Friday, November 18, 2011

KHUTBAH : STRUGGLE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SEERAH - PART 3

THE STREET MIMBAR
JUM'AH KHUTBAH (18 November 2011)
PLEASE e-mail Suggestions & Criticisms to khutbahs@yahoo.com
It is in such a manner that We make plain Our signs so that the course of the
Criminals may become clear.
Bismillah Ar-Rahmaan Ar-Raheem.
Alhumdulillah. Peace and blessings on Muhammad (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam), his Noble Companions and Family.
Dear Committed Muslims, Brothers and sisters …
 
 
STRUGGLE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SEERAH - PART 3
Before we quote some ayaat we want to say that when Muslims work for Allah, they are not working in a vacuum; when Muslims sacrifice their time and effort it does not go un-noticed by Allah. The Prophet of Allah and the sacrificing and struggling Muslims with him endured, put-up with whatever pressures came their way. We think we looked, (as far as we could), into the first few years of that struggle that would change the face of the world in the years to come. What happens is it is not only Allah who tales notice of what His obedient subjects are doing, it is also the Shayateen of An Ins and Al Jinn who are also taking notice of what committed Muslims are doing. In the heart and mind of Muslims of taqwa it doesn't matter what Shayateen An Ins and Al Jinn are saying or doing. They have their hearts and they have their efforts set on Allah's objectives, on doing the will of Allah and so Islam begins to gain momentum. In adverse times when Muslims are under pressure Islam itself begins to become a movement. When the Muslims were forced into the hijrah, when they were intimidated, when they were harassed, when all sorts of pressure came down on them, Islam began to echo outside of Makkah. There were some people who were interested in Islam who were outside the immediate struggle for and against Islam within Makkah. There's a person by the name of At Tufayl ibn Amr Ad Dawsi (radi Allahu anhu) who was not one of the people of Makkah. He was not a person who resided inMakkah but he was a person well known in the society and culture of that time and he responded to the message of Islam thus becoming a committed Muslim himself. This scored negatively in the minds of the people who are running the power structure of Makkah (i.e.) how come a person who doesn't live here, who's not one of us- he may have rank in his own society, he may have a word of influence in his own region- is joining Muhammad and those who are with him? It's something that they can't figure out but it's something that Allah has figured out. This is the way that Islam works. When this power structure inside Makkahfigured out as much as we are trying to inhibit this Islam and to limit this Islam and to smother this Islam in Makkah immediately they begin to realise that wait a minute- Islam is beginning to have a presence at a distance from Makkah in other parts of Arabia. Then they began to hear that Islam also has it's reverberations across the Red Sea in Al Habashah in Africa which they couldn't take any longer so they began a policy here of eradicating Islam. They wanted to terminate Islam altogether, exterminate this Islam. They were set on doing that. This, they were very serious about. Now we come to some of the ayaat in the Qur'an that tell us how power structures behave because what is happening in Makkah is not peculiar to Makkah. It's a historical social law; it's a social law that will continue to work until the end of time. When power structures are threatened by forces for justice, by forces for the truth then they react as terminators or exterminators. We have in one of the relatively short surahs in the Qur'an- Surah Al Buruj- the narrative of how a power structure reacted to those committed Muslims who were only saying Rubbuna Allah. That in the eyes of people in power is the crime of their citizens (i.e.) their citizens are saying our Sustainer is Allah; our reference point in every matter in life is Allah; our cultivator is Allah. What happened to the people, those individuals related to the trenches- ukhdud is a trench? They were killed. 
Those people related to the trenches were killed with combustible fire. As they, (as'haab al ukhdud), are sitting in this fire or they, (the power structure), are sitting watching this fire. (Surah Al Buruj verse 3-5)
This hum/they here could be in reference to as'haab al ukhdud or it could be in reference to the power structure.
They- in whatever they are doing to the committed Muslims- bear witness to their own acts. (Surah Al Buruj verse 6)
So what's all of this about? Why do we have people in power executing people for justice? What's the serious issue here? The ayah goes on to say
The only reason that they are taking this vengeful action against as'haab al ukhdud is because they committed themselves… (Surah Al Buruj verse 7)
This is not a commitment of rituals; this is a commitment of allegiance.
The only reason that they are taking this vengeful action against as'haab al ukhdud is because they committed themselves to Allah who has izzah… (Surah Al Buruj verse 7)
Meaning- all of these power figures don't have any glory to them, or any aura to them. This aura and this glory belongs to Allah.
The only reason that they are taking this vengeful action against as'haab al ukhdud is because they committed themselves to Allah Who has izzah, Allah to Whom is also the thanks of these human beings and of human society. (Surah Al Buruj verse 7)
 
Another instance in history, (not the history that's presented in the secular and the sacrilegious societies and systems- No! The history that we know and that comes to us from Allah), at another juncture at another point in time what did the power structure say?
Kick the affiliates of Lut (alaihi as salaam) out of your society because they are people who are interested in the taharah of the spirit, the taharah of human conduct, the taharah of human relations and the taharah of human society. (Surah An Naml verse 56)
Get rid of whoever wants to bring back justice to a society that is morally polluted and from there-on it becomes legally polluted. This is how power structures behave.
 
Yet another example of this, another social law at another time is Musa (alaihi as salaam)'s Pharoah in EgyptThese power structures reach a point where they can't take it anymore so in the case of the Pharoah
… he kills small children and he leaves women alive belonging to those that he has officially designated as his public enemy number one… (Surah Al Qasas verse 4)
So we have a social law that works; we have a social law that is observable; we have a social law that will continue to be a social law until the end of time. We observe it in Makkah in the time of Allah's Prophet, we observe it before him and we continue to observe it whenever the elements are there in other societies everywhere else in the world and in life. We observe it in today's world when the world political-military-economic structure begin to pursue policies of termination (and) and policies of liquidation of the committed Muslims who are in this world- whether they have reached the levers of power or whether there are still movements moving in that direction, we have policies of extermination at work. Remember, just a few years ago there was a less than Diplomatic person, the President, who came out and said "you are either with us or you're against us" and he declared all of these policies that brought us what we have today- the laws, the Patriot Act, profiling, due process, (which in the legal sense is on the way out). All of this spells out to us that there's someone out there that wants to eradicate the Word of Allah in the form of trying to get to those who represent in their own lives the will that goes with the Word of Allah. In our own ways we all reference ourselves to Allah's Prophet- this policy of extermination in the life of Allah's Prophet began around the seventh year after Iqra', the first revelation came down to the Prophet. About seven years after that, the only thing left up to the big-wigs of Makkah was to try to uproot this Islamic nucleus there. Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab had a similar statement that was just expressed that has become policy now: "you are either with us or you're against us". We think everyone heard that and we think you know quite well who said that. Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab said either we have him, (in reference to Muhammad) perish or killed or he's going to have us perish or killed. These are not speaking out of a deep ideological indoctrination; they're speaking out of what they see (as) immediate interests and policies. There's a conflict of will here- one represented by al jahiliyyah and its demons and the other represented by those who have placed there trust and confidence in Allah. So they begin. They place the Prophet and the committed Muslims with him under an economic, social and political boycott. They decided that the way we're going to deal with this person, the way we're going to exterminate him and his is we are going to have them excluded from our social life. They saw the Muslims are gaining numbers- seven years- now the Muslims are gaining numbers. Around the Ka'bah they begin to see the number of Muslims. Before there were traces of Muslims around the Ka'bah (but) now the Muslims have numbers and this disturbs those who think with numbers. The headhanchos in Makkah began to realize that the Muslims are having an echo in a far away land in Africa so this is when they felt threatened. When they felt threatened they had to do something against the Muslims so they said we'll look at these two extended families- Bani Hashim and Bani Abdul Mutt'talib- and we will say to them you either exonerate yourself from Muhammad or you are going to be considered by us as part-and-parcel of what Muhammad stands for. Of course, Bani Hashim and Bani Abdul Mutt'talib, with their Muslims and with their Mushriks, said we are not going to distance ourselves from Muhammad. This was one of the social and cultural elements of life at that time- you can't disavow one of your own. And they didn't! They honored who they were culturally, historically and socially. So all the rest of Quraysh said ok- if that's the case then you too- Bani Hashim and Bani Abdul Mutt'talib- are confined to these sha'bSha'b is a valley between two hills or mountains. The Muslims were confined there. The Muslims now had no social interactions and no financial/market transactions with Makkah. If you think about it,Makkah at the time and Arabia at the time wasn't known to have prisons. So if you don't have prisons, you can't put people in prison and you contrive what is similar to a prison. This was in a sense putting these people not in a physical prison but in a social prison. No one would talk to them; no one would inter-marry with them; no one would buy or sell with them. So what do you do here? What did the committed Muslims do?
 
In the jahili culture of that society there were a couple of occasions where the Muslims could breathe social air. One of them was during the Hajj time. During the Hajj time if Muslims wanted to go to the Haram in Makkah no one could tell them "you can't come to the Haram."Remember, these heads of Quraysh posted a boycott declaration against Muhammad and his followers to become law binding on all the inhabitants of Makkah. How are Muslims now going to live? Think about it- no one around you in going to interact with you. Within this culture, we can't call it a legal system but whatever norms were practiced there, Muslims had a break; they could go to the Ka'bah during the Hajj time, which they did. What they could also do was take advantage of Ash'hur Al Hurum. There are four months during the year in which no one can assault and kill someone else. These were safety zones and the Muslims who were now confined outside of Makkah could find a period in the year in which they could attempt to go places without being harmed. Makkah with its Rulers were dead serious against the Muslims as far as they could go. The Muslims lived harsh conditions. Today you hear the words boycott, you hear the words sanctions especially when it comes to two places; if you read and if you watch the news there are two places in which these words immediately come to your attention. One of them is Ghazzah and the other one is Iran. The problem with the current Muslim mind is when we hear the word sanctions and boycott they think of Ghazzah and Iran We have some Muslims who when they hear these words it don't ring a bell! These words don't even ring a bell! What does Ghazzah have to do with sanctions and boycott?! What does Iran have to do with sanctions and boycott?! So here we are defensively and faintly thinking in the meantime we have a lot of experience. If we had the average Muslim thinking a the level as he or she should be thinking, when they hear the words boycott and sanctions they should immediately remember the first boycotts and sanctions that took place in Makkah there and then (in) the time period that we are speaking about. What happened to the Muslims there? Listen to this- this is how harsh these circumstances were… Some of them had to take leather and grind this leather, (with whichever limitations they had), and mix it with some water or liquid and serve that as food. Some of them couldn't grind it, they used to take it and chew on leather to survive. During those days and times you could hear babies and children who were crying from hunger. Some Muslims had to eat from the leaves of whatever trees or plants or vegetation that was around. One of the statements that comes from that time: Abu Talib, the uncle of Allah's Prophet, said/is praying O Allah these are our people and they refuse except to aggress against us. O Allah be quickly forthcoming in offering us victory and stand/be a barrier between them i.e. the Mushriks of Makkah and his nephew. And he said we are willing- up until the very last one of us- to give our lives before we will permit them, (meaning the Mushriks of Makkah), to reach him, (meaning Muhammad the son of Abdullah). What did the words of this boycott say? It's just a couple of sentences, (and we know time is an issue), O Allah in your name. These words are posted against Bani Hashim and Bani Abdul Mutt'talib to the effect that there's not going to be any marriage from them or to them, there's not going to be any transactions from them or to them, there's not going to be any interactions with them until them surrender Muhammad and we eliminate him or we kill him. These are Mushrik words. That was their declaration; that was their official statement of boycotting Muhammad and those who were with him. Remember, those who were withMuhammad were Muslims and non-Muslims alike. You compare this Prophetic behavior with today's Muslim, (let's say), Representatives. "Do you mean to say that Muhammad had non-Muslims on his side?!" Yes. Read your history books. There were non-Muslims who were with the Prophet during the most crucial while of his da'wah. What this amounted to, (if you give it come of your God-given brain-power or if you give it some of your thoughts), was an internal type of hijrah. We had a physical hijrah to Al Habashah; now we have a psychological hijrahwithin Makkah. During these difficult and existential times Abu Talib would assign every night one of his children to go and stand guard and protect the Prophet himself lest there be some type of trouble-maker who wanted to make it to the Prophet and kill him.
 
On occasion during Al Ash'hur Al Hurum when there was freedom of movement no one could tell the Muslims who were now in this confined condition "you can't come to Makkah or you can't come to the markets of Makkah"; on those rare occasions when Muslims tried to go to the market to buy something Abu Jahl would be there and he would instruct the merchants, he would say raise the prices. Remember, the boycott says there can't be any transaction and they couldn't enforce anything by force because of Ash Shahr Al Haram so his instructions to these people in the market who were selling stuff when they were approached by those individuals who were with the Prophet was if you are going to sell something to them hike up the prices ten-fold, twenty-fold so that they can't afford it or so that they cannot obtain anything from you. These are Abu Jahl's words. The Muslims would go back to their families, to the people who were with the Prophet empty handed.
 
Now, once again we want to remind you because this information is deliberately omitted. Believe us brothers and sisters- Muslims by their very nature do not omit this information because it's the right thing to do; it's the wrong thing to do! The way we have today's Muslims this type of information does not flow. Sometimes it's even hard to come by, but even when we do come by this information, how many of us do think about what is happening in today's world? When the people in power- those who run the power structures in today's world- look around and they say"look Islam is gaining popularity here. Islam is on the move. People are beginning to understand what Islam is all about." We have to do something against them." Then they embark on this policy of putting a place like Ghazzah under siege and imposing these sanctions on Ghazzah.Then, right now if you are just following the recent news, they are trying to escalate their sanctions and their boycotts pertaining to the Islamic Republic. These are real policies! These are life-and-death issues. When Muslims could not obtain what they needed in Makkah when they were in this hisaar, this boycott and these sanctions they would go in Arabia hundreds of miles away to get what they needed, what was necessary for them to survive. How many Muslims, (we ask you), think of the two scenarios in Ghazzah and in Makkah? The Muslims in Ghazzahhave to go through tunnels. Sometimes these tunnels collapse on them and they die deep down under the ground. Buried alive because they want to survive! How many do we have in the Muslim world who can bring these two scenarios together and there-by compare what we are and who we are today with who and what the Prophet and those who were with him were then? Where is this going on? Let us remind you and this is also a piece of information that's taken out of the Muslim public mind… Ghazzah- the same area that we're speaking about; this little piece of land- was a place that the Prophet's grandfather Hashim used to go to especially in the summer time on his trip to Ash Shaam and back to Arabia. He used to stop by Ghazzah. There is a Masjidin Ghazzah that is named after Hashim. The grave of this Hashim, the Prophet's grandfather, is inGhazzah and the whole name of Ghazzah is Ghazzatu Hashim. For short people just sayGhazzah. They don't say Ghazzatu Hashim which is its full name. Now is this coincidental or they don't want the Muslims to wake up to some facts in their history as they relate now to the contemporary conditions?
 
So what happened when the Muslims were under this pressure? The people in Makkah began to show signs of empathy with the Muslims. They themselves began to sneak some commodities into these shi'ab of Makkah. At night they would take or load a camel or a ride with food and when the night sets and no one could see them, they'd kick that animal so that it could go towards the Muslims and the Muslims could have something to eat and drink. It so happened that some of these people who began to feel for the Muslims and the Mushriks/non-Muslims who were with the Prophet of Allah were their relatives.
 
During this time when the Prophet was isolated, estranged and alienated by his own people and his own society there were six individuals referred to as Ad Daariyeen- these were Makkans who moved to Ash Shaam. They came to Allah's Prophet and they declared their Islam and this also disturbed the Makkans.
 
Nevertheless, the Muslims were in, (what we may call), a "pressure cooker." These elements that they gained right now through this experience resulted in the individuals in Makkah no longer being able to tolerate this. One of them, Hashim ibn Amr and the other one Zuhayr ibn Umayyah… Zuhayr was the Prophet's cousin; the son of Aatika bint Abdul Mutt'talib. They got together and said what can we do about this? This is not right. We enjoy food; we enjoy a normal family life; we enjoy the market etc. Our own blood out there, outside of Makkah can't live normally. They are barely surviving- these were the conditions and the values of that society. But then they said to themselves but two of us are not enough. So they went and they got three others and among them they decided we're going to the Ka'bah and we're going to tear this declaration of sanctions against Muhammad and those who were with him and they did. They defied Abu Jahl and when they shouted at Abu Jahl and he shouted back and he got hit on his head by one of the relatives of these five individuals and he began bleeding he said, (what literally means), this whole affair is something that had been planned out in the dark. That's another expression for saying this is a conspiracy. But what we notice in that is under all this pressure- and this is probably the optimum type of pressure that human nature can tolerate- there was no Muslim who was intimidated, no Muslim was provoked into, (what we call nowadays), violence. They were very disciplined. It was extremely easy for a Muslim to assassinate Abu Jahl or Abu Lahab. It was easy to kill one of them. They didn't do any of that. The Mushriks in Makkah were probably praying that the Muslims would give them the excuse to use all the power to come down on them; which means Muslims were tuned in very well to the power structure of their time, something that we realize is lacking in the world of today's Muslims. Unfortunately many Muslims can be provoked into premature action; but because Muslims in that context had a leadership and they were confident in that leadership and they knew exactly what to do and what not to do. If only we could learn from them. 
 
Dear brothers and sisters, dear committed Muslims…
Today is, (what is called), yawm at tarwiyah; the day after tomorrow is yawm al adha';tomorrow is yawm Arafat. When we look at who we are today and what Hajj is supposed to mean to us we realize that once again this has become a lost opportunity (and) without Allah's grace and mercy it is a lost effort. We pray and we ask Allah to accept from all the dedicated and sincere and devout Muslims who perform their Hajj at this time of the year or who perform theirUmrah during other times of the year. But the fact of the matter is the universal and dynamic movements of the Hajj are absent. What do you say to those who are, because of foreign and outside forces, running Makkah and Al Madinah? This is current- just yesterday and the day before some Muslims want to go up Jabal An Nur. Jabal An Nur is where Ghar Hira' is located.Ghar Hira'/The Cave of Hira' is where the Prophet of Allah used to go for thinking and reflection. It's a mountain that is about six-hundred-and-sixty meters high. You have what is called a religious police that stands there and discourages Muslims and at times forbids Muslims from ascending Jabal An Nur/Mount Nur. You ask them "why? What is this (about)? Why do you do that?" They say "they don't want Muslims to get the impression or to think that there's something holy about this place"- as if they themselves think?! We don't know if there is a Muslim in the world who worships such places! Because this is their bottom line. They'll say"eventually all of this will lead Muslims to worship these things." They should know and everyone should know Muslims are Muwah'hidun. They believe in the sole Deity and Divinity of Allah- no one else. So what's their problem?! If the problem is in the ignorance of the Muslims, then they are very welcome any where they want to go to combat that ignorance, but you don't combat ignorance by destroying Islamic history and Islamic milestones and Islamic hallmarks- you don't do that! They have given themselves the criminal freedom of doing exactly that! One of them wrote a PHD thesis that, (the long-and-short of it is), "the Prophet's grave should be relocated outside his Masjid in Al Madinah because it has become a symbol of deviation of the other Muslims that come there." How destructive?! How deviant?! How diabolic can a person think?! We ask you/any Muslim who hears this, "when you go to the Prophet's Masjid, do you go to pray to the Prophet? Do you go to idolize the Prophet? Do you go to equate the Prophet with Allah?" Any elementary Muslim will tell you frankly and directly "absolutely not." When we go to Allah's Prophet, we go to him because we love him- something they don't know. We admire him- something they can't appreciate. The bottom line is they want to criminalize our emotional attachment to our leading Prophet. And they rule?! They don't rule because they have the bai'ahof the Muslims, no one asked you and me! Makkah doesn't belong to them. Makkah and Al Madinah belong to the Muslims- who asked the Muslims that this family should run the affairs ofMakkah and Al Madinah the way they have been running it?! We've spoken about this previously, but suffice it here to say that we have, (emotions aside), criminals in-charge of Makkah and Al Madinah and you will not find many voices who will express this fact and this truth which is a sad comment on who we are.
 
This khutbah was presented by Imam Muhammad Asi on the occasion of Jum'ah on 4 November 2011 on the sidewalk of Embassy Row in Washington D.C. The Imam previously led the daily and Jum'ah prayers inside the Masjid. His speeches were revolutionary and thought provoking, and eventually irritated and threatened the Middle-East Ambassadors who control the Masjid. Finally, the Imam, his family, and other Muslims faithful to the course of Islam were forced out, into the streets. This khutbah originates from the sidewalk across the street from the Islamic Center, currently under seige.

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