Jumah Khutba Do not be fear, nor grieve. A message to the Muslim community

Do Not Be Fear, Nor Grieve

A Message to the Muslim Community

By Shaykh Omar Suleiman

Opening

That there is only one God worthy of worship and unconditional obedience. And that Muhammad is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him.

The prophets and messengers that came before him. His family and companions that served alongside of him. And those that follow in their blessed example until the day of judgment.

And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

The Divine Promise: Do Not Fear or Grieve

Do not grieve or feel fear. When you are amongst those who are exalted so long as you retain your belief.

It's very hard for us to think about what happened in New Zealand. Not because tragedies of that proportion don't happen in different parts of the world.

Not because it's the first masjid bombing. Not because it's the first time a place of worship was attacked in a western supposedly peaceful country. But because of how much of ourselves we could see in the people that were sitting there before their lives were taken from them.

All of them were sitting in the masjid. And the last thing that they had going through their minds was that someone was going to come in and shoot them dead on a Facebook live for the whole world to see. With the intention of not just terrorizing them.

But terrorizing everyone that would be exposed to that terror. So that they too would fall back on their heels. They too would feel the cruelty and ultimately be scared into compliance.

The Goal of Terror: Forcing Compliance

Compliance with what? Compliance with either not living in that land. Because they don't understand that the land never belonged to them in the first place. It belongs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the entirety of this land is a masjid, is a place of worship.

Or that you are only allowed to exist in this place if you forsake everything about you that makes you different. If you forsake your iman, if you forsake your faith, if you forsake your Muslim identity. And I want us to walk through this inshallah ta'ala as much as we can and try to process it.

Historical Parallels: The Pattern of Persecution

Do you kill a person because that person says that my lord is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? That is quoted in the time of Firaun. The way that Pharaoh dealt with Musa alayhi salam, with the prophet Moses, with Bani Israel. That they would be killed only because they say that their lord is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

But they were victorious, those amongst them who retained their belief. That cruelty that we see in Surat al-Buruj, where a group of people were thrown into a ditch and killed, massacred, because they said that their lord was Allah. And the most powerful image that came out of that massacre, was that man whose name we don't know, but who was attending Jum'ah, not anticipating getting shot, but called to the oneness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And still finding the strength and maintaining that collectedness, to hold his finger up in the air even as he was on the stretcher, bearing witness to the oneness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I'm not going to talk to the outside of the Muslim community right now. I want us to have an internal discussion about what it means to retain iman, to retain faith in the face of all of this craziness.

The Prophet's Example of Endurance

So that's the first thing, that the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam endured that type of punishment and that type of beating for no reason except, that he refused to relinquish what was sacred to him. And that the goal of the torture of believers, of the persecution of believers, is to remove belief from the public domain. And to cause us to be too scared to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our places of worship and in the public domain, and still invoke those things that are so sacred to us.

Natural Emotions: Grief and Anger

The next thing is sadness. If I watched those images and felt grief, if I'm feeling traumatized right now by the images, if I'm feeling sad even though I know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not let those people's lives go to waste. If I'm feeling sad at that massacre, does that mean that my faith is weak? No.

Because when the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam cried over the loss of his child, that was not a sign of weakness of faith, that was a sign of mercy in his heart. And so if you feel enraged and sad, that that group of people were mowed down in a masjid sitting just like you, never thinking that they would not be able to leave that masjid and go on with the rest of their lives, if that enrages you and gives you grief, that's not a bad thing, it's okay. You should feel a sense of grief and you should feel a sense of rage, that's okay.

It's how you understand that anger and how you understand that grief that will make it acceptable or unacceptable.

Our Diverse Experiences Unite Us

Which I want to bring to a very human part of us. I want us to think about ourselves right now. Every single one of us sitting in this masjid right now has a different collection of life experiences and have different thoughts that are going through our minds right now. Dare I say it, sometimes even different motivations.

Some of us escaped death narrowly at some point in our lives. Some of us saw mass shootings. Some of us came from countries where a masjid being blown up or an airstrike taking place and a whole bunch of people being reduced to pieces is not uncommon. Some of us have overcome some sort of a terminal illness.

Some of us have overcome ideas of suicide. Some of us have overcome some very difficult moments in our lives, but we still bring ourselves and collect ourselves to come back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and answer the call of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala every week despite all of that. And when we sit in these masjids, in these houses of Allah, we have different thoughts that go through our minds.

Pray as if it's Your Last Prayer

Some of us become occupied with what comes after the masjid. But what happened in New Zealand gives a whole other dimension to (صَلُّوا صَلاةَ الْمُوَدِّعِ - sallu salata al-muwaddi) pray as if it is your last prayer.

(Tirmidhi hadith 315)

To treat it as if it's a moment that you flee to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this world and it might be the last time that you get to flee back to your creator.

But those experiences that we had that brought us to this moment, though they're unknown to everyone around us or most people around us, they're not insignificant to the moment.

Lessons from Post-9/11

And I want to walk all of us back to post 9-11 for a moment. When Muslims were attacked on 9-11, and I did not say that wrong. When Muslims were attacked on 9-11, because I walked down around that memorial, just a few weeks ago actually in New York, the 9-11 memorial, and I saw names like Muhammad and Tariq and Sosa and Ahmed and Fatima on that memorial. When Muslims were murdered on 9-11, and we had to bear the collective guilt of that as a Muslim community, there were some masajid that wanted to keep their doors closed. There were some that wanted to ride it out, because it was too scary to go to the masjid, because we were bearing the crime that was actually committed against our brothers and sisters in New York on September 11th.

And I was trying to get in touch with a person who I considered an uncle of mine in Louisiana. There was a brother by the name of Joseph Guillory, Uncle Joe, in the masjid, that came to the masjid, he had his legal firearm, and said, these doors are not going to close, I will protect you all. The very next day after 9- 11, refused to allow a masjid to be shut down.

And some people thought he was crazy. Some people thought that was insane. How can you sit in front of a masjid and assign yourself security detail? Now if you knew his life story, you would know, that what gave him the courage to do that was before he said, (أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ - ashhadu an la ilaha illa-llah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasulullah) He was a black man in Louisiana.

And he was a student at McNeese University, who witnessed the worst days, or at least we thought the worst days of racial oppression, some of the worst days of racial oppression here in the United States. And he remembered having to break into libraries, that were forbidden for black students, so that he could get access to proper textbooks. And he remembered being dragged by the Ku Klux Klan, as a kid, covered in gasoline, about to be set on fire, but he escaped it.

And later on became Muslim. And he referenced that experience, and why he was not going to back down now, not at this moment.

The Gaza Connection

I was reading about a brother that was in the masjid in New Zealand, who left Gaza this last year. Imagine how many airstrikes he's already seen, and what you won't see in the news right now, is that Gaza was getting bombed yet again last night. And the experiences of Palestinian oppression, that he has seen his whole life, I guarantee you, that that brother is not going to allow, the coward that shocked him last night, or yesterday, or today for our time in New Zealand, Yom Al-Jumaa, to stop him from going to the first Jumaa, that he will be able to attend when he's healthy enough to do so. Because he's already seen that, and he already made that determination that it's worth it.

The Unwavering Commitment

That these people that wish for us to cower, that wish for us to disappear, that wish for our masjids to stop being built, that wish for our mosques to stop being full, that wish for us to feel like misfits in society, that wish for us to feel too much apprehension, to start to do anything productive in a country, because the only thing we're thinking about all the time, is when is the lunatic going to visit us? When is it going to be our turn, where we face our moments in the rotation of hate?

I want you to think about that for a moment. What makes those people different? What did that man, who was pointing his finger up in the air, still saying, (لا إله إلا الله - la ilaha illa-llah) barely breathing, how much had he already been tested with (لا إله إلا الله - la ilaha illa-llah) throughout his life? How many times did he already have to make a choice in life, whether he was going to choose his principles over his convenience? Whether he was going to insist on his identity, even if others tried to scare him out of it? How many times did he already make that decision throughout his entire life, in spaces that are expected to be hostile? In spaces where we expect Islamophobia? In spaces where we expect someone to say something hurtful to us? He already made that determination, that decision.

Understanding Fear and Grief

that we don't feel fear and we don't feel grief, if we are indeed to be believers.

The scholars mentioned this verse and how often misinterpreted it is. Fear is natural. Grief is natural. What Allah is saying is do not let your fear or your grief cause you to flee from faith, cause you to flee from your Iman. Don't let the natural emotions of fear or grief overcome your identity of Iman. Because so long as you maintain that identity of Iman, you are in triumph no matter what happens to you.

The Reality Beyond What We See

When that devil went back to the masjid yesterday to shoot people that he had already killed, to make sure they were dead, and toyed with the bodies of those believers, their souls were already in a much different place. Because the Prophet said that a martyr sees their place in Jannah at the first strike

(Tirmidhi hadith 1663)

It was no different than when the Pharaoh, Fir'aun, tortured Asiyah, his wife. May Allah be pleased with her (عَلَيْهَا السَّلام - alayha as-salam) And send His peace upon her. That she was chained, tied up, tortured, and when he dropped that stone on her, that Allah took her soul before it even reached her body. If you witnessed it, you saw the gruesome cruelty of a man towards his wife.

But her soul saw none of that. As nasty as it looks, and if you haven't watched it, don't watch it. Don't share it. Don't circulate it. That's exactly what that devil wanted. He wanted to terrorize the Muslim community beyond just those people that he was shooting. He wanted to cause us all to be in that state of terror. He wanted us all to think twice about coming to Jum'ah today, about continuing to fill our masajid.

What we saw was what Allah has allowed us to see. The images that come out are images that only project one dimension of what we are able to see. But I want us to challenge ourselves with two things. The first thing is this.

Why New Zealand Hurt So Much

New Zealand is a very far place away from us. Why did it hurt us so much to hear of 50 people being shot dead in New Zealand, despite its distance, when there are places that are actually much closer to us from

Expanding Our Hearts and Perspective

You have a very narrow definition of Islamophobia. When you talk about the Muslim community, and restrict your grief to parts of the world that only resemble the part of the world that you live in, we all need to expand our hearts a little bit more, and to think deeper. Was it that these things were not happening anywhere? Or was it that they're starting to happen in places that resemble our own? That's not to say that you shouldn't be in grief.

That's not to say that we shouldn't be devastated. I am the first person that is guilty of what I'm telling you right now. That seeing those images coming out of a place like New Zealand, with brothers and sisters whose circumstances are similar to our circumstances, sitting in Juma'ah just like you're sitting in Juma'ah right now, stirred me, I'm talking about myself, because I don't want to project guilt on you, stirred me more than when I hear of much greater tragedies in places that I can't really relate to from a living experience.

That doesn't mean neglect it. That means expand your heart to include them, and to include more, and to think about the choice that a person has to make in Gaza at Juma'ah too. When on a Thursday night their skies were lit up with bombs, and they have to decide whether they're going to walk to Juma'ah in the midst of airstrikes.

Most of them have made the choice that they will not forsake their belief. They don't hate Islam more than we love it. They don't hate our belief more than we love it.

The Commitment of the Righteous

Umar used to seek refuge in Allah from that day, when evildoers were more committed to their evil, than righteous people are to their righteousness.

But those who love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala love Him more, than those who love anything else, even if it's a toxic or poisonous ideology like white supremacy, that seeks to remove them from that connection to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

I was thinking about the person that greeted the murderer with salam, when he walked into the masjid. The heroes that we will not know their names, who tried to stop him from killing more people. All of those people who had experiences, but at that strike that came to them, we pray that they were greeted with salam, with peace. And that whatever their experiences were up until that moment, and in that moment itself, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala received them in His eternal mercy.

Prayers for the Martyrs

And that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala entered them into Jannatul Firdous. And that Allah accepted them as Shuhada. We pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive them all, for anything that they had done in this life.

And not let them see a moment of hardship and misery in the hereafter. We pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that those children who were murdered, that did not have a chance to grow up, to assert themselves in their Iman. That they are joined with the father of Iman, Ibrahim alayhi salam, in Jannatul Firdous.

That they play in those gardens instead. We pray that every single person who came to that masjid, and put behind the dunya, put behind the world, left their work, left what they were doing. Because Allah was more important to them.

That Allah not disappoint them by giving them anything less than what they sought. We pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala replace their hardship with ease. That their families also are able to find the tranquility to long for that moment.

That they too get to leave the craziness that we've created in this world, to the Jannat that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has created and promised for the believers.

Our Commitment Moving Forward

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that He use us, not just to fight this hatred that's leveled towards our community, but to fight it when it's leveled against other communities as well. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never to allow us, to flee away from our religion because of those that hate it.

Never to allow us to flee away from our identity, because those who see it as threatening to theirs wish to eradicate it. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never to allow us, to become spiritually homeless and to abandon his homes. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that with every masjid that is attacked, that Allah azzawajal give us the blessing and the courage to build a hundred in its place.

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that as those who wish to remove us from our lands, and wish to terrorize our brothers and sisters in their lands, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala only preserve and grow that which they seek to eradicate. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give izzah, honor and dignity to Islam and to the Muslims. To give protection and mercy to the innocent, whoever they may be.

And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to put in us the courage, not just to continue with our own faith in the face of this difficulty, but to have enough courage to stand with others who face difficulties similar to ours. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect our brothers and sisters wherever they may be. Whether there are news clippings about them or not.

Whether the media deems them worthy of coverage or not. Whether our political discourse deems them worthy of being included or not. Whether our hearts neglect them or not, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to shower them all with His mercy.

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to bless this community, to bless this masjid, to bless our masajid. To allow our ideals to overcome. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to never make us amongst those that flee away from that which He has given to us for protection.

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that the Islam that He has given to us, that the iman that He has given to us as a source of protection, that we never abandon it seeking protection elsewhere. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us amongst those that do not flee from Him to anything else, but only flee to Him, even when we flee from His punishment.

There is no shelter, no escape from you except to you, Ya Allah. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to join us with our brothers and sisters in Jannatul Firdaus. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to join them with the Prophet in the highest of Jannatul Firdaus.

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to settle our hearts with iman. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to settle our hearts with iman. Not in a way that we ignore the problems of the world, but in a way that those problems drive us to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to solving those problems for other people as well.

Community Response and Unity

Dear brothers and sisters, usually as a Muslim community, we shy away from something that's been thrown upon us even when we are the greatest victims of it. Let's take these moments insha'Allah ta'ala to grieve. This is our time as a community.

This is our time as an ummah. This is our time to think of our brothers and sisters and not shy away from the fact that we will not allow those who seek to deny us a dignified existence with our Islam, with our iman, with a capital I on both. We will not allow those who seek to deprive us of a dignified existence with our Islam and with our iman to win.

And we will not allow those who have committed themselves to division to disunite us. Tonight insha'Allah ta'ala there will be people coming from around the city of Dallas to the Islamic Association of North Texas and Richardson Masjid to show support. We should be grateful for that and we should commit ourselves to being supportive of others as well.

Closing