Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director
Summary:
In this Friday sermon, Alban Fejza explains that hanging calligraphy of Muhammad’s name, like hanging crosses for Jesus, risks idol worship even when unintended, and goes against the Quran’s command not to make a distinction among God’s messengers.
Video Transcript:
Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
According to verse 33:21, Muhammad is an example for the believers. However, he himself never put calligraphy of his name on the walls of his houses or the masjids. There is no evidence for it in the Quran, or even in Hadith. So to follow Muhammad means that we should do the same thing as him, which is not to put his name on the walls. Hanging calligraphy with the name of Muhammad on the walls is basically the same as when Christians put crosses on their walls. The only difference is that the Christians worship Jesus while being aware of it, while Muslims worship Muhammad without being aware of it.
However, whether someone is aware or not does not excuse him from idol worship, according to verses 6:22 through 6:24. The verses say: “On the day when we summon them all, we will ask those who set up partners: ‘Where are the idols you set up?’ Their disastrous response will be, ‘By God our Lord, we never set up partners.’ Note how they lied to themselves, and how the idols they had invented have abandoned them.” So according to these verses, the Muhammadans will be completely unaware that they worshiped Muhammad, but the verse does not excuse them. They were still idol worshipers, regardless of how aware of it they were.
When it comes to all the other sins, if people committed them unintentionally, they will be forgiven in the next world, because it was unintentional. But if it was unintentional idol worship, they will still have to pay for it, because you cannot claim that something happened unintentionally in relation to the very issue for which you were created in the first place. God says in verse 51:56, “I did not create the jinns and the humans except to worship Me alone.” Given that this is the main reason why we exist, you cannot claim that going against it was unintentional. That excuse does not count for the main reason for your existence.
We can claim that we killed someone unintentionally in a car accident, for example. We can claim that we ate pork unintentionally, thinking that it was beef. But we cannot claim that we worshiped or served others in partnership with God unintentionally, because that is our only true job in life. If someone hires you to feed his cat, for example, you can claim that you broke the bowl unintentionally, or that you left the lights on unintentionally when you fed the cat. But you cannot claim that you did not feed the cat unintentionally, because that’s what you were hired for in the first place. The owner of the cat might still pay you if you broke his bowl or left his lights on, but he will not pay you if you did not feed his cat, because that is what he hired you for.
In the same way, our only reason for existence in this world is to worship God alone and no one else, and if we fail in that, we cannot claim that we were not aware or that we did it unintentionally. That’s our only job in this life, and therefore it is the only issue where the excuse of unawareness is not justified. So it is possible for someone to worship Muhammad without being aware that he’s doing it, but that will not be a sufficient excuse on the Day of Judgment.
Now, given that idol worship is the only unforgivable offense, according to verse 4:48, even the slightest possibility that someone might be an idol worshiper without being aware of it should scare him, if he is honest. Even the slightest possibility that putting the calligraphy of the name of Muhammad alongside the calligraphy of the name of God is idol worship should scare a person so much that he completely avoids it. Again, even if he is not sure whether it is idol worship or not, the simple fact that it could be idol worship should be enough to decide against it. Since idol worship is the only offense which God does not forgive, and its punishment lasts forever, it is not reasonable to risk our entire eternity simply to put the calligraphy of Muhammad on the wall, or to hang a cross on the wall to symbolize Jesus.
Even more, doing that goes against many other verses in the Quran which tell us not to make a distinction among God’s messengers, because when we put up the calligraphy of one messenger and we do not do it for the others, we make a distinction between messengers. Verse 2:136 says, “We believe in God, and in what was sent down to us, and in what was sent down to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Patriarchs; and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and all the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them. To Him alone we are submitters.” Verse 2:285 says, “The messenger has believed in what was sent down to him from his Lord, and so did the believers. They believe in God, His angels, His scripture, and His messengers: ‘We make no distinction among any of His messengers.’ They say, ‘We hear, and we obey. Forgive us, our Lord. To You is the ultimate destiny.'”
So if anyone puts the calligraphy of Muhammad on the wall without putting up the calligraphy of the other prophets, he or she is making a distinction between God’s messengers and is going against verses 2:136 and 2:285 in the Quran. And the same applies to putting up crosses and paintings of Jesus.