Yasir Qadhi – University Students Protesting For Palestine
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
So as we speak, this week in particular,
we are seeing a very unique phenomenon
overwhelm this country, and that is
protests about Palestine,
about Gaza
across over
2 dozen, in fact, 3 dozen campuses,
including many prominent
universities.
There are sit ins where 100, if not
1000 of students
are for the very first time
protesting
our foreign policy,
protesting in particular
their own institution's
investment
in the country of Israel. And in the
last 2, 3 weeks, over a 1000 students
have been arrested, almost a dozen professors have
been arrested, police have been called in in
multiple campuses.
I was actually at Yale a few days
ago visiting after so many years, more than
a decade, and I managed to speak at
the student protest,
that was taking place. I have never seen
a site like this. In the main square
in the campus,
there were so many students, 100 of students,
protesting about Yale's investment in, Israel. And
as you're aware, the the the protests have
become violent in UT Austin, in a number
of places. USC,
which is one of the most prestigious universities
in California,
they banned a hijabi speaker from speaking at
the, at the convocation. So this entire country
is engulfed. You have people even calling for
the national guard to be sent in against
these, students.
Never before have we seen this public sentiment
expressed in this manner. So today, inshaAllah, wa
ta'ala, as you know, I like to be
relevant as long as along with being classical,
today will be a very, very relevant discussion.
InshaAllah, 3 quick parts. Firstly,
a brief history for our benefit of student
activism and student protests and the impact that
it's had in America. It is important before
you speak about something, you understand it. It
is important before you make a verdict, you
see the past and the historical realities of
what you're talking about. Secondly, a little bit
of sharia, like, what do we say about
these types of protests? And then thirdly, a
bit of advice for those that are participating
in these, protests. So we begin with a
brief history.
Actually,
the history of student protests,
America in particular,
is one of the most iconic countries when
it comes to student protests.
America has a legacy
of student protests. And generally speaking,
9 times out of 10, the students were
the one history shows were on the right
side, and what they were protesting was against
something that was wrong. And a few examples
here. Back in the forties
fifties,
student protests began
about civil rights, about the equality between
African Americans and between the whites of America.
Students began protesting,
and especially
very, elite students, Ivy League Colleges and others,
about the discriminatory
policies that if you're white, you get in.
If you're not white, you don't get in.
So multiple universities
had protests about how unfair the civil rights
was at the time. And as you know,
slowly but surely, this provoked a national
protest, and laws were passed in the sixties
that eventually changed the reality of how things
were in the forties fifties.
Perhaps the most famous example of student protests
in America is the Vietnam War. Over a
1000 universities
participated
in mass protests against the
Vietnam War. And this is, of course, in
the late sixties, early seventies. And, of course,
the reason was very personal.
America was drafting
student, drafting,
college age students from 20 to 25. If
you were between the ages of 20 to
25,
randomly, there would be a lottery system,
and your name would be selected, and you
had to show up. You had to go
and fight, and you might possibly die. So
obviously, when the students are getting enlisted, when
the students are getting enrolled, they're not just
gonna sit back and take it. Millions of
students in over a 1000 campuses,
they were protesting
against the government policy. And this actually led
to a massive shift, especially
in 1970
in Ohio and Kent State University.
Thousands of students are protesting, and the president
called in the National Guard. He called in
the army
to protect against
slogans and against, you know, protesters of the
students. The National Guard was called in. What's
gonna happen when you have thousands of angry
students and then you have trained riflemen,
trained army? What's gonna happen is common sense.
Eventually, altercations, and then punches, and then this
and that, and eventually, as in every such
protest around the
world, they never learn from history. What's gonna
happen? The army opens fire against their own
citizens.
Multiple students were killed. Dozens were wounded. Iconic
pictures, of course, most of us, you know,
I wasn't even born then. Most of us
don't know this, but those pictures that, were
taken, they won the Pulitzer Prize. It changed
the entire narrative where students are lying dead
on campus. Their own army has killed them
because they're protesting against their own army's policies.
So this was a shifting, an entire
narrative change, and people say that it was
the student protest that forced president Nixon to
eventually announce in 2 years after this that,
okay, guys, we're sorry, we're leaving, you know,
Vietnam, and we're just gonna end the entire
war over there. The success of student protests
was astounding in this regard. And of course,
there's multiple other,
protests that took place. For example, in the
19 eighties, multiple protests took place across,
campuses
against South Africa. Again, I bring up South
Africa multiple times because this is very, very
pertinent. South Africa was the last remaining apartheid
country before the current apartheid regime of Israel.
South Africa was blatant in its apartheid,
and the governments of the western lands had
no problem with apartheid.
Our president Ronald Reagan, UK's prime minister Margaret
Thatcher, they called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, and
they called the organization that was fighting apartheid
terrorist organizations,
but the students mobilized,
and the students said, you cannot have political
and economic ties with South Africa. And students
in Colombia, where right now we have the
epicenter
of the protest taking place about Gaza, in
Colombia,
the very same building that they
took over today, that same building, they took
over 1985,
and they said, we don't want our university
to be involved in investing in South Africa.
Now pause here. And, of course, you know,
eventually,
our governments had to acknowledge that South Africa's
is an apartheid regime with great grudging difficulty.
This is on the record, by the way,
that Reagan in particular
was a known racist. And I don't wanna
say things in the masjid here, but he
used very, very vulgar demeaning
animal terminology
to describe those people, if you get my
drift here. He described them to an animal,
a'udhubillah, if you understand the the the reference
I'm saying here. This is well known. His
inner feelings, he supported
apartheid. His inner feelings, he grew up in
the forties, in the fifties. He was through
and through, but what are you gonna do
when the public pressure? Right? And this is
where we need to understand.
Public pressure changes policy.
Public pressure changes policies that politicians
do not want changed. So student protests against
South Africa also led to a change eventually
in the global,
in the global reality of South African apartheid.
Now, why why are students in particular protesting
about their universities? Because we need to understand,
in America, frankly, in the globe, the largest
the largest endowments
belong
to universities.
By endowments, alqaaf, they took it from us.
This is well known. I'm not just saying
this. No. They literally took the concept of
waqf
us, and they then took it to a
better level than we had it. And so
the largest endowments in the whole world that
are non government
are American universities. Okay?
Harvard University, I'm not allowed to praise it
if you know my background, but the other
university,
they have
$50,000,000,000 in endowment. My own alma mater Yale
has $40,000,000,000
Imagine, this is larger than the GDP of
many countries.
Harvard has 50. Yale has 40. You keep
on doing the math, you get 100 of
1,000,000,000 of dollars American universities have. What do
they do with that money? A group of
regions, a group of powerful elites, they decide
where to invest. And the fact of the
matter, for reasons that are obvious, but I
cannot be too explicit,
those
corporations that are internal,
they put a excessively large percentage where? In
Israel. This is a fact. We all know
it, and and this is something you can
look up. These institutes,
they
invest 1,000,000,000 of dollars, 1,000,000,000 of dollars. They
invest in occupied territory. They invest in the
infrastructure
of this apartheid regime. So these institutes are
directly bankrolling
the apartheid regime over there. And so the
students now are seeing what is going on,
and they are incensed, and they're enraged, and
they're saying, we do not want our university
to invest in genocide, to invest in the
apartheid regime. This is why across the country,
100 of 1000 of protests are taking place,
and we thank Allah for that. Now, we
move on to the second point.
What does Islam say? What is the Islamic
verdict on participating
in such activities? Now, here, again, we get
to this very, very
difficult, very awkward topic, and I try to
avoid controversy as much as possible. Nonetheless, there's
a genocide going on, and there are very
big elephants in the room that need to
be discussed. So I will be a little
bit explicit, but factual. I'm not putting anybody
down. I'm not making fun of anybody astaghfirullah.
I'm merely describing
reality.
The reality is the verdict depends on which
strand or which maslak or which firqa you
belong to. This is the reality. So if
you look up to, for example, Hasan al
Banda and Sayyid Qutb, the answer will be
a certain. If you look to Mawudi, the
answer will be certain way. If you look
up to zakariya candahalawi, you will get a
certain answer. If you look up to the
aqabr of Deoban, you find an answer. If
you look up to Sheikha al Albani, you
find a certain answer. If you look up
to the sufiatariqas,
you find a certain answer.
Every strand, every maslak, they have a certain
flavor about what they want to do, and
we have a whole spectrum. We have in
this those that are at the forefront,
those that make these types of protests, some
of the, you know, biggest manifestations
of iman and taqwa. They will say, this
is what Islam calls for. They will say,
this is our modern version of a legitimate,
you know, spiritual jihad, not a physical one.
Fox News is gonna misquote me, I'm not
trying to say physical one, but the spiritual
jihad they're gonna say. And then you have
on the exact opposite side, you will have
people on this spectrum saying, protests are haram,
protests are bidah, protests are against the sunnah.
And then you have those in the middle.
How can anybody in the middle? Many of
these strands, they will neither support
nor criticize.
They will simply live their lives, teach their
teachings. And as we speak, I would venture
the majority of masajid of this country are
going to be of this methodology, neither for
nor against. They don't wanna get involved. This
is not a part of what they think
is Islam. I am talking about protests in
the masjid, and I dare venture, I could
be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, I dare
venture this is atypical.
In this Even in this country, most people
would not be talking like this. They would
just think that this is not relevant to
their Islam. They're not gonna speak against it.
Some people will speak against it, say it's
haram bida'ah. They say this is against the
sunnah. Now obviously, you know my position. I'm
not gonna mince words. By the way, for
the record, all of these people I mentioned
and more,
and I'm not being politically correct, this is
wallahi my aqeedah.
Every one of them, I believe, insha'allahu ta'ala,
is a good mujaddid. I have no problem
with any of them. I respect and admire
all these mainstream movements, and I genuinely believe
the good in all of their movements far
outweighs the opposite. So I personally have no
problem with any of these strands. And if
you're happy with any of these and more,
I didn't give an exhaustive list, but any
mainstream,
then good for you, Alhamdulillah.
I don't have a problem, and I say
both loudly and clearly, whatever one of these
ones you choose, Allah's not gonna punish you
for the finer details. If you really believe
that protests are against the sunnah, and you
are living a pious life, well well then,
that's your ijtihad. This is not an issue
of punishment. This is not an issue of
astaghfirullah haram or bida'ah. It's your position. Let
other people hold their positions. And if you
believe that this is the most important thing
to do after you pray 5 times a
day that you wanna protest, I also think
this is a legitimate position to hold. I
think all of this spectrum is a spectrum
of permissibility.
We shouldn't bring in haram. We shouldn't bring
in bidah. It's something your personal choice. Now
if you ask me my own interpretation, you
know by now you've listened to me enough
and whatnot, and I personally am not a
card carrying member of any of these memberships.
I don't have a membership any of them.
I respect all of them, but I don't
have a personal interest in following any one
strand. I have to answer to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. So me personally, with my humble
opinion, reading the Quran, reading the seerah, looking
at our past scholarship and how they interacted
with the realities of their times, I believe
that
activism
is something the Sharia legislates,
and that the details of activism
are left to the time and place of
the people. I repeat, I believe
that the seerah of the prophet, salallahu alaihi
wa sallam teaches us that you don't just
worship in the masjid and then expect Allah
to send a miracle. I believe the seerah
from beginning to end combines between spirituality
and between activism. This is my understanding. I
could be wrong in this regard. But I
have never seen an incident in the sirrah
where the prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, did
not take worldly precautions to achieve a worldly
end. He actually planned. He he envisioned. He
he had a a routine. He did something
physical. He spoke. He negotiated. He fought. He
did what he needed to be done. And
I personally believe, and this is the majority
opinion, that the technicalities
of how you do that,
Allah did not legislate. It varies from time
to place. And as long as essentially it
is halal and not haram, as long as
you're not doing something blatantly haram, then all
of these paths are permissible. Allah says in
the Quran, Uduu ilasabidi rabbikabil hikmati walmawitilhasanati wajadirum
billatihi ahsan. Call ithatil hasanati wajadilumbillatihi
ahsan. Call to the way of Allah with
wisdom
and
with good preaching,
and argue with them in the best of
manners. What is wisdom? Did Allah define it?
No. Because calling with wisdom
varies from time to place to language to
culture. How I will preach to an audience
in North America in 2024
is radically different than how somebody would have
preached to a Hindu audience 200 years ago
in India. Radically different. Both will be maw'irah
and hikmah if you use what what is
culturally acceptable. The words, the examples, the analogies,
the tactics,
all of this is open. Allah did not
legislate. And this is, in my humble opinion,
one of the problems of some of the
more ultra conservative or some of the more
puritanical. And I don't doubt their intention, but
I do doubt their understanding of the Sharia.
I don't doubt their sincerity, but I do
doubt their grasp of understanding usool and usool
al fiq. They say to me and others,
show me an evidence that the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam protested.
Show me an evidence that he did what
he what what this group is doing. Firstly,
some scholars have tried to bring about generic,
you know, incidents from the Sira that demonstrate
the Sahaba raised their voices, the negotiation that
took place in Il hilfal Fudool, the process
of having alliances with the Yahuudi tribes, with
the constitution of Madinah, you know, Thumama ibn
Athal boycotting the people of Makkah, economic boycott,
and the process of boycott, and the pro
sassam approved of the economic boycott. So they
say this is BDS and whatnot. So they
try to bring about, but I personally say
this is the wrong methodology.
I don't need to prove the prophet, salallahu
alayhi wasalam did it. You need to prove
it is haram.
I don't need to prove it is halal.
The default is that all tactics are halal.
The most effective tactic is the most halal.
So the whole notion, you only need to
prove a ritual,
Irbadat. You need to prove, I
need to prove it to you. You need
to prove that Asr is silent, I need
to prove it to you. As for how
to preach, how to effect change, how to
bring about good, Allah did not legislate
how. So I don't need to prove to
you, rather, you need to prove that there's
a problem in something that we are doing,
something explicit. We're using sharaban kamr. Yeah. That's
haram. We cannot choose it. So now you
prove
generically raising your voice, and bringing attention, and
bringing the PR move. How can this possibly
be Haram? So in my humble opinion,
not only is this a part of our
religion, I expect Allah to reward those students
and protesters who are doing this with good
intention, and I do believe this is a
part of what we need to do. I
participated
at the, protest a few days ago, and
I just got a phone call yesterday. 1
of the major universities, subhanallah,
they took our sister's hijaba, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah.
The police, they did this, and they banned
and whatnot. So they called me, they wanted
me to speak there, so I will be
going there. Unfortunately, I will not be here
on Friday. I was scheduled to give the
khutbah, but I believe that is a priority.
They're holding a few 1,000 people to protest
what the university did, so I'll be going
there to give the khutbah over there. I
personally believe, inshaAllah, if my niyyah is pure,
I will be rewarded for this. This is
a part of what we should do in
this land to effect change. So this is
the second point. 3rd and final point. Somebody
will say, oh, but there are things that
go on in the protest that are against
Islam.
For example, intermixing of men and women. For
example, not every Obviously, majority of them are
not Muslims, so they're not wearing hijab, obviously.
For example, there's gonna be, you know, left
wing groups that might be, you know, even
the LGBT community is very pro Palestine, whatnot.
So there's gonna be those people over there
as well. So they're gonna say, oh, you
are standing with them. And to respond to
this,
to respond to this, I acknowledge
that indeed this is some of the negative,
but
the problem comes.
Why do you want to enforce this purity
only when it comes to protests for a
good cause?
Do you not go shopping?
Do you not go to Kroger's? Do you
not go to buy your grocery? Do you
not go to work
and people are dressed immodestly at work? Do
you not go and the cubicle next to
you is somebody that might be LGBT?
So why is it that when it comes
to a generic good cause, all of a
sudden you become mister muttaqih 1000%.
And when it comes to your I'm I'm
sorry to be Astaghfirullah. I'm sorry to be
sarcastic here, but it really frustrates me. Wallahi,
it frustrates me. I find a double standard.
Where are you living? Which land are you
living in? Open your eyes.
You have to do something.
And in order to come together, you all
come together to pay your taxes to this
country to build the roads. You pay your
taxes to generic healthcare, whatever it might be.
And we're cooperating for some good of the
dee, of the duniya. Can't we cooperate for
some good of the people of Faras al
Ghazah? I'm not endorsing batil. If somebody's there
of another community,
another faith community, LGBT whatnot, I'm not endorsing,
but the banner is Palestine.
The banner is not their banner. The banner
is free ghazah. That's the banner. So we're
coming together for a generic good. And you
try your best to, in your own personal
space, to observe Islamic morality. Whoever comes should
try their best to, you know, show what
Islam is. And if you can give private
dawah, good for you. But in the end
of the day, for you to be so
nitpicky,
so purist and puritanical
over here, in my humble opinion,
that type of obsession
is a type of OCD, I'm being blunt
here, that will hamper, that will prevent any
good.
You have to be pragmatic and realistic.
And I wanna conclude on this point, and
that is, and I've said this multiple times,
and especially the youth because I am slightly
aware of what's going on online even though
I've left social media, but I am slightly
aware of what's going on because they get
forwards and people tell me whatnot. I remind
the youth and in the end it is
your business and job. But my nasiha to
you, go to our elders and seniors.
Do not take advice from internet pseudo celebrities
that are barely 20 years old and don't
have an ounce of actual wisdom and activism.
They sound good. The slogans might be really
harsh,
but they have zero wisdom.
Go to the elders,
speak And I'm not talking about myself. There
are people that have been giving da'wah the
decade I was born, Imam Siraj Wahaj, Imam
Zaid Shakur, Doctor. Muzammus Siddiqui,
Doctor. Jamal Badawi is still alive, mashallah tabarakatuh.
89 years old. These are people, they have
been giving dawah in America
since the seventies.
I was born in the seventies. Forget me,
forget all of these shuyuk you think are
liberals, and radicals, and protestant reformation, or whatever.
Go to the seniors.
And the seniors, and I say this bluntly,
with utmost respect. I'm not being disrespectful,
the seniors are from within. Do not outsource
fatwas to religious scholarship 3,000 miles away. This
is an American problem. We need people who
understand the American scenario. Our leaders are from
within. Other scholars from overseas, I'm not doubting
their iman. I'm not doubting their the haybthusahi
bukhari. I'm not doubting they understand aspects of
fiqh, of ibadat, and tahara. But with utmost
love and respect, the CEOs of your companies
have to be living with the company. You
cannot have a CEO that's 5,000 mile away,
has no idea what the company is. Our
leaders of American Muslim community
are people who have lived their lives here.
They have shown their wisdom here. They have
track records here. Go to those senior scholars.
Those are the people you need to look
up to, and there are plenty of them,
Alhamdulillah.
As for going to those that have no
track record, and they sound really nice with
slogans, wallahi learn your history. Slogans will never
solve problems. Slogans are not gonna you have
to show some level of activism. So bottom
line, if you ask me, our religion calls
for a good synthesis
between personal piety and between activism in the
dunya. And prioritize piety, no doubt about it.
But after that, activism Muslims, students have lost
their
their their,
university privilege? They have been expelled from university.
Our sisters, astaghfirullah, I hope you haven't seen
the video. If you have, it's so sad.
They were arrested and the police And I
I hope they sue their pants off. The
police took their hijabs off to test them
for bombs. In public, in front of everybody,
they took their hijabs off. How can you
be on the sideline?
How can you ignore what is going on?
The whole world is now Alhamdulillah
for ghazah. And now here we are nitpicking.
Oh, somebody to the left of me is
not wearing hijab. Somebody to the right of
me is another faith community. Youkhis, SubhanAllah,
you don't use this level of puritanical
piety anywhere else. Only when it comes to
fallasihin, you're gonna use it. I'm sorry. This
is not realistic wisdom. This is not what
we learned from our pious ancestors and from
the reality of lived experience of all of
our great ulama. So my humble request to
you,
even if you don't wanna participate,
don't make the people who do any type
of enemies. Don't make it more difficult for
them. They've already many of them have lost
their student privileges. They're no longer they've expelled,
they've been expelled. Many of them have gone
to jail. Some of my own friends have
gone to jail. They were released the next
day, but they went to jail because of
this issue. And here we are in our
nice pious masjid talking bad about them. No,
wallahi no. Even if you don't agree, make
du'a and support them generically. I understand there's
a diversity opinion, but this is one of
the ways that the narrative changes and Insha'Allah,
I am optimistic. 8 months ago when the
issue happened, I said no matter how bad
it looks, insha Allah, the tide is changing.
Look now, the tide is changing. Look, we
see it with our eyes.
Tens of thousands of students are now protesting
against their government. Who are these students gonna
be? They will be the politicians of tomorrow.
They will be the CEOs of tomorrow. They
will be the leaders of tomorrow. So let
us support them. Let us raise awareness for
them. Let us do what we can for
them, and insha Allah victory will be ours
because truth will always rise up above falsehood.
And insha Allahu Ta'ala the zulum, the tyranny,
the injustice, the genocide that is taking place
would be the last time that happens, and
we hope that from the blood of those
martyrs, we hope that from the blood of
our Palestinian brothers and sisters who have lost
so many tens of thousands of lives, that
this inspiration around the world will change the
entire course of history And bi illillahi ta'ala,
we will see a bright future ahead of
them. So may Allah bless all of those
students that participate. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
allow us to see the victory for our
brothers and