When Will The Muslims Gain Victory?

Where Is the Victory of Allah?

Where is the victory of Allah that he's promised? Why do Muslims have to suffer so much? If we are the chosen believers by Allah, then why is it that we have such a hard time? Why don't we have the easy way out? And what is it that we have to do to revive, to return, and to receive that victory, that divine support that we must seek from Allah?

Divine support, the help of Allah, it doesn't always come in the form you think it's going to come. What did you think? You thought that it was going to come in the form of you stood over the broken idols of the Kaaba, of you having the keys to power? You thought it was going to come in a particular form? Well, that's not how it works. Allah works in his own ways.

The victory or the support does not always come in the shape that you expect it to come. And that's why when we look at what's happening today in Burma, in Palestine, in China, where there are oppressed Muslims, oppressed people, oppressed nations, we expect victory to be a certain way, to look a certain way.

The Laws Allah Set for This World

This world that Allah created, he created it with certain laws. You have the laws of physics. Everyone sitting here is obeying the laws of physics. If you're sat on the ground, that's because gravity is pulling you down. If you can see, it's because the laws of the speed of light and the travel through substances and the laws of reflection — physical reflection — all of that's happening. Allah created those laws in the world around you so that this world works in harmony. That's physical laws, the laws of nature, let's call it, the natural law.

Now, there's another group of laws that we don't learn about in school, we don't learn about in GCSEs, but these are also laws by which Allah governs this earth. Allah calls them Sunnatullah — the way of Allah, the pattern of Allah, the norm of Allah. Allah says: before you, everything I have done on this earth, the way I rule this earth, the way I look after this earth, it's always been according to certain laws, certain patterns.

If you want to know what they are, just travel through the lands and see the ruins of previous empires and nations. Go and see the ruins of 'Aad and Thamud. Those who reject Allah and those who rebel against Allah, Allah has promised them destruction. This is a law of Allah. He always fulfills his promise. You want to know how it happened? Go and look at 'Aad. Go and look at Thamud. Go and look at the ruins of Mesopotamia, of the other pagan civilizations. Go and see the emptiness of those civilizations. None of it remains.

A Conditional Promise

Often in the Qur'an, Allah shows us conditions. For example, Allah says: if you stand up and support me, I will support you. This is a rule. If you support me, I'm going to support you and I will give you firmness.

So he's setting up a pattern. He's setting up a rule, a system, a way of working. This is how I work. I don't do this until this happens first. This is not going to happen until this happens first. There's a pattern. There's a cycle.

Now the problem is, if you're not aware of this cycle — of the way Allah works — you start reacting to events in the world without seeing the bigger picture. You start reacting to these events as though this is the only thing that's ever going to happen and that's it. You've lost hope.

The Phases of Trial and Victory

Victory or ease or success or support is never going to come until you go through a period of difficulty. That's one of the rules of Allah. The believers are not all the same. There are slackers — people who are sitting and watching the telly — and there are hard workers. When they see injustice, they're standing up and doing something about it. Don't you think that before I give you victory, let's first see who's who. I need to filter the believers. That's my rule. I'm not going to give you victory until I first filter the believers. That's the rule of Allah.

So how do I filter the believers? You go into a mine and you mine raw steel ore — this raw rock from the middle of the earth. How are you going to filter this rock and get the raw metal from it? You have to put it through fire. 1,200 degrees Celsius fire. That's how you filter it. That's the only way to filter the impurities and get the pure material.

Allah is telling us: if you are going to be successful, if you're going to get my help and my support, I'm not going to give it to you until first I put you through the furnace. I melt the group of believers and I see who's the real believer and who's the lazy one, who's the loser amongst them. I need to see who's who and so I'm going to expose them.

Allah says: look at the prophets before you. Prophets before you went through phases. Number one, they were rejected. They had to be patient with all the rejection and all the fighting and all the opposition. They had to prove their patience. They had to be harmed for the sake of Allah. Once they went through this period of difficulty, harm, and affliction, then I gave them my support and my victory. And nobody can change the words and the ways and the rules of Allah. Haven't the previous stories of prophets come to you? You are going to have to go through — collectively as an ummah — a period of test before you get the victory. There's no other way.

The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil

One of the most important Sunnahs of Allah is that on this earth, there will always be a war, a fight, a struggle between good and evil. He designed it this way. When you ask the question — why did Allah create evil? Why did Allah create murder, rape, killing, racism, discrimination? Why did Allah create it? Well, that's the whole point. Without black, you won't know what's white. Without the evil, you won't know who's good. The whole point of the evil is that when Allah creates those tests and those circumstances, the good people — the real leaders — they stand up and they do something about it and they prove themselves. When that doesn't exist, you don't know what's what and who's who. Allah created the test on this earth to inspire those of good to stand up and do something about it.

And there will always be a struggle between good and evil. Every movie you've seen, every book you've read, all of the most famous stories in the last 100 to 300 years — there's always a fight between good and evil. Every story that's popular, that's well known, has the same template, the same pattern: good versus evil. Because this is something so known to human beings. We know it, we see it. But sometimes we don't realize it's happening. But this is how Allah designed this earth. It has to happen in this way.

The Real Battlefield Today: The War for the Human Mind

What is the greatest battle happening in the world today? The biggest battlefield in the world today is not a physical battlefield. It's not guns and torpedoes and tanks. The biggest battle of the world today is a battle for the human mind. The intellectual battle, the battle of the media, the battle of narratives.

The world has changed a lot in the last 300 to 400 years. Competition between nations and ideologies is: who can win the minds of people through TikTok, through social media, through what you watch on TV, through what content you consume. Your mind is being owned. Your ideas are being shaped and molded. This is where the real battle is. The physical battlefields are just a distraction. This is really where the battle is. And then you have every person's battle with themselves. And then you have our battles with each other. But really, the mind and heart of the human being — this is what everybody is trying to own today.

They call it the attention economy. Every second that you spend on the internet, somebody's earning millions and millions of pounds. Because every moment you spend looking at an advertisement, somebody's making money and somebody's spending money. The battle is for your attention. The battle is for your ideas — to change your ideas, to change your beliefs. That's really where the battle is happening.

How many people migrated from Muslim countries to Western countries in an economic migration? And one, two generations later, they find that their grandchildren are not Muslims anymore — only by name. Everything else is gone. What happened? There was no physical battle. But the battle for the human mind, for human beliefs, has been won and has been lost. This is really where the battle is taking place.

Why Allah Withheld His Support at Uhud

Allah says: what are the reasons that he would cease helping the Muslims — even the Prophet ﷺ and his companions? He didn't help them in the second half of the Battle of Uhud. Why? Disobedience of Allah, mixed intentions, disunity within each other, and getting distracted by shiny things — getting distracted by material earnings. I'm not going to help you. You guys can go and lose the battle.

Allah promises victory for the believers. I promise I will support my messengers and the believers in this world and on the Day of Judgment. Allah says: my messengers and myself, we will always be victorious. I am the Mighty and I cannot be compelled. As he promises the people of Musa and the Children of Israel: I will give you back your land. But that's only for people who fear me and who fear the Day of Judgment.

When we understand these verses about victory, they're not blanket verses — that Allah will just help the believers willy-nilly. First, he wants the believers to get their ducks in a row, get your house in order, then I will help you. I can't help you if you don't help yourself.

Allah's not going to change your state until you change what's in yourself. That's why you have to go through those phases. The phase of the struggle between good and evil. The phase of the test. You have to go through the test. You have to go through the struggle. The phase of victory and then the destruction of the opposition — the destruction of those who rebel against Allah and his messenger and cause destruction and strife on this earth. These are the phases Allah promises us in the Qur'an.

The rise and fall of the victory that Allah gives the believers depends on the believers themselves. And it's not something that applies to the entire ummah in one go. Factions of the ummah Allah could assist, and other factions could be in decline. So sometimes you have one part of the ummah doing great, the other part of the ummah is in decline. The same factors, the same reasons apply.

The Conditions for Allah's Support

What are the factors? Allah has promised those who have firm belief and who do good deeds: I will allow you to have power and influence on this earth just as I did before. Don't lose hope. Look before you — nations before you were destroyed. Nations before you rose and fell. If you're falling right now, I can help you rise, but you need to pay attention to the details.

I will let your deen — your way of life — become superior on this earth. I will replace your fear with hope and safety. If you worship me and you don't associate equals with me. And whoever disbelieves after that, then they are the rebellious.

Here Allah outlines a number of different reasons that he would support Muslims. The first one is the development of their iman — their core beliefs. If this iman, this belief in Allah and this trust in Allah, is shaky — trust me, nothing is going to happen. That support from Allah is not going to come.

There are so many signs of weak iman, weak trust, weak belief in Allah. But one of them is not acting and working for the cause of Allah. The cause of Allah — the problems that we can solve as Muslims — are so many. But because we're not doing anything about it, what did we think? That Allah's victory was just going to come like how the people of Isa asked from Allah? They asked Isa: ask Allah to send us a dining table from the sky. A buffet from the sky. That's not how it works. We have to work for it.

We need iman — that core set of beliefs needs to be strong. And number two, we need to show actions. As an ummah, or as individuals, often we are people of talk. But on the ground, grassroots, nothing is happening. It could be something small, but if we're not acting, we're not doing, we're not people of action, then we're not going to get that response from Allah. So iman, righteous action.

Number three, al-ibadah — to be people of devotion and worship. Allah says:

They devote themselves to Me and they don't make equals to Me.

Ibn Khaldun's Three Phases of Empire

Ibn Khaldun — the Muslim historian and sociologist — tells us that every empire has three phases. The first phase: there is a small, tight-knit group of fierce warriors, al-asabiyyah. And because they have physical strength from years of constant struggle — if somebody is always fighting, they're going to have strength; if somebody is always carrying things, they're going to have good muscles — by nature of constantly being on the go, being in fight mode and survival mode, you start to become a good fighter. So you have a group of people: they're tight-knit, they have a clear mission, they're good fighters, they know how to fight. And they overtake — they take over the empire. This is phase one, the seizing of power. He calls this al-asabiyyah, the small, tight-knit group.

What happens in phase two? Ibn Khaldun says no empire lasts more than three centuries, except rare exceptions — three centuries, or three generations. What happens in the second generation? The first generation was born in the desert, in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. They learned with difficulty, with hardness, with hardship. They didn't have food, didn't have water, no materials. Somehow they made it. Second generation — where were they born? They were born in the palace with a golden spoon in their mouth. Their nappies were made of silk. They had special buffets every day because they're now growing up in the palace as the emperors of the empire. They grew up in luxury.

Ibn Khaldun says what kills Muslim civilization is this L word — not Louis Vuitton — luxury. Luxury is the killer. Luxury is the silent killer. You'll have the greatest Muslim empire of all time, but what happens in generation two? The kids that grow up in luxury, with everything at beck and call, they become the most lazy, incompetent, useless, and egoistic people.

And then what's phase three? They start to fight with each other. One brother slaughters the other brother. Then a cousin comes and he tries to take the empire and he kills his brother. The ego, the fighting, the hunger for power — in between themselves they're fighting each other. What's happening? The enemies are thinking: great, they're distracted by fighting with each other. This is our chance. Let's go. And then the third phase — the third generation — he calls it the phase of decline and destruction.

This analysis of Ibn Khaldun is so ahead of its time. It not only applies to empires. It even applies to drug lords. It even applies to social movements.

The Lesson of Colonialism: A Cold Bucket of Water

When Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in Egypt, and then later the British colonize Egypt — when the Italians colonize Libya, when the Italians arrive in Somalia, when the British arrive on the shores of India with the East India Company — when this happens and the power is seized and the people are suppressed, the first thing — the first 50 years — if you assess and carefully read the history of colonized people, from the Horn of Africa all the way to the coast of Yemen, Malaysia, Indonesia, if you look at the history of colonized people, the first 50 years when they are oppressed and taken over by another power, they are asking themselves the question: how did this happen? What did we do wrong? Somebody has come, he's taken over my house. I'm cooking in the kitchen, I'm paying the bills, and he's sat here taking all my food and exporting it. What did I do to deserve this?

Those whose parents or grandparents lived through those years — those years of oppression and colonialism — they will remember that a whole generation of people were asking themselves this question: how did this happen to us? What did we do wrong? This is the most important question.

When Allah wants to wake up the believers, sometimes he throws upon them a bucket of cold water. And the bucket of cold water is the boots of a colonial power coming and stamping all over your house. And you wake up and you think: hold on a second, I have a problem. It's an external problem, but actually — what did I do wrong? How did I get here?

One of the best things that ever happened to the Muslims was receiving oppression — so that they could start thinking: hold on a second, why are we in this state? How did we get here? One of the best things that happened to the believers was losing at the Battle of Uhud. Because when they lost and when they went home with their heads hung — 70 companions died, 71 or 73 according to the various narrations — they start reassessing: what did we do wrong? Sometimes failure is the greatest lesson, the greatest push for reform — for internal reform.

Unity: The Key to Revival

The Muslims start to reform themselves. They start to come together. Because now they have a common enemy. They have a common enemy that's coming and pressurizing them. So between themselves, they say: guys, look, I know before we were fighting about where to place our hands in salah, and we were fighting about where our toes should go in the musallah. But now our kids are being brainwashed. Their language — the Arabic language — has been removed and is being replaced by a foreign language. The curriculums in school have been changed. We can't get any jobs. We have been enslaved. Let's put aside the placement of hands for a second and let's figure out how to solve this problem.

Sometimes only a foreign enemy, a common enemy, can force a group of Muslims to sit and think: guys, we need to come together and unite on this one. Without a common enemy, unfortunately, the vast majority of Muslims remain in disunity and division.

I still remember the first time there were changes to the curriculum in primary school in the UK and we saw protests break across the country. Muslims of different denominations, different groups, different ideologies, different madhab, different masalik, all standing outside the same school. Why? They have a common problem that unites them. And then I see Catholics, Orthodox Jews, joining this coalition because they have a common problem that unites them. Because there is a common problem, it forces the Muslims to unite.

The Example of Algeria

If we go back into history — take one example. Allah will not give support to the Muslims; this is the principle. He will not give us support until we find unity between each other. If you go back into the history of Algeria, the land which was occupied for 156 years by the French — one of the most important steps towards the retreating of the French was the forming of an alliance between al-Bashir al-Ibrahimi and Abdul Hamid ibn Badis. If you go to Algeria, half of the people you meet — their names are Abdul Qadir, or Abdul Hamid, or al-Bashir al-Ibrahimi — because they named their children after those that resisted this occupation.

These two men — what did they do? They created an educational revival in Algeria and a unity of all the scholars from all parts of Algeria. They went to every part of this country, to every imam, every scholar they could find, and they said: listen, brother, right now we can't fight about those things we used to fight about. We have a bigger priority and a bigger enemy and a bigger issue at hand. What's that issue? Our kids. The curriculum that they're learning in school — our Arabic language has been removed. Islamic studies has been removed. If we don't act now, they will lose their iman, they will lose their language, they will lose their identity. Are you with me? And one by one they went and they created a coalition — Jam'iyyat Ulama al-Muslimin fil-Jaza'ir, the Association of Algerian Muslim Scholars.

Once they were able to unite the scholars and unite the leadership, they said: guys, we have one mission. We move as one. We have one idea, one goal, one agenda. We have to first reform the education of our next generation. If we don't fix their education, if they don't learn Arabic and the Qur'an and their fundamentals and their beliefs and their worldview, they will lose their identity. We need to fix this.

And one by one, small, secret madrasas started popping up around Algeria — underground madrasas, secret schools — why? To preserve the identity of the following generation. Unity, tarbiyah, the development of the oppressed. Allah will not give victory to the Muslims until a generation arises amongst them where their iman is as firmly rooted as the mountains and their identity is clear to them. Until then, we'll keep dilly-dallying the way we are.

The unity and the reform of the education system — and the planting of the seeds for a generation to rise who know who they are, who know their heritage, who know their deen, who are ready to stand up to the occupying powers — if not, they would have gotten a generation who said: well, let's assimilate. It's great we learn French and not Arabic. It's great we learn philosophy and not Islam. Down with the old and in with the new.

The Secret School of the Prophet ﷺ

That younger generation — that same theme is very common in the story of Musa. The story of the Prophet ﷺ. For 13 years in Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ had a secret school. Who knows the name of the secret school? Dar al-Arqam. What was he doing in the secret school? He was teaching the believers the basics — the core beliefs of Islam, the core reason they exist, the whole idea of Allah, why we know Allah, why we believe in Him, why we worship Him, what are we doing on this earth. For 13 years, he just spent time with them, letting them digest all of this. Because once they had digested all of this, they would become invincible.

Part of the reason that 300 of those Muslims were able to win the Battle of Badr was because these beliefs were so deeply rooted in them, nobody could shake them. Not money, not people, not threats — nothing could shake them.

Iman First: The Priority of Our Generation

Allah will not give us victory until we have iman and amal salih — righteous actions. Allah did not say memorization of the Qur'an is a condition for victory, for His help, for His support. We have to prioritize the iman first — the big questions — and follow that up with the understanding of the Qur'an. Because we are facing a generation that's not like generations before. They're not rote memorizers. They're a literate generation — they learn at school geography, history, philosophy, literature. But when they come to the madrasa, that's all we have for them. No — our deen has so much more for them. We have to start with iman. This was the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, and we follow it up with the Qur'an.

Often what we learn about Islam and about iman is theoretical — it's abstract, it's ideas, it's mindsets. But it doesn't change what we do in our life tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after that. This version of Islam — darwasha, this kind of spiritual mumbo-jumbo, this version of Islam that we take where we wear particular clothes and we go to the masjid and we pray and we leave and we do nothing about it outside the masjid — this is a secular version of Islam. A secular version of Islam is an Islam that says Islam is only worship in the masjid. Outside the masjid — in your marriage, in your divorce, in your finances, in your business, in your career ambitions — Islam has no say. It's okay, chill out.

Earning the Spiritual Victory First

Before Allah grants us victory, we have to first earn the spiritual victory. We cannot be distracted the way those people were distracted on the day of Uhud. We cannot be disunited the way they were disunited on the day of Uhud. We cannot be unaware of the fundamentals of iman and unconvinced by them. Allah will say: if you are this way, then I'm not going to support you. Continue wallowing in your loss and in your failure.