Sheikh Abdul-Hakim Murad

Faith in the future: Islam after the Enlightenment

Abdal-Hakim Murad

First Annual Altaf Gauhar Memorial Lecture Islamabad, 23 December 2002

Bismi’llahi’r-Rahmani’r-Rahim
Your excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, may I express my warm gratitude to you all for paying me the compliment of attending today? It is particularly gratifying to me to attend an event in this country, the only state established in recent history specifically as a homeland for Muslims. It is also a privilege to be associated with the name of the late and revered Altaf Gauhar, whose translations from the Qur’an certainly formed, back in the late 1970s, part of my own personal journey towards Islam

I want to talk about religion - our religion - and address the question of what exactly is going on when we speak about the prospects of a mutually helpful engagement between Islam and Western modernity. I propose to tackle this rather large question by invoking what I take to be the underlying issue in all religious talk, which is its ability both to propose and to resolve paradoxes.

We might begin by saying that theology is the most ambitious and fruitful of disciplines because it is all about the successful squaring of circles. Most obviously, it seeks to capture, in the limited net of human language, something of the mystery of an infinite God. Most taxingly, it seeks to demonstrate that an omnipotent God is also absolutely just, and that an apparently infinite reward or chastisement can attend upon finite human behaviour. Most scandalously, it holds that we are more than natural philosophy can describe or know, and that we can achieve states of being in what we call the soul that are as movingly palpable as they are inexplicable. The Spirit, as the scriptures tell us, ‘is of the command of our Lord, and of knowledge you have been given but little.’ (17:85)

So we have a list of imponderables. But to this list the specifically Islamic form of monotheism adds several additional items. The first of these items is what we call universalism, that is to say, that Islam does not limit itself to the upliftment of any given section of humanity, but rather announces a desire to transform the entire human family. This is, if you like, its Ishmaelite uniqueness: the religions that spring from Isaac (a.s.), are, in our understanding, an extension of Hebrew and Occidental particularity, while Islam is universal. Hagar, unlike Sarah, is half-Egyptian, half-Gentile, and it is she who goes forth into the Gentile world. Rembrandt’s famous picture of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael has Sarah mockingly peering out of a window. She is old, and stays at home; while Hagar is young, and looks, with her son, towards limitless horizons.

In the hadith, we learn that ‘Every prophet was sent to his own people; but I am sent to all mankind’ (bu‘ithtu li’l-nasi kaffa). [1] This will demand the squaring of a circle - in fact of many circles - in a way that is characteristically Islamic. Despite its Arabian origins, Islam is to be not merely for the nations, but of the nations. No pre-modern civilisation embraced more cultures than that of Islam - in fact, it was Muslims who invented globalisation. The many-coloured fabric of the traditional Umma is not merely part of the glory of the Blessed Prophet, of whom it is said: ‘Truly your adversary is the one cut off’. (108:3) It also demonstrates the divine purpose that this Ishmaelite covenant is to bring a monotheism that uplifts, rather than devastates cultures. Islam brought immense fertility to the Indian subcontinent, upgrading architecture, cuisine, music, and languages. Nothing could be more unfair than the Indian chauvinistic thesis, given its most articulate and insidious voice by V.S. Naipaul, that Islam is a travelling parochialism, an ‘Arab imperialism’. [2]

That, then, has been another circle successfully squared - the bringing to the very different genius of the Subcontinent an uncompromising monotheism which fertilised, and brought to the region its highest artistic and literary moments. Mother India was never more fecund than when she welcomed the virility of Islam. Remember the words of Allama Iqbal:

Behold and see! In Ind’s domain

Thou shalt not find the like again,

That, though a Brahman’s son I be,

Tabriz and Rum stand wide to me. [3]

It is our confidence, moreover, that this triumphant demonstration of Islam’s universalism has not come to an end. Perhaps the greatest single issue exercising the world today is the following: is the engagement of Islamic monotheism with the new capitalist global reality a challenge that even Islam, with its proven ability to square circles, cannot manage?

As Muslims, of course, we believe that every culture, including the culture of modern consumer liberalism, stands accountable before the claims of revelation. There must, therefore, be a mode of behaviour that modernity can adopt that can be meaningfully termed Islamic, without entailing its transformation into a monochrome Arabness. This is a consequence of our universalist assumptions, but it is also an extension of our triumphalism, and our belief that the divine purposes can be read in history. Wa-kalimatu’Llahi hiya’l-‘ulya - God’s word is uppermost. (9:40) The current agreement between zealots on both sides - Islamic and unbelieving - that Islam and Western modernity can have no conversation, and cannot inhabit each other, seems difficult given traditional Islamic assurances about the universal potential of revelation. The increasing number of individuals who identify themselves as entirely Western, and entirely Muslim, demonstrate that the arguments against the continued ability of Islam to be inclusively universal are simply false.

Yet the question, the big new Eastern Question, will not go away this easily. Palpably, there are millions of Muslims who are at ease somewhere within the spectrum of the diverse possibilities of Westernness. We need, however, a theory to match this practice. Is the accommodation real? What is the theological or fiqh status of this claim to an overlap? Can Islam really square this biggest of all historical circles, or must it now fail, and retreat into impoverished and hostile marginality, as history passes it by?

Let us refine this question by asking what, exactly, is the case against Islam’s contemporary claim to universal relevance? Some of the most frank arguments have come from right-wing European politicians, as part of their campaign to reduce Muslim immigration to Europe. This has, of course, become a prime political issue in the European Union, a local extension of a currently global argument.

Sometimes one hears the claim that Muslims cannot inhabit the West, or - as successful participants - the Western-dominated global reality, because Islam has not passed through a reformation. This is a tiresome and absent-minded claim that I have heard from senior diplomats who simply cannot be troubled to read their own history, let alone the history of Islam. A reformation, that is to say, a bypass operation which avoids the clogged arteries of medieval history and seeks to refresh us with the lifeblood of the scriptures themselves, is precisely what is today underway among those movements and in those places which the West finds most intimidating. The Islamic world is now in the throes of its own reformation, and our Calvins and Cromwells are proving no more tolerant and flexible than their European predecessors. [4]

A reformation, then, is a bad thing to ask us for, if you would like us to be more pliant. But there is an apparently more intelligible demand, which is that we must pass through an Enlightenment. Take, for instance, the late Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. In his book Against the Islamisation of our Culture, he writes: ‘Christianity and Judaism have gone through the laundromat of humanism and enlightenment, but that is not the case with Islam.’ [5]

Fortuyn is not a marginal voice. His funeral at Rotterdam Cathedral, reverently covered by Dutch television, attracted a vast crowd of mourners. As his coffin passed down the city’s main street, the Coolsingel, so many flowers were thrown that the vehicle itself almost disappeared from sight, recalling, to many, the scenes attending the funeral of Princess Diana. The election performance of his party a week later was a posthumous triumph, as his associate Hilbrand Nawijn was appointed minister for asylum and immigration. Fortuyn’s desire to close all Holland’s mosques was not put into effect, but a number of new, highly-restrictive, policies have been implemented. Asylum seekers now have to pay a seven thousand Euro deposit for compulsory Dutch language and citizenship lessons. A 90 percent cut in the budget of asylum seeker centres has been approved. An official government enquiry into the Dutch Muslim community was ordered by the new parliament in July 2002. [6]

I take the case of the Netherlands because it was, until very recently, a model of liberalism and multiculturalism. Indeed, modern conceptions of religious toleration may be said to have originated among Dutch intellectuals. Without wishing to sound the alarm, it is evident that if Holland can adopt an implicitly inquisitorial attitude to Islam, there is no reason why other states should not do likewise.

But again, the question has not been answered. Fortuyn, a highly-educated and liberal Islamophobe, was convinced that Islam cannot square the circle. He would say that the past genius of Islam in adapting itself to cultures from Senegal to Sumatra cannot be extended into our era, because the rules of that game no longer apply. Success today demands membership of a global reality, which means signing up to the terms of its philosophy. The alternative is poverty, failure, and - just possibly - the B52s.

How should Islam answer this charge? The answer is, of course, that ‘Islam’ can’t. The religion’s strength stems in large degree from its internal diversity. Different readings of the scriptures attract different species of humanity. There will be no unified Islamic voice answering Fortuyn’s interrogation. The more useful question is: who should answer the charge? What sort of Muslim is best equipped to speak for us, and to defeat his logic?

Fortuyn’s error was to impose a Christian squint on Islam. As a practising Catholic, he imported assumptions about the nature of religious authority that ignore the multi-centred reality of Islam. On doctrine, we try to be united - but he is not interested in our doctrine. On fiqh, we are substantially diverse. Even in the medieval period, one of the great moral and methodological triumphs of the Muslim mind was the confidence that a variety of madhhabs could conflict formally, but could all be acceptable to God. In fact, we could propose as the key distinction between a great religion and a sect the ability of the former to accommodate and respect substantial diversity. Fortuyn, and other European politicians, seek to build a new Iron Curtain between Islam and Christendom, on the assumption that Islam is an ideology functionally akin to communism, or to the traditional churches of Europe.

The great tragedy is that some of our brethren would agree with him. There are many Muslims who are happy to describe Islam as an ideology. One suspects that they have not troubled to look the term up, and locate its totalitarian and positivistic undercurrents. It is impossible to deny that certain formulations of Islam in the twentieth century resembled European ideologies, with their obsession with the latest certainties of science, their regimented cellular structure, their utopianism, and their implicit but primary self-definition as advocates of communalism rather than of metaphysical responsibility. The emergence of ‘ideological Islam’ was, particularly in the mid-twentieth century, entirely predictable. Everything at that time was ideology. Spirituality seemed to have ended, and postmodernism was not yet a twinkle in a Parisian eye. In fact, the British historian John Gray goes so far as to describe the process which Washington describes as the ‘war on terror’ as an internal Western argument which has nothing to do with traditional Islam. As he puts it: ‘The ideologues of political Islam are western voices, no less than Marx or Hayek. The struggle with radical Islam is yet another western family quarrel.’ [7]

There are, of course, significant oversimplications in this analysis. There are some individuals in the new movements who do have a substantial grounding in Islamic studies. And the juxtaposition of ‘political’ and ‘Islam’ will always be redundant, given that the Islamic, Ishmaelite message is inherently liberative, and hence militantly opposed to oppression.

Nonetheless, the irony remains. We are represented by the unrepresentative, and the West sees in us a mirror image of its less attractive potentialities. Western Muslim theologians such as myself frequently point out that the movements which seek to represent Islam globally, or in Western minority situations, are typically movements which arose as reactions against Western political hegemony that themselves internalised substantial aspects of Western political method. In Europe, Muslim community leaders who are called upon to justify Islam in the face of recent terrorist activities are ironically often individuals who subscribe to ideologised forms of Islam which adopt dimensions of Western modernity in order to secure an anti-Western profile. It is no surprise that such leaders arouse the suspicion of the likes of Pim Fortuyn, or, indeed, a remarkably wide spectrum of commentators across the political spectrum.

Islam’s universalism, however, is not well-represented by the advocates of movement Islam. Islamic universalism is represented by the great bulk of ordinary mosque-going Muslims who around the world live out different degrees of accommodation with the local and global reality. One could argue, against Fortuyn, that Muslim communities are far more open to the West than vice-versa, and know far more about it. Muslims return from the mosques in Cairo in time for the latest American soaps. There is no equivalent desire in the West to learn from and integrate into other cultures. On the ground, the West is keener to export than to import, to shape, rather than be shaped. As such, its universalism can seem imperial and hierarchical, driven by corporations and strategic imperatives that owe nothing whatsoever to non-Western cultures, and acknowledge their existence only where they might turn out to be obstacles. Likewise, Westerners, when they settle outside their cultural area, almost never assimilate to the culture which newly surrounds them. Islam, we will therefore insist, is more flexible than the West. Where they are intelligently applied, our laws and customs, mediated through the due instruments of ijtihad, have been reshaped substantially by encounter with the Western juggernaut, through faculties such as the concern for public interest, or urf - customary legislation. Western law and society, by contrast, have not admitted significant emendation at the hands of another culture for many centuries.

From our perspective, then, it can seem that it is the West, not the Islamic world, which stands in need of reform in a more pluralistic direction. It claims to be open, while we are closed, but in reality, on the ground, seems closed, while we have been open.

* * *

I think there is force to this defence. But does it help us answer the insistent question of Mr Fortuyn? Do we have to pass through his laundromat to be made internally white, as it were, to have an authentic and honoured place of belonging at the table of the modern reality?

Historians would probably argue that since history cannot repeat itself, the demand that Islam experience an Enlightenment is strange, and that if the task be attempted, it cannot remotely guarantee an outcome analogous to that experienced by Europe. If honest and erudite enough, they may also recognise that the Enlightenment possibilities in Europe were themselves the consequence of a Renaissance humanism which was triggered not by an internal European or Christian logic, but by the encounter with Islamic thought, and particularly the Islamised version of Aristotle which, via Ibn Rushd, took fourteenth-century Italy by storm. The stress on the individual, the reluctance to establish clerical hierarchies which hold sway over earthly kingdoms, the generalised dislike of superstition, the slowness to persecute for the sake of credal difference: all these may well be European transformations that were eased, or even enabled, by the transfusion of a certain kind of Muslim wisdom from Spain.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the Christian and Jewish Enlightenments of the eighteenth century did not move Europe in a religious, still less an Islamic direction. Instead, they moved outside the Moorish paradigm to produce a disenchantment, a desacralising of the world which opened the gates for two enormous transformations in human experience. One of these has been the subjugation of nature to the will (or more usually the lower desires) of man. The consequences for the environment, and even for the sustainable habitability of our planet, are looking increasingly disturbing. There is certainly an oddness about the Western desire to convert the Third World to a high-consumption market economy, when it is certain that if the world were to reach American levels of fossil-fuel consumption, global warming would soon render the planet entirely uninhabitable.

The second dangerous consequence of ‘Enlightenment’, as Muslims see it, is the replacement of religious autocracy and sacred kingship with either a totalitarian political order, or with a democratic liberal arrangement that has no fail-safe resistance to moving in a totalitarian direction. Take, for instance, the American Jewish philosopher Peter Ochs, for whom the Enlightenment did away with Jewish faith in God, while the Holocaust did away with Jewish faith in humanity. As he writes:

They lost faith in a utopian humanism that promised: ‘Give up your superstitions! Abandon the ethnic and religious traditions that separate us one from the other! Subject all aspects of life to rational scrutiny and the disciplines of science! This is how we will be saved.’ It didn’t work. Not that science and rationality are unworthy; what failed was the effort to abstract these from their setting in the ethics and wisdoms of received tradition. [8]

Here is another voice from deep in the American Jewish intellectual tradition that many in the Muslim world assume provides the staunchest advocates of the Enlightenment. This time it is Irving Greenberg:

The humanistic revolt for the ‘liberation’ of humankind from centuries of dependence upon God and nature has been shown to sustain a capacity for demonic evil. Twentieth-century European civilization, in part the product of the Enlightenment and liberal culture, was a Frankenstein that authored the German monster’s being. […] Moreover, the Holocaust and the failure to confront it make a repetition more likely - a limit was broken, a control or awe is gone - and the murder procedure is now better laid out and understood. [9]

The West is loath to refer to this possibility in its makeup, as it urges, in Messianic fashion, its pattern of life upon the world. It believes that Srebrenica, or Mr Fortuyn, are aberrations, not a recurrent possibility. Muslims, however, surely have the right to express deep unease about the demand to submit to an Enlightenment project that seems to have produced so much darkness as well as light. Iqbal, identifying himself with the character Zinda-Rud in his Javid-name, declaims, to consummate the final moment of his own version of the Mi‘raj: Inghelab-i Rus u Alman dide am: ‘I have seen the revolutions of Russia and of Germany!’ [10] This in a great, final crying-out to God.

We European Muslims, born already amid the ambiguities of the Enlightenment, have also wrestled with this legacy. Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian president, has discussed the relationship in his book Between East and West. A lesser-known voice has been that of the Swedish theologian Tage Lindbom, who died three years ago. Lindbom is particularly important to European Muslim thought because of his own personal journey. A founder member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and one of the major theorists of the Swedish welfare state, Lindbom experienced an almost Ghazalian crisis of doubt, and repented of his Enlightenment ideology in favour of a kind of Islamic traditionalism. In 1962 he published his book The Windmills of Sancho Panza, which generated enough of a scandal to force him from his job, and he composed the remainder of his twenty-odd books in retirement. For Lindbom, the liberation promised by the Enlightenment did not only lead to the explicit totalitarianisms which ruined most of Europe for much of the twentieth century, but also to an implicit, hidden totalitarianism, which is hardly less dangerous to human freedom. We are now increasingly slaves to the self, via the market, and the endlessly proliferating desires and lifestyles which we take to be the result of our free choice are in fact designed for us by corporation executives and media moguls.

There can be no brotherhood among human beings, Lindbom insists, unless there is a God under whom we may be brothers. As he writes: ‘The perennial question is always whether we humans are to understand our presence on this earth as a vice-regency or trusteeship under the mandate of Heaven, or whether we must strive to emancipate ourselves from any higher dominion, with human supremacy as our ultimate aim.’ [11]

He goes on as follows:

Secularization increasingly becomes identified with two motives: the reduction of human intelligence to rationalism, and sensual desire; the one is grafted onto the vertebral nervous system, and the other is a function of the involuntary and subconscious elements of man’s composite nature. Rationalism and sensualism will prove to be the mental currents and the two forms of consciousness whereby secularization floods the Western world. Human pride, superbia, the first and greatest of the seven deadly sins, grows unceasingly; and it is during the eighteenth century that man begins to formulate the notion that he is discovering himself as the earthly agent of power. [12]

Lindbom’s works have provoked sharp discussion among Western Muslims in the universities. Enlightenment leads to sensualism and to rationality. Walter Benjamin has already seen that it cannot guarantee that these principles will secure a moral consensus, or protect the weak. It also - and here Lindbom has less to say - yields its own destruction. Western intellectuals now speak of post-modernism as an end of Enlightenment reason. Hence the new Muslim question becomes: why jump into the laundromat if European thinkers have themselves turned it off? Is the Third World to be brought to heel by importing only Europe’s yesterdays? [13]

These are troubled waters, and perhaps will carry us too far from our purpose in this lecture. Let me, however, offer a few reflections on what our prospects might look like if we excuse ourselves the duty of spinning in Mr Fortuyn’s machine.

Islam, as I rather conventionally observed a few minutes ago, speaks with many voices. Fortuyn, and the new groundswell of educated Western Islamophobia, have heard only a few of them, hearkening as they do to the totalitarian and the extreme. Iqbal, I would suggest, and Altaf Gauhar, represent a very different tradition. It is a tradition which insists that Islam is only itself when it recognises that authenticity arises from recognising the versatility of classical Islam, rather than taking any single reading of the scriptures as uniquely true. Ijtihad, after all, is scarcely a modern invention.

Iqbal puts it this way:

The ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as conceived by Islam, is eternal and reveals itself in variety and change. A society based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile in its life the categories of permanence and change. [14]

In other words, to use my own idiom, it must square the circle to be dynamic. The immutable Law, to be alive, even to be itself, must engage with the mill-wheel of the transient.

One of Altaf Gauhar’s intellectual associates, Allahbakhsh Brohi, used the following metaphor:

We need a bi-focal vision: we must have an eye on the eternal principles sanctioned by the Qur’anic view of man’s place in the scheme of things, and also have the eye firmly fixed on the ever-changing concourse of economic-political situation which confronts man from time to time. [15]

We do indeed need a bi-focal ability. It is, after all, a quality of the Antichrist that he sees with only one eye. An age of decadence, whether or not framed by an Enlightenment, is an age of extremes, and the twentieth century was, in Eric Hobsbawm’s phrase, precisely that. Islam has been Westernised enough, it sometimes appears, to have joined that logic. We are either neutralised by a supposedly benign Islamic liberalism that in practice allows nothing distinctively Islamic to leave the home or the mosque - an Enlightenment-style privatisation of religion that abandons the world to the morality of the market leaders and the demagogues. Or we fall back into the sensual embrace of extremism, justifying our refusal to deal with the real world by dismissing it as absolute evil, as kufr, unworthy of serious attention, which will disappear if we curse it enough.

Traditional Islam, as is scripturally evident, cannot sanction either policy. Extremism, however, has been probably the more damaging of the two. Al-Bukhari and Muslim both narrate from A’isha, (r.a.), the hadith that runs: ‘Allah loves kindness is all matters.’ Imam Muslim also narrates from Ibn Mas‘ud, (r.a.), that the Prophet (salla’Llahu ‘alayhi wa-sallam) said: ‘Extremists shall perish’ (halaka’l-mutanatti‘un). Commenting on this, Imam al-Nawawi defines extremists as ‘fanatical zealots’ (al-muta‘ammiqun al-ghalun), who are simply ‘too intense’ (al-mushaddidun).

Revelation, as always, requires the middle way. Extremism, in any case, never succeeds even on its own terms. It usually repels more people from religion than it holds within it. Attempts to reject all of global modernity simply cannot succeed, and have not succeeded anywhere. A more sane policy, albeit a more courageous, complex and nuanced one, has to be the introduction of Islam as a prophetic, dissenting witness within the reality of the modern world.

It should not be hard to see where we naturally fit. The gaping hole in the Enlightenment, pointed out by the postmodern theologians and by more sceptical but still anxious minds, was the Enlightenment’s inability to form a stable and persuasive ground for virtue and hence for what it has called ‘citizenship’. David Hume expressed the problem as follows:

If the reason be asked of that obedience which we are bound to pay to government, I readily answer: Because society could not otherwise subsist; and this answer is clear and intelligible to all mankind. Your answer is, Because we should keep our word. But besides that, nobody, till trained in a philosophical system, can either comprehend or relish this answer; besides this, say, you find yourself embarrassed when it is asked, Why we are bound to keep our word? Nor can you give any answer but what would immediately, without any circuit, have accounted for our obligation to allegiance. [16]

But why are we bound to keep our word? Why need we respect the moral law? Religion seems to answer this far more convincingly than any secular ethic. In spite of all stereotypes, the degree of violence in the Muslim world remains far less than that of Western lands governed by the hope of a persuasive secular social contract. [17] Perhaps this is inevitable: the Enlightenment was, after all, nothing but the end of the Delphic principle that to know the world we must know and refine and uplift ourselves. Before Descartes, Locke and Hume, all the world had taken spirituality to be the precondition of philosophical knowing. Without love, self-discipline, and care for others, that is to say, without a transformation of the human subject, there could be no knowledge at all. The Enlightenment, however, as Descartes foresaw, would propose that the mind is already self-sufficient and that moral and spiritual growth are not preconditions for intellectual eminence, so that they might function to shape the nature of its influence upon society. Not only is the precondition of the transformation of the subject repudiated, but the classical idea, shared by the religions and the Greeks, that access to truth itself brings about a personal transformation, is dethroned just as insistently. [18] Relationality is disposable, and the laundromat turns out to be a centrifuge.

Religion offers a solution to this fatal weakness. Applied with wisdom, it provides a fully adequate reason for virtue and an ability to produce cultural and political leaders who embody it themselves. Of course, it is all too often applied improperly, and there is something of the Promethean arrogance and hubris of the philosophes in the radical insistence that the human subject be enthroned in authority over scriptural interpretation, without a due prelude of initiation, love, and self-naughting. Yet the failure of the Enlightenment paradigm, as invoked by the secular elites in the Muslim world, to deliver moral and efficient government and cultural guidance, indicates that the solution must be religious. Religious aberrations do not discredit the principle they aberrantly affirm.

What manner of Islam may most safely undertake this task? It is no accident that the overwhelming majority of Western Muslim thinkers, including Lindbom himself, have been drawn into the religion by the appeal of Sufism. To us, the ideological redefinitions of Islam are hardly more impressive than they are to the many European xenophobes who take them as normative. We need a form of religion that elegantly and persuasively squares the circle, rather than insisting on a conflictual model that is unlikely to damage the West as much as Islam. A purely non-spiritual reading of Islam, lacking the vertical dimension, tends to produce only liberals or zealots; and both have proved irrelevant to our needs.

* * *

The most recurrent theme of Islamic architecture has been the dome surmounting the cube. Between the two there are complex arrangements of arabesques and pendentives. Religion is worth having because, drawing on the infinite and miraculous power of God, it can turn a circle into a square in a way that delights the eye. Through logic and definition the theologian seeks to show how the infinite engages with the finite. Imam al-Ghazali, and our tradition generally, came to the conclusion that the Sufi does the job more elegantly, while not putting the theologian out of a job. But Sufism also, as Iqbal and the consensus of Muslim theologians in the West have seen, demonstrates other virtues. Because it has been the instrument whereby Islam has been embedded in the divergent cultures of the rainbow that is the traditional Islamic world, we may suppose that it represents the best instrument available for attempting a ‘dissenting’ Muslim embedding within today’s inexorable global reality. It insists on the acquisition of compassion and wisdom as a precondition for the exercise of ijtihad, or of any other mode of knowing. Its emphasis on the potential grandeur of man’s condition, of the one who was ‘taught all the Names’, makes it more humane than any secular humanism. In short, its recognition of the limitations of rational attempts to square the circle of speaking of the metaphysical and in justifying virtue, can bring us to real, rather than illusory, enlightenment, to a true ishraq. This is because there is only one ‘Light of the heavens and the earth.’ (24:35) Seeking truth in the many, while ignoring the One, is the cardinal, Luciferian error. Its consequences for recent human history have already been tragic. Its prospects, as it yields more and more methods of destruction, and fewer and fewer arguments for a universal morality, are surely unnerving. Genetic engineering now threatens to redefine our very humanity, precisely that principle which the Enlightenment found to be the basis of truth. In such a world, religion, for all its failings, is likely to be the only force which can genuinely reconnect us with our humanity, and with our fellow men.

Wa’Llahu’l-Musta‘an.



NOTES

1. Bukhari, Tayammum, 1.

2. The view is expounded most forcefully in his recent Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (London, 1998). For a refutation see T.J. Winter, ‘Some thoughts on the formation of British Muslim identity’, Encounters 8:1 (2002), 3-26.

3. Persian Psalms (Zabur-i ‘Ajam), translated into English verse from the Persian of the late Sir Muhammad Iqbal by Arthur J. Arberry. (Lahore, 1948), 8.

4. The defining demand of the Reformation was the return to the most literal meaning of Scripture. Hence Calvin: ‘Let us know, then, that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and simple one, and let us embrace and hold it resolutely. Let us not merely neglect as doubtful, but boldly set aside as deadly corruptions, those pretended expositions which lead us away from the literal sense.’ (John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians (Edinburgh, 1965), 84-5. Is this what the West is demanding of us? That a Muslim state should, in consequence, be a ‘city of glass’, like Calvin’s terrified Geneva?

5. Cited in Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: The Rise of the Far Right. (London, 2002), 163.

6. Roxburgh, 160, 169, 174.

7. The Independent July 28, 2002.

8. Peter Ochs, ‘The God of Jews and Christians’, in Tikva Frymer-Kensky et al., Christianity in Jewish Terms (Boulder and Oxford, 2000), 54.

9. Irving Greenberg, ‘Judaism, Christianity and Partnership after the Twentieth Century’, in Frymer-Kensky, op. cit., 26.

10. Iqbal, Javid-Nama, translated from the Persian with introduction and notes, by Arthur J. Arberry (London, 1966), 140.

11. Tage Lindbom, The Myth of Democracy (Grand Rapids, 1996), 18.

12. Ibid., 22.

13. The implications of the collapse of Enlightenment reason for theology have been sketched out by George Lindbeck in his The Nature of Doctrine: religion and theology in a postliberal age (London, 1984), and (for a more Islamic turn, because explicitly resistant to those Renaissance-Aristotelian confidences of Suarez which took Thomism so far from kalam) in the several works of Jean-Luc Marion. The Ash‘arite resonances are clear enough: discourse is self-referential unless penetrated by the Word.

14. Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, cited in Allahbakhsh Brohi, Iqbal and the Concept of Islamic Socialism (Lahore, 1967), 7.

15. Brohi, op. cit., 7.

16. David Hume, Essays (Oxford, 1963), 469.

17. For example, the 2002 World Health Organisation document World Report on Violence and Health, shows the murder rate in the Eastern Mediterranean region to be less than half the rate for the Americas. See http://www5.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/download.cfm?id=0000000559, page 7.

18. This has been discussed with particular clarity by Michel Foucault, L’Hermeneutique du sujet: Cours au College de France (1981-2) (Paris, 2001), pp.16-17. Foucault’s pessimism might be further reinforced by considering the corrosive implications of the new biology, with its anti-egalitarian potential, for secular reasons for conviviality and mutual respect. Cf. W.D. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land, vol. II (Oxford, 2001), for whom evolutionary theories ‘have the unfortunate property of being solvents of a vital societal glue.’

Sins of the student

Let it be known, that sins of the students will cause him nothing but grief. He will lose knowledge that he has and will lose what he didn't know he had.

Avoid sin like it is a raging fire in your house, move away slowly and then don't look at it, don't even think about it. Do not give in at any cost, you will lose more than you could imagine.

Don't see any sin as small or minor see them all as major sins, repent and keep repenting until you leave it. When you have left it then thank Allah subhanu wa ta'ala, for keeping you safe.

If your heart inclines to sin, fight it, do something else. Go outside if you are in and go inside if you are out. Seek forgiveness straight away when you your heart inclines to sin, straight away on the first glance.

Know that the longer that you are sinning the more you are holding yourself back. Do not hold yourself back, you only lose when you commit sins.

Remember that knowledge will not be deposited in a dirty place nor in a place undeserving. Those who claim to know will only be able to repeat, they will not be able to add, neither will they have a good effect on the people around them. For others this may be leading them away from Allah subhanu wa ta'ala and becomes a proof against them.

The life of Prophet Nuh (Noah) (upon him peace) related to the quran

Arabic with english subtitles

Dr Gary Miller/Abdul-Ahad Umar

Basis for Muslim belief parts 1 - 6

Jeffrey Lang

From Atheism To Islam parts one to four

Part two

Part three

Part four

Sheikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller

On Music

Sheikh Saad Al-Attas

Hikam

A person should see meaning in everything

We can veil ourselves from him (Subhanu wa ta’ala)

There are meanings all around us. Example: a leaf falling off a tree

Abu Abbas Al-Mursi said a servant finds himself in four states: blessing, tribulation, obedience and transgression.

The reaction for blessing is Shukr (to be grateful)

The reaction for tribulation is patience

The reaction for obedience is Shukr

The reaction for transgression is seeking forgiveness

There is an obligation to him, in every state

Bab Al-Rahan is a door of heaven for those who have truly fasted

Nothing is difficult for Allah Subhanu wa ta’ala

Our sins are our veils

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf

Ramadan Advice

Random Ramadan thoughts

Ramadan is a blessed month where you see very strange sights, you'll see things from people that you did not think that they were capable of. Like people who are heedless all year wake up. Before Ramadan they did not pray but in Ramadan a sudden desire has been woken up in them to pray. And now you see that person doing better than you, he heads for the masjid at speed, as you walk at ease.

You see sisters forget their entire make up sets and cover the ornaments. This month has more than its far share of surprises and this is but little.

Some are asked why don't you do sins now, like you used to? Not in Ramadan is the reply, not in this month.

You hear persons train their tongues to avoid swear words and foul language, their eyes from televisions and videos, abandoned for a month.

Tarawih comes and the masjids are full, some tire and the numbers decrease as the month continues, yet it's amazing to see so many people. Sometimes I pause for a moment and think, where have you been all year?

Ramadan is here to remind us of the true human potential for worship. We all have this potential, yet we hide it away because we love pretence and think death is a long way off. I can fast when I get older. Why should I ruin my day? Others are not fasting why should I? Since when did being in a state of worship cause anything but gain? Fasting is a state of worship, don't you like the fact that the longer you are in a state of worship the more reward that you will attain? Sometimes, people talk and walk around in their sleep.

We all know that our appointment with death is already marked down and we can't call up to change the time because Tuesday is not convenient; because I have something else to do. Whether we like it or not it's there and it's like the great Imam said we are walking and one day we will fall into our grave and not even know. Maybe the writer of this is asleep or deluded, deluded is a better word, maybe I need waking up more than you do.

This is the month that we perfect our worship and fulfil that potential that's been lacking for so many years. Our behaviour in this month should be like our behaviour all year round.

Imagine that you have a servant and for eleven months of the year it would do a few things for you or worse do nothing. Then one month, it does everything in its strength for you and after that month, it would go back to the way it was before. Would you be pleased with that servant? Would you?

Yet Allah subhanu wa ta'ala sends us the month of Ramadan, especially to someone like me, who doesn't deserve it. To remind the servant, to bring it closer to fulfilling the whole reason for its creation, worship.

So paint the canvas of your worship with many colours, make it colourful, pray, fast, recite the Quran, praise Allah, be thankful for your blessings, invoke blessings on the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

This is a month of worship yet let this not be the only month that you perform acts of worship.



wa Allah ta'ala Alam - Allah most high knows best.

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf

Patience takes courage

The life of Prophet Ayyub (Job) (upon him peace) related to the Quran

Arabic with English Subtitles

Your knowledge is pointless

A short lesson on knowledge

I was typing up some notes for my blog, these notes were from the advice that Sheikh Haroon Hanif gave at the end of the Bradford Halaqa.

I had finished typing and not really understood or reflected about what he said and then the computer crashed. After re-booting it I found that the final line was no longer there, as it was from a previous save, the computer did not recover the entire file.

So I found the last line and typed it in and then word program closed itself down, and I was no longer able to access the file. I rebooted it again then I typed in the same last line and posted it on the blog and then after publishing it on the blog. I finally read the line,

“Your knowledge is pointless when it doesn’t bring you closer to Allah Subhanu wa Ta’ala.”

A few weeks later I told Sheikh Haroon about this he said,

“Subhanllah, Subhanllah.”


How many times did I miss it?


The whole point of knowledge is that you benefit before it benefits others and the final goal of all knowledge is to bring you closer to Allah subhanu wa ta'ala.

Abu al-Qasim Al Zahrawi (Albucasis) - Father of surgery

Heres some History

Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi (936 - 1013), (Arabic: أبو القاسم بن خلف بن العباس الزهراوي) also known in the West as Abulcasis, was an Andalusian-Arab physician, and scientist. He is considered the "father of modern surgery"[1] and as Islam's greatest medieval surgeon, whose comprehensive medical texts, combining Islamic medicine and Greco-Roman teachings, shaped both Islamic and European surgical procedures up until the Renaissance. His greatest contribution to history is the Al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume collection of medical practices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zahrawi



http://www.ummah.net/history/scholars/el_zahrawi/

Ibrahim ibn Adham (May Allah be pleased with him)

A man came to Ibrahim ibn Adham (May Allah be pleased with him) and said, "Abu Ishaq, I am unable to control my lower self. Please give me something to help me with it."

Ibrahim answered, “If you accepted five traits and were able to do them, you would not commit any bad deed again. The first one is if you want to disobey Allah, do not eat from His bounty.”


The man said, “So where can I eat from and all the earth belongs to Him?”


Ibrahim answered, “Is it right to eat from His bounty and disobey Him?”


The man said, “No. Tell me the second.”


Ibrahim said, “If you want to disobey Him, do not live in any of His lands.”


The man said, “This is harder, so where else can I live?”


Ibrahim said, “Is it right to eat from His bounty, live in His lands, and then disobey Him?”


The man denied and asked for the third.


Ibrahim said, “If you want to disobey Him while you eat from His bounty and live in His lands, then disobey Him in a place where He cannot see you.”


The man said, “How? He even knows what is going on inside my head?”


Ibrahim answered, “So, can you eat from His bounty, live in His lands, disobey Him while He sees you and knows what you want to say and what you have kept secret to yourself?”


The man said “No” and asked for the fourth.


Ibrahim said, “If the angel of death comes to take your soul, tell him ‘Leave me till I repent and do good deeds.’”


The man said that he would not accept and Ibrahim replied, “If you cannot escape death and know that if it comes it will not be delayed, how can you wish to be saved?”


The man asked for the fifth and Ibrahim continued, “If angels of torment come to you on the Day of Judgment to take you to Hell, do not go with them.”


The man said, “They will not let me go.”


Ibrahim replied, “So how do you wish to be rescued, then?”


And the man responded, “Ibrahim, enough, enough! I will repent to Allah.”


His repentance was a true one and he kept worshiping till the end of his life.


Source
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996016614&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam/AskAboutIslamE/AskAboutIslamE

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi

Loving the One worthy of Love SalAllaho Alahi WaAlehi Wasalam

Please click on the title for talk on yanabi

Muslim Spain

Parts one and two
There are some opinions in this video that should be taken with a pinch of salt but it is a good historical record.

Link:

Part two

Link:

Muslim Jesus (upon him peace)

Parts one to five

Imam Zaid Shakir - The Muslim: A Servant and Neighbour

Part two of two

Q & A

·Q. There is a big focus on mosque’s reconnecting with the youth and the issue of home-grown imams, what should the mosques do?

A. So how to re-engage the youth, and home-grown imams. Firstly, to acknowledge that they haven’t been engaged in the first place. So it’s a case of engaging not re-engaging.
The key is sponsoring and facilitating programs that involve the young people that extends beyond study circles, and halaqas, etc. Not everyone is engaged by these things in the beginning. You need hiking, sports leagues, basketball teams, cricket, etc. – and the mosque needs to sponsor such events. Creating activities where a Muslim young person sees himself/herself as being capable of being normal and being Muslim. Young born Muslims who are growing up in this society have been shaped by this society: they want to be normal, they don’t want to be different. So if we create a space for them to be normal and Muslim then they will succeed. But if normal means you can’t play sports, or do marital arts, or come to the mosque to relax then it creates a crisis, the outcome being leaving Islam officially or nominally or coming to accept that they’re not normal. Therefore, mosques need to engage the youth in activities that their non-Muslim friends are also engaged in but in a wholesome environment. For example, The ADAMS Centre in North America created the activity centre before they created the mosque: they pray in the gym. So the Muslims and the non-Muslims who attend play sports then they pray. So creating a youth friendly environment in and around the masjid.

Secondly, getting the young people involved: elder men don’t have time. Women and the young have time and the latter have so much energy to make change. The Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) didn’t have a youth axillary, rather the youth were intimately involved with the entire community.

Regarding the home grown imams we need home-grown, indigenous, programs and learning centres whose vision is shaped by this country, and until you have that you won’t have home grown imams. So you go to Iran, the imams are Iranian; Turkey, the imams are Turkish. You go to Britain and they’re Bengali, Algerian, Pakistani, etc. So the situation has to change. This is not to belittle the contributions of those who have come before us but there’s a disconnect, generally between the scholars and the youth. There’s an incongruity between way young Muslim women live their lives in Britain and the lives Muslim women led when are elder leaders were growing up. So the important thing is to have home grown institutions. Wallahu ’Alam. Allah knows best.

·Q. How can we establish a seminary like Zaytuna in this country?

A. You have good people here, like Aftab Malik, you just need to take the Nike philosophy and ‘Just Do It’.

·Q. How can we transcend the racism between the recently immigrated Somali community and the Pakistani community?

A. In Hamilton, near Toronto, there’s a non-Muslim centre to receive recent immigrants that the Muslims in that community get involved with. Many Somali’s who immigrate here are forced because of the terrible situation if Somalia right now. So the Muslims should work with and establish centres that help recently immigrated people to acclimatise to this country. Ibn Masu’d (May Allah be pleased with him) profoundly said, ‘Human hearts have been naturally inclined to love those who do good to them.’

This goes back to neighbourliness: if even a part of the community help acclimatise the Muslims then this will improve relations across the entire communities. Also, you need to open the masjids: Muslims these days are very territorial. We have to make the masajid neutral territory and every Muslim is welcome. And to have people feel welcome you can’t just have a sign on the door, inviting people in. Have Somali day in the local masjid – ask them to tell their stories; what does Somali food taste like? I’ll tell you, it tastes like everything else you just have to have a banana at the end. So make people feel welcome by putting a welcome sign in our hearts no on our mosques.

·Q. You mentioned self esteem and academic achievement. Many Muslims who do go and get and education don’t get a job, or find it more difficult to get a job. What would you say regarding this?

A. You shouldn’t look at education this way. You know, you might get a job, you might not. Education should be seen as a tool to enrich yourself personally. It should not be seen to get a job: whether you drive a taxi or work in a skyscraper in London. Education is personal enrichment that gives you a skill set (discipline, time management, meeting deadlines) that helps you in life. In Zaytuna, the college educated students do better. And of course, self-esteem increases with education. Remember, if you quite once, you’ll always quit. And if you have trouble finding a job, or even if you don’t, then think outside of the box. Challenge people’s perceptions. Look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they used their skills to benefit themselves.

·Q. Where do you see the Muslims in the West with the current state of affairs?

A. I see a bright future. People think we have it hard but in Iraq and Palestine people are dying, being prevented from receiving treatment, women have to give birth on the side of the road because they’re not allowed to go to a hospital. That’s difficulty. We have to realise that we have tremendous opportunities that we need to take advantage of. What are the challenges that all people face the West? We mentioned them above (see Conclusion). Islam addresses these challenges so we need to get out of the mosque and get out of this insular mentality that works against us, because at the moment we’re not out there so people can’t even see the alternative example. Just meeting people has a large impact. In America they took a poll and 50% of Americans have a negative perception of Islam, but 70% of those who just knew a Muslim had a positive perception.

We also need to remember the adage, ‘Beware the wrath of a generous host’ The Ulema’ say that our relationship within this community is reciprocal to that of non-Muslims in Muslim lands. Our position is exactly the same. And the ‘ulema also say that if we dislike this place, we should leave.

But we have a tremendous opportunity. You know around 200 years ago a number of scholars predicted that the West would accept Islam. A scholar said that the West was pregnant and it would give birth to the child of Islam.

Remember this is Allah’s world (Exalted is He!). So only He knows the future, but we have to take the means. Taking the means is to take advantage of the opportunities our hosts have offered us. Remember that nobody is stopping you from propagating and inviting people to Islam: this beauty. So we’re calling people to sound sexual ethics, sobriety, brotherhood amongst humanity: we have to make it real amongst ourselves, but we should call people to these things. We should be proud that we have held on to the heritage of the Prophets. For example, every religion has a hijab, but they have discarded it. So sisters should be proud that they’re holding on to this inheritance. This impresses so many non-Muslims who see this adherence to a tradition. Also, the beard is the man’s hijab and the only difference is that it’s on the bottom of the man’s head, not at the top.

Finally, remember, we don’t need an Enlightenment, if we did we might become like the other religions! We need to understand our religion. The important thing is faith, if you badger people you won’t see change. Everyone needs to grow in their own time . The future’s bright. And you have to believe that. Be beautiful and you’ll see the world as beautiful and you need share it. Allah (Exalted is He!) is beautiful and loves beauty. Shaykh Hamza says that we’re the first generation that has made our religion look ugly: and a lot of that is because of what we do. All we need to do is beautify ourselves and Islam will be unstoppable. People are coming to the religion because they see what we don’t see. When I went to Syria, some people there were amazed that I became Muslim: why would you want to do something like that? They didn’t see the beauty in Islam.

·Q. Culture

A. I just want to mention something about culture. Culture is very important. Islam has always been propagated along with the culture that it was spread. So the Sahaba (May Allah be pleased with them) sang songs and the Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) watched the Abyssinians dance with Lady Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her). Remember, all the poetry we have, all the Qasidas, are songs. Dancing, dress, and food is all part of the culture and it’s beautiful. Culture is an integral part of the human experience. So when you do away it in the name of purification you’re going to fill it with something worse. In Saudi Arabia, etc. what has filled the vacuum? They don’t have the burda or qawalis, etc. They have Madonna, and Michael Jackson, etc. In Indonesia people are converting to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism because people are being that their culture is bida’. (innovation)

So if you’re strict Alhamdulillah, but let people work things out. If someone is praying 5 times a day but listening to U2, let them work it out: soon they’ll get past that.

End

Du’a by Imam Zaid (and a song!)

Imam Zaid Shakir - The Muslim: A Servant and Neighbour

Part one of two(May Allah ta'ala reward the donator of these notes)

Imam al-Haddad’s Intention:
I intend:
1.Learning and teaching
2.Receiving and giving admonition
3.Giving and receiving benefit and gain
4.Encouraging adherence to the Book of Allah and the Sunna of the Messenger (saw)
5.Calling to right guidance
6.And leading to goodness
7.This is out of a desire for Allah’s Countenance, His Pleasure, Nearness, and Reward

15 August, 2007
Imam Zaid Shakir - The Muslim: A Servant and Neighbour
Start
·Hamd
·Salawat
·It is important for us as Muslims to see ourselves as servants and neighbours: both locally and globally as the world continues to shrink and the global village becomes more and more of a reality. To approach life in the spirit of servitude and good neighbourliness is what we should aim at.

·Now this neighbourhood, Lozells, has been visited by violence, so I want to start with a question: What is the total population of Birmingham? Around a million; and how many gang related murders have you had in the past year? 20, 30, around 20. Now I’m coming from Oakland, CA: a city of 400,000 and there they have around 150 gang related murders each year. This isn’t to say everything is good here, for as Allah (Exalted is He!) says, one innocent life is one too many.

·So unless someone makes a commitment to stop this violence, Lozells is going the way of Oklahoma. You’ll look up in 3 or 4 years and the number of murders will be 500. Someone has to step up and say the dehumanization that is going on has to stop. Because this is what is happening: dehumanization that allows a person to take another life, someone who can do that has lost what it means to be human, and it must be stopped. Someone has to stop it.

·The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Don’t envy one another’, yet how many people are killed because of envy: I should have that car, or I should have that house. And the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said not to conspire against one another: yet how many people are killed because people are dealing against one another. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, ‘Don’t hate each other’, because once we hate each other, it is easier to kill one another. What we have going on in Iraq and Afghanistan can partly be attributed to Muslims hating each other and so they forget that the person they are harming is a Muslim.

·So we have to have people to step and up and say that we can’t allow these schemes and conspiracies and jealousy to build up between each other and our communities so that it becomes easy to kill and harm one another.

Neighbourliness

·So we need to be good neighbours and someone needs to step up as a lead. Who better than a Muslim? Drugs are a problem, and drugs are haram: therefore we don’t have any issue with disassociating ourselves with them. We should on principle as a community say that we are going to work against a culture of violence that involves selling and dealing in drugs. But first, we need to start by cleaning up our communities first: and this may involve giving up our time, even our lives.

·This is what we did in America: we made a commitment that even the poorest neighbourhoods aren’t going to be involved in drugs. And Allah gave us tawfiq. You’ve probably heard of Imam Siraj Wahaj in Brooklyn, he closed an entire street of crack houses. So who better than the Muslims, in the interest of being a good neighbour, to say that this there are good people here and we and they shouldn’t have to live in these communities where people are afraid to leave their houses.

·If we’re not doing this, then we’re not being good neighbours. Remember, our ethic as Muslims is that if we can’t use it (e.g. alcohol, drugs, pork, etc.) then we’re not going to be involved. So getting rid of these things shouldn’t take a lot of thought. Remember the Hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): we should change something with our hands, if not that then we should speak out, and if not that, then at least we can hate it in our hearts.

·So we have to speak out and if we can’t do that then at least hate it in our hearts: and the hate of these harmful things should be like burning embers, that it might be ignited one day with some gasoline or some oxygen. But if we’re turning a blind eye, and these harmful things aren’t affecting our hearts, we just walk by, then there is something wrong with our faith (as stated in the Hadith) – if the embers aren’t at least burning in our hearts, you could pour gasoline over them, but nothing would happen. At least if we hate it in our hearts, Allah can cause a spark.

·Also recall the Hadith that whoever believes in Allah (Exalted is He!) in the last day let him/her speak well or remain silent; and let them honour their guests; and let them treat their neighbour well. We know the rights of the neighbour in Islam– that we should inspect 7 houses on either side to make sure they have enough to eat. And we know it is Sunnah to make extra food for our neighbours.

·And these are small things but they are indicative of bigger principles: that the Muslims are concerned about those around them. Now the world is growing smaller, so everyone is becomg closer. And if we develop these principles in our communities, it has to have a knock on effect that it will affect other societies around the world.

·In the past, I would never have had the opportunity to come to Birmingham; what would have I done? It would have been like making Hijra – I would ride my horse across America and then catch a boat, brave the hurricanes….so it was difficult. But now it’s easy. I left Washington DC at 8 in the morning and arrived in one day here. So the world is shrinking. And what we do affects others. How we heat our homes, how we drive our cars: that affects people all over the world.

·So our way in life has to be predicated on good neighbourliness. We need to be able to discuss things maturely and be able to back down from our position. If you’re neighbour is playing his music too loud, who moves? In Islam, it is about bearing the abuse of others and if I can’t bear the abuse, I have to be the one to move out.

·People would put thorns and garbage on the path of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) when he left his house; and when it wasn’t there one day, he (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) didn’t say, ‘Maybe they died!’, No, he went and checked up on them! You know, are they Ok? ‘What’s wrong, I didn’t see any thorns today.’

·Good neighbourliness is also about holding you r abuse from others. This is a characteristic of the Muslims: one whose brothers/sisters are safe from their tongue and their hands. Nowadays people think they’re the best Muslims, but they create websites www.ihateshaykhx.com. These websites are full of attacks, etc. Thus, are people safe from their tongues?

·Here’s another question for you: Is the Muslim or the Mu’min the higher station? The answer is the Mu’min. So the Mu’min should have a wider range than the Muslim. For the Mu’min is one who spares the PEOPLE from their wickedness. So with the Muslim it’s just their brothers/sisters, but the Mu’min’s reach is wider.

·We need to understand that good neighbourliness extends across the world now: whatever I do shouldn’t adversely affect those people in South America, Africa, or Asia. Like in Italy, people were dumping their toxins near Somali, their neighbours! And we have to internalise and live these things. One of the big problems of our community is that we don’t internalise lessons, we talk and we listen, but we don’t live these things.

·Remember that faith isn’t a mere thought, rather it is that which takes firm root in the heart and is testified in the actions.

·So we can talk all we want: Islam did this, Islam did that, Islam liberated the woman, Islam creates the best brotherhood; and yet we prevent women from going to University and in our mosques we have people fighting for control. As a Muslim, this masjid is mine just as much as it is yours. If we get agitated at that idea, then this isn’t the house of Allah (Exalted is He!). See these days people are in “Mosque Market”: people think that it works like the Stock Market that if they pay more money to build the mosque, they think it’s like shares, that they have more of a part in the mosque. It doesn’t work like that. Everyone has an equal part and say.

·Unfortunately, some people think they’re showing the power of Islam by shooting things, and blowing things up. In fact, that just makes us look foolish. There are those out there who are simply laughing at us now.

·There’s an American movie called ‘Shooter’ and there’s one scene in it that’s very telling. In the movie, Danny Glover says that there’s no Sunni, no Shia, there’s only money. See if America leaves Iraq now the Americans have won: not the mujahids. Why? Because they’ve destroyed the country and laced the country with radioactive waste via depleted uranium, trucked away the money and they’ve split Sunnis and Shias (something that no one was able to do for centuries). They’ve lined their pockets and destroyed the country. How have they lost? And if they can blame it on the Muslims, then that’s all the better.

·Therefore, we need to see things as they really are. Say you have bad soccer team, and you haven’t won a game in 5 years, but you think you’re just 1 year from the Championships. If you think you’re good when in fact you’re bad, you’re never going to get better. The first step to getting better is to recognise that you’re lousy. If you delude yourself then you’ll never get better. So as Muslims we can’t delude ourselves, or we’ll never get better: we’ll continue to be used as pawns in other people’s games. That’s the reality.

Servitude

·The second issue is that of service: we need to learn the ethic of service. As Muslims, we’re here to serve, not to be served. When the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was asked to be a Prophet King or a Prophet Servant, what did he choose? He chose to be a servant. So he served his family, he sowed his clothes; he swept his house; milked his own cows. And we’re his Ummah. Remember, in the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) we have been told that we have the best example. People these days get mad when they’re not served: they miss the point.

·And to serve people we need to love people. I’m sure someone will say, ‘How can we love these kafirs? What are you talking about Imam Zaid? Give me some proof.’ Here’s the proof: No one truly believes except that he loves for his brother/sisters what he loves for himself? Aren’t non-Muslims are brothers and sisters in humanity; as one of the scholars in his commentary reminds us. Wouldn’t you love Islam for them? Wouldn’t you love for them to have drug free life, as you have? An alcohol free, like you have had? Wouldn’t you love for them to have family values, a father, like you have had? Your faith isn’t complete unless you want non-Muslims to have these things.

·Also remember, Imam Ghazali (May Allah be pleased with him) said that unless someone’s disbelief is confirmed by proof in the Qur’an or the Sunna, like Abu Lahb, Imam Ghazali said you better not call any person a kafir. Why? Because if you say that and it’s not true, it comes back to you? So was I a kafir before I converted? We don’t know these things so be careful.

·How can we guide and serve humanity if our hearts are closed? How can we do anything? And again our example is the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). He didn’t hate any of his enemies: when people converted how did he treat them? How did he treat Khalid bin Walid (May Allah be pleased with him) after he led the forces against the Muslims at Uhud, killing some of the best Sahaba (May Allah be pleased with them)? What did the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) say? He said Ahlan wah Sahlan. (Welcome)

·Abu Sufyan (May Allah be pleased with him) spent his whole career working against Islam. Now I want an honest answer: who is worse, Abu Sufyan (May Allah be pleased with him) before he became Muslim or Bush or Blair? If Blair was as bad as Abu Sufyan we wouldn’t be allowed to set up masajid in this country. Abu Sufyan before he became Muslim tried to destroy Islam entirely. He didn’t allow them to make Hajj or make mosques. What happened when he converted? Ahlan wah Sahlan. When he (May Allah be pleased with him) became Muslim, he lost both of his eyes in Jihad. All of the vehement enemies of Islam were welcomed. How can someone, were his heart filled with hatred, be able to accept these people? Now we have Muslims cutting other peoples heads off.

·So we have to hate what non-Muslims do, but pray that they improve and repent so that they have a chance of Jannah. We want to see as many people in Jannah as possible.

·Remember the Hadith: Allah (Exalted is He!) will continue to help the servant as long as he continues to help his brother.

·So if people are doing something wrong, then we should ask what are WE doing wrong? Now we tend to point the finger: but we don’t look in the mirror. What are we doing for Allah’s religion? What am I doing for the religion?

·Look at our communities: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Don’t envy one another’ and yet there’s widespread envy in our communities. People are afraid to bring new furniture into their homes in case someone puts the evil eye on them. Rampant envy. What’s the consequence of that?

·Allah (Exalted is He!) said that, ‘If you give thanks for your blessings I will increase you in them and if you reject them then know that Allah’s punishment is severe.’ What is jealousy? It is rejection of Allah’s blessings. Allah has blessed a person and for you to reject that…

·So I’m not saying that other people don’t cause problems, but what are we doing? Remember Allah has blessed us, so service is a form of shukr.

·So what has Allah (Exalted is He!) given you that you can put back? Muslims make up around 3% of the UK’s population, yet 10% of the prison population is Muslim: and 1/3 of that is Muslim women. One of the main causes of criminal behaviour is low self esteem and one of the main causes of that is low academic achievement. Where do Muslims rank academically? Second last. So why don’t we have tutoring systems in the Masjid? If you’ve been giving knowledge then share it to build up the self esteem of our young people. And block one of the pathways of criminality.

·The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is instructed us to give in the areas that he has been blessed (look at Surat al-Dhuha in the Qur’an). So the thankfulness is categorical to the blessings that we receive in all the ways that we have been blessed.

Conclusion·

In conclusion, we need to give focus to service and neighbourliness. Furthermore, for the sake of our communities and for the sake of our world we need to oppose certain realities:

1.The militarisation of this world. You know what they’re experiment with in Iraq? Electromagnetic wave weapons from satellites that fry your brains. How are we going to live on this planet if this is what we’re developing?

2.Anti-Incarceration. Increasingly prisons are becoming big business: more prisoners mean more profits. If we are destroying innocent lives merely to feed the machine then something is wrong.

3.Anti-corporatism. Everything is now commoditised, everyone is now judged according to their utility. Even our relationships are becoming like that: our marriages are for the sexual gratification of ourselves alone, or the money that our partner can bring. So this corporate mentality permeates our entire life and needs to be challenged.

4.Anti-environmental degradation. Because this is our home. And the weapons and corporations we oppose, helps the environment. Here’s a question: what’s one of the greatest threats of global warming? Not the rising sea levels, but that the plankton might die, which are essential for our Oxygen. So as Muslims, who follow the ‘Mercy to all the Worlds’ we should take a stand on this issue as an expression of our good neighbourliness.

5.Anti-Racism. A lot of this stuff in the world is straight up racism. This threat to Western Civilization is a joke. Look at Osama and Zahrawi, they couldn’t even bring down Egypt and Saudi Arabia, so how are they going to threaten the entire world. Another question for you: why is their an immigration problem in America? Why are the Mexicans coming? Because the free trade agreement of NAFTA destroyed the agrarian economy of South America; so the farmers lose their farms and they go to America doing menial labour. That’s why there’s a problem. So we start where we began at good neighbourliness: how would we, as Muslims, treat this situation differently in light of our ideals of good neighbourliness and servitude?

Imam Ghazali - The Mysteries of Fasting

The man who is truly fasting while not abstaining from food and drink is he who keeps himself free from sin; and the fasting man who is not truly fasting is he who, while he hungers and thirsts, allows himself every freedom in sin. But everyone who truly understands fasting and its secret knows that he who abstains from food, drink, and sexual intercourse but commits [all manner of] sins is like the person who, in performing the ablution runs his hand over one of his members thrice, thereby outwardly fulfilling the Law as far as the member is concerned, but neglecting the truly important thing which is the actual washing.

Consequently, because of his ignorance, his prayer is rejected. On the other hand, he who breaks the fast through eating but observes it by keeping himself free from sin is like the person who, in performing the ablution, washes each of the members of his body once only. His prayers are, by the will of God, accepted because he has fulfilled the principal thing in the ablution, although he has failed to fulfil the details. But he who does both is like the person who, in performing the ablution, washes each member of his body thrice, thereby fulfilling both the principal purpose of ablution as well as its elaborate details, which constitutes perfection.

The Apostle of God once said, "Verily fasting is a trust; let each, therefore, take good care of his trust." Again when he recited, "Verily God enjoineth you to give back your trusts to their owners," he raised his hands and touching his ears and eyes said, "[The gift of] hearing and [the gift of] seeing are each a trust [from God]."

Similarly [the gift of speech is a trust], for if it were not so the Apostle would not have said, "If anyone disputeth with another and sweareth at him let the latter say, 'I am fasting, verily I am fasting'." Or in other-words, "I have been interested with this my tongue in order to keep and hold, not in order to give it free rein in retort and reply to thee."

It is clear, then, that every act of worship is possessed of an outward form and an inner [secret], an external husk and internal pith. The husks are of different grades and each grade has different layers. It is for you to choose whether to be content with the husk or join the company of the wise and the learned.

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