Paris Attacks and the Rise of Islamophobia

Paris Attacks and the Rise of Islamophobia

Dr. Yasir Qadhi

Opening Du'a and Praise

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, seek His help and forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the wickedness of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomever He misguides, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, without any partners, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.

"O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims [in submission to Him]."

"O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed Allah is ever, over you, an Observer."

The Prophecy of Increasing Trials

أَمَّا بَعْدُ my dear brothers and sisters in Islam. Our Prophet ﷺ predicted in many, many traditions the fact that as we come closer to the day of judgment, more and more problems and calamities and trials and afflictions are going to come upon us. In one beautiful hadith in Sahih Muslim, our Prophet ﷺ said that each and every prophet warned his ummah about the problems that they would face. And what I am telling you is that this ummah of mine, its blessed era is the earlier era.

And as for the later eras, that's basically us. As for the later times : سَيُصِيبُ هَذِهِ الْأُمَّةَ فِي آخِرِهَا بَلَاءٌ وَأُمُورٌ تُنكِرُونَهَا - "The later times are going to be afflicted with trials and calamities that you will find difficult to bear" (Sahih Muslim 2961). And our Prophet ﷺ said in this hadith, "Every time one trial comes, it will make the one before it look trivial."

كُلَّمَا جَاءَت فِتْنَةٌ يَقُولُ الْمُؤْمِنُ هَذِهِ مُهْلِكَتِي ثُمَّ تَنْكَشِفُ - "Each one will make the one before it seem to be trivial. And so when the mu'min will see the new fitna come, the new trial come, he will say, this is the one, I'm going to be destroyed, I cannot stand it. Then it will be lifted up."

And another one will come. And the believer will say, "This is the one, this is the one that will destroy me." And brothers and sisters, wallahi when you look at the events and occurrences in the last decade and a half, it appears that, wallahu musta'an, we are seeing this hadith enacted before our very eyes.

The Current Climate of Islamophobia

Every time we thought that nothing worse can happen, another calamity, another tragedy, the rise of Islamophobia. It is truly unbelievable that the primary republican candidate can so casually suggest that all Muslims should be ID'd, that all Muslims should now have a special registration. It is unbelievable that one of the most prominent candidates to become president can say that we should shut down every single mosque in America.

And another one can say that Muslims should not run for office. The climate of Islamophobia has now become something that is not only acceptable, but rather when the candidates become more Islamophobic, their popularity rises amongst the population. Brothers and sisters, I cannot stress enough how dangerous such rhetoric is.

The Danger of Normalized Hate Speech

Why? Because no law can be passed without the population somehow wanting that law to be passed. And in order for the population to want that law to be passed, it must begin by stigmatization, by to simply suggest something that might be preposterous, and then it is considered to be too preposterous for now. Then it will be brought up again, then once again, then the third and fourth, then serious discussion will begin.

And then the next thing you know, that law will become a reality. And if we, each and every one of us, the Muslim American community, and our allies who want to help us in our protection of our first amendment values, if we do not start acting now, if we take a lazy attitude, if we consider this to be mere talk, then I worry about the next few years.

This result of Islamophobia is because of an attack in a land far, far away. God forbid, my dear brothers and sisters, but if some crazy person were to have an attack here, what would this result for people like us? Think about the repercussions of what is happening now. We see already how blatant and open this rhetoric has become. Many of you have seen videos of incidents here in America and across the western world.

Acknowledging Our Own Challenges

And of course the reality is, let us not forget, yes it is true, we also have crazy lunatics in our side as well. We also have fanatics, overzealous, misguided individuals. And the problem comes that we, in this masjid and all over the world, understand that these people don't represent us.

We know that. And I don't need to teach you a khutbah about the dangers of fanaticism, because we are not worried about that amongst us. But unfortunately, those outside of our ranks, consider such people to be representative, or if not representative, at least coming from within our centers and masjid.

The False Narrative About Mosques

The presidential candidate explicitly said, "We all know that mosques are centers of radicalization." What a blatant lie. Wallahi this is such a bold faced lie. We all know the people who frequent the mosques. We all know that mosques are not at all the hotbeds of radicalization. We all know that mosques are places of worship, of community, of children playing, of iftar parties.

This is what the masjid is for. And yet the presumption, the perception, the notion, that mosques are hotbed of radicalization. The question, dear brothers and sisters, if we are not going to correct this misunderstanding, then who will? If we're still going to be lazy, if we're gonna pass the buck, somebody else is gonna do it.

Historical Parallels and Warnings

Brothers and sisters, we have to realize, and I don't want to sound alarmist here, but already parallels are being drawn between rhetoric from the far right now and rhetoric from the Nazi party of the 1920s Germany. Already parallels are being drawn. One of the main publications of England compared Muslims to rats invading into its territory.

This is exactly what the Nazis did to describe the Jews of their own lands. The notion of monitoring a specific ethnicity or race was something the Nazis did to every Jew. You had to register, you had to wear an identity badge.

And for 70, 80 years, the motto, the slogan was, "never again, never again, never again." Guess what? We are now hearing the same rhetoric. Every Muslim should be monitored.

The republican candidate said, "We will ask every Muslim to register their identity. These are difficult times, we have to now call for difficult situations and scenarios." And it is true that he's being called out, but the condemnation is so gentle, it's so trivial.

And his own party by and large has still accepted him. And he is the leading contender amongst the republican party. Brothers and sisters, again, I don't want to sound alarmist here, but if we're not going to take action now, who else is going to take action? If we're not gonna do something to help each other out now, and get the help of the broader community who understands and sympathizes with our freedom, then what is going to happen in the future?

Two-Pronged Response Required

And of course brothers and sisters, there are two elements that we need to talk about, and the khutbah obviously can only do so much. There is the spiritual element, and then there is the practical or pragmatic element. There is the element of what do we do as Muslims who believe in Allah, and then there is the element of what do we do as Americans who want to protect our freedoms. These are two different topics, and they both need to be discussed.

They both need to be prescribed if you like. And of course my speciality and expertise is the Islamic side, and there are those who are more involved in the legal side, in the activism side. And this needs to be done.

The Spiritual Response

That's our response, that there has to be a two-pronged response. Number one, on the religious side, we need to understand why this is happening. We need to read the Quran and sunnah. We need to contextualize, what does Allah want us to do? Why is this happening to us? That's the spiritual side. And that's something I have spoken about before, and I'll continue to speak about. And even in today's khutbah, we'll mention some of that.

The Practical Response

But there is another element as well. Mere talk of spirituality will not solve the problems. Our Prophet ﷺ didn't just sit behind and give halaqat and duroos. No, he was an activist in Mecca. He went around preaching and teaching, and he also went around negotiating. He went around getting the freedoms that he wanted.

And when he wasn't able to get it there, he went to Medina and he got it over there. Political activism is also a part of Islam. And in this country, when we are guaranteed the freedom to be Muslim, that is why many of us came here.

And that is the irony, that we came fleeing from religious persecution, only to face even worse religious persecution over here. But alhamdulillah, the situation is not completely dismal. People are speaking out. But now is the time to get our act together.

Understanding the Purpose of These Prophecies

Brothers and sisters, realize that indeed some of us, we feel that these ahadith are so pessimistic. They are doom and gloom. They talk about the future getting worse and worse. And there is an element of truth that that is true. The ahadith do seem to be somewhat of a dreary picture.

But the fact of the matter, these ahadith are not meant for us to become politically inactive. They're meant to console us that, you know what, when the time gets bad, Allah and His Messenger, they told us that it's gonna get bad. The purpose of these ahadith is not so that we become lazy.

Signs of the End Times

If you look at these ahadith, they are very explicit. Of the signs of the Day of Judgment, our Prophet ﷺ said: (وَيَكْثُرُ الْهَرْجُ - "Haraj is gonna increase") (Sahih Bukhari 1036). They said, "What is haraj?" He said: (الْقَتْلُ الْقَتْلُ - "People killing, people killing.")

And if you look at killing, even today, there was another attack in Mali. And last week, the attack in France, and this and that. And of course, the other way as well. The bombings that governments do against people, against civilian populations. The bombings that tyrannical regimes do against their own populations.

And everybody is killing everybody else. And this did not happen for most of human history. For most of human history, it wasn't as if this type of complete chaos.

Our Prophet ﷺ told us, that a person will kill somebody, and he won't even know why he killed him. It's just a blind fitna, he said. That one party killing another party, you don't even have any personal grievance with the other person.

This is what we see again. Our Prophet ﷺ told us, that the fitna will become so dangerous, he said. That one day he said, as he was sitting on one of the roofs of Medina, he said, "I see trials and tribulations falling upon you, like a heavy thunderstorm, like the drops of rain."

In other words, it's as if you cannot run away from it. Every one of us will be affected by it. Our Prophet ﷺ in another hadith he said, that trials will come, fitnas will come, that are so terrible, so difficult to bear, that a person will wake up a Muslim, but he will go to sleep at night, a kafir.

Or he will go to sleep a Muslim, and wake up the next morning, a kafir. Meaning, the trial will be so difficult, he will reject his faith, in order to save himself and his skin. But the reality is, that is not going to save himself.

And even if it saves himself in this world for a bit of time, it will not save himself in the next.

Our Response to Trials

Brothers and sisters, indeed it is true, that our Prophet ﷺ predicted, that more and more trials will happen. But as we said, the purpose of those predictions, was not so that we become lazy and inactive. It was not so that we accept, that that's going to happen. It was to console us, that look, this is something that we know, and there's a wisdom that we do not understand. But we do not accept status quo.

And we fight against any type of oppression. And we fight for our freedoms. And we do not just let people take away our right to be Muslim. That's not what Islam ever wanted us to do.

And realize my dear brothers and sisters, that even as our Prophet ﷺ, predicted these fitnas, predicted these trials and tribulations, he also told us some of what we need to do. Some of the wisdoms of why this is happening, and what we need to do to respond.

Understanding Fitna: The Wisdom Behind Trials

Of the wisdoms of why these trials happen, is in fact summarized even in the word fitna. Which is used in the Quran and Sunnah, to describe these trials and tribulations. Fitna, we translate it as a test, as a trial, as a tribulation.

But in reality, in pre-Islamic Arabic, in ancient Arabic, fitna did not mean trial. Fitna meant to examine. And that is why the goldsmith in Arabic was called fitan.

The Goldsmith Analogy

Because what does the goldsmith do? He examines gold to see whether it's real gold, or whether it's fake gold. The goldsmith, you would go to him, and you would get him to assess, how many carats, is it authentic, is it not. So he was called the fitan, the one who inflicts the fitna.

And how does the goldsmith test the veracity, or the carat of the gold? They would put it through a furnace. And that furnace was called fitna. Because the furnace tested the gold.

The furnace tested the gold. And what happened after the test was what? What came out of it was pure raw gold. The purest of the pure.

So even in the word fitna, we see a symbolism of the wisdom of why Allah tests us. The purpose of a fitna is to purify the righteous believers, to sift through, and to make sure that our iman is as pure as that gold that comes out of the fitna or the furnace.

Quranic Perspective on Trials

"Alif Lam Mim. Did mankind think that they would be left without having been tested just by saying we believe?"

No. Allah says, before you :

"And We have certainly tested those before them"

Why? What was the purpose of the test?

"The reason of the fitna, Allah will test who amongst you is true, and who amongst you is lying"

True to what and lying to what? True in their claim that we are Muslims. True in their claim that we believe. And again brothers and sisters, this goes back to a fundamental difference of our paradigm.

We believe in Jannah. We believe in a world after this world. Even if we don't get full justice in this world, we believe in the justice of the next. Even if we don't enjoy this world, we believe in the enjoyment of the next. So the purpose of the fitna is to make us truly re-examine, what are my priorities? Enjoyment of this world or enjoyment of the next? What are my priorities? To live this dunya and then to die? Or to live the never ending life of the akhirah? This is what the fitna does. It tests us.

The Purification Process

It makes us re-evaluate and think. It sifts each and every one of us, so that the filthy impurities, just like that gold that has the impurities, when it goes through the furnace, what happens to those impurities? It falls away. It leaves it.

Then what comes out? Nothing but pure gold. This is what a fitna is supposed to do. And there are those who don't have any gold. They are nothing but impurities. So what will the fitna do? Crumble them up and destroy them. And astaghfirullah, this is exactly what we see.

Those Who Fail the Test

There is a whole industry here in America, of these pseudo-Muslims or ex-Muslims. There is a whole industry of self-hating Muslims. People who will sell their religion, so that they can get on the New York Times bestseller list.

And that's very easy these days. Any Muslim who wants to criticize Islam, or an ex-Muslim who wants to criticize Islam, immediately the fame, the prominence, the money, the interviews, non-stop. And there are people as we all know, they have made a lifestyle, they have made their income to criticize Islam.

They were born into Muslim families, but they realized fame and fortune awaits me if I leave. Clearly they failed the fitna. And there are people that we see all the time.

These are the standard pundits and the experts that are interviewed by the far right and Fox News and others. This is the reality. They have failed miserably.

Those Who Pass the Test

So we see those that have failed. InshaAllah we also see those that are remaining firm. Alhamdulillah, how many of us here in this masjid, when we came to this land our iman was not that strong.

But being surrounded by all types of fitna, major and minor, fitna of a social level, and fitna of a personal level. What happens? Many of us we rediscovered our Islam. Many of us our faith became more committed.

Perhaps we weren't that involved with the masjid. Lo and behold we realized I want to be a part of the masjid. Perhaps we weren't that concerned about our salah.

Lo and behold we realized I need to start praying regularly. And alhamdulillah that's a positive sign. That the fitna has affected us in a manner that it should.

That's exactly what the fitna should do. That we come out of it pure than when we came into it.

The Escalating Nature of Current Trials

But dear brothers and sisters, what's happening is that the temperature of the furnace is increasing. The fire of the fitna is getting more and more. So we need to become pure and pure. We need to rise up even more than what we had already done.

And this is a necessary reality if we want to preserve Islam for our children. If we want to preserve our freedoms to be Muslim in this land. Brothers and sisters already, the Islamophobic crimes against our Muslim populations have reached more than a hundred.

People have been harassed and intimidated. How many of our sisters in hijab have been pulled off. A number of cases I've heard of at least two where strollers were pushed into ongoing traffic.

And this happened in Europe, not in America as far as I know. That there was a stroller pushed on into ongoing traffic. Where an elderly person was basically beaten up in Scotland with his wife.

A Muslim in their 50s or 60s. White beard, can you imagine? Group of thugs surrounded him and then beat him and his wife. Both of them are hospitalized.

And the stories are on and on. We already know a few months ago of the massacres of the three Muslims here. Of their neighbor that went in and shot them in cold blood.

If we are not going to stand up and face this challenge, who else is going to do that? And there are many ways of doing this brothers and sisters. And today's khutbah cannot talk about all of them. But very, very briefly.

Practical Steps for Response

As I said, it'