From Identity to Community

hamdulillah earnest

31 Rudy bIllahi min surely and fusina Ahmed say Melina miyetti Allah for Allah Allah Allah Allah.

Allah here the Allah, wa shadow Allah ilaha illallah wa jalla wa shadow Muhammad

sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam rubbished rashly surgery.

We certainly Amani

washlet Dr. Camilla San

Joaquin Sharon FC or Fela, Teresa any one other Odle we'll

be right back Nero Bella Alameen wa salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.

First of all, I want to apologize for, I wasn't trying to be cool on the stage with my sunglasses and stuff. You can't see it from there. But that, this, these lights here, and I must be kidding. I want to say this, my daughter's here, she still thinks she can still beat me running. But anyway,

I'm getting a little older and for meeting all those bad Egyptian conditions, starting to give me trouble with my eyes. So I was just trying to protect my eyes a little bit, because I can't see without my real glasses. Now.

The other thing that I want to start off by saying is

I've been to a number of RAS conferences, and these Rs conferences are, are usually held it and Canada. And for me, it's been a wonderful sort of Canadian experience. But at this moment, I want to take the opportunity, and welcome the Canadians to my country.

Welcome.

The title of the theme that I've been assigned is the American Muslim experience, from identity to community. And I've tried to take that assignment quite literally. And that's when I'm going to try to limit my remarks this afternoon to

but prior to going into the topic, proper, I have a somewhat

what may be deemed to be a lengthy sort of preamble or introduction. Because for me, it's really important, especially in these days, and times that one one speaks, that one is actually understood, to be saying, what one intends to say.

What I want to try and do therefore is to try to put you in a position to actually hear me and to hear me in the context, in which I mean to convey the meanings that I'm trying to convey.

Sometimes in order to really be heard,

to be heard, to the point that people can actually process what you're saying. It's not only enough that you speak clearly and eloquently, it's also necessary that people come to an understanding of the actual perspective from which you speak.

And what you say, and your capacity as a father is not one to be understood in the same way as what you say, and your capacity as a son. And so the perspective from what you speak, is really going to inform what people take from your words. And what I like to do today myself is as a preamble, both to this talk, and to the talk that I have to give later on this afternoon. I want to try and put you are in a position to understand what I actually mean, when I say what I have to say about the topic of the American Muslim experience from identity to community.

The first thing I want to

say here is that

one of the problems that I have and speaking in an American context often has to do with the fact that

I have a sort of complex identity

I mean complex, not in the sense of difficult to understand. But I mean, in the sense of being made up of multiple ingredients.

On the one hand, I am a Muslim.

At the same time, I'm also a Westerner. In fact, I'm a very particular species of Westerner. I'm an American.

And so I am a Muslim, American.

And for many people, including, unfortunately,

a significant number of Muslims.

These two features are not easily interacted together, they don't combine to produce a synergy that can make for new possibilities and new promises. For many people, this is an oxymoron. How can you be a Muslim and an American at the same time, you cannot honestly combine, you cannot effectively combine you cannot realistically combine, being a Muslim on the one hand with being an American on the other. And what this has a tendency to do for a lot of people

is when they hear you speak,

that they hear you as a Muslim, and nothing else. And they process everything you say in that context. Or they hear you as an American, and nothing else. And they process what you say in that context. And for me, this is a problem.

Because as I said,

I speak

not just as a Muslim,

but as a Muslim American, as an American Muslim. And what do I mean by that? Because I know some people get a little

shaky when they start hearing things like that.

It's them me Leakey, in fact, I was in Cairo last year as a whole book, entitled, in Islam, and I'm lucky to sort of compromise Islam, I guess that means we got to make three slots a day instead of five or something like that. We don't wash our feet, and we'll lose some I don't know. But that's not what I mean by the fact that I am an American Muslim. By that, when I say that I'm an American, I don't just mean that I'm somebody who

was just born in America, or who simply lives in America, or who just has an American, or carries American citizenship. I am all those things. But that's not what I'm referring to. For me, when I say that I'm an American, I mean, that I'm somebody's I'm somebody who's, whose psychological, whose intellectual, whose emotional, whose cultural profile was fired out of a centuries long existence, here in America, and handed down to me, generation after generation, something that has entered into my DNA, and makes me part of who I am. All of my childhood dreams take shape in America. And when I dream of success, going down to court and slam dunking like Dr. J, the people in the stands who are

cheering, there are Americans in my dreams. When I dream about my daughter's happily getting married, and going to the wedding and crying. I dream about a wedding that's held right here in the country of my birth, and of their birth. When Andre, my my son successfully, completing that college degrees and going on to successful careers, those dreams are an American. That's what I mean by myself being an American.

I don't mean that I'm just born here. I mean, that my constitution has been shaped by the fact that I was born and raised here. And I have no apologies about that. At the same time, however, I'm a Muslim.

And when I say I'm a Muslim, I don't simply mean someone who was born to Muslim parents. I personally was not I was not born to Muslim parents.

I came into Islam as a conscious choice.

I looked around the society that I was in and I undertook my own critique of that reality. And on the basis of that critique, and by the since the existence of Allah subhanaw taala putting me

In contact with people who could guard my hand, I decided to become a Muslim. On my own free will when no gunboats out in the Atlantic Ocean will know, armies invading their American lands. This was my own free, uncoerced choice to become a Muslim,

as a Muslim, then when I say that I am a Muslim, when I say that I am a Muslim,

I mean, that I'm a Muslim.

And that, and that my most basic, most fundamental, and primary commitment is to Islam.

And when I say that, I don't mean just Islam as a religion, in the sense of, you know, some sort of private set of beliefs that can be very neatly tucked away, and limited to one's private life. That's not what I mean, when I say that Islam is my primary commitment. I mean, that Islam

is an orientation, for me, an orientation towards life,

an orientation, that recognizes as its point of departure, two main things, one, that this life that I have, that continues to pulsate within me, this is a gift from God. That's the first thing. Second, as a point of departure,

God is watching me as I live my life, and he is aware of how I'm living my life. And he will call me to account for how I live my life. That's what I mean when I say that Islam is an orientation for me. And therefore, it informs the manner in which I go about living my life. And that is the primary thing that informs the way that I live my life, I might not always hit the mark, my wife and daughter I hear, they can probably tell you a little something about that. I might not always hit the mark. But that is my orientation. That is my ideal. That is my aspiration. That is how I want to live my life. So I'm a I'm an American, on the one hand, born raised and fired in America, and I'm a

Muslim on the other whose primary commitment, primary commitment is to Islam.

Now, I want to pause and just take a moment, hopefully, to put some Muslims here at ease, because in the present climate, I'm sure there are a few of our brothers and sisters who are out there who are getting a little bit nervous.

Because when people start talking about their primary commitments, being to slam and all that stuff, and this kind of an atmosphere, you know, that raises

that raises a few fears on the part of Muslims, because it implies that if your primary commitment is to Islam, then your primary commitment cannot be to the American state. And if your primary commitment is not to the American state, you are problem.

So there are many Muslims out there saying Dr. Jackson, get us all locked up and deported.

So many Muslims are nervous when they hear those kinds of things. On the other hand, there are some people in this room.

They are the liars and the hypocrites. I don't mean when after 18 in the sense of what we talked about my nephew 18 in the Muslim community, I mean, there are some non Muslims probably in this room. They are liars, and they are hypocrites. And they are here to take my words, to twist them. And to them make them into a reason for America as a whole to be scared of Islam and his Muslims, these people to not be loved to our own society. Those people and there's some of them here, I can almost guarantee you I don't know them by face, but they're here. They're jumping for joy. God.

He said it right out of his own mouth. His primary commitment is to Islam.

So let me then because they're saying that if your primary commitment is to a slab, then you just a fifth column. You got to do something about these people.

All right. So let me then try to set the record straight.

And let me speak for myself, as opposed to having someone else speak for me.

My primary commitment is to Islam.

And it's not

to the American state.

Nor is it to any other state, nor will it ever be to any other state, including a so called Islamic State.

My primary commitment is to live in my life in a manner that God and His Messenger have prescribed for me to live my life. And that means that sometimes

that means sometimes, yes, I'm wanting to speak for society, when society needs to be spoken for, and I'm wanting to speak, even for the American state, when the American state needs to be spoken for, but sometimes, I want to have to stand up. And I'm going to have to speak against American society and against the American state in order to live my life in a manner that earns God's pleasure.

That's what I mean, when I say that my primary law, my primary commitment is to Islam, and not to any state, and those liars who are out there, I want you to hear what I said, not only the American state, Iman and Islamic State, I will never prostitute my religion, just to hand it over to some state to do whatever it wants to do with it as some kind of free permission to just go on and abuse people in the name of religion. I won't do it. That's not what my primary commitment is. That's not what my primary commitment is. And I will tell you, this, we don't need religious communities who were like that. I personally, do not believe in that form of patriotism that says, my country, right

or wrong. I don't believe in that form of patriotism. In fact, we had that under hidden.

And we see what that led to,

I believe in a different form of patriotism is why I wanted to take the time to position myself so you can understand where I'm coming from. Because for many of you, America might just be a country.

Like so many other countries. Let me tell you something, for me. America is Home.

Home.

But I don't believe in that form of patriotism that says my country right or wrong. I believe in a form of patriotism, that takes off on a statement that we get from the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam where he says, also a Hapa volumen Omar bloomin

he said, What? Help your brother

whether he is right

or wrong. Hmm. Then they said to the Prophet

that skip some minutes, nevermind. Then they said to the Prophet, oh Rasul Allah, we know what you aren't, we know what you mean, when you say, help your brother if he is right.

But how can we help our brother if he's wrong? What did the Prophet tell them, you help your brother when he's wrong, by stopping him from being wrong. That is the form of patriotism that I believe in, I will help my country, I will help my society as long as it is right and when they are wrong, I will stand up and say you are wrong. And I will do so not in an attempt to destroy or undermined you. I will do so out of a sense of duty to the place that I call home

to the place that I call home, to the place that my children call home to the place that my grandchildren are going to call home in sha Allah.

So I want an understood

what I mean when I say my primary commitment is to Islam, and no one should be afraid of this. Muslims who have a sincere commitment to Islam, if they understand Islam, and I'm gonna talk about this in a minute. This society has been

Nothing to be afraid of. And in fact, in fact, it can expect to reap the benefits of a Muslim community who can bring a sense of sanity to some of the things that we see going on in our own society. We can be the people who offer the alternative, we can be the people who reintroduce to our sort of national culture, that we don't simply spend our time in distractions, but that we are people who know the meaning of sacrifice, and discipline. And so when we are hit with hard times, we know how to sacrifice and discipline, we don't want to have to go out and and and ravage other countries and ravage other resources, just in order to fill an ever expanding appetite. For more and

more and more, this is part of what a healthy community of Muslims could contribute to this society.

And this is what we need as Muslims to begin to focus on I believe, in fact, the last thing that America needs

is a scared, cowardly, yes, men and yes, women, religious community.

That's the last thing America needs.

What this country needs from us,

is the courage to stand up, and to speak the truth, and to speak the truth, even when it's against us. And when I say that we should have our society when it's wrong, I mean, wrong. I don't mean that it's doing things just because we don't like it. They serve, I don't know, mashed potatoes instead of couscous, or Baba news. This is cultural imperialism. And many Muslims are afflicted with this kind of cultural imperialism. They blame the West, when the West goes around the world and wants to impose its culture on everybody else. And then they come right here into their own Muslim communities, I want to impose their culture in the same way. This is not my commitment

at all. And that's not what I mean, when I talk about, I talk about my primary commitment being to is that our country needs us. And it needs us to stand up.

And if we want to stand up, we have to have something that we're going to stand up in the name of. And if we have compromised the way, all of the principles that define our religion as what it is, then we don't have anything to stand up in the name of all we have are interests and no principles. And that is what we have to we have to avoid.

So this takes me back to my original point

about being heard, and heard to be saying what I'm actually trying to say. So now that you know that I'm an American, I had no apologies about that. And you know that I'm a Muslim, and I have no apologies about that. You should know this guy.

When I critique America,

I critique America, not just as a Muslim, but also as a consciously self identifying American.

In other words, my critique of America for whatever I critique

is an internal critique.

I'm critiquing my own. There's not an outsider. Alien critique

is a critique, grounded in a sense of belongingness to America, and duty to America. That is the kind of critique that I am engaged in. And when I say belonging is to America, and duty to America. I'm not necessarily talking about any particular policy of the American government.

But I'm talking about my sense of belongingness.

And my sense of duty, again, to the place that I call home. And so when you hear me critique America, don't just go off and applause guess another Muslim critique of America. Next, I'm so happy. I'm not critiquing America, just as a Muslim. I'm critiquing America as a Muslim American.

And I'm critiquing her from within as a part of my own self critique, because I to help make America and I

to own her failures, as well as her successes. So when I critique her, I critique her as an American. Conversely, when I praise America, and there is much to praise America about this fight our problems with with with many aspects of American foreign policy, and we have to, on the one hand, speak to what's wrong with American foreign policy, but we cannot allow ourselves to be reduced to people who equate America with our foreign policy, only. That not only what she is, so when I praise America, I praise America not just as an American.

Also praise as a Muslim.

And I praise her as a Muslim.

In the spirit of what Allah subhanaw taala says, Yeah, you Hala Dena, Kunal Ko, Amina, Bill Christie Shuhada. And he left Walla, Walla and fusi come out of a sense of fairness, of integrity, and honesty and truth. Our praise America, when America deserves to be praised, and there is much to praise America for and the only people the only two people who don't know that one,

somebody who's never been anywhere.

I've been around.

I've been to many countries in the Muslim world.

And I've seen trust me, there is much to praise America for

that's number one. Number two, number two,

number toe

some people

just can't bring themselves to pray something or somebody with whom they have a disagreement.

We don't like what America is doing in Afghanistan. And therefore, we can't praise America for the freedoms that we enjoy it at home.

No, we say we don't like what you're doing in Afghanistan. And here's why.

And we say we love the fat. We respect the fat. We appreciate the the fat. We honor the fact that you provide these liberties for us and everybody else at home. We are a fair and balanced community. That's the spirit in which I critique and appraise America. It's also the spirit in which

I critique and praise the Muslim community.

And there are things that the Muslim community needs to be critiqued about. And there are things that the Muslim community needs to be praised about. And when I could take the Muslim community don't just look at me shave Islam I'm Leakey

is one of those those Americans who's not really loyal to the Muslim community, he's critiquing us. No, I'm too chicken, you as a Muslim. As one of you, he, and when I praise the Muslim community, I'm praising the Muslim community, as an American as well, on the understanding that other fair minded Americans would also praise that Muslim community. So this is the light in which I want you to hear what I have to say about the issue of the American Muslim experience, from identity to

community in all of the 15 minutes I have left now, but that's my fault.

Now, I assume that this title is meant to carry a sense, or in a sense to describe where we are as a Muslim community in America today. And then to talk about how we can get to where we need to go. Everybody recognizes that we're not quite where we would like to be today.

All right. We are a community that has been imprisoned by identity politics, a community that prided itself on its differences from those around them. We prided ourselves on that. And then 911 happened

And we found ourselves then in a position where we now need to figure out how to reduce the differences between us and the people around us. After we had been a community who's equated commitment to Islam, with how much we different from those who are around us, we then end up as a community, who now wants to what reduce diminish our differences with those around us so that they can accept us into the body politic as people who belong in America.

So the question becomes, how now? Do we reduce our emphasis on identity, and how we're different from others, and get to a point where we can end up in community with those people who are around us. And I guess that's what I'm being called here to say a few words about.

Now, personally, I think it's really important to understand two things. One, how we got here, how do we get to the point where we are right now.

And we, as a Muslim community, have to understand that we have to take ownership and responsibility for this didn't just happen.

It didn't just happen. We just woke up one day, and where are we? No, it didn't just happen like that. We as a Muslim community, were agents, we had agency and bringing this about, and we need to understand that and take responsibility for second, we need to ask

is this really where we should be?

And if it weren't for 911, we would all be fine. With where we are right now, still emphasizing the differences between those around us and ourselves.

In other words of 911 had not happened. We still be harping on women to shop with home and for whom in home.

We still we still be harping on that. Is that Is that where we are? Or do we recognize that we made a mistake?

That we misunderstood something.

And that as a result of that, we have to go back? Get the right understanding and correct that mistake. Now personally, I believe that we made a mistake. And that we miss understood

the Sunnah of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam

that we misunderstood Islam, and that in many ways, we betrayed the best tradition of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.

And only by correcting this misunderstanding, can we effectively find our way forward? Now I got three points that I want to hopefully try to rush through. But they're very important points. I want to begin by looking at the history and the demographics of America in the 20th century, Dr. Omar has given us some very enlightening insight into America primarily before the 20th century. But I want to talk a little bit about America in the 20th century. And the third thing I want to I want to begin with is the fact that Islam in America is old.

And even beyond the individual conversions that Dr. Amar talked about, even in terms of communal conversion to Islam in America, communal is conversion to Islam and America is almost a century old. 100 years old, Nobel duallie founded the more science temple in 1913. We're now 2010 That's almost 100 years. All right, but there are many years going to say what more science

but that why don't

they want real Muslims? They didn't really believe in Islam as a GP believed in and therefore they should not be counted as any kind of beginning of Islam.

First mistake

first mistake

on the web on the basis of what do I say this?

Yes,

there are key that

was not Islam

so what

stuff Allah Yeah.

Me so what?

Listen to what I'm about to say, because the problem that we have

As as a community, we have had no historical consciousness. We have not understood conversion to Islam as a process. We've understood it as an event. And it's never been that way. Not even in the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam he's not first mistakes. I want to ask you right now. And don't lie to yourself. Be honest with yourself. What do you think Islam was like when it first went to India?

You think they all have the right Aikido?

Really?

What do you think Islam was like when it went to Southeast Asia? And Malaysia, Indonesia and places like that? You think they popped up overnight with the right IP that? What do you think the stand was like in Sub Saharan Africa, when it first went to Sub Saharan Africa, it takes communities time to find themselves in a position of orthodoxy. And we as a Muslim community need to understand that and we need to understand how to chaperone these communities along that track. Not to come in and bust them all upside the head, you ain't no listen.

And then destroy the very process by which they might arrive at that first mistake. And I want to call your attention to something here. I'm going to call your attention to something here. And the man

the fame eponym

of the school

wrote a book called macula and Islam he was blessed. And masala mean, the doctrines he didn't have the Messiah

of the Islami, what did he mean by that? Those people who identified with Islam

who associated themselves with Islam,

and wallah, you read this book, and you read some of the doctrines in that book. It will make your hair stand on end,

but actually understood something, something that we have not understood that this is part of the process.

This is part of the process. People let me tell you,

this is strict time, isn't it? Yes. I wanted to.

I wanted to just give a sense. I mean, this is real. This is real. When I first became a Muslim, I'm a convert from Christianity. Right. I didn't want to hear none. And I know sunnah.

You know why?

I'm coming out of Christianity when you got an intermediate, understand this line, because you got a straight track to God. That's what I want.

And my understanding of the cylinder was outstanding, and my wife.

And it took some time, and some brothers and some understanding to chaperone me through that. You understand what I mean by that. I wasn't rejecting Islam. I'm trying to find my way.

Trying to find my way.

But we didn't give this movement here, Tom to find its way. First mistake.

Right. And I want to say one last thing about this. This even goes back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

You read in the book of Sera. There is an incident they call it that will unwed that unlocked that and walk

in it's like in the eighth year after the Hijrah, eight years, after the prophet had been in Medina, teaching and doing all that he was doing, he takes a group of Muslims out, and they find some pagans who have hung some things on some bush sort of as a shrine. And what do they say to the Prophet?

Oh Rasul Allah make us a shrine like the shrine they have.

Clear what

you see what I mean? What does the Prophet do? Stuck to Allah Ahmad? Let's just know. No. He says, no, no, no, no, you're still you're still ignorant. All right. And he works with them. This is not going to avail them. Hmm. This is not going to avail them. No, no, no, no, you can't do this. And he went, and he moves on. That's the part of the process.

The process. So the first mistake we made was, we came to this whole thing with no sense of historical consciousness. Second

because I'm immigration quotas. Muslim Muslims on the Muslim world did not begin to come to America in any real numbers until after 1965 1965. They change the immigration rules. They programmed the national

The origins that Muslims are able to come over right? Now, when Muslims come came from the Muslim world, the process of Islamization understand what I mean by Islamization do. I mean everybody has a right? Doesn't mean I'm always praying five times a day like they should doesn't mean that nobody was doing anything haram. That's not what I mean. I mean that the people have begun to identify with Islam. And they were on their way to find in themselves, just like they were in India, just like they were in Sub Saharan Africa, just like they were in Southeast Asia. And somehow America gets denied this privilege of finding itself. Ah, you Americans, y'all won't be 100% Muslim. Tomorrow.

That's it.

Right? So when we come over, what we do is

we don't recognize something that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught us through his sunnah. All right, in terms of how we interact with those societies around us, and in fact, this is a shame.

Elijah Muhammad

was closer to following the tsunami, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in this regard than the Sunnis. Well,

what do I mean by that? Elijah Maha, by the way, I know many of you are wondering, no, I was never a member of the Nation of Islam.

All right, I'm speaking as a Muslim here. But what did Elijah Muhammad do? He said, there are wonderful aspects about American society and culture. And what am I going to do, I'm going to take all of them, and reinscribe them with a slanted value. And all the other stuff, I'm gonna leave

to the point that they're able to come up with an Islamic identity

that is wholly made up of American cultural artifacts, them understand what I mean by that. And what they do, just like the problem was able to do is show that you can establish your difference from the people, because you are, you are someone up there, Hey, you are not the one of ship, of course, you are different from them in that regard, while at the same time remaining a part of them,

remaining a part of them. And the benefit of this, just like it was in a time when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is that when those people finally come around to actually hearing you to what you're saying, and they begin to contemplate the whole enterprise of entering into Islam, they won't feel like they have to commit cultural, racial, ethnic suicide, or apostasy. In order to do that. They can just walk right across the street, and they're still at home. This is what the Prophet did. salAllahu alayhi wasallam look at Arabian society. Look at all the things that the Prophet accepted from Arabian society. Some he accepted in home, some he modified. And by the way,

don't get confused here. Arabian society at the time was a society that oppose Islam.

This is a society where Allah subhanaw taala himself says, of idol like Mulrooney, Abu AQL, Jack,

was it happened to Arabian society, and yet this society is a society in which the prophet could do what?

Take some of this, leave some of that, take some of this, leave some of that, to appropriate it, according to what he saw fit. And here the bottom line is, is this is that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was able to do this in large part, because despite the fact that he was the prophet, when he went to Medina as a society, he had the courage and the humility to ask.

He didn't come in and say, I'm the prophet of God. Nobody has a better understanding of Islam than me. I'm gonna tell you what everything means. No, he said, What?

These Jewish community here, they're fasting on this day, why why are they fasting that? You hear what I said? Why are they doing that? He has, why are they doing that? Why are they doing that? All right. And because he was able to rely on the insight of Sahaba who knew Medina better than he did, who understood the implications of what was going on. The Prophet was able to benefit from that experience, and to avoid missteps that could have cost him dearly.

And this is the second mistake that we as a Muslim community, men and women

Got arrogance.

We do not have the courage and the humility to say, yes, we may understand Islam. We don't we know very little about America. We don't understand what's going on here. Let us let us ask our Muslim brothers and sisters who are already here, let us find out what's going, what's going on.

The second mistake, third mistake, third mistake, and I got 13 seconds.

But I'm gonna, this is a very important point, I have two more points, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna limit it to this, because this is a very important point. And here's what the beginning of the solution resides. The third mistake that we made, was that we lost our ability to distinguish between non Muslim and earnest Lemak.

The people who came to this country from the Muslim world, they understood the slam, and therefore the Islamic and the cultural terms with which they had grown up. And I'm not, I'm not mad at anybody, this is not a blame game here. I'm one of you. This is an attempt to understand where we are and how we can go on from here. All right, they understood that. And if Islam and Islamic does what we do back in Pakistan, or Egypt, or whatever, then the American is what?

Honestly,

and we end up doing what, the more we move away from the Americans, the more we become one.

The more standard some of us in this hall, brother Omar, got some walks on the stage people say

will also feel ashamed.

No, no, don't get me wrong, if there are people who have to kneel on top.

But that's not what we're doing. We're saying that's not how we do it in Pakistan, therefore, it's what Bible I'm not picking on Pakistan.

Therefore, it's not Islamic. Understand what I mean by that. And we could not understand that many things that non Muslims do.

Maybe non Muslim, doesn't mean that they're an Islamic, I gotta stop. All right. And I want to read you as a dog. I hope you get this point, because I'm skipping here. I want to read you a factual answer given by a classical, *ing very famous Ally's Enactus Salah chef a diamond 660 1261 of the Common Era. And it is was so

Alice was bad

alleges are young people said Alice was a baller

Alice had gone on so much that they referred to him as what Sutala man,

the boss of the scholars, they came to him and they asked him the following question.

What do the jurors mean when they refer to foreign dress? Who are the foreigners? And what is the difference between foreign and Nana? All right, this is the latest response in his fatawa if you want I can give you book page publication date the whole nine. This is his response.

Foreigners refers to those we have been forbidden by the prophet to imitate, such as the Persian kings at that time. This prohibition, however, applies only to what they do that is in violation of our religious law. What they do that falls under the legal categories of recommended obligatory are simply listed in our religious law is not to be abandoned simply because they practicing

law you as the to RT him. Yes, indeed, our religious law does not forbid imitating those who do what God exalted has permitted us to do.

This 800 years ago, we forgot that there's much more to this than that. And I don't want to argue that we just go out on a free for all and do everything that non Muslims are doing, because there are issues of cultural and intellectual authority. But one of the major mistakes that we made was that we weren't not able to distinguish between non Muslim and Islamic. And once we are able to make that distinction, then we will get rid of all the false differences between those and those around us and ourselves. And in this way in sha Allah, we can then begin to move back toward a semblance of community apologize for going over time.

Okay