Yassir Fazaga – Friday Khutbah 21-06-2024
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Muhammad In the name of Allah,
the compassionate, the most merciful.
All praise is due to Allah.
We bear witness that no one is worthy
of worship but Allah.
And we bear witness that Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam
is indeed his final messenger.
The best of speech is the book of
Allah.
The best of guidance is the guidance of
Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasallam.
May Allah subhanahu alaihi wasallam make us amongst
those who listen to the best of speech,
the book of Allah and follow its commandments.
And may Allah make us amongst those who
come to know the best of ways, the
way of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
and make us amongst his followers.
But the Aziabad,
miss Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and you salam
al Hujajal Martamireen.
We begin by asking of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
to give a safe return to all those
who are in the pilgrimage
and may all their deeds be accepted,
and they make it back home safely.
We've said many times that
when the Quran tells the stories,
the Quran does not tell a story to
entertain the listeners.
Even though
stories are naturally
entertaining,
but that is not the purpose of the
Quran. The purpose of the Quran is to
use the story
to teach people lessons.
We tend to pay more attention
when we are told a story.
1 of these stories,
in fact, one of the the most repeated
story in the Quran,
the most
mentioned
individual by name
outside of the prophets of Allah is Firaun.
Mentioned in the Quran in 67
different places,
Allah speaks about
Firaun. In one of these places Allah tells
us,
In Firaun alafil ardu.
Indeed
Firaun, this pharaoh
exalted
himself on the land.
Arrogant,
full of themselves.
And the strategy was
that he has made the people of that
land,
he divided them
into different castes,
different sets,
different groups.
So what did he do as a result?
Divided them
and then weakened
a group amongst them.
What did he do to them?
He would kill their sons
and keep only their women alive.
Indeed he was one that spread corruption on
earth.
And historically speaking, there has always existed a
pharaoh.
The strategy
has never changed.
The strategy has always been the same. You
change locations,
you change the names, but the strategy has
always been the same.
Number 1, All
of them,
empires,
kings,
royals,
presidents,
prime ministers,
whatever it is.
Once they take that route of becoming the
next pharaoh, first thing they do is that
they deem themselves
more important.
They may even declare themselves to be a
master race.
They may even invoke the name of Allah
claiming that they are the chosen people of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And what does he
do?
And then he has made the people
into groups dividing them into different castes.
And many times what you do is that
you take a group
and you label them
and you assign all the blame onto them.
Sometimes it's the immigrants.
Sometimes it's the refugees.
Sometimes it's the browns.
Sometimes it's the blacks. Sometimes it's the whites.
Sometimes it's the poor, but you always
invoke an exterior enemy.
You must do this.
This is what we call
divide and rule or divide and conquer.
You take a group of people,
and these group of people, they benefit from
your atrocities,
they benefit from your policies,
and you let them know that the only
way that they can sustain their position
is by constantly oppressing these people. And be
careful because if these people rebel against you,
they are going to come back for vengeance.
So you must always keep them down.
Deeming them to be weak. Divide and conquer
always
works. Divide and conquer undoubtedly
always
works.
You know, when you look into the
conflicts in the world today,
especially when you look into the major conflicts
today, supposedly
there are about
20 major conflicts in the world today, meaning
that they can erupt at any given time.
And we are aware of some of them.
But here's the thing,
why why divide and conquer? What is it
about dividing?
See, dividing
ensures you remaining in power. Because what you
do is that you prevent people from rallying
together,
You prevent people from uniting which makes rebelling
against you easy. So what do you do?
Keep the people divided.
Number 2,
divided people
are easily exploited.
What is happening in the Congo?
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Now when you look into that country,
that country is rich.
The Congo is so rich
that if the fertile land in Congo were
to be
all planted,
it would feed the entire continent of Africa.
That is how rich the Congo is.
The Congo
made many European nations
very rich,
especially like a place like Belgium
where ivory and rubber trees,
they made Belgium, especially king Leopold,
that man made that man roast in
*. Of all the people, you know, we
speak a lot about Hitler did this, Hitler
did that.
Nobody has done what King Leopold
has done to the Congolese.
And what happened is
Robert and Ivory, the man declared the entire
country as his has his own personal
property.
SubhanAllah, you know when you read about Firaoun,
and Firaoun was infatuated with this idea of
cutting people's hands and cutting their legs, that
is precisely what King Leopold did.
If you did not
bring enough quota from the carton or the
crops that you were supposed to, they would
cut off your hands.
It was told that he kept about
19,000
hands in his palace
of people that they cut off their hands.
The Europeans were so bothered by him, they
said you're making us look bad. You've got
to do something good to the people of
Congo.
So he decides to sponsor orphans. What does
he do? He killed his own. He killed
their child their parents. Now that they're technically
orphans, he sponsored them.
So what happens now is everybody knows that
this is a very, very rich country.
Minerals,
diamonds,
copper,
cobbles.
But see, if there is a stability,
people would want to do this for their
own advantage.
Because natural resources
ought to translate into wealth for the citizens
of that land. Well, that's not what they
want to do. So what do they do?
Create a conflict.
Create a conflict
so that the people are too busy fighting
one another
that in their fighting
you benefit.
Wallahi, this is wicked.
This is wicked.
They do it and they make sure that
it is
sustainable.
One time
Henry Kissinger was speaking to a group of
US diplomats,
and he said to them as diplomats, he
said, your job is not to resolve conflict,
your job is to manage the conflict.
Make sure that the conflict is always there.
Make sure that you support these people, make
sure that you support these people because this
way you ensure that you are always with
the winning part.
And you concom, man, you see kids
working in the in these mines, mining
diamond, mining copper, and these are kids who
belong in school.
The job is too dangerous.
Nobody cares about that. As long as you
bring out the diamonds in the chiefest of
ways, this is really what matters most.
And as a result,
there is a conflict that's happening there and
what we hear is, ma'am, we don't know
what's wrong with them Africans, man. They just
be killing each other for the longest time.
You know, we don't know why they do
that but, you know, Africans happen to
be very violent and they're very aggressive. And
here you are thinking that, man, it's just
a Congolese problem.
Not knowing
that somebody is benefiting from this conflict the
same way that Allah told us about this
is how Firaun
operates.
Deen them to be weak,
exploitable.
You can kill them.
But there is the interesting part.
He kills their children. Say, kill their children?
Why would you do that?
Why would you kill children? He says, because
we are afraid of what these children might
become in the future.
The other day, I was listening to a
Zionist flyer.
And please keep in mind, all Zionists are
all liars.
He was talking about how this 9 year
old Palestinian kid
got a hold
of an Israeli Uzi. Uzi is like a
klashing klaff. It's an automatic
weapon.
And he said that this 9 year old
Palestinian kid
killed 50 Israeli soldiers.
I mean, it happened.
But it did not.
But see what he wanted to do is
that he wanted to convince the listener
that a 9 year old
is not a child.
A 9 year old is a terrorist.
So when you hear about a 9 year
old dying,
don't think that a child has died.
We just got rid of a terrorist.
And this way
you justify
the killing of children.
Now you listen to Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasallam.
When he dispatches his army and he speaks
to them, what does he tell them?
Don't kill children.
Don't kill women.
Don't kill the elderly.
If somebody is in their monastery, somebody is
in their synagogue, somebody is in their church,
don't kill them.
These are not the people that you kill.
In the old days, they say that when
people fought with the sword, only the brave
fought.
Only the brave fought.
When people started guns using guns,
it said that it put the coward and
the brave
at an equal footing.
When people,
you know, came up with the dynamites and
the bombs,
it gave advantage
to the cowards,
And this is what's happening.
What does he do?
He kills their children,
and he deems or he only keeps their
women alive. And then Allah said,
Indeed, he was one of those who spread
corruption on earth.
You know, one of the most beautiful scenes
that we see nowadays is Hajj.
In fact, if we really pay attention and
appreciate it, we would see it here in
our own midst.
The idea of farrqasud,
divide and conquer, divide people.
In Islam,
it is not divide and rule.
In Islam,
it is about
celebrate the diversity
and unite people.
Hajj is beautiful.
Allah, you'd be looking to these images,
and you just see people
you see the Africans and the Asians and
the Europeans. You see people from all walks
of life speaking every single language with every
ethnicity they have sent a representative.
A beautiful
reunion
of the human of the human family.
And not only that but everybody in there
believes that
no one is great
but Allah.
Where everybody is repeating Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,
Allahu Akbar.
See sometimes we don't appreciate this.
This Hindu man comes into a masjid.
It was a silent prayer,
And this is the first time he comes
into the masjid
and all he hears is this phrase, Allahu
Akbar, Allahu Akbar. So after the salah,
after the prayers he inquires and he said,
what does this mean? You know, every time
somebody was saying Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
And it was explained to him, it means
that Allah is the greatest. And then the
man said, woah, he said, this is the
best democracy I have seen. People coming together
and declaring that only God is great.
Only God is great.
What about the rest of us? We are
all equal.
You know, this idea of being a master
or thinking that you are somehow chosen by
God for whatever reason, man, all this rubbish,
man, we don't that is not for us.
So when Hajj comes, you know, we are
reminded of this. You know that the term
the very last
word in the Quran is enas,
people.
The term enas, people, is mentioned in the
Quran in about 400 and 29 different places.
What we taught?
Allah is
We are reminded as you are concluding your
recitation of the Quran that Allah
is the lord of all people.
He is the king over all people. He
is the only deity worthy of worship by
all the people.
And then you appreciate
what the Quran is naturally
teaching us.
And we grow up, we are aware of
our differences
but our differences in the community are only
used
descriptive.
We are color aware
but we're not color based.
So what the Quran does, the Quran teaches
a Muslim that this idea of this person
may not be of my own faith
but this person is equal to me in
humanity.
One time, Sayid Nabritali
was passing by and and he saw somebody
abusing somebody else and he said, yeah.
He said, brother, calm down.
He said, brother, come down. Even though he
may not be a believer,
but he is your equal in humanity.
And such the Quran teaches us and most
important than the Quran said,
do not fall into the traps of the
pharaoh.
See, when people unite, there is strength in
their unity. So what does pharaoh do? He
comes and he fragments
people
putting discord
amongst
the amongst the people. And the Quran said,
do not fall into it. May Allah's hand
Now the beauty of being in Hajj,
Hajj is supposed to eliminate
racism
and sexism.
Somebody was once asked, what is the most
difficult part of Hajj?
Said the most difficult part of Hajj is
when you do the say, the go in
between the two small mountains, hills of Safa
and Merwa.
And that is a commemoration of what a
woman did.
The most difficult part of Hajj is a
commemoration
of what a black woman
did.
So you leave
racist,
you leave sexist,
you go there, and you come back. You
say the most difficult part of of Hajua
is going between Safa and Marwa, but you
still come back and you're still racist. You
come back and you're still sexist.
That's what we call useless acts of rituals.
You went there and you did that, but
if you came back with the same attitude
despite what you participated
in,
despite what you have seen, what you were
a part of, and that was useless
act of ritual.
And that's why in our deen,
the more we see of this,
the closer it ought to bring us back
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. May Allah's hand
to a increase us in understanding.
May Allah increase us in pondering upon the
Quran,
in loving the Quran. May
Allah bring peace to our brothers and sisters.
Be they in Palestine, in Yemen, in Syria
wherever there is oppression, may Allah get rid
of the oppressors, You Rabbi Alameen.
Still was.
Allahu
Akbar.
Assalamu alaikum.
Tomorrow is our Eid al Adha Festival.
It's going to be happening from 5 PM
to 9 PM here at the MIC campus.
We have different activities, events. There's going to
be food trucks, vendors, a bazaar.
There's also a $7 ticket that will get
you,
the rock climbing wall, Ferris wheel, video game
truck, bounce houses, and all those activities as
well. So that's gonna be happening here tomorrow,
from 5 PM to pretty much, inshallah.
And you can also buy the tickets and
get more details at edmemphis.eventbrite.com.
So edmemphis.eventbrite.com.
And 2nd, in July, Saturday, July 6th,
we have a special program with,
who are bringing,
from
column
and then from.
And they're gonna be holding a program called
a tour of tales from prophecy to, from
a palace to prophecy,
the Journey of Musa.
And you can register for that at mifdaaf.org/musa.
And you can find flyers in both hallways.
The poster is there as well.
So is coming back to Memphis, inshallah, Saturday,
July 6th.
And that program is gonna start at 6
PM. And then also that weekend, they will
also announce their another program and the guest
speaker coming,
2 weeks after that on Friday, July 19th.
Inshallah.