Omar Suleiman – What If Oppression Is Our Destiny
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We begin by praising Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la and bearing witness that none
has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally
obeyed except for him And we bear witness
that Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is his final
messenger We ask Allah to send his peace
and blessings upon him the prophets and messengers
that came before him his family and companions
that served Alongside him and those that follow
in his blessed path until the day of
judgment and we ask Allah to make us
amongst them Allahumma Ameen Dear brothers and sisters
of the du'as of the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam Or at least a part of
the du'a is وَلَا تُصَلِّتْ عَلَيْنَا مَنَّا
يَرْحَمُنَا Oh Allah do not place upon us
Those that will have no mercy upon us
and of course as is commonly recited in
the du'as Even if in the hadith
is مَنَّا يَرْحَمُنَا مَنَّا يَخَافُكَ فِيْنَا وَلَا يَرْحَمُنَا
Those who have no fear of you nor
will they have any mercy upon us It's
a common sentiment that no one wants to
be placed under the crushing fist of oppression
Not in their personal lives or in their
political existence No one wants to feel the
strength of another man above them That controls
their movements, that controls their money, that controls
their seemingly their dignity Their very existence in
every way No one wants to feel like
they are at the mercy of another human
being Especially not a cruel human being It's
been the theme of trying to remove oppression
for the last year And as it seems
to get more bleak Then the frustration and
the despair and the anger grows And that
sentiment of مَتَى نَصْرَ اللَّهِ When is the
help of Allah coming?
Which we spoke about in the very beginning
of the genocide It hits a bit different
now because some people are saying truly مَتَى
نَصْرَ اللَّهِ I'm looking around, okay, this isn't
going this way, this isn't going that way
And سبحان الله What I want us to
actually focus on for the rest of this
khutbah Is what if Allah declared for you
oppression?
What if Allah decreed oppression upon you for
the rest of your existence?
At a personal level and at a political
level What if we don't see the light
at the end of the day?
What if we don't see victory in our
lifetimes?
And سبحان الله In that same vein of
that hadith وَلَا تُصَلِّتْ عَلَيْنَا مَنْ لَا يَرْحَمُنَ
I was reading al-Imam ibn al-Qayyim
رحمه الله In his مدارج السالكين And he
says قَالَ أَحَدُ الْعَارِفِينَ That there was a
righteous man Who said لِرَجُلٍ تَعَدَّ عَلَيْهِ وَظَلَمَهُ
Who said to a man who oppressed him
and who wronged him And I want you
to memorize these words قَالَ إِن كُنْتَ ظَالِمًا
فَالَّذِي سَلَّطَكَ عَلَيَّ لَيْسَ بِظَالِمٍ If you
are an oppressor Then the one who put
you above me is not an oppressor سبحان
الله Think about the power of those words
If you are indeed an oppressor Then the
one who has allowed you For some wisdom
that is beyond me To be above me
in the material sense Is not an oppressor
Allah is not an oppressor Allah is not
an oppressor Even if the oppressors seem to
reign free at times Allah سبحانه وتعالى is
not an oppressor And you think to yourself
Well, how do I internalize that?
How do I equally have the same energy
and power To both fight oppression and to
be pleased If Allah سبحانه وتعالى has decreed
oppression for me And you take it back
to the very beginning of mankind The story
of mankind Subhanallah Starts off with all of
the diseases That are present in mankind today
It's a story of pride It's a story
of envy It's a story of murder It's
everything that the angels said أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن
يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِي قُدِّمَا It didn't take long
for human beings to spill blood It happened
with the very first generation That murder happened
And who did it happen between?
Brothers Think about that Brothers Not people that
are cousins Not people that are uncles and
aunts Not friends Brothers And it's Qabil and
Habil Cain and Abel And we could talk
about that all day long Because it occupies
a significant portion of the Quran for a
reason To say this is how mankind starts
off But I want you to see the
final moments Through the lens of the wronged
brother As Habil is looking back at Qabil
This is when murder is imminent This is
the moment before his blood is going to
be spilled And we don't even know what
that looks like yet As far as humanity
is concerned But this is the final moment
When he looks to his brother Who has
that murderous rage in his eyes Who is
holding his weapon towards him Outstretched And he
says to him After telling him that I
will not do what you do He says
to him I
want to let
you bear the full sin of me And
the full sin against me And your own
sins I want you to bear the full
sin of this act So that you can
be from the people of the hellfire And
that is the payment for the oppressor SubhanAllah
think about that You know we never really
think about What he must have been feeling
in those moments When his brother outstretched his
hand to kill him And he submitted himself
to that moment He submitted himself to that
decree for himself He's a human being He's
not feeling sympathy for his brother in those
moments And this is also very important Because
we are not angels That doesn't mean we
have the right to act like devils But
it does mean that we have the right
to feel human He said I want you
to be punished I expect my jannah I
expect my paradise I have full trust in
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala To grant me
what he has guaranteed me Should this act
of oppression meet its final end But I
fully want you to go to * Think
about every image of the oppressor Standing seemingly
triumphant over the oppressed And the body language
and the confidence And the belief in what
comes next إني أريد أن تبوأ بإثمي وإثمك
فتكون من أصحاب النار I want you to
bear the full sin of this act I
want nothing to do with this And subhanAllah
Imam al-Qurtubi rahimahullah Lists so many deep
reasons As to why he said إثمي وإثمك
My sin and your sin He said one
interpretation of that is I want you to
bear the full sin of killing me And
me not having to have anything That would
negate that sin of you killing me And
I want you to bear the punishment Of
all your other sins too I want you
to face Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala With
the punishment of killing me And the punishment
of all of your sins And you will
be from the people of hellfire He also
says that what it means is I want
you to extend your oppression As long as
you want Because the extension of your oppression
Means the extension of my good And the
extension of your bad The extended version of
your oppression Take all the time that you
need Go ahead and oppress in every way
that you want Take it all because in
reality You're only giving me my Jannah And
earning yourself your * What a mindset When
someone can fight his oppressor With the full
anger and energy That is needed to fight
an oppressor But at the same time to
say I'm not afraid of you Go ahead
Do what you're going to do Do what
you want You're not actually hurting me And
I hope you hurt yourself in * I
hope you experience hellfire to the extreme And
I know that if I'm patient I will
experience paradise to its full promise He also
says and he comments with the hadith Of
Abu Hurairah radiyallahu ta'ala anhu And this
is such a powerful one In Al-Bukhari
Where the Prophet ﷺ said مَنْ كَانَتْ لَهُ
مَظْلَمَةٌ لِأَحَدٍ مِنْ عِرْضِهِ أَوْ شَيْءٍ Whoever has
committed an act of oppression Against his brother
in regards to his honor Or something else
قَالَ ﷺ فَلْيَتَحَلَّلْ مِنْهُ الْيَوْمِ He said let
him beg for forgiveness now قَبْلَ أَنْ لَا
يَكُونَ دِينَارٌ وَلَا دِرْهَمٌ إِنْ كَانَ لَهُ عَمَلٌ
صَارِحٌ أُخِذَ مِنْهُ بِقَدْرِ مَظْلَمَتِهِ He said ﷺ
let him beg for forgiveness now Before he
shows up on a day When his money
will not benefit him in any way And
if he has any good deeds Then those
good deeds will be taken away from him
In accordance with his evil وَإِنْ لَمْ تَكُنْ
لَهُ حَسَنَاتٌ أُخِذَ مِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ صَاحِبِهِ فَحُمِلَ عَلَيْهِ
And if he has no good deeds left
to give And this is the person that
the Prophet ﷺ said Is al-Muflis, a
bankrupt human being An oppressor who shows up
His good deeds are taken Then the sins
of the one that he wronged Will be
put on his back May Allah ﷻ protect
us اللهم آمين And so إِنِّي أُرِيدُ أَنْ
تَبُؤَ بِإِثْمِي وَإِثْمِكَ Go ahead and extend your
oppression Go ahead and extend your evil You
are not actually harming me And this is
the mindset That keeps a people going This
is the difference between a shaheed And someone
who the Prophet ﷺ said Every single time
someone commits an act of murder How many
years has it been since قَبِيلٍ هَبِيلٍ Since
this immortalized conversation We don't know But let's
just say It's been at least several thousand
years Every murder that you see in Gaza
Guess who's getting a share of the punishment
in the grave He is Because the Prophet
ﷺ said Every time someone spills blood A
part of that goes to The brother who
spilled blood لِأَنَّهُ أَوَّلُ مَنْ سَنَّ الْقَتْلِ Because
he's the first one to start that trend
To normalize that evil Can you imagine All
the casualties of Gaza He still gets a
share of that punishment All of the tyranny
on earth Firaun gets a punishment Because they're
imitating Firaun And their oppression and their tyranny
What does this mean for us There's a
question That often gets asked And I'm not
going to address this question fully Which is
do we deserve this Do we deserve oppression
for ourselves As a community And the answer
for now is not always But if it's
been decreed for us We make the most
of it Allah ﷻ has promised victory But
Allah ﷻ has not promised That each and
every single one of us Will live to
see that victory on earth And we have
to be okay with that We have to
be able to come to terms with that
fully Allah ﷻ promised eventual victory In the
full physical material sense of the word But
if we don't live to see it Alhamdulillah
We know it's still happening Allah ﷻ never
says وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا الْهَزِيمَةَ Allah ﷻ
never says He promised the believers That they're
going to be humiliated Or that they're going
to be defeated Allah ﷻ mentions that He
has promised the believers That He will settle
them on this earth That He will give
them victory وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ Victory is for the
believers In this life and the next We
already know Whether it's in three years Or
it's in 30 years Or it's in 100
years We already know That Allah ﷻ has
promised victory But the question That I want
us to really reason with And reckon with
For the purpose of this khutbah In concert
with everything That we've been talking about What
if we don't live to see that victory?
What if it's never freed in our lifetime?
What if we're still fighting the same battles
30, 40, 50 years from now?
Will that make you question Allah ﷻ now?
Will that make you have doubts in your
deen?
Will that push you to a brink of
faithlessness?
Will that make you think Okay, maybe they
have a point?
What if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes?
What if we are martyred in the process
Or even spared in the process?
But we don't live to see it?
What does it do to your faith?
What does it do to your identity?
What does it do to your existence?
The answer should be Nothing but good Because
the affair of the believer Is always khayr
Is always good Nothing but good إِنَّ قَتْلِي
شَهَادًا They kill me, it's martyrdom الحمد لله
They deport me It's a chance to contemplate
Allah Azawajal's existence out of these lands الحمد
لله They imprison me It's a chance of
khalwah To be secluded with Allah ﷻ الحمد
لله Meaning if victory in the material sense
Does not come in your lifetime You're okay
with that You are fully at peace with
that reality I didn't sign up for this
Because I want to be holding a banner
In this life of victory I signed up
for this For the banner of the hereafter
I signed up for this To be in
a certain category in the akhira That's the
mindset we have to have I didn't sign
up for it To sing and to dance
And to feel the jubilation of joy In
the physical sense If it was for Allah
ﷻ Then you will incur it In its
full experience For the sake of Allah ﷻ
With a smile on your face الحمد لله
It doesn't take from my confidence In Allah's
plan in any way If Allah ﷻ has
decreed a personal path For me that is
different And what I want to come to
Dear brothers and sisters in that sense All
of us want oppression removed And that in
and of itself is a noble goal Oppression
is so ugly In its bare manifest sense
That إزالة الظلم That to remove oppression Is
in and of itself A noble enough reason
to push us But why do you really
want oppression removed?
Why do you want to see Palestine free?
Why do you want to see Palestine win?
Why do you want to see it?
What do you want to see as a
result of it?
The American Muslim community Let's speak to our
own little cut out here We want to
see success For the American Muslim community What
does that mean to you?
What does that even look like to you?
What does victory look like to us?
There are very different perceptions Of what victory
actually means Of what success actually means So
you want oppression removed Why?
Our Prophet ﷺ always taught us To attach
a noble goal to a dua And so
when the Prophet ﷺ said On the night
of Badr إِن تُهْلِكَ هَذِي الْعِصَابَ فَلَن تُعْبَدَ
فِي الْأَرْضِ أَبَدَ Oh Allah If you let
this group of people be wiped out Then
I'm afraid you won't be worshipped on earth
He didn't say Oh Allah I want revenge
Because you saw what they did to Khadija
رضي الله عنها You saw what they did
to Sumayya رضي الله تعالى عنها And I
want that same feeling of No, none of
that Oh Allah, if this group of people
is destroyed I'm afraid you won't be worshipped
on earth There is a noble goal that
was attached to it We see it in
the duas of Ibrahim ﷺ Every one of
his duas Ibrahim never makes a dua Without
attaching a reason to that dua رَبَّنَا لَا
تَجْعَلْنَا فِتْنَةً لِلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا Oh Allah, don't make
us a fitna for those who disbelieve To
where they think that their victory Translates into
truth being on their side And not realizing
that they are steeped in falsehood We have
a reason for our duas So when I
ask you Why do you want your oppression
removed?
Why do we want oppression removed from this
ummah?
You need to gain some clarity there On
an individual level Why do I want it
removed?
You need to gain some clarity in that
regard And I want to say one more
thing In sha Allah ta'ala In regards
to specifically, once again, American Muslims I get
it, elections are around the corner Once again,
there is a lot of uncertainty Once again,
there's a lot of fear What could happen
to American Muslims here?
What could happen to American Muslims there?
I'm not saying that none of that is
valid I'm actually not You're a Muslim I'm
going to treat you that way I'm going
to talk to you that way I'm not
saying that your concerns About what's going to
happen next are invalid It's okay to have
a fear of the unknown A fear of
the uncertainty And what comes next But what
I want you to already put in your
heart and your mind Is that even if
it's the worst case scenario For us as
Muslims Alhamdulillah Allah will be offering us an
opportunity to build character It's not always about
winning at a poll booth Or winning by
raising your banner Sometimes it's about winning Through
building clarity and building character Under difficult circumstances
Sometimes that's how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
Generates the best version of ourselves here And
the best reward for us there Alhamdulillah Let
that part go We need to strategize We
need to keep fighting We need to keep
organizing We need to keep doing this and
keep doing that Don't temper your efforts But
do temper your expectations Alhamdulillah I'm at ease
I'm at peace Because the shaitan that laughs
in our faces today We're going to have
a whole eternity Looking at those people burn
in the hellfire And laughing at them You
have a whole eternity To look at those
tyrants Pay for what they have done But
have you earned What you hope from Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala May Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala remove from us oppression May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us victory May
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to
be a part of that victory And should
we not be a part of that victory
in this life May Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala not deprive us of the full reward
in the next life May Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala instill in us steadfastness and trust
And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala plant
our hearts and our feet firm with faith
Allahumma ameen Allahumma
a'izal al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen wa
adhilla al-shirk wa al-kathibeen wa dammir
a'daa al-deen Allahumma ahlik al-dhalimeena bil
-dhalimeen wa akhrijna wa ikhwana man baynihim salimeen
Ibadullah an-Nallahi amru bil-adli wal-ihsan
wa ita'adil-qurba wa yanha'an al
-fahsha'i wal-munkari wal-baghi ya'idhukum
la'allakum tathakkaroon fathkuru allahi yadhkurukum wa shkuruhu
ala al-ni'ma yazid lakum wa ladhikru allahi
akbar wa Allahu ya'nimu ma tasna'oon
wa aqeem al-salat