ICM Friday 3rd by Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed 03/01/24

The Greatest Gift: Protecting Our Īmān

Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Beloved brothers and sisters, dear friends and guests of the house of Allah. How blessed you and I are that we are, alhamdulillah, enjoying so many blessings of health and wealth, of safety, security, of family. And most of all, the ability to recognize the existence of Allah. And the ability to be gifted Islam without us making much effort for it at all, or no effort for it at all.

The ability to simply know what it means to relieve ourselves in a proper Islamic manner, to clean ourselves after. What it means to have dental hygiene, physical bodily hygiene. What it means to know how to treat your mother and your father, your spouse, your children. What it means to know how to treat your neighbor, your siblings. What it means to know how to take care of the earth that we have inherited — be it the environment, be it the animals, the plants, the water, bodies of water. All of that from A to Z, every single thing that we can think of and that we are not able to think of also — our Islam, our deen, has given us a proper method of dealing with those issues.

And this should be, most definitely, the top blessing that we should be constantly thanking Allah for. This is what's going to be on the tongues of the people as they're headed to paradise:

"All praise belongs to Allah who guided me towards Islam. And we will have never been guided to Islam if it wasn't for Allah who had guided us." That's what everyone's going to be saying. What if I was born somewhere else? What if I was never introduced to Islam? What if I would be going somewhere else instead of here on Jumu'ah?

Īmān: Our Most Valuable Asset

My beloved brothers and sisters, the greatest gift that we have been given is Īmān. Now understand that this is a very valuable asset. And we have to ensure that we treat it like a valuable asset. What do you do with something valuable? Someone gives you a very expensive jewelry set. Someone gives you cash in hand. A person is extremely particular not to leave it in the car. Not to leave it exposed. A person is particular to make sure that wherever he's going, he'll keep it right next to him, keep his eyes right on it.

Similarly, the Īmān of us and our children is the most valuable asset that we have. And we have to safeguard it. Hence the Qur'an says:

Whoever brings a good deed will get ten times its reward. Notice the Qur'an didn't say, whoever does a good deed will get ten times the reward. Instead the Qur'an says, whoever brings it. It means after you've done a good deed, you have to protect it and hold it until you come to the Day of Judgment and you present it in front of Allah.

Say, in a game of basketball or football — if a person has the ball, it doesn't mean he's got the point. Making the point is different from having the ball. You can make an entire play and lose it right before you make the touchdown or score the point. And even making points and touchdowns is not the key thing. It's to make sure when the buzzer goes off that your team has actually gotten one point more than the opposite team. If a person the entire game was leading, but in the last 15 seconds they ended up being outdone, then no one will care what happened in the past 89 minutes. What will count is what happened in the last 30 seconds, the last 15 seconds. When the buzzer went off — that's the key thing.

When does the buzzer go off? Our death. When our death comes, what state are you in at that time — that is the question. Do you have your faith intact or not? Do you have your actions intact or not? If a person at the time of death unfortunately has lost it, even though he has been making effort for three, four, five decades, it doesn't make a difference. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6607)

"Actions will be judged by their endings."

Our Enemies: Shayṭān, the Human Devils, and the Nafs

My beloved friends, dear students and parents — this valuable asset, just like gold and money has people who will steal and look for it and try to snatch it, similarly our arch enemy Iblīs, Shayṭān, and his cronies from the humans. Because Allah says in the Qur'an:

He says: Indeed every prophet has enemies from the satans — both from the humans and from the jinn world. These satans communicate with one another, the ones from the jinn world with the ones from the humans.

And in the last verse of the Qur'an, what is it?

We are seeking refuge in Allah from the evil devils — مِنَ الْجِنَّةِ from the jinn, وَالنَّاسِ from humans. So these are our two big enemies. And along with them, we have our nafs — our inner lower self that harbors base desires. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Reported by al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Īmān)

"Your biggest enemy is your nafs — your own self that is between your two sides." So these forces work together. When Ramaḍān comes, although the major Shayāṭīn are tied up, the smaller ones are still around, and we've got the nafs that has been trained under the watchful eye of Shayṭān throughout the entire year. That is why even in Ramaḍān, sins are committed.

The Robbery of Faith

My brothers and sisters, we are living in a time when the crime rate has skyrocketed. Rates of thievery and burglary have skyrocketed. Rates of armed robbery have skyrocketed. And I am not talking about the robbery that is happening in stores and homes and banks. I am speaking about the robbery of faith.

We have people all around — gangs — in the form of artists, in the form of social media influencers, in the form of secular professors and teachers, in the form of novelists, in the form of people who make anime cartoons, and in the form of the massive pornographic industry. All of these work hand in hand together to grab and pull out the faith from anyone they can get their hands on.

This is not an attack specific upon Muslims. This is an attack on people of all different faith traditions. Anyone who says, "I follow a religion" — Shayṭān will try to mislead them from the true religion of Islam, number one. But it's not stopping at, "Okay, let me just be happy with you being a Christian or a Jew." Now it's about becoming a cultural Muslim, culturally Jewish, culturally Christian — but with not an iota of faith in the unseen. No belief in scripture. This is the concentrated effort that has been happening across the globe.

That is why we see the fastest growing religion — or if I want to call it more accurately, a way of life or a system of beliefs — the fastest growing is not, unfortunately, Islam. It is atheism. It is agnosticism. It is a loss of faith. Because what happens is these Shayāṭīn are getting converts from all religions.

Can you imagine — from 1990 or 1991, not too long ago, in the past 35 years, the United States has lost 100 million people of faith to atheism and agnosticism. 100 million. That's about a third of the country. In the past 35 years, 100 million people who used to follow some religion decided to say, "No, we no longer follow any religion."

This year, the polls showed — for the first time in the history of America — that you have a group that has outsized any single Christian group, Catholic or Protestant. And that is the "Nones." Not the nun who goes to the church. The "Nones" are people who say they don't follow anything — either agnostic, either atheist, either "spiritual," or something else. They have nothing to do with organized religion. They have now become the largest group — 28% of the United States population ascribes to being "Nones." 26% ascribe to being Catholic. So we have a very shocking increase of this in the past three decades.

This is not a US problem. This is across the globe. Besides sub-Saharan Africa, every other part of the world has seen an upsurge in atheistic beliefs over every other belief. The fastest growing.

Secularism and the Danger of Subjective Truth

The educational system is built in that manner. Secularism and doubt in the unseen is part of the educational system that we are all exposed to from childhood. Nowadays some parents are waking up and saying, "Oh my God, the LGBTQ movement has taken over." Yes, it has. From a very young age — we're talking about three-year-olds — it has been made mandatory within the law of not just Illinois, but tens of other states, that you have to teach it as part of the core curriculum. And that is what everyone has to follow.

I was in Austin a few weeks ago. It's Texas, but it's Austin where you have this huge influx of people from California — the tech industry. And I was shocked to see how many churches had massive LGBTQ flags. That's what brothers there were telling me. Just a quick note on how things have changed: an uncle told me — he came from Pakistan in the 60s to the University of Austin to study — he said, "Beta, you know what happened? We had to run away after a couple of months. We had to transfer to another university in Miami." I said, "What happened?" He said, "Our pictures came on the front page of the city newspaper in Austin." As is very common in South Asian and Middle Eastern culture, two young men walking holding hands — someone took a picture of it, plastered it on the front page of the Austin Times and said, "The gays have taken over Austin." It became such a big problem for them that they literally had to move out and go to a different university. Just showing how quickly things have changed. SubhanAllah.

But it's not just the LGBTQ issue. It's an issue very intrinsically connected to faith. When people say that you have many ways to live, do whatever you want — what is basically being said is that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Truth is objective, you can see truth in any way you want. If you say truth is subjective, and truth can be something for you and something different for me, then at the end of the day, just lead your life "authentically." That's the code word — authentically. And what does that mean? It means you do whatever your nafs tells you. That is exactly what they mean. It's called hedonism. Your own desires become your god. So if someone says, "I have feelings towards my own gender, what if I suppress them? Then I'm not leading an authentic life and I'm being hypocritical." A'ūdhu billāhi min al-Shayṭān al-Rajīm.

Allah says in the Qur'an:

"Have you seen the one who has made his desires his god? And Allah has allowed him to be misled even though he has knowledge." So Islamic knowledge is not sufficient if a person begins to follow his desires. There is no end to how lowly he can fall.

The Real Battlefield: Knowing Where the Enemy Is

My brothers and sisters, dear parents — I'm a father of four, alhamdulillah. And I speak to my fellow parents here. We need to understand what we're up against.

The Palestinian brothers and sisters — may Allah preserve and protect them, give them strength and resilience. May Allah accept their shuhadā'. May Allah allow them to see an ending to their suffering. Ameen. They clearly know where their enemy is. They know there's a tank, there's a drone, there's a grenade. Every mom and dad knows: "That's where the soldiers are coming from — I've got to protect my kids from that." It's very clear.

Here, we don't realize where the enemy is. Every day we drop our kids into the cradle of the enemy. And this is not a statement against Muslims alone — I'm speaking to God-fearing Christians, God-fearing genuine Jewish people too. The same thing. If you and I take our kids and drop them into an educational system for 18 years — I drop them off in pre-K and pick them up at the end of a fellowship in medicine or at the end of a second master's degree at the age of 26 — that is 22 years of a certain kind of shaping. It's not just education. It's schooling. It's a certain mindset that has been created — of skepticism in the unseen, disbelief in the unseen, belief only in materialism. That is embedded in the secular education system.

So if an Islamic school also brings that same syllabus with the same secular framework, then subhanAllah, they may be wearing kufis, they may pray Dhuhr salah with jama'ah, but the end result is unfortunately going to be the same — we will have created a group of extremely skeptical, doubtful people. Islam may be there in form, but number one before Islam comes Īmān — faith in the heart. That's what the effort has to be made on. The problem is we do not recognize where the enemy is firing at us and our children from. It's not just the schools. It's the cell phones that we have. It's the apps that we've downloaded.

And when the young father has to hold his dead son, when he has to bury six out of six of his daughters in Palestine right now, he knows — more than you and I — that before the blood touched the ground, the soul of his child has already reached Jannah. He believes more than you and I the words of Allah:

"Never think of those who have been killed in the path of Allah as dead. Rather they are alive, being provided sustenance by their Lord." He knows that the suffering ends here. Moving forward, it is only happiness.

Can we now say the same thing about our children and ourselves? When the attacks happen over here — right from the pockets, from places we don't realize — the attack is not on the body. The attack is on the faith. The attack is on the soul. The attack is on the heart. And that Īmān is what is being pulled out. People bleeding away to death is nowhere near as bad as people bleeding their Īmān — losing their Īmān even as they flourish, drive fancy cars, get into bigger and better professional jobs. But at what cost? At the cost of losing the Īmān.

A Crisis Within Our Own Homes

My brothers and sisters, I'm telling you a statistic that is already seven or eight years old. At that time, approximately 24% of Muslims born in Muslim homes in the United States were no longer Muslim. 24%. This was long before social media reached where it is now, long before AI. And what comes ahead of us, Allah knows. It's quite dangerous.

What I want moms and dads to understand — it is our farḍ, it is our responsibility, to not just feed our kids. If you leave your child in the car and go inside a store for just two minutes, and a cop sees you — you're done. You could be behind bars and lose custody of your child. How dare you leave a child unattended? That's how seriously we value the physical safety of our children. That's how important we value our children. But Islam says you also have to take care of the tarbiyah — the upbringing and spiritual nurturing — of your children.

If we leave our children with unattended, unrestricted cell phones, with 5G internet, with absolutely no filtration of any sort — who is responsible when they see things that a senior citizen should never have to see? When they're exposed, as a 12-year-old or a 15-year-old, to filth that no adult should have to see — whose fault is that? When our children are being pushed in high schools to take one drug or another.

A father came to me last week and said, "Please don't tell anyone I'm coming to you." He was a substitute teacher who had recently joined a school. He said, "SubhanAllah, I'm inside the school, and I see what happens when these students walk in past those doors, as soon as their moms and dads leave. One student right in front of me — pushing to the other — 'Come on, try this drug, try this drug.' This is a wealthy public school — everyone's got the highest quality drugs, and they're doing this right there in front of me, a big six-foot adult, right there in the elevator." He said, "All these moms drop off their hijabi daughters outside — I'm in the school and I see what happens as soon as their parents leave." He came to me because his own son had started acting up. He forced his son to take a urine test, and the result showed drugs. He came to me crying — "What do I do?" And he said: "This is my message: do not underestimate what fitnah, what trials your children are being exposed to in schools. Don't think it's the same as the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. No, my friend. SubhanAllah, we're in 2024. Much has changed."

The Era of the Munāfiq Is Not Over

What type of fitnah are our children being exposed to in public school or in Islamic school — both — because of social media apps, because of the phone, because of anime, because of pornography, because of the availability of drugs, because of hookup apps? We have no idea what is going on.

Islam talks about the mu'min, the munāfiq, and the kāfir — the believer, the hypocrite, and the open disbeliever. People say, "Brother, the era of the hypocrites is over." I'm here to tell you the era of the hypocrites is not over — it is in full scale. We have an entire generation of young Muslims who lead dual lives. They have a life as a Muslim in front of their parents. And they have an absolutely separate life as an atheist — online and in the virtual world — where all their friends know. But with their dad, they'll come, Allah forbid, for Jumu'ah, even for Tarāwīḥ. Because they want to continue to benefit from the paid car payments, paid cell phone, expensive clothes, and paid college tuition. Who wants to be kicked out of the house?

My dear friends, this is what we're seeing — children who I know are atheists online and in person, who have shared that with me or through their friends. But their moms and dads have no idea. Many of them, unfortunately, have even committed the entire Qur'an to memory.

I'll give you one example of one of my students this year, from Houston. He said, "Sheikh, I have ten friends." He's 18 years old, right out of high school, came to study with us for the one-year program. He said, "All ten of my friends are Ḥuffāẓ of the Qur'an." The reason I'm focused on Ḥuffāẓ is because this is what he shared with me — you'd expect that by memorizing the Qur'an, someone would be safe. That's how it used to be. If you memorized the Qur'an, you'd be in good shape. It's not like that anymore. He told me: "From my ten friends who memorized the Qur'an — as 18-year-olds — five are atheists. Absolutely don't believe in Islam. They'll spit when they drive by a masjid. If you try to tell them to come to the ṣalāh, they will scoff at you." What is going on? The parents have absolutely no idea what their children are going through, that this Īmān is being pulled out and doubt and kufr is being placed in its stead.

When we do not have tabs on our kids in school and university, what can we expect? I'm not blaming the children. I'm honestly blaming myself as a parent and fellow parents. We are failing our job as being good parents.

I know of parents whose son became president of the LGBTQ Pride club of a major state university — a Pakistani, first-generation, smart, intelligent young man. They had absolutely no idea. When I told those parents, your son is openly posting blasphemous things about Rasulullah ﷺ online — "I have no idea." Why don't we know? Why are we not communicating with our kids? Why have we not become friends with our children? Why do we not know what's going on in their minds? Why do we not know the sphere of influence upon them? Everyone gets deceived by a smile, maybe a little scarf, maybe a kufi. "Masha'Allah, everything is fine. Look, he ate dates." I asked one dad: "Does your son pray?" — the same one who became president of the pride club and was an atheist. He said, "Yeah, I look inside the room — the musalla is open." What is that supposed to mean? Wake up! You're head of a department. Why don't you use that intelligence Allah has given you to understand that your child is an innocent child who is being attacked by the nafs and Shayṭān and everything around them? You cannot just judge by whether the prayer mat is open.

And I'm not asking you to snoop around and act like a tyrant either. With muḥabbah and love, we have to do the tarbiyah of our children. As a father, I'm telling you — if our sons and daughters do not love us, we have failed as parents. Our children must love us. Listen clearly: if your child doesn't open up to you, says "I don't like my dad, I don't like my mom" — we have failed our kids. Because when they don't like their parents, most definitely this will lead to them eventually disliking Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. And I have seen too many of these cases.

One of the biggest reasons why Muslims are leaving Islam today is because of what's going on at home — the toxicity at home, the fighting and arguing between husbands and wives, and the mistreatment or the manner of speaking to the kids — always downplaying them or speaking down to them. Eventually they stand up and say, "I'm done with this." So I encourage the brothers and sisters to please be humble and ask Allah to make us good parents.

Practical Steps for Parents

My father's advice to me and to everyone is: every single night before you go to bed, no matter how late it is, pray two raka'āt Ṣalātul Ḥājah for the tarbiyah of your children. I'm blessed to have such a father. May Allah give him long life and health. Ameen, yā Rabb al-'ālamīn. But let's do that for our kids. Two raka'āt every night for the protection of our generations.

Number two: Ask Allah — "Yā Allah, I don't know how to be a good parent. I don't know how to be a good person myself. I want You to guide me to raise each child in the manner that he or she needs to be raised."

Number three: Let us become educated. Whatever programs on parenting, on family life, on imāniyyāt — faith-building — are happening in your local masjid or somewhere else anywhere in the country, it is worth the price, worth the travel. If you have to go on a weekend, whatever quality programs are there to help your children retain their faith — enroll. Whatever you do, you have to save the ball. Similarly, educational and spiritual programs that help our children retain their Īmān are something we all need to enroll in and keep our kids connected to.

A Personal Note and a Call to Action

I'll share something personal. Three of my best friends who went to school with me in the late 90s — I came back from South Africa and found all three had become atheists. One went to MIT, one to Urbana-Champaign, one to New York. One went into law, one into engineering, one into medicine. This whole topic is very personal to me. I've been watching it since then — 22 years of watching people leave Islam, people who are closest to me. SubhanAllah. And I realized what's out there. And this is what led me to develop programs at the seminary in Chicago.

We have our one-year immersion program, our summer intensive, our winter intensive, an annual retreat, our weekend ta'līm program, our no-tech retreat, and a Ramaḍān i'tikāf program. All of these, alhamdulillah, are populated by youth. These are programs geared specifically towards the challenges we're facing. Just as those who build vaccines constantly look at how a virus is mutating, we try to make sure our programs are constantly updated based on the challenges the community and youth are facing.

I encourage you to please consider enrolling your sons and daughters — after high school or somewhere during college — in the one-year immersion program. This is a vaccine-like thing. That doesn't mean if a person is vaccinated they will never get sick. But it means that inshallah they will spring back up quickly. The summer intensive is something you can also consider. If you say, "I want to try something else" — no problem. Go around the country and find a program that your son or daughter likes. Please, please, please — until they're still listening to you, make it part of the deal. "You want four, six, eight years of college? I'll pay for it. But I need you to go spend some time in an immersion program first. Take a gap year and do that." That is what the Christians have been doing. That is what the Jews have been doing. That is what the Mormons have been doing. We have to do the same.

We have a retreat this year — the topic is going to be Artificial Intelligence and Islam, on the weekend of May 10th. I encourage you to please join us. It's a free event. On the way out, there's a table booth — stop by and learn about the programs. You can scan the QR code. Stay virtually connected to our programs through the YouTube channel. There's also a Ramaḍān checklist — pick that up for free from the booth.

My job is to serve. If anything I said hit you and you want to follow up on this conversation — if you are struggling with your children, or if you are a youngster sitting here struggling with atheism, LGBTQ issues, transgenderism issues, doubts — please don't hesitate. I'm standing outside. Reach out. The help is here, but we need to learn how to reach out for help.

Closing Du'ā'

I ask Allah that He grant safety to our generation. I ask Allah to not allow us to ever be tested with doubts in our faith. I ask Allah to allow us as parents to do a better job in raising our children. I ask Allah not to hold us accountable for the mistakes we have made in the past. I ask Allah to allow the remaining years of our life, and the life of our children, to be steadfast in the deen and the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ.

I ask Allah to send down His special assistance to the brothers and sisters in Gaza and Palestine. May Allah preserve them and protect them. May Allah accept their martyrs. May Allah bring an end to their suffering. And may Allah make whatever is happening there a means of awakening the sleeping ummah of Rasulullah ﷺ.

Allah says:

"O you who believe! Fear Allah as He deserves to be feared, and do not die except while you are Muslims."

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 145)

"Indeed, the religion began strange, and it will return strange — so glad tidings to the strangers who make amends for what the people have corrupted of the Sunnah."

I say this and ask Allah to forgive me and you. Ask His forgiveness — indeed He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.

All praise is due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. Allah says:

"Indeed, Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe! Send blessings upon him and salute him with a worthy salutation." And peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.