Ismail Kamdar – Reflections on the New Zealand Massacre

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

hamdulillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam O Allah Nabil al Karim,

Allah Allah He was Herbie, he

may begin by reading a loss of a Hana with Allah and asking Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the final prophet, Muhammad ibn Abdullah

sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and all those who follow his way with righteousness until the end of time.

Today, inshallah, we're just going to discuss a bit about what happened last week Friday in New Zealand, and discuss some lessons or reflections on that incident.

I didn't do this last week, it was a bit too, too sudden, the only really read the news two hours before coming to speak and was a bit too shaken by it to really get into the topic. So to give you the week to think about it, and you know, the emotions come down a bit before we discuss it.

Meanwhile, other things happened this week as well. So, you know, before we get into the discussion of what happened last week in New Zealand, at the moment in nearby countries surrounding us, our neighboring countries, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, these countries are all affected by a cyclone. And it's doing a lot of damage. And so advice each and every one of you make dua for the people living in those countries are called to ease things for them. And if you can assist him in any way, financially, whatever it is, please do so. These are our neighbors. This is a neighbors of South Africa, and club spirit as from the cyclone. I mean, it's literally the countryside next to

us, a local guy, maybe he does as well, but he spared us from it. the least we can do in return is to help those who are afflicted by it. So

it's easy for everybody across the oma is facing very difficult times of Omar, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he mentioned in the Hadees. He told us the hubbub that the time will come when, you know the enemies of Islam will attack the Muslims and just do whatever they want, you know, they will get away with anything almost. And the Sahaba couldn't understand this. They asked with it in that point in time, whether the Muslims would be few in number and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he prophesized, he said, No, the Muslims will be many, but they will be weak, they will be spiritually and militarily weak, you know, he described them with the metaphor of being like

the dirt on the waves, you know, like, like, you know, when you when you have a flood or a tsunami, or all that dirt, there's so much of it, but there's no benefit to it. He described the Muslims of such a time as being like that. And he said that they will be afflicted by the love of this work. And because of the love of this world, they would be helpless in in stopping the enemies of Islam from harming them.

So today, we live in a time where Muslims are the second largest and the largest growing religion in the world. We know Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam made the statement, they were less than 100,000 Muslims in the world, maybe less than 10,000 Muslims in the world. Today, there's more than a billion Muslims in the world, the second largest in the world. And we're not just the second largest, but we are the fastest growing right outside of atheism. May Allah protect our youth from that Islam is the fastest growing actual religion in the world.

And despite this, wherever we look in the world, Muslims are facing problems and don't have the military or capabilities to stop their their problems from happening. In fact, many attempts of Muslims are themselves the cause of their problems. We see this in some parts of the world where Muslims are fighting each other or Muslim governments are crushing their own people. And because of this, Muslims had to move away from their countries, to non Muslim countries to find safety and freedom. So

you know, the irony of our times is Muslims are running away from the Muslim countries, to countries like South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, running towards these countries for freedom and safety for Muslim rulers. And how there are some Muslims found his freedom and safety in New Zealand, they had moved there, they settled a very peaceful place. Nothing bad happened there for over 20 years. But a lot further last week, an extremely terrible tragedy took place there. And I think everybody by now is familiar with what actually happened. Right a white supremacist a man who

had a basically has Islamophobia ingrained in his heart, and who sees Muslims as a threat to his culture and his way of life into the masjid at Juma time and literally murdered

over 50 Muslims, including children

and he felt

about it, he thought he was doing his people a service. So the question I wanted to I wanted address today and some of the lessons or the teeth of today's you know, what causes people to do these things? And what can we learn from this and how can we move forward without this affecting our mind in a negative way. But I want to begin by reminding each and every one of us that Allah subhana wa tada has already promised us that this was going to happen. Allah subhanho wa Taala has promised us in the Quran, that he will test us.

He says in Surah and carboot Do any of you think that you can just say I believe and you won't be tested, you will definitely be tested like those who are tested before you. And in Surah Al Baqarah, Allah subhanho wa Taala uses a double dip for that when he says was the number one na ko right alarm at the beginning of the word and the noon at the end of the word God mean definitely. So you can translate it as you will definitely definitely be tested.

right we'll watch the NWA accomplishing a Hopi worldview or Equinox in Middle

America, you will definitely definitely be tested with fear, with hunger, with loss of wealth with loss of lives with loss of your efforts, was promised us already this in the Quran in surah, Allah, Allah subhana wa tada talks about the Sahaba and the attitude towards such difficulties, that when the enemy surrounded Medina, at the time of the Battle of the church, what was the sahabas response? Allah mentioned the responses to that. He says the response was this is what Allah has promised us, unless promise is true.

So my first reminder to each and every one of us is that Allah has promised to test us. And different Muslims in different parts of the world are tested in different ways. So sometimes we are tested with poverty. Sometimes we are arrested involved. Sometimes we are tested with everything going our way to such an extent that we forget about Islam and get caught up in this dunya. And sometimes we are charged with tragedies and hardships and civil wars. every part of the world, the Muslims are tested in different ways. And sometimes the test is global. What happened last week in New Zealand, it affects the man of people across the globe. And it has repercussions across the

globe. You know, media in the USA, which are speaking against Islam, influenced the man in New Zealand to, quote carry out the atrocity, showing us that things are no more localized tests aren't even localized and now global.

And 100 Allah has saved us for being part of a society where Islamophobia is normal. Many of my friends when they visit South Africa, from countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom, you always tell me the one thing you'll have to be grateful for your y'all are the only minority they said you're the only minority we know what you don't deal with Islamophobia.

You know, for Muslims in in America and United Kingdom, Islamophobia, that is the norm, it's a daily thing. It's something that's part of daily life, somebody is shouting racist comments at them, somebody commenting on their wives a job, somebody telling them to go back to where they came from. This is the norm. We in South Africa, Allah has saved us from this. But because of globalization, we are not 100% safer. Because when your kids go online, when you go on Facebook, when you go on Twitter, when you go on these forums like Reddit, they deal with islamophobes from across the world. And many of us are not prepared spiritually or emotionally to deal with this. Because we live in a

community where we don't have to deal with this on a daily basis. We're not prepared for it. So sometimes our children grew up in this bubble, they grew up in South Africa, never having anybody pick on them for wearing hijab, or growing a beard or praying five times a day or dressing in a in a Muslim way. But when you go online, they are bullied by these people, and it affects the man.

And so my advice to parents is that prepare your children, not just for the local culture, but for the global culture. Even though we live in a community where we don't have Islamophobia, you have to prepare your children to deal with it because they will face it online. They will face people from other parts of the world online, who will bully them, cyber bullying, it's a norm nowadays, cyber bullying, because they are Muslims. And if they are not prepared psychologically, emotionally and spiritually to deal with this, it can affect a man.

So

this concept of Islamophobia, this is the second point I want to talk about, you know, where did it come from, and why does it exist? Well, I want to say two things. Number one, the word Islamophobia is new, but the concept itself has always been around and will always be around. Why do I say this? Because from the beginning of time, ever since Allah started sending prophets to this planet, to the people of Earth, Allah has, every time he sent a prophet, they were people who spread propaganda against the Prophet and his message.

did this to Musa alehissalaam. He did this to easily Salam. He did this to Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and it has always been like this in the time of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. When he was doing his Dawa, what did the people of Makkah do? They spread the news that he was a madman, they spread the news that he was doing magic. He spread all of these rumors, you know that he's turning people against their families, trying to portray Islam in the worst possible light. But he failed.

In the time of the crusades, what happened in the time of the crusades,

the Christians started translating parts of the Quran into the language Latin at that time, but Miss translating it, to meet Islam seem like this violent, militaristic, evil religion that wants to take over their countries. And they use this to rile the people up against the Muslims. So that people joined the Crusades and went into the Muslim lands and butchered the Muslims and took over the land.

But they failed, because a lot of anti gun rows were amongst the Muslims alike. So that was in a UB, who defeated him and took the lands back. And so we see through every era, they are always people spreading propaganda against Islam, and this will always be there. So I believe the idea that we must get rid of Islamophobia altogether, I believe this is never going to happen. Because shaytaan will always have his group of human shayateen doing his work for him, he will always try to make Islam the pet.

Nonetheless, there are things we can do to counter this.

What did the Muslims of the past do to counter the efforts of people to make Islam look bad? What did they do? two things. Number one, they did the Dawa, they spread the message of Islam. Number two, they represented Islam, in their actions and in their lifestyles in such a way that people flock towards Islam.

I want you to think about this. If you are a role model Muslim,

and you interact with your neighbors and your employees and your customers, and any other non Muslims that, you know, in the way that Islam has taught us to in this role model way. Do you think that they will listen to the Islamophobic news and what they are saying about Muslims? They won't, because they see in their own daily actions, how beautiful Muslims are. He seen the daily to actually what lovely people Muslims are. And so they will automatically realize that what the news is saying about Muslims can't be true.

And so my advice to every single one of us, the only way for us to counter this propaganda, we can't stop the news. We can't stop cnn from saying what they want to say we can't stop Donald Trump on tweeting what he wants to tweet, right. But we can represent Islam in how we live our lives. They when people interact with us, they fall in love with Islam, not with us, but with Islam. And we see this throughout history. Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.

The people of Makkah, were constantly portraying him as a bad person.

What did he do? After the Treaty of good Abia? The majority of leaders of Makkah ended up converting to Islam. Why? Because now there was peace between Makkah and Medina. And you could actually interact with the Muslims as human beings and see that these aren't bad people. And so during this time, for example, hollywood Waleed, who at that time was the leader of the armies of Makkah, who had defeated the Muslims in the Battle of woman who had killed many Muslims, including Sahaba. Many of the leading Sahaba were killed. They always have been attacked many of the leading Sahaba were killed in the Battle of Udo hollyburn, Walid armies Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam writes

holiday letter, or rather he has called his brother writing a letter, in which he tells him that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is asking ways highly intelligent man like him, should know that Islam is true. Praising the intelligence of his enemy, praising the intelligence of a man who had killed many Muslims, Khalid even Waleed ends up converting to Islam and becoming the sword of Allah.

Fast forward to the time of Salah Houdini up the Crusaders spreading all kinds of evil messages about Islam, taking over the Muslim lands, butchering the Muslims taking over Jerusalem, butchering the people of Jerusalem, Muslim and Christian and Jewish alike. So that within a year he comes in, he takes over Jerusalem, and he lets everybody free and he lets everybody practice their religions in peace, Christian, Jew, Muslim, everybody has full freedom. And when he is asked why, he simply tells the people that this is what Islam teaches. He shows it to them in his actions. This is what Islam teaches that we treat everybody with respect, and we value the rights of every human being

We don't seek revenge. We don't seek revenge. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam when he conquered Makkah, he did not take revenge. So that would end up when he conquered Jerusalem. He did not take revenge. And we see this also today, the people of New Zealand. What was their reaction? What was their reaction to this event? reaction was one of our one of peace, one of forgiveness, one of showing people the beauty of Islam. Yesterday, the alarm was broadcast on national television in New Zealand, causing the message of Islam to reach more people in New Zealand and has ever reached before this atrocity, meaning when bad things happen to Muslims, we don't run away from our

religion. We don't run away from the masjid, we don't abandon Juma. We don't turn our backs on Islam. And we definitely don't turn to violence. Rather, we double down on being beautiful people, we double down on representing Islam to the best of our abilities, we double down on spreading the message of Islam, and showing people what a beautiful beautiful way of Allah of life Allah has given us. And so that anytime something bad happens to the Muslims, we turn it around into $1 opportunity. We make it a means through which many other people can see the beauty of Islam and choose to convert to Islam. if Allah wills it.

One will listen to it I want to mention to the from the what happened in New Zealand

is that our life goes through waves, right? We're going to go through ups and downs, they're going to be good days and bad days. And both of these are a type of test from Allah. So Allah is testing us, if you have money, if you have peace, if you have everything you want in this dunya Allah is testing you. What is your test? Your test is? Are you going to be grateful to Allah? Are you going to use this money in a way that is pleasing to Allah? Are you going to worship Allah during times of ease? This is a test which many people fail. Other points in our life we face the opposite kind of test. We are tested with death. We are tested with fear. We are tested with a loss of sources of

income, your test during these times? Are you going to be patient? Are you going to say only that which is pleasing to Allah? Are you going to look for a halau solution? Are you going to take a haram shortcut solution? These are the tests we face. Understand that we are all always always in a state of being tested. Do not think that Allah is not testing us need only testing people in the other end of the world. No, you are being tested right now. If there is something in your life that is difficult, it is a test from Allah. If there is something in your life that is beautiful. It's a test from Allah. How do we deal with these tests? Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has

explained to us Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that the life of the believer is amazing. Because everything that happens to the believer is good for him. When something good happens, we are grateful to Allah, and this is good for him. And when something bad happens, they are patient. And this is also good for you think about this. Islam teaches us to be continuously optimistic, continuously optimistic, things are going well we see Alhamdulillah we get the reward for being grateful. Things are going badly we have suffer, we get the reward of being patient, somebody dies, and then they get get the reward of martyrdom. If it wasn't the case, like what we

have seen in these past few days, it becomes martyrdom, it's too good for them. This is our mindset, always optimism, you know, in some cultures, if a tragedy like this happens to their people, they lose faith in God. In some religions and cultures, if they were in the house of worship, and somebody had to walk in and kill them, then the average person would say, you know, if God is real, why didn't he protect us in our house of worship? This is what they would think. Why not us, not Muslims, because we already know that our time of death is written for us. We already know that if somebody died in the masjid at the time of Juma worshiping Allah. That's the best type of martyrdom

you could ever ask for. So instead of questioning our faith, our faith gets stronger. This is the optimism of Islam, that no matter what bad things happen to this ummah, it just increases our demand. It increases our belief in Allah, it increases our trust in Allah, it increases our desire to please Allah. This is the beauty of Islam.

So today, just three main reflections on what happened last week. And I will now repeat them and just go into a bit more details about them. The first one is to understand that there will always be people who hate Muslims and hate Islam.

You cannot stop this from happening. Just like the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam cannot stop Abu Jihad from existing at his time. Justice Allah Houdini, you cannot stop the Crusaders from existing at his time. We cannot stop Islamic force from existing in our time. There will always be someone somewhere who regard Islam as something demonic and something satanic and something evil

Because of all kinds of warped ideas that somebody else told him, we can't stop this from happening, but we can count it. We can count it. How should our true representing Islam?

And I know many people, they asked me, but how do I do that? You know, I don't I don't have the ability. Not everybody is a public speaker, not everybody is good at writing. Not everybody has the ability to, to to do Tao on a platform. So how do you do that? for the average person? Number one, you do that what your being a good Muslim? As simple as that you do Dawa, to being a good Muslim.

Look at the example of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. How did Islam spread to these countries?

And you all know the story. How did Islam spread to Indonesia and Malaysia? Yes.

Yes, the businessman,

Arab Muslim businessman, they moved to the country of Malaysia and Indonesia. And just today o'clock the character is true, the personalities that he had gained from from practicing Islam. The people of these areas were attracted to Islam. Today, which part of the world has the largest population of Muslims? That part? Yes, Indonesia, a single Muslim army ever went to Cancun Tunisia,

this entire part of the world which has the largest population of Muslims in the world today, Islam reached in to the character of the businessman.

Now majority of us are businessmen, or at least working in businesses, right? In South Africa, where the Muslims strike and business how many of us are representing Islamic businesses in this way? Why is Islam not spreading in South Africa the way it's been in Indonesia? Because Wherever we go, we see Muslim business owners don't we? Wherever we go, we see businesses owned by Muslims. Why are the our business is not attracting people towards Islam? Instead, I have people saying things like don't work for Muslim businessman. Now they're gonna treat you you're gonna mistreat you they gonna underpaid you? What are your people saying things like this? Because we're not representing Islam in

our businesses are many of us. When you come to the masjid, in we have no one face, the beard, the kurata you know, we got the hat on our head, can very pious. Go back to our businesses? What do we see? racism, mistreatment, underpaying staff, no swearing, vulgar language, sometimes even physical abuse, even hitting the staff. We've seen these things happen in our community. So we have to ask ourselves, you know how how long is your money this is how you conducting business.

And if you're if your money is not halal, it doesn't matter which company gave the halacha that we get to the butchery you bind a needle hoorah money, so how often you either understand that business needs to be conducted in the hallway. We we've gone very, very far away from the Islamic ideals of business, the Islamic of ideals of business are so high that businessmen cause the entire countries to convert to Islam. Today, we in our country, our businesses are chasing people away from Islam.

Because of the way some of us conduct our businesses, so if any of us have been guilty of this, of mistreating our staff, or treating our customers rudely, or cheating people or underpaying people make Toba repent and turn around your business practices. Understand you represent Islam not only when it's time to come to the mastery for Juma, you represent Islam 24 seven, everything you do you represent Islam. So make sure that the way you conduct yourself at work with business is a representative is a representation of the true message of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And he will isn't made to make changes today.

So we do our Tao primarily to being good Muslims, because Islam is beautiful.

Islam is not just a trick. It's beautiful. Islam is so beautiful, that anybody who interacts with a truly practicing Muslim can only help but fall in love with Islam. There's always going to be going to fall in love with the sun, even if they don't convert to Islam. The guidance is Allah hands, even if they don't convert to Islam, they learn to love Islam, they learn to love, they learn to respect Muslims. So that's not happening it's because of us is because we are so caught up in materialism and money and you know worshipping the worshipping money and wanting to be richer than the next person that having a better card than the next person is so caught up in all of this, then we

forgotten why we exist. So let's change this will make sure that the way we conduct ourselves in society is dour in of itself. The second way you can do that was fairly simple, really simple. Anytime we find something beneficial online, something that represents Islam beautifully whether it's a YouTube video whether it's an article, whatever it is forwarded, forwarded to your to your non Muslim friends and colleagues right for the to your family members for will of course go forward things which are dodgy and things which are weirdly don't follow them. Some

Weird Jihad training videos or things like that right? use common sense. Send them the beautiful video someone talking about stories of Islam somebody giving an interview of a widely converted to Islam for these things. You don't have to do the talking yourself let YouTube do the talking for you. Right that WhatsApp do the talking for you simple things like this, we don't know which message can affect which person's heart.

So to summarize

this three main lessons we can take from what happened last week. Number one, Allah will always test us and they will always be enemies of Islam. Our duty is that we continue to practice Islam to represent Islam to be the best that we can be and understand that if something happens to us, then inshallah you know if something if somebody gets killed for being Muslim, is no better way to die. Really, there is no better way to go. If somebody kills you just because you're a Muslim. Forgiveness, for instance, Shahada, which of us doesn't need that.

So understand that we will be the best we can be, we will not be intimidated by these people. Number two, life goes through stages. During the good times, make sure you grateful to Allah, during the bad times, have suffered, be patient, Allah will reward you either way, it will be good for you. And finally, the only way for us to combat what's going on in the world is to be the best representation of Islam. If we can do that we must be so beautiful in our character in our personality in the way that we deal with people that people fall in love with Islam. This is the best thing that we can do. And to make sure that whatever ways we can contribute to the dollar, and in our lives our means of

bringing people towards Islam, not a means of chasing people away from Islam, during the asking Allah to accept the martyrdom of all those who passed away in the New Zealand attack last week. And for all those who were affected by the cyclones as well, if anyone had passed to India, I will accept it from them as well as martyrdom. We know that flooding is also a form of martyrdom. And according to the Hadees if somebody dies in a flood, it's also a type of martyrdom. And for those who are afflicted by the cyclones in the south in southern Africa, neighboring countries, may Allah make things easy for democratic relief quickly for those afflicted in New Zealand whose family

members have passed without lacanian patience and sober and rewarding faith. And Allah help this Omar return to a state of power where we are not so helpless and we are able to defend ourselves and to protect ourselves and to be able to stop events like this from happening in the future. What is the one on Humphrey Larrabee alameen wa salam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh