 أما بعد قال الله سبحانه وتعالى في كتابه الكريم أعود بالله من الشيطان الرجيم إن في خلق السماوات والأرض وختلاف الليل والنهاري لآيات لأولي الألباب Recite Allowed Salawat Respected brothers and sisters ورحمة الله وبركاته Today I'm going to speak about Religious Superficiality But first What is Religion Religion is a little bit like A walnut A walnut It has an Outer shell An outer surface And a kernel Inside The Arabic word For the kernel Is Lub And its plural is ألباب Using this word Allah سبحانه وتعالى Has given a metaphor In the Holy Quran أول الألباب The people Of the kernels What does that mean I just recited Part of a verse Verse number 190 Of Surah Ali Imran In which Allah سبحانه وتعالى Says that indeed in the creation Of the heavens and the earth And the alternation Of the night and the day And the signs for The أول الألباب Those are the people Who are concerned With the kernel Who are not concerned Only with the shell With the surface They are concerned with Matters that Matter They are concerned with what lies Beneath the surface Beyond the surface And the law here of things Beyond the apparent They are Interested in the The reality On the other hand We have those who are the On the extreme Opposite Those are the people Who look only At the shell Only At the surface Those people who are Shallow They are superficial Religious superficiality Is the topic of this lecture So what I'm going to do In the next 40 or so minutes Is the following Number one What is the need To address the topic Of religious superficiality From the pulpit What I will discuss The different Areas of religious superficiality That will be the core Of this lecture And I will spend the most time Elaborating on that point Because that is related To us And in the last part of the lecture I will give A few examples from the history Of the people Who can be called As the epitome Of religious superficiality And also give The historical Accounts of some of the events That led to The incident of Karbala So before I proceed Please Recite a loud Salawat What is the need to discuss Religious superficiality In this lecture Religious people Were concerned only with The outer surface Outer shell They are very few Most of The Muslims A vast majority of Muslims Including you and me Are somewhere In between Between the shell And the kernel Between the shell Which means that we might also have Some Traces Of religious superficiality And it is okay What is not okay Is To not try to be Aware of it And remain at the surface Or move backwards Towards the superficial Side of things Instead of moving forward Towards The kernel Side of things To the matters that Matter In the books of exegesis Classical Exegesis We see the narrations That The Ulul Albab Are The Ulul Albab The Ulul Albab The people of the kernels Are those Who have the intellect And understanding And those who are superficial They do not want to use The intellect And therefore They are not after Understanding things The way they should be Understood The intellect is so Important that Allah Says In The Holy Book وجعل الرجس على الذين لا يعقلون He puts the impurities On people Those people Who do not use their intellect The impurities Of And a sinful lifestyle That's how important It is to use the intellect And superficiality Implies Not using the Intellect At the same time we see That Allah Talks about a group of people That He keeps All forms of impurity Away from them The Ahlul Bayt You all know the verse إنما يريد الله ليذهب عنكم الرجس أهل البيت ويطهركم طهيرا He keeps all sorts of impurities Away from them Because they have The perfect intellect The Ahlul Bayt So what we need to do Is to become aware Of the traces Of religious superficiality That we might have And use our intellect To get rid of those traces And thereby Understand The spirit of the religion And when we start to understand The spirit of the religion We start to find Real peace And tranquility That brings me to the point Of the areas Of religious superficiality Before I proceed Please recite In order to Start with this point I would tell you A true story In one of the European countries Mosque was being built And there was a lot Of enthusiasm among The young and the old And the men and the women And the children That we are going to build A mosque in this country In this city During one of the meetings Of the youth One of the leaders of the youth Asked A question Why is it important To have a mosque Why And only one answer And the answer was One word answer Identity To that group of youth The sole purpose Of a mosque was To give them Or help them have Their Muslim identity A strong Muslim identity But that made me think It is possible That Someone has a very strong Muslim identity And yet Does not really understand What makes Him or her A Muslim That may very well be true When we look In the Holy Quran Allah SWT Describes one key attribute Of the people Of intellect and understanding That they reflect That they reflect They reflect On the creation Of the heavens And the earth Reflection And تفكر Is extremely important And that goes Hand in hand With using the intellect And that is what Is what And that is what Religious superficiality Lacks When we inherit Our faith When we inherit our belief When we inherit our religion From our parents We might be very enthusiastic About defending our faith And our school of thought But we might have Never actually Reflected The basic principles Of our religion Allah SWT Says in the holy book That the pagans Or non-believers Would say to their prophets ان وجدنا أبا أنا على ملة Indeed we found Our forefathers Following a certain religion When we saw them Following a religion And we just practiced it Never reflected We should be grateful To Allah SWT And we should be extremely grateful To our parents And grandparents For teaching us Or passing on this religion To us But we also have a responsibility To reflect On our fundamental beliefs And the most important Is to meet Which starts with The Creator The attribute Of خالق The Creator Therefore in the holy Quran Allah SWT Has mentioned time and time again About Who has created the heavens and the earth Who is the Creator of everything This verse that I recited Is so important That the wife of the Holy Prophet Aisha narrates That whenever the Holy Prophet Woke up in the morning Early morning For Salatul Layl Before the Fajr prayers He would recite this verse After looking At the sky We have to start to reflect And make a habit To reflect about The oed The attributes Of Allah SWT The Nubwa The Walaya We are very active In defending the Holy Prophet We go out to protest When something happens A sacrilegious movie Something against the Holy Prophet Is written But do we really Understand the need for The Prophethood The Nubwa The qualities The attributes of the Holy Prophet His place In the universe His place In the existence We are also very sensitive about Walaya علي جن ولي جل الله We say every day But have we really understood What does Walee mean What does Walaya Actually Mean The purpose of this lecture is not to give An in depth lecture Or lesson on Osuluddin It is just to raise this point That if we do not reflect on our Fundamental beliefs We will be left with some Traces of religious Superficiality And that brings me To the second area Of religious superficiality Before I describe that Please recite A loud Salawat When we believe in Allah After that Are we supposed to do something What if someone says Okay I believe in some Super power Some creator So what Actually someone asked me A young person asked me this question Why all those rules What is the need Of the Fiqh And all those rules If it was only about believing In one God And that was it It would have no meaning It would be something like Unbound spirituality When someone worships An entity It means one also To obey that entity Allah سبحانه وتعالى Says in the holy book Have you seen that person Who has taken his His desires His nafs as his He worships his nafs So what does he do Has he made an idol He or she Has made an idol By the name of my nafs And worships it No He just obeys His nafs Allah سبحانه وتعالى Has used the word It means that If Allah is the We have to obey him That is the real Purpose Of the worship And there is religious Superficiality Attached to that as well Our acts of worship I'll explain it with the help Of a personal anecdote This year I went on vacation To Germany I wouldn't mention the name Of the city We went to several smaller And bigger cities And on the day of أضحاء We were in one of the German cities Now this is And I have to Participate In the Or some sort of program So I figured out There was one congregation One Islamic center A non-Arab Islamic center So I got there And brothers were reciting It's a very lengthy Du'a Extremely beautiful Du'a But it was all in the Arabic language And it was very lengthy And the audience Could not really understand it But They Had to do it When you have To do things When you have To do the acts of worship Even though they are Nasty chores Then it means That you have not Really understood The real purpose of that Act of worship And this happens all too often And I see the youth And I have been there Been there, done that When I used to count The pages When will this torture end Because I had no idea At that time What was it about When we have a you must Culture Because things have to be done For the sake of it Then this is what happens Another personal anecdote In another European country Went to a congregation And I was told that It will be There will be Before the start of the program So when I got there I thought well it will take An hour or so It's gonna be a lengthy program So Dua Al-Kumail started But to my surprise It was not lengthy at all The gentleman who was reciting it He was really skillful At it So he started reciting it As if he was driving On German motorway Without any speed limit It finished quickly No one understood anything It had no impact On anyone But it had to be done Somehow How nice it would be That We divide Dua Al-Kumail in four parts Every Thursday One part Finish it in one month And every Thursday We understand what we recite That would have been much better Would have much more effect On us These are small small things That we could think about Where we have traces Of religious superficiality And it is okay We have had These cultural practices It doesn't matter We have to look ahead In the future we can change things for better And we will see the effects Of these changes If we implement such changes Recite a loud salawat Similarly When someone recites Prayers, daily prayers Or does Or Does Or does All these things have deeper Meanings behind them And they are In the hadithes They are in our books But one has to become Aware of it Each action that we do Has its real form Real shape being built In the hereafter Allah SWT Says in the holy book ومن يعمل مثقال ذرط خير يره ومن يعمل مثقال ذرط شر يره So If anyone does good deed He is going to An iota of a good deed Is going to see It Not the consequences of it Not the sawab Of it And some exegetes مفسرين They say it means That you are going to see the reality Of the action It will take a shape Salat will be visible In the grave In the barzakh In the hereafter The recitation of the Quran We are like those children Who recite Or other poetry In praise of the Ahlulbayt But they do not understand Its meaning So we are like those children We keep doing wudu Without understanding The meaning But just like the praise of the Ahlulbayt Is a lofty thing The wudu is also A lofty Beautiful thing But we cannot See it cannot understand it Some people are so Occupied with following The rules That they forget The real meaning Behind the rule I'll give another example With the help of a verse from the Holy Quran Recite a loud salawat Some people have a sort of OCD Obsessive compulsive disorder About Tahrah and Najasah And It is very important to know The rules of Tahrah and Najasah It's extremely important Without Tahrah You cannot say praise You cannot touch the Holy Quran But some people take it to the next level For them the most important thing Is to be ritually pure They would take wudu And then they would start Reading the Quran And quickly read it And not ponder over But they want to follow the rule That no one should touch The Quran If he or she is impure Allah Says in the Holy Book لا يمسه إلا المطهرون No one can touch it Except those who are pure So they think I have to be pure To touch it That is the surface That is the shell Remember the metaphor That is the shell Being pure Wudu You cannot touch the Essence of the Quran If you have not purified Your soul You cannot touch Its real meaning And those who can touch it Those who really Know it They are the talking Quran They are the Ahlulbayt Who are purified Who are pure Away All impurities Are away from them So that was one example We have to start thinking We have to start becoming Aware of these things That was about The acts of worship and the rules Of the Fiqh The next point is The rituals The rituals are very important And there is Unfortunately A lot of superficiality Attached to the rituals We all know The stoning The devil The ritual during the Hajj And we have all seen All those funny videos Where someone is aggressively throwing The stones to the devil The pebbles Sometimes they take off Their shoes and they want to throw those As if there is real devil sitting there That is one example of Innocence sort of Of superficiality Can be funny but actually It is very superficial It is a symbolic act Which has deeper meanings behind it To defeat the Satan Not to give in To the demands by the Satan And also To work on oneself And so on And also we have rituals related to Azadari محرم We have things like We have We have the hands We have different things And all beautiful things I call them the artistic depiction Of Karbala The rituals have two aspects An outward And one inward The outward aspect is to attract people Muslims and non-Muslims Alike That something is happening What is this hand What is this Alam this flag This does not look like The flag of a nation state This does not look like the flag Of a football club For example It creates curiosity in people's minds It attracts people But the inward aspect Of it Is that it also helps us Visualize and concentrate And remember Imam Hussein peace be upon him All these rituals All these things that are Associated with Azadari Are Sha'air Husayni Sha'air And in fact They are Sha'air Of Allah سبحانه وتعالى What is Sha'air Everything that makes You remember That reminds you of Something When it is called Sha'air of Imam Hussein It makes us remember Imam Hussein But Imam Hussein Is not independent of Allah سبحانه وتعالى There is a hadith That says ذكرنا من ذكر الله Our ذكر When someone mentions us Someone remembers us It is from ذكر of Allah من ذكر الله It means we are not independent We are the representatives Of Allah سبحانه وتعالى So if someone is so Occupied with the rituals That If forgets the real Meaning behind the rituals Then that can be A bit superficial When someone Does not pay attention To why Abbas's hands were Chopped off There is a sister She is a convert to Islam Several years ago She said something That I found interesting She looked at the hand On the علم And said Of course This symbolizes the hand Of Abbas But in my mind It also means To injustice Stop To the evil That was her point of view But I appreciate her That she at least thought Out of the box And it is all right to think Out of the box These rituals Are there to make us Think And the last area The religious superficiality That I want to discuss Is related To ethics And it is Judgementalism What is Judgementalism is That one Finds oneself Morally superior To others And there is a trap here And I am Consciously Stepping into that trap And the trap is that To judge those Who judge others in itself A Judgementalism And that is what I am going to do now I have no other choice I will try to be careful But I have to Get through this lecture And get my message across Judgementalism is something That turns people away From the mosque Away from the congregations And it Is superficiality Because it has A cup or a hidden in it It has arrogance Hidden in it When someone finds oneself Morally superior to others Then it means That I look down On you I look down On you There is a difference When you want to Someone to change for better Out of love Out of sincerity Or you want this Just to make a point That I am morally superior to you Out of sheer arrogance And this has created A lot of problems In the communities It turns the youth Away And I sometimes Say that Allah سبحانه وتعالى Is going to judge everyone On the day of judgment But Alhamdulillah Allah سبحانه وتعالى Is not judgmental Like his creatures He gives people Chance over and over again And other Area of The religious superficiality Is showing off Looking at the Showing off to the people The apparent Is that people You see people But those who are concerned With the batin of things They know that people Cannot give anything And they cannot take away anything They do not try to Show off to people They try to show it off To Allah سبحانه وتعالى You can show it off to him By reciting things Beautifully By reciting the salat In the most beautiful way And so on So these were the Four key areas Of religious superficiality And a lot more can be said But as we all know We are approaching The Maghrib time And I have to conclude this lecture And I also want to give you Some accounts Historical accounts of the events Leading to the incident of Karbala In somewhat detail Because that is also very important So I am going to now Get into the third And last part of the lecture Which is about Those who Are the epitome Of religious superficiality And they played an important role In the incident Of Karbala Before I proceed Please recite A loud salawat There is one group in the Islamic history Known by The Khawarij The Kharegites They are the perfect example Of religious superficiality And what is so dangerous About them is that In their case Religious superficiality Disguised itself As depth They thought they were Really after depth Of the matters And everyone else was superficial It was they Who really understood the And the Quran and others Did not understand it Those people existed in Medina In the time of the Holy Prophet Peace be upon him But they did not emerge As a group of people Until The battle of Saphine The battle of Saphine Was between the Amir al-Mu'mineen Peace be upon him And Mu'avia The Kharegites Were in the army Of the Amir al-Mu'mineen And Mu'avia And his companions Knew that they were a large group Of people In the Amir al-Mu'mineen Peace be upon him Who were religiously Superficial And they could capitalize On them So in the midst of the battle The army Of the Amir al-Mu'mineen Was very near The victory Malik al-Ashtar Malik al-Ashtar Was the commander Of the army Of the Amir al-Mu'mineen And he was so close to the tent Of Mu'avia That he would have finished him off And then What did Mu'avia do He had an aide By the name of Omar Aas He was a very cunning man And he was a very efficient man In the army of Ali Follow my advice Gather all the copies Of the Quran And raise them on the spears They are so superficial When they will see the Quran They will not proceed to attack us The advice was followed And exactly that happened What Omar Aas had predicted These people stopped They halted The Amir al-Mu'mineen Said go and attack Mu'avia's army They said no we cannot attack the Quran The Amir al-Mu'mineen Said I am the talking Quran Quran is with Ali Ali is with Quran Truth is with Ali Ali is with the truth They said no We cannot fight the Quran Then Malik al-Ashtar Wanted to really proceed But these people The superficial people gathered Around the Amir al-Mu'mineen And said call Malik al-Ashtar back Or we are going to kill you The Amir al-Mu'mineen called Malik al-Ashtar back He had to come back Following the orders of his Imam And at that point The khawaret emerged As a group And refused to accept The authority of the Amir al-Mu'mineen Or anyone's authority And there is a history of the khawaret But I am going to take a few steps And move towards The journey Of Imam Hussein Peace be upon him From Medina to Mecca to Kufa Why I told the story of the khawaret There was one man among The khawaret Who played An important role In Karbala In the events leading up to Karbala And on the day of Ashura A very bad role But instrumental He was instrumental He was in the army of the Amir al-Mu'mineen But left him with the khawaret And his name is Shamr Ibn Dhil Joshan He was among the khawaret Yesterday I told you That Imam Hussein peace be upon him Left Medina on Sunday The 28th Of Rajab He arrived in Mecca On Friday the 3rd Of Sha'ban And then he stayed there until 8th of Al-Hijjah When he heard that There were mercenaries To kill him inside The Haram Imam Hussein peace be upon him Decided Not to perform the Hajj And leave Mecca With his companions and his family So he left Mecca On 8th Of Dhul-Hijjah Now when the Imam Hussein leaves The Hajj What is left in the Hajj When the soul of The universe That is the Imam Leaves Mecca Then Hajj is reduced To nothing But a superficial Physical Tiring and painful exercise But people wanted to Perform Hajj The rituals To gain Sa'ab And go to the paradise By not going with Imam Hussein That is a perfect example Of religious superficiality There were many prominent People who did not join Imam Hussein peace be upon him One of them is Farazdaq Farazdaq Was a poet And many Shia people Hold him in high esteem Some people even Name their children Farazdaq He was just a poet Yes, he said Couplets In praise of the Amir al-Mu'mineen But he also said couplets In praise of others He met Imam Hussein peace be upon him Near Mecca And he said something Which is a famous saying It was Farazdaq who said that He said that the Kufans Hearts are with you But their swords Are with jazeed It was Farazdaq who said that And after that He asked the Imam a few questions About The Hajj rituals So that he could go and perform Hajj And said goodbye To the Imam The Imam was going towards Kufa Because when the Kufans had heard that The Imam had refused to give Allegiance to jazeed And had left Medina to Mecca They started writing letters And they wrote In the letters We have no Imam So please come to us And maybe we will Unite on truth And justice Through you So the Imam Moved towards Kufa First he sent Muslim ibn Aqeel to Kufa To test the Kufans But they Betrayed Muslim ibn Aqeel Nevertheless The Imam left Mecca And moved towards Kufa And then on the way In a place called Sharef They stopped Loaded up the water supplies And then moved forward Moved further towards Kufa At that time Hor appeared with one thousand Horsemen He was sent by Ibn Ziyad The governor of Kufa at that time Was an accursed man And carried a lot of Animosity in his heart For the Ahlulbayt Hor came with one thousand Horsemen and said I have been ordered By Ibn Ziyad To find you And not leave you Until I bring you to him In Kufa They did not want Imam Hussein peace be upon him To reach Kufa independently And freely To join his supporters But they wanted to bring Him under their control The Imam said Before you do that And continued the journey Hor again Intercepted the Imam And said I have been ordered To take you to Ibn Ziyad Now What you can do is As a temporary solution You go neither to Medina Not to Kufa And take a third route And I am going to write a letter To Ibn Ziyad Asking what should be done Ibn Ziyad Sent a messenger to him And said that Do not let Hussein Go anywhere Just take him to Any barren land Far from Water At that time Imam Hussein had just Arrived in Nainawa When the messenger came And Hor with his 1000 horsemen Had been with Imam Hussein Throughout to keep an eye When they had reached Nainawa The messenger of Ibn Ziyad Arrived with a letter Halt Hussein In a barren land Imam Hussein And his companions And his family arrived in Nainawa On 2nd Of Muharram It was part of a big place Called Karbala The land of Karb And Bala The land of pain And difficulties It is that place Where The grandson of the Holy Prophet Is going to be martyred Hungry and thirsty And about his martyred And the Holy Prophet said إن لقتل الحسين حرار في قلوب المؤمنين لن تبرد أبدا Indeed the martyrdom of Hussein Will keep creating warmth In the hearts of the believers That will never subside My brothers and sisters That warmth Has brought you To this Majlis That warmth Is a flame in your heart That is the flame of Love for Imam Hussein Peace be upon him Which is in fact the flame of love For Allah SWT So try to discover That flame in your hearts And when you have discovered That flame Then your heart Will melt And come out Of your eyes In the form of tears And then you can tell Imam Hussein peace be upon him This is what I have to present I do not have any words To tell you How sad I am But I have this Molten heart In the form of my tears On the land Of Nainawa On 10th of Muharram Imam Hussein peace be upon him Will be standing All alone by himself Hungry And thirsty Drenched in blood And he would call out هل من ناس Wherein ينصرني And his call Is still Echoing In the universe It still Is echoing In the universe