Aslam-o-Alikum

Salawat

Today we have all gathered here to offer our condolences to Hazrat Fatima (AS), I am not an experienced Zakir and would like to apologize in advance for any mistakes that I may commit during the course of this majalis and hope that you will excuse them. The reason that I opted for reciting the majalis was that I wanted to share some ideas and thoughts with the people present here. As I have full confidence in the intellectual abilities of the audience I would try to discuss some issues that are not generally disscussed in our majalis for the reason of complexity of their nature.

For most of us America is not the birth place, we are away from our homes in search of a better career and future, however no matter where we are and no matter where we go we will not and cannot forget the one who left his home so that we, the coming generations could get Islam in its original and true form, so that we can have a clear criteria to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood and so that we have an example in front of us that no sacrifice is too great to make in the way of Allah and nothing should be more dear to us than our creator.

Salawat.

A verse from our Holy book Quran states, "Every muslim is a seed of Islam", that implies that all of us here today, each individual, is a seed of Islam. The difference between a dead and a living seed is very clear, a dead seed becomes part of the soil it is sowed in, the bacteria in the soil eat it and decompose it completely, within a matter of days it becomes indistinguishable from the soil and looses it self completely in it. On the contrary a living seed gathers the useful and beneficial ingredients from that very soil and grows itself out of that soil into a tree, it becomes a source for many more seeds using the resources in the soil.

Salawat

Today we are in a place where we have both the good and the bad things available to us and all of us have a choice to make every moment of our day, we can either adapt the wrong habits and practices and decompose and degenerate ourselves and our families completely in this culture or, we can actually use the science, technology and financial stability that we have here to become a source of spreading Islam and to present it to the Americans in its true form.

Today there is a lot of responsibility placed on the shoulders of people like you and me, by the grace of Allah we are in a situation where we can achieve a combination of scientific knowledge and religious practices in our daily lives. In Nahjul-balagha, Amer ul momineen Hazrat Ali (AS) is qouted as "Knowledge and religion are very constructive if present together but are very destructive if used seperately". I personally had a lot of problem in understanding this qoute, how can something be beneficial in a composite for but be very destructive in the absence of the other component. My dilema was resolved when I heard a beautiful example from Dr. Kalb-e-Sadiq in explanation of this qoute, he told us that the anology of this scenario is the same as that of hydrogen and oxygen, oxygen ignites for and hydrogen spreads it, however if you combine the two you will get a mixture that extinguishes fire. Today the west continues to burn as they here they have adopted the technology without any proper and correct ideology and the east continues to be stuck in primitive times as they have the ideology without the knowledge and understanding.

We my friends, today are in a unique position, belonging to a small segment of muslims who have a chance to attain a balance between both of these and become living examples and proof of how Islam can be a perfect way of life for this world and the road to salvation for eternity.

Today we are gathered here to mourn the tragic demise of a family who was the center not only for religious guidance but also the authority on scientific knowledge, our imams use to teach subjects like astrology in the mosque. You all our aware of the famous hadith "I am the city of knowledge and Ali is the door for that city", unfortunately today muslims have confined that knowledge to the syntax of performing ibadaat. Whereas I do not intend to underplay the importance of that, I also think that it is not right for us to assume that the word 'ilm' used in this hadith does not encompass the scientific knowledge. Quran is filled with verses urging muslims to attain knowledge and we have numerous hadiths on this subjects and Ahl-e-Bait were the living examples of those verses, whereas there was none equivalent to Hazrat Ali in the battle field, and none can compare to his bravery, I also do not find anyone in the history challanging people to ask him whatever they want to ask, a claim like that can only be made by a person who posseses complete and indepth knoweldge about anything and everything, never before has anyone made this claim and nobody has dared to it till this date. I would like to present here another prespective on the hadith that I just recited, the use of the word 'bab-uk-ilm' for Hazrat Ali (AS) is very very interesting and can be intrepreted in a number of ways, In the 14th century , cities and fortress use to be walled and the only 'legal' way of entering into that city was through the door, I think Hazrat Mohammad (SAW) while telling us about His knowledge was also making clear the rank of Hazrat Ali , that is anyone who wants access to the knowledge of Mohammad (SA) MUST come through Ali (AS). By the grace of Allah we can proudly claim today that we have taken the way described by Hazrat Mohammad (SAW) for understanding the concepts and practices of Islam.

Coming to the topics that I mentioned initially that I would like to discuss today as it is my belief that majalis are a source of learning and exchanging ideas, I would request for your complete attention and presence of mind. During my course of discussions and dialogues with  non Muslims I have come across a couple of major issues and objections against Islam and today I would like to address two of them.

Number One, the question of "is God Just entity", this is one of the main arguments of the atheist against theologies. For centuries people have had different concepts about the Creator. Some considered him to be One entity that has no equivalent, some assumed him to be a group of entities, some assumed him to have different forms, however one thing that almost everyone agrees on, and I even found some atheist literature supporting this notion, that if there is a God, he has to be Adil, he has to absolutely fair and just. We see our whole universe precisely balanced but on the face of it the mankind looks to be in a sort of imbalance, why is a baby born with an inherited disease, why are people born blind, why is somebody born poor and somebody born rich ? these questions have been bothering the humanity for centuries and different religions tried to answer this issue in different ways, some of them like hinduism and budhism made the concept of time sort of cyclic to answer parts of this question, however the problem still remained, okay assuming that the concepts of multiple lives is true, that would mean the lifestyle that i am enjoying today is the result of my good or bad deeds in my previous life, this theory in my opinion does not solve the question, rather it actually shifts the problem, if I am being punished now in my 4rth life due to the sins that I committed in the third one, then how was I in my first janum, was everyone born equal in that era ?, secondly why am I being punished or rewarded for something that I cannot recall at all ? I had a lot of problem in understanding this concept and discussed it at length with my professor, we went through hours and hours of discussion unsuccessfully then he told me that he would explain using a very analogous situation. The next day he gave all 40 of us in the class a test, as soon as we realized that everyone test was different we raised shouts of protest, why do I have 10 questions to answer when the one sitting next to me has just 3, why are my 6 questions lengthier and tougher than that of my neighbor, the professor instead of heeding to our protests also closed the fans for those sitting at the back of the class and promised us that please be assured that everyone will be graded justifiably, there was a lot of confusion in the class, this is not fair, I have more questions to answer and do not even have the fan open, the ones who had just a few questions to answer and were sitting in the cooler area of the class were feeling very lucky. However all of us were  pleasantly surprised to see the test scores the next days, the ones who had difficult questions were given much more credit even for their limited and partial answers, infact those who had the easiest questions and were sitting in better conditions were marked much more severely, what we realized that day was that, that half an hour test was not unfair, its just a way of testing, as long as the result is marked in consideration to the conditions and the type of questions being asked, today exams like GRE and SAT are marked by a similar kind of process by giving a different test to everyone and then marking accordingly. 5 years from then I do not even remember which section of the class was I in, all I remember is that I got a very good grade and was marked justifiably and the reward that I got was proportional to how I performed in those circumstances and conditions. This life my friends has no comparison to the life hereafter, and to eternity, those of us who are being tested with Sabur should know that this test is not long and should have the confidence that we will be marked accordingly, infact those amongst us that Allah has blessed with lots of wordly comforts are being tested with shuker and we should be more careful as we will be asked about how we used those blessings in the way of Allah.

The 2nd issue that I intend to address today is the issue of 'oppresion of women in Islam', there is a lot of media hype about Islamic women being opressed and put in 2nd place as compared to men because they are cover themselves with Hijab. The true concept of pardah in Islam is that for both men and women the worth in the society for that person should not be equivalent to the looks and charms of that person. The respect that she or he commands should be proportional to his or her intellectual capabilities and skills and not propotional to how he or she looks, for the people who are not hyped by the potryal of this concept in the western media it is a concept that gives dignity and decency to a person. In Sprint I am not allowed to wear half slevee shirts or joggers, if I can dress in a particular way for a few thousand dollars and do not find it against my freedom etc. why is it so hard for us to dress in a way that is defined to us by our creator, our Lord and our provider who has given us so many blessings in this world that it would be absurd even to compare to the package that sprint has given me to the one that Allah has alloted to me. Why is that I do not find my freedom attacked by following a dress code by Sprint but find it very hard to follow the one defined by Allah in Quran. And who decides about what is the right way to dress ?, in my grand mother's time it was considered awkward to go out with a chadar, even for Christians around a 100 years back it was very common to wear a scarf and dress modestly, today we would be considered 'backward' or 'orthodox' for observing a hijab and tommorow our children would be considered orthodox for wearing a longer bermuda and shirt, where do we stop and where do we draw a line, should be take our guidance and reference point from current times ? or should we be more worried about the answering to the imam of our time, this is question that each one of us needs to explore and think about. Observing pardah to ensure that you are not physically attractive to the general public is way of giving protection, decency and dignity to men and women and is not a form of oppresion.

I know most of you have come to this gathering after a tiring day at the office and do not intend to take a lot of your time, I do not find myself qualified for offering thanks to you for attending that majalis as that is done by Hazrat Fatima (AS) who in my belief is present in every majalis organised for his beloved son Husain. Husain who was forced to leave the city that was so dear to him, the city which had the grave of his grandfather, the city in which he had a lot of memories. However when he learned that Yazid is ready to attack him in the city that he loved so much,  it was unbearable for him, he could not see the sanctity of the city smeared by violence, unfortunately the present generations of the muslims, custodians of harm-sharifs,  do not have the same feelings about Makkah and Madina. Yazid wanted Imam Husain to submit to him, however Imam Husain examplified how far we should go in rejecting the batil, but in doing so he and his family bore all the pains that are hard even to imagine, try to visualize the scene when everyone was about to leave madina, the whole family was leaving with the exception of Hazrat Sughra who was ill. Though Hazrat Zainab left Madina with a very heavy heart but how proud she must have felt looking at her family, when she saw 18 brothers and cousins of Bani Hashim, when she saw the brave Abbass, the shabih of Hazrat Mohammad in Hazrat Ali Akbar's face, the shining faces of Qasim and Aun-o-Mohammad and the loveable Hazrat ali ashghar, how fortunate she must have felt to have a brother like Imam husein and a niece like hazrat sakina, the ladies including her observering the islamic veil and shielded from the looks of na-mehrams, the awe of the caravan is easily imaginable, and every time Hazrat Zainab felt sad at leaving Madina she would have looked at the radiant face of Imam Husain.

Now try to think about the feelings of Hazrat Zainab when she came back to Madina, with the pictures of her family's massacre in karbala revolving in her minds, with not even a single brother alive, the arms of the brave abbas cut out from his body in his quest to get the water to his beloved niece, her brothers being slaughtered by the people who claim to be muslims, the bodies of her two sons Aun and mohammad who were very young and who were soaked in blood and were ready to sacrifice their lives again and again on Imam Husain. The strong body of hazrat ali akbar with the broken top of the spear in his liver and he dying thirsty in despair, the body of Qasim, who was about to be married, that body which had to be gathered in a sheet as it was squashed into small pieces by horses, the scene of small and innocent looking neck of ali asghar shredded with the huge arrow, the flower like faces of innocent children saying al-ataash, altash wilted with thirst,the fact that none of these bodies were buried in a respectful fashion and she was not even allowed to cry loudly on this tragedy, the images of her going through the markets of kufa without veil.  the grave of Sakina who died in prison and the head of his brother that she loved more than her life, reciting Quran on the top of a spear, only Allah can understand the extent of sorrow and grief that Hazrat Zainab must have felt on her return to madina, all we can say is that inshAllah we will not let your sacrifice go in vain and be forgotten, whether we are in Iran, Pakistan, India or Kansas city , we will continue to remember your family's massacre, we will continue to hold majalis and to attend them in greater numbers and will ensure that our coming generations are as aware of the sacrifice as we are.

Sadaq-ul-azim

1) We pray to you, almighty Allah to accept our small prayers and worship
2) We beg you to forgive our sins and to enable us to become exemplary muslims in these difficult times
3) We pray to you to enable us to spread azadari and Islam in Kansas and America
4) We pray to you to give us the wisdom to  look beyond our lives and do things for the hereafter
5) We beg you to convey the condolences of the audience present here to hazrat fatima
6) We pray to you to make this sessions of majalis a way of improvement for us so that we may become better muslims through them.
7) We pray to you to give us the strength and wisdom to understand the importance of following the path of Imam Husain, that is the sirat-e-mustaqeem.

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