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Imam Tom Live
How Should We View Gaza’s Celebrity Support? | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine
As the Israeli-imposed genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza continue to worsen, we’re seeing a new wave of celebrity support for Palestine. Should we welcome their support, even when it has come late?
Imam Tom brings a nuanced perspective to this question and advises us on how we should respond.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
With the starvation in Gaza getting worse and worse, you're going to see more and more celebrities come out in support for Gaza.
How should we understand the support, especially when it seems to be belated, it seems to be delayed? Why did it come so late? Should we completely criticize it or should we embrace it now that it's here?
We need to be balanced on this particular issue that we can recognize the value of having people come to the truth even in a late way.
Let's remember the Prophet's mission who had early adopters, people like Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه), people like Uthman (رضي الله عنه), and people like Ali (رضي الله عنه). May Allah be pleased with all of them.
And then I had people who came to it later on, even Umar (رضي الله عنه), came to it not right away.
Even some of the leaders that fought against the Muslims at the Battle of Uhud, such as Abu Sufyan (رضي الله عنه) and his wife Hind (رضي الله عنها), such as Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl (رضي الله عنه), such as Khalid ibn Al-Walid (رضي الله عنه).
They were people that accepted Islam quite late. And yet the fact that they came around to the truth late, and even if they initially maybe had mixed motives, it doesn't completely render their faith useless.
The same is true when it comes to supporting Palestine or supporting Gaza, with a caveat. The same is true in the sense that we should welcome people who are coming on to the side of the truth, even if it's later than we would have wanted.
However, what we shouldn't do is we shouldn't turn over the reins to these people and put them on a pedestal in the same way as the people who have been advocating for Palestine from day one.
And this is also something that is backed up by religious precedent, that the way in which the Companions are treated by the classical biographers, it is in order of when they came to Islam.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala recognizes this in the Qur'an, that those who accepted Islam before the fath, before the conquest of Mecca, are not like those who accepted it after.
Those who accepted Islam in Mecca when Islam was not a sure thing, maybe it was going to be conquered or maybe they were going to be wiped out, they sacrificed and they spent a tremendous amount of energy and sweat and blood and tears in order to make the movement viable.
It's not the same as somebody who accepted Islam on the day of the Battle of Hunayn when everything was pretty much settled and set and Islam was the major power.
So we can apply the same logic to Palestinian activism, that there are those who have been advocating for Palestine for decades, for their entire lives. There are people who have sacrificed so much of their wealth, of their health, of opportunities.
There are people who have left jobs, there are people who have been doxxed, people who are targeted by law enforcement or by security agencies, that those are the people who are, you could say, in the lead.
And this becomes really important when it comes to the substance of the message. What are we asking for? A lot of the times the people who come onto the issue late, sometimes the things that they're asking for, they don't even really know what to ask for.
They ask for something very general like a two-state solution or a Palestinian state or humanitarian aid. That's not to say that these things are bad per se, but the issue is a lot deeper than that.
As the only successful example of large-scale colonization in recent years, the commission is studying the 20-year-old Jewish settlements in British-mandated Palestine.
The structure of the occupation entirely, it's an apartheid state, it is a racist, ethno-supremacist state. There are people that have sacrificed a lot more who are dealing with those deeper issues.
And when it comes to what are the outcomes and what are we really asking for, then those are the voices that should be taking the lead. So be balanced when you see people come.
Don't necessarily assume that, oh, this person is just, they're poorly intentioned. We have a problem with this and we're affected by modern cancel culture and suspicion. We saw similar things when Shaun King accepted Islam. Shout out to Shaun King.
Some of the people who were in the activists' space were suspicious and they said, oh, this is just a grift. This is just someone trying to exploit the Muslims and Islam. No, no, insha'Allah, may Allah keep the brother steadfast. I've met him several times.
People are able to come to the truth. They are able to come to the truth and you don't have control over who Allah guides. So don't be a gatekeeper. I think that's the other takeaway.
That if you're trying to say, well, this person accepted Islam or this person came to the movement or this person came to the truth too late. And so they're just using it for don't be a gatekeeper.
You might have a point. There might be individual instances of people that are trying to use the Palestinian cause. But we're still getting targeted for supporting Palestine.
It's not we haven't had our Fath Mecca moment where supporting Palestine is so popular and so inevitable and that it's going to get you job opportunities and lots of money and access.
No, we're still targeted. Right. So don't be unnecessarily a gatekeeper. Welcome people into the movement with open arms, just as you would welcome Muslims or you would welcome people into Islam with open arms.
And recognize that the people who have been around longer and the people who have sacrificed the most, that they're the ones that are really leading the way.

















































