Women In Islam: Khutbah of Shaykh Al Yaqoubi
Allah is the Walī of Those Who Believe
Khuṭbah
by
Sheikh Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān Al-Būṭī
All praise is due to Allah[1], praise that complies with His blessings and compensates His abundance. Our Lord, for You is all praise as befits the majesty of Your countenance and the might of Your authority. O Allah, I cannot sufficiently enumerate praises upon You; You are as You have praised Yourself. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone and He has no partner, and I bear witness that Muḥammad is His slave and Messenger and His sincere and intimate friend, the best prophet that Allah sent to the entire world as a herald of glad tidings and admonition. O Allah, pray upon, give peace and give blessings upon our Sayyid[2] Muḥammad and upon the family of ourSayyid Muḥammad, prayers and peace that last inseparably until the Day of Judgement. I advise you and my sinning self to have fearful awareness of Allah the Exalted.
To proceed, dear slaves of Allah:
Recently, an āya from Allah’s Book, Mighty and Majestic caught my attention and held it for a long time, and it stirred up overflowing feelings of security, tranquillity, pride and joy, and it is the statement of Allah, the Glorified and Exalted:
“Allah is the Protector (Walī) of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness into the light. But those who disbelieve have false gods as protectors. They take them from the light into the darkness.” [Al-Baqara 2:257]
Then, more feelings of joy entered my thoughts when I came across the other āya that confirms and increases the meaning of this āya that caught my attention, and it is the one in which Allah says:
“This is because Allah is the Protector of those who believe and because those who disbelieve have no protector.” [Muḥammad 47:11]
Therefore, I am Allah’s pampered slave, living under His shade. I am His slave, safe under His guardianship and care, because I am from amongst those who believe in Him and know Him as One, Unique, Eternal Lord. From Him is the beginning and to Him is the end. I certainly haven’t been abandoned in the earth. I am not an orphan nor have I been orphaned in the deserts of the world. Psychological problems will never ensnare me. The maladies of depression will never ensnare me. The traps of transgressors and the forces of evil will never catch me, because I am shaded by Allah’s protection, because I am from those of whom Allah has said:
“This is because Allah is the Protector of those who believe.” [Muḥammad 47:11]
Indeed – dear brothers – indeed overflowing joy entered my being and a spirit of pride overwhelmed my feelings. Me! Who am I? I am Allah’s pampered slave, as I’ve told you, under His shade, and I believe that these feelings that entered my being when this āya in the Book of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, caught my attention, must inevitably enter the thoughts of each one of you. Each of you must be struck by this āya and made to reflect on it:
“Allah is the Protector (Walī) of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness into the light.” [Al-Baqara 2:257]
This overflowing joy will undoubtedly enter you. You will inevitably feel the tranquillity that you have certainly not been abandoned in the earth. You are not orphans and you haven’t been orphaned in the deserts of the world. Indeed, neither psychological problems nor maladies of depression will ever ensnare you. Various psychological problems will never lead you to drugs and intoxicants, and other such things, because you are living under the shade of Allah’s protection. You are living under the shade of Allah’s guardianship:
“This is because Allah is the Protector of those who believe and because those who disbelieve have no protector.” [Muḥammad 47:11]
Once this joy has entered your being, each one of you must rejoice and recite this verse that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has taught us when He addressed us, informing us:
“My Protector is Allah, who sent down the Book. He takes care of the righteous.” [Al-ʾAʿrāf 7:196]
Yes, yes my Lord:
“My Protector is Allah, who sent down the Book. He takes care of the righteous.” [Al-ʾAʿrāf 7:196]
Indeed I believe that these feelings should enter the thoughts of all Muslims. They should enter the being of the entire Islamic world, embodied by its people and its leaders, as long as we have been honoured by true faith in Allah, as long as we have been honoured by knowing that we are His owned slaves and that we are connected to this protection – His protection of us and His guardianship over us – that is because He is the Creator of the entire universe. That is because He is the administrator of the entire world. These feelings must enter the being of the entire Islamic world, wherever it is, and be embodied – as I have said – by its people and its leaders.
I am amazed, dear slaves of Allah, I am amazed at those who know Allah and know how they are under Allah’s protection and know how they are under Allah’s guardianship, yet they insist on falling down from the throne of Allah’s protection over them and submitting to the transgressors and the forces of evil, and then making themselves enslaved prisoners before them, enslaved prisoners of the transgressors. I am amazed at those who exchange Allah’s protection for the protection of the transgressors from amongst Allah’s slaves, Mighty and Majestic.
These forces of evil, which kick the Muslims around, left and right, right and left, play about with them as if they were playing with a ball; they proclaim democracy[3] and they call to it, and they threaten those who haven’t enjoined it upon themselves, and they do this as long as it is the vessel that they are able to ride in order to realise their interests, as long as it is the trustworthy servant that the forces of evil are able to herd towards their benefits and their stolen goods, for when the forces of evil see that democracy only serves its adherents and that democracy only guides its adherents towards the truth and they cling to it, and they turn away from falsehood and reject it,[4] see then how quickly the forces of evil turn and call for despotism and for the protection of despots, until the very last drop. Indeed it is not democracy or despotism, but rather special interests that the forces evil desire to make use of. The forces of evil desire to ride us like a vessel in order to realise their benefits and achieve their goals.
I am amazed at those who exchange Allah’s protection and shade and insist on falling from the throne of this divine protection, and then surrender to the prison of these transgressors, or surrender to the forces of evil, dear slaves of Allah.
As for us, we are Allah’s believing slaves, we believe in Him. We are His slaves who know Him as One Lord Who has no partner and we know that we are His slaves. We have pledged ourselves to Him to be upon that way that He has commanded us to be upon, with our utmost effort. We pledged ourselves to Him to turn away from everything that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has warned us against, with our utmost effort.
Therefore, our Protector is Allah, Glorified and Exalted. This is our identity, dear slaves of Allah. This is our reality. We will never fall down from the throne of Allah’s protection over us. We will never turn our faces towards any direction in the world that entices us towards it for its own interests and its own benefits, desiring to control us and our rights. How? How can we exchange felicity for wretchedness? How can we leave the felicity that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has assuaged us with and let ourselves drool at wretchedness? Who would drool at the wretchedness that is enticing him for its own purposes, dear slaves of Allah!
This is a summary, which I have mentioned to you, of the revelation of joy that entered my being, and I am saying the truth: when I recently came across this beloved āya, which is so dear to us:
“Allah is the Protector (Walī) of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness into the light.” [Al-Baqara 2:257]
Indeed I say to you in truth, bring glad tidings, and I say to myself: as long as we live within Allah’s shade, Mighty and Majestic, as long as we are proud of Allah’s protection over us, as long as we are truthful in our pledge to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, that we will never take anyone besides Him as a protector, then I give myself and you the glad tidings that security will never desert us, that tranquillity will remain inseparable from us and that the joy of felicity will remain within us. Who is it that doubts that when Allah’s protection, Glorified and Exalted, follows an Ummah, then this Ummah will achieve every kind of felicity?
Dear slaves of Allah, the last thing that I want to say to you is an answer to a question that may have entered the thoughts of many of you: do you think that these tribulations that keep coming from all around us, from the east of the earth and the west, will any of it reach us? I give you this answer: Have you heard the speech of Allah, Glorified and Exalted? Indeed, He responds to you, and it’s as if it were revealed yesterday. Indeed it is the answer that is contained with this good news for you:
“Those who believe and do not mix their faith with any wrongdoing, they are the ones who are safe; it is they who are guided.” [Al-Anʿām 6:82]
Have you heard? Have you reflected on this speech?
“Those who believe and do not mix their faith with any wrongdoing, they are the ones who are safe; it is they who are guided.”
Indeed I declare, in my name, in your name, in the name of our Ummah here in our Shām, that we are believers in Allah. We are confident that we will adhere to the covenant of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, as far as we are able. Therefore, security and safety will be our ally. Security and safety will never desert us. This is glad tidings from the Lord of all Creation to us.
“Those who believe and do not mix their faith with any wrongdoing, they are the ones who are safe; it is they who are guided.”
O Allah, indeed we call on You as our witness, that we are believers in You, so make all of us, O Allah – leaders and people – O Allah, make all of us from amongst “Those who believe and do not mix their faith with any wrongdoing” so that we can be safe and secure in this life and the next.
I say this statement of mine and I seek forgiveness from Allah the Most Great.
Translated by Mahdi Lock – Mahdi Lock’s Blog
Click here for: Khutbah in Arabic
‘Hitler’s democratic triumph exposed the true nature of democracy. Democracy has few values of its own: it is as good, or as bad, as the principles of the people who operate it. In the hands of liberal and tolerant people, it will produce a liberal and tolerant government; in the hands of cannibals, a government of cannibals. In Germany in 1933-44 it produced a Nazi government because the prevailing culture of Germany’s voters did not give priority to the exclusion of gangsters.’ (p.969)
Related Posts:
Fiqh of Minorities (Part 1)
“It is not a coincidence that the call to ‘Fiqh of Minorities’ has come together with the plan aimed a dividing Islam.” [1]
In an age in which the leaders of the ideological attack are planning, throughout the world, to divide the single global Islam into various local “Islams”, that differ and are in conflict with one another, [this ideological attack] follows in succession the voices calling to “Fiqh of Minorities” and these [two ideas] grant legitimacy to one another. In clarification of the matter, [Fiqh of Minorities] is nothing other than an Islamic garb that is appropriate for the Islam that is thriving today in the west, in Europe and America, not the other Islam that is prevalent in the traditional Muslim lands.
I have inquired before: ‘What are the reasons or foundations that make it necessary to give rise to this “Fiqh of Minorities”?’
The reply was: ‘There are many: the principle of benefits…necessities permit that which is forbidden…difficulty brings about ease…nothing has been made difficult for you in this religion. [See Al-Ḥājj 22:78]
I said: ‘But these reasons are not specific to Muslims living in Europe or America, rather they are reasons for a global Islamic fiqh that does not have a particular land. There has not been a day when there have not been reasons for what is called “Fiqh of Minorities” or anything else. Wherever you find a necessity, in its known legal meaning, the causative prohibition for it is lifted. And wherever you find a difficulty that goes beyond the usual limit, a legal dispensation is undertaken to lift it. And whenever the two benefits [the lifting of the causative prohibition and the legal dispensation] are opposed in the hierarchy of the objectives of Sacred Law, the first of them takes precedence. We have not found in the Qur’an or the Sunnah, and not in the speech of any of the imams of Sacred Law, that these reasons are particular to the circumstances of minorities that are living in Dar al-Kufr[2] , and that it is not permissible for other Muslims, living in the Islamic world, to take them or use them as a basis.
I was told: ‘Indeed the necessities that create the urgent need for a special fiqh for these minorities are a result of their presence in societies that are not Islamic, and have particularities that are distinct from Islamic societies.’
I said: ‘What Islam is this that decrees that the mere presence of a Muslim in Dar al-Kufr is considered a necessity justifying the legislation of a special Islamic fiqh for him, in harmony with what surrounds him from the tendencies of kufr, iniquity, and disobedience? So why did Allah legislate emigration (hijra) and command it, from Dar al-Kufr (if it is not possible for a Muslim to apply the rulings of Islam in it) to Dar al-Islam? Why didn’t the Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him, and his Companions, when they were in the midst of the polytheists in Mecca, depend on that which he did not know, called “Fiqh of Minorities”?
If the mere presence of Muslims in Dar al-Kufr brings about the necessity, justifying the creation of a new fiqh that is appropriate to those lands and those in them, then who are those whom Allah, Exalted is He, said regarding them:
“When the angels seized the souls of those who were doing wrong to their own souls, they asked them: “What was the matter with you?” They answered: “We were oppressed in the land.” The angels replied: “Was not Allah’s earth spacious for you to emigrate in it?” Hell is the abode of such people and it is a very evil abode indeed.” [An-Nisāʾ 4:97]?
And we were rejoicing because of the gradual increase of Muslims in the west, with their adherence to Islam and upholding of its rulings, causing the dissolution of the deviating Western civilization, dissolving in the stream of the Islamic civilization.
But we today, in the shadow of this beautiful call to what is known as “Fiqh of Minorities”, know that we are threatened with the opposite of what we were rejoicing about. We are threatened with the dissolution of the Islamic presence in the stream of the deviating Western civilization, and this fiqh is responsible.
[1] This was Sheikh Al-Būti’s Word for the Month for June, 2001.
[2] According to Imām ibn Mufliḥ al-Ḥanbalī in Al-Adāb ash-Sharʿiyyah [v.1 pp.191-92], Dār al-Kufr are the lands in which the laws of kufr are predominant, while Dār al-Islām are the lands in which the laws of Islam are predominant.
[This article is more or less the same as the one on marifah.net. However, the second article, with all the original footnotes, will insha’Allah be re-published next month on this blog as well as the Madani Timbukti blog.]
Translated by Mahdi Lock. Click here for: Original Arabic Version