Spiritual Authenticity vs. Performative Religion | Sidi Shaan Mukhtar

Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. We begin with the praises of Allahh. And we cannot praise him enough. We say subhan Allah. Alhamdulillahb. Subhan Allah. Alhamdulillah. Subhan allah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Brothers and sisters, [clears throat] as you're all aware, being citizens of California, uh our governor's race is taking place right now and a lot of different individuals are vying for the position to represent you. uh as their as your next governor. And something that hits close to home is actually one of the representatives who was winning and doing well in the governor's race was actually the representative of this community right here, the congressman of this community right here. And uh his name doesn't need mentioning on the hudba, but you're all probably aware of how he was doing very well. he had a great career and how he had a scandal and that scandal has led to his political downfall and has led to him uh having to drop out of the race and leave the race. And it's a little jarring, you know, when we think of corrupt leaders, when we think of uh inappropriate things happening at the elite level, we think of it being in some island far away. We think of it being at, you know, in in regimes overseas that don't really have to do with us, but it's right here in our own backyard. Right? This is an individual that has come to this mosque. This is an ind individual that many of you have shaken his hand. Uh he has said hello. He has represented you for many years. Right? So it's a little bit jarring to see this. And when this happens, brothers and sisters, it brings about a couple of questions and a couple of reflections. The first reflection that is outside the scope of this is the reflection of where is the Muslim response for leadership. Right? And um this is outside the scope of the but it's something that we should be talking about because the world brothers and sisters is thirsty for a Muslim leadership and for a Muslim response. It is thirsty for leadership that is rooted in prophetic practice. It is thirsty for leadership that is rooted in morality that is rooted in an individual understanding that they report up to a being a deity better and bigger and more magnificent than themselves. This is something that the world needs and it's thirsty for it. Everywhere we look for it, right? Everywhere you see you see that the world needs this and when you read the Quran you see that this is nothing new that Fyon also had this issue that many leaders had this issue. Right? So that's the first uh you know question we should be asking and it's beyond the scope of this and there's other people in this audience right now who are more qualified to talk about that but it is something that should be on our minds. The second thing, the second reflection which I wanted to make the topic of today's brothers and sisters is the topic of lasas, the topic of sincerity. Because everywhere we look, brothers and sisters, we're seeing a lack of sincerity. We're seeing that las is no longer in the picture. Doing things for for a sincere reason is no longer top of mind for individuals in power. Right? And everywhere we look, we see this. and uh you know this individual who just had to drop out of the race. His his campaign was was built on three different pillars. One of those pillars was treating women women's rights and treating women respectfully. And his scandal is what? You guessed it, right? Not treating women respectfully and treating them inappropriately. Again, performative, right? It's not true. There's no sincerity there. It's just lip service that's said to make people feel good. And when we open the Quran brothers and sisters, uh we see that Allahh talks so much about the hypocrites about the people who are doing lip service about the people who are not actually sincere. It's a crisis of performative piety and it's a crisis that we have today with social media. Everyone wants to do performative piety. Everyone wants if you go on to the Islamic YouTube scene, if you go on to the uh Islamic the corner of Tik Tok that's Muslim, if you go to the, you know, Muslim Instagram page pages, it's all performative piety, right? You know, Hajj is coming up uh in a few weeks, inshallah. And it's amazing to see the performative piety happening there. Look at this five-star Hajj package that I got. Oh, let me vlog to you throughout my Hajj what I'm going to be doing. This was my Hajj last year. This is what you should do. This is the restaurant you should go to, right? This is the type of food that I had. Everything's become a a a performance brothers and sisters. But it's not just a crisis of modernity that's leading to this performative piety. It happened during the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's time. He had to deal if you read with the you see that sallallahu alaihi wasallam had to deal with performative people. People who only came to the masjid to be part and get the benefits of being in the social contract of Medina at the time, right? Of you know just getting the benefits of being Muslim but not really being Muslim. just doing it for show. And the definition of performative piety, brothers and sisters, is partaking in religious acts for the sake of recognition and fame from people and not from Allahhana tala. That's the working definition I'm I'm going with. That is what performative piety is. And everywhere we see we see performative piety. So I wanted to share very quickly um three stages that our beloved teacher wrote us came a few months back and he shared something very powerful. He shared the three stages of the sincere person. The the three mams of the sincere person and I wanted to touch on them very briefly. So we need to have lasas brothers and sisters. We need to have sincerity and there's three stages. The first stages, the first stage is the stage of the mlas. The mlas and it all comes from the root word las. The mlas is someone who is trying to purify their intention. They want to be on the path to Allahhanaa tala. They want to have a proper relationship with Allahhana wa tala but not everything in their life may be in line with that. So they have some spiritual cognitive dissonance where they want to be close to Allahhana tala but there may be things in their life that are not completely in tune with that sincerity but they're taking the steps to become sincere. This is the mlless. So this is the individual who you know he they want to be sincere but maybe they have some inappropriate stock options uh for some tech companies that are used to kill Muslims overseas. Okay well they start to sell off those stock options and get halal stocks. Maybe they don't eat zabha and halal every as every time in their life. Okay. Now they're starting to eat zab and eat halal. Maybe they have bad company. They start to switch out their company. So you be begin on the process of being sincere. This is the first step. This is the mlas. This is the stage that we that many of us are in right now inshallah. Then there is the second stage. That is the stage of the mlas. The mlas is the one who Allah subhana wa ta'ala helps them become sincere. Once they are a ml, they're trying to become sincere. they become a mlas where Allah subhana wa ta'ala helps them become sincere. We have this foundational concept in our deen brothers and sisters that Allah helps those who help themselves. Allah helps those who help themselves. So just to sidetrack just for a second, right? Because this is a very important concept. If you need a job and you're out of a job, our religion doesn't teach us to just sit on the couch and make dua and then just sit on the couch and wait for the job to come. No, you make dua to Allahhanaa. You understand is only from Allahhana. Success is only from God. But then you get up and you actually start the job process and Allah subhanaa tala imbuss your job search with baraka and blessing because you invoked him and you rely on him. Right? So this is a foundational aspect in our dean and this is the stage of the mlas. Right? The one who is now trying to be sincere. So Allahhana gives you a metaphysical mad from himself to help you be sincere. So Allahh is now helping you be sincere. This is the second stage. And then there's the third stage. The third stage of the mtas, the the third stage is for the person who becomes one of the few select elite of Allahhana tala. The ola of Allah that Allahhana wa ta'ala is so proud of you and your effort that he actually starts to curate your life in a way that is pleasing to him. He curates your life in a way that is pleasing to him. And so your life is completely without even having without even knowing Allahhanaa starts uh crafting your life in a way that is in sincere and is in line with him. And this is a very special and elite stage for the select few. But we ask Allahh to allow us to be in these stages inshallah and to be on the path of these three mams inshallah. So those are the three mhams that I found that were very interesting uh and something that we should reflect upon especially in a world where we're not seeing any sincerity anymore and we're seeing a lack of sincerity. But I wanted to share two very quick stories uh of some companions that really affected me and show the sincerity that the companions had with their prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the sincerity they had for this dean. But before we get into them, we know right of the of the the the the family of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. We know you know the stories of our mother, right? How sincere she was that u she would actually go to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam at the cave of h and deliver food to him before revelation came. And she would do this when she was still pregnant with our master Fatma. Right? So she was pregnant with Fatma Zah and she would actually go up to the cave of H and deliver food to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. This was before the revelation came. She didn't know why her husband's doing this. All she knew is that he would communicate to her that I need to leave the dunya that I need some time away from the hustlebustle of life and I just need to be with myself and she supported him in that journey and she would go up pregnant to give him food. Subhan Allah. I just came back from Omar. Alhamdulillah. And I did the the hike of uh the cave of Ha. And I'm I'm young. I feel like I'm in shape. I work out multiple times a week. Uh there was paved steps. I did it at 65 uh at night time when the degree when the weather was 65° and I could barely do it. I had to stop multiple times huffing and puffing barely able to make it at the top. And I kept reflecting on the sincerity that our mother had for our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. the love that she had that drove her to do this. Subhan Allah. We know the sincerity of Ali that he actually took the place of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in the bed when the Quresh were coming to assassinate him. Subhan Allah. Look at the sincerity that you have to have that I will take your place and I will pretend to be you and if they stab into the into the bed without seeing I will give my life. Look at the sincerity that our master had. Subhan Allah. This is the sincerity that we have to tap into brothers and sisters. And one story that I want to share that's very powerful is the story of Abuah. It's a little bit of a lengthy story, but it's a very powerful one. So there was once and I've shared it before. So if you've heard it, you know, bear with me, but inshallah reminder is good. There was once an orphan boy in the time of Medina, uh during the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's life in Medina. The hijra to Medadina had already happened and there was an orphan boy and all he had to his name was a plot of land. all he had to his name was a plot of land. So he decided that he's going to take care of this plot of land and he's going to, you know, use this plot of land to help uh start his life. And so one of the things he decides to do is to build a uh fence around his land, to build a wall around his land. And so he starts to build this wall around his plot of land. and he gets to a part where there is a palm tree from his neighbor from his neighbor's property that's coming onto his land and it's making it difficult for him to complete his project. So now it's getting difficult for him to complete this wall and he's going to have to do some gymnastics with the wall to make it fit and it's being difficult. So he goes to his neighbor who is unnamed. We don't know his name but we know he was from the Ansar and most of the narrations say that he was a companion. And so he went to his neighbor who was from the Ansar and he asked him, you know, can you please uh this is the situation. I'm drawing this wall around my boundary and could you just please give me the palm tree? Can you just give me the palm tree? It'll be very quick and it'll be very easy. You give me the palm tree, I can finish my wall. No problem. The companion from the Ansar, his neighbor says, "No, I'm actually not going to give you the palm tree." He denies the request and he says, you know, please give me this palm tree. you have many palm trees. This is just one. If you can just give me this palm tree, that would be very great and it would make my life very easy. Again, the companion says, the neighbor says, "No, I'm actually not going to give it to you." So, this orphan, he goes to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He goes to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and he tells our prophet about what's going on. And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam our scholars when they you know um do some commentary on this hadith on this incident in the s they say that the prophetam you know he was an orphan too right he was an orphan and so he had a soft spot for orphans so he said you know I'm going to actually help you and I'll go with on your behalf to this to this to your neighbor and actually ask him as well and talk to him on your behalf. So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam goes to the neighbor and he says to him, you know, this orphan boy asked for the tree. It'll make his life easier. Can you just give him the tree? Subhan Allah. The prophet of God is asking you on behalf of this orphan to give the tree. To our surprise, this companion says, "No." He says, "No, I'm not going to give the tree." And the scholars, they put some commentary there. They say the commentary is probably that this man was a little peeved and frustrated that this young boy had escalated this situation all the way to the prophet of God all the way to the head of state of Medina. So you can put your, you know, put your shoes, put your feet in his shoes. He's frustrated. I was having a conversation with this boy and now he's escalated it all the way to the prophet of God. Okay, this is too much. And so he doubles down and he says no. He says no to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam raises the stakes and he says to him give this palm tree to this boy and Allah subhana wa ta'ala will give you a palm tree in paradise. Subhan Allah. Subhan Allah. So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he has you know knowledge of the unseen world and he's promising we know the promise of sallallahu alaihi wasallam is true. He's promising this tree in paradise to this man. Subhan Allah. And this man still refuses. He still refuses. He's annoyed. He's doubling down. And he still refuses. And he says, "No, this is my huck. This is my tree." And I said multiple times, "I don't want to give it, so I'm not going to give it." Subhan Allah. There's not much more you can do. So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam says, "Okay." There was a couple of companions nearby who saw this interaction take place. And one of those companions was a companion by the name of Abu Dhabi. Abu Dha. So Abu Dhabi saw this take place and he went up to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and he said yahoo Allah if I am able to get this tree for this boy does the same deal apply to me if I am able to somehow get this tree for this boy does the same deal apply to me and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam says yes the same deal applies to you if you're able to get the tree for the boy so Abu Dhabi goes to this companion this uh unnamed companion of the Ansar who's the neighbor of the boy. He goes to him and he says, "Can you please give me your tree and he says the the the the man says, you know, the prophet of God just asked for the tree and I said no to him. What do you what makes you think I'm going to say yes to you? I just said no to the prophet of God. I'm not going to say yes to you." And Abu Dha says to him, "Do you know who I am? I'm Abu Dha." And a little bit of context to Abu of Abu Dha is that Abu Dha was very famous for having a very large garden and meadow in Medina. Some narrations say that the garden was somewhere between 500 and 600 palm trees. That might be a little exaggerated, but that's what I what I saw when I was looking at this hadith. So 500 to 600 palm trees, right? Uh he had a very big meadow and he was known for his meadow and he was known for his garden. That was his claim to fame. Everybody knew Abu Dha, the man who has the big garden. So he said, "Do you know who I am? I'm Abu Da, the man with the big garden." And uh the the the man says, "Yes, of course I know who you are. Everybody knows about you and your garden. Mashallah. It's one of the the best gardens in in Medina. And Abu Dhab says to the man, I will give you my entire garden. I will give you my entire garden if you give me this one palm tree. If you give me this one palm tree, I am giving you this entire meadow and this entire garden." >> [snorts] >> So this man, he's like surprised and he's shocked and he's like, "Okay, let's do it." And he's can't believe what he's hearing. So he says, "Let's do it, but we have to do it in front of the prophet of God because I can't believe this is happening." So this contract has to happen in front of the prophet of God. So they say, Abu Dha says, "No problem." So they do the exchange in front of the prophet of God. And then Abu Dha right there, once the exchange is done, tells Allah, "That palm tree is for the orphan boy. Now that it's mine, I'm gifting it to the orphan boy. Andasoolah sallallahu alaihi wasallam keeps repeating, "How many palm trees are for you, Abu Dha, in paradise?" How many palm trees are for you, Abu Dha, in paradise? When you look at the Arabic, he's actually using the word, there's a specific word for the part of the palm tree that is very lush with dates. That is the specific word he's using. How many of that specific part of the palm tree is for you Abu Dha in paradise? And he keeps repeating this. He's so happy, so proud. He keeps repeating this until Abu Dhaka leaves the gathering. Then Abu Dhaka goes to the meadow that he just sold. He goes to the meadow he just sold. And inside this big meadow is his wife and his children. And he calls out to them. He says, "Oh family of Abu Dhaka, come here right now. I need to speak with you." So his wife comes and his children come. And they're like, "What's going on?" And he says, "You know, you have to leave this meadow because I've sold this meadow and I've sold this meadow for trees in paradise." And subhan Allah, Abu Dh's wife, her response is so incredible. She doesn't say, "Why did you do this? Why didn't you consult with me? Aren't you thinking about the kids? Aren't you thinking about our future? What's going to happen from here?" She doesn't chastise him at all. Rather, she says, "Oh Abu Dah, what a great bargain you have made. What a great bargain you have made." And then she goes to her kids and she starts taking the dates out of their pockets and out of their hands. They had just collected from their palm trees. And says, "Put these dates back. They no longer belong to us. Inshallah, we'll have our dates in paradise." Subhan Allah. What an incredible story. We fast forward a few years, I believe a couple of years and the battle of takes place. The battle of takes place and we know the battle of was a very tough time for the Muslims. Our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam bled in that battle. He got injured in that battle. Uh so many companions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam passed away in that battle. And after the battle is done and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is surveying the battlefield. He sees Abu Dhab's body lying on the ground. He sees the corpse of Abu Dha lying on the battlefield. He's martyed in the battle of Oud. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam walks up to Abu Dha's body and he kneels down next to it and he says to him, "How many trees are for you Abu Dha in paradise? How many trees are for you Abu Dha in paradise?" Subhan Allah. >> [cough] [snorts] [clears throat] >> regime. Ali Muhammad One other story, brothers and sisters. We just heard the powerful story of Abu and the sacrifice and the deal he made. There's one other story, the story of Alumi [snorts] who was a companion of the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam who took Islam in Makkah. He took Islam in Makkah uh before the hijra and he was known to be very very successful in his trade and in his business and he was one of the very successful entrepreneurs of Makkah at the time. The time of hijra begins and the Muslims start to leave Makkah and they start to go to Medadina and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam has left. Abu Bakr has left and most of the companions have left to go to Medina. So is left behind and he also wants to make the hij also wants to uh join the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in Madina. So he picks up his things. He collects some of his things and he gets ready to go. And as he's leaving Makkah to go make the hijra, the leaders of the Quresh stop him and they encircle him and they say, "Yeah, you made you took such advantage of the of of the the the riches of Makkah and you took advantage of the trade of Makkah and you made all this money uh in Makkah under our leadership and now you just want to leave us like this. No, no, no. You're not just going to leave us like this. You're not just going to leave us like this." and they had him blocked and they had him surrounded. So he says in that moment he has a choice. What is he going to do? Does he stay in Makkah with his wealth or does he go and visit and join the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in Medadina? In that moment he makes a decision. He says if I give you all of my wealth, if I tell you where it's stored and where it's hidden, if I give you all of my wealth, everything that I have, everything that I've collected, if I give it all to you, will you then let me go? The Qur say, "Yeah, this is a great deal. Actually, this is a great deal. Sure, we'll let you go." So he says, "Okay." And in that moment, he tells them where his wealth is kept. And they let him go. And one of the reports is that he didn't even have a horse. He gave away his horse. He gave away everything. And so he actually went on the hij uh just walking. And by the time he actually reached Mazjid al- Kuba, which is now within the boundaries of Medina, modern in modern day Saudi Arabia, back then Masjid Alba was before the city of Medina. By the time he reaches MJ, he's so tired and he's so exhausted that he's actually crawling on his hands and knees as he reaches. Subhan Allah. And when makes this deal, makes this transaction, the prophet of God sallallahu alaihi wasallam all the way in Medina gets revelation that this is happening. He gets a a he gets revelation that this is happening and he tells the companions who are around him at that time that what an amazing trade su made. What an amazing trade suib made. What an amazing bargain suib made. Subhan Allah. Subhan Allah. And suibumi would never recover his wealth to the level that it was. He would never recover his wealth to the way that it was. But all the companions knew that the prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, the prophet of God said that he had such a good trade. Brothers and sisters, when we look at these stories and we listen to these stories, we have to ask ourselves, who are we in these stories? Brothers and sisters, who are we? Right? We we actually have to ask ourselves are we the unnamed unsari companion who's still better than all of us who was you know in the company of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam but who did not make the trade that the prophet offered him. He made the other trade of getting the meadow with 500 and 600 trees. Are we at that level? What type of spouse are we? Are we like the spouses uh the spouse of of of Abu Dha? Right? When our spouse comes to us and says, "I've made this career decision because it doesn't align with my moralities. I've given this much of our savings in in in in in in uh for the dean, what type of spouse are we? Are we the spouse that chast chastises or are we the spouse that has a response like Abu Dhakaran's wife had a had a response? Do we encourage our spouses to goodness?" Brothers and sisters, we we live in the the belly of the beast, right? We live in the belly of the beast. What what decisions are we making? What trades are we making? Are we thinking critically when we choose our next job option? When we buy the next stock option, what role are we playing? What is our level of sincerity? Do we have lasas? Where on the three of that we talked about earlier in the do we fall into? These are questions of that we need to ask ourselves. Makaba is the concept of looking over yourself, watching out over your spiritual state. Where do we land brothers and sisters? Subhan Allah for these companions for Abu Dhabi and for and for our uh mother and Ali the promise of Allah subhanaa tala was real. Jenna was real for them. It was real. It was tangible for them. And we have to ask ourselves is the promise of Allahh real for us? Is the promise of Jenna real for us? Is the word and message of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam something that has actually affected us deep in our hearts that then affects us in the work that we do in our lives. May Allah subhana wa ta'ala grant us ti to ask these questions and to come up with the right answers inshallah and to our align our lives in a way that is pleasing with