 Truly, all praises God. We praise Him, seek His assistance, and ask His forgiveness. We seek refuge in God from the evil in ourselves and our bad actions. Whomsoever God guides, no one can turn away, but whoever He turns away from will have no one to guide them. I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah, and to Him belongs all praise and all power over each and everything. I further bear witness that Muhammad is the servant and final messenger of God. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, his family, his companions, and all those who follow in righteousness until the end of the world. God says in his book the meaning and translation of which is, O you who believe, be in awe of God as His awesomeness demands, and do not let yourselves leave this world until and unless you have submitted entirely and completely to Him. O humanity, be in awe of your Lord who created you from one soul, and from that soul made a partner and spread forth from that couple, many men and many women. Be in awe of God by whom you ask of one another and as such to those that bore you. Exactly almost exactly ten years ago I was on the other side of the country in New York City teaching a class on Islam at a church, and it was a four-part class, and the topic that day was the life of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. I've been doing this kind of thing, this kind of teaching for many years, and if you talk about Islam, and I'm sure all of us have had interactions where we're asked to explain something about our faith, you often get one of a limited number of reactions, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but it's rare that you get something that totally surprises you, and yet at the end of that class, a woman who probably was not much older than I am now, raised her hand and asked a question that completely left me dumbfounded. I was very confused, I didn't understand the question. She said to me, in Islam is it okay to pray to God to help you or heal you if you are sick, and I thought to myself I was very confused, I thought to myself, I didn't say this, but I thought to myself probably if we're honest, we most intensely and fervently pray to God when we are sick or scared or worried. That's one of the challenges of faith that when life is going our way, we believe we are self-sufficient that everything is under our control, that we got it. And I went back and forth with her because I was trying to understand the question. I didn't want to leave her with a misimpression, and it occurred to me as soon as she was explaining her question that she believed that in Islam the relationship between God and humanity, between the creator and creation individually and collectively, was one of rigidity, harshness, obedience. It was not room for warmth or compassion. And on the subway ride back to my apartment, it occurred to me that yes this is an impression that sometimes people have of Islam from outside our faith, but sometimes it is an impression we give in our own faith that we do not do full justice to the beauty and strength of our faith. And many of us here may have kids or our teachers or are thinking of having kids or perhaps have grandkids and we think frequently, often, about this question of what can I do to make sure that those who come after me follow in the path of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Now of course we have no absolute control over any of this, but it is still a concern. There isn't a single person alive who loves someone who doesn't wish for them what is good for them. And it occurred to me that sometimes we fail to focus sufficiently on the most beautiful, powerful and amazing thing about Islam, which is our conception of the divine, of Allah, of God, of the Creator which is so incredible if you dwell on it, that it is different, it is greater than that in almost any other faith tradition as far as I have studied. And its implications are almost too much for us to completely understand. So today in the small amount of time we have, I would like very much to talk about one chapter from the Qur'an, a very short one, Surah Al-Ikhlas. It is the 112th chapter of the Qur'an, it means the chapter of sincerity. The Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him once said that this chapter is the weight of the, it constitutes a third of the Qur'an. Right now obviously literally that's not what he meant because the Qur'an is 6,000 verses and these four verses are quite short. What he meant to say is that in this chapter you find so much meaning and significance that it is as if you have understood or experienced a third of the Qur'an. And so what I want to do is I want to translate the verses and then explain them in the second part of the khutbah. So the chapter begins Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim in the name of God who loves all and is compassionate and merciful to each and every. Say he is God, the one, the unique, the singular. Allahu Samaad, that he is, Samaad is a name of God that is particularly hard to translate completely in English. I will for now say self-sufficient, right, in need of nothing and no one. Some of the older translations of the Qur'an, they will say things like he begets not nor was he begotten. Another way of understanding this a little bit is as if to say he is neither a parent nor a child that he does not have offspring or is he the offspring of anything. And there is nothing like him or even more emphatically, even more impactfully, there can be nothing like him. And now two things come to mind before we unpack these verses. The first is if you, you know, sometimes if you have a prior impression of a person, like someone says to you hey, did you know so and so, they're really stingy or they're really rude or they say something about a person you over here, you don't mean to internalize it but you do. So many times when people approach Islamic texts from outside our tradition, if they have a prior conception of Islam, that's what they read into it. But sometimes we don't give ourselves the permission to read more deeply into our own texts because if you look at these four verses, right, they sound superficially to imply distance, right, that he's not a parent or a child, there can be nothing like him. He, the divine is different from anything you know or understand. It sounds like the description of a being that is so utterly unlike anything in your experience that how can you possibly connect to that being? And so you do get this assumption that in Islam our relationship with the divine is one that is very harsh and cold, which is in fact incredibly far from the truth. That's not how Muslims experience Islam. But it's also important to understand this because if we want to pass on Islam to next generation and the next generation after that, we have to make sure that we begin with the one thing on which everything else depends. Nothing in Islam makes sense if you don't understand God. Nothing in Islam makes sense without the divine and the heart of it. We begin and end with God. You literally enter into the world with the evan in your ears and you leave the world, inshallah, that's how God wills it, with people around you praying. Right, we begin and end with God and where do we come back to life? In the presence of God. And the second thing I want to tell you because this is something that sometimes we don't get out of mainstream culture, I was a philosophy major but I promise I won't make it too dull because there's a concept in philosophy called description versus prescription and I'm going to explain that. To describe something is just to tell you what it is. To prescribe something, like if you're a doctor or a pharmacist or you've been to a doctor or been to a pharmacy, a prescription is a recommendation. It's not telling you how, it's telling you what you should do. So for example, last night, I'm not from here as you probably gathered, I had dinner with a lovely young man who lived in Redwood City. I went on Google maps to tell me how to get there. Google doesn't make a value judgment, it doesn't tell you should you go there but it tells you how to go there. Similarly, if I give you information it is up to you to decide what to do with it. In the Quran, in the Islamic tradition however, God isn't just telling us things in order that we know an abstract concept. Knowledge is about action. That is a deeper form of knowledge so Allah is telling us this is who I am in order that you may be a certain kind of person and live a certain way and if you have a deeper understanding of the Divine you have a deeper understanding of yourself and you can be liberated from things that pull you down. Ideas and beliefs, even people and forces and institutions that deny your full nobility and stature as creations of God. And we live in a culture unfortunately that is forgetting the nobility of the person. With consequences I think that we see not just physically, environmentally but spiritually, psychologically, biologically, politically we are losing the dignity of the person and the dignity of the person comes from God. So in the second part of the hulqba in the second part of the sermon what I'm going to do is tell you how these four verses create Islam as we understand and live it. That take us from describing who God is to understanding how we connect to the Divine. I say what you hear, I ask forgiveness for myself and for you and for all those who believe seek forgiveness from Allah for he loves to forgive and forgives most often. All praise and gratitude, all thanks is to God the Lord and Master and Sustainer of everything that exists whether we know it or do not. And prayers and peace upon the best of creation our teacher, our example, our leader Prophet Muhammad. In qulhu Allahu ahad say he is God the one, the unique. Why say? Now it's not enough to believe something in your heart that's the weakest kind of faith and sometimes there are places where you have to keep your belief private there are circumstances where it could harm your life but for most of us we are blessed not to be in that circumstance and so we are called to embody faith you don't keep it to yourself you don't hide it you're not ashamed of it in fact you are proud of it you are uplifted by it and you want others to gain by it now imagine in a polytheistic society in a society literally formed by poetry and words your word was your bond literally and so Allah is telling you God is telling you to say he is the one, the unique Allahu samad one of the most powerful verses in the Quran it's two words long God samad means self-sufficient there are other translations I'll get into them but what does self-sufficient literally mean? it means you don't need anything you don't need anything unlike anything else in existence you need food you need sleep you need friends you need love you need money we need lots of things if you sit on the floor too long your body will get stiff even if you're in good health there's only so much work you can do most of our lives are out of our control did you decide what your name was going to be? probably not did you decide who your parents were going to be? probably not did you decide where you were going to be born? probably not many of the things that shape so much about you are outside of your control we are the opposite of self-sufficient God is unique why? because he's self-sufficient another meaning of salat is eternal eternal means what? no beginning no end it's connected if you don't need anything or anyone you are liberated from any kind of weakness or flaw or dependency you don't begin you don't end even trying to understand that makes almost no sense to us because God created time it's beyond our ability to fully grasp lam yalid wa lam yulad wa lam yakulllahu kufwan ahad of course part of this is a vocal it is a response to Christian Trinitarianism it is a response to the polytheism of the time and other forms of idolatry that existed then and exist now saying God is not a parent, not a child he's not part of a family unit in the way that we understand the world he doesn't reproduce genetically he doesn't come from anything he always was and hence wa lam yakulllahu kufwan ahad there can be nothing like him now you tell me if you hear that what does it sound like? elsewhere in the Quran God emphasizes his difference again and again ayatul kursi, the verse of the throne part of it let that khuduhu sanatun wa la naum that he doesn't get tired he doesn't get sleepy he doesn't wear out he doesn't feel exhausted now why is he telling us this? yes, partially in order that we understand who the Divine really is but also because it does something for us and here's what it does why would you worship anyone or anything in need of anything? distance in the Islamic tradition enables intimacy have you ever had to talk to two people at the same time? it's effectively impossible right? why do so many people get upset with texting and driving? because your brain can't handle two things at the same time right? one feels urgent and one is literally existentially dangerous right? we can't handle that and yet the Divine is not just omniscient, possessive all power but omniscient, possessive all knowledge but omnipotent, possessive all power meaning that Allah is in control of and aware of every single thing that happens in every single moment in every single place that ever was is or will be which means you can talk to him whenever you need to and more than that you should and you must but you only will fulfill that obligation if you know that you can you know there was a conversation once after a halak when I was in school many many years ago and someone said does it really matter where I put my hands God has more important things to do and you know it his point was that in the hierarchy of things how do we prioritize life right? now we have to prioritize things right if I want a car wash but my kid needs to go to school probably I should take my kid to school and not get a car wash right like small things but they clearly weigh out but if you are omniscient and omnipotent if you are possessive power over everything you don't have to prioritize because you literally created time and energy Allah is always there for you he's always listening whether you want him to or not it can be terrifying because it means we are always being evaluated but it is also liberating because it means there is a rope to hold on to he is with you wherever you are however you are, whoever you are this was the incredible transformation Islam affected people's lives and produced whole civilizations all over the world from the Americas to the Australia, New Zealand like everywhere in the world there was a Muslim culture that was born inspired by this incredibly empowering belief and recognition and transformation that Allah is in control of all things he is there for us whenever we need him and therefore why go through intermediaries the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him taught us how to best worship Allah but the path to Allah is for everyone and we have for a long time as Muslims been in a kind of defensive crouch we have focused sometimes excessively on our identity as minorities instead of projecting outwards we should use our faith to inspire ways of living and being arts and culture, institutions, policies knowledge and wisdom, practices, spaces communities that invite people in and grow because what we have is not for us alone we are simply vehicles through which the Divine continues to pass His message onto His creation that is His wisdom and His choice and we have in this country right now we have a challenge as people become disconnected from their nature we see all sorts of crises and I don't mean this in the way of knocking on people or punching down I mean to say that first we should internalize this in our own lives that God is always there and always able to listen He may not respond in the way we want or when we want but that is His will that doesn't mean He is not responding it simply means we don't have the wisdom we don't have the knowledge we are being taught something and then we need to spread this knowledge outwards and share it with others I want to end with this thought I was reading an article a couple days ago when I was on the plane here and it was reading an article about a mental health crisis in the United States which seems to be manifesting in many parts of the world and it's devastated that huge numbers of people in the United States are in a state of existential despair I am not by any means dismissing the value of medical treatments I'm not saying that what I'm saying is that if you have a culture that doesn't nourish people those who are perhaps genetically predisposed existentially predisposed socioeconomically predisposed I don't know I'm not an expert what I do know is that when a disaster strikes those who are vulnerable are hit the hardest we know that I live for a long time in New York City New York City had a problem with homelessness why? because as you know in the Bay Area it is really expensive to find a place to live and as the prices go up people get priced out and if you have money if you've been blessed then you can weather the storm although it affects many people but if you don't or you get ill or you have a family crisis or you lose your job then you have a problem similarly existentially a culture that doesn't teach people that they have a hand to hold on to it all times and show them how to is a culture where if you are wealthy and comfortable maybe you can ride it out but if you face a hardship you're gonna have a problem and our job is to project outwards what Islam did for people and does for people it provides us a connection to who we really are I want you to think for a moment of everything that you know exists all the places in the world all the people every blade of grass outside every car on every street the amount of stuff there is it boggles the mind and yet at every moment not only has God aware of those things but he is sustaining them if for one second he withdraws his power and his will nothing exists therefore everything that exists exists for a reason and was intended before time outside time we don't even understand if you are feeling high on yourself remember therefore that everyone around you was intended by the same God who created you and if you are feeling low and down on yourself that your life isn't what you thought it would be or your circumstances aren't what you thought they would be then remember you were intended you are here for a reason and your creator wants to hear from you he wants to hear from you he made you before and outside of time we experience this unfolding in the ways our limited horizons allow us to there is not a single person here or anywhere in the world who was not intended by God and if we take away their rights we are violating God's plan and if they take away our rights they are violating God's plan accountability may come in this life it definitely comes in the next life but it comes and it comes from God he teaches us who he is not just so that we know something in our heads but so that we live it in our lives not just so we can read it in a book but so that we can become it in the world and share it with others God and His angels send blessings upon the prophet O you who believe send blessings upon him and send him to find his salutations please raise your hands in supplication Ya Allah forgive our sins overlook our faults absolve us of our errors and keep us always connected to you in this life and in your shade and in your garden in the next Ya Allah bless this beautiful congregation sustain, strengthen and continue in this life and in your garden in this life and in your garden in this life and in your shade sustain, strengthen and continue to elevate and guide this community Ya Allah protect and nurture our country and help us to fulfill its noblest ideals for each and all Ya Allah bless our planet help us work towards healing and softening this world growing our knowledge so that we can uplift ourselves and ennoble others Ya Allah save us from anything that has no benefit from hearts that are stubborn from ignorance and obstinacy and how to cry Ya Allah make us always among those who defend the oppressed those who bring rights and freedoms to those who are wronged and causes ever to associate with those who love you and who are loved by you Ya Allah give us peace in our houses and our homes guide us our families and our loved ones to you and to stay faithful to you forgive our ancestors and all those who sacrifice to enable us to live in the world as we do Yaidian may Allah make you remember God commands justice the doing of good and giving to family to Kith and kin He forbids all indecency evil, rebellion and wickedness He instructs us he teaches us He guides us because he loves us and wishes better for us I will give you peace in prayer