Ammar Alshukry – Heroes And Villains #01 Musa Versus Pharaoh
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AI: Transcript ©
Everybody.
Is
going to be a start of at least
a a series that I'll be doing as
part of Friday night lights, and it's one
that I've been wanting to do for a
while and I've talked to people about.
And it's called heroes and villains.
And the idea is is that we're normally
very familiar with the heroes of the Quranic
story or the heroes in the seal of
the prophet
or even the heroes in our history, Islamic
history. So you hear about people like
you hear about people like Imam Ahmed, you
hear about the heroes.
But we don't ever
or very rarely
focus on the actual villains.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions the villains,
quite a lot. And Allah
mentions the purpose of why he mentions villains.
Number 1 is
a person then appreciates and understands that there
will always be enemies.
There will always be villains.
And so there's no level of niceness that
a person can have. There's no level of
ikhlas that a person can have. There's no
level of integrity that a person can have,
sincerity that a person can have, where all
of a sudden they won't
have enemies.
In fact, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Allah says, we have made for every prophet
enemies.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in Surat Al
Anam verse 112 and in Surat Al Furpan
verse 31. In Surat Al Furpan Allah says
We have made for every prophet enemies from
the criminals
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
in Surat Al Anam, he says,
We made
from every prophet or for every prophet enemies.
Devils of the jinn and mankind. And in
fact, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says devils of
mankind and the jinn.
Devils of mankind and the jinn.
The devils of mankind before the devils of
the jinn. In any case, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says every prophet has enemies. And so
in reality, everyone who walks in the path
of the prophets will also have enemies.
There is nobody who comes with the message
of tawhid except that they make enemies. That's
what Waraqa Nino fell told the prophet
when Khadija brought him to her
cousin, and he said, I hope
I wish that I could live long enough
to see to be there when your people
expel you. And to be expelled by your
people was something that had never been heard
of before.
You know how, like, it's a big deal
in Western countries. You might have never heard,
for example, of a person who was born
a US citizen whose citizenship got revoked. Like,
that doesn't happen. It's very, very rare. You
never hear about these types of things. And
yet, for a person to be expelled by
their tribe was even more severe. This never
happens.
And so when
says to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
that you're going to be expelled by your
people, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam
curiously asks almost like in disbelief, he says,
are they gonna expel me?
And he said, yes. He said, no people
no person comes with a message like what
you came with,
except that they
are
shown enmity to.
They make enemies.
And so
Allah says we've made for every prophet in
2 verses. We've made for every prophet enemies.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in
verse 55, he says
Allah says and thus do we detail the
verses
and we make the way of the criminals
to make evident
So that we make clear the verses so
that the way of the criminals becomes clear.
That you recognize the path
of
the criminals. You wanna know their
ways. We become aware of their ways so
that we recognize their ways in our times
and places. And you're going to see insha
Allah ta'ala a lot of parallels. Now, Saraun
is the most named villain in the Quran.
Even more than Iblis, even more than Iblis.
Just like Musa Alaihi Salam is the most
named prophet in the Quran,
Firaun is the most named villain in the
Quran.
And when we look at the traits
of when we look at the traits of
what are some of the things that are
dominant to you? When you think of this
personality,
What stands out to you?
Okay. Ignorance?
Arrogance for short.
Very arrogant.
What else stands out to you about the
personality of?
Oppression, very good. Are you guys looking at
my notes or what?
What else?
What else? Sisters, what do y'all got?
What's that?
Ego. Absolutely. Right? So that's an extension of
arrogance. What else? Selfishness.
Selfishness. Very selfish. Faran is very selfish.
Powerful.
Very powerful.
He's
Arrogant. Yeah. We said arrogant. So, arrogant. We
also said,
also transgressive.
He doesn't do things normally.
You know, very vicious.
So, we're gonna see some of these traits.
So, let's look at the first one that
was mentioned which is arrogance. So let's look
at the arrogance of firaan.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the in
the verse that we just recited in in
surah, in in in Maghrib.
The verses
that begins Surat Al Qasas. Allah says,
So Allah
in that first portion of Surah Al Qasas,
Allah introduces
and he says,
That
arrogance in the land.
And so he was arrogant.
And why does Allah
mention arrogance here? And he
says,
He was from the. Why does Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala mention arrogance first? Because arrogance is
a causer of disbelief.
Arrogance is a causer of disbelief. I want
you to understand this verse very, very well
that I'm going to read to you in
Surat Al Arah.
Surat Al Arah verse 146.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Allah says,
I am going to divert away from my
signs. Because when you're reading the verses of
the Quran, aya is a sign.
And so Allah says, I am going to
divert away from my signs. These are people
who are not gonna be able to benefit
from my signs. Who are they? Because we
don't wanna be them. He says,
Those who
have arrogance in the land
without right.
And if they were to witness every sign,
they would not believe in it.
Arrogance
is one of the, if not the most
major impediment
to guidance.
And that is why and Allah
knows best. The slogan of the salah is
you say Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar
destroys what?
Arrogance.
I don't believe in the superiority
of white people. I don't believe in the
superiority of black people. I don't believe the
superiority of this race or that race or
men over women or women over men. I
don't believe in any of that. You know
who I believe in the superiority of?
Of? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I don't believe in the supremacy of man,
I believe in the supremacy of god.
And then when you read Surat Al Fatiha,
because you're you're you're asking in Surat Al
Fatiha, you're asking for guidance.
Before you say
what do you say? You say
You alone do we worship and you alone
we seek for help. Arribintaymi, he says that
this verse destroys
2 debilitating
diseases of the heart.
The first one, iyak and abut. What does
iyak and abut destroy? It destroys ria. Ria
is to do something for an audience other
than Allah. Something that is normally done for
Allah, a religious act for other than Allah.
Destroys
or
the statement
destroys that disease.
And then number 2 he says
and you alone we seek for help, he
says this destroys
kibr.
Kibr,
arrogance.
And I need for kibr to be destroyed.
I need to destroy this quality in my
heart if it exists. Why?
Because if I have kibr,
if I have arrogance, I won't benefit from
the signs of Allah because Allah says so.
He says,
I am going to divert away from my
signs everybody who's arrogant. So if I'm arrogant,
I can't benefit from the Quran, the signs
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And I wouldn't
be able to benefit from the signs. In
fact, Allah says if they were to see
every sign, they wouldn't benefit from it.
I always used to wonder like, how is
it that some people Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says in other places in the Quran, he
says,
if if we were to make for them
stairway to to the heavens
and they ascended
If they literally ascended into the heavens,
they would say,
our eyes have become bewitched.
They still wouldn't believe.
That's like, how is this the case? Allah
says here that if they were to see
every sign, they wouldn't believe in it.
But when the hearts are
locked off you notice one of our sisters,
she's from Bosnia,
and she lived during the Bosnian genocide.
And she said, you know, when we were
going through what we were going through in
Bosnia,
we thought
if only the international community saw what was
happening to us,
If only they knew what was going on.
The killing,
the
atrocities,
the destruction of our homes, the destruction of
our masaajid, the destruction of our institutions, if
they saw what the Serbs were doing,
they undoubtedly would come and help us. But
the problem is the media, the the word
isn't getting out.
And so our brothers and sisters from Bosnia
right now are living through their trauma again
as they watch what's happening unfold in Gaza.
And for her,
she commented and she said,
Now, we're seeing all of the same things
happening,
but we're realizing
that
it's not a matter of them being able
to see,
because they're seeing what's happening in It's
not the eyes that are blind,
Allah says
but it's the the hearts that become blind.
And so one of the things that a
person
needs to be aware of and frightened of
is that I have an arrogance that causes
me to not benefit from the signs of
Allah. And that's why before we enter into
the salah and we recite Surat Al Fatha,
we're seeking to remove this attribute from ourselves
because when I'm reciting the Quran and I'm
hearing the Quran being recited, these are the
signs of Allah. So I don't want the
arrogance to be a block between me and
that. Now, Firaun was arrogant.
He's not going to be a personality that's
gonna recognize signs. The fact that Allah introduces
him as arrogant indicate that he's not going
to recognize the signs of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
And Musa suffers from the arrogance of Firaun.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in Surat Al
An Kabud verse 39,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, and Qarun and
Haman and Fir'awn, all of them were arrogant
in the land and they weren't sabakin, they
they weren't gonna outrun our our punishment.
Allah says,
That Firaun and his people were given 9
signs. They were given 9 signs
and
when they heard when they saw the signs
Allah says, they rejected the signs outwardly
even though they were certain of them. So
Fir'aun, his first quality
is arrogance and Musa alayhi salam he makes
dua in Surah Adrafiz verse 27 he says
Musa says I seek refuge in my lord
and your lord from every mutakabir,
from every arrogant person who does not believe
in the day of judgment.
And so these signs were sent to Fir'aun,
and there's difference of opinion with regards to
what the 9 signs were, but we can
say that they were the flood and the
locusts and the lice and the frogs and
the blood.
These were distinct signs that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala mentions, but also you can add the
staff that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave Musa
that turns into the serpent
and his hand that would shine bright
and,
the drought as well and the splitting of
the sea. And so these were all signs
that Allah gave to Fir'aun and his people
but yet they rejected them all.
His superiority
complex
led him to a level
where he even claimed to be God.
Firaoun said, I
am your Lord the most high. And ibn
al Josi, he has an interesting quote here.
Ibn al Josi, he says that when Iblis
met Firaun, and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows
where this happened.
But he says that when
Iblis met Firaoun, Iblis said to him,
I just wanted to come and see you
because I'm amazed at you.
And Farhan said, why? Iblis said, I
rejected to prostrate to Allah
and that was enough to get me expelled
from paradise.
But you
took it to another level. You claim to
be Allah.
That is
He says, That is pure insanity, like even
you outdid me.
But Firaun's arrogance took him to that level.
Firaun was arrogant
and we also said that Firaun was an
oppressor. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that he
was from Al Musiddin.
He was from the Musiddeen. So that's our
second quality that we wanna look at very
quickly.
Or actually even before that, let's look at
his transgression. What does transgression mean? Transgression means
when you do something beyond its normal bounce.
Is when you go beyond boundaries.
So Firaoun doesn't just kill,
but he kills mercilessly.
Firaoun doesn't just
doesn't just kill, but he tortures.
We'll see what he does. It's one thing
to kill adults. It's another thing to kill
babies.
He doesn't simply lie, he has no code
of honor.
Does everything
to a wicked extent.
And
there's a lot of examples, but we can
look at the example of the hairdresser of
Firaun. The prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when he
was ascending
to the when
he was ascending into the heavens,
he smelled the fragrance, a beautiful fragrance, and
he asked Jibidi, what is this fragrance? And
he said, this is the fragrance of the
hairdresser
of
the child of
What is the story of this woman?
She is the hairdresser of 1 of daughters.
And so when
her comb fell or her brush,
she said
She just said naturally she said,
And so the girl said,
Abi,
my dad?
Like in the name of my dad?
Because claimed to be god.
And then she said, no.
Your
my god and your dad's god is Allah.
And so she said, I'm gonna tell my
dad what you said.
She said, Tell him.
Tell
him. Now when
finds out
that a woman in his care, this this
woman, is worshiping someone other than him. Again,
he is transgressive.
He's not just going to imprison her. He's
not even just going to kill her. What
does he do? He brings a cauldron
with boiling liquid,
whether it's oil or something else, and he
brings this woman and her children.
And he says, if you take a god
other than me, you're going to watch all
of your children die.
In front of you, this painful death.
And so the woman, she says, my lord
and your lord is Allah.
1st child thrown in the cauldron.
2nd child thrown in the cauldron. It's incredible
evil.
3rd child is thrown in the cauldron.
Finally, the baby that's in her, that she's
holding,
is taken from her.
And in that moment, she hesitates.
And then the baby says to his mother,
mom, be patient, you're upon the truth. And
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam told us that
this was one of the few babies that
spoke in the cradle and then the baby
and his mother were killed.
And this woman entered into the Jannah and
her children as well.
And so the evil of his transgression,
you see what he does to the,
the
the magicians.
He says,
this is
He says, you have believed
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala when they believed
in Allah after the showcase with Musa.
You believed in him without
me commanding you or me giving you permission.
He is
the head of you who taught you magic.
I just want you to think about this.
Fir'awn, in one second,
went from,
these are my magicians
and you will be brought near to me
if you defeat Musa, because that's what the
dialogue is.
And he goes after they
accept Islam
and they
recognize and believe in the Lord of Musa,
what does say? He says, he is your
leader who taught you magic.
What evidence does have for this claim that
he just made?
What evidence does he have?
Is there anything to indicate
that Musa had some sort of relationship with
these magicians from before? That Musa taught them
magic from before.
There's nothing.
He literally came up with that idea out
of thin air. But that shows you the
level of delusion that has.
That he doesn't have to have any sort
of
any sort of evidence for the claims that
he makes. He just makes them up as
he goes. And he has the people who
believe in him, whatever claim he makes.
Come with any claim.
And this is something that you see again
and again and again with Farah's personality.
He makes up lies
and he twists and distorts the truth. The
magicians actually we'll come back to that in
a second. But the magicians,
immediately, Fir'aun comes up with this distortion. He
says, he's he's your leader. He's the one
who is teaching you magic and then he
says, so I
will crucify you.
I will cut your
hands and your legs.
I'll cut off your right hand with your
left leg foot.
Right? So that that awkwardness, that imbalance.
And then he says, and I will crucify
you on the on the trunks of palm
trees.
Completely excessive in the way that he punishes.
But that's personality.
He's been living with impunity his whole life
and so he has that transgression.
Now what is the cause of that transgression?
What is the cause of that transgression?
What causes for a person to be like
that? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us that
that is human nature when something happens. He
says,
In Surat Al Alek,
Allah says human beings become transgressive.
When do they become transgressive?
When they feel like they're independent.
When they feel like they're independent.
You know, when you're a kid, 7 years
old, 8 years old, 9 years old, you
don't talk back to your parents.
When do you start to talk back to
your parents?
Never, right?
But when, Amir? When do people start talking
back to their parents?
Adult.
Teenager, really. Teenager, when they know, suddenly you
all of a sudden you become taller than
your dad.
Become taller than your dad, that's when you
start to talk back a little bit. You
get your driver's license, you start talking a
little bit. The more you become independent,
the more you start to
talk more.
And then if a person becomes in a
position where
their parents are dependent on them financially or
what have you, you might find that they
have a little bit more to say.
And it's very important that we don't learn
these lessons for the purpose of but
that I don't have any
tendencies in myself.
How am I with regards to the power
that Allah
has given me? You know, I love I
love
when people accept Islam
after having worked for a Muslim.
Having worked for a Muslim.
When you have somebody
who's
an employee of a Muslim, boss, and they
come and they accept Islam. Like last year
we had
Ahsan and Asher. Masha'Allah. They've got the
they've got their
their phone kiosks.
Shout out for them. Right? And and then
Ramadan, they brought 2 of their employees, and
they came in and accepted Islam. I'm like,
that's the best.
Because that showcases that even when you're in
a position of authority,
your
are enough
to attract the person to wanna be part
of Islam. And that's the way that Islam
spread
in in many places in the world, most
famously,
Malaysia and Indonesia, that the Muslim merchants came
and people accepted Islam because they were so
impressed with their character.
What about when you hire help and you
bring them to your house? Are they going
to become infatuated to Islam because of, Well,
I sheikh, you know, I feel like in
a lot of places in the Muslim world
We know that in lots of places in
Muslim world, the way that helper treated is
not good. But in a lot of places
in the Muslim world, they're treated very very
well.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, that you
should feed them from what you eat.
And in a lot of places, we have
a beautiful culture of
of inviting them to eat with the family.
Everybody's in this together, and that's Islamic.
And so even here, whether in Houston or
anywhere else, if you ever have somebody who's
working at your house or contract whatever, that
you feed them from what you eat as
well.
These are beautiful qualities. That's a quick tangent.
But anyway,
So that we don't have these qualities in
ourselves.
So what's the solution to transgression then? How
does a person protect themselves from transgression?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Whoever transgresses
and prefers this life, then
Al Jaheem is going to be their destination,
the hellfire. He says,
And whoever fears the station of their lord
and actively
restrains their nafs, their desire.
Then jannah is their destination.
And so it's 2 things. Number 1, that
I fear Allah
If there is no one who's above me
in this job, in this business, in this
household,
then I fear Allah
who's above me.
And then number 2, I suffocate my ego.
What our sister mentioned, ego? I suffocate my
ego. I suffocate my nafs. I realize that
this is something that I have to work
on because Islam calls me to suffocate my
nafs.
He says,
and then number 3,
a third quality is his oppression.
Was a clear,
clear oppressor.
But it's not just Fir'an who was an
oppressor.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Firaun took Musa into his household so that
Musa could be an enemy for him as
well as they saw a cause of grief.
Musa was gonna be a cause of grief
but then Allah
says, Allah says, was
an oppressor,
Haman was an oppressor, and his soldiers were
oppressors.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
And Allah says about Firaoun that Firaoun was
arrogant in the land, yes, but also his
soldiers were arrogant in the land without rights.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
That we brought Musa, we sent Musa to
Fir'awn
to show
Fir'awn and Haman and their soldiers what they
were fearing. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala doesn't
differentiate
between the wrongdoing
of Fir'awn and those who followed his commands.
In fact,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions in a number
of places in the Quran how he cast
the Firaoun and his soldiers. His soldiers get
a shout out as well
into
the water,
into the river. And so Firaun
and his soldiers were the soldiers were not
absolved.
And Imam ibn al Jawzi, he mentions in
Sayyid Al Khathir that a prison guard asked
Imam Ahmed. Imam Ahmed is in prison.
And he says to him,
am I one of those who help the
oppressors? This prison guard. He says to Imam
Mohammed, listen, like, I'm just the guard. I
didn't put you in jail. But I'm I'm
He says, am I one am I one
of those who are helping the oppressors? Am
I helping those who are doing wrong because
I'm a guard in in these prisons?
In these systems?
And Imam Ahmed says to him, no. You're
not one of those who are helping the
oppressors. He says, you're one of the oppressors.
He says, you're one of the oppressors. He
says, those who help the oppressors
are like the one
who helps you. Whoever helps you, whoever is
bringing you food or something like that. He
said, but no. You're you're in the loop.
You're not outside of the loop at all.
And so this is also a warning
for, you know, as we're seeing whatever is
happening, whether abroad or internally here with the
protests and what have you, is that a
person is not
absolved of responsibility,
whether they're a police department official or or
or or campus security or anybody. You're not
absolved of responsibility
just because you're following orders from a chain
of command.
You know, we had, a hero who passed
away, who has killed, Rahimullah, actually, 2 weeks
ago, Muhammad Sadiq.
Rahimullah is a soldier in Sudan, and he
was a first lieutenant. And this man is
a
national hero at the moment. And he's really
a hero of the Ummah. We're talking about
heroes and villains.
So this man, young man, when he was,
when in 2019,
when the
protest happened in Sudan,
and the people did an encampment at Al
Qiyad Al Amma. They did an encampment at
the defense headquarters.
The people are protesting, mass protests, or what
have you.
Eventually,
they were going to break up the protests.
And in fact, they ended up being broken
up very violently.
It was it was it was like a
turning point
in our modern history, this bloodshed that happened.
But before that happened,
this man came with a tank
to protect the protesters. He's a soldier,
and he came to protect the protesters. And
he said, I'm not here to
the job of any soldier should not be
to follow orders to disband the protesters,
but to to defend the sha'p. And one
of our problems that we all know that
in the Muslim world, many times, unfortunately,
the Muslim armies are there
pointing inward at the population they're supposed to
protect. They're not pointed outward at the state's
enemies.
In any case, this man, he became dismissed
by the army because
if you don't follow orders, then you're not
trusted. And they definitely don't want mutiny to
happen by other soldiers being inspired by this
person.
And so they
they they dismissed him. But then when this
war happened
this past year,
the National Army needed everybody possible.
Everybody. They needed everybody who knows how to
shoot a gun to come, basically. And so
he came back,
and
he,
rahemullah,
last week he was basically,
the RSF was approaching a region in West
Sudan called Al Jinaina
and he said, I'm not going to wait
for these militia to come to us. I'm
gonna go out and I'm going to meet
them even if I meet them by myself.
And so he went,
and he was ended up being captured by
the RSF. And it was a very horrible
video you saw
of them,
like,
surrounding him, which is a war crime. He's
a prisoner of war at this moment, but
they surrounded him and they said,
you know, what what what speech do you
have to say now? Because he was very
impactful in his speeches. So what speech do
you have now?
And so then the next video showed he
had been killed
But that idea of someone who
even if I'm being commanded
by my higher ups to harm the people
that I'm entrusted to protect, that I'm not
going to follow those orders.
So how does fira'aun then We've got these
three qualities. We've got the quality of oppression,
we have the quality of
if sad corruption, and we have the quality
of arrogance. How does pharaon hold on to
power? One of the ways which I was
alluding to earlier is the complete distortion of
the truth.
Complete distortion.
So what does Firaoun say? Musa alayhi salaam,
he comes to Firaoun
and he
says, as Allah told him, Allah says,
Go to Firaoun and say to him we
are 2 messengers from your Lord,
send with us
and don't punish them.
That's the mission of Musa. The mission of
Musa is to bring
the believers
of Bani Israel
out of enslavement in Egypt
and to take them back to the holy
land. He doesn't wanna
stay
in
Egypt.
Receives
that message from Musa,
But what does he say? At reality, he
doesn't want Musa he doesn't want Bani Israel
to leave.
You can complain about Bani Israel as much
as you want. You can enslave Bani Israel,
but he doesn't want them to leave. And
that shows us
though many societies have undesirables, people that they
claim are desirables,
they wouldn't want them to leave. So as
much as we talk about illegal immigrants here
in the United States, as much as we
complain about them and don't want them and
all this type of stuff, what would the
US be without the illegal population here?
How many jobs do they take that Americans
simply do not wanna do?
And so their presence here is actually something
that is desirable
while we do this dance of them being
called undesirable.
And Firawn didn't want Bani Israel to leave.
They were the working class, they were the
enslaved class
and
Firawn
immediately receives that message and he distorts the
truth. What does he say? He says,
Like it's unbelievable.
Musa comes to him and says, I wanna
leave with Bani Salahi, we wanna leave Egypt.
He says to he says to them, he
says, Musa, did you come to expel us
from our land with your
magic?
Moses was like, no, I didn't come to
expel you from your land. I don't wanna
stay in Egypt. I don't want Egypt. You
can have Egypt, all of you guys. We
don't want anything to do with Egypt. We
just wanna leave. He says, you're trying to
expel us from Egypt.
He flipped the message completely a 180 degrees.
Where have you seen that before? And in
fact, the word spreads.
So what did they say in Surat Taha
verse 63?
They said, this these are 2
sorcerers
who have come to expel you from our
land
and they want to Look at this, look
at how incredible the Quran is.
And they want to take away
your
your exemplary
way of life.
Look at how old this argument is. They
wanna they hate us for our freedoms.
That's what they hate. They wanna they wanna
they wanna alter
your way of life.
They wanna change your way of life. That's
the reason why they hate you. That's the
reason
why they're coming
and causing such trouble.
This is complete opposite of what Fir'an
had heard from Musa.
And we see that distortion today.
When you have Israel practicing a genocide against
the Palestinians, what does Netanyahu say? He says,
today again we saw an upside down world
in which the state of Israel is accused
of genocide
at a time when it's fighting genocide.
They are fighting genocide
is being done to them and that's what
you see everybody
parroting.
You say from the river to the sea,
Palestine will be free. They say that's anti
semitic. That's a genocidal statement. What genocide? What
are you talking about?
We're talking about the freedom of a population.
How did that get distorted
to being claimed that it's a genocidal statement?
These are the same tactics of from 1000
years ago or from 1000 of years ago.
And then his delusion is paired with audacity.
Look at this audacity.
Firaun says
Firaun says
to Musa, he says
He says
when Musa comes to him the first time
he says, didn't we raise you as a
as a baby?
As a baby?
And you live amongst us for many years.
And you did that thing that you did.
And you are from those who are ungrateful.
Okay. How many people did Musa kill by
accident, Firaun?
How many people did you kill, Firaun?
And yet, Faran turns around
and is is is accusing Musa
of that one person
and he's got a blind eye, he does
not see
the 1,000 that he killed.
It's nothing.
That is the delusion that is and
that is the delusion that we see here.
That is the delusion that we see here.
People talk about October 7th, and they don't
care about October 6th. October 5th, October 4th,
October 8th, October 9th, October 10th, October 11th,
October 12th, October 13th.
We're 8 months in now. Thousands of people
have been killed,
and the years before.
But look at what Musa says.
Musa says something really powerful.
Oh, like this is
this story of Musa and Firaun, you could
spend so much time on it. It deserves
it.
What does Musa say? He says
he says,
I I did it when I was
mistaken.
A
balin, and I fled from you and I
was afraid of you until he says something
incredible. He says,
Because what is fir He says, and this
is a blessing
that you are are holding over my head?
That you enslave the children of Israel?
Like when Faraun is basically saying
to him, we raised you.
We took care of you
and you are ungrateful.
Musa is saying, oh, you took care of
me?
Okay, you took care of me. But this
is something that you're holding over my head
that you like you enslave the children of
You don't get to claim
to have fixed me when you caused my
brokenness in the 1st place.
You raised me? Why was my mother so
afraid that she put me in a basket
in a river in the 1st place?
What was happening?
You were slaughtering
my people.
And this statement by Musa alayhi salaam
is 1, even if it's not articulated,
it is something that has been felt by
every child of privilege
who does not forget
the brokenness that is around them.
That child who goes to the most prestigious
universities
in the world,
but they don't forget the people who are
around them whose only experience
and opportunity
was
a school to prison pipeline.
Or that refugee
who comes to the United States or comes
to any of the western world,
and they're able to succeed.
But they don't forget they're people who are
ravaged back home
by a proxy war
that
is being created by the country that's given
them refuge.
Okay, you saved me
but what caused the brokenness that caused me
to be a refugee in the first place?
You know, I remember
my,
my dad, he
went to this school in Sudan called. It
was a it was a high school.
At a time when,
it had 3 high schools in the entire
country. There was only 3 high schools.
And so he
got into this high school. Obviously, you had
to have incredible marks and all of that
for you to be able to get in,
and he got in. And my whole life,
we'd hear stories about this
incredible high school that was built by the
British,
curriculum by the British,
teachers were British. It was it was a
high school that sounded better than a lot
of our universities.
And so one time I was teasing him
or I was asking a question. I said,
you know what? What? A lot of times
when I hear about Sudan, I hear about
everything that was good was built by the
British. Everything.
The the
the the built by the British,
the the railroad tracks built by everything.
I said, why did y'all even kick them
out?
Why'd you kick them out?
So he said to me, he said, 3
high schools in the entire country.
3 high schools in the entire country.
Sure.
If you got in, you were
you were
you had a world class education but everybody
else had nothing.
0.
He said, what oppression is greater than that?
What oppression is greater than that?
So that idea of, you know, the British,
obviously, they didn't wanna educate the countries that
they were colonizing.
They simply wanted an aristocratic class that would
be loyal to them. But these people did
not end up being loyal to the British.
They became loyal to their people.
And so that's glad tidings for everybody
who continues to engage on behalf of the
broken no matter what their personal privilege is.
And in doing so,
they're preceded by a mighty messenger of God,
Musa alayhi salaam.
I grew up in your palace, sure, but
is that a blessing that you're accounting to
me when you enslave the children of Israel?
And so
Fir'awn does that and then there's another tactic
that Fir'awn uses and then I wanna wrap
up insha'Allah. But this is a powerful thing
that Fir'awn does
and it's powerful how Musa responds.
What does Fir'aun do?
In that conversation,
Fir'aun then says to him, Musa says, wa
tirk kani amatuntumunna alayin abatein bislayin. This is
a blessing that you're counting to me that
you enslave it. So then Fir'aun says, وَالَلِيمِّيمِي
يَعْمِيمِيمِيمِيمِيمِدَةِّهِمِّ
He says, it is the Lord of the
east and the west
or the heavens and the earth if you
have certainty.
Then Fir'aun looks at those around him and
he says,
Do you not hear what he's saying? And
then Musa says,
He says, It's your Lord and the Lord
of your fathers.
And this isn't a direct like punch in
the face to Firaun because Firaun is ruling
by
by divine ancestry.
I'm a god and my parents were god
and my grandparents were divine and my great
grandparents. And Musa's coming and saying, no. He's
your god and the God of your father,
and the God of your grandfather,
everybody. Allah is the God of everybody.
And then Fir'aun says,
Quran then is looking around, he's still talking
to these people, he's like, the messenger that
was sent to you is crazy.
He's not responding to his arguments. He's just
making accusations and
and then Musa says,
Musa says, your Lord and the Lord of
the East and the West, if you have
sense.
And then, Fir'awn then says,
If you take a god other than me,
I will make you of those who are
imprisoned.
So now he's going straight into
strong arming,
threat.
And then Musa alayhi salaam says to him,
if I come to you with something clear.
Now,
what Fir'aun does is in rapid succession is
he throws a number of accusations against Musa.
You're crazy.
You're,
you're, he says
what's the first one that he says?
What is the lord of the worlds? He's
throwing these different things at Musa. Musa stays
razor focused, and he doesn't respond to any
of these things. He doesn't respond to any
of these things. He focuses on the mission.
Why is that important? You know, there's a
quote by Toni Morrison.
She says, the function,
the very serious function of racism is distraction.
It keeps you from doing your work.
It keeps you explaining over and over again
your reason for being.
Somebody says you have no language and you
spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody
says that your head isn't shaped properly so
you have scientists working on the fact that
it is.
Someone says you have no art. So you
dredge that up. Someone says you have no
kingdoms. So you dredge that up. None of
this is necessary. There will always be one
more thing.
When you're always dealing with accusations and responding
to the accusations, you never get to focus
on your message. And I want you to
imagine the past 20 years, how much
the accusations
of
Islamophobia
have zapped from our community
of us defending
against these accusations even though there will always
be one more accusation
and never allowing us to focus on our
mission
and our message, which is to call people
to tawhid.
Musa alaihis salam is dealing with the accusations
of but he doesn't say to him, no,
I'm not crazy. Let me you know, this
and this and that. He doesn't care.
He focuses on
talking about who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
until Quran finally says to him, listen I'm
gonna throw you in jail if you take
And then Musa still doesn't say, well, no.
Hold on. He just says, what if I
come to you with a clear side? And
then he says, okay. And then they set
the stage for the next stage. But the
point here is the function of racism
and the importance of not being distracted.
And as we see now in this past
8 months,
the number of accusations
that are thrown out that have to be
disproven
and the amount of energy. And when it's
been disproven, there were no beheaded babies.
How much time and energy had to be
exerted.
And yet,
when it is disproven,
how many people actually hear about the disprovement
of that claim?
And so the importance of really just honing
in on a clear message, and then not
being distracted by the noise. And it's something
that we need to get better on.
And then
what else do I have here? The last
thing that I'll just mention is how to
how to defeat
how to defeat.
Oh, actually, one more point. Sorry. I just
wanna mention this.
Allah tells us about the people of Firaoun.
Allah says something very powerful about them. He
says,
Allah says,
belittled his people.
Is
like means to be light.
Like, he didn't consider them worth anything. He
he considered them to be easy to maneuver,
easy to manipulate.
It's like what Netanyahu said about the American
people. He said America is easy to move.
That you you don't think that they've got
weight.
Now, if the American people
allow themselves to be maneuvered like that, that
easily,
then they might have the same issue that
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes the people of
Egypt at that time. He says,
They obeyed him still.
Allah says, they were a wicked people.'
They were wicked, why? Because they allowed their
intelligence
and they allowed their commitment to be maneuvered
so easily by somebody so nonsensical.
At the end of the day, you have
to think for yourself.
At the end of the day, you have
to use your own moral compass, your own
moral judgment.
Now look at the opposite of that. The
opposite of that is what Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala describes the the companions of Rasulullah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam. Allah says about the companions of
Rasulullah, Allah says
Allah says about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
that if you were harsh
and if you were severe with the companions,
they would have dispersed from amongst you. The
sahaba would not have stood in line to
be abused by Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
whether verbally or otherwise.
But the people of Fir'an allow for Fir'an
to manipulate them and so Allah calls them
an evil people. And so it is from
righteousness
that you have a dignity that you carry
with you, that you don't allow for yourself
to be belittled, whether that be your intelligence
or your self worth as Sheikh Jafar
mentioned.
Now, the last thing, sorry, is how to
defeat
So there's a lot to be said here,
but when we look, we look at how
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
created
the hero
that he chose
to defeat Fir'at. Allah says about Musa, I
designed you for myself, I made you for
myself.
And I would refer you to look at
the beginning of Surat
Baha,
how Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes
all of the challenges that Musa went through
as Allah describes
his upbringing. And then Allah
says, Allah describes so many hardships that Musa
goes through and then he says, and I
cast upon you love from myself. And you're
like, man, this is how Allah treats the
one who he loves. This is Allah loves
Musa alayhis salaam And Musa goes through the
hardship that Musa goes through, but Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is building someone who's going to
go
and have such a powerful mission.
And so you have to have
a personality.
At the very least, even if you don't
have the personality, you have some of these
characteristics that Allah designed in Musa, whether it's
strength or trustworthiness or chivalry or patience or
seriousness.
But just a few of the things that
we look at at the conclusion of the
story of Musa, how Bani isla il was
being prepared.
Number 1,
the dikr of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Allah
says
Allah
says, you and your brother go
with my signs
and do not fatigue in my remembrance.
And so the remembrance of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala is something that gives a person
spiritual and physical strength
spiritual and physical strength so that you
when you meet an enemy of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala that you are supported by the
dhikr of Allah. Number 2 is salah.
Salah, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, and we sent
and we revealed to Musa and his brother
that make the homes, your homes in Egypt,
make
them
make
your homes into places of prayer.
So the people of Misr,
the Bani as Sala'il, they were commanded to
devote a lot of prayer in their homes.
And then of course du'a,
Musa would eventually make dua against Fir'aun and
against his people. Musa 'alayhi salaam would eventually
say,
Musa would say, our Lord, indeed you've given
Firaun and his establishment splendor and wealth in
the worldly life, our Lord, that they may
lead men astray from your way.
Our Lord obliterate their wealth and harden their
hearts so that they will not believe until
they see the painful punishment.
Musa alayhi salaam eventually just asked Allah and
he says, oh Allah, destroy Fir'awn and his
people.
As much sabr as Musa has, and we
know the sabr of Musa,
the prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam praises the sabr
of Musa. In fact, he seeks sabr from
knowing the sabr of Musa. And yet, Musa
comes the time when eventually you've seen so
much, you've dealt with so much arrogance, You've
seen and been hurt so much by this
individual and his people that Musa, alayhis salaam,
he asks Allah, he doesn't even ask for
them to be guided. He says, oh, Allah,
in fact, seal their hearts
so that they don't believe until they see
the painful punishment,
and Firaun does not believe until he sees
the painful punishment.
Alright. With that, we end.