Suhaib Webb – What Next The Qurans Guidance for Post Isolation
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There are some things we should think about
as we reformat our own individual outlook, our
families, as well as our institutions. Nonprofits
I work in the nonprofit as well as
in the university.
Nonprofits took a massive hit,
during the pandemic and sort of forced nonprofits
to reformat how they think about what revenue
streams
and how they think about service because those
go together,
with nonprofits. But also we can think about
what I'm going to share for our own
individual life and that is that in the
18th chapter of the Qur'an, Allah Subhanu wa
Ta'ala actually teaches us sort of the etiquettes
to how to come back.
And of course that's the story of the
people in the cave
who were in isolation.
We as Muslims our tradition holds an interval
isolation, actually Imam Ghazadi notes, is one of
the keys, it is a spiritual macro
of a person who wants to live a
life on salat al mustaqim.
In his Mun Hajjla Abideen, under the 3rd
or 4th obstacle to living a life of
faith, he says one of the things that
you have to engage in are interval moments
of isolation. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala commands the
prophet,
peace be upon him, In
the very beginning, you know, you have to
pray at night a little bit. Why? The
same chapter in that
because in the night you're gonna fit in
the day you're gonna face a lot of
challenges. There's another
Sabacham Tawilah, which means you're gonna be ripped
in half. The days will rip you up.
So how do you
restore
and reformat yourself?
Interval moments of isolation
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. That's why Imam
Ibnata'ala,
Ibnata'ala
scannedri says
that
nothing will bring more benefit to the heart
than interval moments of isolation where someone engages
in
intentional
introspection and thinking about the divine.
However,
we believe the isolation
falls under sort of 2 categories. 1 is
what we choose,
for example, night vigil, but then there's moments
where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will show that
he is the all powerful,
and He will
compel us into isolation. And this is where
this pandemic falls under. Our Ummah, this is
not new for us. Imam ibn Hajar, the
great, great scholar, he actually lost 3 daughters
to the European Plague.
He lost 2 daughters in 8/23 and he
lost another in 8/31.
And so he wrote a book and it's
very therapeutic,
which is Fadluma'aun,
like is the
blessed,
assistance
when it comes to dealing with plagues.
And he notes like some of the benefits.
And then at the end, he talks about
once it's over,
once the plague has passed,
once this isolation
that has subjected us to
re
aligning our lives in ways that we never
imagined before.
Then there is a certain etiquette to that.
And we find those etiquettes in sotaqaaf and
I just want to share them with you
quickly. And we should be reading the Qur'an
this way. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
In the Qur'an is your dhikr.
Often times we read the Qur'an and we
think it's
their their dhikr or those people who passed
away or the ancient righteous people
You. You are mentioned. I am mentioned in
the Qur'an.
So the first etiquette, SubhanAllah
SubhanAllah says we brought them out of their
sleep. We resurrected them from their slender slumber.
So the first thing is we realize that
Everything is under the control of Allah.
Everything that's happening whether good or bad in
our aqira, we believe is
So, we understand whatever
has happened,
it's from Allah and we have 2 etiquettes
to deal with that. Either we have resilience
or we have gratitude. That's it.
Lietasa
alu vayinahum. So that they could
discuss amongst themselves. And this is the second
quality, after
appreciation of Tawhid and Allah's power and authority,
is that we have to think about individually
and at a non profit level, creating communities
that are invested in discussions
and seeking knowledge,
and not,
authoritarian
in their governance,
but who welcome,
open discussions.
One lady, she came to me and she
said to me, my daughter, she doesn't listen
to me.
And then I asked her daughter, why you
don't listen to your mom? She said because
she doesn't listen to me.
So I said you know
right?
Like you get what you give.
Maybe if you model listening, she will listen
to you.
So we see here one of the key
components of our own life and the life
of especially our nonprofits, and sometimes we don't
do a good job of this,
is that we are not invested in knowledge,
and then we see the next invested in
discussions
and open conversations,
and the free flowing of ideas.
Immediately one of them says, how long were
we in this state?
You know, we just were like in this
state for like, you know, a day or
part of a day. Why?
Because most scholars say that they went into
the cave around Fajr.
And when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala brought them
from their slumber, it was 'azar time. So
that person, and here's something really beautiful and
this is the third point, we have to
appreciate mistakes.
Sometimes the the the the the disease of
metamodernity
and a community which is under so much
post colonial pressure
and the constant conditioning, whether benign or cancerous,
of Islamophobia,
we try to make a perfect community.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is not asking
for perfection.
The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said if
someone judges and they're right, they get 2
rewards. But if someone judges and they're wrong,
they get one reward.
I asked my teacher when I was memorizing
the Quran, How did you memorize the Quran?
He said, I forgot it.
And I like to tell my children, fail
but fail right.
So, sometimes we don't create a climate in
our nonprofits and in our own
circles of influence
that appreciates that people have to make mistakes
to learn.
So that's the the third quality we learn
from this verse. These verses after appreciating everything
is under the control of Allah, centering ourself
on tawhid,
And then creating a community which is interested
and invested in learning,
and then interested invested in communicating,
and then interested invested in encouraging people to
have the bravery to try to do what's
right.
Then, subhanAllah,
the 4th quality is that when things become
difficult or things become confused,
we return to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Allah knows.
There's something beautiful here that's mentioned and I
don't want to take too much time. Is
notice that the person doesn't censor the person
who is wrong. The one who said,
actually it's wrong.
But it was based on what he understood
to be. Well, we went in in the
morning, we came out in the afternoon. It
must have been one day.
So, he didn't tell him stuff on the
line. How could you say that? Blah blah
blah blah. I didn't put him like on
blast like we see people online.
The next, and this is where we get
into the great work that,
Zakat Foundation is doing, is that oftentimes religious
communities
seem to think that religiosity is best expressed
when
we distance ourselves from the acquisition of power.
And this is one of the challenges of
some of the theories that we find in
the academy,
at least where I'm at in NYU is
a little different than Berkeley,
Doctor. Hatem, but the idea that, you know,
all power is bad.
And here the Quran is teaching us and
that's really the theme of Surat Al Kahf.
It's the type of power you have. There's
the power of Dhul Qurnayn, there's the power
of the guy who has the garden.
So SubhanAllah,
what
happens here is
very beautifully
You have to have money.
Dave Chappell says money is the fuel of
choices.
It's a great statement.
Sayyid ibn Musayib said, there is no good
in a Muslim
who does not have enough money
to build the power needed to protect himself,
his family, or her community.
And Islam and here we see that Zakat
Foundation
is asking for donations, Masha'Allah,
in order to build power.
If we're frustrated by what we see,
every every Ramadan they are invading Aqsa.
Now, India, no one's talking about 4 states
in India under siege. I remember I heard
doctor Haitham, he warned me about India almost
10 years ago.
If we're tired of being pushed around and
bullied
then we need to appreciate power. I live
in Brooklyn now I live in Harlem
and there was a line that someone
actually made graffiti by Jay
Z, but the graffiti is very very beautiful
and the line was very powerful. And it
said either you're o either you own or
you're being owned.
A community will get what it puts its
money into.
My father used to tell me nobody complains
about the peanuts on Southwest.
But if you write virgin and you get
some bad peanuts, you're about to get an
attitude with someone.
So the expectation
of these people who came out of isolation
is you have to have the financial support
in order to go, falyaanzurayuhaskea'a'ama.
To buy pure food.
To acquire what you want.
And that's the last quality, is that no
matter how much success we have, and we
can think about this here in the Bay
Area, Masha'Allah, where Allah has blessed so many
people,
That success and wealth does not keep me
from thinking about buying clean food.
Meaning that I I maintain my ethical commitment
to the market. So the last lesson that
we take from them is a commitment to
morality and ethics.
So Mashallah, we can see now, Surat Al
Kahf became alive for us. It's not the
story of those people in the cave. It's
a story of us coming out of COVID-nineteen.
And Al Hafat ibn Hajr, one of the
things he writes is, when someone comes out
of a moment like this,
they should appreciate the opportunity that Allah has
given them to do good.
So I want to encourage you. I have
known
brothers and sisters the Zakah Foundation for almost
20 years, many of them. SubhanAllah. And they
are doing powerful work in Yemen
right now, especially in Palestine with this hospital
which is providing cancer treatment for children.
Which you and I may think that's not
as difficult, but there it's much more difficult
than it is for us here in this
country. So I ask Allah to
bless the work that they do, and I
want to encourage you to to support.
But as we go back, remember,
centering ourselves on tawhid,
Being a community invested in learning.
Being a community of huar. This is what
made the early Muslims great. Ibn Taymiyyah taught
the books of Ar Razi. You know, when
you tell people that, they can't believe it.
Like, how was even Taymiyyah teaching Razi?
Because they there was a much more larger
appreciation for the academic climate needed for the
UMMA to grow.
The next thing that we talked about is
creating the financial
safeguards
and security,
apparatuses to allow our nonprofits, like Zakat Foundation,
to scale.
It's very difficult to scale in the nonprofit
sector,
but the demand
will not permit you not to be able
to scale. You have to scale or you'll
fail.
And then finally, what we talked about was
the idea of having a strategy
and making sure that we think for the
long term.