Know Your Religion - Shaykh Ahsan Hanif

Khutbah Opening

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى، وَخَيْرَ الْهُدَى هُدَى مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا، وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ، وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ، وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ.

The First Commandment of Islam

Our religion calls to everything which is good. Every virtue and every act of goodness, it is within Islam. From prayer, to fasting, to charity, to making pilgrimage, to being dutiful to your parents, and good to your neighbor, and kind and hospitable to your guests, to speaking and having good conduct — all of these issues and more, and the list goes on and on. It is part and parcel of this beautiful religion of Islam.

But when we look at all of those many actions and many deeds that form part and parcel of our religion, and then we look at where it all began — the single commandment with which this religion began — the first revelation of the Quran, the first commandment that was given to the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ as he sat alone in the darkness of the cave of Hira, and the angel Jibreel came to him with the first verse of the Quran. I don't think that there is a single Muslim in this masjid or listening to me right now except that they know which verse I'm referring to. We've memorized the surah and we've heard the story so many times that it's become ingrained within us.

Read in the name of your Lord that created. It is that first commandment that I want to focus on in this khutbah. The commandment to read.

It is a commandment to seek knowledge. It is a commandment to education. It is a recommendation that we learn. We learn our religion. We learn what we need to know to live our lives as Muslims. We learn what we need to please Allah in the hope that Allah will shower His mercy upon us and enter us into the highest of rewards — Jannah, Paradise.

Why Did Allah Begin with Knowledge?

But in order for us to understand this commandment and the way that this religion began, let us also take a look at the context in which it was revealed. Why did Allah not begin this religion with the commandment to pray, or the commandment to fast, or give charity, or the commandment to make pilgrimage and Hajj — because the Arabs of old used to make a type of pilgrimage that they had become accustomed to? Why did Allah begin with the commandment to seek knowledge and to learn?

The Arabs, as we know, the vast majority of them were an illiterate nation. They were a people who were not accustomed to reading and writing. Yes, there were amongst them those who were educated and could read and write, but the vast majority of them were uneducated. They weren't people that could read and write — including our own Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ. Yet even so, Allah revealed the first commandment to seek knowledge and to learn.

Why? Because the Arabs and their practices, the Arabs and the way that they would live, the Arabs and their customs and traditions that had overcome them, the Arabs and the religion that they had chosen for themselves and their children — it was based upon ignorance. The Arabs would trace their ancestry back to the Prophet Ibrahim. They knew that the Ka'bah was built by his son Ismail. They understood and they knew the sanctity and the sacred nature of the Ka'bah. These were things that were not lost upon them. They would trace this back amongst themselves and within their gatherings.

Yet over time, those teachings of Ibrahim had become corrupted. And ignorance had replaced knowledge. And because of the way that the Arabs were — that they could bury their daughters alive in the ground and not think anything of it, that they could go and make tawaf around the Ka'bah naked, men and women, and not think anything of it — they had these practices which today, when we look at, we can't even begin to understand how any community or society would think that that is a shariah revealed from Allah, that it is a way to attain Allah's pleasure and His rewards. But the Arabs thought so, because of the ignorance that had become prevalent amongst them.

So Allah revealed, at the very beginning of this religion, a commandment that still applies to me and you today. Just because now we are literate, we are a people who can read and write, we're educated, we go to school, we graduate, many of us hold qualifications and degrees — that is not the type of commandment that Allah is only referring to. It is not just the command to be able to read and write or to seek education in its conventional means. But Allah is commanding us to know our religion. That is the command that Allah is giving to us.

The Virtue of Seeking Knowledge in the Quran and Sunnah

Throughout the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ, the issue and concept of seeking knowledge and learning is repeated many times. Its virtues, its rewards, its place and position in this religion, the people of knowledge and their status in Islam — it is something which has been preserved in the Quran and the Sunnah, something oft-repeated. Why? Because it is so integral to the way that we live.

The worst of people on Yawm al-Qiyamah — the ones who will suffer the most loss, as Allah mentions in the Quran — are those people who will come with deeds and actions, but they will be nullified. They will bring them on Yawm al-Qiyamah thinking that they have attained Allah's pleasure, that they have done good, that they lived a life of obedience. But because of the ignorance that they had, they didn't even realize that they were displeasing Allah, that their actions would not be accepted by Allah.

Say to them: Shall we not inform you of those who will suffer the most loss on Yawm al-Qiyamah? They are those whose path strayed in this life, all the while thinking that they were doing good. On Yawm al-Qiyamah they will think: I have deeds, I have good, Allah will reward me. But in the sight of Allah, they will be worthless. They will not weigh anything in the scales of Allah, because those people don't have knowledge as to what pleases Allah.

This doesn't mean — and this khutbah isn't something meant to say — that each and every single one of us should therefore become a scholar of Islam, nor is that a position that Islam places upon us. But what this khutbah is about, and what Islam does tell us and obligate upon every single one of us, is that we need to learn from our religion what we require to please Allah, to worship Him, to live a life in which we please Allah.

Our Prophet told us صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: to seek knowledge is an obligation upon each and every single Muslim. For you to know what you require of your religion, the rulings that allow you to practice your religion — that's an obligation upon you. To know how to pray, to know how to give zakah, to know the rulings of Hajj when the time of Hajj comes upon you. These are rulings that you must know; it is an obligation upon you. If you want to go into business, you need to know the halal and the haram of business. When you go into marriage or you want to issue divorce, you need to know the correct and incorrect way of those issues and matters. That is an obligation that Allah has placed upon you.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 35, Hadith 6518)

Whosoever traverses a path upon which there is knowledge, Allah will make it easy for them to reach the path of Jannah. Allah will make it easy for you. The hadith doesn't speak about a scholar; the hadith doesn't speak about an alim or a mufti. It says any person who treads upon that path of knowledge — anyone who wants to learn, who goes to their local imam and asks them a question, who goes and researches, who studies a verse of the Quran, who studies a hadith of the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ — any act that takes you closer to Allah through knowledge, it is included in this hadith.

Our Prophet told us صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ that the angels of Allah lower their wings out of happiness and pleasure for that which the student of knowledge accomplishes. When you try to seek knowledge and learn, even the angels of Allah make du'a for you. We all know the hadith — those people who come together to learn the religion of Allah, to study the Book of Allah, in the masjid or in another place, the angels come and they surround them and Allah sends His tranquility upon them.

All of these ahadith and verses are to show you the importance of this single concept. From that first instance when that verse of Iqra was revealed to our Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ, for the next 23 years of his life, our Prophet would dedicate himself to this ideal of knowledge — teaching knowledge, seeking knowledge, teaching his companions, encouraging them to go and give da'wah and teach others — because he understood the importance of it in our religion.

The Status of Scholars in the Quran

It is because of this that Allah praises knowledge in the Quran. When He speaks about the most important concept in our religion — the issue of tawheed and worshipping Allah alone — Allah chooses the testimony of the scholars and places their testimony alongside His own testimony and the testimony of His angels.

Allah has borne witness that none has the right to be worshipped except Him, and the angels bear witness to this, and so do the people of knowledge, the scholars of Islam. Allah chose them and He gave them that platform and that station and that honor because of their place in this religion — because of what they do and what they strive to achieve, and that is to learn the religion of Allah.

Our Prophet told us صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ that when the scholars strive to attain the truth and they strive to reach and attain knowledge, even if they make mistakes along the way, Allah still rewards them. They have a reward even for the errors that they make, the mistakes that they make, the wrong that they do — so long as their intention is pure, for Allah's sake and for seeking the truth, Allah still rewards them. That is the position of a scholar in this religion.

Our Prophet told us صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ that the station of the scholar over the worshipper — the worshipper being the one who spends his time doing good, who prays, gives charity, fasts, doesn't waste his time, who is worshipping Allah — the station of the scholar above the one who worships Allah is like the place of the moon over the stars. Because a person who worships Allah does good and they have light and they have reward, but it is limited to themselves; it is only for what they achieve themselves. But the one who seeks knowledge and learns and teaches and spreads it to others — that person is like the moon. Their light exposes others, it reaches others, it helps and guides others.

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2685)

So the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ told us: Indeed Allah and His angels and all of the inhabitants of the heavens and all of the inhabitants of the earth, to the fish in the sea and to the ant within its hole — all of them make du'a for the one who teaches others good. All of them supplicate to Allah that Allah should shower His mercy upon such people.

Allah raises the station of those who believe amongst you and the people of knowledge in ranks. He raises their station because they spend their time and they sacrifice their days and their nights, their comfort and their rest, to come closer to Allah and learn His religion.

Indeed it is truly only the scholars of Islam who fear Allah. Why is it only the scholars? Because they are the ones who know most about Allah. They know Allah through His names and His attributes. They study the Quran and they understand it and they contemplate it. They study it in the context of the Sunnah and they study it in its overall overview, and because of this they are able to come closer to Allah.

How the Companions Sought Knowledge

The companions of our Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ would spend their days and their nights seeking knowledge. Each and every single one of those companions — even though they may not be famous as scholars or prolific narrators of hadith — they were all students of knowledge. Each one of them would come and they would spend time with the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ learning about their religion.

If they had a question and they needed to know — and how many ahadith do we have in the books of Sunnah that say a man came, or that an Arab Bedouin came from the desert to the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ. These were people who didn't live in Madinah. They weren't familiar with the ways of the people of Madinah. They weren't people who surrounded themselves with the companions and the people of knowledge, but even they understood that what they needed to know about their religion, they had to go and ask. They had to learn. So they would come and they would ask the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ. They would seek the knowledge that they needed in order to live as Muslims, in order to please Allah.

Umar رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ would have a companion, and they would take turns. One day one of them would spend in the company of the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ whilst his friend went and worked and earned a living. And the other day the two of them would swap. Each and every evening they would gather together, and the one who had spent time with the Prophet would relay the knowledge that he learned, that he benefited, to his companion. This is what the companions used to do.

Abu Hurairah رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, Abdullah ibn Abbas رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُم and many many more would give up earning a living. They would suffer the consequences of poverty and difficulty, hunger and thirst, simply so that they could go and study and learn with the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ. They would sacrifice their personal comfort to study with him.

And not just during his lifetime, but even after his death. The younger companions like Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Umar, and others from amongst them — those who only spent a short amount of time with the Prophet owing to their young age — even after his death they would go to the senior companions. They would spend time with Abu Bakr and Umar and Uthman and Ali and other senior companions and they would seek knowledge. They would learn. And it was those companions who would then go and spread themselves across the Muslim world and teach many other great scholars.

And those scholars would pass on that tradition from generation to generation. Scholars would travel across the world, spending years upon years simply to gather and compile the ahadith of the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ. They would travel from one continent to another, one country to another, thousands of miles on horseback, on foot, on donkeys, simply so that they could take a single hadith from a narrator. They would study and traverse the world. They would spend their nights awake using moonlight or a candle or go to a place where they could find some light to write down the knowledge that they had. When one of them would travel from one country to another, they would require a convoy of camels or donkeys to carry the books and the scriptures that they had written upon — so much was the knowledge that they had. And they would travel and do this simply to learn about this religion, to seek Allah's pleasure through seeking knowledge. And they would spread this knowledge to those who came after them, generation to generation, century upon century.

The Problem of Ignorance in Our Time

In our time, Allah has blessed us. He has blessed us with so many things. From amongst the greatest of those blessings is how easy and how convenient it is to seek knowledge — how accessible knowledge has become through the power of the internet, through all of this technology that we have at our disposal, how easy it is from the comfort of your home to learn about your religion.

Yet despite that, it is unfortunate to say that there are many Muslims — people that we know within our own lives, our own family, friends, neighbors, people that we know within our community — whose knowledge of Islam is very little. And that is from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 80; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2671)

From the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah, from the signs of the Hour, is that knowledge will become less and ignorance will become prevalent. Just as it happened in the time of the pagan Arabs — that even though they could trace their roots to great prophets of Allah, they were people of ignorance — so their knowledge had become twisted. Their knowledge was no longer the way that their forefathers had been practicing. It is something which will happen to our Ummah as well.

We have the Quran, we have books of hadith, we have access to all of this knowledge, yet we have become — despite our level of academic education and our literacy — still ignorant when it comes to our religion. And that is a problem. The fact that someone can come out on the internet, any person, and quote a hadith and we will become mesmerized simply because someone can quote a hadith or say a verse of the Quran — but we are people who no longer know where to find reputable sources of knowledge. We don't know who the qualified scholars are from the unqualified scholars. We don't know how to distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most important issue to us — our religion. That's a problem.

Our Prophet told us صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ that from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3611; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1066)

There will come a group of people towards the end of time who will be young in age, foolish in the way that they think. Why are they young in age and foolish? Because they think that they can study all of what the scholars strived for decades upon decades, years upon years to acquire, in a single sitting. Or they'll read a single verse and think that they know everything. Or they'll study a single hadith or listen to a single lecture and think that they have become qualified scholars of Islam. They are foolish in the way that they think.

يَقُولُونَ مِنْ قَوْلِ خَيْرِ الْبَرِيَّةِ — And they will quote from the statements of the best of creation. Who is the best of creation? Our Prophet ﷺ. He himself is warning us that these are people who will quote from his sayings. They will quote from hadith. They will tell you it is in Bukhari and Muslim. But they don't understand what they're reading. They don't know. They haven't studied. They don't know the principles by which to acquire that knowledge. They don't have the comprehensive overview. They don't have the benefit of the context of those ahadith and those verses of the Quran. So they simply quote, copy and paste.

And because of that, the Prophet ﷺ said their iman will not go deeper than their throats. It is all verbal. It is all speech — saying, talking. But it doesn't go beyond that into their hearts. They don't have that deep sense of iman. They don't have that fear of Allah. They don't have all of those benefits and rewards that the Quran and the Sunnah say that the true scholar should have and should acquire.

Our Responsibility to Learn

It is something which we need to address. All of us — each and every single one of us — has a responsibility within our own selves, and within our own families, and within our own children, to inspire and make a serious effort to seek knowledge of this religion. To learn about our religion. Because if this is our situation, this is the way that we are, then what about our children? And what about their children? And what about their children?

How long will it be before — and this is from the signs of Yawm al-Qiyamah that our Prophet ﷺ told us — it won't be established until people from this ummah seek to worship idols like the Quraysh used to, because of the ignorance that will become prevalent.

So learning and seeking knowledge — in a small way, in a way that's easy and manageable for you — to simply go and learn and to ask and to find out how to distinguish between truth and falsehood when it comes to issues of religion. That is an obligation upon every single one of us, and it is an obligation that we need to start taking seriously.

Second Khutbah — The Context: The London Attacks

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَنْ وَالَاهُ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا، أَمَّا بَعْدُ.

I chose this topic today in light of the attacks that took place in London last week. It is something which disturbs me and worries me that there are people from our religion — or people who claim to be Muslims, however you want to term it — there are people who think that they can do acts like what happened last week in London and claim that it is justified in Islam, claim that it is part and parcel of our religion, claim that there is some text in the Quran and the Sunnah that justifies such actions.

And a greater problem — another problem that I also find deeply worrying — is that there are many people who sympathize with that. They may not perform it, they may not justify it, but they sympathize with those people who do it. Both of those are issues, and they are serious issues, and both of them show a lack of knowledge and understanding of our religion.

The fact that there is not a single qualified, reputable scholar in the world today — from any madhab and from any group — that says that those actions are justified. It is not something which the Prophet ﷺ himself practiced, even though had he wanted to perform such actions he could have done so. And there are even narrations in the books of history and seerah that say that the companions at times even proposed it.

When the Muslims came to Aqabah to give the pledge of allegiance, the people of Madinah came — the Ansar — and they gave the pledge of allegiance of Aqabah. One of those narrations in the books of seerah says that after they gave that pledge of allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ, they heard a calling — a shout, a warning — alerting the people of Quraysh that this pledge was taking place. And the Prophet ﷺ said: "This is the call of Shaytan — disperse," meaning that the people of Quraysh would become aware of what was taking place and they would attack the Muslims. So someone said: "O Messenger of Allah, it was the time of Hajj pilgrimage, everyone was in Mina sleeping during the night — all of the leaders of Quraysh, all of the noble men, all of the archenemies of Islam." He said: "O Messenger of Allah, it will be so easy for us to go and kill them all in their sleep. It's done — kill them all and it's all over." And the Prophet ﷺ responded: "We were never ordered to do this. Rather, return to your homes."

That narration shows that the Prophet ﷺ had the opportunity, had the thought, had the consultation and the advice — but the Prophet ﷺ is showing us that it is not a part of our religion. The Quran, the Sunnah, the scholars of Islam all say the same thing. And when we find people who still sympathize with that, it is an issue that we need to address.

But the root issue in all of this is what I've said today in today's khutbah — we no longer know how to distinguish between truth and falsehood. We don't know our religion, and we don't know where to seek our religion from. And we can only do so much from this pulpit, from this minbar, from this masjid. It is the onus and responsibility of every single person here, and Allah will ask you about it on Yawm al-Qiyamah. What you did with the knowledge that you sought — your feet will not move on Yawm al-Qiyamah until you can answer this question before Allah.

So I ask Allah that He gives us that ability to learn our religion and to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and that He saves us and our families from misguidance and from the traps of Shaytan, and that Allah guides us to that which pleases Him, and that Allah shows His mercy and His blessings upon us and upon our families and our communities, and He preserves our safety and our security.