Islam- Path to Peace

Islam: Path to Peace

Opening Praise and Introduction

Alhamdulillah wa sallallahu ala sayyidina Muhammadin rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahabatihi wa man wala.

Alhamdulillah, Allah blessed this ummah and really blessed humankind because Allah says:

"We have only sent you as a mercy to all of the worlds."

The Transition from Turmoil to Peace

And if you look at the meaning of our beloved Prophet, because this deen is about a move from a transition from a state of turmoil to a state of peace. A state of turmoil which is called Darul Harb or the abode of war to a state which is called Darul Islam or Darul Salam which is the abode of peace. And ultimately the truest and final abode of peace in which there is no turmoil and turbulence and not disrupted is the Akhirah itself, the next world, the last world, the final abode, Darul Akhirah. And that is the place that Allah has given human beings the ability to choose for themselves which abode they wish to reside in.

Surah Al-Jumu'ah: The Universal Gathering

So Allah says in Suratul Jumu'ah which is the chapter of gathering. Jumu'ah is the gathering. And the Friday prayer is the gathering of this ummah. It's a universal gathering because Friday is Friday all over the world. And so it's a universal gathering of one-fifth of the world's population coming together on that day to celebrate a day which is called the Eid of the Muslims.

And so in this beginning chapter Allah says:

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth exalts Allah, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Exalted in Might, the Wise. It is He who has sent among the unlettered a Messenger from themselves reciting to them His verses and purifying them and teaching them the Book and wisdom - although they were before in clear error."

The Functions of the Prophet

Allah says, He sent from amongst the unlettered a messenger, a rasul. And then He tells us exactly what the function of this Prophet ﷺ was. First (يَتْلُو عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتِهِ - to recite His signs upon them). Now, one of the wonders of

the Arabic language is its multiple meanings that are contained in one word. And the word (يتلو) can mean to recite, but it can also mean to follow.

Right. So, the Prophet is not simply the reciter of the Qur'an, but he is the greatest follower of the Qur'an. So, he recited to them this book, the signs that Allah has sent down.

Purification Through the Sunnah

(يَتْلُو عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتِهِ وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ) - From amongst those he recites the signs to, there will be those who respond to the signs of Allah. And from amongst those who respond, there are those who will be purified by the messenger of Allah. The purification that the Prophet performs for his ummah is in their adherence to his sunnah.

Because the sunnah is a purifying element. The sunnah itself is a purifying element. And so those who follow the sunnah of the Prophet by its nature, in humility, if they follow it in humility and not out of arrogance or self-righteousness, by its nature it will purify their hearts.

Teaching the Book and Wisdom

So, (وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ) - And he purifies them and teaches them not simply the book, because it's not enough to know the book. It's not enough to know the book. The orientalists know the book. Montgomery Watt, a famous orientalist from Scotland, wrote a very extensive study on the Qur'an. He studied the Qur'an extensively. So he knew the book, but it's not enough to know the book.

(وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَإِن كَانُوا مِن قَبْلُ لَفِي ضَلَالٍ مُّبِينٍ) - Even or in spite of the fact that they were in deep error prior to this process. In other words, that the human being has the potential, the capacity, no matter what his condition or her condition, to move from this state of ignorance and error into a state of knowledge and light. But it's a process which means submitting to a teacher.

The Necessity of Submission to a Teacher

And to submit to a teacher is a difficult thing for the self. In fact, the Quraysh didn't want to submit to (يَتِيمُ بَنِي هَاشِمٍ) - This is what they called the Prophet, the orphan of Bani Hashim. The orphan of Bani Hashim. How can we learn from the orphan of Bani Hashim? He grew up amongst us.

How can Musa said, how can I learn? Firaun said, how can I learn from Musa? We raised him. Firaun said, we raised this boy in our house. (لَا يَكَادُ يُبِينُ) - He can barely speak clearly (Quran 43:52). And he's coming to teach me something?

Azar, the father of Ibrahim said to his son Ibrahim, how can you teach me? I'm your father, I taught you. What are you going to tell me? And Ibrahim said to his father, a knowledge has come to me that has not come to you. A knowledge has come to me that has not come to you.

(قُلْ لِمَنْ ادَّعَى الْعِلْمَ فَلْسَفَةً لَقَدْ حَفِظْتَ شَيْئًا وَغَابَتْ عَنكَ أَشْيَاءُ) - Say to people that think knowledge is something you philosophize out of your head. You've memorized some words, but how much has been taken out of your sight? How much have you no access to?

So this submission to the Messenger of Allah is why (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ) is not enough. We have to submit to (مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللهِ). And this is the bone of contention amongst the Muslims and the non-Muslims. Many non-Muslims will accept (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ). But to submit to (مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللهِ) ﷺ - This is where the difficulty arises. To submit to a human being that we recognize is not only a human being but the best of creation. Who came to the Ummiyin.

The Meaning of Al-Ummi

Now I want to talk about the Ummiyin for a moment. The word Ummi which the Prophet, one of his titles, the titles that Allah has given him in the Qur'an is (النَّبِيُّ الأُمِّيُّ) - The unlettered Prophet. Now there is some contention about the meaning. Some of them say that it means the Gentile Prophet. The Prophet that was not from the Jewish tradition. But this is not the preferred etymology.

The preferred etymology is the unlettered Prophet. The one who could not read or write. Now if you look at the word itself, it's called a نسبة in Arabic. Ummi means of the mother. It means of the mother.

Now it's very interesting that the Prophet is a man who was born into the world without a father. He was born into the world without a father. His father died before he was even born. And his mother's name was (آمنَة) which is an active form of the name that he was given الأمين. The (آمِئَة) is an active form of the passive form that he was given as his title الأمين. From آمنة came الأمين. From the womb of آمنة came الأمين

An Unlettered People

He's from a people who were called (أُمِّيُّونَ). And in the Sahih, the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 1913, Sahih Muslim 1080)

"We are an unlettered people. We neither write nor do we count."

We are illiterate and innumerate. We neither read nor do we count numbers.

The Power of Literacy

What is the wisdom amongst the unlettered peoples? If there is one thing that has given people power over other peoples, it's the ability to write down knowledge. You see, if you look all over the world, the most oppressed people - In fact, the group that they call the fourth world. People don't even know this, but the World Bank actually, they don't stop at the third world. They've identified another world which is called the fourth world. The fourth world are the nomadic illiterate peoples. And these are the most oppressed peoples on earth.

The next most oppressed people are what are termed the semi-literate. And it just moves on from there. And if you look in Muslim cultures now, the more literate people are, the higher they move up on the social status or the social spectrum. And the poorest and the most humbled and the most denigrated peoples are those who do not have access to the power of literate words.

And language is the most empowering thing that Allah has given the human species. And so it is the Nabi'ul Ummi who came to the unlettered peoples.

Languages and Literacy in the World

Now if you look, the United Nations - a dubious source to cite, but I'll do it nonetheless - The United Nations reckons that there are 3,000 languages on the planet earth that are spoken today. Of those 3,000 languages, only 78 of them have written language. Of the 78 that are considered literate - and think about that - Out of 3,000 languages, only 78 have a written language.

Out of those 78 languages, there are only 7 languages that have a universal literature. A literature that is read at the universal level. Of which Arabic is amongst them.

Now prior to the Prophet Muhammad, there is no literate Arab tradition. The first book in the Arabic history is the Quran.

(لِيُعَلِّمَهُمُ الْكِتَابَ) - To teach them the book. Because the book is what empowers human beings.

Civilization and the Book

There is no human society on the face of the earth that is not founded on a book. There is no human society on the face of the earth that is not founded on a book. And that book, no matter what it is, contains stories.

The Greek civilization is based on the book of Homer. On the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is no Plato and no Socrates without Homer. They don't exist as historical literate characters. They do not exist. Plato and Socrates only exist because of Homer. Homer comes out of the oral tradition.

There is no European civilization without the Bible. You see, I mean the Europeans pride themselves on being the most sophisticated race. But if you look at the Europeans before they had the Bible, they were very barbaric people. And even there is a strong argument that the Bible didn't do a whole lot to civilize them. But certainly we have to admit that there is civilization in the West. I mean we can't deny that. There is great architecture, there is great literature, there is great poetry. These are the trappings of civilization.

False Claims to Heritage

Now for these people now in the world to claim this as their heritage is as bad as the Muslims - well maybe not as bad, but close to it - as the Muslims of today claiming as their heritage the great scholars and imams of the past. You see, and this is what the Prophet said:

(الْمُتَشَبِّعُ بِمَا لَمْ يُعْطَ كَلَابِسِ تَوْبَيْ زُورٍ)

(Sahih al-Bukhari 5219, Sahih Muslim 2130)

"The one who claims to be satiated by something he was never given is like the one who wears two cloaks of false testimony. "

You see, two cloaks of false testimony. It's not just one, it's two cloaks.

The Process of Purification

So the Prophet was sent. But prior to teaching them the book there has to be a process that happens. And it's called tazkiyah. And part of tazkiyah is submitting or surrendering to purification. And this takes a submission. Because you cannot learn without submission. Submission is a prerequisite of knowledge.

And so the Prophet came to teach. To purify and to teach the book. But again the book is not enough. And this is why Allah says:

To teach them the book and wisdom.

The Meaning of Wisdom

Now what is the wisdom? The wisdom is a wonderful word that has many meanings. It has a huge semantic field in the Arabic language. One of the meanings is wisdom. The hakim is wise. Hakim is also a doctor. And a doctor by his nature heals.

So the one who has hikmah is able to heal. And so the one who's taught the book and the hikmah is one who not only knows how to read and understand the book, but knows how to use the book as a healing curative reality. Who knows how to take a sick and diseased society and to elevate them and lift them into a state of health.

And this nature of health - because health is always preceded by purification. Disease itself is a type of purification. And thus again purification must precede the process of the book and the wisdom.

So wisdom is the hikmah. It's also the hikmah comes from the word - because you have to know how to apply the book. You have to know how to apply it in human societies. And also we get the word ihkam which means to perfect, to do something in excellence, which is related to the concept of ihsan.

Empowering the Disempowered

So if you look at this prophet who was sent amongst the illiterate peoples - today in the world, the vast majority of human beings are ummiyoon. They have no access to power. They're disempowered, they're disenfranchised. And the message of Islam is to take those people and elevate them. To raise them up to the levels of understanding. To give them the symbols of conceptualization. To begin to see the tyranny and the oppression that they exist in. And not simply be deaf, dumb and blind to that situation.

The Preservation of the Family Unit

Now if you look at the crux of this - the whole crux I would say of the sharia - is to preserve the family unit. If you look at the laws of Islam, it is based, although many of them say the usuliyoon, the people of usul, put it to six principles. That the sharia of Allah, the sacred law, is there designed to save or preserve six things. The first of it is deen itself.

Understanding Deen

And what is deen? Deen is not religion. And religion is actually a 19th century concept. It did not exist before the 19th century. It comes from a Latin word which means to bind together - Religio, to bind together. The idea that religion is this creed the people adhere to and it gives them a salve or a bonding element that will bind them together.

The word deen comes from a word which means debt. It's the debt that you owe to Allah. Now deen in Islam has two aspects: Deen and millah.

Deen itself is your personal debt to your creator. And it's how you treat people.

"How you treat those around you, so you will be treated."

The Prophet ﷺ - Also it's related to the concept of discipline. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2459, Sunan Ibn Majah 4260)

"The intelligent one is the one who disciplines the soul, who disciplines the self, and acts for what's coming after this life which is the next world."

So the idea of deen - and Allah is Dayyan. This is one of the names of Allah. And then deen is also the day of judgment.

"Master of the Day of Judgment" (Quran 1:4)

يَوْمُ الدِّينِ - The king of the day of judgment. The king of the day in which the debts fall due. Which is interesting because the word in old German "Gilt" is related to the same word "Gild" which is debt. So human beings have a sense of debt.

Modern Society's Denial of Guilt

Now the fascinating thing about western materialistic society is it attempts to reduce the element of guilt from

The Titanic Metaphor

the human species. This is really the thrust of modern self-esteem worship. This whole idol of self-esteem which is part of the modern sickness. Feel good about yourself, even though there's really no reasons to feel good about yourself. I mean you're really actually in quite a horrific condition.

It's not "I'm okay, you're okay." It's "I'm dysfunctional, you're dysfunctional." And this is the type of society we're in. And yet we want to pretend everything's okay. And it's not okay. The ship's sinking. The ship's going down. And it's going down fast.

The Titanic Metaphor

But America to me and the western world - and unfortunately the Muslim world now - because the Prophet used the metaphor of the boat, I think that we're like the Titanic. You see the Titanic like the challenger. Amazing name to call a rocket ship - the challenger. Who are you challenging? The creator of the universe. That's an awesome reality to challenge. And if you get blown up in the process, you really have to think about what that meant. They haven't called anything the challenger since then really. You know I mean it's tragic. The most tragic thing is that poor teacher, the science teacher, who believed that she was riding on a sophisticated technology when in fact it's a very crude technology. Really very crude technology. That the margin of error as our engineers would point out exists. And it increases exponentially as the technology increases in its complexity.

So this Titanic metaphor - I mean if we look at this - the Titanic set sail from England. And it was deemed the unsinkable ship. Again I mean, it's amazing. Think about that. I mean the unsinkable ship. I mean this is human hubris at its worst. And unfortunately as westerners we grow up on the tragic hero whose flaw is always hubris. That's the flaw of the tragic hero. It's hubris.

The Sinking Ship

This Titanic here that's sinking fast - people when the Titanic was going down, this is really interesting - the band kept playing and people kept dancing. Because they were convinced that the ship couldn't sink. And it was literally beginning to tilt and people were still dancing. This is called self-delusion at its best.

"We can't sink. This is the Titanic. The unsinkable ship. And I paid a lot of money for this ticket." And they didn't even have enough lifeboats for all the people. But the lifeboats weren't even filled because people wouldn't get on them because they didn't believe the ship would sink. They didn't believe it would happen, right? But it sank.

And that's why this society is obsessed with raising the Titanic and all these things. "We'll get it back. We'll make it unsinkable." No, it's down there for good. It's down there. And it took a lot of people with it.

And this ship is sinking. And people want to say "I'm okay, you're okay." And it's not. It's a really serious situation. The band's out there playing.

Another Metaphor: The Airplane

And I mean another metaphor that I've used is the airplane. It's like the airplane has literally just lost power and it's heading down. And the stewardess is saying "Coffee? Tea? Or what would you like?" And I'm saying "No, I need a prayer. I don't need tea, right? I need a prayer."

Because really, if it's going down, I'm not going to be worrying about tea because I'm not going to have time to enjoy it. I'm going to be worrying about what my last words are going to be.

The Deen of Islam

So this, this deen the Prophet ﷺ was sent to give us - this deen of Allah - is the debt. It's fulfillment of this debt.

Millah: The Collective Identity

And the second aspect of it is millah, which is the group or the collective identity of the community.

And Islam uniquely amongst all cultures identifies people not by their color, not by their ethnic background. We don't. You see these things: Filipino, African American, Hispanic, Caucasian. Now they go on so long and then at the end they say "other." That's what I put. I always put "other" because I'm an other, right? Gharib. I don't want to be identified - no, that's not our identification. That's all incidental. That's not our nature. That's incidental.

We are what we believe. This is how Islam identifies people. It identifies them by millah. By what is your belief? What do you believe?

You see, and what we believe - we believe that Allah is true. We believe Allah is haqq. We believe that the fire is true. We believe that the jannah is true. We believe that the hisab, the reckoning on the day of judgment is true. We believe that every rapist will be taken to account. We believe that every murderer will be taken to account. We believe in an ultimate destiny for all of these people. A group is in the garden and a group is in a tormenting blaze. You see, and this is the reality. And Allah gives us the choice.

The Foundation: The Family and the Mother

Now just I'm going to try to sum this up very quickly. The idea of the foundation being the family. If you look at the family, the family is - the ummah is related to the umm. You see it all goes back to the umm.

The prophet - Nabiul Ummi - and he came with this ummah. The last ummah for the human species. And it is the ummah that is uniquely designed for the last stage of life on earth. Our sharia, our sacred law, is uniquely designed for the last phase of human civilization. Because it's the phase in which all of the races come together.

A Universal Community

This is a unique in the history of human societies. You will rarely find situations in which so many peoples of so

many diverse backgrounds, colors, understandings, languages come together. You see, rarely happened in the history of human civilization. Alexandria was a rare anomaly in ancient civilizations. Most people were very provincial. They lived their lives out with a provincial mindset.

Islam came to break the shackles of provincialism and to create a universal human being that transcended these bonds of color and the barriers of race and all of these things. And unite us with a word that we all agree on: There is no god but Allah. This is what we agree on.

Allah says:

"Come to a word that we share with each other, that we should only worship Allah." (Quran 3:64)

The Role of the Mother

And now, the ummah can never be sound if the mother is not sound. And this is why Jannah is at the feet of the mother.

"Paradise is at the feet of the mothers."

Because if you don't have the mother, then you will not have human beings. If you do not have human beings, there is no paradise. Because paradise is for the people of insaniyyah. It's for the people of humanity. It's for the people of the Adamic nature.

And he's the النَّبِيُّ الْأُمِّيُّ - The Nabi from the mother. The one who came to teach people rahmah. And rahmah is the gift of the mother to the child. This is the gift that the mother gives to the child is rahmah.

Honoring and Educating Women

And we have to honor our women. We have to raise and elevate our women and educate them. And women have been condemned to orality for centuries. They've been condemned to orality and deprived of literacy.

We laugh at old wives' tales. We talk about the chatterboxes of women, that their nature is to chatter on. You see, this is all because they've been deprived of literacy. They're not encouraged to study. We're afraid of intellectual women. They start getting us a little nervous, you see, really.

The Example of Aisha

And we need women up here. Aisha رضي الله عنها was teaching. She had students. Many of the greatest muhadditheen sat at her feet. She taught poetry. She taught Ansar. She taught the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. She gave fatwa to the greatest of the sahaba.

And this is the woman that the Prophet ﷺ raised. The best of creation raised one of the greatest female intellectuals that the history of humankind has ever known.

So this is our beloved Prophet. This is what he did to women.

The False Claims About Islam and Women

And one of the big tricks of this civilization is to pretend in some way that Islam - and I'm not going to mention Muslims because that's another case. When we talk about Islam we're not talking about Muslims - that Islam is oppressive to women.

You see, this is the great - the society that has demeaned and denigrated women more than any other society in the history of human civilization. This society that has turned women into the objects, the commodified objects of lust and pornography. This society that panders women to the lowest aspects of the bestial nature of - I don't want to say human beings - but of this species.

You see, and this is what happened. And they want to tell us that we denigrate women by honoring them and putting them in clothing that covers their ornaments. They want to tell us that we denigrate women by saying "We don't want to look at your ornaments. Those ornaments are not for our eyes. They're for somebody else's eyes. They're not for our eyes unless we have rights over you and you have rights over us. And then we can look at your ornaments. Other than that, no, we don't want."

We want to honor you. We want to hear your mind and not see your body. And this culture says "We want to turn off your mind and we want to look and goggle at your body." And they want to tell us that we denigrate women, that we oppress women.

The Responsibility to Educate Women

So I think it's important really, if we're to move anywhere, we have to educate our women. We have to elevate our women. And the women also have a responsibility. And that responsibility - I'm done. Oh, you're giving me two minutes. Two more minutes. That was a long four minutes.

Islam: The Alhambra Metaphor

I'll just, you know, end by saying that I think in many ways, Islam is a good metaphor for it from the outside is the Alhambra. It's a palace that exists in Granada. And if you look at the Alhambra from the outside, it's very austere and frightening. Have you seen the Alhambra? Never seen a picture? Yeah, it's a fortress. That's what it looks like from the outside. It's a fortress.

You enter into the gate and suddenly you're in a garden. It's wonderful. You're in a garden and you feel like you're almost getting a glimpse of paradise. It's so beautiful.

And this is what Islam - to the non-Muslim who looks at Islam from the outside, they see this austere fortress.

But to the Muslim inside, it's this garden. And they're like, just amazed at all the fruits and the beautiful - "What are you so afraid of?" Well, he's looking at that fortress.

Inviting People In

Now, part of what the Muslim needs to do is invite them in. You see, literally invite these people in. "Come inside and just look, get a look from the inside out." And this is one of the opportunities of our post-modern world that's breaking down these barriers of alienation. And so this is something we have to do. Invite people in.

Islam as a Taste

Because Islam is ultimately a taste. It's a dhawq. And you don't explain to somebody what honey is like. You give them a taste. And so really in the end, it's hard to explain what Islam is like. We can maybe tell you what it is, but we can't tell you what it's like. Because only the one who's tasted it knows what it's like.

The Story of Imam Al-Ghazali

And this is why Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali a man once wrote him a letter and he said, "You're such an eloquent imam. I'm an impotent man. Could you please describe to me the delight of intimacy with a woman?" And Imam Al-Ghazali wrote back to him, "It's clear that you're impotent, but you're also a fool."

In other words, I can't explain to you something that by its nature is a taste or an experience.

Becoming Ambassadors of Islam

And so for the non-Muslim, they need to experience Islam. And the way that they experience it is to meet true Muslims. I mean this is the greatest experience of Islam. And to see the truth of Islam in Muslims who embody it.

And so the greatest dawah for all of us is to become ambassadors of Islam. Really, to become ambassadors of Islam. And to recognize that the women that people look at you - and the men also - we should have distinguishing characteristics.

I don't know why we have our women wear the hijab and then we never wear a hat or a turban. You know, why don't we do that? We want to be incognito. You see, "I'm not a Muslim," it's like that guy in the Oklahoma bombing when they interviewed him. And he said, "No, no, I'm not like - I drink beer, I'm not one of those Muslims." You see, "I'm one of you Muslims."

That's right boss, I'm one of you Muslims. They used to call those people Uncle Tom. They still call him Uncle Tom. I'm Tom in Arabic.

As-salamu alaykum