Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 27. December 2024
The unthought in the Islamic tradition is an enormous category. It is a category of so much guidance, so many kernels of truth, and so many seeds of the goodness, virtue, and righteousness that God embedded in the Qur'an and the Prophet embedded in his Sunna. For all practical purposes, however, Islamic thought has for centuries ceased to develop, and so much of our tradition remains unexplored and undeveloped. Take Surah Ar-Rahman (Q 55) in the Qur'an: The Most Compassionate has imparted this...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 21. December 2024
Dear Friends, Greetings of Peace (al salamu ‘alaykum)! I pray you are well. It is hard to believe we are at the end of yet another year. So much has happened in the blink of an eye that was 2024. The world is, well, you know. May next year be better than we expect, insha’Allah (God willing)! In the meantime, let us continue to be grateful for our blessings, and resolve to do better in every way we can in the new year insha’Allah. USULI MUSIC FELLOWSHIP Do you know any aspiring and...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 20. December 2024
In so many khutbahs, I emphasize what is, in my view, a critical theme. We all know, or should know, that God has created us as trustees on this earth. God has literally made us khulafa’, which is the plural of “caliph,” and the obligation that God has given us, as caliphs or trustees, is that we worship God. That is our affirmative command. That is our duty, our function, and our purpose. God has also taught us that this charge of the caliphate (khilafah) and the obligation of worship...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 06. December 2024
God tells us in His revealed Book that Muslims have a job. God gives us a charge, or marching orders, so to speak. The task that Muslims are given is to bear witness for God. As we have said before, the Qur'an interplays the roles of bearing witness for God for the sake of justice and bearing witness for justice for the sake of God (Q 4:135; 5:8). The message could not possibly be any clearer that God and justice are interchangeable. It is clear from both the text of the Qur'an and from the...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 23. November 2024
Dear Friends, Greetings of Peace (al salamu ‘alaykum)! I pray you are as well as can be expected in our challenging times, especially after the conclusion of our national elections here in America. So much to be said, to be processed, to be kind to ourselves over. But the hard work must continue to resist, to fight, and to create goodness in the world. Now more than ever, as the forces of darkness have been super-powered, so must we be in preparing for the long, good fight. May God help,...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 22. November 2024
The constant, ongoing challenge for every Muslim is that we are a people of the Book, with all that this statement connotes. Like all of God's creation, whether knowingly or unknowingly, we submit to God. God's will and God's power is something that the mountains, the stars, the planets, and the earth partakes in. By the very laws of creation, all is in a state of submission to the Lord. Yet human beings have been given the choice and the ability to either recognize this submission and to...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 08. November 2024
All of us, as created human beings, have been given a monumental charge. It is the remarkable, sanctified, honored, and yet challenging charge of being God’s representatives on this earth (khulafa’ fi-l-ard). It is stating the ABCs of Islamic theology to remind ourselves that this earth and everything in it, on it, and around it, both the seen and the unseen, belongs to God. It is not yours, nor is it mine. It does not belong to a nation or a people. It does not belong to a clan or a kind....
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 01. November 2024
When do movements, governments, laws have the most meaning and impact? The modern mind may still appreciate a strong leader and perhaps some level of cultural trajectory to some degree, but the modern psyche does not appreciate the feeling of being dictated to. The moment the modern human being feels the pressure of what it senses is aggressive imposition, especially from laws and government, the need to resist and rebel—emphasis on rebel—swells rapidly from within. Does this rebellion mean...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 25. October 2024
A poet once said, "I stayed up late at night when people had fallen asleep, and I supplicated to my Lord, complaining about what my Lord already knows." In our day and age, it so often feels like all Muslims have fallen into a long, deep sleep, a sleep like death. I like to present pictures in my khutbahs (sermons) because pictures tend to increase our awareness, and, as I have repeatedly said, awareness is the beginning of everything. If we are not aware, there is no hope. Awareness plants the...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 18. October 2024
We gather this Friday again to remember, reorient, and dispel the fog that has accumulated, to tend to the lamp so that we may see clearly; a lamp that was needed today as much as it was one, two, or even three years ago, whether we realized it or not. It is an honor to be speaking today, the first jum'ua after our conference. Alhamdullilah, it was really wonderful. It was really wonderful to meet everyone that had been watching for so many years, and I felt humbled because the majority of...