Maryam Amir – Islamophobia and Muslim Identity
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the feeling of being alone and sad about her life, as she struggled with her parents' actions and emotions. She describes a woman who experienced feeling alone and sad about her life, as she struggled with her parents' actions and emotions. She also talks about how people are asking for forgiveness and protection, even if they have a history of belief. She describes a woman who experienced feeling alone in a church while her husband passed away and how she wants to be a member of the community. She talks about her friend's
the feeling of being welcomed in the community, and how she wants to become a member of the community.
the feeling of being welcomed in the community, and how she wants to become a member of the community.
AI: Summary ©
In that moment, I recognize that it really doesn't matter what this
person thinks about me, because they're calling out at a teenager
from a car as they drove by as a reflection of that individual's
insecurities and personal problems with themselves, and it made me
very sad for this person, because what kind of a lifestyle or what
kind of a upbringing did you have to have to feel like that could
bring you some sort of fulfillment or courage to scream out at a
teenage girl?
But that was a turning point for me, because for me, I had
constantly felt like I needed to apologize for my existence. I was
concerned that people could see me in a certain way because of global
actions, and when I walked back into my high school after that
experience, I decided I was not going to allow other people, their
voices, to control the way I felt about myself.
I recognize that the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him. They went through incredible persecution, boycott,
loss of family and health and loved ones because of their belief
in Islam, their acceptance of God and the Prophet. Peace be upon
him. This incredible message is what led so many of them to
physically be in pain, so that today in the United States or
wherever you live, we could feel the strength of that identity
coming from the sacrifices that they made for theirs. So I decided
that I was going to choose to honor their legacy by being proud
of the fact that I'm a Muslim, and when I felt alone, and there are
going to be times that we feel so alone, so many of you talk about
the different things that you experience in your own life,
whether it's depression or going through a relationship or
struggling with a job, and then you walk outside and you feel like
people are
judging you. And sometimes it's from our own assumptions that we
assume how someone is reacting to us, but often it's not. The
reality is that we have hate crimes that are documented, and we
need more people to speak about the experiences that they have, so
we can continue to work against them, like the work that men does,
but sometimes we feel overwhelmed because we don't feel like we have
support. And this is where I want you to recognize that Allah God
actually talks about soldiers that he has who are part of the unseen,
and these are angels in the Quran. There are so many parts of the
Quran that talk about the role of angels in our lives, but I want to
focus on one verse, and that is that Allah says, God Almighty,
talks about the angels who are, who are
yacht, they have this Throne of Allah. You said, behind a beham?
Will you mean una be he was still fear.
Robin, a taboo, whatever I would say, like a The angels are
constantly surrounding this Throne of Allah. They're carrying the
Throne of Allah. And what are they saying? They're praying for us.
They're saying, Yes, still fear una liladina. And why doesn't
Allah say little meaning? Why doesn't he say they are constantly
asking forgiveness for the meaning? Don't you consider
yourself someone who would be like, I'm a Muslim, I'm a man, I'm
a believer in God. Why doesn't Allah say that instead of saying
the ladina almenu? Because the scholars of granite commentary say
that alabina amanu those who have believed, are the people whose
faith are in their hearts, and they believe, but they struggle
with the actions and angels cannot do anything unless God
specifically commands them To do this, which means that Allah has
created angels that do nothing but praise Him and constantly ask for
your forgiveness and your protection, and not just you, but
the people who believe and who struggle with the action. So how
much more so for someone who's doing their best, who are trying
so hard, even though so often you might feel like you falter, there
are literally angels that are praying for you. 24/7,
that verb esteferun is present tense. It means it never stops,
and the presence of the angels, scholars of.
Quran tell us that they bring mercy, protection, blessings, and
there are means of your prayers being answered. There was an older
woman, an auntie, who told me that she was constantly feeling alone.
Her husband passed away almost 10 years ago. May Allah have mercy on
him and enter him into the highest paradise and me and all of our
loved ones, and she felt like she was so lonely. And she said one
day she just broke down. It was the middle of the night, she just
called out and she started to cry in her prayers. And she said this
wasn't a regular prayer. It wasn't just calling out and just crying
and Oh, Allah, help me. It was her soul bared. She felt like
absolute, complete, just pouring everything out. And after she made
that prayer, she went out to the beach. She lives close to the
beach, and she started walk, walking, and she always used to
look at an apartment building that was looking over the beach with
patios, and one of those patios had a chair that she would look at
and think, I wish that I could just sit in that chair and drink
some tea and look out at the ocean. So she made that prayer,
and she kept walking along the beach looking up at that
particular chair. A week after this intense prayer, she's walking
alone, and a woman runs up to her, as if she has like one purpose,
and that is to talk to this auntie. And she says to her, how
are you? And they just start talking. The Auntie said that they
made an instant connection. They're both in their 70s and 80s.
They're both in that different type of lifestyle where, you know,
children are busy and people have things happening, and they're just
trying to figure out where they should be at this time. And after
hours of conversation right there on the beach, this woman invites
her into her home. And the auntie was like, I don't want to actually
know her, but she felt good about it. So she decided to go in. She
said, I live right here, the apartment building that the auntie
would always look at. And she invited her into her apartment and
asked her to sit in the patio,
that patio with the one chair she would always see.
She sat in that chair, and this new friend brought her a cup of
tea,
so she sat there drinking tea, staring out at the ocean, exactly
where she had always wanted to be. And this friend of hers now feels
like family. She doesn't feel alone, because she always has this
friend.
And sometimes we feel like in the middle of what we're going
through, that even our prayers might not be accepted. But I want
you to remember her story, because when you're in the midst of
feeling like you have no one, Musa, alayhi, Salam and he Salam,
Moses and Aaron, they're going to be tasked with facing the Pharaoh
calling the biggest tyrant ever to worship God and to act with social
justice to the people that he's oppressing. And of course, they're
human, even though they're prophets, and so they're a little
bit scared. And what does God say to them?
As he is with them, Asmaa the he is with the both of them, and he's
hearing and seeing so you are never alone. He is with you. His
angels are with you. He's listening to your prayers, and he
is responding to you. When Trump was elected, I was invited to
speak in a state, in a county where he was elected, like those
people, everyone supports him. And I went into that Masjid to give a
lecture, and a woman came up to me, and she told me that when this
Masjid was going to be built, she stood in the very front row of the
picket lines holding a poster that said, No, Muslims welcome here.
She didn't want a masjid to be built in her city. She didn't want
Muslims to have a present in her space. And that experience of a
masjid being built there caused her to start looking into what
Islam is about, and she eventually converted to Islam. So she is in
the masjid telling me that if she hadn't been on the front lines
against Muslims, she wouldn't have started to try to learn about why
she was against them in the first place, which led her not just to
become an ally, but to become a beloved, passionate member of the
community.
And when Trump was elected, a Catholic woman came up to me, and
she said that she's Catholic and her friends are Catholic, but If
Trump were to make a registry, a Muslim registry, she and her
friends would all register as Muslims, just so that we would
know that we aren't alone. You are not alone when you feel like you
don't know how to handle the news.
Those are these feelings that the looks that people give you, or
whatever is going on in your life, and more importantly, you need to
recognize that you are not just someone who is welcome in the
community. You are part of the community. You are the community.
I was sitting in a cafe, and this very kind older gentleman. He sat
next to me at the next table, and he started having a conversation
with me, and he said, You are welcome here. And I know that he
said that out of kindness and respect, and he was saying that so
that I feel he's recognizing I'm part of a vulnerable community.
He's an older white man, and so he's perhaps feeling like by
extending this kind greeting, he makes me feel safer, or feel like
I'm welcome in this community. But at the same time, he and I both
are guests upon the land which the Native Americans were the very
first people to honor. And so unless he was Native American, he
has just as much of a right as I do to our land. And so when he
said, You are welcome here, I responded with, thank you. You are
welcome here too. And he looked at me, and then he was like, Where
are you from? And I said, California. Where are you from?
And he was like, Colorado.
Welcome to California. We are in California. Welcome to California.
And the reality is that there are so many times when people are so
kind and wonderful in their care for us, and we need to recognize
that we must be as invested as people are trying to make us feel
sometimes, because we are invited, not invited, we are commanded in
the Quran to stand up for justice as witnesses To God, so as there
are, as we feel vulnerable, as we at times, experience hatred
towards our community, and that's not just personal, that's
political hatred that impacts policy. There are actively
policies being made against our community that causes us to feel
like we have to fight for our rights, and we do, but recognize
that we are not alone in that fight. There are so many people
from different communities who need to feel that support from us
as well, and when we join together Inshallah, through our own
actions, we will help create an entire generation who don't have
those struggles Inshallah, because by then, they are the ones who are
creating the policy, and they are invested in that because of the
example that they saw from us. So remember that we are so honored to
have Allah listening to us, watching us, appreciating every
single thing that we're doing when you are struggling to pray in
public, that he sees all of that, he appreciates all of that, he
loves all of that, and he's sending angels to surround you and
protect you through it. All May Allah bless all of you and reward
men for the work that they're doing and and I encourage you to
become involved with them, to highlight the realities of the
things that we face as the Muslim community, and also working with
other vulnerable communities to change our narrative and own it so
panicle and that you that you let myself put a commitment to where
they said, I want a.