shaykh abdal hakim murad - turning anger into action

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Radical Middle Way Transcripts

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad on:Turning Anger into Action

London, 5 February 2009



The Chinese curse, of course, is „may you live in interesting times,‟ and generally we

sympathise with that. There is even a Spanish way of bidding farewell to people in a

friendly way „Que no haya novedad‟ „May no new thing arise‟. That is how humanity

used to be; we liked things the way they were. We knew that the past was probably

better and we thought that any substantial changes were likely to disturb our

equilibrium: the equilibrium in society, government and our souls. Nowadays, we livein a time where everything is the exact reverse of that; nobody‟s particularly

interested in truth or beauty any longer. Instead, the cutting edge of our culture is

always what‟s new, what‟s innovative and what challenges are established:

perceptions. Take a look at the National Gallery, then go over the river and take a

look at the Tate Modern, and you will see how our sensibilities have been turned on

their heads. Ours is a culture that isn‟t about truth, it isn‟t about beauty, it has mor e or

less given up on those things. But it is about finding new things all the time, and there

are believers in this very strange kind of situation. We are wrong-footed or puzzled.

As believers in Allah, (swt) we have always looked back to a golden age that we

knew existed, which was the time of our Lord the Prophet Muhammad, peace andblessings upon him. We know that perfection is possible because it has existed and it

has walked this Earth. Modernity says that perfection is there somewhere in the future

and we can‟t really imagine what it would look like. Our reality is unimaginable to

the people of a hundred years ago, let alone the people of a thousand years ago, and it

is a reasonable bet that our great grandchildren‟s reality will be unimaginable to our

realities now, and the process is constantly accelerating. So as believers who like to

look back, and love what we see when we look back, we find the modern world very

peculiar. Everything is challenging us, and many of those things that challenge us

most are the things that seem to be about things that we weren‟t most certain about.

Current events seem to be coming closer and closer to our hearts, there is something

elemental about the destruction of Baghdad; once the symbol of Muslim intellectual

and political and economic leadership of the world. There is something elemental also

about the situation in the Holy Land, and in Palestine, and it tugs at our hearts not just

because of the suffering of the people who are there now, but because of what this

seems to represent, the challenge that it represents to our certainties.

What is our image of history? Our image is that Allah (swt) vindicated, in perhaps the

greatest surprise in history, the line of Sayidna Ishmael, peace and blessings upon

him, and made the outcast into the victors. And from the Haram in Mecca, there was a

spiritual victory, which led to the Haram in Jerusalem. Shortly to be followed, in the

time of the Caliphate, by a physical victory, which united all three holy cities. Thereis something for our imagination, which is profoundly right, about the existence of the

Dome of the Rock. What could be more glorious as a culmination of the manifestly

legible purposes of heaven in history than that beautiful, golden crown? That is the

place where the ancient Prophets, peace upon them, worshiped. That is the place

where Sayidna Jesus, peace upon him, taught and worshiped. That is the place where

Sayidna Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, worshiped, leading and affirming

all of the earlier Prophets in prayer before he went on that final, unimaginable solo

voyage. What could be more appropriate than the Dome of the Rock as the crown of

all history? That was the Muslim assurance, shaken but not overthrown by the

crusader interlude, threatened but not destroyed by the armies of Hulagu and the

Mongols, threatened but not destroyed by the British occupation, but now apparentlyfacing unprecedented hazards. So fundamental is the symbol of that structure and



what it represents; our culmination of monotheistic history. That we feel that what is

happening in the Holy Land now, not comparable to what is happening in so many

other troubled places, in this troubled age. What happens there has to be, not just

different and more important, but also more meaningful, and because that is a place

where so much sacred history is unfolded, who‟s meaning is often discernable only by

linear afterwards, we struggle to discern the meaning of this current episode. Whatdoes the situation in Palestine mean? If we take a step back from the immediate

coverage of the humanitarian catastrophes, and the political shenanigans, what does it

actually mean? Well what it means is, firstly the vindication of the outcast, Sayidna

Ishmael, peace be upon him, the outcast son finally vindicated, showing where Allah

is. In other words, with the broken hearted, with the ethnically impure, who were

rejected by a powerful narrative of centrality and exclusion; the rejected son turns out

to be the one who is finally to be chosen. But what it seems to represent to ourselves,

is that time is being turned back. Just as so much of modernity is about looking

forward to a time that we vaguely assume and hope is going to be better. There is

something retrograde about the current history and situation of Palestine and the Holy

Land. How could it be if there is a progression of prophecy? Not a progression aboutthe content of prophecy, but in terms of the immenseness of the reach of the message,

from the time of the earliest Hebrew prophets, then to the time of Sayidna Jesus,

peace be upon him, and his larger message. And finally the message of the Ishmaelite

Sayidna Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, which becomes the centre of this

extraordinary political and cultural zone that unites East and West, and brings

together the Persian world with the Eastern Mediterranean world and with the North

African world; that is an obvious progression that we can understand.

Now the custodians of that city seem to be the people that reject that image of history,

the people that say that there have been two drastic wrong turnings: the alleged

Messianic event and the alleged sealing of prophecy. And we struggle to understand

why this should be the case, why should the custodians of some of our holiest places

be the people who‟s ideology seems to be based, as far as we can discern on an

explicit rejection of the claims of the two most recent prophetic founders. What‟s

going on? Has history gone wrong? We start to panic, we start to worry, and we start

to doubt, and that has a lot to do with the kind of gut reaction that we see amongst

many Muslims.

What‟s really going on? Well let‟s rewind history back a little bit and consider,

focussing on the history of the city of Gaza, the city of Palestine that has been most in

the news of late, a kind of icon of Ishmaelite suffering at the hands of unfeelingoppressors. The history of Gaza turns out to be an interesting sign of what Islam has

accomplished in the region, a city that was very slow to Christianise and then

eventually had to be effectively Christianised by force. Saint Porphyry in the 5th

century was so impatient with the reluctance of the population to accept baptism that

he led his monks on a campaign to physically destroy the pagan temples and to rough

up the pagan priests. And his church, the Church of Porphyry is still there, and it‟s

still a church, he is still the Christian patron saint of the city. The Byzantine empress,

when she heard that the city had finally been forcibly Christianised, celebrated by

sending two thousand gold coins to the city in order to turn the main pagan temple

into a church; the Eudoxiana, a glorious church. But that episode only lasted less than

two hundred years because, at the beginning of the 7th

century, the Ishmaelites, theoutcast, the ethnically impure, the rejected, appear in order to overthrow the



pretensions and the cruelties of Christianised Rome. It was one of the fastest episodes

of conversion that the ancient world has ever seen. The same people, who were so

stubborn to accept Christianity, became Muslim almost overnight. The Greek

Christian population went to Sayidna Umar, may God be pleased with him, and asked

him for permission to transform the Eudoxiana church into a mosque, and it is a

mosque until this day, it is the Jam‟ia Umar: the Mosque of Umar ibn al Khataab, andhas been ever since, except for the short crusader interlude when it was turned over to

catholic worship. Imam Shafi, may God have mercy on him, was from the city of

Gaza. It produced so many great ones in the history of this Umma (Muslim

community). The Ottoman Empire had flourished, and it flourished until the dawn of

our current calamity and our current puzzlement.

1917: the three battles of Gaza, splashed across our headlines at the time, but we have

profoundly forgotten them. What were the battles of Gaza? The first two were

between the British forces and the Ottoman forces, the Ottoman forces fighting for the

Caliphate of the Messenger of God, peace and blessings upon him, and the British

fighting for imperial glory. The first two battles were won by the forces of theCaliphate, and General Allenby was soundly defeated. The third battle was different,

the third battle introduced the principle that has characterised the tragedy of the region

ever since; the tragedy of insincerity, double standards, hypocrisy, back stabbing and

treason. The reason why the caliphal forces crumpled and were defeated in the region,

having held on triumphantly for so many centuries against all comers, was not

because they were incapable with dealing with these external enemies. They defeated

the British at Gallipoli, a great humiliation; the greatest humiliation in the career of

Winston Churchill was his defeat at Gallipoli. Despite all of the suffering that the

empire had experienced, they could still defeat the British Empire, and imperial

troops were routed at the beach of Gallipoli. They were doing the same at Gaza, and

then something unprecedented in the history of Islam took place, and what was that

unprecedented event? The great treason. Who was it that was fighting alongside the

British? The propaganda portraits of the time; the British „tommy‟ with his solar

helmet with a machine gun, the Lois gun pointed at the distant Turkish lines, and you

can just about see the Tarbushes and the Ottoman army there. Who is feeding the

bullets into the machine gun? It is the local Arab ally; that‟s the great treason. The

uprising of Arab nationalists against the Caliphate of the Messenger of God, peace

and blessings upon him, for the sake of British promises, and British gold, and the

opportunity to sack Damascus. If you look at the pages of history in any civilisation,

you will be hard put to find a comparable act of treason. That is why the third battle of

Gaza did not go our way, and why the story of the city ever since has been a story notof prosperity under a united Islamic realm, but of division, partition, occupation and

now catastrophe, at the hands of a merciless powerful oppressor.

The obvious moral lesson for this is: be united „hold fast altogether to the rope of

Allah.‟ At that most critical point in the history of the Umma, or one section of the

Umma, the Arab nationalist paused, decide to change sides, to cross the lines and to

fight for Whitehall against Istanbul. In our vision of history, that must be important,

and perhaps that treachery, that insincerity and that hypocrisy lies at a spiritual heart

of this rotten situation. Maybe Allah (swt) is still angry with those people. So colossal

was that betrayal, and so absolute was their rejection of the idea that they might even

acknowledge that they made a mistake that those people have been subjected to



punishment after punishment, not just the Palestinian people, but the people of the

region more generally.

Each one of the national stories of those new nations, as though bravely in their

nationalistic, Arab nationalistic way, arose following the decline of imperial rule, has

been more or less a shabby catastrophe. Scoundrels in uniforms, scoundrels withcrowns, scoundrels wherever you look. The catastrophe of people who don‟t seem to

deserve that kind of torment, and it seems to become worse and worse. Perhaps if we

do look at the history a little a bit, and look at the origins of this, then we can begin to

do two things. First we can pray to Allah (swt) for forgiveness for the people of the

region. And secondly, we can start to reorient our thinking, recognising that the

secular alternative, the banner of Arabdom in this case, but there were also banners of

Turkish nationalism that soon came, banners of Iranian nationalism, banners of

Pakistani nationalism all of theses new forms of Jahilia (ignorance) have actually not

delivered, even on their own terms. Look at the state of the modern Middle East. Each

one of them, by any standards, is a failure: a political failure, an ethical failure, an

economic failure, military failure and a diplomatic failure, completely helpless, thelaughing stock of the world. The failure of the old slogans that bravely thought that

they could replace the principles of Islam means that it‟s time for us now to start

looking for something better, because we‟ve experimented with that, and it hasn‟t

helped anybody. It hasn‟t even helped the West particularly because it is harder to

make money out of a region that‟s kind of in a ruinous state. Nobody really benefits

from this.

The Muslim response, the awareness of the categoric uselessness of those regimes,

the dreadfulness of the Egyptian regime, the dreadfulness of just about everybody you

look at in that part of the world, the manifest dreadfulness of it all. The response has

not been the right response. The response first of all, must be a laser sharp awareness

that that treason must be repented of, and that‟s still not the case. In the textb ooks

throughout the region they still refer to the Arab revolt as a step forward, that the

principle of Arabdom was now going to take over from old, medieval ideas of

religious unity. Remember the old slogans that one more or less laughs at now „one

Arab nation, possessed of an eternal message.‟ They certainly didn‟t get the unity

right; they are still not one Arab nation fifty years after Nasser and the others. And

what really is the message to the world of Arabdom? What is the ethical vision of

Saddam Hussein, Hafez al Asad, Hosni Mubarak and the others? There is really

nothing there; nobody really claims any longer that there was ever really anything

there. There is a bankruptcy and that bankruptcy is the image that we now see on ourtelevision screens: the uselessness of the region, the uselessness of the leadership in

the region, and the fundamental sense that things have gone wrong with history.

But the believer can see meaning, he knows that the Aqsa Mosque is one of the most

important lightening rods for meaning in human history, and that Allah (swt) means

well for that holy place, and one day He will place it once again in the hands of holy

people, but they must be holy people. Not people with silly slogans, not people who

have scores to settle, not enraged armies of Islamists destroying the settlements, none

of that. But people who enter the city with humility and respect and reverence, people

who enter the city as Sayidna Umar, may God be pleased with him, entered the city

with his donkey, humbly, refusing even to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,despite the extraordinary symbolic power of that moment. Any other ruler in history



would have said “this is how we can show that they are finished, pray in the altar of

their church.” But he doesn‟t do that because of his certainty, may God be pleased

with him, he prays next door and the place where he prays is still Jami‟a Umari, the

Mosque of Umar, and the Church of the Sepulchre is still the Holy Church of the

Sepulchre: that was the real conquest. That was the real conquest, and how was that

conquest possible that gave the Muslims the right to be the kings of the city? Becausethere was a conquest in the souls, a conquest in the hearts, there was a „sakina‟

(tranquillity) there, the same „sakina‟ that had made the conquest of Mecca a spiritual

as well as a purely military and political victory, „since He appointed in the hearts of

those who disbelieve, the rage, the fever of Jahilia,‟ and then what does he do? On the

one side, the pagan principle: rage, tribalism (what we would call nationalism), the

fever that desires to support one‟s own side whether right or wrong. And on the other

side „sakina‟: „Allah sent down His „sakina‟ (His stillness, His calm) as a present in

the hearts of the believers, and He imposed upon them the word of „taqwa‟ (piety),

and they were the ones who had most right to it, they were the ones who‟s principle it

was. And Allah is always knowing of all things.‟

That was the real „Fath Mecca‟, „Fath‟ an opening within; a new kind of humanity

from the chauvinistic bosoms of a primitive people, sunk in rage and tribalism with no

law and only the principle of vendetta and feuding, comes this extraordinary Umma

of angels. And the conquest of Jerusalem was like that, it was like an honourable echo

of the conquest of Mecca, but this time with the „ahlul Kitaab‟ (people of the book)

not with the pagans.

When we become ready in our hearts to approach the city of Jerusalem, in that spirit

that is the Qura‟nic spirit and the spirit of the „Sahaba‟ (companions) and the real

spirit of the „Salaf‟ (the early generations), then the city‟s gates will be open to us.

But there is no reason, if you look at history, to suppose that they will be opened to us

if we are banging upon them with „jahilia‟ in our hearts, with rage, desire for

vengeance, desire to settle scores; the tribal, mafia mentality of an eye for an eye. We

will have revenge, these pagan principles.

The city of Jerusalem, they say the Golden Gate is the gate that is closed, and you can

see it; it is bricked up. And it will be opened when Sayidna Imam al Mahdi comes

into the city. Perhaps the city is also close to us, and the land of Palestine close to us

because our hearts are bricked up against what it really signifies. We don‟t deserve to

be there. Other conquerors: the British for their reasons, the Mongols for their

reasons, and the Israelis, they are there for essentially for nationalistic purposes, andthe land deals with that. But if you go there and claim that you are doing it for

religious principle, then you will find that you are tested the much more. If you are

not there as a barbarian conqueror, not there as Israeli ethnically cleansers in 1948 or

1967, simply one flag against another flag, one race against another race, but you are

there for a principle that is a universal principle: the principle of „la illaha il Allah‟

then you will be tested. Then you will find that you really have to work hard to find

the key to that Golden Gate. We haven‟t yet got it, in fact, mor e depressing than those

images of Gaza, more depressing than all of the myriad things that seem to be

descending on the heads of Muslims just about everywhere at the moment, is the

Muslim reaction. „Ibtila‟ trials, „fitna‟, suffering, always come, and that‟s the law of

history. The only place where there is no suffering at all, is the place where there is nodifferentiation at all; the absolute, unqualified essence of Allah (swt). In the world of



manifestation, there is distance from him, therefore there is suffering; that is part of

being descendents of Sayidna Adam, peace upon him. None of this is surprising. But

the way back, the key to the door, the way to deserve the Dome of the Rock again, the

path to that, lies within. Do you really the think that the Byzantine Empire, the great

super power of its day, was overcome because the Arab armies were organised and

had better weapons? Not really, the Byzantine Empire had just thrashed the Persians,and was pretty trained, pretty powerful. The emperor Heraclius knew the ground, he

had fought the Persians there, and he was ready.

What was the secret that enabled them to take the city? The reason why they were

allowed into the city became clear on the day that they entered the city, and Sayidna

Umar, may God pleased with him, refused to pray in the Church of the Holy

Sepulchre. He gave the Christians and the Jews their rights, and he asked to be shown

the place of the temple „al Haikal‟ the place which is the „Musra‟ of the Messenger of

God, peace and blessings upon him, (the point of departure for Muhammad‟s

midnight journey to the seven heavens). Hard to imagine a more magnetic, more

powerful place, and the Christians had covered it with garbage and sewage. Becausefor them, this was the relic of the old thing; Judaism, and Christianity was really

formed as a specific rejection of, and a persecution of Judaism, so it was the city‟s

rubbish heap. Sayidna Umar, May God be pleased with him, starts to clear the site

with his own hands, he doesn‟t enslave the population and get them to do if for him,

he does it with his own hands. Here again we breathe something of the perfume of the

extraordinary humility of the entrance of the Messenger of God, peace and blessings

upon him, and his great, pure-hearted, luminous „Sahaba‟ into the city of Mecca: that

is a real „Fath‟ and inward „fath‟ as well as an outward „fath.‟ And the presence of the

Dome of the Rock, possibly the most beautiful building in the world, the art historian

Sir Sacheverell Sitwell travelled there in the 1950‟s, and said: “probably the most

beautiful building in the world.” The reason why we had that, is that we deserved to

have that. So the key to Jerusalem, and the key to a united Palestine, once again,

under solely Islamic rule, is not Hamas, it is not Fatah, and it is certainly not these

new Al Qaeda type factions, all of that is just an intensification of the reason for

failure, it is more revenge and suicide bombing is an example of that. Who could

imagine the companions of Sayidna Umar, may God be pleased with him, going into

the Byzantine market place in Jerusalem, and stabbing people at random? That‟s not

who they were. Did they do it at the time of the crusades? For a hundred and twenty-

five years of crusader ruling in Jerusalem, was there ever anything like suicide

bombing? The crusaders were worse than the Israelis. Nothing like that, there was

„sabr‟ (patience) and there was an awareness that Allah (swt) was the Lord of history,and that he can turn history around just like that.

This doesn‟t mean that there is no action. What it does mean is that the action you

start with is the action within. What is the first Hadith in Islam? It is the beginning of

the Sahih Hadith of Imam Bukhari „actions are only by intentions‟ which has a

thousand meanings. And one of those meanings is that the blessed consequence of

your action really depends absolutely on the heart-felt quality of the intention that you

put into it. And this is one of the „asrar‟ (secrets) of Allah in history. Most of the time,

we cannot see it because how much of history do we understand? How much of

history do we see? We only see a tiny proportion of it, most of the time we are just

blundering, guessing in the dark. But it is clear that this „sakina‟ was part of the „fath‟.How do we get this „sakina‟ in our hearts again? How can the world switch on Sky



News, and instead of seeing the screaming Palestinian faces „almost exploding with

rage‟ as the Qur‟an says, not of something paradisal, but of the fires of hell. When we,

instead of seeing those faces, see „sakina‟ and calm in the face of adversity, then we

can begin to feel our souls being healed, because we can see that the Umma is at the

beginning of the path that will lead to that Golden Gate in Jerusalem. Inshallah, in a

beautiful way, the way of the „fath‟ of Mecca, and the way of the original conquest of Jerusalem. And the way of Salahuddin‟s conquest of Jerusalem, that which the city, in

its eternal beauty and perfection deserves, the honour which it deserves and which

Allah (swt) made it a city of more prophets than any other city on Earth, the city has

certain rights. And one of its rights is that if you violate it, sooner or later, a calamity

will come.

It‟s almost as though, when you look at the history, and to get back to the point with

which I started, our puzzlement at what‟s happening: upholders of an ancient

covenant, apparently trumping the two upholders of later covenants. What could that

mean? So to deal with our puzzlement we recall the reasons for it all, the basic reason

is not because of what we did; we honoured the city, and we allowed othercommunities to exist and to worship in the city, that was always the case. The reason

why there was this, the reason why there is Zionism is not because of anything that

happened in the Islamic world. The movement didn‟t arise in the Jewish and the

Muslim world, they tagged along much, much later, some of them to this day have not

done so. It arose in the heart of the West for a reason that we have to acknowledge as

a good reason. Twenty centuries of ferocious, unmeaning, anti-Semitic persecution,

what Dan Sherbock calls „the oldest hatred.‟ Almost from the word „go‟ the parent

religion is vilified and punished and crucified. Certainly forty years ago, when the

Vatican took those things out of the mass, which blamed the Jewish people

collectively for the death of God, only forty years ago, and some of them still think

that way.

Christendom, finally, after the holocaust, recognized that it had messed up really

badly. How could the prince of Peace have initiated such catastrophes for his own

people? There is a lethal danger, just as the idea of choseness for the Jewish people

was really challenged following the holocaust. “Chosen for what?” They asked. So

also the idea of Christianity as the ethical summation for the world, seemed to come

collapsing down, when you look at the historical Christian record of treating the

parent religion. A big crisis, and the solution was not Christendom making amends,

and this is where they went wrong, not Christendom making amends. But somehow,

the crime is so absolute: original sin, centuries of stupid racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish prejudice, the inquisition and the pogroms, and all of that black history; a long

night. The solution was not for Europe to make amends, to give up a part of Europe,

not a „tauba‟ (repentance). But instead the very strange idea that is present in Saint

Paul, of the vicarious atonement. So great is the crime that you yourself can‟t atone

for it. Find an innocent victim, and who are the innocent victims? The Palestinians;

the people who always allowed the Jewish people to go back to Jerusalem when the

crusaders and the Byzantines and others had persecuted them, the nearest people that

you have ever had to friends: make them into the sacrificial victim. The Palestinians

are the Pascal lamb, slaughtered on the rock of Jerusalem, to atone for twenty

centuries of Christian anti-Semitism. That is the poetry of the situation, and it is very

deeply rooted in a certain type of western mentality. Let the Palestinians suffer



because we really can‟t suffer in order to atone for this. Somebody else will make

way for them, for the remnants of our horrible treatment towards them.

So what should we do, we who believe in justice rather than a vicarious atonement,

and in the suffering of the innocent? Well what we have to do is to remember the

Islamic sense of „tauba‟ which is first of all, that it is a gift of Allah (swt), but alsothat it happens at certain times and in certain places, triggered by our „tauba‟ towards

Allah, and that is what we need. The oldest trick in the armoury of the preacher is

„repent and you will be saved,‟ and that means in this world as well as the next world.

The Umma will get what it deserves or better than what it deserves because of the

generosity of Allah (swt). At the moment, I don‟t think that we deserve the key to that

gate. I don‟t know how Fatah or Hamas or Islamic Jihad, or any of those other groups

would behave of they had the whip hand. And what we don‟t want is for the history of

this Umma to be stained by the kind of thing that the history of Christendom is

stained by. If there is to be another catastrophe in the history of the Jewish people,

God forbid, those incomprehensible catastrophes, we must not allow it to be at the

hands of the Umma of Sayidna Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, we mustnot allow that. The burdens of the holocaust and the pogroms, and all that is on the

shoulders of the Christian churches and of secular Europe. It is not on our shoulders,

and that is somehow the nature of history: the churches have been historically the

nemesis of the Jews. Now we have the strange vicarious atonement, our response

must never be „tit for tat‟: “They‟re doing it to us, so we must do it to them. Lets send

a few rockets over the wall to bombard Sderot or those other places in southern

Palestine. Let‟s have a go at them.” The more you do that, the more you are bricking

up the door „repel an evil with something that is better‟ that is the Qur‟anic

commandment. Once you internalise that, then you will start to see the road that leads

back, and it may take decades, it may take centuries, who knows? Allah (swt) is the

Lord of history, we can only dimly guess at the future in this situation. But the road is

there, Allah (swt) wishes us to tread that road, and it means: begin with yourself,

overcome that rage, and overcome that fury, because it is from the „jahilia.‟ This

fever, this gut reaction, this trauma, this rage is from the „jahili‟ principle, which is

guided so much by the nationalistic leadership and rhetoric, empty rhetoric of the

region. So we have to say “no” to Fatah, “no” to Hamas, “no” to the discourse of

grievance and revenge, but “no” also to Zionism, because we certainly don‟t believe

in that, what Benny Morris calls „ethnic cleansing.‟ Allah (swt) does not wish that for

this Holy Land. And that is what we can do, we have heard the appeal for Gaza, and

Inshallah every one of us should be generous as we live, and give to the people of

Gaza because they need it desperately; no water in the taps, sewage over flowing,hungry children. It‟s very bad there.

As well as that, it‟s not an either or, as well as that look into your hearts, improve

your hearts, improve your relationships, improve your communities, improve your

mosques, speak out for the truth of Islam, and fearlessly reject the new „jahilia‟ of

suicide bombing, of terrorism, of „tit for tat‟, and of rage, because that has nothing to

do with the „sakina‟ that Allah (swt) placed in the hearts of the „Sahaba‟. If we truly

follow the „Salaf‟, we will look for the „sakina‟, we will not look for the rage.

Anybody who is yelling and shouting and screaming, has nothing to do with the

„Sahaba‟ of Sayidna Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, and everything to do

with Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab, because that was their inward state. So it‟s really quitesimply: help them, campaign, go on the rallies, write the letters and protest. All of that



is necessary, and Inshallah, if there is enough of it, it will make a difference. But the

long-term difference, the road to the Golden Gate, lies through the Muslim heart.

When we deserve to be once again the custodians of the city, that is when Allah (swt)

will open that gate for us and „He will heal the hearts of the believing people.‟ Once

we see the Dome of the Rock, once again in the hands of the people who are

inclusive, who recognise, not just one part of the prophetic story, but Sayidna Musaand Sayidna Suleiman and Sayidna Daud and Sayidna Ishmael, Sayidna Ishaq,

Sayidna Jesus and Sayidna Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him. When the

inclusivity of Islam becomes a reality, then the gate will open, and the world will look

at us not with distaste, but with amazement. That‟s not hard for Allah (swt),

everything is equally easy for Him. But we need to take the first step, we need to say

“the road to that city, that irreplaceable city which every Muslim in his heart knows

can never be allowed not to be in the hands of this Umma,” and to tread that road we

need to start within. To overcome the rage, the frustration, the stupidity, the „jahili‟

practice. Turn away from that, as the „Sahaba‟ turned away from that when they took

their Shahada „la illaha il Allah‟. Say „la illah il Allah‟ recognise that He is the Lord

of history, and Muhammad, the Messenger of God, peace and blessings upon him, isthe man of „sakina‟, the man on whose heart was sent down the „sakina‟. And

Inshallah, that road will not just be shown to you, but you will have the honour of

being one of those who tread it, to hold the key, to open the city. May Allah,

Inshallah, make that day soon, and overcome the current sicknesses of this Umma and

open to us all the gates of the good things, which He wishes for the people of Sayidna

Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, his family and his companions. May

peace and the mercy of Allah be upon you.



Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad is one of Islam’s leading thinkers today. Hegraduated from Cambridge University with a double-first in Arabic in 1983.He then lived in Cairo for three years, studying Islam under traditional

teachers at Al-Azhar, one of the oldest universities in the world. He went on toreside for three years in Jeddah, where he administered a commercialtranslation office and maintained close contact with Habib Ahmad Mashhural-Haddad and other ulama from Hadramaut, Yemen. In 1989, Shaykh Abdal Hakim returned to England and spent two years at theUniversity of London learning Turkish and Farsi. Since 1992 he has been adoctoral student at Oxford University, specializing in the religious life of theearly Ottoman Empire. He is currently Secretary of the Muslim AcademicTrust (London) and Director of the Sunna Project at the Centre of MiddleEastern Studies at Cambridge University, which issues the first-ever scholarly

Arabic editions of the major Hadith collections. Shaykh Abdal Hakim is the translator of a number of works, including twovolumes from Imam al-Ghazali's Ihya Ulum al-Din. He gives durus andhalaqas from time to time and taught the works of Imam al-Ghazali at theWinter 1995 Deen Intensive Program in New Haven, CT. He appearsfrequently on BBC Radio and writes occasionally for a number of publications,including The Independent; Q-News, Britain's premier Muslim Magazine; andSeasons, the semiacademic journal of Zaytuna Institute.

For more information about this speaker as well as other Radical Middle Way speakers and events, please visit www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk

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shaykh abdal hakim murad - turning anger into action

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