Yasir Qadhi – Creating Open Spaces While Sticking to Our Islamic Values – Ask Shaykh YQ #125

			So this question is How is the Muslim body on college campuses? Are we supposed to deal with topics
pertaining to LGBTQ plus, for example, we hosted an online event and separate it. So it was, rather
than one concert series in another call, we then received a complaint that the MSA was being
discriminatory against non binary individuals and that MSA should be more inclusive and not do any
more gender separated events. Is there something that we're allowed to say that doesn't go against
the teachings of Islam but also won't trigger any canceling culture?
		

			If we're to make a very to make comments slash remarks, to saying we support LGBTQ plus, right? have
anything as I'm ugly and crap with it?
		

			107 me, Kobe, Nika. Illa. De Jalan. No, he him first.
		

			recovery in
		

			June.
		

			So I've already answered parts of this question. In the last one, I'm just gonna continue from where
I left off, you're presenting something that is far more convoluted, it is the intersection of our
morality, with social pressure, along with perhaps even legal pressure, which is where the problem
comes. Now in America. And I want all of you on the call to appreciate this, we thank a lot, I am
thankful to Allah for the First Amendment, realize in Europe, it is very different. And in Europe,
even in some countries, you are not allowed to have gender segregated halls or conferences, there
have been Islamic conferences that have been raided by the police and find why because this isn't
		

			Europe, we're not talking about some third world country or some fascist regime in Europe, and
countries that are well known. The police have find organizations, other organizations have been
banned from having Muslim conferences. Why? Because men are in one side of the hall, there was a
sign that said sisters here and brothers there, no barrier, no partition, simply assign. And because
of that, there was so many issues. And you know, I was there there was just a nightmare and
nightmare. So we thank Allah that we do have a lot more freedoms in this country, by the way that
our European counterparts Now, what is to be done? I cannot answer you fully, because this requires
		

			knowledge of the law. And it also requires knowledge of your campuses policies, because again, every
campus has the right as well to institute its own internal policies. And we have to work within
those policies. Now. What what that MSA ended up doing that I was at is an ISOC. As they call
themselves, the ISOC, what they ended up doing was to verbally spread amongst their own
constituents. And when you walked in, and you're a practicing Muslim, you obviously see to verbally
spread, brothers are on this side, sisters are on that side. Now, if you're going to get one person
who's going to be really nasty, and he's going to go to the other, okay, let them you, the person
		

			will sit there and there's going to be empty space all around them, you know, you cannot enforce it
in that land. But you know, if the police were to come say, hey, there's no sign it just so happened
that everybody did that, right? I mean, what are you going to do? So where there's a will, there's a
way you need to talk to your, your school counselors, the people in charge, you need to bring in
lawyers as well, and see what is and is not possible. If it's only social pressure, ie petitioners
going to be raised at the MSA is transphobic because it's only having two genders and whatnot. And
it's just social pressure. That's not going to go anywhere, you know, perhaps you can explain that,
		

			hey, we're not preaching hatred of anybody. But now you're hating us. Because of our values. Flip it
around, right? Flip it around. You're you're being sis phobic now, are you being cisgender phobic,
for example, right? We have the right to to have our notions as well, we're not preaching to anybody
else who doesn't want to believe us. But what if all of us believe in this and we voluntarily
choose? Who are you to come between us and our rights, switch it around, because there is an element
of who gets to call the who gets to call the other one, you know, a phobic basically as a
transphobic, or sis phobic or gender phobic or whatnot. So that's another thing. Also, as I said,
		

			explain to your own school and explain that, hey, this is our, you know, morality that we have and
see if you can work your way out. And ironically, in this case, I mean, we might be able to find
some common grounds with people that otherwise disagree with us, especially conservative religious
folks, they might agree with this issue, that perhaps if we can come together and say, hey, look,
we're not asking for a change in school policy. But we don't appreciate this policy being applied
upon us, right. So we also have the freedom to act as we choose to please as we as we please to act,
and therefore you try to argue from that case. And the end of the day, there are too many variables
		

			that I don't know you need to find out from all of these parties what you can and cannot do, but
what you cannot do is to ascribe
		

			Something to Islam that is not Islamic, even if you yourselves are forced to, then you don't have to
say it in the name of Islam, even if they force you to, let's say, have no segregation or whatnot.
Okay, that's there, they can force you to do it. You should never say Islam endorses it. You should
never say the Quran and Sunnah teaches us. You know, to do this, we firmly believe that the default
is that there are two genders. And a lot of xojo says he has created you in male and female. Yes,
there's a very, very small percentage of intersex people that have chromosomes that are neither XY
nor xx, that's something that is very, very small percentage. However, anybody that's born
		

			biologically, with x, y, or x X chromosome, anybody that's born with normal chromosomes, the Shetty
considers them to be male or female, and the different slight rulings are applied to them. And
that's something that historically, biologically, culturally and religiously, is something that we
firmly believe now that all of this is changing, this is going to be the new battle, right? The
previous battle was the LGBT. Now LGB, let's say now the new battle is in the T and the T plus. And
we're going to have to remain consistent. Because at the end of the day, if we do not maintain
preaching our values, then we have lost everything. The real, the only purpose that we have here
		

			really is that we have to maintain the religion of Allah in our lives, and preach it to anybody
who's interested. That's all that it is. We're not forcing it on anybody. But if we're going to
compromise what we believe, then in reality, we have reached a level where we go and by going back
to a previous question, we need to ask ourselves, should we even live in a land where we cannot even
practice what we preach, and we cannot even preach what we believe. So May Allah make it easy, but
I'm overly optimistic because not only do we have the First Amendment, but also because this is an
ongoing debate. We are seeing the culture wars taking place, we're seeing quite a lot of discussion
		

			going on. And I'm optimistic that there will always be a large group of people of all different
faiths and of no faith that will have similar views and we'll find comfort, you know, in that in
that demographics, even if it's not a majority of the land and Allah knows best