Allahu Akbar

Allahu Akbar

By Abdal Hakim Murad - Eid al-Adha Sermon

Opening Takbir

(Reference: Traditional Eid Takbir)

Khutbat al-Hajah (Opening Sermon)

Main Sermon

(Reference: Quran 37:102)

(Reference: Quran 37:103)

(Reference: Quran 37:104-107)

(Reference: Sunan at-Tirmidhi Hadith 1493)

(Reference: Various Hadith collections)

(Reference: Sunan Ibn Majah Hadith 3127)

The True Freedom

This day, this joyful day, this day of Eid, this festival time, is for us the commemoration of what is the essence of the freedom that religion brings. The world today is all about freedoms of various kinds, rights of all sorts. But what is the true freedom? The real hurriyah?

It is the hurriyah that recognises that we are (عِبَادٌ - slaves) to Allah alone. That His command alone binds us. That His command alone is trustworthy.

On this great day, we hear the takbir, from this side and from that. The hajjis, with voices crying, the takbir. The takbir is the joyful chant of the Eid.

The takbir predominates in the prayer of the Eid, and in the khutbah of the Eid. (اللهُ أَكْبَرُ - two simple words, but their meaning is total). Islam is the religion of takbir.

The Meaning of "Allahu Akbar"

Now normally, with a word that is in the comparative mode, as the grammarians say, we need it to be compared to something. "I am smarter than you." "This building is nicer than that building."

(الله أَكْبَرُ - is greater than what?) The believer doesn't need to complete that sentence. Greater than all (أَكْبَرُ مِنْ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ - things).

Greater than me, greater than you, greater than this spinning planet, greater than the cosmic symphony of galaxies and nebulas, greater, unimaginably greater, beyond, outside, creator, master of time and space. (اللهُ أَكْبَرُ).

And the Hajj and this Eid are the time when we remember this.

When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in His infinite mercy, is telling us: say this and mean it. Let it be in your heart. Let it be in your heart.

Our Distractions from Allah's Greatness

Allah is greater, but in our lives, there are so many other things that seem to distract us from His due. We are neglectful in our prayers, we are neglectful in the rights of others, we are neglectful in what should be the most joyful, concerning thing, which is remembering Him at all times, because something in our heart, the Iblis within us, is saying other things are great as well. And this is the source of our unhappiness.

This is what the shaitan promises us:

"The shaitan promises you only misguidance, a trick, vainglory, deceit." And it's not a very good trick.

"The shaitan's cade, his plot, his conspiracy, those games that he plays with our brains that make us do what we know is wrong, are not very strong." His arguments are weak, because he is weak compared to

the majesty of the one of whom we say (الله أكْبَر) but still we listen, because we are weak:

"Man is created weak."

Ibrahim's Example

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says when this whole matter of the hajj begins to unfold in its Abrahamic simplicity and in its incomparable majesty:

Allah commands him in this place. And remember the servitude and the beauty of this abd, the one who always says (الله أَكْبَرُ), the one who sees all of the things that might be the creator of the world as a child. His father, according to the commentators, a maker of idols. He looks for something greater and Allah guides him to that which is greater.

But he pays the price. He becomes a refugee, an outcast, an asylum seeker on his own. No social services, no UNHCR, no organization to support him, absolutely on his own.

But why? Because (الله أكْبَرُ). And he is protected from his father and he is protected from Nimrod. And he is protected from those ties of family which are sometimes bad ties when the parents are tyrants.

And he is protected from the ruler when the ruler is bad, when the ruler is a tyrant because he says (الله أَكْبَرُ). And Allah sends him to this very, very remote place:

"A valley with nothing growing in it."

Uncultivable. And at that time, there was not even the well. This extraordinary situation.

Hajar and Ismail, alayhima as-salam, sent away into this furthest place. And the lesson here is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not look at the circumstances of the world. He does not look at the car that you drive or the letters after your name or the greatness in which the world holds you.

None of that matters. The one in whose heart is his name is the one who is great:

"The noblest of you in Allah's sight is the one who fears him."

So the driver of the tyrant is likely to be better than the tyrant himself. Although the world doesn't know his name and doesn't care to know who he is. But if in his heart there is (اللهُ أَكْبَرُ), then that man is great.

Purifying Allah's House

So religion turns the world around. That which the Iblis within us envies is usually that which brings about our destruction in this world and the next. And that which the world despises - which is remembering truth and being humble and preserving the virtues - is that which makes us truly Allah's Khulafa.

This is something far, far, far greater than just democracy. Democracy doesn't care about who is bad, but this does. And it's got nothing to do with who your parents were or what passport you carry or whether you've got money in your bank or not.

It is only the Taqwa that makes us great. So this verse says: "And when we prepare for Ibrahim the place of the house commanding: Do not associate any other than me and purify my house for those who go around it and those who stand in worship there and those who bow and those who make Sujud."

This commandment Allah says: "Purify my house." The purity of Al-Masjid Al-Haram. Who can doubt it? The mere majesty of the Ka'bah as the Hajjis see it probably for the first time brings awe and love and humility to their hearts because it is a sign of the eternity and the infinity of the One Who will continue undiminished in His majesty and beauty and power and justice long after their bones are turned to dust.

The House. Haybat al-Bayt. The Majesty of the House. And this is a place which we are commanded to purify. Purify it in the case of Sayyidina Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, by expunging from it all of those outward symbols - ridiculous scowling grimacing dummies of wood and stone that in a sense represent that which we do in our own hearts when we say something other than Allah might be Akbar.

This is the great shirk and he passes around on

"A mosque which is established from the first day on the basis of Taqwa is the one in which it is most right that you should stand in prayer. In it are men who love to purify themselves and Allah loves those who purify themselves."

So again this idea of (طَهَارَةُ). And as we start to move into Allah's house here in Cambridge, let's bear this in mind. It is the commandment to Ibrahim that he keeps Allah's greatest house pure and it is the commandment to the Sahaba of Sayyidina Muhammad that they keep the Masjid in Medina pure. This is a commandment to us as well, a Sunnah of all of the Anbiya.

What does it mean? What is this (طَهَارَةٌ) this purity? The Ulema say that it refers to four things in its completeness:

First Level: Physical Purity

Obviously it refers at the most basic outward level to (طَهَارَةٌ) from (الْأَحْدَاثِ). This is kind of a Fiqh term. (الْأَحْدَاتُ) is the things that break your Wudu. So you make your Wudu - this is out of Adab for Allah's house and it prepares you psychologically for worship because Wudu helps you to do away with all of your thoughts and your preoccupations and takes you into a different space, washes away those distractions and makes you ready to face the One.

So the (الْأَحْدَاتُ) - physical impurity - don't enter the Masjid, don't pray with it. So if you have a baby in a nappy, the baby can come but make sure that the nappy will not yield any kind of impurity in Allah's house. This is essential and required in the Fiqh. Hygiene. Cleanliness. This is part of the beauty of Islam but it's also part of the psychological wisdom of a house that has no impurity unlike anywhere else on earth.

Second Level: Purity of Action

So this is the first. And the second of these forms of purification means to purify your outward limbs - which includes the tongue - from sins. In other words, you don't take your bad moral habits into the mosque. You don't start cursing people or using bad language or raising a fist to somebody or even sitting in an inappropriate way in the mosque. Don't get distracted by your phone in the mosque. Don't get distracted with talking to somebody unnecessarily in the mosque. There are other places for talk.

Remember the adab in Allah's house - otherwise you haven't understood the majesty of the one whose house it is. So no sins.

Third Level: Purity of Character

And then the third degree of purification - this ancient Abrahamic commandment - is that we purify the heart from trauma. We purify the heart from ugly traits of character. There must not be in us - however

outwardly well we behave - any envy, any suspiciousness, any greed, any rancor, any tendency to manipulate. All of these things must go.

Seven deadly sins. Why do we throw the stones seven times? For us very plainly because the shaytan wants to get us through laziness, through pride, through hatred, through lust, through all of these qualities which bring us down - that bring us down from our natural condition higher than the angels and turn us into something lower than any animal on earth:

"We made him the lowest of the low."

And the third degree of purification - a hygienic procedure which we need to take before we dare to enter Allah's house - don't let those vices - we know what they are and they are universal in all cultures and religions, nobody admires these things - don't let them bring blackness into our heart even if nobody can see in Allah's house.

Fourth Level: Purity of Heart

And then finally, to purify the heart - that's the highest, that's the hardest, that's the degree of true dhikr. In other words, in the mosque, the various jumping monkeys in your subconscious that are telling you to think about this and to remember that and to plan this and all of those other useless things - hadith al- nafs - they are chained and subjugated so that your only concern is the creator, so that your qibla is one of inward discipline.

So many of us discipline ourselves to pass exams or to get jobs or to impress our bosses. We are capable of this inward discipline so that everything in this (إخلاص) is for Allah alone. That is the tricky thing.

The Call to Happiness

So this is the meaning of purifying Allah's house. It means purifying ourselves from all of these ugly things. And it means also - because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is calling us to happiness - he has not created us to make us miserable, he has not created us to go to hell, he is calling us to the abode of felicity, the abode of peace. And the holy prophet at the Yawm al-Qiyamah will be interceding for his ummah saying: "Oh Lord, save them!"

Religion is on our side. But on the other side are those little specks of dirt within our soul that we think are going to make us happy. We think that this vice is going to bring us some kind of happiness - that this laziness, that this inappropriate gaze, that this inappropriate game, that this lie, that this word that brings hurt to somebody's heart is going to bring us some kind of happiness.

"Truly Allah's awliya - there is no fear on them neither do they grieve."

Wouldn't we love to be like that? Fearful of nothing, sad about nothing. How did they get there?

"The wali is the one whose good actions, whose pure actions are in balance with the sunnah inwardly as well as outwardly."

So our good actions are not interrupted by episodes of bad actions, but instead come naturally. This is the wali. And if we are in that state then we will taste happiness.

When we do our work well and honestly, then we will be happy. When we are decent with other people, with our neighbours, with family, then we will be happy. When we have the presence and message of our prayers, then we will be happy. This is the secret of religion - it's not calling you to a mountain of difficult actions, it's just calling you to happiness and protecting you from everything that is reluctant to say Allah أَكْبَرُ

The Lesson of Ibrahim

But we must - with all of these things however precious they might seem - grab them as Sayyidina Ibrahim alayhi salam said الله أَكْبَرُ sharpening the knife, being prepared to obey the divine commandment, going against all of our own personal preferences.

Why? Because when we obey, the doors of qabool of Allah's acceptance are opened to us and an unimaginable future entails.

Look at the hajj. Imagine the age today in Makkah. Because of that act of obedience, Ibrahim Khalilullah alayhi salam remembered اللهُ أَكْبَرُ and so did his son. And because of that obedience, because of preferring (زوخ) over (نَفْسٌ) because of preferring (آخِرَةٌ) over (دُنْيَا) because of preferring the command of heaven over one's own personal preferences - look at this extraordinary outcome. All of those prayers, all of those sacrifices, all of those righteous deeds - the reward is attributed in one sense to him alayhi salam and to his obedient and faithful son.

Closing

So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala help us to learn this lesson which is the lesson of the hajj and the lesson of the Eid - that is out of hardship comes ease:

Reference: Quran 94:6

"Out of hardship comes ease."

And help us and give us the niyyah and the strength and the remembrance to avoid sin - to remember that it never makes us happy - and the inward strength and the remembrance that makes us naturally gravitate towards whatever is right in every situation. And may this be for us and this congregation and the entire ummah, inshallah.

Second Khutbah

Reference: Quran 33:56

Reference: Traditional Islamic closing