
Now Badr did not take place in the
city. Badr took place on the battlefield.
So they came into Islam after Badr and
they were all, man, I missed out. You
guys smart in Badr? In the shawada of
Badr Arjannah?
And some of the new Muslims, some of
the younger men, they're like, You Rasool Allah.
No no no. We're not afraid of the
enemy. We'll go out in the we'll go
out in the field and face the enemy.
Why do we have to hide in our
homes and rooftops, etcetera? We'll go out and
face the alameen, and you know, face to
face. Go out in the and that that
was their they were inspired.
So they gave that suggestion to the Prophet
Even though the Prophet's own suggestion, alifatul salam,
was to stay inside the city.
Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam then listened
to them,
acknowledged their sentiment,
and they went out into And he doubled
his armor by the way, which was an
indication that he knew something bad is coming.
Something's coming.
Now, we all know what happened in wafilat.
After waha, Allah revealed Surah Al imran also.
And Surat Al Imran, Allah talked to those
young men, those people who were so fired
up to go face the enemy. And he
said to them,
You were the same people that were wishing
for death before you met with it. You
saw death coming at you at the battlefield
for the first time, and then you were
just standing there staring at it as if
to say staring at it
paralyzed. What happened?
It was so easy to make those comments.
You were fired up in the moment.
But when it came time,
you're not that person,
you know.
There are there are people that, you know,
now it's easy. It's even easier now, even
though I'm gonna relate this directly to now,
to become a keyboard warrior.
Brother, we have
to fight the kuffar.
Are you tapping this from the battlefield?
Did you did you take pause from
the the the the warfare and just make
sure you upload encouragement to the rest of
the ummah to?
Easy to talk.
Easy to say.
Now with that in mind, just just because
you're inspired,
cause you heard inspirational
stories and you wanna repeat those stories,
saying that stuff is something else,
doing that stuff is something else.
You can get inspired by those who've done
amazing things and then start talking big, but
talking big is not the same as doing
big.
It's truly just it's massively
disgusting
to Allah
that you say things that you don't do.
There's lots to say here, but it's one
thing that scholars talk about here
is it's bad when you don't do something
that you're supposed to. But it's much worse
when you say you're gonna do it,
and then don't do it.
When you're talking big. That's that's disgusting in
the sight of Allah.
And the word disgust is muqd is a
practice of the ancient Arabs.
Before Islam, a man would have, you know,
many wives. The the the father would have
many wives and he would divorce some of
his extra wives or the father would die.
And the son would marry his stepmothers.
And this was considered disgusting but they did
it anyway. This was called maqd.
Allah uses that word.
That's how disturbing it is that things come
out of your mouth that have nothing to
do with action.
So then the question then becomes, by the
end of as I reach the end of
this halban, what is the action we gotta
take?
What's the action? And the action comes in
the 4th ayah, where Allah does talk about
fighting but he gives a prerequisite.
It's actually an incredible ayah. My entire intention
to share this khadba with you was this
ayah.
No doubt Allah is the one who loves
those who fight in his path in rows.
Rose.
Allah added a new
qualification.
It's not enough that you want to fight.
It's not enough that your intentions are good.
It's not enough that you're brave.
That's not
enough.
If you truly mean what you say, you
will show me discipline.
Allah
loves
those
who
fight
Allah They have to show that what happened
at what happened at Guwahand?
Some people left their position.
They weren't soft.
They weren't sufuf.
Allah is saying, your intentions, even if they're
good, are not enough.
You need to demonstrate the highest form of
discipline.
You have to demonstrate the highest form of
discipline. Now,
here's This is food for thought for you
because we only have, you know, 5 minutes
and I'll be done.
If the Muslims were not a military, they
were not an organized army with years of
training
and military exercises, and if you know anything
about the military, they have they they There's
training for years. You wake up at a
certain time. You eat at a certain time.
You dress. Your sergeant walks in. You all
stand up. There's a there's a code you
have to follow and it gets drilled in
your head. That regiment gets drilled in your
head year after year after year after year
So you're ready for the real thing. So
when you're when you're you know, your battalion
commander, your lieutenant whoever says go, then you
just go
immediately. There's there's no gap between the issue
of the command and the execution because that's
life and death. And it cannot happen unless
you have the highest form of discipline. Now
the question is, if the Muslims,
2 days before
uhud, 2 days before They're not
an organized military. You think they can in
2 days become
They could just become an organized military? They
can't. And then Allah gave an analogy. He
said,
It is as if they are a wall
that is cemented together with melted copper or
melted lead.
Now, I want you to know this. This
is one of the most incredible analogies in
the Quran.
You cannot become that because it takes time
to pour the lead, it takes time to
get all the bricks, it takes time to
size all the bricks, or even, you know,
to chisel them, to make them the right
size, to fit where they're gonna fit, to
build the foundation, to put the wall. How
tall should the wall be? How thick should
it be? If it's too thin and you
build it too tall, it's gonna tip over.
If you put a too heavy of a
stone too high up, it's gonna crack the
other ones. If there's a small gap, you
can't put a big stone there. You have
to put a small stone there. What is
this one analogy that they are a they
are a building
that is leaded together
is actually saying, you are not in a
position to fight until you as a community
become completely and utterly disciplined
like the walls in a building the or
the bricks in a building.
Until that happens, you're not ready.
Just don't even talk big. 1st show me,
baniyanu marsus, then we'll talk.
That's that's the idea.
And the thing I want you to just
as I leave you, I want you to
think about this. The analogy of a building
that been leaded together,
There's a brick at the bottom of the
wall.
There's a brick at the top of the
wall.
Those two bricks are not connected to each
other.
They have no connection to each other.
The brick at the bottom of the wall
is connected to the bricks that are on
the side of it, on the bottom of
it, all around it. Isn't it?
So it has to play its role
down here.
That one has to play its role
up there.
So if you truly want to be part
of a unified wall,
you need to demonstrate unity in your locality.
You can't say, I over here need to
be united with those over there. How come
we're not united
and you're a wiggly piece of the wall
down here?
You understand?
What do Muslims complain? We complain the ummah
is not united. We're not united with the
Muslims in Africa and the Muslims in India.
Are you united with the Muslims in Gaithersburg?
You're united with the Muslims inside this hall?
You're united with the Muslims you grew up
with or
your friends,
like, in your family?
When when Allah says, like
understand the analogy. There's something very profound being
given here.
If you can't demonstrate that kind of discipline
in at the most localized level,
if the brick is not doing its job,
if the lead is not doing its job,
then the building is gonna collapse.
Then there is no building.
When he says, Allah loves he didn't just
say, Allah loves those who fight. Fighting is
a later problem.
The building is the first problem.
That building that's ready to stand in front
of a storm,
it's not gonna collapse.
And so the last minute,
I'll tell you every part of a building
plays a role.
There's a brick that gets to be on
top.
There's a brick that has to be on
the bottom. And there's a brick that's in
the foundation. Or there's pieces of the building
that are in the foundation.
Nobody even sees it. We're standing on it.
People see the building and say, Wow, this
is a nice wall.
And the foundation gets upset, Man, everybody steps
on me and nobody gives me credit, nobody
walks over me and says,
It's pretty nice foundation 20 feet deep.
I need some credit too. You know what?
Maybe if I got out of the bottom
and I popped up a little bit, people
would notice me
and then I'd get some recognition around here.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Instead of someone understanding their role and appreciating
their role
You know what happens? What happens in the
corporate office?
If you're in a department
and you want your department to succeed, it's
a different attitude. But if you're in a
department and you just care about the promotion,
there are 2 things that you can do.
Either you could exceed, excel so much that
you'll just move up naturally. Or you sabotage
your leader so that he gets fired or
she gets fired so you can take their
job.
So you're you're a brick but you're actually
shifty. You're you're not happy where you are.
You don't wanna get cemented here. You're like,
I I could do better.
I need to go somewhere else. I need
to go somewhere else.
This ayah gave the sahaba very clear understanding
that no role is insignificant.
Think think about even a war.
Think about even war. In a war, there's
the battle, there's the people that are making
the weaponry, there's the people that are supplying
the food, there's the people that are working
in the the hospital
to remedy the soldiers. There are people that
are setting up the camps. The people that
are taking care of the animal. All these
different roles are being played. The logistics are
as much a part of a military operation
as the battlefield. In fact, the logistics are
maybe 80%.
That's 80% of what's going on.
And the logistics are not glorified,
but they're part of a larger operation. The
Muslims were being told to think, stop acting
like you need to be the hero.
Understand, you have to work together and build
something together.
You have to build a building together.
And this this is a sense that the
Muslims are given right after the chaos of
Uhud because in Uhud, we showed that we
still don't have the discipline that is needed.
Overall, we need to build that discipline. And
so Allah gave us that that profound message.
And that the the the implications of that
message carry on until the day of judgement.
May Allah Azzawajal, make us disciplined families, disciplined
communities.
May Allah Azzawajal allow us each of our
communities to become an example of
so that we can we can be given
higher and higher responsibilities by Allah and we're
able to carry them.
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visit our sponsorship page. I appreciate it so
much. And pray that Allah gives our mission
success, and we're able to share the meanings
of the Quran and the beauty of it
the world over.