Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
1
Taqwa: a Protection from Danger and a Means to the Love of Allah from Allah
In Holy Qur’an, Allah (swt) reveals in Surah Mā’idah, ‘āyat 93:
There is no blame on those who have attained to faith and who work
good deeds, for what they may have eaten before, so long as they guard
themselves and believe and work deeds of goodness, then they guard
themselves and believe, then again guard themselves, for Allah excels in
doing good deeds and Allah loves those who excel.
Also in Surah al-Hujurat, ayat 13, Allah reveals:
Oh you people! Surely We have created you from a man and a woman,
and made you people in tribes so that you might come to know one
another. Truly, the most honorable among you in the sight of Allah is
the one who is most conscious of Allah, warding off evil from within and
without. Allah is all knowing.
And finally, in Surah Muzzammil, ‘āyat 7-10, Allah (swt) says:
Indeed, in the day you have a long line of duties which takes up your
time. So remember the Name of your Lord and devote yourself to Him
with utter devotion. Lord of the East and the West, there is no deity save
Him; so take Him as your Guardian. And bear with patience what they
say and depart from them with a gracious departure.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
2
He is referring here to those who reject, not necessarily outwardly, but reject the
Truth through their words and their actions. Salaam aleykum ramatallah barakatu.
Perhaps the simplest definition of taqwah is godliness or piety, and it is a result of
ibāda. In fact, if we consider ibād as the main source of godliness in Islam, and its
derivative to be an ‘abd of Allah (‘abdullah), it is to be in service or as a slave to
Allah. This taqwah, this godliness, and devotion, and piety come from worship. So
we have to understand what is worship. We can say with surety that a person who
submits himself or herself totally to the Will of Allah develops taqwah, but worship
is paying attention to Allah, bringing Allah into each moment of our life. Worshiping
is to remember, dhikr, and to act with that knowledge in remembrance.
It takes us back again to the topic of things like choosing not to choose,
understanding, managing not to manage, trusting in Allah, understanding what is a
servant, a lover of Allah. Every messenger of every path told the followers to
worship Allah, to obey Allah (swt) in order to develop this taqwah. It is a very
important quality, obviously. Godliness, piety, god-likeness are developed so that
the reality of Allah – that is to say, compassion, and mercy, and patience, and love,
and understanding, and justice, and all the things that we talk about so much – can
be expressed through us. Because Allah says “I will speak through your lips. I will
walk through your feet. I will work through your hands.” So what does it mean? It
means that by this godliness, this piety, this god-likeness, Allah works through His
people, through human beings.
Obviously, not everyone fits that definition. You can have a person who puts his
head down on the ground five times a day and does everything perfectly well, but
they don’t fit that definition of piety, where Allah is working through them with
compassion and love, mercy and patience, tolerance and understanding, justice and
kindness, and all the rest. They are just going through the performer’s act, thinking
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
3
that is what being an abda-Llāh is. But true piety allows us to see how the system
operates, also. The piety, or godliness, or surrender allows us to feel devotion that
we have to have, need to have, for our Creator, and not turn our attention just to our
own selfishness or our own self-aggrandizement.
This word taqwah comes from the word itiqah. One definition of it is to guard
oneself against danger. What this means, in a much deeper sense, is that we have
the responsibility to guard ourselves. That also implies that if you have the
knowledge of how to do that, you have to do that. That is what Allah tells us to do.
That is what all the message tells us what to do. To have taqwah (some people call it
to have the fear of God, or piety) is to be aware of what happens in this whole
process of life, in this system of life, here and in the Hereafter, in the reality of a’faq
and anfus, in the reality of the dhahir and the batin. This is a very serious and an
especially important enjoinder by Allah (swt) to us to understand how our actions
affect our souls, and where our soul is destined, and what it is created for.
In Qur’an it says, “Don’t deny Allah against yourself on that day. On the day that
We will make children hoary headed (or grey haired).” Meaning to know
yourself in the way you know Allah. If in the denial of your responsibilities, if you
are not prepared before Allah on that day of the Yawma Qiyama, you will not have
anything except intense fear. You have lost the way, and you will know that you
have lost the way. You have not excelled. You have not fulfilled. You have not
optimized. You have not created the best environment for yourself, or for others, or
for your family, or your neighbors, or your brother, sister. But if you have done
those things, reciprocally, the fear of Allah or piety [will be there]. If you have that
piety, and you measure your actions and choices by those standards and by the
message, then on that day you will go proudly toward Allah (swt), conscious and
aware.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
4
You will know that although there are many things that you should have done better
or could have done better, you have wound up, at that moment, like our sister this
past week, filled with love and light, knowing that the life was well spent. Someone
might say, “Oh, well you didn’t travel much.” You didn’t do all those other things.
She had the opportunity to do that. She had the finances to do that. She had every
invitation to do that. But she decided to refine her life and her environment here,
and help us also to do that.
Another definition is to fear some unexpected trouble or disruption, not to think
that everything is just going to go away, and that we have entitlement in this life to
only have goodness and ease. Allah tells: “Inna m’al ‘usri yusrā. With hardship
goeth ease.” This kind of taqwah results from a kind of attentiveness. When there
are times of very deep angst or fears or worries, what we worry about is losing
context, being disobedient, becoming overwhelmed by arrogance, or doubts, or
distractions. It is the kind of anxiety that comes through a person, who in their
arrogance, makes bad choices; and then find out how disastrous their choices are.
They realize their arrogance and they realize that they have caused themselves to be
distant from happiness and joy.
In the light of the understanding of the word taqwah, gaining the taqwah (itiqa), that
person’s heart becomes filled with Glory and the Beauty of Allah (swt), because they
are in the right environment, because they are around the right people, because they
are in the suhbat, because they are sitting in muraqabah, because they are making
the dhikru-Llāh, because they are studying Qur’an, because they are doing good
deeds for other human beings. When those angst and difficulties come, and they
realize that they have caused themselves separation, they turn their hearts back to
Allah. If we don’t submit, and if we don’t really do that, then we are not really on the
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
5
path, or on the path that that life is intended to be. If we don’t buy into the totality of
what Islam really is, how one would be able to develop real taqwah and god-
likeness? Once, the Holy Prophet (sal) defined taqwah in these terms:
A man who was passing through a thick forest of thorny bushes tried to protect
himself from the thorns all around him. He endeavored to keep the thorny
bushes away from him as much as possible. Sometimes he moved to one side,
sometimes he moved to the other side to guard himself as much as possible
against possible injury. This carefulness on the part of the man in the thorny
forest to protect himself against thorny bushes and trees is taqwah.
We have to see the world in a way that we would be able to measure what is
happening to us, what is coming before us, what we are walking through, where we
are. We have to understand what the choices are that we are making, and how, and
what they will mean from day to day, what they will mean a week from now, a year
from now, what they will mean five years from now, or twenty years from now, or
longer. I, again go back to Iman, and the many people sitting here, and the choices
that you have made over the years, to have a view or understanding of where you
are now, and where you want your life to lead in this world, and what benefits and
blessings Allah has given you to make those things happen, but it is a life of periodic
thorn bushes.
The world has evil and goodness, corruption and has uprightness, humility and
arrogance, and it is full of unwarranted encounters, and desires and needs. We have
to have furqan/discrimination. That discrimination does not come from the water
you drink. It does not come from the air you breathe. It comes from life; it comes
from the people who are exemplary, like our sister who passed this week. Not
perfect, exemplary. Exemplary in the ways where we all can say (I know I can say),
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
6
“When I pass, I want to pass like that.” Don’t ask any other question. I want to pass
saying, “I love you.” I want to pass remembering the children. I want to pass caring
for everyone. I want to pass grateful for what I have done, and I want to pass
repentant for what I haven’t done. Those are all things that were expressed to me in
the last three days of our sister’s life, Iman’s life.
Allah (swt) gives us prayer to develop a sense of attunement, to pause, to look, to
think. Allah (swt) gives us muhasabat and munasabat (accounting of oneself and a
cordial relationship with our guides, our teachers). He gives us wudu to refine
ourself. He gives us so many things: du’ā/supplication, khidma/service,
ibada/worship of all kinds, as a kind of protection. This is the immunization to
guide us from the onslaught of evil, from the dis-eases of corruption, from the dis-
eases of darkness from within ourselves and outside of ourselves. Believe me, that
immunization is very, very important; and a little dose goes a long way in
homeopathy, as you know.
The best people in the eyes of Allah are those who have taqwah in their hearts. He
loves those who are the most righteous. How do you know? Because He gives us
means, and assistance, and He places in our heart the desire to change, the desire to
be strong, the desire to succeed and to excel, the desire to overcome our own
selfishness, or our own self-doubt, or our own fears, or to be humble with our own
courage. He loves those who are the most righteous: “The most honored of you in
the eyes of Allah, and the most pious and righteous people.” It is addressed to
all human beings, not just Muslims. When you find Muslims that think this is only a
message addressed to them, or Christians who think it is only a message to them,
you know, as we say in Arabic, “Forget about it!” It is not the way it works. It is a
message to everyone.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
7
Obviously, if human beings descend from one set of parents, then the relationship
remains, whether they are tribes or races or nations with different names and
different characteristics. In the eyes of Allah (swt), according to Qur’an, which are
His words, we are one. Among those who get the most honor are the ones who are
the most righteous among the people. It is not the ones who put their heads down
on the ground the most—maybe, maybe not. It is not the ones who can quote the
Qur’an the best, or quote the Injīl the best—maybe, maybe not. “The most
righteous,” think about what it means. It means right choices, right actions, right
thinking, right feeling, right knowledge. Right? See. We say in English, right. We
don’t say left, or wrong. Even we say, “I could be wrong, right?”
It also seems clear that any commandment of the Qur’an, whether relating to ibāda,
or the struggles of life, or the practical daily work in life, or goodness and justice is
not isolated, but is integrated into a whole teaching of what is Islam. We can say,
with surety, that you can know the ocean from a drop of the ocean; but you cannot
know absolutely everything from that drop. You can know that it is ocean, but you
don’t know what is happening off the coast of Madagascar by looking under a
microscope of a drop of ocean from Myrtle Beach, S.C.
We have to understand that where Islam is different is you can know the totality of
Allah Swt if you know the totality of compassion (that means the totality of what any
human being can know; not the totality of Allah, but the totality of the message).
And that is because mercy, compassion, patience, tolerance, understanding, and
justice are all linked together. One leads to the other. When we struggle with our
practices, our attendance, and with our minds, internally, who are you wrestling
with? This is like the wrestling in the River Jordan, with the Shaytan, from the story
in Torah. You are wrestling with your nafs, your lower nature, and with your
destiny.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
8
The best way to worship is to begin through that worship inside yourself to submit
to what you know is right and what you know is good. Maybe it’s boring. Maybe it’s
interesting. Maybe it’s engaging. Maybe it’s not in the moment. But you know in
yourself what is good and right, and you know to place your body where your body
should be, place your mind where your mind should be, and place your heart where
your heart should be, then your soul will be where your soul should be. If your body
should be here in the masjid during prayer, then put it in the masjid during prayer.
If your body should be at dinner, then place it there. If your body should be at work,
then put it there. If it should be at this khutbah or at a dars, then put it there. When
you bring your body, bring your mind; don’t leave it outside. Bring your feet; bring
your fingers. Don’t have your fingers here (texting) while your mind is there. Oh,
the days when it took 13 days to get a letter. So many problems were solved by
those 26 days: 13 days coming and 13 days back.
If your body should be at the service of another human being, then place it there.
Don’t deal with your resistance other than to say, “I’m going to place myself where I
should be at this moment.” “I really wish I didn’t have to go into town today. I’ve
already been in town 3 times this week, but I don’t see any other time to go.” So you
go. You may grumble the whole way. Go, do your work, and then come back. “Oh,
it’s time for prayer right now! Gee. I gotta go to prayer. Gee.” Instead say, “I’m
going to prayer.” How do you know you can do that? If you have a little cold, do you
go to work or stay home? Go to work. If you have a little pain in a joint… anybody
have one…do you stop walking? If you have a little bug inside of you, a little “C”
inside of you, when you have the strength, do you come to the khutbah like Khadija
did today? Subhāna-Llāh.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
9
Is that inspiring? (Yes.) How long will it last? Will it last until you deal with your
own joint pain? Or will you say, “Ooo, Khadija came to the khutbah today. Isn’t that
wonderful? Yes, but Shaykh, can I be excused? I have a little headache.” Carry it over.
If you have a meeting with a doctor, or a lawyer, or your accountant, or if you have
to teach a class at the college, do you go? You go. You have an airplane trip today.
Will you go? Yes. Would you go if you had a little sore throat, or if your toe hurt
you? Yes. Let me step on your toe and see if you will really go! Allah didn’t give us
our homes as an excuse to retreat from worship. He didn’t create those places to
retreat from suhbat. He didn’t give us a nice bed to jump into when we decide that
since we don’t get paid to come to the masjid, to do prayer, or to come to dinner or
the suhbat, that we can just go to bed.
But you do get paid to drive in your car a hundred miles to a PDO or do your job. No,
I don’t want to hear about how much you get paid. Obviously, the biggest fault with
religion is that it is not subsidized. Is that it – our spirituality isn’t subsidized? Or, “I
came to the mosque, my platelet count should go up.” If you came piously, maybe it
will. Believe me, that’s right: you don’t get paid for this… directly. But a lot goes into
your spiritual savings account. On the day of the Yawmi Qiyama, your bruised toe
will say, “I was bruised, and I walked him to the masjid.” And your beard is going to
say, “He clipped me, remembering Allah.” Remember that, girls. Your throat will
say, “He used me to recite Qur’an, even though I was sore.” What happens is you get
deductions from your bank account if you are not in the right place at the right time.
A lot of energy goes out with worry and doubts and fears and illnesses. You get
tired. How do you renew yourself? With faith, belief, truth, trust, and submission.
Your birth is when you signed over, like when you signed up for electronic banking.
We’re going to deduct $42.11 every month until you tell us not to. That is what
happened when you got born. Here’s how you pour money in, and here’s how you
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
10
take it out. For special bonuses or some special thing, you say, “I haven’t taken
vacation in years. I have a lot of vacation time to take.” Allah has it in your bank
account. When we are born into this world, we came with a bank account. The idea
is we are supposed to invest it and increase it, and give some of it away (zakat and
sadaqa). You get deductions for the things I’ve been telling you about. And when you
die, and you are in the grave, Allah says, “I’m looking at your record, and I see that
you don’t have the fare to get even to the lowest level of Paradise. So you will have
to stay here.” Or Allah will say, “I’m sending a limo, taking you to the jet.” You will
still have a lot left over to buy a big house, a big mansion. Or He is going to say, “You
don’t have anything left. You will have to earn some money, go to the cosmic steel
mill and work at the furnace. You will earn 12 cents an hour, and it will only be two
or three thousand years there, until you have enough money to go to the lowest
level of Paradise.” I don’t like fear tactics, however, but it’s true.
This is taqwa. You don’t get paid to come, but there is a deduction. I’m not the one
taking it. It also means you come to the prayer mat at home, or do your muraqabah
at home, or your Hizb ul Bahr at home. It also means how we speak to each other,
and how we manipulate our own minds to think I can do halal, haram, halal, haram.
This is what people do. They label things halal or haram. What is halal is what is
good. What is haram is bad choices. It’s not just that you know the difference
between the two. If you are struggling with it, that’s fine. If you are manipulating
around it, that’s another thing. Anybody who is guilty knows. This is a very
uniquely refined system of life that we find ourselves in.
We try to follow a truly Islamic tradition, the very growing, organic system that
affects the structure of all aspects of life, everything from the physical world to the
natural world. There is a natural ability to assimilate into many systems and
disciplines, without doing damage to the totality of the system or its parts. In fact,
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
11
it’s a very specific quality in Islam, when it is truly practiced with intelligence and
an open heart, that will keep vitality and beauty and elegance in our lives. There’s a
nice word, elegance. We don’t use it very much anymore. It’s a really nice word.
What was Iman like? An elegant person, a refined person. What was Musa like? A
very refined man. Daoud? Very refined. Why do we just have to talk about the
people who are gone like that? Can’t we be that way ourselves? Can’t we talk about
each other in those terms? Can we look for the elegance and beauty in each other
while we are still walking around on this world?
The key and the driving force behind this ability is taqwa, righteousness, doing what
you know is right, even if it is difficult, speaking in a good way, acting in a good way,
going towards what is good and away from what is not good. Good for whom?
Everybody? Maybe. Good for you? Maybe. This direction is also a means for
adjustment, a correction. It’s a force that gives us direction and adjusts our lives as
we go along, and it provides for us a livelihood and a liveliness that affects everyone
who comes into contact with us. And that’s great, if we understand it. I don’t know
how many people I’ve told: you have light. People are attracted to your light. I tell it
to the children, my children, adults, people on this path. You have light; it’s
attractive. You have to know it. You have to understand that not everything that is
attracted to light is good. A beautiful pink and white moth comes to the light and
sits on the door at night, and then there is the bell hornet who also comes. You don’t
want to disturb or touch the beautiful moth, but the bell hornet wants to sting you
and cause you pain. The light is neutral in that sense. How you use it is important.
Understand what taqwa is: it molds our nature and our attitude. It molds our
community, by creating within us and within this community of Muslims as a whole,
and in the community of human beings a close relationship and affinity with the
Creator if the person is humble. It gives us new direction and new life in our life, a
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
12
new purpose within the ideology within the ideas, beyond the petty materialistic
objectives. This relationship affects us from how we eat our meals to the
institutions we build, how we survive, how we speak to our family, how we speak to
the rulers of the world. It affects our expectations and how we fulfill them, how we
relate to our innermost self, how we prepare our life to do good work, how we
study, how we work, how we work with others. Once the force of taqwa is created
in us, through our ibada, our practices, our muhasabat, our munasabat, our service,
not only does society become more balanced, but because we have greater strength
of character and will, that force of will cannot be overcome or conquered by
negativity. It is like a reinforced wall that maintains its strength when it’s attacked
or hit.
When this force of taqwa has worked itself deep into the heart of a human being,
and made us fully conscious of our duties and obligations, not only to Allah in some
abstract way, but to Allah Swt through each other, as human beings, to nature, to the
environment, then we are transformed into better human beings. And we can say
that the role of the Sufi, the light of the Sufi, the mu’min, is totally transferred to
create this new being. The object is to see the beauty and wisdom of Allah
everywhere, to see that interrelationship, and the response that comes instantly,
and to be able to carry the burden of the tests, the trials, and the vicissitudes of day
to day life, and still be an example to others. It is to protect ourselves and our loved
ones, our community, our society, nature, and to care for those who need care,
whether it’s our blind BonBon, who walks in circles around the house and bumps
into things, or whether a newborn babe, or Mona who is crawling now. It is to help
our lives, our societies, to direct our power toward healing our self and others,
fulfilling those responsibilities, maintaining our community, increasing the reach of
ourselves and others with that taqwa, through our actions, attitudes, words, ideas,
and examples.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
13
The motivation of the individual is so strong, the purpose becomes so clear, the
attitude so selfless, that whoever comes into contact with that one finds not only
guidance and help, but sees that they can rise to the test and pass them—if you want
to use that metaphor, if the person really wants to do that, and if there is that arms’
length that is necessary. Realize it this way. Allah is as near to us as our jugular
vein, but conceptually, He’s always arms’ length. We think Allah is there,
somewhere else. But He tells us, Allah is as near to you as your jugular vein. So we
have to move toward Allah, sayr-i-Llah. When we move toward Allah, we realize we
are moving with Allah, sayr-fī-Llah. Then we are traveling in Allah. This is a stage of
development. That force of taqwa inspired this community. Those 3 ½ hour
semas… all the buildings, including this one… all has inspired others to come over
the years, and still does.
It’s taqwa of generosity and peacefulness. It’s the joy of struggle. It’s an
indispensable quality of the believer to engage in practical words of righteousness,
what the Qur’an calls “the doers of good.” In other words, these are people who
observe taqwa, love Allah, and have a kind of anxiety toward Allah in the future, who
do good works fī sabīli-Llāh, for the love of humanity, who struggle for the amanat,
who love this creation and responsibility for this creation, who look at the same tree
every year and still take another picture of it, who can walk across the stream every
year and still take another picture of it, seeing something new, something different.
Without these fī sabīli-Llāh, fī sabīli-amal (for the sake of work), there is no life. It’s
not just our actions but our intentions, our will, our emotions, our honesty to
submit.
Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid August 31, 2012 www.circlegroup.org
Jumah Khutbah
14
Let’s be of those who do good work. Let’s be a person of taqwa, for Allah loves those
who do good work. To understand this is the very core, seminal issue we have to
deal with in our lives, inshā’a-Llāh. Aslaamu aleykum.
SECOND KHUTBAH. O Allah, for those who have passed this week including our
beloved Iman, we ask You to bring her near to You and Your Throne, and have her
sit at your feet at the ‘arsh, and have her love bathe You with her light. And have us
remember all the goodness You have brought to us, all the help You have brought to
us, and all the support You have brought to us. For those of us who are living, we
ask You to make our life more and more worthwhile, clear, and purposeful, and to
remember the blessings that You have given us in our work and our community, and
not to turn our back on them, or take advantage of them.
For those among us who are ill, we ask You for Your Shifat. O Allah Swt, bring Your
Shifat so they can once again join fully in the service of You, and the ibada of You,
and the work toward You, Allah. For our brothers and sisters in Syria, help us to
help them. And in other parts of the world where there is such misery and
oppression in Your name, or not in Your name, but with greed and obsessiveness,
teach every one of us that being obsessive, possessive, and acquisitive leads to no
good. O Allah Swt, make us humble and protect us.
For those who are traveling, we ask You for protection in going and in coming, and
safety for all those who are traveling with us. We ask You Allah to bless us with
remembrance of You and to make us more worthy. Amin.
Top Related