Speaking a Word of Truth to a Tyrant

of power and they did attain victory and they did attain Jannah they did attain paradise and they found that reward with Allah which is the only thing that matters when you're over there may Allah grant that to all of us.

Lessons from Al-Husayn's Era

Same thing when you look in the story of Al-Husayn and the fitan the tribulations that broke out at that time confusing time where you have armies that are fighting against each other and they're both saying (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - la ilaha illallah) you have the Khawarij that are killing both of them because they don't believe that their (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - la ilaha illallah) is valid on either side murdering companions murdering the women, the children, the elderly doing things that were so against the spirit and the law of this religion all in the name of (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - la ilaha illallah) just a few years removed from the prophet (peace be upon him) what a time to live in.

The Different Approaches of the Companions

And there's this narrative that some people will float they'll say well you know Al-Husayn and Abdullah ibn Zubayr they were the revolutionaries but most of the sahaba said let's not cause fitna most of the companions were quiet most of the sahaba were quiet because they didn't want to upset the system hey you know what the adhan is being called alhamdulillah we're praying it's ok if there's every single thing elements from the nations that were destroyed before present in our nation right now being forgiven and overlooked because we don't want to cause fitna so we can't say anything and this is what sunni islam is this is ahle sunnah wal jamaa our history is one of political quietism.

No it's not. No it's not. There's not a single one of the sahaba that was ambiguous or morally unclear in regards to the clear zulm the clear oppression that was taking place how they chose to act upon it differed but none of them were ambiguous.

Last week the imam spoke about al abadila abdullah bin masood who was the only one who passed away in the time of Uthman he passed away before these things happened but you had Ibn Abbas, Ibn Umar, you had Abdullah ibn Umar ibn Aas, you had Abdullah ibn Zubayr you had these schools these giants these mountains from the deen and each one of them dealt with the trials and tribulation in a very different way none of them however could be confused for being mouthpieces for the zulm of their time for the oppressor of their time not a single one of them had an unclear position as to where they stood on the tyranny that was taking place in front of them.

Abdullah ibn Umar's Approach

Now Abdullah ibn Zubayr rose up and he established the khilafa he fought and he was murdered and massacred and some will say well Abdullah ibn Umar said I want no part of that he's not challenging the tyranny of the time because he didn't want to cause fitna right? But there's not a single person in Mecca

or Medina that didn't know where Abdullah ibn Umar stood on the tyranny of al-Hajjaj not a single person thought for a moment, you think he's ok with this? Not a single person would walk up to Ibn Umar and say, well you condemned the tyranny of al-Hajjaj, how he just massacred companions of the prophet (peace be upon him) Anas ibn Malik and the great tabi'i Saeed ibn Jubeir, massacring people ruthlessly, ya Ibn Umar you have anything to say about this? Astaghfirullah, just read Quran. That's not what he did.

And subhanallah in the perfection of Allah's wisdom each one of these people by the way actually challenged the tyrant in a different way. The fact that Ibn Umar did not take up arms against al-Hajjaj, though he clearly condemned him, called him a tyrant actually drove Hajjaj out of his mind it actually drove him crazy. Abdullah ibn Zubayr was easy, he picked up a sword we pick up a sword, we're not ruthless, we have no ethics whatsoever we'll bomb the Kaaba if we have to take this great companion of the prophet (peace be upon him) and make an example out of him.

Abdullah ibn Umar who's often scapegoated by people who become mouthpieces for tyrants and says well he was different from ibn Zubayr you know what ibn Umar would do? He would call al-Hajjaj in his face and in front of the public (عَدُوٌّ اللَّهِ - adu wallah), the enemy of Allah. Al-Hajjaj was giving a speech he was a tyrant of his time he was giving a speech after murdering ibn Zubayr and Abdullah ibn Umar condemned that spoke about it and as he was giving a speech Abdullah ibn Umar calls out to him in front of the people, this is in hajj time the hajj right after he does that he says (يَا عَدُ اللهِ - ya adu wallah) O enemy of Allah you have ruined the house of Allah we don't want to hear anything that you have to say so hurry up and wrap it up.

That's Abdullah ibn Umar supposedly ambiguous on his political moral clarity. Now Abdullah ibn Umar did not think it was wise for people to fight the way that ibn Zubayr was fighting in those moments against al-Hajjaj because he would just wipe them out the way that he wiped out those that came before them but it drove Hajjaj insane. Hajjaj complained to Abdul Malik ibn Marwan, he said (شَيْخُ قَدْ خَرف - shaykhin qad kharif) this crazy old man, Abdullah ibn Umar was 86 years old at the time. 86 years old, he's not a young man anymore, he said this 86 year old man is driving me insane, I want to take him out, Abdul Malik ibn Marwan said don't you dare and he said by the way in hajj people will respect him, they won't respect you don't mess with that.

Hajjaj comes and he's technically in charge of hajj but guess what the people's hearts all went to Ibn Umar so people kept surrounding Abdullah ibn Umar asking him questions about the fiqh of hajj following his lead even though he's not the head of state but that was the position he commanded amongst his people and that drove Hajjaj out of his mind because he's a tyrant and a tyrant has a huge ego, he's a narcissist.

Ibn Umar's Martyrdom

So Hajjaj orders for someone to poison an arrow and to poke the foot of Abdullah ibn Umar so that he would die in a way similar to the way that 20 something year olds have heart attacks in Egypt these days he would die in a way that people would be able to say maybe he just got sick maybe something happened that we don't understand and so Abdullah ibn Umar in hajj and by the way Ibn Musayyib says that Abdullah ibn Umar made dua that hajj to die a death of shahada to die as a martyr, Allahu akbar he'd seen all of his companions massacred in these ways, he saw al-Husayn and he grabbed al-Husayn before that and he said to him you are more beloved to me than myself and Husayn was murdered, Ibn Zubayr was murdered, he's losing people around him and he asked Allah in hajj that year that Allah would grant him a death of a shaheed, the death of a martyr like his father and his companions and others around him and he was poked by that arrow by that spear and he's poisoned and as he was in his bed, Hajjaj came to visit him seemingly concerned about him and he said to him how are you? He says that I'm here to check on you and he says wallahi whoever killed you, I'm going to kill him.

Ibn Umar looks at him and says I doubt that because it was you but he tried to posture like I can't believe someone did this to you and I swear that I will avenge this and no way this can't happen, 86 year old man the beloved one of the prophet (peace be upon him) the living sunnah of the prophet (peace be upon him) he said I doubt it because you are the one that killed me and so I doubt that you're going to kill yourself.

Abdullah ibn Umar died the death of a martyr in hajj in fact because it was still in the days of Mina that he actually passed away and he said on his death bed that I only regret three things he said the only thing I'm going to miss from this dunya are the long days of fasting and getting thirsty in the afternoons those days of siyam when you're fasting and you're getting thirsty during the day for the sake of Allah those long nights of tahajjud when your feet start to hurt as you stand up in front of Allah and he said that I did not fight against that oppressive army he actually regretted it he wished he would have done more but you could argue looking back that what Abdullah ibn Umar did was as effective and that all of these different companions played a different role in the story of maintaining a sense of moral clarity in that society.

(كَلِمَةً حَقِّ - Kalimatu haqq) was something that they all did a word of truth in the face of a tyrant no one was an exception to that rule.

The Four Imams and Tyranny

And so in this situation what is the reward of (كَلِمَةٌ حَقِّ - kalimatu haqq) what is the reward of speaking a word of truth in the face of a tyrant? Number one, sometimes it can be the worst thing that you could do because the prophet mentioned one of the first three to be thrown into hellfire is a man who thought that he was a martyr or who people thought was a shaheed but all he wanted was to be lauded as one who was courageous and Allah tells him you got that, the people said you were courageous you wanted that to be said and it was said but there was no Allah in this equation.

Speaking the word of truth in front of a tyrant is when there is full trust in Allah as you do so, seeking no one's approval except for the approval of Allah having no fear of the person in front of you because they are not Allah who in fact is the one who is bestowed with infinite power that's (كَلِمَةُ حَقِّ - kalimatu haqq) and a person that builds himself up to that point to be able to say something like that in the face of a tyrant you know why he's good at doing that you know why he can do that because that person has been looking at the tyrant in the mirror for their entire lives and doing jihad against that tyrant.

That tyrant is yourself for the sake of Allah that's the most difficult person to look at, the one in the mirror (جِهَادُ النَّفْسِ - jihadun nafs) and to strive against yourself for the sake of Allah not because other people notice things about you but because you notice things about yourself and to work to fight all of those things inside of you, to remove those impurities for the sake of Allah and so you've already challenged the tyrant before and that tyrant was far greater than the one that you're challenging right now from the same place, the same motivation speaking doing to please Allah and not fearing the consequences.

The Scholarly Response to Tyranny

Dear brothers and sisters throughout history we have seen this conundrum of tyrants that try to legitimize their tyranny some of them especially in the Muslim in our Muslim history try to appropriate scholars to do so and almost all of them have been successful at appropriating a scholarly class to be able to do so and one of the beautiful things about the four imams is that all four of them resisted to become mouthpieces for the tyrants of their time none of them were necessarily combative or confrontational but they all refused to say what their tyrants wanted them to say they all refused to take positions that would have compromised their position for the sake of Allah.

Imam Abu Hanifa refused to be a judge but he'd still give the ruler advice. Imam Malik refused the same thing but they said to Imam Malik look we'll hang the Muwatta in the Kaaba he said no no you don't need to do me any favors I don't want anything from you I want to be able to do my thing teach the religion and this is what will happen. Imam Ahmed we know what happened to him. Imam Al- Shafi'i was spared from the majority of it because he lived in Egypt at that time when things were really heating up in Al-Iraq so he was spared from the majority of it.

The point is that people know, tyrants know that the worst type of languaging that they can use is religious languaging to quiet down that voice of Haqq because if you can make it Haqq to be silent in the face of batil and you can guilt people by telling them that this is actually what the Qur'an and Sunnah tell you what to do then all sorts of crimes can happen because there is no cover like the cover of Allah's word and if you're giving that type of legitimacy and cover then that is a powerful form.

Now there are scholars dear brothers and sisters who are silent throughout they're not sometimes silent sometimes not silent they teach tafsir, they teach hadith as if nothing else is going on in the world never for or against they do their thing, they refuse to become mouthpieces and legitimizers for tyranny they

just shun the entire thing good for them, that's not sinful. The problem is when your silence is selective when you reserve strong words against people of Haqq people of truth and you only use silence with people of batil, with people of tyranny.

And in this day and age every single one of the brutal regimes that exist in the Muslim world employs a scholarly voice or a scholarly class to legitimize their crimes and it is so threatening to even make dua for unity. Sheikh Salman Al-Uda is in prison in Saudi Arabia because he made dua that Allah unites the Muslims that's why he's locked up and on death row because he made dua for islah he made dua for the unity of hearts and there are scholars upon scholars loading prisons in the Muslim world not because they say anything that's controversial, but because they refuse to sing the praises and anashid for dictators and tyrants that violate systematically the word of Allah and the rights of the people.

It's a horrific situation we ask Allah to protect us and to protect our children in this way.

The Station of Those Who Speak Truth

So here's what I want to come to in conclusion what is the station, what is the reward of a person when they speak these words of truth in the face of tyrants, whether they're in their locality or overseas wherever they are. The prophet (peace be upon him) said:

"The chief, the master of all shuhada, the master of the martyrs is Hamza and a person who stands up in the face of a tyrant and commands him and forbids him, rectifies him and the tyrant kills him as he does so."

(Reference: Al-Hakim in Al-Mustadrak)

Hamza was the first one to take the prophet (peace be upon him), to go in the face of and to give him a taste of his own medicine and speak up for the deen. Now Hamza made a very significant impact on the course of Islamic history but the prophet (peace be upon him) said that he who embodies the courage of Hamza will have the station of Hamza on the day of judgment we ask Allah to grant that to all of us Allahumma ameen.

Contemporary Applications

All we can do dear brothers and sisters beyond our du'as is to continue to use what Allah gave to us when we speak about the tyranny that exists all around the world but the point is that no tyrant should ever feel comfortable in their tyranny whether they are from amongst the Muslims or whether they are clear in their enmity towards the Muslims at no point should a tyrant stop feeling pressure.

And on that note on September 22nd the butcher of Gujarat a man who is delighting in the fascism around the world today with an enabler here in the United States a partner in Benjamin Netanyahu