Johari Abdul-Malik – Stop Gun Violence Shooting to Kill
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And thanking Allah
for having guided us to this blessed way.
And affirming that
whomever
god has provided this guidance to
that there is none that can misguide them.
And anyone who, from their free will, has
strayed from god's guidance,
that none of us with all of our
efforts
can return them except that they desire
to turn back to the mercy of god
almighty.
It's full of mercy
and forgiveness.
Today,
I want to give you and I,
perhaps, a walk back into the past
that we might excuse me, brother. Stop talking
on the phone. Excuse me, brother. Tell somebody
tell the brother, go outside if you wanna
talk on the phone, but I'm sorry.
It's very nice quid pro I'm sure he's
given on the phone.
Well, alhamdulillah,
in the
past
there are always provided for us guides,
milestones,
information
that might cause us to direct our course
aright.
I want to remind you today that
there was a time when
Mohammed ibn Abdullah, he wasn't recognized as a
prophet from among his own people.
He lived in an environment that was
rife with corruption.
Muhammad ibn Abdullah, before his prophethood, alayhis salam,
he was always considered by the people who
lived with him
to be like
Ibrahim
alaihis salam, he was Hanifan.
He was always
in line with what Allah would want one
to be aligned with. His behavior, his conduct
was always upright.
He was never an idolater.
And so, alhamdulillah,
from the example of that one,
it gives us
a way to see
how we should be functioning
in the societies
that we live in, and, alhamdulillah,
I am grateful,
not only to be a Muslim,
but I am grateful, alhamdulillah,
to be a follower of Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
He was
a bushra. He was a bringer of good
news,
and
he was a bringer of a warning.
The good news, Wilhamdulillah,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
while living
in Mecca,
encountered a society in which
they were
known for their trade and for their,
the the, financial
capital,
Mecca.
But because there was some corruption
in the society,
they were on the brink of
urban warfare.
Urban warfare.
This young man,
Mohammed ibn Abdullah,
not yet a prophet alaihis salam,
sees
the difficulty they're having,
and so they call together a meeting. How
can we make progress
to to end the violence in Mecca?
And it is our prophet
who provides for them guidance
and signs on to what we call in
history now,
Halef al Fudul.
He signs
on
having helped them to come to a treaty
that will end the violence
in Makkah
Mukarramar.
It will become enlightened because he is going
to draw them back to the light of
Allah
and to his prophet.
For us, muhamdulillah,
we should be, I believe, as followers of
the of Muhammad,
we should be bringing that bushra
to the society that we live in.
If I am a follower of Muhammad,
then I should do in my society
what he did for his society. Let
me give you another reminder.
The people who were living
in the town of Yathrib,
some
maybe the distance between New York and Washington
DC,
they were having a problem
with corruption
in their society.
They were on the brink of violence,
but some of them said, you know, we
know a man who can bring goodness to
our society.
He has a few followers,
but we believe that if we bring him
to live with us and to become part
of our leadership,
to guide us,
that we will create
a society of peace and harmony.
We'll avert
social
decay.
So they sent some of their
embassies and they had what they called
aqaba
1,
the first aqaba. And they met with the
prophet
and he described to them his philosophy about
life and Islam, and how to be a
follower.
And so they return with a second group
the next year. They want to find out
more about what can you do to bring
this benefit.
And those people went back to a little
town called Yathrib and they said, we have
found a man, his name is Mohammed ibn
Abdullah.
If he comes to live with us, he
will help us to establish peace and justice
and order in our society.
Some of them said, we don't wanna be
Muslim though.
We would like to keep our religion,
but we still want the benefit, the maslaha,
of Muhammad
and his followers,
And so they agreed, and the prophet
migrated
to the town of Yathrib,
now we call it the city Madinah
Munawara.
This city, alhamdulillah,
enlightened,
guided by justice and peace.
This is after his prophethood.
But the companions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam, they said, you Rasoolallah,
now that you are a prophet,
if the corrupt people,
they are Muslims, they worship idols made from
their own hand, if they called you now
to work with them to quell the urban
violence in Makkah,
would you still do it?
Khalil Rasoolallahu
alaihi wasallam said, even as I am a
prophet,
if they called me
to come and help them, subhanallah,
I would join them.
I wanna say to you today,
this is the 1 year anniversary of
the massacre in Sandy Hook Elementary
School.
You and I are the followers
of that truth,
and we have to ask ourselves the question,
what would Mohammed do?
If Mohammed ibn Abdullah lived here, that distance
from there, would he
say, subhanallah,
I can provide
guidance from Allah to these people, that they
will be able to live in peace.
Our challenge today,
having been blessed, walhamdulillah,
with the guidance of the prophet
in the Quran, what will we do?
You know, in Mecca, they had a kind
of corruption one day, the Hajar Aswar. It
fell the black stone fell from the side
of the Kaaba.
Just like gang warfare,
different tribes wanna say, I wanna be the
our tribe would would do it and then
we'll get the the reputation.
Other tribes said, no.
If you touch that stone, it's gonna be
me and you.
Because we, our tribe, we want the honor.
And the people who lived in the time
of the prophet
while they were in this dispute, they saw
him coming.
He's not a prophet yet.
He's just al Amin,
trustworthy,
trustworthy companion,
trustworthy neighbor,
trustworthy citizen.
And when they see Al Amin coming, everybody
is relaxed. They're like, okay,
let's ask him what we should do,
because he's not biased like us.
And, walhamdulillah,
you know the
story that he places down his cloak.
And he puts the stone in the middle
and he tells all of them, the representatives
from each group, pick up a corner and
I will place it into
its place in the side of the Kaaba.
Now
each one of them has a share
in the goodness,
and this is the wisdom of the prophet
He was for his society
a bushah.
He was, walhamdulillah,
bringing to his society, maslaha, some benefit.
1 year after Sandy Hook Elementary,
I will ask you the questions.
Do your neighbors see you as part of
the solution,
or part of the problem?
Now maybe there are some of us who
say, Well, imam, you know,
it's not really my problem.
I don't have a gun,
I don't use a gun.
Not my problem.
Gun safety is not my problem.
What about the other children at Sandy Hook
Elementary?
Those children weren't shot because
of the actions of their parents.
They were shot because someone
had a weapon
and came into a school
and decided that
he would just kill whoever he saw.
Brothers and sisters,
we live, those of us who are sitting
here with me, you're in Virginia.
There are places now, I know in the
District of Columbia we've done some work
because we traced the guns
from their
origin to the crime scene.
Guns bought in a gun shop in Maryland
called Real Code Guns,
where
they follow the minimum of the law but
they don't do a background check.
Maybe they have a young person
say, Well you know,
I don't have any criminal record and
Joe wants me to,
go and buy a gun from him. It's
okay.
I'll go in, no They look at my
driver's license, no question asked.
Then I go in the parking lot and
I sell it to whoever.
What that young person doesn't know is that
they've just committed a federal crime.
Maybe it's one of your young people.
They don't know why, they just say, well,
you know, make a few dollars, it's not
a crime.
Yes it is.
But what's an even greater crime,
is that we are not demanding in our
society
that our government
create laws
that
will put more
controls
on the sale of guns in our community.
Now some of you I know are saying,
Imam,
even with all of that, our children don't
go to those kind of schools, you're lying.
They go to those kind of schools. 97%
of Muslim children go to public school.
So your child would have been, if you
lived in Massachusetts,
your child would have been at Sandy Hook
Daycare,
elementary school right there.
And the gun doesn't ask the question, oh
this child is a Muslim, don't shoot them.
The only way for us, alhamdulillah,
to safeguard ourselves is to safeguard others.
Well alhamdulillah, let there be a party of
you.
A party of you that will come out
from the others,
and joining what is right
and forbidding what is evil.
I'm saying to you today,
first that we ask Allah's mercy on those
children.
Because no child
has
any sin that Allah is punishing them for,
and for Allah to soften the hearts of
their parents when you're after Sandy Hook.
But for us to strengthen our resolve that
we as a community
will do something
before we have the Janaza
here
for one of our children.
I wanna just share with you before we
close, just
something that maybe you don't
know.
You see, often
we might have a janazah in this masjid.
And we say, oh, it was such and
such and such a boy. Usually, it's a
boy.
He's 20 something years old.
And his family is from such and such
background.
Someone in their mind is thinking,
the person was 20 something years old. What
what did they die from?
See, what you don't know is that the
family came and they talked to the imam,
and they said, Yeah, imam.
Our young person was just out visiting some
friends,
and there was a dispute, and then the
next thing you know, someone pulled out a
gun or a knife and stabbed and shot
them.
We just say,
We have the janazah for them, and we
move on.
But I'm saying to you,
if you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the problem.
To be part of the solution is to
be like the prophet
to find the issues that
are happening in our community, and then to
take a stand for what is right.
Alhamdulillah, this is a good day and a
good time to do it
while it's on the minds of others.
Let them know, the people that you know,
let them know, subhanallah, I'm a Muslim. This
is something I'm concerned about because I know
from the Quran
that if you take the life of 1
person,
unjustly it's as if you have slain all
of humanity.
This is our belief,
that, alhamdulillah,
we wish to stand for justice.
Today, I'm gonna ask you,
if you live in the commonwealth of Virginia,
Maryland, DC, wherever you live,
Because you know,
our hot ball goes on YouTube now, you
could be anywhere.
Contact your representative in congress.
And by the way, they're not going to
ask a citizenship question, it's not a vote.
This is surer.
Contact them and say, I want you to
do something about gun violence before
it kills me or one of my children.
I want you to do something.
Why? Because I'm here, we're lying. You know
what they do? If you send a letter,
they count the stack of letters for and
against.
That's how they that's how they identify justice.
Maybe
one of them will say, I got so
many call phone calls. Pro, con, okay. I'm
gonna go this way.
And I can let you know in our
district,
congressman Jim Moran,
happened he's he's visited us many times in
this masjid.
He's a different kind of politician.
The election is over. I'm not campaigning.
He's the kind of politician that will vote
his conscience,
whether people like it or not.
Virginia is a tough state to do gun
control.
But I'm saying to you now, I know
if you don't know.
Most minority people,
black, brown,
are usually shot
by another minority person.
That's how that seems to be how it
works.
Usually, a person who has a gun is
gonna shoot somebody that's close to them.
I'm saying to you today,
do something.
It is okay.
Do something to save yourself and your family.
And today, on the anniversary of
Sandy Hook,
to think about those children who have lost
their lives.
Don't wait until it's Jep Stewart High School,
they had a shooting, or or it's Bailey's
Elementary. Don't wait till then.
Do something now,
and Allah will count it among your best
deeds.
So that, walhamdulillah,
we can say to Allah that we lived
saying that we believe in Allah, and that
we follow in the example of Muhammad
Allah, guide us among those whom you have
guided.
Oh, Allah, protect us among those whom you
have protected.
Oh, Allah, take us as a friend among
those whom you have taken as a friend,
you Allah. Oh, our strength and our resolve,
that
we might be among those who bring benefit,
you Allah.
Oh, Allah, help us to live lives of
benefit.
Walhamdulillah,
and a warning that not to follow your
guidance, you Allah,
is a formula for disaster. Oh Allah, we
ask for your mercy on our society.
Oh Allah, save us from the violence that
is pervasive.
Oh, lord, strengthen our young men especially, you
allah, to save them from the hand of
corruption, you allah. Oh, lord, our young women
from the hand of corruption, you allah. Oh,
lord, to save our families, oh, lord, for
those of us who are suffering with difficulties,
you allah. Oh, Allah. We ask that you
make it easy for us. Oh, Allah. Those
who are suffering with sickness and disease and
loss, you Allah. Oh, Allah. We ask that
you replace it with something better. Oh, Allah.
We ask for your mercy and your peace
on the prophet
and on his family and on his companions
and on all of the MBI, You Allah,
and also follow the way of Haqq, You
Allah, until the day of judgment. Amen.