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Islam, A Coherent Social Justice Tradition | Omar Suleiman | 16th MAS-ICNA Convention

May 10, 2018Dr. Omar Suleiman

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Bismillahir rahmanir raheem. Alhamdulillahi wa barakato. Wa ala ala ala ameer wa salatu was salam. Wa ala rasulihi wa ala kareem. Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam. Tassimun kathiran. So I forgot my number one rule with conventions. When you check into the hotel, ask for the floor that's closest to the lobby. So that's a pro tip for everyone that woke up and came at 10am. When you go to a conference, always ask for the floor. We're at the very top floor, so we stop at every elevator. You've got to worry about people that are pressing down over and over again. Which segues good into the topic of social justice. Justice to the speakers. Alhamdulillah, I want to thank you all for coming on time to this conference. You don't really know what to expect when you're doing the first session of a conference, if anybody's going to show up. So I was expecting to talk to five people. So alhamdulillah, this is a good opportunity to actually have a fruitful discussion with a group of motivated individuals. I want to thank you on behalf of Yaqeen Institute for being here. I want to thank everyone, all the fellows and all the volunteers. Ali, who you just heard his marriage story. And our operations manager, Dr. Altaf Hussain, the vice president, but also my mentor, as well as being the vice president of Yaqeen Institute. Everyone that's been following our work, alhamdulillah. Some of you may have noted that we just hit our one year birthday. We are only one year old, but alhamdulillah, we've been able to achieve a lot more than we could have expected by the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So a quick show of hands, how many of you have followed in some capacity the 40 hadiths on social justice? Not many of you. So this was a class, one of the first classes, actually the first class that I've actually taught on a weekly basis with Yaqeen Institute is the 40 hadiths on social justice.
And just to let you all know, we're at hadith 25 now, so you still have time to attend the rest of it, inshallah. It should end the week of Ramadan, so it's every Tuesday night. We have a break right now until mid-January, but we're covering a hadith every week and then extrapolating from that hadith lessons on Islam's unique social justice paradigm. Now, the reason why I chose to do this class, at the end, inshallah, it's going to be compiled into a book format, so there will be additional notes and it will be made accessible in book format. There are already professional notes that are taken every single week, so if you've missed the first 24, then just read the notes if you don't feel like listening to the lecture. But the idea was based on a foundational principle that we believe that Islam provides unique paradigms to deal with social injustices and inequities. That our religion is not just another religion that will throw in some languaging to already existing paradigms, but actually has unique paradigms and unique solutions to the problems that we face in the arena of social justice. And I was mentioning this yesterday at the Knowledge Retreat, that Islam, for example, on racism, is the only tradition in which you have an explicit anti-racism tradition. You have explicit references to not discriminating against people on the basis of the color of their skin, or their tribe, or whatever it may be, and it's extensive. It's not one verse or one tradition of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but it's extensive. Whereas other religions, that was deduced from overall concepts of equality and the treatment of the other. But Islam was very specific on the anti-racism references, which made it attractive to the Edward Blydens of the world. And even had strands of Islam in Garveyite teachings, and then obviously found its way into the Nation of Islam,
and many of the movements that became prominent here in the United States that were in the initial phase, part of the rebirth of people like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. So we have unique paradigms, and we have unique languaging, and we have unique constructs, and we should take pride in that. When Malcolm came back from Hajj, he said that, I believe Islam has the solution to the problem of racism in America. He didn't say that I found a religion that transformed me, that removed racism from me, but he saw that Islam actually provided a solution to the problem of racism in America. Malcolm was a brilliant man. He's an intelligent man. He's not saying, you know, he's not using any form of exaggeration, or speaking about Islam in idealistic terms. He's saying that I believe Islam has solutions to the problem of racism in America, and other problems that come out of that problem of racism. And that's why when he left the Nation of Islam, he formed Muslim Mosque, and he formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, because he wanted people to see what he saw in Islam as a wholesome, comprehensive solution. But in the meantime, saw that it was important to work with all people of all faiths, whatever their background was, to deal with the problem, and to offer Islam as a solution rather than the solution. To let Islam be part of the dialogue on how we solve these problems in society, rather than dominating the conversation and disrespecting others that come with their solutions. Let Islam shine. Let Islam shine by showing itself as a practical, comprehensive, wholesome solution to this problem. So what are the unique paradigms that we find in Islam and social justice? Because one thing I don't want us to do, is I don't want us to simply add to the mix that's already out there, and not offer anything unique as a Muslim community, and in the realm of scholarship.
Well for one, in Islam, the concept of justice applies not just to the body, but to the soul. And it applies not just to this dunya, but to the akhirah as well. It extends beyond this life, and it goes into the afterlife. The presence of the hereafter is core to our understanding of justice. Why? Because the first rule on the Day of Judgment is, لا ظلم اليوم. There is no injustice today. That does not force the one who is being wronged to acquiesce, but it allows for the one who is being wronged to have something to look forward to, even if justice is not served in this world. So the presence of the akhirah, the presence of the hereafter, is a unique factor in how we discuss justice as a whole. That this world is not meant to be a place of fairness. That doesn't mean we don't strive for it. That doesn't mean that we fall into the disease of using religion to temper calls for justice, or to quiet those calls. But what it does mean is that we always have hope in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and we do believe that there is an eventual, you know, an eventual rectification of all of the wrongs that are done in this world. Also in Islam, we do believe in timeless principles. That the language of jurisprudence often changes. That sometimes necessities make things that are ordinarily prohibited permitted, in certain circumstances. But at the end of the day, that the prophets came with timeless principles. That at the core, the message of Isa alayhi salam, the message of Jesus peace be upon him, was at its core the same message as the message of Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam, and the same message of Musa alayhi salam, and whatever it may be. There is a distinction, you know, many scholars have spoken about the the attempt to pit Malcolm and Martin against each other, in regards to their ideologies, to present Martin Luther King Jr.
as the sanitized, controlled, civil rights activists that we could tolerate, and Malcolm as the radical that we have to excommunicate. And, you know, putting them on these opposing ends. Whereas if you look at Martin Luther King Jr. in his last few years, you find a man that had adopted many of Malcolm's notions, and there is the book, Malcolm and Martin, Dreams and Nightmares by James Cone, which does away with that fallacy. Let's take that to a more traditional construct. The idea that Musa alayhi salam was this vengeful man who, you know, who was so radically devoted to justice, that he was blinded from any sense of mercy. So Musa alayhi salam, Moses, was about an eye for an eye. But Jesus, Isa alayhi salam, was so radically divided, I'm sorry, radically dedicated to mercy and compassion, that he ignored notions of justice. So Musa alayhi salam is portrayed as angry, Isa alayhi salam is portrayed as ever loving and ever caring, but Isa alayhi salam got into trouble because of his dedication to justice, as much as his dedication to theology. He was challenging the political establishment, he was flipping tables in the temple, you could hear his, or you could read the remnants of his speeches, whatever amongst it is authentic or not. When he spoke in Jerusalem, when he spoke in Al-Quds, he challenged everybody, and he was very aggressive in his challenging. But there are notions that have been fed to us that always conveniently put people in the places of heroes and villains in accordance with how much we feel like we can appropriate so that we can perpetuate systems of injustice, either theologically or politically. So that was done with the prophets of Allah, and it's done with our figures even in the 20th century today. So the prophets have timeless principles, and we believe that we can extract those principles from the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
and from the messages of the prophets that came before him. So the question becomes, does Islam really have any unique paradigms in regards to social justice? Is it even valid? Is it even a valid discussion to use social justice? And I'm going to say this also, that a lot of people have a problem with the term social justice, because social justice might denote a certain ideology, right? And my response to that is that the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam took things that were good at their face value, terms, models, slogans, but he rectified the internal mechanics and the mechanisms to be derived from that to where they were sound. So for example, when the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, اُنصُرْ أَهَاكَ ظَالِمًا وَمَظْنُومًا Help your brother whether he's oppressed or whether he's an oppressor. The Arabs knew that sentence, and that sentence was actually a very problematic sentence and an anti-Islamic sentence. Because what that meant before Islam, اُنصُرْ أَهَاكَ ظَالِمًا وَمَظْنُومًا Support your brother whether he's oppressed or whether he's an oppressor. Was that whether he is wrong or right, he's your brother, you've got to have his back and you have to take his side in any dispute. So they said to the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, we understand how we can support our brother when he's oppressed, but we don't understand how you're saying to support him when he's an oppressor. We thought that Islam rid us of these radical attachments and this partisanship that blinds us from justice. And the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, اُنصُرْ أَهَاكَ ظَالِمًا وَمَظْنُومًا Support your brother when he's oppressed, and support your brother when he's an oppressor by stopping him from oppressing. So he changed the meaning of it while still maintaining its face value. So even if these terms could denote certain ideologies and constructs and paradigms, that doesn't mean that the terms are useless
because justice that is demanded from within, from a society that has self-restoring mechanisms for injustices that are independent of changes at head of state or whatever it may be, those are valid Islamic notions and there are things that we can draw from in our deen. So does Islam have unique paradigms? One of the topics that's going to be covered by sister Noor Subhani inshaAllah is the paper, Does Islam Need Saving? which analyzes human rights, human rights from an Islamic perspective versus a secular perspective. And it's based on the UN Charter of Human Rights. I'm going to be talking about here just briefly another UN document that's less known. But the UN also authored a document on social justice in the year 2004. So it was actually titled, Social Justice in an Open World, The Role of the United Nations. Social Justice in an Open World, The Role of the United Nations. And from the introduction, it was very clear that what was most dominant in the discussion of social justice was economic injustice. Was economic injustice. Now, is there any deen, any religion in the world as strict on economic transaction as the religion of Islam? No. And Islam rooted all of its prohibitions and permissions in economic transaction in the concept of justice. So when usury, riba is discussed and its prohibition, it's because of the injustice, the inherent injustice of riba, of gharab, which is an overuse of speculation used to exploit people, which is usually in insurance contracts and things of that sort. So the strictness of Islam on the soundness of an economic transaction
is always rooted in a sense of justice. Not من غشة فليس منا. Whoever deceives is not from amongst us. That if you're selling a product, you don't put the rotten part in a way that it's hidden and only put the useful looking part of the grain. That you should always disclose what the flaws of your product are so that you're not wronging the person that you're selling to. That you don't make false oaths when you're buying and selling. Most of Islam's discussion on adl, on justice in our day to day, also deals with economics. So I'm going to read to you the first couple of paragraphs. It's literally the introduction of the UN's document on social justice. It says, The rise in inequality in the distribution of income among people is well documented and displays the characteristics of a trend having affected large numbers of countries, from the poorest to the most affluent, during the past two decades. Up to the 1980s, at least since the Second World War, and in some cases since the beginning of the 20th century, there had been a general narrowing of differences in the income available to individuals and families. Income related inequalities, notably in the ownership of capital and other assets, in access to a variety of services and benefits, and in the personal security that money can buy, are growing. There is also greater inequality in the distribution of opportunities for employment, with worsening unemployment and underemployment in various parts of the world, affecting a disproportionate number of people at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. This is long, so I'm just going to go all the way down to the beginning of this introduction. The rise in poverty in all its manifestations, along with the increase in the number of refugees,
displaced persons, and other victims of circumstances and social justice in an open world. The role of the United Nations Abuse Council represents sufficient evidence for a judgment of persistent, if not growing, injustice in the world. That's a lot of words, and I read it very quickly, and I actually skipped a lot. The point being that the majority of what was addressed was economic injustice, and how that leads to exploitation, leads to the growing number of displaced people, either in the form of homeless people within a nation, or refugees that are sent elsewhere. But it does have a common factor. Now, when you think income equality, what ideology do you think of? Be honest. Some of you, like, whispered it. It's not capitalism. You think socialism. So are we just really trying to add Islamic languaging to a Marxist philosophy to socialism? Is Islam socialist? Some of you are like, yeah. You drank too much of the Bernie stuff. No, it's all right. Bernie's good. I like Bernie. I'm just messing around. But, you know, look. This is precisely why we have to actually dissect these things at a deeper level. How many of you have heard of George Galloway? The guy that rants on Palestine, but is horrible on Syria. But, you know, he's someone that's spoken frequently in the Islamic circuits. He actually said, this is one of the things, he said that Islam and Marxism, or socialism, they're the same, except for the question of the existence of God. I completely disagree with that. Why? First and foremost, Marxism, you know, socialism, is a complete understanding and ideology. Islam, too, is a complete understanding and ideology. So there's no way that they're going to have complete congruence. There is going to be, or there are going to be,
natural contradictions in the way that those things function, starting with, obviously, the belief in Tawheed, the belief in God, and the belief in divine revelation that is ultimate in its governance. But at the economic level, does Islam believe in distributive justice? Does Islam believe in that? Yes. But Islam also values personal incentive. Islam also values property rights, while dealing with issues of exploitation. So it doesn't completely call for income equality, as it's understood by that ideology. It certainly does not support greedy capitalism. But at the same time, Islam, while encouraging personal incentive, has mechanisms for dealing with exploitation. So does Islam believe in total income equality? No. But it does believe in human equality, in the sense of inherent value and access to state. Inherent value of every individual, and access to state. So, إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ The most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the one who is most pious. And every single person has access to means of acquiring justice and attaining justice in Islam. Whether it's the head, whether it's the ruler himself, or the lowest of low, even a prisoner of war, even someone that was hostile to the state, has certain rights that cannot be denied by anybody else. So Islam doesn't believe in income equality, but it does believe in human equality in that sense. So the society of the Prophet ﷺ, and this is what I'm trying to get at, could allow for Abdurrahman ibn Auf, while doing away with the greed that could plague Abdurrahman ibn Auf. Abdurrahman ibn Auf, the man who was so rich and so wealthy that when he came back to Medina with his caravans,
people would think that they were being placed under siege. Islam had that, where that could happen, where a man like that could get that rich. But Islam also has many mechanisms to make sure that Abdurrahman ibn Auf, رضي الله تعالى عنه, a person like Abdurrahman ibn Auf, is both spiritually humble and... controlled in the sense that he cannot exploit or allow his greed to make him unjust, that he has to earn that in a halal way. There's the spiritual checks which are Abdurrahman ibn Auf making tawaf in every one of his tawafs, asking Allah to protect him from shuh, to protect him from greed. Hearing the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam saying that Abdurrahman ibn Auf was crawling into Jannah in a humble way, even though he's from the Ten Promised Paradise, but it's not that easy for you. Just because you have prosperity in this world doesn't mean you have prosperity in the hereafter. So you have to check yourself to actually have prosperity in the hereafter. Not simply telling Abdurrahman ibn Auf, you know what, you're rich because Allah loves you. And just keep getting rich, but keep on supporting us. No, actually instilling a sense of humility and checking Abdurrahman ibn Auf. So it allows for, and this is what I'm trying to get at from a social justice perspective, Islam at a societal level could produce Abdurrahman ibn Auf without the greed, and it could also produce Abu Hurayrah without the humiliation. Abu Hurayrah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was a homeless man. He was very poor, he was very hungry. But the society that the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam created was one in which a person in the circumstances of Abu Hurayrah was not humiliated. He was dignified in every way. So he didn't have to lose his dignity in the process of his poverty.
And there are many hadith about that, where the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam notices him hungry before he even asks to be fed. The Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam takes him in and makes sure that he's properly taken care of before he even says anything to the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam. So it allows for Abu Hurayrah but without the humiliation of Abu Hurayrah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. One of the biggest discussions right now when you talk about the makeup of the metropolitan areas and cities is this. In our times we try to make the homeless disappear. We're not actually trying to solve the problem of homelessness, we just want them out of our sights. If I've earned enough to live in a nice house and a nice neighborhood, I don't want to see homeless people around me. So trying to make them disappear from the places in which they usually would convene or whatever it may be. To try to get rid of the homeless as opposed to trying to get rid of homelessness. What did the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam do? Where did he put the homeless? In the masjid. Ahl al-Suffah. They lived in the masjid. And everyone had a responsibility to them. No, you don't get to make them disappear, you have to deal with their conditions. So it was not this rosy idealistic notion of income equality, but you are responsible for those people and they are treated with dignity and we're not going to make them disappear. We're going to try to make their conditions disappear. So guess what? Abu Huraira radiAllahu ta'ala made it. And eventually all those people from Ahl al-Suffah, they made it. They had their own homes, they moved on, and their dignity was never compromised in the process of their homelessness because some of them became the greatest scholars of Islam while they were still Ahl al-Suffah. And respected and honored and noble people. So the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam gave us mechanisms to deal with the exploitation,
to deal with the lack of dignity, to put checks at a very practical level, obligations on the rich. SubhanAllah, you think about the tax scam right now, seriously, think about it. These are very relevant notions and relevant concepts in terms of access. Both the ruler and the ruled are accountable and answerable to one higher power. The story of Ali radiAllahu ta'ala anhu and his shield. Ali radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, while he's the khalifa, his shield was missing. So he lost his shield and then he found it with a Christian man under his rule. There was a Christian man walking around with a shield. He said, that's my shield. He said, no it's not. It's like, whatever, I'm the khalifa of a Muslim state of the, I hate to even use the Islamic state now, because when you read literature from 2004-2005 and they say the Islamic state, none of them were talking about Daesh by the way, but what they meant was that Islamic state, the real Islamic, put the Islamic back into the Islamic state. So Ali radiAllahu anhu saw this man with his shield, he said, that's my shield. The guy said, no it's not. I mean, this guy is not Muslim, he's dealing with the most powerful man in the state. Ali radiAllahu anhu says, I'm going to report you to the judge. So he goes to Shuraih al-Qadi, a judge who's not a companion. So their status also in regards to the spiritual status that's been given, or the elevation that's been given to the sahaba, the nobility of the companions. Shuraih is not a companion. Ali radiAllahu anhu is of the greatest companions. And he's from the family of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. I mean, the distinctions are all there. And Shuraih says, okay, well what's your evidence that it's your shield? He said, I've got my son, and I've got my servant, and they can both testify that that's my shield.
He says, as for your son, he's biased because he's your son, I can't take his testimony. He said, he's al-Hasan. Ali radiAllahu anhu argued, he said, Allah akbar. He said, you're not going to take the testimony of a man that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam shahida lahu bil-jannah, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam called him a master of the people of Jannah. You're not going to take his testimony? He said, he's your son, I can't take his testimony. He said, as for your servant, well, maybe he's just doing it out of fear. Maybe he'll testify out of being forced. So Ali radiAllahu anhu just says, he argued his case, then he gave up, and he was walking away. And the Christian man is like, what just happened here? This is incredible. He did take shahada, and he handed him back the shield, and told him when he stole the shield, that during the battle of Safin, he was able to take it from Ali radiAllahu anhu's possessions. He said, this is the akhlaq, these are the morals of the Prophets. He was a Christian man. He said, this represents what Christianity was supposed to be. It's being practiced. The message, the values of Christ are being practiced here. And so he took shahada, and Ali radiAllahu anhu gifted him the shield. He gave it back to him and told him it's yours, as a gift. The point being is that everyone, the ruler and the ruled, are accountable to a higher power. And this is something that's found constantly in our Islamic discourse. Okay, what are some of the other things? Well, the role of stability, choosing the lesser of the two evils. That is present in our deen. We don't just invoke chaos for the sake of chaos. Stability is a factor. So, choosing the lesser of the two evils, that doesn't mean you give up the cause of justice, but you don't harm the cause of justice by causing more chaos, and prematurely seeking it out, or doing so in an ill-equipped or ill-mannered fashion. So, al-munkar la yughayyar bi-munkar. The cause of justice does not become supreme to all circumstances,
even though it is never neglected. Religion is not a tool of the state, but religion is a tool to check the state. This is something that Dr. Jassad Aouda talked about a little bit yesterday. I missed his session, but he did talk about it in the Q&A, at least, from what I heard. The idea that deen was something religion was used to check the rulers, it's not used to be appropriated by the rulers, or it's not meant to be appropriated by the ruler, to subject those that are ruled to certain things. There are questions of modesty, and questions of protecting privacy, that are unique to the Islamic tradition. We shouldn't shy away from them. There are questions of systemic inequalities that make otherwise just punishments unjust. Otherwise just punishments unjust. And these are things that we find within our tradition. Bani Israel and their application of hudud, their application of criminal law. Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned that they would only exact it on the poor, and those that were downtrodden, but when it came to the elite, when it came to the rich, they always were excused. So if that's the case, it shouldn't be applied in the first place, if you're not going to apply it in a way that's truly equitable, that takes into consideration circumstances. Like in the case of Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala, when he lifted the hud, when he lifted the punishment for theft during a time of famine. So it doesn't take into consideration status, doesn't take into consideration, or does take into consideration, circumstances of people. Questions of wholesome, restorative justice, undoing the injustice is not enough, but reintegrating people into society afterwards, and putting them back in favorable positions is something that we find Islamic mechanisms for.
And also, and I'll end with this inshallah, then we'll go to the question and answer part. When we look at, particularly when it comes to economic injustices, the purpose of implementing certain things in our faith, certain practices in our faith, was not just for the sake of having them done, but also for the sake of ultimately realizing a time when those institutions are no longer necessary. So for example, zakah is one of the five pillars of Islam. Zakah is one of the five pillars, and lo and behold, out of greed, the first pillar that there was an attempt to abolish was zakah. Out of the five pillars, that just shows you at the end of the day, that we're attached to our money. The first pillar of Islam that there was an attempt to abolish was zakah. And it was in the Khilafah of Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu, so it's in the immediate aftermath of the death of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. You have a group of people claiming, we don't have to pay zakah anymore. Why? That was only applicable to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. They didn't say, we don't have to pray anymore, we don't have to fast anymore, we don't have to do hajj. No, we don't want to pay any money, even though zakah is really not that much. But at the end of the day, إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لِرَبِّهِ لَكَ نُودٌ وَإِنَّهُ عَلَىٰ ذَلِكَ لَشَهِيدٌ وَإِنَّهُ لِحُبِّ الْخَيْرِ لَشَدِيدٌ Allah mentions a violent attachment that man has to his wealth. So every penny, every dirham, we will scrap for it, and we will try to make sure that we're able to claim as much as we possibly can. So zakah is a part of our faith. The first attempt was to abolish zakah from our faith. And zakah does not go to a foreign entity with no impact on the average man. If you look at many other religions, at the institutional level, the income deductions from a person, from the faithful follower,
go to the state, or go to the church, or go to this institution. In the case of zakah, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, take from their rich and give to their poor. So don't even take it out of the city if you can. When he sent Mu'adh radiAllahu ta'ala anhu to Yemen. It's also an institution that ideally doesn't have to exist if wholesome justice is sought. This is an interesting concept here. It's one of the pillars of our deen. But in the time of Umar ibn Abdulaziz, rahimahullah, he couldn't find anyone to accept zakah anymore in Africa, in the entire continent of Africa, or what part of it was Muslim, and under his rule, because of the amount of justice that he brought to the system itself. Because poverty usually is a man-made disaster. It's a result of injustice. So because of all the checks that Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu put into the system, his zakah collector came back from Africa and said, I can't find anyone to give zakah to. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned the time of Isa alayhi salam, the return of Jesus peace be upon him, the return of Isa alayhi salam. Isa alayhi salam would find no one left to give zakah to. Because the goal still remains to end poverty. The goal still remains to end poverty to where that's not even a necessary mechanism. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam also mentioned yada'ul jizya, that he would do away with the jizya, for example, which traditionally is the tax that would be paid by able military men under an Islamic state. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said Isa alayhi salam would abolish that. In another narration he said yada'ul harb, he would abolish war, which means jizya would not be necessary. There would be no necessary collection of that in the abolishing of war. So ideally that's what you seek in this case of Isa alayhi salam.
So the point being here is that Islam does obviously offer unique paradigms and constructs. Some of them make assumptions that there is the presence of a state, which has been the case throughout our history, until recent history. That's why you have in fiqh ahkam as-sultaniyya, the rulings that are determined at the state level. But at the same time we can develop our paradigms in a way, or we can develop on these paradigms that have been given to us in a way that we can start to really deal with the social ills that we have in our own society. And that's the attempt inshallah ta'ala that we're making in this class of 40 hadith on social justice. So make dua for its success. I hope that there was something of benefit in what I shared today. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept if there was, and may Allah forgive me for any shortcomings. Jazakumullah khair. Jazakumullah khair, Shaykh Omar. I hope inshallah you guys found it beneficial going over the topic of social justice. We'll now have Q&A for this session inshallah. You mentioned the contradiction between Islam and Marxism. What about Islam and liberalism? Every ism has a contradiction with Islam at an ideological level. No matter what that ism is. So obviously there are going to be significant contradictions. And the way that those contradictions are negotiated is that with everything we take the good and we leave the bad. And we try to offer confidently our own unique constructs and solutions, which is what this series is going to attempt to do inshallah in time, hopefully much more. So I hope that answers that question.
Okay. How do the actions of Khulafa of confiscating the wealth of rich people and redistributing it to the poor relate to Islam? Do these actions provide a system or just exercise of power of those rulers? The Khulafa did not do this arbitrarily. Islam does not. This isn't about, it's not like when the Khalifa sees someone getting a little bit too rich, he goes to them and says, give me your money, takes it and redistributes it to the poor. There are equations, there is zakat, there are spiritual checks, there's the admonishing of the rich. There are the rules that prohibit the exploitation of the poor and that command society to dignify the poor. So that was the point that I was trying to make in regards to the difference that the society of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam could give way to Abdurrahman ibn Auf and Abu Huraira. May Allah be pleased with them both with their circumstances without any one of them being less dignified as a result of their circumstances. So there was no arbitrary, there wasn't a confiscation of wealth. There is some level of redistribution obviously, but not one that's unjust to a person who's earning in a halal way. There is personal incentive in Islam and that's the point that I was making as well. You mentioned Abu Huraira was homeless but didn't he eventually get a home, marry, have a daughter? I think it's good to show that he eventually got out of poverty because it's not like the sahaba were content with poverty. Yeah, I think I did mention that. That Abu Huraira radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu eventually did financially find himself in a favorable situation.
And there's no doubt that the deen does not encourage poverty. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam encouraged people to find ways for themselves to exhaust every means so that they're not in that situation. But at the same time when it's forced poverty either by society or state or circumstances, then there are the benefits of the person being in that state in regards to his maqam with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the injunctions to honor those people that's placed upon those that are in a more favorable situation. You spoke about masajid hosting the homeless in the Prophet's time. Today masajids turn away the homeless and have no budget to help the poor. How do we change this culture and instill social justice leadership in our religious organizations? P.S. I speak from personal experience dealing with homelessness. I'm a Muslim running a non-profit. I'll share with you all something subhanAllah that happened a couple of weeks ago. You know right now is election season and masajids are around the country. So you got all the board elections taking place in masjids around the country. So it's getting all, you got the campaigns going on and you've got all the stuff happening, all the tensions rising in many masajids. Every time I've been to a masjid in the last month I've given a khutbah about unity and things of that, and ego. And then as soon as I finish the khutbah without knowing anything about the masjid, the president of the masjid will get up and start talking about election committees and stuff like that. So it's just that season of elections and masjids and stuff like that. And subhanAllah one of the membership applications for the masjid was shown to me. And the first question was, do you have a criminal record to become a member of the masjid? Not to become a board member, to become a member of the masjid. And I thought to myself subhanAllah by this measure,
the greatest Muslim American to ever live would not be allowed to be a member of this masjid. Think about that. Okay, but now most of the time these things are just adopted from churches or other organizations. And they just kind of copy the bylaws and bring that all in and add some Quran and Sunnah in there to make it look more Islamic. But think about how problematic that is. This is going to require a change of culture, which is rightfully said in the question. It's not just organizational, it's cultural. In Dallas inshaAllah ta'ala in the end of January there's going to be a count the homeless. An activity inshaAllah ta'ala where we're getting 1500 volunteers to go through all of Dallas to do a sweep of Dallas and to count. To document where the homeless are, to count them and then to have a resource to follow up with all of them inshaAllah ta'ala. I think it starts with exposing the community more to homelessness. Exposing it to homelessness and then obviously injecting many of the things that were mentioned in this class and others about the importance of taking care of the homeless. So it does require a culture change. And I mentioned yesterday Islam, as Muslims, as Masajid, we also have to consider the sanctuary movement and whether we have a role to play in that as well. I think we've become so obsessed with building and constructing and embellishing our Masajid that we've forgotten their purpose and that has led to mass exclusion. Not mass like the organization, mass with two S's. So that's a cultural shift as well. Can you elaborate on what was mentioned about rules related to privacy?
There are many things to mention. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam prohibited spying. He actually was very strict on the prohibition of spying on people's private lives in order to collect on them. Umar bin Khattab radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, one time when he was walking the streets doing his night patrols, he heard a woman singing. He heard some music and he heard a man saying something. So he was so tall radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu that he literally just looked over the wall. He didn't even have to step on anything. He saw an elderly man with a prostitute and he shouted out to him and he said, Ya adoo Allah, you enemy of God. Shouldn't you be waiting for it? Shouldn't a man of your age be waiting for death? I mean, this is shameful for someone at your age. And the man shouted back at him and said to him, Fear Allah, you violated my privacy and you didn't have the right to look over my wall. Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu literally walked away, started crying, didn't do anything about it. He saw him sometime after and he went up to him and he whispered in his ear and he said, I just wanted you to know I never told anyone about what I saw that night. He said Abdullah bin Mas'ud was with me that day and I didn't tell him what I saw that night. And the man told Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he said, I want you to know that I never returned to those sins after that night. I never returned to any of those sins after that night. And Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu shouted Allahu Akbar in his loud voice. And everyone kind of looked at him funny and didn't know why he just shouted Allahu Akbar. And he didn't say why. And subhanAllah was the man that later on shared that experience with Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. So this is also,
these also come into our notions of justice and protection of privacy and modesty and things of that sort. So they are unique certainly to Islam and we should draw upon them inshaAllah as much as we can. As-salamu alaykum. Sexual assault has continually been and is specifically today a large part of social justice efforts. What do you think Muslim communities can do to combat sexual assault in our communities in an Islamic, I can't read that last word. Can you read that last word? In an Islamic fashion. Fashion, okay. In an Islamic fashion. This goes to once again find, you know, acknowledging the problem is important. We do have to acknowledge the problem. We can't deny that the problem exists. I'm going to share with, and this is, this goes to I think when we talk about our devotion to our principles. Too often as Muslims, as Muslim communities, we're so, we are so invested in changing the narrative that we neglect actually changing ourselves. So we're so afraid of being embarrassed as a community that instead of dealing with our problems, we just try to cover them up and hope that it doesn't give more ammunition to Islamophobes. This is a problem, you know, our communities have problems that are similar to other communities. We're not unique in either not having those problems at all or in having them in greater proportion. We have them in the same proportion that other communities do and they need to be dealt with at an institutional level. So yes, we acknowledge the problem and we have to come up with with an organizational approach to dealing with them so that those, that type of behavior is not allowed to thrive in our Muslim communities in a cover-up culture.
So I think that's where we need to make sure that we invest in finding institutional approaches to this, inshallah, insha'Allah. I don't know if you use the, if this is the same person who asked this question. Sexual assault has become an important and major social justice issue in our communities and nation. What is true Islamic way of protecting the victim in the cases of allegations and how do you think our ummah can do better in supporting victims? I think that there, this is when it comes to finding, where's Dr. Brown? Just walked in. He just wrote something on due process, protecting the victim when allegations are made and how to balance that out, inshallah. So what's the name of that article, Dr. Brown? It's a cool title. Presumption of innocence when too many innocents go unheard. So balancing out the two is important. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. So that's the point. I don't think that they're mutually exclusive and I think that people are inherently, you know, inclined in certain directions, but we do have to make sure that we're protecting, you know, people, victims, and we have to make sure that we're providing them valid routes of seeking justice. If they don't have valid routes to seek justice, then things are going to happen that are going to be very unpleasant for our community. And so I think that there is a way, it's a balancing act, obviously, and in this day and age, it requires more effort probably than ever before to find that balance, inshallah. This is the last question? Okay.
All right. How do we implement these social justice methods in a non-Muslim country or under a leader who is, or with a leader who is against Islam in general, especially when this injustice is targeted towards Muslims? This is the hadith of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, whoever amongst you sees an evil, he should change it with his hand. If he can't change it with his hand, let him speak against it. If he can't say anything, then let him hate it in his heart, and that's the weakest of iman. Just because it's not a quote-unquote Islamic state doesn't mean that we get to walk away from all of the values that inform a society from an Islamic perspective. We are still obligated to do what's in our capacity, inshallah, and to try to solve these problems and to offer Islamic solutions while being amongst the people and feeling their pain and doing what the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, did for the first 40 years of his life before he even started calling to Islam, which is striving with the people to find solutions to their problems and combating it with everything that was at his disposal, alayhi salatu wasalam, and then divine revelation giving direction and guidance in how to do away with those ills in the dunya-y sense, in the worldly sense, as well as in the sense of the hereafter. Wallahu a'lam, jazakumullahu khayran.
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