Shadee Elmasry – The Challenges of Uniting Sunni Muslims in the UK
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The speaker discusses the difficulties of bringing Muslims together in the West and the challenges faced by their religion, including LGBTQ rights and schisms. They suggest addressing these issues and finding a balance between graduates and Muslims in order to avoid civilizations. The conversation is disjointed and difficult to follow, with the speakers discussing various topics including the Madrid summit, universalist movement, acceptance of Muslims versus Muslims, and the limits of her own group's rights. They emphasize the need for practicality in a situation and finding a balance between graduates and Muslims.
AI: Summary ©
While we're having this discussion on Harris theology, but you also
have a great desire to bring
Muslims together. Would you like to speak about that for a second?
Yeah, so I think, like I said,
especially here in the West, I mean, so let me just give you a
bit of a bit of context here. Yeah.
By the grace of Allah, I've done. I've been an imam for the last
1314 years, and Hamdulillah.
So I was in Bradford for almost seven years, six, seven years. And
hamdulillah down there. We have majority Muslims.
majority Muslim, even in the schools, you know, in high school,
etc. We have majority of Muslims.
And as you know, inside it will be yes. A human is the product of the
environment. What's the city again? You said Leeds. Bradford,
Bradford? Bradford. Okay. That's good. Yeah. I'm offended. You
haven't heard of it. So? Oh, no, I went, I did go. Oh, yeah, I did
go. Yeah. Teddy. Bradford is very nice. Birmingham was industrial
Bradford had this beautiful huge park and it was prettier city I
think then then Birmingham was Yeah.
So now, everywhere I've been this is more in south towards south, a
bit close to London.
Down here, the demographics
are quite different.
So, of course, I'm going through a journey where I'm learning, I'm
trying to do it myself. So I'm, you know, comparing and
contrasting, you know, seven years there, six, seven years, that six,
seven years here. And I believe the majority of UK at least,
apart from places in Bradford and Birmingham and Leicester, and
Preston, these places,
non Muslims, and then of course, in the West majority non Muslims.
Yeah, our challenges.
You know, we've got very big challenges like LGBTQ, for
example, atheism, and all these other isms, and schisms are on the
rise. And the attack on Islam and Muslims is not on a specific group
is all of us. So this has made me think, you know, we need to do
something about this. We need to actually, yes, this doesn't mean
we compromise our differences. And we say, you know, we unite in
theology, which is impossible. I think that that's impossible. It's
not actually impossible. It must be the other than it is, you know,
it's never happened. Yeah. And I don't think it'll ever happen.
Yes. It's never always been there. And it will always stay there. So
it's normatively impossible to even call to notion of theological
unification. I think that's impossible. Yeah.
So So my thing is now that I think even polemics, and to be honest,
now I need to confess I'm also polemicists, may Allah forgive me,
I'm not good.
But even polemics, our polemic should be discussed in certain
context in a certain way, you know, we have a double bathroom
manava
your classroom settings, maybe academic setting, maybe, you know,
in writing, for example,
but because what I'm seeing is a lot of the online polemic
especially is creating further disunity within the
Muslim denominations. And that is becoming a barrier for us to work
together in order to defend Islam
which the problem
is that I'm not going to mention any names yes any places but just
generally speaking, I've seen messages
where they will happily take pictures with priest and Christian
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. You know, you're working
with love for example.
You can have your opinion about that and whatever. But then they
will be terrified petrified to sit with another Muslim from another
denomination somehow. And I've been told
please let's not take a picture
buddy, our take picture already and go and put the phone away
please, nobody take a picture Subhanallah I realize whoa, this
this this is really bad. So we do have this unfortunately, in some
areas. And I think we need to we need to we need to do something
about it.
There is another shift that we had on who's on the same wavelength as
you Okay. Yama, the Madrid of shift summit in NUS
shift noted Dean Yeah, yeah, but he's Yeah, I'm in contact with the
martial law is far from me and Marshall. He's also the same
mindset Mashallah. It's something where you can say okay, we can
recognize if the left that are here, but it's actually
Eat
a meth Seta, if we don't recognize to not recognize that there are
ads that there are enemies who don't care what your message is.
Exactly, exactly. And regarding that group, there should there has
to be a unification of some of a response to them. Yes. When it
comes to that, that's extremely important, which I would say is a
challenge. Yeah, I did. And in student saying to me recently, he
says to me, well, and I think, you know, now it makes sense why being
sectarian and more easy.
Because you're, you're living with you. Yeah. And you will have these
people in every denomination, every group, you know, who would
who don't want this is like your optimal, or you have the Muslim
And subhanAllah Hadith scholars saying that, the moderator mind
it, people from two different groups will get on with each other
more than the extreme and the moderate of the same group
100% 100% to intelligent people from I would even say different
religions altogether. Intelligent, but also emotionally healthy. Like
they were raised well, and they didn't have any dramas in their
upbringing, can probably they only have 5% in common.
But they're wise enough and mature enough to deal with each other in
a beneficial way.
In contrast to emotionally unstable people who have 95% in
agreement, and only 5% disagreement, will find a way to
create a civil war over the 5%.
The proof of that is that you have neighbors all the time, I think
most of you,
probably in your youth, most of your neighbors were Muslims. In my
youth right now, from my youth until now, I never had a little
Muslim cul de sac, right? Or Muslim, a block a street or
something.
But you learn to survive, right? You set in your mind parameters.
He in His mind have parameters. We both know the parameters unspoken
the and we're very happy as neighbors, right? Why can't that
apply then?
To a McAuliffe? Right. And by the way, many people who talk and
because I talk about Harris theology a lot. I care about it.
Because I care about the consistency, rational consistency
in your beliefs, and learning what your beliefs are. We got
we have some of these people have these heretical groups that are on
our cul de sac, right? And it puts to the test now, okay, what is the
adapt, you have to adapt to the neighbor. Right? Although he's
that he's also a neighbor. So he has the hook of a neighbor.
There are the limits of the Messiah of the keeping company of
the heretical groups, but you also have the vocal the rights of a
neighbor.
Okay, so when somebody a child says, Oh, those are the people
that you said, they're all fake Muslims. I didn't say fake
Muslims, but that's how kids interpreted right? That these guys
are just fake, right? I said, okay, there is Aki, the point,
boom, boom, boom, but there's also the adab the manners of how to
treat a neighbor. Right. And that's what we have to do here.
And that's what I said, I love about that. The shittier has a dub
for every single situation, it gives you an answer for every
situation. And it's, it's a way of living, that doesn't require you
to be some emotional extremist. Like it's practical. It's
something that you can live with. If not, you wouldn't have a
billion people in an Obama when Obama was impractical.
And you had to be some mean person or go to some extremes. This
almost couldn't house 1 billion people is the common person would
sell is this crazy? It's too much