Love the Haters: Session 3

Love the Haters: Session 3

By Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda

Opening

Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wasalamu ala rasulillah.

Introduction and Practical Demonstration

So before I got started, I had a question for Wissam. Did your nephews and nieces also pick up the towel that you're wearing on your shoulder? Did you forget to take the shower? What happened? Anyways, so I thought I would start with a practical demonstration of how this exactly works.

Alright, so you know it's a really really important topic. Imam Yassin talked about it from a philosophical perspective. What are deen, the sources of our religion, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) and the Quran, the book of Allah.

What they tell us about negativity. Wissam hit the nail on the head when he talked about and he addressed the issue that when you're being bullied, find, like he was mentioning, brother Haroon on the way up here, he was saying, where's your sense of self worth? And stop looking for acceptance or vindication or approval from outside, from other people. Find it within.

And the ultimate source of that is by looking for it with Allah. I wanted to talk about the bully's perspective. The one that is bullied.

Understanding Bullying: Psychological Perspectives

Three Basic Elements of Bullying

And I had like some basic things I was able to find from a psychological perspective. The first thing is that there are three basic elements to bullying:

1. Aggressive and negative behavior
2. Repetitive behavior - that behavior is returned to repeatedly
3. Imbalance of power - there is some type of an imbalance of power in that dynamic and in that relationship

Two Major Categories of Bullying

And then there are two major categories of bullying. And this is very important. Because when we talk about bullying, what's the first thought that comes to mind? Somebody just say something Allah.

Other than that, when you think of bullying, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Hitting someone, fighting, beating up someone. All right. And is that more of a boy problem or a girl's problem? That's a male issue.

All right. That occurs more in social circles amongst males. But there are two basic types of bullying:

1. Direct Bullying

The first one is direct bullying, which is that physical aggression. That definitely happens amongst the boys and whatnot.

2. Indirect Bullying

The second type of bullying, which is actually more predominant today. It's the bigger problem and the bigger issue today. And that is indirect bullying. You could call it social or relational aggression.

And the biggest arena of that at the moment is online. Cyberbullying is a new frontier. All right.

Facebook and on blogs, in YouTube videos, mocking people, making fun of people, creating stereotypes. You know, that's become the new place where you trash people, you make fun of people. Just to give this some context.

I recently even saw the new movie that they had out, Social Network. And they even talked about there where, like, that guy, he breaks up with that girl or she breaks up with him. He goes home and he immediately does what about it? He blogs and says some horrible things about her.

That's the problem we're dealing with right now. And that is very heavy even amongst the female population. That's a big problem amongst females and even amongst males today.

Addressing the Bully: Understanding the Root Causes

So that's what we're dealing with. Now, what I wanted to talk about was I wanted to kind of address the bully directly. You know, and make them maybe think about what they're doing.

Consequences on Others

And what are the consequences of their actions? The consequences of their actions on other people are very obvious. You have to be living under a rock. If you're not following the news, that's the only way you don't know about this.

But with all the suicides that were going on on different campuses, and all the different issues that were coming out of the woodworks, people that are being ostracized, people that are being picked on, people that are being just completely outcasted from their social circles, and the trauma, the effect that it has on those individuals. So you literally drive people to insanity. You break homes.

You destroy families. You kill people. And realize today, for whatever reason, because of your own spiritual condition at the moment, if your consciousness does not bother you, you're able to sleep perfectly at night, and it doesn't trouble you, what you've done to someone, a day will come later in your life, hopefully for your own sake.

A day will come later in your life when you look back at that, and you will cry for what you've done to people. You'll cry for what you've done to people. It will seriously come back to haunt you.

It will haunt you your entire life. You'll see the faces of those people that you tormented, and you ruined their lives. That's the first thing.

Effects of Bullying on the Bully

But I wanted to talk about the effect of bullying on yourself. What is the bully doing to himself? So first thing, I wanted to clarify one very important thing. And this is important for the bullies themselves, and for us as a community, and a society to understand that I'm not justifying the action of the bully, but what I am saying is, what we might have to realize is, when one person is bullying another, there's actually two victims in the situation.

There's two victims in the situation from a community perspective. Alfred Adler, he says that bullying is a compensation for deep feelings of inferiority within the individual. These deep feelings of inferiority are embedded within the individual, and that's what's manifesting itself.

John Lockman, a psychologist at Duke University Medical School, he did some research on the issue and published a lot of work on the issue. He says that we find that bullies have a strong need to control others. They have a strong need to control others.

That's what's driving this behavior, the day in and the day out. And their need to be dominant masks an underlying fear that they are not in control within their own personal lives, within their homes, within their families, and that they mask this sense of inadequacy by basically being a bully.

The Cycle of Hurt

What I'm trying to get at here is that a lot of these bullies and these people that are bullying, and if you're listening or watching or whatever, you engage in this type of behavior, it's usually as a result of some difficulty, some adversity, some trouble you have at home, you have within your family.

You're experiencing yourself somewhere outside of the immediate arena where you're bullying others. So if you're bullying people at school, you've got problems at home. You're bullying your siblings, it's because you just got beat up at school.

They're bringing that frustration, they're bringing that sense of inadequacy, that lack of control of their own lives, they're bringing it and they're basically lashing out at others. They're making others the target of their frustration. Now this does not justify their behavior.

This does not justify their behavior. But what it does is that it gives us a different perspective and as a community, because we've gathered here to talk about this issue as a community. What it does make us realize as a community is we need outlets for people like that as well.

Community Solutions and Support

We need individuals that they can speak to, places where they can go, and they can feel safe and they can regain a sense of control within their lives. They can regain that sense of control. We need masajid, we need community centers, we need youth places, youth centers, and we need, honestly, we need people like Abdurrahman Murphy, where they can come and sit down, they can talk to, they feel like they relate to, and then they can talk to them.

And they can start to deal with some of these issues that they've been carrying around for a very long time. That's the reality of community. It's an extended family and we're going to have to make up for the deficiencies or the problems and the shortcomings that we find within each individual home.

We can take care of all those problems once we get together, pool ourselves together and our resources and our assets together and work as a community. And so realize that as a community we have an obligation to even rehabilitate, to help, to counsel these type of individuals and people. The last thing I wanted to talk about and say, and again, just directly address the bully.

Because I want to motivate you. Masha'Allah, Hafiz Wissam, motivate those who are being bullied. Tell them that don't worry, don't be downtrodden, don't be affected by the negativity that's being pointed towards you, that's being directed towards you.

The bully as well, I want to try at least to motivate you and inspire you to be a better person.

Quranic Perspective: Lessons from the Messengers and the Bullies

Look in the Quran, he talked about the messengers of Allah, and how from a very general social perspective they could be called the ones who were bullied.

The Man from Surah Yasin

The man who came running from the outskirts of town.

He was bullied, he was beaten, he was literally beaten to death. But now take a look in the Quran as to who were the bullies. Who are the bullies within the Quran?

Firaun (Pharaoh): The Archetypal Bully

Meaning he thought he was really big, he thought he was everything. Firaun is a bully within the Quran.

Namrud (Nimrod): The Arrogant King

Allah says, haven't you seen the one who argued with Ibrahim because he was in control, he was in power. Namrud, the king, was a bully.

Qarun: The Wealthy Oppressor

You had Qarun, he had all the money in the world. So what did he do? He thought he could bully them around. He could do whatever he wanted.

These are the people that the Quran has pointed out as bullies to us.

Abu Jahl: The Firaun of This Ummah

Even the Quran even talks during the life of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Abu Lahab was a bully. And the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said about Abu Jahl:

That he is the Firaun of this Ummah.

The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is teaching us something, that bullies will always be there, bullies will always be around. So Firaun wasn't just some historical figure that we can read about, we can talk about, but there will be a Firaun in every generation.

And people will always have to deal with the Firaun being around. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) had to deal with multiple Firauns. From Abu Jahl to Abu Lahab to Abdullah bin Ubay bin Sulul, multiple of these Firauns, these bullies.

Conclusion: Choosing Your Path

And they always will be around. What can we do? It's a necessary evil, it's part of the test. It's like saying there should be no material temptation.

It's always going to be there, it's a part of life, it's a test of living. But what can we do? Those who are being bullied, don't be affected by it. Respect yourself.

And find respect for yourself in your relationship with Allah. And secondly to the bullies, there has to be a Firaun, but it doesn't have to be you. There will be a Firaun, but don't be the Firaun.

Would you rather be the Firaun or be the Musa? Would you rather be Nimrod or be Ibrahim? Would you rather be Abu Jahl or be Muhammad Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم? Aim for something higher, live by a higher code. Look in the mirror, take an honest, long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you respect yourself. If you want to be like this.

Because if you're dissatisfied with the answer, like he said, the blessing of Allah is, you have the solution right there in front of you. The book of Allah and the life of the messenger. Strive to be a better person.

Community Support and Resources

And if you ever need any type of help, whether you're the bully or the one being bullied, and you're just not happy with the way things are going with you, know that there's other people there for you. I'm going to say something, Mashallah, everybody's parents and everybody's family loves them more than anybody else. But everybody has shortcomings.

Sometimes your parents or your family might not be able to help you in that situation. Maybe they just don't know how to help you. Maybe they just don't understand what your problem is.

That doesn't mean that there's nobody out there to help you. Come and find someone to help you. Come to the Richardson Masjid, sit down with Brother Murphy.

Go to the Plano Masjid, sit down with Imam Yassin. Sit down, find these people, these older brothers in the community, Hafez al-Islam, anybody else. There's tons of sisters as well.

But find somebody to talk to, to help you. And inshallah, as a community, we're here for you. And I'm reminding the community, let's inshallah, try our best to be there for our brothers and sisters who need our help.

Final Reflection

Young people, mashallah, they're young, they're energetic, they're beautiful, they have the potential. They have all the potential in the world. But sometimes they're also very fragile.

It's like a flower that's blossoming and that's growing. And so sometimes we have to care for it, we have to take care of it, we have to protect it. May Allah give us the ability to take care of our youth.

Closing

And may Allah give us the ability to serve Him as it pleases Him.

"Jazakumullah khairan. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh."