Khutba on the Devolution of Christianity
الحمد لله، الحمد لله الذي أرسل جميع الرسل بالدين القويم، وأمر الإنسان أن يؤمنوا بهم وما هو مبني على الحق المبين، نحمده تعالى ونستعينه، ونشكره تعالى ونستغفره ونستغيثه، نعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا، من يهد الله فهو المهتد ومن يضلل فلن تجد له وليا مرشدا، ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، له الملك و له الحمد، يحيي ويميت، بيده الخير، وهو على كل شيء قدير، ونشهد أن سيدنا و مولانا محمداً عبده ورسوله، وحبيبه وصفيه، بلغ الرسالة وأدى الأمانة ونصح الأمة، النبي الأمي الذي أرسله الله بالهدى والدين الحق، بشيرا ونذيرا بين يدي الساعة، صلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى آله وأصحابه ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.
أما بعد! فيا عباد الله اتقوا الله حق تقاته ولا تموتن إلا وأنتم مسلمون. يأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله وقولوا قولا سديدا يصلح لكم أعمالكم ويغفر لكم ذنوبكم. ومن يطع الله ورسوله فقد فاز فوزا عظيما. اتقوا الله فيما أمر وانتهوا عما نها عنه وزجر.
Today is a day that is known by Christians as Good Friday, a day they commemorate the death and crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, a belief that has become a central pillar of their religion. Indeed, much of their identity and much of their theology is predicated on this event having taken place, Jesus having died to wipe away the sins of mankind: the doctrine of atonement.
The only problem is that none of this took place – a large part of their belief system is based around an event that never happened. Allah says in surat an-Nisa,
وَقَوْلِهِمْ إِنَّا قَتَلْنَا ٱلْمَسِيحَ عِيسَى ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ رَسُولَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَـٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمْ وَإِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱخْتَلَفُواْ فِيهِ لَفِي شَكٍّ مِّنْهُ مَا لَهُمْ بِهِ مِنْ عِلْمٍ إِلاَّ ٱتِّبَاعَ ٱلظَّنِّ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ يَقِيناً
the translation of which is, “And their saying, ‘We killed the Messiah, ‘Isa son of Maryam, Messenger of Allah.’ They did not kill him and they did not crucify him but it was made to seem so to them. Those who argue about him are in doubt about it. They have no real knowledge of it, just conjecture. But they certainly did not kill him.” The crucifixion of Sayyidina Isa never took place, rather another man was crucified in his place and Sayyidina Isa was taken up to his Lord. Allah says,
بَل رَّفَعَهُ ٱللَّهُ إِلَيْهِ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَزِيزاً حَكِيماً
the translation of which is, “Allah raised him up to Himself. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.” There are two versions of the story that are reported in the books of Tafsir. One, on the authority of Ibn Abbas, narrates that Isa gathered together his twelve main disciples and asked which of them would like to take on his form and be killed in his stead in exchange for being guaranteed a place beside Sayyidina Isa in the next world, and one of the youngest among them stood up and said, ‘I will do it’, but Isa told him to sit. Then he asked again and again the same young man stood up, so Isa again told him to sit. Then he asked a third time and again the same young man stood up, so Isa accepted his offer and the man was made to appear like him. Then Isa was taken up to the heavens and the Roman soldiers arrived and took the one who looked like him and killed him and crucified him.
The other narrates that Isa entered a house and one of the men that was sent to apprehend entered behind him. Then Isa was taken up by his Lord through the roof opening and only the man was left inside. Then, when the rest of the soldiers came, all they found in the house was their man who had been made by Allah to seem like Isa. So they were confused as to his identity, with some saying, ‘Maybe he is our man’ and others saying, ‘Maybe he is Isa’. But, in the end, they killed him on the basis that he was Isa.
And this caused the early Christians to split into two distinct groups, those who believed Isa had been killed and those who knew that he had not been. This second group was known as the Docetics. They were the only ones whose doctrine was built on solid ground, the ones about whom Allah says,
وَلَتَجِدَنَّ أَقْرَبَهُمْ مَوَدَّةً لِلَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّا نَصَارَى
the translation of which is, “You will find the people with most affection for those who believe to be those who say, ‘We are Christians.’” And about whom He says,
وَإِذَا سَمِعُوا مَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَى الرَّسُولِ تَرَى أَعْيُنَهُمْ تَفِيضُ مِنَ الدَّمْعِ مِمَّا عَرَفُوا مِنَ الْحَقِّ
the translation of which is, “When they listen to what has been sent down to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflowing with tears because of what they recognise of the truth.” And that is because their belief was on the basis of knowledge and truth, not on the basis of conjecture and lack of evidence. None of the early teachers of Christianity actually saw the crucifixion – those who taught this doctrine based their teachings on hearsay and unreliable secondhand testimony and that is no basis to form a belief about anything. Belief must always be on the basis of certainty. Ibn ‘Ashir says in his famous didactic poem, al-Murshid al-Muin,
أول واجب على من كُلِّفا ممكَّنا من نظر أن يعرفا
اللهَ والرسل بالصفات مما نصب عليه الآيات
“The first obligation on those who are responsible
and capable of reflection is to know
Allah and the Messengers by their attributes
for which signs have been placed (in existence).”
The only things we believe in, the only things that can be pillars of our faith, are those things for which there is indisputable proof, what is known as dalilun qat’i by Muslim jurists. As soon as you start to give equal weight to what is only dhanni, only conjectural, then the whole bedrock of your faith is undermined, and you open the door to further equally conjectural beliefs being brought in, for you no longer have a sound basis for rejecting them.
This first acceptance as fact of something that was merely conjecture, this first acceptance by some of the early Christians that Isa had indeed been crucified, opened the door for Constantine to reinvent Christianity and make it palatable to the Roman masses, incorporating into it many of the rites and beliefs of Mithraism, a religion that was popular amongst the people at the time. These beliefs included those of transmogrification – imbibing wine and bread at communion in the belief that they are transformed by the ceremony into the blood and flesh of Christ, thereby granting spiritual succour – the resurrection, the trinity, his being born on the 25th December, the belief that a person’s redemption can be granted through a third party and so on. This reinvented Christianity was the version that achieved prominence and other Christians were declared heretics and fought and persecuted until they were mostly wiped out.
The dominant culture of the time was prepared to accept Christianity, but only after it had moulded it into its image and adapted it to its culture and values. And in doing so, it ceased to be Christianity – it was no longer a religion based on truth, based on the Book, based on the teachings of Sayyidina Isa, but instead became something built on dhann and hawa, conjecture and opinion, no longer something built on substance but only on appearance, maa shubbiha lahum – what had been made to seem to them. It is a most superficial religion, one with no depth, no body of laws, no complete comprehensive guide of how to live one’s life, just general vague principles. And it all started off with this stubborn insistence that Isa was crucified.
He was not. Do not be taken in by their myths. The truth is clearly stated by Allah: wa maa qataluhu and maa salabuuhu – They did not kill him nor did they crucify him. We ask Allah to guide the Christians back to the truth, and enable them to see beyond the superficial, beyond what seemed to be the case to what really was the case. We ask that He guide them to Islam and protect us from being taken in by them or from considered their beliefs and their approach to have any validity, as the Perennialists have done.
إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِندَ اللهِ الْاِسْلَامُ
“The only deen with Allah is Islam.”
أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم ولسائر المسلمين من كل ذنب فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرَّحيم.
الحمد لله الحمد لله رب العالمين، وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله، صلى الله وسلم وبارك عليه وعلى آله وصحبه، والتابعين وتابعي التابعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.
أما بعد! فيأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله ما استطعتم واسمعوا وأطيعوا وأنفقوا خيرا لأنفسكم. يا عباد الله أوصيكم وإياي بتقوى الله وطاعته وأحذركم وإياي عن معصيته ومخالفته. قال الله تعالى في كتابه العزيز وَلَن تَرْضَى عَنكَ الْيَهُودُ وَلَا النَّصَارَى حَتَّى تَتَّبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ
Allah says in His mighty Book, the translation of which is, “The Jews and Christians will never be pleased with you until you follow their way.” And the Messenger of Allah said,
لَتَتّبِعُنّ سَنَنَ الّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ. شِبْراً بِشِبْرٍ، وَذِرَاعاً بِذِرَاعٍ. حَتّىَ لَوْ دَخَلُوا فِي جُحْرِ ضَبٍّ لاَتّبَعْتُمُوهُمْ
“You will follow the ways of those before you, inch by inch and foot by foot, so closely that even were they to leap into a lizard hole, you would follow them.” This is a warning that the Messenger of Allah delivered to his Companions, and by extension us, and it is very important that we pay heed to it. And we should know that following them does not just mean adopting their ways, but making the same mistakes that they did. And one of the first and most damaging mistakes that Christianity made was integration. The dominant culture of the time succeeded in subsuming Christianity and changing it into a new religion completely removed from its original form by getting it to integrate and fall in line with the cultural values of their society, by getting it to discard what did not fit and keep only those practices and beliefs that were compatible. And now modern secular society wants the same thing of Islam and the Muslims, they want us to integrate and adopt their values. They want us to discard practices they see as medieval and barbaric, such as hadd punishments or polygamy, and accept and normalise practices that are totally forbidden such as usury and homosexuality. They want us to cease to view laws as laws but rather as guiding principles, and see the Book of Allah not as a book of practical guidance but a book of moral tales. They want us to follow the same path as the Christians before, and some modern groups of so-called Muslims have already done so.
But they will not find it so easy with us. We are not a people so easily disposed to accept falsehood. Our deen is not based on speculation, it is based on truth. Our intellects are still functioning – they are still capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood, of being able to see beyond the veneer to what lies beneath. We still have a direct link to our Lord through His unadulterated Words and a direct link to our Messenger through his glorious sunna, as embodied by the great men of Allah and right-acting ulama who still live amongst us.
That is why you will not find us so easily duped by the great illusion of the present age, the illusion which has shaped the dominant religion and belief-system of modern man, that of electronic and paper money with its priests, the bankers and economists, and its temples, the banks and stock-exchanges. Unlike the Christians, we are not predisposed to acceptance of ‘appearance’ and falsehood, we are predisposed to acceptance of truth. And it is only with the truth that mankind will have success, falsehood, as Allah says, is bound to collapse, implode and fade away to nothing. We ask Allah to always make us people of truth, people who recognise truth and reject falsehood; people whose faith and identity is built on substance and not superficial appearance.
اللهم أرنا الحق حقا وارزقنا اتباعه وأرنا الباطل باطلا وارزقنا اجتنابه
“O Allah, show us the truth as true and grant us the capacity to follow it, and show us falsehood as false and grant us the capacity to avoid it.”
إِنَّ اللهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ، يَا أَيُهَا الذِينَ آمَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسْلِيماً.
اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ. وَارْضَ اللَّهُمَّ عَنِ الْخُلَفَاءِ الرَّاشِدِينَ أَبِي بَكْرٍ وَعُمَرَ وَعُثْمَانَ وَعَلِيٍّ، وعن أم المومنين عائشة التي أمرنا الله في سورة النور أن ندافع عنها، وَعَنْ سَائِرِ الصَّحَابَةِ أَجْمَعِينَ، خُصُوصاً اِلأَنْصَارَ مِنْهُمْ وَالمُهَاجِرِينَ، وَعَنِ التَّابِعِينَ وَتَابِعِي التَّابِعِينَ وَمَنْ تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ.
اللَّهُمَّ اهْدِ وُلَاةَ أُمُورِ المُسْلِمِينَ لِمَا يُرْضِيكَ وَلِاتِّبَاعِ سُنَّةِ نَبِيِّكَ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَهُمْ عَلَى الصِّرَاطِ المُسْتَقِيمِ، وَأَصْلِحْهُمْ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ.
اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى شَيْخِنَا، وَعَلَى أَمِيرِنَا، وَعَلَى جَمِيعِ أُمَرَاءِ وَزُعَمَاءِ المُسْلِمِينَ.
اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى المُسْلِمِينَ فِي هَذِهِ المَدِينَةِ، وَوَفِّقْهُمْ لِمَا تُحِبُّهُ وَتَرْضَاهُ يَا أَكْرَمَ الأَكْرَمِينَ.
اللَّهُمَّ أَعِزَّ الإِسْلَامَ وَالمُسِْلمِينَ، وَاخْذُلِ الْكُفْرَ وَالْكَافِرِينَ، وَانْصُرِ المُجَاهِدِينَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللهِ. وَاجْعَلْ كَلِمََتَكَ هِيَ العُلْيَا وَكَلِمَةَ الْكُفْرِ هِيَ السُّفْلَى.
رَبَّنَا ءَاتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقَِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ.
إِنَّ اللهَ يَامُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى، وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ، يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَّكَّرُونَ، وَلَذِكْرُ اللهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ. وَقُومُواْ إِلَى صَلاتِكُمْ يَرْحَمُكُمُ اللهُ.