Living In A Challenging Time
| Khatib : | Mohammed El-Assi |
| Khutbah No: | 214 |
| Khutbah Date: | 10/27/06 |
We live in a time to put it mildly, that is very challenging...I need not to go into details of what is occurring locally or globally but there appears to be an element that is intruding on our pursuit of Al-Sirat al Mustaqeem. It is the element of fear. Fear which does not belong in the Muslim psychology and is misleading in the Muslim social order and we must surmount it. In the glorious life of our Prophet Muhammad (saaw) we do not know that he ever emitted fear while he faced trying times both in Mecca and Al-Madinah. One of the most trying times was obviously when he was at the war front, when the forces seemed to be taking over and when Muslims felt they were most vulnerable. Yet the words of Allah were soothing to their hearts and enlightened their path. They committed themselves and their lives to Allah(swt) even at the moments in which they felt that their power was less than their opponent. Under the leadership of the Prophet (saaw) the Muslims remained as the enemies grouped against them -did they feel that they needed to negotiate out of this or recalculate their policies? No. This only contributed to further commitment and not giving in to the shayateen. Today is the testing time and testing field. We will not have an excuse out of these trying times, though we may speak the words of iman. Do you think that we will left alone just for the sake of verbalizing the words of iman without being exposed to the elements of fitna? This is not the way iman operates and not the way the Prophet (saaw) taught us. The Qur’an repeatedly reminds us of the true believers: "There is no fear that overcomes them, neither do they grieve." Even the prophet was exposed to the overwhelming forces and powers of the establishment of status quo and he was taunted and ridiculed in Mecca. Still was there any indication in any book of any sense of fear in the Prophet (saaw)? Never – though he was excommunicated from his own society there was never any inference of fear in the Prophet (saaw) or those that were with him. The Prophets did not fear for their lives and those that were with them. The Prophets did have fear, not for themselves or the committed Muslims but for those who had gone astray in life. Compare that qualitative fear with the cowardly fear that is expressed by people who are in position to speak the truth but do not have the courage to speak truth. It is stated in a hadith that "The best form of struggle (jihad) is to express the truth in the face of a tyrant ruler." Where are the Muslims of this quality? They are far away from being like this and may explain the cyclical reversals we are experiencing today. Instead of pointing fingers, we must try to diagnose the condition we are in so we can bypass this and become leaders of humanity..It is easy to quote the Qur’anic verse "You are the best of communities sent to people" but not easy to live up to this. We have a responsibility to the people around us and this responsibility is not going to be fulfilled unless we have confidence from being with Allah (swt). We must strive to retain our God consciousness and remain people with insight. Yet, we are all vulnerable to influence of shaytaan as all humans are prone to error. The best of humans are those who repent and our repentance elevates our rank.