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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Friday Sermon
HAZRAT KHALIFATULLAH AL-MASSIH AL-MA’OUD
Munir Ahmad Azim
(22 Rajab 1432 Hijri)
(Summary of Friday Sermon)
After having greeted everybody with the Salutations of Peace, the Messiah (Massih’ullah) read the Tashahhud, Taouz and Surah Al Fatiha and he said:
I make a vibrant appeal to mothers to raise their children in the best condition of the Islamic tradition so that they may become the soldiers of Islam. The pure water which flows in the garden of Islam, one is the love of Allah, and the other is the love for His prophet (peace be upon him) and sacrifice which source from the heart of man. The other source found in the heart of the mother is maternal love and an instinctive need to raise her children in the right way.
The aim for the advent of a Messiah is to establish the superiority of Islam over all other religions in this era. We must do our utmost best to be victorious over our opponents, and we need that they accept the superiority and invincibility of Islam. The Promised Messiah (upon him be peace) made two prophecies about the victory of Islam:
1. Islam shall become the official religion in all countries. 2. This victory shall be poignant (a great victory) and will last for a long time and generations, one after the other shall participate in goodness and all favours of Islam.
In Chapter 55 of the Holy Quran, Allah has promised four paradises to the believers: Two shall be given to the Muslim in this temporal world whereas the other two will be given to them in the Hereafter. The believers shall enjoy these paradises for a long time.
Mothers must make all sorts of sacrifices so that their children may obtain a good place in paradise. They must make their children adopt completely the Islamic culture and to reject all that is un-Islamic.
There is a great responsibility which weight down on the shoulders of mothers because the future generations are in their hands, that is to say, they must raise their children properly and nurture in them the love of Allah and that of His prophet (peace be upon him). They must also teach these children to submit themselves completely to Allah; no one else! When they shall lay correctly this foundation – a solid base – then, what shall afterwards happen is their assured presence on that solid base. May mothers (in Islam) become pure and pious Muslim women so that they may fulfil their duty that Allah placed on their shoulders, Insha-Allah.
Children have been trusted (from Allah for a limited time) to parents. They have a pure heart which shines like a priceless diamond. Their minds are pure from all sides. One can even imprint an image in it. A child takes the direction which you (mothers and also both parents) give him or her. If you want him or her to become a wise person, then give your child a good education and raise him (or her) well. By the grace of Allah, if a child is correctly raised in a good environment, a good surrounding, he shall obtain the good (reserved for him) in this very life and in the Hereafter. If you neglect and leave him as if abandoned, and without any guide, then he shall go astray and it is the parents who shall be responsible for this state of affairs before Allah.
In Chapter 33, Section 4, Allah commands His prophet (peace be upon him) to tell his wives: “If you desire this world's life and its adornment, then come, I will give you a provision and allow you to depart a goodly departing, and if you desire Allah and His Messenger and the latter abode, then surely Allah has prepared for the doers of good among you a mighty reward.”
When this verse was revealed, Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) first communicated this divine message to his wife Aisha, and he told her to ponder over it and consult her parents before she reach any decision. We all know what Hazrat Aisha (May Allah be satisfied with her) told him. She categorically told her husband (peace be upon him): I need not ponder over it nor consult my parents on this subject. Allah and his Messenger are dearer to me than the goods and luxuries of this world.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) delivered the same divine message to his other wives and they also gave the same reply (as Aisha). There were nine wives in all who were living (at the time of this revelation). The wives of the Holy Prophet were known as “Mothers of the Faithful”. These mothers gave a great example to the other Muslim women of the world. After the revelation of that message, the mothers of the faithful realised that they cannot profit anything from the good and luxuries of this temporal world. How could they have enjoyed all these comforts when they knew that they were like travellers in the world?
When these verses of the Holy Quran were revealed, they found that it is life in the Hereafter which is a thousand times better that the present life. Therefore the wives of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) took the right decision, and it is the same decision which all Muslim women must take, when they prefer Allah, His Prophet and their Islam and the delights of the Hereafter to the temporary attractions of the present life. Along with men, they also must be ever ready to come forward to accept all sorts of privation and to do all sorts of sacrifices to serve Allah and Islam.
Therefore, you (women) also must copy the good examples of these “Mothers of the Faithful” and you must be ready to do all sorts of sacrifices so that Islam may triumph on earth. The present life holds no value; it is the other life which one must seek.
Before the advent of the great prophet of Arabia, women in all countries and religions underwent all sorts of vicious injustices. They were the victims of men who took them as objects of pleasure to satisfy their personal (lustful) needs. In some countries, even small girls were burnt alive, widows were forced to remain in their pitiable condition (where they cannot remarry), and on the death of their husbands, these women were forced to burn themselves alive, cremating themselves alongside the corpse of their husbands. In other cases, women have no right to possess property (or wealth).
The Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) came as the liberator and protector of the weaker sex. He announced that he had a special duty to protect women because they were ill-treated by men. By the grace of Allah, the Holy Quran proclaimed the essential equality which there is between the two sexes.
“O people! Fear your Lord, Who created you from a single soul and created therefrom its spouse, and from both of them spread many men and women.” (4: 2)
Because of this common origin, men and women are both equal. Women are a garment for the men and vice-versa.
Once the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) said: If a girl is correctly raised, therefore her father would be saved from the fire of Hell. If a man has sons and daughters or young brothers and sisters and if he gives them education and treat them well and cater for their needs, this man shall obtain paradise.
According to the teachings of Islam, parents have no right to marry their daughters according to their own desire without prior consent of their daughters. Like they do not force their sons, likewise they must not force their daughters. The principles of marriage have been well explained in the Holy Quran whereby each partner (boy or girl) has a different role to fulfil (in society) and they have the right to choose their life-partner.
Like the boys have a right to choose a girl to marry, likewise a girl also has the right to choose (her future husband). The Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) have both established and implemented certain laws where it becomes obligatory for a husband to give at the time of marriage a dowry (Mahr) to his wife for her personal spending, and this is an advantage which a wife enjoys and according to the Islamic laws, a man must give his wife some money for her personal expenditures, for them and their children.
Allah once made me understand that husbands must give the right example by giving their wives their dowry and that this does not mean that he stops spending on her. On the contrary, every month a husband must give his wife some money for her personal expenses.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) raised the intellectual and spiritual status of the woman. The acquisition of education is a duty for the Muslims, be them a boy or a girl. In the Holy Quran Allah has said:
“And whoever does good deeds whether male or female and he (or she) is a believer -- these shall enter the garden, and they shall not be dealt with a jot unjustly.” (4:125)
The founder of Islam (peace be upon him) showed us a great example where he married with widows and divorcees and treated them equally. He (peace be upon him) also rendered a vibrant homage and unique respect to maternity, and this you do not see in other religions, where he has made us understood that “Paradise lies at the feet of the mother.” All through his life Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) advised his companions to act with politeness towards women and he said that the best among them is the one who treat his wife well.
You know that the opponents of Islam have talked and written all sorts of crazy and false comments on our beloved prophet (peace be upon him). They even said that he was a man who kept many women and that he was an adulterer and that now his followers are following his example.
The Promised Messiah (upon him be peace) stood to fight these imbeciles. He was foremost to leap on them like a lion when he used to hear these stupid words and accusations being levelled on the prophet (peace be upon him). To show the value and beauty of his Sunna (of the Holy Prophet of Islam), he wrote in his Book “The Ark of Noah”:
“Today, women maintain some misconceptions about religion. They have a wrong perception of polygamy as if it were something wrong. They do not know that the Shariah of God provides the cure for all ills. Had the Shariah not permitted polygamy, there would not have been in Islam solutions to problems that man who is forced to take a second wife is confronted with...
Allah gave to women as examples in the Holy Quran (66:11-13) of ladies who attained to piety. Some of them were grateful to Allah for the favours He bestowed upon them while some were ungrateful to Allah and disobedient to their husbands.
“Allah sets forth an example to those who disbelieve the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot: they were both under two of Our righteous servants, but they acted treacherously towards them so they availed them naught against Allah, and it was said: Enter both the fire with those who enter.
And Allah sets forth an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh when she said: My Lord! build for me a house with Thee in the garden and deliver me from Pharaoh and his doing, and deliver me from the unjust people:
And Mariam, the daughter of Imran, who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her of Our inspiration and she accepted the truth of the words of her Lord and His books, and she was of, the obedient ones.”
WORDS OF ADVICE
“For me, of course, all of you are my spiritual children, and my prayers are, accordingly, for all of you alike... So I warn you against your indulging yourselves in the worldly temptation so much as to forget your spiritual development altogether. If you really wish to share the blessings of Allah, through your accepting the manifestations and revelations, you will have also to hand over your entire selves and all your belongings to Allah and thus bring death to your temporary pleasures.
1. The more is a man’s attachment to the world, the less is he likely to attain knowledge. The less his attachment to the world, the more is the probability of his gaining knowledge.
2. If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God.
3. That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true knowledge, all else is only a negation of knowledge. As soft clay easily takes an impression, but not hard stone, so also Divine Wisdom impresses itself on the heart of a devotee, but not on a bound soul.
4. He alone enters the kingdom of Heaven who is not a thief of his own thought. In other words, guilelessness and simple faith are the roads to that kingdom.” (Revelation ~ Received in English) |
