Best of Speech

As some of you know, I have just recently completed a documentary about an American Muslim who learns to fly called “On A Wing And A Prayer”. It is getting good reviews and in fact this past Monday, it was on the front page of the Bellingham Herald; there were many comments that were made; over 100 as I am writing this khutba

Some of them were supportive, while most were filled with hate, ignorance, and misunderstanding; and as the subject of the article, it is very easy to get depressed about the comments, let alone if you are a Muslim reading them; but one can look at it from the glass being half full empty (see, they do hate us), or can view it as the glass being half full (that we have an opportunity here to do good); give dawa, educate people about Islam; so this is what I would like to speak about in my khutba today; Allah mentions in the Qur’an:

And who is better in speech that he who invites to Allah and does righteous deeds and says: “I am one of the Muslims”

The good deed and the eveil deed cannot be equal. Repel (the evil) with one which is better; then verily, he, between whom and you there was enmity, will become as though he was a close friend

But none is granted it except those who are patient, and none is granted it except the owner of the great portion

And if an evil whisper from Shaitan trist to turn you away, then seek refuge in Allah. Verily, He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower

And next week, the MSA is doing an Islamic Awareness Week and inviting their friends and fellow college students to get to know Islam from Mulims; and as we go out and call people to Allah, there are some rules we must follow;

And who is better in speech that he who invites to Allah and does righteous deeds and says: “I am one of the Muslims”

Allah is saying here that the best of speech is the call that one makes to Allah; during the time of the Prophet when he was in Mecca, and to a lesser extent nowadays, most people are not calling others to Allah; far from it, they are not even practicing Islam because it is dangerous to be Muslim; this first part of the verse is a reminder that there is nothing more important that to invite people to Allah; that we can friends with them, hang out with them. Be a good example to non-Muslims, but at the end of the day, there has to be an invite;

Many people have used the example of the people of Indonesia and how they came into Islam because of the trade that was established between the Arab Muslims and the Java people; and this is partly true, but at a certain point, even the Arabs had to tell the people “accept Allah”; in the same way, you have neighbors that you meet , say hi to, kids play with, but it is taken to another level when you invite them to your house!!!

But inviting to Allah is not enough, because in order to do it effectively, you have to yourself do righteous deeds; if you were evil, have vulgar speech, then nobody would want to follow what you are believing; and look at the example of our messenger and all the ones that came before him, they were all righteous, upstanding, outstanding human beings that made a call to Allah;

And finally, in the verse, Allah mentions that best person is one who says he is “…one of the Muslims”; we shouldn’t hide our identity, not be ashamed of it, practice our faith to its fullest and be proud yet thankful that Allah has blessed us with Islam;

The good deed and the eveil deed cannot be equal. Repel (the evil) with one which is better; then verily, he, between whom and you there was enmity, will become as though he was a close friend

Idfa’ billati hea ahsan: repel evil with something better; something we must as Muslims keep in mind; good and evil are not equal, so in the long run, cannot fight evil with evil; it must be with that which is better; good deeds, kindness; as mentioned earlier, with the comments on the article, very easy to respond to the vulgar comments with yourself writing vulgar comments, but that would not solve anything; if you respond with good, it might change the heart and mind of the person with Allah’s help;

The Prophet said “kindness makes things beautiful, violence makes them defective”; and in a hadith related by Abdallah ibn Mugaffal, the Prophet says, “verily Allah is kind and loves kindness. In return for it, a servant may receive what he will never receive through violence

So we have been talking about the importance of inviting people to Allah, and in Sura Fussilat in verse 33, Allah mentions the best of speech being that of inviting people to Allah, doing righteous deeds, and proclaiming that you are one of the Muslims; Allah goes on to mention a very important point that we, especially in this age, when we see violence being retaliated with violence, must keep in mind, that we have to repel evil with good;

Next Allah mentions that when you repel evil with good, something extraordinary happens; that your enemy will become a close friend; that hate will turn into love; what a powerful and beautiful phenomenon!!! We have many examples we can use here; Israelis and Palestinians; Al-Qaeda vs. the US; in all of these, imagine that rather than spewing hate and committing acts of violence, Muslims responded to the evils with good; would that change the tide of the war or the occupation? Allah says it will, but in the least, what do we have to lose? Whatever we have done has not worked!!!!

But none is granted it except those who are patient, and none is granted it except the owner of the great portion

This is not easily attained; we must have sabr; patience and perseverance; it is not easy to fight evil with good; our nafs tells us to fight back, to retaliate, but Allah is telling us differently; do good, be patient, and all will work itself out; Allah similarly says:

And if the ignorant approaches you, say to him a word of “peace”.

And finally, how do we do this? How do we not let our animal nature overtake our human nature?

And if an evil whisper from Shaitan trist to turn you away, then seek refuge in Allah. Verily, He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower

We have to know that the evil is an act of Shaitan; evil done by others is an act of Shaitan, and our thoughts of doing evil is a whisper of Shaitan; and the way to stay away is to seek refuge in Allah; and the best way to do this, as I mentioned last week, is to hold fast to our prayers.