First Khutbah – Main Points

الله الذي خلق السموت والأرض وأنزل من السماء ماء فأخرج به من الثمرت رزقا لكم – وسخرلكم الفلك لتجرى في البحر بأمره – و سخرلكم الأنهر
وسخر لكم الشمس والقمر دائبين – وسخرلكم الليل والنهار
وءاتكم من كل ما سألتموه – وإن تعدوا نعمت الله لاتحصوها – إن الإنسن لظلوم كفار

“God is the one Who created the heavens and the earth and sent down rain from the sky, bringing forth from it fruits as a provision. And He has made subservient to you the ships so that you may sail on the open sea by His command. He has also made subservient to you the rivers.
He has also made the sun and moon subservient to you, holding steady on two courses. And He has made subservient to you the night as well as the day.

He has given to you everything you have asked for – if you were to count the blessings that God has bestowed, you could never do so. Truly man is wrongdoing, ungrateful.” [Q: 14:32-34]

Let’s open today’s discussion on gratitude by looking at the Majesty of God.

Thankfulness leads to perpetuation of favors already received and also fosters the hope of obtaining what is desired:

وإذ تأذن ربكم لئن شكرتم لأزيدنكم

“And when your Lord proclaimed: ‘if you are give thanks, I will increase you in it!” [Q: 14:7]

وما بكم من نعمة فمن الله

“What ever good you have if from God.” [Q: 16:53] (continue reading here…)

First Khutbah – Main Points

What do we want from Islam? We seldom ask this question. What does Allah want us to get from Islam? And in the negotiation of these two questions, how do we go about making this a reality?

Piety, to a large extent, has been replaced by such plastic words as “tradition”. This word has garnered so much attention in recent years that Muslims are beginning to identify themselves as “traditional Muslims”. But my question is: what is “traditional Islam”? Often what is deemed to be traditional is expressed in modes of dress, pious affectation, perhaps even cuisine. Allah has a different definition of piety:

ليس البر أن تولوا وجوهكم قبل المشرق والمغرب

ولكن البر من ءامن بالله واليوم الآخر والملائكة والكتاب والنبئين…

“Piety is not the turning of your face to the East or the West. No, piety is the one who is secure in his belief of God and the Last Day, the Angles, the Book and the Prophets…”

[Q: 2:177]

الذين ءامنوا ولم يلبسوا إيمانهم بظلم اولئك لهم الأمن وهم مهتدون

“Those who profess faith and do not wear their faith on their sleeve, security is their reward. They are the rightly guided.”

[Q: 6:82]

The downside to all of this is that we often create psychological spaces were people do not feel safe to grow as Muslims. This plays on people’s religious sensibilities and in fact, when they do not stand up to this comparison, they may be afflicted with doubt and uncertainty. (continue reading here…)

First Khutbah – Main Points

يا قوم ادخلوا الأرض المقدسة التي كتب الله لكم ولا ترتدوا على أدباركم فتنقلبوا خسرين

قالوا يا موسى إن فيها قوما جابرين وإنا لن ندخلها حتى يخرجوا منها فإن يخرجوا منها فإنا داخلون

قال رجلان من الذين يخافون أنعم الله عليهما ادخلوا عليهم الباب فإذا دخلتموه فإنكم غالبون – وعلى الله فتوكلوا إن كنتم مومنين

“[Moses] said: ‘O’ my people! Enter the Holy City which God has ordained for you and do not turn your back on your tracks. If you do you will be made the losers’.

[His people] said: ‘O’ Moses! But there are powerful people in that city and we will never go in until they leave. If they leave then we will certainly go in’.

Two men amongst them who feared God said: ‘Enter upon them by way of the gate. If you do so you will be victorious’. And upon God you should rely if you are believers.” [Q: 5: 21-23]

What does it mean to rely upon God? Is tawakkul an individual endeavor or can it also have communal aspects as well? (continue reading here…)

First Khutbah – Main Points

Opening from the Qur’ān:

كل نفس ذآئقة الموت – و إنما توفَون أجورَكم يومَ القيامة – فمن زُحزِحَ عن النار و أُدخل الجنةَ فقد فاز – و ما الحيوة الدنيآ إلا متاع الغرور

“Every soul shall taste death.  You will be recompensed your due on the Day of Rising.  As for the one that is distanced from the fire and is admitted to the Garden – he has triumphed.  And as for this life: it is just the enjoyment of delusion.” [Q: 3: 185]

I wish to open the khutbah today but discussing death.  Modern life balks at an earnest discussion about death.  It is the 800-pound gorilla in the room.  Popular culture propagates the illusion of eternal life with a hyper fixation on youth.  The consequences are drastic.  Not only are people unable to come to terms with the reality of death, it also has societal repercussions, namely the neglect of the elderly and the sick.  Death is treated as an embarrassment – never to be looked in the eye.  If Muslims are to not only adhere to lifestyles that are pleasing to God, but to engage in thought patterns that engender the type of reflection that leads to a God-pleasing lifestyle, then we must try and steer the discourse to include contemplation on our own deaths. (continue reading here…)

Traditional Muslim Thought

What is it and why is it important to think like a Muslim? The ability to be “aware” of things and to articulate that awareness in concepts, language, and even behavior that reinforces and appeases TMT, and ultimately, Islam/God [tawhīd, Prophecy and the Return to God].

This endeavor will always involve attempts to appease certain incontrovertible truths and transcendent values found in Islam. However, Islam itself will never look the same in two difference places or two different times. And this process of Muslim thought will always demand intelligence, creativity, and courage from Muslims in their efforts to realize this goal, both individually and collectively.

When speaking about TMT, this in no way implies that:

1. Muslims never had to do this in times past. That it is just something particular and peculiar to this term “modernity” that is causing all this hubbub.
2. In fact, if we were to look at the past [i.e., Muslim history] and see no such examples [and we are sure to see many!] it would have more to do with the dereliction of duty on the part of those scholars of the past than the absence of the necessity in TMT in every time and space.

So – is TMT just a historical curiosity? Is it relevant in any way to the issues that Muslims face today? If so, then part of this relevance must include a tahqīqī approach. This is especially crucial in light of the recent rebranding of the word “tradition” into such catch phrases as “Traditional Muslim knowledge”.

What Does Muslim Thought Address?

TMT addresses four major things:

1. God.
2. The cosmos.
3. The human soul.
4. Interpersonal relationships.

The first three form the basis of how reality is conceived in Islam. The fourth is from perceptions obtained through studying the first three in a human interaction paradigm.

Goals of Muslim Thought

To know the reality of lā ilāha illa Allah [there is no god but God] for oneself.

The defining of roles: taqlīd and tahqīq.

Taqlīd: if one wishes to be a member of a group, then one must learn from those who are already a part of that group. Prophetic narrative. No one can better perfect a method of making ablution than that of the Prophet.

Tahqīq: the process of coming to know and own the knowing of tawhīd/la ilaha illa Allah [there is no god but God].

Tawhīd: is outside of taqlīd as “there is no compulsion in faith” لا إآراه في الدين [Q: 2: 256]. Instead, taqlīd is trying to inculcate tawhīd through free-willed, internal/intellectual means.

Muslims need to realize that TMT’s raison d’être is the transformation of the human soul, not simply a collection of textual and historical facts.

TMT allowed for a multidisciplined approach but those branches were tied to a root [tawhīd].

Establish the primacy of The Sacred. Therefore, one needs to come to know and understand what is sacred to Muslims/Islam and what is sacred [if anything at all] to modernity.

Preservation of the human being. Modernity/secularism makes vain attempts at this through language such as freedom, democracy, human rights, efficiency, etc.

Ijtihād – What’s In A Name?

The word is used so much by modernist Muslim reformers that it’s lost any context and meaning.

• To qualify as a mujtahid, one had to master the disciplines [fiqh, etc.]. In other words, master transmitted knowledge [Qur’ān, Sunnah, etc.].
• This bar has been set very high in traditional Sunni schools of thought.
• If one does not attain the level of mujtahid, then one must then follow a school of ijtihād [Sunni: mostly dead masters – Shi’ism: living masters].
• Sharī’ah, for example, can only be learned from someone who already knows it. This is problematic for orthodox, Sunni Muslims if we’re only able to learn from dead people!

Challenges Facing Muslims/TMT Today

Modern Muslim scholarship has been dominated by a non-Muslim spirit of academia in which, only to be partly humorous, one can know everything there is to know about a text except what it’s saying.

Is it possible to think as an engineer or sociologist and still think in a tawhīd-ic mind frame?

How can Muslims/Islam come to really [and in mean real as from The Real] mean anything significant if religion, in the eyes of modernity, is scarcely tolerated so long as it is restricted to ritual and morality. In modernity, religion can have nothing definitive to say about the nature of reality.

When looking at the thought processes behind certain modes of thought or ‘isms, are they/can they be infused or synthesized /re-contextualized by TMT or no? Why/not?

Modern environments are not conducive to inculcating/reinforcing an outlook on the world based on tawhīd. Modern theories of knowledge seek to compartmentalize versus bring varying knowledge disciplines into a unifying vision. This compartmentalization applies to the self as well as knowledge. This leads to a kind of cultural/social schizophrenia [see Daryoush Shayegan]

Science/Scientism: science is often said to be a sign of God but the Qur’ān asks man to think/reflect. But think/reflect on what? The Qur’an emphasizes natural phenomena. Science, however, requires one to first have scientific training as well as accept the supremacy/hegemony that scientific/tistic thought often demands of us.

Modern Muslim thought/scholarship does not challenge the status quo of modern/takthīr thought but rather sees how it can best serve, adopted and co-opt it.

Takthīr – Modernity’s New Gods

Takthīr is, if not the theological opposite of tawhīd, is its antonym in a modern context. The function of tawhīd is to see the many as relating to The One. Takthīr is wanton proliferation.

Tawhīd: to make God one, the recognition of divinity, pointing back to one ultimate source [God].

Takthīr: to make many gods. To refashion the recognition of divine presence as manifold.

Modernity lacks a solid core – a single center of purpose. TMT professes the purpose of life is to realize/worship/prepare for the return to God.

Modernity’s goals [?]: freedom, equality, evolution, progress, science, medicine, nationalism, socialism, democracy, Marxism. More innocuous versions: care, communication, consumption, development, education, information, standard of living, management, model, planning, production, project, resource, service, system, welfare.

TMT & Modernity – A Dialog

TMT may question modernity’s and Muslim reformers’ intentions. And while MR’s may wish to bid “good riddance” to TMT because of its perceived baggage, reform-minded
Muslims are oblivious to the fact that much of what they’re basing their thoughts off of are based on modes of thought that at their core are antithetical to the three crucial aspects of TMT/Islam:

1. Tawhīd.
2. Prophecy.
3. The Return to God [Ma’ād].

If Muslims are to remain true to the core values that Islam is built upon, those very same values that underpin TMT’ing, then how can the adaption of the above be legitimized?

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