Imam Tom Live
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Muslim Influencers Profiting from Apartheid | Imam Tom Live
We tackle crucial current events including the Rafah Massacre and Gaza Pier, explore the media's portrayal of these incidents, and compare the treatment of hostages in Israel and Palestine. Imam Tom will react to questions about the implications of normalization with Israel, its impact on the Palestinian struggle, and the concept of resistance. We'll also dive into Islamic etiquette, focusing on the Sunan of Greeting, and discuss the 21 Laws of Leadership with a focus on timing, explosive growth, and legacy. Tune in, share your questions, and be part of the conversation!
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome back to Yaqeen's weekly live stream. I'm your host, Imam Tom. It's a pleasure to have you as always. Today, we're gonna be mixing up in a little bit and doing something a little bit different. We're going to put your questions at the very front of the episode. So if you have anything at all, any questions that you'd like discussed, something on your mind, something you've always wondered about, then send it right now. Send it in the chat below. After we check in and see where everybody's tuning in from tonight, we'll be going through your questions. And we'll also be going through questions as we continue through the program tonight. We've got a very, very solid episode for you all. As normal, we're going to be talking about the current events, the Rafah massacre, or the the quote unquote rescue mission that took place, as well as the Gaza piers insidious, nefarious role in that massacre. We're also going to be addressing normalization and some doubts, some common doubts about normalization, which is going to be a really, really important segment of today's show. We're also going to be changing a little bit the way that we do the item section. We're going to be asking you questions. So we'll see what you all know, and we'll be hopefully having a little bit of fun with that. And we finally get to finish our book on self-development today, the book about leadership, 21 laws of leadership. We're doing laws 19, 20 and 21, which means that next episode, we'll be starting a new book. And that is exciting. But first, let's see who all is tuning in tonight and where everybody's from. Wa alaikum salam, Miss S. We have Mohammed Jahid from California. Alhamdulillah. Rahima Armstrong from Cardiff, South Wales, UK. Mashallah. I was not able to get to Cardiff, unfortunately, but I've heard so many wonderful things about Cardiff. Inshallah. Next time, Amanda Walker. Wa alaikum salam from North Carolina. A Qadri from SoCal, a regular viewer. A Qadri, welcome to the show.
Michelle from Kentucky. Plus, we have Wa alaikum salam, Honey from Dubai, Abdullah Khan, also from SoCal. Wa alaikum salam, Rafatullah. Lagos, Nigeria, Rufai, very good. We have Free Dr. Afia Siddiqui. I mean, I love the username. Wa alaikum salam, Rafatullah from Russia. Allahu Akbar. We have Fatima Ghari from Egypt. Wa alaikum salam, Rafatullah. Formyrab from Turkey. Ahlan wa sahlan, hoş geldiniz. Pensator7 from Chicago. Welcome to the program. Now, let's see. We've got Wa alaikum salam, Hershey PA and B. Welcome back. Nice questions are coming in. We'll get to them in a sec. I see Saadia, Sammy from Australia. Wa alaikum salam, Rafatullah. Welcome to the program. Truth for Peace from the UK. Abdul Arham from Pakistan. Welcome to the program. Z from Minnesota. Jesus was a Muslim. Wa alaikum salam from Jakarta, Indonesia. Welcome. Ahlul Biryani wa Samosa from Maryland. Oh my gosh. What's with the usernames tonight? The usernames are very creative and endearing tonight. We have Sara from Canada. Wa alaikum salam, Rafatullah. Jill from Providence, Rhode Island. Wa alaikum salam. Welcome to the program. Zameeluddin from Birmingham, UK. Courtney G from Ohio. Saeed from Indiana. Ali from, oh, I didn't say where from, but wa alaikum salam. Sana from Massachusetts. Welcome. Wa alaikum salam. Shabnam from Germany. Very nice. Welcome from Germany. We have Asariha Ahmed from Atlanta. We have Fais Muhammad from New Zealand. Allahu Akbar. Wa alaikum salam to everybody. Okay. Ali was from Nigeria as well. India's in the house.
Omar Ashrafi. Belgium's in the house. Little Frog. Wa alaikum salam, Rafatullah. The Hanbali, Muhammad from New Jersey. He asked my home state. Ahlan wa sahlan. Okay. Very good. We've got more people from California, from Brunei. Allahu Akbar. Sabrina Sharbawi from Brunei. Very good. Okay. Let's see. I know, I know I saw some questions coming through. Let's get to your questions before we get on to current events and what's been going on this past week. I know. Let's see. Let's see. I know I saw one here in the beginning. Yes. A Qadri says, not sure how, if I should feel resentment towards other Muslims who are silent about Philistine. Maybe I'll give you a pass on social media platform like LinkedIn, but why so silent on personal socials? That's a good point, A Qadri. And I think a lot of people are feeling this out. There's almost like two extremes in a way. There's in one sense, there is an important distinction or point that needs to be made that when it comes to either political engagement or to all of the issues that are affecting the ummah today, that no one person can do everything. Okay. That's true. Granted. And that not everybody should be doing the same thing. All right. Also granted. However, it's also true that Philistine in particular is a certain type of test for how we feel. And it is an Aqeedah issue for us. It is not, it is not, it is not the same. It is not at the same caliber of any other Muslim land, other than Mecca and Medina itself.
And when I was in Ireland and there were many Palestinians there that were living in exile, one of them said to me, and I thought it was a wonderful quote. He said, how you feel about Mecca reflects the state of your heart in terms of your relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, with your creator. And how you feel towards Medina is a reflection of the state of your heart in terms of what's your relationship to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And how you feel towards Philistine is a reflection of the state of your heart for how you feel towards the Ummah of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And I thought that was profound because it is a check and what we have seen, especially in the Western nations, unfortunately, but all over the Ummah is that some of us, whether it's because we've been infected with tribalism or ethno-nationalism or whatever else it could be, even assimilation, that we have been, we have witnessed some segments of our community not showing up for Palestine as much as we should. Now, again, that goes with the two caveats we already mentioned. That doesn't mean that everybody has to do everything. That doesn't mean that everybody has to do the same thing. Even some people have an appetite for protests. Some people have an appetite for other types of political action or engagement. Other people have other types of things that they're good at or skills that they're able to lend towards the cause, whether it's writing, whether it's talking to friends or talking within the workplace or anything, right? However, we have seen that there are certain segments within our community that are insufficiently moved and feel insufficiently stirred by the issue of Palestine, the occupation of Palestine and what is going on.
In fact, some of those segments are actually inconvenienced by the occupation of Palestine because it stands in the way of their comfortable assimilation and proximity to power and status. May Allah guide all of us. Let's see, Abdul Arham, he asked the question, how does Dean lay out the trajectory for Philistine from this point in time? Well, I'm going to, as I often do push back against the way that the question is framed because, you know, in the Quran, Allah did not say when Palestine is occupied, then you do X and then you do Y and then you do Z and that's how you get to liberation, that's not what he said, that Allah gave us certain things in the deen that are very explicit and specific and then he gave us other things in the deen that are general principles and therefore there is a process of extrapolation and application that has to take place and this is a process of Ijtihad that requires some scholarship, whether it is scholarship both of the law, both of the Quran and the Hadith and the sources of Islamic law and also understanding the realities, also understanding the political realities on the ground. So there is no one silver bullet magic answer where we can say in extremely granular detail that first this, then this, then this, then this. However, there are very, very important principles that when we realize that politics is a sphere and it's not a sphere that is separate from Islam, Islam is a political deen and politics falls under Islamic guidance, Islam sets the guardrails and sets the rules for what you can and cannot do. There are certain things we do not believe in Islam that the ends justify the means, we are not Machiavellians, we do not believe that you can do anything that is just about grabbing power, no matter how it's gotten in order
to achieve the end that might be a positive end, that's not our creed and that's not our belief that there are guardrails that are sent down by the Sharia, which is why understanding the Sharia, understanding the Quran, understanding the Hadith, understanding our Islamic scholarship is very, very important to be able to structure and guide our calculus when it comes to what are our possibilities, what are our options. After that, there are certain particular principles that have to be taken very, very seriously, some of which we'll get to later in the program. So I'm not going to spill all the beans right now when we talk about normalization and some of the doubts that exist about normalization or some people who think that normalization with the occupying force of Israel is a good idea, there are some things that we have to be aware of that are political realities that tell us that that is not a good idea. And then there are also some religious considerations that we have to take into concern as well. So we do not separate these two spheres. That is a product of secularism to separate politics, to say, oh, we just believe, you know, politics is real politic and we just do anything that's going to gain us power. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how it works. That everything in Islam, whether it's how you go to the bathroom, right, or how you clean your mouth or which sandal you step into first, the right one or the left one, Islam has guidance for it. Some of that guidance is extremely specific. Some of that guidance is general, right? But it's, there's no arena in which Islam is completely silent on a particular field of inquiry or thought. So we have to be sure that we understand what we have in our tradition and our sacred knowledge to start the conversation and to guide it from there. Let's see who got, ooh, Trinidad is in the house. As-salamu alaykum, Latisha. Yusmeyanti from Houston. Welcome. Houston was lovely. I was able to visit it once. I found it very, very charming place. Islam the way I am from Newcastle.
Welcome. Sisu from Malaysia. Salaam at the time. Okay. This is what to recite the du'a on the day of Arafat. We've got lots of information in Yaqeen Institute for which du'a to recite for Arafat and there are many, but keep in mind the general. The general guidance from the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when it comes to du'a is that du'a has to be heartfelt, that you have to have presence of heart with what you ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la for. And so that we make sure that whatever you are praying for, that you're praying for with, you're not just a machine. You're not just, you know, print yourself off a list of du'a that you find online and you're like a robot, like Siri or Alexa reciting these long du'a and you don't even know what they mean. It's very important. Even though, even though we can make an exception for certain du'a that the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam made because they have blessing and even repeating them, even if you don't know them and understand what they mean. But when it comes to other du'a, especially on the day of Arafat, that your heart should be present and you should be attentive to what it is that you are asking for. Let's see what other questions we have. Some of the questions I don't quite understand. So forgive me, let's skip over the questions either that I didn't necessarily understand all of it. Sana asks, or sorry, Sada asks a question. What's your view on this line of thought that there's no organized group of elites or those in power. They're all just disorganized individuals who go to whatever it takes to keep their status, power, money. That's a great question, Sada. I do agree with that. Sometimes we get very conspiratorial, right? We imagine that everybody's just pulling the strings behind this sort of closed door board meeting somewhere, and they're plotting everything out as we've seen. And anybody who's lived long enough can observe that power is not so total. That's what they wish you would believe.
They wish you would believe that they, that they are in power, but they're not. And so I think that's a great question, Sada. I think that's a great question, Sada. So total, that's what they wish you would believe. They wish you would believe that they, that the elites have this sort of total and complete control over everything. And that's a very sort of discouraging and despairing type of assumption to make. In reality, there's different types of people in the world. There are certain people who are ideologically committed. And if you look at the current Zionist occupation, we see this and the politicians in the United States, some of them are very, very ideologically committed to the project of Zionism, to the project of Israel. They are true believers of the movement, if you will. There are other people that are simply following, as we say in Arabic, they're maslaha, they're simply following the dollars. There's, if, if, if Zionism is making them money today, then they're a Zionist. If anti-Zionism is making them money tomorrow, then there'll be an anti-Zionist. Those people exist too. And then there's other people that are sort of clout chasers and just sort of follow behind in the wake of other people who are maybe more bold and committing certain actions. So it's under, it's important to understand these typologies because each different type requires a different type of time or sort of interaction or plan. You don't treat somebody who's ideologically committed to something the same way that you would treat somebody who's just following their interest. All right. Somebody who, some people who are ideologically committed to something, there's nothing you can say or do that will change their mind. Other people who are, they're just following the dollars. Then you have to create a situation in which they stand to profit off of doing the right thing, which is difficult. It's difficult to construct such a situation, but that's more along the line of what you're looking at. So understanding, I think those sorts of nuances I think is, is important. Good question. Tina Jamaluddin, from Malaysia. Salawa from Dallas. Nice. Walaikum Assalam.
Amber Good, from London. Pestify from Maldives. Walaikum Assalam. Worcester, Nusaybah from Worcester. I learned how to say Worcester because I went to Worcester. Worcester was very lovely. Rick Rashid. Walaikum Assalam. Rafatullah. Levi or Levi from Belgium. Walaikum Assalam. Rafatullah. Sisu has a question, thought, or maybe a thought. What if the victory promised is actually the unification of the ummah in the whole world by giving our best to spread dawah via the current situation and our gathered du'as? Yeah, absolutely. And one of, I'll say this, while we're on the sort of, the theme of being nuanced and not being overly simplistic in our analysis of different situations, whether political situations or otherwise, we have to be careful to reject false dilemmas. Right? So people will always present false dilemmas. Well, you have to be this or that, or that there's only these two options or that you're doing this. And that means that you're not doing that. No, Habibi, we can do multiple things at one time, right? I can pat my head and rub my stomach. I can chew gum and walk at the same time. Right? Many of us can do multiple things at once. So if we're talking about dawah, we're talking about du'a, we're talking about worship, we're talking about political engagement. A lot of times you hear people say, well, instead of political engagement, we all need to just be, you know, making sure that we pray and make our du'a. Habibi, let's do both. Let's do both. Like we can very, very easily do both. Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Sayyid Maaz Firdaus from Canada. Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Dina from California. Ahlan wa sahlan. Okay. Abdel Arham has another question. If a person wants to pursue higher education in a country, which supports Israel as of now, is it acceptable to travel and study there? I'm a doctor with intentions to train there.
I mean, I refrain from giving fatwa and I think that's the mature thing to do. I would be wary of people who give you fatwa online without knowing your situation, because we in this modern era have forgotten what fatwa is. Fatwa is a non-binding religious opinion that can change from time to time and place to place. Right? So if the person who is asking me is in a life-threatening situation, if they're responsible for people who are under their care, people who need chronic medical attention or emergency medical treatment, and this is like their only opportunity, that is a different situation than somebody who really it's just gratuitous. They don't necessarily need to do that. So every situation is different. If you're looking for fatwa, you need to connect with local qualified scholars who know your situation. Right? Two conditions, local and qualified. Hanan from Kurdistan. Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Saadia has an interesting question. And one that I've been asked before, is it a good idea to donate a free Qur'an, for example, when giving dawah? Shouldn't we be careful if the non-Muslims might bin it? I love the phraseology there. Yeah, there's two schools of thought on this. One school of thought is that you hand out the Qur'ans freely like water because you want anybody to benefit. Now the second school of thought is that, well, you should be a little bit more careful because other people won't respect the Qur'an or might not respect the Qur'an as much as they should. Or maybe they even do something, you know, maybe they keep it in their bathroom and read it while they're on the, on the toilet. A'azakumullah. Right. This is a very real concern. However, alhamdulillah in usul ul fiqh, we have tools for how to think through these things, and I personally lean towards the first camp more. I think that the, the, the purpose of the Qur'an or giving someone a Qur'an is to read it, hoping that they will come closer and be guided, giving them an opportunity to hear and experience the Qur'an, even if it's mediated by a
translation, whereas doing disrespectful things for, to the Qur'an, is that a probabilistic scenario? Is that a certain scenario? Is it a 50 50 thing? Is it a minority situation, right? You have to go through a certain set of probabilistic reasoning and we use probabilistic reasoning in usul ul fiqh and fiqh in general, that what's the likelihood of this thing to happen? Because if you want it to go off of possible, but unlikely things, then everything's haram, right? Because you can always think in every single situation of something haram that might happen, but it's not likely to happen. So of all the people that you give Qur'ans to, okay. And the proper, the proper or the obvious thing to do, the main purpose of a Qur'an is to read it. So you have a high likelihood that people are going to read it and you have a low likelihood that people are going to bin it or do something disrespectful to it. Probably. Then you prioritize what is more likely to happen over what is less likely to happen and Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la knows best. Wa Alaykum As-Salaam wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu. Joining up. Mariamah asks, is it haram to make du'a against the oppressors? Absolutely not. Because we have examples of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam making du'a against the oppressors. So that settles it right there. However, there might be some nuance when it comes to, you know, what is the nature of the oppression? Is the oppressor a Muslim? Are they not a Muslim? These sorts of things. However, the general rule, this is something that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself did. In fact, it is the also of the Qunoot, right? Which the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam for a period, extended period was making du'a after Fajr.
And he like, like during, sorry, during the Fajr prayer. And it was specifically against individuals that he wanted Allah to punish. So this is something that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did. Okay. Sana asks, have you heard of the Bilderberg meeting? No, I haven't. I'm not in the know. Yes, it does feel that we're up against a lot Sana, but Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is able. Allah is capable. Allah, the forces of evil wants you to feel like there's no way out. But Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is able to bring victory to whoever he wishes. Triple Dare asks, Wa Alaykum As Salaam Wa Rahmatullah. Some Muslims are against oppression, of course, but are extremely reluctant to openly express this due to potential social ramifications. What advice would you give to reassure them? I would say again, that this is sort of fatwa territory where you're getting into. A person needs to understand the specific situation which that person lives. If that person makes a social media post, are they going to get taqalbab in the middle of the night? That they're going to get arrested and thrown into a prison and tortured? Or is this somewhere in the West where you have free expression? These are site specific things. And these are actual factors that will affect the ruling of this particular type of question. But however, we have the general guidance of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, which says that if you see a munkar, something that is obvious and known wrong, then you change it with your hand. And if you are not able to, then you change it with your speech. And if you are not able to, then at least you hate it in your heart. And every Muslim has to go through that process to figure out what situation are you in of those three. Dina asks, is it acceptable to donate money or Eid sacrifice to charities? Example, Islamic relief organizations. There's a couple of things in there. And I believe that it's probably not the best forum to address this issue. But when it comes to Eid sacrifice, it's not necessarily,
if you're talking about substituting money for a sacrifice, then no, then the sacrifice is supposed to be udhiyah. It's supposed to be a specific sacrifice It's supposed to be a specific sacrifice. And so it's not replaceable by money per se. Is it better to do it local or is it better to do it where the most need is? This is a very perennial question that you'll find scholars on both sides. When it comes to zakat in general or zakat al-fitr or the Eid sacrifice, these are all different situations. So this is a broader fiqh discussion that we really don't have time for here in general. Okay, here we go. We'll try to wrap it up with just a couple more questions. Yusmeyanti asks, how do we overcome sadness and desperation for Palestine suffering? Where do I and charity feel not enough? Too many casualties already and still no solution. That's a hundred percent correct. We all feel that way. Yusmeyanti, thank you so much for giving voice to that. We might not, I think your question assumes that we should be getting over it. Maybe we don't get over it. Maybe this is something that actually indicates our own morality and the fact that our hearts are alive that we can't get over it. I don't know about you, but I can't sleep these days. I have a very, very hard time sleeping. My mind is always turning things over. I've gotten certain kind of like stress habits that I've developed because of Gaza, because of Palestine, right? Now I can look at that in some way and say, okay, well, I want to overcome this. And yeah, in order to be functional, in order to prepare for the show, in order to prepare my writings or whatever I'm doing, I need to be a certain baseline of functional. However, it is also a mark that you are alive, that your heart is alive, that you feel this way in the first place. So maybe we just accept it. Maybe we don't necessarily get over it.
I apologize for anybody whose questions I skip over. Some of them are intentional and some of them are not, because whenever a new question is added, it bumps up things. Courtney G has a very good point. And I want to highlight it. I agree. It's like free expression in the West is a myth. I've faced threats, torture and attacks for speaking out against Israel, for standing for Palestine, speaking out against Islamophobia. I 100% agree with that, Courtney. Maybe we can have a discussion about nuance, about the types of restraint and the types of power. There's soft power, there's hard power, right? But there's definitely, I agree with your general gist is that there is a myth of just free expression. There is no such thing as free expression, even in the lands on paper, right? Legally, there is no such thing as pure free expression. And in fact, one of the things that Zionism has done, especially in the so-called free world, which again, that is kind of a farce and a facade, I agree, is that it has tried to create levers and strings to control people, even extra legally. So things that are not illegal per se. When they're able to create legal artifices or new sort of legal language and frames in order to punish people they have, such as hate speech, such as everything is antisemitic, such as these types of things. However, they're also happy if you just get fired, right? You didn't do anything illegal. However, they will try to associate a social cost along with it as well. So that's at least got us through the majority of the questions, at least enough where I'm satisfied, enough to move on to the next segment of our program. And please keep the questions coming. I'll keep circling back and cycling through. So if you have any that come up to you, if I skipped your question, there were a couple of questions I skipped just because it's kind of a can of worms. It would take us far afield.
And there's others that I might've just missed. Very good. Walaikum Assalamu Alaikum, Rashid from Malaysia. Oh man. There's some really good comments here, but I'm gonna try to circle back to them. We'll try to move on for now. We'll get to that comment. So that's a really good one. I appreciate you mentioning that. So when it comes to current events, obviously one of the main thing on our mind, of course is Philistine and particularly Gaza and particularly Rafah. So we've talked about how the Zionist occupiers have squeezed down the Palestinians and the people of Gaza, like a tube of toothpaste to the very, very bottom of the Gaza Strip or what some people call the envelope, the Gaza envelope to Rafah. Rafah is on the border of Egypt. It is the place where it is basically the last remaining sort of space that was not actively overrun in the same way that the North of Gaza was. However, we see that in the past week, there have been more and more aggressive action against Rafah, more and more slaughter, particularly with a so-called, with a so-called hostage rescue mission. Yeah, so we've got the... This is how it's being framed. And one of the false frames of the Zionist occupation this entire time for the last eight months is that it was really just after the hostages, that if the hostages had been released, that this whole thing would have been over. Now, even to the point where many of the billboards that were put up around the United States and in North America were bring them all home, bring the hostages home, et cetera, et cetera.
However, the actions and behavior of the occupying Zionist entity has demonstrated that it doesn't care about the hostages whatsoever, that it has been, and it remains the greatest threat to the lives of those hostages, not their captors or not the people or resistance factions of Gaza. So if we see, and we have some media here about how this was portrayed. Now, over 200 people, hundreds of people were killed in this raid that I think supposedly rescued four hostages. Okay, but look at how the titles of the news articles, which we have come to expect by now in Israeli hostage rescue minutes made the difference, right, so this is the New York Times, the most famous spokesperson for imperial Western values in the world probably, that has automatically put you on the side of the Israelis, automatically puts you on the side of the IDF and of the Zionist occupiers by framing it almost like as an action movie, right? Minutes made the difference, like it almost didn't succeed, but thanks to the quick thinking and the brilliant action of the heroes, right? It gets you thinking clearly about who are the heroes and the good guys and who are the bad guys. Similarly, we have the BBC here, another mouthpiece for imperialism, Gaza War, which the Western media really has to decide whether this is a war or whether this is slaughter. Well, that's another subject, don't get me going on that. But anyway, the title is, What We Know About Israel's Rafah Hostage Rescue Raid. Again, notice the language that this is all about hostage rescue raids. It has nothing to do with the hundreds that were slaughtered in order to supposedly rescue these four. Despite all of the actions that the IDF has already taken, which show complete disregard, we've seen the IDF actually assassinated
and sniped their own people, their own hostages waving white flags, dropping bombs on locations where they knew hostages were. This is something that is very well known at this point. NBC, another mouthpiece for imperialism, we have Israel's hostage rescue, new details on how it unfolded and almost, I'm guessing, like fell apart. So again, the sense of suspense. Who is the side that you're expected to identify yourself with? According to the framing of the article, you're expected to identify yourself with the IDF and their supposedly implicitly heroic mission. New York Post, one of the worst rags out there, inside Israel's hostage rescue raid and how it nearly failed. So a very similar thing, the sense of near failure, but we managed to pull it off. With no comments or recognition of the hundreds that were murdered in cold blood in order for these people to be supposedly rescued, that they are actually going more into a more dangerous state. And we've seen also, and we'll get to this now, what was the state of the hostages? So supposedly all of these, let's go to the next media we have. Supposedly these hostages are being saved from this horrible fate. But everything that we've seen for the last eight months indicates that not only have the Israeli prisoners and hostages been treated better than Palestinian prisoners and hostages, that the Israeli hostages and prisoners, when they are released, they are subject to gag orders. They are subject to intimidation. They are subject to silencing by their own government, trying to prevent the narrative from getting out there of the humanity of Palestinians and even the humanity of the Palestinian resistance factions. So we have here, this line here on Saturday, such and such a person said that his captors presented him with a cake on the occasion of his birthday. SubhanAllah.
Now you've got people who are starving, right? And people who don't have enough supplies for themselves and they are contriving to try to get a birthday cake to their prisoner. Now, I want you to see how much humanity that requires and how much prioritizing others and who is the real barbarian and who is the real terrorist here. We have, this is a very, very famous one, right? The quote here from one of the captives that was released. When we got there, first of all, they told us that they believe in the Quran and they would not harm us. So they are looking to put their prisoners and their captives at rest as much as possible to tell them that they have no intent to harm them whatsoever. Now, we also have images of how the Palestinian prisoners and hostages have been treated. Oh, so here's before and after. So you see very, very little difference here before and after. The person has, they've been fed well, they've been taken care of, had their medical needs sort of taken care of versus the Palestinian hostages and the Palestinian prisoners, may Allah liberate all of them. That they come back emaciated, they come back with broken bones, they come back injured. Ahad Tamimi's father was released this past week as well. And he looked just very, very similar to this situation right here. He looked like a shadow or a shell of his former self. So this is something that's a very, very horrible situation and it throws a wrench in the narrative that the Israeli media is trying to portray. And last but not least, we get to the US's involvement in all of this with the Gaza Pier. So supposedly, remember this was Biden's great solution when he tried to portray this as a merely humanitarian issue and that we just need to make sure that humanitarian aid was reaching the people of Gaza with no recognition whatsoever of the political dimension where the United States was allowing and funding the slaughter and genocide of the people of Gaza. Or the fact that Israel itself was preventing aid from reaching the border through Rafah. They're basically trying to absolve Israel
from its responsibilities or from basic humanity and say, oh, well, we'll just build a pier and deliver this aid anyway. Well, guess what? The pier was instrumental to the forces that were used to slaughter the people in Rafah and the Rafah massacre and supposedly liberate these few hostages. That this is, it was a front. It was a Trojan horse. It was a ruse the entire time to create a foothold within Gaza where military operations could take place. So that is everything we've got here. Now, we're gonna talk about normalization and this is a very, very important thing because there's a lot of misinformation that's going around on the internet about normalization. We're gonna talk about that in just a second, but before that, let's circle back and let's see. I know some people had questions. I know we had that comment from Sana and that was where I think we left off, which it was a good one, which was stop the use of the term white supremacist when many non-Muslim whites are in the side of Palestine. That is a very important reflection, Sana, that we have to understand the nature of the issue. What is responsible for the occupation of Palestine and Gaza? And this is not to deny that white supremacy is a real thing and a huge threat. And even, especially in the United States of America, that there is a huge problem with white supremacy. There's even a problem with anti-blackness within Muslim communities, something we don't talk about enough. However, there is, on the opposite extreme, there is a push to collapse every single issue into a function of white supremacy. Whereas white supremacy sometimes is an ingredient or is an aspect or is a dimension of an issue, but there are much, much larger issues and issues that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la talked about in the Quran, such as kufr,
such as dhulm, such as more categories that are spoken about explicitly by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la that paint a more holistic picture of what is going on. That's a very, very important and subtle point to bring up. Okay, let's see what else we have. Wa alaykum as-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Oat hero. Yes, that's a great point. Courtney G. May Allah reward you for standing up and saying the truth. Pestify asked, do we need to fast on the day of Arafat if we are traveling? Well, you don't need to fast on the day of Arafat in the first place, in the sense that it is not a strict religious obligation, though it is a stressed sunnah. So it is something that you should do, but like all fasts, then if you are allowed to break your fast for traveling in Ramadan, then what do you think about Yawm al-Arafah? Wa alaykum as-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Let's see, education says, I do pray for Gaza, but I also pray for other oppressed peoples like the Indian Muslims. Yes, may Allah help them and aid them and free them from their oppressors as well. And individually oppressed people, that's a good point. Hanan asked a question about the Dajjal and I'm purposefully dodging all questions about the Dajjal. I think this is very speculative and anybody who knows me and knows my work, I don't talk too much about the Dajjal, even though it's an important topic and a lot of other people are handling it, but let's just put it this way. A lot of people for a very long time have thought that this is the Dajjal and the Dajjal's coming now and the Dajjal's right around the corner, only to have been proven wrong, right? So these things are very speculative and we have to be careful. It's important to arm ourselves with information about the Dajjal, but I don't see it as very fruitful to spend our time trying to speculate, are we right on the cusp of the Dajjal coming or not? We know that even the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that the Dajjal will come at a time
where knowledge of the Dajjal is basically gone. Well, we're all talking about the Dajjal and the knowledge is here, so what does that mean? I think that there are more productive and fruitful ways to sort of relate to what's going on without immediately going to an eschatological, that means like end of times, an eschatological frame. Not to say, not to say that there aren't eschatological elements to what's going on, of course there are, nobody would deny that. However, some people go right to the eschatological frame and dimension of things in an almost disempowering way where we stop talking about what is our duty, right? Because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that if the hour were established and you had a sapling in your hand, then you plant the sapling, right? That is what is expected of us. So rather than, unfortunately, some of us use these sorts of things as distraction. We'll talk about the Dajjal and talk about, and I'm not saying learning about it, no, learning about it is very, very important. It's a matter of deen and it's an obligation upon us. But some of us talk about it to the extent where it becomes a distraction from planting our seed, from planting our sapling, from doing, from grappling with the question, what does Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la want you to do in this moment? That's a very, very important thing. All the land belongs to Palestinians, 100% agree there, Rick, or is that Nick? I think it's Rick. Very good. Israel is a fake country. We're gonna get to that in a second. Very good. Okay, Hanan asked the question several times. We've answered it satisfactorily, hopefully. For my Rabb, says they are creating more resistance for us out of all of us. We all resist. Yes, I agree. This is something, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, that we've seen time and time again, that the more they try to attack Islam and the Muslims, the stronger we come back, which is enough for us to take hope
and to see the silver lining that we will, inshallah, rise to the occasion and do what we can do. Amir asked a question that I always take on because most people are too afraid to touch it. At what point do we put up arms and go over there and rescue our brothers and sisters? Yeah, Akhil Karim, that is not a solution. That will not work. Because let me put you onto something here. I live in the United States of America. I have a vote in the United States of America. Do you think for- a second, and I'm not saying that voting is the only answer or the only arena of politics, is a broad thing. And it's not just voting. It's also lobbying. It's also policy. It's also law. It's also community building, right? It's also organized money. This is all part of politics. But without the express approval of the United States of America, does this genocide happen or not? The answer is no. It does not happen without the United States. And so my duty and the duty of anybody in the United States, and I'll speak for my context, is to stay here and try to change the foreign policy of this country so that our brothers and sisters in Palestine will not be oppressed, not be occupied, not be murdered, not be slaughtered, not be genocided. That is our duty. That is what it looks like, in my humble opinion, to change the munkar with our hand, given where we are at. And I can't speak for other people and where they're at, but we have to think. You have to think strategically, right? What is the objective that we are trying to pursue? And what is the most sensible tactic to get there, right? That if this entire, put it this way, if the support of the United States of America was not instrumental to Zionism, then would Zionists have spent so much time and money and energy, decades and decades, we could
say more than a century, trying to convince the United States and the UK to fund and bankroll and politically and militarily support their project, right? So look at what they put their attention into, okay? In order trying to change the policies of this nation and a couple other nations that are able to kind of prop it up. So they understand that in order to achieve what they want, that that was the appropriate strategy. So we have to think, if we want to achieve a certain thing, what is the appropriate tactics and strategy that is best suited to that? And my argument has always been that the most effective thing that we can do as a Muslim Ummah is to change the foreign policy of the United States and the Western nations towards the Middle East and the Muslim lands. Walaikum Assalam Afiq from Malaysia. I had a classmate from Malaysia named Afiq. So I don't think you're him, but you could be. He was from Kelantan, I believe, or Terengganu, I'm not sure. Let's see, what else do we have here? Jack Beasley, if I have fasts remaining from Ramadan due to sickness, can I fast Arafah without making these up first? That's dealt with elsewhere. It's a sort of contentious fiqh issue. I'm not going to opine on it here. It's a good question. It's one that you'll find scholars on both sides. Can you combine intentions for making up or not? It's kind of a sticky issue. I'm not going to get into it here, but a good question. Mariam has a good perspective on the Dajjal and thinking that every generation thinks they live in the end times. I appreciate that. Amira, Alhamdulillah, appreciate that. Sada brings up a good point. I agree again. Sorry, you're on fire tonight. At one point, I think Muslims need to look into themselves on why we're at such a state. Sure, we had colonization, but now it's different, so we can't keep blaming colonization for everything all the time. Yes, we definitely have opportunities. Let's put it out there. We have opportunities.
Mariam asks, could it be that the people right now in Palestine are already promised their place in Jannah? It could very well be, Mariam. That's a very, very good point. That's a very, very good point. I mentioned voting as one tool. It's not a particular thing, and that has a whole separate conversation that we can get into. I'm not under the illusion that voting is a particularly useful tool. In fact, I take the opinion of Henry David Thoreau, who said in the 1800s that he can't think of a more feeble expression of your political will than to cast a vote, but it is one available tool among other available tools to us. And so, I take a more sort of all tools in a tool belt type of approach. Wan Mahmood says, the first thing Americans must do is vote out corrupted politicians or change the rules so that corrupt politicians cannot occupy office. We have a lot of structural issues. Thank you so much. What's your favorite thing about Eid al-Adha? It is the takbirat. I love the takbirat. In fact, I'm just pumping out takbirat from my phone or my laptop as much as possible. I love listening to the different styles of takbirat throughout the Ummah. Our Ummah is so rich in culture, in traditions, in different types of things. I really, really love the Ummah. And so, the takbirat is one specific part of Eid and what Eid is that gets us to experience that
variety and that diversity of the Ummah. And actually, the Eid khutbah that I'm going to be giving inshaAllah ta'ala will be on sort of reflections on the takbirat. When are you in Yaqeen coming back to Minnesota? I don't know, Habibi. I want to come as soon as possible. I love Minnesota. I have unfinished business in Minnesota. A lot of good things going on there. May Allah bless you all. But for the meantime, in the meantime, we have to get on to a very, very important topic, which is normalization. I've got, I think, an image here from the studio that we can bring up representing a meeting that happened from President of Israel, Isaac Herzog and MBZ of the UAE. This happened in January 2022. And it is a very sort of interesting pictorial representation of normalization. And for you art critics here, I'd like to point out that notice how we've got three Israeli flags and three Palestinian flags in the background. And we've got two leaders of countries and no Palestinians in sight. If you want to understand normalization, that's what it is right there. Period. No Palestinians in sight. Now, I'm going to break it down because there is a lot of misinformation and some well-intentioned misinformation when it comes to normalization, what it is, what it isn't, what it could do, what it would do. We're going to get into that right now. But if you want it in a word, it is skipping over the Palestinians and ignoring the Palestinians. Those are Emirati flags as I've been corrected. Well, that's even worse. There's no Palestinian, Palestinians and no Palestinian flags either. So question one, what is normalization? What does it mean to normalize with Israel? Normalization, strictly speaking, means to establish diplomatic, economic and political
relations with the occupying force of Israel and treat it basically like any other nation. So it would be the opposite of an isolationist approach. It would be an approach that basically, you know how countries have embassies in between one another and they have airports and airlines that fly in between one another and they have businesses that can basically, you know, do trade with one another. That is what normalization means, that instead of isolating Israel and refusing diplomatic relations or economic relations or political relations, then you are actually establishing these ties. Now, what does it signify? Okay. What's so bad about normalization? Normalization, it grants recognition to the occupying force of Israel that it is a legitimate state. And that has been something that the Palestinian resistance has had an issue with since day one, that the recognition of the validity of the state of Israel is a key contention. It accepts, normalization accepts the original sin of the state of Israel, which is the leveraging and the exploitation of the international, quote unquote, community, the Western nations to impose unilaterally a racially supremacist, Jewish supremacist homeland on the land of the Palestinians. And so establishing, normalizing relationships with Israel recognizes the legitimacy for such a project to exist. It is in essence spitting on the graves of the great grandparents and grandparents of many Palestinians who died and perished during
the Nakba, who were slaughtered and worse than slaughtered during 1948 and around that time, that it recognizes that Israel has, as Israel has a right to exist. Now, some people will say, well, wait a second, that sounds anti-Semitic. You're saying that Jews don't have a right to exist in Palestine. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what we're saying. The Jews having a right to exist in Palestine versus Israel having the right to exist as a state are two separate issues. And the Zionists would like you to think that they're the same issue. But in fact, the state of Israel, which is Zionist and racist and supremacist to its core, to its constitution, to its founding events and the founding events, right? That this is something that does not have a right to exist. Israel does not have a right to exist. No nation on earth has a right to exist, especially if that nation was established on conquest, on colonization, on supremacy, on barbarity, et cetera, et cetera. So the position with this thing in mind, with this in mind about what normalization represents, imagine somebody comes into your house when you're a little kid and they take over your house and they force you to live in the basement and they tie your hands up and they give you dog food and they treat you in horrible ways. Sometimes they come down and beat you and they don't let you come and go as you please, et cetera. How would you hope that your neighbor treated that person? What would you do if you saw your neighbor cutting the grass for that person or your neighbor trading cookies and brownies and things like that? What would you expect from your neighbor? If your neighbor had any ounce of loyalty, if your
neighbor had any ounce of morality or duty, then you would expect them to disapprove of that action and to do whatever they could do in order to stop it. So the position of normalization is one of cowardice. It is one of humiliation for Palestinians and a memory of their ancestors. And it is betrayal. It is a betrayal of the Palestinians, which is why you don't see any Palestinians or their flags in those pictures. That it is skipping over the Palestinians in the process. We hear all the time about the U.S. is trying to conduct a deal with Saudi Arabia, is trying to conduct a deal with the UAE, is trying to conduct a deal with Egypt, is trying to conduct a deal with Qatar or with this or with that nation. What about Palestine? What about the Palestinians? Where are they? It is an attempt to skip over, to skip over the Palestinians and to cut them out of the process, to say nothing of the fact that Palestine is a waqf lillah, that Omar ibn al-Khattab made Palestine a waqf and that it's nobody's to give up and it's nobody's to give away. Now, the second question, we've got question number two over here. What are the potential consequences of normalization for the Palestinian struggle? This is very important because some people have started to wonder if normalization could create a situation in which we could actually end the occupation in a roundabout way, in an indirect way. Now we'll address that in a second. But the first most fundamental thing is that all of the peace talks and all of the so-called efforts of normalization are predicated upon one thing. And that is the rejection of the
Palestinians' right to resist. And this is why the Palestinians reject normalization. This is why all of the Palestinian resistance factions reject normalization and they criticize the other nations for having normalized relations with the occupying force because they are expecting and they are saying and arguing that, hey, if you guys Palestinians just lay down your arms and just sort of stop fighting, then maybe then you can come to some sort of peaceful resolution. Now, I want you to understand what it would mean for Palestinians to give up their right to resist, to disarm, and to basically just rely on a quote-unquote peace process. That it would mean giving up all of the leverage that they had. It would mean more settlements. It would mean more checkpoints. It would mean more evictions, more denial of the right for their people to return to Palestine once they've left. And it would be also a failure to learn from some of the other things that have already happened to the Muslim ummah, such as Bosnia. People with short memories. Let's remember Bosnia. What happened to our Bosnian brothers and sisters when they were told, all you have to do is give up your right to resist and lay down your arms and you will be treated fairly and equitably. What happened to our brothers and sisters in Bosnia? It was a massacre. It was shooting fish in a barrel. That this is precisely what the Serbs wanted because then they could attack without any opposition. And this in fact is exactly what the Zionists would like as well. The Zionists would love if they didn't have any resistance. They would love to completely take over Gaza. We've seen that them making plans for, for
settlements and kibbutzes in Gaza. Do you think that if the people of Gaza laid down their arms and stopped, gave up their right to resist, that those plans would halt? That the land grab would continue and would accelerate. And they would have absolutely no leverage to bring people, to bring the Zionist occupying entity to the table and force them to negotiate. Which is our next point. That if you want to actually negotiate with somebody, you have to have leverage to force them to negotiate. And this is a lesson that is taught to us by the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And it's taught to us by Allah Azawajal in the Quran. If you look at the story of Musa and Firaun, did Musa give up his leverage? Did he stop bringing the curses or bringing the plagues or bringing the miracles or all the things upon Firaun? That was his leverage to force Firaun to negotiate. If Musa decided to go home and give up his right to resist, he would have no leverage and he would be crushed right away. Just like the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when it came to the long struggle against the Quraysh and the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, that the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam created leverage and the leverage is what enabled the negotiations to take place. Anybody who's saying that the Palestinians will be able to negotiate after they give up their leverage, either you haven't been paying attention to the last 75 years of Palestinian history, or you're just making an ideological statement. You haven't thought this through. That if you look at the history of the legal solutions, you look at the history of all the peace talks, quote unquote, the peace process, quote unquote, that this has always been a sham
from the West to get the Palestinians to recognize the right of Israel to exist, quote unquote, as a Jewish supremacist state, as a Zionist state, and to get them to give up their only leverage that they've ever had the entire time, which is their resistance. All previous attempts at negotiations have failed. All previous attempts of quote unquote, peace talks have failed, and it hasn't failed because of the Palestinians. And the Palestinians have also tried the route of civil disobedience. The people of Gaza themselves, and I believe 2018 marched to the wall in a peaceful demonstration, the march of return. And what did they receive in response? They were sniped in the kneecaps. They were deliberately maimed and injured for life just because of their willingness to resist. Even their symbolic resistance was offensive. So if this is the type of enemy that you're up against, do you really think that giving up all of your leverage is going to enable you to have a better outcome or not? I would say not. That the Zionist entity is going to pursue its occupation and its land grab and its colonization of the land, whether there is a resistance or not, they're going to try. Some people are trying to portray it as if, well, if the resistance stops, then we're going to be able to hold them accountable. Then the international community will come and save the day. The UN will come and save the day, or this sort of body or that sort of body, or one state solution and Palestinians will become citizens. And then they'll go through a civil rights movement. Like in the United States, this is all wrong headed thinking.
Look at what the Zionist movement has done time and time and time again, that the only thing that has stopped them from a total and complete displacement of the Palestinians and a complete erasure and eradication of the Palestinians has been the resistance, has been the right to resist. And that's not to say that anything is perfect and we're not idealizing this side or that side or this faction or that faction. We can talk about, you know, whether we approve or disapprove of this, that and the third, but that's not, this is not the place for it. That we're saying that the general idea is that, and this is recognized under international law. We're not saying anything controversial here. International law recognizes the right for an occupied people to resist. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la recognizes and establishes, better word to say, establishes the right for occupied people to exist. Why are you justified to fight back? Because they turned us out of their homes. That's right in the Quran. And someone's going to come along now and say, well, you've been turned out of your homes and you've been fought against, but no, don't do anything. Give up your right to resist. And they'll, maybe they'll treat you nice enough so that in 60 years, in 60 years, there won't be any Palestinians left. If you give up the right to resist. And if you give up the only leverage that you have. So we'll end it there. There's a lot of sort of misnomers and some sort of false arguments being made out there, but I hope, I hope that anybody who, listen, listen, I'll admit, listen, I was not the most educated person on the history of Palestine and all of the sort of resistance factions and all the different peace talks and all the different accords and all the different players. But then I took it upon myself to educate myself. There are many books out there. There are dozens of books out there, good books that can help you educate yourself. Any objective observer and
student of the history of the last 75 plus years of the occupation of Palestine understands. That the peace talks have always been a ruse, that the peace process has always been a ruse, that they've all been predicated upon recognizing Israel's so-called right to resist, giving up on the right to return for refugees in the diaspora of Palestinians and laying down arms and relinquishing the only leverage that the desperate Palestinians have, which is their resistance, that once those things are done, then you can kiss Palestine. Goodbye. Now let's go through some comments and some questions. I'm sure that, you know, there's going to be plenty of, plenty of commentary here. Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullah from, let's see, we've got Canada. Is that Smila Rahma from Scotland? Lovely. Welcome. Amir has the follow-up question. He says, I understand the intention. However, the U S government has been sold out for decades and does not represent their people anyway. So isn't that option kind of pointless? Well, not necessarily, right, but it's true what you say that they have sold out their people. They're not accountable to the average American person or else they wouldn't support Israel because the average American person doesn't want to be supporting Israel and funding a genocide. However, there are, there are levers to power. There are multiple levers to power. As we've mentioned, one of them is the political route about voting or getting someone let's even forget about voting. Cause I know some people get triggered when I talk about voting, getting somebody elected or getting somebody unelected, basically getting someone's time in office up. If you're able to do that, then that is a lever of power. Money and influence is a lever of power. Business is a lever of power.
There are many, many levers of power that the United States government responds to, which as again, if you study how Zionism has been able to institutionally capture the United States, they have done the same thing. You look at the universities in the United States of America, all of the presidents of the major universities are glorified fundraisers. They are responsible for raising money for their endowments. And so the Zionists were very, very slick. And they basically said, well, we're going to organize our alumni money and we're going to put tons of funds earmarked every year for these endowments. And therefore when any university, now you have a pro-Palestinian encampment, we're going to threaten to take away that donation unless you crush it. That's a lever of power. So there are many levers of power that can be exercised and they are, they're right here waiting for us to, to take advantage of them. Come to Glasgow, please. Inshallah. I would love to. We are up against a system that has been centuries in the making, which has succeeded in colonizing Muslim leaders, either economically or by blackmail. And of course there is nefs and self-interest involved. Yes. A hundred percent. I agree. Sada says Jews have existed in Palestine. Yes. And they had a better, more peaceful existence in Palestine when it was ruled by Muslims. Let's see. Oath Hero asks, is it haram to insult the name Israel because it's the name of Yaqub? This is a topic I hear about a lot. I haven't really seen anybody insulting the name Israel people when they are insulting something, or they're not really even insulting it. They're criticizing it. They're criticizing the nation state, right? The occupier, right? So I don't necessarily see a lot of people insulting the name. I mean, it's their fault that they attach their genocidal colonial project to such a noble name. Smila says normalization is a deal between those who have sold their souls to the devil for self-advancement at the expense of an oppressed people.
That was very succinct. I completely agree. Pensator seven. Imagine if that neighbor was family or your brother, a hundred percent. Very good. Ghazala asks the question of why every other country talking for Palestinians, but not them? Who is Israel to hold everything in its hands? Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly one of the main points of the problem of normalization, that all these people get in a room together and Palestine is not present. Or if Palestine is present, you know, who's there, somebody, some tokenized individual, and we're not going to try to name names. I know some of you named names already. Yes, exactly. People who the West have basically cultivated to be their guy who have very little credibility among the Palestinian people at this point, right? That so they can say that they didn't pass over the Palestinians. But if you go on the street and it was a city or Khan Yunus or in Al-Quds or in Ramallah, you ask the people on the street, if they're representative, they feel represented in these meetings. Of course the answer will be way different. Free office. Dr. Afia Siddiqui has a great comment. How relationships can be normalized with those who oppress your Muslim brothers and sisters for decades. Exactly. That, that is such a dishonorable, humiliating stance to take. May Allah protect us from that such humiliation. Yes. And Letitia brings up a great point. I know why U.S. is in the ceasefire talks, but they cannot be trusted at all. They only have the interest of Israel. I brought this up last week, Letitia, that the United States wishes to portray itself as a neutral mediator. They are conducting, conducting the genocide. And there are people, U.S. military personnel with boots on the ground in Gaza, in addition to the funding, in addition to the, the, the armaments. So a hundred percent right.
The United States is not a credible mediator whatsoever that it should pose as a neutral party. That is not a neutral party. Good point, Samila, about Netanyahu. Yes. There's all the receipts are online. A hundred percent that the Oslo Accords, especially, but also all of these sorts of individual quote, unquote, peace talks, quote, unquote, peace process. It was really just buying the Zionists time. It was serving the interests of Zionists because they're playing population games. They're playing displacement games. They're playing the settlements game. They have many, many tactics that they're pushing out the, that they're pushing out the Palestinians. Samila says, everything you say is documented fact and even covered in premier former President Mikko Pelled. Yes. General Sun. So we have a book recommendation. Thank you for that Samila. Yes. We're all somewhat guilty. I agree. Like we, we all have to step up. Like nobody here is just throwing blame on others in order to deflect it from ourselves. Let's all take a moment and grapple with what we can be doing better. Yes. And Rashad brings up a great point. This is what was done to the native Americans here in America. Absolutely. If you're confused about peace processes, then go ask, go ask native Americans. They'll tell you all about it or the prospect of laying down your arms and being granted something in return. Mohammed asks about Mahmoud Abbas. I mean, you can, there, there's a lot written on, on these sorts of things. Mahmoud Abbas was somebody who has a very, very checkered reputation. Let's just say many, many Palestinians view him as somebody who is, who is a very, very conservative person. He's a very conservative man. He's a very conservative man. He's a very conservative man. He's a very conservative man.
Many, many Palestinians view him as somebody who is sold out. And there's a important discussion as to what is the role of the Palestinian authority? Are they really doing the work for Israel of Israel for it? I'll leave that for another, another time. Nusayba brings up a great point. When I was in college, 10 years ago, when Palestine was in the news, our college made sure that the MSA and Hillel played nice with each other by forcing us in one room with rabbis and chaplains. This is a very important point, Nusayba. This is what I call, well, many people call it faithwashing. It also is the depoliticization of the issue. So all of these movements, all of these movements that are going on around the world, it also is the depoliticization of the issue. So all of these movies and documentaries and feel good sort of stories that make it seem, Oh, there was an Israeli boy and a, and a, and a Palestinian boy and they became friends across the border and this sort of thing, very depoliticizing of what is actually the nature of the issue that is going on. The issue is not hate. The issue is not hatred of the other. The issue is not a bigotry. The issue is not a lack of understanding. The nature of the issue is political. That if you ended the occupation of Palestine and of Palestinians, that if you dismantled the state of Israel, you would actually allow the possibility for a new sort of governance and a new sort of state or whatever nation to take place where it would be better for Jews and Muslims and Christians and everybody. The current arrangement is not good for anyone. And so it's, this is one of the sort of Zionist lies that, you know, that the Palestinians and the Muslims want to push us all into the sea. No, that's not true whatsoever. This has to do with a government and that we refuse and it's important for everybody who has these sorts of ties to universities or even the workplace to
not accept the framing of this issue as just an issue of a lack of understanding or intolerance or of hatred, or that this is just an interfaith issue that if Muslims and Jews understood each other better than the, than all the issues of Palestine would be resolved. This is not, this is a deliberate attempt to depoliticize this issue and get it away from talking about the occupation and that the occupation has to end and that the state of Israel should be dismantled. Danger of Wehen. Exactly, Sara. Okay. I know we've got a lot of things. Okay. Abdullah asks a question right here from the studio. How do we handle the deep seated culture amongst our Christian American neighbors that has become God, family, country guns in Israel? Well, you know, the only real problem is the last one. And so there's always, listen, with anybody you talk to, there's always a bridge towards understanding. Most Americans really hate to feel like they're being taken advantage of. And that same, you know, God, family, country, and guns type of conservative is probably upset about how much money the United States government spent spends on welfare. And it's probably very, very critical of anybody who receives welfare. And that's a separate conversation. We're not saying that that is, that is a correct analysis of the situation, but what we're saying is that's what that person believes. And that can be used as a bridge. Well, do you know who's the biggest welfare recipient is Israel is the biggest welfare recipient that they have their free college and their free healthcare. And they live there. They're living the, the modern dream on your dime. And that would upset any sort of God and country conservative in the United States. So there's always sorts of, there's always opportunities, Dawa opportunities, discursive opportunities that, that can be sort of leveraged in these sorts of situations.
Good point. We can't stop talking about the 9,000 hostages in Israeli prisons. Yes. Good point. Courtney, you're a hundred percent, right? What's happening in Palestine is exactly what's happened to turtle Island. A hundred percent. Okay. Very good. We've reached the end one day. I love that. I love that we've reached the end. Okay. Very good. We've reached the end one day. I love that we visit free Palestine and pray and pray and travel from Al-Aqsa to Gaza. Peacefully with no, with nothing to worry about, except what we're going to have for lunch in order to help the Palestinian people rebuild. If that is necessary at that time, may Allah, let us see it in our lifetimes. Very good. So let's transition. Now we've got a sort of a new way to deal with this segment and what we've gone, this has been a long conversation. We've gone a little bit longer than usual, huh? But I've, I've personally benefited from, from the conversation. Let's go to our segment. Now we've got some questions for you all. Okay. Now the subject today is the Sunan of greeting each other. All right. How do we greet each other? What are, what are some of the Sunan, the plural of Sunnah that is related to greeting each other in a snap? So we've got question number one, are we able to do the poll or are we going to just do comments? Okay. We're just doing it in the comments. So everybody, you can answer A, B, C, or D. How should you return? How should you return the greeting of someone says to you, Salaam Alaikum. Should you say back to them? Salaam Alaikum. Should you say back to them? Salaam Alaikum. A. Should you say back to them? Salaam Alaikum. That's option B. Should you say C, Salaam Alaikum? Or should you say D, Salaam Alaikum?
Let's get some answers. Turkey with the first response. Birinji. I need to practice my Turkish. I've forgotten most of the Turkish that I used to know. You know, Sepanola, I was using, you know, Turkish has some of the best Proverbs that I've seen in any language. I was using one for a presentation I gave the other night, and I'll just leave it here for the Turks. And if you don't understand it, then it'll be like, if you know, you know, sort of thing. I busted that out in a, is in a presentation. So let's see, most people are saying D. Some people are saying C and notice I was crafty with how I framed the question here, because I said, should, which indicates kind of the best possible way. And that would be D that the best possible way to respond is Wa Alaykum As Salaam Wa Rahmatullah. It is acceptable to say Wa Alaykum As Salaam, but it is not acceptable to say Wa Alaykum As Salaam. Is Wa Alaykum As Salaam Wa Rahmatullah. It is acceptable to say Wa Alaykum As Salaam. And, you know, if you don't know any better than, okay, if you're doing out of ignorance, A or B, it's not necessarily a problem, but the standard, the minimum response is C and the better, best response is D because Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la said in the Quran, if you are given a certain greeting, then you should respond to the same or better. And obviously responding with better is, is better. Very good. Let's go to question number two. Okay. It's Sunnah for the following person to begin Salaam. Pay attention. Who should, who should begin Salaam? A, a person riding, beginning Salaam to a person who's walking. B, a younger person starting Salaam to an older person.
C, an individual person saying Salaam or beginning Salaam to a group of people. Or D, all of the above. Okay. That was a pretty easy one. Everybody's coming through with the D's. Very good. You guys nailed it. Excellent. Straight A students, everybody. Excellent. Okay. Let's try to get number, we have one more, right? Let's get number three and the final one. Okay. The Sunnah of greeting each other. Yes or no? So here we go. High stakes question. It's Sunnah to shake hands when greeting each other with Salaam. Salaam Alaikum. Now we're, we're apply gender rules here. We're not saying it's Sunnah for a Ajnabi man or a non-Mahram man to give, to shake hands with a non-Mahram woman. That's not what we're saying. We're saying man to man or woman to woman or man to his, you know, his sister or something like that. Is it Sunnah? Yes or no? To shake hands. Oh, we've got a little Ikhtalaf Al-Ulama here. We've got a little bit of a difference of opinion. Yeah, I agree. Next time InshaAllah we'll have the polls up and running. It's more of just like a tech issue. We were locked out of the studio today. We had some things going on. Mohammed asks, are I friends with the Towards Eternity team? I am. Oh, am I with the Towards Eternity? No, I'm not with them, but I'm, I know them and we're friends. Actually, I wish I was going to Turkey this, this summer because they asked me if I was coming through to, to stop in the studio and film some things,
but unfortunately it's not in the plans. Okay. We've got a lot of answer and Amina is answering D to a question that has no D. I'm assuming that you're talking about, assuming that you're talking about a previous question. Okay. The answer is actually A, that this is a Sunnah. It is a Sunnah to shake hands when giving the Salaam. And if you really, really want to, I can go into here, break out the Dalil here. Yes. That is the actions of the Sahaba. May Allah be pleased with them all. From Hadith Qatada, and that is related in Al Bukhari number 6,263. So there you go. Very good. So that concludes, thank you for playing. Inshallah we'll have some sort of slicker way to deliver the questions next time, but thank you for playing. Hopefully you benefited, I benefited. And now onto our final segment for tonight, which is the conclusion of our book on personal development, the laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell. And we've got only three laws remaining. Now law number 19, we'll start 19, 20, 21. Number law number 19 is called the law of timing. The law of timing means that being a leader is not just about doing the right thing. It's also having a sense of timing is that doing the right thing at the right time is an extremely important element to being a leader that a wrong action at the wrong time. That's yeah, that's a disaster,
but even the right action at the wrong time, it might not work. It might provoke or inspire resistance to what you're trying to do. Now you might have good timing, but you might have the wrong action. That's an innocent mistake, but true success comes from the right action at the right time. And the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam implemented this. If you look at his decision, what to do after the battle of Uhud, where it was somewhat of a loss scholars differ, was it a loss for the Muslims or was it sort of like a draw a stalemate, whatever have you that they were in a weakened compromised position, but the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam understood the danger of the moment. So he gathered everybody together, despite them being injured and weak and they marched to pursue the Quraysh outside of Medina to make them think that they had reinforcements and that they were going to now fight again. And sure enough, the Quraysh, they paused in their retreat and they said, Hey, wait a second. Why don't we go back and we keep fighting the Muslims. We, we had them, we could have beaten them. And then their scouts told them, Oh, Muhammad is coming with reinforcements. Let's get out of here. And so you see the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did the right thing at the right time. The timing of his decision was key, just as the timing for the timing for hijrah and the timing when to actually defend themselves against the Quraysh and launch sort of a war. Sort of a more military campaign against them. These were things that if the fighting against the Quraysh had happened too early, it would have been disastrous. It would have been disastrous, but it had to be at the right time. And the same with the hijrah and everything else. Law number 20, law number 20, the law of explosive growth. And this might be my favorite law in the entire book that he says, you add as a leader,
you add by gaining followers, but you multiply by developing other leaders. And this is huge to me because it is the mark of sincerity. I have reflected on this, that the mark of a sincere person is that you want your students to end up being better than you. You want the people that you're teaching to actually surpass you. And if a person is just trying to keep you under their wing and just keep you sort of limited to what, you know, a certain station and not let you surpass them, that this is not true leadership. That leaders who attract followers, they put themselves in a position where they need to be needed. Think social media. You need to be needed all the time. Whereas a true leader, right? They are the ones who develop other leaders who they want to be succeeded. They want other people to take over after them. And we can see that throughout Islamic history. We see Noura Din Zengi, who was a leader and who was the one who followed after him, Salahuddin, surpassed him, right? Now it doesn't always have to be surpassing. It might just be sort of keeping things going. Like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was an incredible, amazing leader. And he trained the companions to be leaders. He trained the companions to be leaders. He sent them to places where they had responsibility, where they sort of were able to, you know, test out their, that responsibility. And then once he was gone, Alaihi Salatu Wasalam, we had the rightly guided Khilafah. We had the rightly guided period of the Khulafa. That was in general, a time of justice and a continuation of the guidance of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So much so that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us to stick to their sunnah as well. A'du alayha bin nawajid, he said, Alaihi Salatu Wasallam. He said, follow sunnati wa sunnatil khulafa ir-rashidin al-mahdiyin.
So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam explicitly told you and me to follow his sunnah and to follow the sunnah of the rightly guided Caliphs after him. That was because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam trained other leaders. They were ready to lead from the time that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam handed over the responsibility to them. And finally, our last law, law number 21 is related to that. It is the law of legacy that you judge and measure a leader by the legacy that they leave behind. And there is no better leader than the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And you can only, you only can, what's the way you say, that all you have to do to notice that is to look at the legacy that he left behind. The most common name in the world is Muhammad and the civilization that he left behind from Morocco to China in very, very few years. Where people flourished, Christianity even flourished, Judaism even flourished under Muslim rule. This is the legacy that he left behind. And that is how a leader is, is measured. Which is why you see even some of the Kuffar praise the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam for his leadership abilities. And that is a wrap on the book of leadership. Let's go through real quick to see any remaining sort of loose ends, questions, comments that you've got. And then we will sign off. I agree with that Sanaa, Sanaa's point. I know voting is one way to change foreign policy, but Zionists play so dirty. AIPAC is essentially bribery, excuse me. Muslims cannot play the same game. We need to find ways of holding our politicians accountable. I 100% agree. And the, excuse me, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la said, وَجَاءَ الْحَقُّ وَزَهَقَ الْبَاطِلِ إِنَّ الْبَاطِلَ كَانَ زَهُوقًا
That falsehood will perish and that we should not feel like we have to reinvent falsehood or imitate falsehood in order to succeed. That's not what we're asking for. That think about how much effort and time and money required of them to perpetuate falsehood. Think about how much easier it would be to just establish the truth. Okay, very nice. Excellent. Leticia, give a person a fish they eat for a day. Teach a person a fish they eat for a lifetime. Very nice. Ooh, hey Qadri, that's a good point. Even with parents and kids. Even with parents and kids. That's a great point. We all want our kids to be better than us. And so we should all train our children to be better than us and put them in that position. Never feel threatened by them. Yep, I agree Mariama, that is comforting to me at least. And I know you've asked this question many times Mariama about which du'a to make for the oppressed. There are so many du'a, I don't have one in particular. But like I said before, that the du'a that is powerful. There's certain times and situations where du'a is powerful. Yelm al-Arafah is coming up. The day of Arafah is coming up. That is a powerful time for du'a. I'll finish with this. I don't see any other, I don't see any questions. May Allah bless everybody in this gathering. That sometimes we fixate on the formula of the du'a, thinking that the power is in the formula of the du'a. And sometimes that's true. We're not denigrating that. However, we should not be thinking that the power is in the formula of the du'a. And sometimes that's true. We're not denigrating that. However, we should be at least as attentive as to removing whatever barriers might stop our du'a from being answered.
Is there a particular sin or a particular habit that you are engaging in that you find it hard to leave? That perhaps no matter, you could be using the most powerful du'a out there. But you are standing in the way of that du'a being answered by your dedication to this sin. It's possible. And I'll say that to myself first. I have looked in this past eight months. I've looked at myself and I've said, gee, I really, really need to fix this and fix that and fix the other. And I'm tired of that. And I'm going to change that. If only. So that Allah might accept my du'a for Palestine and for Gaza and bring about the end of the occupation more quickly. May Allah forgive us all and continue to aid us. May Allah accept your fasting. Happy to share this suhoor time with you. And may Allah bless all of you. This was a wonderful session. Look forward to next week inshaAllah. Subhanaka Allahumma wa bihamdika sharaan la ilaha illa anta astaghfiruka wa atubu ilaik. Asalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullah
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