Orlando Shooting, Response by Nouman Ali Khan
June 15, 2016
Somebody recently agreed to lock that and Melissa Hokulea hamdu Lillah wa salatu salam ala alihi wa sahbihi
wa once again everyone salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. The intention today is to try to cover three, ir 2122 and 23. But before I do, I'd like to take a few minutes to address just some of what has occurred. I think all of you have been following the news of the senseless violence and this horrifying tragedy that has hit the entire country, by extension the world, and in particular, the Muslim community yet again,
you know, first and foremost, just some things need to be said, just to clear the air. Our Deen is unconditional when it comes to the sanctity of all human life. And there is no exception to this. As a matter of fact, some of our iron mine are llama, they posted on their social media feeds, that they are against this senseless act of violence, no matter who it's committed against, because all human beings have a right to life and the sanctity of life is something our Deen acknowledges without conditions. And as they posted this, they were actually lots of responses from other supposedly Muslims, how can you say this, these people deserve to be killed, etc, etc, all kinds of
horrible things were said, underneath. So that made me realize that, you know, in this even in this comments that I want to share with you, we need to be cognizant of two things. We have two audiences, an audience that is non Muslim, that perhaps is tuning in on Facebook or other, you know, other outlets, and they have to hear what we have to say, as Muslims to the situation. And the other audience are the Muslims themselves, right? There are two distinct audiences. And a lot of times we think a lot about what should we say to, you know, to ease the pain and the difficulty of the rest of the nation, the non Muslim community, that, you know, we are a part of the society and the
Society of the world. And so they're they've developed a lot of questions about, you know, the kinds of questions that are raised in the media to use this as an incident, to instigate the idea that Islam is somehow responsible for this, right. And it is made the center of the conversation. And so it, you know, they, they do want to hear from us, they want to hear what we have to say, as Muslims. And when that happens, a lot of times, we're just interested in kind of good PR, and kind of giving a politically correct statement and saying that, you know, we're against this well, first and foremost, we should understand that this is, you know, without whether there was no non Muslim
listening to this, or all of them, were listening to this, the deen of Allah doesn't change. This religion is what we believe it is. Its revelation from Allah. And when it comes to this religion, whoever violates it, whether they're Muslim or not, they've committed a crime. And this is a crime and there's no other way of looking at it. And that's actually not even something subject of debate or open for discussion. It's not it's completely unconditionally across the board. And the only people who can argue in that favor, are people that are absolutely ignorant of even some of the most fundamental principles of our Deen. And certainly, I wouldn't call them by any stretch of the
imagination, students of Allah's book, that can't happen, you can't be a student of this Koran and come to that conclusion that killing innocent people of any whatever sin you think they're doing that that's okay for you to kill them, that just doesn't come up come out as a conclusion from any level of serious study of this book. So, although there are many things that can be said, and should be said, I'm not in a, I'm not qualified to certainly speak across every facet of this problem, because this is a complicated problem. I will say one thing, that one part of this problem, and that one part that I want to try to talk to you about is not the entire problem, but certainly is a piece
of the puzzle. And that piece of the puzzle is how are you know, you know, you can blame media, you can blame, you know, conspiracy theory, you can do all kinds of salute, you know, come up with all kinds of rationales for why this kind of stuff happens. The fact of the matter is, there is a growing population of young Muslims that are turning towards the religion, genuinely, they want to learn more about Islam. They've made Toba from their previous lifestyle, and they want to become religious and better, and they're going online to find their religion. Because nowadays, the way to find anything is to go online. And groups that promote senseless killing in the name of Islam have a
very sophisticated, very powerful social media and production machinery. They rival Hollywood, they're very, very good at what they do. There are studies on how sophisticated their marketing is targeted specifically to young people that are looking for a religious education. So that the first exposure to religion these susceptible young people get is their version of Islam. You know, when a young man for example, just to put this it closer to reality, a young man who wasn't very religious at all the month of Ramadan comes and it's something hits as hard to hear as a football or something, man, I gotta change. I gotta become a better Muslim. And he starts googling stuff and
YouTubing stuff and, you know, going on Facebook to find stuff and he finds crazy stuff first, because they've developed the machinery to be the first few hits. You see what I'm saying. And now the
Get roped up into, well, if you really want to be a true Muslim, then you have to do jihad and to do jihad, you have to kill people around you. Otherwise you Romanov if you're a hypocrite anybody else who speaks otherwise is a hypocrite themselves. They're all sellouts. And they're they're basically not even Muslim. So the first thing that is fed to them is everybody else, even in the rest of the Muslim community are monastic, there's good a scaffold anyway. So it doesn't matter what they have to say. So first, you cut these young people off from their own community, from their own family. And then it's easy now to manipulate them and fill all kinds of hatred in them. And you know, the
what do we do about this problem, because it is a war of ideas. This is a battle for the identity of Islam itself, those young people that that fall into these traps, because of low self esteem, depression, psychological disorders, whatever it may be, but the ones that do fall into these traps, and these incidents occur time and time and time again, when this happens, we we have to take a step back and say, What is the long term solution to this problem? because well, like even you and I started thinking about a short term solution, you and I are in agreement, there isn't one there. I mean, this is not going to get solved tomorrow, you know, and we're holding our breath, May Allah
not have another incident happened, but we're holding our breath. Because every few months, there's something else, right. But we have to now think about the long term solution. And the long term solution is to actually redirect young people's minds towards a healthy understanding of this religion, a comprehensive, unapologetic, and a healthy understanding of this religion, because until the day of judgment, there are going to be young people that are going to turn towards the stuff that's effect, they're gonna, they're gonna come from every walk of life, some of them are going to convert to Islam, some of them are going to come from Muslim families that weren't very religious
and became religious later on. And they're going to try to find out stuff about Islam, and the place the playing field, and the the space where they're going to find their Islam is going to be online, and it's going to be in the media, the open social media that's accessible to the entire world. And if we don't win this battle on that space, if we don't provide a healthier alternative in that space, and we don't provide not just a healthier alternative, a more powerful alternative, something that a young mind hears, and they learn not just to accept a religion, but to think for themselves to criticize, to not be manipulated, because at the end of the day, all this is is a kind of
manipulation in the name of religion. That's all it is. These you know, these poor souls are duped, you know, they're played into, and I've had the opportunity on many occasions to meet young people that have been hypnotized in one way or the other. And just after a couple of hours of deconstructing their sick thinking, they realize how they were taken for a ride, how they were manipulated in the name of a song, they don't even realize it when it's being done to them. Well, we have to be smart enough to not only know that that's being done to them, but to provide a healthy alternative, and not fall into the trap of refutation. The idea here isn't that we're going to
condemn this group or that group or the other group because you know what, that's what they want. They're waiting. They're very artistic. They've trained their followers to say, watch, they're gonna condemn us. And that just legitimizes you even more. They want attention. That's what they want, and what they can stand as an alternative. Because an alternative takes attention away from them. These these groups and these entities, all they feed off of his attention, all they see and they that's what they train their followers to do is to say, watch, this is going to happen, and now they're going to speak against us and when they speak against us told you that when African will speak, you
know the hypocritical speak, that's that's their mentality, and that's how they're cultivated. So this is something that we as an oma have to take responsibility for that until in normalized a healthy, a solid education of this Deen is not available at a mass level that is accessible to young audiences all over the world. Until then, young, susceptible minds are in danger. They are in fact in danger. And that is something that we all have to take responsibility in milazzo to help us overcome this challenge and realize, Oh, well, you know, give the oma steadfastness that we can stand by the principles of our Deen and yet even when it comes to calling if people that represent
our faith in the law, they don't represent us. Another Muslim commits a crime I didn't do a crime. My family didn't do a crime. My children didn't commit a crime somebody else in the name of Islam did this crime but you know, the the reality of perception is the entire Muslim communities held on trial. Were the ones that have to explain ourselves for someone we don't even know or represent in any way shape or form. But regardless, we do have to take responsibility at least for how the deen is taught. And when the deen is being used to poison minds, the corruption of the deen is being used to poison minds, then it becomes the responsibility of this oh my to stand up for this day no matter
what the cost. And no matter what the consequences, you know, and this it's going to require a lot of courage on our part, but it's absolutely necessary. May Allah azza wa jal make a steadfast once again, and our our our thoughts and our prayers are to the families of the you know, and the loved ones of those who've lost their lives, Muslim or non Muslim Allah azza wa jal honored all children of Adam woollacott kharbanda Bani Adam sins and you know good deeds and baddies and share canto Hayden all of that aside, the children of Adam are the children of Adam
At the end of the day, and when Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam prayed, he prayed for all of them. When he made the out when he was building the Kaaba, he said my friend, you know, Laban described him metabo tellin nassima he was hoping that this would be a service. This is a place that all of humanity will have affiliation with, when the when the angels came to destroy the Nation of Islam, who argued on their behalf. Ibrahim alayhi salam, he didn't say all those people that deserve to be killed. Go, go go please. Actually, why didn't you bring more angels to destroy them? First, he didn't do that. He didn't have to call me loot. Quran says he argued on behalf of those people. Why? And we call
ourselves the religion of Ibrahim alayhis salam. So let's go back to the principles of Abraham at a certain concern for all humanity, instead of a condemnation of all humanity may allow us origin guide us in any case, let's begin.
Orlando Shooting, Response by Nouman Ali Khan
June 15, 2016