Zaid Shakir – Bay Area Vigil Against Islamophobia

			Bismillah R Rahman Rahim in the name of God, Most Merciful, most compassionate. hamdu Lillahi Rabbil
Alameen all praises due to Allah the Lord have
		

			mercy.
		

			City as my peace and blessings upon the Prophet Mohammed and all of the prophets and messengers of
God.
		

			We know what happened in New Zealand, we were just reminded of the painful history of this country.
How 500 nations were virtually exterminated.
		

			We know what happened in Paris when a gunman went into a theater and
		

			took almost 90 lives. We know what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, when Dylann Roof walked
into a church took nine lives. You know what happened in Texas, when a gunman walked into a church,
white church and took 26 lives. We know what happened in Pittsburgh when a gunman walked into that
synagogue and talked, took 11 lives. You know what happened outside of Milwaukee when a gunman
walked into the Sikh temple took over half a dozen lives. Now we know what happened in New Zealand
and the common denominator. And all of those events and others we could stay here all night naming
is that
		

			the victims were dehumanized before they were murdered.
		

			It's difficult to kill someone whose humanity one values.
		

			And so the white supremacy that was mentioned, or other diabolical ideological forces, they
dehumanize the victims. We're here to say in our numbers, our variety, our diversity,
		

			religiously, ethnically, racially, that we
		

			stand for humanity, that we will not allow anyone to be dehumanized, that we will fight against
dehumanizing ideologies, we will fight against dehumanizing media, we will fight against any force
that denies any human being their God given right, to live, to grow, to mature and to reach their
full human potential to blossom
		

			under God's sky. So brothers and sisters, as we leave here today, we should leave with conviction.
And this is easy for us as Muslims, we're told in the Quran, that the human has been a noble, we'll
look at Corona Benny Adams. And this, the ennoblement and the honor conferred upon the human
precedes his or her race, ethnicity, color or creed, that we are all one human family. Some of us
don't descend from this sort of creature and another from that sort of creature, as many races
allege different origins. Now we all descend from a common parentage. We are all brothers and
sisters, and humanity, we are all members of one family. And as we know it is time for this family
		

			to come together, unified to stand against any force that will attempt to divide us, we have our
differences, but our differences should not be a source of division. Our differences should not be a
source of hate, or differences as we Muslims or toe, those differences lead to our food. We're gonna
come to Auburn, we'll come back to our food. Those differences should be a way that we recognize in
each other, the beauty, the complimentary beauty that we provide to each other. We beautify each
other. We're beautified by each other. And we are one beautiful family and I'm proud and I'm
thankful that I'm here this evening to see the beauty of that family on full display.