Who do I vote for? A message to American Muslims

Opening — Praise and Testimony

In the name of Allah, we praise Him, we ask for His help, we ask for His forgiveness, we ask for His guidance and we believe in Him and we put our trust in Him and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our actions. Whoever Allah guides, there is no misguidance for him and whoever He misguides, there is no guidance for him. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, no partner for Him.

To Him is the kingdom and to Him is the praise. He gives life and He gives death and He is alive and does not die. In His hand is all good and He is capable of all things.

I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger and His chosen one and His companion. He fulfilled the trust and conveyed the message and advised the Ummah and exposed the darkness. He left us on the white path — its night is like its day. Nothing escapes it but destruction. So upon him is the best prayer and then submission. And upon his family and companions and those who follow his sunnah until the Day of Judgment.

O Allah, make us of them and of those who believe and do righteous deeds and associate with the truth and associate with patience. Ameen, O Lord of the worlds.

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 their blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma Ameen.

Opening Du'a — Asking for Clarity

Dear brothers and sisters, I begin with a du'a that we should be making frequently in these days:

O Allah, we ask You to show us the truth as truth, and then to enable us to follow that truth. And we ask You to show us evil as evil, and then enable us to avoid that evil.

Submission, Humility, and the Fear of Losing Our Deeds

Before I get into the subject of today, I want us to take a step back and to first and foremost start from the basic premise that as Muslims, one of the things that makes us unique is that we submit our entire existence to Allah. And in that process, we submit our hearts and our minds. We submit our emotions and our intellect. And in that is an inherent humility — that we might get things wrong, and that we want Allah to lead us to what's right, and that we commit ourselves to doing what's right once what's right has been made clear to us. There is submission, there is humility.

Especially when things become further unclear. Especially when difficulty becomes so much that it can cloud our senses. Why? Because Allah mentions to us — shall I not tell you about الأَخْسَرِينَ أَعْمَالًا? Not those who have lost an election, not those who have lost a race, not those who have lost a position, but those who have lost their good deeds.

It is not those who fail to exert themselves. It's those who exerted themselves in wrong while being sure that they were right. And so I start from that place of humility for all of us — not just in regards to the current climate, but in regards to every climate that we have.

The Elections and the State of Our Conversations

Now to the elections and to what's ahead of us. May Allah guide us to what's right. May Allah use us in ways that are pleasing to Him. It's not the first time that I'm speaking about this election or what it means or how we should move. So I'm not going to be able to say everything in this khutbah. But I do want to share some things that are heavy on the heart.

First and foremost, how many people realistically have you seen change their minds in the last four months in the course of your discussions? Your WhatsApp groups, your conversations online, your conversations at your dinner table. How many people have actually changed their minds? And if you're being honest with yourself, if you're lucky, maybe it's one or two. So to say that people have their minds set is probably true for the vast majority of Muslims, as it is true for the vast majority of Americans. And the rest of this is a circus that plays out — and unfortunately takes a lot of people along the way, and we accumulate many sins in that process.

Number two, even if you've seen someone change their minds, when's the last time you saw someone change their mind when you called them a naive idiot or a soulless sell-out? When you insulted them into changing their minds? It doesn't happen — not online, not in real life. You don't walk through the masjid doors and say, "Who are you voting for?" and have someone respond, "I think you're right, I'm gonna vote like you now." It doesn't happen like that in real life.

So let's deal with the reality that we have right now. It's too late for me to try to change your mind on anything. But I hope, bi-idhnillah, that there is at least something for the hearts in this last Jumu'ah.

Du'as We Should Be Making Against Our Enemies

What I want us to do first and foremost, because it is Jumu'ah, is to go back to our du'as. What are the du'as that we should be making in these times? We have the du'a for guidance. We have the du'as that we are to be making against our enemies. And let's be clear — we have a clear enemy, and we should be making du'a against that clear enemy.

I want to share with you two. The first, from Abdullah ibn Amr al-'As رضي الله تعالى عنهما, who says that the Prophet ﷺ would frequently make du'a with the following words:

(Sunan al-Nasa'i, Book 51, Hadith 5473)

O Allah, I seek refuge in You from being overwhelmed by debt, from being overpowered by my enemy, and from their gloating at my misfortune.

The second du'a is one that Abu Hurairah رضي الله تعالى عنه also reports as being a frequent supplication of our Messenger ﷺ:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6347; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2707)

The Prophet ﷺ would frequently seek refuge from four things:

Number one — جَهْدُ الْبَلَاءِ — from the severity of trials. May Allah protect us from the severity of trials. The types of trials that overwhelm our senses so that we can't even see right and wrong anymore.

Number two — دَرَكُ الشَّقَاءِ — from being met with deprivation. And the greatest deprivation is the deprivation of faith, not the deprivation of anything else. The deprivation of faith — when Allah writes down upon a person that they are شَقِيٌّ, deprived of good, because of their insistence upon taking a path of evil.

Number three — سُوءُ الْقَضَاءِ — from being met with an evil decree. May Allah protect us from an evil decree.

Number four — شَمَاتَةُ الْأَعْدَاءِ — from the gloating of our enemies. When our enemies see us struggling, when they see us fractured, when they see us unable to protect ourselves, when they see us unable to move in a cohesive direction — and they celebrate, they make jokes, they make memes, they celebrate our impotence, they celebrate their supposed domination over us — may Allah show us a day where they no longer gloat. Allahumma ameen.

These du'as are incredibly important — not just because du'a is the weapon of the believer, greater than any other weapon or tool that we have — but because they help us calibrate, and they help us think about: what is a misfortune that will do that to me? What is an enemy that should be defined that way?

Who Is Your Enemy?

First and foremost — who is your enemy? I'll tell you: if you're a sincere Muslim, and I assume that of every brother or sister that walks through the masjid doors, then may Allah reward you for your sincerity. And I ask Allah to guide you and to guide me to the best course of action.

You're not my enemy, even if I think very differently from you. Period. A Muslim is a Muslim. You are not my enemy. I do not think of you as an enemy. Nor should we think of each other as enemies because of battle lines — lines that are not the ones we take from the Quran and the sunnah — being drawn between us. We don't do that in our community. No matter how much we disagree, no matter how severe and real those disagreements become, even if a person is a sinful Muslim — you're a Muslim. You're not my enemy.

So I start with that. Your enemy is not your brother or sister who's trying to figure out what to do with all of this. Your enemy is the system of evil that forces you to try to guess who's going to genocide less, who's going to oppress less, who's going to kill less Muslims. That is your enemy. That evil.

But in that process, anyone who tries to sanitize or downplay the evil of any party or any politician that has the blood of your brothers and sisters on their hands needs to do some soul searching. There is a difference between trying to calculate, in the midst of a great evil that can be overwhelming, with sincerity — and sanitizing that very evil. Those are two very different things.

In whatever calculation you're making, the worst human rights atrocity of our lifetimes playing out on our screens has to be the number one factor of that calculation. It starts with them. We are not the people that reduce Gaza to a side concern. Nor are we the people that insult Palestinians or use the word "Palestinian" as an insult. Because there is no greater honor right now than standing with the most honored people on earth — and those are the Palestinians that are fighting this cruel beast right now. We're not those people.

And when we make our calculations, we have to make sure that we are operating with sincerity to our cause as an ummah, no matter what that is.

And I want us all to recognize that while we're glued to our screens on Tuesday night, seeing a percentage move this way or that way and watching this political football — at that very moment, your brothers and sisters in Gaza and Lebanon will be looking to the skies to see if there is a movement of an American bomb, some of them manufactured right here in Dallas, that's going to fall on them in that moment. They're not looking at things the way that you're looking at things. And that's your brother. That's your sister. And that has to be the number one concern that is on your heart and your mind at all times.

What If We Get It Wrong? — The Hadith of the Archer

But what if in that calculation, we get this wrong? What if we don't take the right course of action as a community — even with the right intentions and even with the right mechanics to arrive at the right goal? What if we get this wrong? Not just in regards to our vote, by the way — a vote for anyone, or not voting at all. Not just in regards to that, but in regards to anything. In regards to our strategies. Sincere strategies through ikhlas, through shura, through deeply contemplating the sunnah together, to try to figure things out as a collective community. What if we get things wrong in our lives?

I want you to ponder this hadith. SubhanAllah, it is a powerful hadith. And I don't want to lose the context, because sometimes we can be highly dishonest if we speak of a hadith like this without situating it in context. This hadith is talking about the Battle of Badr or Uhud — a person who has been charged with holding an arrow, an archer who has to watch the backs of the Muslims and has direct orders from the Prophet ﷺ to protect themselves against an evil tyrant. It is talking about that context.

But there is something deeply profound that the Prophet ﷺ shared with the archers. Some of the scholars say this was before the Battle of Uhud because of the focus that the Prophet ﷺ had on that small group. And subhanAllah, there is something deeply profound in that — it was a group of 50 that were the key strategy for the rest of the ummah in that situation. And when 40 of those 50 disobeyed, it changed the entire dynamics of that battle.

So think about the Prophet ﷺ speaking to you and you're one of those archers. Amr ibn Abasah رضي الله عنه says:

(Sunan al-Nasa'i, Book 25, Hadith 3144; also reported in Musnad Ahmad)

The Prophet ﷺ said: whoever shoots an arrow — whether that arrow hits its target or misses its target — that arrow will be equivalent to the reward of freeing a person from slavery. SubhanAllah.

Think about that message, how it resonates, what it says to a person. You're in this situation, you're shooting your arrows. And to be clear — because I know how our khutbahs get taken out of context — I am not suggesting that you shoot an actual arrow or shoot anything at anybody else. Stick to the spirit of the hadith, please.

What the Prophet ﷺ is putting in their minds: you're gonna shoot, and sometimes you're gonna miss. You're going to strategize, and sometimes your strategy will fall apart. You're gonna make determinations, and sometimes those determinations are going to be dead wrong, even if everyone around you says they're absolutely right. It's going to happen.

And in this situation, in such a clear and pure situation, the Prophet ﷺ is saying: whether it misses or not, you've just freed yourself from hellfire. Because the reward of freeing a person from slavery is freeing yourself from hellfire — limb by limb, as the Prophet ﷺ said. So do your part. Don't sit there and beat yourself up too much over the missed arrow, over the missed target. It's about the spirit. It's about who you are when you assume that position. It's about calibrating with sincerity and with clarity. It's about trying to make sure that you take the right decision. And may Allah guide us to as-sawab — to that which is right in all of our affairs.

Five Things to Carry Into Tuesday

And with that, I want to leave you with five things bi-idhnillahi ta'ala as we go into this Tuesday.

1. Expand Your Definition of Community

The definition of our community needs to change to include our global community. To speak of American Muslims as if what they do only affects them, or that their interests are to be spoken about in isolation, is a flagrant violation of the concept of an ummah that Allah has given to us from the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

2. Your Muslim Brother or Sister Is Never Your Enemy

When you're a part of my community, you're a part of my community no matter how much I disagree with you. Your sanctity as a Muslim, your honor and your dignity, are still just as sacred as any other moment in our existence. I still love you even when I'm mad at you, and I hope that we get to Jannah together. That's the spirit of a community, inside and outside.

3. Never Throw Your Community Under the Bus

Don't ever throw your community under the bus or think that you're better than your community. When Allah says:

When they meet the believers, they say, "We are with you." And when they are alone with their devils, they say, "No, we are with you — we are just mocking them." Don't ever speak to anyone outside of this community as if you're not a part of it. It's your community.

And you know what that means post-election? If a pro-genocide candidate from any party loses an election or loses a race, don't come back and yell at the Muslims. Yell at the candidate who lost their morality and lost the Muslim vote in the process. Don't yell at the community and say it's the community's fault. Absolutely not. We are a community of clarity.

4. Stay Focused on the Common Enemy

Staying focused on our common enemy and fighting the common evil that we've all been seeing means staying focused on the beast in its entirety and striving to the best of our ability to tame that beast in its entirety. That doesn't happen through a vote in isolation — especially if that vote is taken in the spirit of insecurity. We have to act with confidence, sincerity, and a sense of security.

5. Allah Is Always in Charge

Allah is always in charge. He's in charge on November 4th, He's in charge on November 5th, He's in charge on November 6th. You get the point. Allah is always in charge.

No one whom Allah befriends will be humiliated. No one whom Allah takes as an enemy will be honored. Therefore, we cannot seek power or dignity through any candidate. We seek it through our Creator alone. And we act with a sense of confidence in that process.

Alhamdulillah. Whatever Allah throws our way, there is an opportunity for us individually and as a community to internalize it and to find our path back to Jannah bi-idhnillahi ta'ala.

Closing Du'a

May Allah guide us to what's right. May Allah guide our intentions. May Allah guide our thinking. May Allah guide our strategies. May Allah guide our deeds. And may Allah allow us as a community to be a pillar of strength for the rest of the Ummah — and not to be a pillar of weakness, and not to be a pillar that forgets the rest of the house. May Allah guide us, guide our children, guide our future generations. May Allah guide our neighbors and guide all of those around us to that which is best and that which is most pleasing to Him. Allahumma ameen.