Yasir Qadhi – Modern Islamophobia as A Repeat of History

			The rise of a hatred of Islam the rise of Islamophobia. We find politicians we find media pundits
always mentioning us and singling us out. And policies are being enacted against us across the
globe, especially in this land and many Western lands. My advice to myself in all of us, we should
study history. We should study history. It's not the first time and it won't be the last time
history broadens our horizons history makes us mature history makes us understand some of the
beneficial tactics about how we can respond to what we are seeing. And in today's brief mini
lecture, inshallah, tada I want to go back and look at five basic parallels that we see in the
		

			Sierra. And also in historical examples of the past that can be shown to be replicating what we are
seeing in our times, because the goal My dear brothers and sisters, one of our goals is to live
peacefully. One of our goals is to not be massacred and murdered. One of our goals is to give our to
others without fear of persecution. Our profits a little lower, I said him was physically attacked,
assassination attempts were made. It didn't come out of the blue. Historically speaking minorities
have been killed the Muslims of Bosnia yesterday we celebrate a 25 year not celebrated commemorated
the anniversary, 25 years of the massacre of Serbia and Bosnia where around 10,000 Muslim men were
		

			rounded up and in one day slaughtered This is in my lifetime in your lifetime. I remember this as a
teenager, and many of us remember this day, over 10,000 Muslim men were slaughtered in one day, that
did not happen out of the blue 100 years ago. In this country. Another campaign was enacted against
another minority, the Chinese and the Far Eastern, which culminated around 60 years ago, in rounding
up a quarter of a million Japanese Americans and putting them in internment camps. This happened
once again, in the lifetime of people that are still alive in this land. Under this very
constitution. A quarter of a million people were rounded up and thrown in concentration camps for
		

			four years. They were not allowed to go outside they were imprisoned them and their families. What
was their crime, their ethnicity, this happens, but not out of the blue, there is a multi step
process. And today, we'll mention five of them. Number one, how does it all begin? Where does it all
begin? What is the first tactic number one, stereotyping and putting social pressure caricatures
making fun of the other pointing out differences between you and them and exaggerating those
differences? Look at the early Muslims of Makkah, they began to say the courage began to say, Oh,
they have rejected our religion, oh, they are breaking the ties of kinship. They accused the Muslims
		

			of breaking the ties of kinship, they accused the Muslims of having a different civilization,
different culture. The same goes for every minority. When it came to this line that Chinese
Americans, they were made fun of by the broader society. Oh, even in the New York Times, there was
an article and I have the excerpt where they literally said, These people they are of a different
race than us, they smell different. They don't wash themselves, they have this and that they made
fun of them in the most ridiculous manner to make them different than us. You look at what is
happening now. Oh, the Muslims, the Muslims, they persecute their women, they're women are forced to
		

			cover. They do this. They do that they point out the differences and not the similarities. And they
exaggerate the differences. And they lie about those differences. Sometimes the very crime that they
are guilty of they they cut and they paste and they throw upon the other. For example, the Quraysh
accused the Muslims of cutting the ties of kinship. And yet who were the ones really cutting the
ties of kinship, it was the kurush. These days, we Muslims are being accused of being the violent
people, even though who colonized the world who plundered 90% of the world. It wasn't the Muslims
who went and went and invaded other lands that did this and that it was in the Muslims. So in
		

			reality, these stereotypes typically are completely false, but they must be done. The narrative is
created of us versus them. We are this way they are that way. Whether it is true, whether it is
false, but that narrative has to be built up. Otherwise you
		

			cannot get to stage two, what is stage two stage one was social pressure stage one was
characterization, stage one stereotyping stage two political pressure laws are enacted, things are
done politically, they can only be done after stage one, you cannot just create hatred out of
nowhere. You cannot pass a law out of nowhere, you have to build the hype, you have to create the
hatred for years on end, the crush boycotted the Muslims. The Quran enacted the treaty that nobody
is going to buy and sell, nobody is going to marry, nobody's going to do anything with the bundle
Hashem and the Muslims that didn't come out of nowhere, four or five years of political of social
		

			pressure. The same goes for the Chinese Americans 100 years ago, 100 years ago, a number of laws
were passed of them the race laws, they're called race, the race act of 1960 or so look it up. I
don't remember that didn't know the race at what did the race act do? The race act literally said in
the law, that a person of Chinese heritage cannot marry somebody of a white heritage, a person of
Chinese heritage cannot do all of these laws. And by the way, I'm gonna say a historical fact. It's
not a stereotype. Why did Chinese restaurants become so popular in North America? There is actually
a historical reason for that. One of the loopholes of the law was that Chinese people, open
		

			restaurants, they couldn't work as engineers, they couldn't work as doctors. They couldn't be
architects. So there was a loophole that they could open and run a restaurant. So what happened, a
lot of Chinese people came and started running restaurants and the people liked the food. And it
became very popular. And that's one of the reasons why Chinese cuisine is popular. I kid you not
that is actually a historical remnant of the it's called the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1970. It was
passed that we're not going to take people from China anymore. Again, the paranoia was developed.
There was a governor in California Governor
		

			Kerry, I think was his name was their governor, California. His campaign was no more Chinese. That
was the slogan, no more Chinese people and he won with the landslide. Just like our current guy, how
did he win? I think the Muslims or Islam has a problem with us and his people go wild. I want to
build the wall, his people go wild. So there's politics that comes after social pressure after the
stereotype. The same goes with the orange that you cannot enact those laws until you propagandize
until you stereotype. So point number two is political laws are passed after the stereotypes are
perpetrated for many years. Also, Knights in Nazi Germany is another interesting example. You can go
		

			over all of these one by one. But time is limited. We're not going to do that point number three,
once the laws are passed, another interesting phenomena happens or at the same time as that another
interesting phenomena it happens, and that is people who were disunited, all of a sudden become
united simply because they have created a false enemy. And that is us or the other, whoever the
other is, they become united. So the kurush, whenever united with the sun is up north, the orange
whenever united with what is called the eyes up, or the Confederate armies, they were all disparate
people, all different people. They had nothing in common. The first time in human history, the Arabs
		

			of polytheism united was when Muslims and Islam came, they finally found the one thing they had in
common. What did they have in common? They weren't Muslim. That was the only thing they had in
common. They were never united in the history of Arabia, the largest army that was ever called pre
Islam was in the Battle of zap. Why, how Where did all of these armies come from? What was their
uniting them? Some of them were Christians. Some of them worship different gods of the Arabs. Some
of them are animosities from the days of gi Leah, what did they have in common? nothing other than
their hatred of Islam. The same goes when it comes to the Chinese issue here as well. Amazingly, you
		

			look at history 100 years ago, and the same paranoia spread throughout Europe spread throughout
Australia and New Zealand. And it is as if all of these common block of what is called Western
cultures, they united in their stereotype of the Chinese people and they began propaganda against
them, etc, etc. The same now we look at right now that unfortunately, it is a reality in many
Western lands. Muslims are the scapegoat in many Western lands. Laws are being passed to ban the
burqa or to ban the building of minarets that's targeting Islam we know this right in France, as we
know they're banning modest covering in the swimming pool in France. You can go wearing nothing it
		

			is legal for a lady to walk wearing nothing, she will not get fine, but if she covers herself and
goes to the swimming pool, she will be fine. What type of ludicrousness is this? This is what
happens that the whole world now not the whole world but many segments of the world they find
commonality. loyalties are made based upon cutting off from the one in this case it's us cup
countries find conformity and uniformity simply by being against the other and we see many
manifestations of this. Some of them are a little bit deep. For example, when the tragedy
		

			happened. It is a tragedy of the French reporters and the cartoonists being killed or it's a
tragedy. We don't support it. But what was the backlash? over 50 world leaders flew in the next day.
Do you know this 50 world leaders, and they stood in solidarity. The goal was what many terrorist
attacks have happened by various groups, many, you know, Caucasian terrorists have done things in
this land. Since one two other world leaders fly in and say, Oh, we are united against terrorism.
But what happened in France when those cartoonists were killed, and we are against the killing of
those types of people. And I have given a whole book that has got me on the decklists of those
		

			terrorist groups. We don't do this. We don't kill them. We verbally speak against those cartoonists
we verbally criticize, but we don't harm them physically, nonetheless, that they were killed. What
happened? The world or the Western world felt felt a sense of solidarity. Why didn't they feel that
solidarity? When 50 people were killed in Los Angeles? Why did they feel their solidarity when other
incidents happened that happened from within their own race? So we find here loyalties being formed
in this era in history in modern times, and that's something that unfortunately, it is happening,
but at hamdulillah. There are exceptions, New Zealand was an exception. What happened with the Prime
		

			Minister there, she was an exception, she took a principled stance, and she did not side with the
those groups that wanted to make this into a political issue. So this is point number, what number
is it who's counting? point number three, three is done. We now move to point number four, point
number four. So point number three is a loyalties are made based upon these issues. Point number
four, anything that this minority does, whether they're Chinese Americans, whether the Jews in
Germany, whether they're Muslims in the Western world, anything that emanates from within this
minority, is automatically interpreted in the lens of the stereotypes of one, two, and three,
		

			whatever we do, we will never win. Whatever we do, they're gonna find something negative and distort
it and read into it, even if there's nothing there to be read into. And we see this for example, in
the Sierra, in the Sierra, before the Battle of butter. There was a small group of Sahaba they were
tracking a group of machinery corn, and a skirmish happened in one of them was killed one of the
koresh was killed, then we should record made such a big deal. Oh my god, you Muslims, you
terrorists, you killed one of us and Allah azza wa jal revealed in the Quran. Indeed, the killing of
this person was not right. But what did you do? You kicked the Muslims out of the harem, and you
		

			declared war against people only because they worshipped Allah and His messenger who has done the
more volume when Musa went to sit down and he said to find out worship Allah azza wa jal farallon
said Who are you? You the murderer? You kill this person? How dare you come to me? What did Moosa
say you're right, I killed this person accidentally. You're right. But are you going to ignore the
fact that you have subjugated an entire civilization? You have enslaved all the bunnies thrown in?
And you come to me and you tell me that I accidentally killed one person? How about your crime? Why
don't you look in the mirror. This is what Moosa is saying, the same thing happens here. There is no
		

			denying, we have a small group of crazy people. We have a small group of lunatics in our own faith,
doing crazy thing, there's no denying this, but how about other faith traditions? How about other
things going on to take any action that we do, and then stereotype it read into it? So panela we are
blamed for their problems, what is happening in Iraq? Oh, because those Muslims don't get along the
Sunni Shiite conflict. So Pinilla iraq never had the type of conflicts that it had post American
invasion, don't blame us for what you guys have caused, right? This is the reality they cause it,
and then they blame us they have the audacity to blame us. The same thing. By the way for Chinese
		

			Americans. I've given a detailed lecture about this. Around night in 1907 or eight, there was
something called the boxer revolution in China internal issue, some Chinese dissidents, you know,
they massacred their government and some American tourists were killed, the American government went
wild. And they read in their own stereotypes to a local issue. It was a local conflict, nothing to
do with America. And American media jumped on it said, Oh, look at those violent Chinese people.
They don't know how to live civilized lives, not knowing and seeing what they themselves had done to
the American Indians, what they themselves have always done to African Americans, all of this
		

			ignored and one Boxer Rebellion is interpreted and stereotype the way that fits the narrative of the
broader picture. So this is point number four, that no matter what emanates and the same, by the
way, for Jews in Germany, no matter what the Jews did in Germany, the Nazis read into them, Oh, you
are the fifth column, you're going to bring our downfall, everything that happened. They blamed on
the Jews, even though many times they were the ones that fault yet they blamed the minority. So this
is point number four, whatever the minority does, it will be constructed the narrative will be then
changed such that it is fed into the stereotype of the broader civilization. Then and only then we
		

			get to point number five which is all about war, assassination, incarceration, rounding up and and
death camps. That
		

			only happens after all of this has been done. Look at Bosnia, and what happened in Boston, you look
at Nazi Germany, you did not have the Holocaust and the concentration camps until all of these other
things that happen. Look at what happened in America in 1941. They rounded up the Japanese Americans
and the irony of ironies. And this shows you that you have to really be, to put it politely, not
very intelligent, I was harsh your word, but I want to say to you, you have to be not very
intelligent to be a racist, you have to be very ignorant to be a racist. Why? Because for 40 years,
that campaign was done against Chinese Americans here in this land for 40 years, no exaggeration,
		

			from 1892, around 1939 to 3540 years, then World War Two happens. It wasn't with China, it was Japan
was on the other side. But Japan, China, what's the difference to the people over here, they all
look the same, right? So they lump them together, they extrapolated their prejudices for the Chinese
Americans. And they put them on to another group of people, the Japanese who had nothing to do with
the previous 3040 years, but this is what happens when you're a racist. All Muslims look the same.
All Arabs after 911 Sikhs were killed after 911 Hindus were pushed in front of trains because they
thought these were Muslims, right? a Sikh temple was attacked, you know, in Oregon, because they
		

			thought it was a Muslim temple. This is the reality of what happens here. So what happens as we
said, point number five is that you actually get violence or war or bloodshed or incarceration
camps. And it only happens after all of the same with the Prophet system, the night of the Hydra.
Why did he make hijra the out of the Horace did the one thing that was unthinkable for them, and
that is to innocently kill one of their own. This was unprecedented. The tribe never buckled on
itself. The tribe never killed one of its own. This was the first time that they unilaterally
decided we are going to assassinate one of our own. That can only happen after all of these steps
		

			are followed. It doesn't just come out of thin air, the bottom line My dear brothers and sisters,
not to intimidate not to frighten, but to be real. We are living a times that are genuinely
perilous. We cannot afford to shove our hands in the sand and ignore what is going on shove our
heads in the sand ignore what is going on. I tell you honestly, honestly. The potential for our
situation to get from bad to worse, is very possible and Allah is our protector. But Allah azza wa
jal wants us to do things not just to sit back and ignore a lot as religion wants us to take
reasonable measures of protection. Our prophet SAW said and made the hedgerow he protected himself
		

			by going to a hottie thought he covered his tracks. He had food in the cave. This is preparation,
what a doula who must apart from Allah azza wa jal does not want us to be fools. Islam doesn't just
say go to the mosque and they do i do i do i do i is half of it. The other half of it is to do
things to plan to be prepared. Yes, we need to Allah Yes, we need Salah Yes, it is an essential
part. But along with this, there must be wisdom, there must be planning, there must be actual
activism that is done. The whole Sierra is nothing but activism. The process of didn't just go to
the cabin, make dua he preached, he taught he had strategy, he did things. And therefore my dear
		

			brothers and sisters, the times that we live in the potential for it to go from bad to worse is
very, very real. We look at what is happening now. We see the rhetoric from our guy in the White
House, we can make fun of him as much as we want. Let us not fool ourselves, he won with a majority
vote of the people, let us not fool ourselves, we still don't know what's going to happen now. And
even if we get rid of the guy in the White House, and he's not elected, the sentiment of the people
has been riled up that evil hatred is now rampant and mainstream. Let us not fool ourselves, we come
to the mosque and Mashallah we are packed, we go to Muslim conventions, more 10,000 people, in the
		

			end of the day, we are less than 1% of this land, let us be realistic about that. What that means to
end on a positive note is that all of us have a role to play, we cannot afford to simply go into
hiding, every one of us has to be proactive, and inshallah in future lectures I'll give a more
detailed plan or agenda or what we can be doing. But at this point, I just want to say one thing,
for many of you, your circle of friends, your circle of influence, you are the only Muslim that they
would know, amongst your colleagues, amongst your office workers, amongst maybe your neighbors or
whatever you might be the only Muslim that they know if you are not going to live up to your
		

			tradition, and you will not embody the values of Islam. If you're going to be embarrassed about your
own faith and change your name and pretend you're not a Muslim and you know whatever. Then do you
blame them when what they see on fox news they believe? do you blame them when you yourself and I
myself have not done our job. So at this base level, the one message I want to leave you with Anisha
although this is a To be continued talk many, many talks are going to be based upon this theme. The
one message I want to leave you with is do not trivialize your role model
		

			Your brothers and sisters, every one of you is an ambassador of this faith, every one of you has a
role to play. And one of the most important success stories purely from the political situation in
this land is the civil rights success story. Civil Rights was not something the politicians wanted.
Civil Rights was not something that the powers to be were eager about. But popular sentiment was
roused up, the people wanted it. And even the government's could not stop it true. There's still
racism. True, there's still many problems. But at hamdulillah. By and large, it is now something
that legislation has now supported equality of races. By the way, this is one generation ago, it's
		

			not a long time ago. And I'll finish with one personal anecdote. One day, I was going to deliver a
lecture it is the 50th anniversary, and they were talking about, you know, Muslim role in the civil
rights. And it was 19 92,020 1320 13. I remember. So then went to go back to 1963 for the civil
rights. And I thought, you know, what, my father came here in 1963. Let me ask him, if he has any
memories of seeing martin luther king live or something like this, let me ask him that he memories
about the civil rights and what he saw. So I called him up as I was walking to Israel driving tests,
and I called him up, I said, you know, Ababa, do you have any stories about you know, the civil
		

			rights and and being here in America? Did you see blacks being discriminated against? And what he
said to me, this is 2013, it was like a slap on my face. He said, What do you mean? Did I see people
being discriminated against I was discriminated against. And then he said something well, lies like
a knife stabbed me. I had to sit at the back of the bus. It never occurred to me that my father had
to sit at the back of the bus when he came to this country. I was thrown out of a bar he going over
a long list of memories. He had never said to me until that point in time, it just regret. What do
you mean, I saw racism, I experienced it. I was there when you know it, I was the one that they
		

			kicked out of the heat. He was he told me so many stories, it really hurt me that, you know, I never
knew this. And then I felt ashamed that you know what, we feel disconnected from the problems of
this country and the civil rights whatnot. No, we all benefited from what happened with the civil
rights movement. We are all here because of the anti racism and inshallah we're going to continue
this topic. The point is the problems of society or our problems, the problems of hatred and
xenophobia or racism or our problems. The problems of Islamophobia in particular are our problems.
Every one of us has a role to play. We cannot afford to pass the buck and pass the responsibilities
		

			to other people. inshallah we'll continue this talk and talk more about ways we can be proactive
about challenging the narrative Islamophobia. May Allah azza wa jal protect all of us in our
families and children. May Allah subhanaw taala bring about peace in this land in all lines, may
Allah azza wa jal allow us to worship Him and to call others to his land. May Allah azza wa jal
allow us to live as Muslims to embody the values of Islam and to die upon our faith and pass it on
to our children. While for that $100 Bill alameen wa Salatu was salam, O Allah, Allah, he was like
the ultramarine
		

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