Khutba: Trials And Tribulations: The Hurricanes of 2005

• As I speak right now, literally millions are fleeing the areas of Houston and Galveston; today it is Rita, last month it was Katrina, and at the end of last year, it was the Tsunami
• And for all of us living through these, we must take notice and heed the lessons of what all this means
• We must realize that the Messenger of Allah has informed us that among the signs of the The Hour is the appearance of trials and they shall continue to appear until The Hour comes; doesn’t mean the hour is near; it could be, but if it is not, there is a lot more of this to come; the reason we don’t know about time, is that another sign of The Hour is coming of our beloved Messenger, Muhammed; and it has been 1400 years;
• One of the lessons we can learn as we see these things unfolding around us is that Allah can make this happen anytime, anywhere; prior to the two Hurricanes, we could have easily said that the calamities were only happening in poor parts of the world; that the rich could never suffer from the same; but we cannot say this any more
• These are living examples of how Allah wipes out civilizations; in Sura Fajr (6-14), Allah is clear as to what happens and why:

Do you not see how your Lord dealt with ‘Ad?
Who were very tall like lofty pillars
The like of which were not created in the land?
And Thamud, who cut out rocks in the valley
And Pharoah who had pegs (for torture)
Who did transgress beyond bounds in the lands
And made therin much mischief
So your Lord poured on them different kinds of sever torment
Verily your Lord is ever Watchful

• At that time, the civilizations of ‘Ad, Thamud, and Pharoah were the best of their times; biggest, best, most educated, strongest, and from what they thought, undefeatable; and because the disobeyed Allah, not minor disobedience, Allah wiped them out;
• And the same happened in New Orleans; known for its casinos, partying, fornication, and Mardi Gras, all that destroyed within a blink of an eye; the wisdom of this happening only manifests itself in time; maybe 100 years from now, history will write the lessons learned from this catastrophe, but for us living in the moment, we need to draw our own conclusions and act upon them; is this a punishment from Allah? Is it a sign of how we, as a society are deviating from His commandments? The fact that this is a torment can be downplayed because it is mentioned in Sura Fajr, as I mentioned earlier, but also in Sura Noor: 63, Allah say:

“And let those who oppose the Messenger’s commandments beward lest some trials befall them or a painful torment be inflicted upon them”

• And there are many things happening in our times that are transgressions of Allah’s commandments; specifically in New Orleans, I mentioned what happens there; but in the US in general, it is a feeling that has afflicted many civilizations that have come before us, that of hubrious: arrogant pride; that we can do anything we want cause we are the best; we don’t have to take heed of what Allah has forbidden; so as a whole society, we are drowning in riba, for which Allah says that He and His Messenger will declare war upon us; as vice-gerents on this earth, we are not fulfilling our obligations because we continue to destroy the environment, thinking it will not affect us; but it does affect us, and if we don’t realize it, there might be an even bigger calamity waiting for us
• And so for the people directly in the path of destruction, their physical trial is the hardship they have to face; but there is also another trial that not only they face, but we do also, even if we are living thousands of miles away; this trial is of our faith, because during this time, Shaitan comes to us and whispers thoughts of blasphemy:

“why would Allah do this?”
“why did so many people have to die”
“maybe there is no God, because if there was, He wouldn’t let this happen”

• These are thoughts that come to people that are weak in faith; and we are all weak so we all will get these thoughts; Ibn al-Qayyim said: Allaah’s protection and defending of Muslims will be in accordance with their remembrance of Him. So whoever is more perfect in faith and remembrance will have greater protection and defence from Allaah and whoever has less faith and remembrance gets less defence and protection.’
• and in many ways, this trial of faith is much more dangerous than the physical trial, because it will affect our life in the hereafter wherein if we give in to the whispers of Shaitan, we will have lost faith in Allah;
• So we have to know that these calamities will happen to all, because Allah says they will:

“And fear the trials which affect not in particular those of you who do wrong (Anfaal: 25)

• But we should also remember that these things happen from our own doings, that we reap the benefits and the torments of what we sow”; but if we hold fast to His Book and Sunnah, then we will be successful; how, because as a true believer, you will not get tested with the whispers of Shaitan, and if you are physically tested, then as a believer, you will look at this as a test or an expiation of your sins; either way, you succeed
• The last thing I want to mention, is that living so far away from this event, it gives us an opportunity to do good deeds; one person’s hardship is another person’s opportunity; there are people in need, muslims and non-muslims alike and it is incumbent upon us to to give from our time and wealth; we need to give sadaqah to the non-Muslims suffering, and we need to give zakat to the Muslims who are suffering;
• Right now, even though some of us are helping, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are asking “where are the Muslims in all this” because there is no coverage in the media about our efforts; We need to keep in mind that we can only tell people what we are doing, but our sincerity should not sway; we should be sincere in helping people not to show others that we care, but because we genuinely care; if we remember this, then everything will take care of itself; the people one helps will have a good idea about Muslims no matter what the media says;
• In the beginning of Bukhari’s collection of hadith, he starts with “inna ‘amalu bin niyyah” verily deeds are judged by intention and goes on in the rest of the hadith to talk about the purpose of hijrah; that some did it for the messenger of Allah, and others did it for material gains; and the hadith says that each will get what he intended; and in commentary, it says that the people who migrated for material gain will get no reward for doing it, but may get the material gains
• Similarly, in our efforts to help the people who have suffered, we can either help them because Allah tells us to help the feeding of the needy in sura Ma’un, or we can do it to attract media attention that tries to tell people that we are good citizens; if we do it because Allah tells us to, then we will get rewarded in the hereafter and possibly in this life by the media attention; but if we only do it for the media, then we might or might not get it, but we will definitely get no reward in the hereafter;

The Era of Hope

This past week, I took at trip to the Arabian Gulf for the Islamic Funds World 2005 Conference. The trip, in and of itself was good, with the details being below. However, I must say that it is a looooooooooong trip. I started off from Bellingham to Seattle to New York to London. I had an entire day in London as I arrive on Saturday morning and my flight did not leave until Saturday night. I took a trip into the city where I met up with my cousin. I went to a branch location of the Islamic Bank of Britain, but they had just closed 5 minutes before I arrived. They are in a good location in a predominantly Muslim area of London called Edgware Rd. I wanted to at least pick up some brochures from them, including account applications. I had submitted a request on their website for information, with no luck.

The flight to Kuwait City was 6 hrs. We left at 11:00 pm and arrived at 8:00 am. The last time I was in Kuwait was in 1999 and much has changed since. I met up with an old friend who is involved in the Islamic Insurance Industry (Takaful). We hung out the whole day and he took me around to meet others that I knew and to show me the developments. Kuwait, as I mentioned, has grown tremendously. I counted at least 10 new high rise buildings that did not exist when I was last there. One was the hotel I was staying at, Four Points Sheraton. Kuwait is benefiting from three things: the high price of oil, the war in Iraq, and the fact that Saddam is no longer in power. After the invasion of Kuwait and its subsequent liberation, Kuwaitis were still scared that another attack might come some day. Obviously, that no longer is the case and thus confidence is very high. It shows in the real estate values as well as the performance of the stock market, which is up 36.97% as of the end of June. In the area of Islamic Finance and Investing, things are going great as well. Kuwait is dominated by Kuwait Finance House which is an Islamic Bank, but later this month, a second bank sponsored by the government is starting, known as Bobyan Bank, capitalized by the Kuwaiti government with approx. US $1 billion. I actually met with the Chairman and CEO before I left as I knew him from previous trips. Overseeing the launch of the bank, he was very busy so we only had 30 minutes to meet. We talked about the situation in Kuwait and the fact that the returns are not sustainable. He told that the even though Kuwait suffered a major crash in mid-80s, then the tech bubble in the US (which most Kuwaitis were invested in), has not contained their enthusiasm for the future. Seems that the financial guys I met were cautious but mentioned that this is what the citizens are asking for, so what can they do. We also talked about the fact that most Kuwaitis are demanding Islamic products and as such, many conventional companies are either beginning to offer windows to Islamic products, or completely reinventing themselves. As for Kuwaitis demanding more products, he gave his own example where a few years ago he did not care and/or believe in the Islamic Investing and Finance Industry. Now, he is the head of bank strictly in this field.

After leaving Kuwait, I went to Dubai and arrived the night before the conference. I had only been to Dubai only once before, in 1998, and again, like Kuwait, it has changed so much. In fact, when looking at construction, it is far ahead of Kuwait. The street I was staying was a new "downtown" erected in the past 5 years. Each building in this area was not less than 30 stories tall, and some much higher. There is a new building coming up called the Burj Duabi and will be the tallest building in the world when completed, standing 189 stories tall. I did not have a chance to go inside the world famous Burj Al-Arab hotel that is built in the sea. It is booked throughout the year with minimum rate of US $500 /night. It is a tourist attraction so for the privacy of the guests, unless you staying there or have reservations to the restaurant, you have to pay US $100 just to get in and look around. It is a huge structure and very gaudy. Close to the top, there is a heli-pad that from the ground, in comparison to the hotel, looks like a small saucer built more for design than anything else. Dubai is a very interesting place and it definitely lives up to the name it tries to market "where East meets West". To give you an idea of what I mean, one small incident epitomizes what Dubai culture is all about. I was waiting to for an elevator one morning and when the door opened, I had to do a double take and wished I had a camera with me. In the elevator were two couple. The one one the right was an Emarati couple, the man dressed in traditional arab dress and head dress. Next to him was his wife dressed in black from head to tow. On the left was a European couple, with the man dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and the woman wearing a bikini. Both were talking amongst themselves, minding their own business. I guess this is why Europeans love to come to Dubai, for the freedom it offers. On my return flight from Dubai, I was sitting next to an Irish couple who come every year to Dubai for vacation. They told me they love the luxury, beaches, and the gold is cheap too.

The one other thing that I noticed there that has been tough to find throughout the Muslim world, especially here in America, amongst Muslims: hope. Everyone I spoke to was very optimistic about the future. With oil prices sky high, real estate in the region to very well, and the stock market even better, the optimism is justified, but a little scary. In Dubai, as I was speaking to people, it reminded me of when I visited Silicom Valley in the late 90s. People kept trying to convince me to move over there and that was the place to be. Very similar to what I found in Kuwait and Dubai. I just pray that their exuberance doesn't get to there head, that they are realistic, and at the same time, give thanks were thanks is due. Surah Kahf gives us a great example of what happens when you attribute success to yourself and not to the Creator, the Provider of Sustenance.