Dilly Hussain – Challenges facing Muslims in UK Aisha Mosque
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
For inviting me today but more importantly
for prioritizing
such a topic to be discussed on a
friday evening
on an evening where
the shabaab the youth could have been doing
many many other things
but then to
attend the masjid and hear this talk,
may the angels be a witness to this
gathering.
Today's talk is about
the challenges
which face Muslims in Britain.
Let me begin by saying that there are
many, many challenges
which
are not just exclusive to Muslims.
There are many, many issues,
social, economic, political
issues that
are affecting
Britain's up and down this country, irrelevant of
their race, their creed, or their background,
whether that be social housing, whether that be
austerity,
whether that be teenage pregnancy,
whether that be drug and substance abuse, whether
that be gang violence,
whether that be youth unemployment and unemployment generally,
whether that be the fact that many of
the elderly
are not sufficiently looked after.
There are many, many problems that we are
facing and challenges we are facing in the
United Kingdom today that are not specific to
the Muslim community at all.
However,
there are certainly
a number of challenges which are unique
to Muslims in Britain,
and by extension,
Muslims in the Western world.
And I've identified
from these challenges
4.
The first being
Islamophobia
and anti Muslim hatred.
Of course, we're all aware
of the horrific atrocities which took place 2
weeks ago
in Christchurch, New Zealand,
where gunmen entered 2 mosques,
and
they
killed 50 Muslims during salatul jamaah and injured
another 49.
And Allah accept them amongst the martyrs.
And it is this ideology,
the ideology of those gunmen
is what's affecting
and is what is
the outcome
of Islamophobia and anti Muslim hatred that we
see today.
But when I look at the Muslim community's
activities,
and I follow it very closely,
we are very good
and rightfully so
about calling out the likes of Tommy Robinson,
the EDL,
Britain First,
Katie Hopkins,
Nigel Farage,
UKIP,
the Daily Mail.
This is what I call easy Islamophobia
because we know who these individuals and their
organizations
are. They make their feelings and their views
very clear.
But rarely, as a community, do we ever
ask,
how did these people and these organizations
get to the stage where they are today?
How is it that their voices and their
views have become so mainstream,
so amplified
that 15, 16, 17 years ago,
these views
weren't that mainstream, or at least they weren't
that apparent.
Some of these individuals and organizations, they have
100 and 1,000, if not millions of supporters
online.
All it takes
is for you to go into social media
or the Internet,
read a news article which is about
Muslims or Asians, and just read the comment
section.
And you will see that the comment section
is inundated
with things like
send these musis back home, send them where
they come back from, Send them on a
boat. And blaming everything and anything on Muslims
and people of color and immigrants.
We need to ask ourselves
how we got to a stage in 2019
where these views
are no longer fringe.
They're no longer within the peripheries of society.
They are very much mainstream.
That this ideology known as white supremacy
is not something that's just held by the
gunmen of New Zealand
or the lights of the far right.
What is very alarming and worrying is that
this ideology
is held by mainstream politicians and mainstream parties.
If you look at Europe, for example,
Greece,
Hungary,
Germany,
Austria,
Poland,
these 5 countries
have parties which are leading them that have
a very similar ideology
when it comes to how to deal with
Islam and Muslim and immigrants in their countries.
If you look to France,
the 2nd biggest political party is the the
National Front led by Marine Le Pen.
She's significantly
more
right wing than the likes of Farage and
UKIP.
Only recently
the Muslim Council of Britain
and Baroness Saidah Warsi said that within
the Conservative Party, there is an institutional
problem of Islamophobia
where many, many councilors and members just recently
got suspended
for some of the comments that they were
making publicly on Facebook about Muslims and immigrants.
This issue of islamophobia,
brothers, sisters and elders,
is not something which is new.
It is not something which is born out
of the dawn of the war on terror.
I would argue,
even though it's a different discussion, I would
argue that Islamophobia
has been on this earth since the day
our father Adam
descended on earth.
But the Islamophobia which is very rampant
which is very visible
in our face today
it did not happen in a vacuum
it did not happen overnight
when you have unfortunately
politicians from all the different parties it's not
specific to 1 or
or specific many party when you have
when aspects of Islam is referred to as
an evil ideology
When our sisters who choose to wear the
niqab are referred to as letterboxes.
When you have this kind of rhetoric
coming
from the very higher echelons of power,
you have to ask yourself
that the likes of the far right
and the Daily Mail and EDL and Britain
First and these guys,
that's how
their narrative and their toxic propaganda
became mainstream
because of the sophisticated
language that was coming from high above.
When the Nazis
carried out the holocaust,
they did not assume power in Germany for
a military coup
they came into power for popular support
millions upon millions of Germans supported adal fitla
and said that we want his party to
run this country.
It all began in 1925 and by 1933,
1934,
he had assumed total power in Germany.
And how did he assume power? For 8
years, he blamed everything and anything, political, social,
economic on the Jews.
And people just accepted
it. They accepted it. And that's what led
to the holocaust or the justification of the
holocaust.
So if we,
as a Muslim community here in the UK
and broadly speaking in Europe,
don't start addressing the root issues of Islamophobia
and anti Muslim hatred,
then what we are going to find ourselves
is that we are always
calling out the symptomatic
outcomes.
We are only addressing
the outcomes
of this toxic ideology,
toxic propaganda
against our beautiful religion and this Ummah, which
is actually coming from above.
I do not think for a moment that
the Islamophobia that we are experiencing in the
UK is unrelated and disconnected to events abroad,
whether that be the invasion of of Afghanistan
and Iraq, whether that be the support
of the entity that's known as Israel,
whether that be anything that you're seeing abroad,
it's all interconnected.
When we look towards the United States
known as the most powerful country in the
free world,
since Donald Trump assumed power,
he's made it abundantly clear,
even though his policies are not that different
to his predecessors, but he at least he's
been honest enough to let people know what
he thinks.
We wanna crack down on black people.
We wanna create a wall to stop Mexicans
from coming over, and we want to ban
Muslims from traveling into this country.
Just think about for a moment, we are
not talking about fringe
individuals, we are talking about
mainstream
political parties and leaders and governments.
When you
turn on the TV screen or you read
the newspaper, you go over your news feed
on the phone.
Every day, there's a headline or something about
Islamic Muslims. Always.
There was a piece of research that was
carried out
by the University of Lancashire
some years ago,
and they assessed
100 and thousands of newspaper articles.
And they calculated
that the ratio between a positive article about
Muslims to negative articles is 1 to 21.
So for one
force,
brothers, sisters and elders,
Besides rightfully calling out those who are very
clear and open about their hatred against Islam
and Muslims,
we need to really start asking the serious
question. How did these people, how did these
organizations
get to where they are?
How did this narrative,
how did this brazen and emboldened hatred
become so mainstream?
How?
So moving forward
on this particular challenge that we face
I would like to see
everyone in this masjid today
that when you hear stuff about islamophobia and
anti muslim hatred
whilst we rightfully call out those who are
spewing it quite publicly and quite unashamedly,
we need to also ask a bigger question.
That is when how do we get to
the stage where this has essentially become mainstream?
It's become normal.
It's become normal.
And it's become normal because over a period
of time,
soft and sophisticated language has been coming from
higher powers,
from higher institutions.
Whether that
be Ofsted,
which is now indiscriminately
targeting
Islamic faith schools, faith schools that were previously
graded outstanding,
all of a sudden now are being
graded inadequate
whether that be the charity commission
who are now all of a sudden wanting
to crack down on madrasas and masarjid
but are not cracking down on synagogues
are not cracking down on Sunday church school
Charity Commission who are now targeting,
charities that are going to Syria, that are
going to Philistine. All of a sudden these
charities, their assets are being frozen. They're coming
under statutory investigation.
Why?
Why is it that when Muslims make up
barely 5% of this population there's such a
disproportionate
focus and targeting of our institutions?
So we need to be mindful that that
when we talk about Islamophobia
and anti Muslim hatred
there is the everyday stuff sadly
where our sisters
our elders
our masajid they are attacked they are vandalized
the articles the Hopkins of the world
but we must ask there is something greater
that's feeding
this. Challenge number 2
we are struggling with an identity crisis
especially amongst the youth
you know I go to many universities and
I give
Alhamdulillah
I have the
honor to meet many youth in universities
and some of the things I hear.
And remember 1 or 2 is enough.
People identifying as I'm a liberal Muslim.
I am a moderate Muslim.
I am a socialist Muslim.
I am a gay Muslim.
Yes.
I am a feminist Muslim.
And then on the other side, in our
communities,
when you ask someone how would you identify
how would you define your identity?
I'm a British Muslim. I'm a British Pakistani.
I'm a British Bangladeshi. I'm a Bangladeshi. I'm
a Pakistani. You you'll you'll get a diversity
of responses.
So it appears
that we have an issue where
especially our youth,
that they are struggling
with defining who they are, with understanding who
they are.
Because remember when you attach these different labels
to your identity as a Muslim,
that means
there must be answers and solutions that these
individuals seek from those ideas.
Now when someone says I'm a liberal Muslim,
then that means that liberalism
must influence
their decisions
in life
as with a socialist,
as with a feminist,
as with someone who identifies as gay.
And sometimes, necessarily, it is not the fault
of the youth.
Maybe they are not getting the support and
the answer and the solutions
and the confidence and the empowerment that they
need to be given
to understand
that the only identity that matters on
is that you're a Muslim
that you will not enter paradise
because you are British or because you are
a Sayyid or because you're a
or whatever it is
or because you are Qurayshi.
These things become irrelevant
on the day of judgment.
You will only be tested upon
your actions
according to Islam.
But that said,
I want to also make it very clear
there is nothing wrong.
There's nothing wrong
with us
or any peoples having an affinity
with the land in which you were born
in, with the land in which you were
raised in and the land in which you
have your loved ones in
there is nothing wrong
that when asked
where are you from I am British
because I was born in this country I
was raised in this country there are certain
cultural things
which have shaped who I am today
whether it be that I'm an ardent Liverpool
supporter
whether that be that I genuinely love fish
and chips
over rice and curry these days
whether that be there's a particular fervor of
British comedy which I like
whether that be many many things the way
we speak the kind of
you know,
the language that we have,
the way we,
even behave with one another.
Our
other than Attica has even been influenced by
the society in which we have been raised
in.
I don't know about you all, and I'm
I'm saying this to the youth here.
When I visit Bangladesh where my parents' country's
origin is from,
I love it. And then after 2 or
3 weeks, I start getting homesick. I genuinely
start getting homesick. I want to come back
to the UK.
When people ask me in Bangladesh,
they know I am,
but when they ask,
where are you from? Where's what's your dad's
name? What's your village? After I tell them
all that, they'll still see me as a.
They'll still see me as a.
But then the crazy thing is here, when
you speak to
many white people so where are you from?
Well, I'm from Bedford.
But where are you from?
From my mother? But where are you actually
from? Oh, I know what you mean. You
mean where my parents from? Okay. So it
seems that in Bangladesh, I'm a Londonian. Here,
I am also,
sadly sometimes treated as a foreigner. But the
point here is that there is nothing wrong
with having love of Mahabbar,
and a sense of belonging
to the country in which you were born
in, or the land in which you were
born and raised in. There's nothing wrong with
this.
But I tell you where the problem begins.
The problem begins is when we no longer
define
what British means,
when we no longer are able to define
what our identity is.
The problem begins is when we are told
what British should mean,
when we are no longer stakeholders
in defining our own identity,
rather an arbitrary set of values and expectations
is imposed on us.
That's when the problem begins.
Because if being British means,
I was born here, I was raised here,
I was schooled here, my friends and family
are here,
then there is no denying that my name
is Dhir Husayn Al Britani.
There's no denying of that.
But it being British means
that I have to subscribe to a set
of values
which
contradict
Islam,
then quite frankly,
I will opt not to identify as such
and I will challenge it.
So brothers, sisters, and elders,
there is an identity crisis.
And if we do not address this identity
crisis amongst our youth, we may have a
generation
of a confused bunch.
And we do not want that.
The children that I am seeing, the youngsters
I am seeing in front of me are
the fathers and the uncles and the grandparents
and the doctors and the thinkers and the
activists and the ulama of tomorrow.
We can't have them being confused about who
they are.
The third challenge.
There is a growing movement
in the UK,
in the western world, and even in the
Muslim world. There's a growing movement
that is seeking
to change
our deen.
And I'm not talking about the the aspects
of our religion where there is genuine differences
of opinion,
where there is genuine ikhtilaaf
and amongst the different schools. I'm not talking
about trying to change those things, because those
things
can be robustly challenged and have been for
centuries.
I'm talking about a growing reformation movement
that seeks to change the fundamentals
of our deen.
Whether that be how our women
decide to dress.
Whether that be how our men folk decide
to marry. Whether that be what we teach
our children.
How we teach it to them. At what
age we teach to them.
Whether that be aspects of the Sharia which
in today's world,
it mostly doesn't really exist,
but that it existed and it was agreed
upon
by consensus.
People are seeking to change these things.
This this growing movement
is now talking about aspects of the Quran,
verses of the Quran being outdated.
It is revising,
in His changing,
in His upgrading,
like how the Jews and Christians did with
their scriptures.
There is a growing pressure
for us to change
the very fundamentals of our Deen.
There is a growing movement that wants to
disconnect us, which also links back to the
previous challenge about identity.
They want to disconnect
Muslims in different parts of the world
from the rest of the Ummah.
That they want you to now see yourself
as whatever respective nationality you are, that comes
first.
That you are no longer really a part
of a global Ummah of 1.6, 1,700,000,000.
That what happens in the other side of
the world is not your concern.
So this growing reformation movement
is looking
to outdate
Sahih al Bukhari
Sahih al Muslim
Hadith, the prophetic tradition.
How our women folk
and the men folk
decide to be seated in our events
there's a growing pressure now
of now it may become mandatory that, you
know, you can't just have a nikat. A
marriage has to be registered.
Sadly,
having 2 dads or 2 moms is acceptable.
Having * change is acceptable. You can have
many mistresses and girlfriends as possible.
But as soon as the sanctity of marriage
comes into question,
all of a sudden, this may now become
a criminal offense.
And this is all being justified as part
of a wider movement.
And this wider movement wants to not just
water down the deen.
And remember this, our beautiful religion,
since its inception has always been able to
deal with new realities.
It's always been able to deal with new
realities.
Century after century after century, Allah has blessed
us with people of knowledge
who have
assessed new things and new challenges and been
able to overcome them.
That's the beauty of the Sharia. That is
the beauty of our fiqh and our jurisprudence.
But all of a sudden now,
everything is up for discussion.
Things that were never up for debate and
discussion is all of a sudden now at
the forefront.
We need to resist,
strongly resist
this movement
and its many individuals and groups,
of which many people differ in their levels
of how much they want to change the
deen.
Some want to just make a few little
changes,
others literally want
to scrap
entire chapters of the Quran,
entire chapters
of the prophetic tradition.
And it is a duty upon every single
person
that is hearing this right now.
That as a to resist this we need
to be able to articulate
our deen.
We need to be able to defend
those aspects of our deen,
which
is being sought to be changed.
Now if you think to yourself,
how am I going to defend certain aspects
of the sharia? How am I gonna how
am I gonna address,
you know, the the rights of the wife
in in in in a Muslim marriage? How
am I going to how do I defend
the concept of jihad? How do I how
how do I do any of this stuff?
If you don't know how to do that
stuff, then it is now a responsibility
upon you to now seek the relevant knowledge.
How are you able to defend something which
you don't know about?
How are you able to defend the Quran
if you don't if there's no connection with
it?
How are you able
to defend why our beloved Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam married Aisha
at the age that she was? How are
you able to defend this if you don't
know?
If you don't know the seerah, if you
don't know why he did marry her?
How were you supposed to defend
what happened to Banu Quraydah, if you don't
know why it happened, if you don't know
the seerah?
How are you able to challenge these things?
What are you going to do if you're
one of your non Muslim colleagues asks you?
Did your Prophet really marry
a 6 year old or a 9 year
old? Did he really do that?
Are we in a position to respond to
that?
If not, then we need to be able
to defend these things. And the only way
we'll be able to defend these things is
by articulating it and understanding and building a
connection with the Quran and the sunnah.
And the last challenge that we face as
Muslims
in this country
is an issue of role models and leadership.
I'm not saying that there are no role
models
and that there aren't leaders. In fact, there
are so many leaders. I wondered to myself
that there's more leaders than the people who
want to be led.
And let me make it abundantly clear from
the get go.
Our forefathers,
my dad,
my grandpa my grandfather
from the respected elders that I'm seeing here
today.
Alhamdulillah
they built the very foundations upon which we
benefit today.
I would humbly argue they've done their bit.
They've done more than enough
in building the institutions which we benefit from
today, whether that be
the halal butchers, the Hajj and Umrah operators,
the Muslim cemeteries,
the many Sharia Councils that exist today,
the very masajid in which we worship.
May Allah bless our forefathers
in this life and the next, Ameen. They
have done a lot,
but it is our responsibility
now.
And there is a crisis in role models.
We are living at a time where sports
figures,
musicians,
rappers,
Instagram makeup artists,
Youngsters who have never worked a hard day's
life,
hard day's work in their life,
but they are renting out super cars. They're
sticking pictures on Instagram, getting loads of likes.
These these and these kind of people have
become our role models.
They were never our role models.
We can do much better than that
because I know
I know within our communities, I know within
the Ummah
there are many many talented individuals.
Many.
And on the issue of leadership,
next week, a bill is going to get
passed,
the relationship and * education bill,
where it will become mandatory
from September 2020
that children in secondary schools are going to
be taught about
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
queer,
same * relations.
They're going to be taught these things.
Our children,
Our young brothers and sisters, our nephews and
nieces, our grandchildren, they're going to be taught
these things. And by the way, they're not
going to be taught
the legal existence because that's we accept this.
We accept that we are living in a
secular society.
People from different backgrounds,
we coexist with them in peace.
That people in in the societies in which
we live, choose to have relationship
with the same gender, the same gender. People
choose to change their gender.
But that's not what's going to be taught.
What's going to be taught from September
2020,
is that these lifestyles are okay.
It's good.
It's the same
as a marriage between man and wife, man
and woman.
That it is okay
to identify
as a gay and be Muslim.
It is okay
that if you come come to school as
a boy,
that your name is Imran,
it is okay if you wanna now be
addressed as shagufta.
I'm very sorry if there's any imran and
shaguftas in the masjid today.
No. No. I'm being serious though. These things
will be taught to our children.
To children as young as 11, 12.
It's already being rolled out in primary schools
to children as young as 5 just in
Birmingham, down the road from here.
Alhamdulillah, there are parents that are protesting.
They're saying we will not allow our children
to be taught these things.
We are not gonna teach them.
Remember this,
which 5, 6, 7 year old needs to
even know about these things? That's the first
thing. Right?
And if if it is something for them
to be taught, then it is not Is
it not the responsibility of the parents
to tell their children what is halal and
haraam when it comes to relationships with the
opposite gender?
So they've been taught these things, but then
they're going to school and saying,
having 2 dads is okay, it's no.
Having 2 moms is okay.
If you want to change the the the
organs which Allah has blessed you with as
a man and a woman, if you wanna
change those things, it's okay.
Remember there is a very clear difference between
these different relationships
exist in our society
to
these things are okay. Because that is no
longer morally neutral.
When you study religious education in school, your
teachers don't say to you Islam is the
correct way of life, or Christianity is the
correct way of life. They just tell you
about the religions. They just tell you about
the different religions.
But in the case of
the RSC,
there seems to be a clear promotion of
it,
and those are 2 completely different things.
Not a single
Muslim MP voted against this bill.
Not a single Muslim MP. I think there's
13 or 14, I think. Not single. Christian
MPs voted against it. I believe there's 2,
3 Hindu MPs that voted against it.
Not a single Muslim MP even a So
they either supported
it, or they chose to abstain from it.
Now I appreciate
that our MPs,
they don't just represent Muslims.
They represent non Muslims. They represent whoever they
it is in their constituencies.
But if you are going to use the
Muslim card when it comes to election time
for our votes,
then surely forget about your community, forget about
surely your own iman.
Most of them most of them are parents.
How do you reconcile this?
How do you reconcile that these things will
be taught?
How do you reconcile the fact that we
have Christian MPs that vote against it?
Quite confidently, they voted against it
And in 2013, we had a similar scenario
with the same * marriage bill
Not a single Muslim MP voted against that
We have Christian MPs voting against it.
So in the issue of role models and
leadership, brothers and sisters and elders,
we need to be able
to hold our leaders to account
With respect,
with other, with the correct Islamic etiquette.
I'm not calling for a youth uprising or
rebellion here, by the way.
But I'm not talking I'm not also mentioning
here that there needs to be pin drop
silence,
where we become and do nothing.
Whether that be
politicians,
whether that be
leaders in the charity sector,
whether that be leaders in any sector
who are assuming leadership purely based on their
Muslim identity and they require our support. If
we require our support then we have a
Haqq, a right to hold you to account.
The greatest human being to have walked this
earth was our beloved Prophet
And
we have he'll we have his example and
the example of his companions.
May Allah be pleased with them all
when it comes to leadership and role models.
Of course,
of course,
the leaders and role models of today will
never ever reach the Maqaan
of our beloved Prophet and the companions.
But their example is there for us to
follow, is it not?
We follow them in prayer, we follow them
in how we deal with our wives and
our families, how we with our children, we
follow them in how we do Mawmalaat
then why can we not follow them or
or have that standard
when it comes to our leaders and our
role models?
So brothers, sisters and elders,
please, there is nothing wrong
with asking questions from those who assume leadership
over you.
We know of the famous story of Umar
Abu Khattab
that when a woman
got up and she accounted
Umar
in front of the whole congregation.
And what did Umar
say?
To paraphrase,
he said, Alhamdulillah,
I have people like this in my Ummah.
But again accountability
has to happen within a particular framework and
etiquette.
Not done
disrespectfully
or rudely,
but questions and accountability
have to be asked. Because when role models
and leaders
go and do things whatsoever seemed
authority or leadership,
they're doing so whether you like it or
not in your name and in your religion.
They're doing it on behalf of what you
stand for.
And if you feel that they are not
representing what you feel, your grievance,
your sentiments,
your priorities,
then questions need to be asked.
Those are the 4 challenges that I feel
are the most important ones facing the Muslim
community here in Britain.
Institutional
Islamophobia,
an identity crisis,
a growing reformation movement,
and the issue of role models and leadership.
But I'm not going to conclude today's talk
just on these knots.
There's been a lot of doom and gloom.
It It is not befitting of the believers
to be negative and pessimistic.
Absolutely not.
In fact, it is befitting of the believers
to believe
and think the best of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
That he will give us the best and
deliver us the best in this life and
the next, even if we are struggling with
trials and tribulations.
It is from the prophetic tradition
that we remain optimistic
and hopeful
in Allah.
Always,
constantly.
And that remaining patient, having sabr,
does not just mean that you do nothing,
is that you are pleased with the decree
of Allah, whilst remaining active to change what
you can for the best, within your means
and capacity.
So on this note,
I have 3 solutions.
We've discussed 4 challenges.
I want to give 3 solutions.
Solution number 1,
we have to be a people who convey
the message of Islam
in society.
We have to give that one.
It may not
fix
the higher level Islamophobia and anti Muslim hatred,
but by Allah, it can certainly address
the Islamophobia
of the everyday type within our communities.
You may be working with non muslims
who may smile at you when you come
into work but you don't know what they're
thinking in their minds about who you are,
what you believe,
what kind of person you are with your
family and your loved ones?
Can I see a show of hands?
Who believes Islam is the true way of
life, the only true way of life?
Alhamdulillah.
Is it then correct
knowing
this to keep it to ourselves?
Of course not.
Do you want to face Allah on the
day of judgment
and have your non Muslim friend or colleague
who will say to Allah,
Baha You Rabb, I had a friend.
I had a friend who I worked with,
who I went to school with, who I
went to university with. He never told me
about you.
He never told me about the Prophet Muhammad.
He had he had the Quran in his
house. He never ever gave me a copy.
I had 3, 4, 5 mosques in my
town,
where every time I went there, the the
doors are shut.
Every time I go there, there are people
that I don't speak my language.
We don't wanna be in that position on
the day of judgement. Wallahi, we don't.
So brothers, sisters, and elders, we need to
be giving that.
We need to be inviting
and conveying the message of Islam. And do
it in a manner in which which is
appropriate, and which is conducive.
And what I mean by this is be
balanced.
You know the people in which you engage
with, you know your own, you know your
community, you know your work colleagues, you know
your friends,
you know what is too much and what
is too less.
What you can't do is do nothing.
That when
a non Muslim sees
the actions,
the behaviorism,
the other, the etiquette of a Muslim that
they become jealous.
That they become, you know, SubhanAllah, you know,
obviously they won't say that but, you know,
what makes them behave like this?
What makes them act like this?
Convey the message.
Convey the message. Many, many classical scholars
of the past,
they said, they went to this extent.
That it is haram
for Muslims to live amongst non Muslims unless
you give them dua.
This was a classical opinion that was maintained
by many ulama.
That to live amongst non Muslims, you have
to give them dua.
You have to convey the message to them.
In the same way that our beloved Prophet
SAW came as a rahma for the whole
of mankind,
the believers are also, the message is to
be conveyed to the whole of mankind.
And on the issue of our masajid,
of course with the recent events in Christchurch
as well as the 5 Birmingham attacks against
Masjid, I know there is now a big
discussion about the security of our mosques.
Once we should oversee and make sure that
the security of our mosques is
kept up to standards so to prevent any
attacks or issues,
we cannot keep the doors and the gates
locked constantly.
We cannot just open our masjid once a
year to visit my Masjid and feel Khalaf's
job done until next year.
The services, the khidmat of the masjid of
our masjid has to be available to not
only Muslims but non Muslims as well.
There was a story in Leeds where a
non Muslim woman went to a Masjid in
Leeds just to drop some food off and
flowers off to, you know,
to, after what happened in New Zealand,
just to tell her to tell the mosque
that, you know, how sorry
she was and how she stands by them.
And she saw a group of brothers eating.
And cut the long story short, after engaging
with them, after the brothers offered her some
food and told them what they believe and
she accepted Islam.
I bet you, any money she did not
come into that that mosque that they think
she was going to be leaving Muslim.
Number 2.
Activism.
There is a major misconception
that dawah
and activism are 2 separate things, they are
not.
If you believe dawah and activism are 2
separate things, then you have secularized your deen.
Every prophet that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
sent to this earth,
with the message of tawhi,
worshiping Allah, associating our partners with Him, they
also address all the major issues in their
societies.
They never just invited people to Tawhid.
Because one of the outcomes of Tawhid
is that you're enjoining good and forbid evil.
As Allah says,
in Surah Al Imran, that he has raised
us as the best nation from from amongst
mankind. Why?
Because we're enjoining good and forbid evil, and
believe in Allah.
Brothers and sisters and elders,
Activism and power,
are intertwined.
They're linked.
We can never separate the 2.
You can
invite and convey the message of Islam
whilst standing firm against oppression and injustice.
We know of the very famous hadith in
Bukhari and a Muslim,
where our beloved Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said
that when you see a mumkhar, an evil
in front of you, change it with your
hands. And if you can't change it with
your hands, speak out against it. And if
you can't speak out against it, the lowest
of iman is to hate it from within.
Many of the injustices and oppression that we
see,
I am confident we can do more than
just hate from within.
We also know that when one of the
companions asked our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
that, You Rasulullah, what is the best form
of jihad?
He Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam responded, the best form
of jihad is a
word of truth to a tyrannical ruler. There
are so many evidences from the Quran and
Sunnah
that was given Dawah, was conveying the message
of Islam, we also have
to remain firm upon the truth, stand for
justice, and stand against oppression and tyranny.
And lastly,
we need to become more strategic in how
we support our institutions.
And what I mean by this is that
when it comes to Ramadan, when it comes
to
when it comes to phone calls from our
families,
in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, wherever it may be
that you're from. And we have members of
our families who are not as well off
as us. They call us for for Sadqa
Jariyah, that we give a lots of money
whenever there's a calamity in Philistine,
in in Burma,
in Kashmir, wherever it may be. We dig
deep and we give lots of money. Alhamdulillah.
There was a recent study which said that
Muslims
as a faith group are the most generous
in the United Kingdom.
But we need to now start thinking more
strategically about how we allocate our funds and
our disposable income.
What I mean by this is that,
and these things, even Zakah is not just
restricted
to the poor and the destitute.
That there are other categories, there are other
priorities.
That if we accept
that as a Muslim community, we have issues
of Islamophobia.
We have an issue where there are powerful
and very wealthy groups and movements that want
to change our deen.
If we accept
that there is a lack of role model
leadership, if we accept all the things which
I've said,
then surely we have to accept that our
money, our wealth that Allah has blessed us
with. Remember, our wealth is not ours.
It's not ours. You may think it's yours,
it's not ours.
It's a loan which Allah has given to
us, and that we would be accounted for
how we spent this money.
Start thinking more strategically
about how we allocate funds. Alhamdulillah,
sometimes when I'm within certain circles,
even amongst
very respectable Ulema and activists I have heard,
we need to be more like the Jews.
And I disagree with this.
Because I believe where the Jewish community are
today,
there are fundamentally
very different socio political and historical reasons why
they are where they are today and why
we are where we are today. However, there's
one thing which
I certainly believe we need to start being
more like the Jewish community.
They support their institutions
like no other community.
They support their media. They support their think
tanks. They support their activists.
They put their theological differences aside. They put
their sectarian differences aside. They put their political
differences aside, and they put their money together,
and they support their lobby groups, their think
tanks, their media institutions.
And it's one of the reasons why they
are so self sufficient and strong.
If there's one thing we can take from
the Jewish community, it has to be that.
That we need to start being more strategic,
more smart, more coordinated
in how we fund
our Muslim organizations,
not just charity and relief work, which is
noble and which we should carry on supporting.
Jazakumullah kim for your patience, brothers.
Any good and every good of Allah
any shortcomings
and mistakes were from me alone.