 We begin by praising Allah. We praise Him, we ask for His help, and we seek His forgiveness. And we declare that nobody deserves to be worshipped in any way, shape, or form, besides Allah, the One and only True God. And we declare that Muhammad was the last and final messenger sent for our guidance and for the guidance of all humanity. Brothers and sisters, in the Quran, Allah has mentioned many prophets. And some of the stories of those prophets are very brief. You see only one scene or two scenes from their life. And some of them are much longer. And one of the longest, if not the longest story of a prophet in the Quran is the story of Prophet Musa, peace and blessings be upon him. And when you look at his life, and you look at the incidents that Allah decides to mention in the Quran, every single detail, because it's the Quran, it's the word of Allah, every single detail has some wisdom or some lesson of why did Allah put this particular aspect of the story in the Quran. So I did a very quick count myself. This is before AI came out. And I counted at least 454 verses in the Quran about Prophet Musa. So I want to just reflect today about some aspects of the life story of Prophet Musa and how it relates particularly today to oppression that is taking place in different parts of the world, but particularly in Gaza and in Palestine. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions about the oppression that was taking place in ancient Egypt at the time. And he mentions he says that he elevated himself in the land, meaning that he became the supreme ruler of ancient Egypt. And if you think about it for a moment, ancient Egypt was one of the superpowers, if not the most powerful nation in the world at the time. You can imagine for a moment that they had the most advanced technology, they had the most advanced army, they had the most advanced weapons. They, you could say their annual military budget was probably the highest or one of the highest in the entire world. So this is the scenario that Allah is describing to us to learn some lessons and then he says and what did he do? He took the people and he divided them into two groups, two different groups. And what that means is that he put one people or the Egyptians, they're going to have a special laws, they're going to have special treatment, they're going to have special rights, and there's going to be another group of people. And this group of people are known as the Israelites or the Bunny Israel, the children of Israel. These are the people who are following the religion, these are the early Muslims, these are the Muslims before the Quran was revealed. And there are the descendants of Prophet Yaqub because Prophet Yaqub, Prophet Jacob is nicknamed with Israel or Israel. So what happens is that these people are being oppressed and they're in the second group. They're in the group that doesn't have rights. They're in the group that's basically living inside of an open air prison. The ancient Egyptian Pharaoh's military, their army, they can go inside at any time they want, they can go and destroy a house, they can go and inspect, there's checkpoints all over the place. They're living exactly in the situation that the people in Gaza are living. And this is kind of the context here. If we really read carefully, we can see exactly a parallel that's taking place today. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions this point. And when you have two separate rules or two separate people based on their ethnicity, what happens? This is defined in modern terms as apartheid. Now apartheid is a modern term. This is not something that was defined in the past. But apartheid, the technical definition came from South Africa. And it says that when you basically have a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnicity, it's called apartheid. It's unacceptable in the supposedly modern, civilized, supposedly civilized world. So this is exactly what was taking place. And then Allah continued the description of what's happening. He says, one of them was deemed and considered to be the weaker group. So the Israelites, the children of Israel are considered to be weak. And he says, what happened was they were slaughtering the sons, killing the babies and the children of the children of Israel, the males, and they were letting the females live. And what's interesting is this child killing is infanticide. These are little kids being murdered right when they're born. And there was a reasoning behind why it was happening. So the scholars of Tafsir, the historians, they explained the reason why, said because he was told by some fortune teller or somebody informed him that there's going to be a child that is going to be born and that child is going to grow up and going to destroy your kingdom. So therefore, in order to prevent this, the solution that Pharaoh came up with was we're going to start taking out their children so that this doesn't happen. Look at the mentality. The mentality of a zalim, of an oppressor, it doesn't change. The mentality of the oppressor throughout history, it remains constant. The characteristics are the same. The same story continues to repeat itself over and over again in different ways and in different lands and in different countries. And that's why Allah gives us these stories, because history tends to repeat itself. So if you can just imagine what is he doing if you were to interview Pharaoh today, say, why are you doing this? I'm doing this for the defense of our country. Ancient Egypt has a right to exist. And if these kids grow up, one of them, they don't want ancient Egypt to exist. So therefore, we need to put a stop to it. Twisted mentality, same mentality repeats over and over again. And then Allah says, He was indeed one of the corrupt people. And then fast forward a little bit. Prophet Musa grows up. He flees Egypt. He is coming back to Egypt. And now he was accused of a crime and he fled. He's coming back and some of you know the story, remember the story. He's coming back and he's not a prophet yet. And now Allah finally reveals to him, Musa, I'm choosing you to be a prophet. And I'm giving you a mission. You have a job, you have a responsibility. What is your responsibility? Go to Pharaoh, go to Pharaoh, because he has trans, he's gone beyond all the limits. He's gone beyond limits of decency in his arrogance and in the way he's oppressing people and all of these things. And you're going to say to him, are you willing to purify yourself? Meaning, are you ready to change yourself? Like, this is an opportunity. You need to stop doing what you're doing. You know, and I imagine Prophet Musa, one person by himself needs to walk into the court in the palace of this powerful, tyrannical leader and he needs to go and tell him, you know what, you need to stop doing this. Do you think Musa was afraid? Of course. You know how difficult it was? So this is really important because what happens is that in our context today, sometimes we end up becoming so afraid that we're not going to do anything at all. And of course, whenever you act, you should act with wisdom. It's very important for Muslims to act with wisdom. But it also means that while you have wisdom, you have courage. And wisdom and courage need to be combined together. Because what we have taking place, especially when it comes to our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the issue that's taking place right now, the genocide that is taking place right now, is specifically we have a censorship taking place in companies, in universities, in media, that's well known. So many other things. The Jewish Voice for Peace, it's a Jewish organization. It's banned from some of the Ivy League schools, students for justice in Palestine, banned. So so many organizations are being banned. People are being blacklisted. If you say one comment, we will make sure that you never get hired by any of these companies. This type of mentality is a mentality that has existed exactly in the time of Prophet Musa. And despite that, Prophet Musa's responsibility, Allah tested him and said, you need to go. Was he afraid? Of course he was afraid. But if you look at what he had to go through versus the little amount of courage, maybe when it's the right time in the right place to go through, it's actually, we're not really being asked to do that much. We have a role model in Prophet Musa and in other people. So it's a very interesting, Allah says that. But then when he goes and he tells Firaun this, look at the response of Firaun. It's very telling. There's so many lessons in every one of these conversations. So Allah put this in as well. The response of Firaun, initial response to Musa was Allah, didn't we raise you as a child among us? Because Musa, he was the one child that ended up getting saved that year. And he ended up growing up in the palace and kind of like being an adopted child of Firaun and his wife. So he grew up in the palace and Firaun is calling him and insulting him. And basically his response to him was, you ungrateful person. We raised you up in the palace, didn't we raise you up? And you stayed many years of your life with us. So the personal attack is one of the primary strategies of an oppressor. They will go and they'll attack you and say, what about that? What about this thing we did for you? What about that thing we did with Firaun? To try to undermine your credibility so that whatever you're trying to say, even if it's correct, it's going to be a distraction for everybody else because these are public gatherings. This was the response of Firaun. But Prophet Musa was clever. He was wise. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose him for a reason. So his response was, the gist of this, I'm not going to translate exactly. He's saying, you know, you bringing me up without enslaving me the way that you enslaved all my people because he's from the children of Israel. You doing that for me is the favor that you're reminding me of? Like seriously? He's saying, basically, I would have had a mom and a dad. I would have been perfectly fine with my normal family. The reason why I grew up in your palace was because you tried to kill me when I was a baby. You were oppressing my people. That's why I ended up in your house. So you're going to go and you're going to tell me that you did me an amazing favor by doing this for me. The only reason I ended up with you was because of what you were doing to my family and what you did to my people. So a beautiful response. And the reminder is that an oppressor at a level who has this level of arrogance like Firaun, who has this level of just humanity is just missing, the fit going away from the natural disposition that Allah created us upon, they will always try to justify their actions. Sometimes they're just going to lie completely. We didn't bomb their hospital. They bombed their own hospital. Sometimes they're going to use twisted logic like this. They're going to try and twist things around and people who are not that clever, they can't see. They don't think very well. They can't properly see it. But it's our job and our responsibility to teach people who have some position of authority or have some say or some influence to be able to read through the propaganda that oppressors are pushing out in society because public opinion matters, particularly in our world today. And then it continued. The story continues for a little bit and he starts telling Prophet Musa says, you know what? You're a threat to ancient Egypt. We're going to do something to you. You have political ambitions and you want to do this and you want to do it. He started making all these other threats. But we'll look at the last two parts. There are two groups of Muslims who are experiencing oppression. What is the reaction of these groups of Muslims? And we're going to contrast and juxtapose the reactions of these two groups while this is taking place. The first one is the Egyptians, the magicians. So Pharaoh, Prophet Musa was given a miracle that he could take his staff and he could throw it onto the ground. It turns into a serpent. It turns into a snake. Many of you know the story. And this is from Allah. And Allah told him to go and challenge Pharaoh and say, this is a proof that I'm being sent by Allah and I'm a messenger. So he goes and he shows them the thing and Pharaoh's response is, we got some magicians in Egypt too. We're very powerful. We have some people who can do good tricks. So he goes and he hires all these people and he says, brings the best magicians and say, you guys can do some stuff like this too. Go and publicly challenge Musa and do it. And when they did it, Prophet Musa's staff turned into a snake and ate up all the other snakes and fake magic that they were doing because this was a real miracle from Allah. But then what happened is something that nobody expected and Pharaoh never expected that the magicians who he hired, who were on his payroll, who worked for the government, they flipped against Pharaoh and they believed in Prophet Musa. They say, we accept this. The people within his own administration or within his own team flipped on him. And then what was his response? The response of Pharaoh was, for the sake of time, I'm just going to summarize it for you. He said, how dare you believe in him until I've given you permission? That's how arrogant he was. You have no right, you have no right to even accept Prophet Musa until, you know, until I allow you to do so. And because of this, you're going to see what I do to you. I'm going to punish you guys. I'm going to really mess you guys up. And then he says, I'm going to cut off your hands. I'm going to cut off your feet from opposite sides. I'm going to crucify you and torture you. I'm going to make you a public spectacle for everybody else to see. Now imagine being threatened like that. What was the response of these new Muslims who just recently accepted Islam? Their response was they said, if you do that, then we're going to return back to our Lord. We're going back to Allah. And we accept and we know that this is the truth and we know Allah is going to reward us for this oppression that we're going through. All this injustice that we're going through, we have our trust in Allah and we're okay with that. We know that this is our test from Allah and we're fine with it. So this was their response, right? And the response of the Muslims is very powerful. Not only we're going to return back to Allah, but you have no control over my thoughts. If they're like, I control you, you're not even allowed to believe. So that's what you think. You can control my body, but you cannot control my heart and you cannot control my thoughts. I will believe what I believe. You want to harm us because we accepted the truth. One response of Muslims, but then there's a second group of Muslims who, Prophet Musa, comes back to them and this is the children of Israel. These other ones were just converts. It goes back to the children of Israel who are the Muslims at the time, who are the followers of Prophet Musa. They accept Prophet Musa as well, so they're the old Muslims at the time. And what is their response? So Musa is giving a lecture to them. He's like giving a khutbah to them and he's saying, seek help with Allah and you have to be patient. You're going to get success. You have to be patient for now. I know the situation is really bad, but don't lose hope in Allah. This is Allah testing us. And what was their response? Their response was They're telling Musa, they said, we've always been oppressed. Before you came to us and after you came to us, we've been oppressed. They're complaining. They're basically saying Musa, what did you do for us? You've accomplished nothing. We want to see the results right now. If you're a true prophet and if Islam is true, then we should be out of this oppression right now because the Quran is highlighting the underlying psychology of the response. Their response is, we're not going to tolerate this anymore. And if you're really who you're claimed to be, and if this religion is really true, then we should get out of this immediately. We should basically, if we're on the right religion, we should be going into our golden age immediately. And this is the mentality of some Muslims. Say, you know what, if this is true, why are we behind in the world? And why are we at most advanced civilization? And why doesn't Allah and why doesn't this and why doesn't that? It's all complaints. Look at the difference between the two people. The one group said, we're ready to die for Allah. We accept the will of Allah. The second group, you didn't do anything. Nothing's happening. What's going on? Why is it taking so long? Allah has his plan. Allah has his time. But what did Prophet Musa respond? Prophet Musa's response, he ignored what they said, and he said something else. Just for the sake of time, I'll translate. Prophet Musa says, it might be that your Lord will destroy your enemy and then put you in charge of the land to see how you behave and you react. This is a very interesting response from Prophet Musa. What is he saying to this group of children of Israel? He's saying, if this is the way you behave and act right now while you're being oppressed and I'm here with you and I'm challenging for own and you're sitting here complaining, complaining, complaining, not putting your trust in Allah. I'm telling you to be patient and put your trust in Allah and you're sitting there saying, no, we want results right now. He says, if this is the problem in your hearts at the moment right now, then you know what? If you end up being in a position of power in a position of authority, you might end up doing similar or the same as the other tyrants and oppressors are doing because something is wrong with your hearts. And that's a very important lesson. The lesson here is that we have two responsibilities simultaneously. Number one, like Prophet Musa, we have to combat oppression when we see it taking place. But simultaneously, we need to make sure that we're purifying our hearts at the same time so that we don't end up becoming one of those people who's put in a position of authority and power. And because we were focusing so much on removing this person from power and then getting back into a position of power, we end up doing the exact same mistakes that those people were doing. We ask Allah to give us a deep and comprehensive understanding of the Quran. We ask Allah to remove the tyranny and oppression that's taking place. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam wa ala Rasulillah wa ba'at. Inshallah, we'll conclude with a dua. O Allah, help those people who are going through difficulties and oppression throughout the world. O Allah, help our brothers and sisters in Ghazan and Palestine. O Allah, help our brothers and sisters in all parts of the world who are going through any type of wrongdoing or any type of being wronged or being oppressed. O Allah, help those people who are sick and those who are ill. O Allah, help those people who are struggling whether it's physically or whether it's psychologically. O Allah, help us to understand your religion in a true and comprehensive way and help us to become better Muslims. O Allah, help us to have patience and understand what true patience means. O Allah, help us to be among those who put our trust in your promise and never question the things that you do. O Allah, show us the truth is truth and let us follow it. Show us the false is false and keep us away from it. Ameen. Subhana rabbika rabbil a'izati yama yasifoon wa salaamun a'la al-mursaleen walhamdulillahi rabbil a'alameen waqim as-salam