Dilly Hussain – No one does what 5Pillars does
AI: Summary ©
A Muslim leaders and their followers emphasize the importance of being like the Zionist Jews and the Jews, acknowledging the work of the people and the impact it has on their lives. They also discuss the struggles of the current COVID-19 crisis, including the lack of news coverage and the use of weapons to protect against attacks. The United Nations stresses the need for a strong message to be conveyed to the public, and assures them that they will remain true to their cause.
AI: Summary ©
Let me first begin by saying
to every single one of you who have
taken the time out to come to our
inaugural Iftar,
I'd be lying if I said it wasn't
a huge deal. It's a massive deal for
us,
for us to have the opportunity
to address our supporters, community leaders, influentials, and
so forth about the work that we've been
doing for 11 years.
In 11 years, a common argument that I've
heard
amongst Muslim leaders and laity
is that we need to be more like
the Zionist Jews.
I hear it all the time. We need
to be more like the Jews. We need
to be more like the Zionist Jews.
And when you probe further,
as in what do you mean by this?
And I do. I ask, what do you
mean the Muslims need to be more like
the Zionist Jews?
Nearly always is related to
politics,
political lobbying,
influencing policy making,
or attaining high positions in academia so we
can influence policy.
Never,
rarely, if ever, do I hear that we
need to be more like the Zionist Jews
when it comes to the media.
Because the Zionist Jews are the most unified
when it comes to supporting their media.
Good, bad, or ugly, they put their differences
aside, and they are unified upon the cause
of Zionism,
defending every single act of Israel. And they
are willing to put their differences aside, whether
it's over styles and means and language and
tone.
Let's compare them to 5 pillars.
In 11 years, we
have never had to pay a single penny
to a single entity
who have bought a defamation claim against us.
Not a single penny.
Not a single apology to the enemies of
Islam or Muslims when we have reported about
them.
And in addition to that, we have a
100%
grading by the internationally renowned journalism review and
news guard.
Even then,
over the years,
even amongst some Muslim critics, we've had some
labels attributed to us.
The Muslim Daily Mail, the Muslim tabloid press,
the Muslim media mercenaries. And I say this
to you all today,
embrace those labels
with chest.
I'm happy to be the Muslim daily mail.
I'm happy to be the Muslim tabloid press.
I'm happy to be a Muslim
media mercenary if it's for the sake of
Allah and for this deen.
Because it is the same tabloid press like
the Daily Mail and The Sun,
who are the who are the most read
publications in this country.
They are the biggest opinion makers in this
country.
In 1997,
The Sun newspaper under Rebecca Brooks won Tony
Blair
the elections.
The same in 2010 when David Cameron and
the Tories at the time made a deal
with the Daily Mail. And the same the
same 2 newspapers, the same trash tabloid press,
not that we see ourselves as such, but
I'm just saying the impact of the tabloid
style press
is what gives the Muslim communities a hard
time.
It's not The Telegraph or The Sunday Times
or The Guardian that's weighing aside Imam Shaqeel's
masjid waiting to do a hit job on
him, it's the tabloid press.
It's the tabloid press that launches investigations into
our charities. It's the tabloid press that gives
our mussajid and our mussayikh a hard time.
So why not fight them the way they
fight us?
You've seen couple of videos so far, and
most of them have featured
myself from Roshan.
But wallahi, there's a whole team behind
the work of 5 pillars, who have made
what we do on a day to day
basis possible.
I just wanna mention one person who's with
us today. Where is Zulqarnayn Bande?
Put your hand out, Zulqarnayn.
Our brother Zulqarnayn,
he's our correspondent from Indian occupied Kashmir.
From Indian occupied Kashmir.
And there are others. We have a brother
called Mir Faisal, our India correspondent who has
to do his work in secrecy in India
under the Hindutva regime.
And we have others scattered across the world.
We have brother Moshein Bajas here with us
today. Those of you who like the podcast,
he's the brains behind the podcast. He's the
creative brains behind the podcast. There would be
no Blood Brothers today if it wasn't the
work of Moshein Bajas.
There would be no 5 Pillars website if
we didn't have Obaid Shahar, who's constantly deemed
the Zionist hacks into our website and our
gadgets being hacked all the time.
Look,
The fact of the matter is there is
no one that does what 5 pillars does.
This is the truth.
Yes. There are
very competent and creative Muslim media outlets and
content creators out there. There's no denying that.
That produce
positive feel good stories and reminds about Islam
Muslims. That's fine. That is their remit. In
fact, some of their founders are here with
us today. They tell me, you guys do
what we don't do, and we acknowledge that.
And shall I tell you who else recognizes
that we do what no one else does?
The UK government does. Just earlier on this
week,
Michael Gove was supposed to have included our
name amongst an honorable list
of extremist organizations, but he pulled out last
minute because I believe he did not want
the legal heat.
He did not want that smoke. But the
point of the matter is,
they fully acknowledge the work that we do.
I tell you who else acknowledges the work
that we do and the impact that we
have.
The Hindutva
government of Narendra Modi formally wrote to Twitter
on 2022
calling
for our Twitter account to be terminated.
In the same year, we had the UK
Embassy of Israel right to impress,
calling for an investigation into 5 pillars with
the end goal of us being struck off
from their publication.
How is it that they recognize the impact
of our work, yet yet we are here
11 years on still trying to convince the
community?
Just last week, we
acknowledged the 6 year anniversary of the Christchurch
massacre
in 2018.
Roshan will remember
when that incident happened within 24 hours, with
the very little money and resources that we
had, we sent out a brother called Abu
Waheb from Sydney,
to go there and report from on the
ground. No other Muslim media outlet was there
on the ground.
In 2020, we were invited by the Turkish
government
to cover
the restoration on the opening of Masjid Aya
Sofia, a historical moment. There was no other
Muslim media outlet was there. My younger brother
Aki is here, my friend Imraaz Akhtar was
there, and I remember when we were in
the press corner,
and they were making taqbirat and duas,
amongst the journalists it was just us
that were making taqbis and duas, and the
rest of the media, even like the Turkish
press, they were looking at us thinking,
you guys are supposed to be journalists. How
come you guys are also saying and you
guys are rejoicing? We said because this is
part of our values. It's a part of
our identity.
Shame on you.
You're supposed to be the descendants of the
Ottomans. Why aren't you rejoicing with us?
In 2021,
when the noble people of the Islamic Emirate
of Afghanistan
kicked out the US led NATO forces,
within months, Roshan went out there with his
iPad, with his iPhone, a clip on mic,
and his tripod,
and he went report from on the ground
when the world's media had turned against a
country that was under 20 years of brutal
occupation.
Just in February, we were the only English
speaking Muslim media outlet at The Hague with
the historic genocide case against Israel. These are
just some examples that we're giving you where
we have made our presence known with the
very little and limited resources that we've had.
And that's because, as I've already mentioned, there
is no one that does what 5 pillars
does, brothers and sisters.
I've met so many people throughout the years
that said, brother Dilley, you know, masha'Allah, you
guys you guys do and say what we
can't say and do.
Fantastic.
If we are saying and doing what you
can't do, then put your money where your
mouth is.
Put your money where your mouth is.
Because we're putting our neck on the lines.
It's us who get visits from plainclogged officers,
get obeyed up and surveilled by plainclogged officers.
Our gadgets get hacked. Our emails get hacked.
Everything that we do is looked into, surveilled.
Our addresses, docs, death threats is just a
standard thing in our line of work.
If we're putting our neck on the line,
then put your money where your mouth is.
Because this is what we're doing out here.
We're fighting a jihad in the media. It
is not a physical one. It is an
ideological one. It is one for the preservation
of the Islamic identity and the advancement of
our moral and ethical values for the betterment
of this society,
of which the front line is the media.
I wanna wrap up with just one
example from the seerah.
For those of you who are aware
of
the Qazawat of the prophet and then the
military expeditions,
There were times where certain companions couldn't take
part in these military campaigns for whatever reasons.
Some of them were injured from a previous
battle, others were had pressing responsibilities as sole
carers of an elderly parent.
Others were actually instructed to stay back in
Redeemer.
And was that it? Do you think they
accepted that? No.
They gave.
They gave their steeds. They sold their livestock.
They gave their armor. They gave their spears.
They gave their swords. They gave their gold
and silver. They gave everything
so they could be
part of that struggle.
Why? Because those who are going off to
jihad, they were doing something which they could
not do themselves,
yet they supported it in every shape or
form that they could.
My dear brothers and sisters, before I hand
it over to brother Faraz
to make this plea to you all,
let me remind you all this.
There is no amount of money
that is too big or too small in
the eyes of Allah,
and there is no amount of money that
is too big or too small in the
defense of Islamic Muslims.
I could stand here and I could tell
you that, look, we're not promising
100 of shahadas in a Amazonian
jungle, or in West Africa, or in Leicester
Square.
We're not promising you food parcels, tents,
8 trucks for the mesquite.
That work's gonna carry on. It's going to
carry on, and
sadly, unless our situation changes, it's probably going
to increase.
But I promise you this,
wallahi,
we will remain true to our cause
and for as long as Allah permits,
we will have a group of committed Muslim
journalists,
qualified,
competent,
committed,
God fearing
in the cause of defending Islam and Muslims
in the media.