In this short video, Alban Fejza presents examples of the Quran’s mathematical miracle based on the number 19, which Sura 74 calls one of the great miracles, and explains that this is not numerology.
Video Transcript:
Time to discover who you truly are. According to Sura 74, verse 31 in the Quran, you are a disbeliever if you do not find the content of this video significant or impressive. And alternatively, you are a believer if you find the content of this video significant or impressive. So, I wonder what you think of this. Here we go. This book has the Quran in it. It has exactly 114 chapters, and 114 is 19 * 6. It has 6,346 verses, which is 19 * 334. This is the opening statement in the Quran. It occurs in the Quran 114 times, which is 19 * 6. The statement says, “Bismillahi Rahmanir Rahim.” This is exactly 19 letters. And the first word in it is name, is found in the whole Quran 19 times. And the second word in it, the word Allah, God, is found in the whole Quran 2,698 times, 19 * 142. And the third word in it, Ar-Rahman, the Gracious, is found in the whole Quran 57 times, which is 19 * 3. And the fourth word in it, Ar-Raheem, the Merciful, is found in the whole Quran 114 times, which is 19 * 6. The famous first revelation of the Quran consists of 19 words. Those 19 words have 76 letters, which is 19 * 4. The last revelation of the Quran consists of 19 words. The Quran mentions 30 different numbers, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 19 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 99 100 200 300 1,000 2,000 3,000 5,000 50,000 and 100,000. The sum of all these numbers is 162,146, which equals to 19 * 8,534. Many suras in the Quran start with different sets of these mysterious letters, which we call Quranic initials. Sura 50 starts with the Quranic initial Q, Qaf. And in this sura, there are exactly 57 Qs, which is 19 * 3. The only other sura which has the Quranic initial Q in it is sura 42. And despite the fact that it’s twice as long as sura 50, it again has 57 Qs, which is 19 * 3. Sura 7, 19, and 38 have the Quranic initial S, Sad, in them. And there are 152 Sads in these three suras, which is 19 * 8. Sura 36 has the Quranic initials YS, Yasin, which are found in this sura 285 times, which is 19 * 15. There are seven suras which start with the Quranic initial HM, Ha Mim. And as you can guess by now, the total Hs and Ms in all these HM initial suras is also a multiple of 19. It’s 2,147, which is 19 * 113. Sura 19 has the Quranic initials KHYAS, which are found in this sura 798 times, which is 19 * 42. And examples like this of meaningful multiples of 19 go on and on in the Quran. And I only presented to you a tiny portion of it, but you can find a much longer list, at least 10 times more, in many different videos in this YouTube channel. It’s so statistically improbable that God, in chapter 74, verse 35, calls it one of the great miracles. Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not praising number 19. This is not numerology, like some people might believe that a certain number has some kind of special meaning or special power. No, far from it. Number 19 is like any other number. This channel only preaches the worship of God alone. But number 19 is simply used as a means to perform a miracle, with which God supported the last prophet, Prophet Muhammad. In a similar way, for example, God supported the messenger Saleh with a miracle through a camel, which would only drink on a specific day of the week, but not on the other days of the week. Now, this does not make the camel a special animal. It doesn’t make it better than cows or sheep or goats. And likewise, number 19 is not better than any other number, but it’s simply one of the numbers which God chose to show us a miracle in the Quran to support the fact that the Quran is truly God’s revelation to us through Prophet Muhammad. Now, the recent discovery of this superhuman mathematical composition of the Quran has sparked a continuous stream of new discoveries, new paradigm shifts, a new awareness of the role of the Quran in our modern world, and many other recent discoveries. And you can find them in this YouTube channel. And if you haven’t subscribed to this YouTube channel yet, please subscribe right now. We publish new information every week. On top of that, God willing, we are publishing sura by sura four new authorized English video translations of the Quran. And the variety of meanings which you get from them will enrich you with an abundance of clear religious information. And it will nourish your soul. So, please don’t forget to hit like and subscribe. And if you’re serious about submission, send us an email at submitters.net@gmail.com.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza lists 19 preconditions from the Quran that a person must fulfill to be allowed to understand it correctly, starting with the Contact Prayers, Zakat, belief and righteousness, and including sincerity, fearing God, listening and reading it regularly.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
In the last Friday sermon, titled “What Does the Quran Really Say About Hadith,” I proved to you from the Quran that following Hadith is not a precondition to understanding, following or applying the Quran correctly. However, I also said that just because Hadith is not a precondition for understanding the Quran correctly, it does not mean that there are no other preconditions. In fact, the Quran does mention a number of preconditions which people need to fulfill so that they can be allowed by God to understand the Quran correctly, and in this video we will go over that list. Here it is.
The first precondition is doing the Contact Prayers, Salat. Verses 27:2 and 27:3 tell us that the Quran is guidance only for believers who do the Contact Prayers. So doing the Contact Prayers is a precondition to understanding the Quran correctly. The so-called Quranists look at this the wrong way around. They try to understand the Quran first, and then self-design a version of the Contact Prayer according to their limited understanding of the Quran. But you cannot understand from the Quran how to do the Contact Prayer correctly unless you are already doing the Contact Prayer correctly, because doing the Contact Prayer correctly is a precondition to understanding the Quran correctly, according to verses 2 and 3 of Sura 27 and verses 2 and 3 of Sura 2.
So doing the Contact Prayer is a precondition to understanding the Quran correctly, while the Quran is not a precondition to doing the Contact Prayer correctly. As we know, according to the Quran itself, the Contact Prayers existed before the Quran. They came to us all the way from Abraham. Now, it is possible to find all the details of the Contact Prayer directly from the Quran, and I will present them to you, God willing, in another video. But I was only able to find those details because I already understood the Quran correctly, which was only possible because I had already accepted to do the Contact Prayers in their full form, accepting them from the Abrahamic tradition, even before I found their details in the Quran.
So the correct process goes like this. First, you accept the Contact Prayers in their full, unchanged form from the Abrahamic tradition, which you can learn how to do in the video titled “Principles of Muslim Prayer” by Rashad Khalifa. Then, after you do that, according to verses 27:2-3 and 2:2-3, you are enabled to understand the Quran correctly. This fulfills the first precondition to understanding the Quran correctly.
The second precondition to understanding the Quran correctly is giving the obligatory charity, Zakat. The same logic applies here as with the Contact Prayers, and you can learn how to give the obligatory charity correctly in my video clarification titled “The Obligatory Charity (Zakat).”
The third precondition to understanding the Quran correctly is believing. Verses 27:2, 27:76-77, 17:82 and 41:44 tell us that the Quran is guidance only for those who believe, while at the same time it only increases the wickedness of the transgressors. Verse 41:44 also tells us that, whether the Quran is in Arabic or not, for those who believe it is a guide and healing, but those who disbelieve will be deaf and blind to it, as if they are being addressed from far away.
The fourth precondition is being righteous. Verse 2:2 says that the Quran is guidance for the righteous. By the way, the first four preconditions which I have mentioned so far are all given together, right towards the beginning of the Quran, at the start of Sura 2. Sura 2 starts by saying that the Quran is a scripture without mistakes, which is guidance for the righteous, those who believe in the unseen, observe the Contact Prayers, and give charity.
The fifth precondition is accepting the Quran in its entirety. Unfortunately, some people find it hard to accept some verses of the Quran, like the verses about war, or slavery, or miracles, or resurrection, or gender roles, and so on, and this actually limits their understanding of the other verses as well, the verses which they are willing to accept. The Quran is an interconnected book. You can only understand it correctly if you accept all of it.
The sixth precondition is seeking refuge in God from Satan the rejected before we read the Quran. Verse 16:98 says, “When you read the Quran, you shall seek refuge in God from Satan the rejected.”
The seventh precondition is believing in the Hereafter, in the next life. You cannot understand the Quran correctly if you do not believe in the Hereafter. Verse 17:45 says, “When you read the Quran, we place between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter an invisible barrier.”
The eighth precondition is not disregarding verses when they are brought to you. Verse 18:57 says, “Who are more evil than those who are reminded of their Lord’s proofs, then disregard them, without realizing what they are doing? Consequently, we place shields on their hearts to prevent them from understanding (the Quran), and deafness in their ears. Thus, no matter what you do to guide them, they can never be guided.”
The ninth precondition is not presupposing what the Quran will say. Verse 18:55 says that nothing prevented the people from believing when the guidance came to them, and from seeking the forgiveness of their Lord, except that they demanded to see the same as the previous generations. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not fulfill this precondition. Let me give you just one example. Some people today presuppose that the Quran says that the punishment for adultery is to stone the adulterer to death, which is actually a statement in Hadith, taken from the law in the Bible. Before the Quran was completely revealed to Muhammad, the biblical rules still applied. But the Quran is complete now, and we shouldn’t presuppose that it will tell us the same thing today. The Quran never tells us to kill an adulteress. Instead, the punishment for adultery in the Quran is 100 lashes. We shouldn’t presuppose what it will say about a certain issue unless it actually says it.
The tenth precondition is not engaging in arguments about what the Quran is saying. Unfortunately, today most of the online religious groups are organized in such a way that basically all they do is argue with one another, trying to convince each other to understand the Quran their own way. That’s not the way to understand the Quran. That method of organization actually prevents you from understanding something new from the Quran. You can solidify what you already knew, but it prevents you from correctly understanding anything new from the Quran. Group thinking prevents new thinking.
The eleventh precondition is fearing God. Verse 20:3 says that the Quran is a reminder for those who fear God. The same is said at the beginning of the Book of Proverbs in the Bible: the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. That’s because, for any new information to be ingrained in your brain, the brain first has to decide that it’s important information to be remembered, and if the heart is fearing God, it automatically tells the brain that the information is important, and then the brain puts that information in its right place, to be remembered later. This is why you might have had hundreds of traffic accidents in a video game, and you probably don’t remember any of them, but if you had an accident in real life, where the fear of dying and meeting God was involved, you can’t forget that accident for the rest of your life. So when a perfect believer reads the Quran while fearing God, his brain, because of the fear of God, registers the information similarly to how the brain registers information before an accident.
The twelfth precondition to understanding the Quran correctly is not rushing with the Quran. If you try to absorb more information than you can handle at any given time, it gets jumbled and mixed up in your head, and it increases the chances of false memories. You might end up thinking that you remember something from the Quran which is not there at all, and then misunderstand other portions of the Quran because of that false memory.
The thirteenth precondition to understanding the Quran correctly is accepting translations of the Quran in your language, but expecting the complete details only in the Arabic Quran. Unfortunately, many people today go to the extremes on this issue. They either consider the translations the final authority in religious decisions, or they do not show enough trust in the translations. Translations of the Quran should be treated as witnesses of events. Two witnesses of an event make the event trustworthy for you, and in the same way, you can use two independent translations to figure out what the Arabic Quran very likely says, or you can use one translation in combination with proof, which is similar to using two translations. You can definitely know the truth from translations, but by the very fact that they are translations, they cannot have all the details. Verse 41:3 says that the complete details are only in the Arabic Quran, but the general truth, guidance and belief can also be found in translations of the Quran.
The fourteenth precondition to understanding the Quran correctly is listening when the Quran is recited. You cannot speak over the Quran, as they do in some so-called Quranic studies. You should not interrupt while the Quran is being recited and then expect to understand the Quran correctly. You are supposed to simply listen, according to verse 7:204.
The fifteenth precondition is taking heed when the Quran is recited. It’s important that when you learn something from the Quran, you absorb it into your life and apply it, and then that enables you to learn something new correctly. If you don’t take heed in the first case, it prevents you from understanding something new in another case.
The sixteenth precondition, obviously, is wanting to learn more. Verse 54:17 tells us that the Quran was made easy for those who want to learn. Unfortunately, a large number of so-called Muslims put their children in schools where they force them to learn the Quran in their childhood years, even when they do not want to. They end up memorizing it in their minds, but it’s not in their hearts.
The seventeenth precondition is being sincere. Verse 56:79 says that none can grasp the Quran except the sincere.
The eighteenth precondition is being knowledgeable. Verse 3:7 says that when it comes to the verses with deeper, multiple meanings, none knows their true meaning except God and those well founded in knowledge. Unfortunately, often people who have no proof in their lives that they are intelligent, who were never among the best at anything, not among the best at school, not among the best at finishing college, not among the best at their work, still think that they can be the best at understanding the Quran correctly. You don’t have to be the best, but you cannot be the best at understanding the Quran if you were not intelligent enough to be the best at other things earlier in your life, when you were tested on them.
And finally, the nineteenth precondition to understanding the Quran correctly is reading it regularly. Verse 17:106 says that the Quran was revealed slowly, to be read over a long period of time.
So these are the 19 preconditions to understanding the Quran correctly. If you do not fulfill them, your understanding of the Quran is distorted, in the best-case scenario, or you might be completely blocked from understanding it, in the worst-case scenario.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza goes through all 36 places where the word Hadith appears in the Quran and shows that none of them tells us to follow Hadith as a religious source, then answers the common Sunni arguments based on verses 59:7 and 5:92.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
There are hundreds of debates online between Sunnis and Quranists about whether Hadith is necessary for the correct understanding of the Quran. According to the Quranists, Hadith is not necessary at all to understand the Quran correctly, while according to the Sunnis, Hadith is a necessary part of understanding the Quran correctly. In all the debates you might have seen, you can never reach a conclusion, because those debates are not done in good faith. They are not really interested in the truth. They just throw a few verses here and a few verses there, hoping to catch the other party by surprise, so that they can win the debate. Finding the truth requires a systematic process: not just looking at a few verses here and there, but at all the verses of the Quran. Only then should we allow ourselves to reach a decision about this issue. So that’s what I did. Here it is.
If you go to any Quran glossary, you can see that the word “Hadith,” in all its grammatical forms, is mentioned 36 times in the Quran. Here is one Quran glossary online, at this link, which is maintained neither by the Quranists nor by the Sunnis. It’s not maintained by a religious project at all; it’s maintained by a linguistic research group at the University of Leeds in the UK. As you can see here, the word “Hadith,” in all its grammatical forms, is mentioned 36 times in the Quran. So I took all these 36 verse numbers, and let me present them to you.
Here we have all the verses in the Quran where the word “Hadith” is mentioned. Let’s go over these verses and see for ourselves, once and for all, what they say. By the way, the word “Hadith” literally means a story, or to tell, or to bring, or something new. I will give the translation with the word “Hadith” in capital letters, and while I present the verses, please pay attention and see whether any of them tell us to follow Hadith, or more specifically the Hadith of Muhammad. So now let’s see what each of these verses says.
This verse says that buying entertaining stories (Hadith) to mislead from the way of God, without knowledge, is prohibited. This verse says that we should tell (Hadith) about God’s blessings on us. In this verse, God asks Muhammad whether the story (Hadith) about the end of the world has reached him. This verse tells us that the servant of God asked Moses not to ask him about anything until he told him (Hadith) about it. This verse tells us that people who are afraid to fight in the cause of God, and do not understand that God is doing everything, can hardly understand any story (Hadith). This verse tells us that one of the many reasons why the waiting period is commanded by God before a believer divorces his wife is that perhaps God might bring (Hadith) a solution.
These verses tell us that telling your dream is a story (Hadith). These verses tell us that the stories which are told about Moses and Abraham are stories (Hadith). This verse tells us that the Jews hide the stories (Hadith) of the Old Testament from the believers when they think that they will give supporting arguments to the believers. These verses tell us that the communities of disbelievers before the Quran who were destroyed remained as stories (Hadith) among the people after them. These verses tell us that on the Day of Judgment people will not be able to conceal their life stories (Hadith) from God. These verses simply mention the Quran as a reminder which is new (Hadith). These verses tell us that when people engage in conversations (Hadith) which ridicule or deny the verses of the Quran, or consider them debatable or unimportant, we should not sit with them until they change to another conversation. These verses tell us that the Quran is a true story (Hadith). These verses tell us that the Quran is the best story (Hadith). These verses tell us that believing in, or bringing, any other stories (Hadith) except the Quran is considered a bad idea in principle.
So, as you can see, in the verses which we have covered so far, there was not a single verse which obliged us, or even recommended us, to follow Hadith as a religious source. As a matter of fact, these verses did not even connect Hadith to Muhammad in any way. They were stories told by other people about other people, not Hadith, or stories, told by Muhammad or about Muhammad.
Now, these last two verses, which I left until the end, actually do mention Hadith from Muhammad: stories which Muhammad told. But let’s look at what they say. In this verse, God prohibited the believers during Muhammad’s time from seeking stories (Hadith) from Muhammad. And this last verse tells us that when one of Muhammad’s wives spread a private story (Hadith) from Muhammad to another wife, she was asked by God to repent for doing it. So, as you can see, even these last two verses, which talk about Hadith, stories from Muhammad, are actually cases where God either prohibited Muhammad’s contemporaries from seeking Hadith from him, or prohibited them from spreading Hadith from him, because those stories were Muhammad’s private life, which had nothing to do with his messengership. His messenger persona, his public persona, was actually expressed through the Quran, not through Hadith.
A lot of what people today call Hadith is either false, or an intrusion into Muhammad’s private life which Muhammad never authorized, and the Quran actually asks the believers to repent for sharing any aspect of Muhammad’s private life without God’s authorization. So this is everything that the Quran says about Hadith, and as you can see, the Quran does not consider Hadith a precondition or a requirement for understanding the Quran correctly, or for understanding religion correctly.
Now, even after all this, some Sunnis will insist that we should still follow Hadith because, according to them, verse 7 of Sura 59 says, “Whatever the messenger gives you, take it, and whatever the messenger stops you from, do not take it.” However, once you go and check the verse yourself, you can see that the verse does not talk about Hadith at all, and they are only quoting a small portion of it. If you read the whole verse, you can see that it actually talks about the spoils which they won in war. Here is the whole verse. It says: “Whatever God restored to His messenger from the defeated communities shall go to God and His messenger (in the form of charity). You shall give it to the relatives, the orphans, the poor, and the traveling alien. Thus, it will not remain monopolized by the strong among you. Whatever the messenger gives you (from it), take it, and whatever the messenger stops you from (taking), do not take it. You shall reverence God. God is strict in enforcing retribution.” So this is the whole verse, and you can clearly see that it is talking about the spoils of war, which should be distributed by God’s messenger as charity, and not about Hadith. Hadith is not mentioned here at all, explicitly or implicitly.
The other verses which the Sunnis will typically bring to support the wrong idea of following Hadith are the verses which say, “Obey God and obey the messenger,” like verse 5:92, for example. But they do not mention that the same verse says that the only duty of the messenger is to deliver the message: “balagh,” delivery, in Arabic. And we are told in verse 14:52 that this same word, “balagh,” refers to the Quran itself. So obeying the messenger only means obeying what the messenger delivered as a messenger, according to verse 5:92, and what Muhammad delivered as the messenger is the Quran itself, according to verse 14:52. Nowhere in the Quran does it say that balagh, the delivery, includes Hadith. I have already shown you all the verses where the word “Hadith” is mentioned, and you can recheck them to see that Hadith is not defined as balagh, delivery, in them.
According to the Quran, Hadith is simply stories, which might be useful for historians, like all other historical stories, such as the stories of Napoleon or of Alexander the Great, which contain truths and falsehoods to be studied by historians. But they are not religious texts, and were never intended to be used as religious texts in the beginning, even in cases where they were factually true. Now, despite the overwhelming evidence from the Quran, some stubborn Sunni scholars still try to come up with even weaker arguments to support their idea that Hadith is a necessary part of religion, but the answers, the counterarguments, to all of them are given in the book titled “Quran, Hadith and Islam” by Rashad Khalifa.
So now the debate between the Quranists and the Sunnis is settled. The conclusion is that when it comes to religion, the Quranists are right about this issue. They are right when they claim that we do not need Hadith at all to understand or apply the Quran correctly. However, pay attention now; this is important. Just because Hadith is not a precondition for understanding or applying the Quran correctly, it does not mean that there are no other preconditions. The Quranists still fail to understand the Quran correctly, because they do not meet those other preconditions, and I give you those other preconditions in the following Friday sermon, titled “The Preconditions to Understanding the Quran Correctly.”
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains how the community should respond to people who leave Submission, the conditions for rejoining a second time, including repentance and bearing witness to the messenger they rejected, and why marriage to someone who left Submission must end.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
According to the Bible and the Quran, people who leave Submission must be killed, except in cases where they join people with whom we have reached peace agreements. One type of peace agreement is democracy, and since we all live in democracies in modern times, that means that people who leave Submission should not be killed. If not killed, then what should our response towards them be?
Before I talk about that, let me first define what I mean when I say people who left Submission. That includes both those who left Submission for reasons of their own, and those who were excluded from Submission because they refused to do the Contact Prayer or give the Zakat. Regardless of the reason, if someone leaves Submission quietly, in peace, without making noise, or trying to create chaos on his way out, or trying to take others with him, or attacking the community verbally or otherwise, then fine. We have no problem with that, and everyone is free to leave. However, if the person uses the channels of the community, or pre-existing friendships within the community, to create chaos, or to try to convince others to leave as well, then everyone should block his email, or whatever channel of communication he’s using, or report his email as spam in whatever email provider you are using, and let the congregation director deal with him. If there’s some kind of dispute going on, don’t get involved. Don’t waste the energy of hundreds of submitters trying to convince only one person. Don’t give him or her the attention which he or she now wants as a disbeliever.
Once that person leaves, he is allowed to join again only once more, but there are additional requirements the second time. The first time, as we know, the only requirements for him were the Contact Prayer and the Zakat. But if they leave and then wish to rejoin, they first have to admit and fix their mistakes, and that includes correcting the reason why they left in the first place. The correction of the mistake also includes making up for their missed Zakat during that period of time. For example, let’s say that someone leaves Submission and wishes to rejoin after 10 years. They will have to pay all their missed Zakat for all 10 years, which includes their regular Zakat plus the penalty Zakat, equivalent to four grams of gold for each year of being with non-submitters during those 10 years, so 40 grams of gold, minus, of course, the portion which was forced, which I explained in the video titled “The Global Forced Behaviour.” They should also pay anything which they left unpaid when they left. The congregation director goes back to the files from 10 years earlier and sees what was left unpaid, and they have to make up for those payments; otherwise they are not allowed to rejoin.
You see, according to verse 9:11, besides doing the Contact Prayer and giving Zakat, a person must also repent to be able to join the submitters, and true repentance does not exist if you do not also fix or compensate for the mistake which you made. For example, if the person left the submitters because he said that he does not believe in a particular messenger, then when he wants to rejoin for the second time, he should publicly declare that he was wrong to reject the messenger, and that he now bears witness that this messenger is a true messenger. The declaration admitting that someone is a messenger of God should be as public as the rejection was during the years out of Submission, and the congregation director decides how public it should be. So if a person went into a group, or group chats, to say that Alban is not a messenger of God, or that Alban is a fake messenger, then he has not truly repented when he wants to join, unless he goes into the same group chats and channels of communication, if they still exist, and says that he has changed his mind and now believes that Alban is a true messenger of God. If the congregation director judges that enough correction has been done at the right public level, then fine, he can join. But if more is needed, the congregation director has the right to ask the person to record a video of himself stating, “I now believe that Alban is the Clarifying Messenger mentioned in Sura 44, verse 13.”
By the way, this witnessing about the identity of a living messenger, when someone joins the submitters for the second time, was misunderstood by the early Muslims, and they created a distorted Shahada, a distorted witnessing, out of it. The reason why Muhammad would have asked the Meccans to declare that he is a messenger of God in order to join the submitters is precisely because they were technically joining him for the second time.
Here is what happened. When the Quran was revealed to Muhammad, the people of Mecca had already inherited all the religious rituals from Abraham: Salat, Zakat, fasting and Hajj. So technically, they were already submitters before Muhammad received the Quran from God. They were also idol worshipers at the same time, but they were also submitters, and this is actually possible, which is another issue for another time. So the Meccans were both idol worshipers and submitters at the same time, and when God revealed the Quran to Muhammad, they rejected him, and together with rejecting him, they also left Submission, because of their hatred for Muhammad. God let them leave Submission this time, because now Submission could be carried from generation to generation through Muhammad and some of his followers from Mecca.
Then, years later, when Muhammad defeated the opposing Meccans, they wanted to join Submission again, but this was their second time, and because it was their second time, they were required to fix their mistakes before they joined. One of those mistakes was that they had declared that Muhammad is not a messenger of God, so now they had to fix it and declare that Muhammad is a messenger of God. So, as you can see, the distorted Shahada which millions of Muhammadans recite today emerged from the fact that when the Meccans joined Muhammad for the first time, they were actually joining Submission for the second time.
But today this is not the case. Most people who join us today are actually joining Submission for the first time in their lives. They never did the Contact Prayer or the Zakat correctly as a group with us before, which is why they do not need to bear witness that Alban is God’s messenger when they join us for the first time. As we know, the correct Shahada, the witnessing in the Quran, in verse 3:18, is only: “There is no other god except God.” However, if someone leaves Submission and wants to join the second time, they should also declare that Alban is the Clarifying Messenger mentioned in verse 44:13 of the Quran. Now, this is not part of the Shahada. I repeat: this is not part of the Shahada. But it is part of repentance the second time around, when someone wants to join, because repentance includes fixing the mistake, and anyone who leaves Submission and then wants to rejoin has already, at least implicitly, rejected the messenger, having been part of the community before, where they were exposed to the fact that Alban is the Clarifying Messenger.
So if anyone wants to join for the second time, they must bear witness that Alban is the Clarifying Messenger mentioned in verse 44:13 of the Quran. If this situation happens during the time of Alhaq, then they must bear witness that Alhaq is the Strengthening Messenger mentioned in verse 69:40 of the Quran. If this situation happens after the death of Alhaq, then they must bear witness that Alhaq was the Strengthening Messenger mentioned in verse 69:40 of the Quran. And if this situation happens during the time of the last messenger, the time of Ahmed the Mahdi, then they must declare that they bear witness that Ahmed is the Guide Messenger mentioned in verse 9:33 of the Quran.
Now, after joining for the second time, if a person leaves Submission again, they are not allowed to join ever again. Verse 4:137 says, “Surely, those who believe, then disbelieve, then believe, then disbelieve, then plunge deeper into disbelief, God will not forgive them, nor will He guide them in any way.”
And this brings me to the most important part of this sermon. Whether a person leaves Submission the first time and then never joins again, or leaves Submission for the second time, after which he is not allowed to join again, in both of these cases that person will go to Hell, guaranteed. There’s no salvation for him or her, ever. Here is why. There are only two roads to Heaven: one is through Submission, and the other is through suffering. If someone was never a submitter, it is still possible for him to go to Heaven through suffering. But if someone was a submitter before and he left, then God will make sure to close the door of suffering for him as well, to reward him in this life for his previous Submission. So even if the person suffers, he will not suffer enough in this world to pay for his sins and escape Hell. In verse 3:86, God says, “Why should God guide people who disbelieved after believing, and after witnessing that the messenger is truthful, and after solid proofs have been given to them? God does not guide the wicked.” And the verse just before it, verse 3:85, says that anyone who accepts other than Submission as his religion, it will not be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be with the losers. So this is guaranteed, except when a person rejoins Submission for the second time before he dies. But if the person has left Submission for the second time, then both options, going to Heaven through suffering or through Submission, are closed forever.
Now, because people who never joined Submission may or may not go to Hell, we should give them the benefit of the doubt, and we are allowed to marry them, because we don’t know for sure. It’s not a good option, but it is allowed. However, we are not allowed to marry, or stay married to, anyone who was once a submitter and then left. This is because they are guaranteed to go to Hell, unless they join for the second time, in which case we are allowed to remarry them. This issue is important because people with low self-esteem do exist who would change their religion and become submitters just because they want to marry a submitter woman or a submitter man. But let me remind you that if they leave Submission after marrying a submitter, that submitter must divorce them. It’s not an option; it’s an obligation, for men according to verse 60:10, and for women according to verses 66:8 through 66:12. It’s an obligation.
So if your spouse was never a submitter, there is no automatic obligation to divorce them for religious reasons. But if, after being a submitter, he or she leaves Submission, then you must divorce them. It’s an obligation. It doesn’t matter what they tell you. Actions speak louder than words. If they left Submission, that is an action. If they say something to you privately, about how they are good people anyway, and so on, those are just words. They mean nothing, because they come from people who left Submission, and all people who left Submission are disbelievers, and all disbelievers, by definition, are liars. The Quran tells us not to obey them. Get away from them as quickly as possible.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains that Zakat means purification of wealth rather than only removing poverty, and describes how the community’s Zakat is arranged, reported and distributed.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God, there is no other God except God. As we know, the word zakat in the Quran means purification. It’s about purifying your wealth. It’s not necessarily about removing the poverty from the poor. When God kept the children of Israel in the desert, he guaranteed them that he would provide for them food each day from the sky. Each morning they would get food from the sky, manna and quails. And they were guaranteed to not be poor. And also no one was rich because they were prohibited from being rich. The Bible tells us that if any of them would take more than one day’s amount of food, they would be punished. So they were all equally wealthy at that moment. And yet they still had to give zakat according to the Quran. How so? Well, it’s because zakat is about removing the wealth from you. The children of Israel gave it to the messenger Aaron. And do you know what he did with it? He burned it. There were no poor people there. He burned it and the Bible says that God accepted it. Also, the Quran tells us that one of the sons of Adam offered an offering to God. And there were no poor people then. Only four people in the world. And the lightning strike burned the animal and it was gone. God accepted it. He just removed it from his hands. So zakat is about getting rid of 1/40 of your extra wealth. It’s a way to show that you had more than what you need. Had you kept all the wealth which God gave you, there would be no way on the day of judgment to prove that you thought that God gave you enough. Because the disbelievers can claim that you only didn’t take more because God didn’t give you more, but you wanted more. But if you refrain from taking everything that you were given or give away that last portion of it, then this actually shows that you felt that you had enough and you are satisfied with what God gave you. And to this day in the Middle East, for example, when people want to show that they don’t want any more food as a guest, they will leave some of it on the plate so that the host knows that they are full and satisfied. Now, we don’t have to do this with people, but we have to do this with God. We should do this with our own wealth to show that we are pleased with what God gave us. So, as far as you are concerned, you should just make sure that you don’t take that last portion, that last 1/40. And what happens after it should not be your concern. Whether it reaches the poor people or not, God deals with it today through the authorized people. This is why you never find it in the Quran that zakat should be given to poor people. Look, these are all the verses in the Quran which mention the word zakat in all its grammatical forms. All of them are listed here without exception, and none of them mention the poor or needy people as recipients of zakat. Feel free to check them one by one, including the verses around them, and you will realize that none of them tell us that zakat is about giving money to poor people. Instead, five of these verses say that zakat purification is achieved through God’s messenger, and let me read them one by one. Verse 2:129 says, “Our Lord, and raise among them a messenger to recite to them your revelations, teach them the scripture and wisdom, and purify zakat them. You are the almighty, most wise.” Verse 2:151 says, “Blessings such as the sending of a messenger from among you to recite our revelations to you, purify zakat you, teach you the scripture and wisdom, and to teach you what you never knew.” Verse 3:164 says, “God has blessed the believers by raising in their midst a messenger from among them to recite for them his revelations, and to purify zakat them, and to teach them the scripture and wisdom. Before this, they had gone totally astray.” Verse 62:2 says, “He is the one who sent to the Gentiles a messenger from among them to recite to them his revelations, purify zakat them, and teach them the scripture and wisdom. Before this, they had gone far astray. Verse 9:103 says, “Take from their money a charity to purify them and sanctify zakat them, and encourage them, for your encouragement reassures them. God is Hearer, Omniscient.” So, I gave you all the numbers of the verses in the Quran which mention the zakat, and none of them mention any poor or needy people there. Instead, five of those verses mention God’s messenger as the process of purification or zakat. And one of those verses, verse 9:103, specifically is talking about financial purification, because it says, “Take from their wealth a charity.” So, they go through financial purification, zakat. And from this verse, we can also deduce that after the money has been taken, then it is called sadaqa, charity. So, according to this, a submitter passes a specific portion of his money through God’s messenger, which is called zakat, and then from that moment, it is called sadaqa. A sadaqa, a charity which God’s messenger should make sure that it reaches the poor, the needy, and so on. So, as you can see, this is the essential difference between sadaqa and zakat. Let me present this in a graph.
So, here we have the submitter who passes the money through God’s messenger, and up to that point, it is called zakat, purification. And from that point on, it is called sadaqa, charity. And then it reaches the receivers, the people who need it or deserve it. So, people have had it slightly wrong for centuries when they thought that the difference between zakat and sadaqa is that zakat is obligatory, while sadaqa is voluntary. The real difference is that zakat is always obligatory, while sadaqa is sometimes obligatory and sometimes not. It’s obligatory in cases when it comes from zakat, and voluntary in cases when it comes directly from wealth. But anyway, the Quran in verse 9:60 gives the eight categories to whom sadaqah should go, which includes of course also the sadaqah which came from zakat because it does not give us an exception. So, let’s split these receivers into those eight categories mentioned in the Quran. Here they are. So, we have the poor, fuqara in Arabic, which also includes those who are unemployed and do not receive unemployment benefits in their countries. Then we have the needy, miskin, which also includes the homeless or those who are stuck without options in a poor country. Then we have the workers, which also includes those who help collect and distribute the zakat, and also it includes any administrative work towards that, like money transfer fees and so on. If any company or institution or people help us distribute the zakat, like Visa cards and so on, they might take a fee for that, and that is included here in this category, the workers. You do not need to give an additional zakat amount for that. That is included inside the zakat amount which you give. They work to provide that service for us, and that category of workers is included here. The other category is those with inclined hearts, which I prefer to translate as those in psychological distress. Anyone who has recently gone or is now going through psychological distress. We might not always be able to notice that for them because some people hide it better than others, but usually it happens to people who are going through a rough time or those who overwork themselves. Someone who lost someone dear, either through an early death or unwilling separation, or it also includes seriously sick people. But in many cases, the sick people are not included in this category because they might have better support from the health care system. And the psychological distress happens most often to a person when he is caught simultaneously between lack of financial support, lack of social support, and lack of emotional support. If these three happen all at the same time, the chances increase drastically that a person is very likely going through psychological distress. And the crossings of these three factors at once is more likely to happen to people who live alone or those who feel unsupported in their own family. Now, psychological distress is interlinked very closely with new converts as well. They either went through it recently or are going through it when they convert or will go through it soon after they convert. This psychological distress is what made them re-evaluate their life and see an urgency to change. And if they are a believer, they will choose the right type of change, which is to become a submitter. Psychological distress is less likely to happen to a submitter later in their life, but it might happen from case to case if God wants to push someone from a lower level of belief to a higher level of belief. Anyway, the next category is the freeing of necks or the freeing of slaves. And since slavery is outlawed in today’s circumstances, the only form which is left is actually children under 18 who are good people and they are stuck with bad parents. Even in that case, there’s nothing much we can do as a community because if we interfere financially between parents and their children, even if it is for a good cause, one side of it is always wrong. But each of us individually can say kind words and show compassion to them because kind words and compassion are better than a charity which is followed with insult. The next category is those in debt. But we have to be careful about this. Debt today and debt in the past are quite different. In the past, there were no banks and if someone went to get a loan from another submitter, he would only do it if he was in deep financial trouble or if he had a really good investment idea and then if it failed, he couldn’t pay his debt. But today, banks will give you loans for anything, for luxury, for expensive cars, for expensive houses and things like that. So it does matter what kind of debt we are talking about today. Also, in the past, if you did not pay your debt, you would officially become a slave. That is the rule in the Bible and indirectly in the Quran, also. So, if you helped someone pay his debt, which he couldn’t pay, you would be helping him not to be enslaved. But today, if someone does not pay his debt, their last option is not slavery. It’s bankruptcy. So, what people called debt in the past and today are quite often two different things. This is why Rashad Khalifa did not translate it as debt at all in his English translation. But he translated it as those who are burdened by sudden expenses. The only two types of debt which I can imagine right now to be charitable to help someone pay them are one, if someone took a debt for his basic bills or to survive, or two, if he took it for a business investment and the business investment failed or went much worse than he expected. It’s hard for me to imagine another type of debt which would be charitable to pay on behalf of someone else. The next category is in the cause of God and you can learn more about it, God willing, in the next Friday sermon. And the last category is the traveler, which also includes the recent immigrants. I would guess anyone who changed his country within the last year, for example, if they speak the language of the country, or anyone who changed his country within the last two years, if they do not speak the language of the country. Also, this category includes the people who are on the road because they are homeless. And just like we split the receivers into eight categories, let’s also split the givers of zakat into different categories. Here they are. We have submitters who own wealth, who should give regular zakat. Submitters who earn money from jobs and businesses which contain both bad and good deeds, who should give penalty zakat. Then we have submitters who confessed other sins. Then we have submitters who consulted the messenger. And then we have submitters who live together with non-submitters. And by the way, one submitter can be in more than one of these categories. Just like someone can be both poor and the traveler at the same time. And each of these categories of zakat have their different specific rates, which are explained in other videos. Now, as you can see, the messenger is in the middle of this process. However, most people today communicate with a messenger online. So, here we are actually talking about what I call an online messenger. So, let’s modify this into online messenger. So, because our interaction being in different countries is mostly online, we can make some adjustments in this arrangement. Due to this, the online messenger arranges for you to give the regular zakat directly to the poor and the needy, as long as it is reported. This is more practical for an online community, because you might know who is poor and needy better than the messenger who is not there with you. But, you have to report or declare it, so that the community knows that you did it. By the way, zakat consists of more than what I presented in this graph, and you can find all the 19 categories in the video clarification titled penalty zakat. But, here we are only dealing with the public ones, the ones in which the messenger must be involved somehow in its arrangement. And the final category of public zakat or arranged zakat is the submitters who inherited from dead non-submitters. According to the Quran, this category should go directly to God and his messenger, and I explain in another video that this basically means that it should be spent for building and maintaining mosques and supporting the preaching of the message, like printing Qurans and things like that. So, let’s highlight this in yellow, because it is a separate line of penalty zakat and should not be mixed with the other budget lines. So, now we have a complete graph of how to arrange the reporting, collection, and distribution of zakat. And this graph does not guarantee a perfect distribution of zakat, but it doesn’t have to be perfect, because all charity is good charity. Here we are talking about good versus better, not good versus bad. So, all types of distributions are good. As a matter of fact, as I told you, Aaron burned the zakat which the children of Israel gave because there were no poor people there and it was still good. So there is no bad way of distributing the zakat and I just happen to choose one of the good ways from many different good ways. It’s one of the ways which makes more sense for today while still being within the categories which the Quran recommends. And if anyone does not like this method of distribution, God has an answer for them. Verses 9:58 and 9:59 say, “Some of them criticize your distribution of the charities. If they are given there from, they become satisfied, but if they are not given there from, they become objectors. They should be satisfied with what God and His Messenger have given them. They should have said, ‘God suffices us. God will provide for us from His reserves and so will His Messenger. We are seeking only God.'” And then the very next verse mentions the eight categories of receivers listed here. So as long as the zakat eventually ends up somehow in these eight categories of receivers, what happens in between is totally at the discretion of God’s Messenger, as long as all of it finally reaches there. Similarly, for example, God left it up to you whether you might use your debit or credit card to give the zakat, as long as you give it. And also when the number of submitters increases sufficiently, the Messenger can delegate this job to someone else, someone who would be responsible for directing this issue, called the congregation director, who technically is the messenger of the messenger. So this is the general arrangement for today on how to collect and distribute the zakat. And each of these zakat categories has a different rate or amount and some of them even have discounts which are explained in other videos. Also, God willing, you can learn more about one of the distribution projects in the cause of God, which is within this and the zakat distribution cycle in the next Friday sermons.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains from the Arabic Quran that believers may not take disbelievers as friends, clarifies that verse 60:8 only allows kindness and justice toward peaceful non-submitters, and presents a table of which relationships are allowed, often prohibited or prohibited, from acquaintances and business partners to close friends.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
We cannot find any example in the Quran where a believer befriends a disbeliever, unless it is by force. For example, the wife of Pharaoh, as a wife, must have befriended him, but she was forced to do it, and regardless, she still ended up paying for it, by saving Moses from the river and paying for his feeding. Also, Joseph befriended the bad person in prison, but he was forced to stay in prison, and regardless, Joseph still ended up paying for befriending a bad person, which is one of the reasons why he ended up staying a few additional years in prison.
In all the cases in the Quran where the believers were free, you cannot find a single example of them befriending a disbeliever. For example, the sleepers of the cave even went and hid in the cave, so that they would not befriend the disbelievers. Verse 60:4 says that a good example has been set for you by Abraham and those with him. They said to their people, “We disown you,” basically, “We cut all ties of friendship between us and you, and the idols that you worship beside God. We denounce you, and you will see nothing from us except animosity and hatred until you believe in God alone.” So, nothing except animosity, which means no friendship at all.
Now, if anyone still thinks that these examples are not enough, let’s look at the list of verses which give us direct prohibitions and exclusions. But please make sure to check these verses directly in the Arabic Quran, not in English translations, for a final conclusion. Let me start with a key verse which sets the clear boundaries within which we should understand all the other verses. It’s verse 5:55. Again, please check the verse in the Arabic, because the English translations do not do it full justice. The Arabic uses a key word, which is “only,” so it excludes all other possibilities of friendship. Verse 5:55 says your only, I repeat, your only friends should be God and His messenger and those who have believed, those who observe the Contact Prayer, give the Zakat, and bow down. So we are only allowed to be friends with these, and anyone outside of them is prohibited as a friend, because the verse says “only.” This verse puts clear boundaries on our friendships, and all the other verses must be understood within what this verse says.
For example, verse 5:51 in the Arabic Quran says do not take the Jews and the Christians, any Jews and Christians, without exception, as friends. They are friends with one another, and whoever is friends with them is one of them. Verse 5:80 tells us that you can see many of them becoming friends with those who disbelieve, and then it says that what they are doing is definitely evil. This is from the Arabic Quran, not from translations. Verse 9:23 in the Arabic Quran says do not take as friends even your fathers and brothers, if they prefer disbelieving over believing, and whoever does this, they are wrongdoers. Verse 3:28 says that no believer is to be friends with a disbeliever instead of a believer, and whoever does that has nothing to do with God, except if they are forced. Verse 4:144 says, O you who believe, do not take the disbelievers as friends instead of the believers; do you wish to give God clear evidence against you?
So all these verses are clear that believers should not take any disbeliever as a friend, except if they are forced, and verse 5:55 tells us that the only friends we can have are God, His messenger, and the believers who do the Contact Prayer, give the Zakat, and bow down. This is very clear in the Arabic Quran. However, the word “friend” in modern English is a constantly evolving word. Sometimes people use it to refer to acquaintances, sometimes to co-workers, sometimes to teammates, sometimes to schoolmates with whom they might be doing a school project together, for example, or maybe to a trading partner. Therefore, we should not rush to express a clear-cut prohibition of “friendships” in modern English, because people mean many different things when they say “friend,” and a lot of those different definitions of the word “friend” are not necessarily prohibited by the Quran in times of peace.
But the word “friend” in the Arabic Quran is clearer and stronger. It does not refer to an acquaintance, for example, but to a friend for whom you would do a favor without asking for payment, and who would also do you a favor without asking for payment, and you would protect each other if necessary. But because the word “friend” in English is not clearly defined, most English translators of the Quran shied away from translating from the Arabic Quran the clear prohibition of being friends with disbelievers, because they were afraid that by doing so, they would indirectly also end up prohibiting other things which are not prohibited, like business partnerships and so on, because the Quran allows trade and business with disbelievers during times of peace. So, to prevent this misunderstanding, a lot of smart translators were forced to hide or soften the prohibition of friendship with disbelievers. But the Arabic Quran does contain clear prohibitions regarding clear situations of friendship with disbelievers.
However, in today’s English, because of the unclear definition of the word “friend,” when someone asks us whether we are allowed to be friends with disbelievers, if we don’t have time to explain, we should simply slightly downgrade the prohibition and say, “We are not allowed to be close friends with disbelievers.” It’s linguistically correct to use the phrase “close friend” instead of “friend,” because in the Arabic Quran the words “friend” and “close” come from the same root word: basically, someone who is close to you, a close friend. So that’s what we say if we don’t have time to explain. But if we have time to explain, we should say, “We are not allowed to be friends, any kind of friends, with disbelievers,” which is what the Quran says, but then explain what we mean when we say “friends,” and how that word does not include co-workers, sports teammates, schoolmates, business partners and so on, if you keep a reasonable professional distance from them, more like acquaintances, and not like drinking buddies, bonding and things like that.
So the Quran does prohibit us from being any kind of friends with disbelievers, if by “friends” we mean people with whom we are close enough to do and expect favors from one another without any expectation of payment, and to protect each other if need be. I’m using this definition of friendship because in the Arabic Quran the word “friend” also means protector, and also because, according to verses 18:77 and 24:61, a close friend is someone for whom you do a favor without expecting them to pay you, and from whom you receive a favor without them expecting you to pay them for it. So, to conclude, in more than 20 verses the Quran prohibits us from being close friends with non-submitters, or, if we define the word “friend” correctly, from being any kind of friends with non-submitters.
Despite this clear prohibition, there is a verse in the Quran which is almost always misunderstood, and people end up thinking that the Quran actually allows being friends, or close friends, with non-submitters. Let me tell you what the verse says, and then where the misunderstanding comes from. Verse 60:8 says that God does not prohibit you regarding those who do not fight you because of religion and do not drive you out of your homes. The first part of this verse seems to allow friendship with disbelievers, as long as they do not fight us because of religion and do not drive us out of our homes. However, once you read the verse further, it tells you what God allows you to do with those peaceful disbelievers. Let’s read the whole verse now. It says God does not prohibit you (it’s not mentioning friendship here, just the prohibition of general contact and crossing paths in the same spaces), so again, God does not prohibit you, regarding those who do not fight you because of religion and do not drive you out of your homes, from dealing with them with kindness and justice.
This is not allowing close friendship. It’s only allowing kindness and justice. Friendships with them are prohibited in verse 5:55. This verse is telling us to be just when we make a business deal with a peaceful disbeliever, for example, or to be kind to our co-workers at our job, or when we talk to a stranger on the road, but it is not allowing us to become close friends with them. Verse 5:55 is still there, which clearly prohibits close friendships with any people who do not do the Contact Prayer and the Zakat. Verse 60:8 does not nullify verse 5:55. It only tells us how to deal with peaceful non-submitters while not being friends with them. It says that you can deal with them with kindness and justice despite not being friends with them. In peaceful times, we are allowed to show kindness even to disbelievers while not being their friends, and we can also have them as sports teammates, classmates, co-workers, business partners, and in other defined activities which are in our interest, while not being their friends, if by “friends” we mean doing and receiving favors, or going to their houses for dinner and things like that, which usually have no purpose other than bonding and being friends.
Now, the first contact, the introduction to any person, is always excused. For example, when two guests came to Abraham, he prepared a meal for them, despite the fact that he did not know who they were, and they could potentially have been disbelievers. This is because, in any first contact with anyone, when we first get to know them, we should always assume that they are believers until they tell us otherwise. Once they tell us otherwise, or once we see that they did not join us in the Contact Prayer, then we distance ourselves from them, and the better way is to tell them why, which is an opportunity to preach and spread the message. We wouldn’t be able to spread the message if we never contacted disbelievers at any time. And the best way to have this first, introductory meeting or contact, in your home, in their home, or in a restaurant, is to have another submitter with you. In this way you are stronger against the influences of the devil, if they turn out to be representatives of the devil. And once you see that they showed no interest in ever learning the Contact Prayer when you had to do the Contact Prayer, then you stop inviting them into your home or going to their home.
By the way, inviting people into your home, or going to their homes, is one of the closest forms of friendship, which is why it is one of the most strongly prohibited forms of friendship once they have shown us that they are not submitters, and if you break this prohibition, the other submitters have the right to feel betrayed by you. Let me give you an example from the time of Rashad Khalifa, showing that he thought this was prohibited and that he considered it a betrayal.
[A short clip is played in which Rashad Khalifa reproaches a member of the community for having hosted, for dinner in her house, people who opposed God and His messenger.]
So staying and eating together with non-submitters in your house or their house is a serious issue. Another way to look at friendships is to ask yourself the question: “If I did the Contact Prayer right now, would this person join me?” If the answer is yes, then that person is very likely your friend. If the answer is no, then he’s very likely not your friend. And if the answer is, “Well, I wouldn’t be able to fully do the Contact Prayer right now anyway,” because maybe it’s forenoon, or maybe you are in a public place where it is dangerous to fully prostrate, which I explained in the video titled “Lessening and Shortening the Contact Prayers,” then, in situations where you yourself would be lessening or shortening the Contact Prayer, which in the Arabic Quran is technically not a Contact Prayer at all but a compensation for it, you are not sufficiently different from that other person, because you yourself wouldn’t have to do the actual Contact Prayer with its movements. This means that you are not that different from that person in that situation, which means that he or she is very likely your acquaintance, or maybe your schoolmate, or your co-worker, and so on, but very likely neither your enemy nor your friend.
Using this logic, of being joined in the Contact Prayer as a measure of friendship, we can also conclude that since children under 12 are not obliged to do the Contact Prayer, we should not prohibit friendships with them, regardless of what they think they believe. Really, there is no substantial difference between believing children and disbelieving children, and it’s okay if they are friends while they are children. Once they are between 12 and 18 years old, they should be gradually removed from friendships with disbelievers. Also, in addition to these rules, there’s an additional layer of prohibitions in friendships, which has to do with relations between males and females.
Now, taking all this into account, let’s summarize this issue. This table is a summary of the prohibited, often prohibited, and allowed friendships, depending on the level of friendship and the type of people you are dealing with. Here we have non-submitters and submitters. Among the non-submitters, we have the hostile ones, the opponents, and the peaceful ones. Among the submitters, we have the involuntary submitters, which are seriously sick people, the handicapped, the starving, children under 18, and so on, and then finally we have the voluntary submitters, which is us.
When it comes to the hostile non-submitters, who fight us because of religion, and the opponents, who actively oppose God and His messenger, they are completely prohibited for us. We should not live with them, have them as close friends, have them as friends, or have them as acquaintances. Even trading with them is prohibited. It’s a complete separation from them. But when it comes to the peaceful non-submitters, which is the majority of people today, it depends on whether they are from a different family or from the same family. If they are from a different family and of the opposite gender, then we are prohibited from living together, or being close friends or friends, with her if you’re a male, or with him if you’re a female. But sometimes it is okay to be their acquaintance, and sometimes not, depending on the situation, as long as we keep it professional.
By the way, this orange square here is not clearly defined on purpose. It is left as “often prohibited,” not because the Arabic Quran is not clear about this, but because the word “acquaintance” sometimes fits within the prohibited categories of the Arabic Quran, more towards friendship, and sometimes it fits within the allowed categories, like trading, doing business, having common projects for the benefit of humankind, and so on. Each case is different, or part of it can be prohibited and part of it not, simultaneously. The same applies to all these other orange squares. Even though they are well defined in the Arabic Quran, we do not have the clarity of words in English to prohibit them completely or allow them completely.
Next category: peaceful non-submitters from a different family but of the same gender as ours, or the ones from the same family as ours, of any gender. We are allowed to have them as acquaintances, trade with them, have them as sports teammates and so on, basically cooperating with them in righteous things, if it is in our own personal interest, and not cooperating in prohibited things. However, it is likely that some of the friendships with them might be prohibited, so we just try to minimize our friendships with them from time to time, to make sure that the professional side dominates over the warm, friendly side. Of course, we have to be kind and just to them, but that does not automatically imply a meaningful friendship. We are prohibited from living together with them or being close friends with them. You can analyze the rest of the table yourself.
But let me draw your attention to the prohibited parts only, the red squares. These four red squares do not happen in democracies. These other four red squares are rare, because very few people have heard about the modern messengers, and you encounter those people rarely, and if you go against these prohibitions, you will probably do it in a hidden way anyway, because you know that it will upset us. These ones have to do with cross-gender issues, and if anyone breaks those prohibitions, again, they probably do it without other people knowing. And these last two are probably private cases, and the community does not hear about them. Now we are left with these last three, which are the only ones which are both clear prohibitions and matters which you are not allowed to hide, or which we as a community will know about anyway, if you are truly a submitter. This is why, if you break these three red ones, you have to pay through the community of submitters, and you can learn how to pay for those sins in the videos titled “Living Together with Non-Submitters,” parts one and two.
As you can see, there is some wiggle room in today’s world in these orange areas, and if your parent or spouse is also a submitter, then, out of loyalty and respect for them, you should adjust your own friendships according to their interpretation of these wiggle rooms, regarding whom they want you to be friends with or not. This is a whole issue in itself, about how to respect our parents and spouses who are submitters.
Also, a percentage of your time spent being friendly with non-submitters is forced, and that forced behavior usually happens in these orange areas, or close to them. For example, you might have to laugh at the jokes of your manager at work, or have lunch with a potential business partner, which might then turn into several meetings because you still haven’t discussed all the details, or things like that. These are very likely partially forced friendship cases, and for these you will be neither punished nor rewarded in the next world. However, this forced behavior definitely does not happen in the first two rows of this table. We cannot say, for example, that the government forced us to oppose the messenger. Democracies are not concerned with who is and who is not a messenger, and democracies are also not fighting us because of religion. You can learn more about this in the Friday sermon titled “The Global Forced Behaviour.”
And finally, if you just have honest intentions and love God, you will get most of this issue right. Any small mistakes which you might make unintentionally regarding friendships are usually compensated for by being an active submitter, which means that you earn extra credit in these green ones, and also, simply by attending the Friday sermons, you earn extra credit for fulfilling these other green ones. They are one of the ways to deserve more blessings from God.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains that some questions in the Quran are not merely rhetorical, and projects how much of human behavior will be forced globally by democracies in the coming centuries.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God there is no other God except God. There are many verses in the Quran where God, instead of making a statement, he asks a question. And a lot of people understand these as rhetorical questions because the answers to those questions seem so obvious. For example, in verse 2:140, God asks, “Who is more evil than one who conceals a testimony he has learned from God?” The general message which people get from this seemingly rhetorical question is that the most evil are those who conceal a testimony from God. However, if God wanted to say that, he would have said that, but he didn’t. He purposely put it as a question because there are cases, probabilistically, where the answer to that question might be different. And we can show that this question might have a different answer because in verse 2:114, God asks, “Who are more evil than those who boycott God’s masjids where His name is commemorated and contribute to their desertion?” So then, which people are more evil? The ones who boycott masjids or the ones who conceal testimonies? See, God intentionally put these as questions because had he put them as statements, there are cases where they would not be true. But since there are cases where those statements would not be true, God rephrased that statement as a question so that we can easily imply what the answer could be in most cases, but also be aware that there might be exceptions, which is why it is phrased as a question. Now, in the same way, God in verse 4:97 tells us that at the moment of death of a disbeliever, the disbeliever will claim that he was forced to be a disbeliever by the society. And the response comes as a question. He will be asked, “Was God’s earth not spacious enough for you to emigrate therein?” So this is asked as a question because even though almost always it is true that God’s earth is spacious to emigrate therein when we are forced by others to do things which we do not want to do, there are circumstances and times and proportions when this is actually not true. And this is given in verse 3:28, which says that the the believers never ally themselves with the disbelievers except for those who are forced to do this to avoid persecution. And actually, because today the world is dominated by democracies, this makes it possible to measure the amount or proportion of this forcing. Here is how. See, unlike true kingdoms where the king has a will, democracies have no will of their own. They are just the average of the will of every individual in that population.
Now, given that individuals have separate wills, they cannot be made to have a common will except where they have an average compromising interest. And since the average will of the population is actually a compromise, and not the idea of any particular individual, then no one is interested to force that will except through payment. So, basically, democracies will not force anything more than what happens through payment. And to make that payment, they have to collect taxes. So, in conclusion, democracies do not force anything more than what the collected taxes allow. And given that we can know what proportion of the economy passes through the tax system, this automatically also tells us how much the actions of the people are forced. So, basically, the proportion of taxes in any particular government compared to its economy is also the proportion of actions which are forced among the people. Now, let’s take this analysis one step further. It is true that the governments of the world today have different tax levels. However, the difference in tax levels is actually just an illusion. Here is why. Here is a map of different countries today and their different total tax levels, which range from almost zero in the poorer countries to about 50% in the very rich countries.
However, what happens in reality is that the people from the poorer countries are willing to immigrate to the richer countries. And as a result, the demand for buying property and products in richer countries increases faster than the demand for property and products in poorer countries, which pushes the property and product prices in richer countries to increase faster. And as a result, the people who paid higher taxes in richer countries get recompensate for it through a higher increase in their wealth compared to the people who live in poorer countries. Now, this compensates for most of the difference in tax levels. And whatever is left comes to equilibrium through additional means. Like for example, the richer governments will force the poorer governments to bend to their will, which makes those poorer countries less democratic because it’s not the will of their people, and therefore the amount of force with the poorer countries implement on their own people is higher than their actual taxes. So basically, the people in poorer countries are being ruled by their plus a percentage of richer countries. This means that even though a person in a poor country might pay only 15% in taxes, for example, there is an additional, let’s say 10% force outside of taxes, which comes from the fact that the richer country also implements the will on him by forcing the poorer country to bend its will. So in conclusion, even though tax levels in different countries are different, because of immigration pressures from poorer countries to rich countries, and because of power pressures from rich countries to poor countries, this brings the force which is felt by individuals from world governments in each country at an equilibrium, which means that people of the world feel the force of all governments of the world equally, provided that the dominant government style are democracies, which is the case today. So in reality, there is an average global force which forces people to bend to its will, and because this force ultimately can come only through taxes, then we can measure this global forced behavior of people by simply measuring the global tax proportion compared to the whole global economy. And the global economy is measured by the global GDP, which for the year 2024 was about 100 trillion dollars. Now, the total amount of revenue which governments of all the world collected through taxes was about 25 trillion dollars. So, the global revenue to GDP ratio in 2024 was about 25%. So, this means that globally 25% of all the actions of the world were forced by governments. And because democratic governments are always as much evil as they are good, equally good and evil, which I explained in another video, that means that 25% of global actions are forced to be equally good and evil, effectively neutral. And you know what? It has gotten to the level of 25% by gradually increasing from the previous years, which has been enabled with technological progress. So, technology, not politics, is the only driver of global economic growth. This is not true for non-democratic single states, but when we talk about the democratic countries, and especially the whole world dominated by democracies, then economic progress happens only through technological progress, not through politics, only through technological progress, which then enables bigger governments to exist. And because technological progress is unavoidable globally, as we know from history, and also indirectly implied from verse 41:53 and a few other verses, then this means that the increase of government size in the future is also unavoidable. So, the governments will continue to increase from the level of 25% where they are now until they reach 100% due to the unavoidable increase in technology. But when will the governments reach 100% power? Or when will governments reach the level to force 100% of people’s actions. Well, because the Quran says that this world is a test, had the governments reached 100% before the end of the world, then the world would not be a test for us because all our actions would be forced by governments, and that would not be a test. The governments would make the decisions for us. So, the governments cannot reach 100% before the end of the world. On the other hand, the world can only end according to verse 10:24 when the earth is fully adorned, fully civilized, fully human humanly controlled, which can only happen if governments reach 100%. So, governments cannot reach 100% control before the end of the world, and they cannot reach 100% control after the end of the world, which means that they must reach 100% control exactly at the time of the end of the world. So, the governments will reach that 100% at that moment when the world ends. And we know that the world will end in 2280, which means that the governments will reach 100% power in the year 2280. Now, because we are talking about the whole world, then growth of the world governments can only be endogenous, which means that statistically it would be safe to forecast that the total of the world governments will increase by an equal percentage year over year with minor exceptions in a few years. So, we know that it is about 25% now, and we know that it will reach 100% in 2280, and we know that in the years in between the increase will be by approximately a similar percentage increase each year, and these three facts enable us to predict approximately every year between 2024 and 2280. So, here’s a table which shows what percentage of human behavior is forced globally by democracy during each year. So, this is a projection of what will happen. What the governments might say is happening in the future, that is a different thing. For example, the governments right now are actually hiding some taxes by naming them as car insurance, for example. So, things will very likely take different names by then. For example, the government will even control internet, and it will make people pay for the internet and call it internet subscription, or have many subscriptions for different channels within the internet. And even though the government might call them subscriptions, or insurances, or fees, or memberships, if the government makes them mandatory, they are actually taxes. So, when I say that taxes will reach 100% in the end of the world, I mean things which are really taxes, not necessarily what the government might call taxes. So, by taxes, I mean mandatory payments enforced by government rules, or government rules which force people to buy or sell things, which effectively would be as if though you are self-imposing a tax on yourself, on behalf of the government. So, regardless if the governments will admit that the prediction in this table has happened, this projection about how much of our behavior is forced by the global democratic governments is quite reliable. If you look at what governments do instead of what they say they do. So, what are the implications of this realization that the behavior of people will increasingly be forced behavior as we move towards the future? Well, first of all, it should humble us and not make us think that we are that special. Because we, the believers right now in 2024, are about 25% the same as the disbelievers. In other words, in 2024, the disbelievers of the world are 75% our enemies, and 25% our acquaintances. And the believers and disbelievers will become more and more similar in the future, as this table suggests. And the question is, how does this affect our organized aspects of religion?
Well, it does not affect the regular 2.5% zakat, which we have to give, because that is given from excess wealth. In a world where governments collect more taxes, that also means less wealth for the people, which means that the person will end up paying less zakat anyway. So, there is no need to make any adjustments there. It also does not affect the additional zakat, because that is calculated from net income, which is done after government taxes. However, the congregational directors of the future should make sure to let the people know that they can count their net income as income not only after taxes, but also after other mandatory government insurances or subscriptions or memberships or mandatory pensions and so on. Anything which is made mandatory by the government. Now, on the other hand, the aspect of religion which is affected by this table is the charity which the submitters have to pay for living with non-submitters. First of all, let me remind you that there is a charity which submitters have to pay if they live together with non-submitters, which is equal to 4 g of gold per year. But, because of for this year, for example, for 2024, submitters and non-submitters are 24% the same according to this table, then there should be a 25% discount in that payment. And the discount becomes bigger and bigger with each passing year. And the amount of that discount is basically these percentages here. So, for example, in the year 2152, the submitters who live with non-submitters, they are 50% excused to do that or 50% forced or 50% living with an acquaintance rather than an enemy. So, they get a 50% discount from their normal charity of 4 g of gold. Now, the other aspect of religion which is affected by this table is the 20% penalty zakat which submitters have to give when inheriting wealth from non-submitters. I explained this 20% in my video titled penalty zakat. In that video, I basically explained that submitters should give 20% of the net inheritance which they get from the death of their enemies, which is any non-submitter. However, from this table, we can see that they are not 100% our enemies. In the year 2024, for example, they were only 75% enemies, but 25% acquaintances. This means that for the year 2024, anyone who has to give penalties a cat for inheriting wealth after the death of a non-submitter, they should actually reduce that amount by 25%. So, basically, they get a 25% discount for the year 2024. Or if the year is, let’s say, 2111, then they should get a 40% discount, and so on. This table does not affect the 2.5% zakat or the additional zakat or the contact prayer or the obligatory fasting or the Hajj. As a matter of fact, this table is a good way to approximately predict when the Mahdi will come or when he should start the resistance. Because we simply have to watch when does the 2.5% zakat, together with the additional zakat, come into conflict with the government power. So, when will the government not leave enough money to its people so that they can give their due zakat, their due charity? So, we know that the regular zakat is 2.5%. If people during those times, approximately, are engaged in 50% mixed deeds, then that means that they also have to give a 3.25% zakat for their mixed deeds, which means that it will be necessary for those people to be left alone to spend 5.75% of their money in the cause of God. This means that if the government forces more than 94.25% of the behavior of the people, then the global government has not left enough freedom for the submitters to be submitters. And this 94.25% is reached around the year 2270 or about 10 years before the end of the world, give or take a few years due to the fact that this these percentages are best approximations and not absolute facts, anyway. So, God will send the final messenger, or the guide messenger, or as it is known in Arabic, the Mahdi, which in Arabic simply means the guided one, to guide the believers into enough religious freedom from the global technocracy. We said that time will be around 94.25% forceful. That technocracy will not be all bad. It will be slightly more than 50% bad, while the submitters will only be slightly more than 50% good at that time. But still, the struggle will be to protect that approximate final 5.75% of religious financial freedom, so that it can be used in the cause of God. So, basically, we the submitters have no problem if governments take our money, because after all the democratic governments are neither good and neither bad. But we do have a problem if governments take God’s money, the portion of money which we are obliged to set aside for God to make it to heaven. And this is also why Moses never asked Pharaoh to release the children of Israel from slavery for the sake of freedom itself. If you read the Bible, you can see that Moses asked Pharaoh only to release them from slavery so that they can go in the desert and worship God. So, in other words, Moses was not fighting for the freedom of his people, but for freedom of religion, freedom to be a submitter. And in the same way, we do not fight for freedom from today’s governments. We only fight for freedom to be a submitter, which today we still have, so there’s no need to fight for it. Only in the end times, the global technocracy or government will attempt to take freedom of religion away from us, which will make the resistance of the believers, together with the final messenger, the Mahdi, necessary.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains why believers must not be involved in alcohol or drug businesses, and how those with mixed deeds can atone through an additional penalty Zakat.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. As we know, drinking alcohol and taking recreational drugs are prohibited for the believers, according to verse 5:90 in the Quran. However, does this prohibition also include serving them to others, or buying them, or selling them, or producing them, or owning an alcohol related business, or carrying them or transporting them, or profiting from them, basically being involved in any way in alcohol or recreational drug related business. Is that prohibited? Well, yes, but with an exception. First, let me tell you why that is prohibited for the believers, and then I will tell you the exception to it. So, first why is getting involved in any way in alcohol related business or work, or recreational drugs related business or work prohibited. Doesn’t the Quran only prohibit taking them? Well, yes the Quran does declare them to be bad deeds if you drink them or take them, but at the same time, in verse, 4:85, the Quran says, “Whoever mediates a bad deed is also responsible for a portion of that deed.” So, when someone drinks alcohol, that is a bad deed, and if you serve it to him, or sell it to him, or produce it for him, or buy it for him, and so on, then you are mediating it, and therefore you are responsible for a portion of the sin of the person who is drinking it, and this makes it prohibited for you as well to get involved in alcohol or recreational drug related work or business, even if you don’t drink it yourself. However, most of the business today is mixed business. For example, no one works today simply as an alcohol server. People work as waiters for example in restaurants or coffee shops, and a portion of what they serve could be alcoholic drinks, and the other portion would be non-alcoholic things. So, this means that part of their job is allowed and the other part is not allowed, but you can not separate their job, it comes like that as a total offer by the business owner for example. You either agree to be a waiter or not. So, what should you do in that case? Well, the Quran provides a solution for it – for cases where we deal with mixed business, where a portion of it is allowed and a portion of it is prohibited. And in such cases, the Quran provides us with a way out of that sin through charity. Here is what verses 9:102 and 9:103 say about this. They say, “There are those who have confessed their sins; they have mixed good deeds with bad deeds.
God will redeem them, for God is Forgiver, Most Merciful. Take from their money a charity to purify them and sanctify them. And encourage them, for your encouragement reassures them. God is Hearer, Omniscient.” And I do list this type of charity under point 17 as a subcomponent of Penalty Zakat in the video clarification titled “Penalty Zakat”, but to keep that video reasonably short, I do not give the details there. But in this video, let me give you the details of the exact process of atonement or payment for mixed deeds, deeds which are both righteous and sinful at the same time. So, let’ say that you work as a flight attendant. In your job as a flight attendant, you spend about 40% of your efforts dealing with passenger safety and comfort, about 30% of your efforts preparing and serving food and the other 30% preparing and serving drinks. Now, in that 30% where you prepare and serve drinks, let’ say that 3% is preparing and serving alcoholic drinks. So, 3% of your job is prohibited, while the other 97% is allowed. And because this is a mixed deed (both good and bad) you probably do not want to throw away the 97% of the benefit just because 3% of it is prohibited.
As the saying goes, you might not want to throw away the baby together with the bath water. So, in that case, God obliges the congregation director to take a charity from you to purify you from your sin, from that 3% portion of your job. But, how much charity should be taken away from you to be given in the cause of God in order to purify exactly that 3%. And by the way, this is an obligation, not optional. The verse says ‘Take from their money a charity to purify the sinful portion of their mixed deed’. So it’s an order for the congregation director. It says, “take it”, and of course in verse 9:60, it tells us exactly where that charity should go after it has been taken. However, how much should the congregation director take to purify that 3% of dirty money of that specific flight attendant? Well, let’s imagine that actually you work in a job where 100% of your job is related to alcohol. Let’s say that you work in a liquor store in New York, for example, where all they might sell is alcohol and nothing else. In that case, you are just an employee there, but still 100% of your job would be related to alcohol. So, in that case in within your job you would be acting 100% like a so-called Christian who does not believe that alcohol is prohibited. And according to the Quran, even so-called Christians can go to heaven, if they give 10% Zakat to the submitters for charity. And this is because, God rewards every good deed 10 times, and if a so-called Christian earned his money 100% as an alcohol salesperson and gave 10% of it to the submitters for charity, then God would reward that 10 times, making it 100% which would wipe away all his sin as an alcohol salesman. So, the maximum that a person has to pay Zakat is 10%, if he earns all his money from business which is related to prohibited deeds, and the minimum is 2.5% if he completely earns his money in a pure form without incorporating any bad deeds into the good deeds. So, for example, a cashier in a store where no alcohol or pork, or gambling products are sold has to pay 2.5% Zakat, while a cashier in a store where all products are alcohol products has to pay 10% Zakat. Now, given that we require everyone to pay 2.5% at the beginning to join the submitters, that means that the cashier of the store where all products are alcohol he has to pay an additional 7.5% Zakat, additional zakat to stay with the submitters to reach the 10%. So, the additional Zakat which a person has to pay on top of the 2.5% should be anywhere between 0% and 7.5%. And this is one of the many reasons why the Quran does not directly mention 2.5% as the definitive absolute value of Zakat for all circumstances. It’s because it depends on circumstances. If you are an absolutely perfect submitter with no mixed deeds, it would be 2.5%, but it can be higher than that if you earned your money through mixed deeds. So, I calculated the values of Additional Zakat between 0 and 7.5% for each mixed deed, depending on what proportion of it is sinful, and you can see them in this table. So, in this table for example, you can see that if 20% of your business is related to the sale, or service or producing of things which are prohibited in the Quran, then the additional Zakat which you have to pay is 1.5%. This is on top of the regular 2.5%. And by the way, unlike the regular 2.5% Zakat which is calculated from excess wealth, this Zakat is directly calculated from net income or net profits. Yes, we know that the Quran does say that we should give Zakat from the excess wealth.
That’s true. However, all the money obtained through dirty methods is already excess money at the moment you get it, because God would not put you in a situation where you have to do dirty business in order to survive, unless you put yourself in it, which means that it was a choice, not a need, and therefore it automatically counts as excess wealth, and not as necessary wealth. Another difference between the additional Zakat and the regular 2.5% Zakat is that this Zakat definitely must be collected and then distributed. The congregation director can allow the submitters in the congregation to give their 2.5% regular Zakat directly to the final recipients in need because the submitters who do that can be trusted to do that. However, once we talk about the additional Zakat, that automatically implies that some of us as submitters were willing to bend the rules a little bit when it comes to how we deal with money, and this means that we have no guarantee that that same person would not also bend the rules when it comes to distributing the Zakat to the final recipient. So, in this case, you are obliged to give the additional zakat to the congregation director only who should be more trustworthy than you to redistribute it transparently to the final recipients which are mentioned in verse 9:60.
And because the collection of the additional zakat is mandatory before its distribution, that is why God says in verse 9:103, “take from their money”, while when it comes to the regular zakat, it leaves it up to the congregation director to collect it and distribute it or authorize the direct distribution to the final recipients by the submitters themselves.. So, now let me take a few examples of how this table can be used. Let’s say that you own a breakfast restaurant in United States, where a lot of people prefer to have their eggs with bacon, which comes from pigs. Now, let’s say that about 8% of the food which you sell in that restaurant is bacon. So, you look at this table, and you see that for 8%, you have to pay 0.60% additional Zakat. Now, let’s say that your annual net profits from that restaurant were 100,000 dollars, you multiply it by 0.60%, and it gives you 600 dollars. So, you must give 600 dollars to your congregation director as additional zakat to purify your dirty business practices of the last year. Now, let’ take another example. Let’s say that you work as a cleaner or IT, in a casino. These days, for example, for most of the casinos, gambling and intoxicants would probably be only about 60% of their business.
Most casinos these days are also hotels, and sometimes they sell other non-gambling and non-intoxicating products and services. So, let’s assume that you work as a cleaner or IT in a casino where 60% of its business is gambling and intoxicants. So, we check this table, and we see that 60% corresponds to 4.5% of additional zakat. So, let’s say that your annual net income last year from that job was 40,000 dollars. So, 4.5% of 40,000 dollars is 1,800 dollars. So you have to give 1,800 dollars to your congregation director as additional zakat to atone for the fact that you work in that casino. Or let’s take another example, let’s say that you are a male who works as a taxi driver where someone else does not monitor you with cameras or a microphone. Let’s say that during your job, 20% of the time, your passengers are females who are alone. Let’ say that you work 20% during the night, which means that 4% of all the passengers which you transport are females who are alone at night, and I would assume that being in a car is half private and half public. So we reduce that 4% down to 2%. So, 2% of the time while working as a taxi driver, you are very likely staying alone with females in privacy, and this is prohibited in the Quran according to verse 2:235 and a few other verses. So, we check this table, we look at the 2%, and the corresponding additional zakat for it is 0.15%. So, if that taxi driver earned 50,000 dollars net profit during last year, we multiply it by 0.15% and we get 75 dollars. So that taxi driver has to give 75 dollars to his congregation director as additional zakat. And by the way, usually these dirty business practices in today’s world are connected with alcohol, or pork products, or recreational drugs (if they are legal in that country), or some form of games of chance, or staying with the opposite gender alone in private spaces where other’s don’t have easy access. And someone, might say, aren’t you technically allowing those things by enabling the purification from them through payment through additional zakat. Well, I am not the first to say this. Listen to this: “God has prescribed for us laws to govern the important aspects of our lives, and He left a lot of freedom for many other aspects in our lives. And we are told that these laws are recommendations or commandments. They are commandments because we should do them, and they are recommendations because we have the freedom not to do them, as long as we are ready to pay the price.” So, as you can see, in this video, Rashad Khalifa said that we can understand the Quranic rules as recommendations as long as we are ready to pay the price, and the amount of that price is what I discussed in this video. And if you refuse to pay this price, there is a bigger price – Hell. Obviously, this method of atonement or payment is only for mixed sins, and not for direct sins. For example, you can not commit adultery and expect to pay for it through this method of additional zakat. Here we are talking only about mixed deeds, or being some kind of mediator for adultery. For example, working at the front desk of a hotel, where about 5% of the people who come there, you have good reason to believe that they came there to commit adultery in the rooms which they book, and you have to give them the key to their room, because they paid for their hotel room, or you can quit your job. Now, giving them the key is that mixed sin, you are acting as a mediator or a supporter for sin, and for that you earn a portion of that sin according to verse 4:85, and that is why you have to pay additional zakat to purify that portion.
But you can not use this method for the bigger or direct sins, like killing, adultery, mistreating parents, stealing, violence, gambling, drinking alcohol, eating pork, taking drugs, cheating during trade. For these sins, you end up paying more, and differently. But, here I am talking only about being a mediator for those sins while having a job or doing legal business for beneficial things, and that makes the total of that job or that business, a mixed deed – partly sinful and partly good. And sometimes, it is not easy to calculate how big of a portion is the sinful portion, but just try to do your best to separate your activities into smaller calculable portions, and then calculate them, and wherever you are not sure just try to roughly estimate. That’s good enough.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains how higher-dimensional creatures can appear in different shapes in our world, and why God let Satan appear as a snake: like a snakebite, sin harms us later, Satan sees us while we cannot see him, he sheds his skin with new names, and he lacks guidance.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, Satan appears to Adam and Eve in the form of a snake, talks to them, convinces them to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, and causes them to be evicted from Paradise. Obviously, we know that Satan and snakes are two different creatures. However, the creatures of the higher dimensions, like angels, jinns and Satan, if God allowed them to enter our three-dimensional world, which He doesn’t in our time, but did in a few instances in the past, could enter our world in different shapes. For example, the angels appeared to Abraham in the shape of human beings, Satan appeared to Adam and Eve in the shape of a snake, and the jinns appeared to Solomon in other shapes.
How could this be? Well, when higher-dimensional objects enter lower dimensions, they can appear in different forms, depending on the angle of entrance and which part of their body entered. For example, a cone is a three-dimensional object. If we cause the cone to enter a lower-dimensional world, let’s say a two-dimensional world, then depending on the angle at which it enters, it can appear in that world as a circle, an ellipse, a triangle, a hyperbola or a parabola. In a two-dimensional world, these are five different shapes, but in the higher, three-dimensional world, they are simply cross-sections of only one shape, which is the cone.
In the same way, because the higher-dimensional creatures, like angels, jinns and Satan, live in as many as 10 dimensions, the number of ways in which their up-to-10D shape can appear in a 3D world increases drastically. If they have even a slightly sophisticated shape in a 10D world, they can appear in thousands or millions of different, precise, sophisticated shapes, depending on the angle at which they are allowed to enter this world. This means that God could have allowed Satan to appear and speak to Adam and Eve in the form of a lion, a crocodile, a wolf, a spider, or any other animal form, so that Adam and Eve could interact with it before they got deceived.
But why did Satan appear to them in exactly the form of a snake? Is it because snakes kill people? Well, lions also kill people; crocodiles, wolves and bears also kill people, and in so many ways they are more dangerous than the snake if you encounter them. But still, God allowed Satan to appear to Adam and Eve at an angle shaped like a snake. So why exactly a snake? It’s because God wanted to teach us something from this. The snake has many characteristics which teach us about who Satan is.
There are many such characteristics, but the main difference between the snake, as an animal which kills people, and the other animals which kill people, is that in the case of the snake, the action and the consequence are separated in time. If a wolf eats you, the time when it eats you and the time when it hurts you, or when you die, are the same. The same goes for the lion: when the lion suffocates its prey, it is killing it in real time. The same goes for the crocodile, and so on. But not so with the snake. The snake gives you only a small bite, and then you die hours or even days later, if left untreated.
As you can see, there is a gap in time between when the snake bites you and when you end up dying, and this teaches us a key thing about Satan. There is a time gap between when Satan touches you and when you end up being hurt by it. For example, Satan might touch you with a sin, such as theft, lying or adultery, and there is a time gap between when Satan touched you and when you get hurt by it. You get hurt by those sins hours, days, months or years later, or even towards the end of your life, and even after this life if you’re a disbeliever. So, as in the case of the snake, there’s a time gap between when Satan touches you and when you get hurt, and this time gap, this postponement of consequences, is what makes it more dangerous, and what makes it a sin.
You see, there are two types of harm: direct harm, which is simply called harm, and postponed harm, which is called sin. A direct harm, for example, is putting your hand in the fire. In this case, the action and the harm happen at the same time, which is why God did not mention touching the fire as a sin, but as a punishment. But when it comes to lying, let’s say, it is a postponed harm. The action and the harm happen at different times, which is why God revealed in the Quran that we should not do it. Given that there is a time gap between the action and the harm, we as humans would not be able to know that it is harmful if God did not tell us. This is why God tells us to avoid postponed harms, or sins, especially because those harms can be postponed beyond this life, in which case we end up in Hell.
God gave us minds to protect ourselves from harms where the action and the harm both happen at the same time, and God gave us the Quran for harms where there is a time gap between the action and the harm. So, symbolically speaking, God gave us minds for protection against wolves, but He gave us the Quran for protection against snakes. Because if people did not tell us that the snake has venom, we wouldn’t know. Men would naturally think that they could defeat it with their bare hands. The snake looks so weak on the outside. You can outrun it, squash it, and even kill it with your bare hands, but hours or days later, you are very likely dead too. So this is one feature which the snake and Satan have in common: there is a time gap between when they touch you and when you get harmed.
The second aspect which the snake and Satan have in common is that the snake can see us at night, while we cannot see it. Snakes have an additional sense, a sixth sense: they can sense infrared light, which enables them to see our warm bodies during the night. But a snake would not be able to see a dead body at night, because it is cold. So snakes can sense living bodies but not dead bodies, just as Satan can touch living bodies in this world but has no power over dead bodies, or over the believers who have left their bodies and gone to the next world. In this world, the Quran, in verse 7:27, tells us that Satan can see us while we do not see him.
Another aspect which the snake and Satan have in common is that the snake sheds its skin about 17 times during its lifetime. In other words, Satan tries the same old tricks, but under a new skin. For example, those who used to be called fools are now called atheists; Satan rebranded them to make the idea more enticing. Those who used to be called pagans are now called Christians. Those who used to be called the people of the scripture are now called Quranists, or Protestants, depending on which scripture you’re talking about. Those who used to be called the Children of Israel are now called submitters. Those who used to be called the opposition to God’s system are now called Jews. The word “Jew” in Arabic means opponent, or someone who turned back from faith, and the word “Israel,” among other things, in Hebrew means one who fights against God. So Satan simply changed the skin, but his ways and essence, which is rebellion against God, remain the same.
Another reason why God allowed Satan to speak to Adam and Eve in the shape of a snake is that snakes move with their heads kept low to the ground. This makes them shortsighted. A small stone, some grass, or any small bump in the ground is enough to block their field of view, which makes it impossible for them to make good long-term plans. Basically, they do not have enough guidance to find their way towards a goal. They only get places through trial and error. This feature of the snake is mentioned in the Quran. The Quran, in verse 67:22, says, “Is one who walks with his face on the ground better guided,” which is the snake, “or one who walks straight on the right path?” That is the human, who can stand up straight on two feet, look far ahead, and choose ahead of time where he wants to go. So there is guidance in being able to stand up straight.
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains that tattoos, plastic surgery and other cosmetic body modifications are essentially lies about one’s genes, that people who have them may join the submitters, and that once they have a child, they owe the community half the cost of the procedure as penalty Zakat.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
According to verse 6:120, whoever commits a sin will have to pay for it, and to spare us from paying for those sins in Hell, God prescribes for us in the Quran the penalties, or payments, for those sins, to be executed here on Earth. For example, the penalty, or payment, for theft is returning the stolen item and marking the hand of the thief. The payment for adultery is a hundred lashes, and so on. But when it comes to the sin of lying, on the surface it seems that the Quran prescribes no payment or penalty. Actually, the payment for lying, according to the Quran, is that the person should not be trusted again, if the lie is big or if he lied often. If the lie is small, or the person does not lie as often, the penalty is that you trust that person less in the future. You trust them partially, but also with a dose of caution. So this is the payment for lies for which no direct negative consequences can be proven.
However, there are lies for which direct consequences can be proven. So we have two types of lies. By the way, all lies ultimately have negative consequences; no doubt about it. However, for some lies, the number of victims is so low that the amount by which each victim is hurt is large, which makes it worthwhile for those victims to pursue justice and prove how the lie hurt them. But there are lies where the number of victims is so large that the amount by which each victim is hurt is really low, to the point where it’s not worth it for any of those victims to pursue justice when they get hurt by it.
Let me give you an example of each of these two types of lies. First example: let’s say that you buy a used car from someone, and they tell you that it has four-wheel drive. You pay for the car thinking that it has four-wheel drive, and in the winter you realize that it doesn’t. In this case, even though the Quran does not prescribe a financial punishment for the lie, it prescribes a financial punishment for the harm which the lie caused, and because the harm is large for a single person, it is worthwhile for that person to seek compensation for it.
Now here is an example of the other type of lie. Let’s say that someone says that there are aliens on the dark side of the moon, the side which can never be seen from Earth, but the governments are hiding this fact from us. Even though this type of lie does as much harm as the lie about the four-wheel drive, the harm is spread in many smaller portions over a large number of people, so each of the victims is harmed much less. In this case, some youngsters and inexperienced people might believe the lie and trust science less, and as a result they might be less likely to make evidence-based decisions in their lives. But none of them could go and seek compensation from the liar about aliens on the other side of the moon, because the harm is so small for each victim that none of them individually thinks it’s worth seeking compensation. So for this type of lie, the punishment is that you just don’t trust that person again.
We have to keep in mind everything we have said so far about lies in order to decide how to approach the issue of cosmetic body modifications. But first, let’s see what the Hadith followers claim about cosmetic body modifications. One type of such modification is tattoos. According to Hadith 5,931 of Bukhari, Abdullah said that he heard God’s messenger say that God has cursed the woman who does tattoos and the one who has them done.
First of all, we have no definitive evidence that this statement was ever said by Muhammad, but for the purposes of this analysis, let’s assume that he really did say it. Well, by the same logic, we can find many other hadiths where Muhammad said that liars are cursed, and given that there’s no person speaking today who has not lied at least once in their lifetime, then, according to Hadith, everyone is cursed. These kinds of blanket statements, which do not mention sufficient nuances and details, do not help at all in resolving issues. So even if the Hadith about tattooed people being cursed is true, it does not help at all to tell us how to approach the issue of tattoos, except that it divides the Muslims into congregations which will accept tattooed people and congregations which will not. So what this Hadith, and all the people who use it, end up doing is simply using a peripheral issue to divide the Muslims.
But then, what is the answer to this question? Should we allow people with tattoos, plastic surgery and other cosmetic body modifications in our congregation, or not? As with all the other peripheral religious issues, the answer is very nuanced. We should take the whole Quran into consideration to reach the right conclusion about this issue. First of all, of course, there’s something wrong with tattoos and other cosmetic body modifications, because they all go against how God designed us. God tells us not to change God’s creation, in verse 4:119, and in verse 2:84, God tells us not to shed blood, and during tattoos, plastic surgeries and so on, unnecessary blood is shed and the body is modified.
However, these two verses cannot be used as definitive proof that tattoos and plastic surgery are prohibited, because ear piercing and circumcision both involve shedding blood and modifying the body, yet the Bible and the Quran do not prohibit ear piercing for girls, or circumcision for the descendants of Abraham. So then what is the difference between earrings for girls and circumcision for the male descendants of Abraham on one side, and tattoos and other cosmetic body modifications on the other? Well, the essential difference is that one of them is essentially not a lie, while the other essentially is a lie.
When a girl has earrings in her pierced ears, she is essentially claiming, according to the Bible, “I am a female who depends on society to survive,” and this is essentially true. And when a boy who is a descendant of Abraham, which includes almost all Middle Eastern-looking males, gets circumcised, according to the Bible he’s essentially claiming that he is a descendant of Abraham, which again is essentially true for all the people of the Middle East and people who look similar to them. On the other hand, when a person gets a tattoo or a cosmetic body modification, he is essentially saying, “Look how good my genes are.” Even though the change in the body is not a lie, because the body really did change, the genes are still the same. So the lie is about the genes.
So now we have gotten to the essence of the issue of tattoos, plastic surgery and other cosmetic body modifications. They are essentially lies about your genes, and this finally allows us to understand how to approach them, if we think of them as essentially lies. So if we want to know whether people with tattoos and other cosmetic body modifications should be allowed in our congregation, we should ask the same question about people who have told lies before. And because all of us have lied at least once in our lifetime, and we are already in the congregation of submitters, this means that tattooed people, and people with other cosmetic body modifications, should be allowed to join and stay in our congregation.
However, at the beginning of this sermon, we said that there are lies for which compensation for the harm caused can be pursued in practice, and lies for which it cannot. For example, if a person has lied that his car has four-wheel drive when it does not, then as long as he keeps the car to himself, it’s almost impossible to measure the harm caused by his lie. But if that person sells the car after lying about the four-wheel drive, then the harm from the lie becomes measurable. Basically, the damage caused is equal to the difference in price between a car with four-wheel drive and the same car without it, plus any damages from the lie. The same idea applies to cosmetic body modifications. As long as the person keeps his genes to himself, the cosmetic body modifications are not doing any practically measurable harm to anyone. But once that person has children, he has put his genes out there under the false pretense, created by the cosmetic body modification, that the genes are different from what they really are. So only after a submitter with cosmetic body modifications has children are we, as humans, actually able to measure the harm done by the genetic lie.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say that a girl was born with wide ears, which is perfectly normal, but she felt the social pressure to undergo cosmetic plastic surgery on her ears, and eventually she fell victim to the pressure and did it. Now she wants to join us, the submitters. She is perfectly allowed to join us, just like anyone else, and she does not have to pay for her sin, because, first of all, she paid for a large portion of her sin by paying the doctor, and also through the pain which she felt during the procedure, and also perhaps through medical complications and undesired results, or she might have compensated for it with many other good deeds. However, in almost all cases there is some part of the sin for which she has not paid yet, but that part of the sin is immeasurable for us as humans, and therefore we are not allowed to demand that she pay for it before she joins, because we don’t even know how much it is, and we as humans don’t even know whether there is anything left of her sin to pay for by now.
However, if she has children while being a submitter with cosmetic body modifications, then she has released her genes into the public, and at this moment her lie becomes a lie for which the harm can be measured, and this enables us to demand compensation for the harm. Here is how to roughly calculate, or estimate, the harm. Let’s say that she has a child. The child will carry half of the genes from her and half from the father, and therefore she has lied about half of the genes which she has put into the world. This means that she has to correct for that by paying half of the cost of the surgery. So let’s say that her cosmetic ear surgery cost $6,000. Now she owes the community of submitters half of it, so she has to pay $3,000 for giving birth to a child after the ear surgery.
This now becomes obligatory to be paid to the community of submitters, according to verses 9:102 and 9:103, and because it is obligatory, it has now become part of the penalty Zakat, under point 17 of the penalty Zakat, which is explained in the video titled “Penalty Zakat.” And since it now enters the system of Zakat, the rules of Zakat apply to it as well, which means that the payment should be made within one year after the birth of the child, and if it is not made, she will be excluded from the community of submitters and will not be considered a submitter anymore. But if she does pay it, then she is purified from that sin, and her sin is forgiven, and this in turn gives additional protection to her child, and God will bless her and her child. And then, if she gives birth to another child, she should pay again half of what it cost her to undergo any cosmetic body modification, and so on, every time she has a child.
When I say cosmetic body modifications, I mean any type of modification, like liposuction, nose surgery, breast enlargement or reduction, tummy tucks, eye reshaping, ear surgery, tattoos, permanent makeup, Botox injections, hair implants, and so on. All these are lies about your genes, for which you should pay only if you have a child after having them done. If you don’t have a child after having them done, then it’s between you and God. But if you have a child after having them done, then you have harmed the community of submitters by half the cost of the procedure, and you should compensate the community of submitters for it.
So if you have ever undergone any cosmetic body modification and you then have a child, soon after you have the child, calculate half the cost of any cosmetic body modifications which you underwent, and then send an email to your congregation director and tell him that you owe that specific amount of money to the community of submitters. You do not need to tell him any details, only the amount of the debt which you owe. He then writes it down as a debt which you owe, and you have to pay it within one year if he requests it. But if he delays it for more than one year and does not ask for it, because he does not have a specific project planned to spend it in the cause of God, then you should wait until he requests that you pay the debt, but you should have it saved and ready. Once he requests it, you should pay it, and he is responsible for spending it in the cause of God, according to the rules which I mentioned about public penalty Zakat in the video clarification titled “Penalty Zakat.”
