Circles of Learning (Halaqas) · 03. December 2022
Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl presents his Quranic commentary on Surah 93: Al Duha and Surah 94: Al Sharh, along with a Q&A on these surahs and Surah 9: Al Tawbah, as part of the ongoing Project Illumine: Light of the Quran series at The Usuli Institute (www.usuli.org). Recorded at The Usuli Institute on 3 December 2022. Project Illumine is a year-long intensive immersion into the unique moral messages in each of the 114 surahs (chapters) of the Quran, the fruit of this scholar's lifetime...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 25. November 2022
Greetings of Peace dear Friends, I pray you are well. Last week's khutbah (Friday sermon) really hit me hard. You can read the text of it in the next section below. It is a long, powerful read about the choices we make as a society under the guise of "freedom, liberty, free will, and choice" - absent God - and the horrific consequences of those choices upon the individual, especially the most vulnerable in our society. It is where we have arrived today encapsulated in one man's example. In a...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 25. November 2022
“Alhamdullilah” ["All praise be to God"] is an expression of gratitude to God. So much of what disciplines the soul of a human being is our relationship with this simple yet demanding core value of gratitude. Gratitude is the simple recognition by a human being that they are not an independent force in nature, but that everything about a human being is contingent upon everything else in creation. In gratitude, then, a human being is always mindful of what is owed to everyone and everything...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 18. November 2022
Dear Friends, Greetings of Peace! I pray you are well! We had our first snow in Ohio this week, which was fabulous and wonderful! :) Thank you to everyone who send kind messages and prayers since we had to cancel last week's halaqa from illness, and everyone also seems to be catching bad bugs! Alhamdulillah, no Covid! We are all on the mend now, so looking forward to today's khutbah and tomorrow's halaqa insha'Allah! I'm going to keep it super short today... THE PROPHET'S PULPIT AROUND THE...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 18. November 2022
A short while ago, a young Muslim woman from Canada sent me a message about a news report she saw on television involving someone with a Muslim name, Amir. It looked like this person is ethnically Persian. The gist of the news story is that this person suffered from a spinal injury that caused him chronic pain, but there were new circumstances in the life of this person that meant that he faced the danger of becoming homeless. He was going to lose his rental residence and be forced to live on...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 11. November 2022
Let me start by saying what should be rather obvious: action follows intentionality. When an action has no intentionality, it is the type of action that we would describe as lacking any rational basis. It is not founded on anything rational, but is haphazard and whimsical. And when action is haphazard and whimsical, it often indicates a lack of intellectual determinism, meaning that this action, more often than not, is generated by an insane or otherwise mentally inept, handicapped, incapable...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 11. November 2022
Dear Friends, Greetings of Peace! I pray you are well! Winter is upon us! Here in America, we have set our clocks back, which means the days feel extra short and it gets dark outside very early! Please note that to accommodate our switch to Daylight Savings Time, the khutbah today will begin at 12:45 pm ET. :) I continue to be blown away by the power of the words as we continue our work on preparing Volume II of The Prophet's Pulpit, which we are planning to release insha'Allah (God willing)...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 04. November 2022
Among what God tells us in the Qur’an, God's revealed book, is the following warning from Surah al-Ma'idah: O you who have attained to faith! Intoxicants, and games of chance, and idolatrous practices, and the divining of the future are but a loathsome evil of Satan's doing:105 shun it, then, so that you might attain to a happy state! (Q 5:90) In this warning, God mentions “intoxicants,” "gambling," and “idolatrous methods,” which includes games that would attempt to predict the...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 04. November 2022
Al salamu alaykum dear Friends, Happy November (Really??)!! I pray you are well and that the remaining days of this year are full of light and beauty for you and your family! Have you read The Prophet's Pulpit: Commentaries on the State of Islam yet? :) I am so grateful to our generous donor who has made it possible for us to send GIFT copies of The Prophet's Pulpit literally anywhere in the world! May God elevate and multiply his rewards! This book is magical and the response has been...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 28. October 2022
The truth of the matter is that human ideas, concepts, understandings, and conceptualizations undergo the same phases and stages of progression as life itself. An original idea is born. Like any young life, it is full of potential and possibilities, and its impact reflects the fact that it triggers a set of unfulfilled potentialities. As ideas age, however, the potentialities are often exhausted and worn out. What sets in is habit and familiarity, and the same idea that what was once full of...