Khutbah #16 - 16/10/98

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Alhamdulillahi rabbil'alamin wa salaatu wa salaamu ala Rasulihi  

Now I want to keep the Khutbahs shorter, but in a subject as complex and misunderstood as Islam, it is hard to say anything worth saying in a few minutes. But we have to do our best. However briefly we have to try to deal with the difficult subjects.

A couple of years ago I was being interviewed on the radio, and after a brief lead in asking how muslims might suffer from prejudice, in one sentence the interviewer mentioned Fundamentalism, Terrorism, Lockerbie, Militant School Separatism, Book-burning, Salman Rushdie death-threats, and the veiling and oppression of women, including female circumcision for good measure. She then gave me five frequently interrupted minutes to explain it all away for the listeners.

Of course, as she knew, for any one of the subjects raised it would have taken an hour to even agree on any common basis of understanding to start a discussion. But at least we have the advantage that in dealing with near absolute ignorance, all possible answers have to begin with first principles - and as muslims we all know the first principles - don't we? I'm sure we do - Even if they are buried under the religious accretions of a lifetime.

You are highly intelligent men and women. You have to know what you believe, especially when those around you think it's all a lot of nonsense.

I once set up an exhibition about Islam, and had to talk about it to parties of local schoolchildren. First display screen - Muhammad is visited by the Archangel Gabriel - cue for streams of teenagers to collapse into helpless snorts and giggles of embarrassed laughter.

I presume they thought that nowadays the man would have been consigned to the local mental hospital and given some good strong drugs to get rid of his delusions. So here we have a seminal point in our Islam, the initial revelation to the Prophet, and certainly to local schoolchildren it's pretty much a hysterical nonsense. Fairy tales, or fables about a madman. Unreal.

What about muslim kids - is it real to them - or you? Or are things like angels things you agree to believe in but not discuss? Like a friend who emigrated to the USA, and part of the process is to be asked if you believe in democracy. "What do you mean by democracy?" he said - to be told by immigration "Never mind what it means. Just say that you believe in it."

Now it may seem that I have been harping on about angels for ever, last week and this, but I'm not really talking about angels. I'm talking about what you believe - what you believe is real. I'm talking about Iman.

In the cave at Hira, Muhammad the merchant saw and heard and felt an angel. As he ran, he saw it again, astride the horizon in whatever direction he looked, reaching up to the peak of the sky. As muslims, presumably you accept this as true - but was it real? In the same way that you accept your everyday experiences as real? When the angels were seen alongside the muslim army - was that real? Do we see life as having that capacity for wonder and miracle today?

It is the world of Iman that integrates that miracle and wonder of creation into our understanding. And understanding, God willing, brings us closer to the Prophet. Muhammad was human, like you. How would you react if, out of thin air, a wondrous creature appeared before you. Shock, Awe, Terror, and eventually probably Relief that you had survived the experience.

And when it seemed to be over, would you quickly transform your understanding of what you had previously thought of as the boundaries of the real world, or would you first question your sanity?

The Prophet thought he might have become possessed, and fled to the person closest to him, Khadija, where with love and support he regained his composure. It is never easy to challenge the accepted truth that surrounds you. As Ibn Ishaq reported the response of Waraqah - "You will be called a liar, and ill-treated, and banished, and they will make war on you; and if I live to see that day, God knows I will help His cause."

Then, shortly afterwards, the Prophet received the first verses of Surah Nun.

"By the Pen, and what they write, by the blessing of your Lord, you are not mad or possessed. Surely for you is a Reward unfailing; and truly you possess a mighty morality. So you shall see, and they will see, which of you is afflicted with madness." (68: 1-6)

*****

So we believe in God, and the Angels, and God's Messengers, and Muhammad as the Seal of God's Messengers, and in God's Books, and in particular God's words in the Qur'an, preserved for mankind throughout the centuries since their revelation, in the minds hearts and prayers of a vast global community of believers.

But those who cannot find a way to believe in God, let alone the Angels, find it impossible to believe that any hypothetical Creator might be inclined to even notice our wee specks of matter in the corner of an incomprehensibly vast universe. But just like much of modern science, just because it goes against common sense doesn't make it untrue.

This point of contact between mankind and the Creator, like a window into the Will of the Creator, yet a communication expressed in human language. This is the intrusion of a greater Truth into the mundane version of truth that is the limit of human capacity - and the truth of the Qur'anic reality is awesome. We preserve a treasure for mankind, a treasure to which most muslims barely give a second thought.

From the Qur'an, the chapter called The Gathering, vv.21-24 "If We had sent this Qur'an down upon a mountain you would have seen it humbled, split asunder in awe of God. And such likenesses - We strike them for men so that they will think about them."

From the chapter called Jonah: "This Qur'an could not have been made by other than God; but it is a confirmation of what is before it, and a distinguishing of the Book, in which is no doubt, from the Lord of all Being." (10. 37)

We shall explore the writings of the Pen, and the Book in which there is no doubt, in future Khutba's. Insh'Allah!

O God, forgive us, and have mercy on us, and guide us, and grant us security, and grant us sustenance.