Yaser Birjas – The Reasons We Stay Strong JumuAh Khutbah
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I
seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the acc
ursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the acc ursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan,
the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed
Satan, the accursed Satan, the accursed Satan, the
accursed Satan, the acc What makes the ummah
strong and what are the reasons for that?
I want to share with you a few
of these things from the Book of Allah
SWT and the Sunnah of the Prophet so
that even at times of hardship and difficulty
as we fall we feel we feel low
and the morale is very low in the
Muslim community.
I want to bring that glimpse of hope
so that regardless of what you see that
is happening around the world and particularly look
at what's happening in Palestine today and Lebanon
and around the world, what can we learn
and how How can we say strong inshallah
tabaraka wa ta'ala?
You see, nowadays, many historians, they try to
explain the world and the history of the
world from a very materialistic point of view.
No matter how much they try, they will
fail, explain this phenomena, unless you believe in
a faith-based communities, unless you believe in
that.
Because civilization never flourished unless it had a
book and a mission.
There is no mission or vision that you
follow, you will never flourish.
And as an ummah, that's what we have,
and that's what makes us strong.
From the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, Allah azza wa jal says, inna allaha
yudafi'u alladhina amanu, inna allaha la yuhibbu
kulla khawanin kafur.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made it clear,
indeed Allah defends those who believe.
Surely, Allah does not like whomever is deceitful,
ungrateful.
Udhina lilladhina yuqatiluna bi annahum dhulimu, wa inna
allaha ala nasrahim la qadeer.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, permission to
fight back is thereby granted to those being
fought.
For they have been wronged, and Allah is
truly most capable of helping them prevail.
Who are they?
Who Allah is speaking about?
Qala alladhina ukhruju min diyarahim bighayri haqq.
Those who have been driven out and expelled
from their homelands, from their towns, bighayri haqq,
with no haqq, no right, illa an yaqoonu
rabbuna Allah, except that they say our Lord
is Allah.
And Allah then said, walaw la daf'u
allahin nasa, walaw la daf'u allahin nasa
ba'dahum bi ba'd, la huddimat sawami'u bi
'u wa masajid kurufi asmullahi kathira, wa la
yansurun allahu man yansuruh, inna allaha la qawiyin
aziz.
Had Allah not repelled the aggression of some
people by means of others, destruction would have
surely claimed monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in
which Allah's name is often mentioned.
Allah will certainly help those who stand up
for Him.
Allah is truly all-powerful, all-mighty.
These ayat came as a result of what
happened in the early years of the Prophet's
ﷺ life in Medina.
When the people from Mecca, when the mujahidin,
they traveled to Medina, they were never called
to defend themselves or fight actually.
They were just supposed to avoid any conflict.
Until one of those expeditions or patrolling around
Medina, they clashed with a group from the
mushrikeen who were traveling in that area.
They clashed with them.
And it happened to be one of those
sacred months, which is considered very sacred to
the Arabs even before Islam.
And then they start taunting the Prophet ﷺ,
look what you did, you violated the sacred
months.
How could you call yourself a religious person,
that you respect these months and these days.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He revealed
these ayat to the Prophet ﷺ, defending the
believers in that moment.
Like what are you talking about?
You're talking about the sacred months when you
have violated everything, every sacred thing in this
life.
You've killed the innocent.
You went after the poor.
You expelled them out of their homes.
You destroyed, you know, everything.
And now you're going to care about just
because this conflict happened in the sacred months.
And Allah says, Allah defends these people, He
will defend them and He gave them permission
to fight back.
But then, after that was established, what keeps
the ummah strong?
Allah says, اللَّذِينَ إِنْ مَكِّنَّهُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ أَقَامُوا
الصَّلَاةِ وَآتَوْا الزَّكَاةِ وَآمُرُوا بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَنَهَى عَنَ الْمُنكَرِ
وَلِلَّهِ عَقِبَةُ الْأُمُورِ They are those who, if
established in the land by us, by Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, would perform salah, pay
their zakah, encourage that which is good and
forbid that which is evil.
And with Allah rests the outcome of all
affairs.
My dear brothers and sisters, in short, what
keeps this ummah very strong is that we
are an ummah of purpose.
If you have lost your purpose, there is
nothing really to stand for, really stand for
nothing.
And you can always be confused and exhausted
and tired because now you're pursuing illusions.
If you have no real true purpose, then
you're going to get lost.
And if your purpose is not the reason
why you've been created for, you're going to
get even exhausted because you're going to keep
disappointed every time you follow up or pursue
a dream or what you think that it's
your goal and your purpose, you're going to
get disappointed.
Obviously there are goals that you need to
accomplish in this life, but what is the
ultimate purpose?
You are an ummah of a message, of
a risalah.
You've been purposely chosen to be the last
ummah for a reason.
No message is going to come after you.
No prophets will come to lead the world
after the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
It was left for the followers of Muhammad
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to lead the world
to that which is righteous.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made it
in short that those when we give them
now the opportunity, they will worship the Lord
subhanahu wa ta'ala, they pray, they give
zakah, and they also stand for justice and
that which is right and forbid that which
is wrong.
Like you have a risalah, you have a
mission, and if you don't follow it, if
you don't fulfill that, once again you're going
to get weaker and you get lost.
So here's the summary of what makes us
strong, my dear brothers and sisters, I want
you to pay attention to this and keep
this ingrained in your heart to keep us
strong as small communities, as families, and as
individuals.
These are the main points that we need
to make will keep us all.
Number one, for us as an ummah, the
most important thing for us is our aqeedah,
our faith.
We are a faith-based community.
You know what, there are many other groups
out there call themselves faith-based communities.
But how much you feel or you see
people are true to that faith, and what
type of faith is that anyway?
What does it promote to the people?
And here we see that we are truly
a faith-based community, and we're willing to
sacrifice everything for that faith.
Rasulullah ﷺ in the seer, although in terms
of some of the ulama they said it's
not actually a strong narration, but when the
Prophet ﷺ was confronted by his uncle Abu
Talib, who's been pressured so much by the
Meccans, like why don't you call your nephew
to stop what he's doing?
And Abu Talib he said, okay I'll try,
but I don't guarantee any success in that.
And he went to the Prophet ﷺ and
he said, ya Muhammad, look, your people want
to bargain with you.
They want you to stop what you're doing,
and if you want my protection, then look,
I want to support you, but make it
easier on me as well.
And that's when the Prophet ﷺ told his
uncle Abu Talib, qala ya amm, listen to
me my uncle, wallahi, I swear to God,
la wadau ash-shamsa fee yameeni, wal qamara
fee yasari, alan atruka hadha al-deen, wallahi
ma tarakto.
Look let them put the sun in my
right hand, bring the moon in my left
hand, if they give me both, the sun
and the moon in my hands, to leave
this, I would never leave it.
I would never leave it, never abandon my
faith.
Can you imagine a statement like this, O
Jama'at?
Like someone says, give me the stars, I
won't let go of this, because it's more
important to me, more valuable than anything that
you could ever think that you would give
me.
Look at Bilal, Bilal radhiallahu anhu wa rada,
what was he?
He was a slave in Mecca.
Like his, what is he has to lose?
But he was sacrificing everything, and the dearest
thing to him, his life at that time,
for what?
For his faith.
When he was dragged in the sun, tortured
to leave Muhammad ﷺ and his faith, what
did he say?
Ahad un ahad.
He says, I believe in one and only
one.
That's what made him strong, and that's what
made his enemies weak, because when they see
that level of power that they don't possess,
that spiritual strength that they don't have, they
freak out.
Because they know they cannot stand that kind
of level of torture they put on Bilal
radhiallahu anhu wa rada.
Abu Sufyan radhiallahu anhu wa rada, when he
was standing before the Hercules in Ashsham, the
king of the Romans, he was standing before
him, and he was asking about the Prophet
ﷺ because he received the Prophet's ﷺ message,
and he told him about the people who
follow him.
He said, you know, those who follow him
are the weakest amongst us and the poor.
He said, yeah, for sure, because those are
usually the ones who follow the Prophets first.
He said, do they increase or do they
decrease?
Because they never decrease, they always increase, because
that's true, because this is the effect of
the sweetness of faith when it enters the
hearts.
Like, they have served the sweetness of Iman,
and that's why they would never let go
of it.
Can you imagine, my dear brothers and sisters,
the sweetness of Iman, the sahaba, they savored
in that moment.
And how Abu Sufyan, the leader of the
Meccan at the time, when he heard that
from the king of the Romans, on his
way out, he tells the people around him,
he says, don't you see that the matter
of Muhammad has become so great that this
man, the king of the Romans, is scared
of him.
He wasn't scared of Muhammad, the shepherd, he
wasn't scared of Muhammad, the illiterate, he was
scared of Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, who
brings a message that he knows is going
to be so powerful that will remove all
the illusion that they've been creating as an
alternative to Allah's message to the world.
So we are an ummah of aqeedah, my
dear brothers and sisters, we are an ummah
living for a purpose, with the akhira always
in mind.
I'll tell you what, if you take the
akhira out of your mind, you're gone.
You can live for your body, for your
lusts, for your desires, for this world, that's
it.
And you can imagine, how much can you
get out of it anyway, no matter how
much you try.
How much satisfaction does it give anyway?
And that's why people get exhausted pursuing this
dunya and this world.
But living with the akhira in mind, that's
powerful.
That makes you above everything in this dunya
that you think sacred.
Any position of this world becomes irrelevant.
Because I believe in something that is more
powerful, way above that.
Brothers and sisters, the second thing that makes
us ummah, as a strong ummah here, is
that we have an identity that we pursue.
And what is that?
Innamal mu'minuna ikhwa.
We believe we are brothers and sisters, we're
one family.
Wherever we go, subhanallah, how many times you
travel in a Muslim country, or not even
a Muslim country, anywhere in the world, and
you meet a random Muslim, a random Muslim
subhanallah, and just the kind of bond that
happens instantly, it's just like weird.
Just by saying salamu alaykum, oh you're Muslim
too, oh mashallah, what are you doing here?
And suddenly you're just having dinner together.
Can you imagine how sweet and beautiful that
is?
Where does this happen in ummah?
Unless you are a person of purpose, that
your connection is beyond the blood ties, is
beyond the color of your skin, it's aqeedah,
it's that faith that we share together that
bonds us as one community, that's our identity.
If you start getting divided over interests, and
over color of skin, and cultural boundaries and
so on, we get divided, we get weaker.
But as long as we have that sense
of brotherhood and sisterhood, which is why the
Prophet ﷺ says, look, the believers are like
one people, one group, just like one wall,
one structure.
yashuddu ba'duhu ba'dah, we strengthen each other, and
he did that ﷺ with his hand.
And he's showing us that we are together
like this, like one structure.
This is how strong we can be if
we follow that and pursue that goal.
And obviously, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, as a result
of that, we always think of each other
versus what this culture is pursuing or promoting
to the society.
The absolute radical individualism, that you live for
your own reason, your own personal existence, that
becomes their god that they worship.
And again, how much is that going to
fulfill them?
But feeling that you live for the community
as well too, it is very, very fulfilling
because we've been designed for this, to help
one another, not to live independent from one
another.
The third thing, my dear brothers and sisters,
that makes us strong, that we are people
of the truth.
And we pursue the truth, ilm, knowledge, is
important for us in our deen.
Unfortunately, we've fallen way behind on this as
an ummah, and I'm meaning by that the
knowledge of the dunya.
Alhamdulillah, we have many successful people in that
regard.
But in the past, the average Muslim's knowledge
used to be way higher than many, many
knowledgeable people of our time.
The average Muslim's knowledge in their deen was
way higher than many educated people of our
time today.
And why is that?
Because we really put the ilm in the
right order of priority.
You see, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
revealed the Qur'an, He didn't reveal do
or work or...
He said, iqra, read.
Brothers and sisters, can you even imagine?
Just put that in perspective.
What is the greatest miracle of the Prophet
Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam?
What is it exactly?
You're going to say the Qur'an, right?
I'll tell you what is it.
It's a book.
Kitab.
That's what Allah called the Qur'an.
He called it kitab al-unzila ilayk.
There's a book that was revealed to you.
Allah's greatest miracle to the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam was a book and is a
book.
What does that mean?
What does a book really...
What does a book represent?
It represents knowledge, power, all of that.
And the first thing Allah says, iqra, read.
Read it.
Read this book.
And He says, subhanahu wa ta'ala, allama
al-insana ma lam ya'lam.
He taught the insan what he knew nothing
before.
Knowledge is important.
My dear brothers and sisters, ask yourself about
the level of your religious knowledge.
Ask yourself about the level of your religious
knowledge.
Is it better than your grandmother?
Is it higher than that?
I don't know.
But if you're not really upgrading your ilm
and your knowledge and you only expect your
knowledge to grow just randomly by itself like
this, that's not going to help you.
And with all due respect, our khutbah al
-jum'ah do not necessarily give you knowledge.
It gives you motivation.
You need knowledge?
You need to come and sit in the
masjid, go to the halaqah, go to the
ilm, stand for hours, read books, say jama
'a.
That's what you need to do.
Learn with the sheikh.
That's how we do it and that's how
we stay strong.
But when we lack our religious knowledge, again,
our average Muslim person is not at that
level.
You can see when the fault lines start
being created in the entire ummah.
And the last thing, my dear brothers and
sisters, we are an ummah of a mission,
of being given responsibility.
And that responsibility is the ummah of the
last line on that frontier against chaos in
this world.
You stand for principles.
You stand for justice.
You stand for that which is right and
what is wrong.
You just defend that haqq.
You're the only people that still stand for
virtue.
When many many other groups, they start crumbling
against the pressure, we still stand for virtue.
Can you imagine, when Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala gave us this responsibility and he says,
the best nation ever produced to mankind.
For what reason?
Because of the color of our skin?
Because of our language?
No.
Because you enjoy good, forbid evil.
You promote that which is right.
Forbid that which is evil and that which
is wrong.
And he says, and you believe in Allah
azza wa jal.
He mentioned the result of that iman first,
which means because of this iman, you always
promote good and forbid evil.
Once you stop doing that, once we stop
the da'wah in our ummah, in our
community, we start falling behind big time.
Brothers and sisters, being strong in times of
weakness is very important.
And it was given to us clearly in
the Quran.
Make sure to strengthen your aqeedah and your
iman.
Make sure that your identity as a Muslim,
part of a community, is strong and complete
and perfect insha'Allah wa tabaraka wa ta
'ala.
Increase your ilm and your knowledge in your
faith.
Don't settle on one level of ilm.
Increase your ilm and your deen.
Always, always learn something new.
And make sure to promote that through your
actions and that which is good insha'Allah
wa tafuba, that which is evil.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us
among those who listen to this speech and
for the best of it.
Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, salallahu wa sallam wa baraka
nabiyyina muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa
salam taslimin kathiratun ma ba'd.
My dear brothers and sisters, the last thing
I want to mention here for us is
that alhamdulillah, keep us strong.
We are an ummah of optimism.
We always, we always see the best out
of everything, at least that's what Allah is
promoting to us in the Quran.
You might dislike something and Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is placing so much khair and
good therein for you.
It doesn't matter how hard it gets, how
difficult things happen in our society, in our
personal life, around us, everywhere.
We try to see the best out of
it.
What can we learn from that?
How can I make it right?
And we've learned that from the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam, Hayth Khabbab radiallahu ta'ala
warada, when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
was lying in the shade of the Kaaba
and he came and he said, ya Rasulallah,
ala tada'ulana, ala tastansar lana, don't you
ask Allah, shouldn't you ask Allah for victory
for us?
Shouldn't you ask Allah to help us, ya
Rasulallah?
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he
sat up and he says, qal, look, those
were before you went through more difficult trials
than yours.
And he mentioned two examples.
They will rip the flesh of their bones,
he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and they
will just bury them in the ground, but
they would never, would never quit their faith
and their iman.
Because they know that's the most valuable thing
for them.
But then he said to us, walakinnakum tasta
'ajiloon, but you're very hasty people.
You are very hasty people.
Like everything has its time, and we're ready
for it, Allah will deliver.
Brothers and sisters, it's your duty, my duty
for this to be delivered, but we need
to be at that level.
So prepare yourself with the aqeedah, with that
poor identity of a believer.
Make sure your ilm is where it should
be and at the level that it should
be.
And then participate in the khair, enjoy that
which is good and forbid that which is
evil.