2015 10 02 Friday Khutbah Sheikh Khalil Abdul Rashid

Opening — Adhan and Du'a

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

We ask Allah to forgive all of us for all of our sins and our shortcomings on this mubarak day. We ask Allah to bless our community in this masjid. To bless our brothers and our sisters in the Alem community as they have established, alhamdulillah, their masjid as well. We ask Allah to bless them and enhance them. We ask Allah to put success in their affairs and in our affairs. And in the affairs of all the Muslims in this part of the country and in our country and in the world. Ameen Ya Rabb, Ameen.

The Covenant of Bani Israel — A Reminder for Us All

Allah says in Surah Al-Baqarah, where He reminds the Prophet — and through that He tells the Prophet to remind those people of Bani Israel that were in his presence. And in reminding them of what they did when their tribe was with Musa (alayhi as-salam), He — tabaraka wa ta'ala — is reminding us not to be like that. He — tabaraka wa ta'ala — is telling us: don't do that.

And so He says — a'udhu billah — and remember, or remind them, and you yourselves, and all of us take as an example: when the people of Bani Israel took a covenant, a mithaq, a trust with Musa (alayhi as-salam), to only act according to the Torah. Allah gifted them a book, gifted them a messenger, gifted them a particular way. And He took a trust from them, a mithaq from them: only conduct your affairs according to this book. Not according to your intellect. Not according to the way you've done it as a tribe. Not according to your culture. Not according to your previous beliefs. But according to the Torah.

And there was a lot of resistance when that trust was being offered. So Allah showed His power and His might. And He elevated the mountain of Tur — elevated it up in the presence of Bani Israel. And took the mountain, imagine this now — took the mountain from the ground, raised it up and caused it to hover above the heads of Bani Israel. An entire mountain. And it was only then that they submitted.

In the tafsir literature and in some of the qisas it says they said — and Allah mentions in the Quran where He says:

"And We raised the mountain of Tur above your heads." That's what it took.

"Take this — take what you've been given." Meaning the Torah — this book, take it, follow it, act on it, implement it in your lives, live by it. Bi quwwah — and be serious about it. Don't joke around with it. Bi quwwah — it's there, you do. Work hard with it, use it. Don't let the Torah just sort of sit on your shelves and you admire it from a distance. Take hold of it, read it. Let the problems fall apart — practice it. Be guided by it.

"And listen." Take it seriously, bi quwwah. And listen. In the beginning, some of them said sami'na — "we heard, we hear you." But in a pejorative way, like: yeah, yeah, we hear you. Wa al-'iyyadhu billah. Yeah, we hear you. We get it, we get it.

When Jabal al-Tur was raised over them, that's what it took to move them. In another narration, that's when they said sami'na. It was only under the threat of the mountain crushing them that they said sami'na — "we hear." And then when the mountain was relocated back to its original place — Jabal al-Tur was relocated to its original place by the leave of Allah — and they felt safe again, they said:

"We hear — and we disobey." We hear when the mountain is there, but when it's returned to its place, we'll go back to our old ways.

The Punishment: Drinking the Calf

And so because of that action — of following the book under pressure, and ignoring the book when everything is fine and safe — Allah said that He caused them to drink the calf, the 'ijl:

"We literally caused them to drink the calf — the baby cow. We made them drink that and it went into their hearts." Bi kufrihim — because of their kufr. That is kufr. You act on the book when you need it; when you don't need it, you throw it away.

The ulama said that when Musa (alayhi as-salam) saw what was going on with the 'ijl — with the calf — he got so angry with them that he threw down the tablets, and he burned the calf, that is the golden calf. He burned it, and then he took what was left and he cast it into the sea — the Red Sea.

And this part of the ayah, where Allah says that He made them drink — down to their hearts — the 'ijl, the calf. In one of the narrations it says that they ran to the sea, after Musa (alayhi as-salam) had dispersed the ashes and everything into the sea, that they ran to the sea and one of them started drinking the water. In another narration they ran to the sea and jumped into the sea and started gulping down the water. Because of their hubb — their love — for that 'ijl, that calf, that moment.

And that was a punishment from Allah for their recklessness, and their heedlessness, and their forgetting of Allah. And their turning back on that covenant that He made with them. He inserted in them such a love for that object, that even when it was gone, they couldn't stand the loss of that object — they had to continue to consume it. In whatever form that it had taken, even if it was salty water, they still had to consume it, they felt the need to consume it.

This is quite powerful. Because the other part of that story is at the end of Surah Al-Baqarah, which we'll discuss tonight in the Tafsir and our Quran night, insha'Allah. The end of that story is the Prophet's (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) comment on that which comes at the end of Surah Al-Baqarah, which Shaykh Ramadan will recite to us this evening, insha'Allah.

The Hadith of Abu Ubaidah: What the Prophet Feared for His Ummah

We're talking about our desire for material things — that sometimes, even though those things take different shapes and different forms, we're still drawn to that, we're still pulled in by it. Allah says: don't be like that.

When the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) sent Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah — the Sahabi — to Bahrain, and he sent him to collect the jizya. And he returned with a significant amount of coins. And it was such that all of the Ansar in Medina heard about the collection. And so they came in droves to the Prophet's mosque. And the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) met them at Fajr. And at Fajr time he prayed Salatul Fajr. And after Salatul Fajr he turned around and he faced them. And the masjid was full, as it always was. But it was really full in the sense that there was something in anticipation. There was something in the hearts of the Ansar, and the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) knew about that. He felt it and sensed it.

And he said — after Salatul Fajr — "I believe you've heard what Abu Ubaidah has brought." And they said, "Ajal Ya Rasulullah — yes, Ya Rasulullah." And he (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) smiled first. At-tabassum an-Nabi (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) — he smiled, such that you could see his blessed, beautiful white teeth. And he said to them:

"What I fear for you is not that you become poor. In other words, the presence of wealth — or the lack of wealth — is not what I'm afraid about for my Ummah. You're happy you have wealth and you're in an impoverished state — now you're happy. So the wealth coming and going, that's not the point. That's not the focus. What I fear for you is that the dunya opens up for you. And that you compete in the dunya. And you rival each other in the world. Just like the people before you rivaled and competed in the world. And because of that, you become ruined. Just like those before you were ruined."

That's what I fear for you, he said. This material situation — when the dunya finally opens up its treasures for you. And you as a community become a wealthy community that can build great things financially. And build lofty structures. And become very comfortable in your homes. And drive wonderful, luxurious and comfortable cars. What I fear is the competitive spirit that emerges from that. And that instead of competing for the akhirah, you compete for that. And as a result of that competition — that negative competition — you lose. You ruin yourself and you become ruined as a community.

In other words, the strive and the zeal and the energy — and the remembrance of the covenant and the agreement that we have with Allah — we forget that. And we lose that mindset because of our level of comfort. And those objects that are around us — our homes, our secure jobs, our 401ks, our nice comfortable rides — they become the calf that we worship. They become that.

But there's nobody that's going to be around to burn those things and cast them in the water for us. We have to do that at some point — abstractly. We cannot consume the world with our hearts. We cannot be like that. And the moment we are like that — and I would argue in many cases we are like that — the moment we give in to that temptation, that is the beginning of our destruction. It's the beginning of our self-destruction.

The Linguistics of الْعِجْل — A Deep Look at the Word

It's very powerful that Allah in the ayah uses the word — and if you love linguistics and you love language, this is really fascinating — the idea of all the words in Arabic for a baby cow, the word is 'ijl. So Allah says that We made them drink the 'ijl down to their hearts. And the 'ijl is a beautiful word — yes, it means the baby calf. But from this word a myriad of other mind-boggling terms emerge.

So we have the term, for example, 'ajal — which is similar, from the same root — which means haste. And if you take that word, 'ajal, that haste enters their heart. And what is haste in the shari'i, fiqhi sense? It's not running fast. Haste is when you are confronted with a decision, and the very first khatira — the very first thought — that comes to your mind, you go to that one. And nine times out of ten, that first khatira, that first thought, is from Shaytan. And so the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) — that's why he said in authentic hadith:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2012)

"Haste is from Shaytan." And so the 'ijl also becomes 'ajal — haste — an instrument that people consume, of Shaytan's doing. Which is exactly what happened with the calf in that story — it was a Shaytanic instrument.

'Ajal is also present in the word 'ajil, which means the world itself — the dunya — very powerful. The material world, the dunya itself. So Allah mentions in the Quran:

"Whoever loves the 'ajilah — whoever actually wants the 'ajilah — then Allah 'ajjalna lahum fiha ma nasha' — that We hasten him to it." He uses both words. The one who loves the 'ajilah — the one who loves the world — 'ajjalna lahum — We hasten him to it. Both words are there. Liman nurid — however We will, and whoever We want that to happen to, that's who We give it to. Whoever desires that dunya, We'll just rush them to it. Not We rush it to them — if you desire the world, Allah will push you quickly to that worldly thing you desire. He'll make you hasten to it. But look at the linguistics — haste comes from that first thought which is oftentimes Shaytanic. So He'll hasten them to it by a Shaytanic instrument. And then Allah says, at the end We'll cast them into hellfire. And that person will be bankrupt and lost. We'll give it to you quick. And then you'll burn even quicker. Very powerful.

If you switch the letters, you get ja'ala. Same root, but the letters are just switched around. Ja'ala — which means something that's made and crafted. Which is what the cow was. It was a crafting of man-made proportions. Something that people make. Therefore, what they were drinking was something man-made. What they were ingesting and consuming was a man-made idea — a human-made construct. And they accepted and ran for the man-made object. And they abandoned their contract and their covenant with the Creator of man. So Allah gave them what they wanted. He allowed that to penetrate into their hearts.

The Modern Calf: Vigilance in Our Time

We have to watch our connections with the world. We have to watch our connections with things that are made by human beings — ideas, instruments, philosophy. Everything nowadays is about miniature calves popping up in the realm of people. And that's what the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) meant when he said: what I fear is this world opening up to you. The brand-new emergence of new ideas and new things and new treasures.

The Sahabah had seen gold before. They had seen silver before. They had seen riches before. So what was it that the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) was talking about when he said the fear of the world opening up to you? Those are riches and wealth in all forms and all fashions and all trends. Things we haven't seen before. Innovations and brand-new ideas and brand-new technologies and brand-new sophisticated forms of living, and brand-new sophisticated forms of thinking, and brand-new sophisticated forms of holding laws and holding ideas — and so forth. That open up new pathways, new opportunities to seek more of the world. To put more of the world in your hands. New challenges, new bridges to new worlds. When the world opens up to you, you eventually become consumed by it. That's what I fear for you, he said.

And so the upshot is: we should never lose our zeal and our desire to constantly renew our covenant with Allah. And we must always be aware of the calf in our lives, in our communities. And we have to always be alert to its presence. And we have to be the ones to identify it as a calf — so that we don't consume it falsely. And in our false consumption of it, we hope that we get akhirah through it. We celebrate it. We must cease celebrating mediocrity. We must cease to celebrate things that are not celebratory. We must find the true value in serving this deen, enhancing this deen, and working for this deen.

Because now is the time. This is the time where we must all remember this covenant. We must all remember what we are striving for. What we are sacrificing for. And we must not slow down — we must speed up. With the presence of multiple institutions in this community, and the presence of people in this community that are against this community and want to bring this community down, we must be constantly vigilant of all of the calves and the Trojan horses that would seek to infiltrate our communities, our hearts, minds, institutions, schools — and bring us down one way or the other through haste, through worldly successes. We must stop celebrating and running for the world. We must celebrate things of true importance and return to tamassuk — holding fast to the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). And be aware of the forms that Shaytan can take to infiltrate and corrupt our minds, our hearts, and our communities.

I say this and ask Allah to forgive me and you and the Muslims of every sin. So ask Him for forgiveness. Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.

Second Khutbah — Salawat and Du'a

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon our Master Muhammad and his family and companions. I advise you and myself to fear Allah. Allah says:

"Verily Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who have believed, send blessings upon him and give him peace."

O servants of Allah, fear Allah. Indeed Allah commands justice and excellence and giving to those of kin, and He forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you so that perhaps you will be reminded.

Establish the prayer. The prayer has been established.