Rising in Revival, Setting in Submission

Rising in Revival, Setting in Submission

By Imam Zaid Shakir

Opening and Greetings

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to God, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Messengers, the Master Muhammad and his family, and upon his companions. Peace and blessings be upon you. All praise is due to God.

You guys look good. Good and tired. No, you look good. God bless you all. We love you. Each and every one of you. As we should. As our brothers and sisters. We should love our family members. That love should be part of what sustains us. And we pray that we find that love within each other's hearts. And we pray that it's a function of our love for Allah. And our love for the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم

Setting in Submission: The Foundation of Revival

I just want to flip the script a little as they say. And as opposed to look at the journey as rising in revival and setting in submission, let us consider setting in submission in order to rise in revival. And the context for just a few remarks, sharing a few remarks with you, we'll start with a qasida attributed to Shaykh Abdul Ghani al- Nablusi. And he says in terms of setting and submission:

We've come to you in a state of need, O the one independent of all needs. Oh humanity, humankind, you are in desperate need of your Lord, of Allah. And Allah is free of all needs, worthy of all praise.

And so the beginning of our revival is our submission. Acknowledging our weakness. Acknowledging our need for our Lord. Acknowledging the need for divine guidance.

Recognizing Our Need for the Creator

As was mentioned yesterday, this podium cannot ascribe meaning to itself. We do that. And we created it to be a podium. And we cannot ascribe meaning to ourselves like a podium. Rather Allah Ta'ala who created us ascribes meaning to us. And so until we acknowledge our need for Allah, the need for divine guidance, the need for divine assistance, then there can be no real revival. And we see repetitions of the failure to truly revive not just our ummah, but the direction we're taking as a human species. We need revival. Reviving as a human species.

So the first step: admitting our need and admitting the power of our Lord. And understanding the good that we enjoy comes from Allah.

You are the one who continues to be good to us. We're not the source of the good we enjoy. We're not the source of the good we enjoy. Allah Ta'ala is the source. And again acknowledging that is to submit and to humble ourselves. And to understand submitting, translating into humility, translates into revival.

(مَا تَوَاضَعَ أَحَدٌ لِلَّهِ إِلَّا رَفَعَهُ اللَّهُ - Muslim hadith 2588)

(Muslim)

No one humbles themselves for the sake of Allah except that Allah elevates them. So there can be no revival, no elevation without Allah. And so that requires us as a human family, many of us as Muslims—not again necessarily a single individual in this room, but individuals out there in the ummah who arrogate themselves and think they can play God—we can't play God. We have to submit to our Lord. Submit to God. Submit to Allah.

Acknowledging the Source of All Blessings

And part of that submission is acknowledging the source of the blessings we enjoy. You didn't bring it to yourself. I didn't bring it to myself. Allah Ta'ala brought it to all of us as a test.

You've grown us accustomed to being the recipient of every good.

Perhaps the good you've grown us to be accustomed to receiving will continue. That which you have accustomed us to receive will continue. So the clean water we can drink by just turning a tap and not walking five miles to a muddy pond that's shared by all the animals in the vicinity. The hyenas go there. The lions go there. The zebras go there. And they drop their dung around the vicinity. And then the rainwater comes back and that's our drinking water. So perhaps the good that we enjoy will endure if we're humble and acknowledge that it's a gift from our Creator.

The Path to Loving Allah

And so if we acknowledge Allah Ta'ala is the source of our good, we will love Allah. The human hearts have been naturally predisposed to love those who do good to them. And so if we recognize the good we enjoy—the clean water, the food, the fresh air—we could be in Shanghai or Beijing with masks on our faces so we can breathe the air, but we're not. We're in Southern California. We're in Orange County. And that breeze rolls off the ocean or flows down from the hills. And we say, Alhamdulillah. And then if we acknowledge that it's from Allah, that good, it's natural for our hearts to love the source of good.

And we understand that it's not me. Why is there so much narcissism? Because people think it's because of what I did. It's because of what I did. It's because of me. And so self-love. If you think the good came from me, I worked so hard to get all this, then you will love yourself. But if you acknowledge it's from Allah, it's from Almighty God, you will love Allah. Does that make sense? Does that make sense?

Your poor, wretched servants have almost been driven mad. Some people say Allah is derived from Walaha. Some say Alaha, who say it's a derived word. Alaha. Some say Walaha, to be confused and almost mad out of love. So based on that, at this time we should love Allah deeply. You say he's madly in love. Doesn't know if he's coming or going. He's walking like this, he thinks he's going like that. In reality he's walking like this and doesn't even realize it. I'm in love. I'm all shook up.

Your wretched, disheveled servants, they've been driven mad by your love. And that's the greatest thing to aspire to. Why? Because if every good is from our Lord that we enjoy, every blessing we enjoy, then the greatest thing we can aspire to is to love the source of that good.

The Reality of Wealth and Poverty

And in terms of wealth and independence, there's no one like you.

In terms of need and impoverishment, there's no one like us.

This is the reality, brothers and sisters. And this is the foundation of submission. You know, it's all from you, Allah. I have nothing to say, I have nothing to do, ultimately. We have a lot of work to do. But ultimately, it's your blessing and your guidance and your tawfiq, your facilitating my success.

Seeing Allah's Manifestation in All Affairs

So we see you manifested in everything.

And we have nothing to do with the outcome of our affair. That's submission. Submission is to understand and to internalize the reality that we have nothing to do with the outcome of our affair. And that's why we don't break the rules while we try to accomplish the change we want to see in the world.

These are the limits set by Allah. Don't approach them. Don't transgress them. Why? Because your transgressing the limits isn't going to bring success. It might multiply and compound the failure. Because:

Victory is only from Allah, the Mighty, the Wise.

So:

We see you manifested in every affair.

We have nothing to do with the outcome of the affair. There are a few more lines. We'll skip them consistent with the subject. Here's the conclusion:

The Revival Through Divine Support

There's the revival. It started with submission.

And it ended in revival.

If in every situation I find myself in, you are with me.

With you carrying my load, I am wealthy and I am free. That strength, that ability now to revive and to revive others, it came and comes from Allah سبحانه وتعالى. That's the revival.

Hearing and Obeying: The Path of Submission

And so we can submit and we can humble ourselves and we can say:

We hear and we obey. Forgiveness is yours, O our Lord, and unto You is our return. When we can do that, you see amazing things happen in the world. That's the power that gave the handful of scrappy people around the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم the power to change this world. You think it came from them? It came from Allah. As the Sheikh was telling you earlier—I forgot what was being mentioned, and I was back there listening—it's related to victory and the victory coming from Allah, not from us. It comes from Allah.

So we have to submit and that submission is expressed in:

That we hear what was revealed to us through revelation, through the Qur'an, through the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمthrough the consensus of our scholars, and then handed down to us.

That authentically verified chains of transmission are from this religion. Were it not for those chains of transmission, anyone could have said anything and attributed it to Islam. But we don't say anything. We say what we heard transmitted from our forebears. And we receive it:

We hear it. And we follow it:

And we acknowledge that we're going to fall short from time to time and we're going to be in need of repentance from our Lord.

Forgiveness is yours, our Lord. Because we're your imperfect servants and we were created to be that way.

The Consequences of Abandoning Divine Values

If you find within yourself an imperfection, brothers and sisters, and this is a part of submission—when we get rid of God, so when, for example, Nietzsche talked about the death of God, which didn't mean, it didn't mean God is dead. He wasn't an atheist. What he meant was that the values that arose from the Bible, which originated as a revelation from God, that with the rise of western modern society, those values were dying. And the greatest value was compassion for the neighbor. And so God is dead, meaning the morality that was birthed in the church based on the revelation of the Bible was disappearing in the world.

And with this disappearance, compassion—love thy neighbor as thyself—and Islam has a whole chapter on loving and good treatment of the neighbor. When that disappears, you will find what we have in the 20th century. Nietzsche predicted the world wars. We will have these brutal conflagrations where no civilians, children, women—no one will be spared from the poison gas, from the aerial bombardment.

That's what he meant by God is dead. But when God dies, we start talking about the superman, the Übermensch, the one who elevates himself to a position where now he or she can play God. That's what God is dead means.

The Islamic Alternative: Humble Servitude

What does Islam tell us? We have to be the humble servant. Not the superman, superwoman. But the one who can humble himself or herself before our Lord and then be made great and strong and mighty through Allah. That's the revival. It will only come when the strength, superhuman strength, comes not through a transhuman, bionic man or woman with a computer chip in their brain and artificial intelligence that's 20 times more powerful than the brain of the human being that invented the thing in the first place. No, no, no. Not through that. Through humbling ourselves and acknowledging our limitations and acknowledging our need for God and acknowledging Allah and acknowledging that we have to be compassionate to each other.

And love thy neighbor can never die. And doing good for the sake of good:

Is the reward for good ever anything other than good? Altruism. Goodness for goodness sake. What do they teach us? Before I converted to Islam, I went to Sunday school. One of the biggest lessons: virtue is its own reward. Virtue is its own reward. Because there is a reward with God. We do the right thing because it is the right thing. And if people don't appreciate it, Allah, Almighty God appreciates. And that's good enough for me.

The Power of Divine Forgiveness

In conclusion, forgiveness is yours, brothers and sisters. You might think you've done something so terrible. You slipped up at that party that you weren't supposed to go to because you knew there was a lot of stuff there to make you trip up. And you went anyway. And you tripped up. Brother, you did something with someone you shouldn't have been with in the first place. Now you're burdened with guilt. I ask you one question.

Sister. Brother. No matter what you did. Did you kill 100 people? Anyone here killed 100 people? Raise your hand. You raise your hand. I know you didn't kill 100 people. You wouldn't be wearing them glasses. People that wear those kind of glasses don't kill people. You're too chill to kill.

No one killed 100 people. What's the point? If Allah forgave someone who killed 100 people and then never did a good deed in his life-no prayer, no zakat, no hajj, no umrah, no sadaqah, no fasting, nothing—the person only tried to go to a place where they could reform their life, Allah can't forgive you? And you're praying and you're fasting and you're coming to MSA West trying to learn something about your religion? Allah can't forgive you? So just relax. It's alright.

Forgiveness is yours, O our Lord.

And unto you we're returning. So the revival, the real revival-may we succeed in this world than the revival. May we work hard. May we dedicate our lives to it in our different capacities and realms and spheres of influence. But the true revival is the revival that occurs after we rest in the grave. That's the true revival.

Reviving Our Hearts

And may Allah bless us to be revived with a good record from what we did in this world, not just in our relationship with each other—to go back to a theme we were mentioning-based on that, based also on our relationship with ourselves. And that's a healthy relationship. So we mentioned in that regard we're heading for a day after the real revival where no amount of wealth or children will be of any benefit.

The only one benefited on that day is the one who comes before Allah with a rectified heart. So may we focus- while we focus on reviving the ummah, reviving humanity—that we also focus