The Absolutes - Part four of four-series

Islamic Identity and Community

Let's continue now with our last section, and this is the section about Islamic identity. What does it mean to be a Muslim and to identify as a Muslim? Obviously, Islam is an individual faith. It's a faith that you have to accept from your own volition.

It has to be your choice to accept the faith, and you would believe in it and practice it. And we've talked about the beliefs and the practices so far. But Islam is also a faith that is bolstered by the idea of community and congregation.

So yes, while you're making individual choices, you also need a larger identity to attach yourself to, a group of people that will help you in practicing that faith. So it is an individual faith that is bolstered by communal practice. Now, how do these issues come up with the idea of that which is known by necessity from the faith? Well, there are a number of different religious and social characteristics that distinguish us as Muslims from non-Muslims.

Cultural Integration While Preserving Islamic Identity

Now, some of these have become so second nature in Muslim societies that they can become almost indistinguishable from the general culture of those societies. So for example, many Muslims, if you were to ask them about washing their hands before they eat, that would be a given for them to do so. Whereas it might not seem to be a given for somebody who is not part of the faith.

Or for example, washing oneself after using the restrooms would be a given. It's part of the general culture of Muslims. Whereas in many other cultures, it is not.

There is the idea of walking on the right side of the road, doing things with the right. This is somewhat of a norm in most Muslim societies. It originally comes from the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that the Prophet used to prefer the right in everything that he did.

So matters of identity that are related to these absolutes are not just religious, but they're also social characteristics. This can be something like religious symbols, legal distinctions, or the obligation to preserve the uniqueness of Islamic identity. And so denying these matters or attempting to dissolve them into non-Islamic customs constitutes a fundamental alteration of the religion.

Now, Islam as a faith is open to all cultures and to all perspectives, but asks those cultures and perspectives to align themselves with the general precepts of Islam. For example, there's no such thing as an Islamic name. An Islamic name is a good name that a Muslim has.

Has it become a norm that many people will give themselves Arabic or Persian names? Yes, it's become a norm because of the dominance of those cultures at certain times in Islamic history. But the only thing that the Prophet, peace be upon him, would do for a person who accepted Islam was see if their name had a bad meaning. And if it had a bad meaning, he would change it to something which was good.

So for example, a man came to him, his name was Hazan, difficulty. So he said, no, you're Sahab, you're ease. Another person came to him and he said, his name is Abd al-Shams, slave of the sun.

So he said, you're Abdullah, slave of Allah. So the only time we're expected to change those things is when those cultural things go against the theology and the practice of Islam. So there's a lot of synthesis that happens in those things.

The Concept of Ummah

Now, when we talk about Islamic identity as a religious obligation, the idea of the Ummah comes up. And we mentioned earlier that the Ummah is two types, Ummah al-Dawah and Ummah al-Ijabah. The Ummah, the nation or the community of the call and the community of the answer.

So those who are being called to Islam, we consider them part of community of humanity that we are commanded by Allah to give the good news and the glad tidings of Islam to and ask them to say, if we consider our faith to be important, we should want others and to be near and dear. We should want others to share that faith as well. And if he's accepted that call, then you are now from Ummah al-Ijabah, the community of the answer, and therefore you are a Muslim.

So the idea of having a distinct identity means that there's actually a demarcation line through which you pass through to become a Muslim, meaning that you take the testimony of faith. So again, this connects the ideas of identity to the ideas of theology and practice, right? So I believe in something, I do an action which states that outwardly. So I believe that Allah is one.

I believe that Muhammad is the last messenger. I state that outwardly. I bear witness there's no one worthy of worship but Allah.

I bear witness that Muhammad is a messenger of Allah. Now I'm identified as a Muslim. That name now applies to me, right? Now that I am a Muslim in my identity, now there are certain things that I'm going to do or not to do because all of those things bolster the actions and the beliefs that I have.

Indeed, this Ummah, this nation of yours is one and I am your Lord, so worship me. So all Muslims are considered equal regardless of where they are from. Prophet ﷺ famously in his last sermon, he said, "There is no favor or virtue of an Arab over a non-Arab or a non-Arab over an Arab except by piety."

We have made you tribes and nations to know one another. The closest of you to God is those who are most mindful of Him. So the Islamic identity is inseparable.

Maintaining Religious Distinction

It's an inseparable part of our faith and abandoning that identity is equivalent to abandoning a defining feature of Islam. Ibn Taymiyyah he says, "The imitation of non-Muslims by Muslims in their religious symbols is a sign of weak faith and is unanimously prohibited." So there's this issue of the uniqueness of Islam and the idea of emulating others that are not Muslim.

Again, we said earlier we want to define the contours and the parameters of what Islam is and what Islam is not. And part of what Islam is not is also protecting the identity of Muslims from being indistinguishable from Muslims. And does that mean that because I'm wearing a wool coat up here that I'm somehow emulating people who don't believe and also wear wool coats? No, this is specific to religious practices and religious holidays, right? Those things that your actions are attuned to religious practice, right? The Prophet said, "Whoever imitates a people or shall we say emulates a people is one of them."

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4031)

So this doesn't have to do with the foods that we eat, the clothes that we wear, the way we design our homes, the general cultures. It's not talking about that. It's talking about those that would code their identity to try and appear because of some feigned understanding of what is more pious to appear to be like people of other faiths, right? So the famous statement from al-Imam al-Shafi'i or somebody accused him of not following a verse in the Quran.

And he said to him, you know, do you see me wearing priest robes? Do you see me with, you know, with a frock and you know, whatever, what are you implying, right? So the idea here is that the religious symbols and religious practices and holidays is what is chiefly meant by emulating the disbelievers. Another hadith that's here says, "Differ from the polytheists, let your beards grow and trim your mustaches," right? So for Muslim men, they were told to differ with the disbelievers and fulfill this obligation.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5892)

Islamic Dress Code and Modesty

So why we would even mention you say, well, somebody's trying to do something with impermissible. That's well known. Well, you might be trying to substantiate or allow that impermissibility under the guise of culture. Well, we do this because it's cultural, it's okay, right? That happens quite often.

He says whoever imitates non-Muslims in their religious festivals or acts of worship has fallen into a prohibited act known from the faith by necessity. So here at the Islamic Dawah Center, if we were to say, we're no longer gonna have the Adhan and instead we're gonna call to the prayer with the organ. No, no, no, no, no.

Would that be acceptable? No, it wouldn't be acceptable. Because not only is it going against the Adhan as an act of worship, it's not part and parcel of what Muslims do, right? Upholding Islamic dress codes, right? Now, let me say this, Islam does not mandate a style of dress, right? Or a certain type of clothing. But it mandates parameters for modesty and covering, right? So many times people say, no, I want Islamic dress.

And in reality, if you study history of fashion, what you'll find is that many times what somebody will say specifically is Islamic dress is actually just a certain type of dress that became very popular at one time, right? So, you know, somebody might look and say, well, you know, the white thobe is Islamic, but not necessarily. If you looked at, if you were to go back in history and look at what the companions of the Prophet wore most of the time, they would look like your average Bengali, more than your average Khaleeji, right? They would look, they would be wearing like a long shirt and a lungi, right? So, you know, this wraparound, what is it called? It's lungi, right? Lungi, right? Some people call it mi'waz, some people call it izar, right? So it would be just this wraparound on the waist and like a long shirt or a throw over. Most of the companions of the Prophet wore something very simple like this, right? Whereas what we have associated with Arabian dress is something completely different.

So styles and clothes and fabrics and all of these things change. What is expected of us is to dress in ways that preserve modesty and preserve identity.

O Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves part of their outer garments.

So there's scholarly consensus on the idea of an Islamic dress code, the idea of hijab and the idea of modesty. Modesty not just in character, but modesty also in the way that we dress, right? Scholars state, الحجاب للمرأة من المعلوم من الدين بالضرورة فمن أنكره فقد أنكر نصاً قطعياً "The hijab for Muslim women is from what is necessarily known in the religion and whoever denies it has denied a definitive text."

Dardir, as we mentioned the earlier scholar, interestingly enough, the school of Dardir is still next to Al-Azhar in Egypt. You have to go through some alleyways to get there, but it's still there. He says, "A woman exposing her awrah to non-mahram men is prohibited by consensus and whoever denies that has denied what is necessarily known from the faith."

This is not just about women, but it's also about men and how men and women deal with each other and the gender relations of Islam, right? So our gender relations in Islam, when we're dealing with each other, they should be public, they should be purposeful, and they should be momentary, right? Public, meaning that we're doing things out in the open, should be purposeful, it should be a reason for why we're speaking together, and it should not be something that, you know, leads to that, which could take us down the wrong path, they should be in the moment and there should be, you know, time regulated.

Legal Distinctions in Islamic Governance

Another important point about identity in Islamic law is, or I'm sorry, in Islamic thought, is the idea that Islam mandates distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims in certain legal rulings, including dietary laws and religious obligations. So when we talk on a state level, Islamically, Islam is almost a semi-federalist system, meaning that religious minorities rule themselves underneath the umbrella of an Islamic government, right? And that their rules amongst themselves and their courts amongst themselves apply to themselves, unless, of course, they appeal to the higher courts of the Muslims and then the Muslim courts will make a decision on that, right?

In fact, that happened during the life of the Prophet ﷺ. There was a, what they call, a Beth Midrash, a Beit al-Madaris, a Jewish school in Medina, right? And they had a dispute about a rule that was well known in Judaism, but they didn't want to apply it.

So they asked the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to come and be a judge between them. So they called him to the school and they set a pillow out for him to sit on. This hadith is in Sunan Abu Dawud, right? When he sat on the pillow as their guest of honor.

They told him the issue. He said, bring out the Torah. So they brought out the scrolls of the Torah.

So he took the pillow out from underneath himself, put it in front of him. He put the Torah on the pillows. So it was not to put what was, had part of what God's speech was on the ground.

And he put his hands on it and he said, آمنت بك وبمن أنزلك "I believe in you and the one who revealed you." He then said, which of you can read? Because the Prophet was illiterate.

So one of them opened the scroll and he said, read and you'll find the ruling in there. So he read, the man read and he was fat fingering the text. And he was like, that's right, I'm reading it. I don't find it. So the Prophet said, well, move your finger. And then they found the ruling there.

And then the issue was decided, right? This is one of the anecdotes that shows that religious minorities generally rule amongst themselves unless they appeal to the higher court. It also shows us that the Prophet ﷺ, despite believing that the texts had been changed of previous religions, they still contain some of the truth. And therefore they're still to be respected and not disrespected, right?

So the distinctions in religious law and distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims are there for a reason, right? We believe that Islam is the truth. We believe that it is guidance from God. We believe that it is distinct and it is salvation. And therefore we do not want it to be considered like anything else. We want to share the good that we have with other people.

O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as allies. Allies in what? Allies in the idea of political formation and seeking protection through them. Not in the idea of working together for the betterment of society, nor in the idea of friendship or in business. As it is well known that the Prophet ﷺ did business with the Jews and the Christians of Medina, that he lived beside them, that they would gift each other, that they would do business with each other, that they would see each other and live amongst each other, right? But this is specifically talking about where Muslims cede their own power and give their power to other people, right?

Scholars affirm, تطبيق أحكام الشريعة على المسلمين دون غيرهم أمر معلوم في الدين بالضرورة "Application of shari'a rulings on Muslims, but not on others is known from the faith by necessity." So as Muslims, while we believe in the penultimate truth of what we believe when we practice, we are also not to force that on other people, right? But they have their belief and their practices.

We say, be faithful if you believe it, be faithful and practice what you believe. In fact, Allah mentions this in Surah Al-Imran, right? Al-Buhuti here, he says, لا يجوز للمسلم أن يتحاكم إلى غير شريعة فمن فعل ذلك فقد وقع في نواقض الإسلام "It is not permissible for a Muslim to seek judgment outside of the shari'a and whoever does so has engaged in an act that nullifies Islam," right?

What does this mean though? Does this mean that you're never allowed to gain your rights in the political system that you live in? No, you're allowed to use the political system for gaining that which is a right in culture as well as a right in faith. What you're not allowed to do is use the political system to gain rights that are not yours religiously, nor are yours culturally, right? So if you're using the political system or the court system to take the rights of others, then not only have you done wrong, but you've also used the laws of other than Allah to do so. So you're doubly sinful.

Consequences of Rejecting Islamic Identity

What are the consequences of rejecting the idea that we have a distinct identity as Muslims? These are serious theological consequences because abandoning Muslim identity implicitly reflects a rejection of Islam. And now while it is not apostasy, it does not take one outside of Islam, it is a pathway to it.

The more that the boundaries and the parameters of what is an Islam is and is not Islam, who is and is not a Muslim dissipate, then the harder it is for generations and generations to hold onto their Islam. Now we started the day and we talked about five different people, right? We said that number one are those people who know Islam due to its evidences and its wisdoms and they are intellectually engaged and informed, their faith is informed by that intellectual engagement. And then we said there are those people who have spiritual supernatural connections to Islam, that they've seen certain things, they've experienced certain spiritual states, they realize that they're some kind of Kalamat, some types of, that's their attachment to Islam.

We said that thirdly, that there are those people who are simply impressed by the power and the dominance of Islam and therefore are Muslim and part of Islam. And then fourthly are those who are born into Islam, born into Muslim communities, kind of raised doing all the things that Muslims do, they are Muslim, there's nothing wrong with their Islam. However, they are the most susceptible to misunderstanding their Islam or to moving away from Islam because of the way that they have learned their faith, right?

So when we said number five was the person who is a Muslim in a place that is far away from Muslim majority areas or doesn't have access to scholarship. And that's the group that has, that is most susceptible to doing things which in most circumstances would be inexcusable. But we said in their case, because of relative ignorance, that there is excusable and inexcusable ignorance, right?

So are we saying that if a person, does not accept all of the things about Muslim identity, that they're not a Muslim? No, we're not saying that. What we're saying is that we want to create a, we want to create a protective layer of Islam, if you will, that distinguishes the Muslim from other than them so that they cherish and know their faith while also interacting with people of other faiths and being active members of their society, not slinking away and balkanizing each other, but also not dissipating and finding no difference between themselves.

Because you can find in some societies where people really didn't keep this distinction up. You know, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-grandchildren, my great-grand, you know, my grandfather, I think he used to put his head on the ground and pray. You'll hear people say that.

You know, I have a friend from Peru. He didn't know until he was 18 years old that he was actually Palestinian and he was actually Muslim. Nobody told him, right? So because everything about his identity, you know, was never brought up, right?

Qadi Iyad, he says, whoever is not pleased with Islam as their faith has committed disbelief by consensus, right? So we want to be pleased with Islam as our faith. We have this identity.

Think of it like circles. We have the identity on the outside, right? This kind of keeps us in as a community, right? There's certain actions and practices and cultures and things that we all do. You know, you can find, you know, a Muslim from, you know, from, you know, Teaneck, New Jersey, all the way to Tokyo, right? There's gonna be a commonality amongst all Muslims that are in these areas, right? So those are these things that kind of unite us in all of these things.

That as a protective layer that protects these practices of Islam, the ongoing, consistent and undeniable, absolute practices of Islam, which we said, again, are very few, right? But are very important. Protect those core beliefs of Islam that are absolute theological precepts of Islam. That protects that one core concept of Islam, which is affirming the oneness of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, our matters of identity that are known by necessity help maintain our distinctness. They help us avoid imitation of non-Muslims in religious matters. They uphold the ideas of modesty and proper dress.

And they adhere to the legal distinctions between Islam and Muslims, right? And that anything that goes against the Quran, the Hadith, the scholarly consensus in rejecting these aspects is a severe deviation from Islam. And endangers the identity of us as Muslims, which entails an endangerment of our practice, as well as an endangerment of our faith. May Allah protect us in our identities, our faith and our practice and our faiths.

And with that, I'll open the floor for questions. وصلى الله وسلم على نبينا محمد.

Questions and Answers

On Calling Someone a Disbeliever

Question: Is calling someone a disbeliever the similar as calling people names?

So no, it's more severe. So the Prophet ﷺ said, من قال لأخيه يا كافر فقد باء بأحدهما "Whoever says to his brother, oh, disbeliever, then it applies to one of them." So this is different than just saying, you know, you're a horrible person. You're the worst person that I know. That's تنابز بالألقاب. You know, that's the idea of applying, you know, negative distinctions or attributes to somebody else, right?

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6104)

So these are all levels, right? So the worst is to a person who is clearly a believer to say, oh, you disbeliever. In fact, scholars have said that even for a non-Muslim, it is considered rude and at times even a punishable offense in court to specifically publicly, you know, not that they're not, they don't disbelieve in Islam, but to use that as a way to shame them publicly, they would have a claim in court against that, right?

If you look up in the chapters on slander, so you can say words that are true, but the intention behind them is to harm. You can give that person a right to, so the idea is you want to avoid terms that are negatively attributing a believer to, you know, outside of faith. You want to avoid things that attribute them to acts of disbelief or innovation or sinfulness, right? And then comes, you know, things like nicknames or names that they are not happy with, right?

So the Prophet, peace be upon him, it's mentioned that on the day of judgment, a person will be called on the day of judgment with the most beloved names that they used in the dunya. From that, some scholars have said that it is preferred to call a person by the names that they love, not a name that they don't like, right?

So let's say, for example, someone accepted Islam and they said, well, you know, I'm not going to go by John anymore. I'm going to go by Abdullah and they love that for themselves, then certainly call them Abdullah, right? But if a person says, no, I'm not going to change my name. My name is John. Then don't go and say, no, actually, I'm going to call you Abdullah, right? I know you like your name and stuff, but it happens much more commonly than you would expect. Ask a person who experienced it all the time. Joe, actually, I'm going to call you Yahya. No, you're not actually. I'm going to call you Yusuf. Actually, you're not. I'm going to call, you're going to call me that. I'm not going to answer, right? But yeah, so these are the levels in the etiquette of naming and nomenclature and things like that.

On Types of Faith Connection

Question about the types of faith connection: Yeah, so let's just go back there. See what those are. All right, so third is the person's faith is tied to power and success. And fourth is the faith is inherited, right? So the idea of being power, because they see Islam as respected and dominant, they want to be respected and dominant as well, right?

The question is not whether they're Muslim or not, because they've fulfilled the condition to enter Islam. The question and the reason why we frame the conversation like this is because what happens when situations are not ideal? Number four person's faith is inherited. So I have children and at home they're Muslim. When I send them away for college, are they going to be prepared? That's the question that we're trying to answer.

I became Muslim because I was living in Houston that has a very dominant Muslim community, you know, but then I, you know, go to Wichita, Kansas or something. No, I don't know if anybody's from Wichita, no offense, right? Maybe there's not a big community there, right? Then the situation of how I deal with my faith is going to be different because the way that the community in my support system is different, right?

As opposed to a person who has an overly spiritual connection, right? So that's somewhat, you know, ephemeral and then, you know, or an intellectual connection, right? Which is also, you know, it serves a protective purpose of Islam differently, right? When the protections around the ideas of Islam wane, what effect does that have on a person's actions and the mistakes that they make? That was the kind of framing of what, not that necessarily we're, you know, we're saying that one is better than the other, right? But what are the consequences of the person who has that connection to Islam, right?

On Following Previous Communities

Religious symbols, et cetera. Right, so the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that, لتتبعن سنن من كان قبلكم حذو القذة بالقذة حتى لو دخلوا جحر ضب لدخلتموه "You will follow the ways of the people that came before you, foot by foot, step by step, even if they were to run into a lizard hole, you would run in after them," right?

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3456)

So this was referring to the, and I mentioned this earlier, perhaps before you had got here, there was a situation during the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, where people had just become Muslim, and they saw that there was a tree that was considered magical, and the polytheists would hang their swords and their shields on the tree, and to like charge it with like spiritual energy for the fight, right? And so they said to the Prophet, peace be upon him, give us a tree like that, like they have a tree. And that's where these types of Hadith came up, right?

So the idea is, if you're not educated about Islam, then you will follow the ways of the people that came before you, who tried to ascertain what might be religious, but did so in an uninformed manner, right?

On Scholarly Consensus (Ijma')

Question: How is consensus established on issues?

Consensus or Ijma' is the agreement of all scholars of a particular time period as to the ruling of an issue that is presented to them. Are you familiar with something called swarm theory? No, okay. If you were, it's very similar to swarm theory. Okay, so swarm theory actually developed by observing bees. So when bees are looking for pollen, they, the bees disperse from the nest and they go to every different place and they start to signal back to each other.

And then a majority of those bees starts to follow one bee because he has a stronger signal, because he's found pollen or what is most likely going to get the pollen and be able to, and you'll always have one or two outliers, but eventually all of the bees will follow the swarm. So Ijma' or consensus is very similar, meaning that scholars will kind of disperse and analyze rulings in many different ways. And then eventually they will all kind of swarm towards what is the most predominant or preponderant meaning or ruling of a certain thing.

Now, in the early Islamic period, this was easy to do because of the size of the community, the number of the scholars, and most of the issues that they were deciding on were, well, this verse of the Quran could mean this, it could mean number one, it could mean number two. We agree that it means it's number two. Number one isn't applicable because of whatever factors, which is why later scholars, even as late as the third, late third or fourth century, they said that as time goes on, it becomes harder to make a claim of hard consensus that everyone has agreed.

Imam Ahmed famously said, what do you know, maybe they disagreed. Because now if you've got people from Morocco to China, that's different than if you've got people from Egypt to Iraq. And if that's your window versus that's your window, that makes it different.

But the idea, however, and most issues that we talk about, these are issues of consensus, are those issues that were decided in the early years of Islam. And that is to say that, hey, Islam is now exposed to different contexts and cultures, but here's the vernacular of the Quran and the Sunnah, this is what it means. Although yes, linguistically, it has three meanings. What was intended is meaning number three.

On Applying Islamic Rules in Daily Life

So the application of Islamic rules in our daily lives relies on a few different things. One is our dedication to our faith. Number two is the level of knowledge that we have about those rulings. And then number three is, and the probably the more selfish of them is the level of expediency that we have in following them or not.

Right? So many times, if something was stolen from my house and I call the police and I make a police report so that it can be recovered, am I ruling by what Allah has not revealed? No. I'm simply using the means of recovering my own property, which is a right that's mine. But if I call the police and put in a report and report my neighbor's car is actually mine and they stole it from me, then that's where I'm using the legal system for nefarious purposes.

So the Muslim who lives in an area or lives in a society where they have a choice of law has to be very careful not to wrong themselves first and foremost, nor wrong others by using the confines of that law to take the rights of others. In fact, the Prophet ﷺ, he said, إنكم تختصمون إليّ ولعل بعضكم ألحن بحجته من بعض فمن قضيت له بحق أخيه فإنما أقضي له بقطعة من النار فليأخذ من أخذ وليدع من دع or as he said ﷺ.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 7169)

"Some of you bring your disputes to me and perhaps one of you is more loquacious than the other, more eloquent than the other. So if I make a decision in their favor, giving them the right of their brother, they should know they're only taking a piece of the hellfire. So whoever wants it, wants it. So I should take it and whoever wants to leave it, should leave it."

Meaning that the apparent legal decisions of this world are not necessarily the truth ethically or morally with Allah on the day of judgment. So if we have a right, which we have been disenfranchised of in this life, that it will be returned to us on the day of judgment.

All right, everyone, I think that's it. We are coming up on three. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless all of you.