Sherman Jackson – Muslim-Americans on C-Span – Issues Facing American-Muslims

			I
		

			hate
		

			saying
		

			when
		

			men say
		

			Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi
		

			wa, certainly certainly loved him and his colleagues.
		

			First of all, I want to apologize to our dear
		

			moderator, I just don't like long introductions, they sort of warned me and made me nervous. And
secondly, I like to really thank the
		

			interpreters
		

			for their very diligent work.
		

			And I hope, I hope, I hope that my remarks will not tax you too much. Actually, I have just three
points that I would like to put forth, for our consideration in terms of the theme that we are here
to contemplate, namely, navigating challenges, and seizing opportunities. I think this is
particularly relevant in the political season, and the overall socio political context in which
we're living now. So the first issue that I'm gonna put forth for our consideration is an enormous
challenge and a challenge, I think that as a community, we have got to come to a level of being more
attentive to what we're doing in this realm. And that has to do with how we negotiate on the one
		

			hand,
		

			the enormously important and complex social political challenges that we face, including the
challenge of building and sustaining meaningful alliances with communities other than our own.
		

			And yet, at the same time, as we do that, how we go about the ability of preserving and protecting
our own moral identity as Muslims.
		

			How do we have political alliances with other communities, other communities whose moral point of
departure may differ from our own? How can we come to the point where we recognize shared interests
between us and those communities, and yet, not be so overtaken by the existence of the moment that
we are willing to forget our moral identity as a Muslim community, including some of those things
that might separate us from some of our allies? I think that in this regard, we write, you might
want to remember
		

			something that I think that probably all converts in an aroma, remember, particularly those who come
from a Christian background, and those are the words of the Bible.
		

			For what does a man pass it to gain
		

			if he should gain the whole world, but lose his own soul. And sometimes we get into the political
arena. And it seems like, perhaps all we think about is winning, or getting the right press. And
what I want to submit to us is that we have to be careful at the same time about protecting our
moral identity. Because to be a Muslim, is to have a moral identity, we stand for certain things,
and we do not stand for other things. And we cannot allow the existence of the moment to cloud that
for us. So what this means to me, is that we have got to find a way to get beyond the simple logic
of quid pro quo as a fancy word. That simply means that if you scratch my back, I'll scratch your
		

			back. If you support me, then I'll support you. And the logic is very simple. But I think that
instead of engaging this logic in a very flat and nuanced, unsophisticated way, we have to engage it
as a community, that is principle the self respecting
		

			And that is discriminating. When we reach out to build alliances with other communities, we have to
be willing and able to say, these are the things that we can join you on, that we can stand shoulder
to shoulder with you on, that we can march into battle with you on. But these are the things that we
cannot do that. And we have to be a self respecting community. I had a friend once his father was
the Mauritian, not the Martian, the Mauritian from the country, Mauritius off the southern coast of
Africa. He was the Mauritian ambassador to Singapore.
		

			And I asked him once I said, What is the first principle of diplomacy. And he said to me, the first,
the first principle of diplomacy is that if you're going to speak to another
		

			interest group, then you have to be willing to recognize their interests, and you have to be
insistent that they recognize yours. So as we go about this business, especially in this political
season,
		

			I've tried to reach out and build alliances, and call people to the causes that are meaningful to
us, and be called to causes that are meaningful to others, we cannot lose our soul. We have to stand
for who we are. And let me just give you a concrete example that I'm sure will be a bit
controversial, but we're living in that age. All right. I think that so for example, when it comes
to communities, like the LBGT community, we have to be discriminated. And we have to be willing to
say, we will stand with you in terms of supporting your right to housing, your right to employment,
your right to health care, your right to education, all these basic rights that have to do with
		

			sustaining a life. But we are not necessary. We are not standing with you when it comes to
supporting a particular lifestyle, a lifestyle that may violate our moral identity. We have to be
willing as a community to stand up and be who we are. Because if we're not going to stand up and be
who we are, what is it that we're fighting for?
		

			We have to remember that. So we have to remember that there's a difference between supporting
somebody else's right to life, and to live and supporting their lifestyle on the other. And we
should expect them in many instances, to stay to say the same thing. But we have to be clear about
who we are. The second issue I want to raise
		

			is an even more in some ways, potentially controversial issue. But as I said, we're living in times
where we have to face reality. And we have to face reality with each other.
		

			I've said on other occasions, that, in my view, the black community in America is potentially the
baddie Hashem, of the Muslim community.
		

			You know, if you don't really think about this, either and the sooner Muhammad Soloway was,
		

			you know that he was able to sustain and prosecute his mission in Makkah, because he had the
backing, he had the support
		

			his client, Abadi, Hashem, who came to his support, not because they believed in him as Prophet,
most of them at that time did not. But because they recognized and accepted him as one of their own.
		

			And they said that,
		

			as he has it, it would be an offense to our honor to allow anyone to accost this man who happens to
be one of our own.
		

			The process
		

			took full advantage of the fact that he belonged to Benny Hashim, and that Bernie national was
willing to come forward and protect him from his enemies, including physically.
		

			I have long argued that I believe that the black community in America is potentially the bendy hash
of the Muslim community. And one of my fears that I have right now today is that we are squandering
potentially, and it's an extremely important relationship.
		

			Jim, with the black community in America, because we are being very hypocritical in the way that we
relate to the black causes, we are trying to commodify black causes, and use them for our own
interests, and then turn around and demonstrate virtually no concern for the lives and the welfare
of the black community at all. And this hypocrisy, this hypocrisy, this hypocrisy will have a
devastating effect on us. Because let me tell you something, you think it's tough being looked upon
as terrorists,
		

			try being looked upon as hypocrites, and people who are liars, and do not believe in what they say
they stand for. If we get branded as that, we will be isolated, we will be able to achieve nothing.
And just to give you an example, of just how serious this is, many of you here today, because we
were celebrating
		

			the legacy of the great Muhammad Ali, Hola, here at this.
		

			What I want to share with you something that hopefully may give you insight into what I'm trying to
convey
		

			in 1967 When Muhammad Ali refused to go into the military,
		

			and he argued that his position was based on his understanding of his duty as a Muslim. So he was
taking the stand as a Muslim,
		

			the black community at large rally to Muhammad Ali's defense, and these are primarily non Muslim,
black Americans. And we're talking about many people who had just as much to lose, as did Muhammad
Ali. We're talking about people like Bill Russell, we're talking about people like Jim Brown, we're
talking about accomplished athletes, accomplished entertainers, people who saw Muhammad Ali as one
of their own, and who were therefore willing to come to his defense as one of their own, that I
happened in 1967. All right, fast forward, just about 30 years. In 1996, everybody's talking about
the San Francisco quarterback, refusing to stand up for the anthem today. He wasn't the first one.
		

			And 9096 Mark was
		

			the basketball player for the Colorado nugget for the Denver Nuggets. He was used to stand up for
the national anthem, and what happened to him, he was virtually drummed out of an NBA career. And
what I want to convey to you now, however, is that in his case, the black community did not come
forward as they came for, for Muhammad Ali. And we here sitting in this hall have to ask ourselves
why? And one of the reasons why is that the image of Islam in America
		

			had evolved from the point that the black community no longer identified with it, it had become an
emergent phenomena, and
		

			was no longer looked upon primarily as one of their own, but as one of them.
		

			This is what we have to be careful about allowing to happen. And again, and again, the Prophet
Mohammed recognize themselves as belonging to a people.
		

			And that then natural bond among people
		

			is a bond that should be invested in is a bond that shouldn't be in the developed embrace. And now
this not only the profit and the people,
		

			benefit from the
		

			people, who were so many people who somebody, they also benefited from the protection of any asset.
So one of my concerns now today is that the Muslim community is being very, very remiss in the way
in which it is on about dealing with the black community. The black community is not stupid.
		

			And you cannot fool them. And we cannot pretend to care. We cannot talk about we want to stand
shoulder to shoulder with Black Lives Matter. And yet we're not even willing to come into our own
masajid and deal with the anti black racism in our own masajid
		

			We cannot do this, this is not sustainable. And the very people, the very people who will expose us
in this regard of black American Muslims in our own communities, this is something to which we must
pay attention. We cannot be a community of hypocrisy. We have to be a community of principle. And we
have to be a community who understands the Sunnah of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and who
follows the Sunnah Muhammad,
		

			and who seeks to translate that into the context of our own reality today. The last point that I
want to move to is really a point that My dear sister, Dr. Manson brought up as well, I just wanted
to frame it in perhaps a slightly different frame.
		

			But I think that it's really important for us as Muslims, especially as we move ahead, in the social
political arena, that we reconnect to a civics, a pilaf
		

			to a civics, that accommodates disagreement, not any disagreement, principle disagreement, but yet a
civics that accommodates
		

			a disagreement, we have to understand a problem in our Muslim community and Dr. Mattson we prior to
it, and
		

			we want to turn every issue into a religious issue and a religious issue. That's a litmus test
issue.
		

			Not every issue. And then we want to turn our position on the issue, and to the Islamic position on
the issue, to a point that if you don't agree with me, you're not agreeing with Islam. And I'm
therefore justified in freezing you out. We have to understand that not every issue in the political
arena is an issue that yields a hookup that reveals every religious ruling,
		

			voting for this candidate of voting for this issue, it may be stupid, it may be ineffective, it may
not promote our interest in the way that I think that they should be promoted. But that does not
mean that is strong. That does not mean that people who vote that way, are bad Muslims, it simply
means that they have a perspective that is different from my own. And we as a Muslim community, we
have to learn to to develop a civics that will enable us to accommodate that. Because as we move
forward, we're not going to all agree on the issues. And I don't mean, the technicalities of the
issues. What do we do when there is a candidate who votes the way or a senator or a congressman who
		

			votes the way we would like to see them vote on Palestine,
		

			but has a negative position on affirmative action,
		

			or who votes the way we would like them to vote on affirmative action, but has a bad position on
Palestine, these issues may divide the Muslim community,
		

			between those
		

			who prefer the issue of God aside on the one hand, and those who privilege the issue of affirmative
action on the other, as a community, we have to learn how to manage these kinds of disagreements.
		

			And this is the cities that I'm talking about. And if there's any community on the planet, that
should be at home, at home, with a citizen of disagreement is this Muslim community. And that is one
of the miracles of Islam in the world, and religious community, and religious community that has
been able to accommodate difference virtually from day one.
		

			We must get back to this brothers and sisters, because if we don't, what's going to happen is we're
going to have a lot of these guerrilla wars underneath the surface, and we're going to be alienated
from each other. We're going to inflict internal bleeding on each other. All because we're incapable
of seeing that we're not always disagree, and that all our disagreements are not failed
disagreements. We can disagree and yet still recognize ourselves as Muslims who are bound together
in a common cause. I really pray and hope that Allah will guide us, give us the wisdom, the strength
and the courage to make our way back to a cynics. A sense of disagreement.
		

			A disagreement is principle
		

			little disagreement, and I'll say this and stop.
		

			We are not a community of undesirable passions. After che Paul in the Quran, there is no more
there's no greater enemy to human beings than their own undesirable passions.
		

			Hamas is what takes us to the alpha. We don't want to be a community of hola of undisciplined
passion disguised in the guise of political expediency. We must be a community of principle. We must
be a community have more identity, and we must be a community that embraces a civics of political
disagreement.