Abdullah Hakim Quick – Resistance and Reform – Introduction – Class 1

AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the challenges faced by Muslims in facing attacks and the need for submission to authority. They stress the importance of protecting faith and the rule of Islam to ensure the safety of others. The speakers also discuss the importance of acceptance of Islam's reform and resistance to evil practices, as well as the need for change and acceptance of change in one's behavior to avoid corruption. They stress the importance of history and acceptance of Islam as a solution to problems, and emphasize the need for measured online activities to avoid unnecessary harm.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil
Alameen Wa usalli wa usallam ala Sayyid al
-awwalin wa al-akhirin, nabiyyina Muhammadin, wa ala
alihi wa sahbihi, wa barak wa salam.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of
the Worlds, and peace and blessings be upon
our beloved Prophet Muhammad, the Master of the
First and the Last, his family, his companions,
and all those who call to his way
and establish his Sunnah to the Day of
Judgment.
As to what follows, As-salamu alaykum wa
rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Alhamdulillah, we are continuing on with our classes,
trying to look at important issues that are
facing the Muslim world today.
2025 has begun, and Muslims are in a
very unique, challenging situation.
Because for some, it appears like the world
is closing in on us.
It appears like Islamophobia is rising and becoming
more and more powerful.
But for others, it is really part of
the change that we are going through.
It's part of the pain that we are
going through in order to rise back to
prominence.
Because when we look at the Muslim world,
we recognize that Muslims make up over 26
% of the Earth's population.
That we have some of the richest people
on the face of the planet Earth.
We have mineral wealth.
We have strategic position.
We have youth.
We have everything that is needed in the
sense of potential for us to be a
dominating force on Earth.
But at the same time, there's frustration.
The wealth is not going, for the most
part, to feed the poor or to liberate
the oppressed.
The scholars, in many cases, argue over trivia.
And we find many of the so-called
Muslim countries have become failed states.
And so, it's like a beautiful vehicle that
is in the beginning of the race.
You think it's going to win, but it
has no fuel.
There's no gas inside of it.
So there's something missing on the inside.
And this question or this challenge, I believe,
is very central for the future of Islam
and Muslims.
One of the issues is how do we
confront attacks.
We're under attack.
There's extreme pressure being applied to us.
And some people, some of the Muslims, when
faced with the attacks, they try to hide
themselves.
They try to appear like their enemies, to
dress like them, to talk like them, to
walk like them.
But that's not going to work because the
world has changed now and information now has
risen.
You can't hide, ultimately, your identity.
Other people go to extremes, and that's not
going to work either.
And so, one of the key issues where
there is a heavy debate on different levels,
even on a scholarly level, is that when
this attack is on, when we're under attack,
how do we respond?
And there's a tendency to stereotype the Muslims.
One side is that Muslims are militants.
They're extremely violent.
But the other stereotype, the other image or
position now being taken is that we are
pacifistic people.
And so there is a scholarly debate going
on that Islam does not include resistance.
That anything to do with the political situation,
the military situation, anything to do with self
-defense, that's not Muslims.
That's not really what Islam is.
But Islam is just a spiritual religion, and
it's to do with your prayers and your
fasting, all of your spiritual affairs.
But when it comes to the politics, when
it comes to other aspects, that's for the
politicians.
And this is a position which is being
pushed, and scholars are even taking the position
that if Muslims are oppressed in their own
countries, that they should hear and obey, that
they should submit.
So, in other words, the word Islam means
submission, but it's submission to the will of
Allah.
But they have stretched the term to submission
to any authority that we find ourselves under.
And so you have the extremes.
But when you look at the Sunnah, when
you look at the life of Prophet Muhammad
ﷺ, we recognize that Muslims are neither pacifists,
when I say pacifists it's non-violent people,
nor are Muslims overly violent, militant people.
But Islam is set to respond to all
circumstances.
Islam is for peacetimes, and Islam is for
war.
It's for all situations.
So we're neither position.
And you'll find people take these positions and
get to extremes.
But really when you look at the Sunnah,
we recognize that in the Meccan period, the
Prophet ﷺ and his companions, although they were
extremely oppressed, they were insulted, they were tortured,
killed, driven out of their lands, they did
not fight back.
They were not allowed to respond with any
violence.
So you could say it was in a
sense a type of non-violent resistance during
that first 13-year period.
When the transition happened, and the Muslims went
to Medina, Allah gave them the right to
defend themselves.
And so self-defense came in, and when
they were attacked, they responded to the attack.
And so self-defense was another level.
Then it reached a point where Muslims were
commanded by the Creator to fight against evil
and oppression anywhere it is.
And that's the highest stage.
So Muslims were not fighting defensive wars, not
offensive wars.
It was a combination.
It's whatever the circumstance requires.
And so we shouldn't be confused when stereotypes
are being given to us, and they say
the militant Muslims, and then they use this
word Islamist.
So this is a strange term.
Because in English, if you say somebody who
studies chemistry is a chemist, or somebody who's
into biology, biologist.
So now in English, Islamist is supposed to
mean, although it's a made-up word, it's
supposed to mean somebody who practices Islam.
But when you say, or when a news
reporter describes this individual as an Islamist, negative
connotations come up.
That means he's intolerant, violent, anti-civilization.
If it's a male, he oppresses women.
It's an Islamist.
So this is a total misnomer.
And even one leader used the word Islamist.
That was a new one.
And so these are made-up terms, and
we cannot be fooled or led astray by
some of these false terminologies.
And so we want to look at the
issue of resistance, reform and resistance within our
society, and to see how some of the
great scholars of Islam and leaders of Islam
teach us.
They responded to oppression.
Did they hide?
Did they imitate the enemy?
Did they try to buy them out?
How did they respond?
And so we want to look at these
two terms.
And the first term is resistance.
And one of the terms in Arabic, muqawwama.
Muqawwama is a term, you don't hear that
normally being used, but muqawwama means to resist.
That means you physically resist, you fight back.
And it refers to an active struggle against
injustice.
So any way you find oppression, or any
force that's undermining or trying to destroy Islam,
then you actively are involved in fighting against
it.
So you could say in a sense that
muqawwama is the term jihad.
But jihad again is a term, jihad only
means struggle.
And I remember being on a dais platform
with one scholar, and he said to the
people who had the wrong understanding of Islam,
he said, if you can see the word
jihad, if you can bring me any verse
in the Quran, or any authenticated hadith of
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, where jihad
equals holy war, I will give you $1
,000, 10 $100 US bills, 10 of them,
cash, nobody could find it, and you cannot
find it.
Because that's not what jihad means, jihad means
struggle.
Okay, you're resisting evil, however you can resist.
And so muqawwama is another way of seeing
this as well.
Because resistance could be, again, non-violent resistance,
that's a form of muqawwama.
So that means you're going to speak the
truth against evil, the evil is there, you
speak the truth against it.
It could mean protest, which are basically peaceful.
It can even mean intellectual discourse, so that
means that you intellectually struggle against them.
In London they have what is called Speaker's
Corner.
We don't have one, but Dundas and Yonge
Street, people go there and debate, but the
British have an active place where you can
come and debate.
And so Muslims go out there, and they
literally are involved in a struggle at Speaker's
Corner.
And that can be a form of muqawwama.
The one that is more famous, though, is
the armed resistance.
But that armed resistance is to protect faith,
it's to protect lives, it's to protect the
sovereignty, the rule of Islam, and there are
certain guidelines when it comes to muqawwama.
The Prophet ﷺ, when he sent his companions
out, he told them that you should not
be destroying synagogues or churches, temples, you should
not kill monks and priests, you should not
burn people's crops, you should not fight and
kill non-combatants.
So there's rules of engagement, that's what they
say today.
There are Islamic rules of engagement in dealing
with muqawwama, but we should be unashamed to
say it clearly, that muqawwama is part of
our faith.
And this is the confusion that many people
get in.
Maybe out of fear, they say, no, no,
no, we only fight defensive war.
That's not Muslims.
No, that's not the reality.
We have the right to defend ourselves.
And any human being has the right, even
under United Nations international universal law, we have
the right of self-defense.
Okay, so we should not be ashamed to
talk about this resistance.
Now, some people might say, okay, where's your
proof?
How do you get this?
But Allah ﷻ has said very clearly to
us, إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرْ بِالْعَدْلِ Allah commands you
with justice.
Okay, so your resistance is supposed to be,
it's part of our faith, right, where we
are acting to establish justice and to repel
injustice wherever we find it.
Okay, and also part of our faith, which
is very clear, and that is to call
to the good and forbid evil.
And the Qur'an in Surah Ali Imran
verse 110 tells us, كُنْتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةً أُخْرَجَتْ
لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنَ الْمُنْكَىٰ
وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ These are three repeated verses that
you are the best nation produced for mankind.
Why?
You enjoin what is right and you forbid
what is wrong and you believe in Allah.
So, it's a process that we're doing.
Okay, so that's just a definition of the
first resistance.
Okay, that's the first term.
And we will be looking at this as
we go along in the course, just, you
know, touching the surface, bringing a few famous
scholars and how they resisted and the different
ways that they resisted.
The second term is reform.
And reform is also a term in English
which can be misunderstood.
For instance, with the Jewish people now, they
say that there are orthodox Jews, which means
somebody who is supposedly following their laws, the
Talmud, and the men will wear the black
clothing and the women, you know, shave their
heads and wear a wig, you know, and
whatnot.
This is the orthodox Jews.
But they also have what is called reform
Jews.
So, the reform Jew is supposed to be
somebody who is Jewish but they've changed the
religion.
So, they have changed the religion in order
to meet the times.
Okay, this is not what we mean because
reform has a lot of different definitions.
But for us, it is a process of
renewing and improving society.
So, you're bringing back the society to the
Quranic values.
Right, of justice, equity, and spirituality.
So, this is a type of revival.
It's a revival, okay?
But reform, again, the best definition for this,
or the clear Arabic word is islah.
Islah.
So, that is with a sad.
Right, saluha, islah.
And so, which means like to repair something
or to correct it, right?
And so, reform is proactive.
Okay, it's proactive because it's supposed to prevent
moral and societal decay.
Okay, so islah prevents decay.
When you're repairing a society, you're getting it
together.
But it's reactive in a sense that it
does react to existing issues.
So, when issues now come up, the reform,
the islah, will react to these things and
deal with it, okay?
Now, sometimes the word islah is connected with
tajdeed.
Or sometimes they're used in the place of
each other.
And the tajdeed is a renewal or a
revival.
Because jadeed means new in Arabic.
So, tajdeed is to make something new.
Revival is also a term used for that
as well.
And the Prophet ﷺ said in a hadith
that indeed Allah will send for this ummah,
إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَبْعَثُ فِي هَذِهِ الْأُمَّةِ عَلَى رَأْسِ
كُلِّ قَرْنٍ مَن يُجَدِّدْ لَهَا الدِّينُ That Allah
ﷻ will send for this ummah at the
head of every hundred years.
Okay, qarun is being used.
Allah will send someone who will renew the
faith.
This is called tajdeed.
And the person who does that is called
mujaddid.
Okay, mujaddid.
Another hadith, عَلَى رَأْسِ كُلِّ قَرْنٍ مُجَدِّدْ At
the head of every century is a mujaddid.
Qarun can mean a hundred years or it
could mean a generation.
So, there's somebody or sometimes the tajdeed could
be done by a group of people.
It could be done by a movement.
And some scholars have tried to look at
the mujaddids.
Who could be the mujaddids of each Islamic
century?
And there are a number of people because
a mujaddid is not necessarily somebody who's a
military leader.
So, the mujaddid is renewing the faith.
This is islah.
You see, it's a repair.
It's a reform.
So, these are the two terms that we're
really looking at.
We're looking at this, you know, how Islam
has been reformed over the centuries and how
it has been, how resistance has come.
And this is really crucial for us today
because the Muslim world is in need of
islah.
It is in need of reform.
It's for us to repair it because it's
broken in many cases.
Also, it's in need of resistance.
Active resistance.
And alhamdulillah, over the past few months with
the situation in Palestine becoming so crucial and
right in front of our eyes, although we
already had Kashmir, the Rohingyas, Sudan, we had
a lot of situations, but this one was
live.
And so, it has produced active resistance.
Okay?
So, when you look at islah, what will
the islah do for the Muslim world?
Okay?
We're 26% of the Earth's population.
Billions of Muslims.
Okay?
But the islah will preserve justice, morality, and
it will help us to preserve our Islamic
values because we're in danger now.
The values are being lost to the next
generation.
Also, it brings forth dynamism.
You're repairing somebody.
It's like somebody's playing sports and they play,
you know, soccer or they play football and
they're a little tired and they're wounded, so
the doctor now repairs that person, right, and
gets them ready for the next game.
Okay, so an islah can actually do that
as well.
So, this is a really important term now,
right?
This is a really important term.
And it is the essence of the verses
that we saw in Ali Imran of enjoining
to the good and forbidding evil.
So, this is the term islah.
Okay?
And with the word, with reform and resistance,
how this comes in our literature, because some
people will say, okay, things are going to
happen to us.
No, we're Muslims.
Just make dhikr and it will go away.
Just pray.
Just pray.
Just put on your clothes.
But the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam said
that afdal al-jihad, the best jihad, is
kalimat al-haq amam al-sultan al-jahir,
that if you speak a word of truth
before a tyrant ruler, that is the best
jihad.
And if you think about that, that's not
a weapon, that's not a bomb.
That's the truth.
You stand in front of a tyrant and
you speak the truth.
And that spirit is rising with this generation
of Muslims, the younger generation, alhamdulillah, that this
is rising now.
Okay?
And again, this is the essence of bringing
about your reform and your resistance.
But somebody will say, well, no.
What did the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam
directly say when we're confronted with evil?
And so this is a hadith that people
tend to try to forget, but it's very
clear that the Prophet peace be upon him
said, man ra'a minkum munkaran fal yughayirhu
biyadi.
Whoever among you sees evil, let him change
it with his hand.
And if he's unable, then with his tongue.
And if he's unable to do that, then
change it or feel it in his heart.
That's the weakest form of faith.
So these are like the three levels.
And you can judge your actions based on
these three levels.
And evil happens, whether it's to you personally,
to your family, to your society, to Islam
in general, to the Muslim ummah.
Okay?
The best thing to do, change it with
your hands.
That's muqawwama, right?
Active resistance.
Change it.
There's an elderly woman crossing the street and
some young ruffians come along and they start
shouting at her and they're trying to grab
her pocketbook away.
And you're there.
What can you do?
Especially if it's a young Muslim who's supposed
to be a young man, he's supposed to
be strong.
What do you do?
The best thing would be to do is
to go over there and stop them.
But not everybody's capable of doing that, especially
today with weapons and you know, whatnot.
So at least you could say something.
That's the least you can do.
You can shout.
You can call 911.
You can call somebody else.
You could do something.
And the worst possible thing is to just
hate it in your heart.
And that's what's happening in Toronto.
I remember in New York City, this is
what used to happen.
Somebody would get robbed in broad daylight and
the other people look at it and they
say, well, this is New York.
I mean, what can we do?
So Toronto's becoming like that now too in
the malls and the different areas.
People just seeing this and just walking away.
Whereas if you were in Toronto in the
early, you know, even back in the 70s,
60s or 70s to see, you know, violence
and open robberies and things did not happen
very often in the major cities.
So these are three levels, right?
Again, resistance.
You need proof because if you are discussing
this, you're going to have somebody who's saying,
if you're really Islamic, you should not be
resisting.
You should not go in a demonstration, even
what they call civil resistance, where you block
traffic.
Okay, where you boycott.
They say you're not supposed to do that.
Just leave it to Allah.
If there's a Muslim leader who's oppressing his
people, leave him alone.
They're going to try to bring you this.
Here's your proofs.
We need this.
This is a very important issue, very serious
issue.
And so the Qur'anic principles.
Again, people will want to know what are
the principles in terms of our resistance, our
reform, you know, what does the Qur'an
say about this?
Okay, you quoted from the Prophet, right?
But what does the Qur'an say about
it?
It is number one in terms of justice.
One of the key elements in Islamic society
is justice.
If there's no justice, there really is no
Islamic society.
Okay, and the Qur'an is saying in
Surah An-Nisa, it is telling us very
clearly, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُونُوا قَوَّامِينَ بِالْقِسْتِ
شُهَدَاءَ اللَّهِ It says, O you who believe,
be persistently standing firm in justice.
You have to do this.
You see in the term it's being used,
قَوَّامِينَ You see, قَوَّامَ مُقَاوَمَ You see it?
So the word مُقَاوَمَ comes directly out of
this.
مُقَاوَمَ Right, so be actively involved in resistance
and in establishing justice.
Secondly is the empowerment of oppressed people.
This is part of our religion.
It's not just to pray and to fast.
And Allah even tells us in Surah Al
-Qasas, وَنُرِيدُ أَنَّ مُنَّ عَلَى الَّذِينَ أَسْتُدْعِفُوا فِي
الْأَرْضِ وَنَجْعَلَهُمْ أَئِمَّا وَنَجْعَلَهُمُ الْوَارِثِينَ Allah says, And
we wanted to confer favor upon those who
were oppressed in the land and make them
leaders and make them inheritors.
So it is part of Allah's will for
the oppressed people to rise up.
This is not just a Marxist-Leninist socialist
concept, right?
And this is what fooled a lot of
Muslims.
Because when the kings were dominating the Muslim
world in the 20th century and the socialist
countries were overthrowing, they said, okay, we need
Islamic socialism because your Islam puts you to
sleep.
Your leaders, your imams, they're telling you just
stay under the king.
So if you become a socialist, we'll teach
you resistance.
No, they didn't understand the message of Islam
because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's will is
to liberate the oppressed people.
It is part of our faith.
You'll also see very clearly in terms of
reforming that this reform, it actually begins within
ourselves.
And this is another extremely important concept, especially
looking at the condition of the Muslim world
today.
Because the Prophet ﷺ spoke about that the
day would come when our numbers would be
large and we would be like a sail.
We'd be like the foam on the water
sticks, pushed to the right, pushed to the
left.
No real strength.
And that's what's happening.
People are crying, crying for help, crying for
a leader, crying for change.
And Allah said in Surah Ar-Ra'd, verse
11, Allah will not change the condition of
a people until they change that which is
in themselves.
No change is going to come about.
It's got to start inside of ourselves.
So if people are still being corrupt, they're
following the corrupt Western habits, putting them into
their country and thinking that they're going to
be successful.
No, they will continue to be slaves because
they didn't change themselves.
So our revolution, in a sense, that islah,
it begins on the inside.
And also another theme, again, for our Quranic
understanding of reform and resistance, and that is
that we're supposed to condemn corruption wherever it
is.
And Allah tells us, وَلَا تَعَثُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ
مُفْسِدِينَ Allah says, do not commit abuse on
the earth spreading corruption.
So part of the duty of the Muslims
is to fight corruption wherever it is.
So these are all those issues, Quran, this
is just the tip of the iceberg.
There's so much in the Quran, so much
in the sayings of the Prophet ﷺ.
And looking at his life, seerah, which is
also very important for us constantly to refer
to.
You'll see in the Meccan period, that the
Muslims could not fight with weapons, but there
was resistance.
It was a muqawwama.
They resisted idolatry.
They refused to bow down to the idols.
Right?
They resisted tribalism.
And that was the thing that Quraish hated
about the Prophet ﷺ.
When they used to see him, they said,
here comes Muhammad with these slaves, with these
poor people.
And slaves are not just black too, by
the way, right?
They could be Arabs, they could be European
types, Persian.
They were the underclass.
But here he is with these poor people,
these slaves.
Okay?
He's Quraish.
What is he doing with them?
So it's resistance.
So they resisted this by practicing Islam, and
then they took the corruption out of their
lives.
They stopped being corrupt.
Okay?
And the essence of that call was the
corruption in belief, that they called to the
oneness of God.
Okay?
So this was a form of resistance.
And you could see it really displayed when
Bilal r.a. is being tortured.
And then he's saying, you know, Ahadun Ahad.
His response to having rocks put on his
chest, hot rocks.
He's saying Ahad, one.
One God.
That's resistance.
You see?
That's monotheistic resistance.
And so they stopped all these bad habits.
Killing their children, especially the female children.
Being oppressors.
This class divide.
Rich and the poor.
They resisted in their lifestyle.
Okay?
But in Medina, it had a combination of
the two.
So when they came in at first, you
can see Islah.
So the Prophet s.a.w. is reforming
the society.
Remember what reform does.
It prepares you for something.
What is the greatest form of, one of
the greatest forms of Islah?
It was the constitution of Medina.
One of the first acts that was being
done is that principles were established of governance.
How religions could coexist.
Mutual rights.
It was established in the Medina period under
this constitution, which is a series of edicts.
It wasn't a constitution like we have today
in one piece of paper in a book.
But you could say that it is the
principles which were established and eventually written down.
Okay?
So that was Islah.
So he prepared the society.
Right?
He brought together the believers and made them
close to each other.
Okay?
He brought close people of other faiths.
Jewish people were not forced to accept Islam.
They could still follow the Torah and be
part of the city.
Even Arabs who had traditional Arab religion.
Okay?
They were allowed to live in the city
under this constitution.
So that is Islah.
He's repairing the society.
Now the attack comes.
And then Muqawama.
And the first great Muqawama, of course, was
the Battle of Badr.
And that is where the Muslims were.
They originally went to get the caravan of
their goods, which was stolen by Abu Sufyan.
And then it turned out that Mecca sent
a thousand warriors against 313 Muslims.
And so they didn't go back.
They didn't say, well, let's go back to
the masjid and do dhikr.
Let's just pray to Allah.
No.
They resisted.
And the Prophet ﷺ, he's changing from Islah
to Muqawama.
So if you go to the seerah, it's
interesting.
Because he actually sat with the people and
he said, I didn't bring you for this.
Are you with me now?
Quraysh is in front of us.
Are you ready to go from this Islah
to Muqawama?
And so they said, we will follow you
to the end of the earth.
So we took what is called bay'ah.
Bay'ah is an oath.
Okay.
All of us take a bay'ah.
When you make your shahada, you're making an
oath to Allah, an oath to the last
messenger.
Constantly we're making it.
This is something else now.
He made them take a bay'ah that
they would go to the next stage.
You see?
So the Islah led into the Muqawama.
Okay.
That's part of the process of the establishment
of Islam.
And it's that interconnectedness between the two.
Okay.
And within his sayings, you can see how
he's changing their attitudes.
You know, Sayyid al Qawm Khadimuhum, the leader
of a people, is their servant.
That's your leader.
Changes the concept of leadership.
Okay.
So this is totally different now.
And then he tells them, whoever defends his
wealth and is killed is a shaheed, is
a mara.
Even if you're defending your family, defending your
wealth, you're shaheed.
See, so this is now motivation to resist.
And this is something that Muslims throughout the
world are waking up to.
Unfortunately, this oppression which is being applied to
us, it's a wake-up call.
Again, it's happened to us historically and it's
happening now.
We're waking up.
It's like a sleeping giant waking up.
And so in this introductory session, because we
have been studied, many of you have been
students in this class following what we've shown
from the Khulafa Rashidin, rightly guided caliphs to
the Umayyads, to the Abbasids, to the Seljuks,
to the Ottomans.
You've seen the history and whatnot.
And so there is a context to muqawwama.
There's a context to islah, where you're repairing
your society, but there's also something else that
happens to us.
See, that's what's happening to us now.
We're in a context.
But if you go back in time, you
see the transition from the rightly guided caliphs
to the dynasties.
So you had the Umayyads and you had
the Abbasids.
And so the leaders, it became more centralized
in families.
And so this brought about some corruption.
It gave absolute power to people who were
not necessarily ready for this.
And so because of that context, and we'll
be looking at this, there was resistance.
The muqawwama had to come.
There's a form of islah, but there had
to be resistance.
Another context, which is obvious, is when the
Mongols invaded the Muslim world.
Something had to be done.
And we studied before how the Mongols had
destroyed Baghdad, how they were ruining the Muslim
world and the Mamluks of Egypt, who were
originally from Central Asia.
They were mercenary slaves.
They took over Egypt and they resisted the
Mongols face-to-face.
In Ain Jalut, this was muqawwama.
They faced them right on.
When the Crusaders came in waves, destroyed Jerusalem,
killed thousands of people, ruined the land, corrupted
the land, there was active resistance.
Again, go back in time, look at the
great family of the Zengi.
Imaduddin Zengi and Nuruddin Zengi.
May Allah have mercy on them.
They were Turkish leaders and they dedicated their
life to resist the Crusaders.
And out of their leadership and the unity
with the Ayyubid clan came Sultan Salahuddin Al
Ayyubi.
He was the great sultan who defeated the
Crusaders.
And this muqawwama continued.
It continued on until the Crusaders were driven
out from the lands of Islam.
There were also social challenges that brought about
this need for islah or the need for
muqawwama.
What were these?
They were economic disparities between the elites, the
rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, injustice happening
in the land.
Also, materialism coming in, people leaving the religion.
So because of these social challenges, it comes.
The next is religious challenges.
And I'm using that religious in the sense
it's aqidah and faith.
When the Sunni-Shia divide happened, an extreme
group started to come.
And we've studied some of these groups, the
Hashashin, the Ismaili groups, extreme groups.
So there was a need to resist when
the Khawarij movements came that broke away from
the Khalifa Ali and then later on caused
confusion.
And so this decline that happened religiously in
a sense, we were being attacked not just
militarily, but we were also attacked in terms
of our faith.
So that brought about the context for the
islah and the context for the muqawwama.
And it's important for us to understand that
in the essence of our study, looking at
this, is to reflect on today.
Today.
What is our situation?
This hadith is one of the traditions which
is so important to me and to those
who are trying to apply Islam to today.
And this is that the Prophet ﷺ said,
إِنَّ الْإِسْلَامَ بَدَأَ غَرِيبًا وَسَيَعُودُ غَرِيبًا فَطُوبًا لِلْغُرَبَةِ
Verily, Islam began strange and it will return
to being strange.
So glad tidings to the strangers.
And they asked, وَقَالُوا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ وَمَا
الْغُرَبَةِ Who are the strangers, O Messenger of
Allah?
And he said, أَلَّذِينَ يُسْلِحُونَ عِندَ فَسَادِ النَّاسِ
They are those who repair and rectify society
when the people have become corrupt.
Listen to the Arabic, أَلَّذِينَ يُسْلِحُونَ That's إِسْلَاح
You see?
He said, the غُرَبَة The strange ones at
the end of time would be those who
repair.
They repair themselves, they rectify society when people
have become corrupted.
And صدق رسول الله ﷺ We're living right
in the middle of it.
Okay, this is the time of the غُرَبَة
of the strange ones.
And إِسْلَاح is right there in the middle
of it.
Resistance, however we can apply it.
You have your different levels of applying it.
We want to look at some of the
great leaders and scholars We'll go to the
past a little bit and look at some
of the scholars then.
One of the famous ones we might look
at because he was very interesting Shaykh al
-Islam ibn Taymiyyah رحمه الله was a great
person who did إِسْلَاح and مقاومة So we
want to look at that.
And then we will look at some of
the leaders who are not the ones we
took in our previous classes, the famous ones
but ones who led resistance movements even up
until the 19th, 20th century.
We want to look at a couple of
these leaders who led resistance movements so you
can see how Islam in a living sense
can be the solution to the problems that
Muslims are facing.
So I want to end at this point
the basic class and open up the floor
for any questions that anybody may have for
this introductory period in dealing with reform and
resistance.
So the floor is open for any questions
that anybody may have concerning this.
The floor is open.
This is a constant theme that has struck
Muslims and there is a well orchestrated effort.
Millions of dollars being spent for Muslims not
to do Islah and Muqawama.
And the people who do it they are
the ones who are being labeled the Islamists
and the so called troublemakers.
You see why.
They say how can you talk political Islam?
Right?
That's how they are trying to separate Muslims,
divide and conquer and confuse the younger generation.
But Alhamdulillah just by the resistance of the
Palestinian people themselves in public it has shown
what resistance is and even to show some
victories even though there is so much confusion
and trouble surrounding it but you can still
see what even a small group of people
almost helpless can do in the face of
a well orchestrated and well funded evil.
So this question was put in front of
one of the living scholars now Sheikh Mohammed
Hassan Adidu who is from Mauritania.
He is considered to be one of the
strongest scholars in the Muslim world right now.
And they put this to him.
And he said that these traditions concerning the
Muslim leaders and that you should not resist
the Muslim leaders.
Our present day leaders do not qualify for
that Hadith.
They are not Muslim leaders.
Think about the buffoons and clowns who are
leading these so called Muslim countries.
Very few of them maybe some have a
little bit of Deen.
So this Hadith is that this person is
a practicing Muslim leader.
This is why Saddam Hussein when he was
ruling Iraq and he wanted to keep the
people down.
And this is what some tyrants do.
He used to go to Juma and they
would film him at Juma and he would
sit in the Juma and make his Salat.
Right, because some of the Hadith is saying
as long as he is making Salat, don't
resist.
You see, so he would make Salat on
the TV.
Thinking that that is going to fool the
poor people.
He said no, we can't resist because he
just made Salat.
But he was torturing the people, killing the
people.
Like Bashar al-Assad too.
He will make Salat.
Okay, so the fact that Bashar al-Assad
was making Salat that means we don't resist
him.
No.
No.
He does not qualify for the Hadith.
If you have somebody who he is practicing
Islam but he is an intolerant kind of
person and whatever but he is still basically
allowing prayer to be there in society then
if you overthrow that then it can become
worse.
But Sheikh Muhammad al-Hassan his answer to
them was show me the leader who actually
qualifies for that Hadith.
They don't even qualify.
And if there is one then we will
give him nasiha.
We will give him advice.
We will do non-violent muqawama.
We will resist.
But that's being used by the scholars of
the Sultan, of the rulers in order to
suppress resistance.
So they use that to suppress resistance.
At the same time you will see some
of the people saying don't resist and whatever
but then you will see their leaders having
concerts and discotheques and having raves and alcohol
and all this thing and they don't say
anything.
They don't say anything.
So if you are going to not physically
resist the second part is say something.
You see.
So there are answers for these things.
It just needs the right context.
So what they have done is they have
taken these Hadiths out of context.
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Well you know I mean the decisions for
sanctions and boycotts is something that needs to
be done by leadership who are studying properly.
However you know there is there is a
precedent for this you know and that is
Ibn Uthal he was one of the leaders
from the middle of Arabia you know he
came and he was killing Muslims but then
he got captured you know Thumama his name
is Thumama read the story Thumama Ibn Uthal
okay and Thumama you know accepted Islam and
it's a long story and then he made
Umrah because he was going to make Umrah
for the idols and then he was captured
and taken to Medina and so he made
Umrah he was a powerful leader from the
central part of Arabia and so he said
I pledge my life to Islam and my
you know and my goods and everything and
when he went back to the middle of
Arabia which at that time was feeding the
rest of the country he called boycott so
they stopped all caravans to Mecca and this
weakened the Quraish seriously and finally the Quraish
begged the Prophet ﷺ to stop this they
begged him to stop it okay and his
way was not to continually punish people although
they admired Thumama but then he said okay
Thumama you can stop okay but sanctions and
boycott it is allowed you know in Islam
it is a tactic Alhamdulillah they have the
BDS movement now boycott you know and so
that's worked already Starbucks has lost billions of
dollars you know so there's nothing wrong with
stopping people from drinking Starbucks they can just
get some Turkish coffee if they want you
don't have to drink Starbucks so there's literally
that's one way that we can resist you
know stop buying products from you know those
countries that are oppressing our people nothing wrong
with that this has to be thought out
well I remember in a I was living
in Cape Town for a while and there
was one of these boycotts was happening because
of whatever so they start boycotting Coca-Cola
and one of the big Coca-Cola factories
was you know in the Muslim area okay
so by boycotting that place shutting it down
you're also taking the livelihood from the community
people's jobs so the people said okay if
you're going to boycott this we're not going
to be able to eat food so the
scholars had to say okay no this case
the tactic wouldn't be right so if it's
going to cause harm on the people then
that's not our intention so it has to
be well thought out and measured but it
is permissible in Islam to do this so
Duhamma did it it's been done in the
time of the Prophet and it is allowed
I feel
like that's meaning you could change your Popeye's
into a different study or it's so confusing
especially with the BDS movement it might be
more difficult to figure out right so this
is where this is where Muslim leaders and
scholars themselves have to you know give direction
and not just because sometimes the BDS movement
they have other intentions sometimes and this is
what the problem was you know with some
of the demonstrations and everything and you know
you're demonstrating I remember one brother he said
he was going to demonstrate the Black Lives
Matter thing and he turned around and the
people were like trans and stuff the people
were like they had a total different agenda
and he's a Muslim there in the middle
of this thing they switched from that movement
to another movement their agenda was not dealing
with black people or dealing with the indigenous
people it was something else it was dealing
with their own movement so it is important
for us to think these things out it's
really important we
have bias people are choosing different true right
it's very hard to just say no one
feels comfortable saying I don't believe it's
hard to be like a leader and you
know like have a PhD or a Masters
in something everybody has their own specialties like
one thing from the BDS movement that there's
no like I feel like agreement amongst everyone
is that the way I see the BDS
movement is that when you look at for
example the official BDS website they have like
a handful of brands and they say everyone
should collectively avoid these brands look for alternatives
for these brands and they have rankings for
it but then there's also like a collective
one that people are doing online that's more
of like a DIY one where people are
just looking up whatever company they associate with
or they want to buy from has any
ties to Israel and then they cut it
off completely which I think that there's merit
and there's blessing and benefit in doing it
100% but when it's difficult to do
things 100% the BDS movement gives you
like that basis that's more informed by the
total economics of which ones are the ones
that are going to be the most impactful
and see like the biggest results then yeah
it is important that we have a measured
way so we're going to close the class
officially now, there may be a question but
we're going to close the class officially and
for those who are online have a safe
journey home wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah