Johari Abdul-Malik – Racism, Revenge & Radicalisation
AI: Summary ©
The importance of strong love for Islam and protecting one's own individuals is emphasized. The need for mercy and a change in condition is also discussed. The use of "we" in Islam is discussed, as it is often stated in the Quran. The importance of unity and diversity is emphasized, along with the need for change in gun control laws. The speaker's experiences of living in Baltimore and being a black American are also discussed.
AI: Summary ©
My beloved brothers
and sisters,
beginning today praising Allah
and thanking Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, for providing
us
with guidance and mercy and so many blessings
we cannot come.
But
also, alhamdulillah,
not just to have the theory
of Islam,
but to have been blessed
with the Khatam al Anbiya, the seal of
all of the prophets,
guides and messengers,
through Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
so that we can see how
to engage
and live
the life
that Allah has for us.
You know,
today I wanna share with you,
I think what they call it sometimes
tough love.
Tough
love. And
as a person, Alhamdulillah,
who
I came to Islam
as an adult. And as a person, I
came to Islam as an adult.
And
And so I had to learn
about
Islam
and sort of correct the way I used
to think
in order for me to be able, alhamdulillah,
to get closer to Allah.
So today,
I wanna give you this sort of sense
of
of 2
poles, 2 there are 2 opposites.
A bushara, a good news, right? And there's,
Nadirah,
some warning. And this was how the the
Quran has this language going back and forth.
In the Ladina Amanu,
Ladina Kafir goes back and forth between people
who are accepting
and people who are rejected. That
the reward for those who believe will be
Jannah. Those who reject will be the hellfire.
It's always this back and forth in the
Quran.
So today, I'm gonna be a little back
and forth.
And some of it,
I'm afraid
I'm gonna try not to be too hard,
but alhamdulillah
that you get
the point.
The good news is
for me
that we are all in the same situation.
We're all in the same boat as believers.
And so we have a collective responsibility
to do good
and to prevent
evil.
I remember
one day
I was at a Janazah,
and
And the Janazah
was for a very prominent Muslim.
And at that gathering, someone spoke.
And they said before
we make the Janazah
for this person,
I want you to remember
one thing.
And that is that
all of us read
Surat al Fatiha,
the
opening
surah of the Quran.
We all read it.
They said, but remember
that this
prayer that you are making, sometimes you make
it alone,
sometimes you make it in the jama'a, in
a group.
But
the words of Al Fatiha,
are not for you as an individual.
It
is a message
and a dua
for the group.
They said, remember when you recite Solot al
Fatiha,
you don't say,
Ih Dini
Serato Mustaqim.
You don't say, Ih Dini
Serato Mustaqim, you say, Ih Dinah Serato Mustaqim.
We're asking Allah to show us,
to provide
us,
to guide
us
to the straight path.
Now,
you know, there are many
traditions and faiths.
Often their
common worship is they're praying for themselves.
And in al Fatiha always,
17 times a day,
you're saying, oh Allah,
show us,
and,
guide us to this way, this
Syrah.
That's the good news.
And maybe this is not such maybe not
so bad news.
I don't know.
But we are living in a very, very
critical
time.
Maybe
maybe for us as Muslims, maybe now, maybe
not even Muslim, maybe maybe America, maybe the
whole world
is in a very
difficult
time,
and we need some assurances.
In the 13th Surah of the Quran. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh. And we need some assurances. In the
13th Surah of the Quran. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
For each one,
talking about individuals,
there are
successive
Malaika
before them
and behind them
and on the sides of them
to protect them
by the decree of Allah.
This Surah,
Allah is saying in the 11th ayah
that for the people who believe in Allah,
who are connected to Allah,
that Allah has placed a shield around them,
a protection.
I didn't use the English word.
They often translate the word Malaika as angel.
But since
people in America have an idea, you say
angel, they have a certain idea, I want
to say Malaika.
These
creatures created by Allah that obey Allah only
and they never disobey God.
They do whatever Allah asks them to do
of righteousness
and they have different jobs. And the Quran
is telling us that around us,
there are Malaika
protecting us.
And then the ayah continues
in the translation of his meeting saying, indeed,
Allah will not change the condition of a
people
until they change
that which is in themselves.
A
love will not change the condition of a
people
until they change that which is in themselves.
Let me stop from that. I
spent many years studying with Sheikh Mohammed Al
Hanuti or himalaniq,
and I miss him so much. And I
miss him so much. And I
And I ask Allah to have mercy on
him and give him the reward of Jannah
Ma'am Varar. This is,
and this is,
the condition that this ayah is talking about
because sometimes many people
they flip the meaning of the the ayah
upside down.
They say, oh, Allah won't change the low
condition of a people. People are low
until they they get on the right track
and then Allah
will change their condition and raise them up.
Well, you see in this ayah,
the reference is actually the other way around.
That you and I, as
people who are connected to Allah,
Allah will never bring us down
except that we change.
In Christianity,
they like to say that
everyone is born in sin,
and then they have to find salvation.
The paradigm in Islam is the opposite.
Everyone
is born in the fitrah,
purity,
no sin,
it is their condition
that brings them down, their parents who don't
guide them properly, their environment that is calling
them to things other than the remembrance of
Allah.
But everyone starts out at this level, and
then when they change,
they go to the low level, and then
Allah informs us. So when Allah intends for
a people ill, there is no
one who can repel it.
And there is none but Allah that can
protect you.
So
the issue is if you move away from
the methodology of Allah,
You bring yourself low,
that no one can protect you.
Today,
alhamdulillah,
and
I want to talk about racism,
revenge,
and
radicalization.
And,
and,
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and, and, and,
Now
to do that, I wanna perhaps
give you
a framework because I believe that many of
us,
our relationship
with
the narrative of the prophet sallallahu
alayhi wasallam, peace be upon him,
has to be brought into
the 14th century. We're in the year 1437.
But I think there are some Muslims there
still in the 1st century or the 2nd
century.
Because
we haven't brought forward the message
of the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam into today's world.
Let me give you an example.
And
I think it's it's telling because of where
we live right now. We know that in
the time of the
We know that in the time of the
prophet
who the Quran
describes that he is the best example
of human character,
behavior.
The best.
So we know that, but
I wanna take you back in a in
a time travel
to the 6th year after Hijra.
The Muslims have been persecuted, isolated,
but they found a home in a place
that's a multi faith place.
There are Jews there, there are Sabians,
Yemeni Christians come to visit.
The prophet alaihis salatu wasalam is teaching openly
about Islam.
But in this year, the companions
go with Muhammad alayhi salaam, and they want
to perform Umrah.
And they reach a place,
and they are met by emissaries from the
Qurays who say,
no
further.
Almost like Donald Trump saying to the Mexicans,
we're gonna build a wall, not you can't
come in.
Or
no Muslims allowed.
In America,
because
we have some concerns about you, you can't
come in.
Well now the companions of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, they're coming just to make
Umrah.
They're not coming for war.
They're not coming for revenge.
They're not retaliating
because they've been discriminated against. All they wanna
do is come, pray, and leave.
This
is the history.
They're
wearing the garments of the crown.
To embrace
Islam. Because they know what they know what
it means.
That if this idea of brotherhood and sisterhood,
the end of racism and discrimination against the
end of slavery, the discrimination of women is
not gonna be good for their business.
Especially
they're in the business of idolatry, it's gonna
be bad for business
and Mecca.
But finally, they
engage in negotiations,
not in confrontation.
And
there is 1,
Orwa
bin
Masqood,
who
becomes the final
negotiator
With the prophet alaihis salaam,
what are we gonna do?
Do we let Muslims in or not?
But what's interesting for me in this narrative
is
that
Urwa
is also studying
the people around the prophet, alayhis salaam, and,
because
at first blush,
people would say in a society where there
are a lot of different cultures,
that they're going to lack unity.
They're going to fall into tribalism and racism.
As soon as any conflict hits them, they're
all gonna run to their corner and they're
going to abandon their
their mission.
And
so this becomes the first intelligence. Wow, look
at all the diversity here. How can they
have unity
with this much diversity?
If you look in America now,
most churches, most synagogues, most temples,
whoever goes to that place,
they look like the other people who go
to that place.
The
most integrated place in America for prayer
is right here,
the house of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And I wish, alhamdulillah,
we had more time, but we we'll probably
finish this
another time.
But Urwa
saw the kind of diversity
that we have today
in the Umrah of Rasool Allah SAW.
And
after taking some time in evaluating,
they send a message and they said, you
know, we don't have to worry about the
Muslims. They're so divided culturally and ethnically and
all of that.
The soon soon as the pressure hits them,
they're gonna break apart.
And his voice is always in the message
back. He said, I have bad news for
you.
He said, I've been the emissary and the
ambassador
to
the emperor of Persia,
the emperor of Rome,
and the Nagase of Ethiopia,
Habesha.
He
said, never did I find any people with
more love and devotion for their leader,
than I find among the Muslims for Mohammed
sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
That unity and diversity, well,
at this sentinel
time
for the Ummah of the prophet,
was critical.
Well, alhamdulillah,
that day they signed
a treaty for 10 years
of peace.
The Muslims felt that they lost
at first because they
accepted
not to be accepted.
They accepted that they're gonna turn back, they're
not gonna make fun of it.
They're not going to be accepted,
but
there's a treaty between
Mohammed sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and the Quraysh,
which raised them to the level
of
political
power.
Right now,
we are in the age of developing our
own political power.
And
I believe
that
the most critical turning point
for
the mission of Muhammad alayhis salaam Islam
was the day of Hudaybiyyah when they signed
that tree.
It was more important than
even Fatimaka,
the ability of alhamdulillah,
to
establish ourselves
as
a force equal to the others.
With the protection and the security of Allah.
Those companions, they stayed together against racism.
And they did not seek revenge.
And Allah gave them victory.
Right now,
we are facing
every day,
especially in the media,
Islamophobic
attacks.
It's what they call it, Islamophobic attacks. And
this is what they call it, Islamophobic attacks.
And this is, this is, this
is
And maybe it might be easier for you
to take it if I talk about somebody
else.
I'm a black American. I grew up in
the ghetto.
I did.
I grew up in a neighborhood that probably
if we thought about that neighborhood.
I was listening to an author,
Tallahassee Coates.
He said, I grew up in Baltimore.
And as a child, when I was growing
up in Baltimore,
every day that I left my house,
I was afraid that somebody might kill me,
rob me,
or stab me.
And
when I first listened to him, I said,
he's exaggerating.
It's not that bad. I grew up in
a neighborhood like that.
I said, Wow, you know what? I grew
up every day
in the neighborhood I grew up in Brooklyn,
New York.
Being
conscious that somebody might kill me today.
We used to decide what clothes to wear.
If you're going to a certain place, you
can't wear certain clothes because people will rob
you and take your clothes.
This is New York City.
But we never I never thought about it,
that I was
living in fear every day
because I thought it was normal.
I thought everybody lived like that.
In Baltimore last year,
they had
over 300
homicides.
300
people were killed
by somebody else,
I'm saying the stereotype
would be
that blacks are violent.
And
I would reject
that idea of how violent it is.
The people who were killed in San Bernardino,
by the Muslim family. Most family, they claim
to be Muslim.
Right?
You can't tell the people in San Bernardino
that they that they have an irrational fear
of Muslims in Islam.
Their fear is rational.
Somebody in their neighborhood who claimed that they
were killing their neighbors
because of Islam, the woman posted something on
Facebook. I believe it.
Something's going on.
And we have to change our condition.
We have young Muslims who feel, especially young
men who feel alienated,
isolated,
then they go on the internet.
And
somebody tells them that the sunnah of the
prophet
is to take revenge.
It's what they tell them.
Not only do they say that it's that
they take revenge
that you can kill people who are not
combatants.
Now you and I cannot
continue
to walk around
and
ignore the fact
that
there are people who are on the internet
luring
our children
to become radicals.
We can't. We can't. You have to face
it.
Just like I have to face the fact
that 300 there are 300 killers
who live in Baltimore. Most of them not
gonna be arrested.
Who
are terrorizing
those neighborhoods.
Now I actually work around the issues of
gun violence,
even though I'm a former NRA member as
National Rifle Association, I want you to
get the wrong idea.
But
something has to be done.
We have taught our children
how great the battle of Badar and Uhud,
Handa Khayber Fatimaka.
And when they get on the internet, that
means you should take revenge against the Kufar.
Most of our neighbors, I can tell you
right now, they're not Kufar.
Most
of them are trying to be decent human
beings to find out what God wants them
to do.
And they're doing it through Christianity or Judaism
or whatever.
If you want to be an example of
Rasulullah SAWSAWLM, you need to reach out to
them.
And internally, we need to have a dialogue
to end our own racism.
You see, when you refer to your neighbor
and you say, oh, by the way, I
have I have this American neighbor.
Now most of your neighbors who live in
America, they Americans. That's not what you mean.
I've
heard people in this Masjid say,
my
American neighbor did so and so. What they
really mean is my neighbor is a kaffir.
That's what they mean. My kafir neighbor, but
they don't wanna say kafir, so they say
American.
And
I'm like, wow. Before I accepted Islam, I
used to be your kafir neighbor.
Right? That's that didn't sound nice, does it?
I was your careful neighbor.
He said, you know what? A person is
a kafar
who knows the truth
and rejects it.
Which means probably
the largest population
of Kathiroun,
and people
who pray with us,
who
know what Allah is, they know what the
prophet is, they know what the guidance of
the Quran is, and they decide
openly to do something different. Your uninformed
neighbor, and his name
could
be the next Muslim,
if you would reach out to him.
And when you teach your children
that your neighbor is a kafir,
you're setting them up to go on the
internet when you're not home
for somebody to finish the sentence for them.
Brothers and sisters in Islam, we have a
lot of work to do. And the
biggest
work is inside. I don't care that less
than 1% of all
of the people that
are in the world. And I'm
I don't care that less than 1% of
all of the people who have been been
involved in mass shootings,
a Muslim, that's not my point. My point
is 1% is too many.
And allowing people to use the deen of
Islam to justify
un Islamic acts
means that we have to do our job.
I know you feel uncomfortable.
It's okay.
I'm gonna take a risk right now.
I had a friend,
we
made Hajj together.
He was in prison.
He was a really good brother before he
went to prison.
When he came out of prison, he said
that they he was tortured in prison.
And so now he's ready to go and
take revenge
against the people
who
who put him in prison.
His name is Anwar Al Aulagu.
He was my friend.
He was radicalized.
We ask Allah
to protect our children.
Oh, Allah, guide us among those whom you
have guided.
Oh, Allah, take us as a friend among
those whom you have taken as a friend.
You Allah, have mercy on us, alhamdulillah, as
we strive to live the deen of Islam.
Oh, Allah, grant us, alhamdulillah,
yosrata moustakim.
Ola, we ask your mercy on those who
are suffering, You Allah, around the corner and
around the world.
Oh, Allah, we ask that you grant
us.
Oh, Allah, make us successful, oh, hamdulillah, in
this life and in the hereafter.