Racism Within The Community

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Last week, we discussed the concept of justice and oppression in Islam, and our need as Muslims to stand up against injustice and to stand up against oppression and to recognize oppression and injustice and to oppose it.

Today inshallah I want to discuss, in general the concept of racism, and particularly how it influences us, and how we react to it.

And it's something that we should be thinking about, particularly as we see these events that are unfolding across the world and primarily across the United States.

In 2016, there was a case

of a man in the United States, his name was Keith Lamont Smith.

And, you know, you may be you heard of his name, and maybe you heard of his case was penalised one name of a number of names. Unfortunately, they have had the same ultimate result that he ended up having this man would drive to the bus stop. And he would wait for his child to come every day, pick them up from school at that bus stop.

And he had a medical condition which would make him not be able to sit under the sun. So he would park his car where there was shade. And he would read a book. And he would do this every day. And one particular day in this story, like in many other stories, police happened to be there one day, and they miss took the book in his hand for a gun or so they said and they killed them.

Later on, his mother was asked by the media, what book was he reading? And she said he was reading the Quran. That was the book that he would read.

And this story illustrates a number of points. Number one is that the stories we see throughout the United States and the end here in Canada as well. These stories of systemic racism, particularly at the hands of law enforcement, it's something that deeply affects our own Muslim brothers and sisters. Some Muslims think this has to do with non Muslims like this is a non Muslim issue. The non Muslim United States, the white United States against the non Muslim black United States, and the reality is, many black people happen to be Muslim. In fact, in the United States, a third of the Muslims in the United States are Muslim. And in Canada, a large number of Muslims here as well are

black as well. But we don't know exactly their percentage I don't I couldn't find exactly their percentage. So the racism that exists affects our own Muslim brothers and sisters. Those who are have rights upon us as the prophets I said, I mentioned the six rights of the brother upon the brother. That's one issue that we need to understand and realize the second issues is to understand and to realize that there are different worlds out there. And one popular question a lot of young people like to ask these days, you know, there's times of popular questions. One popular question that we tend to get is, you know, teenagers or young adults and they ask, Is there something called

the multiverse, multiverse idea that you have parallel universes. So there's this universe, that there's another universe and another universe, this earth and another Earth? And, you know, it's interesting because there is multiple universes within our own existence here. Like the universe that I experienced, or that you might experience might be completely different than somebody else's experience. You might be in the masjid. And you say, Look, I'm praying, I'm an Arab and I'm praying and next to me is

dc in next to him as a black person, and you know, we're all together in the message. But when you leave the masjid, your experiences, your universe might be completely different than their universe. You know, if the police pull you over, it's annoying, and maybe they're going to be rude to you. But that's all it really is. And for them, you know, the black Muslim brothers and sisters that are interested for them, when they meet the police, they might be thinking, I'm gonna die today, that might be what's going through their head. So there's a different reality, there's a different universe that we experienced versus what they experienced. And the only difference between us really

is the skin color. And you know, we complain about Islamophobia. Whenever we see Islamophobia. We complain about it, about the words that sometimes they say to us, because we are Muslim, the insults they make against our religion against our Prophet, the things that they you know, the image that they paint us as being dangerous as being extremists, as being radicals. We complain about discrimination, we go to travel, and they put us through extra security checks and things like that. But, you know, Rosa Parks had to fight to be able to sit on the bus. In Canada, viola Desmond, she, you know, refused to leave the whites only movie theater in Canada, and was arrested and thrown in

prison. Because of that. There was one minority that took the brunt of oppression and racism. And because of the struggles that they did, out there, the racism and the discrimination that we face is a lot less, because of the struggles of people like Viola Desmond of Rosa Parks of Martin Luther King of Malcolm X, and many, many other people because of their struggles. Yes, we have to face discrimination, but it's a lot less because of what they did.

And so as we see, and we reflect over the murder of George Floyd, or the murder of Ahmed arbury, and many other people have been killed unjustly in the United States, like, keep them on Scotland we just talked about, we have a collective tendency to feel smug. Right to feel a certain level of, you know, that's not us. That as Canadians we look at, and we say that's an American problem. The truth is, the same dynamics that exist in the United States, by and large exist, even here in Canada. Four years ago, I believe there was a Muslim brother in Ottawa, his name was, um, the document ID. And he suffered from mental health struggles. And he was in the store. And for some reason, they called the

police on him. And the police when they came to arrest him, they beat him until he died. This happened in Canada to a Muslim, a black Muslim, here. And so and that's just one story of many stories of the brutality that sometimes black people faced in the hands of law enforcement, even in Canada. And even in Canada, when the police do something like this, who investigates it, the police investigate the police. And so there's very few cases where the police are held accountable for these kinds of deeds. But we also become smug as Muslims, that we think that these are the problems of the kofod. And we're not like that. And a lot of Muslims will say, there's no racism in Islam.

There's no racism in Islam. Look, the prophet said, there's no preference for the Arab over the non Arab there's no preference for the black for the white over the black but Prophet said this. There's no racism in Islam. Look, I come to the masjid. And I pray next to the Pakistani brother and the Bangladeshi brother and the black brother and we're all together in the masjid together. This is true.

And it's true. There's no racism in Islam. But there isn't, that does not mean that there is no racism in Muslims.

And using the slogan there's no racism in Islam, sometimes it's used as a way to distract from the fact that there is racism within our community.

Look, there's no gossip in Islam. There's no backbiting in Islam. There's no cheating in Islam. There's no lying in Islam. But do these characteristics exist amongst Muslims? do sometimes gossiping happens in the masjid? Does backbiting happen sometimes in the masjid is lying sometimes happening even in the messages within our communities? Of course they do. And the prophets have a long way to send them himself and even a Muslim. He says autobiography on my team and men mdj, Leia, Leia tupuna, when he said there's four things from the affairs of Jackie Nia, in my own man.

He says in my own Murphy Almighty, that will never be abandoned. They will they will always stay and are my own. What is it? I'll fulfill?

The first two things he mentioned, bragging about one's status and insulting the others ancestry. bragging about your own style. Our tribe is the best our clan is the best. rmsf is the best. And his message is the worst. My lineage is the best in his lineage is the worst, which is basically what tribalism is what racism is. It's all based on the same premise. So the two things that I mentioned mentioned for the other is seeking rain from the stars, we can go out to the stars for rain, and the third is wailing and tragedy. So you mentioned these four things as it will never leave our home. And two of them have to do with racism. One is the pride of

If you, you know, a supremacy of your lineage of your tribe over their tribe, and the other is you insult their tribe, oh, all those black people are like this. All those Egyptians are like this, all those Pakistanis are like this, all those of these people are like this. This is a thoughtful answer, because all the props that I send them said, and it's from the more of Jacksonian and Unreal jania. It's from the affairs of jeconiah. And so there's a certain arrogance and smugness that we have that when we look at the murder of George Floyd. It's terrible what he did to him. Look at how brutal how nasty these Americans are. But if George Floyd was a Muslim, and he came into the masjid,

now ask yourself, we have to ask ourselves, honestly, sincerely, how would he be treated? You know, if he was a Muslim, attending our misery with everyone else, would he be looked at with suspicion? would people be looking at him like he's dangerous, a big guy. And he's black, and you feel like, Oh, you feel threatened by him. Because some people have that mentality when they see others like that. And there's a study done by the Institute for Social Policy and understanding and it studied, did a bull pool with black Muslims and said black Muslims are as likely to experience racism, and discrimination from within their own religious community, meaning from other Muslims, as they are

from outside of their community. And so if something goes missing in the masjid, are we more likely to be suspicious that it was a black kid who stole it versus an Arab kid or another kid are way more likely to feel less comfortable if the person leading celada is black, or reformed, more likely to feel less comfortable, less certain of their knowledge, if the person teaching Hadeeth happens to be black. And this attitude is something I personally have seen within our community. Sometimes it's unconscious, like the person who is making these statements or seeing this or kind of getting towards that unconsciously they're thinking this, you know, they don't even realize what they're

doing what they're saying, but the effects are deep in their mind, they have this attitude. And we had an incident, not really an incident. But an issue recently, because we are measured, along with many other massages, have a policy based on Philip, you know, the strongest opinion of the scholars is that we follow global moon sighting, if the moon is seen anywhere in the world. And there is,

you know, relative certainty in the Shahada, and the testimony the person is saying is trust is trustworthy is honest. If the people of that country say that this person is honest, then we follow it. And we don't take calculations. And this is considered the strongest opinion amongst the fuqaha. Throughout the history of Islam. This is a deeper topic. But that has always been our principal. This year was the first year, first year I can ever remember that the African countries saw the moon and Saudi Arabia and the other countries did not see the moon.

So we follow the African countries because our principles, anybody who sees it, we're going to follow it.

And some of the comments, not all but some of the some people didn't understand some people didn't agree. You know, they said we should follow local moon sighting. And that's the opinion of the chef. But the majority of scholars they follow global citing some of the comments I got, were very disturbing. Some comments were I don't want to follow these African nations. Other comments, I received her comments like I will only follow if it's seen in the Middle East, or if it's seen in North America, by Why do you want to ignore all of the brothers and sisters who are in Africa, when I have the entire country of Mauritania, we all have the rellena were there. And 40 different

earlier men in Mauritania roads that they saw the moon. Now whether you really saw it, or they didn't see it, they wrote this and our principles we accept. We accept the Shahada, we give preference to the Shahada of a Muslim over anything else, including calculations. That's our principle. Why should I reject it? Last year, Saudi Arabia saw the moon and the calculation said they couldn't see it. We accepted their Shahada, because that's our principle to accept Shahada. Right, but nobody said Why are we following Saudi Arabia? Why are you following Kuwait? Why are you following Egypt? Nobody said that. And this year, all of a sudden, why are you following Somalia?

Why are you following Mauritania? Right. And that's a question that people have to ask themselves. Where is that coming from?

I was disturbed with some of those comments. And there's more egregious forms of discrimination and racism in our community.

When some people call black people abs, or in order to do I know sometimes they call them

cabinet. In other words like this, these are derogatory terms. And of course, they say behind their backs, when they refer to the black person, they call them abs. They won't say it in front of them.

And sometimes when you call them and you say, How can you say this? How can you call them out? This is not racist. All of us are also the law.

Officer Abdullah.

Okay, look at this example. And we thought about the long run.

got into an argument with bilateral the long run. What did he call him? Is that Yeah, so dad, oh, son of a black woman

was the son of a black woman? Yes, of course. He's the son of a black woman.

And when you say, is he Abdullah, of course he's active a lot. But what do you intend and what did you intend? And be that God's upset? He went to the prophets. I said, let me say Dr. Silva, he said this about me. What did the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam say to her without her? He said in the C'mon, he can enjoy helia He said, You are a man who has a new subject.

Even though what he said, technically is true, technically be that is the son of a black woman. What did he mean by that? his intent was to insult him, just like the intent of some people in the Arab community when they call the black person if it's their intent is to say your kind is suited to be abotu suited to be a slave.

And the Prophet recognize this, he understood it. He said, Oh, I thought of you have some jeconiah in you. And I will throw the alarm to his credit when he heard this from the prophets. I send them What did he do? He put his head on the floor in the dirt. And he said, Oh, be like put your foot on my head. He felt so bad. Put your foot on my head and be laterally along Of course did not do so. But forgive him. Unless paradises Yeah, you will. Edina Avenue is for Coleman and homie, NASA and you're cool to me, means that let's not a people ridicule and other people, perhaps they may be better than them. And so when we speak about racism, sometimes the reaction is always, but I'm not a

racist. I'm not a racist.

And I think sometimes people have the perception of racism. Like what do they think a racist is? They think a racist is, you know, a kkk member. He's got the hood on. And he wants to kill black people. Or when they think of a racist, they think of the cop who has his knee on the neck of George Floyd, who sees him dying, has his hands in his pocket doesn't even care to do anything about it.

But racism is a spectrum. The Prophet solo everything, what did he say to everybody? In the FECA? With a JD, you have some Jackie D and you in the moment? and Jackie, do you have some Jackie in you? Meaning he doesn't mean that you have to be a full on racist, but you could have some aspects of JD of ignorance within you. And the other one doesn't respond to the province they No, no, but I'm not a racist.

Right. So sometimes we use this slogan to say I'm not a racist, to defend ourselves. We're using it to shut down the conversation. We're using it to reject the possibility that maybe we harmed other people with our actions and with our words, instead, our reaction needs to be similar to the reaction of above or the last one, which is what, when he's confronted with the fact that he acted with racism, what does he do? He shows humility. He puts His head on the floor. He says, oh, beat I put your foot on my head. You know, he feels bad about what he's done. He wants to be allowed to take retribution. And he puts his head in the dust in the dirt, because he realized when he was

being racist, or when he said something that was racist, he was showing some arrogance. So how do you counter the arrogance? You counter it with humility. He puts His head in the dirt to say I want to show humility or be that I'm trying to show some humility. And so there's a strong intersect here between what we call racism and between what is arrogance. You know that we can easily draw the similarities between the racism between what is racism and between the actions of a police when he refused to Prostrate to Adam Madison on color Kala Anna Hi, Roman. Hi, Dr. Nieman. Now.

He says I am better than him. Right? This is the call of the racist I'm better than him. I am inherently better than him because I'm white because I'm Arab because I'm this I'm inherently better than him. Hello, Putin even now You created me all off from fire. You created him from clay. And so it bleeds sees that his kind his species of gin are inherently better than mankind, and he refuses to make such that. It Lisa was stockmar Allah says acceptably, all of the meats good except at least Abella? stockmar he was arrogant and he was prideful. Well can the minute caffeine news of those who rejected a last panel Tada. So he made a determination and beliefs based on what he considers to be

important to him that the jinn are better than mankind. And the angels themselves they don't understand.

The angels don't understand. Why should we prostrate to mankind?

But what do they do condusive Hannukah in Manila in the Magnum Tina, they have humility and they say Oh Allah, you know better than we know.

You have knowledge you only knowledge we have is the knowledge you gave us. Right? And they prostrate because they have humility. And from that humility, they learn. In the beginning, they're confused, but they show humility to the, for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala. And because of that they learn. So sometimes when we say, but I'm not racist, we're closer to at least than we are to the angels, because we're not even entertaining the possibility that maybe we might be wrong. Maybe we might be harming other people. Maybe we might be acting with ignorance.

And so it's unhealthy for us to always say, but I'm not racist. And I say this myself, I might have without even realizing some racist understandings. I have to educate myself, I have to learn myself. And if I do something wrong, I don't want to say but I'm not racist. I would rather say, Maybe I'm wrong. How can I learn? How can I find out? Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Maybe I'm thinking something prejudicial about others. How can I better myself, show humility, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, metal, metal, hardened lava. Nobody shows humility before a large relics of the lower reason that person, right. And so by showing humility,

realizing, hey, I might be wrong, I might be thinking some I might have some Gemini in me.

That's the way to remove the jeconiah within us, like Abu Dhabi along line ultimately does. And so when developed knowledgeable Muslims who are black, they tell us, hey, brothers, hey, sisters in this manner, your actions, your statement has treated us unfairly. It is unjust to us. Don't slam the door in their face by saying I'm not a racist. Rather show humility in front of a loss penalty, I might be wrong. Let me listen. Let me learn. Let me try to understand why I might be wrong.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in the La Liga, and Alberto had said if I had, what I believe,

the prophet will love where he was. And he said, Indeed, Allah revealed to me What did Allah revealed him, and that you should show humility, until Not a single one of you will boast against another, and not a single one of you will oppress another. And this hadith makes it sound like arrogance, the opposite of humility. pridefulness This is the crux of every evil that it bleeds begins, his crew for of Allah subhanaw taala with arrogance, and with thinking that his kind is better than Adam. And even the opposition of our profits in the long run reason was the greatest opponent of our Prophet, Elijah, the Prophet sallallahu Sallam whenever he was killed and he looks

at his body. He says, had fear I want to have an oma he says this is the crown of this oma Abuja, Abuja who fought the Prophet sallallahu. How do you send them every possible way? He could fight the Prophet persecuting the Muslims torturing the Muslims killing Muslims.

Now there's a story about Apple Jad that one day, Abu Sufyan in Abuja, hell, and a lochness image, right, three of the wish the corner, they wanted to hear the end, what is the poor and what is it about? So all three of them separately, went to the house of the prophet in the middle of the night, because they know the prophets of the Lord said, embrace 200. And he recites put an ad tonight, so they want to hear what is this quarter and so they go to his house, and all they want to listen. And lo and behold, they see each other there. So they say to each other, we can't come back. If people find out we come to here, and we're going to be in trouble. But the next day, alumnus he goes to Abu

Sufyan, he asks him you heard the poor and what did you think about Sofia and says, I heard some of it I understood and it was beautiful. Some of the I did not understand what it meant. Then he went to Abuja, he says, oh, Abuja or what have you heard the Quran? What did you think of it? And so Abu Jamal was honest.

He went straight to the point. He said to him,

no weapon where I'm dumb enough. He says us meaning my tribe, and Ben were abdomen after tribal the prophecy is lm tenez. And now we're always competing with each other.

They fed the hungry, so we would feed the hungry.

Well, how many fishermen and they carried the goods and brought the goods to people we brought the goods to people why to file cleaner and they gave charity we gave charity as well. He said until we became like two horses, you know, two horses in the race. One horse the notice comes before then the other horse of the road, and they're coming back and forth as the racing with each other. He says we were like two horses in the race. And then we're about to finish the race. What is this race this race is for shut off to NASA gonna be shut off. We were

racing for honor, reputation status. He says until we're about to finish the race, car Lumina v. then they said we have a profit amongst us. How are we going to compete with the profit

Abuja and his motivations are very clear. He wants to establish the supremacy of Ben Omaha zoo, over the tribe of the Prophet brainwashing and been robbed him enough.

And his motivation against the Prophet sentiment against Islam as he wants to prove his tribe is better than their tribe. And this is a lesson for us to realize the greatest enemies of a lot from the least of which is to figure out all of it is based on what they're motivated with pridefulness with arrogance, wanting to prove the supremacy of their kind, their clan, their species, their race, and in the end, ultimately, it is a spiritual disease. When two of the Sahaba in Medina, two young kids began fighting with each other. One of them was from the unsought, the other ones from the from the mahadji when they got into a fight about something petty, and then the one who was from the

unsought who said, Oh, you from the inside Come help me. And the one from him had you don't call dogs at all you from them, why'd you come out me? And the profits alarm Has anyone heard this? He said, Now that is our Jackie, what is wrong with you that you are making the call of Jackie Leah, you're calling to your tribes fighting because of your tribes fighting because of where you came from. And then he said there will have in Montana, he says, leave this abandon this, because this is something that is rotten. This is something that rots and decays and is disgusting and filthy. This mentality is the mentality of abuse of a vagina for hours, and it destroys our spirituality. And so

when we are dealing with this issue of racism and trying to explore to recognize it, we have to realize it could be within us. And we have to try to deal with it and try to remove it from ourselves and try to have humility so that a lot of zildjian removes any arrogance that we have in our hearts. And the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said, none of you will enter agenda, the one who has even an atom's weight of arrogance in their hearts We ask Allah subhanaw taala to remove any arrogance from our hearts and to bring us unity with all our brothers and sisters felco nobody had there was stuff nobody would have from stuff through in order for him.

allowed him to DLL Soto sonamarg to learn early he was so happy he Omen Wada roboshot, he saw that he recently dropped the assignee of Cody. inshallah, I just want to mention a few tips as we move forward what we can do to find a better way forward for ourselves. And the first thing that we can do is to educate ourselves to learn about each other to learn about our backgrounds, our experiences and our struggles. And Allah subhanaw taala says in the Quran, Nia us in the hunt of an upcoming decade in Monza with jamnagar Ruben what Baba Illa Lita Rasul Allah subhanaw taala says, oh, humanity, we created you from a single male and female and made you into communities and tribes for

what reason Allah Lita, our food, you can know each other, that you can learn from each other. In a Chromebook Amanda lie at Qualcomm, the one amongst you who has the most honor in the sight of a loss of data is the one who has the greatest level of taqwa. And so when we have ignorance of each other, it leads room to misunderstanding to intolerance to unfair treatment of each other. And it's important for us to try to learn to read books to understand the history of what it is that we are dealing with, or what it is that our brothers and sisters are dealing with. You know, sometimes there are very unhelpful comments. I don't want to go too long. But sometimes, you know, brothers

will be like, I'll give you an example of Palestinian brother once. We're talking about the struggles of other people. And he's saying,

you know, he says, I love you know, black people come to the masjid, I pray with people who are black, I have no problem with them. But you know, they're full of drugs, and they're full of Xena. And they're full of this and they're full of that. And this is a type of mentality that is common. I said, say what if people would say about the Palestinians you know, I like the Palestinians, but they're always fighting each other and killing each other and and backstabbing each other and things like this. And he's, well you don't understand what happened to us. You don't understand the history of what happened to us as it likewise you don't understand the history of what happened as well to

black people. And first of all, those are prejudices. You know, most black people are not the children of Xena would either be law and then on top of that, look at what has happened to them over the history, look at the policies that the government put in place to break up the black family. Right so as you educate yourself, you're gonna have more empathy, you're gonna have more compassion, you're gonna understand, okay, they came there's something that there's a reason why they're in a situation that they're they are in and we can learn from that and be able to help them inshallah again, still struggles and a lot of Muslims of course, read the biography of Malcolm X, but there's

a lot of great resources inshallah, for us.

To gain knowledge, there's also a great documentary on Netflix called the 13th. And it talks about the Jim Crow era, and a lot of the policies from slavery and how it affects black people even today. And so if you want to understand better take the opportunity to educate yourself and gain more appreciation and knowledge of the history that black people have endured in Canada and the United States. The second is to seek accommodation to try to accommodate one another, to make each other feel included in our massage and included in our events to make each other feel more welcome. That we cannot be the people who in the last hour or so do not answer we love those who repel reject

people from the path of a lot. We need to be the people who invite others to the path of a lot. You know, there are people who left Islam, you know, someone told me a story of someone who, unfortunately, he went to a Muslim country, he was trying to learn from a share. And the sheriff said about the black people in his area, he called them a bad he called them leads. And that hurt him so much that he even for a short period of time left Islam, because he was a new Muslim, and he sees the shift being racist to other black people, and it hurt him so much. So sometimes the way that we act can repel people so much to the point that they might even leave Islam. And that's

something on us we need to be those who are inviting others to the path of Allah not rejecting them from the path of Allah subhana wa Tada. And third, ultimately, racism is a spiritual problem first and foremost. And so we need to turn to Allah subhana wa tada to ask him for guidance, to ask him for courage to be able to deal with these issues that we might have within our own selves, and to do true has true self accounting to take ourselves to account. What did I do that might have harmed other people? What action may I might have said or taken that might have hurt others around me, and how can I improve myself and how can I make sure that inshallah tomorrow my deeds will be better

than they were yesterday, this is the attitude of the believer, as Bob said, has simple and physical ability to have simple take yourself to account before you were taken to account. And we asked the last panel to add it to make us of those who have bettered ourselves and those who have tried to bring justice and empathy in our community in the law in the law.