Legacy of Malcolm X- The Malcolm Nobody Talks About

Legacy of Malcolm X: The Malcolm Nobody Talks About

Opening Supplications

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. O Allah, bless our master Muhammad and his family and companions and follow them with goodness until the Day of Judgment. Praise be to Allah.

O Allah, open Your wisdom upon us and spread Your mercy upon us, O Lord of Glory and Honor. And bless our master Muhammad and his family. There is no power or strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.

The Significance of Malcolm Shabazz

Alhamdulillah. The celebration of Malik Shabazz's life, I think, is something important for our community in the United States because Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz really is at the essence, I think, of what the Islamic Muslim reality is. We live in a country that has a long and checkered past.

It's a country that many people have come to these shores in different circumstances. And the vast majority of us here are immigrants or children of immigrants or children of children of children of immigrants. And each one of those groups that has come here, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon community, has had a struggle, and many of them are actually still struggling, has had a struggle to find its place in the American tapestry or a seat at the American table.

The Muslim Struggle in America

And the Muslims are now a group that is going through a struggle and in many ways that struggle is far less difficult than the previous struggles. If we actually look at what people have gone through before, the struggle of the American Muslim community really came at a time when so much groundwork had already been done.

Many of the immigrants that have come to this country came after the Civil Rights Movement and after an immense amount of work had been done to prepare their ways in this country, their abilities to work in places and to be treated with a modicum of dignity.

And I would argue, in fact, that it's very important to know, not only for the children, but for the immigrants who've come to this country, and some of the people in the audience did come from other places and now they have children here, but to know the previous struggles. It's very important to have a sense of the history of what's been going on, because the struggles have not stopped. The struggles continue.

The Nature of Human Struggle

The nature of life on earth is that we are born in a struggle. The Quran clearly identifies that, that the human being is born in a state of struggle. And the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, whose life

and mission was a struggle, and who struggled until the very end of his life.

So when we look at the life of Malcolm Shabazz, we're looking at a life of struggle. And we're also looking at a life that embodies the search for knowledge and truth. And the quote that was previously quoted from her father, which was really a perfect quote to highlight what I wanted to talk about, was the fact that this was a man who was incredibly open-minded.

The Multifaceted Personality of Malcolm X

And I think people tend to forget, because you have a man who was a speaker behind a podium, but people are not just speakers behind podiums. People have multifaceted dimensions to their personalities. But if we look at this openness to the truth, that's what we consistently see in the life of the Imam.

We see an openness to the truth and continual growth. Growth that doesn't stop at any point. But the other thing that really strikes me about his life and legacy, when we talk about a legacy, is human dignity.

The Dignity of the Individual

Is the dignity of the individual. And this is something that's a very important message for the Muslim community today, all over the world, but also here in the United States. The struggle for dignity, to be treated with dignity.

The Quran states in Surah Al-Isra that Allah has given human beings dignity:

"And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite] preference."

(Quran 17:70)

We dignified the children of Adam. Carrying them on the land and in the sea. We were ennobled by being carried. We ride on horses, on camels, on donkeys, and now we drive in cars. We ride on airplanes, on buses. We cross the sea in ships. And this is an indication of honoring the human being.

We're not like animals that have to move across long places without the facilitation that's been given to human beings. And then we walk upright. That's part of the honor, that we've been given the honor of walking upright. The human being walks upright. And we provided, the Quran says, we provided the children of Adam from pure things. And we preferred the children of Adam over so much of what we have created.

Called by Our Exemplars

"On that Day when We will call all people with their imam." (Quran 17:71)

On that day when we call everybody with their imam. Who are they following? Who have they taken as an exemplar? Because on the Day of Judgment you are going to be called by your imam. The one you have taken as an exemplar.

Who is your example? Is it an example that's dignified? Is it an example that's elevated? Or is it an example that is degraded? Undignified? That has squandered this incredible opportunity of life by living a life that is not becoming of the noble stature of the human being.

Malcolm's Embodiment of Dignity

One of the things that when we look at the life of Hajj Malcolm Shabazz we see somebody who carried himself with dignity and it's very clearly reflected right here in his daughter. Because you see dignity.

And this is something that we are losing as a species. We are losing this as a species. If you listen to the speeches of Malcolm you hear flawless English. You hear somebody who spent time mastering a language going through the dictionary. And when he used slang he used it for rhetorical purposes which is part of the rhetoric of the English language. Even Shakespeare uses slang for rhetorical effect.

But he spoke dignified English. He was always dressed in a dignified manner. He was kept in a dignified manner. Those are aspects and qualities that he embodied that people might not really think about. But they are part of that personality.

The Prophetic Example of Dignity

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said in a hadith that Imam Ahmed relates:

(Musnad Ahmad)

"You are going to be amongst your brothers and sisters, so make sure the beast that you are riding on is well kept, and make sure that the clothes that you are wearing are good clothes, so that you will be like a distinguishing mark amongst people."

What an extraordinary hadith. He said you are going to be amongst your brothers and sisters. You are going to places. So make sure the beast that you are riding on is well kept. Make sure that the clothes that you are wearing are good clothes.

Imam Ash-Shawkani says:

الْحَدِيثُ يَدُلُّ عَلَى نَدْبِ تَحْسِينِ الزِّيِّ وَالْهَيْئَةِ

"This hadith indicates the importance of wearing clothes that are dignified."

Wearing clothes that are dignified. And then he said, peace and blessings be upon him, to take care of your clothes so that when you are amongst people as if you were a distinguishing mark amongst people. As if you

were a beauty mark on the body. Islam elevates people.

Islam Elevates and Honors

It pulls them up. It takes people that were in the most degraded of circumstances and it gives them honor and dignity because it makes them servants of the highest, most exalted. And it reminds us in the Qur'an:

"Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you." (Quran 49:13)

The noblest amongst you are the most conscientious. The people that are most aware of virtue and practice virtue. The dutiful ones. The people that care for the orphans, that care for the weak, that care for the widows.

The Example of Khadijah

When Khadijah, may Allah be pleased with her, when the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, came in worried about the experience that he was having and Khadijah said, God will never forsake you. What was her proof that Allah would not forsake his Prophet? She said, you help the weak. You take care of the needy. You fulfill the needs of people. You take care of the orphan. This is what she spoke about. She spoke about his virtue.

The Prophet's Dignified Appearance

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had a special set of clothes for greeting the delegations. When people came and sent their emissaries to the Prophet, he had clothes to greet them. He had clothes that were specifically for the minbar. This is mentioned in his seerah, peace and blessings be upon him.

The Degradation of Modern Culture

We're living in a time when the most degraded people design clothes to make people look degraded. Really, if you look at what's happened to women's clothes, in our lifetime, those of us who are old enough to remember, in this country, what's happened to women's clothes.

And now convincing people that threadbare clothes are fashionable so that people will pay large amounts of money for wearing jeans with holes in them. Purchasing them. People will wear T-shirts now, which used to be an undergarment. When I was growing up, a T-shirt was worn under the shirt. And my father wouldn't let us wear jeans. Literally, would not let me wear jeans. I wanted to wear jeans because James Dean wore jeans.

The Loss of Dignified Language

This loss of dignity in our language, when language becomes something that no longer is meaningful. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, talked towards the end of time, he talked about the Sakkarun. And

they asked him, who were the Sakkarun? They're like fiery people. People that, fiery people. And he said, they're young people whose greeting amongst each other would be cursing each other. Cursing each other to greet each other. What a difference between that and saying, As-salamu alaykum, peace be upon you.

Islam's Transformative Power

Islam is about elevating people. Taking them out of dire circumstances. Giving them dignity. Letting them walk upright.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was somebody who spoke beautiful language. His language was an exalted language. He spoke to each group according to their dialect. If the Yemenis came, he spoke in the Yemeni dialect. This is one of his miracles. And the Sahaba used to marvel at his language because sometimes they couldn't understand the dialect that he was speaking in.

But it said, the tribes who heard him speak to them said that he spoke in the highest and finest and most eloquent language of their clans. This is how the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, spoke. He was somebody who watched his words. He spoke deliberately. You can find no wastage of words in his language. If you read the hadith from cover to cover, he said that khairul kalam, or the Arabs say the best of speech:

خَيْرُ الْكَلَامِ مَا قَلَّ وَدَلَّ

"The best of speech is what is direct and to the point."

The Obligation to Know Our History

This community has an obligation to know the struggles of the peoples that went before that were struggles to achieve dignity, to achieve the right to sit as an equal at this table. The Muslims are in the midst of that struggle. The Muslims have been singled out. We have racial profiling. I don't know what's so racial about it because I'm white as the moon and I've been selected for this as well. So, I've been pulled aside.

One time I was pulled aside. One of the guys was a Muslim and the other guy said, this has nothing to do with you know, your name. And the other guy just, he was behind him. He's like, you know, literally. I was in New York.

The Blessing of Being Challenged

So the Muslims are finding it a little bit difficult. To be honest with you, it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing because this community needs to be pushed a little bit. We've been complacent for a long time.

The people that came to these shores, those of us who converted to Islam, those of us who converted to Islam, we got to work right away. Imam Zaid, Dr. Abdul Hakeem Quick, some of the other Muslim converts that I know in here, they went to work right away. We wanted to, Imam Suhaib, Dr. Omar Abdullah Farooq, these are

people that they got to work right away to find out about this religion and now these are leaders in our community because they took this religion seriously.

Taking Religion Seriously

This religion is something to take seriously. If you go out and walk around, we've got right across the street there's blues and booze. I was walking down and there was music coming out of there and I looked up and it said blues and booze. You got the blues, you drink the booze and the blues goes away until the morning and then you start vomiting it up.

A Country in Crisis

This country has the blues. Really, this country has the blues. It's a depressed country. It has an economic depression but it also has a spiritual depression and people that don't think that's true, they're not reading the statistics, they're not reading the reports that are coming out. We have, the military now has exponential rates of suicide. The suicides are going up in the military and they're very concerned about this. Literally dozens a month of Iraqi veterans are killing themselves.

We have a country that's, right now, we've got black oil being pumped in to one of the beautiful regions of this country and that oil is moving. Once it gets into the Gulf Stream, it'll end up in England. People should be making du'a. We should be making du'a. Really, make du'a that Allah, the Most High, enlightens an engineer to work out how to stop this thing because this thing is harming not just the sea creatures, it's harming everybody.

Signs of Environmental Crisis

We have volcanoes erupting that are disrupting airspace in Europe was shut down because of a volcano in Iceland that 200 years ago, a volcano in Iceland erupted and killed one-fifth of the population. You have people on television making jokes about the volcano, saying it's too hard to pronounce. Couldn't the Icelanders give us an easier word? As if it's a joke.

We've got a volcano in Guatemala. We had an earthquake in Chile recently that literally shortened the day on the atomic clock. Because it shifted slightly the axis of the earth. This is what our scientists are telling us. The United Nations just announced last week that at current consumption rates, there will not be any fish in the ocean in 50 years. I've got children that are going to be my age in 50 years. And this is what the United Nations is telling us.

Time to Wake Up

It's not time for blues and booze. It's time for waking up. Really, it's time for waking up. It's time for thinking about where we're going. Because what we need is Toba. What we need is restoration. What we need is reclamation. The human condition needs to be elevated once again.

Dignity in Poverty

It's possible. Human beings, I live in the poorest country, one of the poorest countries in the world, in West Africa. And I saw some of the most dignified human beings that I've ever seen in my life. In absolute and utter abject poverty, and yet in that poverty, they were the most dignified people I'd ever seen in my life. Imam Zaid went to Mali and said the same thing about the people of Mali.

Go and look at some of these places that still have traditional cultures intact despite the poverty. They maintain a level of human dignity that is completely absent in the Western Hemisphere. You just don't see it. You don't see it in the rich, and you don't see it in the poor.

The Power of Media

Because our culture has been pulled down. Our culture has been pulled down by a degraded, monolithic, hegemonic media machine that's capable of generating and literally changing the hearts and minds of masses of people in a very short period of time. Never has the power of so few people been accessed to control so many people ever in human history. And this is what we're up against. But we need to recognize these young people deserve so much better. They deserve so much better.

Malcolm's Awakening in Prison

When I was working early, when I came back, when I first came back, and I was working as an imam in Santa Clara and doing work in the prison system. And this is where Imam Malcolm had his awakening. When I was working in there, I was so struck by the dignity of some of the Muslims that I met in those institutions. That what Islam had done. In fact, one of them just, I met somebody earlier today, he came up to me in the booth and told me how one of my books helped him in prison, like helped turn him around in prison.

Islam as Restoration

Islam is about restoration. It's about elevating people, pulling them up. That's what this religion is about. It did it for me. It did it for Imam Zaid. It did it for Dr. Abdullah Hakeem for Dr. Omar Abdullah Farooq. And there's many other converts in this hall. We know what we're talking about. Mustafa Shaheed, right there. We know what we're talking about.

The Precious Gift of Islam

Some of y'all have been taking this religion for granted for so long. You don't know what you have. You don't know the precious gift that you've been given. But you owe it to people out there that need this elevating, transformative force, this power, this spiritual power that can take a degraded individual and turn them into a mover of mountains. A leader of men. Give him or her the human dignity needed to live a life that in the end somebody can say, that's a great man. That's a great woman.

Honoring Malcolm's Legacy

That's what this man that we're honoring tonight means to me. He's a great man. And as long as there are Muslims in America, he should be remembered and inshallah, he will be remembered and honored.

The Example of Great Lives

Longfellow says, "Lives of great men all remind us we too can make our lives sublime and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time. Footprints that perhaps another sailing o'er life's solemn main a forlorn and shipwrecked brother seeing shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing with a heart for any fate still achieving, still pursuing. Learn to labor and to wait."

Conclusion: Following the Right Exemplar

That's what the life of a great man is about. It's an example. It's an imam. He is an imam. On that day, we are going to be called and be behind our imams. Who is your imam? Who is your exemplar? Inshallah, it'll be the most dignified of human beings. The noblest of the messengers, peace and blessings be upon him and his family.

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.