 Part of respecting Allah is respecting our fellow human beings, our fellow Muslims, our fellow creation. Anytime we have a connection with somebody or something else, the way we treat that is a reflection of our kapwa with Allah SWT. So we can't separate between the two. We can't be people who only focus on their relationship with their Lord and somehow think that relationships with other people, other organizations, other communities is not included in that. And so this is why we see in the Quran that it's mentioned multiple times that Allah orders us to be as one. And he says, He says, All of you together with the rope of Allah. What is this rope of Allah? What is the rope of Allah? Just like if a person falls off of a ship and he starts grabbing for something to hang onto and somebody throws him a life jacket or a life vest or a tube or rope. Think of the way that he would grab onto that rope. And that if he doesn't or she doesn't grab onto that rope, they would drown. In the same way we can drown in this life. And Allah has thrown us a rope. He has given us a rope. But he is reminding us that that rope, it's not just for each one of us. He didn't say it holds fast to the rope of Allah as an individual. We look at the way things are mentioned in the Quran. We really have to reflect because we know we have firm belief that this is the Book of Allah. This is the revelation of Allah. It's not the speech of human beings. And so when we look at his book and how he is speaking to us, let's analyze each point. So if I said to you hold fast to the rope of Allah, you could think, well that's an order for me as an individual to hold fast to the rope. Or it could be a group of people. Well in Arabic the verb is differentiated between one person or multiple people. So he says, all of you hold fast to the Book of Allah. But then somebody might say, well it's the plural and so maybe a group of us could hold fast to the rope of Allah. Hang on to the rope of Allah. But then Allah emphasizes what he's saying. He's not talking to one person. We've established that. He's saying as a group, hold on to the rope of Allah. But just to make sure that there's no divisiveness within the groups, he says, wa atasimu, hold fast, bi'ablillah, by the rope of Allah, jami'a, all of you, wa la tafarrabu. And don't split up. Don't split up. This one ayah has a solution for all of our problems. This one ayah has a solution for the Muslim world's problems. It has a solution for humankind's problems. That if we sincerely come together as one, not to say that we're going to agree with one another and that we're going to put aside our differences. We can have differences. But as in another ayah where Allah is commanding us as believers to hold fast together, he says, wa la ta'naz'u, obey Allah and His Messenger. So we're all doing that. We obeyed Allah and we obeyed His Messenger. Wa la ta'naz'u, but don't dispute amongst yourselves. You can have difference. But don't dispute and allow those disputes to cause divisions amongst you. And then your power, your strength will go away. It will go away if we split up. Allah recognizes that we have differences. We all have differences. But he reminds us that in these differences is a way for us to come together. Inna ja'alinaakum shu'uban wa qabaila. We have made you people and nations. Nations and tribes. Allah says that he's reminding us he's the one who made those differences. Cultural differences. Racial differences. We have different skin colors. We have different languages. We have different cultures and religions. Li ta'arafu so that you can not know. Allah did it saying li ta'arifu so that you may know. Li ta'arafu so that you can come to know one another. That you can come to know one another. With your differences you come and you know that one another. And then what's the end result of that dialogue that we have as communities, as families, as tribes, as nations inna akramakum ringa laia taqum. The most noble amongst you is the one with the most taqwa. So that's the essential core teaching. All of our differences. Language differences. Cultural differences. Everything, the most noble of us is the one with the most taqwa. The only way we can know that is by looking at our differences and recognizing our differences. But when it comes time to come together we all have to come together. As an example, when when devastation hits humanity or hits a community if we did not all come together as human beings, as Muslims, as believers if we didn't come together what would be the result? We have an example right here in the message or outside the prayer area where there's a blood drive going on today and I encourage you to go over there and see if you can donate. But look at that. What connects us to each other as human beings? We are the children of Adam in this ayah that the Messenger of Allah used to begin his khukbas with. He says, have taqwa of Allah with your alham with your connections. And what connects us more than our blood as human beings? We all share the same blood going back to Adam. We believe that we all came from Adam. We don't believe that we came from apes. Part of our belief. We believe we came from Adam. Allah made us different than other creatures. And he honored us. And our father was Adam. So while others may come with their proofs of here's this proof or here's that proof I mean even those things there's no final answer. At first they say human beings are 200,000 years old and then oh we found somebody in Morocco human homo sapiens skeleton 300,000 years old and oh we found a human like teeth 10 million years old so they still haven't even figured out what's buried in our earth below us that has our human history but we have our history in our book in the Quran that says we came from Adam and so when we look at each other as human beings we're reminded of that and when we come together to donate that's what that's a reminder that's how we can show our tuqwa to come together to hold on to the rope of Allah but what is this rope what is the rope of Allah that he is calling us to hold fast to together as one it's the Quran the book of Allah hold fast together by the book of Allah use that as your guiding factor the other ayah that I mentioned don't dispute amongst yourselves it begins by saying obey Allah and his messenger that's the first step in making sure that our differences the differences of our culture of our understanding even in our understanding of the Quran or understanding of the deen that that doesn't cause us to split up into groups it goes back to obeying Allah and his messenger well how can we obey Allah and his messenger unless we go back to the Quran we begin with the Quran we go back to the Quran to find out that if you have a dispute amongst yourself turn it over to Allah and his messenger if you have a dispute turn it over to Allah and his messenger to find that out so we see these themes of being together being together as one the messenger of Allah telling us that that the assistance of Allah is with the congregation Arabic says yed but we don't believe in anthropomorphic interpretations we don't give Allah a body like some believe that he has a body and occupies a space we reject that as Muslims so when we see this Hadith it says yadullahi ma ajama'ah the assistance of Allah is with Allah yadullahi saltha ad him that Allah was with those believers when they gave the bay'ah the allegiance to the messenger of Allah but the messenger of Allah is reminding us that if we are seeking assistance it's being with the group it's being with the group so when we face a disaster or when we face oppression as we're facing now with this wave and the onslaught of Islamophobia not only here in these United States but around the world our Muslim brothers and sisters in India are being attacked by Islamophobes just for the suspicion of having beef or transporting cows for the purpose of beef there's now people that have been lynched we know all these stories for the suspicion of that and what is fueling that hate against the Muslims hate against this group of people and some of the things that they hold whereas one of the Muslims mentioned he said I don't go out and to the Christians or the Buddhists who drink alcohol we're not going around lynching those just because our faith prohibits that La Kundina Kumbhulia Din to you your way and to me my way my faith prohibits alcohol and so I won't use it but I'm not going to go out and take the law into my own hands and if so if my faith allows me to eat beef then you don't have the right to vigilante police what I'm doing so we're seeing this happening around this world and it's happening more and more there's an institution here in the Bay Area that has brought some of the heads of this movement of Islamophobia that attack Muslims and don't have a complete understanding of Islam and there's a response that's happening not only from the Muslim community but also from the greater community people over their face maybe even people who don't have faith but they see injustice they see that something is wrong and they're attacked for nothing else other than that they say Rabbi Allah that's it that's what they're attacking us because we say my lord is Allah and this is not something that's new to us Abu Bakr al-Siddiq criticized the Tureish when they would oppress the Prophet Muhammad he said are you oppressing him only because he says my lord is Allah Rabbi Allah this is a theme that was stated to the people of Firaum when he was oppressing the believers and they said would you kill a man because he said Rabbi Allah just because he said my lord is Allah so this theme of oppression because of faith is recurring throughout history when we read any of those stories we see that we see the oppression of Bani Israeel we see the oppression of the Tureish we see the oppression of the fire that were thrown in there only because they said their lord is Allah so this is happening it's a part of the test that's sent to the believer but one of the ways that we can get assistance from Allah is by coming together as one as a Muslim community and then as a human community to reject this oppression of people based on faith so one of the things that we have to do brothers and sisters as communities is we have to come together as communities not just as individuals and not just as our massages and our institutions and our schools but all of the institutions that have been built up in the U.S. over the years and in Canada that we're coming together and we're collaborating that we're not developing our institutions inside of we're not reinventing the wheel a lot of the massages here and in the U.S. are very young 10, 20, 30, 40 years maybe and most 50 or 60 I actually met the Imam and it was a blessed opportunity for me to meet the Imam who took over the Masjid of Malcolm X and Hajj Malika Shabbat and he told me and he said we just celebrated our 50th anniversary as a Jamal 50 years half of a century which Masjid can claim that glory in America but there it is in New York Masjid Damasque established by Malcolm X what can we learn from their experience our massages reaching out to them and saying you are our elders half of a century of practicing and fulfilling a time of this country what are you doing, what works, what doesn't work and there are a number of collaborations that are happening in the U.S. but what are we doing here in our home area of the Bay Area as massages collaborating together is there communication between the massages I'll just give you two simple examples of how lack of collaboration can affect our communities financially one of the things that we have is a pillar of our faith is zakat so all of the Masjid are collecting zakat but what prevents a person from manipulating the system and going from this Masjid to that Masjid to that Masjid and putting in the same application everywhere is there connection between them a unified system to where everybody taps in and we can see where is our zakat as a community because zakat we're not giving it as MCC or as the Society of East Bay or as service or as MCA we're giving it as Muslims as part of the Ummah this is part of our collective Muslim treasury that we all have a right to if the proper beings are calling but are we communicating or if there's another if there's a theft from a Masjid as has happened with two Masjids and Alhamdulillah there was communication between those Masjids and they caught the person that was coming in to steal from the Sadafah box because that happens the reality is that happens there are Muslims who will steal from the charity box so are we communicating, are we collaborating and that's just on a simple level on the educational level are we working in our Sunday schools and our after school programs are we communicating and collaborating between our Masjids to see what's working for you what's not working for you our youth programs we have to move away from this working in silos and reinventing the wheels towards collaboration this is the part of coming together and holding fast to the Book of Allah holding fast to the Book of Allah and sharing and reaching out to that divine assistance that Allah has promised us through His messengers in the lives of the Messenger of Allah where he said the assistance of Allah is with the Jama'at Salatul As-salamu ala Rasulillah wa ala alihim wa sahbim we praise Allah we praise Allah we send peace and blessings upon his noble and final and most complete and most blessed messenger Muhammad SAW and I advise you and I advise myself to have taqwa of Allah fulfilling the commands outwardly and avoiding the prohibitions outwardly and inwardly I'll end with some practical advice that I begin with myself before we begin this work towards collaborations and it's not something new if you look at Houston many of the Masjids are under one umbrella organizations they've been doing this for decades we're just now starting it in the Bay Area so what I encourage you is that this organization that has started Islamic Council of Northern California reach out to it encourage the Masajid there are over 70 places of prayer 70 Posallas in the Bay Area 70 starting from the North Bay all the way down to Gilgore 70 places, Alhamdulillah we're growing Mashallah 30 years ago it was only about 40 30 years ago some of you who have been in the Bay Area for 30 or 40 years you remember when it was only 1 or 2 or 3 so Alhamdulillah we've seen this development grow and maybe part of the development had to be that we were all working within our own communities as a survival mode but now that we're established as a greater Bay Area Muslim community we have to collaborate we have to come together we have to pull resources we have to encourage anybody who has a connection to any type of institution reach out to this new council if you are an individual as part of a community encourage your community to reach out to this new council so that we can begin this process of collaboration but to make that collaboration really successful we have to start with ourselves and we have to start with our families Allah tells us the order of priorities in the Quran take care of yourselves and your family save yourselves and your family from the fire so before we even think about collaborating with the greater communities we have to make sure am I holding fast to the book of Allah am I holding fast to the rope of Allah because we know that feeling when we trip and when we make a mistake whether it's a big mistake or a little mistake whether it's a sin or not but we know it's a mistake we trip and we fall when Adam and his son ate from the tree and his wife ate from the tree as well they both ate from the tree it's not that one tricked the other they both ate from the tree Allah says that the sheikh may then slip may then trip they'd slip and so when we trip when we fall, when we make a mistake we have to hold on to something we have to hold on to some railing so our rope is a Qur'an in our own personal lives when we start feeling that we're faltering that we're falling down are we reaching out with all of our strength to the Qur'an and looking for guidance properly not just opening it and hoping that we'll get some sort of inspiration that can happen but by properly understanding the Qur'an starting with ourselves and then moving to our families do we really reflect the perspective of life and character and belief are we doing that in our families with our children are we speaking with our children the way the Qur'an wants us the way Allah wants us to through His directions in the Qur'an are we speaking with our spouse that way are we speaking with our parents are we interacting with them based on the Qur'an because if there's no holding on to the Book of Allah with ourselves are we going to build a community we can have as many collaborations as we want we can have as many organizations and conventions and so forth but we don't start at home it won't work there's a colloquial saying in Jordan that the son of the cobbler is barefoot in English they say the cobbler's son has no shoes and so if we work on instead of fixing other people's shoes and making sure that our community everybody has shoes but our children at home are barefoot our parents are barefoot our siblings are barefoot and what's the point really we're building a house we're building a community but our houses are empty so I enjoy you and I enjoy myself to begin with ourselves and to begin with our families and then from there we can build the community that will give us this assistance from Allah that will give us this collaboration and this protection that when the Islamophones hurl their insults at us when they try to bring new legislation we will be able to respond as a Muslim community linking with the outside communities as well and then we can respond and that's happening for others and sisters I'm actually seeing more positive things that are coming up here in stories from around the US there's more positive than the negative that's coming out of this it's just after 9-11 when that tidal wave of Islamophobia really took off that had been prepared how many people learned about Islam through that time how many people came to the support of the Muslims how many people became Muslim and raised Islam as a way of life the same thing is happening now the only difference is now that they have 15 years of fueling this Islamophobia industry with billions of dollars so now when it hits the scene it's a powerful force that's seeping down into the media into the cartoons into the late night shows into our schools and the curricula at every level it's there so we have to be prepared may Allah SWT give us the strength as a community to hold fast to the Book of Allah and to hold fast to the world of Allah and we ask Allah SWT to give us full and complete and proper understanding of His Book so that we can implement it in our lives individually and in families and in communities and globally as a complete way of life