Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

ever
done.
So may Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) protect us from being abusive to the word of
Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) and the beautiful 
Sunnah
of the Prophet (
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi
wa-sallam
). May Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) soften our hearts towards our families
especially our daughters. May Allah give us the ability to raise good daughters,
good sons, that they may become the carriers of the future generations of Islam.

---

CHAPTER 9
Thoughts on Paris (Charlie Hebdo)
*
I
n shā
’
Allāh
, in this reminder, what I’d like to share with you are some
reflections from the Qur’an, but inspired, really, by the tragic events that have
taken place in France. These kinds of things, every time they come in the news,
the Muslim mind almost freezes up; we get paralysed. How are we supposed to
respond to this? We are barely done dealing with one tragedy, and another one
hits in the news, and another one and another one. They are of different kinds:
sometimes these are events in which some things are done to Muslims and other
cases where Muslims have done some things to others; in both cases we are left
completely baffled as to what an intelligent response is supposed to be or how
we are supposed to deal with this, not only as individuals but also as a
community and in a larger sense as an ummah. I basically have four or five
things to share with you here 
in shā
’
 Allāh
, and despite the frustration that you
and I both feel about what is going on, I hope that I will be able to be coherent
and consistent in the ideas that I want to present before you.
The first thing that I want to share with you is just a statement of fact:
criminals are criminals. It doesn’t matter what religion they have. When
someone’s a murderer and they murder someone who didn’t deserve to be killed,
it does not matter that they are Muslim or Jewish or Christian or atheist. They
are equal before the law and they are equal before the eyes of Muslims. Just
because someone commits a crime and they are a Muslim they are not any less
guilty in my eyes or your eyes; that is not the case. Don’t confuse the fact that:
innamā al-mu’minūn ikhwah
—all believers are brothers—that that should
somehow confuse your sense of justice. Actually Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) in the

---

Qur’an tells us very, very clearly to stand by justice: 
wa-law ʿalā anfusikum
—
even if standing by justice means you have to stand against your own selves.
When Muslims have done something wrong, then it is something wrong; you
cannot beat around the bush. The easy cop out for a lot of people when it comes
to justice is, they confuse justice with retaliation.
What I mean by that is, and I’ll give you a childish example so this point
becomes clear, when one of your kids does something wrong and you tell them,
‘You’ve done this wrong’, and they say, ‘Well, my brother did it. He did it too’.
You know what? Anybody else doing something wrong does not justify your
crime. You are responsible for your crime. And you cannot deflect and say,
‘Well, what about them?’ No, no, no. We’ll deal with them separately. That’s a
separate problem; don’t confuse their problem with what you have done.
ʿalaykum mā ḥummiltum
—you have to carry your own burden. Allah (
ʿazza wa-
jall
) doesn’t allow us to take credit for other people’s work, and Allah (
ʿazza wa-
jall
) doesn’t allow us to justify our misbehaviour given other people’s
misbehaviour. He doesn’t allow us to do that.