Prayer must lead to action against oppression
“It is our duty and our responsibility to continue to raise our voices until we lose these voices.”
Believers must combine prayer with principled speech and action against oppression, influencing leaders toward justice according to their ability.
The khutbah in 6 steps
- Leaders are shaped by competing voices, so believers must encourage them toward good.
- Seeking Allah's pleasure should take priority over pleasing people.
- The duty to oppose evil includes action, speech, and rejection in the heart.
- Musa's interventions and the companions' candor at Hudaybiyyah illustrate principled involvement.
- The suffering in Palestine and Sudan is presented as a test of the wider Muslim community.
- Listeners are urged to act, speak, pray, encourage one another, and examine their own contribution.
In the khateeb's words
“that those leaders will be attributed to the group that has the greatest influence. That means you and I have the duty and responsibility to let those in positions of power know that we are dissatisfied.”
“It is our duty and our responsibility to continue to raise our voices until we lose these voices.”
“Do not allow this continued genocide to zap your energy, to take you off focus, to make you think that it is out of your hands and out of your control.”
For the dinner table
Today the khateeb reminded us that every leader has people around them pushing them toward good or toward bad. He said all of us have a responsibility to be the voices that push toward good. He taught the hadith that when we see something wrong, we should change it with our hands if we can, speak against it if we can't, and at least hate it in our hearts. He said dua is a powerful weapon for a believer, but it is not our only one, and that Prophet Musa and the companions spoke up and took action when they saw injustice. He told us the people of Palestine have already passed their test through their patience and faith, and that the test now is for us. So we should ask ourselves what we have done, said, spent, and prayed for them, for the people of Sudan, and for anyone who is oppressed.
- When Musa saw the two women being pushed away from the well, he helped them; when have you seen someone being treated unfairly, and what could you do next time?
- Besides making dua, what is one thing our family could do or say this week to help people in Palestine or Sudan?
- Why do you think people end up respecting someone who sticks to what's right even when it isn't popular?
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