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Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen, Muhammad wa rasulullahi ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathiran.
Fama ba’du, my brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala told us: “Inna hadha ummatukum ummatun wahidah, wa ana rabbukum fa’budoon.” And in another place, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said: “Wa inna hadha ummatukum ummatun wahidah, wa ana rabbukum fa’taqoon.” Allah said verily and truly this Ummah of yours is one Ummah, this brotherhood of yours is one brotherhood, and I am your Lord. Therefore worship Me. In another place, Allah said “Fa’budoon,” therefore worship Me. In another place, Allah said “Fa’taqoon,” therefore have My Taqwa. Meaning live your life by one criterion only: does it please Allah?
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala also commanded us and said: “Wa a’tasimu bi habli Allahi jami’an, wa la tafarraqu.” Allah said hold fast together to the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and do not make divisions. I remind myself and you that today the single biggest cancer destroying us is the tendency to make divisions. It is a critical attitude towards each other. The tendency to criticize each other. We have all kinds of nice names for it. You say, “I am doing the Islam of this person” and “I wish the best for that person,” and so on. The reality is, you are not doing it because you want the best for that person. You are doing it to show off before the world that you are better than the other person. This is the actual reality.
And the reason I say that is because the way we do it. Today if I am doing something which somebody does not like, he will not come and tell me. He will write a long post on WhatsApp. He will make a video and post it on YouTube. Criticizing me. He will publish a pamphlet criticizing me and circulate it all over society. How does it help? The only person who can correct me is myself. If I am doing something wrong. So talk to me. But instead of that, you talk to the whole world and not to me.
If there is one madrasa, Jamia, University, school, whatever, or some movement of Islam, whether it is Tabligh-e-Jamaat or whether it is Jamaat-e-Islami or this one or that one. People see at the end of the day: “Ilallah Rasoolillah,” nobody is free from mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody is weak. Everybody has something which they do, knowingly or unknowingly, which is faulty and which we can find fault with. This is a standard rule, safe rule to believe.
So therefore there will be something. Take this movement, that movement, you know, this Jamia, that madrasa, and if you go into it and say, what is wrong with Darul Uloom Deoband, there will be something wrong. What is wrong with Nadwatul Ulama, something will be wrong. What is wrong with Jamaat-e-Islami, Madinah, Munawarah, something will be wrong. What is wrong with Ummul-Qura in Makkah, something. I mean, there is nothing where there will not be, or you will not be able to find something wrong.
Now, so say for example, I found something wrong in this particular institution, whatever the institution. And I am genuinely and truly interested in the welfare of that institution. I am genuinely and truly concerned about whatever it is that they are doing which is wrong. What should I do? Go to that institution, talk to the people who are running that institution. Talk to the Nazim, talk to the Dean, talk to the Professor, talk to the Principal, right, talk to the Intizam, talk to the administration, and see what you can do. Offer help, right, tell them what you think is right, have a dialogue with them. Maybe you are wrong. Maybe what you thought is not even happening there. You got some information from somewhere. Or maybe something is happening there, but you misunderstood that. After all, you are not getting Wahi from Allah. So, you know, everybody is capable of being wrong.
Now, instead of that, you don’t go there, you don’t talk to the head of that institution, you don’t talk to the administration, you publish a paper. You publish a critical article. You make a video. How does it help? All that it does is, it destroys the morale of the community. Because you are constantly hearing critical stuff, which may be true, may not be true.
Rasool said, if you find your brother is at fault, hide his faults, cover his faults. If you cover his faults in this life, Allah will cover your faults on the Day of Judgement. So, the first principle, as far as being the Ummah, that’s why I recited for you the Ayat of the Quran. The first principle is, cover each other’s faults. Husn-e-Zan, the best belief about your brother. It should be Husn-e-Zan with each other.
For example, somebody comes late for Salah. We do this. We don’t care about Salah. Why don’t you believe the best? That he tried his best, maybe something went wrong with his car. He tried his best and what, something else happened. Alhamdulillah, every day he comes on time, today he came late, so what? After that, he is praying Salah for you, he is making you right. Allah is making you right. What do you care? Believe the best about your brother.
Ibn-e-Khayyim al-Jawziya or one of the Salafi Salihin, he said, if I see my brother with alcohol dripping and flowing from his beard, right, if I see my brother with alcohol dripping from his beard, I will say, somebody poured it on him. He is seeing alcohol dripping from his beard, he will say, “I will say, somebody poured it on him.” I will not say he is drunk or he drank and, no.
He said, if I see my brother stand on top of a hill, and he is calling out and announcing: “Inna anil la ilaha illa ana fa’abudni,” “Anna rabbukum ala’ala,” “Sayyidun.” I see, hear him standing, and I see him standing on the hill, and he is saying, “I am Allah, and worship me, I am your Rabb.” I will say, he is reciting the Ayat of the Quran. Ya, he is seeing him, standing there, he is hearing him saying that, he will say, “He is reciting the Ayat of the Quran. This is the Ayat of the Quran.”
So is this man a fool who is saying this? Our tendency will be what? You are a fool. That man is claiming to be God. He is Wajibul Qata’. Somebody should chop his head off. No. Allahﷻ did not send us into this world to send people to Jahannam. Jahannam does not belong to you. Jannah does not belong to you. It belongs to Allahﷻ. Allah will decide who will go where. Allahﷻ did not give you and me the authority or the power to send people here and there. Let us worry about ourselves. Whether I will go to Jannah or Jahannam, this should be my concern. Not somebody else. And if you are genuinely concerned about your Muslim brother, about what he or she is doing, and may Allah have mercy on us, we do stupid things, we do wrong things. I am not saying we don’t do that. If you are genuinely interested, go talk to that person. Don’t talk to anybody else. Don’t talk to his father, mother, wife, children, nobody. Talk to that individual. Go talk to that person. And tell them whatever you have to tell them. In the nicest way. Correct them by all means. But not from a public platform. This is the worst thing that we can do. May Allah have mercy on us. This has become today a trend among our people.
And this is like termites. That is the reason why, think about this: the Riba, for us Riba, backbiting, is literally our social life. It is what we do. When people get to know us, we talk about somebody. It has become such an easy thing. Allah revealed the Quran about this. The Ayat of Surah Al-Hujurat, where Allah condemned Ghibat. He called it eating the flesh of your dead brother. And Allah said: “Fakarhatumuhu.” You find this example to be very bad. For which Karahiyyat comes. Very disgusting. Why? Why is Allah revealing Quran about this thing which we consider today to be not serious at all. It is normal. This is what we talk. Because Ghibat is like termites. It eats up from inside. So when we do Ghibat, we talk about one another. First of all, our good deeds go to the person that we were bad-talking about. That person’s evil deeds come to us. So that is one transaction that is, you know, that is a bad transaction but it happens. But more than that, whatever respect you have for one another will go. Because you are hearing all this stuff. And nobody is perfect. So name whoever you want to name, except Rasulullah ﷺ, there will always be something negative to say about that person.
So the feeling of grace, the feeling of Izzah, of respect, of honour, that we have for one another, this feeling goes away. People talk about, they say there is no leadership in the Ummah. You know why there is no leadership? Because nobody respects anyone else. You and I have bad-talked everyone to the point that we actually have no respect for anyone. We have no respect for our Ulama. Generally speaking, people don’t respect the Ulama. What do the Maulvis do? They do this, they do that. It is all for loyalty. So no respect for Ulama. No respect for the people. Professionals. There are thieves in the doctor, there are thieves in the engineer, there are thieves in the architect, there are thieves in the lawyer. There are thieves in the Rathi. Except you. Everybody is a thief. Doctors are thieves. See, my point is, I am not saying that there is no medical malpractice. I am not saying that lawyers are, you know, washed with milk or honey or something like that. People make mistakes. People do wrong things deliberately. And by mistake. But constantly bad-talking, constantly negative talk about each other does not serve any purpose, any positive purpose. It detracts and removes the respect we have for each other as a community. It removes this. That’s why we have no leadership. Because who do you want to follow? Everybody, you have trashed everyone. So who will you follow?
So I remind myself when you, let us stop this. I am not saying you are doing it. I am saying let us stop it. If somebody comes to you with this and says, “You know this, please excuse me, sorry, I am not interested.” You want to talk about the person, go talk to that person. If you are really interested, go talk to that person. No, no, but you know, I don’t know how to find a… Then shut up. Then please shut up. You don’t know how to find him, keep quiet. It’s not your job. You pray two Raka’at Tahajjud and in Sujood, you cry before Allah for that brother. You say, “Ya Allah, my brother is such a beautiful person. Ya Allah, correct him. This one thing he is doing wrong. Ya Allah, correct him.” This one thing you won’t do. You don’t want to wake up early. You don’t want to pray Tahajjud. You don’t want to cry for your brother. But you want to publish pamphlets and make YouTube videos. And believe me, every action like that which you do will be written against you in your book of deeds and will come to haunt you on the Day of Judgement. Every critical matter that you publish without going to the individual first to try to correct him, and this is floating around in cyberspace, is earning evil for you which you will find on your scales on the Day of Judgement. May Allah have mercy on us. Make no mistake.
Allah Ta’ala did not send us into this world to criticize and make Tanqeed of everybody else. It’s not our job. Let us focus on ourselves. What is the state of my Salah? What is the Khushu of my Salah? What is the state of my Tahara? Am I following the Sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ in my life? How much of that am I following? Am I being charitable or not? What are my Akhlaaq like? Believe me, if we focus on ourselves we will not have time for anybody else because we have got so much to do, and so much to correct in ourselves that there is no time to spend making Tafseers and discussing about other people. And as I said again, if there is somebody, some institution, some individual, some movement that you really think needs correction and you have the solution for it, go talk to the concerned people. Go talk to the people, the individual, who has the authority to do something about it. Don’t publish, whether it is writing or whether it is speaking or videos or what not, to the whole world. Because that is the finest way of destroying yourself.
Fama ‘alayna illa al-balaqul mubeen. My job is to draw this attention to myself, draw this to my own attention, and to the attention of all those who listen to this. Please stop this Tanqeedi behavior. This is destroying this Ummah. And if we do this, then we will be counted among those who destroyed this Ummah. May Allah immerse us. We ask Allah to help us to focus on ourselves, to correct ourselves, and to be genuinely concerned about one another, so that we make Dua for each other. And then if something has to be said to somebody, that Allah gives us the courage to go to that individual and speak to them in the best possible way, and convey what we have to convey. And that’s it. No need to fight with them, no need to argue with them, no need to try to convince them, nothing. Just convey, and come and make Dua, and continuously make Dua to Allahﷻ for that person or for that institution. And if somebody else comes and tries to tell you, “What do you think about so and so?” Excuse me, I’m sorry, I’m not interested. I don’t think about anybody. I’m thinking about myself. What do you think about so and so? I do not think about so and so. I think about myself. I’m concerned: Will I go to Jannah or not? I have no guarantee. I don’t know if I’ll go. So, I’m focused on myself. Do you know what so and so is doing? No, I don’t know, I don’t want to know. I do not know, and I do not want to know. So don’t tell me. Just tell them, very, very directly, tell them to their face. Don’t even let one word come out, because the one doing Dhiba, and the one listening to Dhiba, are equal. In the sight of Allahﷻ, both are equal. So even if you are not talking, if you are just listening, out of politeness, out of whatever, you are equally culpable, you are equally punishable, and your deeds are also going to the person who you are by talking.
So please, let us not fall into this trap. This is the worst. This is what is destroying this Ummah. Let us not be counted among those who destroyed this Ummah of Muhammad Rasool Allah ﷺ. We ask Allah to make us among those who work for the benefit of the Ummah, InshaAllah, and who are, and who try to be, the true Mutawa’een of Rasulullah ﷺ. And may Allah bless the noble Prophet, and his family, and all his family, with your mercy, my friends.