40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #10 - The "Everyone Else Does It" Fallacy
Most of the injustice that is committed in society is committed because it has become normalized. Even if it is normalized in society, your heart should not be comfortable with it, and you must not conform to it. Sh. Omar Suleiman explains a hadith that reminds us not to oppress others or to join others in sinning or injustice even if everyone else is participating.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. So tonight we're going to continue. And who can tell me what the last hadith was about, or the last class was about? Anybody? Anyone paying attention last week? What's that? Social justice, that's a good one. Alright, last week we spoke about this concept of they are not our teachers. Meaning what? Don't let someone with bad character teach you bad character, instead you teach them good character. A lot of times we excuse our own injustice in response to an injustice. If somebody commits bulun towards us, injustice towards us, then we believe we can also transgress against them. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, addal amanata fee man at-tamanak, that you should fulfill the trust of the one who entrusts you. And he said, wala takhun man khanak, but do not betray the one who betrays you. Do not deceive the one who deceives you. So the idea of mercy, of forgiveness, of tolerance of a person not stooping to the level of the one who wrongs them. That is one of the most profound lessons that we take from the biography of the Prophet peace be upon him. We gave the example of when he entered into Mecca. The same people that killed his family members, the same people that ran him out of his land, the same people that caused him all that hardship for two decades. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he returned back to Mecca victorious, what did he do? He said, what do you think I should do with you? Tell me what I should do with you. So each person understood from that that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would have been justified in actually killing them. Because they killed people as well, and they persecuted and they oppressed.
But instead the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, I will only say to you what my brother Yusuf, what my brother Joseph peace be upon him said. La tathreeba alaykum al yawm, there is no blame on you today, may Allah forgive you. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is showing us the importance of taking the moral high ground. That doesn't mean to settle with foreign justice. What that means is to rise above it. So it does not mean that you accept it, but it means that you rise above it, and even in your seeking justice, you do not become unjust. Now today's subject, I was trying to find the hadith to illustrate or to highlight what I wanted to say, and it took me a long time. Because there are so many different hadith that point towards the lesson that I want us to take home today. But I was having a really difficult time finding a hadith that explicitly spelled out exactly what I wanted to convey to you today. So on one hand, it's one thing when someone wrongs you that you don't respond with wrongdoing, you don't respond with injustice. However, most of the injustice that's committed in society is committed in society because it's been normalized. Because there's this concept of everybody else does it. So for example, if a society functions on bribes, there are some Muslim countries in the world, there are some countries in the world where you can't get anything done. You can't even get your electricity turned on unless you bribe somebody, right? It's all about bribes. The Prophet ﷺ cursed the one who bribes and the one who accepts a bribe. But at the same time, it's like, you know what? Oh well, this is all we can do. Everybody else is doing it, so I gotta do it as well. Everyone else commits either a moral sin, a moral injustice, or an injustice as in a transgression, and it becomes normalized and accepted, and you basically resign yourself to this idea of,
if you can't stop them, join them. Okay? So financial transgression. Think about the concept of tawtfeef, which we're going to talk about in detail, which is to cheat with the weights, to cheat with the scales. So to corrupt business practices. Everybody else does it that way, I might as well do it too. Think about the student when they cheat on their exams. And I know it's easy for me to say because I'm done with school, right? But when you're a student and you're taking your exam, everybody else cheats, I might as well cheat too. It becomes far less evil when you think of it that way. And then think of major transgressions. Every year here in Dallas, we march on March 3rd, we go to the place where Alan Brooks, you can read about Alan Brooks, the famous lynching in Dallas, Alan Brooks was lynched. Downtown Dallas, this old black man was taken, and his body was brutalized, and he was lynched, and a huge crowd was around him, and they took a picture of it, and they actually, those were postcards that would be sent from people in Dallas to people around the world. That became one of the infamous images of Dallas, a whole bunch of people standing downtown, while a man was lynched between them. And you think about the faces of the people that are there. Did all of them really have the cruelty inside of them to lynch an individual? No. How could a person sit there and watch that, just stand there? How could a child not see a problem with that? How could a person just watch that entire thing unfold before their eyes, and think there's nothing wrong with it? Because it became normalized. Everybody else is doing it, so it can't be that evil. When you think about the great evils in history that were normal features of society, normal features of society, and you would not think twice about it if you lived in those societies,
and usually it's because people conformed to a standard of injustice, to the point that they no longer saw any problem with it whatsoever. I remember there was a movie about Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player in the major leagues. And I remember the scene from the movie, there's a child that sees his father, and he sees everyone else yelling the N-word at him, so he thinks to himself, well, let me do it too. That type of peer pressure and that type of normalization of hatred, of evil, can come both in the form of moral sins and in the form of transgression. So when we talk about sins, as in sins that don't involve transgressing against a human being, the standards of society generally dictate the behavior of everyone else, because you will see it and you will accept it and you will internalize it. And that's why the Prophet, Salaam Alaikum, mentioned, when you see an evil, at the very least, you should hate it in your heart. You still have to be uncomfortable with that evil, even if you're inevitably surrounded by it. Whatever it is that you're seeing, whether it's a moral sin or a transgression, a transgression against someone else, if it's become normalized, you still have to make sure your heart is not comfortable with it, and you are not conforming to it. So sometimes, let's say for example, there's a system that's based on interest and usury, and burying people in debt. How much suicide is committed because of debts, right? And how much of the evil takes place in society because you have people getting buried in their poverty. You don't want to take part in it, but to some extent, you have to. You're part of the system. That doesn't mean you jump all in and say, well, everybody else is doing it, I can jump in this as well. So the fact of the matter is that most people become okay with certain evils and transgressions in society,
and they basically come to this idea of, well, everybody else does it, you can't stop them, join them. So when people say, well, why don't you do this? Well, everybody else is doing it, so I have to do this to get by. Okay? So I've got to cheat because everybody else is cheating in my trade, so I can get by. I've got to do this or else people will say this. So what's the hadith? This hadith is so beautiful. It's narrated by Hudhayfa radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he said, laa takoonu imma'a, do not be yes-men. And he said, he continued, taqooloon in ahsanan naasu ahsanna wa in dhalamu dhalamna. You say to yourselves, if the people do good, we will do good. wa in dhalamu, and if they wrong, then we will wrong. If they oppress, we will oppress. If they commit injustice, then we will commit injustice. So the Prophet ﷺ says, walakin wathlinoo anfusakum in ahsana naasu an tuhsinoo wa in asa'oo fala tadlimoo. He said, but instead, make up your minds that if the people do good, you will also do good. And if the people do evil, then you will still do good. Okay? You will not follow their example. So I'm going to repeat the hadith in English. Do not let yourselves be yes-men. Do not become yes-men. Do not become sheep, mindless sheep that just follow the herds. Instead, he said, don't be those people that say, if the people are good, then we will be good. And if the people do wrong, then we will do wrong. But he said, make up your minds, wathlinoo anfusakum, make up your minds. Condition yourselves, if the people are good, then you will be good. And if the people do evil, then you will not behave unjustly. You will continue to do good. The hadith is narrated in a tirmidhi. He classified it as an authentic hadith. Imam al-Albani, rahimallah, just for the sake of hadith sciences,
he actually attributed the statement to Ibn Mas'ud, radiyaAllahu anhu, rather than the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam. But the messaging is so profound. So profound. It's a messaging that we get in the Quran. wa in tuti'a akthar man fil ard yadlluka an sabili Allah If you follow the majority of people, then you will be led astray. So that's in our creed, in our theology, but also, it transfers into our practices, our daily practices, our daily habits. The transgression of the tongue, as we've spoken about. If you're around a bunch of people, and everybody else backbites, everybody else gossips, everyone else is doing this, then you know what? I'm going to do it as well. And I'll read for you, and those of you that have taken the class that I teach behind the scenes, where I talk about spirituality and taskiya, I teach the book, Mukhtasar Minhajil Qasidin, which is a book on spirituality, by Imam Ibn Qudamah rahimahullah. And listen to what he said. He said, through frequent exposure, a person begins to perceive corruption as trivial, and its effect and its gravity starts to fade away. Thus, whenever a person regularly sees another person committing a major sin, he belittles the minor sins he himself commits. Similarly, if a scholar is seen wearing a silk garment or a gold ring, remember Shaykh Yasser was talking about this yesterday, the prohibition for men of wearing silk and gold. If a scholar was to walk in wearing a silk garment or a gold ring, he said the people would aggressively denounce that. Yet they can watch him sit in a long gathering where he does nothing but backbite people, and they aren't offended by that. And he said, but backbiting is far worse than wearing silk, or far worse than wearing gold, because of how frequently it's heard, and how often backbiting is witnessed,
the hearts have become desensitized to it. It's a powerful paragraph by Imam Ibn Qudamah rahimahullah. What that means is, you become desensitized to some major sins because they're normalized. Whereas you are so passionate sometimes about things that aren't even for sure haram. Like they're in the doubtful area, and you're so passionate and angry about those things. Like, think about it, Shaykh Yasser gave a khatirah last night about that. What if Shaykh Yasser walked in, mashallah, with gold rings on all eight fingers, and a silk thawb, what would we do to him? Some of us would praise him, but a lot of people would see that and be like, what's going on here? How could you do that? And people would be so angry and offended. So we become desensitized to major transgression, major corruption, because everybody else does it. There's nothing wrong with it anymore. And Ibn Mas'ud radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he said that you should accustom yourself, that if everybody else on the face of the earth disbelieved, that you would still believe. You have to get out of this mindset of just going along with the flow, letting everybody else set standards for you, and not holding yourself to a higher standard. You have to get out of that mindset. And it's not just when someone wrongs you. It's when you see wrongdoing, and you become desensitized to it. So there are a few aspects to this. One of them is something that we mentioned about people becoming desensitized to a wrongdoing. And the other one is everyone sort of contributing to that wrongdoing and growing it, making it even more normal, passing it on to future generations with even more evilness to it. And there's another hadith where the Prophet ﷺ said, إِيَّاكُمُ مُحَقَّرَاتِ الذِّنُوبِ He said, Beware of belittling sin.
Beware of belittling sin. Another hadith the Prophet ﷺ said, لا كَبِيرَ مَعَ الْإِسْتِغْفَارِ وَلَا سَغِيرَ مَعَ الْإِسْرَارِ That there is no major sin if you seek forgiveness for it, and there is no minor sin if you insist upon it. There is no major sin if you seek forgiveness for it, and there is no minor sin if you insist upon it. The insistence upon a minor sin is offensive. But Allah can forgive any sin. So you can seek forgiveness from the most major sin and Allah will forgive you. So he says in this hadith, إِيَّاكُمُ Beware of belittling sin. And listen to the example he gave. He says that, he says ﷺ, فَإِنَّمَا مَثَلُ مُحَقَّرَاتِ الذِّنُوبِ كَمَثَلِ قَوْمٍ نَزَلُوا بَطْنَ وَادٍ فَجَاءَ ذَابِعُودٍ وَجَاءَ ذَابِعُودٍ He said, imagine a group of people that have descended into a valley, and each one brings their sticks. Each person is carrying a stick. They all start to throw this stick into a fire, until the fire becomes so large that it consumes them all. So each one contributes with a little bit of sin that they don't take seriously. So this little bit of evil, each person goes and throws it in, throws it in, throws it in. It's not that one person went through a huge log into the fire. Each person contributes their small one. And what did the Prophet ﷺ mention? So the entire of society suffers as a result of that. Why? You normalize evil, you then contribute to its continuity. You despise it, yet you enable it at the same time. You claim to despise it, yet you enable it at the same time. Getting to a point of participation. Now it starts with disapproval. It starts with disavowal, that a person would disavow.
In another hadith, the Prophet ﷺ said, this is an authentic hadith. He said, ﷺ, إِذَا عُمِلَتِ الْخَطِيَةُ فِي الْأَرْضِ كَانَ مَن شَهِدَهَا فَكَرِهَهَا أَوْ قَالَ أَن كَرَهَا كَمَنْ غَابَ عَنْهَا وَمَنْ غَابَ عَنْهَا فَرَضِيَهَا كَانَ كَمَنْ شَهِدَهَا He said, ﷺ, when a sin is committed or when a mistake is committed, he who sees it and disapproves of it will be like the one who is not present. He who sees it but disapproves of it will be like the one who was not present when it was committed. But he said, he who did not see it but approved of it will be like the one who was present when it was committed. I'll give it to you again. When a sin is commited he who sees it and disapproves of it will be like the one who is not present in the first place. But he who did not see it but approved of it will be like the one who was present when it was committed. What that means is this importance of taking a hard, you know, a very hard stance against injustices, not harsh in the way that you deal with people, harsh in the sense that you disavow it so that you do not enable corruption and evil and injustice in any of its forms. There's another hadith also from Ibn Mas'ud radiallahu ta'ala anhu, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, that the first defect that destroyed Banu Isra'il, the children of Israel, was that a man from amongst them met another man and said, O so-and-so, fear Allah and abandon what you are doing, for it is not lawful for you. Meaning he saw him doing something evil and he told him, you know, you should stop, it's not good for you. But then the next day he met him and it did not prevent him from embracing, drinking with him, sitting with him.
What that means is the Prophet ﷺ is saying that his disavowal was not serious. So it was a light disavowal. Whereas a person should take very strong stances against injustices and evil so that it does not become normalized. That's a hadith that's narrated by Abu Dawood and it is mentioned, it is also in Riyadh al-Saliheen, so Shaykh Yasir will eventually get to it. So the point is that we become desensitized, we accept things because of their frequency and we basically say that we have no chance. So we might as well engage it. Now from a fiqh perspective, from a perspective of jurisprudence, are there times that you can partake in an evil when you're in a society of evil? Or when you're in a society where some evil has been normalized? Because there are particular evils that are normalized in every society. So is it permissible sometimes to partake in something that is not approved in the deen, that is hated, or disliked, or unjust? What do you guys think? If your safety is at risk, you might be in a place where you have to do something in order to spare danger or harm from yourself. What else? There are some other conditions. Dire need or necessity. Sometimes dire need will make something that's normally prohibited permissible in a particular situation. What that means is that the ruling doesn't change, so we don't change the ruling of the religion, but the restriction is relaxed for that particular context. Also, for example, to avert a greater evil.
You might be in a situation where you have two options, both of them are harmful, and you engage the lesser of the two evils. Another one could be that it's not a matter of engaging one evil or a lesser evil, but you're in a situation where society has normalized a particular way of dealing, and you cannot escape that dealing in the indirect sense. What does that mean? I'm still prohibited as a Muslim from directly engaging in usury and interest. But whether I like it or not, I have to engage that system to an extent. That does not mean that it opens up the entire realm of permissibility. What that means is that I should do my best to avoid at least the direct contact, and I should try my best to not fall into anything that's going to make that completely normalized. Let's say for example you're in a public place and you're hearing something that's haram, you're hearing something that's prohibited. Sheikh Al-Islam bin Taymiyyah rahimahullah said, hearing is not like listening. Hearing is not like listening. Sometimes you hear but you're not listening. You're in a situation where la budda laka minhum. There's no way but except that it's just going to be in your face. But still, you don't have to enthusiastically embrace it, okay? So it goes back to hating something in your heart and disavowing it. And when you're in a situation when you can't stop it, at least you don't partake in it. There's a very interesting hadith that took place with the Prophet ﷺ. It's before Islam, meaning before he received revelation at the age of 40 years old. It's an interesting hadith.
And he said ﷺ, because he didn't worship idols even before he became a prophet. He didn't worship idols. He worshipped one god, right? He believed in monotheism. He believed in Abraham ﷺ, Ibrahim ﷺ. He worshipped one god, right? He didn't worship any of the idols. But the Prophet ﷺ was not yet commanded to make the call. So he gave this interesting, beautiful narration of something that happened to him before he became a prophet. He said, I remember sitting in a gathering and they started to serve the meat that was sacrificed in the name of the idols. And the Prophet ﷺ used to simply pass on it. He wasn't commanded yet to be a prophet or a messenger. Everyone knew he didn't approve. But the Prophet ﷺ still was not condemning it, right? Or he was not, you know, at least actively condemning it or in opposition to it. They knew that he didn't do it and they left him alone, right? So he said, I remember being in this gathering and they started to serve that meat. And he ﷺ said, when it came to my direction, he said, you know, I simply passed on it. He said, then when it went to Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, a man by the name of Zayd ibn Amr, he said, when it got to him, he stood up and he said, Allah creates you, Allah provides for you, and Allah provides for your animals. Yet you sacrifice in the name of other than Him. Right? And he started to speak out. And the Prophet ﷺ was amazed. He was in his 20s. He was amazed watching Zayd ibn Amr sort of taking on this trend all by himself. Right? And he also mentioned, this is narrated from Ibn Umar and Asma'a, some of the scenes of Zayd ibn Amr, that they remembered that when the people were doing talaf around the idols, when they were sanctifying the idols in Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ didn't speak out against it yet. He was not a prophet. He wasn't a messenger. But he didn't worship them.
He didn't take part in those rituals. Right? But Zayd ibn Amr goes and he puts his back to the Ka'bah, and he puts his hands against the Ka'bah, and he says, none of you is upon the religion of Abraham. You are not upon... This is not the way of Ibrahim ﷺ. None of you are worshiping the way that Ibrahim ﷺ worshiped. And he started to say, اللهم لو أني أعلم أي الوجوه أحب إليك عبدتك به ولكني لا أعلم. He would cry, and he would even prostrate, and he would say, Oh Allah, I don't know which of the ways is most pleasing to You. Meaning I don't know how to worship You exactly. I know this isn't it, and I don't know how to worship You. But if I were to know, I would worship You in accordance with that path. Meaning I would do what I'm supposed to do, but I don't know, I don't have any guidance. So what happened to Zayd? Zayd died before the Prophet ﷺ became a Prophet. He was a monotheist. He was a man who believed in God. He was a man that went looking for the truth. Right? But he died before the Prophet ﷺ started calling to Islam. So what ends up happening? What is Zayd ibn Amr, when he passes away, what ends up happening? His son becomes one of the first converts to Islam, Sa'id. And he's one of the 10 مبشرين, one of the 10 promised paradise. So he comes to Zayd, I mean he comes to the Prophet ﷺ, and he says, Listen, you know my father, like you know my dad. What happened to him? Like is he really going to be punished, because he just simply did not find guidance? I mean you know how much he desired to be on the truth, and how he was willing to be alone upon that truth. So what happened to him? And what did the Prophet ﷺ say? He said, on the Day of Judgment, when all of the nations stand behind their Prophets, Abraham with his nation, Jesus with his nation, Moses with his nation, Noah with his nation, all the Prophets come forth with their nations, Muhammad ﷺ with his nation,
he said that Zayd will be standing all by himself as a nation, as an ummah. This is the opposite of a yes man, the opposite of imma, right? If you want to know what the Prophet ﷺ said, be like instead of those, look at Zayd. A man that could care less what society's trends were, he said, I'm not going to partake, and he sought so sincerely and earnestly the truth. Right? So that type of individual, that type of person, is a noble person to look to in that situation, even though again he did not live... And you know what he used to do, subhanAllah, this is the way monotheism connects to a sense of justice. Belief in Allah, naturally, fitrah leads you to justice. You know what Ibn Abbas said he used to do? Ibn Abbas said he used to go to the people that were about to bury their daughters alive, because that was a practice of the people of Arabia, was female infanticide. They used to bury their daughters, some of the poorer tribes. And he used to go and rescue those girls. And he would bring them to his home, and he would raise them until they reached an age of marriage, and then he would marry them all. This is before, وَإِذَا الْمَؤُودَةُ شُؤِلَتْ بِيَيذًا بِنْ قُتِلَةٍ Before the Qur'an was even revealed to condemn female infanticide. Zayd just knew, this is unacceptable. I have to stop this, I have to do my part. I can't stop the practice altogether, but I'm gonna go get these girls, and raise them, and prepare them to move on in life. SubhanAllah, think about how beautiful that is, right? Think about that person who did not just say, everybody else does it, I might as well do it too. And he did not restrict that behavior to the realm of theology, but instead it encompassed his sense of justice as well. That I will not conform, I will think outside of the box, I will think differently from my people, and I will try to analyze things properly.
So the Prophet ﷺ, he praised that type of behavior. I'm gonna give you guys one more statement, and one more long story. So this hadith has a lot of stories to it, because, or at least, I'm trying to give stories to sort of drive the point home inshaAllah, about what it means to not conform to injustice. There's one statement from Shaykh Al-Islam bin Taymiyyah, rahimahullah ta'ala. And it's a very, very powerful statement, because if you just sit there and reflect on it, you'll actually see how it's come true in your face. He said, مَنْ أَعَانَ ظَالِمًا بُلِيَ بِهِ Whoever assists an oppressor, will one day be tested by that oppressor. Whoever assists the oppressor, will one day be tested by that same oppressor. Meaning what? You enable an oppression, because it's in your benefit one day, it will come back around to haunt you. The same oppressor or oppression that you enabled, will come back and haunt you as well. How many times do we see that happen? Think about it financially. Someone assists someone in zulm, someone assists someone in a dispute, they assist the wrongdoer, they assist the oppressor, the transgressor, because they want to escape the harm, it's just more convenient, they can benefit from that, and then what ends up happening? They enable it to grow, and then it comes back and consumes them as well. مَنْ أَعَانَ ظَالِمًا بُلِيَ بِهِ He wrote that in Majmoo' al-Fatawah, it's very interesting, and he elaborated on that concept, right? And if you think about it just in various realms, you'll see how it can come true. You contribute to a corrupt system, don't be mad when the system comes back and ruins you. When you employ injustice in order to take advantage of a situation, it will happen to you and it will happen to your family too, it'll come back to haunt you, right? So you have to declare your open disavowal of that, and you have to sort of maintain your own standards, don't just say everybody else does it. Now my favorite story in this regard,
and then we'll open it up to questions, it's a long story that many of you have definitely heard, because it's a famous story in the history of Islam, and it's narrated by Abdullah ibn Zubayr ibn Aslam. Aslam is the son of Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Khalifa. Aslam is the son of Umar radiyallahu anhu. Aslam had a son named Zubayr, Zubayr had a son named Abdullah, so the companions used to sort of continue the tradition of having famous companions in the names of their grandchildren, great-grandchildren. So he's Abdullah ibn Zubayr ibn Aslam, not the famous Abdullah ibn Zubayr. He narrates on the authority of his father, who narrated from his grandfather, Aslam, says, while I was with Umar ibn al-Khattab radiyallahu anhu in al-Madina, during one of his frequent night patrols to discover or to examine the conditions of his people, Umar was in charge, he was the Khalifa, he's the authority, and what did he used to do? Every single night, he'd go roam the streets to make sure no one was in need, no one was in trouble, and no one was poor, no one was hungry. I mean, he would roam the streets. He was famous for instituting night patrols. Not night patrols to see if anybody was trying to, you know, stage a coup so he could arrest them, you know. Night patrols so that he could check on his ummah. So the very famous story of a woman that was in delivery, he goes and he calls his wife in the middle of the night, Umar's own wife, who was also the granddaughter of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, Umm Kulthum bint Ali, bint Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and they helped deliver this child, right? Umar used to carry bags of wheat and flour and rice on his shoulders, so he'd go and he'd sort of, he'd pass those out when he would see that there were people that were hungry and that didn't have anything to eat at night. So on one of Umar's famous patrols, Aslam was with him, and Umar used to take one of his sons every single night, so he alternated between them,
so that he could teach them this value of taking care of the people. So as they're walking through the streets, they overheard an argument between a mother and a daughter. The mother was telling the daughter to dilute the milk with water. So to put water into the milk and dilute the milk with water. The daughter was responding to the mother that we cannot do this because haven't you heard that Umar said that we can't do that? The Khalifa said it's prohibited to dilute milk with water. Why did Umar make that policy? Because people would dilute their milk with water and then they'd go and they'd sell it in the marketplace, right? Just like people dilute colognes. It's like how you get Armani cologne for $20, and then the smell wears off in like 10 minutes, right? Because they dilute the cologne or the perfume with water. So Umar had a policy that we can't dilute the milk with water because that was a frequent habit of the people. So the daughter and the mother are arguing, and Umar is listening in by chance. He happens to be walking by this house as they're having this argument. So the mother keeps on insisting and the daughter keeps on saying no. And the daughter says, oh my mother, don't you know that Umar said that we can't do this? And she responded, where is Umar? And Umar is outside the house, right? But she said, where is Umar anyway, right? Like he doesn't see us right now, he can't hear us right now anyway. So listen to what she says. She says, ya ummi, ma kuntu li uti'uhu fil alan wa ukharifuhu fis sir in kana Umar la yarana fa ilahu Umar yarana. She said, oh my mother, I will not obey the man in public and then disobey him in private. If Umar doesn't see us, then the Lord of Umar sees us.
If Umar is not watching us, the Lord of Umar is watching us. Meaning what? I'm not going to do what everybody else does. Just because we've escaped authority right now, we can just go ahead and do it because no one's watching, because everybody else does it. And that's what the mother is saying, everybody else does it. Umar heard the whole thing. So Umar tells Aslam, he says, mark this house, like we need to come back to this house. Now does he mark the house so he can come back and hold the mother accountable because she disobeyed him, like, you know, he thought I wasn't there, I heard you the whole time, to punish her, just like we would expect from one of our leaders today. Now what does Umar do? Umar goes home and he gathers all of his sons. And he tells Aslam, actually, sorry, he says to Aslam, he says, go ask about this household, find out some information about this household and see what was going on. So Umar comes to find out that, you know, this was a widow and her daughter, so they didn't have the provider of the house anymore, and they were a poor family, and it was just a mother and her daughter living in this situation. So Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, gathers his sons, and he says, with the house of that girl, and proposes on behalf of Aslam to that girl. So subhanAllah, because of her piety and because of her refusal to disobey Allah and to conform to what was normative practice here, in regards to cheating and diluting milk, just a very simple act, and look at what Allah gave her as sustenance, as rizq. The son of Umar bin al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him. So this woman, this girl, married Aslam, the son of Umar, and they had a daughter named Layla. Layla had a son named Umar bin Abdul Aziz, may Allah be pleased with him,
the fifth khalifa, the fifth of khalifat al-rashideen, the great khalifa and leader, who would revive the tradition of justice of his grandfather. SubhanAllah, so justice was nurtured into this family, and transferred to the grandson as well, who would uphold, who resembled his grandfather, Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, and standing up for justice in all of its different forms. So the point is, once it was wrong, because it was cheating, the mother just said, everybody else does it, Umar's not here anyway, what's the big deal? And that taqwa of hers, that piety earned her, not only the son of Umar bin al-Khattab as a husband, or Umar as a father-in-law, or Umar bin Abdul Aziz as her grandson, it earned her the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and it earned her sustenance, because she would marry then the son of the head of state. So she went actually from a very poor situation, to being married to the son of the head of state, the son of the khalifa of the Muslims. So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us sincerity, and grant us piety, and allow us to resist conforming to evil, and becoming, and does it. Amin. Questions? Yeah. In a society where certain practices are normal, what are you supposed to do? It goes back to the third hadith, man la'a mankum munkar, whoever amongst you sees evil, let him change it with his hand, if he can't do so,
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