Friday Sermon
In the name of Allah Who states “Verily, We sent Our Messengers with manifest signs and sent down with them the Book and the Balance that people may act with justice ” Q57:26. May the everlasting peace and blessings of Allah be upon His chosen servant, our master Muhammad (SAW) and his purified progeny.
Irrespective of racial, religious and geographical differences, the world humanly sympathizes with the Palestinians on the untold hardship suffered in the hand of the usurper over the past seven decades.
Recently, hundreds of innocent civilians were killed in cold blood for staging peaceful protests against Israeli continued atrocities in the holy city of Quds, which houses the third holiest mosque from which the historic heavenly journey was made.
Justice is the key to the peace and stability of all nations. And injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Evidently, it is the central philosophy behind the establishment of all authorities, to cite the principle (Chapter 1, article 1) in the creation of United Nations; to maintain international peace and security, and to that end; to take effective collective measures for prevention and removal of threats to peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of peace.
The widespread bloodshed and infringement on people’s honors across the world were obviously borne of injustice making the world difficult to live, the world should ensure this justice for all and the Muslim Ummah should protect its interest if they are really on the creed.
The word intifada literally means shivering and from the technical point of view refers to resistance and rise against oppression meted against the weak. In his article in the electronic intifada, why I must oppose/ smears against Israel’s critics in Germany.
Adri Nieuwhof said I have to speak out against the smear campaign waged in Germany against Farid Esack, a professor of Islamic studies from South Africa.
The world could remember the level of hatred demonstrated against his personality when offered a teaching opportunity at the University of Hamburg on baseless allegations.
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, the right-wing populist party, the Green Party’s Volker Beck, Katharina Fegebank and Israeli diplomats spread the said anti-Semitic rumor.
He is also credited with the statement “I have to speak out because my parents suffered under the German occupation of the Netherlands.
One lesson I learned from their past is that I should never remain silent when the rights of others are trampled upon.
That is why I supported the South African people in their fight against apartheid and that is why I defend the rights of the Palestinians today.
I am deeply disturbed about how academics such as Eleonora Roldan Mendivil, Farid Esack and Norman Finkelstein have come under attack in Germany because they criticize Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights.
The pro-Israel lobby is waging smear campaigns against defenders of Palestinian rights, with a view to excluding them from German universities. He added “I have known Farid Esack since the 1980’s when I worked with the Holland Committee on Southern Africa.
Our committee organized boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against South Africa and provided political and material support to the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC).
Esack fought apartheid as a leading member of the Call of Islam organization and the United Democratic Front (UDF) founded in the 1980s – when the ANC was banned by the apartheid regime.
It brought together trade unions with various grass-root organizations, including the Call of Islam.
The aim of these organizations was to make South Africa ungovernable by mobilizing people in campaigns to defy the apartheid regime, Esack was among the organizers of the 1989 peace march in Cape Town, around 30,000 people took part in that protest, defying the state of emergency”.
A relevant work in support of justice in the Jerusalem Post “Esack has helped raise funds for the popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine”, in the conclusive end of the 6th international conference in support of the uprising, the leader of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei says “Muslim countries have a responsibility to support Palestinian resistance which should be a source of unity in the Islamic world.
The issue of Palestine can and should be the pivot of unity for all Islamic countries, the top priority of the Islamic world and all those fighting for freedom across the world is the Palestinian cause and unity to support that cause”.
The apparent achievements of the conference include placement of the issue of Palestine and the creation of an atmosphere of harmony and unanimity as to the first priority of the world of Islam and freedom fighters across the world to ascertain justice.
Unity is an unavoidable tool for the attainment of all organizational goals. Then why should Muslims divide? No doubt, all persecution, humiliations, disgrace and extreme poverty befalling the Ummah are nothing but effects of its division.
A good example is the most disturbing problem that Imam Khomeini repeatedly pointed out was the invasion of Palestine and the creation of Israel subjecting its defenseless and rightful citizens especially women and children in untold persecution for several decades!
However, the greatest challenge is the Takfiri movement which dismisses Muslims from Islam, the Takfirists are no doubt, work in the interest of the enemies whether they accept it or not, we pray to Allah the Most High to bring an end to their devilish acts! Unity as the central focus of Maulud gives greater emphasis on Muslim unity.
Yes, I call the dividing factors along Shia/Sunna as trivial because they are not fundamentals. Allah states “And hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves” Q3:103. In the light of the verse, Imam Suyuty in Durrul Manthur quoted the famous tradition from Musnad Ahmad “O people,
I leave amongst you two things which if you follow you will never go astray. They are the book of Allah and my Ahlul-bait -family”
It is pertinent at this point to express the Islamic principle for the protection of the Ummah as a whole.
Allah states “Be not like those who are divided amongst themselves and fall into disputations after receiving clear signs; for them is a clear chastisement” Q3:105 The prophet (S) said “the believers are like one man; if his eyes suffer his whole body suffers; and if his head suffers, his whole body suffers” Lamentably, the Ummah is besieged with increasing problems, unconnected with the way it ignores the honorable message brought by the holy prophet.
This, no doubt is the root cause of all humiliations experienced in different parts of the world such as Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Central African Republic among others. So also the unfortunate situation in Nigeria with increasing poverty, fear, confusion, general insecurity, killings and various forms of persecution especially in the North.
Generally speaking, the unity week as part of the significant legacies of late Imam Khomeini is for the Ummah to analyze itself vise a vise the prophetic guidance, as such, it emphasizes the need for strict obedience to the message and utmost need for unity under the common testimony of faith.
The enemies of Islam use division as a tool to destroy the Ummah with the help of misguided Muslims. That is why those committed to the true cause of the religion are devotedly concerned about unity.
On the need to remain unconditionally united, Allah warned “Be not like those who are divided amongst themselves and fall into disputations after receiving clear signs; for them is a clear chastisement” Q3:105. In a hadith narrated by Muslim on the authority of Nu’man bn Bashir, the Prophet (S) said: “the believers are like one man; if his eyes suffer his whole body suffers; and if his head suffers his whole body suffers”.
Beside Imam Khomeini’s legacy on unity, Shaikh Ahmad Shaltut’s historic fatwa as quoted in Risalatul Islam, Dar Al-Mazahibul Islamiyyah, Cairo; Second edition is still enlightening “Islam does not oblige any of its followers to obey a certain religious school.
Every Muslim can follow any of the religious schools, which have been handed down without distortion and the ordinances of which have been recorded in their unique texts. Any follower of any of the four common Sunni schools can convert to any other school.
The Ja’fari school, also as the Twelver school, is one of the schools the following of which is permitted in religious laws just like following of the Sunni schools, all Muslims are, therefore, advised to admit this truth and to refrain from undue fanaticism and from unjustified prejudices about other religious schools. This is because the Shari’ah and the religion of Allah are neither dependents on nor unique to any specific school”
In line with this, Dr. Muhammad al-Dasuqi, a professor in Qatari University remarked “approximation in the schools of thought is, in principle an attempt to break the vehemence of party spirit and unite the word of the Ummah on the principles of its doctrine and the basis of its religion” Issues of transfer from one school of thought or jurisprudence to another are easily traced in our history books like the famous “Irshadul Ummah Ila.
Tayseeril Millah” by Shaikh Bn Fodio, on the other hand, the holy Qur’an advises Muslims to approach the people of the book in a cordial discourse with a view to drawing them towards Islam.
“Do not argue with the people of the book except in a most kindly manner” Q29:46.
While drawing the attention of the Muslim-Umma in particular and the world at large to enormously come to the aid of defenseless Palestinians by all means possible and dislodge the injustice meted against them, I call for the unconditional release of Sheikh el-Zakzaky (H) and his disciples.
Wassalamu Alaikum.
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