The Inner Circle

1
The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah Moulana Muhsinh
Hendricks
Alhamdulillah, nahmaduhu wa nastaeenuhu was
nastaghfir Wa nauthu billahi min shururi
anfusinaa wa min sayyiaati amaalina May
yahdillahu fa laa mudhilla lah Was may yudhlil fa
laa haadiya lah Wa nashhadu allah ilaha illallah
wahdahu laa shareeka lah wa nashhadu anna
muhammadan abduhu wa rasulullah All praise and
thanks is due to Allah. We praise Allah, we
seek assistance and forgiveness from Allah. And
we seek refuge in Allah from our lower selves and
from the wrongs we commit. Whoever Allah guides
no one can misguide, and whoever Allah leaves
astray, no one can guide. And we bear witness
that there is none worthy of worship but God,
the One who is unique and has no partners. And
we bear witness that Muhammad is Allahs servant
and messenger.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
????? ?????????? ????? ????????? ???????????
???????????? ???????? ????? ???????? ????????????
??????????? ??????????? ??? ??????? ?????????
??????????? ???????? ?????????? ????????????????
????????????? ??? ???????????? ?????????? ??????
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?????????? 5727 And thereupon We caused our
apostles to follow in their footsteps and We
caused them to be followed by Jesus, the son of
Mary, upon whom We bestowed the Gospel and in
the hearts of those who truly followed him We
engendered compassion and mercy. But as for
monastic asceticism - We did not enjoin it upon
them they invented it themselves out of a desire
for Gods goodly acceptance. But then, they did
not observe it as it ought to have been observed
and so We granted their recompense unto such of
them as had attained to faith, whereas many of
them became iniquitous.   
3
The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
In this Khutbah I will be drawing on the work
of by Umar Faruq Abd-Allah from the An-Nawawi
Institution. Two of the most contentious
concepts of Islam, bida (innovation) and ijtihad
(critical thinking) has given Islam great
historical mobility, yet at the same time
maintained Islams originality and preservation
as a dynamic faith. The fastest growing
ideology in the world today.
http//www.nawawi.org/downloads/article4.pdf
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The allegation that something is bida is often
made rashly, marginalizing new ideas and making
creativity difficult. For some Muslims, the
term has become a means by which their own ideas
are justified and the ideas of others made
erroneous. So much so that they are even brave
enough to declare critical thinking and creative
Muslims as out of the fold of Islam
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
As a result of this attitude, the intellectual
health and wealth of the Muslim community is
suffering tremendously.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The concept of bida, contrary to its use today,
tended to be negative one. The allegation that
something was a bida meant that it violated the
tribal code or a tribal custom. It constituted
a hateful innovation caused by deviating from the
ways of patriarchs of past.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Make example of how the different sects in Islam
makes the other wrong by the use of the word Bida
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The concept of Ijtihad suffers the same fate.
Some restrict its use so severely that it ceases
to be functional. The doors of Ijtihad has been
closed Have to be a Mujtahid No ordinary person
are allowed to free think when it comes to
religious matters.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Others apply it so freely that it becomes
arbitrary and undermines any semblance of
authenticity. Then there are those who think so
freely and creatively that everything is
justified and made good for their own good.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
In the pre-Islamic context, the
Prophet Muhammads condemnation of idolatry was
seen as a bida, a concrete threat to the tribal
order of Arabia. The Prophet made the opposite
claim and turned the bida controversy on its
head, by asserting the Abraham was a Patriarch
and the Arabs have deviated from the practice of
this patriarch. So the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
cleverly used the concept of bidah to his own
benefit.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
With the advent of Islam, the term sunna came to
be closely connected with the normative teaching
and conduct of the Prophet Muhammad, whereas
Sunna before the advent of Islam referred to the
customs and practices of the tribes. Later,
after the demise of the Prophet (saw) bida
became contrasted with sunna (established
tradition). And we see today how the Muslim
community is pushed to extremes, either you
follow the sunnah strictly or you are committing
bidah
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
But the Quran continues to give us the guidance
to stay in the balance
?????????? ????????????? ??????? ???????
????????????? ???????? ????? ???????? ?????????
?????????? ?????????? ???????? And we intended
for you to be a Nation just balanced.... So that
you may become testimony of that to mankind and
the Prophet testimony to you.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
We cannot say everything is a bida in the
literal sense of the word otherwise we would have
to question everything that came into existence
after the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) passed
away. And similarly we cannot say that every
practice of ours would have to be within the
Sunnah in the literal sense of the word otherwise
all our practices from wearing knitted sock to
brushing teeth has to be questioned.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
An intriguing reference to bida is the second
caliph Umars decision to institute Tarawih
prayers during the nights of Ramadan, which he
introduced within a decade of the Prophets
death. The Prophet once led his Companions in
similar prayers for a few nights of Ramadan
shortly before his death, but discontinued the
practice, expressing concern that if he continued
leading the vigils, God would give them
obligatory status through revelation, and the
additional obligation would impose an excessive
burden upon the Muslim community.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
During his caliphate, Umar observed the
people praying either individually or in small
groups in the Prophets mosque during the nights
of Ramadan. He took the decision to make them a
single group behind one prayer leader,
instituting the Ramadan vigil as a group prayer.
Entering the mosque on a following night, he saw
the congregation praying together and declared
What an excellent bida is this!
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Did Umar violate the sunnah of the Prophet which
states Kullu bidatin dalaala wa kullu
dalaalata fin naar - Every innovation is
misguidance, and the path of every misguidance
leads to the Fire.? Or did he institute
something for his community that he as a leader
felt was beneficial in terms of creating
unity? It was an innovation, for the GREATER
GOOD
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Ibn Abd al-Barr was among those who held that
bida was strictly ritualistic As for making
innovations in the practical workings of this
world, no constriction and no fault pertains to
one who does so. Technological progress,
crafts, building projects, urban development, and
the like does not constitute bida according to
him.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The fundamental reason for bida retrictions is
so that Islam can continue to be conserved and
preserved. The criteria of bida impose a
restrictive frame on creative ideas to ensure
continuity with tradition and conformity with
legal principle. However the same can be said,
that if we look at the gradual nature of Islams
existence and subsequent growth, it was through
bida and Ijtihad. Hence, one cannot negate the
use of these concepts as we evolve through a
technological age and still maintain a sense of
Islamicity.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The constructive potential of bida as a
regulatory instrument is reinforced in Islamic
law by the intellectual process of ijtihad, which
has extensive legal authority and serves as a
complement to the notion of bida. By nature,
ijtihad is empowering, forward-looking, and
creative.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Al-Baji, a traditional Sunni jurist, defined
ijtihad as expending ones fullest
intellectual capacity in search of the right
ruling.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The word Ijtihad is derived from the same root as
jihad. Their common radical, JaHaDa, denotes
expending the fullest effort to achieve a
difficult but worthy goal. The concept of jihad
is not Holy war, but essentially an active
ethical principle for improving the world through
personal and group effort. Its high point,
however, is the inner struggle for discipline and
self-knowledge.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
In other words, Jihad and Ijtihad is a constant
striving toward the better, or the greater good,
be it on a physical or cognitive level.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Dr Fazlur Rahman speaks of ijtihad as an
intellectual and moral jihad or, more concretely,
as the effort to understand the meaning of a
relevant text or precedent in the past,
containing a rule, and to alter that rule by
extending or restricting or otherwise modifying
it in such a manner that a new situation can be
subsumed under it by a new solution.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
George Makdisi, Ph.D., emeritus professor of
Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of
Pennsylvania notes, that Ijtihad is evident of
the existence of classical Islamic schools of
thought and it was imperative for them to use it
to create the Shariah law many decades after the
demise of the Prophet (pbuh)
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Ijtihad is inherently creative and optimistic.
The Prophet promised that those who performed it
assiduously would be rewarded in the next world,
even if their answers were technically incorrect.
He stated If a judge hakim does ijtihad and
gets the right answer, he receives two rewards,
and, if he is mistaken, he gets one. Ali ibn
al-Qassar, ed. Muhammad ibn al-Husayn
al-Sulaymani, Al-Muqaddima fi al-Usul, (Beirut
Dar al Gharb al-Islami, 1996), 114-115 Sulayman
ibn Khalaf al-Baji, ed. Abd al-Majid al-Turki,
Ihkam al-Fusul Ihkam fi Ahkam al-Usul, 2 vols.
(Beirut Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1995),
2714-716 Ubayd-Allah ibn Umar al-Dabbusi, ed.
Mahmud Tawfiq al-Rifai, Al-Asrar fi al-Usul wa
al-Furu fi Taqwim Adillat al-Shar, 4
vols.(Amman Wizarat al-Awqaf, 1999), 3114-116
Ibn Amir al-Hajj, Al-Taqrir wa al-Tahbir, 3 vols.
(Beirut Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1983), 3306.
The Ibadis took essentially the same position.
See al-Kindi, Bayan al-Shar, 192-93.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Abu Zayd al-Dabusi (died 430 A.H.), a prominent
Sunni jurist, noted that what may be allowable in
one time or place may become prohibited in
another, because of changing circumstances, just
as what was prohibited may become allowable by
the same criterion. He added that changing times
and places are not the only considerations there
are others, such as the particular realities of a
persons social group. What is beneficial for one
segment of society may be harmful for another. 48
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
We need to ask ourselves, after having a clear
understanding of the diversity within sexuality
From what basis, in what context and for what
purpose was it concluded approx.1200 years ago
that homosexuality is synonymous to the act of
sodomy and that homosexuality is punishable by
death?
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
The renowned Sunni jurist al-Qarafi asserted that
there was scholarly consensus (ijma) on harshly
reprimanding religious scholars who handed down
legal judgments mechanically without performing
ijtihad and merely followed the ancient texts in
their books literally without regard for new
realities on the ground. The fault of such
jurists was inexcusable and constituted
disobedience of God.49
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
A great jurist of the next generation, Ibn
al-Qayyim, commented on al-Qarafis opinion,
saying This is pure understanding of the law.
Whoever issues legal rulings to the people
merely on the basis of what is transmitted in the
compendia despite differences in their customs,
usages, times, places, conditions, and the
special circumstances of their situations has
gone astray and leads others astray. His crime
against the religion is greater than the crime of
a physician who gives people medical
prescriptions without regard to the differences
of their climes, norms, the times they live in,
and their physical conditions but merely in
accordance with what he finds written down in
some medical manual about people with similar
anatomies. Such a person is an ignorant
physician the other is an ignorant legal scholar
but more detrimental.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
So we need to state boldly By regurgitating
1200 year scholars conclusions on homosexuality
without a valid ijtihadic process followed
regarding homosexuality as we understand it
today, is unIslamic. And the process of ijtihad
must be informed by all the sciences for it to
carry enough weight. As Allah mentions in the
Quran Fasal ahladh dhikri in kuntum laa
talamoon Ask those who with knowledge (who
remembers it) if you dont know.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Barakallahu lee wa lakum fil quranil kareem Wa
nafanee wa iyyakum bil aayaati wa dhikril
hakeem Innahu jawaadun malikun barrun rabbur
raoofur raheem May Allah bless me and you
through the guidance of this noble Quran And may
it teachings and remembrances benefit me and
you Truly Allah is the possessor of wealth, the
sovereign, the all good, the one who has
authority over us, the all-loving and
all-merciful.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Sit between Khutbahs
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
For more than a millennium, the process of
speculative ijtihad was the monopoly of
traditional scholars, and the requirements they
set for it remained largely unchallenged. It is
vital for Muslims today to have an authentic and
sophisticated understanding of bida as a
regulatory mechanism and of ijtihad as a process
for inducing Islamic creativity.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
In Islam, like other faith traditions whether
of innovation and heresy, creativity or the lack
of it are never set in stone, nor do they
emerge from a vacuum.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Classical Islamic thought was the product of a
particular socio-political milieu. Contrary to
the Activist cliché that there is no separation
of Religion and State in Islam, Muslim religious
establishments for more than a millennium were
largely free of governmental control.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Unlike the Muslim world today, the
classical Islamic world was culturally advanced,
economically and militarily formidable, and
relatively stable politically. Above all, as Dr
Fazlur Rahman stresses, it produced generations
of thinkers who were self-assured and
psychologically invincible in confronting new
challenges.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Unlike the Muslim world today, the
classical Islamic world was culturally advanced,
economically and militarily formidable, and
relatively stable politically. Above all, as
Fazlur Rahman stresses, it produced generations
of thinkers who were self-assured and
psychologically invincible in confronting new
challenges.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
It should be sufficiently clear from what has
preceded that the concept of bida should
constitute a standard of excellence and not a
blanket condemnation of every unfamiliar practice
or new solution.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
It should set the guidelines for critical
thought, not prevent them. It should foster
personal and group expression and not stifle it.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Sound conception of the process of ijtihad should
serve as a positive source of inspiration for the
entire Muslim community, scholars and
non-scholars alike, in the search for meaningful
answers to contemporary challenges.
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The Inner Circle Friday Khutbah
Allahummansur man nasra deena Muhammad
Allahummansuril mujahideena fee qulli makaan
Allahumma Yassir wa laa tuassir Allahumma tammim
bil ghayr wa antal kareemu muyassir O Allah,
assist those who assist the cause of Muhammad O
Allah, assist all those who strive towards good
in every place O Allah, make things easy for us
and remove difficulty O Allah, complete us in
Goodness, Truly You are the most noble of all
those who provides assistance. Innallaha wa
malaaikatahu yusolloona alan nabi yaa
ayyuhallatheena aamanu sollu alayhi wa sallimoo
tasleema. Wa aakhiri dawaanaa anil hamdu lillahi
rabbil aalameen Truly Allah and the Angels sends
blessings and salutations on the Prophet
Muhammad, O you who believe, send greetings and
salutations upon him. And the final word is that
all praise and thanks is due to Allah, the
Authority over all creation. ????? ??? ???????
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????????? ???????? ??? ??????????? 2945 Recite
what is sent of the Book by inspiration to thee,
and establish regular Prayer for Prayer
restrains from shameful and unjust deeds and
remembrance of Allah is the greatest (thing in
life) without doubt. And Allah knows the (deeds)
that ye do. Let us stand for prayer!