Thoughts on DallasShooting and BlackLivesMatter

Thoughts on #DallasShooting and #BlackLivesMatter

A Friday Khutbah by Sheikh Omar Suleiman

Adhan

Main Khutbah

Living in Our Bubbles

Living in our bubbles. We are far too comfortable living in our privileged situations with our lifestyles. Living in our, mashallah, nice homes. In our nice community here in Valley Ranch and in many places around the world. The Muslim community has, you know, grown in the sense of a suburban presence. Grown in the outskirts of cities.

A very affluent community in many situations. While still some of the masajid that are doing the hard work inner city are left absolutely neglected. Such as our own Masjidul Islam. And Imam Khalid and the wonderful work that he does feeding the poor every single week from his masjid. And all the work that they do. But we are very comfortable in our bubble.

We are very comfortable with our lifestyles. We are very comfortable with this Islam that doesn't require any level of sacrifice on our parts. We are very comfortable with an Islam that tells us just pray and be a good person. And be nice and celebrate Eid. And do as many umrahs as you can. And do as many hajjs as you can. And your Islam is good. We are very comfortable in our narcissism. We are very comfortable in neglecting tragedy around the world.

Reality Can't Be Escaped

And subhanallah, what we are seeing in these last few months. And in these last few weeks in particular. Is that even if you want to close your eyes now and try to escape it, you can't escape it. It will be right in front of you. It could be you at any moment running for your life. At an airport, in a city, center city in Dallas. A place like Dallas, Texas in an airport. And even when you go for your umrah to the most peaceful city in the world. In Al-Madina Al-Munawwara. It could come right to you. It could show up right in front of you. And next thing you know, you will be running for your life.

And subhanallah, wallahi, the only thing. And one of our brothers made the comment yesterday. He said, what were you thinking about when you were running from the shooting. When you hear the bullets and you're running. And that was my first time experiencing that. And I immediately thought of our brother Arsalan Tajammul in Houston. May Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى give him a full recovery. Who alhamdulillah is in recovery right now. And as he was shot and stabbed, as he was going to Salatul Fajr. The only thing that he did was he kept on reciting (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ). Even as he lay covered in his blood. Before he was put in, you know, sedated. And no longer able to recognize his surroundings. All he was saying was (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ). And subhanallah, it can strike you at any moment.

Our Responsibility

But I don't want to focus on that part. I want to focus on our climate. And I want to focus on the situation that we live in. And the country that we live in. And the world that we live in. And what your responsibility is. It's not my responsibility. It's not the responsibility of a few national Muslim activists. It's not the responsibility of Shaykh Yassir or some other mashayikh. It's your responsibility. It's my responsibility. It's each and every single person's lot to actually care about things that are going on around them. Even if they don't directly seem to affect them.

Because as the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ says or as Abu Bakr as-Siddiq رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ narrated that the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ said:

(Sunan Abi Dawood)

That when people see evil and they don't do anything about it, then it's only a matter of time before they're all consumed by it.

The Reality of Systemic Racism

For how long do you keep your heads buried in the sands? For how long do you pretend like there isn't institutionalized racism in this country? That there isn't a serious issue in this country? For how long do you ignore 400 years or 500 years of the history of the nation that you live in? For how long do you ignore people that are just like you? People that are just like you, that just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, dealing with the wrong people, and end up having their lives taken.

And for every Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, there are multiple, hundreds, if not thousands of people who didn't have the privilege of a cell phone camera shedding light on what they went through. And you know what? If you were to be in that situation, you would be vilified after your death as well. Don't think that they would spare you and say, mashallah, he was a nice Muslim doctor living in Valley Ranch. They would connect you to ISIS in 30 seconds. They'd find a way. They'd find a way to make your past look bad enough to make your unjust murder justifiable. That's how it works. And that's how it's constantly worked. And for too long, we continue to bury our heads in the sand, and we're waiting and bracing for the Muslim community's turn.

We're waiting for our masajid to be attacked regularly, because black churches have been burnt down quite regularly. We're waiting for the environment that we're starting to see signs of now. And subhanallah, still, many of us choose to ignore it.

Violence is Not the Solution

At the same time, completely reaffirming that violence is not a solution to violence. الْمُنْكَرُ لَا يُغَيَّرٌ بِمُنْكَرِ This is a principle in our religion.

Repel evil with that which is better.

Evil cannot change evil. Allah does not call you to منکر to change منکر . Allah calls you to إحسان Allah calls you to excellence. Allah calls you to do good. Allah calls you to respond with a better way, to provide an alternative. Allah does not tell people that they should not be angry about injustice. Allah just tells them to be just in dealing with that injustice. Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى does not tell you that you should be فاقدين الغيظ people of no anger. Allah tells you, you should be كاظمين الغيظ people that swallow their anger and that are composed, and that know how to channel their anger properly.

So that legitimate causes don't end up being delegitimized by illegitimate tactics. It's the same thing, the same game that we see played in Palestine all the time. Where what those people have had to face for the last 60 years can be delegitimized by one action of frustration. The entire cause suffers and everyone pays a price. More blood is shed, more people are killed. Because there wasn't a solution of hope that was provided.

The Need for Hope and Action

If you keep on pacifying people and telling people to be quiet and not do anything about their situation, or that this is an acceptable way for them to live in, unfortunately many times you have unjustified manifestations of anger. So we should feel pain, we should feel grief, but what do we do about it?

The same thing with Syria. When this fanatical group, the كلاب أهل النار the dogs of hellfire in Daesh, the khawarij of our era, manipulate at times the genuine frustrations of people, that people have with a hopeless situation in Syria and Iraq and in other parts of the Muslim world. It's the exact same scenario playing out over and over and over again. So where is the hope? And at what point do we say, enough is enough, without waiting for things to get completely out of hands?

And subhanAllah, if someone thought for a moment, because sadly, and I was at that protest last night, and 99% of it was peaceful, and the anger was justified. But sadly, some people thought that taking the lives of police officers, even good officers, people that were there ironically to protect people as they shouted their frustrations with the system, with a very real problem. And those people had to lose their lives. How sad is that? How sad is it that some people thought that that was a proper manifestation of anger? That because we are genuinely upset and outraged over the loss of innocent life, over innocent black people being murdered in this country over and over and over again. And everybody else closing their eyes and pretending like it doesn't exist.

That they're not human. Because every single time, you hear their past and they vilify the victim, and you say, oh man, maybe he was wrong. Maybe that person had a right to die. How many times do we ignore that? And subhanAllah, all of us suffer as a result.

Honoring Good Police Officers

And I want to just right now make this clarification and say this from now. We have wonderful police officers that are standing outside this masjid. We have officer McBride who every single time I pull up into this parking lot, gives me a huge smile, makes some sort of joke about my parking spot being taken, most of the time. Tells me something beautiful. Smiles at the community as they come out. Wonderful police officers that stand out there every single day. And I want each and every single one of you to thank them on your way out. Seriously, stop by and thank them.

If you haven't already done that. I hope you already have a few times. But seriously, today, they need that reassurance that we don't hold them accountable. We don't hold everyone who dons a police uniform accountable. We know what it's like as a Muslim community to be generalized and stereotyped because of the actions of a few idiots. We know what that's like. It happens to us every day. We're experts at that. We're experts at being victimized because of people that claim to be of us. Good cops are victims of bad cops as well. So go out there and thank them. And tell them that you appreciate them.

And you know, subhanAllah, a side that you won't see of the demonstration yesterday, is that some people were taking pictures with the cops and thanking them for being out there. It's a part of what makes this beautiful. That we can disagree and we can show our pain and still be protected. And that's a very Islamic concept, by the way. That's not something that you realize in most Muslim countries,

unfortunately. But that's a very Islamic concept. And that's something to thank them for and to applaud them for.

We Are All Victims

But dear brothers and sisters, we cannot forget. And I don't even wanna use the word, but, because they are all the victims. The cops and all of these people that have been killed. In the case of Black Lives Matter, hundreds of years. Hundreds of years. Different manifestations of racism and slavery for hundreds of years in this country. They are all the victims of stupidity, of chaos, of senselessness, of hatred, of fear, of xenophobia. All of these forms of bigotry eventually result in violence and in some cases, unfortunately, violence that actually claims the lives of people.

Learning from History: Trayvon Martin

And subhanAllah, I just wanna ask the Muslim community, how long will you bury your heads in the sand? How long will you not tell your children about a person like Trayvon Martin? I remember when that case took place. When a young boy who went out to buy candy. You know, we have a gas station around the corner. As much as we tell our kids not to go there during Ramadan, how many of our kids went out there to buy candy and come back to the masjid? When a young boy goes out to buy candy and is murdered and then his murderer is let go and his murderer is let loose and guess what George Zimmerman is now today? He's an Islamophobe too. Not only does he hate black people, not only does he hate everybody, he's also spewing Islamophobia. And there were Muslims that defended that action.

Because they bought into the pictures of Trayvon Martin as a kid doing what a lot of your kids do. You just don't see the pictures. And they allowed you to believe that a 17-year-old kid who went to buy Skittles deserved to die. And his murderer was justified. And you bought that. Let's not pretend that that conversation didn't exist in our privileged suburban Muslim community. You bought that. A lot of you did. A lot of people said that that was okay. A lot of people said, well, we didn't see what really happened. A lot of people made excuses. And guess what? Same people.

The Pattern of White Supremacy

Same people. These white supremacist groups that we see today, do you think that they just came out? Do you think that they just arose because of ISIS and because of Muslims? Don't you know how long they've been here? This is a resurgence over and over and over again. So what do you do? You fight the cancer. You call it out. You stop living in your bubble. You stop waiting for it to show up on your front door. You stop waiting for it to show up at your masjid. You teach your kids about that. You have that conversation with your kids.

Your kids, who in many situations, are living in such a case of privilege that what gets them down at night is that they didn't get their latest PlayStation game or that their favorite sports team lost. That's the

greatest tragedy they've ever faced in their lives in some of these situations. And then you wonder why they're narcissists and don't care about the world and don't care about their religion. You create a monster whenever you shelter them. You teach them. You show them that they need to be protesting this too. That they need to be saying something about this too. That a lot of those kids that died were just like them because it keeps on happening. And we are the victims as a Muslim community over and over and over again of dehumanization.

Understanding Dehumanization

It stinks, doesn't it? It stinks when people don't care when 200 or 300 of your ummah are slaughtered in the marketplace in Baghdad. It stinks. Doesn't it hurt? Doesn't it stink? That's not accidental. That's intentional. That's because you're less than human as Muslims now. Welcome to the world of black people. Welcome to their world. They've been dealing with that for a very, very, very long time. And a lot of us have stayed quiet about it.

If we don't raise our voices and if we don't get out of our bubble, then our bubble will be burst in ways that we don't want it to be burst. And we have to show people a better way.

Following the Prophet's Example

(Unknown Source)

The Prophet صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ did not turn away المظلومين. He did not turn away people who were oppressed. Even the non-Muslims. And he said صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ if I was to be called even after Islam to حلف الفضول to that alliance, to that allegiance that we all took when we put our hands on the Kaaba. And we said that we will not allow a single one of us of our society to be targeted unjustly. He said صلى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ if I was called to that in Islam, I would do it again.

Yes, the Prophet صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ would cooperate with non-Muslims. Yes, the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ would stand with not only Christians and Jews, but Pagans in Mecca. The Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ would stand with idol worshippers to ensure that no one is treated unjustly. That's our Islam. That's صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ our Prophet

Being Consistent

And if you have the bandwidth to condemn one murder and to condemn one act of violence, then you better not be silent on all the rest of them. We know how it feels with the Palestinian cause. When all we see are the moments on CNN and Fox News and whatever it is of one Israeli civilian that was unjustly killed. We condemn that. We don't allow or tolerate the loss of innocent life. It's counterproductive and it's un-Islamic. We hate how that feels when 60 Palestinians are ignored. Let's not do that to other people. Let's not do that to other people. Our Prophet صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ did not teach us that.

Du'a and Conclusion

So we ask Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) to open our hearts, to make us a people that stand for justice, to make us a people that stand for peace, to guide us to that which is best for us. To not allow us to delude ourselves into going astray in ways that we don't recognize. We ask Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَی) to forgive us. We ask Allah to protect our community and our general community. Not just our Muslim community, but our community as a whole. We ask Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) to protect us from الظالمين to protect us from the oppressors and the transgressors in whatever manifestation they are. We ask Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) to have mercy on the oppressed.

As he صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ taught us that دعوة المظلوم the dua of a transgressed person, of an oppressed person. There is no hijab between that person's dua and Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) even if they are non-Muslims. We ask Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) to make us people that stand for the rights of those whom He hears.

If Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) hears those people, then we should hear them as well. Then we should be there for them as well.

The Civil Rights Movement Example

Dear brothers and sisters, before I sit down and I end this khutbah, and it's a short khutbah, I didn't have anything prepared today. I really did not have anything prepared today. But before I sit down, to insist on human dignity is part of our deen. And subhanAllah, the civil rights movement did not start off with a shooting. It didn't start off with violence. It started off, or one of the major starting points of it, or sparks of it, was Rosa Parks sitting on a bus and insisting that she did not have to get up from her seat. And you know who led the civil rights movement? You know who led the Montgomery bus boycott? A 26-year- old. Think about that. Martin Luther King Jr. was a 26-year-old leading the greatest movement in the history of this country. How many of our 25-year-olds or 26-year-olds care anything about the society around them? Think about that.

And think about what our deen calls us to. May Allah protect us, and may Allah forgive us, and may Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) make us people who are people of people of truth, and who stand for truth. اللهم آمین

I say this, and may Allah forgive me and you and the women of the Muslims. So forgive, indeed He is the Forgiving, the Merciful. (الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ، وَلَا عُدْوَانَ إِلَّا عَلَى الظَّالِمِينَ، وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ).

(اللهمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلَّمْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَى عَبْدِكَ وَرَسُولِكَ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمْ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا)

Second Khutbah

Dear brothers and sisters, Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) calls us to remember our generations that came before and to learn from the ummahs that came before us, the nations that came before us. And in this country, we have a serious generational problem. We have a serious generational problem. Malcolm X,

rahimahullah, was martyred in his 30s. Martin Luther King Jr. died in his 30s. People cared about people around them in this country. And we do not have room to allow narcissism to destroy us spiritually and to destroy us as a community. So I want you to think.

The Message of Ramadan

The message is Ramadan taught us empathy. Think. Don't just think about people that are hungry around the world as you fast. Think about people who have their lives unjustly taken from them. You should also have empathy for them. If Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) wants you to have empathy with hungry people, then what about people that are shot and killed for no reason? What about them? Think. Have empathy. Grow. Grow your emotional bandwidth. Make yourself a little uncomfortable.

Commitment to Action

And wallahi, wallahi, wallahi. And this is not... I'm not saying this to portray some sort of courage or bravery here. The next Black Lives Matter protest, I'll be there inshallah. And I hope our community shows up again. I hope that this didn't cast fear into anyone's heart and to say that, hey, we shouldn't participate anymore. I'm worried about what's gonna happen. We still have to be there. We still have to go. Not just for Palestine. We should go to the Palestinian ones too. Not just for Syria. We should go to those as well. But for those who are unjustly targeted every single day in this country. Every 28 hours, a black man is killed by the police. And again, it's a small fraction of that police force. Our anger is not towards the police. It's towards police brutality.

Our anger is towards a system that allows for villains and evil people to exist within it and go covered and protected, which harms their colleagues and harms everyone else in this society. So may Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) protect us and have mercy upon us. And may Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) bring peace and calm to our city. It's a traumatic time for our city. May Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) bestow سكينة upon our city. May Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) protect us and protect our communities around the world.

Closing Du'a

"Indeed, Allah enjoins justice, and kindness, and giving to relatives; and forbids indecency, and wickedness, and aggression. He admonishes you, that you may take heed. And remember Allah; He will remember you. And be grateful to Him for His favors; He will increase you. And the remembrance of Allah is greater. And Allah knows what you do."

"Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."

May Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) forgive us when we fall silent at times when we should speak and when we speak when we should be silent.