40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #40 - Incremental Change vs. Radical Reform
In Hadith #40 and the final lecture of the 40 Hadiths on Social Justice Series, Sh. Omar Suleiman describes the Prophetic way of enacting change when injustice is present.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Bismillahir rahmanir rahim. As-salatu wasalamu ala Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. I want to welcome you all to this final class. So we started this class in February of 2017. And alhamdulillah, here we are now at the very final session of this class on the 40 hadiths on social justice. I want to welcome all the guests. I think this is the largest number of guests we've had for this class. I want to welcome all of you to our community, those of you that are joining us today. And I also want to remind everyone that there are 39 classes that precede this one. So if you feel like there is a gap in something that I'm saying, then please go back and watch all 39 of the previous lectures. And I'm happy to address any gaps or concerns you may feel there are as a result of that. This has been, for me, a personal journey of really drawing deeper on some of these traditions. I pray that this will be a series, inshallah, that will be used for years and years to come, hopefully. And that people will be able to draw benefit from it. And that will allow us to start drawing on some of these paradigms. I also don't plan to stop exploring some of these subjects deeper from an Islamic perspective as time goes on. Just because we cover this set of subjects as sort of like a primer on how we deal with social change and social justice as Muslims does not mean that there aren't many more topics and much more to be done with the topics that we've already covered. So this series will continue, just not as the 40 on justice. So this is the last of the 40 on justice. If anyone can name all 39 previous talks, then go ahead. All right, what did we talk about last week, though? Let's stop there.
What did we talk about last week? A return to principles. Can you be more specific? Anyone remember what we talked about last week? No justice, no peace. The easiest one in the world, all right? So we talked about this concept of justice, the presence of justice being an essential requirement for peace. And then in the Q&A, we talked about what we would speak about this week and sort of as a conclusion of this all. Well, at what point do you disrupt the peace for the sake of justice, for example? So how do you actually enact meaningful change? At what pace do you enact meaningful change? And what is the priority, or what are the priorities that we should address in the process of change? So the title of the very last class is incremental change versus radical reform, the prophetic way of enacting change. We drew on paradigms. Some of those classes might have been perceived as being overly idealistic. Like you're talking about these lofty ideals of how you're supposed to treat your environment, how you're supposed to treat the people around you, and what change looks like. But you can't even get to this basic level of decency, right? So this seems too lofty. This seems like it's the pie in the sky concept. You're not really getting anywhere. So what is the prophetic way of enacting change? Incremental change versus radical reform. Now let me clarify, and we have a lot of guests today as well, and I'm sure people watching online, and some people will read the title. When Muslims use radical, it doesn't always mean violent. No one's talking about violence here. So radical in the true definition of the word radical, transformative, denoting a sense of rapid change, radical change, or radical reform versus incremental change. And there are a few things that we'll address.
Number one, there's a difference between a goal and a process. Sometimes you see someone that acts in accordance with a radical agenda in a positive sense once again. Every time I use the word radical, it's in a positive sense. You have a radical agenda, but meaningful steps that are being taken to enacting that change, right, and towards that agenda for change. And some people see it as too slow, and some people view meaningful steps, sort of playing the long game, as being escapist, as being passive, as sometimes they even view it as cowardice. There are some ways that you can interpret steps that are taking, meaningful steps. So let me just be very clear that there is an agenda for radical change, if you will, that's achieved through meaningful steps. And there's the hadith that's going to start this all off, the tradition that we look at from the Prophet, peace be upon him, is a narration from Abdullah bin Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him. He said that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, There is no Prophet whom Allah sent to any nation before me, but he had disciples and companions from among his nation who followed his path and obeyed his commands. So it starts off with that. Every Prophet that came before had disciples and companions. Sometimes a Prophet had one follower, some had ten, some had a hundred. Every Prophet, every nabi, ma min nabiyyin ba'athahu Allah fi ummatin qabli illa kana lahu min ummatihi hawariyun wa ashab. No Prophet came before except that Allah gave him companions or disciples from among his nation who followed his path and obeyed his commands.
Then after them, it's a long tradition so I'm not going to read the whole thing in Arabic, but then after them came generations who said what they did not do and did what they were not commanded to do. So after them came hypocrites. After every Prophet, and in fact most Prophets encountered hypocrites in their own time. It was the norm for a Prophet to encounter those who would twist the message in their own time. There were those that outright rejected Prophets and there were those that took the messages of the Prophets and started to twist them even in their own time. And there were Prophets that were rectifying what was twisted from a Prophet that came before them. So if you look at largely what was Isa, what was Jesus peace be upon him, combating? Jesus peace be upon him was combating people who twisted the message of Moses, of Musa, peace be upon him. So he's combating a form of deviated religion. Isa has a very interesting task ahead of him. So sometimes you have those that are actually fighting hypocritical interpretations and skewed interpretations of religion. But every Prophet had companions and disciples and then those that came after them, you had amongst them those that said what they did not do and those that did what they were not commanded to do. So you had hypocrites, then the Prophet peace be upon him said, whoever strives against them with his hand is a believer, whoever strives against them with his tongue is a believer, whoever strives against them with his heart is a believer. Beyond that there is not even a mustard seed worth of faith. It sounds very similar to another narration that we covered before where the Prophet peace be upon him said, whoever amongst you sees an evil let him change it with his hand. And if he's unable to do that then with his tongue and if he cannot do that then let him at least hate it with his heart.
Let him at least find internal revulsion from the evil around him and that is the lowest of faith. There are a few lessons to take from this as we start to break down some of these concepts. And of course this does serve as a summary lecture of all of the traditions we covered in regards to justice. Number one, the Prophet peace be upon him directly connected a person's attitude towards evil with faith. And that's in direct contradiction with those who use faith for evil ends, if that makes sense. And that's what Imam al-Baghawi, may Allah be pleased with him, said about that first narration. He said that, you know, talking about Jesus peace be upon him, Isa Islam, undoing the deviance of those who twisted the religion and the way of Moses peace be upon him, that the Prophet peace be upon him directly connected faith with what you do or your attitude towards evil. And that is the direct opposite of those who would actually use faith for evil purposes. The other thing the Prophet peace be upon him said, and this was a recurring theme throughout all of these traditions and throughout all of these classes, that just because you're unable to make a dramatic change does not give you an excuse for making a change with that which is within your capacity. So because something is outside of your capacity or because things seem overwhelming and there's an entire gorilla that needs to be changed, that doesn't mean you don't do what's in your capacity. So the Prophet peace be upon him is saying that Allah will ask you about your capacity. He's not going to ask you about the things that you are incapable of changing. For the things that you were incapable of changing, did you at least internally feel a revulsion towards those things that you were unable to change?
So you find yourself incapable, but still internally the Prophet peace be upon him is saying, this should not be normal. You should not accept evil as normal. When they tell you, keep telling yourself, this is not normal, this is not normal, this is not normal. If you think about the images of evil that are constantly plastered across our screen, and there are various social injustices that we see, and you keep on seeing them over and over and over again, at some point you become desensitized. Seeing a bomb falling on top of children playing and doing nothing becomes normal. You just press share or you send it with your words of outrage, but internally it's another one. Things become normal. So whether it's a moral evil or whether it's a form of oppression, things become normal. This should not become normal. The other thing that we learn from the Prophet peace be upon him, is that the goal is to bring things back to their pristine form of guidance, to the way of the Prophets that came before. So you almost want to peel back. The Prophet peace be upon him is saying that there were Prophets that were sent before and they were all seeking to establish a singular message. And this is really a profound point here. This is why I chose this hadith to start this off. To be honest with you, it was hard to come up with a narration to illustrate, or to sort of encapsulate everything that I really want to cover in tonight's class. But it's really interesting here if you think about it. Allah sent, in our tradition, 124,000 Prophets. From Adam to Noah to Abraham to David to Moses to Jesus to Muhammad. May Allah's peace and blessings be upon them all. He sent Prophet after Prophet after Prophet.
The essentials of monotheism and morality that was in accordance with that monotheism did not change. It was a consistent message across all 124,000. We talked about this last week. The message of Moses often being presented as a contradiction to the message of Jesus. So for example, Moses said, an eye for an eye. Jesus said, turn the other cheek. As if these two men were acting out of opposing moral frameworks rather than properly contextualizing those two messages. All 124,000 of those Prophets had the same theological message. Worship one God, and act in obedience to that one God in the divine revelation that he sends you. They had the same standard of morality. They had the same elements of prayer and connecting the spiritual with the material. Connecting the personal prayer with collective society's benefit. Connecting all of that. There might have been differences in jurisprudence. There might have been differences in how one Prophet prayed versus another Prophet. There might have been differences in some of the recitations. There might have been differences in some of the rulings. So they all, for example, fasted. So for example, Allah mentions in the Quran, كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَىٰ ٱلَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ Fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed upon every nation that came before you so that you may gain piety and God-consciousness. So they all fasted. They all had seasons of fasting. But maybe there were some different rulings within those fasting. But the lesson of fasting, the goals of fasting, the goals of prayer, the goals of monotheism, all of those things were coherent across all 124,000 Prophets. So here's a question. Why didn't Allah just send one and just get it over with?
Why didn't Allah just send one and get it over with? And if these Prophets were so perfect, which we believe the Prophets were infallible, we do not, as Muslims, we do not allow for attributions to Prophets that are unbefitting of godly people, of major sin and indecency and all those types of things. We reject those attributions. So if those Prophets had miracles and had such exemplary character and had a perfect message and were given divine aid, how is it that 124,000 times people went astray after those Prophets? You think about that, right? Over 100,000 Prophets were sent and still people found a way to go astray. People found a way to veer off of that path in human history, right? So bringing it back to a coherent message that all of these Prophets preached, we as Muslims do not believe that any Prophet was immoral or had an immoral message or a message that sanctioned oppression. So it's not like the Prophets before were deficient or incomplete and that's why Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to fill in what all the other Prophets had done before wrong. No, none of the Prophets erred. They didn't make... and I'm talking about the theology, the methodology, the message was the same, right? The Prophet, peace be upon him, was undoing the evil that was done by those who failed to stick to the principles of the Prophets that came before, right? And there's a beautiful... you know, when you think about the complete house, perfection is never achieved in this world, but the way the Prophet, peace be upon him, is described in that Hadith, right? Like, think of the Prophets as a house, alright? And they're all bricks. And so you're walking by that house and you see there's one brick missing and you say,
there's that brick, so that brick comes in and that brick was the Prophet, peace be upon him. The point is that they're all acting in accordance with a singular theology with differences only in the legislations and the jurisprudence and going back to that pristine divine guidance and that goes back to something we stated in Halakha 1, which I'm sure all of you remember, alright? That we were created upon fitrah, upon goodness. We were created with natural dispositions of goodness. We corrupt that. So how do you go back to that original sense of good? Not an original sense of evil, an original sense of good. So then it goes... so there's the question again. Why didn't Allah just send one Prophet and just get it over with? Why 124,000 Prophets? Why so many Prophets? Why so many nations? So we first start off with gradualism as a sunnah of Allah, as a tradition of God Himself. How? The scholars mention that Allah could have created everything in an instant, but he wished to establish the graduation of events as a tradition in his universe. Allah could have made conception and birth instantaneous, but he wished for humans to understand the wisdom by which their lives must be governed. Think about it. Allah could have created everyone the way he created Jesus, peace be upon him. Kun fa yaqun, be and it is. But instead, there's a process, right? And you witness the divine wisdom of Allah in the way that things proceed gradually. Allah could have sent angels to eradicate the opponents of Prophets before they resisted, but he wished his example to be human and replicable, with all that entails of prudence and perseverance. So Allah teaches us patience through the examples of the Prophets and steadfastness.
Otherwise, it could have all ended in the first year in Mecca, right? The persecution could have ended. Allah could have sent those angels and just done away with the opponents right away. But Allah wants us to see an example of people that persevered, people that strove, that even the Prophets of God, even the Prophet, peace be upon him, has to strive and has to exhibit patience and is shaken, but eventually, with hardship, comes ease. So there is gradualism in the creation of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. There is gradualism in the sunnah of Allah and the tradition of the way that Allah allows things to function. There is gradualism with our personal acts of worship, with our personal ibadat. We're talking about incremental change here, okay? So for example, the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, This religion is one of ease. And none will overburden himself with the religion except that it overwhelms him. So seek a middle path and draw near to perfection as best as you can. And be hopeful of Allah. And seek help in being consistent through the morning hours, the afternoon, and part of the late night. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, teaching us, even in the way that we develop our own relationship with Allah, our personal change, if you will, that if it's not meaningful, calculated, incremental, then a person goes in quick and comes out just as quick. Becomes overzealous, tries to take it all in at one time, and then burns out really fast. So change at the personal level is realized through what? You look at this religion, which is an ocean, and you think, Alright, well how do I start? And the Prophet, peace be upon him, saying, The religion is easy and anyone who overburdens himself with the religion will be overwhelmed by it.
Not because the religion is off, but because the way you approach the religion is off. The way that you approach change is off. It's not about the religion being hard. It's about you making it hard for yourself because you approached it wrong. The standard is there. But don't try to take it all in at one time. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, Seek a middle path, drop the burden, and then go. As near to perfection as you can and be hopeful of Allah. It's amazing that that hope, that component of hope, is what's going to actually keep you progressing. So that you don't despair. Because here you are, you're starting to take your steps and change on a personal level. And then you see someone else who's so far ahead, and you're like, well I'm never going to get there. Hope. Right? That hope allows you to make continued progress. And part of what, the scholars say, the part of what overburdening yourself with religion is, is undertaking what is not currently sustainable. I promise I'll get back to social justice and all that stuff. I'm talking about now personal change and how we connect that to public change. Part of overburdening yourself with the religion is undertaking what is not currently sustainable. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, Undertake of actions what you can bear, for Allah does not give up rewarding you until you give up seeking it. Undertake of the religion, that which you're capable of doing. Undertake of actions what you can bear, for Allah does not give up rewarding you until you give up seeking it. So that's a direct connection between the two. There's gradualism with the way that religion is taught. So for example, we find from the great companion Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, he said that don't give people things that they're not ready for, because you might actually cause them to disbelieve in God.
Don't give people things they aren't ready for because you might cause them to disbelieve in God. The great scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, he said, if a person being commanded or prohibited is currently incapable, whether due to his ignorance or his negligence, and removing that ignorance or negligence isn't possible, perhaps it would be better to abstain from commanding him or prohibiting him. As some have said, silence is the best response to some issues, just as the lawgiver initially kept silent regarding certain commands and prohibitions. So sometimes, you look at the prophets, the way they acted, they acted with wisdom. The prophets all came with calculated messages. Jesus, peace be upon him, didn't start flipping tables right away. He got to that point at some point, right? But that's not the first way that Isa, peace be upon him, approached corruption in the temple. Musa, peace be upon him, didn't split the seas right away. It got to that point. So it's not like he didn't show up to the Pharaoh and say, I'm about to drown you in this palace. What did Allah say? Allah said, speak words of gentleness, lenience, and wisdom, so that maybe he will comprehend. Allah gave Musa, peace be upon him, hope in Fir'aun, in the Pharaoh, knowing that Fir'aun is the most evil person he ever created on the face of this earth. But try, give it a shot, talk to him. Maybe he'll wake up, maybe he'll comprehend, right? So Musa and Harun, Moses and Aaron, peace be upon them both, were not responsible for the reaction of the Pharaoh, right? How does Fir'aun respond? The way he responded to everything else. Mutilate people, kill people, humiliate people.
That's the way that Pharaoh responded because of an ugliness inside of him that made him incapable of responding to positive change. So whether Musa, peace be upon him, spoke words of wisdom or gentle words, or if he spoke confrontationally right away and went at him, that wasn't going to change the outcome, but Allah still tasked him with that. Allah still tasked him with that. He still had to do that, right? So there is that approach in the teaching of the religion as well. And that's, again, starting with the very first narration that we started with. This is something that all of the prophets did, all right? They came with divine commands and they taught divine commands with divine wisdom. And it is known that the messenger, peace be upon him, would only convey what could be comprehended and practiced. The prophet, peace be upon him, conveyed what could be comprehended and what could be practiced. And there is a saying in Islam that if you wish to be obeyed, only instruct that which is feasible. So as those who are acting on behalf of the lawgiver of God, God's messengers, if you wish to be obeyed, only instruct, I'm sorry, only instruct that which is feasible, okay? So that's why in Islam as well, when someone first becomes Muslim, there is a graduation of responsibilities, all right? That's why the prophet, peace be upon him, allowed for certain concessions for certain tribes. When someone first accepts the religion, they don't take it all in all at one time. There is a sense of gradualism, right? You don't get overwhelmed with the religion. There's a saying that a believer is guided by the light, an extremist is blinded by the light, right? And I thought that's a very powerful way. You try to take it all in at one time and you end up going crazy, literally, and making everybody else crazy for that matter. So the prophet, peace be upon him, allowed for concessions for tribes,
people when they first start to undertake a journey of faith. How do you take that on in a gradual sense? It was really interesting because there was a tribe of Banu Hanifa, for example, and when the prophet, peace be upon him, came to them with a religion, they said, look, we can't do this prayer five times a day. He said, how much can you pray? They said, we can do once a day, maybe three times. The prophet, peace be upon him, said, fine. And then eventually, Omar, may Allah be pleased with him, was very energetic. He said, well, wait a minute. How are you going to let them, are you telling them that prayer five times a day doesn't exist? He said, no. He said, they're going to end up praying anyway. They'll get there. They'll get there. And they got there, right? Because if they taste the sweetness of faith, then eventually they'll take it in in a mature fashion. They'll adopt in a very mature fashion. There's political gradualism that we learn from this, an incremental change in the political sense. Now, many of you might be familiar with the very famous Treaty of Hudaibiyah, the peace treaty of the prophet, peace be upon him, with the people of Mecca. You've got to understand the psyche of the Muslims in Mecca. We've been killed, persecuted, our families have been tortured, we were run out, and now we're getting into a peace treaty. Why should we get into a peace treaty with these people? And then not only that, but some of the conditions they're placing upon us are unfair. Now, if you're witnessing that, if you just look at the tenor of some people or the behavior of some people, you might make the mistake of judging a person's integrity or dedication by their outward enthusiasm. So, for example, the prophet, peace be upon him, is going into a peace treaty with these people, with the people of Mecca, and when the treaty is being written, it says, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, the Islamic way of addressing God, in the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful.
What does the Meccan ambassador say? He said, I don't recognize ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Erase that. Erase that. Right? Muhammad, Rasulullah, Muhammad, the messenger of God. He said, well, if I recognize you as a messenger of God, I wouldn't be doing this to you. So he said, erase that too. And the prophet, peace be upon him, tells Ali, radiAllahu anhu Ali, may he be pleased with him, to erase it. Go ahead and erase it. Ali was unwilling to erase it. He couldn't bring himself to do it, because that seemed to him, that seemed to be cowardice. That seemed to be compromise. Right? We can't do that. Okay? Now, whether they erase it or not, was that going to affect the faith of those people that were there? No. The prophet, peace be upon him, said, go ahead. For the sake of that treaty, go ahead. Do it. All right? For the sake of that treaty. Umar, you know, lost it. He goes around and he says, aren't we on the truth? Aren't they on falsehood? We should be fighting. Right? Forget about this compromise. Forget it. He's literally going around saying, aren't we on truth? Aren't they on falsehood? Aren't we on truth? Aren't they on falsehood? So we should be out there fighting. Right? If you're watching Abu Bakr and Umar that day, Abu Bakr, who's calm, who's on, you know, who's seeing things the way the prophet, peace be upon him, is seeing things, the long term of this treaty and what it brings, and you're seeing Umar, then you might think, you might make the mistake of assuming that Umar cares more. That Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, has it right. That why is he pulling out? Why is he showing this, you know, why are they being this way? Why aren't they doing anything about it? But look what ends up happening as a result of the Treaty of Hudaibiyah. Right? As a result of that treaty that took place. Even just from the grander scheme, if you look at the faith itself, right?
For 18 years of persecution, the number of followers of the prophet, peace be upon him, was 3,000 people. Right? It tripled to 10,000 in less than two years. Because when there was no longer persecution, right, then there was the free exchange of ideas. There was the ability to show the beauty of faith. And what you ended up having as a result of that, that was the freedom of speech. What you ended up having as a result of that, that quote unquote setback, led to what Allah described, Fathan Mubeenah. Led to an actual victory. It wasn't bloody. It wasn't exciting. Right? It wasn't this grand shake up. But at the same time it was meaningful. Again, Jesus, peace be upon him, didn't flip tables right away. He got to that point. That was his last time to Jerusalem. And when he was sent to Islam, Moses, peace be upon him, was addressing Pharaoh, was addressing Fir'aun, and not just advocating on behalf of his people who were enslaved, but giving a message that would have been to the benefit of everyone. Right? Trying to find the best way to deal with the situation. What ended up happening is that you had this complete, you know, this complete revulsion on the part of those who were perpetuating that evil. And then you obviously had different steps that were taken in that regard. And there is particularly the wisdom, you know, you look at some of these different things. You look at the wisdom of a man that existed in the society of Medina whose name was Abdullah bin Ubaid bin Sarur. This was a man who was actively trying to plot against the prophet, peace be upon him, and actively causing chaos in that society, destabilizing that society, pitting people against each other. And what did they tell the prophet, peace be upon him? They were like, can you do something about him? He says, nope.
The prophet, peace be upon him, didn't do anything about him. Hurt him? No. He said, I don't, you know, then people are going to say that the prophet, peace be upon him, kills his companions. I'm not going to kill anybody. Right? No. I'm not going to kill him, I'm not going to hurt him. Leave him alone. And Omar is pushing the prophet, peace be upon him, and there's a very, there's a very interesting, and by the way, Abdullah bin Ubaid bin Sarur died a natural death, and the prophet, peace be upon him, clothed him with his own cloth, right, even though he was the chief of the hypocrites, a man destabilizing society. And it's really interesting because the prophet, peace be upon him, highlighted that wisdom to Abdullah bin Ubaid bin Sarur, he said, oh, I'm sorry, to Omar, he said, oh, Omar, now the same people that would have rose up against us for killing him would now willingly do it themselves. What did the prophet, peace be upon him, mean by that? If the prophet, peace be upon him, acted, you know, on that impulse and took him out because of what he was doing to society, right, it would have caused more division, more bloodshed, more violence. The prophet, peace be upon him, abstained for the sake of a greater communal goal. As a result of that, the prophet, peace be upon him, is saying to Omar, people eventually saw the evil of Abdullah bin Ubaid bin Sarur, the same people that would have rose up against us in a feudal society and tribalism and pounced on us, now they would want to take him out. But the prophet, peace be upon him, didn't go that route. So, sometimes acting on the impulse is wrong and that's where you find, again, incremental change to realize a greater agenda. The prophet, peace be upon him, responding to the frustration of his followers in Mecca as they were persecuted. And the true mark of these prophets of God is that they don't respond to evil with evil.
There's a saying, al-munkar la yughayyar bi-munkar. Evil cannot be changed with evil. Evil cannot be changed with evil. So, for example, if a terrorist group exploits a legitimate agenda with an illegitimate tactic, if you listen to the language, they kill our children so we will kill theirs. Evil does not justify evil and evil is not changed by evil. In fact, evil is compounded and perpetuated by evil. So, if you look at Khabbab coming to the prophet, peace be upon him, his back is missing all of its skin because of the torture that they encountered in that first decade in Mecca. And he says, aren't you going to do something about it? And the prophet, peace be upon him, says to him that you're being hasty. That you're being hasty. That there were people that came before you that were tortured in much more grievous ways. Walaakinnakum tasta'ajilun. But you're hasty. You're impatient with God. That didn't mean we're not going to try to change our situation. We're not going to try to fight persecution. When the Muslims in the later part in Mecca, when a man came to, when the followers said to the prophet, peace be upon him, let's go out at night and let's start attacking them. And the prophet, peace be upon him, said we were not commanded. Namnu'mar bi thalik. We were not commanded to act that way. If you sacrifice your principles as a result of an impulse, if you partake in evil, supposedly saying that the end justifies the means, if you partake in evil saying that you're really changing evil, you're really just becoming a product of that which you claim to detest. And that's something that ties directly to this lack of tawakkul, the lack of trust in God. And that's interesting because sometimes trust in Allah, trust in God is used to shut down legitimate means of change.
To say, you know what, we're metaphysical. We believe that everything will come from Allah so let's just pray. And the prophet, peace be upon him, did not just pray. He did more than that. The prophets did not just pray. They did more than that. But at the same time, they didn't lose hope because if you despair in the one who truly enacts change, then eventually your methodology of change will be hijacked by something that is not godly. So that's something that we take from the prophet, peace be upon him, as well. So there is the importance of not, and this is sort of the last couple points, rebellion and revolution and what does that actually mean and how did Islamic scholars grapple with that subject of stability versus change. When you see a clear evil and not doing anything about it and how did they grapple with all those subjects? Well, the way that they looked at it was that you always looked at masalih and mafasid. You always looked at the greater benefits and the greater harms. So sometimes people had very legitimate concerns and did things about very legitimate grievances but because they were not prepared properly with their estimations, ended up doing more harm than good. Sometimes you do more harm than good when you're unprepared, even if everything is legitimate. You didn't partake in evil. You did not do anything. You are acting in accordance with a proper methodology, with a proper understanding and you're trying to do that which is good but because you're unprepared, remember the way the prophet, peace be upon him, taught us to address our private journeys, undertake that which you are capable of doing. God does not tire of rewarding you until you tire of seeking his reward.
What that means is when you are unprepared and you take on something that you're unprepared to do, sometimes you do more harm than good and it's unintentional. You're not like the person trying to change evil with evil but still you should have paid more attention to preparation. One of the greatest revivers, in fact, he's looked at in Islamic history as a reviver for many reasons. The first mujadid was Omar ibn Abdulaziz. Omar ibn Abdulaziz was the true reformer that we find in our nation in many different ways. Rectified many social injustices, did away with much of the corruption that had occurred in previous governments and he encountered these things very wisely and he was only 38 years old when he took his position, when he assumed his leadership. He had a son by the name of Abdul Malik who was very pious and Abdul Malik used to press him to accelerate decisions of reform. Abdul Malik would get on him every single night and tell him, how can you sleep at night when the orphan remains in the street, when stolen money remains in government's possession? He would just go on and on and on and on. Omar ibn Abdulaziz would not be able to sleep at night because his son would literally scold him because he said, you're not doing enough. You've got to do more. You've got to do more. You've got to do more. So he would say to him, oh my father, why are you not executing matters? You are delaying things that I imagined you would have completed on the day of your inauguration before nightfall. He said, by Allah, I wish you would do that or do this even if that meant that you and I would boil for it in the kettles. What that meant is you undertake these massive reforms and I would rather that you do this on the first day even if they throw us in kettles and they boil us, meaning even if the people revolt and kill us because we try to do too much at one time. Now Omar was in a very sticky position. Why?
Because Omar was assuming governance after his family members who were corrupt. So he was taking his family members to task. In the Umayyad dynasty, he was taking his family members to task for government corruption and things of that sort. And eventually he was poisoned and killed for doing that. So he had two years of reform, two years of taking government to task, radically altering the way that governance worked in the ummah. And his son is saying, we should be doing more and it's okay, let's just go forth with it even if they kill us. Now his son is coming off as brave. But that boldness and haste and fearlessness of young age sometimes can be the key. It can be the greatest sabotager of reform. If Omar would have listened to his son, then he would not have been able to effectively enact much of the change that he was able to enact. It would have left the Muslims in a very exposed position. It would have left many of those people that he was claiming to advocate on behalf of, it would have left them in a horrible situation. But again, if you're watching that, you might think to yourself, hey, you know what, Omar's son has a point. You're watching this on the outside, you're like, you know what, Omar's son has a point. Go for it, do your thing. So Omar ibn Abdulaziz responded and he said, oh my son, alongside the great share that Allah has portioned to you, he was talking about righteousness, he said alongside the great share that Allah has portioned to you of righteousness, you still carry some of the qualities of young people. You're still young. So even though Allah has given you a lot of righteousness, you're still a little young. He said, oh my son, do not be hasty, for Allah had dispraised wine twice in the Quran and then prohibited it on the third occasion. Meaning what? The prohibition of drinking alcohol in the Quran
came in three stages. The first two were ambiguous in a way, the second one prohibited drinking wine before you came to the mosque to pray, and the third one was outright prohibition. So he said, even Allah dispraised it twice before he outright prohibited it. So he's saying even Allah employed a gradual approach. He said, I fear, and this is one of the most profound statements, by the way, that you find from Omar ibn Abdulaziz. He said, I fear committing them to the truth altogether lest they reject it altogether. I fear committing them to the truth altogether lest they reject it altogether. Meaning, if I impose all of this at one time, they'll run away from it, all of it at one time. It's not gonna work. Seems great, these are great ideals, we have to come in with these ideals, but at the same time, there is a process. He said, I cannot present them, and this is particularly now with teaching the religion properly, he said, I cannot present them with any part of the religion except while offering some worldly benefit alongside it in order to soften their hearts. So as I teach them properly, they have to see the benefit of that teaching as well, so their hearts become softened to it, out of fear that they would erupt against me in a way that I cannot repel. He said, does it not please you that not a day passes by your father except that he revives a sunnah and destroys a bid'ah, except that he revives a prophetic tradition and destroys an innovation? Does it not please you that every day that goes by in my rule, there is some reform that's taking place? I know it's not at the pace that you want it, but I'm getting there. And what ends up happening as a result of that, by the way? In two years, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz reinstates the purest justice that has ever been seen in the ummah,
a justice that resembles the coming of Christ himself. So the things that happened under Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz in terms of reform, you couldn't find people to give charity to because he eliminated that disparity. He made sure that corruption didn't take place. When Umar eliminated corruption, they couldn't find people to accept zakah anymore. He reinstated such a pure justice in those two and a half years, two years and a few months, that the ummah benefited from it for years and years and years to come. So basically what we take from this is that reforming a society is in some ways like reforming the individual. That's what the Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us. In some ways they vary and in some ways they don't. As an individual, you don't reform from a vice at once, but instead you take baby steps. And in the case of societal reform, you also take steps with the goal of expelling the greater evil, but as you can't get to expelling the greater evil, you continue to make strides with the lesser evils until you're able to remove it all. So you don't give yourself an excuse to not do anything, but at the same time, you keep things in perspective. And it's very important here that Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz was not as radical as his son wanted him to be, but he was too radical for the ummah, which is why he got poisoned anyway. So his agenda of reform was too radical anyway for some people, even though to his son, he wasn't doing enough. So the verdict is always going to be very subjective as to what type of change you're making. And a lot of times it's a lot easier, as we learned with our previous president, to talk about change sometimes than to enact change at the pace that you want to enact it. That's just the way that things unfold,
unfortunately, many times. So Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz did ruffle feathers. The Prophet, peace be upon him, did discomfort people, even though the Prophet, peace be upon him, had the greatest wisdom in the way that he approached things around him. But at the end of the day, he was revolutionary. Again, even though Isa Islam took time to flip tables, he did flip tables, eventually, they knew when to act in that way. They knew when to employ certain steps in their certain times. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke up very early on, not just against idolatry, but he spoke up against female infanticide. He spoke up against tribalism, which had serious backlash. However, the Prophet, peace be upon him, did not allow his companions to take up arms and self-defense in Mecca. Even though it would have been moral for them to do that, it wouldn't have been smart. And that's the problem that we make sometimes, that we conflate those two things. No one could have said to the people of Mecca, if the Muslims in Mecca, in a decade of persecution, took up arms against those that were persecuting them, no one would have been able to call them oppressors or say they were wrongdoers. They would have been justified, but it wouldn't have been smart. It wouldn't have been smart. I'm talking about if they would have fought their oppressors, right, and took up arms against their oppressors. And that's why we find a lot, as he mentions it, in Medina, that, kutiba alaykum al-qital wa huwa qurhun lakum. Allah has prescribed fighting for you now, even though you detest it. Meaning, Allah knows that you don't like to fight, you don't want war, but at this point now, this is the time for you to defend yourselves. This is the time for you to take up arms in defense. So, the Prophet, peace be upon him, did not allow them to take up arms in self-defense. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, did not allow them to curse the idols, the way that they were being insulted. And later on, the Prophet, peace be upon him, of course, did allow them, or rather, Allah allowed them
to take up arms in defense of themselves. Again, by all standards, it was moral. Likewise, when the Prophet, peace be upon him, if you just read about the conquest of Mecca, and I hate using the word conquest, because conquest implies, right, heads rolling and blood in the streets. If the Prophet, peace be upon him, came back to Mecca and killed those that had killed so many Muslims, run him out, no one could say that was immoral or unjust. But the Prophet, peace be upon him, had vision, farsighted, okay? He didn't have that tunnel vision, he was farsighted, and look what Allah made out of them instead. So, here's the final lesson. With all of that being said, the standard should always be maintained and not ambiguous, even as we take baby steps to the truth, people must always know what the truth is. This is an important lesson for people that have a set of principles that they're bound by because they believe them, they hold them to be divine. So, all aspects of our faith. We cannot be ambiguous about our principles, but we can prioritize and be wise about how we carry out agendas to enact meaningful change. The truth, however, cannot ever be ambiguous. What that means is that the Prophet, peace be upon him, even before he was 40 years old, everyone knew the Prophet, peace be upon him, didn't worship idols and didn't believe in idols. They knew that about him, but they weren't threatened by his message of monotheism yet because the message of the Prophet, peace be upon him, his message of monotheism meant that they could know longer commodify and profit off of their gods. But there can't be ambiguity about where you stand, about where your principles are, regardless of what that principle is, regardless of what that truth is.
Meaning the standard, the ideals always have to exist. There always has to be that we're trying to get here. Just like in our personal acts of worship. Yes, the Prophet, peace be upon him, gave people concession and allowed people to proceed at certain paces. But the Prophet, peace be upon him, never blurred the standard. So whether that standard, of course, for the sake of this class, we're talking about social justice, the ideals that we talked about. I know some of you, as we were going through some of these classes, were going, oh, that's so wonderful how the Prophet, peace be upon him, cared for animals and the environment. And that all seems so great and it's all rosy. The standard has to remain. Theologically, socially, politically, the standards cannot be blurred. The standards remain. So just as a personal agenda for change, you've got your long-term goal and you've got your short-term goals. You work in a way that you remain inspired, but with tools that you can continue to aspire with. You have to balance those two things. So when it comes to social change, as well, you do the exact same thing. The other thing that we take from this is that when you think about a holistic agenda of reform, hearts need to be reformed. Da'wah and Islah go hand in hand. Complete reformation of the hearts, the hearts and minds of people, goes hand in hand with the reformation of policy, with the reformation of societal standards and societal injustices. Moral rectification and justice go hand in hand. The reason why you could trust the Prophet, peace be upon him, when he told you that this is bad for your hereafter, is because the Prophet, peace be upon him, protected you from what was bad for this world, bad for you in this life. The Prophet, peace be upon him, proved that he loved people
and wanted good for people in this life. So when he spoke about the hereafter, he was trusted. What that means is that moral rectification in a more comprehensive sense and justice go hand in hand. Calls for justice should go hand in hand. We don't belittle any of these things. Da'wah and Islah go hand in hand. Imam al-Ghazali, may Allah be pleased with him, wrote the famous collection. Al-Ghazali is considered one of the greatest scholars and mystics in the history of Islam. He wrote a very famous collection called Ihyaa ilum al-deen, The Revival of Religious Sciences, while Muslims were facing massacres at the hands of Mongols and at the hands of Crusaders. And these people were still teaching religion, they were still teaching spirituality, they were still thinking about writing books that people would read 1,000 years later, while at the same time defending themselves, while at the same time trying to better their world in a comprehensive sense. None of these things were exclusive to the other. It all works together. And by the way, one of the things we do wrong is we try to place all of this on every single individual. Okay? Meaning what? If you're doing too much good in this regard, you're not doing enough of it here. All right? So we tear down people that are enacting change in a meaningful sense, in a way that is true to text, because we say, well, you're not doing enough. And those that are usually saying you're not doing enough are doing absolutely nothing. All right? That's usually the way these things work. Those people existed even in the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. They were called the hypocrites. They sat back and they said, it's hot outside. They sat back and they tried to paralyze any type of good, any type of movement, because they were unwilling to take part in anything that actually required from them
labor or movement or doing anything. All right? So not everyone, just because all of these things work hand in hand for comprehensive reform, right, in a way that's theological, political, moral, all these things, just because all of it works together doesn't mean that any individual is tasked with doing all of it at the same time. We specialize. We don't undermine one another. Right? We don't tear down each other. Some people work on speaking to legitimate grievances that people have. Other people deconstruct the illegitimate agendas that take advantage of those legitimate grievances that people have. They work in tandem. They work together, the theological, the moral, the social, the political. And so, in conclusion of all of this, gradualism cannot be an excuse for inaction, and foolishness often masquerades as courage. So we create pressure. We create a sense of urgency. We work. We do, I mean, you necessarily have a quote unquote, again, radical agenda. And how you achieve radical, positive change, theologically, politically, socially, morally, right, is through being smart and being wise, and that usually comes through what Allah says in the Quran, wa amruhum shura baynahum, that they consult with one another, that they work together, that they think about how to enact, again, meaningful steps towards the ideal while never losing sight of the ideal. So that is, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. That is the end of the 40 hadiths on social justice. I'm not gonna do another class for a year and a half now because this class took a year and a half. I'm just playing, inshallah. I'll get started right when I get back from Hajj in September, inshallah. But I do wanna thank everyone who's been a part of this. Follow the notes online. Go back and review whatever it is that you missed. I hope that, inshallah, we'll be able to create
some more content out of this content, put it together in more formats that people can benefit from, inshallah. If I said anything wrong in this entire class, then it is from myself and from the evil of Shaitan. I seek refuge in Allah from my lower self and from the Shaitan. If anything good was said or taught, then all the praises are due to Allah. Only the mistakes belong to me. And we ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon His Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, to allow us to aspire towards that which he taught us to aspire to. Allahumma ameen.
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