Radical Middle Way Podcast launched with lectures from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Habib Ali and others

What are the reasons for this extremism? Lack of knowledge and understanding? Lack of proper thinking? Muslims were a thinking nation, and that’s why they were superior in education and technology. Nowadays, Muslims simply work. We have produced many workers, but very few thinkers. Another reason is the feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. When people are bullied, they are insecure. Sometimes they become the bully themselves.

Brother and sisters, the world today is living in an immense amount of anxiety and some of it is directed towards us. The question that is being put to us, is who are we, what do we want? What are we going to do? And our answer to that question is that we’re Muslims. And we have to ask ourselves then, what is Islam? Islam is a state of resignation towards your Lord. It’s a state of submission towards Allahu subhanahu wa ta’ala. The Qur’an tells us that Allah calls or invites to the abode of peace. The word peace itself, al-Salam, is one of the names of Allah. The greeting that we have amongst ourselves is peace. So this is a question that we have to ask ourselves, is how can we introduce a culture of peace?

We have people that are simply safeeh, and I don’t care how sincere they are. There are plenty of sincere people out there but we have people who are fools. They are foolish people. There are people that read things and take them literally. You have naqal and you have ’aqal. This is what Shaykh Abdallah was talking about. You have naqal and you have ’aqal… unfortunately we have some naqal-heads out there…

Do not be afraid in this country. You are a part of it. Feel that you have a responsibility towards improving it and remedying its ailments. If you see good, follow it through, and if you see wrong, be the first to reject it. If someone wants to do harm to the country in the name of Islam, we are the first to reject him. – Habib Ali al-Jifri. Delivered on 16th December 2005 at Kensington Town Hall, London.

This arbitrary brutality that has now come to the streets of this city and has caused such despair and confusion and division and battlement amongst Muslims and such joy and celebration amongst those who really wish we weren’t here at all. This has to stop. And we should have a policy of zero tolerance of those who try to fudge the issues, and say, well in some places its all right, but here it isn’t, because this is a moral absolute. The practices is qabeeh, it is ugly, and Allah is Jamil yahibbu al-Jimal. He is beautiful and He loves beauty.

One of the definitions of Islam is that it is the “Middle Way” because it is a religion of peace and peace is only at the centre of things and never at the extremes. There are many ways of understanding the concept of the Middle Way. The first one I want to deal with relates to two different forms of excess: one is fanaticism, violence and terrorism, and the second is consumerism. Both are forms of self indulgence.

Another meaning of Radical Middle Way is naturally entailed, which is – to affect great and revolutionary change in something – and how much is this world in need of revolutionary change; to bring it out of self-worship and back to the worship of God again?

We must learn to avoid a bunker mentality. When you are under assault, you are likely to become like your opponent. If he is intolerant, you are likely to turn intolerant. When his argumentation, George Bush’s argumentation turns narrow, you are likely to turn narrow, into a confrontational mode and stance. We must avoid even under the suspicion under which we live, the discrimination which is exercised against us, we must avoid falling in to the trap of developing a victim’s mentality and a bunker mentality when we become narrow and constricted. Because our chance, and this chance is still there, lies in convincing our environment that we have something to offer, which may be the saving of the civilisation.

Muslims do not rebel, they try to straighten the things. The Prophet (saw) said that the believer is simple and noble. The one who is a transgressor has no nobility. ’Rebel’ for the Muslim means he is baseless, false, contrived and downright dishonest. With rebellion you become angry. And the Prophet (saw) said that no one becomes angry without drawing closer to the brink of hell. You rationalise things that are not right. You will do stupid things and do things that are wrong. Prophet (saw) asked of his sahaba, ’Who do you consider the strongest person from among you?’ and they answered, ’The one that cannot be defeated.’ The Prophet (saw) said, ’No, it is the one who controls himself when he is angry.’