in the crater of the Earth in the land of Gazza right now there is a portal to the heavens that is possibly larger than any portal to the heavens in any place on planet Earth right now there are more Shada ascending from that one single strip than probably any other place in the world right now America doesn't like truth tellers and it doesn't like those who put a mirror up to its ugliness the problem is not Republican the problem is not Democratic the problem is that the entire American system is Hostage to the Israeli occupation
I don't want to hear you say this needs to end I want you to make it end by putting an arms embargo on Israel right now it will be liberated Palestine will be free Gazza will be victorious it's a matter of when not if im thank you for your time for having me im as perhaps one of the most prominent Western English speaking imams of Palestinian origin the past nine months has been quite grueling and draining for the Muslim at large how are you personally coping you know Subhan Allah the deepest personal tragedy that I
ever suffered in my life was the death of my mother may Allah have mercy on her may Allah have mercy on her and the way that I comfort myself when I think about that tragedy is I think about what the prophet said to [Music] if she could speak she would say this um and that was to encourage to give on behalf of his mother and in the case of how the were feeling with the of it literally is a conversation between Allah subhana and the sh of after they were presented to him where the sh
of had nothing left to ask for except for one thing that Allah subh denied them which was to come back to this life and to go through through the ordeal of shahada once again or what caused their shahada once again Allah told them that once I take you out of that realm I will not send you back and they said to Allah subhana T can you tell our families about our situation and that is actually what led to the revelation of until the end of that set of verses in which is don't think or don't
say of them that they are dead rather they are alive they're with their lord they are rejoicing they are happy and you know when you think about them being happy with what Allah subhana has given to them what I realized in this last 10 months which I mean I hate to even say it's been difficult for me I mean I think that it's hard for any of us to say it's been difficult for us when you think about what the people that are in Gaz are actually enduring but relative to the rest of our lives
perhaps not relative to their lives this has been a very difficult phase I say to myself what would the eloquent man our brother used to author those beautiful lines of poetry what would he be saying now what would that little girl hint be saying now when the prophet Salli wasallam smelled the perfume of the hairdresser of the daughter of on the night of who was brutally killed by Fon thrown into a ditch of fire I think of Hind and her Dunes of musk and what she would say to us now this is the thing about
us as Believers when the prophet says how amazing is the affair of the believer because all of his Affairs are good and this is not for anyone except for a Believer when you make that plural how amazing is the affair of of the Believers all of their Affairs are good and that is not for anyone but the Believers when they are given something then they are grateful to Allah subhana wa T that is better for them and when they are struck by something they are grateful to Allah subhana wa tala or they are patient with
that adversity and that is better for them meaning it is all it's all good for them the complexity of the believer is that I can see at the same time the ugliness of the genocide and the beauty of the faith of the people of I can be outraged by the murder of the people OFA while still being pleased with the martyrdom of the people of Gaza meaning the reward of the Martyrs from Gazza so that complexity is not understood except by someone who has Faith it's hard to explain this to someone from a rational perspective
it's hard to explain this to someone who operates outside of the domain of IM the domain of belief and that's what the prophet s is saying no one get this except for the believer that I can feel both Joy at the reward of those people while still being as outraged as anybody else over the way by which their oppression played out on our screens with an inability on our part to be able to do anything about it so I've on a personal level Subhan Allah I mean I've I had to actually dig into how I've
dealt with the death of my mother may Allah have mercy on her and think the way that I comfort myself with her is I do things on her behalf I make Dua for her I do or I I do something of of good and then I dedicate that to her and I imagine a conversation with her right after that and so with the people of Gazza I'll tell myself you know I wonder what they'd be saying right now to me and I wonder what the conversation would look like right now in the crater of the
Earth in the land of Gazza right now there is a portal to the heavens that is possibly larger than any portal portal to the heavens in any place on planet Earth right now there are more sh ascending from that one single strip than probably any other place in the world right now and that knowledge is only to Allah subhana wa TAA in the sense of its entirety so with that I'm comforted that Allah subhana tala will not betray his promise to them those that have passed I am comforted by knowing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will not betray the promise of Victory to the people of festine as a whole The Liberation OFA it will be liberated Palestine will be free razza will be victorious it's a matter of when not if I'm comforted by the promise of Allah subh Allah will not let the reward of the good doers go to waste so those that are doing for the people of Gazza sincerely for the sake of Allah subhana T and I pray that Allah would include us amongst them despite our shortcomings Allah won't let those efforts go to waste and I'm comforted
that Allah subhana wa taala is not heedless in regards to that which the oppressors do do not think that Allah subhana T is heedless in regards to the actions of the oppressors and that Justice will be served to them in this life or the next or both so that's the complexity of the believer and I'm glad we have that complex because no one else can understand it unless they operate from within this domain of belief so may Allah keep us steadfast on IM on belief so that we can always see the world that way and
so that we can experience the Hereafter in the same way that we hope our brothers and sisters in Gaza that have passed on are experiencing it right now am mean may Allah have mercy on your mother and on all the matters of IM we recently witnessed Benjamin Netanyahu walk through the people's house and be given the greatest honor of you know addressing a joint us con uh which was received with a lot of standing ovations as an American Palestinian how did those scenes make you feel it wasn't surprising look from that house the war on
Afghanistan was legislated the war on Iraq was legislated America and Israel uh function as one and the same in regards to how the policy towards Muslims is conducted M we are nothing but roaches to them we are nothing but a number to them the American Empire in Israel are one and so I'm not surprised all of those that were standing up and giving a standing ovation to Netanyahu with every clap there's $100 from APAC there's $1,000 from APAC every single one of them has what one Congressman called a babysitter from APAC I mean how pathetic
how pathetic and what an indictment of all of those that chant out America First and all of these empty slogans of patriotism while a foreign leader who's on trial for genocide who has an arrest warrn on him for being a war criminal walks into your highest office and gets a standing ovation as a foreign leader that even an American leader would not get this is your king this is your Empire here's the thing about America if you if you look at the truth tellers in the history of the United States number one almost always killed
um people forget that in the darkest era uh or one of the darkest eras in American history was was in 1960s Medgar Evers alab Malcolm X Martin Luther King Jr three faces of the Civil Rights Movement were all murdered in their 30s right America doesn't like truth tellers and it doesn't like those who put a mirror up to its ugliness the ugliness of its foreign policy and the Havoc that it has rre on the rest of the world Israel is me merely a colonial arm of the American Empire it was set up by the British
Empire in a colonial fashion and it remains a colonial arm an extension of American colonialism and imperialism today Joe Biden said as much when he was still semi-coherent about how you know if there wasn't an Israel in the Middle East we would create an Israel in the Middle East so to have a foreign leader who's on trial for genocide a war criminal stand in front of Congress and get over 50 standing ovations and be treated in a way that no American leader would be treated you know what as disgusting as it is as disgusting as
it was I'm glad that a sincere American with just some common sense that's not so blinded by their hatred or the propaganda about the Muslim world and the Palestinians specifically can look at that and go that is disgusting if you're a Republican and you claim to be for the construction of America first and you talk about you know spending tax dollars at home and you talk about the uh the upliftment of the American dollar look at you look at you look at what you support look at those Republican Congressman dancing around for this war criminal
and if you're a Democrat that talks about diversity and freedom and love and respect for all look at that look at your Congressman look at your party acting like a bunch of dogs in front of a war criminal who while he was giving his speech it's it's not an exaggeration to say this it is not a stretch to say that in the process of that man standing in front of the United States Congress saying that Israel does not kill civilians and justifying a genocide that in the course of that speech children were killed by the
Machinery that was provided from the house that he was standing in and by his command but but alhamdulillah it's clear it's it's obvious I think to many people that previously would never have seen the Palestinian cause through the lens of justice and never have seen the pathetic nature of the American Empire and American imperialism with such an obvious lens as you can today Subhan Allah on the topic of the US election I mean we recall seeing during Trump's previous presidency scenes of yourself at the border comforting children who had been stripped away from their parents
and also scenes of you at the airport protesting against the Muslim ban as an American Imam are you fearful of another Trump presidency you know there's a saying that we have that four years under Donald Trump does not equal one day in Gaza so whatever he is promising to do I'll tell you one thing that I am under No Illusion that that Trump is some good man or that he's a savior who's going to stop War let's not forget that Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem that there are illegal settlements named after Donald Trump and
I believe he's the only president who has an illegal Israeli settlement named after him let's not forget that he pushed the Abraham Accords threatened multiple countries that if they don't sign on to the Abraham Accords that they would face the might of the American Military Donald Trump is just as bought as anybody else read up on Miriam Adon uh and the $100 million behind Donald Trump in order for him to push even further the the the Injustice of the expansion of this illegal colonial state down the throats of the Palestinians to normalize even further Donald
Trump had a term and we saw exactly what that meant for the Palestinians I am under No Illusion that this man is a savior that he's going to do anything better or anything different Joe Biden might have said some things a little bit differently I mean it was it was really something to watch Donald Trump called Joe Biden a Palestinian as an insult in the debate I mean Subhan Allah it's like that's the Twilight Zone right like this man who actually has committed a genocide because this is just as much Joe Biden's genocide as it
is Benjamin nyah's genocide to have him called the Palestinian by Donald Trump what this shows you is that the problem is not Republican the problem is not Democratic the problem is that the entire American system is Hostage to the Israeli occupation and Israel's illegal policies and the the Injustice that is being committed towards the Palestinian people so I I despise Donald Trump and what he stands for not just towards the Palestinian people but uh especially for what he did to the Palestinian people and what he says that he intends to do with the Palestinians and
I despise what Joe Biden has actually done I don't think that any president has done worse has done worse than what Joe Biden has done this genocide is his legacy and so I think that we should just operate in in this time as Muslims as people of conscience we should operate on the basis of policy pay attention to what people do and what they say they're going to do we don't need more flowery rhetoric we don't need more expressions of concern I am sick of watching The State Department officials each and every single one of
them uh say that they're heartbroken while still supplying the bombs that are breaking Gaza into pieces and killing our children we don't need Expressions we need to pay attention to policies and look for material differences in those policies so so on that it seems that American Muslims you know are going to be faced with two equally evil options come election time especially that both of these parties have given you know explicit support or by partisan support for um for Israel what are American Muslims supposed to do what options are there open to them so there
are a few things I'd say there number one you know a lot can happen from now until November you really don't know what's going to happen um you don't know who's who else is going to be on the ballot um which third Party candidate will be on the ballot at that point um is it is it better for Muslims to have a national right-in campaign you know who knew the word uncommitted before Michigan and Minnesota and some of these states popularized the word uncommitted and uncommitted caught the attention of the Biden White House over 100,000
uncommitted votes in Michigan I was really looking forward to Michigan causing Biden to lose and the abandoned Biden campaign uh and and that being because that should have been the source of his l uh and I think it would have actually been a major part of his reason for losing the presidency but the word uncommitted who would have known what that word was or that that was even the option that that was going to be the campaign so I think a lot can happen from now until November at the presidential level um I I think
that as Muslims it's important for us to have uh somewhat of a unified strategy in this regard um again whether that looks like voting for a third party candidate across the board um you know which would be a protest vote in and of itself but I don't know if that's Jill Stein or Cornell West I don't even know if Cornell West will be on all the ballots across the board um some would say well those candidates carry a lot of other issues true but because of the uh the virtual impossibility of them actually winning the
office if you're voting for a third- Party candidate for the reason of a specific issue then you're not really risking bringing on some of the other issues that might pose uh problems for Muslims in other regards right so is it a third party candidate is it a national right in um who actually is going to be on the ticket come November the United States is crazy in a matter of one week there was an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump I'm not going to go down that route an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump and
then Joe Biden suddenly disappeared and KLA Harris is running on the Democratic ticket it's hard to project from now what's going to happen in November all I would say is that it's important for Muslims to uh interrogate policy not words so the only thing K Harris has has shown thus far is that she's gone a step further in her expression of concern that she seemed to be a little bit more expressive in her concern for civilian life and saying this needs to end I don't want to hear you say this needs to end I want
you to make it end by putting an arms embargo on Israel right now there has to be some sort of concrete action so far we haven't seen a departure in policy from Herod she is the number two in in charge here so you know her words are not enough uh there has to be a departure in policy for us to even consider uh what that would look like for us uh come November in regards to her right so I'm saying a lot can happen you know from now until November uh I'm not holding my breath
on either of the two parties because I think they're both beholden to APAC and they're both beholden to the power of the the pro-israel lobby so I'm not holding my breath because the donors in the lobbies are are clear uh I think that the biggest mistake is to assume that politicians actually are responsive to people if that was the case the vast majority of Americans wanted a ceasefire Republicans and Democrats by the way in public opinion polls and that was completely ignored as evidenced by the displays that you continue to see in Congress and moreover
the legislation that continues to supply uh unconditional bombing power to Israel to to carry out its brutality against the Palestinian people that's in regards to the presidential elections I think that what's important then is for Muslims to look at every other race um with a deep and calculated strategy what what wasn't told in the Netanyahu address um is I think some 130 Democrats did not attend his speech that didn't happen a few years ago right which means that in many of these districts I don't operate with the default that politicians are printing IPL I I
operate with the default that politicians are afraid and that they read they read the room they read the constituency yes um and a principled person is the exception in this regard Muslims have a chance in those districts to play their hands to play their power people of conscience to work with others because alhamdulillah public opinion has shifted y significantly on Palestine so look at every race strategically surgically and work your way in there and we'll see what we do come November but but we have to be principled if you don't punish genocide if you don't
punish aparti you have no actual principle and no moral standing as a Muslim Community so just just on that you grew up in a africanamerican community as a teenager and um you know you throughout the course of your work you engage with a lot of Americans through of all walks of life what should engagement for the Muslim Community be like with the broader community and how can we engage some of the other communities you know to join some of our causes so I think that it's important for Muslims to not be partisan but to be
issue based it's important for Muslims to not allow for any party or politician to co-opt their anger their frustration on festine or any other issue that it's important for us to craft platforms and those platforms be represented of what the mainstream Muslim Community holds dear and sacred and then on the basis of those platforms we interact not just with politicians but other sectors of society and find where common cause makes sense uh to to build coalitions to uh to work on these specific things festine is one issue but it's not just another issue I mean
it's this is a major shift a major shift in the way that we should be seeing ourselves in the way that we should be seeing the future and so I think that the way that we do this is we're people of principle um we are an anti-oppression community in general right festine is the most obvious cause manifestation of Oppression that is happening right now in front of us we're a community of Good Will we're also a Community of Faith we're a community of principle and so sometimes people say well you know Muslims uh align more
with the right on some issues and more with the left on other issues that's fine but that needs to be spelled out in a place and if so if someone is not willing to work with you on the basis of an issue because of what you wholesomely represent then that's an easy way to exclude a person uh from your uh from your platform and you don't need to work with those types of people so the the thing is I think what what needs to happen and this is what I'm hopeful insh is that we need
to control the conversation we need to write our own narrative and that's not going to happen without us just putting forth in a clear way that is authentic to our tradition that is grounded in the Quran and Sunnah grounded in the reality of the mainstream Muslim Community that doesn't sell out our community domestically or abroad and then let that be the conversation starter and that's a great way to filter out uh many quote unquote allies or coalition partners and keep us focused on our true enemies and just just on that I mean how in your
opinion how do you balance activism and da activism being you know the call for justice and da being the call for the worship of Allah subhana tala what is the right balance so to me those two things are not separated and and I'll explain why I think that that's not an Islamic concept the prophet Salli wasam stood on saf and basically said to the people that you see the concern that I've had for you in the this world that I would warn you about a harm coming to you in this world I am to you
right you trusted me I've been truthful to you I have been honest and you know that about me and so just as I am calling you or just as I have been there for you in this life I am for you in the afterlife as well just as I'm trying to protect you from harm and I have a track record of protecting you from harm in this world I'm trying to protect you from harm and the Hereafter that the call to maintain the sanctity of human dignity in this life is intimately linked to the call
to Salvation for Humanity in the next life and so Da goes hand inand with that that there is a genuine sense of manifesting the of the mercy of the mercy to the worlds being the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam that that Mercy was all encompassing and that the credibility that is garnered by genuinely being being there for people and caring for their Affairs in this life is crucial and foundational to the call that I care for you in the afterlife as well that I want to see you succeed in this life and I want to see
you succeed in the next life that has to be genuine by the way that has to actually be trying to live what the prophet sallai wasallam lived and so those calls are inseparable they are inseparable and I would caution Muslims to not come off as being or in fact be opportunistic come off as just being opportunistic jumping here and there having no principle that guides their politics or that guides their interventions in society instead Muslims should have a consistent intervention of caring for the well-being of people in this life and the next That's the basis
of The Da and Subhan Allah we' we've heard it from multiple people uh that have embraced Islam it was actually the presence of Muslims the presence of Muslims in issues that were not Muslim specific that open their hearts and their eyes to Islam the prophet s wasallam gave us a methodology and so how do I bounce it personally I mean I just I I see them as Inseparable and I ask Allah subh for for all of us in this regard to guide us to the best course of action and to guide our thoughts to guide
our ideas to guide our hearts and to allow us to be a source of guidance and goodness for all of society in this life and the next a mean earlier this year you met with uh you know an acclaimed journalist from Brother um can you tell us a little bit about that meeting Subhan Allah um and not just W but especially W there was something about watching him have everything in this dun being taken away from him piece by piece while the camera was literally on him and him exhibiting the most beautiful example of if
that's not beautiful patience I don't know what is what's a more beautiful patience than a man standing on camera and Reporting on the murder of his wife and his children the death of his mother himself being struck the death of his cameraman the martyrdom of his cameraman piece by piece everything's been taken away from him and he manifested beautiful patience you know we read it in the story of and the prophets of course are a different category they're a category of their own but part of what makes the story of aam so painful is the
way that it unfolds over time first he struck with his wealth and then after all of his wealth has been taken away from him then his his uh his family is taken away from him and then after his children are taken away from him then his health is taken away from him so there's a story that unfolds and you know it's one thing when everything hits you at one time and it's another thing when it's over time and never responded except in a way that you would see from a prophet or from a companion I
mean Subhan Allah like he didn't have a low moment like he didn't have a bad interview and I hate to even put it that way because you can excuse like when someone maybe has no words you can excuse when someone maybe doesn't have their best moment none of us understand what it's like to be in the middle of this genocide with the months and months of trauma Perpetual trauma none of us understand what that does to us psychologically add on to that hunger add on to that fear add on to that just the sound of
the drones above you all the time none of us understand this that we're not we haven't even talked about his relatives his brothers his sisters his cousins and all the death and struction he's already seeing so we can excuse a bad moment but he didn't have a moment that wasn't just absolute beautiful patience and so I I asked Allah subhana to meet well um in this life before the next and I told him that when I saw him alhamdulillah we've kept in touch um pretty regularly he actually did Hajj not many people know that subh
Allah he was actually in Hajj this year alhamdulillah so even then the way that his I could just tell uh he was carrying all that pain and just bringing it to Allah subhana wa T in the the most beautiful of ways like he's carrying Gaza with him right now he's left has not left him at all at all at all so I sat with him in first I met him Subhan Allah the the time for came in and he insisted that I lead the Salah I was like oh my God how am I going to
lead this I felt so so small so small leading him in Salah and subh just came to me to to read reading and um Allah will know the truthful people don't just say they believe and they're not tested it is through those tests that Allah will know the the truthfulness of the truthful and that Allah will know the deceit of the liar I'm like who am I to be reading this verse in front of him and what a beautiful manifestation of this verse and Subhan Allah um you know what was amazing about him is that
there's someone who says alhamdulillah and you can tell they say it out of habit with every alhamdulillah he says you can feel it from his heart and our first conversation he just he said to me you know alhamdulillah he said Allah is so R and he explains how Allah is so R Allah is so Kim and he explains how Allah is so Allah says that to Allah belong the most beautiful of names call him with those names I heard him say probably 10 to 15 names of Allah in our first conversation and I sit down
he was connecting the incidents that have happened over the last few months to Allah's Mercy his Justice his promise his his his victory and he just says it with such heart and he says ask for my family the only difference between me and them is that they went to J and I came to that's it like he he has such confidence and that's the thing when we say like you don't get that unless you're a Believer only a Believer that's y by the way that is y That's certainty that certainty that he says it with
there's no doubt you hear an ounce of doubt in in anything that he says he knows he knows how else can a man function right and still function meaningfully that doesn't mean he's not sad he's clearly devastated um but subh Allah his dignity was was just so clear profound um I'll tell you a story Subhan Allah cuz um the one time he he laughed uh alhamdulillah we we really we we really did hit it off and alhamdulillah I'm I want to be his neighbor in neighbor of the Prophet wasallam so you want you want to
love the righteous people and you want to you want to get close to them and I I know that I'm nowhere near his level so I just I want him to know my name whenever he eventually leaves this uh this life and and I pray that he asks about me and that maybe maybe just maybe his his intercession will be there but the one time that he just had a hearty laugh was when I told him I was like like I really made Dua like I'm going to meet before he's martyred like I was watching
him on screen when he was inaz and I was like there's no way this man dies before I get to meet him and like that was my Dua I want to sit with and I didn't know if that was going to happen in Gaza or happen in America and I told him I said by the way when you come to the United States I'm going to be your translator like I'm not going to take no for an answer when you do your speaking tours I'm going to be that one by the way he doesn't speak
a word of English yes a word of English he's like I never bothered you know not a word of English uh he said to me he said you know English to me is probably like how Chinese is to you like I don't know a word of it despite all these years Subhan Allah in journalism his Arabi is beautiful his hearty laugh is when I told him that story because he remembered something in Gazza he said Subhan Allah there was someone that told me this in Gazza he said that um we were we were driving and
of course the roads are terrible in Gaza and we're trying to get around and you know the cars are barely functioning and he said and you know while I was in the car in the back seat of this car there was another guy that like cut us off and you know you can imagine like driving in that area and he said that as you know he cut us off and like his driver and that driver like clearly are like upset about like trying to get around these craters in the road and stuff like that he
said that driver looked in the in the mirror and then he got out of his car and he came to the car and he and he opened the the door and he said he said I made Dua that I will come and find you I asked where you were going to be and I made this food and I asked Allah subh to let me bring you food every single day so he said here's the food so he went he grabbed the food from his from his car and he gave it to and he said I'm
going to find you every single day give me your every day I'm going to find you and I'm going to give you something to eat he said I asked Allah that he gives me the opportunity to give you something to eat every single time so he said that Subhan Allah that man every single day he'd find him wherever he was reporting from and even if give him like a sandwich or give like just some piece of bread of course the people of Gaza have very little but he was so truthful he was rushing that day
he was trying to cut off the car he was rushing to try to get to the place where he thought was was going to be and it reminded me there's a famous story of iMed and I shared it with him if if we have time if I can I shared it with him Subhan Allah the story of IM Ahmed and the baker yes or IM Ahmed went to a place in a sham and he went to sleep in a Masjid and and the guard of the Masjid was so rude to him that he kicked him
out and he dragged him out and put him in the street and then there was a baker that uh brought him in he invited him to come into His Bakery and as he was baking the bread he was doing all of his and remembering Allah subhana and iMed asked him he said you know what have you seen as a result of this and he said he said I never made du for anything except that Allah gave it to me he said nothing he said nothing everything I've ever asked Allah for he gave it to me
he said except for one more thing and iMed I want to meet IM Ahmed one day iMed said here Allah brought you Ahmed dragging him from his feet to your bakery so that was the heartiest laugh that I saw from W and and I told him there's one more person which is uh and of course everyone in Gaza knows each other it's uh it's yes of course you know the the the soul of my Soul the grandfather of yes um AB I I I really want to meet that man so badly Subhan Allah so I
ask Allah that he gathers Us in this life before the next life but ultimately gathers us all in Paradise with all these sh that we've seen on the screen all the pictures the casualties we know and that we don't know it may be that Allah and his Mercy will gather from the people in the west and the East those people with those sh and one day where we all celebrate that Victory together in the Hereafter Victory is for the Believers and you know one Hadith that comes to mind is when the prophet s wasam says
you are with those whom you love we hope first and foremost we love the prophet so we get to be with the prophet we love we hope that we'll get to be with them may Allah be pleased with them but if you love these [Music] people you'll be with those whom you love so B will be with those whom we love from the righteous of the past and Those whom we love from the righteous of the present and those who we love from the righteous of the future hopefully some of them will be from our
Offspring they're they are great role models and beacons of inspiration for Muslims around the world in these very very difficult times IM I want to ask you I mean with the rising sort of focus on anti-Semitism at the moment have you um witnessed any increase or surge in islamophobic attacks in America and how's your Community they dealing with it h Subhan Allah I mean it's this is something that that that makes me queasy uh I had I had the I don't know what to call it but I I had the experience of going to the
funeral of may Allah make it easy for his mother and may Allah accept him into alos into the highest level of paradise six-year-old boy who was practically by his landlord M just a week after after leza yes um you know so October 14th weekend I believe it was that weekend that um this transpired and Subhan Allah it was it was so disgusting and then you had the a young man in Austin that was stabbed as well coming from a protest Austin Texas lives in Dallas actually so he was coming back to Dallas from Austin Texas
yes you have the students that were shot in Vermont you have attack after attack after attack on these Palestinian protesters on Palestinian children um and I could go on and on and I thought to myself and I have no shame saying this by the way I actually even brought it up on the Lex Freedman Show when he asked me the same question can you imagine if wadir was a six-year-old Jewish boy that was stabbed by a Muslim landlord what that would have done there was a a president of a synagogue in Michigan that was found
murdered in her driveway yes and that's tragic and unfort I mean it is tragic right and nothing that we would ever condone but just the thought like sniffing that maybe it was revenge for what had been done to or maybe this was related to Gaza led to a surge immediate surge of islamophobia in the media and it turned out to have absolutely nothing to do with the Muslims right it was not a Muslim that that murdered her right so the the sickening way that anti-Semitism has been weaponized to silence critique of Israel and to overlook
by the way the very real violence that is taking place against Palestinians and Muslims at home while of course the greater violence is taking place against Palestinians in Palestine um it is sickening uh the violence against protesters by the way at the hands of the police at the hands of the state as well as at the hands of ordinary citizens the violence of the crack Downs these continued attacks that are that we're seeing across the board if we're really going to be serious about just you know about um taking action against uh any type of
hatred and any type of violence then we have to actually study not just the root causes but the obvious manifestations of that hatred and stop letting these sick lobbies that are already leading to already a a crucial part of the devastation that we're seeing overseas perpetuate the devastation that we're seeing at home it's a it's a sick reality so we should stand against you know the violence against uh civilians wherever that may be and that type of hatred being manifested in such a way but we have been the primary victims as Muslims and as Palestinians
of that hatred many of those that report on anti-Semitism um you know in the United States as they'll report 4,000 incidents for example of anti-Semitism uh when you actually read the data it'll say 1,700 of those were just prop Palestine rallies right so there's a lot of conflation uh taking place intentional conflation taking place to further the pro-israel agenda um there is a lot of weaponization of anti-Semitism to silence critique of uh of the policies of the United States and the policies of Israel and there's a lot of it being used to suffocate the very
real manifestations of violence that have taken place against the Muslim Community and against Palestinians with virtually zero outcry from the media today Subhan Allah given um the growing hostility that we are seeing in America at the moment and yourself being one of the most outspoken imams in America do you fear for your life honest I just don't and if if we're not learning from the people of Gaza to not be afraid then what are we learning what should I be afraid of absolutely not I don't fear for my life you don't take any precautionary measures
I mean we have to take our precautions in our ways um in in little ways here or there right but fear is so crippling it's so paralyzing uh if you live in fear you're not alive so you have to conquer that fear so I just don't think about it too much at all um because I'm focused on the death and destruction on my screen and people that are beloved to me that have been killed that have been martyred um I can't even begin to think about the wh if you know when when the prophet s
wasallam says they will not be able to harm you except with something that Allah has written for you at the end of the day if something's going to happen something's going to happen I'm more concerned about if I'm going to the same place that the people of have been going to I'm more concerned about that than I am about something bad happening to me or someone doing me some harm so and I would say that to all Muslims um you know stare that fear uh right in the face and squash it the people of Gaza
are showing you what courage looks like and so we have to in our own way try to ingest some of that courage into our own lives and inject it into our activism and into our interventions we shouldn't fear death we shouldn't fear our power structures we shouldn't fear the consequences of life we should be wise but we should be courageous um so let them threaten us with their careers let them threaten us with our lives let them threaten us with all these different things we believe in a Lord that is all powerful and Allah subh
T doesn't make mistakes great advice what would be your me your message to Muslims who feel helpless watching the crimes around the world unfold with no Justice in sight on the horizon what is your message for these Muslims that better than you had to go through worse than you the prophet s wasallam had to walk by as and Y and so many companions were tied up in an exhibition of torture and the prophet Salli wasallam could not do anything about it except say y be patient oh family of Yas your place is in Paradise you
have an appointment with Allah Paradise awaits [Music] you the prophet Salli wasallam had to hear the cries of children that were being starved at his expense in the boycott of B he was in a small a small Valley and imagine being the prophet Sall alaihi wasallam and he has more Mercy in his heart than any of us have none of us can imagine the heart of the Prophet wasallam like the of the prophet wasallam and what it was like for him every single night looking across and seeing dying due to the circumstances of that boycott
and then hearing the children cry at night and then seeing his uncle withering away because of that boycott and feeling absolutely helpless in the process you know when you're an empath you'd rather be in in pain yourself than watch someone else in pain I imagine for the prophet was it was much harder for him to see go through that much harder for him to see Abu Talib go through that much harder for him to see those children go through that um for him sallallahu alaihi wasallam much harder for him to see go through that than
he himself be struck Sall alai wasallam I imagine that for him it was harder on his heart sallallahu alaih wasallam but look we don't know how this story unfolds we have the S now afterwards but if you were living in that moment you wouldn't see an end in sight but you know that the one who sees all and the one who controls all has promised an end in sight and so the end is in his sight it's not in your sight and you have to trust his plan even if you see no potent no nothing
potent about your own plan you have to trust him subhanahu wa taala so it's it's just a matter of knowing this is where you relate to the prophet sallai wasallam right we find so much comfort when we relate to the pain of the Prophet Sall alaihi wasallam and how Allah brought him through that and Allah took the prophet wasallam through the story of yfam through the story of through the story of as a means of fortifying him to say look just like Allah made a way out for them he's going to make a way out
for you and so we look and we say just as Allah made a way out for him sallallahu alaihi wasallam and made a way out for them may Allah send his peace and blessings upon all of his prophets he's going to make a way out for the Believers for the um of Muhammad sahu alai wasallam so we can do more and I'll end on this point we can do more than what the prophet s was able to do in those moments when he was looking at the family of yasash we actually have more tools at
least we can speak against this evil in a public domain at least we can impact meaningful change through Collective action like the boycotts and and we're seeing that effect on policy we're actually being gifted with more in that in that sense than the prophet s alai wasallam was but we need Dua and we need to make a lot of Dua and channel that pain to our Dua uh and make sure that we're calling upon Allah subh tala and know that just as every voice that is raised for the people of festine in the public space
is not in vain every voice silent cry in around the world that is raised to the lord of the world is not in vain Allah does not let that go to waste so you only feel helpless because you can't see what he sees but you're speaking to him subhanahu wa tala directly put your trust in him and know that the story will unfold in the same way that it unfolded for all of those righteous and patient Believers in the past in light of all the horrors that we've been witnessing on our screens unfolding over the
past year or so if I was to ask you to describe the day of judgment to our viewers what would it look like you know there's that that scene where the Prophet Salli wasallam mentions a man dragging his murderer to the throne of Allah subhanahu wa tala on the day of judgment and saying Y imagine the scene of the murder dragging the murderer with the wound still there saying y oh my Lord this one killed me without rights take Vengeance for me can you imagine hind dragging Netanyahu and Allah knows best but can you imagine
the oppressed dragging their tyrants how it all plays out to the throne of Allah subhanahu wa taala and complaining to Allah subhana wa T about what was done to them the first the first announcement on the day of judgment is no one will be wrong today no one will be wrong today and part of no one will be wrong today is that no one's oppression will go unaddressed neither for the oppressed nor for the oppressor and that's why as the beginning scenes of the day of judgment unfold as we start to see that Allah subhah
wa ta'ala will begin his proceedings to the point that an animal with horns that struck an animal without horns that Justice is served in that case the oppressors will have in their throats a lump like no other lump and they will bow their heads in shame and fear and know that this is going to be a long day for them a long Eternity for them Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will bring Justice it's a day of Justice it's a day of mercy and Allah subhana wa tala will not let cruelty go without redress on that day
and so that's where we find Comfort by the way there's Mercy In Justice there's Mercy In Justice we often separate those two concepts there's Mercy In Justice you see when it comes to you and Allah subhana wa tala your own personal sins you're meeting Allah subhana T and you are hoping that whatever sins you've put forth on a personal level will drown in the abundance of his mercy and his forgiveness but there is Mercy In Justice that's between you and Allah subhana wa tala but to the one that's been harmed that is now between the
one who has caused the harm and the one that has been harmed and from the mercy of Allah subhana wa ta'ala is that he will ensure that Justice is served on behalf of the one who was wronged and so that day is a day in which you will see the oppressed be given their full reward their full Bounty and a day where the Prophet Sall alaihi wasall said that the tyrants will be like ants that the people will stomp on you might have have the same tyrants that you see on TV today receiving standing ovations
you might be squashing them with your foot on the day of judgment so long as you don't meet Allah subhana wa tala with the things that would cause your doom on the day of judgment so look forward to that day Where Mercy and Justice are served but at the same time make sure that you have prepared yourself sufficiently for that day and may Allah subh forgive us for our own shortcomings and for our own wrongdoings in that regard in regards to ourselves or in regards to others may Allah deal with the oppressors and may Allah
Grant those that are suffering the highest levels for their patience we love you for the sake of [Music] Allah and I want to say by the way and this is not a uh uh this is not a request from you it's something from the heart uh what One path is doing is absolutely revolutionary and it is beautiful and profound people should support the work of One path in every single way with their Dua with their donations um Subhan Allah it is it's so beautiful to see the quality that you all are producing what you're producing
while staying true to the beauty of This Dean the ethics of This Dean and we will grow together and that's something that um you know I hope insh can become a way that the um thinks that our institutions that our organizations are not competitors they are compliment M to one another and trying to grow in and so to me one path is and uh one I pray that Allah allow us to work together for his sake and that through our Collective efforts that we bring some some some relief to our brothers and sisters in festine
but more importantly uh spread the word of Allah and bring the beauty of Islam to more homes come