Khalid Latif – Addresses Chapel Hill
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
In the name of Allah, the gracious, the
merciful,
all praise is due to Allah, the Lord
of the universe, the master of the day
of judgment.
I bear witness and testimony to the oneness
of Allah,
to his magnificence, his omnipotence, his might, his
glory.
To his being the creator and sustainer of
all things.
The giver of life. The giver of hearts.
The master of the day of judgment.
And I bear witness to the fact that
Muhammad
his servant and final messenger.
May the peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him and upon all those who choose
to tread to his path until the last
day.
It is said that on one occasion, Abu
Bakr
comes to the prophet
seeking permission to make hijra from his home.
And this is not when other people are
trying to leave from the city of Mecca
to Mokaroma.
This is not when they were going to
establish the city that would become Madinah to
Mokarum.
But Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu has now felt
the persecution
at the hands of the Meccans is coming
to his best friend, sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, and saying that, is it okay
with you if I leave and go to
a place where I can worship Allah freely?
The prophet alaihis salam, he gives his friend
Abu Bakr
the permission to go.
And as Abu Bakr is getting ready to
go, a man who is not Muslim, a
man who is of the people of Mecca
by the name of Ibn Ad Ta'ina comes
to Abu Bakr and asks him, what are
you doing?
And Abu Bakr says that I'm not able
to worship my God freely here without persecution.
I'm going somewhere else where I can do
so.
And Ibn Adagina, this non Muslim man says
to Abu Bakr that you should stay here.
That if people like you started to leave
from our society,
the entire society
would suffer.
And if anybody bothers you from this day
forward,
tell them that you are under my protection.
And Abu Bakr radiAllahu Han, he states.
And it's an important conversation for us to
have, especially in light to the recent tragedies
that all of us are surely aware of.
Where news has gone throughout the entire country
of our brother, Dia, his wife, Youssir, and
her sister, Raza. May Allah grant them peace
and entrance into Jannah without any judgment.
There's the news that circulated
everywhere, not only people in the Muslim community,
not only family members of the deceased, not
only their friends, but people in abundance from
all walks of life, whether they practice Islam
or not, can only say the best of
things about these three beautiful
Because they feel the absence
of those three people.
Just as Abu Bakr had
such a deep impact on the society around
him.
Not only just on people who are his
brothers and sisters in faith, but on his
brothers and sisters in humanity
to such an extent that when he was
trying to leave, somebody who was not Muslim
said, you can't go because if you go,
we will all lose.
As we have seen from the past few
days alone, people from all walks of life
being in a place where they can only
say the best about our brother and our
2 sisters, may Allah have mercy upon them,
what would they say about us?
If you and I were not here tomorrow,
would the entire community be in an uproar?
If we were not in the places that
we were, whether as individuals
or institutions,
would it make a difference to anyone?
Our brother, Diah, may Allah have mercy upon
him, was close to many of my students
at New York University.
He himself had reached out to many of
the brothers and sisters in our dental school
because he wanted to set up outreach programs
through
his professional ambitions of being a dentist.
A young man who goes to our med
school stood in front of hundreds of students
at New York University
the night after
the death, the execution of our brother and
our two sisters.
Just imploring people who were there from all
walks of life to value the loved ones
that they had and to not hold back
from doing good.
And as he went on and on speaking
about the importance of cherishing relationships and not
wasting time. He spoke about the beauty of
Diya and Youssler's marriage and their relationship
and what they wanted to do going forward
only 7 weeks into their wedding.
And he said, I know this because the
day Dia and Nusir got married,
my wife and I got married in the
same masjid at the same time.
And just as my wife and I were
married for 7 weeks, my student
said,
just as we have been married for 7
weeks and we talked about what we would
do with our children and we talked about
where we would move
These are real people.
They had a real impact.
And their faith was not something that was
just rhetoric or existing in abstract discussion that
went around in circles, but bear no real
manifestation.
They lived their Islam.
And for me, when you want to think
about who is a good Muslim, and what
does it mean to be someone who truly
honors the legacy of Muhammad salallahu salallahu alaihi
wa sallam. Someone who would be a shining
example of being an ommat of Muhammad
It's
not somebody whose Islam is purely for their
own needs and their own sake, but they
understand that there being Muslim is not meant
to be just for them, but there being
Muslim is meant to bring benefit to the
society around them.
When we talk about our brother and our
2 sisters, it is not just to get
into discussion that justifies and validates
a victimized
narrative that is not problematic for us to
go out there and tell. But the narrative
that we espouse is not meant to be
something that just exists in the moment. It's
meant to shine some light on the reality
of our situation and take from their example
as to what we can do to really
have solutions to the issues that we find
ourselves in.
They put no conditions and qualifications
on their given.
They did not say that we will only
give to the homeless who are Muslim. We
will only give to the people of our
cultural and national backgrounds. We will only be
resources for people who are like us.
But they just gave to whoever it was
who is in need.
And is this not the way that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was?
That his starches of enemies could not doubt
his character?
That they would entrust them with their greatest
of treasures and would know that he would
uphold the oath and promise that he had
not taken simply to them, but the covenant
that he took with the divine
himself, bearing the manifestation
of
and a mindfulness of Ar Rahman in each
of his deeds and his decisions.
My wife said to me the other day,
Subhanallah,
there's not been one picture that is circulated
on the media or social media or elsewhere.
That did not just show these 3 beautiful
young people
with so much beauty and light and more
on their face. May Allah be pleased with
them.
I'm saying it to you as your brother.
I know you don't know me, and I
don't really know most of you.
You gotta take advantage of the time that
you have.
And you think about
really what kind of beautiful lives these young
people lived, that their ending was in such
a way Allah
brought light to so many things through their
passing.
And if you were to just recount what
the last day, the last week, the last
month, the last year of your life has
been, not in a self deprecating way, not
in a way that is unnecessarily
critical, but through
a process that is productive in your introspection.
What have you done for anybody else?
What have you done that is purely
done for someone else, not to implicate a
sense of indebtedness,
not an expectation
of anything in return, but you simply did
because it was the right thing to do.
How is your being a Muslim something that
is not good for you alone, but how
is your being a Muslim something that is
good for the people around you?
Those young people, we saw the tears on
their parents' face.
If you value their example, and you have
your own children,
you will have your own children. Give nothing
but love to your children.
And if you can validate and justify spending
moments away in the distractions of the dunya,
and to be in a place where you
don't shower them with expressions and actions of
love, think about whose sunnah it is that
you follow.
When the people saw the prophet kissing children,
and they said, We don't kiss our children.
The prophet's response to them was, What can
I do for someone who is devoid of
mercy and compassion?
If you have a spouse,
love your spouse.
If you have friends,
don't wait till years pass until you check-in
on them, but let yourself embody a true
sense of understanding
of the value of the bounties that you
have been given, and just reach out without
any reason whatsoever,
simply to let someone know that you are
thinking of them.
Let their sacrifice not be something that is
in vain.
Just because they are not from here, does
not mean that they are not of us.
And if we take anything from what their
examples were, take from the best of it,
and then let yourself go out and not
be afraid to meet the person that you
can potentially be and see the benefit that
can come from your hands and your actions.
This is a beautiful community. You have beautiful
leadership here. You have immense opportunity.
You want to start to live your Islam
in the truest of ways, in a manner
that yields benefit and reduces detriment with a
mindfulness that is not in pursuit of anything
other than the pleasure of Allah.
How is your being Muslim not something that
is simply for you, but how is it
for the people around you?
True richness is not having an abundance of
things of this earth, but true richness is
having the richness of your soul.
And to adopt a mindset that lets you
serve your creator by serving his creation, to
just give up everything that you have with
an anticipation that what you will get in
return may be not tangible in terms of
reward in this world, but something that will
render you even better in the world beyond
this one.
Do not put your trust in the acquisition
of the material, but to put your trust
in the creator of everything that you see
around you, and to just go out and
try your best.
What if we had 10,000
deers,
and 10,000 users
and 10,000 razans
going out and living the life that those
three people were living? And will I be
pleased with them?
What if we lived our actions in such
a way that when we passed away,
nobody in the world could say anything wrong
about us, but they just longed and ached
for our presence. What if we started living
our lives like that?
Where tears not shed
and the world just stopped, when Muhammad
was
taken from it.
The likes of Omar Ibn Khartab standing with
his sword and sheath, challenging the people to
say that I dare you to tell me
that he is gone.
Sitting,
not speaking at all, motionless,
immobile, not knowing what to do.
Comes
forward and says to the people that for
you who worship Muhammad,
know that he is God.
But for those of you who worship Allah,
know that he is always with us.
And the passing of the prophet
was not meant to be a stopping point,
but a starting point to be able to
show how, in fact, we would carry forth
on his legacy.
And the passing of our brother and sisters
is not to say, look at how good
they were, but to really think about how
their goodness will compel us to be our
best.
Think about it as an individual
and let yourself not move forward
without adopting some of what it was that
made them so beautiful.
Today is the day
of. Make a commitment today, not to me
or anybody else, but to Allah that
on this blessed day of Friday, you will
go out and do at least one thing.
There's an act of benefit and goodness,
You will do one act that will interject
hope and mercy and compassion into this world.
You will not validate and justify passivity for
any other reason.
Simply go out and do it because it
is the right thing to do, and we
are waiting to be beneficiaries
of the blessing that is uniquely you.
May God bless us and protect us. May
he bless us with knowledge that benefits us.
May he bless us with the to understand
and implement that knowledge into our daily lives.
And may he die and bless us all.
We begin this supplication in your name, Yahuwah.
I beseech you to send your choices and
salutations upon your most beloved Muhammad
We ask that you shower your infinite mercy
upon this gathering, granting each and everyone who
is present here in and our loved loved
ones, only the best in this world and
the best in the next. We ask you,
Allah, that if all of us are meant
to be gathered together only at this time
at this place, That you gather us all
together again in the best of places in
the world beyond this one. That if each
heart that is assembled here is meant to
be in the presence of all other hearts
that are gathered here, whether we are young
or old, male or female, whether we are
of any race or ethnic, cultural, social class,
y'all love. If we are only meant to
be all together in this world at this
time, then gather us all together again in
the best of places in the world beyond
this one. You Allah protect us from any
affliction, any anxiety, any anguish.
You Allah protect us from hearts that are
filled with any bitterness, any envy, any jealousy,
animosity
towards any of your creation, including us ourselves.
Grant us hearts that are in a state
of tranquility, a state of calm, a state
of peace, hearts that are drawn towards your
remembrance, you Allah. You Allah, make us from
amongst those who are beloved to you. Make
us from amongst those who are beloved to
those who are beloved to you. Make us
from amongst the truthful. Make us from amongst
the honest. Make us from amongst the patient.
Make us from amongst the righteous.
Make us selfless the way Muhammad
was
selfless. Make us generous the way Muhammad
was generous. Make us people of integrity and
good character the way your beloved
was.
You, Allah, in this world, on this day,
there are people who will go to their
homes tonight without any food to eat or
things to drink.
You Allah grant them and us the best
of meals in the world beyond this one.
You Allah, there are people who in this
world tonight, they have no homes to go
to whatsoever.
They will be forced to live on the
streets. They will be forced to live off
of the streets. You Allah,
grant them and us the best of abodes
in the world beyond this one. You Allah,
there are people who in this world today
are coming to the realization
that they will never see a loved one
again.
Young children who sit in the rubble of
their homes looking towards their doors, waiting for
their mothers and fathers to walk in, not
recognizing that they will never come back.
Fathers who are longing to just see their
children grow into the people that they can
become.
Mothers who are wanting to just feel the
warm embrace of their sons and daughters again.
You Allah.
Grant them the best of reunions in the
world beyond this one.
And make us from amongst the people who
value those who are in our lives and
never hesitate to show them the appreciation and
love that they deserve.
You Allah, make things easy for our brothers
and sisters in Palestine.
You Allah, make things easy for our brothers
and sisters in Gaza, our brothers and sisters
in the West Bay, our brothers and sisters
in Jerusalem,
and end the occupation that is taking place
there. You Allah, make things easy for our
brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq. Make
things easy for our brothers and sisters in
the Central African
Republic. Make things easy for our brothers and
sisters in
and Pakistan and India and Bangladesh of Afghanistan.
Make things easy for our brothers and sisters
in China and Burma.
Make things easy for our brothers and sisters
here in this country,
And grant us the to understand that our
brothers and sisters
You Allah accept this du'a. You Allah accept
this du'a. You Allah grant us Jannah. You
Allah grant us Jannah. You Allah grant us
Jannah. You Allah
Grant us entrance therein in the company of
your most beloved
in the company of all those who are
beloved to us. You Allah grant our brother,
Dia, our sister,
and our sister, only
the best in the world beyond this one.
You Allah, make us amongst those who learn
from their example. You Allah, bring ease to
the hearts of their families and their loved
ones who are longing for their presence and
grant them the best of reunions in the
world beyond this one. Protect us, you Allah,
from hearts that are not humble, tongues that
are not wise, and eyes that have forgotten
how to cry. Forgive us for our shortcomings
and guide and bless us all.