Restoring balance in our lives

“As-salámu ‘alaikum wa rahmatul láhi wa barakátuh!”

“A-úthu billáhi minash shaytánir rajeem. Bismilláhir rahmánir raheem. Al hamdu lillahi nahmaduhu wanasta’eenahu, wanastagh-firuhu, wanatoobu ilayhi, wana’oothu Billaahi min shuroori an-fusinaa, wamin sayyi aati a’maalinaa. May- Yahdillahu fa huwal muhtad, wa may- yudlill falan tajidaa lahu waliyan murshida. Wa ash-hadu an Laa ilaaha ill-Alláh, wahdahoo laa shareeka lah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhoo warasooluh”

All Praise is due to Alláh, We praise Him and we seek help from Him. We ask forgiveness from Him. We repent to Him; and we seek refuge in Him from our own evils and our own bad deeds. Anyone who is guided by Alláh, he is indeed guided; and anyone who has been left astray, will find no one to guide him. I bear witness that there is no god but Alláh, the Only One without any partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad, sws, is His servant, and His messenger.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem! Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, haqqa tuqaatihee wala tamu tun-na, il-la wa antum Muslimoon.”

O You who believe, – Fear Allah, as He should be feared, and die not except as Muslims.

Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, wa qooloo qawlan sadeedaa. Yuslih-lakum a’maalakum wa yaghfir lakum thunoobakum, wamay yu-til-laaha warasoolah, faqad faaza fawzan atheemaa.”

O You who believe, – Be aware of Allah, and speak a straightforward word. He will forgive your sins and repair your deeds. And whoever take Allah and His prophet as a guide, has already achieved a mighty victory..

Respected brothers and sisters, out there, people are preparing to celebrate Christmas, with all the commercial hype, the sales, the parties, the eating, drinking and sensual pleasure that Christmas entails. But behind the glitter and tinsel, behind the smiling billboards and TV ads, there is another story of life in Britain today. If you read the news carefully, and if you are aware of what’s really happening behind the scenes in British society, you will detect sense of unease, there is some insecurity, of a people who have somehow lost their sense of purpose, their sense of direction. Away from the international news, the other headlines tell you about teenage alcoholism, about binge drinking and drug abuse, about record crime rates among juveniles, and about the breakdown of family life. The divorce rates, the teenage pregnancies and abortions are at an all time high.

Our time is short and I won’t bore you with statistics, but just consider this: 25% -that’s one quarter, of all pregnancies in this country end in abortion clinics. And, of those pregnancies that do actually go full term to childbirth, you will find that 41% of these are illegitimate. Nearly every second child born in Britain today does not have a mother and father who are legally married. This is a staggering figure, unimaginable just 2 generations ago. There is a growing sense of a society in crisis. The UK’s divorce rate, at 53% is one of the highest in the world. And Britain lives on debt, more than one trillion pounds of borrowed cash. All this is happening at a time when materially, people have never had it so good. But spiritually, there is emptiness. Less and less people care about church or religion. The church congregations are shrinking. The good news for Muslims is that the mosque attendance is increasing. But there is no reason for us to be complacent. We, too, have serious internal problems.

Apart from attending mosques, and praying and fasting and paying Zakaat and going on Hajj and making Zikr, how many of us are seriously engaged in improving our wider environment? Our neighbours are materially well off, but they are spiritually hungry. How are we helping them? Are we really up to the challenge? What are we doing to bring the wonderful message of Islam to them? Recently Brother Amjud raised this matter in his khutbah, and he told us that many British people are already more than halfway to Islam. They are honest, hardworking, fair-minded, charitable and they love cleanliness. All that’s missing is the kalima shahadah. Why are we so shy to invite them to Islam? Our neighbours are enslaved by a lifestyle where the nafs is king. Every TV advert and every billboard seduces and deceives, appealing to the lower nafs: Discover yourself, pamper yourself. Its your life. Its your body. You deserve to indulge yourself. What are we doing to help our neighbours realise that Islam offers a better way of living? The Holy Qurán describes the believing Muslims as Witness to the Nations:

“Kuntum khaira ummatin ukhrijat lin-naasi, ta’muroona bil ma’roofi, wa tan hawna ‘anil munkari, watu’ minoona bil-laah.”

“You are the best of nations evolved for mankind, you enjoin what is right and you forbid what is wrong, and you believe in Allah.”

Islam came to illuminate the way for mankind, out of darkness into light. Are we among those luminaries? Do we hold high the torches of our noble and illustrious ancestors?

Open any newspaper or turn on the TV. You will find Muslims are in the news all right, but mostly for the wrong reasons. Instead of seeing us as role models, many of our neighbours regard us with fear and suspicion. We are now the new Jews, the new Irish: the scapegoats of all that may be going wrong in society. Last week, a survey in the Guardian showed that the level of mistrust and fear of Muslims in Europe is growing. This should not surprise us. We know there is prejudice, we know there is Islamophobia, but why should some of us reinforce these fears? Some Muslims are extremely hostile and arrogant towards our host community. I often hear the terms ‘kafir’ and ‘Kufaar’ used quite unnecessarily. Why can’t we use endearing terms, or at least neutral terms like, our non-Muslim neighbours, or our friends and neighbours in the wider community? When you are a guest who behaves rudely and offensively, is it surprising that your host should eventually get a little tired of your company, and wish that you would leave?

As if discourtesy towards others is not enough, we also have tensions within our ranks: Sunni vs Shia, Salafi vs Sufi, Brehelvi vs Deobandi and Wahhabi vs everyone else. You will see these manifestations in the endless faultfinding, nitpicking, arrogance, exclusiveness and plain rudeness that some of us show towards others. Some of us cannot tolerate differences of opinion, and we think our chosen math-hab has more authority than the Qurán and Sunnah. We are more concerned with what others wear on their heads than what they wear in their hearts. One day, a brother reached out his hand to greet the brother beside him after the Jum’ah prayer, and he was told rather abruptly: “It’s not Sunnah to shake hands after the prayer. That’s a bid’ah! [innovation]. So the first brother, feeling hurt, replied: “Is it a Sunnah to be so rude when someone offers you a greeting?”

This small incident is a microcosm of a major disease in the Ummah. Some Muslims are so obsessed with outward forms and appearances of piety that they have lost the inner essence, the love, the compassion and generosity of heart that lies at the core of Islam. We need to re-establish that balance and harmony, between our outward piety and the inward sense of love and compassion. We need to purify our hearts, before we can expect Allah to improve our situation in this country and around the world.

Allah says that He will not change the condition of a people, until they change what is within their hearts. A famous Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad sws says that there is a piece of flesh within the body. When it is sound, the whole body is sound. Truly it is the heart. brothers and sisters, the heart we refer to is not simply the pump that circulates blood through our veins. We are talking of the spiritual heart, the pump that drives our desires and emotions. We need to bring this heart into alignment with our fine words and our pious actions. Otherwise, our talk will lack sincerity, and if our heart is not in everything we do, then our actions will be technically correct, but heartless. You can make your niyyah, intention, to pay Zakaat, and then you can calculate the exact amount to pay, and then pay it, but without willingness, love and compassion. You will have technically met the requirements, but your because your heart was not in it, your charity will be heartless. And, who wants heartless charity?

“Alhamdu lillahi Rabbil ‘Aalameen. Was-salaatu was-salaamu alaa Khairil mursaleen. Muhammadin-nabeey-yil Ummiy-yee, wa-‘alaa aalihee, wasah-bihee, aj-ma’een.

All praise is due to Alláh, the Lord of all the Worlds; may the greetings and peace be upon the best messenger, Muhammad, the unlettered prophet; and upon his family and upon all of his companions.

Ammaa ba’ad:

Innalláha wa malaaikata yusallúna alan nabi. Yá ay yuhal latheena ámanu sallú alayhi wasalli mú tas leema.

Behold, Alláh and his angels shower blessings on the Prophet. O you who believe! Ask for blessings on him, and salute him with a worthy greeting.

Allahumma salli alá Muhammad, wa ala áli Muhammad, kama salayta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali Ibrahim. Allahumma barik ala Muhammad, wa alaa áli Muhammad, kama barakta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali ibrahim. Fil ála meen, innaka hameedun majeed.”

O Alláh! Send your greetings upon Muhammad and his family, just as you sent your greetings on Ibraheem, and his family. O Alláh, send you blessings on Muhammad and his family, just as you blessed Ibraheem and his family. In both worlds, you are praiseworthy and exalted.

Second Khutbah:

Sub’ hanallahi wal hamdu lillah, wala hawla wala quwwata illah billah yu althi yual theem.

My Respected brothers and sisters in Islám,

Sayyidna ‘Umar, R A, once said that what he feared most for this Ummah, was the learned hypocrite. When he was asked, how could one be learned and hypocritical, he replied: When your learning does not go beyond verbal knowledge and your heart remains untouched. Alláh forbid that we here should become learned hypocrites. May Alláh soften our hearts, so that we can be receptive to higher spiritual development? Let us consciously open our hearts and minds to the transformative power of Islamic knowledge. Islam once transformed a crude nation of Bedouin Arabs to the leaders of the world. Islam has that power to transform our lives also. We too, can become leaders and role models here in Britain and Europe, where there is so much material wealth, and spiritual hunger.

How can we facilitate this process? We need wise Islamic scholars who really understand British society and how best we Muslims can adapt to it, without losing our identity. I find the work of scholars like Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad very useful. He urges us to look to the Sunnah, not just superficially, but in depth. And he urges us to apply the Sunnah with some wisdom to our own circumstances.

I will read a small portion from his article entitled, Seeing with Both Eyes:

“At the beginning of our story, the balance between the zahir and the batin [the outer and inner personality] was perfect. The Messenger, upon whom be the best of blessings and peace, was the man of the Mi‘raj, and also the hero of Badr. He loved women, and perfume, and the delight of his eye was in prayer. The transition between moments of intense colloquy with the supreme archangel, and of political or military or family duty, was often little more than momentary; but his balance was impeccable, for he showed that body, mind and spirit are not rivals, but allies in the project of holiness, which means nothing other than wholeness.

The Companions manifested many aspects of this extraordinary wholeness, the traditional Islamic term for which is afiya, and the proof of whose accomplishment is the presence of adab. The luminosity of the Prophetic presence reshaped them, so that where once there had been the crude, materialistic egotism of the pagan nomad, there was now, barely twenty years later, a unified nation led by saints. It seemed that the crudest people in history had suddenly, as though by a miracle, been transmuted into the most refined and balanced. The pagan Arabs seem almost to have served as a preview of the temper of our age, and the man who came among them, unique among prophets in the unique difficulty of his mission, is the alpha amid the omega, the proof that an Adamic restoration is possible even under the worst of conditions, even in times such as ours.

The superb human quality of the Companions is one of the most moving and astounding of the Blessed Prophet’s miracles. Receiving alone the burden of revelation, and bearing virtually alone the responsibilities of family and state, he maintained such sanctity, humour, and moral seriousness that his world was transformed around him. Had you spent all that is upon the earth, you would not have reconciled their hearts, the Revelation tells him; but Allah has brought reconciliation between them. The political unification of Arabia, itself an unprecedented achievement, was only made possible by the existence of a spiritual principle at its centre, which melted hearts, and made a new world possible.

The Companions, as the most perfect exemplars of the Islamic principle of seeing with both eyes, were, as the saying goes, fursanun bi’l-nahar, ruhbanun bi’l-layl: cavalrymen by day, and monks by night. They united zahir and batin, body and spirit, in a way that was to their pagan and Christian contemporaries extraordinary, and which, in our day, when balance of any sort is rare, is hard even to imagine. Their faces radiated with the inner calm that comes of inner peace: ala bi-dhikriíLlahi tatma’innu’l-qulub: ‘it is by the remembrance of Allah that hearts find peace.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Let us pray that Allah will help us to follow the perfect example of Prophet Muhammad sws and his noble companions. May we, like them, cultivate a perfect balance between Zahir and Batin, our outer and inner personality? Let us reach the state of Aafiyah, perfect harmony, so that our adab, our courteous behaviour can illuminate our lives, and transform our neighbourhoods like our noble ancestors transformed their world 1400 years ago

O Allah, you alone can help us to transform fear, suspicion and hatred to admiration and affection. We pray that you will give us the wisdom and courage to win over the affection and admiration of our neighbours. Let us help not only to make life better and safer for our children, but help us also to improve the quality of life for our friends and neighbours in the wider community.

Help us to see clearly, with both eyes, so that we may attain wisdom, light, and nearness to You.

Ameen! Aqeemus salaah!