Reflections on the Last Sermon

Reflections on the Last Sermon

14th Annual MAS-ICNA Convention By Zaid Shakir

Opening Salutations

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Messengers, our Master Muhammad, and upon his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon you.

The Foundation of Equality in Islam

"There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab, nor for a white person over a black person, nor for a black person over a white person, except in taqwa (God-consciousness)."

We know that even if this is not authentically narrated, and there is khilaf or difference of opinion in that regard, we know it to be an integral part of Islam. For Allah reminds us in the Qur'an, as we all know:

"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female, and we've made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another. Verily, the most honored of you with Allah are those who are the most mindful of Him. Verily, Allah is all-knowing, well-informed."

Brothers and sisters, the whole idea of superiority based on national, ethnic, or cultural differences, or differences in skin color, hair texture, or physical features has no place in our religion.

Lessons from Malcolm X and American Muslim History

What I like to do is to look at something Malcolm X said in that regard, may Allah's mercy be upon him. And why do I choose Malcolm X at this time? As we all know, we as a Muslim community are going through some experiences that some of us in the African American community have been going through for over 400 years. And the same is true for the Native American community. And the same is true contemporarily for the Mexican American community or the Latino community. And the same was true at one time for the Japanese American community. And before that for the Chinese American community.

America's Tragic History of Racism and Genocide

Sadly, our country has experienced genocide where we have the names of the indigenous people but the people themselves are gone. Names like Milwaukee, names like Wisconsin, names like many of the names we see as we drive our cars through the countryside in any part of this country. They're gone.

Unfortunately and sadly we've gone through the episode of slavery which involved another genocide in terms of the people of those lands that the slaves came from. How they were devastated and how many died in what was

referred to as the middle passage and never even made it here. And then how many died during slavery. It's a tragedy.

We've gone through the massacres against Chinese Americans on the west coast after they built or played such a large role in building a lot of the infrastructure including the railroads in the early phase of industrialization in this country. But they were faced with the Chinese Exclusion Act where Chinese Americans by law could not come to the United States.

We saw in the 1930s the systematic vilifying and demonizing of Japanese Americans that culminated in the internment or the concentration camps that Japanese Americans on the west coast were exposed to. We had the history of Jim Crow, legalized segregation, directed against the African American community.

The Horror of Lynching

We had the history of lynching. The mic didn't break. You guys were sounding so good I thought I'd listen for a minute. May Allah give you Tawfiq. Give us Tawfiq.

Lynching in which primarily, mainly innocent African American men—it should sound familiar—in many instances with the complicity of law enforcement, and not all law enforcement is bad including the people guarding us here today. But you have had elements who had opened jail cells and African American prisoners would be taken out by lynch mobs and then murdered in some of the most grotesque ways and hung on trees.

What the great Billie Holiday, jazz singer, blues singer, Billie Holiday and then Nina Simone sung about: this strange fruit hanging on southern trees. Innocent individuals in many instances. Well over 10,000 from the end of reconstruction until 1960 including as you mentioned earlier Emmett Till from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Mississippi, brutally beaten and lynched for allegedly whistling at a Caucasian woman.

Modern Injustices and Detention Centers

This is the sad history of America. As we mentioned earlier in another session, some Muslims are worried and anxious: will they put us in concentration camps? While we are worried and discussing such developments which inshallah will not happen, there are people in concentration camps today.

There are innocent people who are in these privatized detention centers, primarily people of Latin American origin who have been taken from their homes. Sometimes the children come home and the children because they were born here they are citizens. They come home and their parents are gone. Their parents who aren't citizens. Their children come home from school and their parents have been taken by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and placed into these detention centers by the hundreds of thousands. By the hundreds of thousands and then deported by the millions.

The Common Thread: Racism

So we should understand that as a so-called minority community in this country, what we as a Muslim community are facing is nothing new. It's nothing new. And one of the common denominators that unite our experience with the experience of all those groups I've mentioned and others I didn't mention is the issue of racism and racially rooted hatred and bigotry and prejudice. That's the common denominator.

So when we see it we should understand that it's nothing new. When we see it we should understand that for us to survive it we have to be in solidarity with those who have already gone through it or are currently going through it.

Here in Chicago, Illinois we know the case of the young man who was shot 16 times by the police as he was moving away from them. It's nothing new. We have to stand with those who are going through it before we have to go through it. And if we stand with others they will stand with us.

The Natural Alliance: African Americans and Islam

And there is no greater natural ally for the Muslim community than the African American community. And the reason for that is that the African American community is the community that has a transgenerational historical engagement with Islam.

Early Muslim Slaves in America

There were Muslim slaves in what would become America before the British colonies became America. There were Muslim slaves like Ayub bin Sulayman, Job bin Solomon, the fortunate slave whose biography, The Fortunate Slave, is the oldest extant work of African American literature. It is the oldest work about the life and the times of an African in what would become America. In 1731 he came to America, miraculously freed from slavery in Kent County, Maryland. Eighteen months later he sails to England as a free man. And hence he's called The Fortunate Slave.

We have in the beginning of the life of America after the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and subsequently the Articles of Confederation about a dozen years later in 1791, Ibrahim bin Abdur Rahman who was called Prince. And many of you saw Unity Productions, PBS, Prince Among Slaves. And he was a prince. He was the son of the king of Futa Jallon in present day Guinea. A Muslim who was educated in Islam, taken into slavery, spent 27 years of his life and again he sails back to Africa as a free man with his wife and a couple of his children. This is our history.

At the end of slavery in the 1850s you have an individual known as Omar bin Said who is literate in the Arabic language. He wrote many manuscripts in Arabic. Some of them are found in the universities and museums around this country. Omar bin Said, a Muslim slave and many, many others, up to 20% of the slaves.

The Modern Islamic Revival in African American Communities

And then after that, when the Islam amongst the slaves and amongst the African American community began to wane with the end of slavery, you had movements such as Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple. You had movements such as the Nation of Islam.

You had many African American Muslims who responded to the Dawah, the call of many of the Ahmadiyya missionaries who came here such as Mufti, his name escapes me right now, but many prominent African American Muslims. During the 30s and 40s and 50s in this country many prominent African American jazz musicians such as Dawood Suleiman or Ahmed Jamal or many, many others came to Islam and were practicing Islam.

Islam

Islam is a religion that encourages us to respect human beings at the level of their humanity. Allah tells us concerning those human beings who aren't Muslims but they have not fought us, they have not driven us from our homes:

"Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and justly with those who have not fought you for your faith nor driven you out of your homes. Indeed, Allah loves those who are just."

This is our religion brothers and sisters and those who would have us disregard the humanity of those people who aren't Muslims and who are innocent human beings, they have nothing to do with Islam. They have nothing to do with the heritage of our Prophet. Nothing at all. Don't be swayed by them.

The Deviation of Extremist Groups

A lot of our young people, not a lot, there will be an injustice to our young people, but some are swayed by the propaganda of these homicidal groups like ISIS. Where are they from these teachings of the Messenger of Allah? Where are they from the Prophet's teachings when they murder their prisoners who become Muslim such as the case of Abdurrahman Kassig who was an aid worker who was helping Muslims in Syria when he was kidnapped.

Kidnapping of innocent people is wrong, it's haram. Kidnapping people who are not involved in any hostilities to the Muslims is wrong. Now there are those who would say well before Abdurrahman Kassig was an aid worker he was in the U.S. Army in Iraq and maybe he was fighting Muslims. So we'll say for the sake of argument let's accept that. Let's accept that. What about not someone who was fighting the Muslims but is now not fighting the Muslims.

The Story of Usama bin Zaid

What about someone who currently was fighting the Muslims such as the man on the battlefield who was fighting the Muslims and then the Muslims, two Muslims, Ansar and Usama bin Zaid they came, they captured this man and they were getting ready to strike him and he said (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله - La ilaha illallah) and we know the story, Usama killed him anyway. Now, he was fighting the Muslims. He was on a battlefield. He wasn't an ex-soldier, he was a current soldier. He might have fought the Muslims. He was fighting the Muslims and he said (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ - La ilaha illallah) and Usama killed him and when the Prophet ﷺ was told about that what did he repeat over and over and over again until Usama was crushed:

"You killed him after he said La ilaha illallah?" (Sahih al-Bukhari 4269, Sahih Muslim 96)

And the Prophet, that was one of the times his anger could not be disguised until Usama said: "I wish I hadn't become Muslim until that point. I wish I had done that and I wasn't a Muslim to know that as a Muslim the Messenger of Allah is so angry with me."

So what would the Messenger of Allah's position be towards someone who killed an aid worker assisting the Muslims after he said la ilaha illallah and then put the image of his murder all over the internet as a snuff film? What would he say?

And we could go on and on and on of the crimes of this group and the barbarity and the violations of every known principle of Islam. Brothers and sisters, run away from that like you would run away from a lion, like you would run away from the plague, like you would run away from your death, because if you run to that you're running to your death, you're running to your spiritual death and in all likelihood you're running to your actual death.

Coming Together to Help Each Other

Allah says He made us into these nations and tribes, these peoples and tribes. We mentioned the verse. We're put into these different groups to know each other brothers and sisters. We're put into these different groups to help each other:

"And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression."

The Alliance of Virtue (Hilf al-Fudul)

The Prophet, generally speaking, it doesn't necessarily mean all of us Muslims cooperating. The Prophet when he talked about (حِلْفُ الْفُصُولِ - Hilf al-Fudul), when he talked about the alliance of virtue that occurred when he was a young man, when one of the Qurayshis entered into a business transaction with a Yemeni man who came to make Umrah and to participate in Suq al-Ukaz and he entered into a transaction with this man from Banu Sahm and then the man didn't pay him for his goods and the Quraysh when they ended the Harb al-Fijar, the immoral war, they made a pact that anyone who's oppressed, anyone denied their rights, we will all come together to secure their rights. They weren't Muslim at that time. This was before the prophethood of Rasulullah ﷺ.

But the Prophet, and so they got together when this Yemeni from Zabid stood on Abu Qubais—too bad you can't stand on it now, it's been bulldozed and some grotesque building built on it—and he cried out to the people of Mecca for help and they came together and they restored his right. They weren't Muslim. And when the Prophet said about that alliance: "I witnessed the alliance of virtue in the house of Abdullah ibn Jud'an, and I would not exchange it for a herd of red camels. If I were called to it today in Islam, I would respond." So he's saying this sort of alliance of virtue with parties who aren't Muslim is something that he would respond to and it's something we have to respond to today.

Reaching Out and Building Bridges

Because people are reaching out to us after all of these events that happened in Paris, in San Bernardino and the way the media covers this and the media has a tremendous responsibility in terms of all this hate and fear mongering that's happening in our country today. After all of that how many people are reaching out? How

many people are expressing solidarity? How many women want to wear hijab in solidarity with our Muslim sisters? How many people want to come to protect the Masajid? How many people are apologizing?

Even Lindsey Graham, a Republican Senator from South Carolina, and I don't say this to disrespect him but a lot of people call him a southern cracker. When someone that some people—and I have respect for what he did, I don't respect all of the policies he's advocated during his career—but when Lindsey Graham can apologize to the Muslim world for the actions of someone like Donald Trump and all those racists and haters and bigots that Donald Trump is appealing to.

The Real Problem: Not Trump, But His Supporters

Trump is not the problem. They say if everyone in the kingdom had a beard, the king would have the longest beard. If there were no racists in America, Donald Trump would be the most egalitarian, the most humane politician out there because Donald Trump is seeking votes and he's seeking votes from those racists and bigots and Muslim-hating people that are out there. The problem isn't Trump, the problem are the chumps that Trump is trying to appeal to. That's the problem.

When Lindsey Graham can apologize brothers and sisters, we have to reach out, we have to reach out and we have to build bridges. And the place to start building, the most logical place, is the place where Islam has had its greatest reception and the greatest reception to Islam in this country has been in the African American community.

Standing in Solidarity with the Oppressed

And brothers and sisters, you have our brothers and sisters reaching out. Some of you following the events in Minneapolis after this a man was killed in cold blooded murder, I forget his name and you had all these protests. Jamar Clark was killed in Minneapolis. Let's cut to the chase. When Mr. Clark was killed in Minneapolis, how many activists both African American, Caucasian American, Latino American said that his murder is indistinguishable from the Islamophobic treatment that many members of the police department mete out to young Somali men in that city?

In other words, they point to the intersection between the anti-black sentiments and racism and the anti-Muslim sentiments and racism and they said we have to come together, we have to come together to address this issue. But we don't have to just come together in Minneapolis, we have to come together in America brothers and sisters. We have to come together in America and then begin not to just address the symptoms of the problem but to get to the root of the problem, to get at the racism that has been nagging this country since its inception.

Our Mission: Proclaiming Divine Equality

And if there is any wisdom, and there is a wisdom that we can point to for Allah bringing Muslims to this country in the numbers that He has brought Muslims to this country, it is so that we can say to America in a loud unequivocal voice:

"O people, We have created you from male and female and made you nations and tribes so that you may know each other." (Quran 49:13)

And Allah has honored you. So that we can say to America in a loud voice:

"There is no favor for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab, nor for a white over a black, nor for a black over a white except in righteousness."

And on the basis of that consciousness, address and attack and attempt to destroy the racism which, if we do not destroy it, it will destroy us.

Assalamu Alaikum