Independence Day

Independence Day Khutbah

Opening Invocations

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ. اللَّهُمَّ افْتَحْ عَلَيْنَا حِكْمَتَكَ وَانْشُرْ عَلَيْنَا رَحْمَتَكَ. يَا ذَا الْجَلَالِ وَالْإِكْرَامِ.

. وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ الْكِرَامِ. وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ الْعَلِيِّ الْعَظِيمِ

Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Wa sallallahu ala sayyidina Muhammad wa ala aali sayyidina Muhammad.

Allahumma iftah alayna hikmatak wa inshaAllah alayna rahmatak. Ya Dhal-Jalali wa al-Ikram. Wa sallallahu

ala sayyidina Muhammad wa ala aali al-kiram. Wa la hawla wa la quwwata illa billahil aliyyil azeem.

Reflecting on Independence and Freedom

I want to talk a little bit about our community tonight inshaAllah. And I would like to say that this weekend is a weekend in which this country celebrates independence from Great Britain, from occupation of people from another place that were sending their soldiers and housing them in the houses of the people. So there were a group of patriots that got together and they decided to say enough is enough.

That we don't want to be under the yoke of British tyranny anymore. And in their declaration of independence these founding fathers said that they felt that God had given every human being the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And if you look at those three qualities, the first one which is our God given right to just being alive.

And nobody really has a right to take that from you because God gave you that. And you have a right to walk the earth just like everybody else who's walking the earth. But the second quality that they thought was given by God to human beings was the right to be free.

Understanding True Freedom

Now freedom or liberty is never really defined in cultures. People talk about freedom but if you actually ask them what does that mean to be free? Most people will stumble and not really know what to say. They might have some vague ideas, freedom is doing whatever you want to do without hurting other people.

Or some stupid remark like that. Because they haven't really thought about what that means. You see liberty, what is liberty? But Islam is very clear about what freedom is.

The Three Types of Freedom

It's very clear. And moral philosophers divided freedom into different types of freedom. One of the freedoms is what's known as political freedom.

And interestingly enough that was really considered the least of the freedoms in moral philosophy. In other words it was the most insignificant. And yet that today is what most people consider freedom to be.

The second type of freedom is circumstantial freedom. Which is where people have money so they can do things that they want to do. Because if you don't have money in this country you're not really free.

And there's a lot of people out there that don't have the freedoms to do the things that other people have. Simply because they don't have enough money. So if you're a wealthy person and you can send your child to very good schools.

And you can get them tutors and you can get them the Kaplan GRE test program for two weeks. So they have an advantage when they take that test over people that couldn't afford to do that. And that's a type of freedom that has to do with how much you've been given in the world.

Moral Freedom: The True Independence

Or how much you've acquired. But the last freedom which is the most interesting freedom is the one that nobody ever talks about. And that's the real independence.

And that's the independence day that has yet to come for this country or any other country around the world. And that's moral freedom. See that's the freedom to actually be a moral agent in the world.

In other words that you are not a slave to the lowest aspects of yourself. That's the freedom that this country is lacking. And that's the freedom that if this country doesn't seriously have a moral and a spiritual revolution.

This country is going to wake up and find that not only is it not free but it's in hell. And there are some people out there that have already woken up to that fact. Now where does that put the Muslims in this context? You see where do they see themselves in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Where do the Muslims see themselves in this country? Because if you go right down the road to large Muslim communities.

The Crisis in Our Muslim Communities

You're going to see our women dressed like prostitutes. And you're going to see our young men in gangs, taking drugs, in juvenile delinquency. And that's right down the road.

And those are people who come from cultures where people would literally die of shame. If they could see their offspring in the states that they're in. And I am in no way exaggerating.

And this community has to ask itself. What have we done for all those people out there? All those young people out there. What have we done for them? Where are the youth centers in the Muslim communities to bring these youth? So that they can actually hear something about who they once were.

Remembering Our Noble Heritage

About who their ancestors were. Because all those Afghani kids out there that don't have a clue about what Afghanistan was. They think Afghanistan is this rumble of a nation.

That this country now has troops. Doing whatever they're doing over there. Afghanistan is a country that produced some of the greatest saints and scholars in the history of Islam.

One of the greatest Muhaddithats. A woman whose chain is still retained to this day. And Sheikh Mohammed Al-Yaqoubi who spoke earlier has that Afghani woman in his chain back to Imam Al-Bukhari.

That woman wasn't dressed in skin tight pants with her belly button sticking out. Imitating the worst qualities of human beings. You see because when an American comedian can laugh about Afghanistan.

The Value of Modesty

Saying that what kind of a country has its women dressing beehive suits. And then he said however I have to admit I do feel sorry for American women. There's one group of American women that I really feel sorry for.

And that's the prostitutes. Because they used to be able to dress in a way in which everybody knew they were prostitutes. But now it's so difficult.

For them to actually fly their wares out in the streets. For people to know who they are. Because all the American women are starting to look like prostitutes.

That's an American comedian. So which side is erring on the... Which one is in the greatest error? The side that errs on conservatism or the side that errs on the other extreme? In terms of preserving what's most precious about our women. Which is their modesty.

It's what makes us human. All those qualities that mothers give to their children. That's what makes us human.

It's not something else. You didn't get your humanity from school. You didn't get your humanity from your father.

You got your humanity from your mother. So what happens when you don't have women that have those qualities? What happens when you have a Muslim wedding and you have 50 year old Muslim women coming in with their belly buttons exposed in skin tight pants? Because it's bad enough when they're 16. But what's it like when they're 50 years old?

Are We Truly Free?

So where are we? In this great country, in the land of the free, are we really free? Because if we're not morally free to act as moral agents according to our religion, we're not slaves of God.

We're slaves of our own egos, of our own hawa, of our own caprice, of our own dunya. That's what we're slaves of. We're not slaves of Allah.

We're slaves of the lowest qualities of humanity, the bestial qualities. And a lot of those young people, I feel sorry for them. And I don't find, I'm not faulting them out there.

Because who has gone out and tried to reach them? Who has actually gone out and tried to speak to them? And not in some contentious way, not filled with judgmental anger or resentment, but actually with compassion.

A Story of Hope and Reminder

Because I'll give you one example. I went into a store.

And there was a young Afghani girl. There was a few of them. And they were dressed so terribly that I went up to these girls and I said, you know, I just want to tell you, I know that you're Muslims.

And you're my sisters. You're my sisters in Islam. And I don't like the fact that you're dressed in a way that people out there are looking at you.

And they're not looking at you as dignified creatures of God. But they're looking at you like wolves look at sheep. And I would just hope that, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I would hope that you would just think about who you are.

And maybe just dress a little more modestly. And I came back to that store not that long after to pick up what I'd gotten. And one of those girls was wearing a hijab.

And I'm just wondering how many are out there like that, just waiting for a reminder of who they are. How many Muslim youth are out there just waiting for a reminder of who they are?

A Call to Action for Our Community

And I just think it's about time that this community woke up. We've been here too long and things are really, really getting bad out there for a lot of people.

See, and you can come, you can have all your fancy cars, you can have all your Mercedes and your Lexus, you can have your nice house, wherever you have it. But if you've lost your religion, what have you gained? That's a question.

A Personal Story: What Has a Man Gained?

My grandfather was a very successful businessman. He had what they called a Midas touch. Everything he touched turned into gold. And one day he was with his wife and they went to a church to go to a wedding.

And my grandfather was not a religious man at that time by any standard. And as they came in, there was a big statement on the wall. It's a quote from the gospel.

And it said, what has a man gained if he's gained the whole world and lost his soul? And my grandmother said to my grandfather, that's a question you should ask yourself. Well, he became a very religious person after that in his own way and the way he understood. And ended up sending me and my sister to a camp when I was 12 years old in Greece to teach us the precepts of our religion.

You see, and that was a turning point in my life. And both my sister and I, we became Muslim. Out of the seven children, we were the two that went on that journey, that pilgrimage.

The Incorruptible Saint: A Sign of Faith

And I'll tell you what really struck me on that trip. It was on a little island, and you can look at it on a Greek map. It's called Zakynthos.

And I went into a church there. And in that church, there was a 6th century saint. That's a pre-Islamic Christian saint named Saint George.

That's like Jurayj in Arabic. You know, Jurayj is in Al-Bukhari (Sahih Al-Bukhari 3436). The saint who they built a big church for him.

And I don't know if it's that saint, but we went and the saint is in the church. And the Prophet condemned that because that's something that the Christians did with their saints. They put them in the middle of the church.

But he was there. And I'll never forget, open to glass, he went up and he kissed his foot. And I looked at his face, and his face was uncorrupted.

There was no change. And that's called an incorruptible. The incorruptibles in Christianity were the people that their bodies did not decay.

And there's a lot of them. And we believe that too about Muslims. That there's certain Muslims, their bodies, the earth will not eat their body.

And I know many people in Medina who have participated in digging in Baqi' and come across many bodies that were completely unaltered, unchanged. And I had the honor of meeting Sheikh Mahmoud As-Sawwaf from Iraq. A beautiful Iraqi scholar.

And he told me that he was with the group of scholars that reburied Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet. Because a flood came. There used to be a lot of floods.

A flood came and it uncovered the graves. And this was in the early 60s. And he was with a group.

And they put his body back into the earth. And he told me that he saw his body completely unaltered. And I have no reason to disbelieve that person.

The Impact of People of Faith

But I'll tell you something about seeing that man had an immense impact on me. Just seeing it. It was the first time it really struck me.

Why didn't his body decay like other people's bodies? Because we're talking about 1,600 years. And that's the thing about those early people. The early Christians and the early Muslims.

Is that those people were people of God. And where they went, they brought so much faith with them that people would become Muslim from just seeing them. And there are many, many stories about that.

And that's why we have to ask ourselves, how is it that so many Muslims can be here and so few people are affected by them? I mean, how is it that a dead person can affect me more than most living people? I mean, that's a question to ask yourselves. Because who's dead and who's alive? Who is really dead and who's really alive?

The Spiritual Crisis Among Our Youth

And so we've got all those young people out there whose hearts have died from lack of spiritual oxygen. And we don't have ambulances. We don't have spiritual 911s for people to call so that they can actually get some help. You know, we've got women that don't have shelters. We have homeless people out there.

We have homeless Muslims. We have people that don't have food on their table. In this country. I'm not talking about back home. I'm not talking about India or China. When I was little, they used to say finish your food because there's people in China that don't have food.

I'm talking about right here in this country. But I'll tell you, all of that material food, they're better off starving to death if they don't get any spiritual food with it. So there needs to be a lot of work in this community.

The Responsibility We Bear

And if people don't start rising up to the occasion, I mean, really expending their energy, expending their efforts, their wealth, and their time, and freeing up the time of other people because we need volunteers, but we also need professional people that are working to support these institutions. And if we don't take this seriously, I swear to God, on the Day of Judgment, how are you really going to stand before Allah? How are you going to stand before Allah when you've been given all that you've been given and you've done so little with it? I mean, that is a question that every one of us has to ask ourselves. So I really think it's time this community wakes up.

But it's up to you. It's in your hands. You can walk away.

You can go back home. You can entertain yourselves. You can do whatever you want to do to forget about the real reason that you're here.

Wake Up Before It's Too Late

But one day, it all comes to an end. And we all have to wake up. And that's why our Prophet said استيقظوا قبل أن تُستيقظوا "Wake up before you're forced to wake up."

So that's my recommendation to myself and all of you is it's time to wake up. It's time for this community to really wake up. This community has been given so much by Allah and has done so little.

And we have to stop patting ourselves on the back. Because we've got this or we've got that. We don't have anything until we start spreading this message out to the people that need it.

Because we see too many of the same faces in all these gatherings. We see too many of the same people in all these gatherings. And I know there's tens of thousands of Muslims in this community.

A Final Warning and Call to Action

And all those children back there before you know it, they're all playing right now. Before you know it, if you're not careful, you're gonna be pulling your hair out. Because you didn't do now what it takes to ensure that they're going to come into communities that are thriving spiritually, that are thriving socially.

And if they're thriving economically without spiritual and social flourishment, then what has a man gained if he's gained the whole world and lost his soul?