The Prophet's Pulpit: Commentaries on the State of Islam

INTRODUCTION

For any thinking person, there is perhaps no greater struggle than sitting through a mind-numbing khutbah, week in and week out. Over time, these experiences deflate the spirit, oppress the mind, and deaden the soul. They leave people in doubt about their faith.

Imagine if khutbahs could melt hearts, actually teach something new and inspiring from our vast tradition, and provide penetrating commentaries on the world we live in? Imagine if they addressed the real problems that Muslims confront? Imagine if they provided the knowledge to not just defend against Islamophobic rhetoric, but to make Muslims proud to be Muslim?

It is hard to imagine if one has never experienced that kind of khutbah. Do they actually exist? We believe so. They have been taking place at The Usuli Institute, and we present twenty-two such examples in this inaugural volume, the first of many, God willing (insha’Allah).

Khaled Abou El Fadl teaches us that every pulpit in Islam since the Prophet has been symbolically the pulpit of the Prophet,¹ and that to speak from the Prophet’s pulpit is to indeed assume a very heavy responsibility. It is a sanctified position, and the speaker owes that pulpit a diligent search for truth, justice, and superior knowledge—that which far exceeds common knowledge. Professor Abou El Fadl reminds us that there is a trust—a moral obligation between the speaker and the congregation—that the speaker will testify honestly about what is most serious and compelling for their lives as Muslims. If one is unable to meet this standard, they should not step on the pulpit. The title of this volume is intended as a reminder that those who stand on the Prophet’s pulpit are following in the footsteps of the Prophet.

Most striking is just how far our modern-day reality has fallen from this standard. And yet few deliver on that standard quite like Khaled Abou El Fadl. In the coming pages, the reader is immediately transported to another world—a world of enlightenment, ethics, critical analysis, and humanity in all its complex forms—and how our God, our Qur’an, and our Prophet addressed the challenges of humankind. We are immersed in a world where vibrant Islam lives, and where the intellect, heart, and soul must live as one for a human to thrive. We learn how God’s ethical trajectory for our faith arcs toward moral beauty, what that looked like at the Prophet’s time, and what it should look like in ours. The message is deep, intuitive, and anchoring. It is at once liberating and empowering—and very foreign when compared to what Muslims experience at the mosque today. It demonstrates the vast disparity between an enlightened khutbah of a full-time scholar who has dedicated his life to studying a 1400-year-old tradition, and the khutbahs of countless doctors, engineers, board members, and others for whom reading books on Islam is a hobby. The latter have become the gatekeepers to the Prophet’s pulpit to the grave detriment of the American Muslim experience in our times.

Over one year before American mosques were shuttered because of COVID-19, The Usuli Institute began offering virtual khutbahs.² We did so because we were convinced that the quality of khutbahs was so abysmally low, and the experience of going to the mosque had become so alienating for so many Muslims, particularly converts, women, and younger generations, that it became a religious duty to offer an alternative. Little did we know that in just over a year, our world would be transformed by a global pandemic and most everything would go virtual.

Meanwhile, the global condition of Muslims has continued its descent unabated. Our experience as Muslims in an Islamophobic world is largely confusing, painful, often hopeless, and wrought with doubt. In these dark times, there are few places to turn for an honest, educated voice that is dedicated to justice and grounded in the ethical tradition of Islam. There are even fewer if any scholars who are willing to speak truth to power, or able to connect the dots of injustice in the world, make it make sense, and bring it all back to what our tradition says about what our role as ethical Muslims should be.

Khaled Abou El Fadl does exactly that. Importantly, these virtual khutbahs quickly became a weekly commentary on our world from the lens of a distinguished scholar, thoroughly engaged in the problems of our age, while issuing uncomfortable wake-up calls to his beloved Ummah. Some readers may find this exposure unsettling. In the past, Professor Abou El Fadl has been accused of politicizing his khutbahs or bringing politics to the pulpit. One could respond that silence is no less political. Or, one could note that calling for truth (al-haqq) and justice (al-‘adl) is not political, only ethical. The present collection of khutbahs is political only if the Prophet was political when he challenged and condemned the unjust Meccan practices of his day.

What is undeniable in the pages that follow is the power of this education, and what resonates the loudest is the sound of truth. One feels the impact deep within, and there is a visceral cleansing effect for those searching for something greater, more beautiful, and more divine. It is our hope that by presenting these elevated khutbahs in book form, Muslims will recognize and demand a new standard worthy of the Prophet’s pulpit in our times.

We are proud that this inaugural volume marks the first book published by Usuli Press, an imprint of The Usuli Institute. The Usuli Institute’s mission is to elevate ethics, critical thinking, and dignity through education. We believe that the most important jihad of our times is the jihad of knowledge and ideas. Through this and future publications, we aim to leave a legacy of brave, thought-provoking, and inspiring work that is thoroughly grounded in our vast intellectual tradition, and that can liberate the mind, elevate the spirit, and unleash the divine potential in every human being. May God accept.

GRACE SONG

Executive Director

The Usuli Institute

January 2022

1

The Usuli Institute’s

First Virtual Khutbah

I start this khutbah (sermon) with a necessary explanation. It is not unusual for The Usuli Institute to hold jumu‘a (Friday congregational prayer), but I take this opportunity to address the issue of jumu‘a itself. God calls upon Muslims:

O you who believe! When you are called to the congregational prayer, hasten to the remembrance of God and leave off trade. That is better for you, if you but knew. (SQ 62:9)

God calls upon believers to respond to the call to prayer at jumu‘a by engaging in an act of dhikr (remembrance of God). It was an ongoing practice of the Prophet to hold jumu‘a within the Muslim community. With the revelation of this verse, the Qur’an underscores that Muslims should leave their earthly affairs; if engaged in trade, business, or other affairs, they should set that aside and come together to remember God. Importantly, for those interested in the fiqh (jurisprudence) of jumu‘a, it was never simply about a prayer of two rak‘ahs (the prescribed units of prayer). It was an event that rekindled the faith and ignited a sense that the individual is connected to a collective, a nation, an Ummah (community of Muslims) that is, in turn, connected to God.

The mosque was the center of the Muslim community, a vibrant place in which all the important events took place. It was also at the heart of the decision-making process. In jumu‘a, then, the remembrance of God was performed within a context of collective accountability. Often discussed at jumu‘a were the most pressing affairs of the community. After the death of the Prophet, this tradition continued. The mosque remained a central cultural space in which Muslims discussed their affairs while remembering that their collective affairs are inherently and intimately tied to God. However, by the end of the Caliphate and the rise of the first Muslim dynasty, as happens in all authoritarian states, the Umayyads sought to control the space of jumu‘a.³ They sought to do so by pressuring jurists to agree to the idea that the state should appoint the imam (leader) that gives the khutbah. In so doing, the state sought to control that public space. The Umayyads and ‘Abbasids would demand that a du‘a’ (supplication) be made during jumu‘a for the ruler—May God bless the ruler, may God protect the ruler—and this continued into the Mamluk and Ayyubid eras in Syria and Egypt. We can talk at great length about this history, but what arose was a back and forth between the state that sought to control jumu‘a, particularly the khutbah and du‘a’, and acts of resistance that sought to reclaim jumu‘a as belonging to the Muslim community, not the state. This centered on the question: who should decide the most qualified person to lead jumu‘a—the state or the judicial and jurisprudential institutions?

We know how the story proceeds in the modern age. Colonialism enters the scene. The first act of colonial powers, whether French, Dutch, or British, was to control jumu‘a and the khutbah, and to weaken the private institutions that educated, qualified, and certified jurists. After colonialism, mosques in the Muslim world fell under the ownership of the state. The state controls who becomes the imam of a mosque and even the content of the khutbah itself. And while it is clear from the Sunna of the Prophet that the khutbah is an integral and essential part of jumu‘a, since colonialism there has emerged a culture of apathy and disinterest. Khutbahs all over the Islamic world, due to their control by the state, have become irrelevant and marginal to public life. It has become common for Muslims to go to jumu‘a and daydream, think about everything else in the world, wait until the khutbah is over, do two prayers, and quickly leave. But this is not the spirit of jumu‘a. Jumu‘a is meant to be a spiritual renewal for the Muslim community. Once a week, we are meant to renew and reinvigorate, as a community, our commitment to God. We are meant to take account of what most concerns our community, and reflect, ponder, and make the end of the week, which was supposed to be jumu‘a, a crowning event of the remembrance of God.

My nature is to be extremely cautious whenever I break with established precedent. My nature is to respect the efforts of learned people before me. For twenty years, then, I resisted the idea of saying it is acceptable to join jumu‘a remotely. While jurisprudentially cautious, however, I know the matter is far more complicated than this. I will explain the reasons why shortly. The problem is that Muslims, as largely immigrants to the West, still carry the baggage, illnesses, and diseases from back home to their new lands. This is despite the fact that we no longer live under authoritarian states and can recreate the space that the Qur’an calls for. So jumu‘a remains an uninspiring space for Muslims all over the world. For twenty years or more, I have noticed a consistent deterioration in the quality of jumu‘a. This is a big topic but the basic reason for this is the problem of imama (leadership). There are rules for jumu‘a. As mentioned earlier, jurists said that those leading jumu‘a should be the most learned. If not, they should be those who are the most intimate with the Qur’an. But the most learned is a pressing criterion. The Shari‘a, the path of God, is like a lantern, a beacon of light. That lantern can either be carried by a person who sees their way or by a blind person. The Shari‘a remains a lantern, but who carries the Shari‘a, the seeing or the blind?

Muslims in the West have lost touch with the Shari‘a. They think a jurist is someone who memorizes the most Qur’an or hadith. They ignore that a true jurist not only knows the Qur’an and Sunna but is immersed in modern epistemology. What made jurists authoritative, compelling, and effective in the past was not their mastery of the raw material of law. Jurisprudence is to master the application of law, and that requires a great deal of learning and wisdom. As education systems for jurists have deteriorated, it has become very difficult to train a jurist in the modern world. So-called jurists today may have memorized a lot of Qur’an and hadith, but they are not trained in thinking and reason. They are not trained in causality or in basic ideas of obligation, duty, and responsibility. Most important of all, they are not trained in ethics, so they do not produce ethical law. It is like the blind man carrying the lantern; you go nowhere, for you are blind.

For over twenty years, I have witnessed many Muslims grow increasingly frustrated with jumu‘as in their local mosques. Many mosques rotate khatibs (speakers) who possess no specific credentials other than knowing the right people in the community. They are not the most knowledgeable, nor the most trained. They have no credentials other than having the right connections. Or they have memorized much of the Qur’an, like a tape recorder. As a result, the quality of khutbahs has declined and become alienating for many Muslims. Many stop attending jumu‘a altogether or they attend but zone out, listening to nothing, because there really is nothing to listen to. They quickly do their prayers and leave.

The Usuli Institute has held many jumu‘as before. Jurists disagree as to how many physical attendees are required for a valid jumu‘a. Some say five, seven, or twenty, and others say more. But the crux of the issue is The Usuli Institute’s invitation to those unable to be with us physically, to join us virtually.⁴ Before explaining why I finally accepted this idea, let me take us on an interesting side note. Although the Qur’an says, "O believers, when you hear the call of jumu‘a..." (Q 62:9), the vast majority of jurists, because of patriarchy and sexism, say that only men are obligated to attend jumu‘a. In many parts of the Muslim world, women do not go to jumu‘a. Yet that clearly contradicts the Qur’an’s literal text and the practice of the early Muslims at the time of the Prophet, when most women attended jumu‘a. We have cumulative reports about that. I also remember, when I was young in Kuwait, that several women complained that there was no available space in the mosques for them to attend jumu‘a. Several fatwas (non-binding legal opinions) advised them to follow jumu‘a on television and pray with the imam. This is an old fatwa. Those who think a virtual jumu‘a is new, then, are mistaken. It goes back to the 1950s and ’60s. For decades, women have been praying jumu‘a virtually. And what is good for women is good for me. Do not tell me, That is okay for women but not for men. We should grow up and stop thinking in this backward, unacceptable, and immoral way. Many have written to me who are ill or who cannot attend jumu‘a. Many women feel alienated and unwelcome in mosques. There are many who simply will not go to their local jumu‘a for the simple fact that they know enough about the religion. Not only do they find the khutbah alienating, but they know that some schools of Islamic law say that if the imam giving the khutbah and leading the prayer is not the most knowledgeable, the jumu‘a itself is invalid. Personally, I have a problem with that. If I go to jumu‘a and it is clear that the imam is far from qualified—and this has happened several times—I have a serious question as to whether my jumu‘a is valid. I pray jumu‘a with everyone and then I pray Zuhr (midday prayer) afterward.

The point is not to challenge or to compete with anyone. All those who are happy with their imam and khutbah should continue attending in person. It is always preferable to physically be with the community. But those unable to attend or who feel marginalized, disaffected, and who want a khutbah that brings them back to what is authentic and legitimate are welcome to follow this jumu‘a. That is how it should work. Let me say that Hanafi jurists have long held that the inhabitants of houses that surround a mosque may follow jumu‘a in their house so long as they can follow the imam, even if there is a wall between the mosque and house; in other words, as long as they can know whether the imam is in sujud (prostration) or ruku‘ (bowing). Maliki jurists have said that people can follow the imam in jumu‘a even if there is a river or road separating them from the mosque. For Hanafis and Malikis, then, space is not the issue. The issue is that of correctly following the imam. Yet, there is ignorance in our age. There are those who claim that no one has ever said that you do not have to be physically present to follow jumu‘a. This is simply not true. Hanafis and Malikis have talked about this for some time. Ironically, the most conservative on the issue are Shafi‘is, and I am Shafi‘i. But I break with my school here because, in my view, the point is not the correctness of the physical space, but the correctness of the act of remembrance of God in its totality. In other words, the point is the khutbah and the prayer and, if you can follow that, jumu‘a is valid.

The irony is that modern technology, which, sadly, did not come from Muslim lands, but should have, enables us to do what Hanafis and Malikis rather progressively imagined well ahead of their time, that is, to follow the imam even though we are not physically present. Frankly, I am amazed by these jurists. There must have been some real case studies that enabled them to imagine this. In the days in which they were professionally trained, Muslim jurists exhibited a lot of impressive analytical thinking. Muslim jurists in our age often exhibit no thinking, let alone analytical thinking. Nevertheless, the substantive issue is that one can listen to the khutbah and correctly see what the imam is doing in the prayer. We can, of course, do this virtually and physically. Let me underscore: we compete with no one. We undermine no one. Those happy with their mosque community and leadership should continue to attend jumu‘a in person. But those who know that there will be no remembrance of God must find an alternative. If this is an alternative for those who know they will listen to nothing in their local khutbah, but simply daydream about their bills or work, be impatient for the khutbah to finish, quickly pray, and depart, so be it.

I pray that my experience is not representative, but, sadly, I know it is. Over the course of thirty years, I have come to learn that the more knowledgeable and trained you are, the less access you have to the pulpit of jumu‘a in Islamic centers in the U.S. Every month or two, I give a khutbah at the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC). I will continue doing so as long as they have me.⁵ But Muslims must learn that nothing is more valued by God than honesty, and Muslims must learn to be honest when they talk. There is a problem when the more educated, trained, and knowledgeable you are, the more you threaten people who do not want you to stand on the pulpit. Most of these people have rich professional lives. They are doctors, engineers, and businessmen. But they do not want someone competing with their extracurricular activity. God knows this is not something I covet, but I have finally acceded to all the demands, emails, and requests to have a regular khutbah in addition to those at the ICSC. My hope and prayer is to bring solace to all those who currently do not find solace and guidance in their jumu‘as.

Jumu‘a should leave you with something that hearkens the remembrance of God in your heart. I leave you with this. In a hadith that is not often heard in the modern age, the Prophet praises those who are consistent in the remembrance of God. The Prophet says that this group, which he calls "al-Mutanazzihun," are lit up by this remembrance; the first thing God does is put light in their hearts; when that light ignites their hearts, they come to know God as God knows them.⁶ God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The heavens and the earth are otherwise dark matter, anti-matter. The only affirmative beauty is the light of God. If you are among al-Mutanazzihun, the remembrance of God becomes a consistent part of your existence. God ignites light in your heart so that you have knowledge of God as God has knowledge of you. Can you imagine a more intimate and beautiful relationship? Is it not something to aspire for? Is it not something to make all your troubles wash away? God, let me know You as You know me. What more could one want? Ask yourself: do I reflect light? Do I exhibit the light of the Divine everywhere I go and in everything I do? Or do I reflect darkness, boredom, or paleness? If you have the light of God, you exhibit the light of God. The light of God does not make people sad. It does not hurt people. It does not make people suffer. It does not imprison people, torture people, or make people cry in despair. The light of God makes people happy. If you have and reflect that light, that will be your state and your affair. I leave you with