Where Do We Stand in the Parse?

Occasion: A summary of a Friday khutbah delivered at AIA Masjid on April 3, 2026.Source: A transcription of a video khutbah by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Praise be to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, seek His guidance and ask His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and the misdeeds of our actions, and we bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, without partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger ﷺ. To proceed:

The title is a question taken from the language of grammar: what is our position in the parse (iʿrāb)? It is enough to hear it to grasp what it means: where are we?

There may seem to be repetition in what I say, but the Qur'an itself repeated to its hearers the command of tawḥīd because of its importance, and repeated with it, for emphasis and grounding, the matter of building the Ummah: its significance, its meaning and its effect. Hence this question.

We Arrive Late

I see, time after time, that we, as a Muslim community in the lands of the West, arrive late. If we come at all, we have no lead in shaping events, no follow-up to correct a mistake, and no defined strategy with which to shape reality to the extent of what we possess.

If you say: and what do we possess? I answer you: a single statistic tells you the number of Muslims in this country, the rate of Islam's spread in it, and the number of those who belong to it in feeling or in real belonging. And what goes out in zakāh and donations is an indicator of the size of Muslim wealth here. All of this gives you an impression of the strength of the Muslim presence in the lands of the West. And the same question remains: where are we? What is our position in the parse?

When the Muslim Is Accused in His Belonging

And a pressing question remains on my mind: when will we act well in the face of words with which we are accused? The first of them is that you belong to Islam more than you belong to America. This is an accusation directed at you, and the one who makes it does not realize that your belonging to Islam imposes on you, as a binding obligation, belonging to the land on which you live, indeed to the whole earth, so that you count it part of the responsibility that occupies your mind and heart. That is a religion that imposes on me from the outset that I am a vicegerent of Allah on earth, and that I extend my hand in cooperation with everyone whose aim is reform and bringing about serious, radical change in this life.

Sūrat al-Rūm: A Mind Beyond the Mountains of Makkah

Verses descend upon the Prophet ﷺ at the beginning of the Makkan period, in which his Lord speaks to him with His words: ﴿الم﴾ [al-Rūm: 1] ("Alif Lām Mīm"). When I hear this opening, I take heed that the matter is serious, for the sūrah opens with disjointed letters, and I stand before them striving to pronounce them correctly, as though I stumble at the entrance so as to watch my step thereafter. Then I find myself before this news:

﴿غُلِبَتِ الرُّومُ ۝ فِي أَدْنَى الْأَرْضِ وَهُم مِّن بَعْدِ غَلَبِهِمْ سَيَغْلِبُونَ ۝ فِي بِضْعِ سِنِينَ ۗ لِلَّهِ الْأَمْرُ مِن قَبْلُ وَمِن بَعْدُ ۚ وَيَوْمَئِذٍ يَفْرَحُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ ۝ بِنَصْرِ اللَّهِ﴾ [al-Rūm: 2-5] ("The Romans have been defeated, in the nearest land, and they, after their defeat, will overcome, within a few years. To Allah belongs the command before and after. And on that day the believers will rejoice, in the help of Allah")

Consider who receives these words: a small group around Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ﷺ, whose utmost hope at that time was to succeed in persuading the likes of Abū Jahl and al-Walīd; their conception of life stopped at the ceiling of these men's Islam: if they accept Islam, we are at ease. This is what I imagine of the mentality of people who grew up among sheep and livestock and amid the mountains, hardly any of whom could see what lies beyond them. Then Islam comes to tell them about the Romans! What are the Romans? What is this term, new to the ears of most people, if not all of them?

It is as if the Lord of Might were forming in them new equations in shaping this human mind, moving it from individual thinking to collective thinking. For there are those who share with you the end of a thread: the People of the Book. And of these very people the Qur'an will say after a while: ﴿لَقَدْ كَفَرَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الْمَسِيحُ ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 17] ("They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is the Messiah, son of Maryam"), and it will say: ﴿لَّقَدْ كَفَرَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَاثَةٍ﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 73] ("They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is the third of three"). So that you may hold the equation in your mind: that you receive these words, and that you reject these words, while they are the very same people. But my Lord teaches me when to come together and when to part, when to unite and when to keep my distance, and how to weigh a situation according to its circumstance.

It is like being angry with your son because he did wrong, denied the fundamentals and transgressed, so you are angry with him to the point of throwing him out of the house. Then after a while a phone call comes: your son is in the hospital; he has had an accident. This one you resented yesterday, what is your reaction today? You rush after him, and you come together with him in the root, even from afar; so how much more if there is kinship between you? Then when he recovers, heals and stands on his feet, you go back to saying: there is a parting between you and me. You objected to what he did, but you did not deny him the root of the bond that ought to remain.

So the Romans form in me the mind that goes beyond the horizons of Makkah, its borders, its mountains and its valleys, to what lies beyond them. Then my Lord teaches me with the words ﴿بِضْعِ سِنِينَ﴾ [al-Rūm: 4] ("within a few years") that time is part of the cure, and that goals are not achieved as soon as they are sought, but need patience, effort, word and energy.

Where Is Our Reference?

And I ask: where is our reference? Where is our sharʿī reference?

If someone says: al-Azhar al-Sharīf, I say: yes, and what will make you know what al-Azhar al-Sharīf is! But it is not a comprehensive reference; some count it and others do not. Among people are those who refuse to refer to it because, in their view, it is Ashʿarī in creed, and among them are those who consider the Sufis unfit to lead in religion or in worldly life, and so they go backward several steps. Where is the reference that gathers the Muslims in America, in Europe and in any place of the land of Islam? The people of the Sunnah have no unifying reference. So what is your role?

Unity of Rank in Sūrat al-Rūm

Our Lord says, and He knows what we know: ﴿أَوَلَمْ يَتَفَكَّرُوا فِي أَنفُسِهِم﴾ [al-Rūm: 8] ("Do they not reflect within themselves?"). And here I am before the matter of unity, and I will be brief. He, Glorified is He, said in the same sūrah:

﴿فَأَقِمْ وَجْهَكَ لِلدِّينِ حَنِيفًا ۚ فِطْرَتَ اللَّهِ الَّتِي فَطَرَ النَّاسَ عَلَيْهَا ۚ لَا تَبْدِيلَ لِخَلْقِ اللَّهِ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ الدِّينُ الْقَيِّمُ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ۝ مُنِيبِينَ إِلَيْهِ وَاتَّقُوهُ وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَلَا تَكُونُوا مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ ۝ مِنَ الَّذِينَ فَرَّقُوا دِينَهُمْ وَكَانُوا شِيَعًا ۖ كُلُّ حِزْبٍ بِمَا لَدَيْهِمْ فَرِحُونَ﴾ [al-Rūm: 30-32] ("So set your face toward the religion, inclining to truth: the natural disposition of Allah upon which He created people. There is no change in the creation of Allah. That is the upright religion, but most people do not know; turning to Him in repentance, and fear Him, establish prayer, and do not be among those who associate partners with Allah, among those who split their religion and became sects, every faction rejoicing in what it has")

I understand that the mushrikūn are those who associate partners with Allah, yet my Lord sets out for me here another definition of shirk and a description of its followers: ﴿مِنَ الَّذِينَ فَرَّقُوا دِينَهُمْ وَكَانُوا شِيَعًا﴾ [al-Rūm: 32] ("among those who split their religion and became sects"), that is, parties, each of whom regards himself as the sole possessor of salvation, the one who owns Paradise while others own the Fire. This is inverted logic, and it is inverted in light of what the sūrah contains.

For the sūrah itself presents diversity as one of the signs of Allah: ﴿وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَكُم مِّن تُرَابٍ﴾ [al-Rūm: 20] ("And of His signs is that He created you from dust"), and dust in itself is diverse in its substance and its settings, some of it red and some brown. ﴿وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا لِّتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً﴾ [al-Rūm: 21] ("And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them, and He placed between you affection and mercy"), and you may not be good at making affection because of the differences in the very makeup: I am not like her, and she is not a copy of me, so help came from heaven. Then He shows us examples of difference: ﴿وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ خَلْقُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافُ أَلْسِنَتِكُمْ وَأَلْوَانِكُمْ﴾ [al-Rūm: 22] ("And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors"), ﴿مَنَامُكُم بِاللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ وَابْتِغَاؤُكُم مِّن فَضْلِهِ﴾ [al-Rūm: 23] ("your sleep by night and day and your seeking of His bounty"), ﴿يُرِيكُمُ الْبَرْقَ خَوْفًا وَطَمَعًا﴾ [al-Rūm: 24] ("He shows you the lightning, in fear and hope").

This diversity in the universe represents the diversity among us. So when will we embrace one another? When will we come together? And when will we feel affection among ourselves as members of a community that prays in a mosque, or belongs to a school of thought, or wants to revive a Sunnah?

Brotherhood Is an Obligation, Not a Choice

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds; there is no hostility except against the wrongdoers, and the good end belongs to the God-fearing. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, the King, the Truth, the Manifest, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger ﷺ.

Servants of Allah, Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, has made brotherhood obligatory upon us, and it is not a matter of choice: ﴿إِنَّ هَٰذِهِ أُمَّتُكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً﴾ [al-Anbiyāʾ: 92] ("Indeed, this, your Ummah, is one Ummah"). You have no choice in this. And crises have their conditions that they impose upon us, and once they clear we return to the places of discussion and disagreement.

And what is said in reviling the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ and accusing the Mother of the Believers (may Allah be pleased with her) is the pickaxe with which all the safety valves of brotherhood are demolished. And there are those who know this, and those who want neither gathering nor unity. If these concepts vanish from our minds, we will have lost our religion. And I do not say "we will be lost," for we are nothing; rather, it is the religion that commands you to protect the land and to safeguard people's blood and their circumstances.

O Allah, we ask You to protect the blood of the monotheist Muslims in every place on earth, to forgive our stumbles, and to make us firm with the firm word in the life of this world and in the Hereafter. O Allah, show us the truth as truth and grant us to follow it, and show us falsehood as falsehood and grant us to avoid it. Take charge of us, be gentle with us, pardon us and overlook our misdeeds. Amen, O Lord of the Worlds.

A Word about the Mosque

Before I conclude: do not forget this mosque of yours, for it has expenses for electricity, water and other things. I know people's circumstances, and I am one of you; I suffer from what you suffer, and we ask Allah for well-being. Whoever is generous is generous only to himself, and whoever gives charity to the House of Allah is building up a part of this inhabited world. May Allah keep your steps safe, bless your striving, be pleased with your effort, and may Allah accept from us.