Your Actions Affect the Entire Muslim Body
The Collective Responsibility of the Muslim Ummah: Unity, Obedience, and Commanding Good
Summary
This lecture reflects on Quranic principles about collective responsibility within the Muslim community (Ummah). The speaker uses examples from the Quran and Islamic history to demonstrate how the actions of individuals and minorities affect the entire Muslim body, citing Allah's address to the Jews of Medina about their predecessors' mistakes, the Battle of Uhud where a small group of disobedient archers caused defeat, and the Battle of Hunayn where excessive confidence in numbers led to initial failure. The core message emphasizes that believers form one unified body where each part's condition affects the whole, and that Muslims must actively command good and forbid evil rather than remaining silent and complicit.
Note: This transcript was generated using YouTube's automatic captioning, with AI-assisted cleanup for readability. It may contain inaccuracies due to background noise, audio quality, or limitations of the transcription software — particularly during Arabic recitation. Listener discretion is advised; please refer to the original video for precise wording.
I want to reflect with you all on a couple of verses of the Quran. When he speaks to a people that are endeavoring to do the same thing, they're on the same path, they're all counted as one. What each of the individuals of that party does reflects back on the whole. For instance, you find in the Quran, and this this stretches even across time, not just in one time, but even across time. For instance, Allah speaks to the Jews of Medina. He addresses them in the Quran in Surah Al-Baqarah. And you notice something interesting that throughout this dialogue, Allah Ta'ala he is reminding them of mistakes that were made by their predecessors. Mistakes that were made by the people that were with Musa. But he speaks to them in the first person as if they were the ones that were with Musa. For instance, Allah says,.
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He says, "We saved you from the clutches of Pharaoh. You all worshipped the the calf, the golden calf." He's speaking to people that came 2,000 plus years after Musa. So why is it that he is speaking to the people in the time of the Prophet Alayhi Wasallam? However, he is addressing them and addressing mistakes that they made that were made by their predecessors hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. What's the reason? The Prophet explains this reason. He says,.
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He says that the believers are one single body. If any one part of that body is ailing from something, then the rest of the body suffers from insomnia and suffers from fever because of that one little part that reflects back on the whole. And this stretches even across time. And so we are all treated as one unit. Some of us make a mistake, it will reflect back on the rest of us. Some of us do good If you could please, I mean you know, this isn't a play time or a play area, please. And he addresses us Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as being He addresses us as a whole. Even if we weren't physically there, it reflects back on all of us. When one person makes a mistake, it reflects back on the whole. When a group makes a mistake, a minority makes a mistake, it reflects back on the whole. We discussed a couple of days ago the statement of the Prophet Alayhi Wasallam, that if the people of Ash-Sham become corrupt, then there is no good in all of you, in all of you. The people of Ash-Sham, they're the heartbeats of the larger Muslim Ummah. It's the pulse. When we look at the Battle of Uhud, how many people were put How many archers were placed on the archers' mound in the Battle of Uhud? Who remembers? About 40. Very good. Homegrown historian here. We have about about 40, a few over 40. How many were in the army that attended Uhud with the Prophet Alayhi Wasallam? Huh? It was over 1,000, roughly. How many is 40 from 1,000? 0.5%. That's a tiny amount, isn't it? 0.5%. The battle was lost because of what? Because of 0.5% disobeyed. And Allah spoke to the Muslimin and said, He spoke to the Prophet and all of the Muslimin, "And you all disobeyed." In the Battle of Uhud, how many of them disobeyed? Not 40, less than 40, because we have about four to six men that stayed on that mound. So it was more 30 that disobeyed from 1,000 men. Yet that disobedience was counted as what? The failure of the whole. In the Battle of Al-Yamamah with Musaylimah, when they were in Al-Yamamah and they were fighting, Khalid ibn al-Walid radiyallahu anhu was the he had taken the position at that point of general. They were having a very hard time to penetrate the ranks of Musaylimah. It was a very fierce army. And so the Muhajirin and Ansar, the companions, they came to Khalid during the battle and they demanded that anyone who is not a companion be purged from their ranks. "We want a battalion only being companions, nobody else. Give them their own battalion. We want a battalion that is purely Muhajirin and Ansar." Why did they request that? When they did that, they were able to penetrate the ranks of Musaylimah and he was ultimately killed. Why? Why did the companions do that? There's a secret here. Listen to this. In Surah Al-Anfal, there are two verses that come back to back that tell us when the Muslim is permitted to flee in a time of battle. The first verse tells us, 20 to 200 is how many? 10 per per man. So Allah is telling them, "If there's 20 of you and 200 of the enemy, you're not allowed to turn around and run. You fight them and you will win." Then Allah says in the second verse, right after it, Then he tells us, So now it it was abrogated mansukh, and the ruling became it is two men to one. That is a huge difference. 10 to one, and then it was later abrogated as what? Two to one.
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What was this Dha'f? It's a good question, right? He said Allah now is relieving you, and he knows that you have weakness in you. So, if there is a hundred of you, then they will be able to beat 200 of the enemy. And a thousand of you, they will be able to beat 2,000 of the enemy. That's a huge start difference from 20 to 200 and 100 to 1,000. But, he said, "Allah now has relieved you all, and he has recognized that you have weakness in you." When were these verses revealed? This is the question. That first verse, one man against 10, that that that's that's amazing. One man against 10 men? I mean, that's a miracle in itself. This is the quality of the companions with the prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And so, one to 10, this was revealed around the time of the Battle of Uhud of the Battle of Badr, excuse me. The Battle of Badr was in which year? The second year. When the Battle of Badr happened, and when Abu Jahl was killed, and when many of these sanadid of Quraysh were killed, and when the muslimeen were were victorious, what happened in Medina? Something big happened to where this verse was abrogated. What happened? Huh? No. The hypocrites joined. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul and his group of hypocrites and their tribes, they decided cuz they were waiting to see what would happen in Badr. They're waiting to see which team is winning. Cuz they join that team. They're like cockroaches. Whichever team is winning, that's the one they're going to go with. And so, when the Battle of Badr happened, and the muslimeen were victorious, immediately, what did they do? They went and pledged allegiance to the prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam. What happened to the potency of the Muslim army when the hypocrites joined? It became diluted. Correct? A person may say, "Well, we still have that same number of good muslimeen and quality muslimeen." Yes, but they've been diluted and weakened by all of the all of the hypocrites that joined. That is the da'f that Allah is speaking about in this verse. It seems a paradox, doesn't it? Paradoxical. Because you would think that the greater numbers would increase the responsibility. No. When their numbers became tripled, their numbers became tripled when Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul joined and the hypocrites joined and their respective tribes, the ranks of the muslimeen tripled. However, that did what to the Muslim strength? It weakened it. It didn't make it stronger, it made it weaker. Because it's a chemical. It's a chemical reaction. The more you add water to it, what happens to it? It weakens it. It's no longer as concentrated. And that is exactly what Allah is speaking about here. What's the point of all this? Why are we discussing this? The idea that I can see my brother disobeying Allah, living his life in ignorance, not commanding the good and forbidding the evil and spreading knowledge, and insisting that no man is left behind, to think that when I go home at night, or our brothers across the water, that they are not affected by our disobedience is a pipe dream. They are affected by our disobedience. When we disobey, it affects the muslimeen all the way across. When I see my brother disobey Allah, and I do not correct him, and we do not have people amongst us that command the good and forbid the evil and insist on good, what happens to us? become weakened. We become divided because the idea is that a shaytan whispers, "No, well, you don't want to command the good and forbid the evil too much." Al amr bil ma'ruf wal nahy anil munkar. If you do it too much, you're going to divide the muslimeen. Is that what Musa did when they asked to have an ilah? When they asked Musa alayhis salaam, ij'al lana ilahan kamalahum alihah. Madha qala Musa? Hal qala ana ya'ni urji'u amrahum ila hin. Al'an.
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Natfarraq al'an. Khallina kulluna muttahidin ala hal kalimatil wahidah. Ma binna niza'il hada wala nnafir hada. Wa ba'din in sha Allah bit'allamu. Hakadha qala Musa alayhis salaam. Bal qala, innakum qawmun tajhalun.
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Batilum ma kanu ya'malun. Qala a ghayrallahi abghikum ilahan wa huwa faddalakum alal alamin? Immediately corrected it. Immediately he corrected it because this illusion of a big number, it does not give us victory. What gives us victory isn't the strength of our numbers, it is the quality of our numbers. That's what gives us victory. That is what gives us victory. Wa yawma Hunayn in idh a'jabatkum kathratukum falam tughni ankum min Allahi shay'a. And the in the Battle of Hunayn, at first, they lost the battle. At first, many of them fled the battlefield. Companions. What caused them to flee the battlefield? An attitude that permeated the Muslim ranks. Qalu, "Lan nughlabal yawma an qillah." Kalimatun qaluha.
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W- They said, "We're not going to be beat because of a lack of numbers today." Meaning, our numbers are way too big for us to be defeated. What happened? Defeat. Immediately. Because that is not where victory comes from. Victory comes from the quality of those numbers, even if they are few. And so, the prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam tells us, and we will end with this, in sha Allah. He says, "La ta'murunna bil ma'ruf wala tanhawunna anil munkar, aw layushikanna Allah an yusallita alaykum adhaban min indih, thumma latad'unnahu fala yustajabu lakum." Nas'al Allah al afiyah. Hadith fis sunan an Hudhayfah. The prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, "You will all command one another with good and forbid one another evil, or a dooming punishment dangles, looms above you from Allah, that once it takes all of you, you will then pray to him and he will not answer your prayer." But, there's good men amongst us. Yes, the good men amongst you, then why didn't they speak up? Why didn't they make a change? Why weren't they silent and complicit? This is the problem. We have to command the good. We have to forbid the evil. Or we are all going to sink on this ship, all of us. There's no such thing as "My religion and my relationship with Allah is my personal thing." But, then when I go out into society, we just do whatever we have to do to get along. That's not how it works. Religion is inherently divisive. And we have to make sure that when we bring a person to Islam, or when we call a brother to Islam, or when we invite each other to the sunnah, we do it bil hikmah wal maw'izah hasanah, and we do not focus on the minor issues when there are more major issues to be addressed. But, we never allow ourselves to see our brother doing wrong that is categorically wrong and just ignore it. That is you shooting yourself in your own foot. Because al mu'minu mir'atul mu'min. In ra'a fihi ayban, aslahahu. Yaqulu.
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Kama fi musnadil Imam Ahmad. He said, "The believer is the mirror of his brother. If he sees something wrong with him, he will correct it." You don't look in the mirror, see something on your face, and then just go to work and go about your business. You don't leave until you fix it, correct? Your brother, that is your face he is wearing. And you will insist that your brother will do the best he can be. We try to bring the best out of each other. And you know what? any disease and any illness, when you first try to introduce medicine, what does the disease do? It fights back immediately. The people that are harmed the most are the people that command the good and forbid the evil. To the point that Imam Ahmad said,.
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He said a day will come when the believer amongst the Muslimin will be a dead carcass that people will avoid. Just they used to avoid the prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
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This is how they were. And so the believer Nuh alaihi salaam, people used to hide from him cuz they don't want to hear.
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That is the path of the believer.