Nadim Bashir – Community Ethics – Always Verify Information – Surah Hujurat Tafsir Verse 6
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss Jesus's marriages with Bani Al Must offline and the importance of following proper rules in disputes to avoid regret. They emphasize the importance of learning from past experiences and listening to both parties. The speakers also emphasize the need for more transparency and knowledge in disputes, while reminding people to stay quiet and react until evidence is accumulated.
AI: Summary ©
This is, we are continuing with the tafsir.
We are in ayah number 6, And this
is a very well known aya. In fact,
one of the most
one of the most often,
discussed aya's in this Surah.
And because there's a very remarkable story behind
this aya, and there's a lot of things
that we can learn and that are, that
can be derived. A lot of that can
be derived from this ayah.
This is ayah number 6. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says,
Oh you people who believe.
If there comes to you any kind of
news,
then Allah says,
Do your due diligence,
inquire about it.
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
In case you are wrong to others.
Unless,
in case you are wrong to others
unwittingly. Mean that you do not do it
intentionally
because you did it out of ignorance.
And perhaps later on you will be regretful
over your actions.
Now what is this ayamim? So we have
to go back again once. Again, the bat
we go back to the life of the
prophet
to understand this ayah. This is after the,
the battle or the expedition of Bani al
Mustalak.
And after the expedition was over,
as usual, the people, you know, men and
women, they became prisoners of war, and they
were distributed amongst the Muslims.
At that time, Rasulullah
he married
the
opposing leader's daughter, and her name was
After he married Joaida
the
the prophet he gave to
the opposition leader. His name was Harith ibn
Dra'l. So he gave him to Islam, he
converted to Islam. When the sahaba saw that
the prophet
has married within the opposition,
and not only that, but he the opposition
leader has become a Muslim,
they themselves,
they let go of all the prisoners of
war. Now, by the way, one thing I
have to mention is, when we talk about
the marriages of Rasulullah
it was Many people they say that the
prophet alaihi wasallam, he got married to so
many women
out of his own lust and desire, and
that is not true.
In fact, if this man,
for argument's sake, if this man was, let's
just say after his lust and desire,
then why do you think he married a
woman
who was almost 15 years older than him?
Think about it for a moment. If he
was truly after his desire,
he was 25
when Khadija
was so much older than him. This shows
that this was not a man who was
after his desire.
In fact, we also learn from the cases
like Jawaria,
That Allah times in order to bring peace
to the communities,
in order to bring peace
within the the new comers, the prophet
sometimes he would marry
within them to bring some kind of peace.
So we find with all the all the
marriages of
that they were either inspired by Allah
like in the case of Aisha
Or a lot of times in order to
bring peace, in order to connect with the
other tribes, the prophet
he will get married. Anyway, coming back to
the story.
Made a commitment to the prophet
that you send a messenger of yours on
a yearly basis,
and I, as a community leader, I will
collect everyone's
and I will present it to your messenger,
whoever you send, and they you can distribute
the accordingly.
So 1 year comes around, hadith ibn Durar
as usual, based on his commitment,
he collects everyone's zakat.
Now,
on one end, Rasul
he is preparing, and he's trying to find
someone, and he finds
Walid ibn Akbar. He says, I want you
to go to the tribe,
tribe of Bay Al Mustalak,
and go there and collect this year's zakat.
Now, there are 2 different versions to this
story. The first version
says
that was
waiting
for that person to be sent by Rasulullah
There But there was
some type of delay
on the part of the prophet
perhaps.
And Walid ibn Uqba did not come in
the appropriate time, as he was expecting.
So Harith ibn Durar and his entire tribe,
they left their area,
and they were coming towards Madinah.
And Walid saw
that these people have left their area, and
they're coming. Now, something important to note here,
because this is part of the story. If
you go back to the times of Jahiliya,
tribe,
and the tribe of Bani al Mustaliq,
they were at some serious odds. They were
They did not like each other.
So, keeping that Jahiliyah's,
you know, mindset,
mean that the relationship from the Jahiliyah times
in mind, they're still aware of that. When
Waleed came,
and he saw that these people have left,
and they're coming to his way,
he went to Rasulullah
and all he said was that, You Rasulullah,
these people, they have refused to pay their
zakat.
And they are out to kill me. Because
once again, he's thinking that from the Jahiliyah
times, our tribes were at odds.
Therefore, they're leaving. They're coming my way. They
perhaps wanna kill me. And he went to
the prophet and he gave this false
information.
At that time, Rasul
he sent a person that no one is
gonna mess with. Khalbin Walid. Okay? No one's
gonna mess with Khaleem Walid. So he says,
to Khaleem Walid, I want you to go
and find out what's going on. When Khaleem
Walid was on the way to that tribe,
he met Harith ibn Deraar. And Harith ibn
Deraar said to Khaleem Walid, Where are you
going?
Khaleem Walid said that, I'm coming your way.
I'm heading your way. He says,
Why? He says, You refuse to pay your
zakat. He goes, We did not refuse to
pay our zakat. In fact, we did connect
our zakat. We was wait we were waiting
for a messenger from the prophet
to come and collect the zakat, but that
person never came. That is one one version.
The second version is similar, that he came
all the way there, and when they came
out to the outskirts of the city, he
seeing that he went back and said that
these people have refused to pay their zakat.
Anyway,
in both cases, Rasulullah
when he heard this,
and he could have taken some serious action
against them, that is when this ayah was
revealed.
When there comes to you any kind of
news, when someone informs you of something,
you cannot take action right away
without doing your due diligence.
Because if a person does take action
without due diligence,
without inquiry,
without investigation,
without research,
then perhaps they will do something that they
will be regretful about it later on.
This is what the ayah is saying. And
as you all know that there are different
of the Quran,
this the one that we often recite, haf
bin aasim, haf'sa anaasim.
It is,
and to see buqomam bijayatin fatabayinu.
Fatabayinu
comes with the word bayina. Bayina
means clear evidence. Meaning that whenever you do
your investigation,
you have to come across some very
clear,
tangible evidence
in order to make a ruling in a
situation.
When someone comes to you, and they give
you some news, some information,
they tell you about something
till you don't have clear evidence about anything,
you cannot take that person's word, and you
have to do your due diligence. And another
the word instead of
is
also means making sure that something is absolutely
firm. The daleel is absolutely firm. And once
again, why did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tell
us to go through this process? Because a
lot of times we may act in an
in an ignorant manner,
and hence the results will be very,
will be very negative. Now, the the most
important thing I would say that is to
be learned from this is,
This happens often with many of us. Someone
comes to you and says, did you hear
someone say something about this? Or did you
hear this? I've had people come to me
and say, oh, did you Imam, did you
hear what was said on the mimbar? Do
you hear what the what the khateb said?
And it was completely wrong and so forth.
And of course the human nature says, let
me react right away. But subhanallah, we have
to always,
whenever
someone tells us anything
without
us reacting, we have to tell them that
I need to go back, and I need
to see the evidence. And not only that,
but I need to listen to both sides
of the story. I need to sit down
with both parties, and hear them out. And
that is why
in our deen, especially when it comes to,
you know, matters that are of dispute,
it is very important that we keep in
mind, there's a very important rule and principle
within our deen, and that is,
Which means, in English,
that the person who is the plaintiff Okay?
So for example, if I'm claiming, for example
Hakam,
brother Hakam here. He has done something wrong
to me. That makes me the plaintiff.
That makes brother Hakam the defendant. He's defending
himself from the claim that has come to
him.
As a
I'm the one who's making the claim, I
have to provide the evidence. You understand?
I have to provide tangible evidence,
and if I cannot provide tangible evidence, then
The person who is the defendant, in this
case brother Haqqah, he being the defendant, if
he swears upon Allah
that I have not done anything in this
kind of situation,
then he is absolved, and this entire case
is dismissed.
This is how things work.
Unfortunately
unfortunately,
in our community,
in our society,
that is no longer the case.
And let me be very
honest and truth
to be very truthful about this matter. In
our community today,
the basis
of some news
being,
being acceptable
or not.
Or how do we decide in our community
who's guilty is who Who's innocent?
Wallahi, unfortunately today,
it has come down to gender.
A woman
cries out foul play, subhanallah, everyone drops everything,
she is the victim.
Okay. This happens.
And we see that a lot of times
the man could be the Madloom.
And in this case,
when the man says something,
everyone is quiet. Now, yes. There are cases
where the man is the violent. I've come
across many cases like this too. And truly
the woman is a
There are many cases like this. There are
many and tons of cases like this. But
the point I'm trying to make is,
our decision,
the who's right and who's wrong, who's guilty
and who's innocent cannot be based on gender.
This is what's happening in our society,
unfortunately.
It is based on evidence.
It is based on proof. It is based
on Dalil.
You make a claim, and you don't have
any proper tangible evidence. And by the way,
even if you go to a court of
law of today, right now,
there are some certain kind of evidences that
are simply not acceptable anymore.
When you talk about text messages and so
forth, in some courts, they're no longer admissible
in a in a court of law. Why?
Because of photoshop,
because of AI, even recording sometimes
can be can be, compromised.
So the thing is, the point The most
important thing is that when someone comes to
you with any kind of news,
be a man, be a woman, then in
that case instead of us reacting,
instead of us saying, he's wrong, she's wrong.
He's right, she's right. It is important that
we look at the evidence. And a person
has to do their due diligence. Now, if
you don't even have the time to do
your due diligence,
and you don't know the whole story,
then it is always better. It is Asan
to stay quiet. Simple as that. I'll give
you some very imp You know, just very,
practical examples. There are times in our Muslim
community, when a person, a Muslim person, man
or woman, they get arrested. And subhanallah,
there's so many rumors, there's so much news,
there's so many things spreading within the Muslim
community. And in a situation when I don't
know, when there's not enough evidence
to say who's right and who's wrong, it
is not allowed for anyone to say
they are right and they are wrong. We
cannot We're not in that position. How do
we know that? Again, from another story of
Rasulullah alaihi wa sallam known as the
the slander against our mother
Aisha If you look at that story, you
have the who
made a claim against our mother,
And it was Aisha's word against their word.
Was there any evidence,
any of that type.
There was no evidence.
And because there was no evidence,
this was the dilemma for Rasulullah alaihi wa
sallam. That here the Munafiqun are making a
claim against my wife, my wife is making
a claim against them. Is one's word against
another Another person's word? Yes, there are many
many others who used to be around
Aisha They testified
to the innocence of our mother Aisha
But that is
why
at the very end, he kept on staying
quiet in this matter. And he kept on
collecting evidences.
Kept on talking to others. And at the
end, what did he do? He went to
our mother Aisha
and said
that if you have truly committed this sin,
then make tawbah to Allah
And if you have not, then you have
nothing to worry about. And that is when
Allah
sent down the revelation,
exonerating
our mother Aisha of any wrongdoing.
And that is where, of course, everything became
very very clear. But you have to ask
yourself,
what was the situation of the prophet
before those ayah came down? Whatever happens in
our Muslim community, this is why this aya
is revealed and put in this surah because
this surah talks about communal ethics. It talks
about how to manage your affairs in a
community.
So when there is something that is spreading
around, and I don't know all the details,
I don't have all the details
to say that he is guilty, or she
is guilty, or he's innocent, or she's innocent.
Wallahi, it is wrong.
We don't have a claim. We should not
be saying anything till I have not seen
all the evidence. Yes. There might be some
who have seen all the evidence. But if
I don't know all the evidence, I've not
sat down with both parties, I don't see
everything in front of me, I cannot make
a judgment in that matter. Because a lot
of times those judgments
are gonna be based on jahala,
they're gonna be based on ignorance,
and as a result, when we make a
judgment based on ignorance, then we have to
answer to Allah
in the day of judgement. So this is
how we manage these kind of things when
it comes to our Muslim community. I ask
Allah
to keep the peace in our Muslim community.
We ask Allah
to grant us the tawfiq to handle our
affairs based on the Quran and the sunnah
of Rasulullah