Ibrahim Hindy – Lessons One Year Later
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We stand here almost an entire year, short
a few days of genocide that we have
witnessed upon our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
Almost 365 days when all the world powers
came together to agree to allow an entire
population to be decimated and eliminated and starved
and since then we've all seen a constant
stream of images that I barely need to
describe that all of us are intimately aware
of.
We've all seen the grandfathers kissing the corpse
of their dead grandchildren.
We've seen the father run home after getting
the birth certificate for his babies only to
find that the mother and the babies have
all been killed.
We've seen the children collected in plastic bags.
We've seen the torture victims, their limbs broken,
their eyes bulging.
We've heard of countless doctors coming back and
telling us the stories of what they have
seen in Gaza.
We've seen the premature babies left in the
hospitals to rot.
It's been one year of horror after horror
after horror and now with the destruction of
Lebanon coming after it.
We've seen the journalists and medics killed in
Gaza and now too being killed in Lebanon.
And as we stand here a year later,
we have to reflect over everything that has
happened while realizing that everything happens by the
decree of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala good
and bad.
But it is our job to extract lessons
from the calamities that surround us.
Our Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, he taught us,
لا يبلغ المؤمن من جحر المرتين.
He said that the believer is not stung
from the same hole twice.
Meaning the true believer has to have thoughts
and intellect, has to analyze what is happening
around him and understand it.
So what are some of the lessons that
we should be extracting from an entire year
of genocide?
A genocide that is different than any other
genocide in the past.
One that is live streamed to our phones.
One that the entire world is intimately knowledgeable
of the horrors of it.
What can we take in terms of lessons
after one year of this genocide?
The first lesson is that this genocide has
blessed us with exposing the clear nature of
the hypocrisy of Western nations towards Muslims.
How often have Muslims been seduced by Western
rhetoric?
By quote-unquote human rights?
By quote-unquote rule of law or an
international based order?
All these terms make it seem to us
like they want to treat every human being
equally.
It's made to seem to us that they
want to give precedent to rule over skin
color or nationality.
That we're all judged by the same rules.
But Gaza has exposed the hypocrisy.
The gift, the so-called gift of human
rights is not about treating every person equally
but it's about the power of who gets
to define what is human and who gets
to define what are rights.
An international rules-based order is not about
every country having to follow the same rules
but about who gets to enforce the rules
and when do they enforce them.
So if Russia bombs a hospital in the
Ukraine, our Prime Minister and the President of
the United States and all the politicians in
the political class and all of the media
class are up in arms and all of
them are tweeting condemnations and all of them
are saying how horrific, how barbaric is it
for Russia to attack a hospital in Ukraine.
But when Israel attacks every single hospital in
Gaza, when they even attack the makeshift tent
hospitals that they gave approval to, they said
we allow you to establish a tent hospital
then they bomb it.
There's not a word, not a single word
from any of them.
When they kill hundreds of doctors and medical
professionals in Gaza, not a single medical institutional
speak and in this week they've killed almost
a hundred medical professionals in Lebanon and again
not a single medical institution will open their
mouths.
Suddenly they don't care about hospitals.
Gaza exposed the hypocrisy.
You can't say that you care about human
rights or human lives and there's an endless
stream of doctors including Jewish American doctors who
have come back from Gaza and have said
we have seen countless children between the ages
of two and 10 years old with sniper
bullets in their hearts and in their skulls.
You can't say you care about human rights
and you hear that and you ignore it
and you don't even speak about it.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us
that this will be the case.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us, وَمِنْهُمْ
مِنْ أَنْ تَأْمَنُهُ بِقِنْطَارٍ يُؤَدِّهِ إِلَيْكِ Allah tells
you from the people of the book, there's
two kinds of people.
Some of them, if you entrust them بِقِنْطَارٍ
with a great amount of money, you give
them a lot of money and you entrust
it with them and you ask them for
it back, they will give it back to
you completely in full.
They are trustworthy.
And then the Qur'an tells you, but
there's a second type.
You entrust them with دِنَار with just a
small amount of money and they will not
give it back to you except that you
beg them for it over and over and
over again.
They're trying to keep your money.
Even though it's a small amount, they're trying
to steal it from you.
Why?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells you, ذَلِكَ
بِأَنَّهُمْ قَالُوا لَيْسَ عَلَيْنَ فِي الْأُمْنِيِّينَ سَبِيلٌ Allah
says, this is because they said, there is
no blame upon us for how we treat
the unlettered people, meaning the Arabs.
They called the Arabs, the ummiyun, the unlettered
people because most of them could not read
and write.
They said, there's no blame, Allah will not
punish us if we do this to them.
And today, there are people in power who
say, these are gentiles, doesn't matter what we
do to them, God will not blame us
or punish us if we kill them, if
we steal their land, if we steal their
homes, doesn't matter.
And there are those who are Christian, who
say, these are Arabs, doesn't matter what happens
to them.
They're not human beings really.
This verse tells us, don't generalize, there are
good Christians and there are good Jews that
are trustworthy, that are up to their word.
But it tells us there are those who
do not see us as human beings.
And increasingly, those are the ones in power.
لَيْسَ عَلَيْنَا فِي الْأُمِّنِينَ السَّبِيلِ Imam As-Sa'di
says this verse, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is saying, there are very good people from
the people of the book, who are very
trustworthy, but there are those who are deceitful
and they justify their actions by saying, the
Arabs are primitive, they are beneath us, and
we can take from them what we want.
And this mentality is not historic, but it
is present.
Being able to see this hypocrisy is a
blessing.
Because how many Muslims have been fooled by
the so-called superiority of the West.
That they look at the West and they
say, it's more advanced than us.
And it's more advanced because of their values,
because of their democracy, because of their human
rights.
And therefore we need to follow them step
by step.
How many Muslims have been fooled like this?
Subhanallah, Samuel Huntington, the author of Clash of
Civilizations, who doesn't even look at Muslims that
well by the way.
He has a very powerful line in his
book.
He said, the West won the world not
by the superiority of its ideas or its
values, or its religion, but rather by its
superiority and applying organized violence.
The reason the West won the war is
they were more violent and more organized in
their violence.
Not because their ideas are better, not because
their values are better, not because their religion
is better.
He said, the West does not understand this.
Meaning the West tells themselves this story.
They tell themselves the reason we are more
advanced is our values are more superior, our
religion is more superior.
And it's a lie.
And the biggest tragedy is that there are
Muslims who believe this lie.
Who think that indeed the West is more
superior because of its values or its religion.
And they want to follow everything about it.
They want to make Islam as Western as
possible, because they think that the West is
the ideal to be striving for.
A brother was just telling me, he came
back from Jeddah, living in Jeddah.
And his next-door neighbor was talking to
him.
He said, you're from Canada?
He said, yes, I'm from Canada.
He said, come look at my children.
And his next-door neighbor is Saudi.
He said, come look at my children.
He tells his children, talk to the neighbor
in English.
So they speak in English, mashallah, their English
is very good.
And then he's boasting, he's so proud.
He tells him, my children do not speak
any Arabic.
They only speak English.
He's so proud.
My children only speak English.
And the brother is like, subhanallah, I came
from Canada because I want my kids to
speak Arabic.
Look at the difference in mentality.
Right?
There's no problem with our kids learning different
languages, of course, that's good for them.
But the idea, he doesn't even want his
kids to know any Arabic.
He only wants them to know English.
He wants them to be as westernized as
possible because he thinks that's the ideal to
strive for.
This is a disease.
And alhamdulillah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
exposing the nature of their hypocrisy so that
people start to look to what is in
reality better.
Which is what Allah came with in the
Qur'an and the Sunnah.
The second lesson I want us to take
is to realize they're not our ummah.
We can talk about hypocrisy all day and
night.
We can say, look at these hypocrites.
They spend billions of dollars to help the
Ukraine when Russia is taking and occupying the
land of the Ukraine.
But then they're giving billions of dollars to
Israel to occupy the land of Palestine and
now Lebanon.
Isn't that incoherent?
Isn't that hypocrisy?
Yes, it is, of course.
But here's the reality.
They see Ukraine as part of their ummah,
as part of the western civilization.
They see Israel as part of their ummah,
of western civilization.
And they don't see us as part of
their ummah.
They are their ummah, we are our own
ummah.
So they're gonna defend their ummah, why are
we not defending ours?
Why are we not uniting as an ummah?
Why are we not seeing ourselves as the
ummah of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells you, وَلَن
تَرْضَعَ عَنكَ لِيَهُودُ وَلَا النَّصَارَ حَتَّى تَتَّبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ
He tells you the Jews and Christians will
not be pleased with you until you follow
their religion.
Until you fully enter their ummah, they will
not be happy with you.
So we have to start seeing ourselves not
as Egyptians, not as Pakistani, not as Indian,
not as Saudi.
We have to look at ourselves as Muslim
primarily.
That's our primary identity.
And to unite on that basis.
Unfortunately, sometimes we blame the Muslim rulers and
leaders, and they are worthy of blame.
But those rulers and leaders, they come out
and say, we don't like what's happening in
Palestine, but it's not in our interests to
get involved.
And unfortunately, there are people in Saudi, in
Egypt, in Jordan who agree with this logic.
There are people who agree with this.
Who say, yes, why should we get involved?
Let's protect our interests.
كل حزب بما لديه الفرحون Every group wants
to hold on to the small scraps that
they have.
And in the end, everybody gets punished.
In the end, all the countries deteriorate.
We have to see ourselves as Muslim.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in
the Qur'an, وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بَعْضُوا مَوْلِيَاءُ بَعْضُ
Those who disbelieve, they are the allies of
each other.
إِنَّا تَفْعَلُوا تَكُنْ فِتْنَةٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَفَسَادٌ كَثِيرٌ
وَفَسَادٌ كَثِيرٌ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells
you, if you don't do the same, if
you don't become allies of each other as
Muslims, تَكُنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ فِتْنَةٌ There will be
corruption on this earth.
There will be oppression on this earth.
And a lot of corruption.
The lack of this ummah is what leads
us to destruction.
And subhanAllah, I'll tell you, many many years
ago after 9-11, there were Muslim leaders
here in Canada saying, we have to not
talk about Palestine anymore.
When we talk about things like Palestine, we
get in trouble too much.
We have to focus on building the brand
of Canadian Islam or American Islam that is
distinct and different than global Islam, the Islam
around the world.
We have to build the brand of the
professional Muslim who is a lawyer, who speaks
English fluently, and who is not really the
same as the other Muslims.
I'm a witness to this.
These exact words were spoken in meetings that
I was in.
But the reality is, there are still people
who think this.
And they say, talking about Palestine is going
to make things difficult for us.
Go wherever you want to go.
Palestine is coming with you.
If you leave Palestine, it's not going to
leave you.
70% of all the funding for Islamophobic
groups is coming from pro-Zionist organizations.
That's a fact.
Look at what happened recently in the United
Kingdom.
There were riots.
People were going in the streets attacking masajids,
attacking people who looked Muslim, attacking immigrants.
Who was funding people like Tommy Robinson, or
whatever his name is, who was inciting these
riots?
Where was the money coming from that's supporting
him who's going and making all these videos
to get people to riot?
Go look it up.
You can sit at home in your middle
-class home in Canada and say, I'm going
to try to forget about Palestine.
It's still going to catch up to you.
It's still coming to your door.
إِلَّا تَفَعَلُوا تَكُونْ فِي الْأَرْضِ فِتْنَةٌ وَفَسَادٌ كَبِيرٌ
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, if
you don't unite, there's going to be more
fitna.
There's going to be more oppression.
And this leads me to the next lesson.
The importance of us using our voice against
injustice.
The Prophet ﷺ tells us, اتقوا الظلم فإن
الظلمات يوم القيامة He says, beware of oppression
because oppression will be many darknesses or many
oppressions on the day of judgment.
You leave one zulm, it becomes another zulm.
You leave one oppression, it spawns many many
more.
That's the reality.
And so we think we can ignore oppression,
you might be able to ignore it today,
but you can't ignore it tomorrow.
And the Prophet ﷺ tells us, يَخْذِلْ مُسْلِمًا
فِي مَوْطٍ يَنْطَقِسْ فِيهِ مِنْ عِرَضِهِ إِلَّا خَذَلَهُ
اللَّهُ فِي مَوْطٍ يُحِبُّ فِيهِ نُسْرَةً He said,
no Muslim betrays another Muslim at a time
when their dignity is being erased, except that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will abandon that
person at a time when they need the
help of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So we have to stand up for each
other.
If we don't, all of us fail and
all of us fall.
And this brings me...
And this is the reality.
You speak the truth, in the short term
it is difficult, in the short term it
is risky, in the long term it brings
you relief.
And if you are quiet against oppression in
the short term, in the long term it
will bring you pain anyways, because it's like
a cancer and it will spread and eventually
it will consume you.
And that brings me to the next point,
is that we have to build our capacity.
The Prophet ﷺ tells us, مَنْ رَأَى مِنْكُمْ
مُنْكَرًا فَلْيُغَيِّرُهُ بِيَدِي The famous hadith we all
know, the Prophet says, if any of you
see an evil, change it with your hands.
فَإِنَّمْ يَسْطَطَعْ فَبِي لِيسَانِ If you cannot, then
with their tongue, let them change it with
their tongue, speak out against it.
فَإِنَّمْ يَسْطَطَعْ And if you can't, فَبِي قَلْبِي
Let them hate it in their hearts.
At least your heart hates this thing.
وَذَلِكَ أَضْعَفُ الْإِمَانِ This is the weakest of
iman.
We mention this hadith often.
But we mention it from the perspective of
at least do this much.
Like if you can't stop it with your
hand, Allah didn't give you the power to
stop it with your hand, at least speak
against it.
If you can't speak against it, at least
hate it.
That's the way we speak about it.
But we have to look at this hadith
from a different perspective.
Because the Prophet is telling you if all
you can do is hate it in your
heart, ذَلِكَ أَضْعَفُ الْإِمَانِ This is the weakest
iman.
Are we okay with having the weakest iman?
No, we should be thinking about building capacity.
Because the Prophet is saying the more capacity
you have to stop evil, the greater your
iman is.
So how are we building capacity?
That's the question we have to be asking.
We cannot be resigning ourselves to, well, all
I can do is hate it in my
heart, so I'm gonna hate it in my
heart, and that's the end of the story.
No.
You should be thinking of, how am I
building capacity?
And we live in a world today, the
most powerful people in the world are not
the politicians.
The most powerful people in the world are
the Elon Musk's and the Mark Zuckerberg's.
Money actually gives people more power than politics
or anything like that.
And so, if we actually took Justin Trudeau
into a room, and we said, tell us
the truth.
Is this a genocide?
Nobody's gonna hear about it.
Nobody's gonna know what you say in this
room.
It's gonna stay behind closed doors.
He will tell you, yes, it's a genocide.
He knows.
He gets intelligence reports.
So why isn't he saying it out loud?
Lots of different reasons.
Amongst them is if he says it, he
loses donations.
He knows that if he says it, there's
an army of people in the media who
are going to attack him and criticize him
every single day for this and for other
reasons because he said it.
So he knows this.
They build capacity.
We have to build capacity.
Capacity in terms of how influential are we
in the media?
How influential are we in politics?
Capacity in terms of how much money do
we have?
Imam Sufyan Al-Thawri, may Allah have mercy
on him, he said, المال ترس المؤمن.
He said, money is the shield of the
believer.
We use money to defend Islam.
We have to be able to do so.
When there is more money in our hands,
in the hands of Muslims, who are not
enslaved by the money, who are willing to
sacrifice the money for the sake of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, then money defends Islam.
And if money is in the hands of
those who want to oppress Muslims, then we're
gonna be harmed.
So we have to stop thinking about money
as evil.
It's evil if it rules us.
So Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Aas, he used
to make dua, اللهم جعل الدنيا في أيدينا
ولا تجعلها في قلوبنا.
He used to make dua, Oh Allah, put
the dunya in our hands, don't put it
in our hearts.
We don't want to be enslaved to the
dunya, all we care about is money.
No, no, no.
But we want the money in our hands.
Because we're gonna use it to defend Islam
and to defend the Muslims.
And this is the final lesson that I'll
mention today.
It's a reminder that the dunya is not
worth a lot.
This dunya is not worth a lot.
The Prophet ﷺ told us, He said, if
this dunya was worth the wing of a
fly, he would not let the disbeliever drink
a cup of water.
This dunya is worth less than the wing
of a fly is worth to you.
If someone took the wing of a fly
and gave it to you, you would throw
it away, you don't even want it.
This dunya is worth even less than the
sight of Allah عز و جل.
So when we see the suffering, and some
people, they see the suffering that is happening,
and they think to themselves, how can Allah
allow this to happen?
Realize we're looking at a very small part
of reality.
Reality is much larger than this.
Number one.
Number two, if we know that the dunya
is not worth a lot, then we should
be willing to sacrifice.
If we really believe it, we should be
willing to sacrifice.
Some of the Ansar of the Prophet ﷺ,
after Fath Makkah, after the Prophet conquered Makkah,
lots of people entered Islam.
Lots of thousands and thousands of people entered
Islam.
The Ansar, some of them were gathered in
a room, they were eating together.
And they said to each other, listen, we
have been supporting Islam now for nine years,
since the Hijrah.
We've been supporting Islam.
We've been giving money.
We've been supporting Islam.
Now other people are entering Islam, let them
give money.
Let us start putting some money in our
own pockets.
They were tired of the fundraisers.
You guys are tired of fundraisers?
They were tired of fundraisers too.
They said, let's keep some money in our
pockets.
Now we've been giving for nine years, now
let the new Muslims give now.
All of Makkah accepted Islam, let them give.
All of Ta'if accepted Islam, let them
give.
They have this private meeting.
As they exit the room, Allah revealed the
verse in the Quran, وَأَنْفِقُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ
وَلَا تُلْقُوا بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِلَى تَهْلُكَةٍ Allah says, give
for the sake of Allah, and do not
throw yourselves into your own destruction.
Meaning that once the Muslims start to think,
well, let me keep the money for myself,
let me not give for the sake of
Allah.
Let me not be sacrificing for the sake
of Allah.
Everything is gonna collapse.
You're gonna be destroyed.
You're gonna be decimated.
The Muslims have to give.
Islam comes when the Sahaba are willing to
give.
One of the reasons Allah chose these Sahaba
for Islam is because of their generosity.
And Islam needed men who are gonna be
generous for it to flourish.
And that's true throughout history.
We have to be willing to give.
And the only way we're able to give
is if we know this dunya is not
worth a lot.
This dunya is short, and it's not worth
that much.
So we have to be constantly giving to
defend Islam and to defend the Muslims.
And as we know, the famous hadith of
the Prophet ﷺ, يُشَكَدْ تُدَعَ عَلَيْكُمْ الْأُمَّمُ Perhaps
all the ummahs will be gathered against you,
they will be killing you.
The Sahaba said, أَوَ مِن قِلَّةٍ يَوْمَئِذٍ Are
we gonna be few in number or messenger
of Allah?
The Prophet said, no, you will be many.
وَلَكِنَّكُمْ كَمُثَاءَ السَّيْلِ But you will be like
foam on the sea.
You know this famous hadith.
The Prophet said, and Allah will remove the
fear of you from the hearts of your
enemies, and He will put in your hearts
الوهن, the weakness.
The companion said, what is the weakness of
messenger of Allah?
He said, حُبَّ الدُّنْيَا وَكَرَاهِيَةٍ مَوْتًا You love
the dunya, and you hate death.
So when we have this perspective, we're overly
in love with the dunya, then we don't
wanna give for the sake of Allah, sacrifice
for the sake of Allah عز و جل,
our money, our time, our voice, our position,
we don't wanna sacrifice, then we have this
weakness in our hearts, and our enemies all
gather against us.
We ask Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى to allow
us to be people who are willing to
sacrifice for the sake of Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ
تَعَالَى