Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Elite security work: factors to weigh — 0:00
um this question actually is very sensitive and uh i was wondering even to do this or not but obviously these are the questions that are necessary for people to know and to understand and so bismillah let's do this now uh brother wishes to remain anonymous you'll see why he writes from a european country which i will not mention by name and he says that he's being offered a job governmental job that is suited for his talents he likes it it's skill set is perfect for him he likes it however it is in the branch of law enforcement that is equivalent to uh the elite of the security apparatus the highest level of security so this isn't just a normal policeman this is the elite of the police right or maybe in america we have the fbi for example right and he said that his job will involve lots of things that are uh of a societal nature tackling all types of crimes drugs the mafia and also he says this is where he's asking me also issues related to terrorism and monitoring uh radical groups and he says that he has been told by some uh of the people in his community that he should not take this job because he will be spying on muslims because he will be doing something that is he has been told unethical now this is a very very sensitive question to be honest and i'm not going to answer you haram or i'm make a discussion that i want you to think about these factors and i ask you to go to a scholar of your own land who number one is well grounded in our islamic tradition and number two is well grounded in reality as well right because again we have all different types of ulama and for these questions we do need to go to those scholars who are uh cognizant of living in the lands that we live in and are connected to the communities and are not you know living somewhat isolated from the struggles of the average people and somewhat cut off from the realities because in the end of the day you know it's very easy to be a bubble and a marginalized uh you know a religious community on the fringes of society and you know i see you know why people would do that but those types of people are not the best suited to answer these sensitive questions go to those that are a little bit more connected to the intricacies of how your country is working and the protocols of how change is going to take place and uh you will find insha'allah like this now uh go to them for your specific answer i'm going to speak to you generically and so i'm not going to give you haram and i'm going to give you some things to think about so firstly obviously as a muslim to to to tackle the the larger crime issues you know to tackle the mafia drug gangs violence you know a child um you know evil and you know you're talking about and you know trafficking to tackle these things no problem you'll get a double reward you know i mean get your salary and and and for the sake of allah make society better we don't want violent criminals we don't want drug gangs we don't want people that are harming other people and you know extortion and bribery and whatnot so all of this that is general crimes against society and these are crimes in the sharia and crimes in society insha allah make your intention pure and and take and take these these projects and expect allah to reward you for doing some good service to the community no problem over there however as you pointed out sometimes uh and perhaps because of your skill set and because perhaps because of your background you will be asked to get involved in the more sensitive issues of these radical uh you know elements and and the jihadist groups and and what not and this is where it gets extremely awkward so i say and i have been saying this uh since uh uh post 9 11 i have not changed my tune at all this has been my consistent message and i have lived through post-9 11 america i have lived through uh from the 2005 since i came back from medina uh when all of these terrorist groups were around when america invaded iraq and then afghanistan then guantanamo and all of this happened and the rise of all of these movements came and they went and my message has been consistent and i ask all of you to listen to my lectures the same message comes and of course the law it's a longer message but in that message i would always say that what our own country is doing of its foreign policy and its invasions and its guantanamo and its you know other practices you know even people like chomsky who's not even a muslim they say this is you know far worse than any terrorism that uh these other groups are doing and the number of debts that these invasions cause and the flagrant abuse and uh and misabuse of human rights uh and the uh the the wanton destruction of peoples and civilizations this is a crime that is far bigger than anything that these uh sub you know national groups are doing as a response and the fact to the matter is that pretty much all of these types of groups that are coming about they are the backlash of the policies of these superpowers so i always begin and premise with that this is not an exoneration at all of the foreign policy of the very lands that we live in they have themselves caused so much harm and damage and the backlash of these invasions these are part of what we are seeing here nonetheless with all of that having been said with all of that having been said i have always been consistent in this regard even though it has caused a lot of irritation and anger from the uh from the some of the segments of the muslim community that no matter what is happening over there it is not allowed for us muslims over here to harm anybody in our lands it is not allowed two wrongs do not make a right and the classical things that are quoted in the books of do not apply in the modern construct of the nation states and that's why mainstream focaha across all the madahib and across all the globe and across all of the mainstream movements have not justified these terrorist movements the actual terrorists that are you know bombing uh you know people in in western cities and and doing these things no mainstream scholar no reputable scholar has justified this what is happening over there in iraq and afghanistan and guantanamo are massive crimes against humanity and there are acts of terrorism in it of themselves but that does not in any shape or fashion justify what some people have attempted to do or want to do uh in our lands against innocent people innocent civilians and therefore i said this very clearly actually said this um long stories i have with the have i have had lots of experience with these types of movements and it has caused some issues for me as well but i have maintained this and i'm going to say this again i said this literally 17 years ago when i first came here this this statement i said it and it caused a huge controversy back then and it might even cause it now but it doesn't matter this is what i believe that if i knew of such an attack and if i had knowledge of people wanting to do this in our soils to people in our land over here i personally would do everything in my power to prevent that including without a moment's hesitation getting the law enforcement involved calling them myself making sure that nothing like this happened because i genuinely believe that it is a crime in the eyes of allah to take these innocent lives and to do something that's going to harm people and i believe that the harm that comes to those innocent people and to the religion of islam and to the reputation of our muslim community and to the laws themselves of this of the backlash is going to happen uh it's simply without any without even hesitation we say that this is simply haram and sinful and unethical and immoral and a huge problem the damages that it that it does is far far infinitely you know greater than any good that these people because i don't think results in any good but in their minds it does so why do i say all of this because if your job if your job involved actually targeting those people i.e the real terrorists i would say no problem bismillah go for it of course why should we not we should be at the forefront making sure that none of these types of actual terrorists that want to kill innocent people blow up buildings take a machine gun and and mow people down in the name of our religion no never we will be the first to stop that and we will work with anybody to make sure that that does not happen but dear brother this is theory as for reality reality is radically different than theory and this is where the problem comes you see realistically in practice the problem comes that pretty much all western nations america canada euro european countries pretty much all of them their uh policing force their you know fbi equivalents basically have gone overboard they've lost the plot they've acted with a rashness of foolishness foolishness that is actually counterproductive and unethical and actually ends up harming innocent people and entrapping innocent people and jailing innocent people and terrorizing communities for the wrong reason so we have a difference between theory and between practice in theory we are at the forefront against the actual crazy people the actual radical the actual lunatics the actual fringe you know pseudo-jihadis we call them no problem we should be at the forefront but the problem comes dear brother that in practice these governments cannot tell the difference or they don't wish to tell the difference between a let's say a conservative muslim who's a pacifist and somebody who is an actual threat to society and so a lot of problems come because of these agencies first and foremost again where does one begin the secret of surveillance and the monitoring of innocent muslims not there's no problem if you genuinely are going to monitor a terrorist there's no problem but to throw the the the net as it were so wide and to encompass the entire muslim community or the entire masjid-going community or anybody who's praying five times a day or anybody who has a beard or has a hijab or reading the quran and all the while ignoring the far-right terrorists and the white supremacist terrorists and the local domestic terrorists because they're one of us basically and we have seen in america time and time again the fbi itself for the last six years has said the number one threat to american on american soil is far right right wing national white terrorists that's the number one threat and yet still it is the muslim community that is being monitored more than those far right groups why because again the problem is in the practice also the problem of uh criminalizing legitimate dissent in other words we clearly see that people of a certain race and background will get away with certain things with criticizing with vocally you know protesting whereas people with a you know different background muslims and skin color and names and beards the same things being done will be considered criminal and a simple example of this is france where it is now a criminal offense a criminal offense to verbally disagree verbally disagree with the publication of those blasphemous cartoons yes what happened afterwards was a crime and nobody should have been killed and i've said about this but can't i say that i was insulted by the cartoons and i'm also insulted by this muslim who killed yes both of these i can condem can't i condemn both but according to french law if i were in france i'm not even allowed to say that i disagree with the publication i'm not allowed to say that was not something that it's just something that ethics and norm says you should not do socially not legally and still i'm not allowed to say that so and the same here in america is that what happened was that legitimate dissent legitimate criticism that the first amendment laos allows was perceived to be terroristic in nature and people were thrown into jail people i know were thrown into jail simply because they said something first amendment issues they said something or translated something and this was deemed to be in and of itself you know terroristic and all the while of course the far right does what it is doing it actually engages in military training and you know and and and you know doing things of a nature that are far more dangerous but they're given a complete leeway to do so also we see over here another major problem of these uh uh agencies is that they do not will look it's been 20 years since 9 11 21 years if you're still going to remain ignorant you have chosen to remain ignorant and most of these agencies have chosen to remain ignorant the the average muslim can tell you that you know the conservative you know religious crowd the majority the vast majority of them are pacifists they're only interested in their own lives and their families they're not going to be a threat but most most agencies in the western world are going to view conservative religious sentiment with a suspicion of terrorism so somebody who starts to pray regularly somebody who uh you know wants to wear the hijab sister wants to wear the hijab the brother wants to you know do something extra religious all of a sudden they think oh because he's praying or because he's going to the masjid this is a sign he's on his way to become radical on his way to become terrorist and that's obviously completely unethical and immoral and of course the issue of guilt by association which is never done on other people how many are the criminals and how many are the terrorists in other groups and just because they're walking around and meeting people they all don't get become associated but in the muslim community you know any one person who's accused anybody around him automatically becomes a person of suspicion and of course perhaps the worst of all of these are the blatant policies of entrapment that pretty much all western uh secret service institutions have done including the fbi and i've criticized this multiple times directly by the way to the fbi agents that i've had to sometimes they come and interview me and i speak i always said to this them this is your most uh nefarious tactic that is turning people away from even wanting to help you in any fashion or form you should help the muslim community and they will help you back and don't criminalize religiosity and do not entrap innocent people which is one of their worst tactics which is basically take somebody who's typically mentally not normal and then you know bring about a whole plot to push and coax him to do something illegal he would never even thought of the plot much less gotten the equipment much less do something where it not for millions of dollars spent by dozens of fbi agents in order to trap this young boy typically 19 20 years old and then gets a life sentence or 25 years in jail simply because you know an fbi agent walked into the mosque and decided that's the kid i want to try to entrap and if you're involved in something like this then with the shame on anybody shame on anybody who thinks that that is going to be of benefit so the problem my dear brother is not in the theoretical in the theoretical notion of tackling actual terrorism if that were the case i would be the first to say yes we should be at the forefront and you know what despite all that they're doing and despite all of their ludicrous tactics still for the sake of my religion if i were to know of something i would try to prevent it for the sake of my lord not for the sake of tit-for-tat i don't care about you know their tactics in the eyes of allah they have to answer but i have to answer to my lord as well and if i know of someone or something that is going to genuinely be you know harmful then i will be the first to to try to stop that but again as i said there is a difference between theory and practice now i'm sure my dear brother that you're going to say oh but i'm going to join them in order to change their policy in order to bring about a sensible policy in order to help them target the right you know people and not the wrong people and to this i say i appreciate that sentiment i'm just skeptical that's all that's all i will say i appreciate that sentiment but i feel that it is somewhat naive to think that you alone are going to enter an established organization and from the bottom you know change it uh immediately and somebody can argue counter argue to this and say well how else is change gonna happen and to that i say you know i i sympathize with that sentiment as well so i i that's why i'm not gonna give you uh a blanket answer of yes or no i will say though that if you are able to get involved in all of these other vices the mafia and the drug gangs and the war and all of this you know the uh not the worst of the sorry i meant the the the um the murder rackets and all of this if you're able to get involved in all of those evils then definitely no problem with such a job may allah reward you if you're able to get involved uh with actual uh monitoring of the groups that are genuinely uh problematic and we know who you know the the types of thoughts that those people have then i don't have any problem with that as well but if you find yourself getting involved within trapping innocent people outwit right or doing something that is causing more harm than good then really you have to ask yourself what am i doing what am i doing over here acting in an unethical manner and you know it's not just against the muslim community if you know the reality of some of these agencies look at what they did to you know there was a movie that came out i obviously haven't watched it but a movie came out about how they targeted martin luther king and how our own agency in america you know they did so many unethical things against him and the same goes for any leader that they don't like even if the mainstream leader nelson mandela whoever it might be you know so these types of state apparatuses generally speaking generally speaking they don't work in an ethical manner especially when it comes to anything that they deem is against their current government's policies right and because of this it's a little bit awkward i don't want to say no at the same time i will say that if you find that you are involved in doing good for your community alhamdulillah and if you find that you're getting involved in unethical and dubious things then you have to answer to your lord and it's best for you to you know resign or leave that that opportunity and allah knows best in this regard foreign