Self-Imposed Segregation - ICNA-MAS Convention 2018

Self-Imposed Segregation

By Sheikh Saad Tasleem | ICNA-MAS Convention 2018

Opening

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Introduction

I want to start off by telling you what I'm doing on stage right now. This session is called Reverts Matter.

And I get put in this situation a lot of times where, just like a lot of us, people take a first look at us and they make a lot of assumptions, right, based off of our appearance or the way we look or the color of our skin or whatever it may be. And a lot of times when people look at what I do and they find me giving a lecture or they see me in the masjid, they take a look at the color of my skin and they automatically assume that I've lived a Muslim life my whole life. They assume that I grew up with Muslim friends.

They assume that I went to Sunday school. They assume that I had all the experiences that young Muslims have growing up. The reality of my life is that I very much found Islam in college.

And before that, I did not really have the quote-unquote Muslim experience. Yes, my parents are Muslim. Yes, I have a Muslim name or a Muslim sounding name.

But that's about it. My Islam growing up, before I got to college, was just a cultural version of Islam. So in terms of actual connection with the Muslim community, it wasn't really there.

Personal Journey to Islam

And I remember, subhanallah, that when I finally accepted Islam, and I, yes, very much feel like I accepted Islam, I actually literally took my shahada in college, it is at that point that I was kind of thrown into the community where I had to go and say, okay, where are all the Muslims at now? And I had many of the experiences that many reverts and converts have, where they come to a masjid, and people assume that you already know everything. And people assume that it's okay to nitpick at you and to criticize this and criticize that or whatever, because you should already know, because you're in the masjid. And for me, it was sometimes more difficult, because like I said, from the color of my skin, people assumed that I lived a Muslim life.

And I remember, subhanallah, that at that moment, in those moments when I would come to the masjid or I would go to a Muslim organization or whatever, and people would say, you know, this is haram, and that is haram, and you can do this and you can't do that, and so on and so forth. You know, in the beginning, I was totally cool with that. Like I remember, subhanallah, I went into this one place, and a brother came up to me and he said, you know, he said, he said, hey, like, what's up with your pants? And I said, what do you mean? He said, don't you know what is below the ankles is in the hellfire? And I said, no, I didn't know that.

He said, yeah, the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that. And so you can't have your pants below your ankle. And I said, okay, cool, straight, like I got it.

I went to the, you know, this is an office building, I went to the front of the office building and asked them for a pair of scissors. And I remember subhanallah, right there, I stood there, I took the scissors and I snipped my pants. I'm like, all right, good to go.

And then I went home and I told my mom, like, mom, did you know what's below the ankles is in the hellfire? And she's like, no, I didn't know that. I said, yeah, so, you know, basically, when you get all my pants and my jeans and everything, we need to snip them, right? And I was totally okay with that. The issue that I had was when I would go from one place to another, and then I would start hearing conflicting things.

So one place I would say, you know, no, this is not okay. And another place I would say, no, this is okay. And one place I would say, this is haram.

Another place I would say, no, that person's an extremist, they don't know what they're talking about. They're misinterpreting Islam. And it was at that point in my life that I made a very crucial decision, a very important decision.

Understanding Culture versus Religion

And that is where I said, look, I don't have the ability right now to separate or to know or to differentiate culture from Islam. How do I know whether what you're telling me is simply your culture, your cultural interpretation of Islam, or is this actually Islam? Because Islam, my brothers and sisters, doesn't have a culture. Islam doesn't belong to any one culture.

Any people who say to you that Islam is defined by their culture, then they have hijacked Islam. Because the beauty of Islam is that Islam is meant to be practiced and lived by all peoples across the world, across times.

That is what Islam is.

And so, yes, Islam will look different when we talk about the way people dress and certain habits and speech and food and so on and so forth, cultural matters. Yes, Islam will look different in China, it will look different in Africa, it will look different in Canada, in different places across the world, because Islam is not a culture. And so I said to myself, I'm not okay with this.

I'm not okay with being in this world where I don't really understand and every day somebody comes to me and it's just something new. And I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to learn Islam for myself. I'm going to go study Islam to figure out what actually is Islam.

What my religion is actually telling me. And my one goal or one of my main goals was that I can come back and I remember I said to myself, I remember the day I took my shahada, I said to myself, I don't want to be the type of Muslim that I have come across so far. Because I've come across too many Muslims who have been very judgmental, too many Muslims who have enforced Islam upon me in one way or the other or certain opinions upon me without taking a look at who I actually am.

There's too many times that I would walk into the masjid before I accepted Islam, when I was searching for Islam, that I would walk into the masjid or I would come across some Muslims and without ever saying, how are you? How are you doing? How is your iman doing? Before that question was ever asked to me, it was usually, what are you wearing? You know, this is haram. You can't, you know what? We got to stand foot to foot. You know what? You can't stand foot to foot.

Make sure there's a gap. This is all that I was told. And for me, it was a moment of, it was a moment where it really made sense to me that the only cure to this is knowledge.

The only cure to this is really, truly understanding what Islam is. And I want to give you just one tidbit of that. One tidbit of knowledge that inshallah ta'ala will help clarify this issue for you, the issue of culture and religion.

Does Islam Have a Culture?

A lot of times, I ask the question, is there a Muslim culture? And I actually teach a class on this topic where we talk about culture and Islam. And I ask the question, is there a Muslim culture? And I usually let the class answer this question. And there's some who say, yes, there is a Muslim culture.

There's a Muslim culture. And there's others who say no. And the answer to that is that if you want to say that the rulings of Islam, the shariah, what is found in Islam is Muslim culture, then go ahead.

But you know what I call that? I just call that Islam. If you want to say that Islam has one culture, as in there's one people whose culture defines Islam, then absolutely not. And I want to share with you one incident that happened with the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم,which many of you may have heard about.

Hadith: The Story of the Roasted Lizard

This is the incident where the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم sits down to eat with his companion Khalid bin Waleed. And they're presented some food, Khalid bin Waleed and the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. They present to them roasted lizard. Now, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is about to reach forward to eat from this food.

And as he's about to reach forward, one of the women in the gathering, she says to him, she says to the people there, she says, hold on. First tell the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم what you have served to him. Why? Well, this is a common practice amongst the companions that when something new was given to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم they would always tell him what it is, because legislation is still taking place.

The halal and haram and all of that is still occurring. So they would want to clarify if it is something new, whether there's something permissible or not. And so they tell the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم that it is lizard.

And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, as he's reaching forward to take a bite of this lizard, as he hears that it's lizard, he pulls his hand back صلى الله عليه وسلم. And then Khalid bin Waleed, who is sitting next to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمhe says:

أَيَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ أَحَرَامٌ هُوَ؟

He says, O Messenger of Allah, is this lizard haram? Is it impermissible? Meaning, are we not allowed to eat lizard?

(Sahih al-Bukhari 5391, Sahih Muslim 1943)

Why did he ask this question? He asked this question because he saw that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم pulled his hand away. He didn't eat it. What did the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم say in response? He says, no.

He says, no. He says, however, this is the food not found in the land of my people. Meaning, this is food that I'm not used to.

So he says, I don't find a liking for it. Pretty much he's saying, I don't like it. Right? I don't like it.

That's it. I don't like it. And then what happens? And Wallahi, if this hadith stopped here, it would have been enough to give us a ruling on lizard.

Lessons from the Hadith

This hadith here tells us lizard is permissible to eat. But Khalid bin Waleed tells us more. He goes on to say, after that, meaning after the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم didn't eat it after he said yes, it's permissible, I sat in front of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and I chewed the lizard and I ate it.

And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is looking at me. Now what is the wisdom of that? What is the wisdom of sharing that information? One of the wisdoms there is to clarify for the future generations to come the difference between personal preferences and religion. The difference between culture and religion.

Just like every human being, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم himself had culture. He had his culture. But he was very careful to separate and differentiate between culture or his personal preferences and Islam.

And so this is why Khalid bin Waleed, he sits in front of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and he eats this lizard. And I often say, SubhanAllah, imagine if one of us was sitting in this gathering. Imagine we saw Khalid bin Waleed eat the lizard.

After the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم doesn't eat it after the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم says I don't like it and then Khalid bin Waleed eats it, how would we react? We would say, Astaghfirullah. What kind of Muslim are you? The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم doesn't like it and you're going to eat it? The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمhe doesn't have a liking for it, he didn't eat it and you're going to sit in front of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and eat this lizard? Because we don't understand. We don't understand the difference between culture and religion.

Khalid bin Waleed, in his mind, it immediately became clear. As soon as the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said it's not haram, he realized that it is from the culture of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. And therefore it doesn't have a ruling, it doesn't have weight on the permissibility of this matter. And that, my brothers and sisters, is one example.

The Beauty of Islam's Universality

There are many, many, many examples of differentiating between culture and Islam. That is one of the beautiful aspects, that is one of the blessings of Islam. That Islam spans across all cultures.

That Islam can come to a land that has never heard of Muslims and they can adopt Islam, they can become Muslim and they can retain their identity as well. That is why when we see people coming to Islam, when we see people accepting Islam, instead of trying to mold them into our idea of what a Muslim looks like, we should be learning from them. We should be benefiting from the beauty that they have to offer to our religion.

Wallahi, my brothers and sisters, an incident occurred with me last night here at the convention. I was in the elevator and on the elevator was myself and there's two non-Muslims. One white non-Muslim, one black non-Muslim.

And I'm in the elevator, all of a sudden the elevator door opens up and a Muslim guy comes on, an older guy. And he looks at me, I look at him, he says, Salam Alaikum, I say, Walaikum Assalam. And then he says to me, He says, in Urdu, is there anything to eat here? And my first instinct was, ah, don't say that in Urdu.

Why? Am I ashamed of the Urdu language, right? Do I have an inferiority language when it comes to Urdu, right? Absolutely not. But I know the experience that those other two people are having. Number one, and this is not really related to our topic, but number one, and you all know this, anyone who speaks another language, you know it, that when someone is speaking another language in front of you, they know you're talking about them, right? Like when you're there, two people, they're talking in English, they're talking, talking, talking, and all of a sudden they switch to another language, you're like, wait a minute.

What just happened? I know they're talking about me, right? So I'm like, that's not cool. That's number one. Number two, I'm like, subhanAllah, I wish that every person who comes here, every non-Muslim that comes here can see the beauty and the diversity of Islam.

Islam's Diversity

Because too many people think that Islam is foreign, that Islam has a nationality, when the reality is that a conference like this is proof and evidence that Islam does not have a nationality, that Islam does not have one culture, rather all of our cultures make up Islam. And that is the beauty that we have in our diversity. And the cultures that come into Islam, the cultures that accept Islam, they have so much to offer to the message of Islam.

Because I'll tell you this, we have been working for a long time, the Muslim experience in America, we've been working for a long time, giving da'wah, telling people about Islam for a long time. And alhamdulillah, some things have worked, some things haven't worked. But for a lot of people who hear about Islam, till this day, they see an Arab man in their mind.

Or they see somebody who is Pakistani or something like that. Because that is what Islam looks like in their mind. And the reality is, as I said, the reality is that Islam doesn't look like that.

That Islam is far, far, far more diverse than that. But the wonderful thing, my brothers and sisters, is that regardless of the environment in our masajid, regardless of what's happening in our organizations, regardless of what's happening there, and by the way, it's not all bad. A lot of progress is taking place in our masajid, in organizations, alhamdulillah.

The Importance of This Discussion

To have a panel like this on the main stage, my only thing is, why did it take so long? It shouldn't have taken so long for a topic like this to happen on the main stage. But alhamdulillah, it happened. So we have to give credit where credit is due, that people took the initiative to push for something like this on the main stage.

Because I know that there are people who read the title of this lecture and they said, yeah, that's for reverts. I'm not a revert, that's just for reverts. And the reality is, I heard the talks, I heard all the other speakers, the reality is, what they said, if they're talking to converts and reverts only, then they're telling them what they already know.

They've lived that experience. But the people who need to hear this are people who don't identify as reverts. People who haven't lived that experience, people who haven't lived through the pain and suffering and difficulties and trials that many of our revert brothers and sisters go through.

And you know, the sister before me, she was talking about titles. And I was speaking to her backstage, and we spoke about this topic, and one of the things that I said to her is, I think titles is one of the things that is holding us back. That when we turn to someone and say, this is a revert, or this is not a revert.

And I often ask the question, where do I fit in? Where do I fit in in those clean categories? Because my parents are Muslim, I was technically born a Muslim, I have culture that is considered Muslim culture, but I didn't accept Islam until I was in college. Would you call me a revert or not? And I'm sure if I were to ask the room and ask you to say yes or no, you'd have a different opinion on that matter. And that is why these barriers need to come down, right?

Breaking Down Barriers

Yes, I believe the word reverts has its place when their rights are not being fulfilled, when we're not doing enough for them, when we're not providing for them, when we're neglecting that section of our community, yes.

But once we start using the word reverts, or any word, as a means of division, it needs to be taken out. Because in the masjid, we are Muslims. In the masjid, we are all together.

Even though we have different cultures, even though we come from different places, we are a brotherhood and a sisterhood. And that does not mean we erase our culture, but that means that we learn to love one another, we learn to come together, we learn to appreciate one another, and we are there for one another, we are there to help our brothers and sisters. And the world and our work doesn't stop when we give the person the shahada.

It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. It's not enough that someone walks into the masjid, we get very happy when they take their shahada, we give them a hug, and then we never do any follow-up.

We never go back to see where this person is. And wallahi, when I'm at a masjid, and someone comes and takes their shahada, and someone comes to me and says, Sheikh, can you give this person their shahada, I'm very reluctant. Because I say to them, I say, look, I'm not from this community, I'm visiting your community.

Right? I can give them their shahada, and they'll feel great, and I may never see them again. This person needs to see your community. This person needs to see the leaders in your community.

This person needs to have connections, needs to build a relationship with this community. I don't want to have anything to do with this. Because I know that I'm not going to be able to follow up, I don't belong to this community.

Community Responsibility

The responsibility is upon this community to take care of ourselves, to take care of our new brothers and sisters.

I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to continue to bless our communities with the influx of people accepting Islam.

I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make our hearts soft towards one another.

I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us the humility and humbleness to learn from one another. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best.

End of Khutbah