Mustafa Khattab – Remembering Quebec Masjid
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Okay.
Sit right there. Who is it?
So,
better?
Yeah.
Better?
Okay.
So,
you probably heard
heard about what happened in Quebec City a
couple of days ago. Yeah.
The incident and Yeah. Okay.
So,
the history of racism
and
and phobia,
is very old.
It's not only in Quebec and other places.
About a 100 years ago, the people,
the Catholics in New York City couldn't build
a church.
Catholics in New York City, they couldn't build
a church. Because Catholics are a minority in
the US.
The US is predominantly,
Protestant,
which is another sect of Christianity.
But they had a hard time, Catholics had
a hard time to build a church.
Back in the 19 thirties,
in Canada
and the US,
the Jews
had a hard time because they were being
persecuted in Europe by Hitler, by other groups,
the fascists.
So when they came here,
they were constantly
attacked and they had a hard time. If
you go to,
Google images, there are still images
that were taken back in the 19 thirties
of some restaurants and public places with the
signs,
no dogs allowed,
no Jews allowed inside.
This happened in Toronto,
80 years ago.
So it seems like many minorities have to
go through all these issues and hatred and
and racism.
There's always
a public enemy. I'm gonna be academic for
a couple of minutes then I'll try to
explain insha'Allah.
It seems that
there's always a public enemy
and
the good news is
the public enemy changes every
25,
30 years.
So if you go back to
the 19 forties,
the enemy was, at least in the West,
the enemy was Japan,
Germany,
the Nazis,
Italy,
the fascists.
Then,
25 years later, in the 19 sixties, the
enemy became the Vietnamese.
20 years later,
the 19 eighties, the enemy became the Russians.
20 years later, it's the Muslims,
for a whole bunch of reasons.
Then maybe another 5, 10 years, they'll pick
on someone else, there will be another enemy.
Maybe the Chinese,
Allahu Akbar. We never know. But it seems
to me after
reviewing
history, there's always a different enemy.
And political analysts
say that this happened for a reason, two
reasons.
Number 1,
it's a uniting
mechanism that nations use,
and this goes back all the way to
the Roman Empire.
If we have a foreign enemy
from outside or from inside minority groups,
say for example,
blacks,
Latinos,
Muslims,
Jews,
this will keep the majority of the nation
together. This is how they think.
And it's a distractive mechanism because if we
have an enemy,
then
this will make the majority of the people
forget about
the political problems we have, the social problems
we have, the economic problems
we have. In other words,
do anything
to protect us from the enemy.
We don't care
about jobs,
we don't care about the social life, we
don't care about money, just protect us.
So
according to these political analysts,
especially from the US, and some of them
worked in the White House, they say, well
if you don't have an enemy,
just make one.
It's that simple. It is bad, it's cruel,
but this is the reality of things.
Now what do we need to do as
a Muslim community?
Alhamdulillah, the good thing in the last couple
of days after the incident happened,
we have been overwhelmed
with over pouring,
the outpouring support from the government, from Justin
Trudeau,
from mayors and governors and,
representatives from the government.
Last night, the imams, the council of imams,
we had a meeting at the Saida Khadija
center,
and the police, the chief of the police
came, the fire department, and,
the minister of finance came as a representative
of the Toronto government.
But again, this is the,
on the official level. Now I'm going to
talk about
what we can do as a Muslim community.
Me, you, the teachers,
brother Henry, everyone in this room. What can
we do?
I think the best thing we can do
as Muslims
to stop these acts from ever happening again,
introduce the level of hatred and Islamophobia?
Number 1, we need to open our doors
and our houses to our non Muslim neighbors,
and invite them and talk to them.
They say, al'abi
al insan adoo umayajal.
A person is the enemy of the unknown.
Say for example, I don't know you. You
came from a different culture, you speak a
different language,
you wear different clothes, you speak a different
lang you're totally different from me. Then I'll
always be afraid of you unless I get
to know you.
There's a sister in this
school.
I'm not sure if she's
here or she is downstairs in the school.
When she came to Canada, she had a
neighbor,
white Canadian neighbor. And the neighbor was scared
of this Muslim sister.
She was always giving them trouble,
calling the police,
saying that they're making noise. And the sister
was saying she was calling the police
even when I and the kids and the
whole family was outside.
We're not inside the house, but still she
called the police to complain. We're making noise.
Maybe a jail or something. We don't know.
Like she was giving them a hard time.
I and my family, we have been through
the same thing. We had neighbors
from here, you know. So they gave us
a hard time.
Not banging on the wall,
cussing at us, giving us a hard time.
So what you do basically, what the sister
did,
she started to go and visit this neighbor,
giving her gifts, inviting her over for coffee,
and they talk. Now they are very good
friends.
The sister says, when I'm late
from school, the neighbor will wait for my
kids to pick them up, to take them
from the bus. This is how close they
became. Allah
says in Surah Al Surah, and I conclude
with this.
Respond
to evil
with good.
Then the person between whom and you is,
hatred
or you both are locked up in a
feud, then eventually you will become
as good friends.
They say that a wise person
keep this in mind. It's a very good
hikmah.
A wise person is the person who is
able to change enemies into friends.
The foolish person is the person who is
able to turn friends into enemies.
So always look for ways to make friends,
talk to people, invite them over. InshaAllah, we're
going to have open houses here in the
masjid. And Ramadan, we'll have the taste of
Ramadan. We'll invite people to come and have
Ustar with us and to get to know
us, InshaAllah.
And be good and kind to everyone. Let
people see Islam in your actions. Let people
know that you are Muslim
through your actions. How good you are to
them.
In this way, people will change their
attitude towards Muslims. In this way, people will
come closer to us, and and they will
see the humanity in us. That we are
human beings.
We came here for a better life,
for a good education for our kids, so
we can grow as a community. We're not
here to harm anyone.
We're here to just live like everybody else.
We came for a better opportunity.
We're not here to impose sharia law on
anyone or to take over the country or,
kill it. No. We're here to live a
good life just like everyone else and and
live a decent life. So I ask Allah
to accept those who died as shahid
and ask Allah
to give us speedy recovery to those who
have been injured and to give patience to
the families of the victims
and protect us and our communities, and give
us the best in this life and the
best in the life to come.