# Why The Epstein Empire Attacked Iran | Ramadan Pause and Reflect #7

**Author:** Dr. Omar Suleiman
**Series:** Pause and Reflect
**Published:** 2026-03-04
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/Hgl_AyviidA
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/pause-and-reflect-ramadan-2026/why-the-epstein-empire-attacked-iran-ramadan-pause-and-reflect-7
**Topics:** Acts of Worship, Sharia

## Summary
In this Ramadan reflection, the speaker draws a powerful parallel between contemporary political scandals — specifically referencing the Epstein files and the war on Iran as a potential distraction — and historical patterns of elite corruption described in the Quran. He focuses on the ayah from Surah Al-Isra [Al-Isra 17:16]: 'And when We wish to destroy a town, We command its elite, and they commit wickedness therein, so the word is justified against it, and We destroy it with complete destruction.' The speaker presents three scholarly interpretations of this verse: (1) Allah commanded the elite with righteousness and they disobeyed; (2) Allah allowed their evil to consume them as a precursor to destruction; and (3) Allah gave them wealth, power, and means, which they used to indulge their lowest desires until destruction came. He connects this Quranic principle to historical examples, including how Allah exposed Al-Walid ibn Mughirah's illegitimate birth when he tried to humiliate Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), how Prophet Yahya (ﷺ) was martyred for refusing to legitimize the corrupt desires of Herod Antipas, and how Fir'awn's regime was built on exploitation and moral depravity. The speaker emphasizes that the pattern of corrupt elites using distraction, deflection, and war to cover their scandals is timeless. He concludes with hope, noting that in the Quran, the exposure and destruction of corrupt elites are divinely linked — when they feel most invincible and most exposed, that is precisely when Allah's punishment arrives. He calls on believers to recognize these signs and to make du'a for the oppressed.

## Key Points
- The Quran in Surah Al-Isra [Al-Isra 17:16] describes a divine pattern: when Allah wishes to destroy a people, their elites fall into extreme moral corruption, which then justifies their destruction.
- Scholars offer three interpretations of this ayah: Allah commanded righteousness and they disobeyed; Allah allowed their evil to grow unchecked; or Allah gave them power and resources which they used to pursue corrupt desires.
- The speaker draws a parallel between modern political scandals (e.g., the Epstein files) and the historical pattern of corrupt elites using wars and distractions to deflect from their own exposure.
- Allah exposed Al-Walid ibn Mughirah's corruption — including his illegitimate birth — when he tried to humiliate Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), showing that divine exposure of elites is a Quranic theme.
- Prophet Yahya (ﷺ) was martyred because he refused to give religious legitimacy to the corrupt desires of the political elite (Herod Antipas), illustrating the danger righteous scholars face when confronting power.
- Fir'awn's regime exemplified elite moral decay, with exploitation and atrocities hidden behind palace walls — a historical archetype of corrupt power.
- Imam al-Qayyim noted that oppressors become unjust partly because they become enslaved to their desires, eventually losing all sense of fitrah and viewing people merely as tools.
- The concept of 'every accusation is a confession' is highlighted — the speaker notes that what corrupt elites accuse others of often reflects their own practices.
- Allah connects the destruction of corrupt elites to their public exposure — when they feel most invincible and their crimes are most visible, that is when divine punishment arrives.
- The speaker closes with a du'a asking Allah to give victory to the oppressed, elevate the righteous, and protect believers from becoming victims or perpetrators of such corruption.

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Have you ever heard of political scandals that involve the corrupt elite that were then used to do all sorts of horrible things in the world as a form of distraction? Does that story sound familiar to you? Ok, I see some of the brothers as soon as they hear Epstein

**[0:17]** files they'll turn around and walk back in the masjid to hear the rest of the khutbah. Everyone is like, what is going on here? I want you, before I mention the ayah in the juz that we just completed, I want you to imagine what would the Epstein files in the

**[0:35]** time of Quraysh look like? And then go a bit back, what would it have looked like in the time of Bani Israel, Fir'awn, in terms of their ruling political elite and the fadha'ih, the exposure and the humiliation that came out, and then how they reacted to those scandals

**[0:55]** that came out. And subhanAllah you will see the trend in history constantly repeating itself. And so that I'm not being ambiguous at all, it is very obvious to any discerning eye that the war on Iran and much of what is happening right now in terms of political

**[1:13]** turmoil is a distraction from the fadha'ih, from the exposure and the humiliation that has come out in these files. That involves the political elite, that involves the media elite, that is so disgusting beyond imagination that even the most conspiratorial minds, when

**[1:29]** you start to read a little bit into that, as to what these people do, how satanic they actually are, you say, أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم ونسأل الله أن يعافينا. May Allah protect us from their evil, and they are indeed evil, and these practices, and the attempt to cover that up because they are not being held accountable

**[1:49]** and they don't want to be held accountable. There is something extremely gross and disgusting about it, and there is no doubt that war is a fitting distraction to that. Who knows what type of blackmail exists there. You know, there is some reporting, and I'm going to

**[2:05]** say this is unverified reporting, so I'm going to actually make that clarification, that even using the words EP, Epic Fury, not because it involves Masjid Epic in any way, Epic Masjid, Epic Fury, EP is a way of getting the SEO, the search engine optimization, instead of

**[2:21]** Epstein, Epic have EP so that when people put Trump's name in it, they get that. And you see all these things circulating, but it's very clear that people are catching on to the idea that there are fadha'ih, that there are humiliations, and exposures, and scandals that are being covered here by the political and media elite, and that this war has something

**[2:42]** to do with that. Some sort of blackmail, some sort of disgusting cover-up is happening right now. And I was thinking about this one ayah in Surah Al-Isra, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala says, وَإِذَا أَرَدْنَا أَن نُهْلِكَ قَرْيَةً أَمَرْنَا مُتْرَفِيهَا فَفَسَقُوا فِيهَا فَحَقَّ عَلَيْهَا

**[3:02]** الْقَوْلُ فَدَمَّرْنَاهَا تَدْمِيرًا. It's in Surah Al-Isra, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala says, And when we command, when we command its elites, there are different ways to interpret this ayah, the ulama give three interpretations, إِذَا أَرَدْنَا أَن نُهْلِكَ

**[3:21]** قَرْيَةً أَمَرْنَا مُتْرَفِيهَا. We either command its elites, the corrupt, the elites of society to obey Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala فَفَسَقُوا فِيهَا And they disobey Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, and so one interpretation is that Allah Azawajal

**[3:37]** gives the command and they disobey, that's one interpretation, okay? So إِرَادَة الشَّرْعِيَّة, Allah legislated a command of righteousness فَفَسَقُوا فِيهَا So they disobeyed فَحَقَّ عَلَيْهَا الْقَوْلُ So therefore the punishment upon them was

**[3:53]** justified فَدَمَّرْنَاهَا تَدْمِيرًا And so complete destruction came upon them, so one interpretation is that Allah Azawajal commanded the elite with good, with righteousness, and they disobeyed and so the punishment was written upon them and complete and utter destruction came to them.

**[4:09]** Another interpretation is أَمَرْنَا here means divine decree كَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ That Allah Azawajal let it happen Not that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala commanded them to be evil, but Allah allowed their evil to get the best of them and to grow to a place where the ayah would read like this

**[4:27]** When we want to destroy a people, we let their elites fall into complete moral corruption, into complete decay, فُسُوق. And then the punishment becomes justified and then you see them completely wiped out. So another interpretation because الله لا يأمر بالسوء

**[4:42]** Allah does not command السوء والفحشاء. He doesn't command evil Here أَمَرْنَا is كَتَبْنَا. Allah lets it happen And the ayah before that من اهتدى فإنما يهتدي لنفسه ومن ضل فإنما يضل عليها. Right, it says that those that are guided are given guidance as a gift for their pursuit

**[4:59]** and those that are misguided essentially, they are allowed to be misguided Allah Azawajal gives them misguidance and there is a choice that is taken towards misguidance So the first interpretation, we commanded them with righteousness, they responded with evil

**[5:15]** The second one is when we wanted to destroy them, we let their evil get the best of them and so you saw their elites, مُتْرَفِيهَا is their elites, fall into complete corruption and then the punishment came upon them The third one is أَمَرْنَا لَهُمْ. We commanded for them which as some of the مُفَسِّرُون say

**[5:34]** Allah Azawajal gives them numbers and power and money basically gives them the tools to access their lowest desires as a sign right before they feel invincible and then Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala snatches them So again the idea of this ayah is when the destruction of a people is near

**[5:53]** you see it in their elites acting in the most atrocious and corrupt of ways and when their مُتْرَفِيهَا, when their elites act in that way, then know that destruction is near So let's get back to this idea of the political class and the فَضَائِح One of the things subhanAllah that you'll find even in the time of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)

**[6:11]** Allah was exposing the elites of Quraysh that were trying to deflect with their insults of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) and their opposition to Islam from their own corruption The most popular one is when Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala exposed Al-Walid ibn Mughirah

**[6:30]** Al-Walid used to stand in front of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) and boast about his lineage He used to boast about his children, he used to boast about his money and he kept trying to humiliate Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) Then Allah Azawajal dropped the ayah عُتُلِّ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ زَنِيمٌ. That he's a child of adultery, he's an illegitimate child

**[6:49]** Al-Walid goes to his mother and he says, Muhammad (ﷺ) described me with nine ayahs, nine signs The first eight I agree with them, this ninth one, what is this all about? And then it was revealed His mother explained that he was in fact a child of zina, a child of adultery

**[7:07]** So this man who's been boasting and trying to humiliate Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) Allah Azawajal humiliated him instead The political scandal came to light and then people knew that this man was born of zina Go back to Bani Israel, go back to Fir'awn and there are a few things that you will see

**[7:25]** Number one, you will find that there is a story that's being told between Surah Al-Isra, Surah Al-Kahf and Surah Maryam You notice Surah Al-Isra which is Surah Bani Israel talks about the corruption of Bani Israel It's actually called Surah Bani Israel as well

**[7:41]** Surah Al-Kahf, the story of Musa (ﷺ) that we started with tonight with Al-Khidr (ﷺ) is a post Bani Israel reality What do I mean by that? Musa (ﷺ) was sent to meet Al-Khidr (ﷺ) after Bani Israel refused to enter into Jerusalem

**[7:58]** as Allah Azawajal wrote it for them and they were punished with the exodus and Musa (ﷺ) is taken on this journey that gives him a deeper understanding of Qadr And then comes Surah Maryam and Zakariya (ﷺ) is looking out at Bani Israel

**[8:14]** and he doesn't see a prophet to succeed him or any sign of righteousness to keep it going So he makes du'a for a son, Allah gives him who? Yahya (ﷺ) with all these beautiful and noble qualities, a righteous man

**[8:29]** And why will Yahya (ﷺ) be martyred? Why would Yahya who has all these beautiful qualities حَنَانًا مِّن لَدُنَّا Who was so kind and compassionate and merciful that even the animals Yahya (ﷺ) was giving his food to the animals because of how kind and merciful he was

**[8:46]** بَرًّا بِوَالِدَيْهِ So good to his parents, has so much mercy, has so much compassion He was someone who was the most authoritative on the Torah, right? He's a scholar, a jurist Why would Yahya (ﷺ) be killed? Because he refused to give in to the lust of the political elites

**[9:05]** So the political elites, Herod Antipas essentially wanted Yahya (ﷺ) to sign off on incest to allow him access to a nasty relationship Something that would not be encompassed in the Shari'ah of Yahya (ﷺ)

**[9:22]** in the Shari'ah of Isa (ﷺ), in the Shari'ah of Musa (ﷺ) This would never be encompassed, right? He wanted Yahya to sign off on something nasty Yahya (ﷺ) was the righteous, noble scholar And so they knew if Yahya says something

**[9:37]** he speaks with the authority of the Torah Because he refused to sign off on their wickedness, on their corruption What did they do? The woman who would have benefited from that relationship ordered for Yahya's head So he was beheaded, Yahya (ﷺ)

**[9:53]** Because he refused to give in to the corruption The moral decay of Bani Israel at the top Okay, you go back before that to Fir'awn What would the fadha'ih, what would the evil of Fir'awn look like? You can read the Isra'iliyyat in the books of Tafsir

**[10:11]** about يُذَبِّحُونَ أَبْنَاءَكُمْ وَيَسْتَحْيُونَ نِسَاءَكُمْ What do you think they would do with the female survivors when they killed all the men? And you can see all of the exploitation and all of the nastiness that Fir'awn was marked for Fir'awn became a school of torture, a school of exploitation, a school of nasty things

**[10:31]** Imagine if the files came out on Fir'awn behind those walls What is the point of all of this? Imam al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) he talks about the dhulm that takes place أَهْلَكْنَاهُمْ لَمَّا ظَلَمُوا That Allah Azawajal punishes these people when they become oppressors

**[10:49]** That there are pathways to these people becoming ظَالِمِين One of them is that they become so enslaved to their desires That those desires become more and more and more bizarre That they keep on feeding them and getting into stranger places

**[11:06]** And people merely become tools of access to those desires And so they start to give in and they no longer have any sense of fitrah Their morality is completely gone And because their morality is gone, they don't see people as people anymore

**[11:22]** They see everything as a tool to their desires And the desire to dominate is a شَهْوَة That is a desire So ظَالِم comes from a desire to dominate, a desire of power And then it's power by any means necessary And so there is a relationship between people losing their complete moral compass

**[11:40]** And then being willing to use people in pursuit of their complete moral decay And then how do they act when they find themselves in that situation or when they are exposed? There is distraction, there is deflection

**[11:55]** Fir'awn trying to shame Musa (ﷺ) You killed that man Who is Fir'awn to shame someone for murder? Who is Fir'awn to try to shame Musa (ﷺ) for murder? Like do you realize who you are? But deflection, distraction, find something else

**[12:11]** Throw another name at Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) Make another excuse Hurry up, turn their attention elsewhere Because otherwise their corruption and their decay will be exposed And Allah Azawajal is saying that it gets to a point where the rot cannot be ignored anymore

**[12:31]** The rotting cannot be ignored anymore And when that rot cannot be ignored anymore حَقَّ عَلَيْهِمُ الْقَوْلُ You know if you read Adwa' al-Bayan My favorite tafsir that I read on In general one of my favorite tafsir Muhammad Amin al-Shanqiti (رحمه الله)

**[12:47]** So he was talking about this ayah in particular And he was breaking down the three opinions that I mentioned And subhanAllah you look at حَقَّ عَلَيْهِمُ الْقَوْلُ Or حَقَّ عَلَيْهَا الْقَوْلُ in this ayah It becomes prescribed upon it punishment Like does Allah Azawajal need anyone to give him permission to destroy a person?

**[13:05]** Allah knows what this person is going to become, right? Allah knows what these people are going to become But Allah Azawajal حَقَّ عَلَيْهَا الْقَوْلُ One of the benefits of that That it becomes justified written upon them Is that no one will cry any tears for these people

**[13:23]** When Allah Azawajal brings divine justice on them That they fall in the sight of the people And they become so hated and so despicable That when Allah's justice falls upon them مَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالْأَرْضُ No one sheds a tear for them Alhamdulillah

**[13:39]** You can put in your imagination Who, by the permission of Allah, Will satisfy us one day with their destruction Right? You say Alhamdulillah No one says, oh what a good man anymore No one says, oh what a good woman No, like it's someone's فُسُوق

**[13:55]** Someone's evil and their moral decay becomes so obvious That they participated in something so evil حَقَّ عَلَيْهَا الْقَوْلُ فَدَمَّرْنَاهَا تَدْمِيرًا And then complete destruction comes upon them The last thing I share with you is this I know that many of us, subhanAllah

**[14:10]** When we see like these types of things Like where are we living? What kind of time are we living in? Seriously, what kind of time are we living in? To see the level of evil And it's very clear now Every accusation is a confession

**[14:25]** Everything they accuse us of, they do Everything the Zionists accused the Palestinians of, they did And everything they accuse Muslims and Islam of And our beloved Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) of It is their practice They actually do those things It's very clear now To the point that when they make an accusation

**[14:41]** You should know right away that that is a confession That what they're saying is a confession Of what their lives are actually like What is the hope of this all? That Allah (ﷻ) connected their destruction To their exposure He connected their destruction to their exposure

**[14:57]** That when they reached that point Where they felt invincible And when they were completely exposed That that's when destruction came upon them That that's when their end was near And the thing is that in the minds of these people When they think that they've escaped accountability

**[15:14]** For the most disgusting of their crimes And the most shameless of their crimes That's when they think they're most invincible Because like I'm looking around Nothing happened to me I wasn't destroyed And that's when Allah (ﷻ) takes them by surprise From a place that they never expected وإذا أردنا أن نهلك قرية

**[15:31]** Allah (ﷻ) says when we wish to destroy a people أمرنا مترفيها فحق عليها القول ففسقوا فيها فحق عليها القول فدمرناها تدميرا So remember this next time You're reading in [Al-Isra 17] And you're going through these verses

**[15:47]** That Allah (ﷻ) is not just telling us The stories of prophets and righteous ones That stood up against the corruption of their time And the empires of their time Allah (ﷻ) is also telling us About the disappearance and the destruction Of those empires that they stood up against The same people that mocked them Became mocked in history for their depravity

**[16:03]** May Allah (ﷻ) allow us to see that as well With those who are being exposed today And may Allah (ﷻ) give victory to the oppressed And may Allah (ﷻ) elevate the righteous And may Allah (ﷻ) spare us From being victims of their crimes

**[16:19]** Or from becoming criminals like them So that we would be punished in the hereafter like them May Allah (ﷻ) protect us in every way Allahumma ameen Jazakumullah khairan Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh

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