What Did You Call Me?! | Khutbah by Dr. Omar Suleiman

What Did You Call Me?!

Dear brothers and sisters, you might have heard that I am an anti-Semite. And I wanted to actually make this khutbah entirely not about that, but about a concept that it got me thinking about, which was the use of labels as a means of trying to diminish a reality that scares people. The use of labels that tries to diminish a reality that scares people.

And so I thought to myself, as everything that has unfolded over the last two and a half years and three years, where we've been looking back at the seerah to help us navigate the insanity of this genocide and the people around us and the propaganda that normalize it. I was thinking, what if we looked back at how labels were used at the time of the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam specifically to name a reality or to actually distort a reality and then how we use those labels in our own lives. And it's really interesting because you look at what Allah gave us so early on in this affair.

He gave the name of what the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam brought, or he gave the reality of what the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam brought rather, a name. He chose you, اجتباكم, and he called you Muslims.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, and this is one of the earliest revelations, Fussilat, that who is better than the one who calls to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and does righteous deeds and says, I am from the Muslims.

The fact that Allah gave us an identity very early on, this wasn't some ambiguous tawhidic message. It was very clear that the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam was bringing something that was unique, and the Muslims identified themselves as Muslims, and I would argue that for us, the moment that we start replacing Muslim with any other name as a primary identity, that's when all the problems happen in our community. Whether it's nationalism or sectarianism or whatever it may be, it's when you start supplanting Muslim with something else.

It's the most beautiful way to describe yourself, it's the most beautiful way to name this reality of Islam that we have. May Allah azza wa jal make it our internal and our external reality. Allahumma ameen.

And you might remember there is a famous interview with Malcolm X at Hajj Malik al-Shabazz, where the interviewer is trying to get him and said, so you're saying you're anti-white. He said, no, you're saying I'm anti-white. That's your way of describing me, but that's not how I describe myself.

And there's something very powerful about that, to refuse to let someone else name your reality because they want to distort it or because they don't understand it. And that's why when Umar ibn al-Khattab became Muslim, he asked who is the person who can get the news out quickest. And they said go to Jameel, there was a man named Jameel, I think his last name was Mu'arra.

Go to Jameel, he can't hold water in his mouth. You tell him anything and everyone in Mecca will find out right away. The guy gossips and he talks very quickly, so if you want the news to spread quickly in Mecca that you've become Muslim, go tell that guy.

Umar radiyaAllahu anhu left the house where he took that embrace of what he was fighting, of the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam's message of Islam. And he went to Jameel and he tapped him on the shoulder and he said, hey Jameel, I just want to let you know, I became Muslim. The guy jumped up and immediately started to call out and yell at the top of his lungs, إن عمر قد صبأ.

Umar has abandoned his faith because that was the derogatory label. They abandoned our way. And what did Umar radiyaAllahu anhu say? He said, بل أسلمت.

He said, no, no, that's not what I am. That's not what you get to identify me as. You're identifying us as a people that abandoned your way.

We're identifying ourselves as a people who submitted themselves to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. بل أسلمت. There's more power in what we identify ourselves as than what you try to impose on us as a label.

It's not going to work. We won't fall for it. And of course the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam, he looked at the most humiliating and mocking labels towards him and the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam brushed it off.

And so they called him مذمم instead of the one who is highly praised, Muhammad sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam. They tried to call him the one who is humiliated. And the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam responded when the companions were so upset.

And he said, don't worry about it. They're mocking, they're talking about مذمم and I am Muhammad. It's like they're talking about an entirely different person.

Let it go. We're going to insist on the message of Muhammad sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam, the way of Muhammad sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam and we're not going to fall for it. We're not going to let that dictate the terms of our da'wah and try to fight back so much against the label they're putting on us to where we lose the label that has a reality to it that we're trying to bring to the world.

Likewise, you look at how Allah azza wa jal renamed and relabeled the hypocrites and those who are truly putting forth wickedness when they tried to name themselves with noble titles. And so Allah azza wa jal says,

When they're told, do not wreak corruption on this earth, they say, we are the peacemakers. Sound familiar? We are the peacemakers.

Allah azza wa jal says, Rather, they are the people who wreak corruption, but they don't know any better.

When they're told to believe the way that the people believe, they say, do you want us to believe like the fools? Allah says, Rather, they are the fools. No, no, throw that label right back on yourself.

You are the fools, but you don't know any better. The name Abu al-Hakam, the father of wisdom, was turned into Abu Jahl, the father of ignorance, because that was his reality. He lost all wisdom when he decided to oppose the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam, the way that he did.

But you'll notice here something that is extremely important. Even in the labeling the labelers, those who were trying to label, being labeled, Allah azza wa jal did not mock appearances. Allah did not mock race.

The labeling from our side never betrayed our convictions or our character. Never betrayed the character of the message of the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam or his character himself sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam. It became about their reality and that's something for us to think about, by the way, because we have a moral calling.

And so everything that we do, whether we're defending ourselves or we're speaking to someone else's reality, has to be based in a moral language. No, what you're actually doing, your behavior is that you're putting corruption into this earth. Your behavior is foolish.

Even though they mocked the Muslims with everything they could find. They mocked them with slander, they mocked them with their appearances, they tried to mock their ansab, their tribes, their lineage. When did the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam respond to someone, this is so important, respond to someone who was mocking him or opposing him from an inferior tribe by their standards and put down their tribe.

He didn't do it sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam, he didn't say I am the Hashemi and you are the so and so and so and so, because that would betray the call. No matter how ugly the person was in terms of their behavior towards the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam, the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam maintained the character of what he was putting forth. We are a people that insist on a reality.

We judge the content of a person by their character. We don't judge them by anything else. Allah azza wa jal holds us to that standard and when we are labeled in accordance with that, alhamdulillah, and subhanAllah you'll see that later on in Islamic history, the Muslims had such a dignity to them, to not fall into these types of games, but instead to just maintain their forward momentum that they never could be rattled and that was part of the proof, the testimony to the fact that they were a people of message and they were a people that trusted the one that sent the message and that they sought dignity only from him subhanAllah.

And so I want you to imagine the scene when the Muslims arrive in Egypt and they get to Muqawqis and the head of the Muslim army is Ubadah ibn Samit radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu who was an extremely black man, extremely black man, dark, dark, dark skin. And so when he comes forth leading that army, Muqawqis says, take this black man away from me and get someone else to come talk to me. And the Muslims respond and say he's the best of us and the highest of us and Muqawqis says he should be the lowest of you and the worst of you.

And what does Ubadah do? Ubadah ibn Samit radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he makes fun of his mockery. He says, listen, if you're scared of me, there are a thousand men behind me that are blacker than me and they're more severe than me. I'm not going to become you.

I'm not going to respond on your premise. Alhamdulillah, we are who we are and we have nothing that causes us to deter ourselves from insisting upon that truth and spreading that truth. Now what does that mean in the world that we live in today? And this is what I want us all to think about bi'idhnillahi ta'ala.

The Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam said, بدأ الإسلام غريباً وسيعود غريباً كما بدأ فطوبى للغرباء. Islam started off as something strange and it will return to being something strange as it started. So glad tidings to the strangers.

And one of the ways that the ulama speak about this hadith is that the way that you identify yourself is often secondary, if not always secondary, to the standards of society and what that causes you to actually be, what you actually end up becoming. And so what that means is that if you live amongst the companions of the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam and you were the best version of a Muslim that you are today, that any of us could be today, but you look around and you see Ali radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu on one side and you see Khalid radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu on the other side, like, I can't compete with these people, I can't compete with these people. And you would feel like a stranger in the sense like, I'm not on their level, I'm not on their level.

But when society decays, when the standards of society go down, then the label that gets imposed upon you is one that doesn't reflect necessarily you, it reflects where society is. And so you become a ghareeb, not because we changed, but because we actually didn't change, because we actually held on to something meaningful, because we actually held on to a faith that is unchanging, because we actually held on to principles that don't change. And in the process, we become strangers once again, and people call you weird, and people call you backwards, and people call you this, and people call you that, and they'll identify you that way, not because of who you are, but because of who they've become.

And as Muslims, the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam is saying, طوبى للغرباء glad tidings to the strangers. There are some worlds you actually don't want to be normal in. I don't want to be normal in a world that has normalized genocide.

I don't want to be normal in a world that has normalized lewdness to where the Epstein files become a topic of conversation and people move on as if we didn't just expose the most disgusting thing that we have seen. I don't want to be normal in this world. I don't want that to be a norm.

I don't want that to be a standard. And the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam is saying, embrace ridicule. Embrace being ostracized.

Embrace people looking at you different. Embrace people calling you names. Embrace people putting you in a place where they wish they could be, but because they can't get there, they decide to put you there, and they try to get you off of what you are on.

Embrace it. It's a good thing. It's a bushra.

It's a glad tidings. And subhanAllah, when people call you weird, when people call you an extremist, when people call you backwards, if extremism, if extremism is saying that a people under occupation have a right to fight that occupation, so be it. Call us what you want to call us.

Call us what you want to call us. You're betraying your own standards, your own principles. We haven't lost our way.

You've lost your way. If your standards of modesty have so dramatically changed over the last 5, 6, 7 decades to where America of 2026 would not be able to recognize or an America of 1996 would not be able to recognize an America 2026, that's a societal problem. That's not a me problem.

That's a you problem. I want to be someone that retains something of value throughout all of that. Now, what about what we give back? When we speak to others, we remain dignified.

In fact, Allah azza wa jal says,

Don't curse the gods of other people. Don't mock the religions of other people. Don't talk bad about their idols.

Because they'll turn around and they'll curse Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they'll use that as a justification to mock what is sacred to you. We never become a people that mock the sacred. That's not who we are.

And you'll also notice in everything that the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam did as we said, don't use the moment. Like you start mocking an enemy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Pay very close attention because I'm going to use code language for a reason.

When you start mocking an enemy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for a feature that they might share with one of your brothers or sisters who are Muslim, a physical feature or something else. How do you think your brother or your sister feel? No, you mock their behavior. You label their behavior.

Don't mock things that might actually even be present in your brothers and sisters. So be very careful in how you respond with the labels as well. And when we speak amongst each other, and I'll end with this, Allah azza wa jal says,

Do not use bad nicknames towards each other.

Don't use labels towards each other. This is extremely important, dear brothers and sisters. That when we see amongst ourselves, if someone is doing good, when you start to say, you're being too strict, you're being too religious, you're being too this, you're being too much.

What are you actually doing? That's a form of mocking their religiosity. Or on the other hand, when you mock someone who's in sin, but you identify them by that sin, you call them by that sin. It's like you're permanently freezing them into that sin.

So you're bearing arrogance in yourself. And you're making that other person frozen in an identity of sin, whether it's your own child, or someone else. So you say that person is this, and that person is that, and you are this and you are that.

What does that actually end up functionally doing? It kills your brother, it kills your sister, and it kills you spiritually. When you even label them by their sin, instead try to extract your brother Muslim, your sister Muslim from that sin, and elevate them above that sin, so that they don't become marked by that sin. No, you're too good for the sin.

This is a behavior that is bad. But I won't start using those types of nicknames. And dear brothers and sisters, in this world, subhanAllah, as the standards change.

There is a narration that we were studying in al-Wabil al-Sayyib. It doesn't reach the barrier of authenticity to the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam, but it is a valuable athar, a valuable narration. Ibn al-Qayyim had it in the book we were reading in Ramadan.

اذكروا الله حتى يقولوا مجنون. Remember Allah until they call you crazy. Remember Allah until they call you crazy.

What does that mean? Does that mean you start jumping around and remembering Allah in a crazy way? Or does that mean like, you're walking on the street and you're سبحان الله، الحمد لله، لا إله إلا الله، وأستغفر الله، ولا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله. Your lips are always moving, you're always in a state of dhikr, like he's talking to himself. She's talking to herself.

They'll call you a majnoon. Let them call you names. Let people call you names.

But wait a minute. What if your behavior is actually objectionable? And this is something that's very important. There are some people that will call people religious and righteous and backwards and extremists, and again, in some worlds you want to be, if this is what progress looks like, I want to be backwards.

If this is what normal is, I don't want to be normal. I want to be abnormal, I want to be strange, I want to be extreme. What's the difference between a positive manifestation of this and one that's actually negative? Allah knows best, but there's a difference between you being called something because of your value system, and you being called something because of your behavior towards others.

If your behavior towards others is rigid and harsh and condescending, and that's what's being named, that's something you take a step back and you say, I don't want that. No, that's not from what the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam brought. But if it's just you existing in a value system that people are bothered by, because you don't want to change your values, may Allah keep us on all of that that offends everyone and everything that is evil. And may Allah remove from us all that we can trace and all that we can't trace of evil.

And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala let our internal and our external reality be one of Islam and iman, of faith and submission. And may Allah make us a people who never fear being called names, who never fear being labeled by those who have departed from the reality that he commanded us all to be upon. May Allah keep us on all of that that offends everyone and everything that is evil.

And may Allah keep us on all of that that offends everyone and everything that is evil.