Omar Suleiman – Your False Sense Of Security From Gaza And Beyond
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AI: Transcript ©
We begin by praising Allah
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 their blessed
path until the day of judgment. Allahum Amin.
Dear brothers and sisters,
there was a brother that was recounting to
me a story
about
a house
that was being built in what is known
as zone C
in the West Bank of Palestine. May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala free the entirety of Palestine.
Allahumma Ameen.
So for those of you that are not
familiar, obviously
our attention has been turned towards Gaza
in the wake of this genocide
and one of the most nefarious elements of
the propaganda
that has perpetuated this genocide is to separate
Gaza from the entire cause of Palestine, the
entire cause of Palestine.
And, of course, it's not just hanging the
carrot over the head of some so called
2 state solution.
While there is a continued settlement expansion into
Palestinian territory. But most Muslims, most people
are not actually literate or educated about
the way that this expansion
of this colonial entity has functioned
over the last few decades.
And so if you look at what's known
as the West Bank today, they have zone
A, zone B, and zone C, and you
can read about it from the human rights
organizations.
There is not a single zone in which
people have their full self determination or people
have their full rights being realized.
But zone C, which makes up 60%
of the West Bank today,
is where the rights of people are even
more restricted relative to those outside of zone
C.
And this brother was sharing something truly insightful.
He said, you know, you work your entire
life to build this house,
and just like every single one of us,
you work your whole life to be able
to put a house up, or to purchase
your first car, or to give your kids
an education, whatever it may be.
But it takes longer, obviously, when you don't
live in an affluent state.
You work your whole life
to be able to construct this house,
and because you're in zone C, at any
moment, literally, settlers can just walk in, boot
you out of it, or it can be
demolished because someone in your neighborhood,
right,
angered the wrong person or your oppressor just
felt like it. And I want you to
think about this conditioning. And so in his
situation,
his house was destroyed very quickly. So imagine
working decades
to build your house, and forget about an
insurance plan, you don't even have citizenship. You
don't have an identity. There is absolutely no
sense of security
in that state.
And your house is destroyed.
And so
a brother was
really in awe of just the contentment that
he seemed to have. I mean, can you
imagine one of us in that state?
You work 60 years
to get your first family home for your
entire family generations, the happiness and the joy
when you walk in, and then your oppressor
just feels like walking into it and demolishes
it,
and they can spit in your face figuratively,
literally, while doing it, and you have
absolutely no legal recourse? How anger angry,
frustrated, and jaded would you be? But he
was so content.
And what was his answer?
And of course, this shouldn't detract from
the monstrosity
of this political situation. May Allah
end it. Allahumma Ameen. But what was his
answer as a man of faith with that
smile on his face and contentment?
He said, you know what?
In this area, we all have the expectation
that while
we are building our homes, that at any
moment they could be destroyed and so we
don't get so attached.
That's the answer of a Wadi of Allah.
That's the answer of a friend of God,
of someone who actually understands
that, guess what?
It's not just that area
that's zone C.
The entire dunya is actually zone C. The
entire world is actually zone c. It's just
that we operate under an illusion
that our houses are somehow more secure
and that we have an entitlement. And whether
we like it or not, we buy into
this
idea, this framework, this global framework that if
you live in a certain part of the
world or you hold a certain document, you're
more entitled to safety and security and rights
than other people. We we benefit from that,
living in the United States of America.
But the whole world is actually zone C,
and the way that that man approached it
is actually incredible, because in reality, he is
not a slave to his home, whereas so
many of us become enslaved to our possessions,
to the things that we think we occupy,
to the things that we think we own.
I was looking at a couple in Gaza,
and you might have seen the weddings in
the refugee camp. I mean,
I was watching it, and I couldn't stop
watching it, and it was, to be honest
with you, a welcome break from the beheaded
children from these bombs.
And I'm looking at them, forcing a smile
on their face,
and they still have that
buzz of the drone right over them, and
you know that at any point that drone
could be an airstrike.
I mean, what is the chance of you
even living to see the next day? Forget
about living to see the next stage of
your wedding, your honeymoon, or having your first
child, or whatever that is, what do you
actually look forward to?
But subhanAllah, they put the camera on the
young man, and he had the most beautiful
smile on his face, the smile of a
groom that you would have in any other
place in the world.
And he said that we in Gaza
have always lived in prison.
It's just that the prison guards have become
more violent.
We were never operating under the illusion that
we are free.
We were never operating under the illusion that
we have another day to look forward to
or we have another moment to look forward
to. That's an indictment of the rest of
us.
But it shows you that that mindset
has given them something,
that you know what? They don't operate with
the false sense of security
that so many of us do.
We just witnessed
the tragedy
of the murder
of an American Muslim, Aisha Noor. May Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, have mercy on her. By
the way, she died coming out of Jum'ah.
She was murdered coming out of Jum'ah in
Palestine last week. I made the announcement here
on Friday about her death.
She was murdered coming out of Jum'ah
in Palestine. May Allah accept her as a
shahid, forgive her for all of her shortcomings,
and may Allah elevate her. Allahumma Ameen.
Now her blood is not more precious than
every other Palestinian that's been martyred
in this genocide.
But I want you to think about this.
For how long
have those of us who have that American
passport, and I actually thought about bringing my
American passport and holding it up in front
of you. How long have we operated under
this illusion that this document gives us any
real source of security or protection?
Because the reality is is that if you're
an American,
Israel can kill you, and America will fund
the murder and then defend the murder and
make sure there are no consequences for the
murder.
Maybe that document
wasn't what you thought it was.
Maybe that citizenship
wasn't what you thought it was. The idea
of free speech, the securitization
under every single administration, especially George Bush onwards.
The the government has been shutting down organizations,
targeting individuals.
I've got my American passport. It means nothing
when they actually start to target you, but
there's this illusion
of freedom, this illusion of security that we
have with that oh so treasured document.
That doesn't mean
that we shouldn't use
every single legal instrument
to insist on the full rights of being
an American citizen if we have that passport
and then using it for the benefit of
those who undoubtedly,
collectively are in a worse situation.
But what it does mean is that, you
know what, a little bit of that security
has been shaken.
Maybe I'm not as protected as I thought
I was
because this government has directly droned and killed
Americans,
has directly bombed Americans, and is,
in an ongoing fashion, defending the murder of
Americans overseas.
Maybe it doesn't mean what I thought it
meant, and you know what? Alhamdulillah,
that's good.
That's good.
Let it break the illusion.
Let it break that sense of security that
we have. It doesn't mean it's not a
monstrosity what happened to our sister, that we
shouldn't continue to insist once again on putting
them to the test of the of their
own citizenship, this paper when it was granted
to us.
But at the same time, spiritually,
maybe it's a good thing
that we start to say, You know what?
Maybe this passport wasn't worth what I thought
it was worth. Perhaps, dear brothers and sisters,
our American Muslim
calculations,
our politics
over the last 2 decades
have become a little bit too much about
securing the interests of American Muslims only, maybe
even to the detriment of Islam and the
Muslim world and humanity.
Maybe it's become too much about us securing
our cut out here. You listen to the
rhetoric about this election, and no, I'm not
gonna tell you who to vote for from
the menba.
Use your own sense and your own fitra
and your own moral conscience.
But you listen to the calculations and the
rhetoric,
and you think about what that means and
what is embedded in what we are saying,
maybe it's become too much about making sure
that my kids can live at home in
safety, my kids can go to school in
safety, which I want so badly.
I want them. But I don't just want
it for them.
But maybe our political calculus has become shifted,
and maybe it's a little bit of a
humble pie for us
to say,
maybe you shouldn't be thinking too much about
this,
and you should be thinking a little bit
broader. Because when we talk about American exceptionalism,
which has shown itself in America's foreign policy
to the detriment of the rest of the
world, maybe there's American Muslim exceptionalism as well,
where we've only been thinking about ourselves as
an American Muslim community, and perhaps we need
to broaden that framework
to think about more than ourselves.
I want to bring this to something personal
and spiritual, though.
What is the sense of security that we
should have? Believe it or not, this wasn't
intended to be a political khutbah. What is
the sense of security that we're supposed to
have? When Allah
says,
'A'amintu manfus samayi yarsi ra'ikum hal Sibah.' Allah
mentions to us, do you feel safe when
you're above ground, when you look up and
the skies seem Okay, that the Earth will
not swallow you? Or do you feel safe
when you are on stable ground and you
look up to the sky, that the sky
will not rain down upon you that which
will cause you pain?
There is a problem,
a spiritual problem fundamentally,
that could be behind this,
where we put our sense of safety and
our security
in other than Allah
Now by the way, there are 2 categories
that we have from this. One of them
is feeling safe from Allah's plan if you
are an oppressor.
The other one is feeling safe in Allah's
plan.
The first one is feeling safe from Allah,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's plan, and Allah, Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala mentions to us about the tyrants.
They thought their fortresses would protect them from
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. You could build every
single structure in the world.
If you are an oppressor,
your day will come to you.
You could build every physical structure in the
world, every political structure in the world. If
you are an oppressor,
your day will come from Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. And Allah Azzawajal says, And
this is powerful that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
would let it come to them from a
place they never even expected.
They didn't even make that calculation
when they were thinking about how to fortify
themselves. If you are an oppressor,
do not feel safe from the plan of
Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The plan of Allah
is there.
And if you're not an oppressor, may Allah,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, never let us be oppressors
to anybody.
If you're not an oppressor,
then you also need to learn to feel
safe in Allah's plan. And this is where
Umar, radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, mentioned the fitna of
the sword of Khaled, radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, that
the Muslims who are righteous people
might have started to assign
too much to the sword of Khaled, radiAllahu
ta'ala, rather than the power of Allah, Subhanahu,
Ta'ala, and Omar, radiAllahu, anhu, said, I'm worried
about that. Fa yukiluna ilay. They might become
entrusted to a sword rather than the Lord
of the heavens and the earth.
Entrusted to a political power, entrusted to some
sort of military might, entrusted to a skill
set, and that's dangerous.
You could be entrusted to what you find
your dependency on that's not just speaking about
military power and force.
If your tawakkul is in your job,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala might relinquish you to
your job. If your tawakkud is in your
own abilities and your own speech and your
own cognizance and whatever it may be, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala might entrust you to those
things. If you seek security from those things,
Allah Subhanahu
might allow you to actually try to gain
your security from those things. If you seek
it in your abilities, Allah
might entrust you to your abilities.
If you have certain standards of beauty and
acceptance,
and maybe you're living up to those standards
right now,
but Allah might entrust you to those things
and they'll never be enough for you.
And eventually, it comes crumbling down. So it's
also about feeling safe in the plan of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
that no matter what you do, no matter
what means you take, no matter what you
possess,
your true faith, your true sense of security
lies only in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. You
know, when we look at the Hijra of
the Prophet SallAllahu Wa Salam, the migration of
the Prophet Sallallahu Wa Salam from Mecca to
Madinah, It's often used as a primary example
to say, 'Iaqal, what's aaqal?' The very famous
Hadith to tie your camel and then put
your trust in Allah
and the Prophet
indeed tied his camel and he put his
trust in Allah.
He crafted out a path for himself. He
tried to escape his persecutors in every single
way. He did his due diligence. But Ibn
Abbas radiAllahu ta'ala Anhuma says what?
When the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam left
from Mecca to Medina, he left Mecca for
Medina fearing no one but his Lord, and
he prayed his 2 rakas and then he
made his way. Meaning what? It wasn't the
plan that the Prophet, sallaihi sallam, put his
trust in.
That's not where he was deriving his sense
of confidence and his sense of certainty. He
was deriving it from his prayer while still
doing his part to properly plan, But his
sense of security, his sense of safety did
not come from
that.
Meaning what? When I leave my home,
I take my precautions.
I do what I have to do to
protect myself. But when I feel my real
comfort is when I leave my home and
I say, Bismillah to Wakaltu Allah Allah Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah.
That's where the confidence actually comes from.
It's not looking around to make sure I've
got this all covered.
I'm looking over my my shoulder properly. Where
does your confidence and your sense of security
actually
come from? And so there is no contradiction
between
wataawakal,
and wana yataawakal a Allah fahu ahaspa. Whoever
puts his trust in Allah, Allah will be
enough for them. So I want to end
on a practical note.
There are 7 ways
that I'll just put forward just for us
to think about because we might think to
ourselves, where do we go from here? What
does it mean? How do I actually start
to spiritually gain a sense of security and
safety from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
rather than, you know, these other things? Because
we're human beings at the end of the
day, we naturally incline
towards what feels very material in our hands,
the people or the positions that we can
cling to when we find ourselves in trouble.
And I want to remind you all, lillahilamro
minqabilwaminba'at,
that to Allah belongs the affair before and
after.
When Allah
talks to Nuh
and his son,
say to your son, when he says, I'll
go to the mountain to protect me from
the water, there is no protection that you
have min amrillah, from the affair of Allah.
It remains the affair of Allah before and
after, not just after Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
gives you victory,
but before as well, it remains the plan
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Number 1,
recite the duas and the afkar
specifically that deal with the removal of anxiety.
The prayers and the supplications specifically, on
a regular basis, oh Allah, I seek refuge
in you from anxiety
and from grief. Recite those duas regularly and
do not relinquish them and think about what
you're saying when you make those duas. Number
2, take your concerns to your prayer and
make your prayer a source of resolve. If
you don't bring those insecurities
into your salah, then you're not going to
develop the resolve from your salah to be
able to deal with them. So bring them
into your duas. Ask Allah
in your salah, in your sujoods
to resolve those for you. Number 3,
cover your bases so that you don't have
regrets later on about your own holes. Why?
Because if you did your best and it
still didn't go according to plan, at least
you feel assured in knowing that Allah's plan
overtook you for a greater reward.
Number 4, and the next 3 deal with
people.
Take inspiration from those who have less than
you, yet find more security than you. When
you feel like you're losing resolve, look at
the people in Gaza and be inspired by
their resilience
just as you are motivated and angered by
the atrocity that's been committed against them. Number
5,
have people assure you
that can clearly
still see
without
believing that everything is falling apart,
that can affirm you in the midst of
your tragedy
from a clear headed perspective.
That's not the same as someone affirming you
in your sin,
but instead someone affirming you with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala's greater plan. You need to have
those voices. Wasbarnafsakima
aladeena yadoona rabdahu. Keep yourself patient with people
that aren't in the midst of your insecurity
or your anxiety perhaps, and they can give
you
words of encouragement and resolve. Number 6, be
a source of safety to others that have
less than you because by being a source
to others, Allah will increase you in your
own and your focus will remain on things
that are greater than yourself. And that's, subhanAllah,
the blessing of constantly thinking about the Ummah
because when you're constantly thinking about the Ummah,
you think less about yourself. It puts your
personal issues in perspective constantly,
automatically, subconsciously.
Number 7. Remember that the loss of safety
is just like the loss of every other
blessing.
If a person bears it with patience, they
will find its reward in the hereafter. So
when Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, says that I
do not combine for my servants, khufaynwalaamnein.
2 feelings of fear or 2 feelings of
safety. If you feared Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
here, you will not fear him there.
If you felt secure from his plan here,
then you will not feel secure from it
over there. May Allah
grant us safety and security. Al aafiya fadunya
wal akhirullahamaamin.
And my last reminder, dear brothers and sisters,
that just like Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can
take away
in a way that you would have never
expected,
He can also provide for you in a
way that you would have never expected. I
just want you to reflect on this.
Allah says about the punishment to those tyrants
that hide behind their fortresses
faataamoolahuminhayzu
lamyahtasibu
That
Allah brought the punishment to them from places
they would have never expected.
But Allah
says in regards to relief,
Allah will provide for you from places you
never expected.
Allah will punish them
from places they never expected.
Allah will provide for you
from places that you never expected. May Allah
Subhanahu Wa'ala grant us and our brothers and
sisters, the weak ones and the oppressed ones
all over the world, safety and security, and
make us a means of that for them
as well.