Mirza Yawar Baig – Understanding Our World
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AI: Transcript ©
My brothers and sisters,
we are living the parable of the boiled
frog.
The parable of the boiled frog is that
if you take a frog
and put it into a pot of water,
which is hot,
the frog will jump out.
But if you take the same frog
and put it into a pot of water,
which is at room temperature,
and then light a fire under the pot,
put the fire pot on the stove,
and gently heat the water,
the frog gets used to the water which
is hotter and hotter
and being a cold blooded animal
it starts relaxing,
becomes flaccid
until the water is now dangerously hot, too
hot,
but the frog can no longer jump out.
It's lost its capability of escaping.
So then you take the frog out and
put it on a plate and salt and
pepper, a twist of lime.
That is what has happened to us
today as Muslims.
And that is why it is very critical
and important for us to get ourselves educated,
not merely trained to make a living.
Just ask yourself which books you have read
in the past 1 year
and you have the answer.
I don't mean text books. I don't mean
technical books.
Other than that,
without reading
and without the skills of reflective observation,
introspection and abstract conceptualisation,
you are totally open to being manipulated
to believe and act the way those in
power want you to act.
Only real education
can save
us from being mentally enslaved and manipulated
by the puppet masters
for their benefit.
There are two things that distinguish the enslaved
from the free.
The willingness to take responsibility
for oneself
and to focus
on contribution,
not consumption.
In one word,
participation.
Rasool
mentioned this in the Hadith
where he defined the Ummah.
The Hadith of Norman
ibn Bashir,
Rabiullah Anma, he reported
that Rasul
said, the example of the
believers in their affection,
mercy and compassion for each other
is that of a body.
When any limb aches,
the whole body reacts
with sleeplessness
and favour.
And this is a Hadith, Mutafakun Ali,
Bukhari and Muslim agreed upon.
We Muslims as an Ummah
counting backwards
from post world war 2
nation states
to the khilafarashida,
which was our first experience of statehood
for Muslims,
have lived in empire
in one form or another.
One ruler with absolute power.
People must obey.
No participation
in decision making.
Change of leadership
almost always
violent.
Fraticide
was the norm and even declared legal
by none other than Suleyman
al Khanhoni,
also called Suleyman the Magnificent, the Ottoman ruler.
Yet another reason to study history.
Our history is the history of conquest
and its economics.
Though actual conquest
stopped
over 300 years ago, but the hangover remains.
Our Muslim country economics
has gone the same way. We have replaced
state income
from spoils of war to oil revenues.
Local people never had to produce,
pay taxes, or show enterprise.
They were on the dole and they remain
this way.
Our wealthy countries are bank accounts, not economies.
We compete in building structures and buildings,
not mines.
Ask how many of our speakers
talk about conquests,
wars, bravery,
and how many about social work, industry,
volunteering,
creating products or services.
I believe
that we need to wake up and get
out of our empire mindset
and realize that it was the glorious phase
in our history, but it is over.
Today, we must draw inspiration
from the use of knowledge and technology and
systems and markets.
We must learn a whole new set of
skills
and contribute in new ways to be viewed
as productive and contributing members of society.
Power and influence are derivatives of contributions,
not consumption.
We must actively learn from our great history
by interpreting it in the modern context.
It is not about regression,
but about progress
standing on the shoulders of giants.
I submit to you that most of what
is happening to us today is because of
our isolationist,
myopic, and insular attitudes.
We live as if there is nobody else.
We live as if there is nobody else
in the world. Let me give you some
metrics.
Ask, how many of us greet people first?
And how many of us ask for a
fatwa
about whether it is permissible
to say walaikumas salaam to a non Muslim
who greeted you with salaam?
How many of us speak the language of
the countries we live in fluently enough to
be able to represent ourselves
in public forum?
How many of us sit on school and
other boards
and are in local government?
How many of us volunteer in protests
against different social evils like drugs and racism
and gun violence and global warming, wars and
nuclear weapons?
How many of us participated
in Black Lives Matter Marches?
How many of us participated
even in the pro Palestine protest,
which were
led
and populated
by non Muslims
very prominently
by Jews?
How many of us,
instead of marching
in the pro Palestine,
protest, how many of us debated whether it
is Halal or Haram to protest?
How many of us vote
and how many of us debate about voting?
How many of us have local people
local people as friends?
In this country, the United States, I don't
mean the ABCDs and ABCAs, the
American born confused this is American born confused
Arabs, but Caucasian,
African American, or Native American people. How many
of us have these as friends?
People we who come come home to us,
we we go home to them. We we
we spend time together, we have activities together
and so on. How many of us?
How many of us attend jury duty and
local town hall meetings?
I can add to this list, but will
leave you to do that.
Please do that. Shall I also ask how
many of us drive too fast
in residential areas because we are late for
Jumal and park on neighbors' lawns and block
their driveways?
Power and influence are the result of consistent
contribution,
not consumption.
Nobody cares what we own. They care about
what we give to those in need.
Power comes with territory.
Contribution
defines
territory.
You want power?
Contribute.
Today,
almost everything that is happening to us is
because we are seen as net consumers,
not contributors.
To give you an example, in the 2011
motor show in Qatar,
the star attraction was the Volkswagen
Touareg
with custom 22 inch wheels,
roof rails,
rub strips, and other details,
all plated
in 24 karat gold.
Though the folks
Volkswagen Tuareg
is a high performance car, which won the
Dakar
rally,
the focus at the motor show is not
on engineering,
but bling.
Ask why?
This is not only about rulers and other
countries. Just look around you
at what we do
in our local society here in West Springfield.
And ask,
what is the Muslim contribution
to general society?
What is the answer?
Isolation breeds ignorance.
Ignorance inspires fear. Fear results in violence.
That is what we are seeing in different
parts of the world today.
Our isolationist,
exclusivist,
non contributory attitude
combined with the fact that we are visibly,
racially, culturally,
ethnically different and can't or don't communicate with
local people is the ideal combination
for the Islamophobic
grismill
to generate hatred
using the material we provide freely.
This is not a physical fight. It's an
ideological
battle where the dominant narrative must be countered
with an experiential
narrative
that people can compare to, which cancels and
contradicts
the narrative of hate.
When people see anti Muslim things on TV
or social media, they experience their personal physical
experience of Muslims.
Our manners, our communication,
contribution and helpfulness
must contradict that message.
Only we can create that because it affects
only us.
A picture, as they say, is worth a
1,000 words,
an action is worth a million.
Only actions can drown out the cacophony
of anti Muslim propaganda, not words.
Allah
who ordered us to get involved in the
general community, not only Muslims
not only with Muslims and work for the
promotion of good and the prohibition
of harm.
This applies
to all good
and evil
that happens in society.
Allah said,
Allah said, you are the best community ever
raised for humanity,
for all human beings.
You encourage good and you forbid evil and
you believe in Allah.
My brothers and sisters, there are 2 things
that we must learn to do urgently.
Number 1, we must learn to appreciate and
show gratitude to Allah
and to people for what we enjoy in
these lands.
In this country, for example, the United States,
we can dress in full Islamic costume,
pray anywhere in peace,
say anything we want in our sermons.
We are not given a,
an ideal sermon to read out.
We can eat our halal meats.
We can insist that pizza hard cuts our
pizza with a clean knife that has not
been used to cut any other meat.
We receive world class medical treatment.
World we we our children study in world
class universities
open to everyone
regardless of race or religion,
and we have a host of other freedoms.
In these countries, universities have Muslim chaplains.
I am the Muslim chaplain in 2 of
them. Their dining halls have halal food.
They pay for prayer the university
pays for prayer spaces and mats and they
host iftar parties in Ramadan
and many things more. Compare this to what
happens in Muslim countries.
I don't need to elaborate as I'm sure
we are all aware.
Truly, may Allah
bless America.
2nd,
we must learn how to present our culture
to Westerners.
For this we must learn to communicate, learn
the language and how to use it.
It is not about converting people, it's about
helping people understand
how Islam continues to remain relevant and valid
today as it was
14
centuries
ago.
It is to help them to see Islam
as a solution to modern problems
and a bulwark against social evils.
It is to help them to see how
the Islamic way will make them successful in
this life, creating a society
that is based on compassion,
sharing, justice
and equality.
It is to introduce Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to them in ways that touch their hearts
and bring tears to their eyes.
It's about winning hearts,
not arguments.
It's about dialogue,
not debate.
It's about collaboration,
not contribution.
It's about presenting to them the beauty of
the Islamic way
in all that we say and do in
our spaces both public and private which will
attract them
and change their opinions.
It's about educating the ignorant
and opening the eyes of the blindfolded.
Imam Azuri Rahatul Ali was one of the
great scholars of this deen and and one
of the teachers of Imam Malik bin Aras,
Rahatul Ali. He said that Islam spread the
fastest
after Fatah Makkah
for the first
because for the first time, the non Muslim
was able to see the life of an
ordinary Muslim up close.
People came into Islam in those days,
in those early days not for wealth and
and power or because of complicated
and complex theological debates
or because they were forced, but because they
were so impressed with the grace and harmony
and tranquillity
in the life of ordinary Muslims.
I asked myself, what has changed?
How is it that we live among non
Muslims, we enjoy all the benefits of their
societies and systems,
yet
what do we do to win hearts?
This must be a conscious effort on our
part.
It must become a part of our normal
behaviour, a part of our conscious training of
our children
and all those in our circle of influence.
We must build bridges,
not walls.
For that, it is essential to monitor our
conversations,
especially our internal conversations
when we speak to ourselves.
Do you hear the voice of
dividing, division,
or joining?
If you think and speak about people disparagingly,
it becomes impossible to respect them and their
ways.
Remember that there is much good in everyone.
There will be places and points of disagreement,
but those must not become triggers
to trash everything.
When we do that,
we choose
to become ignorant bigots.
I want to point out that exclusivity
comes at a price
which is always paid by the minority.
The result
is isolation,
suspicion,
othering and demonization,
which in times of stress can result in
violence against us.
Participation
is critical to survival,
and in a country where you can do
that with total freedom
while retaining your own cultural and religious norms,
it is essential to participate
or risk
others deciding
your fate.
It is essential to participate in society and
become valuable
and irreplaceable.
We have a religion
which is relevant for all times, which promotes
all that is wholesome and good, and prohibits
all that is destructive and toxic.
Islam came to change our focus and to
guide us to the truth that in the
end we will pay for what we did
or chose not to do.
The mindset we need to create is to
move from
what can I get out of society
to
what can I contribute
to society?
Because return
is proportionate
to contribution,
not consumption.
I remind myself anew that when we meet
Allah
we will not be asked what happened,
we will be asked
what did you do?
It is for that day that we must
prepare ourselves,
and that day must
be our focus.