Standing Up Against Haram in A University Setting – Ask Shaykh YQ #124

So the question is, what practice should Muslims observe when illicit activities such as drugs, alcohol and LGBTQ issues? are being normalized? Should we stand up and stand down? Or should we stand up for our morals at the risk of being labeled as homophobic transphobic? etc?

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Recovery.

JOHN,

that's a multi tiered question. I'll try to speak generically. We do not have to fight every single political battle, we do not have to get involved in every single issue of controversy in this country. So if there is a certain issue going on, that we have our morality that's compromised from it. We don't have to, you know, jump in that battle and defend or speak out politically, we should always speak out morally, that what do we believe in terms of our theology in terms of our ethics, but we don't have to fight every single battle, in terms of school policies or in terms of getting involved with the local or state officials. If it's involving something that is inherently sinful

and immoral, we are allowed to have a third option, which is just don't do anything, right. You don't have to. And I gave a longer Lecture A number of years ago, where he talked about the 19th amendment. If you're you all are in high school and college, you should remember your US history, your constitutional history, you all remember, the 21st amendment? Sorry, the 21st mm, which was the prohibition of alcohol that was repealed, right? I asked the question that if you were alive, when the the notion the issue of alcohol was being discussed, that should it be banned? Or should it be? Should it be legalized? Right? Should it be allowed to be drunk? Or should we stop it? Don't you

think the majority of Muslims would have said, Hey, you know, we should we should try to stop the selling of alcohol? Can you imagine if Muslim said, Oh, no, no, no, we should be on the other side. Because there should be freedom to drink. We should be telling people that they should drink alcohol. Wouldn't that be so weird, right? Wouldn't that be against your principles? Fast Forward three years when the amendment failed and 21st amendment was passed, where basically, it was repealed, there was once again, back and forth, there were people demonstrating on both sides, lots of people, especially mothers, by the way, because they had to see their sons died because of

drunkard because of, you know, mothers and wives, because they saw the reality of drunkenness, right, husbands would either below that or beat their wives sons would die. A lot of women were against repealing the ban of alcohol, they wanted alcohol to remain banned. So there was demonstrations that we should keep the amendment to to have alcohol ban. On the other side, you had lots of people saying, Hey, I'm free, I should be drinking as I as I want. What do you think Muslim should have done back then? Once again, right. So think, think to yourself, if that question is open shut, then why do things get complicated for other issues? It's because of our own social

conditioning. So my point is very simple. politically speaking, if you want to argue you either argue in generics without being specific, so you can say that, for example, people should be free to worship as they choose. That's fine. No problem there. But you should not be explicitly saying that, hey, you should worship an idol. Why should we say that? as a Muslim, we don't believe that. We don't believe that you should be worshipping an idol. But if we say generically, that the government should not impose what we should worship, okay, I can see an argument being made in that case. So we have to be careful in our language, we have to be careful on our platforms, we have to be careful

with our alliances and loyalties. All of this is a gray area. And I go back to the previous question that makes sure that you get advice from people who are politically savvy, and make sure you have connections with the scholars who are also politically savvy, and make sure you have your own conscience clear that you're getting involved. It's a bit of a gray area. And as long as overall, what you're doing is for the greater good, and as long as you yourself are not explicitly compromising your beliefs and your teachings, there is room for the way and be careful. Nonetheless, somebody's got to stand up. And going back to your question. As I said, you don't have to fight

every single battle when you choose to do so make sure you have the proper connections and the proper knowledge and make it easy