Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter

14th Annual MAS-ICNA Convention

Opening

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

Different Priorities Between Communities

Brothers and sisters, a few years ago, a very prominent Imam, African American Imam, Imam Talib Abdul Rashid, came to my office and told me about a meeting that he was invited to, a Muslim immigrant national organization. And he told me they shared with him their list of priorities, and they listed one through ten. Number one, the biggest priority, to number ten. They said, Imam Talib, what do you think about that? Imam Talib looked at the list, he said, you know what's interesting? What you have as priority number one, for my community, is priority number ten. And what you have as priority number ten, in my community, is priority number one.

Call to Action

So what I'd like to do today is ask the question, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I'm going to make about two or three recommendations.

Arabic Grammar Lesson: Active vs Passive Voice

Number one, I'm going to take a moment to give you a 60 second Arabic grammar lesson. In Arabic, verbs have two voices. It is the active, and the passive called Majhool. If you have the sentence, (كَتَبَ عَبْدُ اللَّهِ كِتَابًا - kataba ʿabdu-llāhi kitāban) it means that Abdullah wrote a book. Who was the subject? Abdullah. What did he write? A book. But if you have the sentence, passive (كُتِبَ كِتَابٌ - kutiba kitābun) it means a book was written. Who wrote the book? Doesn't say. Active, Abdullah did it. Passive, it was written.

Moving from Passive to Active

Years ago, we had a rally in New York City because someone had done something racist. And we got, and we were demonstrating. And you know, usually when you have these demonstrations, you have slogans. And we were marching around saying, racism must end, racism must end, racism must end. And the Imam took the mic and said, don't say, racism must end, say, we must end racism. We are at a stage, we are at a stage right now, that we have to make something happen.

Thermometer or Thermostat?

And I'm going to make a recommendation. I'm going to take a page out of Martin Luther King Jr.'s statement

that he made. He said once, every one of you is either a thermometer or thermostat. And you have to make a determination this afternoon whether you are a thermometer or thermostat. He said, a thermometer, all it does is measure the temperature. Whatever the temperature is, it tells you what it is. But a thermostat is that instrument where whatever the temperature is, you can change it. So if it's 60 degrees and you want to make it hotter, you turn it up. If it's 90 degrees and you want to make it cooler, you turn it down. We have to make a determination at this conference that we're going to walk out of here not merely thermometers complaining about things, but rather thermostats to change.

The Importance of Allies

And I'm going to make a couple of recommendations. Dr. Sherman Jackson said something two weeks ago that I thought was profound. How many of you heard of Jackie Robinson? Most of you will say that Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball, the first African American in the United States to play professional baseball. And you would be right. But Professor Jackson said that Jim Brown made this statement, and he thought it was very profound and I agree with him. I'm going to report to you what Jim Brown said. Jim Brown, a great African American football player, one of the greatest ever. Jim Brown said, people say that Jackie Robinson broke the color line, but Jackie Robinson didn't break the color line. Branch Rickey, who was an administrator of the Dodgers, he broke the color line because he's the one that took an African American and brought him in.

Lesson Number One: Build Allies Through Justice

Lesson number one today. Professor Jackson said that we ought to have allies. I agree with him. How do you get the allies? You get the allies by not asking them, but you get allies by participating in all of the causes that are just you as a Muslim, we as Muslims must be involved with it.

The Civil Rights Movement of 1965

I want to tell you something about what happened in 1965. Many of you should know by now that this is the 50th year anniversary of the famous Civil Rights Bill of 1965. If you remember March 7, 1965, some 600 African Americans marched from Selma, Alabama or they attempted to march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, the capital. When they did, white men, white police began to beat them down, bloodied them up. And what happened was historic. That night, a movie was being played called the Nuremberg Trials, ABC. They interrupted that movie to show what was happening at that demonstration, black people being beat up. 48 million Americans watched it. And when the Americans saw the image of that happening, many of them, white, said that this is not right.

From Bloody Sunday to Victory

So that day, the 7th, they call it Bloody Sunday. March 9, Tuesday, after seeing what was happening on TV, they started to march again. And there were 2,500 people coming to march, many of them black, many of them

white. And when they started to march, Martin Luther King Jr. turned them around because they hadn't got permission to march. So it was called Turnaround Tuesday. March 25, which began with 600 marches to 2,500. Now, 25,000 people march in Montgomery. And because people saw that, there was a change in August 6, 1965. The President of the United States of America signed into law the Voter Rights Act of 1965.

Two Key Recommendations

What's my point? Two points. Two things that I recommend that Muslims get involved with.

First Recommendation: Social Media

Number one, we have to get on social media. If you study the Black Lives Matter, a lot of things are on view, in camera. One day recently, I was on the plane, and I was the last one to get on the plane. And I noticed my seat was all the way in the back, and I noticed as I was walking through the plane, everybody had some kind of social media, some kind of iPad, some kind of iPhone, some kind of something. Everybody, even little children. It means that this is a world, we live in a world of visual. And we have to have our children get involved in the media to begin to show our story. Images make a difference, as it did in 1965, it makes a difference now.

Second Recommendation: Understanding the Power of Voting

Number two, about 15 or 20 years ago, Muslims were asking the question, is it permissible to vote? Is it allowed to vote? I would say in some instances, it is almost haram not to vote, when you understand the power of the vote. Black people, they fought for the right to vote, and it is a very, very powerful tool.

The Struggle for Voting Rights

I want to give you an example of those black people in those years who were not able to vote. They had what they call illiteracy tests. Black people had to take a test to see if they're qualified to vote. I'll give you one test. They would ask them the question, how many bubbles in a bar of soap? Questions that they could not answer. So therefore, number two, I would suggest to you to understand the power of the vote and the power of the law.

The Bridgewater Masjid Case

I want you to think about this. How many of you heard of Masjid Salah in Bridgewater, New Jersey? You may have heard by now that in Bridgewater, New Jersey, they had 17 churches, a Catholic convent, a Jewish synagogue, a Sikh temple, and two Hindu temples, but no masjids. And the Muslims in Bridgewater wanted to build a masjid, and they went to a place that was zoned for a masjid, and when they went back to the city council to say that we want to build a masjid, the city council said, because the people said we don't want no Muslims here, and they refused to give them the permit to build the masjid.

Understanding and Using the Law

What did the Muslims do? They understood the law. They understood the First Amendment of the Constitution

of the United States of America. You have the right, freedom of press, freedom of the religion, you have the right, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, assembly, and you have the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. So those Muslims in Bridgewater, they sued the government of that town, Bridgewater, and they made a settlement. And as a result of the settlement, the Muslims got 15 acres of land in a better property that they had originally wanted, and they won a settlement of $7,750,000 because they understood the law and they practiced the law. So brothers and sisters, learn the law, learn the law of the land.

Working for Justice

I close with this. Paul Sperry wrote in his book, Infiltration, he was concerned about the Muslims and alliances. And he says that the Muslims and the black caucus would make a natural alliance. And I'm saying to you today that we should work for justice not so that we get allies, but we should work for justice because working for justice is what we're supposed to do.

Our Responsibility: Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil

"You are the best of people evolved for mankind because you enjoin the good and you forbid the evil and you believe in Allah." (Quran 3:110) That is our command. Our command is to stand up in this country and wherever. Stand up and tell the truth, truth to power. Don't be afraid.

Closing

And may Allah bless you and bless your family. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.