Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 26. November 2021
This week, the Usuli Institute was blessed with beautiful people visiting it.These truly, distinctly beautiful human beings that have honored Usuli with their visit has allowed me to dream that Usuli's voice will live on. The Usuli Institute should be a home for people who care; for intelligent people, for inquisitive people, for rational people, for reasonable people, for people who understand that Islam is about living beyond yourself and for others than yourself. It is for people who...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 19. November 2021
One of the very basic, and perhaps even theoretically undeniable moral precepts, is the equal value ascribed to human life. That at least at an abstract level, human beings are obliged to agree with what constitutes in religious traditions generally, often an article of faith, that God is the maker of human beings and that God made human life equal in sanctity to one another; that the sanctity of human life is undifferentiated and invariable. Often, especially in the modern age, this preset has...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 24. September 2021
This khutbah will deal with a difficult and touchy subject. It is a subject that not only must be addressed but addressed frankly and honestly. Part of this khutbah will be technical, but it is not technical for the sake of technicality. When moral and ethical perspectives are obstructed because of the technicalities, it is the job of the moral scholar and the moral jurist to address these technicalities in order to make space for morality and decency. Recently, a well-known Muslim figure...
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...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 03. September 2021
Time and again, I return to the Qur’an, the most marvelous book, both in concept and practicality. God is in everything, in all creation, and we seek God in all creation through our imperfect senses. But the living word of God - the will and testament from the divine to human beings - is contained in the single book that, because it was the last message to humanity, remained uncorrupted and incorruptible. Earlier revelations contain the kernel of truth from divinity, but as I have alluded to...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 20. August 2021
We begin in the name of God, always acknowledging that God is the Ultimate, the One and Only; and that Muhammad was the final Prophet, sent as a mercy and a liberation unto humankind. Everything that takes human beings to the direction of the merciful; to the direction of the compassionate; a step further towards enlightenment; towards liberation and self-determination, IS Islam and IS the Islamic project. Islam did not come to teach human beings a set of rituals among the many ritualistic...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 13. August 2021
We begin another khutbah with the clarity that comes from illness. God grants human beings a sense of clarity when they are plagued by pain and forced to face the limitations and humility of their condition. Part of reflecting upon challenges is to go beyond yourself and think of how insignificant you are in relation to the universe that God created. If you are truthful with yourself, your own pains remind you of the pains of other human beings, and especially the pains of your ummah. Our ummah...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 06. August 2021
Alhamdulillah and in the name of God, the anchor for all that is and will be and all that was. God, the beginning without a start and the ending without a last. God, the One and Only. Alhamdulillah for everything, Alhamdulillah for God, and Alhamdulillah for the certitude of the truth and the certitude of wisdom and the certitude of justice. And Alhamdulillah for health and Alhamdulillah for illness, and Alhamdulillah for life, and Alhamdulillah for death, and Alhamdulillah for the very fact of...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 16. July 2021
We are in the month of Dhu’l Hijjah. By all accounts, the Prophet had emphasized the blessings of this month, particularly the first 10 days that lead to Hajj. The 8th, 9th and 10th of Dhu’l Hijjah are the most critical days in Hajj. In addition, Dhul Hijjah is one of the four months in the year that are known as the sanctified months. In these four months, there is an added Islamic obligation to avoid bloodshed, enmity, hatred, and all forms of violence. The Prophet has emphasized that...