Yasir Qadhi – Is it Sinful to Vote for the Wrong Candidate
AI: Summary ©
The N Jacobin movement has faced political chaos and loss of nephew N Jacobin's nephew, leading to confusion and political uncertainty. The segment discusses the political climate and the use of secret Islam, scuba equipment, and the upcoming election. The segment also touches on the sentiment of "winning" N----
The N Jacobin movement has faced political chaos due to the loss of N Jacobin's nephew and the use of secret Islam. The segment discusses the political climate and the importance of voting in the political process, as well as the use of language in politics and the need for political analysis. The speakers stress the need for political analysis and the importance of not insulting someone.
The N Jacobin movement has faced political chaos due to the loss of N Jacobin's nephew and the use of secret Islam. The segment discusses the political climate and the importance of voting in the political process, as well as the use of language in politics and the need for political analysis. The speakers stress the need for political analysis and the importance of not insulting someone.
AI: Summary ©
So it is not lost on any of
us here the difficulties we find ourselves in.
This is the last week before the elections
and in all likelihood this is well as
of yet it has been the most difficult
elections of our lifetime.
Allah knows what the future will hold but
the fact of the matter is that in
all likelihood this election will decide quite a
lot of things on the global level.
There are there is even talk that we
are close to World War III right now
because of what is happening.
Multiple countries are being involved in this debacle
taking place and because our country is directly
related to every single one of those countries,
Allah musta'an we are facing a very
difficult situation right now.
Tensions are at an all-time high and
Muslims themselves are very much divided.
There's a lot of anger, a lot of
fear, a lot of accusations even within our
own community.
Today insha'Allah ta'ala I want to
shed a little bit of religious light.
Now I'm not going to be too explicit
in my endorsement of any one group because
of multiple factors of them is that this
is a masjid and the laws of this
country do not allow explicit endorsements anyway.
Nonetheless political talk is not endorsement and one
can criticize policies without endorsing.
So I want to begin actually with an
incident from the seerah that demonstrates the natural
reality of living as a minority.
It is narrated with an authentic chain to
the tabi'een that our mother Umm Salama
radiallahu ta'ala anha who was of course
you know eventually she married the Prophet ﷺ
she migrated to as you know Abyssinia and
she was one of the 85 Muslims who
were living in Abyssinia for more than 13
years.
So they were a minority in Abyssinia and
she mentions to us that sometime in that
time frame what happened was that the nephew
of Najashi began clamoring support and fomenting hatred
against his uncle and wanted to overthrow his
uncle and take power and this eventually led
to a civil war in Abyssinia in Habesha.
There was a civil war between Najashi and
between his nephew and it appears from the
books of seerah now one of the problems
is that this these 10 years we only
have a few narrations they're not narrating in
a lot of detail but what we can
derive is that it appears that the nephew
of Najashi was using the issue of the
Muslims as one of his rallying calls and
he was claiming that if he gets into
power that he will then eliminate get rid
of the Muslims and Najashi as you know
was supporting the Muslims.
So Umm Salama says that when we heard
of the battle taking place and I quote
you directly from her own phrase she said
that we did not feel any fear that
was worse than the fear of what might
happen.
She is saying the Muslims were petrified terrified
of what is going to happen and we
began making dua to Allah.
We began making dua to Allah and asking
Allah's Nasr.
Asking Allah's Nasr for the army of Najashi
against the army of his nephew.
Now pause here before I move on.
At this point in time nobody knows Najashi
is a secret Muslim.
In fact none of the sahaba knew this.
Only Jibreel came to the prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam when Najashi died and Jibreel said
your brother Najashi has passed away.
Lead salatul janazah for him.
Up until that point in time Najashi's Islam
was totally secret.
Nobody knew.
From all the apparent purposes Najashi is a
kafir and his nephew is a kafir.
Umm Salama says we were making dua to
Allah that we want Najashi to win and
we're asking Allah's Nasr to come to the
army of Najashi against the army of his
nephew and the night of the battle we
spent sleepless awake.
This is how scared they were which demonstrates
their existence was one of the political debates
between them.
They're so worried they're spending the night in
fear like who's gonna win until in their
anxiety they said who amongst you will volunteer
to go look at the battle and tell
us who wins?
Who's gonna win the election?
Who's gonna win that?
And Zubair ibn al Awwam you all know
Zubair.
Who is Zubair?
Ashara Mubashara and the cousin of the prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
He's the first cousin of the prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam.
At this stage he's around 19 years old.
Zubair was the youngest of them and Zubair
was masha'Allah he was a bodybuilder powerful
man.
He was a very athletic person and he
is now the youngest.
As Zubair ibn al Awwam said I will
volunteer.
They said how you're gonna go?
They're on the other side of the river.
He said prepare for me a water canister
but don't fill it with water fill it
with air.
So he took a water canister you know
he took a a leather you know pouch
and he used it as a floating device
to swim across the river.
The river that was a tributary of the
Nile.
It was a very fast flowing river dangerous
river.
Zubair ibn al Awwam used this type of
you know type of scuba equipment maybe I
can say maybe if you don't mind me
saying that a scuba equipment type to use
it to go underwater under top of the
water and use that to then monitor the
war from the the river Nile.
He's in the water and he's seeing what's
happening and he stays there until Najashi wins
and he then comes back rushing in the
middle of the night.
He comes rushing and they say that he
took off his upper izar waving it to
the camp of the Muslims that alhamdulillah Najashi
has won like because they see him from
afar this is the sign he is so
happy he is quite literally jumping for joy
celebrating with his top garment with his top
garment he's celebrating that Najashi has won and
Umm Salama said we were the happiest we
were when we heard the win of Najashi
over his nephew.
Now of the most common sense aspects we
can derive and I only say these because
unfortunately we still have some sentiments we need
to gently you know correct in this regard
it is human nature when your existence is
threatened it is human nature when Islamophobia is
on the rise it is human nature when
your freedom is going to be taken away
you don't want it to be taken away
and you want the party that will protect
your freedoms to win and so much so
the sahaba are bringing in dua to Allah
with one kafir party against the other kafir
party if dua to Allah is allowed between
kuffar parties then wallahi min babi awla a
priori a million times easier if you can
make dua to Allah as a ritual between
two parties without a doubt you can do
much less than this which is campaigning which
is voting which is helping in the dunya
we sense right again I say this because
we still have this sentiment amongst us that
voting is haram voting is shirk voting is
kuffar subhanAllah at this point Najashi was a
public kafir and in his court kuffar practices
took place we know this from the seerah
when amr ibn al-as and the others
of Quraysh entered Najashi's palace the first thing
they did they followed the custom of the
time and that is they did sajda to
Najashi they did sajda to Najashi and when
Ja'far ibn Abi Talib and the Muslims
entered they were debating should we do sajda
should we do not do sajda and Ja
'far ibn Abi Talib said no wallahi I
will not do sajda to other than Allah
and so he did not do sajda that's
remember the story from you know the conversation
my point being Najashi's court is ruling by
other than the law of Allah Najashi has
practices that are kuffar Najashi's court is a
pagan or a kuffri court the sahaba didn't
say if we make dua for Allah this
is an endorsement of all of the kuffar
of Najashi and yet we have in our
midst those who say if we vote it
is an endorsement of all the kuffar of
that party no it doesn't work that way
this is a figment of your imagination no
rational person no aqil no person who understands
politics no person who actually votes actually believes
that when I vote for one candidate this
is an endorsement of everything about that candidate
just like the sahaba are saying we're making
dua to Allah one of these critics will
say this means that they're making dua that
shirk is done in the court of Najashi
when they do such that to him no
no this is a figment of the imagination
of small groups of people that alhamdulillah they're
getting less and less we need to push
back that there is no kuffar in voting
there is no shirk in voting there is
nothing wrong with wanting a party that will
preserve your rights and if you can make
dua to Allah and if you can be
so scared you want Allah's nasr to come
and if you can send zubayr ibn al
awwam to monitor the elections or the or
the or the civil war this clearly shows
you have vested interests and there's nothing wrong
with being a part of making sure your
vested interests will be will be manifested now
of course that is a nice easy hypothetical
situation when we have a najashi who is
our najashi in the current climate who is
our najashi in the current climate this is
where we get the reality okay so once
i've talked hypothetically that it is permissible to
be a part of the system it's okay
to want to be a part of it
and to influence it to make dua this
is human nature as i said you you
are disconnected from reality if you have any
view other than this we want our freedoms
preserved and it is our constitutional right and
we have the right to lobby and petition
like jafar lobbied directly with najashi himself and
like the sahaba are wanting one group to
win over the other now obviously there is
no democracy in abyssinia they cannot go vote
but my point is if they are invoking
Allah for one side they are doing more
than voting this is what i'm saying if
they're making dua to Allah this is a
ritual and they're allowing a ritual to make
one side above the other this is far
bigger than casting a vote and in your
heart you know that i don't agree with
everything about this party do you understand how
i'm using that incident if theology is allowed
to be brought into an election then without
a doubt the type of stuff that we
do is you know uh a priori the
even more so it is allowed so the
point though is not is it allowed or
not we've gone over this multiple times i've
said this so many times the issue is
what do we do in deciding our najashi
and the reality is that in the current
climate we are in it is not an
easy case and this is where the tensions
are rising and i have witnessed unfortunately a
very sad phenomenon which is why i am
addressing this topic today and this phenomenon is
that muslim civic leaders and muslim scholars are
using language against other muslims that is not
befitting muslims are fighting other muslims and accusing
other muslims of hypocrisy and accusing muslims of
not caring about allah of betraying the religion
of being treacherous to the religion of allah
if they disagree based upon political analysis and
this is what has prompted me to have
a brief lecture today to address this inter
-muslim problem now for the record a group
of imams yours truly a group of imams
have signed a very public petition that these
imams have said that we should not reward
any major of the two parties that has
clearly endorsed genocide okay this is an opinion
the language in that draft does not mention
that if you disagree with us you're a
kafir if you disagree with this you're a
deviant if you do no it's simply an
opinion an opinion and the wisdom of those
people who signed that the question is the
pushback is a third party will never make
it to the white house at least not
in the next 10 20 30 years the
third party it is impossible impossible that the
third party will actually make it to the
white house so many people think this is
a useless tactic and the response is no
you haven't understood the wisdom of why this
group is saying what they are saying when
you vote third party what you are doing
is you're expressing bold dissatisfaction and anger at
both parties when you vote third party which
is a very small group for the first
time this small group is getting significantly larger
this is the largest the third parties have
ever been for allah knows how many years
and therefore what you're doing you're sending a
message to the two big parties that there
is a sizable minority that is angry with
you and that minority the message then will
be oh both parties you need to shape
your policies to cater to the people that
are angry at you by voting third party
the message is given you are sending the
clear signal that both of your parties are
bankrupt and unless you change your policies you
are not gaining us back also you are
building long-term alliances with other people that
are allying with you against the other two
parties when you go third party you find
lots of other demographics that are also angry
with the system and you can ally with
them to break the two-party system so
the goal of third party is not immediate
change it is long-term change and long
-term change takes a while it is gradual
also by the way one of the things
that you have to understand is that the
third party the way that our country works
is that if the third party gains more
than five percent of the vote in in
specific areas and states they will get federal
funding they will be listed on the ballot
they will become an actual viable threat and
they will destroy the monopoly of the two
-party system and that is actually happening in
a number of areas so by and large
the philosophy of those who say third party
is that how can you reward a genocidal
candidate how can you ignore the fact that
both candidates are jumping over each other and
and advocating blatant genocide so we will not
do that we will send the message that
is their perspective as we're all aware there
are muslim civic leaders muslim imams who disagree
you all saw a few days ago in
the republican side of things right the presidential
candidate had a whole host of you know
imams behind him mashallah dressed appropriately as well
and saying muslims for trump okay you saw
this all this reality there and these group
of imams if you ask them how could
you have endorsed this candidate if you were
to ask them and i did reach out
indirectly to get their point of view because
i don't make verdicts without getting the perspective
and one of them through a mutual friend
gave me a very you know detailed analysis
that trump had a private meeting with imams
in in detroit area there was a whole
room full of clerics and civic leaders and
they spoke truthfully and factfully they spoke with
a blunt attitude that we need this this
this this this and they laid out their
four or five you know conditions number one
stop the the genocide taking place right and
number two other things you know realistic demands
that you know anybody can make to the
presidential candidate and on record and this is
on video you know trump said all of
these demands you didn't need to make them
i'm already an advocate of them that's what
he said that's what he said and he's
on on video and then he offered that
group voluntarily who wants to come on stage
with me and five or six of them
volunteered and the rest of them said no
our one of them was my friend's friend
he said the reason i went to that
room was so that i can speak truth
to power not so that my name can
be shown on any ballot and that's why
he did not go on stage but he
just said i wanted to speak you know
imam as the hadith goes i wanted to
speak the truth and know how the muslims
feel express our anger so he did this
and he left but as you know five
six imams they went there and when you
ask them they will say that the other
party didn't even give this token representation they
turned down even having a muslim presence on
their podium and they are the ones actually
doing genocide they will say for sure trump
cannot get any worse than what is happening
and they have their view in their view
that this person will be better because in
the end of the day because he has
certain fiscal policies he doesn't want american money
spent overseas he doesn't care about lives of
us but he doesn't want money to be
spent so they have an understanding that that
party is better on the flip side of
the coin you have a growing community of
very prominent muslim activists on the democratic side
and they are once again advocating that trump
is going to be the worst candidate and
they have the long list of reasons the
muslim ban islamophobia rhetoric moving jerusalem uh capital
etc and they have their long list over
there and everybody knows this debacle now as
i said my personal opinion is besides the
point it is well known my letter is
out there but my this is a personal
opinion the islamic fatwa the verdict that i'm
going to say now is different than my
personal opinion and that is when it comes
to political analysis nobody can invoke the name
of allah that they are on the side
of al-haqq and the other side is
on batil nobody can bring in the religious
card because political analysis is subjective it is
conjecture it is not certain it is not
yakini and therefore if you want to accuse
the other person of being wrong no problem
meaning from the political standpoint you even want
to use language that is more harsh you're
a fool you're an idiot you are you
know you're naive pause here you're not going
to win people to your argument by insulting
them and if you want people to be
convinced if you call them foolish as some
of the muslims are calling each other you're
not going to win if you call them
naive everybody accuses everybody else of being naive
in politics everybody accuses everybody else of being
naive both parties are accusing both muslims of
each side are accusing each other being naive
and we also have been accused of being
naive when we say vote third party everybody
is accusing everybody who gets to decide who
will judge the judges who will be the
final final arbiter who will decide who can
predict the future who can predict the future
such that you think this person is evil
and when they get into office actually it
turns out they might do something that is
beneficial politics is filthy and dirty politics is
full of lies politics is deceit and we
all know this so therefore if you want
to say they're wrong you can say that
if you want to say they're foolish i
think you are being foolish when you use
the term foolish because you're not going to
win points but it is not un-islamic
but the minute you say you are a
traitor to allah and his messenger the minute
you say you have betrayed the ummah the
minute you bring in the religion card even
as i have strong personal views i will
say no this is crossing the red line
you cannot use the religious card between muslims
who think that the way to support palestine
is this versus this versus this versus this
the only time you can use the religious
card is if somebody literally says i don't
care about the genocide i want my taxes
to go down that person you say you
have betrayed the ummah you are selfish you
are more concerned about your pennies and cents
versus the thousands of children dying then you
can use the religious card but anybody who
says i believe third party democrat republican is
going to be better for the cause of
gaza that's their analysis and who are you
to force your analysis on other people let
us go back to our hero zubaydah ibn
al-awam and extract another benefit from his
life as zubaydah ibn al-awam lived a
very long life and he participated in so
many battles and he was as you know
the warrior of islam he was the warrior
and he was the hawari of the prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam do you remember how he
passed away he passed away a very tragic
death in our history very sad and that
is in the first civil war in the
first civil war when politics for the first
time divided the ummah it divided the ummah
and it created a entire series of events
that sunni islam and we are all sunnis
sunni islam says let's not talk about it
it's literally ptsd literally we don't want to
talk about it let's just move on as
imam ahmed said as imam ahmed said that
was a time allah saved our swords from
having to choose sides so let us save
our tongues from having to choose sides as
well sunnism by and large moved on and
that's why we as a default don't talk
about that episode too much we skip over
it we fast forward it it's a very
painful more sahaba were killed between the sahaba
fighting the battle of jamal the battle of
safin the two big battles more sahaba were
killed fighting each other then all of them
had been shaheed fighting the romans and the
persians very very very sad time ali radiallahu
anhu on one side aisha radiallahu anha and
talha and zubair zubair on one side and
they have the battle of jamal and a
massacre ensues really and talha dies and zubair
dies shaheed there died they both died in
the battle of of the jamal and our
mother aisha's camel is surrounded and finally the
camel itself is is killed and the camel
collapses and alia says you cannot touch her
she is our mother and she is protected
and sent back but tens of thousands of
people died and then few months later the
battle of safin which was even bigger and
you have once again on one side and
muawi and other sahaba and on the other
side all of these other great sahaba and
another massive tragedy occurs from this tragedy we
should learn from this tragedy multiple groups split
up you had one group that said ali
radiallahu anhu is theologically right and those who
oppose him they are theologically wrong and they're
sinful and they're deviant or they're kuffar and
this group eventually many strands of ahl at
-tashayyuh they have this trend you had another
group which doesn't really exist as a group
but it used to exist and the remnants
are there they're called the nasibis they don't
really exist anymore and the nasibis they actually
said that muawiyah radiallahu anhu is correct and
ali radiallahu anhu is theologically wrong and they
would curse audhubillah ali radiallahu anhu and they
would say he's a sinful person and this
was a group that fizzled out it no
longer exists even though i guess some remnants
are still here and there these are two
extremes the third group kharijites they broke away
from ali radiallahu anhu when he refused to
execute the prisoners of war in the battle
of in the battle of jamal the battle
of the camel when he refused to take
prisoners of war and they said how can
you not take prisoners and take ghanima and
take war booty how can you not and
ali radiallahu anhu said have you no shame
who amongst you will take our mother aish
radiallahu anhu as a prisoner have you no
shame these are not kuffar these are muslims
and the rules are different when we're fighting
muslims versus the byzantine versus the sassanid and
so he refused to apply those laws in
the and the kharijite said this means you
are fighting a group that you did not
think is incorrect this makes you incorrect and
so the kharijite said you're a kafir he's
a kafir everybody's a kafir and that's what
they believe everybody's a kafir and that by
the way i'm not trying to be too
harsh but there is an element of this
in these extremist groups who keep on saying
everything is kufr kufr kufr there's an element
of that in this group i'm not saying
they're kharijites but if you study khariji theology
and you study these groups there is a
little bit of similarity the quickness to pronounce
kufr everybody who disagrees becomes a kafir that's
not mainstream islam this is extremism it's not
mainstream islam the kharijites said everybody is a
kafir because you're wrong then another group comes
the mu'tazilites and the mu'tazilites says both cannot
be right either ali is right or aisha
is right or muawiyah is right and then
they said but we don't know who's right
so we because we don't know who's right
all of them become suspicious they become deviants
and we don't know which one is right
we're not going to say kafir the difference
between mu'tazilites and kharijites the mu'tazilites simply said
somebody is wrong and somebody is right because
we don't know we'll consider all of them
to be wrong and leave allah judge on
the day of judgment but we will not
respect any of them and the kharijites say
we're all of them are kuffar now all
of these are fringe groups we are the
majority what did ahlus sunnah say what did
ahlus sunnah say sunnism said we will not
read in theology into political decisions this is
our stand we will not read in iman
and kufr and sunnah and bid'ah and
heresy and deviancy we will not read that
in based upon a political judgment and miscalculation
rather the one who was right allah will
reward them double and the one who was
wrong and sincere allah will still reward them
a single and we leave their affair to
allah this is what we said and that's
our theology i don't understand how some modern
clerics who are involved in this don't understand
we do we're doing this for far bigger
people we're doing this for far greater companions
we are saying we are saying there's good
in all of them we are saying that
allah knows who is the more right and
wrong and we will respect them and not
doubt the iman of any of them those
who did this those who did that they
wanted the benefit of the ummah we will
not doubt their their what intention i don't
understand why we cannot take the same philosophy
and apply it to the modern context where
we don't have aisha ali talha zubair we
have people that are infinitely smaller than them
can we make the similar excuse for them
so my position therefore is very straightforward it
is mainstream sunnism you may take whatever position
you want and you may argue it passionately
and you may try to convince the other
person but the red line that we cannot
cross is the line of accusing your opponent
to be somebody who is treacherous to the
ummah disobeying allah and his messenger your analysis
is not divine and your opinion of the
current political climate is not wahi from allah
so if somebody has a different opinion they
have the right to hold it and then
final point and this is a very deep
and profound point i hope you understand what
i'm saying in the grand scale of things
even to my opinion i've already hinted at
it what it is in the grand scale
of things it is actually healthy for the
muslims to be represented across the american spectrum
we need inroads to all peoples because one
of them is going to be elected and
to have some representation is better than none
so you have to act as an adult
as a mature person in the room not
as a little child throwing a tantrum you
have to act in a very mature manner
and understand you can't put all of your
eggs in one basket it's actually a bit
dangerous to do that and therefore even if
i have an opinion and i do and
i will tell you my opinion outside where
i'm allowed to do so a little bit
more bluntly and it's public news even if
i have an opinion i have never used
islamic negative adjectives for those who disagree with
me and i say anybody who does so
has actually committed a mistake in the eyes
of islam it is not allowed to impugn
niyat it is not allowed to accuse of
deviancy those who disagree with political analysis so
we conclude by stating we have a duty
to help our brothers and sisters and a
part of that duty is to be involved
in the process and by the way one
thing leads to another guys it's not just
the head office they're senators there's congressmen and
sometimes one congressman one senator will be the
spark of change and in this state of
texas i cannot be too explicit but we
have some really nasty people really nasty people
right and they're not too far from being
evicted if you put your that's all i
can say look at the reality don't just
look at the top office sometimes lower level
is actually a catalyst to bring about a
massive change so do your due diligence there's
nothing wrong with getting involved in the system
it is completely islamic to do so and
my encouragement to all of you is indeed
to be active politically socially to vote but
more important than all of this make your
niya pure raise your hands to allah make
sure your iman is strong do your best
to have proper strong tawakkul in allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala spiritually socially and then yes
politically start creating a change and may allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala bless all of us
and guide us to that which is useful
and beneficial me
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