The Gravity of One Murder, and the Death of Justice

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The Gravity of One Murder, and the Death of Justice

Virtual Khutbah by Omar Suleiman

Opening

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

"A'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajeem. Bismillahir rahmanir raheem. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wa la udwana illa ala al zalimeen wa la aqibatu illa lil muttaqeen. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa baraka ala abdika wa rasulika muhammadin sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kathira."

Introduction: The Quranic Framework for Justice

Inshallah ta'ala today I wanted to reflect a bit on obviously what many people are seeing coming out of Minnesota, but I wanted to sort of step back and give this Quranic framing and really help us understand through the lens of the Quran the way that we deal with these types of situations beyond just the general statements about justice and the sin of racism and murder and brutality and all that comes from that.

I want to really try to understand deeply how the Quran teaches us to deal with a situation like this where we see murder and when we see particularly state sanctioned murder or murder that is repetitive coming out of a singular system. What are some things that we can take from the Quran to understand this?

Before I go any further speaking about this inshallah, I know that Islah LA is doing something today inshallah so I shared it on Instagram. I know that they're doing something in a few hours and I think it would be important for all of us to tune in and to hear what our imams and various activists have to say about the current situation and how we can deal with the situation.

But it is important for us to really have a spiritual framing beyond just the devastating impact of watching yet another video of a modern day lynching, police lynching the way that we see with George Floyd. It's unacceptable for us to simply once again say it's unfortunate, it's a mistake, it shouldn't have happened but these are the types of things that happen in this line of work and there's nothing that we can do about it.

I think that it's also extremely faulty for a person to step in and to express a greater sense of outrage over property damage and looting and things that happened in the wake of this or the extreme forms of the reaction because to paint the entire protest as rioting has implications and then to speak about just one element of it has implications. I think that it's also unjust to the situation.

So I wanted us to just pull back and to reflect on five verses of the Quran that speak about justice and particularly the darkness of the injustice that covers a society when murder of this regard at the hands of the state is glossed over and is not dealt with properly.

First Principle: The Gravity of One Murder

The first thing is just to speak about how the gravity of one murder can really shift a current both in terms of its laws and in terms of its society if people deal with it in a proper way. This is something that we even find from the Quran.

You'll see that there is a frequent quote from the Quran that whoever saves one life it is as if he has saved all of mankind, and that is taken from Surah Al-Ma'idah. Surah Al-Ma'idah does not just introduce this ayah, does not just introduce this verse out of nowhere. It actually introduces it coming out of the story of Cain and Abel, the story of Qabil and Habil, where Allah tells us about how one brother murders another brother - the first murder in the history of mankind.

He murders his brother not because of something that the brother did wrong but because of an insecurity within himself because his sacrifice was not accepted and the only way that he felt like he could assert his power was to take his brother's life, was to murder his brother - not to say to Allah why was my sacrifice not accepted and what can I do to make my sacrifice accepted but instead to kill his brother.

That is something that I'll probably elaborate on in a future time, but usually when a person commits these types of acts they have problems with themselves more than they have with the world around them and so they project their own insecurities on the world around them.

In this situation where you have one brother - the first murder in mankind, one brother who murders his brother, who did no wrongdoing, who did nothing to deserve to be killed - Allah then introduces it was because of that that we prescribed on Bani Israel:

"Min ajli dhalika katabna ala bani isra'ila annahu man qatala nafsan bighayri nafsin aw fasadin fi al-ardi faka'annama qatala an-nasa jamee'an wa man ahyaha faka'annama ahya an-nasa jamee'a"

(Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.)

SubhanAllah what you see here is an entire law that entire laws can come out of one murder. Allah says he prescribed this on the children of Israel arising out of this incident, arising out of what happened here, that murder of one person in injustice is like the murder of all of mankind is like killing all of mankind and to save one life is like saving all of mankind.

So the gravity of one murder here is able to dictate or transitions in the discourse of the Quran from just the murder of one person to how an entire nation is then given a law of justice on how to deal with murder particularly when it comes to the unjust killing of someone who had nothing, who did not do anything that was deserving of such a crime.

The Prophet Muhammad's Teaching on Setting Trends

Allah also teaches us through the tongue of our prophet that the gravity of one murder is such that it can shift societies and in that case the one who sets the trend is responsible for everything that arises out of that trend. That's why the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, he said that no one commits murder except that the first murderer being the brother (Qabil) has a share of that evil because he's the first one to normalize murder and so anytime anyone kills a share of that evil goes to the first killer because there is a trend that is set then it sets off something that ends up becoming much larger than its initial occurrence.

So there is this idea subhanallah of the gravity of one murder, the sanctity of one life and the gravity of one murder and how that should cause a society to pause and to reflect on where we have come now.

In the case of police brutality of course this isn't just one murder, there are thousands of hashtags at this point and before hashtags were a thing there were thousands of victims of the same nature, the same type of murder.

Second Principle: Justice Upholds Nations

How does the Quran talk about this idea of justice and this idea of the presence of justice for the victim? Not just dealing with obviously the spiritual disease of racism and then what that manifests itself in in terms of the systemic oppression of a people on the basis of their color and everything that comes out of that, but life that exists or life that comes out of a presence of justice. What happens in a society when justice is there?

A frequent statement from Ibn Taymiyyah:

"Inna Allaha yuqeemu ad-dawlat al-'adila wa in kanat kafira wa yahdimu ad-dawlat az-zalima wa in kanat muslima"

(Allah would uphold a just nation even if that nation was a disbelieving nation and Allah would destroy an oppressive nation even if that nation was a Muslim nation)

There's something to be said about the presence of justice in a society and what that does to a society and particularly one element of justice which is empowering the victims of injustice, empowering the victims of injustice which sends a clear message to future aggressors and oppressors current and future aggressors and oppressors and also establishes a system where people who have been wronged consistently, people that have been wronged consistently have a legal mechanism to be able to go forth and to attain justice.

The Concept of Qisas

In Islam that was called Qisas, that's called Qisas which is retribution, the legal retribution that exists when a life is taken. So in the case of Qisas the plaintiff, the victim is the plaintiff and of course the family of the victim is the plaintiff and the plaintiff is actually the one that has the authority of retribution to decide what to do with the one that has taken the life of their loved one and to choose without being pressured in a way that it cannot be a superficial choice.

We see this happen all the time where in the name of Qisas, you have a state that would pressure a family to forgive the killers, to forgive the murderers because that would cover the state. No, this is a pure idea of Qisas that exists in the Quran where the family actually has the right to decide the fate of the one that took their loved one.

Allah says about this:

"Wa lakum fi al-qisasi hayatun ya uli al-albab la'allakum tattaqun"

(And there is for you in legal retribution [saving of] life, O you [people] of understanding, that you may become righteous)

I want to focus on the spiritual part of this that you have life in legal retribution, that there is life in the presence of justice, a mechanism of justice for the wronged, that those family that have been wronged O people of understanding that you may become righteous.

Now this is a very specific wording that we find in this verse that you have in the presence of a system that would allow for a person, that would allow for the family of the victims to actually have rights, to have the legal rights to pursue justice that there is life in that and the way that scholars traditionally dealt with this so you read the tafasir of this ayah.

One tafsir of it which the scholars mention is that if a killer knows that there would be retribution for their killing, then that person would think before they murder and so they would hold back, they would hold themselves back from killing and in the case of that hayah here, life that's preserved, the traditional scholars or traditionally you'll find in the tafasir they'll say that hayah in that the life of the murdered and the potential murderer, the potential murderer and the potential murdered is saved because the presence of justice the presence of a system that would deter someone from killing, that would hold someone back from killing, gives life to the one that was going to be killed and the person who would have taken that life and then suffered the consequences of that.

So qisas prevents, the empowering of the plaintiff, the empowering of the victim's family prevents that and qisas should be applied not in a way that if a person, one of the things that Islam came to do away with was tribalism. So it didn't matter if you belonged to Makhzum which was one of the more powerful tribes of Mecca or if you belonged to no tribe at all, the idea was that qisas would be established in a way that it would deter a person from killing because they knew that there was going to be a system of accountability and in the process of that.

That's why you'll find the statement of Imam Hassan Basri: the life of the potential murderer and the life of the potential murdered one is saved, but there's a societal element to this as well that goes beyond just the case of that person because we said there's the gravity of one murder and the sanctity of one life.

A Dignified Existence

SubhanAllah there's a very beautiful discourse, Shaykh Yasir Fahmi had shared this quote from Muhammad Abu Zahra where he talked about a dignified existence that life here is not just talking about the presence of people being able to live and to breathe, but it's speaking about the idea of a dignified existence, that a society in which lives are sanctified in which there is proper recourse when murder takes place that gives that society a sense of a noble life a dignified existence, a dignified societal life, and when those mechanisms are not there then they die as a society due to injustice the presence of dhulm, the cloud of dhulm and injustice that ends up covering that entire society.

So it's not just the life of one person that's saved but it is what ends up taking place, the murder that spreads throughout the land because there is no recourse, because there are clear double standards, and particularly the worst type here is when the state itself when the authority which is supposed to be in a place of holding accountable is what needs to be held accountable because of the constant murder that's coming from that singular place.

So Muhammad Abu Zahra spoke about this from a societal perspective, that there is life in society that there is hayat in society when there is a legal recourse for these types of actions because it doesn't allow murder to go unchecked and dhulm, oppression and these types of things to go unchecked.

Third Principle: The Absence of Justice and Its Consequences

I want us to think about this because it's very important for us to be self-critical about where we are right now and to just think about where we're at in terms of history when you have George Zimmerman and I don't know where I was reading this earlier today but just about the money that George Zimmerman has made after murdering Trayvon Martin and not being held accountable.

So I'm not going to rehash the details of the murder of Trayvon Martin but obviously it was instrumental in the starting of the Black Lives Matter movement and George Zimmerman has accumulated he not only got away with murder but he's accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars maybe over a million dollars but hundreds of thousands of dollars for sure being celebrated for that murder.

I want you to think about what this is like and it should sicken you when George Zimmerman who took the life of that young Trayvon Martin is able to walk around and go to conventions around the country and be treated like a celebrity sign autographs for money sold his gun the gun that he used to kill Trayvon Martin he was able to auction it off for over a hundred thousand dollars and then sue the parents for defamation and make money off of that what type of message does that send to society to other racists in society.

Oh and by the way he also did a commercial with a gun store owner in Florida I believe who had the no Muslims allowed sign on his store some cheap marketing tactic I guess he put no Muslims allowed on his gun shop and George Zimmerman went and did a commercial with him Allah knows how much he got paid to do that what type of a society what type of a message does that send to society where is the hayat where is the life in our society in that sense.

And then you see these videos of the murder of Ahmed Arbery and the lynching of Ahmed Arbery and what that leads to and there was something about that video the lynching of Ahmed Arbery that was particularly gross because you could tell that the people that were committing this murder had no fear whatsoever of the repercussions of their murder and had the outrage not been there they probably would have never been charged because the videos were shown to those that could have taken legal action in their hands but all of that was brushed under the rug and nothing happened as a result of that.

So due to the outrage eventually and we'll see where that goes because justice has not actually yet been served in that case but the point is that there was no fear of accountability there is an understanding that we're going to get away with this.

And then you see what happens in Minnesota with George Floyd and the arrogance the arrogance in the eyes of that cop as he puts his knee on the neck of George Floyd a man pleading for his life calling for his mother right in his last moments his mother who died two years ago and you see the arrogance and the sense of invincibility in the eyes of that person and the eyes of the officers that are standing around and you wonder well you know those officers probably knew the officer that murdered Philando Castile in his car in front of his four year old daughter who for doing absolutely nothing Philando Castile who was driving pulled over was following instructions and shot seven times in front of his four year old daughter that's coming out of the same police department what message does that send to other officers in terms of the ability to get away with these types of things.

I'm not going to go through all of the incidents because there are too many to name there are too many to name but you know we have to start to think about this idea of what the presence or the absence in this situation of justice does to the murderer to the psyche of potential murderers to the psyche of a person that does have a uniform and a gun and doesn't feel like they're going to be held accountable if they murder people because there's always a way.

I mean and we have a history of planting evidence we have a history of all sorts of ways where people are able to get out of these things what is the message that's being sent and from a societal perspective to those in authority as well so it's not just the George Zimmermans of the world but it's also for us to think about what this means in terms of society as a whole.

Fourth Principle: The Complete Authority of the Victim

And then I want to end with one verse here where Allah says:

"Wa la taqtulu an-nafsa allati harrama Allahu illa bil-haqqi wa man qutila mazluman faqad ja'alna li-waliyyihi sultanan fa-la yusrif fi al-qatli innahu kana mansuran"

This is a verse in Surah Al-Isra. Allah says do not kill the soul that God has forbidden except in justice وَمَن قُتِلَ مَظْلُومًا and so whoever is killed unjustly then we have given فَقَدْ جَعَلْنَا لِوَلِيِّهِ سُلْطَانًا we have given to the family or inheritor or to whoever is left to represent that person that's been killed we have given them Sultana, we've given them authority we've given them authority they're in a place of power they're in a place of power they are fully empowered to demand retribution or justice or to show mercy.

The mercy should not be weaponized the way that it was here in Dallas the weaponizing of the forgiveness of the brother of Botham John against the mother of Botham John the family of Botham John a beautiful act of mercy and forgiveness was weaponized against the family that was still calling for justice.

Here Allah is saying we have given to the Wali Sultana we've given them authority we've given them power they're in a place of power they're in a place of authority and then Allah says فَلَا يُسْرِف فِي الْقَتْلِ and do not exceed the limits in the matter of taking justice that person has been supported that person has been helped.

Now I'm going to break this down for a bit first of all before Allah gets to the injustice and the response Allah affirms the complete authority of the victim the right of the victim and in this case when a victim has been killed the family of the victim the rights of them using the word Sultana is not easy that they have authority they are in a place where they have authority the state is to carry out what the family wants due to the injustice that they have incurred.

And then Allah says فَلَا يُسْرِف فِي الْقَتْلِ and do not exceed bounds and just look at the order of the verse look at the order of the verse if you only talk about فَلَا يُسْرِف فِي الْقَتْلِ if you talk about the excessiveness in the response without talking about the glaring void of the presence of justice and how that has been compounded over time and what you have with a community that is fed up that is sick of being treated this way that is that has been beaten over the head by this so called justice system for as many years as it's existed.

And you think about going back to that verse وَلَكُمْ فِي الْقِصَاصِ حَيَاةُ يَا أُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ that there is life in the presence of justice and death society suffocates when there is injustice, it's absolutely heart breaking.

You know I've seen many mothers of the victims of police brutality and the pain and despair in their eyes and it's beyond devastating to watch the mother of a child that's been killed unjustly and they have absolutely no way to make sense of what has happened and you know they're in the spotlight for a few weeks, a few months and then usually the case is dropped there is no justice and the family just disappears into despair and no one is around the family anymore.

No one really asks about the families of the victims of police brutality months after, years after, once the case has sort of moved on and people have moved on no one really asks about them anymore.

Fifth Principle: Affirming Rights While Avoiding Excess

In this situation though I do want us to think about this every time you're watching another black political commentator a mother or a father break down into tears on TV and you ask yourself what is it that is making people so fed up and just the compounded sense of injustice which is valid we have to ask ourselves where are we as a society.

And then Allah says do not exceed in the response so yes is there do not exceed in the response that's there do not exceed in the response is there but before do not exceed in the response is there affirming the full right of the victim and the families of the victim is also there and you can't just jump that so you have to take the ayah as a whole and the way that it ends indeed he will be supported.

Now indeed he will be supported here according to the majority of the Mufassereen if not all of them is not talking about divine aid here it's talking about the state supporting the family of the victim and you know so you'll find the Imam the authority supporting the family of the victim fully without any holding back.

So you know the way the scholars spoke about this they said you know even if the person who justice is being exacted against is a friend of the authority if that wouldn't excuse that person because of conflict of interest or whatever it may be but whatever it is that there is a way forward that the Imam that the authority is to exact justice and Allah comforting the family of the victim by saying that the authority will have your back the authority will have your back that the state will have your back the governor will have your back the Imam will have your back whoever it is but the point is that you will be Mansur you are to be helped you are to be supported in your cause.

Key Components of Justice

There is so much to unpack here but just taking the three critical components from this Allah first starts off with the sanctity or four critical components just of this ayah Allah starts off with the sanctity of one person the sanctity of one human life and then secondly and by the way that's important because as I said you know in the immediate wake of this and we saw this with Stephan Clark you know particularly and so many of these different cases the character assassination that takes place after the murder of a person at the hands of the police the character assassination is to desensitize us is to impress upon us that this person is not worth your love and outrage they're not worth you fighting for them they're not worth what was that person's value to society in the first place so why should black death matter if black life doesn't matter why should we care about this person.

So the barrage of character assassinations that happen against the victim after they're dead and can't speak for themselves is meant to neutralize our response neutralize our anger neutralize our outrage and just say well is it really that sacred of a person is that really that sacred of a life.

Allah says here that the nafs haram Allah that Allah has sanctified the soul Allah has sanctified that life you don't have a right to say that this life has more value than another based on anything based on race based on record based on anything you don't have that right to say that this life does not matter so Allah starts off with that and then Allah starts with the second component the one who is killed unjustly then their family should have complete authority their family should have the complete right the third thing and then the family or then the rightful heirs those that are angered by the injustice should not become unjust themselves or exceed the balance in seeking justice and then that person is supposed to be helped by the authority in their cause.

Here instead we find these layers of systemic injustice where you have the DA's office and the police department and a racist president and all of these elements working hand in hand with one another to suffocate the calls for justice and to suffocate the families of those victims and it's a terrible combination that we have now.

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