Omar Suleiman – Out Of Context – Part 14

			Hi, my name is Mike Bachman. And I mean, I'm a Methodist pastor, and I'm excited that we're able to
share a little question and answer time with Imam Omar Suleiman. He's here to answer questions from
some folks who have been part of our audiences, we've been having an extended conversation together.
So I'll introduce them each and looking forward to hearing their questions. And their response to
that Imam Omar has. And then we have Kelly from audience here who has a question for Mr. Omar. Hi,
I'm kind of cheating here, because I'm gonna hope that you'll fight some battles that I've been
fighting within, unfortunately, my own family. So one of my best friends in the whole world is
		

			Muslim, and was my maid of honor in my wedding many, many, many years ago. And we're still very,
very close, which is why I'm here today.
		

			So first, I want to know, can I wear the hijab without being disrespectful? Of course, you can.
Yeah, sure. Okay, and what is the meaning of that? First of all, I just want to do it. So I had to
do my hair every day, but
		

			a lot one of the jobs that we have here, but so
		

			it's, and that's part of the beauty of America is that these expressions of solidarity that we've
had as well, just wonderful people, and that's something that we we feed off of, and that's
something that we, as a community, we draw from that positive energy that you know, there are people
that that are willing to even stand in solidarity.
		

			The poor Sikh community they've been attacked, because they look Muslim. Okay, over and over and
over again.
		

			So they're being attacked for being Muslim, even though they're not Muslim. So it's wonderful to see
solidarity and certainly you won't be disrespectful to us. And I think it's, it's wonderful to have
people like you that are, I just didn't know if it it would be taken as you know, not making fun of
them or making light of it because I think it's a very intimate decision that the women make just no
to say why Muslim when someone says no, no, we good. That's everything be prepared for Islamic calm
and all those guy can't do it. Okay, so what I did when this came about was I asked the member of my
family that argues with me repetitively about these issues.
		

			It saddens me some of the belief system
		

			that my own family members have, and so I'd like for you to answer the questions that I asked them
to write and I said, Give me your best. Okay, give me everything you got. Because here we go.
Because and I said, if it's disrespectful, I won't ask it. Or you can ask it.
		

			You gotta hold more hours into question, how do you have a real hard one? Okay, so this is again,
not, I understand. Okay. But I do have one for you at the end. Okay. Why would the Muslim community
stand up as Americans and speak out clearly against ISIS? I don't. I don't accept that. They are
afraid because we are all afraid and they're attacking us, not the Muslims. Okay. All right. So
number one, every single mosque in this country. The sermon on that Friday after San Bernardino was
a condemnation of terrorism. We've condemned, condemned, condemned, condemned, we've condemned more
than more than we've more than we've read Koran lately. Spin, I condemn, I condemn and someone was
		

			even suggesting we have an app called I condemn, so we can just press a button every time something
happens and Muslims can say I condemn I condemn I condemn. Number one, there's an implicit
		

			there is an implicit racism sometimes in those questions, right. Because do we ask when when dylann
roof murdered those people in that church when when a white supremacist carries out? Murder? Do we
ask all white Americans in the country to stand up and condemn that when any other faith group has a
lunatic that comes out when someone blows up an abortion clinic in the name of Christianity? Do we
ask all Christians to condemn and why aren't we hearing you condemn? You know that person that blew
up the abortion clinic so there's almost an implied guilt collective guilt and we have to reject
that collective guilt. I'm not responsible for I'm just as hurt as anybody else when it when an
		

			attack takes place. Muslims died on 911 Muslims died on 911 hundreds of Muslims died on 911 not just
a few hundreds of them. There were Muslim firefighters on 911
		

			so that's number one. We reject the collective guilt we do condemn we condemn not not because we
believe that we're guilty we condemn number one to distance ourselves number two to show our
congregation you know, to just place that that path forward to pave that path that okay, you know,
this is not part of Islam, and this is why it's not part of Islam. However, the media chooses
		

			What to cover and what not to cover, we reach out to the media all the time.
		

			But the types of guests that are brought on these media outlets are often, you know, not
representative of our Muslim community. And when we do have someone that's put on these news
channels eventually from our community before they can even ask a question, they're asked questions
like, Do you support Hamas? Like, when, you know, they're immediately put on the hot seat and you
know, their, their entire public life is put on display? So, people, you know, people don't want to
deal with that nonsense, right. So we do condemn, we do stand up against that bigotry, and we stand
up against that terrorism and all violence, in fact,
		

			but we've condemned ourselves out. So that's one.
		

			As far as the second part of that question, which is, Muslims are being or were being attacked, not
Muslims, the biggest victims, most of the victims of ISIS are Muslims. And I Muslims hate ISIS,
probably more than even non American Muslims hate ISIS more than most Americans do, probably. So
Muslims are the greatest victims of ISIS. And actually, you know, the journalists that are being
that were being massacred and things of that sort. There are a lot of Muslim journalists that were
being massacred, too.
		

			So that doesn't take away from the tragedy of losing American journalists and things of that sort.
But what about the hundreds of Syrian journalists and Iraqi journalists that were beheaded as well
by ISIS, so we're fighting this cancer,
		

			as well.
		

			I often tell people, the irony of my situation, I've had death threats from ISIS, and I've also been
threatened by islamophobes. So I've been attacked online actually have screenshots and emails and
things of that sort from ISIS threatening to kill me for speaking out against them. And then I've
been threatened by islamophobe for secretly belonging to ISIS, and for being a symbol for being for
sympathizing with ISIS and for being a closet Islamist and so on, so forth. So the extremists will
always will always speak in, you know, in a synchronized fashion, but we have to reject it
altogether. Okay. How can you tell the good ones from the bad ones, because they are now being
		

			trained to shave and wear crosses and act very American to fool the public. Okay. And
		

			on a regular basis, I'm just saying, and I applaud you for bringing those questions for right. I
think that it's tough. Yeah.
		

			I guess the good ones have beards, or
		

			I'm not sure. Well, I say, How can I tell any good person from any bad person, and I tell my
children, you know, the Boogey Man doesn't look like a Boogeyman? Sure, sure. So that's, that's how
I answer it. But how do you tell him much more? How do you tell the way that you, you know, how do
you tell a potential supremacist or potential mass school shooter, you know, from from from a normal
person that's not going to shoot up a an elementary school? Right. So I think that, again, it's the
implied racism, that
		

			and the boogeyman effect. And even if you watch these different movies, there was a movie that came
out recently about the Iraq the soldier in Iraq, I forgot what the name was.
		

			Was it? No, not 13 hours Benghazi, the soldier,
		

			American Sniper, and I think the only the only Muslim that appeared to be good in the movie turned
out to be evil as well, right? So this idea of you know that that kind Muslim, the cab driver, the
neighbor that that sweet Muslim is really, you know, plotting to kill you, and they're practicing up
to you, and they're hiding their faith and these types of things. So you can't beat that. That's not
something that we can do. We just can't beat that. So what I say is, I would rather die with love,
then live with a beautiful, so that's
		

			beautiful, I think.
		

			So, I wish more people were like the the rest of the questions are kind of along that line. So I
think we're good. But, but I would like to know and this is something that Miriam gave me an article
is wonderful. What can we actually do? Because it is infuriating to me to hear stories that she
tells me and knowing how much I love her and her family and and the folks that she in her community.
It just it's infuriating to not know what to do.
		

			And what what can we actually do?
		

			We can continue to encourage dialogue and engagement and continue to respond to the negativity with
with more positive things. I think efforts like this, I think service projects, I think initiatives,
I think
		

			open mosques and open churches and synagogues and interfaith dialogues, people coming together and
people using whatever they have, I don't ever belittle your position, you know to fight one, one
person's hatred and and stereotype is a noble job in and of itself. So don't ever belittle your
capacity with what's been given to you.
		

			You know, you don't even if you're not speaking to a million people, if you're speaking to one
that's good enough so everyone in their own right and in their own capacity, just fighting that
		

			negativity. I think that's, you know, hopefully those voices will come together. And I do believe
that we're moving towards a more tolerant America. I think that I think that the younger generation
is by and large, far more tolerant and accepting and, you know, of a more diverse America. So I
think we'll be okay. Well, that's good to know. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, that wraps our
time of asking questions with Imam Omar Suleiman. I want to thank you for the opportunity for me and
for folks here to ask questions. I want to thank the people who showed up today to hear the
interview and then to bring your own questions, whether they're from your yourself, whether it from
		

			family members and others. The more opportunities we have to ask questions, the more opportunities
we have for dialogue, the better off we'll all be. And so I'm grateful for this time together. I'm
grateful for for all the folks that you see here and all the folks behind the scenes that are
working to make this possible. This makes our country better. It makes our culture better. And I'm
grateful for opportunities like this or good day.