Ingrid Mattson – Lecture The Earth Is a Home for You 6212014
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AI: Transcript ©
Good evening.
What a friendly, nice crowd, and,
really glad to see each and every one
of you.
And very glad,
that,
doctor Edgar Manson
has come home
at least for a few days,
and it's my pleasure to introduce her.
Doctor Madsen is
Islamic Studies
at Huron
University College,
University of Western Ontario,
London,
Canada. Yeah. And,
as you know,
doctor Mattson Ingrid was at Hartford Seminary for
a good long time,
and, she graduated from the University of Chicago,
with her PhD
and,
is was the founder
of the,
the the Muslim chaplaincy program, so the first
Muslim chaplaincy program in the country,
many, positions here,
and,
has contributed,
my way to the seminary and to the
larger Muslim community,
in Connecticut and abroad and all over the
United States. As you know, I was the
past president of the Islamic Society of North
America.
And, I'm sure in Canada, they're very happy
to have her, contributing in her wonderful,
wise,
and,
and gentle way,
to, life,
in the Muslim community and with with friends
in the Muslim community,
all over Canada as well. And, of course,
Ingrid continues to to work and do a
lot of things, here in the United States
as well.
So, I think that's all I'll say. I
suppose there's one more thing to say.
Hebrew has, I think it's published a book
which is one of the prettiest books. It's
my favorite cover.
And it's the story of Quran,
its history and place in Muslim life. And
if you haven't read that book,
please do. It's a wonderful, wonderful book,
and you will, to enjoy a lot and
learn from it. So, Ingrid, please come here,
and reach your friends and colleagues as well
as some others that you may or may
not know. Thank you, doctor.
In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate.
Well, I'm so happy to be back to
one of my homes.
I'm very blessed to be able to have
a number of homes across this world,
this is certainly one of them.
I want to thank Heidi Hadsell, president Hadsell,
for asking me to come
to speak to you today. And I want
to thank Dean Yurai Kim for inviting me
back to teach this week,
to teach my,
Maid Servants of Allah Spirituality and Muslim Women
class.
I'm so delighted to see that Hartford Seminary
continues to attract such wonderful students.
Smart, creative,
engaged.
It was a wonderful experience.
So I'm gonna have to come back another
time.
I'm willing.
And a broader thanks to all of those
who have been involved in governing
the school, Harvard Seminary,
to those who teach here and will shape
these programs over the year.
Although I had long been an adult
when I first arrived to teach at Hartford
Seminary, I believe it is here where I
have truly matured intellectually.
Beyond that, this was the place where I
could find advice and friendship
during the challenging
1st decade of the 3rd millennium.
That's another way to
I know after 911.
Trees and power lines all across the state.
My family had significant, but not tragic damage.
The biggest challenge was not knowing how long
we would be without power.
It turned out to be 9 days.
We did not leave the house because my
daughter was bedridden and needed a special air
cooling system.
Fortunately, we had purchased a gas generator in
case of such a necessity,
but my husband was out of state for
work,
so my son and I took turns filling
up that generator every 5 hours.
We could not have left our house,
even to get gas for that generator, if
it had not been for our neighbors.
Our car was blocked in by a driveway
filled with fallen trees and branches.
It was our neighbors,
some who we knew well and others who
knew only in
who came
and sawed up that wood and stacked it
and cleared the driveway.
Others in Connecticut were, of course, more desperate
and in need of assistance more than we
were.
Many people would not have survived the disaster
without help from their neighbors.
One thing we know about disasters is that
they are inescapably
about place.
In an age of virtual reality where we
can escape to other countries and imaginary worlds,
disasters
brutally force us back into our bodies.
Water creeps upstairs,
flooding the attic where an elderly woman has
taken refuge from the storm.
The limb of an old oak oak, laden
with snow, crashes into the home of a
disabled man,
taking down power lines and blocking the door.
A criminal draws a gun in a convenience
store, trapping half a dozen people,
carrying shopping baskets with heads of lettuce and
sliced bread.
A bomb explodes at a sporting event, and
a man looks down to see that his
shirt was on fire and his foot was
missing.
In disasters,
where we are and who is with us
are the most important factors determining our survival.
Disasters are all no place, and in those
places, it is only those who are physically
near who can save
us. A sense of community emerges almost immediately
in the wake of a disaster.
One minute, we are strangers,
avoiding eye contact as we ride the bus
or subway to work.
The next minute, we are clutching hands in
the dark,
weaving through broken glass and twisted metal.
Soon enough, police and ambulances will arrive
if government services are well developed and efficient.
Where that is not the case,
first, CNN, then perhaps the Red Cross, and
other international aid agencies will arrive to help
for a few weeks or months,
or if you are lucky, maybe a few
years.
But at the beginning of a disaster,
and at the end of it,
it is the people standing beside you and
the people living around you who would determine
first your survival
and next your safety.
Necessity
always permits exceptional
behavior,
and unfortunately,
the sense of solidarity
generated by a disaster
can be ephemeral.
More than that, without a disaster,
many things can block block the establishment
of good neighborly ties.
Political and religious chauvinism,
ethnic bigotry,
cultural miscommunication,
all these can create walls between the neighbors.
I first saw this negative dynamic where I
grew up in a small Canadian city known
for
me packing the rubber factories.
There were so few black people in my
community that they remained individual anomalies, not a
racial community.
We, the majority,
a mix of Canadians of German, Irish, and
English descent,
assumed an implicit solidarity
in being white,
I suppose,
only in opposition to the recent Portuguese
Portuguese immigrants.
Volver boys called them widows and laughed at
their shining lab dress shoes.
Fastidious
housecrowns
spoke disapprovingly of the way they turned their
front lawns into vegetable gardens or shrines to
Our Lady of Fatima.
Surely, Plato would have upheld our assertions
that vegetable gardens
belong in the backyard.
But their children were pretty much like us,
and by the time we were teenagers,
we were all embarrassed by our parents, our
parents, so it didn't matter much anymore.
Alas, the problem of bigotry and alienation
from people construed
other than us does not end
with a reconciliation
among neighbors.
All too often, our hard one unity is
solidified
at the expense of others
and justified
through values such as national interest.
National identity and citizenship
is like an exclusive club.
If you get in, you have all privileges.
If not, then our collective interests
surpass your rights,
even your basic rights,
to control and benefit from your natural resources
and lands.
Cosmopolitanism
of Philosophy of social ethics, attempts to find
ways to bridge the divide we make between
us and others,
to try to find ways to erase the
preference we give to those familiar
over those who are strangers.
Some suggest that only deliberate estrangement from your
own people is sufficient to break such group
prejudice.
Others might consider such estrangement
extreme that is permanent,
but that it could be an ethical action.
If taken to the group to the degree
necessary
to break the pattern
of granting those close to you
rights
and concern and compassion
about those who are distant.
Of course, there are many people in the
world
who do not have the choice
but to be estranged
from their people
and their native lands.
They're forced into displacement by economic, ecological,
and political
upheaval. They feel disconnected
to people
and lost in the land where they now
find themselves.
The question we need to ask ourselves
is,
if we can turn this estrangement, this feeling
of disconnection,
into a positive
an opportunity for positive spiritual growth.
When the prophet Mohammed and his followers did
flee Mecca because of oppression, they settled in
a land
that was culturally and ecologically different.
Many of the prophet's companions fell ill in
Medina.
One of them, Bilal,
incapacitated
by fever, recited some lines of poetry.
Would that I could stay overnight in a
valley,
wherein I would be surrounded
by the sweet smelling grasses I know.
Would that one day I drink the water
of
Mejana, and would it the 2 mountains of
Shana and Tophiel appear to me?
Bilal missed his homeland,
the taste of its water,
its smells,
the contours of its landscape.
How many today share his sense of longing?
But to flee oppression
is a requirement
if we have the opportunity
to do so.
They fled from Mecca to Medina
to a foreign land
for the sake of living an ethical life,
A life where they could live in accordance
with the law, and not have to distort
their behavior
in order to survive
in an unlawful and
take the souls of though those who die
in
sin, or who die in a state of
hurting their own selves,
the angels will say,
what's your story?
What was your situation?
And they reply,
we were weak and oppressed
on the earth.
The angels will say,
was not god's earth spacious enough for you
to move yourselves away from evil?
So there's an ethical obligation to try to
find that place to find that place
where we can
live as full human beings, as human beings
of integrity and ethics.
And this is certainly why many people come
to this country, why many people come to
Canada
and other countries that are governed by the
rule of law.
And that is, of course, why we emphasize
the need
for us and them to understand
the value and the significance
of this system
that ensures the rule of law.
And it is certainly why I believe as
a Muslim
that it is absolutely our obligation
to reiterate
and emphasize
the value of the system
and the need to support and defend the
system. That
the system of law, the rule of law
that protects
people and ensures their religious freedom
and their ability to live in a way
that is
true to their values and beliefs is absolutely
critical.
If we are to identify
the nation, the modern nation state, if there
is
something good in the modern nation state, it
is this ability
to establish itself through a rule of law.
But there are many other levels
or perspectives from which we can analyze
the nation and our community.
And, of course, the problem, as I implied
earlier,
is when we consider our nation
to be
superior in and of itself,
and are the people of our nation
to be
demanding and deserving
more of having their rights, and not just
their rights, but their needs and even their
wishes fulfilled
at the expense of others.
This is the
estrangement.
This is where estrangement is needed, estrangement from
the interest of the group of the group.
The group sentiment is something that the great,
Arab Muslim
philosopher Ibn Khaldun talked about.
The fact that
this
zeal for the group, which he called,
is so important
as a source of cohesion in society.
It's natural within ourselves,
surely during this time of the World Cup.
We must understand that.
But when
in the World Cup, we're playing on a
field
where the rules are equal,
and the rules are high equally tall.
The goal then is to have a field
where all of us as nations, as people,
if this is how we are going to
be formed politically,
applying the same rules to us as to
them, wherever they and we are.
When
Bilal, the companion of the prophet,
missed his homeland,
He was
not
expressing
some longing for
the
oppression of Mecca.
He was simply recognizing
and expressing a very natural
human connection
to the land
that is familiar to us.
There is
a question
of whether any particular
land is more holy or more sacred
or more special
than another land.
The
Quran answers this,
I think, for Muslims saying,
allowing
us to spread out across the earth to
seek our livelihood. In fact, commanding us to
do that.
And the prophet Mohammed said, the earth
has been made wholesome for me.
And the earth itself, the dirt,
the soil is a means of purification.
If you don't have water, you can purify
yourself with clean soil.
And the earth has been made
a mosque
for us, a place of prayer.
So wherever a person may be when the
time for prayer comes,
let him or her pray wherever he or
she finds himself.
Our acts of worship do ground us.
Anywhere we move,
any place where we go in the world,
first, we have to figure out where we
are on this earth in order to know
how to pray.
We have to define that direction
of the pibla,
the direction of the prayer.
We need to figure out the course of
the sun to know the times for prayers.
This should bring us in contact with the
land
and our evolution
in contact
The relationship
between nature and culture and making us feel
grounded and making us feel of a
place
is complex.
When I was a child, I would roam
the woods with my siblings and cousins.
We were fortunate to have land shared by
our large extended family for generations
with summer homes strung along the shoreline.
The property was a heavily wooded headland on
an island,
surrounded on three sides by the Saint Lawrence
River.
Now this was an age before a seatbelt
and bicycle helmets and parents
accompanying their children to the playground.
There were always enough siblings or neighbor kids
or cousins around to form a collectivity.
They gave us sufficient
measure of safety.
There was a kind of instinctive cuddling together
that kids had, like those schools of fish
you see on the Discovery Channel.
I remember one of the many days we
had decided to set out for an adventure,
this time to head to the big marsh
to look for turtles.
My mother wasn't sure we should go that
far, but my father said,
remember,
you are never lost.
Just keep going, and you'll eventually arrive either
at the road
or at the shore.
And then you can follow that home until
it takes you some place familiar.
You can follow it until it takes you
some place familiar, and then you can find
your way home from there.
Now, I know this is probably not good
advice for every environment. I've seen enough wilderness
survivor shows to know that foraging straight ahead
in a resilient rainforest or an arctic tundra,
for example,
is not necessarily a successful strategy for keeping
alive.
But it was the right advice for this
particular stretch of land upon which we wandered
and where my father and his siblings and
cousins had explored before us.
And beneath my father's instructions was so wisdom
that there are 2 kinds of things
we can always find to guide us on
this Earth.
Human made things like a road,
and natural made things like a shoreline.
That is, the paths
that other people
have made before us,
and the paths that God has set in
nature.
Cultural and natural signs for the journey.
We live in a time of great displacement
and transition.
Many feel lost and out of place.
To feel like we belong in a place,
in the place where we live, we need
to be connected to both the nature and
the culture of that place.
Otherwise,
even if we are accompanied by some brothers
and sisters, we will feel lost.
We need those who have been there before
us to orient us.
But we need to set out and seek
this learning
and orientation.
In Canada,
it was the Aboriginal people who did this
for the early English and French explorers,
helping them navigate the inland waters,
that is, to see the natural
signs, as well as showing them cultural practices
like canoe building that would carry them through
the land
to the places they needed to go.
The Quran
links the ability of humans to move through
the earth
as indicative
of their dignity.
The Quran says, we have conferred dignity on
the children of Adam and born them over
land and sea,
and provided for them sustenance
of the good things of life,
and thus favored them far above most of
our creation.
So while
we who are in transition,
who feel displaced,
who are on the move,
are working to build
our relationships
of culture,
figuring out
how we live together our shared values.
We can feel more at home on this
Earth
by connecting with the land,
and with the other beings created by God
who lived there.
While we are figuring out the cultures of
the people,
we can have an easier time sometimes
with the non human beings.
And this is part of feeling at home
in the world as well,
is knowing
and understanding
our place in the community of all living
things.
We live in circles of community,
religious,
familial,
national,
and also
the community
of living beings, human and non human.
The Quran talks about other creatures as having
their own communities that intersect with ours.
Quran says, don't you see that it is
God
the
wings outspread.
Each one knows its own prayer and praise.
Even if you are praying alone in the
woods,
or you think you are alone,
you are surrounded
by other beings
that are in a state of prayer and
praise. The Quran says there is not an
animal
praise. LeGrand says there is not an animal
on the Earth nor a flying creature on
2 wings, but they are communities.
The word here used as Umma,
which we often think as somehow special to
the Wilson religious community.
But they too are in communities
like yours.
So even if we don't know many people,
we shouldn't feel alone,
because they are all around
us. Indeed,
even
the little ants that invade our kitchens this
time of year.
But we have to remember
the chapter of the Quran that's named after
the end.
And what a striking shift of perspective
God gives us in this
passage of the Quran because the ant is
mentioned
in the context of the description of the
majestic and great army
of Solomon.
And he marbles his troops and he begins
marching out on the earth.
And we have that perspective
of the human ability to be dominant and
powerful.
And suddenly,
the little voice of the ant comes and
says, hey,
Solomon.
Solomon is up there all you other ants.
Run into your home so you don't get
trampled on.
God lets us hear what the ants are
saying to remind us
that there are others on this earth
who share this space and who have a
right
to have their communities exist
undisturbed.
Solomon is given the gift of
the ability
to understand
the end, and reassures her
that you will not trample
upon her home.
So they are there all around us,
and it can make us
feel a sense of
comfort and community,
even during the time when it seems a
little bit difficult
to figure out the people around us?
How do we feel that we know where
we are, that we have knowledge?
God,
in the holy Quran
describes the creation of humanity.
And it is by the act of teaching
Adam the names of all things
that Adam
become acquires and assumes
this position on the Earth
of being in charge
as the steward of the earth,
and and knowing
himself and his place in creation.
What does it mean
to come to a place
and be taught
those names?
It is this mountain.
This is Avon Mountain. This is Avon Mountain.
This is the Farmington River.
This is a cardinal.
This is a red tailed hawk.
All of these things
help us
feel empowered because we know
the context in which we are. We know
how to call things.
We know who is around us and what
is around us.
I went last summer to,
to New Zealand
to visit my best friend and to celebrate
my 50th birthday with her.
Amazing.
I think of it all the time.
New Zealand has been very generous in welcoming,
you know, a significant number of war refugees
you
Certainly, if you're coming from Somalia,
it's pretty different.
And I met
a community
of
civilians
in the middle of New Zealand. They come
from war.
They come from a society that was in
great upheaval,
and they come to a place
where there
were lovely, welcoming people, but these people didn't
look very much like them at all.
Probably about as different among human beings as
you could get.
Their customs, their habits, their way of reading,
their expectations
for
many things
about the way that people would
live in society, how they would socialize,
were very different.
They felt awkward.
They
felt foreign.
They felt alien.
And in this context,
there is a
brilliant woman,
a Japanese American,
who had moved there and saw, especially with
the teenage girls, the young girls,
how difficult it was for them. They felt
so awkward.
They wore their scarves and their clothes
and walked through.
Their parents were so afraid to let them
go anywhere. It seemed like such an unfamiliar
and unsafe place.
So this woman decided
to get these girls connected with the land
in which they lived.
They weren't going to go to the clubs
with the other teenagers.
They weren't going to go to the dances
and the parties.
So all they could feel there is that
they didn't belong. They didn't have something to
do in this place.
So she designed
a program,
an outdoor leadership program.
3 years these girls were in this program.
They learned
to kayak,
and set up a tent,
and start a fire,
and rappel,
and mountain climb,
and fish,
and
many more things.
When I met these girls,
it was immediately
evident
in how they stood,
the success that this program had created. And
I've seen many other refugee communities in the
country
before them.
These girls, even though
they stood
about a foot shorter than me,
they were even short for me,
they were standing strong,
tall,
short edged back.
They had a posture
that said
they owned this space that they were
in. And they said to me when I
got there, they said, oh,
do you like the outdoors? Do you like
hiking? I said, I love hiking. They said,
then you have to go to this mountain
and take this path because it is so
beautiful. Will you have time to go to
the river? Our favorite place in the river
is this. And they described to me their
whole landscape
and what I would see there.
And it was such a powerful
example
of how
beginning with the connection
it built a sense of confidence that allowed
them
to engage with others, and it also built
a common love for the land with the
other people.
And
it is something that the people of New
Zealand is very important to them.
And so now they have a deep embodied
sense of belonging
and commonality
with their neighbors.
Now
if you return, however, to the issue of
creating a unity among the differences that we
have, whether it is
between neighbors
as after living,
you know, for many years in my neighborhood
in West Hartford,
developed
ties and feelings of commonality and unity with
my neighbors,
or this
Somalian refugee
community in New Zealand and their sense of
becoming grounded and having something to share,
how do we then,
after becoming
grounded
and and part grounded in the land and
part of society,
not simply fall into the old pattern
of preferring what keeps us comfortable
over the rights of others.
And one of the major problems for us,
of course,
is that
the land that we come into
is not always
untested.
When I returned to Canada after living abroad
for abroad in the United States, here for
so long,
government to finally honor its treaty obligations.
Canada still has outstanding over 600
treaties with First Nations people
that are either unfulfilled or whose terms have
been broken.
And it's become particularly urgent now at at
a time of massive oil,
and natural resource extraction
when,
the government and corporations
are leveraging
the
undecided or indeterminate
status
of these treaties
to push through,
these projects.
When I
returned to Canada
and learned about what was happening,
at the same time there was a,
one of the chiefs, Chief Teresa Spence, from
one of the northern communities
who had petitioned the government again and again
and again and again to come and do
something,
to resolve these issues. When the government refused
to listen, she decided
to camp out
on a small island
in the Ottawa River
that is right in a cliff,
where the parliament,
the parliament of Canada stands
so she was able to
camp on this. So tree
she's she's Teresa Spence camp there for a
number of months, and people came to visit
her.
It was to express support,
and I really felt called to go do
this,
to
demonstrate solidarity with this movement.
When I was on my way,
this is a quick short drive in the
weekend in February,
I remembered that a Hartford Seminary
alum,
Sammy
and then became so enamored and and just
enthusiastic
about Christian Muslim relations and interfaith relations that
he stayed and studied here. And,
and when I was asked for recommendations
about
an imam for a number of places, I
gave Sam his name, and he eventually,
established himself in Ottawa.
So I gave Sami a call and I
said,
look, I'm on the road. I'm gonna come
to Ottawa. I'd really like to see your,
visit you for a few minutes and see
your new setting.
So, of course, by by the time I
got there, standing at the guy with a
few 100 people
in the mosque
and said,
you have to you have to give us
a lecture. You have to tell us what
you're doing.
And so I talked about it, and I
talked about
the importance
of Muslims understanding this context,
particularly in the context of honoring the treaties
and covenants.
The Quran says,
be not like the one who breaks
some of you may be more powerful
than others.
The Koran says that the breaking
of an oath and all of these treaties
were made as a as a as a
solemn oath that the parties would uphold the
sides.
The breaking of an oath must be atoned
for
by feeding 10 needy persons with the same
food as you yourself would consume,
or by giving the same clothing, or by
freeing a human being from bondage.
The prophet Muhammad is reporting to have said,
whoever takes a false oath to deprive someone
of his property
will find god angry with them when he
meets God on the day of judgment.
It is these very stern commands
that made me afraid, the son of God,
of what this meant to be on the
side
of the tree,
breakers.
When
I,
finished my lecture
and I said to Imam Sami that I
was now heading
down to the side, he said, why would
I quit there?
So he had this white, white,
imam thaw on,
and,
threw in a jacket,
completely inappropriately
dressed for February
in, Ottawa,
Canada.
Lots of snow, and it was a cold
snap even for us.
But he was enthusiastic,
so he and a few of the members
of the board of trustees came with us,
and we went down to the camp.
Of course, Sam was very enthusiastic, and he
was talking to everyone and
about the conversation
with 1 of the,
men from,
Chief Teresa Spence's tribe,
who said to him, look,
it's like this.
Either
you
are
a First Nation, a member of First Nation,
or you're a settler.
And the look of
confusion
and realization
on the face of someone who just immigrated
to Canada a year
year ago was
interesting to see.
Here, you had set up this dichotomy,
I think. I mean, most immigrants set up
a dichotomy in their mind that
they are immigrants
or new Canadians or new Americans, and
vis a vis
the
old Canadians or the ones who are already
there.
So he considered himself to be on the
side a minority in Canada. Right? He was
a minority who was trying to find his
way and to ensure
his rights and his survival there. Now he
was being told, Don't. You're a settler.
This was a this is a beautiful
moment, actually,
to create that kind of alienation and displacement
because now
any of us from this position would see
that we are never simply
the disempowered,
or we're never simply the minority,
that we are also,
at the same time, simultaneously,
almost all of us in a position of
empowerment empowerment and in a position where we
are,
continuing a system that denies others their rights.
And of course, he was wonderful. And, you
know, a few days later, he went and
brought his his whole family, all his kids,
his wife down to meet everyone there and
continue with this education.
So it was a wonderful, you know, example
of you know, obviously he's a smart and
ethical person who would continue this.
But this is something that is,
a major issue in the world today.
This is not just an an issue just
for Canadians, but every place in the world
where indigenous people have had their lands taken
from them in the past
by colonial powers or settlers.
This has and this has occurred from the
most northern regions of North America to the
southern tip of South America,
as well as Australia and New Zealand.
But we can't just make this a white
or European
problem,
because as this man had pointed out to
Imam Sami,
those of us who come from other places
become
part of the empowered
class.
And the group that continues to perpetuate
a system
where these rights,
the group rights, the historical rights continue to
be denied.
The seizing of land for the sake of
establishing a new colonial settlement in your nation
is generally not possible in the 21st
century,
tragically,
so called ethnic cleansing within nations is still
alive and well,
with the result that some groups seize and
occupy the lands of a dehumanized
and stigmatized
group.
The most extreme and horrifying case at this
time, perhaps, is occurring in Myanmar,
whereas we have seen recently in Nicholas Kristof's
reporting and elsewhere,
even Buddhist monks are justifying
and encouraging the more more murder of their
origin.
The situation demands urgent attention, which it is
not getting. However, that is not the focus
of my talk today.
Rather, I return our attention to the ethics
of land use and acquisition
as it relates to our ability to live
ethically on this earth.
There are many places
in the world where land is being acquired,
not for the sake of settling,
but in order to extract and transport
of commercial farms for export.
The sovereign wealth funds of countries such as
Saudi Arabia and China,
as well
as American, Canadian,
and global corporations
have,
with their deep pockets,
somehow convinced
governments to appropriate the lands
for the per for purposes that mostly violate
the common good. And the interests of the
people,
be they aboriginal or simply
residents and citizens,
not to mention the animals and other creatures,
could inhabit these lands.
This is happening in Brazil,
is not a European problem. It is not
a white problem. It's a global problem.
You know, one of the first things Muslims
do when they move to a place after
orienting themselves in the world,
is to look for so called halal
food.
What they mean by that is meat that
has been slaughtered in a
lawful fashion.
Now, classical Islamic law books do not talk
about halal nut. It's
a modern
turn of phrase.
They simply describe the rules for the slaughter
of animals for consumption,
But they also describe the rules
for the acquisition of land,
for the use of water,
for for the
use or acquisition
of so called
dead land
for what kind of crops
should be grown, and when those crops are
grown,
who has a right to share it in
none?
In the wake
of colonialism,
perhaps,
much of Islamic law has been reduced to
personal practice,
looking only at very
narrow
personal
obligations,
like the direct connection between
the meat we eat
and ourselves,
and neglecting the systems
in which we live.
Thus, the focus on halal meat is a
selective
constrained set of ethical obligations.
The recent broader concern for the way animals
are treated in their life,
how they are transported,
whether the workers who take care for of
those animals, and so a lot of the
animals are being adequately paid,
and given the rights their labor rights.
All of these
all of the increased interest in these issues
is an appropriate
recommitment
to ethical responsibility.
The least we can do is leverage our
power as consumers
to try to influence the supply chain.
So the question
is, what makes our food
and other goods halal?
And what would it mean
to live on halal
land?
What about the resources that we use? What
makes them halal?
Certainly, goods that are taken from disappropriated
land can possibly be lawful.
1 of my students
gave a presentation this week
on Fatima
alfefri
alfefriya, who's the founder of El Perrine, which
is the oldest
continually
operating
university in the world.
Of her family members died within a short
period of time.
She and her sister inherited this vast wealth.
Fatima
decided
that with it, she wanted to establish
a mosque in a university, and she did
that in Fez.
Some of you may have visited this,
this beautiful,
incredibly blessed place in Fez, Morocco.
And one of the things that she insisted
on is that any
of
the, any of the building materials
used for this mosque university complex could only
be taken from land that she owned.
She didn't want one brick or one tile
or one stone
to be acquired unlawfully.
The first thing she did before that was
to dig a well,
a well that all of the people here
could benefit from.
So we see this woman, this amazing woman,
and I can't help but believe that it
is because of her
sincerity,
because of her commitment to ethics, to to
doing this project ethically,
that God has blessed this institution with such
longevity.
This concern
to make sure that what we do
is rooted
in
lawful land,
is rooted in a blessed work.
She wanted to make sure her workers also
had what they needed.
This is something that is a consistent theme
in
much Islamic spiritual literature that is has been,
I would say,
marginalized
and neglected
in much of modern Islam.
I believe part of it is because of
a general air of hostility in many places
towards
classical Islamic spirituality
or Sufism,
both from a kind of modernist, rationalist
approach, but also from the well,
let's call them the right wing
of our religious community,
who have,
oppressed and persecuted the Sufis.
So this idea of this kind of caution
and care for each aspect
of doing something, that blessing only comes by
paying attention
to how we do every part
of something.
That land,
water, people, all of them has been given
attention for there to be a blessing.
Gulf and elsewhere.
Above the gulf and
elsewhere,
not to cast stones and blast houses.
We live on this earth too in the
way that we do.
So what do we do?
You know, it seems so
overwhelming
sometimes.
How could we possibly pay attention to all
of these things?
And in conclusion, I would like to say
that there are
some simple
concepts,
ethical concepts that can help us.
First of all,
if we want to live a so called
halal life,
we
could begin by lessening consumption.
So that if we are mixing the unlawful
with the lawful,
at least it will be minimized.
One of the rules in Islamic law is
that,
you know, if you have to, by necessity,
take something that's unlawful, you can only take
the absolute
minimum that you need to sustain your life.
Lessening consumption
is a general rule that is given to
us by God on the upper hand in
any case,
completely devoid of unethical
context, it is a better spiritual practice overall.
The part Anne says, O children of Adam,
get dressed up to go to your place
of prayer, and eat and drink, but not
in excess.
Surely God does not love those who are
extravagant.
This verse really makes me terrified,
because it doesn't say God does not love
extravagants.
It says God does not love those who
are extravagant.
How terrifying to think god
might
withhold
his love for that part of us,
although I don't think his love would ever
be completely absent.
2nd,
we cannot accomplish, we cannot possibly hope to
live an ethical life
by figuring all of this out ourselves.
It's too much research, too much information.
How could we possibly know?
It is what
Islamic Ethics and Law calls a collective obligation
to establish and support government oversight and nonprofit
organizations
to monitor and regulate and report on these
issues.
And this is not
a
collective obligation
that is religiously specific.
If we possibly thought we could do this
only in our own religious communities, we'd be
fooling ourselves, we would be taking it seriously.
We live in a global environment
where these
supply chains,
where these contracts,
where these deals
are being made across the world in such
complicated ways.
We need to understand
that
it is only by working with people who
care, people of good values, good ethics, and
good faith that we can possibly hope
to avoid
constantly
violating the rights of others
for the sake of our
own
enjoyment,
our own needs, and our desires.
3rd,
we have to understand
that,
of course,
desires are not the same as needs.
And, well, you may say, you know, we
need to
access
that oil field, that gas field. We need
these things.
Needs are
basic things.
People need
water, they
need food, they
need shelter.
In the sun, there's a priority of needs.
Darubiyend,
Hejyend,
and Tahesenend.
The Darubiyend,
the urgent needs,
are are very basic.
It is what you need to sustain life.
The second level are necessities that we would
consider
are a part of human dignity and allow
us to flourish as societies.
So you can live without education,
but you really can't advance very far with
that.
But the 3rd level,
that are sometimes called complement
complements or even luxuries,
are things that you neither need
nor are really necessary
for society to advance, but all other things
being equal,
might make your life more pleasant.
Unfortunately,
many of us, and I would include myself,
are will
indulge in these this third level
of,
consumption
without realizing
that by doing so, we're impacting
the ability of others to meet their urgent
life sustaining needs.
So it will take work.
It takes
cooperation.
It takes
fellowship.
It takes
turning away from trivial
superficial
issues.
It turns away from it takes
not being distracted
by those who would love to have us
distracted
from these urgent issues
by
hurling insults at each other.
This is the kind of place where those
kind of ties and
friendships and alliances can be formed.
The reason why a place like Hartford Seminary
is so important,
Hartford Seminary among other,
like minded and like spirited places. Because without
it,
although we may together
find a
way to live happily and as neighbors,
we will also at the same time
find ourselves
on the side
of those on the earth who are denying
many others their
their rights. So with that,
I'd like to conclude
and, invite your
comments.
Well, this I would say that
people who have become aware of of
these issues
for both ethical and health reasons.
So that it is,
possible now to find organizations
that
will
research where food comes from,
what the land practices, what the labor practices
of those place places are.
There's the movement towards local consumption, you know,
consumption of local
consumption, you know, consumption of local product,
produce.
And that mostly started as a as a
health concern, but, of course, has major impact
on the environment as well.
So it's an example
of something that,
you know, an area of our life
where,
we,
have more support and more resources readily available
especially to the ordinary consumer
than in some of these other areas.
And again, some people will say, well, that's
fine for wealthy people. What about, you know,
aren't these things expensive? Isn't it expensive to
care about these things? And this is where
I think,
1,
the the issue of how much we really
need to eat
is one issue,
you know.
And second,
what kind of policies are in place to
make some kinds of food more expensive than
others?
Because this isn't simply,
you know, we talk about
a free market, but when it comes to
these things, this is not free. There are
there are there are a lot of inter
there are many interventions,
by
government and powerful agencies
that,
determine
that certain kinds of foods will be,
will be cheaper and more readily available than
others.
Yes.
I was Yes. I was interested in your
comment or your you used the expression the
rights of nature.
The rights
and
I've come to know that
because
of delegate from Bolivia
who was an indigenous person,
And of course, when,
as you say,
this this concept or at least this articulation
of this concept,
has come primarily from indigenous people in South
America.
And it's one of the reasons why in
some of the, constitutions,
actually, of these countries, there's a recognition
not only of the right of people
to have access to
a wholesome ecology or or, you know,
pure and healthy ecology,
but also rights of nature itself.
Now, of course,
with introducing that, many of us have, you
know, searched our own
history, our own text, and we see,
we see support for that
idea.
So I see great support for that idea,
not only in the Islamic teachings, but also
in practice over the centuries where,
there were,
there were were all these
reserves
for,
for wildlife
that were considered their right, that they had
a right to certain space.
But the question is,
why have we been have been paying
and it's and it shows us why we
need to really be open and listen
to what other people are saying because
if indigenous people of South America hadn't really
brought this to our consciousness,
we might have continued to be negligent
of this very important ethical obligation that we
have.
And so they've done us a favor
by making us aware so that we can
be more compliant
with our own obligations,
in fact.
Well, if if there's one thing that
that capitalism is about, it's about our,
our right to spend our money where we
like. And,
certainly, we have an obligation. I believe I
have an obligation
to
acquire wealth lawfully.
And that if the wealth,
you know, not to I can't
I can no more,
put my money in a casino
or a bar or a liquor store as
a wholesome
than actually feel that I could put my
money in a in a system where there
is,
where the bay the foundation of it is
unlawful.
From what I understand, the Presbyterian
move, it's not a divestment from Israel, but
from,
operations in the West Bank
on on unlawful land.
It makes sense to me in that in
that context.
It accords with what I believe about unlawful
land and
that people should restrain,
should refrain from,
benefiting from unlawfully acquired
land. I'm not an expert in what's happening
there, so,
you know,
I I can't give really more analysis of
that specific situation,
than that.
But it there you know, there's something there's
another,
principles, and that is the issue of reparations
for,
slavery and for the,
for the, seizing
of
land and property of African Americans during the
Jim Crow
era.
So there was this month's issue of The
And it's the cover story of The Atlantic
where he explains
this,
why reparations
are required.
There are places in the United States,
universities,
country clubs,
homes
that are on land that was
either built by slaves
or
after emancipation
was seized from free African Americans
by unlawful means.
So the question is,
you know, what's the ethical response to that?
I think about about this idea and,
to me from
not only do you need to restore
their
their right, but you need to,
you need to pay expiation.
You need the extra. So that kind of
restoration,
I think, is critical.
And,
you know, I really do think that we
need to
make sure that we are not that they're
mutually exclusive, but that we really take care
of our,
at our obligations,
our moral obligations
with respect
to the land where we live as well.
That's why I'm particularly
passionate
as a Canadian
about
what's happening now with, the restoration of land
and treaty rights
of First Nations.
That the law of corporations
is structured so that corporations,
public companies problem in the law that continues
to create that. To the extent that problem
in the law that continues to create that.
To the extent of such absurdities
as I saw an article recently
that
the the
lack of US military
engagement
currently is hurting the economy
because,
there's not as much because the military sector
is so important.
And without that, without
without an active
war, I mean, I don't know what kind
of
that,
there's not enough of a demand
for all this military equipment and that that
is
impacting
the growth of the US economy.
So that to even be
to even think that it's reasonable
to make a statement like that,
is just shows the uncertainty of the growth
model.
That we could even contemplate that this is
a bad that peace is a bad thing
because it's bad for growth.
Wow.
So
definitely,
the issue of,
the law of corporations,
what obligations are to stockholders,
all of these things are part of our
piece of the puzzle.
Have,
established methodologies,
ways, research.
We will be overwhelmed if each one of
our congregations
or denominations or communities
feels we need to address all of these
things individually.
You know, you're gonna have the same person
on 6 committees and, you know, eventually
so
so this is I mean, it really
is a place for interface
cooperation
and work. So that we have we have
more of these that we're doing together and
not just by ourselves.
It it'll it'll it helps,
you know, it's an argument to the world
for
religions doing something positive. Right? Not just,
well, you
The limit, you know, and then the limited
resources and time that we have, I mean,
it just does not make sense
each of us to have our own individual
things in this area. We we really need
to cooperate if we're gonna hold by having