Easter & The Illusion of Victory | Jumu'ah Khutbah | Dr. Omar Suleiman

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. We begin by praising Allah, by bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him.

And we bear witness that Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. We ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

The Illusion of Victory: Lessons from the Story of Isa

Dear brothers and sisters, when Allah marks for us the moment in which they thought they crucified Isa عليه السلام — they thought they crucified Jesus, peace be upon him — it's very interesting because there are many additional words that convey the way people were feeling at the time. The way that the aggressors were feeling, the way that the disciples of Christ were feeling, the way that the disciples of Isa عليه السلام himself were feeling.

And I want to situate this in a present day context. Sometimes what is more important in the process of war is not the shedding of blood, but who's winning the morale war. And so when you have a president that says we just can't get enough of our winning, we just keep on winning, we win, we win, we win, we're always winning — and you know, Jesus was a winner — and some people say, I'm like Jesus, and there are definitely people that treat him like Jesus, treat him like Isa عليه السلام, that are around him. And we're witnessing the perverse, strange mix of theology and politics in a place where we, the Muslims, are often accused of being backwards and crazy, but alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, the images and the videos speak for themselves, and hopefully are causing a lot of people to be a bit more self-reflective about the types of projections that come from this country towards others.

On the other hand, you have the Lego animations that are being used from the Iranian side that demonstrate panic and losing, and losing, and losing. And in so many ways, I think when we go back and we study the logic of this all, and how this all played out, these things actually seem to have more weight than actual power on the ground, and what's actually happening amongst people right now — like what's actually happening, what's the casualty count, where's the destruction, what's happening here? It's trying to build morale in both directions, and the idea is the projection of power.

Now, I don't want to reduce any of this before I get started in the ayah and how it relates today. As funny as this may all seem sometimes, when we circulate these videos — and it is sometimes humorous, to where this has become and where we've reached in terms of a global population and the state of our politics — there are innocent people that are paying the price always. So let's never, as Muslims, remove our hearts from our brothers and sisters, whether they're in Palestine, where they continue to be oppressed and it continues to get worse, or in Lebanon, where the aggression is now spreading and there have been so many casualties that we can't keep up, or in Iran, where the innocent people are completely being blacked out in terms of their casualty counts, or the Muslims anywhere that are victim to this entire thing playing out, the innocent anywhere that are victim to this entire thing playing out that have nothing to do with it. May Allah protect them all, and may Allah have mercy on the innocent wherever they may be. Allahumma ameen.

The Quranic Account: They Did Not Kill Him

But it is to go to that projection of "we're winning, we won," and I want to take that back to the moment where those who thought that they killed Isa عليه السلام — killed Jesus, peace be upon him — thought that they won. And obviously this is very relevant to Easter weekend. And I don't want to make this a deeply theological discussion; there's time to actually unpack the arguments that Isa عليه السلام was not crucified, and all of the proofs that exist in early Christianity and things of that sort. I want to focus on the spiritual lessons that are embedded in the ayah.

Allah says:

When they said: "Verily, we killed Isa, Jesus the son of Mary, Rasool Allah, the messenger of Allah." The ulema mention first and foremost — why would they say Rasool Allah when they didn't believe that he was a messenger of Allah in the first place, and that's why they were attacking him? They were saying this istihza'an, to mock the believers. "We killed your supposed messenger of Allah." And this was not uncommon at the time. Read about how Yahya عليه السلام was beheaded, how Zakariya عليه السلام was cut into two, how the prophets of Bani Israel, one by one — at the end period of Bani Israel, leading up to Isa عليه السلام — were hunted down and martyred, one after the other. So it moved well beyond takdheeb, well beyond denial, at that point. For the prophets of Bani Israel, it was murder after murder after murder after murder.

So: إِنَّا قَتَلْنَا الْمَسِيحَ ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ — "We killed Jesus the son of Mary, Rasool Allah, supposedly, Al-Masih, Isa, supposedly the Messiah, supposedly Rasool Allah — we killed him." And Allah says: وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمْ — they neither killed him, nor did they crucify him, but rather it was made to appear that way to them.

But here's where it gets interesting. Allah says: وَإِنَّ الَّذِينَ اخْتَلَفُوا فِيهِ لَفِي شَكٍّ مِّنْهُ — the differences and the groups and everything that kind of came after that narrative, there was a doubt even amongst themselves: did we really kill him or not? Was that really him or not? We don't know. But let's double down on the narrative that we did kill him, because we have to project power. Remember — we're winning. So we have to show that we're winning. We keep on winning. Everything is good. The empire is preserved. We're the ones who won this victory. So even if we have doubts in ourselves about whether or not we got him, let's project that image of victory.

And Allah is saying they're actually toiling in doubt. Allah says: مَا لَهُم بِهِ مِنْ عِلْمٍ إِلَّا اتِّبَاعَ الظَّنِّ — they have no knowledge except what they've construed upon assumptions. So you can imagine the conversations after: "Well, we got him from this house, and yeah, maybe he did something uncharacteristic here, and maybe this was too easy, but still — we can construe, that must have been him, right?" اتِّبَاعَ الظَّنِّ. They were building a narrative for themselves on assumption from the very beginning. And Allah says: وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ يَقِينًا — and there are two interpretations, two benefits from this part of the verse: "they certainly did not kill him," or "they did not kill him in certainty." Both of them have added benefits to the narrative.

The Narration of Ibn Abbas: The Hawariyun and the Shabah

So let's go to the moment from a spiritual perspective — بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى — to derive what we can take. And we'll take the authentic narration of Ibn Abbas, which is in Ibn Abi Shaybah, where he says that Isa عليه السلام — so this is one of the narrations of what happened, and it's the most authentic of the narrations that we find in tafsir going to Ibn Abbas — that as the plot thickened, as they were coming to take him, he gathered his disciples, he gathered the Hawariyun, and he said:

(Narrated by Ibn Abbas, reported in Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah)

"Who amongst you will take my appearance, be killed in my place, and enjoy my companionship — my degree in Paradise as well?"

And so one of the Hawariyun volunteers himself to be that person, to step forward and to be crucified in his place. And he was the youngest one, who volunteered three times. And subhanAllah, there is a similarity here to Ali رضي الله عنه, when he volunteered — when he took the place of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم willingly, without hesitation, to sleep in the bed where the assassins would come to find the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. And that pure youth, and that pure zeal that exists when he stands at Safa and says, "I've got you, Ya Rasulullah." So the youngest one says, "I will take your position, O Messenger of Allah," to Isa عليه السلام.

And so Allah raises Isa عليه السلام to the heavens, and this man has the shabah — the appearance of Isa عليه السلام — given to him. As Isa عليه السلام ascends to the heavens unharmed, Allah saves him from the plot of his enemies. This is the young man that will go and that will be killed in his place, and as a result, made a shaheed, and as a result, will have the position with Isa عليه السلام in Paradise as well.

And there's so much, subhanAllah, when you start to unpack the richness of the tafsir of this — that what caused the dhann of those who thought they were killing him, who thought that they were crucifying him, even though they were projecting a certainty that they got him — perhaps it was his reaction at the time when he was just about to be killed that didn't resemble the actions of Isa عليه السلام. Perhaps it was just too easy. And this is actually what's suggested in some of the early Christian writings, that Pontius was surprised: "This was too easy. We thought this was going to be a lot harder." Certain things were not adding up about the crucifixion of Isa عليه السلام.

And if you go to Psalm 91, even till now — and this is why some of the early Jewish writers in particular said the Messiah cannot be killed. One of the proofs of a Masih, of the Messiah, is he can't be killed. So the fact that we killed him is a proof that he wasn't a Masih. Which gives a lot of richness to this, where it says in Psalm 91: "You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you say the Lord is my refuge and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you." Until the end of this passage. So the Messiah cannot be killed by his enemies. The Messiah cannot be harmed in this way. And this was part of their boasting — that they killed Isa عليه السلام.

Now again, I'm already at time, I don't have time to unpack this from a Christian perspective. But subhanAllah, I use this as a moment to mention Dr. Gerald Dirks, may Allah have mercy on him, who was a Harvard professor and deacon in the Methodist church, who converted to Islam and wrote incredibly about the early accounts of Isa عليه السلام being spared from crucifixion — to where even any Christian historian would have to admit that those accounts existed, even if they don't agree with those accounts. That early Christians, or early followers of Christ, there was a narrative — even if they disagree with that narrative — that Isa عليه السلام was not actually crucified. Whether it's the early group of the Basilideans, or writings that exist against those who were saying that Isa عليه السلام was not crucified.

The Gospels were compiled later. None of those who wrote the Gospels were there historically at the time where Isa عليه السلام — or whoever would have been in the place of Isa عليه السلام — was crucified. And there are actual contradictions in the Gospels themselves — technical contradictions about timing, about specifications of what happened — which is natural when it's مَبْنِيًّا عَلَى الظَّنِّ, when it's built upon dhann, exactly what Allah says. Assumptions. People are collecting assumptions, so different words are spoken, different accounts are being given, and a different story is being told.

Allah Sparing Isa: The Deeper Spiritual Meaning

But overall, the idea of the crucifixion of Christ — this is not a khutbah to unpack that. I want to go to the idea of Allah sparing Isa عليه السلام and what that actually means in the current context that we are in right now.

First of all, when Allah says:

"They did not kill him nor did they crucify him." Some of the scholars say that the specific mention of مَا صَلَبُوهُ — that this wasn't a situation like Asiya عليها السلام when she was killed by her husband Fir'aun, where Fir'aun obviously had the stone drop on his wife and her soul ascended. Like, you never even got him in the physically compromised position. That is how much Allah spared him from your plot. وَلَٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمْ — rather, it was made to look that way to you.

And Allah says: وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ يَقِينًا — they certainly did not kill him. One of the important interpretations of this is that Allah is refuting anyone that would start to try to make an alternative narrative, to start to do this tafsir and this tafsir and this tafsir — but what about this, and what about this, and what about that? No.

He was a messenger to Bani Israel, but he's an ayah for the people. His mission remains, and he was certainly not killed.

But again — for them as well. You can imagine when they walked away, they didn't have the yaqeen, the certainty, that they were projecting to the people. And this is important. Oftentimes it's all a game — that the most insecure people in the world project a sense of victory and security because they know how little of it they actually have. And so the yaqeen that they were projecting was actually a cover for their doubts, a cover for how much they knew that they were actually losing. They actually did not have the control of the narrative that they thought they had. And Allah عز وجل is showing us that they're a lot more insecure than they project — and that is the case for every single person who follows in their behavior.

History Repeating Itself: The Same Mindset

You know, one of the wisdoms by the way of Allah عز وجل leaving the ambiguity at the time — because you have to imagine that if you lived at the time, you might have lived and died and thought that Isa عليه السلام was killed. They won. So wherever you stand on the spectrum, wherever you are, whoever's side you're on — they won. You might have thought that they won physically.

And Allah عز وجل is speaking to a behavior. And subhanAllah of the wisdoms of that behavior continuing, and of the wisdoms of that continuation of the arrogance, is that the same type of behavior that exists in the followers of Dajjal that will be pursued by Isa عليه السلام is the same behavior of those that once pursued Isa عليه السلام. It's the same mindset. Like if you were to take a culture and an attitude — and you took those that were chasing Isa عليه السلام and then you compared them to the people that will be chased by Isa عليه السلام while they are with Dajjal — they're the same people. The same type of evil, the same types of arrogance.

And so history doesn't just repeat itself in the meta sense. History repeats itself in the personality types as well. Wow — so that's how Fir'aun must have talked. That's how the followers of Isa عليه السلام must have been in terms of righteousness. That's how the evil opponents of Isa عليه السلام must have been. So it's a continuation.

What Do We Do in This Moment?

Now, what do we do in the moment that we are in today? And how do we take something that is beneficial of this for ourselves? Allah عز وجل always defines the timeline not by our end as people, but by the end that He has written for this world. So:

After Uhud, after they just lost physically: "Don't grieve. Don't be sad. You are in fact the exalted ones should you be believers."

The end victory is for the pious. Meaning the timeline of Allah is one where, as a member of the Ummah of the Prophets — because Ummatikum, Allah عز وجل refers to us as the nation of all of the Prophets and we're specifically the nation of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم — it doesn't matter where I am on the timeline. I know what the end of the story looks like and I'm satisfied with that. And so if I die at one of the low points, so long as I die having believed in the promise of Allah and retaining that belief and that security in His promise — not my current day politics — I'm so satisfied with that. Because the end is وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ. Allah already wrote the end and told us what the end is going to be, and everything that happens in the meantime is a build up to that end.

And so while they think they're writing their domination, Allah is simultaneously writing their destruction — and we know it. And you can see how two people can be looking at the exact same thing and come away with the opposite conclusions.

Delusion vs. Certainty: The Hypocrites and the Believers

So when Allah عز وجل mentions the hypocrites — whether they were with Musa عليه السلام or they were with Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم — what did they say?

"Allah and the messenger did not promise us except for delusion." What did the believers say as opposed to that?

"This is what Allah and the messenger promised us." So we're satisfied. هَٰذَا مَا وَعَدَ الرَّحْمَٰنُ وَصَدَقَ الْمُرْسَلُونَ — "This is what Al-Rahman promised us and the messengers are always truthful." They're looking at the same situation. They're dealing with the same circumstances. But some people are relegated to the moment and they define win and loss by the moment.

And Allah عز وجل uses the word ghuroor every single time. SubhanAllah. Delusion. Delusion. In fact, Allah عز وجل says:

SubhanAllah, I can't think of a time where you can reflect more on this verse. "Don't be deceived by the way that the disbelievers just traverse this land like they own it." They act like they own the place. They think they own the land. They think they own the skies. I'm not even going to talk about the sky power and they look up and they see death and destruction everywhere and then praise Jesus. It's a weird time that we live in. But لَا يَغُرَّنَّكُمْ — don't be deceived by the way that they traverse on this land. And Allah عز وجل says: مَتَاعٌ قَلِيلٌ — it's just a short time. Remember? This is a chapter I told you was going to happen. It's a short time. It always gets written in the exact same way. So do not be deceived by those things.

Practical Lessons: How to Measure Yourself in This Moment

And so I want to end on this note, dear brothers and sisters, for ourselves. How do you measure yourself in the moment with everything that's happening?

Number one: Measure yourself in regards to where you are standing right now with al-haqq — with the truth. Measure yourself by Allah's promise, not by your political analysis. What has Allah promised? And how am I aligned to that promise right now? As a community, as individuals. And if the truth is unclear:

"O Allah, show us the truth as truth and guide us to follow that truth, and show us falsehood as falsehood and protect us from falling into that falsehood."

Think about it. It's not "O Allah, make us from the successful ones, make us from the powerful ones." Where do you find the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم du'as revolving around this idea of just power at any cost? We want to win so badly. No — we're asking for al-nasr, but victory that is in accordance with al-haqq. And we're satisfied with the timeline of Allah as it relates to those who have been deceived by it. The very same timeline that we're satisfied by, others have been deceived by. Alhamdulillah. This is a sign of hazima — it's actually a sign of delusion and destruction when a person feels like they've reached the point of immunity.

Alhamdulillah rabbil alameen — when you see Ben Gvir, لعنه الله, popping the wine bottles — ya Allah, ya Allah, ya Allah — let us see his misery, his eternal misery. That's a sign of their loss. Inside of themselves, they know they're losing. You know what they're talking about in their rooms? Panic. There is panic. And they project pride. But there's a reason why they're acting this way. Because inside of themselves, they don't have yaqeen. They absolutely have no certainty about themselves. They're always paranoid. They're always anxious. They're always worried.

The believers are concerned, but they're not anxious. Yeah, we're concerned about Al-Aqsa. We're concerned about our people. But we're not anxious. We don't have a mistrust in Allah.

A Personal Warning: Beware of Istidraj

And dear brothers and sisters, I say this on a personal level. Last week I talked about:

Those who worship Allah on an edge — and if they're doing everything right, but then bad things happen to them, they start to misjudge Allah. There is an opposite to that equation too, on a very personal level. Which is when you yourself can fall into istidraj — being reeled in. And what do I mean by that? That's when you're doing something evil, and you're actually not facing any consequences at all, on a personal level. And you kind of look around and say, "You know what? I'm committing this sin, but money is good, career is good, everything seems to be trending alright on the relationship side and the family side. So I think I can get away with this." In that situation, you're actually projecting a mini version of the same people that we hate when they project victory despite their evil. And so you have to also analyze yourself — just because I'm getting away with something doesn't mean I'm really getting away with it. And I could be in the same state of ghuroor, that delusion that Allah talks about in the grand scale of things.

May Allah عز وجل protect us from it, and may Allah grant us victory and help us to understand that not every success is a sign of Allah's pleasure, and not every test is a sign of Allah's displeasure. But rather, when we align ourselves to Allah and His Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم, then victory is promised, and success is promised.

May Allah عز وجل write for us victory in this life, and may Allah write for us salvation in the hereafter. Allahumma ameen.

Second Khutbah: Du'as and Closing

فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوهُ عَلَى النِّعَمِ يَزِدْكُمْ وَلَذِكْرُ اللَّهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ — Remember Allah and He will remember you. Thank Him for His blessings and He will increase you. And the remembrance of Allah is the greatest. And Allah knows all that you do. And establish the prayer.