Respected brothers and sisters, you've already heard two speakers before me address various aspects of our role and responsibility and some of our obligations as citizens in this country. It's a vast and wide topic.

I'll try to focus on one particular aspect of this issue, which is our duty as Muslims, in religion, to concern ourselves with the affairs of the Muslims, to assist and support each other, to be mindful of our duty and obligation towards Allah and his messenger and towards our fellow Muslims.

With regards to issues that concern Islam and the Muslims, I would like to remind myself and the members of the congregation of the imperative duty and obligation that Allah has imposed upon us to assist Allah, to assist Allah's religon, to assist our fellow Muslims. And before any of this, the main point that I would like to focus on is that as Muslims we have a duty to establish and maintain justice and to stand up in defence of the truth, wherever that justice and truth may lie.

This is a duty and an obligation upon us as important and as obligatory as prayer, pilgrimage, fasting and charity. It is not optional, it is not a luxury.

Far from it. As Muslims, we have a duty under an obligation from Allah that we establish justice and maintain justice. In fact, justice is one of the foundations and principles upon which the whole of Islam is predicated.

Now today, all over the world, there are many examples of injustice, of tyrany, of oppression, of repression, of zulm (injustice). And zulm just doesn't mean genocide, mass murder. We have developed a very dumbed-down understanding of the word zulm. When we mention it, we think about a dictator supressing an entire population, we think about genocide, mass murder, images of a whole population suffering under an evil regime, or living under a dictatorship. But zulm is any act of injustice, zulm is the absence of justice in any form. Zulm, in the sharia (Islamic law), is the wrong that someone suffers in the slightest.Because of this dumbed-down understanding of zulm, we think that we do not have duty to defend those who are suffering, to redress the injustice.

We think we do not have a duty to speak out in favour of the truth unless an entire population is being massacred, unless an entire country is being subjugated under an evil dictatorship or a police state and regime. We have a duty there. But we also have a duty when a single Muslim suffers. And not even physically. If their reputation is in question and they are innocent, the Muslims have a collective duty to defend that Muslim's honour and dignity and name, even though not a penny of their property has been forfeited from them, even though a drop of their blood has not been shed, even (though) a pore of their skin has not been touched, we still have a duty.

We have to ensure that our understanding of concepts is Islamic. (That) we understand zulm as Allah tells us to, we understand justice as Allah tells us to, we understand injustice as Allah tells us to, (that) we gain our understanding of these issues from Allah and his messenger. Nobody else should be allowed to dictate to us and to teach us our Book of Allah and the sunnah (tradition) of our Prophet. Nobody else should be able to tell us what zulm is and what zulm isn't. NOBODY ELSE SHOULD BE ABLE TO TELL US WHAT MODERATION IS AND WHAT EXTREMISM IS AND WHAT MODERATION ISN'T. I say this because, even as Muslims, being fooled and beguiled by all this propaganda, we have begun to label each other.So if someone dresses a certain way, if someone begins to pray and observe the laws of Allah and his Prophet, we also begin to label them. We say the person is an extremist, a fundamentalist. YET WHO WILL DECIDE FOR US WHAT IS EXTREMISM, WHAT IS FUNDAMENTALISM? These are very relative, very subjective, very contextual terms. ONE MAN'S POISON IS ANOTHER MAN'S MEDICINE. One man's heresy is another man's orthodoxy. One man's moderation is another's extremism. One man's extremism is another's leniency. Who will dictate to us, who will determine for us and who will define moderation, extremism, fanaticism and fundamentalism? Others are doing it and we are just following. So we need to ensure that we take our concepts and our understanding of Islamic terminology from the author himself, which is Allah. And that means that even when it comes to zulm, fight against it. As Muslims we have to realise that zulm is any act of injustice. And we are duty-bound by Allah and his Prophet to establish justice and to maintain justice.

Now, there are many examples of injustice all over the world. We're not just talking about entire populations that are suffering. Even in this country there are gross injustices that are taking place. Muslims are victims of injustice in many parts of the world. And yet we are now beginning to develop a refined understanding of our duty regarding these injustices. It's become bizarre, it's become ridiculous, ludicrous to the extreme. IT'S BECOME INSANE THAT AS MUSLIMS IN THIS COUNTRY WE ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE FREQUENCY OF OUR BINS BEING EMPTIED THAN WE ARE ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN BEING RAPED, children being massacred, old men being put to death and buried alive, and entire populations being subjugated and being made victims of genocide in other parts of the world. It's a shame and a sad indictment of us that the frequency of our bins being emptied determines who we vote for.

We're more concerned about how quickly my extension will be built in my back yard than we are about others who are suffering in establishing justice and maintaining justice. We are more concerned about how soon the paperwork of our future son-in-law or daughter-in-law will be expedited and completed, and that determines our votes, that determines our commitment.

That is childish, that is stupidity in the extreme, that is so short-sighted, so selfish. You know, we Muslims, we're not entirely politically inactive. We are active. Look up and down the country. We have Muslim councillors, we have people standing for Parliament, we have people standing in local elections, we have people standing for virtually every single party. The question is: what are we standing for? What policies are we supporting? We have resources. Muslims are not poor. We have business acumen, we have political acumen. We are politically active. Many Muslims have the credentials, yet they are being squandered and wasted. To which use are they being put? Let us as Muslims ask ourselves: what have we done to establish justice and to maintain justice?

Look all over the world. Right now, entire Muslim countries are being subjected to brutal, oppressive rule. Our holy sites are exposed to danger.