The Rules of Engagement

8 Rules of Engagement

Opening Remarks and Introduction

As-salamu alaykum, greetings of peace. It's my honor to welcome all of you on behalf of Zaytuna College. About the program tonight, as we all know, all minorities, including especially Muslims, face a series of questions in working for change for the causes that they're interested in.

So the questions are, what exactly is the change we want to bring about? And then the next question becomes, what is our theory of change, as they call it? How does change actually happen? How does this change take place? What is the most effective way to influence political authorities, whether they're governments, whether they're commissions, whether they're international organizations? What are the most effective means to influence their agenda, their policies, whatever it might be? Are there reasons to engage with political authorities, even if you find some of their actions or statements morally unacceptable or deplorable, even? Are there any reasons that we should still, we can and should still engage with them? Can different members of a minority community, in this case, for Muslims, pursue different avenues to work for change? There are people who engage, there are people who lobby, there are people who protest, people who do boycotts, people who work in electoral campaigns. These are all methods of working for change. Is it okay for everybody to do whatever they choose to do out of these? So those are a lot of the questions we're gonna try and address, as much of those as we can tonight, in the conversation that you'll see.

Context: Commission on Unalienable Rights

And because this has been in the news, as you all know lately, driven by this news in the last month about the Commission on Unalienable Rights, the Department of State, the United States Department of State. So that's, hopefully this will shed some light on all of these topics about engagement. Our goal tonight is to try and shed some light on this and to also look at how influence can work within governments and within governmental bodies and how hearts and minds can change, and can begin to change.

Introduction of Speakers

So let me begin by introducing some of our speakers real quickly, and then we'll get started. Salam al-Marayati, he has dedicated himself to improving the public understanding of Islam. He has visited the White House, he's worked on Capitol Hill, he's worked with different national and international organizations in human rights, religious freedom, and a whole host of other issues that are important to Muslims, and to broader faith communities. He's also, I should mention, the president and the co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, MPAC as it's known. And he oversees their groundbreaking civic engagement public policy and advocacy work. So he has a wealth of experience of working from outside, but working and facing the powers that be, so to speak, and trying to effect change in that manner.

Hamza Yusuf is, as you all know, president of Zaytuna College, and he has a longstanding proponent, he's been a longstanding proponent of classical learning in Islam, and for decades now he's engaged with political authorities, governments, here in America and across the globe, in many capacities. He's also participated in major international organizations, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Vatican, all kinds of national and international groups like that. So he has a wealth of experience to talk about what he has seen, how change works, how influence works within those entities that he's been familiar with.

Our moderator tonight will be Hala Hijazi, and she's a Bay Area native and longtime friend, and she also works in politics, so she's a really great person to actually have to facilitate and moderate this discussion, I think. She is a, I want to be accurate about what I say about her, her extensive public service and government affairs experience, and on the board of directors of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, she's the Human Rights Commissioner in the city of San Francisco. She also chairs the AMEMSA, as it's called, which stands for Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian Advisory Boards for the San Francisco Mayor, District Attorney, and Police Chief.

So she brings a lot of experience of working both one leg inside the government, one leg outside, so to speak, if I can say that. Jamal Baadani is both a religious scholar and a policy expert on issues related to security, to conflict resolution, U.S. foreign policy, and he has considerable experience both inside the government, he worked for a time inside the United States Department of State under John Kerry, when he was the Secretary of State under the Obama administration. He holds a PhD in Middle Eastern Islamic Studies from UCLA, he's worked at the State Department as a Senior Policy Advisor on matters of religion and U.S. foreign policy, and he also served many years for the United States Institute of Peace. He now serves as Vice President of Development and Strategy at the Center for Global Policy, and that is a think tank in Washington, so pretty much his entire work there is engaging with governments. With that, I'm gonna ask all the panelists to please come and join us. Please give me a round of applause, join me in this for the panelists.

The Importance of Muslim Civic Engagement

So, Brother Al-Marayati, as one of our national leaders, as it relates to the Muslim community and especially civic engagement and public affairs, what are your thoughts on this evening's topic and why is this so important? And anything you would like to follow up with Qamar's opening remarks before we proceed with the program? Yes, assalamu alaikum. Wa alaikum salam. Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim.

Thank you for Zaytuna, Sheikh Hamza, for inviting me to be on this panel, and I wish we had more panels like this where we would have these serious conversations and engaging with community because I believe that as we're engaging government, we also need to be engaging community because at the end of the day, our job is to represent the interests of our community. We believe at MPAC that Muslims should have a seat at the table, every table, the right, the left, where you like it, where you don't like it, but we need to have a Muslim voice because the number one criticism of Muslims is that we are silent, we're not heard. And I know there's a lot of noise in social media, but that's not real work.

The real work is out there, and change happens by engaging decision makers and those who shape public opinion so that they have a better understanding of Islam. We change the way they think about Islam and Muslims, from government to law enforcement to editors to civic leaders. There needs to be our presence for that change to happen, and at MPAC, we believe in the four steps of creating change, this theory of change.

MPAC's Four Steps of Creating Change

The first step is that you have to have- Maybe just explain MPAC. The Muslim Public Affairs Council. We engage decision makers and media because the policies and the news that shape the image of Muslims is really the crux of the issue involving Muslims.

You ask any Muslim community, what is it that you wanna change the most? They wanna change how the media is distorting Islam. They wanna change the laws and the policies that we see the double standards in. They want our children to live with better opportunity and hope and to end the bullying and the harassment of our students, starting from the earliest years, the most important years of our children, the first and second grade, even.

So we engage decision makers and opinion shapers. So the four steps that we aim to do, that this is our theory of change, if you will, is that number one, you have to establish a presence, and that means you have to have a seat at the table. And number two, when you have that seat at the table, you gain respect.

Respect means that you do your homework, you have your policy papers, you have your thought leadership, and you offer ideas that people did not think about before, so that when you walk out and they walk out of the room, they may say, you know, I may not agree with that Muslim, but I respect what Muslims have to offer. I respect the credibility that they came to the table with, because they sounded like they knew what they were talking about. So you have to achieve respect first.

After that, you gain the acceptance of being called upon whenever there is an issue. So when there is a problem, they call you to say, you know what, you need to be at this meeting because something is happening. So now you're part of that decision making process, even if it is at a very local level, or at a very micro level, but you are accepted to be part of that process.

After you gain that acceptance, then you can wield influence on the situation. You are seen as an expert on the issue, you've developed your credibility, you take stands that show the principles of Islam, as the Quran says

Invite people to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching, beautiful admonition.

And when you argue with them, argue with them and engage them in a way that you come up with something better. And that means that we don't just complain about problems, but we are into problem solving. We are problem solvers, not just problem makers or problem amplifiers.

Muslims as Light in American Pluralism

And sometimes that is the image that is seen by many communities, not just ours, that they just shout and scream, but we are here for problem solving. How do we leverage government, how do we leverage the decision making process to offer services to our community, to protect them, and at the same time show that Islam and Muslims are an enriching element of American pluralism. And that is the theory that we see, we are like the light in this room.

The light in this room is not the largest part of the room, but it is the most significant part of the room. Islam and Muslims, it is that light in the American room. Without it, there is darkness and we don't have a direction. We don't see right from wrong. So that is our theory of change in engaging the rest of society on these issues.

The Importance of Career Public Servants

The last thing I wanna say is to Qamar's point about career public servants. They are probably the most important elements of democracy. They are probably the people that we need to engage the most because as Qamar says, they are there no matter which Republican, Democrat, far right, far left, whatever the situation, they want that expertise from us and they are in there as government public servants. And so you know how we say, don't stereotype Muslims? Well, we shouldn't stereotype government because there are many elements of government.

There's much good in government. I would say that these career public servants along with some other great leaders in American society have preserved our democracy no matter what we think about who's in the White House, no matter how hopeless it gets that we think that it's becoming tyrannical or it's becoming authoritarian or it's becoming oppressive. And I remember sitting with President Clinton even and we had Muslim leaders and there were sanctions on the people of Iraq and they were dying and they weren't changing.

It wasn't him that I was interested in talking to, it was his staff around him that were gonna make the decisions and have the analysis. And even when we go to someone that we disagree with vehemently, what does the Quran tell us? Go and tell them. Like it told Musa about Faraon, go and tell him that he is transgressing.

The Islamic Method of Engagement

But when you go and talk to him, talk to him in soft speech (قَوْلًا لَّيِّنًا - qawlan layyina) (Quran 20:44). That is the Islamic method of engagement that even when we raise these issues that we feel our country is going in the wrong direction, we speak with intelligence, with mutual respect as problem solvers, soft speech so that when we walk out, Islam is seen in a better light, inshallah.

And then there will be more change for the positive for our community and for the rest of society. Sheikh Hamza, it's fair to say you have received a decent amount of both criticism and support for your engagement or

rather engagements, especially recently. What are your thoughts on the importance of engagement for and with the Muslim community? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.

Wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Well, first of all, it's very interesting being in the matbakh because it's a lot hotter than the room right now. But for me, it's been an extraordinary journey.

Life Stages and the Question of Engagement

And as I come into these later years of the journey and as it begins to wind up for me, looking back, Erikson has these crises, developmental crises that people have. And the one between 40 and 65 is about generativity versus stagnation, like actually doing something useful. Because by 40, this is the prophetic age. You kind of have a level of wisdom that you didn't have in your earlier years. And then you've got the youth still working. But 65 on is integrity versus despair.

What you did with your life, do you feel it was worthwhile or do you feel that maybe you made really huge mistakes and it was a completely squandered opportunity? These are the things that all human beings have to deal with. Aristotle in book seven has a very interesting statement where he says that there is a difference of opinion amongst those who agree that the most choice-worthy life is a life in pursuit of virtue. And what they disagree about is whether that virtue is best actualized in the public sphere as a political servant, or by disengaging completely and moving into the contemplative life, the philosophical life, the scholarly life, the sagely life.

And he says, and then he says that because all people of wisdom agree that these two pursuits are the ones that the people most ambitious in the pursuit of virtue engage in, either the active political life or the philosophic life. It's a very interesting passage because the two single most influential people in my life after my parents are two Mauritanian scholars. One of them, Murabit al-Hajj, lived a completely disengaged life.

In the middle, he actually left and went into the deep desert, and really hard to get to him. He actually told me, I put a barrier between me and the people of this world, meaning the Sahara Desert. And he spent his life teaching, and people came to him, but his life was a life of devotion and contemplation. Nobody criticizes him. He is the most beloved scholar in probably in the 20th century in Mauritania. Like everybody loves Murabit al-Hajj.

The Example of Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah

The other person is Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, whose father was a judge under the French colonial period, who was raised when he, at the age of 20, he was a brilliant scholar. He went to Tunisia and studied law, French law. And mastered both the European tradition of rights and the Islamic tradition. Came back at a very young age. He served in almost every ministerial position. He wrote the constitution of Mauritania.

He was vice president. He met with all the major leaders of the Arab world. He met, I mean, his life was incredible engagement. Then, the day that he signed that the Sharia would be implemented in Mauritania, the

Post-9/11 Transformation and the Need for Engagement

And so this is part of it. But my personal, my life changed after 9/11. I mean, some people, we can all, 9/11 is different for different people. My life changed. I missed my children's childhood. I mean, literally, my wife can attest to that.

Because I was gone seven months out of the year on average, going around the world, trying to change the perception a lot of people have about Islam. And for me, I agree with Salam al-Marayati that we should be for our community. The great Jewish sage, Rabbi Hillel said, If I'm not for myself, then who will be for me? But if I'm only for myself, then what am I? And so we have, as Muslims, we are for all of humanity.

You are the best community that's come out for humanity. It doesn't say for the Muslims. You're actually supposed to be exemplars and people vying in virtue and showing who you are.

Examples of Hearts Changing Through Engagement

So my own personal experience of engagement is that it's, I know that it's had an impact. And I'll just give you one example. Sam Brownback, who was the governor of Kansas, he enacted an anti-Sharia law in the state of Kansas. He is now the ambassador for religious freedom. I've seen the transformation that's happened in him through interacting with Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah. And one of the things that really struck him when I told him that Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah was an expert on agricultural law, because he's from Kansas and he's a lawyer who's an expert on agricultural law.

He's actually written on it. And he was like shocked. And I said, because that's a big part of Islamic law. I saw the transformation. Sheikh Abdullah brought him together with the mufti, the imam of Al-Quds. And I saw the imam complain about, because he said, if America's for religious freedom, you need to do more for Al-Quds.

Whether he does or not, that's his tawfiq or not. But the point is that I saw that transformation happen in that man. He has a different opinion of Islam after interacting with the intellect and the legal genius of that man.

Influencing Academic Curriculum at Harvard

Now, for me personally, Maryanne Glendon, who's the head of the commission, I gave her the Renovatio journal when I met her. We had a very nice conversation. I've actually read one of her books. I had it in my library before I met her. Rights Talk, she wrote in 91. But I gave her the journal.

And in there, I had written an article called Medina and Athens, Restoring a Lost Legacy. And it was about the influence that Greek thought had on the Muslim community, and then how a lot of that was transmitted back to Europe. She wrote me, and I took permission from her to actually quote her on this, because I told her our prophet said that correspondences and private conversations are sacred trust. You shouldn't actually quote a person in private conversation unless they allow you. So I asked her if I could quote her on this, and she said, by all means. She wrote me an email, and she said, first of all, I wanna really thank you for accepting to be part of this.

But secondly, I want to let you know you've already influenced me. I teach a course at Harvard Law called The Origins of Legal Theory in the West. And from now on, that course will have a component of it's now going to be Athens, Jerusalem, and Medina.

And that's at Harvard University, where these young people who might never hear something like that, like what's the influence of Muslims on Western law? People don't know that Napoleonic law, which is one of the most important elements of statute law, even in the United States, and Louisiana still uses Napoleonic code. The Napoleonic law was heavily influenced by Maliki Fiqh, and Napoleon had all of those books translated into French. So these are the things that I want people to see, that we are a civilization that's had an incredible impact, and we're a civilization of producers, that the stars are ours, the navigational stars have Arabic names, the heavens belong to us.

We name those stars, our community. The numerals that people add and subtract and multiply by are ours. They're not Indian, they are Arabic. They like to put Hindi Arabic, but the ones we use are not the Indian ones, they're the North African ones that were developed by Muslims to show the angles. So we have had a huge impact on Western civilization. And this civilization, the beauty of being indebted is that you actually, good people feel a sense of, you know, that they should be grateful, and then bad people, it just makes them angry.

Concrete Results and Success Stories

Thank you, Sheikh Hamza. To follow up on that, I would like to ask both of you, what specifically do you consider success when engaging with government officials, and just government in general? And specifically, what change in policy have you achieved? I just, I need concrete results, deliverables, that you're, either you individually as someone that worked in the State Department, or you as the President of MPAC, through your leadership, through mobilizing resources and meetings and directly meeting with them, what have you influenced and lobbied and successfully gained? For us, you know, there are two things I can name, both under the Bush administration. We worked with the Department of Homeland Security, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties Division.

Number one, we actually got more Muslims to work in the government, not just through Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, but through other channels, and now there are a number of Muslims working on cases of redress involving our community. And one of the most important programs that we developed with them is called TRIP,

which is a travel redress program where people's names were misassociated with names on an OFAC list, the Office of Foreign Assets and Control. These are people that the government is investigating, and so we developed a means for people to clear their names so that they will not be harassed at airports.

Number two, we lobbied the Bush administration to drop the term Islamic when it refers to terrorism, because we argued that you cannot give Al-Qaeda religious legitimacy. They accepted that argument, and it was the Bush administration that developed a policy paper through Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and the paper is still available, where he basically, his name is on the decision that the US government will not associate Islam with terrorism. And to me, these are minor steps in terms of government engagement, but major steps in changing the way people see our community.

On the one hand, we're trying to provide services, leverage our connections in government to provide services, and on the other hand, we're mitigating the harm, which to me is exactly what the Quran is saying.

We enjoin for what is of social benefit, for the doing of good, and we prevent what is of social harm and what is evil.

So that, to me, are two examples of the work that I'm very proud of with the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Can I just add something about Chertoff, who was the head of Homeland Security? I actually gave a talk, he and his wife were present with their son, and I had read his father's PhD dissertation at Columbia, which is on the influence of Ghazali on Jewish philosophers. He was actually an expert on Islam.

So that was my talk that night. I said, I know that the head of Homeland Security knows that Islam is not an evil religion because his father got his PhD at Columbia showing the positive impact that Islam had on Jewish philosophers. He was floored. His wife came up to me with tears in her eyes. She said, I can't believe you mentioned that. My son doesn't know who his grandfather was, so I just wanna thank you for that.

Changing Hearts and Unknown Success Stories

I've seen hearts change. In addition to everything that was said about people's hearts changing, Ambassador Brownback taking Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah more seriously, having the Honorable Chertoff to think about Islam more seriously, these are obvious great examples, and they're examples that sometimes go unheard of. People don't know about these things.

I think one of the things we have as a community, broadly speaking, is that we don't advertise our good work, and there's a great deal of unknown good things that happen all the time, whether the Muslims who are civil servants or the foreign service officers or the local city council or a state legislator. We just don't really know the hard work that's being done. So there are thousands of good success stories. It's just people seem to gravitate towards things that are not so happy and negative, and sometimes so that we're always posturing in a sort of defensive, defensively on these issues. My time in government, and I think specifically, I think one of the greatest things was to really think of wonderful sheikhs and shuyukh, just like Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, for government people, for U.S. diplomats, take them seriously, do not see them as theologians who are living in

their own world, who are just talking amongst other theologians, but the work I think we did in those three years for Kerry's office was to train diplomats how to think about female sheikhs, how to think about men who want to become imams, universities and so forth.

There's a whole religious dynamics in living and appreciating life and working with other folks that is not understood in sort of a very deeply secular corporation. And so breaking that nut meant numerous, numerous training at what they call the Foreign Service Institute, as well as in foreign training at embassies. So I think just sensitizing them and showing resources and understanding, just as Salam said, there is a great deal of thinking that when we think of extremists or violent extremists, there should be a number of Muslim names. And I think our work was to show that religion is not really associated with violent extremism.

And we had another three, 10 pages of like all these other movements in the last 50 years that had nothing to do with religion. And so there has to be some sort of appreciation of why people turn to extremism for political cause instead of just thinking, oh, that's the religious reason. I think the other thing that's really important is having diplomats who can name, who could never name a single sheikh, but then would go to the Peace Forum in Abu Dhabi, the annual Peace Forum, and now have in their Blackberry or smartphone 100 names.

They have 100 names from 50 different countries who they can say in Sierra Leone, in Ghana, or in someone, who can we turn to when we have a question? There's something happening that's going to come as a tidal wave, as a threat. Which imams can we turn to? Who can we convene? And I think that was a really good contribution. And it was no less of a contribution by imams and sheikhs and shuyukh listening and being engaged. If we didn't have them to be engaged, we couldn't provide these relationships. So I think that was a success story.

Local Government Engagement and Impact

So I would like to share the role of engagement with government. I'm a proud public servant. So I won the political lotto when I got hired by Mayor Willie Brown. And that was when my political activism started, and that's when public service became my way of life, and it's not a job.

For 16 years, I worked directly for the mayor's office in different departments, and most recently, I'm no longer an employee, but now I serve as a commissioner. And some of the things that we've done in San Francisco and behind the scenes have been amazing. We had the first Ramadan Iftar at City Hall this year, attended by over 500 people. That wouldn't have happened without engagement. We had just a meeting the other day with Department of Homeland Security because we had issues of people getting in. So now they promised that they will get to us if there's any issues with visas.

And they also asked us for cultural sensitivity training, not just in their secondary training for their cadets, but for their primary training. That's huge. We don't have to advertise it, but it's happening behind the scenes. We've been asking them also to hire more Muslims that look like us, that talk like us, that share our values. The other,

just on a local level, there's nothing that happens in the mayor's office that we don't have information about. When there's a mosque, we're under attack.

Every mosque is now guarded. Every mosque, the police chief himself contacts every masjid in San Francisco and makes sure they're fully equipped and has security 24-7 until they're feeling more safe and at home. And more recently, we've been dealing with the school system. We're trying to get more cultural sensitivity. We started from the president's office, and Barack Obama will always be my president. It was know your neighbor, and now we started know your classmates because of the bullying in schools.

So we have ING, we have AARC. They're doing such amazing work separately, but they're still doing amazing work to reach out to the Muslim community. And when New Zealand attacks happened and the terrorist attacks took the lives of those precious Muslims across the world, what we did was make sure that every elected official in California, and I specifically sent an email to every single one of them and texted every single one of them, and made sure they used the word brother and sister in their tweets, and alhamdulillah, they did.

That's what access provides, so that they know that whether you're brown or you're black, Muslim or any Muslim, that they will treat you the same as anybody else. So for me, public engagement has been amazing. Why? Because I have access to resources. And so inshallah, as we're talking about this debate, I think we should be very mindful of the effectiveness and the sacrifices of so many Muslims, especially muni drivers. We have muni drivers that drive your kids to school that also need to be respected and thought about, whether they're in the mayor's office or driving buses or in a Department of Health. So please be mindful that government is not all bad.

I would like to say 90% are people of honor and integrity and doing the work and sharing our values as well.

Best Practices for Federal Lobbying

So, Qamar, just going back to, it's similar now that you're with the think tank and you worked amazing in the State Department. I just wanna specifically hone down on lobbying in federal government, on Capitol Hill and White House. What are some of the do's and don'ts? What are the best practices? And who's been the most effective at lobbying? Because I think that's part of the equation as well. We're talking about engagement. We're different levels of engagement, right? We're more civic engagement, public service, more scholarly, more PR.

But the hardcore lobbying, what are some of the best practices? I may not be the best person to answer that question because I'm not in the lobby business, right? This is a government person. Yeah, I just saw people on the outside. Oh, how did I see government people? Who did effective advocacy? Oh, yes. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I think I'll be extra fair here. In the State Department, when you come to the State Department, you are invited and you're asked to provide your driver's license and your name and your date of birth and they register you, right? So they know who's coming, what's your personal background, just like any other government building, and then why you're there and who you're meeting.

So this is recorded.

And it came up with some conversation. Someone who works in that office, and they knew I was in the secretary's office on Islam overseas, but they wanted to know more about a particular group. And I said, sure, what's up? And they asked me for coffee. I said, you know, this group comes here about 400 times a year. Wow, that's almost every day. Twice a day. Yeah, it's 400 times a year is recorded in 2017. I said, oh, okay.

And they showed me the names. There's about 10 names that are coming over and over again, like you said, maybe twice a day, three times a day. And it's an international development foundation. And they come and they speak to every single bureau, every single political appointee. They wanna share their work, wanna show their networks. They wanna show what type of work they're doing. They want to show what sort of access they have to overseas companies and overseas governments. I'll just say it. It's the Aga Khan Foundation that came up, and I just wanna be transparent.

And I was like, wow, that's fantastic. 400 times a year about. And to a point where, now you said this is free. These are free conversations. You come, you make an appointment, and you share your ideas. But to a point where the government knows the activities in Kenya and all their schools, from Ghana to Somalia to Yemen, and all these schools up in Pakistan and Kashmir, everything, they know the teachers' names. They know the principals. They know what's happening. What's important about all these different departments is knowing the Aga Khan.

Because when there was a need in Yemen to remove some people out of Yemen to rescue a hostage situation, this community played a role. Because they had people on the ground. They're already there. They had access that Catholic Relief Services could not have. And so this foundation is not just seen as you're providing some information, but they're critically important to save other Americans' lives, and also do other things. I mean, that's not their job. That's not a job to help Americans' policy. Their job is to inform the Americans of the activities, and also show that the activities are in a way promoting American values, because of the American base, 501c3. So that's one example.

That's what I meant by consistency and continuity, maintaining relationships. 400 may sound a lot, but there are other groups that I have no idea who's there a lot more. And that's just the State Department. I'm not sure whether they're going to USAID or White House, but continuity and consistency shapes a person's mind, and shapes a group's mind, and also has a very favorable attitude of your ability to be successful overseas.

Supporting Muslim Advocacy Organizations

So to follow up, thank you for saying that. As many of you know, you probably get hundreds of emails, like the rest of us, talking about Capitol Day, whether by MPAC, Muslim Advocates, CAIR, ENGAGE, those are really important. So please make sure you donate to those causes, because that will help contribute to lobbying efforts, to help getting the message out about the Muslim community. So hopefully you guys can do that, because I think as he's mentioning, they really work and they're effective. They don't show up 400 times a year, but they

definitely show up a few times, and they really do need your support. So please make sure you donate to the Capitol Holiday.

Meeting with President Bush After 9/11

Sheikh Hamza, back to you. You're famous, or maybe infamous, for visiting the White House right after 9/11, and meeting with George W. Bush. There's been a lot of misinformation until this day, which I can't understand, about your role in that meeting before and after. Can you please tell us what you said to President Bush, and what really happened, so that for history's sake, that we kind of could put this to the rest. I mean, first of all, I met one time I went in, and actually my recommendation to them, and Suhail Khan knows this story, because he was there, Mahbub Khan's son.

I was invited in with four other religious leaders. There was a cardinal who ended up getting scandalized in Massachusetts, covering up the pedophilia problems. And then there was a Jewish rabbi, Franklin Graham, and myself, representing the Muslims. And this was before we knew anything. I mean, we were all, this is September 20th, and there was just, we didn't know what was going on. There was no war with Iraq, nothing.

And one of the things that they mentioned was that the, first of all, I told him, I have a letter, which I've never published, and I probably should, because I gave him a letter that had my recommendations. One of them was, don't go to war in any Muslim country, because this is a criminal act, and it should be seen as a criminal act, and no country has done this, and so it would be a great disservice to the people that are gonna be harmed by any war. Anyway, the letter's there.

But they had said that they were calling this operation to find out who did it. There was no war yet. The war was declared later. And they called the operation Operation Infinite Justice. And I said to, we were in the elevator going, in the White House, and I said to these religious leaders, that's blasphemous, and they all agreed, like they nodded their heads. And I said, shouldn't we say something? That's like saying America's God.

And they said, yeah, we should say something, so we appointed the cardinal. And so when we were leaving, he didn't say anything. So I said, excuse me, this operation to find out who did this, right? Well, there was no war. It's called Infinite Justice, and only God's justice is infinite. So I consider this, kalimatu haqqin 'inda sultan ja'ir. Like this, to me, I said something that I hope on the day of judgment benefits me.

I said, it's blasphemous to say that, and offensive to Muslims. And he said, really? I said, yeah. He said, call the Pentagon, get them to change it. We don't have any theologians in the Pentagon. That's what he said, literally. So they changed, that's my little footnote in history, you know, this guy that got the name change.

But it became a war. That wasn't what I was saying. So there's this idea somehow, I was more concerned about the name than the actual war. There was no war. You know, it was a time, and for me, my concern, and my family knows this, my concern at the time was, I was very worried that the Muslim places of worship would be

aggressed upon. My estimation for the people of this country went up enormously after 9/11, because most of our mosques had flowers, we had people calling.

I was floored by that. Mahali Ghuneim, who's not here, she knows, we met. And I said, listen, I've been watching these, now they're called Islamophobes, I just said anti-Muslim people, since the mid-90s. And these guys are gonna use this as an opportunity to completely create a smear campaign against our community and make us look like a fifth column in the United States. That was my concern, was how Muslims are gonna be viewed, about how Muslim women wearing the hijab are gonna get accosted, our children being bullied. Those were all my concerns at the time.

My concern was this community, we're here, we live here, we've been here for probably at least 400 years, Muslims, on these shores. We're here, and as far as I know, nobody's going anywhere, at least the vast majority of us, we have to live here. And if people don't know who we are, if we allow other people to frame who we are, then we've been framed.

Obeying the Laws of the Land

And Islam, our Sharia says, you have to obey the laws of the land. The verses that were read earlier, those opening verses are to the rulers. Give people their trusts, because you have a sacred trust as a government. Give people their amanat. And if you judge, judge justly. And this is good advice.

But then the advice is to the people, the citizens, obey God, obey the messenger. In other words, be virtuous and upright. Because we don't have, we can't, we don't have any penal code, none of those things of Sharia that have to do with laws of criminal justice and things. That has nothing to do with Muslims, other than people in authority in Muslim lands, and that's their prerogative. But then it says, and obey those in authority from you. In other words, Muslims by consensus of our scholars are obliged to obey the laws of the land.

And if there are secular laws, they have to obey them. The only thing that we don't obey is if somebody makes a law that everybody has to drink a toast on Christmas with wine. We're not gonna do that. Now, that's absurd, but those are the only things that we don't obey, if it actually goes against something that we can't do. But everything else we have to do by law. That's the Sharia in the country of the United States.

The Sharia is the constitution of the United States. And that is what all of our scholars have said. And Ibn Abi Zayd, one of the earliest scholars in his book, in his, Nawadir wa Ziyadat, he says, he was asked, if somebody is in the land of the Romans, meaning the Europeans, if they're there, and they went in with a, like a visa at the time, you know, it was musta'man they called him, somebody who was given, you know, permission to come in, so they're secured, they're person.

And then they aggress upon them. Do they have to obey the laws? Here's what he said. If the aggression is from rabble amongst them or criminals, they have to obey the laws. But if the aggression is from the government, then they're no longer, right, bound by the law, because they broke, that government broke the trust of you being

in there securely. So that is an example of how sophisticated early on our scholars were. So, you know, my goal in there was to, I actually took the essential Quran, and I put all the verses, and put stickums on it, and said, I know you don't have time to read the Quran, but just read these verses.

I gave him a thing from Muhammad Zakariya about the character of the prophet that he never repaid a wrong with another wrong. And I said, this has nothing to do with Islam. So I was in there to explain what Islam is, and to be fair to him, I think he did horrible things afterwards with the war in Iraq, and listening to the neocons, and what happened, it's terrible.

And a lot of people died because of misadventures. But, initially, we have to be grateful that he went to a mosque almost immediately. He did that news conference. He talked about how Muslims are good citizens of this country. So he actually did the right things initially. And I think it benefited us as a community.

Unfortunately, today, we have a whole other problem with just the rhetoric has been so aggressive.

Understanding Government vs Administration

So it's really important to remember that Trump is not the government. He is the head of the administration. And our system differentiates between the government and the administration. This man was a political appointee, meaning that the administration appointed him for a temporary position. The civil servants are there all the time. They're a different kettle of fish. And so if we start, if we don't understand, even the commission, like people, like I joined the Trump, give me a break.

You know, seriously, this commission is an independent body of academics. It is literally illegal by federal law for the State Department to put any pressure on this committee to come up with what they want. One of the things that we can learn from our Jewish brethren here is that the Jewish community, one, they don't attack each other in, you know, publicly. They're very, even though they (تَحْسَبُهُمْ جَمِيعًا وَقُلُوبُهُمْ شَتَّى - Quran) 59:14) - The Quran says, you think they're all united, but they're very divided as well. But they have an outward display. And the head of the religious, the head of the religious desk at one of the major networks in the United States told me of all the religious communities he covers, the most vicious with one another is the Muslim community.

And that broke my heart when I heard that. When the Jewish community, I was with Mohamed Senussi, Dr. Senussi. We went, I'd been going for the last four years to the Baptist, they have a conference on religious freedom, and they invited me. So I went, because Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah always says an empty chair is not a strategy. If they invite you, go. That's the prophetic practice.

Engaging with Both Political Sides

I went, and there was a man there. Every time I've gone to the right, there's always Jewish rabbis. Whenever I go to the left, there's always Jewish rabbis. They are represented in both sides of the aisle. There was a man there who'd written a book about Sharia. He spent about 10 minutes saying how evil the Sharia was.

He didn't know I was Muslim in the room. I am in a suit and tie, just sitting there listening to him. I didn't say anything. When he finished, I said, you know, can I talk? I said, first of all, I will agree with everything you said if you will agree that the Ku Klux Klan represents Christianity. Because everything you've described has nothing to do with my religion. And I've spent 40 years studying this religion.

And then they let me go on for about 20 minutes explaining the maqasid. I explained the six maqasid of Sharia, the higher aims of the Sharia. When I finished, when I went out, people came up to me and said, you know, we've never heard that before. That was very illuminating. You know, we've only heard that other version. We went from that meeting with Mohammed Senussi to shoulder to shoulder, which you know, which is the left.

There were the Jewish rabbis. They were at both groups, but the Muslim, we were the only Muslims at the right. And they have books on the table, like, you know, the evil of Islam and things like that. I mean, literally, you know, so if we're not in there to just create a kind of, even just to a little bit of a pattern disruption to make them think, because Thomas Cleary once told me, the brilliant scholar, Thomas, Dr. Cleary told me once, most Americans cannot think about thinking about Islam.

Different Forms of Activism: Protests and Boycotts

I wanted to discuss activism in a different way now. We're all activists. I know some people think it's like a bad word, but we're all activists, scholarly activists, public relations, state, public service. But there are other activists that are also engaged, and in addition to engaged, they also participate in protests and boycotts. And sometimes they don't think those mix well, and they take a position.

Do you see that their type of activism as valid, an avenue to work for change as well? I'm gonna ask all three of you to start with you. Is it also an effective avenue for change? Yes, of course. I mean, I was there when the announcement of the Muslim ban through an executive order was made, and we went to the airport. That was a massive protest. We basically shut down half the airport. There were about 10,000 people there.

Now I have to tell you, I couldn't find 10 Muslims. So while there's a lot of talk, especially on social media, and social media is very toxic. Number one, there's so much rumor milling, and we lose the Islamic character. The Quran tells us verify something. When you hear something bad, verify. Otherwise, you will feel remorse for letting it spread.

And we have lost that character of stopping rumor milling. But in that protest, I was there, and I do believe that you do need both. You need the people on the outside raising the issues, pressuring the government from that standpoint, and you need the person at the table. So there are two different modes, but they have to work hand in hand. The bottom line, the Quran tells us, you must band together. If you are fractured, then corruption will continue to spread on earth.

Why are Muslims still suffering from occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing, tyranny? Because we have not banded together. And in America, we have that opportunity. The left and the right, and those who protest, and

Changing Hearts One Person at a Time

I just have one last story that really impacted me in terms of the work since Sheikh Hamza was talking about Christian groups and religious groups. I was at an evangelical church, and there was a person that wanted to go speak at the evangelical church. She's not very religious, her name is Diane. She was a Peace Corps volunteer back in the 70s, and she was in Muslim countries.

And she said, Muslims treated her so well there. Now she lives in America, and she sees what's happening to Muslims, and she is disgusted by it. And she wants to tell all Americans that because Muslims treated her so well, we should treat Muslims well here. And she told her story. And then they invited me to speak, and we talked about the Maqasid, and we talked about Islam, the myth and the realities, and all the misconceptions. At the end of that, a man came up to both of us.

He said, I am a political operative for Republicans, and I use anti-Muslim tropes to get them elected in office. I'm here to ask for your forgiveness, because now I realize what I've done is wrong. That micro-change, to me, is redeeming for our work. It's that changing hearts and minds one person at a time. Whether we're dealing with scholars like Sheikh Hamza does, or people in government like Qamar does and think tanks, or people in interfaith councils and government services like Hala does, at the end of the day, it's about working with people. However you, you know, whichever way God has decided to give you that opportunity to engage, and it is this change.

"Repel evil with good, so that the one with whom there is enmity becomes as if he is your closest and warmest friend. What's the best example of that? It's the Prophet Muhammad. I think that's what we have to follow in this country today."

Beyond the Streets: Sustaining Activism

So, do you want to follow up on that? Okay, just one minute, and then one minute. I know it's hard, but we're getting to our end, and I have two questions. No, I just don't have more to add to just, but the very thought is protests on the streets, raising your voices, being public with the protests, and being part of all different types of coalitions. I think it's very important to join these coalitions and ensure your public presence. But it is still just the beginning, because the protest has a beginning point and an end point. And then everyone goes home, on their way, grabs a cappuccino.

So, one has to figure out, what does this all mean? Was it a feel-good, emotional moment? Or was it something more? Does it lead to something? So, all I would ask is those activists who are trained to think that just need to be in the public sphere by protesting, think about the wheel of influence, and think about the impact of touching

that wheel, how you're gonna move outside the street into the legislative halls, into the State Department, in different areas, in academia and so forth. Because after the protest, what's beyond that? What more can you do? And I think that's what I would ask us to reflect on.

Maintaining Relationships: The Example of Uthman

Well, two things. One, who did the Prophet send into Mecca? Do you remember when they went for Umrah, the Hudaybiyyah? He sent Uthman ibn Affan. And the reason he did was he was the only one that had maintained good connections with the people of Mecca. Everybody else had cut them off. Uthman kept, he kept relations. And this is called Shart Mu'awiyah. Mu'awiyah said, I always keep a hair between me and others. If they pull, I release. If they release, I pull. But I don't let that hair get broken.

And so it's very important to recognize that we have to have, you know, that we have to have those relations, because they're very important. The other thing is that the Prophet was somebody who, he always wanted people to be guided. And that was his overarching concern about people.

Making Enemies into Friends

He did not, it's amazing that his, I think one of his greatest gifts was his ability to make his enemies his friends. And if you alienate people to such a degree that you demonize them, you do the very thing that you're asking them not to do to you. And I've seen hearts change. And my, you know, people think, I have, Chris Hedges, I really, I keep in contact with him. I love Chris Hedges. But I also have a good relationship with Robbie George.

They're on opposite spectrums. But I don't know if it's because I'm ambidextrous. I just, the left and the right to me both have valid points. And I think when you demonize one side and not recognize that a lot of these people are decent people. And finally, the Prophet said سَتَكُونُ أُمَرَاءُ تَعْرِفُونَ وَتُنْكِرُونَ - There are going to be rulers, people put over you. They, you will see good from them and you will see bad.

He said, فَمَنْ عَرَفَ بَرِئَ - Whoever acknowledges the good is free of the sin of whatever bad they do. وَمَنْ أَنْكَرَ سَلِمَ - And whoever rejects in his heart according to the commentaries because he's not able to change it. In his heart is free of their evil. And then he said, that, then they said أَلَا تُقَاتِلُهُمْ - Shouldn't we fight them if they're doing bad? He said, لَا مَا صَلَّوْا - As long as they're still praying and outwardly displaying Islam.

Because we see now what happens when you try to overthrow governments. The actual human harm that it creates is so immense. And our scholars were concerned. Ibn Hajar says they were concerned more with anything than with stilling the agitation, civil strife, and preserving blood. Because shedding blood is the one thing. This is what the angels, they said, what are you gonna put those who shed blood and sow corruption? God says, I know what you don't know. In other words, there will be those who choose not to do that.

The Muslim Ban Protest Experience

Before we get to the, we only have time, I'm so sorry for two questions. But before I get to those two questions,

I wanna follow up regarding the Muslim ban and the day at the airport. We had major drama in San Francisco. Oh, sorry. We had a lot of problems in San Francisco. It was similar to Los Angeles. We had thousands of people, mostly. It was amazing.

It was just white, black, millionaires, poor, everybody was there. I just went there on my way home. I was visiting my parents in Sunnyvale and decided to go drop by. And I get a call from Mayor Ed Lee, God bless his soul. And he's like, you need to get to the airport. I'm like, I'm already on my way to hang out with my friends and do dabke.

And he's like, no, no, no, you need to get to the airport. So I get there. The commander at that time didn't know any Muslim people. He was trying to shut down all the protests. We had Yemeni protesting, doing dabke. You had Palestinians doing dabke. You had African-Americans doing dabke. You had Filipinos doing dabke. They were all three different people that didn't want leave, but they weren't letting people in.

So me and some of the civil rights organization had to step in. But that is the importance, again. My job was to protect the protesters. Yes, I needed the people to get off the plane. Yes, I had to protect our law enforcement to make sure nothing happens to them, but I was not gonna allow the protesters not to have their day and enjoy. So protests are very, very important, but we also have to have a balance and make sure that it doesn't cause harm or disruption to people coming off the planes or to the police. So I just wanted to add that as well.

When to Disengage

So are there any situations where we should disengage and what are the best practice for disengagement? Who wants to take this one? I mean, it's a question and it's an ijtihad. Engagement, the Prophet gave people, the option to disengage or to engage. That's an option for people. So this idea that everybody has to be engaged, I don't agree with that. And Plato, who was a great philosopher and political scientist, he ended up engaging.

He didn't want, like you said in your speech, then you thought, am I just to write another book? Plato thought, am I just gonna write another dialogue? So he went to Syracuse. He almost ended up getting killed because the ruler there ended up, Dionysus, ended up almost killing him. And then he convinced him to come back and he made the mistake of going back a second time. It was even worse. And he actually ended up being sold into slavery, right? So at the end of his life, he wrote what's called the seventh letter. And he said, sometimes the situations are so bad that one is left to remain quiet, pray for his own salvation and for the salvation of his country.

And that's a question, you know, but the Prophet said, the best of you are those who engage, man khalata al-nas, you know, that get in with the people, wa yasbiru 'ala adhahum, and they're patient with the harm that comes from that. And so it's difficult to do that because people are gonna attack you and people are going to question your sincerity. I mean, all of that is good.

Personal Integrity and Divine Judgment

I've had enough encomiums to last 10 lifetimes. So I'm gray hair, I'm over 60, I could care less now. I really could because, but if people think I'm gonna risk my akhira, you know, I don't get any money from any, I've never taken any money. The honorariums I've been given from the governments, I've distributed, you know, so I know what I'm doing and I know what my heart is. And I take istikhara, I listen to my teacher and I pray istikhara. I don't do anything just to do it.

So I think people have to do an istikhara. But the last thing I wanna say is that every action that a human being does falls under one of five categories. It's either prohibited, it's either disliked, it's permissible, it's recommended or it's an obligation. The only one you're supposed to condemn is the one that's prohibited and agreed upon its prohibition. And so this idea of just prohibiting, like who are you to tell people what they can or cannot do? If you wanna criticize that, fine, but at least do, if you're a Muslim, do it with the adab of Islam. I mean, we have comportment and just...

The Prophet gave us two choices, whoever believes in God in the last day, say something beneficial, call me up, tell me you're crazy, what were you thinking, right? But this idea of just slandering and attacking and saying libelous things, I mean, I feel sorry for you on the day of judgment.

Closing Remarks on Engagement and Disengagement

Can I just make another point? Wait, wait, I just wanna be fair. Wait, so I'm gonna not, I'm so sorry, I'm not gonna be able to ask this last question from the audience, but I'd like for you guys to each take a moment to do a closing remark and you can start with you. Oh, okay. Well, on the issue of disengagement, and it's the same for engagement. Sometimes we look at engagement and disengagement as if they're the goals. They're not goals, they're just tools. They're decisions that you make on each situation. For example, we were in the White House for a faith-based organizing meeting and we had Muslims there. We walk into the White House and we were with Abdullah Antepli.

And as we sit down, the White House said, oh, Abdullah cannot be in this meeting. He has to go. We talked for about two minutes and we said, if he goes, we all go. That's right. So we all walked out. That's right. So that was a time for disengaging to send a message that if the table is not going to respect our community and who we decide should be at the table, then we're not going to be at the table. They apologized afterwards. They brought Abdullah back.

And there were people in the White House who saw this and from that point on, they said this is where they realized they have to work on Muslim inclusion and integration of Muslims in decision making and so on and so forth. So that is an example of disengagement at a moment where we felt we needed to remove ourselves from that situation.

Building Coalitions and Unity

The last thing I want to say then is that as we think about these goals and really what's happening to our country, we're only 1% of the population. We have to build the coalitions. We have to be involved in coalition building. And who is our example of coalition building is the Prophet Muhammad. He developed treaties, he talked to people. He was a political authority, not just a religious authority in Medina. The Muslims were the minority when he arrived in Medina.

He was invited to Medina because he was a peacemaker. And that is the real goal is to show how Islam and Muslims are about achieving peace in our society. With that, then people can decide how. They want to protest. They want to be involved in a political party. They want to go on the right or the left. But we really have to band together. This is something that aches me every day is when I see Muslims fractured. When I see us not just disunited, but this viciousness against each other.

Developing Future Muslim Leaders

So I think this is our objective now so that we can have a better opportunity for the future. One of the proudest things that we have at MPAC now is called Congressional Leadership Development Program, where we select Muslims to go intern on Capitol Hill. They learn so much from that, and the Congress asks MPAC to find Muslims in our community. Inshallah, we'll find somebody from Zaytuna, some of the students here who can apply for the program and intern with MPAC as well. But that is really what it's about. It's about Islam and America for the future. That's the goal.

The Growing Muslim Presence on Capitol Hill

Just a few words, and just to add on to Salam's most really important work, is if you go on the hill for Jummah prayers or for Iftar, during Jummah prayers, you'll have close to 250 Muslims praying there on the Congressional Hill. And this is a lot because of the efforts of having interns there, people who are deciding, I want to work there, I want to be a researcher here. So these are the efforts. I mean, no one would have thought 15 years ago there'd be 250 people praying in a Rayburn building on the hill. So that's just sort of a footnote to all of the good work that's happening here.

The Need for Reflection and Open-Mindedness

I would say that in addition to everything that's been said about engagement and disengagement, I would like to leave just one idea, that given the culture of social media and the culture of responding before thinking and shooting from the hip, is I think what we need more is more reflection on what we don't know. And what we really need to assess of the things that we're so committed to a cause, whatever that cause may be, whether it be non-violence or gun violence, whatever, protecting youth. I see a lot of activists who are so committed, and the whole body is committed to it, but they're not open to listening to the other party.