40 Hadiths on Social Justice
34 / 41
Hadith #33 - The Injustice of Stereotypes and Collective Guilt
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Do not return to unbelief after me by striking the necks of each other. No man is to be punished for the crimes of his father or his brother.”
In Hadith #33 of the 40 Hadiths on Social Justice series, Sh. Omar Suleiman discusses the injustice of stereotypes and collective guilt.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. You guys alright? Walhamdulillah wa salatu wasalam wa rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. So, tonight I have an interesting topic. We covered two weeks ago the topic of racism, tribalism, nationalism. But today's topic is one that actually arose out of that. One of the things that keeps on happening to me in this series, and I need you guys to make du'a, because we're at 33 already. This is half past 33, so we're coming to the end of the series. I end up inserting a new topic because I realize that there is a topic within a topic. And this is a very significant one. Stereotypes. Alright? Racism is one form of stereotyping. It's the most evil form. And there's a connection between the two. They're interconnected. So, it's not all stereotyping. It's racism and vice versa. But they are interconnected. But one of the ways that a person develops racist tendencies is by taking the worst sample of a group and then making that entirely representative of the race. That's how a person justifies internally their racism. Well, of course, they're like this because look at them. And then them is three people that represent somehow 300 million people. But look at them. That's how they are. And by characterizing an entire group of people, whether it's by their race, by their nationality, by their religious identity, by a small sample size, you get to justify mistreatment of them. So, that then manifests itself in discriminatory policy, usually exploited by power structures to favor a particular group and in the process bring other groups down. So, are there Ahadith specific to stereotypes and collective guilt? Because what if there is a sample size or what if there is a group of people
that belong to a certain race or a certain religious group that act out in ways that are not praiseworthy? And you could say, well, look, this is a larger group here. This is a larger group there. Is there a justification for this in any way whatsoever? So, today we're talking about stereotypes and we're talking about collective guilt. So, when an action, an evil action is actually done by an individual belonging to a group or by a group of people, how do we deal with that as believers? How does this permeate the societal structure in a way that's toxic? And there's a beautiful Hadith because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam made a connection between the two. The Hadith from Abdullah bin Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, لَا تَرْجِعُوا بَعْدِي كُفَّارًا يَضْرِبُوا بَعْدُكُمْ لِقَابَ بَعْضٍ He said, do not return to unbelief after me by striking the necks of each other. So, he's talking about murder, right? People killing amongst themselves, sectarianism, murder, division. Don't revert back to your days of unbelief by fighting amongst yourselves and by killing one another. Then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, لَا يُؤْخَذُ الرَّجُرُ بِجَرِيرَةِ أَبِيهِ وَلَا بِجَرِيرَةِ أَخِيهِ I'm going to read it again very slowly. لَا يُؤْخَذُ الرَّجُرُ بِجَرِيرَةِ أَبِيهِ وَلَا بِجَرِيرَةِ أَخِيهِ The Prophet, peace be upon him, said that no man is to be punished for the crimes of his father or for the crimes of his brother. What did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam connect here? He connected the worst type of division, which is when people literally start killing one another,
to a misunderstanding or a misapplication of, or actually applying collective guilt in a way that's un-Islamic, where people start to apply collective guilt. So one person from a tribe, this is even getting personal, this is getting to a family, that a person is not to be held accountable for the actions of their father or the actions of their brother. You know, this is very powerful that, you think about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and his society. Now, this is a really difficult generation to deal with in many different ways. I mean, they're the best generation ever, but if you think about all the emotional, you know, mind fields that exist in this generation. Let me tell you how. Imagine if you became Muslim in, let's say, the year 615, one of the early converts in Mecca, alright? And there's a particular family that used to oppress your family, alright? This person kills your parents, kills your family, runs you out of your home, and then you come back to Mecca later on, and they became Muslim in the year 618. And you have to eat with that person, drink with that person, not only not hold them accountable for what their families did or what they used to do, but you also have to treat them like family now. Wouldn't that be really, really difficult to do? It's a difficult pill to swallow, even caring for emotional sensitivity. So, Ikram ibn Abi Jahl. Abu Jahl is the pharaoh of this ummah, the pharaon of this ummah. The pharaoh of this nation was Abu Jahl, alright? That's what the Prophet ﷺ called him. He tortured the Prophet ﷺ. He caused most of the great atrocities that took place in the early days of Islam. And then his son also was one of the greatest criminals, greatest transgressors, and greatest oppressors of Muslims, and particularly the Prophet ﷺ didn't even become Muslim in Fath-i Makkah and the conquest of Makkah.
Ran away, fled. I mean, he was holding out until the very end. He becomes Muslim. And what does the Prophet ﷺ say? He says to the rest of the companions, Look, don't talk about Abu Jahl in front of Ikram. Don't talk about his father in front of him, because he knows that it would hurt him. Think about that. Your dad was the pharaoh of the ummah, and you joined him in his pharaonic practices. You were a murderer. You were someone that killed us. You were someone that fought us in Uhud. And now I have to cater to your sensitivities by not even mentioning your father because that hurts your feelings. So that's the most excellent way to practice this particular narration. That's Ihsan. That's excellence. That's going above and beyond. It's not technically haram to talk about Abu Jahl, but don't talk about him in front of his son because that would hurt his son. Subhanallah. So that's the most excellent way of practicing this hadith, and it gets very personal. So there are things to take from this. There are some foundations that we take from the Qur'an and from the prophetic tradition. Number one, the idea of collective guilt. So we'll start with collective guilt, which the Prophet ﷺ just mentioned, that that's not even to be applied to a family. Allah Himself mentions in the Qur'an that no person, wa la taziru waziratun wizar ukhra, that no person is to bear the burden of another man. No one bears any burden except for his own burden. And if you think about what that leads to, now let's look at the very beginning of creation of man. When Allah gave Adam, alayhi salam, the spot that He gave him, or the position that He gave him as a khalifa on this earth, what did the angels say? What did the angels say? This is really interesting. What was the response of the angels?
Ataj'alu fiha man yufsidu fiha wa yasfiqu dima' Are you going to place on this earth a creation that's going to spill blood, spread corruption? They were basing that projection on humanity by their experience with the jinn, another creation which, like us, has choice, and used their choice for evil and for corruption before Allah created Adam, alayhi salam, before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allowed for the offspring of Adam and Eve to spread through this earth. So the answer was, they projected everything that they dealt with with the jinn onto humanity as well. Now, were they right about humanity? What are we witnessing now? They're exactly doing what the angels said. They're spreading blood and they're spreading corruption. Spreading blood and spreading corruption. That's exactly what humanity has done historically. What was the answer of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Inni a'lamu ma la ta'lamun. I know that which you don't know. If you read how the early scholars of tafsir interpreted this, what Allah is saying, I know that which you don't know, Allah was referring to the gems of mankind, that from the offspring of Adam, yes, you will have people that will shed blood. Yes, you will have people that will spread corruption. But from the offspring of Adam, you will also have Noah and Moses and Jesus and Abraham and Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa salam. You'll also have prophets and righteous ones and people of truth. The quality of which you did not find in the previous creation. So even though the jinn are like human beings, in that they have free choice, they're not like the angels, they're not created without inclination to their desires, and the ability to fulfill them. But still, Allah is saying that basically the human enterprise is worth it, because of the good that would also come from mankind.
So even the angels were projecting their experience with the jinn onto humanity, and largely were right about humanity. This also can lead to, if you think about that, from ourselves. man qala halaka al-naas, fahuwa ahlakahum, aw fahuwa ahlakahum. Whoever says, the people are done, the people are hopeless, the people are evil, then he is the most evil of them all, and he is the one that's causing them to be helpless and evil as well. He's the one that's putting them in that condition. Meaning, what you're seeing in others is really just a projection of yourself. But the hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa salam, that whoever says, all people are like this, it's usually, you know, I don't go to the masjid. Why? Because the people in the masjid, oof. I don't mess with Muslims. Why? Because Muslims are this. Like, what? You hear yourself? You realize you're really projecting this on, this is really you. You're seeing in them what really exists within you. So the danger of that, of just casting that large cloud over a group of people, can strike us in interesting ways. So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa salam, even when some of the companions, you know, when we talk about non-Muslims, make people really uncomfortable right now. Some people grew up and it was like, don't talk to your non-Muslim neighbor. Watch out. They all have an agenda. It's evil. They want to convert you. وَنَنْ تَرْضَ عَنْكَ الْيَهُودُ وَلَا النَّصَارَ حَتَّى تَتَبِع مِلَّتَهُمْ They will not be pleased with you until you follow their religion. Watch out. Don't trust them. We can't have you interact too much. You know what Allah says in the Quran, ليسوا سواء. They are not all the same. And He specifically talks about من أهل الكتاب, from the people of the book. And some of the scholars of Tafsir say that this was in response to some of the companions casting, or saying about all of the people of the book,
or speaking about all of the people of the book in a particular way. Or speaking about the Christians in a particular way. And Allah reveals ليسوا سواء. They are not all the same. Surah Ali Imran, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions some of them are people who stand in obedience. يَتْلُونَ كِتَابِ اللَّهِ They recite the verses of Allah during the night and prostrating in prayer. And in another place Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that there are some from the people of the book that if you trusted them with a possession, with something, you would find them to be very trustworthy. And from some of them you would find them to not be trustworthy. So they're not all the same in regards to where they are at spiritually. They're not all the same in regards to where they are at with their integrity. And it's really interesting because if you think about that behavior, and this is where mis-contextualizing, decontextualizing verses becomes very problematic. I've had that experience. I had a brother that had literally been Muslim for just a few months and that's telling people outside the masjid, not this masjid, don't worry, telling people outside the masjid that, you know, وَلَن تَرْضَ عَنكَ الْيَهُودُ وَلَا النَّصَارَ حَتَّى تَتَبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ All Jews and Christians, they just want you to be like them. I know because I was one of them. And so you can't trust them, you can't deal with them. And I'm like, do you realize you would have been talking about yourself three months ago? Like if that's your understanding of these verses. So what's the point of da'wah then? What's the point of calling people to Allah if every Jew, every Christian, every non-Muslim has an agenda to destroy Islam and has an agenda against your community? What's the point of doing da'wah? What's the point of doing good for people? What's the point of all of the other narrations? How is it that the chief rabbi of Medina became Muslim if all the Jews in Medina were a singular group and they had this plot against the Prophet ﷺ? You see the problem with that line of thinking? And it sounds silly when you talk about it that way, but then a lot of us also would apply that in our own capacities
and we might find ourselves guilty of those things. And let me show you an example where it even happened to the companions. This narration is really, really amazing. What do you do when you read the verses about Bani Israel in the Qur'an, about the children of Israel in the Qur'an? You say, man, Bani Israel was messed up. The Israelites were messed up. They kept on doing this and they kept on doing that and they kept on... And you know what happens is that you're failing to actually understand or heed why Allah is talking about Bani Israel, the nation that came before you, the Israelites in the Qur'an. What's the function, speaking about them in the Qur'an? What's the function? To learn from them, the good and the bad. To learn from them, the good and the bad. To be warned by their mistakes, by the collective deviation, which no one denies, and to take examples from the righteous ones that held on as that deviation overtook the community. That's why it's there. It's not there for you to look at that and be like, man, Bani Israel was bad. Thank God I'm not from Bani Israel. That's not what that's about. Because you know what, on the Day of Judgment, the nation of the largest nation after his that he would see is the nation of who? Musa alayhi salam. He would see a large group of believers and followers and people that held on. But definitely the community as a whole deviated. What's the function of having those verses there? So Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman. Who is Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman? Hudhayfa, may Allah be pleased with him, is the secret keeper of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He's also the one that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam used to confide in with the names of the hypocrites. He used to particularly, particularly, ask the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam about bad qualities so he could stay away from them and the characteristics of bad people so he could avoid those characteristics. Meaning Hudhayfa feared hypocrisy so much that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam entrusted him with the names of the hypocrites because he was so far from it. Alright?
So Hudhayfa hears these people talking bad about Bani Israel. And you know what he says? He says, ni'ma al-ikhwa lakum Bani Israel. What great brothers you are to the Israelites. Alright? He says, it is as if you claim every hulwa, every sweet quality is yours. Walahum kullu murwa, and every bitter quality is theirs. As if you claim every sweet quality is yours and every bitter quality is theirs. And he says, wallahi, I swear by Allah, you will certainly tread their path footstep by footstep. You're supposed to be heeding lessons. You're not supposed to be, you know, casting that on them. You're supposed to be heeding it for yourself. Being careful of the collective deviation and that you are not a catalyst for that collective deviation of this nation. Not looking at a previous nation and saying they were all this. But you yourself being careful not to be a part of the collective deviation of this ummah, which the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam also foretold. So that's what made Hudhayfah so special, is they're saying, look, don't look at Bani Israel and say they're all this. That was their problem. They also start to cast the blame on other people. Don't cast that on them, right, as a community collectively. And recognize that there are righteous people amongst them as well. So learn from the righteous amongst them and avoid the evil and the deviation that's amongst them as well. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he also said, this is a hadith from Aisha radiallahu ta'ala anhum. He said, inna a'adham an-nasi firya. He said, certainly the greatest liar amongst the people. la rajulun haaja rajulan fa haaja al-qabeela bi asriha. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, that the greatest liar amongst the people is a man who insults another man by disparaging his entire tribe.
A man who insults another man by disparaging his entire tribe. The word hija is like, what's the word? It's literally a diss, it's like smear poetry. When you're smearing someone but you're doing it in a poetic way. I'm losing the language here, I'm forgetting. But anyway, think about a diss. Think about someone that's putting someone down and doing it in a poetic way. That's what that is. And that's why Islam is saying the worst liar, the greatest liar is a person who does that to someone and insults his entire family, his entire tribe in the process. So there are various ahadith, and this is basically the media of our time. This is basically what the media does. It takes a small group or it takes one individual and then insults everybody that belongs to the identity of that individual, unless he belongs to a particular identity here in America. If he belongs to any other identity, then everybody from that group is going to eat it. And is going to be insulted in the process and called into question and going to be treated in a certain way. So some thoughts. Number one, let's recognize that often the language of discrimination, that is the underpinning of bad policy, comes from this place of generalization, stereotyping, and collective guilt. So for example, Muslims are terrorists. Can we find bad representation of Islam today? Yes. Will there ever come a time where you won't have terrorists acting in the name of Islam? No, if you're waiting for that time where these groups stop arising, and when people stop doing idiotic stuff while chanting Allahu Akbar, that time will never come. It's never going to get worse. I hate to break it to you guys.
That's just the way that we're going. So we can hold our breath sometimes and be like, I hope another one doesn't do it. Because we're good for two dumb Muslims a year in America in particular. May Allah protect us from evil and protect us from harm. But out of the 350 mass shootings, you'll get two Muslim terrorist attacks a year in America. And that's good enough to demonize our community and to influence all sorts of things in political waves and whatever it may be. But there are people that really do believe that we are more prone to violence than any other group of people, which is statistically and factually untrue. You can show them all. There's a lot of data in the world about terrorism in America and terrorism overseas. But hey, it's an image that's settled in people's heads. That's the point. You create enough suspicion in a person's heart. And even when they start to let down their barrier, at the first instance, the first hint of it, when they start to smell it, then all of a sudden, all of those stereotypes are reinforced and validated. OK? One of the most touching, it actually gives me goosebumps to think about. I met one of the victims of the Boston bombing. And he was at an anti-Islamophobia rally. The guy was missing his leg. I was like, subhanAllah. How beautiful is this man? He didn't let the poison get him. Two people that acted in the name of Islam blew his leg off. And he's at an anti-Islamophobia rally because he gets it. And he's saying that I don't want other people to be victimized by the same hate that I was victimized by. There was someone that was arguing with me the other day about police brutality, basically saying police brutality is necessary. I said, well, why do you? Towards communities of color. I said, why do you say that? He said, because one time I got robbed by a black man. I said, well, that's really good logic. Strong logic there.
I got robbed by an African-American. Therefore, all African-Americans are to be characterized this way and treated this way. It's idiotic, but it happens. No offense to the guy who's probably watching right now. But it happens. People can characterize an entire group of Muslims, an entire group of African-Americans, Latinos, whatever, maybe. They're all like this. Why? Because something personal happened to me, and I was fed a toxic notion about that group on a consistent basis. What does that do? It justifies bad policy. It's not just some cultural social injustice or something that hurts us in regards to our sensitivity, but it actually leads to bad politics. So when people cast Muslims in a certain way, if you look at how anti-Semitism functioned in this country, anti-Catholic sentiment functioned in this country, the casting of disloyalty on Catholics and Jews in this country, or on Japanese, why were Japanese treated in a certain way? And how was that? How did that function? How was it that Europeans did not go through internment? With the rise of communism and Nazism and all those types of things. But the Japanese all had to pay the price because they looked so different that it was easier to portray them in a light of disloyalty and otherize them to a point that you could throw them all in internment camps and people could go, it stinks that 140,000 of them have to suffer for a few, but we don't know which amongst those 140,000 is not bad. That logic worked in America. It worked in America. How? Or the casting, what this current president said about Mexicans in the election, and characterizing Mexicans in a certain way, characterizing African-Americans in a certain way, continuing to do so. So that's number one. Understand that the language of discrimination, that's
often the underpinning of bad policy. So it starts with the stereotyping, and then that stereotyping excuses certain political behavior. The second thing, this one might hurt a little bit. Many times, groups that are victims of this channel their frustration by doing this to other groups as well. We so badly don't want to be Muslim terrorists that when we see what happens with the Rohingya, we say Buddhist terrorists, Buddhist terrorism. Why would we do that to another group? We don't like people ascribing the actions of some Muslims to Islam. We shouldn't do that to other religious groups of people as well. That's a problem. To me, that's unfair. And I get the point. You're saying that it's unfair that it's done to us. Maybe you do it in a sarcastic way. But when people would actually cast that on other people. You think about the pitting of minorities against each other in this country. So characterizing one group in a certain way allows for those that have been characterized in another way, mischaracterized in another way, to lash out. They internalize it in a way that I don't like this being done to me, or I hate how this has been done to me, so I'm going to do it to somebody else. It's a very effective strategy of pitting groups against each other. So we shouldn't fall for that as Muslims. And I get that it'll win us some points sometimes, trying to make a point out there. But we shouldn't fall for that as Muslims. Don't mischaracterize or don't do to others exactly what we hate being done to our group. The third thing, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala distinguished even amongst people of evil the degree of their evil. This is really interesting. Allah distinguished amongst the brothers of Yusuf alayhi as-salam. The brothers of Yusuf alayhi as-salam. The nicest one, the nicest one, what did he say?
Don't kill him, throw him in a well instead. That was the nicest one, and he'll get picked up and sold into slavery, better than murdering him. The nicest one amongst them, the best amongst those 10 at that time, says that. But Allah made that distinction. Because if the brother of Yusuf did not say that, they would have just ended him right there, right? Because the rest of them were on board with simply killing him. But he said, no, la taqtulu Yusuf, don't kill Yusuf. He had some sort of sympathy. So instead, throw him into the bottom of a well. And yaltaqithu ba'du al-sayyara, and he'll get picked up by a traveling group. And he didn't anticipate the future, but obviously Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was planning the entire time over their plan. So Allah distinguished even the severity of evil. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did the same at Badr. You're looking at a group of people that are going to massacre you. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says, an yakun fil qawmi khayr fa fi sahib al-ibl al-ahmar. He says, if there's any good amongst these people, then the one that's riding the red camel. He was referring to Umayy ibn Khalaf. He was saying that Umayy ibn Khalaf was having second thoughts about going forth with that battle. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam sensed the hesitation. So he said, you know what? I can see something in that person, something stopping him. He also Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he also understood that sometimes people are pushed into evil and they're under compulsion. And that should be taken into consideration. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, look, there are some people that have come to fight you in Badr. They're literally on the battlefield. Uhriju tarha. They have been forced out of their homes. La haajata lahum fi qitalikum. They really don't want to kill you. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, if you see someone who's surrendering quickly, then take that into consideration. Think about that. He named some of those people, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. One of them was his uncle al-Abbas radiAllahu anhu,
who was on the other side. But some of these people really don't want to fight you. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is teaching the sahaba to make that distinction even there. We too should try to have the wus'a, the expanse to understand when someone has been pushed into a certain direction, and how do we undo that messaging or that compulsion and bring them back to a place of balance. The next thing, there is shirk in stereotyping. There is shirk in it, just like there is shirk in racism. What is it? The entire concept of fitlah, the entire concept of a natural disposition towards good, is that every human being was created with fitlah, with a natural disposition towards good. So if you write people off based on their ethnic, religious identity, whatever it may be, you're essentially passing a judgment on their fitlah. You're saying they either weren't created with it, or it's not there anymore. But Allah Azawajal created all of us with fitlah. So we recognize, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, every single child is born with that natural disposition towards good. But its influences, first the influence of the parents that would direct that child to a religion or a path or a direction, that's not the way of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. But still, what you're doing when you're dealing with people is you're trying to connect with their fitlah. You're actually trying to get them to connect to that natural disposition of good. And that fitlah is the belief in the oneness of God, mercy, and justice. Sense of mercy and a sense of justice. InnaAllaha ya'muru bil'adli wal'ihsan. So you're trying to get people to be in tune with their fitlah, with their natural disposition. So if you're saying that entire groups of people actually don't have that predisposition,
then you are claiming a deficiency in the creation of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Number seven, there is a hypocrisy on an individual level, which is the hypocrisy of the outward looking eye, where you see the evil of others and you only see your own good. On an individual basis, that's one of the things that the scholars warn about from a spiritual perspective, from a tazkiyah perspective, that you see the evil of others and you only see your own good. And because you're so focused on everybody else's faults, everyone else's a'yub, then you're losing focus of your own a'yub, of your own flaws. So you're becoming obsessive with other people's faults and heedless of your own. That's on an individual spiritual level. That's a spiritual problem. In stereotyping, generalizing collective guilt in these discussions, we assume the best of ourselves and the worst of others. So we treat our groups with the best standard, characterize ourselves by the best of us, and treat others, characterize others by the worst of them. Also a spiritual problem that grows out of that individual deficiency and can lead to a collective deficiency as well. Number eight, this can become a deflection, a deflection or a means by which you fail to do good for people because you have internalized the idea that they are not so deserving of that good. So why do good for these people? Because they don't actually deserve that much good because of how much you've demonized them or you've allowed them to be demonized. What's the point of showing ihsan to these people? What's the point of doing good to these people? And we allow for ourselves to deflect and to not accept our responsibility, to seek justice for people, and to do good to people.
Because we actually start to believe that some people are less deserving of good. All right, number nine, and this is a heavy one, and I hope I can convey this properly. I think I had it right when I wrote it down. We lose sight of oppressors who create conditions that make people lash out. What does that mean? The same power structure that creates ghettos also creates war zones. And the same power structure that created the ghettos in America and created the war zones in the Muslim world basically says, let them kill each other off. We don't have to do anything for them. So we have to brutalize, take advantage of, exploit, or we have to basically maintain our own security. And people lose sight of the fact that the same conditions were created domestically and in the foreign sense. And the way that people are able to wash their hands of it is to say, they're killing each other. They're doing this. They're hurting themselves. Why should we get involved? Why should we do any good to them, as if we didn't do any evil in the first place that created those conditions? How does this lead to stereotyping? And I want Muslims to understand that a lot of times, especially a person who may have migrated from another land, would see another community and would not take a step back to recognize that the same tools that have been used to demonize them and dehumanize them have been used to dehumanize and demonize that group as well. So just like you don't want people to ingest toxic notions about your community and make it seem as if you're predisposed to barbarity, that same thing has been done to other communities. And we're not dealing with, as a result of that, the issues that create bad conditions that lead to bad behavior. Poverty leads to, we talked about this, kufr, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said.
People put in harsh conditions and poverty and then intentionally divided and intentionally put in survival of the fittest atmospheres and environments as human beings are going to act in a certain way collectively. So if you think about why when people talk, you know, SubhanAllah, I can't tell you how many times I got calls today, honestly, from well-meaning people. It was interesting. A lot of people reached out to me today about Syria. Kept getting text messages all day, hey, I want to talk to you about Syria. I'm trying to understand and grasp the situation. All right? Now, no, I do not believe that this president and this government that drones innocent people and bombs innocent people all the time actually cares about the innocent people of Syria. I don't believe that. I'm not going to buy it. OK? At the same time, the situation in Syria breaks my heart. Seeing those Syrians, I've dealt with them. May Allah protect them. They're in the middle of these evil superpowers that have completely disregarded their humanity in this horrible political football game. All right? Their humanity has been disregarded. And you know, the main thing I keep on hearing is, well, they're killing each other. Why are we going to go get involved in it, right? So Iraq. Iraq. How many Americans believe that Iraqis were killing each other and we just went and jumped into a mess? No, we created that mess. We created that mess, right? But the average American thinks, oh, well, Sunnis and Shias have been killing each other for ages over there. And then we went and got ourselves involved. No, you made Sunnis and Shias kill each other. You bombed people back into the Stone Ages. Don't say that they're Stone Age-like people. You bombed them into the Stone Ages, right? So the stereotyping that people enjoy, and sometimes well-meaning people, like almost every interfaith dialogue I go to, a question comes up. Well, why have they been killing each other for so long? Because you started killing them and pitting them
against each other. Like, it deflects from the responsibility that the power structure has. And that's why this whole series, I think, is tied together. It's important for us to reverse back and be like, wait, how is it being applied at the top? So you can't just look at the bottom and diagnose surface-level conditions. You have to actually walk back and see what puts people in these adverse conditions. Also, number 11, this was revolutionary in Islamic war ethic, that the women were to be spared in a battle, the children, the elderly, the trees, and even the monks, worshippers, the ibad. Why the worshippers? They're kind of out of this. They seem out of place here. Because they had no interest in fighting you. They had nothing to do with the battle. Like, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is recognizing that these people had nothing to do with the battle. That was unheard of in the seventh century. When you attack a village, you attack everybody in the village. You inflict pain on everybody. And it's justified. Why? Because they attacked us. We're in battle right now. Collateral damage. Oh, well. And this is why we are in the most barbaric state ever of mankind, because we've turned half of the world's population into collateral damage. The Romans weren't as bad as us when it comes to just turning people into collateral damage. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was not just paying lip service and saying, just try your best to miss the children and the women and the worshippers. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, after Uhud, sees a dead woman from the other side. And he's infuriated. His face turns red. And he demands answers. What did this woman do? Why did you kill her? Who killed her? He wanted answers. Like, he just lost his family.
He lost Hamza radiyallahu anhu. And he's worried about a woman from the other side that wasn't part of the battle, but she was from the opposing side. And he actually has time to think about that woman, and is outraged about her murder. Think about that. That's revolutionary. But that's where it comes from. Why would I hold all of them guilty over the actions of one group of them? So that's also, it played out, that importance of not holding people accountable as a whole. It played out in war ethics as well. Lastly, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he condemned people, or he condemned when people demean someone because of their identity. And that goes beyond just the racist part, or the tribalism part. So with Bilal radiyallahu anhu, remember when Abu Dhar said to Bilal, ya ibn al-Sauda, and it enraged the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. It really upset him. I mean, think about not just the problem of seeing a black man as less, in that case, again, an Abyssinian black man being called out by an Arab black man. But also, what choice does any person have in who their parents are, what their identity is? And it's so lazy. It's so lazy to demean someone because of their parents or their lineage and those types of things. You don't know who you are because you're this. There's an arrogance and there's a laziness on the part of people who demean. And so here, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam constantly warned about that. And by the way, I'm not describing, Abu Dhar radiyallahu anhu, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says that the world has never a more honest and truthful man than Abu Dhar radiyallahu anhu. Abu Dhar was new to Islam and he said what people used to, this is how people used to talk in the days of ignorance and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam rectified that. But it's important for us to pay attention to this as much as we can. And sometimes we might fall into it.
Safiyyah radiyallahu anhu, she complained to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that Hafsa radiyallahu anhu called her the daughter of a Jew. This is Safiyyah, wife of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam from a Jewish tribe. All right, she was Jewish. And Hafsa called her the daughter of a Jew. What did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam do? Now, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not say, no, no, you're not the daughter of a Jew. You know what it reminds me of? You might remember when John McCain was running against Barack Obama, I'll never forget this, it was really funny. But it's amazing how amazing McCain is now since we have Trump in office, all right? But McCain was, there was this woman that said about Obama, he's an Arab, and he goes, no, no, ma'am. No, I'm sorry, he's not an Arab, no. He's a decent man, yeah, he's not an Arab, he's a decent man. And people praised him for that. Like, wait, do you realize what he just said? He's not an Arab, he's a decent man. All right? So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam could have gone to Safiyyah and said, no, you're not the daughter of a Jew, you're a Muslim now. You're a good Muslim woman. Right? But what would that have done? It would have reinforced the languaging behind what Hafsa radiallahu anha said to her. So what did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam do? He said to her, indeed, you are the daughter of a prophet. What can they say about you? You're the daughter of a prophet, Musa alaihi salam. Your uncle is a prophet, Harun alaihi salam, and you're married to a prophet, Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So on what basis does she demean you? Like, he spoke to the best examples of Bani Israel, to the prophets of, so you have the, you're above everybody because you are a descendant of Musa, Moses, and Aaron, and you're married to Muhammad. May Allah's peace and blessings be upon them all. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam stepped back and he addressed the core of the insult as he did with Bilal and Abu Dhar. It wasn't just you hurt Bilal's feelings, go tell him sorry. It was you have jahiliya inside of you. You don't do this. We don't do this anymore.
How dare you put him down because of who his mother is and what the color of his skin is or where the origin of his mother is. So these are the things that we have to take into consideration. It is very, we are a very stereotype group. We are held collectively guilty for fanatics that usually kill more Muslims. We go through a lot as a Muslim community. Do not let that become an excuse for you to wrong any other group of people, and then of course amongst ourselves. All the ethnic conflicts, you know, mashallah we are such a racially diverse community, we are the most racially diverse community in America. We have to learn to live with that. 50% of our community has immigrant roots. We have lots of diversity. So when people start going into their corners and being like, those Arabs again, those Pakistanis, those Somalis, those, like that is jahiliya. That is the core of ignorance. It is exactly what the Prophet ﷺ eradicated. And it has real effects because you start saying, once those get on a board, we know what happens then. Once they start to get control of the masjid, oh no, we know what's going to happen now. So I have no qualms saying that I love everyone's biryani equally. I think both Hyderabadi biryani and biryani from Lahore have their beauties to them. And I don't discriminate. May Allah protect us from division and may Allah protect us from wronging others as we have been wronged. May Allah ﷻ allow us to see the fitrah, the good in everyone and to extract it and to see the shortcomings of ourselves and to rectify them. Allahumma ameen.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
