Waleed Basyouni – Principals Around the Election
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the upcoming election and the importance of educating Muslims about the political system and obeying leaders and individuals. They also touch on the political system and the importance of protecting deens and deals, as well as the relationship between the government and citizens. The speakers emphasize the need for trustworthiness, engagement towards the people, and assistance in running a successful country. They also emphasize the importance of transparency and avoiding racist behavior in the community. The segment ends with a call for unity and a consensus on issues like voter rights and voter support.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salatu wassalam wa rasulullahi wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walahu ba
'ad.
It's been a while since I came to
Friday Night Lights.
That's why it's going to fix me a
mixed feeling that I missed, alhamdulillah, but also
I'm enjoying seeing a lot of great speakers,
great topics being covered previously.
Today, I would like to speak to you
about an issue that should be in the
mind of every Muslim lives in America, which
is the issue of elections.
I don't think our community is very different
from the rest of communities in the United
States, especially the young among us.
There's a significant amount of people in America
have almost given up on the system and
frustrated, and they see nothing moving and no
real change, and especially in this cycle where
you're just having almost the same old rhetoric
faces coming back again, and for us as
a community, whatever special interest we have as
a community, we don't see our agendas moving.
Our issues are respected, acknowledged.
As a matter of fact, you feel the
opposite, and that led so many people, not
only in our community, to feel disappointed, down,
not feeling to even participate in the elections.
Some of us even have questions about Islamically,
am I allowed to participate or not?
What am I allowed to do this, to
vote to this person or that person from
an Islamic perspective?
There's no doubt, since the message is a
non-profit organizations and restricted by certain rules,
that there is a limit to what I
can say in here, but even without these
rules that is put in place, I don't
see myself a surrogate or an advocate for
a political party or a particular candidate.
I might have my own preference.
I might have my own views about elections
and who would I would like to elect
for, who I would like to send to
DC, who I would like to send to
Cancun.
I know who I would like to send
to home and who I want to send
to represent me in the general elections.
These things are, I'm happy to talk about
it outside the masjid, but with this being
said, it is a good opportunity for us
as Muslims and we see today, one of
the things that we're so proud of in
21st century and Western world, we always talk
about how civilized we are by speaking about
the system that we have for elections and
how we elect our presidents.
And unfortunately for so many Muslims when they
compare how this cycle of electing presidents and
the presidents and elected official, how this work
in Western world and comparing to what happened
in the Muslim world, kind of give a
very big gap.
But as you know, not necessarily the Muslim
countries today practice, especially in this area, practice
what our religion says, what the system that
our religion have established.
So I think it's a very good opportunity
for me to start my talk by educating
us about how in Islam people get elected,
how in Islam the head of the government
is elected.
The concept of electing a government, a central
government to control the public.
How does that work in Islam?
Did Islam talk about that?
Is that something left for us to figure
out or it's something was established and clarified
by the Quran and the Sunnah?
The Prophet ﷺ was sent in a time
and a place where they don't understand the
concept of unity, the concept of jama'ah,
where people gathered around one leader.
This concept was a foreign concept, even a
rejected concept.
He was sent to a society which is
every tribe think themselves a government, see their
leader as the leaders, fighting one another.
And wars will go for decades between them.
And they will find the concept of obeying
a ruler is a concept of humiliation.
Obedience to a ruler is a form of
humiliation.
You're not supposed to obey anyone.
That's how the Arab in Arabia feels.
And that's why they were so divided.
That's why they were always in fight.
That's why they never had power.
That's why when we read in history, when
Muslim in the time of Umar ibn al
-Khattab reached Persia, the governor or the rostum,
when he met the general of the Persian,
when he met Rab'i ibn Amir, the
representative, or if you call it a model,
the ambassador that was sent to represent the
Muslim.
Rostum, that general said, who are you?
Where you came from?
Where did you guys came from?
We never heard of you.
We know that there is Arabs in Arabia,
but we never heard of you to be
an organized force and a country and a
and a people that unified around a message
or a concept or something like he couldn't
comprehend that.
The word is very interesting.
He said, where you came from?
Where did you guys came from?
Look at Ja'far ibn Abi Talib when
he went and he met the king of
Abyssinia, Najashi.
What did he say?
He said, Ya ayyuha al-malik, oh king,
kunna qawman ahla jahiliya, na'budu al-asnaam,
wa na'kunu al-mayta, wa na'ti
al-fawahish, wa naqta'u al-arhaam, wa
nusi'u al-jiwar, ya'kunu al-qawiyu
minna al-da'eef.
He said, we used to a nation who
will, the strong, the strong abuse the weak.
A nation that is divided that, you know
what?
We used to cut, you know, ties with
kinship and we used to be bad to
our neighbors because all they care about their
own, the numbers of their tribe, worshiping idols,
doing all evil things and eat them, the
dead animals.
Until Islam came to change this ummah and
that's one of the most incredible social change
that I can tell you that happened to
Arabia.
One of the most incredible social change, which
is Nabi ﷺ transferred this ummah from being
so arrogant, nobody listened to anyone, only so
racist, so proud of their lineage, so proud
of their tribe, to the extent that will
not submit to someone else from outside the
tribe, to tell all those people, asmi'u,
ati'u, wasmi'u, walaw ista'amala alayku,
walaw istu'amala alaykum abdan habashiyan ka'anna
rasaw zabeeba.
He said, you have to gather, to obey,
to listen, to listen to the leader, even
if the leader is one of your slaves
and a former slave from Abyssinia.
Even if it's not another tribe, no, no,
even if that person was of your former
slaves, became in charge of you, you have
to listen and obey and to come around
that person.
And actually, and this is Ibn Bukhari, and
there's many narrations like this.
As a matter of fact, there is an
incident with one of the sahabah, I think
it's Abu Dharr, when he found one person
who is a former slave, leading the salah.
And people gathered around him, and he's giving
orders, and he was surprised.
When he asked his governor in Mecca, who
did you appoint to be the governor of
Mecca when you left?
Because you have to appoint someone when he's
not there.
Yeah, he's what we call today a lieutenant
governor.
He said, I appointed so-and-so.
He said, who's that?
He said, so-and-so, Mawla.
He's a slave, a former slave.
And Umar radiyallahu anhu ta'ajjab.
And people of Quraysh okay with that?
He said, yes.
Islam has made change to people.
And that's something very interesting to notice.
So how Islam established, what's the concept of
a political system in Islam?
Number one, that you must have a ruler.
And that ruler must be obeyed in what
is known to be good.
You cannot appoint a ruler and he doesn't
have an authority.
Islam will not be established unless there is
a jama'ah here.
It doesn't mean group like all these movements.
No, jama'ah here, it means that they
are gathered around a ruler.
Said, when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
died, we elected Abu Bakr on the same
night.
So people will not spend one night without
jama'ah.
Without being around a ruler and having a
ruler, not even a one night.
That's why Abu Bakr was elected in the
same day the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
died.
And they said even that's one of the
reason why the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
janazah, one of the reason, not the only,
janazah or burial became late.
He was buried salallahu alayhi wa sallam late
in the day before Maghrib.
And the other reason because a lot of
people coming from different places to do salatul
janazah on him salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Obey Allah, shift the honor.
Obey Allah, obey the messenger and obey the
rulers among you.
And that obedience is not an open check.
It's obedience in al ma'ruf.
What's al ma'ruf?
Al ma'ruf, what is established to be
good in Islam and what's established to be
good in the common sense?
If science said that this is a good
thing to do, this is a good policy,
it's a good policy.
You know what?
Organizing the traffic lights, it's something to preserve
and prevent, you know, traffic jam and accident.
That is something that you listen to.
That's why you get ticket if you, you
know, if you do that.
Whatever system that you put, that it is
clear, there is a benefit from it.
There is, you know, it's known, established to
be something good.
There is obviously some details into this, but
we're not going to go to the details.
But like details like what?
The Muslim jurists discuss, can the rulers, can
the rulers change some rules?
Like for example, something mubah, something permissible.
Can the ruler make it halam?
The bottom line is, he can put restrictions
in what is permissible to make it enforceable,
like must, to do or not to do.
For example, if the ruler comes and said,
this year, nobody allowed to ever, nobody allowed
to, for example, grow barley.
This year, everybody grow rice or no rice.
Why?
Because shortage of water.
Rice required a lot of water to, to
grow.
So there is a good reasoning he giving
to the ummah.
That became something allowed for him to do,
but not forever.
Not, not to make his rules similar to
the sharia.
Sharia rules are what?
Forever.
Khamr is haram forever.
You see, this is halal forever.
He might change some of the only mubah
permissible.
He cannot change what is obligation, what is
haram to make it halal.
He cannot change that.
But in the area which is permissible, you
are permissible to grow rice or to grow
barley.
It's up to you or dates.
But he might come and put certain rules
to restrict the halal or to say that
it is not allowed to do for a
valid reason, for a temporary period of time,
or for a certain group of people.
Like for example, the Muslim rulers have the
power to say, not everybody, or rulers have
the power Islamically to say, not everybody walk
into this country.
Not everybody can own land in this place.
And the sahaba did that.
Not everybody allowed to bring his sheep to
this area.
They call it mahmiyah.
This is only for the sadaqah sheep.
It's not allowed for the public.
So because of the clear benefits for the
public.
So Islam gave power to the ruler, but
that power is restricted by to be, first
of all, according to the sharia acceptable, according
to a common sense law that does benefit
the public.
And as I said, there's many details.
So if you notice in the Quran, Allah
says, obey Allah.
Then he said, obey the prophet.
Then he said, he didn't say and obey
the rulers.
No, he said, and the rulers.
Why he repeated the word obey in Allah
and the messenger, and he did not repeat
it for the rulers.
He said, because Allah and the order you
to obey them, you only obey them when
you ordered you to do what or to
say or to act according to what Allah
and his messenger says.
Number two, Islam look at the ruler as
someone who basically meant to protect and to
preserve the deen and the dunya.
Islam see the of the rulers is to
protect both the deen, the faith, the religion,
and to protect also that worldly life, the
livelihood of people.
You cannot be the ruler if you protect
one and not the other.
If someone, mashallah, so religious, so righteous, but
you know what?
The whole entire country is defenseless.
The whole entire country have no economy.
People don't have source of money or work.
He can provide a system.
That's not a ruler in Islam.
So the ruler have both sides to look
after and to make sure that he provide
safety, security, economic stability to the people as
well as he protect the religion and ethics
and moral in society.
Three, Islam look at the relationship between the
government and the citizen, the governor and the
people in power and the citizen as a
contract.
And that's an amazing and an incredible intelligent
way of framing the relationship.
And Islam see that it's a contract between
two sides.
One side is the people and the other
side is the elected official.
And on the top of that list will
be what?
The or the governor or the king or
the president or the prime minister.
You name it whatever you want.
So if this is a contract, if this
is a contract, if we see it as
a contract, that means that contract can be
written and can be decided in the way
we agreed upon.
And that means that it's like a marriage
contract.
I can put in the marriage contract, there
are certain things in marriage contract known by
Sharia.
But also I can put in the marriage
contract many other things.
I can say in the marriage contract, hey,
you're not allowed to marry another woman.
I can put in my marriage contract, hey,
without telling me, without me having the right
to divorce.
Hey, you're in the marriage contract, you have
to pay me that amount of money as
mu'akhar sadaq.
In my marriage contract, you're not allowed to
force me to live outside the city.
I can do whatever in the contract.
Hey, my marriage contract says if you work,
if you work, you have to contribute that
amount of money to the house.
So in contract, you can do whatever.
I want to make a contract between me
and you.
You want to rent a room here or
you want to rent my apartment.
And the contract says, I put in the
contract, you cannot have pets.
You cannot have more than this number of
people.
That's right, contract.
So that's why we say the contract between
the government or the ruler and the citizen,
it's a contract.
We call today this what?
Constitution.
Where a lot of these rules and regulations
are can stipulated in the constitution and you
put it to define the exact role.
For example, a lot of people ask me
this question.
In Islam, in Islam, we don't have a
concept in our history of putting a limit
term for governor or president or king or
khalifa or sultan or amir.
All these names are equals, by the way.
Okay.
So we never had anything called limited terms.
Like if you look at the Umayyad, the
khalifa stay until he die or get sick
or leave.
Abbasis, Uthmani, Ottomans.
In the history of Islam, it's like that.
The khulafa, the four khulafa.
Somebody said, Shaykh, is it Islamically today correct
to have a term?
Like four years, six years, eight years?
In so many Muslim country, they practice this
no limit terms anyway.
But can we put a limit terms?
Is anything Islamic?
Somebody said, bid'ah.
I heard people saying that and I said,
no, it's not.
They said, what's your proof, Shaykh?
I said, my proof goes to this beautiful
concept.
It's a contract.
And in the contract, I can put, stipulate
whatever I want.
I can say that your contract with you
as a president is limited to this term,
two years, four years, six years, eight years,
whatever I want.
So absolutely correct.
I can put that in Islam, the khalifa
has so much power.
Can I limit his power?
Yes, you can.
It's a contract.
I can say, for example, he is allowed
only to spend that amount of money.
But after that, anything more than that, he
needs an approval from such and such institute.
I can put restrictions.
I can put whatever I want in the
contract with the ruler.
And that's where the constitution comes.
So that's in his concept Islamically is acceptable.
Number four, Al-Islam give the ummah, give
the nation, give the people, give the citizen
the power of watching the ruler and hold
them accountable for his actions.
And that can be whatever means is written
in the contract between them and him.
It can be in a form of elected
official like governors or congress, senators, parliaments, whatever
name you have today.
Shura, you know, but they have the power
to basically to have oversight.
It's not in Islam ever a blank check,
a full obedience to the rulers.
Why?
For a simple reason.
Al-Wali wakil al-ummah.
The ruler is a representative for the ummah.
It's your wakil.
It's like when you give you commission someone
to represent you.
Like I give wakil to Abu Ayman.
I give you wakil to represent me in
such and such.
Okay.
Or Ahsan, he's my lawyer.
New lawyer, mashallah, just got his bar exam.
He passed.
So you know what?
I gave him wakil to my commission to
be my representative.
Can I fire him?
Can I say, no, I don't want you
to do this for me anymore.
You've been misusing the power I give you.
Yes, absolutely.
The same thing.
I can't do that to the ruler because
I'm the one who asked him to represent
me as a ummah.
Okay.
And also because we have a contract.
And if you don't fulfill your side of
the contract, I have the power to cancel
you.
Ya ayyuha allatheena aamanu.
Koonu qawwameena lillaha.
Shuhadaa bilqist.
Wala yajrimannakum shanaanu qawmin ala alla ta'dilu.
I'dilu huwa akrabu lil taqwa.
Allah said, O you who believe, be presently
standing firm for Allah.
What that means?
Shuhadaa, witnesses injustice.
Yani stand firmly to what is just and
what is right.
So when you see injustice happen in the
ummah or by the ruler or by the
government, you stand up firmly and say, that's
not correct.
That's why Nabi salallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
Sayyid shuhadaa, the master of all the shuhadaa
is Hamza.
And a man went and stood up in
front of a ruler who is unjust and
said to him, you wrong.
You not fair.
You doing this and not, and that ruler
killed him.
That person is the master of all the
shuhadaa.
That's why Nabi salallahu alayhi wa sallam ad
-deen, the whole entire religion is based on
the concept of nasiha, being sincere advisor, saying
what is right.
Then he said, lia immatil muslimin wa ammatim.
And he mentioned salallahu alayhi wa sallam to
be, give nasiha to the leader of the
Muslims and to the public.
Qalan Nabi salallahu alayhi wa sallam, in the
hadith that reported, Fittermidi and others, qala burikat
ummah la yutalabu feeha alzaif haqqahu ghayra mutata.
Allah will never bless a nation where the
weak person can stand up and ask for
his right without fear.
I have a right.
I have every right to stand up and
ask for my rights without being afraid to
prosecute it, afraid to be put in jail,
to disappear, like unfortunately we see in many
places in the world today, or without being
flagged in the airport, like we see here
today.
I met some of my friends and brothers
who are Palestinians activists.
Every time they travel, they get that special
treatment, the super S, three or four Ss
in their boarding pass, just because they speak
up.
In a way, some people don't like the
way they talk.
That's not a justification for you to do
that.
I can speak, not because of my skin
color, not because where my neighborhood is, not
because of my social status.
I should be afraid to be arrested, to
be more likely to be convicted in the
judicial systems because of that.
That's not just.
And Allah will never bless a nation where
the poor and the weak cannot speak up
and can't receive their rights.
Abu Bakr represented that when he said, فَإِنْ
أَحْسَنْتْ فَأَعِينُونِي وَإِنْ أَسَأْتْ فَقَوِّمُونِي Abu Bakr said,
if I do good, support me.
And if I do bad, correct me.
What a beautiful relationship Abu Bakr put in
for that nation with the rulers.
When you do good, support.
Today, unfortunately, look at how paralyzed we are
in our political scene.
When the government, when the president does good,
he has no support.
Undermining him.
Why?
Because I want him to lose.
I want him to look bad.
And when he does good, I try to
justify, try to cover up.
Why?
Because my party is more important than my
country.
My loyalty to a certain group is bigger
than my loyalty to the truth.
The truth.
Unfortunately.
Amr ibn al-As heard one of the
sahabahs named Mustawrad ibn Shaddad saying, at the
end of the days, the Romans will be
the most powerful nation.
Romans represent the western civilization today.
He said, they will be the most powerful
nation on earth.
The biggest, the bigger.
Then Amr ibn al-As said, hey, you
know what he's talking about?
How can you say that?
What about us?
Why are you saying this about them?
I say what I heard.
I'm saying what I heard from the Prophet
ﷺ.
So what I'm saying to you is not
my opinion.
That's what I heard from the Prophet ﷺ.
Since he said that's what the Prophet ﷺ
said, I'll tell you why.
Why this will be the most powerful nation
on earth.
He said, they have four qualities that made
them the most powerful nation.
The most forebearing, the most self-control when
a calamity strike them, when a confusing happen.
And also, the fastest nation to recover.
He said, also, if they defeated, if they
defeated once, they come back and fight again,
right away.
And the fourth, they support, they have a
good social system to support the weak, the
poor, the orphaned.
But I will add the fifth one, and
it is the most beautiful one.
What is it?
They will not let unjust ruler to rule
them.
They will stop him.
They will change him eventually.
They have the power, they have the dynamic
to change that injustice.
That's what made that nation powerful, strong, dominating.
All these things the Sahaba ﷺ learned and
they understand the role that the Ummah play
in contributing to the success and to the
fail of their government or their system.
Number five, Al-Islam establish the ground for
ruling, which is justice.
Justice is the foundation for ruling between people.
When you rule between people, you rule between
them based on justice.
David, we made you a king in this
earth.
Be rule between people with truth, with justice,
and don't follow your desires.
That's why Ibn Taymiyyah, rahimahullah, and before Ibn
Taymiyyah, Ibn Hazm said that.
The famous statement, qal inna allaha yansudu al
-dawlat al-adila al-kafira wa la yansudu
al-dawlat al-dhalima wa inkanat mu'mina.
That Allah ﷻ give victory to a just
nation, which is not Muslim, over a nation
that is mu'min, believers, but is not just
and fair.
I'll say it again.
Allah will give victory and power to a
nation that is fair and just, even if
it's not a Muslim, over a nation which
is a mu'min, a believers, but they're not
just and fair.
Al-Islam also established an important concept that
I mentioned earlier, that the rulers not only
has to be just and fair, but also
have the ability, the capability to run the
country, have the knowledge, have the expertise, have
the assistance that you need to run that
country efficiently.
He must be trustworthy, must be merciful towards
his people, care for his people, not for
his personal gain or personal interest, or the
enemy or other people's interest over his own
citizens, his own people.
That's not acceptable.
And also, another number seven, Al-Islam made
so many of these details, has to do
with what we call today constitutions or what's
in the contract between the nation and the
leader of that nation or the government of
that nation, goes back to a very interesting
concept in Islam, which is the Prophet ﷺ
statement, The Prophet ﷺ said, you know your
worldly matters best.
Then your worldly matter should not be taken
from me, taken from you.
And this, the Prophet ﷺ said that in
regard to how they plant trees and things
like that in the time of the Prophet
ﷺ.
You don't expect the Prophet ﷺ, the Prophet
ﷺ or Islam is not a book of
geography, it's not a book of medicine, it's
not a book of economics, it's not a
book, it has guidance, general guidance, but the
details should be left.
If I have a problem in my heart
or my kidney or my abdomen, I'll go
to the doctors, ask them.
I'm not going to go to read what's
in the Qur'an.
I'll read the Qur'an because I know
Qur'an have the power of shifa.
But if I want diagnosed and I want
to learn, that's where I'm going to go,
to the specialist.
If I have a problem with my computer,
I'm going to go to Omar and I'm
going to go to Abu Ameen or whoever
in charge of this.
I need a business consultation, I'll go to
Abu Mahmood and so forth.
So that's something important to keep in mind
and basically keep a very big area in
part with how we choose that Khalifa.
Is the whole entire country choosing?
Is a specific group of people?
That's up to the people.
And that's why I say many people wrote
about the issue of mulk and the kingdom
and the ruling.
Sometimes they speak from a complete like theoretical
point of view.
They're living in a dream world.
I wrote about, I'm not making this up.
I researched this for a good portion of
my life.
I wrote about this concept more than 500
pages.
So I consider I spend amount of time
that make me a little bit of experts
in this area.
Just this concept, more than 500 pages.
In my college days, in my masters, you
know, in my after grad studies.
So I can tell you from what I've
been, what I read, there's a lot of
people read, talk about this area from a
complete theoretical point of view.
Have they lived some world, you know, some
dimensions other than, I have imaginary area of
what's a Muslim country looks like.
And I don't, I understand that because so
many people never lived under this kind of
ruling or seen how it works.
They never read the history even.
And other people are in the other extreme
also, people who are justifying all kinds of
injustice under the name of just the Sharia.
I'm making, you know, the most Islamic system
is the Western, for example, these days, that
democracy in the West, that's identical with Islam.
No, it's not.
And not long time ago, when you read
in Muslims, Muslim world, people talk about communist
and Islam.
You know, they used to say that communist
is the, and socialist system is Islam.
And many people wrote book about this.
When in the rise of the, these kind
of movements.
While Islam have a very moderate balance way
of looking at how system is built.
But what I want you to be proud
of what your religion saying.
See, this is, this is very deep.
This is a system was put more than
a thousand years.
We talk about Western civilization, few hundred years.
And guess what?
In the Western world, we arrived to what
we have today, which is far from being
even perfect, or even compared to the, how
good the system that was laid down more
than a thousand years in our religion.
But with this, I'll tell you what you
have today came after a long term and
a long history of blood and struggle and
unfair treatment, and people lost their lives and
their properties to have what you have today.
Comparing to what Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam have
provided humanity with.
If my people can see and understand, and
please don't misunderstand the Islam and Fuqaha do
not have an answer for everything, because unfortunately
we don't have a serious work done to
develop that contract and all these areas and
constitutions that it is, yeah, there is attempts,
there is trying, but way there is still
a gap, way there is still area need
a lot of work and improvement.
Also Islam talked about some details related to
the rulers being obeyed and not allowed to
rebel against them.
By the way, even the issue of rebel
against the rulers, talk about even if he's
not Muslim, not kafir, is a non-Muslim,
and someone who's unfair, unjust, and Islam have
put certain restrictions.
It doesn't mean that you turn the country
to civil war, where people die and killed
in the process.
Islam put the guidelines into this as well,
but it doesn't give that green light to
say, yes sir, yes sir.
No, you push back and you should put
a system that it hold people accountable and
prevent people from an ultimate power.
In the old days, we call them in
the books of fiqh, ahl al-halw al
-aqt.
In modern days, you call them parliament senators,
where they can impeach the president, we can
remove, you know, your supreme court, whatever, multiple
layers of a system to do that.
All this something that exists, but one of
the things that I want to focus on
or mention in particular, the system of how
to choose.
We have a concept in Islam, it's called
al-bay'ah, where the ummah give their
legion an acceptance for this individual, this particular
individual to be the leader.
It's for us to choose who are allowed
to lead us, and that's quite similar to
what we call today voting or elections.
And we see that on ummah, but it
has maybe certain restrictions, like for example, and
sometimes it's not, like Abu Bakr did not.
See, people said Abu Bakr, somebody said that
Abu Bakr did not give an elections.
Actually, Abu Bakr was elected by the Muslims,
by the mahajireen al-ansar.
When Umar was elected, Abu Bakr appointed Umar.
That's why Umar said, if I appoint someone
after me, I will do what a better
person than me did, which is Abu Bakr.
And if I don't appoint someone and leave
it for you to choose, I will do
what someone better than me did, which is
the process that I've never appointed anyone.
But Umar combined between both.
He appointed six people to choose among them
one.
So he did not leave, but what you
need to understand, Umar did not become the
khalifa until the whole ummah give him the
bay'ah.
So those six people have chosen Umar, but
the rest of the sahaba refused.
He will not be the khalifa until the
major and the majority of the people agree
to give him the bay'ah.
And same thing with Uthman.
And I meant by the example of Umar
Uthman, the sixth chose Uthman, then the whole
ummah give him the bay'ah.
Abu Bakr appointed Umar, but the whole ummah
give him the bay'ah.
And that's what made him khalifa.
That's what made him accepted.
That's why even the umayyads, the abbasis, they
appointed their son, they appointed their brother, but
he knows that's not going to happen until
the whole ummah or the leaders or representatives
of the ummah give him the bay'ah.
That's why they used to force people to
do that, because they know without that election,
without that vote, he's not going to be
a legitimate ruler.
When Abdurrahman ibn Auf was given the responsibility
to choose, he said, three days, I couldn't
go to sleep.
It's so heavy responsibility.
He's in charge of what we call today
the committee for elections.
He said, I listened to what he said.
He said, I went and I asked the
elder and the young.
I asked men and women, even I went
to women in their homes.
The women who don't, very young, don't leave
the house.
I knocked on their door and asked, who
do you choose?
Islam have taken the vote of women way
1,400 years before America or 1,300
years before America.
And it's amazing.
You know, us in the US, and very
briefly, I want to say something about what
we do today.
When we go to election in November 5th,
when first voyage came from England to America
in Jamestown, they established the system of election.
They have a secret ballot, the English America's
first permanent settlement, conducted an election nearly as
soon as they landed in 1607 in April.
And as it's written in, you know, John
Smith, when he wrote about that, and he
said, basically, the council was sworn, the president
elected, and that was Edward Wingfield.
The first representative assembly in English America convened
in Jamestown in 1619.
Okay.
By the end of this assembly, in the
1700s, representative government had become a tradition in
the 13 colonies in the United States.
But do not misunderstand me.
America at that time, or at its birth,
was not a democratic nation.
As a matter of fact, the word democrat
was something negative seen in America at that
time.
Relatively, a few of the nation's inhabitants were
able to participate in elections.
Subhanallah, it's interesting how Islamic system starts so
perfect and good, and decline over years.
How as the opposite, we start so bad
and we get better as we grow.
That's a different one.
Allah SWT give you guidance.
You don't need to go back in time.
Give you to start ahead.
Give you a head start.
Just give you a beautiful concept.
But here, you know, African American, Native American,
obviously not allowed to vote, to elect.
Women, men who had not reached the age
of 21 cannot vote.
A white man who do not own a
land, not allowed to vote as well.
When George Washington was elected, only 6%
of the country were eligible to vote.
In 1869, the 15th amendment is passed, which
gives former slaves the right to vote and
protects the voting rights of adult male citizens
of any race.
But many states in the South came up
with legislations to prevent that.
And one of the most famous one was
that Louisiana's grandfather clauses.
Many laws as well prevented not only African
American, but also, and that's something a lot
of people don't understand, that a lot of,
yes, American was the most severe one, visible
one, but also Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, prevented
them from, you know, even from being citizen.
And even if they've proven to be citizen,
they're not allowed to vote.
Even after changing the laws to give the
right to those categories to vote, obstacles were
made, like literacy test, poll tax, and others,
which is known as the Jim Crow laws.
The ban of literacy test, which is made
permanent in 1975.
1975.
That's many of us born, many people here
in this room today, born already at that
time.
A long time.
In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King mounts a
voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama.
And draw the nation attention to the African
American voting rights.
All these milestones, something that we should be
aware of as Muslim today, the community, as
Americans in general, to understand how much sacrifices
made.
Women rights to vote passed by in Congress
in 1919 and ratified in 1920.
Give the right for women to vote.
After this, many states, you cannot run for
an office unless you pass a religious test.
In several British northern states, not south, northern
states even, Jews, Quakers, and Catholic were excluded
from voting or running for elections.
Sorry, running for elections.
For example, in Delaware, the person running for
office must believe in Trinity.
So if you're a Jew, you cannot run
for election at that time.
In 1778, Constitution of the states of South
Carolina stated no person shall be eligible to
sit in the House of Representatives unless he
be basically a Protestant religion that excluded Catholic
and Jews and many.
That's not like 500, 600 years ago.
In the Constitution, basically, similar to that you
find in Georgia.
And so many, some of them even said,
you must believe in the hereafter in certain
ways until finally, you know, the Constitution's change
and made that amendment to cancel all this.
Until 1828 in Maryland, Jews were not allowed
to run for an office.
1828.
I'm not here to give you a history
of American, you know, it's important to know
some of these things.
To know the things, the rights that you
get here is after a fight, after a
long sacrifice.
What you have to do and we enjoy
is the right to vote is the outcome
of a long fight and struggle throughout our
history.
So we should appreciate it.
Preserve it because nothing is for guarantee.
You know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it
often rhymes.
If you think that this is for granted,
no, we can change.
We can go back to some of the
Jim Crow's laws.
We can go back to some of these
things.
I'm not trying to scare you, but I
want you to be able to understand.
That's why when people said, I'm going to
sit on the side, just I don't care.
No, you are in the same ship.
We are all together in this.
There's many challenges facing our system in the
election today.
And I do believe Muslims should have a
say, should have a call, should have an
influence to bring some justice to our election
system.
I think our struggle for democracy and voting
is far from finished.
As our system, current system, and in our
constitution, voting is not right for every Americans.
As we see, many states have laws can
prevent millions of people.
Some of them might be controversial.
I agree.
Like the ID, for example.
I know when you go to register for,
when you go vote for ISJH, you have
to bring your ID.
I understand that.
But also you have to understand why this
is an issue.
11% of Americans, American citizen, that's more
than 21 million Americans, do not have a
government issued photo identification.
You might not see this an issue, but
there's 21 million people in America around that
number don't have an ID.
25% of them African American compared to
8% of white race.
18% of American over the age of
65, 18% of citizen older, do not
have an ID anymore.
Another issue, amendment was passed in 1961 for
Washington DC that they are allowed to vote
for president.
But do you know that Washington DC, DC
the capital, do not have a representative in
the congress.
They don't have a say in one of
the most important thing in our government, the
brand of legislation.
President of U.S. colonies.
Something could not, just we can't keep ignoring
that.
Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Island, the
U.S. Virgin Islands, that's more than 4
million people do not have the right to
vote for
represent, voting, they're not voting representations in the
U.S. Congress or presidential elections.
One of the thing also is people who
convicted, people who serve their time in jail
and come out they're not allowed to vote.
Why people convicted not allowed to vote?
A good question, a good debate, healthy debate.
We are 5% of the world while
we have 25% of the world prisoners.
We have a big, the biggest population of
prisoners in the world.
Why people in prison and convicted cannot vote?
How these are related?
These things need to be addressed if we
want to talk about our system.
A lot of people get convicted over stupid
things, for the rest of my life I
cannot vote.
I just, an interesting things to look at.
You know the no limit terms concept for
congress and senators and representatives.
Why only there's a limit terms for presidents
while we have a senators who can stay
for, you know he's in his 80s and
90s and still representing.
Why there is no debate over that?
What about money influence?
Especially after the Supreme Court passed the law
of the super PAC.
It's crazy, it's crazy that I hear that
Harris campaign raised a billion dollars and nearly
they spend over both candidates over a billion
dollars in this elections.
Where do you think this money is coming
from?
Since a couple of months when you read
that Trump campaign raised 268.5 million dollars.
You think people and is this not just
individual?
Yes, I know there is by the way,
there is a lot of rules and regulations
about how much but with all this loopholes
that exist, with all this special interest.
Billion dollars?
Do you know how many poor people we
can help with that?
How much of our debt can be paid
by that?
Who benefits with this?
People of advertising and so forth.
So what I'm saying is the system need,
there is a lot of challenges related to
the system.
I think our role as a Muslim community
not to sit on the side.
Our Muslim community to be part of the
conversation.
My brother and sister let me tell you
clearly, we are one of the issues.
Our community is one of the issues.
Our issues is part of the discussion and
if we don't have a voice, if we
don't have a participation, unfortunately I don't see
how can we have an influence to protect
and to improve the good that we have
and to improve what we have.
By voting you are making your voice heard
and registering your opinion and how you think
your government should function.
Yes it's not going to come for free.
It's going to come by, we have to
admit as a community, it's insane.
It's insane to expect an outcome while you
did not put effort for that outcome.
It's a sign of insanity.
Let's be honest with ourselves.
We're far from being unified.
We're far from being organized.
We're far from being contributing.
How much money do we contribute?
And the one who contribute among us in
our community, are they contributing for a special
interest or the interest of the community?
Yes there is improvement.
I'm not saying we have eight PACs these
days, this election cycle.
Block votes coming up.
Beautiful study was made by Stanford and I
think Harvard as well over a block vote
concept that's established in Minnesota.
Worth looking at.
And I want to invite the brother who
lead that effort to come to Houston to
talk to us one day here in the
semester.
We're just a block vote of several thousand,
you know, ten plus ten thousand, able to
have a say in who vote, who win,
who not in the elections in Minnesota.
And the one who's running as a vice
president, actually he knows, he owes the Muslim
community there with Harris was, he owes the
Muslim community and other Muslim communities that reason
winning the governorship because they supported him.
You know, so much, I intentionally don't want
to go into the details issues of the
election.
I want you to understand that first it's
an educational opportunity for you to be educated
about the political system in Islam, how it's
built, because we don't get chance to talk
about that much.
Also, to make that message clear, please don't
stay home.
When it comes to vote, let's get into
the habit of voting.
And it's not haram to vote.
You know what, you don't need to vote
for the president.
It's more important for me, especially for us
in Texas, is to vote about who represent
us from Senate and Congress and local officials.
Just at least make your voice heard.
Go vote for me if you want.
You know, whatever, vote for Carlos, but just
make sure that you go, as a joke,
by the way, just in case somebody said,
oh, it's a campaign.
I don't have a campaign.
Okay, you know, but just make sure your
voice, focus on what you can make an
impact on.
Alhamdulillah, we're not going to swing states.
Swing states, tough for them.
And finally, please, this area is an area
of Ijtihad, an area of opinions.
Nobody should claim facts.
Nobody should claim that he or she knows
the unseen or the future.
Nobody should treat this matter like a clear
religious cut matters.
It hurts me when I see somebody saying,
if you vote for Trump, you're voting for,
you know, for racism.
If you're voting for, you know, a third
party, you are absolutely whatever.
They're not allowed to use this language with
each other.
I don't think any one of these slogans
is correct.
People might vote for this person, that person,
this kind of, for a legitimate reasons.
And every one of the three parties that
exist today, that some Muslims support, they have
a good argument.
And none of them is ignoring the fact
and not aware of the advantage and the
disadvantage and the bad and the good and
the ugly in each candidate.
They know that.
I guarantee you.
I sit with people who represent all these.
Just take it easy, tune it down.
You don't need to label your Muslim brothers
over in elections.
Unless someone come clearly to say, you know
what?
That's Palestine.
I don't care about Palestine.
Inshallah, go to *.
Inshallah, burn them all.
I don't care about Palestinians.
That doesn't need to vote for anyone.
This person is doomed by saying that.
It doesn't matter who he votes for.
But nobody's saying that.
Let's understand that there is more complicity than
this.
Some of my brothers and sisters in the
African American community telling me to my face,
Sheikh Walid, why we are not recognized?
Why would you put us in a position
where many of my communities live, for example,
and need a lot of federal assistance?
And you know that I might lose that.
My community needs that.
Maybe your community don't, but my community do.
The people I work with every day in
neighborhood need that.
I don't need someone to cut it down.
I'm voting for this direction because I need
that federal help to come to my community.
I deal with racism every day and I
don't want racist cops everywhere in the country
to be involved.
That's the reason I'm voting this direction.
Has nothing to do with what you're saying
or what other people say.
So I want you to know that people
have different reasons.
Don't put yourself judge over people intention.
I absolutely understand the argue of each and
every group.
And I have respect for everyone as long
as their intention is that hub and the
love for Allah and his messenger and for
the believers, the mu'mineen, locally and outside and
the love for the country at all to
be protected.
Because we are, I'll tell you, it's not
about just us as American living in America.
I also understand that there is a vacuum
in the world.
With all the evil that I see in
America, I don't want Russia to lead the
world.
I don't want China to lead the world.
Until a time comes when there is a,
at least that's my perspective, there is a
time where the true leaders can lead the
world.
I will be a different conversation.
Market fix itself and it will force America
to change.
But we have an opportunity from within to
at least put a little bit pressure.
And remember, you only can, you only can
don't fool yourself.
You only can have leverage based on your
power.
You cannot ask for a leverage, you don't
have the power for it.
Don't kid yourself.
How much power you have, that's how the
system works.
Can we have a strong power?
Yes.
Today, next year, four years, eight years, I
don't know.
But we're working and it's a work in
progress.
Muslim community today, much better than before.
Might not see it in my generation, but
I'll say to my children, as long as
they understand these points that I'm talking about
tonight and they keep it in mind.
As long as we have true leaders to
take the community and to try to create
a consensus and a strength.
And we became issue that we deal with
it every year, not every four years.
Thank you very much for being with me
tonight.
And I'll be happy to answer some of
the questions of Tafsirullah inshallah, if you have.
Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ala Nabi Muhammad.