Don't let your enemies become your teachers. Moazzam Beg

So I was born and raised in the city of Birmingham. And in the 80s we took the streets to fight neo Nazis and skinnets. And when I say fight, I mean literally with fight with, with bottles, bats, fists, get beaten up and beat up. But the purpose was to get these fascists, racists out of our streets, to keep us all, keep them away from us. We'd go home sometimes and I remember coming back once, battered skinheads had caught me. They kicked me in my face repeatedly with steel toe cap boots. My blood was pouring into my mouth. I was choking on my own vomit and the last words I thought I was gonna say was La ilailaiblahu rasulullah. And I screamed them out with spurting blood. I went home, my dad took me to the accident hospital, he saw the state of me. But in the accident hospital there were five skinheads, all with broken noses, broken legs, broken arms and God knows what. And in the midst of the fight, we'd managed to hurt them more than they'd hurt us. Our parents at that generation, they were hard working. They believed that you get what you give and they didn't believe in fighting back. But we were born and raised here and this was our home just as much as was of the skinheads. When he tells me to go back home, I'm going back home to Spark Hill. And no matter how much he tells me to get out of the country. So when we stood toe to toe with these fascists and racists and neo Nazis, there was either you stay here or you push us out. And we pushed them out and they're no longer around. Fast forward from that time till now. It used to be just about being brown. Our gang included even Irish guys because they were targeted Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs and black people all together. But now, in this new world we exist in, it's the targeting of Muslims. The communist Chinese, the capitalist American, the Hindutva Indians, the French. It doesn't matter if you're Muslim, they're going to target you, what level you're practicing on. They don't really care. They don't really care whether you've got a beard or a hijab or a scarf or they don't really care about that. If you say Ashadullah, Illallah, Muhammad, you're a target. And there's been a normalization of Islamophobia. So there's one thing I tell you brothers, you know, I spent three years in Guantanamo, two of those years in pure solitary confinement. I saw two prisoners beaten, tortured to death with their Hands tied to the top of the cage to death. Being kicked and punched to death by American soldiers. And that guy said on his lips the last word. He said, allah, Allah, Allah. And they kicked him because he said Allah. They found it funny. His autopsy report and the entirety of his, of his, of his life is featured in some. In an Oscar winning documentary called Taxi to the Dark side. Because he was a taxi driver. Taxi to the dark side. Do a search for it. Taxi to the Dark side. I'm an eyewitness to that. After all of that, three years without charge, no charge, no trial, no court, no prosecutor, no defense, nothing. Just a cell that measured 8 foot by 6 foot. No window, no communication, no phone calls, no TV, no letters. Yeah. Were you not chucking things in a river? There's a river for letter or something? There's nothing. You're in a cell, you're in a cage. You can't come out the cage. So what did Allah Subhana wa ta' ala allow us to do in the midst of that? Learn the Quran. Reflect on its verses. Internalize them. Learn whatever you can from the small amount of books they give you. Write letters, write your thoughts. Prepare yourself for the outside world. And there's one thing I want to tell you guys, right, so you're facing off people who hate Muslims on the streets, mostly because they're ignorant. If you were to sit them down one on one, you'd easily break down the hatred. Easy. Because we did it with the American soldiers. And I can tell you, some of those American soldiers, I swear by Allah in those cages, said Ashaduallah. And some of them visited me in my home here. So don't let your enemy and your abuser and your tormentor and your jailer become your teacher. What I mean by this, this terminology says you. Our enemy is not a teacher comes from a famous mujahid. His name is Omar Al Mukhtar. He fought against the Italian fascists in the desert. He was 70 years old. When the Muslims captured Italian prisoners and they wanted to torture them, he said, our enemy is not our teacher. Our teacher is who? Rasoolallah. If he had been that way, if Rasol Allah had been that way, we wouldn't be Muslims today. Because the message of Islam couldn't have been spread by force. He forgave those who tried to, like Al Wahshi and Hind and Abu Sufya. And he forgave them and Islam. And they became leaders of Islam. They're the ones that chained themselves at the end, isn't it Ummah? Muktad. Yes. They chained themselves at the end. Yeah. So that no one runs away. So, so this brothers, when you think about this, if you come across these guys, you come across these people, if they're gonna fight, you fight them. Stand firm, don't back off. You have the right to self defence in law and in Islam, in every law, you have the right to defend yourself proportionately. Doesn't mean like if he hits you, you stick a knife in him. No, if he hits you, you hit him back, knock him down. But when you're able to speak to that person, show him that you're dignified, showing that you're a person of honour. Show him that you're a person of faith, of Islam and that will my brothers allow. This is what Allah says in the Quran. Respond with hit back, with that which is better. So that between him and you who there is animosity and he becomes like a close friend to you. And that's why I bring you back to. There's Guantanamo soldiers who in the beginning abused us. They stripped us naked, they beat us, they kicked us, they spat upon us. They cursed Islam. They cursed Islam. They told the Quran and threw it into the toilet, said Ashadullah Illallah. Imagine that.