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How to Support Your Brother When He is an Oppressor | Virtual Khutbah
The Prophet (peace be upon him) taught us how to support the oppressed and the oppressor. How exactly do we support one who is harming rather than being harmed?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. InshaAllah ta'ala just before I start with the advice and the reflections for today, I wanted to remind everyone inshaAllah ta'ala to please sign up for the Dhul Hijjah programming. We're going to have inshaAllah ta'ala programming to connect us to the du'as of Ibrahim alayhis-salam, the supplications of Ibrahim alayhis-salam, on top of what already exists in just speaking about the virtues of the Hijjah. And then also a special series with the fellows at Yaqeen about Hajj and connecting us to Hajj inshaAllah ta'ala, even as so many of us had intended to go this year or have the intention to go at some point and feel disconnected from that. So inshaAllah ta'ala I want to recommend to everyone to please sign up inshaAllah ta'ala and you can also contribute inshaAllah ta'ala to the work by automating your donation across the 10 days. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept. May Allah azawajal allow us to welcome Dhul Hijjah in the most beautiful of ways and to really strive in the most blessed 10 days of the year. May Allah count us amongst those who are accepted in those 10 days. Allahumma ameen. What I wanted to speak about today was this very famous hadith where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says, انصر اخاك ظالما او مظلوم. To support your brother whether he is an oppressor or whether he is oppressed. And the sahaba, they responded to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and they said to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam,
Ya Rasulullah, we understand how to support him when he is oppressed, but how do we support him when he is an oppressor? And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, by stopping him from committing that oppression, by holding back his hand so that he does not oppress anymore, by holding his tongue so that he doesn't hurt with his tongue, whatever it may be, right, but by holding him back, stopping him from his oppression, that that is a way in which you show love to that person, that is the way that you truly support him. Now obviously this is situated in a context in which in Jahiliyyah they were familiar with this idea of supporting your tribesmen, supporting your brother whether he is wronged or whether he is wronging, whether he is an oppressor or whether he is oppressed. And what that meant was that it's your tribe above all, it is your kin above all, that justice and truth are secondary to loyalty and kinship and brotherhood. And what the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is showing us here is that there is actually no contradiction between the two. So it's the brilliance of the Messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam that he reframes the understanding of that slogan in a way that it would stick with the people. So the idea of unsur akhaaka waaliman aw mazloom, to support your brother, whether he is an oppressor or whether he is oppressed, in the Jahili context and the understanding of the days of ignorance was, you support him no matter what and justice and truth are secondary and relegated to a place of unimportance in favor instead of kinship and brotherhood and loyalty and tribalism. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is saying, no, continue to love your brother, but see rectifying your brother and helping him understand the implications of his actions and stopping him from oppressing and putting him on the path of truth by doing justice by him and with him is actually your way of doing him a favor. It's actually your way of supporting him because when Islam comes,
it does not just bring a rectification of our worldly affairs. It reorients us towards the hereafter, towards the akhira, and tells us that the consequences and the rewards of the hereafter are far greater than the ones that exist in this world. And so it's not just the pursuit of truth and justice here, it's the pursuit of Allah's reward, the pursuit of Allah's pleasure, which becomes primary now. And so if by supporting my brother, by stopping him from oppressing, by actually taking a stand against him for his sake, meaning for the sake of his akhira, it obviously has, you know, rectification for society as a whole when people step in, but for the sake of his hereafter, then I'm doing him a favor because now the component of the hereafter has been introduced into his thoughts and into his pursuit. And this is the way that we collectively seek Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There's another hadith, which is a very famous hadith, where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, the hadith of Tamim ibn Aws al-Dari radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, الدين نصيحة, the religion is sincerity, نصيحة. And they said to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, to who? He said, لله ولكتابه ولرسوله وليأمة المسلمين وعامتهم. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said to Allah, to his book, to his messenger, to the leaders of the Muslims and to their common folk. And this is powerful because what is nasiha to Allah is not what is nasiha to the people. What is nasiha to Allah is your sincerity in abiding by his commands. It is sincerity, having the purest of intentions in responding to the call of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and being fully obedient to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with those. And that guidance comes through the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So being sincere to the commands and to the imperatives of that book, to the instructions of that book. And that book is given to us through the messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam,
who manifests it in action and interprets it and acts upon it with his sunnah so that we can learn how to act upon it. So our nasiha to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is believing him, believing in him, following the guidance from Allah that comes through that book and is manifested in his sunnah alayhi salatu wassalam. So that's nasiha to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Nasiha to the leaders of the Muslims and nasiha to the common folk is to rectify them in accordance with the guidance that we get from Allah through the book of Allah implemented and manifested and explained through the way and the guidance and the wisdom of the messenger of Allah salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And so it's nasiha because we're still sincere to the commands themselves because the commands of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are put forth as what will rectify our affairs both worldly and those that relate to the hereafter as well as our relationships and it is what we hold ourselves to and what we hold others to. Those that are beloved to us and those that are enemies. We hold ourselves to that guidance from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's our nasiha to Allah, to the book, to the messenger salallahu alayhi wassalam. And then we hold others in accordance with that nasiha to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We give nasiha with that nasiha if that makes sense. In a way that we all become more sincere and we all give each other sincere loving advice with the goal of success, with the goal of success in the hereafter and success in this world. And so it's a powerful hadith, it's all-encompassing and you cannot understand the hadith about supporting your brother whether he's depressed or whether he's an oppressor unless you understand the nature of your relationship with Allah first and the relationship that you have with rightful guidance first so that when you are giving nasiha to others
you are giving them nasiha based upon rightful guidance and only for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Not for any worldly aim, not for any ego. And then you know when you see your brother, when you see your sister you want good for them, you love them and you want good for them. And so where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam talks about the example of this ummah in regards to its mutual love and concern, the way that we feel about each other the way that we want one another to succeed is like one human body, right? It's like one human body. And so if one part of it hurts then the entire body is afflicted with fever and the entire body is afflicted with that illness. Now you don't just amputate the part of your body that is struggling but instead you try to cure it, you try to heal it. Now often you know we only speak about this hadith once again in regards to the affairs of global oppression. And so the Muslim ummah is like one body and so when I hear about a group of oppressed people in Palestine or in Somalia or in Syria or in Yemen, wherever it may be, the Rohingya, the Uyghurs, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, it hits me because those are my people, right? And so that's one way of understanding and one way of genuinely benefiting from the advice of the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam about the example of the human body. The example of this ummah like the example of the human body. But there is another element to this which is that I have to want good for my brother or my sister and I have to genuinely want good for my brother or my sister. Whether that brother or sister is a leader or whether that brother or that sister is an unnoticed follower, right? Or someone that is as common folk as it gets. I want good for that person and if I don't want good for that person,
then any nasiha that I give to them is going to be inherently flawed because it's not coming from the place of the interest of that person, it's coming from something else. It can't be for Allah if I don't want that person to be better for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And from the same spirit of loving my brother or sister that's being oppressed because of something worldly and wanting them to not suffer in this world and that same spirit of wanting my brother or sister to succeed and not suffer in the hereafter. I want to give them loving advice. I want to pick them up. I want to help them. And so it's important to understand this hadith, انصر اخاك ظالما او مظلوم, to support your brother whether he's an oppressor or whether he's oppressed. Through the lens of these two hadith, what does it mean to have nasiha to the people? You can't have nasiha to the people if you don't have nasiha to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, to his guidance and to his Messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And then what does it mean to feel a sense of illness, to feel a sense of concern that would cause a person to lose sleep at night? Except for the love of that person and wanting that person to succeed and wanting that person to do so much better. What comes out of that is that again, you're going to give nasiha to that person for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and with the guidance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So it will both come from a good place. It will be لله, في الله and it will be for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and with the rightful guidance of Allah. It's not going to have any worldly aim attached to it. It's not going to have ego attached to it. And that's going to guide the way that the means will be used to separate that person from their dhulm, to separate that person from their oppression. Now I want you to think about this once again from the other side of this coin.
When you want to sincerely help someone who's being oppressed, you want to separate them from that oppression. You don't just pray for them, you don't just wish them well. You actually want to separate them. In fact, your dua is an action, right? Your dua is an action. You want to separate them from that oppression, rescue them from that oppression. And so all of the means that you're going to take to support that person are going to be in the interest of that person. Anything that you do is going to be for the sake of helping that person. It's not just going to be for your sake. A lot of times, by the way, I think about this in terms of protest and advocacy. There are many people who would be willing to jump in the protest, but they might need something more from you. And that dedicated long-term advocacy. And by the way, the first agent of change is dua. And then everything stems from that. So you go to all of those different things and you do what is necessary to help them. You take the asbab, the means, while having full tawakkul in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, full trust in Allah, you take the means that are actually going to help those people get out of that situation, okay? To separate them from their oppression. Likewise, when you're giving someone sincere advice to stop them from oppressing themselves, to stop them from being zalim themselves, in whatever way that it is, the wasaal, the means that you are going to take are in accordance with the goal of separating them from that zulm, but in this situation, committing the zulm, committing the oppression. And so it's not just going to be, you know, I'm not just going to yell at you because it's going to make me feel like I did something better. I'm going to find the right language. I'm going to find the right approach. I might even find the right messenger. Maybe I'm not the right messenger to you in the first place.
I'm going to do whatever I can to stop you from hurting, not just others, but hurting yourself by hurting your hereafter because of the way that you're committing that zulm and the way that you're committing that oppression. And this often shows, by the way, in regards to family affairs, right? How often do you see that sometimes the most religious of people, you know, get caught in a situation where there is a family beef and then, you know, their child is in a marriage and their child might be the one that's committing the wrongdoing in a marriage. But when divorce comes and arbitration comes, they're completely unfair, right? Completely biased towards their own children. It's beautiful when you see someone who's just, who says, you know what, no, you know, we can't wrong. And, you know, I have to be fair. I have to be just here, despite my love for my own child. And in fact, because I love my own child, I don't want them to oppress. I want to help them out of the situation. Same thing, whether it's my brother or my sister that's in that, you know, that's at fault. It's not just that I'm going to be just in spite of my love for that person. I'm going to be just and love that person by making sure they don't do something that might yield them some temporary benefit and advantage in this life, but is going to harm them in the hereafter. Whether it's my own child, my own sibling, my closest friend, whoever it is, I'm going to try to stop that person from doing things that are harmful to others and harmful to themselves in the hereafter. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not tell us to leave off that love that we have for people when we want to stop them from oppressing. He instead taught us to act upon that love for them in a more wholesome understanding of their interests in this life and their interests in the hereafter. So the societal implications of unchecked dhulm, unchecked evil, is that everyone gets engulfed in that evil. Everyone gets engulfed in that evil. So none of us can be complacent. من لآء منكم منكر
Whoever amongst you sees an evil, let them change it with their hands. If you can't change it with your hand, then speak out against it. And if you can't change it with your tongue, then at least hate it in your heart and that is the least of faith. That means I leave the environment, I leave the situation, I can't be in the presence of that evil being committed, and I hate in my heart that I wasn't able to change that environment. Not that I remain in a place where I tacitly approve it. No, I hate that I wasn't able to change it. I hate that I wasn't, and I'm going to think about the ways in which I can get to a place where I can stop that منكر. I'm not in a place right now where I can stop it, but I'm going to strategize, I'm going to pray, I'm going to be sincere to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in wanting to sincerely remove that wrongdoing from society, from my own family, from my own tribe, whoever it may be. So again, the idea here is that we're never complacent, we remain sincere to Allah, sincere to our brothers and sisters, and we undergo the means or we undertake the means that are in accordance with the goal of actually separating those people from committing that dhulm just as we would separate people, try to do our best to separate people from being the victims of dhulm in this life. One of the things that we find with Ibrahim alayhi salam in particular, we just covered the story of Ibrahim alayhi salam and obviously he's a major theme as we're going into dhul hijjah, not all people are spoken to in the same way. And so Ibrahim alayhi salam speaking to his father was different from the way that he spoke to his people. It's never condescending or foul, like Ibrahim alayhi salam never becomes obscene. But the way that he speaks to his father is different from the way that he speaks to his people. And so when he's speaking to his father, he says, Ya abati inni qad ja'ani minal ilm ma lam ya'tika fattabi'ni ahdika siratan sawiya Oh my father, I have some knowledge, inni qad ja'ani minal ilm, some knowledge has come to me.
So I'm not the source of that knowledge. I don't have all knowledge. I don't know everything and you know nothing. No, there's just some knowledge that Allah has favored me with and that has come to me, minal ilm, right? ma lam ya'tika, that happened to not come to you. fattabi'ni ahdika siratan sawiya, so follow me and I'll guide you to a straight path. So Ibrahim is using many qualifiers. He's going above and beyond to use the language that's going to be befitting to his father with the goal of guiding his father. That's not when he speaks to his people, what does he say? atuhaa juuni fil laa wa qad hadaan Are you going to dispute with me concerning Allah while he has guided me? That's not arrogance but Ibrahim has a different tone because he's speaking to two different peoples here, two different audiences. The goal is to separate them from their idolatry and to bring them to that straight path. And the last thing I'll say here is that it's important for us to understand that usually people don't check their own clicks or their own groups because they're afraid they'll give their opponents a one-up on them. I'm going to say that again because it's especially relevant in the social media age. Hold your own crew to that higher set of standards. It's very easy to find the clicks and to find the tribes and to find the people that fall into these echo chambers and then they become groups. And so their people are always right no matter what wrong they do and the other side is always wrong no matter what right they do. And so when my guy says this, I'm going to go ahead and support him and I'm going to jump on the bandwagon, I'm going to lampoon his opponents and I'm not going to check him or her and hold them to those standards because they're on my team. And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is saying that the whole ummah is a team. You know, we're all one team. We can't be divided into those clicks. But it is inevitable, it is inevitable that groups form. It's inevitable that you start to feel a certain sense of empathy towards some.
It's inevitable that you start to feel an affinity towards some. It's inevitable that you have more husn adhan, that you excuse the behavior of some more than others. And this is just naturally what happens on social media especially. It's very apparent, right? People form into these groups and into these clicks. Who is the person who is honest enough to check their own and say, you know what, that's not okay. You know what, this is not okay. This is harmful. This is oppressive. And as I said, usually people don't check their own clicks or groups because they're afraid they'll give their opponents a one-up. I want you to think about this, inshallah ta'ala, and I'll end with these three things. The consequence of that, the consequence of checking your own brother, your own sister who's from your group, your click, would be a loss in this world for them. Even though Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us through the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam that no one increases in humility except that Allah increases them in honor. But let's just say, if I check, if I call out this and I say this is wrong, this is dhulm, that I might be submitting my brother, the person in my click, to a loss in this world. So the consequence of that would be a loss in this world. But the consequence of letting them persist in their wrongdoing is their loss in the hereafter. So the consequence of letting them persist in their dhulm is their loss in the hereafter. And the consequence of supporting them in their wrongdoing is loss for both of you in the hereafter. So I'm going to repeat the three things. The consequence of this would be a loss in this world. If you were to check them, to stop them from committing dhulm, you might disadvantage them in the worldly sense. But the consequence of letting them persist in their wrongdoing is their loss in the hereafter.
And the consequence of supporting them in their wrongdoing is loss for both of you in the hereafter. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us all. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from oppressing or being oppressed. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from wronging others or being wronged ourselves. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from harming others or being harmed by others. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow the hereafter to be our greatest concern. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for our shortcomings. Our inherent shortcomings. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to recognize our own shortcomings and to repent for those shortcomings before it becomes too late. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us when we become ignorant of ourselves, heedless of ourselves, heedless of our situations. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be more concerned about wronging and being punished in the hereafter than than being wronged and suffering in this world May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from both the harm of this world, the hardship of this world and the hardship of the next May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive our brothers and sisters all over the world May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be united May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala unite our hearts, unite our ranks and allow us to be more pleasing to him collectively and individually Allahuma Ameen Wa sallalahu wa sallim wa barak ala nabiyuna Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in JazakumAllahu khayran Once again inshallah ta'ala please do sign up at the links below Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
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