Zia Sheikh – Muslim Identity in the West Jumuah 02262016
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the negative impact of living in non-keyium countries and the importance of living in a non-keyium country for achieving Islam's guidance. They also touch on the history of theads of Islam, including the split of opinion between Greek and Turkish areas, the history of Islam, and the importance of participating in political events and volunteer activities to improve the political environment. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being honest, respecting others, and participating in political events to improve the political environment.
AI: Summary ©
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 and sisters, most
of us are immigrants to this country.
If not first generation, then we are probably
second generation immigrants.
And we probably have heard from our parents
or we, if we are first generation, we
have thought to ourselves or contemplated that what
is the future of ourselves, our families and
our progeny in this country.
There are different thoughts that go through a
person's mind which we hear all the time.
Some people are of the opinion that we
need to go back home as soon as
possible, wherever they think home may be.
Whereas the reality is that the majority of
people that have come here, they rarely go
back.
And if they do try to make an
effort to relocate back to their country of
origin, more often than not, within a couple
of years, they are back here because they
cannot get used to that system that they
left behind, system of inefficiency, sometimes bribery, cronyism
and problems that we know exist back in
our so-called Muslim countries.
So many of them come back when they
even try to relocate to their countries of
origin.
And some people think that we need to
isolate ourselves as much as possible to protect
us from the quote-unquote evil environment that
we are living in.
And this is again, it has its positives
and it has its negatives.
The positives in the sense that the Muslims
insulate themselves and they isolate themselves and it
protects the children, it protects the sisters and
there is kind of like a neighbourly feel
to the people living in a particular locality
which are all Muslims and that is its
positive.
But the negative consequence of this is to
the outside world, those areas become ghettoised and
they become like ghettos and which we heard
a year or so ago, some news outlets,
they were calling them no-go areas, particularly
in England and France where non-Muslims do
not even dare to go in.
So that's the image that people have of
these isolated areas and insulated areas where only
Muslims are residing in and the attitude is
for those people, the non-Muslims, that we
shouldn't even try to go in there because
those areas are dangerous.
So it has pros and cons.
And then there is a third kind of
attitude that people have that they immerse themselves
in the culture so much with an attitude
of when in Rome, do as the Romans
do, that they even forget about their origin,
they forget what their names were and in
this society we have had many people that
actually change their names from Muslim sounding names
to westernised names so that they kind of
fit in completely.
In fact, if anybody has had the opportunity
to get the citizenship of this country, there
is an option when you are applying for
your citizenship or when you get approved for
your citizenship that when you get your certificate,
you have the option to have your name
changed for free.
So that becomes an incentive for people to
say, okay, my name, people have had difficulty
pronouncing it every time I go anywhere to
the DMV or to apply for a credit
card or whatever reason that people have, they
say, I am going to change my name.
And sometimes it doesn't stop at just simply
changing the name.
People immerse themselves in the society so much
that when they are around non-Muslim friends,
they will eat and drink anything that their
non-Muslim friends are eating and drinking.
And they will engage in those activities which
their non-Muslim friends are engaging in without
a care for what the Islamic ruling is
for those activities that they are engaging in.
And it is about such people that Allah
SWT has said, وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ نَسُوا اللَّهَ
فَأَنسَاهُمْ أَنفُسَهُمْ Don't be like those people that
forgot Allah SWT and when they forgot Allah
SWT, they even forgot themselves.
Or Allah SWT made them forget themselves.
So this is what happens to those people,
they forget their origin, they forget the culture
that they are from, they forget the rules
and regulations that they grew up with and
the ethics and the morals that were ingrained
into them and they become completely different.
And then those kinds of people, you will
only see them at two times in the
masjid, either at the time of performing the
wedding, a nikah ceremony or at the time
of a funeral.
And it's a very sad state of affairs
when you see that happening.
You see people, the children of such people
coming in and they don't have a clue
as to what to do when it comes
to the positions of prayer, how to pray
and they look around aimlessly wondering what to
do next and they basically just stand next
to their parents or their uncle or whoever
they came with just following along as the
elder who has a little bit of an
idea of praying salat, they just follow along.
So that's a very sad state of affairs.
Muslims, we need to understand what is the
best course of action for us when we
are living in a Western environment.
How should we be living and how should
we be dealing with the outside environment?
This is what we need to understand.
The first question is, is it haram to
stay in a Muslim country?
That's the first question.
And many people, you will hear many fatawa
that are thrown around about the issue of
whether it's halal or haram to stay in
a non-Muslim country and you will probably
hear that it's absolutely haram, it's absolutely impermissible
for a person to live in a society
which does not practice Islam and the rules
are against Islam.
But the reality is that many of us
came from so-called Muslim countries and so
-called Islamic countries where the name is Islamic
but all of the habits are completely against
the ethics, the morals and the principles laid
down by Islam.
So where do we go?
Do we leave a society, this society, which
on the face of it is not religious,
it's away from religion, there's a separation between
church and state and go back to a
facade of Islam or an outside view of
Islam but internally everything is hollow.
What do we do?
So the question really is, is it actually
haram to stay in a non-Muslim country?
The Prophet actually said about the non-Muslims,
he praised some non-Muslims for the habits
and the morals that they will implement even
up until the Day of Judgment.
So even the Prophet a.s. appreciated some
morals that the non-Muslims, particularly the Christians,
implemented and there's a hadith that Sheikh Salah
Sawi mentioned the other day, he was giving
a lecture, beautiful hadith, in which he mentioned
four qualities that the Prophet a.s. counted
about the Christian non-Muslims and those habits
that they will maintain until the Day of
Judgment.
So is it haram to live in a
non-Muslim country?
We will find that the Prophet a.s.
actually encouraged people to go to a non
-Muslim country when their Islam was under threat
in the most holiest place in the world,
which was Mecca.
The most blessed place in which each Salat
is multiplied or each deed is multiplied 100
,000 times, the Prophet a.s. for the
Muslims, he told them to take refuge in
a non-Muslim environment.
So this is an amazing thing that we
need to learn from this action of the
Prophet a.s. There's a verse in the
Quran, Surah Az-Zumar, verse 10.
Allah s.w.t. says قُلْ يَا عِبَادِ
الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا رَبَّكُمْ مِنْ لَذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا فِي
هَٰذِهِ الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَأَرْضُوا اللَّهِ وَاسِعَةً إِنَّمَا يُوَفَّى
الصَّابِرُونَ أَجْرَهُمْ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ Tell them, O Prophet
of Allah, O my slaves that have the
awareness of your Lord, O my slaves that
have the, that, actually the translation is, have
awareness of your Lord.
لِلَّذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا It's a command.
لِلَّذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا فِي هَٰذِهِ الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً Those people
that do good in this world, they will
get hasana.
They will get a good out of it.
Whether that is good in this world or
the good of the hereafter.
They will get a good out of it.
And then the main point is, وَأَرُضُ اللَّهِ
وَاسِعَةً The earth of Allah SWT is vast.
The earth of Allah SWT is vast.
Go to any place where you can practice
your Islam freely.
Go to any place where there is religious
freedom and you are not going to be
persecuted for your religion.
Go to that place and do not be
ashamed of living there.
Allah goes on to say, إِنَّمَا يُوَفَّى الصَّابِرُونَ
أَجْرَهُمْ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ Indeed, those people that are
patient and steadfast, they will get their reward
without any kind of reckoning.
According to Imam Tabari or Imam Qurtubi, that
this verse was actually addressing Ja'far ibn
Abi Talib, one of the emigrants from Mecca
to Abyssinia.
And then there is a hadith of the
Prophet SAW.
There is a riwayah.
Umm Salama, one of the wives of the
Prophet SAW, she narrates that when we were
staying in Mecca and it became difficult upon
us, the companions of the Prophet SAW were
being harmed and tested and they saw trials
and tribulations in their deen.
The Prophet SAW could not defend them and
the Prophet himself was under the protection of
his people and his uncle.
The things that his companions had to endure
didn't affect him as badly as it did
to them.
So the Prophet SAW was protected by his
uncle Abu Talib and because of that, he
didn't have to face the same difficulty as
the other Muslims had to face.
So what did he tell them?
He told them, indeed in the land of
Abyssinia, Habesha, nowadays Ethiopia, there is a king,
nobody is oppressed in front of him.
So go and stay in his lands until
Allah SWT opens up a way for you
and an exit from the troubles that you
are in.
So Umm Salama says, we left towards Abyssinia
in groups until we gathered there and we
descended from the best place to the best
neighbor.
We left the best place, which is Makkah
al-Mukarramah and then we found the best
neighbor in this king of Abyssinia.
We were at peace with our religion and
we were not afraid of any oppression.
So it is very very clear that the
Prophet SAW, he encouraged people to even go
to a non-Muslim country where they were
in safety and they were not going to
be oppressed because of their religion.
So it seems that it is perfectly permissible
to live in a non-Muslim environment.
There is another beautiful riwayah in which the
Prophet SAW was excited when he foresaw in
the future that his followers are going to
go to far off lands to spread the
word of Islam.
It is narrated by Anas bin Malik.
I have the whole Arabic in front of
me.
I am not going to do that because
of lack of time.
Anas bin Malik says that Allah's Apostle, the
Prophet SAW used to visit Umm Haram bint
Milhan who would offer him something to eat.
Umm Haram was the wife of Ubadah ibn
Samit.
The Prophet SAW once visited her and she
provided him with food and started looking for
lice in his head.
She was actually related to him.
There are different interpretations or different views as
to what the relationship actually was but the
fact that she was taking lice from his
head would show that she was actually one
of the Muharim of the Prophet SAW.
Then Allah's Apostle went to sleep and afterwards
as he woke up smiling, Umm Haram asked,
What is causing you to smile, O Prophet
of Allah?
Ma adhakaka ya Rasulallah.
He said, Some of my followers were presented
to me in a dream as people striving
in Allah's cause on board a ship amidst
and they were sailing along in the sea
and this made me smile because they were
sitting on these ships just like kings sit
on thrones.
Just like kings sit on thrones.
So Umm Haram said, O Allah's Apostle, make
dua to Allah SWT that he makes me
from amongst them.
She was eager to be amongst those people
that went far and wide to propagate the
Deen of Allah SWT.
And then Allah's Apostle made dua for her
and he slept again and woke up smiling
and again he saw the same dream and
he was smiling when he woke up.
Umm Haram asked him the same question and
he told him the same answer that I
saw in my dream people striving to propagate
my Deen and fighting in Allah's cause and
Umm Haram said, O Allah's Apostle, make dua
that I am amongst them.
He said, You are amongst the first people,
the one that goes on ships and propagates
the Deen of Allah SWT.
You are amongst them.
In the second dream, he didn't mention anything
about the ship.
In the first dream, it was ships and
she was actually one of the people that
went far and wide with her husband to
propagate the Deen.
And the funny or the strange thing is
that she is actually buried in Europe, in
Cyprus.
On one of the expeditions, she was riding
a mule in Cyprus.
She fell down and broke her neck and
she is buried actually in Cyprus which is
obviously in Europe.
So again her dua was accepted and she
was martyred in the path of Allah SWT
while propagating the Deen of Allah SWT according
to what the Prophet had told her would
happen.
And if anybody is familiar with Cyprus, Cyprus
is actually split up into two parts.
One is the Greek area and the other
is the Turkish area.
The Turkish area is populated by Muslims, the
Greek area is populated by the Greek Orthodox
Christians and the grave of Umm Haram is
actually on the Greek side.
But it is one of those areas, there
is a masjid there and it is a
UNESCO protected site.
And it has a huge history of Muslims
and kings especially during the Ottoman Empire.
It is mentioned that when ships used to
pass by this grave of Umm Haram, they
used to lower their masks, their flag at
half mask out of respect for Umm Haram's
grave and also they used to fire off
cannons in salute for the fact that she
was buried there.
So this was the history of Umm Haram
who the Prophet s.a.w. foresaw and
foretold that she would be amongst those people
that travel far and wide to propagate the
Deen of Allah s.w.t. So again
it shows that the Prophet did not think
negatively about people that went to non-Muslim
countries as long as the intention was to
propagate the Deen of Allah s.w.t.
So this is again the summary of today's
khutbah and the focus of today's khutbah is
that when we are in this environment and
it is highly unlikely that we are going
to leave this environment then we need to
make sure that we try to influence the
environment as positively as we can, as much
as we can.
And that is first and foremost we need
to let Islam and practice Islam be good
practicing Muslims because as soon as people find
out about us that we are Muslims then
the people are watching us to see what
we are like.
Okay, so as soon as a person finds
out our name is Muhammad or Ahmed or
Abdullah or Abdulrahman then immediately the people are
watching us and they will scrutinize us to
see how we are acting in our day
to day lives.
Each and every action of ours is going
to be under scrutiny.
So we have to make sure that we
are honest, we don't cheat, we have good
manners, we are polite and we do everything
that we can to make sure that we
give a positive image of Islam.
The second thing is that we need to
contribute positively towards the society that we are
living in.
And one of the things that the American
people are known for is the fact that
they volunteer all the time.
They help out in society all the time.
And this is something that we as a
community are lacking in a lot.
Unless the masjid does something or initiates something,
the majority of us, we tend to kind
of be introverted, stay within our community and
not worry about what's going on outside us.
We don't worry about the environment, we don't
worry about voting, we don't worry about the
poor, the homeless, making sure that we try
to work in the soup kitchens.
All of these things are frequented by non
-Muslims, by non-Muslim charities, by churches and
so on.
And we as a community fall very far
short of engaging ourselves in these things.
And the third thing we need to make
sure is that when it comes to the
elections, we need to participate as much as
possible.
Many people, they are still hung up on
this issue of whether it's halal or haram
to vote.
The reality is that if we look at
the history of this country, we will find
that things never changed for people until they
themselves got involved and they tried to change
the system from within.
Look at the civil rights movement, look at,
you know, what the previous other religions have
done for themselves and forged out a place
for themselves in society.
So all minorities, they went through these phases
in which they went through so many difficulties
and the only way that change happened for
them was when they got involved and tried
to make the change by themselves.
And in this country, the only way to
do that is to be involved politically and
mostly on a local level.
Local level, we need to be involved politically
and when the elections come around, we need
to make sure that we vote.
Today actually is the last day of early
voting for the primaries.
You need to make sure that you get
out there and cast your vote to make
sure that we have a good candidate that
we can vote for in the main elections.
We know what's going on in the elections
right now.
We know the situation and the rhetoric that
is being thrown around and if we still
choose to sit at home and hope that
nothing is going to happen to us and
Muslims are going to not have a hard
time if certain individuals get elected, then really
we should think again as to what my
attitude and what my role should be in
these elections.
It is not something that we should take
lightly.
The question is, we see these politicians spouting
anti-Muslim rhetoric and by doing that, this
is the most worrying thing, the most worrying
thing is that the poll numbers of those
candidates, it's boosted when they do that.
It means that there's a willing public to
listen to them and to follow them if
they want to follow through with these anti
-Islamic sentiments.
That's a worrying thing.
Yes, if the person was just saying anti
-Muslim stuff and that went negatively against him
and people didn't listen to him because of
the negativity that he is spouting, then that
would be something different.
But we see that it's being accepted wholesale
by people and the poll numbers are being
boosted by that.
That is a worrying sign and we should
recognize that unless and until we get involved,
things could take a turn for the worst.
So these are the things that we need
to think about as Muslims living in a
non-Muslim environment.
I pray that Allah protects us, protects our
progeny, protects our families, protects our communities from
all forms of evil and gives us the
tawfiq and ability to stand up and fight
for our rights.