Suhaib Webb – Information On Demonstrations

1st and foremost to those of you who

are organizing

around the issues of Gaza and Palestine,

Those of you who are are busy engaged

in civil disobedience and demonstrations,

and information sharing, I want to extend my

truest love and respect

and honor for each and every one of

you. And I ask Allah, azza wa jal,

to bless you, to sustain you, to keep

you strong,

and to reward you for every step and

every letter and every effort you're making

on behalf of ending this genocide that will

lead to

Palestinian

Liberation.

I was asked about demonstrations

because we know that tomorrow across the globe,

large number of demonstrations are happening. So I

wanted to answer this through a number of

kind of points.

And I want people who are engaged

in organizing,

engaged in in actions to listen carefully because

I pray that this will help you and

assist you. There's a lot of bad information

out there. We need to provide spaces

of balanced, responsible information that preserves the utility

and agency

and choice of the Muslim Ummah. As the

prophet

said, my community never concurs on falsehood. So

I will answer this through a few parts.

Number 1,

is I want to answer it from the

perspective of the objectives of Islam, Islamic law,

which are considered a source of certainty and

certain actions.

Al Maqasat Maqasat al Sharia.

The second I wanna talk about the importance

of means

within Islamic law and

how that plays out in the idea of

engaging in demonstrations.

The third, I want to talk about what

happens when we have

a large number

of impermissible things happening

or harmful things happening, how do we navigate

that,

as Muslims? Because we hear sometimes people say

at demonstrations, there's all kinds of haram things

happening also. So then how do we negotiate

that? And then finally, some of the evidences

that we can use to support the idea

of demonstrations, and I'm going to try to

make this as brief

as I can. BarakAllahu feekum.

The first is the Maqasid al Sharia, as

we talked about in the answer a few

days ago,

as mentioned by Ashal Tabi, an imam,

Asumki, he alludes to this but in a

different way in Jema'i, which is a famous

text that we study,

and Maqaseh

to feed Al Yaqeen.

We understand that to be certain because they

appear so much in the Quran implicitly and

explicitly

and so much in the sunnah of Sayyid

Al Akwun of the Prophet, peace be upon

him, implicitly and explicitly

that we understand them as being a source

of certainty in thought in action, and intentionality.

And what are those, for those of you

who aren't Muslim, those major objectives of Islam?

Number 1 is faith. Number 2 is family.

Number 3 is

property. Number 4 is honor. Number 5 is

life.

These are the maqasid, the goals that Islam

seeks to preserve and enhance and protect in

civil society.

If we look at what's happening now in

Gaza

and in Palestine, we see all 5 of

them are under threat.

Religion, churches, and mosques are being bombed and

destroyed, Christians are being spat on,

People are not allowed to travel freely. They're,

banned from going to mosques.

Number 2,

life.

Many of us are following, and I encourage

you to follow Palestinians. We see them emaciated.

Some of them haven't posted in 4 or

5 days. We don't know if they're alive.

People are being murdered

in front of our very eyes in 2023.

Families have been separated. We see children crying,

hospitals full of parents looking for their children.

Children, imagine how scared you would be if

you lost your child

at a at a grocery store.

Imagine losing them in that situation where there's

drones and bombs

and psychological

warfare happening all the time.

Wealth

is gone, People's personal property, gone. Hard assets

have been destroyed. No one will be paid

back.

And honor.

All 5 of the Maqasat of Sharia are

violated

in the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

So then

what would be the ruling of the means

to fix that?

And means are based on ability, and you

and I are limited in what we can

do,

and how we can express our anger, and

our rage,

and our our refusal to be muted or

to be silent, if we lose our jobs,

if we lose our our social credit rating,

we don't care anymore, because

this takes precedence over ourselves,

because when people die there, a part of

us will die

if we are silent and watch this happen.

So we have a great axiom in Islamic

law that talks about means, and it says,

That means take the rulings

of their objectives.

So we see these major objectives of Sharia

being violated,

so therefore, the means

to preserve and protect

those obligatory

objectives

become obligatory.

So that means it's an obligation

to do whatever we can to restore

the presence of those objectives in the lives

of those people

within our ability and within, of course,

the legal system that we reside in.

So one of the means that we can

inshallah employ in this moment are demonstrations.

So now you want to know the ruling

on demonstrations?

There you go.

There you go for those who can, with

their ability,

obligatory.

Maybe somebody will say, but there's other things

you can do, Yes. But they are not

as effective,

and they do not bring together the critical

mass and the coalition building needed for this

moment,

needed for this litmus test of humanity.

So

means take on the rulings

of their objectives, and here,

The third thing that I wanted to talk

about is what happens when

we have this kind of violation of the

objectives of Sharia, but then trying to change

that involves

potentially

being exposed to things which are forbidden.

Like, people say you go to demonstrations, they'll

be free mixing. What is the anonema free

mixing?

It's very strange concept. You don't find it

in the books of filk, free mixing.

We find irresponsible

behavior.

Right? Irresponsible

behavior,

because there are moments where people naturally are

going to be mixing with one another, men

and women,

who are not mahram. It happens. But there's

responsible behavior. There's being a good human being,

there's being a person of fidelity, and honor,

and dignity in civil society.

But we have a very important axiom

that when there are numerous

harms happening,

right, we have to shepherd,

right, the greater harm. So So that means

we allow the other harm to happen in

order to protect ourselves from the greater harm.

Examples of of this are in the Quran,

where someone who is near death has to

eat pork to survive. Eating pork is haram.

It's a harm, but it's a lesser harm

than death.

So if you're really concerned about free mixing

and music, which is a whole another discussion

and all of those kind of things that

may happen at a

demonstration,

Here's the axiom for your,

to take on the lesser of the two

harms, meaning you you you have to engage

in a way that protects you from the

greater harm, a lesser harm that protects you

from a greater harm. This is the Maqaseh.

So now when we go to demonstrations, we

may have to be patient. We are going

to have to coalition with build with people

that we may not agree with. That makes

it stronger. That makes it stronger.

When people who don't agree can come together

and agree on something, that means that thing

must be the truth.

So you take on the lesser evil to

remove the greater evil.

Finally, some of the evidences, and I have

to keep keep it quick for you.

Number 1 is the prophet said whoever sees

an evil should change it

according to their ability. Number 2, the prophet

mentioned in the sunn

of of Imam, even, Abu Dawood, that a

person will be punished in the grave, be

tortured in the grave.

And he will ask, why are you torturing

me like this?

Say, You you saw oppression, you passed oppression,

and you didn't help the oppressed.

The prophet said, Sur Ahaq, help your brother

where he's an oppressor or the oppressed. How

do you help an oppressor? By stopping them.

This is an order of the prophet.

The second one, the prophet came

from Syria to Medina in the stronger opinion.

All of the people of Medina, male and

female, came out and greeted him.

On Eid, the males and females, we come

together. There may be separation for prayer, but

undoubtedly, we're going to be somehow together.

Saydna Amrul Khattab, when he made a Hijra,

he announced his Hijra.

This is a form of demonstration. Sayna Imam

al Hussein,

who stood up up against oppression.

Jeisel Qur'an in the time of Abdullah Iba

Masood, 300 after him, 300 of his students

went out and opposed

systematic oppression.

So ask Allah

and I hope this assists all of you.

Very short answer for a big subject, but

I hope it will put some of those

things to bed.