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University Raids, Fake Negotiations, Holocaust Remembrance? | Imam Tom Live
The LIVE discussion you need to be a part of. Join Imam Tom Live as we cover the crackdown on encampments, fake negotiations, and President Biden's Holocaust address with special guest Bissan Hamid.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum everybody. I'm Imam Tom. Welcome to Yaqeen Institute's live stream. We're happy to have you with us tonight. We've got an exciting program for you all. First, let's take a look at who we have with us in the chat. Drop us a line where you're from, what's on your mind. We have Cece from Virginia, Aya from Chicago, Shafi from Florida. Wa'alaikumsalam. Someone from raised in Michigan, but now in Egypt. Sara Ansari from Toronto. Wa'alaikumsalam. Everybody, welcome to the program. Shazi Arafat from New Jersey, my home state. Wa'alaikumsalam to Allah. Minnesota is represented, Toronto, Victoria, Canada. Very, very nice. Welcome everybody to the program. We've got a lot of intense things that have been happening. If I look tired, it's because I am tired. The last week to 10 days has been very, very jam-packed. We have been on the road. As you saw last week, we went live from New York City right across from Columbia University. Now, as we had said last week, the plan was to actually go live from inside one of the encampments, actually the encampment at City College. By the time that we had gotten to the city, the encampments both at City College of New York and the student encampment at Columbia University had been completely raided and wiped out by the police. Many of the people that we were in contact with, the students, had been arrested and we weren't able to get through to anybody. So we made the best of an interesting situation, wouldn't say a bad situation, and we posted up right there on the street corner across from Columbia University. We managed to get in touch with some Columbia students and that was last week's. Since then, I have gone to a few more encampments. I was in San Diego the previous weekend at the University of California, San Diego and spent some time that weekend with the students. I gave a khutbah in one of the masajid. It was a very, very peaceful, well-organized encampment.
And I think the day or the day after I left, that encampment was also raided by the police in a very, very brutal fashion, which surprised me, honestly. And it surprised a lot of the students too as well because there was no warning signs. There were no sort of escalation. In fact, it was a very peaceful encampment and they had sort of made an effort to be out of the way, not obstructing anything. And yet that did not save them from getting beaten, over 100 students arrested. And that was just in addition to what happened at UCLA right up the road. Then I came back from that and I had an event in Washington, D.C. last night. So I went down to visit the UPenn encampment on the way there. And then late, late last night after my event, I made a surprise visit to the George Washington campus and visited the encampment there. And literally not more than two hours after I left, the police came in and swept down and raided that encampment, brutalizing the students, beating them with batons, arresting them, spraying mace and things of that nature. So this is something that continues to be the topic of the day, it continues to be a topic on everybody's minds, that we see that the student encampment movement to attempt to change United States foreign policy on Gaza, on Palestine, has been spreading like wildfire. And unfortunately, the majority of universities and colleges across the country have decided to betray their students and betray the duty that they have to their students, which is to protect them and to serve primarily as a place for free thought. And a place for critical thinking and a place for free speech. Right. But they have betrayed that trust and they have actually sicked the local police forces, and in some cases, not local police forces, on their own students in a dramatic escalation.
And again, I want to reiterate, this is not something that is always or even ever deserved. I would say it's not something that's ever deserved by the students. And in many cases, there were no provocations, no even justification whatsoever, that the students were simply exercising their First Amendment free right to free speech, their right to free assembly, and their duty to speak out when their universities and the places where they study are invested in this genocide as what happened not too long ago with South Africa, as what happened before that with segregation. The students are sort of leading the way with this particular thing. And this highlights a very, very problematic thing, but also something that shows an opportunity. It highlights how much the university system in the United States and in many places of the world have been dependent on greed or have actually become sort of vulnerable to the profit motive, that universities are not like they were 30 years ago or 50 years ago, that they are set up to maximize profits. And a big part of maximizing profits has to do with the alumni networks. And we see a big difference between how the Zionists have organized their alumni networks and threatened to basically to pull out lots of donations and donor funds if the United States, excuse me, if the universities do not crack down brutally on these peaceful protests, calling or supposedly on the allegation that they are anti-Semitic. Of course, I saw many Jews that were there and Jewish organizations that were there in the encampments as well. So we know that that's not true. But it does show us, I think, in the Muslim community, the importance of organizing, especially organizing our alumni. And this is something that comes even from the time of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when it comes to organizing money, that everything that you are able to do in society, part of it or a dimension of it is organizing the funds.
And every masjid knows this, every mosque, you know, the 27th of Ramadan. That's why they lock the doors and have the awkward fundraisers and don't let you get back to your prayers until they've raised a certain amount of money. That organizing your funds is a very, very important part of any political movement or any religious movement or any movement whatsoever. And so we are in need of organizing our funds similarly and the funds of our donors. And this type of organization is something that Allah subhana wa ta'ala actually commands us with in the Quran. Allah subhana wa ta'ala said, والذين كفروا بعضهم أولياء بعض إلا تفعلوه تكون فتنة في الأرض وفساد كبير He basically says that the people that represent evil forces on earth, or as I like to say, evil doesn't rest. Evil does not sleep. And so the forces of evil, those who are motivated by greed and motivated by tribalism and motivated by less than noble motivations, they're not going to rest. They're not going to stop organizing. They're not going to stop spending. They're not going to stop doing what they're doing in order to bring their vision to life. And so Allah subhana wa ta'ala says in this ayah, he said, If you don't do similar and what is meant by similar means organize yourselves in the same way, act in a similar way, then there is going to be a lot of mischief and corruption on earth. We have a question here, and I want to pause and take it because it's a really good one. Muslim 604 says many celebrity scholars are taking photo ops at the encampments, but would they be willing to show up when a police raid is imminent? And I really appreciate you saying that. And I completely agree with that 100 percent that. And that's part of why I tend to not announce if I'm going to a specific place. I tend to wait until I'm invited or if I show up, I am there actually to protect if something were to go down. And I was there, George Washington, in the middle of the night. And if I had known that the police were going to raid at two more hours, I would have stayed there for two more hours in any attempt to try to.
These students are putting their bodies on the line. And I believe that the Imams and the local religious leaders and the greater community, the greater Muslim community, should also put their bodies on the line to protect these young people. And I actually gave a somewhat fiery khutbah at the Islamic center of San Diego. You can look up their their YouTube channel, challenging the local community to do just that. This is something that I believe personally is is an important thing, is an important thing for our communities to rise to the occasion and protect our young people because our universities are not protecting them. Quite the opposite. They are actually endangering them. That being said, a huge congratulations has to go out to these students that they have forced the issue. They have made this into a nationally discussed issue without the student encampments, which were very organic and very grassroots, that we wouldn't be talking about it in the same way. Pay attention how this week a new interesting development has happened, as unfortunately Israel is encroaching and invading Rafah, that for the first time so far that the Biden administration has delayed or paused a shipment of weapons to Israel. Now, this has never happened before. And this, I think, is very concerning to Israel that the United States would I wouldn't say something as strong as put its foot down because that's not what it is, but show perhaps there's starting to be a reluctance to be so directly involved. And I 100 percent believe that the student encampments are part of that change in policy, that making it into a very national conversation. It looks bad. We have a national history of protest movements, of student movements. Everybody's comparing it to Vietnam.
We all know how history treated those people who were trying to perpetuate the war against Vietnam, that it looks very, very bad for the government right now. That the government wishes that all of this would go away. They did not anticipate on things dragging out this long. They did not anticipate so much resistance. And the students, kudos and congratulations to them by turning this into a national conversation, forcing it in a very, very visible way, has not just made it into a national conversation. But the imagery of students being maced of religious leaders, the imam I was with in San Diego, Imam Taha, I was with him just a day before he was maced by police. Right. It's it is achieving the increase of sympathy for this cause, despite the mainstream media narratives of these encampments are supposedly pro-terrorist, supposedly anti-Semitic, which everybody sees through at this point. That putting your body on the line is actually increasing sympathy for this cause and the students are leading the way, props to them. This is something that actually also comes from our tradition. We see that the Muslims, the early Muslims, when they were sort of an embattled minority in Mecca, that a few of them dared to pray in public and they were beaten. They were publicly beaten for this for this cause and that even the Quraysh went to the extent to boycott them. And this was something that actually even stirred the sympathy of some of the Quraysh who weren't so opposed to the Muslims. And there's a long history there that we can go. We have one thing that we'll go to the guys in the studio to bring up. There was one University of Chicago student that's been making the rounds. He was given the opportunity to speak to media and he was extremely articulate in in pleading the case. And again, we're talking about legacy media.
We're talking about media folks and journalists who are not particularly friendly to this cause. But the cause is becoming so imminent and the righteousness of this cause is becoming so imminent that we're starting to see cracks in that. So let's play. Let's play the interview. Continue following orders. And when you're talking about a genocide visited upon a colonized population of two million people trapped in a ghetto, that's as long as a marathon and six miles wide. When that ghetto is being systematically starved, slaughtered, every hospital bombed, every university bombed, 70 percent of homes destroyed, 40,000 people murdered, 15,000 children murdered, the entire population on the brink of starvation. We say if our government and our academic institutions are complicit in this, there comes a point where we say we're not following orders and it doesn't matter what we do to us because there are principles and there are human lives that matter more than our careers and our futures. And that's what separates us from people like Paul Alivisatos, the coward president of this university and these coward cops that come in terrorizing and encampment what people are sleeping. Yes, excellent, very, very articulate young man, very well stated, and I'll prop up Muslim 604 again with another insightful comment saying, sadly, the Muslim community isn't really helping out the encampments when they are being attacked by police, it's mostly just leftists. I will say that having been to several encampments now, there are there is some difference between from encampment to encampment, but largely, unfortunately, that's correct. And this is where the message that I've been trying to carry to the different places that I've been traveling is for the Muslims to support these things that if you don't like how un-Islamic they are, then the solution is to step in and make it Islamic, to be frank, not in a controlling way, not in a way that you're taking over, but in a participatory way. And this is a big subject and we'll be writing on this for Yaqeen Institute upcoming, inshallah, so keep your eyes peeled for that. But I agree that this is a very, very important point.
Now, as the university sagas continue to unfold, we've seen that some universities seemed to have negotiated or seem to have listened to the demands of their student encampments and have attempted to sort of remedy things. However, upon further inspection, upon further inspection, many of these negotiations were fruitless or let's say they're not completely in good faith. This is actually a well-known tactic where universities promise certain things that are unenforceable or very, very vague in order to appease and to mollify the student movement. Whether it's Evergreen University and Rutgers University, there's been some dispute about, are they really going to divest? Did they agree to agree to agree to talk about it? Right? Those are two very different things. That long story short, the universities have the ability, if they really wanted to, just like they exercise the ability to unilaterally come down and call the police on their own students, that if they really wanted to, they do have the unilateral ability to divest from genocide, but they refuse to. And so now there's this dance, now there's this dance where if they're really pushed, they will pick a few students, perhaps students that they think that they can influence, and they will meet with them and they will say, well, let's agree to some certain points. But those points are really without teeth. They're without enforcement mechanisms, et cetera, et cetera. And this is something that all the Muslim students, I hope that if you're watching, to be aware of, to not be suckered by this type of negotiation tactic. This is actually something that the Quraysh tried to pull on the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, right?
That when the movement started really catching on, the movement of tawheed, the movement of worshiping the one God, the creator, and getting rid of all the superstitions and getting rid of all of the accumulated sort of human inventions within religious practice that was prevalent at the time, they tried to strike a deal with him. But it was not a good deal. It was a raw deal. And he said, hey, guess what? Why don't you worship our idols for a year and we'll worship just Allah for a year and we'll switch off. And as we all know how that ended up, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala revealed Surah Al-Kafirun, where Allah told the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to tell them that we don't worship what you worship and you don't worship what I worship. You have your way and I have mine. This is a lesson about how to not give up your leverage and how to keep what makes your cause righteous and to not give it up just at the very, very, very first instance. Excellent. The second thing we'd like to talk about today before getting into we do have a special guest, somebody who made a big splash on the student activism scene from one of our own. Before we get to that, we want to talk about Biden's address. So the anniversary of the Holocaust recently passed and President Biden, Genocide Joe himself, he took the opportunity to put his foot or wedge his foot even further in his mouth. I know we have a graphic. Can we pull it up? Showing his quote, what he said, what would he choose to use this opportunity to draw attention to? Only blaming Palestinians, ignoring the plight of Palestinians, only talking about the increased anti-Semitism since October 7th, nothing at all about the Holocaust that's going on right now. The genocide that's going on right now against the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, whether it was the slow genocide of before October 7th or the fast genocide after that.
And also nothing to say. He mentions the hostages, et cetera, that Israel this week admitted what we've known for quite a long time, that they have no interest in recovering these hostages, that basically that was a legitimizing discourse. That was something that they were sort of holding on as a bargaining chip. But in reality, their demands are elsewhere. They want to eliminate Palestinians from Palestine and the people of Gaza from Gaza in particular. Now, it's important to know, and we're spending quite a bit of time on current events because things are happening so fast these days that during this process, these last seven months, a lot of us have been reexamining our relationships. Reexamining the relationships that we've been forging as Muslims in our communities. And we wanted to highlight somebody. We don't always do this. We prefer not to mention individuals, but this person is outside of the Muslim community, so they have a different sort of standard that we apply to them. Let's bring up, we have Craig Considine, Dr. Craig Considine, somebody who was a darling in the Muslim community as a Christian who was saying positive things about Muslims before October 7th. Somebody who was well compensated on the speaker circuit and getting invited to speak at universities and different interfaith events has gone or has reduced himself to this. And you can read the sort of anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim rhetoric that so easily comes out of his mouth. That, I will stress it again, that this should be a time where when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala shows you something about people. When people show you their true colors, then you pay attention. And the Prophet ﷺ said that the believer is not stung through the same hole twice. The believer is not stung through the same hole twice.
That much of what we believed was interfaith or that we called interfaith before October was in reality what people call faith-washing or what I call Biryani diplomacy. The premise upon the idea that if enough people like us, if we are cuddly and friendly, that they won't want to kill us. Well, we've seen that that strategy didn't work, unfortunately. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says something very, very interesting in Surah Al-Ma'idah. He says, He says, Oh, you who have believed, don't take as close intimate friends, people, other than yourselves. For some of these people will not spare you any ruin. They don't want good for you. They wish that you would have hardship for those for whom hatred has already appeared from their mouths. Then what they conceal in their hearts is greater. Allahu Akbar. So we see the types of remarks made by the likes of Dr. Craig Considine. And I don't want anybody to forget this going forward, that this is what has come from his mouth or from his fingers on Twitter. And that what he holds within his heart is even greater than that. Allah says, We have certainly made clear to you the signs. If only you will use your reason. And with that, we go to our second segment today. So in the context of the student encampments and the student protests, as we know, it's May, it's graduation season. We have somebody who made quite a splash at Georgia Tech University, a university that I visited not too long ago. We would welcome like to welcome Bisan Hamid to the program. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Inshallah, y'all can hear me. Let me get my sound here. Assalamu alaikum, Bisan, how are you? I'm good, alhamdulillah. I graduated from Georgia State, but Georgia Tech is awesome. Apologies.
Georgia State, excellent. So let's play, first of all, in the studio, let's play the clip from the graduation ceremony. And let's take a look at that, and then we'll chat about it. Bisan Falestin Harra Hamid. The man in blue is probably the lightest clap I've ever seen. Though he picks it up at the end. So let's talk about it. You changed your name or you put your name as Falestin Harra. And you were shouting, we can't hear what you were shouting on the video. Tell us, what were you, what was the plan and what did you do? Yeah, so I, you can briefly hear in the beginning of what I was saying, and then the cheers start. But I was saying 40,000 Palestinians have been massacred. And I was saying, Georgia State, divest from Israel, and there are no more universities left in Gaza. Yeah, that's basically what I was saying. And is this something that you had planned ahead of time, or is this something that was spontaneous, where other people sort of helping you think up what to do? Yeah, I planned this ahead of time. You know, the flag that I held towards the end, I originally wanted to bring that on stage, but they caught me. And I was trying to push past them and to have them let me go on stage with the flag. But the police officer who was intervening, he offered at one point, he was like, here, you can give me the flag and then I'll give it back to you.
So I looked at him and I was like, give me the flag immediately after I get off the stage. I was pretty much just like having to like ad-lib this as I was going, because I didn't expect that. But that's when I, you know, got off the stage and I immediately decided to like head in the center of the aisle and hold up the flag, which says GSU and Gilly. And I can explain more what that is, if you would like. Yeah, please. No, go ahead. So Gilly is actually a program. It's called the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Program. And this is ideally what I wanted to bring attention to. It's like, I honestly did not imagine that the video would go viral. I was addressing this to my community at Georgia State. And so basically, Georgia State houses in its school of, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, what's called the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Program. And this is a program which sends Georgia police, everything from MARTA police, like our public transportation police, to school police, to, you know, just Georgia police in general, to train with Israeli police in counterterrorism and urban warfare tactics. And Israeli police also come here and train with Georgia police. And this is not a unique program. There are other programs in other states. But I believe that the Georgia program is the only one which is actually housed at a public institution like Georgia State. So that's really what I wanted to bring attention to. And I love that. And that's one thing that I've noticed going around the different encampments, how smart the students are and how specific their demands are. So that's a very, very concrete thing that you're asking of the university. We're not asking for something vague like tear down white supremacy, which I'm not saying, hey, that needs to be done too. But when it comes to when we're talking to a university,
part of the strategy is to craft demands that can be met and that are specific and that really make the college look really bad if they say, no, we don't want to actually do that. When I was in San Diego, the University of California, San Diego, had an exchange program with a university in Tel Aviv, and the Palestinian students can't go. Not only would they not want to go, right? But just to think that universities in the United States of America are having exchange programs where some of their students cannot go. Is there anything more damning and indicative of apartheid than that? So that was one of their very specific demands. So that's really an amazing job, a well-crafted message, a very tight, organized message. Talk to us about sort of how has the university's reaction been? Has there been any traction for this type of divestment movement? Yeah, so conveniently, the university didn't say anything about what I was trying to raise awareness of. They really just said because, okay, and so let's talk about how after what I had done and the images were going everywhere, there was talk of how I was removed for wearing a kufiye, which in my case, that wasn't the case. But my commencement ceremony was in the morning, and then there was the undergraduate commencement ceremony, which happened at 1 p.m. later. And so Palestinian students, like undergrads, who were wearing kufiyes, I suppose because of what I had done, were being discriminated against. So they had their kufiyes confiscated. Some of them had their kufiyes confiscated. Some of the families of the students who were wearing kufiyes were told to go put it back in their cars.
Otherwise, they weren't allowed into the building. They were threatened with the rescinding of their degrees, which the president, who you saw in the video, had sent out an email saying, you know, nobody had their degrees removed. We allow people to wear their cultural dress. But, like, there was no acknowledgement of the very real threats that were made to the undergraduate students of rescinding their degrees and also the very real confiscation and discrimination of Palestinian students at the undergrad when you were wearing kufiyes. And that's a very important point, too, because one of the tactics we've seen from the universities is to play both sides, right? There's sort of like a good cop, bad cop sort of thing, where it would look really bad if they're actually universally throughout the institution threatening to take away degrees for something as simple as a kufiye or this type of statement. But then they'll allow sort of the security forces or the other sort of forces that they are giving directives to or giving instructions to to basically make these threats and make intimidation and these sorts of things. So they let other people do their dirty work, which is a theme that we've seen over and over again. And they try to turn other students against you, right? So that's something I've seen in other universities as well, where they'll take something away, a privilege, right? And they'll say, well, we've done this because these troublemakers have sort of ruined it for everybody. Tell us about sort of what were your emotions? Were you scared? Were you excited? Like what about sort of you didn't expect this to blow up the way it did. It blew up. Now you're much more famous than you anticipated on being. Is that something that scares you? Are you concerned about getting doxxed? Like where are you at emotionally now? I was a little freaked out.
You know, everywhere I'm a person with my information. You know. You know, we're having a couple of audio issues here. The last comments didn't come through. But SubhanAllah, we'll try to reconnect Bissan. And if we can't, I think all of us have benefited plenty from her courage. And we certainly see here an example of what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, that if you have, if there is evil going on, that you have a duty to change it. Right? That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, That the people who were sort of rejecting faith from the children of Israel, David himself and Jesus himself cursed them. And what was one of the reasons for cursing them? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, They used to not try to prevent other people from doing evil that they saw. We know the Prophet ﷺ said that if you see an evil, then you change it with your hand. And if you can't, then with your speech. And if you can't, then with your heart. I think we've got Bissan here again. Sorry. Let's try it again. Yes. Are you able to hear me? Yes. Yes, I can. So I don't know at what point I cut out. It was towards the beginning. So your emotional state, how are you doing now? Yeah. I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad that it happened the way that it did. You know, Allah only allows for things to happen as He wills.
I would say like, as worried I was about maybe doxing or people in my family saying, Oh, I hope they don't take away your degree or something like that. I think what's important to mention here is that our fear of what repercussions we face that are related to dunya should never supersede our fear of Allah. Like this is really, and I think that what I did wasn't even like the most that anyone could do. I feel like it was the least that I could do, honestly. You know, I think individual acts of sacrifice are important. You know, maybe if I was potentially putting my degree on the line, but also like it's more important that we also move towards building power, like community power. And I believe you talk about this a lot. I was speaking my language. Yeah, this is what we do. And I'm a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, actually. So, yeah, this is, it's just, yeah. Well, good for you. I mean, I'm extremely proud of you and everyone like you. And I think that this is one of the most hopeful things. You know, I was sitting yesterday with, you know, the students at UPenn, and they were asking me, well, what if our parents are sort of discouraging us? I said, there are certain things that you have to do in this life that, you know, this is far kifaya on us. Like to be able to show up for Palestine is a communal obligation. And we know that there's no obedience to the creation when it contradicts obedience to Allah ﷻ. That we know that we're going to have people that are concerned for our safety and concerned for our well-being, and may Allah reward them for their intentions. But at the end of the day, that 100% sacrifice mindset is what it's going to be. Like if we really believe that Allah is ar-razaq, we really believe these things that we've heard every single year in Sunday school
or weekend school or every single khutbah about the angels writing your rizq and how much money you're going to have and your job and your house. It's already decided. So really, we have two choices. We get to get what's determined for us anyway and be brave and do what we need to do from what Allah hopes for us. Or we're going to get what we have been sort of decreed anyway and live like cowards and fail the test that is presented to us. And I was just very happy that you were able to join us and inspire the rest of us with your courage. So is there anything, I guess, to close out? Is there any sort of message that you would give if there's high school students or if there's other university students that are thinking about doing something similar or they want to do something? What would you say to students like that? Yeah, I would say just, and this is part of like our politics as the Palestinian youth movement, is understand your role in the diaspora, your role as a Muslim, as a Palestinian, as an Arab, that we're not just in solidarity with Palestine and we're not just in solidarity with the people in Palestine. We are Palestinians. They are Palestinian. They are Muslims. We should be considering ourselves as fighting alongside our ummah, our fellow Palestinians. We are fighting just another front of the battle. They're fighting one front in Gaza and we are also fighting another front here in the diaspora. When we talk about the intifada is globalized, we are here and we are also fighting this fight as well and that the support for the popular cradle, the resistance in Gaza, our support for them is integral to the resistance in Gaza
and throughout 48. As Muslims, they are fighting in the cause of Allah and we cannot abandon them. We cannot, for fear of whatever repercussions in this dunya, cannot afford because they are the ultimate success and so we should be taking responsibility for this. Your sound is starting to go again. But one thing that your comments remind me of are images we showed last week from the messages that were coming from Gaza, people writing even in English on the side of their tents with nothing in support of the student movements, in support of the student encampments. So there is this interconnectivity, right? And I always tell people we're here, we're Muslims, like not just Palestinians that are in the diaspora, but we, I believe that Muslims need to consider this our diaspora too, right? Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that we are one body as Muslims. So it's not, yes, I mean obviously it immediately affects Palestinians more immediately, but it should also very, very, very immediately affect every single Muslim on earth. That this is something that is our issue and our role here in the United States is to do what we can to change the foreign policy of this country. And that is something that we shouldn't be shy to say, that the foreign policy of the United States is hurting people abroad. First of all, it's immoral and it's evil and it's wrong. And second of all, it's hurting other Muslims. And so we exercise our rights in order to try to change that. And that's sort of a huge role and a huge role for us to play. You're with us again, Bissan? Yeah. Can you hear me? I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happening. We can't hear you.
Okay. Well, we'll cut our losses. And we thank you very much, Bissan, for coming with us. And we hope to see you again. And inshallah, we'll be in contact. Hopefully be down in Atlanta sometime to do some things with PYM. Keep up the great work. We're all very proud of you. And salamu alaykum. Wa alaykum salam. Thank you. Okay. Very good. So we're going to transition to our next segment, which is going through Amal al-Layl wa n-Nahar. We have the sort of actions of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Let's see. We have here 444 here. We got a comment that we have to highlight here. Fun and facts says, it's not about Muslims. Palestine is a diverse community. It has people from all sects. People need to look at Palestinians without a religious lens. I completely disagree. I think that's completely backwards. Now, there's a way in which you're right. And that is, it is not exclusively a religious issue. And nobody's pretending that Palestine is only made up of Muslims. That there are Christians, there are atheists, there are Jews, etc, etc. That's not the claim. But to say that there is no religious dimension or Islamic dimension to this cause is foolhardy, to be frank. That when the Zionists have worked so hard to establish this pipeline, where anybody who supports Palestine is on this sort of construed as a target for anti-terrorism legislation or anti-extremism legislation. And that does affect all Muslims. That all Muslims are affected by this type of legislation. That all Muslims are affected by this type of discourse. We are criminalized and we are securitized. So there are specificities and there is nuance. But to erase religion from it entirely is a mistake.
For the reasons that I mentioned. And for the reasons of many of the people in Gaza themselves. They are engaging in the activities they are engaging in upon religious grounds. It's no secret that there is sometimes a disconnect between pro-Palestinian activism in the Western world or in the Diaspora versus pro-Palestinian activism in Gaza. That many people are motivated by what they are doing, by religious sentiment. And that is not something that we should necessarily hide from. In fact, if we erase it, this is another type of colonialism. This is another type of colonialism. And we have seen this. The colonial powers, colonial Europe has always attempted to secularize Islam. Because of the potent force that it represents. And the counter and anti-colonial force that it represents. But more on that later. We will get to actions of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. We have reached the time of day around Asr and Maghrib. So there are certain things that happen around Asr and Maghrib that every Muslim should be aware of. Asr and Maghrib. And this is actually a difference of opinion between the ulama. As to when is the appropriate time of the dhikr of al-masa. Is it after Asr? Or is it after Maghrib? Or around Maghrib? These are two opinions. They have many ulama on each side. If you want to put it in a general sort of way. The time between Asr and the setting of the sun. That is a good time. And the preferred time to make the same sort of dhikr that you were making. And that we covered around Fajr, around the dawn. To make it again at the evening. And we have hadith from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. That told us that this is also one of the times after Asr where the angels sort of swap out. That you have these angels on your shoulders. They're recording your deeds. Right?
And they exchange with two other angels every Fajr and every Asr. Now, there's a couple of particularities. When it comes to, in particular, sundown. If you've studied a bit of Islamic law. You might know that the setting of the sun is waqt al-nahi. This is a very particular time. Like a time of prohibition. Where certain types of prayers are not permissible. And what not. And there is a hadith. I think that we have it. Yeah, if we can show it here in the studio. Where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam also encourages us to keep our children close to us. And even to keep our children indoors around the setting of the sun. Right? Now, what I find very interesting is that when we get more distance from the setting of the sun. Then it's explicitly saying that you can let them free. You can go out again. So it's not necessarily saying that you need to have your children and lock them in the house from sundown on. No, going about after that is perfectly fine according to the text of the hadith. But there's something interesting in the unseen world. That we're not 100% observant of. That goes on around the time of sunset. That makes it particularly dangerous for children. And the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to keep a watch over your children around that time. Moving on. Let's hit our personal development segment for today. We're going to condense. Because we've got a lot of really good books to get through. I think that sort of the pace of going through this particular book on leadership by John C. Maxwell was a bit slow up until now. So we're going to sort of ramp up the pace. We're going to accelerate our progress through it. That we're going to tackle five laws at a time. And we're going to pay particular attention to how we find these laws in the Islamic tradition.
That's our whole purpose is that we're reminded or these things remind us of things that we have in our own tradition. That sheds light or inflects or helps reinforce these things that other people have noticed from Ibra and Khibra. From taking lessons from others and from direct experience themselves. So the first one that we have for today. Law number five is called the law of addition. The general idea of the law of addition is that one of the hallmarks of leadership is that it adds value to others by serving others. And this is very, very crucial to understand that many of us when we think about leadership we only think about the perks. We only think about the benefits. How people stand up when you walk in. Or they treat you a certain way. Or everybody wants to be like you. Or you've got a ton of followers and fans and etc. But that's not what leadership is about. And it never should be about that. That leadership is about adding value to other people's lives. And this actually coincides perfectly with an Arabic proverb which is That the leader of a nation or the leader of a tribe is their servant. That there is an inherent relationship between leading people and being in the service of people. That that is really the essence of leadership is service. And we see this throughout our Islamic tradition. There's many famous examples from the leadership of Omar ibn al-Khattab when he became the leader of the Muslims after the death of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Such as when he used to walk the streets at night to make sure that everybody had enough food and that everybody was safe and was protected. And he came across one particular household where there was I believe a single mother and she was upset because she didn't have enough food for her children. And Omar himself became upset at his failure in leadership.
And he went back to gather up grain and gather up flour to bring to this family. And he had servants. He had people that he hired that were in his pay, that were under his authority. And they said to him, let us carry it for you. We'll go there together. And Omar himself radiallahu anhu said, no, this was my failure. This is my shortcoming. I am going to make up for it myself. So he put the sacks of flour on his shoulder and he's the leader of all the Muslims. And he carries it himself to the woman's house and then proceeds to actually cook them a meal himself. That is what leadership looks like. It is service to your people. That we have another example of Omar when he actually, you know, germanely enough when he conquered Palestine or the Muslim armies conquered Palestine for the first time. That Omar, he went there with his servant and they were sort of taking turns. They only had one horse or camel or whatever it was. And they took turns riding on it. And when it was, it just so happened that when they reached the city, that it was the servant's turn to ride. So Omar was walking and normally the person walking next to the animals is the slave or the servant. Now, even the servant realized that this was bad optics, that this didn't look right. That, you know, how are you going to impress these people if you're not riding triumphantly on top of this animal? But Omar said, no, this is fair. This is what we agreed to. And he entered the city walking. And it was a tremendous demonstration of leadership and his ethic of serving the people, both the people close to him and the people that he was about to rule over. And it was something that really impressed the local population. They've never seen a leader like that before. Similarly, of course, the Prophet Muhammad himself, alayhi salatu was salam, when people used to come to him with requests or with needs, if he had the ability to satisfy the need, he would always satisfy the need.
He would never turn anyone away unless he literally couldn't do it for them. Right. And another thing that maybe is even more amazing than that is that the Prophet Muhammad, alayhi salatu was salam, we have it on different hadith, that he made everybody feel like they were his favorite, alayhi salatu was salam. Can you imagine? We struggle with this so much today. We've got our cell phones and these sorts of things and we're distracted. And sometimes, astaghfirullah, our kids are talking to us or our spouse is talking to us or our friends are talking to us and we're checking messages and we're scrolling or doing something like that. Astaghfirullah. That's what happens. Right. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, when he talked to people, he would face them and look at them. And his entire focus and energy was on that person such that that person felt like they were his favorite. To the point where we actually have somewhat a humorous hadith where one of the companions basically goes to the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, and asking him who's his favorite. And he's expecting to be mentioned and other people are expecting to be mentioned and they're not mentioned at all. He then goes down with his favorite people in order. He loved Aisha the most and then her father, Abu Bakr, etc. And the people who had asked the question, they were shocked. I thought the way that he treated me, I thought that I was his favorite. Right. That's an amazing aspect of leadership that the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, truly valued other people. And that is a key concept in leadership that you're not just doing it instrumentally. You're not just doing it because you want the company to run better or you want the organization to run better. You actually value people. You actually take interest in their lives. What are they interested in? You also make yourself more valuable so that you can add value to them. You can't give something that you don't have. And so the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, it was easy for him. He's a prophet.
So he can add value when it comes to their understanding of sort of the divine and the unseen and what's going to happen in the afterlife and religious instruction and sort of tarbiyah, the sort of, you know, character building and things like that. But we also have to work on ourselves so that we have something to give other people. That when we upskill, quote unquote, that we're not just doing it for selfish reasons. We're also doing it to raise everybody else up with us. And that you're able to know and relate to what other people value. And the Prophet, Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wasalam, did this as well, even with young kids. We know that there was a child at the time of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, who had a pet bird. And the Prophet, Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wasalam, used to ask him about this bird. And one day the boy was sad and it turned out the bird had passed away. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, could have easily said, I'm busy. I have other things to think about. I have so much on my plate. But he took time to connect with even the children with something that mattered to them. The next law that we have. So that was law number five. Law number six is the law of solid ground, right? And the main gist of this law is that trust is the foundation of all leadership. Trust is the foundation of all leadership. That you build trust through different sort of avenues. You can build trust through your competence, your ability to do something. You can build it through the connection that you make to other people, like we were just saying. But most importantly, you build trust through your character. And character is a large concept we could talk all day about. But some of the things that go into character include admitting your own mistakes when you've been wrong. Not being so quick to be defensive and to just jump to your defense because of your ego or your reputation. If you've made a mistake that you own it, say, yeah, I'm not proud of that. That wasn't my best moment. But you know what? I'm working on myself. And you can expect big things and big changes from me.
And another aspect of it is putting your values ahead of your interests. And this is huge. And this is where Islam plays a huge part. That, yes, okay, anybody can cheat anybody. Anybody can sort of look out for their own self-interest. But who's going to put their values first such that their values are the reason why they're doing what they're doing? And we have examples of this, such as when Abdullah ibn Abbas, he sent a servant to market to buy a horse. And the servant was able to haggle with the horse seller to get a really good price. And so he comes back to Abdullah ibn Abbas, and he's so happy that he haggled down this price. And Abdullah ibn Abbas, he said, okay, let's go to the market. We'll complete the deal. He asked the horse seller, did you agree to sell this horse at this price? He said, yes. He said, no, I don't agree to that. I want to pay you more. And the seller was shocked. He's like, what kind of person is this? He wants to pay me more than I asked for. Imagine if you went to the grocery store and you got your bottle of water and you check out. And you say, actually, can I give you a few more dollars? Nobody does that. And Abdullah ibn Abbas didn't just do it once. He did it again and again and again. He said, no, I'm going to pay you more. No, I'm going to pay you more. No, I'm going to pay you more. Until the seller was basically embarrassed. And he said, okay, stop, stop, stop. Just let's be done with this. And this is very curious behavior. And so he asked Abdullah ibn Abbas, why are you acting like this? And Abdullah ibn Abbas, he said, because if that were my horse, I would not sell it for less than what I'm telling you that I'll pay for it right now. So he put his values ahead of his interests. That he is somebody who does things on principle and not just what benefits him. Entrusting others is another huge thing when it comes to building trust. You cannot be or you will not be trusted if you're not willing to put trust in others. And this is something the Prophet ﷺ, right? He did with other people when he sent them out.
He sent Mu'adh ibn Jabal, right? To Yemen. He sent other people out. He entrusted them with tasks. And guess what? They didn't always do the right thing. Sometimes they messed up. He sent Khalid ibn Walid to a place to collect zakah. And Khalid misinterpreted something and they went to war. And he killed a bunch of people wrongfully. And that was a huge mistake. And he had to make repentance and atonement for his mistake. But that didn't stop the Prophet ﷺ from trusting other people. And through trusting other people, that is how you also get trust. The next law we have is the law of respect. And that is that people tend to respect strong leaders. Now what we mean by strong leaders is a type of boldness that is not just trying to be popular. You can't be a leader. Being a leader and being popular are two different things. That true leaders are going to be bold and courageous in turbulent times. They're willing to do the right thing even if it's not popular. And we had a great example of that just a second ago with Bisan. It was not maybe a popular. By definition, it wasn't a popular thing to do to stand up and to make ghaza visible at the commencement or at the graduation ceremony. And yet she did it at risk to her own self, to her own career. She doesn't know what's going to happen to her. But she was able to do something bold and do something courageous even if it wasn't popular and she stood to lose. And we have other examples from the Prophet ﷺ. At battles we think about this when, you know, the odds were stacked against the Muslims and the Prophet ﷺ was always right there at the front. He was not someone that was cowering behind. He was not waiting to see how the situation would play out to do what was popular or to do, you know, these sorts of things. That he was somebody who led by principle and was willing to be courageous and principled even when other people weren't.
The next one we have, we've got two more. The next one we have is the law of intuition. Law of intuition. Which basically comes down to leaders develop or they have, if Allah gifts it to them, a certain amount of intuition. That you can see things maybe further along than other people can see them. And you trust your judgment based off of that. And we look at the life of the Prophet ﷺ, we see a lot of examples of this. Hudaybiyyah, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was a classic example. Where even the companions weren't really happy with the terms of the treaty. But the Prophet ﷺ understood that the treaty was actually very, very favorable to the Muslims. And was going to put them in the best position to eventually conquer Mecca and accomplish their goals. We also see it when even some of the companions, they stepped out of line, right? They stepped out of line and they experienced punishment, right? Criminal punishment. And sometimes the Prophet ﷺ, he said things that indicated that, for example, like yeah, this person did that and we're going to punish them. But this person loves Allah and his Messenger ﷺ. That they have a sort of intuition of what motivates people. This is also sort of the example of when the Muslims did march on Mecca. And they had one of their own try to send someone to sneak a message to Mecca to try to protect their family. This is something where the companions were very upset. It was basically treachery. And you could say an act of espionage or passing on secrets, right? Treason perhaps you could say. To the point where Umar and others were willing to punish the person severely. But the Prophet ﷺ understood what he wanted and understood his motivation. And understood that that really wasn't the reality of what was going on. That he had that intuition of leadership. And the final one we have is the law of attraction. And this is kind of an interesting one.
That you can learn a lot about yourself as a leader by the type of people that you attract to you. And this is actually something where if you're attracting the wrong type of person. Then you might need to take stock of yourself. Or if you're attracting the right type of person. Then this is something that is also interesting to learn from. Now we don't mean by this. We don't mean that we're just trying to attract popular people and rich people and stuff like that. No, what we're talking about is just like the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Who did he attract with his message? He attracted all of the sincere people. People who wanted to do the right thing. It didn't line up with the rich. Yeah, there were some rich people. But there were a lot of poor people that followed him. It didn't line up with a certain tribe. It didn't line up with a certain race or a certain ethnicity. Or a certain color of the skin or whatever. That the Prophet ﷺ was the type of person that attracted people of principle. People who wanted something transcendent. Something that was bigger than the sort of tribalism that was going on. And that was a perfect indication of who he was ﷺ. So that concludes our segments today. If anybody has any questions, we'll turn to them now. And tidy them up. If you haven't asked your question by this time, this is your chance. I'm going to give it a few minutes. Thanks everybody for your patience with the technical difficulties. 00, I wish I spoke French, but I do not. So I can't understand your comment, but it looks like a good one. May Allah bless you.
Okay, here we go. Sorry, let me get back to the top here. I didn't see any questions going back. So we have... I did not visit Italy, no. On my recent trip to Europe, I was in the UK and Ireland. And that was a very, very beneficial trip. May Allah bless the Muslims there. And cause us to all come together on what he is pleased with. Hopefully, hopefully next time. And I think that we did start to address that a bit. You build trust through trusting others. You build trust through your character and your integrity, right? Part of that is admitting mistakes. Part of that is admitting your shortcomings and admitting when you were wrong. Unfortunately, we usually see people who are more into their ego, are more interested in defending themselves. They're afraid of losing their power and losing their status and reputation. Whereas the person who, you know, they're sincere to Allah. We don't pretend that anybody's perfect. We're all sinners. We all do it. It's just that Allah hides some people's sins and Allah exposes other people's sins. But if you're confronted with it, do you admit it? Do you promise to do better? Do you promise to try to make up for it? Right? That's sort of... That goes a long way. People will trust that. And that is Mushahid. Interesting question from Abdullah. MashaAllah. Abu Mahfuz, who is a dear friend of mine. Who is your favorite filmmaker? Boy, oh man. I don't remember the names of some of my favorite filmmakers.
But I do like the works of Abbas Gharastami. I think he's a very important filmmaker. Obviously, he's very decorated and things like that. I like that aesthetic. So if I'm going to have to go with somebody, I'll go with Abbas Gharastami. Saber WRV asked, can you share the hadith about Palestine and Israel? We have that, alhamdulillah, on Yaqeen Institute. So if you check Yaqeen Institute, we have articles and written material on the benefits and the blessing of Palestine. Minami Islam Khan. Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah. No worries. You can always catch up on the show. We're happy to have everybody live with us. But as you know, it will be up inshaAllah. And we hope that everybody benefits as we can. So that seems to be the end of the questions. We ask Allah subhana wa ta'ala to accept from us and from you. And that we please Allah subhana wa ta'ala with all that we do. May Allah continue to guide us with what is pleasing to Him. Subhanakallahu wa bihamdika sharafa la ilaha ila anta. Astaghfirullah al-Fatiha. Until next time. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.
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