Gives Excellent Advice to American-Muslim Activists

a mistake and you're on a pedestal, and everyone's looking at you and holding you up as a role model, they can cause some serious problems for the broader community.

So, without naming names, you know, what do Muslim leaders, what should we be doing to protect ourselves and to make sure we don't end up getting in trouble?

That's a very difficult question, because again, at some level, all of us are human. We're not angels. Nobody's an angel. That's why we're human beings. We all have issues we're struggling with. We have to, what do we do as religious leaders?

Seeking Divine Protection

First and foremost, seek refuge and protection in Allah Himself. You know, the Prophet Yusuf, the Prophet Joseph in the Quran, when he was tempted, when he was able to do something wrong, he immediately thought of Allah. He immediately thought of Allah, and he said, I seek refuge in you. If you don't protect me, then I will fall short.

So, I think this goes back to my previous point. Every single person whom others put on a pedestal, that person should realize you probably don't deserve that pedestal. But if you are tested with being put on that pedestal, you had better make sure that your relationship with God is very strong. That's the number one mechanism.

This goes back to sincerity. Do you truly believe, do you truly believe that Allah is watching, that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala will reward, that Allah will deal with every person according to his or her deeds? That faith has to be in a leader. If it's not in a leader, then you're setting yourself up for trouble.

Because our Prophet, peace be upon him, he clearly said, there's so many traditions in this regard, that of the most destructive dangers to person are fame and greed for wealth and power. These are the most destructive to a man's or a woman's ego and pride. Fame, wanting to be famous is destructive for you. Wanting to be powerful, wanting to be wealthy, these are potentially the most destructive of all diseases.

The Islamic Paradigm of Reluctant Leadership

And when you are a leader, these things are given to you on a silver platter. You can't be a leader without fame. You can't be a leader without a level of prestige. And generally speaking, with leadership comes opportunities for at least a little bit more wealth or whatnot. So it's a very big temptation.

And that is why in our tradition, we are told to not seek positions of leadership. I know this is strange. I'm a professor at Rhodes College. I teach Islamic studies. And sometimes when I bring these things up, the students are just confused. What do you mean a leader shouldn't seek office? How else do you become elected?

Well, in our tradition, a leader should be chosen by the people from beginning to end. People should come to you and say, we think you're the one, you know, you should do this. And you should want to say, no, no, I'm not the best person. And there should be an insistence on the side of the community. We find you to be honest, trustworthy, and there should be a genuine reluctance. The more reluctant you are genuinely, the more qualified you are to be a leader, right?

So the more eager you are to embrace leadership, you know, there's a prophetic tradition that he told the companions, do not seek leadership. Do not seek leadership, because whoever seeks leadership shall be left alone. Nobody's going to help you. Rather, leadership should be nominated from within the community. People should see in you characteristics of a leader, and they should then come to you. And you should genuinely say, no, no, I'm not the best person and turn it down and be happy until there's an insistence and an overwhelming group of people come, in which case you should reluctantly, as our Prophet said, then reluctantly say, okay, and put your trust in Allah, you know, so once the people come to you.

So I think, again, the whole paradigm of leadership is so different from our faith tradition versus others. So that's the number one, which goes back to my point of sincerity.

The Importance of Friendly Critics

Number two, I think one of the biggest mechanisms for protection is to make sure that you have what I call friendly critics around you. All too often, people of power surround themselves with yes men, okay, without mentioning names, without mentioning any names or houses or no comments. Yeah, you surround yourselves with yes men, okay, and you don't even want or you have critics that are outside who literally hate you.

And so obviously, their criticism falls on deaf ears, because they're already, it's very rare to find what I call a friendly critic. A critic who genuinely wants good for you and is pointing out a flaw or weakness is very rare. And when you do find such a person, my advice to myself and all of you, grab onto that person and make sure you're listening to them all the time.

Somebody who wants to see you succeed and understands that you have one or two weaknesses. So if, and this generally speaking, is an acquaintance or friend who knows you from before you were a leader. Generally speaking, like they know you in your good old days and now they've seen you rise and whatnot.

Those are of the best of people, because they know who you were before the fame and limelight. And now they see you and they can tell you, hey, you know what, this is changing, you know, your ideals are, you know, not what they used to be. And they love you, they care about you, you know.

So spouses, you know, family, you know, acquaintances, colleagues, college friends. These are people that generally speaking are of the types that are, and of course, you can also have friendly critics that you get to know later in life. But I think a friendly critic is someone whom you should lend an ear to, because when he or she sees you straying from the path, right, because generally speaking, you don't just fall instantaneously.

Generally speaking, you start weakening, you start opening doors you shouldn't open, you start wandering down alleyways that will potentially lead to danger. If somebody catches you when you're not yet there, and they see the slip, alhamdulillah, thank God for that, and pull yourself back up. So these are the spiritual and then the practical advice that I would give for that situation.

Obedience to Rulers: Classical vs. Contemporary Context

Alhamdulillah, jazakallah. Okay, I want to get into a few. When we're out in the community, we sometimes engage in debates with the community about how we're doing our jobs, whether we're doing it appropriately. And a lot of this is about learning, you know, what should we advocate for? And how should we advocate for it? How do you do this work?

And so I want to raise an issue with you, and you tell me what you think. Some Muslims, here and especially abroad, insist that we should not engage in public activism. And they say the Prophet, may peace, blessings, and prayers be upon him, ordered us to obey our rulers, even if they're unjust, and that therefore we shouldn't protest, we should not engage in civil disobedience, we shouldn't even publicly criticize government leaders, that we can only privately and directly speak criticism to them at all.

That's all. On the other hand, other Muslims will say, well, hold on now, the Prophet, may peace and blessings be upon him, said that speaking truth to power to a tyrant is a laudable act, and, you know, engaged in public criticism of society around him. Can you address that issue for us? How do we reconcile those perspectives? What's the truth in this matter?

Okay, so let me take a step back. If some of you are wondering what all of this is about, in our prophetic traditions, in the Hadith literature, there are dozens of traditions. If you haven't read them before, they come off as rather strange or rather bizarre, because our political paradigm here in America is very different than classical Sunni, you know, paradigms.

And there are many traditions in which we are told to obey our rulers and leaders. This is in pretty much every single book of tradition, not just one tradition out there, you know, to hear and to obey as long as they don't command you to disobey, okay. So if they say something you don't like, by the way, this type of authoritarianism is like in the military, for example, just do it, okay, just follow orders, unless the Hadith says they tell you to do something that is unethical.

So for example, drink or, you know, murder, something that's unethical, then obviously, but otherwise, if it's something that you just don't like to do, then the prophetic tradition says, even if you don't like your ruler, even if he's doing wrong, even if he's beating your back, there's a tradition in Sahih Muslim, even if he's beating your back and taxing you to a high rate, still obey the ruler. [Reference: Sahih Muslim]

The Context of Classical Caliphate

Now, these traditions, first and foremost, they do exist, let's be honest, and they're in all the books of tradition, and they have influenced Sunni political thought, by and large, without getting into the fact that, well, even in classical Sunni, well, actually, let me just briefly say, that's one school within Sunnism, it's not the only school, and Sunnism isn't also the only school of Islam, but even within Sunni Islam, there have always been dissenting voices, we only need to look at the early companion, Abdullah ibn Zubayr, and how he interacted with the Umayyad rule, and how he viewed the dictatorship or the kingship that began, so even within the Sunni tradition, there is a spectrum of opinion about how these need to be interpreted, firstly.

Secondly, let's also realize that those traditions, even if we were to act upon them and believe them, the question is, do they apply in modern circumstances? I mean, can authoritarian, without mentioning country names, because I don't want to, there's no need to mention country names, but can authoritarian dictatorships, can brutal tyrants, who do not themselves respect the Shari'ah, then expect others to invoke the Shari'ah to respect them?

You see, these traditions, if you were to be a classic Sunni theologian, let's just suppose you're coming within the paradigm of the faith 100%, and not looking at modernity, just looking completely at the text, they actually apply to a legitimate caliphate, like the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Ottomans, like a caliphate that's a global caliphate that anybody, you know, who's a Muslim can come and live in that caliphate, and the laws of Islam are applied at a street level, at a society level, so a person, you know, a person can feel, okay, I'm a Muslim, and the society is a Muslim society.

There is no such modern caliphate anymore, no scholar agrees that ISIS is a caliphate, or it's even gone anyway now. Anyway, the point is that these traditions, if we wish to apply them, they would apply to the Abbasids, let's say, okay, a bona fide, legitimate caliphate, where maybe even if the caliph himself has personal sins that they're dealing with, you know, whether it's taxes, whether it's, you know, alcohol, whether it's not observing the prayer, that's a personal sin between him and God, but society overall would be a society based upon the ethics, the ethos, the values, the paradigm of Islam.

The Wisdom Behind Traditional Caution

So in that paradigm, our Prophet is saying, let the caliph and his personal sins be between him and God, you should not revolt against a legitimate caliph, because revolting inevitably causes more harm than good. So even if we were to acknowledge the legitimacy of those traditions, and at some level I do, the

question is, would they even apply to a modern nation state in the Middle East or in the far southeast Asia, that's not even claiming to be rooted in the tradition of Islam.

And by and large, people are going to say no, scholars and theologians say no. And this leads me to a very awkward reality that we need to be explicit about. Scholars are human beings, they're not angels. So if a scholar of a certain country whose paycheck comes from that country, conveniently happens to quote these traditions, it's okay to question that person's intentions, there's nothing wrong with that. Go to a scholar who's neutral.

You know, I mean, if a person is living within this repressive regime, and you know, I'm not even impugning dishonesty, maybe they feel their life is threatened in that country. Maybe they feel that, you know, something's going to happen and so in our religion we believe, you know, when you're coerced to do something, you might be forgiven for doing that.

So we should be suspect of groups of scholars, not all the scholarly class, of groups of scholars who happen to give fatwas that legitimize the very systems that they're benefiting from. That's okay. All that we need to do, don't just discredit all scholars, go to scholars outside of that little paradigm. So suppose one country is undergoing certain issues and okay, we can ask the scholars of that country, but let's ask also the neighboring scholars as well. Let's ask scholars of other countries as well what they say. Is there legitimacy to this or not?

Reflecting on Recent Uprisings

And I need to say also one thing which is very, very awkward. I'm not going to answer it even. I'm simply going to ask it and for us to think about. Hindsight is 2020. Let's be very honest and ask ourselves. It's now the end of 2018. If we knew now, if we knew in 2010 what we know now, would we have encouraged the uprisings across the Middle East?

That's a very, I'm not even going to answer that question because it's very emotional. I know some of you have lost loved ones. I know your families are disrupted. Some of you are in this room because of what happened. You're refugees here. I met some of you. I mean, meaning you came.

So emotionalism is a human, it's natural. If we knew then what we know now, would we have supported a Syrian uprising, an Egyptian uprising, a Libyan uprising? I mean, we ask this question of Iraq all the time and it's very easy to answer because America invaded Iraq. And we say, oh, was it worth it to invade Iraq? And pretty much every person in the audience says, of course it wasn't, we shouldn't have invaded. And obviously it's a no brainer. Okay, fair enough. Of course, I believe that as well.

And frankly, the sanctions, everything. I mean, the reality is we don't like to say this, but the Iraq of the 70s and 80s by and large was a flourishing country compared to the Iraq of the 90s and 2000s and

currently, right? Under a brutal dictator, the country and its people by and large lived a standard of living that is gone now. Okay. Hindsight is 2020.

Syria. I'm not even going to answer the question because I'm not Syrian. I don't want to insult any Syrians in the audience. I'm not even going to answer the question.

Prophetic Wisdom in Revolutionary Context

So here is where even if the legitimacy of those traditions is not applied, perhaps the wisdom needs to be thought about. Even if we don't believe that those prophetic traditions are theologically applicable upon the Syrian regime, the Egyptian regime, which I don't, by the way, I, as a theologian, I'm a theologian, as a theologian, I don't believe you can quote the prophetic traditions in those instances, because these people don't respect the Sharia such that the Sharia should then respect them back. They're not invoking the Sharia so the Sharia doesn't apply upon them, right?

Nonetheless, there is a prophetic wisdom and that prophetic wisdom is that generally speaking, 99 times, not 9 out of 10, 99 times out of 100, generally speaking, unsheathing the sword against your ruler will cause more bloodshed and civil war than what was before. This is the general rule. Now, that one time out of 100, that's not the rule. Is it worth it? Is it worth the risk? That's the question in every single situation we need to ask ourselves.

But this also explains why some theologians, and again, I mean, I studied at a very conservative seminary in Medina, and I know almost all of my teachers by and large would be opposed to the type of revolutionary tactics that are taking place across the Middle East that are not happening in the country I study in, which is Saudi Arabia. And I like to say this for the record. I believe most of my teachers were sincere. They weren't saying this because of the power of money, because they were greedy. They genuinely believe. It's not as if they love status quo.

That's the point a lot of people don't understand. It's not as if they are sympathetic to the ruling family. It's not as if no. It's that they genuinely believe that the turmoil and potential civil war that will be created will be infinitely worse than status quo. It's not that they love status quo. It's that they're worried that the alternative will be infinitely worse.

So they are content to support status quo, not out of a love. And here's the point. A lot of our scholars that support what's going on, they don't do it because they're paid. Some of them do. I understand this. By the way, you can tell simply by the language. Those that bend over backwards, those that go the full nine yards, you can kind of tell. Those that are really glorifying versus those that are like, no, we should be patient. You can tell by the language.

If you know the theological language, there are those who, yes, they are definitely propagandists for the status quo. And then there are those who understand or at least believe sincerely that status quo is better than the potential chaos and anarchy that an alternative might bring.

Collaboration and Coalition Building

Thank you. And again, we're going to do audience Q&A. So if anyone wants to follow up on that, we can. The last thing I want to ask before we turn over to the audience, one of the things that I think we missed out on yesterday is that people had a lot of questions in the audience we didn't get to them. So really, if you have questions, think of them now. I'm going to get to you after this question, inshallah.

Last question. One of the particularly thorny issues that has come up for Muslim American activists, leaders, organizations in recent years is that many of us are, we end up collaborating with, dealing with, working alongside different organizations and movements on issues on which we agree. For example, countering Islamophobia, upholding civil rights, opposing war. But some of the organizations we work with, we may disagree on some very fundamental issues.

I mean, I'm talking everything from we could be working with communist organizations. This issue comes up with the LGBT community quite a bit. You know, you could take your pick of what organization movement is where we have some things we agree upon, and we might have some things that we disagree upon as Muslims, generally speaking. And obviously, this creates tension internally, externally.

What does Islamic history, what does the prophetic tradition tell us about collaborating with, working alongside groups on a common cause on one issue, where we may have some fundamental disagreements about that group or that other movement on another issue?

The Quranic Principle of Cooperation

"Cooperate upon righteousness and piety and do not cooperate upon evil and transgression."

If the cause is just, we don't care who else is on our platform. The cause is just. We are not asked to vet people's theologies and personal and private beliefs in a just cause. If the cause is unjust, then even if all of us are believers in God, then it's an unjust cause. So we are asked, and here's the question that everyone needs to ask himself or herself, what is our goal? What is our ultimate goal? What is our ultimate goal?

Is it to carve out a safe space for us to live in? Or is it to be exemplary role models following the prophetic tradition? The two are not the same, by the way. The two are not the same. What is our ultimate goal? Is it to be faithful to our tradition? Or is it to live a comfortable life? Those are two separate questions. And each person needs to decide himself or herself what is the ultimate goal. Each organization needs to decide as well.

And for me personally, obviously, I would say that the ultimate goal is the pleasure of our Lord. That's the ultimate goal. And that pleasure will only be achieved by being faithful to the best extent possible to the laws that I cherish and hold true to.

Historical Examples and Moral Consistency

And if we truly believe in something to be good for society or evil for society, then I need to be firm to that in my public and my private life. So let me give you a simple example. Let me give you a simple example. I've given lectures about this in the past. The 18th Amendment and the 21st Amendment of alcohol. It was 19th or 21st. 19th and 21st. The alcohol issue.

If Muslims had been around when the prohibition was passed, we weren't a large group back then, but if we were around, do you think that we should have opposed prohibition? Said, oh, we want the freedom for everybody to drink. If the repeal is about to be passed, the 21st Amendment, do you think Muslims should have been active in opposing the repeal? So where should our stance be?

Or let me give you another example. Again, we weren't a large community in the 50s or the 40s. We weren't an active community. There were small groups of us. So we weren't politically active as much as we are now in America. But in the 40s and 50s, racism was the status quo, correct? It was structured racism.

Okay. Now, let me ask you this. Would we have been wise to cooperate with racists in order to secure temporary political advantages to ourselves? See, here's the point. It's so easy, so easy to lose track of what's right and wrong when our passions are clouded. When I give you another example, all of a sudden you're like thinking in a different way.

Would you have wanted to cooperate with, and again, maybe it would have been allowed, but is that the long-term best solution for us? Is that the best we can do to cooperate with a racist organization or an entity or whatnot for a temporary positive in our personal lives? Maybe, but is that the only solution or is there something else we can work out?

Well, let me give you another example that, again, is hypothetical, but just another example. Suppose there were, I mean, again, I'm being hypothetical, adulterers. Suppose they were being marginalized, mistreated, there were gangs beating them up or something. That's not good. Nobody should approve vigilante justice. Should we then side with the adulterer society? I'm just saying. The society of the adult. Yeah, yeah.

Should we publicly champion, even if we don't want that vigilante justice, and we all agree nobody should be physically harmed, but because of that one negative, should we overlook the immorality of adultery and say, my adulterous brothers and sisters that are being intimidated, you are one with us and we are one with you.

The Higher Purpose of Muslim Activism

You see, dare I say we have a higher goal than just carving out a safe space for me to live in. That higher goal is the prophetic example of preaching what is true, commanding what is good, and telling, and it's just verbal. I don't force anybody for anything, but we do have a message, and the fact of the matter is people will judge you not just based upon who you are, but by your close associates as well.

So we need to think long and hard. We have to have some really awkward conversations about how judicious is it politically and how ethical and moral is it for us theologically to ally with groups that might not embody our values, and these conversations unfortunately are not taking place to the level that they need to. There's too much emotionalism, there's too much quick judgments from either side, and I do hope that at least in these types of forums we can have what are called, you know, the theologians and the activists, even though I don't like this dichotomy, but still nonetheless for lack of a better term, we can have all of us come together and have some very frank conversations about some of these very thorny issues.

Bottom line, there's no easy answer, and perhaps some bit of diversity is good, but one should also understand that clerics and theologians and preachers have a role that perhaps activists should not have, and activists should cut them some slack, and maybe the clerics should cut the activists some slack as well, but as long as it is within a boundary of theological acceptability, under no circumstance should any Muslim using the Islamic tradition justify adultery or, you know, drinking or, you know, whatever.

Under no circumstance should Islam become dragged down and used to justify what Islam itself generally considers an immorality.

Audience Q&A Session

Thank you. So what I want to do with that was to try to give us, you know, something new and interesting, and Hamza, I think you did that for a shake, and now questions. Dr. Jones. And the mic is coming. And that's when we started at 8.35, so I think I should get until 9.35, inshallah, to finish.

This is Dr. Jimmy Jones with CARE Nationals Board. We know each other very well. He's the founder of the Islamic Seminary. I just, first of all, want to commend CARE, even though I'm on the board of CARE, for having this, because I agree wholeheartedly, Dr. Khadi, with what you said. We have to have some awkward conversations, and I just like to use my question to encourage people to think about, because part of what we've been doing in other sessions, looking back at history and thinking in the United States and thinking about what has gone on, what it has to do with.

I'll give a quick example. PBS just had on American Experience a special called the Eugenic Crusades, which I would recommend to everybody who's an activist in this country. Eugenics is a movement that was going on in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was about improving the race.

Of course, we think the KKK and all of that. No, progressives were the leadership of this eugenics movement, which ended up being used against the poor, the black, and the browns.

One of the people who supported eugenics was W.E.B. Du Bois, who was lauded in the African American community as a leader for social justice, internationally, that sort of thing. I didn't know that. He was one of the leaders. I think part of what you're implying is that you have to understand the context in which people are operating.

During the early 20th century, the progressives were saying, we need to improve the human race. Most people who saw themselves as being progressive went along with it. All I'm saying is that we need to think hard and long, as you say, even in this context. I heard a lot of people say, we need to join together with the progressives, but we just need to be careful about that.

I think what theologians like you and others can do is, for Muslims who are involved in the emotional fray, just to step back for a moment and see what's the long-term implication of what we're pushing at this particular moment. I'm just agreeing with that. I just think it's very, very important to do that. Oftentimes, we don't listen because with us as an organization, we often respond to the 24-hour news cycle. We don't step back and say, what's the long-range implication of that? I appreciate it. I just want to add over here.

Learning from Historical Patterns

As the adage goes, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You know, been there, done that. This isn't the first time a new fad comes up and people think that the fad is the end-all and be-all. This isn't the first time. The intellectual history is something that is just a cycle. It's cyclical.

Every few generations, something comes along, whether it was Aristotelian cosmology. Look at Ibn Sina. Ibn Sina swallowed Aristotelian cosmology hook, line, and sinker, thinking that that was the rage of his time. Nobody believes in that cosmology anymore. Yet for the time, he felt Islam must be backward and outdated because it's not living up to the nine spherical constellations around the sun and moon.

Just the entire philosophy of Hellenistic thought for a period of time was considered to be the greatest achievement of human civilization. For those two, three hundred years, Muslim pseudo-intellectuals absorbed those values, whereas the mainstream theologians said, no, no, that's not what the tradition preaches. Eventually, the mainstream theologians won over, as you know, the famous stories and whatnot.

I think we need to learn from the past that if we truly believe in our faith and our tradition, our values are going to come from that faith and tradition. Sure.

Leadership Cultivation in Minority Communities

Greetings of peace upon everyone. My name is Afaf Nasher. I'm an attorney and the executive director

for the New York Chapter of Care. So, Shaykh, I'm going back to what you had spoken about a little bit earlier in the program when we were talking about seeking leadership. And I understand the potential for vices when leadership brings fame and greed and power.

But the truth is, especially within the context right now in the United States, Muslims are a tiny minority. And our general community, meaning we are a minority, the non-Muslim general community, is not necessarily going to come and push us to the forefront of leadership. And so what we have done as an organization and even personally, and it's not just Care, even Masajid and other organizations, have tried to cultivate leadership, especially within the youth.

Right. And so in a way, through this cultivation of leadership, we're sending the message, we want you to be leaders. Right. And we're instilling this idea in our children and in the future that they can be the leaders, i.e. they're going to seek leadership skills. Is this wrong?

So we're constantly battling between ideal and pragmatic reality. The ideal is, as I said, leaders should be reluctant. And the best leaders are reluctant leaders, the best, because they don't want that fame and power. At the same time, as you correctly point out, we don't have the luxury of just sitting back and doing nothing. People have to take the forefront.

If all of us took that attitude, especially given the fact that we're such a small minority, hardly anything would get done. You know, many of these organizations, including the MSA and Care and many of these organizations, they were founded by reluctant heroes, reluctant leaders. They didn't want any, but nobody else was doing it. They had to step up, you know, to the plate.

I believe that the solution isn't to discard your program. The solution is to always mention the ideal, even as we're struggling with reality. So incorporate these prophetic ideals into the leadership programs, even as you're calling the youth to become leaders. Tell them the reality of what a true leader is, and hopefully a little bit of that spirituality will be absorbed into.

So again, this is one of the constant struggles, and especially living in the modern world. How utopic can you be? How idealistic can you be? I mean, we're all struggling with this as faithful conservative Muslims in the world that we live in. You have to make compromises or else nothing gets done.

If we do make a compromise, if we're forced to compromise, let's not lose track of what the ideal is, because we don't want the compromise to then become the ideal. Okay, and I think that's one of the things that is relatively easy to do, and that is to keep on invoking the prophetic model and the Islamic ideal, even as we're struggling and we're far away from it. If we lose track of the ideal, then unfortunately the compromise becomes the ideal, and I think that is a far bigger danger than simply compromising in the first place.

Internal Criticism and Community Unity

Okay. Jacob. This is Jacob Bender, the Director of Care for the Deaf. Good morning. Morning. And I'm particularly thankful for your allusion to the incoherence of the incoherence in your last presentation about Hellenistic influence.

In the Jewish prophetic tradition that I come from, the books of the prophets, Micah, Isaiah, Amos, within what's usually referred to as the Old Testament or the Hebrew scripture, when we read those, we are taken aback by the strong criticism that the prophets had towards their own people and the leadership of their community, the kings, the ruling class.

And when we apply that or try to see that within the modern context, many people within the Jewish community retract and are afraid of, quote-unquote, washing dirty linen in public. This comes particularly in reference to Israeli policy, and within the Jewish community there is a reluctance to criticize Israel because of the giving support to anti-Semites and recalling the tragedy of Jewish history.

I've occasionally found within the Muslim community also a reticence to criticize actions of those claiming to be Muslims, claiming to be following Islam, because of the long history of colonialism, and we don't want to give support to our enemies. And so within both communities, I have found this reluctance at times to openly criticize people within our own community in spite of the Quranic mandate to speak out against injustice, even if committed by those within our own families.

And I was wondering if you could respond to that. Thank you.

The Power of Internal Criticism

That's a very profound point. And the best criticisms are those that come from within, not from without. The most powerful, the most authentic voices of criticism are those that come from within. So it is so easy for me as an outsider to criticize Israeli policies, but when an insider does it, it's far more effective.

Similarly for me, it is a little bit more problematic to criticize what's happening in Yemen right now, but I do it and I have done it plenty of times, because the very country I studied in is the one that is causing the famine, the chaos, the civil war, the bombings of one of the greatest tragedies taking place right now. It's very difficult, but it needs to be done.

And coming from me, hopefully, it's a little bit more pertinent and relevant and authentic, because there are certain perceived loyalties that I might have had with that entity. So I fully agree with you, and that is why it is so important every one of us recognizes the ease with which we can criticize the other, and that's not the main criticism that should be coming from us.

What we need to criticize is the criticism of within. What are my family and friends, what are my people of my faith community doing that's wrong? Because that's the true voice. It's so easy to groupthink and to

conglomerate together around us versus them. Look at those people, and listen, I'm a big critic of colonialism, obviously, yet at the same time, let's be brutally honest here.

What the West did to Japan, what the West did to Germany, they overcame that post-World War II. A lot of us in the Middle East and the far South Asia, we didn't overcome it. Let's be honest as well. So for how long can we keep on blaming colonization and what they did and they invaded? That's totally true. At the same time, they also did those crimes to other nations, yet those nations somehow managed to surpass what happened to them. There are definitely faults that we have as well.

The Quranic Command for Justice

So all I can say, the prophetic ideal teaches us, all prophets, not just the Judaic tradition, the Islamic tradition, all traditions teach us that, as the Qur'an says,

"O you who believe, stand firm upon justice, being witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves and your parents and relatives."

For God is more worthwhile to be faithful to than them. This is a verse in the Qur'an, that speak the truth and stand upon justice, even if it be against your own parents and your own family. So I fully agree with you, and I think that's why it's even more imperative that we recognize the faults from within.

Because when we criticize those faults, in fact, that criticism, not only is it more painful for us, but actually it's more effective for change. Because when an outsider criticizes, all that it does is it reinforces groupthink. It solidifies the us when the them criticizes. So when I criticize Israel, for example, and all of us, hopefully we find their policies problematic, it's very easy for them to say, oh, he's a Muslim cleric, he's a this and that.

But when a person from within, born and raised in that community, stands up and says, no, I love my people, yet I'm criticizing this policy, that voice becomes far more difficult to silence, and it has a greater impact than my voice. And the same goes for me as well when I criticize within. So I thank you very much for that nugget of wisdom, and I say that I fully agree with it, and I hope that we can live up to the prophetic ideals that you mentioned in the beginning.

Final Questions and Spiritual Balance

We have exactly four minutes left. So what I want to do is if you have a question, not a comment, but a question, I'm going to let you ask your questions back to back really quick and then let the sheikh, who has an excellent memory, just answer them all collectively and do that, inshallah. Afaf, you already had one question. If I could just get these two new people and then I'll come to you, inshallah. Do you have a question in the front row? Question, not a comment, but a question, inshallah. Mike is coming.

Wait for the mic, they're saying. Assalamu alaikum. My name is Osama Halmy from Clear Lake Islam. So the question was, how do you balance the request or the need or the quenching of knowledge while

you're being active? It's very hard sometimes to be, you know, fighting the front lines and still building your spirituality and having some kind of connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So what is a good advice that you can give on that balance? Thank you.

Sister? Yes, Asma Hanif, the executive director and founder of Muslimat Al Nisa Shelter. My question is referencing faith and activism because faith can be wrongfully used as a motivating factor behind harmful activism. Can one rely solely on faith as something or something else necessary to enact a moral compass to ensure that we first do no harm?

And Afaf, finally, you had a follow-up question? Really quickly, thank you for allowing me to be greedy. It's a follow-up to what Brother Jacob said and what Sheikh responded to, this idea of private versus publicly denouncing something that we see wrong. How does that work with the concepts of sitr, which is covering for one another? And also, if we publicly do it rather than privately do it, does it not hurt our unity as an ummah, especially, again, within the context of us being a minority and the divisions really do harm?

Closing Advice on Balancing Spirituality and Activism

Okay, I'm not texting. I'm writing your questions. Sheikh, you've got two minutes. Okay, very quickly. Balancing spirituality with activism. This is the earliest Qur'anic revelations of the earliest Qur'anic revelations.

"Once you finish doing what you need to do, stand up in prayer."

So never, ever trivialize that personal connection with your Lord, with your spiritual nutrients of the day, which is your dhikr, your Qur'an, your salah. Make sure, our Prophet advised somebody who came to him and said, I'm getting hard in my heart, like a spiritual trauma. I'm getting far from the faith. And the Prophet said, go find a poor person and feed him and go find an orphan and rub his head.

In other words, be involved with the disenfranchised, be involved with the poor. Make sure that this is very problematic for us who, the higher we rise, the more disconnected we become from the very people that we're supposed to represent. And look at this beautiful hadith, when the man comes and says, I think I'm getting far from the faith. He didn't say, go to the mosque. He didn't say, read the Qur'an, which we're supposed to do. He said, go find a poor person and feed him and go find an orphan and wipe his head.

Because when there's a physical connection with the poor, believe it or not, that will give you a dosage of spirituality that hardly anything else will. To realize how blessed we are, the peace and security, the comforts that we have. These are blessings that we appreciate. So that's the first advice.

Also, by the way, where there's a will, there's a way. Maximize your time. When you're driving to and from your destinations, rather than just listen to something else, put in something of spiritual value, a series of

lectures or something, basic spiritual stuff, theology or Qur'anic exegesis, something. Make it a series that you do.

As well, I mean, let's be honest here. Our Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam) didn't sleep that much. Because especially once you've, you don't need eight hours of sleep. Let me just say that. You do not need eight hours of sleep. I mean, we do need to prioritize other things. And we only have 24 hours a day. If you're truly a leader, there's got to be some spirituality, some personal development, some reading.

We always have to keep on increasing our knowledge. There's a reason why the first revelation is

"read," never stop seeking knowledge. And that's not just knowledge of the religion, but knowledge of the sciences you're dealing with. So where there's a will, there's a way.

The Balance Between Covering Sins and Exposing Harm

Sheikh, I've been told we are a hard stop. They're going to come with the hook. So can we maybe have you two speak privately to Dr. Hadi after we finish, inshallah? One minute. One minute? Okay, I got one minute from the boss. Okay. Okay. I really want to get to the sitr issue. I'll speak to you privately about that one, the sitr issue.

When do we cover and when do we expose? I think there's a very simple rule. When there's behavior that will damage others, there is no covering. If there is a molester, if there's a person who's embezzling funds, that's going to damage other people. There is no protection for the one who is harming others.

If it's a personal vice that you discover in a person, may God protect us all. Suppose he has a drinking problem, let's say. That's a very bad problem, but it's between him and his Lord. So it's not your business to go plaster it all over Facebook and social media. You go to him personally or her personally and you expose personally and you tell them to fear God and whatnot, but there's no need to expose a personal sin.

That's the simple balance between covering up and between exposing. And for your question, I'll come to you inshallah and talk to you. Thank you so much, Takbir.