Ummah First

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders. Alhamdulillah this year we celebrated Eid al-Adha as one community.
Everyone coming together for the pleasure of Allah SWT in fulfillment of His command where He declared
Which means the believers are but one brotherhood.
So make peace between your brothers and be mindful of Allah
so that you may be shown mercy. The result was beautiful where for the first time in the history
of Western Massachusetts almost 5,000 Muslims prayed Salatul Eid al-Adha together. I ask Allah
SWT to always keep our hearts together and enable us to resolve any differences that may arise from
time to time respectfully in the light of the Quran and Sunnah alone. More concerned about
guarding the Prophet and the Prophet's family and the Prophet's family and the Prophet's family.
The fact that Allah SWT mentions making peace and reconciliation means that conflict is always a possibility.
I remind you that conflict is never the problem. It is how we deal with it which can either help us
to draw closer or fall apart. It is our choice and we are accountable for it.
Allah SWT commanded us to be united and remain together. And He said
وَاَتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ
إِذْ كُنْتُمْ عَادَاءً فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَسْبَحَتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا
وَكُنْتُمْ عَلَى شَفَى حُفُرَةٍ مِّنَ النَّارِ فَأَنْخَذَكُمْ مِّنْهَا
كَذَلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ
Allah SWT said in Surah Al-Imran
And hold firmly to the rope of Allah SWT together and do not be divided.
Remember Allah SWT's favor upon you when you were enemies.
Then He,
united your hearts.
So you by His grace became brothers.
And you were at the brink of a fiery pit.
And He saved you from it.
This is how Allah SWT makes His revelations clear to you
so that you may be rightly guided.
I remind myself and you that Allah SWT
commanded us to remain united
and not to create divisions and enmity between each other.
He did not tell us not to have different opinions or not to disagree.
It is about unity, not uniformity.
Allah SWT commanded us not to allow such differences
to form the basis of dividing the ummah of Rasulullah SAW.
He called being divided as being on the brink or edge of a pit of fire
and said that it was,
He, Jalla Jalaluhu, who saved us from falling into it.
We ask Allah SWT to save us from enmity towards one another
and thereby falling into the pit of fire.
To ensure our material and spiritual safety,
it is essential to develop emotional maturity
and to be able to keep the collective welfare of the ummah
as the goal of all collective decision making.
This is not an impossible or impossible.
It is an idealistic goal.
To encourage us,
we have examples of the conduct of the Sahaba,
Ridwanullahi Alim Ajmain,
who always put the ummah ahead of themselves.
Let me quote just one of these finest of examples
from the early history of Islam and the Muslims.
When Sayyidina Abu Bakr al-Siddiq passed away
and Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattab succeeded him,
almost the first act,
that he did was to send a Farman,
to send an order relieving Khalid bin Walid
of supreme command of the Rashidun Khilafah's army
and appointing his assistant Sayyidina Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah
in his place as the commander.
This order reduced Sayyidina Khalid bin Walid
from being commander in chief to private,
in one sentence.
Imagine you are broken from being the commander in chief.
In today's language, you would say,
general, of course, maybe field marshal.
One stroke, you are now private.
You're an ordinary soldier in the army.
There's no instance to my knowledge in military history
to compare with this.
This never happened.
You might ask what Sayyidina Khalid bin Walid al-Anu
had done to deserve this treatment.
The answer is he did nothing.
He had not done anything to deserve this treatment.