Surah Al Jumuah #27 Islam in a Secular Age
Date:
Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Ramadan 2024 - Surah Al-Jumuah
File Size: 23.23MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the differences between two cultures' secularism, with the American version being more based on political and cultural reasons and the European version being based on a historical definition of "monthood." They also discuss the importance of prayer in the church and the need for unity and cooperation in dealing with issues like gender identity and racism. The speakers emphasize the importance of living in non- Muslim countries and offer sponsorship for students to study the Bible.AI Generated Transcript ©
In fact, what the Quran did is made
our spiritual identity
even stronger than our ethnic identity.
Because the ethnic identity doesn't matter when all
the come and sit in the same jawa.
That became second. You're Muslim first.
You're sitting here, you're Pakistani second, you're German
second, you're Albanian second, you're Turkish second, you're,
you know, Indian second. All of that is
second. First thing you are is
Muslim.
Assalamu Alaikum. Before you begin this video, just
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The,
secularism
is,
is understood differently in different societies.
European secularism is very different from American secularism.
In fact, American secularism is also different from
Canadian secularism.
In some societies, secularism means we don't want
to see religion anywhere outside your home.
We don't want to see it in the
office. We don't want to see it in
the schools. We don't want to see it
in public anywhere. They might even have a
problem with a woman
wearing a certain thing or a man having
a beard or something like that and say
that's too much religion. We don't wanna see
that even on the street.
Right? No manifestation of it. That's their definition
of secularism.
Some nations in Europe have those kinds of
definitions of secularism.
There's almost a fear that religion, if it
shows up in the public space, will eventually
start controlling society and our freedoms will be
taken away.
So there are there is that kind of
secularism in some countries in Europe, and it
comes from a history.
There is a history of religion
oppressing
its population, and anybody who doesn't conform to
that religion will be suppressed and will be
oppressed. And Europe fought hard
against religious oppression
to gain its freedom.
And that's part of the
sorry.
Okay. That's part of the identity
and the historical identity of this, continent.
The American secularism is very different.
American secularism is you want to have a
church, have a church. You want to have
an atheist church, have an atheist church. You
want to have a devil worshiping,
mall?
Do
it. You want to have a mosque? Do
it. You want to do the adhan on
the microphone outside? Do it.
No problem. Do whatever you do. Whatever religion
you wanna follow, you wanna follow all religions,
you wanna follow 8 religions, it's all good.
Do what
you want to make a new church? Do
it. You want to make a new Islam?
Do it. Any religion is free and open.
Complete
absolute freedom of religion.
Absolute freedom of religion.
Just one thing.
Their definition is don't let one religion
dictate how other people should live.
Religions have the freedom to express themselves.
They have the freedom to declare themselves.
You are free to express any religious. You
can dress however you want. You can look
however there's there's guidelines on minimum clothing,
but there's no guidelines on maximum clothing.
You understand?
Nobody can be told you're wearing too much.
That, that, of course, discrimination happens, but it
happens not at the legal level.
It happens at a cultural level. You understand?
Now the reason I'm bringing this up is
the concept of
secularism where religion is reduced to your personal
life.
Right?
What does the Quran do with that? The
Quran essentially says, yes, there's a time for
the prayer.
Like secular definition says prayer belongs in the
church, prayer belongs in the mosque, or prayer
belongs inside your home.
Actually in some countries, prayer can't even happen
in your home. If we find out you
were praying in your home, you're getting arrested.
That exists in the world too. Right? And
some people are so scared of even Muslims.
If we find out you were praying,
we're going to have a problem.
Right? That much, that much control, and that
much restriction.
However,
what, one of the things we learned from
this Ayah is our prayer inspires our behavior
outside
and it impacts all of our behaviors, our
business dealings, our family dealings, our personal dealings
because
the prayer is dhikr of Allah.
The definition of prayer here
is,
And when you leave and you pursue Allah's
favor in the secular realm,
in education, in business, in family, in work,
in public space, in government, etcetera, etcetera, then
you are inspired by the ethics
and the spiritual moral code
that came from the dhikr of Allah, that's
still alive as you're practicing,
remember Allah a lot.
So that you may succeed.
We're not separating them.
We're not saying, Oh, and it's that doesn't
mean that when I go into the office,
I start preaching,
but it does mean that the code that
I believe in, the dhikr that Allah has
given me, that impacts the way I conduct
myself in the office. That also impacts if
I'm going to be part of a business
deal or not part of a business deal.
That also impacts whether whether or not I'm
going to the Christmas party or the after
party or this invitation or that, it's going
to impact that behavior, isn't it?
And
I'm well within my rights
as someone inspired by Allah
through this mechanism
of I will not hide who I am.
That's a part of my identity.
In fact, what the Quran did is made
our spiritual identity
even stronger than our ethnic identity,
Because the ethnic identity doesn't matter when all
the come and sit in the same jawa'at.
That became second. You're Muslim first.
You're sitting here. You're Pakistani second. You're German
second. You're Albanian second. You're Turkish second. You're,
you know, Indian second. All of that is
second. First thing you are as Muslim.
That's a it's a core part of you.
And the thing that we often haven't
really dealt with
is that your religious identity
does not contradict
your ethnic identity, and it does not contradict
your national identity.
Me being Muslim
doesn't make me any less American
or any less Pakistani. I'm both.
I'm very American
and I'm very Pakistani.
I'm ethnically Pakistani.
Country wise, my citizenship is the United States.
And I love the United States, it's my
country
and I want the best for that country.
I'm loyal to that country. Somebody might say
Astaghfirullah,
you're loyal to Yeah,
I am.
Yusuf was loyal to Egypt.
He wanted the best for what's in Egypt
and Egypt was pagan at the time,
entirely. Rasulullah
was loyal to Makkah,
completely loyal to Makkah, all the time when
what was there?
The idols,
all the idols are in the haram, and
he's loyal to Nuh
was loyal to his people, the vast majority
of his people are what?
Does that change his loyalties?
No. Where you're from,
your own people, your own
or the people that have the place that
provides you an education,
the place that provides you an ability to
make your rizq. Allah use them as a
means just like your mother and your father
nourished you and nurtured you. A country also
provides you a place, a job, an education,
opportunity,
safety, security. Doesn't it? Are you not are
we not beneficiaries of these things? Then should
we not want what is best for these
places? Yeah. But does that mean that we
endorse everything that these countries do? No.
No. In fact, the most loyal American citizens,
for example, I'll speak for America. I can't
speak for Germany. You guys can speak for
Germany. I can't.
The most loyal citizens of the United States
are sometimes the most harsh critics of United
States policies
or United States tendencies
or the direction in which a society is
going. That's part of the beauty of the
country is that you can speak about that.
You can debate the ideas.
You can bring them into the battlefield of
ideas,
you know, and the dhikr of Allah has
to enter every space.
An example of this, it's rather controversial, but
still I think you should know, for example,
one thing that's happening
in, the United States that may not be
happening in Europe as much, and I don't
want to hear any questions about it in
the QA.
None.
Is there's a lot of, for example, new
gender identity politics
and, LGBT
and homosexuality and much beyond homosexuality, gender identity
itself being taught at children's schools,
children's books,
pushing this kind of an agenda. And in
the United States, Allah told us in the
Quran,
cooperate in good things, cooperate in taqwa.
So on your own time, I want you
to guys to search what's happening in the
school systems, the public school systems in Michigan,
in, or, in the state of Michigan or
in Detroit or surrounding areas in the United
States. Michigan has a very old, very,
seasoned Muslim
population community that's been there since the, arguably
since the fifties.
Some of them, so they've been there a
long time. And Of course, they are worried
about Christian community, Jewish community. They all live
side by side. On this issue, the Muslim
community, the Jewish community, the Christian community have
the same position
on this issue, and they're fighting tooth and
nail at the school districts together
for this cause, for their children.
You understand? We have a view,
and this is what we believe, and we're
gonna stand for it. And there are others,
Allah says about for us to cooperate with
the people of the book, in good
things, and in matters of taqwa. And this
is one of those things. So they're cooperating
and they're standing tall. I don't know how
things work here, and that's not my place
to know. But I will tell you that
wherever
the dhikr of Allah
can enter, it must enter.
It must enter. This is the principle of
this ayah is religion is not relegated to
the house of worship.
The religion is now inspiring the outside.
You know? And when you say, well, we
don't wanna bring religion at all or, your
your personal religious,
you know, values at all. What are those
religious values that are so extreme?
We know we even we have misconceptions about
what religion means.
We have the Muslims,
our fundamental values are human integrity.
That's a fundamental human value, integrity. Every person
deserves respect.
No one should be treated less because of
the color of their skin, or the origin
of their country.
Because they're all children of Adam
and we believe that all of humanity coming
from Adam
As a result of that, doesn't it become
logical that all human beings are genetically equal?
Which means there's no race that's superior to
any other race. Which means if there's any
racism against us or against any other nation,
any other group, any other religion,
then we stand against it.
That's our dhikr of Allah in that space.
So, (QS. 3) And it's not just about
us and our personal,
like jokingly I sometimes say, okay, so if
you have if you're a student and you
have a final exam at 4 pm, and
salatuljumma is at 1 pm,
then of course after salatuljumma you'll be doing
a lot of dhikr of Allah,
right? Because you're not ready for the exam.
So
so you can succeed.
But Allah is actually giving us a principle
here. No nation will succeed
if their actions,
and their transactions, their businesses,
their dealings, their family dealings, if they are
removed,
those dealings are stripped from the remembrance of
Allah. If Allah is not part of those
conversations, and those ethics, and those value systems,
then those nations will never ever be able
to succeed. They may have some rise like
the pharaohs had arise, but they'll have a
crash.
They cannot sustain that. Allah says,
so that all of you may attain success.
Real harvest,
which is also really incredible because previously we
were told,
remember what I said about it's
the next season's fruit.
Remember? So every ummah is the next season's
fruit, and now the word
which means to harvest the next season.
Right? So you may attain success, meaning the
fruit of your labor.
This is actually a,
a really beautiful religion. It brings beauty to
every aspect of your life,
every part of your
You know Sheikh Jamal
Zarabozho, some of you might be familiar with
who he is. He tells a remarkable story
actually of,
actually, not just him. It was, Gerald Dirks
who's a who's a deacon. He was a
Christian
preacher
in in Colorado.
Thousands of people used to listen to his
sermons, 1,000 and 1,000.
And he went to buy some groceries
from an arrest, from a, from a grocery,
an Arab grocery store.
And they, you know, they, they, they put
weight on one side and they put the
meat on the other side. Right? So they
put the meat, but the grocery store owner
put 5% extra meat.
He said, why are you doing that? You
know, there's a, you don't have to put
extra. He goes, no, no, no. The the
scale may be wrong,
and it could be 5% off, so I
wanna give you it could be up to
2% off, but I I need to give
you 5% extra. And he said, well, the
state because he knew some of the regulations.
He told them the state of Colorado, you
you have 2%, 3% margin of error.
He goes, Yeah, but my I don't I
can't answer my God like that.
I have to answer Allah on judgment day.
Hey, well, what is this?
Why is he acting like this in a
store?
Religion stays in the church,
religion stays in the mosque, why is it
coming into the store? This
is
Weigh people with the balanced skill that is
better and better in the long run. You
know this idea of when you have dhikr,
you become people of kist, you become people
of justice. You're gonna fulfill your project at
work, you're not going to bill extra hours
because you can. You will let your management
know, I'm finished with the project. I shouldn't
be getting paid for work that I'm not
doing. You let them know honestly
because what's
You're not gonna your your parents are paying
for your college education or whatever, and you're
going and skipping classes.
It's not just you're not just cheating your
parents, you're violating a principle, you're violating the
rukuud,
you're not gonna do it because with Curula
Akhiran.
Even when you're stopped at a red light,
and there's no camera, and there's no other
traffic, you're not gonna go because you made
an agreement when you filed when you got
your license, that you're going to abide by
traffic laws.
So and because Allah says, fulfill all contract
agreements, you're not gonna cut the red light
because with
this starts affecting what kind of citizen I
am, what kind of professional I am, what
kind of family man I am, what kind
of wife I am, what kind of husband
I am, what kind of daughter, what kind
of son, What kind of brother? What kind
of sister? All of it
was You know what you find? People say,
Oh, we don't like European secularism. We don't
like secular we don't like religion being cut
off, and they're forcing this Yeah, I don't
like it either, but you know what? We
have our own kinds of secularism.
You know what kind of secularism we have?
Islam belongs in Ramadan,
Islam belongs in the Masjid, Islam belongs in
the Islamic halaqa, but the moment you're gonna
have a conversation with your wife or your
husband, or when you have a conversation with
your parents, or when you have conversations about
money,
then all the adab of Islam, all the
akhlaq of Islam,
all the lessons about not doing Ighiba or
backbiting or humazatin,
lumazatin,
or all of that's gone.
All of it's gone.
The way you can talk about this one,
or that one, or the other one, Allah
says,
You think you're talking about somebody, something small?
It's huge with Allah. It's huge.
But you know what? No, no, no. I'm
just saying
What do you mean I'm just saying? Isn't
this secular? Isn't secularism to keep religion in
some places and not in other places?
Isn't that what that is?
Isn't that what that is?
The ayah is so powerful because it takes
the strongest,
you know, act of worship in the week,
the biggest communal act of worship. Not everybody
might get a chance to go to Hajj.
It's possible. But everybody will attend ju'ah.
That's our communal worship together,
and now from us being together, we spread
out and we take the dhikr of Allah
with us, in everything that we do,
in every place.
This is Allah's
design for how the deen of Allah will
spread. You know there are many places in
the world, you know how deen spread, it
didn't even spread through da'wah, It spread through
the way Muslims do business.
You know
that? Millions of people became Muslim
because of the way Muslims conduct themselves,
because the way Muslims treated people,
because of how honest they were with their
dealings.
That was
And then you understand what happened earlier on
in the surah, when Allah said others haven't
joined them yet. Remember?
Now we learn how are others going to
join because you're going to come, you're going
to get the Ayat of Allah, you're going
to spread out, they're going to see the
goodness that you have and they're going to
say, I want some of that. How come
I don't have that?
However, you know, there was, one, one fellow
I knew, he was actually German.
He I've watched a story, then I got
in touch with him later,
about him and his wife.
He was like, he, he was a trainer
in a gym. He was a fitness trainer
Or any all his clients were men and
women. You know how men and women are
in the gym.
Right? And there was this this woman in
the gym
who she worked there and he never looked
at her. He never looked at any woman.
He just didn't look. He's like, how do
you do that? Why do you not look?
And he's like, I have no reason to
look. And he's just looking at us and
I have no reason to look. He's working
there, but he's keeping himself guarded. What
is this?
Because for some women, not all women, some
women, they're offended that they're not being looked
at.
If I don't look at a guy, he
doesn't say, Hey, how come you don't look
at me?
He didn't get offended.
Actually, he might get offended if I look
at him. What you looking at bro?
It's the other way.
And she got offended. Why come you're not
looking at me? Why are you looking at
me?
He's not looking at her and actually she
started looking into the religion and he taught
her some things about the religion without looking
at her.
She accepted Islam. She
they got married.
Look at that.
But the cool thing there you know what
that is?
Did He preach?
Did he preach the religion?
Did he ask her to accept his son?
Did he do any of that?
No. He was just living the dhikr of
Allah.
That's it. That's all he was doing. And
then that was enough.
That was enough.
I'll leave you before I close inshaAllah, I'll
give you one quick story of how this
leads to success. In this for us, it
leads other people to success,
and other people finding the deen through us
will add to our sadaqa jari, isn't it?
I had a young man today remind me
of a story,
so I'll share that with you because it's
it's related to this. It was,
someone I met in New York who
this guy is like not religious.
Okay. He's Guyanese and the Guyanese people, some
of them are very devout religious. Some people,
they just have Islam by name, but they
don't really practice it at all. Right. And
he was one of those guys. Right. Drinking,
clubbing, all of it. And he and his
girlfriend lived together for a long time. Then
they decided to get married and they're married,
and then later on he and she's Christian.
His girlfriend is Christian. He married a Christian
lady and then he kind of became religious.
He found Islam. He starts praying again and
all of that stuff. And his his wife
who's Christian is freaking out like, what are
you doing?
You're becoming an extremist.
Are you joining ISIS? Are you doing this?
Are you doing like she had she was
freaking out over Israel and he came to
the imam, how do I give her dawah?
I keep proving to her that 3 is
not 1 and 1 is not 3.
You know, I keep talking about the Trinity
and I she's not listening and she gets
even more angry
and he got good advice from someone that
told him stop
preaching the religion.
Just be the kind of husband the prophet
was
Just do that.
Be the kind of father that he was.
Study. What kind of husband was he? Study.
What kind of father was he? That's it.
So what does he start doing when he
gets really upset? Instead of raising his voice,
he becomes quiet because the prophet when he
was really upset, what would he do?
He'd become quiet
and he, like, he would be extra kind
with his kids and he controlled his temper
and he never spoke bad words and his
his his behavior
started living.
The best of you are the ones that
are the best of their family.
So he's giving her wife, his wife gifts
that are like for no reason at all
because and she's grateful for everything that she
does and does things for her and helps
her around the house and starts doing things
that if any hadith he finds of the
prophet that he used to help around the
house or he used to do this or
he used to acknowledge this and did that.
He starts doing all of that,
right?
And she, one day without telling him, without
warning, he was at home praying Bavari and
she just stood next to him.
He started praying Bhavri next to him. He
didn't say anything.
Like he's super happy with the Salah, but
did he say anything? He just prayed and
she just prayed. And then he prayed some
more and she prayed some more and they
didn't really talk about it.
And she just
eased into Islam.
Just eased into it.
There was no debate. There was no Bible
verses Quran. There was no nothing.
There was no word about Jesus. Nothing. You
just ease into Islam. From what?
From what?
Living dhikr.
That's living zikr.
That's
so this is what actually transformed the world.
What do these people have that I want?
They saw something enough that they don't see
in anybody else. And that's what made them
want to become Muslim.
Now
we have reversed the equation.
We flipped the script. So now we go
to a non Muslim country. We see clean
streets.
We see people treating each other with respect.
We see honesty and dignity and character.
Then you say, I want to go to
the homelands of Islam
because I want to save my iman.
And then you had to go there. You're
gonna spend a little bit of time there,
and you're gonna see stuff. It's gonna and
some places in the Muslim world are very
inspiring. I'll be honest with you. Some places.
Oh, man.
How can this how can this be
that religion?
And why would someone see this and say,
yep, I want to be a part of
this.
This is what I want to sign up
for. This is the good life.
You know,
This is why Allah gave us this instruction.
Take inspiration from your religion, take inspiration from
your book, and then live it outside.
We have one ayah left of the Surah,
inshallah. We'll cover that tomorrow. So I'll open
it up for your q and a. Please
don't ask me hard questions. You guys have
such hard questions.
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