Author: AlbanFejza

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Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. As you might remember, in one of the Friday sermons, I talked about what the appropriate age of marriage for each man should be to a corresponding age of the woman, supposing that they are equal in every other aspect. This promotes fairness between the parties, but it reduces the possibilities of whom can marry whom, which is a bad thing, because then much less people would be married, because they would expect only the appropriate age. God provides a solution for this in the Quran, by mentioning dowry. One of the reasons for the dowry, is to make it possible to marry across all legal ages, simply by adjusting the dowry amount to such a high or low level which would be acceptable to the party which gains less from that marriage. So, the dowry traditionally was a substantial financial amount which the groom would give to the family of the bride or the bride, as consolation for their family separation, and they would adjust it in accordance with what the difference between the age of marriage was, until the party which did not win as much from that marriage got satisfied, and this adjustment would be quite large. So, the dowry increases the possibilities of marriage, which helps promote marriage in a variety of different circumstances without worrying that someone is going to be taken advantage of. And the variation between one dowry to another dowry would be maybe to a hundred times larger or smaller, if not more, in cases where it was clear that one party was not as good as the other party, for whatever reason, in rare circumstances. The dowry would be negotiated with the guardian of the woman.

According to the Quran, women are always under the guardianship of someone else. If they don’t think that they are under the guardianship of someone else, that’s because they are under the guardianship of the state, even if they don’t know it. They would be savaged either by animals or be abused by other men, in the past, if some other man did not protect them, if they were not under the guardianship of someone. Today, they would be abused by other men, if they were not under the guardianship of another man or under the guardianship of the state. Whenever states fail in any region, usually during wars, the women always end up being abused and unprotected. So, for most educated women today, at least for those who are older than let’s say 25 years old, the state is their guardian. And for a man to marry a woman, he must seek the permission of her guardian – whichever guardian applies, either the state, or her father, or her adult brother).

So, if the woman is independent, (especially financially or residentially independent), which is in most cases, you can ask the permission of the state to marry her. And this simply means that you will do the marriage in the official state offices, a state registered marriage. Basically, you have to register the marriage in the appropriate state office, and if the state registers it, they automatically gave you permission to marry her. They officiate the marriage; they do the marriage.

Now, because the dowry is a financial agreement between the potential husband and the guardian of the potential bride, in cases when the state is the guardian, the dowry is actually already paid through taxes, through which the financial and legal safety of the women is guaranteed, and even potential protection by state authorities in extreme cases. If anything happens to her, she has the support of the state to guarantee her safety, alimony, and her rights. So, for independent women, this makes the dowry kind of obsolete, or already paid. In this case, the dowry should be just a symbolic gesture, of something which a man gives to a woman, to symbolize their marriage, maybe a ring, or bracelet, or a necklace, or things like that, but not necessarily anything financially substantial.

Now, if the woman is still under the guardianship of another man (like a very young woman who still relies financially and residentially on her father, for example), in that case the dowry may  be discussed between them. However, discussing the dowry is actually not mandatory in the Quran. The dowry is mandatory, but discussing the dowry is not mandatory. So, what happens, if a couple wish to get married, and they never discuss the dowry. Well, if they get married in state official marriages (registering their marriage with the state), in that case it is automatically implied that that was the dowry, and the dowry has been fulfilled, through the state. Now, there are cases when the people might not register a marriage for whatever reason, which is their right, if both parties agree, in that case a financial dowry applies, even if they did not discuss it. These days, many girls or families of girls would rather say “No”, than ask for a dowry, in a culture where money is exchanged only for evil deeds of this nature, and it is understandable if none of the parties never wish to bring this topic up, and especially because this topic these days would be discussed with the woman herself, having become sufficiently educated in school to have received her father’s implicit agreement that she can make her own decisions, it will simply ruin the romance, if you discuss it with her, and not bring any substantial benefits to the situation. And I can understand all the women of today, if they would rather say “No”, than ask for a dowry. So, let me help all the young men of today with this unromantic situation. Let me “take a bullet” on your behalf, by telling you what is the amount of dowry which you should give her, even if you never talked about it, even if she never requested it, you still have to give it to her, if you did not register the marriage with the state.

So, let’s calculate it.  Before we calculate it, let show you where I base my calculation on. In verse 28:27, God informs us how big the dowry was which Moses gave for his wife. And it is interesting that it is expressed in “years of labor”. And economists know that money is just a representation of the value of labor. It has no value on its own. It’s just a piece of paper which you can not eat, and the value of money is not comparable across different times and places. But, the value of labor is comparable across times, which means that we can take what Moses gave, and still use it for today, without any need to adjust for inflation, and purchasing power parity and things like that. And of course, because he was Moses, he agreed to a fair amount. But, we will have to make adjustments to apply it to our times. So, according to verse 28:27, Moses agreed to work for the dowry for 8 years. However, Moses lived 120 years, and we today live 70 years, so let’s adjust it. 8 times 70 divided by 120, equals to 4.6 years. We also need to make another adjustment. Moses in that story had free housing and basic living expenses from his employer, while men today don’t get free housing and basic living expenses from their employer.  Today, usually, only half of your income is left after you pay for housing and basic living expenses, so we should reduce those years by half. So, 4.6 years divided by 2 is 2.3 years. So, if you did not register the marriage with the state, and you did not discuss the dowry with her, then you are in debt to your wife equal to working for 2.3 years of your net income, and giving all that money to her or her family. This is the starting point, and then you make the adjustments from that. For example, if she is more than let’s say seven years younger than she should be for you, double that amount, which is 4.6 years of your net income. If she is more than about seven years older than she should be for you, half of that amount, which is 1.2 years of your net income. If she is a divorced woman, (but of the appropriate age for you), then half of that amount, which 1.2 years of your net income. If she has children from a previous marriage, half of that previous amount, which is about 7 months of your net income. If she is older, divorced, and with children from a previous marriage, that is half of the half of the half, which is about 3 months of your net income. If you yourself are currently already in a marriage and with children, quadruple that, which is about 10 years of your income. This should prohibit polygamy almost always. If a divorced woman with children wants a state registered marriage, she actually got a dowry twice as big as she deserved, in which case she should give back part of the dowry, to adjust it back to the fair level. Anyway, all of these are approximations, not laws.

Oh, and by the way, people have the right to know how much debt you have, before you get married, and it is better to tell them, even before they ask you. If you don’t have debt, you don’t need to say anything, but if you have substantial debt and you don’t say anything, then your partner has the right to consider it a manipulation, because anyone can pretend to be reach with debt. So many young women are fooled today by men with Ferraris, who actually have negative wealth, who have more debt than wealth, and then once they get married, the woman realizes that she will have to work for the rest of her life to help her husband pay his debt. That’s not fair. She should have known in what kind of trouble she was getting into, and vice-versa. Someone might say, but that’s my debt. Well, while you pay back that debt, that will disable you from sharing the expenses with your partner, and indirectly it also becomes their debt.
But anyway, back to the dowry. So, the purpose of the dowry is not to complicate marriage. It is to enable marriage in all kinds of circumstances and still keep it fair. One of the additional benefits of the dowry is that because it is a substantial amount, a man would never propose marriage, unless he was really serious. A lot of girls today will reject a boy, simply because they have no guarantee that he really means it, because so many men will tease girls and insinuate such a situation, without even having decided themselves. So, because she can not be sure whether he really means it, she would rather say “No”, then get disappointed later. However, if she knows for sure that every submitter who proposes to her is going to guarantee his proposal financially, “put his money where his mouth is”, or guarantee his proposal in the legal state offices, then she will know that he is serious. And especially with young couples, in most cases, the dowry for a woman means that the man gives her everything he has. He must be serious.

If the woman wants both a financial dowry, and a state registered marriage, that is unfair to the man, because she is getting double dowry. And if the man wants to get married, and does not give her the appropriate financial dowry, neither does he want to register the marriage with the state, then he is being unfair to the woman. The only way to keep it fair and safe for both parties, is to either involve the state, or use an appropriate financial dowry as a guarantee for the woman. And by the way, she has the right to choose whether she wants state guarantee for her marriage, or a financial guarantee for her marriage. It should not matter to the man, if he is honest.

At the same time, let me remind you that, in today’s circumstances, where all financial aspects are intertwined, where you never really know who has what for sure, because of state interference, then in most cases the financial dowry is just going to complicate things, because no amount of finances can really make it fair, when ultimately the state will interfere with what can happen even after marriage. So, the most reliable option in democratic states is to just register the marriage with the state, and that is the dowry. If the man still wants to give a nice gift to his wife or potential wife, that’s voluntary, just like Moses worked for 10 years, even though he had agreed for 8 years.  And a state registered marriage is win-win situation for all parties. So, don’t overthink this issue, because the challenges after marriage are bigger than the challenges before marriage. So, just make sure that you are willing to keep the marriage, and be a good and fair person during the marriage. You don’t need to be exceptional. Save your exceptionality for God. Just be normal and fair, and make reasonable efforts to continuously deserve the marriage. It’s a privilege, not a right, and you should enter it with lifelong intentions. Think of yourself being old. Would you still befriend that person, if he or she was 70 years old? Would you still have a friendly enjoyable conversation with them, and help each other, especially in bad situations? This should help you decide, and the most important thing is to find someone who will not divert you away from the cause of God, but will actually support you and encourage you in the cause of God. The other things are details.

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God. I’ve been working on a video clarification about Marriage and Divorce for quite some time now, and for some time I also thought that I might deal with the topic of “Dating” in that video, but because I could not explain this topic without including my personal opinions, I had to remove it from there, but it’s an important topic anyway as a Friday Sermon, especially for the youngsters of today. So, let me get to the point. To help marriages or engagements and decrease the chances of divorce or breaking up the engagement, dating is allowed before marriage or engagement, but only what I call “Dating for marriage”. What I mean by this is that marriage has already been mentioned or discussed before going on that first date, even though no decision for marriage was made. Something like, “We would very likely be good marriage partners, but just to be on the safe side, how about we meet for lunch or dinner next week, or something like that?” And if the idea and the arrangement for such a meeting comes from a third party, it will count as charity for them. But anyway, if you don’t know what you are meeting for, don’t go, and this is true for all kinds of meetings. I don’t like it when people call me and they don’t tell me what for. “Can you come here, I would like to talk to you about something?” No, no. First you tell me what you want to talk about, and then I’ll decide if it is worth coming there. Because anyone invited on a date has the right to know why he or she is being invited. And dating without having mentioned marriage already is a pointless dating. And also if you mention marriage before the first date, the unrighteous women will conclude that you are too desperate for mentioning the word “marriage” so early, and refuse, which is a good thing, while the more righteous women will give you a chance, if they think that there are reasonable chances. Also, don’t be so direct that it makes it awkward, but find a way to let her know that the ultimate purpose is possible marriage, and not something else.

And by the way, the one who makes the invitation always pays. This is true for any kind of meeting, not just dating. If the man is going to make the invitation, which is in most of the cases, then he should pay. Your idea, you pay. Or maybe a man or a woman are going somewhere anyway, and the other person invites them for an additional journey where they can meet, then the inviter pays for that additional part. Now, maybe a man is already sure that he wants to marry a woman, so he already tells her that he wants to marry her, but she can not decide, and she wants to meet a few more times to help her with her decision; in that case, she pays. She needs those meetings for the decision, not him. So whomever invites or recommends a date is the one who pays. And this payment will count as charity to atone for the sin of inviting someone to a date.  By the way, dating, when done correctly, is not a sin, but inviting someone to a date is a very small sin, but you pay for that sin, you atone for it, as soon as you give them coffee, or lunch, or dinner, or something similar. The charity during dating overcomes the sin of the invitation for a date. And from verse 31, in Sura 12, we can see that dating is not a sin, but the invitation for dating is a sin. Verse 31, in Sura 12 says:

When she heard of their gossip, she INVITED them, prepared for them a comfortable place, and gave each of them a knife. She then said to Joseph, “Enter their room.” When they saw him, they so admired him, that they cut their hands. They said, “Glory be to GOD, this is not a human being; this is an honorable angel.”

Now, Josef is not to blame for that meeting, and neither should the women who were invited be blamed for it, it was the woman who made the invitation who committed the sin. So, the invitation for a date is a sin, but you pay for that sin as soon as you give lunch or dinner or coffee, or whatever is appropriate in that date, and that counts as charity which overcomes the sin, and in some cases it surpasses the sin because good deeds are rewarded ten times, while bad deeds are punished only once.

And we can see also from the case of Moses how the invitation when combined with giving, it is overcome by the giving. Verse 28:23 says, “When Moses reached Midyan’s water, he found a crowd of people watering, and noticed two women waiting on the side. He said, “What is it that you need?” They said, “We are not able to water, until the crowd disperses, and our father is an old man.”

So he approached them, which is an unscheduled date, but he paid for it. The next verse says, “He watered for them”, which is a charity.

And by the way, the father of the girls, also being a righteous man, in the next verse, when he invited Moses to a meeting, he also covered it with payment. The next verse tells us that the father of the women invited Moses to pay him, but really, I think he was interested to meet him, but he guaranteed the invitation with charity. I am quite sure that he offered Moses a very nice lunch.

Oh by the way. Paying with your parent’s money when you are very young, that is irresponsible dating. If you need your parent’s money for a date, that is a sign that you also need your parents to chaperone you during that date.

And by the way, I love the culture of the Western Europe and U.S. in so many ways, but they are so bad in this issue. I can not count how many times I have been invited in their work parties, or similar work meetings, or things like that, and they told me, “Bring food with you.” Really? If I am going to bring my own food, I would rather invite people in my own party. And it’s not a matter of money. It’s a matter of principle. If I invite anyone to anything, I always pay. I very rarely invite to things other than organized religion, but when I invite, I pay. It’s a matter of principle, and I would expect all of us to behave in the same way. The person who is being invited should get everything for free, including travel, if that is a significant issue. So, the same applies to dates.

And now let me mention the most important rule of dating: No sex before marriage. That’s clear in the Quran. Also, dating must happen in a public place – in a restaurant or coffee shop or some kind of outdoors trip, or in town centers, or similar public spaces, but not in someone’s private basement, or something like that. And remember that the word privacy and darkness, and private house, are the same root word in the Quran, which means that you should not meet in nature after sunset, or in city spaces during the night without city lights, but it’s ok to meet in city circumstances during the night, if the city is lighted.

Also, let me tell you something as a statistician. According to one of implications of Central Limit Theorem, one of the rules of thumb is that 30 data are enough to get a rough idea about that whole variable. So, 30 dates are sufficient to get a rough idea about the person. You can do it with less, but if by the time you meet a person 30 times, you still don’t know whether he or she is the right person for you, you will probably never know. If more than 30 dates happened, and you still did not get married, someone is taking advantage of someone. Also, I would guess that one phone call online counts as one tenth a date, my guess, and a video chat online counts as one third a date, I guess.

And now, here is friendly advice: If you are about 90% sure as a man, or 80% sure as a woman, just take a chance, and decide for marriage. This life is short anyway. You will never be 100% sure. And these percentages will probably reverse after marriage. The man will be 80% sure that he made the right decision, while the woman will be 90% sure that she made the right decision, which is why I am suggesting a higher level of willingness for men, because they are more likely to change their mind after they decide, and lower percentages for women, because women have slightly less love in their heart compared to men beforehand, partly because part of their love is reserved for their children, but mostly because true men are built to lay down their life for their friends, if needed. In the Bible, in John 15:13, Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this: To lay down one’s life for one’s friend” And this rarely happens with men, and it is even more rare with women. You hear about men sacrificing themselves in wars and in different kinds of dangerous situations, and it comes from their deeper love, not from their strength, and women will generally sacrifice themselves only for their children. So, because women are never 100% sure (in situations where the man and the woman are equally attractive), if the woman says “OK” to the idea of marriage or dating, that means “Yes”. “No” means “No”, but “OK” means “Yes”. And women, feel free to say “OK”. Why embarrass yourself with a “Yes”, when you can just say “OK”. And the answer “I’ll think about it” should always be an acceptable answer, both for men and women. And by the way, both potential partners should always leave an open “escape door” for the other, if they choose to take it, without any negative consequences whatsoever, and without any pressure. Oh, by the way, bad women, when they realize that before marriage a man loves them more than they love him, they will use it against them and try to manipulate them and hold them down, which really only works for a short while, and because of the emotionally vulnerable situation, the man will not forget it, at least in his subconscious, and after marriage, if they get married, he will, out of nowhere, express disrespect for her when she least expects it, and she will not be able to understand why, and he might not know why, but it will happen. On the other hand, good women, when they realize that a man loves them more, they will compensate that small difference with slightly more respect towards him, and the man will remember this and respect her more after marriage.

And of course, during dating, proper dressing applies, just like during other times. I mean, both men and women, you should try to present the best version of yourself to encourage marriage, but within what the Quranic rules allow, and within what the circumstances of the date might call for.

One more thing. In the meantime, while you might have dated someone, with the clear purpose of marriage, you are still single. There are no such things as girlfriends or boyfriends for submitters. That status does not exist for believers. You are either single, engaged, or married. The other descriptions are not acceptable. You are not reserved for anyone, and no one is reserved for you, until the moment of marriage, and feel free to change your mind anytime until you consummate the marriage. So, don’t put any other relationship status in your social media, if you choose to put any. If you show any relationship status in your social media, it should be either “single”, “engaged” or “married”. You do not even need to tell people that you are divorced, unless you have kids, in which case, it is better to say that you are divorced to prevent people from thinking that you are an adulterer or adulteress. See, unlike the other sins where confessing them makes them better, the sexually related sins, which include divorce after consummating the marriage, they become bigger sins when you confess them, because they degrade the moral of the society, simply by hearing that the others have done it, which also entices the others to do it, and you are not only confessing about yourself, you are also confessing about the other person, which is an accusation, another sin, and a betrayal of someone who trusted you. So, confessing a sexually related sin or some kind of similar situation from your past will not free you from that sin. It will only add an additional sin.  Of course, if you get caught with proof for adultery, you should be punished, and accept it. So, if you made a mistake with any kind of these sins in the past, never tell your new husband or new wife, or your family, or your friends. It will only make the sin bigger. Of course, you should not lie, but just say that your past private life is your past private life, and you want to look towards the future, and that’s for God to judge.  And it is very important to repent, and never repeat it again.

Also, regarding the marriage proposals as they often do them in the western cultures sometime towards one of the last dates, that’s fine but that has no legal value. It’s not an engagement, it’s not a marriage. It is just a strong indication that the person will agree to marry when the time of marriage comes, but otherwise, it has no legal value, because it did not fulfill the marriage or engagement requirements, which are the witnesses, and the permission from guardians and so on. And you don’t need to take a knee. We kneel before God. Also, don’t embarrass people with public surprises. Don’t be a kid.

And in general, during dating, speak about things maturely. If you know how to be charming, and a person who is fun to be with, fine, but sincerity is the most important thing, and don’t forget why you are dating. The purpose should be marriage, or knowing the person well enough to feel comfortable to agree to marry them.

And finally, let me address the elephant in the room, verse 2:235 which is often used by people who are religiously against dating. The verse tells the men not to meet the women privately unless they have something righteous to discuss. However, dating as I presented it here does not go against this verse at all, because I proposed that dating should be held in public places, restaurants, coffee shops, and so on, and also the verse says, “unless you have something righteous to discuss”, and discussing marriage and things around it is a righteous thing to discuss.

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God. In this sermon, let me talk about limiting the Contact Prayer, or shortening prayers, or doing them in a lesser form than they are usually done, and other fine details of Contact Prayers under different circumstances. And when I say “Limiting Contact Prayers”, I mean going through the words mentally, but without the physical movements, and without hearing the words. That’s Limited Contact Prayer. When I say, “Shortening the Contact Prayer”, I mean reducing the number of rakats down to only 2 rakats. However, before I start, let me first address one important issue. The way I and other submitters believe how a Contact Prayer should be done is how Abraham did it, how Muhammad did, and fortunately we have video which shows how Rashad Khalifa did it. There is a full video which was titled “Principles of Muslim Prayer” by Rashad Khalifa, where he explains how the Contact Prayers should be done, and everything I say in here should not go, and will not go against what Rashad Khalifa preached in that video, and in all the parts where this video deals with the same issues as that video, the same conclusion is reached, and it falls within what Rashad said. However, a lot of this video deals with issues which were not the topic of that video, and it should not surprise you that you might hear something new, because I simply deal with some fine details which Rashad Khalifa did not address at all in his video. So, first of all, let me show you in Rashad Khalifa’s video where he admits that his video does not cover all the possible fine details regarding Contact Prayers. In exactly minutes 6 of that video, here is what he says: “I will explain also some of the fine details of for example what happens when you miss part of the Contact Prayer in a group. You are going to the mosque, and you see a group of people praying, you come in late, what to do? And some other fine details.”

So, as you can see Rashad Khalifa himself admitted that his video only covers some of the fine details, but not all the details of the Contact Prayers. He also says, “So I hope this will cover everything you need to know about the Contact Prayer.” Well, I am here to fulfill his hope, and cover the fine details which he did not mention. And the title of his video itself admits that his video deals with the Principles (the Essence) of the Muslim Prayer, not the fine details. I will deal with the fine details, God willing, in my sermons, and so let me address some of those fine details in this sermon. And before I continue, let me again remind you that even these fine details are in agreement with Rashad’s video, even though he did not mention them, and this is because in his video he says that the source of his video is the Arabic Quran, and not the English Quran. He used the Arabic Quran as the only source to reach conclusions, and the English Quran was just for us for easy daily reading, but not for research and analysis. So, let me tell you where he shows the Arabic Quran as the only source where he can find the fine details of the Contact Prayers. Here it is in that same video:

“And, of course, my sources are always the Quran. There is only one source, and it is this book right here, the Quran, God’s message to you, to me, and to the whole world. This is God’s final message to the world, and this is our source, the only source.”

While saying this, Rashad Khalifa was showing the Arabic Quran, not the English Quran, as the only source from which he reached the conclusions about the Contact Prayer, and when I reach some conclusions in this sermon, they are all in the agreement with his video, because in that video he told us how to do it, which is to research the Arabic Quran. So, if we truly follow that video, we should follow the Arabic Quran, where we can find some additional details about the Contact Prayers. Ok, so now let us use the Arabic Quran to talk about how to shorten or lessen the Contact Prayers in different circumstances of our modern world.

Before we reach the conclusion, first let’s present the two main verses which will be explained. Let’s first present them word for word from the Arabic Quran:

Verse 4:101 says: “When you hit the earth, set out (you are outside of your homes), it’s not a sin to shorten the Contact Prayer, if you FEAR that the disbelievers may harm or attack you. Indeed, the disbelievers are your distinct enemy.”

Now, verse 2:239 says: “If you FEAR, then (pray) on foot (standing or walking), or sitting (in a saddle, restaurant chair, office chair, or car/bus chair). Then when you are in a trusting (safe place), then remember God, as he taught you what you did not know.”

Now, as you can see, both these verses talk about situations when you FEAR, either FEAR in general, or FEAR from disbelievers. Now, before we explain where these two verses apply, in our normal modern daily circumstances, let’s first explain where they definitely do not apply. In other words, in which places, in normal modern daily circumstances, it is not reasonable to be in fear. Of course, in very extreme circumstances, every place can be dangerous very rarely, but I am talking normal daily modern circumstances, which is almost always for us. So, the question is, “In our modern normal daily circumstances in a democratic country, in which places it is not reasonable to be afraid of other people or the surroundings while you are doing the Contact Prayer?” Well, one such places is your home. Verse 33:13 says that some people claimed that their homes are vulnerable, when they were not vulnerable. So, even during war, the homes were considered reasonably safe, which means that during peace time, they are even safer. So, according, to verse 33:13, our own homes are considered a safe place, and this is also implied in verses 10:87, 15:82, and 27:18. Now, of course, if your house is not safe, you should not sleep there at all. I mean, if you don’t feel safe in a surrounding, you would not be able to fall asleep there. True fear doesn’t let you sleep. And this realization actually can help us answer the question of whether it is reasonably safe to do the Contact Prayer in a certain place, because at both times when you are asleep or you are doing the Contact Prayer, you become unaware of your surroundings, you become unaware of what’s going on behind you or around you, so the same principle should apply to the Contact Prayers and sleeping, regarding safety. So, if you want to know whether you are required to do the Contact Prayer in a certain place, all you have to do is ask yourself. If I felt sleepy, right here in this place, right now, would I lie down and sleep right here, right now? If the answer is no, then, it is also a “no” for the Contact Prayers. If you would not be willing to take a nap in that place, right there and then, it is also not a safe place to do the contact prayer, right there and then. For, example, would you sleep on the sidewalk of a road? You probably wouldn’t. Therefore, you should also consider yourself rightfully excused not to do the Contact Prayer there fully.

Now, verse 24:61 in Arabic also tells us that we may feel comfortable in houses of family members, close relatives, and submitter friends. And first, you have to feel safe, and then you can feel comfortable, so it is also safe to do the Contact Prayers in the homes of family members, close relatives, and submitter friends.

The third case where fearing others or the surroundings does not apply is the permissible masjids. In Alban’s video, titled “Places of Worship”, you can see in point 3 that the believers should enter the masjids while not fearing others beside God. This means that the permissible masjid should also be considered a safe space to do the Contact Prayers.

So, according to the Quran, our homes, the homes of our families, close relatives, and submitter friends, and the permissible masjids, are all considered safe spaces for the Contact Prayer, and we should do the Contact Prayers in them fully, with the actual physical bowings and prostrations and so on. But here is an exception to this – the Noon Prayer on Friday at the masjid, where we have to shorten the prayer to 2 rakats, but there is another reason for that. So, now let’s talk about that – the circumstances in which the shortening of the prayer applies.

Let’s read verse 4:101 again. It says.

When you hit the earth, set out (you are outside of your homes), it’s not a sin to shorten the Contact Prayer, if you FEAR that the disbelievers may harm or attack you. Indeed, the disbelievers are your distinct enemy.

Now, as you may notice, this verse applies to cases where believers and disbelievers are organized in clearly distinct groups, distinct locations. It says “distinct enemies” in Arabic. And it is possible from the verses after this to realize that it is talking about situations where the believers are organized in a distinct location, while the disbelievers are in another distinct group, which automatically makes them dangerous, because according to verse 9:8, and many other verses, we know that the disbelievers would definitely attack us if the groups were clearly distinct. They don’t attack us now as a group, because we are mixed with them in the same towns. We share the same towns and cities with them, and they misbehave towards us individually a little bit every day, which is why they don’t see a reason to attack us as a group, but if we gather all the believers in one town, and leave the disbelievers in another town, they would definitely attack us. For example, this happened during Muhammad’s time when they gathered in Medina, and it will happen again during the Mahdi’s time, and it happened during the time of Moses, and David, and Solomon, but today it does not apply, except in two cases. The first case is when the believers gather for the Noon Prayer on Friday, in a mosque which they built, or in a definitely agreed-with-consensus rented place for the Friday Prayers, in which case, all the believers of that location are obliged to observe the Friday Prayer there, together. This means that all the believers in that location are in that mosque at that time, and whomever among the healthy grown-up people from that location is not in that mosque, then they are definitely disbelievers at that moment. So, in that case, during the Friday Prayer, believers and disbelievers are two distinct groups, and therefore there is reasonable fear of an attack from them, and therefore verse 4:101 applies, which means that in that case, the prayer should be shortened to 2 rakats. And this is why the Friday Noon Prayer has only 2 rakats, when it is done in a mosque built by submitters, or in a rented place which was agreed with consensus. Otherwise, four rakats are obligatory, if you have to do the Friday Noon Prayer in your home, because then the believers are spread, and there are no two distinct groups (believers vs. disbelievers) anymore. However, in the other general cases, regarding all the other prayers, the existence of democratic governments, as neutral authorities, has eliminated the risk of sudden general attack from disbelieving armies, but it still has not eliminated the risk of individual harm from disbelievers. And it is reasonable to fear individual harm from disbelievers, if you see them carrying some kind of hot or cold weapon, or in case you are woman, even an unarmed man is a risk when you do the Contact Prayer in a public place. So, men in very dangerous neighborhoods, and women in public in general may choose to shorten the prayer to 2 rakats, and this is in combination with lessening the prayer. And let me remind you again that lessening the prayer means not doing it physically and not with a loud voice, but simply going through the words mentally, in whatever position you are either sitting in a chair or bench, or the car chair, or standing at a bus station, or walking in the street, and so on. And the verse which talks about lessening the prayer, is actually even more important in today’s civilized circumstances, because as you will see, the lessening of prayers applies anytime when you are in a civilized public space, spaces which have been impacted by humans.

So, now, first let’s remember again what verse 2:239 says: It says, “If you FEAR (to do the Contact Prayer), then (pray) on foot (standing or walking), or sitting (in a saddle, restaurant chair, office chair, or car chair or bus chair). Then when you are in a trusting (safe place), then remember God, as he taught you what you did not know.”

Now, again the key word which we are trying to explain here is the word “FEAR”. In the Quran, this word has many meanings, and it includes all kinds of fears – concerns, or worries, or alertness or things like that, and the word in Arabic is “khafa”, and let’s go over how Rashad Khalifa translated this exact word in other verse of the Quran. The table below shows in the left column the different ways Rashad Khalifa translated the same word “khafa” in different verses.

So, the fear which is mentioned in the Quran includes concerns, the sense of oppression, fear of harming others, fear of kidnap, fear as a minority group, fear of suspicious strangers, worry of loss, worry, fear of dangerous animals or dangerous tools, fear from authorities, fear of unexpected change of situation, fear of unfair treatment, consciousness (alertness) (while driving for example), fear of disbelief of others, fear of being murdered, fear of persecution, fear about children’s safety, and fear of embarrassment.

The red squares in the table above show the following examples of fear:

For example – Concern. If you start doing the prayer in a parking lot, you might be concerned that another car might drive and want to park there, or not see you while you are prostrating, or maybe look at you suspiciously.

A sense of oppression – One example of that is if you are in someone else’s private business, you don’t feel like you have the right to do anything you want, because it is ultimately their property, and they have the right to decide what happens there.

Fear of harming others – For example, if you are in bicycle path, and you start doing the prayer, someone might run into you, and you both can get hurt.

Fear of kidnap – For example, especially if you are a woman, in a highway, or a park, when you prostrate, someone can approach you and see you as an easy target for kidnapping.

Fear as a minority group – For example, if you are in town square, and you start doing the contact prayer, and you know that most people there don’t approve of the contact prayer, you are not sure whether there will be at least someone there who will react with animosity, or at least ridicule or do something to humiliate you.

Fear of suspicious strangers – For example, again, if you do the contact prayers in an urban park, or in a parking lot, you never know what strangers will gather there after they see you prostrating.

Worry of loss – For example, if you are in a park, while you are prostrating someone might steal your purse or your wallet.

Worry (general worry) – And this applies in all cases of civilized public spaces, since all the areas are designed for something, and if you do something else there, there is always worry that people might take offence at the fact that you are doing the prayer in a space which was designed for something else.

Fear of dangerous animals or dangerous tools – For example, if you are working with dangerous equipment, which must be kept on for whatever reason, you might worry that they might cause damage, when you leave them unattended.

Fear from authorities – For example, if you prostrate in a public institution, police might come to check on you. They might know your rights, but they will still check on you anyway.

Fear of unexpected change of situation – For example, you never know what’s around the corner in an urban situation. In nature, you can see far away, but in an urban situation, there can always be something or someone around the corner.

Fear of unfair treatment – For example, the owners of any space can just tell you that that space is not meant for prayer, and that it is interrupting the business or whatever, and they have the freedom to decide what happens in their own property.

Consciousness (in this case, alertness) – For example, if you start bowing while driving, of course it will be dangerous. You have to be alert constantly in traffic.

Fear of disbelief of others – For example, if you start doing the prayer in a restaurant, they will not believe that you are doing what you are doing and approach you, and talk to you, to see if you are ok, which then would be uncomfortable for you, if you don’t respond.

Fear of being murdered – For example, if you start to bow down and prostrate in someone else’s private land, they might consider it trespassing, or thinking that a thief has entered, and they might get a gun and shoot you, maybe on purpose because you are a believer, and then they can justify it by saying that they thought that you are a thief.

Fear of persecution – This can happen anywhere where disbelievers roam around close by.

Fear of children’s safety – For example, if you start doing the contact prayer in a bus station, while you prostrate you might be worried that your child will move to an unsafe place and be run over by a bus, or fall in a railway.

Fear of embarrassment – For example, if you start the contact prayer somewhere in your school or university, it is very likely that someone will see you, and then be rude to you, and act very surprised, and call the others, and tell them what’s going on and they might even laugh which might put you in an embarrassing situation.

Now, the yellow squares in the table above also include cases when a specific type of fear applies in a specific public space, but no examples are given here for them. But you can imagine them yourself, and see that all the yellow squares do apply. So, on each type of Civilized Public Space, at least one of these types of fears applies, which means that all the public types of public spaces will be a cause for at least one type of fair, if you wish to do the contact prayer there, and this means that verse 2:239, which tells us to limit the prayers, applies in all civilized public spaces, and actually not only with one type of fear, but with many types of fear.

So, the conclusion is that the verse which tells us to limit the prayers, applies in all cases of modern world, except your home, the homes of your family members, the homes of your close relatives, the homes of your submitter friends, the proper masjids, and the far away definite wilderness, because civilization has not reached the wilderness yet. In all the other cases, you are required to do the Contact Prayer in a limited version – which is mentally, without physical movement, and without a loud voice, simply sitting or standing, or while walking. And actually, this verse, in the Arabic, does not just give us the option to do it mentally, but it actually orders us to do it like that. In the Arabic it says “do it while standing, walking or sitting,”. It does not say, “you may do it”. It says “do it”. And this is because the Contact Prayers are meant to show your reverence or your fear for God alone, and if you do it while fearing others, then it’s not God alone. In that case, you would be showing your reverence or your fear towards God and someone else. So, unless you can do the prayer while fearing only God, it is obligatory to limit it in such a way that when you do it, you are fearing God alone.

By the way, you might be thinking that all those civilized public spaces seem like a lot, it seems like an exception for most of the cases in our life. Well, yes, today, that’s the majority of the places, but not the majority of the time. Those limited prayers will still be a very small proportion of your weekly prayers, because the majority of the prayers fall outside of your daily routine. The table below gives a typical day for a person who does to a normal 9 to 5 job, for example:

The green squares represent the cases where a typical person today would do the Contact Prayer fully, and the yellow squares represent the cases where it might usually happen for that person to do the Contact Prayer in a limited version. And as you can see, the vast majority of cases are green, which means that that believer will do the vast majority of his prayers fully, and the fact that a few cases are yellow is not a problem, because prayers are the meals for our souls, and Limited Prayers are like snacks which you eat on the road, while the full Contact Prayers are like proper meals. Now, if we eat snacks only about 10% of the time, today, that shouldn’t be a problem. We could still be healthy. And, there is no reason to be concerned about this because God was aware of this situation, and He has clearly mentioned this situation in the Quran. What we need to worry about really, is not to miss prayers without excuses when we are at home. When we are believers, we will never miss a prayer because we are watching a movie. We can pause the movie. We should never miss a prayer, because we are talking on social media. Social Media can wait. We should never miss a prayer, because we ate too much, and now we are sleepy. These are inexcusable cases. But regarding prayer outside of our homes, and outside the mosque, God has given us full permission, and actually an order to do them in the Limited Version. The limited version, again, means that wherever we are at that moment, let’s say in your office chair, or your car chair, you simply repeat the words of the Contact Prayer in your mind, mentally, and that’s it. And by the way, you don’t even need to perform ablution when you perform the Limited Version. God does not mention the word Salat in that verse. The verse simply says “on foot, or sitting”, but it does not call it “Salat”. And because it is not technically Salat, there is no need for ablution. The Limited Prayer is a substitution for Salat in that case, but it’s not Salat. And the most important thing is to remember God, because verse 20:14 says that the main purpose of the Contact Prayer is to remember God, and if you do remember God in the Limited Version of the Contact Prayer, you are fulfilling the main purpose of the Contact Prayer..

Nevertheless, after you are hired in a new job, for example, if you wish, you may discuss with your manager whether there is a suitable place where you can do the Contact Prayer fully, and if he finds you a suitable place, you can do the full Contact Prayer there, but if not, just go on with the Limited Version and God will understand.

Also, if you are with other submitters in a case where the Limited Prayer applies, you can coordinate with them. For example, if you are in a bus or train together, you just tell the other submitter that you are going to do the prayer mentally, and then he or she will watch for you, and if the conductor comes for the ticket or something like that, the other submitter will interact with him and do things on your behalf, and then his turn comes to do the prayer mentally while you watch for him, just in case you need to respond to someone on his behalf. Or, if you are a passenger in car with another submitter who is driving the car, you just tell him or her that you will do the prayer mentally, while he or she will still keep driving, and then when you are done, he or she can stop the car on the side of the road, somewhere safe, and do the prayer mentally, while you watch for him or her, or if the road is easy to drive, he or she might not even need to stop the car, and you can do the limited prayer together. One of you recites the words, and the other just listens. If you are a female submitter alone without a male submitter with you, feel free to both shorten and limit the contact prayer. So, you only do 2 rakats mentally, and that’s it. If you are a male in a dangerous neighborhood with weapons, and you have no weapon, you may also both shorten and limit the contact prayer. But, again, at home, you must do the full Contact Prayers. In the Permissible Mosques you must do the Full Contact Prayers.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. Verse 28:68 in the Quran says, “Your Lord is the One who creates whatever He wills, and chooses; no one else does any choosing. Glory be to GOD, the Most Exalted. He is far above needing partners.”

So, God creates and chooses, and let’s elaborate with examples what this verse means. So, what does it mean when the Quran says, “God creates and chooses.”?

Well, God created 200 billion trillion stars in this universe, and from all those stars he chose one –  the sun.

He created the sun with many planets, and from all the planets he chose one – planet earth.

He created many living creatures on planet earth, and he chose only one of them – the human being. From all the human beings – he chose the believers.

From the believers, he chose messengers.

From all the messengers, he chose prophets.

From all prophets, he chose one – the Messiah, Jesus.

Messiah means “the chosen one”.

From all the females, he chose Mary.

From all the empires that ever existed, he chose to mention only the Roman empire in the Quran.

From all the countries, he chose to mention Egypt.

From all the nations, he chose the Children of Israel.

From all the religions, he chose submission for us.

From the days of the week, he chose Saturday. Muslim think it’s Friday, and Christians think it’s Sunday, but the chosen day is actually Saturday. The day when we get resurrected. Friday is when the world gets destroyed, but Saturday is when we get resurrected.

For the believers of the past, from the mountains, he chose Mount Sinai, from the valleys, he chose the sacred valley of Tuwa, and from the towns, Jerusalem.

Now, for believers of today, from the mountains, he chose Mount Arafat, from the valleys, Muzdelifa, and from the towns, Mecca, and

from all the masjids, he chose the Sacred Masjid in Mecca.

So, now the question is, “Why did God choose what he chose?” What’s so special about Mecca. It’s neither the biggest town, neither the prettiest town, neither the most fruitful town. On internet, you can find so many false theories trying to justify why Mecca was chosen, like some kind of light emanating from it, or some kind of magnet of the earth, or things like that, fake scientific theories with the intention, they think, to convince the scientists that some kind of physical phenomenon is going on there. In fact, these fake theories only drive away the scientists, because they can notice the fakery, and then Islam is forever steeped in problems, because the smart people are driven way, by fake religious people, wannabe scientists.

So what’s so special about Mecca? Well it’s not about what’s there. It’s about what it is meant to be used for. That’s what makes it special. In the next life, and this applies only for generations after the Quran, Mecca will be used as an entrance door for us to the city of believer, during the Messianic Age, when we get resurrected, while the believers of the past will enter through other doors. So, it’s not about what’s there. It’s about what God plans to use it for. And this same logic applies to all the things God chose. So, let’s apply this logic to the things which were already mentioned.

What’s so special about the sun? Why did God choose the sun? It’s neither the biggest star, neither the brightest star, neither the smallest star, neither the first star, neither the longest living star. It’s not special in any way compared to the other stars. What makes it special is that God planned it to use it for the Earth. As the sun was being created, the dust which remained from it was shaped into other planets, and one of them is earth. So, the sun was chosen by God, only because it was suitable to make Earth out of its remains.

But why did God choose planet earth? It’s not the biggest planet, or the innermost in the solar system, or the outermost in the solar system. What’s so special about it? Well, what makes it special is that God intended to use it to house the water in liquid form. The water mostly either evaporates or freezes in other planets, but on earth, the earth is located just far enough, or close enough from the sun to keep the water in liquid form.

But what’s so special about water? Well, not much really, except what God planned to use it for. God created every living creature on earth from water, and that makes it special. There is no living creature on earth which does not have water in it. Verse 24:45 says that God created every living creature from water.

But, what is so special about living creatures? Not much, except that they were meant to be used to prepare the habitat for humans, and some of them also as food for humans?

But why did God choose the humans? Well, he chose them as God’s representatives on Earth, and some of the humans are believers.

But, now the question follows, “Why did God chose us? Why did God choose you, to become a submitter, to become a believer?” It’s not because we are the best looking, or the smartest, or the strongest, or the most influential? It’s because of what he plans to use us for. All the believers who are reading this Friday Sermon right now have been chosen intentionally by God to be used by him for something special in his plan. All of us have a role in God’s plan. Those roles might be different, but all of us have a special role in God’s plan. Your value is in what God plans to use you for, and not necessarily what you have done so far. You have been chosen for your potential, not for your merits.

Some of us might have merits and some of us not as much, and if we don’t have merits and we are young, that’s mostly because of our parents. However, God did not choose us because of our merits, but because of our potential. He has a plan for all of us, and he knows who are the most suitable people for his plan, for whatever role they have to play, at any specific time. That time might be today, tomorrow, next year, after 10 years, or after decades, or whenever, but you are meant for something special, whatever it is. And there are many examples, from the past, of people chosen by God to be believers, so that God can use them in his plan.

One example is mentioned in the Gospel. According to the Gospel, there was a man called Simon, who had come all the way from Libya to Jerusalem for the Jewish feast, and it happened that at that time the Romans were preparing to crucify Jesus, and gave him the cross to carry all the way to the top of the hill where they planned to crucify him. On the way, Jesus was exhausted and fell, so the Romans chose Simon from the crowd to help Jesus carry the cross. Now, do you think Simon will go unrewarded for helping Jesus carry the cross? Never. He was chosen for a special purpose in this world, because of what God had planned for him.

Now, here is another example from the Quran: The wife of Pharaoh. She was a believer. Why did God choose her to be a believer? Well, he was going to use her for something special. When the mother of Moses threw Moses with that box in the river, it was the wife of Pharaoh who found him. She had a special role in God’s plan. Also, the sister of Moses. God chose her as a believer for her potential. He made her the right person for that circumstance. When she followed Moses in the river, and went to talk to the wife of Pharaoh to find a nursing mother for Moses, God made her the right age, most likely. Had the sister of Moses been too young, the wife of pharaoh would have doubted her abilities to find a nursing mother, and had the sister of Moses been a full grown-up, the wife of Pharaoh would doubt her intentions, but she was the right person, at the right age, for that moment, which is why God chose her to be among the believers.

And when God chose Moses, that’s because he was the right person for God’s plan, and God’s plan was to free the Children of Israel, who were the believing nation of the past. So, ultimately, God’s plan is to save us, and he has chosen each of us for specific roles in his grand plan. And those roles, can be one time roles, everyday roles, big roles, small roles, but we all have a role, and that’s why God chose you, and we should be happy to be at the service of God. There are big rewards waiting for us for being at the service of God.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. If you are watching this video, because a believer whom you know has died and you wish to know how to do the Funeral Contact Prayer for him or her, first of all let me express my condolences to you, and to the persons’ family. However, because this is a prayer which happens rarely, it is supposed to be known and lead only by Congregation Directors, and if you don’t have an Authorized Local Congregation Director to lead you in the Funeral Contact Prayer, feel free to skip to the video in the end of this article where you will be lead in the Funeral Prayer.

But let me explain this prayer for the purposes of general understanding anyway. The Funeral Contact Prayer is a prayer which is mentioned in the Quran in verse 9:84, and it should be done as it was traditionally done by the Muslims, although a few parts of it change according to the circumstances.

So, now let’s imagine that a person named John Doe died. If he was not part of our congregation, which means that he did not mobilize or organize with us, then we do not observe the funeral contact prayer for him, according to verses 9:71 through 9:84. We should only organize Funeral Contact Prayers for submitters and dependent submitters of our congregation.  If he was a family member of one of us, but he was not a submitter or a dependent of one of us, you as the family member may talk to God about him to express your emotions, pray to God to potentially forgive him, or you can pray to God with a conditional prayer, something like “if he was a believer, please God forgive him”, or things like that, but we do not organize an official Funeral Contact Prayer for that person. He belonged to another congregation, whichever it was and let that congregation deal with it. You may express your condolences to the family members when a person from another religious community dies, but again we do not organize Funeral Contact Prayers for people who do not belong in our congregation.

Jesus said in the Bible, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

Now, let’s imagine that the person named John Doe is part our congregation, either a submitter or a dependent of a submitter. The person in our congregation who hears about it first informs the Congregation Director. Then the Congregation Director informs everyone in the congregation by sending an official email to everyone, and if the congregation is one of the 12 online congregations, he sends them this video to lead them in that prayer, and each member in that congregation does the Funeral Prayer after they receive the email. Each of them does it separately, because it is not practical for an online congregation to get together in the same location. Each of them performs ablution and does the Funeral Contact Prayer. The whole community of submitters does not need to do it. Only the people who are in the same online congregation as the deceased person.

Now, if Jon Doe was part of non-online local congregation, then again the local Congregation Directors is informed. He informs everyone in the congregation, and then he also informs them at what time and place the burial will be held, and then tells them whether the Funeral Contact Prayer will be done at the burial place, or whether it will be done beforehand at another location, where the casket is waiting, like at the yard of the mosque, or maybe there is some kind of institution which deals with these issues, but not inside the mosque. Then the people gather at that time and place, and the Congregation Director leads the Funeral Contact Prayer.

Now, here is how the Funeral Contact Prayer is done:

Unlike the other Contact Prayers, during the whole Funeral Contact Prayer, there are no bowings and prostrations. The whole Funeral Contact Prayer is done standing up. So, let’s say that John Doe has died. There are 10 steps which we need to follow:

1. We performed ablution at our homes
2. Then, at the prayer location, we face the Qiblah, and we make the intention: “We intend to do the funeral contact prayer for John Doe.”
3. We say, “Allahu Akbar”
4. The first Surah of the Quran is recited by the prayer leader.
5. We say, “Allahu Akbar” again
6. We ask God to bless the close ones of John Doe.
7. We say, “Allahu Akbar” again
8. We ask God to forgive John Doe.
9. We say, “Allahu Akbar” again
10. We say “As-Salamu Alaykum” while turning our head to the right side, and then again “As-salamu Alaykum” while turning our heads to the left.

And that’s it, the official Funeral Contact Prayer for John Doe is done.

So, the whole prayer consists of saying “Allahu Akbar” four times, and after each time we say something. After the first time, the prayer leader recites the first Sura of the Quran. After the second one we seek God’s blessings for the loved ones of the deceased. After the third one, we ask God to forgive the deceased. And after the fourth one, we say the Salams.

Now, “Allahu Akbar”, Sura 1, and the Salams are said aloud in Arabic, while everything else is said silently in your own language, and in your own words, the way you feel at that moment, not preplanned.

Now, the question is, “How do we know that this is the correct way to do the Funeral Contact Prayer?” Well, given that the Quran in the Arabic calls this a Contact Prayer, and given that all Contact Prayers are guaranteed to be preserved by God in the Abrahamic Tradition, then this, as a contact prayer was preserved as an Abrahamic Tradition, and therefore it reached us without being lost. Someone might say, does this mean that every tradition, which exists among Muslims is true? Well, no, because the Quran gives us this guarantee only about the Contact Prayers, Zakat, Fasting, and Hajj, but not about the other traditions. And, because the Quran calls the Funeral Contact Prayer, a Contact Prayer, then it must be within that protected tradition. The people may choose to call other things Contact Prayers, but if the Quran does not call it a Contact Prayer, then it is not within the Abrahamic Tradition. So, because the Quran calls it a Contact Prayer in Arabic, it puts it within the preserved Abrahamic Tradition, and therefore we can know how to do it from the tradition of Abraham’s descendants. Now, of course, God allows things to be added to these traditions, but he guarantees that nothing will be lost. So, this is the tradition, and we know for sure that nothing was lost, but how can we know that nothing was added, because that guarantee does not exist in the Quran? Keeping something preserved means that nothing was lost, but it does not mean that nothing was added on top of it. Well, if something was added, it will contradict the Quran, because the Quran completely covers everything we need to know about religion. So, let’s just check them one by one, and see if any of these points contradicts the Quran.

So, point 1, does not contradict the Quran. It is actually found in the Quran, in verse 5:6, which tells us to perform ablution before the Contact Prayer, and the Funeral Contact Prayer, is called a Contact Prayer in the Arabic Quran, so it also applies to it.

Points 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10, also exist in the regular Contact Prayer, which we already know that these points are not against the Quran.

The only different points from the regular Contact Prayer are point 6, and 8. So, are these points against the Quran? Let’s start with point 6, asking God to bless the close ones of the deceased. God willing, this is explained in a video clarification titled “The flow of blessings”, where among others it is explained how when a believer dies, and is blessed in Heaven, that blessing is proportional to the increase in blessings of the close ones of that person who are left in this world. And this is in most cases reflected in the inheritance. When a father dies for example, the children (among the closest ones), are blessed with more wealth because of the inheritance which they receive, but this flow of blessings is true even in cases when it is not reflected in the inheritance.  So, this is true, no matter what, and inheritance is just one example of it. Verse 3:171 tells us that when the believers die, they have good news about the other organized believers here on earth about God’s blessings and grace. And knowing this, it is a perfect opportunity to pray for it beforehand, because God says that the prayers of the believers are answered, and by praying for it beforehand, we make sure that we deserve those blessings. And the close people of the deceased can be anyone, especially those whom the deceased respected due to religious reasons. And when the submitters during Muhammad’s time, when Muhammad was alive in this world, implemented this principle, they would pray for God to bless Muhammad first, because the Quran says in verse 33:6 that the prophet was closer to the believers than they are to each other. So, Muhammad was the closest person to any believer who died during his time, and because we have to pray to God to bless the closest of the deceased, that would mean that they had to pray to God to bless Muhammad, and to this day, this is how the Muslims implement this part of the prayer. However, they are forgetting that the verse 33:6 says “the prophet”, and anywhere in the Quran whenever Muhammad is referred to as the prophet, it is always during his lifetime, and not after his death. This is already known. So, it was perfectly correct to ask God to bless Muhammad during the Funeral Contact Prayer of any believer during Muhammad’s time, because we are supposed to pray to God to bless the closest people of the deceased, and the closest person (or the most beloved) to any believer during the time of Muhammad was Muhammad himself, but they had live meaningful interactions with him, which is why they felt close to him. They weren’t respecting him as some kind of mystical figure whom they never met, like they do it today. They really felt close to him. While today, the true believers should feel as close to Muhammad as to any other prophet of the past, because we did not meet any of them, including Muhammad, and they are equally beloved to us, and if we distinguish Muhammad in the prayer, when clearly all the other prophets have the same merits as prophets, then we are making a distinction between God’s messengers, and this is prohibited in the Quran. So, if the believers feel emotionally closer to a messenger compared to the other messengers, that can only happen when that messenger is with them alive. So, today it would ironically be correct during a funeral contact prayer to ask God to bless Alban, and also the other close believers, but only if you met Alban. This part of the prayer should be done silently anyway, and everyone does it in his own words, and people should not discuss with each other how to do it, or how they did it. They just internally ask God to bless the closest people of the deceased, silently, and whether they mentioned Alban while he was alive, that should never be known, and which other close ones of the deceased person they mentioned, that is their own choice, and a momentary internal expression of emotions and thoughts. However, if they mention Alban in a person’s funeral prayer when he never met Alban, that would be indirect idol-worship. But anyway, the rule in points 6 here is to pray to God to bless the closest people of the deceased person, and how that is expressed in words in different times changes depending on the circumstances, depending on who the people think were the closest people to the deceased person.

Now, let’s talk about point 8 here, asking God to forgive the deceased person. According to verse 47:19, we should ask God to forgive the believers. So, point 8 also is not against the Quran, and actually it is implied from verse 9:80, that asking God to forgive the deceased believers is part of the Funeral Contact Prayer, because within the same discussion, the Funeral Contact Prayer is mentioned a few verses later.

So, this is how the Funeral Contact Prayer should be done, and if a submitter in your online congregation has died, you are obliged to do the Funeral Contact Prayer for him or her, and if you do not a have an officially appointed local Congregation Director, which was appointed through Alban, then you may use the portion of the video below to be led by Alban as your Online Congregation Director.

After performing ablution, face the Qiblah, turn the following portion of the video on, and just repeat after Alban. The parts which should be spoken loudly are spoken loudly in the video, and the parts which should be said silently are written in the video, and you can just fill in the blanks in your mind with people’s names.

Let’s begin:

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. In most cases in today’s world you will find two ways in how people approach groups in this world. Some of them, who generally have post-modern ways of thinking, see all groups as relative, and they simply are trying to navigate their way in this world seeing where it will suit them the best, without any real loyalty for any group. And then there are others, completely on the other side of the spectrum, whom I like to call fanatics, who see the world as only two groups, and they will try to be loyal to one group, and everyone else who does not belong in that group is wrong in all aspects. So, they think that one group is completely right, and all the other people are completely wrong. And the third approach, which is neither a post-modern approach, and neither a fanatic approach, is what I call the well-informed modern approach, which is the correct approach for today, because today there are multiple dimensions to any group. Some groups might be right for some things, other groups might be right for other things, some groups might be right for most things, and other groups might be wrong for most things, and there are other groups which are always equally right and wrong, which stems from their organizational structure, if it is a democratic structure, in which case, no matter where it started, it will always push the group towards being equally right and wrong, but that’s another issue for another time, but here let us just concentrate on the groups in general and how they can be measured in multiple dimensions, and not only in one dimension. And when it comes to how we deal with those groups, the Quran has a very simple answer: Verse 5:2 in the Quran says, “You shall cooperate in matters of righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in matters that are sinful and evil…”

For example:

We share our religious methodology with the Quranists, but not necessarily their results, because they are almost always based on a partial study of the Quran. They reach full conclusions from partial studies.

We share our worship practices with the Submitters – us – but not necessarily all our opinions.

We share the way we do the Contact Prayers with half-submitters, but not necessarily their disorienting ideas on how to organize.

We share some places of worship with the Sunnis and the Shias, but not necessarily all their worship practices.

We share many aspects of our honesty with the Christians, but not necessarily their worship practices.

We share our fundamental laws with the Jews, and actually almost all the legal details, if we just understood how they apply in our new circumstances.

We share our basic understanding of organized religion with the Orthodox Christians, but not our understanding of religion itself.

We share our appreciation for the importance of unity with the Catholics.

We share our appreciation for God’s scriptures with the Protestants.

We share our appreciation for facts with the scientists.

We share our streets and public places with socialists and communists.

We don’t share anything with capitalists, because they don’t like to share. Just kidding. Just kidding. We share our trade with the capitalists, and other business aspects.

We share our money with the poor.

We share our work with the rich.

We share our food, our laughter, private discussions, maybe some gossip, and some other private matters with our families.

We share our ultimate fate in this world with our ancestors – death, but not necessarily their way of life, and not necessarily our fate in the next life, Heaven or Hell.

We share our belief in God with the believers.

And here is what we don’t share. We will not share Heaven with the disbelievers. Verse 7:50 says, “The dwellers of Hell will call on the dwellers of Paradise, and say: “Let some of your water, or some of GOD’s provisions to you flow towards us.” They will say, “GOD has forbidden them for the disbelievers.”

And hopefully, we will share heaven with each other, and with the angels.

And we will share our happiness with God. God will be pleased with us, and we will be pleased with Him.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. If you watch movies about very ancient history before Christ, you can notice that generally the movies will portray one army or one nation as the good nation and the other one as the bad nation, and according to movie logic the whole world in the past consisted of definitely good nations and definitely bad nations, kind of split in half. However, the reality is different. Before Christ, there were three groups of people. The only good nation were the Children of Israel, and all the other nations were bad nations, except for the Greeks and the Romans who were neither bad, neither good – neutral, and usually other nations were neutral only in passing, while they transitioned from bad to good or from good to bad. But, the ancient Greeks and Romans were long term neutral nations. And by neutral, we mean between good and evil. And their neutrality between good and evil stemmed from the fact that the Greeks and the Romans discovered democracy, which in the Roman version was called “republic”. Democracy and the republic fundamentally mean the same thing, with minor differences. Democracy in Greek means “the rule of the people”, and republic in Latin means “from the people”. Basically, the idea is that the final decision is not made by one king, but by the people.

Now, because the other nations were kingdoms, the will of the king was the will of the nation, and if the king was a bad person, his will prevailed, and the whole nation was forced to be bad, or good individuals were forced to leave, and if the king was a good person, because the will of the king ruled, the nation was forced to be a good nation, and the bad individuals were pressured to leave. So, only true kingdoms can be good or bad, but true democracies are always neutral. So, in a democracy, the will of all the people is the will of the nation, and because statistically chances are that you will get the same proportion of good and bad people as there are in the whole world, then the good and the bad people are in balance. Actually, there are 10 times as many bad people as there are good people, but because a good deed produces 10 times as good results, as a bad deed produces bad results, in that case a nation which consists of ratio of 10 bad people to any good person is in a balance between good and evil. Equal good and evil, neutral.

Now, or course, because the states do not rule every aspect of our lives, it still allows for individual variations, to have good and bad people within that same state, but the common will of the whole nation, any democratic nation is always equally good and evil. And this neutrality of the will of nations has happened only twice in history. The first case is during the Ancient Greeks and Romans which happened from around the fifth century before Christ until just before Christ. And the second time that this happens is in our times starting with the U.S. constitution in U.S. and the French Revolution in Europe, which happened within a few years. Now, because, democracies are stochastic systems, and not specific events, they can be quite predictable, and we can use the democracies of the past to predict what will happen with democracies of today.

So, what happened to the democracies of the past? They ultimately turned into an oligarchy, and then after a few complots and schemes and murders, they turned into a tyranny or empire with an emperor, and at the end of that, the Messiah came. And, if you’ve been wondering why did God send Jesus at that time, it is to tell us when the Messianic age will come. So, the Messiah came first after democracies ended, as soon as they turned into a tyranny. And this is to tell us that the Messianic age will come after these democracies will turn into a tyranny. And you might say, “How do we know that democracies will turn into tyranny again?” Well, actually, the first time, they did not have to, but this time they have no other choice. Here is why. As we said , the bad nations cause problems, the good nations solve problems, but democracies have this weird feature, they simply postpone problems. They don’t solve them, and they don’t cause them. They just postpone them. That’s how the system is built in a democracy. If a person who is elected in a democracy tries to solve a problem, he will have to cause suffering initially among the people, and they will outvote him out of the government, and if he causes problems, again they will outvote him, so the best option, and very often the only option for any elected official is to find a way to change things in such a way to simply postpone that problem (while on the surface appearing to have solved it) and leave it to the next elected official to solve it, who will again not solve it, but simply postpone it. Now, eventually these problems from all sides will face one another, and postponing one of them will mean directly facing the other, and vice-versa, and all the problems eventually will gather to one ultimate point, and there is no way to postpone them anymore. At that point, people will see that democracy is not useful anymore, and they will rather choose technocracy which will lead to tyranny to avoid the problems just a little bit more, and so they will go from the frying pan into the fire, and the final “solution” is to blame the believers, and the world will end, and the Messianic age will come.

Now, why does the Messiah come after democracies? Well, it’s because the Messianic age is a system of governance, and people are let to try all methods of governance to show that while Satan is there, there is no way you can make it work, no matter how you try it. And, then democracies are simply a way to show that not only a certain king could not solve the problems of the people, but if all the people were involved into the decision making, the problems would still exist, and once and for all it will be proven that involving all the people, and all their efforts, which is the culmination of democracy, it will still not solve the human problems. Death and suffering will still exist, for as long as evil people and Satan are involved. And after all attempts fail, then God sends the Messiah to tell us which is the only clean attempt which works, and the only attempt which works is to fully listen to God’s word, and the Messiah is a representation of God’s word, and only then can we have peace on earth without problems. Of course, this will not happen before 2280.

And by the way, what we just explained is explained in a few words in the Quran. The Quran in the Arabic says in Sura 30, verses 2 through 4, “The Romans have been defeated, in the land of this lowest world, but after their defeat, they will rise again, within several years. The command belongs to God before it and after it – twice. And that day will rejoice the believers.”

Now, these verses have seven meanings, but what we explained in this sermon is the most important meaning, because it is the overarching meaning. It covers all the other meanings. This meaning does not explain one specific event about the Romans. It’s a description of all the history of the Roman Republic who were a democratic community. So, here it is actually talking about the democracy as well. So, these verses are telling us all the history of democracy in the past and the future. So, democracy existed before, and then it ended, and now it has come back again, and it will end again, just a few years before the end of the world. And this is all the history of democracy, if we had to say it in two sentences, and each time after democracies go bad and end, God sends the Messiah. The first time to suffer, so that he can deserve to be the most prominent human in the next world, and the second time to fulfill that already earned prominence so that God can show the world what is the perfect system of governance.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. About one third of the world believe in astrology. And one of the reasons why it is popular is because people assume that since it has been in existence for such a long time, and many people believe in it, it must be true. And the reason why it has existed for such a long time is because it started actually as a very small observation of truth, but then everything after that is false. In the past, before people knew about the orbit of the earth and how the solar system works, all they knew is that for every time that the moon becomes new, the sun has moved further in the sky relative to the stars by one twelfth of the sky, and so they divided the sky into twelve parts. And to help identify those parts of those sky, they imagined shapes which those stars resemble, so they can remember them easier, and they called them constellations. Then, they saw that there is a connection between when the sun is in a certain constellation, and when the trees produce fruit, and when the leaves turn brown, and when it snows, and when the leaves emerge again, and things like that. Basically, they discovered seasons. Fine. Seasons and when the sun is in a certain constellation is actually the same things. So far so good. But then everything after that was falsehood attached to it. They did not know how seasons work, so they just thought that those constellations are causing the leaves to fall, and things like that, and therefore the stars have an effect on earth, because they cause leaves to change, and therefore they must have an effect on humans as well. And really, they just invented stuff and guesswork, and people believed it, and now astrology is very popular.

Now, of course astrology, any kind of astrology, Horoscopes, Indian astrology, Chinese astrology, any kind of astrology have been proven scientifically to be false, and no one was ever able to prove scientifically that it works. And this is not the main issue why we are writing about it, because people are wrong about so many other things. We have flaws. But, we are writing about it because astrology is prohibited in the Bible and the Quran.

Isaiah, chapter 47, verses 13-14 says, “All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those astrologers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up.”

Leviticus 19:26 says, “Do not practice divination or seek omens.”

Quran 4:11 says, “When it comes to your parents and your children, you do not know which of them is really the best to you and the most beneficial.” This statement would have been false, if people were just able to know the fate of their children based on the year and the date and the time when they were born.

And Quran 72:27 says, “Only to a messenger that God chooses, does He reveal from the past and the future, specific news.” And there are about 1 million astrologers in the world. So, either God has sent 1 million astrologers as messengers, or all astrologers are liars. And based on the book of Isaiah, we already know that all astrologers are bad people, so they can not be messengers, and therefore they are liars.

So, people who believe in astrology, but they do not believe in the Quran, they are simply misguided and under the influence of the devil. And if someone believes both in the Quran and astrology, then they are probably suffering from depression, anxiety, or similar difficulty. Because, astrology and the Quran contradict each other, and if you believe in both of them at the same time, that can be only possible in such mental states like depression and anxiety, or similar psychological or social difficulties. And there is nothing wrong with depression or anxiety. About half the people today experience them at least once in their lifetime, and towards the future, towards the end of the world, almost all people will at least once in their lifetime be diagnosed with depression or anxiety. So, things like that happen. We are just helping here to identify the potential problems, because people with anxiety and depression are capable to believe two completely contradictory conspiracy theories at once. For example, they can believe that Tupac is still alive, and that Tupac was killed by the CIA, and they believe both of them at the same time. This is documented by studies. This happens when people are emotionally unstable, which happens. They are not crazy. They just need emotional support. And you should try to seek help with the right professionals, so you can get back on your feet emotionally. By the way, let’s say that your belief is 70% strong in the Quran, and 30% strong in Astrology. If you get the right treatment by a professional, you will notice that by the end of it, both of those beliefs will dwindle. The psychologist can not help you become a believer. He will simply find a way to reduce both of your beliefs, the good belief and the bad belief, and eventually you will believe 0% in Astrology, and now only 40% in the Quran, but this is still better because now you know exactly where you stand in relation to the Quran, without the astrology, and then gradually afterwards you start to improve your belief in the Quran back again, while keeping the astrology part at 0%, and then you realize that you become a much more functional longtime submitter, less egocentric, and you will just feel better. It’s possible. And by the way, if the situation is serious, we would even recommend you to take some medication, with prescription, just to jumpstart your healing process, especially, because people who encounter depression are absolutely convinced that it will never go away, which is not true, but that’s why those people need to seek help. Because depression and anxiety convince you that they will never go away, and once you are convinced of that, then you get depressed because of that, and you enter a vicious cycle. In that case, outside help is needed, just to break the cycle. So, medication is useful in that case, to at least make them believe that help exists, and then seek it, and then they can remove the medication or whatever the professional tells you. By the way, we don’t fully agree with the way they use these medications in the U.S.A., excessively, and being constantly numb to avoid any bad feelings. You are supposed to feel things sometimes, including the bad feelings. It’s called life. But also, we don’t agree with people who are categorically against those medications. The Quran says that there is good and bad in them, and they are useful towards more serious cases, to jumpstart the improvement, but the appropriate doctors most likely know better about this. And ultimately, of course, God is in control of everything, and he knows our fates.