Defeating Modern Day Idolatry

Defeating Modern Day Idolatry

The Story of Bani Israel and the Idol

In the middle of Surah Al-A'raf, Allah gives us multiple stories, and amongst those stories is the story of Bani Israel. What is peculiar about this particular passage that I want to relate to you today — Allah is talking about a community of believers. Believers in Musa alayhi salam, believers in the message that Allah sent. Believers after having witnessed with their own eyes the miracles that Allah sent with Musa alayhi salam.

This passage is describing a community that had just crossed the river after it was parted — the water after it was parted — a miracle that no one can think of. A community that was under distress as they approached that water. They did not know who to turn to, and Allah parted the water in front of Musa alayhi salam and they walked through it. And the nation, the superpower that was behind this community and was out to destroy them, was destroyed in that water.

Allah tells us:

"And We delivered Bani Israel through the water and through the ocean." And then Allah relates to us a very peculiar undertaking that this community goes through. Allah says:

They came upon a people — a town. And what did they observe there? They came to a people, a town, and they were mesmerized and amazed at what these people were doing. They were amazed at their devotion to their idols. Allah describes them as the people who were devoted to their idols.

So they came upon a culture. They came upon a culture that was built around idol worship. They came upon a people that — just like we do i'tikaf and come to the masjid in Ramadan — Allah uses the same word. These people were committed to their idols so much so that they built their lives around their idols. And this community of believers, the faithful believers who had seen all these miracles from Allah, do something that no one can think of.

They say:

"Bring to us a deity, like they have all these deities." They didn't even ask for multiple deities, because they believed in Allah. They said there is one God, so we want one deity — just like all these other people have their deities, we want one of those.

Musa alayhi salam tells them: "You are a people who have تَجْهَلُونَ — who have jahalah in them now." And jahl in Arabic is the opposite of 'aql. And in Arabic, 'aql is something — an understanding — that constrains your feelings. It prevents you from acting in any way you think you should act. It helps you understand what you see around you, what you observe with your eyes, what you hear with your ears, what you feel in your heart. It helps you understand it and put it in context with Allah.

Whereas jahalah is the opposite of that — where those things overpower. What you see overpowers what you think. And these people had come into a culture, come into a society where the idol worship was so mesmerizing that after having seen this miracle from Allah — the parting of the ocean — they dared to ask Musa alayhi salam, "Give us an idol."

And brothers and sisters, I start with this story because we as a community — Muslims as a community — we live in a society that also mesmerizes us. The idols are different. We no longer have the problem of this idol worship in its classical form. Yes, some people worship idols. But that is not what mesmerizes people nowadays. You don't go to a temple and say, "Wow, we've got to have a temple like this." That doesn't happen anymore. But it happens in other ways.

These stories are revealed to us — given to us — so we can take heed. We can think about how Shaitaan comes to us and how he seeks to change how societies operate. One of the tricks of Shaitaan is that he gives hopes and aspirations and purpose that seeks to replace the deen. That seeks to replace the deen of Allah.

So brothers and sisters, let's reflect. The time is short and I won't be able to cover the topic fully — the topic is vast. But let's reflect on some idols that might be impacting us today, as a Muslim community and as a society at large. And the responsibility that we have as a Muslim community to bring people in this world away from idol worship — not the idol worship of the past, but the idol worship of today — to the worship of Allah. To free them. To free ourselves from this worship of idols to the worship of Allah.

The Three Modern Idols

Idol One: Feelings

Allah says:

"Do you not see the one who has taken as their deity their desires?" In the post-modern world where feelings matter more than fact, this is a fundamental problem that our community faces — that our societies face. Because feelings have come to overcome facts. Feelings have become more important than following the truth. It is why we hear words like "you only live once." It is why we hear words like, "Yes, you are saying what you're saying, but that's your truth and this is my truth." Truth is truth — not your truth and my truth.

As a community, as a society, we must reflect on this and see where in our conversations, when Allah and Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's word is being spoken and told, we ask ourselves: "How do I feel about this?" That's a problem. That's a new idol that we must address head-on.

Idol Two: Reason Used to Justify Disobedience

Allah relates to us the story of Iblis. What was the sin of Iblis? Allah told him to do sajdah to Adam and he came up with a logical argument against why he shouldn't. He said: "I am created from fire and he is created from clay."

"So why is it that I need to do this?" And this, brothers and sisters — we often reflect on this and think about takabbur. We think about how Iblis came with arrogance. We relate it to racial discrimination or racial superiority. That's absolutely true. But there is a deeper thing going on here, and this shows up in a lot of different places.

It shows up in the story of Yusuf alayhi salam. What was the reason Yusuf's brothers said that they needed to do what they did to Yusuf alayhi salam? They said, "Our father loves him more than everybody else." Was that true? We don't know. But they gave themselves a reason. They gave themselves a logical reason to justify what they were doing — just like Iblis gave himself a reason to justify what he was doing.

And brothers and sisters, our communities and our societies often give ourselves a reason to justify what we are doing, even though it is against the command of Allah. Hijab might be "suffocating." I remember when I was a child — this was maybe 20-plus years ago — I was watching an interview on the streets. A reporter goes up to a woman who was completely covered, wearing niqab and abaya and everything. And she goes up to her and she says, "Aren't you hot in this?" And her reply — subhanAllah — is ingrained in my head. Because her reply completely blew my mind. She said:

"The fire of Hell is far hotter." And she walked away.

I'm not saying Islam is against reason. Islam is 100% not against reason. Islam is not asking you to not use your intellect. But when you apply your reason and make it higher than your deen, your Islam — when you apply your reason to suppress what Allah has asked, to move away from the commands of Allah — it becomes your idol.

Idol Three: The Self and Comfort

This is a post-modern phenomenon. Where the first two were about feelings and about how we thought, the third is about our comfort. Allah told this ummah:

And when Allah is thankful to us, He says:

سَعْيُكُم مَّشْكُورًا — your sa'i, your effort. We are expected to make effort, but we have made our idol our comfort. This is the third idol, brothers and sisters.

So to recap: Number one, feelings — in the post-modern world that we live in, feelings supersede everything else. How many times have you been in arguments and discussions where we talk about feelings more than we talk about fact? Number two, reason — which goes against feeling, but reason used to justify your feelings and to justify why you should not do something that Allah asked you to do. And number three, this worship of the self — this worship of the comfort that you seek and you continue with.

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم ولسائر المسلمين فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرحيم

The Antidotes

الحمد لله رب العالمين. Brothers and sisters, we talked about three idols. The topic is vast, like I said, and it's difficult to cover in a small amount of time. But I wanted to give you a taste so that all of us start thinking about this, because the reality is our Muslim ummah and our societies are impacted by this as much as the outside world. That's the reality, and we have to start catching up to that reality. And I don't want to leave it at that — Allah gave us antidotes to these.

Antidote One: Racing Towards Good with Fear and Hope

Allah says in the Quran:

Allah is describing a community of believers that is racing towards good. I want you to internalize this. When you're in a race, you have a sense of urgency. You can't just hang out. You can't just be sitting around and be like, "I'll do what I gotta do." You have to step up. You have to go a little bit faster. You have to do more. Allah describes these believers and says: not just race, but they want to come first in that race. That is how Allah describes you and I.

And I give you the hadith of Aisha radhiallahu anha. She went to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam after the ayah from Surah Al-Mu'minun was revealed. The ayah is:

"They are the ones who do what they do and their hearts tremble in fear when they show up on the Day of Judgment."

Aisha radhiallahu anha asked Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam: are these people who are drinking alcohol and stealing, who show up on the Day of Judgment having done what they've done and they're worried about their deeds?

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3175; also referenced in Sahih Muslim)

Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said: "No, O daughter of Al-Siddiq. They are the ones who fast, and they are the ones who pray, and they are the ones who give charity — but they are afraid." What are they afraid of? That Allah will not accept their deeds. And Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ends this hadith by saying: "And they are the ones who are racing towards good deeds."

Racing towards good deeds is this internal realization that what we do, brothers and sisters, might not be sufficient on the Day of Judgment. It's a change in paradigm — from a paradigm of continuous hope and "everything is okay, Allah will accept it." I'm not saying that's wrong — that's one wing. But a bird with one wing will fall. You need your other wing. You need your khashiyah. You need your khawf of the punishment of Allah. That's what I'm bringing today. Because the Shaitaan uses this tactic of hope and he is making us forget about the khashiyah and the khawf of Allah. And we need a balance of the two.

Examples from the Companions

I'll give you an example. Abu Bakr radhiallahu anhu was walking one day and he came to Handhalah. He said, "Handhalah, how is your day going?" And Handhalah said, "Handhalah has committed an act of nifaq." And Abu Bakr al-Siddiq said, "How come?" This conversation is happening between Handhalah and Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, two companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And Handhalah said: "When we are in the presence of Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he tells us about Jannah and Nar and we can see it with our eyes. But when we go back to our wives and our children, I forget about that. Nifaq!" And Abu Bakr al-Siddiq — you know what he says? He says, "This is what happens to me. Let's go to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."

What I'm pointing out here is this attitude — this attitude that what we are doing might not be sufficient.

Umar radhiallahu anhu — when the ayah was revealed:

He heard this ayah and he wept so much that he got sick. Brothers and sisters, how many Ramadans and how many Taraweehs have we stood up and heard this same ayah, heard the Quran being recited? And how many of us have wept over it? How many of us have taken the ayat about the punishment of Allah and asked ourselves: are we worried about this? This is the other wing. A bird with one wing cannot fly. A mu'min that only relies on hope cannot sustain themselves. And this is where Shaitaan brings about feelings and can help us idolize feelings and logic and all these other things — because one thing alone doesn't sustain the believing community. We need both.

Uthman radhiallahu anhu — Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told him that after a certain day, after he had given everything he had in Ghazwat Tabuk, he could do anything he wanted and he would not be held to account. A person who was guaranteed Jannah. They found Uthman radhiallahu anhu sitting at the qabr, sitting in the graveyard, crying — so much so that his beard was completely wet. They said, "What happened, Uthman?" And he was looking at the grave and he said, "This is the first manzil from the manazil al-akhirah. This is the place we go to right before we go to the akhirah."

And Abdullah ibn Rawahah radhiallahu anhu, an amazing, amazing sahabi — his wife found him crying and she came and sat next to him, and she started crying too. They're both crying and she asked him, "Why are you crying?" He said, "I heard this ayah where Allah is talking about every single one of us having to cross the Sirat on the Day of Judgment." And he was worried about himself not being able to cross.

How many of us think like this, brothers and sisters? You and I — we all have to go back to thinking about Allah both in a positive way, with hope that Allah will take us and get us through the Sirat, but also with the khashiyah of Allah that we might not be doing enough. Because that's how we defeat all the idols — at a personal level and at a communal level.

Antidote Two: The Community

I will end with this hadith of Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam: it is not the case that three people who are in a community or in a small town and they do not establish prayer — Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said they do not come together to pray, they do not remind each other about worship, they do not pull each other up — except that the Shaitaan will take control over them.

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 547)

So stick with the community. In our communities, we have to help each other. We have to help each other and note that when feelings and logic and all these other things — the worship of oneself — are coming into play in our conversations, we have to remind ourselves: is this real? What did Allah and His Prophet ask us to do?

That is my message to all of you today.