Suhaib Webb – Jumu’a Reminder Respecting the Sacred
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One of the key important components of maintaining
balance, right? Balance is one of the important
qualities
of
a a mature Muslim
and what I mean by mature is emotionally
physically and intellectually mature
is balance Allah
says Allah
says
that
you know the
the scales
right, should not be violated. You hear me
in the scales in the world around us,
the environment that we live in.
And then takes it from that to the
actual
engagements that we have with one another. So
in Surahman
in the very beginning you see something very
profound Allah begins
talking about how he has established justice and
balance and creation and then extends that into
even things like our business engagement.
And then extends that into even things like
our business engagement so the idea of now
balance being something which is one of the
major underlying principles of the Deen,
subhanAllah and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in Surat Al
Baqarah
Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala says in
Surat Al Baqarah,
we have made you the Ummah, the religious
community which is a community
which is a balanced community, which is a
community of balance.
It's interesting that this is verse number 143
and Surat Al Baqarah is 286
verses.
So this is happening subhanAllah,
the verse that says our ability to heal
a fractured
world to lead a world and to be
at the forefront of religious as well as
material guidance is conditioned on our ability as
an Ummah to be balanced subhanallah
and Allahu subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the ability
to balance and to nuance and think about
things as being one of the 3
things that he sent so that people could
establish justice.
He says at the end of the chapter
called the iron sotul hadid
after
Allah says that indeed we sent messengers
with clear signs and
we revealed to them
we sent to them
books and we sent to them the mizen
and the mizen means what the ability to
keep things to scale to weight is mizen.
So the ability to weigh things
and find a moderate insha'atla path
that does not The truth,
it's very difficult to maintain balance
just as a structural engineer.
It's very
difficult to maintain balance
just ask anyone who's in any field that
demands either
mathematical
equations
or the physical achievement the physical achievement of
balance. It's not easy. It's
a that's why we say.
The path that is absolutely straight that is
perfectly
balanced subhanAllah
and one of the challenges of a postmodern
age an age for which there is no
foundations
an age for which you can have whatever
you want and,
digital television
or cable television is the best example of
this. You could be watching
a religious program,
you could change the channel, and you'd be
binge watching the movie saw. So you just
went from, like, you know, religious programming
to saw, like, that is wrecking havoc on
the soul. There is no foundation, it's just
a mix, it's a gumbo of Hawa. That's
why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when he describes
the people of Mecca, pay attention to this.
And so, he
says,
they are
means to join.
Means
that they are mixed up just like how
the sea, the water, and the sea is
mixed together.
These people in their affairs have no foundations,
they're bottomless, so they're just mixed
and that is a perfect description really to
fit this age. And when you couple this
with the the the impact of COVID nineteen,
and now we see and we pray for
the people all over the world being impacted
by these horrible, very difficult
fires, it becomes very important to find rootage,
anchorage,
because if not as
you become like the branch just wherever the
wind is blowing, I'm going.
Whatever is popping, I'm good with it. And
that's why we have to ask ourselves as
a Muslim community.
If we were to look at, for example,
the the work of people in certain spaces,
is it simply regurgitating
what is
popular? Or is it sticking to a principled
set of ideas and strategies
that doesn't change.
Because if we're just simply adopting
and regurgitating
and recycling
what the society around us says is great
and what the society around us says is
bad,
then there's no way we can truly say
that we have not been compromised
in the office of prophethood
because the office of prophethood
is not easy.
It's not an easy place
some of the prophets had no followers, prophets
said some prophets had no followers
Just imagine like if you are a prophet
and on Instagram, you have 0 followers
and like you were putting out that that
amazing content,
the truth it had no in it, but
you have 0 followers
or on Facebook. You have 0 followers
or on TikTok
0 followers,
but you knew
that what you had was the truth and
now we can appreciate why I say the
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to his uncle.
If you put the sun in my right
hand in the moon in my left hand,
I'm not changing anything.
I'm not letting it go
one of the the dangerous kind of
I would say, ethos of contemporary society
that has seeped in
in some ways to the Muslim community
is a lack of respect for the sacred.
And respecting the sacred is a key to
balance
and respect respecting the sacred is a key
to being able to live a life of
submission.
Respecting the sacred is a key
to being able to to live
a life of submission
because that's where it all starts.
And we live now in an age where
it it could be argued
that the sacred the the notion of something
being sacred is suspect.
That everything is open to be defiled.
In the name of, you know, turning back
tradition,
in the name of as one brother told
me recently, he said, I'm a progressive. I
said, you're a progressive. Where are you headed?
If you're progressing,
right, we're all progressives
because the
Quran says you are progressing to your death.
You are progressing to Allah. And, of course,
this is not to attack the left or
right. Here, I'm just talking about terminology.
But where are you going?
The
Quran says, where are you headed then? Where
are you going? And I asked him and
he said, dad, I don't have an answer.
Then what are you progress you are progressing
to an unknown abyss.
So the Quran
immediately immediately
allows us
to lens the existence
through 2 things that if we understand them
well, I'm gonna talk about one today,
will help fortify us as we go through
the difficulties of this world.
And the first
is focusing on the hereafter
as the ultimate
end to everything. That's why the Quran, if
you understand Arabic, it's profound. It says
It doesn't say
It's difficult to translate.
Means the ending,
but there could be other other endings to
come later.
But
means the last
end.
There's nothing
after that.
And of course, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We're not comparing him to time or space,
but the idea is that that's the last
stop
and that's why the word is used life
is like a series of stops at stations.
I'm stopping at Court Street
right. I'm stopping at 8th Street.
I'm topping. I'm stopping at Times Square. I'm
headed uptown
but for the believer,
where am I stopping and where am I
heading? We'll talk about that next time
and the second thing that helps us a
life of submission
is respecting the sacred
acknowledging the sacred.
And Allah
very beautifully knows that even our
life is a representation of the sacred. So
within ourselves,
look into yourself. There are signs for you.
There are signs that direct you to something
so first is the respect
and an appreciation we have that Allah.
You are not around and now you're here.
That's an incredible thing.
If anyone doubts how blessed they are to
be alive.
Ask themselves how they feel now that they
can't even go to the local grocery store
anymore
or that you have to navigate
prior to March things that we never navigated
before in our lives and we feel bad
about what about existence as a whole, not
just going into the grocery store or sitting
with friends or going to your favorite restaurant.
So when you talk about the sacred number
1 is we believe that the sacred
are those things which the Quran
and Hadith of.
And the actions of the early community
represent as things which are non negotiables
and things that represent
the faith of Islam
and the existence of Allah Subhanahu WA Ta'ala.
That's why Allah
he implores us to think critically and and
and constructively when he says.
Is translated as all things except God, which
is a correct translation,
but
is from Adam and Adam is a flag.
Signs
because everything around us
depending on how we
see it and what the Sharia tells us
about it
is an opportunity
to reflect on the sacred
because everything is a sign, if you will,
is a flag that Allah exists.
Allah exists. So just like Adamul Jaysh
is the flag of the army, the trees,
the birds, the sun, the moon, the stars,
your neighbor,
the things around you.
We say that every one of them is
a sign on the existence of Allah. So
that's why in general we see now why
Husnu Khulok,
good character is so important because good character
is a translation
that someone has digested, understood, and appreciates
the potential sacredness of things around us.
Specifically, the Quran identifies in 3 words things
that we should be careful of.
And this is concerning because we see now
in the Muslim community that sometimes things which
are sacred
become the blunt,
the brunt of memes,
the brunt of jokes.
And this is actually one of the the
tools of the of of the colonizers
when they came into the Muslim world, especially
those of you familiar with, like, the history
of film in the Muslim world.
Who was it that in the early iterations
in the black and white movies in the
Muslim world was always portrayed as the bumbling
idiot?
The fool
was the sheikh,
was the imam.
And this was purposely done
to furnish in the minds of Muslims
that their sheikhs,
their imams,
and their religious teachers were fools.
And that it is a waste of time
to seriously consider religious education.
What you should do is think about get
rich or die trying,
and we see the outcome.
We see that largely successful religious institutions
are funded by dictatorships and governments,
which make the ability for that of that
religious institution to be truly free
and autonomous
suspect.
But if we look at the public funded
religious institutions,
they are anemic.
And then Muslims are angry. I don't understand
why I can't find an imam who understands
my life. I can't understand why I can't
find a sheikha,
a woman teacher. If you're if you're really
upset about not finding a sheikha,
how many women have you funded to study
religion?
How many sisters I met
who studied on their own finances, SubhanAllah,
who put in their own work.
So empty empty, you know,
calls
are not gonna change things when I run
into converts. You know, we wish we had
more convert email. How many convert brothers have
you and sisters have you sponsored and created
funding for so that they can be independent
and educated and come back and serve you?
So the secret
the first word we find in the Quran
is aya. Allah says
in
verse 231.
What a taktakhidu
Ayatilahi
huzua
do not take the ayat of Allah as
jokes, and this actually this verse is sent
within
the context of divorce and marriage.
Right? The ayat of
the Ayat of Talaq and Surat of Baqarah.
Sayna imam al Tawari he says Ayatullah
are those commands and prohibitions of Allah and
now it's very common
to see Muslims inadvertently saying haram police. This
is haram and joking
about it. Nobody should joke about the haram.
Nobody should joke about the obligations.
Salah,
Hajj,
avoiding evil should not be made the blunt
of jokes.
Who has done this
has soiled
and wrong their soul.
So in an age now, and I know
it's even in the academy to believe in
God,
by some people, you're it's considered a psychosis.
To affirm faith
in God is considered a psychosis by some
people.
Let alone the commands of Allah
in the prohibitions of Allah. And this was
the way of the religions who preceded us,
and we can see that now
in in those religious communities where
everything is the blunt of a joke
or the object of domestication.
The,
the angels.
When they said
they they did not ask out of a
question. This is a mistake people
misinterpret this verse, but in Arabic, they didn't
say
They said,
means hamzatuh tahreen.
It doesn't mean hamzatuhistifham.
Doesn't mean, like, are you gonna make something
in the earth? It means,
you're gonna do this? That's the the meaning
in Arabic.
You're gonna create,
subhanallah, this incredible creation that's gonna do these
things.
But we glorify
you and
we
recognize your sacredness.
This is the quality of the Malaika.
The second word we find in the
Quran is
from the same word as hair, right? Because
hair is a sign
of you,
a sign of something that exists. The shaair
of religion
are those symbols in things that indicate the
sacred.
That's why the
is a poet because the poet can indicate
things to her words and through his expressions,
thoughts that you and I never thought about
before.
Your hair,
it it it is a sign of you.
The shaair of Islam,
a mash.
Uhura
of Islam
are any of the sacred symbols
that represent our deen.
And this touches on acts of worship, places,
times,
people, and ideas.
And recently, I've noticed,
and this is this is unbelievable,
people making fun of compassion.
I I saw a post where someone
who, as far as I know, this person
can't even even read the Quran properly.
Was saying compassionate
imams and attacking someone like Omar Suleiman. Masha
Allah, we know Yaqeen and Omar
Suleiman. All of the the of
America
can witness to the beauty of Sheikh Omar's
personality,
the sincerity that Allah knows is in his
heart that we see through his actions
and listen people will all of us will
make mistakes,
but we don't need to destroy each other
when we make mistakes. We need to to
put a band aid on it and help
each other.
But ridiculing
him and saying he he's quote, unquote, a
compassionate imam, and turning compassion
into a joke, like, it's not just that
the conservative
components should not be turned into jokes,
but also the balance that we talked about
earlier. The sacred allows us to be balanced
between fear and hope, hope and fear.
The prophet Sallallahu,
he said.
Came out.
We send it in.
And
then. The prophet said. I am the merciful
prophet.
I am the compassionate prophet
in the hadith by Sayna ima Tabari Tabari,
he said
When
I saw people attacking Omar Soleiman
for being compassionate
or attacking Yaqeen for being
compassionate. Compassion is one of the shire of
Islam.
Compassion is one of the qualities of Sayedal
Anam
who said,
I am the merciful prophet.
So to attack
religious compassion,
to attack
What's the
of
this?
That whoever doesn't honor the symbols of Allah,
this is a sign of their hypocrisy.
And mercy is so important that Allah who
subhanahu wa ta'ala described the prophet
We did not send you except you are
a mercy.
Imam Ibn Ashur, the great Tunisian scholar he
said, Allah did not describe the prophets mercy
with a verb.
He described it with a noun because in
Arabic the use of a verb could restrict
the meaning.
But with a noun, it implies that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is compassionate
and merciful in his actions, in his statements,
in the things he does.
Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Even in his rebuke
and his
disciplining of people, there is Rahma Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
The last
area of the sacred that we find in
the Quran is in the 57th verse
of the 5th chapter. So we talked about
verse 231
from Surat Al Baqarah.
We talked about I believe if I'm correct
verse 31 is Surat Al Hajj,
and then we talked
about this verse verse 57 in Surat Al
Maidah. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
all you believers do not take
your deen
from those who came before you
Right? Those religious communities that came before
you, who took their Din
as a joke
and as amusement.
We have a very important principle in that
says when Allah
forbid something
that may lead to something else which is
forbidden,
it is to show that the thing which
is forbidden
is extremely important.
So important, don't come close to it.
Don't come to close to anything that leads
to it.
So if Allah Subhanahu WA Ta'ala is forbidding
us to be around and to take forbidding
us to be around and take our deen
from those who take their deen as a
joke and amusement, then what about us taking
our deen as a joke and an amusement?
How can we amplify the sacred in our
life inshallah and then we'll finish because we
said
recognizing the sacred actually is a liberating force.
The trick of the dunya is that it
tells
you be free of any type of religious
entanglements.
Be free of any type of religious,
discipline.
Then you can truly truly be free. But
no, you're not. You and I will become
the slave of the dunya.
But it is through recognition of the sacred
that we are able to see beyond
the trivialities of this world
and not get caught up
in little sideshows
as we progress to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So how can we do that? Number 1
is we need to have an intimate relationship
with the Quran, an individual relationship with the
Quran
and allow the Quran to speak to us.
Because the Quran guides us to what's upright.
Number 2, we need to appreciate
what the broader community recognizes as sacred like
salah,
like fasting,
like being good to family,
like being honest,
like being sincere,
being good fathers and mothers, being people who
are upon the way of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. We need to hold.
The hadith says, my community that doesn't concur
on misguidance.
Number 3
is respecting acts of worship
and and treating them as such. Look at
salah in the Quran. Allah
mentions the neglect of salah in 3 areas.
Number 1,
those people
Those people who do not allow worldly pursuits,
buying and selling to keep them from salah.
Then insort of Manafiqeen,
those Allah
says,
Right? Don't allow your family
and don't allow
your pursuits in life to keep you from
salah.
So within the Quran, three things are mentioned.
Relationships,
business,
and leisure.
None should keep us from salah because that's
how important it is. I should see salah
as a sacred
exercise.
I should be more passionate about salah
than any anything else.
And other acts of worship.
The 4th is maintaining good relationships with people
because
each and every one of us is a
reminder.
Oh, children of Adam.
That we remember our origin.
We remember especially as we move into the
election
him and different with someone.
But you don't need to demean somebody or
to shame them
or to use evil words.
Tell my servants to speak the best
thing.
Don't argue with the Jews and Christians except
in the way that's best. If that's the
case with Jews and Christians,
I say to the people who attacked Omar
Suleiman, then what about Imam Omar Suleiman?
So ask Allah
to allow us, inshallah, to appreciate, to say
great.
And we ask Allah to allow us to
be balanced and to center ourselves in very,
very challenging times.
I ask
Allah to bless all of our sick brothers
and sisters who may be struggling
with COVID 19 or have family members who
are impacted by COVID 19.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it a
means of your shifa
and your shifa.
And I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
accept those who have passed away that we
know and love from COVID 19 as shuhada,
as martyrs, as his witness is mentioned in
numerous hadith.
Ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to bless the
people in California and to help them as
they struggle. I lived in California for 10
years. SubhanAllah
to help them as they go through this
very difficult time in Oregon also.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to help
us as a community bring balance and healing
to a nation
which is really hemorrhaging in many ways
and and and and this hemorrhage
is something that people need to pay attention
to.
Ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to bless our
brothers and sisters in Yemen,
our brothers and sisters,
who we have, you know, unfortunately in Muslim
in the Muslim world,
we're seeing images now of
migrants
from Africa,
from parts of Asia who are being held
in COVID camps and who are dying of
COVID nineteen
in Muslim countries, even in Saudi Arabia.
SubhanAllah.
If you have the Kaaba and and you
have
Haram Madani,
but that is not allowing
translate that to respect and honor others. Our
prophet is the prophet sent to all humanity.
Then
we have to question the impact those places
are having in our heart.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to bless
our brothers and sisters in Senegal,
in the Gambia, in Mauritania,
in Chad, in Zaire, in Africa.
We pray for our brothers and sisters in
Turkey, in Iraq, in Iran, in Syria, in
Afghanistan,
in India, and Kashmir, Pakistan,
Bosnia,
in Russia,
wherever the Muslims are, we ask Allah in
Canada and in
the UK and Europe to bless them inshallah
and make us a balanced community that's not
going to get so caught up that it
compromises its ability to heal a fractured world
and to mend what has been broken the
hands
of
men.