Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 30. September 2022
Embedded within my conscience, and what should be embedded in the conscience of every Muslim who takes his or her religion seriously, is God's refrain in Surah Al Imran: “...and that there might grow out of you a community [of people] who invite unto all that is good, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong: and it is they, they who shall attain to a happy state!” (Q 3:104). This is further underscored in the same surah: “You are indeed the best...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 05. November 2021
It is not an exaggeration to say that the biggest challenge that confronts us collectively as Muslims can be summed up as a challenge of the formation of Muslim consciousness. Week after week, day in and day out, what we are actually struggling for is the shape and the content and the nature of Muslimconsciousness. As much as we believe in Islam as an objective truth in our hearts and in our intellects, what we do with this objective truth that we believe in is between us and God. But what we...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 17. September 2021
God reminds us in Surah Al-Ra’d of a basic principle that is affirmed in different forms repeatedly throughout the Qur'an. After reminding us that nothing escapes God's knowledge and that nothing is beyond God's will, we find a very simple statement that holds the potential to have a truly transformative impact upon a human being: “Truly God alters not what is in a people until they alter what is in themselves” (Q13:11). In other words, God does not change a people until the people...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 10. September 2021
Suddenly, the news is full of talk about Afghanistan, the fate of Afghanistan and the Taliban, and I cannot help but think about how the world responds to the way that news is weaponized to focus our attention on issues and, at other times, to distract our attention from other issues. For years, ex-military have been writing books warning about defeat that actually transpired in Afghanistan. My library is full of books published all the way back in 2005, published during the Obama...