Yet again, the elephant in the room that every Muslim on the face of this earth should be concerned about is what Israel is doing to our fellow Muslims, especially the recent terrorist attack that Israel has waged in Lebanon. In the midst of an ongoing genocide in Gaza that is proceeding unhampered and unrestrained, it seems like we are talking about a drop of blood in a sea of blood, which is odd in itself. Nevertheless, to my mind, a khutbah this jum'ua that does not acknowledge the obscenity of what is unfolding in our world points not just to something wrong, but to an entire ocean of wrongs.
But before I get there, let us look again at the United Nations, an organization created by the victors of World War II. The very powers that colonized the Muslim world were the same powers that fought and were victorious in World War II. These powers were countries of White people. Yet, for the millionth time, Muslims are poor students of history. Muslims are not taught the importance of a serious engagement with history. In their families and schools, Muslims are not sensitized to the importance of history. In their civic engagements or social lives, they may be taught about the importance of theology and ideological convictions, but not history. There is a huge difference between the two. Ideology is one thing, theology is one thing, but history is quite another. If you only knew enough about the Islamic civilization. The irony would strike you that Muslims were, in fact, the pioneers of the field of historiography and the entire endeavor of documenting the past with an element of accuracy. Muslims were the first to at least make an attempt at accuracy and some measure of objectivity.
But because we are poor students of history, we do not realize what the creation of the United Nations after World War II meant for the Islamic world. So many Muslims, whether we realize it or not, transferred their sense of trust and safety—as delusional and crazy as this is—from their historically embedded institutions like the Caliphate and the long-enduring Ottoman Empire to the United Nations. The Muslim sense of identity, their sense of belonging, their sense of who they are as a people, was transplanted from their historically embedded institutions and native history, to the United Nations. We continue to do this even to our very day, whether we acknowledge it, realize it, or even understand it.
Did it matter that the UN is the very institution that voted to partition Palestine, steered by colonial powers? The very institution that voted to give the Hijaz to the family of Al Saud, a historical non-entity? No, it did not. In fact, the United Nations heralded the age of nation states and the great deception of little Muslim nationalistic entities, each of which not even approaches the economy of one state in the United States. Again, to put things in perspective, consider the economy of New Jersey, New York, Texas, or California, not just after World War II, but even in our very day. The economy of one of these states far exceeds the economy of most Muslim nation states.
It does not take a genius to know it is a no-win game. You have taken a Muslim collectivity and broken it into little polities, each polity with limited resources and sources of income, along with a very limited trajectory and opportunities. Now compare the economies of the colonial states that granted themselves veto power in the UN Security Council with the economies of the Muslim nation states that were given UN membership. You quickly understand why the partition of Palestine was a done deal. You quickly understand why Muslims had virtually no chance in the new world order after World War II of becoming anything, regardless of all the movements for independence and decolonization—whatever that meant. For decolonization itself turned out to be more of a delusion than a reality. To this day, the economies of many “decolonized” countries are controlled by the former colonizer. The economies of many African states are controlled by France. The economies of many countries that were controlled by England are now controlled by the U.S. The United States, simply by controlling the amount of money deposited in its reserves, can destroy the economies of any Muslim state it wishes.
This very institution, the UN, yet again recently voted. Of course, as we have said in previous khutbahs, the modern Muslim psyche exists in a perpetual state of dissociation, a state in which the inescapable paradoxes and contradictions that surround us in life are never confronted, never seriously dealt with, never seriously thought through. And because of that perpetual state of dissociation, we are accustomed to neither pause nor analyze in any serious way what the major institutions that govern our lives, the lives of our children and grandchildren, and indeed our destiny do or do not do. We are accustomed to not thinking too hard about what that might mean for our lives. Psychologically, we have ignored our own native history of Muslim civilization. We know little about our institutions of law, the economics of our past, and the topography of our past at even the simplest level. We know little about even the ethnic makeup of the past of Islam and Muslim people. We know little about ourselves, and what little we glean, we glean through heresy and rumors, from only the most tangential secondary sources. We do not pause or analyze.
So, the UN General Assembly has met and passed another resolution calling for an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories within a year. The General Assembly is telling Israel that they must end their occupation of Palestine and calling for the imposition of sanctions against Israel if Israel does not end its occupation of Palestinian Territories within a year. Now, this resolution was voted for by 124 nations in the world. Among those that voted for the resolution were countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and China. There were 43 abstentions and 14 votes against. If you were to ask any reasonably educated or aware Muslim, “Do you believe there is any chance that Israel will end its occupation of Palestinian Territories within a year?” I would bet that their response would be: “Fat chance, Israel will not end its occupation of Palestinian Territories within a year.” And if you were to further ask, “Is there any chance that there will be sanctions imposed against Israel for not ending its occupation within a year, as this resolution calls for?” Again, the safe bet for any reasonably educated person would be to say: “Fat chance.”
Regarding the countries that voted for the resolution, countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, is there any chance that they would impose sanctions against Israel for failing to abide by the UN resolution? These same countries that spent so much time drafting the resolution, then arguing over the language of the resolution, and then voting and supporting the resolution: is there any chance that these very countries will impose sanctions against Israel? The answer, of course, is no. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and indeed the vast majority of the 124 countries that voted for the resolution will not impose any kind of sanctions against Israel for not obeying the resolution.
Yet, this is business as usual. Anyone with any experience or education of the international order will tell you there is nothing new here. This is the way business is done, all the time.
Of course, Israel was one of the 14 that voted against the resolution. Among the others were countries like Argentina and Fiji. Most of the countries that opposed the resolution were small and effectively territories of the United States, such as Nauru. But I now want you to imagine a resolution against a Muslim country like Iran that was supported by 124 nations and opposed by only 14 countries. We all know that there is no chance the United States would ignore a resolution that enjoyed such strong support if it aligned with its own interests.
If you want to understand the dissociative state of colonized people, just pause and frame this picture. Reflect on it. Reflect on the fact that Muslim governments all over the world heralded this resolution as a great victory. Qatar said it is a great victory. Egypt said it is a great victory. All the countries that, we know, have no intention of actually enforcing the resolution heralded it as a great victory. You and I, along with these very countries, know that it is all hot air. It means absolutely nothing. Yet, so many Muslim countries get their endorphins, their sense of accomplishment, and their sense of achievement exactly by fighting these kinds of empty battles with empty wins. Battles that mean nothing, and they know they mean nothing. Battles that are nothing leading to nothing.
But this is accepted as a regular part of a Muslim psyche. In fact, if you have a child who wants to go into the diplomatic core and be part of the Palestinian delegation at the UN, then you feel proud. You know it is an endeavor into nothing. You know it would achieve zero. But you would still be rather proud of your child and say, "Yes, that's an accomplishment. You don't want to be a doctor, you're not an engineer, but you are in the UN. Cool. That is something to be proud of.” That is exactly how colonized people think. That is precisely how defeated people think.
Now, there were 14 votes against the resolution and 43 abstentions. The 14 votes against really caught my attention. As I said, there are countries whose economies are so controlled by the U.S. that they are effectively American colonies. There are countries like Argentina and Hungary. What are the chances that the 124 countries that voted for the resolution will, in any way at all, even in an insignificant way, punish a country like Argentina or Hungary for voting against the solution? We know the United States, China, and Russia have long histories of punishing countries that do not vote their way in the UN.
Let me tell you: if you were a student of diplomacy or history, you would know that Muslim countries are countries of hot air. They never punish anyone for diplomatic decisions that are directly at odds with their interests unless it relates to the rulers of these countries personally. If a country like Hungary did something that hurt President Sisi of Egypt personally, or the King of Saudi Arabia personally, or the Emir of the UAE, personally, then yes, these countries will absolutely cancel shipments and cancel investments. Then yes, they will take punitive action. But we do not have any record, in their entire history, of these countries taking real diplomatic actions of consequence for any authentic cause. If that is true for countries that voted against the resolution, then it is even more true for countries that abstained.
I think the countries that abstained are the most fascinating. The UK abstained. Ukraine abstained, despite fighting its own war of liberation. Other significant European countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Serbia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, and Italy all abstained. India, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, and Canada all abstained, The Cameroon, Denmark, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, and Haiti abstained as well. An abstention is significant because it reveals that the country does not wish to vote against you. They know, on the merits, it is not right. They know it sets a negative precedent. But they are still not willing to support your cause.
Generally speaking, you look at the countries that abstained and you are struck by the fact that, with the exception of China, they are the economic power of the world. The countries that, in fact, yield the buck, did not support nor oppose you. I am sure that, to a large extent, they did not support you because they know it does not really matter. And why does it not matter? Look again at Muslim countries, the countries supposedly most vested in the cause. Remember the reality of the world we live in is something that we create. We literally manufacture and engineer that reality. Those abstaining countries know that if you fail to support Muslim causes, there are no consequences. The UK knows it does not matter if it fails to support a Muslim resolution, because Muslims do not stand up for their causes. Germany and Denmark know it does not matter. Even Ethiopia knows it does not matter. They know there will be no serious consequences if they fail to stand by those Muslims.
Think about the fact that I am sure a very large number, if not most, Muslims who hear me would argue, “Come on, you are taking this vote in the UN too seriously. After all, a resolution, even if it is supported by 124 countries in the General Assembly, is not binding anyway. You are taking it too seriously.” But look at our dissociative states in this world. Why is it that the resolutions of the General Assembly, which is far more democratic in principle than the Security Council, are not binding? If they are not binding, and if we are at peace with this, why is it that Muslim countries work so hard to be represented in the General Assembly and to herald whatever happens in the General Assembly as a victory? In the case of countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it is not just a victory but a victory that makes all alternative strategies unnecessary.
Ask a country like Egypt, “Would you consider a military option against Israeli aggression?” The answer you will invariably get is no. You get the same response from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, because they claim to work through the UN. But we all know the UN does not matter! The resolutions of the General Assembly are not binding, and even if they were, they would never actually be enforced. This is where dissociated people look at you like you are crazy, like the books have made you loony, as if you are too educated to be real for our life.
Put the picture together: We work very hard to achieve nothing. We put our trust and our sense of achievement into nothing. We attach no consequences to the failure of others to support our causes. We are a people about nothing with consequences that are nothing. This is the reality that we settled for after World War II. This is the writing on the wall. The General Assembly’s resolutions are not binding, but the West treated the General Assembly as an actual maker of the law when they voted to partition Palestine. Remember that vote was not in the Security Council; it came from the General Assembly. Why did they vote to partition Palestine? Because the countries that voted to partition Palestine knew that, unlike Muslims with their causes, there would be consequences if they failed to support what the UK, the US, and France wanted them to support. So they knew they could neither abstain nor vote against. They knew that they had to cast an affirmative vote for the partitioning of Palestine in yet another colonial act. They knew, and so they did. This is the same General Assembly that is not supposed to cast binding votes, but the entire Western world treated the General Assembly vote to partition Palestine as absolutely binding. Since then, the world of diplomacy knows that when it comes to Muslim causes—whether in China, India, Myanmar, Palestine, Afghanistan, or Iraq—Muslims do not do anything to actually give teeth to their causes.
All students of history and diplomacy know that. And we then ask, “Why the genocide in Gaza? Where is God's mercy?”
Really? Do we put it on God? Did God tell us to live delusional lives in a dissociated state? To live and die in that state? To celebrate ignorance? To have no sense of history? Did God tell us to just work, get paid, consume, and that is it—then we die? Somehow, the Muslim mind has convinced itself that therein is God's grace. We do not raise our children with a sense that this is their world. We do not tell them, “This world is yours, and you must force this world to yield to your will.” We do not raise our children with that sense of strength, that sense of resolution, that sense of determination.
Recently, I was talking to someone who is not Muslim. This woman was a victim of sexual assault, and she did not say anything about her assault for many decades until she became a respected professional and accomplished woman 30 years after the fact. She then spoke out. But what caught my attention is that this highly intelligent and educated woman made the comment that the reason she did not say anything about her sexual assault is because she was taught by her parents, at an early age, to be meek and docile. She is from India. She was taught not to create problems, not to assert herself, not to stand up for her dignity or put her foot down. As I listened to her, I said, "Wow, if this is true for you, it is ten times more true for Muslims." We do not raise our children to notice the paradoxes and the inconsistencies, and we are not raised with the determination to actually make a difference.
Let me tell you a story about something that I went through. There is a journal, established by Muslims, that publishes studies on Muslim subjects. It is all about Islam, created by Muslims, for Muslim purposes. I will be honest. I was surprised, and even had a bit of awe and admiration, when a Jewish student, a member of the Federalist Society and an Islamophobe, recently stepped in and effectively took control of the journal. I kept thinking to myself, would a Muslim student ever dare to do something like that with a Christian or a Jewish journal? Would they have the sense of confidence, the sense of presence and entitlement, to march in and say, "I am in control now, deal with it?" In my experiences in the academic world, I have heard Muslim students time and again express their worry about how they are going to make a living. How are they going to get jobs? What is going to become of their ability to marry and raise children? And in all my years in academia, I have never heard students who are actually committed to a cause raise these types of questions. Look at the difference in the sense of autonomy and initiative.
I have repeatedly met Jewish students raised with a sense and an understanding of history embedded in their very soul. You cannot separate them from their sense of history, their causes, their sense of identity, and from a very healthy independence from mommy and daddy. In fact, in my experience, they have a distinct sense of pride when they do not have to rely on others to serve. The causes they serve are their own. They have personalized these causes to themselves, which is something that I repeatedly find amiss in Muslim students.
Knowledge and a real sense of being and pride are the elements necessary to notice what is wrong in your world, to think outside the box, and to overcome the challenges of your state and your being. This is especially true for Muslims in the United States, and it is especially true when we see a terrorist attack of the scale and what we just witnessed in Lebanon.
In a disastrous and dangerous precedent, Israel is able to make pagers and walkie-talkies blow up. It is a shocking terrorist attack because the very nature of terrorism is to be indiscriminate. In order to strike members of Hezbollah, what is needed, according to Israel, is to detonate pagers and walkie-talkies just on the chance that it will strike the enemy. This is not even the first time Israel has used electronics to assassinate people. They have previously killed members of Hamas by detonating their cell phones. But, this time, Israel decided to do it against thousands of people. Of course, it is hardly surprising that civilians and droves of children were among the victims. Imagine a pager, walkie-talkie, or phone blowing up in your living room while you are with your children. Or imagine your child using the device. So, thousands of people were injured and up to 66 have been killed, by the last count.
Interestingly, it has been an ongoing concern of the intelligence community in the United States that terrorists would use cell phones or electronics to wage an attack of precisely this nature. Even Trump, when he was president, talked about how cell phones from China are a security risk because terrorists could detonate these cell phones and kill lots of innocent people. Of course, although the United States has warned about how precisely this type of attack could be done by terrorists, there was absolute silence when Israel did it. There was silence even as countries like England, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands abstained from supporting a Palestinian cause. What these countries are telling us is unmistakable: “You as human beings do not matter.” Not only by tolerating a genocide, not only by failing to support a cause that you say is yours, but even after Israel wages an indisputable terrorist attack.
It is the very nature of terrorism: if you want to kill party A, you will strike against A, B, C, and D just on the chance that you kill party A. That is terrorism, and that is exactly what Israel did. That is, of course, assuming that Israel really wanted to get at Hezbollah members.
In order to understand how wanton and malicious this attack was, consider the following. The scenario that is supposed to unfold is that, as Hezbollah is in the midst of a military operation, Israel would detonate Hezbollah’s cell phones and pagers, thus undoing their entire intelligence and communications network. In other words, this type of act, when it has military objectives, is something reserved for an actual live military engagement. You would then detonate your enemy’s system of communications, disrupt it, and defeat your enemy in the battlefield. But that is not what Israel did. Israel instead sent a very terroristic message. They wanted many civilians to get hurt so as to spread a sense of insecurity among the general populace, sending the message that Hezbollah cannot protect them. To make them scared of their electronics. Immediately, of course, the question comes up: how did Israel manage to put explosives in these electronics, and when did Israel do it?
Many of these electronics have gone through Taiwan, Japan, and Hungary. Taiwan, of course, said it is impossible that this was done. Japan also claimed it is impossible that this was done when it had control of these electronics. That leaves the most likely culprit, Hungary, who voted against the resolution in the UN. It is known that Hungary’s government is constituted of Christian zealots. Still, the Muslim world has never punished countries like Hungary, India, Taiwan or Japan for their failure to support Muslim causes.
The implications of this terrorist attack are alarming because supply chain terrorism is a real and dangerous thing. This precedent tells us that our electronics are not secure. You do not know what listening devices are in these electronics. Not only can these electronics be used to spy on you, however, but they can now be used to kill you. What greater terror and terrorism could there be? Yet our government did not issue a single comment. They did not connect its history of warnings against supply chain terrorism to what Israel did. They did not say, “Look, we have been warning about this for a long time and look here, Israel did it. That proves our point.” No, they have remained absolutely silent.
But what also made me pause and caught my attention is this: can you cite a single example of electronics that, instead of going through Taiwan, Japan,or Hungary, went through a Muslim country? Can you cite a single example of a Muslim country that has an impressive record in producing anything electronic, for all the hubris, all the talk about sharia, Qur'an, sunna, fitna and all the things Muslims love to talk about?
I realize that this sounds blasphemous, but what does God think when God looks at us?
We rely on a UN that produces zero results. We have embraced a nationalism that has had disastrous consequences. We, as Muslims, even have an antipathy to our own history. We are even vulnerable when it comes to the essentials for modern life, like electronics. What do we possibly excel in?
Imitating. We now have Westernized yoga. We now have “modern” lifestyles. We have excelled at importing from the West all the trappings of modernity.
Look at our degree of delusion and disassociation when a country with a history that only goes back to the forties is able to do something as intrusive and demeaning, as degrading and terrifying, as blowing up personal devices in peoples’ private homes, and we are utterly powerless to do anything because we cannot turn to another Muslim country and say, "Well, we want electronics to come from there," instead of a country that actively votes against our causes and objectives in life, like Hungary.
According to the FBI's own records, hate crimes against Muslims have skyrocketed and are up 74% since October 2023. Keep in mind that the FBI goes out of its way not to count hate crimes against Muslims accurately or precisely. The Senate Judiciary committee was holding hearings about the rise in hate crimes, and what caught my attention is that the representative Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab-American Institute, was testifying. Senator John Neely Kennedy from Louisiana interrogated her in the most demeaning and racist way. He discounted the fact that she is a U.S. citizen. He entirely discounted any facts about the Arab-American Institute that has a long history of condemning terrorism. John Neely Kennedy started wailing at Maya Berry that, "You support Hamas and Hezbollah, do you not?" Maya Berry repeatedly said in response, "This is precisely the problem, this is what racism is.” But that, of course, did not restrain the senator.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have seen and experienced the same dynamic. We go before some type of government agency. Our entire attitude is we are going to appeal to the ideals of democracy and civic engagement. We are going to appeal to your better self. We are going to say, “Look at us. We are human. We are Arab. We are Muslim. Please be nice to us.” And in response, we are met with utter disdain and unrestrained racism. We then come out, we talk to some journalists, and we say, “Look, poor me, I have been the victim of racism.”
What is needed to change our reality? What is needed to change the reality of the way we relate to international organizations like the UN? What is needed to change our reality so that we are not importing our cell phones from Taiwan, Japan, and Hungary, and then complaining and feeling bad for ourselves when we are at their mercy?
Immediately before this khutbah, Israel again bombed two civilian buildings in Lebanon, attempting to assassinate members of Hezbollah and leaving scores of civilians injured. Why is it that God keeps looking at us and does not change our reality nor help us to change our reality? It is because the change for our reality has to first come from within. It has to come in the way we raise our children. It has to come in the way we educate our children about their history. Our children will not care if they do wudu the right way, if women are properly sectioned off, or any of the other silly concerns of Muslims.
You must give your child something to be excited about. A keen sense of belonging. A powerful sense of identity, and your full trust and belief that your child can change the world. For your child to have that sense, they have to be secure in their identity. They have to be rooted in a sense of their own history. And your child has to believe in himself or herself. Your child cannot be compliant, obedient, meek, broken, and hesitant. That will not produce change. Your child will not produce change if you teach them to distrust the world around them and to basically invest their entire self in just making money, because money is their sole security in existence. Your child will not change reality if you basically teach them that their mission in life is to just live a happy life and die, or to just get married and raise children and then die.
It has to start where God looks at our hearts and minds and says, "These people deserve a change in fate. I will help these people because they are helping themselves." What is most striking about the Sira of the Prophet and the early Muslims is how full of pride and confidence they were in their Islam. They were out to change the world, even though they were in a neglected part of Arabia, in the midst of the desert, where the idea that they, desert dwellers, were going to change the world would have been laughable. I imagine myself as a resident of Damascus or Cairo at the time, hearing about these Muslims coming from the desert, believing that they were going to change the world. I would have laughed, thinking those desert dwellers have never made a difference. Why do they possibly think they can make a difference now? We have known about the desert dwellers of Arabia for centuries. Egypt never paid attention to them. The residents of Al Sham never paid attention to them. The residents of Persia never paid attention to them. Who the heck are they?
But they did change the world, and they changed the world because they deserved to change the world. They changed the world because God looked at them, saw what was in their hearts, and helped them change the world. They did not live in a state of dissociation and psychological and intellectual alienness like we do today.
I have said this a million times and I will keep saying it until the day I die: all of us, as Muslims, bear a measure of responsibility for dystopia we live in, for the bizarreness of a UN that issues resolutions that amount to zero, for the bizarreness of countries that will not support Muslim causes and never suffer any consequences because Muslims are not serious about any of their causes. The dystopia of always going to the footsteps of banquets of power and saying, "Please, please notice me." "Please be nice to me." "Please be true to your ideals and do not hate me." It is all dystopia.
If all of us bear a measure of responsibility, however, the disproportionate responsibility must be borne by wealthy Muslims. I would hate to be a truly wealthy Muslim in this day and age. They go to bed knowing that their money is earmarked to promote and further their own luxury, their own sense of safety in this world, their own inflated sense of importance, rather than supporting the new Muslim generation, supporting serious education for Muslims, and supporting intellectual endeavors that search for a solution. Rather than supporting serious political and educational Muslim institutions.
If your money simply goes to Muslim youth groups that meet together and engage in some meaningless rhetoric that only perpetuates the stance of dystopia; if your money is part of the problem rather than the solution; if you are a coward with your money, afraid to support those who speak out about Palestine and the despotism of Saudi Arabia and the curse of the UAE, then I would hate to be you. For it is my firm belief that no matter how much prayer and fasting you do, I would hate to be you in the Hereafter. Every dollar that you failed to spend or spent in the wrong way will be a curse and a testament against you, rest assured of that.