Collective Thinking and Building the Next Generation

Occasion: A summary of a Friday khutbah delivered at AlIman on December 19, 2025Source: A transcription of a video khutbah by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Editor's note: This text summarizes what could be established from the lecture and is not a verbatim transcript; no explanation that was not in the lecture has been added.

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and blessings and peace be upon His noble Messenger ﷺ.

The khaṭīb opened his khutbah with an observation about the style of Qur'anic address: of the addresses in which a legal obligation is directed to an individual, most are to the person of the Prophet ﷺ. So you read an individual address: ﴿قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا﴾ ("Stand in prayer by night, except a little") [al-Muzzammil: 2], an individual address: ﴿لِمَ تُحَرِّمُ مَا أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ لَكَ﴾ ("Why do you forbid what Allah has made lawful for you") [al-Taḥrīm: 1], and an individual address: ﴿اتَّقِ اللَّهَ وَلَا تُطِعِ…﴾ ("Fear Allah and do not obey…") [al-Aḥzāb: 1].

So why does Allah address the Prophet in his own person, and address us with the term "the Ummah"? Because the Prophet ﷺ is the first model who applies this legislation, and from him branches out how the Ummah applies what it has been charged with. From here begins the great difference between the society of Jāhiliyyah, where each individual is psychologically isolated from those around him except in hateful tribal partisanship, and Islam, which gathered people upon one word.

The emotion of the moment and the question of where we stand

The khaṭīb asks himself before asking us: are we truly concerned with Islam and its causes, occupied with what is happening to the Ummah? Or do some news items pass by our ears, and short clips fall before our eyes, so we are moved, and then we turn back to our habits?

We see this even in the mosques: people come to the houses of Allah, weep in prayer and are moved, and when they go out you find one of them busy with his own affairs, perhaps even quarrelling with another over a trivial matter. Where did the supplication go, and where did the tears go? They call this "momentary emotion": you are moved for a moment, then you return to your former ways, and the structure of a mind occupied with the Ummah is not there.

He stresses that he is not giving a political speech; rather, he is addressing his own mind, his self and his inner feeling: Where am I? Where is my place on the map of collective thinking, the thinking upon which Islam established us?

A mosque that gathers bodies and divides hearts

The khaṭīb invites us to imagine our reaction as we are gathered in the house of Allah: do we gather in the mosque with our bodies and isolate ourselves in our hearts? Does one of us censure another if he places his hand here or lets it hang down? If one of us does something, the other censures it, and then we speak of one Ummah. He says that he understands the change of cultures and environments and the difference of narrations, but he is speaking about the foundation in shaping the Muslim mind that moves on the earth today.

If we do not change this pattern of thinking, we go backwards, to the Jāhiliyyah of the people of Makkah.

Around us are those who accuse Muslims of being unfit for this society, each outbidding the other in this accusation. So we ask with wisdom: where are our roles? What would we do if we imagined that we were facing a great plan to establish Islam firmly in the hearts of Muslims? Do we have a plan at the level of America? At the level of New York? At the level of a group of mosques? And do we have a plan that secures our children in their higher education and safeguards their future? The khaṭīb answers: No.

Rebuilding the mind requires giving

Reshaping this mental structure requires each one of us to give something. There is a giving of the self: bearing the successive shocks upon the Muslim body, the Muslim mind and the Muslim heart, and they are many shocks that need a strong soul. That is why Allah's call to His Messenger ﷺ came: ﴿قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا﴾ ("Stand in prayer by night, except a little") [al-Muzzammil: 2], and He gave its reason in His words: ﴿إِنَّ نَاشِئَةَ اللَّيْلِ هِيَ أَشَدُّ وَطْئًا وَأَقْوَمُ قِيلًا﴾ ("Indeed, rising by night is more effective in subduing the self and more upright in speech") [al-Muzzammil: 6]. We understood the connection: strength of soul is made in the night.

Then his Lord says to him: ﴿قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ﴾ ("Arise and warn") [al-Muddaththir: 2]: move. And this is another kind of challenge, the financial challenge.

Spending: the language of the two sūrahs

The khaṭīb says that the weightiest verses that speak about spending, in his personal opinion, and Allah knows best, came in Sūrat al-Ḥadīd: ﴿وَمَا لَكُمْ أَلَّا تُنفِقُوا…﴾ ("And what is wrong with you that you do not spend…") [al-Ḥadīd: 10]^[1]. He draws attention to the tone of the question: why this tone? The wording of Sūrat al-Baqarah, ﴿مَّثَلُ الَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ أَمْوَالَهُمْ…﴾ ("The example of those who spend their wealth…") [al-Baqarah: 261], is gentle language that wins the heart and urges it on, whereas there He asks you: why have you not fulfilled the duty that is upon you? It is spending to build the future of the Ummah.

People are not aware of this, so they deal with spending only to the extent of what is required. How many of those who belong to Islam do not pay the zakāh of their wealth! And how many of those who pay zakāh give nothing besides it! He says that he does not belittle any particular figure, Allah forbid, for perhaps that was all its owner possessed; but he is searching behind the mentality that gave and asked that question.

Spending that builds a generation

The khaṭīb wants us to rebuild collective thinking, to think together, and to have a real future on the ground. This is not his task today specifically; rather, his task is to kindle this idea in our heads, even if only as something passed on to our children: to talk to them about cooperating among themselves like the students of one class or a shared team accomplishing something.

The people of Islam were asked to spend only to preserve the existence of the religion, and the existence of the religion in our land is the preservation of the following generations who carry the identity of Islam.

Some reproach us that we live in the land of disbelief, and they do not realize that the children of many of us here are in better condition and stand higher with Islam than our children there.

Conclusion: may we not be tried with forgetting those in need

The khutbah ended with a supplication in which the khaṭīb asks his Lord not to make us forget Gaza and what is in it, not to try us with forgetting those in need among the people of Islam, to give might to His religion throughout the whole earth, to make the means easy for us, and to prepare for us righteous people who seek His pleasure in this world and the Hereafter.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The khaṭīb uttered only the opening of the verse; the complete clause is: ﴿وَمَا لَكُمْ أَلَّا تُنفِقُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَلِلَّهِ مِيرَاثُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ﴾ ("And what is wrong with you that you do not spend in the cause of Allah, while to Allah belongs the inheritance of the heavens and the earth?") [al-Ḥadīd: 10]; what appears in the transcript is only its opening.