Speaking Out Against Injustice and Oppression

Speaking Out Against Injustice and Oppression

By Imam Omar Suleiman

Opening

"O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain stationed and fear Allah that you may be successful. Amen, Lord of the worlds."

وَأُوصِيكُمْ وَنَفْسِي بِتَقْوَى اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَقَدْ أَمَرَنَا بِالْحَقِّ وَقَالَ تَعَالَى يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ

I advise you and myself to have taqwa of Allah and He has commanded us to the truth and said: O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims (Quran 3:102)

ثُمَّ أَمَّا بَعْدُ

Right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى and that Prophet Muhammad صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ is his final messenger. We ask Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى him his family, his companions and those that follow him until the day of judgment and we ask Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى to join us with him صلّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ with his family, his companions and those that have followed in the highest level of jannah الْفِرْدَوْسِ اللَّهُمَّ آمِينَ

Introduction: Incidents of Bystander Apathy

Dear brothers and sisters, I want to start off this خُطْبَة before even mentioning the topic. I want to mention a few incidents that have taken place and I want us to think if we've heard of these things happening in the news or not.

Incident 1: Beijing (October 2011)

In October of this year there was a video that sparked outrage and it was published all over the internet and all over YouTube and people were sending in emails so on so forth of a young girl in Beijing whose father owns a hardware store and she was only two years old and she walked out of the hardware store without her parents noticing. When she walked out of the hardware store she walked into the middle of the busy street when she got to the street she was run over by a van. When the van ran her over the driver slowed down for a little bit but he didn't, you know, he stopped, he hesitated but then he kept going and then another car came and ran her over too and then later on in the video you see the mother running out and finding her child mutilated in the middle of the street. There were 18 bystanders in that incident not a single one of them chose to come out and try to rescue that girl or try to protect that girl from that tragedy or even scrape her dead body off of the ground.

Incident 2: Brooklyn (October 2008)

I'll give you another incident and you can think if you've heard this in the news or not in October of 2008 there was a woman in King's Hospital in Brooklyn a 50 year old Jamaican woman who was sitting in the emergency room and who died while she was sitting there fell out of her chair and on surveillance camera the security guards walked by her checked on her people walked by her and saw she was dead and did absolutely nothing about it.

Incident 3: New York (November 2010)

In November of 2010 there was a video that went out and it was published on CNN what happened to the humanity of an old man being mugged on the streets of New York and not a single person stopping to protect him. Let's go to another incident one that's famous in the news right now and I'm not going to go too long with this but just so you can get the point.

Incident 4: Penn State

An incident of a coach a football coach at Penn State many of you have heard of it who was molesting little children but the other coaches were keeping silent about it because they didn't want to ruin the football program.

The Prophetic Warning

Why is all of this significant? Because the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ mentions to us a very very significant sign of the end of times that two people would commit zina in the middle of the streets.

I want you to think about this - we see it today on TV, we see it on our computers, we see it on billboards, we see it on the front of magazine covers whenever you go to Walmart, whenever you go to any shopping center you're going to see it everywhere. You're going to see magazines everywhere everywhere you walk there is zina, there is adultery, there is fornication, there is nudity and no one's saying anything about it.

And Rasulullah صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ said that in these times the most truthful person amongst them would go to those two people not tell them that what they're doing is wrong, not tell them that you're going to be punished for this or you should fear Allah جَلّ جلالة or our children are seeing you but would instead tell them: "Do you think you could move to the side of the road please?"

The Hadith of Collective Punishment

Think about that and there is an old legend because Rasulullah صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ says and this hadith is a very very very scary hadith narrated by Imam al-Tirmidhi with an authentic chain. The messenger :said صلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ

(Jami at-Tirmidhi)

"When people see evil and they don't change it, then soon Allah جَلٌ جَلَالُهُ will punish that entire people."

Modern Examples of Passivity

And let's bring it to less extreme examples. You're sitting at home and watching TV with your kids and as you're watching TV whenever something comes on that you know is un-Islamic you take your sweet time pulling over the remote. You take your 3-5 seconds changing the channel by then that image has registered in every single person's mind that was watching the TV.

And when you really don't want to ruin your mood when those infomercials come up where they show the children that are starving in Africa and everyone's having a good time and laughing and watching football and eating chips you quickly change the channel because you don't want to spoil anybody's mood.

This is a very very very scary disease and this is something that with passing time we see becoming more and more and more and more common that Ahlul Haqq are the people that are supposed to be people of truth and people of justice.

The Best Nation

The people who Allah جَلَّ جَلَالُهُ said:

"You are the best nation sent to mankind." Why? "Because you command good and you enjoin in good and you forbid evil."

When the people of Haqq become passive, when truthfulness becomes to turn the blind eye, to pretend you didn't see that, to ignore injustice whether it's injustice against another human being or whether it's injustice against a person's own self in the form of saiyyats, in the form of shameful sins, to ignore it, let it go, pretend I didn't see that, I'm not responsible, every person is for himself, every man is for himself, this is survival of the fittest.

The Legend of the White Bull

I want you to think about this. There's this famous legend and many of the Arab brothers will know it's called the Thawr Al-Abyad (the white bull). Now the legend of the white bull has been told in many many different ways so if I'm telling it in a way that's different from the way that you've heard it or the way that you know it, it's because there's different versions, there's different riwayat, different narrations of the white bull. Some of them are more politically correct than others, some of them are a little bit more racist than others, but anyway here is the point from the story of the white bull, the legend of the white bull.

You have three bulls that are brothers: a white bull, a black bull and a brown bull, and they're surrounded by an area where you have tigers but the tigers are refusing. There's one tiger that wants to attack but the tiger cannot attack because he never sees those three bulls away from each other.

So one day the tiger comes and he talks to the white bull and the brown bull and he says, "Listen, you're a brother, the black bull, you know, why do you guys let him stay around? Why don't you guys just get rid of him? He's only eating your food, he's taking up your stuff, why are you guys keeping him around? We can make this easy for you."

They said, "He's our brother, we can't do anything about that."

He says to them, "You don't have to do anything, just one day, let him go and whenever I take care of him don't say anything about it, just stay away, keep quiet."

And so the two bulls one day are together, the black bull goes away and they hear the tiger attacking the bull and his brothers don't do anything about it. They didn't help, they didn't assist in killing him, they just stayed quiet. So the black bull was dead.

Then the tiger came to the white bull and he said, "Hey, how about the brown bull? You could be all by yourself, you could have all this food for yourself and you know what, we'll take care of you, we'll protect you, you don't have to worry about anything anymore."

He says, "What do you want me to do? He's my brother."

"Just leave him, stay away from him, keep a distance between you and him and we'll take care of the rest."

He walks away one day and his brother is devoured and he hears his brother screaming and he does absolutely nothing about it. Then what do you think the tiger does? He goes after the white bull.

And the white bull, as he's being killed he says a very powerful statement and this is the point of the story regardless of what narration you have:

"I was eaten the day that the black bull was eaten. I died the day the black bull died."

When I turned my back, when I kept silent, when I was passive.

The Darkness of Oppression

SubhanAllah, when you allow injustice to happen, we know the status of zulm, the status of oppression and transgression and injustice on the day of judgment as the messenger صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ described:

(Bukhari 2447)

"Oppression will be darkness upon darkness upon darkness on the day of judgment."

Because Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى has set rules on the day of judgment and the first rule of the day of judgment:

"There is no transgression today."

"And anyone who comes on the day of judgment with the slightest amount of oppression, with the slightest amount of injustice on the day of judgment and he did not seek forgiveness from the one who he wronged and returned that right to him and seek forgiveness from Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى he will be held accountable on the day of judgment."

The Sin of Silence

But there is something else. When people sit quiet and they know of oppression taking place and the only thing they do is they change the channel, the only thing they do is they put the phone away, the only thing they do is they back off and they say "I don't want to get involved in this, this sounds messy," the only thing they do is they stay quiet, then they themselves are guilty of zulm, they themselves are guilty of transgression.

Or whenever you see your brother committing zulm against himself, transgressing himself in the form of fahsha, the same person who would never be embarrassed to show off and flaunt his sin in front of you but you don't want him to think, you don't want him to think that you're too religious, you don't want to say anything about what he's doing because you don't want him to think that you're judgmental even though he has no problem shoving his sins down your throat.

The Duty to Speak Out

Oh you know why don't you say anything brother? You're going to this party, you know that this Eid party is really just a welcome back shaitan party, why don't you say something? You know this brother, why don't you go talk to him? "Oh I don't want to offend him, I don't want him to think that I'm being too strict, we started sounding like the people that attacked Islam, I don't want him to say I'm a wahabi, I don't want him to attack me, I don't want him to stop coming to..."

No, say something! Don't be a jerk about it, don't be rude, do it with etiquette, say something though because the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ said:

(Muslim 49)

"Whoever amongst you sees evil let him change it with his hand."

The Three Levels of Change

You know what? There are some people that you can talk to and you have the authority to talk to that way and they appreciate it when you correct them that way. There are some people that are under your