Sami Hamdi – Ym Activism
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the differences between English and American English, including the importance of protecting one's identity and activism in encampments for groups that do not want to be protected. They share stories about past experiences that helped to change one's identity and actions, including a book that changed one's life and actions. The segment also touches on the history of Islam, including the rise of activism and the loss of Muslims in the face of economic crisis. The speakers emphasize the importance of activism in maintaining a heart and pushing through struggles, protecting against violence, and staying true to Islam.
AI: Summary ©
Salamani,
first of all, how are you? How is everyone
I have learned the American language? Alhamdulillah, it's been
a bit tough. There is actually a theory that one of the UK
comedians has about the difference between English and American
English and American so he says, for example, like he realized that
the difference is that Americans are more concise when they speak
their language. For example, in the UK, what we walk on the road
is called the pavement.
But here in America, we call it the sidewalk, because the
Americans needed to know where to walk on the road. Sidewalk in the
UK, what you wear on your eyes. You call it glasses, because they
were worried you might put the glasses somewhere else. So, you
know, they had needed to notice.
Jokes aside, you can tell I miss home. First of all. Thank you very
much everybody for being here. It's a bigger crowd than I
expected. I actually thought this would be a smaller room, so I have
to complain to the organizers for turning up this particular topic
with regards to
maintaining your identity when you're engaged in your activism in
terms of moving forward. And there are two ways we could approach it.
And I spent quite a while discussing with my mother, who
came here from the UK, and she's sitting here hashtag, no pressure.
But my mother came here. We were discussing this for a while, you
know, in the morning, over breakfast and the like, browsing
through different ideas. And the reality is that it's not really
worth lecturing people who are Masha Allah, who've made such a
great difference, going out to the encampments, protesting and the
like. I don't think you need any encouragement in that regard. And
it's not for me to lecture you in this. So rather, instead, the poet
bun of Muhammadan, I always quote this in my speeches, because I
love his poet. I love his poetry, the Canadian Muslim poet buna
Muhammad, or the Muslim Canadian poet, he says, We are all
reflections true. So I can't talk about me without talking about
you, meaning that I can only give you a series of reflections that
I've seen around the world, and perhaps you might resonate with
one of them that might make sense within your context. So I will not
be arrogant enough to assume that I know your context, but I will
proceed to give some thoughts and ideas of things that I've seen.
Maybe you will resonate with one of them. The reality is that I
grew up in a household where we were taught that the Ummah was
strong. I grew up in a household where the stories they would tell
us, where the stories of my grandfather, Ammar Gemma, who
would go to the mountains and fight against the French in the
belief that his efforts would lead to the liberation of Algeria. I
grew up in a household with a father who kept going activists
from his student days, imprisoned at 19, tortured at 19, imprisoned
again at 20, had a sentence of 25 years on his head when he was 21 I
then fled the country. I went to London and proceeded to volley
criticism at the governments from there and in two in 2001 or 2000
the French press, the media, la press, it wrote that a small brick
building in the middle of London shakes the government of Ben Ali.
I grew up in a household in which there was a constant activism
moving forward. So I grew up in where I saw the fruits of that
activism. I saw the difference that it made. But I'm not here to
tell you about the tactics that were used. I'm here to tell you
about the identity that underpinned that particular
activism. I understand that in the context of this is being
presented. It's being presented the idea of, how do you
participate in encampments when LGBT are there? How do you
participate in encampments when leftists and socials are there?
I'm pointing at the brothers because sisters seem to have no
proceeds. No processes are going which Allah is the brothers who
are lacking behind in any case, what is it that makes what is it
about them that makes the issue of going to encampments a complicated
issue, and I realize it's the fear of losing an identity or
compromising on an identity, and when I saw that was the problem,
it led me to the conclusion that we don't really understand the
identity, because if we did, we would not hesitate to go to the
front lines of any battlefield with which it is to protect
Palestine, to stand up for justice, to stand up for Gaza. If
we understood our identity, we would have recognized that those
people on the front lines, non Muslims, standing up for us and
Philistine, they are standing there not because they believe
it's some cool issue. It's because there's a fitrah that Allah put in
their hearts that is now resonating so deeply with the
issue. They don't know what this fitrah is. They are trying to find
the word to describe it. We know what that word is. If their fitrah
is roaring, this is fertile Dawa territory. This is the time when
you go when you speak to them because their fitrah is alive.
This is a time when you share the deen and you share the story
because the fitrah is alive, but because we are not assured of our
identity, we feel they would influence us, as opposed to us
influence them, and that's why we didn't rush to go and join those
protests and encampments in the way, perhaps that we should help.
So in this particular talk, I will focus on the concept of identity.
And the reality is that once upon a time, I also thought that the
Ummah in some as well, you would see all the news and all the
headlines about all the tragedies that are taking place and the
like.
Then, when I was 17, my father was a bit worried that I might go
wayward, so my father put a.
Book in a ham in my hand, called the road to Mecca by Muhammad
Assad.
And the book, wrote to Mecca, was a book that changed my life,
because in this book, Muhammad Asad, he seamlessly merged the
politics of the day with Islam, and he didn't separate the two,
nor did he even ever say the two were separate. He made them seem
the same.
Muhammad as said in his book, wrote to Mecca establish maxims
that it's not Muslims that make Islam great, it's Islam that makes
Muslims great. He argues that when Islam inspires the Muslims to
action, Allah gives them glory, but when Islam is just becomes a
series of habits and rituals, then Allah removes the glory for then
the Muslims become like a dajjal one eye in which for them, Islam
is the spiritual and personal. It's no longer the public and what
you do in public and the like.
But the book wrote to Mecca by Muhammad Asad also taught me the
stories of the past that helped to mold our identity. And I want to
tell you some of these stories. I want to pass on some of these
anecdotes.
Ibad Allah, when I was 18, we played football or soccer, as you
guys call it here.
After the first season, we came second in the league, and we won
one of the cup competitions. So on the way back from the bus, one of
the members of the team says, Why don't we go play against
universities abroad?
So we said, yeah, it's a great idea. They'll fundraise. They
started cleaning cars during the summer. My father initially said,
you can't go. And then two weeks before he said, Sammy, you should
go. I messaged the captain. I said to the captain that, what do I
need to pay to join this trip? He said, pay for your ticket from
London to Istanbul and back. Everything inside Turkey is paid
for. I said, Are you sure? He said, Yes. The night before I'm
about to fly, my mother, she comes to me. She says to me, Sammy, I
don't think you should go. I said, why? Ma? I Why, Ma? She said, I
saw a dream that a man in a long chain threw you in the bathroom
and locked the toilet on you, lock the door of the bathroom on you. I
said to him, What kind of dream is this? But I knew who she was
talking about, because our captain had a long chin. So I told this
story to her friends, and we went to Istanbul. One thing you realize
is that when you're in university or college, as you guys call it
here.
I speak American. See translation for free. You know, mashallah, I'm
making life easier for the translators for the language. They
are different languages, trust me,
when we one thing you realize is, when you're in the university
environment, it's easy to get along. When you're playing
football, it's easy to get along, you know, you score the goal,
whatever. You go have dinner after it's fine. Omar Abu Khattab said,
when you traveled with people, it's very different. Omar Khattab
once said to somebody, bring me somebody who knows you. He said,
Have you traveled with him? He said, No, have you dealt money
with him? He said, No, but I drink coffee with him every night. He
said, Go away. You don't
know the first day was okay. The first day was oh, what do you say
in your prayers? Oh, it sounds nice. Oh, really is that what you
say about God? What's relation with God?
The second day was, you think you're better than us, don't you?
The third day, they wanted to go clubbing. And I said, some guys,
guys don't go. They said, now you can't impose our views on your
views on us. You can't impose your views. I said, guys who goes
clubbing the night before a match, they said, Sammy, is it from your
Islam or are you worried about the match? I said, Yes, CD, I'm
worried about the match. They said, Okay, we won't go. And they
went back to the hotel. A friend of mine came to me on the third
night and said to me, Sammy, check if they've booked your ticket for
the domestic flight from Istanbul to van. I
said, What do you mean? Check? He said, check. Maybe they haven't
booked it. I said, you do know the alternative is they leave me
stranded in Istanbul.
So I went, and they hadn't booked the ticket. So the guy captain
says to me, get the team together and they'll vote on it. So they
voted 15 to five to leave me stranded in Istanbul. And I was
worried if I called my dad. My dad tell me, come home, because I
don't want to leave my son stranded there. So I didn't tell
him about it. So the Turkish translator is walking and he says,
brother mashallah, you know, this is first time I see democracy, you
know, like this in in ordinary issues. I said, Ali, do you know
what they just voted for? Brother, my English is not really that
good, you know, I didn't understand you guys all speak too
fast. I said they voted to him, he's trying to Istanbul. He said,
These people are deadly. He used the more, harder term, but we
can't use on camera in America. But any case, he said, Don't
worry, brother, I will look after you. He paid for the ticket. We
went to van. When he went to Van,
we landed, and we're driving back from the lake. It's a lake wa
salabi. He stopped on his way to Al Aqsa. As we're driving, there's
a Kurdish driver called narji. He's driving the car, and he says
something in Turkish to the translator. He says, Why is this
boy not eating the food that we're giving him? The Turkish translator
says he's fasting. He says they fast in London. He said, Yeah, so
he talks in Turkey. He says, Okay, tell him if that is in my house. I
told the brother. I said, Listen, if we do, if that in his house,
the team, I'm already on tough tensions with them. If they know
that I'm getting special treatment, they will really,
really hate me, and it will be very difficult. So the turns out,
the Turkish translator is not translating what I've said, he's I
can hear him say Istanbul and kefir and this and the like. And
so I'm like, SubhanAllah. He's probably telling him the story of
Istanbul, and the Kurdish guy is speeding up the car, accelerating,
getting angry and angry as he's on the steering wheel. And I'm like,
Yeah, who are you doing? So he says, Wallahi.
In the language, and the text shows you the ghost brother. He
says, Iftar in his house, and you stay in his house.
When I went that evening, and I went and stayed the whole city,
found out that an 18 year old boy from London was screwed over by
his team in Istanbul, so they gave me a three bedroom flat wall to
myself while the team stayed in dormitories. They brought me
Sakura and Iftar every single day, when the team went to the
Messenger, then they met the Imam. The Imam was celebrating, said, We
have long done Ramadan fasting, musulman. And this so the team,
they said, guys, have you met Sabi before? They said, No. And he
said, so. Why do you treat him this way? And the Imam, Walla, he
looks at the team and says, Allah maker,
after Sami.
I was 18 years of age when I got married. I took my wife on the
honeymoon to this city. She told me, people go Malaysia. People go
turkey. I'm going to Eastern Turkey by the lake. I said,
Wallahi. It's a special place. The next year, we decided to go to
Ghana and Nigeria. So this time on the plane. At that time, I didn't
like flying. Now much better. Now I sleep on planes. But that time I
would think, Oh, my debts all paid. Do the shahada 20 times. And
this because it's not can't go. So there was a black activist with us
who came and sat next to me, said to me, Sammy, Islam is racist. I
said, don't start this now. Okay. Just before our flight to Accra, I
said I might accept that Muslims can be racist, but Islam is not
racist. I might accept Muslim but Islam is not racist. I said, the
Muslim who is racist is a jail and doesn't follow the deen as it
should be, followed bluntly, because Bilal balaba, he said, You
always use Bilal I said, No, you're saying that because you
don't appreciate Bilal. Bilal balaba was put on that desert
floor in the heating desert rock on his chest being whipped. All he
had to do was give up la illallah, Muhammad rasulallah, he refused to
do so, said ahadun. Ahad but not from a position of weakness. The
reason they were beating him was they felt if the slaves saw his
resilience, they would do a revolt and topple the leaders of Quraysh.
He was a man of revolution, not some weak slave that some Muslims
believe him to be when it comes to so he starts talking to me, and I
said to him, Listen, I'm not in the mood for this, but I promise
you, when we go to Ghana, Nigeria, those black African brothers will
resonate more with me than they will with you. He said, that's
arrogant and offensive. I said, Watch Kazi. I was a bit of a
bright when I was younger. When we landed in Nigeria, we have a 12
hour transit to go to Lagos, to go to Accra in Ghana. So we haven't
played maghrebisha. So me Tahir, Nigerian brother, Adnan, Bosnian
brother. We decide to pray Maghrib Anisha together, does the Akama
and I've gone Allahu, Akbar. I hear behind
me, Allah. So Allah,
I finished the Tesla. Turn around, I see three rows, 25 Nigerians.
They look at brothers, where are you coming from? We told them,
we're from London. Muhammad, we have guests from London. Bring the
food. They put it here. By the way, this black activist is a
popular journalist now in the UK. He wrote his memoirs. In his
memoirs, he wrote, this was the most powerful thing I had ever
seen in my life. He asked the Nigerians, do you guys know each
other? Nigerians said, We haven't met each other, but we don't need
to the brother. The black activist says, why? And Wallahi alveen, the
Nigerians look him straight in the face and say, Allah, create
Muslims like one Ummah, one brotherhood. These brothers from
London are like family, even if we don't meet them, have the food.
Start, say, Bismillah. Brother, stay. Bismillah. And he goes and
he looks and he says, it's the most powerful thing I ever saw. I
was 19. I was 19 years of age when we went to Accra, Ghana. We prefer
moment starts at 430 and it ends at 636 30 is mag,
the idiots in the team, let's say *. They finished all the
water and all the food by 630 and I've been fasting. It's humid.
It's July, it's Ramadan. I'm sitting on the bus and I'm going,
Allah. Allah, I should have taken the license. Why did I fast?
Allah? Like, why we gotta drive, like, another 45 minutes to get to
the next place? We're the middle of nowhere. We're in Kumasi, you
know, in Ghana, and listen, somebody not associated with the
team. He runs onto the bus and he goes, Hey, I heard there is
somebody here. He's fasting. They said they're sitting over there at
the back. Hey, he's over here. They bring a big fat bowl of
Jollof rice with tilapia and plantain, and they brought a big
bottle of water, they put it and they said, say Bismillah and eat
the black activity sitting next to me. He looks at the guy and goes,
what about me and oqilah? Can you guess what the brother said to
him? He said to him, Allah created us as one ummah. He is my brother,
and I have to look after him. Eat my brother, have it. And he gave
me the reward in Jannah, inshaAllah, I said to him. I said,
Listen, brother, if he sat in a sign for you from Allah, I don't
know what he say is up if you don't have trust me,
the reason why I start with this, before I get to the point of
activism, is my identity was molded through those experiences.
My identity was molded through these stories. It was molded
through the framework I had at home, through my parents, which
was then allowed me to interpret these events as the power of the
Ummah, which means that.
I knew what identity looks like. I went to the far ends of the earth
to rank the countries, and you would find a message, then you
would find they will look after you. You realize this identity is
unique. And non Muslims do not have an equivalent. We take it for
granted. But no, Muslims do not have an equivalent. And that's
why, when you know the Ummah, when you believe in the Ummah, when you
see the Ummah, when you feel the Ummah, you don't up on the Ummah
and start realizing the problem is not the Ummah is weak. The problem
is you don't know the ummah. The problem is you don't know the
stories of the ummah. The problem is you've never met the ummah. The
problem is you don't know what they've been going through. And
the like I read, he said, begovich, his book, Ali az
begovich, the Bosnian president. Inescapable questions. So I wanted
to go to Bosnia. And when my wife and I started hella travel guide,
the tour company Bosnia was one of the first destinations that we did
after we started doing a few tours, the one of the foreign
ministries, they reached out to us, and they said, Why do you only
do Sarajevo to musta? Why don't you do other parts of Bosnia? We
said, Look, we just don't have the resources. Like, it's a lot of
money to trek across, you know, Bosnia and the like. They said, We
will pay for everything and just come and take a look at the other
places. One of the cities on the list is a city called Bucha,
for those who don't know, Banja Luka. Mladic entered it in 1993
this one, they committed the genocide and the like. There were
18 masajid and Banja Luka, they destroyed all 18 masajid. They
turned them into garbage dumps. When the smell got too bad, they
turned them into parking lots. So they could always say they are
stepping over Islam, and that they conquered Islam before they
entered Srebrenica, MLAs told the cameras, we here to take revenge
on the Muslims. This is a blessed day, and he proceeded to massacre
8000 Bosnians. And those are the numbers that we know. Forget the
numbers that we don't know. When I saw banya Luka on this list, I
said to Sumaya, I said to her, I ain't going Bania Luca. I'm not
going to that place. I'm not disrespecting Shuhada and the
available next to us, the Croat from the from the government. He
said, please just go check out. We won't stay tonight. I'm not going.
Please go and say that I'm not going. Please go stay the night.
In the end, when they kept going back and forth, I said, Listen, we
go, we look and we leave him
as we're going from Travnik. So you go from Travnik, and there's a
joke about Bosnia that if Allah ayed, it would be the size of the
United States, because it's just mountain up mountain down,
mountain, up mountain down, mountain, up mountain down. As you
go around the mountain and you see banyoluka, the first thing you see
is a minaret.
And I went minaret in Banja Luka. So I walk in, the Imam comes out
wearing a suit and everything. He comes there, he goes. Before he
can even speak. I'm like, Imam, what are you doing here? He said,
walaikum, salaam. Warahmatullah. I said, salaam, but Imam, Imam,
what's this? What you mean? What's this?
I said, quiet. I can explain it to you, he said. I said, how else?
What happened?
He said, in 2002
a group of young Bosnians between the ages of 20 and 25 came
together, and they said to each other, yalibad Allah, the
genociding Serbs trying to kick out Islam from banyak Luka, and
there is no longer a masjid there. They said, how will we look at
Rasulullah Sabah Wali? He was Salah in the face if we meet him
and we don't even make an effort to take Islam back, how will you
look at
it if we say that they won in ethnically clean Islam from
Bosnia. Thank you, Ma.
So initially, the Bosnians, they raised money. They didn't have
much money, and they sent a 22 year old Imam to banya Luka, and
they told him, go and rebuild all of the 18 Mercedes. I told him
about, how did they let you? This is the Serb, autonomous authority.
They won't let you. He said, They didn't last. I said, so what
happened? He goes, relax. Let me finish the story.
He said, we went back and there was a student studying
architecture at uni, and he said, Why don't we go to UNESCO? And we
ask, UNESCO, what do we need to get them? UNESCO protected? UNESCO
said, you need to use 90% of original materials.
Abad Allah, the Bosnians in an economic crisis, they raised money
to buy 18 parking lots.
They dug up the parts from those parking lots. They rebuilt the
masajid Brick by Brick using those original materials, and they found
the glass. They couldn't use it, so they found one Italian left who
makes the glass. They paid over the odds, with the help of non
Muslims from Ireland, they gathered money and they rebuilt
it. Last year, they finished the 18th Masjid.
Last year they finished the 18th Masjid.
They built a madrasa next to it, and they built two Halal
restaurants there as well.
I looked at the Imam. By this point, I thought, SubhanAllah. I
wasn't going to go banyuluka Because I thought I was
disrespecting Shuhada. I didn't know I would disrespect the
prophet by saying that it's they don't deserve Islam in the way
that everybody else does. They viewed Islam differently from how
I did. They viewed Islam differently. They went out for the
sake of the Prophet Muhammad, sallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam, and
gave everything from their money and their wealth, and they went
and put themselves in danger to rebuild these masajid in banyak
Luka. And some of us can't even go to an encampment a.
Ibadala. The reason why I say this is and I know this the point, the
brief was give us ways in which we can push our activism. But there
is no point pushing activism if you haven't inherited the memories
of those before you, if you haven't inherited the struggles of
those before you, if you don't appreciate those who came before
you, who gave you the luxury to discuss these issues in a nice,
fancy convention hall in Baltimore. There's no point if you
haven't inherited those memories before you, and there's no point
if you haven't felt what the Ummah looks like. Ya, ibad, Allah, the
reality is that 100 years ago, this ummah was under official
colonization. Why is it not under official colonization today? It's
not because the French that they left willingly. It's because they
woke up they said, Oh, Allah, Sid, what we are doing in Algeria, we
have to live. It's not because of that, it's because the Algerians
kick them out. The Egyptians kicked the British out. The
Indians kicked the British out. The Vietnamese kicked the French
out. They kicked out those colonizing powers because they
struggled, because they believed in something. There was an
identity that they felt when they moved forward. But yeah, ibad
Allah, I finished on this point because they're putting those
banners five minutes, five minutes. Five minutes.
Haribad Allah, as you pursue I'm not here to tell you what you
should do. I'm here to ask you to consider a few things. Ibad Allah,
when we read the seer of the Prophet, Muhammad, sallAllahu,
alayhi wa sallam, we love telling the story of Khalid Ibn Walid.
Right? He defeated the Muslims and became Muslim and then became
sword of Allah. We tell people, look at Islam, how it makes an
enemy into soul of Allah. We tell people the story of AMR Banas
about how he went from trying to persecute the Muslims to becoming
the man who takes Islam to Egypt. We love telling the story, right?
We say, look at our Islam, how it makes the enemy into an ally. We
told Saul, you know, he used to beat up Muslims because they would
give the Dawah, and then he becomes Muslim and becomes alpha
rook, the pinnacle of justice. Ibad Allah has anyone considered
as a Khalid Ibn will lead right now on the other side that with
thou will become the sword of our modern day Ummah, that there's a
on the other side, that with thou will come and take Islam to where
you can't take it. That there's a right now pro genocide, pro
Israel, pro everything. But if they become Muslim. They are the
ones who will lead us to the pake of pinnacle of justice. Has any of
you considered it? Or did you think this year ended in 632 ad,
when the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam said,
Allah Islam, Abu Asmaa rain, Allah bless Islam with one of the two
ahmars. Has any one of you made it to either Allah bless Islam with
one of the current enemies of Islam right now, for example,
Allah bless Islam with Donald
Trump. Look. But look at this for a second. It's true. I said it in
a way that makes you laugh. But why do you laugh? Why is it so
impossible when the Prophet is making dua for the two Omars,
there are two Omars openly persecuting the Muslims. There are
two Omars both beating up the Muslims. They are Abu Jahl and
both openly beating up the Muslims. Would you have laughed if
you heard the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu say, Allah, bless Islam
with
either Abu Jahl or would you have laughed at that period? Would you
have laughed at the Prophet Sallam and the Sahaba when they made that
sort of dua? And that's the point. Why is the perspective so
ridiculous, when in reality, the Sira is telling you it is
possible. The Sira is telling you people's hearts can change. The
Sira is telling you that people can come to your aid. When you see
those non Muslims standing up for Raza despite the fact they have no
ethnic ties to Palestine, no religious ties to Palestine, ask
yourselves why they are roaring for Palestine. It's because
the Muslims should say, This is it. Let's take the biryani and go
ya Ra. Let's go and do the open Juma. Let's go and do the salah.
You also in Colombia, there was the girl with the short shorts.
She puts the kefir as a hijab. She wants to copy the sisters in
prayer. How do you not know that your engagement at this time when
they are ripe for the Dawah. How do you not know that this is the
Dawah? Or are we Zionist in thinking that we are a chosen
people and they don't deserve the Dawah? Activism
is about an attitude. It's the belief that you believe the fitrah
will resonate with the message of justice, even if they are enemies
today. And this is I want to finish with, the words of Allah.
Allah says, Is there
any speech than those who call to Allah do good deeds and say they
are, I am from the Muslim in now, if you read it like a dajjal, when
I you think that dawah is only Kumbaya, it's aid in the park,
which is part of it. It's that's a half truth. But Allah tells you
what Dawa feels like. He tells you what Dawa feels like. Allah says
in the following area, wala Testa will Hassan to well as say, the
good deed and the bad deeds are not equal. Why is Allah saying
good deed, bad deed are not equal? It comes to dawah, then he says,
It's viability. Asen, push with that which is best. Ya rasulallah,
why am I pushing? I went to give dawah. What am I now pushing
against? You're pushing against the backlash that the call for
justice brings. There is a shaykh in New Jersey, and I tell the
story every.
Where we're sitting in the car, and he says to me, Sammy, Islam is
problematic. They catch that on video. You're canceled everywhere.
He said, No, no, really, Islam is problematic. I said, Sheik, I know
New Jersey are very blunt, but this is too blunt. He said, Listen
to me, I am. You can tell he's Egyptian. In any case, he said to
me, Sammy, what was the relationship like between the
prophet and society during the first 40 years of his life.
Sadat, I mean, they loved him, the beloved son. He comes in. They
leave the Amana, tahibi Asami. Second question, When do his
struggles begin?
When he stands up and he says, la Ilala, Muhammed Rasulullah, stop
oppressing the poor. Stop burying your daughters alive. Liberate the
slaves. Give every there is no superiority over of an Arab over a
non Arab move. Ibad Allah, in this way, when do his struggles end,
they don't end until his dying breath, he said, Sami, the natural
state of a Muslim engaged in dawah is one of struggle and one of
difficulty, and one in which they constantly pushing, constantly
pushing back against the backlash. Ibad Allah, the question was
implicitly framed, how can we have the good ways of activism in which
we are most effective? But I want to flip the question, how can you
maintain a heart that can push through the struggle? How can you
maintain a heart that pushes through the heartbreak? How can
you maintain a heart that pushes through the despair for Wallahi,
the Prophet Muhammad, sallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam, did not seek
goods liberated. He went in Badr but lost in and then he had an
existential crisis in hamdak, and then he had to sign a treaty of
Uday Bea. And when they signed it, the ayah came down, rasulallah,
rasulallah, waladina, Ahmed umahu, Mater Allah, they were shaken,
until the Prophet and those who followed him said, When is the
victory coming? We're doing all this activism, we're doing all
these protests, we're doing all this social media, we're doing all
these things. When is the victory of Allah coming? Know that the
Prophet said the same thing, sallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam.
That's why I flipped the question in terms of what is the attitude
that you should have. Allah says that if you persevere, the one who
is your enemy today tomorrow becomes your warmest ally for
either Levina, kawabayon Hamid, but Allah tells you who achieves
it, the ones who achieve it are not the ones who are not patient.
I'm not the ones who are lazy. Allah says, Wama ulakaha, the ones
who achieve the shift where the enemy becomes where Donald Trump's
rallies now start chanting, genocide, Joe genocide. Joe
genocide, Joe. Where Tucker Carlson says we need to cut
funding for the Israelis. Where Macron says we welcome ICC arrest
warrants, where Germany says we will arrest the genocide if we
enter our territories. We enter our territory,
where you see that Australia to join the alliance against the
Houthis, where you see EU restore funding for honor, when Biden has
to criminalize honor by his allies turn against him. Who achieved
this shift? Who achieved this global shift? It's not the armies
that you think you need. It's not the money that you think you need.
It is the ones who are patient, patient with the process that
doesn't produce the outcomes at the pace that you want, but if you
keep going, it will produce the outcomes at the pace Allah wants.
Waka Fabi, wakila. Allah is the best to trust with these outcomes.
Allah. Ima
Allah, if you plan to stand for justice, know which is a part
struggle. If you plan to stand for justice, know that the Prophet
Muhammad, sallAllahu, sallam, struggled and suffered for 23
years to deliver Islam to your heart. And that's the point I want
to make here. Ibad Allah, when I finish it, yeah. Imadala, I saw a
video of a 12 year old being interviewed. He's an actor, I
think, in one of these Muslim series. And the presenter asks
him, if you met Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, what
would you ask him? And the boy had a phenomenal answer. I was
thinking, what would I ask him? And the boy said, I wouldn't ask
him anything. I say to him, barakallahufib, Barak Allahu fig,
My Beloved Prophet, you are boycotted, but you kept going. You
are persecuted, but you kept going. You lost Khadija, but you
kept going. You lost Abu Talib, but you kept going. You were
kicked out of Mecca, but you kept going. You were defeated in but
you kept going. You had to dig the trench, but you kept going. You
had to sign udaipia. But you kept going, and though you didn't see
us, you still loved us, though you didn't take Al Aqsa, you were
satisfied with what Allah gave you, Barak, allahufi, Ayu Habib,
for everything that you did, because 1400 years later, they
gathered in Baltimore to say, La Ilaha, illallah, Muhammad
Rasulullah and to spread his message far and wide. This is the
spirit in the hearts. Michael Hart, the non Muslim historian,
there's a reason he put Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam as number one.
Genghis Khan conquered more lands than the Prophet sallallahu,
sallam, Alexander the Great conquered more lands than the.
Prophet Muhammad, sallAllahu, sallAllahu sallam. But what's the
power the Prophet sallallahu Sallam had that makes my heart put
him at number one. It is not the material achievements, though they
were great. It's the spirit that he left behind that though he
didn't see the Dawah being given in the English language, he didn't
need to, because he left his spirit behind. That brings a boy
from London to sit with his family and Ummah in America to say, yeah,
ibad Allah, let's continue shaking the world. Let's keep saying the
Haqq. Let's keep saying the truth. Let's keep doing what's right for
our beloved prophet, ibad Allah. Ibad Allah, know what power is,
and that's the final advice I give if you're going to do activism,
know what power is no. Power is not weapons for Allah, the
Zionists have their missiles and are bombing the Palestinians. But
Megan rice entered Islam because of the resilience of the
Palestinians that they are bombing, that they are spending
millions on a PR campaign that you, with your activism, broke for
free. Netanyahu spent millions, and you broke it for free.
Netanyahu lost Tiktok, so he's trying to ban it. Biden wants to
ban Tiktok. May Allah protect, preserve and elevate Tiktok and
preserve it for my algorithm is good for those who think it's
fitna, don't say out loud, you'll expose yourself. I don't know what
you taught your algorithm to show you, in any case, I finish on this
point. Yeah, I bad Allah. Ibad Allah, the
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu, sallam said she bet you Huda, the
Surat hood has given me white hairs. Why? Surat hood is about
prophets who go to their people. They spend a lifetime of dawah, a
lifetime of activism, but only minority of their people believe
so Allah destroys their people. The Prophet sallam was worried
this would happen to his own Ummah as well. So yeah, ibad Allah,
would you say that the prophets and Surat hood failed in any way?
No, you all cringe. Why hasha not? Because It's haram to say, of
course, it's haram, but there's another reason why, because you
subconsciously know the outcome doesn't belong to you. The outcome
belongs to Allah. Subhanahu wa Allah will not reward you for the
outcome. He will reward you for your striving. He will reward you
for your mobilization, for your moving. You may never see the
outcome in your lifetime, but Allah will still say to your
qiyana, Yana, sumatma, Inna Abu beautiful, blessed soul, though
you didn't see the outcome in your lifetime, you kept moving, you
kept mobilizing because you were desperate for the honor of being
my vehicle. I will show you what I did after you died and the
outcome. Look how beautiful that outcome is. But enter my Jannah.
The Prophet didn't see if it's liberated. But he didn't need to,
because in Jannah, one day, you will tell him the story how good
was liberated, Inshallah, and you will tell
him Father for delivering the message in such a way that it
roared in our hearts. We broke Israel's monopoly over the
narrative genocide. Joe is about to lose, and we are seeing the
world shift in such a way that Israel today is a pariah state
because of your activism, ibad Allah, know that all glory belongs
to Allah. And can you read Allah to jamiah, and that is the most
beautiful thing. May Allah use us as His vehicles, may Allah make
our hearts steadfast, may he let us push through the heartbreak,
may he let us push through the despair, May He give us the wisdom
to move forward. Because here ibad Allah, the way I see it is we are
making them panic. And Allah said, Those who do even an atom of good
deed, Allah sees it how wonderful it is to see Netanyahu do a press
conference to complain about you students, to say, please stop them
protesting. Cameron, you made Netanyahu credit.
Please. Give him You made him lose sleep. You made him pray. Keep
going. Yeah. Ima Allah, apartheid is on its last legs, and Palestine
will be free from the river to the sea. You