Mufti Menk – Dealing with Difficulty #28 Cancel Culture
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the cancel culture, which is designed to eliminate people who do things they don't like or do wrong. They stress the importance of giving people the benefits of the doubt to believe it is a genuine mistake and caution against letting people go back into a certain space. The speaker also discusses the difficulty of dealing with people who have caused harm to people and the importance of peace and helping people to turn back to Islam. The speaker emphasizes the need for greater maturity and a positive environment for everyone to live their lives.
AI: Summary ©
The cancel culture, what is it?
When someone does something
wrong or
they were misunderstood
even though they did not do something wrong
or they did something we don't like.
At times, they may have made a mistake
or committed a sin,
or sometimes they may have been exposed.
All of these reasons and even more reasons
people come about and want to obliterate these
guys,
remove them from social media,
take them out of existence, never to hear
from them again. Never allow them to come
up again. That's it. Canceled.
We don't want you. We don't want you
to come up again. We don't want to
hear of you. We don't want you to
be given a chance to be heard ever
again.
And you just be careful because we're all
out there to more you to the ground.
That's a cancel culture.
They cancel people
for many reasons. Now I want to ask
you a question.
Do you think it's fair to cancel people?
My brothers and sisters, it obviously
depends what exactly it is, but you need
to know
giving the person the benefit of the doubt
is your religious
duty.
Religious duty. Another thing, sometimes if a person
is repentant,
give them the benefit of the doubt to
believe
that that repentance is genuine.
The cancel culture, the difficulty surrounding it is
from more than one angle. 1 is
those being canceled, which we will get to
in a moment.
But more than that is those doing the
cancelling.
You're not a saint either.
So remember,
if you want to say what's right and
wrong, do so by all means. If you
want to clarify things, do so by all
means. If you want to say something,
do so by all means, but do not,
or try to avoid
hurting someone to the degree where you want
to mold them out of existence.
Especially
when they don't deserve it.
Have you given them the benefit of the
doubt? Have you thought about it? If your
son
or your daughter
were to make a mistake, is that the
end of them completely?
When Allah tells you you've committed a major
sin, you have the chance to repent and
come back and inshallah, we will forgive you
and we've prepared paradise for you. Those are
verses
Those who have committed immorality,
talking about adultery, fornication and so on, or
they've wronged themselves with major sin.
Allah almighty says, if they remember Allah
and they
sought forgiveness for their sin and they don't
repeat what they've done
or they don't continue in what they were
in,
then Allah says, we will forgive them, and
those are the people
that we have prepared paradise for. Okay?
So with us as human beings, sometimes you
find people,
sometimes popular people, not so popular people, people
who have a coping mechanism of lovely solid
people around them, and some people don't.
They've come up or they're still trying to
come up, be they revert, be they someone
else, and, you know, they are known for
decent things and so on. One day, they
go through a challenge.
Be it a divorce, be it something they
might have been exposed for something.
Yes. It might be hurtful. Yes. People will
gossip, which is Haram. People will backbite, which
is also Haram.
People will engage in their lives in a
negative way, which is also Haram. But
there are some people who respectfully would put
across, look, this has happened. This has happened.
Therefore, be careful. My brothers and sisters look
at this and look at that.
Does it mean that that particular person
is never allowed to come back into any
space again. And who decided that?
That's something very interesting. So we that difficulty
is a difficulty that's gonna be dealt with.
We're going to have to deal with it.
If you're a person who was canceled, remember
the world out there is not fair. It's
not just. If it was just,
what's happening to the Palestinian brothers and sisters
would never have happened.
That is evidence
that the world is filled with the biggest
of injustices. And if you're expecting justice,
you will not
find
total
justice.
That's the nature of the world. It is
unjust.
There may be pockets of justice here and
there. Otherwise, just by witnessing what's going on
across the world,
you know that it's unfair.
If the world was fair, we wouldn't need
a day of judgment.
But because the world is so unfair, Allah
has kept a day of ultimate
judgement.
May Allah make it easy for us on
that day.
You have to give people a chance. There
are people who've sinned and come back very
strong. No one knew about their sins. Just
because you found out about the sin doesn't
make
doesn't make them people who are no longer
allowed to live. No. Imagine your son or
your daughter
happened to make a mistake, do something wrong,
and suddenly no one wants to allow them
into the Masjid, no one wants to allow
them anywhere near, they can't talk to the
scholars, they're not allowed to seek help, they
must just die. Why?
But that's what we're doing to some people.
As a father
and a person who cares insha Allah for
the ummah,
I always see people who are struggling.
Try to reach out to them and talk
to them. What's going on? Come, let me
help you. Let's see how best we can
assist in this thing and that thing. And
others would probably get a shock. What are
you doing talking to this person?
Well, why not? As a father, if that
was my child or that was my sibling,
surely I would care for them.
So we need to have greater maturity
in this,
otherwise we're heading in the wrong direction.
Yes. To warn people of the harms of
something is one thing,
but to, to really rip through someone
completely to the end
where just because of a sin they committed,
which is which was major, but they repented
clearly. If they haven't and they're promoting the
sin and so on, it's different. You can
let people know, look, watch out for this.
But if it's not, what do you do?
Similarly, on the other hand, if you're a
victim,
like I said, remember the world is not
just number 1. Number 2, don't expect people
to support you.
You have to turn to Allah. You have
to make the most of whatever there is.
You might have to lay low a little
bit. You might find pockets of people who
may help. You might find people trying to
take advantage of you. You might find people
who
would really hate you.
People who don't even know you would really
hate you because they do not know any
better.
I mean, if the best of the best,
the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had
people who didn't like him.
They went to war with him. They did
nasty things to him. Who are you and
I? We are nobodies.
May Allah Almighty guide us to the straight
path.
So
at times, what happens is
people lose focus. You're a believer. You're supposed
to be worried about others.
If a person came to the Masjid and
urinated
at the time of the prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, the Sahaba almost cancelled him.
But the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
says, no, don't, don't cancel him. Meaning don't
even talk to him this way.
And don't,
admonish him in this way,
but rather he spoke to him with love.
He corrected him. He gave him a chance.
And this man says, oh, I understand, and
I'm sorry, and I won't do this again.
Oh, Allah have mercy on me and Muhammad,
peace be upon him. Don't have mercy on
these others. And the Prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, corrected him again to say you
can't say that because the mercy of Allah
encompasses everyone.
In fact, the same words, the mercy of
Allah encompasses everyone. It's very broad and encompassing
Would actually fit
to describe those at times when we're trying
to cancel.
May Allah Almighty help us. The social media
is not an easy place.
Social media to navigate through social media is
very difficult.
As you grow in popularity, you will face
a lot of weird people saying a lot
of weird things.
It's okay. Take it in your stride. Lay
low, perhaps. Or if you're strong enough, keep
going.
Allah Almighty will grant you that success.
Don't worry, the days are difficult, but with
the help of Allah, he grants you successes
through those difficulties and challenges, and he still
gives
you more than you can imagine. May Allah
bless you all and protect us all. Protect
us from being those who cancel others and
from being the ones who are canceled.
May Allah safeguard us from shaitan and help
us to turn back to him always. I
mean, turn back to Allah.