Best does not mean perfect

See, Shaitan wants you to believe and wants you to feel that there's no point in trying to do something moral if it's not going to result in perfect outcomes, in perfectly moral outcomes. This is basically how he can encourage you to not care about trying to be good or trying to be moral by confusing you with this conflation of morality with perfection, and by making you believe that all imperfections are all equally bad and equally immoral. No. So the Kufar, the Western Kufar, they'll pretend that their colonization, their imperialism was no different and is no different than anyone else. And they'll say that what the Muslims did is the same as what the West did and is doing because, you know, our empire expanded and their empire expanded, same saying.

This is dishonest. And they're just trying to, deny how uniquely and distinctly violent, cruel, barbaric and evil their actions were and are. And they do this all the time, like saying for example that there's no difference between whether if China or Russia have a dominant influence over Africa or if the West does. Everyone's the same. Power always operates the same way with the same viciousness and the same inhumanity except no.

No. It doesn't. They're trying to minimize and excuse their savagery, trying to evade responsibility for it by saying everyone does it, but everyone does not do it. And most certainly, the Muslims did not do it, do not do it, and have not done it. But in fact, no one has done it.

No one has done it, not like the West. And this is how they respond to legitimate criticisms over their actions, not by defending those actions, but by using this same type of argument. They say, you're no better. You've done wrong things too. Well, that's not an argument, And it's especially not an argument when the wrong things, that they're pointing to in someone else pale in comparison to the wrong things that they've done.

But this is what I'm talking about. This idea that anything and everything short of perfection is equal. That all wrongs are identically bad. And this is the type of argument, this is the type of thinking that they will try to put in your head when you think about the ayah, about the Muslims being the best ummah. They may they may point out or they might try to make you look for examples where the Muslims have maybe committed wrongs, maybe fallen short, they may have abused their power or what have you.

And that mentality of false equivalence might make you doubt that this ayah is true, or it might make you think that that ayah was only true at the time of the prophet But that Muslims today do not qualify for that characterization as the best. But no, that ayah applies to the Muslims then and now and forever. The appearance of flaws and imperfections, the existence of mistakes, or even the existence of crimes in our history or in our present does not invalidate the reality that we were, are, and always will be the best ummah raised among mankind. And that's partly because of how good we are, yes. And it's partly because of how much better we are by comparison to others.

It's a statement as much about others as it is about us. I mean, can you compare really an ummah that enjoins good and forbids evil to a people who don't even believe that good and evil exist? SubhanAllah, is on our tongues continuously as Muslims in our greetings before we eat, after we eat, when we suffer a setback, when we suffer a calamity, and when things go well, always, no matter what, the Muslims make remembrance of Allah easily, more than any other people on earth. We enjoin good so much that we even annoy each other with it. And even when we do wrong, the Muslims never pretend that it isn't wrong.

We don't try to make the haram halal. When we do something haram, we admit it and we make toba for it. We make istighfar. We don't try to do all sorts of mental and moral gymnastics to make it seem like it's not wrong. There's nobody like us.

There's nobody like the Muslims. Wallahi. And let me say something here about superiority with regards to the superiority of this ummah. Again, first of all, it just means superior or better than what is otherwise available. It doesn't mean perfect and it doesn't mean without flaws, it just means more perfect and with fewer flaws than everyone else.

And yes, that is a fact about this ummah. But also very importantly, the superiority of the Muslim ummah is not exclusionary. It's not based on any immutable characteristics like race or color or what have you. It's based on belief. It's based on values.

It's based on understanding, and it's based on practice. Meaning, it is open to anyone. Anyone can become a Muslim and become part of this superior ummah, and that's exactly what we want. That's exactly what we teach and what we invite people to do. We're not about trying to lord it over anyone that we're better.

We're trying to bring you in. We're trying to lift you up. We're trying to make you better. That's what makes us more happy than anything. And that too is from the superior qualities of this ummah.

We don't wanna impose our supremacy on anyone. We want everyone to join us in it, to improve themselves. That's why I'm telling you, if we accept even a little bit that our ummah is not the best ummah, then that would mean concealing goodness and misleading people. It would mean letting people believe that a wrong way of thinking, a wrong way of being is somehow the same as the right way of living. Well, you can't help people that way.

You can't elevate people that way. If you're acting like above and below are the same thing, that up and down are the same thing, that better and worse are the same thing, then that's the same as telling people that their improvement and their advancement don't matter because you don't want to tell them how to be better. That's an incredibly callous way of dealing with people. That's abandoning them to confusion and darkness. No.

You have to identify what is better. You have to distinguish. You have to affirm what is better from what is worse. And part of doing that is yes, affirming that the Muslims are indeed the best ummah ever raised among mankind.