Muslims in America & The Lessons from The Era of Yellow Fear - Shaykh

Muslims in America & The Lessons from The Era of 'Yellow Fear'

Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

Opening

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh (السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh) الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه ومن والاه (الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَىٰ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ وَعَلَىٰ آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَنْ وَالَاهُ - Alhamdulillah wa salatu wassalam ala rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walah)

Current Climate Against Muslims

A few days ago, our president, theoretically the strongest political person in the world currently, whether we like it or not, retweeted, as you're all aware, three videos. All of them derogatory towards Muslims. All of them inciting fear in the broader public against Islam and Muslims.

He is the president of this country. On his personal Twitter account, he has over 45 million people, the bulk of whom are already antagonized towards Islam and Muslims. And this person, rather than bringing about peace, rather than bridging gaps in cultures, exacerbates a very tense situation by propagating three videos, two of which are completely false.

Two of which have nothing to do with us. There was a fight that somebody videotaped and then somebody falsely said, one of the people was a Muslim migrant attacking a local person, where it turns out both of them were from that ethnicity or whatnot. Another was a complete fabrication.

The third was an isolated incident where one crazy Muslim did something and then he said this is the religion of Islam. The same day, the same day, in Sweden, a member of parliament, an elected, essentially senator, said in a public lecture that Muslims are not fully human. Muslims are not fully human.

The Ofsted Hijab Incident

While all of this is going on, Ofsted, which is the largest and the most authoritative branch of the British government that deals with regulations regarding schools, issued a decree that every muhajjiba girl that would come to any public school would have to be questioned, was she being forced by her parents to wear that hijab. This was enacted by Ofsted, alhamdulillah, two days ago, because of great pressure, they lifted it. But it was going to be enacted that every single muhajjiba girl, 7 year old, 5 year old, 9 year old, every girl would have been questioned by superiors, was she being forced, by the way, no one would have questioned a girl if she came in a miniskirt, are you being forced to wear that? No one would have questioned a girl if she wore any type of clothing, but if she's wearing haya, if she's wearing dignity, if she's wearing decency, she would have been questioned, are your parents forcing you to do that?

The Reality of Our Situation

And I can go on and on, about so many legislations that are being passed, or false videos being spread, or the paranoia that we're currently witnessing against our religion.

And brothers and sisters, believe me, all of you, you know me, my speciality is aqeedah, it's tafsir, it's seerah, my speciality is the religion of Islam, the classical sciences, I would much rather restrict myself to those, than come and talk about these other things. Because honestly, these things are somewhat terrifying, they're depressing. But the only reason I'm here today, I just caught a flight today, I have another flight in 2 hours, the only reason I'm here, is that in my humble opinion, brothers and sisters, every Muslim needs to understand, we're living in very dire situations and circumstances.

Historical Parallels

We're living in a time and a place where, unless we take action, the next stage might be very very terrifying, and we ask Allah's protection. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. And frankly, many of us have not studied history.

Many of us have not studied what happened in Nazi Germany, not in 1941 when the holocaust took place, but in 1921, for 20 years that led up to the holocaust. Because you cannot get a holocaust, you cannot get mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans, that took place again in the 1940s, without a sustained systematic campaign to dehumanize a group of people in the broader public. You cannot instantaneously start killing people en masse, as what happened in Nazi Germany.

Or rounding of people of one ethnicity en masse, as what happened in America. Unless and until you desensitize the broader public to what is gonna take place. And Muslims, I'm sorry to be so alarmist, but what we are seeing right now, that is a necessary precursor to a future holocaust, or a future concentration camp.

The Muslim Minority Reality

You cannot get to that stage, without what we are seeing right now. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but somebody has to say this, because we don't live in a time where we can just clap ourselves and pat ourselves on the back. Somebody has to speak the honest truth.

Many of us are living sheltered lives. Many of us don't understand how dire the situation is. The election of this president is but one symptom.

One symptom. You know, we come to these conventions, we see all of these hundreds or thousands of Muslims, we go to our masajid, you're living in Atlanta, the fourth largest concentration of Muslims in America. So you get a sense of, oh, mashallah, we're a majority.

No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Muslims are a dismal minority. And these statistics that you hear, 5%, 6%, subhanallah.

No, I'm sorry, but we need to be academic here. No survey that is done properly, has ever shown that Muslims even reach 1% of this country. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we need to be very clear about the facts here.

We are less than 1% of this country. That is something that should really and truly make us reflect that when the broader public has made us such a staple issue, every second congressman or senator, every third issue is about Islam, and the Muslims, and sharia law. And yet we are so minuscule in this country.

That is a precursor. May Allah protect us to something that I don't even want to mention or verbalize. So unless and until we understand that our children and grandchildren are under threat, physical threat.

Historical Lessons: The Japanese-American Experience

Unless we understand that our safety, not just our iman, which of course is always under attack, but the physical safety of us and our children is on the line. And each and every one of us has to do what we can. Then subhanallah, if we don't help ourselves, who else is going to help us? And that is why today, I'm not gonna speak to you as a sheikh, as an alim, as somebody who knows the tradition.

No, allow me to speak to you as a professor, as somebody who's gonna teach you a little bit about history, about what happened. I'm gonna give you an example today about what happened in this very land. This very land, barely 70 years ago.

Three Main Points

And that is the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans. Most Muslims are vaguely aware of this. But we don't really quite understand.

And I'm gonna basically go over three basic points. Number one, brief history of what happened to the Japanese-Americans and how that took place. Number two, the psychology of why the broader society and politicians are making us an issue.

And then number three, what do we need to do from a worldly perspective? Obviously from a religious perspective, that's a different lecture. Iman, taqwa, relationship with Allah, that's very important. And nobody should ever trivialize that.

And that is there. But things don't happen just when we go to the masjid. You need to do something beyond the masjid.

You need to do something beyond dua. Dua is important, salah is important. But even miracles, you need to do something to get them.

The Scale of Japanese-American Incarceration

As for knowledge, one incident to help illustrate, to help you understand what is going on. I already said, you cannot mass incarcerate 100,000, 200,000 people without what? A systematic program to dehumanize that group. The Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in the 1940s, up to half a million, 250,000.

250,000. How many Muslims are in Atlanta by the way? Roughly. 60.

Whole of Georgia, 150. So, more than the Muslims of the entire state were rounded up. And by the way, we just say these words, rounded up.

Do you understand what it means to be rounded up? In the middle of the night, military police uniforms. The army, not the police, sorry. The army came knocking on the doors of the Japanese Americans.

The Process of Persecution

And Japanese Americans, by the way, were also decided by quota laws. What percentage of your parents were Japanese? What percentage of your grandparents were Japanese? And who told the army where these people live? Their neighbors. Their neighbors called up a hotline, said, oh, we have a Japanese next to us.

We have a Jap next to us. They had derogatory terms. And the army would come, knock on your door, say you have 20 minutes, pack your bags, you're going.

You and your wife, your kids, everybody. No choice. Throw in a van, be thrown in this prison, basically an open-air prison, for four and a half years.

Not knowing how long you're gonna be there. Not knowing whether you're gonna be executed the next day. You're literally everything stopped.

Your job, your career, everything. This was here in America, by the way. Many of those people that were in those camps are still alive.

Legal Precedent

Some of them are that famous, that example, one example is the famous Hollywood actor who played George Takai in Star Wars, Star Trek, sorry. He was of the concentration camps. You have videos of elderly men and women after the Trump ban, on YouTube saying, look, we're not gonna allow this again.

This happened to us. Meaning they're still alive. We're not talking about 200 years ago.

This is one generation ago. And by the way, this incarceration was fought legally on multiple levels.

Finally one case reached the Supreme Court in a very famous landmark ruling.

The Supreme Court said, it is permissible and allowed in extreme circumstances to suspend the law.

The Supreme Court of America made it legal to arrest without any charge and imprison in these concentration camps without any crime, those 250,000 people simply because one of their grandfathers or grandmothers had been Japanese. One fourth.

They had laws to decide how much is Japanese. Simply because one of their ancestors was Japanese.

And it was only later where the Supreme Court apologized, the government apologized, Congress apologized, the president apologized.

This took place decades later. Didn't help the people that were actually incarcerated. Now as I said, that did not come out of the blue.

The Historical Precedent: The Yellow Fear

It took over 50 years of dehumanizing another race. It began, believe it or not, in the 1890s. 100 and something years ago, Americans were not scared of Muslims, of Arabs.

Believe it or not, 120 years ago, there was another scare. And they called it the yellow fear. I'm not making this up.

This is true, you can look it up. The yellow fear. The fear was against which race? The Chinese.

Chinese Immigration and American Reaction

Why? Because tens of thousands of Chinese workers came to America legally and the whites basically went into a panic. Oh my god, all of these people are coming. And they called them the yellows.

It's a derogatory term, they called them. And by the way, these hard working individuals, they took jobs that Americans did not take. What was the main job that the Chinese did? Who knows? Build the railroads.

The infrastructure of this country, the railroad infrastructure was built by the Chinese Americans. For the most manual labor, for the cheapest price, the most efficient, they did the job. But broader society rebelled.

Broader society said, oh my god, all these people are coming. Different race, different religion, different ethnicity, different language, different culture. And their numbers were nothing compared to the broader public.

What is 20,00o compared to the broader public of America? But that fear was hyped up. It was exaggerated. And what happened? Number one, social media campaigns against Chinese Americans.

Media Campaigns and Stereotypes

Social media was not Facebook. Back then it was newspapers. Back then it was publications. Back then it was books. Back then it was gazettes. Gazetteers would be distributed.

And smear campaigns were directed against Chinese Americans. Publications began drawing Chinese people in very derogatory terms. Exaggerated, slanted eyes and the Fu Manchu stereotype.

Those of you that know the childhood Marvel Comics Fu Manchu character. The Fu Manchu character, by the way, was created in the 1920s as an exaggeration of an evil Chinese warrior. That was in fact one of the tactics.

Magazine articles began perpetuating negative stereotypes about the Chinese people. Their culture is different. They smelt weird.

They bred like rats, one of them said. The New York Tribune mentioned. And this is from the New York Tribune.

I have obviously all of these quotes but time is limited. I can't reference all of them. The New York Tribune wrote that the Chinese are simply not a civilized group of people.

They breed like flies. They don't have the basic etiquettes of cleaning. They stink.

Their women are prostitutes. Their men do this and that. And they kept on using these derogatory terms over and over again.

Books were written with titles such as The Yellow Fear. The Attack of the Orientals. And the broader public was made to feel that there is an imminent threat from these Chinese Americans unless we put a stop to it.

Political Exploitation

So once you start fomenting hatred, what's gonna happen? Politicians, rather than stand up and fight against that hatred, the majority of politicians, and this is across the world, not just in this country by the way, politicians generally speaking, I'm sorry to be so blunt here, but generally speaking, politicians are corrupt people. That is a rule of law across the globe. The honest politician is the rare oxymoron you come across.

Generally speaking, politicians are not people of principle. And when they find any avenue to boost their popularity, they'll use it. Correct? And this isn't just American, any politician.

So, what did politicians in the 1920s do? They banked on the check of bigotry. They rode the wave of xenophobia. And they began propagating even more crazy views.

And guess what? The people loved it and voted them in because of it. In California, a senator ran for office in 1920. I have his name here.

A senator ran for office in 1920, if I can find his name here. Dennis Kearney. Dennis Kearney won by a landslide when he ran for the position of senator in California.

And his motto was, the Chinese must go. That was his slogan. Forget healthcare, forget union rights, forget anything.

The Chinese represented again less than 1% of the population of California at the time. Less than 1%. But the slogan that he used to win with the landslide victory was what? The Chinese must go.

Does that sound familiar? Deja vu anybody? How much are the Muslims of America? Less than 1%.

What did our current president say that boosted his popularity? We must ban all Muslim immigrants until we figure out what the hell is going on. You see, politicians banked in on that hatred and bigotry.

Legislative Consequences

They understand what their people want. And there's nothing new here. Once politicians are gonna bank in, they have to then cash the check.

How did they cash the check? By showing that they've actually enacted laws. And so, yes, 120 years ago, laws were enacted against the Chinese Americans in this country. Laws that prohibited marriage from white women and Chinese.

Not that Chinese people are marrying white women left and right. Obviously, the race of that time, there was already racism. But by the way, footnote here, there's always this trope of an innocent white lady being attacked and ravaged by dark men, the savage.

And we white American men have to protect our women. So they pass laws that Chinese people cannot marry white women. Became illegal.

They pass zoning laws. Where can Chinese people live? This was all legal back then. They pass laws excluding Chinese people to migrate.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1917

Until finally in 1917 came the final blow. And that was, it was the official title was called the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was informally called the Yellow Act.

And again, I'm not making this up. You can find this in any textbook on law. The Yellow Act.

1917, what happened? Congress passed a law that effectively banned all migration from any country in the world other than countries that are Caucasian. Italy, France, Germany, Ireland.

And that's why the stereotypical American immigrant that came here in 1920 and 30, they're coming from white skin Caucasian European countries.

Right? Mexicans didn't land on Ellis Island. Germans did. Chinese didn't come to Ellis Island 1930s and 40s by and large.

The Irish did. Why? Because it was a racist law that forbade anybody of a non-white complexion basically from coming to America except with a whole bunch of hurdles. Obviously, people trickle in.

But as a rule, as a general rule, the only people that could come were people of a particular race and color. And these are the Caucasian Europeans. Now, by the way, footnote for us Muslims here.

Early Muslim Immigration

Before 1917, Muslims were migrating to America. The first batch of Muslims that came here were whom? Who knows? The Syrians? The Russians? Well, the slaves obviously. The West Africans, that's the first batch.

But they didn't migrate. They didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on them. They didn't migrate here. They were forced to come here. That was the first batch of Muslims.

Let's never forget that. Let's never forget. The first batch were the African slaves, our brothers and sisters that were forced to come here.

The first batch of voluntary migrants, they came from Ottoman lands and from the Caucasus, from the Balkans. And they came 1880 onwards. And the first mosques that were built by these immigrants, and they were from Ottoman lands, from what is current Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, the Balkans, some of them Soviet Union, some small groups of Indians came.

They came in small batches in the tens of thousands. And that trickled down in 1917. It stopped because of this act.

Using Zakat for Legal Defense

Final point, brothers and sisters. Many of us don't understand. And I'm gonna say something very clear here.

To pay these attorney fees, they are zakat illegible. This is the fatwa of Sheikh Qardawi, and it is the fatwa of Mufti Taqi Uthmani. I spoke to Mufti Taqi personally.

Personally. Few months ago, I was in Karachi. I visited Mufti Taqi in his office.

I asked him a series of questions. And one of those questions was, can we use zakat money to give lawyers that are helping Muslims that are unjustly put in prison? He says, of course, this is.

These people are al-gharimeen.

And he quoted one of the eight categories. Of course you can. I said, Mufti Sahib, you know that lawyers, they charge an arm and a leg.

Where's the brother? They charge an arm and a leg. They're not gonna... He goes, yeah, but it doesn't matter. They're helping the Muslim community.

See, many of us, we don't understand zakat. Zakat, yes, you give it to the people that are hungry. That's one category.

Fuqra and mastakin, two categories. There's eight categories of zakat. Eight categories.

And the other categories, in order to cause an impact, you don't just give $5. Muallafati quloobum, another category. You give a massive amount to save Islam.

And the same goes for these types of cases. It is permissible, brothers and sisters, to give zakat money to the lawyers that are defending these cases. Why? Because one case will have an impact across the country.

One case will secure the right for 6 million Muslims. Do you think that that's a joke? That is our protection. And that's why fuqaha and ulama, not ignoramuses that don't know anything, and they think they know fiqh.

Real fuqaha, they understand, you can give zakat for these types of cases. And this is the fatwa of both Sheikh Qardawi and Mufti Taqi Uthmani. And frankly, it is the fatwa of anybody that has a knowledge of fiqh.

I don't know any scholar, by the way. I don't know any scholar who would say you cannot give zakat. Any real bona fide scholar, not somebody like me or you, or average graduate.

Real alim at a global level who understands the situation is gonna say you cannot give zakat for this. So may Allah azza wa jal open our hearts and minds to help this organization, and to do what we can. I have to ask leave of you.

But brothers and sisters, please do not leave. Listen to another lecture by Ustad Nihal Khan is gonna be coming. And then inshaAllah the fundraiser will take place.

And inshaAllah I will see you in my next visit to Atlanta. Jazakumullahu khairan.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.