“Say, “O disbelievers, I do not worship what you worship. Nor are you worshippers of what I worship. Nor will I be a worshipper of what you worship. Nor will you be worshippers of what I worship. For you is your religion, and for me is my religion.” (Al-Kafirun Surah)
Respected friends, last week we finished the interpretation, tafsir of surah An-Nasr, one of the brief yet meaningful chapters of the Qur’an. Tonight, we will move to surah Al-Kafirun which in English means, the unbelievers. This chapter speaks about the unbelievers that’s why it beholds this name. The interpreters of the Qur’an have been careful not to name this the chapter of the unbelievers, but instead it has been said that this chapter deals with unbelievers or the state of those who do not believe. Since we are in the Mawlid month and last evening was the day of birth of the Prophet (PBUH), I will seek to connect the descent of this surah with the appearance of the Prophet (PBUH). According to the consensus or the largest number of mufassirs, this chapter descended to the Prophet (PBUH) while he was in Mecca. If you recall several times we have said that surahs that descended to him while was in Mecca refer to faith and morality, faith of believers; it was so because Allah Almighty and the Prophet (PBUH) sought to create a bond with the noble people of that time. Fakir here thinks that this period we are talking about here, during which there was no state in Mecca, was also the right time to build a bond with noble people of high morality and not only seek the development of organizations that will lead the society of that time. This has been observed in the life of the Prophet (PBUH) himself and his calling. People who trusted him in Mecca, followed him to Medina, then took part in the battle of Badr. Later it is the same people who lead the Islamic state; they were people called into Islam and archetypes of truthful leaders of Islamic society; therefore, this element is crucial. There’s a book that talks about religions in the United States and it claims that people are religious only if they belong to the church or a religious group. If you ask the author “are you religious?”, he would say, “yes, I pay annual membership to this church and that makes me religious”. This is not how one becomes religious; you cannot become religious just by being a member of a group. Religiousness is something that arises from within the person, however it is the contemporary world that has imposed this type of thinking and people have started preaching just by being part of some religious group; this is not Islamic at all. And on the contrary the Prophet (PBUH) and his as’habs, have not shared this mentality.
This verse entails a very important element during the developments in Makkah. It is a chapter that teaches us how to behave towards those who do not share the same views, from the aspect of believing. Even the rhyme of the verses is interesting to note’ it is in complete harmony with the meaning of the verses. The words end in letter n and m; the letter n, is softer while the letter m, is sharper. The Prophet (PBUH) spoke mildly and this is how Allah Almighty ordered him to; not only him but this is how all prophets were decreed to speak on behalf of religion. For example, when Moses (PBUH) and Harun (PBUH), began their journey to reach pharaoh, Allah Almighty told them “Fa kuula lahuu kaulan leyyinen leal-lehu yatadhakkaru eu yahsha”, “And speak to him with gentle speech that perhaps he may be reminded or fear [ Allah ]”. The word “yatadhakkur” means, to remember the purpose of creation and his descent upon earth. Allah Almighty says to the Prophet (PBUH): “and if you had been rude [in speech] and harsh in heart, they would have disbanded from about you” surah Ali ‘Imran, verse 159. But in this surah, Allah Almighty begins his statement by “kul ya eyyuhe’lkafirun”, this might seem contradictory with the manner of calling of the Prophet (PBUH), but still Allah Almighty says: “I decree to you now, to turn with these words to those who disbelieve”. Undoubtedly that in certain moments when some behavior or action needs to stop, a sharper language is required. Let me also say that someone who doesn’t know the genesis of a verse or surah, should not speak on behalf of it. It’s not enough to simply read the verse and proclaim that it refers to this or that; each verse has a reason why it descended, its circumstances and without knowing this, without knowing the words used in the verses and what meaning they behold, without knowing the character of the person to which the verse descended to, we cannot come to conclusions regarding the Qur’an. Do you know when this surah has descended? Many times I have heard people interpret this chapter in rude language just because Allah Almighty says “Kul ya eyyuhe’l-kafirun” “Say: “O disbelievers” and people tend to say “you have your faith and we have ours”, but this is not how the story goes. I will now tell you the background of the occurrence: a group of leaders in Mecca, led by Utbah ibn Rabi’ah, Walid Ibn al-Mughirah, enemies of the Prophet (PBUH), gathered and went to the Prophet (PBUH) and told him “we have come to propose you something. We suggest that you come to visit us sometimes and exalt our gods, and in exchange we will visit you and exalt your God, so we walk on this path together”. Can you guess what this is called in our world today? Today this is known as religious pluralism. In the west people say, what does it matter, the Christians believes their god, the Jews believe their god, the Buddhists believe their god”. From the perspective of society, as Muslims, we respect Christians and Catholics, and respect their holidays, however the path that leads to God is one, and that is Islam. In society we can respect everyone, and this is what the Qur’an teaches us, but religious pluralism is not accepted by us as something that considers all these paths leading to truth; each person has the right to believe as he or she wishes to, but this differs from the aspect of acquainting or meeting God. According to Muslims, Islam is the only religion accepted by God. That’s why the Prophet (PBUH) did not accept this proposal of dual belief.
Can you guess when did this first happen? It was during the Roman Empire that they accepted Christianity through the congress of Nicaea or Iznik (year 325), while the Constantine king had accepted Christianity in the year 315 (they were pagans before that). It was during that time that Christianity lingered and entered the empire, but nobody speaks about the rules that the Roman empire set on Christianity. This deal was set mainly because the Roman empire was a western empire, for example Jesus was born in the summer, while Christmas is celebrated in the winter (if Maryam eat figs when she gave birth to Jesus, she surely ate figs in the summer not winter); this compromise was achieved because winter holidays are holidays of Europe (the west). This why several pagan European elements have entered Christianity. The Prophet (PBUH) said “No, from the religious point of view, we have our religion and you can keep yours” and Al-Kafirun Surah is one chapter that speaks about this; its trying to tell us that from the aspect of approaching God, there is one religion and this is Islam; we don’t mix this with anything else, such as an alternative belief and we are not tolerant on this.
Lately I hear people use the term religious tolerance. This term is foreign to us, despite that nowadays we have mixed all terms, this has become a perplex situation that is causing us damage. What do we understand by this term religious tolerance? Tolerance means to erase your principles and insert someone else’s principles; and we cannot do this. We can have understanding for others; every person can choose to live according to their own will, but from a religious point of view we cannot consider someone else’s principles valid in acquainting or approaching God. That’s why I said this in the beginning as well, we need to be prudent with God, even when we speak about a single verse, hadeeth, we need to know the genesis and its root. Lately, especially on social media, we have a lot of imams who are committing to a wrongdoing by interpreting Islam and the Qur’an without a thorough understanding of it; I don’t know how they dare do this. For instance, how can you accuse Fakir (from religious point of view), of being wrong in a conflict with a friend of mine, when you don’t know either of us, or you don’t know our morals, our actions. This accusation is firstly gossip, even if you are right, and if you happen to be wrong in your accusation then this is iftira / fitna / slander. Why should we commit to this sin? The same happens when we speak on behalf of the Qur’an, the hadeeth and so forth without a thorough comprehension if it. In the case of the descent of Al-Kafirun surah, the people of Mecca asked the Prophet (PBUH) to walk together on the path of dual belief. During this time our dear Prophet (PBUH) had another challenge laid before him. The first challenge was, in the name of tolerance to accept several of their religious principles and not cause much disturbances (this method is widely used by people in general). There are situations in which we can have understanding for others, but then there are situations to which we cannot show understanding for others.
I will give you an example. Lets say that we are sitting in a place where alcohol is served, (despite that from the jurisdictional aspect this is not allowed for us to sit in places where alcohol is served), but because of our understanding of others, we don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable and when we don’t raise a glass with them, those who drink turn to us and say: “why don’t you stop this nonsense, you are so old fashioned, come and drink along”. Several days ago, I saw a picture in which some children were praying at school and someone commented: school is an institute for learning, not praying in class; and I agree with this. In other words, everything that we do on behalf of religion merely for the purpose of being noticed by others, is not right. But on the same school, if these students were to consume alcohol, others would claim that then this is okay. It is our duty to tell others, consumption of alcohol is haram / forbidden. And you are being tolerant by not saying this even if the other person insists by saying “come on raise your glass with us”. There are elements and situations we can have understanding for and other circumstances which we cannot have understanding for, especially on the topic of religion.
The above-mentioned situation between the unbelievers of Mecca and the Prophet (PBUH) was the reason Al-Kafirun surah has descended. In the meantime, the same people came to the Prophet (PBUH) to propose something else, they said: “let us offer you something. since you are surely doing this to reach some fame, to become known among our people. Then, let us give you as much wealth as you want, but under the condition that you abandon your religion, we will vote for you as leader of Mecca, but leave your religion behind, we will offer you our most beautiful woman under the condition that you abandon your religion”. The Prophet (PBUH) replied: “even if you inserted the sun on my right shoulder, and the moon on my left, I would never withdraw from my calling, to which I am called upon”. You think this was a coincidence? This challenge is something the devil puts on our way every day; it is something we face on daily basis. Wealth is something to bow down to as a sign to distance ourselves from Allah Almighty, sometimes social status is the reason we distance ourselves from Allah Almighty, and the third example of distancing ourselves from Allah Almighty is through lust (the Prophet was a man, they sought to bring him the most beautiful woman, in this case he was a man, but if it was a woman in question, they would try to present the most handsome man to her). These two cases that are closely correlated to the Al-Kafirun surah, they represent our challenge in our everyday life. Maybe some people are not very religious, we cant force anyone into religion, but we cant accept a statement like “it doesn’t matter, he can pray to his god, and we will pray to ours”; this is not something that has a righteous establishment. Maybe some desire to earn a lot of money, seek a high social status in society and seek to please their lust, and this is something people have a right to, but not to do it on behalf of religion or to say that this is what religion seeks from me, then this here is a profound issue. Undoubtedly, we cannot fulfill our personal satisfactions by justifying ourselves and claiming that this is what religion wants from us. As a simple man, our Prophet (PBUH) could have agreed to the above agreement the people of Mecca offered: sometimes I would pray to your god and sometimes you would pray to mine; but he didn’t. Several principles that deal with God, are slightly different. For example, the month of Mawlid is the month the Prophet (PBUH) was born and we should remember him, his deeds and his morality in society. If we leave the Prophet (PBUH) to belong to history, then he wouldn’t have been the last prophet; if he were to contain the historical dimension only, Allah Almighty wouldn’t have said: “I don’t leave any nation without a prophet”. Meaning that our prophet is not only a historical figure. The entailment of history by the Prophet (PBUH) is what makes him a universal persona. The tradition, actions, sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) grow into a constitutive tradition that continues till the Day of Judgement. Therefore, he is important to us and we are considerate of his arrival on this world. Many times, people who don’t support the manifestations of events from his life, say that he was just a man like us. Undoubtedly that from a biological point of view, he is a man just like us (I have said this before but I will repeat it again), yet he is not simply a man from the philosophical aspect of humans, he is not like everyone else. One of our poets has said it right, “He is a man, but unlike the other men, he is like a pearl amid other rocks”. The pearl is a rock too, but it is much more worthy than other rocks. This is a very significant moment to note, and that’s why on the 12th evening of Rabi al-Awwal (the Prophet (PBUH) was born on the dawn of the 12th day of Rabi al-Awwal), we manifest him with remembrance, from birth till his walk hither the Truth. With the new system, daytime enters with sunrise since our calendar is according to the sun, and according to the sun the daylight enters in the morning, whereas with the Islamic calendar, time is calculated according to the moon, and the day begins with the sunset; that’s why we say “the evening”, but we refer to the day of birth of the Prophet (PBUH), which is the 12th Rebiul Awwal.
Religion cannot stand without specific religious manifestations. For example, namaz of jumu’ah or Friday prayer is a religious manifestation; it is obligatory for all people, it is an individual obligation. Someone might say why should I go to the mosque and pray, when I can pray Friday prayer at home, then why should the imam give a lecture on Friday prayer? Why should he pray out loud; isn’t this a religious manifestation praying out loud? We can pray ourselves out loud, but when an imam prays out loud then this is considered a manifestation. This is how religion is standing strong and solid; through manifestations. Yet the Qur’an has only emphasized on the primary manifestations. For example, during a marriage it is primary to get married, but during this process people have weddings, organize gatherings which show us that these manifestations are connotations of joy and sharing happiness, otherwise marriage would not differ from death. Resultantly mawlid is an event, it is the birth of the Prophet (PBUH). We might cherish this in ourselves, but when there is a solemn manifestation, then in the minds of people it is recognized as something we ought to pay attention to. We give importance to this event, just like we give importance to other events that happen to our life.
Thank you!