Khuṭbah: Islam as ‘Ummah Wasaṭ’ (The Moderate Nation) | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

 

Extremism/Exaggeration (الغلو في الدين) - 10 Ayat & Hadiths

Religion is like Medicine:
- An Overdoses will KILL you.
- The right amount will SAVE you.
- Without it you'll SUFFER in illness.

1- The Prophet said:
‏ أَلاَ هَلَكَ الْمُتَنَطِّعُونَ
"Beware! The extremists perished!", saying it three times.
["Abu Dawud", 4608 - authentic صحيح]
https://sunnah.com/abudawud/42/13

2- It says in the Qur'an:
لَا تَغْلُوا فِي دِينِكُمْ
"Do not go to extremes in your religion." [Qur'an 4:171].

3- The Prophet said:
وَإِيَّاكُمْ وَالْغُلُوَّ فِي الدِّينِ فَإِنَّمَا أَهْلَكَ مَنْ كَانَ قَبْلَكُمُ الْغُلُوُّ فِي الدِّينِ
"And beware of going to extremes in religious matters, for those who came before you were destroyed because of going to extremes in religious matters."
["Nasai", 3057 - authentic صحيح]
https://sunnah.com/nasai/24/440

4- It says in the Qur'an:
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ بِكُمُ الْيُسْرَ وَلَا يُرِيدُ بِكُمُ الْعُسْرَ
"God wants ease for you, and wants not hardship for you." [Qur'an 2:185].

5- The Prophet said:
إِنَّ الدِّينَ يُسْرٌ، وَلَنْ يُشَادَّ الدِّينَ أَحَدٌ إِلاَّ غَلَبَهُ
"Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will be defeated by it."
["Sahih Bukhari", 39].
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/2/32

6- It says in the Qur'an:
وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ
"[God] has not laid upon you any hardship in religion." [Qur'an 22:78].

7- Aishah said:
 مَا خُيِّرَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم بَيْنَ أَمْرَيْنِ إِلاَّ أَخَذَ أَيْسَرَهُمَا، مَا لَمْ يَكُنْ إِثْمًا
"Whenever God's Messenger (ﷺ) was given the choice of one of two matters, he would choose the easier of the two, as long as it was not sinful to do so."
["Sahih Bukhari", 3560].
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/61/69

8- It says in the Qur'an:
وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا
"This is how We made you a moderate nation." [Qur'an 2:143].

9- The Prophet said:
‏ يَسِّرُوا وَلاَ تُعَسِّرُوا، وَبَشِّرُوا وَلاَ تُنَفِّرُوا
"Facilitate things to people (concerning religious matters), and do not make it hard for them and give them good tidings and do not make them run away (from Islam)."
["Sahih Bukhari", 69].
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/3/11

10- The Prophet said:
خيرُ دينِكم أيسَرُه
"The best of your faith is the easiest."
["Ahmad", 15371 - authentic إسناده صحيح]. 

Extremism/Exaggeration (الغلو في الدين) - 10 Ayat & Hadiths

Religion is like Medicine:
- An Overdoses will KILL you.
- The right amount will SAVE you.
- Without it you'll SUFFER in illness.
1- The Prophet said:
‏ أَلاَ هَلَكَ الْمُتَنَطِّعُونَ
"Beware! The extremists perished!", saying it three times.
["Abu Dawud", 4608 - authentic صحيح]
https://sunnah.com/abudawud/42/13

2- It says in the Qur'an:
لَا تَغْلُوا فِي دِينِكُمْ
"Do not go to extremes in your religion." [Qur'an 4:171].

3- The Prophet said:
وَإِيَّاكُمْ وَالْغُلُوَّ فِي الدِّينِ فَإِنَّمَا أَهْلَكَ مَنْ كَانَ قَبْلَكُمُ الْغُلُوُّ فِي الدِّينِ
"And beware of going to extremes in religious matters, for those who came before you were destroyed because of going to extremes in religious matters."
["Nasai", 3057 - authentic صحيح]
https://sunnah.com/nasai/24/440

4- It says in the Qur'an:
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ بِكُمُ الْيُسْرَ وَلَا يُرِيدُ بِكُمُ الْعُسْرَ
"God wants ease for you, and wants not hardship for you." [Qur'an 2:185].

5- The Prophet said:
إِنَّ الدِّينَ يُسْرٌ، وَلَنْ يُشَادَّ الدِّينَ أَحَدٌ إِلاَّ غَلَبَهُ
"Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will be defeated by it."
["Sahih Bukhari", 39].
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/2/32

6- It says in the Qur'an:
وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ
"[God] has not laid upon you any hardship in religion." [Qur'an 22:78].

7- Aishah said:
 مَا خُيِّرَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم بَيْنَ أَمْرَيْنِ إِلاَّ أَخَذَ أَيْسَرَهُمَا، مَا لَمْ يَكُنْ إِثْمًا
"Whenever God's Messenger (ﷺ) was given the choice of one of two matters, he would choose the easier of the two, as long as it was not sinful to do so."
["Sahih Bukhari", 3560].
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/61/69

8- It says in the Qur'an:
وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا
"This is how We made you a moderate nation." [Qur'an 2:143].

9- The Prophet said:
‏ يَسِّرُوا وَلاَ تُعَسِّرُوا، وَبَشِّرُوا وَلاَ تُنَفِّرُوا
"Facilitate things to people (concerning religious matters), and do not make it hard for them and give them good tidings and do not make them run away (from Islam)."
["Sahih Bukhari", 69].
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/3/11

10- The Prophet said:
خيرُ دينِكم أيسَرُه
"The best of your faith is the easiest."
["Ahmad", 15371 - authentic إسناده صحيح].

Extreme sides of both are bad. Moderation is the key.

I am not a Moderate Muslim

The Moderate Path of Islam.

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The deeds of anyone of you will not save you (from the (Hell) Fire)." They said, "Even you (will not be saved by your deeds), O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)?" He said, "No, even I (will not be saved) unless and until Allah bestows His Mercy on me. Therefore, do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and worship Allah in the forenoon and in the afternoon and during a part of the night, and always adopt a middle, moderate, regular course whereby you will reach your target (Paradise).

Sahih al-Bukhari 6463

Why India’s Muslims are so moderate

ON SEPTEMBER 3RD Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's chief, released a video message in which he promised to "raise the flag of jihad" across South Asia. Many analysts responded with little more than a shrug. The extremist group looks increasingly desperate. Since Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, al-Qaeda’s impact has been limited. It is overshadowed by the brutal Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which draws volunteer fighters from a wide range of countries and has said that Afghanistan and Pakistan will be brought under its yoke too. Yet the biggest reason for scepticism about al-Qaeda’s threat is that neither it, nor the IS, are likely to get support from more than a tiny handful of Muslims in India.

India’s Muslims are numerous, but moderate. Though barely 15% of the total, at some 180m they roughly number the same as Pakistan’s entire population. Many are disaffected. In the only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir, residents are embittered by years of heavy-handed rule by Indian security forces, and protests frequently erupt. Occasional terrorist attacks take place in Indian cities, blamed on a home-grown group, the Indian Mujahideen. In February 2013 a bomb attack in Hyderabad killed 16. But these attacks have been growing less frequent and less deadly, possibly because support from Pakistan has waned. Bursts of deadly religious violence, when Muslims and Hindus clash, also take place, most notably last year near a northern town, Muzaffarnagar, when at least 40 people were killed. India’s Muslims generally have reasons for some gloom: they endure lower levels of education, income, political representation or government jobs than the majority Hindus. And yet India’s Muslims, almost across the board, have remained moderate, tolerant, quick to condemn religious violence and ready to engage members of other religions. The contrast with the sectarian bloodletting, growing radicalism and deepening conservatism in Pakistan next door, for example, is striking.

A combination of factors explains it. Islam in South Asia has a long history, over 1,000 years, but was long dominated by Sufis who integrated closely with non-Muslim Hindus, sharing many cultural practices. In Pakistan, decades of large-scale migration to the Gulf along with close political ties to Saudi Arabia saw harder forms of Sunni Islam adopted, notably the spread of Wahhabi and Deobandi mosques, madrassas and beliefs. By contrast many Indian Muslim migrants to the Gulf, for example from Kerala, have proved less effective at reimporting harder-line forms of Islam on a large scale. Indian madrassas appear to be under more watchful eyes of the state. It is crucial, too, that India—unlike Pakistan and many other countries with large Muslim populations—has long remained as a robust and lively democracy. A secular constitution and the electoral clout of a sizeable minority helps give Muslims in India a stake in the political system. Many are also intensely proud to be Indian, even if a few support Pakistan’s cricket team. Targeted government welfare schemes to assist "backward" Muslim groups may help too. The election this year of Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi, as prime minister has not cheered Indian Muslims. But his promise to treat the secular constitution as his "bible" helps to put a limit on anxiety. Perhaps as important, as Indian Muslims are widely dispersed around the country, they are in a small but not insignificant minority almost everywhere: that fact encourages both majority Hindus and Muslims mostly to rub along together, since extremism would prove disruptive for just about everyone.

Such moderation is obviously a boon, and prevents more communal violence. Even troubled Kashmir has for the past three years seen relative calm. A handful of Indian recruits have reportedly joined up with IS in the Middle East but because they are from a population of 180m that hardly looks significant (more worrying are reports of several young men joining the IS from increasingly hardline, Sunni-Islam Maldives). Yet moderation today is not a guarantee that extremism will not arise tomorrow in India. One additional reason at times given for India’s Muslims remaining moderate is that literacy rates and incomes have been low, leaving them relatively isolated from those global forces—such as jihadist websites and news of atrocities against Muslims in the Middle East—that help to spread rage elsewhere. Rising literacy, an ever-more urban population and growing wealth and information may yet encourage more extremist factions to emerge. Large migration flows to the Gulf might yet help to bring back more conservative Islamic beliefs and funds for Wahhabi mosques and madrassas. Similarly, if Hindu nationalists in power were to grow heavy-handed, a backlash and a rise in extremism are easy to imagine. The stability in India is a remarkable achievement. With luck, zealots and murderers such as al-Zawahiri will therefore fail in their desperate ambitions. But preserving stability will be a task for everyone.

Source

"The best of affairs are those in the middle."

Our beloved Prophet (sa) said,

"The best of affairs are those in the middle." 

What is The Middle Path
The middle path is empty of desires - swerving to the far right or left, but one founded on balance - ease (when needed) and firmness (when needed). It is acquired by studying the Qura'n, tafsir, sirah, and sitting with scholars and communities who embody its spirit.

How to Achieve Wasatiyyah (Moderation)
The first and most important thing is to realize that being guided to Islam is proof that Allah has giving you the start you need to build on moderation. By having faith you are half way there! However, you are responsible for preserving it, causing it to grow and flourish. 

Milk and Moderation
For that reason, when 'Umar (ra) asked the Prophet (sa) about seeing milk in his dream, the Prophet (sa) told him it was "Islam" because like milk, Islam is pure, and just like a person, at least in those days, had to, you have to wake up early and work for milk and a person has to work for guidance - if one doesn't take care of it, it may spoil. It spoils when a person deviates by being too harsh or too easy. 

So, the first step is to rely on Allah to guide you between the extremes of those who "earned punishment" and those who "went astray" by establishing the individual obligations. For that reason, you say a minimum of 17 times a day, "Guide us to the straight path." ("Us" here creates a collective responsibility. Hence, it invokes empathy -more to come on that later). 

Ways to Preserve Balance (refrigerate your milk)
1. Acquisition of beneficial knowledge
2. Sitting with Scholars
3. Community relations
4. Avoid those who seek to split the community or speak ill of the scholars or workers - are overly harsh or easy on the masses.

On the last point, Imām al-Ghazzāzli said,

“If you see a person declaring others infidels and misguided, shun him and do not busy your heart or your tongue with him! Provocations in knowledge are undoubtedly from people’s nature, and the ignorant one is unable to exercise patience with them. And due to this, differences have multiplied amongst people. If knowledge was forcefully taken from the ignorant, then differences would subside.”

And Al-Hafidh al-Dhahabi [may Allah have mercy upon him] wrote,

“I heard our shaykh, Ibn Taymiyyah, d. 728 a.h, say towards the end of his life, ‘I will never declare anyone from the people of the qiblah (direction of prayer) as an infidel.’”

The Muwatta and Balance
When Imām Mālik was asked by the Caliph to write the Muwatta the Caliph requested, 

"Write what brings the firmness of Ibn 'Umar (ra) and the ease of Ibn 'Abbas (ra)"

That is why the Muwatta holds such a hight status. It is a book of balance.

Balance Breeds Success
When Ibn Sina was asked why he was so proficient at medicine, he said,

"I looked at an illness, examinging its causes and potential remedies. I would strive always to find a cure that was in the middle!"

Be Easy; We Are Growing!
Today, as Western Muslim find themselves going through identification puberty - growing pains, we can expect to find folks on either the right or the left, sincerely trying to please Allah, staking a claim for their faith and community. It is important to be merciful to these people, offer advice in a sincere way and know that the subject of the advice is struggling the same. 

When we understand that we are all struggling, that will create a greater sense of empathy. Allah says to the companions (ra), "You were once misguided (like them)." The goal is to please Allah and that is done by being balanced upon what the Prophet (sa) taught, uncompromising in those areas where we are ordered to submit, easy and merciful in the areas of ijtihad. 

The Companions and Growth
We are similar to the companions whom the Prophet (sa) ordered to pray 'Asr at Bani Quraydha. Some prayed it before they got there, fearing they would miss its time, clinging to the implied meaning of the Prophet's words, while others waited until they arrived, praying it after Maghrib, clinging to the literal meaning of the Prophet's words. 

Appreciate Where We Are
At this juncture, we are sure to make mistakes - I'm sure to make mistakes, we must be soft when it comes to ijtihadat and firm on the qat'iyaat. This was echoed by al-Qarāfī who wrote,

“When you come upon a question with two opinions, one making things easy and the other difficult, you must not issue verdicts to the masses, seeking to make things hard on them, or to the specialized (scholars and people known for their worship and piety) or the rulers, seeing to make things too easy for them. Doing so is a sin in religion, hypocrisy and a sign that the heart is void of Allah’s magnificent glory.” Quoted by al-Hattab al-Maliki Mawaib al-Jalil vol. 1 pg. 32

May Allah grant us the strength of heart to be away from irrational conservatism and irresponsible liberalism. We ask him to grant us empathy with each other (even when we correct each other firmly), knowing that families argue, but they stay family.

Hoping you all have a wonderful day (or night),
Suhaib Webb

MODERATION IN ALL THINGS

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once asked a companion: "(Is it true) that you fast all day and stand in prayer all night?" The companion replied that the report was indeed true. The Prophet then said: "Do not do that! Observe the fast sometimes and also leave (it) at other times. Stand up for prayer at night and also sleep at night. Your body has a right over you, your eyes have a right over you and your wife has a right over you." - Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Hadith 127 

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately. . .Always adopt a middle, moderate, regular course, whereby you will reach your target (of paradise)." - Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 8, Hadith 470 

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "The good deeds of any person will not make him enter Paradise (i.e., no one enters paradise only through his good deeds)." The Prophet's companions asked: "Not even you?" The Prophet replied: "Not even myself, unless God bestows His favor and mercy on me. So be moderate in your religious deeds and do what is within your ability. None of you should wish for death, for if he is a doer of good, he may increase his good deeds, and if he is an evil doer, he may repent to God." - Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Hadith 577

Moderation in All Things

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once asked a companion: 

"(Is it true) that you fast all day and stand in prayer all night?" The companion replied that the report was indeed true. 

The Prophet then said: "Do not do that! Observe the fast sometimes and also leave (it) at other times; stand up for prayer at night and also sleep at night. Your body has a right over you, your eyes have a right over you and your wife has a right over you." 

Sahih Al-Bukhari