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Who Do I Vote For? A message to American Muslims | Khutbah
How do we as Muslims engage our upcoming elections while simultaneously witnessing the evil of a genocide? How do we stay united despite our differences? A message of unity and clarity for American Muslims as a new chapter of our political future unfolds.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
We begin by praising Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) 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.
Dear brothers and sisters, I begin with a du'a that we should be making frequently in these days.
Allahumma arina al-haqqa haqqa warzuqna ittiba'ah wa arina al-batila batila warzuqna ijtinabah
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.
Allahumma arina al-haqqa haqqa warzuqna ittiba'ah wa arina al-batila batila warzuqna ijtinabah
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 (سبحانه وتعالى). 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 (سبحانه وتعالى) 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 (سبحانه وتعالى) mentions to us that, Shall I not tell you about al-akhsareena a'mala, 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. Shall I not tell you about those who have lost their good deeds.
Allatheena dalla sa'yuhum fil-hayati ad-dunya wa hum yahsabuna annahum yuhsinuna sun'a 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.
And now to the elections and to what's ahead of us, may Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) guide us to what's right. And may Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) use us in ways that are pleasing to Him. Allahumma ameen.
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, then if you're lucky, maybe it's one or two.
And so to say that people have their mindsets is probably true for the vast majority of Muslims as it is true for the vast majority of Americans.
And that 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 sellout? 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? I'm voting for this person. You're this, you're this, you're that. I think you're right. I'm going to 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, bismillah ta'ala, at least something for the hearts in this last Jum'ah. And so what I want us to do first and foremost, because it is Jum'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. And I want to share with you two. One of them, from Abdullah ibn Amr al-'As (رضي الله عنهما). He says,
The Prophet (ﷺ) would frequently make du'a with the following words,
The Prophet (ﷺ) would say, 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. It's the first du'a.
The second du'a is a du'a that Abu Huraira (رضي الله عنه) also reports as being a frequent supplication of our Messenger (ﷺ). He says,
He said that the Prophet (ﷺ) would frequently seek refuge from four things. Number one, jahd al-bala, 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. And the Prophet (ﷺ) would seek refuge in Allah from, darak al-shaqa, 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 you, this person is shaqi, deprived of good,
because of their insistence upon taking a path of evil. And the Prophet (ﷺ) would seek refuge in Allah from su' al-qada, from the difficulty, from being met with an evil decree.
And may Allah protect us from an evil decree. And the Prophet (ﷺ) would seek refuge in Allah 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, well, what is a misfortune that will do that to me?
What is an enemy that should be defined that way? And so first and foremost, who is your enemy? And I'll tell you that 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
that are not the ones that we take from the Qur'an 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 this all. 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's what your enemy is. Your enemy is 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. So there's a difference between trying to calculate in the midst of an evil, 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're not the people of Gaza's bad, but so are our groceries. 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. So 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 a percentage move that way, and seeing this political football, I want you to understand that 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 by General Dynamics 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. 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, which is the Sunnah,
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. And subhanAllah, it's 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 the context. This hadith is talking about Badr or Uhud, a person that has been in charge 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. And some of the scholars say that this was before the battle of Uhud because of the tarqiz, because of the focus that the Prophet (ﷺ) had on that small group of people.
And by the way, subhanAllah, in that is deeply profound that it was a group of 50 that were the key strategy of the rest of the ummah in this 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 are one of those archers. Whether it is the battle of Badr or the battle of Uhud. And Amr ibn Abasa says سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَى اللَّهُ عَلِيهِ وَسَلَمَ يَقُولُ
I heard the Prophet (ﷺ) say مَنْ رَمَى الْعَدُوَ بِسَهْمٍ فَبَلَغَ سَهْمُهُ الْعَدُوُ أَصَابَ أَوْ أَخْطَأَ فَيَعْدِلُ رَقَبَهُ 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 that resonates. What that says to a person. Look, you're in this situation. You're shooting your arrows.
And to be clear, because I know how our khutbas get taken out of context, I'm not suggesting that you shoot an actual arrow or shoot anything else 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 gonna happen. And in this situation, in such a clear and pure situation, the Prophet (ﷺ) is saying look, 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. As the Prophet (ﷺ) said, limb by limb, if you free a person from slavery, you free yourself from hellfire.
So do your part. Not just tawakkal ala Allah. 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 you calibrating with sincerity and with clarity. It's about you trying to make sure that you take the right decision. And may Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) guide us to as-sawab, guide us to that which is right in all of our affairs.
And with that, I want to leave you with five things bi-idhnillahi ta'ala, as we go into this Tuesday. Number one, 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 (سبحانه وتعالى) has given to us from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (ﷺ).
It's number one. Number two, when you're a part of that community, when you're a part of my community, you're a part of my community no matter how much I disagree with you. And so your sanctity as a Muslim,
and your honor, and your dignity, is still just as sacred as any other moment in our existence. So 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, outside. Number three, don't ever throw your community under the bus or think that you're better than your community. When Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) says, وَإِذَا لَقُوا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قَالُوا إِنَّا مَعَكُمْ
Or when they're with the believers, they say that we're with you. وَإِذَا خَلَوْا إِلَى شَيَاطِينِهِمْ And when they're with their devils, they say no, we're with you. إِنَّمَا نَحْنُ مُسْتَهْزِيُونَ We're just making fun of them. We're just, you know, shooing them around.
Don't ever speak to anyone outside of this community as if you're not a part of it. It's your community. Don't ever throw your community under the bus. 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 that lost their morality and lost the Muslim vote in the process. Don't yell at the community and say, the community's fault, the community's fault, the community's fault.
Absolutely not. We're a community of clarity. Number four. 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. Number five. 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 (سبحانه وتعالى) is always in charge. Innahu laa yadhillu man waleyt wa laa ya'izzu man adayt. No one who Allah befriends will be humiliated.
No one who 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's an opportunity for us, individually and as a community, to internalize that and to find our path back to Jannah bi-idhnillahi ta'ala.
May Allah guide us to what's right. May Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) guide our intentions. May Allah guide our thinking. May Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) guide our strategies. May Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) guide our deeds. And may Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) 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 (سبحانه وتعالى) guide us, guide our children, guide our future generations.
May Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) 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. I say this and ask Allah to show you the message of the Muslims. So ask forgiveness. Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.
Alhamdulillah. Salat wa salamu ala Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Allahumma ghfir lil mu'minina wa lil mu'minat wa lil muslimina wa lil muslimat al-ahyai minhum wa l-amwat innaka sami'un qareebun mujeebu d-da'awat Allahumma ghfir lana wa arhamna
wa a'fu anna wa la tu'adhibna Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa in lam takhfir lana wa tarhamna la nakoonanna minal khasireen Allahumma innaka a'fuun kareemun tuhibbu al-afwa fa'afu anna Allahumma ghfir li waridina Rabbirhammu maa kama Rabbuna sigara Rabbana hab lana min azwajina wa dhuriyatina
qurra ta'ayun wa ja'anna lil muttaqina imama Allahumma ansir ikhwan al-mustad'afina fi kulli makan Allahumma aslih ahwala ikhwan al-mankubina fi ghazza wa fi falastin wa fi libnan wa fi al-sudan wa fi kulli makan
Allahumma alayka bi aduwika wa aduwihim Allahumma arina fi al-dhalimina aja'iba qudratik Allahumma arina fi al-dhalimina aja'iba qudratik Allahumma ahlik al-dhalimina bi al-dhalimin wa akhrujna wa ikhwanna mabain yamsalimin Ibadullah anallaha ya'murub al-adli wa al-ihsan
wa ita'idil qurba wa yanha'an al-fahsha'i wa al-munkari wa al-baghi ya'idukum la'alakum tadhakkaroon fathkuru Allah yadhkurukum wa shkuruhu wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah
wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah
wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah wa yadhkuru Allah yadhkuru Allah


































































































































































































































































































