Lobna Mulla – Islam and Oppression
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AI: Transcript ©
Oh. Oh, I have to go oh,
okay.
There's a secret entrance.
Okay.
She previously served as a board member at
YOKI
Institute For Islamic Research
as an IOKI Muslim Chaplain at UCLA.
And as the National
Tarbia Director of the Muslim Americans' Academy,
MAS,
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Assalamu alaikum everyone.
I'm very happy to be here. I'm glad
that you guys are all here. I know
that's a a sacrifice on a Saturday morning.
You could be doing other things. And as
I told the sisters earlier this morning, you
know, may Allah
reward all of you and may this become
a
a gathering of mutual benefits
where we're benefiting from one another. And and
and I always see that that's the case.
That you benefit and that I benefit and
and it becomes a beautiful exchange of ideas
and and thoughts.
So we want to talk about,
subhanallah,
this concept of existence of evil
that happens in the world. And I know
that for many individuals, this
can be a source of doubt.
I just talked to a youth yesterday
and they were talking about this concept.
And this struggle between even the idea of
then what's the point of me doing anything,
if certain things are already decreed, like how
does this tie into qadr?
It's it can be confusing.
And subhanAllah,
for
Muslims and non muslims, but particularly those of
other philosophies and other ideas, and maybe those
who have wandered away from the concept of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The idea for them is like this is
becomes the logic. Thank you so much. Sorry
about that. This becomes the the the logic
for them.
Evil exists in this world.
Okay?
And
and and and Allah forgive us, this is
not what we believe, but this is the
the the the train of thinking.
There's evil in this world. There's oppression as
we see folding
unfolding in front of us, subhanAllah, and Philistine
and
to the Uyghurs, to the Rohingyans,
subhanAllah to the Kashmiris, like, all over the
world. Right? SubhanAllah.
Here in LA, around the corner, you see
the oppression and you see evil. So their
thinking is, wait a minute.
If there was a god, and we know
there's a god.
If there was a god who's all capable
and all knowing, then he would end this
evil. Therefore, since evil exists, what is our
conclusion?
That there's no god.
Allah protect us from this waswasa. Right? And
and
for some of us,
that waswasa can happen and it comes with
pain. Right? It's not a fun feeling to
have doubts. And I know there's good believers
out there that sometimes these things that causes
them doubt, whether it's global suffering or suffering
that happens very personally in their lives.
And what's very comforting to the believer, alhamdulillah,
very very comforting,
for us is the belief in Allah and
the belief in afterlife.
This is our foundation.
So with this foundation,
this establishes
for us a baseline.
A baseline understanding. What? That Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is all powerful.
That he,
he is the all wise.
And he knows what we do not know.
Okay. I can wrap I can wrap my
head around that. If there's something that I
don't understand,
then I know that Allah has the capability,
he has the power,
and he is wise. That means he knows
things that I don't know. So this in
and of itself
can satisfy me even in the most turbulent
times.
And subhanAllah, if you think about it, one
of the most difficult,
pillars of faith
is kabat wqabr.
If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has predestined certain
things,
does that mean the evil things that are
happening in this world
and that happen in my life
why is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allowing that
to happen? And so the scholars have talked
about this at length.
That there is no evil that can be
ascribed to Allah.
Allah does not do anything evil.
Okay? That's number 1. And evil,
in and of itself,
does not come from Allah.
And that's a hard concept. But but but
wait a minute, but it exists. So who
who did that? What did Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala create on this earth?
Like sorry. There's a lot of things Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala create on this earth.
What creation in particular
did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala create
that the angels said, why are you doing
this?
What creation is that?
Humans.
Human beings.
SubhanAllah, they, the the angels, and I'm paraphrasing,
said, Allah, why are you gonna send these
humans to earth when they're going to commit,
evil? They're going to,
shed blood? Why are you doing that? Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
I know what you do not know.
I know what you do not know.
So the angels, they have they have to
obey. Right? So they're angels. But they questioned.
They don't have the same level of free
will as us, but even then it's like,
woah, woah, woah.
These guys are gonna be evil. What are
you doing? Why are you letting them go
on the on the on the earth? And
the Allah says,
I know what you do not know.
So this baseline of tawheed, which is the
oneness of Allah
and the belief in afterlife
is a source of comfort because it allows
me to understand some of the things that
happens to me that's outside of my control.
Right? And things that happen in the world
because I know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
has the most knowledge and the most wisdom.
He has the capability to do whatever he
wants. And we know that whatever evil and
bad things that happen in this life, at
the hands of people,
at the hands of people. We're gonna talk
about that. That there is going to
be complete
and final justice and reward in the afterlife.
We may see it in this life. Alhamdulillah.
Right? Reward, some justice. We may see some
things in this life.
But ultimately,
alhamdulillah,
we have the promise
of this gift of the afterlife where there
will be no worry, no fear. We will
not remember even the how severe, how the
bad things, how it felt.
Jannah will be a place of perfection.
So when we say,
wait a minute,
the existence of evil is confusing to me.
Allah
should just get rid of evil. He has
a capability.
Well, why are you questioning the existence of
evil when this world is not a perfect
place and it is run-in in the human
sense? Right? In the dunya way sense, it's
run by who?
Bashar. Human beings, not animals. Right? I mean
they're here, and they rule the animal kingdom.
But humans, we're the ones in charge. And
guess what? We have arrogance.
We have this,
lust for power.
We have this lust for money.
We have this lust for,
human desire.
So at the evil of our own hands,
we create evil.
So when you are harmed by somebody else,
it's not that Allah created that evil for
you. No. He created human beings that have
the capacity for good.
And everybody has in their fitra the understanding
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but sometimes it's
their lifestyle
choices and their free will that pushes that
away, and they have the capacity
they have the capacity for good and they
have the capacity for evil. Allah did not
decree that all human beings are going to
be evil but he decreed that in our
imperfect nature, we have this ability
to choose.
So with this gift of freedom of will,
we have this,
we have that we we we
experience the choices of this free will. Does
that make sense?
We're gonna talk about some heavy things,
but there
was
a woman who's not Muslim. She was sharing
with me.
She's a Christian. She's a really,
has firm firm faith in in in Allah,
firm faith in God.
And she talked about how she was
sexually assaulted.
And she said the question that comes to
my mind sometimes, I used to think,
why wasn't God there for me at that
moment?
Why wasn't God there? She says, but I
know God exists, and I believe in God.
But do you see how that it messes
with your mind? Like if God is there,
why did he let that happen to me?
That's the evil
that happened to her at the hands of
another human being. And Allah gave what?
Free will.
He did not make us perfect like the
angels. He did not make us like robots
where we just walk around and we only
do good. No. He gave us this gift
of free will but with it comes the
evil that may happen at the hands of
other people. Subhanallah.
And why so what's interesting then
is that sometimes human beings, we wanna have
it both ways. Hey. Give me the freedom.
I wanna be able to do whatever I
wanna do. I don't wanna have to do
certain things, and at the same
time, I want Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
intervene to prevent other human beings to do
things to me. Does that make sense? There's
fraud that happens. There's all kinds of abuse.
There's all kinds of evil corruption.
There's,
financial corruption, subhanAllah, that where people are suffering
in countries, some of our Muslim countries,
the people there will be more than enough
money to feed everybody in that country. Actually,
we know that there is enough food
for the entire world. There is enough food
on this earth that's being produced
to have more than enough for the entire
world, yet how many people go hungry? How
many thousands are starving
even before October 7th in Gaza?
There were thousands of people monthly that were
dying in Gaza before October 7th.
Starvation was already happening.
My point is
that it is the evil
of people
and their their their their want to have
power, their wants to have control,
that messes other people up.
And so sometimes we're like, oh Allah, give
us free will. I wanna do whatever I
wanna do, but at the same time, control
other people.
Yes, we ask for protection. Yes, we understand
it. Uh-uh. Yes, we we, try to understand
it from the understanding that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala is the ultimate has the ultimate wisdom.
And so we have to have patience
to protect ourselves from the evil of other
people. So I wanna get into it now.
So I said the faulty premise is that
there is no evil in this world. There
is. Why? Because it is by human beings
that are imperfect, and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
already told us that this is going to
be a life of test. He didn't tell
us that it was going to be perfect.
Where is perfection going to be? Where is
pure enjoyment for everyone going to be? In
Jannah. So you already put something a wrong
I
You put something
wrong in the wrong place.
I put something to say perfection should be
on the earth, and so Allah must not
exist because it's not there. Who said life
is perfect?
It's not. And Allah told us that. He
said, subhanallah, he said,
insulat
Mulk,
That he is the one who created death
and life in order to test which one
of you is in best in deeds. He
didn't say this was going to be a
nice place, this is going to be a
place of bada.
A place of test. And he is the
almighty, all forgiving. Why almighty? He has the
ability to do whatever he wants, and in
part of that, what's being highlighted here, he's
the most forgiving. We're going to make mistakes,
we're going to do bad things. We're gonna
let our own greed and our desires take
over us, but Allah always
leaves the door open for us that if
we make those mistakes, we're able to go
back to him.
So when we understand the purpose of life,
and we understand the nature of this world,
this question becomes a lot easier to handle.
But still we'll walk through some examples because
still those doubts will come to our minds.
SubhanAllah.
You know, it's, very interesting that, Umar ibn
Khattab was very tough,
and he wanted to to be tough
in terms of not indulging
himself and his family.
To the extent that he would question,
Usman Radu Anhu. Oh, you know, you dress
all the you wear these nice clothes, and
you're buying different things to eat and whatever.
Shouldn't you restrict
your family like like Omar, I'm the Khattab.
You really restricted how much his family could
indulge in the pleasures of this life in
terms
of amount of food and having nicer things.
And that's what Omar Ibn Khattab felt was
best for his family. And
he had a different approach.
And he said, you know, Allah has given
me this ability and I'm going to enjoy
it. In a good way. Right? But he
was also very generous. He was also a
righteous person.
Right? So you So look at what's going
to happen here when he, approaches prophet Muhammad
alaihi wasallam. Look at already that, Omar
is already on the stricter side in terms
of wanting
to experience that, you know, repress his desires
in this life. Okay? For him and his
family. He walks in on prophet Muhammad and
he's getting up from the bed. Prophet Muhammad
is getting up from the bed. And because
the bed is so basic,
he could see the marks on prophet's back.
But, you know, we we sleep on a
mattress even if it's a bad mattress. It's
still cushiony. It's like there's some kind of
foam. There's something there. Right? You're not sleeping
on wires.
Most likely
But here, you know, the roughness of the
bed, those marks showed on the back of
prophet and
was
upset.
He was upset. You know, why does
why does, prophet
he, you know, he's
a prophet of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. He
deserves better. He's not questioning that in the
eyes of he's not questioning Allah, but he's
questioning, like, you deserve better. He said, you're
Rasulullah, and I'm paraphrasing here. He said,
I've seen the palaces of other rulers.
They're huge and they have such nice things.
And you,
this is like how you live? You know,
with no shirt on and the marks on
his back. And and something beautiful that really
stuck in my mind that prophet
said to Omar Ibn Khattab, he said,
They'll have this life. They have it. Go
ahead and have it.
But we we have the next life. We
have the afterlife.
Look at that vision that makes you really
look at life in a very different way.
It really
gives you the capacity to understand the trials
of this dunya. And I know some of
you.
You guys go through trial after trial. Sometimes
it's financially, and then it's a health issue.
And then it's a family, you know,
relationship issue. And then it's something in society,
and on top of that something happened at
school. It's a lot. It's heavy.
And we know that Allah
test those whom he loves more.
Some of you are like, please stop testing
me. Allah show me something else.
But guess what? With this understanding of difficulty,
subhanahu, there's so much benefit. There's so much
benefit. This is what we wanna talk about
inshallah.
I wanted to, talk another So we talked
about,
the the the purpose of this life.
Allah
mentions in Surb Rum,
corruption has spread on land and sea as
a result of what people's hands have done.
So that Allah may cause them to taste
the consequences of some of their deeds, and
perhaps they might return to the right path.
Even if you think about like environmental, like,
any of you in in environmental science?
Any of you are at least you know,
you know that there's climate change.
You know? And I can't help but to
think of climate change in 2 ways.
In a dunya sense where it's like, yeah,
it is okay. Clearly, if you're going to
keep
polluting the earth. Right? We we're we're we're
polluting the waters. We're might you know, we
use coal. All those kind of things
that that destroy the earth is going to
show up. We're seeing what? We're seeing the
ice caps are melting. We're seeing some of
the animals dying off. We're seeing migration habits
changing. All kinds of changes from Bari Bin
Bahr in the land and in the sea
is at the hands of our own corruption.
Right?
And then I also see climate change also
as
maybe getting closer to to the to the
descriptions in the Quran where Allah describes
of how the the world will fall apart
basically on the day of judgement. Right? As
as the signs before the day right before
the day of judgement as it's about to
to happen.
But but look what's amazing in this. Even
in this difficulty,
what is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala saying that,
you know, in with the corruption that is
done at the hands of human beings.
So that they may taste the consequences of
some other actions. So you can see, you
know what? Look.
When you keep neglecting salah, when you keep,
oppressing people, when you keep placing money over
the importance of deen, or when you keep,
keep, keep, keep, right, abusing or whatever,
This is what's going to happen. That in
and of itself is a gift.
Isn't it?
Because what's the second part? So you can
see the consequence of your deeds and know
that this is not the right way, globally
or personally.
Perhaps they may return to the right path.
Perhaps they may return to the right path.
How many of you have seen in your
life or the lives of others close to
you that it was only through difficulty
that somebody got closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala? Yeah? I see you guys nodding your
heads. Yeah. For sure.
Some of the scholars, they they say that
there that that there's a test of difficulty.
So this is the one that we're talking
about, the evil. There's test of difficulty and
there's the test of ease. And some of
the scholars have said that the test of
ease is actually more difficult test. Why would
that be the case?
Anybody wanna
Yes.
Exactly. It's
it's easy it's easier to remember Allah when
you need something, and it's easy to kind
of become more complacent and to forget Allah
when things are easy. Yes.
Our nature is to be ungrateful. How quickly
do you forget where you got
where you are today, or the things that
you have. You just came here and maybe
like, oh man, it's kinda hot right now.
But how many blessings did you wake up
to this morning? And how many blessings that
we are in right now? The fact that
everything is functioning the way it's supposed to
be. At least for the most part for
many of us. Right? And that you're gonna
go home to a place of comfort. And
that you're gonna go home and you know
that certain things are gonna be there. You
know you're gonna have electricity. You know you're
gonna have water. Like a basic basic things.
But like like he
mentioned
that we are ungrateful.
So look at that. Even when bad things
happen, it can be something good for us.
And only Allah knows that this is what
we needed. Either we needed the gift of
ease,
and that was gonna be better for us.
Or that we needed
a gift
of this test of difficulty, and Allah knows
knows or knew that that's what we needed.
He knows.
SubhanAllah.
I wanted to,
give an example. SubhanAllah.
Subhanallah.
One of my friends,
and I I I some of you may
have heard this, but I just had to
back with her after like 8 months. I'm
not seeing her.
Her son passed away from cancer, and he
was diagnosed when he was 20 months years
old.
And
he struggled and suffered with it for 2
years and then died before the age of
4.
This is maybe a good example
of like, okay, I can understand
evil.
Somebody is doing something to themselves, and they're
gonna taste the the result of their own
evil. So let's say for example,
very easy to get swept up in this
dunya
and experiment with drugs. Right? And then something
bad may happen to this as a result
of us experimenting with drugs or trying alcohol.
That can be a good example of evil
at the result of your own hands. I
did it to myself. And that's not even
necessarily
even in the like if you really have
an obstacle,
even you would say
that car accident that happened or that overdose
that happened.
Even that you can say Allah
wanted to wake me up and say, come
back.
Come back to me. So even in that
difficulty at the car at the hands of
what I did to myself,
Right?
That that was a good thing because that
was a wake up call for me. And
many people have said that. Muslims and non
muslims alike said, you know, something I was
at my lowest point, they'll say. And that's
when I realized I needed to come back
to I needed something greater. Even those people
who did not believe conscientiously in Allah they
said, at my lowest point that's when I
knew that I needed something greater. And and
and and so power, the first step,
in a 12 step program for for Alcoholics
Anonymous. The first step is to believe in
God. To believe in something greater than you,
which is God.
SubhanAllah.
Okay. I digress. I went far.
But then you're like, wait a minute.
What did a 4 year old child do?
The child is sinless.
Right? Until they reach the age of puberty,
there's no accountability.
So what was the sin or the cause
that the child did to his own self?
That that makes no And
I've met so many people that have said
something like cancer and something like death either
to somebody older, let alone somebody younger. Like,
what did they do to deserve this? So
especially a child now, we can say really,
like, they didn't do anything yet.
And you would not believe
the level of iman of his parents
talking about how much they learned
through the most difficult
episode of their life.
I sat and I talked to the sister
for 4 and a half hours. She was
just downloading, talking
about how close she
during this phase of
of when her child went, you know, was
diagnosed and the 2 years that had passed
until he passed away,
she said it was the closest I have
ever been to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Isn't that like doesn't that blow your mind?
And she said, subhanAllah, she loves all of
her children, but she said this one in
particular? She said, no, it's a love I
cannot describe to you. And I and I
I can't fully fathom it.
She's like, I loved him more than anything.
He brought so much joy. When they say,
it was like more than that. Like the
apple of my eye more than that. Well,
I she's like, I don't I cannot explain
to you. Ease in the pregnancy,
ease in delivery,
so cuddly. Every single thing he did just
like I was so infatuated with him, and
Allah chose this one to take away from
me.
And she wasn't saying that in like a
bad way, like oh you took it away.
No. But she said and he you know,
Allah chose that one, the one that I
wanted the most. And she said she even
remembered
thinking and saying to her husband,
oh, I I hope that Allah never test
me with something with this child. And she
got tested with that child.
And what's amazing and she she she after,
you know, talking for a long time she
said,
there's so many lessons that I learned during
this difficult time.
And I got closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala because there's so many things. I said,
give me one of those things. I wanna
know what is it? What are some of
the things that you did that that made
you capacity this really painful time?
And she said it was tahajjud.
Tahajjud. She's like, one of the things that
her child needed to survive this cancer is
extremely rare.
And so, panallah, it was extremely rare for
this extremely rare, type of liver cancer
that that usually is curable
in children.
So it's rare for him to get it,
but it would be rare for him to
die from it. And he got the rare
disease, and he got the rare chance that
he would die from it. SubhanAllah.
I'll just give you one example. She said,
4 times he got called for liver transplant.
It's not easy to just find a liver.
Right? I mean, it's like somebody has to
pass away. It has to be a good
liver. And then you have to be at
the right level on the list for you
to get an organ. Right? And so, subhanallah,
she said, one of the things I would
make dua for in this in, in Tahajjud,
I would say, oh, Allah, before her son
would go into surgery. Oh, Allah,
guide the minds of the surgeon. Guide his
hands. Guide his heart. And she make all
these duas are very specific.
Not just all on.
She said I would make duas for my
child to have full cure and to be
better than he was before. You know all
those duas for.
I would make duas for that but I
would also make duas for this, and make
it easy. Ola make his recovery, and ola
make the doctors, and the staff, and the
like so many different duas.
And she said,
normally when a doctor goes to do a
transplant, he will fly the surgeon.
He will fly to the place of where
the body is, that's going to be the
donor. He will inspect the organ. So fly
to wherever I think it was Dallas.
He flies back when that organ comes.
I know it's kind of morbid. Sorry.
He'll inspect it again.
He's satisfied with it. Then when it comes
time for the surgery, they'll put the child
under or put the the patient's gonna receive
the organ. They'll put him under, put him
give him anesthesia,
mark it on their
on their body where they're going to cut.
They'll make the incision. They'll open up the
the the patient to receive the organ,
then they will put the organ
in.
That's how it goes.
And she said, subhanallah,
the anesthesiologist
so I don't wanna skip skip this step.
Anyhow,
so the surgeon said, your child's in good
hands. It's gonna take 8 to 10 hours.
We'll call you if anything happens. So so
he's he's she told her go get coffee,
like go out and come back. 2 hours
later, they get a call and they're so
nervous like what happened? They come and the
doctor said, I'm so sorry we can't do
the surgery. I've canceled the order.
And she said, what happened?
And he said, I checked the liver again,
one of the arteries were broken
and I couldn't repair it.
And so, subhanallah,
he told her that the anesthesiologist
was a Muslim,
and he said this surgeon, I've done many
many surgeons surgeries with him. He never
triple checks the organ one more time before
cutting the body of the recipient.
He after the 2nd time of checking when
it comes in,
he'll he'll he'll open up the patient and
then put the organ in. That's it. He
will not do a 3rd check. But something
made him check the organ for the 3rd
time before he cut the child,
And said, I didn't feel good
about this liver.
So I cancelled the surgery.
And so, panel that really struck me because
her Dua got answered and she felt it.
It's not that somebody gave her that interpretation.
She's like,
I felt the answer of my dua every
single time I woke up with the Hajjina.
I would make dua, I would see it
with like few hours or the same day.
Guide the hearts
of the surgeon. He said I didn't feel
good. And the anesthesiologist is the one that's
giving tafsir,
saying on his own, like this is unusual.
This doctor never does this.
And that gave her the confidence. And this
happened different times, different reasons. And, subhanallah, she's
like, each time that my du'a was getting
answered in these ways,
my faith and my iman was growing in
Allah.
And just yesterday, youth was asking me, I
don't understand du'a. It's confusing, and that makes
him doubt Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. He's like,
I don't understand. Like, things are already supposed
to happen,
and we make Dua for things. So what's
the point of making Dua if things are
already supposed to happen? If Khadar is there,
what's the point?
And so, Panoa, I thought about it and
I shared. I said,
you know, my friend and not and not
to minimize anyone's pain, by the way. This
is not to minimize, but to give you
the example of how she understood.
She made dua for complete shafa.
She didn't get it.
Yet Biman is so high. Why?
Because she understood that that wasn't meant for
her child. Her child, his death was already
written.
Nothing was gonna change it. Go to Texas.
Get delivered. Do this. Try it. She said
we tried all the treatments. Everything. Went to
Boston.
Everything.
Nothing
was going to change the fact Allah had
decreed that her child was gonna die this
at this age.
But her iman was uplifted even though the
greatest dua was not answered. He did not
live.
But Allah was showing her time and time
in the smallest and greatest ways. I'm there.
I'm there. I'm there. Helping us to understand
also through her story.
Yes. I can make dua for something, but
evil can still happen. I'm making dua for
gazah. Why is it not happening?
Allah will
hold everybody responsible that's involved, for example, in
gazah.
There is an afterlife. All those people that
are suffering are going to get rewarded. And
then it's a test for us. Us. What
are we doing to prevent the evil of
other human beings?
What are we doing? We do not feel
the pain of somebody,
you know, losing a child until we go
through that suffering. We don't feel the suffering
of other people who are hungry and starving
until we don't have food, food, or we
don't have electricity,
or we don't have the freedom, or we
don't or we have some type of issue
where somebody's trying to take our home, or
take something from us, or take our car.
You know, whatever it is. We do not
feel the pain. And so perhaps
the tests
and the and and and the existence of
evil is not only
a test for those people who are going
through it, but for the test like people
like us who are watching.
What are we doing to change
in our capacity
to change the evil that is happening? And
of course, I cannot go to Gaza right
now and change what is happening.
Some people are. Some
doctors are going. People are going in terms
of relief. They're going and trying to change
physically. But then we know, and we've hear
all the time in terms of activism, and
I'm sure if you're gonna tell us.
But this concept of
that evil exist because of our own doing,
either personally or the existence of evil in
the world, number 1. Number 2, that there
is still even benefit in that.
We'll talk about that a little bit more.
And then finally, there is a call to
action when we see evil,
Whether it's in our own lives or globally.
SubhanAllah.
So he said, wait a minute. How can
how can evil
or something bad or the death of the
child, how could that be something good? And
that's why prophet said this beautiful hadith cannot
ever say it enough.
Alright. Forget exactly because all of his affairs
are good. Amazing is the affair of the
believer
because all of his affairs are good. And
prophet
he reiterates this point, and it's only for
the moment. It's only for the believer.
You know when we say we're Muslim? And
I'm
paraphrasing the Quran. He says, you know, for
for those bedouins. He says, don't say you
guys are believers. Don't
say Don't say that you have believed. Say
that you have submitted to the will of
Allah, which is good.
But that level of iman to become a
mumin
means you really
accept
and understand Allah
in the way that he works.
And so
the mumin, when you when when you when
you and and in Tonga, all of us
are mukmins, and all of us will always
struggle
to get to that place and maintain that
place. Right? Some of us are on different
journeys in that level of the iman, that's
okay.
But what's amazing is that when good things
happen to him or her, she is grateful
or he is grateful, and that is good
for him.
And when something painful or harmful happens to
him or her, he is patient and that
is good for him or her. And it
is only for the case of the mukman.
So that maybe what's happening in Gaza is
making me pray tahajjud, and I didn't do
that before. And maybe my understanding of the
importance of tahajjud that I developed during the
time of Gaza
will benefit me at a time when maybe
something like that happens personally in my life,
like some other big calamity in my life,
and I will go back and say, so
panel the amount of iman that I felt
during that time when I prayed Hajj, I
should do that again.
The other thing that my friend consistently did
is she constantly prayed is takharah. How many
I mean, she says, love now, you don't
know all the choices you have to make,
you know, when your child goes through something
medically. There's so many choices, and you don't
know. Like, who the heck ever teaches you
that? Oh, you know, one day if this
happens, this happens to you, these are the
thousands of things you're gonna have to think
about.
So that level of communication and trust in
Allah's like I don't know the best. Let
me ask Allah. For so many different decisions,
do we do that on a daily basis?
How many of us engage in but then
we find we kind of fall off of
it sometimes? I know I personally do, and
I was like, oh, Dom, what are you
doing? You're not bringing istikhara.
Even on the smaller things, quote unquote smaller
things.
So these tragedies,
these trials, these tribulations,
whether it's something that we see in other
people or we see in ourselves,
it's preparing us
to constantly fortify our iman, either through good
things that will make us grateful or through
more difficulties that will make us patient.
And that level of reward and that level
of building of iman, we will see the
fruition of it
in this life, but more so in the
next life.
May
accept from us and make us people of
iman and make us people who understand this
concept of suffering and evil and constantly keep
our iman firm
in the oneness of Allah and his power
over everything.
Please, I'd love to see if we have
any questions and answers. I don't know if
we have time.
Love.
Yeah. We're good on time. Okay. Yes.
But a close speaker, I think you've already
done that, Milos. I thought I would award
you. But that's absolutely that's absolutely true.
And that that you what you're saying is
reminding me, I'm inshallah, all of you heard,
what you just said,
that
when we see so much injustice, we almost
don't expect it, and we don't act in
a way that's
that's trying to promote for the justice of
others.
And it and it's it's almost reminding me
of
the the hadith Qudsi in which, Allah
is telling us
that
that the and I'm paraphrasing. I'm sorry. I
don't know why things are not coming together.
But basically,
the believer will see the good in Allah
to the extent Allah will be as the
believer sees.
So when the believer sees that Allah is
just,
and it is my duty to uphold justice,
subhanAllah,
then we're gonna act in that way. But
we'll just become complacent,
whatever. We're just gonna blend into this society,
we're We're just gonna like try to, you
know, hold our head up and, you know,
provide for my own family.
Kind of to heck with everybody else. That's
all I can do. I'm meek.
You know, you know, maybe Allah, you know,
maybe Allah didn't will for us power.
Right? Then you can act in that way.
I I feel like it's both. You you
didn't see justice, so you're not expecting it,
and you're not trying to fight for other
people.
And then you you you it's basically like
an inferiority complex.
We're lesser than. We shouldn't expect much, so
just kinda keep your head down and keep
moving.
But how many times in the Quran does
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say that you should,
command good things and forbid evil? So many
times in the Quran, we are not living
up to the standard of Islam and what
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants for us when
we neglect the injustice that is happening to
people locally and all over the world. So
you're absolutely right. It's evident when you go
to a rally and it's only 1 ethnicity
or it's only 1, you know, a a
group of people there.
So it's time for us to wake up.
And I think that, subhanallah,
the people in Gaza have accepted
that
that the oppressors are gonna meet their ends.
They have they're continuing to fight. They did
not accept defeat. They're continuing to fight to
the last moment.
You know, they're continuing to try to to
share,
spread the word and share what's happening despite
every day that people and their families are
are dying.
And while very men is so high and
they're doing so amazing, the rest of us
are wringing our hands and thinking, like, when
is this gonna end? And Allah's
are we getting the message? Like, what are
you doing to change this? You have the
power and the capacity.
Wake up
and and and increase your.
We're not gonna say this is happening because
you this is your problem, your fault.
But this is happening and you're not doing
anything.
So increase your. Do like the woman did
for her son.
And that guru her iman. Praise the for
things. Hey. Should I go to this rally?
I should should I run for local government?
A lot of times I'm like, oh, I'm
not gonna go into government because I don't
wanna get corrupted. And I used to have
that thought, and I was like, man, we
should run for city council. We should be
going on neighborhood council. You know how easy
it is to win in your neighborhood council?
And do you know how many things you
can affect? And you're like, I'm talking about
like a really low level, okay, of government.
But they say all politics is local. Right?
You know how much you can influence,
you know, what church is able to be
built here, this zoning, this traffic light. That's
justice on an extremely local level, and it's
something really easy to get into. And we
completely block that out of our mind. Oh,
most of them, oh no, we don't do
that.
That's not my problem.
So this extreme test, the test that we've
seen in the Muslim Ummah over and over
and over again,
it's important for us that we,
wake up and say, what is it that
I can do?
What is it that I can do? And
and and to realize that we have so
much more that we're capable of than we
see. Because we see ourselves as less,
and we see it's not our problems. SubhanAllah,
reward
you for that reminder. SubhanAllah.
Anybody else? Any thoughts or questions?
Yes.
Very good. Very good.
The idea when somebody is seeking a position
of power for the sake of the position
of power. Hey. I wanna be important. I
want people to think I'm special.
You know? We get it. There's certain systems
that we, you know, we
we see like, okay, it's like you'll be
chosen because people notice you. But
at work.
Right? You can say, yeah. I can do
this project. I have these capabilities. I have
these qualifications. That's why you applied for a
job. You're saying me me me. I can
do it.
So why is it then that we shy
away? Yes. That's a good that's a good
understanding to have,
to not seek power for the purpose of
power. But when you know you have a
skill within a Muslim organization
or within politics or within an organization at
work, for example,
and you're doing it for the sake of
Allah, which I know our ego can get
in the way and shaitan will always make
us. So we have to have that constant
jihad and that constant battle of the neps
to say, I'm reminding I'm doing this for
the sake of Allah. Yes. I might have
a big title. Yes. I might make money.
Yes. I might become famous.
But this is for the sake of Allah.
This is the true,
this is truly rewardable by Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, and we shouldn't shy away from it.
So if that makes sense, we're not seeking
power for the sake of it. Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
It's gonna be really hard.
So inshallah with that I close. I really
ask that
Allah guides us
to always,
do the right things, to be involved, and
to remove justice from our societies injustice, I'm
sorry, from our societies, from our families,
from our communities, from our organizations,
from our from our ummah. And may Allah
make us people of. May we be firm
in our deen, firm in our understanding,
and may we seek refuge in Allah in,
in Shaitan from the constant
battle that he is going to engage us
in and creating doubts
and creating confusion.
Thank you.