A Balanced Nation

• This past week there was a conference held in St. Petersburg, Fl. that saw the coming together of figures that some would call “the other radicals”; because on one side of the Islamic continuum we have people like Usama Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and others who are so radically conservative that if you don’t follow there version of Islam strictly, and to the letter, then you are an unbeliever;
• But this conference was being held, as I mentioned, with people who I will call the other radicals, like Ibn Warraq who wrote “Why I Am Not A Muslim”, Efshin Ellian – who on threat of execution, fled Iran in 1983, and finally someone we might all be familiar with because she is from Vancouver, Irshad Manji, the self described Lesbian who wrote the book “The Problem with Islam” where she didn’t have one salient point about Islam was to blame for anything, confusing the difference between the practices of Muslims and the teachings of Islam
• But we have to realized that the answer to people like Usama are not people like Ibn Warraq, because polarization gets an ummah nowhere; the answer is to look into the Qur’an and find verses like:

And that we made you a just nation, to be a witness onto mankind”

We have made you the best of nation created from mankind, enjoining good, forbidding evil, and believing in Allah

• And it is interesting to note that the first verse I mentioned above occurs in the longest sura of the Qur’an, talks about the middle way, and appears exactly in the middle of the sura, v. 143;
• The context of the verse is the changing of the Qibla for Muslims living in Medina from Jerusalem to Mecca, and in the midst of this confusion, Allah revealed these verses talking about strict obedience to Him and following the change, but also mentioning the middle way; thus the middle way is strict obedience to Allah but with moderation; unfortunately, people have the wrong idea of what moderation really means, because some say that moderation might mean praying some times, and not always, being Muslim but not practicing…. What moderation truly means is that you follow the obligatory in Islam and be moderate about the Sunnah and nawafil:

Do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately. . .Always adopt a middle, moderate, regular course, whereby you will reach your target (of Paradise)."

• So for the other radicals, and those leaning towards that way of thinking, my answer is that we must follow what Allah has made obligatory and we must not let go of them; and if you want to do just the minimum, that is fine, as long as you do them properly and sincerely; and obviously the biggest obligations are the 5 pillars of Islam and based on the hadith of the Prophet, if you just do them, you will enter paradise.

One time a Bedoien Arab came to the Prophet and held him and said that he was Muslim and he would only pray, fast, give zakat, and go on hajj….. and then he walked away. The Prophet is reported to have said that if he only did these sincerely, then he would enter paradise

• For those who are the radicals or lean towards that way of thinking, that think that they have a right to call anyone who doesn’t follow them an unbeliever whose blood is lawful, I remind them of a hadith of the Prophet where he mentions a group of Khawarij; after mentioning that they would be the ones that kill his nephew and son in law, he mentioned that they appear outwardly Muslim (in their practices), at night they stay awake reciting qur’an and praying, and when you (the sahabas) look at them, you will think yourself as deficient in your practices, because of their outward piety, BUT, the Prophet said, they are farther from Islam than when an arrow leaves it’s bow
• And I have heard many Muslims tell me that there is no way Usama could be a terrorist, just look at how much sakina he has, he looks so pious, and I remind them of the khawarij; may Allah protect us from being both khawarij and the other radicals, and adopt a way that is the middle way;
• So Brothers and Sisters, as mentioned earlier, within our lives we must always follow the middle course; staying far away from what is radical in either direction of the continuum; but if you look at what is the middle way from your own perspective or from the perspective of the mankind, the middle way becomes relative; but Allah has given us a middle way that is absolute, it is only for us to read about it in the Qur’an and follow it;

The Prophet said that Islam is like a horse when you are riding it, if you don’t hit enough, it will never go anywhere, but if you hit it too much, it will die and then also go nowhere

• The beauty of Islam is that it is the middle way; if we follow it, then Allah promises us that we will be a witness (example) to mankind and be the best nation:

And that we made you a just nation, to be a witness onto mankind”

We have made you the best of nation created from mankind, enjoining good, forbidding evil, and believing in Allah

• And Allah also mentions in the Qur’an that He has made Islam and easy religion and not meant for it to be a burden; so if you look at the teachings of Islam with the interpretation of the scholars, you will find that with very few exceptions, every one way, there is an easier alternate, but you have to follow one; so if you can’t pray 5 separate prayers, then combine dhuhr and asr, maghreb and isha; if you are too sick to fast, don’t and postpone it or give expiation;
• So for whatever injunction there is in the Qur’an and sunnah, Allah has made it easy; and different people and different strengths and weaknesses and we should know our own, what we excel at and what are our limitations; and so if you are a strong person, then you should do more than the obligatory; but for whatever reason if you are weak, then you should do the minimum; either way, if you do it with sincerity, Allah will reward you and allow you to reach Paradise
• Finally, in speaking about moderation and the radical extremes on both sides, it is important to note a sunnah of the Prophet, that he was always harder on himself than he was on others; and unless it was a revelation, he never imposed his feelings, likes and dislikes on others; i.e. the example of him not liking lizard meat; he attended a dinner where it was being served and all enjoyed it except him; a ruler would never stand for this and would likely have the meat thrown out and would be angry; the Prophet, on the other hand, although disliking it, took a bite of it, to make sure no one had the misunderstanding that he was forbidding it;
• Likewise, we have to be very careful about how we impose our beliefs and our views about Islam on others; and like the Prophet, for whom it was mandatory to wake up at night and pray tahajjud, maybe for you, you are strong enough to do this, but that doesn’t mean that you make people lesser because they don’t do it; it might be that Allah accepts their little good deeds and rejects your thousands;
• And the middle road when looking at the qur’an is to weigh all things in totality and then come to a conclusion; so in the case of fighting and war, we should balance that with what Allah says about peace and justice; for those verses that speak about how non-Muslims will never befriend you and how they are lost, we should balance it with those verses that speak about how even some of the people of the book will enter paradise because of their sincerity and obedience to Allah;
• So moderation is to choose the middle way, practice it sincerely, tell other people about it without imposition or excommunication, and pray to Allah that He accepts it from us; when we begin to do this, which is very hard in this era of polarization, then as a Muslim Nation, we will be a witness to mankind

“Thank you for Saving my life”…. He said

Khutba delivered on March 2, 2007:

• As I was thinking last night about what I wanted to speak about today, I had come up with a fairly good topic; but this morning, I heard a story on the radio that I think is important to touch upon and I will save the other one for next time
• One of the reasons why this story appealed to me was because, as you know, I am getting my pilot’s license; so in this one, in the mid 70s, a TWA flight took off from NYC and an American Airlines took off from St. Louis, I think. They were on a collision course and the Air Traffic Contoller, after realizing this, told one of the planes to lower altitude; on the way down, the plane somehow got stuck nose down heading straight for the ground; everything happened in 90 seconds; by asking the pilot to move left and right, the ATC person was able to guide the airplane to a safe landing;
• On this radio station today, they had connected the ATC person and the pilot of the aircraft and his daughter; they had never met and this was the first time they were talking to each other after the incident; what I would like to speak about in this khutba is specifically what the daughter of the pilot said to the ATC person: “thank you for saving my father’s life; because of you he has lived 30 more years, is 82 and has 3 children and 4 grand children”
• I thought this was a very interesting comment and as I began to think about it, I thought about what I would think and say in this situation; Allah mentions in the Qur’an that “every soul shall taste death” and we know from the hadith of our Prophet that there are things that are decided for you when we are in the womb of our mothers, one of which is the time of your death, or put another way, how long you will live; so lets break her statement down, and analyze it from a Muslim perspective
• The first part is when she thanked the ATC person which is a basic instinct that all humans have; that we show appreciation for the good things people do in our lives, sometimes to us directly and other times to us indirectly; and showing gratitude is a good thing to do and can be considered an act of charity; in fact I think one can argue that we, as Muslims, don’t do it enough; sometimes saying thank you for the simple mundane things that people (mothers, fathers, children, wives, and husbands) do go unnoticed and uncomplimented; but when the are done, even if the appreciation is in the form of a smile, it can go a long way and do wonders in a relationship
• Now the second part of what the daughter said to the ATC is what I would like to focus on next: because of you, he has lived 30 more year, is 82 and has 3 children and 4 grand children; would I have said the same thing were I in that situation? Most likely not, because as a Muslim I know that no one person can control my destiny, that is up to Allah; and since the time and place of my death is written for me, then I could never attribute my long life to any one person, no matter what they did for me;
• So even in this situation, where you see a direct cause and effect – ATC did something to avoid plane disaster and saved pilot and 150 other passenger lives, we must know that a higher power is acting on our lives and it wasn’t the act done by the ATC; put another way, even if that plane would have crashed, and all the passengers would have died, the pilot would have lived, would be 82, with 3 children and 4 grand children because that is what was written for him before the time of his birth when he was in his mother’s womb;
• How can I be so sure? Because the Hadith of the Prophet is very clear: On the authority of Abdallah ibn Abbas who said: ‘One day I was behind the Prophet (SA) and he said to me: young man, I shall teach you some words of advice: be mindful of Allah, and Allah will protect you; be mindful of Allah, and you will find Allah in front of you; if you ask, ask of Allah, if you seek help, seek help of Allah; know that if the nation were to gather together to benefit you with anything, it would benefit you only with something Allah had prescribed for you; and if they gathered together to harm you with anything, they would harm you only with something that Allah had already prescribed for you, the pens have been lifted and the pages have dried”
• So if you go to the part of the hadith where the Prophet says: know that if the nation were to gather together to benefit you with anything, it would benefit you only with something Allah had prescribed for you; and if they gathered together to harm you with anything, they would harm you only with something that Allah had already prescribed for you… based on this, I know with certainty that that ATC was not the cause of the man living that day 30 years ago but rather it was Allah who had already written for the pilot how long he would live; that day 30 yrs ago, it was not his time to meet Allah and so he survived;
• Many times in our lives we are faced with situations where it seems that because of your own actions, or of someone else’s actions, you survive death; and colloquially, people say “cheated death” as an expression; sometimes, it is in an accident, other times it is a doctor performing surgery, and yet other times it might be a disease we have and we take medicine for it and seek treatment; As Muslims, however, we need to be clear in understanding that the giver and taker of life is Allah, and Allah alone; many times in the Qur’an, it says “He creates life and creates death, and he has power over all things”
• So the next time we hear of someone being saved, or you save someone, or someone saves you, it is important to thank that person, but at the same time, we should be thankful to Allah, because he allowed that person to be a vehicle for saving us because it was not our time for death; more importantly, we should reflect on the the fact that Allah has given us more time in this world to do good and stay away from evil; in the story I gave earlier about the pilot who survived a near crash, besides having on the radio the reuniting of the ATC and the pilot, which was very touching and heart-warming, I think a better story would have been to find out what the pilot did for the next 30 years of his life; did he use this experience to do good, to become better, or did he just blow it off and did nothing, which would have been a complete waste;
• So as we go through these experiences in our own lives, we should know that all of us, one day will die, that Allah is the creator of life and death, and that this experience should be used as a learning experience that we become better Muslims by;
• On the other side of this thinking, however, is that we begin not to care about life, because it is with Allah anyway; yes, our life and its span is with Allah, but even then, as Muslims, we are encouraged to live our lives to the fullest; a quote by Ali ibn Abi Talib says: “live your life as if you will live forever, and practice your deen as if you will die tomorrow” and in a hadith of the Prophet, he mentions that if a farmer is planting his harvest and the day of judgment arrives, he should continue to plant.
• As such, we should not take the idea that Allah is the creator of life and the creator of death to be a fatalistic message, but rather a message of inspiration; not as a message that no matter what we do, it doesn’t matter in the end because it is all with Allah anyway, but rather, knowing that all matters, including life and death are with Allah, are with Allah, we should go about our lives not afraid of bad consequences when we stand up for justice and truth;