Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Khutbah Justice Isn’t Severable CVIC 12152023
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AI: Transcript ©
All praises to Allah,
and may his peace and blessings be upon
his servant and messenger, our master, Saydna Muhammad.
Brothers and sisters,
people ask me how how am I doing?
This is a very awkward question to ask
even though oftentimes it's just a social habit
that people have.
They don't really care. They don't really mean
it.
But it's an awkward question to ask
especially in the last 2 months.
I have now given up pretense. I tell
people,
Alhamdulillah,
everything is good in my life.
I'm comfortable.
I have food.
My family is safe. My home is safe.
My home is happy.
Everything is fine. I'm clothed. I have everything
I want and everything I need in order
to be happy. I have it and I
have more than what I what I want
and what I need.
But still, who's going to be able to
look at pictures of small children being killed
indiscriminately?
Who's going to look at pictures of hospitals
being bombed?
Who is going to look at pictures of
massages being destroyed?
Who is going to look at pictures of
churches being destroyed? Who's going to look at
pictures of ambulances being targeted?
Snipers killing children, killing old men and women.
War crimes
that we don't even have time to describe.
Who's going to look at all of that
and say, I'm feeling okay?
This is a reality of this dunya.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has lifted the curtain
from us because we read the book of
Allah ta'ala, we read the hadith of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
and there are certain things that are mentioned
there
that because
life is a party and everyone's having a
good time, nobody wants to mention them because
they're going to end up ruining the mood
for people.
Allah ta'ala wants what he wants.
We want something. Allah wants something.
What Allah wants, that's what's going to end
up happening. That the prophet
didn't he tell us
that the duniya is mal'oon. It's cursed. And
what's in it is cursed
except for the remembrance of Allah ta'ala, except
for knowledge, the one teaching it and the
one learning it, and the remembrance of Allah
Now look at what do we see?
If wealth was going to do something for
you, if political power was going to do
something for you, if beauty was going to
do something for you physically,
if athletic ability was going to do something
for you, if any of these things that
all of us covet,
all of us covet, we all would love
to be beautiful, we'd all love to be
rich, powerful, famous, all of these things.
If it could do anything for you, don't
you think somebody would have used them to
stop one child from being killed?
Don't you think somebody would have used them
to stop a hospital from being bombed?
Don't you think somebody would have used them
to stop
the destruction of a masjid?
Don't you think somebody would have used them
to stop any of these war crimes?
But the people who have the most power
today are the most tongue tied.
The people who have the most money today
are the most
tongue tied.
The people
who have abilities that we all covet, they're
today the the most disabled of people in
the face of something that is a clear
moral evil.
I think Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that thing
that will cause me to become
so lacking so lacking in any sort of
human decency.
That thing if Allah Taw
saved me from it, I say Alhamdulillah
and I say that these things are all
crimes. You don't have to be a Muslim
to know it. You don't have to be
in the Masjid and Jummah to know
it. Even Jews in this country recognize it.
Even Christians in this country recognize it.
People recognize it. They see they see what's
going on. The masks have fallen off. Things
have become clear to people.
And I don't say this because I want
to come to the masjid and get people
huffed up and puffed up about something they
can't do anything about because you can obviously
do something about it.
You cannot solve the entire problem,
but you also don't completely have no ability
to do anything at all. Every single one
of us, Allah gave us an ability to
affect the world in a good way and
in a bad way based on the choices
that we make.
I don't mention this in order to found
the flames of a sectarian or religious war,
nor do I care about politics.
That much that I would mention them in
the Khutba of Jumu'ah that I want this
guy to be president or that guy to
be president. I don't care.
Name the person that you hate the most,
who you think is the biggest criminal in
the world. If that person made toba and
repented and left the path of wickedness
and took up the path of righteousness tomorrow,
I would be the first one to be
happy. I would be the first one to
help him even if I don't like him
myself, even if you don't like him or
her, whoever it is.
The point is what? We're not fixated on
personalities.
We're not fixated on tribal conflicts. We're not
fixated on identity conflicts.
The reason that as Muslims,
we object to killing,
It's not because they're killing us today and
tomorrow. Like, if someone else is being killed,
we're not going to care.
Rather, if a Muslim does something wrong, we
speak up about it. We have have to
speak about it. We do speak up about
it. We do say this is wrong. We
recognize it's wrong.
This is what
Allah and His Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam expect
of us, and this is what the ummah
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam has taught
us from the time we were children.
And in that vein, I want to talk
about something that's directly related to the conflict
in Gaza. It's not a conflict. It's a
massacre.
Directly related to the massacre in Gaza
and directly related to our life here in
America,
here in Ohio, here in Solon.
That as of the last couple of days,
I've started to read in the newspaper
that displays for the
Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Although Hanukkah is a
relatively minor Jewish holiday, but it's still a
holiday that the Jews celebrate.
That in the displays of the Jewish holiday
Hanukkah, they put up like symbols of the
menorah.
What is the menorah? It's a similar word,
if not the same word, to the word
in Arabic, menara.
Both of them have the a common root.
The root of both of them have to
do something with illumination or with lighting something
up. The menorah is like a candle holder
that lights up the,
the temple.
And the menorah is the the the minaret.
It's literally a cognate of the English word
minaret,
which lights the way for people who are
traveling at night time in the,
in the in the Muslim world, in the
pre modern world.
They both have the same word. So there
are a number of menorah displays in this
country that are now being sacked, that are
now being desecrated,
that are now being trashed.
This is a problem. As Muslims, we find
this unacceptable.
I remember as a child going to an
interfaith dialogue. I myself as an Imam have
participated in them and will continue to participate
in them. Because we live in the world
with other people, we need to be able
to talk to them. We need to be
able to have some sort of relationship with
them.
I'm not a fan of being fake in
interactions like that because that really doesn't benefit
you or other people at all. But I'm
also not a person who's too arrogant or
who's too stubborn or too close minded to
go and talk to a person who disagrees
with me and try to understand where they're
coming from even if I don't agree with
them.
So I remember as a child at interfaith
dialogue, I asked a rabbi. I said, what
is the 6 pointed star
that's, that that that's like the symbol of
Judaism? What does it represent?
And he said something, I remember it to
this day, which is more or less correct.
He said, this is actually not a an
old symbol of Judaism. It's a relatively modern,
emblem that's used to kind of symbolize our
faith. Because if there's something that's a symbol
of Judaism, it's the menorah actually.
That menorah is something that they used in
the time of the master of Aqsa, in
the time of priests, not rabbis in time
of priests in the time of Ambia Alaihi
Musalata Salaam.
So even though it's use as Mansuk, it's
abrogated. In our religion, we consider it also
still to be it, an emblem or an
now unused or retired emblem of what? The
worship of Allah ta'ala.
So I say unequivocally, it's not acceptable for
a person to desecrate it. It's not acceptable
for any Muslim to desecrate it. If you're
in the Muslim world,
the yahoo the nazarah, they have a pact
of dhima that was given not by you
or me or by your Sheikh or my
Sheikh or by your king or my king
or your president or my president, by the
messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
And you're obliged to honor it, I'm obliged
to honor it. If you're outside of the
Muslim world, we're citizens of this country.
And like we don't like our masajid to
be desecrated, we also don't accept the
places of worship and the symbols of other
people to be desecrated.
It's not right.
If I was in a locality
and the synagogue next to me was desecrated,
I myself would consider an act of piety
to help them to restore whatever was destroyed
from their place of worship.
This is something that we should be unequivocal
about. However, to stop the discussion there, this
is also a treachery. This is also a
type of deception.
Because if you're okay with the menorah being
trashed, but you're not okay with the menorah
being trashed, you're a hypocrite.
As a Muslim, you're a hypocrite. As a
Jew, you're a hypocrite. As a Christian, you're
a hypocrite. As a person
of any religion or no religion at all,
as a human being, you're a hypocrite.
Why?
Over 40 masajid in Gaza. I stopped counting.
This is weeks ago.
40 full massages have been destroyed.
Some of them are some of the oldest
massages in the Muslim world.
Not have only have they been destroyed, they've
been desecrated.
And there's a claim which I consider very
dubious
that they're being used for military purposes. I
consider this very dubious. Oftentimes hospital. This claim
has been made in the past. No evidence
comes out neither at the time nor before
nor after nor at any time. It's just
you move on to bombing something else unjustifiably
and people forget about what was bombed yesterday.
But to bring one up without bringing up
the other, it's a complete hypocrisy. This is
also you know, the movement the believer is
is not
rewarded for being stupid.
This is a hypocrisy. This also should be
recognized
that to desecrate 1 and not desecrate the
other, this is not acceptable.
Further than that and the greater and more
important point than that even,
Is that, if you will freak out about
a menorah being desecrated or a menorah being
desecrated
and it doesn't bother you that human beings
are being killed,
this is 100%
evil. This thought comes from Shaitan.
The messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
his teaching as was exclusively mentioned by Saidna
Abdul Abin Amr radiAllahu ta'ala Anhuma and also
narrated from the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as
well directly.
Is that
the believer, the least of the believers is
more holy and more sacred
in front of Allah Ta'ala than the Kaaba
itself.
Forget about a random message than the Kaaba
itself.
Why is it that the value of human
life has become so paltry as become such
garbage to people?
It's not right. It's not okay.
If we can't get to that point of
talking with people, we should understand there's some
sort of fraud that is happening with us.
This is not to point fingers at anybody,
But that there is there are fraudulent parties
that are not being honest with us, and
they're expecting us to deal with them not
in an honest way.
And I'm not saying this is a conflict
between Islam and Judaism.
Let me tell you. You know, I mentioned
this point about the,
you know, the
being a haram to to to to desecrated.
I mean it. Our before
us meant it.
You know, my I studied in the Muslim
world, not as a minority, in Muslim majority
countries. 1 of my mashaikh
was
actually given a land grant in the Indian
subcontinent. Imagine this. In the Indian subcontinent to
the city of Lahore
in Pakistan, he was given a land grant
in the old part of the city in
order to build a Madrasah building institution.
Because the place he was teaching in was
choked with students. There was They literally have
to teach classes from day night because it
wasn't big enough for the amount of students
coming to him.
He asked a lawyer to research that land
grant that was given to him and he
found out that this was a Hindu temple
that was
put into disuse after the partition of Pakistan
and India.
And he said that by treaty, the Muslims
promised in Pakistan that they would
preserve the places of worship of the Hindus
and the,
Indians promised that they would preserve the places
of worship of the Muslims. They would not
trash them. And so for that reason, he
refused to accept that piece of land. This
is not even people of the book. This
is like idolatry.
And still, he honored that pact.
This is the pact of the I mean
it. We really mean all of these things.
But at the same time, if somebody wants
to bring up one thing and not bring
up the other
or wants to bring up both of those
things and not talk about human life, this
is a fraud that's happening with us.
This is why, and I'm not talking about
politics, but there are certain things that the
government does that we have religious teachings about
which we need to share.
This is why it is so dangerous
and why it is so unacceptable
for our government to pass resolutions saying that
anti Zionism and anti Semitism are the same
thing.
One is a political ideology,
which is subject to the purview of free
speech.
The other is a religion,
which as Muslims
as Muslims, we say that we
disagree and we agree to disagree with them,
and we don't go any further than that.
And this actually not only puts us in
jeopardy as Muslims, it actually puts our Jewish
neighbors and friends in jeopardy.
Why? Because who do you think are desecrating
the menorah? Do you think it's someone who's
sitting in Jummah right now that I have
to say that it's haram to them and
they'll say, oh, okay. I thought we were
supposed to do that. It's not Muslims at
all.
What is it? It's the regular rank and
file people. Some of them less educated have
less self control over themselves. The people who
are trashing Masajid because of the propaganda for
the last 20 years, 30 years, 40 years,
60 years,
those people once they see that they were
getting lied to, they get very angry
and they do these things. Why? Because they
don't have a Sharia that they follow. They
don't have teachings that they follow that teach
them all of these things.
They have a very simplistic and very
unrestrained mode of thinking and acting, and they're
going to do these things.
And by conflating the religion of Judaism with
what? With this political ideology, which is currently
murdering Muslims and Christians,
and causing the unnecessary death
and destruction of property, lives
of Jews, both within the sacred lands and
all around the world. This is a problem.
This is an issue. We have speak up
about it. I don't care who
agrees democrat or republican. The one who agrees,
they agree with what their teachings of Islam
are.
This is something we need to also understand
because we live amongst people. You cannot close
your eyes and be blind.
You cannot tell your children, hey, just don't
talk about this.
Why? Because even if you don't want to
go to problem, the problems have already come
to your door. They've already come to your
threshold.
You have to understand them. We have to
understand them.
Our young people, we have to talk to
them openly.
They have to understand them as well. Because
if the solution to all of these problems
is to stick your head in the sand
and hide from the world,
We've been doing that. It's not working. It's
only getting worse.
And I'm not against interfaith dialogue.
But we have to do with some sort
of dignity. We have to do with first
understanding what our deen teaches us first as
Muslims, not in order to represent to anybody
else, but in order for us to be
able to represent ourselves in front of Allah
ta'ala on the day of judgment.
And then thereafter,
right speech only comes from right thought, right
understanding, right knowledge.
Right action only comes from right thought, right
understanding, right knowledge. You're not gonna do something
good without understanding first.
Because what?
Every pitcher will only pour out the thing
that's inside it.
If you fill Kool Aid in the pitcher,
don't expect that it's gonna pour honey. It
doesn't work that way.
May
Allah give us tawfiq. May Allah
give us understanding. May Allah
give a hikma and know that way that
we speak to one another and the way
that we speak to our friends and neighbors.
I truly believe
once all of
the psychiatric distress everybody is under right now
is removed.
And we can just talk to one another
human to human. I truly believe there's nobody
regardless of the religion who will ever think
that what's happening right now in Gaza is
okay.
But it's a matter of being able to
talk to people, not trigger their
not trigger their sensitivities
into some sort of fight and flight animalistic
type of,
confrontation, but just put the facts on the
ground and give people enough time to digest
it because there's very few people who Allah
gave the Tawfiq that you say the Haq,
you say this truth to them and they
accept it right away. Some people, it takes
them a little bit of time.
Allah gives tawfiq to be steadfast and say
the best thing, not to be cowards, not
to hide, but to say what is right
and what pleases him and to say it
steadfastly and in a way that people will
be able to digest eventually even if it
takes them some time.
Allah