Living in the Digital Age

Khutbah by Sheikh Saad Tasleem

Friday, November 23, 2018

Opening Khutbah

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Khutbat al-Hajah

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ

Surah Al-Imran 3:102

"O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed Allah is ever, over you, an Observer."

Surah An-Nisa 4:1

"O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will [then] amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great attainment."

Surah Al-Ahzab 33:70-71

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَخَيْرَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

Main Body of the Khutbah

Living in the Digital Age

My dear brothers and sisters, certainly we're living in very interesting times, times where a lot is changing and it's changing very quickly. We've entered into a generation now that has a whole another life, a whole another lifestyle that exists on the internet. We live in the age where much of our life is lived online, and the reality of our online lives is that at this point we really truly don't know and understand the implications of having an online life.

And I know there's many people sitting here today who have experienced a life that wasn't online and they've had to transition into an online life. And yet there are others sitting here who can kind of and barely remember when the internet started, but for most of their life they remember being online. And yet there's another

generation that sits here today that has only experienced the online world. They haven't experienced a life without the internet. They haven't experienced a life without social media, for example.

So it's important for us that in times like these that we are not short-sighted. It is important that in times like these we try to understand the implications of our online lives. It is important that in times like this we try to see how the online world and the internet, how it is affecting our lives.

The Permanence of Online Words

One of the important aspects, one of the important issues that we are now beginning to understand and learn about is how often times people take their online interaction very lightly. People sometimes equate an online conversation with an in-person conversation, and the problem with that is that an in-person conversation, a real life conversation so to say, is a fleeting conversation. Those words you say them and they're heard, and beyond that they're pretty much gone. The person hears it, they may remember it, they may not, and it's done. But when we say something online, when we react online, when we post something online, that's there. That's there forever.

And that is why it is important that we become extra careful and we revive our morals and our principles that are already found in the Deen of Allah, for example being very careful about what comes out of our mouth, being careful before reacting, being careful before taking a stance. Unfortunately, because we react immediately online, we don't have time to truly consider. A lot of times we don't have time to truly consider what we are saying.

And that is why it seems almost on a daily basis there is someone who is held back by something that they said or something that they posted or a reaction that they had to something a long time ago. There are people who have been fired from their jobs because maybe their employer found something they said online, not a month ago, not even a year ago, but maybe five years ago. And you know what, maybe five years ago they were a very different person. Someone may have said something in their teen years. Someone may have said something when they were a lot more immature, and now they have grown up and they have taken a job or whatever it may be, and now what they said before, because it wasn't considered, because they didn't take the time to really think about what they are posting and whether it should be posted at all, anyway, that now they have to deal with the consequences.

Islamic Principles for Digital Communication

But even though this feels very new to us, the online world feels very new to us, for us as Muslims we already have principles that can guide our actions, and it should not feel new. Because as a Muslim we already should be holding ourselves to account for what we say and how we react and that which we do. Because we know that even if it is not being recorded in this life, even if the internet wasn't there, we know we are responsible for our words with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

"Not a word does he utter except that there is a watcher by him ready [to record it]."

The Hadith of Good Speech or Silence

We have this amazing hadith in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, and this is a hadith that even children have memorized:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6018; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 47)

The one who believes in Allah and the final day, they should say that which is good or remain silent.

And you know what, our reaction to this hadith a lot of times is to teach it to our kids, right? A lot of times we tell our kids, listen, only say that which is good, right? Because you know what, we feel like we need to teach our kids to be patient when they react. We need to teach them to have pure speech. We need to teach them that they need to speak good, not speak bad. But sometimes in our own subconscious we don't truly believe that we ourselves can implement this hadith.

It's easy to teach it to other people. It's easy to say to our kids. And we do this sometimes: we hold our kids to standards that we don't hold ourselves to. And what do the kids learn from that? Well, to kids, the actions of their parents are far more impactful than the words of their parents. The kids will learn from what they see their parents doing. That will have a far more reaching impact than simply telling and ordering our kids to do this and to not do that.

Leading by Example

A child who has seen his father and his mother be careful about their words, a child who has seen that my father or my mother, they only say that which is good, they have seen that my mother, you know what, she doesn't talk about other people behind their back, she doesn't backbite people. My father, when somebody is brought up and someone says, you know, do you know that so-and-so did this or so-and-so has this problem, it is my father who says, you know what, we don't talk like that. We don't talk about other people. We don't say things about people that they wouldn't like for us to say about them.

Which is how the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, by the way, that is how he defined backbiting:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2589)

To say something about your brother that they wouldn't like, regardless of whether it is true or not.

And sometimes people justify talking about other people or saying things about other people by saying, you know what, I'm not saying something which is false. I'm saying something which is true. This person, they did this and they did this and they have this flaw and this flaw, or did you hear this person say this? And then you tell the person, brother, you know what, this is backbiting, or sister, this is backbiting. They will say, well, I'm not saying something that is not true. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam taught us that it doesn't matter whether it is true or not. The litmus test for us is: would this person like for us to say this about them or not?

And so these morals, if they are taught to our kids, if our kids understand these values and they have seen their parents practice their values, then yes, there is a far higher chance that they will adopt these values as well, whether it be in person or whether it be online, whether it be in a WhatsApp group, whether it be on Instagram or Facebook or whatever it may be. If they have seen their parents show them how to be careful with their words, if the parents have shown their kids that it is better to remain silent if we don't have something positive to say.

The Challenge of Positive Speech

And I know that even as I make this statement standing here today, that we should only say positive things, that there are many people listening to this and saying, yeah, that's great, but that's not real life, right? Can we really do that? And I'm not saying here that we all have to be perfect, but at the very least we have to try. We have to try and better ourselves. We have to try and elevate the way we communicate.

Because once again, if we take it to the online world, the norm of the online world is people react immediately. Something happens, we give our opinion. Someone says something, we give our opinion. We either agree or we disagree, or we speak out against something, or we speak in favor of something. And often times it's an immediate reaction. We don't take the time to consider the implications of our words.

And sometimes what that really means is it's a false sense of self-importance. And that's what we're teaching our kids sometimes: that we are so important that the world needs to hear what I have to say, and that's why I need to post it online. Something went down in the world, something happened in this part of the world or that part of the world, or something happened in my community or in my household or whatever, I'm going to react by posting online. Why? Because my opinion must be heard.

The Weight of Religious Responsibility

And this goes against the very principles of our deen, the principle of accountability. Even our scholars of the past were extremely careful when speaking, and these are people who know what they're talking about. These are people who are qualified.

Imam Malik, he would say that when someone would ask me a question, he said, I would envision myself standing between heaven and hell, meaning I'm speaking on behalf of Allah. This is a huge responsibility that perhaps my words can lead me to the hellfire, or perhaps my words can lead me to paradise as well. But he felt the responsibility of speaking, specifically speaking on behalf of Allah, the Messenger of Allah. Specifically this applies to everything, specifically when it comes to matters of the deen, matters of the religion.

A man came to Imam Malik with a list of questions, and to a good number of those questions, Imam Malik said, "I don't know." He said, "I don't know. Allah knows best." And this man, he got frustrated with Imam Malik. He said, "You know, these are not super complicated issues. It's a light matter. Just give me a fatwa, give me an answer." And Imam Malik said, "You think this is a light matter? Haven't you heard Allah say, 'We have sent down upon you a heavy, a weighty word'?" This is a responsibility.

How many of us truly feel that responsibility before we post online? How many of us truly feel that responsibility when we take a stance online? And how many of us really feel like we just have to say something, we have to do something? And maybe not now, maybe we won't see it now, but later, without a doubt, we may see the effects of what we are saying, what we have said today.

Something happens in the world and we think we give our opinion and we're done with it. That's the norm. But we're not done with it. We have to answer for our words.

Lessons from the Pre-Social Media Era

And subhanallah, in a time before social media, and for the younger people today who are in the masjid today, I'm going to give you a little bit of a lesson into what used to happen before social media. At a time there was these dark ages where we only had email, right? When people wanted to communicate, it was either the phone or there was email.

And one of the things that people would often say, even our imams and scholars, they would say that before you reply to someone with an email, right, let's say somebody sends an email that we didn't like, somebody said something that upset us, someone said something that hurt us, they would say before you send that email, take some time to consider what you have written. And if you have to write your response, write the angry response that you have to write, but then save it, put it aside, don't send it. Sleep on it. Give yourself some time. Come back to that email the next day, because hopefully by that time you have taken some time to cool down. You have some, you have that anger that was built up inside of you by reading those initial words, maybe to settle down.

And yes, those of you who have tried this, in most cases people, they may not change the whole email, but they would reconsider a lot of the wording that they use, because looking back at it you would say, yeah, that was kind of harsh and I did react kind of quickly.

That was in the age of email. So what happens now when that time isn't given? When it's an immediate reaction, it's an immediate conversation?