Khutbah: Real Men Don't Hit Women

Khutbah: Real Men Don't Hit Women - Our Role in Stopping Domestic Violence

Imam Khalid Latif

Opening

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. There is no power nor strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.

Peace and blessings be upon the most honored of the prophets and messengers, and upon his family and companions. We bear witness that there is no god but Allah, His One and Only, with no partner. We bear witness that there is no god but Allah, His One and Only, with no partner.

In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Universe, the Master of the Day of Judgment. I bear witness and testimony to the oneness of Allah, to His magnificence, His omnipotence, His might, His glory, to His being the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the Giver of life, the Guider of hearts, the Master of the Day of Judgment.

I bear witness to the fact that Muhammad ibn Abdillah, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), is a servant and final messenger. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and upon all those who choose to tread his path until the last day.

The Prophet's Anger at Abuse

It is said that on one occasion, the Prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), came upon one of his companions who was mistreating and abusing a young boy.

This companion didn't know that the Messenger of Allah was behind him, and as he was abusing this young boy, he heard a voice behind him that said that Allah has more dominion over you than you do over this child. And he turns and he sees the Prophet of God, and that apparent on his face is anger. And he says, O Messenger of God, he is free from this, meaning that it's not going to happen anymore.

And our Prophet responds to this man saying that he will no longer mistreat this child in this way, still in that state of righteous anger, saying that, good, because had you not done so, you would have burned in the fire like a piece of coal.

There are very few instances within the prophetic tradition when our Prophet sees somebody doing haram and he gets angry. His companions, they commit zina, they've drank alcohol, they come and they speak to him, not in a confessional mode, Ya Rasulullah, I kissed a woman I wasn't supposed to.

Instances over and over and over where the reality is that they will struggle, and with real kindness and mercy and compassion, he meets them where they're at, letting them know that they're not walking through that struggle on their own. But there are still moments when he sees individuals doing haram, and he gets really angry, man. And from amongst those is when he sees people abusing others.

That there is no hesitation within his demeanor. The expression is anything other than what it is meant to be. That this is not acceptable, and there is no way anybody who claims to believe in our God should engage in this type of behavior.

Our Community's Commitment

In our community, we have been blessed to grow exponentially over the years. And we have made a commitment in this Ramadan to raise funds, to purchase, acquire, and renovate what will become, inshallah, an emergency shelter for abused women and children within our community. May Allah make things easy for all of them.

But to recognize the imperative that lies upon each of us individually necessitates understanding that this is not a deed, it's just about self-serving ritual. That the duas that we find littering our tongues that are about the engagement and acquisition of dunya are not what our deed is supposed to be bringing us to, but if anything, the transformative aspects of this religion are meant to be ones that inculcate within us a desire to go out and do for others everything we have full capacity to do.

That we do not become those people who have to feel hunger in order to know what it is like for the hungry. We don't have to be those people who don't have a roof over our head in order to know what it is like for our brothers and sisters that live on the streets. We don't have to be those people who have to flee from violence in our home countries to understand the reality of what it means to be a refugee. Nor do we have to experience deportation or police brutality, inequity and injustice that is laden within the supremacist society that we find ourselves in.

That tells us to worship the ego and elevate it and idolize it to such a way that we can actually become people who know not only in our broader community, but within our own social circles, friend circles, even our

families, that there are women and children who have men in their lives that have no idea what it means to be a man and we still sit still and do nothing.

The Reality of Domestic Violence in Our Community

Is that the heart that you want to have, my sisters and brothers? Do you want to be in the space where you recognize and know that there is unmet need of individuals who are underserved and underprivileged? Do you want to have the heart that feels and is awakened with what they are going through to the extent that it commands the rest of your body to not rest and stop until it does everything that it can to get them out of that situation?

Ramadan after Ramadan, person after person has walked through these doors and the invisibility of certain realities does not mean that they are not realities nonetheless. So I can sit here and tell you about a mother who comes with her daughter into my office and asks all of us to make dua for her.

That the young girl has to articulate herself. That she is witnessed and seen in the late hours of the night. Her elderly South Asian mother come into her room with tears coming from her eyes and her neck has hand marks on it.

And she is trying to process as a little girl as to what is going on that her father is strangling her mother. What does it mean when a woman walks in and she finds herself in a relationship where her husband is not faithful? And beyond the physical abuse, there is immense verbal and emotional abuse. When she turns to her parents to get some assistance, the response that she is met with is that we told you, you shouldn't have been with him.

Or the other woman who comes in the same exact situation and her response that she is met with from her family is one that says that you have to stay in it because what will people think? What will the community say?

The woman after woman after woman who has come to talk about teachers of Qur'an who have put their hands on them in ways that no woman should ever be touched by a person. Let alone somebody who claims to be a representative of this faith. Each and every one when they sit, their insides are trying to understand how it is that their reality is like this.

They say, can you ask the people in the community to make du'a for us?

Understanding Power and Privilege

How we land in realities like this necessitates us understanding just where power and privilege come into play. If somebody says to you the word race, you likely think about black people, Hispanic people, Latino people.

If somebody says to you sexual orientation, you likely think about people who identify as LGBTQ. If somebody says to you gender, you're likely thinking about just women. The way society functions quite often is that we get socialized in a way where those who are of the majority and the privileged they are not brought into conversations that they become the catalyst of creating.

And so the same way when we think about race and most of us are thinking about minorities but we're hardly thinking about people who are white. When we think about sexual orientation, we think about those who come from the LGBTQ community but we are not understanding that heterosexuality is also a form of sexual orientation. When we think about gender and gender based issues, we think about it in the frame of how everything has to do with women but men play no role in it.

And so in understanding that that becomes a pivotal factor, that religion tends to be a boys club and we have to understand how we especially as men take up a lot of space but we don't utilize our voices in breaking down some of these atrocities that exist within the community more broadly. And to see that when we talk about it as an issue that impacts women, it doesn't mean that it's a women's issue meaning that men are somehow excluded from it. But the understanding has to be first and foremost that this is a disease, an ailment that is pervasive within cultures and societies across the board but that's not a point of deflection as Muslims we're supposed to do it differently.

The hearts that we have within us are supposed to be what cast vision upon this world. And the notion that says that somehow we are in a space that even if we are just bystanders, we play no role we play actually the most important role.

The Story of Qayla bint Makrama

The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) has a companion by the name of Qayla bint Makrama.

Qayla bint Makrama, her story is narrated to us in a text called the Tabakat of Ibn Sa'd. She narrates numerous Hadith in various collections and Qayla finds herself in a situation where her husband passes away and his brother wants to force her and her daughters into marriage against their will. Qayla takes her youngest daughter and seeks to go get the company, the presence of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) Along the way, her brother-in-law catches up to her, strikes her to the ground and takes the youngest girl away with him.

Qayla in a daze goes into the masjid around the time of Fajr and the narrations say that she ends up in the rows where the men are standing. The companions just simply direct her back to where the women are standing. Nobody says you shouldn't be here in the first place, what are you doing? Making it seem as if she is the worst of the worst.

And at the conclusion of the prayer, she is given now the company of the Prophet of God. And she tells him what her situation is. And he says to bring a parchment to write down direct fatwa from his mouth, man.

Neither Qayla nor her daughters should be forced to marry against their will. Every believing Muslim should help them in this cause. Muslims should do good deeds and not bad ones.

And where it still is for us, 1400 years later, every believing individual should help them in their cause.

Individual and Communal Obligation

The individual obligation is such that your prayer is your prayer, and your fast is your fast, what we call the Fajr Eid. But the communal obligation, what we call the Fajr Kifayah, necessitates that if all of us are in a space, as a community, where not one of us is able to perform a function that is necessary, then we all bear the burden of responsibility.

The quintessential example that is utilized in our text is one of the funeral prayer. If somebody passes away, they have a right to be prayed over. Their body is shrouded and washed.

And if even one of us knows how to do that, then all of us are absolved from the responsibility towards that person. But if none of us know how to take care of the deceased, then all of us bear the burden of the communal obligation not being met. The same is about institutions and services.

If there are people who are underserved and underprivileged, whose needs are not being met, then we as a community do not fulfill the communal obligation. And so inside, you've got to think, man, what it must be like for some of these people. And you have to dig deep and recognize, because the challenge that you are taking on is not an external battle, but we are every day in a battle over who will control our hearts.

And if it is not you who is in control and making those decisions, it can be really tough. The statistics are hard because we get lost in numbers. And you talk about one out of every four women being somebody who has been met with this kind of abuse in their lives.

You talk about the numbers of children who sit in their bedrooms as they hear their fathers pummel into their mothers, not even just with their hands, but with their words, with their emotions, their anger. And you think, what does it do to the psyche of that young child? You can get lost in the statistics and the numbers, and you can otherize it in a way that is deflecting. You can understand that these are people who have names and they have narratives.

Stories of Survivors

And it's time for our community to build what we can't expect anybody else to build for us. We have to build it ourselves. A young woman came to see me.

Of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) the many things that were said about him, his wife says, that the messenger of God never struck a woman or a servant or a child ever.

And I say this not to conclude, but hopefully that it's a beginning. First and foremost, each one of us in this space has to do what is necessary to ensure that we as a community raise the funds to acquire and open that shelter as the first in a series of services that we will build to meet the needs of that beneficiary class.

But I say it to also give insight to all of us that's here, if any part of you believes that it is okay to abuse somebody else, you need to reassess what it is that you think. Because whether or not you have capacity to honor the privilege and power you have been afforded over somebody else in this world, all of us are going to one day stand in front of the most powerful entity, our Creator. And when that book is opened and those words are put in front of us, there is not one part of our body, literally, the limbs that we have been given, the Qur'an says, will testify and say everything.

You definitely don't want to be the person who had the eyes that witnessed atrocity and walking. Because the eyes are going to say, Ya Rabb, I showed them the injustice and they just stood still. But beyond that, do you want the hands that are going to speak about the ways that you used them to not hold people up, but to literally break them down? The tongues that you were given as a blessing to speak goodness in this world, the amount of hearts that they broke down because you couldn't keep your anger in check.

Our Responsibility

If you believe that somehow the onus is on the beneficiary to do this for themselves, it's not, man. And I say it to you with real love, break out of the shackles of the dunya, and live this religion not just in the frame that you turn it into a weapon to assess somebody else's practice, but let it be the means and mechanism that causes you to be a representative of the divine so that when people interact with you, not only do they know that God exists, but they know that that God is a God of mercy, a God of love, a God of compassion, a God of justice.

The 15 years that I've been blessed to serve this community, not a week has gone by where at least one woman, if not upwards of dozens, some with their children in tow, have reached out saying that they are trying to deal with men who have no idea what it means to be a man.

It's not okay. It's not. And it's not okay that we don't do what we need to do.

Our community in the next year, 2020, by the end of the summer, will convene to re-strategize around what our visions for the next 10 years are so that we will leverage the talent, the skills, the credentials, the resources to go

out and build the health clinics, the advocacy groups, the food pantries, the soup kitchens, to do everything and anything that we can to ensure that whether this world loves us or this world pushes us down, we don't live for their sake. We do right because it's the right thing to do.

And today, I'm going to ask you to do everything you can to ensure that we raise what we need to to make that shelter a reality.

If I could put in front of you every eye that I've looked into women and men who are old enough to be our grandmothers, who they've only gotten to a place because now their children, who are in their late teens and twenties, drive them from seven hours away and say that you need to help us make sure that our mother gets away from that demon of a man.

Call to Action for Abusers and Survivors

If you are hurting someone in your life, don't let this month of Ramadan go without fixing it. And fixing it isn't that you rely solely on yourself.

Go and get the professional help needed to address whatever it is that exists within you that gets you to a place where you think that that's okay to do, let alone doing it. You seek out a therapist. You seek out a professional.

If you don't know where to go or what to do, come to me. I will put you in touch with people. If you are in a place where you deal with that as reality, we are trying to build what we can.

And where we have shortcomings and we have not recognized your experience, please do come. We will put you in touch with other places and agencies so that you don't have to live in that type of place. The platitudes that we buy into that justify these kinds of things are not what our deen is about.

As a husband, you are not entitled to do those kinds of things to your wife. As a parent, you are definitely not entitled to do those kinds of things to your children. The utilization of text as a weapon to validate and justify your own idiocy and arrogance has to stop.

If you're not doing it, but you know it's being done, and you're not doing anything to stop it, you're just as part of the problem as anything else. Turn to Allah and ask him, Ya Fattah, open the doors that are closed in my heart to really see what it is that I can be for the sake of those who are in need. Aware in how we come together collectively as a community to build and build and build and build with every breath that we have been afforded, both in the immediate, and we will go into every tomorrow that we see in this world continuously until it is gone.

We just got to keep doing it, man. Because if we're not doing it, why would we expect anybody else to?

A Story of Generosity

As we have experienced 20 days of our hearts being in Ramadan, just think about it and reflect it through the prism of that heart and allow for motivation, positivity, and the recognition that we can make a difference. One woman that came to see us who needed that kind of assistance, and we raised for her, just in an hour, about $6,500 to get her on her way.

In comparison to when we have put out crowdfunding pages, in 12 hours, 14 hours, mashallah, we put it up and we generate $40,000, $50,000. That's on you. That's your heart.

It shows you, you have love. And I'm so proud of each one of you. We came and we gave her that funding.

Months later, she came back. And she said, I want to give you something in return that you can use to help somebody else because you helped me. And I said to her, sister, knowing where she was coming from, but you don't have to do that.

You can just hold on to it. It's okay. And she said, no, I need to do this.

And she gave me two envelopes that I thought might have had $100, $200 in them. When she left and I went through it, I counted more than $10,000 that she gave to us to give to someone in need because of how we helped her in her moment of need. And sometimes it's just about being that missing piece.

You don't help someone because they're helpless. When Allah elevates you to the maqam that because of you, He is using you and through you to feed His creation, shelter His creation, clothe His creation, give hope to His creation, love His creation, you don't want the opportunity to pass you by. And that woman is one of many who I can tell you that the little bit that we can do can get them to places that they couldn't think they could get to, let alone we might be able to.

So today, make sure you don't leave without doing your part. In these last nights of Ramadan, open your heart to make dua for all those that the world has forgotten, both in our community as well as communities across the world, because we are supposed to do it different. We're Muslim.

Announcements and Fundraising Goal

There's a few announcements before we make dua. There's a separate non-profit that's been set up by members of our community who are part of the leadership on this project. Our goal is to raise $700,000 to acquire and renovate what will be an emergency shelter for abused women and children in our community.

May Allah make things easy for all people who are facing that kind of illness. We've already, alhamdulillah, in the last two days, launched a crowdfunding for it. And in two days, we've raised about $66,000 online, mashallah.

Closing Dua

"Indeed, Allah confers blessing upon the Prophet, and His angels [ask Him to do so]. O you who have believed, ask [Allah to confer] blessing upon him and ask [Allah to grant him] peace."

"O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad in the first ones and in the last ones."

"O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions, and bless and grant peace, O Most Merciful."

"O Allah, You are forgiving and generous, You love forgiveness, so forgive us."

"O Turner of the hearts, make our hearts firm upon Your religion."

We begin this supplication in your name, ya Allah, and beseech you to send your choicest salutations upon your most beloved, sallallahu ta'ala alayhi wa sallam. We ask that you shower your infinite mercy upon this gathering, granting each and every one who is present herein and our loved ones only the best in this world and the best in the next.

We ask, ya Allah, that if all of us are meant to be together only at this time, at this place, whether we are young or old, male or female, regardless of our race, our ethnicity, our social class, our country of origin, our cultural heritage, whether we are Muslim or come from a different walk of life, ya Rabbi, if our individual hearts are meant to be in the presence of all other hearts that are gathered here only at this time, at this place, then gather us all together again in the best of places in the world beyond this one.

Increase this, ya Allah, in all that is good. Increase us in courage, compassion, and confidence. Protect us from any anxiety, anguish, or affliction. Remove from our hearts any feelings of bitterness, jealousy, animosity, or envy towards any of your creation. Grant us hearts that are filled with understanding and hope, hearts that are filled with compassion and mercy, hearts that are filled and drawn towards real love and beauty, hearts that are drawn towards your remembrance, for indeed in your remembrance do hearts find rest.

We ask, ya Allah, that you accept from us all of our actions and deeds in this blessed month of Ramadan, and that you make the remaining days and nights of this beautiful month a means of benefit and growth for us. Give us the strength, ya Allah, to turn to you in these blessed nights. Give us the fortitude, ya Allah, to take on the fasts of these long summer days.

Reward, ya Rabb, each one of your servants who has a desire and will to fast, but they do not have the means and capacity to do so. Those who are pregnant and nursing, those who are elderly, those who have physical illness, mental illness, emotional illness, let them know, ya Allah, that their intention is enough for you to shower upon them your ajr. And make this from amongst those who understand their circumstances and support them in the best of ways possible.

We ask, ya Allah, that you grant us success and tawfiq in our endeavor to build a shelter for our sisters and children who are dealing with abuse in their lives. We ask, ya Allah, that you give some semblance of mercy, understanding, and compassion to all those who oppress and abuse, that they might stop their abusiveness and replace it with real gentleness and kindness. Make us, ya Allah, who utilize our strength and our voices to speak out and act against any form of oppression or abuse that we know is taking place.

Make us those, ya Allah, who live our faith with an understanding of real values and real ethics. Let our motivation always be to seek your pleasure, ya Rabb, so that we do the best that we can. Make us, ya Allah, those who bring benefit to your creation.

Through us, ya Allah, clothe your creation. Through us, ya Allah, give shelter to your creation. Through us, ya Allah, feed your creation.

Through us, ya Allah, give strength to your creation. Through us, ya Allah, give hope to your creation. Through us, ya Allah, be generous to your creation.

Through us, ya Allah, be merciful to your creation. Through us, ya Allah, love your creation. Help us to always find within ourselves a strong sense of self-love.

That we recognize the light that we have when we go out and share that with others. That we express gratitude and real appreciation, words of love for all those who are beloved to us and to never leave it to assumption. And to be those who feel loved and never unloved, so that we get the courage and boldness to go out and be the catalyst of real change in this world.

Accept from us every dua that we have made in this blessed month. Accept from us our standing, our bowing, our kneeling, our prostrating. Accept every act of charity and volunteerism.

Accept every time we extended a hand to a person who looked as if they were alone and intimidated and frightened and purely to let them feel as if they belonged. We went and sat with them to let them know that they too have a place with us. Accept every smile and every moment of upliftment.

Accept, Ya Allah, everything that we have attempted to do and continue to open the doors of opportunity for us to engage in acts of goodness and benefit. And grant us the tawfiq to see those acts and opportunities and to not let any of them pass us by. We ask, Ya Allah, that you make us from amongst those who leave this blessed month in a state that is better than which we met it.

And to carry the lessons that we learn of ourselves throughout our days in this world, meeting you on only the best of actions and not letting any one of us leaving other than the state that is most pleasing to you. Protect us always from hearts that are not humble, tongues that are not wise, and eyes that have forgotten how to cry.

Forgive us for our shortcomings and guide and bless us all.

"Our Lord, accept [this] from us. Indeed, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing."

"And turn to us in forgiveness. Indeed, You are the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful."

"And may Allah's peace and blessings be upon the best of His creation, Muhammad and his family and all his companions. By Your mercy, O Most Merciful."

Our Lord, accept from us. You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. Repent to us, O our Lord. You are the All-Returner, the All-Merciful. And may Allah's peace and blessings be upon the best of His creation, Muhammad and his family and all his companions. By Your mercy, O Most Merciful.

End of Khutbah