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Uniting Our Ummah When Politics Divide | Khutbah
How can we stay united as an Ummah with the rope of Allah in an era of intense political polarization?
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for him. And we bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the day of judgment. We ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَاءً فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَصْبَحْتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, and hold firmly to the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. All of you hold on to the rope of Allah and do not be divided amongst yourselves and remember the favor of Allah upon you. Allah mentions His ni'ma twice. Some of the scholars here mention that this is to emphasize that this is only by the blessing of Allah. As Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in another part, if you would spend what is in the heavens and the earth, ما أَلَّفْتَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِهِمْ you would not be able to unite their hearts. This is something that is purely a favor and a miracle of Allah. Remember when you were enemies and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala united you and you became brothers. أَصْبَحْتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا Once again, by His blessing, brothers united as one. And subhanAllah, when you look at the society of Medina, you find a people that could not but be united by لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله There is nothing else that would have been powerful enough to help them see past their differences and to come together and to not only start to see one another as human beings, but to see one another as brothers and sisters. It's one of the great desires of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam
when he would make dua night and day for the unity of this ummah, for the unity of this community. Because when we are united, we're focused. And when we're focused, we're productive, we're guided. We are living in accordance with the mandate that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given to us as an ummah. Now subhanAllah, today I wanted to speak about a very particular element of this. And it was really because there have been a lot of articles over the last few weeks that are asking the question whether or not the country that we're actually in right now is even sustainable with the amount of political polarization that exists. And the amount of disagreement that exists around us. That eventually as people are fed through their algorithm everything that they want to hear, everything that they want to know about the world, that they no longer see anyone as capable of having a mere difference of opinion on anything, but they see them as enemies that they have to destroy. And eventually people hurt each other, people hate each other, and then they hurt each other, and then it becomes an unsustainable situation. And subhanAllah, when you look at what the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam dealt with in his community, without social media, without the algorithms, without that polarization, you still always had the potential of that fire to be lit. And then suddenly people that have come together starting to see each other in a certain way. Now subhanAllah, in this situation we're talking about the companions of the Messenger salallahu alayhi wasalam. And so I wanted to actually focus on just a few benefits from this, and how we start to see each other once again as brothers and sisters past differences of opinion, legitimate differences of opinion. I'm not talking about fiqh, I'm talking about just differences of opinion on different things that are around us, and how quickly those things can be magnified.
We're talking about the companions of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. And of course, the first place to start is hadithatul ifq. One Aisha radiyaAllahu ta'ala was slandered, and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam stood up on the manbar, and he said, يَا مَعْشَرُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مَنْ يَعْذِرُنِي مِنْ رَجُلٍ قَدْ بَلَغَ أَذَاهُ فِي أَهْلِ بَيْتِ O my people, who's going to help me in regards to who's going to relieve me from a person that has hurt my family? And you know the purity of my family, you know the purity of your mother Aisha radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha. Who's going to take care of him once and for all? Sa'd ibn Mu'adh radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu gets up, and who's narrating this? Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, the one who's the subject of the slander. She's the one watching all of this unfold, and she says, Sa'd ibn Mu'adh got up, and he said, أَنَا أَعْذِرُكَ مِنْهُ يَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ O Messenger of Allah, I'll take care of him. إِن كَانَ مِنَ الْأَوْسِ ضَرَبْنَا عُنُقَةً If he's from al-Aws, we'll take care of him. And if he is from our brothers, from al-Khazraj, if he's from the other tribe, إِن كَانَ مِنْ إِخْوَانِنَا الْخَزْرَجِ أَمَرْتَنَا فَفَعَلْنَا If you told us to do away with that person, we would do away with that person as well. فَعَلْنَا أَمْرَكَ Whatever you command us to do, we're going to do it, O Messenger of Allah. And she says that Sa'd ibn Ubadah got up, وهو سيد الخزرج, and he's from the other sub-tribe. Now subhanAllah, we don't say al-Aws wal-Khazraj, we say the Ansar, because to us they're all one. We love the Ansar, we praise the Ansar, and Allah refers to them in the Quran as the Ansar, the Ansar, the Ansar. But those old wounds were there. And so the old wounds got triggered. This man from al-Aws said, if he's from our people, we'll take care of him. And if he's from al-Khazraj, from the other tribe, we'll take care of him as well.
And Sa'd ibn Ubadah is from al-Khazraj, and he stood up, and Aisha radiAllahu anha says, and this is what I want you to pay attention to, she says, وَكَانَ رَجُلًا صَالِحًا This is so beautiful. Aisha is the one who's being slandered. She says, Sa'd ibn Ubadah was a good man. He was a pious man. He was a pious man. But she said, اجْتَهَلَتْهُ الْحَمِيَّةُ He was overtaken by the heat of the moment and some of the old divisions of Jahiliyyah, of the days of ignorance. Aisha is the one who has the most to lose in this situation, and she feels like it's important to actually qualify what's happening here by saying, look, Sa'd ibn Ubadah makes a mistake here, but by the way, he's a good man. He's a good man that slipped for a moment and went back to those days of tribalism. And he responds back and he says, كَذَبْتَ لَعَمْرُ اللَّهِ لَا تَقْتُلُهُ وَلَا تَقْتِلُ عَلَىٰ قَتْلِهِ He stood up and he said to the other Sa'd, he said, if he's from us, you will never touch him. You will never be able to overcome him. And then she says, Usaid ibn Hudair, from the first tribe, he got up and he said to Sa'd ibn Ubadah, كَذَبْتَ لَعَمْرُ اللَّهِ لَا تَقْتُلُ عَلَىٰ قَتْلُهُ فَإِنَّكَ مُنَافِقٌ تُجَادِلُ عَلَىٰ مُنَافِقِينَ You have lied, you better believe that if he's from your people, we will take him out, and you're a hypocrite arguing on behalf of the hypocrites. And then it all became yelling and screaming back to the old days, back to the old wounds. And the Prophet ﷺ is standing on the manbar disappointed, standing on the pulpit disappointed. And subhanAllah in this moment, and these are companions of the Prophet ﷺ, what ended up happening? It wasn't about the issue anymore. They became quickly team Aus and team Khazraj, very quickly.
They went back to being team Aus and team Khazraj instead of just being Muslims, which had been nurtured over that entire time. And who gets away as a result of the distraction? Who's looking at that not disappointed at all and saying, I dodged one. The actual hypocrite, the actual munafiq, the actual person who caused all the problems is sitting there going, I'm glad they're fighting each other because now he gets to walk out of the masjid peacefully while great people start to argue with one another again. Because they stopped being team ummah, team Islam. They stopped being just Muslims and they went back to being Aus and Khazraj. And who stands to benefit? The actual evil parties stand to benefit most from that. Because it becomes a distraction. SubhanAllah when you talk about political polarization in America, how often? More often than not, almost always the same corruption that is present in the Republican Party is present in the Democratic Party. It's the same group of people that control and pull the strings and they stand to benefit from poor people all trying to fight each other. Over what? Over defending their platforms, defending their parties and drifting back into that. Because we are as human beings naturally tribal. Muslim or not Muslim. We can descend very quickly into my team. That's my team. You're on my team, he's on my team, she's on my team, that's it. And so when anyone from my team slips, I'm going to overlook it. But when anyone from the other team stirs something up, let's all gang up on that person. And what does Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala say? Remember who you were and remember what you became. You became a people of La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun Rasulullah. You became a people that stand up and pray at night. You became a people that spent of your wealth for the sake of Allah. You became a people that were willing to put your lives on the line. Don't go back to that.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says don't go back to being kuffar, striking at each other's necks. What's wrong with you? Don't go back to that. But we're human. And the companions are the best human beings after the Prophets of Allah. They didn't go further than what that happened but sometimes it gives us a glimpse. In fact, Subhanallah, the best two people of this ummah, Abu Bakr and Umar may Allah be pleased with them. The best two men after the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. I was just reading about the disagreement that they had because guess what? They disagreed sometimes. The Shaykhs of this ummah, the two Shaykhs of this ummah, they disagreed sometimes. And in this one particular disagreement, it was actually some of the context of Surat Al-Hujurat where they started to raise their voices in the presence of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Umar radiyaAllahu Anhu expressed an opinion different from Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq radiyaAllahu Anhu. Now these two men love each other. They love each other. But what did Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu Anhu say? He said, ma arata illa khilafi. You only expressed a different opinion because you wanted to differ with me. Abu Bakr and Umar. But there was hurt sometimes. You only said that, you only suggested something else because you wanted to be different from me. And that's when they started to argue. Now of course, this is Abu Bakr and Umar and not only did they reconcile in the moment and not go too far with this, they took Islam far and wide in ways that we're still benefiting today. Always, always, subhanAllah, because they put Allah first and they put the messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam first. After those moments, they were able to come back and get back to Allah wa Rasulullah. Every single time. Because they had bigger goals. And sometimes we have to be reminded of what that bigger goal actually is. And how we actually come back to something that is uniting. That is more important to us than anything else.
Dear brothers and sisters, subhanAllah, there are legitimate disagreements and there are disagreements that are far out of the realm of what is legitimate. But when you see a person next to you who says, La ilaha illallah Muhammadun Rasulullah. Your brother, your sister, who says, La ilaha illallah Muhammadun Rasulullah. You have to always keep that perspective ahead of you. You have to be able to put that ahead of you over and over and over again. And not let things that are secondary to tawheed and everything is secondary to tawheed. Everything is secondary to La ilaha illallah Muhammadun Rasulullah. Become a source of this type of disagreement. It's human nature, but it is prophetic call. It's the call of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that always get back to who you are and what you are supposed to be. We're human beings and sometimes, sometimes we're going to disagree. Now, subhanAllah, right now I'm talking about politics and the political polarization. Some of you probably don't care about politics at all. You're like, I never fight anyone over any politics. I just don't care. I don't read the news. I don't get involved. But it's just one example of what leads to a lot of heated discussions. And you'll see a lot of people arguing on two sides of a political aisle. And it's as if their wala and bara is to a political party or to a political figure rather than to Allah and his Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. They're willing to cut off ties, to insult and cut off ties and mock people who say la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah who you hope to see in Jannah next to you. But here you are, you cut it off. You know, subhanAllah, there was a brother who once said something very profound. He said, you know, when I signed up for the shahada card, when I said la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah, there wasn't a tick box that said Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative. I didn't have these tick box, you know, I had to sign Salafi, Sufi. I had to go Ikhwani, Tablighi. He was just saying, he's like, I didn't know when I said la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah I'm going to have all these tick boxes here in front of me.
What happened to la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah? The very basic of hablullah, the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And it's important for us to say that despite all of this, we do have red lines. We have red lines in our differences of opinion. We have red lines in our disagreements. Aqeedah is a red line. Our aqeedah is a red line. Our aqsa is a red line. Definitely. The blood of our brothers and sisters is a red line. You know, you can have differences of opinion on very real things, but like if it gets to the point where you are now insulting Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, clearly going against Allah and the Messenger of Allah, clearly going against your brothers and sisters, actually putting those things, these are red lines. But dear brothers and sisters, there's a lot in between those red lines. Just as human beings sometimes, we're going to have these disagreements. We're going to have discussions. And you have to still see your brother and your sister as your brother and sister and not succumb to the dominant way of discourse, where people just quickly hate each other and people quickly cut each other off. You have to remind yourself, and I have to remind myself, we're all on the same team. We're all on the team of la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah. We're all on the same team. And we have to see each other insha'Allah ta'ala as tawasaw bil haqi wa tawasaw bil sabr, in joining one another in good, in truth, and in joining one another in patience, trying to bring people to that rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and have them go through. And the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the Quran, as the scholars say. Wahadi nabiyyi salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and the guidance of our Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, as many of the scholars added. The book of Allah and the guidance of our Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And we want to have as many people as possible hanging on to that. And one of the promises that we are seeking to make to people is that if they prioritize Allah and the Messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam,
then it sorts out the world views, it sorts out the differences. It doesn't stop making us human. It doesn't stop making us differ altogether. But it does unite us around a purpose that is greater and that cannot be exploited by corrupt people and evil people. And so you stop seeing your brothers and sisters as teams. You stop seeing that, you know, anytime, and it can be something as small as your WhatsApp group, it could be something as big as whatever it is on social media. Anytime this person says something, I don't care if it's good, I'm going to disagree because that person is not on my team. And anytime someone on my team says something, I'm going to support it. This is exactly the jahiliyya the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam condemned. Unsur akhaaka ghaliman wa mazloom, support your brother. Whether he's oppressed or whether he's an oppressor. How do we support the oppressor? Stop him from oppressing. He's still your brother, you're still on the same team, stop him from oppressing. But your goal, your goal is to have as many people holding on to this rope as possible. As some of the people, you know, some of the scholars mentioned that sometimes, subhanallah, when you do the opposite of nasiha, when you start to offend someone and you start to come really aggressive at someone, you might make their opinion worse than it already is. Someone still within the red line, and then because you're lobbing shots at them, and you're fighting each other and yelling at each other and calling each other names, that person might say something that's going to take them out, just because they're mad at you and just because of the heat of the argument. Sheikh Al-Sha'arawi, rahimahullah, said something beautiful about the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He said if you're trying to kick someone off the rope of Allah, it's like you got your brother or sister hanging on by a thread, and you're trying to stomp them off of the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and kick them into hellfire. What's the difference between you and the shaitan? Trying to get as many people kicked off as possible into hellfire as possible, that's not who we are. It's not who we are. Our condition of la ilaha illallah, muhammadun rasulullah keeps us united as brothers and sisters,
and sometimes when we say something to each other, we take it back. We apologize, we come back to each other, and we try as much as possible to make room on the rope, nasiha, to build people up, to say let's get as many people as possible holding on to this rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and protected bi-idhnillahi ta'ala, and not let our egos take us away from our prophetic way, the way of our Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, qala salallahu alayhi wa sallam, la tahasadu wa la tabaghadu wa la tajassasu wa la tahassasu wa la tanajashu wakunu ibadallahi ikhwana. It's a beautiful hadith in Sahih Muslim. He said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, don't envy one another, don't hate one another, do not spy on one another, don't go fishing around on one another, and do not become people that raise prices on one another and try to exploit one another, but instead be ibadallahi ikhwana. Be servants of Allah and brothers and sisters on that condition, that we're all the ibad of Allah. I end with this idea and this scene of the Qantarah. The Qantarah is an interesting place if you read about the Day of Judgment. You know, we often talk about the Meezan, and indeed there are some people at the scale on the Day of Judgment who will have their good deeds taken away because of their tongue. In fact, that's what the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned, is the majority of people going bankrupt on the Day of Judgment, that running tongue, those running fingers. They offended, they hurt, they abused, they backbited, whatever it may be. Then you have those people that make it to this Qantarah. The Qantarah, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, is the bridge right before Jannah. Right before Jannah. It's the brothers and sisters that made it. You're going to Jannah, bid'ah ta'ala, may Allah make us from the people of Jannah. People that said and that acted in righteous ways, in ways that were satisfactory enough for them to be on this bridge right about to get into Jannah. Then some of them have hard feelings towards one another.
Some of them have some hard feelings. And Allah is not going to let you into Jannah with those hard feelings. SubhanAllah, in this situation, it's not even an obvious transgression, the way that the transgressions happen and are dealt with in the grave and at the scale and things of that sort. It's the brothers and the sisters that used to always go at it. It's the brothers and the sisters that tried to avoid each other in the musallah. And now you're looking over and you see that person next to you on the Qantarah. And imagine getting hit by a bullet. Held up from Jannah. Because you need to work this out between yourselves. How silly would we feel? How silly would we feel? I can see Jannah over there and I want to get in there. But I need to work this out. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala remove from our hearts, remove from our hearts those grudges and that malice. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from it. May Allah azawajal allow us to enter into Jannah as brothers and sisters around their prophet, Sayyidina Muhammad al-Firdaus al-A'la. Allahumma ameen. I say this and ask forgiveness for the sake of the Muslims. So ask forgiveness. He is the Forgiving, the Merciful. Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Allahumma ghafir al-mu'minin wa al-mu'minat wa al-muslimin wa al-muslimat. Al-ahya'i minhum wa al-amwati innaka sami'un wa al-qareebun wa al-mujeebun wa al-da'awati. Allahumma ghafir lana wa alhamna wa a'fu anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa in lam takhfir lana wa tarhamna. Lanakun nana minal khasireen. Allahumma innaka afuun kareemun tuhibbu al-afwa fa'afu anna. Allahumma ghafir liwalidina. Rabbirhammu maa kamal rabbuna sighara. Rabbana hablana min azwajina wa dhuriyatina qurra ta'ayun. Wa ja'alna lilmutaqina imama. Allahumma nsir ikhwanan al-mustad'afina. Fima shariq al-ardi wa ma gharbiha. Allahumma izal al-Islam wa al-muslimin. Wa adhila al-shirk wa al-kadhibin. Wa damr a'da al-din. Allahumma ahlik al-dhalimin wa al-dhalimin wa akhrijna wa ikhwanan min baynihim salimin. Ibadullahana Allah ya'mru bil-adli wa al-ihsan wa ita'idil-qurba. Wa yanha'an al-fahsha'i wa al-munkar wa al-baghih. Ya'idukum la'alakum tathakkarun. Fathkuru Allah ya thkurukum. Wa shukruhu ala n'i'ma a yazid lakum. Wa la thikru Allahi akbar. Wallahu ya'numu ma tasna'un. Wa aqeem al-salat.
Salaam alaikum.
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