Jummah Kutbahaykum: Is it worth it to be a Muslim? Russell Howard's comments about ISIS on a comedy show have shocked many Muslims. Is he right or is he wrong?
00:00:00.000Guys, before the video starts, I'm doing a winter appeal for Syria, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, brothers and sisters, inshaAllah.
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00:00:24.180As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, brothers and sisters and dear friends.
00:00:30.500Before I start, I want to praise Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the most merciful, the most trust, or praise His glory and gratitude belong to Him.
00:00:34.700So I was setting this video from, it's Russell Howard, as you guys know, he's a comedian.
00:00:40.860He's on this show and he's being asked some questions and the presenter of the show asks him a specific question,
00:00:47.220why he prefers to work at a different TV station rather than BBC.
00:00:52.040This is what he had to say. Let's listen to it and see what we can take out of it.
00:00:55.860I wasn't allowed to call it ISIS. I said that ISIS aren't Muslims, they're terrorists.
00:00:59.900Can you say that ISIS aren't fundamental Muslims, they're terrorists?
00:01:02.940And you're like, what, we're going to get a letter from ISIS, are we?
00:01:06.420Cheers, BBC. Imagine my horror being this.
00:01:09.000Okay guys, so we saw that for ourselves. Now, it's very interesting because I was discussing with brothers Ishan and a few others,
00:01:14.780is it worth doing? And some of the brothers did say that basically, if you think about it,
00:01:20.000like what BBC are doing is kind of right, you know, because they do not want to misrepresent, let's say for example.
00:01:27.580But then again, I was thinking to myself, you know, the Prophet said, every action is based on its intention.
00:01:32.320Now, it might be like, to me, for example, it might seem as something like in a legal sense that they have to say that
00:01:39.620because BBC's got their solicitors, etc.
00:01:41.680But looking at the track record of BBC, I don't think we have any room to assume the best.
00:01:45.780I mean, if you have somebody who is consistently attacking Islam and vilifying Islam,
00:01:50.160I think we can't really say, oh, let's assume the best. We're not going to assume the best, we're going to assume the worst.
00:01:53.740It's as simple as that. We're going to assume the worst.
00:01:55.720So to me, I don't think it's an issue of legal.
00:01:58.440Now, Russell Howard, if you think about it, he has good intentions in that sense where he's trying to negate Islam from ISIS.
00:02:07.380Now, we do the same as well, but let's be honest here, we do agree that ISIS is Muslims.
00:02:14.640They are Muslims. I don't go to the extremes of doing takfir and saying they're not Muslims.
00:02:18.520They are Muslims, but they are bad Muslims.
00:02:20.940So Russell Howard obviously doesn't know the technicalities in the religion of doing takfir or not.
00:02:24.800But the point is this, he's coming from a place of goodness where he does not want that to be associated to Muslims
00:02:29.660because he realizes the consequences of media and propaganda that it comes at the cost of people
00:02:34.740literally wanting to take the lives of Muslims that we saw in New Zealand, in Christchurch.
00:02:38.280So, but when you look at BBC, you can clearly see the issue is not legal.
00:02:42.000Like he said, which was quite funny as well, what's ISIS going to do?
00:02:44.680Write a letter to you and say, how dare you misrepresent us?
00:03:44.360So I just wanted to share that with you guys to show that Russell Howard, that we salute him, at least he's coming from a place of goodness.
00:03:50.220And like Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in Surah Mumtahina, Allah does not forbid you from being just and kind to those who do not fight you based on your faith and kick you out of your houses.