The Black Liberation Movement and Muslim Solidarity

Imam Zaid Shakir on History of Islam in America, Structural Racism, and Black Resistance

Opening Remarks and Introduction

(Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, wa-salaatu wa-salaamu 'ala ashraf al-mursaleen, Sayyidina Muhammad wa 'ala aalihi wa sahbihi ajma'een.)

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and blessings and peace be upon the most noble of messengers, our master Muhammad, and upon his family and all his companions.

JazakumAllah khair, everybody, for joining us today in these difficult times. I know the Muslim community has been dealing with this issue that we're facing today, specifically surrounding what's happening in the Black community at large, in the African-American community in the United States of America.

Today, we have the honor to have a leader in the Muslim community and the African-American community. He's one of the co-founders of Zaytuna College. He is a pillar in the Muslim community, especially in the African-American community, and he is also the president currently of the Muslim Alliance in North America.

Inshallah, today will be a webinar for us to explain the struggle of our brothers and sisters in the Black community. Today will be a day where we explain what's going on historically, what's going on nowadays, and the hopes for the future.

Imam Zaid Shakir, may Allah bless him, agreed to join us right away, given how urgent the situation is. We have, and we are witnessing the events unfolding minute by minute. Today, we've heard about what President Trump announced in terms of martial law. We've seen big cities, metropolitan cities, are planning to do curfews overnight. There are some victims that are falling to police brutality. Some racists are taking this moment to attack the Black community.

Lots of things are happening around the country. So we feel that this is an important moment for all of us to be standing together, specifically the Muslim community, to give a little bit of context to what's going on around us. And most importantly is how can the Muslim community show solidarity to the Black community? I know there are some tough questions and there are some tough debates that we have been seeing online regarding anti-Blackness in the Muslim community, regarding how we can collaborate and how we can work together with the Black community to show support and to support them in this struggle.

Because this struggle is not just a one-day event. This has been going on for centuries. So with that being said, I would like to give this to Imam Zaid Shakir to start the conversation specifically around a little bit of an intro on Islam and the Black community in the U.S. Then he's going to delve into a discussion on the history of institutional and structural racism in the U.S. Later he's going to be talking about the current events and hopefully by the end he will be talking and discussing future plans, not just future plans, but how he can

imagine the future for the Black community and for everybody in the U.S. And finally, inshallah, we'll be opening the floor for people to ask us questions in the comments section.

Taking Care of Yourself in Difficult Times

First of all, we just want to just check in with everyone and ask, you know, how are you guys doing? I know it's been tense. It's been difficult. It's been a very trying week and we need to check in and take some space. If you're overwhelmed, get out into the country, find yourself a nice quiet place to go read some Quran, do some dhikr, remember your Lord.

And that's very, very important because if you burn out, you can't do anything for anyone, including yourself. So take care of yourself, brothers and sisters. Stay close to your Quran.

All of the answers and insight that we need, they're all there in the Quran. Stay close to your awrad, your adhkar, no matter what the source of it is. The ma'thurah of Sheikh Hassan al-Banna, the wird al-latif of Imam al-Haddad. If it's Imam al-Suyuti's abridgment of Imam al-Nawawi's adhkar, if it's the kitab al-dhikr wa du'a from Sahih Muslim, or the beautiful section in the Jami' of Imam al-Tirmidhi, where a lot of the awrad are gathered, whatever you use, use it in these days because we need spiritual energy to deal with the socio-political challenges before us. We can't separate the two.

The Long History of Islam in America

Before Columbus: Early Muslim Presence

Islam has a long history in the African-American community, and in a few minutes we could say that Islam was in this place that we now call the United States of America before the United States of America was in this place.

Scholars like Ivan Van Sertima, his most well-known book in this regard, They Came Before Columbus, establishes connections between West African Muslims and the native people of these lands long before Columbus and the Europeans arrived here.

Spanish Colonization Era: First Slave Revolt and First Shaheed

During the period of Spanish colonization, Muslims were coming here in large numbers, and Muslims were rebelling, and the first revolt in the new world was on the island then known as Hispaniola, which is now the current home of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the wealthiest colony in the Caribbean. A group of Wolof Muslims in 1522 organized and succeeded in the first slave revolt, and several slave revolts later, the Spanish outlawed the importation of Muslims, and then they allowed it, so it was off and on.

The first known shaheed in these lands was a Spanish-speaking African Muslim, also Wolof, Pedro Quilafo, Pedro the Wolof, who was boiled to death in a pot of oil around 1548 or so for teaching Islam and spreading Islam amongst the native people, and so the history is long.

British Colonization: Distinguished Muslim Scholars and Leaders

During British colonization in what is now the United States, we have a long list of illustrious Muslims, perhaps

the most famous is Ayub bin Suleiman, Job bin Salman, the fortunate slave, and his biography, The Fortunate Slave, is the oldest extant work of African American literature. So the oldest extant work of African American literature chronicles the life of a Muslim slave who famously was able to be liberated, went to England, and had audiences with the scholars at Oxford and Cambridge, had an audience with the Queen of England, and was sent back to Africa as a free man and as an agent of the Royal African Company.

Shortly after the establishment of the United States, we have many remarkable Muslims. Perhaps in that early period, we have Ibrahim Abdurrahman or Abdurrahman Ibrahim, a Fulani slave who was called prince because of his regal comportment, and indeed he was a prince. He was the son of Ibrahim Sori Mawdo, the unifier of the Fulbe people, the Fulani people, into a unified Muslim kingdom, and his son was Ibrahim Abdurrahman.

Leading Up to the Civil War

So we have an amazing history during the period leading up to the civil war. We have several many illustrious Muslims whose names are known to us. Perhaps in this regard the most prolific writer amongst them, the one who's written the greatest, left rather, the greatest written legacy, Omar bin Said. So right up until the period leading up into the civil war, Omar bin Said was very active in North Carolina, Fayetteville, North Carolina. Ibrahim Abdurrahman in Natchez, Mississippi. Ayub bin Suleiman in Maryland Eastern Shore. And so all over the colonial world and then the newly established United States, you have Muslims.

After the Civil War: Proto-Islamic Movements

After the abolition of slavery, the liberation of the slaves, the civil war, the Muslim presence from formerly enslaved people began to die out, but then you had the emergence of several, some people refer to them as prototypical Islamic movements because they would lead towards the re-establishment of an, if you will, an orthodox Muslim presence.

So you had in 1913, Noble Drew Ali establishes the Moorish Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey. There wasn't a lot of Islam in it, but the reference to the Moor, the reference to the book as the Quran, it wasn't the Quran, it was a mixture of the Bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a little bit of Quran all brewed together, but the nomenclature, the orientation was towards the Muslim world and a lot of the terminology was rooted in the Muslim experience and more specifically the Northwest African Muslim experience and the Andalusian Muslim experience. Another brilliant book by Ivan Van Sertima really examines that period, that book being The Golden Age of the Moor.

The Role of Duse Muhammad and Marcus Garvey

So the Moorish Science Temple is established. Duse Muhammad, who was a mentor of Marcus Garvey, goes to Detroit, Michigan in the early late teens, early 1920s and establishes the Universal Islamic Society and other organizations and is instrumental along with other figures such as Sheikh Khalil Bazzi and others in bringing the Muslims together in a unified force. Duse Muhammad being of Sudanese Egyptian lineage, he goes to England to study theater, he works with Garvey, he mentors Marcus Garvey who comes to England from Jamaica.

When Garvey comes to New York and establishes the UNIA, Universal Negro Improvement Association, his newspaper features frequent columns from Louise Little, Malcolm X's mother. So Malcolm X wasn't raised in a

household that would orient him towards the path that he took, there were several unfortunate circumstances that were responsible for that, but he was raised in a Garveyite household.

Duse Muhammad continued his collaboration with Garvey and he's writing a column that's very Muslim-centric in Garvey's newspaper. So even Marcus Garvey's organization plays a role in orienting the African-American community back towards an Islamic presence.

Nation of Islam and Malcolm X

Then you have the rise of the Nation of Islam, initially established by Fard Muhammad in Detroit, Michigan in 1930 and then Elijah Muhammad, Fard's most prominent student, and many scholars feel that Elijah Muhammad was initially a follower of Marcus Garvey, but he begins to build the nation. Then Malcolm X joins the nation while he's in prison, and during the 50s and early 60s, Malcolm is instrumental in helping the nation to become a globally recognized organization.

Orthodox Sunni Communities Emerge

During that period though, when you have these, what I refer to as proto-type Islamic, proto-Islamic movements, you have actually Sunni Muslims. Sheikh Wali Akram, who establishes the first Cleveland mosque, comes out of the Ahmadiyya movement, led by Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, also who has a presence in Detroit, an influence across the Northeast. A lot of African-Americans joined that movement when the successor of Mufti Muhammad Sadiq isn't nearly as learned as Mufti Muhammad Sadiq was, a lot of the followers drift away and begin to establish orthodox Sunni communities, and Sheikh Wali Akram is one of those.

And so you have in the 60s, also in the 40s, 50s, you have Sheikh Daoud Faisal, who emigrates to the United States from the Caribbean, settles in New York City. Another Caribbean immigrant, Mother Khadijah, his wife, they begin a very active Islamic movement in the New York City area. From that movement, you have the evolution of the Dar ul-Islam movement, another very powerful Sunni Muslim movement. You have many, many different, 'Izz al-Din village established in Southern New Jersey, a Muslim village, you have Muslim villages in upstate New York, you have a lot of Islamic presence.

A Unique Transgenerational Presence

And this sort of transgenerational presence of Islam from the slavery period, and then into the early 20th century, developing in the mid-20th century, and continuing today, this is something unique in the Western world. You don't have this transgenerational indigenous, and using the word indigenous loosely, not just referring to the native people, but also to those people who had a significant population here at the time the United States was established, so indigenous in that sense, and not in a deeper geographical sense of belonging to the place long before outsiders coming, but indigenous in terms of the three significant communities at the time the United States was established: the African American community, the European colonizers, and the native people.

Contemporary African American Muslim Leadership

So that's a brief overview of the presence, and today you have what you see, you have many thriving inner-city communities, a lot of them primarily on the east coast are associated with the Salafi movement, a lot of them are

associated with various Sufi movements, very prominent Tijani, especially Tijani movements, whose roots are in West Africa, primarily in Senegal, and other Sufi tariqas, and then you have more mainstream Muslims affiliated with scholars, graduates of Al-Azhar, such as the community of Imam Hamza Abdul-Malik in Memphis, Tennessee, who's connected with a group of young scholars, such as Imam Suleyman Hamed in Atlanta, Georgia, Imam Jihad Saafir in Los Angeles, Imam Fatim Saifullah in Las Vegas, Imam Amin Muhammad in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

And so many of these young African American Imams are establishing a very vibrant network, so you have a wide array of movements and activities developing in the African American community, and this is a continuation of what's been happening since slavery.

Muslims' Contribution to Building America

Before going into this, one more thing I'd like to mention about the Islamic presence amongst the enslaved population. By conservative estimates, 20 percent of the slaves that came from Africa were Muslims. So that's one out of every five. And collectively Muslims form the single largest identity group. So if you have various tribal groups, so the Bambara, Fulani, the Wolof, the Mandinka, none of them individually, as individual identity groups, or even the Christians amongst the enslaved population, there were Christians amongst the people of West Africa, or some of the traditional African religions, individually the Muslims form the single largest identity group. So one out of every five slaves was a Muslim. And again that's a conservative estimate.

And so Muslims contributed their free labor, blood, sweat, and tears to build this country. And so it's absolutely imperative for those who aren't of African descent to identify at a spiritual level, when we say the way of our forefather Abraham, he's not a blood antecedent to most of us, he's our spiritual father. The mothers of the believers, they're not our biological mothers, most of us, some of you they are, you're from Ahl al-Bayt, and descendants of the mothers actually, but most of us aren't, but they are our spiritual mothers.

And so those African Muslims, such as Kunta Kinte, whose story we know, and if you haven't watched Roots, watch the new Roots, the one that came out a few years ago, Ibrahim Abdurrahman, all of these are our spiritual, if they're not our physical ancestors, they are our spiritual ancestors, and their blood, sweat, and tears helped to build this country. So no Muslim should feel like there's some alien force, they say oh you don't belong here, this is a Judeo-Christian country, etc. No, Muslims were right there from the very beginning, contributing free labor, contributing blood, sweat, and tears to build this country. And you should stake your claim in that, you should see, find your legitimacy, and being authentically American in that.

The American Invention of Race: White Supremacy and Black Inferiority

The Creation of Racial Categories

I think it's very important for us to recognize something, that indeed white supremacy and black inferiority, these are two sides of the same coin, they developed here in the United States. There are no white people in Europe, there are Celts, there are Welsh, there are Scots, there are Brits, there are Irish, there are Anglos, and Saxons, there are Franks, there are all different tribes of people and nations, and there are Czechs, there are Slavs, there are Greeks, there are no white people in Europe. White people are an American invention.

Bacon's Rebellion: The Birth of White Supremacy

And the reason for that, and a lot of people miss this, and I think it's very important in this moment for us to understand it, the reason for that was to undermine the emerging transracial solidarity amongst the enslaved people. So you have many of you from your American history lessons remember that a lot of the people coming from Europe were slaves, they were usually referred to as indentured servants, and they were working in the fields, they were working in what would become the factories, the early phases of the factories and the mills, they were working in building the infrastructure of this country alongside their African brothers and sisters.

This is very important. Something happened in 1675 that's referred to as Bacon's Rebellion. Bacon was trying to buy his way into the elite of the country, and they wouldn't accept him, and he rallied his slaves black and white, and they fomented a rebellion that nearly succeeded in overthrowing the established order.

The establishment struck back in a very ingenious way. What they did, they realized in order for us to maintain our domination in this country, we have to split the white masses of poor folks and enslaved folks from the black masses. So they liberated the white folks and started that liberation, it would unfold over a longer period of time, and then they told the liberated white folks that you are superior to the black folks. And so they made them the policemen of the black folks, they made them the overseers of the black folks, and they enforced in them a sense of superiority, not based on economic status rather, because they're still poor, they're still poor, but based on color. They're black, you're white, white is better than black. And that was the beginning of white supremacy, establishing a differentiation based on color to enforce the rule of the dominant elites.

Undermining Transracial Solidarity

So there were, and every time in American history, there is an effort at transracial solidarity, it's undermined by those elites. And so as a result, you had black resistance and white resistance generally, and there are moments when it came together, owing to just tremendously talented individuals. So it came together, for example, during the early part of the career of Frederick Douglass, the towering intellectual and activist who was such a critical voice in the anti-slavery movement.

When Frederick Douglass joined forces with William Lloyd Garrison during the mid to the early 1840s, mid to latter 1840s, the very beginning of the 1850s, there was this coming together, black and white resistance, but for a number of reasons, they would split. Frederick Douglass would establish his own newspaper to rival Garrison's newspaper, and so it drifted apart.

The populist movement at the end of the 18th and 19th century, you had it coming together again, it was consciously undermined. And so the resistance took place along racial lines.

Black Resistance Throughout American History

Slave Revolts and Underground Railroad

And so you had the great black slave revolts, you had the Nat Turner's revolt, you had the movement of Denmark Vesey, you had the work of Harriet Tubman. And again, Harriet Tubman, this is an example where this resistance came together. Harriet Tubman's work with the Underground Railroad was a work that united black folks and white folks in opposition, in resistance. And as a result, it was very, very effective. Harriet Tubman was very effective, but she wasn't effective in a vacuum, she was effective in partnership with many dedicated white folks who were working together with her in the context of the Underground Railroad.

Towering Figures of the 19th and Early 20th Century

And so you have many, many, many towering figures, you have the Harriet Tubmans, you have the Frederick Douglasses, you have into moving into the 20th century, the great, great, great W.E.B. Du Bois, you have figures like Booker T. Washington, who are working for black liberation, but through empowering black folks economically, that your liberation can't be real unless there's an economic base. So establishing that economic base, establishing the great educational institution, the Tuskegee Institute to help foster that economic base.

So you have figures like Booker T. Washington, you have figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, you have the great literary figures in the 1920s and 30s associated with the Harlem Renaissance, as it's called, the poet Langston Hughes: "America was never America to me, but I swear this oath, America shall be."

So you have in Langston Hughes, you have Richard Wright, a very, very strong voice, so writing just works of fiction and non-fiction that are incredible and that are providing the creation of the consciousness that would undergird the movements of the 1960s. And so the work of Richard Wright in the 30s and 40s, the work of the likes of Langston Hughes, who are developing, as I said, the consciousness that's necessary to provide the foundation for the freedom and liberation of a people from the shackles of now Jim Crow and second-class citizenry, legalized second-class citizenry.

Civil Rights Era and Beyond

And we're talking about the 1950s, Brown versus the Board of Education, this is 1954, so this is in many of our lifetimes, I just made it under the wire, I'm 1956, but it wasn't that long ago, brothers and sisters.

And so then in the 60s, you have Malcolm X, he emerges from the platform provided by the Nation of Islam in the 1950s, and he really grows into a towering international figure of transnational significance. So throughout what some refer to as the Black Atlantic, Malcolm, the Caribbean, Great Britain, West Africa, even, and then the Muslim world, linking the struggle. And I think this is something that you're trying to do, my dear brother, Raja, is link the struggle of the Muslims, the Arabs, and the South Asians, with the struggle of the African-Americans.

And this is something that Malcolm was beginning to do in a very, very effective way. Some say, and that's probably why they took Malcolm out, because Malcolm was getting support from the Muslim world, from the wider African world, for the human rights campaign he was raising to accuse America of violating the human rights of its African-American population. And to do that, Malcolm had to build very strong bridges of solidarity throughout the Muslim world, throughout the wider African continent, and he was doing exactly that.

Black Power Movement and Armed Self-Defense

And so you have figures, after Malcolm, you have the Imam Jamil Al-Amin, H. Rap Brown, Stokely

Carmichael, and SNCC, and the work that Stokely was doing, the work that Imam Jamil, H. Rap Brown, who would become Imam Jamil Al-Amin was doing, the work of the Black Panthers, born in Oakland, California, but becoming a national organization primarily of young people. And not just challenging the powers that be at many different levels, at a legal level, at a level of armed defense of the community. So I didn't say armed opposition to the established order, the Black Panthers weren't fools, but armed defense of their communities, so that the kind of police brutality that existed then would not continue into the future.

And that was one of the primary rallying cries of the Black Panthers, resisting police brutality. And one of the roots of that brutality is that many of the western cities, particularly Los Angeles, were recruiting police officers from the Deep South, particularly from East Texas and Louisiana, because they were experts as these cities, such as San Francisco, which has generally been ethnically cleansed of African Americans today, Oakland, and Los Angeles, parts of neighborhoods in Sacramento, were witnessing the growth of very large African American populations. These policemen were recruited from the South to keep the Black folks in their place, because they in the South knew how to do that. And so that created an atmosphere that led to a lot of police brutality, and that brutality gave birth to the Black Panthers and other organizations.

Historical Roots of Modern Police Brutality

The Fugitive Slave Act

So there's a long history of resistance, there's a long history of response to police brutality. A lot of the organizing in the 1850s, when Frederick Douglass really hit his stride, a lot of that, and William Lloyd Garrison and others, was a response to the Fugitive Slave Act, where now slave owners could send bounty hunters, use the police to capture Black folks and throw them into bondage, and bring, after they had escaped and liberated themselves, just pick them up off the streets of northern cities and send them back South into bondage, and then just kidnap ordinary citizens.

The movie 12 Years a Slave, it's the story of Mr. Solomon Northup, who wrote the book, his experience exemplifies that. He was just lured into a situation as an African-American in upstate New York, lured into a situation where he was thrown into bondage for 12 years.

Racism Built Into the Constitution

So we have to understand that there's a long history of racism, the country was founded on racism, because a deal was cut in the Constitution, where Black folks were presented as three-fifths of a human being. And why was that? Black men, three-fifths of a man, it wasn't even to recognize the humanity of Black folks, it was a deal that was cut to give a disproportionate amount of political power to the Southern states, the Southern slave-owning states.

So we're not going to join this union unless our African slaves, who don't even count as human beings, can count as three-fifths of a man for purposes of congressional representation. And so you put two slaves together, you have a full human being, if you will, and so that goes into your representation, but it gives no political voice and no political power to those slaves whose numbers are used to gain enhanced political and disproportionate political power for those Southern states.

Modern Prison Industrial Complex

And that system hasn't died. And many of the Northern states, generally the prisons are in rural communities. So here in the, I'm right now, I'm in the state of Connecticut, most of the prisoners come from Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, these are all communities with very large, New Britain, my hometown, very large African-American populations. That's where the prisoners come from. The prisons are in rural communities, such as Cheshire, or Enfield, or Somers, Connecticut, up near the Massachusetts border. These are almost all white towns. Those prisoners, in many instances, they count as citizens for those towns in terms of allocation of federal and state funds, in terms of state representatives.

This is true in New York also. The prisoners are coming from New York City. The prisons are in Auburn, the prisons are in Comstock, the prisons are upstate. And these rural communities benefit from the prisoners, but the prisoners are disenfranchised, they can't even vote.

And so that sort of deal that was cut along racial lines at the time, the constitution was drafted in certain forms, it still endures to this very day. And things are changing, we acknowledge change. The state of Florida, the felony laws, the disenfranchised people convicted of felonies for life was changed recently, and a challenge was just successful in turning back an effort to disenfranchise those newly enfranchised former felons, and that was defeated. So it's a struggle, it's ongoing, it's long, there are victories, we should be hopeful. Muslims are hopeful people, we are not people who are pessimistic, we're not people who take bad omens, and everything, we're optimistic, and we take good omens, but we have to work hard.

Why White Supremacy Persists: Undermining Solidarity

The Purpose of Racial Division

I think one reason we mentioned earlier, when we talked about Bacon's rebellion, and that is to undermine the possibility of transracial solidarity. So if you create a system, where basically everyone's exploited, or a large percentage of the population, black or white, Latino, whatever, are exploited, then they have a vested interest in coming together to secure their rights.

And so if you can create a system, where some people will defend the system, because they feel in this system, they have a superior standing, that's threatened by those who are closest to them, in terms of their socioeconomic status, in other words, and there's a brilliant study, I would encourage everyone to read, especially now by Arlie Hochschild, a sociologist at University of California, Berkeley, and it's called, Strangers in Their Own Land.

And she goes to the most conservative white community in this country, in southwestern Louisiana, it's also the most polluted part of the country, it's petrochemical alley. And she just lives amongst these people, folks, for several years, off and on, to examine why do they entertain the ideas they entertain about race, why do they vote for candidates who are undermining their economic best interests, why do they work to defund an organization like the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, when their lands are the most polluted, and they're dying.

Their fish, they can't fish in their beloved bayous. One of their horses fell into the mud in one of the swamps, and became suffocated to death in a coat of plastic that hardened around the horse's body, there was so much

petrochemical plastic pollution in the mud.

The "Cutting the Line" Mentality

So what she discovered is, one of the things she discovered is people felt threatened by those they felt would take rights that they saw belonging to them. And so they had this idea of cutting the line, that why should we support Syrian immigrants, and that was a time when the Syrian conflict was really at a, it's still devastating, but even more devastating, and you had the waves of immigrants flooding into Europe, and the United States was taking an actual handful, not even a relative handful of those immigrants.

And they would say things like, why should we allow these Syrian immigrants to come and cut the line, and get benefits and money from the government that we should be getting. And so they're denied benefits themselves, they're denied health care themselves, they're denied decent education, like Louisiana has probably the worst or one of the two or three worst educational systems in the country.

So they're denied these things, but instead of joining together with anyone that can help them secure them, the idea of white supremacy leads them to fight against those they see competing with them for those goods. And so it's more of a mental frame of mind, a mentality that's created by this system than actual differences in terms of socioeconomic status. And I think that's one of the big reasons. And so ultimately it works to undermine the creation of transracial solidarity.

Police Brutality Affects All Communities

Even the issue, and I want to be very careful when I say what I'm going to say, because I don't want anyone to think that I don't understand the reality of the pain and the suffering and experience in the African-American community vis-a-vis the police. I've seen this firsthand up front, so I'm very familiar with it. And if you're an African-American, you're four to five times more likely to die the way that George Floyd died, unarmed at the hands of a police officer. And so that indicates the sort of structural racism you're talking about, because there's a structure, an institutional structure in place to make that statistic possible. It just couldn't randomly happen.

But in terms of raw numbers, not in terms of percentages, in terms of raw numbers, twice as many white folks are killed by cops every year in this country. During the week that Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, ironically, and that week they were killed, and we remember that week, it was very hot, and the demonstrations that happened, and the killing of four or five police officers in Dallas, Texas, shooting of two police officers there in Louisiana, it was a very tense time. But during that same week, five Latinos were killed by police in this country.

And so I say that to say, not to say there's any comparison, because if, as I said, if you're African-American, you're far more likely to die at the hands of a police officer than any other demographic, while other people are also dying. And the only way we're going to overcome this is by coming together. And white supremacy keeps us apart.

And you see that today. You see the Boogaloo boys are representing and speaking for the white folks who are being killed by cops, right. And so you have, and instead of having the creation of organizations coming together and establishing bonds of solidarity that transcend racial lines to create the critical mass needed to overcome this vexing problem, it's a vexing problem.

Historical Patterns of Police Violence

Because police brutality is nothing new. We just have cell phones now, so now we have, we have cell phones, we can film it, but before we could film it, it was happening probably even worse than it is now, and you could go back to the 60s.

As we said, why did the race riots break out in so many of these cities? Los Angeles, police brutality. Detroit, police brutality. And many of the race riots of the 60s, you could go back beyond the 60s, and then you could go back to the beginning of Jim Crow. You can go back to Pedro Quilafo being boiled to death in a pot of oil almost 500 years ago. And so this is a deeply rooted problem, and it's a societal ill, and it's going to take all of us coming together to stop it. And so one of the purposes of white supremacy is to prevent us from coming together. Why are you joining those people? They're just a bunch of fill in the blank, and you're one of us. You're white, man.

Forget the fact that you're poor. Forget the fact that you don't have any health care. Forget the fact that you're $60,000 in debt from going to college. Forget all of that. You're white, and because you're white, you're right. Because you're right, you're better than those black folks, and you're better than those brown folks, and so don't join together with them. Stay with us and continue to be exploited. That's what white supremacy does. Those are the ends that it serves.

Understanding Contemporary Police Brutality

The Structural Components

Thank you, Imam. I mean, you brought up a few good points, and I think here I want to ask you, I know we have a lot of questions coming in, but just to do our best to do a little bit more context regarding what's going on today. So understanding how white supremacy works, and as you mentioned, and that's why, as you mentioned even earlier, that Malcolm X might have been taken out because of his transnational approach to dealing with white supremacy.

And I think one problem here that we always hear is that police brutality sometimes is by certain individuals and certain aspects of the society is attributed to bad apples within the society or bad apples within police departments. But based on what you're saying and regarding how white supremacy and the system in itself since the constitution, this country was built on specific ethos to maintain, as we discussed, the wealth and power to be limited to white folks versus everybody else, specifically following the racial division starting from Europe, the concept of colonization starting that white versus everybody else, the white savior versus all the barbarians versus Africa versus everybody else.

Now, with that being said, can we attribute, and specifically to the young folks, how can we explain police brutality today? Why is the black man, specifically black men everywhere, unarmed or whether armed, that's irrelevant right now, why are they being targeted this way? Why are we constantly, and I think there's a lot of websites that show statistics, as you mentioned earlier, a couple hundred black men are killed every single year by police brutality. Can you give a little bit of an explanation why does this take place, even until today? And as you mentioned, Michelle Alexander and others, they always argue this, is that there are cameras nowadays and

we still see this oppression and this police brutality. Just imagine what used to happen 50 and 60 and 70 years ago. So if you can just respond to that and explain the dynamics of, or the kind of understanding of the police brutality currently.

Legal Structure and Immunity

I think, number one, there's a legal structure that permits it. There's a legal structure that basically says no matter what you do, you are immune from prosecution. And so I think that's part of it.

I think that in terms of, you're absolutely right in terms of wealth protection, but I think it's not always, it doesn't always articulate itself along racial lines, because you find similar patterns, not as severe, so don't get me wrong, not as severe, but in all white, poor cities, or in cities where there are high percentages of Native Americans, in places like Montana or the Dakotas, particularly North and South Dakota, or Nevada, or areas in California, where there are high percentages of poor Latinos, you find the same reality.

And so that points to a structure and that structure includes, number one, the legal protection that police enjoy, immunity from prosecution. And if anyone thinks that racism is not a factor, just look at Minnesota. When a black cop, black Somali cop, kills a white lady, he's immediately thrown into jail and he becomes the first policeman to go to jail for killing someone. But all over the years, the black folks that are killed by white cops, no one goes to jail.

And as I said, that's part of a legal structure, it's part of a structure of a fraternity that provides unqualified support. A fraternity is represented by the Police Benevolence Association. It's represented by a structure that encourages impunity. It's encouraged by, in recent years, the militarizing of our police forces.

Militarization and Occupation Tactics

And so police are being trained by institutions that are adopting not the tactics of policing poor fellow citizens, but the tactics of policing occupied populations. And so owing to that combination, that's the structure, the legal structure, the fraternal structure, the militarizing of the police, the cultivating an air of impunity. So collectively, these things lead to the kind of outcomes that disproportionately affect African Americans, but generally affect everybody who might be in primarily even in rural communities.

And so that structure has to be undone, those structures have to be undone. The militarizing of our police forces has to cease. That's a struggle in and of itself. The legal structure that's put in place, and not just locally, at the municipal level, at the state level, but also at the federal level, it's impossible to bring a class action discrimination suit against a police officer or a police department because of several Supreme Court decisions. And this is something Michelle Alexander talks about in her book, The New Jim Crow.

So that legal structure has to be confronted. The militarization of our police departments have to be confronted. The fraternal organizations that almost guarantee immunity from prosecution for policemen, in most cases, it didn't benefit the Somali cop there in Minneapolis, because he's an outsider. So he doesn't benefit from that privilege. And then the culture of impunity, that has to be confronted.

And so collectively, those things, and we can name a few others, but I would say immediately, those are the components of that structure that have to be confronted and struggled against, if we're going to see these

atrocities, particularly against the African American community, but increasingly, generally against anyone in this country.

Undermining the Black Struggle Through Looting Narrative

The Cycle of Oppression

Thank you, Imam. One other topic that we've been seeing is the undermining of the Black Struggle. And later on, by the end, hopefully, we'll talk about how you imagine the Black Struggle movement coming up, or the title of this, which is the Black Liberation Movement, specifically following the footsteps of Malcolm X. But we'll talk about that in a little bit.

But if you can explain a little bit to our viewers how the highlighting of some of these lootings that are happening around the country, how it undermines the Black Struggle, because unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand what the Black community is going through. They don't understand, or as Malcolm X used to say, the cycle of oppression. Basically how the Black folks are stuck in a cycle. They go through the same bad cycle of education, of economy, of every single thing that is happening in their life is stuck in the same framing, that it's very hard to get out of that frame.

So if you can explain how, two things, number one, how the constant highlighting of these lootings or these certain things that take place are actually undermining the Black Struggle, because that's not really the problem right now. The problem is the Black men that are being shot in the streets.

Right-Wing Provocateurs

I think we are in a very, very dangerous moment, because we see the rise, and this really accelerated during the Obama administration, many white supremacist, white nationalist groups saw the rise of a Black president as an indication that they were losing their country, if you will. And so they had to rally and increase their numbers and increase their power in order to take back their country. And that should sound familiar.

In any case, so you have a rise, and now it culminated in Charlottesville. And this is another moment that the white nationalist, white supremacist movements are using to project their rising power. And so a lot of these groups are instrumental in the looting, the burning, the rioting.

This is one of the reasons in many cities you find, you go to the march, you find hardly any African Americans, because a lot of Black folks are saying like, if we're going down there, I'm going to get cracked in the head and then get blamed for burning down my own city. When it's outsiders, be they outsiders from the left or the right. And I'm not saying there's an equivalent between them. I'm talking about who's smashing the windows, who's burning down the properties.

And particularly in the past, in Oakland, California, and I was there, you had a lot of left-wing groups. You had the Black Bloc, for example, doing a lot of property damage. But now you have a lot of right-wing groups that are taking advantage of this opportunity, number one, to kill Black folks. Like seven people were shot in Louisville a few nights ago. Around the country, many people have been shot. And who's doing that shooting? It's not the people in those neighborhoods shooting themselves.

Documented Evidence of Outside Agitators

The property that's being destroyed and burned, and this is documented by police departments who are capturing a lot of these people coming in from suburban communities. A lot of them are affiliated with right- wing racist groups that are doing this in order to create a higher stress level, some of them under the delusion that they can start a race war. So this is a very dangerous moment.

And the bulk of that, the looting, the bulk of the property damage, the bulk of the fires, that's who's setting these fires. So they're provocateurs, and they're agents, and they're people that have a very well-defined political agenda. And also part of that is to undermine the popular support for the Black struggle, for the African- American struggle. Say, look, these people, they deserve what they get. They're a bunch of savages. They burned down their own city.

And so a lot of people are inclined towards that line of thought, who under more favorable circumstances could be very sympathetic to what's going on. So I think we have to be very, very insightful and keen and really understanding what's happening out there, that these organizations and groups are using this moment to advance their agenda and to discredit.

On NPR today, so we're not talking about some left-wing program like Democracy Now or something. NPR today was talking to a Black Lives Matter activist about a Caucasian individual who was caught scribbling BLM on the walls of a restaurant. And so why? See, Black Lives Matter, they're just a bunch of thugs and hooligans. Why should anyone support them?

High-Level Coordination

So we have to be very astute and really understanding what's going on and how efforts to undermine potential support are very, very real. And they go to a very high level, because if someone, if anyone doubts that there's a degree of high-level coordination between these anti-lockdown rallies that took place in several states, most prominently in Michigan, and then many of those same elements who are pushing the anti-lockdown measures and protests are now showing up at these rallies.

So if anyone doubts that there's a high degree of coordination between high levels of government and media and those protesters in the state houses and state capitals, and now on the streets of our country, you're deceived. I'm sorry. And so we have to be very, very careful and we have to be very discerning.

Envisioning the Future: Black Liberation Movement

Processing Unprecedented Changes

Very good. Thank you, Imam. Moving on to imagining the future and how you see this movement progressing, because I think until today, and I don't know if you agree with me, we're not seeing a newer generation of leaders in the Black community at large, not just specifically the Muslim Black community. But right now, I think a lot of, I'm in touch with a few friends here and there, and we're still waiting for kind of a movement to come along and to continue to push the society to have some radical changes.

Because as you brilliantly explained, the systematic oppression, systematic racism that we are seeing in this country is not something that can be changed by education. Unfortunately, a lot of brothers and sisters everywhere, they just think, oh, all you have to do is just educate a white person, how a Black person is equal as a human being. And as you explained, historically and politically, and economically, even when we want to discuss capitalism and its impact on society, that's not the cause. Education is not enough. Because clearly here, we're dealing with power, we're dealing with race issues, and we're dealing with economic issues.

So how do you imagine the Black struggle? And I don't know, again, if you agree with the title of Black Liberation Movement, it's something what Malcolm X started working on, and even people before him, Elijah Muhammad and Marcus Garvey and others who were saying that the only solution for the Black people to literally have their independence, because it's very hard to be able to have equal human rights in a society that was built to persecute and oppress Black people. How do you imagine the future and the movement moving forward from today?

I think that's an excellent question. I think that what happened at the end of Dr. King's life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the end of Malcolm X's life, Al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz, it's what needs to happen. So essentially, these two streams of the African American struggle came together.

And I think that that's represented by the speech that Malcolm X gave in, I believe it was Mississippi shortly before his death, and Coretta Scott King was in the audience at the time. And she spoke very favorably of Malcolm and what he was doing. And so you saw a coming together that the internationalism that Malcolm started before Dr. King, that manifested itself in Dr. King, and most prominently, in his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

And the domestic organization, organizing that Dr. King was so proficient at, that manifested itself in Malcolm and the creation of his Organization of Afro-American Unity, modeled after the Organization of African Unity, but given a domestic manifestation.

Merging Malcolm X and Dr. King

And so that leads me to answer that question in the following way. The future will lie in the merger of Malcolm X and Dr. King. The most prominent thing that we as Muslims can take from Malcolm X is to be human beings whose lives are transformed by Islam. And then we will transcend this whole history of racism that has plagued this country and we'll be in a position to begin to pull our brothers and sisters up out of that quagmire.

Malcolm famously said along those lines, and there are many things we can discuss in terms of Malcolm, but I just want to emphasize this. Islam has solved my personal problem. Islam has solved my personal problem. In other words, I found peace of mind. I found the purpose of life. I found the deeper philosophical explanations for the realities I see unfolding in the world. But until the problem of my people are solved, I'll still be Malcolm X. So Islam, Malcolm said, Islam has solved my personal problem.

So our future lies in our personal problems being solved. We cannot be people who are so desperate, so traumatized, so filled with anger and pain that we can't think clearly. Because with this, we're dealing with very powerful and deep historical and societal forces. And to overcome them, we're going to have to have very, very

clear heads. And that's the greatest thing. We could take a lot more from Malcolm, but I think that's the greatest thing as Muslims we can take.

Dr. King's Evil Triplets

And then from Dr. King, I think the future, we're going to have to inherit his, the struggle of Dr. King against the evil triplets, which he identified as poverty, racism, and militarism. And he saw them all connected. And so that has to be our struggle. We have to inherit that struggle against racism, poverty, and militarism. But doing it from a personal, spiritual, psychological, better word, spiritual, psychological, and moral foundation that is defined by Islam. And that gives us the personal serenity, the personal stability, the personal mooring in reality to take on that work.

So that's why I think the future, and I think a lot of exciting things are happening. It's, we're dealing with so many new features of society that are coming at us so fast that we have to process the changes before we can really see an effective movement.

Processing Social Media

So just the processing, social media, that hasn't been processed. And so a lot of people are distraught because they think that the real struggle is online and not on the front lines. And that's because the reality of social media hasn't been processed. I was talking with a young lady from Minneapolis yesterday or the day before, and she was just saying how difficult it is for her to stay spiritually grounded. And she's a student of Quran. And to stay close to my Quran, when I spend my whole day on the cell phone, I'm texting, I'm watching video clips, I'm following the news. And so we have to process that one aspect of change in our lives that is core to the context of the last 10 or 12 years. So we have to process that.

Processing State-Sponsored Chaos

We have to process the reality of, in this country, of overt state sponsorship of chaos. So what is our president doing to calm the nation right now? What is our president doing to send a message of unity right now? There's nothing. There is an active encouragement of chaos. And so we have to process that. This is a new political reality.

So not to say that the current president is necessarily any worse. Obama deported more people than Trump so far, right? The deporter-in-chief. So not to say that the current president is fundamentally worse, but to say that the chaos, the chaos around COVID-19, the consistency of Prime Minister Ardern in New Zealand and the results of that, the consistency of Angela Merkel in Germany, the consistency that we see in Justin Trudeau.

Not to say everything they've done in the face of COVID, the consistency of the leaders of Taiwan. Again, not to say everything they've done is perfect, but they've had a consistent message rooted in science as they understand it. What have we had from the White House? We've had total massive confusion, confusion and chaos. And believe me, I don't think that's an accident, but it does represent a new political reality that we have to process.

Processing COVID-19 and Economic Collapse

So we're processing the advent of social media. We're processing the advent of a changed political situation.

We're processing the reality of COVID-19, regardless of where it came from is here. And it's resulted in some unprecedented societal challenges. It's resulted in an economic meltdown we haven't seen since the Great Depression. And all of that people are processing. It's very taxing and difficult.

Now we have in the midst of that, we have this sadistic, pornographic murder. And then the casual standing over the trophy like someone who's just shot a rhinoceros in Africa. And they're standing there with their hand in their pocket, casually posing with their prey. And so these optics in the midst of this pandemic, in the midst of this economic meltdown, in the midst of really trying to come to grips with social media, whose role is accidental to all at home. So we're having webinars like this at a clip unprecedented. This Ramadan, I had to sort through 400 online event requests. And I'm sure there's others who have more than me.

Hope for Strong Leaders

So all of these unprecedented realities, we have to process. But I think once we do process them, you're going to see some very strong leaders and some very strong movements come out of this, including or not excluding in the Muslim community, not excluding the African American community, not excluding the Latino community, not excluding the white community. The power of this moment is so great.

I don't know if you've seen it. All over the country, with greater or lesser degrees of what some might identify as sincerity, you see police marching with the marchers. You see police taking a knee, Colin Kaepernick style, to protest this injustice. And so this is a powerful spiritual moment. But it's so powerful, we have to process it. Once it is processed, you're going to see amazing things, I guarantee.

Guidance for Young Black Muslims

Malcolm X's Transformation Through Islam

That's a very good way of looking at this. And specifically, I think, as you started earlier on, the transformation from Malcolm X, how the reasons why he went to jail, and how Islam transformed him in jail, and how later on when he found Sunni Islam, and he left Nation of Islam, and how did that impact him on a personal level, spiritual level, psychological level? And I think, as you mentioned, that's very essential.

And I think the way you put it, is that it's, in essence, what Islam is about, is about the context, or as I always say, that Islam is a continuous liberation project, meaning that internally, you're trying to rectify your morals, you're trying to change your character, you're trying to become a better person. So you can be ready externally, to change the world into becoming a better place. And don't burn out in the process.

And don't burn out in the process, which always ends up happening for all of us. So how can specifically young Muslims, and here, of course, the focus is on Black Muslims, but also for other non-Muslims, but maybe you can start with what can young Black Muslims do, learning from what you said, the legacy of Malcolm X, the legacy of other, even not necessarily just Muslim, Black freedom fighters and resistance figures, how can they, as Muslims, learn their Islam, but at the same time, work towards the liberation of their people in the US?

Because we don't want them to just pray and fast, and that's it. That's not Islam. Islam is about also being socially available to change the world, to change the society. So what's your message to the young Black folks,

Muslim Black folks to, in this moment, to be able to seize this moment to please Allah and make something that can impact their community at large?

Maintaining Balance: Spiritual and Social

Number one, I think you alluded to it. We have to maintain the balance. Our religion represents a balance.

Wa ja'alnakum ummatan wasatan - We've made you a middle nation. (Quran 2:143)

So our religion represents a balance. And as we go forward in these very difficult times, we have to maintain that balance. One of those balances is between our spiritual life that's governed by metaphysical realities, and then our social life that's governed by the realities of the world.

If we over-emphasize the spiritual, we're seeking this experience, experiencing to the depths of our soul the reality of Allah in our lives, and we're seeking to learn the religion, and we're seeking to engage in the remembrance of Allah abundantly as we should.

Ya ayyuha alladheena amanoo udhkurullaha dhikran katheeran - O you believers, remember Allah abundantly. (Quran 33:41)

And so we're doing that, and we're recognizing the role of patience. You're going to be tested in so many ways.

Wa bashshir as-sabireen - Give glad tidings to those who are patient. (Quran 2:155)

And so we're exemplifying patience in the face of just unimaginable atrocities. But if that's all we do, then we are not maintaining the balance. There's going to be an imbalance in that direction.

On the other hand, if in our socio-political lives, we're just so obsessed with changing the world, and we're just in this so deep, and we're so outraged by these atrocities that we see occurring to the likes of George Floyd, or the likes of Aiyana Jones, eight-year-old girl shot in her own house, or the likes of Amadou Diallo, 41 bullets just reaching in his pockets to get his keys out to open his front door, or the reality of Sandra Bland, who's executed in police custody, then is claimed as a suicide, or the reality of Alton Sterling, or the reality of Eric Garner, the first one who famously pleaded, I can't breathe, as the life is choked out of him on the streets of Staten Island, or the reality of Trayvon Martin just going to the store to buy some Skittles at halftime during the Super Bowl in his family's neighborhood, or the reality of all of these various cases that we could spend the balance of the program just listing without even elaborating.

Understanding Divine Wisdom in Struggle

If we're so caught up with that, that we don't cultivate any spiritual awareness, any spiritual depth and substance and fiber, we don't cultivate an understanding that struggle is the nature of this world, that struggle is the nature

of this world, that the people facing difficult challenges in this world isn't a sign of divine displeasure or hatred, it's a sign of divine love. If we marginalize all that, then we're going to create an imbalance over there.

So I think as you said, we cultivate the spiritual life so that our personal well-being, as Malcolm said, Islam has solved my personal problem, that personally we are strong, personally we are at peace with ourselves, and we're at peace with the world, but we know we have an obligation, and we know that to those whose problem hasn't been solved, for those who are suffering from various forms of oppression, and we're responding to those Quranic and those scriptural phrases that urge us to struggle on behalf of the downtrodden.

That you're given divine aid, and you're given your sustenance, based on how you treat the poor and dispossessed amongst you. And so our life as Muslims has to display that balance, because an imbalance on one hand, just all spirit, all metaphysics, it will convey the impression that we have absolutely no concern for the poor, the traumatized, the exiled, the downtrodden, the trampled on masses of humanity. And that's not true, because that's not who our prophet was.

The Marathon, Not a Sprint

But on the other hand, if we're so obsessed with the sociological, political, socio-political aspects of society and the world, and we're so engrossed in that, we burn out, we become displeased with our Lord, or how could God be merciful, how could Allah be merciful, and we see all of this suffering, and so we lose a balance there. We have to maintain that balance, it's absolutely essential.

And that's what not only allows us to struggle while maintaining our sanity, while maintaining the ability to smile when we come home to our spouses, or we meet our and play with our children, it also allows us the foundation to recharge our batteries as we re-enter the fray day after day after day, because this struggle we're in is a marathon and not a sprint.

And so the marathon runner has to be very balanced, not too fast and not too slow, and realizing this race isn't over in 100 meters, it doesn't require a sprinter, this sudden burst of incredible energy, and it's over in 10 seconds. No, this is a marathon, so get a comfortable pace and get to work.

What Immigrant Muslims Can Do to Support

Finding Successful Models

Very inspiring. I asked a question earlier, and I know you're very diplomatic in avoiding it, so I'll ask it in a different way. What can the immigrant Muslim community do to be supportive of the black struggle? I mean, starting from recognizing the history before the immigration, specifically in the 60s, starting to recognize the struggle of black people, specifically Muslims here, how can they be more supportive? How can they be truly allies?

Because you mentioned earlier on, Imam, and Alhamdulillah, I think for us, at least in Majlis Ash-Shura, Islamic Leadership Council of New York, and our organizations that we work with, we try to be not just transnational, but to be allies and supportive of all the causes, all the just causes, because we believe in Muslims, that we have to be just towards every single human being and towards every single just cause. How

can the immigrant community straight up, Imam, be supportive, be helpful, and how can they better understand the pain of our black brothers and sisters?

First of all, I think find successful models. So the relationships between primarily suburban immigrant-based communities and inner city community isn't universally bad. So I can tell you about the experience that I've had working with the Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California. The fundraisers to buy the masjid in the first place were overwhelmingly supported by the suburban Muslim communities.

Zakat Distribution Programs

For several years, we had a Zakat distribution program where we just let our brothers and sisters, and this is a couple of very visionary sisters, I won't say their names, were instrumental in helping us to set up a program to distribute Zakat amongst the poor Muslims in Oakland, as opposed to sending that money overseas, because Zakat is more rightfully spent in the land where that wealth has been generated. And so in a few years, we were able to distribute upwards to half a million dollars in Zakat in the inner city communities, primarily through the auspices of the Lighthouse Mosque.

So in the Northern Virginia, Washington D.C. area, I know the Adams Center under the leadership of Imam Muhammad Magid has a very successful program of similar import, working together with the community of Imam Talib Shareef in the inner city masjid, I think on 4th Street Northwest in Washington D.C. near Dunbar High School, my own neighborhood when I was a student at American University in Washington, to work on various projects similar to the one I mentioned that's happening in Oakland.

Direct Financial Support to Inner City Masjids

So I think those are some things that can be done to direct at least a significant portion of your Zakat towards the support of Muslims who might not be as financially well off as some of the suburban communities, empowering local Imams and other community leaders to be spokespeople, persons, and representatives of their community.

Because when other immigrants see a platform given to very talented individuals in our inner city communities, they look at those communities themselves through a different lens. Like where did that Imam come from? Where did that sister come from? And so they see, oh, they came from there, down there. Oh, mashallah, those people, they're real Muslims after all. Maybe they're worthy of our support.

So I think it's very important to empower our leaders and communities to support efforts. I mentioned at the onset, a network of young African American Imams working in inner city communities. I mentioned Islah LA, Imam Jihad Saafir in South Central Los Angeles, Imam Hamza Abdul Malik in Memphis, Tennessee, transformed one of the most devastated neighborhoods there.

Examples of Transformative Work

And so they built a masjid in a dilapidated building, reformed it, structured a beautiful masjid. They have a madrasa where they're training inner city Imams. Imams are training young people to be Imams in inner city communities. They have a vegetable garden. They have an orchard. They've built a playground. All on vacant lots. They have beehives. They have what they call hood honey, honey from the hood. And they've done this in

Empowering Diverse Muslim Communities

Some of you might remember a brother, he was formerly in the Ku Klux Klan. He took shahada in prison because a Muslim brother helped him in ways that were very, very meaningful. And he hesitated at first because the Nation of Islam's influence at that time was so strong. He didn't think a white person could be a Muslim, but he became a Muslim. He left the Klan and he wanted to go back to his people and help and teach them Islam. And he would set up a booth at the ISNA convention every year and get no support.

So we have to find those individuals and support them and empower them. They know what to do. There was a motorcycle gang Muslim. I knew a few, a couple of them, in fact. But this one, they have this huge motorcycle convention in North or South Dakota every year. He wanted to get a big tent and have Dawah pamphlets and invite all of his motorcycle nation to Islam. Couldn't get any support.

And think of the implications of that. A lot of the people who might now be storming these state houses might be Muslim.

"When Allah desires something, He but says be and it is."

He couldn't get any support. And so look for these organizations. Look for these individuals. Look for the imams. Look for the communities and support them. Support them with physical, human, and financial resources.

Providing Platforms to Young Leaders

Support them by providing platforms to very promising up-and-coming young speakers. Let them speak to your young people. To your young people, believe me, your young people will relate to them more than they might relate to you. Because your young people are listening to Killer Mike and they're listening to the African-American rappers. And so when someone comes out of that community, they might immediately relate to them.

And so give these young imams, give the young scholars, give the up-and-coming individuals. Look at the impact that our dear sister Aisha Prima has had on the wider community, including there in New York. Now she's at NYU. Where did she come from? She came from the African-American community. But she was given a platform at Dar al-Hijrah. And so the talent, the dynamism that she has was given a platform by a predominantly immigrant community. And so now she's a household name who's influencing the young people, especially our young sisters, in phenomenal ways.

Summary of Practical Actions

So give platforms to people. Provide resources to projects. Those are all practical things that can easily be done and that others have done. So you don't even have to reinvent the wheel. You just make a few phone calls, inshallah.

JazakAllah khair, Imam

JazakAllah khair, Imam. What I really appreciate what you said is that you did not even mention anything about rhetoric. You did not mention that you want people to speak and to defend. It's so significant what you said. And I think that shows kind of the visionary view that you have, which is the capacity building of the Black Muslim community. How words are not enough.

And unfortunately, as you mentioned, and you elaborated on this earlier, it's not about just being online and saying Black Lives Matter and being supportive. And that's, of course, that's very important. But I think what you touched upon is very important, which is, unfortunately, it's forgotten, which is actually investing and spending in the Muslim Black institutions that will be able to help equip that community and make it thrive and make it being able to be a leading force in the Black community and society at large.

Imagining a Just Future

Staying Focused on the Core Issue

I know we've been up to two hours now, so I'm just going to ask one last question, and then inshallah, I'll give you time to rest. I know you had a very busy weekend. JazakumAllahu khair again for being with us. And I appreciate you taking the time and speaking and looking at the views and looking at the comments. It's very obvious that alhamdulillah, people are eager to hear from leaders like you to explain and give them context and give them hope for the future.

The last question is, just as you mentioned, just to be a little bit positive, even though what we've seen, the oppression that our brothers and sisters are going through is not something positive, but how do you imagine this movement of Black liberation or Black empowerment or justice for the Black folks? How do you imagine this movement thriving and solving this issue? Because clearly we talked about it and you touched upon it beautifully, historically, politically, religiously, spiritually. It's not just a legal issue. It's a huge issue that is rooted in the society. How do you imagine the future? How do you imagine the movement bringing about justice, equality, and freedom to the Black community?

I think that if we can all come together in this moment and remain focused on the problem, and there are a lot of forces that urge us to not be focused. I think you alluded to one of those earlier with the protests and the burning and the violence that people see and forget, no, this isn't about our burning buildings. The buildings aren't burning because someone just woke up one day and said, let's burn a building. Let's say someone genuinely angry and not some provocateur.

All this is happening because a grown Black man, George Floyd, was senselessly and sadistically murdered before the eyes of the world with brazen casual impunity. That's why everything else is happening. We have to keep our eyes on the prize and not be distracted and deterred by these peripheral issues that are significant, no doubt, but they're still peripheral. The core issue is the murder of an innocent unarmed Black man for allegedly purchasing food with a counterfeit bill.

Clarifying the Minneapolis Store Incident

Then I very quickly, because I definitely need to get some rest, but I need to say this because it's something that we talked about before the program and I think I would be remiss not to mention it. A lot of store owners,

because this incident started, the fake bill was presented in a Palestinian Muslim store there in Minneapolis.

A lot of those stores, they sell alcohol. A lot of those stores sell pornography. A lot of those stores sell marijuana wrapping paper. A lot of these stores sell pig feet. A lot of these stores contribute to the reality of food deserts where there's no fresh produce. There are no fresh fruits. That's true. A lot of these stores don't hire local young people to provide jobs.

But this store was not one of those. If there are any rumors out there, I've spoken repeatedly to people very close to the situation there. The owner was beloved and highly respected. The owner contributed very heavily to the local economy in positive ways. The owner, they did not sell alcohol in their store. The owner is paying for the funeral of George Floyd. This is the information I was given from someone very close to the situation.

Addressing Exploitative Business Practices

It's not good to overly generalize, but there are Muslim store owners, corner store owners, in many African-American and other poor neighborhoods who are very exploitative. That has to stop. We have to step to them and encourage them to stop selling alcohol, encourage them to hire one or two young people from the local community, encourage them to play a very proactive and positive role in our communities so that it becomes more difficult for someone to drive a wedge between the African-American community in general, the African-American Muslim community specifically, and communities whose members have an immediate connection with a foreign land. I think that's very important for us to mention.

Building Transracial Coalitions

I think if we keep our eye on the prize, if we understand this is about the continued atrocities and brutalities, again, that we see very prominently featured in the media concerning African-Americans, but generally, this is an issue that transcends our community. We have to bring everyone together on board to tackle this issue.

If we can develop transracial coalitions to address this issue, we will prevail. I think we'll be able to rid ourselves of the mentality, the attitudes, and the institutions that perpetuate these atrocities.

Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Thank you so much, Imam. That was beautifully said. May Allah accept it from you. I think it's for us as the Islamic Leadership Council of New York, we've been working with our major organizations like MANA, MAS, CAIR, ICNA, MUNA, to try to get everybody on the same page, as you mentioned, to build coalitions, to help build or invest in institutions, the Black Muslim institutions, and most likely to work on intra-community campaigns for our communities to educate them on these issues, specifically reaching out to Muslim business owners in these inner cities and try to educate them and encourage them to do the things that you mentioned.

I highly appreciate that. I hope that this is an opportunity or this moment can serve, can turn into a positive moment for our community to start working together and for specifically the people who are able to do some positive impact on the Black community, specifically these business owners, as we talked about, and other Muslim organizations that can afford to invest and help our brothers and sisters in the Black Muslim community and Black community at large.

Again, I just want to take this opportunity again to thank you so much, and may Allah accept from you, and may Allah reward you and bless you and protect you. You've done an amazing job today, and I know as soon as I spoke to Imam Talib and you spoke, you were ready to come, and I know you had a family situation over the weekend, so JazakAllah khair for taking the time and being with us.

And I hope that this serves as not just a lecture and a webinar to help our community and make them understand the context behind what's going on, but also serves as a visionary lecture for a few people who can benefit from it, and that will make them change and help them change their mind for the better on a spiritual level, but also on an activism level where they can actually, as you mentioned, as we discussed, be able to benefit from Islam personally, spiritually, but also take what they learned, take the transformation that Islam will bring to them to bring it to society and bring it to the community.

So I thank you so much one more time, and I want to thank our viewers for being with us. Alhamdulillah, we've been consistent throughout, and for the people who sent all of these great questions. I think I'm done on my end. I just want to give you a last opportunity if you have any last words before we wrap up, but I think you've done an amazing job so far, Imam.

Final Words of Encouragement

Alhamdulillah, it's been a great honor. May Allah bless everyone, and may Allah help us to realize that no matter what our backgrounds are, we're all on the same team, and inshallah it's the winning team.

So may Allah bless you and your efforts. May Allah bless all of the people involved in this particular webinar. May Allah bless everyone who's tuned in, and it's very important, very important for us to just make sure you're on top of your prayers, take time to pray, take time to read your Quran, take time to do a little dhikr, because if you do all of that, even not as much as you would want, I don't think any of us can do as much of that as we would like, but even a little bit, you'll realize that at the end of the day, you're too blessed to be stressed.

JazakAllah khair. to all of the lynchings, over 10,000 documented by a project spearheaded primarily by the great Ida B. Wells. And those lynchings in many instances were aided and abetted by law enforcement.

Mobs were led into the prison, into the jails, to haul out the victim to be lynched. Police officers standing there with the crowd clapping as the body's being strung up or castrated. And this is a reality. So you can go back to the period of lynching in the early days of Jim Crow. You can go back to slavery and the brutalities of that.

You can go back