The Arrogance of Oppressors and The Fate of Tyrants

The Arrogance of Oppressors and The Fate of Tyrants

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims.

O you who have believed, fear your Lord, Who created you from one soul, and created from it a wife, and spread among them many men and women. And fear Allah, to whom you ask for mercy. Verily, Allah watches over you.

O you who have believed, fear Allah and say the right words. He will correct your deeds and forgive your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has won a great triumph.

Know, O servants of Allah, that the best speech is the speech of Allah. And the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And the worst of things are their innovations. And every innovation is a bid'ah, and every bid'ah is a misguidance. And every misguidance is in the Fire.

The Confusion of Our Times

Then, O servants of Allah, my dear brothers and sisters, as we see the events of life in this world escalating fast — faster than what we can really calculate — people start getting confused about what the future is going to look like for them. We start thinking about ourselves, our families, our businesses, our livelihood. How is that going to look? Should I invest? Should I go to Hajj? Is it time maybe to move somewhere else? People have all these wonders and all these questions.

But the thing that keeps going into our minds — subhanAllah — why are these arrogant oppressors and tyrants allowed to do what they do and there is no divine intervention from Allah to deal with them? They act in impunity. They fear absolutely no consequences. They fear absolutely no punishment, no negative action against them whatsoever, and they feel free to do whatever they want to do. And the believers in a moment like this are wondering: what's going on? I mean, what exactly is happening? Where is the victory of Allah that He promised the believers?

Brothers and sisters, the arrogance of oppressors and the fate of tyrants is not so ambiguous to us. It is mentioned in the Qur'an in many different examples. And in the history of mankind, we all know that. How many tyrants rose to power in the history of mankind — people that cast a shadow over all the tyrants of our time. Where are they? What happened to them? Who is even speaking about them or glorifying them anymore? SubhanAllah, where are they?

Allah is not letting these people do what they do because they deserve it — not because it is a reward for them. Astaghfirullah.

The Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ on Trials

Rasulullah ﷺ taught us this. And this would be among the signs of the Day of Judgment. Some of the signs of the Day of Judgment, my dear brothers and sisters — when the Prophet ﷺ says:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 186)

There shall be fitan — trials — like the pieces of the darkest night. Which means people cannot see through. They don't even recognize any landmarks or signs. Even though you'll be in a familiar terrain, you won't be able to recognize direction. He says: كَقِطَعِ اللَّيْلِ الْمُظْلِمِ. And he mentioned these fitan, these ordeals. He said ﷺ: يُصْبِحُ الْحَلِيمُ فِيهَا حَيْرَانَ — even the most forbearant, the most patient one, the most sensible one, the wisest of the wise, they get lost. They become confused.

And that is — subhanAllah — a time like ours. When we compare the subject of justice and injustice, good and evil, Islam and kufr, all the other things that are around us, we just see that the scale is tipped the other way. What is happening here?

Allah Gives Respite to the Oppressor

Rasulullah ﷺ gave us the answer. He said, as narrated by Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 4686; Sahih Muslim, Book 45, Hadith 2583)

Allah gives respite to the oppressor, but when He seizes him, He does not let him escape. There is no escape when you come under the grasp of the Lord. Then he quoted the Qur'an:

Such is the seizure of your Lord when He seizes the cities while they are committing wrong. Indeed, His seizure is painful and severe.

The time is not yet there for the oppressors to be punished, to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. But that does not mean that Allah is letting go of them.

The Story of Fir'aun — A Mirror for Our Times

Brothers and sisters, if you look at the tyrants of the past, Allah mentioned the story of Fir'aun — one of the greatest tyrants of all time. Allah explains Fir'aun, and today we have so many Fir'auns in our times. In a vivid way, some of the most repeated stories in different details in the Qur'an is the story of Fir'aun and Musa (عليه السلام) — the story of Bani Israel. Why?

Ibn Abbas, when he was asked about it, said: look, it is not that Allah is sending these stories so that whatever is good is good to you and whatever is bad is bad on them. No — you are probably going to fall into their footsteps. You are going to do the same thing they did. And here Allah is bringing us the example of this great tyrant and what happened to him.

In summary, Allah summarized the story of Fir'aun in two short ayahs in Surah An-Nazi'at. When Fir'aun said:

I am your Lord, the Most High. And what did Allah say right after?

That Allah seized him for the punishment of the Hereafter and the first life too. In summary: he said, "I am your Lord, the Most High," and then suddenly he disappeared — because Allah took him for punishment in the dunya, before the akhira.

The Words of Fir'aun Repeated Today

But in detail — let us see some of these tyrants of our time and what they say. If these are the same words of Fir'aun himself, then we know that if those tyrants repeat themselves in different times and different time zones, Allah's dealing with tyrants is always the same.

So here is what Fir'aun said, as Allah mentioned in the Qur'an. Arrogantly, Fir'aun claimed:

He said: I don't know any God for you but me. The statement itself is paradoxical — if you're God, you cannot say "I don't know any other God but me." But Allah is showing us how ignorant he was: he admitted his ignorance, his lack of knowledge of whether any other God existed besides himself. Yet he was calling himself the Master of the Universe. "I am the Lord. I am above everybody." Sounds familiar to you now.

And then he said:

I am your Lord, the Most High. I am your Master, the Most High. That is the statement we are hearing today. They come and people stand for them with standing ovations. Whatever they say: "Absolutely, you're right. Absolutely." That is exactly the same thing that happened with Fir'aun.

And then when anyone tries to challenge them, what do they say? They escape and start mocking the challengers. As Fir'aun said:

He said: look, who is better — me, who can speak to you, articulate, in your own language without accent? Or this person who doesn't even know how to speak? He said this about Musa (عليه السلام). They repeat themselves over and over again.

And Allah mentioned that when Fir'aun was defeated at some point — when he was defeated in the debate with Musa because of the miracles Musa showed him — what did he say?

Indeed this is a learned sorcerer! And now he goes to his advisors: "Look, I'm afraid he's going to change your ways. You should support me. He's going to change your ways." Sounds familiar to you now.

Fir'aun's Genocide and Arrogance

But what did Fir'aun do before that? Allah described what he did — that he committed genocide after genocide and massacre after massacre. As Allah described him:

Arrogantly, he spoke openly: "We shall massacre their children. We are going to enslave their wives and their daughters. وَإِنَّا فَوْقَهُمْ قَاهِرُونَ — And we are powerful and we can do that."

SubhanAllah, sometimes you watch the news and you watch some of these clips on social media — the arrogance that spews out of the mouths of these villains is just unbelievable. They really think they are God? And they commit the acts of God. وَإِنَّا فَوْقَهُمْ — "We can do that. Because we can." They have lost their sense of humanity, their sense of compassion, their empathy. Absolutely not. They dehumanize everybody else. Because they can. وَإِنَّا فَوْقَهُمْ قَاهِرُونَ.

And then he warned:

"If you take any God besides me, I will put you in prison." A lot of politicians are in that same position today — "if you choose some other master besides me, you're done. You're out." That is the tyranny of our time.

And when facts were brought to him, Fir'aun denied all the facts:

"What is the Lord of the worlds?" He said: "I don't recognize that God. I don't recognize this truth." Why? Because:

Because he was a tyrant, as Allah says. Fir'aun became arrogant, he became a tyrant, وَجَعَلَ أَهْلَهَا شِيَعًا — and he divided the people among themselves. And again, it sounds familiar — setting people against each other so that he stays strong and powerful.

The End of Fir'aun

But what was the end of this tyrant? Allah documented that end for us in the Qur'an. As he was arrogantly chasing the people of Bani Israel — subhanAllah — all the people — chasing them until they got to the sea. And then he saw them crossing through that dry field and ground between mountains of water. He arrogantly thought he could pass. And he did go through. But then Allah drowned him there.

And as he was drowning, that is when all his arrogance just disappeared. That is when his vulnerability came and he did not recognize himself for who he was. But it was a bit too late for him.

He said: "I believe in the God that Bani Israel believes in — and I am among the Muslims." He couldn't even say "I believe in God" directly. "Whatever God they believe in, I'm with you." But the answer came to him: Right now? Too late for that.

In the hadith, Jibreel told the Prophet ﷺ that he wished he could have seen him stuffing dirt in Fir'aun's mouth before he finished his statement — because he doesn't deserve that. Because he was a tyrant. And he led so much corruption on earth.

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3107; also reported by Ibn Jarir at-Tabari in his Tafsir)

Why Does Allah Allow the Oppressors to Continue?

Brothers and sisters, this is history. But it keeps repeating itself. And unfortunately, because the people of Haqq don't stand for the Haqq, these tyrants, these arrogant ones, these oppressors, they do what they do — because the people of Haqq and justice, those who stand for justice, are not doing their job. Whether on a state level, on a personal level, whatever that is.

A lot of people today — subhanAllah — when it comes to the subject of wealth and money, the most powerful thing in our time: once they're exposed to wealth and money, they become comfortable and are afraid to lose all the privilege they have. Everybody is afraid: "If I lose my job, I can't pay my mortgage. I'm going to lose my house, my fancy living, my car, my this and that." So therefore: keep it quiet. We all just become part of it because we don't want to lose our privilege. We don't stand for justice anymore.

Brothers and sisters, Allah allowed these people — knowing what they do — and He says:

And never think that Allah is unaware of what the wrongdoers are doing. Allah knows everything. But He leaves them for many reasons. One of them, the ulema say, is لِيَمْتَحِنَ قُلُوبَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ — to test the hearts of the believers.

This is a moment when many people start saying:

مَتَىٰ نَصْرُ اللَّهِ — Where is the victory of Allah? How is that even possible? Why are du'as not being answered? It is a test for the believers. And wallahi, it is a very serious and very dangerous test. Doubting Allah, even the least, is extremely dangerous in this matter.

And Allah allowed these people to do what they do so that the evidences will be mounting against them in the dunya before even the akhira. Because on the Day of Judgment, Allah said some of these tyrants will say:

"We didn't know about any of that. No one told us anything was wrong." How dare they say that on the Day of Judgment when all the evidence will be mounting against them?

And Allah is allowing them to do that because when Allah's punishment comes, as He said, بَغْتَةً — it will come suddenly. So maybe, as we see the world and how everything is happening and how things are interacting with one another, we don't see a glimpse of hope in this whole mess. But when Allah wills it to happen, He will make it happen. And when it happens, it will happen swiftly and suddenly.

What Is the Believer's Position?

But for a believer right now — that is the point I would like to bring to you here. What is my position, as a believer? My dear brothers and sisters, this is not a time to escape. This is not a time to hide. This is not a time to just stay to yourself. That is not a time for it.

Allah, when He praised the believers, He says:

Those who help people hold on to the Book and they remain steadfast in their prayers. He didn't say those who were righteous — no, those who help others to become righteous. So being righteous in this time is not sufficient. It is calling for righteousness that matters right now. That is what makes the ummah very special:

They enjoin good and forbid evil. So being righteous alone is not sufficient, my dear brothers and sisters. It is not just about minding your own business. This is not a time to mind your own business. This is a time to go and stand for justice and make that which is right — in whichever capacity you can, in the legal and proper ways. And if you can and you don't, then you will be held accountable one day when Allah asks you: What did you do with that reputation you had? With that platform you had? With the wealth that was given to you? With the power? With your articulate tongue? What did you do with all of that? How did you stand for justice? How did you support those who are oppressed?

May Allah make us among those who listen to this speech and follow the best of it. I say this and ask forgiveness from Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and all those who ask forgiveness from Him. Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.

Second Part of the Khutbah

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and companions. Many peace and blessings be upon him.

Then after that, my dear brothers and sisters — when tyrants feel that it is getting tight around their necks, what do they do? They create chaos. Because it distracts everybody else so they can find an escape — multiple escapes.

But this is also the time where du'a becomes more powerful. Now, I don't want to say that du'a is the least you can do — that is not the least you can make. That is what you should be doing anyway. But there is much more that you can do. Each one of us, in our position in life, can do something. Find that area where you are good and help, inshallah, to bring justice to those who are oppressed.

The Du'a of the Oppressed

But regarding du'a, as the Prophet ﷺ said:

You need to be aware of the supplication and the du'a of the oppressed. Because there is no barrier between their du'a and Allah. And — God forbid — if they made that du'a against us for not being able to do our role to support them and help them, Allah knows what could happen to us.

So we need at least to make du'a for them, make du'a for those around us, in addition to doing whatever else we can. If you don't know what to do, come and ask. Ask someone who can help you. Say: "Look, what is my talent? What can I do? What can I help with? How can I make a difference?" And if you change one person's opinion one person at a time, that is a great victory for the oppressed. At least you bring in an ally to that cause. One at a time, inshallah.