Muslims in the West - Where are we Going?

Khutbah: Muslims in the West - Where are we Going? (Part 1)

Speaker: Shaykh Yasir Qadhi

Event: London Universities Islamic Societies

Opening

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

As for some, whoever hopes to meet his Lord, let him do a good deed, and not associate anyone with the worship of his Lord.

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ، brothers and sisters, it is indeed by the great blessings of Allah that we have helped one another. We have helped one another and thus seen such a united effort from the Islamic societies of the London Universities. As Allah says:

And help you one another in righteousness and taqwa, in goodness, but do not help one another in sin and transgression.

And this united front is indeed by the bounty and grace of Allah. And it is something that we should be happy and rejoice over. We should be happy and rejoice over and express ifrah, rejoice, as Allah says:

Say in the bounty of Allah and in His mercy, therein, let them rejoice. That is better than what they accumulate.

The Balanced Nation

With respect to the topic of this event, which is in short the role and the responsibilities of the Muslims in the West, we must firstly understand, O Muslim, O brother, O sister, that we, the nation of Muhammad, are the balanced nation. Allah has given us a name, Ummah al-Wasata, the balanced nation. Allah says:

And thus we have raised you, O nation of Muhammad, O Ummah of Muhammad, as a balanced nation, as a middle nation.

And we are balanced in our beliefs, we are balanced in our speech, we are balanced in our action. In light of the current climate and the intense heat and pressure, trials and tribulations faced by the Muslims, we see on one hand, some Muslims reacting in an aggressive, emotional and unconstructive manner. Whereas on the other side, we see some Muslims in a state of apathy and do not bother to respond in any way or form.

Lessons from the Battle of Uhud

So is there a balance, is there a middle way between these two? Is there a balance between these two? Brothers and sisters, no finer example can be given than to what the Muslims were faced with at the Battle of Uhud. At the end of the Battle of Uhud, which we know the Muslims suffered defeat, Abu Sufyan, who had not yet embraced Islam at that time, he shouted at the top of his voice,اغوا هبل raise up Hubal, let Hubal be exalted, let Hubal be sublime. Hubal was one of the idols of Quraish, and he said this in a state of victory to imperil a further defeat on the Muslims that was psychological in nature.

He said اغوا هبل shouting this out to the Muslims, raise up Hubal, this statue of idol of ours, let him be sublime, this victory is to him. And this was met by an eerie silence from the Muslims. There was an eerie silence amongst the Muslims.

There was not a single response. But brothers and sisters, that silence was broken by the noble voice of our messenger Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) who looked at his companions, and he said, ألا تُجِيبُوا why will you not respond? Why will you not reply? And they looked at the messenger of Allah (صَلَّى الله عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) and said, what shall we say to our messenger of Allah? He said قُولُوا ، say اللَّهُ أَعْلَى وَأَجَلُّ. Say that Allah is the most high, the most sublime, and the majestic.

And so the Muslims responded to Abu Sufyan's statement with such, with Umar ibn Khattab leading on the reply. Then Abu Sufyan said, لَنَا الْعُزَّىٰ وَلَا عُزَّىٰ لَكُمْ We have Al-Uzza, another idol of Quraysh.

We have Al-Uzza, this idol of Quraysh, we have, and you have no Uzza. You do not have this idol. Trying to put, trying to reduce the morale of the Muslims.

Trying to impair this psychological defeat on the Muslims after they had lost this battle. And again, no response from the Muslims. An eerie silence.

And yet again, that silence was broken by the voice of the Prophet (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) who looked at his companion and said, ألا تجيبوا. Again, why will you not respond? And they said, يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ مَا نَقُولُ ، what shall we say to our messenger of Allah? He said قُولُوا اللَّهُ مَوْلَانَا وَلَا مَوْلَى لَكُمْ . Say that Allah is our Mawla, Allah is our helper, our patron, our supporter, our protector, and you have no Mawla.

And so Umar ibn Khattab again led the reply for the Muslims. And then Abu Sufyan said يَوْمٌ بِيَوْمِ بَدْرٍ وَالْحَرْبُ سِجَالٌ . A day for a day, you beat us at Badr, we beat you at Uhud.

War has alternating successes, we are now equal. Umar ibn Khattab (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) replied لا سَوَاءٌ، we are not equal. قَتْلَانَا فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَقَتْلَاكُمْ فِي النَّارِ Our dead are in Jannah, in the paradise. Your dead are in the hellfire.

So we see in this small but immensely beneficial incident in the seerah, in the life of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) how he taught us not to remain silent, but at the same time not to react with emotion. Not to react with emotion and say something that is pointless, futile, and has no values and is unconstructive.

But rather to respond. And thus we see the great difference between reaction and responding, where one is driven by emotion and the other is driven by knowledge.

Knowledge Precedes Action

So after seeing that we are balanced in our action and thus we should and are in fact obliged to respond, the next question that occurs is, how do we respond? One of the reasons, brothers and sisters, we have Surah Al-Fath recited today at the event, is to reflect upon the divinely revealed verses and the incident that occurred surrounding it, namely the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyah.

We see the Muslims having resorted to an action that appeared humiliating, that appeared as degrading, as weak, as a weak stance, whereas in fact it was one of victory and hence the revelation of this beautiful Surah. And we saw some of the companions like Umar ibn Khattab (رضي الله عنه) who had not possessed the knowledge and the wisdom that Allah (جَلّ جَلالة) had bestowed upon the Prophet (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) for making the decision of signing the treaty. But we see in hindsight, and thus at first, they were not coming to terms with it.

Umar ibn Khattab was not coming to terms with signing this treaty. He was not for this. But then subhanAllah, we see that in hindsight, the treaty was a cause for the victory of Mecca, the conquest of Mecca itself and the conquest of the empires of Rome and Persia.

And thus, that is why Allah (جَلّ جَلالة) referred to Al-Fath when He said إِنَّا فَتَحْنَا لَكَ فَتْحًا مُّبِينًا that verily we have given you, O Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) a manifest victory, an apparent victory. Quran 48:1

The Mufassireen, the scholars of Tafsir, the commentators of Qur'an said that that victory was the treaty of Al-Hudaybiyah. And thus, the famous notion of knowledge preceding action and speech.

As Allah (جَلَّ جَلال) says:

And so know, O Muhammad, that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah and seek forgiveness for your sin.

So knowledge precedes action and speech.

Five Critical Questions for Western Muslims

And so we are very honoured and privileged today to have with us Shaykh Ana Abu Ammar Yasir Qadhi.

أَمَّا بَعْدُ

In today many amongst us feel that what is happening is unique and unprecedented that this is the first time in the Ummah that the enemies of Islam have gathered that our lands have been attacked that such and such is happening but the reality is brothers and sisters that much of what is happening today has precedence in the past and in fact in all honesty certain incidents of the past were more critical for the Ummah and more dangerous for the Ummah than the situation we are facing today of them was the invasion of the Mongols and also of them was the Crusades so the reality is no doubt we are facing a crisis much is happening in the world but this is not the first time and nor will it be the last but there is one aspect of our situation that is unique there is one aspect that is absolutely and totally unprecedented in the history of not just the Ummah of the world today and that is the situation of western Muslims, us.

Never before has the world had what we call these secular democracies never before has the world had this type of government and governing system as it does and also never before have the Muslims in such a mass exodus left their countries and come to these new secular democracies or we call western lands and the reality is that the majority of Muslims not all of them, there are alhamdulillah many converts but the majority of Muslims that live in the modern western lands are not indigenous they are from foreign countries their fathers and grandfathers came and emigrated here wanting economic prosperity and hoping for better lives they came here not really thinking too much about the future not really thinking what am I going to do and my children and my grandchildren after me many of them maybe even thought they're coming for a few years to get some money and go back home but those years turned into decades and they got married and their children were born here and their children were raised here and it dawned upon them along the way that they have to do something to pass along their culture, their language, their religion their values to these children and so they had to improvise along the way masjids were built, schools were built but there was still no vision it was improvisation there was still no long term thinking what are we going to do as a community 5, 10, 15 generations down the line.

Question 1: Can Muslims Live in Non-Muslim Lands?

So let me start now by asking the first of these five critical questions and that is are we as Muslims even allowed to live in what we call the land of unbelievers and the reason why this question is important I don't think needs any explanation many of us don't feel comfortable living here that's the reality many of us have a tinge of guilt even that we're living in these lands we're not comfortable with our identity we're trying to discover who we are are we east, are we west are we a blend of the two so one of the questions that will answer this issue is the question can we really and truly reside amongst those who profess a religion other than our own and I will look at this question from two angles firstly from a purely theoretical shar'i point of view the Qur'an and Sunnah and secondly from a practical and pragmatic and realistic point of view.

The Hadith About Living Among Non-Muslims

From the shar'i point of view perhaps some of you have heard the opinion that hijrah is obligatory upon all Muslims and you have heard it from great ulama maybe one alim or more and maybe you've heard the hadith also quoted oft quoted in this regard and that is the hadith reported in At-Tirmidhi and Abu Dawood where the Prophet (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) reportedly said that أَنَا بَرِيءٌ مِن كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ يُقِيمٌ بَيْنَ ظَهْرَانَي المشركين every Muslim who lives amongst pagans I have nothing to do as some people translate with Muslims who live amongst non-Muslims their two fires should not be seen and so based upon this one hadith some ulama claimed that it is totally impermissible to live in non-Muslim lands.

Now we cannot go into a very deep fiqh tangent that is a topic in and of itself but to briefly illustrate that the issue is not black and white as many unfortunately believe and to be honest there are very very few issues in fiqh that are so black and white but just to make you think about certain issues first and foremost the hadith itself the majority of classical scholars considered it to be weak first and foremost the two people who narrated it Abu Dawood and At-Tirmidhi both of them they mentioned in their books that this is a mursal or a type of weak hadith secondly Imam At-Tirmidhi quotes his sheikh Al-Bukhari the famous author of Sahih Al-Bukhari also claiming that this hadith is not authentic likewise another famous scholar of Hadith Al-Daraqutni and even others Abu Zura and others they all claim that this hadith is not authentic obviously if the hadith is not authentic you cannot derive any rulings from it.

The Context of the Hadith

Now no doubt some scholars have considered to be authentic and that is their opinion but realize that even this issue is the issue of ikhtilaf or controversy suppose we say the hadith is authentic how do we understand it? is there only one interpretation? no if you look up the books of hadith and the explanations of hadith shurooh al-hadith if you look up the books of fiqh if you look up the commentary of the classical scholars you find that once again it's not a black and white issue many interpretations are given of this hadith and of them and there are many I'll give you only one which in my humble opinion is the strongest if we say the hadith is authentic and that is the hadith is a reference to a specific act that happened the hadith has a context what is this context? what happened was that the prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) sent out an expedition an army to attack a certain village enemy territory and that army attacked the village and killed the inhabitants in the village but it then turned out that some of those people were muslims some of the people whom the muslim army had killed were muslims who were living in that village that was an enemy territory and so in response to this the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said I free myself of responsibility bari of the blood of these muslims it's not my fault nor is it the fault of my companions in other words the hadith is a reference that if you're going to live in enemy lands in the times of dar al islam and dar al kufr which is another issue is there a dar al islam now and a pure muslim state which is another issue but if you're going to live in dar al harb or an enemy territory and something happens then the muslim state cannot hold responsibility for you this is the proper interpretation of the hadith that the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is saying that I cannot be responsible for their deaths if they live there that was their risk and their choice and that is one interpretation of the hadith if we consider it to be authentic.

Scholarly Consensus on Living in Non-Muslim Lands

Thirdly firstly we said the issue of hadith being authentic or not secondly the meaning of the hadith thirdly is this something which the scholars have unanimously agreed upon no the contrary is true the vast majority of scholars of Islam and the correct opinion in the hanafi and shafi'i and hanbali madhhabs is that it is totally permissible for a muslim to reside in any place on the face of this earth as long as they're able to practice their Islam which means they can pray the five prayers give the zakah fast the month of Ramadan and they are not forced to commit major sins if they're able to do this according to the vast majority of scholars they can live wherever they want to there is an opinion which is minority compared to this one the maliki's and the zahidi's they said it is totally impermissible and there is a third opinion as well which says that if a muslim is living amongst non muslims and is able to practice Islam it is wajib to remain you must remain why because you will spread some good you will spread Islam you will show them the real meaning and teachings of Islam so it's not a black and white issue that just because