40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #7 – The Ruling on Silence and Injustice
What are the rulings on silence and injustice in Islam? Sh. Omar Suleiman breaks down a hadith on the subject and describes scenarios where silence is better than speaking out.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. I did want to just say something inshallah before I start that next week, as I mentioned to you guys last week, next week we won't have class. So next week will be a week off inshallah because I have to be at UTA doing another program. This is going to be the last class that deals with methodology. Everything that we do after this now is going to sort of be issue based. But this is the last class that's going to deal with the methodology. So I know that there might be some redundancy and you may feel like you've already heard so much on these topics of when to speak, when not to speak. But this sort of brings it all home inshallah in regards to the hukum, the rulings in regards to silence. And this is not something that you often see addressed in a comprehensive manner. What do I mean by that? Usually when you hear discussions on silence, it's about how you cannot remain silent in the face of injustice, just like last week. So there's an emphasis on you have to speak the truth. Or there's a completely imbalanced, sort of pacifist message to not say anything altogether. Why? Because you might cause fitna. And you often have a really hard time finding and navigating these waters. And there are two hadith that we'll start with. One of them to sort of lay the foundation. It's actually a hadith that's narrated by Qaysib Abi Hazm, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. He says that, I heard Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, say that, ayyuhannas innakum takra'oona hadhi al-ayat, O people, I hear you reciting some of these verses from the book, ya ayyuhalladheena amanu alaykum anfusakum la yadhurukum man dalla idha ihtadaytum. Where Allah says in the Quran, O you who believe, worry about yourselves. It will not harm you if other people go astray so long as you are guided.
So Abu Bakr said, I hear you reciting these verses. La yadhurukum alaykum anfusakum, focus on yourself. La yadhurukum man dalla idha ihtadaytum, you will not be harmed by those who go astray so long as you are guided. So Abu Bakr says, O people, I hear you reciting these verses. He says, wa inni sam'i'tu rasoolallahi salallahu alayhi wa sallam yaqul, but I heard the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam say, inna an-nasa idha ra'u al-munkar la yughayyiroonahu aw shaka an ya'umahumullahi bi'iqabi. That verily the people, if they see evil and they don't do anything about it, then it may be that they will all be consumed by that evil, that they will all suffer as a result of that evil. So Abu Bakr makes a very important point here that there are often ayat, there are often verses that are recited and that are given an improper explanation, or they're given a proper explanation, but they are applied to contexts that could actually give them a harmful meaning, that could actually give them the opposite of the Qur'anic meaning. And this is the interesting part that Abu Bakr is saying this to a generation that's very close to the revelation of the Qur'an, that in your tafsir, in your explanation, in the way that you're applying these ayat, in the way that you're applying these verses, you are applying them in a way that's actually harmful. You're actually hurting the meaning of these very verses. And subhanAllah, one of my, actually my father-in-law, he did a lecture series on ayat that are misplaced, it's all in Arabic because it's online, but ayat that are misplaced in their usage. And he said something that I really enjoyed as he introduced this series of ayat that are often quoted by people, but they're misplaced in the way that they're quoted. He said that any tafsir that departs from asbab an-nuzur, that departs from the reasons of revelation,
and the sunnah context of those tafsir is bound to go astray. Because then it's about the agenda of the mufassir, the agenda of the one doing the tafsir. Because you can place these ayat in different places, and you can actually do harm to the original meaning of the Qur'an. So here, Abu Bakr is saying this to people, that I hear you reciting this verse and you're applying it wrongly, you've got it all wrong. Allah is not talking about being silent in the face of injustice. So this ayah does not give you permission to be silent when you see something wrong. And he says, instead I heard the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam say, meaning the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is the one who explains the Qur'an, we learn the true meaning of the Qur'an from the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, the sunnah is the tafsir of the Qur'an, first and foremost, it starts there. So Abu Bakr is saying, we look to him first, Rasulallah salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, if people see evil and they don't do anything about it, all of them will be harmed by that evil. So you see the seeming, what appears to be the contradiction. One of them is, la yadurrukum man dalla idha ahtadaytum. The Qur'an is saying, you will not be harmed by those who go astray so long as you are guided. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is saying that you will be harmed if you don't stop those who do harm, that you will suffer harm. How do we reconcile the two and what's the meaning of the ayah and the hadith and why don't they contradict each other? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is talking about a people that have done their job and that are exhausting themselves in trying to change the people around them. And they are feeling saddened by their inability to change the hearts of those around them and change society around them and they are feeling paralyzed by that. And that is the natural pitfall that any empath, whether they are religious or not, will face. They will feel like they can't save everyone around them, so they will start to suffer.
Because they start to feel like, if I save one, then I have lost a hundred. Whether you are talking about in terms of spiritual guidance, in terms of da'wah, or you are talking about in stopping harm. I save these people or I do something good for these people, but I am not able to save all of these people. It is the curse of the empath. Anyone who feels for other people will always be saddened because of that. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is at the head of them. لَعَلَّكَ بَاخِعُ النَّفْسَكَ عَلَىٰ أَثَارِهِمْ The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was so saddened over the fate of the people around him, of what was happening with the people around him. He described himself salallahu alayhi wa sallam like a man who is trying to catch flies as they are jumping into the fire. He said, I am catching you by your waist belts to try to stop you, but you are getting out of my hands. I am trying to get as many of you as I can, but you are getting out of my hands. So Abu Bakr is saying that this ayah is not an excuse for complacency. And you can imagine, if this generation could misunderstand an ayah, then what about us 1400 years later? So you think about that and that is a powerful lesson that we take from that in the first place. But the last part of this hadith is what we are focusing on. إِنَّ النَّاسَ إِذَا رَأُوَ الْمُنكَرَ Verily, when people see evil, لا يُغَيِّرُونَ and they don't do anything about it, أوُ شَكَىٰ أَن يَعْمَهُمُ اللَّهُ بِعِقَابِ It is only a matter of time before all of them collectively suffer as a result of them normalizing that evil. The second one is the hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, where it is actually a story where he asked the companions, he said, tell me what the strangest thing you saw in Abyssinia was. So a group of companions went to Abyssinia during the migration, the hijrah to Abyssinia, and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, tell me the strangest thing that you saw in Abyssinia. So a group of them said, Ya Rasulullah, one day we were sitting, and there was one of the nuns, or one of the elderly nuns, ladies, was walking by and she had a jug of water on her head.
And the way that they used to go fetch the water, and they would put it on their heads, and they would balance that jug on their head, and they would bring that back to their people. So you can imagine the site, this elderly nun carrying this big jug of water on her head, this tank of water on her head, and a young man walked up to her, and put his hand right on her chest and shoved her. And so she fell to her knees, and the jug of water broke. And the man laughed at her, and no one did anything about it. So they let this young man bully this elderly woman, and no one did anything about it. And the sahaba said, the woman said to him, how will it be, O foolish young man, on the day of judgment, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings the first and the last of His creation, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala judges between us, so fata'lamu amri wa amruk, you will then know of your situation and my situation. Allah will decree between us. How will it be? So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, sadaqat, sadaqat, sadaqat, she told the truth, she told the truth, she told the truth, kayfa yuqaddisu Allah umma la ya'khudu li da'ifihim min shadidihim. How can Allah honor an umma that does not protect its vulnerable from its strong ones, from its powerful ones, that does not protect the weak from being exploited by the powerful of that society? Now you might be listening to that and saying, well why didn't the sahaba do anything? Anyone have an answer to that? They were refugees. They were not citizens of that land. They were literally the equivalent of ahlul umma, people under protection. They don't get involved in the affairs, battles were fought, they don't get involved in the battles. They were observers to this, they're not allowed to get involved or to say anything. The goodness that comes to them is protection from al-Najashi, protection from Ashamah, the ruler of Abyssinia. But other than that, they're not allowed to get involved.
They even wanted to defend Najashi when there was an internal rebellion, a coup against Najashi. They wanted to get involved but they were in observer status. All they could do was watch everything take place in front of them. But it shows you the terbiya, meaning the lessons, the qualities that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had put inside of them that when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, tell me the strangest thing you saw, that was what rubbed them wrong. That was what made them most uncomfortable. Whereas that site is really not an unusual site in Mecca either. But the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had instilled these traits where they become uncomfortable with transgression and injustice to where when they saw it, they felt disgusted by it. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, once again, he didn't blame the young man. Who did he blame? The society. He blamed the society that normalized that type of behavior, that made it okay for that young man to feel like he could go up to that old woman and push her and not be held accountable. It's society's fault that allows that. It's not just the young man's fault. The young man is the product of a facilitating institution. In the civil rights movement, they use those words all the time. What's the facilitating institution that leads people to act in a certain way? And so there was a facilitating institution. There is a community, a society that normalized that type of behavior. Finally, the third hadith is the hadith from Aisha radiallahu anha where she says that I asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Will we be destroyed and we have righteous people amongst us? He said, Yes, if filth is made rampant. Ibn Hajar says, Filth is al maasi, filth refers to sins as a whole.
And al fawahish khususan, the filthy sins in particular, the ones that are ugliest, the ones that are nastiest, the ones that are most base, and the ones that represent the worst of immorality. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Even if you have righteous people amongst you, if those things are allowed to thrive without anyone saying anything about them, then everyone suffers as a result of them. And there are many different, and I have to say here because it's important to note that this class is about 40 hadith of social justice, talking about injustice in the sense of social injustice and people taking rights from others. But again, as I said in the first class, the greatest right is the right of Allah upon us. So the reason why I'm giving you these different narrations is for us to just really get this concept that when people don't say anything, when they see falsehood, then all of them are consumed by that falsehood. And that's a principle that we take from all of these ahadith. And the scholars mention here a few things. Number one, that all of the nations, and I think I mentioned this in the first class, all of the nations that were destroyed before were destroyed not just for shirk, but for becoming zalim. لم أهلكناهم لما ظلموا. Allah says that we destroyed nations when they became oppressors, when they became aggressive with their prophets. It was not a mere belief, but it was something that came with that belief that made them deserving of that punishment of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala falling upon them. So for example, the people of Shu'aib, they were destroyed for shirk and tatfeef. As At-Tabari mentions, tatfeef is to cheat with the scales, to cheat with the weights. Like when Allah says, وَيْنٌ لِلْمُطَفِّفِينَ, woe to those who cheat with the scales.
So they were destroyed not just for their shirk, but also the way that they dealt with their tatfeef. And Ibn Musayyib, rahimahullah, he commented on that and he said, if you find a place where people don't cheat with their weights, he said, settle in that land. And if you find them doing so, leave as quickly as you can. Subhanallah, so that was the gravity to which these people took it. Now if you're talking about cheating with the weights and you talk about the monster of capitalism and the zulm that it inflicts on the world today, and you think about that. So Sa'idah Musayyib, rahimahullah, is talking about how people suffer when these things are normalized in society as well. Umar ibn Abdulaziz, rahimahullah, mentions as well the public versus the private realm of sin and injustice. So sin, whether it's immorality or injustice, which usually involves another person or another creation of Allah. Listen to this, he said, Allah would not punish a people if every one of them committed a private sin. If an entire population of people committed private sins, then the punishment of Allah would not come upon them. He said, whereas if one person's sins in a population are allowed to be done publicly, then all of them may become deserving of that punishment from Allah. You see the difference between the two? And that's the fiqh, the jurisprudence, and the way that they thought, and the way that they viewed this importance. And obviously there are different scenarios here. There are Muslims in Abyssinia, which are in observer status, and they just want to be able to practice their religion freely. There are Muslims in Mecca under persecution, to where they have to hide their Islam. And there are Muslims in Medina,
in a place of authority, where the discussion changes as well. So these discussions change in all of these places, and each person is responsible, as we established in the previous ahadith, is responsible for playing their part, for doing their role. Allah SWT also mentions, liyudheekahum ba'da allathee ya'milu, that people would be punished as a result of that which they used to do. They would taste a little bit of what they used to do. And Qatadu rahimallah commented on that, ayyitha ghulamu, if they wronged one another, then they would taste some of that authority and that power of Allah SWT. So if the strong ones amongst them are exploiting the weak, as the Prophet SAW mentioned, of the women in Abyssinia, then they would taste the strength of Allah SWT, the qudra of Allah SWT. And he said that's why Allah SWT, usually when people were punished, they're punished by nature. They're punished by nature, and they're punished by things that they took for granted. They're punished by rain, they're punished by wind, they're not punished by elements that they used to see any threat in. And that's the point, that the exploited ones, the weak ones, in many situations, they don't see a threat in others. Usually, a person opens themselves up even further, they put themselves in vulnerability, and then someone who is in a place of power acts in a way that violates that vulnerability. And many times, vulnerability is volunteered. You volunteer vulnerability to someone when you feel safe with them, and then they violate that vulnerability, and they take advantage of you. Again, the realms here are many. The point here is that we know that Allah SWT has placed on us a duty of anjayna allatheena yanhawna AAanis soot
people that are upright and people that speak the truth, regardless of the circumstances. So, what are the rulings on silence? And this is where it gets a little technical. And those of you that take notes, I want you to take notes, inshallah ta'ala, because this is fiqh now as well. These are realms of rulings as well, not just spiritual guidance. Silence is haram when three conditions are met. So, silence becomes criminal when three conditions are met. Number one, that you are sure of something being evil. So, you have no doubt about the evil that you want to change or that you want to rectify. Sometimes, you might not be understanding the situation. Sometimes, you might not be in a situation where you've clarified all of the facts surrounding something. Think about Musa AS, he made an assumption when Musa saw the man from Bani Israel and the Egyptian man fighting. So, sometimes you make an assumption on a situation. So, number one, silence is criminal, it's haram, when you are sure of the facts of something. You know that something is evil in the first place. This does not include when something falls in the categories of ash-shuguhat, falls in the gray area of things. Sometimes, subhanallah, this is something that Shaykh Salman al-Uda said that I found that resonated with me. It's actually one of the first lectures I ever heard from him. He said that if you notice the Muslims that are overzealous, they're usually overzealous over areas of ikhtilaf. Like the things they want to fight people over are the things that other ulama say are okay. So, they become overzealous on the gray area and they're not so overzealous on what's completely indisputable and wrong and haram. And they even become distracted by that.
I can, in the same breath, or I can reason with myself and reconcile with myself that I am so opposed to someone doing something that I believe is bid'ah, that I believe is an innovation, while at the same time being completely normal with being a cheater in my work, cheating with my finances and being a racist or wronging my spouse. I can reason that with myself where I can be so opposed to somebody because thereupon bid'ah and falsehood and evil. But in my own life, I can normalize, I'm totally okay with doing major, major, major things of transgression. So, usually the things that people are overzealous about actually fall in the gray area. So, you have to be sure of that which you're doing, nahi'an, in the first place. When we talk about nahi'an al-munkar, you need to be sure that it's munkar. You need to be sure that it actually falls into that category. Number two, you are sure that it was committed. Ya'yu al-adhina'amano an ja'akum faasiqun binaba'in fatabiyyanu. O you who believe, if a wicked person comes to you with news, then verify. So, you are sure of the act being committed. So, it's not rumors, it's not gossip, it's not what's in the grapevine, but it's actually first-hand testimony, something you've seen, something that you know of, that there's strong reason to know that it is true. Number three, that the greater likelihood that speaking will remove or reduce the munkar, that there's a greater likelihood that your speech, that you're speaking about it, gives a greater likelihood that it will be removed or reduced, that the evil will be removed or reduced. Remember we said last week that sometimes, that just like speaking is for the sake of Allah and sometimes requires courage,
sometimes being silent for the sake of Allah requires courage as well. Because people will call you names, people will criticize you, people will call you a coward, but your wisdom, and you're doing it for Allah subhana wa ta'ala, again, it's regardless of the people, so you think that you've judged that the best thing to do is silence, even if people call you names and say this. So the people that speak for praise are no different than the people that speak at the behest of a sultan, of an authority, or someone that forces them to do their dirty work for them, or legitimize their dirtiness for them. And this is something that depends on your position too. It depends on your position too. So the fourth one, Imam al-Ghazali rahimahullah ta'ala, and he said of the most major sins of the ulama, he says, dakhulihi ala dhalim min duni inkari alayh. He said that when a scholar enters upon an oppressor, a ruling oppressor, an authority, so he's in proximity, and it's not always bad. A scholar being in the presence of a dhalim, an oppressor, is not always bad. The problem is when they don't do inkar of the dhulm that they're doing. They're not clear on the transgressions and the oppressions. So that proximity then becomes sinful. Why? Because it becomes a means of legitimizing. And religious legitimacy is the worst type of legitimacy. It's the worst type of legitimacy. And I'm trying so hard to hold my tongue now with current conflicts. But the way that dictators abuse and use scholars to religiously legitimize massacres, pure massacres, that's the worst thing you can do, subhanAllah, to use the cloak of scholarship to justify ugly war crimes even. And it happens because it's powerful propaganda.
It is very powerful propaganda. Like this guy that's been telling me Allah and Rasul this entire time, and now, well, he's cool with it. He's okay with this. He's blessing it. SubhanAllah. So it's really a disaster if you think about it. The religious propaganda. And by the way, the Muslims are not the first ones to pull that. The Crusaders did it very well. The church knew how to play that game, to play with people's feelings, with the Pope's letters, Pope Urban II. So this is an old, old, old game to try to make religious something ugly and hideous and use spokespeople, scholars of a religion, people that are deemed invincible, infallible to some extent. That's a powerful method of propaganda. So the imams, or the people that are in a position, their silence is even more sinful. And one of the scholars he mentioned, he said it's just like the head of an army. The head of an army can't be ambiguous. A soldier might be a spy or a soldier might be being employed in a different way or some sort of tactic. But the head has to be the one clear in his orders. So when you're talking about fighting something that's evil, those that are at the forefront cannot be ambiguous about what is evil or what is not. Now there are degrees, there's variance in speaking about something that is purely evil. Even if you look at our imams, Imam Malik, rahimahullah ta'ala, supported, if you look back in history, a revolution. He supported Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiya, one of the family of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He supported him, but he did it in a way that was very subtle, but everyone knew, to the point that it got Imam Malik hurt. It got him punished. Imam al-Bahhanif, rahimahullah, on the other hand, likened the army of Zayd ibn Zayn al-Abideen to the people of Badr.
He was much more forthcoming on it. But neither one of them was ambiguous about where they stood on these things. So with imama, with position, comes an even greater responsibility. Imam Ahmed, rahimahullah, mentioned this in his situation. Imam Ahmed, when he was holding back, and though this isn't exactly, again, and I said this, that we're talking about not just injustice in regards to between people, but we're talking about a methodology here. Imam Ahmed, rahimahullah, when he was being forced to adopt a doctrine which is not from Islam, and if you say it like this, that he was told to say that the Quran is created and it's not the speech of Allah, what does that even mean exactly? It's a very subtle statement, but it has major implications. What was behind that statement was major, and I don't have time to get into all of that right now. Maybe another time, inshallah. But that was plastered all over the masajid, and Imam Ahmed, rahimahullah, was told, look, by other scholars, he was told, wa laa taqtulu anfusakum, don't kill yourselves. Like, you're going to kill yourself if you don't just give them that statement that they want to hear. And Imam Ahmed, you can imagine the scene, he's in his jail cell, and he points out the window, and he says, look at all those people waiting at the window of his cell, and they've all got pen and paper. They're literally the reporters. They're waiting for Imam Ahmed to give the statement so that they all write it down and the deen is corrupted. So Imam Ahmed is saying, it's different for me. You know, for the ami Muslim, for the average Muslim, who gets pulled in the street and says, say the statement or else I'll kill you, he can say it and he's not sinful at all. But Imam Ahmed said, it's different for me, because I will legitimize it. That person won't legitimize it, he's just clearly trying to save his life. He's like Ammar ibn Yasir, radiallahu ta'ala anhu, when he cursed the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam under duress, he told them, inna a'du fa'ud, if they do it again, then do it again.
It's okay, because it's not actually going to corrupt the religion or lose the religion or normalize anything. It's clearly a means of escaping persecution. Two other strong statements, one of them was by Imam al-Harawi, rahimahullah ta'ala. Imam al-Harawi, he said that I was subjected to the sword five times, meaning I was threatened with execution five times. And it was not said to me, take back your position, but instead it was said, be silent about the oppressors. So he said, I wasn't even being told to renounce my position, I was just being told to stop saying anything about those who oppose me. I was told to be silent about them. And he said, and I would not. And he said, I would refuse to be silent. So he said, I was subjected to the sword five times for that. My personal favorite statement, Sa'id ibn al-Jubeir, one of the great heroes of Islam, the early heroes of Islam, just a mountain of integrity in the face of the injustice of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. Sa'id ibn al-Jubeir, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, showed absolutely no fear to the dhulm of Hajjaj, to what Hajjaj threatened him with. He looked completely at peace and at ease, and that drove Hajjaj crazy. Because usually before Hajjaj would mutilate somebody, they would beg for their lives. Sa'id ibn al-Jubeir was completely at ease with it. So listen to this statement. Hajjaj says to him, and he did eventually kill him, he told him, he said, don't you know that I'm going to take your life? Don't you know that I will take your life? Hajjaj said, if I knew that, I would not have worshipped anyone but you. If I thought you were capable of taking my life by your own power, I would have worshipped you, I wouldn't have worshipped Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So subhanAllah, he stayed the course.
He was killed in his salah and his sajda and his ibadah by Hajjaj. And Sa'id ibn al-Jubeir killed Hajjaj in a way that Hajjaj died of a severe illness after killing Sa'id ibn al-Jubeir, and he saw Sa'id ibn al-Jubeir haunting him. And he was saying, qatalani Sa'id, that Sa'id has killed me, and he died saying, Sa'id has killed me. So that statement, if I thought you had the power to take my life, then I would have worshipped you. I wouldn't have worshipped Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So you see the strength in that. So that is when silence becomes mandatory. When silence is abusive or enabling and you are in a position to do something about something, then you have to speak. For example, backbiting, ghiba, can become fard. When is ghiba fard? When can backbiting become obligatory? In fact, it can become farda'een. It can become obligatory on each and every single person to backbite. When? When is it? In court? No, I'm saying every person. When is it? When there is an oppressor and that if people do not out the oppressor, others will be abused. So for example, domestic abuser, sexual predators, we shelter them over and over and over again. It is the shame of the Muslim community, in fact the shame of many other communities by the way. It's not just us, if that makes you feel any better. But we are as bad, if not worse, than others. When people abuse and they are left unaccountable, that enables them to continue their abuse. Unsur ahaka zaliman wa mazloom. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, help your brother when he is an oppressor and when he is oppressed. How do you help him when he is an oppressor? Stop him from committing his oppression.
You stop him, that's helping him. You are not helping him by letting him continue to sin and letting him continue to ruin himself. And we allow and we perpetuate by allowing harm. That can even be in a business contract. Let me tell you, I remember this is a situation that I faced more than once actually, but I remember a very prominent one. There was a guy that was going and doing a bunch of business partnerships with people. And it was a scam. He is a mashallah brother, you know, religious looking brother and stuff like that. And people would get out of the scam and no one would say anything about him because he was a good brother. So what did he keep on doing? One by one, swallowed the money of everyone in the masjid. And no one would say anything about him. Sometimes, sometimes silence is violence. That's the saying. And it truly is. And we tell people, subhanallah, not only are we okay with our signs, we tell people that are the recipients of dhulm to be silent. That's the worst, that's the lowest of low. That you tell someone who is on the receiving side of dhulm, you should be quiet because of other people. How sick-minded is that? What will other people say? Or what will happen? No. If someone is wronging you, speak. Speak, so that that person doesn't wrong others like you. Because you don't just owe that to yourself, you owe it to the other person that's in line to be the next victim. So we don't, you know, not only do we not say anything, we shame people into silence that are the direct recipients of dhulm, the direct recipients of harm. So maintaining a pretty picture, all right, that's got all these blots in it, and trying to just simply patch up and cover it up, that's not smart. It's not smart, all right, because it's an enabling form of silence. All right? An enabling form of silence.
And that enabling silence goes to many things. So there's an enabling silence for dhulm and oppression. At the state level, which usually comes with the religious class, there's an enabling silence with people at a very people level. There's an enabling silence if you're sitting and someone is being backbiting, backbitten, someone's being spoken about, and you don't say anything about it, you don't do anything. You enable. There's an enabling silence in sin. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, says, وَلَمْ يُؤْمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرَ فَلَا يَجْلِسُوا عَلَى مَئِذَةٍ يُشْرَبُوا عَلَيْهِ الْخَمَرَ Whoever believes in Allah and Allah's state, let him not sit at a table where alcohol is being served. Now, there are rulings of fiqh, and there's diversity there as to what it really means, but the idea is an enabling silence. If you come off as approving by being present, if you don't state your own positions, okay? So this covers all dimensions that a person should be able to speak. Now, what happens when it's not good to speak? So there's a time when silence becomes permissible, and there's a time when silence becomes mandatory. So just like we have a haram silence, we have a halal silence, and we have a fard silence. When can silence be permissible? Do you remember the hadith I mentioned last week where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la takes someone to task for not saying something when they saw a munkar, saw evil, and says, why didn't you say anything? And they say, you know, that I was afraid of the people, and Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, Allah was more worthy of being feared. Listen to this hadith, and this is the importance of context. Abu Sa'idah radiAllahu anhu narrates that he heard the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam say, that innaAllaha layas'alu al'abdi yawma alqiyamati hatta yaqool ma manaka idh ra'ayta almunkar an tunkira.
Allah will hold a servant accountable on the day of judgment until it gets to a point where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will say, what stopped you from calling out that evil idh ra'ayta, when you saw it? Listen to this servant's answer. He says, ya rab, rajawtuka wa fariqtu minan nas. O my Lord, I had hope in You, and I left the people. Now the way that this hadith is narrated, is actually that this person has a legitimate excuse, unlike the other person, because Allah does not admonish him for that. That I left the people, and just out of hope for You, I just, I immersed myself in the worship of You, because I couldn't do anything with the people anymore. And in this situation you have a person who is actually forgiven. The way that Ilmah reconciled these two hadith, is that this is a person that had hope in the people, tried with the people, called out the evil and was not successful with them, and then went to, you know, out of fear of what would happen, that person fled from the people because he was incapable. He recognized his incapacity, and he left the people. He left that circle, that social circle, that city, whatever it is, that he understood that he was incapable of changing evil. So when Allah asks him, you know, why didn't you do anything for him, or for her, it's not, Ya Allah, I became incapable. It's not that the people thought I was approving of what they were doing. It's just that I became incapable, so I left that situation. And I had hope in You, Ya Allah, that You would forgive me. And so Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala forgives that person. So there are some times that a person finds that, you know, it's not wise to speak. It's not wise, or I'm trying, and I'm not finding reception of those views,
or of that challenging of the munkar. So I should remove myself from that situation. And this is important to mention here as well, that there are times when that can reach a point where silence becomes mandatory even. When does it become mandatory? When munkar will increase if you speak. When the evil will actually gain steam if you speak. Alright? This is an important, important, important point that we often don't understand. Imam Ahmed, Rahimahullah, as much as he was tortured, they couldn't kill him. Because they knew if they killed him, the people would eat them alive. Alright? Imam Ahmed had support, he had a base of support, he had the hearts of the people, he had traction with his boldness and with his courage and with his bravery. Which is why seven khulafa tried to coerce him into saying what they wanted him to say, but he fought back against all of them, and they would not kill him because they were afraid to kill him. Okay? You think about that courage. He fought it, khalifa after khalifa after khalifa after khalifa after khalifa after khalifa after khalifa. Tortured him, tried to force him into it, no, not happening. But they were afraid to kill him, so he had the support of the people. He had some traction. Okay? When we talk about Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, truly, subhanallah, I think sometimes Ahlul Sunnah, out of our fear of sounding too Shi'i, like we don't give the proper right to Ahlul Bayt, the people of the household, in our own tradition. They're a big part of our tradition. We love them. They are something to us. They are a big part of who we are. Al-Hussain radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is not just a regular guy. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, shed tears over the murder of Al-Hussain when he saw it.
Now here's the thing. When Al-Hussain radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu went out to fight, you can argue whether it's a good decision or a bad decision from a pragmatic perspective. And there's no doubt that many of the Sahaba tried to stop him. They didn't try to stop him because they thought his cause was not just. They tried to stop him because they were worried about him, because they didn't think that the people would actually come out for him, because he was relying on a certain group of people. And the Sahaba did not trust those people to actually stand up with him. So they did not see that he would be successful in that revolution. But no one disagreed with his cause. Like Abdullah ibn Umar or Ibn Abbas, no one went to him and told him that you're wrong or that you're wrong. That your cause is unjust. When Al-Hussain radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu went, when he rose up against that transgression, against that oppression, he did cover his bases. I mean, he was amassing an army. He didn't just go stand up in front of Yazid or in front of anyone and say, here I am, kill me, and I'm going to be a martyr. No, he actually took the means. He actually thought he had the traction. He thought he had the means by which he could undo the munkar that he was seeing, undo the evil that he was seeing. So the point here being that Al-Hussain radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu made a decision on the basis that he thought he would be able to remove that munkar, that he'd be able to remove that evil. When does silence become mandatory? Silence becomes mandatory when your silence will actually harm the cause and will actually make things worse. When the harms, what's that? Yes, because silence can harm the cause. How can silence harm the cause? A person could be reckless with it and could empower a person or could empower a walim to do so many different things, to harm people, to kill people. When a person is not in a position where their speaking
will be effective, then their silence can actually become fard. Another example of that, a person is sitting in a gathering and people are backbiting. The person that's backbiting for whatever reason, either from a family hierarchy or from what's social, that person has a different status than you do, even if that status is imagined. But in some way, that person occupies a place to where they can backbite and no one would hold them accountable. If by you speaking, that person won't take you seriously, you know that person won't take you seriously, and the people in the media won't take you seriously, and that person will only increase in backbiting and they taunt them more and do that kind of stuff, your saying something could have actually become harmful in that situation. When you're talking about an oppressor, and we're talking about revolution or we're talking about speaking out against the oppressor, if by speaking, if it's just one or two or three people and when they try to challenge things and do things in the way that they're trying to do, even if they have just cause, if they have not taken the precautions, if they have not weighed the things properly, they could actually end up doing more harm than good. So sometimes speaking can become a form of recklessness. And this is really where we get to the question of what's known as al-izlah, to withdraw. At what point do you withdraw? At what point do you leave a situation, whether it's a circle or a city or a country, at what point do you leave? And here's the hadith that is often used, also out of place. Hadith Abu Sa'id al-Khudri radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said that there would come a time where the best property of the Muslim will be sheep
and he will take that to the top of the mountains and the places of rainfall, meaning the valleys, so that he can flee with his religion from all of the fitan, flee from all of the afflictions. Meaning there will come a time where the best thing you can do with yourself is to take some sheep, to go to a valley, be away from the people and just keep your religion safe al-izlah. This is complete withdrawal. And the reason why the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned sheep according to many of the scholars of hadith is that sheep is considered the most simple of property. Meaning a person takes what they need to suffice themselves and they just stay away from it all, they say, you know what, I'm done, I just want to safeguard my religion and the religion of my family at this point. Here's the thing with that hadith. If you try to use that hadith any time you encounter any fitna, it's just an excuse for your idleness. Because the companions encountered major, major trials and afflictions and they did not just cop out with the hadith. This is talking about the end of times. This is talking about a situation in which you cannot, not only can you not speak out against the dhulm that you're seeing, but you are suffering persecution for your religion. You cannot practice your religion anymore. The ways are being forced on you and your family. And the only thing that you could possibly do with your religion is to get away. We are not in that situation. So please do not try to take a flight out to a mountain and get some sheep and go to a valley. And if you do do that and then you regret it and come back, then don't take Emirates Airlines or Qatar Airways because you'll probably take your laptop with you to the mountains. And if you haven't heard, that's not allowed anymore. So in seriousness, this hadith, this is known as al-uzla. This is known as complete withdrawal. This is when a person finds themselves unable, unable to affect the situation and unable to even control their own situation. So it's
one thing to not only be able to affect the situation around you, but when you cannot even control your own situation. So the hadith, it does seemingly contradict the obligation to change things. But even from a personal spirituality perspective, by the way, there is something to be said here. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned another hadith. He said that the one who does mukhalata with the people, meaning he mixes with the people and tolerates what he tolerates from the people, is better than the one who withdraws from the people. What he meant by that ﷺ is that there are certain things, good traits and qualities that you attain that require interaction with people. You have to put your iman to the test. So learning to control your anger, learning to control your tongue, learning to do business in a just way, interacting in a just way. There are certain things that come by necessity, by interacting with the people. It's much easier to lower your gaze if you don't see anybody. But the person who is in a situation where they're amongst the people and they still lower their gaze, they're more rewarded by Allah. Umar ibn al-Khattab mentions this as the tafsir of, أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ امْتَحَنَا اللَّهُ قُلُوبَهُمْ لِلتَّقْوَىٰ They are the people whose hearts were tested with taqwa. Meaning a person who is in a situation where they have to be tested with their faith, in their interactions with people, is better than the one who withdraws from the people altogether. So the contradiction seems to be there but the Prophet ﷺ is clearly talking about a specific time. A specific time. The last thing that I'll say here, it goes back to what we mentioned of the long hadith of Abu Dharr al-Ghifari radiyallahu anhu where the Prophet ﷺ is giving him the answer to all the what if questions. What if this happens, what if this happens, what if this happens. If you realize the last thing the Prophet ﷺ said
to Abu Dharr, if you can't do any good, then withhold your evil from people. What does the hadith mean where the Prophet ﷺ mentions, whoever amongst you sees evil let him change it with his hand. If he can't do so with his tongue. If he can't do so let him hate it in his heart and that is the lowest of iman. What does this mean in our own situations, in our own places? What this means is that if you are in a gathering and you cannot stop an injustice from happening, you don't just hate it in your heart and stay there. You need to leave that gathering. You need to get out of there. If you're not able to say anything then you need to not approve or consent with your presence. If I'm hanging out with people and I don't have the moral courage to challenge them when they start to say things that they should not be saying or I don't have the authority, it's not just courage, I just don't have the position amongst them to challenge them, I need to stay away from those people. Now someone might say, and I always hear this, well what if it's like a family member? Don't worry it's not just you, it's like everybody in here. You were just the only one brave enough to admit it. What if it's like a family member? What if it's like my grandparents? Am I going to tell my grandparents, it's up to Allah, fear Allah, don't speak like that, don't talk like that? No. It's just not a very practical situation. Do I stop talking to my parents on the phone? Do I stop being around my brothers and sisters? Well if it's your brothers and sisters you should be able to correct them with your tongue. But let's say that it's someone who's elderly and you just cannot do anything to stop them. What do you do? You try to divert them away from that injustice. You try to steer them away from that injustice. How do you do that? Mom and dad are talking or people around you are talking
that are older than you, the elders in your family, and they start to get into the gossip and the backbiting and you change the subject to the food or to the weather or to something you know that they're passionate about that doesn't involve backbiting, doesn't involve gossip. You have done your part because you hated it in your heart and you decided to switch things over. You did your part to switch an injustice that was being done to your brother or sister. The point is consenting with presence is a very, very real thing. It's a very real thing. And if that's all you have, then withdrawal is what you need to do. You need to get away from that situation. Okay? Now I know there are questions so I'm going to go ahead and take questions and then we'll go to slaughter.
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