Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 13. September 2024
It has been an entire year, and the constant source of trauma is unending. Since the emergence of colonialism, the dismantling of Islamic empires, the birth of the nation state, and the emergence of nationalism, Muslims have in one form or another been in a constant state of trauma. Each generation focuses on the trauma it suffers in its own historical moment, but those with a sense of history know that what is unfolding in Palestine—the genocide, the systematic uprooting of a Muslim...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 01. September 2024
Greetings of Peace (al salamu ‘alaykum) dear Friends, I pray you are well and enjoying the last bits of summer. Obviously, someone pressed the fast forward button and launched us all to the end of August. Didn’t it just turn 2024 last month?? May we all make every moment count! LAST DAY TO GET EARLY BIRD TICKETS IS TODAY, SEPTEMBER 1! Are you planning to join us in person for our First Annual Usuli Conference in Columbus, Ohio, this October 11-12! We have been working hard to make it extra...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 30. August 2024
Before I give any khutbah, family and friends typically help me by sending me articles that give me a survey of the issues happening around the world. As usual, to my persistent heartbreak, I find numerous stories of egregious violations and offenses that have been committed against Muslims, often by Israelis. Once again, the Israelis have attacked cars, institutions, or buildings belonging to the United Nations. We find repeated stories of atrocities committed by Israeli forces. There are so...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 23. August 2024
God, we come this Friday again to struggle in affirming the truth that You are the Truth, that You are our One and only Sustainer. You, who created the heavens and the earth, who constructed them and placed them with a careful and intricate balance that many of us still strive to uncover, constantly turning in awe to your creation. Lord of the east and the west, of the seen and the unseen. God, who is within and without. You alone we turn to for help, for guidance and strive for your furqan,...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 16. August 2024
I return to this podium after a hiatus of more than fifty days, and I want to say something about this break because what I have to say will be of relevance for others. Some 40 years ago, like so many Muslims from our part of the world, I endured a trauma that human beings should never endure. What most people from my part of the world learn about trauma is to ignore it. In fact, there is a culture that celebrates machismo and defines strength as the power to ignore and suppress trauma rather...
Usuli Weekly Newsletter · 15. August 2024
Greetings of Peace (al salamu ‘alaykum) dear Friends, I pray you are well! We are happy to be back from our summer hiatus and so proud that Shayan Parsai kicked off our return with a brilliant khutbah last Friday entitled, “Bangladesh: Governance and Integrity.” Check it out! EXCITING EVENTS AHEAD! We are now digging into preparations for lots of great events and projects to come! At the forefront is our upcoming First Annual Usuli (in-person) Conference in Columbus, Ohio, October 11-12....
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 09. August 2024
In the months of June, July and August, we witnessed the rise and the demise of a surprising number of world leaders. In the United States, we saw the sudden political death of Joe Biden and the birth of Kamala Harris. In Iran, we saw the surprising voice of hope in the personality of Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, who replaced the previous president Ebrahim Raisi. In Palestine, we witnessed the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh and now we bear witness to the consolidation of leadership in the person of...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 07. June 2024
I begin in the name of God, the kind, the compassionate, the loving, the caring. The ultimate Creator, the singular Creator, the only Creator, the One who is indivisible. The Singular. The Singular Unity, the One. The One who has created many, the One who is the originator of multiplicity. The One who, by His hand, this creation turns. The One who, by His hand, the day rolls into night and the night rolls into day. By His hand, the summer rolls into the fall and the fall rolls into the winter,...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 24. May 2024
We are still, after eight months, stuck in a nightmare that will not cease and that we cannot wake up from. Somehow, it has become acceptable and legitimate in the eyes of most of the world that the people who suffered the Holocaust of six million dead—or at least the state of Israel that claims to represent those people, because I do not buy into the myth that the state of Israel represents all Jews in the world—can exterminate some two million people. It is as if the tragedy is somehow...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 17. May 2024
If rain falls on fertile land, then gorgeous things will grow. If rain falls on putrid land, nothing will grow and you will be left with ugliness and swamps, or nothing at all. If you are like me, who washes their shoes and then leaves them out to dry but forgets them and rain falls, then you will wake up and find that they are very wet, which is what I woke up to today and what I am thinking about. I laugh to myself because the parable of the rain is what I had been preparing yesterday. The...