Make Them the Inheritors: A Khutbah

Mahmoud Andrade Ibrahim

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Gracious.

وَنُرِيدُ أَن نَّمُنَّ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ٱسْتُضْعِفُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَنَجْعَلَهُمْ أَئِمَّةً وَنَجْعَلَهُمُ ٱلْوَٰرِثِينَ

From the vantage point of a Black radical tafsir, the verse “And We wished to confer a favor upon those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders, and to make them the inheritors” (Qur’an, Al-Qasas 28:5) is not a quiet historical footnote. It is a seismic divine proclamation, a cosmic law of Allah’s sunnah that reverberates through the ages, speaking with terrifying and hopeful specificity to the Black experience in America. It is a verse that dismantles the world’s oppressive hierarchy and reveals a divine blueprint for liberation, one that was true for the Children of Israel under Fir’aun and remains true for the Children of Africa under the successive Fir’auns of white supremacy.

To understand this verse radically is to first define its key term through our lived reality: the mustad'afun, the oppressed. This is not an abstract concept. For us, the mustad'afun are our ancestors, stacked like cordwood in the bellies of slave ships, their humanity negated by bills of sale. They are the sharecroppers bound by debt peonage, the victims of lynching spectacles, the residents of segregated ghettoes created by redlining, and the targets of a carceral state that functions as a neo-plantation system. They are those deemed disposable by the economic and social order. This oppression (istid'af) is not a passive state of being; it is an active, systemic process of being rendered weak, marginalized, and exploited. It is the condition Fir’aun sought to impose, and it is the condition that has been imposed upon us.

Therefore, Allah’s “wish” or Will (aradna) to confer favor upon these mustad'afun is a direct and radical challenge to the earthly order. It is a divine intent that runs counter to the logic of the oppressor. Where the system sees property, Allah sees recipients of divine favour (ni’mah). Where the system sees beasts of burden, Allah sees future leaders (a'imma). Where the system sees disinherited outcasts, Allah sees the rightful inheritors (warithun) of the earth’s blessings and of divine legacy. This verse is thus the ultimate theological refutation of white supremacy; it states that God’s plan is not the perpetuation of the oppressor’s power, but its utter inversion.

The Black radical tafsir then asks: What is this favor (ni’mah)? It is, first and foremost, the favor of liberation. It is the divine enablement to break physical and psychological chains. For Musa (AS), it was the favor of being saved from the sword, raised in the very house of the tyrant, and given wisdom and knowledge. For us, it is the favor of a faith that taught us we were human when the world said we were not. It is the favor of the Spirituals that coded maps to freedom in song. It is the favor of a visionary like Malcolm X, who gifted us with a language of self-definition and an unshakeable faith in Allah’s power to transform our condition. This ni’mah is not a passive blessing; it is the divine empowerment to struggle, to resist, and to ultimately overcome.

The divine promise to “make them leaders” (a'imma) is perhaps the most radical dimension of this verse. Leadership here is not merely political rule, though it includes it. It is moral, spiritual, and intellectual leadership. It is the elevation of the oppressed to a position of guidance for all of humanity. Their experience of suffering becomes a source of unparalleled empathy, wisdom, and ethical clarity. They become the guides because they know the face of oppression and have trusted in the face of the Liberator.

From our history, we see this leadership in the figure of Harriet Tubman, an imam of the Underground Railroad, leading her people to physical and spiritual freedom. We see it in the leadership of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who guided thousands to an orthodox, spiritually profound understanding of Islam that affirmed both their faith and their cultural identity. We see it in the leadership of Malcolm X, who from the margins of society articulated a vision of Black self-determination and dignity that transcended the narrow terms of the white-supremacist imagination. We see it in the leadership of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who in the heart of the Black freedom struggle in Atlanta embodied a disciplined, prophetic commitment to the liberation of his people. We see it in the leadership of Sister Clara Muhammad, who nurtured the first generation of a distinctly American Muslim community in her own home when no mosque would have them. And we see it in the countless unnamed mothers and fathers of the Nation of Islam and the broader Black Sunni Muslim movements, [ Dar ul Islam Movement, Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood and the Islamic Party, all from the 1960’s and 70’s] who endured surveillance, imprisonment, and social death so that their children might inherit a faith that spoke to their condition. The mustad'afun, once liberated, are not simply to be integrated into the existing corrupt system; they are chosen by Allah to lead the world toward a more just way of being. Their leadership is born of a divine curriculum taught in the school of suffering, a curriculum the privileged can never attend.

Finally, to be made “inheritors” (warithun) is the culmination of this divine justice. The inheritor is the one who receives what rightfully belongs to them after the passing of a previous order. Allah promises that the mustad'afun will inherit the land, its resources, its culture, and its authority. This is a promise of restorative justice on a civilizational scale. It is not about mere material wealth; it is about the restoration of dignity, agency, and sovereignty. It is the fulfillment of the prayer breathed in every Negro Spiritual, the hope whispered on every prison yard, the belief that the world, as it is, is not the final word. The divine will is for the stolen legacy to be returned, for the broken lineages to be mended, and for the children of the oppressed to become the stewards of a new, righteous social order.

This verse, therefore, is not a promise of a distant afterlife. It is a divine law that operates in history. We have seen its partial fulfillment in the abolition of slavery, the end of Jim Crow, and the rise of Black political and cultural power. Yet the complete inheritance is still before us. It mandates our active participation. It requires a tafsir that is not just read, but lived. It demands that we build the institutions, cultivate the knowledge, and embody the faith that makes us worthy of this divine favor, ready to lead, and prepared to inherit.

Allah’s wish is the ultimate reality. The world of oppression is the illusion. The Black radical tafsir of this verse is our declaration that we believe in Allah’s reality. We are the mustad'afun upon whom He wishes to confer favor. We are preparing to lead. We are readying ourselves to inherit.

And Allah knows best.