Suhaib Webb – Taking Action On Affirmative Action
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AI: Transcript ©
Every one of you. You know, in the
season of Hajj, which is a season of
this incredible
display of diversity,
coalescing around one major goal as
says, you know, coming together from all over
the world, from different languages, different tribes, different
people, different complexions
to worship
Allah.
Call all people
to Hajj. As Allah says
there's an adukkira, Sayna Sha'aba, Hajjul Baytih,
that, you know,
this this season of Hajj is for humanity.
In the backdrop of this incredible season of
Eid, the story of Sayid Ibrahim alayhis salam,
the sacrifices of a family that was in
fact, an interracial family,
and Satan Ismail becomes known as a mustarib,
someone who becomes Arab.
I I
I was moved and disturbed by the decision
yesterday of the Supreme Court to
dismantle
affirmative action, especially as someone who taught in
the university system for almost 10
years and and noted,
the incredible,
disparity,
ethnically,
and racially,
that existed and financially within that system. And
someone also who was a chaplain in the
prison systems years ago,
noting the absolute disparity within,
the number of people who are incarcerated
and the continuation of
of the Jim Crow state through,
the carceral system, these are things that disturb
me.
And I wanted to address this really from
3
areas, and I ask Allah to give me
tofir. And if I say something wrong, I
ask brothers and sisters to look at it
with the ein of rahma fasaddid
alkhalala.
You know, as Sayna Al Hariri says, then
fix mistakes, but fix it with with with
a a fair discussion and good assumptions.
And I know that in this heightened
time of discourse within,
social media, Islam
through content providers were quick to sort of
react in ways that are hurtful,
and unbecoming
of Muslim discourse. So I ask people to,
if something I say may offend you or
something I say is incorrect,
have a good suspicion, reach out to me
and contact me. I
wanna address this really through 3 angles. Number
1 is why it is very important that
we, at least here in the United States,
identify ourselves as a prophetic community who may
do politics, but not as a political community
who may do prophecy.
And I worry about this now, especially as
political nomenclature,
continues to seep in. Right? There's a great
article in Atlantic Weekly by, I think, Shahedi
Ahmed that talks about how politics is replacing
religion. That is a concern for me. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, alama, Adam al asma, aqulaha.
Adam was taught the names of things. Nomenclature
is very important. Allah says to the companions,
don't say ra'ina. It's a term, but it's
a term that has a dangerous
potential, so don't use it. It's harmful. Use
something else. So we are a community that
should be concerned
about the meanings of the things we say,
and how we express ourselves,
even if we put a political,
a prophetic
gloss on it. That's a concern. Second thing
that I wanna talk about is why this
position is problematic taken by the Supreme Court,
at least from my vantage,
as someone who's trained in Islam,
somewhat and and and how we should look
at it as
really a concern because
Islam,
the prophet
the Quran itself as we talk about, make
sure people have access to things which are
beneficial.
As you know, the writer of Malakhi Surut
says
Right? Anything that can create harm within Islam
is considered forbidden.
And not having access to certain things for
all people can be problematic,
like worship, for example, like the masajid, like
education,
financial,
potential. Those things, the maqas and sharia,
are things that we believe all people should
have access to. And then finally, what are
the things we can do, wata'awinuwalaalgudriwataqqa'ah,
that we can make sure that we say
allies to people impacted negatively by this decision?
Those who are going to be impacted, black
Americans,
people of, Latino Americans,
the people who here before everybody,
who very rarely I saw in the academy,
in my years, of of study and teaching,
Native Americans were very much a unicorn within
the academy system. These are concerns that we
should have. How can we make sure that
we stay allies to these issues? The first
point, Allah
alludes to this idea of being a prophetic
community who may need to do politics
from time to time, but not a political
community that does prophecy when he says in
Shur'at Hadid.
Allah says that indeed we sent the messengers
with clear proofs,
and we revealed to them books,
in so that
and the balance.
And here, the measure or the balance, some
scholars said it means the sunnah, others said
it means the intellect,
so that people could establish justice. So here
we find that the initial sort of responsibility
of the establishment of justice as Muslims
is our familiarity
with revelation, our familiarity with our Prophet's teachings
our familiarity with what was revealed to him,
so that we can then establish
prophetic
justice, not subjective justice, but prophetic justice.
And then comes the aqal,
walmizan,
according to some scholars. And, you know, it's
interesting that the words used for aqal, we're
we're now in the month of of
Eid,
this time of Eid. Allah says,
So the same word as a stone,
but here hijr means aqal,
means the intellect. Why? Because the hijr, it
it should prevent things.
It prevents
things from happening. So the mind, if
it's employed correctly by the person,
is one that is going to prohibit us
from acting on evil,
harm, injustice, or the disobedience of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Also, the word aqaal, if you're from the
Khaleed, you know, qutrual aqaal. Right? You know,
the aqaal is traditionally from the word of
that thing that people wear on their heads,
which was used historically to tie a camel,
because we should tie our mind
from acting in in ways which are belligerent
and ignorant.
I seek refuge in Allah from being someone
who's intolerant,
someone who doesn't have him.
And Allah
he
says, I seek refuge from knowledge that has
no benefit. So the idea of utilizing our
mind.
So first and foremost, to establish prophetic,
a prophetic community is one that has familiarity
with revelation, but also employs its mind
to understand
and apply that revelation,
and to live according to prophetic teachings. So
personal accountability.
And I think that's something that sometimes we
fail to appreciate, that there is a level
of personal accountability to being
a committed Muslim is someone who is
someone that's using their mind, engaging, not allowing
sheikhs and imams to live vicariously.
I live vicariously through them. Now there are
certain things I have to learn
the 50 obligations of aqidah,
the
in worship. These are things that I have
to learn the related to tiskit and nafs
and akhlaq. Those are things that we all
have to learn. Then the verse continues.
And we also sent iron, and here iron,
of course, is a metaphor for the sword,
in those times power was was very much
weighed. Political power was was what's waged through
the sword. Excuse me. And of course, we
can expand that to any type of power
that we may need to acquire to preserve
prophecy
and to preserve
revelation.
And there's
a benefit to this.
So we need to to locate ourselves between
2 extremes. One is there's no politics in
Islam. One is that politics comes first. We
find sometimes extreme people on the left and
right, putting political nomenclature in front of religious
nomenclature, putting political agenda before religious agenda. And
that's how we become
been co opted
and used in the proxy wars of America
by the right and the left, and we
are no longer able to stand in a
place
of prophetic balance.
Allah says
don't disturb the balance and Allah locates us
as a community,
a condition to do prophetic work is to
be balanced.
We have made you the balanced community on
the sunnah of the messenger of Allah aligning
with revelation, Sharia compliant,
so that you can be witnesses. Witnesses for
what? Witnesses to prophecy
to the Messenger of Allah, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam. That's why we know in the hereafter
that our community actually bear witness against other
prophetic communities
on behalf of their prophets because they failed
to uphold
the teachings of their prophets. And that's why
the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Salam says in
you are the witnesses of Allah to the
earth. So this is something I want to
pack more in the future. I'm going to
talk about this in Spain at a retreat
that's coming at the end of the of
July.
How we make sure and I'm not saying
I haven't made mistakes brothers and sisters, because
I have, how do we make sure that
we align ourselves as a prophetic community who
may do politics, but those politics are driven
by prophecy, not a political community who drives
this prophecy
by political ideology
or political assumptions or understandings.
We have to be very, very careful of
that,
and make sure that we are prophetic in
our work.
So whether it comes to issues like
racial relations, economic issues,
issues related to power,
sexual morality,
We are now dividing, seeing Muslims dividing over
political ideology
instead of dividing over religion, which is now
adding a secular layer to our divisions as
though we, we, we needed to add another
layer
of, of division to our community. We need
to emancipate ourselves from secular, political ideology, and
nomenclature,
and make sure that we align ourselves with
prophecy. And how do we do that? We
study Aqirah.
We study fiqh.
We locate ourselves as being Abdullah.
My primary role is I am the Abd
of Allah. I am the slave of Allah,
the servant of Allah, and this comes before
everything else.
Sayyidina Musa says, I do not own myself
or
my brother, we are all owned by Allah
and then that drives me
to then think about studying religion
in a way that is focused on obedience
to Allah, obedience to the Messenger. And when
there's issues of isjihad amongst jurists and scholars,
then we have that necessary flexibility that allows
us to cohesively differ.
So I think
really it's important that we locate ourselves and
begin to talk about La ilaha illallah Muhammad
Rasoolah. How do we anchor ourselves as a
prophetic community who may do politics,
when it does not
cause us to compromise our role as a
prophetic community? But not a political community who
has no concerns about compromising its role as
a prophetic community.
2nd is
the concern on this issue around affirmative action
should be 1, which is is taken from
a point where there is no moral dilemma.
We can take
we can take
we find that this is a problematic issue.
Number 1 is that Islam
made sure that people had access
to things like worship,
you know,
Hajj call all people to Hajj.
Right? That Hajj is prescribed for all people.
For all people.
Who's worse than those who keep people from
Masajid.
Sayyut to say this was sent because, you
know, whether it was the Christians or the
people of Mecca, there were religious communities that
were
saying, you know, you don't have access to
worship. You can have access to worship. You
cannot have access to this place.
So it's problematic because
subhanAllah,
how are people going to find the truth
if they can access it?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Allahu subhanahu
wa ta'ala commands him to make sure that
at a social level, so religious level, at
a social level, that people had access to
him and people had access to Islam.
This verse was sent because the Quraysh,
you know, chastised the Prophet from being followed
by the poor, from being followed by people
who were not Arab, being followed by people
who didn't have the same social status, and
economic and political power they had, Sayyidina Suhaib,
Sayyidina
Salman, and others. And this verse came telling
the prophet you must resiliently stay with these
people, these people must have access to you.
Sallallahu alaihi wa'arihi wasa hahi wa sallam. When
it comes to education, we know that Kitman
that one of the obligations of the prophets
is to teach and not to hide.
That the prophets came, one of the things
we believe about our prophets is tablik, they
shared the message to everybody. So we go
into Sahih Bukhari, we find women had access
to the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, even he
gave them a day to study that young
children could ask the Prophet questions Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam that he would teach them that
was a young Sahabi. When he became older,
he said, the reason I remember this hadith
is because I was a child, and the
prophet took the time to teach him and
mentor him. The prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam took
Sayna Mu'az, Sayna Abdul Iba Masood, Sayna Abdul
Iba Umar and others, they would ride on
his donkey with him, they had access, accessibility
to education.
We know that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa'arihi
Wa Sallam, he commanded
the people who wanted to ransom themselves from
being prisoners of war to teach 10 children
how to read, Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, thinking about this, he encouraged people
to equal out the social disparity
and the economic
disparity
and the future of a community that was
growingly diverse.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Salam
makes these accommodations. We find this throughout history
saying, Amr Al Khattah when he comes to
Mecca, he found that a person that used
to be a slave was now the imam
of the people, and he said indeed Allah
raises some people by his book and lowers
some people by his book, that people had
accessibility.
Mujahid, the student of ibn Abbas, who said,
I read the entire Quran to him and
stopped at each verse and made tafsir. He
was a former slave, Aibidah
al Madaniyah, who was known Bint Al Naka,
who had so many books of Hadith. This
is a former slave woman who became such
a scholar in Medina that subhanah her caravan,
she had a caravan of books, she was
on the daughter of the camels because she
had so many camels to carry her books.
So we have a historical precedence for people
who were on the, if you will, the
the the outside
of economic and political power had access into,
opportunities for education and eventual leadership. Look at
Ibon Talun in Cairo, who who who is
a slave, who becomes a leader. The Mamluk,
who become leaders, who were former slaves. You
can look in the history of Andalus and
some of the the later leaders after the
Amois were people that came from societies, al
Mansur, that were marginalized, but had access
in society and made sure that things were,
accessible to them to live a decent
life. SubhanAllah. So we we have a history
not only of being committed to
structural justice,
especially in a democracy in this country, but
also you find examples of this.
And empirically,
we, we know that there's a great study
by Georgetown University. I think there was the
Browder Foundation that did independent study that
the the in,
the lack of access that people have,
within a higher education compared to the number
of high school graduates racially is something that
we should be concerned about as Muslims.
And something that
we should be extremely worried about. I remember,
when I was studying in the Azhar and
I was sitting, you know, subhanAllah,
in a class, and a blind student came
into the class.
And I remember this teacher of ours,
who is not famous, has passed on. You
know, he he told everyone, make sure that
this individual can hear. Move out of the
way.
Make
space Allah will make space for you. And
I remember that this individual
grew to be an incredible teacher and an
imam, because the made sure that
he was
heard, he wasn't hidden, and that he had
access in a way that would allow him
to achieve his education.
So historically,
as a as a scriptural precedence and as
a a political,
precedence and then as an academic precedence within
our history, we find that up especially till
the 10th century,
Hijri,
people had access to religious education, and people
were able to participate. And this is one
of the concerns when Sheikh Tantawi,
the former Sheikh Azar, when he closed down
the Katateeb in Egypt, the Qur'anic schools said
one of the things that the Qur'anic schools
did is made sure that the people who
were marginalized and underserved,
who did not have the financial resources to
go to Madrasah Hasa,
that their children would have an opportunity to
learn how to read, to learn the Quran,
learn their religion, and and to grow.
There was a structural concern with this fatwa,
not simply
a historical symbolic concern. Yes. But also the
structural implications were were
were were warranted.
Finally, I think here within the United States,
we we have to
look at this as something as a prophetic
community and make sure that we put pressure
on institutions,
that we strengthen our Islamic schools. People are
concerned about the challenges of the encroaching,
compulsion of making our children study things which
don't align with our sexual morals and sexual
morality.
This is also something that we should also
be concerned with in strengthening Islamic schools, and
demanding more from Islamic schools, and funding Islamic
schools. If we're really concerned, because unfortunately, the
left and right are turning the public school
system into
a target for cultural wars. How do we
sort of step out of that is by
strengthening our private schools and making sure that
and I saw this when I was in
Oklahoma City that, Michelle, we had a large
number of students that were sponsored by people
in the community, making sure they had access
to really great education.
I know here in Maryland, I see that
with our Islamic schools that a large number
of people are supporting students that have access
to education, but also strengthening,
the quality of the Islamic schools, the the
governorship of the Islamic schools, making sure that
our nonprofits,
right, are representative
of all of our community members, especially at
a board level. These are things that we
can do in our own institutions to sort
of
push against this injustice. Right? We can't just
simply call out an injustice. It exists in
our own institutions. So at a governorship level,
people are represented, and then we are making
sure to strengthen and support Islamic education to
protect,
not only to protect, but to prepare
our young future community
for leadership
and prophetic,
location within society.
We also need to make sure that if
we are alumnis of,
illustrious institutions, that we're putting pressure on them,
that we if we can come together and
support scholarship for people who are marginalized and
not heard and are impacted by this.
And finally, we need to be, and most
importantly, good listeners.
What are those communities saying should be done?
How can we listen to their voices and
make sure that we ally with them? So
just a few thoughts on this horrible decision
to ask a lot to give us. Tawfiq
number 1, I talked about the danger of
being a political community that does prophecy when
it wants to instead of being a community
that locates itself as a prophetic community and
then is allows this politics to be driven
by,
political,
by prophetic teachings,
and scriptural teachings. And then areas of ishdihad
recognizes that there may be differences in areas
where we can be flexible.
Number 2, we talked about sort of the
precedents within Islam of making sure people had
access
to religion, people had access to the Prophet,
people had access socially the system of Baha'u
in Medina, making different tribes become brothers and
work together. So we all feel a sense
of,
of harmony as a community,
a number numerous examples of that. And then
finally, we talked about how we can be
allies to communities that are going to be
greatly impacted by this irresponsible decision.
We ask
Allah to give us a sense of Adil
and to make us from the people who
are truly a prophetic community. Barakkalofikum.
And thank you for your time. Please leave
your comments below if you have any thoughts
or ideas on what else can be done,
in the face of this really difficult decision.
Wassalamu
alaykum.
Warahmatullah.