Islam and the Global Future- Community or Chaos

(Sahih Muslim 49)

"So we have to speak out against this because it's wrong. And it would be wrong if it were emanating from any other country. So we're not encouraging anti-Americanism. We're encouraging anti-militarism. We're encouraging anti-murder. We're encouraging anti-chauvinism. And if America happens to be the strongest manifestation contemporarily, then that's what we specifically speak out against."

The Vietnam War Example

The book I'm going to read from right now is called Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America's Civilizing Mission by a very great historian, Michael Adas of Rutgers University. So we're going to read a little from this book, and what we're going to read deals primarily with the Vietnam War and the things that were unleashed against the people of Vietnam. And Iraq is only a continuation of what was happening in Vietnam. And as I read through this, you can see the parallels. They're readily apparent to anyone.

So we'll proceed. He says, in discussing the machines in a chapter rather entitled "Machines in the Vietnam Quagmire," so he says: as guerrilla resistance and support from the North intensified, the military-industrial complex of the United States—and this isn't a term that was coined by some radical anarchist left-wing types; this was a term that was popularized by the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address upon leaving the presidency in 1961—so he says as military resistance persisted and the support of the North intensified, the military-industrial complex in the United States devised an ever-expanding arsenal of anti- personnel weapons.

Though ostensibly designed to locate and destroy National Liberation Front guerrillas or PAVN units, weapons specifically concocted to shred or scald human flesh were regularly used in assaults on villages providing support for or deemed to be friendly to the insurgents. Where have we heard that term? Because most of these devices were dropped from the air or fired from distant bases, peasants who happened to be in the trajectories of bombardments of suspected enemy units frequently bore the brunt of the high-tech killing devices.

Such was the fate of the hamlets caught in the middle of the firefight at Ap Bac in January 1963. Both Ap Bac and Tan Thua were shelled heavily by the Vietnamese Army, that's allied with the Americans, artillery strafed by fighter-bombers and incinerated by napalm. Whatever their earlier feelings about the National Liberation Front, villagers who survived this pummeling but lost their houses, granaries, ancestral shrines, and livestock would almost certainly have emerged deeply hostile to the Saigon government and its American advisors.

Napalm, which had been first deployed during the Second World War, was perhaps the most famous of the anti- personnel weapons used at Ap Bac and Tan Thua. But the hamlets were also bombarded with white phosphorus shells, which scattered volatile acid that burned for days in the flesh of the wounded. That was used extensively in Fallujah.

As US participation in the conflict escalated, ever more horrific anti-personnel weapons were unleashed over much of South Vietnam: from chemicals and fuel-air explosive to spider mines with nylon trip wires to pineapple bombs which exploded several feet above the ground and released thousands of steel spikes designed

to rip apart any humans or animals within range. And these were scattered all over the Vietnamese countryside and jungle.

Guerrilla warfare, especially as cadre-based communist permutation of the 20th century, dissolved the boundaries between civilians and combatants and meshed socio-political and military action. After their usually brief and narrowly targeted operations, National Liberation Front soldiers—those are the supported by North Vietnam, the communist troops if you will—sought to lose themselves in the peasant population. Villagers, often women and children, supplied and concealed, served as messengers and spies for, and sometimes joined the National Liberation Front combat units.

As in the war against the French, as in the war against the French, women sometimes commanded National Liberation Front units, often ran extensive propaganda campaigns, aiding in the transport of supplies and cared for wounded fighters. As members of the local Women's Liberation Association organized by the NLF, women were usually responsible for the surveillance and disciplining of village population. And women, as well as children, planted bombs in US and ARVN encampments or near bars and brothels frequented by American or government soldiers.

So to skip ahead, when high-tech assaults on suspected guerrilla bases and supported villages proved indecisive at best, US counterinsurgency operations were escalated to a level of warfare that had never before been pursued in such a deliberate, sustained, and routinized manner. Innovative ways of harnessing scientific research and new technology made it possible to wage war on the very environment of South Vietnam, which was so amenable to guerrilla tactics.

Research by Dow Chemical and other American corporate giants led to the development of a variety of defoliant agents and herbicides, of which the most widely employed was Agent Orange. These chemical concoctions were used to deplete the rainforest cover of areas considered major NLF sanctuaries. By the late 1960s, as much as 25% of South Vietnam's highland rainforest, mangrove wetlands in the Mekong Delta, and large swaths of woodland along the Cambodian border had been defoliated.

Toxic spraying devastated wildlife, fish and shellfish industries, and Vietnam's hardwood logging industry, which in the French period had become a significant export sector. The slogan adopted by the helicopter crews assigned to spraying operations was "Only we can prevent forests," which was in its subversion of the virtuous adage of the U.S. Forest Service, Smokey the Bear, "Only we can prevent forest fires." Became: in America we want to save the forest, so we have Smokey the Bear and the Forest Rangers preventing forest fires. And in Vietnam we have the U.S. military saying, "Only we can prevent forests."

An example of the black humor that American combat troops used to cope with the violation of personal morality that was virtually inescapable for those engaged in counterinsurgency operations. It was also a disturbing reminder of the moral numbing that had invariably been associated with those participating in techno-war.

So again, that's an extensive passage from Michael Adas's Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America's Civilizing Mission. So I highly recommend this book to you also.

The Danger of Techno-War

Now what he mentioned there was techno-war and the dehumanizing and the desensitizing that's associated with techno-war. So you associate that with the video games that more and more resemble what a helicopter pilot or what a bomber pilot sees when they unleash tons of bombs possibly upon largely civilian areas. No feeling of remorse. No feeling of any moral responsibility. You have a very lethal combination as the technology that drives techno-war becomes increasingly sophisticated and increasingly deadly.

Some of you might have observed the fact that last month the Russians exploded a conventional explosive device, a fuel-air ordinance of the type that was referred to in Adas's book, that had the kill force of a small atomic weapon. So when we have so-called conventional weapons becoming as deadly as atomic weapons, when we have weapons that use electronic fields to stun people, to fry people, when we have things like white phosphorus, and technology is constantly—billions of dollars are being spent annually to perfect the technology of death and to make it more efficient and more technologically sophisticated—and that's coupling with an increased level of desensitizing, increased level of insensitivity, then where are we headed as a human species?

What does that auger for our collective future? These are the kinds of questions that we as Muslims have to begin to ask ourselves if we're going to begin to participate in a discussion, in a discourse, to begin to move towards something better in the future.

Ecological Degradation

That passage we read referred to the ecological devastation of Vietnam, and this leads us to the next threat to our collective future: ecological degradation, the degrading and destruction of the natural environment that supports our lives.

That degradation occurs in the water. Allah mentions in the Quran:

"[Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by what the hands of people have earned so He may let them taste part of what they have done that perhaps they will return]"

It's critical for us, brothers and sisters, to reflect on the destruction that's been brought about. And one of the things mentioned by Ibn Abbas concerning that verse is that one of the consequences of that fasad, that corruption that would appear on the land and in the sea, the sea would stop to produce its yield. And now we're talking about by 2050, upwards to 90% of the sea species could be gone. Gone! Because of what we have brought about as human beings.

Every year, 20 billion tons of polluted water-water that's polluted with raw sewage, water that's polluted with heavy metals, water that's polluted with industrial waste, carcinogens, poison, cancer-causing agents—is dumped from our rivers and lakes into the oceans. So the rivers and lakes in most countries are already written off as a lost cause. But the oceans, the vast oceans, are receiving annually 20 billion tons of polluted water from our polluted lakes and rivers. And that's destroying the fish, that's destroying the plankton.

That, combined with global warming, within our lifetimes can kill the plankton. It's altering the pH, the salinity of the sea. It's altering the pH balance of the sea. And the life in the sea has been hardwired by Allah over a process of millions of years to function in water that has a certain salinity, to function in an environment that's qualified by a certain pH balance. The alterations in those things are becoming so drastic, the plankton could die.

As you realize, if the plankton dies—the plankton, not the forest, which are rapidly disappearing, we'll come to the forest in a minute—produces most of the oxygen that we breathe. No plankton, no oxygen. No oxygen, no life on this planet. These are very real threats.

Air Pollution

The air is also receiving every year billions of metric tons of pollutants. And those are leading in many instances, even in some of our Muslim cities. Many of you there in Jordan, you take periodic trips to Damascus. If you get there on a day when the wind, the breeze that comes in most evenings hasn't come for 3 or 4 days, you see, you can climb on Jabal Qasiyun and look at the black cloud of diesel smoke and soot that's hovering over the city. In the winter time, the rain is rain water, the wash-off is black. It's not clear like water should be. It's not brown like water that's mixed with dirt or mud would be. It's black like ink.

And when we wash our clothes, the runoff from the water is black from the diesel particulates. In the winter time, sometimes when the stoves and sobias are burning, we have literally, we used to call it black snow. And if one is indeligent in housekeeping, sweeping it from one's patio, when the rain comes, you know your patio is going to be streaked with black from that.

Human beings are breathing that. The plants are breathing that. Plants breathe. The animals are breathing that. And that's nothing compared to Cairo. And Cairo is nothing compared to Bangkok. And Bangkok is nothing compared to Shanghai. And all of that is going into the air. And the asthma, the other respiratory problems, the increased rates of lung and other cancers are dwarfed by a larger threat, the very much popularized threat of global warming.

You know, as you all know, recently the Nobel Prize went to researchers who are focusing with the very best scientists on documenting the danger and the expansiveness of the threat of global warming, and Al Gore for popularizing it. I personally don't feel Al Gore should have gotten a Peace Prize because maybe—and we appreciate his inconvenient truth, I enjoyed that film actually—but he was involved in a lot of warmongering activity during his time in the Senate and during his time as Vice President. So I don't think that someone with a total collective record like Al Gore should get a Peace Prize. But who am I?

In any case, but the big point, and we do appreciate his contribution to the global warming discourse because it's a very important issue, and as the Earth heats up, the polar ice caps melt, some areas, coastal areas are going to disappear. Here in the California Bay Area, the area I'm in might be underwater in 20 or 30 years. It's a very real possibility. Many low-lying coastal areas that are home to upwards to 200 million people could be underwater.

Already some South Sea Island atolls have disappeared. Coral atolls that were home and host to human colonies, human life, they're underwater. The Inuits and other northern people, many of them have had to abandon their villages because as the ice has receded, they've slid into the sea. The polar bears we know and

other, the walrus and other animals in the northern reaches, are threatened with extinction, animals that live on the ice. The ice is coming later, and it's freezing later, and it's thawing out earlier.

They're talking about in 10 years there's going to be an open passage during the summertime across the North Pole, and already the commercial interests are seeking to exploit that as a quick route between Europe and Japan and Eastern Asia for commercial goods. So where does it stop, brothers and sisters? That's the air.

Deforestation and Land Degradation

The land itself, we mentioned deforestation. Large areas of forest, millions and millions of hectares are disappearing every single day on the face of this earth. And it's a shame when we think about some of the reasons why those forests are disappearing. Some are disappearing because of cyclical environmental disruptions, if you will. Many of those forests are disappearing because of conscious human activity, and much of that activity increasingly is going towards sustaining an obscene and vulgar lifestyle for us here in the so- called developed world in general, and here in the United States in specific, the American way of life.

What am I talking about? Millions of acres are being cut down to be, and then converted into cattle farms to raise cows so we can continue to eat our one-pound hamburgers, our Whoppers and our Big Macs and our quarter-pound steaks and our one-pound steaks and to maintain our steak houses. That's why a lot of the Amazon and other rainforests are being destroyed.

Others are being destroyed or their destruction is being discussed. Millions and millions of hectares to be turned into cultivating fuels for crops, rather for biofuels, to grow corn or sugar cane or other crops so that alcohol can be converted into ethanol to power our automobiles and to power our trucks and our four-wheeled recreational vehicles and our snowmobiles and our speed boats and our other recreational vehicles. So we can drive cars that look like military vehicles, Hummers or SUVs and other things, to fill the spiritual emptiness that we're going to talk about, to give us a sense of meaning and purpose. I can sit behind the wheel of this massive vehicle and feel empowered as a result of that.

We should feel empowered by our relationship with Almighty God, by our human worth, by the ennoblement that we mentioned that has been conferred upon human beings. But in our ignorance, we seek power through other means, and increasingly those means are destroying our environment.

So the forests are disappearing. The land is receiving toxic waste at increasingly dangerous and deadly levels. Even before the current concern about environmental issues, there are places—and I'm sure Zaheer being from Buffalo is familiar with the Love Canal situation—an ideal suburban community in the vicinity of Buffalo, New York, that had to be abandoned because toxic waste had been dumped there and the people were developing cancer. So that's on a small scale. There are massive, and with some sort of regulation, there are massive unregulated toxic dumps all over this world where the poisons of our industry and the poisons of our economic activity are being buried into the earth.

And then when a flood comes, it's happening in New Orleans, those chemicals and deadly combinations are washed to the surface. Those drums that are rusting out as a result of the contact with the runoff from rain water or the groundwater are rusting out and waiting for a Hurricane Katrina or some other natural disaster, an earthquake, to bring them to the surface, to erupt them and expose people to unimaginable health consequences.

So the earth is being poisoned. The land is being poisoned. Even the farmland, as we become increasingly wedded to technological farming and we get away from organic farming, the fertilizers, the pesticides end up going into the earth and poisoning the earth. We mentioned the consequence of techno-war in Vietnam. It was Agent Orange and other dioxin-laced defoliant agents, rather, that stay in the earth for hundreds of years. Dioxin doesn't break down. So it's in the water. The people are drinking the water. It's in the earth. The earth and dust during the dry season is blown to and fro. People are inhaling that. And you see exorbitant rates of cancer, birth defects, and other things. That's the product of techno-war in Vietnam in terms of its ecological consequence.

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, is depleted uranium, where the depleted uranium used on armor-piercing projectiles creates a cloud of radioactive vapor. Then that settles into the earth, and we know the sandstorms that occur in that part of the world, or during the rainy season it seeps into the groundwater. It blows about in the sandstorm. People breathe in. We see even the American soldiers afflicted with mysterious diseases that can be traced back to depleted uranium. And Iraqis born with no arms, with no eyes. There were 10 babies in one neighborhood that was documented by a humanitarian organization based here in San Francisco that were born with no eyes, and that was traced back to the effect of depleted uranium.

So our environment is under attack and is under control, a lack of moral restraint in the conduct of war. This is something we will come to, this issue subsequently in terms of addressing these issues.

Pollution of the Human Environment

Another issue: if our natural environment is being polluted, our human environment is being polluted, is being polluted with advertisement, is being polluted with pornography, is being polluted with mediated messages, many of which have one objective, and that is to get us to buy something we don't need. As one popular American folk singer said, "You can take part in the all-American dream, just fill your house up with a million products you don't need, you don't even have to use them. Buying is all they ask of you. And if it's so doggone incredible that you don't believe it's true, it's Madison Avenue."

And then he goes on: "They sell sand to a man in a desert, they sell tuna to the chicken of the sea." And I added, "So what do you think they're selling you and me?" "When night all becomes a permanent state after the ignorance begins to escalate, we sit back and watch the dollar's value deflate. But how long will our enemies sit and wait?"

The Commodification of Human Beings

So the commodification of human beings, the commodifying of human beings, human life increasingly—and this isn't just here in the West, these technologies, these methodologies are extending throughout the Muslim world and throughout the so-called developing world—and their effect in many instances is even graver because at least here some of us have developed some cultural and psychological antibodies to all of this. But when they enter into a Muslim country, for example, and the people haven't developed those cultural and social, political antibodies, psychological antibodies, the effect is devastating. The effect is absolutely devastating.

So people transformed into becoming an extension of the machines that we use and the products that we buy. People, we see people defining themselves based on what they wear, based on the labels that are fixed to their body, and seeing themselves as not being worthy of appearing in public. "Mom, I can't go to school today." "Why can't you go to school today?" "Because everyone in the school has the new sneakers, whatever they might be called, and I don't have any." "Well, why can't, why did that prevent you from going to school?" "Well, everyone is going to look at me like I'm nobody."

And that poor child feels that he or she is nobody. And adults, it's the same thing, that if I don't own this, if I'm not adhering to this fad or this style, if I'm not a reflection of the live advertisements that are constituted by the musical videos, that are constituted by the clothes that the stars are wearing. I'm sure they're increasingly in parts of the Middle East, Beirut or maybe there in Amman, Cairo, Tunisia, you see girls walking around with their midriffs exposed, with their belly button exposed, with tight blue jeans and low-cut blouses that reveal their midsection. Possibly you see tattoos affixed to exposed parts of their anatomy.

Where is that coming from? And why do, why does a person who's growing up in a Muslim culture feel they have to follow those fads and styles? It's coming from the dehumanizing impact or influence of advertisement. It's coming from the commodification of human beings. I'm not a human being whose worth is based on the degree of my spiritual refinement. I'm a commodity whose worth is based on my conformity to what I see presented to me via the media, or whose worth is based on the labels that are affixed to my body.

So I'm important and I'm someone of worth and value because there's a Gucci label on my glasses or there's a Cardin label on my blue jeans or there's an Adidas or Puma or Nike label on my sweatshirt or my baseball cap. And that's what defines who I am as a human being.

Relationships as Commodities

So this commodification of human beings, it also, it leads to assessing in terms of our relationship. I mentioned individual impact in terms of how that affects our relationships. When we see ourselves as commodities, we begin to see each other as commodities. And then the value of our relationship is based on the use value that is structured into those relationships. So what is the utility that, or the benefit that I can gain from this person? And as we begin to approach our relationship in that fashion, our relationships, rather, in that fashion, we begin to have very opportunistic relationship.

I'll marry that person not because they'll help me with my religion, not because they'll help me to get to paradise, not because they'll deepen my relationship with God, not because they'll help me to understand who I really am as a human being. I'll marry him or her because they will help me to gain some material thing or they represent some material gratification for me. And when that use value is used up, I no longer have use for them. So I'm going to divorce him when that happens or I'm going to divorce her when that happens. Or I'll hold on to him or her until someone that really conforms to this image of what I deem as being beneficial for me comes along.

So when someone who can buy me the house of my dreams comes along, I'm going to divorce this poor stiff. But you know, he's cute and we've known each other since high school, so he'll do for now. But when someone with some real money comes along, I'm going to get rid of that chump. Or this wife is good. She's like a starter wife. You know, we have starter homes now. At one time we bought a home and that was the end of it. We

bought it with cash. We saved up 20 years and we bought it with cash. Now we don't save at all. We get it with credit, and you see where that's led the American economy in recent months.

But one house wasn't good enough, so we had to become victims of marketing campaigns that convinced us, no, we had to have a starter house. So now we have what we have, starter houses, where I'll live in this house until I really get on my feet. And when I get on my feet, I'll sell this house and use the profit I make from it as a down payment to get the house of my dreams, the house I really want. And that idea of using things until we can find something that confers greater satisfaction or greater use, there's a television program here called Starter Wives. And I, I, I haven't watched it. I don't have a television in my house. I haven't had a television in my house since the 1980s. But when I travel around and go to the hotels, I sneak a peek. I have to confess. And I saw commercial advertising a program called Starter Wives. And I can only be led to understand that that's the idea of the starter home.

I'll use this woman, you know, she's my cute little high school girlfriend. We took shahada together until I get my what's called the trophy wife, the one I'm going to show off because she's the one that, she's beautiful and she's statuesque and she's a trophy wife. And listen to these terminology. Listen to this terminology and think, what does this say about our humanity and how we see each other? And what does this say about our future? Because we're not, we're not being led to look at each other as human beings that can come together as the result and form a spiritual bond that can create a loving environment where we can nurture our children. We're looking at use value. We're looking at consumerism, what can be consumed. We're looking at maximizing our benefit.

The Loss of Charity and Giving

And in all of this, one of the most essential aspects of our human condition, and something that is focused on in Ramadan, the idea of charity, the idea of giving, the idea of ithar, giving preference to others, is lost. So I am someone based on how well I can benefit others. So this is Machiavelli, Machiavelli taken from, so this is induction taken from the nation-state system and applied at the level of the individual, ungodly thought.

When Machiavelli wrote The Prince, he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The church fathers looked at the book and said this is ungodly thought. And that's exactly what's taking over our life, ungodly thought. Godliness, charity is a part of godliness. Cleanliness is a part of godliness. And cleanliness concerned individual cleanliness, the cleanliness of the world that we live in is a part of godliness. Sharing and giving is a part of godliness.

Ramadan, Almighty God, Allah, gives to us. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) was most generous in Ramadan, and we're encouraged to be generous. But that becomes lost when everything is commodified. And that commodification leads naturally into a condition, or to a condition that's qualified by spiritual emptiness.

Spiritual Emptiness

If who I am as a person is associated to what I can buy, is associated to the machines that I operate, and I become an extension of those machines, I become an extension of those products, then what does this do to my

humanity? What does this do to my spirit? What does this do to my ruh? What does it do to feed that aspect of my being that distinguishes me from the rest of this animal, the animal and inanimate creation? I bring myself down to the level of materialism, and that creates an environment that's qualified by those realities.

An environment that sends out mediated messages that encourage us to consume, that can encourage us to exploit others. The gangster culture that we're dealing with here—and if you're not dealing with it there wherever you might be, you will be soon, because this is a globalized reality that we're talking about here—we have to begin, that environment destroys the spirit. It doesn't nurture the ruh. And we have to begin to start to create in our environment and emphasize in our environment those things that feed the spirit to combat this. But we'll come back to this issue later when we talk about what Islam can present towards community and to push us away from chaos.

Nationalist Thinking and Demagogues

One of the greatest agents of chaos in terms of our looking at our collective global future is exploiting defunct nationalist thinking. Defunct because in many instances, as a human family, we have began to transcend the influence of nationalism. The great nationalist wars which were called World War, World War 1 and World War 2, the great wars of European nationalists, made people began to, or led people to see the futility and the emptiness of creating a situation of competing national interest, mutually exclusive national interest, and the conflict that that gave, and chaos and confusion that that gave rise to. People began to move away from that.

As we progress towards the end of the 21st century, we saw demagogues emerging in Serbia, in Rwanda, here in the United States and other places, beginning to exploit that almost dead nationalist thinking to rally people whose souls have been rendered empty by the materialism, by the commodification, by the rampant consumerism that was affecting so many people. So one of the easiest things that these demagogues found that they could present to people to confer meaning to them was national identity, identification with the nation, and then using that to exploit the interest of other peoples.

And so this, as we are increasingly dehumanized, generally speaking—not everyone, thank, thank Allah for that, thank God for that—but generally speaking, as the dehumanizing influences that we touched on deepen themselves, as we become more and more inundated with a consumer culture globally, as we are more and more commodified, then that emptiness will be increasingly exploited by demagogues who will attempt to fill that emptiness, to fill that lack of belonging, to fill that desire for real community with the nation and exploiting that until it reaches the levels of national identity and the level of national chauvinism that has become, and the levels of national belligerence that have become associated during the 20th century with fascism.

And that definitely does not auger well for our collective future because that presents a future of the survival of the fittest, social Darwinism. That presents a future of a struggle for power amongst nations and nation states and various nationalist groups, the Hans Morgenthau principle of power amongst nations. That prevents a future where many of the old ways of thinking and the old ways of acting that nearly destroyed this planet during the course of those two world wars that we mentioned will be revived. But they'll be revived with more deadly technology.

The atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only available to one party in the war, in the conflict, the Americans, at the end of the war. What if they had been available to all parties of the conflict at the very onset of the war? So we're facing a revival of that old way of thinking with new and more deadly forms of weapons of mass destruction: atomic bombs, hydrogen, thermonuclear bombs, electromagnetic weapons, satellite-based weapons, you name it, biological weapons, anthrax and other biological weapons, chemical weapons. With that old mentality and our newly enhanced efficacy to kill and destroy each other, what does that say for our collective future?

The Myth of the Muslim Savage

And finally, and I think it's very important for us to talk about this, and that's the deepening and the perpetuation of the myth of the Muslim savage. There's a very, very important book that I highly recommend for everyone. I'm not going to read from it, but I highly recommend this book. It's called The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy by Qureshi and Sells. The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy because this book, combined with another book by a gentleman by the name of Jazairi that's published in Manchester, England, The Myth of the Muslim Barbarian, its usages—and there's another part of the subtitle that escapes me right now—but this is a very, very important book because it documents how a lot of the things that we see happening here in the United States, specifically in Britain, in France, in Germany, in terms of the re-energized far right, the far political right, the Christian right, some extreme Zionist groups and their attacks on Islam, how these attacks and the nature of the arguments that are being made conform to historical patterns that we can trace back to the Crusades. Hence the title, The New Crusades.

Many of the arguments that were made by Pope Urban as he urged, roused the faithful to go forth to slaughter Muslims are being made by many of these parties today. They were made in Europe during the time of the Crusades. They were made in Spain at the time of the Inquisition. They were made in Serbia during the latter part of the 19th century, during the Second World War, during the early and mid-90s, when those respective genocides were going on. They've been made repeatedly to justify destroying and committing genocidal slaughter against the dehumanized Muslim other.

Where Are Muslims Fighting?

And the key, some of the key things that are factored into that dehumanization, presenting Islam as an unmitigated, unqualified militant religion, presenting as, in other words, Muslims, they're going to fight you and there's nothing to stop them. And their religion sanctions them fighting you. If we look at the global system now, where are Muslims on their own initiative fighting anyone? 1.2 billion Muslims. Where are Muslims of their own initiative fighting anybody?

Reverse that. Where are Muslims being killed by the tens and in some instances the hundreds of thousands? Where are Muslims killing people? Let's rephrase the question. And this gets at exactly the argument that's made by Qureshi and Sells and the argument that's made by Jazairi in The Myth of the Muslim Barbarian and other literature, relevant literature.

Where are Muslims anywhere on the face of this earth, or let's go back the last century, from the year to 1900 until today, where have Muslims engaged in wholesale slaughter, except for slaughtering each other such as the Iran-Iraq war, of non-Muslims? Think about it.

Now let's ask the question, where are Muslims being killed by the tens, if not the hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, if not the millions? In Iraq, studies by the Lancet identified 700, 655 thousand dead Iraqi civilians as a result, direct result, of the American invasion and occupation. A more recent study put that figure at over one million. In Afghanistan, during the course of the Russian invasion and now as a result of American military operations since their onset, as a result of various bombardments in Chechnya, Shishan, as a result of the Russian occupation and aggression against the people of Chechnya, in other areas. So Bosnia, of course, probably the most famous incident in recent history, in Bosnia, the wholesale slaughter of Muslims that are justified—and Qureshi discussed this extensively in The New Crusade—by Serbian nationalists making the exact arguments that are being made today by right-wing elements here in the United States and Britain and France and other places.

The Danger of Dehumanization

We have to take this seriously, very seriously, because what has happened in the past is destined to happen again unless we do something to interrupt the pattern that led to that. What they say, or as they say, those who fail to understand and to study history are destined to repeat it. Those genocides were all accompanied by campaigns to dehumanize, to defame the Muslim other. And as Muslims, we have to begin to stand up as a community to speak out against that and to defend ourselves.

Or else, when you find millions of people being roused up, when you find your non-Muslim relatives who are so deeply affected by this environment of hate that's being created that they began to question you and to question your religion. How many of you are familiar with that? That's a result of that environment. And these are the people that love you. And these are the people that in the past had expressed sympathy. And these are family members. And these are kith and kin. What about people who have some animosity towards our community? What about people who have a vested interest in seeing that Islam doesn't expand and grow here in the West? What about those elements?

So brothers and sisters, these are things that we have to take seriously.

The Clash of Civilizations Theory

Now how does that plan to our collective future if this is part and parcel of what's being presented as a clash of civilization? A theory that I don't buy into personally because, number one, it's bad history. It's bad history because it attempts to extract the historical Islamic civilizational enterprise from the greater civilizational story of the Mediterranean basin. So to extract Arab Islamic civilization from that Mediterranean basis civilization that produced Egyptian civilization, that produced Greek civilization, that produced Roman civilization, that produced the Arab Islamic civilization, and then through what's known as the Renaissance—which is another thing, another historic reality we should question.

Why do we have the Renaissance and what purpose does it serve? Is the Renaissance the revival, the reawakening of classical Greek and Roman learning in the European environment, in the European milieu? Now what's dangerous in that idea? That idea writes away the Islamic bridge that conveyed Greek and Roman civilization and the advances of antiquity, the philosophical and medical and other advances of European antiquity, that was conveyed directly to Europe, directly to Spain and directly to Italy, via Islamic Arabic civilization.

So when we come with a Renaissance, that revival was a spontaneous indigenous European Christian development, and it wasn't a development that Islam, Islamic civilization, Islamic Arabic civilization wasn't an integral part of. So that's aiding the divorcing of Arab Islamic civilization from that whole civilizational episode and from that whole civilizational narrative, and then presenting the Islamic Arab civilization as a foreign, threatening, dangerous, potentially hostile other. You see?

So when Islamic civilization is seen for the reality of what it is, as an integral part of that whole civilizational episode, then we're seeing history for what it is, and we can't begin to make these sort of clash of civilizational orders arguments. Rather, we see a continuity of civilization.

Bad Social Science

So it's bad history and it's bad social science. It's bad social science because it presents certain theories that are tenable. So to just give you a small example, I know I've gone past the designated time, but this is a one-time thing, so I hope I don't bore you. Ah, it's bad social science because it presents certain theories and certain facts as proven and established when there are nothing more than allegations that are set up to support the theory itself. So a theory should be supported by empirical research and not by self-fulfilling prophecies that are part and parcel of the theory itself.

What am I talking about? To give you one example, part of the Bernard Lewis, Samuel, Samuel Huntington, ah, clash of civilization, ah, thesis and refined by Huntington is the fact that when civilizations, which he defines in cultural terms, differ, they turn, they have more intense warfare and conflagrations between them. When civilizations are, are in common, then this mitigates, number one, the outbreak of war, and it also mitigates the intensity of any wars.

What's wrong with that? How do we account for the two world wars, the most violent and intense conflagrations in human history, on the basis of that aspect of the clash of civilizational theories? Tell me, answer. You can't. Because these warring elements shared a common Christian civilization, Mr. Huntington. You can't argue, well, it was the Catholics against the Protestants. No, because it was the Catholics and the Protestants against the Catholics and the Protestants. Were the Protestant Brits along aligned with the Catholic French against the Protestant, the Catholic Italians and the Protestant Germans? Was it not so?

This whole idea is suspect. The whole idea is suspect. And when you really start to look at the complexities and nuances of socio-political reality, you find that the simplistic analytical categories set up by this theory, they don't wash.

Another example, and then we'll move on. The First Gulf War, was that a clash of civilization? The Christian West against the Western Muslims? If one were to argue that way, how do we account for the alliance between

the Americans, the Saudis, and the Kuwaiti, Christians and the Muslims aligned against the Muslim Iraqis, who were supported politically at least by the French, Christian Catholic French, and the Orthodox, Russian Orthodox Christians? How do you account for that based on these simplistic categories that are presented by Bernard Lewis, Samuel, Samuel Huntington, and those in the post-9/11 world who have taken up this rubbish that they put forth? How do you account for that? You have Muslims and Christians aligned against Muslims. You have Muslims fighting Muslims.

So we have to look at reality as it is, and we have to study and analyze, and we have to stop looking for shortcuts, especially in the United States. We're always looking for shortcuts so we can easily justify and rationalize our policies, and we can escape the moral burden of questioning the obscenity of a trillion-dollar defense budget. We can escape the moral burden of questioning the validity of demonizing an entire people or an entire religion and go for simplistic arguments that often have very painful consequences for other human beings.

And to the extent that Muslims are guilty of that, then we condemn that also, that we have to analyze and not go for simplistic Dar al-Harb, Dar al-Islam arguments that present the world and so the Dar al-Harb, that's the end of it. What was Saudi Arabia when they were fighting the Iraqis? Dar al-Harb or Dar al-Islam? If Dar al-Harb is the countries that fight against the Muslims, what were the Saudis at that point? Dar al-Harb or Dar al-Islam? What was America when they supported the Muslims of Kosovo against the Serbs? And clearly they supported them in ways we shouldn't endorse, bombing the Serbian civilian infrastructure and causing innocent people there to suffer and doing very little directly to those criminals and racists and fascists who are organizing the genocide and pogroms against Muslims. Was America though at that point bailing out and helping the Muslims, Dar al-Harb or Dar al-Islam?

So we live in a time where simplistic approaches to complicated, in a highly nuanced reality doesn't wash it. And we have to be in the forefront of challenging that simplicity. And one of the greatest areas of this is in the demonizing and dehumanizing of the Muslim and hence standing against and opposing the myth of the Muslim barbarian, as Jazairi mentions in his book, or the myth of the Muslim savage. So that this savage Muslim, the only way we can protect ourselves from him is to kill him and to annihilate him and do away with him. So that's something that we have to be very cognizant of.

How Islam Addresses These Issues

Now how does Islam address some of these issues, and how does Islam begin to present solutions that will enhance community and that will stave off chaos and conflict?

Universal Family and Brotherhood

Brothers and sisters, the first thing we'd like to mention is that Islam presents a vision of a universal family or brotherhood or sisterhood, for that matter. In other words, we mentioned earlier, we are a common family:

Wa laqad karramna bani Adam - "We have ennobled the children of Adam"

We are the noble, the human family, the descendants of Adam.

Ya ayyuha an-nasu inna khalaqnakum min dhakarin wa untha - "O humanity, indeed We have created you from male and female"

Ya ayyuha an-nasu ittaqu rabbakumu alladhi khalaqakum min nafsin wahida - "O humanity, reverence your Lord who has created you from a single soul"

So we have a vision of a unified human family. Or there's no, absolutely no basis for the sort of racist theories that were put forth in the last century and that some people directly or indirectly are attempting to revive right now. There's no basis for the idea of some inferior human beings. There's no basis for the idea of some superior Aryan super race. There's no basis for that. And it's ironic that the Aryans, the racist Aryans, are trying to encourage a war against the Iranians, the original Aryans, or to bomb the South Asians, many of whom claim Aryan descent. It's ironic if you think about it.

So we have to move beyond this idea of the fragmentation and segmentation of the human family and begin to champion the idea and put forth the idea that there's one human family. And that being the case, we have to look for common human solutions to our problems that benefit all of us, especially in the light of the fact that many of our nagging problems defy any solution emanating from a single individual or a single nation: global warming, AIDS, pollution, war, the globalized economy and the negative consequences of that. These are issues and problems that defy individual or individual national solution. They're going to have to, they involve a collective effort.

And a collective effort has to be predicated on an idea that we are a collectivity, that we are Bani Adam, that we are Nas, that's mentioned in the Quran. And Nas:

Qul a'udhu birabbi an-nas, maliki an-nas, ilahi an-nas - "Say, I seek refuge with the Lord of humanity, the King of humanity, the God of humanity"

Protection and refuge with the God of humanity, the Lord of humanity, the King of humanity, Almighty God. But one humanity is mentioned here, one humanity. And that idea and pushing that idea and arguing against this national fragmentation and segmentation, argumentation, arguing against the vulgar idea of mutually exclusive national interest. And we say vulgar because what does it mean?

That for me to be able to drive my car 300 miles a week, I reserve the right, because that, then, becomes keeping the infrastructure in place to allow me to do that. I reserve the right to put a set of policies in place that will deny you the ability to even have a car, let alone drive it, let alone put gas in it. Or I reserve the right to deny you the ability to eat because I'm going to privatize your farmland, plant corn to turn into ethanol to put into my gas tank. And if you starve, that's too bad. You should have just been more capable and virtuous and viable in the struggle amongst nations.

If that isn't a vulgar idea, then what is?

Other-Serving Politics

We have a collective responsibility towards each other. And part of that, I would argue, is moving away, and this is part of the moral vision that we as Muslims have to begin to advance, moving away from the idea of power-centric, self-serving politics to the idea of other-serving politics. And this is an integral part of our religion. As Muslims, we believe in the concept of ithar, giving preference to others. Ithar, that I will give preference to you even though I suffer as a consequence, as opposed to the idea, I will oppress you to secure my benefit no matter how much you suffer as a result.

So the example, not only individual as an individual idea of ithar, this is a communal idea that we know as Muslims. The Sahaba, the Muhajireen, who migrated from Mecca to Medina, how does Allah describe them in the Quran?

Wa yu'thiruna 'ala anfusihim walaw kana bihim khasasa - "And they give preference over themselves, even though they are in privation"

Preference to others in food, in their food, in their shelter, in the benefit that they were seeking to secure for themselves. They sacrificed and they suffered and they gave preference to others even though they themselves were experiencing dire need.

So this is an aspect of the moral climate that we have to begin to advocate in relations, not only between individuals, but also—and that has an impact on reversing the impact of the utilitarian thinking that comes with our commodification—but also amongst nations and amongst states and amongst other interest groups. Because otherwise we're going to create a situation that the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised will suffer unimaginably. And the powerful, the strong will take, take, take and, and be increasingly disinclined to give.

Prophetic Morality in Warfare

So this is something that we as Muslims can offer in terms of addressing the issue of the moral, of warfare and this techno-war and the increasingly disastrous and negative implications of techno-war. As Muslims, we have to reintroduce prophetic morality into the conduct of war. And prophetic morality, morality that's rooted in the principles, even though I will be the first to admit that often times the advocates of this or that religion disregarded those principles, but the prophets provided us with the basis to begin thinking about war in a, in a context that has moral constraint.

What is absolutely essential to feed yourself, otherwise leave it. Guard the sanctity of the lives of non-combatants, whoever they may be. Protect the sanctity of their lives. Now these instructions he gave, other instructions. But if we limit ourselves to these, guarding against the destruction of farmland, of forest, of crop and cattle and non-civilian, non-combatants, we could not fight modern war as we currently know it. We could not fight modern war as we currently know it.

And it is incumbent upon us to introduce these sort of moral restraints to warfare. So am I saying there won't be war? Am I saying I'm some sort of a pacifist? No. But I'm saying our technology on the one hand, combined with the moral and ethical framework that leads to no restraint in terms of protecting the environment, protecting civilian non-combatants and protecting civilian infrastructure, that combination is a combination that will destroy this planet and all life on this planet.

We saw an inkling of that during the First Gulf War when the entire civilian infrastructure of Iraq was destroyed as a conscious effort to make the Iraqi people suffer. The sewage treatment plants were destroyed because those who were architects of that campaign knew this would lead to polluted, untreated sewage-infested water that would in turn lead to cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and other waterborne diseases that would in turn lead to a million Iraqi children being killed, half a million of which Madeleine Albright admitted to, as you all know, in her famous statement in, I believe, 1998, and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of adults.

Where does that stop? And does it not, Islam as a religion, and other religions can speak for themselves, but we're speaking in a strictly Islamic context, does Islam not have within its corpus of teachings and its body of principles and its moral and ethical framework something that allows us to address that situation? I would argue that definitely it does, that Islam sanctifies human life, that Islam sanctifies all life, that Islam preaches the protection of the forest, of the waters, as part of the system that we all function within and that it is all interconnected.

We, Allah is referred to as:

رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Rabbul 'Alamin

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'Alamin - "All praises due to God, the Lord of all the worlds" (Quran 1:2)

And those worlds are defined amongst other definitions: 'Alam al-Ins, wa 'Alam al-Jinn, wa 'Alam al- Hayawanat, wa 'Alam al-Hasharat, wa 'Alam al-Tuyur, wa 'Alam al-Asmak, wa 'Alam al-Nabatat, wa 'Alam al- Zuhur. The world of the humans, of the jinn, of the plants, of the animals, of the insects, of the fish, of the birds. These are all 'Alam.

رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Rabbul 'Alamin

And our Prophet ﷺ was sent:

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ

"And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds"

He was sent as a mercy to all creatures, to all of the worlds.

Part of the Natural Order

And so our religion, if you look at our ideas of Hisba, of the rules related to public space, you find rules related to protecting the animals, protecting the plants and public space, protecting the forest. This is part of our tradition. But it's a part of our tradition that's been lost. It's a part of our thinking that's been lost. It's a part of the intellectual framework that should guide how we as Muslims began to form and shape a worldview that has been lost. And it's something we have to get back to. It's something we have to revive because the stakes, brothers and sisters, are too high for us not to get back to that.

So this is something very important in terms of checking and mitigating the destructiveness and the wantonness of warfare.

Part of the Natural Order

As human beings, we're part of the natural order. And recognizing that should make us, as Muslims, the greatest champions of environmental or for environmental justice. The living, the world around us, was not only seen as being something worthy of our protection, something that protects and sanctifies our life. They were friends and loved by us.

The Prophet ﷺ,when he passed by Mount Uhud, Jabal Uhud, once he said:

هَذَا جَبَلٌ يُحِبُّنَا وَنُحِبُّهُ

Hadha jabalun yuhibbuna wa nuhibbuhu - "This is a mountain that loves us and we love it" (Sahih Bukhari 4083)

We love her and we love it. The tree stump that was in the masjid loved the Prophet ﷺ. And when the Prophet ﷺ wasn't standing on that stump to deliver his oration, his sermon, the stump was heard moaning out of the pain of the separation, out of the love that she had for the Prophet ﷺ

The trees, the wind, the birds, the bees, the flowers, all of these are friends. All of these beautify the world that we live in. And protecting them and serving them, they are part of the 'Alamin that our Prophet ﷺ was a mercy to. That should be our foremost duty.

And in that regard, in terms of fashioning a very strong, solid, Islamically rooted environmental consciousness, I had a book here that I can't find right now that I was going to recommend dealing with Islam and the ecology. So perhaps it will appear. But if we don't begin to think differently, if we don't begin to look at the world through a different set of lenses, our actions will never change. And we're going to, in terms of our ecological consciousness, we're going to suffocate in our own waste, literally. We're going to suffocate in our own waste. And that would be a tragedy for this beautiful earth that our Creator has bequeathed unto us.

So brothers and sisters, take a look at that and begin to think differently. And on the basis of that sharpened consciousness, begin to act differently. And don't be afraid. Don't shy away from greatness. Don't be afraid of being the person that through your passion, your drive, your dedication, will be the one that starts a great movement amongst Muslims and others that begins in a forceful way to address the issue of ecological degradation, a great movement that begins in a forceful way to begin to roll back the rapacious effect of

consumerism, just to take from the earth and take from the earth so we can market more and sell more and manufacture more products. To begin to roll that back so we can let the earth rest and we can begin to demand less and, as they say, leave a smaller human footprint upon the surface of the earth.

Worship and True Identity

In terms of the commodification and related issues, it is absolutely essential for us that we begin to value ourselves based on our relationship with our Creator. That has to be the basis of assessing who I am as a human being, because that provides a source of stability and a source of depth, a source of strength, a source of power, a source of spiritual sustenance that is unrivaled, that is unrivaled by anything in this creation. Because the power of God is unlimited. The bounty of our Lord has no limits to his expansiveness. And when we plug into that, we plug into the source of unlimited strength. We plug into the source of true identity.

I am, if ancient man said, "I think, therefore I am," if modern man and post-modern man or woman, for that matter, says, "I consume, therefore I am," we have to introduce an ethos that says, "I worship, therefore I am." And our true being will only come through that ethos, because our Lord informs us, as we read in the Quran:

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

"I have only created the jinn and humans that they worship Me"

Those who are who will be successful, that's the reason for our creation, to worship Almighty God. And we'll never find fulfillment in anything else. We can substitute the worship for money for the worship of God. We can substitute the worship of clothing for the worship of God. People, as we mentioned, won't go to school if they don't have certain clothing.

What does God, what does the Messenger of God, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ say about people who worship clothes or people who worship money?

تَعِسَ عَبْدُ الدِّينَارِ وَعَبْدُ الدِّرْهَمِ وَعَبْدُ الْخَمِيصَةِ

Ta'isa 'abdu ad-dinari wa 'abdu ad-dirhami wa 'abdu al-khamisah - "Ruined is the worshiper of the dinar, and the worshiper of the dirham, and the worshiper of the decorated garment" (Sahih Bukhari 2887)

The worshiper of silver or the worshiper of the, the long garment, the khamisah, the long garment. Ruined is the worshiper of clothes. Ruined is the worshiper of money. Those things will never bring lasting, true, and deep satisfaction to a human being, because those things go.

We worship the clothing now. It's nice, it's new, it's fresh, it's Eid day. Two or three years, it's worn out. It's tattered. There are holes in it. We patch it up. Then we no longer can even realistically patch it up. It becomes scrapped. And we're washing our car with it. We're cleaning the floor and the kitchen with it. By one time we worshipped it. What a, a sad destination for one's God.

We worship the money. And we find that we buy that thing we think the money facilitates. And we get it and we're happy. And that worship is fulfilling because it blessed us to buy a Rolls Royce. And we were happy and fulfilled until someone rode by in a Lamborghini. "Said, what was that? How much does that cost?" The fulfillment is gone. It's gone.

So true fulfillment only will come through our relationship with God, because that relationship is the basis for refining those properties and propensities and potentialities that He's placed inside of us that move us towards higher degrees of human perfection. We'll never be perfect. We'll never measure up to the Muhammadic ideal. But we can move closer and closer towards that ideal. And we can purify ourselves so that increasingly our satisfaction, our fulfillment, comes from within and not from without. And that's the way it's supposed to be.

Allah informs us, Almighty God informs us:

قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا

Qad aflaha man zakkaha - "He or she is successful who purifies it" (Quran 91:9)

That inequality that we're referring to:

يَوْمَ لَا يَنفَعُ مَالٌ وَلَا بَنُونَ إِلَّا مَنْ أَتَى اللَّهَ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ

Yawma la yanfa'u malun wala banun, illa man ata Allaha biqalbin salim - "The Day when there will not benefit wealth or children, but only one who comes to Allah with a sound heart" (Quran 26:88-89)

Neither with God or with ourselves, the only one benefited will be the one who comes before Almighty God with a rectified heart.

Purifying the Soul

So that property is sometimes called the heart, is sometimes called the soul, is sometimes called the spirit, the ruh, the qalb, the nafs, depending on the level of refinement that it experiences. But it can be refined. And we can elevate as a result of that refinement. And we can go from that nafs ammarah bissu', what we call that soul that commands us towards wickedness. Why? Because it commands us towards those things that are in conformity to our unrestrained physical appetites and unrestrained, those things are harmful and destruction. And that's the nafs ammarah bissu'. And we can move beyond that. And we can refine that through our worship and through cultivating a deep and meaningful relationship with God to that nafs mutma'inna:

يَا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ

Ya ayyatuha an-nafsul mutma'inna - "O soul at peace" (Quran 89:27)

That contented soul. We can move through that process of refinement. But that movement only comes by a deep and meaningful relationship with Almighty God. That's the only way that it comes.

And we pray that we're all blessed to have such a relationship. And we pray that this month of Ramadan was a great help and assistance for us in attaining to that relationship. And that we will continue to take the lessons of Ramadan beyond Ramadan and that we will continue to grow and purify ourselves. And that we'll find that that

relationship that we began to establish with Almighty God in Ramadan that empowered us spiritually and blessed us to stand in prayer for a good portion of the night, blessed us to read the book of Allah, the Quran, for a good portion of the day, or as much as time allowed, so we didn't put the Quran down because we were bored during the blessed month. We put it down because we had to go to work. We had to run some errands. We had to pick up the children.

So that spiritual energy and strength that we got a glimpse of, we pray that we're blessed to continue to grow, to unleash the full power of that potential, and then experience complete satisfaction, complete bliss, complete serenity within ourselves, to be at peace with ourselves, with others, with our Lord.

So that's the only course. Allah mentions in the Quran:

"Don't be weakened and don't be saddened, for you are superior if you are believers"

Don't be weakened and don't be saddened. When our relationship with God, Almighty God, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, when that relationship isn't deep, the vicissitudes of the world, they take the wind out of our sail. We're weakened and we're saddened. They sadden us. They weigh heavily on our hearts.

But when we have a deep relationship with God, that is faith إن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ in kuntum mu'minin, if indeed you are believers. When we have true faith and we have a true relationship with God, we understand the vicissitudes of this world, they're just trials. The successful surmounting only enriches us spiritually. It doesn't break us.

Those trials and tribulations, we understand these are just things that were put there. And as I struggle against them and struggle through them and struggle to overcome them, then I only purify myself and I advance to a deeper and richer relationship with God. So this is what we understand. And this is what we pray we can all understand, that it's our relationship with God, our worship of God:

"I have only created the jinn and humans that they worship Me"

"Ο humanity, worship your Lord who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous"

O humanity, so this addresses into Muslims, human beings, humanity at large, created you and those who preceded you in order that you will gain in your consciousness of God, لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ la'allakum tattaqun. And consciousness wouldn't be an accurate translation. لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ la'allakum tattaqun is consciousness of God that translates itself into a willingness to obey His orders and to avoid those things that He has prohibited.

So we pray that we can grow to that state and tap into the source of real humanity and move beyond the dehumanizing influences that we find all around us that we mentioned earlier.

War Profiteering and the Myth of the Enemy

Finally, in terms of the usage that the myth of the Muslim savage, the Muslim barbarian, are put to, breaking the relationship between war and profit, breaking the relationship between war and profit. Now what does this have to do with the Muslim demonized, dehumanized, defamed Muslim?

Brothers and sisters, when you have a trillion dollars wrapped up in killing people and putting an infrastructure in place to kill people, and that trillion dollars is going to all sorts of economic concerns, and it's nothing new, during the latter days of what were called the Indian wars in this country, which is a euphemism for the genocide that was perpetrated against the inhabitants, the original inhabitants of this land, 10,000 U.S. soldiers were chasing Geronimo and 38 Indians across the American Southwest.

10,000 U.S. soldiers were chasing Geronimo, who was at that time an elderly, decrepit old man and a band of 38 Indians across the American Southwest. Why? Because the war profiteers were making money up and down the line. Profit and war have to be divorced. It's unethical to fight wars to keep companies' stocks high, to keep profit margins high. And when that much money becomes wrapped up in the business of war, war is bad for business, as they say, except for those who are in the business of war.

And this is what Dwight Eisenhower was warning against. He was warning against what he called the military- industrial complex, that the military and business would enter into an alliance and create such a powerful vested interest that that alliance could not be broken. And that's what we see today.

Those obscene amounts of money, virtually all of which are based on public spending, could never be accepted by the public unless there is a menacing enemy out there to justify those obscene levels of spending. And brothers and sisters, talking specifically to my Muslim brothers and sisters, contemporarily we are that justifying enemy. And that's how the myth of the Muslim enemy becomes tied up with war profiteering and the military-industrial complex.

To justify those obscene levels of spending, you need a menacing, threatening enemy. And that enemy right now is the Muslims. But it won't always be the Muslims. Ten years from now, it might be the Chinese. The public might dummy up, as Archie Bunker used to say, dummy up and figure out that, well, these Muslims really aren't much of a threat after all. The real threat is China. Now that's a threat. That's a growing economic giant. That's a country that is a legitimate nuclear power. That's a country that has ballistic missiles to deliver those nuclear weapons. And not to say China is threatening anyone. Don't imply that. There might be some sinister people out there. "OK, yeah, forget the Muslims. Let's get the Chinese."

Let's not get anyone. Let's scrap these weapons and make the world a better place for everyone. Let's solve the nagging problems, some of which we mentioned earlier.

But the Muslims aren't any threat. Iran, to give just an example, the latest Muslim threat was Iraq. When we get into Iraq, well, there are really no weapons of mass destruction. But we're so arrogant, arrogant, rather, and we

take the complacency of the American public so much for granted, we won't even bother to plant some there. We won't even bother to plant some. We'll just admit we didn't find any. There never were any. And we have our war. And we're stuck now. And we can't get out because it's too lucrative to stay there. And the Iraqis haven't passed the oil law yet that would sign over their national oil treasury to private companies. So we still have a mission.

But we don't have any weapons of mass destruction. So that was the last enemy. The new enemy, Iran and Ahmadinejad. That's the new enemy. An enemy that we must admit has no nuclear weapons. An enemy that has no viable delivery system to deliver those weapons if they did have it. And an enemy that's confronted by the combined 10,000 nuclear warheads of the United States with the 200 or 300 of Israel.

So what would happen to Iran if they did threaten some sort of a nuclear attack against Israel? Because the United States is out of the question. You can't even fancy up some sort of a delivery system that would allow Iran to strike the United States. So here we have no nuclear weapons, no viable, no viable delivery systems. But we have an implacable, terrible, tyrannical, dictatorial enemy that's on the verge of taking over the world. Where have we heard that before?

We don't have Saddam to demonize this time. We have Ahmadinejad to demonize this time. A long line in a series of demons before Ahmad, Saddam or bin Laden or Noriega or Gaddafi or now Hugo Chavez, who can we plug in, fill in the blank? If you have a military machine that profits from making war, then there has to be a war. And if that machine is financed and those profits are predicated on public spending, there has to be an identifiable, publicly identifiable, demonized individual or entity to serve as the basis for public fear and dread to justify that spending.

That's the way it is. But that should not be the way it remains. And as Muslims, we should be in the forefront of challenging that system. We should be in the forefront of challenging that arrangement. And we should join hands with other concerned individuals, and they are many, in challenging that. And for those who think that that is not the realm of the abode of Islam, that is not the proper scope of Islamic work, then I would argue that there is something that is severely awry and astray in terms of how we understand our religion and what sort of values that our religion advances, especially in light of the fact that if no one is able to reverse the status quo in the immediate future, Muslims will be the greatest victims of this arrangement. And I don't think anyone will dispute that.

Conclusion: The Blessings of Ramadan

In conclusion, brothers and sisters, we started with Ramadan and this was a Ramadan address. So we want to go back to Ramadan and go back to just straight-up old-fashioned religious teaching, some of that old-time religion. And so we say in conclusion that Ramadan, as we said, was a time of excessive generosity from Allah to us. He opened up the gates of His mercy:

Idha ja'a Ramadan futihat abwabu ar-rahmah - "When Ramadan comes, the gates of mercy are flung open" (Sahih Muslim 1079)

As the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, the gates of mercy are flung open. He's opened up the pathways of forgiveness for us:

(Sahih Bukhari 38, Sahih Muslim 760)

Man sama Ramadana imanan wahtisaban ghufira lahu ma taqaddama min dhanbihi - "Whoever fasts the month of Ramadan with faith and seeking reward, his previous sins will be forgiven"

Whoever fasts the month of Ramadan will be forgiven for his previous sins. And:

(Sahih Bukhari 2009, Sahih Muslim 759)

Man qama Ramadana imanan wahtisaban ghufira lahu ma taqaddama min dhanbihi - "Whoever stands in worship during the nights of Ramadan with faith and seeking reward, his previous sins will be forgiven"

(Sahih Bukhari 1901, Sahih Muslim 760)

Man qama laylatal-qadri imanan wahtisaban ghufira lahu ma taqaddama min dhanbihi - "Whoever stands in worship on Laylatul-Qadr with faith and seeking reward, his previous sins will be forgiven"

(Sahih Bukhari)

Man fattara sa'iman fi Ramadana ghufira lahu ma taqaddama min dhanbihi - "Whoever provides iftar for a fasting person in Ramadan, his previous sins will be forgiven"

Remembering Allah abundantly in Ramadan, his previous sins will be forgiven.

We could stop here in the interest of time, but that's from the mercy, the generosity of Allah, Almighty God, to us during this month. And He's liberated millions and millions from the hellfire:

Wa dhalika fi kulli laylah - "And that is in every night" (Sunan Ibn Majah 1642)

Allah has those He liberates from Hell every night in Ramadan. And another version of that hadith we mentioned at the outset:

Kulluhum yastawjibuna an-nar - "All of them deserving of the Fire"

All of them deserving to be punished in Hell, but liberated from Hell. That's from the generosity of Allah.

Our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was the most generous of all people and even more so in Ramadan:

(Sahih Bukhari 6, Sahih Muslim 2308)

Kana Rasulullahi sallallahu alayhi wasallam ajwada an-nasi, wa kana ajwada ma yakunu fi Ramadana hina yalqahu Jibril fayudarisu hu al-Qur'an - "The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم was the most generous of people, and he was most generous in Ramadan when Gabriel would come and review the Quran with him"

So when the angel Gabriel came to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم he was even more generous. He was so exceedingly generous.

The Power of Generosity

And generosity, this is one of the greatest, some people are interested in da'wah, calling people to Islam. One of the greatest da'wahs, the greatest cause is generosity, charity. The man, is related, came to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم on the day of Hunayn, and he gave him a valley full of sheep, camel, goats. "Take it." And the man went back to his people. What did he say?

(Sahih Muslim 2312)

Ya qawmi aslimu fa inna Muhammadan yu'ti 'ata'an man la yakhsha al-faqah - "O my people, embrace Islam, because Muhammad gives like a person that doesn't fear poverty"

Embrace Islam because Muhammad gives like a person that doesn't fear poverty. And that's befitting a prophet, because a prophet only fears God. And a miser, why are people miserly? Because they fear the consequences of poverty. "If I write this check to my local masjid and then I lose my job, how will I pay the rent? If I write this check to Islamic Relief to relieve some of those Muslim brothers and sisters suffering over there, and then I get sick and I don't have workman's comp, then how will I feed my family?"

So a fear of the consequences of being without whatever we're holding on to makes us become stingy or miserly sometimes. A prophet who only fears God is the most freely giving of all people. And a version of that hadith:

(Sahih Muslim 2312)

Ma fa'ala dhalika illa nafsu nabiyy - "Only a prophet's soul will find the wherewithal to spend like that"

So the prophet's generosity. We should be generous, brothers and sisters. We should be people of generosity.

And saying that, I'm not necessarily talking about generous with our money. If we have a lot of money, be generous. Keep what you can, take care of yourself. Live good, live nice. But give a lot of charity, and that will benefit you in this world and it will benefit you in the next.

But if you have time, if you have talent, if you have ability, this address, how is this made possible? It was made possible by volunteers. No one is making money from this address. It was selfless, the selfless work of volunteers who gave of their time, their talent, their ability to set up everything, make sure the computer

programs are working properly, make sure the message is sent out, make sure the panels are made. All of this involves charity.

Wa ma tunfiqu min shay'in fa inna Allaha bihi 'alim - "You won't give of anything except that Allah is well aware of it" (Quran 2:273)

Exposing Ourselves to Allah's Mercy

In conclusion, brothers and sisters, we like to relate a very touching hadith that Ibn Rajab Al-Hanbali mentions in the intricacies of knowledge concerning what each season of the year contains of religious duties and responsibilities. So the month of Ramadan he discusses, and towards the end of that discussion, he mentions a hadith that's related by Imam Al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab Al-Iman, related by Abu Nu'aym in Hilyat Al-Awliya, where the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is reported to have said:

Utlubu al-khayra dahrakum kullahu - "Seek good in every moment that you spend on this earth"

Seek good in every moment that you spend on this earth.

Wa ta'arradu linafahati rahmati Allah - "Expose yourself to the gentle breezes of your Lord's mercy"

Expose yourself to the gentle breezes of your Lord's mercy.

(Shu'ab Al-Iman 3453)

Fa inna lillahi nafahatin min rahmatihi yușibu biha man yasha'u min 'ibadihi - "For Allah has breezes of His mercy that He touches with whomsoever He pleases from His servants"

And then Ibn Rajab he adds:

Faman așabat-hu sa'adatun sa'ida la yashqa ba'daha abada - "And whoever is touched by these breezes experiences bliss so intense that he or she thereafter never experiences sadness"

So brothers and sisters, we pray, and those breezes, they blow most strongly in Ramadan, but they continue to blow throughout the year. So we pray that you are touched by one of the breezes of Allah's mercy during the blessed month of Ramadan. And if you weren't, we pray that one of those breezes will touch you in these days that come after Ramadan. But to do that تَعَرَّضُوا ta'arradu, expose yourselves to those breezes.

And we expose those selves to those breezes the way that we did during the month of Ramadan. We expose ourselves with our fasting. So if you can fast on Monday or Thursday, or Monday or Thursday, if you can fast

the Ayyam al-Bid, the white days, the full moon days of the month, if you can fast during the six days of Shawwal, which is highly encouraged (سِتَّةٌ مِنْ شَوَّالٍ - sittah min Shawwal), the six days of Shawwal, fast those days, brothers and sisters.

Don't let your fasting stop with Ramadan. And by fasting, you expose yourselves to those breezes of Allah's mercy. Continue to stand for prayer during the night. If you stood for 20 rakats of taraweeh during Ramadan, then do something, do 6, 8, whatever is easy for you after Ramadan. If you stand and listen to the entire juz being recited during Ramadan, listen to half the juz, one-third of it after Ramadan, but continue to stand for prayer during something of the night.

If you recited the Quran in Ramadan, continue to expose yourself to the gentle breezes of Allah's mercy after Ramadan by continuing your recitation of the Quran. Recite the Quran. Memorize as much as possible from the Quran. And by so doing, you expose yourselves to those breezes. And we pray that each and every one of us will be touched by one of those breezes. And we pray that it leads to eternal bliss and eternal happiness that will never permit the experience of sadness thereafter. And that will bless us, convey us into paradise, and ward us off from the hellfire, the greatest manifestation of Allah's mercy, of the mercy of Almighty God.

Closing Remarks

And saying that, I have to conclude this address. We pray that our brief encounter has been a source of mutual benefit for yourselves and for myself. We pray that perhaps in the near future we're able to do this again. We pray that you are all blessed in Ramadan and that each and every one of us, all of you, myself, that all of us received our prize yesterday during the day of Eid, which is called the day of the prize, the day the prize is distributed.

We pray that you all got your prize and your reward for your diligence, your exertion, and your efforts during Ramadan. And that you will continue to seek good in the time that remains for us on this earth. And that Allah will bless all of us, each and every one of us, to reach the next Ramadan, to do much good for our soul.

Jazakum Allahu Khayran. Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu.

Wa Sallallahu Ala Sayyidina Muhammad Wa Ala Alihi Wa Sahbihi Wasallam Tasleeman Kathira.

(وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا - Wa Sallallahu Ala Sayyidina Muhammad Wa Ala Alihi Wa Sahbihi Wasallam Tasleeman Kathira)

Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu.