Notes: New Islamic Directions

Know Your Enemy

2008-05-15T05:08:00Z

Imam Ahmad b, Sahl, May God have Mercy on him, mentioned, “Your enemies are four: The World, whose weapon is the people, and whose prison is isolation; Satan, whose weapon is satiation, and whose prison is hunger; The undisciplined soul, whose weapon is sleep, and whose prison is night vigil; and vain inclinations, whose weapon is speech, and whose prison is silence.”

Disabled Society

2008-05-01T21:25:00Z

The following poem is by a friend of mine, Imran Sabir, of Glasgow, Scotland. He shared it with me during my recent visit there. I am sure you will be moved by it as I was. I will let him tell his own story.

Biographical Information

I am 31 years of age. I have multiple disabilities caused by a rare genetic condition. To my knowledge there are only five individuals with this condition in the UK. Records show that I am the eldest of these and the most severely affected. The condition is Asian in origin as all affected people all have roots in the Punjab area of the subcontinent.

The condition affects many essential systems of my body causing blindness, respiratory difficulties and speech problems. I have no useful vision; have a tracheotomy tube inserted into my throat to aid breathing and use a special device to amplify my voice. When I do manage to go out I need to use a wheelchair as I am not able to walk more than a short distance without getting extremely breathless.

The condition is extremely restrictive causing me to be housebound for most of the time. I require constant care and assistance with many tasks. My family have given me much invaluable support and assistance and I would not be where I am today without their contribution and involvement in my life.

I have not allowed my impairments to restrict me as far as is possible. I am studying psychology with the Open University which allows me to study from home. I live an active family and community life being involved in a couple of charitable organisations.

The computer is essentially a part of me and has enabled me to do many tasks that I would not otherwise be able to do. Email allows me to communicate easily with friends, family and colleagues. The internet is a source of news and information, which I use to stay in touch with the world and pursue my various interests. Scanning software allows me to read books and modern advancements are improving things slowly and enhancing accessibility.

The poem below is not autobiographical but touches on many of my experiences and observations. During my childhood and adult life I have had dealings with many organisations—, public, charitable and community based. Thus I have faced the stigmatisation, negative attitudes and lack of awareness first hand. Many of the issues I have encountered in my life have given me a deep understanding of many underlying issues. The challenges have made me the person I am today. Many may call me an activist but I just see my work as benefiting others with my skills and experiences. My work involves engaging with many of the issues I have written about in my poem and I strive for when there will no longer be such issues and there is true unity and equality in the society.

Imran Sabir: E-mail: imran@eureka76.freeserve.co.uk

A Disabled Society

Born eighteen years ago
To a Scot and a Pakistani,
First cousins vowing to be true,
Joined in holy matrimony.
His coming having no portent--
All being well in his infancy.
Only a couple of years later
Realising his pathology.

Parents seeking treatment near and far.
Yet finding its incurability.
Only then becoming distraught
At life’s apparent duplicity,
Ending joyous expectations
Seeing his growing dependency.
Hearts shredded asunder
At his decay and atrophy.

The father withdrawing into work,
Disappointed and angry.
Unable to face the truth.
Hiding away from reality.
Knowing no English or sources of help,
Having no coping or caring strategy,
The mother laboured on,
Through love and maternal duty.

Mother and child unsupported
By friends or family.
Some comment on their special ness
And their chance to gain piety,
Others whispered at a hidden truth
At some long passed infidelity.
The supposed sins of the father
Punished by the mighty deity.

Not accepting a disabled child,
Or any responsibility.
Leaving love and self-respect
Guided not by rationality
He left wife and son to start afresh
To prove his masculinity.

Mother and child living off the state,
So close to poverty.
Seeking assistance for her child--
From any statutory body.
Communicating without English
Only leading to ambiguity.
Their impersonal services
Just Promoting conformity--

At school and home
Facing true marginality,
Colour and creed making him distinct
From the white majority.
Situation separating him
From the disabled minority.
Impairments causing rejection
From his own ethnic community.

All attempts at participation--
Manifest futility--
Feared and stigmatised--
Shunned by peers and society.
Thinking his condition contagious
They show only animosity.
His difference too strange--
An unsurpassable enormity.

Turning to service providers--
Main stream and voluntary--
Experts and places of worship--
Or those working for equality--
Despite the child’s clear-cut needs
Or personal priority
They single out impairment,
Culture or ethnicity

Now, at the doorway of death,
At the threshold of maturity,
Unable to communicate,
And with breathing difficulty--
Requiring constant ventilation
And remedial therapy.
Confined, restrained, straight-jacketed
By his muscular dystrophy.

Bedridden hours expended
In examining history.
He tries hard to understand
Life’s justice and equity.
Seeking meaningful answers,
Solace and serenity,
Yet ever returning to despair,
Wholesale regret and uncertainty

The barriers posed by impairment
And an indifferent society--
Invisible but hard as concrete
Abounding in their multiplicity,
Nurturing rejection and isolation
And all manners of impropriety.
Conveying the world’s begrudgement
Of deviance to normality.

Barriers restricting life’s joys--
Life unfulfilled incomplete empty,
Time spent in futile struggles
In seeking meaning and identity.
Not belonging to any world,
Lacking wholeness and integrity,
That is the lot of a south-Asian
Person with a disability.

Qualities of an Exemplary Leader

2008-04-02T06:57:00Z

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

فبما رحمة من الله لنت لهم و لو كنت فظا غليظ القلب لانفضوا من

حولك فاعف عنهم و استغفر لهم و شاورهم في الأمر فإذا عزمت

فتوكل على الله إن الله يحب المتوكلين القرآن ٣:١٥٩

Owing to Mercy from God, you were gentle in dealing with them [your companions]. Were you harsh [and crude], hard of heart; they would have fled from you. Therefore, pardon their abuses, seek [God’s] forgiveness for them, and consult them in the affair. Once you have resolved on a course of action [be decisive] and trust in God. Surely, God loves those who trust in Him. Qur’an 3:159

This verse contains a wealth of instruction to guide those who are leaders, and as Muslims we should all be leaders. The Prophet mentioned, “All of you are shepherds, and each of you will be asked concerning his flock.” [1] Let us examine some of the implications of the verse relevant to leadership.

Owing to Mercy from God… God is reminding His prophet, peace upon him, that the mercy he displays, in fact all of the virtues or favors that he enjoys are all from God. This is a critical point for any leader to realize, because of the propensity of those in positions of leadership to assume that they are in those positions because of something they have done. While it is certainly true that in many instances, hard work and perseverance have assisted a particular individual in his or her rise to the top, even the possession of those qualities is due to God.

Acknowledging this at the very beginning of our affair is one of the keys to real power as it helps to render us humble, and humility before people unlocks for that person the power of God. The Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, mentioned in that regard, “No one humbles themselves for the sake of God except that God elevates them.” [2]

Those who doubt the efficacy of such an approach—forgetting this was the way of our Prophet Muhammad, peace and mercy of God upon him—should consider the insights offered by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great. He mentions what he calls Type 5 Leaders. They are those exceptional leaders who lead companies in their transition from being good to great. [3] They combine personal humility, which is essential for gentleness in one’s dealings, with intense will. This unique combination of virtues is the essence of the message this verse is presenting to us, as we shall see.

Recognizing that everything comes from God is also one of the keys to gaining an increase in good things, for we can not gives thanks for a blessing we do not recognize. In recognizing God for blessing us with the qualities that may have helped us to become capable leaders, we are able to thank Him for those blessings. Hence, we are subject to a rule He has established to govern our etiquettes in responding to a blessing, If you give thanks [for my blessings] I will increase you in them… (14:7)

Recognizing that everything comes from God also helps us to realize our limitations. We come to understand that we must work hard to accomplish our goals. However, at the end of the day, we do not control the outcomes of our strivings. As soon as we can accept that fact we instantly gain peace of mind, for we do not endeavor to burden ourselves with things beyond our control. Furthermore, when in positions of leadership, we are less likely to look for oftentimes innocent parties to blame for failures that occur. This helps to create a healthier more productive work environment for everyone.

…you were gentle in dealing with them [your companions]. “Gentleness does not exist in anything except that it beautifies it, and it is not removed from anything except that it defiles it.” [4] In many instances when we are in a leadership position we try to impose our authority on others. In some instances this only engenders stubborn rebellion and opposition. In some instances it brings about grudging compliance. Neither situation is healthy. Gentleness, on the other hand encourages willing compliance.

Were you harsh [and crude], hard of heart; they would have fled from you. Here God is telling His prophet, peace upon him, that despite your charisma, your concern for the believers and all of your other positive characteristics, were you harsh and hard-hearted, your companions would have left you. Therefore, you must avoid those characteristics. This is a lesson for us in terms of how we should approach leadership and positions of authority.

People who are harsh in their leadership styles oftentimes demand respect. They should be mindful of the fact that respect that is demanded is seldom lasting, and it is never sincere. People who are gentle in the appropriate situations, compassionate, empathetic and magnanimous command respect. Respect that is commanded is sincere and lasting.

Leaders who are fair and gentle attract talented individuals, while those that are harsh are usually intimidated and threatened by talented people and generally repulse them. Their insecurity is sensed by talented people who are secure within themselves. This leads to them shying away from harsh individuals. This in turn leads to a corrupt or incompetent inner circle developing around leaders who demand respect through harsh treatment and crude mannerisms. The Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, mentioned that when God desires good for a leader He gives him a good circle of advisors. The opposite is also true. [5]

In the long run, magnanimity will always trump tyranny. Tyranny may achieve temporary victories, but the fruit of those victories is bitter and the season of its harvest is very short. This is true in interpersonal relations as well as in relations between nations. We have to strive to be people who at every level are committed to being open-hearted and magnanimous in our character.

Therefore, pardon their abuses… We should be quick to pardon others, where our rights are involved, or where the transgressions we observe arise from ignorance. One of the greatest lessons we enforce upon ourselves when we are quick to pardon is that perfection is God’s alone. Recognizing that, we do not expect perfection from ourselves, nor do we expect it from others. We do strive for perfection and constant improvement. However, we realize that perfection is simply not our lot in life. When our parents, spouses, children, employees, coworkers, and others understand that they have room for error in their dealing with us they are more relaxed and therefore less likely to err. This is a simple yet unappreciated truth.

Also, we have to understand that when we are merciful and forgiving, we invite God’s mercy and forgiveness into our life. God mentions in the Qur’an, O believers! Verily, among your spouses and children are those that are enemies unto you. If you pardon them, overlook their faults and seek forgiveness for them; then you should know that God is Oft Forgiving and Most Merciful [to you]. (64:14)

Our Prophet reminded us, “The merciful people are those God will show mercy to…” [6] This tradition involves a promise and a principle. It is especially relevant for leaders, for those leaders who show no mercy, will be shown no mercy—neither by God, nor by those they oppress if they ever gain the upper hand over them. One rare exception is the mercy our Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, showed to the members of his tribe, Quraysh, once he was given authority over them.

Seek God’s forgiveness for them… When we seek God’s forgiveness for someone we are acknowledging that there is only so much we can do for them. After that we are implicitly saying that we are deputing their affair to God, who can do so much more for them. We are also letting them know that we are concerned for their ultimate wellbeing and salvation.

When this message is conveyed to our subordinates we will find them most happy and committed, ready to serve, for they understand that we do not just see them as an asset to be exploited, rather we see them as a servant of God who we can help along on the road to salvation.

And consult them in the affair. Mutual consultation is one of the pillars of social relations in Islam. As the saying goes, “Two heads are better than one.” The more people we can involve in a project or decision, the more thorough our approach to that project or decision will be. Islam has high respect for the idea of due diligence in public decision-making methodology. We should deliberate and consult before making what will sometimes be far-reaching decisions. One of the reasons for our contemporary weakness is that we have gotten away from this idea.

Here the Prophet, peace upon him, who is divinely guided in religious affairs, in the broadest sense of religion, is encouraged to consult his companions because he is laying the foundation for effective rule and leadership to guide those succeeding him. However, we will only be the beneficiaries of the wisdom he bequeathed to us if we implement those teachings in our lives. This area of endeavor is no exception.

We should also understand that a team will always accomplish more than a single individual. These instructions will help us to build strong teams. We should also understand that “good” can always be “better.” One of the first things mentioned by Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with him, upon assuming the Caliphate, was, “If I do well help me to do better.” Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with him, was sending out two messages. The first was that I can always do better but only with your help. The second was an invitation to get involved. Good leadership does not wait for involvement to happen, it actively encourages it.

Once you have resolved on a course of action [be decisive]… Once a course of action has been chosen it must be accompanied by decisiveness. Great leaders are decisive, after due diligence has been exercised. The greatest of all leaders, the five great prophets, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad are described as Ulul ‘Azm the possessors of decisive resolve. No one will follow an indecisive leader. Decisiveness is a function of will. This is the second quality mentioned by Collins in, Good to Great.

In confronting the challenges before us as Muslims in this country we should understand that resolve is one of the qualities we will need to have. God mentions in the Qur’an, You will surely be tested in your wealth and your lives and you will hear from those given the scripture before you and from the idolaters much abuse. If you patiently persevere and remain mindful of God, [you should know] that is a manifestation of resolve. (3:186)

As we listen to the defamation of our religion and the slander of our Prophet, peace upon him, we should not allow that to dishearten us or turn us away from the good works we are doing. We should persevere, we should forge on, and we should realize that we are not violating any laws nor transgressing against any of the principles upon which this nation was founded—even thought the nation itself oftentimes does not honor those principles.

And trust in God… God never disappoints. When we trust in Him, we will never be disappointed. People will eventually disappoint us, in real or perceived ways. Although those disappointments usually do not result in any permanent damage to our relationships they can be frustrating. When we place our trust in God we remove this great cause of our frustrations.

When we trust in God, we also are less demanding of people. This is one of the ways to encourage others to do more for us in a spirit of willful volunteerism. What is given voluntarily is given sincerely. Sincerity is a quality that helps bring blessings to our actions. Ultimately, the value of our actions is associated to the blessings they contain, and not their abundance.

God loves those who trust in Him. If God is for us no one can be against us. As leaders we want God on our side. This is one of the keys in moving from good to great, for when we ally ourselves with God we ally ourselves with the source of all strength and power. Trusting in God is just one of the things we can do to invite His love. He mentions in the Qur’an, Verily, God loves those who do good. (2:195) Surely, God loves those who turn to Him in repentance. (2:222) …and God loves those who purify themselves. (2:222) God loves those conscious of him. (3:76) God loves those who manifest excellence in their faith. (3:134) God love those who are patient. (3:146) Verily, God loves those who rely on him. (3:159) God loves those who are just. (5:42)

Hence, trusting in God, being good and excellent in all of our affairs for His sake, turning to him in repentance, being conscious of Him, purifying ourselves, patently persevering and being just, these are all qualities and actions that invite God’s love into our lives.

When we are beloved to God then, as He mentions in a sacred tradition (hadith qudsi), “I become the hearing with which he hears, the sight with which he sees, the hand with which he sieges and the feet that convey him. [In this state] if he were to ask anything of Me, I would grant it. And were he to seek my protection, I would protect him.” [7] This does not mean that God becomes a part of us. However, it does mean that He will bless us to use all of our faculties in ways that are pleasing to Him.

What could be better or more beneficial for us than this?

Notes:

[1] Al-Bukhari #893

[2] Al-Tirmidhi, #2029

[3] Jim Collins, Good to Great (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 17-40

[4] Abu Dawud, #2477

[5] Al-Bukhari, #7198

[6] Al-Tirmidhi, #1924

[7] Al-Bukhari, #6502

Qualities of an Exemplary Leader

2008-04-02T06:57:00Z

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

فبما رحمة من الله لنت لهم و لو كنت فظا غليظ القلب لانفضوا من

حولك فاعف عنهم و استغفر لهم و شاورهم في الأمر فإذا عزمت

فتوكل على الله إن الله يحب المتوكلين القرآن ٣:١٥٩

…you were gentle in dealing with them [your companions]. “Gentleness does not exist in anything except that it beautifies it, and it is not removed from anything except that it defiles it.” [4] In many instances when we are in a leadership position we try to impose our authority on others. In some instances this only engenders stubborn rebellion and opposition. In others it brings about grudging compliance. Neither situation is healthy. Gentleness, on the other hand encourages willing compliance.

Seek God’s forgiveness for them… When we seek God’s forgiveness for someone we are acknowledging that there is only so much we can do for them. After that we are implicitly saying that we are deputing their affair to God, who can do so much more for them. We are also letting them know that we are concerned for their ultimate wellbeing and salvation.

Hence, trusting in God, being good and excellent in all of our affairs for His sake, turning to him in repentance, being conscious of Him, purifying ourselves, patiently persevering and being just, these are all qualities and actions that invite God’s love into our lives.

When we are beloved to God then, as He mentions in a sacred tradition (hadith qudsi), “I become the hearing with which he hears, the sight with which he sees, the hand with which he grasps and the feet that convey him. [In this state] if he were to ask anything of Me, I would grant it. And were he to seek my protection, I would protect him.” [7] This does not mean that God becomes a part of us. However, it does mean that He will bless us to use all of our faculties in ways that are pleasing to Him.

What could be better or more beneficial for us than this?

Notes:

[1] Al-Bukhari #893

[2] Al-Tirmidhi, #2029

[3] Jim Collins, Good to Great (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 17-40

[4] Abu Dawud, #2477

[5] Al-Bukhari, #7198

[6] Al-Tirmidhi, #1924

[7] Al-Bukhari, #6502

“Carrying the Word” From Emel Magazine

2008-03-26T15:01:00Z

’Carrying the Word’
Reflections of an American Imam
This cover article was featured in Emel Magazine’s May 2006 Issue
http://www.emelmagazine.com

Imam Zaid Shakir is, in many ways, the quintessential American: a youth with a two newspaper route, a high school football player, a member of the United States Air Force, a student activist at Rutgers University, a university professor, a foster father - and a respected Islamic Scholar. Born in Berkeley, California to a family descended from African, Irish and Native American roots, Imam Zaid is one of the most important voices within Islam today and a leading advocate for social change and economic justice.

He talks to Dr. Noreen A. Kassem about finding the heart of Islam, traditional learning, ‘going it alone’ and his new book, Scattered Pictures, Reflections of an American Muslim.

As Muslims, we are carrying the Word of God in an increasingly secular, militarized, and alienated world. What it means to carry that word is not an unknowable abstraction. We carry it by following the concrete example of our Noble Messenger Muhammad, peace and blessings of God upon him. In carrying the word, he endured unimaginable abuses and he persevered through them because he was inspired by a grand vision. That vision was to see his people saved by the life-giving, life-affirming message of Islam.

These impelling words are from the essay “Clash of the Uncivilized,” Imam Zaid’s response to the cartoon controversy. In that recent frenzy and at many other critical junctures, the Imam is a guide to look to for a calm, cerebral perspective. His, is a refreshingly clear and rational voice above the din of rhetoric, empty speech and simplistic views. Trained and experienced in both socio-political and Islamic sciences, Imam Zaid walks the talk of ‘carrying the word’ in the West.

Recent events have embroiled Muslims in controversy and confusion. What it means to be a Western Muslim has become one of the most important questions of our time. Imam Zaid believes in a practical Islam for America, flatly rejecting both secular and religious extremist notions that Islam must be defined in opposition to the West. He states that the foundational values of Islam are compatible with the best of Western values and embodies this belief through the connection of all his personal, political and spiritual endeavours.

The opening chapter of Scattered Pictures tells the story of the life that shaped one of the most influential Islamic scholars in the West, today. We met with Imam Zaid at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California, where he has served as resident scholar since 2003.

Speaking with Imam Zaid is similar to talking to your favourite professor; the one that saw your potential, and helped nurture your ideas, knowledge, and critical thinking. The Imam is approachable, charismatic and patient, with a gentle, comedic side. He is also a direct and well-informed speaker, eloquently vocalizing thoughts on topics ranging from Turkish nationalism and the economic stability of Syria to race-relations in America and traditional Islamic teaching methods.

Imam Zaid dedicated Scattered Pictures to the memory of his mother, Richelene Whitaker Mitchell.

In it, he eulogizes her as an evocative writer whose intellect was not stifled by the fact that she was a single mother raising seven children in the projects. He wrote, “She had come to understand that true human liberation would only come through the discovery of our true humanity.” We ask him what other lessons his mother impressed upon him. “From my mother I inherited the desire to constantly do better. She was always trying to improve our situation under very difficult circumstances. She taught me the importance of keeping your head. To accomplish anything you need a clear head. My siblings today who are not Muslim have also not fallen into the trap of substance abuse. I also learned that your dignity has nothing to do with your economic status.” His own early experiences, growing up in poverty stricken housing projects, resonated in his soul and left him with the purposeful goal to work for the betterment of people, for the ‘common good’ of all.

After the death of his mother and after much deliberation, Imam Zaid decided to join the US Air Force. Since the Vietnam war was over, he did not expect to be called upon to kill “in the name of God and country.” Instead, the armed forces, which recruited him through the ‘poverty draft,’ provided him with shelter and sustenance and enabled him to pursue an education. His military years would give him an insider’s perspective on what US President Eisenhower warned of as “the military industrial complex”: “It is obvious that war is big business. I worked in the context of logistics and you see this impressive globalized logistical network that is set up basically to kill people. Then there is the business infrastructure that supports that and the tax dollars that are funneled into it as well. War is big business and it’s nothing new.” He cites the example of Geronimo, a native American warrior who in the last major act of indigenous resistance, led a band of only 38 people, including women and children and evaded capture by 5,000 US troops and the Mexican army for over a year until surrendering in 1884. “They sent out the US calvary, - thousands of troops - to get 38 people.” Adds Imam Zaid, “It was all about supporting the profiteering network that was benefiting financially from supplying that army.” He admits there were positive aspects to his military service, namely, “It instilled a lot of discipline and respect for authority, which are important in everyone’s life.”

In the Air Force, he would also meet his wife, Saliha, a tireless and dynamic counterpart to his purpose driven life. Imam Zaid laughs when we ask him about her, “She’s too hardworking, she needs a vacation.” He adds, “We were both very much in an activist mindset when we met, both looking at it in the same way. I think that you shouldn’t become tired in trying to do something positive together. And you should never reach a point in a marriage where you become complacent with each other, never retire.”

After his departure from the Air Force, Imam Zaid would go on to complete his studies in International Relations at the American University in Washington, DC and then a Masters degree in Political Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Did his choice of academic disciplines stem from his early resolution to incite social change? “Yes, indirectly. I wanted to learn how the world works in order to change it. I was idealistic and highly motivated. There is a big Ummah out there and it needs a new direction.”

Imam Zaid had always been a spiritual person, meditating often, perhaps more so before his search for God led him to Islam. “I would often go into the woods, even alone and just wander and lose myself. I would sit down and reflect; I went through a deep meditative and contemplative phase before I became a Muslim.” So it is discernible that the Imam is convinced of the human necessity for spirituality and its transformational force on every aspect of one’s life: “When I was a growing up as a Christian child, every night we would stop and say our prayers and it was just communion with God, ‘Oh God give me this, help me with that. Thank you God, I love you God’. Now our kids don’t commune with God. We need to encourage our kids to communicate with God and have intimate conversations. For many people, prayer has become mechanical because they are not reflecting much on God before entering into it. A person who rarely thinks about God will inevitably have difficulty reflecting in his prayers. On the other hand, someone who wakes up in the morning and remembers God, reads Qur’an every morning and prays on the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him. Someone who takes time to be conscious of God and remember invocations will find it a lot easier to be mindful of God in their prayers. For the latter person, prayer is just reinforcing and strengthening their general spirituality.”

“Spirituality is very important and should be an active part of our lives, our children’s lives and an active part of our educational curriculum. The heart is then more sensitive to the Creator and that enhances our attainment of education, awareness of social justice, ecological and environmental issues. By being sensitive to the Creator, we are more sensitive to the creation. Spirituality gives us an awareness of those things that guard our relationship with the Divine and that leads to a propensity to safeguard our relationship with other people and our environment,” he maintains.

Speaking of the heart and its purification is something that has become somewhat removed from some Islamic methodologies in modern times, so we asked Imam Zaid about his journey to becoming a more balanced, traditional scholar of Islam: “A friend who had taken a Salafi view of Islam influenced the rest of us, who were new Muslims at the time. However I became a kinder, gentler Salafi, not the stern-faced kind who tells you your hijab is too short, your beard is too short, - everything is too short,” he said lightheartedly.

“On a serious note, just seeing the effect that sort of thinking had on people, producing self-righteous, constantly condemning, cynical, overly critical, rigid people. I said to myself, producing that sort of individual could not have been the goal of our Prophet, peace and blessings upon him. It could not have been his mission. I just figured something is wrong here, this can’t be what it’s all about. So I started looking for other forms of Islamic expression. That is not to say that all Salafis are like the type I have described here. I know many wonderful, balanced believers who would call themselves Salafis. These are just my personal experiences.”

In Scattered Pictures, Imam Zaid shares details of this spiritual journey, which would eventually take him abroad and compel him to state, “It was in Syria where I discovered my humanity.” The choice to move to Syria was initially a practical one; it was an affordable place to gain Islamic knowledge. However, it would soon prove to be the place that would mark Imam Zaid’s embrace of traditional scholarship and outlooks, and where he and his wife would remain for almost seven years, under the tutelage of some of the greatest Islamic scholars in the world. It was there that the Imam discovered a “fuller, richer religious expression” as he immersed himself in the traditional learning of the Arabic language, Islamic law, Qur’anic studies, and spirituality.

The former university professor also takes stock of his educational experiences and observations at home and abroad to outline his vision for a whole and holistic education for children in a Muslim educational system.

“The standard curriculum that prevails in most Western Islamic schools, has Islamic Studies and Arabic courses as appendices. What is really needed is a system based on a traditional Islamic curriculum and the Arabic language. If there was a serious effort to use Islam to enforce how other subjects are taught there wouldn’t be a contradiction between the Islamic and modern secular.” He elaborates, drawing constructive and viable examples, “Mathematics wouldn’t be strictly abstract but include application in Islamic laws, for example teaching how percentages are relevant in inheritance laws and in zakat (obligatory charity) calculations. In English, we would have students read related Islamic texts, in addition to those legally mandated. So all subjects that are taught, - history, biology, English,- would directly involve religious instruction. Islamize the curriculum. Have the core in Arabic; there is no reason why we can’t take children from the first grade to twelfth, and have them become fluent in Arabic and Islamic studies. This will give them the ability to converse and participate in discourse on various Islamic sciences. With a firm rooting and understanding of the methodology of hadith, understanding how the Qur’an was compiled and translated throughout history, memorizing the Qur’an, they won’t be vulnerable to the negative arguments and thoughts that sway a lot of Muslims.”

Imam Zaid also elaborates on the Zaytuna Institute’s ongoing plans to establish an Islamic seminary for men and women and why these educational institutions are important in the West: “It’s very important that we have credible educational institutions in the West, so we can begin to produce our own scholars. That’s important because only children who have grown up in this environment can have an understanding of the issues and a command of the nuances of language to communicate effectively and address the problems of this society. We know what the educational needs of our young people are. We can structure programs and identify what is essential, what is most beneficial for our situation. Everywhere in the world you see indigenous scholars for indigenous people.”

Like many people of minority and immigrant populations in the West, Imam Zaid faced racial prejudice, and economic and social injustice, yet he was able to move beyond hatred, bitterness and apologia, due in large part to his exposure to Islam. “First of all, it’s not the Prophetic way. Secondly, bitterness and hatred distorts your ability to see things as they are. So the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, said constantly, ‘Don’t become angry,’ because at the heart of his mission was introducing us to reality. Emotional states affect the heart and that affects intellect and clarity of thought. So it is very important to have a clear mind, to be able to access things as rationally and pragmatically as possible. Anything that affects clarity of the mind, be it physically such as intoxicants, or emotionally or spiritually such as bitterness and anger, must be avoided. Certainly, there are situations where you need to be angry, but our anger should be situational, not a constant description of our condition.”

He further notes, “There are no benefits to bitterness. If one is exceedingly bitter then one tends to see other groups of people as being responsible for one’s situation. That feeling of victimization is not healthy. Rather it is a detriment to constructive action. Victimization usually leads to inaction because problems are always ‘someone else’s fault’. That being the case, there is little ‘I’ can do to fix them.”

When respected scholar from Yemen, Shaykh Al-Habib Ali al-Jifri, visited the US, Imam Zaid took him to visit the grave site of Malcolm X, in New York. He addresses the significance of Malcolm X to our Ummah today: “Malcolm X was very much committed to serving his people, and as his career broadened, serving humanity. I think that as Muslims we need to focus on that message, on that aspect of Islam. That this is not a self-serving religion, but a religion of service to others. It is also not a religion of isolation. Islam does encourage meditation and contemplation and it is encouraged to go on temporary retreats, such as in Ramadan, but not isolation. Meditation and contemplation are all part of making the individual stronger and better able to serve the community.”

He continues, “We see that Malcolm X, whatever he learned and whatever position he attained in his spiritual development, he placed it at the service of the people. I think that is a very important message. Additionally, Malcolm X is a bridge between the African American community and the Muslim community because he was a Muslim and he was also a champion of the African American people. That is a reality and we need to utilize that legacy, because these are times when Muslims need as many allies as possible.” Imam Zaid also passionately encourages marching alongside and reaching out to other communities subjected to “cultural tyranny” such as the Latino community in America. “Let us follow in the footsteps of Malcolm X and let us reach out to the sister communities.”

In the opening essay, Clash of the Uncivilized, Imam Zaid also warns of a day approaching Muslims in the West, when they will have to ‘go it alone’. When asked what ‘going it alone,’ means, he says, “It would be positive for both Eastern and Western Muslims. For example, in the issue of the moon-sighting, let’s decide on a day based on the sighting in the area we live in. That would avoid a lot of confusion and disunity, especially pre-Ramadan, We can be a positive example for Eastern Muslims. If they knew what they were doing could not divide us, perhaps they would be more inclined to uniting themselves.”

“Concerning the cartoon controversy, after all the demonstrations that took place, there is still no (Danish) apology, there have been no real changes. It has just left a lot of Muslims frustrated. We need to develop an agenda that is controlled by us and not defined by what the media tells us should be our interest. That means defining the issues that are important to us on our terms”.

On the issue of the role of women in the mosque, in Islamic institutions and in the community, he remarks: “If we are to have a whole and wholesome community, the role of women in our mosques and other institutions must reflect the role of women in greater society. If the role of women in a society is a domestic one, then that’s fine; that is the society’s equilibrium and balance. But in the West there is growing disparity between men and women. Women are becoming better educated and that translates into a social situation where women, including Muslim women are functioning at every level of society; in professions of medicine, administration, education - every level, though perhaps under-represented in auto mechanics. Until Islamic institutions reflect that inclusiveness for women, we’re going to have a dysfunctional society. We must accept the role of women in the general society as the role of women in our mosques, with safeguards for the parameters that Islam sets. Women are on the board of city council, schools, and they should be on the boards of mosques. There is nothing in Islam to prevent this, but we must maintain Islamic etiquette.”

He further maintains: “This is a balanced argument. There is nothing to prevent them from positions on the board if they are the most qualified. It is cultural schizophrenia if a man accepts going to work with women as his peers or as figures of authority on various boards, but then doesn’t accept that in the mosque. Also everyone, regardless of gender, should have equal access to the main prayer space and have the maturity to respect the space. This is a valid argument made by credible scholars.”

Imam Zaid’s remarkable journey stemmed from the heart; a heart which in essence called him to a faith that would embrace and encourage his social, moral and philosophical aspirations. He proficiently expounds on a hadith (Prophetic saying) regarding this subject: “Awareness emanates from the heart and if the heart is sound, the whole body is sound; if it’s corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. The commentary for that hadith further explains the parables for the individual, both physically and spiritually. On the physical level, if the heart is not functioning properly to pump blood, it will affect the body. On a spiritual level, if the heart is sound, then the limbs of the body will do sound things. But if it is sick then the limbs are going to do sick things.”

“It is also a parable for society, the heart of society is the individual and if the individual is corrupt then the society is going to be corrupt. Society is characterized by the individuals comprising it, and the wholesomeness or the corruption of the individual stems from the state of his or her heart. The nature of our society will reflect that, so we see a lot of sick hearts and as a result we are seeing the sort of things that we witness daily. The heart of the individual is the heart of society.”

Imam Zaid Shakir draws on his well-cultivated theological and sociological perspective to analyze the role of Islam and Muslims in the West. While he personifies the best holistic practices and cutting-edge thought that Islam requires to root deeply and flourish in the West; the Imam also embodies the rationality, spirituality, and breadth of traditional knowledge. This enables him to connect to people across race, class, ethnic and even national lines. He has a compassionate, realistic work ethic that was not fostered in idyllic circumstances but in our streets, classrooms and homes. In a time when so much seems so desperately unhinged, Imam Zaid Shakir is a genuine voice of balance and of concern for beneficial change. Far from being just an American imam, he is an imam for our Ummah.

(slightly edited from the original version)

Dr. Noreen Kassem

Should Muslims Use The “N” Word?

2008-02-26T23:14:00Z

Do not call each other by demeaning nicknames: How foul is a name connoting vileness… Al-Qur’an 49:11

I was recently involved in a forum entitled, “Should Muslims Use the ‘N’ word.” The event could have more appropriately been entitled, “Should Anyone Use the ‘N’ Word.” However, the reason for the gathering was the frequency young Muslims, of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, are employing the term. One of the individuals whose suggestion inspired the forum mentioned that he was shocked—upon returning to the university after an absence of several years—by how frequently he was hearing other Muslims on campus saying, “My nigga’,” “What’s up nigga’,” “Where you niggas going,” and similar expressions.

During the forum I mentioned I was of the opinion that as Muslims we should refrain from the use of the word. During the course of that event I did not get a chance to present all of the reasons for my position. I will delineate them here, God-willing. Hopefully, these words will be of benefit. If not, perhaps they will stimulate some beneficial comments.

Before beginning, I wish to mention the following clarification. When I say Muslims, or anyone else for that matter, should not use the word “nigger,” I mean in everyday speech, and especially in speech that is intended to demean another human or oneself. This is not to say that I advocate banning literature that contains the word. Most of that literature, including works such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, [1] describes the derogatory way the term has been used at various historical junctures and is therefore an indispensable part of the public record. To seek to ban such works, or to censor the offensive term in a way to have it removed from them is ridiculous and should not be understood as what I am advocating.

To begin, as Muslims we should be leaders in the society we find ourselves in and not followers. The overwhelming majority of Muslim youth who are currently employing the term “nigger,” even in its “sanitized” form, “nigga” are following one of the least savory manifestations of popular culture. Until it became acceptable (or cool) in some circles to use the word, Muslim youth were not uttering it. Like many other elements of contemporary youth culture, such as sagging pants and gangster rap, this one has its roots in the African American community. Now that some generally degenerate elements in the community have taken up the wide spread use of the term, should Muslims follow suit? I think not.

I think we can legitimately ask, “Which elements in the community have helped to popularize the term?” Was it the educated elite? Was it the likes of Thurgood Marshall, John Henrik Clarke, Chancellor Williams? No! Was it the political icons of the 1960s, the likes of Dr. King, Malcolm X, H Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Medgar Evers? No! Was it the athletic giants such as Willie Mays, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, or Arthur Ashe? No! Was it the musical legends of the period, the likes of James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, or Jimi Hendrix? No! Who then was it?

If we consider the increased popularity the term began gaining at the street level in the African American community during the 1970s, one figure would stand out as being most influential in that development, the comedian, Richard Pryor. Although the term was employed by certain elements in the African American community long before the emergence of Pryor as a major entertainment figure in the 1970s, it was he who popularized its usage among a far wider segment of African Americans.

It is not ironic in this regard that one the best selling comedy albums in history was Pryor’s 1974 Grammy Award winning album, That Nigger’s Crazy. This was followed two years latter by his, Bicentennial Nigger. Many people have analyzed what they see as Pryor’s genius in how he used the word “nigger” in his jokes. However, after a trip to Kenya in the early 1980s, impressed by the dignity of the Africans he encountered there, Pryor himself declared that he would never again use the word, explaining, “It was a wretched word. Its connotations weren’t funny, even when people laughed. To this day I wish I’d never said that word.”[2]

Although one can argue, as some have, that some of the ways Pryor and others used “nigger,” along with entertainers both before and after him (for example, Tupac Shakur’s claim that nigga means, Never Ignorant, Gets Goals Accomplished), are positive, and therefore justify its use in some situations, I would be hesitant to totally agree. On balance, as Pryor’s rejection of the word seems to indicate, the implications of nigger are overwhelmingly negative. [3]

Consider an excerpt from The Last Poets, Niggers Are Scared of Revolution:

Niggers are scared of revolution but niggers shouldn’t be scared of revolution because revolution is nothing but change, and all niggers do is change. Niggers come in from work and change into pimping clothes to hit the street to make some change. Niggers change their hair from black to red to blond and hope like hell their looks will change. Niggers kill other niggers just because one did not receive the correct change… Niggers shoot dope into their arms. Niggers shoot guns and rifles on New Year’s Eve… Where are niggers when the revolution needs some shot? …you know, niggers are somewhere shooting the sh__. Niggers are scared of revolution.

Despite the fact that The Last Poets end this piece by saying “I love niggers because niggers are me…” that affectionate usage hides troubling connotations. For example, in the passage we quoted above, the word is associated with cowardice, inconsistency, pimping, self-hatred, murder, drug addiction, reckless behavior, and idleness. The fact that we love our people is not expressed by describing them, even in an affectionate context, with a word that embodies all of the negativity our oppressor has stereotypically used to attempt to dehumanize us. Maintaining that association between the word and its negative meanings does nothing to ward off the internalization of those meanings. To rephrase the passage from The Last Poets, it is as if they are saying, “We love you cowardly, inconsistent, pimping, self-hating, strung out, reckless, idle niggers.”

At another level, as has been pointed out by one astute commentator, The Last Poets were trying to point out the futility of a call for external change by people who could not change themselves internally. I do not deny this. I only quote from the poem here to point out that even in most artistic communication the word nigger/nigga is associated with negativity.

These sorts of overwhelmingly negative associations appear in the usages of the word by comedians after Pryor. An example of this is a skit by Chris Rock in which he declares, “I love black people, but I hate niggers.” Rock goes on to mention a series of negative associations evoked by the term “nigger.” For example:

You can’t put anything in your house. Why? Because the niggers who live next door will break in, take it all, and then come over the next day and go, “We heard you got robbed.” [4]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s as rap music began moving from a genre dominated by consciousness-raising or fun-filled party music towards thuggish gangster rap, nigger/nigga became increasingly common. This development was epitomized by the emergence of NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitude). While many argue that the gangster rappers were only articulating realities that already exist within the African American community, such as gang-life, violence, prison, illegitimate births, and the use of the word nigger/nigga, it has been my contention that these groups have helped to popularize much of the negativity they so glibly describe as the realities of urban life. While the themes they rap about have always been present in urban inner-city communities, they have historically been confined to a small minority. They were identified with low-life and criminal elements and were not presented as glamorized norms to be openly adopted by masses of young people. I would argue that the popularization of the degenerate behavior, nihilism, misogyny, violence, and thug culture involved in messages put forth by gangster rap is summarized in a single term—“nigger/nigga,” and the popularization of both the word and the types of behavior it evokes goes hand in hand.

In my opinion, it is difficult to associate any positive usages with the term due to what George Lakoff, and others, refers to as framing. In other words, once a word, phrase, or idea has become associated with a particular cognitive frame, using that word in any context, negatively or positively, only supports the established frame. [5] For example, now that Muslims have become so overwhelmingly identified with terrorism in this country, there is no way to break that association—working within the prevailing frame. Hence, when we declare, “Muslims are not terrorists!” It only reinforces the prevailing frame, because in the mind of the listener it reinforces the linkage between Muslims and terrorism, by evoking the dominant terms in that particular frame. All the listener tends to hear are the terms, “Muslim” and “terrorist.”

In order to change a particular cognitive frame, we have to change the terms associated with it. Thus, if we want to productively discuss the issue of Islam and terrorism, we would have to reframe the issue as involving, for example, a discussion of Islam and political violence. By utilizing this new frame we are not limited by the association of Muslims with terrorism. We could not only discuss the issue of Islam and political violence (which includes terrorism) without evoking the negativity associated with a particular cognitive frame, but we would also have a neutral frame that allows us to discuss other forms of religious and political violence in a comparative sense.

To return to the term “nigger,” so much negativity has been associated with that word for so long that it would be very difficult to use it in a way that did not evoke negative stereotypes. Here many contemporary analysts would say that the term has indeed been appropriated by our youth and rendered into a positive term meaning, friend, partner, etc. This is true up to a point. If one were to look deeper and ask about the qualities that render a person suitable to be someone’s “nigga” one would find that they are overwhelmingly negative. Hence, though the term may mean “friend” in some circles, what are the qualities that render a “friend” a “nigga?”

Are the African American youth who are excelling in school the ones being described as someone’s “nigga?” They might be derisively attacked in terms such as “That nigger acts like he’s white,” but they will not be affectionately referred to as anyone’s “nigga.” Are the kids working two part-time jobs and going to school full-time being described as someone’s “nigga?” I think not. Are the children who avoid the parties, drugs, alcohol and other vices snaring so many of our youth being referred to as someone’s “nigga?” Based on my experiences they are not.

Rather the one affectionately referred to as someone’s “nigga” is the “cool” kid selling the drugs, chasing the girls, sagging his pants, smoking the weed, gang-banging and showing no commitment to or understanding of the value of discipline, education, or history? The “nigga” is the young person we see behaving so utterly embarrassingly in pubic. As Beanie Sigel puts it, “I’ma ride with my niggas, die with my niggas, get high with my niggas…” He is saying that he is going into gang warfare with his friends, die with them in the battle if necessary, get high with them, etc. It would difficult if not impossible to find anyone saying, by way of example, “I’ma go to med school with my niggas, respect my lady with my niggas, rebuild my community with my niggas….”

As the term has become popularized among our youth, so too has its association with the types of negative behavior mentioned above. An increasingly large number of our children, especially our young men, want to be a stereotypical “nigga,” which in many instances involves behavior that the whites who scathingly transformed the term into the ultimate insult meant for it to define.

The increasingly widespread use of the term among our youth involves a seductive illusion of empowerment. Seductive because it is so accessible, illusionary because it does nothing to meaningfully change the basis of the negative stereotypes associated with the word, or to encourage the characteristics that are needed to meaningfully enhance a young person’s chances of empowering themselves in this society. Rather, in a backhanded way, it serves to undermine the path to real empowerment.

As Muslims we understand that words form the basis of our ethical universe. This is so because words and the meanings they convey move our consciousness beyond the realm of physicality and into the realm of meaning, which in turn constitutes the foundation of our ability to think ethically. Hence, God mentions in the Qur’an:

Have you not seen how God presents the parable of a good word, it is like a good tree, it roots are firmly rooted [in the ground] and its branches extend towards heaven. It brings forth its fruit during every season by permission of its Lord. Thus does God present parables to people in order that they are reminded. And the parable of a vile word is like a vile tree, it is easily uprooted from the surface of the earth; it has no anchorage. (14:24-26)

Words in this regard are part of the forces that engender a healthy human consciousness in us. Furthermore, individual words do not stand alone, in terms of the reality they define. They are part of a system of meaning that informs a conceptual worldview. In affirming the acceptability or even the desirability of freely using the term “nigger” we are not endorsing a single term, we are endorsing a verbal culture that collectively works to dehumanize our youth. For example, popularizing the term “nigga’” has been accompanied by the enhanced acceptability and widespread usage of bi_, ho’ (whore), dog, motherf__, sh__ and a host of other terms that historically were associated with vulgar language. Collectively, they are part of an integrated culture characterized by nihilism, hedonism, self-hatred, and an increasingly alienated disconnection from mainstream society.

God declares in the Qur’an, You are the best people raised up to benefit humanity. You enjoin the right, forbid the wrong and believe in God. (3:110) Enjoining right and forbidding wrong are part of the mission of the Muslims. Doing so requires a well-established standard of right and wrong. Part of the effort to undermine religion lies in the undermining of revealed or widely accepted moral standards. In the ensuing confusion, many things long held to be blameworthy and in many instances almost universally condemned become acceptable. Illegitimate children, foul language, uncouth and slothful comportment, open displays of sexual affection (both heterosexual and homosexual) and sloppy dressing have all become acceptable or even encouraged behavior, as we move ever further down a slippery slope in what amounts to a moral race to the bottom.

The elimination of moral prohibitions and taboos is part of the process of unraveling a society’s ethical universe. Once prohibitions and taboos are no longer accepted society looses its basis for an objective moral standard. Eliminating prohibitions surrounding the indiscriminate use of the word “nigger,” in the African American context, are part of a larger moral unraveling. As Muslims, we simply should not be part of that process.

The rap star, Nas, recently said that he wants to encourage the use of the word “nigger” because today’s youth do no know anything about Medgar Evers. If we analyze this statement, we can see the latent danger it hides. In essence Nas is saying, “History has no meaning in the life of a people.” The fact that people died because they refused to accept being labeled or acting like a “nigger” is apparently of no consequence to Nas. The fact that the people who murdered Medgar Evers derisively referred to him as a “nigger” is of no consequence to Nas. The fact that he is wittingly or unwittingly encouraging our youth to forget the pain and suffering associated with the term is apparently of no consequence to Nas.

Before going further in this discussion, I will mention a few incidents that demonstrate the depth of the pain and humiliation associated with the term.

When Charles McLaurin, an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was jailed in Columbia, Mississippi, a patrolman asked him, “Are you a Negro or a nigger?” When McLaurin responded, “Negro,” another patrolman hit him in the face. When he gave the same reply to the same question, McLaurin was again beaten. Finally, asked the question a third time, he answered, “I am a nigger.” At that point the first patrolman told him to leave and warned, “If I ever catch you here again I’ll kill you.”

As a child the playwright August Wilson stopped going to school for a while after a series of notes were left in his desk by white classmates. The notes read: “Go home nigger.”

Michael Jordan was suspended from school for hitting a white girl who called him “nigger” during a fight over a seat on a school bus in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Brenda Woodford wrote that in the predominantly middle-class community where she grew up, little boys on bicycles would constantly encircle her, chanting, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.”

On the verge of breaking Babe Ruth’s record for most career home runs, Hank Aaron received hundreds of “Dear Nigger” hate letters. Here is a sampling of them:

Dear Black Boy,
Listen Black Boy, we don’t want no nigger Babe Ruth.

Dear Mr. Nigger,
I hope you don’t break the Babe’s record. How can I tell my kids that a nigger did it?

Dear Nigger,
You can hit all dem home runs over dem short fences, but you can’t take dat black off yo face.

Dear Nigger,
You black animal, I hope you never live long enough to hit more home runs than the great Babe Ruth… [6]

To cut our youth off from this history is to do them a tremendous disservice, for it is to deny them knowledge of where they came from, and the sacrifices made by others to make it possible for them to live a dignified existence. It is said that a people who do not know where they came from do not know where they are going. Is it any wonder we find so many empty souls aimlessly wandering down the byways of life? Drifting without anchors. And the parable of a vile word is like a vile tree, it is easily uprooted from the surface of the earth; it has no anchorage. (14:26)

As Muslims we believe in the value of tradition as an indispensable link with the past that provides the foundation upon which to build the future. One of the fundamental teachings of our religion is following the established tradition (Sunnah) of our Prophet, peace upon him, and the tradition of his rightly guided successors. A people who have been cut off from their tradition lack such a foundation. Without a foundation they will never build a meaningful future. By refusing to challenge the dehumanization of our youth, which in my view includes the widespread use of the word “nigger/nigga,” we are refusing to challenge the forces that are cutting them off from the traditions of their ancestors. By so doing, we are effectively contributing to denying them a meaningful future. In my opinion, this is an untenable position for a Muslim.

In conclusion, a Muslim should be a person who inspires hope and not one who affirms despair. Real hope for the legions of African American youth in this country lies in instilling in them a vision for the future predicated on their self worth and true human potential, and built on the sacrifices of those who preceded them. For Muslims to endorse the bitter fruits of an ill-conceived status quo that finds its expression in a nihilistic, destructive popular culture, epitomized by the widespread use of the term “nigger,” is a severe dereliction of our duty as benefactors, and an abandonment of the positive social role Islam has played historically in the African American community.

Notes

[1] In this letter, Dr. King makes his famous statement, “When your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John…” See http://stanford.edu/group/King/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf
[2] Quoted in Randall Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 155-156
[3] Tupac’s inconsistency on the issue of the positivity or negativity of “nigga” is illustrative of a general trend in his work. Despite his mentioning that nigga means “never ignorant...” elsewhere he glorifies stereotypical “nigga” behavior. He says, for example:

I roll with a crew of zoo niggaz
They’re quick to pull a nine when it’s time to do niggaz…
Roll me a blunt and pass the brew nigga…
Before I go broke I’ll be a drug dealer, thug nigga…

[4] Quoted in Kennedy, 36.
[5] For a concise discussion of issues related to framing see George Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (White River Junction, VT, 2004).
[6] This series of quotes can be found in Kennedy, 17-20.

Reflections on Black History Month

2008-02-02T05:15:01Z

Black History Month should be of interest to every Muslim, especially in America. It is estimated that upwards to 20% of the Africans enslaved in the Americas were Muslim. [1] In some areas, such as the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia, and parts of Virginia, the percentages of Muslims in the slave population may have approached 40%. [2] The fact that the search of a random African American, Alex Haley, for his roots led him to a Muslim village in West Africa is indicative of the widespread Muslim presence among the enslaved population here in the Americas.

At this critical time in the history of our country, it is important for Muslims, whose legitimate existence in this country is being challenged in some quarters, to connect to our American Muslim roots. As Muslims, our story in this country did not begin with the coming of Syrians, Lebanese, Albanians, or Yemenis at the turn of the 20th Century and later. It began with the lives of those courageous African Muslim slaves whose blood, sweat, and tears were instrumental in building this country. Their struggle is our struggle, and our struggle should be viewed as a continuation of theirs.

In identifying with those African Muslims, we must not allow ourselves to forget that they were part of a greater community, a community which has evolved to almost fifty million African Americans. The struggle of that community, its pain, perseverance, triumphs, and defeats, cannot be separated from the struggle of its Muslim members. If we as Muslims are moved by the suffering of our coreligionists who were exposed to the dehumanizing cruelties of a vicious system, we should similarly be moved by the plight of their non-Muslim African brothers and sisters who suffered the same injustices.

We must also be moved to work with unwavering conviction to address, within the parameters of our organizational missions, the vestiges of institutional racism which continues to disproportionately affect African Americans and other racial minorities in this country. One statistic alone should be sufficient to alert us to the presence of such racism – 50% of this nation’s 2.3 million incarcerated individuals come from her 12% African American population. Similarly discouraging statistics are found in areas ranging from access to higher education, teen pregnancies, high school dropout rates, youth homicides, and many other “quality of death” indicators.

African American Muslims have a particular responsibility in addressing such racism. In beginning to do so, we can take our lead from our formerly enslaved brothers. Despite their lack of freedom, many of them were never “owned.” This fact is strikingly clear in their increasingly widespread biographies. Individuals such as Ayyub bin Sulayman (Job Ben Solomon), Ibrahim Abdul-Rahman, and Yarrow Mamout, to name a few, did not allow the ravages of chattel slavery to rob them of their dignity, honor, nor their human worth.

As we endeavor to address the imperfections of society, in race relations and other areas, we must do so with dignity, honor, grace, and with free and open minds. Those of us, who hail from the historically oppressed minority communities of this land, must resist the temptation to allow the triumvirate of rage, a sense of victimization, and vengeance to distort our ability to calmly assess and then pragmatically address the many issues confronting us. When such a distortion occurs, delusional thinking and irrational politics usually result.

One of the greatest delusions challenging us lies in seeing our situation as paralleling that of our brothers and sisters in foreign lands governed by repressive, authoritarian regimes. By viewing our situation as parallel to theirs we are tempted to view the paradigm of resistance which governs their struggles as valid for our situation. Such an assessment is fallacious for a number of reasons.

First of all, most of the significant “Third World” liberation struggles pitted oppressed majorities against oppressive minorities. In this country, the white majority and significant segments of the nonwhite minorities are not so severely affected by structural violence or institutional racism that they view violent or even aggressive challenges to the status quo as legitimate forms of political expression.

Secondly, alternative means of political expression, available in this country, are unavailable in most “third world” dictatorships or authoritarian regimes. Hence, the mechanisms whereby the Jews, by way of example, once a despised and demeaned minority, were able to favorably situate themselves within the system are not available in the previously referenced countries. Although some of their advancement was facilitated by their ability to benefit from their “whiteness,” most of it is due to hard work and effective planning. Similarly, the progress achieved by African Americans in affirmative action, progress which has been steadily eroded, no doubt, could not have been hoped for by oppressed minorities in many other countries. Whether we view these realities as truly empowering or ultimately cooptive does not negate the fact that they do exist, and as long as they exist, they will be powerful mechanisms to damper the appeal and feasibility of radical challenges to the status quo.

Thirdly, while the feasibility of an aggressive, or even violent challenge to the status quo may be debatable in a small, minority-based, “third world” dictatorship, in a society as large, complex, diverse, and, ultimately, as politically conservative as the United States, such challenges would be used to legitimize severe repressive measures which would serve to render even milder forms of dissent less acceptable. While presented here in hypothetical terms, this is actually a recurrent lesson which American history has taught us.

The history of “third world” revolutionary change is no more encouraging. The Algerian experience is illustrative of the legacy of revolutionary violence in Africa. Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, his analysis of the Algerian decolonization struggle, saw decolonizing violence as a cathartic agent which would create a new liberated man. The sad reality created by that violence is documented by Fanon in the last chapter of his work. It led to a litany of mental disorders, which Fanon, a trained psychiatrist, documented all too well, wreaked lives which the leaders of the nationalist struggle were ill-prepared to repair. Furthermore, thirty years later, the heirs of the nationalist regime which the revolution brought to power would be all too willing participants in a bloodbath that would rival anything the former French colonizers had visited upon the Algerian people.

Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, has pointed out that once a spiral of violence begins, it operates on its own internal logic. Injustice leads to revolt. Revolt induces repression. Repression leads to greater injustices, which in turn encourage more radical forms of revolt. These then induce more severe forms of repression. This spiral continues, unbroken. The challenge for theologians in this age, when the potential destructiveness of war is so great it threatens the very existence of our world, is to devise strategies which can meaningfully enhance our collective wellbeing by peacefully altering the mechanisms of structural violence and institutionalized racism. Muslim theologians, if we are truly “Heirs of the Prophets,” peace and blessings of God upon them, should not shy away from this challenge. However, in attempting to meet it, we must resist the temptation to resuscitate the failed strategies, stale ideas, and outdated methods of an ineffective “Third World” revolution.

On the other hand, we must not allow ourselves to be divorced from the struggles of the less fortunate members of the human family. In a not too distant past, when standards of political correctness were more closely associated with the truth and not selfish and narrow political agendas, John Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” The great theologian Reinhold Niebubr declared, “In the social struggle we are either on the side of privilege or need.” If these two white Americans, who were “privileged” in every sense of that somewhat trite expression, can advocate for the need to challenge oppressive social relations, it would be an unforgivable travesty for our voices to fall silent.

The question for us is, “How can we best address the oppressive mechanisms facing us, and those facing our co-religionists in so many redoubts scattered around the globe?” In answering this question, we can gain valuable insight from the lives and struggles of our African Muslim forebears. Superior erudition was the key to the liberation of Job Ben Solomon. Herein is a sign for us. As American Muslims we have been blessed to reside in the most intellectually dynamic society in history. Also, the primal command in our religion is to read. We should enthusiastically pursue the mandate created by these twin facts and push ourselves to become the most educated community on Earth –in religious and worldly knowledge. In so doing, the miracles which were so clearly manifested in the life of Job Ben Solomon will surely bless our lives.

The dignity, nobility, an erudition of Ibrahim ‘Abd al-Rahman, qualities which earned him the epithet, “Prince,” were instrumental in his liberation from of shackles of bondage. Our day is witnessing the steady degradation of our collective human dignity. We should be a community whose dignity and nobility readily impresses all who deal with us, and more importantly a community whose ethics are a reflection of the true value and depth of the prophetic teachings. Sadly, as Muslims, generally speaking, we have dishonored the prophetic legacy we been entrusted with. Our ethics oftentimes reflect a utilitarian approach to life. If something proves effective, and effectiveness for many of us is increasingly viewed in terms of money or security, let us find a way to provide it with religious sanction. Such an approach may ensure our short-term prosperity, but it will never open the hearts and minds of masses of people to Islam.

Our forefathers attracted people to Islam and conquered lands with the loftiness of their character and ethics. We oftentimes repulse dignified outsiders who come into our midst. At the height of American chattel slavery, Yarrow Mamout, an elderly Muslim who had gained his freedom, so impressed the artist Charles Wilson Peale with his dignity, nobility, and grace that the latter, who painted six portraits of George Washington, was inspired to paint Mamout. Who among us would inspire a similarly placed artist today?

It is not the purpose of these ruminations to suggest a specific program of empowerment. Power, as the Qur’an emphatically affirms, is God’s to give to whomsoever He chooses.[3] However, a deep knowledge of God, self, and society will certainly yield insights conducive to conformity to the divine ways God has established to invite His empowering grace upon a particular community. Furthermore, history affirms that dignity, nobility of character and courage have been the indispensable characteristics of those who were able to take the oftentimes unpopular stands which helped to usher in fundamental change –by the Will of God.

In speaking of unpopular stands, we are not merely speaking of those which may place us in opposition to an unjust power structure, but similarly those which may place us in opposition to our race, tribe, class, or even member of our faith. Popularity has never been a condition for greatness. However, the acts of a great woman may certainly render her popular to those whose lives are bettered by her acts.
In conclusion, Islam is calling us to be bigger than what the world has made us. If the world has made us members of a “disadvantaged” race, class, ethnicity, or gender, the world wants us to be dehumanized by the ensuing rage, sense of victimization, and a quest for vengeance. The collective weight of those forces can easily lead to a dehumanizing loss of hope. For our African Muslim ancestors enslaved in this land, Islam was always a source of hope, dignity, and for many, as we have mentioned, the key to their liberation. For those who never escaped the shackles of physical bondage, Islam provided the basis for their rising above the dehumanization of the chattel system. In the words of Dr. Sylviane A. Diouf, “The African Muslims may have been, in the Americas, the slaves of Christian masters, but their minds were free. They were the servants of Allah.”[4] As they were so too should we be.

[1] See Sylvianne A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York, London: New York University Press, 1998), p. 48.
[2] Diouf, p. 47.
[3] See Al-Qur’an 3:26-27.
[4] Diouf, 210.

This article is excerpted from Imam Zaid’s book, Scattered Pictures: Reflections of an American Muslim.
Book available at http://astore.amazon.com/newisladire-20//

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and the Fate of America

2008-01-23T19:14:01Z

As we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on a national holiday dedicated to his honor, many people point to the surging presidential candidacy of Barack Obama as evidence of how far this country has come in terms of race relations since the days of the Civil Rights struggle led by Dr. King. Many see Obama’s campaign as the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream. As they would point out, here is a man who is being judged based on the content of his character, and not on the color of his skin. Could anything be more representative of the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream than that?

While it is certainly heartening to see such a strong candidacy from an African American, Obama’s run for the presidency sheds light on the nuances of race relations in this land in interesting ways. It also sheds light on the way Dr. King’s legacy has been shaped in a way to make many of the forces that were extremely uncomfortable with him at the end of his life, “accept” him in his death. Those are the same forces, to a large extent, that are willing to “accept” Obama, as long as he stays away from the sort of issues that probably cost Dr. King his life.

At the end of his life, Dr. King was anathema to those interests and individuals who collectively form the ruling coalition in this country. His strident opposition to the Viet Nam War, his fearless advocacy for the poor, for the unrepresented and the underserved of this country, and his increasingly bitter condemnation of both the apathy of the middle class, along with what he saw as the hypocrisy of the Christian establishment all earned him the ire and the vehement condemnation of powerful whites, along with a significant number of African American leaders who felt he was going beyond the demands of the Civil Rights movement.

Despite the impression given by the popular celebrations associated with his holiday, Dr. King’s legacy was not captured by his famous “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. In that speech King appealed to the moral consciousness of America, expressing his hope for an equal and equitable society, which he viewed as achievable at that time. However, confronted with the depth of the oppressive segregation of Northern ghettos, the nagging intransigence of the poverty confronting both blacks and whites in the rural south, and the blatant hypocrisies of the political establishment, highlighted by the war in Viet Nam, King began to articulate a different message. That message was captured in his damning indictment of American militarism, corporate greed, and stultifying oppression, articulated in his definitive statement of opposition to the war in Viet Nam, “Viet Nam: A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal,” a speech he delivered April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his death.

The following lengthy excerpt from that speech demonstrates how Dr. King had grown in his thinking to link the oppressive nature of American policies abroad with the brutal realities facing the poor at home. He said:

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Viet Nam and the struggle I, and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor ̶ both black and white ̶ through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Viet Nam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures such as Viet Nam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia or East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such a cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason [for opposing the war] moves to a deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the past three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked me, and rightfully so, what about Viet Nam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today ̶ my own government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent…

Dr. King went on to say:

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken ̶ the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…

In the aftermath of that speech Dr. King was condemned by many African American leaders such as Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who saw himself as a great friend of the “Negro” people was irate. The growing schism between Dr. King and the power structure had been cemented. However, King proceeded to deepen his analysis, which illustrated how oppressive American policies abroad were inextricably linked with unacceptable social and political conditions at home.

Herein lays Dr. King’s legacy, an uncompromising struggle against the “giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism.” That aspect of his work and teachings is unmentioned in the mainstream media. Instead his baritone refraining of “I have a dream” fills the airwaves. After his death, the struggle against those evil “triplets” was not allowed to exist as his enduring legacy. Instead, that legacy has been whitewashed, sanitized and rendered “acceptable” for middle class sensitivities.

What does all of this have to do with Obama? Obama is a viable African American candidate because he has steadfastly refused to deal with the issues Dr. King was dealing with at the end of his life, even though they are just as relevant today as they were forty years ago. That refusal has seen him distance himself from his activist pastor, Minister Jeremiah Wright. It has seen him avoid any public identification with Rev. Jesse Jackson, a fellow Chicagoan, or similar leaders who are identified with African American civil rights advocacy, and it has seen him ignore issues of relevance to African Americans and the urban and rural poor today.

Saying that is not to argue that Obama should be another Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Although he consciously choose to identify with the African American urban community during his years of activism in Chicago’s south-side ghetto, his immigrant father, his white mother, and the fact that he was raised in part by his white grandparents have created powerful realities in his life that have prepared him to have an intrinsic appeal to a far wider audience. Hence, Obama is naturally more than just a “black” leader. However, the fact that he cannot, amongst his other positions, continue to even mildly advocate for an African American community that is in deep crisis reveals much about the nature of our politics and society.

This is not meant to be an indictment against Obama. It is an indictment against an American society which has deemed that an open advocate for such issues is unfit to lead this nation. If advocating ending the policies that are working to send hundreds of thousands of mostly young African Americans to prisons, a large percentage of them nonviolent offenders; if working to advance critical policies such as serious gun-control legislation, legislation that would challenge the powerful National Rifle Association, while black youth are mercilessly gunning each other down in the streets of our inner-city neighborhoods (and white youth are gunning down people in our high schools and college campuses); if working to effect a fair and just solution to the problem of meaningful Palestinian statehood; if seeking to take effective measures to begin serious structural changes in the international division of resources, profits, and labor; if challenging the sanity and the long-term economic destructiveness of defense budgets that exceed 500 billion dollars annually are all issues that cannot be realistically approached because they would render a candidate unelectable, then it is not time to hail the coming of an acceptable African American presidential candidate, it is time to take a long and hard look at the nature and functioning of our political system.

As long as we politely skirt the fundamental problems plaguing our country, starting with the superficiality of our race relations, Obama’s candidacy and possible election do not represent any real change, they represent a re-entrenched status quo, and illustrate the sort of duplicity that would hound Dr. King as a traitor and communist at the end of his life yet enshrine him as a martyr after his death.

These issues have deep consequences for the fate of this nation. If real change is to begin in this country it has to begin now and it has to begin with a deep and honest effort to understand the dangerous implications of maintaining the status quo. To conclude in the words of Dr. King, once again from the defining words of his anti-Viet Nam war speech:

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, on injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. …

The election of an African American, or a woman for that matter, without an associated “revolution of values” will do no more than possibly delay, but will not stave off, this country’s inevitable spiritual demise.

History 1 on 1

2008-01-12T03:23:01Z

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
An event that happened a bit too soon,
‘cause in sixty-nine they were on the moon.
A happening not without precedent,
The same place Galileo’s telescope went.
Which isn’t to say we’ve become farsighted in our views,
Proof of which is the daily news.

From Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
To imported Nissans and Kawasakis.
The songs the British rockers sing,
Bring back images of Cromwell fighting the king.
To think that neutron bombs held détente’s faint hope,
In the hands of an army strung out on dope.

The poet said, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
Let’s take a closer look at this insanity.
Watch the TV, play the tape,
The latest chapter in the great escape,
Look at Spock out trekking stars,
Forget the Earth and her petty wars.
A country of R2s, D2s, a world of Darth Vaders,
The Senate makes less money than the Oakland Raiders,
The Renaissance sparked dreams of new worlds coming into view,
Dreams turned into the reality of Madison Avenue.

Ad campaigns sold peanut butter to Peter Pan,
And life rafts to the Tidy Bowl man,
They even sold Kojak some Afro Sheen,
And Turtle Wax to Mr. Clean,
Gil told us they sold tuna to the Chicken of the Sea,
So what do you think they are selling you and me?
When nightol becomes a permanent state,
Apathy and ignorance begins to escalate,
We sit back and watch the dollar’s value deflate,
But how long will our enemies sit and wait?

Visit him, on the wall of his office hangs the head of a moose,
And he sits behind his desk reading Dr. Suess,
This could be a character on your local TV,
But it could be that character in Washington, DC.
Folks going to college to expand their minds,
Can’t relate to dropouts in the unemployment line.
The prisons fill up with perpetrators of nonviolent crime,
While only the Army is working overtime.

Reagan stood Marx on his head,
Headlines proclaim that God is dead.
McDonald’s did what Hitler couldn’t,
Malcolm said what Martin wouldn’t.
The news is void of any meaningful views,
Display any manners you’ll be politely excused,
The Holocaust monument opened to cries of “never again,”
while Bosnia was being ethnically cleansed.

Muslims are on the endangered species list,
Plastic American culture no one can resist.
Ask for principles you’ll find the politicians ambivalent,
Yet they definitively state that the UN is irrelevant.
Cornflakes may become extinct due to gasohol,
The international system has become a free for all,
We trample our freedoms yet proclaim our democracy is best,
Yet Bush might lose to Osama in a popularity contest.

All this while the American public is suffering from back to the future shock,
incapable of distinguishing Afghanistan from Iraq.
We accept the next war as passively as lambs accept the slaughter,
By the way, Did Dick Cheney ever find his daughter?
And on and on the story goes,
So now I’ll bring it to a close,
My purpose has only been to have myself some fun,
Playing ball with history, 1-on-1.

Islam and Honor Killings (Revised)

2007-12-14T05:42:00Z

For that reason, we ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul for other than murder or spreading corruption in the land, it is as if he has killed the whole of humanity… Qur’an 5:35

One of the gravest charges levied against Islam, in terms of its alleged antipathy towards women, is the claim that it encourages a phenomenon known as honor killings. This un-Islamic practice consists of the murder of female family members who are seen as dishonoring their families through real or perceived acts of indiscretion, such as premarital sexual relations or unapproved dating. This charge has been intensified recently due to the tragic murder of a Pakistani Canadian teenage girl, Aqsa Parvez.

The practice of honor killings has absolutely no sanction in the Qur’an, the Prophetic practice, or in the evolved systems of Islamic law. In the case of fornication or adultery, the only way a charge can be levied against an individual, male or female, is through confession, which is discouraged, or by four people actually witnessing the male organ penetrating the female. Even if four people witnessed a naked man engaged with a naked woman, but could not actually testify that they witnessed penetration, their testimony would be rejected.

In a somewhat related issue, it should be noted that in three of the four Sunni schools of law, as is the case with all of the major Shiite schools, pregnancy is not a proof of fornication, as the possibility of rape exists in such a case. Therefore, if a single woman were to become pregnant, according to the overwhelming majority of Islamic jurists, there is no basis for punishing her. In the few well-publicized instances where a pregnant woman has been threatened with death, the minority opinion of the Maliki School of law was unjustly evoked, as occurred in Nigeria, or criminal malfeasance occurred as is the case in Pakistan.

In the case of dating, there is no Islamically-mandated punishment for a male or a female seeing a member of the opposite sex against the wishes of their families. Such situations should be handled with counseling, compassion and a healthy dose of common sense. Muslim immigrants who have migrated to the West should realize that they have placed their children in an environment where there is a tremendous amount of anti-Islamic peer pressure. This is especially true if they have placed their children, as was the case of the young lady who was recently murdered in Canada, in public schools. Children who succumb to that pressure should not be seen as “bad” kids, for by the standards of the society that has shaped them, no matter how strong their home environment is, they are normal. To kill a female guilty of an offense such as dating or dressing like her peers under such circumstances is nothing short of cold-blooded murder, and no Islamic authority can argue otherwise.

The overwhelming majority of Muslim societies are free from the practice of honor killing, although it does endure in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 2000 there are approximately 5,000 deaths annually from “honor” killings. Even if one killing occurred due to such barbarity, it would be one too many, as the Qur’an emphasizes.

However, to use the existence of such killings to smear Islam shows the desperation and misplaced priorities of many of those levying such attacks. Most of those deaths are the pathetic acts of sick individuals, who are far removed from the letter, as we have shown above, and the spirit of Islam. An example of such an individual is Muhammad Riaz, a British Muslim of South Asian descent who died as a result of a fire he set to burn to death his wife and four daughters, allegedly because his wife resisted his attempt to arrange marriages for his daughters. His wife and daughters did perish in that fire. To present Riaz, whose daughters had neither fornicated nor dated, as anything other than a sick individual is a sad attempt to defame Islam.

To attack Islam from this angle is a case of misplaced priorities because it can distract attention from far graver abuses of women that demand immediate redress. For example, the State Department estimates that approximately 800,000 women and girls are trafficked as sexual slaves annually. The overwhelming majority of these females are taken from and sent to nominally Christian countries.

Over the last five years well over one thousand women have been kidnapped and then gruesomely murdered in Guatemala. Their bodies usually turn up after a few days, mutilated and in some instances with messages such as “death to bitches” written on them. To date only three men have been incarcerated in connection with those attacks. Would it be proper to thereby conclude that the “Christians” of Guatemala, an overwhelmingly Christian nation, have no regard for the suffering of their women? Of course it would not.

At the end of the day, attacks such as the one that resulted in the death of Aqsa Parvez are acts of domestic violence resulting from rage that emanates from a total neglect of Islamic teachings. Ms. Parvez lost her life due to such violence and perhaps there are a few other instances where Muslims women in Canada or here in the United States, have been similarly victimized. However, these instances should be kept in perspective. In the United States there are approximately 1,200 women killed every year by their husbands or intimate partners. There are other “Christian” nations where murders of this type are even higher.

The United States, Guatemala, and other countries we could mention where similar abuses occur are Christian nations. However, it would be disingenuous to use such statistics as an indictment against Christianity. These issues are an affront to humanity and require our collective attention. Until we all view the problem this way, we are in jeopardizing the health and integrity of our society.

Saying this is not to minimize the gravity of so-called honor killings to the extent that they do occur in Muslim societies. As Muslims, we are commanded to be committed to justice. That commitment entails that as a community we oppose in the strongest terms “honor” killings and take immediate action to end such a practice in our communities.

Practical steps include the following:

1. Emphasize that such killings have no sanction in the Qur’an, the Prophetic practice, or in Islamic law.
2. Declare anyone guilty of involvement in honor killings to be a cold-blooded murderer.
3. Encourage judicial authorities to enact the harshest penalties possible for anyone accused of involvement in such killings.
4. Educate our Muslim communities, especially in the West, about the un-Islamic nature of honor killings, and the pressures, nuances, challenges and complications facing young Muslims, male and female in the West.
5. Work to eliminate the double standards, and to expose the hypocrisy that exist in our communities, generally, concerning attitudes and standards relating to the indiscretions of males as opposed to females.

In conclusion, Islam honors the female, and values femininity. It is up to every Muslim to translate teachings in that regard into a beautiful reality that helps to elevate the status of women in all societies. Honor killings, domestic violence in general, murders of the type terrorizing women in Guatemala, female sexual slavery and trafficking, pornography, especially its more violent manifestations, are all crimes against humanity that we should oppose in the strongest terms and work strenuously to eliminate. If our women are not safe, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically we are all at risk, for without women men are incomplete, and without men women are incomplete. Our Prophet, peace and blessings of God upon him alluded to this complementariness when he said, peace upon him, “Women are the complimenting halves of men.” Let us all work harder to make our societies whole.