ISMM | Salam everyone, As life would have it, I am to be stationed in Manhattan for several weeks, why? Well, that's none of your business. But, what is indeed your business are the continued stream of khutbah critiques. I have successfully chronicled 13 months of khutbahs in my beloved Windy City, I guess it's time to see how some of the other big cities compare. I went to the Islamic Society of Mid Manhattan, the mosque itself is called "Masjid Uthman Ibn Affan" (named after the third Khalifa), located near 55th and Lexington. A convenient location for me. I actually missed it the first time I tried to look for it a couple days ago. It's just a slender door in the side of a tall building, but it seems to be multi-layered, I know for sure they have at least 5 floors. It's actually very similar to the DIC in Chicago. Anyway, I went in, not knowing what to expect, saw many different kinds of people, some that even looked like me, haha. There were cabbies, business people, food cart owners, the whole garden variety of Muslims, or shall I say, "New York Muslims"? Because there is indeed a distinction to be made between Chicago Muslims and New York Muslims, I will share my findings once I have them. |
Talks about the outward and the inward, praises the 4 khaliphas and recognizes the servant hood and high station of the prophet.
Dear brothers,
Praise be to Allah and only to him.
Whomever Allah guide none can misguide and whoever goes astray cannot be guided.
Look at the sirah, in the life and way of our messenger. And how did his struggle for his invitation for this din to invite those that don't believe in god or his onenness or monotheism. Muhammad was the seal of prophets, for all mankind and Jinn.
You want to invite people to this din, learn from our prophet.
The quraysh tortured those who accepted Islam for ten years. After ten years, the Muslims were dying, no food or water, (sanctions). They were cornered. After they came out of that, his wife khadijah, may Allah be pleased with her, died. That kind lady, who sheltered him in his strife. Then his uncle also died, abu talib.
That's when he decided to leave Mecca for Ta'if. He went walking, not riding.
Look at our messenger, what did he do, he walked to taif to spread Islam. He came to three people who were the heads of the tribes of taif, he incited them and explained Islam and the oneness of god, because if he gets them, their tribes will follow.
Not a single one if then answered him or tried to speak to him, the prophet asked simply for them to keep this to themselves. He went to all the chiefs of the tribe and not a single one answered him.
So held spoke to the ignorant ones, mostly servants, this angered the people of fair and they chased him out by throwing stones at him and he left bleeding. They injured his head, spilled his holy blood.
One of his companions was with him and tried to keep the stone from hitting him.
We have to learn from our messenger, how did he do.
They chased him for three miles throwing stones at him, until he came to a garden. The Christian men there saw the prophet injured they felt sorry and sent his servant to bring him grapes.
The proohet accepted the grapes and said bismillah. They asked him where he was from since no one I. Taif says those words, he told them and they said that a righteous man is there who is a prophet, the prophet asked them how they knew and they responded...
After the prophet suffered through the events of taif, he goes to the site of Allah and asks him by praising Allah first, saying you are by lord a d the lord of the weak people, to whole you let me go get protection from then, they went against me, cursed me, hurt me, they don't want to accept your message, I don't want anything if you are not angry with me, your protection is good enough for me.
He asked Allah to be his protector and will return only to him.
That is how we have to follow. After that Allah sent a cloud over his head while he was walking and when he looked at the cloud he saw jibril, and Allah sent his Salam, and Allah sent him the angel of the mountains to be commanded by Muhammad, this angel asked if he should destroy the people of taif by smashing the mountains on them.
This was an opportunity for revenge, but what did the prophet say, don't do that, I pray Allah will bro g from these people offspring that will worship Allah.
After all thus, Allah gave the prophet isra al miraj, took him from Mecca to Jerusalem, then uo to the highest heavens.
If we follow him, our protection is from Allah.
May Allah accept our dua and makes us one of those who follow our prophet.
I hope NYC continues to treat me well and allow me to hear good khutbahs like this one. I only have one complaint, and it is a meager one. One of the uncles (who's actually a third generation Ukrainian convert) who helps to maintain the mosque was going around collecting donations for the mosque while people were listening to Qur'an or reading it themselves. There was a box at the door. I am not mentioning this because he did it once, he did it several times in short time frame and even nudged people and waited until they put something in the box, that can be an embarrassing situation. However, since I had a conversation this man several days ago, I understood that he may have some quirks, I just hope his quirks don't land him in trouble with an agitated congregant.