Virtual Khutbahs

Tawhid, in the sense of monotheism, is the realization that this existence has a Maker, an Owner; someone responsible for it that is not the product of chance. The one God, which is the core of Tawhid, can have no partners precisely because it is a God who is not subject to the laws of human beings, nor the laws of physics, nor the laws of time and space, nor the logic of human beings, physics or mathematics. Islam is the only religion on this earth that is firmly anchored in the theology of Tawhid, such that when you say, "I surrender my will to the will of the Owner of this universe," you know that everything that happens anywhere in the universe is within the control and sovereignty of God. God is aware of everything that unfolds, and from this comes your strength and your sense of being.

Monotheism is strong in the Jewish faith, but Judaism has gone through various trials and tribulations in history that has fitted the Jewish faith for the Israelite people as an ethnic, racial and nationalistic group, and the lines between what is Israelite and what is Judaism have been significantly blurred.

Christianity is a different story. We know the Ten Commandments given to Moses (Musa). The First Commandment says there is no god but God: “La illaha illallah.”. The irony in Christianity is that despite this First Commandment, Jesus does not unfold upon the scene until centuries later. How could all the prophets until the time of Jesus come and not tell us that embedded within the First Commandment is this jaw-dropping idea that God is a God of three essences that are co-equal, co-eternal and co-substantial, as is core to the Christian faith?

None of the prophets tell us that, and in fact, Jesus himself does not tell us that. But rather, after dying and being resurrected, according to the Christian belief, the disciples of Jesus tell us that. The problem is that the first teacher of the gospel and the person who wrote the first Gospel and the majority of the New Testament, according to Christian belief, is Paul. However, Paul never met Jesus, and in fact, was a Jew who persecuted Christians until he says that on the way to Damascus, he had a vision in which Jesus appears to him and teaches him what needs to be taught. All the other Gospels were written after Paul and copied from Paul.

Why do Muslims need to know and understand this? The biggest threat posed to the secular ideal in the United States is the mixing of religion and state, which comes primarily through the vehicle of evangelical Christianity, a sect that works fervently to colonize the world. We live in a colonial moment in which religion and politics mix with the main target being Muslims. The more Muslims know, the more Muslims will be able to protect themselves and raise their heads in pride, knowing who they are and what the truth is.

All the gospels were influenced by Paul and his teachings of the message of Christ. These are historical facts, not opinions. We do not know who the authors of the Gospels are. We do not know who wrote John, Matthew, or Luke; so for example, when you hear the familiar, “In the beginning was the Word…”, it is the author of the gospel who said it, and that author is unknown. The gospels were not written until at least 90 years after the death of Jesus. The idea of the Trinity is never clearly and firmly stated in any of the gospels. Jesus repeatedly refers to God as, "The Father who sent me."

In most churches today, there is hardly any talk about God, yet instead, they talk mostly about Jesus Christ as God. Further, the Bible does not provide a clear understanding of God the Father, God the Son, or the Holy Ghost. As a result, Christians know and connect far more to Jesus Christ than the Father of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Abou El Fadl gives numerous examples from the Bible that illustrate how Jesus refers to himself and to the Father, both in support of and in tension with the idea that Jesus is God. For example, in Luke 22:42, Jesus is worried about his impending trial and possible execution, so he prays fervently to God. God sends an angel to comfort Jesus and Jesus continues to pray while drops of sweat fall off him. These are not the actions of a god, but the actions of a man not wanting to be crucified. Further, Dr. Abou El Fadl demonstrates how certain words have been translated and mis-translated to create opposite meanings. In fact, the text of the Bible, as it exists in printed form, creates an enormous amount of tensions within the idea of a one and only God and reflects the choices made through various historical institutions. Of the many Gospel manuscripts that have reached us, no two manuscripts of the Bible agree with each other.

In another example, it is true that in the Bible, Jesus is referred to as a son of God. But various, undisputedly human prophets, including Moses, are also referred to as sons of God. Here, “son” is a term of endearment, and is not meant in the literal sense.

More significant is the use of the word “rabb” in the Bible, which is often used to refer to Jesus. “Rabb” is the Hebrew word for teacher. In John 1:38, Rabb is translated as teacher, but everywhere else where the word “rabb” is used in reference to Jesus Christ, it is translated to “Lord Jesus Christ,” completely altering the meaning. In the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic Bibles, it is clear that Jesus far from considered himself equal to God. But the English Bibles translate to exactly the opposite message.

As a result of this colonial project, many Muslims come to doubt Islam and even consider converting to nondenominational Christianity. “Nondenominational” means not being able to address the hard questions that differentiate Christian sects (e.g. whether Jesus is equal to or lesser than God; or whether Jesus was made by God or not), so instead, ignoring or pretending such differences do not exist, especially when speaking with Muslims. As is typical of how colonialism has worked, colonizers pretend that natives (i.e. Muslims) know nothing about the colonizing culture, and therefore never expect that the gaze will be returned upon them. An example is the way misogynistic British culture criticized women’s treatment in Muslim colonized countries while ignoring their own sexist behaviors. For young Muslims who have doubt in their hearts about their faith, the answer is to get an education.

Vice President Mike Pence recently was talking about how the U.S. has helped to define Islam to combat fanaticism and radicalism; the Islam they want is a hesitant, restless and insecure Islam. Islam is coming under a massive onslaught, and the role of evangelicals like Pence, Bannon and Trump is to eliminate the doctrine of separation of church and state and try to sneak in Christianity, especially among Muslims in the West. The Jesus they have constructed is a Hollywood racist image—the handsome figure of a Jesus Christ that you want to date, not worship. It is a racist and colonial project, and the battleground is over the Muslim intellect.

The answer is to gain serious knowledge in order to protect yourself and your children; and to support knowledge so that Muslims can stand on their own feet, return the gaze, and say, “La illaha illallah, Muhammad ar Rasulallah. We know who we are, and we are proud of it because it is the truth.”

Dr. Abou El Fadl begins with the troubling fact that despite consisting of over one billion people and collectively controlling over half of the world’s sources of energy, material and natural resources – everything that would enable them to empower themselves – Muslims worldwide are plagued by powerlessness. Many Muslim countries are led by corrupt puppets that effectively rule for someone else’s interests. Since colonialism, it is common that a Muslim ruler would rule over Muslim lands but answer not to their constituency, but to the powers that effectively colonized the territory over which these rulers rule.

So, for instance, the rulers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and many others find it far more important what Europe or the U.S. thinks or wants than what their own respective peoples want. That is the epitome of disempowerment when collectively, the people being ruled don’t matter. There is no means by which to translate the people’s desires, preferences, or willpower, into a means for self-determination and autonomy, because rulers are not interested in accountability to the people.

Every human being must define a relationship with the idea of autonomy and self-determination. The challenge is whether their sense of autonomy or self-determination is superficial or real. At the superficial level, some think that as long as they can indulge in distractions, entertain themselves, or have fun, that they are exercising autonomy or self-determination; in reality, they ultimately might not have the power to influence their development or progress spiritually, morally, or intellectually as a human being, as is happening now in Saudi Arabia for instance. The Saudi government has opened up virtually all forms of entertainment for the Saudi people to give them the illusion of autonomy and self-determination. In typical authoritarian format, in Saudi Arabia the idea is, if you can party, then you are. But meanwhile, you control nothing about what happens at the national or multi-national level. You are, in fact, entirely powerless and without self-determination.

Similarly, another form of delusion is where people believe, as long as I can fight, then I am. Young kids become convinced that if they can engage in acts of violence and be killed in the process, that somehow they control their own destiny. This is another form of disempowerment.

The only true venue for self-determination in this day and age is the flow of information – information that shapes, crafts, chisels, and defines consciousness - or in other words, education. This is precisely why Islamophobia is a very extreme form of disempowerment. When information is managed, manipulated, and engineered in such a fashion as to cause a sense of dread among Muslims and non-Muslims about Islamic theology, law, history, and philosophy, then the autonomy and trajectory of Muslims has been affected in clear and undeniable ways.

For example, Muslims have been put in a persistent, defensive position when it comes to Islam. One cannot say the word "Shariah" anywhere in the Muslim world today without immediately making Muslims uncomfortable or being gripped by a sense of dread. If any Muslim uses the word “jihad,” or talks about Islam or the Prophet Muhammad, he or she immediately feels the need to explain (ie. engage in some form of apologetics) that jihad is not evil; Islam is not violent; or the Prophet was actually good. Any human being that is placed constantly on the defensive loses self-determination.

Autonomy and self-determination in the modern age are direct products not of military power, but of informational power. Information is controlled in order to control Muslims’ ability to engage in autonomy and self-determination, effectively colonizing the Muslim mind. Colonizing the Muslim mind does not mean injecting Western values into the Muslim mind; a lot of Western values are simply values of modernity. Colonizing the Muslim mind means injecting a sense of dread or insecurity about their own tradition, faith and law.

It is critical that Muslims understand that what we call the campaign of Islamophobia in the world is a power movement to control information and consciousness regarding Muslims. Islamophobia disempowers Muslims by creating a deep-seated insecurity about their own tradition. This has gone to extreme levels that Muslims in the West are often not even aware of. The minute one feels the need to explain and defend why they are not a bad person or apologize for their being, that being has been compromised.

The monotheistic faith is a faith of empowerment. It is a faith that teaches recognizing one’s self worth, the equal value of human life, and the direct connection between humans and their Creator. It is a faith in which each prophet comes to embrace the disempowered and resist the powerful. If monotheism is reduced to just practicing ritual, but does not teach a sense of autonomy, independence, dignity and self-confidence from within, then monotheism fails its purpose.

Islamophobia succeeded in making the gift of Islam, a gift of dignity and worth, hard to feel empowered by. The colonialism of Islamophobia is far more dangerous than military colonialism, because in Islamophobic colonialism, many Muslims are unaware of their colonization. Today, it is nearly impossible for a Muslim's relationship to Islam to exist without going through the filter of Islamophobia.

The Rand Corporation issued two reports in the early 2000s arguing that the way to fight terrorism is by shaping the Muslim mind and identity. In language resembling a colonial power, the reports set forth Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji as exemplars of the type of Muslim that the West wants. However, both are effectively atheists who hate Islam. Hirsi Ali believes that for the West to not be at war with Islam, Islam needs to reform per five conditions, among them abandoning jihad, denouncing “violence” in the Quran, and denying the Prophet Muhammad as a moral exemplar.

Hirsi Ali’s version of Islam is indistinguishable from the Islam that official state medias of many Muslim countries push. Media broadcasters speak of “reforming” Islam, as they believe that Islam is a violent faith that requires much of its material condemned. Counter-discourse is banned from these networks, and those who attempt to provide such discourse are often barred by Muslim governments.

A troubling trend from the early days of colonialism that has reemerged in the modern Muslim world is Arab Christians pretending to be Muslims or former Muslims, then denouncing much of Islam and altering it. An example is Walid Shoebat, who provides training seminars to Homeland Security and F.B.I. about Islam, despite his clear track record of being a fraud.

Islamophobia has resulted in an energy of dread surrounding Islam in the modern world. Nearly every Muslim today has felt doubt towards their own faith and the morality of the Prophet, Islamic history, and the Quran. Muslims must wake up and realize that a country does not need to be occupied to be colonized. Minds can be colonized through the control of information. Muslims do not control the flow of information about Islamic history, law, philosophy, or theology. As a result, almost all Muslim PhD students studying in these fields experience a severe crisis about the worthiness of their identity as a Muslim, wondering if they can be a good scholar and a good Muslim at the same time.

American Evangelists have dedicated an enormous amount of resources to achieve the same goal that was at the heart of colonialism: getting Muslims to have a troubled relationship with their tradition and colonizing the Muslim mind. That is the story of Islamophobia and the story of our present reality. The net effect is that many Muslim children around the world are now atheists or converting to Christianity and we are not even being honest about it. Our minds, the minds of our children and grandchildren have been colonized. The way Muslims relate to their religion, their tradition, and even God has been penetrated, invaded and colonized from within.

To resist, Muslims must invest in knowledge, information and data. Our governments are colonized, so we can only count on private resources. If Muslims are not willing to invest because they don’t think their religion is worth investing in, then there is nothing left to say.