 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Muhammadin wa la alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar La ilaha illa Allah Wa Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Wa Lillahi Al Hamd Due to our unusual circumstances, this is not an official Eid khutbah, just a short reminder inshaAllah ta'ala to myself and by extension to all of you the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said he said there are no days more beloved to Allah s.w.t than he be worshipped in them than the 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah and this hadith is in multiple books of hadith to notice he said which in Arabic denotes a strong negation that there are no days whatsoever not even the days of Ramadan according to many scholars that are is in Arabic called an elative of comparison the root word is there are no days more beloved to Allah s.w.t than the 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah and when something is beloved to Allah s.w.t then it's the duty of the believers to pay close attention to that for example in a hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said the most beloved places to Allah s.w.t are the mosques the Masajid and we know that but many of us don't even know what month it is or even what year it is according to the Islamic calendar let alone specific days Allah s.w.t he takes an oath in the Quran he says by the dawn and the 10 nights and by the even and the odd many exegents of the Quran say that the 10 nights mentioned here are the first 10 nights of the month of Dhul-Hijjah the first 10 nights of the month of Dhul-Hijjah while the even as shafa'i refers to iid al-adha also called yom al-nahar the 10th of Dhul-Hijjah wa the odd al-watar refers to the blessed day of Arafah the 9th of Dhul-Hijjah the Prophet s.w.t he said that there is no day when Allah s.w.t sets free more servants from the fire emancipates more servants from the fire than the day of Arafah and that Allah s.w.t draws near to his servants according to the hadith then praises them to the angels and says what do these people want and the hadith is in muslim and of course Allah s.w.t knows what we want Allah s.w.t's knowledge is perfect but the purpose here is to motivate us to make dua during this time furthermore Allah s.w.t says in the Quran that we prescribed for Musa s.w.t 30 nights and we completed it with 10 and so the appointment of his lord was completed at 40 nights right so Imam al-Tabari and many others Imam al-Zamaqshari they say that the 30 here right 30 night 10 refers to the month of Dhul Qaada while the final 10 right before that and we completed it with 10 more at the final 10 here referred to the 10 nights of Dhul-Hijjah that in other words the revelation of the Torah was completed in the month of Dhul-Hijjah so why are these days so blessed these are the days of Hajj the pilgrimage and the pilgrimage harkens back to the very primordial origins of our deen right the rites of the Hajj go back to our master Ibrahim alayhi salam right Allah s.w.t he says وَأَذِنْ فِي النَّاسِ بِالْحَجْ commanding our father Ibrahim alayhi salam to announce to the people the Hajj the pilgrimage so a man whose very name Abraham right Avraham in Hebrew his very name actually means father or patriarch of many nations this is a man that's revered and loved by over three billion human beings on planet earth so Eid al-Adha is really a commemoration of our master Ibrahim alayhi salam it is our origin story if you will a man who is called the friend of God Khalil Allah in the Quran he's also called the friend of God in the Hebrew Bible the Tanakh as well as the New Testament all three texts he is referred to as the friend of God as a man who is known as the great iconoclast right the breaker of idols a man who is called the Imam of mankind indeed I have made you for the people a leader the one about whom Allah says that he brought to his lord a sound heart the one about whom Allah says he was a nation unto himself devoted to Allah subhanu wa ta'ala the primordial and quintessential monotheist Hanifa and not an idolater the centrality of the Abrahamic tradition is very clear in the Quran the Quran says they say be Jews or Christians in order for you to be guided say no I would rather follow the the tradition the creed of Ibrahim alayhi salam he did not in partner with Allah subhanu wa ta'ala Allah says in the Quran Ibrahim alayhi salam was not a Jew nor a Christian the term Jew did not have any type of meaning at the time of Ibrahim alayhi salam it's anachronistic to refer to him as a Jew Jew comes from the word Judah one of the sons of Jacob and certainly there weren't any Christians around Christians are named after Christ which is the Greek of Messiah or Mashiach but al Islam submission unto God that was the religion of Ibrahim alayhi salam Allah subhanu wa ta'ala says he was a quintessential monotheist Hanifa and a Muslim a submitter unto God a submitter unto Allah subhanu wa ta'ala and he did not in partner with Allah subhanu wa ta'ala Allah subhanu wa ta'ala says Allah speaks the truth and the verb there is also used when Allah subhanu wa ta'ala says in the famous Ayatul Imtihan speaking directly to the Prophet Muhammad say to the people if you really love Allah then follow me then will Allah love you and forgive you your sins Allah is forgiving and merciful so in one verse Allah subhanu wa ta'ala commands us to follow the millah of Ibrahim alayhi salam his tradition his creed his religion in another ayah Allah subhanu wa ta'ala tells us to follow same verb the Prophet sallallahu alayhi alayhi salam so the exeges deduce from this that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam he is upon the primordial Abrahamic path and this is actually stated explicitly in the Quran indeed the closest of humanity to Ibrahim alayhi salam are those who follow him as are this Prophet and those who believe and God is the protector of those who have faith so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam he is really the great restorer of the millah the tradition and creed of Allah's Khalil Ibrahim alayhi salam the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam restored and perfected the deen and millah of Ibrahim alayhi salam so he restored and perfected it be ibn illa with the with the permission and the tawfiq of Allah subhanu wa ta'ala this is why he's Habibullah he's the beloved of God and not only that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam in his physical manifestation even resembled Ibrahim alayhi salam the hadith in the shama'il of imam at-Tirmidhi that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam describes the physical appearance of some of the major prophets and he said and he said then I saw Ibrahim alayhi salam and the closest an appearance to him is your companion meaning himself sallallahu alayhi salam physically the khalq what what manifests physically is is the closest to Ibrahim alayhi salam internally as well as far as his ethos and his theology or teaching his millah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam on the day of Arafa the ninth of Dhul-Hijjah during the final pilgrimage اليوم أَكْمَنْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ أَتْمَمْتُ عَلِيْكُمْ نِعَتِيْ وَرَضِيتُ وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمْ الْإِسْلَامَ دِينَا that today I have perfected your religion for you completed my favors upon you and I've chosen as your deen al-Islam so according to many exegetes this perfection and this completion this kamal and tamam this perfection and completion refers to the establishment of the rites and procedures of the final Muslim ritual obligation the final pillar حَجُبَيْتِ اللَّهِ pilgrimage to the house of God such is the importance of the Hajj the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam he said the one who performs the Hajj for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala without engaging in inappropriate talk in transgression رَجِعَكَ يَوْمِنْ وَلَدَةُ أُمْمُ he will return like the day his mother gave birth to him this hadith is in Bukhari in Muslim this is a strange time as we said many of us intended to go to Hajj we even had our reservations booked but it didn't happen and masha'Allah we are we are content with the Qadr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but many did make Hajj they were fortunate enough to make Hajj if you had that intention then insha'Allah ta'ala Allah will reward you for your intention and insha'Allah in the future we will definitely make the Hajj if Allah wills now given the high status of Ibrahim alaihi salam in our deen it pains me to say that society in general mainstream media and an ever-increasing monoculture in colleges and universities the academy they have declared ideological warfare on the middle of Ibrahim alaihi salam on Abrahamic tradition and Abrahamic morality and if you don't know this is happening then you've really been asleep college students are constantly told by their social science professors that all traditional value systems are inherently oppressive because they involve hierarchy and patriarchy and this has led many Muslims young and old to leave the religion altogether so not only a pandemic of COVID-19 but a pandemic of Irtidat of apostasy has afflicted the Muslim ummah so we need to advocate a return to Ibrahim alaihi salam and this is what Islam essentially is it is an Abrahamic theoethical Judeo-Christian reform movement at its essence an Abrahamic theoethical Judeo-Christian reform movement at its essence a reformation of Jewish legalism and Christian theology thus a restoration of the true millah of the great patriarch and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says at the end of Surah al-Hajj appropriately titled The Pilgrimage he has chosen you and has not imposed upon you any difficulties in the religion it is the religion the creed the tradition of your father Abraham and in the first instance Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is speaking to the Arabs the Qureji Arabs who are literally descendants of Abraham minlata abii kum your ancestor but what about the vast majority of Muslims who are not Arabs well abii here abii kum ab also means spiritual father here's our spiritual father he is the one who called you Muslims in the past and in this scripture and the Quran now not to belabor the point because I talk about this a lot but I just want to mention quickly that the dominant epistemology today in the Western academy is broadly known by this term postmodernism and this includes various philosophical movements like critical theory and deconstructionism post structuralism neo Marxism and this is really our challenge right postmodernism is really our challenge obviously there's an explosion of sort of anti-muslim polemics that are coming from Christian elements as well and we can deal with those those are the old sort of tired arguments that they're just recycling but when it comes to postmodernism this is really a challenge that we need to focus on we need to understand what it is and how to deal with it or else this pandemic of irritad of apostasy will continue and continue in contrast to premodernism and modernism postmodernism is really a revolt against both faith and reason so this is something I've mentioned before it's against religion and rationality against naqal and akal right the most infamous of the postmodern philosophers he said quote it is meaningless to speak in the name of or against reason, truth or knowledge so reason, truth and knowledge so akal or mantik and haq and ilm these are meaningless he says reason is meaningless they say it's all about feelings now now reason is limited that's true but is it meaningless and can we really not know anything how many times do we find in the Quran phrases like أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ إن كُنتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ Do you not reason in order for you to reason if you would only reason use your akal, use your intellect right Muslim theologians like even Utamia he said that عقل and naqal reason and revelation are not in conflict but that the proper use of the former will lead to the recognition of the latter because they come from the same source ultimately everything is from Allah SWT Imam Al-Ghazali says in his قصص المستقيم that the Quran itself appeals to logic through syllogistic arguments long before hellenistic influences upon Muslim theological discourse in other words the prophets themselves used logic and reason to appeal to the respective communities because logic and reason have efficacy and our master Ibrahim alaihi salam is a prime example of this Allah SWT tells us in the Quran Surah number 6 he says in meaning thus did we show Ibrahim alaihi salam the dominion of the heavens and the earth that he might be among those possessing certitude the word for certitude here right yaqeen the people that's the noun the people of yaqeen and the word yaqeen is used a few places in the Quran very notably in Surah Al-Hijr ayah number 98 when Allah SWT says yaqeen worship your lord until certitude comes to you most of the exeggents concerning that ayah they say that al yaqeen here means death this is imam razi imam qurtubi imam atabari as a maqshari etc worship your lord until death comes to you because death is certain and when human beings die that's when they actually wake up according to the tradition however imam ibn umar al biqa'i he says here that al yaqeen could mean the sapiential station of certitude in this life that it is to experience the reality of Allah SWT it is to know that there was no god but Allah SWT right so thus did we show ibrahim the dominions of the heaven and the dominion of the heavens and the earth that he might be among those possessing yaqeen those who experience the reality of Allah SWT so going back to the ayah the ayat in surah an-na'am when the night grew dark upon him when the night grew dark upon ibrahim alayhi salam and he saw a co-cub a star he said haatharabbi this is my lord but when it's set he said i love not things that set and then he saw the moon rising and he said haatharabbi this is my lord but when it's set he said if my lord does not guide me i shall surely be among those who go astray but then he saw the sun rising and he said haatharabbi this is my lord it is greater but when it's set he said oh my people i am free of the partners you ascribe truly as a hanif as a quintessential monotheist i have turned my face toward him who created the heavens and the earth now don't get the wrong idea here what's going on here there is no question of ibrahim alayhi salam even considering the worship of the sun and the moon and the stars as ibn kathir and others imam al-razi point out this is ibrahim alayhi salam's rhetorical argument against the idolatry of his people the ancient Babylonians he is drawing out through intellectual deduction through reasoning the flaws of their beliefs so he ascends yes there is order and predictability in nature the ancient Greeks call this logos that the cosmos right the universe has order has logos but natural phenomena also changes it is mutable it sets right when he saw the star falam ma'afala in its set and then he saw the moon falam ma'afala it's set and then he saw the sun falam ma'afalat right and that which changes as imam al-razi argues cannot be the eternal and if something is not the eternal then it is created and it cannot be worshiped in its right it cannot be ma'abud bihaqihi it cannot be worshiped in its right or to say it another way that which is perfect cannot change because it either changes for the worse or it improves but if it improves that means it could have been better therefore not perfect so at the end of this ibrahim alaihi salam he says inni wa jahdu wa jia lillahi fataras samawati wal-argh hanifa that indeed i have turned my face toward him who created the heavens and the earth as a pure monotheist wa ma'ana mil al-mushrikin and i am definitely not among those who associate imam atabari even mentions here that there's a hint of sarcasm in ibrahim's argument this sort of adds to its rhetorical power as if to say come on you know better than worshiping mutable changeable celestial bodies worship the immutable supernatural creator and this is one of his names as-salam Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is as-salam and as-salam here doesn't mean the peace it means the perfect right the perfect it's related to the word salim or salim the perfect one and there can be only one perfect being because in order for two beings to differ there must exist a lack of something between them in other words if you know something that i don't know and i know something that you don't know then neither one of us is perfect right neither one of us is as-salam there's naqs there's deficiencies in our knowledge now if a skeptic were to posit two perfect beings let's say a skeptic says look there's here's two perfect beings perfect then we could ask well which one has power over the other one of them both of them neither of them every answer is wrong and we come to a logical impasse Christians say that there are three perfect and equal persons of God yet the second person the son s-o-n according to them this is according to them was caused was generated by the first person the father these are their terms so they admit that the father is the cause and origin of the son and Matthew 24 36 according to Matthew Jesus admits again this is according to Matthew he admits that he does not know the day of judgment he admits deficiency in his knowledge therefore Jesus is not perfect he's not as-salam and thus not worthy of worship he's not ma'bud bi-haqihi he's not worthy of worship in his right ta'lamu ma'fi nafsik wa la'a'lamu ma'fi nafsik right on the yawm al qiyamah we're told in the Quran that eesa aleyhi salam wa say to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala you know what is in myself but i don't know what is in yourself in another place in the Quran Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in al-baqarah have you not considered the one who debated with ibrahim aleyhi salam about his Lord because Allah had given him sovereignty right and who is this one who debated with ibrahim according to the Mufasirin the king of Babylon Nimrod right when ibrahim said my Lord gives life and causes death then Nimrod said I give life and cause death and the tafsir says he called for two slaves he released one and he killed the other qara ibrahim fa inna allaha ya'di bishamsi minal mashriqi fa atibiha minal maghrib so that ibrahim responded truly Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings the sun from the east bring it then from the west thus he who disbelieved was confounded bohita and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not guide a wrongdoing people so in this debate ibrahim aleyhi salam he points out the limitations of human volition of human choice Nimrod claimed to be god in fact many exigents say that he was the first man in history to make such a claim that's why the word nimrod in modern english slang means an idiot or a fool a moron if nimrod is limited in his choices and potential then he is not perfect if he's not perfect then he is ontologically essentially inferior to a deity doesn't qualify as being a deity therefore his mulk his sovereignty could not have originated with him it was given to him and this is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says an atahullahu al-mulk that Allah gave him sovereignty ibrahim aleyhi salam demonstrates this quite dramatically by demanding nimrod to bring the sun from the west in other words you think you have power over life and death let's see you let's see you have power over the sun and this is easy for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because Allah has absolute unrestricted volition within his nature he is omnipotent Allah has qudra mutlak it is one of his qualitative attributes one of the qualities sifatul ma'ani as we say of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala inna allah ala kulli shayin qadir nimrod has no rejoinder in this debate we are told that ibrahim aleyhi salam he destroyed the idols of his people he was a very young man living in a city called uur in ancient mesopotamia ur of the ur of kaldiz in modern day iraq and he said to his people he said do you worship that which you carve Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created you and your actions so the argument here is how can how can something that you made be worthy of your worship and only exist because of you you are if you are a sufficient cause thus you are greater yet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made you thus Allah is greater and since Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the only real creator and there can only be one creator or else we're stuck in the intellectually repugnant paradox of infinite regress since Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the only real creator and the only one creator and the efficient cause of all creation then only he is worthy of worship their response to this was so threats violence ad hominem attacks there is an amazing ayah in the Qur'an that ties all of this together Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says al-muminin who believe if you turn back from your religion then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will bring in your place a people a people that he loves and they love him lowly with the believers and strong against the unbelievers and striving and struggling in his path and not afraid of those who find fault so the exegetes mentioned two things here they say there's two main reasons for this irtidat for this apostasy that we can gleaned from this ayah number one a lack of love this is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that he'll bring a people bi qawmin yuhibbuhum wa yuhibbunahu right a people that he loves them and they love him because these people have a lack of love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that Ibrahim alayhi salam is from the muhsinin in at least three times in the Qur'an Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala explicitly says that he loves the muhsinin the people of ihsan the people of spiritual excellence Inna Allah yuhibbun muhsinin and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he defined ihsan as an ta'bul Allah k'annakataraat to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as though you can see him and I always uh when I talk about this I give the analogy of imagine your CEO asked you to make a sales call and then he sat in your office as you made it and the speakerphone is on and how excellent you would make that call well that's some CEO that's some human being and the other reason for the irtidad that we can glean from this ayah is a lack of intellectual sophistication so why does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say that these people wa la yakhafuna loma talaim they're not afraid of people who reproach them for their faith it's because they are intellectually formidable they're intellectual warriors that they'll engage in dialogue with the reproachers bil hikmati wal mu'idahil hasana with wisdom and wise exhortation with academic rigor and rational proofs and with good ethos good character so this is the way of our master ibrahim aleyhi salam this is the way of our master Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam love of god rooted in the knowledge of god a ma'rifah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that leads to ma'habah and I'm out of time inshallah ta'ala as a reminder that the substitution of the ram for ibrahim's son serves as the basis for the ritual of slaughtering an animal the udhiyyah the qurbani that is required as a final rite of the hajj so make sure that you perform the udhiyyah or have someone do that on your behalf don't forget to do the takbirat after every prayer that's farat that's obligatory right after the prayer right after the salam engage the takbirat it's wajib according to the Hanafi school to say it at least once after the fard and this began at fajr on yomi arafah the ninth of dorhijjah and this will continue 23 prayers so the last one that you'll do will be after asr prayer on the 13th of dorhijjah which is on monday inshallah ta'ala may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless all of you may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept a pilgrimage from the from the hajj that we're able to make pilgrimage may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept the intention of the pilgrimage for those who intended to go but could not go may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala increase all of you in love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala increase all of you in your ability to reason and use logic in order to defend this religion and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us victory over the shaitan and over our enemies