Dar ulArqam Part 1

Accountability in Islam

Speaker: Abdel Rahman Murphy

Venue: Dar ul-Arqam

Opening

"Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you."

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

"All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the most noble of prophets and messengers, our leader Muhammad, and upon his family and all his companions. To proceed..."

Introduction

My name is Abdel Rahman Murphy. I'm from Chicago. I'm the youth director up there at a masjid. It's not a foundation masjid. It's close to Divan, so if any of you have ever been to Divan, it's, yeah, you know what I'm talking about, good food. So I've been up there, I've lived up there for my entire life, and now I teach English.

So like I said, many of you probably already hate me. I'm a high school English teacher. At that school, I'm also the youth director there.

Were any of you at the club the other day? Here? Oh, sorry about that. So today, Dr. Hameen asked me to come and just give a small talk, and one thing that I'm kind of like known for, wherever I go, if I ever speak anywhere, like in Michigan or like Ohio, like wherever I go, people always know me as the guy who doesn't give long talks, so they always like to get me because I'm really short on talk. So they'll ask me to like speak for an hour, and then I go, and they pay like $2,000 for me to stay there and like everything.

I give them like 20 minutes. And they end up hating me and never invite me back. But so alhamdulillah, that's good news for you guys.

You won't be here for a while, inshallah. I'll have a lot of question and answers because it seems like most people just want to ask questions, so that's cool. This is kind of on the spot, to be honest.

I was told this yesterday when I got off the plane, and I was sitting next to this one guy who didn't smell too good on the plane, so I couldn't really like rest, so I was kind of like tired. So they told me that, you know, can you please just come and give a talk. I said, yeah, sure, no problem.

These are my people. I like to use them. I'll be 22 on Sunday, inshallah, so I'm not that old.

Does anyone have any questions about me before we start? Do you teach at IFS? Yeah, yeah, I do. Do you know anyone there? Oh, I know a graduate. Adel Said? Adel Haider? Yeah. How do you know Adel

Haider? He's on the show. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Do you know him? Yeah, I know Adel Haider. Cool kid. Cool kid.

Anyone else have any questions? Anyone? No? Okay. All right, we're going to get started then.

The Topic: Accountability

So, today the topic we're going to talk about is a topic that is often addressed in the Quran by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and it is a topic that in this particular society, where do we live again? America.

Okay, in this particular society in America, we often find that people are, can you close the door for me? Yeah, it's fine. Sorry, I can't focus. Girls, you don't have to close all the way, just close it so it's like, yeah.

If anyone comes in, that's fine, no big deal. So this topic is a topic that is often, it's a subject that is often we are taught not to deal with it, right? And this topic is accountability.

Who can tell me what being accountable is, or accountability? Anyone? If you are accountable for something, what are you? Responsible for it. Responsible for it, right?

How Society Teaches Us to Avoid Responsibility

Okay, so who can give an example of how today we are kind of trained not to be responsible for something? Let me start off, okay. Who can tell me today how we are trained not to be responsible? Let me give you an example. How many of you have ever gotten a bad grade on a test? What's the first thing you ask a teacher for? A retest, okay, that's one thing.

What's another thing you ask for? Extra credit. Extra credit, huh? Are you sure this is my test? Are you sure this is my test? Yeah, that one too. That's why I never wrote my name as my test, by the way. No, I'm joking.

Okay, so you ask for a retest, or you ask for extra credit, right? And this is something that we've been trained for. Even though we know that probably instead of staying up playing Call of Duty all night long was not a good idea, or staying up on Facebook poking random people was not a good idea, and we should have studied instead, right? We should have studied instead.

And when we get a bad grade on the exam, and before, you know, me and Abu are going to come and hit us with a dunder or whatever, we know that it was our fault, right? But we've been trained, because of all these extra chances, to think to ourselves that somehow, someway, we're just going to get out of it. And we're just going to be able to go to the teacher or the professor. Are any of you in college yet? Oh, are you guys like in that high school program? Yeah.

Okay, okay. That's kind of cool. So we're trained that we're going to be able to go to our professor or our teacher in high school, and we're going to be able to ask, you know, can I just please have some extra credit just to boost my grade up, right?

What's another way? Can anyone give me another example? There's tons of examples, if you think about it.

Huh? Test correction. Test correction. Okay, how about outside of this realm of tests? Yeah, what's up?

Um, like, turning in late work. Okay, turning in late work. Let's get outside of the school building. Okay.

Examples Beyond School

What happens when you get into a car accident? Break a bone. Hopefully not, but maybe you might break a bone, yeah. Okay, and if you break a bone, you would use this even more.

What do you use? What's the first thing you reach for? Insurance. Insurance, yeah, okay. So, like, when you get into a car accident, or when you get sick, or when you hurt something, or when you break a bone, or when, inshallah, when you have kids, or if you are a kid who has, like, done something to someone else's house or something, there's always some sort of group or organization that's going to make sure that they got your back, right? So, there are literally companies that all they do are give people second chances, and these are called insurance companies.

So, in order to drive in the United States, you need to have an insurance policy, you need to have an insurance card, because when you get in trouble, the insurance is going to pay the money, right? So, many of us think that, many of us think that when we get into an accident, it's just, you know, our mom and dad who somehow magically come home with the car fixed. But in reality, there's insurance companies behind them that our mom and dads pay, and they pay them and say, okay, we're paying you this, but if we ever get in trouble, you have to pay whatever we're not paying. So, the insurance company has to pay, like, thousands of dollars to fix our cars, and we only have to pay 500.

It's called a deductible. Right? One more example of a second chance that we don't deserve, maybe. Anyone? Anyone? You came in late, right? Okay, that was the first example we did.

Anyone else? Another example. Do a lot of your parents bargain shop and go for, like, clearance racks and stuff? Have your parents ever tried to use an expired coupon? I know our parents have. Definitely my parents have, for sure.

So, like, your parents will go to, like, the store, and you know it's expired, like, mom, it's expired. It's like, oh, that's cool. And then she walks in, and you're like, it's like, oh, we didn't know.

My mom didn't do this, but, you know, maybe they might lie a little bit, and they'll be like, oh, we didn't know, and then they'll try to, like, force, like, let me talk to your manager, you know, as if that's going to automatically fix every problem in the world. Like, let me talk to your manager. I used to work at the Apple store before I quit a few weeks ago, so sorry no more discounts, but everyone used to come up to me and be like, oh, I didn't know, I'm sorry, you know, can you help me out? I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't.

The Pattern of Blame-Shifting

But we're always trained in this society to be kind of looking for a way out, right? Looking for someone else to blame, right? When you see little kids and they get in trouble, what's the first thing they do? Point at someone else. He did it. She did it.

Right? I mean, how many of you deal with little kids, little sisters and brothers? Yeah? It happens, right? Like, if I blamed you, you, little one, why are you talking? She was talking to me, right? She was, she was talking to me. So, okay. So we're trained, right? We're trained ever since we were kids.

Someone steals a cookie from the cookie jar, even if they have, like, cookies, chocolate chip all over their face, and, like, crumbs all over their beard, like some really hairy kid, right? And, like, you definitely did it. The kid's like, no, I didn't do it. Like, someone else did it.

Even though for sure they did it, right?

The Day of Judgment and Accountability

And so upon Allah, Allah says that on the Day of Judgment, right? What's the Day of Judgment? Resurrection. Okay, resurrection. All right, well, what's going to happen to us on the Day of Judgment? We're going to be punished.

Ooh. Inshallah we're not. Inshallah we're not.

Okay, inshallah we're not going to get punished. But what's going to happen on the Day of Judgment? Sisters, can I have quiet, please? Can I have quiet? I swear it won't be long. You guys can talk afterwards.

We're going to be judged, right? That's why it's called the Day of Judgment. Inshallah we won't get punished. Inshallah.

So, when we're judged on the Day of Judgment, okay, we're going to come to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this story, this scenario, I guess, this image, picture it like a movie scene, right? So you're in a theater and you see this. Okay? And you're seeing this happen in front of your eyes, right? Obviously you don't see Allah because we don't know what Allah looks like. But you see someone, and they come, and they have someone with them, right?

And they are told, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says this to them in the Quran. He tells the person, why did you do this? Why did you do that? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? On the Day of Judgment, every single thing that we did, every single letter that we said, we're going to have to answer for.

Right? And so Allah is asking the person, why did you do this? Why did you do that? Did I give you the tongue so you could talk back to your parents? Did I give you those eyes so you could look at that person that you weren't supposed to look at? Did I give you this, this, this? Did I give you those ears to listen to that little Wayne album that's not really that good at all? Right? Or the Jonas Brothers, or the Sisters, or whatever they're called. My little sister-in-law is in love with the Jonas Brothers. I'm like, they're wearing girls' jeans.

Why do you like them? It's so cute. No, it's not. So, Allah is going to say, did I give you ears to listen to that? Did I give you this, this, this? Did I give you eyes to cheat on that exam? To copy someone else's homework? And you're going to have to answer for it.

Every single one. Right? And what's the first thing we're going to do? The first thing. No, before that.

He made me do it. Exactly.

The Concept of Qareen (Companion)

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He created each and every one of us. We have this companion with us. Right? Now, it's not a good companion. Right? How many of us know what waswas are? Whispers.

Or shaitan. Right? This companion in the Quran is referred to as the qareen. Qareen.

(قَرِينُهُ - qareenuhu) means his companion. Or (قَرِينَتُهَا - qareentuha) for a female companion.

Every one of us has a shaitan that is not attached to us, but is with us. And whenever we are thinking to do something bad. Right? Whenever we are tempted to do something that we know we shouldn't do.

[The text appears to be incomplete at this point, cutting off mid-thought]

Quranic References

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the concept of accountability in numerous places in the Quran:

"And no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another."

"And that there is nothing for man except what he strives for."

Regarding the companion (qareen) mentioned:

"And his companion will say, 'This [record] is what is with me, prepared.'"

Key Lessons on Accountability

1. Personal Responsibility: Islam emphasizes that each individual is accountable for their own actions
2. No Excuses on Judgment Day: The patterns of blame-shifting we practice in this world will not work in the Hereafter
3. The Role of Shaitan: While we have a companion (qareen) who whispers, we still have free will and choice
4. Every Action Recorded: Nothing we do, say, or even think escapes Allah's knowledge