Bring back the Barakah

Bring back the Barakah
Arshad Gamiet

15 June 2011

Khutbah

Bringing Back Barakah

Arshad Gamiet/Royal Holloway University of London/Date 2011

“A-úthu billáhi minash shaytánir rajeem. Bismilláhir rahmánir raheem

Al hamdu lillahi nahmaduhu wanasta’eenahu, wanastagh-firuhu, wanatoobu ilayhi, wana’oothu Billaahi min shuroori an-fusinaa, wamin sayyi aati a’maalinaa. May- Yahdillahu fa huwal muhtad, wa may- yudlill falan tajidaa lahu waliyan murshida. Wa ash-hadu an Laa ilaaha ill-Alláh, wahdahoo laa shareeka lah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhoo warasooluh”

All Praise is due to Alláh, We praise Him and we seek help from Him. We ask forgiveness from Him. We repent to Him; and we seek refuge in Him from our own evils and our own bad deeds. Anyone who is guided by Alláh, he is indeed guided; and anyone who has been left astray, will find no one to guide him. I bear witness that there is no god but Alláh, the Only One without any partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad, sws, is His servant, and His messenger.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem! Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, haqqa tuqaatihee wala tamu tun-na, il-la wa antum Muslimoon.”

O You who believe, – Fear Allah, as He should be feared, and die not except as Muslims.

Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, wa qooloo qawlan sadeedaa. Yuslih-lakum a’maalakum wa yaghfir lakum thunoobakum, wamay yu-til-laaha warasoolah, faqad faaza fawzan atheemaa.”

O You who believe, – Be aware of Allah, and speak a straightforward word. He will forgive your sins and repair your deeds. And whoever takes Allah and His Prophet as a guide, has already achieved a mighty victory.

In the opening verse of Sura An-Nisaa’, Allah says:

O mankind! Show reverence towards your Guardian-Lord Who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, his mate and from the two of them scattered (like seeds) countless men and women;― Be conscious of Allah, through Whom ye demand your mutual (rights) and (show reverence towards) the wombs (that bore you): for surely, Allah ever watches over you.

My Dear Sisters and Brothers,

I recently visited the Jameel Gallery in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. It has an amazing collection of arts and crafts from the great days of Muslim civilization, covering a thousand years from the 8th to the 19th Centuries. What impressed me most was the fact that many of these carpets, ceramic plates, vases, lamps and jewel boxes were owned by ordinary Muslim folk like you and me, quite unexceptional people, Centuries ago, you could walk into any Muslim home and find these items in daily use. Yet now these objects command astronomical sums in the auction rooms of London, Paris and New York! Our ancestors crafted their tools and utensils into objects of exceptional beauty, whose value increases even long after they themselves had passed away. This is something we ought to reflect on. How did this happen? How did our ancestors make things of such exquisite beauty and ever increasing value, when today we make things that soon become valueless?

These days we make most things by machine, Carpets, clothing, lamps, wall decorations and even the food we eat is often ‘untouched by human hand’ made in giant manufacturing complexes. Huge industries produce our cars, phones, gadgets and gizmos, items that won’t last, that lose their value so quickly. Compared to the handmade craftsmanship of an earlier age, our modern items appear to be so bereft of blessings. Why? Could it be that few of us remember Allah constantly during our daily work?

At the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts [established by Prince Charles] they teach their students how our ancestors used to sing praises to Allah (Dhikr) while they carved the wood, or polished the brass or mixed the colours for their exquisite handiwork. It was truly a labour of love. Every mundane action was simply an extended form of dhikr, of loving remembrance of Allah. Prayer, salaat, was not some kind of inconvenience that had to be rushed into a busy workday schedule. Prayer and dhikr was for our ancestors, the central point, the framework around which they planned their days, and earned their livelihood. Work was not just a means of ‘putting bread on the table.’ Work itself became an extended form of worship, of Dhikr, bringing Allah to remembrance. That’s how they created objects of such incredible light and beauty. That’s how their work earned Allah’s blessings. The Barakah was Allah’s reward for keeping Him in mind, with every breath and every heartbeat. Dhikr was not something reserved for special occasions or hurriedly done after prayers. It was part of the fabric of life. A scholar once remarked:

“Wasted, wasted wasted is the one’s life whose breath was not spent in remembrance of Allah.” That’s why we can still find traces of that divine blessing, that barakah in what remains of their works of art even to this day. Dhikr and salawaat (salutations on Prophet Muhammad) didn’t have to wait for some special time or occasion. It was part of the fabric of daily life. Without it, the day was not complete.

The Holy Quran tells us where true, lasting happiness can be found:

“Al-latheena aamanu, watat ma-innul quloobuhum, bi thikril-Laah. Ala bi thikrullaahi tatmainnahul quloob.”

“Those who have faith and whose hearts find satisfaction in Remembering Allah. Truly in remembering Allah will hearts find satisfaction” [S13:28]

Allah also reminds us in a famous Hadith Qudsi:

“I am as My servant thinks I am. I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assembly even better than that. And if he takes one step towards me, I take ten steps towards him. And if he comes walking to Me I go running towards him.” (Hadith Qudsi)

Brothers and sisters, where have the blessings gone? Where’s the barakah of our lives today? We get things with so much ease. We don’t even have to leave home to do the shopping or to do serious academic research. One or two clicks on Google saves us many hours trawling through libraries and archives. One or two clicks and our groceries are delivered on our doorstep. Cheap flights enjoyed in a few hours of air-conditioned luxury cover distances that took our ancestors many months of dangerous travel over land and sea. In our highly mechanised world of work, our jobs don’t require the physical effort of yesteryear. We suffer obesity, backache and other ailments that come from too little physical activity. We earn so much more, and we own so much more than our predecessors. Yet in the most important ways, we are so much poorer than they were. And we’re less happy.

A BBC survey on human happiness found that people in Britain are today less happy than they were 60 years ago. In the 1950’s British people were much poorer. The majority had little personal wealth; homes were rented not owned, few had cars and yet there was a conspicuously greater sense of wellbeing and contentment. More people attended church regularly and fewer people than today would have described themselves as having no religion. Over the past half-century it seems that increasing personal wealth has been accompanied by a decrease in religious adherence.

The modern way is to keep religion purely in the private domain. Don’t even mention it in public. It’s not polite. No wonder there’s no blessing, no barakah in our lives. Once we remove the sacred from the public sphere, all we’ve left are the concerns of dunya, our material possessions, and our fragile egos that need to be massaged and worshipped like the false gods they are. Our lives are fraught with fears and anxieties, and we don’t understand why, in spite of being so materially well off, we are also deeply unhappy, so unfulfilled. Our parents and grandparents had only a fraction of the resources we have, yet they lived perfectly happy and complete lives. They earned so much less, but there was barakah in their wealth. It seemed like their meagre resources went so much further than the huge sums of money we handle today. Our ancestors easily raised big families with six or eight children. Today we struggle with 2 or 3.

How can we restore barakah in our lives again? How can we make modern life more fruitful, happy and enriching to ourselves and all those around us?

Time is short and our khutbah can only touch on the key points:

Priorities. Let’s put first things first. Don’t allow yourself to be deceived by putting your money, your career, your selfish ego, your vanity or your family and friends before Allah. Allah comes first.

Take time to do your prayers, Dhikr and other religious duties. Don’t treat your prayers and fasting and charity and Hajj as if these are hard chores that have to be done, without love and devotion. It’s not like some unwelcome but necessary chore like washing dishes or cleaning your room.

Appreciate Allah’s gifts. Everything we have comes from Him. So let’s start and end by thanking Him, praising Him, and keeping Allah foremost in our thoughts and feelings, 24/7 and not just on Fridays, not just in Ramadan.

Our ancestors were amazing artists, craftsmen and women whose work holds pride of place in the world’s top galleries and museums. They knew how to bring Barakah into their lives. They never forgot Allah for a moment. All day, as they spun their fabrics and shaped their patterns in wood, marble and glass, the asma’ ul husna, Allah’s beautiful Names were singing on their lips, Dhikr and salawaat smoothed the hard work of the day. By constantly keeping their hearts and minds connected to the Source of all Beauty, their hands fashioned objects of timeless beauty: Barakah, divine blessing expressed in earthly materials. Prophet Muhammad said that Allah is “jameel wa hibbul jimaal.” Allah is Beautiful, and He loves Beauty.

Let us then try to be like our ancestors. Let us bring Barakah into our own lives by bringing constant, rhythmic Remembrance of Allah into the big and small things we do. Let’s just not say, “Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem” in a thoughtless, mechanical way, as a force of habit. Let us really think, reflect and put purpose and meaning behind those words when we sanctify our actions “In the Name of Allah, the All Merciful, All Compassionate.” We have to retrain ourselves so that we imagine, in our mind’s eye, that we are constantly in the Presence of the Almighty. Imagine that we are in the grand audience hall of the Lord of the Universe. Be aware that every moment of our lives we are under His all-knowing all-pervasive Vision. Nothing is hidden from Allah, not even our innermost, unspoken thoughts.

“Innalláha wa malaaikata yusallúna alan nabi. Yá ay yuhal latheena ámanu sallú alayhi wasalli mú tas leema. Allahumma salli alá Muhammad, wa ala áli Muhammad, kama salayta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali Ibrahim. Allahumma barik ala Muhammad, kama barakta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali ibrahim. Fil ála meen, innaka hameedun majeed.”

Second Khutbah:

“Soob’ hanallahi wal hamdu lillah, wala hawla wala quwwata illah billah yu althi yual theem”

Glory to Allah! Praise to Allah! There is no power and no strength except from Allah!

My dear sisters and brothers,

To bring Allah’s blessings, Baraka, back into our lives, we will have to start by cultivating a vibrant inner life. We have to stir an awakened spiritual consciousness within us, to light up the dreariness and darkness in our own lives. And, if it pleases Allah, when we do so, perhaps we, too, can inspire others, and hold out a candle to them.

We begin with a few small, simple steps. Try, just for one day, to stop malicious behaviour. Stop lying, backbiting, envying or deceiving others. Try, just for one day, to be an absolutely truthful, generous, forgiving, patient, loyal and upright person. It’s tough, but we can all make a start. Just try it for one day; let’s do it. Let’s commit ourselves. Then, when we’ve done this, we can try to repeat that for one more day, and so on.

To bring Barakah back into our lives, we must restore Dhikr, the constant and loving Remembrance of Allah, into our lives. Everything we do, big or small, must be infused with a sense of utter humility, a sense of awesome awareness of Allah’s generosity and greatness. Only when we become truly grateful for His countless blessings, will Allah send even more blessings down to us, from His limitless Bounty.

I pray that Allah will accept our prayers, and bring us all closer to Him, restore blessings into all our lives. Ameen.

Brothers and sisters, to conclude our khutbah:

InnaAllaha, Yamuru bil adel, wal ihsaan, wa eetaa-i zil qurba; wa yanha anil fuhshaa-i, wal munkari walbaghi; ya-idzukhum lallakum tathak-karoon. (Sura 16:90),

“Surely Allah commands justice, good deeds and generosity to others and to relatives; and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you, so that you may be reminded.”

Fadth kuroonee adth kurkum, wash kuroolee walaa tak furoon [2:152].

“and remember Me: I will remember you. Be grateful to Me, and do not reject faith.”

wala thikrul-Laahi akbar, Wal-Laahu ya’lamu maa tasna’oon.” [29:45].

“and without doubt, Remembrance of Allah is the Greatest Thing in life, and Allah knows the deeds that you do.”