Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – #CharlieHebdo Freedom of Speech or Freedom to Offend
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The speaker discusses the history and importance of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, emphasizing the harm of social media and free speech designed to harm sensitivities of people. They stress the need to show character and promote the beauty of Islam, while also acknowledging the harm of advertisements and promoting the message of peace be upon Islam. The importance of promoting the physical appearance of the Prophet's true character and not doing things that cause harm to others is emphasized, along with the need to act as a powerful model to encourage people to act the best role model to behave in their behavior.
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi wa Salatu was Salam
ala so you didn't watch the lien while early. He was so busy you
abarca was so limited Sleeman Kathira on Eli Yomi. Dean, I'm
buried
in light of the shocking attacks that took place recently in Paris,
and then the subsequent decision to reprint some of the cartoons.
This is just an opportunity I'm taking to Inshallah, just speak to
all Muslim brothers and sisters and others around the world, just
about how our reaction should be. Before I go into that, I think
there's a few things that I just want to clarify what the first
point is about the love for the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
that Muslims have many non Muslims, and many people will
probably be quite amazed, astonished, maybe even quite taken
aback by the reaction that Muslims have when the Prophet Muhammad
peace be upon him is, is abused. And people don't know because
it's, it's very difficult for people to fathom this and
understand this, I want to try to give an explanation of this. Over
the course of history, there's probably not been any individual
who has been revered and respected and follow to such a degree. So
individually that every activist has been preserved, recorded, and
then follow them emulated around the world, over various different
cultures and ethnicities over the various centuries. So for example,
you'll see a 1.8 billion Muslims from around the world,
representing all the countries that exists, and various different
ethnicities, cultures, languages, etc. They love the Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him, they see him as a savior, they not only
see see him as a savior for this life, but a savior for the life to
come. And you know, for Christians who love Jesus Christ, they can
probably get an idea of this. But with the Prophet Muhammad, it's
even more because we have everything about him, even down to
what he ate, how he ate, how he sat, which fingers he used. We
have all of these details. And we have great numerous incidents from
his life, this whole biography has been recorded in numerous volumes
exactly about His merciful nature. You know, for example, you have
one of his servants, who says that I served him for 10 years, his
name was Ennis is that I served him for 10 years, and never once
did he tell me off. And if anybody else in the family told me off, I
said, Why did you do this? Or why did you do that? The Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon you would actually tell them that no, no,
don't tell him off, you know, he's helping us out. Don't, don't tell
him off. So the, I personally see this as a miracle as a as a
miracle that God has placed into the hearts of, you know, billions
of people throughout the world, both Muslims and non Muslims, this
love for this great individual who we call a mercy to the world as
the Quran causing as well. Now, moving on to the second point to
contrast that with, you've got this concept of free speech. Now,
when it comes to certain issues, for example, with Muslims at the
current time, when it comes to abusing Muslims, or their profit,
free speech seems to stand up and the banners of free speech go up.
When it comes to anything else. I mean, there's no country in the
world that doesn't, you know, that has totally unrestricted, absolute
free speech, you know, it's impossible for that to happen,
otherwise, we will be doing all sorts of crazy things. So So now,
the question is that, why is this allowed when it comes to really
hurting the sensitivities of 1.6 billion 1.8 billion Muslims in the
world. Now, the other thing is, let's just look at a few issues
here. If somebody, for example, said that they're going to go and
do a social experiment, as some people do. So for example, what
they decided to do is they go into a, you know, a reputable downtown
area, a city center of one of the cities in the world, for example,
London, New York, or a, you know, in Lausanne, Los Angeles, or
somewhere in downtown. And then, you know, as a social experiment,
what he's doing is this person is going around, standing there in
the middle of just calling everybody that goes past saying
that, I mean, I hate to say this, but it's, for example, saying your
mom's a hall, for example. Now, just imagine what kind of reaction
he's going to have, in that kind of a place, you're going to have
numerous people, you're going to have numerous people who will just
probably ignore it completely just walk past pretend they didn't
hear, maybe just not even give him a look and just walk right past
because you know, they've got better things to do. They don't
care about these things, they probably think that this person's
crazy anyway, right? So they will totally ignore him. But then
you're going to have a few other people who will kind of give him a
stare or look at him. And then you'll have more people who may go
and return something back and call his mama hall or say something
else to him. And then you'll actually probably have certain
individuals who will try to attack the person. But what You'll then
notice is that if this person wanted to go and do this social
experiment in, for example, a slum area downtrodden area with lots of
gangs going on and everything around him and then he goes and
tries to do that there, you'll see that there's going to be a worse
reaction that will come about probably more quickly than it did
in the other place. So if you do this kind of social
experiment, you'll see that people will react in different ways. Some
people ignore it, some people will respond. And then some people may
even take the matter further, you know, someone may go to the
courts, and some of them may go to the police and reporting but then
others will take the matter in their own hand. Similarly, you've
got Muslims around the world 1.81 point 8 billion diverse Muslims
around the world. So you know, at the end of the day, you're going
to have people who are going to react in a beautiful way, you're
going to have people who are going to react in a violent way. Now,
Islam shows that you react always in a positive way. You always
react in a positive way, you always react in a better way than
the person than the person is doing. You reap you repay evil
with good as far as possible. And you know, you show a more
virtuous, you show more virtuous way. But what we need to
understand from this is that when you take the love of the Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi, wasallam, and then you take this, this so called
free speech that allows criticism of the Prophet and abuse of him,
then obviously, you see that this is going to angle A lot of
Muslims. And then just like with that social experiment, different
Muslims are probably going to have a different reaction. Now we as
scholars, we're going to try to calm the people down, we're going
to try to explain to them that this is the wrong way to do things
is a better way to do things. The Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
himself, forgave so many people, when they would come and abuse him
he would he wouldn't, he would not respond in an aggressive attitude.
In fact, one of the most beautiful things is that this is not the
first time that somebody is criticizing the Prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu sallam. During the time of the Prophet sallallahu himself,
they started disfiguring his name, they started modifying his name
and saying instead of Muhammad, which is such a beautiful name is
such a it's such a perfect name even in this situation. They
started calling him Muslim in Arabic, which means the kind of
disfigured the criticize one, the disfigured one, the nun
praiseworthy one. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam so
beautifully said that, look how Allah has protected me, they call
me with them, whereas That's not my name. My name is Mohammed.
Mohammed means the most praised praised one. And today, if you
look around the world, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, is
being praised throughout the world. In fact, there's probably
nobody else whose name is being taken so frequently than the
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him because with every prayer that
takes place, you have a call to prayer. And in the call to prayer,
you have a shadow under Mohammad Rasool Allah, I bear witness that
Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, messenger of God. This is
taking place throughout the countries probably at every minute
of the day, there's a call to prayer being given. Then even in
the prayer, there's when you send blessings on the Prophet Muhammad
salah, losen, blessing Allahumma Salli, ala sayyidina, Muhammad, so
the prophets Allah Islam has everything going for him as
everything going for him. What we have to do as muslims is that we
have to show the best of character. Number two, we were
going to really have to stop letting other people do our job of
promoting the beauty of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam. Because this is where we're failing. What we have to do
is we have to send abundant blessings on Mohamed Salah Islam
as much as possible, we need to speak as much about his greatness
and His praise worthiness to others, our colleagues, our co
workers, our, our neighbors, etc. We need to speak to an invitee.
Because at the end of the day, nobody's going to go to a book or
online to check out humans. And the lesson really was they're just
going to listen to what people are telling them in the media or what
the media tells them or what these events, you know, provide as a
conclusion to them. So what Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam our dear prophet, he departed this world about, you
know, 1400 years ago, and he left it to us to embody his character,
the beautiful behavior, the beautiful, sublime character that
he left for us, which he emphasized so much he says, that I
have been sent to complete good character you with me my muckety
muck HELOC. So he's left all of that to us. Now, unfortunately,
we're suffering today because we don't even read this year. I mean,
how many of us as Muslims, read the biography of the Prophet
salallahu Salam, how can we claim to really know him? How can we
claim to really know how to act in all situations that when somebody
slanders me, as long as my profit, how should I react? You know, how
did the prophets Allah, Allah, some react? Yes, some of you may
be saying, well, he did, you know, order somebody to be killed to who
had criticized and so on. Well, you see, that's a historical,
historical point of state that he was a state leader. What he does,
as a state leader is something totally different to what
individuals on the street, you know, can do or allowed to do.
Because otherwise it'd be it would be abused, if anybody has the
right to just take up arms themselves and go and kill people.
Because, you know, people can say tomorrow, why people can go and
kill someone tomorrow. And then when you're asked, Why did you
kill him, you say, oh, because he abused the profits. I mean,
clearly, that's all of these kinds of situations in a proper state
system has to be taken through the courts and it needs to be
established and so on.
There's a certain measures that need to be taken, and so on, so
forth. But generally when you look at the progress of a person's
life, like the woman who used to live next door, but thorns on His,
on his path and so on, he generally forgave. But we as
Muslims, what we need to do is that with the reason we're failing
is because we're failing, both from a religious perspective, that
we're not fulfilling the obligations that we need to do in
ourselves about the behavior, the conduct, the worship, the
emulation of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him that we should
be following. So from a DNA perspective, from a religious
perspective, we're not doing enough to really embody his
behavior and his worship, and neither from a dunya perspective,
are we doing enough? We're not campaigning politically enough,
we're not educating people. So we're not educating people we're
not pressuring you know, we're not working in the in the political
side of it to make it a crime to, to criticize Muhammad Sallallahu
Sallam and it should be the case because, you know, it causes great
anguish to 1.8 billion people around the world, but the Muslim
ummah, Are we strong enough to get that passed in law, as other
groups have been able to get other issues that that probably hurt
less people, maybe even in many cases, you know, denying certain
genocides that took place or a holocaust or whatever it is, and
you know, for good reason. I mean, for good reason. But aren't we,
you know, aren't we strong enough to do that yet? I mean, that's
something that we have to understand both from a religious
perspective of acting and emulating the true character of
the Prophet Mohammed, we're failing miserably in that, because
we don't even read his his life story. And we're also failing from
a, from a, from a worldly, purely political perspective, as well,
that we don't do anything. So I've been thinking to myself, what is
it that we can do to counter the Islamophobia and it's something
that we all have to give thought to that internationally,
nationally speaking on a large scale? How can we show people what
the true character of the messenger SallAllahu sallam was,
and what he really represented what he really came to this world,
for, he did not come to this world, you know, to just kill
people and so on. But that's the wars are what's generally
highlighted, unfortunately, we have to really start speaking
about the beauty that he came from, because this is the climate
to speak about that the world is looking for beauty, the world is
looking for mercy. And this is what we need to highlight hit the
mercy of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa Salam is unfortunately
hidden, we have not shown it in our character, we have not we've
not shown him, the prophets, Allah loves him and his true light. So
that's something that we need to do. So the final point is that
what what I think we should do is that whenever a cartoons of this
nature come out, we need to totally ignore them, we are not
going to forward, we're not going to WhatsApp, we're not going to
click, we're not going to view them ourselves. Because all of
this all of this works on response, all of this works on
popularity, the more we ignore it, and we've got a lot of people, we
can encourage to just totally ignore it. So don't even for
example, send a link to somebody and said, don't click on this, or
don't go to this website, or don't press this or don't do that. Or
look how bad this is, what should we do, and so on and so forth. The
best thing for all of this is to ignore it. Because crazy people
that produce cartoons, extremists, basically, they are extremists.
When they do these kinds of things, the only reason they do it
is to find a reaction, if they don't get a reaction from the
right kind of people, because at the end of the day, it's like the
bully at school, what he is going to do is that bully at school is
going to stop bothering the weak, the weak people. And if he gets a
reaction, if he or she gets a reaction is going to do it even
more, because that's what feeds him. That's what gives him the
impetus to carry on. And if there's if there's a total, you
know, if there's a total rejection of it, if people don't pay him any
attention, pay him or her any attention whatsoever, then
eventually they'll have to stop and find something else to do. So
I think this is definitely one thing that we have to do is to
totally ignore this. Speak to people, our co workers, neighbors,
etc, about the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tried
to learn more about him yourself. So we're much more educated about
him in his different situations. And on a political level, and on a
social level, we try to encourage and we try to raise more
awareness, and we try to work on this. So in conclusion, I think at
this time, we need to be very, very calm, and we need to make
lots and lots of dua to Allah subhanaw taala This is a time when
our hearts are kind of broken because of the depictions and
because of the violence that's done in our name. So when when you
have a broken heart, if you use it in the right in the right emotion,
to ask Allah subhanaw taala Allah subhanaw taala has response comes
so we need to ask ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala for great assistance and
help during this time. And as I mentioned earlier, the Prophet
salallahu Salam is totally blemish free. He is the Mohammed as his
name has been given such a well chosen name, but we need to do our
part by trying to act the part act the best role model to imbibe his
teachings, in ourselves, in our behavior and in our conduct with
everybody whether it be at work
Quite school at home or whatever it is. That's what we really need
to know. Do more of Learn More Syrah and really send a lot of
blessings on Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So send a lot of
blessings on Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam because every
blessing that we send on him, then we get 10 blessings that sent on
us and the Ummah really, really nice blessings right now.
Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala Sayidina Muhammad
wa Burdick was salam, WA sallahu wa salam ala Sayidina Muhammad
Ali, he was Safi Baraka was seldom at the Sleeman Kathira en la ami
de