Bridging the Gap Between Muslims and Non-Muslims - Khutbah by Ustadh Farzan Parupia

Khutbah: Bridging the Gap Between Muslims and Non-Muslims

Opening — Khutbat al-Hajah

Allah says in His noble Book — I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Shaytan, in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful:

"So to that [religion of Allah] invite, [O Muhammad], and be upright as you are commanded, and do not follow their inclinations, and say: 'I have believed in what Allah has revealed of a Book, and I have been commanded to do justice among you.'"

Alhamdulillah, today I just want to share a brief reminder for myself and for all of you insha'Allah in regards to the current situation of the Muslims living in this country — why this issue is so important and the impact that it has on us. What it implies for us, for every single one of us as a Muslim living in America.

The Hijacking of the Prophetic Narrative

All the messengers, عَلَيْهِمُ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ, they were faced with a hijacking of their own mission. Of their own narrative. They were portraying something but they were shown to portray something else. They were saying something but it was told to other people that, oh, they have another agenda. It's not what they're saying. They were ridiculed. They were called liars and magicians while they were spreading the message. They were called sorcerers and liars. They were called all these things.

So none of the messengers, عَلَيْهِمُ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ, actually had an easy time doing what they did. It wasn't easy for them. They had to go through a lot. They had to have resilience. And they had to do this day in and day out.

Musa and Fir'aun — A Timeless Example

One such example is that of Musa عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ, Moses. And the dialogue he had with Fir'aun, the Pharaoh — arguably the most terrible, despicable, evil person in the history of humanity. Fir'aun was a person who was so despicable, the things that he did were unimaginable. He killed babies every other year. He treated the people in his land like nothing. He thought he was the god of that time. That's how arrogant he was. That's the type of person he was.

And Musa عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ is told by Allah to go talk to him. And when Musa is talking to him, Fir'aun says:

"Indeed, these two are magicians."

They say: these two are just magicians. They're sorcerers. They're trying to take you away from your land. And then he doesn't just stop there — he doesn't just call them magicians. He goes on to say:

"They intend to drive you out of your land with their magic."

So he's saying that with their magic, they're going to kick you out of your land. They are a threat to homeland security — that's what Fir'aun is saying to them. And so they're going around saying that they're magicians, and if you listen to them, they'll get you kicked out of your land.

If you study Musa's response to Fir'aun's propaganda — and nowadays we're faced with so much propaganda — you see that he is firm. He doesn't get shaken when Fir'aun ridicules him, or says something about him, or accuses him of something. He stays strong and he stays to the point. If you see in the Qur'an the arguments that he makes to Fir'aun — very, very straightforward. He doesn't go off the path.

And so Fir'aun says:

"Am I not the one who exclusively owns the dominion of Egypt, and these rivers flowing beneath my feet?"

He claimed Egypt as his own. But then he also says, addressing his people:

"And they want to do away with your exemplary way of life."

He's talking to his people and he says: they will want to take you away from your exemplary lifestyle. Before, he was saying, this is my land, this is my dominion. But now he knows that if he says that to his followers, they'll think, oh, he's so arrogant — he's saying it's all his. So instead he says: no, it's your land too. And they are trying to keep you out of your land, so that's why you should support me. You should hate them.

And so there's this concept of patriotism. If you want to be a patriot to the country that you live in, then you will hate not only these people, but you'll also hate the message that they're trying to spread. Al-muthla in this sentence actually means an exemplary lifestyle — we're kings of the world, we're the most powerful country in the world, I have the greatest dominion in all of the world, and we live here like kings. And Fir'aun says: we live here in such a luxurious lifestyle that if you listen to the message they're spreading, they'll take that away from you. You can't live like you do anymore. They want to change everything you do.

And then he says:

"So unify your plot, then come in rows."

Fir'aun is telling his people: unify your plot, and come at them in rows upon rows. He's saying that if you are separate, then our hate won't be strong enough, our attacks won't be strong enough. But if you all unify against these people — the Muslims — then we will hurt them. They will fall.

And then:

"And know for sure, the only one who will succeed today is the one who shows his superiority."

Meaning: all we have to do is show them that what these Muslims are doing is inferior. We can say they don't respect women. We can say they're terrorists. Everyone is going to be focused on how bad the Muslims are. No one even cares what everyone else is doing. It doesn't matter how good or bad their own actions are, because everyone is just focused on us.

The point I'm trying to make is that this is nothing new. The terms — threat to homeland security, they're trying to kick us out of our land, we're the strongest country in the world — these things were used at the time of Fir'aun as well, and at the time of other messengers. These tactics aren't anything new. But Allah has given us guidance in the Qur'an. He has given us these stories — the story of Musa and Fir'aun — so that we can use them in our lives.

The problem is that we don't actually look to these stories. We don't actually turn to the Qur'an. Many of us are confused. We don't know how to deal with the propaganda, with the hate towards Muslims in this country. And because we're not knowledgeable about our own religion, we don't know how to defend ourselves against these attacks. So many of us aren't even involved — we're just like, we'll live our lives and it's okay.

And it's interesting that all the media outlets — Fox, CNN, NBC — they're supposedly independent of each other, each their own news station. Yet they all have the same message. They're all doing the same thing. Same thing that was used at the time of Fir'aun is used today as well. All these news stations saying the exact same thing.

How Should We Respond?

When we do get attacked, when we do hear these things, how are we supposed to react? How are we supposed to react as Muslims? When someone makes a threat to burn the Qur'an, or someone makes a threat to draw cartoons of the Prophet ﷺ and do these despicable, disgusting things — how are we supposed to react? Are we supposed to get enraged and say, yeah, let's go, we gotta defend Islam, we gotta do this and that?

Look at what the messengers عَلَيْهِمُ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ did. Look at what they did. Musa عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ gets tired of Fir'aun. Fir'aun just keeps going at him. What does Allah say?

"And speak to him with gentle speech — perhaps he may be reminded or fear."

Say the best to him. Say what is good. Perhaps he will still be guided. Fir'aun, the worst person ever — Musa عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ is so irritated of him — and Allah still says: say good to him. Don't get mad. He might still turn to Islam, subhanAllah. This is amazing.

When there's something done by someone in Florida or halfway across the world, we get so enraged and so passionate about it that we don't even think what we're doing. And have you ever thought that maybe the purpose of what they're doing is to enrage us? Someone will go threaten to burn the Qur'an and we'll get all riled up, we'll start doing and saying these things. And then what do they do? Oh, look at these Muslims — we told you they're violent. We told you this is what they do. So they're getting us into their trap. And Muslims are falling into this trap.

The Trap of False Patriotism

And back to the patriotism aspect — Muslims nowadays are even guilty of falling into this trap. Because nowadays you might hear Muslims saying, yeah, I have an American friend. What does that mean? He means a non-Muslim. So we've also made this distinction — as if being American means being a non-Muslim, and being non-American means you're a Muslim. Many Muslims have fallen into this as well. And this is a scary thing.

I am an American Muslim — I'm proud to say that. There's nothing wrong with that. And I am a patriot of this country. We have to have that attitude. Because if we don't, our thinking will get distorted and we'll easily get enraged by what other people say.

Our Ignorance of Our Own Religion

And the problem is that Muslims are ignorant today. We don't know our own religion. If we say that we want to make da'wah and spread our religion, how do we do that if we don't even know our religion? If we're listening to Christian radio and someone is attacking the Qur'an, saying there's a mistake in this ayah or that, and one of us who has no knowledge of our own religion is listening, we'll be confused. And this is especially serious for the youth in our communities — those who go to university day in and day out, those who go to college and public schools. Those are the ones who are in most serious jeopardy. They have ideas coming into their heads every day. People take anthropology classes, philosophy classes, and what they're bombarded with is: religion is nothing, religion is useless, it's all about science. And unfortunately, because our youth aren't raised properly in their deen, they fall into this trap as well.

If we don't know what Islam is, then how can we tell anybody else? If something is being misinterpreted, we can't defend ourselves. A pastor can quote more ayat than we can. A pastor can locate something in the Qur'an better and easier than we can. That's a disgrace nowadays. We don't even know what we stand for. We're not even confident in our religion. We don't even know the basic values of our religion anymore. Because we've become like everyone else — we just want to blend in, we want to conform to society, we don't want to be different.

The Command to Remain Firm

And so you have to go back to the lessons we learn from the messengers of Allah. They went through tough times — so many tough times. Allah even says that it will be hard for the mushrikeen to accept your message. And yet, what does Allah say to them?

"So to that invite, and be upright as you are commanded, and do not follow their desires, and say: 'I believe in what Allah has revealed of a Book.'"

Then, just keep inviting them. And be strong in your stance — don't shake. Be strong in what you have to stand for and what you've been told. And don't follow their vain desires. Don't fall into their traps.

Their desires are actually to make us look like what they're saying we are, even though we're not. That's their intention. That's their desire. And so He says: don't fall into that trap. And just say:

"Allah is our Lord and your Lord. For us are our deeds, and for you your deeds. There is no argument between us and you."

There's no need to say you are this and you are that. There's no need to create disagreement and conflicts with people who are not part of our religion. There's no need for that. There's no need to hate.

Da'wah — Inviting Through Love and Action

You know, it's not possible to invite someone when you hate them. It's impossible. It doesn't make any sense. You can't hate someone and then invite him over. You have to have some sort of liking for a person to be able to invite them to something.

If we as Muslims are hating those around us, and we're stuck in our masajid, and we're stuck in our homes, and we just want to stay away from everything, stay isolated amongst ourselves — try to recreate back home, just Muslims, just us, we're good, we don't want to be involved — this gets us to a point of intolerance. Even when we see something small from Muslim youth — something small, you know it's because they've been exposed to this day in and day out at school — what do we do? We get enraged: "I can't believe you're doing this. We raised you in this way!" We get so mad. And this leads our children to also pull away.

The point I'm trying to make is that our actions speak louder than words. The non-Muslims, what they're trying to do nowadays, they're focusing on us. And we are trying to tell them: oh, we're not this, we don't oppress women, we're not terrorists, we don't do this, we don't do that. We're so busy telling everyone what we are not and what we do not do that we don't get a chance to tell them what we actually are and what we actually do.

And conversely, everyone is focusing on us. We have to constantly defend ourselves. They say that we oppress women — why don't we ask them: you say we oppress women, what about your markets that exploit women? You use women in advertising, in publicity, in pornography. What have you done for the rights of women? Why does a rape occur every 12 seconds in America? Why doesn't a woman get paid the same salary as a man in this country? Why don't we argue these things? If we were even involved in one of these causes, they would wake up. They'd say: I didn't know — I thought he didn't even respect women. And here he is supporting the same things we support.

Start With Your Neighbors

Also, your neighbors are very important. Whenever you have opportunities in your own community, with your own neighbors, you have to show love to them. You know how your neighbors come up to you and give you something at Christmas time — a box of chocolates, candy, whatever? What do we do at Eid? Do we go say Eid Mubarak to them? Do we tell them, it's my holy month, I'm fasting, I just wanted to give you some food, here you go? Do we ever do that?

No matter what they say on CNN or Fox, if you are personally kind and generous to your neighbor, he will never hate you — because he knows you personally. He'll say: my neighbor is a nice guy. I don't know why they're saying this stuff about you. Actions speak louder than words.

Our religion is so beautiful. Islam is so beautiful — we just don't portray it the right way. That's the problem. And so when people attack us in the media, we're actually justifying their attacks, because we're not living our lives according to Islam. We're not living according to the Qur'an or the Sunnah. We're not doing these things, so we become an easy target.

If we actually studied the Qur'an and the stories it contains and used them in our lives, then we would be able to defend ourselves. We would be confident. We would say: no, what you're saying is wrong — I know it's wrong. You may have a convincing argument, but no. And our youth would be the same way. But the problem is that we as parents and as adults don't even have confidence in our own religion. How will our children have it?

We talk so much about the youth and how important they are. The youth carry such a weight on their shoulders. When our elders pass away, the younger generation will be left. What will be left of Islam if there is no Islam in the younger generation? If the situation is as bad as it is now, and we say that it's the elders who actually have Islam — because they're from back home and have some sense of confidence in the religion — what about the youth? This is why it is so important to act on what we've been taught in our religion.

We can sit and drink chai and coffee, sit over dinner and talk about all the problems in the world — politics, foreign policy, this and that. We talk about these things at our dinner parties. And then it's all talk. It's all like entertainment for us. Just chit-chat, and then we go home and continue our lives. But we need to start small. We need to start at the very, very basic level.

Three Things We Must Do

1. Ask Yourself: How Am I Misrepresenting Islam?

The first thing we need to do is ask ourselves: How am I misrepresenting Islam in my life? What am I doing that might be taken wrongly by those in the outside world? For the youth: what might I be doing that someone at my university may question? And we will all be asked on the Day of Judgment. Our neighbors will come and Allah will ask, and they will say: I had a Muslim neighbor — he never made da'wah to me, he never told me anything. The students will say: The Muslims at our university didn't act like it. How was I supposed to know if they didn't show me? That responsibility will come back upon us. We have to ask ourselves how we are misrepresenting Islam and we have to change those things.

2. Become Educated in Your Religion

The second thing is that we have to become educated in our religion. We are so ignorant — we have to change that. We have to spend time with the Qur'an. We have to spend time learning at least a little bit of Arabic. Because if we don't know anything about the Qur'an and our own classical literature, then it's easy for others to attack it and we can't defend it. And of course, if you don't know about it, then you have no confidence in it either. It shows that you don't care about it. It shows that you have no regard for your own religion, your own book.

3. Become Stronger and More Confident

And the last thing — what all of this will lead to — is becoming stronger. Becoming more confident. It's our own fault that non-Muslims in this country have the views they do against us. We're not involved enough in the media, in the social realm, for them to even know what Islam is. We need to get involved with our local libraries — do seminars about women, about the Qur'an, not even as a book of guidance, even as a book of literature. Look at the Qur'an and its literary values and aspects — it's amazing. No other book is like it. You can do those things at your library. You can write articles for your local newspaper. You have to speak up.

And instead of telling people what Islam is not, you have to start telling them what Islam really is. You have to stop being defensive. Because when you're defensive, it shows that you have something to be defensive about. I don't want to tell anybody, oh, I'm not this, I'm not that — because I know that I'm not that. All I have to do is what Musa عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ did: stay straight. Stay firm. Don't be shaken by what these people are saying.

And that will lead to da'wah. That will lead to the ability to invite others to Islam. When we have knowledge and confidence in our own religion — that is what led the messengers عَلَيْهِمُ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ, the Sahaba رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ, to guide so many people — multitudes.

"When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest, and you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes."

People are coming in waves — multitudes — to the religion of Islam once the Muslims were victorious. And Allah says:

"Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves."

No doubt Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change themselves. If we don't change ourselves, then we can talk all day — Muslims are this, Muslims are that — but most of us don't even pray five times a day. Most of us don't even fulfill the very minimum basics of our religion, and then we complain: Why are Muslims attacked? Why are Muslims insulted? Why are Muslims in such a low state nowadays? It is because of our own selves. Don't blame anyone except ourselves.

Every one of us has a responsibility. We cannot blame anyone except ourselves. And so we have to be confident in our religion, we have to study our religion, and insha'Allah that will lead to us portraying the message the right way and guiding others to this religion as well.

Closing Du'a

I pray that Allah gives us the ability to guide others to our religion. I pray that Allah gives us a sincere relationship with the Qur'an. I pray that Allah gives us a sincere relationship with, and the ability to follow, the Sunnah of the Messenger ﷺ. I pray that Allah guides all of our youth, and I pray that He forgives us for any mistakes that we have made.