Omar Suleiman – Re-Humanizing The De-Humanized
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Allah is the Greatest, I bear witness that
there is none worthy of worship except Allah
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of worship except Allah I bear witness
that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah
I bear witness that Muhammad is
the Messenger of Allah Come
to Prayer Allah
is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, there
is none worthy of worship except Allah In
the name of Allah, the most Beneficent, the
most Merciful We praise Allah, we seek His
help, we seek His forgiveness, we seek His
guidance We believe in Him, we put our
trust in Him and we seek refuge in
Allah from the evil of our souls and
from the badness of our deeds Whoever Allah
guides, no one is misguided, and whoever He
misguides, no one is guided I bear witness
that there is none worthy of worship except
Allah His is the kingdom and the praise,
He gives life and death, and He is
Ever-Living, Never-Dying In His hand is
all that is good, and He has power
over all things I bear witness that Muhammad
is His servant, His Messenger, His Chosen One,
and His Friend He fulfilled the trust, and
conveyed the message, and advised the Ummah, and
exposed the darkness And He left us on
the white path, its night is like its
day, nothing escapes it except destruction So upon
Him is the best prayer, and the completion
of submission And upon His family and companions,
and those who wait for His Sunnah until
the Day of Judgment O Allah, make us
of them, and of those who believe, and
do righteous deeds, and associate with the truth,
and associate with patience I believe in the
Lord of the worlds, and I advise you
and myself to fear Allah And He has
commanded us with the truth, and said, O
you who believe, fear Allah as He should
be feared, and you will not die except
as Muslims O you people, fear your Lord,
Who created you from one soul, and created
from it its wife, and spread among them
many men and women And fear Allah, with
whom you ask, and the wombs.
Indeed, Allah has been a watcher over you
O you who believe, fear Allah and say
a firm word that will amend your deeds
and forgive your sins
And
whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger, he has
certainly attained a great triumph Allah SWT says
in the Qur'an, لَقَدْ جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِّنْ
أَنفُسِكُمْ عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتْتُمْ حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُمْ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ
رَؤُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ That verily there has come to
you a Messenger from amongst yourselves You know
Him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and He knows you
He is fully human, Alayhi Salatu Wasallam, yet
fully Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam He feels pain
that you feel and more He cares about
your well-being And He is especially concerned
over you, Alayhi Salatu Wasallam And kind and
merciful to the believers I want to come
back to this ayah at the end of
the khutbah, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala And I
actually want to begin with a quote that
The lawyer for Dr. Afia Siddiqi, may Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la free her
from captivity and all of those who are
wrongly held, Allahumma Ameen That Clive Smith, her
lawyer, likes to share And it's a quote
that gets attributed to Stalin As a tyrant
who sort of understood the playbook, the psychology
of torture and the psychology of tyranny From
the side of the tyrant, even though there
isn't a way to really pin down the
author of this quote But it makes a
lot of sense and I want you to
ponder over it A single death is a
tragedy A million deaths is a statistic A
single death is a tragedy A million deaths
is a statistic Now from the perspective of
the oppressor, from the perspective of the tyrant
That means that if you kill too many
for them to keep up with Then they'll
never be able to grab on to a
story Because it'll just be a number And
if I were to tell you a year
ago That we'd be looking at the number
200,000 From the people of Gaza, may
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la accept
all of their dead as shuhada And may
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la preserve
and protect the living Cure them, heal them
and give them victory, Allahumma Ameen The number
200,000 is overwhelming 186,000 is what
was quoted in the medical journal a couple
of months ago How is that even possible?
From the perspective of the oppressor and from
the tyrant If you kill too many for
the living to keep up with If you
imprison too many Then they won't be able
to attach themselves emotionally to a single story
Because another story will show up and quickly
divert their attention In the case of the
people of Gaza Another child whose head is
blown off Another disgusting scene And the end
result of that is apathy Or becoming numb
to the numbers Or desensitized But the point
is that it just becomes a number And
oppressors understand that psychology very well A single
death is a tragedy A million deaths is
a statistic Think about Muhammad al-Durra 24
years ago May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la have mercy on him And what
that single image did for us And think
about how many Muhammad al-Durras there have
been since Muhammad al-Durra That you can't
name Because a single death is a tragedy
A million deaths is a statistic Clive Smith
who is the attorney for Afia as we
said Who likes to share this quote Often
talks about the dehumanization of the single woman
Who is rightfully called by some the most
wronged woman on the planet Her number in
prison is 90279054 90279054 When you're in prison
that's the number that you hear that represents
you You actually have to learn your number
Because you will no longer be called by
your name when you're in prison And so
you can imagine that for the last 14
years And we're marking the anniversary this week
And that's why there's a protest this Sunday
This week and lawsuits being filed on her
behalf This week because we have not forgotten
her That Afia with everything that has happened
to her Has to know that when you
hear in prison 90279054 That means you, you're
no longer Afia You're a number Malcolm X
al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz rahimahullah Wrote in
his autobiography in the chapter Satan Speaking about
the satanic system that he was in He
actually writes I can't remember any of my
prison numbers That seems surprising even after the
dozen years since I have been out of
prison Because your number in prison becomes a
part of you You never heard your name
only your number On all your clothing every
item was your number Stenciled, it grew stenciled
on your brain You're a number You become
a statistic Our dead are a statistic Our
imprisoned are a statistic You're a number not
a name You're a statistic not a story
That is one of the peak ways in
which you have dehumanization I just came back
from Washington DC There was supposed to be
a hearing on Wadi al-Fayoumi Imagine a
6 year old American boy Just remove the
Palestinian part A 6 year old American boy
That was stabbed 26 times to death His
mother sitting in the front row She was
stabbed 12 times and strangled Miraculously alive And
you imagine that your cold heartless politicians Could
not even look at her Could not even
say We're sorry for your tragedy Before they
jumped into their APAC talking points Immediately she
doesn't exist It became a hearing on anti
-Semitism on college campuses And the intifada and
all of that That's what it became immediately
Because you're not supposed to be a story
You're not supposed to have a name You're
not supposed to have a memory Your name
can't be mentioned Because otherwise people just might
connect to you as a human being So
we have to keep you a number Because
numbers are cold Cruel And they represent exactly
what they think about us SubhanAllah if you
look in this country Many of us grew
up reading in school As required reading The
diary of Anne Frank Some of you might
remember The diary of Anne Frank in your
schools Over 30 million copies Were sold Of
the diary of Anne Frank It's been translated
into over 70 languages It's required reading in
most public schools And it's considered by the
way The most preserved document in Holocaust history
When you say Anne Frank It has so
much more meaning Than 6 million Or 1
million children Or the statistics that are thrown
out About the Holocaust Because the single connection
That you're allowed to develop To a human
story Is that much more reshaping Where is
our Anne Frank?
Is it Wadi' Is it Hind Rajab Shot
over 300 times in a car And we
have the instruments To preserve the legacy of
a person The story of a person That
are far greater now Than what existed 60
years ago You have her phone call Begging
for her life You have the images of
the car That she was shot in You
have all of this historical documentation But they
fear that story Because one story Of Hind
Rajab Is enough to reshape If it's told
right and told enough Is enough to reshape
The narrative far more than saying 200,000
Or trying to come back with statistics When
this genocide Is brought up in your face
If you go back down memory lane In
this country And you read the history of
the media Instrumentalization Of Elian Gonzalez Some of
you might remember In 1999 the story of
the Cuban boy Being whisked away By an
American soldier Dominates the international media cycle It
was the single Most observed story In the
entire world The story of a six year
old boy And it was so compelling That
it not only colored American-Cuban Relations for
most Americans But some political historians even say
That it was a major factor In swinging
the election to George W.
Bush In the year 2000 One story Why?
Because the story was told right By enough
people Put in front of people And a
narrative Was crafted out of that story While
we continue To become numbers Numbers Numbers Statistics
Statistics Not a single story from the Iraq
war Not a single name Not a single
name of a drone Victim In Yemen or
Afghanistan Not a single name Why?
And how do we Start to tell the
stories right And not wait For them to
humanize us But to humanize our own I
want us to consider this from The way
that we read our own History as Muslims
And the natural psychology of this If you
were to speak To the average Muslim and
to bring up The battle of Uhud How
many people were martyred On the day of
Uhud from the Muslims You would hear 70,
72, 73 But if you were to ask
the average Muslim Who was martyred On the
day of Uhud Naturally The only name for
most Muslims that would come up Is Hamza
radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anha A story that we
connected with Maybe Hamza and Musab radiyaAllahu ta
'ala Anha And if you were to ask
them To name more than Hamza and Musab
Most people could not go past those two
Stories because that's how we are As people
We connect to someone When we know how
they got there Before they were killed And
that's us as Muslims And when you think
about The way the Quran tells us the
story Of the oppression of Bani Israel By
Firaun through Musa radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anha We
connect to Musa radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anha The
story of Sabr through Ayub radiyaAllahu ta'ala
Anha We connect to that story of Ayub
radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anha Yusuf radiyaAllahu ta'ala
Anha And that story of Musa radiyaAllahu ta
'ala Anha Immediately juggles certain thoughts in your
mind Immediately invokes Certain sentiments Why?
Because that's who we are And you wonder
why they're trying to make sure That the
names like Bisan And Waal And Mu'taz And
all of these names that are becoming popularized
now Are not present And you wonder why
they're trying to make sure That the stories
of Hind Rajab And Wadi Al-Fayyumi And
all of these victims Of an American-Israeli
genocide Are not being told And you wonder
why there's complete apathy In regards to something
like Al-Sudan And the crisis in Al
-Sudan SubhanAllah If you were just to familiarize
yourself With one person We have brothers and
sisters In our masjid, in our community Who
have relatives That have been directly impacted You
tell the story of a single woman And
subhanAllah Just as an exercise If I was
to start here and to quote statistics About
what's happening to our brothers and sisters In
Sudan You'd likely forget it by Asr But
I tell you one story Of a sister
named Rawdah Who is 40 years old 9
months pregnant And displaced and every single member
Of her family was killed And because of
the rapid displacement in Sudan Going from place
to place Just talks about how she had
to carry Her child, 9 months pregnant At
the age of 40 and put another kid
On her back And walk from place to
place You might remember that May Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala Be with our brothers and
sisters In Al-Sudan, Allahumma ameen And may
Allah forgive us for the global apathy In
regards to our brothers and sisters In Al
-Sudan, Allahumma ameen That's the point dear brothers
and sisters So what does this mean for
us at a practical level?
Number one No one is going to learn
and tell our stories Other than us It's
important for us To constantly highlight In whatever
space that you are in In whatever profession
you are in If you're a doctor, find
the names Of the doctors that have been
killed Tell the stories of those doctors If
you are someone in education Tell the stories
of the university professors That have been killed
And their lives as educators before they were
murdered Whatever space you are in Whatever space
you occupy Amplify these stories Lend your voice
to these stories Because these are the only
things That are going to stick with people
Otherwise we give in to the cold statistics
That have been used to dehumanize us as
a community So that's number one Number two
There's a chance to make this so much
more real For all of us when you
think about the refugees From all of these
places That are already here in our backyard
SubhanAllah It's devastating when you think about How
every single Refugee organization struggles Not just to
get donations But to get volunteers Every single
Refugee organization In Dallas, we have one of
the largest Muslim Communities in the country Struggles
to get volunteers Struggles to keep the attention
On sets of refugees From every single cause
that was once Popularized for the Muslims Some
of them you have thousands of refugees From
a single country in your backyard And they've
completely Been forgotten Do you understand the impact
that it would have On them if more
of us just volunteered With them, just spent
some time Speaking to them There are a
multitude of these organizations saying Hey what can
I do, can I bring my family On
the weekend, can we do something To just
take a family out Yes, touch one family,
take them out Can we just sponsor one
Family, there are now at this point Over
50 families from Gaza In the United States
that have made it out For some sort
of medical treatment It's not just receiving them
in the airport For a celebration It's following
up Afterwards and doing The research to find
out which organizations Are working with those refugees
And getting yourself involved And developing a personal
connection With these people And it might be
through that single connection That you develop a
greater Attachment to that cause Because you can
see yourself in the victim Of that cause
And so find out How you can support
your local Refugee organizations How you can actually
make a connection Let your kids be on
a first name basis With children that are
their age That have been expelled from those
same places You get on a first name
basis With people that are in that situation
And that will reshape things for you Far
more than the statistics And the third thing
One of the saddest realities of our community
Is the abandonment of political prisoners We have
no one to blame but ourselves For the
abandonment of political prisoners In our community We
get scared, we shy away from them Because
no one wants to be associated With someone
who's been associated With a group like ISIS
or Al-Qaeda No one wants to be
associated In this climate With a prisoner who
has been stained And falsely tainted with those
types of charges No one wants that to
show up On a watch list And then
be used against them by their employer I
get it, it's dangerous But we have to
remember Those political prisoners Who are in prison
Are in prison because they were political Meaning
what?
Their conscience refused them To ignore the plight
Of millions of other people What does it
say about us As a community When we
now ignore their plight So someone says Hey
look, you know, Dr. Afia Kind of a
lost cause, right?
HLF-5, kind of a lost cause, right?
These are kind of lost now Imam Jamil,
lost cause, right?
I want you to know That Clive mentioned
After his last visit with Afia Last week,
that she knows When the protests are there
That to me is enough The letters that
are written to these prisoners Just letters of
compassion and solidarity That's all How long does
it take you to write a letter To
a political prisoner Or to make a call
To someone's office Just to lend your voice
When the Prophet ﷺ says وَلَأِنْ أَمْشِيَ مَعْ
أَخِي فِي حَاجَةٍ For me to walk with
my brother in need Is more beloved to
me Than so many of The actions that
we know Than tahajjud or itikaf In the
masjid of the Prophet ﷺ It doesn't take
much To do those things But you avoid
Becoming complicit In the system that turns them
into Casualty counts, numbers Abandoned, prisoners And the
last thing I remind us with You are
not a number to your lord The beauty
that we have In our relationship with Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala is that Allah azawajal
Gives each and every single one of us
Access to him وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي
قَرِيبُ When my servant asks you about me
I am close to him أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ دَاعِي
إِذَا دَعَانُ Allah azawajal responds to the call
of the caller Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
Responds to the individual Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala does not respond Only to a priest
class, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Does not
respond only to political elites Every single person
has access to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
every Muslim Every believer and has the potential
To become more sacred in the sight of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Than the Kaaba
or Al-Masjid al-Aqsa even if they
get lost in the crowd That's something that
we revel in That we're not just numbers
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala We're not
numbers to our Prophet salallahu alayhi wa salam
لَقَدْ جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِمَا عَنِتُمْ
حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُمْ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَؤُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ He was deeply
concerned For his Ummah salallahu alayhi wa salam
Those that were immediately in front of him
And those that were distant from him Those
that lived in his time And those that
lived after him Salallahu alayhi wa salam He
had a deep concern and connection For every
single person In this Ummah If we are
not numbers to Allah and his Messenger Salallahu
alayhi wa salam Then how do we let
our brothers and sisters Become numbers to us
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be with
All of our brothers and sisters In Palestine
and in Yemen And in Sudan and in
every Single place where they struggle May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala be with them May
Allah azawajal grant them victory May Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala turn Us towards the efforts
that are productive For them, may Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala Allow us all to be
brought back to him As a result of
these global events May Allah azawajal increase us
all in righteousness And may Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala protect us From the wickedness that
brings about harm On our brothers and sisters
Allahumma ameen Dear
brothers and sisters, it is of course a
call to Dua, dua for your brothers and
sisters All over, you're following the news In
Palestine, you're following the news in Lebanon You're
following the news in Sudan And your brothers
and sisters That are local, all I'm asking
you Is don't wait for Juma khutbah Don't
wait for someone to tell you what's happening
Do your best to find out what's happening
If you're interested enough inshaAllah ta'ala You
will find those pathways We ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to guide us to those
pathways Allahumma ameen Arabic
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