Adnan Rajeh – Lessons Learned From Five Decades of Oppression
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of history and the realities of events in learning about the "hamma of the nation" of the United States. They emphasize the need for people to hold back from false positives and not accept the known, and stress the importance of not denying the known and "hamma of the nation" of the people. The speakers also emphasize the need for acceptance of one's rights and demand their right to demand their rights.
AI: Summary ©
In verses, in Surah An-Naml what he
recites, you feel like they're talking about what
occurred over the last few weeks to us
today.
And this is the beauty of the Qur
'an.
And this is the ijaz.
And this is the divineness and divinity of
the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
that the more history moves forward, the more
you'll find within this book lessons for us
to learn.
The beginning of this passage Allah says, بُلسِرُوا
فِي الْأَرْسَيِ Walk this earth.
فَانظُرُوا كَيْفَ كَانَ عَقِبَةُ الْمُجْرِمِينَ And take a
look, observe and contemplate of what happens or
the outcomes of the criminals, how they end,
what the result is, what the final result
is for them.
وَلَا تَحْزَنْ عَلَيْهِمْ Do not be sad for
them.
وَلَا تَكُنْ فِي ضَيْقٍ مِّمَّا يَمْكُرُونَ And don't
be in a position where you're upset because
of those who continue to plot against you.
I'm going to share with you seven points.
And because the khutbah, we don't have enough
time, I'm going to do it in bullet
point style inshallah ta'ala.
And I'll translate them in Arabic as I
go along.
Number one, because I can't see this way,
so I have to look at my phone.
Number one, Allah's decree is above all.
You're all commanded to have hope for as
long as you strive towards your goals.
Will this work?
No, it won't.
Why did I expect otherwise?
Alright.
I shared with you this piece two weeks
ago.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's decree is always
above all.
Whether we understand his hikmah subhanahu wa ta
'ala in what he decrees or whether we
don't, makes no difference.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he makes his
decree when he wants it.
And he will allow for that which he
wills at the time that he wills subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
My job and yours is to work towards
our goals and to carry hope as we
work towards our goals.
Number two, never be complacent with oppression or
falsehood.
Refuse both with whatever means you have.
Never accepting or normalizing either.
I talked about this last week.
You don't accept falsehood.
You don't normalize it.
You continue to point out against it.
You speak out against it.
If you cannot change it with your hand,
you change it with your tongue.
And if you can't speak out against it
with your tongue, then you at least refuse
it internally.
You should never be complacent with falsehood, with
batil.
You should never be complacent with oppression.
Even if batil is dressed in a nice
suit and is tall with glasses and has
MDs behind his back, it doesn't matter whether
they are fluent and eloquent or not.
Batil can come in many forms.
Batil can come with an imamah.
Batil can wear many forms.
Oppression comes in many looks.
It's not always what you think it is.
You refuse it regardless of how it looks
and regardless of how it speaks and regardless
of how flashy it may seem to you
at a given moment.
As a Muslim, you are obligated to do
that.
It's your job.
It is your mission.
When you see batil, when you see dhulm,
when you see either of them, that you
speak out against them, that you refuse them.
You're not scared from anyone.
And you do not hold back when you
do so.
Brothers and sisters, Refusing dhulm and refusing batil.
If we don't deny the denier and if
we don't acknowledge the known, this nation will
be corrupted.
It is the Muslim's duty at all times
to acknowledge the known and to deny the
denier.
If we leave that to happen, the denier
will become the known and the known will
become the denier.
This nation will be lost.
And if you can't change this denier with
your own hands or speak about it with
your own tongue, at least don't accept it
with your heart.
Because if you accept it with your heart,
this batil and this dhulm will not remain.
Number three.
Tyrants everywhere.
Regulate and restrain masajid.
They know where our true strength lies.
Do with that information what you will.
Do with that information what you will.
Wherever you go in this world, if you
live in a place where there is tyranny,
then you know that they are regulating and
watching masajid on a daily basis.
And they're taking note of those who go
there and what time they go, what they
say, what they do.
Because even a tyrant, even an oppressor knows
where the true strength of this ummah lies.
It lies in the masajid.
So you do with that information what you
see fit.
Whatever you see fit, do with it.
Our problem has been masajid.
Not in the sense that they need to
change, but in the sense that people do
not treat them as the center of their
communities anymore.
They're not being treated as the center of
a society.
They have been put in the periphery.
Not in the periphery of the city, but
in the periphery of our lives.
There are places that we go to when
we absolutely have to.
When we're obligated because it's Jumu'ah, and
I don't want Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
I don't want to be in trouble, so
I go there for Jumu'ah.
Aside from that, there has to be an
occasion.
We have peripheralized masajid.
We have decentralized them from our lives.
Do you understand that when I...
So recently when they opened up all of
the jails in Syria, and they took out
all the documents, was sent to me by
a friend of mine, a document that had,
and this is a very common one, meaning
almost every Syrian has one similar, where on
the document it's written that fulan al fulan,
in my name, is known to go pray
fajr at this masjid on a daily basis.
Please do with this information what is necessary.
And it's signed by the head of intelligence
of our place.
This is how they treat people.
This is how we lived.
This is how it was.
Oh, this person, he prays fajr a lot.
Keep a good eye, keep a close eye
on this individual.
People are showing their papers, they're using them
as bragging points now.
People now take these papers, they take pictures
of them, they're bragging points.
See, look, look how it's looked at.
Tyrants know where our true strength lies, and
we don't.
A tyrant understands, oh, masajid, this is the...
If they could close masajid, they would.
If they couldn't, they would.
And they did, by the way.
And if you lived in Syria, you know
that they did.
And for very long, if you come from
certain parts of the Middle East, you know
that they still do.
That after isha, immediately, the doors are closed,
everyone out.
There is no place to rejoice.
There is no room for anything to happen.
No, because they know where the strength of
this ummah lies.
And it bothers me that we don't, that
my own Muslim brothers don't understand where the
strength of their nation, of their identity comes
from.
It comes from these places.
And then they're left empty.
And then they're put in the periphery.
They're an afterthought.
They're there when you go...
Especially for the young man.
I don't understand it for a married man.
I don't understand it.
But if you're a married man, you don't
come to the masjid, you're missing out.
Do you understand that if you tell your
wife you're going for isha, why she didn't
say no?
Because of course, it's isha.
And then you get to socialize.
You get to see your friends every single
night, for free, without any of your spouses
getting upset with you.
This is an amazing deal.
You are very, very ignorant not to take
on this deal.
If you have friends, say, hey, bring isha
every night.
We tell our wives in prayer, why were
you late?
Why were you late?
Well, she...
Adnan talks a lot.
He gave a long...
I didn't want to walk out.
And you spend 10 minutes socializing with her
brother outside.
Why is that?
How is that not attractive to you?
If you're married, it takes you three days
of negotiation to take a day off and
go with your friends.
Bring isha every night in masjid.
Call your friends, bring isha.
And then after isha, you spend 10 minutes,
you get socialization.
You get a few moments of ease.
You get to laugh.
You get to do something, feel better about
yourself, de-stress.
And still not, still not.
Subhanallah.
Are we that far away from the beauty
of Allah?
Has Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala shunned you
that difficult?
That far away?
That you can't even see?
You can't even look at this pragmatically and
see benefit for yourself in it?
Subhanallah.
They figured out where our strength is before
we did.
And once we figure this out again, once
we figure that this is the place, masajid
are the center of our communities, and you
start participating, contributing, then things will get better
again.
My brothers and sisters, the oppressor knows where
this nation's strength lies.
The strength of this nation lies in its
masjids.
This is a well-known fact.
The oppressor knows it.
The tyrants know it.
And the Muslims ignore it.
And the general public ignores it.
So we made the masjids a side issue.
Yes, even though we made the masjid in
the middle of the city, and we made
it big, and we made it a high
mihrab, and a big minbar, and we invested
money in it.
But we made it the center of our
lives.
So it became a place that we use
when we need it.
If there is a wedding, if there is
writing a book, if there is a funeral,
or a funeral, if there is a Jumu
'ah.
If there is that, then the masjid will
be a problem.
And I don't understand this culture.
This is a culture, my brothers, not the
culture of Muslims.
A Muslim goes to the masjid daily.
A Muslim man comes to Allah's house at
least once a day.
He prays.
He sees his companions in it.
He sees his brothers in it.
He remembers his Lord in it.
He remembers his God in it.
He rethinks his choices and the choices of
his life.
A nation that does not do that, is
a nation that does not make glory.
A nation that does not do that, does
not make glory, neither in the present, nor
in the near future, nor in the distant
future.
This nation, with its masjids, with the return
of people to their Lord in their homes.
It leads to mentalities of polarization and the
lack of ability to think freely and disagree
respectfully.
What was taken away from the Muslims in
the Middle East and beyond, is their full
freedom of speech and full freedom of thought.
I don't think we understand how detrimental that
is.
I don't think we do.
That's what tyrants do.
They make sure that they restrict your freedom
of thought and your freedom of speech.
They restrict it for so long, so that
the moment it's lifted, like a caged bird,
we don't know what to do.
If you cage a bird for 10 years
and let them go, they don't know what
to do.
They will stand beside the cage, beside their
prison, wondering whether they fly because they don't
know how to express and practice this freedom
that is innately theirs.
This freedom is innately theirs.
It's the right that Allah granted them.
No one on earth has the right to
take away your freedom of thoughts or your
freedom of speech to express yourself.
No one does.
This is a sacred divine right that Allah
grants you.
Allah granted this to you.
No one can take this away.
But they do.
They take it away.
And it's been taken away for a long
time.
So we don't know how to express it.
As Muslims, I'm telling you today, we don't
know how to express our freedom of thoughts
because we're here.
And you are not restricted here.
You're living in this country and you are
not technically, you're not restricted at least not
regarding the topics that you were restricted to
talk about talking about when you were back
home.
The topics that you could not talk about
back home, you're not restricted from talking about
here.
Look at us, how we behave here.
We don't know how to disagree.
We don't know how to speak freely without
disrespecting one another.
We don't know how to go by a
difference of opinion without polarizing ourselves.
Either you're with us or against us mentality.
If I have criticism to something that you
thought, said or did, that means I am
your archenemy.
And now you need to remove me or
remove yourself.
And now you need to actually lobby to
get people again.
No.
Do you understand?
Al-Azhar did a study, this is back
in the 90s and 80s.
And I know because Islam Al-Bashir Al
-Sudani, may Allah protect him, when he came
to, he used to come and lecture upon
us when we were in the university because
he was the dean of the university.
And he shared with us some data that
they had put together.
It was very rare by the way in
the Middle East for them to do this.
But they put this data together and the
data was looking at what is it, what
is the percentage of topics of difference of
opinion amongst Muslims.
Really.
Like if we took down all of the
Mas'al, if we took all of the
issues of I'tiqad and issues of Fiqh, and
he put them all together, what exactly do
we disagree upon?
So this is the percentage that he gave
us.
He said in terms of Fiqh, in issues
of Fiqh, the Muslims all across the world,
all Muslims, or you think about every Muslim,
regardless of their Madhab and background, we disagree
on 10% of Fiqh.
We agree on 90% of Fiqh.
The issues of Khilaf are 10%.
Only 10% of jurisprudence do we sit
down and argue about.
The rest of it is all accepted.
But we don't think about that because we
haven't been given the opportunity to do so.
Because we've been restricted from free thought for
so long that once we are allowed to
do it, we don't know how to practice
this and enjoy it.
So it turns into a combat every time.
In issues of I'tiqad, of Aqeedah, we agree
upon 97%.
Only 3% of issues of Aqeedah are
actually disagreed upon.
Imagine these numbers.
You are sitting around with people now where
you agree with them on over 92%
of every large, every big question in life.
Every big question in life you agree upon
92% of these things.
How is it that we can't seem to
work together?
How is it that there's more animosity within
this small community in London than there probably
is in the entirety of Canada amongst all
Canadians?
There's a problem with our ability to...
This is going to take time, I know,
but I have to point this out.
Tyrants take away your freedom of speech and
thoughts.
When you're granted that back again, you have
to learn how to practice it.
And we as a community have to learn
how to think freely, speak freely, continue to
be tolerant, continue to be respectful, and to
continue to be united without losing these...
Yeah.
I don't want to get started on this
because this is a sore spot.
Number five.
Giving up some of our rights leads to
the loss of all of our rights.
We must raise the bar of how we
expect to be treated by those in authority.
This is a lesson that the Syrian people
will happily share with you at any time.
This is a golden lesson.
Once you give up one right, you give
up a second right, you give up a
third right, and soon enough, you've given up
all of your rights.
You don't give up any of your rights.
You never give up a right.
If we didn't learn that from the Prophet's
approach to the battle of Badr, then I
don't know what we are going to learn
from that battle to begin with.
What you learn from his teachings, salallahu alayhi
wa sallam, in the battle of Badr is
this.
كما أخرجك ربك من بيتك بالحق As your
Lord had you removed from your home وَإِنَّ
فَرِيقًا مِّنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ لَكَارِهُونَ And some of the
believers did not want to go to this
battle.
يُجَادِلُونَكَ فِي الْحَقِّ They're arguing with you about
something that is righteous, that is right.
بعدما تَبَيَّنَ كَأَنَّمَا يُسَاقُونَ إِلَى الْمَوْتِ وَهُمْ يَنظُرُونَ
After it became clear that they were scared
of death, that it felt like they were
walking towards their death.
Because the sahabah and their mind is like,
we don't want the wealth that the caravan
of Abu Sufyan has in it.
We don't want that wealth.
We have given it to us.
We have given it up for the sake
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So the Qur'an came and said, what
does wealth have to do with it?
What does money have to do with anything?
Who said it's about money?
It's about your haqq.
You were wronged.
Someone came and took away your rights.
You go back and you ask and you
demand your rights again.
And then once you have it in your
hand, if you want to give it back
as a gift, go ahead.
If you are kareem to that degree, go
ahead.
But if it's your right is given to
you, we do this.
We play this game.
This is why we have, in our ummah,
we still do this, right?
A man passes away.
The brother comes to the sister.
He says, do you want your inheritance?
And she says, no, I give it to
you.
All right.
Give her the inheritance.
Give it to her.
Put it in her hand.
And then if she wants to give it
up to you, she can do that.
If you give it to her, 99%
of the time she won't give it back.
99% of the time she will hold
on to it.
Give people their rights.
They have to hold their rights.
You should never give up a right.
We're in this country today, but we began
to give up some of our rights.
As a Muslim, you go to work.
You don't demand time for Jummah.
You work around it.
You work around it.
You end up praying in a small room
with three people because you're too embarrassed to
go and say, I need to go for
Jummah for an hour and a half.
That's your civil right.
It's your civil right.
You can sue them if they say no.
If they fire you for this, you go
after them in the courts of law because
this is your right.
But we gave up on our right.
And then once you give up on a
right, the next person behind you can't ask
for that right.
And then slowly we lose another right, and
then we lose another right.
And then after a while, it's the same
problem that we had in the countries that
we ran from.
We fled our countries because we didn't have
rights.
We came here hoping to build something of
ourselves so we can go and push back
and say, no, people deserve their full rights.
So don't come here and give up on
your rights again.
Don't come here and then do the same
thing and be embarrassed and bashful.
Demand your rights.
This is what I deserve, and this is
what I'm going to get.
You have to demand your rights from those
in authority or else they will, I mark
my words, they will take advantage of you.
It is not your right to give up
on your rights.
It is not your right to give up
on your rights.
If you give up on your rights, you
have made the demand for your rights harder
on those behind you.
And this is not your right.
If you give up on your rights today,
those who came after me came and found
the demand for my rights harder because I
gave up on my rights.
Demand for your rights, not for yourself, but
demand for it because it is the right.
And if the right is given to you,
do what you want with it.
And if the right is given to you,
return it if you want.
Believe in it, do what you want with
it, but this is your right.
A rational person does not give up on
his rights today.
There is always a demand for the right.
The right is alive.
And if people leave it, it dies.
And if the right dies, the hour has
come.
I say this, and I ask Allah to
forgive me and you.
So ask Him to forgive you, O winner
of those who ask for forgiveness, ask Allah
to forgive you.
الحمد لله وحده وصلى الله وسلم وعبارك على
من لا نبي بعده وعلى آله وصحبه وان
اتبع نهجه ووفى عهده Number six.
Tyranny aims to keep people ignorant in fighting
amongst themselves by ruining their ethics and value
system.
Repairing this will take time, commitment, and effort.
You cannot imagine that a group of people
are going to be oppressed, denied their basic
human rights for years and years and years,
and that their akhlaq are going to continue
to be of high level degree.
No, that doesn't work that way.
You want to know the story?
Read the story of Musa alayhis salam.
Musa freed his people.
His main ask was أرسل معنا أرسل معي
بني إسرائيل That was his main ask.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would tell him
اذهب إلى فرعون Why?
أشرك No.
إنه طغى His problem إنه طغى It's all
throughout the Quran.
فرعون's problem طغى He oppressed people that had
to be removed.
The people of Musa alayhis salam did not
have great ethics.
His generation did not.
He had to He suffered alayhis salam.
Alayhis salatu was salam suffered immensely.
The Prophet alayhis salatu was salam used Musa
as a way to make himself feel better
when he was suffering.
Because of how difficult it was for him.
Because how his people behaved, how they thought,
how their interests were so low.
No matter what he did, no matter what
they saw, no matter what they were given,
they continued to focus on and function on
such a low level They saw Firaun drown
in the sea after Musa hit it with
a stick and they still worshiped the calf.
They couldn't get it.
And then he was told to walk for
40 years.
Just walk the earth for 40 years.
What happens in 40 years?
One generation perishes and another one comes up
front because that generation just couldn't function.
It couldn't.
That generation was oppressed so severely.
This is not I'm not bad mouthing them.
No.
I'm just trying to learn from these lessons.
They were oppressed.
They were enslaved.
For years and years their Akhlaq were ruined.
When you look back home and you don't
like this and you don't like that and
people behave like this and people speak, what
are you doing?
Why are you judging those who are still
living under oppression?
It's a miracle they have any ethics left.
It's a miracle that they still praise the
name of our Lord.
You lose parts of yourself.
You lose parts of yourself when you're oppressed.
You don't know who you are when you
are enslaved and mistreated.
When you're treated like an animal, you can't
uphold these ethics and these values.
You can't.
It's impossible.
We have to have rahmah with our brothers
and sisters who are living elsewhere.
We have to have rahmah.
We have to understand that repairing this problem
is going to take time.
It's going to take investment from you because
you're amongst the lucky ones.
You're amongst the lucky ones who got out
and took a deep breath of fresh free
air and got to think the way he
wanted and speak what he wanted and they
didn't.
So have rahmah in your heart towards them
and understand that you carry a certain degree
of responsibility because of that.
My final point.
Fear is an insidious and deadly thing.
It can warp judgment, freeze reflexes, breed mistakes
and it's contagious.
Everything we want is on the other side
of fear.
There's a quote that I've carried with me
for years.
We were afraid as people.
I'm still afraid.
I was born and raised in fear.
We functioned via fear.
I didn't know that my life could actually
even exist without fear.
Fear is horrible.
Fear ruins lives.
It ruins minds.
It ruins hearts.
It ruins communities.
What you really want in this world, the
things that you really, really want only exist
beyond your fear.
You have to get beyond your fear.
You have to take that leap.
You have to take that step.
You have to walk through your fear.
You have to accept that you may lose
things.
You may lose certain things in life and
that's okay because it's not worth living in
fear.
The Syrian people can tell you this.
The Ghazni people already know this.
It's not worth living in fear.
You can live in, there's many other ways
you can live but you don't live in
fear.
Don't let fear dictate what you say and
how you live and the choices that you
make.
...
Allahumma ameen.
...
...
I hope that was a benefit to you.
...
...
...
Inshallah, the winter break extravaganza continues.
There's a lot of events.
You're welcome to bring your families and attend.
The IBA new semester is beginning so if
you want to register for the courses then
you will stay tuned within the WhatsApp groups
because you'll be able to register, inshallah, over
the next week or so.
And we do need some help with the
tent outside so if there's people here who
have some expertise in fixing tents or running
them, please talk to us afterwards.