Islamophobia Its Reality & How to Deal with it

Islamophobia: Its Reality & How to Deal with it

Shaykh AbdurRaheem Green

Opening and Greetings

(السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu)

(الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ - Alhamdulillah, we praise Him, we seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomever He allows to go astray, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.)

Alhamdulillah brothers, Alhamdulillah Allah has gathered us here today. It's a real privilege to be here with you and we are discussing something very important, the topic of Islamophobia.

Understanding the Context

Now unfortunately I didn't understand the last three speeches but I felt them, you know. My Urdu is limited to "khabar daran chabkaro," you know, that's about it. So Alhamdulillah, but it's a real pleasure to be here.

Actually brothers, you know, I want to go back to what Azad from MEND was saying. I want to go back to a few important things that he was saying. But I want to think, I want you to think about this whole issue of Islamophobia from a completely different angle.

Seeing Through Others' Eyes: A Thought Exercise

Imagine you're a Gora, imagine you're a Gora. This is what I want you to do. Imagine you're a white man living in England. Actually let's do something easier. Imagine you're back in Pakistan, or I know you're not all from Pakistan or wherever, and a white man comes to—actually this happened didn't it—and a white man comes to Pakistan, a whole bunch of white people come to Pakistan, you know, and they live in your town and you see these strange people walking around. They don't look like you, they don't smell like you, they don't eat like you, they don't talk like you, they dress different, they look different. But you know what, they're guests, you treat them nicely, you smile at them, you know. Maybe behind you say, you know, these people, you know, they're so dirty, they're this, they're that, because they're different. But maybe you smile like this, you know.

And then after a bit they stay and you know, they come to your schools and after a bit they start building these big buildings. They don't look like anything you've seen before. They have roofs made of and bricks and like a big thing and then suddenly on Sunday, you never heard these things, there's dong, dong, dong, like this. What's going on you're saying, what's happening? You find they've built a church and then they start singing and you know, then on Saturday nights they start parties with music and dancing and you get my idea.

Do you feel happy about this? No, no, no, no, no, you don't feel happy about this at all, right? So listen, if you didn't feel happy about English people coming over to Pakistan and building churches and you know, taking everything over, why would you expect white people to feel happy about that if you come and do that here? Because you're the same with us, we're all human beings really, we feel the same things, we feel this. It's not hard for you to imagine what it must be like.

The Importance of Empathy

Because that's what we have to do brothers, you know, actually I believe that this is what we call in English, we call it empathy. Empathy is being able to understand how other people feel. You don't need to agree with it but you should be able to know how they feel.

So when Azad was saying, look, it's 30%, 30% of the problem, yes, is the media, are the politicians, are the laws, are, you know, other issues. But how much really is to do with our behavior, how we behave, how many, how much of Islamophobia can we mitigate? How much can we do to make non-Muslims not be afraid of us, not be afraid of our religion? Without compromising our religion, I'm not asking anyone to compromise the religion.

Rethinking Our Approach to Mosques

But let me ask you a question: is there anything in Islam that orders us to have a green dome? Or even to have a dome, or even a minaret? Can anyone find me a verse of Quran or any hadith to establish that a masjid should have a minaret? Actually, I could make an argument that both those things, domes and minarets, are bid'ah.

There's no dome and minaret in the masjid of the Prophet.

But the point I'm trying to make is that imagine you're an Englishman, and you're walking down the street and you see this building, we call it a masjid, and you see this building. Will you look at it and say, oh, this looks like a nice place that I should go into? If you think that, brothers, you'd be wrong, because most people, they feel that when they see our masjids, it says the opposite. It says, don't come in here, keep away, this is not for you.

Not like our restaurants, by the way. Alhamdulillah, we're very good at making our restaurants very welcoming. MashaAllah. It's a shame we don't sell Islam the way we sell, you know, our food. We're very good at getting them to eat our food. Alhamdulillah, it's, you know, top dish in UK now. Chicken Tikka Masala. Alhamdulillah. I hear they want to replace it with lasagna now, but I don't believe it.

The Real Problem: Lack of Demonstration

Not really, seriously, we have a real problem. Because people don't have actually, they don't have a problem with eating our food, they love it. So what's the problem? What's the issue? Why is it they are afraid of Islam? Why are they afraid of us? Because that's the reality.

We haven't really made an effort to show people how beautiful Islam is. We haven't really made an effort to demonstrate through our behavior, through our actions, how Islam is, how beautiful it is.

Contributing to Society

And I want to repeat what Azad said, something very important: that the people of this country feel that we care about this country. So if I go back to my analogy of the white people coming to Pakistan, if they take everything from Pakistan, everything they earn, everything they get, and they send it back to England. We know that's what they did actually. They didn't invest it in India, they sent it off to England.

So after a time, what did we do? We decided to chuck them out. We had the English call it, the British call it in history, the British call it the Indian Mutiny. In Indian history, they call it the First War of Indian Independence. You see? And then they had the full war for independence because at the end of the time, people got fed up that these people were coming and raping and pillaging and taking and thieving and everything and investing nothing really. A few buildings maybe and a railway or something. But what? And cricket, yeah. Gave us cricket. That's the only thing we really learnt from the British. Cricket. Okay, good.

The Question of Charity and Investment

So, really, how will you feel? And this is actually, this is a little bit like our analogy. From your Sadaqah, how much of your Sadaqah do you give? You send back to, you know, another country. 100%. But you're living here.

Believe me, there are poor people in the streets here. There are people, there are food banks. People have to go to food banks here. You don't need to look 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 miles away to see poverty. There are people taking drugs. People who have real problems with drugs, with alcohol, with many social problems.

Protecting Our Children Through Social Investment

Now, you have to understand something, my brothers. This is very important. Right? When your children walk out of the door and they go to school, there is no special thing protecting them from the drug dealers, from the prostitutes, from the alcohol, from all this stuff. There is no special, like, you know, I don't know what you think. Maybe you think the angels are walking with them, guarding them. Well, inshaAllah, maybe to some extent. But in reality, when our children go into the streets, they're gonna face the same problems every other children face. And if we don't invest in this society, our children, bad things are going to happen to them.

And I'm sure everyone, there's a lot of uncles here with grey beards. Mine is getting more and more grey. A lot, I think the only one, no? Some, Alhamdulillah. So, there's a lot of you with grey beards. You must have seen a few generations of kids being brought up. Right? And I'm sure that you've seen some of your children and your grandchildren taking drugs, selling drugs, drinking alcohol, doing things that, you know, your heart is broken because you saw these things happening. Yes?

But the thing is these are ills in this society. We're all part of this society. We need to invest.

The Short-Term Strategy That Failed

Now, my wife tells me, my wife, her family originally from Lahore, Punjabis. So, she told me that, this is what she said, our people—that's when she says our people, she means, you know, the Pakistanis. She said, our people, when we came to this country, we saw all these haram things and we try to create an environment that will protect us from it. So, we live together in communities, we try to build masjids and things to make it like back home and keep our kids away from all of that stuff.

You see, but, you know, you can understand 100% why you would do that. But it's a very short term strategy. Maybe that's a good strategy if you're gonna live for, you know, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. But maybe you didn't realize that your children were gonna be born here and your grandchildren and that they're gonna look at this place as their home. And what investment have we made, brothers? What investment have we made into this society?

The Critical Need for Investment

So this is very important, please. This is so important. Because for me, this is the key. This is the key. We need to think of this place as our home and our children's home and we need to start investing.

How many Islamic youth clubs do you think we have? How many, for example, in America they have camps, summer camps for Muslim kids. You know, where they go and they do activities and they go outside and they canoe and they bike and they climb and they learn about their religion. Do we have anything like this here? We have nothing. Nothing. We have nothing.

The Reality of Our Youth's Problems

I was talking to one brother. I'm sure you know him, Ilyas Kilmani. He's talking to me. He said, if I actually start to tell you the problems I'm dealing with, you know, you will have nightmares. You will not believe the things I have to deal with kids who are coming to me and the problems they are facing. I don't even want to say it's really... Imagine the most horrible thing you can imagine and it's worse than that. You know what I mean? We're talking about psychotic murderers, horrible sexual things, terrible things. This is Muslim families, Muslim kids going through this. Not to mention the drugs and the alcohol.

The Lack of Mental Health Resources

How many institutions do you think we have, right? To cater for our children who have mental problems, who have really mental problems, who have... Not the thing that imam can deal with. I can't deal with it. I've been studying psychology even before I was a Muslim. Since I was 13 years old, I've been interested in psychology. Some of these things, I wouldn't even need to begin. With all my experience, I wouldn't know how to start. How many institutions do you think we have? Nothing, nothing.

Believe me, believe me. I know I have... In my own family, I have people who have problems and there is no one to... And they need special care. I don't want to say, oh, send this child to this psychologist or this psychiatrist because in fact they'll make them worse. How many do we have? How many people, institutions? We have nothing because we haven't invested. This has to change. We will not survive.

Engaging the Youth

Really I'm looking in here, how many shabab are here today? How many youth are here today? You know what? I think it is brothers, honestly brothers, I didn't understand the speeches, but I have a feeling that it's the same things being said every year over to the same group of people. And it's not that they're not important things. We need to know those things. We need to be reminded of those things. But where are the youth? Where are the shabab?

We have to ask this question, what are we doing for them? What is this got to do with Islamophobia? It comes down to this very important concept that we live in this society and we need to be seen, we need to contribute to it. This for me is the key.

Personal Reflections on Purpose

And more than that brothers, I really want all of you please, I think this, believe me I think of this all the time. I mean I constantly think, what am I doing here? This is my country in the sense I'm white. Actually I wasn't born here, I was born in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Africa. But you know this is my country in the sense that this is my father's land, his father's father's land, you know for generations. That's where we came from, right? For I don't know how many generations. Green is a very very old English name, right?

Yet I ask myself many times, maybe not everyday, but maybe everyday, why am I here? Couldn't we go somewhere else? Are my kids safe? Are they safe here? No. Am I safe here? No. Safe what in the sense that I don't... My safety I'm not honestly, I'm not afraid if someone kills me.

Facing Personal Threats

And by the way just to let you know, I'm just to let you know, there's already been one guy who has been arrested who wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill me. Listening to this Tommy Robinson, Robbins. He wanted to kill me. The police are investigating it right now. A guy wanted to kill me, you know. And it's someone I spoke to. I spoke to him. I talked with him. But you know his head was filled with this hatred.

But I'm not afraid of that. Honestly that's not what I'm afraid of. What I'm afraid of, that my kids will go astray, that we will go astray. That's what I'm... That's what really makes me frightened that we will not be able to hang on to our deen. So I'm sure you think of that as well.

The Mission That Keeps Me Here

But what makes me stay here? And this is something we have to think about. As a Muslim, everything you do, everything you do is dependent upon intention. Are you doing it for the pleasure of Allah? And you have to ask yourself, is this correct? Is this something pleasing to Allah?

So for me, the only way truly I can feel happy that I am doing something pleasing to Allah. The thing that really at the end of the day makes me, justifies to me, why am I staying here? Is because I have one mission. That one mission is to invite those people who have not yet heard about the message of Islam to Islam. To show people the beauty of Islam. In whatever way I can. This is something that keeps me going. This is something that keeps me going. This is something that gives me purpose.

The Power of Personal Interaction

And I believe this is so important. Again, when Azad said, most people, they don't know Muslims. Really, they don't. They've never met a Muslim. They've never talked to a Muslim. And that's why it's easy for them, some of these people, to think of us not as maybe even being human beings.

But when you talk with them, when you interact with them, and you deal with them, and you deal with them kindly, in a beautiful way, as you should as a Muslim, with honesty, with good business dealings, with kindness and compassion. Alhamdulillah.

Where Islamophobia is Lowest

And the evidence is, that when Muslims are living together with non-Muslims, so the places where the Islamophobia is the least, are the places where Muslims are concentrated living with non-Muslims. So in London, Islamophobia is very low. In Bradford, it's low. In Birmingham, it's low. Why? Because they live with Muslims. They know them. They're their neighbors. They're their friends. They're colleagues. They're work colleagues.

The places where Islamophobia is the worst, not just in England, but this is in Europe as well, the truth is, the ones that they don't know any Muslims. They don't actually know Muslims. All they know is what they see, the lies they see, the 20 out of 21 negative articles they see, on the news and the media. So we have to work hard. We have to work hard.

Three Practical Actions to Combat Islamophobia

So look, I'm gonna finish now. So I'm gonna actually just give you three things I'm gonna suggest. Three things

I want to suggest that after this conference, I want you to do three things. Three simple things. Right?

First Action: Invite Non-Muslims to Your Home

Number one, this is my challenge to you. Find some non-Muslim to invite to your home for some food and sit down with them, invite them, and let them see you, your family, you know, that you're human beings. This is a very amazing thing, to invite someone in to your house for food, who is not Muslim. If not food, just tea and biscuits. Right? It's the first thing.

Second Action: Support Dawah

Okay, the second thing, I want you to take your obligation of inviting the non-Muslims very seriously. Even if you don't give dawah yourself, support the people who are giving dawah. It's very important. In some way, shape or form, make sure that you are connected to and involved in dawah. In any way, even either you do it yourself, you learn how to do it, or you support those people who are doing it.

Third Action: Smile

And the third thing I want you to do is always walk around with a smile. Yes. Always walk around with a smile. Yes, uncle, smile. Yeah. Because actually sometimes we look like, I'm going to murder you. People look at us, you know, we have the beard, and we should keep the beard, you know. We have the beard, we have the thing. And they think, Oh my God, he's plotting to blow me up. He just looks at your face. He says, he's thinking of it now. All those verses in the Quran about chopping the heads of the... He's looking at me, and that's what he's thinking of now.

But if you're smiling, I mean, really genuinely smiling from your heart. Hi, you know. Oh. That's... Oh, he's not too bad, that one. He looks a bit scary. He's smiling. You see? Alhamdulillah. Just a little thing like that, believe me, you could change the world with a smile. Really, alhamdulillah.

Conclusion

So this is my suggestions to combat Islamophobia. Three things, alhamdulillah. Invite a non-Muslim into your home, get involved in dawah, and smile.

(الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon his family and companions and grant them peace. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.)