Our Role as Muslims in the United States

Our Role as Muslims in the United States

Dr. Omar Suleiman

Introduction

For the last several years, may Allah bless this organization, and bless all of you, and bless the community, and all of the great things that you bring to us as a Muslim community, and as a society as a whole. I wanna talk about Muslim identity for a moment (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ - inshallah ta'ala), and what it means for us as we're here in the United States.

A Pivotal Moment: Hurricane Katrina

And I wanna actually go back to an experience that I had which was a pivotal moment in my own personal life, and I think Hurricane Katrina. That's part of my personal story. I'm from New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina hit us almost 15 years ago now, 2005, there was a sudden realization and recognition that the Muslim community had that its mandate to serve had to come to fruition at that moment.

That we could not wait to mature as a community to where we could be the best version of ourselves, and talk about strategy - you just had to go. That at some point when your city is falling apart, when people are crowding arenas, and churches, and synagogues, and shelters, that you just have to go. You just have to work.

Imam Siraj visited, (مَا شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ - mashallah). I remember he drove down to Louisiana, visited us within the first week, (ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ - alhamdulillah). A few imams actually did come down also to give moral support in the community itself.

The Muslim Community's Response

The Muslim community was struggling, was suffering. And, you know, we did not realize the extent of our own potential as a community in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. As a Muslim community, all the organizations coming down - ICNA Relief, Islamic Relief, and so many other relief and charity organizations - as a Muslim community, we realized that we actually do have something special to offer.

We jumped right into the relief game. But the Muslim community became known for doing something that other communities were not doing, which was that the Muslim community was actually identifying individuals that were in the greatest need in those shelters, and then taking them to apartments. And that was done under ICNA Relief, where they actually went and got a bunch of apartments, got as many apartments as they possibly could in Baton Rouge, and tried to find anyone in need, those that needed it most, and put them in those apartments.

And so it was, you know, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, atheists, everything. And the only thing that we were looking for when we went to those shelters were who needed to be taken out most. And there was a

moment, I'll never forget, when I walked in, it got to the point where when a Muslim walked into one of those shelters, people charged and said, "These are the people that give out apartments."

A Moment of Recognition

And let me tell you where I'm going with this for a moment. To be identified as a community - as the only community that actually was taking people and giving apartments out, and putting people in apartments was a special moment for me. It became known to the homeless shelters, it became known to the evacuee shelters, it became known around the volunteer agencies that that's what the Muslims were doing.

And I thought to myself, if there was something that Muslims could be identified with, what would it be? And what does it look like to actually have a good deed that you are identifiable with?

Learning from Other Communities

I've got to hand it to the Sikh community. When they showed up, Sikh and service were synonymous after Hurricane Katrina. And in many different places, people identified, they saw the Sikh community come out, and they knew that they were gonna work hard and they were going to do a lot of service.

Some of you might have been following the news for the last few days, and you might have seen young Jewish activists. There's a hashtag, "Jews Against ICE," that have been standing up for our brothers and sisters who are caged at the border. And the brutality of ICE, standing against the brutality of ICE in our communities, and I'll say our communities because they're terrorizing our communities.

And I thought to myself, that's beautiful, it's powerful. And then there's a reality that saddens me. What are the Muslims known for? What are the Muslims known for? What is the service, what is our place in society that Muslims have championed uniquely, and have done an incredible job with? It's a sad realization.

The Challenge of Muslim Identity

The good news is that it's not too late to overcome that state of ours where we have yet as a Muslim community to champion a cause with a unique vigor. We are, (ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ - alhamdulillah), becoming a part of causes that are found in our religion. And we are championing things that other people are championing too, in khair as well, in good.

We have become a cute mark on the diversity card. When people want to champion diversity, they just throw in Muslim in there too. Culturally, racially, religiously, whatever it is, but we got a check mark there.

But what do Muslims uniquely champion? What can Muslims say that they own?

Imam Siraj in New York years ago, (ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ - alhamdulillah), there was an identity of Masjid at-Taqwa. There still is an identity of Masjid at-Taqwa. The Muslims were known in an area for doing something good that is deep in our tradition.

It's unique. There's a vigor, there's a zeal that the Muslims bring when they

(amru bil-ma'ruf wa nahaw 'an al-munkar) - enjoin good and forbid evil, even when they are universal goods and universal evils. There's a zeal that the Muslims are supposed to bring, that nobody else brings to the table.

That Muslims champion to the next level. And there are things that are unique to the Muslim community.

Maintaining Our Core Identity

The Foundation: Prayer (Salah)

So I wanna talk about identity for a moment, (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ - inshallah ta'ala), and what it means. What are we known by? What can we be known by? What should we be known by?

As a community of immigrants starts to integrate or assimilate, depending on what community of immigrants it is, and of course we have a large immigrant population in the Muslim community here in the United States, suddenly, some of those cultural symbols that came with those countries start to disappear.

Language starts to go. Cultural dress starts to disappear. Certain customs and things that are a mixed bag some of them very good, some bad, some neutral - but they start to go away. People start to melt in. And there are certain things from the deen, from the religion, that start to go as well.

So there is one thing, for example, the pillar of our religion, salah - prayer. I pray that there is never a day that Muslims are not known for being the people that will pray in public. May Allah protect us and keep us firm upon our salah.

I hope that as our community grows, the more people see us praying in airports and in the parking lots of stores, and the more masajid start to come, and the more known we are by our salah because that is the pillar of our religion.

Hafizu 'ala as-salawat fa innakum in dayya'tumuhā dayya'tum mā siwāhā

"Preserve your prayers, for if you lose them, you will lose everything else."

So prayer is a part of our identity too. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said, if you go upon a community, you go to a place and you see them in salah, you assume they're Muslim. That's their core identity - prayer.

You see a person praying from a jurisprudence perspective, in some fiqh you could assume that that person is Muslim at that point. They don't even have to take shahada. They're already doing salah, right? Prayer.

So yeah, prayer is a big part of us and we have to hold on to it. And don't belittle - don't belittle yourself or your own struggle in maintaining those five prayers. And don't lose your five prayers. It sounds simple. It sounds like, you know, are you really talking about salah? Yes, I'm really talking about salah.

Don't lose your prayer. As time goes on, whatever else you lose, however else you start to drift away from your identity and your religion, don't lose your salah, don't lose your prayer.

Other Symbols of Identity

Then some of the other symbols will start to disappear, right? So there will be less hijabs, less kufis, less qamees, less of the outer dress of Muslims. That which is obligatory, that which is recommended, that which is neutral. But it will start to go. There are symbols that we should strive to maintain.

I'm gonna tell you when I stopped, you know, people ask me why I always wear a kufi. I started always wearing my kufi and never ever taking it off. Except of course at home. And you know, I do wear a baseball cap sometimes when it's uncomfortable. I don't play basketball wearing a kufi. But when I travel, I always wear it.

Actually in the aftermath of San Bernardino, it was Imam Zaid that did a video saying that, you know, Muslim men need to show some solidarity. Our sisters can't be the only obvious Muslims in public. So we've got to have some solidarity.

So it's not about, is it fard or is it, you know, do you have to wear this? No, but it's, you know, let's share some of that visibility in public. Let's do it. Let's be visible in public as Muslims and let's not put the entire burden on our sisters.

Let's all wear something or identify ourselves with our Islam in some way.

Halal Identity

Then you know, I remember, there used to be discussions about halal meat. And sometimes people would like mock it, right? And I have to admit, sometimes our priorities get a little, you know, mixed up. Where if you find out that your child ate non-zabiha meat, it's like, it's apostasy. And it's, you know, sometimes the priorities shift.

But you know, (سُبْحَانَ ٱللَّٰهِ - subhanAllah), let me tell you something. It's a good thing when you got halal meat stores lining these different places. It's a good thing that people want to patronize, that people want to sell to Muslims that are conscious, hopefully with halal and tayyib.

That's a good identity to have. Let's have that there. Even if you don't only eat zabiha meat or even if you eat outside, you know, the meat of people, the Christians and the Jews and you follow that opinion, it's good for us to insist on some higher standards (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ - inshallah ta'ala) and to have a presence with that.

That's a good thing, that's not bad. That's identity, keep it going (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ - inshallah ta'ala). That's not something we should shy away from.

The Call to Action: What Should Muslims Be Known For?

But then let me put it to you this way. All of this is to build up to a question. If there are akhlaq, if there are characteristics that the Muslim community could be identified with, what would they be?

You know a community is dying when all they're talking about is surviving. You know that things are messed up when the only discussion about Islam and activism becomes what we can't do and not what we should do.

We've got to lead the way and we've got to show what anchored Islamic activism looks like where we don't betray our identity, our ideals in the process of becoming active in championing issues. But we have to act with a certain zeal and a certain vigor to where people could identify Muslims with good things in society the same way they could identify us with our prayer, the same way they could identify us with our religious symbols.

Being Problem Solvers

Where people know that when something goes down, that when there is a blatant social injustice and oppression and aggression in society that the Muslims will be first to it and will pull their resources and will act not in the form of a cheap publicity stunt but in the form of sunnah imperative because they believe that the Prophet's (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) example is the best example that their religion calls them to stand with the most vulnerable and the most oppressed.

When people start looking around for Muslims to solve problems because Muslims are known as problem solvers, that's when we are being truest to our identity. When we are able to balance the prayer and the outward symbols and the parameters of Islamic activism and being a Muslim that is conscious and with their ideals and with their frameworks and at the same time when things go wrong in society people ask, "Where are the Muslims?"

Practical Implementation

In Your Community

Well, I don't want to talk in broad frames. I want to talk at a practical level. In your community, in your city, what is your community known for? Is it the community that rushes to solve the problems that