Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – #CharlieHebdo Freedom of Speech or Freedom to Offend

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

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