Yasir Qadhi – Should American Muslims VOTE
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
It gives me great pleasure to come to
your center and masjid, which for me is
on the other side of the world.
I think I have to make qasr sometimes
if I come to your Masjid. But alhamdulillah,
your Masjid has a fadl and a maziyyah
and a special place in my heart because
this was the first masjid I gave a
khutbah in Dallas ever. So your masjid before
I moved here, I gave a khutbah here,
I even forgot what year, before I was
a resident of Dallas. And of course, alhamdulillah,
you know Dallas is well known in the
entire western world
for having the greatest number of,
masjid complexes. Right? Masjid neighborhoods. This is no
other city in America has this many,
Masjid complexes, Masjid neighborhoods. And alhamdulillah, I'm very
happy to be a member of one of
them, which is epic. But you are the
first, and there's no denying this. You are
the first. You are the one who began
it all. You are the one that all
the others are modeled behind. So, alhamdulillah, you
guys have a blessing and a fadl, that
insha Allah will go down in history.
Time is limited. Let me get straight into
the talk. And, if you feel that the
talk is a little bit structured, that is
because it is unstructured, it is off the
cuff and impromptu,
and sometimes those are the best talks and
sometimes those are the worst talks. So we
hope inshallah that is of the the former
and not the latter. But I have some
talking points and then I wanna open up
the floor for q and a. I wanna
begin with the seerah. I wanna begin with
the template, the role model that we have
been commanded by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
use as our role model and template.
And from the seerah, the one incident that
I think is especially relevant
to our time, especially relevant to our talk
is the incident of the treaty of Hudaybiyyah.
The incident of the treaty of Hudaybiyyah
that took place in the 6th year of
the hijrah, in the month of Dhul Qadah,
when after 6 years the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam and the sahaba have left their
hometown of Makkah, and they have never returned
back, they have never done tawaf and umrah,
they have never seen their relatives that were
there and they have been in exile for
6 years.
And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam decides obviously
with Yani Allah's wahi that the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam decides to just undertake a simple
trip, not a war, not any, not any
type of hostility,
a simple umrah trip
that the law of the time allowed.
It was well known that anybody who wanted
to Umrah or Hajj during the sacred months
would not be prevented. And in the history
of the Quraish, they had never prevented anybody
from entering the Kaaba
peacefully
during the 4 months of Ashur ul Hurom.
This is pre Islamic law and it is
also Islamic law as well because it goes
back to Ibrahim alaihis salam. The 4 sacred
months. Why are there 4 sacred months? In
order for people to be able to do
Tawaf and Hajj and Umrah. They in these
4 Sacred Months,
anybody can come even if they're enemies of
Quraish. Azib Al Abbas said that in the
days of Jahiliyyah,
the one
who was a murderer,
to somebody of the Quraish, if they were
to be seen doing tawaf in the Ashburul
uram, nobody would harm them. Even the son
of the murdered man would see the one
who murdered his father, and he wouldn't do
anything because that was the Ihtiram or the
respect given to the Kaaba. For those 4
months, nobody is stopped. So in all of
Qurashi history,
no one had ever been stopped from doing
umrah or hajj for in a peaceful manner,
doing the 4 sacred months. So our Prophet
in the 6th year decided to follow the
law of the land, and to take the
haqq that was his, and to go peacefully
doing umrah, wearing ihram,
not being armed, no armor, no weapons, everybody
is wearing ihram and they have the animals
of hadi, they're doing umrah and it is
understood
they're doing umrah. But and of course I
cannot do the whole story because that's a
very, you know, long episode, but the key
points here, the Quraysh acted unjustly. They went
against their own law.
They went against their own law. They showed
their hypocrisy
as every single nation and democracy and secular
land, every single, you know, group that claims
to follow a higher law when it doesn't
suit their purpose and especially against Muslims, they
love to show their double standards. So the
first and only time in Qurashi history, they
actually prevented
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and the
Muslims from entering Makkah. And as you know,
the negotiations took place and you know, I've
given lectures and it's in the books and
whatnot. Negotiations took place and eventually,
Suhayd ibn Amr negotiated
the treaty of Urdaybiyyah
that seemed to be very unjust. There seemed
to be a lot of political compromise that
took place, and of them even the Prophet
was not honored by his title.
When they dictated and Ali ibn Abi Talib
said that, This
is a treaty between
Rasulullah
and the Quraysh. Immediately
Suhayid stopped him and he goes he might
be your Rasulullah, he's not my, I don't
think he's Rasulullah. Of course, so Suhayid eventually
accepted Islam and
Ali radiAllahu an refused, I'm not gonna
cross this out and the Prophet salallahu alaihi
wasalam himself crossed it out and he goes
even if they don't call me Rasulullah,
I am Rasulullah but I will call myself
by the name my mother gave me Muhammad
ibn Abdullah. And so he agreed to come
down to and to leave this title in
the treaty. And then every single condition seemed
to be unjust. The beginning, the first condition,
you're not gonna do umra this year. What
gives you the right to prevent people from
Hajj and Umra? You don't have this right,
O Quraysh. But they said no, you're not
gonna come and do umra this year. This
year you're gonna go back without doing umrah.
Your entire 5 weeks of travel, you're walking
throughout the desert, we don't care, you're gonna
go back all the way where you came
from. That was the first condition and every
other condition even more seems to be humiliation,
even more, you know, a capitulation.
And of the conditions, if a
Maqan
Qurashi embraces Islam and migrates to Madinah, he
will not be given shelter, you must bring
him back to us. He's not allowed to
any more hijra, we're gonna have to keep
our people. On the other hand, if somebody
from your side wants to come over, we're
not gonna hand him over, he's gonna be
able to come back to us. SubhanAllah seems
to be blatant
double standards, blatant, you know, evil taking place.
And even as they're negotiating, as you know
the story, that
some of the secret Muslim converts and some
of them were secret Muslims and others were
known to be Muslims and they were being
tortured in Mecca. They tried to escape
and they were not able to escape at
that time because Suhail refused. He goes, No,
we're not gonna allow even one person anymore
to migrate. And the Muslims are seething with
rage. Even Umar al Khattar radiAllahu anhu he
becomes enraged when he sees
his Muslim brother being tortured. They see the
torture on his body and he's jumping into
the camp and he goes protect me and
Suhayid says no, he's gonna come back to
us, this is the treaty. And the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam said we haven't yet agreed,
so he said we're gonna agree from now,
I'm not gonna agree to this treaty until
you send him back to me. And the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam tried multiple times and
Suhayid would not budge and so he had
to be returned even as the marks of
torture are on his body. Can you imagine
how the Muslims felt that he's so close
to be saved? Can you imagine how this
Sahabi felt? He even could not find political
protection
amongst the Muslims and the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam is right there. SubhanAllah, that is
a test of iman. That is a test
of iman. Can you imagine? The Prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam is right there, he is
interacting with him and politically nothing can be
done. It's not, I can't help you right
now. And he made dua for him. And
of course, I mean, I cannot go into
every detail, but do listen to it all
over again because we're gonna, you know, extract
some benefits and then derive what we want
to derive from this for our today's lecture.
The point here is that
what this treaty and what this incident demonstrates
is that
ideal situations
are usually not achieved.
And
pragmatic
compromise
is something that must be done at times
and place. In fact, the prophet himself said
before the treaty began, he goes, I will
agree to any condition they say to me
as long as
the shaa'ir of Allah, as long as the
respect that is due to Allah is given.
Any condition, even if it means we appear
to be humiliated, okay, but as long as
shaa'ir of Allah, we will take any pain
and suffering but of course as long as
the religion of Islam, you know, itself is
not dishonored, as long as the signs of
Allah are not dishonored and that's exactly what
ended up happening. Now obviously at the time,
the Muslims were very demoralized.
At the time, even Urbana Khattar radiAllahu anhu,
he said things he regretted, and again this
is not the time to go into that.
Even he in his, you know, zeal,
he said phrases that even he regretted because
he really could not understand how can Islam
like this. You know, he literally said to
the Prophetess, are you not your Surah Allah?
Are you not upon the Haqq? Are you
not the one whom Allah is sending why?
So how can you allow this to happen?
This is how angry he got. Right? And
the prophet
is trying to calm him down, whether it
was Abu Bakr who could be harsh with
him, literally put him by his by his
collar and put him down and said, Sit
down O'amr Al Khattab, remember who you're speaking
with. You needed the Abu Bakr to And
by the way, Abu Bakr has the perception
of being soft. He was a lion when
the situation required it, and only he could
be more courageous and brave than Umar ibn
Khattab to hold him by the collar and
drag him down. Only Abu Bakr could do
that. Point is that and then eventually as
you know Allah revealed,
By the way a lot of Muslims misunderstand,
Inna fatahannalaka fathhamubina applies to conquest of Makkah.
No. Inna fatahannalaka fathhamubina
applies to the treaty of Radai'biya. It came
down for the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, not for
the conquest of Makkah. And Allah called the
conquest of
Allah called the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah a magnificent
victory.
Allah called it a victory even though nobody
understood how it is a victory because long
term strategy is not the same as short
term strategy. And sometimes you compromise in the
short term only to win in the long
term. But people who don't have patience, people
who wanna see results immediately,
they are not able to comprehend
that real world is like a long term
game. It requires 5, 10, 20, 30 steps.
Real world change does not occur in one
step, and the treaty of Qudaybiya demonstrates this.
Now obviously, I have to give the caveat
that when you talk about the prophet and
the treat of adaibiya, obviously
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is allowing every step.
Right?
So there's no comparison
immediately. In other words, nobody can invoke the
treaty and say, oh, because of this, I'm
doing this. Because you don't have that connection
with Allah that the prophet did. But what
are we trying to say? We're trying to
say the template is there,
the paradigm is there. Right? And from the
Seerah, we take those paradigms, those ethical values,
we extract the moral principles
and then we can argue whether we can
apply that principle or not here or there.
But the principle is derived from the seerah
and that principle is very clear and that
is
realpolitik, if you wanna get the technical term
here. That is that the reality of dealing
with political quagmires,
you have to at times
compromise for the sake of a greater good
and that compromise can be very painful. Your
Muslim brother can be killed in front of
you and you can do nothing because of
political loyalties.
Political loyalties
at times
prevent you from physically defending your brother in
faith, and you see him being bombed, you
see him being tortured, you see his entire
land being destroyed and there's nothing you can
do other than raise your hand and make
du'a to Allah. That template is there from
the seerah. It's nothing we are inventing. That
principle is there from the seerah. Now, the
point of all of this is
to bring us very quickly up to speed
because
time not only is limited, but these last
10 months, I have found myself
to not have any patience to skirt around
sensitive topics. My pain and all of our
pains for what is happening in Gaza,
actually it has made my tongue become very
loose, and I thank Allah for this. I
don't care about the criticism of the critic
because our community
needs to be taught some very very difficult
lessons. We don't have time to be simplistic.
We don't have time to be 1 dimensional.
We don't have time to act like kindergarten
children anymore. And so people have to be
told bluntly and let us have these discussions
boldly, and let us go back and forth
and talk about some very very difficult topics.
And you're speaking to somebody who was born
and raised in this country. I was born
in the 70s, grew up in the 80s,
I saw the first batch of ralama an
shirk that came here. Maybe some of you
know my father was the 1st founder of
the 1st masjid Masjid in Texas, and the
1st MSA my father founded in 1963.
So I come from that family, I have
seen Islam in its inception from immigrant communities
and the African American communities.
As you know in the 70s, we didn't
interact as much as we should have, 9:11
changed all of that, but I have seen
that reality. My father was the 1st to
bring the 1st maulana from Pakistan to Texas.
The 1st Imam that is Masha'Allah is still
alive, Masha'Allah may Allah protect him, now he's
in his eighties. The first shirk that came
to Texas, you know, we had to bring
him here. And then after that other people
came from Darul Ulum, from Al Azhar, from
other places and universities.
And we love and respect all of them,
and we owe a lot to them. They
laid the foundations. We wouldn't be here had
they not laid the foundations.
But the awkward reality is that many of
our shuyukhan teachers who came in the 70s
80s,
they were not prepared for this new world
that they saw
and they weren't aware of the complexities of
the lands that we live in.
And
these new situations that we find ourselves in,
they do require a little bit of rethinking,
fine tuning, and this is where people really
become scared and they become, you know, uh-uh
very, I understand they become very nervous, but
their nervousness doesn't change this reality.
We have to, as scholars and also as
lay people, understand we are living in very
different times. The very concept of the world
we live in, the division of the world
into nation states, the concept of citizenship,
the concept of equal rights for all citizens,
the concept of liberty and freedom, the concept
of democracy,
the concept of secularism,
the concept of the freedom of expression, the
concept of the citizen in the in the
modern democratic states being at some level responsible
for the policies of their own government. All
of this is absolutely new.
This is unprecedented.
It didn't exist a 100 years ago, 300
years ago. We don't have detailed treatises
about how should Muslims live in liberal democracies.
Ibn Taymiyyah didn't talk about it. Imam al
Ghazali didn't even conceive of the idea. So
we have to be brave enough to understand
that this is a new world. Now with
utmost love and respect, I grew up in
an era where the default fatwa,
at least in the people that I associated
with and the lands and the masajid I
visited,
and those of you who have been here
in the eighties, you know this. The default
fatwa back then
was that Muslim should be out of politics,
and that voting should not be done, and
the notion that it is haram or kufr
was also very prevalent. It was very prevalent
at the time that Muslims should not be
involved in politics. And generally speaking, religious folks
were apolitical,
and those Muslims that were involved in politics
were not that religious. Unfortunately, that type of
dichotomy has still remained to this day. Our
Muslim activists,
those are involved in the media, those are
involved in the political sphere. Unfortunately,
generally speaking, they're not of the practicing Muslims.
And generally speaking, to this day, people like
us in this community and all over the
Masajid, generally speaking, we frown and disdain upon
political engagement. And this is a dichotomy that
is not healthy for the community. It is
not good for our ummah where this type
of difference exist. However, I want to address
this notion head on. We had a number
of concepts we were raised with when when
I was a young man.
And of them was this prevalent notion that
you can never be a part of this
land, that they are different than us and
we are different than them, and you can
never really truly fully be an American. And
this was a notion that was quite explicitly
taught that you're not allowed to consider yourself
to be a part of this land. And
again, believe it or not, I actually absorbed
these views as a young teenager in the
early 90s and I thought as well that
okay, you know, my only identity is that
of Islam. But again, you study the seerah,
you read the books of, you know, fuqaha
and you interact with genuine bona fide ulama,
actual ulama and not, you know, because again,
ilmis of levels. And the fact of the
matter is somebody who studied 4 5 years
and graduated from a undergraduate is not the
same as an alama who has studied 50
years. They are not the same. And most
of the people that we interact with, they
are, you know, basic level graduates with respect
to them, we need them. Most of the
graduates that come here, they study 4 or
5 years and they are capable of copying
and pasting from the books they've studied. But
original thought cannot be found amongst a 5
year graduate. Actual ichtihad cannot be done by
a level 1 graduate, for that you need
to go to the senior ulama, those that
are 70 80 years old, those that have
spent a lifetime in 'ilm and frankly when
you go to them the whole discourse changes
and this is around the globe in all
strands of Islam and forgive me for being
blunt but we don't have time to be
politically correct. There's a massacre taking place over
a 100000
people Lancet has said. Lancet is the most
prestigious
medical journal in the world. And there was
a paper released 2 weeks ago by a
number of medical experts in which they said
direct bombs, maybe 50,000 in Gaza, indirectly
maybe
a 150,000 people will die. We have just
had the largest massacre
in recent memory
broadcast on live vivid, you know, television
and WhatsApp and Instagram and everything. And here
we are still debating over simplistic issues. I'm
sorry, I have to be blunt here. So
allow me to be blunt here. Every strand
of Islam, Salafis,
sufis, deubandis,
tabliris,
all of these strands of Islam go to
your top notch 1% ulama. Go to the
actual movers and shakers amongst your own strands.
And generally speaking, you will find them all
on a similar wavelength
in regards to living as a minority over
here. And they will all say to you,
well, it is your land. You have to
do something. You can't just sit there and
do nothing. It is your land, you have
to make an impact. And if there is
2 evil politicians, you choose the lesser of
2 evils. This is the general rule, you
will find it amongst all such top ulama
And I have myself spoken with a number
of prominent ulama and muftis. I studied
in one strand and I asked directly, Sheikh
Ibn Uthayman was my teacher. I asked him
directly about this issue. I have met Sheikh
Ardaawi, Muftitakir Uthmani, so many of the great
ulama, and this is you will find it
amongst all of them the same because this
is what actual Ijtihad gives you, not level
1 copying and pasting from the classical books.
Real ulama understand
that theory is sometimes different from practical reality
and theory at times has to be modified
for the world that you live in. So
this notion that you are not an American,
I mean you have no problems being an
American in every facet of your life. You're
living here, you pay taxes, you are taking
all the benefits Wherever you go to another
land, if something happens, say, I'm an American
citizen. So when that happens, you have no
problem taking your card out, your passport out,
saying, I'm an American, how can you treat
me this way? And all of a sudden,
only when it comes to influencing your own
government, all of a sudden some people say,
Oh, we're not allowed to do that. No,
not at all. This notion Again I have
to be blunt here. This notion that voting
is kufr and democracy is kufr, I'm sorry,
it needs to be banned from our vernacular.
It is a very simplistic,
a very false
construction of some principles of theology that are
misunderstood.
How can voting be kufr? You pay taxes.
You are an American. This is your land.
Whether you like it or not, this government
is representative of you. You not voting
is actually your tacit support of the system
you're living in. In other words, regardless of
whether you vote or not, you are a
part of the system. You are a part
of the system. And I swear to you,
wanna get technical? Your taxes, in my humble
opinion, are clearly a bigger haram than your
potential voting.
Your taxes
are actually directly if you wanted to get
there. I don't believe it is haram by
the way. Way. Why not?
Because
And a portion of our taxes go for
something that is haram, no question about it.
But a large portion go for halal things.
Actually the bulk of taxes is generic halal.
It goes for Medicare, it goes for health,
it goes for education, it goes for wielding
the roads. So the bulk of our taxes
is actually for generic stuff which is absolutely
permissible. When you give your taxes,
you should make the intention, O Allah, I
cannot control what happens but my niyyah is
my taxes only go to the halal. That
should be your niyyah. My niyyah, O Allah,
I don't want a single penny to go
to something haram. So actually I don't believe
giving taxes is haram at all. We have
to give our taxes, we give it. But
I'm saying if you wanted to go there,
and if you wanted to say that, Oh,
voting is haram, we should not vote. Well
then, what are you gonna do about your
identity, your citizenship? You swore an oath to
the constitution, you wanted to get technical? Some
people can say that seems to be I'm
saying it seems to be, I don't believe
it is. Some people can say that seems
to be a bigger kufr but nobody says
anything there. You all went and gave your
allegiance, you all went and got your citizenship.
I'm sorry to be blunt here but we
have to get rid of this mentality. If
you have clerics that are still saying this,
they should literally just be sidelined because they're
living in a different time zone, a different
bubble. Voting is not haram and the fact
that you are voting is not an indication
that you endorse every Kufar out there. This
endorsement of Kufar, it is an accusation that
comes from the minds of simple fundamentalists.
Neither your heart nor the broader public understands
this. You participating
in a democratic process is not a tacit
endorsement of hukum bayayi ma'anzarrallah if you wanna
get technical here. It is not at all.
It is simply acknowledging
I need to choose the lesser of 2
evils. This person might massacre a 1000000 people,
this person might not massacre a 1000000 people.
I have to save a 1000000 people. It's
as simple as that. Now I'm not saying
you must vote in every single election, Perhaps
both politicians are just as evil. I'm saying
conceptually,
conceptually
the notion that voting is kufr and haram,
it needs to now be eliminated from our
minds. And I don't I hope nobody in
our generation believes this. Again, when I was
growing up and even when I was a
young man in the nineties, this was the
default. It was the default, and Muslims were
generally apolitical.
911 happened, and I remember vividly, and I
was in my twenties when 911 happened. 911
for us was a punch in the gut
as the saying goes. Perhaps some of you
were not here. It was a wake up
call.
Our naive,
simplistic notions
of who we are and identity politics and
engagement in politics,
all of this was thrown out the window.
The government had no idea what to do,
obviously they overreacted.
Masaijid were being shut down, 100 of Imams
were deported. A number of them were trumped
up with false charges including some of the
scholars here in Dallas, some of the activists
And and thrown to jail, you know, for
20, 30, 40 years for complete bogus charges.
Just everybody's paranoid at the time. Many institutes
were shut down. Islamic seminaries were shut down,
and we realized
we can't just sit there and let our
own government do this. We can't This is
pure dulm. We can't do this. And
everybody all of a sudden realized, okay, we
need to fight this within the system. And
all after 9/11, there was no fatwa that
voting is haram. Everybody understood we need to
get involved. We cannot allow this to remain
status quo. And so, alhamdulillah,
we did start becoming active forming alliances. It
was a maturity that what exactly are we
doing in this land?
What is our long term goal and vision?
To what level must we be involved in
the political process? And by and large, I
think, Alhamdulillah, we have gone leaps and bounds.
Unfortunately,
we now have a new generation born and
raised after 9:11. And again, fundamentalism is the
refuge of the intellectual cowards. People find fundamentalism
and simplistic views,
comforting just like the child likes the blanket
comforting, but that's not gonna solve problems.
The comfort blanket needs to be thrown off
and simplistic fundamentalism
is not the way forward. Slogans
are not gonna solve problems, slogans
win elections,
slogans do not solve problems. And so when
you hear people throw slogans out as solutions,
realize that you know, this is not a
person that has thought through 10, 15 steps
ahead. My point is that this notion that
voting is haram, voting is kufr needs to
be eliminated. Another thing that needs to be
eliminated is again the simplistic notion that if
you endorse a political candidate,
this automatically
means you are supporting
every single position that the candidate ever holds.
And again, this is a very common
idea that many,
especially practicing Muslims have. And again, we need
to be blunt here. Where did you get
this idea from?
Every single person who participates in the actual
democratic process outside of our
religious bubbles understands,
when you vote for a candidate,
it doesn't mean that you endorse every single
thing about the candidate.
No. Every American voter has 3, 4, 5,
6 things they're very passionate about.
Let's say for the far right. The far
right before all of this debacle began, it
was obsessed with
abortion, for example, and with gun rights, for
example. Right? And they would weigh every single
politician
based upon these 1 or 2 or 3
factors.
Nobody said, okay. If their 10th or 15th
idea is different than mine, I have to
cancel this entire politician.
They prioritize certain things and they judged candidates
based upon what they prioritized. And they understood
if the candidate has other views about taxes,
about whatever I don't find important, well, I
guess I'm gonna have to take the hit
on this one because I'm interested in gun
rights. I'm interested in abortion, whatever it might
be. Every democratic citizen understands this. It's only,
sorry to say this, our community
that is so simple minded that they're refusing
to understand. When you endorse a politician,
this is not a tacit support of every
single position that the politician holds. Rather, we
have a priority in mind. After 9 11,
the priority was civil rights. We want politicians
to allow equal civil rights. We want every
Muslim to be treated fair and square like
everybody else. We didn't care if there are
taxes here, immigration there. We were interested in
civil rights, right? Now, right now, one of
the main things on our minds is are
you going to be America first or Israel
first? We wanna be blunt here. We don't
want Israel to be first. We want our
country to be first. Our taxes should be
sent here. We don't want somebody sponsored
by APAC to be running for office. That
is a priority right now. Now suppose the
same politician
has a view about taxes you don't like.
What is more important?
Palestinian lives or a tax cut or a
tax increase?
You don't care about the tax increase. Okay?
Bit more sensitive. What if this general politician
is endorsing
the general morality
of the time, I e LGBT?
You're not gonna find a politician
in the current climate that is opposing LGBT.
You're not going to. If we choose a
candidate
that is
blatantly
standing up against APAC and saying, I am
not gonna take money from APAC.
And along with this, now let me let
me ask you another question. Will you find
a candidate that is gonna say, kamr should
not be sold in America? We're going to
wage war against wine.
Will you find a candidate like this? Of
course not. Will you find a candidate that
says, I'm gonna ban every religion except the
correct religion. You're gonna find a candidate like
this. So then when you understand
that this is impossible,
this candidate is not a shaykh or an
alim, he's not giving you fatwas. And again,
this leads me to a very blunt point.
We have to be wise enough to separate
ulama
from politicians.
Politicians are not ulama,
and they have a different role to play.
And when I say this, this is not
an endorsement. This is the problem. We have
to move beyond the simplicity, it is not
an endorsement of what they're saying. And I
will refute
anything wrong that a politician says no problem,
but still, just because the politician has one
wrong view and they have one good view,
we have to weigh the good and the
bad and see, is this politician
overall gonna be better for our interests. And
there's nothing wrong with this.
And this is the reality, not only of
democracy, but of the simple Islamic principle that
if there are 2 options of evil, you
choose the lesser of 2 evils. Every student
of knowledge knows this is a mainstream Islamic
principle. When you must choose 1 of 2
options and both of them have harm, you
choose the lesser of 2 harms. This is
the reality of democracy.
No, you're not gonna have Jibreel running for
office. Jibreel is not gonna run for office.
You're gonna have politicians, and politicians will have
good and bad. No politician is fully good,
this is the reality. So you will choose
the lesser of 2. So this is a
notion as that we need to get rid
of. And let me give you some practical
examples of the of the world that we
live in, and then insha'Allah,
we can open up the floor. And again,
I'm sorry to be blunt, I don't mean
to quote unquote cause controversy, but
there's a war going on.
Tens of thousands of children have died.
And
our community
here in America
is the only Muslim community
in the whole world that has the legal
and political right to actually make an impact
and a difference.
In the whole ummah,
we are living in the land that is
the primary umbilical cord to the apartheid regime.
And here we are still debating, should we
get involved or not?
I'm sorry. We have to move beyond this
now and just be blunt in this regard.
Now
a number of points here. So for example,
we have a number of Muslims in congress.
Right?
None of them none of them is an
ideal Muslim or Muslim. None of them. They
have views that are some potentially kufr, some
of them.
Right? But here's the point. And again, being
blunt here. These kufr views that they hold
that irritate all of us, and they should
irritate because they're Muslims, they should have better
views. These kufr views that they all hold,
if we were to vote them out and
a kafir comes in,
the same kufr view we're angry at in
this Muslim with the kafir hold it. Yes
or no?
Do you understand the question?
This view that irritates us about LGBT,
about this, about that.
We angry because she's a hijabi. She shouldn't
say this, and, yes, she shouldn't say it.
I'll be the 1st to say that. But
she does. Khalas. She did it.
You get angry. You vote her out. Khalas.
Now you bring the kafir in.
What made you angry about the Muslim or
Muslim?
Has it now been solved by the? Yes
or no?
No.
The Muslims in congress, and we thank Allah
for this,
every one of them in the last 10
months
has taken a very, very blunt stand
against the apartheid regime.
Every one of them has spoken out against
AIPAC.
Every one of them has been very clear
about the harm that this country is doing.
We thank Allah for this.
What we needed them for,
they delivered.
Now if we're gonna go back and say,
oh, but they have that view about this
issue and that issue. Yeah, they do.
Can we reach a level of maturity
where we criticize that view
and we still understand
they have a function to play?
That is the level of maturity I'm asking
of you. Can we reach a level of
maturity where we teach our sons and daughters,
Hey listen,
Don't get your fatwas from congressmen and congresswomen.
Get your fatwas from Imam Saab, Imam Kashif.
This is your mufti here. Okay? Fatwas to
him. But Imam Kashif is not gonna run
for Congress. I wish he would, but he's
not gonna run for Congress. Because if he
were to run,
what would happen?
He would
run.
Let's again, this is where we have to
get to level of maturity.
Even if our imam Sabran, you know for
a fact, it is impossible he would win.
I mean, again, let's be real here. Impossible
because of his views, and we want him
to hold those views. So we as a
community
need to mature up.
Imam Kashif has a role to play,
2 or 3 examples, and then inshallah, we
can open the floor for for some questions.
And any questions you want, no holds barred
because I I don't have the time to
be politically clear, neither do we. We have
to be very blunt here.
2 simple examples
of other countries,
England and France or I should say United
Kingdom and France.
Simple examples, UK and France.
In the last 10 months,
both of these countries have held
historic elections, actually, the last 2 months.
Both of these countries have held historic elections,
elections that have changed the course of their
country's history.
And in both of them,
the Muslims played a different role. Let me
explain how.
In the UK
And, by the way, one of the things
that you need to understand,
one of our disadvantages
in America as Muslims
is our percentages are very small.
We are less than 1%
of this country.
What you guys need to understand,
European Islam, Canadian Islam, Australian Islam is light
years ahead of us in terms of percentages.
Light years ahead.
London
is 10%
Muslim,
and its mayor is a Muslim. Yes, the
mayor does stupid things. Yes, the mayor has
un Islamic views. But the symbolism
of a Muslim mayor fasting in Ramadan,
That is gonna bring a positive
that we need to be mature enough to
understand
even as we criticize
something wrong that comes from Islamically.
In Scotland,
the prime minister that was elected
was a religious
practicing Muslim who fast Ramadan.
The first tweet that he did was him
leading Taraweeh in his own in the White
House equivalent because he was elected in Ramadan.
So he led Taraweeh and that was the
first tweet from the prime ministers, he's the
called the 1st minister, basically the highest office
and his wife is Farastini.
And when the war began, he could tweet
my in laws are in Gaza. How can
we allow this to happen?
Unfortunately, once again, because he had to make
politically, you know, comments. Once again, our
immature, and I'm sorry to be blunt here,
kindergarten level kids really running around
because he said LGBT. Yaqi, we're not electing
him for morality. We're not electing him for
fatwa. We're electing him for rights of the
Muslim community. So in the last election in
England,
Muslims in England
became
extremely
involved in the political process,
And they managed for the first time to
shake the constituencies
of multiple districts
simply based upon Gaza.
Candidates supported Gaza, and other candidates didn't support
Gaza. And the Muslims got involved. 10% of
London is Muslim.
30%
of Leicester is Muslim. 30. 1 out of
3. Can you imagine the statistics there? Birmingham,
15% or something like that Muslim. Manchester,
massive percentages of Muslims.
The Muslims got involved
across the country and in multiple districts.
People were elected or out and in based
upon the issue of Gaza.
Even the BBC had an article
that Gaza
and the situation in Gaza takes central stage
in British politics.
There was a young Palestinian
British lady, 22 years old, never ran an
office. She lost by less than, I think,
500 votes.
500 votes in a very important district. The
seasoned politician
won by simply 500
votes,
means if a little bit more push,
So when next time,
British, and she's saying the main issue British
support of Israel has to stop.
So in multiple districts,
we now have British parliament, Muslim and non
Muslim, but who are supportive of the rights
of the people of Gaza. And more importantly,
forget the 5 or 10 that were elected.
The message is sent to all politicians.
We are monitoring you. We are watching you.
Even those that won,
they realize they need to change their stance
or soften their stance. That message, it takes
planning.
It's long term. It's not gonna be one
night. It's gonna be a long term. Do
you know 20 years ago, there was not
a single
not a single
Muslim in parliament in England. Not one.
20 years ago. And the 1st Muslim that
was elected
was so far from the deen. You didn't
even know he was Muslim. It kind of
hid his Islam, basically. Right? The first Muslim
that came into into parliament. Now at the
time, what do you think the Muslim said?
This and that. You needed that Muslim
to get to where we are now where
you actually have Muslims who win and they
say, takbir Allahu Akbar, and the whole community
is saying takbir because they won a seat
in congress.
You have muhajibas
now. You wouldn't have gotten here without
some gray area. Do you understand what I'm
saying in this regard?
You cannot think 10 steps ahead
except the first few are gonna be types
of compromise. And this is not an endorsement
of wrong, it is
wisdom.
It is understanding that can you not criticize
even as you support the same person? This
is what I'm asking of you. Can you
not understand this is a long term goal
here? Now this is in UK, and the
UK is a very different game as we
said because
6% of the country is Muslim overall. And
the key cities of of Manchester, and Birmingham,
and Leicester, and Bradford and and and and
London are double digit Muslim double digit Muslims.
Canada is another example.
Canada.
Are any Canadians in the audience?
Mississauga?
Calgary.
Mississauga.
Mississauga
is a staggering
15%
Muslim.
Staggering
15%
Muslim.
There's an entire,
you know,
area of 400
shops they see in Arab shops. 400. What's
it called again in that area there?
The Ridgeway. Yeah. Ridgeway. Yeah. Like, unbelievable. You
go there like in Karachi
or or Hyderabad or something like that.
15%
of
Mississauga is Muslim.
That's a staggering statistic.
You don't think that we have an obligation
to come together for the greater good of
our people?
Come together to help our country in a
better way? Make it more ethical and moral?
How can we not get involved?
Not just these countries across the world. I
was in the Nordic countries. Oslo is 10%
Muslim. Oslo of all cities. Right? Austria
in Vienna, 10% Muslim.
10%.
One out of 10 people in Austria is
a Muslim.
Unfortunately,
Oslo and Austria,
and the biggest example,
France.
Wama Adarakama, France.
France is the most Islamophobic
European and Western country on earth right now.
They just the same country
that
supposedly
championed
freedom,
supposedly championed the the the revolution against, you
know, tyranny and whatnot. That same country
has now banned the hijab in the Olympics.
Yesterday,
they said nobody is allowed to wear the
hijab in the Olympics that are be hosted
there.
The sheer bigotry,
they arrested a sister for wearing the hijab
on the beach.
You must go naked, astaghfirullah. Literally. You must
go showing your skin. If you cover yourself,
you'll be fined and arrested.
Wallahi, what France is doing? Your blood should
boil the level of racism
and hatred and bigotry. But you know what
makes me even more angry? And I'm sorry
again to be blunt if the French people
are watching, the French Muslims. I'm not trying
to be harsh, but facts need to be
said. You know what irritates me more than
the Kufar governments of France?
The fact that Paris, Paris,
in some areas is 20, 25 percent Muslim.
1 out of 5 people is Muslim,
and yet
politicians
couldn't care less about Islamophobic
sentiments. In fact, I was told last time
I was in Paris, I was told by
my friends and colleagues that if a politician
wants his numbers to go up,
he bashes Islam.
He will go to a Muslim conference
and he will bash Islam in front of
the Muslims,
ridicule them.
And lo and behold, his numbers are gonna
go up. I said to my my friend,
how is that possible?
Aren't these Muslims gonna vote him out When
25%
of the district is Muslim,
how can an Islamophobic politician possibly get away
with saying these types of statements, making fun
of the Muslims? You know what he said
to me?
The bulk of Muslims think it is haram
to vote
And so they don't vote. To this day,
70%
of French Muslims do not vote.
70%.
Now by Allah, you tell me,
what's gonna happen if you're not gonna defend
your own rights?
What's gonna happen when politicians know
that you are so impotent,
so weak, so politically
disconnected that they can publicly
lambast you, make fun of you, beat you
with a proverbial stick, and it's not gonna
affect their popularity.
Why? Because they know you are defanged, detoothed,
impotent, doing nothing.
Whose fault is that?
It's our own fault.
And frankly, I blame, sorry to be blunt
here, but certain fundamentalist
understandings of Islam. And I speak as a
person who's trained in the tradition, I have
the right to say this. Because amongst ulama,
you have intellectuals, and amongst ulama, you have
simpletons and fundamentalists. I'm sorry to be blunt
here. It is what it is. It's the
fact of the matter. There are certain ulama
that still are disconnected from reality,
and they gain popularity just like the far
right by bashing
by bashing Muslims.
Certain clerics gain popularity
by creating
controversies, by bashing other ulama, bashing other sects
and groups of Islam. And this is not
the way forward. Wallahi is not the way
forward.
We, especially in the western world,
need to mature up much more than our
eastern counterparts.
We don't have the luxury
of dividing ourselves amongst sufis, salafi, brailbidiubandi,
tabliri,
whatever, hizbatahadir,
you know, jamaat I Islami Ikhwan.
Let all of these movements come together for
the greater good.
We have to we have to actively fight
against sectarianism.
In our own countries,
2 masajid are going to physical war. Bombs
are going off. You all know this.
Why? Because he prays different, because his aqeedah
is different, because he says this about Allah,
this about the Messenger. So they will literally
kill you, bomb you because of a difference
of ideology.
Is this the way forward?
Even if you disagree, can you not disagree
with a little bit of common sense? I'm
not saying all
groups are the same. I never said that.
I'm a theolog Jamaa. My speciality is aqidah.
Please don't come to me and say I'm
saying everybody is the same. They're all okay.
They're not all okay. But just because somebody's
not okay, I have to go kill him,
I have to go bomb him, awwdu billah.
What what type of idea is this? Or
I cannot cooperate with him for the greater
good. Again,
maturity.
We have to think long term.
How else are we gonna build a school
unless we all come together to build an
Islamic school? Are you gonna quiz everybody when
he donates the money for the Islamic school?
Hey. What's your aqeedah? Make sure your aqeedah
is correct.
The aqeed Yes. The one who gives the
khutba,
understandably, check his aqeedah.
But for political engagement,
for voting politicians in office,
I don't care about a person's aqeedah. I
wanna know you support human rights. You support
the freedom of all. You're not gonna shut
my masjid down. You're not gonna bomb Palestinians.
Let his aqeedah be between him and Allah.
And if he's interested, come and we debate
aqidah in the Masjid. But in the political
poo
polls, in the political voting, I'm not interested
in his aqidah.
Can we not get to that level of
maturity? And again, this requires us to be
deep thinkers, not simpletons.
We have to come together for the greater
good even if we disagree
even if we disagree. And this means, yes,
Sunni and non Sunni as well. I remember
when,
again, maybe some of you remember this, when,
Obama was in office. Right? Islamophobia is an
all time high. In 22 states, they banned
the Sharia. Here, Islamophobia. In 22 states, they
banned the Sharia. As you know, this happened
right now 15 years ago. Right? And in
that height of that hatred and Islamophobia,
I got a phone call from I I
don't wanna mention the city's name. I was
in Memphis at the time. I got a
phone call from another community, and it was
a friend of mine, a sheikh, and a
graduate of a Madras Seminary.
He said, sheikh, our our,
local sheree masjid, it has been vandalized by
the far right.
They came in, they destroyed signs, they destroyed
some property,
they spray printed, go back home, sand, and
wore everything, and they they they caused a
lot of damage.
Are we allowed
to join
them?
They're gonna hold a protest in front of
the city center, and non Muslims are coming
as well because they're protesting what happened. Are
we allowed to join them
in protesting
the vandalization of the masjid?
I said to the sheikh,
these far right racists,
when they targeted that masjid,
did they intentionally skip over your masjid because
it's Sunni
and target that one because it's shari?
He said, no. It just happened to be
the one that they targeted. So I said,
they targeted it because of what? Because they're
Muslims.
I said,
ah, so when you march,
you are not endorsing their aqeedah.
This is the maturity we have to get
to. Wallahi, I say to you bluntly,
I would not invite somebody who curses the
Sahaba to give a khutbah in my Masjid,
and I have never done that.
But this is not giving the khutbah.
This is political allegiance.
This is coming together as a group, as
a block, as a voting
community and showing
your community, your city that we're not gonna
tolerate this.
This is what I'm asking us to do
as a level of maturity.
So bottom line, brothers and sisters, what Ghazza
has done a lot of things a lot
of things. What it has also done, it
has forced us
to have very difficult conversations, and we thank
Allah for that. Our brothers and sisters in
Gaza are suffering so much, they're benefiting so
much as well in this. And that's of,
Fadeel Allah has given them. So what it
has done, it has forced us to come
to terms. What does it mean to be
a Muslim in America in the 21st century?
What exactly is my long term goal here?
What am I doing here? What level of
involvement do I have? I pay the taxes.
Don't I have a right then to influence?
These politicians, they're taking my salary. I'm the
one paying for them. Why shouldn't I influence?
It's my it's my actual right and don't
let anybody intimidate you. If a far right
person, if one of these
far right fundamentalists comes and says, Oh, you
Muslims, you're trying to spread your Sharia law,
your jihad
over here. Right? If they come and they
tell you, oh, so you wanna prioritize what's
important for you?
Own up to it. Say, of course I
do because I'm an American and for me,
I have certain values that I prioritize. I
want my tax dollars to better the healthcare
system. I don't want it to be used
as bombs to kill children. Own up to
it. There's nothing to be embarrassed about and
tell them this isn't jihad, this isn't sharia,
this is the essence of being an American
democratic citizen.
My country, my government, my tax dollars, and
my vote.
Own up to it. There's nothing to be
embarrassed about here. Don't let anybody intimidate you
for doing what is your constitutional
right to do. And this is again one
of our problems again. We could go much
more deeper. Many of us have come from
different lands where the politics was different. We're
under tyrannical regimes. We're still coming to terms
with what it means to be an American.
Listen.
Every American technically is supposed to be equal
When it comes to voting, when it comes
to influencing, when it comes to being a
part of the process, that is the ideal.
I know it's not the real. It is
the ideal,
So own up to it. You're paying taxes,
might as well own up to the responsibilities
and the privileges that come, and I conclude
where I began and that is in the
entire globe,
the only group of Muslims
that can effectively
strategize
are the Western Muslims.
And even amongst us, look at France, the
far right party,
Marie Le Pen. Do you know who Marie
Le Pen is? What will make you understand
who is Marie Le Pen? She
is the modern Nazi party except with one
difference.
The Nazis in the twenties were anti Jewish.
Marie Le Pen, her father was a member
of the Nazis. Her father fought against the
He killed Algeria with his own hand. Do
you know how evil that family is? She
is literally the embodiment of a modern Hitler
and she was about to win. Why? One
of the reasons because 70% of the Muslims
think it's haram and kufr and chirk to
vote. I'm sorry, but you have to get
with the program.
She was one hair's width away from winning,
and it was a shock to everybody. The
only reason she didn't win, not because of
Muslims, because the people who didn't like her,
they hated her so much, they actually banded
together to form a new party just because
of her. Because they literally thought she is
the new Hitler, and she was gonna be
the new Hitler. Her first thing You know
what she said? When she's running for office,
you know what she said? She said, any
Muslim, Algerian who says anything that is unconstitutional,
we will strip his citizenship away and deport
him back to the land of his grandfathers.
Algerian Muslims are 4th generation.
They migrated to Paris in 18
50, 18 60. They have no connection with
Algeria. And this lady said, Anybody who says
anything we don't like, we're gonna take away
his citizenship. We're gonna shut down the mosque.
We're gonna control every imam. She said this
on her platform
and still
Muslims are saying, oh, it's haram to vote.
We can't do anything.
I'm sorry. Again, let's learn. I'm not trying
to be too harsh because I'm not a
French person, but I wish I could speak
directly to the people there, but they don't
speak English and I don't speak French. But,
anyway,
I've spoken to enough people there to know.
Insha'Allah, things are changing. By the way, good
news, in this election,
more Muslims voted than ever before.
But it's still less than 30%.
But slowly, it's gonna They're realizing they can't
do this. They can't be like this. Let
us learn from the positives and negatives. Let
us understand we also have a role to
play and let us be mature. Dear Muslims,
if somebody has a different viewpoint than you,
it doesn't mean they're endorsing Baatil, it doesn't
mean they're kafir and zindiqa and baal and
buddil. No. Our hearts are with ghazah, our
hearts are with the Muslim ummah, our hearts
are for good. And even if tactics might
be different, let us keep our animosity
minimal amongst ourselves. Let us have husnadhan of
each other. Let us understand
tactics at some level, it's good to have
diverse tactics. And just because we have different
tactics doesn't mean that our hearts are in
different places. Let us come together for the
greater good, excuse one another as much as
we can for our internal differences and overall,
overall communicate directly with one another and bring
out these difficult questions so that InshaAllahu ta'ala
we can raise ourselves to a higher level,
a more mature level, a more nuanced level,
a level that is strategic planning to think
5, 10, 20 steps ahead. The goal is
the preservation of Islam in our progeny for
generations to come. That's only gonna happen if
we start thinking 100 years ahead and stop
thinking simply of past issues and controversies. And
Allah
knows best I've gone beyond my time limit,
but inshallah, I'll leave the floor to you,
whatever you wanna do.