The Importance of Jummah - Mufti Kamaluddin Ahmed

الحمد لله، الحمد لله نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره ونؤمن به ونتوكل عليه. ونعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا. من يهده الله فلا مضل له، ومن يضلله فلا هادي له.

ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له. ونشهد أن سيدنا محمدًا عبده ورسوله. أما بعد. أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم.

اللهم صل وسلم على سيدنا وسندنا محمد وعلى آله وأزواجه وذريته وأصحابه أجمعين.

أما بعد. It's a great joy for me to be here. And actually it represents 13 years from my memory, what I remember — الله أعلم — since I last gave a talk in Chicago.

And normally when I come to the United States, I view myself as off-duty. You can tell from my accent. I was born and raised myself in New York and I attended the University of Chicago here as an undergraduate in the early 90s.

So I have seen the Muslim community in America — where I was born and raised — develop over the past 30 years of my life. And this is what I want to talk to you about today. Because alhamdulillah I feel blessed by Allah to be sitting in a place where it has developed positively.

The State of the Muslim Community in America

But on this particular trip of mine, where I've traveled to a few cities, I've observed a lot of things. Maybe the things I've been observing since 2004 have all had an impact on what I want to say to you today. Alhamdulillah, there's been a lot of development and progress in terms of institutions, masajid, community centers — in terms of having masajid that have baseball courts or basketball courts or gyms — in terms of numbers and attendance that you might see at masajid or at jama' or at events.

But at the same time, something that someone like me notices — and I think a lot of us may not be aware of this — is that no matter how much alhamdulillah we have this growing trend of religiosity, outwardly apparently greater attendance at masajid and organizations, there's an equally if not greater growing trend of irreligiosity. And there's an incredibly large number of youth and middle-aged people who do not come to these very same programs and events. And they are the unreported statistic of the Muslim community.

Now alhamdulillah we praise Allah for guiding so many people. But when you come together on Jumu'ah — and I will talk a little bit more about that later — what is Jumu'ah, right? It's to come to develop as an individual but also to reflect as a community. So we're not here to pat one another on the back.

And when I've been listening to different Jumu'ah bayaans for the past 12 years in this country, what I find is many young ulama or middle-aged ulama trying to connect with the community by talking about things that the community already believes in. And I found a lot of middle-aged people coming out of those talks very happy and very self-gratified. For example, giving a talk on how it's important to be a good citizen of this country. Of course it's important to be a good citizen of this country. But the reality is that 99.99% of you are already wonderful citizens of this country. You don't need further help on that.

So what I see increasingly is topics being talked about in the masjid where the people are already doing very well. And so they grade themselves with an A — rightly so — and they walk out very happy. And then the things that need to be talked about, the things that need to be improved, the things that need to be noticed, the things that need to be worked on, are not spoken about or are brushed under the carpet.

I've noticed amongst individuals in the Muslim American community — and again I say, that's why I told you I was born and raised here and studied here at this city's finest university, so that you know I'm not somebody who lives in Pakistan and who is ranting and raving about Muslims in America — I'm a born and bred American Muslim, and I've had my hand on the pulse of this community for 30 years of my life. And there are a lot of problems. And there are a lot of things that have to be improved.

And until we use Jumu'ah and use the masjid as institutions to further not just our infrastructure or our footprint, or our large attendance at annual conferences, but rather to improve and increase the taqwa and dhikr and ibadah and ubudiyyah and akhlaq and adab of the community — then these institutions haven't gone all the way. And it's what people in America love to talk about: project management. The actual thing in project management is follow-up and follow-through and delivery all the way.

So for example, if we make the claim that having a gym and having a basketball court is going to bring our youth closer to deen, then I want to see muhadditheen come from that center. I want to see young ulama come from that center. I want to see young community leaders come from that center. I want to see sahib-e-akhlaq, sahib-e-adab, young men and women of the highest spirituality and highest morality come from that center. Otherwise you haven't followed up and followed through.

So there are a lot of things that need to be discussed. I'm going to talk about two, because in a Jumu'ah talk there are only a few things one can talk about. But I will be here all day inshallah and I will speak again after Salatul Maghrib inshallah.

The First Issue: Ibadah

The first thing is ibadah. Yes, ibadah is the core attribute of a believer. Do you know I have personally in my life — I'm not talking about anyone that you know, and I'm sure I'm not talking about this masjid, but I need to say it without you misunderstanding it — I have personally in my life, across the years, not once but on numerous occasions, met presidents of masajid, board members and trustees of masajid, who cannot even tell me — because they would come and talk to me privately about these things — that even one month of their life has gone where they haven't missed a Fajr salah.

But meanwhile they're president. Meanwhile they're board member. Now they're doing an excellent job administratively. They're doing an excellent job in their capability and their responsibility. But why is their ibadah not going up? Why is their taqwa not going up? Why is their feeling in salah not going up? Why is their understanding of Quran not going up? Why is their love for hadith not going up? Why is their knowledge of seerah not going up?

And if we get affected — and that happens subconsciously — if we start processing and managing our institutions in a kind of corporate mentality which just looks at productivity and efficiency and cleanliness and dynamism, without remembering that ultimately our deen and every institution in our deen and every person in our deen is an abd and 'abid — is a slave of Allah, is a worshipper of Allah — unless we track those metrics, unless we have success in that, we're not ever going to have success in this world, and we're certainly not going to have success on the Day of Judgment. And we're going to be in for a big surprise. And we're not going to have success in the akhirah.

That's a very important, core, basic thing. People are struggling in basic things: Fajr salah, correct pronunciation of Quran, daily recitation of Quran, daily offering of the sunnah du'as of Nabiye Kareem ﷺ, reciting salawat — salutations and blessings on the Prophet ﷺ — every day.

I'm not talking about wayward Muslims. I'm not talking about ordinary Muslims. I'm talking about community leaders. I'm talking about board members. I'm talking about Muslim school teachers. I'm talking about medical association members. I'm talking about public speakers. I'm even talking about imams and khatibs and ulama who are even lacking in their ibadah. Allahu Akbar Kabira.

Why? Because there's a real spiritual gap — a distance between their heart and Allah. There's a real ghafla, a real heedlessness, in their heart and in their mind.

The Disconnect

One young man told me recently that he went to visit someone. So I will pick on my own class of people — rather than single out businessmen and doctors and others, I will pick on the ulama. He went to meet some person, and he went to his basement. The person messaged him, "You come down to my basement." So he went down to the basement and that fine fellow was watching television. They turned off the television and he tried to then instruct that person in deen. And that person said it was such a big disconnect — "I couldn't believe that the person in front of me was watching TV, hit the remote, turned it off, and then tried to teach me deen."

And as a young man who has enough ikhlas, who has enough purity and sincerity in his heart, he realized there's something wrong, there's some disconnect. But the reality is a lot of us who come for Jumu'ah Salah, our lives are living this disconnect. We are so caught up in the ghafla. We are so caught up in so many forms of entertainment and recreation. And that is the reason why we are not progressing in our ibadah. And tahajjud and nawafil and extra ibadah — they're very far away.

Now there was a time — let's say 20, 30 years ago — when Muslims would say, "Look, we're struggling with our basics. We're struggling with our fara'id. You're going to talk to us about extra things? You're going to talk about tahajjud? You're talking about reciting Quran every day?" They would say, "Brother, I'm struggling with the basics." That was okay. That was 30 years ago. But now you have all these institutions. Now you as an individual, you have grown up. Now you as an individual, you have public positions. You're playing a dynamic, positive, alhamdulillah, role in the community. Is it still too basic for you? Is it still out of reach?

Is there any place you go to, any time in your life, any hidden place in your heart in the middle of the night when you sometimes reflect upon your spiritual condition and ask yourself this question: Why is it still out of my reach? Why? Why is taqwa? Why is ibadah? Why is sunnah? Why is dhikr still out of my reach? What's wrong? Is it in any way on our wish list?

The Upgrade We Are Missing

We live in an age of technology, an age of upgrade. And I find this again in the Muslim community. May Allah bless our wealth and grant us rizq-e-halal and grant us shukr on our wealth and grant us tawfiq to make khidmat of our wealth. But this is the way we are in dunya — we always want an upgrade. We want to move to the better neighborhood, move to the better suburb, have a bigger house, have a better car. At a simpler level, we're upgrading our phones. I'm sure many Chicagoland Muslims are not on iPhone 3 or 4, and many of you are tracking iPhone 6, 7, and 8. We want to upgrade our laptop, upgrade our phone.

Where is the upgrade in your taqwa? Where is the upgrade in your sunnah? Where is the upgrade in your feeling in salah? Where is the upgrade in the amount that you remember Allah in your heart?

We talk about best practices, excellence. We tell our children, "Oh son, when I came to this country, work hard. When I came to this country, I was never ever late for work. Oh my son, 40 years — I was never late for work. Alhamdulillah." Can that same man look his son in the eye and say, "Oh my son, 40 years — I never missed Fajr salah"? Why can't he say that? What has happened to a person such that they can reach excellence, discipline, hard work, and effort in the worldly realm, but not in deen?

Alhamdulillah, deen teaches that. Nabiye Kareem ﷺ said:

But في كل شيء doesn't exclude ibadah. Allah prescribed excellence, virtue, nobility, beauty, best practices — ihsan — in every single thing. So yes, be the best student you can be, be the best corporate worker you can be, be the best medical doctor you can be, be the most honest businessman that you can be, be the best neighbor that you can be, be the best in interfaith dialogue that you can be, be the best citizen of the United States of America that you can be — and be the best 'abid that you can be, be the best musalli that you can be, have the best haya that you can, be the best abd of Allah that you can. Why is the second part missing?

Now if there's a person — and that's another group of people, which is unfortunately a lot of our youth — if there's a person who is lazy, who suffers from mediocrity, who is not dynamic, not accomplished, not hardworking, not skilled — okay, a person like that struggles in deen. I can understand, because that's their personality. They're lazy in dunya, lazy in deen. Mediocre in dunya, mediocre in deen.

But how am I supposed to make sense of that person — and this community, alhamdulillah, that has attained excellence in so many fields, that talks about their excellence in annual conferences and hotels attended by thousands of people, who tries to use that excellence in interfaith dialogue and in dawah and engaging the community they're living in — and yet is failing to have private excellence in their relationship with Allah? How am I supposed to make sense of that?

And then the things that are going on in some people's private realm — in terms of their home, in terms of their relationship with their spouse, in terms of emotional infidelity, in terms of outright infidelity — how am I supposed to make sense of that? That they're excellent in their behavior to others but they fall way short of excellence in their behavior with their own spouses, with their own children, with their own parents. How am I supposed to make sense of that? And nobody wants to talk about it. People are very offended by these things, disturbed by these things. They just want to be told they're great and wonderful and amazing. Allahu Akbar Kabira.

When I studied at the University of Chicago — yes, obviously I would be happy if my professor gave me an A+. But you know what I loved the most? When they marked up my paper with red and gave me extensive comments. Because that's why I went. I went to be trained. I went to learn. I wanted somebody who knew more than me to fix my mistakes and increase me in my level of knowledge. Where is that happening in our communities? Where is that happening in deen? When was the last time we had a consultation with someone about our salah or about our taqwa? When were we able to open up to someone about our lack of haya? Where is that element?

Nabiye Kareem ﷺ said: الدِّينُ النَّصِيحَةُ — all of deen is naseeha. And those young people who are studying Arabic will know that when you define two things with the definite article on both sides, تعريف الطرفين يفيد الحصر — it indicates that naseeha equals deen, deen equals naseeha. What is naseeha? Naseeha isn't just feel-good stuff.

Mutual wasiyyah and naseeha — to mutually enjoin and guide one another to become better in deen. Allahu Akbar Kabira.

So one major issue is ibadah. Another misconception, by the way, is that ibadah is just an individual matter. No, no, no. You know why? Those youth — and I'm telling you, large numbers of people in their 20s and 30s are becoming distant from Allah, even to outright atheism. It's not one or two, even outright atheism. Why? Is it because you don't have a basketball court? Is it because you don't have a gym? Is it because there are no institutions? Is it because there are no masajid? Those were the answers people thought 30 years ago. You can't give that answer today. Why? Because we need a community of ibadah. A masjid, aslan, is a community of ibadah. It's not just an individual thing.

And when a youth puts that delicate heart of his or hers in this community of ibadah, it has an effect on them. Like Nabiye Kareem ﷺ said:

The believer in the masjid is like the fish in the water. You know how much you have to clean your fish tank? When I was a kid, you have to clean that fish tank very regularly. Why? Because even the smallest particles will not be good for the health of that fish. Allahu Akbar.

So we need to be better — especially the people who come to Jumu'ah. You are the people. You think this masjid is big? Believe me, if every single Muslim in Chicago prayed Jumu'ah upon whom Jumu'ah was fard, all the huge masajid would be small. They would fall short. Don't fail to remember that unreported statistic. Why is this group not being able to affect that?

You have to increase the magnetic power of the masjid. The spiritual magnetism of the masjid, the spiritual magnetism of the community, lies in the ikhlas with which the ibadah takes place. The ibadah is not just an individual thing — it's a community thing, it's a masjid affair, it's a community matter. And then inshallah, the youth become people of ibadah.

The Second Issue: Leaving Sin Entirely

The second thing is 'uboodiyyah — obedience to Allah — which simply means leaving all sin entirely. And that's what we're going to talk about tonight inshallah. Because again, we have this strange situation — alhamdulillah, people have left 80% of sin, 90% of sin, 95% of sin, but there are some sins that they're continuing to do. And the way many American Muslims rationalize this — not every one, but many — is they stop viewing it as sin. And when they no longer view it as sin, or they're no longer so ashamed of it, no longer so disturbed about it, then they have this strange life where they coexist with it.

So again, rather than pick on all of you, I'll pick on our own community. I have met people who are huffaz and also sin. You name the sin, I have it. You want hafiz plus murder — I have a case like that. You want hafiz plus zina — I have a case like that. You want hafiz plus drinking — I have a case like that. You want hafiz plus atheism — I have a case like that. And then you can just imagine other lesser sins. It doesn't mean, alhamdulillah, that the overwhelming majority of huffaz are like that — but there are cases like that. That's an extreme example to illustrate the point: that we are able to coexist with sin. It's a strange ability we've developed.

And we may not be hafiz — I'm not a hafiz. For maybe it's a person: Jumu'ah plus sin. We're able to coexist — we're able to pray Jumu'ah regularly without fail, but also sin. Maybe a person prays five times a day plus sins. We have this strange ability that the sin doesn't go away. It's like that stubborn cancerous tumor that doesn't go away despite the person otherwise having general health. The person tells the doctor, "I don't understand, you're telling me I have cancer — I'm perfectly fine. I just played basketball yesterday." So try to explain to that person that this cancerous tumor is coexisting with all of your other general health that you claim and feel. You feel strong, you feel young, you feel active. It's coexisting with all of that.

And that is a graph that has to go up — we have to have more taqwa, more haya, we have to stay away from the different sins.

The Purpose and Power of Jumu'ah

So just towards the end, basically, I would recap: the purpose of Jumu'ah is really to reflect on these things. Do you know the power of Jumu'ah? So people — for example, Ramadan was just a few days ago and these blessed ten days of Dhul Hijjah are coming — in these days, sometimes people increase their nafl salah. Understand: the qurb, the nearness and closeness and belovedness that a person gets to Allah with the fardh salah is infinitely greater than the nawafil, than the extra salah. The greatest of all fardh salah for the man is Jumu'ah. Salatul Jumu'ah is the greatest, most profound, most robust, most deep, most intense fardh salah experience that a man can have.

Now what do you do? If somebody told us that the 27th is Laylatul Qadr — may not necessarily be, but let's say somebody thinks it is — we show up: "Oh, I'm going to make so many nafl." I'm sure many of you prayed Salatul Taraweeh this past Ramadan — that's 20 rak'ats of non-fardh salah, non-fardh salah. Just right now, inshallah, we're going to pray fardh salah. Jumu'ah is a transformative experience.

I was reading one work of one early muhaddith. He was saying that some people change once in their life — that's called Hajj. Some people change once a year — that's called Ramadan. Some people change once a week — that's called Jumu'ah. And some people change five times a day — that's called true salah.

Spiritual transformation from Jumu'ah to Jumu'ah — track it. And if you say, "Jumu'ah to Jumu'ah, I'm exactly the same person today I was last Friday. I'm exactly the same person I was 10 Fridays ago. I'm exactly the same person I was 30 Fridays ago" — then you should be scared. What is it about my heart?

The young man will tell you that if he goes to the gym once, he gets a physical high. And if he starts going to the gym regularly, in a few months he feels the difference. He says, "I feel different — my whole physical health, sense, feeling, outlook is different." So take your Jumu'ah deeply.

Come Early and Linger

One last thing I will say to you: take your Jumu'ah deeply, and that means to come early. And it's all the more necessary in America where you don't have so many other opportunities to actually come into the masjid, sit down, and linger. Linger. Don't be from those people who park in the pole position towards the exit. Linger. Stay. Read Surah al-Kahf.

Nabiye Kareem ﷺ, despite being the greatest believer, the greatest Nabi, still increased his ibadah on Jumu'ah. The most busy person, busy in the work of dawah and nubuwwah, still took more time out for more individual ibadah on Jumu'ah. That itself is generally speaking a sunnah — to turn more to Allah. So you should be different on Jumu'ah. And it's not just about the prayer. Your own individual ibadah — whether you stay back for Surah al-Kahf, whether you read other parts of Quran, whether you make more du'a, whether you make some type of dhikr — whatever you do, your ibadah on Jumu'ah should go up.

So in your book of deeds, on the Day of Judgment, it should be clear which day is Jumu'ah. The other pages have less written on them, and every seven days, the page on Friday has more written on it.

Closing

There are many things one could say — especially, like I said, for Chicago, speaking to you after 13 years. Allahu Akbar.

We make du'a that Allah give me tawfiq also to understand deen and to help guide others in deen. And may Allah give us all tawfiq to have ikhlas and amal.

Humility, sincerity, and honesty — this is your takeaway. Although you may think I didn't talk about these words, humility, sincerity, and honesty will grant you akhirah and will grant you deen, will fix your relation with Allah, and fix your relation with His creation.

الحمد لله رب العالمين.