Khutbah The Generation of Doubt

Khutbah: The Generation of Doubt

Opening Praise and Greetings

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ، اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ خَالِقِ الْوُجُودِ مِنَ الْعَدَمِ وَجَاعِلِ النُّورِ مِنَ الظَّلَامِ وَمُخْرِجِ الصَّبْرِ مِنَ الْأَلَمِ فَمُلْقِي التَّوْبَةِ عَلَى النَّدَمِ، فَنَشْكُرُهُ عَلَى الْمَصَائِبِ كَمَا نَشْكُرُهُ عَلَى النِّعَمِ، وَنُصَلِّي عَلَى رَسُولِهِ الْأَكْرَمِ ذِي شَرَفِ الْأَشَمِّ وَالنُّورِ الْأَتَمِّ وَالْكِتَابِ الْمُحْكَمِ وَكَمَالِ النَّبِيِّينَ وَالْخَاتَمِ سَيِّدِ وَلَدِ آدَمَ الَّذِي بُشِّرَ بِهِ عِيسَى بْنُ مَرْيَمَ وَدَعَا بِإِثْبَاتِهِ إِبْرَاهِيمُ عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ حِينَ كَانَ يَرْفَعُ قَوَاعِدَ بَيْتِ اللَّهِ الْمُحَرَّمِ فَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَعَلَى أَتْبَاعِهِ خَيْرِ الْأُمَمِ الَّذِينَ بَارَكَ اللَّهُ بِهِمْ كَافَّةَ النَّاسِ الْعَرَبَ مِنْهُمْ وَالْعَجَمِ.

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي لَمْ يَتَّخِذْ وَلَدًا وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ شَرِيكٌ فِي الْمُلْكِ وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ وَلِيٌّ مِنَ الذُّلِّ وَكَبِّرْهُ تَكْبِيرًا.

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنُؤْمِنُ بِهِ وَنَتَوَكَّلُ عَلَيْهِ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَنَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَنَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولُهُ أَرْسَلَهُ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى بِالْهُدَى وَدِينِ الْحَقِّ لِيُظْهِرَهُ عَلَى الدِّينِ كُلِّهِ وَكَفَى بِاللَّهِ شَهِيدًا، فَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا كَثِيرًا.

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَخَيْرَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَإِنَّ شَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَإِنَّ كُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ.

Quranic Verse Introduction

: قَالَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ فِي كِتَابِهِ الْكَرِيمِ بَعْدَ أَنْ أَقُولَ أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ

"And they did not become divided until after knowledge had come to them - out of jealousy among themselves. And if not for a word that preceded from your Lord until a specified time, it would have been judged between them. And indeed, those who were granted inheritance of the Scripture after them are, concerning it, in disquieting doubt."

رَبِّ اشْرَحْ لِي صَدْرِي وَيَسِّرْ لِي أَمْرِي وَاحْلُلْ عُقْدَةً مِنْ لِسَانِي يَفْقَهُوا قَوْلِي. اللَّهُمَّ لَا تَجْعَلْنَا مِنَ الَّذِينَ هُمْ فِي شَكٍّ مِنْهُ مُرِيبٍ.

The Power of Comprehensive Words

Allah عز وجل describes in the 14th ayah of surah al-Shura a very scary concept that I've been talking to you about for the last couple of weeks, but I realized something this week that I missed and I wanted to first address that and then go forward.

Our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, describing what he was given, describing the revelation of the Quran and the teachings that he was given, even the ones we find in his hadith:

"I was given comprehensive words"

The word jawami' is the plural of jami' which means gatherer, so he was given a few words that carry a lot of meanings. It would take me a khutbah to describe a few words from the Quran and even that is summarizing some of the teachings that are inside of that ayah. There are very comprehensive lessons from many angles that are captured in very few words, and it's one of the powers of the Quran that it's dealing with very rich realities in very few words.

Knowledge as a Source of Division

In light of that, one of the things that I missed among the many others in talking about this ayah is what I spoke to you about last time - how knowledge that is supposed to be a means of humility became a means of recognition, a social kind of dominance, and it became a source of competition and validation. That's the wrong reason to be seeking sacred knowledge. We seek Allah's knowledge to become more humble slaves of Allah, not so we can establish how much more knowledgeable we are over someone else or how more correct we are over someone else. That's the exact opposite of the purpose of learning this religion.

People that are supposedly learning Allah's deen are supposed to be the examples of that kind of humility, but they unfortunately sometimes become a source of division and conflict, creating groups and cults that are at odds against each other, each seeking for more territory, more validation: "No, we're the true flag bearers of Islam," "No, they're not." It becomes a culture of invalidation of each other.

The Deeper Dimension of Baghi

There's another dimension to the same thing. Where Allah says:

They didn't fall into disagreement until after knowledge came to them out of baghi between them Quran 42:14

I talked to you about baghi - about the urge not to be satisfied with what you have. You want more, you want more, you want more. From it also comes the idea: you want more influence than the other person has, you want more people to listen to you than are listening to them, you want yourself to be recognized more as an authority than they are.

This was on the one hand a commentary on the corruption of the scholarship of the Israelites - what happened among the Jews and the Christians. But obviously it's timeless enough that Allah mentioned it about them:

It was revealed about them but it's a lesson and warning to us

Because diseases stay the same, human tendencies are the same.

The Average Muslim's Knowledge and Justification

There's another dimension I didn't mention that I want to talk to you about now. Yes, scholars know a lot about Islam, someone who's learning knows quite a bit about Islam, but the average Muslim - the one who didn't learn Arabic and didn't study and get an ijaza and tajweed and didn't memorize the Quran and didn't sit in halaqat and went to normal regular school, went to college, university, went to Jummah on Fridays - even they know the basics.

Everybody knows that in Islam alcohol is forbidden, everybody knows in Islam that zina is forbidden, that riba is forbidden. These are not complicated teachings. Every Muslim, knowledgeable or not, knows that there are five prayers in our religion, that there's a dress code in our religion, that there are certain guidelines about interaction between the genders in our religion, that there are rights of parents in our religion, that there's such a thing as inheritance laws in our religion. We know these basics even if we don't know all the details.

Social Division Within Muslim Communities

What happens in a society is that it often gets divided from the point of view of religious psychology. Some people consider themselves "normal" or "liberal" or "Muslim but not too Muslim," and then they look at somebody who's practicing even a little bit more than them as "too Islamic" or "too Muslim" or "Muslim-Muslim" or "mullah."

You get inside of a Muslim community those who identify themselves as not too strict, and they look at others as too strict. I already talked to you about the people that do practice - many of them have very good character and actually embody the teachings of Islam, but many of them are learning Islam as a source of dominance and corruption within themselves. Even those who look like they're religious, look like they're practicing, can be a pretty bad example.

Using Others' Corruption as Justification

Today let's turn the tables on those who know even a little bit. They know a little bit and they look at their behavior and they use that to justify to themselves: "All these people with beards and all these women with hijab, they're all extreme, they're all crazy. I want to be nothing like them. I want nothing to do with them, and that's why I don't pray or that's why I don't go to the masjid or that's why I don't... all this stuff is extreme."

Those people that you're criticizing may be doing something wrong - it's true. But for you and I to use that as an excuse to throw away the rest of Islam and say none of it applies to me because those people are so messed up - they already know something! Just because somebody else is corrupt, alcohol is still haram. It didn't become halal because a religious guy is corrupt. What is wrong is still wrong whether or not somebody who prays five times...

Personal Example of Corruption

For example, in my case, one time I was cheated in business very badly by a hafidh of the Quran. He used to lead the taraweeh prayers, very religious guy. You would look at him and say "Mashallah," you want to pray behind him. This guy was really good, but he cheated thousands out of me in a business deal many years ago.

Now I could use that as an excuse to say, "All these huffadh, I don't want to pray behind any of them, they're all corrupt. Forget it, I don't even want to memorize the Quran anymore because this hafidh has scarred me from hifz." No, he hasn't. He's messed up. That doesn't mean the memorization of the Quran is not noble. That doesn't mean praying in the masjid isn't a worthy act.

Throwing the Baby Out with the Bath Water

What we do is, out of spite for that person, we can use that as an excuse. They use the expression "throw the baby out with the bath water" - so throw Islam out along with the example of this corrupt Muslim. Now I'm justifying abandoning all the teachings of Islam, while it's not that I don't know. I already know. I know what I'm doing is haram. I know what I'm supposed to do and I'm not doing it on purpose, but I'm using my spite against this person.

I don't want to make them feel like I want to be like them. I want nothing to do with them. My spite against them is actually my own baghi. Even though I know, this ayah does apply not just to the scholars, but those even who know the basics, and then use that baghi, that animosity, that urge to not be anything like them or give somebody else the upper hand or appear like they're somebody else like the others they don't like. Out of that spite, they don't want to practice any of it.

Family Reactions to Religious Practice

You get families - Muslim families - and it's not an unheard of phenomenon. Many of you listening to me might even identify with this phenomenon. It doesn't matter which country you come from, which culture you come from. You might be raised in a family where not only are they afraid of people that look religious, that look like they pray five times - "These people are extreme, stay away from them, you're terrified of them" - but even if you started practicing any part of Islam that's harmless, like you started praying, just started praying, and your family is going to have a heart attack. They're going to have a panic attack: "Are you becoming extreme? What's next, are you going to blow something up? Is that what you're going to do?"

The Alcohol Business Family Example

I experienced this with a person I became friends with, who came from a family where they were Muslim for many generations, but because of colonization and what happened in their country and overwhelming cultures of secular influence, they kind of lost Islam over the generations. They adopted some of the practices of the other cultures that were in their country. In the other religions that were found in their country, drinking is normal, so over time in a generation or two, drinking became normal for the Muslims.

They're away from the religion and drinking became part of breakfast, lunch and dinner. There's a beer there, it's a common thing. If you're going to get into a business, you're just going to open up a bar - it's good money, it's easy money.

This one family member decides that he just doesn't want to be part of the business anymore. He somehow stumbles onto some things about the Quran, some things about Islam and he says, "You know what, I'm going to start praying." So first he's drinking and praying, then he hears the ayat:

Don't go near the prayer when you're drunk until you know what you're saying Quran 4:43

So he stops drinking and he hears the ayat:

The consumption of alcohol is one of the abominations and evils from the work of the devil, are you going to stop or not? Quran 5:90

So he stops. Now he's not telling his family to stop, he's not telling anybody else, he's not lecturing anybody else, he's just not drinking himself. But his family went against him. His father disowns him, they're yelling at him at every gathering because he's not picking up the beer and drinking. He's not hurting you, but somehow you're becoming insecure by him not partaking because you're accusing him of making them feel bad: "You're making us look bad, what are we all going to hell? You're too good for us? You can't drink?"

The Next Generation's Doubt

He's getting abused now because he's just holding on to a little bit of the religion. Then what comes next: every time he's around there's conversations about how extreme these Muslims are, how crazy these people are, "Don't become crazy like them." He's done nothing crazy, he just walked away from something that has always been evil that Allah described as evil.

What you get then is you've got the religiously observing, the conservative if you will, and they have their own domination issues and internal conflicts. Then those that are barely holding on to Islam, barely have any practices in Islam, and they've got their own domination issues - they have baghiyan baynahum too.

In both of those households, the next generation is being raised. These next generations: if you're raised in a religious (quote unquote by today's definition) religious family and you were raised in a very conservative household and all you saw was your father, your mother, or the khutbas you attended, the halaqat you attended, all you heard your whole life was how "they are," "this school of thought is correct and that one is going to hell," "this one is deviant and that one is kafir," "stay away from them," "you have to dress like them and look like them and talk like them," and the moment you start asking any questions "you're going to go to hell, fire," etc. You have this fire and brimstone kind of religion your whole life.

Eventually a young person who learns to think for themselves burns out and they say, "I don't want... I was part of this cult, I don't want anything to do with it." Either they grow up becoming exactly like their generation was - they carry on the same narrow-mindedness and conflict - or they burn out and they want nothing to do with their religion.

The Other Extreme

On the other hand, you've got a family that is scared of their religion: "We're Muslim enough for the Eid prayer, that's enough. We're Muslim enough for some charity here and there, maybe the 27th of Ramadan we'll do something, but other than that, don't give me too much Islam. That's not for me, that's for those crazy people."

Their next generation says, "Why are we even holding on to this 27th of Ramadan and whatever? What's the point of it? I mean, you guys think it's all crazy, so why don't we get rid of all of it? Why don't we not have any of it?"

Islam Becomes a Cage

You've got next generations that are either holding on to what wasn't the religion to begin with. Islam didn't come so you can defend your school of thought. Islam didn't come so you can defend your cult. Islam came to teach us the word of Allah and to share the rahmah of Allah with humanity.

But when Islam becomes either this cage, something else that it wasn't originally, it becomes now a litmus test: if you're dressed this and this and this way then you're Muslim; if you're not dressed... There are cultures in the Muslim world where if your turban is the wrong color then you're a kafir. There are some people that will look at me giving this khutbah right now and call me a kafir because my head isn't covered. They'll say this is against Islam, and that's their reading of it, that's Islam for them.

What's going to happen in the next generation? That will become Islam for the next generation, which means they're in doubt about what Islam truly is.

When Scholars Doubt the Prophet's Words

When the actual religion, the actual word of Allah is even presented, here's what happens in religious circles. This is the wild thing, and this is a conversation I had with one of my mentors and teachers, Dr. Abdul-Nadeem [should be Nadwi]. It was fascinating. He was sitting with a group of scholars and he mentioned an ayah and he mentioned the hadith of the Prophet. This is someone who has ijazat in hadith, he studied Bukhari and Muslim for 30-40 years of his life, he studied under great scholars around the world. He's mentioning a hadith of the Prophet and obviously he's not misquoting it or taking it out of context because he's a scholar himself.

He's sitting in the gathering of scholars and he says, "This is what the Prophet said," and they're having dinner together. Suppose it's scholars and one of them said, "Yeah but what did Sheikh so and so say?" He paused for a moment and said, "You already know what the messenger of Allah said, you already know what the Quran said, and you know that it's in its proper context, and yet to you that has less validation until this other person validates what this hadith says or looks at it. Until they look at it differently, until then I can't accept it."

That's one thing that a non-scholar would make a comment like that because they don't know any better maybe I should check with some scholarly research, maybe the hadith is being misused. But when this kind of conversation is happening among knowledgeable people and even they will put the word of someone else over and above the word of Allah and His messenger, you know what that means? That that school of thought or that opinion, that cult, is actually their religion, not Islam itself, not Allah and His messenger himself. It's shocking.

And the word of Allah is the highest Quran 9:40

What religion is that? That's not a religion, that's just a mafia, that's what that is.

Selective Use of Islam

On the flip side, what I'm describing are people that are just pushing Islam away, pushing Islam away, but they want their kids to be good. "I don't want too much Islam in my family, but I don't want my child to go against the culture either, so just get me enough Islam that my child lives according to my expectations and I'll only bring in Islam when I see that my kid is going too far."

The only time I'll use Islam is if my child becomes - ma'adhallah - if a child becomes addicted to drugs, "We should probably go find a sheikh or something to spiritually heal this child," or if a child is going against the wishes of the parents, then maybe we can bring in Islam and say "Islam says parents have

rights." Other than that, you're allergic to Islam, you want nothing to do with it, you push it away, but when you need it to exert some kind of control over the next generation, then you bring it in.

The Generation That Inherited Doubt

What happens to that next generation? In the next few minutes I'll explain to you what Allah says here. He says when that first generation is broken up and they're selective about their religion and they're just in constant conflict with each other:

And no doubt about it, those who inherited the book much after them Quran 42:14

So those who inherit the book after these generations have become generations of division and conflict and internal power struggles and selective citation, selective application of their religion, then the next generation Allah says about them: those who inherited the book after them لَفِي شَكٍّ مِّنْهُ - they are absolutely in doubt regarding it. They're in doubt about their religion.

The Reality of Doubt in Muslim Countries

Now you and I would think that somebody who used to live in Pakistan or Bangladesh or Egypt or Morocco or Algeria or Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, etc., they're raised in a Muslim family, they're Muslims for many generations, they're holding on to their religion, they're holding on to their tradition, the child is being raised hearing the Adhan his entire life or her entire life. They've heard the Quran, they've seen the Eid celebrations and all of it, they will hold on to their religion.

What is Allah saying? That those that have held on to their religion for so many generations but with this kind of conflict, what's gonna happen to the next generation? They will be in doubt about it - لفي شكّ مِّنْهُ - they are in doubt about it.

The Meaning of Shak (Doubt)

Shak in Arabic - Arabic is really rich and the Quran talks about doubt in many ways, so there are multiple words in Arabic and in the Quran for doubt, and shak is one of them. Shakka in Arabic is actually used when two things are so close to each other you can't tell them apart. You know when you weld things together, weld metals together, it looks like one piece, but when you screw things together or you know, Lego pieces, you can tell it's two pieces. But if you weld metal together it looks like one piece.

When they would make the spear and the tip and they would weld it so well together you can't tell where the tip ends and the spear begins, it looks like one carved piece - that would actually be shak. So the idea is two things that are merged and fused together. From it developed a notion of a kind of doubt where something that is true and something that is false are so close together that you cannot tell them apart,

and that kind of doubt where you can't tell the difference between right and wrong at all - they look equal to you.

Why Right and Wrong Become Confused

Ask yourself this question: why would someone ever look at right and wrong and they're confused, which one is right, which one is wrong, or they look the same to me? The only way they would do that in this ayah is they saw their elder generation do the right thing and do the wrong thing all at the same time. They were praying and they were lying. They were doing hajj and they were earning riba. They were talking about Allah and being grateful and being humble, and they were being arrogant and backbiting and all of this. They were giving charity and they were cheating people out of inheritance at the same time. They were giving zakat and earning haram. They were doing the right and the wrong all at the same time, all the time.

The next generation - and they talk about the unity of the ummah: "This is one ummah, we have one Islam, we have one prophet, we have one Quran," and yet, why, you know, this school of thought versus this school of thought, this shaykh versus that shaykh, this bay'ah versus that bay'ah, conflict, conflict, conflict all the time. So they saw the right and the wrong merge together all the time, so they're like, "I can't even tell what's right and wrong, I'm just confused." The next generation is just raised confused shakkin minhu.

Universal Religious Problem

Shakkin can be even more fundamental: "Well if this is the religion, then how do we even know we're following the right religion? I mean, this is the kind of drama that happens in every religion." You know what's crazy? I used to think this is a Muslim problem, until I studied religious psychology, psychology of the church and religious sociology. The kind of politics you find within the Islamic religious circle, the masjid politics, scholarship politics, school of thought politics, etc., are exactly the same as church politics and synagogue politics and temple politics - exactly the same.

Like I said before, the diseases are the same throughout generations. Just like good has always been good, evil has always been evil, human tendencies have always been human tendencies. You find the same power struggles in the church, you find the same power struggles in the synagogue, you find the same power struggles in the masjid and the Muslim community.

The Result: Universal Doubt

What a young generation then says is, "All of our, all these religions have the same issues, all these people have the same personality disorders, what's the difference anyway? This is just a money making scheme - just donate $5 and get your salvation. They just want money, that's all they want. All they want is fight with each other." Those are the two things that become apparent about the religion to them, so

they're in doubt about it. They're not sure: "Why should I even... what do I even get out of following this religion? What did you get?"

Environment Doesn't Determine Faith

Then you have a generation - you would think, "Oh, my child lost their religion because they came to America, they were around non-Muslims and they lost their faith. They went to Australia and they got liberalized, or they went to Europe and they got immersed in European culture and lost their faith."

No, this ayah is saying you could be in Lahore, you could be in Islamabad, you could be in Kuala Lumpur, you could be in Jakarta. You don't have to be in New York City, you don't have to be in London, you don't have to be in Hamburg to lose your religion. That environment... I told you before, it's not the environment that makes and breaks the real religion of Islam. The people of faith have always been in environments that are hostile to their faith - that's actually where the faith gets stronger, not weaker.

But Allah is saying for this next generation, it doesn't even matter if they're surrounded by the Adhan, it doesn't even matter if they're surrounded by an Islamic environment - لفي شَكٍّ مِّنْهُ - they're in absolute doubt about it.

The Infectious Nature of Doubt (Mureeb)

The doubt isn't - that's bad enough that they can't even tell the difference between Islam and not Islam because they become equal to them, that's what they've seen practically - but there's another doubt, there's another layer. You know what that is? Allah says: فِي شَكٍّ مِّنْهُ مُرِيبٍ . The last word here is mureeb. It's a sifah of shak and the word mureeb - for my Arabic students, araba yareebu is actually lazim, it's the thulathi mujarrad to be in doubt - araba yareebu. The if'al pattern is muta'ddi, to put others in doubt, and from it the ism fa'il is mureeb.

That was a little bit technical, but I'll make it simple: they're in a kind of doubt that when others see them, they become doubtful. You know how you have someone sick but that sickness is infectious? The next generation is in a kind of limbo that anybody that comes around them that may have been even thinking about Islam - they're non-Muslim thinking about Islam - when they come into contact with this next generation of Muslims they get disturbed: "Why should they even consider Islam?"

Rayb: Disturbing Doubt

Notice a new word for doubt is being used based on rayb. The first doubt I talked about was shak, this word is mureeb, from rayb. Like:

That is the book, no doubt in it Quran 2:2