Omar Suleiman – How Do I Stand Against Evil When ItS Mainstream
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of affirming the reward of sticking to the truth during difficult times. They stress that people should embrace the challenge by knowing the reward and learning the reward. The speaker also discusses the impact of COVID-19 on people's faith inquiry and how it has changed people's views of Islam.AI: Transcript ©
So one of the questions,
raised,
is asking, so what do you do when
evil is a mainstream,
basically flavor of the day?
It's everywhere. You see it everywhere. You try
and combat it, but it's so prevalent that
it's difficult,
to actually try and stand up against it.
You know,
you have to think of the greater incentive.
Allah says those who embrace the message early
on, who
struggled, who strove, who spent
blood, sweat, and tears, and wealth,
at a time when it was unpopular,
are not like those who came afterwards.
Everyone has their individual reward, but those who
struggle
when it is most inconvenient, those who uphold
truth,
when it is most inconvenient to uphold truth,
are those who are rewarded the most. And
so, as people,
we have to embrace the challenge
by
affirming the reward.
What's the reward of sticking to the truth?
If you're the only person doing so.
That means that just as you affirm the
truth, even if you are alone, you will
be rewarded in an exclusionary and special manner
on the day of judgement.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will reward you accordingly.
And so you have to think about the
reward of it. Now here's the thing, many
people
prefer
comfortable ignorance
over uncomfortable clarity.
Comfortable ignorance over uncomfortable clarity. I'd rather not
know. It's like when someone asks me a
question, Is this Haram Sheikh? And if I
say it's Haram, just have to be like,
do you want me to really answer that
question?
If I tell you it's Haram, are you
actually going to abide by it? Or are
you just going to go find another Sheikh
and ask him, Until you get the answer
that you're looking for.
Right? So a lot of people will be
like, I don't want to know what's actually
impermissible or what's permissible because it it might
be an inconvenience
for me. I'd rather
instead go with the mainstream.
The majority of people want to go with
the majority,
but we as believers want to be from
Al Khalil, from the few.
When Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was walking around
the cabin, he heard a man making dua,
Allahumma jalim minalqaleeb. Oh Allah, make me from
the few. So what kind of dua is
this?
He said that, doesn't Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
say,
Only a few of my servants are gonna
be grateful.
And he said, SubhanAllah. Everyone is
more knowledgeable than Umar. Everybody gets it but
me. Right? What a beautiful answer. So we
take
pride, not kibr. Pride
in being amongst the few who are grateful,
who are humble, who are
pursuing the truth, and seeking to be sincere,
and seeking to be fast, and we're humbled
by that reality that Allah has made it
clear to us even when
there are many many ways
of misguidance, and there's an incentive
to follow
erroneous ways of error around us. So
embrace the challenge by knowing the reward. Embrace
the challenge by knowing the reward. And know,
by the way, that when you stick to
the truth, despite the difficult storm,
eventually you'll find other truth seekers that will
join you in your cause. This is the
sunnah of Allah
It starts off really really really hard and
eventually
the mainstream is impacted by you.
Because you refused to succumb
to the mainstream.
Eventually, people will search what is real. I'll
share this mamhallah with covid. So we saw
2 waves of people embracing Islam. Covid and
Gaza.
Covid and razzah.
At Yaqeen Institute, we actually study
inquiries of faith. We actually look online. We
do data studies as to what are searching
about religion, what people are searching about faith,
what people are searching about Islam.
We saw the inquiries completely change in 2020.
It went from very Islamophobic
questions, to people actually asking, Is Islam a
solution to my seclusion? To my loneliness? To
my emptiness?
People stopped looking at Islam with suspicion. They
started looking at it as a possible solution.
Faith inquiry changed. Because at the end of
the day, when I needed something real to
to lean on,
I wasn't finding it fulfilling
in any other product.
Islam offers me something that I can actually
lean on, that I can find meaning on.
It's not polemical. It's purposeful. It's something that
I can actually find nourishment in. At the
end of the day, when people face real
challenges, they're going to look for real solutions.
And they will find that Islam, the truth,
despite all of its inconveniences offers clarity.
And in that clarity there's conviction. And in
that conviction,
there's the comfort of knowing that you are
upon the side which Allah
will favor. May Allah make us a people
who are not deluded, and make us a
people who are sincerely upon truth.
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