Yasir Qadhi – Lessons from Gaza After 1 Year- Interview with Islam21c – Part 1
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As-salamu alaykum Shaykh, how are you?
Wa alaykum as-salamu alaykum.
Alhamdulillah, I'm doing fine.
Excellent, excellent.
So look, we're going to go straight into
it.
Okay.
Even Salman hasn't seen these, so...
Okay.
MashaAllah.
No time to think.
It's supposed to be off the bat, Shaykh.
Wait, wait, before you even begin, I'm jet
-lagged.
I'm drinking my double espresso, macchiato.
So give me some time, but okay, let's
see.
That's my excuse, so let's get this...
We're waiting for the caffeine to kick in.
Okay, number one, Shaykh.
Favourite freedom fighter?
You recently did a talk on one, which
is what inspired the question on Umar Mukhtar.
So I was thinking between him, you must
have read about a number of different freedom
fighters.
Is there one that particularly...
Are you trying to get him arrested?
No, seriously, are you like...
Let's say historically, I'm not a very good
man today.
I was thinking of modern times, are you
getting...
Which group are you talking about?
Which of these acronyms?
SubhanAllah.
Favourite historical freedom fighter?
MashaAllah.
So without a doubt, you're asking questions that
don't have simple answers, and you want your
round fire, and I don't do simple answers,
right?
There's different genres of freedom fighters.
Don't worry, somebody's going to take a 30
-second clip.
That's not even the issue.
Okay, khalas, yalla.
Growing up as a kid, Umar Mukhtar's movie
really did impact me.
That's why I wanted to give the khatira,
and I was waiting for the anniversary of
his execution.
So the week that that came, and it
just so happened the exact same day I
gave the khatira.
I saw that the other day with my
kids.
None of the khatira, they were mine.
And then I started watching Line of Desert.
And then, for some reason, the day after
we were going to continue the film, Amazon
Prime said this film was no longer available.
SubhanAllah, really?
Wow, must have been a lot of people
watching it.
I mean, the acting that was done.
And then I watched it, believe it or
not, in the Arabic with English subtitles.
Yeah, I watched it in the 80s in
the Arabic.
So they dubbed it in Arabic?
They dubbed it in Arabic, and then for
some weird reason, they put it in English
subtitles.
It was weird.
But then the Arabic accents and Umar Mukhtar's
voice that comes out, it's just so elegant.
And I remember even as a child, you
were just in tears by the time the
movies ended.
So simply because of that memory, I'm not
saying he was the only one, but it
has an impact on you and always has
that soft spot in your heart.
You know that khatira, I noticed on YouTube,
there were some bits as though it was
edited or taken out.
No, don't worry.
No, no.
It's just my character.
No conspiracy.
I was like, no conspiracy.
Who did you mention?
Because it was like, you know, there were
some people at the time that were some
Muslim scholars.
He said there were Muslim ulema that were
against him and were pro-Italian occupation.
Like today, there are some Muslims that are...
And then he was like...
No, it's just the mic went out, don't
worry.
I didn't mention the names.
Plus, I said it in the khatira, those
names are not known to the average person.
You have to research in the books of
history, which I don't mind doing.
But why bring them up?
Let them be.
Allah has covered them.
And honestly, they did things they shouldn't have
done.
But maybe they're forgiven because they thought that's
for the maslaha of the ummah.
You know, to think that working for...
Look at what's happening around the world.
It's hindsight bias.
Hindsight, yeah.
And Allah knows, I'm not blaming them.
But without a doubt, the hearts are with
who?
Umar al-Muqtadir.
So continue with the not very quick round.
Yeah, it's not going to happen, bro.
Just two, three more and we got it.
All right.
Okay.
Most misunderstood, misrepresented scholar from Islamic history, in
your opinion?
Of recent times, I do think Rashid al
-Ridha.
Of recent times, I think Rashid al-Ridha.
And even Muhammad Abduh, his teacher.
The two of them, I would say 99
% of those who are actually criticizing them
haven't even read a single treatise of theirs.
I'm not even talking about the awam.
I'm talking about those that are actively criticizing.
You just talk to them.
What have you actually read?
And all of his books are PDF.
All the books are online.
I have multiple physical copies of his books.
And PDFs, I have almost all of them.
Before you open your mouth about an iconic
figure, the least you can do.
And even recently, another guy came out.
Standard guy is like, I don't know if
you call him a zindiq or a freemason
or whatever.
Before you jump to something, just read.
These are all very difficult times.
And people's angers cause them to say things
about each other that you're just simply regurgitating.
If you want to go back to the
past, Imam Malik and Muhammad Ibn Ishaq.
Imam Malik and Ibn Ishaq had a massive
battle between them.
And we just ignore it.
Both of them were good.
So yeah, of recent times, I would think
without a doubt Rashid al-Ridha.
Because it's not a shade of, OK, he
was right or wrong.
There's literally accusations of heresy and zindiq.
And literally wanting to destroy the religion or
being an agent or whatnot.
Standard routine.
And people who do so are simply not
even aware of his actual writings and the
battles that he faced.
And subhanAllah, some of his even critics that
were alive at the time were actually on
a personal relationship with him.
Which means they viewed him as incorrect, but
not like working with the devil or something.
It was like, OK, I disagree with you.
But these were still Muslim brothers.
The modern critics have completely disconnected from that
reality.
It's like Ibn Taymiyyah even and his critics.
Ibn Taymiyyah was on friendly terms as a
person with many of those he criticized, right?
As a human being, Muslim to Muslim.
But he criticized their views.
But the intellectual descendants of both sides have
lost the human touch.
And they've made it into something much more.
But anyway, that's definitely one of the most
misrepresented.
JazakAllah khair.
Should the Indian pact partition have taken place?
It's a very sensitive question.
It is.
Very sensitive question.
I speak as somebody who genuinely has relatives
on both sides of the aisle.
And I've visited my relatives on both sides
of the aisle.
And I can also state for the record,
I've never lived in either side.
So I am somewhat neutral.
My parents were born in India.
My father has a lot of memories of
India still.
And then they grew up in Pakistan.
And so I'm, you know, Muhajir Pakistani basically,
right?
So it's a very difficult.
And I'll explain why to those viewers that
don't understand why.
Because this is important.
The argument that is made is that the
BJP and the anti-Islamic sentiment could not
have happened if the Muslims remained in India.
Because then the sheer percentages and the demographics
would have not allowed for the rise of
this strand.
So the argument that one group makes is
that the creation of Pakistan created an imaginary
enemy.
Or not even imaginary.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
And that then allowed them to perpetuate this
myth of Hindu-Muslim, you know, constant war.
That is what is said from the one
side that says that, you know, Pakistan should
not have been created.
Because they're not saying that BJP is good.
They're saying we would have had a more
secular and a more neutral India.
That was the claim, or that is the
claim that still people are making.
And then the counter side to that is,
well, that's a figment of the imagination.
Riots began, massacres began even before.
And there was no BJP.
You know, a million people were killed in
1947.
The largest migration in human history took place.
The largest mass migration in all of human
history to this day, and that's saying a
lot, took place in 1947.
And, you know, of the largest massacres took
place.
And this is before the actual creation of
the BJP and the RSS.
And so the counterclaim is that this is
just wishful thinking.
And this is why people like Jinnah understood
the need to create a safe haven.
Jinnah did not intend to create.
I know this is going to make a
lot of our Pakistani brethren angry, but it
is patently clear.
And I'm sorry if facts hurt you.
Facts are facts.
Jinnah did not intend to create an Islamic
republic.
He intended to create a Muslim secular state.
A Muslim state where Muslims were safe.
He had no intention.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
His vision was to have a land where
Muslims can be safe and feel free to
worship.
He had no intention of importing or bringing
Sharia laws.
This is something that is a back projection
and a revisionism, and whether that's good or
bad is a separate conversation, right?
But why did Jinnah have this?
Because Jinnah, knowing the founders of Congress, knowing
the other people involved, understood that it's not
going to be good for the Muslims.
And I think overall, I would sympathize with
that sentiment that had the Muslims of India
remained, we would have still had a BJP
version, and we would have still had massive
problems.
And anybody who visits the two countries, and
I have visited two countries, both have their
issues and problems.
But without a doubt, in Pakistan, being a
Muslim, you can live a dignified life.
Nobody's going to, by and large, harass you
and intimidate you because you're going to pray
in the masjid.
So I think overall, it was something that
was for the good.
But yes, there are ambiguities.
I agree.
You can feel sympathetic to both arguments, actually.
You can.
It's never black and white.
You can, yeah.
Okay, Sheikh.
Sheikh Yasser Qadhi today, closer to activism or
pragmatism?
And when I say activism, I don't just
mean as we kind of see out there,
but in terms of revival within the Islamic
tradition.
So are you closer to activism or pragmatism
today?
I don't view this as an either or.
I am pragmatically active.
Or actively pragmatic.
I saw that one coming, Malo.
Yeah, I threw that one back there.
This is not an either or question.
Because I am an activist at every level,
except the political.
I'm not really interested.
Very once in a while, I'll speak at
a rally.
But that's not what I want to do.
Personally, that's not my interest or passion.
But I'm active at the preaching and teaching
level.
At all levels of preaching and teaching, I'm
active within the Muslim community.
I'm also not active in interfaith.
I'm just not interested in that.
But preaching at the mass level, at the
basic academic level, and at the advanced level.
This is what I enjoy doing.
In all of them, I try my best
to integrate reality, which means it is pragmatic.
Connected to that, the favorite seminar you've taught
over the years?
There was one, and you have got to
pick one, Sheikh.
Yeah, the favorite seminar is Modern Theology.
I plan to do that again, inshallah, next
semester at my masjid.
Modern Theology.
So, modern issues facing the ummah.
How do we resolve them?
Which actually is a good segue to the
topics you want to talk to me about.
Okay, the next book you'd like to read?
The next book I'd like to read.
Is it an unknown unknown?
The unknown unknowns, huh?
To get rums filled in.
That's a good question.
I have, so I'll tell you a little
bit about how I purchase books.
If an interesting title is reviewed, and I
see somebody talking about it in any of
the WhatsApp groups, or any of the email,
and I really like it, I'll go ahead
and order it, and then there's a section
on my desk that just stays there for,
don't ask me how long, it just stays
there.
It will not be put on the shelf
until it passes through the process.
So, what is the process?
At some point in time, that big pile
will then be opened up one by one,
skimmed through, the introduction read, get an idea
of what the author is saying.
The book is signed and dated.
Every single book I have is signed and
dated.
I do not believe in stamps in this
regard.
I want that personal touch here.
So, it is signed and dated, and then
it is put in its appropriate category.
Because obviously, at this stage of my life,
it is difficult to read a book cover
to cover.
Over the last few years, I have done
that to many dozens of books, so I
have selections out there.
One of the books I am waiting to
read is actually, and again, it's not necessarily
the most important one, but it's my personal
interest, the famous academic, Islamic studies academic, Michael
Cook, who has a lot of good and
bad.
He's released his final book, he said it,
which is the history of Muslims.
It's like a thousand-page book, massive book
like this, and it's actually very, very well
written.
And so, I want to read that cover
to cover.
It's one of the books I'm really wanting
to read cover to cover, because somebody like
him, when you get to that level, and
I say this as somebody who strongly disagrees
with many of the ideas and views, but
also respects aspects of his writing and his
erudite grasp of the classical and the modern
tradition.
Somebody like him, when he writes, he's not
writing after having read two books per chapter.
He's writing after having read 200 books.
So, what you get is the distilled summary
from the mind of, again, I strongly disagree,
but he is a genius.
I know it sounds weird to some of
our viewers, but there are people whose views
you can strongly disagree with in some aspects,
but their minds are very, very different.
Formidable.
Yeah, it's like they definitely bring something to
the table.
Any book that he has ever written, I
challenge anybody to read it and not be
impressed by the content and the analysis, even
if you disagree with it.
He's a thinker, a genuine thinker.
So, he has just written an entire summation
of the history of the Muslim world from
the beginning up until modernity.
It's literally a massive tome like this.
So, to me, this is necessary reading and
it's been lying there, right?
I can see exactly where it is from
my desk.
And so, when the time comes, inshallah, we're
going to do that.
Okay, inshallah.
I told you there's no simple answers.
What's like 10 seconds?
I don't do these 10 second things.
It doesn't work.
There could be simple answers.
I can't, I can't.
You're speaking to the wrong person.
I wouldn't be who I am if I
could give you your simple five second clips,
man.
SubhanAllah, they're boring.
They always seem to get five second clips
of you.
It's boring to ask my Cocoa Pepsi.
All right, try and choose a neither or
on this one.
What do we need more of?
Influential scholars or scholarly influences?
Right now, as we speak, I think we
have a good amount of influential scholars.
So, we need scholarly influences for the time
being.
But it's this pendulum.
So, maybe in a few years or decades.
But yeah, right now, yeah.
Okay, just like that.
Mehdi Hassan or the Sabri brothers I mean
Mehdi Hassan or Bassam Youssef?
Those who know will know that one.
Mehdi Hassan or Bassam Youssef?
Who do you hate more?
So, I've never met Bassam.
Mehdi, I was with him two weeks ago.
And he is an acquaintance of mine.
And I have had very frank conversations with
him.
Each one has a role to play.
But Mehdi, you have to give him the
fact that he does a ton of research
before every single interview.
And he comes prepared like hardly any other
presenter that I've seen.
And Bassam has a talent.
So, again, look at the Piers Morgan interview
that went viral.
And this is, again, things that need to
be said.
Listen, his personal life is between him and
Allah.
We are allowed to critique any public aspects
of his personal life that he brings into
the public eye.
We're allowed to say this is right or
wrong.
But you see, the Prophet ﷺ said, and
I don't mean to apply this directly to
him.
I'm speaking conceptually.
And if it applies to him, it doesn't.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
I'm not necessarily making the causal linkage.
But I am being precise.
The Prophet ﷺ said, Allah sometimes helps this
deen with a man who's not very good.
A man might be a Fajr, but he
has the deen.
The deen.
That interview was one of the best mechanisms
to begin the discourse and to start shifting
the narrative.
And nobody could have done it.
Exactly.
Except Bassam.
So we have to give credit where credit
is due.
Props, yeah.
And he got away with saying things because
of who he is that none of us
could have said because we would not have
meant it and would not have been there.
So he got away with his slant and
it was needed to begin opening the door.
So one of my issues, and again, I
know you want your 10-second clip, but
I don't work that way.
We have to start thinking in color with
more nuances.
We cannot be so simplistic and binary, which
is one of the biggest problems of the
critique and the cancel in the fundamentalist culture.
It doesn't work that way.
The world is very complex.
So you can't just say, do you agree
with Bassam or not?
It doesn't work that way.
Bassam is serving a function.
And I hope Allah guides him to a
better understanding of religion and practice of religion.
But for the time being, he is doing
some overall great work.
And he's not at this stage a blatant
enemy to the Ummah.
And I know in the past, he has
things that he has to answer for.
So at this stage, I'm not going to
work in any manner or shape to somehow
minimize his voice.
Not that I even had the power to
do that, but no.
Does this mean we invite him to our
masjid?
No.
So here's where the nuance begins.
Can we utilize such individuals in arenas while
we realize they're not going to be capable
of being effective in other arenas?
Yes, I think we can.
I mean, by masjid, you mean like to
address the congregation, not like we're going to
ban him from the masjid?
Obviously, yeah.
Obviously.
No, I mean, because, you know, some of
our youth.
So I'm not going to mention the name
because he didn't mention his name, but a
very famous comedian came to Dallas of a
Muslim background.
And our youth were like clamoring, let's get
him to my masjid.
I'm like, it is not befitting that this
person who has no hayba, no, you know,
nobility, crass jokes.
He's funny, great.
But the masjid is not the platform for
this type of person.
I said, if you were to hire a
hall and have a youth event, right, not
under the banner of the masjid.
And he serves as a, we tell him
that the goal is to have a positive
role model for the youth.
And he agrees that that's why he's coming.
I can see that I'm not going to
be there.
The masjid board should not be there.
Our masjid should not sponsor.
I'm in disguise.
In disguise.
I don't have the wardrobes you do with
all the moustache and fake moustache.
You should bring one of those to your
show because I know you do all those
weird things.
So maybe one day you should just put
the weird fake moustache on and your viewership
will rise.
As long as it's in a youth event.
Go to his other channel now.
Straight into his other channel.
So to answer your question, neither of the
two is without issues.
But Mahdi is far more educated and academic
and comes researched.
And if we were to have a debate
with somebody in the political realm, I ask
you, can you think of anybody better from
our side to represent?
No.
This is a shame, isn't it?
Well then, well then, whatever criticisms people have
of him, some of which might be legitimate,
needs to also be put into context with
what he brings to the table.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
And Sheikh, to be honest, I mean, I
asked that question, and I just gave you
two names.
And it was important that that nuance did
come out.
You know, people think about, they might just
say, oh, Mehdi Hasan or Bassam Youssef based
on personality.
But all of that layering, I hope people
can really appreciate that because it's about ultimately
accessing audiences that I guess we can't, yourself
can't even, you know, let alone a lot
of other people.
And so it's important that they get those
voices heard as well.
So the last one, inshallah, and this is
a lot easier.
The next country you plan to visit for
the very first time, and if it's not
a country, then a city at least.
I've been thinking of going to Albania.
The reason being that it is a Muslim
-majority European country.
And I'm very interested in European Islam.
So I was literally just, I haven't even
thought of when it were, but like, you
know, very interesting question you're asking.
I love to go to places where there's
history that I don't know.
And so I like touring.
So last year I went to Prague in
the Czech Republic.
Just on my own, just I could go
and see the history there.
And then I went to Vienna.
Unbelievable.
The amount of history in Vienna.
It was a superpower.
And you go to the museums.
I'm the type of guy who spends five
hours at the museum.
And I literally, I'm that guy.
I go to every single, every single cubicle
and read what's on there.
And get a selfie.
That's me.
I don't take selfies at museums.
That's boring.
But yeah, nobody wants to go to museums.
Also, you're anti-selfie now.
I am indeed.
Yes, indeed.
That was an old joke, by the way.
Old joke, man.
It's like that.
So the next country I was thinking about
doing was Albania.
Another country I'm interested in going is Malta.
Because Malta also has a lot of remnants
of the Muslim rule.
And especially on their second island, not their
main island.
So I've done my research on this.
Which one?
Gaza.
Yes, that one.
You've been?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, you've been to Malta.
I discovered my level of snorkeling there.
Which is zero?
No, no, it's like, as far as love
goes, it's like just one below.
Oh, level of snorkeling.
I thought it was zero.
Okay, Alhamdulillah.
I mentioned that's where I had the nicest
croissant.
MashaAllah, mashaAllah.
Speaking of which, theme today of croissants.
Yeah, yeah.
Alhamdulillah.
So Shaykh, last 12 months, we've seen obviously
the Gaza genocide step up in intensity.
We've seen so much.
I don't want to put words in your
mouth, but what have you learned?
What have we learned in the last 12
months?
The resilience of the Palestinian brothers and sisters,
their iman, their courage.
People like this are still alive, walking saints
on earth, subhanAllah.
May Allah protect us.
What would we have done?
May Allah protect us, you know.
I say this from behind closed doors, from
behind chained walls.
They're the ones freed.
Sorry, they're the ones liberated.
Sorry, they're the ones chained up.
It is as if they liberated the rest
of the world, even though they're the ones
chained up.
So without a doubt, we learned that.
But that's not a surprise.
We knew that from them.
One of the lessons that we learned, and
one of the painful ones, and I say
this bluntly because there's a genocide that is
going on for a year, is the fact
that us Muslims in the Western world, all
of our strands combined, have failed in one
aspect.
I'm not saying they're failures.
They've failed in one aspect, and that is
giving us civilizational strength.
No matter what you want to say about
their successes, and they have successes.
Every strand has done much good.
May Allah bless them.
But one area where clearly we are disconnected
from the worlds we live in is civilizational
clout.
By civilizational clout, I mean social and political
and economic.
That's what civilizations are built on.
And military.
And?
Military.
Military.
So I'm talking about Western Muslims.
I'm not talking about...
So there's two separate categories.
So I'm not talking about...
That's a given.
Without a doubt, but my conversation now is
about us.
It's so easy to point fingers there, and
we should.
It's a shame.
How can you have an army at your
disposal?
How can you be the ruler of a
country?
How can you have billions, and you're just
watching this?
That's between you and Allah.
But I am more concerned about me, myself,
and us here.
What are we doing here?
My priority is us here.
We don't have armies at our disposals.
But we are citizens in the very countries
that are endorsing these policies.
And we have failed ourselves to have the
difficult conversations and to plant the infrastructures needed.
We're still debating things that used to be
50 years ago.
Our nation-state identity.
We're still debating, voting, and protesting.
And so in the last 11 months, my
own rhetoric and khutbas and lectures about this
have become extremely blunt.
I've lost all political correctness because it's a
genocide.
Lancet estimated a quarter of a million Palestinians
have died.
Indirectly, indirectly.
A quarter of a million.
And see, the thing is, the sad thing
is, subhanAllah, even if tomorrow the bombing were
to stop, Gaza is in ruins.
What are those two million people going to
do?
There is no infrastructure.
What are they going to do?
Where are they going to live?
Where are they going to send their children?
Where are they going to get medical aid?
We don't even have a solution as an
ummah.
So my main then personal concern is that
we need to understand this moment as a
wake-up and a call for action.
The Muslim community is still bickering over issues
of aqidah.
It's still divided amongst political lines, ethnic lines.
If this is not going to cause us
to wake up and come together, then what
will?
And we as well have to have some
very, very difficult conversations of the level of
participation.
And here's where I don't have answers.
What does it mean to be a Muslim
politician?
I don't know.
But I do know that being apolitical and
sticking your head in the sand and running
away, shouting kufr, haram, shirk is not going
to get us anywhere.
We need to take ownership without feeling any
guilt.
This is our land.
I find it shameful that you in this
country and allow me to be blunt because
I'm an American.
I have an excuse.
We're less than 1%.
10% of London is Muslim.
At least 7, 8% of the country
is Muslim.
I find it shameful that that is not
manifested at the cultural level, at the socio
-political level, at the economic level.
Why not?
Why is there still this isolationist tendency to
just cut off and to build these walls
between you and one of them is Wala
Anbara, if you're one of them.
It's not the only one.
That's why we need to go back to
this misconstruction of Wala Anbara because it has
quite literally acted as an impediment to civilizational
izzah.
Once you take ownership and you start speaking
in a different manner, this is your land.
You are British.
Whether you want to call it this or
not, you are British citizens.
Own it.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It doesn't go against Wala Anbara.
Who taught you this?
They're wrong.
So once you understand you have ownership, then
you understand it is your duty, not just
in the eyes of Allah, but even you
can use the rhetoric, nothing wrong with that,
even your patriotic duty that to make this
country a better country, a more moral country.
Once your paradigm shifts in this regard, right,
and there's many impediments.
The one that irritates us the most should
be the religious impediments.
It's not the only one.
There's the religious folks who don't understand this,
sideline them, bypass them.
If you can't reason with them, just get
to the ones that can be reasoned with,
right?
Ignore them because they are an impediment to
a necessary, imagine, imagine if 10% of
your parliament was understanding of the reality of
Gaza, which they aren't.
And they could easily be if the Muslim
participation was of that level.
But the problem comes, as we're all aware,
Muslim politicians have to compromise this and that,
the whole nine yards begins, right?
This is the awkwardness.
I don't have solutions.
I don't.
I've given generic answers.
I've given generic.
Ulema should not run for politics.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ulema should not be at the forefront of
running.
But people who love Allah and his messenger
are far better than people who don't believe
in Allah and his messenger.
And to have some people like that in
office, even if it comes at a personal
cost to them, it's a reality we're gonna
have to take.
You know, Sheikh, I just kind of synthesizing
a lot of what we've said so far
and even this point.
You know, when October 7th and the genocide
started up after that, I think for the
first time, and I'm obviously very plugged into
different Muslim professional groups.
I had a number of different Muslims contact
me going through a state of depression.
And their depression was based on we drank
the Kool-Aid.
We believed, and, you know, they're younger, that
we're part of the fabric of this society.
We're involved.
We get involved in everything.
They don't have the cultural hang-ups that
my generation would have.
Yet everything has been so one-sided and
they don't know how to deal with this.
And so there is the political dimension.
And to be honest, Sheikh, the call for
political participation and having Muslims in key positions
hasn't really changed.
The last 10, 15 years, we've seen a
lot more of it.
But this is probably the worst in living
memory I've seen at least of what's going
on.
And so the question could be raised, shouldn't
we be trying something different?
What that different is?
Of course, without a doubt.
I mean, I've said this bluntly at Epic
Masjid when I gave khatiras and lectures.
I've said this multiple times.
I am not somebody who naively believes that
political solutions are the main solutions.
Without a doubt, the main solution will always
be at the personal spiritual level.
Without a doubt, you and your relationship with
Allah and that multiplied by every single Muslim
around you, that is where it begins.
But that doesn't require anything other than khutbas
and durus and incentivizing them.
There's no impediments to that.
Nobody is going to disagree with that.
We don't have the only hang up there
is the person himself.
And then inshallah, Ghaza should act as a
catalyst and activist to be a better person.
So we're not getting pushback from anybody when
we go and say to them, hey, pray
five times a day, believe in Allah, be
a good Muslim.
That's without a doubt, number one.
But then number two, media, politics, influence, power.
And there's nothing sinister because again, what you
know, I saw an interview here in England
where somebody was trying to criminalize the concept
of the Muslim vote.
Yeah, there was some politician like, you know,
saying, oh, there's a Muslim vote and whatnot.
And I wish you had somebody like Mahdi
or others at that stage because the person
couldn't respond back.
He's like, so what if there is own
up to it?
So what?
They're British.
They have the right to have their point
of view, just like you have the right
to hold your point of view.
And we argue it out.
And the polls are the end.
That's exactly what democracy is.
Own up to it.
You don't have to feel guilty.
Stop feeling guilty about wanting to make this
country a better, more ethical country.
You say, I don't care you call it
Muslim or not.
I don't want my country sending bombs and
aid to this apartheid regime.
It's as simple as that, right?
There's this fear from your side, it looks
like to me, to just take ownership of
this.
What is the attack?
You're being quintessentially British by wanting to vote.
Sure, make it.
You want to make it identity politics?
I'm making it about children dying.
Just flip the script on them.
Take ownership and push back.
It's really quite simple.
And you guys have what we do not
have.
Alhamdulillah, we have what you do not have
in many ways.
We are leaps and bounds ahead of you
in terms of thought.
But you guys have, you guys have percentages.
Yes.
The power of numbers.
Concentration.
Concentration.
France.
France, unbelievable.
It is estimated.
It is estimated.
It is possible within a few years, 25
% of France is going to be Muslim.
One out of four people.
But you and I both know, and I
don't say this to demean or to put
down our French brothers and sisters, but to
encourage them that they are of the most
apolitical European Muslims on the planet.
It's not a surprise then that Marie Le
Pen is going to be potentially the next
prime minister because our own Muslim brothers are
still saying that voting is haram.
They're not going to go to the polls.
I'm not saying voting is wajib.
I'm not saying voting is the number one
mechanism.
But if you're going to sit back and
debate and bicker and whatnot about this, don't
be surprised when the next Nazi party comes
in and starts deporting.
Marie Le Pen literally said on live TV,
any imam, even third generation born and raised
here, his great great grandfather came.
If he says something we don't like, I'll
deport him and send it back to Algeria.
What blatant racism?
And you're just sitting there debating, oh, voting
is haram, the kuffar this and whatnot.
I'm sorry.
You just have to let the kids bicker
and just move on, become adults in the
room.
This is what I'm frustrated about with European
Muslims.
The leadership of the European Muslim community really
needs to get its act together.
We actually have an excuse.
We are less than 1% of the
country.
Canada is 7%.
Australia is almost 7%.
UK, 8%, 7, 8%.
They say 6%.
But okay, okay.
In the major cities, you are definitely being
represented.
And we've got a Muslim king.
Your viewership that's not in England should know
you're cracking a joke here.
So it's an internal joke you guys have.
As Yahya Abbas says, he's an Islamophile.
Your percentages are off the charts in London,
in Manchester, in Birmingham, in Leeds, in Leicester.
Leicester is unbelievable.
But I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm
in a bubble, but I do see a
very good trajectory.
You're headed in the right direction for Muslim
in the UK.
I don't know.
I mean, this time around, this last election,
I didn't hear a single person saying it
was haram.
Even the people who used to say it's
haram, they're like, okay, let me be quiet
now.
Okay, that's good news.
We're basing this off of obviously, what we
see in social media.
Social media really gives you a way.
I agree.
Of course, I don't know this very well.
Okay, so the presumptions that...
And we have this, about the Muslim World
Campaign, it's a 25-year plan and movement.
And take ownership, publicize it.
There's no hidden agenda.
Unless it's haram, there's more apathy.
Yeah, that's the issue.
It doesn't change anything.
Okay, so that needs to be addressed at
a different level.
Yes, it will not change anything in the
near future.
Agreed.
But you're laying the foundations.
And I gave one simple example when I
spoke with Brother Jalal from The Thinking Muslim.
I gave one simple example that you guys,
20 years ago, was your first Muslim MP.
Very left-wing, secular, hardly just identifying, not
even as a Muslim.
Your first MP that was a Muslim background
was barely 20 years ago.
If that guy hadn't come, you wouldn't have
a hijabi or a bearded guy, you know,
praying five times a day in Congress, in
your parliament.
You wouldn't have that.
You have to understand this takes stages.
And once again, our simplistic, you know, overzealous,
but good, sincere youth, and especially the clergy
and whatnot, they expect immediate victory.
This is a long-term strategy.
It's a long-term strategy that is not
only halal, it's also a part of who
you are.
There is no hidden agenda when the far
right comes, when, what's your Fox News equivalent?
What is it?
Daily Mail.
Daily Mail?
No, the TV station.
GBN.
Yeah, whatever it is.
When the GBN comes, own it.
They're going to take my clip, as they
did in Sweden.
When I went to Sweden, they took my
clip and they made a twist to it.
They're going to take my clip.
There's nothing to take here.
He's telling you to be quintessentially British.
Be a part of the democratic process.
There's nothing sinister about that.
Because it's a long process, slow process, that
kind of explains why you call it like
one of the failures in our response to
Gaza.
So we're kind of just bringing it back
to lessons from the last year.
But we weren't prepared.
We're still reactive.
There's no strategy.
We weren't prepared for this.
The leaders, the movers, the shakers need to
come together.
And a few of them should be ulema.
But the bulk of this needs to be
political activists.
Have a few ulema who understand, put them
in a room and chart out a course.
This is not a secret hatch or a
plot.
This is protection of our rights as minorities.
Other groups do this all the time.
Other groups do this.
That's why they're so successful.
We, on the other hand, are still bickering
over issues of no concern to the ulema.
And again, as I said, we have multiple
problems.
One of the biggest problems internally is the
appeal of simple-minded fundamentalism.
It has to be said, once you become
religious, if you're not religious and you're on
the fitrah, all of this make everything that
I said in the last hour and everything
I say makes complete sense.
Once you become religious, frankly, there's a level
of indoctrination that occurs.
And I know because I've been through it.
There's a level of narrow-mindedness and all
that I've said becomes problematic because your fitrah
itself, believe it or not, has been, you
know, diverted, call it corrupted, whatever it will,
until the bare truths that we're all Muslims
together, which your grandmother would understand.
My grandma would understand that.
They said, they sound, oh, this guy's watering
the religion down.
I would say, Allah says in the Qur
'an, إِنَّ هَذِى أُمَّةٌ أُمَّةٍ وَاحِدَ Allah is
telling in the Qur'an, وَاعْتَصْمِحَ بْلَهِ جَمِيعًا
وَلَا تَفَرَّقُ The Prophet ﷺ is saying that
I'm commanding you that you come together as
one and not divide.
This is not some watered down Ikhwani version
as the critics say.
This is Islam and Allah wants us to
come together and what unites us is much
more than what divides us.
So as I keep on saying, those issues
that are sectarian, take the madrasa students, lock
them in a room, have it out for
half an hour and then when time for
salah comes, go and pray and then have
some croissants and crumpets, quintessentially British.
Have your tea with your little scones, with
your little finger pointed up like this and
come together for the sake of Allah because
what unites us is more than what divides
us.
And I was going to say Sheikh because
we spoke about it as a positive note
because we can get sometimes into this self
-cycle of depression but unbelievably in the last
year we've also seen some amazingly inspirational stuff
from the Muslim community getting together, rallying around
people who wouldn't identify themselves as practicing but
they've gone out, they've sacrificed their time, their
money to do something for our brothers and
sisters.
Their reputation.
Yeah, their reputation in ways that you wouldn't
have seen before.
Honestly, like you know people, youngsters going into
universities, you see the university encampments, lawyers coming
together.
First time, alhamdulillah, a number of Muslim lawyers
in the UK have formed together on groups
to say we're going to pick up the
challenge for anyone who is accused of anti
-Semitism etc.
There are positives taking place, alhamdulillah, it's not
all negative, alhamdulillah.
Even from the boycott perspective Sheikh, we know
that it's been hitting a lot of these
companies that they've had to change their CEOs
etc.
It's a start.
Direct action.
And this all goes back to what I'm
saying, long-term strategy.
We Muslims need to understand we're in this
for the long run and it's not something
that's going to take a week or two,
it might even take a decade or two.
But laying the foundations now and seeing, and
one of the lectures I gave was about
the interim period when we lost Masjid al
-Aqsa for the first time around, that interim
period.
Salahuddin Ayubi did not come out of a
vacuum.
You know, and so for those 95 years,
it's not as if the one who just
sat on their behinds did nothing.
No.
You have to prepare, you have to envision
and plan, and when you do so, eventually
the plan will manifest itself.
So right now we're in that 95-year
interim.
We hope inshaAllah it's towards the end of
it.
I'm 95 meaning Allah knows how many years,
but we hope it's towards the end of
it.
And actually I am very optimistic because look
at the foolishness of that regime.
Yeah.
It's just burning all of its bridges, more
and more European and Latin American countries are
turning their back literally and metaphysically on that
country.
They've lost all the support they've had around
the globe except for my country of America,
and then your country's, my country's relationship is
like unbelievably strong.
And so whatever we do, you guys are
also gonna...
Yes, it used to be the other way
around, but now it is, yes, it is.
So whatever we do, you do as well.
So these two countries are the primary two
countries, and it's only one because once we
change, you're going to change automatically as well.
So we are in a position now, European
Muslims should be a part of their countries
and should put legitimate pressure, public, social media
and political to try to break away from
this.
And it will effectively soften American hegemony as
well, because yes, no doubt, we are the
superpower, but we're relying on you as PR
as well.
Do you see the tone out of Washington
changing anytime soon?
No.
But the people's tone is changing, and that's
what's important.
It takes a while for the people's tones
to reflect.
And I'm somebody who doesn't believe the White
House is the most important vote.
Yeah.
It's not.
It's the people's sentiment.
It takes a while.
And I gave you two or three examples
in the recent living memory history, living memory
of the elderly amongst us.
The Vietnam War, civil rights, and even the
example people are going to balk at, LGBT.
All three of these things were non-compromisable
at the political level.
The powers that be did not want any
change.
But grass movements began amongst the people.
And the people began protesting, lobbying, campaigning.
The public put pressure on the media, which
put pressure on more public, which put pressure
on more spies.
And eventually, within 10 years in all of
these cases, 15, 20 if you want to
civil rights, but 15 years, right?
Eventually, the politicians had to cave.
You see this happening with the Israel issue?
It is possible if a tactic is employed
that I'm asking my American Muslim brethren and
sisters to take charge of, and that is
to use the angle of foreign aid, even
as the American economy is crumbling.
Yeah.
So the issue with Vietnam, the college kids
were being sent.
If they didn't protest, they would die in
Vietnam.
There's a personal passion.
The issue with civil rights, you know what's
going on, right?
The issue with LGBT, that community wanted its
freedoms, and they humanized their plight and whatnot.
The issue with Israel and Gaza is not
as near and dear to the average.
Every interception of the Iron Dome costs the
US $150,000.
So once we bring in, once we bring
in the money factor, I mean, we could
solve, I calculated this for what lecture I
gave, we could solve homelessness, I've got in
14 states, whatever, if we stop funding Israel
for one year.
You put it into those types of perspective,
you guys probably don't know this.
In America, every major city has massive places
where people are just homeless.
Yeah.
It's unbelievable.
I know you guys don't believe this, but
it is the case.
Yeah, I've heard from people out there.
It's crazy, especially LA and these types of
places.
You would think you're in some type of
like...
Yeah, it's crazy I've had that.
Crazy, crazy, yeah.
I've seen it, and even I was shuddering.
I can't just look at this too much
because drug addicts in the street would not,
right?
One year of not funding Israel would solve
definitely LA's problem, much more than LA.
Once you start telling the people of LA,
hey, guys, your taxes are used, forget bombs
and who's right and wrong, we're sending your
taxes to the Middle East.
To pay for someone else's health care.
To pay for somebody else's.
Ironically, Israelis have better health care than Americans
do.
Ironically, they have free health care and we
don't, right?
So once we start changing the tactics, and
I'm telling my American Muslim brother, we need
to take charge of the narrative and start
producing pamphlets, videos, which the message is going
to be trickled down to the people.
This is strategy and tactics.
And it's just telling the truth.
Telling the truth.
It's not even anything subversive.
There's no evil agenda.
It's telling the truth and we're doing our
American rights, right?
We can't compete with APAC's $100 million.
We can't.
$100 million in the last 10 months.
So a very good return, though.
They did.
They did.
Billions.
They did.
Exactly the point.
We can't compete with that.
But we can compete with truth versus falsehood.
We can compete with the haqqas on our
side.
I mean, I've been saying this for the
longest time.
We still don't have a five, 10-minute
video explaining the whole conflict to the average
American.
Such a big vacuum.
And I say this on the podcast.
Hopefully, one of you guys hears this, right?
Such a simple concept.
A cartoon, even.
Or a bunch of actors.
Or two people conversing.
And you script.
I'll help you write the script.
Or get some people even better than me.
Can you believe, if you want to tell
your friend about this conflict in five, 10
minutes, I can't think of one thing to
send them.
Like a properly done, professionally scripted, you know,
cartoon or video about two people having a
conversation with two opposing sides.
And by the end of it, the one
on the correct side convinces the one on
the wrong side.
But the simple facts out there.
It's not there.
Such videos would go viral.
And then you can twist it with a
funny twist, with an academic twist, with a
bomb twist.
Like, you know, what's happening over there.
You can do so many different takes on
it.
We don't have anything like that.
And it costs, what?
10, 20, 30 thousand dollars?
Nothing.
But we're not doing this.
So, bottom line, in the last 10, 11
months, I mean, as I said, my political
correctness has gone out the window because one
of the biggest impediments that we can solve,
it's not the biggest, is the religious impediment.
As I say, it's not the biggest.
But other impediments, frankly, are much easier to
solve.
And religious impediments, people listening to this podcast
are already religious folks.
So I can speak to them more directly.
Solve the fanaticism and fundamentalism amongst our own.
Solve the narrow-mindedness amongst our own.
Unite with every Muslim who loves Allah and
his messenger because if they love Allah and
his messenger, they will love the people of
Palestine.
Impossible that you love Allah and his messenger
and then you're on the side of the
apartheid regime.
Impossible.
So, love all of the people because we
are one ummah.
And keep your differences to an academic level.
Keep them to a side.
Some are better than others.
I'm not saying they're all the same.
But stop trying to pull people down.
Stop trying to categorize other people.
Stop having so much hatred in your heart
for those who love Allah and his messenger.
That is the fundamental problem.
Understand this religion is a vast and beautiful
religion.
Understand your interpretation is but one of many
others.
And may Allah bless you for yours.
But the other people are just as sincere
as you.
And Allah will judge based upon sincerity before
he judges based upon methodology.
The most important, إِنَّ مَنْ أَمَنُوا بِالنِّيَّاتِ And
the one who is truly sincere, Allah will
bless that sincerity even if they were mistaken.
And the one who is right but insincere,
Allah will not bless them even if they're
right.
Once you understand this point, open your eyes.
Gather up as many Muslims as you can.
Strategize in a mechanism that you feel the
most powerful to do.
You feel the most useful to do.
And then you do what you're doing.
Let others do what they're doing.
Inshallah, each one of you is going to
lay the foundations for multiple changes that will
happen in generations to come.
Yeah, that's very important.
Especially that, okay, we might have a disagreement.
You do this strategy.
Let me do this strategy.
Multiple strategies.
Yeah.
Because you don't know what strategy will work
the best.
And maybe all strategies are needed simultaneously.
Yeah.
Just to also add, even just being as
Muslims, if we take a longer term strategy,
I've seen in the last 10, 20, 30
years, Muslims are getting into more and more
pockets or different roles, getting more senior.
And what you're seeing is that even non
-Muslims who are in those senior roles, they've
had Muslim experiences or experiences with Muslims that
have shaped them that we didn't have 30
years ago, 40 years ago.
And we need to, and this is when
I come back to that engagement bit, Sheikh,
that you're going to write on, that actually
just engaging with non-Muslims, it's all helping.
Being Muslims proudly with our allies.
So let's conclude with this point because I
have to go as well.
Inshallah you guys know this.
Let's conclude this point.
What can the average Muslim do?
The average Muslim can be visibly Muslim and
demonstrate the beauty of Islam to their peers,
their colleagues, their co-workers, their neighbors.
That is the biggest victory for Islam and
the Ummah.
Do not trivialize your role.
If you can influence your immediate circle to
understand our religion as a positive force for
society, that's all we need you to do.
Now, if you can go one level above
this and get into the reality of what's
happening in Gaza and Palestine, you'll need to
know some knowledge and back.
But even that's not necessary.
But if you're able to, fine.
But just at that level, if you can
do that, you have lived your life as
a success and you can meet Allah with
a clean conscience that you know what?
I did what I could do.
That's all that Allah requires of you.
This deen is a religion of ease and
yusr.
Allah does not require superhuman feats.
You do the best you can and you've
won in this world and the Akhirah, inshallah.