Do All Lives Matter

Do All Lives Matter? - Imam Zaid Shakir

Opening Praise and Testimony

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. All praise is due to Him who has guided us, for we would not have been able to guide ourselves had Allah and His infinite mercy not chosen to guide us. We seek His forgiveness and repent to Him. We fear Allah, through whom we ask one another, and the wombs of kinship. Verily, Allah is ever watchful over you. And we bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone without partner, and we bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.

O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam. O you who believe, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will then amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great victory.

As for what follows, the most truthful speech is the Book of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. And the worst of affairs are the newly invented matters, and every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

The Case of Stephan Clark: Why It Matters to Us

Today we'd like to talk about the situation with Stephan Clark in Sacramento, not just because it's the news of the day, if you will, but because as Muslims and as human beings, we should be interested in those things that have implications for our lives. And we should also see ourselves as a community that's not divorced from the issues that are plaguing or being dealt with by the communities that we all belong to.

In other words, we can't exist as a community in an insular bubble pretending that what's transpiring in our world doesn't affect us on the one hand, but perhaps even more importantly, that we have nothing, there's nothing we can do to impact how those issues are both discussed and adjudicated. So it's very important for us.

Stephan Clark's Background

We'd like to start, first of all, a lot of people are asking, was the brother a Muslim? As I heard, there was a janazah. Stephan Clark was a Muslim. He was a Muslim who was married, not legally, to a sister, his wife, Selina, who's from a Muslim family. Her father, Raj Mani, is a convert from Hinduism. His father was a Sikh and his mother was a Hindu. He converted to Islam. He's a prominent, not prominent, but known and active member in Sacramento. He raised his daughter as a Muslim. And when she got with Stephan, he took his shahadah, he fasted Ramadan, so that's his background.

His family in grief. His family are not Muslims. Her family is Muslim, and he became Muslim, and his family, though, recognizes his Islam, and that's why they allowed the janazah. That's why they allowed the body to be taken out of the church into the parking lot where the believers lined up and prayed the janazah for him.

The Islamic Sanctity of Human Life

Having said that, our interest shouldn't be because, oh, the brother's a Muslim, let me get interested now. Our interest should be because he's an innocent human being who was brutally killed. For Allah tells us in the Quran:

So Allah says that because of the first murder that occurred, Cain killing his brother Abel, we ordained for the children of Israel and everyone after them, that whoever kills an innocent life, or takes a life, for other than retribution for murder, or spreading murderous corruption in the earth, which is brigandage that results in the loss of life, and brigandage, crimes against the public order.

So all of these crimes against public order that these so-called Muslim jihad groups commit, this is brigandage. It's murder coupled with crimes against public order, the safety of the highways, the safety of the public spaces. This is what this verse is talking about.

If, for other than retribution for the murderer, or retribution for the one who spreads murderous corruption in the earth, a life is killed, it's as if all of humanity is killed. And what is that? That is a deterrent for us, to make us think twice, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times, before we take a human life. Even if there's some doubt.

Because when we take that innocent life, it has so much value, so much worth with Almighty God, it's as if all of humanity were killed. That's one meaning of the phrase: فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا - It's as if he has killed all of humanity.

And then Allah says, don't kill the life that Allah has sanctified: وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ (Quran 6:151) - Except that there's a right, the retribution for murder or some heinous crime of that nature.

Our Responsibility to Speak Out

Otherwise, that life has inherent sanctity. So all of these people, unarmed, innocent people, who are being killed throughout this country, the sanctity that Almighty God has given to their life is being violated. And we should be amongst those who are proclaiming that fact.

This should be one of our contributions to the public discourse, that we need to hesitate and we need to establish policies that will encourage hesitation. It's a practical thing we can do. We can outline policy prescriptions. Not only that, censure strictures when they're violated.

If you don't observe this policy that's put in place to make sure that every life, that the policemen have a dangerous job, their lives should be safeguarded. But so too should the lives of the innocent people they're supposed to be protecting. It should be a two-way street. And that's what we should be advocating. And that's consistent with our values as Muslims.

That the human life is so sanctified that great, great, great care has to be exercised in dealing with that life.

Muslims as a Middle Nation

We as a community should also understand we're a middle nation. وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا لِّتَكُونُوا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيدًا (Quran 2:143) - We made you a middle nation, a balanced nation, that you may be witnesses against the people and that the messenger may be a witness against you.

So in many affairs you'll find the Muslims are in the middle. In terms of economic affairs, the Muslims are between the extremes of capitalism that commodifies everything. And when we say that one of the root causes of a lot of the tension in our communities is poverty, a lot of that goes back to the very nature of how we're conditioned to see wealth.

Islamic View on Wealth and Property

We're conditioned to see wealth as our individual possession. And being our individual possession, no one can tell us how to dispose of our wealth. No one should say you should have programs for food stamps for people who don't have adequate nutrition. No one should be able to say you should have a program for nursing mothers. I don't want to spend my money for food stamps. I don't want to spend my money for nursing mothers. But when it comes to spending money to go bomb innocent people halfway around the world, they're ready to spend their money for that. That's besides the point.

The point, no one should tell me how to spend my money. Because it's my money. As a Muslim, we start from an entirely different perspective. Number one, we don't say it's my money. We say it's Allah's money. It's God's money. It's God's wealth. And God created the circumstances to put that wealth in our hands. And because it's God's wealth, He would tell them in Quran:

Give them from the wealth of Allah, from the wealth of Almighty God, that He has given you as a trust.

It's not your wealth. And because it's God's wealth, God can establish a right in that wealth for the poor people. إِنَّمَا الصَّدَقَاتُ لِلْفُقَرَاءِ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ - That the zakat, here referred to as sadaqah, is for the poor and the indigent.

That's a right established by God. And one who violates that right is a criminal. If you have over the nisab, let's say approximately $1,000, and you maintain that for over a year, and once a year, a lunar year passes over that, and you don't pay zakat on it, you're a thief. Because that wealth is no longer yours, it belongs to the poor people. And by withholding it from the poor people, you've stolen it from them. You're a thief based on the right established by Allah. That is theft. And that's why the punishment, in terms of one who denies the zakat, is so severe. It's a thief. The punishment isn't the punishment for the thief. But in terms of what's taken from them.

So, the wealth, we have an entirely different philosophy. So we don't say it's just strictly ours, on the one hand, and then we don't commodify everything, as capitalism does, on the other hand. But unlike communism, we believe in private ownership within the limits set by God. We believe in free enterprise. So, we're a middle nation. We're a middle nation.

Addressing "All Lives Matter" vs "Black Lives Matter"

And in this particular issue, we should serve as a middle nation. There are two extremes in the argument. Not extremes in terms of the nature of the argument surrounding this issue, from one perspective. One is the extreme of the people who say all lives matter. All lives matter. We're all equally human. Therefore, we all have the same rights and everything proves us.

And another extreme, in juxtaposition to that position, that black lives matter. And so, the specific historical circumstances surrounding black lives and the use of force and violence against black lives rooted in the realities of slavery create this condition.

As a Muslim, we say, because we situate ourselves within the human perspective or constellation, if you will, that all lives do matter. So, Allah tells us that we are a unified humanity:

He created you from a single pair and from that pair sent forth multitudes of men and women so we all have a common parentage and we're all united in a single human family. But Allah also tells us:

We've made you from a single pair and then we've made you into nations and tribes that you may recognize each other. Surely and verily the most righteous of you with Almighty God is one most mindful of His commandments and prohibitions. Verily Almighty God sees and is well informed, knows and is well informed about all things.

Recognizing Unique National and Ethnic Realities

So Allah says, we've made you into nations so Allah affirms our realities and specificities that are unique to individual nations as affirmed by the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him:

الأذان للحبش - The Adhan is for the Ethiopians (Sahih Muslim 653)

الإيمان يمان والحكمة يمانية - Faith and wisdom are Yemeni (Sahih Bukhari 4388, Sahih Muslim 52)

وَإِن تَتَوَلَّوْا يَسْتَبْدِلْ قَوْمًا غَيْرَكُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَكُونُوا أَمْثَالَكُمْ (Quran 47:38) - If you turn away, He will replace you with another people, then they would not be like you.

And He put His hand on Salman, the Persian, وَوَضَعَ كَفَّهُ الشَّرِيفَ عَلَى كَتِفِ سَلْمَانَ الْفَارِسِيِّ وَقَالَ هُوَ وَقَوْمُهُ - And He said, Him and his people (Tafsir Ibn Kathir 47:38)

So there are realities associated with nations and ethnicities. So when we understand the realities associated with African-American people in this country, people of African descent, is a reality that's been tied up with slavery, that's been tied up with white supremacy by definition, that's been tied up with levels of violence and dehumanizing commodification.

The Historical Reality of Dehumanization

We talk about commodification. A slave was a human being. There's a passage in a book that no one, if you haven't read this book you're lax. Dr. Sylvia Diouf, Servants of Allah, African-Americans enslaved in the Americas. She mentions a French plantation owner that was the pre-Haitian revolution on the island of Dominica, the current home of the Dominican Republic in Haiti. At one time it was a French island, then Spanish, Spanish then French it alternated, then it ended up half for the French that became Haiti, half for the Spanish that became the Dominican Republic.

But the point, two French nieces visiting their uncle's plantation and they noticed the slaves were running around naked. When you see images of slaves with these loincloths, a lot of that is just a representation to clean up the situation. Many slave owners did it because it was an expense. They didn't buy any clothes for their slaves. Some just bought a burlap sack which was referred to as negro cloth, a burlap sack and cut holes for the arms and draped that down. That was clothes. But many had no clothes.

So when the nieces saw the slaves running around the plantation with no clothes and commented, the uncle replied, he said, oh what, next you're going to tell me I should be clothing my cows and my dogs? That was the reality. The dehumanized reality coupled with the violence.

Perpetuating Dehumanization After Slavery

And there are a lot of people who sought to perpetuate that reality after slavery through Jim Crow or even before Jim Crow through the violence of the white legion and the red shirts and the Klan to keep the negros speaking euphemistically in their place after the political gains of reconstruction. Put them back in their place, in other words to perpetuate the reality of slavery without slavery being the de jure system of the land.

And so there are unique realities that have to be recognized. But as Muslims we don't have to get caught between a battle between all lives matter and black lives matter. We can say this is accurate and this is accurate. And now let's get busy to make sure we don't need the latter because we've done our part to create a society where everyone is judged as Dr. King said by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. That's part of the work we have to do.

The Necessity of Difficult Conversations

So when we look at these issues and we begin to encourage first and foremost this talking openly about it. These conversations haven't even been had by our society. Some people just get so defensive and insecure or they just don't want to hear it because it involves so much pain. Yes it involves pain but usually it's not the pain of those who don't want to talk about it. It's not the pain of those who don't want to talk about it.

So we have to confront that. We have to overcome it and we have to force those conversations. And as we said, be focused on a policy outcome.

Beyond Policy: Changing Hearts

Over and beyond policy, you can have all the policy in the world and all of the structural changes. So there are