[0:00]We have to develop a sense of what the Quran wants from us. The principles Allah wants us to live by, and when I, I personally believe from what I've been able to understand of Allah's book, when we implement this kind of principle living in our families, then the ummah at large transforms. We transform economically, socially, politically, you know, strategically, we transform because we built the right kind of Wilaya from the ground up. When the brick is weak, how's the building going to be strong? How is that even possible?
[0:50]Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah, khaaliqil wujudi minadam. Waja'alannuuri minaththulam. Wamukhrijissabri minal alam, famulqittaubati 'alannadam. Fannashkuruhu 'alalmasha'ibi kama nashkuruhu 'alanniyam. Wa nusalli 'ala rasulihil akram disharafil asham wannuril atam, wal kitabil muhkam. Wa kamalin nabiyyina walkhatam sayyidi waladi Adam. Alladhi bashara bihi Isabnu Maryam wada'a liba'thathtihi Ibrahim 'alaihissalam hina kana yarfa'u qawa'ida baitillahil muharram. Fasallallahu 'alaihi wasallam wa'ala atba'ihi khairil umam. Alladhina barakallahu bihim kaffatannasl 'araba minhum wal 'ajam. Fahalhamdulillahilladhi lam yattakhith waladan walam yakun lahu sharikun fil mulki walam yakun lahu waliyyun minadhdhulli wakabbirhu takbira. Walhamdulillahilladhi anzala 'ala 'abdihil kitaba walam yaj'al lahu 'iwaja. Walhamdulillahilladhi nahmaduhu wa nasta'inuhu wa nastaghfiruhu. Wa nu'minu bihi wa natawakkalu 'alaihi wa na'udhubillah min shururi anfusina wa min sayyi'ati 'amalina. Man yahdihillahu fala mudillalah wa man yudlil fala hadiyalah. Wa nashhadu an la ilaha illallah wahdahu la sharikalah. Wa nashhadu anna Muhammadan 'abdullahu wa rasuluhu arsalahullahu Ta'ala bil huda wa dinil haqqi liyuthhirahu 'aladdini kullihi wakafa billahi shahida. Fasallallahu 'alaihi wasallam tasliman kathiran kathira. Amma ba'd. Fa inna asdaqal hadithi kitabullah wa khairal hadi hadi Muhammadin sallallahu 'alaihi wasallam. Wa inna sharrul umuri muhdathatuha wa inna kulla muhdathatin bid'a wa kulla bid'atin dhalala wa kulla dhalalatin finnar. Yaqulullahu 'azzawajall fi kitabihil karim ba'da an aqulu a'udhubillahiminaashshaitaanirrajim. Ya ayyuhannabiyyu idha ja'akal mu'minatu yubayi'naka 'ala an la yushrikna billahi shai'an wala yasriqna wala yaznina wala yaqtulna auladahunna wala ya'tina bibuhtanin yaftarinahu baina aidihinna wa arjulihinna wala ya'sinaka fi ma'rufin fabayi'hunna wastaghfir lahunnal laha innallaha Ghafurur Rahim. Ya ayyuhalladhina amanu la tatawallau qauman ghadhiballahu 'alaihim qad ya'isu minal akhirati kama ya'isalkuffaru min ashabul qubur. Rabbishrahli sadri wa yassirli amri wahlul 'uqdatan min lisani yafqahu qawli. Allahumma thabbitna 'indal mawti billa ilaha illallah. Allahummaj'alna minalladhina amanu wa 'amilussalihati wa tawasaw bil haqqi wa tawasaw bissabri, Amin ya rabbal 'alamin. Today's brief Khutbah is about a single Ayah mostly that belongs to Surat al-Mumtahanah, also called al-Mumtahanah. This Surah is unique, it's a small Surah, and the situation in which the Surah was given to the Prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wasallam is also very different. The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, many of you may be familiar with it, was already signed. So the treaty has been signed. So Muslims are no longer in a state of war. There's already been a declaration, a peace agreement, and even though Muslims have engaged in conflict three times already directly and many smaller times before this, the most important one being the Battle of al-Ahzab, the most recent one, now there's a cease-fire and there's no more conflict. That does not mean that the Quraysh, or the people in Makkah, and the Muslims are at peace, it's still war, but it's a cold war. It's an intelligence war, it's a, an economic war, but it's no longer a military war. The military aspect of it has been closed. And in this kind of a situation, both sides, they try to undermine or destroy the other side by non-military means, espionage, intelligence, spying, this sort of thing. And so what the Quran does, what Allah tells us in this time, is a very important, there's a very important set of lessons that came right after Ahzab, leading up to Hudaybiyyah and even after Hudaybiyyah, how are Muslims going to develop relationships that they can trust? Because somebody might shake your hand and trust you and you trust them, and you share things with them and they might be delivering your information to the enemy. And they might be giving them a strategic advantage. So this is a time where trust exercises needs to need to be developed, and we need to know who is our enemy and who's not our enemy. And so even though this happens like I said in Surat al-Ahzab, among other places, one of the most important places where we learn who is our ally and who is our enemy is Surah al-Mumtahanah. Who is the enemy and who's the who do you trust, who do you not trust? Who are you alliance allied with, who are you not allied with? You see before Islam the Arabs had a very large concept of alliance, who is your ally, who do you trust?
[6:15]This concept of Wilayah was a powerful concept in Arab culture for thousands of years. So of course if you are from the same tribe automatically you are allies to each other. That is the strongest kind of citizenship that was one kind of alliance. But then sometimes there were smaller tribes and sometimes there were middle-sized tribes and sometimes there were big tribes. And the small tribe can be easily attacked by the big one. And the middle one can also be attacked by the big one. So then this the medium one, the medium-sized and the small-sized would make alliances, so together they can protect themselves against the big one. Right? This was a kind of ally and then what did that alliance mean? You can use our well, you can we can drink the milk from your goats, we can marry among each other, we can borrow from each other, we can use each other's land. You know your animals can graze from our farm, that kind of thing. So this was alliance. And if we're attacked, we'll both defend together. If there's a problem, if there's a fine to pay, both of us will pay the fine together. This was Wilayah, this was the alliance. But after this Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the Quraysh were trying to see if they can still hold on to influence, because every other tribe respected Quraysh. But now so many tribes were also coming and making treaties with the Muslims. You know they were coming and they were giving bay'ah and they were accepting Islam and Islam is spreading quickly all over the region. But these are not, you can, you can't necessarily call them trusted partners. They have not been tested, they were not in war with you, they were not together with you, they were just, they are newcomers. And they come and they shake your hand. You don't have any background information, you don't know if you can trust them. So Allah in this Surah, from the very opening, "Ya ayyuhal ladhina amanu la tattakhidhu 'aduwwi wa 'aduwwakum awliya'." Believers do not take my enemy and your enemy as partners and allies. Don't do that. Notice this is different language from al-kuffar. Allah did not call them kuffar, disbelievers. He said enemies. So now Allah is making a distinction between non-Muslims and non-believers and enemies. Because even enemy or non-Muslims can come and say look, we don't like Quraysh and we don't love you but we don't want any trouble, so can we shake hands? They could do that. And Allah didn't stop from that. But Allah said there some of them will shake your hand with one hand and they'll have a dagger in the other hand. So you got to be careful. And that's what this Surah is fundamentally about. Where you have to draw the line and sometimes people are coming and they want to shake your hand but you know even if they're from the same tribe as you but their loyalties are somewhere else. Even there are people within the Ummah, they've already said their Shahada, but they are giving information to the enemy tribes. They're the munafiqoon, they were in Madinah, they were one of the biggest subjects in the Madani Quran. So Allah says, "La tattakhidhu 'aduwwi wa 'aduwwakum awliya'." Okay. Now of course I won't give you a dars on the entire Surah, I told you I'll focus on one Surah and this Surah, it's going to sound like has nothing to do with everything I just said. At the end of this Surah Allah says Subhanallah, when women come to you Prophet, 'Alayhi Salat wa Salam, he tells him when women come to you and they want to pledge their loyalty to you, they want to take Bay'ah with you, they want to pledge themselves, meaning they want to accept Islam and then they make a pledge to the Prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam. And at the end of that pledge Allah tells him, "Fabayi'hunna wastaghfir lahunnal laha, innallaha Ghafurur Rahim." Take the pledge from them and ask Allah to forgive them also. Allah is forgiving. What does a pledge of women have to do with this entire subject of loyalty? If you study the Surah from beginning to end pretty much almost all of it has to do with Wilayah. What was happening in Hudaybiyyah briefly, I, I need you to understand the significance, the importance of this. Allah does not put Aayaat together except that there's hikmah in them. "Uhkumat aayaatuhu." Allah stitches the Aayaat together. You know when you read a chapter on politics, you're not going to read a chapter on women's issues. Those are two different chapters, two different books. But what Allah does, Allah will take something that has to do with politics and alliance and loyalty, and in the same chapter, he could have made a separate chapter about women, a separate Surah about women. No, no, no, no. This is here. This belongs here. Why does it belong here? Because Allah says he puts Aayaat together with wisdom. He stitches them together. Allah also tells us, "Wa yu'allimukum ma lam takunu ta'lamun." He teaches you something you could never know yourself. We would never know there's a connection. Nobody in their no sociologist would think politics has something to do with domestic sociology. There's no connection between them. But Allah teaches us a connection that we could never make ourselves. This is part of the power of the Quran. So let's explore for a few minutes. You see there were women who were secretly Muslim in Makkah. They were married to a mushrik man, they were married to an idol worshiper, but secretly they became Muslim. And there were actually even men who secretly became Muslim, we learned about them at Hudaybiyyah. But we now know that those men cannot escape. The treaty was, if those men the secret Muslims, if they escape, what do you have to do? You have to return them back. But there was a small blue, small fine print that the Quraysh missed. It never said anything about women. It said if a man escapes, you have to get him, send him back. But there was no mention if what happens if a woman escapes. There was no mention. So now because that was not part of the original treaty, if a woman escapes from Makkah and makes her way to Madinah, we are under no obligation to return her to the kuffar. So what starts happening is there's a, there's a trickle of women escaping Makkah and coming to Madinah and getting the citizenship of Islam. The women are now coming in from Makkah to Madinah. And some of them were previously married. This Surah also talks about what if a woman comes who was married to a mushrik and now she's in Madinah, and she wants to start a new life, is that marriage still valid? Or can she just marry someone else now? Allah to Allah actually revealed in this Surah, she has to make a payment to that husband or a payment has to be made to the ex-husband. Even Allah acknowledged that relationship, it has to be officially finished before she can start her life again, yeah? But of course this is times of cold war, so it's very, very easy for the Quraysh to say well we know that these women are escaping, why don't we send some of our female spies to go in there too? Why don't we send some women in that are going to take Shahada and marry one of the prominent Sahaba maybe even try to marry the Prophet himself sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, and then she can be in the household and when they're having their important meetings she can listen in and she can get us some information. It's a pretty easy trap tactic. Nowadays they call it a honey trap, that's what they call it. So this was a this was a tactic that they were going to employ and Allah saw it coming. Allah saw it coming. So when those women come, "fam tahinunnah," the Surah, when these women come and they want to accept Islam, you better take a test. You better do a filter. You better have a border control checkpoint where you ask some important questions. So why are you here? Where did you hear about Islam? How did you become Muslim? So who told you about the religion? What do you know about it? And who are you related to? How much do you communicate with them, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera? That had to be done. "Fam tahinunnah." But after all of that, there was something even more important. There are two kinds of loyalty or I can say disloyalty. There's the one who is actually a spy and he's going to pass information to the enemy. And there's the one even if they don't pass information to the enemy because of their lack of commitment to Islam, they are helping the enemy anyway. There's a kind of Muslim by the way they live, they're actually helping the enemy. Even if they never met the enemy, they've never supported the enemy, they've they don't even think of themselves as allied with the enemy, with the way that they violate the teachings of the religion, they are actually supporting the enemy. This Surah tells us that there's the outside enemy, the Quraysh, and there's going to be an inside enemy in every family. Listen to that again. There's an outside enemy. We have to worry about, we can trust them or not. There's also an inside enemy, inside a family. Is it possible that somebody's husband is a munafiq? Is it possible that somebody's wife is a munafiq, somebody's son or daughter is a munafiq? Because all the munafiqoon in Madinah were not like oh this is a munafiq household and this is a mu'min household, that's not how it works. It could be one member of the family has Nifaq, they have hypocrisy. So Allah revealed in this Surah, particularly for these women that were coming, Allah revealed for them a litmus test. How do you know these are actually trustworthy women? Deep down inside they actually have Iman. This ayah says, "Ya ayyuhannabiyyu idha ja'akal mu'minat." Al-mu'minat, al-mu'minat ism fa'il here to suggest when women that have firm faith, real faith in their heart. When those women that have real Iman come to you and they want to make a promise to you, they want to make a pledge to you, prove their loyalty to you, so now Allah is telling us the proof of their Iman is their commitment to what is about to be said. Now I haven't actually got to the subject of what they said, but I want to set the stage for it here. So so you understand where I'm going with this. Allah is telling us these few items that they're going to promise, this proves that they have real Iman. And if they don't live by these items, what this proves is that they are a threat to the structure that can be trusted. They are not trustworthy because the entire Surah is actually about who do you trust, who do you not trust? Who is the wolf in sheep's clothing? So who are the women that are a threat? And who are the women that are safe? This is about the women. You know online maybe some women are listening to this feeling threatened. But you know what when we talk about munafiqoon men don't come and say I felt really triggered by what you said, doesn't work that way. Allah our master can call out men and can call out women. If if you're offended by it take it up with the Surah. Right? So here's what Allah reveals about them. Number one, "Alla yushrikna billahi shai'an." They're not going to do any shirk with Allah. These are new Muslims, many of them, maybe they don't even know what counts as shirk. Oh they believe in one God but they do a little bit of sihr on the weekends. The little you know possible. The little bit of you know, call some, call some shayatin and have some rituals and you know, do some hocus pocus or, "naffathat fil 'uqad." I didn't think that was shirk, I pray five times and I do that stuff too. No, no, no, they're going to come and they're going to say, "Alla yushrikna billah." They're not going to do any of that stuff. They're going to cleanse themselves of pagan practices, of Satanic practices, of evil practices. That's one side of it. And many of you, you know, alhamdulillah this is a country where we have an international Muslim community. So you come from several different countries. Is it an observed reality that there are people that have been Muslim for generations still engaged in these shirk practices? And particularly common among women? Particularly common among women, you know. So the first part of the pledge, you see the pledge happened right then at Makkah, but it was setting the foundation for Muslim culture for generations to come. This is going to be by saying, "Alla yushrikna billah," which should have been obvious, it's as if Allah is telling us this is going to be one of the things that you're going to find in a corrupted Muslim woman. When a Muslim woman becomes corrupted, this is one of the things you're going to find in her. "Alla yushrikna billah." We'll look at shirk one more way. One of the aspects of shirk is not just in terms of worship, but it's also in terms of authority. Who has final authority over me? When I say Allah has final authority over me, that means Allah's word and his Prophet have final authority over me, sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam. That's what that means. So when Allah says, don't do this, don't cut family ties. Then a woman says, but I don't I, I hate my in-laws so I'm going to cut cut my children from my in-laws. What has she just done? She became the authority. The word of Allah is not the authority, she's the authority. If Allah says, guard the privacy of your husband and she loves to spill the tea, and every time she gets a chance she posts a story about her husband how he didn't do the dishes online to talk about about what a toxic husband he is, and broadcast it. Right? And then she prays. And then she posts her pictures at the Haram, may Allah do'a for me and, Astaghfirullah. And then at the same time my husband's lazy, broadcasting it. Is she violating what Allah says? You know, "Hafizatul ghaib bima hafizallah." Is she violating it? Yeah, but you know what in her mind, Allah has authority when I pray, Allah has authority when I do Umrah and when I fast, but Allah has no authority when I talk about people. Allah has no authority in my interpersonal relationship. Allah has no authority in how I spend money. Allah has no authority when I backbite. That's not Allah's department, that's my department. If that's not shirk I don't know what is. I don't know if you compartmentalize and say Allah, I will give you this part of my life and the other part that's me, aren't you partnering with Allah in authority? Isn't that what shirk is? They come and pledge that they will hand over authority to Allah. "Alla yushrikna billahi shai'an." Okay, that's the first part of the pledge. "Wala yasriqna." And they won't steal. They won't steal. What a thing to say, they won't steal.
[20:01]That seems pretty extreme. It's like assuming that women are thieves. But it's not just about kleptomania. There's something more. Like "Istiraaqussam'." For example, stealing isn't just about you went to somebody's house and you liked the little, you know, the little decorative cup that they have on the side table and while they were looking the other way, you copped it and, you know, that's why you have an extra large jilbab. No, no, no, it's not just about that. Sometimes you're sitting there and people are talking about some important family matter and all of a sudden you want to, what did the jinn do? They try to steal information from the angels, right? The shayatin, they try to steal, Istiraaqussam' is called in the Quran. Stealing information, stealing, you know, private matters. You know, stealing is actually not just the physical act of stealing, it represents all forms of khiyanah. All forms of treachery. You're being trusted with something, you violate that trust. And so women will engage in treacherous behavior, untrustworthy behavior. They will violate promises, they will create manipulations. This is part of the stealing and they pledge they're not going to do that.
[21:55]And they're not going to do it. I know how to hurt a family, I know how to hurt a child, I know how to hurt a husband, I know how to hurt a family, I know how to hurt society like nobody else can. You think you got an enemy from the outside that's going to bomb you and destroy you? I can destroy you from the inside and break you, but I won't do it because I believe in Allah. I promise.
[27:35]These are the specifics. Then they said, "Wala ya'sinaka fi ma'ruf." And in every other good, they will still never disobey the Prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam.
[27:46]These are the things that they recognize in themselves. They're like look, these are the evils that I know I'm capable of. I'm going to acknowledge to you that these are the dark sides that are clearly a threat to my Iman. I promise you I'll stay away from these and other things that I learn in this religion, I'll make sure I won't disobey you and when I learn something good and stay away something bad from something bad. It's like they're acknowledging, I don't know everything, I'm humble and I'm ready to learn more. I don't have an attitude that I know everything. "Wala ya'sinaka fi ma'ruf." And ma'ruf was made Nakira without "al" because they don't even know what that new ma'ruf is going to be. They might be educating themselves further and further and further. And Allah says to the Prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, "Fabayi'hunna." Then take their pledge. And when Allah says take their pledge, it's like when the Prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam accepts someone, when he accepts someone, then what, what message does it send to the entire Ummah? These women are certified with a blue tick. And they are, they are, they are licensed true believers, licensed by who? Rasulullah himself sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam. These are safe women. "Wastaghfir lahunnal lah." And continue to ask Allah to forgive them because we're all human beings, we can make a pledge but we can slip. We're all human, we can all fail. "Innallaha ghafurur rahim." This remarkable promise taken from women, that they came up and Allah says they came up with the items. It wasn't brought by Allah. When they come to you and they make this pledge that they won't do this, this, this, this, this, it's as if the language of the Ayah is they understood what they are capable of doing. This wasn't brought down to them from some other source. It was from within themselves. And so as I conclude, contemplate with me the last Ayah of this Surah. This was the second last Ayah of Surat al-Mumtahanah. Contemplate with me the last Ayah of the Surah. Ya ayyuhalladhina amanu la tatawallau qauman ghadhiballahu 'alaihim. Believers don't become allies with any nation that Allah is angry with. Don't be, believers don't be allies with any nation that Allah is angry with. Of course this has to do with tribes again and Quraysh's allies and the Jewish tribes that were attacking the Prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, etcetera, etcetera. Banu Qurayzah for example, which was already dealt with. Or Banu Qaynuqa', Banu Nadir, etcetera, etcetera. But why is this here? What's this doing here? There's an immediate connection. Because you will become allies with people that you know about in your family. You know people in your own family that do this stuff. And you're like they're family, I can't say anything. Family first. We're, we're against you in this. "La tatawallau qauman ghadiballahu 'alaihim."
[30:57]Don't become allies with people that Allah is angry with. Allah is telling the Arabs now, you used to think being an ally has to do with who's in your family and who's not in your family. Now you have to have a new definition of who's your ally and who's not an ally. Whoever makes Allah angry openly, cannot be your ally. Qad ya'isu minal akhirah. These kinds of people have no hope in the akhirah, meaning they don't ever believe that they're going to stand in trial in front of Allah. That's why they behave the way they behave. You are aligning yourself with people who have no fear of consequences. Kama ya'isalkuffaru min ashabul qubur. That's not that different from the disbelievers who think that people that are dead, are dead, they're never going to come back. These people who may even be believers are just as confident that Allah's reckoning, Allah's judgment is not coming. Allah's judgment is not coming, as confident as a kafir who thinks the guy in the grave is never coming back. Allah describes the level of their disregard for the akhirah as the same as the kafir. As the same. As the same. And these people could be inside the family. They could be inside your circle. You and I have to ask ourselves a question. We get very interested in geopolitics, we get very interested in the news about the Strait of Hormuz. And who's aligning with who and what treaties have been signed and who's, you know, want to keep up. But you know what, there's lots of alliances and misalignments happening in our house, in our family. Complete blind eye to that. It's it's time we have to we have to understand when the Quran talks about the big picture, it brings us back to the mini picture again. And then the big picture, and then brings it back to reality again, because you have no right to comment on what's happening in the world if the same things are happening in a mini level in your own house.
[32:52]You have no right. We have to develop a sense of what the Quran wants from us. The principles Allah wants us to live by. And when I, I personally believe from what I've been able to understand of Allah's book, when we implement this kind of principle living in our families, then the Ummah at large transforms. We transform economically, socially, politically, you know, strategically, we transform because we built the right kind of Wilaya from the ground up. When the brick is weak, how's the building going to be strong? How's that even possible?
[34:03]Alhamdulillah wa kafa wassalatu wassalamu 'ala 'ibadihil ladhinas tafa khussusan 'ala afdalihim wa khatamin nabiyyina Muhammadinil amini wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. Qalallahu 'azza wa jall fi kitabihil karim ba'da an aqula a'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajim, "Innallaha wa mala'ikatahu yusalluna 'alan nabiyy, ya ayyuhalladhina amanu sallu 'alaihi wa sallimu taslima." Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa 'ala ali Muhammad kama sallaita 'ala Ibrahima wa 'ala ali Ibrahima fil 'alamin innaka Hamidum Majid. Allahumma barik 'ala Muhammadin wa 'ala ali Muhammad kama barakta 'ala Ibrahima wa 'ala ali Ibrahima fil 'alamin innaka Hamidum Majid. Ibadallah rahimakumullah ittaqullaha innallaha ya'muru bil 'adli wal ihsan wa ita'i dhil qurba wa yanha 'anil fahsha'i wal munkari waladhdhikrullahi akbar wallahu ya'lamu ma tasna'un. Aqimis salah. Innas salata kanat 'alal mu'minina kitaban mawquta.
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