Khutbahs
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When Laws are Held Hostage | Khutbah
The historical manipulation of sacred months in Makkah for unholy purposes and their weaponization against Prophet Muhammad ﷺ draws parallels with contemporary events involving ICJ judges, the UN Security Council, and US hegemony. In his khutbah, Dr. Omar Suleiman delves into the strategic misalignment of principles for political gain in both past and present times.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi 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. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahuma Ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, today is the first of Rajab. And typically when we get to this day of the first of Rajab, and this close to Ramadan, there is an atmosphere of celebration as we start to feel that closeness to Ramadan and we say, Allahumma ballighna Ramadan, O Allah, allow us to reach Ramadan. And we still say that and we say Ameen. But with that, obviously, because of what is taking place in the world today, subhanAllah, the mood is not one of celebration. And I want to remind you that every year, typically, the people of Gaza actually brace themselves for Ramadan, because we have become accustomed to these last few years of Israel staging its incursions on al-Masjid al-Aqsa and Gaza and on the people of Palestine as a whole, especially in Ramadan, to try to break the spirit of the Muslims all over the world. But this year, there's something else. And subhanAllah, over the last few months, as we've been connecting these moments of the world that we are living right now, and the moments from the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, what if I told you there is an incident from the seerah that relates to an ayah from the Qur'an that literally speaks to the first day of Rajab and is almost incredibly, you know, 100% aligned to what we are witnessing today at the ICJ, where Israel is standing trial for genocide being prosecuted by South
Africa. What if I told you there is an incident from the seerah that fits that perfectly, and it is about the first day of Rajab? SubhanAllah, it relates to an overall atmosphere and then a verse from the Qur'an. As far as the overall atmosphere is concerned, one of the things that you'll note about the Prophet ﷺ is that the Prophet ﷺ wanted to uphold the sanctity of all things and make sure that at no point he cedes the moral ground of the Muslim community to Quraysh. Because the call of the Prophet ﷺ was predicated on righteousness. Their call was predicated on elimination. It was eliminating the threat of the Prophet ﷺ and his community. Quraysh did not have any reason or anyone to hold it accountable to any moral standard. It could do whatever it wanted to do to the Prophet ﷺ. Who's going to tell Quraysh no? What's it really going to compromise except for its image to the rest of the world? But who's actually going to hold Abu Jahl accountable in Mecca? Who's going to hold Abu Lahab accountable in Mecca? So they could do all that they wanted to and then they also controlled the discourse because who controlled all the microphones? The metaphorical microphones around the Kaaba? It was Quraysh. They controlled the languaging that went out to the foreign emissaries of the time. So they could do whatever they wanted to the Muslims and they could also narrate what they were doing in a way that would be favorable to them and that would vilify the Muslims in the process. The Prophet ﷺ did not have that margin for error. And the Prophet ﷺ was not playing a PR game. He was abiding by divine revelation as a Prophet of Allah. So it's a different playing field for the Prophet ﷺ altogether. And Allah says to the Prophet ﷺ, for example, كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمْ الْقِتَالَ وَهُوَ كُرْهٌ لَكُمْ
You hate to fight but it has been prescribed upon you. At some point with all of the persecution and everything that was done to you, you have been given the command to fight back. And this was the order that came before Badr. You'll notice that the backdrop of the two, the Prophet ﷺ throughout his entire prophetic career hates the killing of a woman to the point that the Prophet ﷺ becomes enraged when he sees a dead woman from the other side in the battlefield. He doesn't excuse it ﷺ. But at the same time if you look at Quraysh, the first victim of Quraysh in Mecca was Sumayya radiyaAllahu ta'ala was a woman who had absolutely no threat that she was actually perpetrating towards the people of Mecca except for saying لا إله إلا الله. Killed in the worst of ways. But we're not the same. Right? The Prophet ﷺ is different. Abu Jahl can do that and get away with it and then give a message to the world as to why he's doing it. The Prophet ﷺ abides by something different. The Prophet ﷺ when he held the captives of Badr and treated them in a way that no one had known before, fed them from the same food, gave them from the same drink, said call them your brothers. I mean it was an unbelievable treatment that the Prophet ﷺ had towards these people that drove him out and that came out to kill the Muslims. But what did Quraysh repay that with in Uhud? They literally cut out the liver of Hamza radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, mutilated the face of Abdullah ibn Jahsh radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. They did all sorts of things that were not known in terms of cruelty before to them. Why? Because they were on a different playing ground. The thing is that Mecca at that time, the command center of Mecca, Quraysh, had the right to carry out its own set of moral
laws and also tell the world about how moral it was. Because it sent the foreign emissaries to the rest of the world, it controlled the discourse while it was also controlling the playing field. Now there's an ayah in the Qur'an that speaks to this that I'm going to come to. One of the things about the people of Mecca is that they did not come out and say we no longer abide by any laws. They believed in the sacred months, for example, Ashur al-Haram, and they perverted the way of Ibrahim ﷺ. They had a hajj, they had their own things here or there. But for the sacred months, what they would do is they would move the months around and they would find loopholes to allow for advantageous fighting to their tribes. So they played with everything that was sacred, put loopholes there, did everything they could, but no one could hold them accountable. There's an ayah in the Qur'an where Allah Azawajal says, yas'aloonaka AAani al-shahri al-harami qitalin fee. They ask you about fighting in the sacred months and what the ruling on such fighting is. Qul qitalun feehi kabir. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, say that fighting during these months is a great sin. I want to give you the story of this particular verse and how it relates to the moment that we are witnessing today. The Prophet ﷺ is in Medina. The casualty count of the Muslims at this point is extremely high. Muslims have been persecuted, killed in their own home, boycotted, run out to Abyssinia, run out to Medina, run out to different parts of the world. Those that are still in Mecca are being persecuted because of their Muslim relatives who have fled from Mecca to Medina seeking a place where they could worship Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la freely. All of this is happening. This is the backdrop. The Prophet
ﷺ literally had to escape death. And what they have left behind in Mecca is now being stolen and confiscated and used in the caravans of Quraish to trade with the rest of the world. I mean it is utter oppression in every way. Meaning the people that are committing this type of oppression have no right to speak of any moral law, have no right to speak of any set of principles that people should abide by. But here's what happens. It is Jumad al-Thani, the month of Jumad al-Thani and the Prophet ﷺ is in Medina and he assigns a battalion to go and to intercept the caravans of Abu Sufyan and the Meccans that are going to Ash-Sham and other places of the world. And when the Prophet ﷺ was doing this, he was abiding by the sacred months of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. There are times that you go and you attack, try to get your stuff. There are times that you go and you spy, you map things out. The point is that they have every right. They've been persecuted and run out to try to disrupt what the people of Mecca are doing. And in this particular situation, the Prophet ﷺ appoints a battalion under Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. And the narration is long and for the sake of the khutbah, I'm going to paraphrase. But it is beautiful to mention in the very beginning that Abu Ubaidah radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, the ameen of this ummah, the trustworthy one of this ummah, who was always right next to the Prophet ﷺ. The narration says, بَكَى صَبَابَةً وَشَوْقًا إِلَى النَّبِيِّ ﷺ He started to weep. He started to tear up because he loved being right by the side of the Prophet ﷺ and coordinating with the Prophet ﷺ. He was the trustworthy one of this ummah. He didn't ask the Prophet ﷺ to be relieved, but the Prophet ﷺ looked at him and the Prophet ﷺ said, you know what, Abdullah ibn Jahsh radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, this battalion is yours. And here's the order. He gave him a small group of men.
He said, I want you to march in this direction for two days. And here's a letter. He told Abdullah ibn Jahsh, open the letter after two days. Very specific orders. March in this direction and open the letter after two days. So Abdullah ibn Jahsh radiAllahu ta'ala anhu goes out with a group of the Sahaba for two days in a direction of Mecca. And then the letter is opened and the Prophet ﷺ gives them instructions to a very specific location near Ta'if. And the Prophet ﷺ says in the letter, do not compel the men that are with you to continue. Meaning they're not forced. It's a dangerous mission. I want you to go and to spy and to get the news of the caravans. Right. But those men that are with you, give them the choice at this point whether they want to go back to Medina or they want to stay with you. Abdullah ibn Jahsh radiAllahu ta'ala anhu reads the letter. They all say we want to stay with you. So they go out in that caravan or in that battalion. You have Sa'd ibn Abi Waqas, Utbah ibn Ghazwan. May Allah be pleased with them. They get to a specific location. Their small battalion gets split up. So Sa'd and Utbah actually get lost in the process. And as they are under this tree, they see the caravan of Quraysh passing by. Now subhanAllah, think about this moment and think about the power of this verse, this ayah and the moral premise, the consistency that the sahaba operate within their taqwa, their iman, their faith and their God consciousness. At that point, they see this caravan passing through. The Prophet ﷺ said to get their news, they have a clear shot at Amr ibn al-Hadrami who is one of the most aggressive people, one of the most aggressive persecutors. And they have a clear shot to take that caravan. And they debate amongst themselves, wait a
minute, is it the last day of Jumada Thani or have we entered into Rajab because Rajab is a sacred month. SubhanAllah, so they actually have shura amongst themselves. Are we allowed to do this? I mean, it's obviously justified by any objective standard, it's justified to attack this caravan after all that's been done to you. But do we wait? Do we know if it's Rajab? Do we know if it's Jumada Thani? In any case, they decide that it is probably because they're traveling, they don't know what day it is in particular, that it is justified for them to use their best judgment. They're able to kill Amr ibn al-Hadrami and they're able to overtake that caravan. They take two prisoners named Hakam ibn al-Qaysan and Uthman ibn al-Abdullah and they come back to Madinah. When they come back to Madinah and the Prophet ﷺ sees them, the Prophet ﷺ says, والله ما أمرتكم بقتال في الشهر الحرام Look, the Prophet ﷺ says, I told you, I did not command you to fight in a sacred month. You did not have the command to fight in a sacred month, meaning that was a mistake. It was Rajab. Rajab had already come in. You should not have fought in a sacred month. So those Sahaba are worried about whether or not they're now going to be sinful for what they have done, even though, again, it's excusable in the grand set of circumstances. At the same time, the same people of Mecca who have committed this long set of crimes start to cry foul and they say, see, Muhammad ﷺ fights in the sacred months. Look, they killed a man in a sacred month. Look at these people. They preach morality. They talk about being righteous. They talk about, you know, operating with their own set of laws. They
talk about this. And they killed a man in a sacred month. And they mocked and they mocked and they mocked and they mocked. And Allah ﷻ reveals this ayah. يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ قِتَالًا فِيهِ They ask you about fighting in the sacred months and what the ruling of doing so is. قُلْ قِتَالٌ فِيهِ كَبِيرٌ Look, the principle is still upheld. Say that to fight in this month is a major sin. It's a problem. It's not allowed to fight in these months. We're Muslims. We uphold the standards that are set for us. We uphold the principles that are set for us. Yes, we are not allowed to fight in these months. We don't play with the months. We don't find loopholes. We sanctify what is sanctified by Allah ﷻ. But then Allah ﷻ says, وَصَدٌّ عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَكُفْرٌ بِهِ وَالْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ وَإِخْرَاجُ أَهْلِهِ مِنْهُ أَكْبَرُ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَكْبَرُ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ But who are you to talk? Who are you to talk about any principles or talk about anything that is sacred or sanctified? All of these things that you have done, persecuting people, hindering them from the path of Allah ﷻ, trying to force them to apostate, expelling them from the sacred mosque, all that you have done is a far greater sin in the sight of Allah ﷻ than what was an innocent mistake, where the principle is still upheld. And Allah ﷻ says, وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَكْبَرُ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ And fitna, that persecution, trying to persecute these people to make them relinquish, renounce their faith, is far greater than the killing of that man that was one of the responsible murderers. The point here is that they cried foul even though they were the greatest transgressors.
They set the standards, they set the application of the law, they made sure that there was never any accountability for it, and they tried to control the discourse and Allah ﷻ called them out on their hypocrisy and Allah ﷻ forgave those men for their mistake and Allah ﷻ directed the attention once again to the key aggressors and transgressors and hypocrites in this situation. How dare you talk about morality, how dare you talk about law, how dare you talk about rights, how dare you talk about sanctity, when everything that you have done is a violation of everything that is supposed to be sanctified. Now subhanAllah the incident has so much more to it that we could go into. Of them is that of the two prisoners that were taken, Uthman ibn Abdullah and Hakim ibn Kaysan, the Prophet ﷺ returned the captives back to Mecca when he said that Sa'd ibn Abi Waqas and Utbah ibn Ghazwan would come back to ensure their safety. And Hakim ibn Kaysan came back to Medina as a Muslim because of the treatment that he had and actually died a shaheed in Bi'r Ma'una, which was again the betrayal of all sanctity on behalf of the Meccans. SubhanAllah. So there's so much to this incident. But I want you to connect it to the moment right now. We're literally in the first of Rajab and we're watching hypocrisy play out on a grand stage like never before. And subhanAllah as these standards are supposedly set and adjudicated in these courts of law, the entire world is starting to cry foul on those who have controlled the discourse for our entire lives and talked about what decency looks like in the international arena and talked about what human
rights looks like in the international arena. And there was an Irish politician who rightfully said that as South Africa puts Israel on trial today, it's international law that is on trial today. Everything that is supposedly a standard, every supposed set of principles is on trial right now. Because if these institutions continue to function merely as extensions of imperialism, as extensions of colonialism, as extensions of the foreign policy of the United States of America, which is as bankrupt now as it's ever been before, and everybody is calling it out outside of the United States of America, then it shows that those that have set the courts, those that have set the laws, those that are supposed to be in charge of accountability have failed entirely. And it's not just the resilience of the people of Gaza. It's not just the resilience of the people of Palestine that is inspiring the world. It is the hypocrisy of those that are complicit in their genocide that is disgusting the world and hopefully guiding them to another way, to think of another way. It's not just revealing a couple of countries. It's revealing entire institutions that are supposed to be set up for justice. And so when we talk about the face of the entire western colonial project coming falling down, then the apartheid walls can't stand for much longer. And that is something that we should look at today and we should say is a victory. That is significant for us. And that is something for Muslims to look at, and for people who support the rightful cause of the Palestinians to look at, and to say that this is a turning point in our history today. And for too long, American imperialism has created the language and the laws
that absolved the United States and its colonial pets from all wrongdoing, all of the warmongering, all the murdering of millions of innocent people in the name of global law and order. Alhamdulillah people are starting to see through it. And I want you to think about how significant that is today for you. Where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala even speaks to and says, how dare you talk about human rights law? How dare you talk about what is sacred and sanctified when you have violated it over and over and over again? And Alhamdulillah, people have to stop believing in the hypocrisy of the system in order to open themselves up to better possibilities. That is true not just in terms of creed, that's true in terms of what a global order actually looks like. Alhamdulillah for those that have exposed the system for what it actually is. That in and of itself is a victory. That in and of itself is an opening. We don't put faith in the judges that historically always vote with their country's politics. It's a political court in that sense. We understand that. But we say Alhamdulillah when the crimes are laid bare, when people can see that those who have set the standards have violated them in the greatest proportion, when the entire world sees the moral bankruptcy of this system and starts to consider something else, that's something for us to retreat to and to go back to our faith and to pull from the ethics of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and to remind ourselves of the imperative to stay upon that which is just no matter what the circumstances. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that in these days where these systems of accountability are held hostage to these bankrupt powers, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings change through our hearts, through our voices, through our efforts throughout the world in whatever capacity that is. So that the world can start to function in a way that is more pleasing to Him. Allahuma Ameen.
Alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Dear brothers and sisters, particularly today, keep in your dua, the beautiful dua of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Allahumma barik fee shamina wa yamanina. Allahumma barik fee shamina wa yamanina. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect our brothers and sisters in Al-Sham and of course that includes Palestine and Al-Bayt Al-Maqdis and in Yemen and all over the world. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect the innocent. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala continue to inspire us through the people of Gaza to do that which is necessary to see them through this great atrocity. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for our shortcomings and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give victory to our brothers and sisters in Palestine. Allahumma ghufril mu'minin wa mu'minat wa muslimin wa muslimat. Al-ahya'i minhum wa al-amwati. Innaka samee'un qareebun mujeebun da'wat. Allahumma ghufril lana wa arhamna. Wa'afu anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa in lam takhfir lana wa tarhamna. Lanakunana min al-khasireen. Rabbana la tu'akhidna in nasina wa akhta'na. Rabbana wa la tahmil alayna isran kama hamaltahu ala lathina min qablina. Rabbana wa la tu'hamilna ma la ta'qatalana bih. Wa'afu anna wa ghufril lana wa arhamna. Anta mawlana famsulna ala alqawmin kafireen. Wasalamu alaykum wa barika al nabiyyina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in.
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