Racism, Social Justice & Black Lives Matter

Racism, Social Justice & Black Lives Matter

Lecture by Shaykh Abu Usamah At-Thahabi

Opening

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All praise is due to Allah. And peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah.

Introduction

InshaAllah, everybody is aware of what's jumping off in the dunya in America in the way of the social strife, the drama and the fitna. So after trying to allow a few days to pass by and to let the smoke settle a little bit in keeping with the command of Allah and the command of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم After these days have passed, we are coming now inshaAllah to give some words of advice, some tojihat, irshadat to the members of our community, especially the shabab from amongst them, the youngsters from amongst them.

There are about four issues that we want to deal with today, bi-idhnillah. Very briefly, because to be perfectly honest with you, these issues are not that difficult to comprehend for the one that Allah wants him or her to comprehend. And that's how everything is.

Some of us have embraced Al-Islam and it makes sense to us because Allah جل و عز who is Al-Wahhab, He has bestowed upon us the ability to understand the religion. Whereas there are other people from His servants who they just can't comprehend and understand what Al-Islam is saying. Not even the most simplest of issues in the religion like the importance of the monotheism of Allah جل و عز or the importance of following a prophet or a messenger that was sent by Allah to be an example.

We Are Living in a Fitna

So first of all, we want to remind you that we're living in a fitna. The year 2020 has been a tumultuous year. Probably unparalleled in our lives as Muslims and Allah knows best.

A lot of things have happened in this year of 2020. Allah تعالی has mentioned in the Quran, bringing this to the attention of the people who during the time of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم especially the munafiqeen:

"Do they not see that they are tried every year once or twice but then they do not repent nor do they remember?"

Do they not see, do they not reflect that We, Allah, We try them? We give them a big fitna, a big test, a trial, a tribulation. Every single year. It happens once or twice every year during the course of their lifetimes.

And then they don't make tawbah, nor do they reflect. So this ayat of the Quran goes to show clearly, meaning ayat of the Quran, that we are going to be tested and we're going to be tried. And this ayat said we're going to be tried once or twice every year.

The scholars of tafsir have given different interpretations as to what is the meaning of this particular ayat.

What's the meaning of being tried, tested, once or twice every year? One of the interpretations of that is that Allah Ta'ala is going to try the people of the Arabian Peninsula by giving them droughts, where there's no water, there's no food. They're going to lose money, they're going to go hungry.

Once a year, twice a year, their harvest, their product, it doesn't come forward. So that's what it can mean. It can also mean that they're going to have to wage war, jihad, and waging war is a jihad.

It's a fitna because you can lose your life. So in our case, we get tried once or twice every year. Someone who you love, someone who you're close to, they lose their life.

And as a result of that, you have to deal with that. This year we had the Wabah of Corona, the coronavirus, and the lockdown that the coronavirus brought with it, and the way that our whole lives have changed. Missing so far 6, 7 Jumaat, maybe even more than that.

The way we pray Eid, the way we fast in the month of Ramadan, the way life is going right now. This is a fitna, it's a trial. So I bring that ayat and I start my talk off with this ayat to say to our Muslim brothers and sisters, especially our youth.

When things happen on a global level, national level, international level, locally, when things happen and they are fitnas, then we have to know how to behave, how to carry on, how to deal with the fitna. You have to know that Corona is a test, it's a trial, it's a tribulation. What happened to George Floyd is a test, it's a trial, it's a tribulation.

Any of these things that happen on a world level, global level, or if it happens locally, it is a test. And Allah Ta'ala is watching everybody to see how you're going to deal with it. So when the test comes, there are those people who turn back on their heels.

When the test comes, there are those people who take the Quran and the Sunnah and they throw it out of the window, figuratively speaking. They put it behind their backs. When the test comes, there are those people who curse Allah and His Messenger.

When the test comes, there are those people who reject the Qadr, who don't accept the Qadr of Allah. When the fitna, when the test comes, there are those who want to go out, loot, burn, pillage. This is not the position of the Muslim.

The Muslim has to say, hey, this is a fitna, wake up. This is a fitna. And since it's a test, there are certain things I have to do and certain things I can't do.

And certain things highly recommended that I do those things. And certain things that they're disliked if I were to do it. So the person has to be aware of that.

He has to have awareness. And this is the first thing that I want to mention to our brothers and our sisters.

The Minhaj of Islam During Times of Fitna

So from the minhaj of what the Muslim does during the time of the fitna, as Allah Ta'ala mentioned in the Quran:

"For each of you We have made a law and a method."

We have given every prophet, every messenger, every group of people, every nation that went before this nation, we gave them a sharia, things are halal, things are haram, and we gave them a minhaj, a way in which to live their lives.

And the minhaj of Al-Islam is not the minhaj of non-Muslims. And it is not acceptable for the Muslim to be negligent as it relates to that. He has to know what is it that Allah wants from him or her.

So from the minhaj of Al-Islam, when there's a fitna, is that you and you and you and you and you and you and myself, we should be quiet. We should be quiet about it. Especially at the beginning.

There is a statement that says:

"Being in haste is from Shaytan, and taking your time is from Ar-Rahman."

That is not an authentic hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم but what is authentic is that Allah loves people who take things easy, and they're not in a rush. As he said to his companion:

"Indeed, you have two characteristics that Allah loves."

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 25)

You have anat and al-hilm. You're gentle, easy, you're not in haste. You're the opposite of being in haste.

And you're also gentle. This is a time for al-hilm, for people to be calm and easy, and not to be nasty, mean, and aggressive, and destructive. This is not that time to go around puffed up, letting out hot air, and just acting in a crazy way, just setting things ablaze.

That's not our religion. The time of the fitna. Be quiet.

Take it easy. Get behind the ulema and those who know. Those people who have knowledge, those people who have experience, those people who are older, this is our religion.

We're living in a time where, if you are a millennial, this is the time of the millennials, these young kids who know nothing except social media. That's all they know. They don't know VCRs, they don't know cassette tapes, they know social media.

And one of the negative results of social media is, everybody has something to say. Everybody. But that goes against the minhaj of al-Islam.

When it comes to the issue of the fitna, people should be quiet, and they should fall back, and they should be patient.

The Wisdom of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, said to a group of people who were with him from his students: How is it going to be? How do you think it's going to be? What's your opinion? When the fitna comes in 2020, George Floyd, the situation with Corona. The fitna comes.

What's your idea? What's your opinion? He said to his students. What is your opinion about the time when the fitna comes and it absolutely engulfs all of the people? Everybody. The fitna grabs everybody.

And during that time of the fitna from what he said is, that the young person will start to walk, and the older person will start to crawl. Things are going to be turned upside down. Young people will be given the opinions, and those who should be listened to, they won't be listened to during that time.

So from the minhaj of al-Islam, ayyah al-muslim, and I know that you all want good for yourselves, is that during the time of fitna, whatever that fitna is, slow down and take your time. The Prophet said, sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam, that when the musiba comes, the catastrophe, the time to have patience is when it first comes. When the musiba first comes, that's the time when you have to have patience.

Don't have a knee jerk reaction and just start kicking off. Take your time and slow down. Breathe, look around, and ask, what are the scholars of this religion saying? And what are those people who are older than us, and more established than us, and more experienced than us, what are they saying?

You just can't take positions on your own, and you just move based upon that.

The Advice of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ali ibn Abi Talib, before we move on, may Allah be pleased with him, and the rest of the companions. He said to a student of his, his name was Kumail ibn Ziyad. And you can go back and read all of what he said, because in it is wisdom.

Ali said, ya Kumail, the best of the hearts are the hearts that can retain information and memorize. So, remember what I'm about to tell you. Pay attention to it, ya Kumail.

He said, the people are of three types. There are three types of people. There's no fourth type.

There are three types of people. He said, the first type of person is the one who is a alim rabbani. He is a scholar, a rabbani scholar.

A scholar who knows what he's doing. He knows how to deal with the people. He knows what to teach, how to teach, where to teach, when to teach.

He knows how to weigh the harms and the benefits. If he's asked a question from a group of people in Newark, New Jersey, when a question comes to him, he's going to give an answer that will benefit the community. He's not going to give an answer that's going to make fitna for the community, that's going to split and divide the community unnecessarily even more.

That's not a scholar rabbani. The scholar rabbani, when he deals with the people, he deals with them with the haq, and with justice, and with ease, and gentleness. He teaches them the same way.

He teaches them the small knowledge that they can comprehend before he teaches them the big knowledge. So Ali said, the people are three types. First one, a scholar, who is rabbani.

Second one, is a student of knowledge. A student of knowledge, like you and me, inshallah. A student of knowledge.

He's on the sabil al khair. He's on the way of good. He's not a scholar, but he's taken from the yambur, the fountain of the scholar.

And the scholar's rabbani is teaching from the fountain of nabuwa, prophecy. So the second category of people, the student of knowledge, he's reading the Quran, he's reading the sunnah. He's trying and she's trying to elevate themselves, and to raise off of themselves and discard from themselves ignorance.

So that they'll know what they're doing. And even if and when they make mistakes because of lack of experience, because they got caught up in the whirlwind, because they forgot, when they are reminded, they pump their brakes and they slow down. They don't continue to move forward, musammimin, musammimin.

He's just insistent. I don't care what anybody say, this is how it's going to go down. Nah, not like that.

And then he mentioned the third group. The third category of people are those people who follow every single call and every single shout. They go with every wind, and they go with every wind.

If the wind blows that way, they'll blow that way. If the wind blows this way, they'll blow this way. They're just all over the place.

They're not established because they don't have a minhaj. They don't have knowledge. They don't have experience.

They don't have an example in front of them by which they can hold on to. As the companions used to say, may Allah be pleased with them. They said, when we used to be in battle, battle.

When we were in battle, we would get behind the nabi, sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Another one said, that during the time of the battle, you will find the sparks popping off of the sword and the shield of the nabi, sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Because as the leader and the example, he was in the middle of the heat.

You have to have a qudwa. You have to have an example. And that's why those scholars used to say, beware of taking a position.

You don't have an imam who preceded you in that position. This is why those scholars say, it is better for you to be a follower upon the haq. You're not the one who's leading, you're the follower.

Than to be a leader who is leading people in falsehood. Yes, it's better to be a follower. Follow the people on the truth.

You don't have to be the first one to come out to talk. You don't have to be the first one to come out and give your opinion. You don't have to be the loudest one.

You don't have to make a decision and put something out on Twitter or other than that, Instagram. Just follow, be quiet, look around. And say, where are the ulama and what are they saying?

So the prophet clearly made this something to be adhered to from our religion:

"The blessing is with your elders."

Reference: Musnad Ahmad

The barakah, as he said صلى الله عليه وسلم is with your elders, with those people who are older. So you brothers and sisters who are in America, you brothers and sisters who are in Canada, you're in Holland, you brothers and sisters wherever you happen to be, we have Muslims who are in Ghana, in Nigeria, in Senegal. We have Muslims right now in Libya, Muslims who are connected to our ummah from all over the world who have been affected by this thing, the murder of George Floyd.

And people are acting in different ways. But if everybody just took it easy and the people of Canada looked around for the knowledgeable people and the elderly people there in Canada, they'll be in a better position. If the people in America slow down, Muslims look around and find out what are the ulama and the people of knowledge and experience saying and doing in America.

And then when that happens, you get behind them and you'll be alright. Inshallah. So that's the first issue that we want to make mention of.

This is not going to be the first fitna nor is it going to be the last. And Allah is أعلى and أعلم. But when these things happen, slow down.

The Description of the Hypocrites

"And when there comes to them information about public safety or fear, they spread it around. But if they had referred it back to the Messenger or to those of authority among them, then the ones who can draw correct conclusions from it would have known about it. And if not for the favor of Allah upon you and His mercy, you would have followed Satan, except for a few."

Reference: Quran 4:83

And don't be like the munafiqoon, the munafiqeen, the hypocrites. Allah gave this description of the hypocrites during his time. That every time something happens on the level of touching public safety, public fear, the hypocrites take that issue and they begin to spread it around and advertise it.

They're talking about it. They have their opinions. Whether their opinion is right or wrong, they don't care.

They just talk about it. Just spread it and they advertise it. Allah said, only if they would have referred the situation back to the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم or back to those people who have been endowed with knowledge from amongst them, then those people would have explained to them what was the reality of the situation.

And had it not been for the rahmah of Allah, you would have followed the shaitan except a few of you. This is the minhaj of our religion. If you go with the people and you just don't look at what the ulama is saying and people who are older, more experienced and mature, if you don't follow them and do what I'm saying, you're gonna follow the shaitan except a few people from amongst the people.

And who are those few people? Who? Who? The few people are the ones that Allah blessed and endowed them with knowledge. Where he may be young, she may be young, but they have enough knowledge. They within themselves have enough knowledge that they can see this is a problem and they know what to do.

But usually that's not our case in America, in Canada, in the UK.

The Issue of Racism

The other issue that we want to mention, is in this segment, the issue of racism. You know, now that this problem has happened, one of the good things about it is it has brought to the table the dirty, nasty underbelly that is the reality of America.

There's a country that is built on racism. And Europe is like that. Like it who like it, hate it who hate it.

Europe is built on racism. The institutions are built upon racism. In America, there is systemic racism.

It is systemic. It is something that is structured. It's institutionalized.

Racism on every level of the society. For me personally, I didn't embrace the religion of Islam so much because I was convinced Allah is Allah and the oneness of Allah. I didn't embrace Islam because I understood that.

When it was explained to me who Allah is and who he wasn't, I accepted that. It made sense to me. But the overwhelming factor that caused me to accept Islam was the fact that I sat down and I read, what does Islam have to say about racism? And that was because I was fed up to here with the racism of Christianity.

With the racism of many of the white people in America. You saw Donald Trump as I saw Donald Trump. Leave the White House.

Interrupt the people who are peacefully demonstrating. And they begin to hit them with tear gas and rubber bullets and they disperse them so that he could take a Bible that he doesn't know, he doesn't believe in. And even if he was a scholar of the Bible, it's a religion that you can't explain and it can't be understood.

But his example is the example of my mother, my father, my relatives. Take the Bible, make a big display about something and you go and you don't even know what's in that book. So for me, for me, when I read the Bible, when I read the Torah, I said both of these Bibles, both of these books, the way they are right now, they have institutionalized, systemic, structured racism in it.

One is saying that Jesus is the son of Allah, the son of God and he's a white man. Nope, I categorically reject that. All of the angels are white people, all the prophets are black people or white people and the black people in the Bible who did bad, the people who did bad in the Bible, they're all black people.

I rejected that. Jewish people said they are the sha'abullah al-mukhtar, they're the people of Allah, the chosen people of Allah. So they can do whatever they want to do to people.

They can oppress the Palestinians, take their land, just do whatever they want to do to people and they're going to be forgiven. No, that's racism, racism.

In South Africa during the time of Nelson Mandela, back then the Dutch reformed church of South Africa used to use the Bible to support apartheid.

And wallahi, these police officers who get sworn in, these police commissioners who get sworn in, these public figures who get sworn in, putting their hand on the Bible. There's no difference between most of them, many of them and what Trump did the other day with holding up the Bible.

Islam's Position on Racism

So for me, for me, when I saw in the religion of Islam, Al-Islam dealt with the issue of racism.

I mean it dealt with it head on to the point where it left no stone unturned. Am I saying that we don't have racism in Al-Islam? No, that's what I'm saying. We don't have racism in Islam, we have racism from amongst the Muslims.

I lived in Birmingham, I witnessed racism in Birmingham. I lived in my second home, Keithley, will always be my first home, will always be my second home. I was with people from Mirpur.

I saw some racism there in Keithley, from white people and from people who are from Kashmir. I moved, Liverpool, racism from people who are like Yemen and stuff like that. In Liverpool, there is racism in our ummah, racism amongst the people.

Even the Prophet said that, salallahu alayhi wa sallam:

"Three things from the time of Jahiliyyah, my ummah will never leave them off."

Reference: Sahih Muslim, Hadith 934

And he said, number one, screaming over someone who has died, wailing when someone dies and carrying on in a way that's ignorant.

Number two, talking bad about other people's lineage. Number three, talking good about one's own lineage. We have this, wherever you go, whatever group of people who are Muslims, you have that.

Whoever is watching me right now, speak right now, whatever your ethnic background is, wherever you come from, if you were born and raised in Islam, you can be from Africa, you can be from... wherever you're from, your own people have racism amongst themselves and different tribes, and they have racism with their own countrymen. This is how it is. And that's what the Prophet said, salallahu alayhi wa sallam.

But the religion of Islam dealt with the issue of racism. So very quickly, very quickly. Allah Ta'ala mentioned amongst the many ayat, not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, no less than 10 ayat that clearly deal with the issue of racism.

And from them, I want to mention two:

"And remember the favor of Allah upon you - when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers. And you were on the edge of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be guided."

Reference: Quran 3:103

Some of you are from Ethiopia, some of you are from Rome, some of you from this tribe, that tribe, some of you from Mecca, some from Medina, some from this part of the desert, from that part of the desert, some of you from Syria, some of you... The companions with the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. Remember the ni'mah of Allah when you were enemies, one to another, you were enemies, and then Allah brought your hearts together and you became brothers in His religion. And you are on the verge, on the brink of a hellfire, about to fall in, and Allah saved you from it. These are the ayat of Allah that He is guiding you to in the hopes that you will be guided.

Another ayat, and there are many:

"If you had spent all that is in the earth, you could not have brought their hearts together; but Allah brought them together. Indeed, He is Exalted in Might and Wise."

Reference: Quran 8:63

That Allah Ta'ala mentioned to the Prophet ﷺ Muhammad, to bring their hearts together, never would you bring their hearts together in order to unite them. You would never bravely bring their hearts together, never. But Allah is the one who brought their hearts together.

Allah brought their hearts together. So those are two of the many ayat.

Examples from the Sunnah Dealing with Racism

As for the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, the Nabi of Islam ﷺ had to deal with racism.

I'm not even gonna give you the many myriad, the myriad of hadith making racism haram. No, I'm gonna share with you some things that happened with the companions, which goes to show, it was something that was in their society that he had to deal with ﷺ

So the fact that some of us are racist, and we find racism coming from our Muslim brothers and sisters, you have to look it in the prism, from the prism of this situation. There were some companions who had this issue.

But the difference between the companions and us is that the companions immediately, once they knew it was haram, they just stopped. So what we're gonna do right now, inshallah, is we're gonna bring this first session to a close, and we'll be back, inshallah, with part two.

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Examples from the Life of the Prophet

Therefore, from the proofs, from the life of the Prophet ﷺ aside from the many ahadith, where Islam clearly makes racism haram, many ahadith, put that on the side. We want to give you examples that the Prophet dealt with specifically showing that racism was an issue that was prevalent in his environment. And it was an issue that he had to address.

So anyone who wants to come and he wants to find out what is the position of Islam in regards to racism, it is there. Like the situation where the Prophet told the people ﷺ about the importance of listening to the leader. He said, listen to and obey the leader:

"Even if an Ethiopian slave whose head is like a raisin is appointed as your leader."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 7142)

Listen to the leader who's been put over you in authority, the one who's in authority over you. Even if he happens to be an Ethiopian slave, an Abyssinian slave who has a head like a raisin. Now clearly, a slave can

never be the leader of the Muslims.

This is not something that can happen. And that's because the slave doesn't even own his own time back then when there was slavery. When there was slavery.

And in Islam, slavery is not synonymous with any group of people. No. So some people think when you hear slavery in Islam, the ideas that conjure up in the mind of a person are a particular group of people from Africa.

No, that's not the case. The slaves are those people who opposed Al-Islam. And then they were subdued after there was a war and they were put in slavery and given opportunities to get out of slavery.

For an example, it's not peculiar, the institution in Islam, it's not peculiar to one group of people, one ethnic group of people. So when the Prophet told them, salallahu alayhi wasalam, to obey the leader and listen to him, even if an Ethiopian slave with a raisin head, a head like a raisin becomes your leader, the reason he said that is something that can never happen. But he wanted to let them know something that you detest and you despise, something you don't want.

You don't want an Ethiopian who's a foreigner with a head like Zabib, his color, you don't want him over you. So the fact that he gave that as an example, it shows us that it was sensitive. And that's why he touched the court to tell them this is how important it is for the Muslim to obey the leader.

To obey the leader whether he likes what the leader is saying or he doesn't like it. Whether he has nashat and he's active or whether he's tired. No, you have to obey the leader as long as he's not calling you to that which is haram and to disobey Allah, you should obey him.

He may be older than you, he may be younger than you. He may be a person from a different ethnic group. So this is the point.

The Story of Abu Dharr Al-Ghaffari

Another example, from the many examples, many is what happened with Abu Dharr Al-Ghaffari. And Abu Dharr, he was from the pure Arabs as they say. The Ghaffari tribe, Al-Ghaffar, they were pure Arabs.

Abu Dharr got into a misunderstanding with a man. Some people from the ulama of Islam said that it was Bilal Ibn Rabah. Some major scholars mentioned that.

But this hadith is in Bukhari and Muslim and it doesn't mention Bilal. It just is a man. It's ambiguous.

The important thing is the lesson. The lesson. Abu Dharr got into a misunderstanding with that man and then Abu Dharr said to that man that he was the son of a black lady.

"Oh you son of a black lady."

As if to call him the N-word or to put him down because of his color. The man went and told the Prophet what Abu Dharr did.

The Prophet ﷺ when Abu Dharr came, he asked him, Did you say that? He said yes. He asked him, Do you criticize him because of his mother? The color of his mother? You want to step on the man's neck and stop him from breathing because God Almighty created him this color and you despise him?

What does he have to do with the color that you despise? That you'll take his life? What does he have to do with that? And then the Prophet said to Abu Dharr, May Allah be pleased with him:

"You are a person that has jahiliyyah in you."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 30 and Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1661)

What you did? Talking bad about his mother. Having this statement of racism. You are a person that has jahiliyyah.

That's from jahiliyyah. That's the Prophet himself come in dealing with this issue. Head on.

Not in an indirect way. And there are so many examples. I just give one more and I have to roll.

The Story of the Two Men

The last example is what happened during the time of the Prophet ﷺ. There was a man who was from his companions had said to another one of his companions, I am so-and-so, the son of so-and-so, the son of so-and-so, who's the son of so-and-so, who's the son of so-and-so. And he kept mentioning his grandfathers until he got to the ninth one.

He said, I'm the son of so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so and so-and-so. مَنْ أَنْتَ لَا أُمَّ لَكَ Who are you? May you not have a mother. As if to say, you come from nowhere.

Your people, where we come from, your people were nothing. Your people were former slaves. Your people used to make the shoes.

Your people are the ones who used to, you know, sell milk from door to door. This is some of the nonsense that the Muslims had where they looked down on other people. Other people, because back where they come from, his particular group of people, they were the landowners.

But that guy, his group of people, this brother, they used to just bring the milk and they would give it from door to door. And people will look down. You can't marry into the family of the landowners if your father, your forefather, your grandfather used to make shoes.

So that's what that man said. Who are you? May you have no mother. And then the Prophet interrupted.

And he taught them at that moment. And he says:

"Two men disputed during the time of Musa."

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2378)

There were two men during the time of Musa who did the same thing. One of them said, I am so-and-so, the son of so-and-so, the son of so-and-so.

And that one, that man, was the one who counted nine forefathers. Not the one with the companion. That's my bad.

That was a mistake. So the companion said, I'm so-and-so, the son of so-and-so. Who are you? May you have no mother.

And then when the Prophet heard that, he told them about what happened with Bani Israel. There was a man who said, I'm so-and-so, the son of so-and-so, the son of so-and-so. And he counted nine of his forefathers.

And then that man said, Who are you? May you not have a mother. The other man, during the time of Musa, Bani Israel, he said, I'm so-and-so, the son of so-and-so, the son of Al-Islam.

Prophet Muhammad said, Allah sent revelation at that moment to Musa, that he should tell these two people, you, the one who connected yourself to nine of your forefathers, all of you, you being the tenth one, all of you in the hellfire.

All of you. As for you, the one who connected himself to his father and then to Al-Islam, all of you are in the Jannah. And that just goes to show clearly that the most important identifying point for a Muslim is Al-Islam.

And as I always mention, Al-Islam ya'la wa la yu'la alayhi. Al-Islam is uppermost. Al-Islam is elevated.

Al-Islam goes on top and nothing goes over Al-Islam. Nothing. So this is an example of how the Prophet dealt with the situation.

And he used to always do that. He used to always be an example. He would be an example for the community, for the world.

The Prophet's Own Example

At the Battle of Badr. The Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, before the Mubaraza, it was from the practice of the Arabs before everybody started fighting, they would have a duel. Send your three best out.

We'll send our three best out. Prophet Muhammad sent Hamza, Ali, and the third man from the closest of his relatives. He didn't send Bilal.

He didn't send Salman al-Farisi. He didn't send Suhaib al-Rumi. People were far from him.

He sent three of his closest relatives at the farewell hajj. He gathered all the people after the hajj was almost over and he said, Listen, riba, usury is haram from this day. It is underfoot.

And the very first riba that I'm going to start off with is the riba of my uncle, Abbas. It's haram. That's how the Prophet used to be.

Sallallahu alayhi wa ala Ali wa sallam, Tasneemin kathira. So the Nabi of Islam was fair and he was just and he was an individual who when it came to the issue of racism, he made it clear that racism is haram in our religion. So I find it amazing.

I find it amazing, amazing that many Muslims, we look at what happened in America and we can call America out for what has happened and what we see on a constant basis with African American people being killed.

Even our women. Even our sisters, our daughters, our wives.

They'll shoot you in the car while your wife is with you and your child is in the back as an African American. They'll shoot your wife, your sister in the privacy of her own home. They'll kill her as it has happened or you can be there with her and they'll shoot you.

So many Muslims know that. Many Muslims have seen that. But you know what's really strange and distressing is the fact that the same racism that we see coming from the racist cops in America and the racist president of the United States of America, it is the same racism that we see as reverse that comes from many of our Muslim brothers.

Wallahi, this is what we find. Racism from Muslims themselves. So people want to look at George Floyd which we should do.

That is an ayah from the ayat of Allah and a lesson for us to learn. But how are we going to be racist? And it's just not me being African American crying woof and saying racism, racism. We have people who are reverse, who are white.

Some of them, people who are racist towards them. The brother, his background is that ethnically, his ethnicity is that he's a Jewish person. He used to be a Jewish person.

Social Justice in Al-Islam

The other issue that we want to deal with very quickly is the issue of social justice in Al-Islam. I was shocked and amazed.

I was amazed at some of the things that I was hearing and witnessing on social media from some of our youngsters and what they were saying. Al-Islam came to establish social justice and that is an issue that there should be no doubt about it in the eyes or the minds of any sane Muslim. Again, too many ayat, too many hadith.

Some of them have been mentioned by brothers who have come to the forefront to advise the community. I want to share with you two. Two.

The Nabi of Islam (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) brought the Quran. Two ayat. Allah Ta'ala mentioned in the Quran:

"And if Allah had not checked the people, some by means of others, there would have been demolished monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which the name of Allah is much mentioned."

Allah would repel one group of people with another group of people, if that didn't happen, that a group of people would stop and repel another group of people, if that did not happen, then masjids would be destroyed, synagogues would be destroyed, monasteries would be destroyed, the places where people are making the salat, praying and remembering Allah's name, they would have been destroyed.

How are they not destroyed? They're not destroyed because when one group of people see another group of people doing an injustice, they get involved. And those words that were used in the ayat, they signify and denote the places of worship that are not even from our religion. Not even from our religion.

In our religion, masajid, that's the masjid. As for the biya, the biya, that's what the Jews and the Christians are using. But they have a right to worship their God and people shouldn't come and give them trouble.

So that's an ayat that establishes social justice in Islam. That people have to get involved to stop things when others are being oppressed. A person can't say, has nothing to do with me.

Can't say that. The second ayat is what Allah Ta'ala mentioned in the Quran:

"You are the best nation produced for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah."

You people, this ummah, you're the best ummah brought out and brought forth for all of mankind.

And that's because you order and you tell the people to do what's right. And you prohibit and you prevent what is evil. And you believe in Allah.

الْأَمْرُ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَالنَّهْيُ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ

How can a Muslim say, whatever happened to this man, George Floyd has nothing to do with me. He's not a Muslim. I don't care what happened to him.

My miswak is more important than that issue. My miswak is more important than Black Lives Matter, when black people are getting oppressed. Who in his right mind says something like that? In his right mind.

A person who's not in his right mind says something like that. Or a person who's just being extremely ignorant, arrogant. So those two ayat clearly show amongst many other ayat of the Quran.

But now is not the time to get deep into that. It just goes to show, our religion is a religion that makes it wajib upon us. Not only bring social justice for ourselves, but for all of mankind.

That's what our job and our responsibility is. So the Muslim, he's going to weigh issues, no doubt. No doubt.

If your house is burning down, you got to get your people out, your family out, before you start looking for your neighbors. That's basic and simple. That is basic and elementary.

So if Muslims are suffering anywhere, first and foremost, I'm going to be worried about my own family:

"The believers are but brothers."

No doubt about that. I don't have to explain that. I don't have to worry that some blowback is going to come back because it was misunderstood.

"So fear Allah and amend that which is between you."

Save your own family first. But that doesn't negate that you go next door and you save your neighbor.

And you help your neighbor. How can someone not see that? How can someone not see that our Shabab being sensitive to the Black Lives Matter movement is something that is condoned by the religion and endorsed by the religion. Obviously, there has to be understanding of how to deal with that particular issue.

The Hadith of Justice

As for the Hadith of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallá-llāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) I just share with you one Hadith from Bukhari and Muslim.

And it's a tremendous Hadith as well. And I don't hear people using this Hadith but I'll bring it to your attention inshallah as a reminder because I'm sure it won't be the first time that some of you have heard the Hadith.

There was a lady from Quraysh from the tribe of Bani Mahzum. That's the tribe of Umar. May Allah be pleased with her and him.

That lady stole something. And what she stole was enough to get her hand chopped off. So the ruling was given.

She stole. She has to get her hand chopped off. The people from her tribe, they were like, no way.

We can't allow this to happen. This is a bad reflection on us. A bad look on us.

That our daughter, our sister, our cousin, our tribe's woman went and had to steal as if we were not taking care of her. No, no, no. Someone go and talk to Prophet Muhammad so that he can suspend this ruling.

She's from Quraysh. She's from our people. So someone, Usama ibn Zayed, tried to talk to the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallá-llāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam). He became upset, angry.

"Do you intercede regarding one of the punishments of Allah?"

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3475 and Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1688)

Ya Usama, did you try to get involved and put yourself in this issue? This is about the judiciary system. You know O.J. Simpson? When O.J. Simpson was found not guilty by that American court of jurors of his peers

when he was found not guilty. There are a lot of people who are African American in America who are happy.

If you ever watched the footage, as soon as the not guilty verdict came in, they screamed out and they were happy. Although O.J. Simpson freed himself from African American people. O.J. Simpson didn't have very much to do with the African American community.

He's a light, like Michael Jordan. You know, very sterile. He wasn't about black people and their cause.

But I think, and this is the point, I think the reason why, one of the main reasons why the people got so happy, African Americans, is because the judiciary system has systemic racism in it. Structural racism is in it. It's institutionalized.

It is set and geared against us. And that's why the Somali police officer from the same state of Minneapolis, when he, a year or two ago, shot a white lady, that he didn't follow protocol, he's in jail right now. Right now.

Serving his time. 12, 15 years. Right now.

And there was no doubt he was going to jail. Right away. Whereas these people who killed this man, George Floyd, because of the racism in the system, let them go.

At first. Let them go. And even if they go to court, even if they go to court, who knows, what the people be found guilty or not guilty.

So the point here is, in Al-Islam, when Usama, who was very close to the Nabi, he was like Hassan Hussein, like his grandchild. When he got involved, Ya Rasulullah, suspend the ruling against this lady. Don't chop her hand off.

It's a bad look for the Arabs of Quraysh, the leading tribe. The Prophet says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3475 and Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1688)

"Those who came before you were destroyed because if a noble person among them stole, they would let him go, but if a weak person stole, they would establish the punishment upon him. By Allah, if Fatimah the daughter of Muhammad were to steal, I would cut off her hand."

Those who came before you, the Jews and the Christians, their societies, they were destroyed. They were destroyed because of this thing.

They were destroyed because if a powerful, rich, noble person, if they broke the law, if they stole, if they did something wrong, if a powerful rich person did it, they will let him go. And then if a weak, a poor person,

ضعیف one who was weak, if he did it, they would establish on him the hajj. They would cut his hand off, they put him in jail, whatever.

The Prophet said:

"By Allah, if Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, would steal something, I'm gonna cut her hand off."

Showing the justice of Al-Islam.

The justice of... Do we have that justice in the Muslim world? No, we don't have that justice, not to that level. We have in the Muslim world, where if you have a wasitah, you have a middle man, you can break the rule, you can get around the rules and regulations. You can even murder someone in certain Muslim countries and pay the money, you don't go to prison.

That's how it is. That's with the Muslims. But in Al-Islam, this hadith shows us the justice of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallá-llāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) and the justice of the religion.

And there are so many examples of that. So I have to ask the question. Social justice in Al-Islam? Haven't we heard these hadith? Why now does it become a situation where this thing with George Floyd seems to throw people, knock people off of the square.

People who we consider to be people on the sunnah and of the sunnah. People who have some basic understanding of Al-Islam. General understanding of Al-Islam.

The Hadith of the Ship

People who know the hadith of the Prophet:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2493)

"The example of the person abiding by Allah's boundaries and the person who violates them is like the example of people who got on a ship, some of them got its upper deck and some of them its lower deck."

The people on the bottom of the ship, every time they wanted to drink water, they would have to go to the top of the ship and disturb the people, say, let us get some water, where's the water? They were holding the vessels of water upstairs on the boat. So every day they have to go upstairs, doing the daytime, doing the afternoon, doing the nighttime.

So the people on the bottom of the ship say, hey, instead of disturbing those people, let's just go directly to the bottom of the boat and get the water directly from the ocean.

So that bright idea, it resonated with everyone. They started digging a hole. They started trying to make a way, make a hole through the bottom of the boat.

Prophet Muhammad said in the hadith, the people on the top, they heard. They heard the ruckus. They heard the noise.

What's going on? They all came down. They said, yo, what's up? What are you people doing? They said, well, we don't want to keep bothering you people.

They had an excuse, they had a reason.

We don't want to keep bothering. We're just going to get the water directly. The people at the top said, no way, Jose.

No way. Grab them, stop them. No.

Don't make a hole in the bottom of the boat. Crazy. Prophet Muhammad says, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, that the people at the top, by stopping them, they save themselves and they save the people in the bottom of the boat.

If you leave, if the people at the top left the people in the bottom of the boat to do what they were doing, everybody's going to get destroyed. And that's what happens in society. If you say, that's African American people's problem, as Muslims.

We say, that's the problem of this one or that. Hey, that thing is going to come around one day. And as they said in the Arab method, I was killed the day that the brown bull was killed.

A story about the three bulls. So the point here is, al-amru bil ma'ruf wa an-nahi an al-munkar. Our mother said, ya Rasulullah, atuhliku wafina as-salihun.

Will we be destroyed? And with us, we have a lot of righteous people. We have people who are practicing the deen. They have tawheed, they're making salah, giving zakat, making suhum, making hajj, wearing hijab, giving sadaqah.

Ya Rasulullah, will we be destroyed? Will Allah destroy us? And we have all these righteous people. He said, naam idha kathirt al-khabith. Yes, if the evil is a lot, if there's a lot of evil, Allah will destroy everybody.

Allah's gonna destroy everybody and then raise people up based upon their niyyah. Based upon their niyyah. So it goes to show as Muslims, Muslims are not a group of people who are passive participants on the sideline, just looking at life going by.

Muslims have to be ahead of the curve. They have to be examples. But again, in saying that, there has to be a balance.

There has to be a balance. We're going to be ahead of the curve based upon proofs. The Quran and the Sunnah is going to teach us and show us how to deal with situations.

There are certain situations that require for us to be quiet. There are other situations that necessitate that we get involved. And there are other situations that we get involved halfway and so forth and so on.

That's determined by the knowledge of the deen. As for social justice, it is not from our religion to say some of the things that some of the brothers are saying too far to the right or too far to the left. It has nothing to do with us at all.

That's extreme. And the other extreme is for a Muslim to come and say, my brother was murdered. My brother, George Floyd, they murdered our brother.

You know, I'm Pan-African. I'm a Pan-African. I'm a Pan-Africanist.

I'm a black nationalist. What do you mean by that? That's what we have to say. What do you mean by that? And inshallah, we'll deal with that issue in our next segment.

On Protesting and Marching

And now we come to the next point, next two or three points, and then we're done, inshallah, from the many questions and issues that are coming to me. One of the questions is the ruling concerning protesting and marching as a way of achieving social justice and a way of making al-inkar against social injustice. Is that something that Muslims should partake in?

For me, I don't believe in the permissibility of protesting, whether it's about these types of atrocities that have happened or Muslims seeking their rights or other than that.

I take the position that it is not permissible to protest because it's not legislated, and I also believe not too much comes out of protest. As a matter of fact, more evil seems to come out of protest than good. And it's very difficult to have a peaceful protest.

Even when you do have a peaceful protest, it's open to being sabotaged by the miscreants and the riffraff and even the government, even they send provocateurs amongst the law-abiding peaceful protesters, and then they create drama like what happened with Trump going to that church. It was a peaceful protest, and it turned into

something that someone could have lost his life. And Islam doesn't want people putting themselves in that situation.

Here in the city of Birmingham, there are protests and marches that are going on. They're going on today, something like 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in city center. So many people have contacted me.

I told them, hey, I don't believe in protesting. I won't allow any of my children to go and to participate in that, and I'll make it known I'm of the opinion that is something that is not legislated, and the harms of it are greater than the benefits. And there's another thing I'll bring to your attention.

Here in the UK, do you brothers and sisters remember what happened as it relates to the Iraqi war and the British government, along with the United States government, they moved on Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis, and they have not recovered from that preemptive strike to this very day. And the premise was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and it turned out to be a lie, and they were lying all the time. They were lying all the time from day one from the Gideon.

They were lying. And they went in there and killed all of those children and babies and innocent people and disrupted life as those people knew it during that time. After that happened, some people in the UK, they went out in public and they protest.

The protest reached over a million people who were protesting. For kind of matter, what happened after that? What happened as a result of that? Did Iraq get better? Did the Iraqi people, did their lives get enhanced? No, because protests, they don't do very much in the way of change.

Martin Luther King and all those other people, millennials, you may have heard of it, but you don't really know what it was like, because for me, I really didn't like the dower of Martin Luther King.

I liked the dower of Malcolm X, another dynamic that helped me to come into Islam because I read about his way of dower and living, which was by any means necessary. Don't come tell me I have to hug the police officer that shot my brother dead because I'm not hugging her. I'm not hugging anybody like that.

I came into this religion after being brutalized by police. You know, you people see me, you know me. You ever ask yourself, why doesn't he have two teeth here? I don't have two teeth here because the police came to my community for something I had nothing to do with.

They grabbed me, arrested me, put me in a police car. When we pulled out, the cop on the passenger seat turned around with his flashlight and proceeded to try to knock all my grill out. Everything.

I had my hands handcuffed behind my back and I was acutely aware of what was going on. And when I saw him doing what he was doing, I turned so he got me on the side and he knocked these two teeth out and beat me up on my back. That was the third time that I was abused by a policeman.

The third time. I was only 16 years old, 17. The third time prior to that, I was abused.

This is something we know in America. Many of our Afro-Caribbean brothers in Brixton, brothers who were here, who grew up here. Dr. Abdul-Haq Baker.

These people know. This is what, you know, when we come before you, our youngsters, and we say, look, don't go out there looting, pillaging. Be careful.

Don't get involved with this rioting and going out and protesting and breaking up buildings. I'm not telling you that because I don't understand your anger and frustration. I got beat up and beat down by the police.

Came into a slam as a result of what they did. So I say that to say, we're not people who are talking to you from, you know, within a vacuum. You don't know what we're talking about.

We're giving you the religious point of view. Now, if I wanted to just follow my desires in that regard, I'd just go out there and get with everybody and pay back those people who beat me up all those times. You know, because I can justify it.

That's how people do. They justify things. They say, hey, those people did this and this and this and this, so I'm justified to break the window of this particular Nike store and I'm going to go and get 10, 15 pairs of Nike.

And this is going to give me my haqq back from what they did. No. No justification.

So in our religion, I see protesting as being impermissible. It's an impermissible way of trying to change the situation. That's my point of view and that's what I believe in.

So I want to say to those people who asked me, you asked me, I say don't protest. Not like that. Not where you're marching.

There are other things that can be done and Inshallah, we'll talk about that in an upcoming talk or an upcoming lecture. Don't see the permissibility of protesting.

On Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism

The other issue. Is it permissible for a person to be a black nationalist? Is it permissible for a person to be a Pan- Africanist?

I'm of the opinion, no. You can be a black nationalist and you could be a Pan-Africanist. A black nationalist being a person who takes peculiar concern as it relates to issues pertaining to African-Americans.

You can do that. You have a heightened awareness, a heightened sensitivity about issues as they relate to African-Americans. Yes, you can do that.

Why can't you be able to do that? Don't we as Muslims have a heightened awareness and concern for things that happen to Muslims and things that happen as it relates to Islam? It's not true. The religion allowed you to do

that. Made it wajib for you to do that.

So being a Pan-Africanist, meaning people who are connected to the continent of Africa, there is a common denominator between all of them and that is we want to see the best for the continent and the people who live on that continent and who come from that continent. As a result of that, they come together and they try to give the continent a better station in the world. What's wrong with that? It's permissible provided you do it within the hudud of the religion.

As I mentioned, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was an Arab and he never came trying to be other than an Arab. And he just wasn't an Arab. He was from the best of the Arabs and he broke it down.

He broke it down. And he showed how his people, Quraysh, were better than all of the other Arabs. His people, Quraysh, were better than all of the Arabs.

And that's because Allah chose Ibrahim. And from Ibrahim, he chose his son, Ismail. And from Ismail's sons, he chose Kinana.

And from Kinana, he chose Quraysh. From Quraysh, he chose Bani Hashim. Rasulullah was from Bani Hashim.

At one of the times when they were making jihad, and they were struggling against the non-Muslims. And word started going around that Prophet Muhammad had died. He was killed.

And they were trying to make the Muslims, you know, get off the square and get nervous. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Rasulullah got up so that everybody could see him, everybody could hear him.

He could say, and he would say:

"I am the Prophet, not a lie. I am the son of Abdul Muttalib."

Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 4317 and Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1776

I'm the Nabi and I'm not a lie. I am the son of Abdul Muttalib. I'm the son of my grandfather. But he said that in a way, not where he was pride and arrogant, but he said it in a battlefield when there was drama, let the people say, no, here I am.

This is me, I'm right here. I'm not saying that Prophet Muhammad ever called to nationalism. Abedin.

But what I'm saying is, he never ran away from who Allah created him from. He was from the Arabs. And that's what the Quran has established.

And he came out and he said that on a day when people needed to hear that. So, a person taking pride, for lack of a better word, being honored by his ethnic background, who he is, you can be proud of who you are, where

you came from, and the positive things about you, your people, and your culture, your country. As for the ignorant things, the haram things, the shirk, the kufr, the misbehavior, no, no.

I'm not gonna brag about that. And also, in being a black nationalist, I'm going to let Al-Islam dictate what's right and what's wrong. I'm not going to let anybody else, kill a mic other than him, brother polite other than him.

No one is going to dictate to me what's the narrative. No one, other than Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran, and Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So again, I am not going to call Fir'aun my brother.

You know, we had these great civilizations, our brother Fir'aun, look at the hierarchy. Nope, nope, that's not what I'm talking about. That's not my clan.

So being an individual who's proud of where you came from, nothing's wrong with that. As long as there's no dhulm, no oppression, no itida, you didn't exceed the limits. You didn't exceed the limits.

You didn't do anything that went against the religion in the process of doing that particular thing. Then inshallah, it's no problem. Inshallah, it's no problem.

But I want it to be clear, to be clear. The religion of Islam helps us to understand how we're going to exist in the prism of those, I don't want to call them ideologies, but those movements. Black lives matter.

People say all lives matter. That's our religion. All lives matter.

All lives matter. But right now, all of the lives that matter, they're sitting at the table, he has a plate, he has a plate, a plate, a plate, he has a plate, but this one, he doesn't have a plate of food. He's the only one.

So don't come and tell me everybody has a right to eat. I know everybody has a right to eat, but he doesn't have his plate. Well, I don't have my plate.

So therefore, I want to get my plate. So when people say black lives matter, all lives matter, of course, but dealing with the problem that's on the table right now in America, with the racism that's being meted out to African American people, I believe as a Muslim, I have a religious, moral, civic obligation to put my voice inside of the hat, inside of the arena, and what Islam allows, and what Islam allows, and what Islam doesn't allow, we have to reject it and reject the people who don't reject it.

As I told you, Islam is uppermost and nothing, nothing goes over Islam.

Final Advice: Remain Silent on Social Media

Last thing that I want to mention, again, to our brothers and our young brothers specifically, is this issue about remaining silent and staying off of social media when there's no need, no obligation, no request for you to get

involved. Now, I understand that sometimes we're on social media and we don't know what is going to happen in terms of the fallout and the blowback of a particular thing that was said or done and then it turns into something crazy and we had no idea it was going to turn into something like that because we're just making flippant statements where we're just hanging out with our brothers and maybe I'm passionate about the statement because I think I'm right and I'll say, wallahi, billahi, tallahi, but it was better for the person not to do that.

So my young brothers and sisters, slow your roll and pump your brakes, not just in this situation, but let this situation be a learning experience for all of us.

When things happen, take it easy, calm down, relax, look at what the elders are saying, look at what the people who have been endowed with knowledge from our ulama, the ulama of this ummah, and mashallah, they're still here. Brothers in Ghana, they have ulama. Brothers in Nigeria, they have their own ulama.

Brothers in Senegal, their own ulama. Brothers across the globe, they have their own ulama. We're not going to tell anybody you have to stick with one or two scholars or these specific ulama only from Mecca and Medina, that's it.

We're not going to tell people. Your scholars can be more knowledgeable than them in general, and they can be more knowledgeable than the scholars of Saudi Arabia as it relates to the issues that confront you and the challenges that confront you. This is what we wanted to present real easy, and I just want to say, I'm sorry for the way we did it in three parts, but those were due to technical realities that we had to like kind of maneuver around, and that's what we have, and that's what we had to deal with.

Closing

May Allah protect all of us divinely in these times of fitn, in these times of mashak, in these times of musaib. May He establish our feet firmly upon the kitab and the sunnah, on the way of the salaf of this ummah, Abu Bakr, Uthman, Ali, and the rest of those companions, Ridwanullah alayhim, and those great imams that we follow, that we love, and that we honor.

Brothers and sisters in Islam, this thing is going to keep going because Yawm al-Qiyamah is close. It's going to keep going, trials and tribulations. Let us get a grip on knowing our deen.

May Allah bless me and you in the Great Quran and benefit me and you by what is in it of verses and the wise remembrance, and may Allah bless and grant peace to our Prophet and to his family and companions, all of them, and peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.