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This content has been automatically translated. View original in Arabic
Peace be upon you and the mercy of God.
You know, my brothers, sometimes when I hear the imam supplicating and the people responding with fervor, it occurs to me that some might say: Here we are, supplicating and weeping, and millions of Muslims are supplicating, so where is the answer to the supplication? Is it reasonable that God does not answer all these supplications?
The worst thing a person can do is to combine negligence and wrongdoing, and then add to them suspicion of God Almighty. Many of those who ask, "Where is the answer to the supplication?" are actually committing obstacles to its answer.
One of the greatest obstacles to the answer is abandoning enjoining good and forbidding evil. The evil of this time is the failure to support our brothers in Palestine and leaving them to their accursed enemy. You might say to me, "No, we condemn this evil, and everyone says, 'Sufficient for me is God, and how excellent is the Protector,' from those who prevent us from supporting our brothers," and this is correct, but many of us combine contradictions.
Before these events—and perhaps even now—some people were hypocritical, flattering, and applauding the oppressors, and perhaps even helping them in their oppression in exchange for worldly gains, saying, "What can I do?" As for those around them—friends, neighbors, acquaintances—they do not rebuke him nor say to him, "Fear God."
Our Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "By Him in Whose Hand is my soul, you must enjoin good and forbid evil, or Allah will certainly send punishment upon you, then you will call upon Him but He will not answer you." The Prophet, peace be upon him, swears here so that we take the matter more seriously.
The tyrants in the lands of the Muslims commit all kinds of evil: fighting against the Sharia, siding with the enemies of God, enslaving people in the name of the nation and nationalism, and tearing apart the body of the Ummah. These evils have paved the way for the disbelievers to single out our brothers in Palestine, and few have condemned them for it. Rather, many of us are cowardly or flattering, raising our children on cowardice and flattery.
Indeed, many of us are partners in the crime: the teachers who raise generations to be loyal to others than God and His Messenger and the believers, and who instill in them the borders of "Sykes-Picot." These people are not only failing to forbid evil but are partners in the crime that led to the disbelievers singling out our people in Gaza.
Likewise, those who deal in usury, deposit in usurious accounts, and buy apartments with usury—how many of them there are, knowing that God has declared war on those who deal in usury! God, the Almighty, says: {O you who have believed, fear Allah and leave what remains [due to you] of interest, if you should be believers. But if you do not, then be warned of a war [against you] from Allah and His Messenger.} And those women who are negligent in wearing the hijab and attach the hearts of Muslim youth to desires, and yet some of them go out in demonstrations supporting Gaza while being immodest and disobedient to God and His Messenger; all of these are subject to the prophetic warning, and the tragedy is that they ask, "Why does God not answer our supplication?"
Supplication has meaning when it is part of true repentance, and when it is accompanied by exhausting the means, as our Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us in the Battle of Badr. He prepared for years, readied the hearts and minds, and equipped himself militarily and strategically, then he supplicated: "O God, fulfill for me what You have promised me. O God, bring what You have promised me. O God, if You destroy this group of people from the people of Islam, there will be no one left to worship You on earth."
When you commit obstacles and do not take the means, and think that supplication can compensate for all of this, you are trying to bypass God's traditions of victory. Imagine if the people of Gaza were to win alone without the Ummah correcting its condition, and they were to liberate Jerusalem and Palestine alone; the Muslims would have thought they were in a good state, and they would not have tried to change their bitter reality. It is from God's wisdom to delay victory in order to create awareness and change in the Ummah and to bring people back to God Almighty.
Many of us supplicate asking for "miracles," such as God sending angels or a wind that will destroy the Zionists, but God Almighty has taught us that this is not the tradition we rely on to stop the aggression of the oppressors. We must work on dissolving barriers and taking the means of liberation, uniting the Ummah with patience, without tiring in education, purification, drawing near to God, courage in the face of oppressors, seeking lawful sustenance, and mastering work; and then {Indeed, the mercy of Allah is near to the doers of good.}
It is never good for a Muslim to fall short in the means of victory that lift us from humiliation, and at the same time to supplicate to God to save us with a miracle. Imagine that a fire has broken out in a corner of your house and you are sitting in your place, not carrying water to extinguish it nor taking out your family, and yet you supplicate, "O God, extinguish it with a miracle from You," thinking that with your supplication you have done what is required of you! At that moment, supplication turns into a "narcotic."
Does this mean we should not supplicate for our brothers? Yes, supplicate for them, and be sincere in your supplication for them and against their enemies, but while you supplicate, be ashamed before your Lord, the Almighty, because you have fallen short in taking the means, and remember that you may be subject to obstacles to the answer. Make your supplication part of true repentance, and say, "O Lord, I know that I do not deserve for You to answer me, but I covenant with You from now on to take the means of the answer and rid myself of its obstacles."
Finally, if you are righteous, avoid obstacles, exhaust your energy, and take the means with patience, then do not think that God does not answer your supplication. The answer to supplication has forms, and it is not necessary that exactly what you want happens. Our Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "No Muslim supplicates to God with a supplication that does not contain sin or cutting family ties except that God gives him one of three things: either He answers his supplication immediately, or He stores it for him in the Hereafter, or He turns away from him an equivalent amount of evil." They said, "Then we should increase," and he said, "God is more."
You need this supplication more than your brothers in Gaza; you are the first beneficiary. If God tests you with a trial like theirs, perhaps God will strengthen you with the blessing of your supplication for them. The war now is open against Islam and its people, and your supplication is one of the means of strengthening you and them, and it benefits them by binding the hearts, guiding their aim, and increasing their reward. What we see of their legendary steadfastness is, in fact, one of the greatest blessings and one of the forms of God's answer to the supplication of the righteous.
In conclusion: Supplicate for your brothers, and make your supplication part of true repentance, taking the means, and striving with every means to support them with your life and wealth. We ask God, the Almighty, to help us against ourselves and our sins, and against confronting the oppressors, so that we may deserve the honor of supporting our brothers.
O God, employ us and do not replace us. Peace be upon you and the mercy of God.