Jumuah speech: Imaam Muhammed Shoayb Mehtar, Khadeeja Islamic Center; September 26, 2014
Allah (SWT) has blessed us to be a part of this sacred month, Dhul Hijjah. There is a demand and obligation in sacred months to perform sacred deeds so as to strengthen our bond between ourselves and our Allah (SWT). On a daily basis we pray Salah. We often get so used to it that we forget the value of our salah. On a weekly basis we come to Jummah to remind ourselves to do good things and be more active within our communities, we get so used to Jummmah salah that we take it as just another day.
As far as Eid is concerned, people see it as a celebration. It is not a celebration like how Christmas, Halloween, or Diwali are celebrated with merrymaking, having fun, coupled with a bunch of enjoyment. Eid is an act of Ibadah, it is an act of worship. Religious actions are not forgotten nor are they diminished. We don’t just say right off the bat, Eid Mubarak. We first say, Assalamu Alaykum or respond to someone with Walaykum Salaam, and then we congratulate the person regarding Eid-ul-Adha if we may so choose. Wishing A good Eid is not priority, salam is when we meet one another. The Sunnah is not forgotten or sacrificed at the expense of a happy Eid. Afterwards comes the hugging, kissing, etc. If you want to call it a celebration, it is not in a form of merrymaking so much that it is a form of filling a spiritual bond with Allah (SWT) and our community.
Eid ul adha is not about just the sacrificing of an animal. Allah not asking for blood to spilled or the meat to be sacrificed alone. He demands Taqwa. Way in which we raised the animal, our treatment towards it, how we even take towards slaughtering it. Eid ul adha is about linking ourselves to Allah (SWT), Ibrahim (AS), Rasulullah (SAW), and every form of good and every sacrifice that they did. Rasulullah (SAW) sacrificed many animals. We learn the following important Fiqh point: the first animal share was for himself (SAW). The 2nd, 3rd, etc. shares afterwards he (SAW) would do for various people, such as Khadeeja (RA) and the Ummah – you and I. Imagine, Rasulullah (SAW) was so kind to think of us when we had not even come into physical existence yet. When was the last time we sat down and thought about and had worry about the future Ummati? Let alone sacrificed an animal in their name! Such examples show just how serious Rasulullah (SAW) took his leadership role – a guidance for all humanity.
We learn from the Sunnah of Rasulullah (SAW) that including others is important as a form of goodwill. By doing so it possibly increases removal of their sins, inshaAllah and increases our level of forgiveness from Allah (swt) for the good we are intending. We must avoid being selfish if Allah (SWT) has blessed us with extra resources or extra wealth. Giving is never losing, giving is gaining from the treasures of Allah (SWT). If our parents have passed away, we can and should sacrifice on their behalf. If they are alive, after asking them if I can cut an animal for you and if they’ve given consent then by all means we should do so. The Qur’an and hadith state that we should hasten towards doing good deeds and the opportunity to do good deeds will always come our way. We should ask ourselves the fundamental question: What more and better things are we doing to attract the mercy of Allah (SWT)? This is what generates success of all types. So what exactly is success?
The difference between success and failure is like night and day, it is apparent to all of us what they both are. Those that want to be successful do research in what is going on in their industry, in their field of study or work. Some people sell something simple such as used shoes but they pursue continual advancements in the improvement of that – plastic shoes, leather shoes, etc. There was a person in the business of construction who was always on the lookout for new ideas. He came up with the idea to mix rubber with tar to reduce expenses and increase profit. When he was asked why he did this he responded by stating that he is a businessperson and needs to find out about his field and his environment can go to the next level. The same thing applies with our Imaan. What are we doing to bring more Imaan, Salah, charity, etc. into our life? Again, suces versus failure. We all won’t bat an eyelid when it comes to spending more time to make money, yet at the same token, we find it hard to spend a few minutes a day (totaled up it is around an hour at most) to pray to Allah, He who gives us our success and tests us with failures. How can this be our reality? Do we put the cart before the horse? Just as we are looking for worldly opportunities for success, we have to find spiritual things that will give us a higher level of success. Make all the money and get all the education you want, the sad reality is that gradually, all our worldly gains will eventually vanish. It will go into housing projects, building projects, cars, socializing, hotels, eating, feeding, sending ha ha’s and ho ho’s and LOLs from social media platforms, SnapChats, FB messages. LIFE IS MORE THAN THIS!!! Sadly, for the average Joe/Jane, this is all life consists of.
Everyone has heard of the following hadith close meaning, A believer does not let 2 days go by where they have not made an improvement in their life. All of us have heard it but how many of us follow it? What have we improved between last Friday and this Friday? What have we established on a higher level? Some will say that we have more money in the bank… for what? For the sake of just having it? For something that you are planning 5 years down the line? Spiritually speaking, what have we accomplished by all our debates and smartness? Have we learnt a new ayah? Have we read a new hadith? Have we shared a new ayah or hadith to someone? We call ourselves men and women… Sahabah too we men and woman, they too had husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, etc. Look at how they improved their life and the life of those around them. We have many debates and discussions in our homes, how many of those have led to an improved quality of life, of existence, of being?
Before in school, they would teach about how much wealth we can generate and made mention of improving our financial and social status. Now everything has changed. It is about quality management, and about improving quality of life (QOL). Non-Muslims have figured out the secret to life and it isn’t how many 0s are in their bank account or how many houses or cars they own. We as Muslims are still stuck in the mentality of the ‘60s and ‘70s – accumulation, accumulation, accumulation. Such is the fate of those that are new to this country, we as a generation feel we have to prove something to others. Look! My son is a doctor. Look! My daughter is a dentist! Look! My grandchild is studying in such and such program.
New (first) generation people do this. Here’s the harsh truth – it doesn’t matter what you are (profession), it matters what are you doing with that profession, have you enhanced the life of others out there? Have you given back to the community (monetary isn’t the only way). When was the last time you meaningfully touched someone’s life? Forget about those that are tolerant of us, look at Rasulullah (SAW) who helped an old woman by carrying her things, all the while she is saying one offensive thing after another about him to him. We need to learn to emulate Rasulullah’s (SAW) beautiful examples and emulate them into our own lives. Here is such a unique individual that was literally given the opportunity to have whatever worldly desire anyone could possibly imagine today – you want money? It’s yours Ya Rasulullah (SAW). Your pick of a spouse? You want to be our leader? Here you go, be our President, be our Prime Minister. What was Rasulullah (SAW) not offered that all of us are striving for every single day? Yet, he (SAW) turned all of that down and said so beautifully close meaning, “you can give me the sun in one hand and the moon in the other, I will not stop spreading the message of Islam”. If life was all about accumulation, don’t you think the Ambiyaa would be the richest of their time? Yet, the poor are the one who were their followers. We all feel noticed when someone likes our photo on Facebook or sends us a wink or sends us a SnapChat or anything that makes us feel like we are raising our social status. The Ambiyaa had the opportunity to be Dunya leaders but they turned the offers such as were proposed to our beloved Rasulullah (SAW) for a much higher and loftier goal. Why shoot for the moon when you can reach the stars? Their goal was the Akhirah, the everlasting life beyond the realms of this short span of existence. We have forgotten this fact in being new to this country, whether we immigrated here or were born here. It is high time to go back to our Islamic roots.
People that enhance the quality of other peoples’ lives are the most successful individuals. People like people that can improve others’ lives. There is an Irish saying: a man says he has 5 bedrooms in his house. An Irish guy says, ‘how many bedrooms can you sleep in at one time?’ The point is, how many cars can we drive at once? How many homes can we live in at once? How much is enough? How much will be enough? There is proven research that has been done that majority of people that attain more than what they should have lose that extra wealth. For ex: your family comes from a $50,000 annual lifestyle. If tomorrow you were given $10 million, you would think that in your mind, that you will be happy. News flash: you won’t be. Why? Research has proven that within a short period of time you will squander that extra $9 950,000. Humans do not know how to react to being a multi-millionaire all of a sudden, the tax applications, in short, the consequences of that vast extra money. Your money will be gone before you know it and it will seem as if it was a dream when you had all that money. So be content with Allah (SWT) has given you – He (SWT) has given you a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food in your belly, security compared to other countries that are war-torn… and how do we repay Him (SWT)? By wanting more food that we can waste, more money to be blown off, more this, and more that. Its just not fair.
From Ibrahim (AS) we learn something important: more is not necessarily better. Sacrificing and investing in our future by making good, moral, ethical decisions that will help in improving our society, community, and enhancing our life and the lives of others is what gives us true success. Let us break away from old, unwanted, poor ideas not just for ourselves, but for others. This is what creates growth in a community and society. Study American History, the period of the Founding Fathers (yes, a lot of unethical things were done but let us focus on the positive of the past so that we may repeat it), study traditional America, of Utah or your locality and we will see the same thing that we learn about the sacrifice of Ibrahim (AS). We have an “Us vs. Them” mentality: they have their masjid, we have ours. They speak their language, we speak ours. They do Eid on this day, we do Eid on that day. All of this sounds so wonderful but the fact of the matter is, we keep this up and we will lose our sons and daughters in the next few decades? How can we say this? Shouldn’t we be (falsely) positive and say we’ll all be thriving Muslims in the generations to come? If our parents pray 5 times a day, can we say that we are praying the same amount? If they read X amount of Qur’an a day, can we say we do the same? May Allah protect us from this fate but why is this on the road ahead of us instead of our rear view mirror? Non-Muslims have not lost their values and we have lost ours. Simple example: they bring people into our state with a refugee or whatever status. Go to a Muslim country and if you are the wrong race, wrong ethnicity, wrong skin color, the fact is a dog running around in the streets here is happier than Muslims in Muslim countries. This is how non-Muslims win people over. They give you and I ideas, opportunities, they don’t question us much, they take our kids to a schooling system where the primary goal is to socialize them (not how much math, chemistry, or physics they know) to socialize them into the American system. Yet, we debate spending $200 annually for the Sunday school program run at our masjids to allow our children to socialize. We make up excuses that we can’t bring our child on a Sunday morning, why is the masjid charging, it should be given free. Reality check: is it free to go to a public school? We won’t hesitate in buying the latest iPod or iPhone or the latest technology or gadget for them, when the reality is that in 6 months if not before that gadget is pretty much obsolete and they, our children, will be looking to get the next one. Dear reader, we can almost promise you that no matter how great the iPhone 6 is right now, the iPhone 7 of next year is going to be even better. The iPhone 8 will be better than the iPhone 7. Do you see the pattern here? It just goes on… and on… and on. Our cell phone bills are minimum $1,000 per year. Play with the figures however you want, these are all a sunk cost on technology. We’re not even talking about Wi-Fi and laptops here. We have got some serious problems if we are debating about socializing our children into a Sunday school program, or an after-school Qur’an program. This is exactly how we will lose our children.
My dear brothers and sisters in Islam, we all want our community to be vibrant instead of lethargic, dynamic instead of static. It all starts with evaluating who we are, what we are, and what we are taking and what we are giving. This is exactly what Ibrahim (AS) did and as a result he (AS) improved the quality of his life, his family life, his community’s life, and his society’s life. Ibrahim (AS) was such a man that he falls into the category of a man that is like a nation. Allah (SWT) gave him this position as a consequence of his obedience of what Allah wanted from him. If we follow this same principle, Allah will give us success in this life and in the Hereafter.
May Allah (SWT) help us and guide us at all times.