Zia Sheikh – Jumuah 12112015

In the

name

of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

In the

name

of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

My dear respected elders, brothers, sisters.

In this very difficult time, a time of

turmoil, a time of difficulty throughout the world

and especially for Muslims in this country, many

people are confused as to what Islam truly

teaches.

Is Islam the teaching of those extremist groups

that claim to be running an Islamic state,

claim to be a Khilafa, claim to be

an Islamic government, claim to be on the

Quran and the Sunnah, or is Islam something

else far removed from that?

To understand what Islam truly is about, we

have to really go back to the sources,

which are the Quran and the Sunnah.

And if we go to the Quran and

the Sunnah, we'll find that the majority of

the rulings related to Islam are actually encouraging

us to have good dealings.

Whether those dealings are with Muslims or with

non-Muslims, we have to have good dealings.

The Prophet A.S. mentioned five rites of

a fellow Muslim.

And if we pay attention to those five

rites, we'll find that the Prophet A.S.

mentioned those things which are all social activities.

They are rites of a fellow Muslim.

حق الإسلام والمسلم خمس وفي رواية ست That

the five rites of a fellow Muslim are

رد السلام Responding to the salam وإيادة المريض

Visiting the sick person when he's sick اتباع

الجنائز Following the janazah, meaning praying the janazah

and following and basically staying until the burial

وإجابة الدعوة And responding to an invitation, when

a person invites you to his house for

food etc.

Responding to the dawah وتشميت العاطس That when

a person sneezes, you say رحمك الله to

him If we look at these five rites

that the Prophet A.S. mentioned, all of

them are related to social activities And none

of them really you can say are a

ritual form of worship that we implement on

a daily basis Except maybe اتباع الجنائز, basically

part of it is to pray the salatul

janazah But the rest of it is also

social in terms of providing condolences to the

family And being there for them when they

need you the most Don't be worried about

the alarm, I believe there's just some testing

going on So don't be upset inshallah, everything

is fine Allah A.S. tells us in

the Quran وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا We have

made you into a middle nation Meaning a

nation that doesn't take extremes It's not far

to the right, it's not far to the

left But it takes the middle route in

everything When it comes to religion, practicing, dealings

Everything has to be on the middle ground

And not to take extremes So this is

what this ummah is famous for And it

is something that we need to understand that

this is part of our teaching In fact

the previous nations And especially particularly the Christians

are mentioned in the Quran That adopted extremism

in religion How did they do that?

They adopted what's known as in Arabic Rahbaniyya

Becoming monks Ditching the worldly life, ditching the

world And taking vows of poverty, vows of

chastity Vows of silence and so on So

these things Allah SWT rebukes the monks for

in the Quran Allah SWT says Rahbaniyya

was

something that we did not obligate upon them

We did not make them not marry Even

the Roman Catholics, if you ask them today

That where did you get this ruling from

that the priest is not allowed to marry

They say it's not a biblical ruling It's

a church ruling Basically the Roman Catholic Church

implements it But it's not something that you'll

find in the Bible So Allah says And

then there were monks, less nowadays But there

are still some monks to this day That

practice these types of things That take for

example vows of poverty The vows of poverty

are what?

That a person says and decides that the

rest of my life I'm going to spend

like a poor person No riches, no extravagance,

nothing I'm going to live on the bare

necessities of life Then there's a vow which

is called the vow of silence That I'm

not going to talk for the rest of

my life So these vows, people practice them

Or try to practice them But they go

against human nature That is why Allah didn't

obligate these things on any religion Especially Islam

So whenever people try to become extreme in

their practice This is against the teachings of

Islam As we're going to hear later on

The Prophet also was asked O Messenger of

Allah, which of the religions is more beloved

to you, O Prophet of Allah?

He said Hanifiyyah means that a person, he's

hanif Meaning fully devoted and concentrating And he's

fully devoted to Allah SWT But also as

-samha What does as-samha mean?

Samha is from the word musamaha And it

means forgiveness, ease, relaxation, flexibility So to adopt

the ease in the religion Is what the

Prophet A.S. loved And he encouraged people

to do so So the Prophet A.S.

says The Prophet A.S. whenever he was

given the choice of two things He used

to take the easiest one And this basically

means he is shari' He is the one

who is implementing the shari' He's becoming the

means of people learning from him So he

wants to teach people That the easiest of

the two options is what you should take

And there's again the fiqhi issue behind that

Is that your madhab, you should try to

devote yourself to one ruling And one imam

But again And if you want to chop

and change between the madhab and the opinions

You have to take religious advice before doing

that You shouldn't do it on your own

And that is actually one of the reasons

That we have this kind of narrative from

such people If you notice that not a

single scholar in the world Has given approval

for this kind of behavior From these extreme

groups Not a single scholar That you can

call an alim That has studied shari' And

a person who has gone through the teachings

He has gone through the traditional means of

learning You will never find a fatwa Approving

of what these extremist groups are doing And

claiming it to be Islam So how can

there be any validity to it?

What we understand from this is then That

these people are taking a hadith And Quranic

verses And cherry picking And taking them out

of context Exactly as the non-Muslims Extremists

and right wingers Say that the Quran tells

us That is exactly how they are implementing

it So this is not what Islam is

about And this is not what Islam teaches

Islam has traditions It has methodology It has

scholars teaching their students And then those students

understanding And then when they are given permission

To give fatwas and rulings After that they

give rulings The Prophet SAW He used to

rebuke people That used to become extreme In

practicing the religion Three men came to the

wives of the Prophet SAW And they asked

about The Prophet SAW's lifestyle And when they

were told The hadith says It was as

if It was as if they felt That

the Prophet SAW's Habits and his actions Were

less than What they wanted to do They

wanted to do much more And it was

with good intent They thought That the Prophet

SAW Not practicing too much It is because

of The fact that his position is already

high His sins have been forgiven By Allah

SWT He doesn't actually commit sins Maybe he

makes mistakes And even those are forgiven by

Allah SWT But We Being regular human beings

We need to do much more than the

Prophet SAW That's why they felt That we

are going to go all out And do

whatever we can So what did they say?

One of them, he said That I'm going

to pray every single night All night Every

night I'm going to pray And not go

to sleep That was one of them The

second one says I'm going to fast all

the time I'm not going to break the

fast I'm going to have Continuous fasting And

then the third one says I'm going to

stay away from women I'm never going to

get married So the Prophet SAW Heard about

this He came to them and said Are

you those people that said Such and such

a thing They said He said I have

more khashia I have more taqwa than all

of you I have more khashia I have

more taqwa than all of you I fast

And sometimes I don't fast I pray some

part of the night And I sleep part

of the night And I get married To

women Whoever turns away from my sunnah He

is not from me Whoever turns away from

my sunnah He is not from me So

we see from this that we cannot Go

to extremes in religion We are not allowed

to adopt extremes in religion The Prophet SAW

He said in another hadith Indeed the religion

is easy Whenever the deen is competed with

The deen will overpower a person How does

that happen Think about these three people These

three sahaba That took it upon themselves that

we are going to do X, Y and

Z actions How long can a human being

Stay awake every single night All night and

pray One month Two months Finally the body

is going to give in How long can

a person Fast every single day And not

become weak After a couple of months The

body gives in and a person becomes weak

He will ultimately give it up How long

can a person stay awake From getting married

There will come a time After one month

or two months Or six months or a

year When a person will feel That I

need to get married Otherwise he may even

Fall to the Depravity and The bad sin

that Many of these so called Priests have

committed Because of the fact That they could

not fulfill their Natural needs In the way

that Allah SWT Had allowed for them By

getting married So this is ultimately What is

going to happen You will be defeated We

will be defeated if we Try to implement

the religion In an extreme way So the

hadith goes on to say Saddidu means Try

to perfect the religion as much as possible

Wa qaribu means That if you cannot perfect

it completely Then at least try to get

as close as possible Wa abshiru Abshiru and

give glad tidings What does that mean?

Give glad tidings means That you don't just

condemn everybody to the hellfire When many people

They become religious They start giving fatwas left

right and center That this is bina, this

is shirk This is this and this is

that This is haram And they don't have

a clue really Whether what they are saying

is correct or not They think it is

correct But on many occasions it is not

So abshiru means Give glad tidings to people

Don't condemn people In another hadith The Prophet

said Give glad tidings And don't make people

hate Islam And make things easy Don't make

things difficult for people So we need to

If we are adopting religion And becoming more

religious We need to make sure that Whatever

ruling we give It is with the religious

guidance And not fatawa that we are giving

out of our pockets And just because We

are becoming extreme ourselves We want to become

extreme for other people too So this is

not what Islam teaches And then The hadith

goes on to say The same hadith Seek

the help of Allah SWT In a little

bit in the morning A little bit in

the evening And a part of the night

So in the morning basically what you do

You do a little bit of worship in

the morning Which is the best time is

after fajr Or even tahajjud time And even

A little bit in the evening After asr

Between asr and maghrib or just before maghrib

This is a blessed time A time where

duas are accepted And a part of the

night, not all night A part of the

night you perform tahajjud Stay asleep all night

Nowadays Fajr is at around 5.45 So

around 5.20 5.25 set the alarm,

wake up In 5 minutes perform wudu Pray

2 rakaat, 4 rakaat You've performed qiyamul layl

You've done tahajjud 20 minutes before the normal

time of fajr And you have fulfilled Qiyamul

layl You have performed tahajjud It doesn't have

to be 3 o'clock in the morning,

4 o'clock in the morning Get a

good rest And then perform tahajjud This is

what Islam teaches It doesn't teach us that

we are Supposed to Become extreme in practicing

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in

Hadith The mutanati'oon Have been destroyed, they

are destroying themselves Mutanati'oon People that are

taking Extremism In their lives In another hadith

Because This extremism in religion It

destroyed the people that came before you So

the summary is My dear brothers and sisters

That Allah s.w.t has given us

a religion It is a religion That has

to be practiced According to the understanding of

the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam According to

the teaching of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa

sallam If we come out of The boundary

of that teaching, out of those Limitations, then

we are Adopting something which is not Islam

And extremism In any way, shape or form

It's out of the boundaries of Islam So

I pray that Allah s.w.t Gives

us tawfiq to understand and practice What has

been said and heard He protects us from

these forms of extremism And gives us the

Tawfiq to practice Islam as it should be

practiced