Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

What a beautiful melody, a good way to praise God.

Quite often, we hear people say, “You know what I mean?” or “Do you know what I mean?” And they say it because people are aware that when people say something, or when they say something, they might mean something else, or when someone else says something, they might mean something else. So we have two things: what people say, and what people actually mean. So these are two things.

The Speech vs. Intent Matrix

And then we can create a cross-tabulation, what’s called a cross-table, from these. So basically, we can have what people say and what people don’t say. And then we can also have what people mean and what people don’t mean. And when we combine these from these two-by-two situations, we get four. Let’s go through these examples, and then we’ll use that, God willing, to understand something deeper.

Basically, in this table, I’m showing in this row what you say. So we can have what you say or what you don’t say. These are the two options. And then we have what you intend to say and what you don’t intend to say. So basically, what you say and what you don’t say, and also what you intend to say and what you don’t intend to say.

Now we combine these to see what we get:

1. What you say, and you intended it. This is one example. Basically, for those who know how to read tables, if you combine what you say with what you intended, then it’s what you say and you intended it.

2. What you don’t say, but you intended it. Next is if you combine what you don’t say with what you intended to say, then the combination is what you don’t say, but you intended it.

3. What you say, but you did not intend it.

4. What you don’t say, and you didn’t intend it.

Explaining the Four Communication Categories

Maybe I should give some examples from these. Now, these are all four situations. What is the situation when what you say and you intended it? Before I go there, let’s label these. What is the situation when you say it and you intended to say it? That is what I would call an explicit expression, meaning you explicitly said what you intended.

Then, the next example is what you don’t say, but you intended it. That would be implicit. Basically, you are not saying it, but even though you don’t say it, you mean it. I’ll give you examples later, or maybe let’s go with examples here.

What’s an example of explicitly saying something—saying something and intending it? For example, let’s say someone asks you, “Someone told me that he likes a Porsche, a yellow Porsche,” and you’re like, “Did he actually say it?” You say, “Yeah, he explicitly said it.” He said it and he intended it.

Let’s take another example—an implicit case where the saying is implicit. If you’ve seen movies, you can see some movies where there’s a mafia boss—a leader of a criminal organization—and he talks to someone and he’s not happy with him. And then he tells his people, after he’s gone, “Take care of him.” He didn’t say to kill him, but he intended it implicitly. He didn’t explicitly say “kill him,” but what he meant when he said “take care of him” was kill him. Basically, implicitly he said kill, but he didn’t explicitly say it. So you can see these two situations are different: he meant it, but he did not say it.

Then we have another situation: what you say, but you did not intend it, which is the reverse. This is confessing falsely. Let me give you an example. For example, you go and buy a car, and you manage to negotiate really well, and you buy the car really cheap. So then your friend asks you, “How much did you buy it for?” You’re like, “Oh, it was a steal.” You didn’t actually steal the car. What you mean is it was really cheap, or “I bought it really cheap.” But you’re confessing falsely that you stole it. Everyone knows that you did not steal it, or people are aware that very likely you did not steal it, but you’re saying it as though you stole it: “Oh, I stole it. It was a steal.” Or let’s say when a lot of people will say something—let’s say they eat some cake from someone’s plate and they’re like, “Can I steal your cake?” That’s false confession, confessing falsely. Someone is claiming to steal, but they did not actually really, really steal. So this is another case when you say something, but you did not intend it that way.

And then the last situation is what you don’t say and you didn’t intend it, and this is simply not confessing. You’re not saying anything, so you’re not confessing to anything. This doesn’t mean that you’re hiding something bad; you’re just not confessing, you’re indifferent.

So we have these four situations:

• We have explicit claims or confessions.

• We have implicit claims or confessions.

• We have confessing falsely or claiming falsely.

• We have not confessing, or not claiming anything—not saying anything.

Applying the Matrix to Idol Worship

These are four different situations. And we can actually apply this logic, this table, into the situation of idol worship and understand it a little bit better. So let’s sort of use the same logic and make a table about idol worship.

Let me go through all these four examples:

1. Claiming idol worship and intending it: This is called explicit idol worship. What would be an example of that? Let’s say a Hindu says, “I worship whatever this god,” which is not the only God, and he says it and he means it.

2. Not claiming idol worship, but intending it: This is implicit idol worship. Pretty much a lot of the Jews, the traditional Muslims, and the Christians do this. They don’t say that they worship Muhammad, but implicitly they intend it. Because when you tell them, “So according to you, Muhammad in this hadith—which Muhammad didn’t even say—said this, but God in the Quran is saying this. Which one do you follow?” “I follow this.” Implicitly, that’s idol worship. Or if you ask a Jew, “God says in the Bible, ‘Don’t kill people,’ but your rabbi is telling you to kill the peaceful Palestinians. Which one do you follow?” They’re like, “Oh, of course, the rabbi.” So that’s implicit idol worship. And if you ask them, “Are you actually idol worshipping by doing that?” they’ll be like, “No, no, of course not.” So that’s implicit idol worship. With the Christians, if you ask them, “Do you actually worship Jesus? Do you know that that’s idol worship?” they’ll be like, “No, no, because technically Jesus is part of God, so we’re not worshipping another God, he’s part of God.” But then you ask them, “If Jesus says that, or if people tell you to do this for Jesus and this for God, which one would you do?” They’d probably do what they think Jesus would want them to do anyway. So we have this case of implicit idol worship.

3. Claiming idol worship, but not intending it: This is the case I want to focus on today.

4. Not claiming idol worship, and also not intending it: Basically, not confessing anything.

Focus Topic: Confessing Falsely to Idol Worship

Now, I want to focus on this third case because the fourth case, there’s really nothing to talk about unless in the future someone comes with an example where I really have to deal with it, but it doesn’t seem like an important case.

The first case and the second case—explicit idol worship and implicit idol worship—I’ve dealt with them in another video titled literally Explicit Idol Worship and Implicit Idol Worship. It’s a Friday sermon; you guys can find it on our website, on YouTube. I explained these two first cases in that video. However, what I sort of didn’t explain in that video is this third case, which is confessing falsely to idol worship. This is the case when someone is claiming idol worship—claiming to do idol worship—but he or she is not intending it. This is a third case, another situation. God willing, let me deal with it now.

This yellow area which I highlighted here is going to be the focus of our discussion today. Before we do that, though, let’s repent and pray.

(Pause for prayer and reflection)

Okay. Praise be to God. There’s no other god except God.

So we know what we’re going to talk about today, and we know how it fits in the context of other things. We want to talk about claiming idol worship—people who claim idol worship, but they did not intend it. So basically, they are confessing falsely to idol worship.

Cultural Traditions vs. Real Intentions

Let me give you potential examples of confessing falsely to idol worship—where it might not necessarily be idol worship, it could or it could not be, but they are confessing it, probably likely falsely:

• Slaughtering an animal for the birth of your son or child (a tradition in some subgroups of Muslims).

• Celebrating birthdays.

• Celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad.

• Celebrating Halloween.

• Christmas celebrations.

• Visiting the grave of a loved one.

• Building extremely decorated graves.

• Valentine’s Day.

• Mother’s Day.

• Father’s Day.

• Many different wedding customs (breaking a glass in some Jewish or other wedding celebrations for good luck).

Why would I say that these are confessions of idol worship, but they are not necessarily idol worship? Basically, people, when they do this, are saying that they are doing idol worship, even if they don’t know it. Why? All you have to do is to ask “why.”

For example, if they tell you, “Oh, I sacrificed an animal for my newborn son,” or if they say, “I sacrificed an animal,” you ask them why, and they say, “For my newborn son.” So, as you can see, they are doing it for someone else other than God. That’s what they claim, that’s what they are saying. Are they actually doing it like that? That’s another issue, but they are claiming that.

Or let’s say celebrating birthdays: they say, “We made a cake.” “Why did you make a cake?” “I made it for John, he’s four years old today.” So basically, why did you do it? “I did it for someone else, I didn’t do it for God.” That’s basically idol worship when you do things for others other than God.

Celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad—same thing. Halloween—similar things. Christmas celebration—they say they do it for Jesus.

So these are situations that are not all equal; there are different levels of what could be confessing falsely to idol worship. But the way they say it, it almost always sounds like idol worship. But it’s not necessarily idol worship.

I want to talk about it in more detail. Why is this not necessarily idol worship? Because let’s go back to the example: someone can claim to worship an idol, but not intend it—basically, a false confession. How can that happen?

Let’s say someone says, “I slaughtered my animal for my newborn son.” It’s very likely that what he means is, “I’m slaughtering my animal for God as a way to thank Him for blessing me with a newborn son.” Now it’s not idol worship, but he just shortened the sentence, basically.

Or let’s say celebrating birthdays: when they say, “I did this birthday cake for John because he’s four years old,” what they really mean is, “I’m so happy John has grown up.” Very likely they could mean, “I’m so happy John has grown up, and I wanted to be charitable today to show my appreciation to God for the fact that John managed to be four years old and still healthy.” This is probably what they mean if they are good people, usually. But they can say it totally wrong; they can say it as though it’s idol worship.

So all of these cases, the way they say it, it sounds exactly like idol worship. But as you can see, it might not be idol worship; very likely it’s not. So then the situation is: wait a minute, we cannot know if it’s idol worship or not. How do we deal with this?

When someone does the birthday cake or slaughters an animal for a newborn child, they could be in the yellow square, which is claiming idol worship but not intending it. But they could also be in the situation where they claim idol worship and they intend it as idol worship. So how do you know which one it is?

Basically, trying to know which one it is is going to a person’s intentions. Here, the claim is the same in both cases: the claim is that they are doing something for other than God. However, in one case, the intention is good—they are actually doing it for God, but they just expressed it wrong. In the other case, the intention is bad—they are actually doing it for other than God.

How do we deal with this? I came up with this topic because someone wanted to know if those cases are prohibited. My response to that is that they are neither prohibited nor the other way, because we have to clarify before we decide for each individual case. So when someone says, “Are birthday celebrations prohibited?” I would say each individual case is different. Why? Because we don’t know the intentions. Every claim is idol worship, but the intention could be different.

What do we do when we don’t know the intention? How do we deal with those situations? Let’s take an example situation.

Example Situation: You meet your cousin, and he brings you some meat to eat and tells you that it’s from the animal sacrifice which he did for his newborn son. The way he said it is clearly idol worship, because he said that he did it for his newborn son—he sacrificed an animal for his newborn son. That’s the way he said it. However, we know that someone can claim something and not be it, and someone can claim something and truly be it.

So what do we do? We just clarify.

I came up with a three-step approach. It doesn’t have to be exactly like that every time, just to help you understand it:

The Three-Step Approach to Ambiguous Situations

Step 1: Evaluate what law from the Quran we could potentially go against.

The person has slaughtered meat and he’s claiming in front of you that he did it for his newborn son, for his baby. The first thing that comes to our mind is Surah 2, Verse 173:

“God only prohibits for you the eating of animals that die of themselves without human interference, blood, the meat of pigs, and animals dedicated to other than God…”

…which is what this person is claiming; he dedicated the animal to his son.

“…If one is forced to eat these without being malicious or deliberate, he incurs no sin. God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.”

So if it is true that it is idol worship in that particular case—as we said, in some cases it is, in some cases it’s not, every case is different—then what law are we breaking? We are breaking the law in the Quran which stops us from eating animals dedicated to other than God.

Now, the bigger question which we need to ask is: is eating animals dedicated to other than God, even though you did not dedicate them, idol worship? According to the Quran, that’s not idol worship. Because He’s also prohibiting the meat of pigs—that’s not idol worship if you eat them. If you eat blood, that’s not idol worship; it’s breaking a law in the Quran. It’s bad, but it’s not necessarily idol worship.

Why is this important? Because the rule which applies in this case versus if it was idol worship as well, the rule is a little bit different. I want to point out something which Rashad said which applies to the other case in one of the conferences he held, where he gave a very good philosophical argument. He said when something maybe is idol worship and maybe it’s not—it doesn’t apply to this case, but he said something maybe is idol worship, maybe it’s not—any intelligent human being, knowing that idol worship is the only unforgivable offense, would run away from that situation even if he was not sure. Meaning that even if we don’t know for sure that it’s idol worship, and we think maybe it is, maybe it’s not, in that case, we don’t do it because if it’s idol worship, it’s unforgivable. So that’s the case which Rashad presented.

Why is this case different? Because here, eating the animal which could potentially have been dedicated to other than God does not automatically make you an idol worshipper. It made the guy who dedicated it an idol worshipper, but to you, it only would mean that you break this law—just simply like drinking alcohol or drinking blood. That doesn’t automatically mean idol worship.

Which means that if it is true that what the guy is saying—that he sacrificed the animal for his son—if it is true that he intended it as idol worship, even if you eat it, you’re breaking a law in the Quran, but you’re not idol worshipping. Which means that now the rule which Rashad was applying doesn’t apply anymore, because he was talking about idol worship versus no idol worship. Here, we’re talking about eating an animal which has been dedicated to other than God by someone else versus not eating the animal. It’s one step removed from that; it doesn’t have to do with idol worship anymore, it has to do with breaking a law in the Quran.

Given that we’re dealing with breaking a law in the Quran versus not breaking it, in that case, we shouldn’t just run away from it even if we’re not sure. We should just clarify it, meaning that we just want to know if it’s idol worship or not. So, in Step 1, evaluate what law from the Quran we could potentially go against. Potentially, we could go against this law, and if we break this law, it’s not idol worship, so we don’t have to worry about it because it says if you’re forced without being malicious or deliberate, you incur no sin.

Step 2: Clarify their intentions creatively.

Why clarify the intentions? Again, let me go back to that table. Basically, we have two options here if the person claims that he’s doing idol worship: either he intended it (which means what he said is true), or it’s false what he said (which is the yellow case). We just want to clarify which one it is: did he actually mean it, or did he not mean it?

When he says, “I sacrificed an animal for my son,” is that what he actually meant, or did he mean something else? So we just clarify that.

Why do I say creatively? Because there are so many ways to do it. Some people are better at it, some people are not as good at it. People who are very rigid—I’m sort of one of those people—sometimes don’t know how to solve these situations. My mom, for example, is very good at these; she can actually navigate her way out of a bad situation with a discussion. So it does involve some creativity.

Here’s an example of how we clarify that situation: Your cousin comes and says, “Oh, here is some meat. I sacrificed the animal for my son.” What he’s claiming is clearly idol worship. You don’t want to eat the food which is dedicated to idols. And then you clarify, because you don’t know if he means it or not. You help him not claim that it’s idol worship. You say, “That’s so nice of you! I guess you are so happy and you want to thank God for giving you a beautiful baby, right?”

And they say, “Yeah, right!”

In this case, he didn’t mean it as idol worship; he said it as idol worship, but he didn’t mean it like that. So in this case, you can eat the meat.

Or if you try to clarify and the person insists on his idol worship, that’s different. For example, you say, “That’s so nice of you. I guess you wanted to thank God for giving you a beautiful baby, right?” And then he says, “Oh no, it’s an obligation.” Now it’s entering into the territory of idol worship because he actually thinks he has to do it; it’s not about God, it’s about his son. Or he says, “If not for my son, for who else?” He makes a statement which makes your case stronger that he’s idol worshipping. Or he might make a statement which makes the case stronger that it’s not idol worship.

Basically, you’re just clarifying, but with some creativity, not acting like a judge (“Is this idol worship or not?”). You kind of help him with that.

He says, “Oh, I sacrificed the meat for my newborn son.” You say, “That’s so nice of you! I guess you are so happy you want to thank God for giving you a beautiful baby.” Basically, you’re rephrasing it to make it sound like it’s not idol worship, and then you ask, “Right?” And the person says, “Right,” or “Yeah, that’s right,” or “I’m so happy.” In this case, it’s not idol worship; they are just appreciating God.

Step 3: Reduce the circumstances which usually lead you to those situations.

For example, next time when you go back to your country to visit your family, maybe don’t go to your cousin’s home. Maybe meet him outside, or maybe don’t meet him at all.

Why is this important? It’s important because if you don’t do this, you are going against the verse in the Quran. If you don’t reduce the circumstances which lead you to unclear situations—as we can see, we did not decide if it was idol worship or not for any of these circumstances (Christmas, any of those); the way they express it, it sounds like idol worship. However, we are in a situation where we have to clarify: “Oh, so you mean this, right? Or do you mean that, right?” in a creative way.

The fact that we end up in a situation where we constantly have to clarify means that we are not finding ourselves in the best circumstances. If you’re in a good circumstance, you wouldn’t need to clarify; the person would say the right thing. But a person who is saying something and meaning something else is confusing. That circumstance is not perfect, which means that you put yourself in such a situation.

Step 3 is to do better next time. You don’t go and think too much about, “Oh, did I eat the wrong meat?” No, just try to make the circumstances better next time so that you don’t end up in that situation.

Why do you need to do that? Because there’s a verse in the Quran, Surah 7, Verse 199:

“You shall resort to pardon, advocate tolerance, and disregard the ignorant.”

Basically, it’s an obligation to disregard the ignorant. And then it says:

“When the devil whispers to you any whisper, seek refuge in God; He is Hearer, Omniscient.”

What does it mean to disregard the ignorant? Of course, no person is totally ignorant; there are levels to it. Someone is 90% ignorant, someone is 30% ignorant, someone is 50% ignorant. According to that, you are obliged to disregard them—basically avoid them, not engage in deep discussions with them. It’s not like you have to run away from them because they are not totally ignorant, but you avoid those situations.

And that has to do with Step 3: reduce the circumstances which usually lead you to those situations. Usually, ignorant people will say something and mean something else because they don’t know how to express themselves very well.

If we go back to the example, someone who claims idol worship but did not intend it is usually an ignorant person. Because if he is a smart person and he’s an idol worshipper, he will actually make a very clear claim about it. And if he’s a smart person and he is not an idol worshipper, he will also know how to avoid stating it in the wrong way. It’s usually the ignorant people who say something and mean something else; they need help with clarification.

Basically, you help them clarify it. In this way, you know which case it is: is it prohibited or is it not for you? You don’t have to say it like that to them, you just clarify it by saying, “Oh, so you’re doing it for God, is that what you mean?”

Your cousin is probably not smart because he says that he did something for his son, but he actually meant that he’s thankful to God for giving him a son, and he doesn’t know how to express that. He’s at least partly ignorant. In which case, you try to avoid him mostly—maybe don’t meet him in his home, maybe not as often, maybe don’t meet him at all if he’s too ignorant. Basically, don’t waste your time with people who don’t know. We don’t have to actively avoid them, we just don’t go along with what they say. It’s not smart to follow stupid people or do whatever they tell you.

So we reduce the circumstances based on this verse. We just disregard the ignorant, and then next time we reduce it even more, and eventually we find ourselves in situations where we don’t have to decide between these two cases. We find ourselves in situations where when someone claims idol worship, it is idol worship, and when someone claims non-idol worship, it is not idol worship. So your life becomes more and more clear.

You don’t have to force it, though. Just try to do it better each time. That’s what I mean by “reduce.” I’m not saying “stop,” because no one is so totally ignorant that you have to stop communicating with them. Who could be totally ignorant? I don’t know, like a cow. You don’t try to talk to a cow; you don’t reason with a cow. You take care of it, but you don’t reason with it. You don’t think that the cow will understand you, do you?

So these are the three steps:

1. Evaluate what law could be broken (usually it’s eating something dedicated to other than God based on what they claim).

2. Clarify whether it’s true or not (this is the most important part).

3. Reduce those circumstances gradually.

When someone asks, “Are birthday cakes prohibited for me to eat?” you can never give a decisive answer. You can say, “It depends on their intentions.” If they say, “I did this birthday cake for this person,” you say, “Oh, you mean that you are so thankful to God, so you wanted to make a birthday cake to express your gratitude as charity?” That’s a better way to say it, and they might say, “Yeah, that’s it! That’s what I meant.”

Each individual case is different. We can never say that birthday cakes are prohibited; we can never say that birthday cakes are allowed. It depends on the intentions of that person. And because we don’t know the intentions, we need to clarify. We ask them, “What’s your intention?”—not directly, but in a creative way so that they don’t get insulted.

And then we try to reduce them gradually. Next time, you don’t have to go to every birthday. In some work environments or classrooms, there’s like 300 students—of course there’s going to be someone’s birthday pretty much every day. You don’t have to go to all of them. There should be a reduction, a limit.

So that was about how to disregard the ignorant people. Does anyone have any questions? Quick, though.

Questions & Answers

Question 1: If I find myself in a situation where they told me the meat is dedicated for their newborn son explicitly, but I witnessed the slaughter and I heard them say “In the name of God” upon slaughtering the animal, do I assume that they are confessing falsely to idol worship?

Answer: No, you don’t assume; you need to clarify. Here’s why: hearing them do it in the name of God does not exclude that they do it for idols as well. One can say “In the name of God” and kill the animal, but also do it for someone else as well. Doing it for God doesn’t exclude idol worship, because they can associate something else with God. Or basically, they can do it for God (which is true) and someone else. So you still need to clarify.

I think it’s kind of tough, especially for young people; they don’t know how to navigate outside of these situations, and young people usually find themselves in these situations more often. But eventually, with time, you learn how to creatively avoid these situations or clarify.

Question 2: Is it better the more explicit you are when asking?

Answer: Yeah, it’s better, but then there’s a level to whether it’s going to be insulting. You can find a way to do it nicely, because what if it’s not idol worship, and if you were too harsh with it, maybe you were unfair to them?

Question 3: Someone is bringing meat; they sacrifice animals for Eid, they claim it’s for God and Abraham did it. Is that second category of meat allowed?

Answer: Here’s the thing: I didn’t say that meat is allowed or prohibited. All I’m saying is it needs clarification in each individual case, including Eid. Sometimes it’s not good, sometimes it’s good.

Let me go to the example of the situation where they sacrifice an animal for a newborn son: that is a good deed if the baby is a believer, but it’s actually a bad deed if the baby is a disbeliever. And the person doesn’t know, and in most cases, it’s a disbeliever, so most cases it’s actually bad for them what they are doing. I’m talking beyond idol worship here; I’m only talking about whether it’s good or bad.

In the past, when people were one community—like when God chose a community of people like the Children of Israel in the past (not Jews today)—there might have been such a tradition where it made sense. But today it doesn’t make sense; we don’t know for sure whether babies are believers or not, because God doesn’t choose today based on your tribe or ethnicity.

Question 4: The days of the week have idol names, like Thursday. Is it idol worship?

Answer: This is a good example of people claiming idol worship. On the surface, it looks like idol worship, it sounds like idol worship, but from practice, we know it’s not. This has been clarified, because when you ask them what they mean, they just say it’s the next day. Most people don’t even know that Thursday comes from Thor’s day, or Friday comes from Freya’s day, or Saturday from Saturn (the day of Saturn), or Monday from Moon day (the day of the moon).

It’s a case where they are claiming idol worship, but we know for sure, or we can clarify it once and for all, that these are the days of the week—that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and the seventh was rest for Him. Everyone knows what a week is. This is actually a case where you don’t need much clarification.

Closing Remarks

I’m going to have to end the Friday sermon here. I hope this situation is clear. Basically, again, every case is different, and you clarify which case it is by being nice to the person and finding creative ways to ask about it.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. Or if you already did the new prayer, fine, that’s also good. And the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director