2015 09 11 Friday Prayer Sheikh Khalil Abdul Rashid

Opening & Mourning

We mourn twice. One, we mourn for the innocent lives that were taken 13 years ago on this day by individuals who have lost their way and lost their souls as a result. We ask Allah to give comfort and sabr to the victims and their families, and we support them as fellow countrymen, as fellow Americans.

We also mourn specifically the brothers and the sisters whose lives were lost in the great sacred precinct, Mecca al-Mukarrama, due to the accident — the over 70, or perhaps over 80, as the number is climbing — and those 200 injured. We mourn their loss and we pray for their families as well. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give them the status of shuhada on this Yawm al-Jumu'ah. And may they be buried in the most blessed place on earth, and may they have a good reunion with their families in the akhirah, ameen ya Rabb.

As we remember those that have been taken from us — whether it's remembering them with respect to our own community as Muslims, those Muslims who also died on 9/11, or remembering that loss in general and sharing in the mourning process as a community — we also look at the legacy and our job that's ahead of us.

The Post-9/11 Reality & the Islamophobic Movement

We also look at those Muslims right now that are struggling to leave their war-torn homes and find comfort and peace and solace in other parts of the western world. The post-9/11 world has caused a radical change in the perception and the reception of Islam and Muslims. That radical change has had one effect: a rise in those individuals that seek to distort, seek to change, to alter, to destroy the perception and the understanding of what Islam is and who Muslims are — the Islamophobic movement.

And we do have extreme radicalism in our communities that we have to fight against. We do. Nonetheless, we have been given by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala great blessings. We have been given in this country, particularly in this community, great wealth, great education, great stability. Alhamdulillah — and the opportunity to rise up in the ranks. And that chance is not given to the vast majority of our brothers and sisters overseas, even in some European countries.

The Downsizing of the Soul

There is, as part of the western teaching — if you look at psychology, look at psychiatry, even these disciplines — overall, the notion of attachment to the world. The slow but gradual move as a society away from principles of morality. And the acceptance, slowly but surely in our society, of anything goes, everything is okay. The gradual erosion and decrease of the notion of what is right and what is wrong, morally right and morally wrong.

There is what I call a downsizing of the soul, of the ruh. In the corporate sense, when you downsize, you let go of employees. You let go of bodies. You take from one area that's growing too much, that's causing a financial problem or it's costing too much. So you downsize — you eliminate that area, you decrease, you let go of workers. You fill that area. It was fat, now it's thin, and you're able to carry that area, you're able to move on because you've decreased your burden. It's called downsizing. It's a polite word for letting people go because you don't want to carry responsibilities.

We have, as a culture — and even as some professions, but as a general wave in our culture — a downsizing of care and concern for the ruh, for the qalb. And a general downsizing so that people no longer strive to transcend the dunya. They don't strive anymore. There is no one out publicly talking about rising above worldly and material and dunyaly and shahwaly inclinations. It is as if we as a culture, as an American culture, are now settling for adjusting to life in the world. And we've completely erased all notions of the afterlife. We've erased any notion of life after death, moral consequences, spiritual consequences.

So we've downsized the soul into the body. We no longer speak to the qalb, we speak to the body. And what closes the body. And the standards are bodily standards. And that cultural phenomenon is now creeping slowly and surely into the Muslim community here — such that the Muslims, who have a legacy of being the community that points people to the ruh, that stands up and is supposed to stand up for akhlaq and character and ethics — that community too, our community, is being affected by this notion of the downsizing of the ruh to the body.

Therefore we have, in some cases, Muslim institutions that are not Islamic. Muslim externally but not internally. We have scholars, in some cases, for dollars. Externally they look the part, internally they have a long way to go. Talk a lot, do nothing. All khutbah, no practice. All kalam, no amal. We have communities that thrive externally to look good — internally, bickering and fighting. We are supposed to be people who are leaders for people who look for taqwa.

Our Mandate: Leaders of Taqwa

Brothers and sisters, that's our mandate. Allah mentions in the Quran this ayah that I started with — there is a class of people who say:

Give us families. Give us beautiful mates and beautiful offspring — children that will give us comfort when we look at them. Give us a surrounding, a domestic situation that gives us comfort and stability and peace. We want that blessing of comfort and stability and peace when we look at our domestic situation, our homes, what's around our homes. We ask that, Ya Rabb. And then as a result of that, we want to give you something, Ya Rabb. We want to do something for you on account of the blessings and the stability you've given us.

You see, you've given us stability and things that we can be grateful for. We're not out taking the hundred-mile walk to Switzerland with a pregnant wife delivering in the field with police officers chasing us. That's not our plight. Our plight is not walking in the rain for miles with a child and having drivers kicking us. That's not our plight. Ya Rabb, by your amr of kun fayakoon, you've put us here and not there. But we must give back. So make us imams — leaders — for the people of taqwa. Which assumes we have taqwa to begin with.

What we said two weeks ago was: the standard point, the baseline for our operation as a community, is that all of us have as a baseline — we move from taqwa. Taqwa should not be our goal. No. Taqwa is the goal of the new Muslim. But our baseline of operation must be that we're a people of taqwa from the beginning. We say we know better. We don't have an excuse. So we should be working from the platform of taqwa. And therefore, Ya Rabb, if we're working from that baseline, we're going to move up to the level of muhsinin, to the level of mukarrabin, to the level of ashab al-yamin. If we want to go to that level, we have to be leaders for the people of taqwa. That's what we want. That's how we give back.

The Refugees: Their Struggle vs. Our Struggle

Now we have a struggle. We look on the television set and the news media and we hear about the struggle of hundreds of thousands of our Muslim brothers and sisters as refugees from war-torn communities, and we think: Ya Rabb, alhamdulillah we are not in that situation. When in reality, they have it better than we do. They have it much better than we do.

They are running from war to what they believe are peaceful lands. They are running from turmoil, from a fight, from a situation where there is no economic stability, no mental and psychological stability. They are running from a situation where their domestic life is not stable, not even humane. And they are seeking a peaceful life. They are in turmoil. They are in times of struggle and dire need. And it has gotten so bad that journalists are kicking them. Nobody can protect them. They are outside of the legal system as refugees. Some of our Muslim countries in the Gulf said they'd like to take them, but "in our legal system we don't even have a term for the word refugee, so we cannot take them. I'm sorry." Their legal category doesn't exist in their legal system.

But their situation is still better than ours. Our situation — our plight that we're in — is radically different. They find a home, they find food and water. That's a step for them. We have comforts that have been showered upon us by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and we have a massive job to do in this country — and we haven't even started working. This structure here is only the tiniest beginning. We have work to do.

The ISTA Conference: Masajid, Youth & Education

We were at the conference last week — Imam and myself, Sheikh Mokhtar and myself, Imam Zia was there, Imam Spendam from the Richardson Masjid was there — the ISTA conference. And there was a big discussion on our plight: terminator issues, masajid, youth, education. With respect to all of those issues, more or less there was consensus that with masajid, we're okay. We're now, as Muslims of America, at another stage. We're no longer building masajid anymore. We're moving beyond that now. That's not our time anymore. That doesn't mean all the masajid projects aren't going to be built, but we're now at the stage as an American Muslim community where that's not our goal anymore — collectively.

We've got enough to survive. We'll always have masjid projects and we'll always support them, but no longer is that the standard of success anymore. Now we have to move past that. We have institutions to build. From the masjid level — the masjid is the beginning, it is the core — now from there, institutions.

And the overwhelming consensus was that if we don't do anything about our youth, there is no future — or a bleak, bleak future — for Islam in this country. Because our youth is squeezed in between two opposing forces, and you could argue three, perhaps four, that are putting so much pressure on them that they are at risk of losing not only their soul but their body as well. But for us, the soul is more important. Because if you lose the body, it's the loss of this life. You lose the soul, this life and the next life goes with it. We are concerned about the body, but we're concerned about the soul first. The qalb first.

Two Forces Squeezing Our Youth

First Force: Rapid Materialism

On the one hand is rapid, rapid materialistic impulses — just materialism. Xbox, cell phones, media, social networks, Facebook, Twitter, amassing funds online. Forgetting — irregardless of their level of akhlaq or anything — the standard of success is electronic standards now. If you've got hundreds of followers, you're not good enough. You've got to have over a thousand followers now. So now our youth want followers, even though they are not equipped to be leaders in the first place — but they just want followers.

Someone was with me at the conference. Someone came up — he was a young kid, youth — sort of low, very upset. He was upset that he only had 400 followers on his Facebook page. He was upset: "How do I get thousands of followers?" He said, "Kid, is this your goal in life? What happened to akhirah? What are you following? Why are you so concerned about followers? Do you know your deen? Do you know your responsibility? Have you gone out and helped your neighbor? What are you doing about educating yourself — in the world and in this deen? Where is your practice? Why do you want people to follow you when you have no idea about practice?"

These devices of materialism take our youth and want to pump them up to looking at themselves and to try to have their 5, 10, 15 minutes of fame for self-glory. This is one end.

Second Force: Radical Extreme Teachings

The other end is radical extreme teachings — online as well — that teach them to hate their communities, hate their masajid, hate their ulama, hate this country, hate what it stands for, and want to go out and wreck themselves, wreck their families, and wreck other people as well. That is a force that is pushing them as well.

The Key: Leadership & Trained Teachers

The key to this is leadership. Teachers. A brother came to me the other day. He wants to start a program educating young elementary school kids about Islam. Great! Wonderful! First thing I said: "Where are the teachers?" He said, "Well, that is a good question." I said, ya akhi, how can you think of getting 50 kids together and you don't have a trained teacher? How? Volunteer — volunteer for Islamic studies? We've got to go past that now. Our kids are dealing with real issues.

And so the conclusion is: we've got to have trained teachers. Well, in order to have trained teachers, you have to have good educational institutions. Then it was clear — we all need seminaries. That was the next step. Folks from Kentucky, Boston, Atlanta, Tennessee. Zaytuna was there. Everybody wants to start a seminary now — a Muslim college, Muslim higher educational centers of learning — because they need teachers. You can't say a word if you don't have teachers. You can't train youth with volunteer teachers because volunteer teachers have not been trained. And the youth can spot them immediately when they know they're ignorant and have no idea of their deen. "I can't ask this person a question — why should I even go to class?"

We need to move to the next level. It was a big discussion. "What are you guys doing in Texas? Taqwa came up." "What are you guys doing in California? Zaytuna was there." Folks from Kentucky said, "Well, we'd like to know what you guys are doing." Folks from Boston: "We'd like to know what you're doing. Can we start an agreement?"

Our Struggle: Establishing What Allah Loves

Listen. We'll have a struggle here. I shared the story with him about the cemetery issue. It is not a problem just here. We have a struggle to strive to establish what Allah loves — and to establish what He loves inside of us and outside of us. That is our struggle. That is our goal.

And how do I know? Because we are victorious in that — in striving to establish what He loves inside of us internally and what He loves externally, outside of us. We are victorious when that's done, or when we die in the process. Now it's not going to be done unless certain requirements are fulfilled.

In the Prophet's time, peace be upon him, he was establishing the community. The masjid was first. And after the masjid came the educational center. And then people's lives were transformed, and then other institutions were built. But the requirement that the Prophet, peace be upon him, gave to everyone was two things: moral commitment and material resources.

We have to be morally committed — from a point of akhlaq, a point of iman, a point of amal — that we must establish what He, ta'ala, loves in terms of the growth and the development of this deen. Calling others with our actions and our service to this deen. Representing this deen in a way that He loves — both interpersonally and communally — and educating people in the process.

We must be morally committed to that cause. And that cause means that as a community, we are the ones that stand up for taqwa. We are the people to be muttaqeen. We are the people to be morally conscious — to have a standard of understanding that certain things are right, certain things are wrong, certain things are good for the soul, certain things are not good for the soul. That's our contribution to this great country: akhlaq. And we must establish institutions that promote, protect, and preserve akhlaq — not with karam, but with amal and ihsan, with actions.

That means each and every one of us — you and me — must be committed to practicing and reforming and improving our own akhlaq, our own character. Because those people out here sure need it. And when we belong to them, we need it before them. We need it before them. We've got to be good for us first. We don't get focused on being good for other people while we ourselves are wrecks. But when we stand up for what's right, and we perform what's right, and we teach what is right, and we educate others in what is right, and we train others to teach others about what's right — then that is when we become leaders of people of taqwa.

The imam is the one who leads by example. The imam of the salat doesn't tell everyone else to pray and sit here and watch — he prays first. He goes into the prayer first. And because he goes first, we go second. That is the imam. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said the imam was made to be followed. He's got to go first. So we can't be leaders of taqwa and have no taqwa at all — or we have little taqwa, or we have part-time taqwa, or we have short-of-taqwa, or we have taqwa in public but not in private. We can't be like that.

But we must understand that we have a struggle. Our brothers and sisters' struggle over there as refugees is to find a place. But we don't have a place — our struggle is to enhance this place. Our struggle is to build on the raw materials that Allah has given us — in terms of this masjid, the finances, the people that are here, the resources — to enhance that so that this masjid can rise and continue to lead and to be a light-giver for all other Muslims and non-Muslims in this North Dallas area. We have the ability to do it. But we cannot do it alone. We must do it together.

And we must see that victory comes when we are committed to dying for what we believe in. We've lost that courage. We must be courageous about standing for the deen of Allah. These people need help. We need help. We need better examples. Our kids need better examples. These kids need better examples.

A Call to Action: Building Institutions

We've got to establish institutions. This storage area next to us — there should be 10 brothers, 10 sisters, 15 brothers, 15 sisters, 30 brothers, 30 sisters come to Shura and say: "We need to buy this place. We need to buy it. How much does it cost? We need to buy it next week. Get it done." We need more parking. We need space for our youth. We need more classroom spaces. We need to buy that place. We need to buy this place. This is not the extent of our community. We've got 50 years to plan ahead for. We've got projects. We've got hundreds of people here — poor people there, disabled people here, people who are ignorant about Islam there, people that are ready to fight to make sure we don't have the possibility to bury our dead. We have a job to do. And Muslims all over North America and in this country know it.

And what happened this past weekend was that you had thousands of Muslims showing up, and they were all afraid. They all had fear in their eyes because they didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to confront what's going on in these cities. Then it came to me and he said, "How could you stand in front of — what did you do when the situation with the cemetery happened? What did you do?" I said, "Brother, sit down. Let me tell you something. With all due respect, this issue with our cemetery — as a community — yes, it was hard to endure that Islamophobia and that hatred. Yes, it was difficult. But we're going to go forward. We're going to persist. Do you know why? Because we have the law on our side, and we have rational-thinking people — Christians and Jews — that support us on our side."

I said, "This is not like Ta'if, where the Prophet, peace be upon him, didn't have the law, the liberal system on his side, and didn't have anybody on his side — and he still persisted." We have a religion and we shy away and we get deconstructed because we haven't been spoon-fed all the resources that have been given to us. We have to earn certain things. And we have to fight for respect in this country, because there is a machine — more than a dollar machine — that is fighting to disrespect us in this country. We have to stand up and fight back. But not with violence.

We must not build violence in our rhetoric. We must not build violence in our spiritual conduct. We must not build violence towards anybody — even if they build violence towards us. We must build not violence, but we must move forward. And we don't hate people, brothers and sisters.

We Don't Hate People — Our Enemy Is Shaitan

It's another thing when I say we die for a cause to establish this thing, but we don't hate people. Our enemy is Shaitan, not insan. And our enemy are forces of evil and evil actions — evil actions, not people. We hate evil actions, we don't hate people. Because we must always say, as followers of Muhammad, as followers of Habib and Mustafa, we must be willing to see the potential good in everyone.

We must — in every single heart — see a potential for the qudra of Allah to turn that person's heart in a split second. If that could happen with Hind, who ate the flesh and part of the liver of the uncle of the Prophet, peace be upon him — if that could happen with Abu Sufyan, if that could happen with many other people who fought and killed the Sahabas — it can happen with people in this country who are brainwashed with bad material about Islam. It is a possibility for Allah to change hearts.

Because the quloob — the hearts — as the hadith literature tells us, the hearts of human beings are between the fingers metaphorically — the fingers of the Rahman. Allah can do what He wills. We must be willing to see, and to have hope for the people in this land — every single one of them. From the beggar on the street, that that person can receive hidayah, to the incarcerated rapist in jail, that that person can be one of the salihin, to Donald Trump himself — it is possible that Allah can work and do His qadr, do what He wills.

Closing Du'a & Reflection

Allah ta'ala says: يَا لَطِيف — He is Latif. We'll have to do the work. We'll have to stand up. We'll have to come together. We'll have to rise above what we consider a success. This is not success. This is a start. We are successful when our brothers and sisters out there come to this deen in droves.

You'll see people coming to this deen in waves. Then say Astaghfirullah. Don't think you are successful. Say Astaghfirullah. "I think I've done something." Astaghfirullah. This is the work of my Rabb. Innahu kana tawwaba. We're doing what we have to do.

Ya Rabb, through this work, please forgive us of our forgetfulness. Please forgive us of our weakness. Please forgive us for being comfortable while our brothers and sisters are being kicked by journalists and driven out and thrown out of their homelands. Please forgive us for having coffee while people are dying. Please forgive us for just going out here and giving $25 when we could have given $50. For being comfortable and parking here when we could have this whole place. Please forgive us for being comfortable in the classrooms we have and not establishing more colleges and institutions because we are stingy.

Ya Rabb, give us courage. Ya Rabb, give us commitment. Ya Rabb, give us akhlaq. Give us vision, give us quwwa, give us futuwwa. Give us tawfeeq to protect ourselves and our youth from your anger and your ghadab. And Ya Rabb, most importantly, protect us from the displeasure of your Habib.

The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: ask Allah to forgive me and you, and all the Muslims of every sin. So ask Him to forgive you, for He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.

Second Khutbah

Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Messengers, and upon his family and all his companions, and upon those who follow them with good till the Day of Judgment. I advise you to fear Allah.

He said: Allah and His angels pray for the Prophet.

Salah & Community Announcement

They are sharing two masajid for 400 families to pray, but they are very close to finishing their masjid. So Salman from that community is here to ask your support, so that they can also complete their masjid and move forward.