allahumma salli wa sallim wa barik ala
sayyidina muhammad ali he was a habit
hehe woman to be 1,800 a lot of tahini
hikmah to ensure Adina Miccio delivery
trauma dealer who are deceived in o
muhammad wa l-akhirin
what our how our our water in level
aligning in our name alhamdulillah the
celebration of Malik Shabazz is life I
think is something important for our
community in the United States because
the Hajj medic Shabazz really is at the
essence I think of what the Islamic
Muslim reality is we live in a country
that has a long and checkered past it's
a country that many people have come to
these shores in different circumstances
and the vast majority of us here are
immigrants or children of immigrants or
children of children of children of
immigrants and each one of those groups
that has come here with the exception of
the anglo-saxon community has had a
struggle and many of them are actually
still struggling has had a struggle to
find its place in the American tapestry
or a seat at the American table and the
Muslims are now a group that is going
through a struggle and in many ways that
struggle is far less difficult than the
previous struggle
if we actually look at what people have
gone through before the struggle of the
American Muslim community really came at
a time when so much ground work had
already been done many of the immigrants
that have come to this country came
after the civil rights movement and
after an immense amount of work had been
done to prepare their ways in this
country their abilities to work in
places and to be treated with a modicum
of dignity and I and I would argue in
fact that it's very important to know
not only for the children but for the
immigrants who have come to this country
and some of the people in the audience
did come from other places and now they
have children here but to know the
previous struggles it's very important
to have a sense of the history of what's
been going on because the struggles have
not stopped the struggles continue the
nature of life on Earth is that we are
born in a struggle the Quran clearly
identifies that that the human being is
born in a state of struggle and the
prophet muhammad sallallahu said I'm
whose life and mission was a struggle
and who struggled until at the very end
of his life so when we look at the life
of Malcolm Shabazz were looking at a
life of struggle and we're also looking
at a life that embodies the search for
knowledge and truth and the quote that
was previously quoted from her father
which was really a perfect quote to
highlight what I wanted to talk about
was the fact that this was a man who was
incredibly open mind
and I think people tend to forget
because you have a man who was a speaker
behind a podium but people are not just
speakers behind podiums people have
multifaceted dimensions to their
personalities but if we look at this
openness to the truth that's what we
consistently see in the life of the Imam
we see an openness to the truth and
continual growth growth that doesn't
stop at any point but the other thing
that really strikes me about his life
and legacy when we talk about a legacy
is human dignity is the dignity of the
individual and this is something that's
a very important message for the Muslim
community today all over the world but
also here in the United States the
struggle for dignity to be treated with
dignity the Quran states in surah 2 ayah
surah that Allah subhana WA Ta'ala has
given human beings dignity while at
karramna bani adam' we have given human
beings dignity Mihama now until valerie
will bury what as warez Okinawan men of
puberty or vaudeville now Erica theorem
in monadic net of Leela that we have in
no bold dignified the children of Adam
carrying them on the land and in the sea
we were ennoble by being carried we ride
on horses on camels on donkeys and now
we drive in cars we ride on airplanes on
buses we cross the sea
ships and this is an indication of
honoring the human being we're not like
animals that have to move across long
places without the facilitation that's
been given to human beings and then we
walk upright that's part of the hummin
that we've been given the honor of
walking upright the human being walks
upright and we've provided the Quran
says we provided the children of Adam
from pure things and we preferred the
children of Adam over so much of what we
have created yeomen a true home on that
day when we call no young Ned a little
cooler or NASM ve mom IAM on that day
when we call everybody with their imam
who are they following who have they
taken as an exemplar because on the yom
Okayama you are going to be called by
your Imam the one you have taken as an
exemplar who is your example is it an
example that's dignified isn't it an
example that's elevated or is it an
example that is degraded undignified
that has squandered this incredible
opportunity of life by living a life
that is not becoming of the noble
stature of the human being one of the
things that when we look at the life of
Hajj Malcolm Shabazz we see somebody who
carried himself with dignity and it's
very clearly reflected right here in his
daughter because you you see dignity
and this is something that we're losing
as a species we are losing this as a
species if you listen to the speeches of
Malcolm you hear flawless English you
hear somebody who spent time mastering a
language going through the dictionary
and when he used slang he used it for
rhetorical purposes was which is part of
the rhetoric of the English language
even Shakespeare uses slang for
rhetorical effect but he spoke dignified
English
he was always dressed in a dignified
manner he was kept in a dignified manner
those are aspects and qualities that he
embodied that people might not really
think about but they are part of that
personality the Prophet SAW Allah and a
were allah wa sallam said in a hadith
that imam ahmed relates in know comedy
Mona Ala Moana come for a slippery
Harlequin what a slippery bicycle hats
at acuña quranic' on shamaton finesse
what an extraordinary hadith he said you
are going to be amongst your brothers
and sisters you're going to places so
make sure your the the the beasts that
you're riding on is well-kept make sure
that the clothes that you're wearing our
good clothes Imam Ashok County says
hadith via to no and inevitably seen
that you will hate up this hadith
indicates the importance of wearing
clothes that are dignified wearing
clothes that are dignified and then he
said some alone into Sonam to take care
of your clothes so that when you are
amongst people it's as if you were a
distinguishing mark amongst people as if
you were a beauty mark on the body Islam
elevates people it pulls them up it
takes people that were in the most
degraded of circumstances and it gives
them honor and dignity because it makes
them servants of the highest most
exalted and it reminds us in the Quran
in the economical in the law at Sock'em
that the noblest amongst you are the
most conscientious the noblest amongst
you are the most conscientious the
people that are most aware of virtue and
practice virtue the dutiful ones the
people that care for the orphans that
care for the weak that care for the
widows when kinesia ina has said on when
the prophet sallallaahu sent him came in
worried about the experience that he was
having and hadiza said God will never
forsake you what was her proof that
Allah would not forsake his prophet
sallallaahu was to them she said you
helped the weak you take care of the
needy you fulfill the needs of people
you take care of the orphan this is what
she spoke about she spoke about his
virtue the prophet sallallaahu Saddam
had a a special set of clothes for
greeting
the wolf food when people came and sent
their emissaries to the Prophet he had
clothes to greet them he had clothes
that were specifically for the mimbar
this is mentioned in his serie
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam we're living
in a time when the most degraded people
that design clothes to make people look
degraded really if you look at what's
happened to women's clothes in just in
our lifetime those of us who are old
enough to remember in this country
what's happened to women's clothes and
now convincing people that threadbare
clothes are fashionable so that people
will pay large amounts of money for
wearing jeans with holes in them
purchasing them people will wear
t-shirts now which used to be an
undergarment when I was growing up a
t-shirt was worn under the shirt and my
father wouldn't let us wear jeans
literally would not let me wear gee I
wanted to wear jeans because James Dean
wore jeans
this loss of dignity in our language
when language becomes something that no
longer is meaningful the prophet sallal
idea said him talk towards the end of
time he talked about the Sakai room and
they asked him who were the Cecotto and
they're like fiery people people that
fiery people and he said they're young
people whose greeting amongst each other
would be cursing each other
cursing each other to greet each other
what a difference between that and
saying assalamu alaykum peace be upon
you Islam is about elevating people
taking them out of dire circumstances
giving them dignity letting them walk
upright the Prophet Solomon incident was
somebody who spoke beautiful language
his language was an exalted language he
spoke to each group according to their
dialect if the Yemenis came he spoke in
the Yemeni dialect this is one of his
miracles and the Sahaba used to marvel
at his language because sometimes they
couldn't understand the dialect that he
was speaking in but it said the tribes
who heard him speak to them said that he
spoke in the highest and finest and most
eloquent language of their clans this is
how the prophet sallallaahu said him
spoke he was somebody who watched his
words he spoke deliberately you can find
no wastage of words in his language if
you read the Hadees from cover to cover
he said that cradled canal that or the
Arabs say the best of speech head would
cut Allah Allah Allah the best of speech
is what is direct and to-the-point
this community has an obligation to know
the struggles of the peoples that went
before that were struggles to achieve
dignity to achieve the right to sit as
an equal at this table the Muslims are
in the midst of that struggle the
Muslims have been singled out
we have racial profiling I don't know
what's so racial about it because I'm
white as the Moon and I've been selected
for this as well so I've been pulled
aside one time I was pulled aside one of
the guys was a Muslim and the other guy
said this has nothing to do with you
know your name and the other guy just he
was behind him he's like you know
literally I was in New York so the
Muslims are finding it a little bit
difficult to be honest with you it's a
good thing it's not a bad thing because
this community needs to be pushed a
little bit
we've been complacent for a long time
the people that came to these shores
those of us who converted to Islam those
of us who converted to Islam we got to
work right away
imam z dr abdul hakeem quick some of the
other Muslim converts that I know in
here they went to work right away we
wanted to Imam so hey doctor or Omar
Abdullah Pharaoh these are people that
they got to work right away to find out
about this religion and now these are
leaders in our community because they
took this religion seriously this
religion is something to take seriously
if you go out and walk around we've got
right across the street there's blues
and
hey this is sick I was walking down and
there was music coming out of there
and I looked up and it said blues and
booze you got the blues you drink the
booze and the blues goes away until the
morning and then you start vomiting it
up this country has the blues really
this country has the blues it's a
depressed country it has an economic
depression but it also has a spiritual
depression and people that don't think
that's true they're not reading the
statistics they're not reading the
reports that are coming out we have the
military now has exponential rates of
suicide the suicides are going up in the
military and they're very concerned
about this literally dozens a month of
Iraqi veterans are killing themselves we
have a country that's right now we've
got black oil being pumped in to one of
the beautiful regions of this country
and that oil is moving once it gets into
the Gulf Stream that it'll end up in
England people should be making do our
we should be making do I really make dua
that allah subhanho wa taala
enlightens an engineer to work out how
to stop this thing because this thing is
harming not just the the sea creatures
is harming everybody we have volcanoes
erupting that are disrupting air space
in Europe was shut down because of a
volcano in Iceland that 200 years ago a
volcano in Iceland erupted and killed
one-fifth of the population and you have
people on television making jokes about
the volcano saying it's too hard to
pronounce couldn't the Icelanders give
us an easier word as if it's a joke
we've got a volcano in Guatemala we had
an earthquake in Chile
and recently that literally shortened
the day on the atomic clock because it
shifted slightly the axis of the earth
this is what our scientists are telling
us the United Nations just announced
last week that at current consumption
rates there will not be any fish in the
ocean in 50 years I've got children that
are going to be my age in 50 years and
this is what the United Nations is
telling us is it's not time for booze
and booze it's time for waking up really
it's time for waking up it's time for
thinking about where we're going hyah
thud huh Boone because what we need is
Toba what we need is restoration what we
need is reclamation the human condition
needs to be elevated once again it's
possible human beings I I live in the
poorest country one of the poorest
countries in the world in West Africa
and I saw some of the most dignified
human beings that I've ever seen in my
life
in absolute nodder abject poverty and
yet in that poverty they were the most
dignified people I'd ever seen in my
life
imam zain went to mali and said the same
thing about the people of Mali go and
look at some of these places that still
have traditional cultures intact despite
the poverty they maintain a level of
human dignity that is completely absent
in the Western Hemisphere
you just don't see it you don't see it
in the rich and you don't see it in the
poor because we our culture has been
pulled down our culture has been pulled
down by a degraded monolithic hegemonic
media machine that's capable of
generating and literally changing the
hearts and minds
masses of people in a very short period
of time never has the power of so few
people been access to control so many
people ever in human history and this is
what we're up against but we need to
recognize these young people deserve so
much better they deserve so much better
when I was working early when I came
back when I first came back and I was
working as an imam in Santa Clara and
doing work in the prison system and this
is where my Malcolm had his awakening
what I was working in there I was so
struck by the dignity of some of the
Muslims that I met in those institutions
that what Islam had done in fact one of
them just I met somebody earlier today
he came up to me in the booth and told
me how one of my books helped him in
prison like helped turn him around in
prison is LOM is about restoration it's
about elevating people pulling them up
that's what this religion is