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The Situation in Ukraine:

A Muslim’s Perspective

Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi


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The early Muslims went out in order to spread the theology and the belief of Islam, that people could hear the Kalimat of la ilaha illAllah Muhammadun rasulullah, not to force the religion on anybody - but the message needs to be heard.

Four sections from the khuṭbah by Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi on the situation in Ukraine: A Muslim’s Perspective.[1]

Some keywords
- compassion
- the nature of man
- the angels about the human species
- the reality of war
- why do Western lands go to war?
- their version of democracy
- why did early Ummayads go to war?

From 06.56

1.

… And yes we say this very clearly my blood brother, no doubt I’ll care more about him my Muslim brother, no doubt the level is there, yes more, but just because he’s not my blood brother or just because it’s a stranger of another faith doesn’t mean I have no compassion and anybody believes this has really not understood the realities of our own religion.

2.

The second point yes we care we care both historically and we care as the compassion of a fellow human and a fellow Muslims will have and by the way it’s not as if there are no Muslims in that region (ie. Ukraine). Go study your history. Large pockets of Muslims have been there for many hundreds of years, for many centuries, look at all of the Tatars, the Tatar civilization which is a Muslim-based civilization and other pockets over there as well. So yes we care we care for many reasons.

3.

The third benefit that we will gain from this incident that we are seeing is that it reminds us of the reality of the nature of man it reminds us of the reality of the nature of man.

We as Muslims should appreciate what the angels said when Allah announced that ‘We’re creating a new creation’, the Angels understood the reality of this creation and the angel said ‘oh Allah this is a new creation that will cause nothing but fitna and faṣād, war and chaos, bloodshed and suffering.’

The Angels understood that this is a different type of species, a species that will fight each other, cause destruction amongst each other, create havoc and evil amongst each other and this reality will never change throughout all of human history despite all of our advancements, despite all of the treaties, despite the powers of the UN, despite all of this notion that we have left those medieval wars: you cannot change the reality of mankind and this pseudo presumption that we are now an ‘enlightened race’, that mankind has advanced to a higher plateau, this is simply false you cannot change the nature of mankind.

And it is a sad reality that animals do not break up into imaginary divisions based upon nation-state and animals do not go to war with one another based upon being greedy and wanting more land and wanting more power. No two groups of animals split up and fight amongst each other - this is unique to human species and that’s what the angel said ’why would you do this oh Allah and Allah said there are wisdoms you will not understand. So there is a lesson for us in all of this that we should not be deceived by this illusion that modern man is somehow different and superior and intellectually better and greater in values than all of the rest of mankind, on the contrary mankind remains mankind and Allah (may His Majesty be exalted) has reminded us of this reality in the Koran.

4.

The fourth benefit and wisdom that we should gain from all of this is once again the reality of war and this is a very deep topic.

Why do these civilizations go to war? If people are constantly going for war as they have done all of human history then we as well as a Muslim civilization can point to our past. Our youngsters, our next-generation sometimes they become embarrassed (about our) Sharia, they still don’t understand our history and they say why did the khulafah, why did the Ummayads go to these lands? Why did they go to India, why did they go to Egypt and they try to explain or

They’re embarrassed about it. There is nothing to be embarrassed about in our faith, in our religion and the more you study the reality of human history and the reality of human psychology and the reality of the global situation the more you will understand the wisdom of our Sharia. And we are talking about here about the past, because once upon a time yes our civilizations did engage in offensive warfare, these days of course and even for the bulk of Islamic history there was no offensive warfare, but for pockets of time during the during the khulafah al-rashidun, during the early Ummayads it is true that the early Ummayads and our khulafah al-rashidun they did engage in offensive war.

But why?
Why did they go for war?

Look at the reality of Islam: they went in order to spread a theology and a belief, that people can hear the Kalimat of la ilaha illAllah Muhammadun rasulullah.

They went in order to save people from tyranny and injustice. Allah says in the Quran {≈ those that have been wronged have the right to fight back}

Allah says in the Quran {≈ were is not for the fact that groups of people repel the evil of others, evil will spread in all of mankind}.

Allah says in the Quran {Why aren’t you fighting in the way of Allah when innocent civilians, innocent men and women and children are being killed and they’re saying: ‘who is going to help us oh Allah?’.

Notice all of these verses, what is the common theme? The comment theme is that when our states declared war back in the past, they did so for noble reasons and there are two primary reasons:

a. Number One

To spread the message - and not the religion nobody forced - but the message needs to be spread and

b. Number Two

To help innocent people and subānAllah these days Western lands they go to war to spread their aqidah (belief system) and their message. And their message is the message of capitalism, their message is the message of their version of democracy, their version of government.

They think it is justified to bomb entire lands so that they can get rid of a king and replace it with their version of democracy, that is why they go to war. As for the Eastern Bloc they go to work to prevent capitalism, to spread communism, they go to work because they don’t want NATO alliances or whatever it might be. That’s their wisdoms and as for us - we in our Sharia - we’re never allowed to go to war for the sake of greed, for the sake of money, for the sake of capitalism and imperialism, NO -

We went to war to spread the kalimat or to defend innocent people and the fact of the matter and I say this loudly and proudly as a person whose origin is in the land of India, I say proudly, I thank Allah for Muhammad (the blessings and peace of Allah upon him) to come to my land so that my ancestors could stop the worship of pagan gods and I can say it loudly and proudly ashhadu an La ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna muhammadur rasulullah.

If they can go to war for false reasons of dunya (wordly reasons, money, power, fame…) we have nothing to be ashamed about about our own Sharia and our own tradition, when our ancestors and the khulafah went to war for far more noble causes.

And this is something - as I said - of the past, because in order to go for offensive war many conditions are needed and these days those conditions do not exist.

Point no. 5, listen on YT @13.56
Re: the blatant racism that permeates all of Western journalism…



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  1. Khuṭbah: The Situation in Ukraine: A Muslim's Perspective | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi


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