# Why Not Every Seat is One Worth Taking | Focal Point with Imam Tom Facchine **Author:** Tom Facchine **Series:** Imam Tom Live **Published:** 2026-01-21 **YouTube:** https://youtu.be/8W2h070z090 **URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/why-not-every-seat-is-one-worth-taking-focal-point-with-imam-tom-facchine **Topics:** History, Politics & Practical Theology ## Description Not every invitation to a seat at the table is one worth taking. Sometimes, showing up is actually selling out, and if we don’t define our limits, others will define them for us. Imam Tom breaks down what Muslims need today: knowing when to engage, when to walk away, and how power can use our... ## Chapters - 0:00 When Power Invites You, Are You Being Honored or Used? - 1:41 The Scholar Who Ignored a King During Hajj - 3:54 Why the Early Scholars Feared Rulers’ Hospitality - 5:28 How Empires Weaponized Religion to Control Muslims - 7:56 The Red Line That Changed the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah - 10:33 If You Have No Red Lines, You Have No Power - 16:38 The Myth of Muslim “Radicalization” Explained - 27:21 When Walking Away Is Strength, Not Weakness ## Transcript **[0:00]** Sitting at a Table Doesn't Make You a Diner Malcolm X said that sitting at a table doesn't make you a diner. You could possibly sit at a table, but you're not a diner unless you're actually eating. Today, many of our leaders have plenty of tables to sit at, but not only are they not eating, they're the ones being eaten themselves. **[0:18]** Not every invitation that we receive is a doorway to da'wah. And some are actually traps that are dressed up as opportunities. Today's episode is going to explore the difference between these two things. How did the Salaf engage or not engage with power? What red lines should govern our engagement? **[0:34]** And what are some key mistakes that we've made as a community that we absolutely must avoid repeating? Let's go back to the Salaf. What did the Salaf teach us about power, about engagement, when to engage and when not to engage? We have a very powerful story of 'Ata ibn Abi Rabah and the king of his time, which is Sulayman ibn 'Abd al-Malik. **[0:54]** Now, 'Ata was one of the foremost early judges of Mecca. And he was someone who was a freed slave. He was black. He was blind. He was disabled. And he had been homeless for many years of his early life. There's a story where Sulayman ibn 'Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad king, who ruled over the largest empire known up until that point in human history, **[1:16]** they had an encounter. They had an encounter in Mecca during the Hajj season. Brief pause to say that it's remarkable and very, very important when we talk about Islam and those early generations, especially when Islam was being practiced in its purest form, to notice the type of social mobility that it unlocked, **[1:34]** literally a type of social mobility and meritocracy that the world has never seen before and probably not since. Despite all of the disadvantages that someone like 'Ata faced, that he could rise to the top and have so much credibility and so much reputation and so much status within the eyes of the people **[1:54]** simply because of his piety, his righteousness, and the knowledge of the revelation that he had. And so we see now someone who should have had more status than him, King Sulayman, coming to ask him a question, a religious question, about how he should complete his pilgrimage. **[2:11]** On this, 'Ata actually responds to King Sulayman, but he doesn't even turn to acknowledge his existence. So imagine the king is coming to ask you a question and you don't even bother to turn your head. **[2:27]** You don't even bother to look up. You don't bother to give any indication whatsoever. 'Ata would not have approved probably of the culture of taking selfies or autographs when it comes to scholars. That he completely eschewed and averted any type of fame or celebrity status. **[2:46]** And the fact that King Sulayman was who he was had absolutely no bearing on him. He asserted that he wasn't interested, through his body language, in being awarded any sort of fortune or status from this powerful ruler. King Sulayman was actually taken aback, but his being taken aback was also mixed with admiration. **[3:05]** He actually said something to his sons and you can imagine the type of flattery that he's used to encountering. And probably, let's be frank, enjoys when he asks people for things or asks people questions. But King Sulayman turned to his children who were present and he said, **[3:21]** My sons, be relentless in your pursuit of sacred knowledge, for I will never forget our humiliation in front of this person. But at the same time, even though he recognized the humiliation, or what in his mind was humiliation, he taught his sons a lesson that the highest status that you can achieve, the independence, **[3:41]** to be able to have the self-respect, to not fawn and to not kowtow to somebody of a supposed higher status, is to seek the knowledge of the religion, is to be righteous. This is an attitude that we find throughout the Salaf. **[3:56]** So Sufyan al-Thawri is also a famous one. And he has a really, really nice saying where he says, I'm not afraid of the punishment of the rulers, but rather I am afraid of their hospitality, of the honors that they bestow. **[4:13]** And thus, if that were to happen, that my heart would incline to them. And then he said, and the scholars of the Salaf, of the pious predecessors, would distance themselves intentionally from the rulers and the leaders, and he uses very particular language here, **[4:30]** when they would essentially crawl out of their holes. So this is, I think, colorful language to describe what the rulers or people in authority do. What do they want with an 'alim or a scholar? What do they want with a religious person or a pious person? Sufyan al-Thawri sees right through it. **[4:46]** He says, when they crawl out of their holes, and so they ask them, they request of the scholars their needs when it comes to religious opinions and things of this nature. So Sufyan al-Thawri, in his language, is indicating that this is not just innocent questioning, **[5:03]** and we can't get it twisted. The Salaf here, they recognize that there's an asymmetry of power, what we would call in political science, there's an asymmetry of power. That when someone who has office or power is coming to you to ask you something, **[5:19]** there are always, almost always, strings attached to it. And Sufyan al-Thawri was very skeptical and hesitant about being used. Like, why would they come to me? Why would they give me gifts? Why would they try to honor me? They want to use me. And being used is something that has a very long history. **[5:37]** It's a time-honored tactic. If we go to Napoleon, when Napoleon invaded Egypt, it wasn't just by the sword. He came and held Islamic dinners with the 'ulama of Cairo, and he declared himself the protector of Islam, all the while he planned to occupy al-Azhar. **[5:55]** So there's carrot-and-stick methods, and just like Sufyan al-Thawri's quote, that sometimes you have to be more afraid of the carrot than the stick. The French did the same in Algeria. They issued fatawas of loyalty, meaning they invited scholars to the colonial councils, **[6:11]** and they tried to co-opt the zawiyas into tools of soft conquest. The British, of course, perfected this in the subcontinent, appointing their own court scholars to pacify rebellion. And even the Mongols did this. Before European colonization, **[6:26]** the Mongols claimed Islam while they were simultaneously slaughtering Muslims. Of course, it was Ibn Taymiyyah, among others, who stood up. And Ibn Taymiyyah was reported to say, quote, your Islam does not absolve your injustice. But the historical lesson here is very, very clear, **[6:42]** that when power invites religion or religious scholars to bless oppression, then your presence actually becomes complicity. And that's a very, very important dynamic that we have to address. Now, the doubt is going to be, some people are going to say, **[6:57]** hold on, wait a minute, Imam Tom, what about compromise? We have to compromise. What about Hudaybiyyah? We know that the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the Prophet (ﷺ) compromised with the Quraysh, and the Quraysh were even worse. Hold on, this is where I'm going to direct you to a blog that we recently wrote, **[7:13]** that's on Yaqeen's website, that you can search, where we talk about this in particular, and the abuse of the Hudaybiyyah story and the misinterpretation, what I see as the misinterpretation of it. That Hudaybiyyah is not really about just compromising, **[7:31]** it's actually about wisdom and red lines, and I think the red lines part is severely missed. The Prophet (ﷺ) did not walk into Hudaybiyyah seeking validation, and he didn't negotiate from a position of weakness, he actually walked in with leverage. **[7:46]** People talk a lot about Hudaybiyyah, and they talk very little about what happened right before it, specifically Bay'at al-Ridwan, the pledge or the oath that the companions took under the tree, they had no means to defend themselves, but they had drawn a red line, **[8:01]** they had sent 'Uthman ibn 'Affan (رضي الله عنه), into Mecca to negotiate for them as their emissary, and he was gone for so long, that they started to fear that he had been assassinated or killed, and they gathered under the tree to make a promise and an oath, **[8:16]** that if it were true, if it ended up being true, that he had been assassinated, that they were going to fight to the last man, no matter what, army or no army, weapons or no weapons, armor or no armor, that that was something they were not willing to tolerate. **[8:32]** And so they drew that red line, and then Allah (ﷻ) actually praised that in the Qur'an, that the fact that they drew that red line and say, this is something we're not going to tolerate, no matter what, we believe that Allah will protect us, and give victory to the people of truth, and the people that are righteous. **[8:47]** Thankfully, they were rewarded, it turned out to be not true, 'Uthman ibn 'Affan was not assassinated, they were able to go to the negotiation table, and actually negotiate the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, but that leverage and that strength that they had created, by making that bay'ah, **[9:02]** by drawing that red line in the sand, something that is absolutely, we're not going to compromise on this, that was what enabled them, to be able to get a favorable situation and outcome, out of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. And some people say that it wasn't favorable, and certainly some of the companions, **[9:17]** did not interpret it as favorable at the time, but it would not be very long, until it was proven to be a very, very favorable treaty, to the Muslims, in fact, extremely favorable. And so we see that this was a negotiation, from a position of strength, and the strength might not have been measured, **[9:33]** in the traditional units of metrics, that you're used to measuring strength, but the fact that they had resolve and dignity, and there was something that they, absolutely would not compromise on, was the source of their strength. And so they were able to negotiate, an advantageous peace, not a humiliating peace. **[9:50]** And I think that that's the key difference. They never once surrendered on principles, that the things that they compromised on, were of little substance. They were only symbolic, when the Prophet (ﷺ), crosses out his title Rasulullah, from the document, when they accept the supposedly, **[10:08]** asymmetrical arrangement of, well, if someone in Medina, leaves Islam, that they're allowed to go back to Mecca, and join up with the Quraysh, but not vice versa, that these things actually benefited the Muslims. They weren't actual compromises of principle, **[10:24]** let alone substance. And that's the difference between, being patient and appeasing your adversary. So when we think about our situation now, we have to absolutely, before we get to any negotiation table, we have to understand what our red lines are. And unfortunately, **[10:39]** we do not pay enough attention to making red lines, and things that we absolutely won't compromise on. Because at the end of the day, if you don't have any red lines, like if I come to you and I say, listen, at what point would you not accept an invitation, okay, to an interfaith gathering? Or at what point would you not accept an invitation, **[10:57]** to talk with a politician? Like under what circumstances? If you can't answer that question, if you have no response, there's no situation in which you wouldn't show up, then you're not really serious, to be frank. Like you really need to go back and do that homework, or go do something else entirely, **[11:13]** like get out of the space where, you are hemorrhaging credibility, and you're going to be a very, very useful tool for your adversaries. So what should our red lines look like? I have a few ideas, and I'm sure that people have other ideas. Maybe you can leave some comments below, to let us know what your red lines would be. **[11:29]** These are only a few that come to mind. There needs to be many more, but one of them is no normalization. And that has to be absolutely stalwart, and ironclad. That we cannot treat the nation of Israel, like it is just a normal country, when it is built upon apartheid, **[11:46]** and supremacy of one group over another, and it is conducting a genocide, and that genocide has been going on, for a very, very long time, with ethnic cleansing and displacement, and the whole nine yards. That we cannot act as if it is, just another country, **[12:01]** or a normal country. We shouldn't watch Eurovision, if Israel is going to put in contestants. FIFA, the World Cup, if Israel is treated like any other nation, these soft power tactics that they use, to try to be treated just like any other nation. **[12:16]** It's not any other nation. It is an apartheid nation. It is just like South Africa, before Mandela, or worse. So we have to absolutely not be conned, or tricked into showing up with situations, or sharing platforms, **[12:31]** or being used in a type of way, that's going to give credibility. This includes MLI trips. So this is one of the most scandalous things, that happened in the American Muslim community, in the last 20 years. The Muslim Leadership Initiative, which was put together, in order to fly Muslim leaders, **[12:47]** so-called leaders, to occupied Palestine, to essentially wine and dine them, to treat them to five-star hotels, and show them a good time, as a soft power tactic, to try to get them committed to dialogue, as if this were just like a misunderstanding, **[13:02]** of Jews versus Muslims, just don't understand each other. They just need to understand each other. No, it has nothing to do with that. Muslims and Jews get along just fine, when there isn't a genocidal apartheid regime, that is antagonizing one side over the other. So anything that's like, **[13:17]** the Muslim Leadership Initiative, which thankfully the community in the US, called it out for what it was, even if it took a little bit, and it became a stain on your reputation. If there's anybody who, if at any point in your career, you went on this trip, or any trip like it, you got some explaining to do to the community, **[13:33]** this is not acceptable. And thankfully the vast majority of our community, does not view it as acceptable. So that should be a clear red line. We should not be accepting delegations, if President Herzog, or Prime Minister Netanyahu, calls you up or sends you a letter to offer, **[13:50]** to bring you on a trip, and give you an award and whatever. That should be a hard pass, for every single Muslim leader in the world, frankly. And especially in the US, when the United States is funding the genocide, enabling it to happen. The second red line is about BDS. **[14:06]** That we should not break BDS. That incapacitating our own killers, and our own genociders, is extremely important, through completely valid means. That we should not be purchasing things, that are Israeli products. We should be boycotting Israeli products. **[14:21]** And we should be willing to boycott, other companies that are benefiting Israel, in a tremendous way. When it comes to, let's say Microsoft and Amazon. When it comes to specific companies, that in a unique way, **[14:36]** facilitate their apartheid regime, and enable it to do the genocide, that it is doing and has done. This comes to our mosques and our conventions. We should make sure that our own institutions, are following BDS and are not. Sometimes you'll go in, and you'll see that the coffee is Starbucks, **[14:53]** or the Coke products. You'll see this in your own masjid. Or God forbid, they buy one of these date brands during Ramadan, that is really Israeli dates, but pretends that it's not. So this is something that should be non-negotiable. That we should not break BDS. **[15:08]** And that extends to other regimes, that are antagonizing Muslims. Especially on the eve of, in the United States, a lot of talk about CAIR, and whether CAIR is going to be designated, as an FTO, or providing material support to an FTO. **[15:24]** And we see what the United Emirates is doing. Then we should not be supporting them, economically. We should not be going to Dubai. We should not be buying, I don't even buy Dubai chocolate. That's how much I'm disgusted by what they do in Sudan, and what they've normalized with Israel. **[15:39]** Let alone flying Emirates. Absolutely not. So I think that we need to be very, very stringent on this, and staunch on this. And that is actually a very important point, about some of the 'ulama, during the time, I believe it was Ibn 'Abd al-Salam, during the time of the Crusades, **[15:54]** who issued fatawa, that were prohibiting the Muslims, from selling weapons to the Crusaders. And that just is common sense. You don't give, like even our little children understand this. You don't want to give money, to somebody who's trying to kill you, or somebody who would like to see you dead. **[16:10]** That they are going to use that, in very evil ways. So we need to be very uncompromising on BDS. A third is to reject the radicalization thesis. The much debunked, radicalization thesis. The idea that our young Muslims are just ready to turn into extremely violent criminals. **[16:32]** That there's something in Islam, or something in the mosques, that is going to suddenly radicalize them and turn them into violent criminals. Muslims and Islam are not violent. They are not particularly, uniquely violent. In every religion, in every group of human beings, there are criminals. Whether you want to split that pie up by religion and say Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. **[16:55]** Whether you want to split it up by ethnicity, whether you want to split it up by geography, you want to split it up by socioeconomic class. There's criminals in every single group. There is no data, zero, zero, zero, zero data out there that indicates that Muslims are uniquely violent. **[17:12]** Uniquely prone to violence. Or, among the Muslim community, that the more religious you are, the more violent you have, you have more violent tendencies. There is absolutely no evidence to support that. In fact, the FBI's own evidence indicates the contrary. The FBI has numbers, after however many years it took them to figure out, after they were antagonizing Muslim populations here in the United States. **[17:33]** Upon these radicalization theses, these self-proclaimed anti-terrorism experts, self-proclaimed anti-radicalization experts, self-proclaimed counterinsurgency experts that were grifters, essentially. A lot of them with Zionist money behind them, by the way. **[17:51]** But that they sold this lie that has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever. And if someone's going to come and say, well, oh, but Muslims commit the most acts of terrorism. We have no operative, cohesive definition of terrorism that discounts and disqualifies everything that people would want to shut out from that category and includes everything that people... **[18:13]** The whole category was invented and is applied in a way that is applied specifically to Muslims. Basically singles us out. Somehow, nobody else is capable of terrorism. So if you're going to come to me with that fact, because I know people have random statistics that they pull out of their hats and say that, oh, so many percentages of terrorist attacks. **[18:30]** Well, how can you differentiate between a terrorist attack and let's say a local resistance group that's an insurgent group that's fighting against the occupying government? What's the difference between those two situations? There is no legal difference. **[18:45]** The legal category is a fiction and it's very ambiguous on purpose so that they can claim that Muslims are somehow more prone to terrorism and violence than other groups. Well, you can't even get good numbers if you're going to go through that frame because the category is bunk in the first place. **[19:03]** But the FBI did track violent crimes and they did find that Muslims as a population in the United States are no more likely to commit violent crimes than anybody else. And in fact, there's a different group, a different subset of Americans that are more prone to violent activity than Muslims. **[19:21]** And I'll let you do your own research to figure out who that is. Another thing, I'll say two more, two more red lines that I think, and this one is related to the previous one, that we have to internally in our communities reject the war on terror frames that are built upon these lies. **[19:36]** So, tendency to violence is one. It's a complete lie. Nobody within the Muslim community should give this an ounce of credibility or act or worse to start a grift and to try to sell yourself to the government as, well, I'm going to, we're the good Muslims and we're going to help you police the bad Muslims. **[19:53]** Right? While the FBI is doing things like entrapment and all these sorts of things. This whole idea, CVE and the rest of it is founded on this completely fabricated idea of good Muslim, bad Muslim, of radicalization theory, of this propensity to violence that just doesn't exist. **[20:12]** If somebody wants to put tax dollars into radicalizing anybody and entrapping anybody, some mentally unstable young person or confused young person, then that could be from any community. That's not proof that Muslims are violent. So, we have to reject those frames. We have to reject the temptation to save yourself or your little group. **[20:31]** There are some groups out there, Ahmadis, who would try to say that, well, if you want to know who is an extremist and who's not an extremist, who's a good Muslim and who's a bad Muslim, then ask them about Ahmadis. Because the Muslims that are the good Muslims recognize that the Ahmadiyya are Muslims. **[20:51]** And anyone who makes takfir, oh my gosh, the takfir word, right, then those are the bad Muslims. Those are the extremists. Those are the fundamentalists. All of this is ludicrous and it has no basis in fact whatsoever. There's no evidence to support any of this. It's all posture and it's all narrative and it's all fake. **[21:08]** And we don't like fake things. We're for the truth. I'm even uncomfortable with people within the community saying the word fundamentalist or the word extremist because now these have legal consequences to them. That's what the Zionist media is trying to paint us as. **[21:24]** They're trying to say this one's an extremist, this one's linked to this, or this one's a radical. These words have no meaning. So, let's not use them among ourselves. If a person committed a crime, that person's a criminal. We can use that language. If a person didn't commit a crime, then let's just leave it. **[21:39]** The last one I'll say, and this is very relevant for election season, is no one-way conversations when it comes to politicians and elected officials. No free PR. Too often politicians will show up, it's the first time they've showed up in their lives or in the election cycle. **[21:59]** They expect to be handed the microphone to address the community or they ask to address the community. And they are given free PR. They are given photos with people, with the imam, with the chair of the board. They are paraded around and people think, if you're a bit naive, you will think that this is getting somewhere, this is getting access. **[22:19]** Oh, he's our buddy, he's going to take care of us. Absolutely not. This is just a one-way conversation. He's talking at you and he's trying to get you to support him. And you have no meaningful mechanism to hold him accountable or to push back. You probably don't even know his policies or what he's running on, his platform or anything. **[22:35]** So the mosques have to, I think, really buckle down on this. I would say a red line should be no one-way conversations from politicians. If there's going to be a conversation, it should be a two-way conversation. That we need to ask you, what's your stance on this? What's your voting record on that? Why should we support you? No more free PR and free or very cheap support. **[22:57]** We're not going to be just supporting anybody who comes in and pays attention to us. We can't be a pick me. The Muslim community politically cannot be a pick me. Where anybody who smiles at us or says insha'Allah or salamu alaykum, all of a sudden we're going to vote for them? That's not nearly enough. Not in 2025, not after watching genocide on our live streams for two years. **[23:17]** Now, in addition to the historical examples that we brought up earlier, we have to reiterate that the same dynamics apply today. So when you have a politician that shows up at a mosque during election season, and let's just say that politician has been approving surveillance, **[23:34]** targeted surveillance on the Muslim community or Muslim students for years, that's not progress. That's just optics. If an imam were to take an award from Homeland Security or from Homeland Security agencies, the same agencies that label our youth and profile our youth as radicalization risks, that's not da'wah to go up and to accept that award. **[23:55]** That's actually laundering their own policies and whitewashing them. And if Muslim leaders get this one, attend White House iftar parties while the bombs fall on Gaza, that is not prophetic diplomacy. That is moral dissonance. And I would say it teeters on selling out. **[24:13]** So if you're going to bring up Hudaybiyyah, Hudaybiyyah teaches us that peace without purpose is surrender, that we have to have engagement with red lines, that engagement without red lines is actually collaboration. Now, another doubt comes here. Like people say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Tom, you're criticizing people. **[24:30]** Like we can imagine we know some of the people you're talking about here that have done these things and they meant well and they have good intentions. Listen, I'm sure I try to assume by default that everybody has good intentions. This has nothing to do with good intentions because even good intentions can lead to disastrous consequences. **[24:46]** We have two examples of this, one from the time of the Prophet (ﷺ) and another, a more recent one. When it comes to the time of the Prophet (ﷺ), we have the example of Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah, who is in Jannah and who is a veteran of the Battle of Badr and he is an honorable sahabi and all of these things. **[25:03]** But he made one mistake and it was kind of a big one. Luckily, it didn't end up in any serious damage. On the day when they were marching to conquer Mecca and it was a complete media blackout, there was no intel going on, he attempted to send a message to the Quraysh warning them that they were about to march on to Mecca. **[25:23]** And he hoped by doing this, because he had family in Mecca, he hoped that by doing this, doing a favor for Quraysh, that it was going to protect his family, they would maybe try to return the favor by protecting his family. He had no right to hope for that. It was kind of wishful thinking on his part. And more than that, he had no right to break the trust of the mission that the Prophet (ﷺ) was on and who started. **[25:46]** And so, fortunately, Allah (ﷻ) exposed it and it was apprehended and the message didn't reach its destination and there were some tense words and a confrontation. There was a confrontation with him and why he could do such a thing. Now, he meant well and he was forgiven and we should be very, very clear that he was forgiven. **[26:03]** But the whole point shows that good intentions are not enough, that you can have good intentions and you can do something that's very, very, very harmful to the community. And so, we have to have accountability that's above that. A more recent example, of course, is Sharif Hussein. He thought, perhaps, that he was securing Arab independence by allying with the British. **[26:24]** He was promised this and promised that. He didn't realize, perhaps, that he was being used as a pawn in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. That was the colonial betrayal that carved the Muslim world into pieces. Of course, this is a quick hit situation. **[26:39]** There's a lot of other moving parts to that situation. But you get the point. The point is that you can have very good, pristine intentions and still do irreparable harm to the community. So, good intentions, yes, let's assume everybody has good intentions, but it's not enough. **[26:54]** We have to go beyond good intentions when it comes to engagement and when it comes to what tables we're sitting at and what tables we're not sitting at. Speaking of which, the other doubt that comes about when we start talking about this is kind of a similar line to that guy who took over a Palestinian house in the West Bank who's from New Jersey. **[27:14]** He said, if I don't take it, someone else is going to take it. There's a doubt that comes out that some people, if we don't engage, we're leaving the seat empty. Someone else is going to engage for us, and that would be worse. Does walking away just give up your seat at the table to the wrong people? **[27:29]** And how many times have we heard seat at the table, seat at the table, seat at the table? Well, the answer is it depends. It's not a one-size-fits-all scenario. There are some times where purposeful absence is not weakness. That purposeful absence is actually strategic clarity and strength. **[27:46]** Malcolm X himself, rahmatullahi alayhi, refused a photo op at the White House. And he said, quote, they don't want my input. They want my image. End quote. He understood the game very, very clearly that sometimes your absence speaks louder than your presence ever could. **[28:03]** There are other scenarios that are very similar. 'Ulama under French colonization of Algeria refused to sit on these colonial councils. They knew that if they would, that they would be being used, and that their presence in such a place would not be impactful in any way. **[28:19]** They were just being trotted out as tokens, right, literal tokenization. So their presence would have pacified as opposed to actually purified or done anything good. Now, we have of late in the last, you know, lifetime, **[28:34]** have imams being flown to Dubai and the Emirates to take part in Abrahamic events. And this is something similar that this is the same government that's backing the RSF in Sudan that's committing a genocide there. Is this something that's a table that we want to be at? **[28:50]** Are we concerned that we're ceding this to somebody else when you're really just being used to legitimize this particular regime and what they do? You have to be more critical than that. That doesn't deserve your presence. And your presence is actually complicity and collaboration in that. **[29:08]** Similarly, the, you know, we can bring up again the MLI and the Muslim Leadership Initiative. Is that a table that you want to sit at? If there's a table that has Herzog and Netanyahu and let's throw bin Zayed in there as well. Is that a table you really want to be at? **[29:23]** Is that a table where you're going to actually represent the Prophet (ﷺ) and do the work that Allah would be approved of? Or are you going to be used? Okay, I would say it's the latter. There are some tables you don't want to sit at. There are some tables that maybe instead of sitting at them, they should be flipped over entirely. **[29:42]** So the purpose here, okay, we're not talking about withdrawal. We're not talking about this is the other thing straw man coming be like, oh, well, you're just saying that we just have to hide away. And what's the mechanism then by which impact and influence is going to happen? This is not telling people to just completely withdraw and hide away entirely. **[29:58]** This is about having discernment. This is about having criteria. And as we said, red lines, we have to know why we're entering a specific room. We have to know who's going to stand next to you, who's going to take a photo with you. We have to know that. We can't just run into these things just like haplessly and naively. **[30:16]** And we have to know what is the transaction that we've entered into in being present. And I experienced a little bit of this in the 2024 election. You know, I was offered a meeting with Green Party candidate Jill Stein. **[30:31]** And I was invited also to meet with Trump. And I had criteria. I had very strict criteria. I said, I will consider meeting if doors are closed, I know the names of everyone who's going to be there, no one's recording, no photo ops, I'm not accepting any gifts, I get to say my piece and then I leave. **[30:50]** And to her credit, Jill Stein accepted those conditions. And I had a meeting with her at a particular place and told her my piece that I had to say. And to her credit, she took out a notebook and wrote down notes when I was speaking. On the other hand, when I was contacted by people that were considering, you know, inviting me to in the presence of President Trump, **[31:13]** when I mentioned those criteria, the line went dead. And so I say, ma salama, that's not a table that I want to sit at. That's not a place that I want to be. So this is a very small and humble example. But I think that it demonstrates that we have to start articulating these limits and these red lines. **[31:30]** And we have to be really, really clear on the type of calculus and again, the transaction. What's the equation? What are we getting out of it? And if we're not getting anything out of it, or if we're not getting enough out of it, we have to be comfortable with walking away. So in summary, I mean, our goal isn't to boycott all engagement. **[31:46]** The call here is to purify that engagement and to make sure that it's adhering to both common sense strategy and prophetic principles. At this time and juncture, especially for Muslims in the US, the moral authority, especially for the leadership, talking about imams, moral authority is the prime currency that we have. **[32:04]** And every individual is responsible for deciding how they're going to spend that moral currency. Now, some have traded it away for the approval of somebody else. Others have guarded it with silence. In the end, our dignity isn't going to be measured by the number of rooms that we entered into or the number of tables that we sat at. **[32:23]** Rather, it's going to be measured by the truth that we carried into those spaces and the lies that we refused to stand behind. ## Other Episodes in "Imam Tom Live" - [The Promise and Paradox of the Islamic Republic | Deep Dive: Iran Ep. 2 | Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/irans-political-system-explained-deep-dive-iran-ep-2-focal-point-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [Sunnis vs. Shias | Deep Dive: Iran Ep. 1 | Focal Point with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/sunnis-vs-shias-focal-point-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [Who's Your Real Enemy? | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/who-is-your-real-enemy-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [How ‘Taqiyya’ Became an Islamophobic Talking Point | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/how-taqiyya-became-an-islamophobic-talking-point-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [Does Islam Actually Oppose Science? | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/does-islam-actually-oppose-science-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [What Sharia Law Actually Means | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/what-sharia-law-actually-means-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [Debunking the Myth of the ‘Oppressed Muslim Woman’ | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/debunking-the-myth-of-the-oppressed-muslim-woman-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [What ‘Allahu Akbar’ Really Means (And Why It Scares Them) | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/what-allahu-akbar-really-means-and-why-it-scares-them-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [How Does the Qur’an View the Bible? | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/how-does-the-quran-view-the-bible-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [What the Qur’an Says About Christianity | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/what-the-quran-says-about-christianity-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [The Truth About AI’s Intelligence | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/the-truth-about-ai-intelligence-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [Amazon's Kill System & the Network Behind Sami's Detention | Focal Point with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/amazons-kill-system-and-the-network-behind-samis-detention-focal-point-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [What Real Masculinity Looks Like | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/what-real-masculinity-looks-like-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [What Islam Reveals About Socialism and Capitalism | Focal Point with Imam Tom Facchine](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/what-islam-reveals-about-socialism-and-capitalism-focal-point-with-imam-tom-facchine.md) - [Kings Chased Thrones. 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