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Alhamdulillah, we praise Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and we seek his help. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and the consequences of our actions.

Whomever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guides, none can misguide. And whomever Allah chooses to misguide, none can guide him to the straight path.

A bear witness and I testify that there is no deity worthy of worship other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that Muhammad ﷺ is his final prophet and his most perfect worshipper.

As to what follows, know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has reminded us to be conscious of him when he says in the Quran,

Dear Muslims, last week we did part one of a series that I am doing about how we understand and deal with differences of opinion, with ihtilaf, with sectarianism.

And inshaAllah wa ta'ala, this khudba will continue to next week as well, at least the three part series. For those who didn't attend or haven't watched online, please watch part number one.

In that I stated that not every ihtilaf should lead to a khilaf, not every difference of opinion should lead to a difference in the heart.

And I also stated that the religion of Islam is larger than anyone sect, anyone movement, anyone group of ulama. And that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has promised to protect the mainstream ummah, the bulk of this ummah.

This is the reality of history and of the understanding of our Quran and Sunnah. Generic mainstream Islam, that is what orthodoxy is.

Today I will continue along that and be a little bit more explicit and inshaAllah wa ta'ala next week we will even continue more than what we have done today.

And my main point today is an elaboration of what I said last week and I want to rephrase it as follows.

Any Muslim who sincerely desires to worship Allah and Allah alone based upon the Sunnah of the messenger of Allah cannot be treated like an outsider or like an enemy.

Let me repeat that. Any Muslim who desires to worship Allah based upon the Sunnah of the messenger of Allah.

That person has shown so much in common with you that any disagreement afterwards must be an internal, brotherly, fraternal disagreement.

In fact dear brothers and sisters, almost all of the differences that we encounter in our own communities and our own masajid based internal issues, almost all of them is a difference of how to understand the Quran and Sunnah.

How to implement the Quran and Sunnah. How to prioritize within the Quran and Sunnah. How to reconcile aspects within the Quran and Sunnah.

We must never take these differences from within as being the same as those that emanate from without.

In other words, the question arises, who is the proverbial other? Who is the other type of Muslim that we have to be a little bit worried about, conscious of maybe even worn against, maybe even have ideas that we think are dangerous?

Who is that person that we take as the proverbial other? When do we consider another Muslim to be so wrong or so, quote unquote, dangerous and ideas that we shall not allow any social interaction?

They are not going to come and preach in our masajid and so on and so forth. The response to this, well you as every lay person will have to decide which group of scholars you trust.

And there are some scholars who are very narrow in answering this question. Only my particular understanding is correct. And anybody who disagrees is misguided, is deviated, must be worn against, is a danger, is a threat.

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