What if Oppression is Our Destiny?

Opening Praise and Testimony

I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger, and that he is pure, and that he is his companion. He fulfilled the trust, and conveyed the message, and advised the ummah, and exposed the darkness, and left us on the white path — its night is like its day, nothing escapes it except destruction. So upon him be the best prayer, and the best submission. And upon his family, and his companions, and those who await his sunnah until the Day of Judgment.

O Allah, make us of them, and of those who believe, and do righteous deeds, and adhere to the truth, and adhere to patience. Ameen, O Lord of the worlds. I advise you to be mindful of Allah, and He has commanded us to do the right thing.

We begin by praising Allah, and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped, or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ 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. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma Ameen.

The Du'a Against Oppression

Dear brothers and sisters, of the du'as of the Prophet ﷺ — or at least a part of the du'a — is:

O Allah, do not place upon us those that will have no mercy upon us. And of course, as is commonly recited in the du'as — even as found in the hadith — is:

Those who have no fear of You, nor will they have any mercy upon us.

It's a common sentiment that no one wants to be placed under the crushing fist of oppression — not in their personal lives or in their political existence. No one wants to feel the strength of another man above them that controls their movements, that controls their money, that controls seemingly their dignity, their very existence in every way. No one wants to feel like they are at the mercy of another human being, especially not a cruel human being.

It's been the theme of trying to remove oppression for the last year. And as it seems to get more bleak, the frustration and the despair and the anger grows, and that sentiment of مَتَى نَصْرُ اللَّهِ — "When is the help of Allah coming?" — which we spoke about in the very beginning of the genocide, it hits a bit different now. Because some people are saying truly: مَتَى نَصْرُ اللَّهِ — I'm looking around, this isn't going this way, this isn't going that way.

But subhanAllah, what I want us to actually focus on for the rest of this khutbah is: what if Allah declared for you oppression? What if Allah decreed oppression upon you for the rest of your existence — at a personal level and at a political level? What if we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel? What if we don't see victory in our lifetimes?

The Wisdom of the Righteous: "The One Who Put You Above Me Is Not an Oppressor"

SubhanAllah, in that same vein of that hadith, I was reading Imam Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah in his Madarij as-Salikin, and he says:

(Ibn al-Qayyim, Madarij as-Salikin)

That there was a righteous man who said to a man who oppressed him and who wronged him — and I want you to memorize these words: "If you are an oppressor, then the one who put you above me is not an oppressor."

SubhanAllah, think about the power of those words. If you are indeed an oppressor, then the one who has allowed you — for some wisdom that is beyond me — to be above me in the material sense, is not an oppressor. Allah is not an oppressor. Even if the oppressor is seen to reign free at times, Allah is not an oppressor.

And you think to yourself: how do I internalize that? How do I equally have the same energy and power to both fight oppression and to be pleased if Allah has decreed oppression for me?

The Story of Habil and Qabil: The First Act of Oppression

You take it back to the very beginning of mankind. The story of mankind, subhanAllah, starts off with all of the diseases that are present in mankind today. It's a story of pride. It's a story of envy. It's a story of murder. It's everything that the angels said:

It didn't take long for human beings to spill blood. It happened with the very first generation. That murder happened. And who did it happen between? Brothers. Think about that. Brothers. Not people that are cousins, not uncles and aunts, not friends — brothers. And it's Qabil and Habil — Cain and Abel.

We could talk about that all day long because it occupies a significant portion of the Qur'an for a reason — to say: this is how mankind starts off. But I want you to see the final moments through the lens of the wronged brother.

As Habil is looking back at Qabil — this is when murder is imminent. This is the moment before his blood is going to be spilled. We don't even know what that looks like yet as far as humanity is concerned. But this is the final moment when he looks to his brother who has that murderous rage in his eyes, who is holding his weapon towards him, outstretched. And he says to him — after telling him that he will not do what he does — he says:

"I want you to bear the full sin of me and the full sin against me and your own sins. I want you to bear the full sin of this act so that you can be from the people of the Hellfire. And that is the payment for the oppressors."

SubhanAllah, think about that. We never really think about what he must have been feeling in those moments when his brother outstretched his hand to kill him and he submitted himself to that moment — he submitted himself to that decree for himself. He's a human being. He's not feeling sympathy for his brother in those moments. And this is also very important — because we are not angels. That doesn't mean we have the right to act like devils, but it does mean that we have the right to feel human.

He said: I want you to be punished. I expect my Jannah. I expect my paradise. I have full trust in Allah to grant me what He has guaranteed me should this act of oppression meet its final end. But I fully want you to go to hell.

Think about every image of the oppressor standing seemingly triumphant over the oppressed — the body language, the confidence, the belief in what comes next:

"I want you to bear the full sin of this act. I want nothing to do with this."

Imam al-Qurtubi's Commentary on "My Sin and Your Sin"

SubhanAllah, Imam al-Qurtubi rahimahullah lists so many deep reasons as to why Habil said بِإِثْمِي وَإِثْمِكَ — "my sin and your sin." He said one interpretation of that is: I want you to bear the full sin of killing me and me not having to have anything that would negate that sin of you killing me. And I want you to bear the punishment of all your other sins too. I want you to face Allah with the punishment of killing me and the punishment of all of your sins. And you will be from the people of hellfire.

He also says that what it means is: I want you to extend your oppression as long as you want. Because the extension of your oppression means the extension of my good and the extension of your bad. The extended version of your oppression — take all the time that you need. Go ahead and oppress in every way that you want. Take it all. Because in reality, you're only giving me my Jannah and earning yourself your hell.

What a mindset. When someone can fight his oppressor with the full anger and energy that is needed to fight an oppressor, but at the same time say: I'm not afraid of you. Go ahead. Do what you're going to do. Do what you want. You're not actually hurting me. And I hope you hurt yourself in hell. I hope you experience hellfire to the extreme. And I know that if I'm patient, I will experience paradise to its full promise.

The Hadith of the Bankrupt Oppressor

He also comments with a hadith of Abu Hurairah radiyallahu ta'ala anhu — and this is such a powerful one — in which the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2449)

Whoever has committed an act of oppression against his brother in regards to his honor or anything else — let him beg for forgiveness now, before he shows up on a day when his money will not benefit him in any way. And if he has any good deeds, then those good deeds will be taken away from him in accordance with his evil. And if he has no good deeds left to give — and this is the person that the Prophet ﷺ said is a muflis, a bankrupt human being — an oppressor who shows up, his good deeds are taken, then the sins of the one that he wronged will be put on his back. May Allah protect us. Allahumma Ameen.

And so — إِنِّي أُرِيدُ أَن تَبُوءَ بِإِثْمِي وَإِثْمِكَ — go ahead and extend your oppression. Go ahead and extend your evil. You are not actually harming me. And this is the mindset that keeps a people going.

The Legacy of Qabil: Every Act of Murder Until Today

This is the difference between a shaheed and someone who — the Prophet ﷺ said — every single time someone commits an act of murder, how many years has it been since Qabil and Habil, since this immortalized conversation? We don't know. But let's just say it's been at least several thousand years.

Every murder that you see in Gaza — guess who's getting a share of the punishment in the grave? He is. Because the Prophet ﷺ said: every time someone spills blood, a part of that goes back to the brother who first spilled blood —

Because he's the first one to start that trend, to normalize that evil. Can you imagine? All the casualties of Gaza — he still gets a share of that punishment. All of the tyranny on earth — Fir'aun gets a punishment because they are imitating Fir'aun in their oppression and their tyranny.

What If Oppression Is Our Destiny?

There is a question that often gets asked, and I'm not going to address this question fully — which is: do we deserve this? Do we deserve oppression for ourselves as a community? And the answer for now is: not always. But if it's been decreed for us, we make the most of it.

Allah has promised victory. But Allah has not promised that each and every single one of us will live to see that victory on earth — and we have to be okay with that. We have to be able to come to terms with that fully. Allah promised eventual victory in the full physical material sense of the word. But if we don't live to see it, alhamdulillah, we know it's still happening.

Allah never says:

Allah never says He promised the believers that they're going to be humiliated, that they're going to be defeated. Allah mentions that He has promised the believers that He will settle them on this earth, that He will give them victory.

Victory is for the believers — in this life and the next. We already know, whether it's in three years, or thirty years, or a hundred years, that Allah has promised victory. But the question I want us to really reason with and reckon with — for the purpose of this khutbah, in concert with everything that we've been talking about — is: what if we don't live to see that victory? What if it's never freed in our lifetime? What if we're still fighting the same battles thirty, forty, fifty years from now?

Will that make you question Allah? Will that make you have doubts in your deen? Will that push you to a brink of faithlessness? Will that make you think, okay, maybe they have a point? What if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes? What if we are martyred in the process — or even spared in the process — but we don't live to see it? What does it do to your faith? What does it do to your identity? What does it do to your existence?

The answer should be: nothing but good. Because the affair of the believer is always khayr — always good. Nothing but good.

إِنَّ قَتْلِي شَهَادَةٌ — They kill me? It's martyrdom. Alhamdulillah. They deport me? It's a chance to contemplate Allah's existence outside of these lands. Alhamdulillah. They imprison me? It's a chance of khalwah — to be secluded with Allah. Alhamdulillah.

Meaning: if victory in the material sense does not come in your lifetime, you're okay with that. You are fully at peace with that reality. I didn't sign up for this because I want to be holding a banner of victory in this life. I signed up for this for the banner of the hereafter. I signed up for this to be in a certain category in the akhirah. That's the mindset we have to have.

I didn't sign up for it to sing and to dance and to feel the jubilation of joy in the physical sense. If it was for Allah, then you will incur it in its full experience — for the sake of Allah — with a smile on your face. Alhamdulillah. It doesn't take from my confidence in Allah's plan in any way if Allah has decreed a personal path for me that is different.

Why Do You Want Oppression Removed?

What I want to come to, dear brothers and sisters, is this: all of us want oppression removed, and that in and of itself is a noble goal. Oppression is so ugly in its bare manifest sense that إِزَالَةُ الظُّلْمِ — to remove oppression — is in and of itself a noble enough reason to push us. But why do you really want oppression removed? Why do you want to see Palestine free? Why do you want to see Palestine win? What do you want to see as a result of it?

The American Muslim community — let's speak to our own little cut-out here. We want to see success for the American Muslim community. What does that mean to you? What does that even look like to you? What does victory look like to us? There are very different perceptions of what victory actually means, of what success actually means. So you want oppression removed — why?

Our Prophet ﷺ always taught us to attach a noble goal to a du'a. And so when the Prophet ﷺ said on the night of Badr:

"Oh Allah, if you let this group of people be wiped out, then I'm afraid You won't be worshipped on earth." He didn't say: Oh Allah, I want revenge because You saw what they did to Khadijah radiyallahu anha, You saw what they did to Sumayyah radiyallahu ta'ala anha, and I want that same feeling of... No, none of that. Oh Allah, if this group of people is destroyed, I'm afraid You won't be worshipped on earth. There is a noble goal that was attached to it.

We see it in the du'as of Ibrahim alayhi as-salam — every one of his du'as. Ibrahim never makes a du'a without attaching a reason to that du'a:

"Oh Allah, don't make us a fitna for those who disbelieve" — to where they think that their victory translates into truth being on their side, not realizing that they are steeped in falsehood. We have a reason for our du'as. So when I ask you: why do you want your oppression removed? Why do we want oppression removed from this ummah? You need to gain some clarity there. On an individual level — why do I want it removed? You need to gain some clarity in that regard.

American Muslims and What Comes Next

And I want to say one more thing, insha'Allah ta'ala, in regards to specifically — once again — American Muslims. I get it: elections are around the corner. Once again, there is a lot of uncertainty. Once again, there's a lot of fear. What could happen to American Muslims here? What could happen to American Muslims there?

I'm not saying that none of that is valid — I'm actually not. You're a Muslim. I'm going to treat you that way. I'm going to talk to you that way. I'm not saying that your concerns about what's going to happen next are invalid. It's okay to have a fear of the unknown, a fear of the uncertainty, and what comes next.

But what I want you to already put in your heart and your mind is that even if it's the worst case scenario for us as Muslims — alhamdulillah — Allah will be offering us an opportunity to build character. It's not always about winning at a poll booth or winning by raising your banner. Sometimes it's about winning through building clarity and building character under difficult circumstances. Sometimes that's how Allah generates the best version of ourselves here and the best reward for us there. Alhamdulillah.

Let that part go. We need to strategize. We need to keep fighting. We need to keep organizing. We need to keep doing this and keep doing that. Don't temper your efforts. But do temper your expectations. Alhamdulillah. I'm at ease. I'm at peace.

Because the shaitan that laughs in our faces today — we're going to have a whole eternity looking at those people burn in the hellfire and laughing at them:

You have a whole eternity to look at those tyrants pay for what they have done. But have you earned what you hope from Allah?

Closing Du'a

May Allah remove from us oppression. May Allah grant us victory. May Allah allow us to be a part of that victory. And should we not be a part of that victory in this life, may Allah not deprive us of the full reward in the next life. May Allah instill in us steadfastness and trust. And may Allah plant our hearts and our feet firm with faith. Allahumma Ameen.

فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ، وَاشْكُرُوهُ عَلَى النِّعَمِ يَزِدْكُمْ، وَلَذِكْرُ اللَّهِ أَكْبَرُ، وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ. وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ.