Omar Suleiman – How Omar Ibn Al Khattab – ra Established A Culture of Righteous Governance
AI: Summary ©
The Prophet's comments on the rainbow and the importance of justice in public behavior have been discussed, as well as the rise of Hakeem and the importance of protecting the Muslim population. The Prophet's words also reminded people of the importance of being a leader and learning from history, as well as the need for strong presence in local communities to ensure the protection of the Muslim population. The importance of protecting people and not letting them go after is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
So I actually want to, as we pick
up now with the story of Umar radiyallahu
ta'ala anhu, what I'd like to do
is actually compare not styles but circumstances and
to sort of understand better how these two
would be looked at in the spectrum of
how things are unfolding.
Number one, you know, the saying, the title
of the session about Umar radiyallahu ta'ala
anhu.
Umar is the companion that everybody falls in
love with.
Everybody wants to be, everyone looks at Umar
and says, I'm going to be that guy.
And he just has such a story to
him, alhamdulillah, that's very profound.
And truly Allah put the love of Umar
in the hearts of people, where you read
about him and you feel an instant connection
to him.
And the thing is, is that the standard
of justice that he set was absolutely remarkable.
And the character of his is so distinguished
to where once you get to know Umar
radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, through his character, then
even his harsh moments become endearing, because you
start to realize what place Umar radiyallahu ta
'ala anhu acts from.
The story of the saying that is a
line of poetry about Umar, it's a very
famous incident where Hormuzan, who was one of
the leaders of Persia, is in Medina, and
he asks where Amir al-Mu'minin is, where
the leader, the commander of the believers is.
And his idea is that this is going
to be a very pompous man.
The name of Umar radiyallahu anhu has spread
throughout the world.
And the greatest quality of Umar radiyallahu ta
'ala anhu, or that which is associated with
him is a sense of power.
And the Persians, their emperors were very pompous.
They lived in huge palaces, they had very
lavish things.
And so the idea was, you know, I
wonder what type of palace this great khalifa
Umar al-Khattab radiyallahu anhu lives in.
I wonder what type of a person he
is, I wonder what type of things he
possesses.
So he comes into Medina and he asks
to see Umar, may Allah be pleased with
him.
So they go first to the house of
Umar, and they don't find him there.
They then go to the masjid, and they
don't find him there.
And then they find the most powerful man
in the world at the time, sleeping out
in the open under a tree with his
shoes under his head, and one leg on
top of the other.
And he is taking the nap of his
life with no bodyguards whatsoever, just out in
the open.
And, you know, think about any head of
state right now, taking a nap out in
the open with no bodyguards under a tree,
and not having to worry about themselves.
That's very special that Umar radiyallahu anhu had
set that type of environment.
And, you know, the Persian rulers were very
used to lots of bodyguards.
And as you would see, particularly the hyperparanoia,
the way that the average Persian kingdom would
last about three months, once, you know, once
the time of Umar radiyallahu anhu stops, it's
rebellion after, or starts, it's rebellion after rebellion
after rebellion.
This person kills this person, this person kills
this person, this person overthrows this person.
So the idea of the most powerful man
in the world, sleeping out in the open
with no worries and no concerns in the
world, was just mind-blowing to him.
And so he made that statement, حَكَمْتَ فَعَدَلْتَ
فَأَمِنْتَ فَنِمْتَ حَكَمْتَ, you ruled.
فَعَدَلْتَ, you ruled with justice.
فَأَمِنْتَ, and so God bestowed upon you a
great sense of security.
فَنِمْتَ, and so you were able to sleep
out in the open.
So again, حَكَمْتَ, you ruled.
فَعَدَلْتَ, and you ruled with justice.
And because you ruled with justice, أَمِنْتَ, Allah
gave you a great sense of security.
فَنِمْتَ, and so you were able to sleep
out in the open in this way.
And the description of Umar, may Allah be
pleased with him, actually when he entered into
Jerusalem without shedding a single drop of blood,
one of the patriarchs said to him that,
we read that the keys of Jerusalem would
be given to a man حَاكِمًا عَادِلًا, a
just ruler, a just ruler.
And so the best way to describe Umar
رضي الله تعالى عنه is as a just
ruler.
And the great gem of that is that
the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم mentioned that
the very first person, I'm sorry, the person
from the seven categories, the first person mentioned
in the hadith of the seven categories of
those who are shaded by the throne of
Allah سبحانه وتعالى on the day of judgment
is what?
First person is a just ruler.
And so that represents security and safety in
the hereafter that you're under the shade of
Allah سبحانه وتعالى's throne.
And that description is literally the description of
Umar رضي الله تعالى عنه.
There's no person in history who you can
find just ruler identifying more with than Umar,
may Allah be pleased with him.
And so he has a great sense of
security, not just in this life, but in
the hereafter as well.
And one of the things that's very important
to take from here is that the most
beloved quality of Allah سبحانه وتعالى or attribute
of Allah is what?
Close.
What's the most beloved attribute of Allah?
Mercy.
But the description here that's given is not
a merciful ruler, but a just ruler.
And it gives you some pause for reflection
that it's not a merciful ruler, a just
ruler.
Even though رحمة ارحموا من في الارض ارحمكم
من في السماء Have mercy to those on
this earth and the one who is in
the heavens will have mercy upon you.
And the way that some of the scholars
mentioned that is one of the reasons why
or the reason why it's not a merciful
ruler, but a just ruler is that even
though mercy is Allah's most beloved traits, without
justice, mercy cannot prevail.
Without justice, mercy cannot prevail in its most
wholesome form.
I was just listening to Dr. Cornel West
in Canada, and a lot of people not
understanding what he was talking about in Canada,
but obviously doing Cornel West things.
And he has this saying, and he mentioned
it there too.
Justice is what love looks like in public,
just like tenderness is what love looks like
in private.
I'm going to say that again.
Sorry.
Justice is what love looks like in public,
just like tenderness is what love feels like
in private.
And so what the ulema mentioned here is
that justice sets the stage in the public
domain, so that oppression cannot take place in
the first place.
Mercy is usually shown to victims of oppression.
And so if injustice is eradicated in the
first place, there are two types of rahmah.
At least these are two categories of rahmah.
There is mercy that you show to one
who is oppressed, and that's a form of
compassion.
And then there's ihsan, as in an elevated
form of compassion above justice.
And so mercy cannot flourish, or ihsan cannot
flourish in its highest sense, unless justice properly
sets the stage.
It puts everyone on even grounding, so that
people can aspire to their highest selves.
And that's the best thing that a ruler
can do, right, that an authority can do
is to set people, to put people in
a position where they can aspire to their
highest selves.
And so the most beloved person, the closest
person to Allah is a just ruler.
He sets the stage, so that compassion can
flourish in society.
And there's a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ,
where the Prophet ﷺ saw this dream.
Who's better, Abu Bakr or Umar, virtue-wise?
Abu Bakr is better than Umar in terms
of virtue.
There's no doubt about it.
But the Prophet ﷺ saw this dream of
Abu Bakr drawing water.
And Abu Bakr had some weakness in drawing
that water.
And so Umar came and took the bucket
from him, and he drew water with more
strength than Abu Bakr, and he quenched the
thirst of everybody in there, including the animals,
everyone that was there.
And that was the ability of Umar to
serve as a vessel for Allah's guidance, for
Allah's justice.
That Umar was a man through whom Allah
chose to spread so much good that he's
like that man that's just drawing from this
well of guidance and able to spread it
all over.
And of course, Abu Bakr was dealing with
a very unique situation, which is the first
person to take over after the Prophet ﷺ
has the most difficult job of establishing a
sense of clarity in the message itself.
So you're more focused on preservation in that
first phase after the Prophet ﷺ.
Umar was more focused on spreading, right?
So it kind of represents their roles, their
respective roles as well.
So to sort of contrast Umar and Uthman's
styles in this regard, one of the people
that would be a troublemaker in the time
of Umar r.a, who did a lot
of what Uthman or the people, the rebels
in the time of Uthman did, was someone
that would start to pose all these baseless
questions, someone that would start to just confuse
people by just creating all of this fog.
And one of these men was named Hakeem
ibn Jabalah.
So Hakeem ibn Jabalah, he was a highway
robber and he used to go around and
create a lot of confusion.
And the same types of things that he
used to do in the time of Uthman
r.a, there was another man by the
name of Usaybeegh.
So these are the first people that are
sort of stirring up the trouble in the
Ummah of Muhammad s.a.w. So this
man's name is Usaybeegh.
And Usaybeegh used to also, you know, he
started doing a lot of what these people
were doing in terms of posing these questions
and creating all this fog and creating dissension
in the Ummah.
So Usaybeegh happened in Umar's time, Hakeem ibn
Jabalah happened in Uthman's time.
Usaybeegh, when Umar r.a found out about
Usaybeegh, he lashed him.
He took him, he lashed him, he isolated
him from the public, he punished him pretty
severely.
He didn't torture him.
But the point is that he was detained
and he was kept away from the dissension
and the trouble that he was stirring up.
And Umar r.a whipped him.
Years later when the rebels in the time
of Uthman came to Usaybeegh because he sort
of had that reputation as being the troublemaker
in the time of Umar and Umar is
dead now, Uthman is in charge, Hakeem ibn
Jabalah goes to him and others go to
him and they say to him, Are you
ready to do this again?
Are you ready to join this revolt?
Usaybeegh lifts his shirt up and he shows
his back where he's got the marks from
the lashing and he says, عَلَّمَنِي الرَّجُلُ الصَّالِحِ
The righteous man taught me a lesson.
Like I'm done with this, okay?
So yes, Umar r.a was definitely more
heavy-handed in terms of dealing with these
types of things as a ruler as opposed
to Uthman r.a who had a very
hands-off approach.
And you can see what that translated into
in terms of the fitna growing that Umar
r.a really dealt with it in the
very beginning.
And that was Umar's style.
You know, you had the Christian man in
Egypt who was a client and he was
racing with the son of Amr ibn Aas
r.a and the son of Amr ibn
Aas, you know, was racing with him in
Egypt and as the Christian man beat him
in the race, you know, he took a
whip and he hit him on the head
with it and he said, you know, how
dare you compete with me?
I am a noble man, the son of
a noble man.
So he praised himself.
The Christian man complained to Umar, Umar brought
them all to Medina.
The Christian man, the son of Amr and
Amr who was a great companion of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he handed
the Christian man the whip and he said,
you can put the whip on both of
their heads.
And he said, well, why Amr?
He said, because his son lashed you in
his name, right?
So to put everyone back in a humble
place to sort of equalize, you know, the
situation.
He says, you need to, you know, you
need to take it.
You don't just get to take your vengeance
on the man who hit you.
This is justice.
But also the man in whose name you
were hit because he faulted Amr for not
curbing that arrogance in his son, right?
So, you know, he wanted, this was also
a special type of tarbiyah.
It's not qisas, it's not like, it's not
the actual type of allotment that would take
place in a case like this.
But Amr was very close to Umar and
Umar radiallahu anhu also wanted this to be
a moment of tarbiyah, a moment of mentorship
for Amr, that it was in your name
that your son acted this way, okay?
So you should have done more to curb
the arrogance that came out of your son
where he thought that he could do this
to this Christian man because he was a
free slave and because he wasn't a Muslim
and he didn't have any noble type of
lineage and he was living under Muslims.
But what made Amr special?
Amr's harshness was not personal.
And everyone knew that Amr was harsher on
himself than anybody else.
And that when he was harsh on you,
he wasn't harsh on you out of being
mean-spirited, but because he wanted you to
grow to your best self.
So Amr's harshness on himself, and this is
very important, it's very easy to want to
be the Amr radiallahu anhu who disciplines people.
It is very hard to be the Amr
who disciplines himself.
It's very easy to hold the stick of
Amr, it's very hard to stand in the
qiyam of Amr.
You cannot be harsh with people unless you're
that much harsher with yourself.
And that's the thing with Amr, everyone knew
that he held himself to a higher standard.
So he wasn't a hypocrite.
He didn't hold you to a standard that
was unreasonable or that he didn't hold himself
to.
It was well-meaning and it wasn't mean
-spirited and he didn't do anything to humiliate
anybody.
He did things to set a tone, to
set a culture of justice.
Amr was not humiliating Amr, Amr was setting
a culture of justice in his rule, in
his khilafa.
And that was the way that he collected
himself, he conducted himself.
Also Amr's justice was never selective.
It applied to Muslims, it applied to non
-Muslims, it applied to people that were noble,
people that were slaves, it applied to male
and female, it applied to everybody across race,
across economic class.
His justice was not selective.
You can't point to a time where Amr
withheld his justice because it was inconvenient to
carry out justice in that moment or because
there was a personal bias.
He always maintained that standard.
And he invited his ummah to hold him
accountable the way he held them accountable.
And that's just remarkable.
How many of you guys took the class
I taught on Salman and Farsi?
Not many of you.
So this is the incident, right?
It's really powerful.
Amr radiallahu anhu stands up in front of
the ummah and he says, listen and obey,
hear and obey, which was obey is probably
not the...
But this was the way that a head
of state would start in addressing the ummah.
You know, listen and obey.
As I'm about to give the orders, right?
Salman stands up and says, wallahi la nasma'
wa la nutir.
He says, I swear by Allah, we will
not listen to you nor will we obey
you.
Amr is the khalifa.
He's of the most noble in terms of
lineage.
He's in a position of power.
Salman radiallahu anhu is a Persian migrant, right?
Who rose to prominence by his knowledge and
his closeness to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
He's definitely not as strong as Amr radiallahu
anhu.
And he has the audacity to stand up
and to challenge him that way.
Amr doesn't say to him, sit down and
don't you ever do that again or wait
till we're in private and then come talk
to me.
Amr says to him, why are you saying
that?
He actually asked him, but why won't you
listen to me and consider what I'm saying?
There must be a legitimate reason.
So can you tell me what's holding you
back?
So he said, when you distributed the cloths
from the treasury, you gave everyone one piece
of cloth, but you reserved two for yourself.
And as I said in the Salman class,
can you imagine that being our only complaint
with Muslim rulers today?
Like, that would be great.
Like, hey, Sisi, MBS, what's going on here?
Can you guys, why are you taking two
cloths for yourself, two thobes for yourself and
only giving one thobe to everybody else?
Can you imagine if that was the nature
of our complaints?
There's a reason why the guy can sleep
under a tree and not worry about anything
because that's the type of care that he
shows to his ummah that that's the expectation
that he created.
Amr doesn't say like, give me a break,
Salman.
Like, I'm the Khalifa.
I could take two cloths and you take
one.
Instead, Amr says, where's my son Abdullah?
So he points to Abdullah and he asks
Abdullah to explain the situation.
So Abdullah stands up and Abdullah bin Amr
says, my father is a very tall man.
So I gave him my cloth so that
he could sew his cloth and my cloth
together so it could fit him as a
garment.
So Salman radhiallahu anhu goes, okay, now we
hear and now we obey.
And he sits back down.
That's the culture in the Khilafah of Amr.
That's incredible.
Inviting accountability like that.
Shows you, you know, when people...
Let me tell you, this is where you
know that your trailblazing for justice and your
outrage for good is based out of ego
and not for Allah.
When you're held accountable by the same measures
and you react with ego.
If Amr reacted with ego, then you would
know that the harshness he supposedly displayed and
the way that he held people to a
standard came out of nafs.
Came out of self, not for Allah.
But the fact that he created a culture
where you could hold him accountable and he
invited that accountability and actually said to the
people around him, لَا يَرَى مِنكُم مِنِّي عِيبًا
إِلَّا عَابًا Let not one of you see
a flaw in me except that you pointed
out.
I want to know.
I want to know if I'm doing something
wrong.
I want to know if I'm sinful.
I want to know if I'm being too
harsh.
Where a young child could come to Amr...
So Amr didn't speak in abstract, right?
Like Amr r.a has this famous saying
that I fear...
That he lost sleep at night because he
feared Allah or he feared that Allah would
hold him accountable for a donkey complaining against
him on the day of judgment in Iraq
because he did not properly pave the road.
He feared that that donkey would testify to
Allah against him.
Like he's got a lot of big things
to worry about.
But for him, that donkey is part of
my flock.
So it's under my rule.
I got to take care of that donkey,
right?
So it's not like Amr said that and
then people said, oh, that's so beautiful and
that's so sweet.
Literally any person, any woman or child, any
man, woman, child, male, female, king, servant, wherever
it is, could walk up to Amr and
say to him, اتقِلَ, fear Allah.
And he would cry and say, why?
Tell me what I need to do better.
So he set a culture.
So I actually want to give a very,
very practical lesson here for all of you
social media hot take people.
All right.
For everyone that likes to weigh in on
social media.
Consider the tone you have with other people.
Would you accept that tone for yourself?
And do you use an even harsher tone
with yourself when you're disciplining your nafs?
There are two different things.
Number one, when someone talks to you, gives
you a taste of your own medicine, how
do you react?
Right?
If you react with ego and foul, you
know, and you're foul and you're aggressive.
That means that you're only, you're operating out
of nafs, you're not operating out of Allah.
The other thing is the tone that you
use when you're all alone by yourself and
disciplining yourself should be even stronger than the
tone that you use for anybody else.
Right?
So it's a measure that you actually consider
yourself, you weigh yourself against, like, wait a
minute, why do I, why am I strict
on people?
Why am I hard on people?
And what you'll realize is that what gave
Omar the license to be that hard on
people was that that was actually the place
that he was operating from.
So he wasn't calling you to a place
he wasn't at already.
Right?
So it's not just being harsh on people
because they're doing something wrong.
It's on living up to the standard that
you call other people to live up to.
Omar did that and everyone knew it.
Not that Omar put on this like PR
campaign, like Omar didn't tell people, you know,
about his qiyam or didn't tell people about
his secret good deeds or didn't tell people
about his, you know, his private acts of
disciplining himself.
But it was so obvious in the way
he carried himself.
It was just obvious that the man was
a person who intensely would undergo spiritual purification.
It was so obvious in his character.
It was obvious in his humility.
It was obvious that he operated out of
a sense of justice from a place of
conviction and not from some place of it
being personal.
The first people he held accountable were his
family.
So he wasn't, you know, he started off
in creating that culture in his household.
And that's why one of the greatest gift
that Omar radiallahu ta'ala anhu gave to
us were his children.
Abdullah ibn Omar radiallahu ta'ala anhu preserved
the sunnah.
Hafsa radiallahu anhu preserved the Quran.
The greatest gift Omar radiallahu anhu gave to
us is two kids that were like him.
He taught his child Abdullah to love the
sunnah as much as he loved it.
And Abdullah even surpassed Omar radiallahu anhu in
some respects, not in virtue, but in some
respects, he even surpassed Omar radiallahu ta'ala
anhu.
So by creating that culture, not just in
the ummah, but in his house as well,
and everyone knew it.
As we said before, the poorest house in
the ummah was Omar's house.
And that was a saying that the people
used to have that there is no faqr,
there is no poverty in the ummah of
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, like the poverty
in the house of Omar radiallahu ta'ala
anhu.
No one placed that expectation on himself.
He placed that expectation on himself.
No one put that expectation on him.
No one told him that you have to
hold yourself to that standard.
But Omar radiallahu anhu did not feel like
it was appropriate if people were in poverty
on his watch, that he himself be in
a state of well-being.
He used to say radiallahu ta'ala anhu
كيف يعنيني شأن الرعية ولم يصيبني ما يصيبهم
How can I claim to be a shepherd
of my flock when I am not struck
with what my flock is struck with?
So if my flock is struck with hardship,
I need to feel that hardship.
If they're struck with pain, I need to
feel that pain.
Poverty, I need to feel that poverty.
And that was his style of leadership.
Another thing of Omar radiallahu anhu that's probably
underestimated about his leadership is that Omar radiallahu
anhu always grew.
And I'm not talking about physically.
He was a big man.
But you know what's really interesting?
Many of the things that Omar radiallahu anhu
objected to when he wasn't in leadership, he
himself did.
Not hypocritical.
But for example, leniency that Omar radiallahu anhu
thought was undue or objected to when he
was not the khalifa himself.
If he objected to leniency shown on the
part of the Prophet peace be upon him
or Abu Bakr, he himself would show that
same leniency.
And that's important.
So once again, a lesson for us in
our personal lives, it's very easy to make
bold statements when there are no consequences to
your words.
Like the only thing you have to worry
about is someone disliking your status.
But there are no consequences to what you
say.
So you can be bold.
You can make the most audacious and sensationalist
and just attention grabbing statements on every single
issue and claim awesomeness out of that.
But the reality is that there are no
consequences to what you're saying.
When you actually are in a position of
leadership, things change to where you have to
consider things.
And this is probably one of my favorite
things in terms of, you know, having had
the blessing to alhamdulillah be around a lot
of people that grew into positions of leadership
is to see how they matured into those
positions, right?
So you could see that they grew and
that they got it when they, and even
leadership could be being in charge of your
youth halaqa, being in charge of your usra,
being in charge of some department or some
effort, some work, but you get it now.
Like, okay, I have to be more responsible.
I have to be more measured.
That does not mean cowardice.
That's not cowardice.
This is recklessness is not courage, okay?
Being measured is not cowardice.
I just, I have to think these things
through better because my words have more consequences
now.
Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu, when he positioned
himself and he was the challenger to the
leniency that he felt like was being shown,
when Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu grew into
that leadership, he wasn't arrogant.
He exercised leniency as well in some very
important and crucial matters.
So if I was to tell you, for
example, Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu or Uthman,
which one do you think raised the salaries
of all government workers?
Because he didn't want them to be susceptible
to bribery.
It was Umar.
If I didn't tell you that, if I
just gave you the profile of Umar and
the profile of Uthman and I said, which
one of them do you think raised the
salaries of all of the ulama and all
of the state workers because he didn't want
them to fall to bribery, you would think
Uthman.
Uthman is the generous one.
But Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu took advice
from people like Uthman.
If I was to tell you that someone
lifted the had, lifted the punishment for theft
because the ummah was in famine and people
got into a position where they needed to
steal to eat and to live.
And someone said there's no punishment for theft.
The khalifa of the time said there was
no punishment for theft.
Your mind not knowing who it was would
go to Uthman.
But it was Umar.
So Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu was not,
you know, he was not limited by his
justice, right?
He wasn't limited by his sense of justice.
He had the right people around him and
he grew.
And this was reflective of his personal tazkiyah
because personal spirituality means consistent growth, right?
So that reflects itself in his leadership as
well.
Usually people that are very justice oriented become
extremely unreasonable.
Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu was not unreasonable.
He thought about things.
He was careful.
He took advice from people again as we
said and he grew out of those things.
Lastly, and then we'll go to Q&A.
What time is it?
So lastly, one point on Umar radiallahu ta
'ala anhu that I just find very beautiful
about him and his personality in regards to
leadership and where his concern, where his heart
was always at.
When Umar radiallahu anhu was stabbed, so he's
in the masjid leading salah and he was
stabbed.
Number one, the pretext of that.
That the man who stabbed him, Umar radiallahu
ta'ala anhu was threatened by him.
He saw him outside polishing his arrows, doing
something and Umar radiallahu anhu said something to
him.
He made a comment at Umar and I
can't recall what the exact comment was but
the comment reflected a threat to Umar and
Umar told the people around him that he
just threatened to kill me.
They said, why don't you do anything about
it?
He said, because he was ambiguous.
It's not fair.
That's my interpretation of what he just said.
I think the guy just threatened to kill
me but I'm not gonna, you know, preempt
it and go after him.
When Abu Lutullah stabbed him in the masjid
as he was praying, the very first concern
that Umar radiallahu anhu had, the first question
he asks is what?
Was it a Muslim who stabbed me or
not?
That's, subhanAllah, that's, you know, people are thinking
at that point now, you know, what are
you thinking about in those last moments?
Umar radiallahu anhu is asking, the man who
stabbed me, was it a Muslim or not?
And, you know, they said that he wasn't
a Muslim and Umar radiallahu anhu said, alhamdulillah,
Allah did not allow me to be killed
by a person who says la ilaha illallah.
That would be painful to my heart to
bear.
And the consequences of that going forward of
a Muslim killing a Muslim leader would be
detrimental.
So his concern was for himself in the
hereafter and his concern was for the believers
after him with the precedent that that would
set.
And indeed, Ali and Uthman were both killed
by Muslims, by someone inside.
So alhamdulillah, the person who killed me was
not from the followers of Muhammad sallAllahu alaihi
wa sallam.
You know, it's really interesting here, by the
way, he almost used the exact same rhetoric
when the plague hit.
And he said, Allahumma la taj'al halaka
ummata Muhammadin sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam ala yadi.
Oh Allah, don't let the nation of Muhammad
sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam perish on my hands.
And then when it came time for his
assassination, he said, alhamdulillah, Allah did not allow
for the hand that killed me to be
from a member of the ummah of Muhammad
sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam.
So he's still thinking about the ummah, the
consequences.
He still has concern for that, right?
And that's special.
That's not something that you're going to find
in everybody.
Some of you may have attended, I think
I'm teaching in Chicago soon, the class on
Malcolm after Mecca.
What grieved Malcolm at the end of his
life is he said it.
He said, you know, what's sad is that
two black groups have to kill each other
off.
That's what really pains me in all of
this.
Like, I always knew that I was going
to be killed.
But it pains him that the trigger that
would be pulled on him would be from
someone who he loved so much and someone
that he was trying to help.
That it would be a black finger that
would pull the trigger on him.
He hated that thought because he didn't want
that because he knew what type of a
precedent that would send.
And he knew what that would perpetuate in
terms of culture.
So Omar was concerned.
He didn't want it to be a Muslim
that would be responsible for his death.
And, you know, you talk about culture and
what this sets.
If you go back to the fitna, I
don't know how much you guys actually got
into it or if you got to talk
about Omar bin Khattab and Abdullah bin Omar
in particular.
But when the fitna broke out, when trials
and tribulation broke out and people, swords actually
started being raised, Muslims actually started picking up
swords against each other.
Abdullah bin Omar was like, I'm not having
any part of this.
He said, you call me to prayer, you
call me to good deeds, but you call
me to kill another Muslim.
I'm staying home.
I'm not taking part in this, right?
That was something that he took from his
father, right?
That, you know, this is not going to
end well.
This is not the type of culture that
we want to perpetuate.
So those are some of my thoughts just
on the leadership of Omar.
May Allah be pleased with him and be
pleased with Uthman.
And allow them both to be amongst those
who are granted shahada and to allow us
to be joined with them.
So we'll go ahead and we'll take questions.
So this is just a summary of a
lot of the same question just asked in
several different ways.
But a lot of attendees and a lot
of people, when they hear about this tragedy
with Sayyidina Uthman r.a, they ask a
lot of why questions, you know?
Why did the Prophet ﷺ, if he knew
about this, why didn't he warn Uthman?
Or, you know, why didn't Uthman step down?
Or why didn't...
Just a lot of why questions, you know?
Why couldn't it have been a different way?
And so on.
What are your comments regarding that?
You know, there's a dua that the Prophet
ﷺ made so that you can think about
why.
The Prophet ﷺ says, سَأَلْتُ رَبِّ ثَلَاثًۭ I
asked Allah for three things.
I asked him that my nation would not
be wiped out by an army.
That's one.
Or by some sort of a disease, a
famine or a plague.
That's two.
And three, that he would...
أَلَّا يَجْعَلَ بَأْسَهُمْ بَيْنَهُمْ That he would not
put their misfortune amongst themselves.
Meaning that he'd protect us from disunity.
And the Prophet ﷺ said, Allah granted me
the first two, but he withheld the third.
And one of the things to take from
that, first of all, there's the ummah-wide
outlook that Allah will take care of everything
on the outside for us.
We will never be defeated by something on
the outside.
We have to focus on ourselves.
We have to focus on the inside.
So, بَأْسَهُمْ بَيْنَهُمْ Our trials are always amongst
each other.
And even today, when you think about this
in the political sense, the complicity of the
Muslim world in every single conflict, or I
don't want to even use the word conflict,
in every single case of the oppression of
a group of innocent Muslims, there are other
Muslims that are complicit in that oppression.
For whatever reason, political gain, economic gain, whatever
it may be, and it's pathetic.
So, at the political sense, or in the
political sense, Allah has given us everything around
us to succeed.
We have to get our stuff right.
And in the local sense, your masjid, your
organizations, I can't tell you how many incredible
Muslim efforts have been ruined because of the
ego of one person.
How many masjids have foiled?
How many institutions have come apart?
How much turmoil has been caused?
And it all boils down to the egos
of one or two people.
And so, Allah will always protect us from
the outside when we do what we have
to do on the inside.
So, that's just sort of a general rule.
Now, when it comes to the fitna, as
it took place, there are several dimensions to
it.
You know, for one, the Prophet ﷺ warned
the companions about it.
He did warn the companions about it.
And sometimes you forget.
Time goes by.
We're talking about, you know, 30, 40 years
after the Prophet ﷺ passes away.
And then you recall some of those things
he told you.
So, for example, Az-Zubayr was sitting with
Ali.
And think about this scene.
Az-Zubayr has his arm around Ali.
And the Prophet ﷺ asked Az-Zubayr, تحب
علي؟
Do you love Ali?
And Az-Zubayr says, yes.
And the Prophet ﷺ says, تقاتله وأنت له
ظالم One day you will fight him.
And you will be in the wrongdoing.
Az-Zubayr said, me?
Of course not.
And he said, you know, what a miserable
person I am then.
And like he completely, like I can't believe
that that would ever happen because they were
so close.
And until those moments when Uthman is being
assassinated, Az-Zubayr and Ali are both holding
swords defending Uthman, trying to defend Uthman, protect
Uthman.
And then suddenly they find themselves facing off
in a battlefield.
And Ali reminds Az-Zubayr about that incidence.
And Az-Zubayr totally forgot it.
And he recalls it and he walks away
from the battlefield.
Like I'm not doing this.
So the Prophet ﷺ did warn them, told
them that a battle would arise.
And, you know, the righteous or if you
want to know, if you want an indicator
at the end of the day as where
truth lies, then you look to the army
where Ammar was killed.
And so Ammar was killed from the side
of Ali.
And then some of the people from the
other side, this is how we get.
We're human beings at the end of the
day.
They said, well, it's really Ali's army that
killed him because they laid him bare to
be killed.
So they put him to be killed.
So therefore they're really responsible for his murder.
And what the Prophet ﷺ says was those
would be responsible for Ammar's death.
That's what happens to human being.
That's what happens to people.
And we need to learn from our history.
Now the Prophet ﷺ taught us to also,
you know, be able to look back at
that and to do what?
When he holds his son Al-Hassan and
he says, إِنَّ إِبْنِي هَذَا سَيِّتْ وَلَعَلَّ اللَّهَ
أَن يُصْلِحَ بِهِ فِيَةً عَظِيمَتًا مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِينَ He
holds up Al-Hassan, may Allah be pleased
with him.
He says that this son of mine is
a leader.
And it may be that Allah will bring
together through him two great armies of believers,
two great armies of Muslims.
So the Prophet ﷺ acknowledged that these two
armies still remain righteous people.
They're Muslims, they're believers.
So when you say, well, why didn't the
Prophet ﷺ stop them, right?
Why didn't Allah stop them?
So first of all, that's a qadr question.
Allah does not stop us from making our
choices.
Even though His will remains dominant.
At the end of the day, this is
a whole discussion of divine decree.
We can't blame Allah when we mess up,
when we do the wrong things.
So we have to own those things ourselves.
When we look at the companions of the
Prophet ﷺ, Abu Hanifa r.a has a
very beautiful incident that took place with him.
And I think I should end on this
note.
We're talking about how to contextualize those things.
Abu Hanifa was asked, who was right, Ali
or Muawiyah?
Now Abu Hanifa could have given a really
drawn-out answer to that question.
You know what he responded?
He said, I doubt on the day of
judgment Allah will ask me about Ali or
Muawiyah.
I gotta worry about myself.
So the mistakes that were made, the way
the conflict arose, they were great people.
And unfortunately, things, you know, went south.
And it was an instigated issue.
You learned this, by the way, as you
studied the history.
That the rebels essentially attacked the army of
Ali and the army of Aisha because they
saw them coming together.
And they were worried.
So they launched an attack on both armies.
So that each army would think that the
other one attacked them.
So initially, when those armies met at the
battlefield, the intention was not to kill each
other.
The intention was to demand the justice of
Uthman.
Once Ali and Aisha spoke, they went back
to their camps with the understanding that we're
good now.
The same people that killed Uthman went and
attacked both camps to embroil them in that
controversy with each other.
So they'd be too busy with each other.
Because if they don't, you know, kill each
other, then they're going to come after us.
That means that they're coming after us now.
Right?
So it was instigated from the outside.
And sadly, here's our human nature.
When the door opens, it doesn't close.
Once that door opens of Sahaba killing each
other, fighting each other, that door opens.
And unfortunately, it took a few battles as
well where that took place.
We should not burden ourselves with trying to
decide who gets what and what's going to
happen or busy ourselves too much with those
types of things.
Instead, read history in a way that's instructive.
Benefit from their examples.
Take the lessons from the tension and the
fitna, the lessons of what led to the
fitna and how we can protect ourselves from
that fitna.
And make sure that we don't fall into
that ourselves.
We ask Allah to protect us and to
grant us the station, the virtue of any
of those companions of the Prophet.