 Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah Ashurah is a very special time for the Muslims for a number of reasons. First of all the day has tremendous historical import in terms of the spiritual history of humanity and the spiritual history of the Muslim Ummah. So before mentioning anything else, it's related to be the day that the children of that the Ark of Noah and Noah alaihi salam settled on the amount of Judea. So that day was the 10th of Muharram, Ashurah, which is whose name is derived from Ashara. So Ashura, 10th, Ashurah, the 10th day of Muharram, it's the origin of the word. So the 10th of Muharram, the Ark of Noah, Noah's Ark alaihi salam is related to have settled on the amount of Judea. On the 10th of Muharram, Ashurah, the Jews are related to have been delivered from Banij in Egypt. Because the day Pharaoh was drowned in the sea and the sea opened up for the Bani Israel and they left Egypt and Pharaoh and his army were drowned. So that's related on the day of Ashura. And those narrations, the strong narrations, weaker narrations that many scholars reject also mentioned this being the day that or it was before Islam, it was the day the Qabo, the Qiswa was placed on the Qabo was on Ashura. So the cloth, which wasn't black always, it was different colors throughout history and recent history it's been black. But it was placed on the Qabo on the 10th of Muharram is the day Yunus is related. Many scholars reject this narration to have been expelled from the quail after he was taken into the belly of the quail. He was expelled on the 10th of Muharram is the day that Yusuf alaihi salam was reunited with the akub related. And again, these are weaker narrations. The day Ibrahim alaihi salam was saved from Nimrod or Nimrod was related to be the 10th of Muharram. So these are some events that are associated with the day. So it's a day of great spiritual import. Some relate that the Arabs used to fast the 10th of Muharram, Ashura. And so the Muslims got the custom from the Arabs, but the stronger narration is that when the Muslims attained to Medina, the Jews celebrated the day and fasted it as a day. As we mentioned when Moses, Musa alaihi salam, and the children of Israel, Israel would deliver from bondage in Egypt. And so it was a day that the Jews fasted and the Prophet alaihi salam, he said, we have more right to Moses. So he ordered the believers to fast that day. And so for one year, Ashura, the 10th of Muharram was the obligatory fast for the Muslims. The next year Ramadan was incombated as the obligatory fast and at that point after one year of being obligatory, fasting Ashura became voluntary. And so it's sooner to fast on that day and the Prophet alaihi salam mentioned one shift fast the day before or the day after to distinguish this Ummah from the practice of the Jews. So those are some significance given to the day before Islam and then during the prophetic period, the fasting of that day obligatory for one year and then voluntarily throughout the entirety of the prophetic period. Afterwards in the year 61, a famous event occurred which was the martyrdom of Hussein, radiAllahu anhu, and 20 members of his family along with 52 other individuals who were in his party, they were martyred, Karbala. So we talk about that briefly, inshaAllahu ta'ala. So when Muawiyah was on his deathbed close to death, radiAllahu anhu, and we should have a good opinion of Muawiyah, Muawiyah ascended the Khilafa after Hassan bin Ali abdicated and turned over the leadership of the community to Muawiyah. Muawiyah was one of the companions who was a recorder of the wahi, one of the scribes of the Prophet, inshaAllahu anhu, many hadith related by Muawiyah, perhaps the most notable one on Muawiyah radiAllahu anhu, said RasulAllahi, inshaAllahu anhu, So this hadith related by Muawiyah relates that the Prophet, inshaAllahu anhu, on the Messenger of Allah, that he said, one Allah desires good for, he gives him or her a sound understanding of the religion of the Khilafa, at that point Fiqh was not the developed science of jurisprudence, so the linguistic meaning of Fiqh, Fiqh, so Allah gives them a sound understanding of the religion. In the verily I am the one who dispenses the revelation, in a qasim, so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam dispenses the revelation like seeds, sometimes it falls on fertile ground and the seeds take root and it brings forth lush vegetation, people eat from it, cattle eat from it, it benefits people, sometimes it falls on porous ground, it doesn t bring forth vegetation but the water is stored up in the earth and people irrigate their crops and they draw water from their wells and it benefits people and that way sometimes it falls on rock and it doesn t take root nor does it sink in so it is stored up and this is mentioned in another hadith and so thus a human heart, some hearts are fertile, they receive the revelation it brings forth lush spiritual life, some hearts they store the revelation and it benefits them subsequently and some hearts are hard, so Allah mentions in the Qur'an the hardness of the heart, of the hearts they can be harder than rock, like the stones or the hard rock, so those hearts are like rocks even more intensely hard and meaning some rocks give benefit, right, we have rocks that we build our houses from, we pave our streets with, we can make a pumice, skin, scraper or whatever you will call it, some rocks give benefit, a hard heart gives no benefit and so this is why it s even harder than rocks because some rocks give benefit but rock like hearts they do not convey or give any benefit in any case, so Muawiyah, radiallahu anhu, he sends the khilatha when al-Hasan abdicates in his favor why to establish peace and an extended period of peace ensued and during that period the umma expanded perhaps like no other time exhibitions were sent to the east and the west the realm of the Muslims expanded and throughout most of that period peace prevailed however when Muawiyah was passing he appointed his son Yazid to the khilatha and this was incongruous with the way the Sunnis had settled on the consensus of the community and the shura of the community choosing the leader of the community nor the shia, the shia which the community should be headed by one of the male descendants of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam through his daughter Fatima that's their their belief and their critics of that belief primarily that if Allah intended for the the leader of the community to be a direct blood descendant of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he would have kept his sons alive so that male uh that that successorship would have been direct and not indirect through his daughter but then his cousin Ali but that's that's a debate this one beyond the scope of what we're here for so in any case when Yazid was appointed and it's related i'm not going to mention some of the things in terms of some moral failings attributed to Yazid because i don't think that's profitable nor do i want to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala having in any way she had performed past any judgment on on people we should pray for their forgiveness in any case there were moral failings that were attributed to Yazid that many Muslims not just Hussain but many others deemed to be totally incompatible with the prophetic path and the prophetic model and that our model and all things is the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam so you have in the messenger of Allah most excellent example for any who looks forward to success on the last day who looks forward to meeting Allah on the last day and remembers Allah abundantly so al-Hussain and and others but particularly al-Hussain he refused to give bayah to give an oath of allegiance to Yazid that being the case he knew that his life was in danger so he gathered members of his family his immediate immediate family some of the children of his brother Hassan and other relatives along with several many others so their numbers about 72 total they give or take and they they set out from Mecca to take sanctuary in the house of Allah so while they were in route the people of Khufa who have betrayed Hussain's father Imam Ali leading to his his assassination they had also refused to give bayah to Yazid and they sent word to Hussain that they if he came to them they would support him as the Khalifa and they would give their oath of allegiance to him and so Hussain remembering what happened to his father he didn't respond to them immediately he sent his cousin Muslim bin Aqeel bin Abi Talib to go to Khufa to investigate this situation so when Muslim bin Aqeel arrived in Khufa when he arrived in Khufa initially the people were very supportive so all of the major chiefs of the various tribes there 18,000 people is related gave bayah to Hussain and informed them there his envoy his his ambassador emissary that they would support him if he came so Muslim bin Aqeel wrote a letter which he sent to Hussain telling him the situation was good the people were supportive they were loyal they were prepared to help him and he dispatched the letter during this time Yazid hearing that the people of Khufa were refusing to give the bayah and they were contemplating bringing Hussain to be there the Imam he sent Obedullah bin Ziyad as the governor to govern Iraq and to force the people to take bayah so Obedullah bin Ziyad he sent a disputed dispatch to commission the general Omar bin Sad to lead an army and the army was composed of the people of Khufa he also killed Muslim bin Aqeel so he killed Imam Hussain's envoy after he had dispatched the letter they began to persecute the people of Khufa and once again they were treacherous so many of them joined the army of Omar bin Sad and broke their commitment refused to go forward with their commitment to support Hussain Hussain in the meantime had received the letter from Muslim bin Aqeel and he set out changed course from Mecca to Iraq to Khufa many of the companions tried to dissuade him most prominently Ibn Abbas so Ibn Abbas his cousin urged him and pleaded with him not to go that these people were treacherous that they wouldn't support him they will betray him as they betrayed his father Ibn Omar was another who beseeched and pleaded with Imam Hussain not to go and many many others but Hussain was convinced that this was his destiny that the people would indeed once he arrived they would prove to be loyal so he set out for Iraq en route he encountered the army of Omar bin Sad who were composed primarily of the people of Khufa and he said to them if you're prepared to assist me I will go forward if not I will turn back I will go back and continue on to Mecca they said proceed to Khufa but from another route and in reality they were leading Hussain and his party to Karbala Karbala was a place where which didn't have direct and immediate access to the water of the Euphrates river and so they were putting them in a place where they wouldn't have water so they were essentially sending them to their doom and Karbala Omar bin Sad offered Hussain to take baya again Hussain refused and the barrel of Karbala ensued Hussain's troop although severely outnumbered fought the entire day until finally after fighting all day most of them were killed the only male that survived was Zain al-Abideen Zain al-Abideen survived because he was sick and couldn't leave the tent and the women after being stripped of their jewelry were sent to Damascus at the head of the women was Zainab ma'am Hussain's sister and here there are details I don't want to get into but they challenge some of the aspects of the story who put it that way in terms of did Yazid order directly this massacre remember Yazid was removed in the sense that Yazid and then his governor obeyed obeyed Allah bin Ziyad and then his general Omar bin Sad and so there there are different arguments that are made that Yazid did not order the massacre Allah al-Alam I wasn't there so I can't tell you from my personal experience what happened but there are certain lessons we can take so you can you can delve into the details but as Allah mentions in the Quran talking about the earlier ummas so it's not directly applicable but by indication we can draw the meaning so Allah ta'ala mentions twice that this is a community that is passed away this is those are earlier people from this community so as I said not a different umma al-umma to islamiyat al-muhammadiyah but they've passed away and what is relevant they will have what they earned and you will have what you earned and you won't be asked about what they did so yom al qiyamah Allah ta'ala is going to ask us who was right Muawiyah or Hussein or Yazid or Hussein Allah is going to ask us is not going to ask us what really happened at Karbala we might ask Allah if we could stop sweating long enough to but we're not going to be asked about any of this we're going to be asked about what we did and a lot of times we we jump into these historical arguments without even knowing the four facts so for example a lot of people argue that Muawiyah Yazid this is all an extension of a conspiracy of uh bani umayyah to take over the umma and it started with Abu Sufyan and then they'll have a really bad opinion of Abu Sufyan but they won't even know what happened with Abu Sufyan what happened with Abu Sufyan that he was the leader of Mecca one of their leaders he commissioned the armies that were trying to destroy Islam that's true but what happened once he took Shahadah and people don't know what happened is he lost both of his eyes fighting jihad under the commanders from the other companions of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that's what that was his fate and so a person who probably doesn't even get out of bed to pray fadr is uh Abu Sufyan bani umayyah and Abu Sufyan put his life on the line for this umma once he committed to it so what he yeah he was terrible before he took Shahadah and then both of his eyes were gouged out fighting on the battlefield at uh Yarmouk Allah al-Mustahan in any case so i think what's more important for us are the lessons we can extract from the story as opposed to the blow by blow details of the story and then so after uh the women and Zain al-Abideen were taken to Damascus with Hussain's severed head radi Allahu anhu majmain uh after a while they were sent back with an armed escort back to Medina and uh they lived out their days uh as Zain al-Abideen in in Medina and Zainab returned with him uh at that point so the details as I said can delve into them or we can try to take lessons so the first lesson I already mentioned is that these are not events we should pass judgment concerning because they they they won't advance us and they might set us back they won't advance us in the sense that no matter what side we take or who we think or believe was right it's not going to uh affect our standing with Allah in any way then it might set us back because it it might uh draw us into the these partisan conflicts which didn't even exist at the time of Karbala so I'll give you a couple examples things probably no one ever told you because they want you to be divided so the the roots of this uh events in a certain sense could said to be rooted in the assassination of earth men radi al-Rain the possession of the two lights the two lights being the two daughters of the prophets sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that the prophet gave earth men to marry and and the prophet said what if he had another daughter available he would have given her to earth men the last guards at the door of earth men when the rebels descended on his house and there's something discussed in uh by in the arabi and uh awasim and qawasim and hussain and hussain they were guarding earth men's door when the last people to leave earth men was imam ali radi allahu anh two of the sons of hussain who were killed at karbala alibate sons of hussain's grandsons of ali great grandsons of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam through fatima their names were earth men and abu bakr ben hussain earth man abu bakr ben and hussain you don't name your children after people you hate so those theological differences develop much later there was a partisan felt ali shir ibn khalifa that was their feeling but that didn't manifest in any theological beliefs that didn't manifest in passion plays and people beating themselves commemorating the death of the leader of their faction one of hussain's sons who was with hussain who was also killed at karbala was also named abu bakr radi allahu anh so we can be drawn into a conflict that didn't even exist at the time of these events so we think this is some schism between the shia and the sunnis that didn't even exist there was only the the umma of muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam these theological splits came much later now you could say the roots were there but the actual theological differences they didn't exist and so we shouldn't be drawn into a conflict that didn't even exist at the time of the people the conflict is oftentimes attributed to as there were political differences but they weren't theological differences and they want these deep hatreds as i said you don't you don't name your children after people you hate you don't marry people you hate remember ali married one of umar's daughters so we should be cognizant of this this is a people they passed away they will have what they earned you will have what you earned and you won't be asked about what they were doing uh the the second thing i can't see with my new glasses i can't see without in these days and times when we see the instruction of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam violated with impunity what instruction was that the the hadith we lays out sallallahu alayhi wa sallam many of the duties of muslim brotherhood or sisterhood he says don't hate one another don't hate one another and so you those people slaughtered who's saying they they hated him or they you can't do that you can't treat people that you don't hate i one of the things that that war does it dehumanizes i don't know what these are reading glasses it's not that bad people i just pick up the notebook it's all good hatred is something spread by shaytan shaytan wants to instill enmity and hatred amongst you it's not something that Allah desires the believers are brothers this is the characteristic of of the believers so hatred is from shaytan and so when the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he says don't hate one another he's saying essentially don't take on this satanic characteristic because if you do shaytan will manipulate you and you do terrible things such as what happened at karbala such as what's happening today in so many parts of this umma you know what's happening in yemen no muslims bombing and brutalizing each other total disregard to the civilian population total disregard to the fate of the children he's not from us who doesn't have mercy to our young people the children are most of those million people suffering from cholera in yemen what's happening in sumalia what's happening in iraq afghanistan what's happening and has happened in syria these are muslims doing this to each other and america supplies the weapons to all sides and laughs all the way to the bank with the exception of the syrian government the russians supply them but iraq america supplies the iraqi central government america supplies daesh through saudi arabia and the emirates and their funneling weapons to isis isis had american arsenal america supplies the curds and let them all kill each other and just resupply and laugh all the way to the bank so we have to remove that element of hatred and so by opposing implication you have to love one another you want to enter paradise until you believe truly believe and you will not truly believe until you love one another and so these are the best of people and they can be they can be set against each other by shaytan so why did this happen it happened as a lesson or a warning to us if this can happen to the best of people what could happen to us if we're not careful yemen can happen to us syria can happen to us iraq can happen to us sumalia can happen to us afghanistan can happen to us can happen to the best of people then if we're not careful it can happen to us so how do we prevent it we have to make an a priori commitment like a a pre standing commitment that we're not going to kill a muslim nor any other innocent person but with a special emphasis on a muslim and we're going to take serious the warnings against that such as the prophet saying sallallahu alayhi wasallam whoever aids and assists in killing a believer even by uttering half a word will meet Allah on the day of judgment written across their forehead i've the spirit of Allah's mercy to kill a single believer is graver with Allah than effacing the entire earth than wiping out the entire earth we have to take these things seriously otherwise we'll see these tragedies repeated and we're not immune we'll see our communities torn apart so this is a lesson that we can we can take from this situation another lesson and this is a lesson we can take from hussain's action and no one can argue that hussain went went against the principle of those principles as we mentioned in terms of the theology that justifies these various positions those principles hadn't been derived yet number one and secondly muawiyah was not following the prescribed methods of succession so no one can fought hussain in that sense but what we can learn from hussain is that there are things worth dying for he knew he was going to his death but he also knew he was keeping certain principles alive and those principles relate to just leadership for this ummah and even if the principle remains aspirational one day that aspiration becomes the foundation of implementation if you see something wrong change it with your hand if you can't change with his hand with his tongue so hussain knew he couldn't undo the rule of yazid with his hand with 72 people many of them women and children and he knew that he couldn't do it with his tongue but he maintained the belief in his heart that this principle of just in the jirma rule would endure in this ummah and so he died for that and dr king said a man who has nothing to die for doesn't deserve to live or some along to paraphrase him or is not fit to live so we we should be willing to die for this dean like now people are upset and scared what are you scared of the people look at us funny and mashallah we send you to Palestine you give more than a nasty look or to some of these places we mentioned and so just what just compromise your religion oh they don't like this they don't like that i'll get rid of this i'll get rid of that i'll get rid of this i'll get rid of that too and there's no there's no dean left saying i'm not getting rid of anything just kill me and i'm not saying i just said it but if you don't have anything to die for there's nothing worth living for this dean is more precious than our life maqas is sharia what are the maqas and they're prioritized number one if the dean dean is number one because we don't have dean this life there's nothing about what is living me when we were created to worship Allah and there's no dean there's no worship of Allah i've only created the jinn and human that they worship me that's number one priority that's number one meaning what we give our life for this dean so i'm not saying go out and do something stupid but if someone does something stupid to you you're Shahid so we we have to look at the example of the likes of at hussein outnumbered overwhelmed but still willing to die for a principle Malcolm knew he was gonna die Malcolm knew he was gonna die and there were people who wanted to save Malcolm they were they wanted Malcolm to come to Africa just come to Africa we set you up in Ghana set you up in west Africa let this all let this everything calm down then you go back said no he knew he knew he's gonna die right he told the guards don't frisk today what just don't but he understood something he understood that if he died for principle and if he died for his belief and if he died courageously he would inspire millions of people after him he's moved more people in his death than he did in his life at the end how many people with Malcolm at the end now millions of people met his autobiography black white you have a lot of people not even african-american dr. Omar for example became a muslim because of Malcolm X and millions of others all over this world so this is something that we can take from hussein minna mu'mineen we jaelun sadaqum a ahadu laha alei faa minhum man qadha nihbaa wa minhum main yantadir wa maa baddulu wa maa baddulu tabdila amongst the believers there are men who are true truthful and the covenant they've convened with the law amongst them are those who have given their lives and amongst them are those who are waiting their turn they never weakened in their resolve wa maa baddulu tabdila and so so we thank Allah for people like Hussein who show us that sometimes you just have to risk the overwhelming odds even if it means your life because there are things more valuable to us than our life and our deans should be more valuable than our life so again i'm not saying do something stupid go be full heartier i'm muslim i don't care no but we stand up we stand proud we stand as descendants spiritual descendants of hussein and spiritual children of Malcolm X and we courageously practice our religion and if we can't do that then we make hijra that we don't just throw our religion away compromise our religion because yawm al qiyamah Allah is not going to ask us uh why did why did you stay and just compromise your religion until it wasn't recognizable Allah is going to ask us what do you ask us in the quran alem taqun ardullahi wa aasi'a that huhaju lufiha was not Allah's earth spacious migrate in it go somewhere else where you can practice your religion if you're uncomfortable people looking at you funny or whispering i did they wanted them i think so and they wear the rags on the head like that they're talking about me go somewhere else it might be in america move to philly you'll be fine seriously you don't even have to leave the country just move to philly or move to newark you're straight let everyone be a slag Islam brother you don't even have to leave the country i'm serious but Allah's earth is spacious don't stay somewhere where people don't like you or you're not comfortable go to where you're comfortable and can be a muslim don't just stop being a muslim then blame it on your english professor i don't know if i believe anymore my belief was deconstructed but but really i'm scared that's a convenient excuse may Allah protect us and help us uh another lesson is honoring the family of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the family of the prophet would dishonor and karbala that they would dishonor what happened was a crime against the family of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were slaughtered and murdered after being betrayed and then set up we have an obligation to honor the family of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and that's part of our faith that's part of our faith it's not about being a she is about our faith our belief this is from the belief of ahli sunnah just to let you know this is being broadcast on facebook and youtube thanks for letting me know all right so we can forge on this is what we need to hear we just tell people oh go hide muslims go hide uh our hussain died for nothing is there's no example for us in that there's examples for us i said we're not talking about doing something crazy or ridiculous we're not talking about killing people we're talking about being prepared to give our lives to have our lives taken standing up for living and defending what we believe in and someone does something we're shaheeds that's part of our religion and that's what hussain taught us that's what malcom taught us that's what we should be teaching each other and this would be a better place the name one of the the pathetic aspects of this country is a refusal to deal with reality it's never dealt with the reality of slavery it's never dealt with reality of the genocide against the native people it doesn't deal with the reality of what happens when you dedicate seven hundred billion dollars a year to making weapons of mass destruction and you have to deplete your inventories what's what's the consequence of that the country has never come to grips with it so if anything that we as a muslim community can do is to make them come to grips with it and they want to put us and lock us away or something good luck but how long are we going to perpetuate the pathetic nature of this country look in north carolina right now people who whose health has been destroyed because they're living next to these pig farms thousands of pig farms where they're they're too cheap to process the waste they're pumping in these lagoons and before the storm spraying in the open air and primary african-american communities people's houses are coated with this salmonella and ecoli they're getting sick and they they they refuse to pass a law to even give relief to people who are suffering from that and now the hurricane now that stuff's in the water and they're trying to uh just dismiss it sweeping under the rug we shouldn't sweep anything under the rug it's a day it's time for reckoning for this country it's time to come to grips with a history of genocide and a history of white supremacy and a history of institutionalized racism and a history of hypocrisy and double standards if they don't want to hear too bad throw me in jail i don't care that's that's why hussain died but that's why malcolm died and so these commemoration they're not jokes just come eat some food and kiss each other and go home we have to take lessons otherwise we wonder why children running away from this land because we don't tell them the truth and because we don't tell them the truth they become vulnerable to other people's lies we have to tell the truth prophets told the truth we're supposed to be the heirs of the prophets right the people in power hated the prophets that's the reality so if they hate us we're in good company as long as we're right as long as we're right as long we're not encouraging people to do irrational things we're not saying anything irrational right a christian will say i'm ready to die for christ right or wrong so a muslim can't say i'm prepared to die for my religion i'm not saying fighting anybody i'm prepared to live my religion as a free human being in the united states of america and if someone doesn't like it and they said we're gonna kill that person then i'll be a shahi a loss now what was anti-american about that and if i do it maybe i can help alleviate some of the problems that are destroying this country things are good out there opiate crisis suicide crisis alcohol crisis truth crisis crisis of truth as we said why because we've been lying to each other for too long it has to stop somewhere with somebody so why not right now with us well i'll give us taufiq we have to reverence the the the family of the prophets alayhim sallam we have to reverence them we have to reverence them like they are our our spiritual mothers and grandmothers rather grandfathers they are the the the the descendants and the family of rasulullahi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam may Allah give us taufiq may Allah give us tesir may Allah give us kabul la ilaha illallah people i've left you two things if you adhere to them the two of them you won't go straight after me the book of Allah and my family and there were authority meaning to cling to them if you take them if you love them if you love them you won't go straight after me and so as i said that hatred was there so may Allah give us taufiq may Allah bless us uh on on this occasion may Allah give us a sense of spiritual duty like we're not just feathers floating in the breeze right we say the heirs of the prophet the prophetic legacy is under attack today like no other time in human history right the prophetic legacy concerning very basic things well they said that could look at that the male isn't no wise like the female it's under attack it's under attack in terms of faith our minds many people muslims minds have been totally secularized secularized meaning there's no concept of the akhira because there's no concept of the of the akhira there's there's no sense that there's life beyond this world so if i don't jump on every bandwagon that comes along if i don't engage in every fad that comes along i'm not missing anything because this world passes every day someone we know is passing on it's the law of averages the longer we stay around the more people we know are going to move on and then it's our turn and then we're gone and then what you think it's all over at that point you think it's all over at that point as the song says you've only just begun to live so much in life ahead the life of the akhira and that's what we're preparing for this isn't an end this is an end for people with no faith we jump on their bag wagon it becomes our end and we start advocating for what they advocate we start following what they put out there for us to follow we become consumed by the fads consuming them their suicide rates go up muslim suicide rates go up there are drug addiction rates go up muslim drug addiction rates go up they start wearing their pants hanging off their rear end muslim start wearing their pants hanging off their rear end whatever they do we do why because there's no sense that we're different there's no sense that we have a destiny beyond this world and its fads and its its fakeness and its falsities so we have to cultivate that sense if we don't talk about it for starters how how are we going to cultivate it how are we going to cultivate it we have to talk about it we have to be honest with each other we have to be open with each other some people won't like it but believe me a whole lot of people will because a lot of people out there are fed up and a lot of people are looking for solutions that transcend the current options right you don't like the way things is vote for the party not in power to go back and forth the democrats the republicans democrats the republicans so you don't like trump vote for the democrats then uh before that you don't like bush vote for obama you don't like obama vote for trump you don't like trump vote for whoever they put out there in 2020 and go back and forth that's not solving the problem that's playing games and so people are looking for viable solutions that's why they they get drawn in to the slogans they believe okay there's some hope now they believe there's going to be some greatness there will be greatness for this country inshallah ta'ala but that greatness will only come when we stop dehumanizing each other when we stop praying spraying pig feces on people who don't look like us when we stop uh blocking laws that will give those people some relief because it'll cost some corporations some money when we stop making uh uh voter suppression laws that the the supreme court of north carolina says we're constructed with with racial precision to discriminate against uh certain races of people when we stop that there'll be greatness until until then there'll be tribulation there'll be deeper cleavages between us there'll be more intense uh greater further increases in the incivility that qualifies our political discourse and if you like that then say we're good with the status quo if you don't like that start telling the truth to people if you don't like that start standing up and representing within yourself an alternative right hussein stood up and he represented an alternative you don't have to have yazid i'll stand up and i'll try to represent these people and they betrayed him but that's their problem not his problem because 1500 years later 1400 some odd years later we're still talking about hussein we're still gathering to commemorate commemorate hussein like who's talking about those people opposing who knows the name before tonight of obey the law ben ziyad umar ben sad who knows those names but hussein is on every one of our tongues his example inspires each and every one of us and that's what it's all why because he took a truthful stand and he defended his principles and that's all that's all anyone could ask well that's all i'm saying so if someone wants to twist what i'm saying and say oh you're do you're making veiled suggestions muslims take g head and start killing people and blah blah well you could twist and line distort i'll tell you straight up what i'm saying we have to be true to what we believe in and we have to be be willing to give our life for it and we have to and if you think that's some radical statement from the quran i'll give you the exact quote from dr king a man who does not have something uh for which he is willing to die is not fit to live that's dr martin luther king junior a christian pacifist so that's what we're talking about we're not talking about fighting anyone but we're talking about standing up and defending our dignity standing up and representing and defending our religion which has helped us and for many of us islam saved my life islam saved my life i'm not gonna tell people about it when they're suffering from the same thing i was suffering from before i became a muslim though there will be treachery on my part there'll be cowardice will be treachery it will be it will be a betrayal of the gift that allah gave me so that's what hussein was all about that's what malcom was all about that's what dr king was all about and that's what we should be about as a community may allah tally give us tofiq may allah give us success in our affairs this is a you're not coming back for ashwar our next year if you do we're not gonna live stream it may allah give give everyone tofiq may allah bless the community may allah bless the community and may allah bless our sisters may allah give them strength may allah give them greater courage may allah make them an example for all of us may allah tally bless the brothers bless our children may allah spare them from the bullying and the racism and may it come to an end in our lifetime but it's not coming to an end by just tiptoeing around it may allah bless us to be part of that solution may allah bless us to help save this country may allah help us to be people who believe and exemplify civil discourse may allah bless us tally bless us to be people that respect the blessings of pluralism and to respect those may allah bless help us to appreciate the blessings of safety and security we gather in safety and security may allah extend those blessings may allah deepen those blessings may allah bless us to give thanks for those blessings will you give thanks for my blessings i will increase you in those blessings and if you reject my blessing you should know that my punishment is severe the great one of the greatest blessings we enjoy is the blessing of security the one who has driven off hunger from from them and made them giving them safety from fear so may allah give us gratitude for the blessings of security and peace be upon you