Month: May 2023

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa describes a visiting Saudi university official who objected to seeing God’s name alone on the masjid wall, and reads absurd traditional writings about the “light of Muhammad.” He then shares new findings on the mathematical miracle (the words “Quran,” “messenger” and “one,” the Bismillahs and the total number of verses) and reports that a predicted series of government changes in the Muslim world has come true.

Video Transcript:

There’s a big switch this year. This marks a new era, and the switch is from the religious leaders, like the Pope and the Jewish leaders and the Muslim leaders, to academia: the academic people, who include Jews, Christians and Muslims, who will look at the data of the Quran objectively and then tell the world about it, adding the credibility of academic research. This is what’s happening this coming year.

Yesterday, we had the vice president of the biggest Islamic university in Saudi Arabia and three of his people come here and discuss the matter of worshiping God alone, and you know all their arguments. But one thing happened that stands out, that I don’t think you or I will ever forget, and it’s something that I don’t think Satan himself would dare do. That man objected to having this on the wall by itself. He wanted Muhammad next to it. Instead of being pleased with seeing the name of God on the wall, he actually criticized it. I mean, unbelievable as this may be.

We have a sign on the wall out there saying, “Happiness is devotion to God.” And that sign pleases all the believers in God, including Jews and Christians; even the hardcore Jesus worshipers are pleased with it. They call us and tell us how much it pleases them to drive by and see it in the morning, or in the evening. But this man was upset to see the name of God alone up there.

These people worship Muhammad, just like the Christians worship Jesus. I mean, they’re all human beings, and they’re all victims of Satan in the same way. I want to read for you some of the writings about Muhammad. Actually, I don’t want to do that, because it’s kind of crazy; I’d rather concentrate on our positive data. But since I opened the page, I will read just a couple of things to give you an idea, and then I will get to our good results.

Okay. The title is “The Creation of the Greatest Ruh,” or spirit, and it is the light of “our master and Prophet Muhammad,” is what they’re saying, “peace and blessings be upon him.” It says here, “Then God, Allah Ta’ala, looked at that light again, and it sweated from modesty before God. From the sweat of its nose, God created the angels.” This is now the light of Muhammad. “From the sweat of its face, He created the Throne.” Poor God didn’t have any throne to sit on until the light of Muhammad sweated on its face. “He created the Throne, the Footstool, the Tablet, the Pen, the sun, the moon, the veils and the stars, and what is in the heavens. From the sweat of its breast, He created the prophets, the messengers, the ulama,” no wonder, “the martyrs and the salihun,” that is, the righteous people. It just goes on and on. “From the sweat of its back, and from the sweat of the two eyebrows, He created the community of Muhammad.” And the Muslims, both men and women, were all created from the sweat of the eyebrows of Muhammad.

There is a part here: “Then God commanded all the souls of creation to look at the form of Muhammad, and so they looked at it. Whoever saw his hand became a khalifa.” I don’t want my name in there. In parentheses: “ruler and sultan among creatures.” “Whoever saw his forehead became a just prince. Whoever saw his eyes became one who preserves the word of Allah.” And it goes on like that. “Whoever saw his lips became a cabinet minister. Whoever saw his nose became a doctor. Whoever saw his mouth became one who fasts. Whoever saw his teeth became one who is beautiful of face among men and women.” I’m going to skip here. “Whoever saw his neck became a merchant. Whoever saw his breast became a scholar. Whoever saw his abdomen became one who does ruku’ and sujood.” By the way, they skipped from here down. “Whoever saw his feet became a hunter. Whoever saw his shadow became a singer.”

There’s another place here: “Whoever saw his fingers became a scribe. Whoever saw the fingers of his right hand became a tailor, and whoever saw his left hand became an ironsmith. Whoever saw his left palm became a miser. Whoever saw the back of his right hand became a cook.” Do we have any cooks here? “Whoever saw his right palm became a money changer and embroiderer,” whatever the relationship is. “Whoever saw his left palm became a corn measurer.” You know, the corns that grow on your toes? “Whoever saw his throat became a muezzin.” There’s some place where somebody saw some finger and became a carpenter, and so on. But I’m going to close with this; this is ridiculous: “Whoever saw nothing became a Jew, a Christian, a Zoroastrian or a kafir,” a disbeliever. So there are no carpenters among the Jews, and there are no tailors among the Christians. It’s nonsense, a bunch of nonsense. And this man had the gall to say, “Why do you have God alone on the wall?”

Now let’s get to the serious, positive work that we’re doing. I was visiting with my brother in California last weekend, and we checked on some of the results of the research. He got hold of the index of the Quran, and we looked up a few words. I just want you to be most familiar with this great, great miracle. God calls it one of the greatest miracles. It will show you that when you read the Quran, you are reading God’s message to you. It will give you full confidence that it is not just any human being who wrote the Quran and is fooling you, or that its statements are not reliable or trustworthy. You will have full confidence. So I’m going to keep informing you, keeping you up to date with this information.

My brother looked up the word “Quran” in the index of the words of the Quran, which counts every word and is proven to be correct, except as far as the count of the word “Allah” is concerned, where they made the same mistake that the computer made; you know about that. He found that the list said 58. But in Sura number 10 there is one statement where the disbelievers say, “Bring us a Quran other than this one.” So you remove that, minus one, and the mention of “Quran” is 57, 19 times 3. And when you take the numbers assigned to the chapters and the numbers assigned to the verses where this word is found, the total is 2660, which is a multiple of 19: 19 times 140.

And then we looked up the word “messenger,” and he found in the index that the total was 116. You see, a person who doesn’t know looks at this and says, “Well, this number is not a multiple of 19.” But one of these 116 is the messenger of Pharaoh, in chapter 12: the messenger of Pharaoh went to Joseph to ask him about the dream of the king. So he removed that. Another “rasool” is mentioned in the last two verses of Sura 9. So there are two of them that you remove, and you have a total of 114. Okay, these are things that you should be familiar with: 19 times 6.

And then we looked up the word “one,” “wahid,” and it said 25. But six of them had nothing to do with God. That God is one is mentioned in the Quran 19 times, and when you take the numbers assigned to the chapters and the numbers assigned to the verses, they add up to a total which is a multiple of 19. So I will let you absorb this much, which was repeated before, and think about it, as we all repent and ask God to forgive us and help us along His right path.

We praise God, and we bear witness that He is the only Lord and Savior. There is only one God. Lisa Spray continues to make discoveries, and she wants to share with us what she found out lately by adding the verse and sura numbers. This is what God wants to teach us now: that the numbers assigned to the verses and the numbers assigned to the chapters are dictated by God Himself. They are not man-made. Also the sequence of the chapters as we have it: miraculously, the sequence of the chapters has nothing to do with the sequence of revelation of the chapters.

As you know, this is very simple, and you’re going to remember it and see how everything in the Quran is divine, not man-made. We have a missing Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim in chapter 9; there is no Bismillah. And we know that this is made up in chapter 27. There, there is zero Bismillah, and here there are two. And you know that when you count the suras, starting with number 9 here and ending here, you have 19 suras between the missing Bismillah and the extra Bismillah. There’s an opening Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim in this sura, and then in verse 30 we see the Queen of Sheba receiving a letter from Solomon, and the letter was “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful,” Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim, in verse 30.

Now, very simply, any of you can go home and do this: add 9, plus 10, plus 11, plus 12, up to 27. The total is 342, 19 times 18. Now see, why did God eliminate the Basmalah, the Bismillah, from this chapter and put it in this chapter? This particular series of numbers, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 up to 27, when you add them up, gives you this total, 342. But this is half the story. It turns out that these two Bismillahs are in the opening, let’s say verse 0, and then you find the extra Bismillah in verse 30. You count the number of words between the two Bismillahs, and it is this number. How do you like that? I mean, it’s a design that nobody can dream up: the number of words between the two Bismillahs.

So this is all I want you to know. There’s one more thing; there’s just so much. I was talking to Ismail Barakat in Canada today, and he used a word that I can’t remember. It’s not “explode,” but he said the miracle is exploding. I’m going to remember the expression he used, which was perfect. But this is what’s happening now. It’s really a blessed explosion, to overwhelm the world and to show how blind the top religious leaders are, like the man who objected to having the name of Allah alone on the wall. If there is a pope in Islam, this is the second man. He’s the vice president of the top Islamic university, and he knows nothing about the miracle. In fact, they were so pitifully ignorant, I didn’t even want to open the discussion on it or say anything about it.

And interestingly, they didn’t want to talk about it, and they didn’t attack it, which tells me that there are some quarters in Saudi Arabia that have discovered the truthfulness of the miracle and told these people, so they don’t want to discuss it. And for the first time, they never attacked it. They didn’t say, “Bismillah is so many letters,” or… It was the first time. I learned a lot by discussing these matters with them.

The other thing that Lisa wrote down here was the number of verses from the first Quranic initials, A.L.M., in Sura 2, verse 1. You count the verses (this is a huge number now), you add up the verses all the way to the word 19 in the Quran (that’s right, you know what I’m going to say), and the total is 5515. Now, there are many angles to this miracle, and one of the things that we must not ignore is the Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim at the head of the suras. Between this verse and this verse here, which is 74:30, there are 71 Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahims. And when you add these, the total comes to 5586, or 19 times 294.

The Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahims are recognized as unnumbered verses, and they are counted when you add up all the verses of the Quran. Including the 112 unnumbered Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahims, the total is a multiple of 19. It is 6346. Right. This is 19 times 334. This is the total number of verses in the Quran, including all the Bismillahs, 112 of them.

There are a few more items that I would like to talk to you about, but we’re running out of time, so I will mention one more item that came across via satellite. One of our people in Morocco, his name is Yacoubi Kamal, called, and he read from the Muslim Perspective of September 1986, Muharram 1st, 1406, where I had consulted the Quran, and the message was loud and clear. After seeking refuge in God from Satan, I wrote this. I said, “Almost all present governments in the region will reject and scoff at this offer.” If you recall, I had sent letters to every president and every king of every Muslim country in the world, the Arab and Muslim countries, and I invited them, with evidence, to form a United Islamic Nation.

And when I consulted the Quran (I will show you the verse in Sura 9, by the way), it says, “Do they not see that they are put to the test once or twice every year?” And this caused me to add this: “Consequently, there will be a change of government in that region at the rate of at least three governments every two years,” because once or twice a year means three every two years, “until a government comes with the specific objective of joining the United Islamic Nation.”

Now, this looks like a flaky thing to some people, but it turns out to be true. Exactly two years after the publication of this statement, Habib Bourguiba, the president of Tunisia, was removed, and a new government was installed. And this happened next door to our brother Kamal. So we had three governments fall: the government of Sudan, President Numeiri, remember him? And the government of Yemen, President Ali Nasser Muhammad. And finally, the third one was President Bourguiba of Tunisia.

Now, for those dictators, the most important thing, the only thing they care about in life, is their throne, their government. And the only thing that will make them do anything or move at all is the fear that their throne is threatened. It’s the only way they’ll do anything. They also act as if they will live forever. They all do. And they never learn from their past experiences. But I wanted you to be aware of this, and I find it very interesting that in the two years we did have three of those governments fall. By the way, those governments were named; I did name the governments that received that letter.

So we’ll see what happens. I’m going to write it in the new Perspective. I’m going to ask the question, “Who’s going to be next?” And I’m going to mail it to all the presidents and kings of that area. So may God guide us all and help us to be in His kingdom.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains why we must love God most of all: when we sided with Satan’s blasphemy, the angels would have sent us all to Hell, but God, the Most Merciful, gave us a second chance to return to His kingdom. He also explains why God permitted two false verses to remain in the Quran for 1,400 years.

Video Transcript:

Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is no god except the One God. I will just be chatting with you, since I did not really prepare anything, and I want to talk about loving God.

It’s a rhetorical question: should we love God, and why? And to understand why we should love God, and how much: the Quran describes the believers as loving God the most, that is, more than anything else, and I will try to share with you the logical reasons why we should, why we must, love God. So, if you go back in history a few billion years, we had billions of creatures of God who were not classified. They were not angels, or humans, or jinns. Yet there was God and His kingdom.

And then one of the creatures developed this blasphemous idea that challenged God’s absolute authority. Satan thought that he could also be a god. He had enough power and enough qualifications, he thought, to serve as a god in his own right. So he initiated this blasphemy. Among the creatures were some who were almost as egotistic and as proud as Satan, and they said to themselves, “Yeah, Satan…” Those creatures were almost equal; some were stronger than others by virtue of whatever God gave them. But they thought that, yes, Satan has enough qualities, enough qualifications, to be a god besides God. These creatures were also egotistic. They had ego, they had pride, and subconsciously they were thinking, “Yes, we too, you know, we’re close to Satan, we’re almost equal, so we too can be gods, maybe.” But this was all in their heads.

So they committed the blasphemy, but not to the same extent as Satan. They blasphemed against God; they thought mentally that they could challenge, or they challenged, His absolute authority. Now, God’s absolute authority is not an egotistic practice on the part of God, may He be glorified, but it is because it is the truth. The truth is that only God can run a kingdom where He is the God. The truth is that there is no one else who can run a kingdom.

So God decided, as we’ve been talking about, to put Satan to the test. He said, “The one who initiated the blasphemy, I will make him a god and see what he can do.” Prove that he is incompetent, that he cannot do it, because this is the best way to find out. If you claim to be able to fly a plane, the best way to find out is to put you in a plane and say, “Here, go ahead and fly it.”

And this is what God decided to do with Satan. And all those creatures who agreed with Satan were destined to become his subjects, to witness his incompetence, and, as a matter of fact, to suffer his incompetence. But anyway, at this moment the creatures became classified.

The creatures who accepted God’s absolute authority without hesitation, without any question, became angels, or they were angels. Satan, who challenged God’s absolute authority, became a jinn, became a fallen angel. He received a judgment, a sentence, to be confined to the innermost universe (this comes later, of course) and to be put to the test. And then his descendants, Satan’s descendants, are the jinns. And the creatures who mentally agreed with Satan, you and me, became humans. These became the human beings.

Now, the angels, as you know from the Quran, from Sura number 2… When God said, “I’m going to put Satan to the test; I’m going to send these creatures and give them a second chance,” God was giving us a second chance to denounce the blasphemy of challenging His absolute authority. And to come now, in these circumstances, where we start clean: we are born into this world forgetting everything else, starting all over again. And now we can denounce any shirk, any idea of having another god besides God, and believe in the absolute authority of God alone. If we can do this, then we go back to the kingdom of God.

So God willed that we get another chance. What did the angels say? “Send them all to Hell.” The angels said, “Are You going to put on Earth those who are going to corrupt it and shed blood?” Remember that from Sura number 2? So in effect, what are they saying? God said, “I’m going to give these creatures a chance to come back to Me.” The angels said, “Send them all to Hell.”

Should we love God or not? If it were up to the angels, who believed in God’s absolute authority, we would now be in Hell. There would be no test, no seven universes, no planet Earth; it would be just Hell. We would be dismissed from God’s kingdom, and you and I would now be in Hell.

But God, who described Himself as Al-Rahman Al-Rahim, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful, said, “I’m giving them another chance to come to Me.” Do you think we should love God? Should we not love God for that? This is why we should love God. We find this dispute in the High Society in Sura 38, verse 69, and I also found traces of it, or maybe not even traces, maybe the same thing, in the Bible, in the previous scripture: Romans 3:23, which is a multiple of 19, chapter 3, verse 23.

I guess I didn’t write the verse here. Oh, yeah, okay. I didn’t write it here, but now I remember it. It talks about the fact that we have all sinned. We have all challenged God’s absolute authority. We have committed a crime; that’s why we are here. A terrible, terrible crime, for which the angels thought that we should go to Hell right away. You probably have seen Romans 6:23, where it says, “The wages of sin is death.” A very famous statement: the wages of sin is death.

Because, as a consequence of this rebellion, Satan’s rebellion and yours and mine, the system that God designed called for putting all those creatures to death. You and I were dead before we came here. God created death as a consequence of that blasphemy. So “the wages of sin is death” comes from that origin. And then in Hebrews 1:3, they talk about purging our sins. Purging our sins means denouncing our idolatry, idolatry being the idea that there may be a god besides God, so that we can become “sons,” quote-unquote, of God, which means going back to the kingdom of God.

Repent. Let’s try to get back. Alhamdulillah. We praise God, and we bear witness that there is no god except He.

We committed that blasphemy, and to put it bluntly, the angels said, “Send them all to Hell,” and God said, “I know what you do not know.” God said, “I’m going to give them another chance.” But when we look around us, we see how bad we are, how bad the human race is.

They are so bad, it’s not even funny. They are so bad that there is not a single mosque in the world, other than this mosque and a few associated with it, where God is commemorated alone, where God is the absolute God. Every single mosque in the world is violating the commandment in 72:18 that says, “The masjids belong to God; do not call on any other name besides His name.” And try to ask them to say “La ilaha illa Allah,” there is no god except God. We have a mosque right here; just try it. I mean, it’s not even three miles from here. Tell them “La ilaha illa Allah,” and they’ll beat you up. They will actually get violent.

That’s a typical mosque, and they only beat you up because you’re here in America, because this is a civilized world. Over there, they’ll kill you for saying “La ilaha illa Allah.” They’re so bad. Every church in the world, the biggest ones, the cathedrals, all those beautiful buildings: they’re always rebelling against God, saying Jesus is God, or the Son of God, or the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. See, this is who we are. Initially, we challenged God’s absolute authority. And we are the few about whom God told the angels, “I know what you do not know.”

I was writing a footnote in the new translation on why God allowed two verses, false verses, to be injected into the Quran for 1,400 years. Why did He permit it for 1,400 years? It’s because just a few years after the Prophet’s death, they reverted to idolatry. The Muslims reverted to idolatry. Only this time around, their idol was the Prophet, who defeated them. The Prophet won the war, and they became Muslims, but a few years later they reverted to idolatry. They did not deserve the Quran. And they killed Ali and his family, which is the Prophet’s family. They killed the Prophet’s family because of these two verses.

And I have the documents; you’re going to see the documents in the footnote. I didn’t mean to get into the subject, but since I got into it: during the time of Uthman, the Khalifa formed a committee to make copies of the Quran, to take the original Quran that the Prophet wrote with his own hand, make copies from it, and send them to the new lands. They had opened new lands in Syria, Damascus, Iraq and so on, and they wanted to send these copies there. Now, Sura 9 was the last sura revealed in Medina. The Prophet had written all these suras, with the instructions as to where each one goes.

And one of the scribes, or maybe two, suggested, “Since these copies are going to new lands, let us honor our Prophet and add a couple of verses praising him.” Ali was a member of that committee. Uthman was the supervisor; he was the Khalifa. Ali was a member, Zaid ibn Thabit was a member, Ubayy ibn Ka’b was a member, and maybe some others.

So when this suggestion came up, Ali was outraged. And then, as a consequence of that suggestion, Uthman was killed, Ali became the Khalifa, and the supporters of the two verses waged war on Ali. Fifty years of war came after that because of these two verses, and they culminated in the battle of Karbala, where Hussein and the whole family of the Prophet were wiped out, except for the women and children. They killed them all.

And then the first ruler to come after this war was Marwan ibn al-Hakam. The first thing he did was what? He burned the Quran that Muhammad wrote with his own hand. He was afraid war would start all over again. So these people did not deserve the true Quran, and for the last 1,400 years there was not… I mean, I’m astounded that we came to this conclusion, by God’s grace, that we shall worship God alone, that we shall follow the Quran. And God is giving us presents, gifts. God is flooding us with presents, including the true Quran, which will be printed, Inshallah, for the first time in 1,400 years. We’re going to have the true Quran without the two false verses.

And I now have the footnote available for any of you to read the evidence, the proof, about the two verses, and it is irrefutable. In the last few weeks, Abdullah and Mahmoud have been busy. The pipeline has been opened through them and Ehsan, and the proof has been coming very fast, just to be included in that footnote. It’s unbelievable. Abdullah walked in with some more miracles this afternoon. I thought I was printing the final footnote. He said, “It’s not the final.” So God permitted those two verses for those people, because they did not deserve the Quran.

They are so bad that we will understand the verses in Sura 22, verses 19 to 22. People say that these are very harsh verses, but if you see those people, you will understand that God is very merciful to punish them just that much in Hell. These verses say that garments of fire will be tailored for them, and something like sulfuric acid will be poured on top of their heads (the sulfuric acid of the Hereafter, which is much stronger than the one we have now) that will melt their insides out. They will be confined in pots of iron, or cells of iron, and whenever they want to leave the misery, they’ll be forced back in. These are very harsh verses, but when you meet these people, you’ll see that God is merciful.

Because they insisted on going to that retribution, and they really deserve a lot worse. We met one of them, as I told you in the last Khutbah, in Los Angeles. Just before me came a professor from the Chicago Theological Institute to tell us that the Quran is a hallucination of Muhammad, an internal hallucination of Muhammad, and that it is fallible. And then I came immediately after him, presenting physical, irrefutable evidence that the Quran is divine and is from God. Then these people, some Arabs, so-called Muslims, stood up and attacked me. They didn’t attack the guy who said the Quran is an internal hallucination. And you look at them, and you know that this punishment is not enough for them, that God is very merciful.

Really, I mean, if I were going to oppose somebody, and I’m a Muslim, and I heard someone say that the Quran is an internal hallucination, I would change my plan. I would attack the guy who says the Quran is a hallucination, and I would take the other fellow aside and beat him up or something, but on the side, not in public. They didn’t do that.

On the Day of Judgment, they will call on the guardian of Hell, Malik, and say, “Tell your Lord to finish us off.” And Malik will say, “Sorry, you’re going to last forever,” because they insisted on it. Sura 40 says that these people argue with falsehood to defeat the truth, and these people came with what is clearly falsehood.

They came with things fixed in their minds. They say, “You counted the letters this way, but they should be counted another way,” which is a wrong way. However, when I presented the paper, I gave them numbers, not even letters. They could take the letters, but they should have changed their minds then, because there is no argument against the numbers. If you take all the numbers in the Quran and add them up, you have a multiple of 19. This has nothing to do with letters.

But God says the reason they insisted on going to Hell, and the reason they are subjected to that terrible retribution, which is not enough for them, is because “We have given them the truth, but they hated the truth.”

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, given on New Year’s Day 1988, Rashad Khalifa explains that repentance lets us start a new life at any time, and that the secret of happiness is returning to God and following the Quran.

Video Transcript:

Alhamdulillah. We praise God and we bear witness that there is no God except the one God. Today is the first day of a new year. It is January 1st and I don’t see a single person with a hangover in here. The first day of the of a new year 1988 is also the first day of the rest of your life. And the Quran provides the ways and means of starting all over again anytime you want to. You can forget completely about the past and start as a totally new person beginning a totally new life. the concept of repentance. Repentance, returning to God, being unaware for a while and now deciding to return and be with God. I have put uh the theme of the new translation of Quran on the wall here for you and I’m going to read it cuz I wanted to share it with you.

Well, before I read it, I’d like to say that finally we’ve discovered the secret of happiness, the most elusive of all human searches. The secret of happiness is in is in this short theme here. Happiness is a quality of the soul, the real person, not the body. Therefore, a body that achieves all the material successes it longs for, money, fame, power, good looks, carnal satisfactions, often belongs to an unhappy person. The real person’s happiness depends totally on the degree of growth, development, and fulfillment of the real person. This book, the Quran, maps the road to perfect happiness for both body and soul, both in this temporal world and in the eternal hereafter. So, this is the secret of happiness. And uh you’ve seen the video that we made a couple of weeks ago and they mentioned in it Eddie Murphy in his interview with Barbara Walters and how he owns this big estate in New Jersey. He has his family, his mother. seeing him successful. He’s got the success, the fame, the movies, the TV, millions of dollars, five cars, two Rolls-Royces, a Porsche, a Mercedes, a Corvette. Yet, he said that he was not happy. So, what does a human being want in this world? Is this what isn’t this what everybody out there thinks they want? the millions of dollars, the Rolls-Royces, the Mercedes, the the estates, the palaces, and he’s not happy. So, this proves once again, this been proven over and over that material success does not bring happiness. If the soul is shrunk and not fed and not nourished, there is no happiness. This is the secret of happiness. Nobody can be happy unless the soul is nourished and develops and grows. Just try not to feed your body for one day and see how miserable your body is. Try for one day not to feed your body or give it water. The soul is exactly like that. If if the soul is not nourished but in our dimension here, we do not feel the pain. It is reflected in what Eddie Murphy told Barbara Walters that he was not happy. It’s reflected in there. This is the secret of happiness. A few weeks ago, they had the Barbara Hutton story on the TV and many of you saw it. It’s the same thing. wealth, fame, anything she wanted. Yet you saw her in the program trying to commit suicide. This is the true true story. How miserable she was. The exact opposite of happiness. So what does everybody out there want? You want money, fame, good looks, success. But then if the soul is not nourished, there is no happiness. the nourishment for the soul. God teaches us in the Quran just like like is mentioned in the theme here that the Quran maps the road to perfect happiness and it starts the minute you wake up.

We’ve been learning here from the Quran that when you wake up in the morning the first thing you say is right there it’s a good snack for the soul. It’s a bit of nourishment. The minute you open your eyes in the morning, you say there’s no God except the one God. The Quran teaches us specifically when you admire anything that belongs to you, you must say, “Mashallah.” This is the Arabic. You can say it in English. This what God gave me in English. Say mashallah we admire your car, your children, your spouse, your house, anything that belongs to you and this invokes protection for your belongings and it is nourishment for the soul cuz the soul is a piece of God and when you say mashallah your soul grows another bit of nourishment you praise God you say alhamdulillah thank God or praise God when something Good happens when you finish eating. When you start your car, you say and you when you start eating, you say in the name of God. And when you finish, you say alhamdulillah. Thank God. Praise God. When you see something wonderful, the sunrise or the sunset or a flower or a fruit or anything God created or a cute cat, you say, “Subhan Allah, God be glorified.” Subhan Allah. God be glorified. Anytime you think of God, because your soul is a piece of God, your soul will be nourished. Don’t just don’t just eat the apple or the orange. Think who made this? Where did it come from? Where did the apple come from? The perfect flavor, the perfect sugar, the perfect texture, the crunchiness. Who designed this? Where did it come from? It came from the air, by the way. And the and the liquid from the soil. That’s what the apple came from. It starts as a little ovary and then it grows. The leaves of the tree collect carbon dioxide from the air and link it together in chains.

The sugar is carbon. C see C. Six carbons make one one molecule of sugar. So the leaves of the tree photosynthesis. You heard of photosynthesis and the energy from the sun and the water from the soil. This is it. This makes the apple and all the other chemicals. Don’t just eat the apple to feed your body. Eat the apple and feed your soul by saying, “Subhan Allah, God be glorified.” Because the body you’re going to throw away. The soul is you and you’re going to last forever.

The best nourishment of all is the contact prayer. Making contact with God. These are casual snacks. Mashallah. Alhamdulillah. Inshallah. You should never say I’m going to do something the next hour or at 2:00 or tomorrow or next month or next week without saying inshallah. God willing. You’re going to shock your American friends first. But then they will get used to it and they will respect you later and you will nourish your soul as you remind them and remind yourself say inshallah. So these are the the snacks for the soul and they may barely spare you misery be it temporary or eternal hell. It might. But the best nourishment is the five daily contact prayers. These are specifically prescribed by God at specific times with specific utterances and specific movements. It’s a numerical code. It’s a combination that that causes contact with God. Then your soul really grows.

And like you heard on the tape the other day, the soul grows in leaps and bounds, which makes nourishment a lot more crucial and a lot a lot more important than your meals for the body. Because okay, you’re going to give your body three meals today. How much will you grow today? The children probably grow at the higher rate, but what is the maximum we grow? one pound. Hopefully not. But the soul, if there is a weight for the sword, you may grow by 10 tons. The soul has a weight in the other dimension, not in this dimension. In this dimension, I think they determined that the soul is 1. They put a dying person on a scale and they weighed him before he died and weighed him after he died. And the difference was 1 ounce. This is scientific research. They wanted to catch the soul scientifically in the material world. But in the other dimension, wow. You know, when they go to the other dimension, they’re going to see the angels and the gems and all the other creatures of the other dimension.

And one prayer very easily makes you grow by 10 tons. 10 tons. Imman, how many tons do you carry in your 18 wheelers? 80. 80 tons. 40 tons. 80,000. 80,000 lb over 2,000 is 20 tons. 80,000 lb. Over 2,000 is 40 tons. Yes. 40 tons. Yes. 80,000 tons. Okay. You can you can load eman’s truck with just one prayer. I don’t think you’ll forget this now. So this makes feeding nourishing the soul all the more important in surah 22 or is it 21? Let me also can go and refer to it. 20 21 it says that the reckoning is approaching while the people are totally unaware.

21 The reckoning for the people is fast approaching why they are totally unaware heedless. Reckoning of what? It’s calculating how much you deposited in your account, how much growth you attained for yourself. And you can’t just wait and wait and wait and then try to feed a shrunken soul. There is such a time where it’s impossible. You have to do it every day. You have to do as much as you can. This is what we’re really here for. The reckoning for the people is fast approaching. That day will come sooner than you think cuz life goes fast. For the young people, it seems so far away.

The recording for the people is fast approaching while they are totally unaware, heatless. Did you hear all the halabalu and the parties last night for the bodies that they throw away? They did nothing for their soul. If anything, they did things against the soul. It went into the negative.

The health department was distributing condoms to the bars. So they give the drinks and condoms. I mean what is this? You can be sure most of it is not legitimate relationships. I mean Satan had a heyday last night and these are negative. The souls go into the negative. That wasn’t the news all day yesterday, you know. Don’t forget, get your condoms. Whenever a new reminder comes to them from their Lord, they listen to it thoughtlessly. I mean, you remind them that they’re going to throw away their body and their soul is going to remain forever and will be assigned a rank forever on the day of eternity. And they are thoughtless. They Oh, sure. You know, they’re they’re so unaware. Their hearts are distracted. Satan succeeded in distracting them and the wicked confide to each other. Is he not just a human being like you? They will not take anything from you. Any advice from you? They hate the advice. They hate the truth. Would you accept magic? Why do you see their hearts are distracted? And in the second inshallah I will I think I discovered something I’d like to share with you that will help us not to be distracted.

Alhamdulillah. Praise be to God. I bear witness that there is only one God. He has no partners.

We are a very very lucky generation. In surah 56, we’re told that the lower heaven is going to be relatively crowded. It’s going to be full of all the children who die, all the people who die before the age of 40 and the adults who did not nourish their souls enough. It’s going to be like the coach in the plane. Be crowded. First class heaven will not be crowded. Big seats, comfortable. They all go to the same destination. See? But you remember going in the plane and these people sitting in first class looking at you like I’m in first class. I have a big seat. Yeah. And you go in there and you squeeze in this coach in the plane. They make a seat that you just barely fit in. Especially if you’re a little bit heavyweight like myself, you really squeeze him there. So the coach is going to be very crowded first class. God says in surah 56 that there will be multitudes of the early generations which ours is one of them and few of the later generations. You know God wills that this generation of ours witnesses a renewal of the message. You know the the Christians has gone astray. They have been worshiping Jesus. The Muslims gone totally astray worshiping Muhammad and the saints and the people forgot about God and all of a sudden there comes into focus God alone message with this fantastic miracle that is coming to to enhance that. I’m sure there were many many people thought of it and I have met a few of them but they did not have the authorization or the power or or this mathematical code in the Quran that points at God alone. 19 means God is one. God alone and this is our generation. You can be sure that subsequent generations be fewer of the people. And here we are. We’re pounding on each other’s head every day. Let’s worship God alone. Let’s worship God alone. You’re idol worshiping. I am idol worshiping. You know, we are reminding we are lucky generation. There will be multitudes of us of our generation inshallah in first class in the high heaven. Now the difference is much greater than first class and courtship of the plane. But then as as the message as they move further from our witnessing of the miracle we are witnessing the miracle before our eyes and as as the they move further there’ll be less and less according to surah 56. So we are a very lucky generation and this brings to us more privilege. I will not call it responsibility. I will call it privilege [crying] to be much more careful to do our five daily prayers to observe God, observe his laws, make continuously. Oh, this reminds me if we get distracted the new addict. I was listening to the Quran the other day and the reader in a beautiful voice was saying the part of Quran where God says do they think that I do not hear their secrets and their conspiracies? Do they think that I do not hear their secrets and their conspiracies? And when Moses and Aaron said, “We’re afraid. Pharaoh may kill us.” God said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you. I hear and I see.” And this inspired me as I was going to sleep two nights ago to to say, “Well, God hears my secret and my declarations. God knows my secrets.” And this evolved gradually until I said, “God is here in this room. God is here now.” in this roof, God sees me, hears me. And this what you have to visualize and materialize and it has a tremendous a great effect. I’m sure your soul will grow tremendously. And if you had any devilish thoughts, they will go away. You just visualize God with you. God is in this room. Wherever you are, God is here now. God is with me. This is a new God is teaching us and it will help you a lot. It helped me and this what I’m sharing with you now. God is with me. God is in this room. He is see as we talk now God is in this room. God is omniresent in every room everywhere and personally with you as well as that ant out there by the roses. God is with that ant with God controls everything that the ant is doing. How much food it gets. God is with me. God is here. He hears my secrets, what I’m thinking. And this will will help a lot. The miracle. I’ll just give you a a piece of news as to what I’m doing since we’re all in this together. What I’m doing now is I’m going to give the the mathematical miracle of Quran a lot of attention in the coming days and weeks inshallah. And what I’m doing is I’m making a generic video tape on the miracle. Generic means that it will just have the facts in the video and anybody can dub his or her own language on the tail. So I’m going I’m going to do the English and the Arabic.

We’re going to have Mtasham or Abdullah or both do the Turkish. Gat will do the Indonesian, Malaysian. Francisco will do the Spanish. we’re going to dig up somebody to do the Ordo and and so on. Susan will do the Pharisee and the French cuz she’s good in both. So here and so we’re going to have it in English, Arabic, Ordo, Turkish, Indonesian, Malaysian, Farsy, French. Eric is going to do it in Swedish. Eric Tornwall. So we will also have these flash cards. These are flashcards and I can have them by next week and they help a lot of people especially that there must be like 75 to 80% of the people have a mathematical mental block. No. What’s 1 plus 1? She doesn’t know. It’s called It’s called the mathematical mental block. A lot of people have them. They’re geniuses. But this flash card you have to have a point the flash nice and easy. with it. We’re going to edit this out. Sometimes you get intoxicated. You know, this is called God’s intoxication. the smallest thing, you know, the people who drank last night think they were intoxicated, you know, and at first the smallest thing makes him laugh, you know, then they wake up in the morning with a huge hangover. And sometimes God’s people get like that, you know, the smallest thing make him laugh out of control. This is the title. It says mathematical miracle of Quran. And this says these are all physical facts. [cough] And this is the last statement before the the the actual facts. The Quran is mathematically coded beyond the human intelligence. This is Arabic and English by the way. We’re going to have a nice size cards for everybody. Here is Oh, this is another set. The last one I promise. It says the Quran’s mathematical code is based on the number 19. And here is fact number one. You will see how simple it is. Fact number one. Opening statement of the Quran consists of 19 Arabic letters. This fact number one. Fact number two. The Quran consists of 114 suras or 19* 6. Fact number three. First revelation of Quran was 19 words. Fact number four, first revelation the 19 words are 76 letters. 19 * 4. First revelation is 19 verses. And it goes on like that. Last revelation was 19 words. So they’re all concentrated facts. This is the quick summary. And then what I will have after this will be the pictures from the blue book for example where it shows bismillah broken down into letters 19 letters and then gat will say in Indonesian that these are the documentation now of these facts this will take only like 5 minutes all of them and then so we’ll come to fact number one the documentation for fact number one gut will say in Indonesian the basa consists of 19 letters as you see And anybody can say in any language.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains that God is doing everything and that this life is a test in which God nullifies everyone’s excuses, varying sunrise times and fasting hours, and even producing a top Azhar scholar, Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour, who preaches the same message. He then reports on Dr. Mansour’s miraculous release and departure from Egypt and their trip to Canada.

Video Transcript:

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is only one God.

God is doing everything, and this is the conclusion that we must reach if we are to be saved. That God is doing everything is a quality of God. If you don’t know this quality, then you don’t know God. And this is why the Quran is full of verses talking about people who do believe in God, but they’re going to Hell because they do not know God as He really is. In Sura 8, verse 17, we’re taught that… There was the appearance of a battle, with a small handful of believers fighting a huge army of disbelievers, and the believers were busy running around, stabbing and throwing arrows and shooting and so on. They think they’re fighting.

But the verse tells us that God is the one who is fighting. God is the one who did the killing and the throwing of the arrows. God is doing everything. We only make the decision to be with God or not, and the whole design of this life is to effect a test for each one of us. This whole life is a test, nothing else. And we read in Sura 51, verse 56, that God created this whole universe, created us, just to worship Him alone. Anything else is just the means for provision: the jobs, going to school, finding work, developing your talents, whatever. It is just an outside appearance, to provide for you, to give you the dollars, the food, the roof over your head and so on.

But the main job, when you wake up in the morning: “My main job today is to worship God alone and to observe my duties towards God.” All those duties, of course, are designed for our own benefit, to develop and grow our soul, through the prayers, the fasting and so on.

But the whole world is designed for a test, in that a person is required to pray before sunrise, for example, in order for his or her soul to grow and develop. And some person may say, “Oh, the sun is rising too early, four o’clock in the morning.” You know, in July and August they complain: “The sun rises at four o’clock. I’m not going to get up at 3:30 to do the morning prayer.”

So God says, “Okay, I’m going to make it rise at seven.” God designed the Earth a little bit lopsided, so it goes up and down in front of the sun in this way, creating the winter and the short day and the long day. And God will say, “Okay, now the sun is rising at seven o’clock. Are you going to do the morning prayer before sunrise?” See, God designed the test this way, and God nullifies the excuses of everybody, in order to see who is going to make it to the highest Heaven, and that is the person who is going to pray before sunrise no matter what time the sun rises.

And also to assure the place of those who are going to the lowest pit of Hell, because even when the sun rises at seven o’clock, they will not do the morning prayer before sunrise. So you can see the range of the time of sunrise, and how God did it to sift out the ranks: the people who will pray when the sun rises at six, the people who will pray when it rises at 6:30, and the people who do the morning prayer when it rises at a quarter to seven. So there will always be dropouts, and there will be those who pray no matter what time the sun rises. At three in the morning, they’ll be up at 2:30, and they’ll do the morning prayer and go back to sleep, but they will do it.

People will say, “I’m going to fast in Ramadan for 16 hours? The day is 16 hours long, and I’m going to eat no food and drink no water for 16 hours, and it’s so hot.” God says, “Okay, I’m going to cool it down for you. I’m going to make it seven hours.” And God does that. So you can see that the fasting days range from seven or nine hours on a cool day to 16 hours on hot days, and you can see the test going on, and you can see the dropouts. Some people will fast even if the day is 20 hours in August, and nobody dies from that anyway. It’s good for you. It takes down your blood pressure, reduces your weight and all that. Nobody dies if he or she fasts for two consecutive days. But there are people who will fast even if the day is 20 hours long.

For the last 19 years, we’ve been giving the Muslim world evidence that they have deviated, that we must adhere to the Quran alone, and we’ve been showing them the verses in the Quran. So they said, “Well, who is this Rashad Khalifa? He’s an ignorant person. He’s never been to Azhar, and he’s duping the ignorant people who don’t know anything about Islam.” They wrote this, they published it, they lectured, and so on: “He’s a science man; he’s not a religious man. If you hear it from a scholar, from Azhar, then you can…” You know, they wrote down that Rashad is ignorant, he doesn’t have a religious degree, he’s not from Azhar, and he’s deceiving the ignorant people.

And God said, “Okay, I’m going to nullify,” like the long day and the sunrise at seven. He said, “Okay, I’m going to produce for you the best Azhar scholar.” And he’s sitting right with us right now. He’s not a usual Azhar scholar. He is the one in a long time who was first in his class in the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years. He’s not a common Azhar person. He didn’t have connections. You know, a lot of people in Azhar have connections with the dean or the president of the university, and they pass, and so on. But there are special students who get these degrees, and they graduate with first honors.

And he’s one of those, one of the unusual students. When he graduated first in his class, he was hired by the university, and he taught at the university, and he did his PhD on the same subject that we preach here in this mosque: that the Prophet will not intercede on your behalf on the Day of Judgment, that the prophets are human beings who made mistakes. And they gave him the PhD with the highest grade ever at Azhar. So God said, “I’m going to give you an Azhar man; not just an Azhar man, I’m going to give you the best.”

And so he goes out and teaches, and he steals the students from all the other professors. I mean, these are facts that are now recorded in the headlines, on the front pages, that came out in the last month, while he was in prison and our powerful Fatiha got him out, Alhamdulillah. He would go and teach the senior class, and then the next period he would be in the sophomore class, and the students from the senior class would follow him to the sophomore class. And the professor of the senior class would complain, “Where are my kids? Where are the students?” They had followed Subhy Mansour to the sophomore class. So he raised a lot of jealousy within the university.

Besides the fact that he was preaching exactly… it’s identical to what we’ve learned here in this mosque and what we’ve been preaching. And the enemies of the Quran, the enemies of God, went crazy, because God nullified their excuses. He said, “Okay, you don’t like Rashad Khalifa, who is a chemist? Here’s an Azhar man, one of your own and one of your best, and he’s preaching the same thing.” He discovered the truth.

And I don’t know where God hid him from Satan, you know, because Satan monopolized all those Azhar people. He escaped somehow; God protected him. He was supposed to give the Khutbah today, but he refused. He said, “I want to see your system first; then I will give the Khutbah.” He also wants to increase his mastery of the English language, which he speaks very well. You know, it really surprised me.

But we now have these newspapers saying, “How did he get the PhD on this subject?” Now they want to put his committee on trial: “Why did they give him the PhD? How did that happen?” And the chairman of his PhD committee happens to be the head of the Sunnah Institute in Cairo now, and he says, “How did I do that?” They just can’t figure it out, but he is a living proof of God’s power.

They are saying, “Let’s take the PhD back from him.” You know, it’s unheard of. How can you take it back? Not only are they asking how he got the PhD, they ask how he got the PhD with this high grade, the highest honors. They call it first honors, the rank of the highest honor. And the thesis had all these things in it. They cut it down, by the way, but even after cutting out whatever they wanted, they still don’t like it, in the newspaper.

But this shows you the power of God, and it shows how God nullifies the excuses of the people in order to effect the test. For those who don’t like the sun rising at four o’clock, God will make it rise at seven, gradually. And for those who don’t like fasting for 16 hours a day, God will make it nine hours on a cool day.

I know many of you are anxious to hear our report on our Canada trip. One of the purposes of the Khutbah on Friday is to study our affairs and see what is going on. Dr. Mansour and I went to Canada at the weekend, and there were a number of miracles that happened. First of all, somehow I forgot that an Egyptian going to Canada needs a visa, an entry visa. And what is worse, for an Egyptian who applies for a visa at any Canadian consulate (they have one in Seattle), there is a mandatory five-day waiting period, because they ask Cairo if this person is a terrorist or what.

And as far as Egypt is concerned, he is the biggest terrorist, and his being here is actually a miracle, because he was forbidden from travel. There were people in the prison who were there for years for religious reasons, because they offended the person who was interviewing them, or something. And this is something that he did on the first day. On the first day, when they were interrogating him, the officer, or the lawyer, whoever it was, the district attorney in the prison who was interviewing him, said, “I’m a Muslim. I don’t pray and I don’t fast, but I’m going to Heaven, ain’t I?” He said, “No, you’re going to Hell.”

He doesn’t mince words, and he’s out here. There are stories of people who offended the interrogators inside, and they never made it out. They’re still there, for years, and we know them by name. But he’s out here. We sent a few telegrams from around the world to the president’s office in Egypt, and we read Al-Fatiha, and this is a very powerful place, Alhamdulillah. So, for a variety of reasons, they let him out on his own recognizance, with the stipulation that he is not to leave the country.

And now he is haunting them, because he was sending them the new Perspective. The title is “Al-Azhar Disbelieves in the Quran.” They called him “Munkir al-Sunnah” in Egypt, the rejecter of the Sunnah. And, you know, prison affects a person’s psyche somehow. When he happened to leave the prison, it was a miserable day. It was raining; there was mud. Cairo was not prepared, especially the area where he lived; it was not prepared for rain, and there was a lot of mud there. You step in the mud and leave your shoe in the mud, and then you pick up your shoe, put it in front of you, put your foot in it, and then you leave your left shoe in the mud.

So he caught himself talking to himself, saying, “Okay, Munkir al-Sunnah, did I reject the Sunnah? Be careful, lest you slip down,” or something. So he was out talking to himself with this title that they gave him, Munkir al-Sunnah. Now, as of the next issue of the Perspective, we’re going to call the Azhar people “Munkir al-Quran,” the rejecters of the Quran. And we’re going to issue emergency issues of the Perspective every other week, and we’re mailing them to them over there. We’re proud of our title, rejecters of the Sunnah, and we’ll see how proud they are of their title as rejecters of the Quran. It is something that is supported by evidence.

For example, the official Azhar journal wrote an editorial in January, the last issue, attacking him, and in it they said that the Quran needs to be detailed. I mean, there are about ten statements directly against the Quran. So we’re just taking each statement and putting it down: “This is what the Azhar ignoramuses say, and this is what God says.” And we give the verses that say the Quran is fully detailed. We’re going to do this for the rest of the year.

Okay, I just got diverted to the miracle of him leaving Cairo, leaving Egypt. It is an absolute miracle. As a matter of fact, an informer in his group found out that he was leaving, but without a definite date, and he did something that canceled that informer’s information. At any rate, we’re glad that he’s here.

So we headed for Canada. Ismail Barakat, most of you know him, is a very hot-tempered, very loud, beautiful person. We love him. He was supposed to meet us in Seattle, and he swears he was there at 1:30. We were there at one o’clock, and we waited until three o’clock. According to his account and our account, we were in the same place, but we never saw each other; we never heard each other, loud as he is. He said, “I even took the public address system and called you.” We didn’t hear a thing. We didn’t see him; we didn’t hear him; he didn’t see us.

So we waited until the next day, when Raymond came. Now, Ismail went back to Canada, and I had nothing to do, so I tried to smuggle Dr. Mansour into Canada. It didn’t work out. I rented a car and went to the border. Usually they let you pass, you know. The guy at the border said, “Where are you from?” I said, “Tucson, Arizona.” He said, “Can I see some IDs?” I said, “Uh-oh, okay.” So we turned around. Meanwhile, Ismail had gone back to Canada, and Raymond Catton went with us in the morning to the Canadian consulate.

Well, we found out that there is a mandatory five-day waiting period for an Egyptian to get a visa. However, the vice-consul, a lady, turned out to be from Raymond Catton’s old country, a small village in Lancashire, England, and they spoke the same dialect. This is how they knew each other. He said, “Good morning,” and she said, “Good morning,” and he said, “Oh, you’re from Lancashire,” and she said, “That’s right.” She said, “Okay, here’s the visa.” Free. So, I mean, if Ismail Barakat had gone with us, we would have ended up in jail.

He would never go back to Vancouver without this man; he’s Dr. Mansour’s best friend. And had they told him that you cannot have a visa to enter Canada, I mean, Barakat would have destroyed the consulate. I’m telling you, we would have ended up… So thank God we just didn’t see him and he didn’t see us.

So, with all these delays, we made it to the Friday prayer in Vancouver. We went immediately after the Khutbah; they had just finished the Khutbah and the prayer. So we sat with them, and they all canceled going back to work or anything, and we sat from about two o’clock until four o’clock, and we got to talk to them. We discussed a lot of things. We did exactly everything we wanted to do at the Friday prayer. And then we had meetings on Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night, in three different places. There were about 50 or 60 people, and everything was just fantastic. The objectors of the past didn’t even show up. There were no more objections. And what I carried to them is the new, profound conclusion that we all must have: that God is doing everything.

So, as you can tell, we’ll be talking about these things for the next few weeks, Inshallah, and we may discuss more details tonight. And you will get a chance to greet Dr. Mansour. We’re glad he’s here, and it is a tremendous victory.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains that God’s kingdom brings perfect happiness while Satan’s kingdom is plagued with problems, and that we can join God’s kingdom right now through sincere repentance and by following the commandments, leading the congregation in a covenant with God. He then speaks of God’s mercy, seen in the 40-year age of accountability and the law of equivalence, and shows that God never commanded Abraham to kill his son.

Video Transcript:

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is only one God, Allah. I want to talk today about the whole idea behind our existence here. It is very important to define our goals. The distinction between God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom is the whole idea in this world. We read in the prayer that God is “Maliki yawmid-deen”: God is the Master of the Day of Judgment, the eternal Day of Judgment.

And it is because God has given permission to Satan to set up a kingdom in this tiny, tiny speck in God’s dominion, the planet Earth, to show him that he is not competent to be a god besides God, which is the thought that crossed his mind. So the whole idea is that this is a test for Satan, to show that in God’s kingdom there is perfect happiness (and by perfect happiness I mean perfect health, perfect wealth, perfect joy), while Satan’s kingdom is plagued with problems. So this is what I want you to always remember: the whole idea is the distinction between God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom. God’s kingdom has no problems, once you pass all the required tests and come to this point of perfection, when you are in God’s kingdom. And Satan’s kingdom is plagued with problems.

Our soul grows and develops, and this constitutes the secret of perfect happiness in this world. As you see on the wall there, that’s the theme of the new translation: the secret of happiness in this world is a fed, nourished soul. You ate breakfast today, or lunch, or a snack. You ate something today; you gave your body something today. And the people who did not feed their soul have a starving soul, without feeling the pain. The pain will show up all at once, when the separation happens between the body and the soul. Right now the soul is obscured by the body, and the pangs of starvation and pain and hunger are not felt. They are felt later on, when it is too late, when it is eternal, and when it is called Hell.

So the whole idea is setting up a distinction between God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom. How do we join God’s kingdom? We have to do the things that are ordered by God. We have to follow the commandments and abstain from the prohibitions. It’s very simple. It’s listed in the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Final Testament, the Quran.

You remember the famous statement in the New Testament, when somebody went to Jesus and asked him, “How do I attain salvation?” And Jesus said, “Follow the commandments.” A very simple instruction. And now the commandments are listed in detail, with a built-in proof telling you: this is from God; this is what you should do for your own good, and this is what you should not do for your own good. This is how you join God’s kingdom. If you don’t, you’ll have a starving soul, a shrunk, weak, unnourished soul that cannot be happy, no matter how much the body achieves of money or fame or success, whatever.

We can join God’s kingdom any time we want to. It’s wide open, and you can join it right now, in order to guarantee this perfect happiness, to guarantee success in this world, with no problems, no headaches, no diseases. We can do this any time; anybody can do this any time. And after you join, for a while, there is a period when you may step out of God’s kingdom. And then God pinches you, if He loves you, if He cares about you, and you come running right back to God’s kingdom. But as long as you’re inside God’s kingdom, there is perfect happiness.

You will be in God’s kingdom only if you know God, recognize God, believe in God as He is. Mainly, the most important point is that He’s doing everything, that everything is done in accordance with His will. It boils down to this statement: God is doing everything. It is much too complicated for most people to understand, but you must know that. If you know God, you will know that He’s doing everything. Then nobody will bother you. Your supervisor at work will not bother you, because he’s not doing anything. And you look at him, whether he’s promoting you or reprimanding you, as God’s work. And if you’re perfectly in God’s kingdom, you know that whatever is happening is for your own good. You’ll understand it, and you will be perfectly happy.

So we can join God’s kingdom right now, through something that’s called repentance. You can make a pledge right now that you will join God’s kingdom, that you will be firmly in God’s kingdom, that you will follow His commandments, not because you’re doing Him a favor, but because you are doing yourself a favor. You can pledge to join God’s kingdom right now by doing the five prayers, because you need to feed your soul.

The Quran makes a very important point about showing off. Some people may pray because they’re showing off, or some people may not pray because of peer pressure; they’re embarrassed to pray in front of their friends. What this person is doing is cheating himself. It’s exactly like continuously eating no-calorie food for the body. If you eat no-calorie food exclusively, you cannot live; your body will die. And the same goes for the soul. We cannot cheat ourselves by showing off, or by not praying because of peer pressure, because we are embarrassed in front of our friends. You will never be too embarrassed to eat lunch or dinner or breakfast. So your body is getting its rights fully, but not the soul, if you are affected by peer pressure or showing off.

So when I say “repent” now, I want all of us collectively to join God’s kingdom, to pledge to be in God’s kingdom for our own good. You want to pledge that you will never tell a lie, that you will never sin, and you mean it, as of now: that you will be in God’s kingdom; that you’ll carry out the five nourishing meals for your soul; that you will follow the commandments in the Quran; that you are going to fast the month of Ramadan, which comes on April 17, by the way (you must be ready as of now); that you will not backbite anybody; that you will not hurt anyone, unless they are fighting you in the cause of God, which doesn’t happen here; this is a free land. That you will simply follow the commandments. And you make this solemn pledge now.

There is a commandment in the Quran that says, “Ya ayyuhal-lazeena amanu”: O you who believe (this is directed to those who believe), “tubu ilallah”: repent to God, meaning enter into a covenant with God, “tawbatan nasuha,” which means an irrevocable repentance. Irrevocable. So you mean it, as you repent now and as you pledge now to enter God’s kingdom and attain perfect happiness. And God will believe you; He will take your word for it. When you make a covenant, He will accept the covenant. And God says in the Quran, “You carry out your part of the covenant, and I will carry out My part of the covenant,” which is this: the perfect happiness. So we’re now going to collectively enter into a covenant with God: that we will repent, that as of now there will be no sin, that you’re going to be a perfect human being. And then you’re going to keep your part of the covenant.

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is no other god besides Him. Congratulations. We probably shook the galaxy, just this group of us, pledging, entering into a covenant with God. And God accepts you with open arms.

As we recite Al-Fatiha in the prayers, we say, “Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim… Al-Rahman Al-Rahim,” the Most Gracious, Most Merciful. And God’s mercy is beyond our imagination. God is merciful beyond our imagination, and I feel this a lot in discovering the Quran. For example, when we learn that Allah, may He be glorified, gives the human being 40 years to make up his or her mind (40 years of research, looking around, studying, and then deciding), people say, “No, what do you mean, 40 years? That’s too long.” Because people are mean; they are not as merciful as God. And many people, when I tell them that a person who dies at the age of 35, and didn’t pray, didn’t fast, didn’t do anything, is going to Heaven, say, “No, send him to Hell. Why does he go to Heaven?” You know, God is merciful beyond our widest imagination. And God decided that He wants to give us 40 years to look around and study. And thank God, you know, thinking of myself and many of my friends, who barely made it before the 40 years were up. God is merciful, because we would be in deep trouble if it were shorter than 40 years.

There’s a law in the Quran, the law of equivalence, the law of qisas, which is detailed in the Quran. It goes beyond what was dictated in the Torah, and it says, “the male for the male, the female for the female, the slave for the slave, the free for the free.” And this restricts capital punishment, and it is followed by a recommendation to substitute compensation for capital punishment.

But when I ask people, even the gentlest and kindest of friends, “A male killed a female; what is the punishment?” they say, “Kill him!” Why? God says the male for the male, the female for the female. Where do you get the male for the female? I say, “A female killed a male. What is the punishment for this murder?” They say, “Kill her! Kill her!” Why? I mean, look at the law. But when I discuss it with them and they look at the Quran, they see that God’s mercy is there, and that we cannot violate these laws. We are mean. God’s mercy is beyond our widest imagination.

This verse, “the male for the male, the female for the female,” and so on, is followed at the end of the verse by “anyone who transgresses after this,” which indicates that this is a new law, “will suffer a painful retribution.” So it is very clear in the verse, and everyone who discussed this matter with me finally agreed with the Quran. They could see God’s mercy there: the verse leans favorably towards compensation rather than capital punishment. So God’s mercy, Al-Rahman Al-Rahim, is beyond our imagination.

I’m going to go into another subject now, and this is: how do you act on behalf of your friends? You have a very dear friend, and somebody says something unkind about your friend. What do you do? Do you just sit and take it, or do you defend your friend? If you know that your friend is not a cheat, for example, and somebody tells you that this friend of yours is a cheat, you will become upset on behalf of your friend, and you will defend your friend. You say, “No, he’s not a cheat.”

So, I come from a background with a lot of garbage that I must get rid of. We all do, and God teaches us through examples. One brother, Dr. Mansour, mentioned in one Khutbah the thing that we all came from; we all believed this at one time: that God ordered Abraham to kill his son, his only son. We learned from our research, looking at the Quran in detail, that the Quran never says that God ordered Abraham to kill his son. There is a law in the Quran that God does not command vice: “Inna Allaha la ya’muru bil-fahsha’.” This is a rule. And knowing this about God’s mercy, do you think He would tell somebody, “Go kill your son, your only son”?

You know, I expected many of us to go to Dr. Mansour, for example, and say, “We studied and did research; we looked in the Quran, and we discovered that God never told Abraham to kill his son.” You must stand up for your friend. God wants solid friends, who will not accept any statement that contradicts God’s qualities.

If somebody accuses you of being a cheat, and you are in a position of power (you are forming a cabinet, a government, for example, or you are the president of some company, chairman of the board or something), and you know that this person, even though he or she loves you, wrongly thinks that you are a cheat, how will you act towards this person? If you think of God that He commanded somebody to kill his son, a vicious, merciless command, how will He feel about you on the Day of Judgment, if you feel that way?

I discussed the matter with Dr. Mansour, and we looked in the Quran, and he said, “That’s right.” He read the verses, and it said, “I see in a dream that I am slaughtering you.” I said, “That’s right. God didn’t order Abraham to kill his son. It doesn’t say that anywhere in the Quran. He believed his dream, if you look at it.” But you see what they put in our heads as we were growing up, all of us. It comes from some distortions in the Bible, that God ordered Abraham, “Take your son and kill him.” And it affected all of us, so we have to look in the Quran and derive our information from the Quran. Had God ordered Abraham to kill his son, He would tell us. But He wouldn’t, because God laid down the rule: He does not command fahsha’, vice, gross matters. God would not be afraid to tell us if He did do that. I would accept it if He did, but He didn’t. God’s mercy is beyond our widest dreams.

Abraham thought that he received a command from God in that dream. But you see, the crime is magnified, because they tell us that the dream of a prophet is the truth, which makes them not human. I mean, it turns into idolization of the prophets. So it’s a gross crime from many, many angles.

There are a few other things that I need to say about this. Let me see if I remember. I know there’s something that I’m forgetting to say, so maybe I’ll remember it in the prayer. It has to do with Abraham thinking that he was killing his son. So he went ahead, and God intervened. It’s exactly the other way around, contrary to what most people believe. God only intervened to save Ishmael, Abraham’s son. So not only did He not order Abraham to kill his son, He intervened to save the son, because Abraham was a sincere believer. He was in God’s kingdom, and God would not let him… God will not allow you to fall and sin. God will not allow you to do something wrong when you are in His kingdom. He will not let you do it. And you made the pledge; you are in God’s kingdom.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa summarizes the message proven by the Quran’s mathematical code: who we are, why we are here, and how to attain perfect happiness, now and forever, by worshiping God alone.

Video Transcript:

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is only one God, the one true God who created all of us. We’ve been fortunate to receive a message from God that is proven with tangible evidence. Physical evidence for the first time in history. Something that the world is going to recognize maybe it will take the world 20 years or 50 years, but we’re fortunate to be the first pioneers who see this evidence and realize what God is telling us. There is a definite message from God to all of us giving us the most vital information that we need and I will try to draw a picture of the whole thing in this hutba to summarize for all of us the things that we have been witnessing for the last few years, and also for our guests to catch up with these, a summary of the whole thing. God created us and he did not leave us without support. He didn’t just leave us in the wild without direction or guidance.

He did quite a few things to help us attain our objective, which is one of the things that most people don’t know. People in the street, they don’t know what our objective is. So, God sent messages, and messengers, and told us exactly the things that we need. The first that God did was that he gathered all of us , all the human beings who came to this earth and will come to this earth, and that was before creation of the heavens and the earth, and he had us witness, bear witness that he alone is our lord, that we worship God alone. God called all the people, said do you bear witness that I am your lord, and we said yes, so this constitutes natural in each one of us, so each one of us comes to this world, we are born with the natural instinct to worship god alone, and not to idolize anybody else. We are born with the knowledge and recognition that God is the one who created us, that he is the one who provides for us, he decides exactly how many dollars we are going to get.

God is the one who terminates our life when the specific time comes, and God is the one who will resurrect us, and God is the who will put us in Heaven or Hell, depending on our work. Therefore, we must owe our allegiance to God alone and not to any creature. So, this is one of the important things that God did for us. So, what does the average human being need out there in the street, the average person. The most vital information. First and foremost is who are you. God tells us in this mathematically coded message who we are. Ask the average person out there who are you, and they will look in the mirror, which is wrong, because they think this is us. We come to realize now that each one of us consists of two entities, distinct entities. A body and a soul. And that the soul is the real person. That the body is not the person. The body is a garment that we are wearing. So, that’s who we are. How many people out there know this? They have to read God’s message with the tangible physical evidence and realize who we are. Actually, this is an easy matter. You can logically prove it to anyone. They realize this body is not us. They realize there is a difference between a living person and a dead person. The dead person that is not moving, still, does not have a person in it, just a body, a garment. Something is gone. And leads to some very important facts. One fact is: I gave my body breakfast lunch and dinner yesterday. What did I give myself. And this makes us realize that the real person is probably starving. The real person needs breakfast lunch and dinner, and this is provided in the message that God sent to us. So this is the first, one of the first items, who we are, and now we know. The second point that the average person doesn’t know out there is why are we here. What is the whole idea. Are we here to go to school, and study hard, and take tests, and put up with parents, and teachers, and colleagues, and then get out and do some work, work hard from 8 to 5, go home, watch the TV, then go to sleep, get up in the morning, go to work, back from work, watch the TV, sleep, get up in the morning, go to work, is this what, I mean, is this what we are here for? What is the whole idea? Why are we here? And we know the answer from God’s message that we are here to prepare for the real life, eternal life, we know that everyone of us is gonna leave here. We are here temporarily. We are here for 100 years just to be optimistic or pessimistic, anyway you want to look at it. If we are here for 100 years, we know that we are going to go on to something else. What is this something else? God tells us what it is specifically, and what it looks like. And how to prepare for it. What do we need? Is another question. What do we really need? The average person out there is taking care of his or her body.

Whatever the body wants. The body wants a nice home. The body wants nice clothes. The body wants food, and they are doing that. But they are totally neglecting the real person. So, what do we need. God told us exactly what we need. God didn’t just leave us without support. He gave us the natural instinct to worship him. He told us who we are, why we are here, where we are going, what does it look on the other side, and most importantly how to attain perfect happiness here and forever. This is the most elusive goal for the average person out there, perfect happiness. As it turns out there are lots of problems in this world. At home, husbands and wives are fighting. At work, colleagues are fighting with each other. They are jealous of each other. They don’t like each other. Nations at war. Lots of problems out there. So what anyone out there is looking for, this most elusive objective, how can we attain perfect happiness, here and forever, and God tells us exactly how, in this message.

We now know the secret of happiness, because God told us what it is. Tooboo Ila Allah. Repent. Elhamdulilah. We ashadu, ela ilaha ila Allah, wahdahu, la sharike lah. We praise God, and we bear witness that there is only one true god. The whole things started billions of years ago when satan thought that he is powerful enough to be a god besides God. So here is god with his angels and one of them saying I can be a god too. So, how do you prove him wrong or right. There is only one way to find out, by making him a god, with a small “g”, and this is what God decided to do. So, he gave satan a dominion, the planet earth, and constituents, the human beings, us. The human beings, we escaped, ok, not us, we escaped from satan, God willing, but the human beings who chose satan as their god are satan’s constituents, so now we have a demonstration going on, and this is one of the things that God teaches us, why we are here. Satan with a dominion, a piece of land, planet earth, and constituents who choose him. So, every human being you look at is either in God’s kingdom or in satan’s kingdom, and satan is already proven to be incompetent. He should by now declare that he can not be a god besides God. And if he doesn’t know it by now, he will know it before the end of the demonstration. Satan will declare that yes I can not be a god. So, this is what we are here for, to provide constituents for Satan. But the people who choose God as their god are not in Satan’s kingdom, and this is where the distinction is being drawn, between God’s kingdom, and Satan’s kingdom. God’s kingdom has no problems, whatsoever. When we step of God’s kingdom, then problems begin.

Satan’s kingdom is full of problems, diseases, cancer, aids, accidents. Personal problems, and these are nonexistent in God’s kingdom, and there is a mechanism for it, that God gave us also in the message. What is the mechanism for attaining perfect happiness. As we’ve been talking about this, and we now know that the secret of perfect happiness is a well-developed and nourished soul, a well-developed and nourished person. Just as you give your body breakfast lunch and dinner, the real person, your soul needs breakfast lunch and dinner. So, God tells us exactly how to feed the real person. We are doing one of them right now. This is one of the major meals. It comes once a week. The Friday Prayer, but the five daily contacts with God are the five daily meals for the person, for the soul, the real you. This is one way of attaining this perfect happiness. At the same time, you are preparing for the real life, because that day is going to come, when you begin the real life and you’ll be assigned an eternal rank depending on your degree of development and growth. And you know the other things written in this brochure. The five daily contact prayers, the charity, taking from your body to give to the poor. Your body loves money. The body wants money. So, the charity is designed to take from this body and give away to the poor. Fasting is designed to make you the boss over your body. People out there most of them are enslaved to the body. Whatever the body wants, they go after it. The body wants food. Ok. The body wants sex, ok. No bounds. The body wants clothes. Yes sir. So, these commandments from God are designed to make us happy, to make us the boss over the body. So, fasting will tell your body, that you are not going to eat or drink until sunset in a specific treaty, and the fifth is pilgrimage to commemorate Abraham’s exemplary submission to God.

So, this in a nutshell, the picture of what God did to inform us, and like I said, we are fortunate that the information that comes to us from God is supported by the evidence that it is from God. There is so much information out there. We don’t know which one is correct, and which is manmade. Is it the book of Mormons? Is it the book of Baha’is? Is it the Gospel? Is it the Bible? Is it the Torah? Is it the Psalms? What is it? So, some of those are books of God, and they have the mathematical code in them, and we are fortunate to have the complete and intact message from God and let’s have 100% confidence in it.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains that your god is whatever preoccupies your mind most of the day, whether yourself, your job, your money, your spouse or your children, and teaches practical ways to keep God on your mind all day, ending with the example of his son’s decisive hit in a baseball game as an illustration of how God gives believers victory when it counts.

Video Transcript:

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is no god except He.

The title of this khutba is “Who Is Your God?” and I bet you anything quite a few of you will be shocked, because the natural answer, the immediate answer, is, “What do you mean, who is my god? God is my God, the one who created me.” But the Quran is full of verses that tell us that millions of people would say that their god is God. You’re familiar with the verses that say if you ask them who created the heavens and the earth, they will say God, but they’re going to Hell; the verses that say if you ask them who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, the Lord with the great dominion and the great throne, they will answer God, but they’re going to Hell. You ask them who created them, they will say God. So these are millions of people who recognize God as the one who created the heavens and the earth, the one who created them, the one with the great authority, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, but they’re still going to Hell.

Now, I know this is your answer to “Who is your god?”: “God, the one God who created me.” But this khutba is to examine this question, and for you to examine your answer. We know that your happiness in this world and forever depends on knowing who your God is, and worshiping God. God guarantees you perfect happiness in this world and forever, and this is repeated in the Quran 23 times: perfect health, perfect wealth, perfect peace of mind, guaranteed. God is the one who runs the universe, and He’s guaranteeing this for you. No problems whatsoever. Read my lips, as Bush says: no problems whatsoever, if you are worshiping God alone, worshiping your God. And you and I are going to detect flaws in ourselves as we examine this question: who is your god?

I’m going to give you the answer first, and then we’ll discuss the specifics. It turns out that whatever is preoccupying your mind the majority of the day, that is your god. Whatever you are thinking of in your mind, this is your god, and the Quran explains this very clearly, in specific terms. If you are preoccupied with yourself, what you look like, your shave, your makeup, your dresses, your hair, if you are preoccupied with what people think of you, “He is a nice guy,” “She’s a nice lady,” if this is your concern the majority of the day, then you are your own god. You’re worshiping your ego. We see this in Sura 25:43, which says, “Have you noted the one whose god is his ego?” his desires, his wishes, or, literally, “his self,” quote unquote.

This answer, that whatever is preoccupying your mind most of the day is your god, is backed up by many, many verses in the Quran. If you are preoccupied with your job most of the day, that is your god, not God who created you. You can say that the one who created the heavens and the earth is God, but your god is your job. If your spouse preoccupies you more than God, then that is your god, your wife or your husband. If your property, or the dollar, the almighty dollar, preoccupies you, that is your god.

Now let us look at the Quran and see what backs up this idea. Sura 33:41 says, “O you who believe, commemorate God,” or remember God, or mention God, “a lot.” The prayer is mentioned five times a day; the fasting is one month in the year; the Zakat is two and a half percent of your income, and so on. Everything is limited. But when it comes to commemorating God, or mentioning God, or thinking of God, there is no limit. It says “a lot.” And the following verse says, “And glorify Him day and night.” Remember God, mention God, think of God a lot; glorify Him day and night. And I will discuss with you how to do this.

We see in Sura 3:191 a description of the believers who are going to Heaven. God says they are the ones who think of God, or mention God, or commemorate God, standing or sitting or on their sides. So this covers all your positions: standing up, sitting down, or lying down, to think of God. We see in Sura 2, verse 200, that you should think of God, or mention God, or commemorate God, just as you mention or think of your own parents, or even more. You can see “even more” is an addition. In Sura 2, verse 165, the believers are described as loving God the most. You see the comparison? You can love your spouse, you can love your children, you can even love your job, as long as God is in your mind the majority of the time. Whoever you’re thinking of the majority of the time is your god.

In 64:14 there’s a statement that says your spouses and your children can be your enemies. How could that be? By your becoming preoccupied with them. Ironically, if you want a good spouse and good children, you should give your attention to God, not to them, because God is with your kids as they ride their bicycles in the street, not you. So if you are with God, God will be with your kids and with your spouse. God controls your spouse’s mind and heart, and you can guarantee a good spouse if you are good with God. Look at this: in Sura 63:9, God is talking to the believers. He says, “O you who believe, do not be distracted by your money and your children from commemorating God.” The word in Arabic is “dhikr”: do not be distracted by your money and your children from commemorating, or mentioning, or remembering God. And this is directed to the believers. In 64:15 we are told that your children and your spouses are a test, because you become attached to them.

So one of the common gods is yourself, being preoccupied with yourself. Another common god is your job, your property, the dollar, and we see this in Sura 18. Let me back up a little about worshiping yourself, your self being your god. In Sura 18:28 we see a commandment to the believers: do not obey those whose hearts are diverted from commemorating, or mentioning, God. It’s the same word throughout these verses; I will tell you if it is different. It says do not obey, do not follow, do not go with, do not mix with those whose hearts are diverted from commemorating God, because they will drag you with them into thinking about something else.

You can already see that God may not be your God seven days a week. Maybe one day a week, maybe two or three days a week, maybe zero. I don’t know; you’re the judge. But this is the definition. Just divide the day into 100 units instead of 24 hours, and see in how many of these units you are thinking of God. Is it more than 50%? This comes as a shock to many of us, but it is also a great blessing, because God wills that we know, because you can fix it right now. If there’s a problem, if I discover that God is my God only one day a week, I can fix it right now, and I can pledge that God will be my God every day of the week. The answer to this question may also answer your common question, “Why am I having problems?” It is a good indicator for you. When you have a problem and you ask why, if you dig deep, you’ll find that you didn’t think of God the majority of the day. And I’m going to discuss with you how to think of God the majority of the day. If I forget, remind me, because I don’t have it written here, so speak up if I finish the khutba; sometimes I get distracted. We have to find out how we can think of God the majority of the day.

Okay, it is now 1:23. I believe everybody’s here, so for those of you who came late, I’m going to update you very quickly. The subject of the khutba is “Who Is Your God?” and the answer is: whoever or whatever you are thinking of the majority of the day, whatever is in your mind, whatever preoccupies you. I mentioned yourself.

In Sura 18:42 we’re told that your job, your property, your boss can be your god. Your boss says, “We have an emergency here at work, and you must come in at 3:00 in the morning for the next 10 days.” Are you going to go in at 3:00 in the morning for the next 10 days? God tells you to pray the morning prayer before sunrise. Are you going to pray the morning prayer before sunrise? You have to ask yourself these questions. Yes, you have to pray the morning prayer every morning before sunrise. What I want to say is that God knows you cannot possibly do it every single day, because sometimes you’re too tired, sometimes you’re sick, sometimes you’re traveling, sometimes you have unusual circumstances. But unless you have unusual circumstances, if you don’t pray the morning prayer before sunrise, God is not your God. You have some other god. The criterion is very, very easy.

In Sura 18, verse 42, you remember the fellow who had two gardens. If you worship your job, you’re going to lose it. If you worship your spouse, you’re going to lose her, or him, and so on. It’s guaranteed: whatever you worship other than God, you’re going to lose it. We learn this from Sura 18:42, because a tornado came and wiped out the two gardens of this man, who thought he was set for life. So if you idolize your job, giving it more attention than God, I guarantee you, you’re going to lose it.

In Sura 7, verse 190, we see that children clearly can be your god. Let me remind you of verse 190 of Sura 7. It speaks of a couple: the wife gets pregnant, and they pray, “Please, God, give us a good, healthy baby.” God gives them a good baby, and then they make the baby a god. That’s what the verse says, end of quotation. This means they gave the baby more attention than God. The principle holds that whatever preoccupies your mind the majority of the day is your god. Again, to get all these things, the good children, the good job, the good money, the good health, the good happiness and peace of mind, you know the answer. I’m going to remind you again of the Gospel of Luke, 12:29-31: seek God’s kingship over you, and everything else follows. If God is your God, you’re guaranteed all of these things.

Alhamdulillah. We praise God, and I bear witness that there is no god except the one God. I hope that in your repentance you pledge that your God will be God, the one who created you, because if you had any deficiency in the past, you had better fix it right now with this repentance, and mean it. Every day, you can take account of what you’re doing during the day.

Okay, now I want to talk about how you go about making God your God. The Quran teaches us that when you see your children, or your car runs nicely, you say, “Mashallah, this is God’s blessing; God gave me this.” When you see a beautiful flower, or a beautiful sunset, or your own fingers, you say, “Subhan Allah, God be glorified.” Okay, let me start from the beginning. You’re asleep, and you’re getting up in the morning. When you get up, you get up in the name of God. Say it in any language you want. The minute you open your eyes, you say, “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. There is no god except the one God.” This is the first thing you must say. As I mentioned to you before, 99% of people, when they get up on the Day of Resurrection, will say “Oh, sh—!” It’s not a dirty word anymore, so I allowed myself to say it for the first time; I see it on TV all the time. 99% of people wake up in the morning, look at the clock and say it, because they have to rush to work, and this is exactly what they will say on the Day of Resurrection. So I hope this reminds you that the first thing you say in the morning is what you’re going to say on the Day of Resurrection, and it must be “In the name of God.” So there you are, mentioning God the first thing when you open your eyes.

Then you go and do your ablution and do the morning prayer. Now, about the five prayers: we are told in the Quran that the five prayers are designed for you to remember God. God says, “Observe the Salat to remember Me.” It is the most powerful, concentrated remembering of God. I believe the five minutes of prayer make up for maybe a couple of hours, but don’t take my word for it, and don’t take any chances. You must do the five prayers. If you don’t do the five prayers, you’re in trouble already.

So you get up and, first thing in the morning, you mention God. Then comes breakfast. Before the first bite, remember there’s a verse in the Quran that says do not eat from that upon which the name of God has not been mentioned, and that word covers apples and eggs and bread, everything. So mention the name of God. You’ll forget for the next month or so, but keep blaming yourself until, every time you eat or drink anything, you say “Bismillah.” So there again, you’re mentioning God’s name. Then, if you’re feeling good, feeling healthy, you say “Alhamdulillah.” Even if you don’t feel good, you don’t feel healthy, say “Alhamdulillah”: thank God, praise God. Just find any excuse, for heaven’s sake, to mention God, to think of God. You see your spouse, you see your children: say “Mashallah,” “Alhamdulillah,” “Thank You, God,” “God be glorified,” “God be praised,” continuously. Just find any excuse. The sun rises, and you think of the earth rotating, and you say, “God be glorified.” The Quran teaches you to mention God on every occasion, for a reason or for no reason. I’m going to end this subject here. I’ve probably forgotten a few things, but we can discuss it tonight in the Quranic study, inshallah.

Now, about the tape that I have here. I remember specifically that one student came to me and said, “How come I don’t get straight A’s?” She’s a good believer, alhamdulillah, and many other students wonder, “How come we don’t get straight A’s?” Yes, John, I’m not going to embarrass you; I’m not going to mention names. My answer to them always is that God will give you the straight A’s where it counts, when it counts. I have experienced this in my own personal life, and the example that we’re going to see here is a typical example. This is the last game of the season, the last inning, the last out: two outs in the ninth inning, and two strikes. I believe most of you understand baseball, and you know what this means: the game is almost over. This was Sami’s finale this season, and it is a typical story as far as your courses are concerned, and even what is happening to you in life. This is a typical example of what God does with the believers. I’m starting at the point where the second out in the ninth inning is going to happen, and I think it’s self-explanatory.

[The local TV broadcast of the game is played: with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and the season resting on him, Sami Khalifa gets a base hit, and his team comes from behind to win the final game of the season. The broadcasters and a teammate then praise his clutch hit.]

So this is the idea: God will give you victory at the crucial time.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, given as a welcome to a conference, Rashad Khalifa praises those who have recognized God’s absolute authority, explains the correct Shahada from Sura 3, verse 18, and stresses following only what is in the Quran.

Video Transcript:

Praise God! Ashahdu ela ilahe ila Allah, wahdahu la sharike lah. We bear witness that there is no god except one God. Since I was not scheduled to give the Friday khutba, I did not prepare anything, so I’ll just chat with you, and I will mix my Friday sermon with my scheduled welcome for all of you. It is really a privilege and an honor for me to welcome the most important people on earth. You are the most important people on earth. You have come to the realization that God is Omnipotent, Omniscient.

He sees the path ahead of us and can make better choices than we can do, then you decided to submit all your affairs in God’s hand, and God repeatedly says in the Quran that only those who possess intelligence will come to me. And as you know from your own experiences by now, it is not easy to worship God alone, and to uphold the word of God alone. You have to realize that you are privileged minority of a minority.

The better expression is the elite of the elite. In the Quran it is asadukun asadukun. In Sura 56 God describes the very special people who have come to the realization that God alone possesses all power, and decide to live their lives devoted to God alone.

God is the only priority in their lives. So, you can see why it is indeed an honor for me to welcome the most important people on earth. You have succeeded in attaining this worship of God alone, and upholding his word alone. God says in the Quran in sura number 3. God ordered us to say, “qul”, say, allah huma, our god, say, alla huma, our god, malikel mul, God describes himself as malikel mul, possesses of all possessions.

Possessors of all things. A repeated statement in the Quran is lilahi mahu salamatu… to God belongs everything in the heavens and the earth. God is malikel mul, the owner of all kingship. Nobody owns anything in the heavens or the earth.

So, any intelligent creature will associate himself with the one who possesses everything. He is the one who possesses all your provisions, he is the one who controls your health, your wealth, your happiness, and this is stated very clearly in Sura 54…. He is the one who makes you rich or poor, he is the one who decides if you are happy or miserable… He is the one who makes you happy or miserable, with the understanding that God does not make us miserable, but God’s law dictates that we can make ourselves miserable according to God’s law, but no one can make you happy or miserable – only God.

This is precisely why God says that only those who possess intelligence will come to me. God says, say “malikel mul” God, possessor of all possessions, the owner of everything in the heavens and the earth… you give possessions to whomever you will, you give kingship to whomever you will, you remove possessions, you remove kingship from whomever you will. You remove power from whomever you will. You give dignity to whomever you will.

God is the only source of dignity and respect. And you humiliate or you remove dignity from whomever you will, in your hand is all provisions, all good things. God is teaching us to say this about God. You are Omnipotent. So, God is teaching us in very simple terms that are repeated throughout the Quran that he is the only one who possesses all power, so what are we doing depending on anybody else? You are the people who decided that God is malikel mul, and as I will introduce you to, you are going to see that in each one of you, in the life of each one of you, because you have been put to the test, and you are being put to the test, in the life of each one of you there are demonstrations and proof that you know that only God possesses all power. You’ve come across the people who will try to divert you. You are the number one target of Satan, and this is in accordance with God’s law.

People will try to divert you, and will use all kinds of tricks, and Satan will always work on you, because he is not interested in all those people out there, idol worshipers, or disbelievers, and one of the tricks they will use is…. Verse number 2 of sura 29 says, do the people think that they will be left to say “we believe” without being put to the test. We have tested those before them, for God will surely distinguish those who are truthful from the liars. This is why you have to be tested, and we never cease to be amazed at how efficient the test is. Recently at the mosque of Tucson, we had a number of people whom I just fell in love with, wonderful people, and I always wonder, are they strong believers, will they make it, we would always pray for the people to make it, to pass the test, and we are pulling for them. At the same time, we are also interested in having God’s test take place in order to sift away those who do not belong among us. It is not something bad, it’s been happening for times, that this sifting process, because only the pure diamonds remain, everything else, the foam flows to the top and is removed. These seemingly very strong people were subjected to tests recently, they were told, “Rashad is bad”, “Rashad is manipulating you”. This is by people who are sipping whiskey as they say that. Don’t listen to Rashad. It’s surprising how the people were influenced. I tell them worship God alone, follow the word of God alone, then somebody is sipping whiskey and telling them “Rashad is bad”, and oh you are right, “Rashad is bad”, why, they flunk the test so easy. This happens. Satan will work on your ego, and say “you are following Rashad Khalifa”, and you know better and I know better, we do not follow Rashad Khalifa, we do not follow Muhammad or Jesus, we do not follow any human being, we follow God, we know that, this is why we smile when we say that, but this just about one of the last straws. “You follow Rashad Khalifa” is the polite way, but usually they say “you follow the crazy Rashad Khalifa”, they have to add some adjective just to work even harder on our ego, but we make it very clear, we follow malikel mul, the possessor of all kingship, we follow only God, we follow only the word of God. And as you know, I am the first one to tell you, “if it is my opinion… if it is Rashad Khalifa, don’t follow him”, because you will probably do the wrong things” You must be sure that you are following God, and the word of God, and we go to any extent to make sure that we are following God and the word of God. We are not following the words of any human being. Toboo ila Allah. Repent. Elhamdulilah! Eshehedu ela ilahe ila Allah, wahdau, la sharike lah. We praise God, and we bear witness that there is no god except the one God. At this rate, it seems like I will finish the Friday sermon, and finish the Friday Prayer before Ismail Barakat is here. Because at 2 a clock we have the introductions and the welcoming. God says, “only the intelligent come to me”, and when we look in the Quran, almost every page says, the only unforgivable offense if maintained until death is idol worship. There is only one unforgivable offense at the time of death. When a person dies and he had committed murders and lies and cheats, and theft and adultery, and aggressions, all these are forgivable. God gave us examples in the Quran, Moses killed somebody, one of God’s great prophets. There is only one unforgivable offense at the time of death, that is idol worship, idolatry. Any person with the smallest amount of intelligence will say to himself or herself, “if this is the only unforgivable offense, I am going to avoid any suspicion of it for the rest of my life, all my life, any hint of idol worship, I’m going to get rid of it.” We look in the Quran it says in Sura 3, verse 18, that God, God begins with himself, “shahid allahu, God bears witness, la ilah ila Hu, that la ilaha ila Allah, this is the shahada according to Allah, subhana tala” According to God, the shahada is, “La ilaha ila Allah”, and the angels, God lists the angels after him, and those who possess knowledge. So, there is the shahadah in plain language, in any language, in any translation. God bears witness that the shahada is “La ilaha ila Allah”, and so do the angels and those who possess knowledge. Therefore, if I say “la ilaha ila Allah”, I am right. They tell you “Ok, put next to it, Muhammad resulullah” Where did this come from? Maybe it is perfectly alright, maybe? But maybe is a maybe. Maybe it’s idol worship. Maybe it’s perfect, but we are not sure, and any intelligent person who knows that the only unforgivable offense is idol worship will say since “La ilaha ila Allah” is correct, and “La ilaha ila Allah, muhammad resulullah” is maybe, I’m going to stick with “La ilaha ila Allah”. After all, these are the words that came of Muhammad’s mouth. Certainly, he will not blame me for saying “La ilaha ila Allah” on the day of judgment, I am talking about, God will not blame me. This is consistent through the Quran, surah entitled “Muhamamd, number 47, verse 19, says, ….”La ilaha ila Allah”. You shall know that, “La ilaha ila Allah”. Muhammadans took it and they put, “La ilaha ila Allah, Muhammad resulullah”, and you will see it here in the appendix. It says know that there is no god except Allah, and Muhammad is resulullah, his messenger. They added it, and they put it in the calligraphy that looks like the Quran to the point that people who memorized the Quran were fooled.

They thought it is Quran. Because this kind of idolatry became so common, that it became part of the people’s beliefs. God says in the sura entitled “Muhammad”, “La ilaha ila Allah”, so why are they trying to push their idolatry on us. It doesn’t make sense. Any intelligent person knowing that idol worship is the only unforgivable offense will run away from any suspicion of idolatry. So they turn against… they say “Don’t you believe that Muhammad is resullullah”. The fact that we uphold the Quran is the biggest proclamation that we know that Muhammad is resullullah, God’s messenger. And we have examples that utterly destroy their arguments. The Quran is the word of God, and consistently God puts his scriptures ahead of messengers and the prophets in the Quran. God starts with the believers, those who believe in God… God, his angels, his scriptures, his messengers. The scripture, the word of God comes ahead of messengers, always in the Quran. So, you can ask them, “Don’t you believe that the Quran is the word of God?” They say “Yes.” Say, “then ok, you should say, La ilaha ila Allah, Quran qalau Allah”, don’t you believe that the Quran is the word of God. Why don’t you say “La ilaha ila allah, and the Quran is the word of God.” See it’s the same. It completely shuts them up. They accuse you of hating Muhammad, which is the exact opposite. They hate Muhammad. The Quran says that only the hypocrites say, “Muhammadan resulullah”. They add it to the…. They put Muhammad’s name next to God’s name. You can take this further and say, why not say, “La ilaha ila Allah, and the sun rises from the east”, there is no end to this. Why, don’t you believe that the sun rises from the east. So, there are millions of statements that you can put next to “La ilaha ila Allah” that are absolutely correct, but this is not the point, verse 18 in sura 3 says God bears witness that la ilaha ila Hu. I lost my note. When they tell you, “you follow Rashad Khalifa” if they are polite, or “the crazy Rashad Khalifa” if they are normal, you tell them, “we follow God”. We follow God alone; we follow the word of God alone. The principle is very easy, if it is not in the Quran, we have no consideration for it. In this conference, you are going to hear lots of views, personal views of many people, anybody can say anything they want, but your criterion is the Quran. If it is not in the Quran, don’t believe it, no matter who is talking to you. Very simple principle. Because this is what we follow. Even in this conference, Satan has to be represented, especially in this conference, Satan has to be represented, and you are going to hear some views that are contrary to the Quran, and if you believe them, you deserve to believe them. There may be two or three people who will be influenced, because the purpose of these people with views other than the Quranic views is to at least put doubt in your heart, and as long as you have doubt in your heart, you are in the lowest rank of submission. Remember the verse in sura 49, it says… they say, “we are believers”, and God says, do not say “we are believers”, say “we are muslims” until all doubt is gone. So their job is to put even a little bit of doubt in your heart. When this happens, you know that God is testing you, if the doubt comes in my heart, unfortunately, I still have some doubts, I’m still in the lowest rank, I’m still on my way, it’s not hopeless yet, but you must be aware of this principle. This is our principle. If it is not in the Quran, I don’t believe it. It may or it may not be correct, but if it is not in the Quran, I am not following it. We have time now to do the Friday prayer, and then go into, I can’t linger any longer until Ismail is here. So, let’s do the Friday Prayer and I’m sure Ismail will get his chance to express his views. He had prepared a very good khutba, on the ink and paper. This is not the Quran. The ink and paper, the physical book is not the Quran. The Quran is in your heart. When prophet Muhammad was taken to the seventh heaven to receive the Quran, God did not give him a book.