Topic: Reflections on the Last Sermon: Advice to Take Home
The precious advice that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gave humanity in his last Sermon (The Sermon of Farewell) shows how much Islam values and appreciates the concepts of social equality, brotherhood, individual liberty and mutual cooperation as a guiding light for humanity fourteen centuries ago. Join us in covering these beautiful principles and discussing how we can apply them to our daily lives.
Zaid Shakir – Reflections On The Last Sermon
AI: Summary ©
The importance of the prophets' final address is crucial to their Islam, as it is the final decision that is often discussed. The struggles of African American people in detention centers and the use of illegal drugs are also discussed. The history and success of the African American Islam movement, including notable figures and the importance of protecting reputation and community, is also discussed. The need for everyone to participate in actions to secure their rights and ensure their safety is emphasized, along with the importance of building bridges and creating a more peaceful environment to address racism.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala CD mursaleen Sayidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim tasneem and kathira salaam Alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Hillel he hadn't really had one McInerney, Natalia Lola and had no law Alhamdulillah Allah Allah Abdi him keytab Olympia Jaya Jaya al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen
Alhamdulillah wa Taala has blessed us to be here at the Messe convention mela. congratulate them, the organizers, the volunteers, the wonderful volunteers, all the brothers and sisters who have come here from far and wide. So I was asked to talk about the social justice aspect of the prophets farewell address sallallahu alayhi wa sallam shall start with something that's not unanimously agreed upon as being part of that address. Some texts, or narrations of the address contain it others don't do not. But it is something that is an essential part of the mission of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. So in some versions, we read that he said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
love Allah Allah, the Arabic Allah Jamie Valera, the Argentinian Allah Arabi.
welily as well as the Abdullah Abdullah Allah, Allah LS web. When I left the S word in an app you're in there with taqwa there is no superiority to the Arab over the non Arab or to the non Arab over the Arab, or to the, the black, the white over the black or to the black over the white accept and taqwa. And we know that even if this is not authentically narrated, and there's Hilaire for a difference of opinion of opinion, and that regard, we know it to be an integral part of Islam for a long time. It reminds us in the Quran, as we all know, yeah, you had nurse enough, Alok Nachman decade in there, where Jana comes to urban Well, cabella li Tara foo, in a kurama, comme en de la at
home, in La Jolla, and even Javier, oh, humanity, humankind, we've made you from a single pair of male and female. And we've made you into nations and tribes that you may recognize in that the creative power of the law, and the beauty and each other, very rarely the most honored of you with allies out those are the one most mindful of him. Verily Allah is all knowing well informed. So brothers and sisters,
the whole idea of superiority based on
national or ethnic or cultural differences or differences in skin color, or hair texture, or this difference in physical feature has no place in our religion. What I like to do
is to look at something Malcolm X said,
in that regard, melas mercy be upon him? And why do I choose Malcolm X at this time, as we all know, we as Muslim community, are going through some experiences that some of us in the African American community have been going through for over 400 years. And the same is true for the Native American community. And the same is true contemporarily for the Mexican American community or the Latino community. And the same was true at one time for the Japanese American community. And before that, for the Chinese American community. Sadly,
our country has experienced genocide, where we have the names of the indigenous people, but the people themselves are gone. names like Milwaukee. names like Wisconsin.
names like many of the names
We see, as we drive our cars through the countryside in any part of this country,
they're gone. Unfortunately. And sadly, we've gone through the episode of slavery, which involved another genocide, in terms of the people of those lands that the slaves came from, how they were devastated, and how many died and what was referred to as the Middle Passage, and never even made it here. And then how many died during slavery.
It's a tragedy.
We've gone through the massacres against Chinese Americans on the West Coast
after they built or played such a large role in building a lot of the infrastructure, including the railroads, in the early phase of industrialization in this country, but they were faced with the Chinese Exclusion Act, where Chinese Americans by law could not come to the United States. We saw in the 1930s, the systematic, vilifying and demonizing of Japanese Americans that culminated in the internment, or the concentration camps that Japanese Americans on the West Coast were exposed to. We had the history of Jim Crow legalized, segregation directed against the African American community, we had the history of lynching.
The mic didn't break. You guys are sounding so good. I thought I listened for a minute.
I'll give you tofik give us tofik lynching in which
primarily mainly innocent African American men, it should sound familiar, in many instances with the complicity of law enforcement. And not all law enforcement is bad, including the people guarding us here today.
But you have had elements, who had opened jail cells, and African American prisoners would be taken out by Lynch mobs, and then murdered and some of the most grotesque ways and hung on trees. While the great Billie Holiday
jazz singer blues singer, Billie Holiday and then Nina Simone sung about this Strange Fruit hanging on Southern Southern trees.
Innocent individuals in many instances, well over 10,000 from the end of reconstruction, until 1960, including, as you mentioned earlier, amatil from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Mississippi brutally beaten and lynched for allegedly whistling at a Caucasian woman.
This is the sad history of America. As we mentioned earlier in another in another session, some Muslim, some Muslims are worried and anxious, where they put us in concentration camps. While we are worried and discussing such developments, which inshallah will not happen. There are people in concentration camps today.
They're innocent people who are in these privatized detention centers, primarily people of Latin American origin, who've been taken from their homes, sometimes the children come home, and the children because they were born here, their citizens, they come home and their parents are gone. Their parents who aren't citizens, that children come home from school, and their parents have been taken by ice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and placed into these detention centers by the hundreds of 1000s by the hundreds of 1000s and then deported by the millions.
So we should understand that as a so called minority community in this country, what we as a Muslim community are facing is nothing new. It's nothing new. And one of the common denominators that that you unite our experience with the experience of all those groups I've mentioned, and others I didn't mention, is the issue of racism and race.
Surely rooted hatred and bigotry and poor and prejudice. That's the common denominator. So when we see it, we should understand that it's nothing new. When we see it, we should understand that for us to survive it, we have to be in solidarity with those who have already gone through it, or are currently going through it. Here in Chicago,
Illinois, we know the case of the young man who was shot 16 times from the police as he was moving away from them.
It's nothing new.
We have to stand with those who are going through it before we have to go through it. And if we stand with others, they will stand with us. And there's no greater natural Li for the Muslim community than the African American community. And the reason for that is that the African
the African American community is a community that has a transgenerational historical engagement with them.
They
there were Muslim slaves in America and what would become America before the British colonies became America, there are Muslim slaves like a you've been sued a man joven Solomon, the fortunate, the fortunate slave, whose biography the fortunate slave is the oldest extent work of African American literature. It is the oldest work about the life and the times of an African in what would become America 1731 he came to America miraculously freed from slavery in Kent County, Maryland. 18 months later, he sells to England as a free men that enhance he's caught the fortunate slave we have and the beginning of the life of America after the declaration of independence in 1776, and the sub
subsequently the Articles of Confederation about a dozen years later, in 1791
ebrahimian Abdul Rahman,
who was called Prince and many of you saw unity productions PBS,
Prince among slaves, and he was a prince he was the son of the king of footie jello.
in present day Guinea, a Muslim who was educated in Islam, taken into slavery spent 27 years of his life. And again, he sells back to Africa as a free man with his wife and a couple of his children. This is our history at the end of slavery. In the set in the 1850s. You have an individual known as known as Omar bin Saeed, who is literate in the Arabic language. He wrote many manuscripts in Arabic. Some of them are found in the, in the universities and museums around this country. Omar bin Saeed, a Muslim slave, and many, many others up to 20% of the slaves. And then after that, when the Islam amongst the slave and amongst the African American community began to wane with the end of
slavery, you had movements such as noble drew IE, and the more science temple, you have movements such as the Nation of Islam. You had many African American Muslims who responded to the Dow or the call of many of the Ahmadiyya missionaries who came here such as Mufti
allama Sellars, his name escapes me right now, but many prominent African American Muslims during the 30s and 40s and 50s. In this country, many prominent African American jazz musicians such as Darrell Suleiman, or I met Jamal,
or many, many others, came to Islam and were practicing Islam. You have Sunni Muslim Muslim movements, such as the movement of the first Cleveland Masjid under Wally Akram who left the media movement and became a Sunni Muslim and was involved with the first place
The Masjid not too far from here, you have the Muslim movement of Professor Israel Dean in New Jersey, who left the city and carved out a Muslim village in southern New Jersey. You had the, the movement of and the Tao of chef Tao Faisal and mother Khadija who came from Trinidad, to Brooklyn, New York, and started dour to the people primarily, but not exclusively, African American people. You had the Nation of Islam, which led to the Ministry of the man word of the Mohammed, and which over the decades, millions of people came into Islam. You have the Muslims, hundreds of 1000s of Muslims we came was the men the penal system, and unfortunately, underserved when they come out into
the streets, by many stellar Muslims, and amongst them, and perhaps the greatest of the Malcolm X, who became a Muslim in the penal system, and he came out
and he evolved and he grew until he had a full understanding of Islam. He is a bridge brothers and sisters, between the Muslim community and the African American community. Why? Because he was a Muslim, but he was also an African American civil rights and human rights icon. He was an icon like Muhammad Ali. He was an icon. Muhammad Ali
courageously stood up.
And he said to this country at a time, it was far more dangerous to be a Muslim than it is today. One of your Palestinian forebears in this country empty Maddie, how many of you heard of empty Maddie? The father of a nice Annette de Melo protector, a very noted journalist in New York City, because he stood up for slim in the 1960s. And he stood up for Palestinian rights. His back was broken when he was attacked by a Zionist mob.
That's who you have brothers and sisters. And he in fact was one of those who called now connects to Sunni Islam. A great figure.
Malcolm is a bridge brothers and sisters, Mohammed Ali is a bridge. These are icons in the African American community. And there are iconic Muslims and speak your Muhammad Ali.
I'm going to lighten the mood a little. Yeah, give it up for Mohammed Ali. The People's champ the people's champ.
So I'm going to lighten the mood, a little skin a bit heavy in here. I'm going to share with you a poem that I wrote for Mohammed Ali in his house. Some of you might have heard this out of you. Didn't you want to hear the poem?
Okay, here we go. This Mila he floated like a butterfly and staying like a be the greatest fighter The world has yet to see. His opponents agree on one thing they all got it right in the ring without Lee your life was in danger that night had he lived during the time of jack Johnson Joe Louis Marciano or Max Schmeling, his superiority over all of the former would be telling how he fought Tyson Holyfield. At the height of his career on the list of heavyweight champions, their names would not appear. If reindeer codebox he would have beaten Donner and blitzen. And presidents could fight he would have fought Richard Nixon, for his right was filled with power. And his left was
relentless. He beat people so bad, he'd have to seek his Lord's repentance. So when you discuss who was the greatest heavyweight of all time, to mention any name other than Alyss a crime?
All right.
We returned from that commercial interruption back to the speech. So
these are icon brothers and sisters. And these are bridges between the Muslim community and the African American community. These are bridges we cannot allow this current wave of hatred to tear down because they're trying to tear it down. When the Koch brothers are giving millions of dollars to the United * College Fund, which they are, you should know what time it is. And we have to get out there and we have to get involved and these communities around us
So now come in addressing the issue of racism.
He said,
I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.
I believe in human beings. A lot of Tyler reminds us that there is a fundamental nobility he's given all of us based on our humanity. nakada Khurana, Danny Adam, we have the noble of the human being. When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was a jenessa passed by Marilla Rasulullah Allah Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Bill janaza
janaza passed by the Messenger of Allah.
And he stood up for karma sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, reverently. And then they said, O Messenger of Allah, in the head, yahudi janaza to Yahoo dn is just a Jewish funeral for Kala sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam, and they said to be enough sin is a not a human soul. Is it not a human soul? There is a basic level of nobility that a lot of time is given to every human being, regardless of their religion, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of the color of their skin. And he was saying to us, implicitly, we have to respect that humanity. So this is what Malcolm said. He said, I believe in human beings and that all human beings should be respected, regardless of their color.
Islam is a religion that encourages us to respect human beings at the level of their humanity. Allah tala tells us concerning those human beings who aren't Muslims, but they have not fought us. They have not driven us from from our homes. Lilian helcom Allahu Allah Dena Lam Johan de leeuw, confit de will learn to read yokomen D ericom. And talk about Roomba toxic to LA him in New York City. Allah doesn't forbid you concerning those who have not fought you over your religion, nor have they driven you from your homes, that you read that you treat them righteously, and Tabar room, and that you are just and equitable in your treatment of them. And Allah loves those who are just an
equitable. This is our religion, brothers and sisters, and those who would have us disregard the humanity of those people who aren't Muslims, and who are innocent human beings. They have nothing to do with Islam. They have nothing to do with the heritage of our Prophet sallallahu. And he was sending nothing at all. Don't be swayed by them.
A lot of our young people, not a lot. There will be an injustice to our young people. But some are, are swayed by the propaganda of these homicidal groups like ISIS.
Where they from these teachings of the Messenger of Allah?
Where are they?
From?
The prophets, teaching Soleil who will send them when they murder their prisoners who become Muslim,
such as the case of the Roman Catholic, who was an aid worker who was helping Muslims in Syria when he's kidnapped
when he's kidnapped, kidnapping of innocent people is wrong is haram.
Kidnapping people who are not involved in in hostilities to the Muslims is wrong. Now there are those who would say well before out there, Jimin casac was a an aid worker. He was in the US Army in Iraq. And maybe he was fighting Muslims. So we say for the sake of argument, let's say let's accept that.
Let's accept that.
What about not someone who was fighting the Muslims is now now fighting the Muslim world about someone who
currently was fighting the Muslim, such as the man on the battlefield? Who was fighting the Muslims, and then the Muslims to Muslims an answer? And Zaid, Osama bin Zayed
they came they capture this man
and they were getting ready to smite him
and he said learn Hello Muhammad Rasulullah
And we know the story who sama killed him anyway, now get he was fighting the Muslims. He was in a battlefield. He was in an ex soldier. He was a current soldier. He not he might might might have fought the Muslims.
He was fighting the Muslims. And he said lol Hello law, and Osama killed him. And when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was told about that, what did he repeat over and over and over again until someone was crushed? Kotel to who bother and holla La Ilaha Illa la contenta who bother and holla La la la la la contacto who bother in color lol Hello la you killed him after he said Lana Hello law and the Prophet was that was one of the times his anger could not be the disguise. Until Osama said I wish I hadn't become Muslim. And to that point, I wish I had done that. And I wasn't a Muslim, to know that as a Muslim, the Messenger of Allah is so angry with me. So what would the
Messenger of Allah position be towards someone who killed and a worker assisting the Muslim after he said Nan Hello Allah and then put the image of his mouth is murder all over the internet as a snuff film?
What would he say? And we could go on and on and on of the crimes of this group,
and the barbarity and the violations of every known principle of this man.
Brothers and sisters run away from that, like you would run away from a lion. Like you're running away from the plague, like you will run away from your death. Because if you run to that you're running to your death, you run into your spiritual death.
And in all likelihood, you run into your actual death.
Allah Tyler
says, He made us into these nations and tribes, these peoples and tribes.
Yeah, you're
in college. Now. We mentioned the verse
we made you were Janda kung fu band wakaba li li Tara foo. We were put into these different groups to know each other brothers and sisters were put into these different groups to help each other with our new allenbury with taqwa. Well that will lead to our new and it's me wondered when the prophets Allah Allah, this cooperation for good. Allah, taqwa.
Generally speaking, doesn't necessarily mean all of us Muslims cooperating. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he talks of talking about him full full dual,
when he talks about the alliance of virtue that occurred when he was a young man, when one of the
choruses
asked us when were in a semi,
entered into a business transaction with a Yemeni man who came to make Umrah, and to participate in Sukkot or have any entered into a translation with this 70. And then the man didn't pay him for his goods.
And the courageous when they ended the horrible fees or the immoral war, they made a pact that anyone who's oppress anyone denied our rights, their rights, we will all come together to secure their rights. They weren't Muslim at that time. This was before the birth of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam but the profit after and so they got together, when this Yemenis abidi, stood on Apple codebase to where you can stand on a nozman bulldozer and some
grotesque building built on it. And he cried out to the people of Mecca for help. And they they came together and they restored his right. They weren't Muslim. And when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. When he said
that war I called to that alliance of virtue today, after Islam, I would respond. So he's saying this sort of alliance of virtue
With parties who aren't Muslim is something that he would respond to. And it's something we have to respond to today, because people are reaching out to us. After all of these events that happened in Paris in San Bernardino, and the way the media covers this.
And the media has a tremendous responsibility in terms of all this hate and fear mongering that's happening in our country today.
After all of that, how many people are reaching out how many people are expressing solidarity? How many women want to wear hijab and solidarity with our Muslim sisters? How many people want to come to protect them a sajit? How many people are apologizing?
Even to Lindsey Graham, a republican
senator from South Carolina, and I don't say this, to disrespect him. But a lot of people will call him a southern cracker.
When someone that some people, and I respect for for what he did,
I don't respect all of the policies he's advocated during his career. But when lindsey graham
can apologize to the Muslim world, for the actions of someone like a Donald Trump and all those racists and haters, and bigots that Donald Trump is appealing to Trump is not the problem. They say if the king if everyone in the kingdom had a beard, the king would have the longest beard.
If there were no racist in America, Donald Trump would be the most egalitarian, the most humane politician out there. Because Donald Trump is seeking votes. And he's seeking votes from those races and bigots and Muslim hating people that are out there. The problem is in Trump, the problem or the chumps that Trump is trying to appeal to. That's the problem.
When lindsey graham can apologize, brothers and sisters, we have to reach out.
We have to reach out and we have to build bridges. And the place to start building the most logical place is the place where Islam has had his greatest reception. And the greatest reception to Islam in this country has been in the African American community. And brothers and sisters. You have our brothers and sisters reaching out some of you following the events in in Minneapolis. After this, a man was killed in cold cold blooded murder. I forget his name. And you had all these protests.
Jimmy John's Jamar Clark Jameer Clark was killed in Minneapolis. Hmm.
I said Jameer Clark, Jamal Jamal Clark. Okay, let's cut to the chase when Mr. Clark was killed in Minneapolis.
How many activists
both African American Caucasian American, Latino American said that his murder
is in this doing distinguishable from the Islamophobic treatment that many members of the police department mete out to young Somali men in that city and others, they point to the intersection between the anti black sentiments and racism
and the anti muslim sentiments and racism. And they said, We have to come together. We have to come together to address this issue. But we don't have to just come together in Minneapolis. We have to come together in America, brothers and sisters, we have to come together in America
and then began not to just address the symptoms of the problem. But to get to the root of the problem to get at the racism that has been nagging this country since its inception. And if there's any wisdom, and there is a wisdom that we can point to for law bringing Muslims to this country.
The numbers that he has brought Muslims to this country so that we can say to America and allow unequivocal unequivocal voice that a yohannes in the HELOC never coming back and that was gonna come to
the top foo and a Chroma commander light kakum so that we can say to America and allow voice left foot the llf niara Bian Allah Jamie Hualalai Argentinian Allah Arabi. Well Annie, Allah is where they are.
In love with taqwa, our America, all the racist in America, the haters in America, those who would try to deny our efforts to create a more perfect union, we say to you, there is no virtue, to the black white, over the black, nor to the black over the white except in God consciousness. Brothers and sisters, let us be a God conscious community and on the basis of that consciousness, address an attack and attempt to destroy the racism which if we do not destroy it, it will destroy us Salam aleikum