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Today in inshallah we're going to be doing something, it is potentially controversial, but in inshallah we're going to navigate this through without any controversy. It's a very sensitive topic, but it is a topic that needs to be discussed.

This finished the 10th Muharram, the fasting that we have done, and throughout the last week or two we talked about the blessings of the 10th Muharram from our Ahlesunna tradition.

I purposely delayed bringing the controversial stuff till we are finished with this time frame, and today I wanted to touch briefly upon the issue of the controversy on this date.

Most of us are aware, and the next generation is becoming aware, and there's no point hiding this. The 10th Muharram is a very disputed date amongst the two strands of Islam.

We, the people who follow the Sunnah, Ahlesunnah, we consider this a day of Ibadah, a day of fasting, a day of rituals.

The other non Sunnah movement, they take this as a day of mourning, as a day of importance, because the grandson of the Prophet of the Sunnah was massacred on this date.

Now I've given a long talk about the incident of Karbalah. Today I wanted to touch briefly about another contentious issue, and that is the persona or the figure of Yazid Ibn Muawiyah.

How do we view this person, this Khalifa, because he was a Khalifa with the Umayyids? What is our position about Yazid Ibn Muawiyah?

So let us begin by setting up the stage. Who is Yazid Ibn Muawiyah? He is, of course, the Khalifa that was given power by his father Muawiyah.

Muawiyah is a young sahabi, by a young sahabi Amin. He saw the process him as a teenager. He is not to the level of Abu Bakr, Umar, Ithman, Al-Rudyallahu,

he is not to the level of Abu Bakr, the sahaba are many categories. Ibn Hajar has ten categories. The last batch of them, those who embraced Islam at the conquest of Makkah, that is the last batch.

And that is Muawiyah, so he is a sahabi, because he is a sahabi, so we have a theological belief about him, that he would never do something against Islam intentionally.

He would never intentionally want to astaghfirullah lie about the process or something like this, so he comes under the general rubric of sahaba.

When he became the Khalifa, he decided to put his son Yazid as a nominator. He is going to put his son Yazid.

And as you know, this transformed the Khalifa from a shura to a dynasty. So this was a very historic, by historic, I don't mean positive negative.

Historic means something important happened that changed the course of history. He decided to put his son Yazid in charge.

Many of the senior companions during Muawiyah, they did not give the oath of allegiance, including Abdullah bin Umar, including Abdullah Ibn Az-Zubayd.

These are all sons of the senior sahaba. They refused to give the oath of allegiance to Yazid when Muawiyah was alive.

Soon as Muawiyah passed away, Ibn Az-Zubayd, as you are aware also, he broke away, he established his own caliphate,

and Hussein as well marched to Karbala and wanted to fight against Yazid, Yazid sent his forces, and Muawiyah, sorry, Hussein of the Allah who was killed, a very, very huge tragedy.

No Muslim is happy at the massacre of Karbala. No Muslim defends the death of Hussein, our hearts are grieved and sad that the Ummah of the Prophet, surrounded the grandson of the Prophet, members of the Ummah, surrounded the grandson of the Prophet,

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