The Birth of Equality: Honoring the Prophet Who Lifted the Forgotten - Maulana Syed Muhammad Rizvi

regime. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillah, o Lord of the Worlds. Alhamdulillah, we seek His mercy and we ask His forgiveness and we seek His guidance, and we seek refuge in Allah from evil in ourselves and from the evil of our work. I We are into the week of Miladun Nabi celebrating the birth and birth of the Prophet of Islam, the Prophet of Islam. Allah SWT, bless you all on this occasion, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the fundamental message of the Prophet, and that was none other than the concept of Tawheed, that there is no God but Allah SWT. When we use the Kaliman, when we say, La ilaha illallah, we begin with negation, only after rejecting the false gods, the idols or the tribal gods, only then our heart becomes pure, that it becomes the place for Allah SWT. And this is where we have to realize that, you know, that low in the heart cannot be for God and some other entity on that level. This principle of Tawheed is not only an Aqeeda, it's not only a thought and a belief that we have, it has very, you know, far-reaching implications in our personal life. If we believe that only one God, the universal God, the God for all people, then the concept is very easy to follow, that the believers are all same in the eyes of Allah SWT. Is the relationship between the abd and the Rabb, if you accept Allah SWT, is no different from another mu'min who believes in the same God. And this sense of equality among the mu'min in the eyes of Allah SWT is a direct result of the Tawheed of Allah SWT. He is one God, it's not that one tribe is one God and another group of Muslims have someone other God. harmony is a relative to the same Allah SWT, irrespective of the race, the color, the language. And it doesn't even matter whether you are Arab or non-Arab, white or black, you know, rich or poor, we don't have slaves and masters, but even if that was the time, you know, it didn't make any difference about the relationship of that individual to Allah SWT. The people in Makkah, where the Prophet first proclaimed this message of Tawheed, reacted in two different ways. You know, on one hand you have these people, not exclusively, but you will see that many of those who were oppressed, you know, Muslata'afeen who were made, you know, weak by the discrimination, they were more, you know, attracted to the Prophet, you know, the poor and the slaves. And of course, and many others who were not in that category, but they were people with pure conscience. On the other hand, you had the elite of Makkah who were actually, you know, opposed to the Prophet. And the opposition was not really about this issue of God. It was more about this issue of, you know, why do you interact and sit down with these poor people? The people in their eyes, these were the people who are low class or low status people. The Prophet himself, of course, came from Khoresh, the elite. And among them also a very noble family from Bonwashrim. So he came from that category. And the elite of Makkah wanted to, you know, sit down with him, see, you know, what he has to say. But they actually had problems. They said, you know, you sit down with the people of low class. And if we go and sit with them, you know, we have these tribes who come from different parts of Arabia to visit Makkah, especially the leaders among them and the chiefs of the tribe will come when they look at us sitting down with the slaves and the poor, you know, those who are not, you know, they are Mawali, you know, who are not really sitting in the citizens of Makkah, but they live under the protection of one or the other tribe. So in the second class, you know, they have a kafeel there, you know, the way the people in Middle East, they know how things work there. You know, that concept was there. And so they said to the Prophet, you know, it's actually bad for us, for our image to sit down with them. You know, what will these outsiders say about us? You know, they said, you know, you sit down with people and, you know, there were some close companions during the early days. You have, you know, Suhaib Bilal Habashi, who was still a slave at that time. Ammar bin Yasir and his parents, who were clients of the one of the tribes in Makkah. Salim was affiliated to Abu Howaifa, Meqdad, you know, and many others. And so they said that, you know, we are not willing to sit down with them. You should shun them, then we will come to you. For Allah's Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, this was a serious issue. And Ayat comes down. Chapter number 652, and this is the style of Allah's Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. When Allah's Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants to emphasize a point, sometimes he will address the Prophet singularly. Not just a statement for the Muslims in general. He will address the Prophet directly and sometimes use very strong words. And that was an indication that if this is what I'm saying to my messenger, you others be warned. And so the Ayat comes down. You readun a wajjuh. Do not drive away those who call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening, desiring His flavor, His favor. And so this is in response to that, you know, demand of the elite of Makkah. And then Allah says, you know, just tell to these people, Nothing of their accounts, what they do doesn't fall upon you and nothing of your account will fall upon them. If you shun them, you will become one of the Zalimeen and those orangest. This is a common style of Allah's Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to emphasize the point. He would sometimes address the Prophet directly. Although the message is more for the people in general. And so when we talk about this issue of Tawheed, remember it's not only, you know, to believe in Allah, to also believe that when we sit down in our Masala, in our Masajid and gatherings, we all have same connection with the same Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's not that, you know, our God is different. You know, it's not a tribal religion. There is no tribal God here. It's a universal God. He is the God of everyone. Religion poor, you know, people from high elite, you know, class or so-called lower class. And this, you know, the teaching of the Prophet, and this is one of the reasons, one of the major reasons why they opposed him. Of course, idol worship also was a problem, but on a social level, this was the main issue. And this continued even in Medina. The Prophet actually took very practical steps to enforce the sense of equality among the believers, and it had, Alhamdulillah, a far-reaching impact in Muslim history. Now we have nothing to do with the issue of the conquest which the Arabs took on after the passing away of the Prophet. But it's interesting to see even then this element of, you know, looking at people who are so-called from low class, you know, had been erased to a great extent. When the Muslim army went to Egypt, you know, remember the entire area of Syria which covered those days when you say, Sham, you know, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, as well as, you know, you look at Egypt, these were all parts of the Eastern Roman Empire. They were all Christians at that time. And so when the Muslims moved towards Egypt and the Muslim forces put the capital at that time, Alexandria, under siege, till the governor there decided to, you know, surrender with certain terms which would be acceptable to them also. And the governor of Alexandria was actually the patriarch of the Christian church. So he was also a religious leader. And so he sent a message to the Muslim forces. He said, send the delegation so that we can negotiate the terms of surrender. Ten senior Muslim officers were sent under the command of Oveda bin Aslamit. When they went to the governor, you know, the governor looked at them and, you know, Oveda was in the front. He says to the people, you know, push this black man away from me, you know, bring somebody else to talk to me. And they said that, well, this black man that you are saying, he's the best of us. He's our leader. And we refer to him. And our commander in chief has appointed him as the leader of this delegation which will sit down and negotiate with you. So he was surprised. Remember, this is not only governor, he's a religious leader of the church also at that time. How do you accept this black person to be better than you? You know, he should be actually lesser than your status. And this is where, you know, they responded by saying, when he was black as he was, he was a leader of the church. He was a leader of the church. You know, these are the early Muslims at that time. You know, they said never, although you see him as a black person, his best of us and status, he's better than us in intelligence and understanding. Being black is not a negativity among us. And this is where, you know, we have to realize, and I don't claim that all Muslims are like that. We still have that problem. You know, we still have to go back to Allah, Allah, Allah. You know, believe that we have the same God and we are part of the same Ummah. There should be no issue of superior or inferior based on the color of language and tribe or, you know, socioeconomic status. May Allah SWT give us the Tawfiq to fully accept and follow the teachings of Muhammad swt. Salafam in Bulubikum. We have, you know, this issue of looking at people based on the color and tribe and different, you know, differences that we have in socioeconomic status. This is, as I said, there's a problem even among Muslims. But even, you know, coming to the western part of the world, we still see that there are people in the 21st century who think that they are superior to all others. You know, all others are basically inferior. You look at the example of the extremist Israelis, the way they treat the Palestinians, especially the settlers, who sometimes even use very, you know, horrible terms when they want to talk about the Arabs and the Palestinians. And you know, this is the irony and the hypocrisy of the western powers. Although the level of volem dan in the Middle East at the moment is that even the western governments are basically forced to acknowledge this evil attitude that they see in the Middle East when it comes to the state of Israel. You have Canada, along with the European Union, as well as the United Kingdom, Norway and Australia. They have actually introduced sanctions against the extremist settlers who are actually responsible for the horrible level of violence against the Palestinian civilians. You know, it's not only, of course, killing individuals or hurting them is the worst of the situation. But, you know, you see the way they destroy the properties and basically take over the lands saying that this is our historical place. And this is done with the support of the government of Israel. You know, there are many groups here in Canada also who financially help these kinds of groups. There's an active group in Toronto known as Israel Now. They recently invited the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, you know, for an event to support their agenda. And this fellow, Mayor Aria King, he is a right-wing politician and founder of the Israel Land Fund, which focuses on acquiring and facilitating the purchase of land and property for settlers, especially in East Jerusalem. Fortunately, in Canada itself, we have groups like the Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, CJPME, who started a campaign against this fellow to pressurize the Canadian government to deny entry to the deputy mayor of Jerusalem because of his background and his views, his views against the Palestinians. And, Alhamdulillah, the pressure worked. The reason I'm mentioning is that, you know, when we talk about sometimes, you know, engaging in signing letters on certain causes, we think, oh, this is the west of time. No, this is where you see the pressure worked. And just a few days ago, before this event, which was for this week, Canada barred the Jerusalem's deputy mayor from entering the country, and they deactivated his ETA, Electronic Travel Authorization. So they might still, you know, had the program by Zoom. You can't stop that. But, you know, at least entry of this fellow was stopped because of the pressure. And this is where we have to learn when we talk about getting, you know, engaged in the system. We have to maintain our own, you know, decent manner in the way we talk about these issues. And that's where you will see the impact would be there. In the words of CJPME, this is an important victory and a reminder that when we organize and demand accountability, we can make a difference. Allah, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, gave more power to the people of conscience on these issues and keep us always on Salat al-Mustakheem, inshallah. Allahumma swalli ala sayyid al-Mursaleen wa al-Shafi al-Mudurimin nabi'ina Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam, wa ala imam al-Muttaqeen wa amir al-Mu'minina al-ibna bi-talib, salawat allaha alaihi wa ala sayyidat al-Nisa'ila alamin, sayyidat al-Fatimah bint Rasulullah, salawat allaha alaihi wa ala sayyid al-Shababi, ahal al-Jannah al-Hassan al-Mustabab, al-Hussain al-Shahid al-Bikarbala, alaihi wa al-Salaat al-Basalam. Allahumma swalli ala a'imat al-Muslimin al-Ali ibn al-Hussain wa Muhammad ibn al-Ali, wa Ja'far ibn Muhammad wa Musa ibn Ja'far wa Ali ibn Musa ibn Muhammad ibn Ali, wa Ali ibn Muhammad wa al-Hassan ibn Ali alaihim, salat al-Salam. Allahumma swalli ala maulana al-Hijjat ibn al-Hassan sahib al-Asli wa al-Zaman, ma'hiyasara al-Bada wa Tughiyan al-Hadi bi aminati al-Shirk wa al-Nifaq, al-Hassan, al-Furu al-Baghwi wa al-Shiqaq, salawat allahu al-Salamu alaihi wa laa baal karam, mat tasalat al-Liyali wal iyam. Allahumma ajil farad wa sahil makhraja waqhu al-Nadrana benadratin minna ilaih wa jallana mil al-Mustashideena bina yadeeh. Allahumma jallana min ma yadbakur wa tanfa'ahu dhikra Inna Allah ya'amur bil-Adli wal-Assan wa yitayz al-Qurba wa yannhan al-Fahshay'i wal-Munkar wal-Baghwi Ya'ilqum al-Allaqum tathakkarun.